Juban Yakiniku House

Went to dinner last night with my mom around 6pm. By no means was the restaurant crowded or super busy. I would say they were at 25−30% capacity. The service sucked. This is a specialty place, the average Joe doesn’t know how to order Japanese BBQ. Not to mention it was difficult to get a refill for water or tea. Food took forever. Ordered chicken and salmon, Daikon salad and kimchi. We shared everything, except kimchi because I don’t like spicy food. My mom became violently ill within an hour of leaving Juban. The only possibility for her to have gotten sick was from the kimchi. Called the restaurant and they were so rude about the entire ordeal. I have only eaten here for lunch and always got it to go, since I was usually between school and work. From what I observed, the best service goes to parties of 6 or more. Juban has definitely lost my business.

Friendly service. It was fun grilling your own food and at a great price. However, it was not really anything special that I would give 5 stars to.

Meat quality is decent, and this place is a lot less crowded than Gyu Gaku while still affordable. I like their beef tongue items and kalbi, and their banchan items complement BBQ nicely. The place is spacious, but service can be improved — we had to wave down the servers a few times to get water and tea refilled.

This restaurant has been our favorite for years. The past few months, they have made some significant changes, and I didn’t like those changes during my last visit. That’s why we stopped coming for a while. Today, we decided to give it another try, and we left happily!
— They have a newly revised menu, and prices for most if not all items are more expensive than before.
— They increase the prices, but the portions have been improved as well. The cut of the meat are thicker and we get more pieces than before. We prefer to pay more for better rather than paying the same but get less or get the compromised quality.
— Foods come out much quicker than before, and I like how most dishes come out at the same time now. Even the rice and the melted butter come at the same time with the rest of the dishes without being reminded for like before.
— Service is quick and attentive! Ruben, our server, was awesome!
* I’m glad we decided to give this restaurant another try. It has been a while since I have seen my husband being so satisfied and happy with a restaurant. Foods are great! Service is awesome! We will be back, and let’s hope Juban can keep up the positive changes.

No lunch menu on Saturdays or Sundays! Disappointing change made by the new management. This makes it way too expensive for lunch. Terrible!

Boo! I have to agree with other recent reviews. This has been a family favorite for a long time, but decreasing quality and very steep price increases suggest, at best, benign neglect from management. Service is consistently friendly if a bit stretched.
It begs the question: who owns this place and when was the last time they ate here? We’ll be shifting our family dinner rotation accordingly.

I came here multiple times with my family and have really loved it. We usually get the Juban dinner, which includes 2 choices of meat, miso soup, white or brown rice, and a salad of your choice. I have tried the salmon, mahi mahi, rib eye steak, yakishabu and the short ribs. All have been delicious. The sauce is what really makes the difference. Also, being able to cook your own food is a big difference. I always get the juban salad which is romaine, zucchini and sesame oil. Simple and delicious. The service is mediocre and inconsistent. Sometimes you can have a very good experience and sometimes it can be horrible. I would highly recommend trying it, especially with kids.

Horrible. Management clearly don’t care about clients or wait.
Waited for 15 min and staff are kids. I would hate to see kitchen.
Steer clear

I’ve been coming here for over 10 years and I’m deeply disappointed at how the quality of the meat has declined significantly while prices rose sharply in the past six months. They’ve also changed their dinner deluxe (order three meats) such that you can’t order 2 of the same items anymore. Just ridiculous considering the Kalbi is such low grade that it comes with grizzle and silverskin. Yuck.
Step up your game Juban. Seriously.
Service has always been good for us, but even they agreed the Kalbi quality has degraded and «isn’t worth ordering anymore.» Especially true since they just keep raising prices.

I’ve eaten here only a few times, but each time I have had a great experience. The food is what has stood out to me the most each time. I have gotten the chicken teriyaki bento box and udon and both were delicious. The serving size is very generous and each encounter with the staff has been delightful. Since I’ve only eaten from the lunch menu I only know their prices, which are a steal considering the amount of food and quality you get.

The meat is ok. I have much better but there is not much choices here in menlo park/​palo alto for asian tabletop bbq. Nothing special with the meat. The place is HUGE but i have never seen it full-​house. I saw a lot of reviews saying their service was bad but it was pretty good when we went there. The dessert «honey toast» is good! Basically it is a huge toast with 2 big scoops of ice cream. You can choose 2 flavor from vanilla, coffee, green tea, and for the last one. drizzle with honey.

IF YOU DONT WANT THE READ THE WHOLE THING, LET ME SUM IT UP: WORST RESTURANT EVER.
For those of you who want to read it:
I went to Juban and it was probably the worst thing I have ever done! I really wish Unilocal had a –100 star for this place! The menus and seat were very dirty. The service was very bad and the servers were very very RUDE.

I came here for dinner with a few friends, and we all decided to get the Juban Dinner for $ 19, which comes with your choice of two meats, rice, miso soup, and salad. I got the daikon salad, Yakishabu (thinly sliced marinated meat), and mahi mahi. You cook the meat yourself on the little grill at the center of the table, like Korean BBQ. The food in general was just ok, nothing spectacular. My daikon salad was refreshing, but my friend’s tofu salad was more intricate and tastier. I enjoyed the Yakishabu. The mahi mahi could have been more seasoned. I also tried some of my friend’s Hanger Steak, and that was tender and juicy. Overall, service was slow and food was decent, but too expensive for the small portions– I’m used to all you can eat kbbq in LA for that price. Thus, dinner was just «A-​OK» for me.
To finish off our meal, we had the Honey Toast. Now, I would definitely come back again just for the Honey Toast. It was warm, drizzled with honey, crispy outside and soft inside, and came with generous amounts of vanilla/​strawberry ice cream.

To start, our table was dirty. Very dirty. So were our menus. I felt like I needed to wash my hands. It took about 10 minutes to get anyone to wash our table.
We ordered drinks, which took about 10 minutes to get to us. They never served us water, and spite multiple attempts to get it, it finally arrived after an hour into our meal.
It took about 30 minutes for a place that cooks almost nothing to serve us our veggies, meat, rice, and a miso soup. My $ 54 kobe beef ribeye was traded out for regular ribeye. Hoping to nickel and dime us? The beef tongue was traded out for god knows what, but the beef tongue in the end was served to us FROZEN. What the hell am I paying for here? If you can’t keep things fresh, just serve less of them.
Some of the meats were good, but lacked seasoning and were plated carelessly. Not sure why there was so much blood, I’m assuming again because they were frozen and sliced onto plates as they thawed.
The potatoes were okay, the garlic was undercooked, the onions were impossible to grill because they had no fat on them, the peppers were just served with nothing on them, same with the trumpet mushrooms. The dipping sauce on the side was okay, but not great. I kept trying to get hot sauce, but I could not get anyone’s attention here.
It took 20 minutes from when we were finished to get a check and a to-​go box. Though I do enjoy cooking my own food on the grill, the poor service, lack of cleanliness, and frozen meat simply leave nothing to be desired at this place.

I really want to give this place more than 1 star, especially since my family has been coming here since we moved to the area 15 years ago. This place used to have such great service but service has declined and it is such a shame. On the other hand, food has been consistently good, although has become more pricey than it was 15 years ago. I always order the Kalbi although I have tried and liked other things such as the beef tongue, the ribeye, the short ribs (kalbi with bone-​in), chicken, seafood, veggies. We always get the grilled garlic– fantastic with the meat!
Over the past few years, Juban has been the place where my family gets together to celebrate things since my husband and I live in San Jose while my parents live in San Mateo and my sister is in SF. Thus, this location is perfect plus it’s our old neighborhood. Anyways, we have had sub-​par service in the past but nothing enough to move me to write a review. The last time we were here was the last straw. The time before that, we had horrible service as well– it was a Sunday and there was only one server. The whole family was getting frustrated and both my husband and brother had a talk with the server — after all, how difficult is it to serve raw meat and rice??? The server explained that no one wants to work on Sundays. Hmmm okay.
Letting that experience go because we love Juban, we decided to eat here again for my husband’s birthday. We were a party of 7 and arrived and ordered before an even larger group came. Nevertheless, the larger group got served first. :/​I honestly believe it was because they were all wearing Stanford gear and I am sorry I didn’t wear my apparel that night to get special attention. The manager seemed to check on their table often and walked right past ours– and so did the server. My mom tried getting our server’s attention three times and even waved but every time he passed by he was looking down or away. I felt utterly disrespected with the level and quality of service, especially considering all the years we have been coming here. We have been coming here longer than the currently manager has been working here!
We got our meat and started grilling… no sign of rice. We had asked 3 times to follow up on so many items that were missing– rice, sanchu wraps, soup to no avail. I got my rice 10 MINUTES LATER. (See picture I posted to see what my meat looked like when I finally got my rice).
Our reservations were for 6:30 and the whole group arrived by 6:40. We ordered food and did not receive it until 7:33pm. And that was just the meat, like I said, we had to follow up multiple times for rice, soup, etc.
My husband had a little conversation with the manager and asked him what the point of bringing the meat out then waiting 10 minutes for rice was. The guy replied that in Japan, they like to cook and start eating the meat first before the rice gets there.
1. We are NOT in Japan.
2. I am asian and I like my meat WITH rice.
3. My husband is not asian and he likes the meat WITH rice.
4. MAKE SURE TO TELL THEM TO BRING MEAT AND RICE OUT AT THE SAME TIME WHEN YOU ORDER. This last point SHOULD be unnecessary but must be emphasized so that an experience like ours does not happen again.
*And one more point, you might get better service if wearing Stanford gear.*
Not once did any of us hear an apology about how bad the service is and how he is going to take care of it. Man, I really wanted to tell this guy to get his head out of his @$$!
Nevertheless, I give this place 1 star because the food is consistently good and because I can’t give it 0 stars. Although it is pricey for such thinly sliced meat and horrible service but we just can’t let this place go…15 years and this is what we get. Since we were a party of 7, gratuity was included… all $ 46.66 of it… needless to say it wasn’t deserving and if it wasn’t included they would NOT have gotten a tip. NOT ONCE DID THEY COME FILL OUR WATERS. My husband had to ask the guy for more water for me and he came and filled my water only and left all the other water glasses on the table empty. JUBAN, PLEASE WORK ON YOUR SERVICE!!!

I didn’t expect much coming here. Juban is the Japanese equivalent of a Korean BBQ joint, so it’s more about cooking in a group around a grill built into your table than it is about great food.
With that in mind, Juban didn’t disappoint, or rather, didn’t pleasantly surprise. I ordered the Premier Ichiban Combo of Filet Mignon, «Kalbi» Short Ribs and Rib Eye. It was mediocre at best and not something you’d want to eat even close to rare, like I normally would with those cuts of meat. The veggies and other items were fine. The service was attentive and the Kirin was solid as expected.
Will I come back? Not by my own initiative, but I would join a party again.

I was very pleasantly surprised by this place! I always thought these types of restaurants were off-​limits to me (I’m keto/​pescatarian). My department at work was organizing a group lunch and since I’m kinda new, I didn’t want to be That Weirdo Who Is Difficult And Ruins Everything For Everyone Else so I just said yeah sure, sounds good to me. I figured if I couldn’t eat anything then I’d just chug a protein shake when I got back to the office. My issue with the concept of these kinds of restaurants is that people all cook their food on the same little table-​grill thing, so beef/​pork/​poultry/​etc. leaves its gross residues on the cooking surface and therefore I can’t use it. But when we arrived, I saw an immediate solution to the problem: aluminum foil! So I ordered the salmon and the sea scallops with a piece of foil, and voila, I was able to use the little grill without mingling in other people’s nasty beef juice. Although the items were so fresh, I only grilled a few bits of them and ate the rest sashimi-​style anyway.
Of course, not everything here is grill-​it-​on-​the-​table food. There are a bunch of other menu items including bento boxes (those servings are VERY generous, by the way), soups, sides, etc. And for the full vegetarians, there’s a wide variety of grillable vegetable options (just ask for foil)!
Prices are reasonable, and service is polite (although not that fast).

I’ve started to venture out and try different things on the menu, but it seems they do two things on the menu better than the others: the signature bbq, and the chicken lunch combo.
Both take out and eat in are good, but of course you can’t have the bbq take out, since the grills are built into the tables.
The portion sizes are good, all of the meat is juicy, and the sauces are pretty good without being overpowering. I love all the pickled sides/​kimchee (isn’t this a Japanese place‘? How does that work? No complaints from me though it’s good). The service is usually pretty fast, the wait staff is nice and good about drink refills or accommodating special requests. Finally, this may sound weird to some, but others will get it: the rice is good.

Happy hour that includes deals on drinks and Japanese BBQ? Sign me up! Happy hour ends at 6pm, so make sure you get seated before then. You get 2 plates for the price of 1 on certain meats (only four choices) and half off drinks.
Each meat dish is about $ 7 – 11, so the happy hour deal is a steal, but I would cringe during non-​happy hours! They suggest you order 3 – 4 yakiniku items and 2 – 3 veggie items for a party of two. My three siblings and I ordered 12 plates of meat and 1 plate of veggies. Don’t judge — it was super filling and delicious! Some of the meats were really good, but otherwise, we could’ve done without. I guess it all depends on what kinds of meat you like.
Their shochu cocktails are $ 3 – 4 during happy hour, and they’re really refreshing. The menu said the Fresh Grapefruit Shochu Cocktail is «served fresh squeezed and prepared at the table», so I had to get it. I thought they would squeeze and prepare it for me, but I had to do it myself (well, I got my baby brother to do it!). Totally worth it though because it was very delightful! :)

I used to come here for lunch on Sundays after church but it’s been a while and my coworkers asked me out to lunch here today. It was my first time for weekday lunch and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by their menu prices. A lot of the lunch items are under $ 10. There are two items that were $ 6 which we ordered! Both were rice bowl dishes came with sliced marinated beef. The beef was flavorful and the portion was perfect for lunch. One coworker ordered the teppanyaki that came in a sizzling plate for just $ 8 and came with rice, soup and kimchi. Very very very good deal, unheard of for Menlo park!
The restaurant was not crowded but not empty. Service was friendly and courteous.
We shared an order of Honey toast $ 8.95. It was huge. Good for sharing. It was yummy too even though the idea of the dish is quite simple… Just two thick pieces of toast, toasted that the outside was a bit crisp and the middle part of the toast was carved out in cubes, served with two large scoops of ice creaming drizzled with honey. Yummmmmmmmmm!!!
We will certainly come back here more often during slow time at work (it’s a bit far from my office) .
The restaurant is pretty elegant too, good for business lunch. Although depending on what you order, you might smell like BBQ after lol.