Gen Korean BBQ House, the popular all-you-can-eat Korean bbq chain which has several locations in California, just opened their first San Diego location.
We have been looking forward to this opening for quite a while. We ate at a Gen Korean BBQ in the Bay Area last year with my family and quite enjoyed it.
The interior of the restaurant is quite dark and decorated with neon blue lights.
The menu is fairly extensive, featuring more than three dozen items to choose from. Most of them are items to cook on the grill but several are already cooked dishes to round out your meal.
We also had several banchan dishes, salad, and rice to accompany our meat.
You’re allowed to order several dishes at a time and you have a two hour time limit to eat.
Unlike some other all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ places, the food here is free flowing. We never had to wait long for our food and our server was always happy to place more rounds for us. Sometimes when you dine at these type of restaurants, the food starts coming out slower once you’ve ordered several times, but that didn’t happen here.
Here are some of the meats we had. Our favorite were beef tongue, beef bulgogi and premium steak.
We also tried several of the cooked foods. Their korean fried chicken was our favorite of the ones we had. The chicken has an ultra crunchy exterior that is characteristic of korean-style fried chicken.
Overall, we enjoyed our initial visit to Gen and are happy they are now in San Diego. I was slightly disappointed with the service but some of that may be due to the fact that they just opened. What I did enjoy about our service here was how fast the food came out and how friendly our server was. He was always happy to place more orders for us and our orders started coming out within seconds after the orders were placed. Even after several rounds, we never felt that the restaurant was trying to slow us down. However, I did wish that the service was a little more assertive. One of the things that had impressed me most when I first dined at Gen in the Bay Area was how how attentive the service was. The staff would rotate out our grill nearly every twenty minutes, refill our banchan and even helped cooked our meat. During this visit, we had to ask for water refills, banchan refills and a grill change. We did leave full and satisfied though and definitely feel like the price is quite reasonable. Gen continues to be our favorite of all the AYCE Korean BBQ chains (it’s not our favorite Korean BBQ ever but definitely ranks the highest for us for the all-you-can-eat style.)
For more Korean BBQ check out my post about Song Hak.
Menu:
Gen Korean BBQ
10765 Westview Pkwy
San Diego, CA 92126
I read these are the same owners as H20 Izakaya in Hillcrest which would explain the fun blue neon lights. I wish I had tried H20 before it closed. My mom tried Gen in SGV and liked it so we’ve been looking forward to this new location in SD. Hoping to try them for lunch as it’s more affordable.
I think the blue lights are a theme for Gen as it had a similar decor at the other location I visited.
Is this one a conveyor belt style? I heard the one in LA is.
unfortunately no. this one doesn’t have the conveyor belt.