Cocary Shabu Shabu BBQ

Came here for with the family for lunch. Food was good. I really like the meat and chicken. Not to sure how much since my brother paid for it. I heard it’s cheaper here during lunch time. They charge base on how many plate you get. Looks like a family own business so cleanness is not there but server seem nice. I would come back

This place makes me feel all sorts of ways. I want to emphasize that I love the food. I just hate the customer service here. It overpowers what could have been a great experience to dine there.
As far as the food, they have many selections, but I’ve only ever gotten the beef and a few assortments of vegetables. The beef is so delicious and perfectly seasoned. Some of the items that sit in the fridge look old and I would rather not gamble with it. You pretty much serve yourself. They come by to pour the broth and turn on the fire, that’s it.
I’ve been coming here for years and have learned to look past the dirty environment. The booths and tables are always super greasy and the utensils look like they’ve just been passed through water.
Last but not least, I can never come to this place without arguing with the same lady. The employees there are nice. That’s about it. They won’t go above and beyond to see if you’re satisfied or offer any assistance. There is this one specific waitress who has been there for years and I never leave without a confrontation. She’s just so extremely rude to the point where it’s almost disgusting. I could get past the rudeness but the crazy thing is even after being obnoxious she has the nerve to demand me to tip her. I had paid with a card and signed the receipt leaving the tip section empty (already leaving her cash tip on the table) and she threw the receipt at me telling me I need to tip her. As I walked out you better believe I took the cash back. There wasn’t even any customer service, I offered her the tip as courtesy.
All in all, I will still come to this place. The 2 stars is for the horrible environment but great food.

Disclaimer: I definitely have a biased opinion when it comes to this place. I have been coming since I was a kid to their old location on Garfield & Garvey. I can’t remember any negative experiences had at this place, yet I have always been able to pinpoint some of their flaws.
Highlights:
Serve Yourself Style — I like being able to grab as much as I can on my own. The service here isn’t great so picking and choosing your own dishes is definitely pretty awesome.
Beef, Lamb & Chicken — Everything is so deliciously marinated. I don’t typically like bbq chicken because it can turn out somewhat bland, but this place does it exactly right. The cuts of meat here are also a huge highlight, all the trays are consistent with fatty, tendon/​cartilage-​free tender meat.
Porridge — You have the option of rice or porridge, which not a lot of locations even offer. I always opt for the porridge and it always hits the spot.
Variety — The fridges are filled with various things that you can shove onto your grill or into the broth. Bean Curd Skin, Tofu, Fish Cake, Noodles, Veggies, Pickled Cucumber, Eggs, etc.
Things To Consider:
Service — The service is just so horrible here but its serve yourself, so you hardly ever have to interact with them. They are so ridiculously understaffed that dirty tables remain uncleaned for over an hour. This obviously leads to a long wait for those who come in during busy hours.
Cleanliness — The green booths here have that sticky feeling to them, which can be very disgusting.
Freshness — Although a lot of the items are really fresh, they have some frozen items as well. Not a huge deal but something to think about.
Cocary isn’t made for everyone, which is why I understand the 3 — 4 Star Rating they currently have. There are some things you have to look past. But once you do, prepare yourself for some delicious mouth-​watering marinated meat that will leave you drooling the next time you make the decision to venture back here.

so this past saturday, a friend and i went to check out Cocary. after seeing it featured on KTLA sunday morning — i was dying to go. love, love, love korean BBQ. figured this would be another gastronomic adventure not to be missed. and it was everything i had hoped for and more!
it was awesome! so much fun and so yummy. we arrived just ahead of the lunch crowd i think. and there is ample seating throughout the restaurant. you go to the cold case to pick out what you will «cook» at the table. return to the table with an assortment of marinated meats (chicken; pork; beef), veggies; assorted tofu i think; dumplings; noodles; sauces.
once returned to the table and begin the fun part of cooking the ingredients either on the extremely hot cast iron griddle that surrounds the hot pot and/​OR cook in the hot pot. which is filled with a broth ready to receive the ingredients as well.
tongs are supplied. and there is a station where you can also serve yourself some rice to go with the meal. the wait staff speak very little english. but, i suppose they have come to anticipate what customers might need and so, language becomes less of an obstacle. most of the customers probably speak some chinese, and so, language is not an issue.
just wish the tummy could handle more than what it can. for the amazing taste sensation of shabu-​shabu has another fan here. and i can hardly wait for another chance to get that food in ma’ belly.

Good, chill spot. Self serve. We come here a few times a month to take advantage of the inexpensive cost and tasty goods. Complimentary all you can eat soup and steamed rice. Fridge items are individually priced. You can have a cheap, really decent meal if you don’t go overboard with the fridge items lol. They recently got stingy with their chopped garlic saying that they can only give out one serving per table. Someone probably messed that up for the rest of us ugh lol. Overall pretty

This is a shabu shabu with Korean bbq style place. Pretty cool.
Service is alright. They don’t rush you. No charge for soup and they add more water if you need it. They only count the number of plates. They also make teas/​coffees, slush stuff.
They have a variety of meats and vegetables. But I didn’t see any beef short ribs.

Amazing! Great quality meat and soups!
Would definitely come back for more, and the skewers are awesome.
Fun attire yay

I’ve been coming here since the old location on Garfield and Garvey. This new location seems little better with more open space and their own parking lot.
This place is basically self serve. You pick your choice of meat, vegetables, seafood, etc. in the refrigerator then cook it yourself. The rice and porridge is located in front of the register. The only thing the waiter would probably help you with is refill your soup and beverages.
I love the concept of being able to grill your meat and still have the soup option.
Make sure to use butter on the grill as the meat will stick (yes this is an additional cost but you need it).
You will definitely smell like bbq afterwards and maybe a few oil stains on your clothes so make sure you don’t wear any clothing item you don’t want to stain.

Was craving this place after I slowly grew my tastes for shabu. I didn’t like this place as a kid but I found myself liking this place a lot when I came.
There are so many options to choose from in the fridge and it’s honestly hard to know where to begin. There’s so many meats from livestock to seafood, and any dish you would find at a hot pot place you would find here. The veggie plates are around $ 2 while the meat plates are around $ 3.50, and the satay sauce is around $ 1.50. However, rice, porridge, and butter are unlimited.
It’s a good experience in that you get to pace yourself and stop whenever you want. It’s also fun because you get to cook everything yourself and with your family.
Be careful because the soups and butter can splash out (very hot). Also it’s easy to lose track of how much you are eating. I think you can easily eat up to around $ 15 per person, especially if you keep getting meats and are not filling yourself up on other things. There isn’t really much service cause it’s pretty much self-​serve. I think the servers only come when you’re running low on soup. Also, the seats and table can be a little sticky… so not really sure about cleanliness.
Would definitely recommend this place, especially during lunch time (20% off!).

My dad and I came here for dinner on Friday night since he wanted to try it. There were quite a few customers but luckily we didn’t have to wait. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it was interesting. Each table gets us stove with a grill and hot pot in the middle. We actually just wanted to have hotpot mostly. You grab stuff from the fridge and cook it yourself. We had lamb for the grill and that was pretty well-​marinated. We got some random items for the hotpot– oyster, veggies and liver. I guess he wanted to eat things that we don’t usually have. There is no soup base for the hotpot and it was pretty underwhelming. There is ayce rice and porridge, which is nice. I give it 3 stars since it wasn’t very cheap and the hotpot was eh. But if you’re looking for BBQ and hotpot this is a place to try!

Horrible service, waitress was mad cuz I didn’t leave tip, cuz gave us very bad service,
Food is ok

Hello my Unilocalies,
UPDATE 1÷10÷2016: Found a disgusting bug inside my soup base!!! I don’t think I’ll come back again… Such a huge disappointment! All they did was apologize and didn’t even sound sincere about it. Definitely won’t be coming back again, you just lost a great customer.
«Came here today because I was around the area. Parking here is easy, they have a back parking lot right behind the restaurant where they share with other stores. So don’t need to worry about finding space.
I like this place because you get hotpot and grilled pan. So it’s like a fusion of Chinese and Korean. It is a self serve restaurant, you pick any meat, vegetables, rice, sauce and condiments all by yourself. They charge you by the plates you have.
We got 4 plates of the marinated beef, I’ve got to say I am very impressed by it. My boyfriend and I like to eat very spicy so we like to mix the marinated beef with chili flakes and then grill it on the side. It definitely adds more spice into the beef and create more seasoning taste. We also got their raindrop fish balls, that is my all time favorite, if you come here please give it a try. I love how they have fillings inside the fish balls so it’s not those plan fish balls where you need to dip in sauce so it doesn’t taste so bland.
They also have a choice of plain white rice or congee with yams, one little down side is that this place isn’t that cheap. We order around 7 plates and it came out to $ 24, I kind of wish this place can be a little bit cheaper then I’ll definitely come by way more often, since each plate doesn’t have much items.
Their service is pretty average, they didn’t really do much since everything is self served. I saw that they also have desserts but I didn’t get a chance to try it, but maybe next time.
Overall, 4 stars for service, 2 stars for food, 3 stars for environment and decoration and 1 stars for cleanliness. This place would be a lot better if they lower the price since the quality of the food isn’t that fresh/​great, or do a all you can eat menu which will definitely help their restaurant.»

First time eating at restaurant like this, where it combines hot pot and barbecue. The combination of the two, gives you a nice variety of foods to choose from. There is a variety of barbecue meats (chicken, lamb, pork, and beef), as well as a variety of vegetables and other food items (quail eggs, mushrooms, corn on the cob, fish cake, and a few more options). They also have a bar that has porridge, and rice that you can help yourself to.
I really liked the meat here, and you have the discretion to pick and choose what kind you want when you go to the giant fridge to pick out the meats. This place charges by the plate at about $ 3.19 per plate, which can add up depending on how hungry you are. The portion of food on the plate are pretty good in my opinion, and paired with the hotpot, rice, and other options should fill you up after a few plates of meat.
Definitely recommend trying this place, YOU GET THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS, BOTH HOTPOT AND BARBECUE!

I tend to like the one in La Puente since the broth is always on point and they’re actually nice enough to acknowledge you when you need something .
Customer Service here is non-​existent. I only tip like$ 1 or $ 2 out of pity since you have to get everything yourself and once they gave you the broth they don’t service you until you flag them down for the check. I figure why even tip, Maybe that’s why they don’t have a hoot since they figure they’ll get tipped something anyways.
The last two times idk what the chef was thinking pouring so much damn OIL! I literally scooped out A CUP OF OIL, it was so disgusting that the 2^nd time it happened I told the lady when she was ringing me out to let the chef know he’s putting way too much oil in the broth.
Check out the picture

I can’t believe I haven’t written a review about this gem! This is a perfect place to go if you aren’t too hungry because you can get as much meat as you want. I am normally satisfied with 1 plate of chicken and veggies with the soup.
Location/​parking: This is located off of Garfield just north of Newmark Ave. There is plenty of parking in the parking lot that can be reached by a small street called Roseyln Place. There is also parking right in front on Garfield. This is a decent sized restaurant, great for groups because of the big booths. Each booth has one hot pot in the middle.
Service: This is typically a self-​service type of restaurant. You walk in, you sit down where they tell you to sit, and you go and grab whatever meat or veggies you want. They will bring you hot tea, green onions/​garlic to cook with, and fill the hot pot with their broth. There is one lady who is EXTREMELY friendly. She is always smiling and very polite. After you eat, they will come and count the amount of dishes you have and will give you the check.
Food: So basically this is a hot pot/​bbq place. You can do bbq or you can do shabu shabu with the broth they have. Normally, when we go, we bbq beef, chicken, pork, and squid and then we drink the broth at the end. We usually add veggies to the broth. There are refrigerators full of marinated meats such as beef, chicken, pork, and lamb to bbq. There is also a section for the shabu shabu part which has seafood, non-​marinated meat, and veggies. I have never tried a full on shabu shabu experience here, so I can’t speak about that. For the bbq, we usually use the butter to cook which is located at the bottom of the refrigerator. Yumm! My favorite meat is the chicken and beef because they are so flavorful! I love cooking the chicken until it’s slightly browned so it’s crispy on the outside. The beef is very tender and juicy. They also have dessert, I love their almond jello!
Tips: They have lunch special everyday for 20% off before 3:30pm! Be careful, the oil can splatter on you!

What a great combination! Hot Pot and BBQ!
COCARY is the OG of hot pot. Before all these upscale hot pot places came into town, Cocary was the spot. It’s the best of both worlds. Unlimited soup with all the fixings that you want to put in there and BBQ with marinated meats and pre-​made dumplings and the best flavor-​maker of all, butter.
They charge by the plate so eat up but remember that each plate you grab will add to your bill. The plates of veges and meat ranged from around $ 2 something to $ 3/​$ 4. The eggs are charged per egg, the satay sauce is per bowl at $ 1.39 but it’s unlimited butter. (Good for the grilling and the cobs of corn) Also, you get unlimited rice and congee. It is all self-​service except for refills of soup. I suggest the marinated chicken and beef. I also suggest the congee because it is made with chunks of sweet potato. But try everything and see what makes your taste buds tingle. The flavor of the soup is all on you; add some veges, meats, eggs, onions, etc.
Once you are done, help out the waitress but stacking your plates. They will come by, do a count and then come back with your bill. It can get expensive but it is a pretty economical meal.
You will come out smelling like BBQ and oil so don’t go in wearing anything nice. It isn’t as busy as it used to be so you probably can grab a seat pretty easily. All in all, you can’t mess with a classic. It’s a good change from the usual hot pot places around town.

Fun place for groups. Grill your own meat and cook your own soup. Perfect for a cold winter day. They have a wall of refrigerators full of various meats, vegetables, appetizers. They charge per plate so you can eat as much as your heart desires.
My favorite is the marinated beef. They also have chicken and pork which are both good too. 2 – 3 dishes of meat per person is usually enough. We typically melt some butter on the grill before cooking the meat, then make our own soy sauce/​green onion dip. Just make sure you’re wearing an old shirt cause grilling can get messy. The oil can splatter as your cooking so be careful! Love dipping each piece of meat in my soy sauce/​green onion sauce, then eating with a bite of white rice. BTW, unlimited white rice. It’s self serve, so embrace your Asian-​ness and grab as much rice as you want!
They also have the typical Mandarin style side dishes, like cold pickled cucumber, pig ear, and sea weed. The cold cucumber dish is really tasty. Perfect amount of sweet and vinegar flavor. The pig ear was ok. Not oily at all but not much flavor either. Seaweed dish also average. The seaweed was cut a little too thick for my liking.
The soup is probably my favorite part of the meal. It’s such good comfort food that warms you from the inside. I love adding tripe, spinach, and the cabbage/​tomato/​corn combo. The soup is full of flavor but not too salty or oily. I love putting a little scoop of rice in each bowl of soup. It’s unlimited soup too so make sure to ask for refills!
You can get a pretty cheap meal if you want here. Each dish is $ 2.99−3.15. If you’re really strapped for cash, you can theoretically grab a couple plates of meat/​vegetable and get full mostly off the soup and rice alone if you pleased. Also, a great place for lunch: 20% off before 3pm!

Decent service, flavorful meats, large selection of vegetables and sides, lots of parking in front and in the back.
I fell in love with this place like 15 years ago when they were located in the ABC Café plaza… and 15 years later, I am still in love with this place. LOL. Back in my high school days, I use to go to this place before 3:30pm because you get 20% off you entire bill!
Anyway, some of my favorite items here can be found on the farthest left fridge (facing the front) which are on the top three rows. The marinated beef, chicken, and pork. All three are DELICIOUS. I have tried to get the non-​marinated one but wasn’t a fan.
Marinated beef — cook to your heart’s desire. I generally will slather a rather large portion of butter. cuz I LOVEEE buttaaaaaaaa… and then sprinkle some chili powder on the meat before I put it on the grill.
Marinated pork/​chicken — their chicken is also very flavorful. I don’t care how much MSG is in it. actually, I would rather not know so I can still love this place… I recommend cooking the chicken on the grill for an extended amount of time allowing the sauce and seasonings to gently «burn» onto both sides of the chicken (don’t forget to flip it). It tastes the best this way, IMHO.
Cold cucumber — one of my favorite places to get cold cucumber because it isn’t overly vinegary or overly sweet. I get this every single time I am here.
TIP** you get unlimited soup here. so don’t be scared to slurrrrrrrrrp it all up and get more or ask for more! unlimited rice and porridge too! Don’t forget to take advantage of lunch special 20% OFF!

If you’re into real Korean BBQ, hot pot, and shabu shabu then this place is not for you at all. There’s no dipping sauce other than soy sauce and green onions. This place felt like a cook it yourself Panda
Express.
This place is pretty much self serve. You have a choice between hotpot and searing your meat. Which is pretty cool.
The servers are pretty much non exist. Anytime we asked for anything, it would take them forever to give it to us.
The food quality was below average. I had the beef meat which was drenched in oil and was so marinated so sweet. I honestly just stuck with the spinach and mushrooms.
I guess since its $ 2.95 per plate is why people love it here.

COMBINATION of hot pot and BBQ! The middle grill is basically a huge pot in the middle that holds the hot pot broth to cook hot pot food and surrounding the pot is mini grills all 360 degrees so that anyone from any direction can cook their meats and seafoods on the grills! There is even a little indentation for the oil and fat to drain! The only downside to this is that the food that becomes cooked isn’t as «family style» where you share! You’re basically cooking your own food in your small grills facing your side because the hot pot in the middle kinda blocks the grills on the other side! (see picture; it’ll make more sense)
You enter, grab a table, grab all of your rices, plates, bowls, tea, water, etc. and you go to this fridge where there are assortments of plates of meat, seafood, vegetables, sides! You grab everything, bring to your table, COOK IT (there are even steal basket cages to help you carry multiple plates of meat to your table (refer to pictures too)
$ 2.99/main dish (meat, seafood, enoki mushrooms)
$ 1.39/side dish (vegetables, dessert)
FREE butter (for cooking), soup, hot tea, water, white rice, rice porridge with little carrot potato bits in it (all are self-​serve so there are stations where you have to get up and get it yourself!)
Pros:
–i like the concept of the self-​serve! We don’t always need customer service for eating and the way this restaurant is run, self-​serve is convenient, fast, efficient, and FUN!
–so fun to eat here! If you can’t decide whether or not you want hot pot or bbq, this is both!!! :)
–food is pretty good! :) marinated meat and chicken is delicious and flavorful. seafood is yummy!
–can also readjust the heat settings for your hot pot and grill yourself
–20% off lunch specials! 1130AM-​330PM
–IT’S SO FUN TO EAT HERE! the concept of both is new to me so me likey
–a small boba joint in the back for the girls that love to get tea and boba as dessert right after: D haven’t tried it but the convenience is a plus
Cons:
–practically no customer service. it is almost practically a self-​seat and self-​serve, which is fine because of the way this restaurant is run! so don’t feel the need to tip as much as you normally would at other restaurants
–the hot pot broth is taro flavored but slightly a bit more milder than I personally like
–bowls for rice and porridge and soup are kinda small, which may be bad for some people (I personally like small things :))
–they don’t change the grill/​pot for you so if you eat A LOT, after a while. all of the accumulating fat and oils from the grill can splatter at you :(it hit me!
–you use your own wooden chopsticks to also cook. I would prefer having a separate tongs to flip the raw meat because I don’t want to use the same chopsticks to touch the uncooked meat to eat with :(my suggestion would be to use an extra pair of chopsticks