Smiling BBQ

The feeling is just like in my hometown. Like it so much! The only thing for some people is the spicy pepper is the Chinese typical style. Also, the sweet potato is so yummy!

First review on Unilocal!Yeah! Ordered a take out here, the cumin lamb and sausage! Awesome flavor and great service! Great choice for a midnight treat, and will order again!

There is only one word to describe this restaurant «DISGUSTING»! The same nasty spicy seasoning is added to every dish. It tasted like they incorporated all their leftover spices together to make one nasty seasoning. This is definitely NOT authentic Chinese food!!!

I went there with my friend last night and had a great experience! I have to say this one is truly local Chinese street food style, will come here again and again!

If you want try the traditional Chinese food. This is the one. This small restaurant is not fancy. But their foods are really good. It’s north east style. Some of the dishes are pretty unique. Their kebab is so delicious. The sugar coated sweet potato is the best.
The service is very good. I will go back for sure.

As much as i like skewers and meat plates, it was hard to actually enjoy the food here. I could tell that every dish was topped with the exact same spices, even the bread! It got old fast, especially when dining with a big group and we had to order at least 6 dishes. Everything just tasted the same towards the end. The restaurant itself was not very clean. The table and seats were sticky and I was afraid to use the utensils without a good wipe down.

I’ve driven by this place a hundred times and always wanted to try it. I finally went in today since I was in a «let’s try something different» mood for dinner. Walked in to a totally empty restaurant. I told the lady I was going to order food to go and she gave me a menu. They sell small skewers of meat for about $ 1.50 each. I chose beef, lamb, chicken, corn and fish balls. Had a beer while I waited. I guess I got carried away with the $ 1.50 skewers and the bill ended up being $ 62!!! Got home to eat with the family and the food was horrible!!! They drench the meat with sauce to try and make it taste good. Each piece of meat tasted like Indian curry. These type of places are either hit or miss and it was a huge miss! Practically threw it all in the garbage after we all had a few bites. Still depressed about the $ 62 I wasted. I am the type that never throws food away but this shit was awful!

I was craving for BBQ but I didn’t want to go KBBQ. So i give a try to this place. I didn’t mind the rating in Unilocal because everyone has their own preferences. I like the prices for BBQ skewers are based on each skewer. I ordered several varieties like beef, lamb, chicken skin, chicken gizzard, chicken heart etc. The waitress was kindly explain to us how spicy of each level of spiciness. So we choose the mild but end up its no spicy at all. Overall the skewers were in or above average. But we were surprised by the other dishes like the potatoes with sticky syrup on it. It was very delicious.
Only down side is the price of the non skewer dishes are quite expensive. We ordered four other those dishes. Three people out the door paid almost $ 90 seems better go to ayce kbbq then. Maybe next time when we go back we should order more skewers instead of the expensive dishes.

I still like this place but I have to say last time the fried rice dried me up. The salt was wayyyy to salty and the food quality has gone down… In addition, they’ve also raised the prices on a couple of the items on the menu. The skewers dont taste as fresh as they used to be, and they are often a bit more expensive too. On the plus side, they have all the yummy chinese drinks I used to drink as a kid :)
The staff are still extremely friendly. One time I left my wallet, and I believed they stayed another 20 minutes to wait for me to pick up my wallet.

Bad place. The food to expensive! It’s doesn’t delicious. ! Never come back again!!!

Not really clean restaurant. My friend got some kind of food poisoning very next day, have to goto emergency and get treatment. Scare me how the plate is all greasy and I saw they just left uncooked «meat» on the ground. The food is not good also, hopefully they can improve their status. But I will not go there again because the food poisoning.

Food tastes good and I like the BBQ stick. You even can add spicy on it. The service is good. The waitress recommend the «sweet» potato dish to me and it is really good. I like the outside is crisp, but little bit sweet and stuck on the teeth. Another thing is when you pay in cash, you can have 10% off deal. It is great, right?

This is NOT your typical Chinese restaurant like Mayflower or The Kitchen down the street. This is more like a Chinese northern style Street Food restaurant. If you been to China, this type of restaurant is very popular these days in China, where ppl gather to eat BBQ skwers, drink beer and talk SH%T about others or just gossip.
My friends have been telling me about this place for the past year and finally tried this place out tonight and I am very very impressed with the food quality and service.
First thing first, if you are white or black or latino or Asians not from China, and never tried Chinese style skewers but you are adventurous, try to take a mandarin speaking (he or she has to come from the northern part of China, if possible) friends with you to really appreciate the food being served here.
I agree with Vikki’s review, they need to put fatty meats on the skewers, when the fat drips onto the charcoal, the smoke arises and this will make the meat tastier and sometimes it is necessary to have some fatty meat on it so you can mix it with the leaner meat.
Most of the BBQ skewers they offered here are very very authentic. The kimchi fried rice is great! We also tried the wonton and it was delicious! We ended the meal with spicy soup, where you can pick five items and they make it into a soup. We all loved it. Also try to home made sausage, the best!
Great selections of Chinese style drinks here as well. Besides beer, which is a must if you eat the skewers, I would also go with their home made plum juice, or coconut juice.
As far as service, at least we received great service, the lady who served us was friendly and helpful. Parking should be easy to fine, but if you having trouble finding a parking space, just go inside and ask them, they should be able to let you park at their lot. Even tho I live in Marin, I feel like I will visit here pretty often from now on, it reminds me of where i grew up. Love it love it!

FOOD POISONING!!!
We have been coming here for awhile. When the place first opened, it was fantastic. The food flavoring was excellent and the pricing was good.
Over the last year of visits the flavoring has dulled and almost every dish has become either too salty or not enough spice. Not to mention the prices have increased. The lamb skewers have gotten more fatty and the kimchi fried rice has become what tastes like a bowl full of salt and kimchi.
To top all of it off last night I was poisoned. At 3:10am I found myself praying to the porcelain God…
Last night was my last visit to Smiling BBQ.

UPDATE:
Will not go back again.
Service and food is getting so much worse. The skewers have a LOT of FAT.
What they do is chop the meat, and put fat and non-​fat ones on skewers. GROSS!
The waitress’s attitude is ANNOYING.
Huge disappointment. Now I need to find a new Chinese BBQ place.

Avoid. If there were a negative star, I’d give it. The food here is gross, possibly treading on the fine line of health violations. We got some chinese skewers, «home made» sausage, lamb dumplings, and a stir fry vegetarian dish. Oh and a tsing Tao beer. Here’s the breakdown. The beer was decent. The rest, not so much. The skewers were laiden with large pieces of fat, the home made sausage? They might as well just shown me the hillshire farm kelbasa and come clean (oh and it’s not even heated), the stir fried vegetables? Turns out to be garlic sautéed with ice berg lettuce with a lot of oil, and I am not even sure what meat the lamb dumplings were made with. All this for a lovely sum 65 buckaroos including tip. And there’s was an old man that gave us the stink eye the whole time, but obviously wasn’t a customer, he just hung around.
Avoid this health hazard !!!

I have to say this place is interesting. If Denny’s represents the most generic/​boring food you can get on El Camino Real, then Smiling BBQ certainly covers the other end of the spectrum. They have a wide range of weird and wonderful chinese BBQ street food on a stick.
The innocent looking stick of mushrooms that I thought I would start with, turned out to be kidney halves alternated with cubes of pork fat. I am not a huge fan of kidney halves, but this turned out to be better than I first expected.
I love the way you can specifically order things like chicken gristle or chicken hearts on a stick.
The fish on a stick is in fact a whole fish. Picking through the bones on this was hard work though.
The dumplings were good.
The fish balls were average.
The tofu skin dish was delicious.
Not a place to bring fussy eaters, but if you are adventourous and want to try some interesting chinese street food, Smiling BBQ fits the bill.

Walked by this place and they always have a couple of tables full in the dimly lit restaurant, even late night, so we thought why not. We came later in the evening (8:30/9?). We went next door to the Liquor Locker first to get cash at the ATM since there were no signs saying that they took credit card (no signs to the contrary either).
When we walked up to the restaurant, we were looking for a sign with the hours since we didn’t want to walk in just as they’re closing. No sign. However, there was an older Asian fellow sitting outside waving us towards the door as he said something Mandarin. Unfortunately, I don’t know Mandarin and told him in English that I don’t understand.
My SO and I walk in and wait to be greeted. They struggle to tell us which table to sit at in English. When it came to ordering, we had to point at what we wanted in the menus as they lacked a firm grasp of English. They told us they didn’t have the eggplant with beef nor the pork dumplings after we tried to order it. They did have the garlic «vagetable» that we wanted and we were told they had the shrimp dumpling. We also ordered the mushroom, beef, and lamb skewers, 2 each was their minimum.
After the menus were taken we got to talking and realized we didn’t order drinks. I remembered seeing milk tea on the menu so my SO approaches the waitress and tried to order two milk teas. She had this look of confusion as she tried to piece together what he was asking for, holding up bottle after bottle from their drink selection. We ended up with (overly sweet) iced tea instead.
The mushroom skewers were the first to come out, not plated since all the bbq goes on a platter in the middle of the table. We had to wait some time before the «vagetables» (pea sprouts) came out which were boiled to hell and thoroughly coated with oil and tossed in garlic. At this point, the waitress came up to our table holding a menu pointing to the shrimp dumplings to tell us they «only had five» in the kitchen — my guess was not enough for a full order.
We asked to cancel the order and added the chicken gizzards, chicken hearts, and shrimp skewers instead. She notifies the kitchen and shortly after, our beef and lamb skewers arrived at our table. They both looked exactly the same and tasted pretty similar, with the lamb tasting just slightly more gamey. My SO found that the fat/​meat pieces were indiscriminately skewered and cooked — some being too fatty to eat.
The shrimp was not worth the effort to peel as most of the shell stuck on the meat. The gizzards and hearts were as expected. The problem was all the bbq, regardless of what it is, is covered in the same sauce sometimes overly sauced.
All in all, our dinner of 12 skewers and garlic veggies came out to a whooping $ 34! A little overpriced for what it is. But we’re still interested in going back and trying some of the rice soup dishes. Just need to bring one of my Mandarin speaking friends with me!

worst restaurant ever… the food was cold even there were only 3 tables, not busy at all. All food taste the same~ Actually, I should say that they were all tasteless! And the size of the food are way too smaller comparing to TLT BBQ in Newark. The WORST thing that I saw was the beef skewer!!! there was five small pieces of beef~~ ACTUALLY, it is only THREE pieces because two of that five pieces are FAT! yeah, I mean FAT!!! I knew see people doing restaurant business like that, giving customer the piece of fat and to act like a beef skewer… I would NEVER go back again and I don’t recommend anyone to try it out… NOT THIS ONE!!!

I travel to Shanghai often. One of my favorite things to do is eat the late night BBQ sticks. It’s quite the culinary experience. It’s a blend of Chinese and Middle Eastern tastes. Sitting outside on the street corner with a cold beer and paying a yuan a stick us fun times. I know how this should taste like.
This place got the flavor right on the beef and lamb. Nice tender chunks and the quality of the meat was even better than I remembered in China. I’d like to order a bunch of these and I’m good. The veggies had an undeniably Korean chili flavor to it. Not saying it was bad but it took away from the authenticity of the taste.
Servers were good but the candied yam took a long time to come out. Also, I think the yams were actually cheaper standard potatoes. They weren’t sweet at all. I don’t mind candied potatoes but just don’t try to dupe me.
We also ordered fried rice which was greasy and lacked content. Stir fried noodles which were drenched in way too much soy and salt. Dumplings tasted like frozen ones from the bag at ranch 99.
Final analysis — I would recommend to just come here for a quick snack of beef and lamb skewers. Have a beer and that’s it. Everything else is a bit subpar in my opinion.