AustinBbgo

Having grown up in Flushing, NYC I’m always on the prowl for great Korean food. I’ve been to a few places here in Austin and fell in love. This was sadly not one of those places. I had errands to run at the market next door, so I decided to stop in for some bibimbap and black bean noodles. I stood awkwardly for about 10 minutes by the door while the staff watched tv until they took notice of me and seated me. I didn’t want to let that deter me from getting a good meal and the smells coming from the kitchen were too tempting. So I sat down and waited to order. Took a while for staff to come take my order. Again, I didn’t want it to phase me since I was pretty famished and had a craving for Korean food. When my food arrived any disappointment I had disappeared. The food portions are terrific. I ended up having to take my noodles to go untouched because I filled up on the bibimbap, so come hungry and bring someone to share with!
Now my only two complaints are the services and those little Korean side dishes. You know the ones I mean, those tasty little appetizers that get you pumped for your meal. Usually they’re one of my favorite parts of eating at a Korean restaurant. I was super disappointed by the selection here. They were honestly nothing more than some garnishes on tiny plates and some kimchi. I’m used to having squid, seaweed salad, and all that good stuff, so I was pretty shocked at what I was. As for service, they seem prone to forgetting about their customers. I never got a refill, and waited so long to be seated and again for my check. They just seem to want to serve you your food and go back to watching tv. Hopefully this changes, because I would love to go back for the food.

Terrible place to get food. Rude service and overpriced food. The chickens they gave seemed like left over parts and I have never been to a Korean restaurant where they charge so much but refuse to give rice and side dishes without charging extra. Do they expect me to eat the chicken by itself? The lady working here has a horrible attitude and the buffet has gone downhill. Don’t go here. There are better places around Austin for Korean food.

Awesome Fried chicken with sauce — definitely order the «hot» — which is really a medium if not mild… As close as the real thing I got on the streets of korea as i’ve found back in the states. The restaurant is now known as rockin’ rice… Only downside is the Pan Chang dishes seem to be a little skimpy — in amount provided not diversity!
Definitely a good stop — but a little pricey!
if you like fried chicken in a yummy sauce — it’s a must!

Just to counter Sarah H’s argument that Korean’s butcher their fried chicken differently, that is complete BS — I’m Korean and I’ve had absolutely wonderful Korean Fried Chicken in NYC — Bonchon, Kyochon, and Baden Baden… and I can tell you none of them butcher their chicken this way — rather, they give you clear legs, thighs and wings. It’s bad business what they do here, which is basically cut the wings/​thighs/​legs and use them for other dishes, and you get stuck with the remaining parts. I’m fine with being practical and using other parts of chicken, but don’t show us pictures of crispy legs/​thighs, and charge us premium prices, and then give us that garbage.

I think the name of this place may have changed once again, but whatever — we love it. It’s always the same couple that greets us. They’re super friendly and accommodating (we bring our noisy bratty kids and they STILL treat us well). In our experience the food is very authentic. We recommend the dolsot bibembap — for those not familiar with Korean food, this is a sizzling bowl of hot rice mixed with assorted vegetables and meat and an optional spicy red bean sauce. It’s topped with a fried egg. Wait a couple minutes before stirring it up so that the rice on the bottom becomes toasted and golden brown. Yum! Everything is served with an assortment of Korean side-​dishes — pickles, tiny fish, tofu, bean sprouts, and eggs — that are a wonderful accompaniment to the meal.
Other dishes to try — the seafood pancakes (also called omelettes) are oddly priced ($ 11 for something considered an appetizer?), but are delicious — oh my gosh dream-​worthy delicious. That’s what we usually order for the kids. The mandoo (the Korean take on a Chinese pan-​fried dumpling) are perfect. Don’t be afraid of the big pricey entrees — they will easily feed two large hungry people like my husband and me, or three more reasonable appetites. We got the bulgogi style soup today (the ‘small’ portion for about $ 23) and it was phenomenal — exactly like the one we used to love at a restaurant around the corner from the apartment we shared in Seoul.
A word about the fried chicken: Korean fried chicken tends to be butchered really differently from American chicken, which may be why some previous reviewers were not fans. It kind of turns into a bunch of unidentifiable lumps of chicken. We really like it a lot, though it’s not the best version of Korean fried chicken that we’ve tried.
This is by far the best Korean food we’ve had since we moved to Austin. If you’re not familiar with Korean food, be forewarned that this place is pretty authentic to Korean flavors and spices.

I will NOT be going back to this place ever again.
I came here with a group of friends and needless to say, we were probably the only non-​Koreans in the whole restaurant. We didn’t mind that, it really just gave us hope that we were going to experience some authentic Korean food.
I don’t know if I just wasn’t feeling it, but didn’t have much taste in what I order. It was a relatively big group but they only gave us enough side dishes for half of the table and we had to ask them more than once if our side could also have side dishes. Service was not that great.
When we were done eating, they told us they would only accept two credit cards and there was a minimum. Uh… not the best thing to tell college students who normally only pay for themselves and rarely ever carry cash. Luckily, most of my friends paid in cash but I was one of the ones who paid with card.
They added a 15% gratuity to the bill and that was fine since I already expected to pay it. The lady rang me up for $ 25 dollars since I was also paying for another friend. When she asked if I wanted my receipt, I declined and went on my merry little way. HOWEVER, when I check my bank statement a couple of days later, I noticed that the restaurant had added a nice tip for themselves that I did not sign for. They charged my card $ 29. I proceeded to slap myself for not taking the receipt but I didn’t know they were gonna be conniving, sneaky, greedy little bastards.
Worst experience ever. I will never step foot in this establishment ever again.

Food either had no taste or was too salty. With me and my friends there we had three different dishes and only one out of those three were the right taste.
Plus it was very expensive. More so than other korean places I’ve been to. You would think it’d taste better.

So I went here for the fried chicken only… I’ve only had it twice before and loved it but it’s hard to come by as far as I can find… I live close to this place so I just had to try this place for myself even though I saw two disparagingly different reviews for it. Mine lies right around the middle of the two.
They serve 3 different options I could tell of the fried chicken.
One was sweet & mild, one was all spicy, and one you could order a half & half mix of the two which I opted for and came to $ 18 after tax and the amount looked like it would serve more then enough for 2 people.
When I received my carry out order I inspected the contents and it looked great… loads of chicken, enough for 2 big appetites or 3 – 4 smaller portions, or so it looked. The smell was amazing and the chicken was completely bathed and dripping in sauce. It was all contained in a single, standard carry out container.
I bit into my first bite and the sauce was thick, sweet, tangy and the batter was a great light crispy fried chicken taste I was craving, however the way the chicken was cut up and portioned it was hard to diagnose where to bite into on a piece to get any meat… that is the real disappointment here. The spicy version was great and extremely tasty, it was just not the greatest pieces of meat which became disappointing right away.
It was supposed to be a whole chicken I suppose, but there clearly were no drumsticks to be had (which I look forward to eating when doing fried chicken) and no thighs or clearly designated breast pieces. It was just all hacked up random pieces of the bird that were fried up.
Perhaps im just a spoiled American, but I was hoping for some clearly defined pieces of meat. A few breasts, thighs, drumsticks, wings… u know standard fried chicken… Especially for almost a $ 20 price tag.
Instead, it became difficult to know what you were biting into as you dissect into the pieces to determine edibility and it was hard to find nice chunks of chicken and completely forget about a big bite of juicy tender white chicken.
I have to agree with the other 1-​star reviewer that these were perhaps not the best pieces of meat they could use and they are skimping on the cuts to not waste any of the chicken and perhaps use the best pieces of the bird for other dishes.
There was no big juicy, meaty pieces of chicken like I was expecting, and wanting.
Not completely terrible as it is tasty, but I certainly cannot recommend or would ever probably return myself for it. Disappointed because it would be great if they used better pieces of meat and I would love to bring them some drumsticks and breasts to fry up for me because they would be outstanding.

Three words: Korean fried chicken. Why is Korean fried chicken at Austin BBgo so good? I’ll tell you:
— It’s not battered to all hell like Western-​style fried chicken.
— They use the whole chicken.
— You can order it coated with spicy sauce.
— Two hungry people can take down ~16 pieces for under $ 20 with some rice.
I really don’t care that the place doesn’t have any atmosphere. What Asian restaurant have you ever been to that you genuinely enjoyed that does have atmosphere? Asia Café? The restaurant inside of New Oriental Supermarket? Chen’s Noodle House? Even Shanghai Restaurant doesn’t have great atmosphere. But I love all those places. (Note: not having atmosphere doesn’t mean they’ll have awesome food, but having awesome food probably means they don’t have atmosphere.)
The verdict: I live right around the corner, and I am disappointed with myself that I waited so long to try this place out. But I think the fact that the signage is 95% Korean and 5% English probably contributed to discouraging me to do so. And their website doesn’t work. However, it has demonstrated that it’s a force to be reckoned with, so I’ll be back to try some other dishes.

Update: They took away the buffet and increased the seating.

Compared to other asian buffets, this place is a buffet with smaller selection of food, but everything is delicious and authentic. I love their galbi (beef ribs) the best, yum! I also love all the small side dishes and the lettuce wrapped pork belly dish. If you go there for the first time, don’t hesitate to let the lady lead you through how to eat/​make your food from the buffet, as some of them get tricky. But it’s well worth it.
I also love walking into the restaurant and it feels like entering a family’s living room, nothing fancy but it feels like home. Whenever a group of us sit there for too long, they not only let us stay, but also make us a pot of tea to share. It’s feels really warm and friendly.

I’ve been to this particular location three times over the past three years in total to always find it… different? Like menu changes, or different layouts, etc. I never bothered learning the name of the place until yesterday, but I have a feeling it recently underwent another makeover, so it probably wasn’t always called Austin BBgo. Anyway, the buffet concept at this place the third time around was a new surprise for me.
My sister was mesmerized with the buffet sign out front which advertised «$ 7.99 Lunch Buffet! All you can eat!» But seeing as how it was around 6:15PM, I was skeptical as to what counted as «Lunch Buffet.» We went in anyway to see that there was a small table laid out with bowls, dishes, food kept warm, etc., so we safely assumed that some buffet was still continuing into the evening. There was one employee in the restaurant who welcomed us and asked if we wanted the buffet instead of the regular menu. We opted for the buffet, except we were completely confounded with the setup and what we were supposed to eat.
«Oh, today is your first time?» she politely asked. We nodded, slightly embarrassed. She politely explained that we could make our own bibimbap by scooping up rice into our bowl and dressing it with whatever meats and vegetables were on the table. Simple enough!
We topped off our bowls just as we were told and sat down to scarf it all up. Then my sister and I mentioned the enticing plate of cold noodles sitting on the other end of the buffet table and wondered what sort of noodle dishes were available. The woman helped us again in making our own cold noodle soup dish, which tasted pretty good.
By the end, we were stuffed and ready to go but were surprised with our bill, which was about $ 12 per person. I guess the dinner buffet has a different price, but it would’ve been nice if the restaurant specified which times were lunch and dinner, just so that people aren’t misled – but oh well.
Even if the price hadn’t come as a surprise to me, the overall experience was… decent. I told my sister, «This looks like the sort of place you go to eat after you’ve been dumped by someone.» I don’t know if you can picture it, but once you go there, I think you’ll get what I mean.

Excellent food, service and laid back atmosphere. We were reccomended this place over the other Korean restaurant in the same strip by a vet who served in Korea and loves it. Spicy but tasty, very fresh octopus and squid, authentic kim-​chi. They only recently started their website and business cards and say down with us to correct some of the translations on various dishes. The kind of place that is American-​friendly yet true to their cuisine.