Juban Yakiniku House

We waited almost half one hour, and there are plenty tables available inside, but waiters did not allowed us to sit. It is fine. And then we ordered several dishes, costed us $ 178, we only have 2 person. And the we asked for bag to go, they said the bag is 10 cents, fine. I tipped 18. Since we only have two person, and the waiters are slow service. They even gave others food to my table, and after I took a bite. They took the dish away… And directly gave them to others. After paid $ 195 for this dinner, me and my boyfriend are leaving. One of the waiters called us, to tipped them 25% of the meal. What? For two person, 178 for food is a lot. And you guys service are not very good, I gave 18 for tips. Now you even ask more? How much usually does two person pay for a meal? And how much is the tip? I gave $ 18 for your slow service, and you asked me more?

Such a fun spot in Japantown where you get to grill your own food right at your table! Everything from the salads, to the meat quality/​flavor to the fried rice is on point! A must try!

Food was amazing and great service too. Love how you can cook your own food right at the table.

I was quite disappointed since I couldn’t find any other yakiniku place in Japan town. The price was good, not too pricy. The service was good, the manager of the place kept checking in on us to see if we liked it. Reservation not needed because there basically was close to no one inside when we went! It was probably 20% full only.
Food — assorted kimchi was good to start with, nothing special though. I love beef so got quite a few different cuts of beef. The best one was outside skirt and worst one was the rib eye (which the manager highly recommended). The rib eye tasted like liver instead of beef. My friend and I each ate a piece and decided not to eat the rest. The other cuts of beef weren’t too memorable. The mushrooms were pretty good.
I probably won’t be coming back to this place. Hopefully i’ll find another yakiniku place in SF.

My friend and I couldn’t get into YakiniQ because it was busy so we found this place close by! It was pretty much a godsend.
Pros: JBBQ. Done, bye. Kidding! My friend and I both got the $ 19 deal where we both got to chose 2 meats each to grill. He had squid and yakishabu («beef» I think?) while I had chicken and garlic pork loin. They gave us about 7 – 9 pieces for each meat. It included BBQ sauce. Some green powder (we didn’t use it), and rice (medium sized bowl!!!) They also make STRONG alcoholic drinks and big restaurant with lots of seats. Waitresses knows how long it takes to cook the meats.
Neutral: a waitress will show up to your table every 5 – 10 minutes if they aren’t busy. Some people might find this annoying and others may think this is good.
Cons: we had a new waitress. Very nice but very timid. She forgot our order but it is fine because another waitress helped her out. I would NOT recommend getting the chicken. My chicken had no taste. I drenched it in BBQ sauce and it did not help. The BBQ sauce is pretty watery.

Don’t go here, they serve watered down white wine for hot sake.
«Tepid urine would be the best description.»
Would give zero stars for the manager trying to physically intimidate me when trying to leave but blocking the door with her body.
We waited 30 minutes, got seated. We are not upset about waiting on a busy day but then we waited 15 more minutes after being seated before anyone even asked if we wanted water. We almost left from the rudeness.
We ordered a fairly standard spread of grill items but almost left when we found out the pricey vegi platter was only cheap carrot, zucchini, and onion. The bad service just kept adding up. We ordered a hot sake and it appeared TOO quickly.
We poured it and it was a weird yellowy color. We looked at each other, confused. «Hm»
We drank a sip.
It was disgusting.
Tepid urine would be the best description.
We left our first glasses completely full and got up to leave.
My guess is that it was actually a mix of white wine and sake with a hot water floater on top. Understand, I’ve lived in the SF/​Oakland area for 30+ years raised eating Japanese food and lived in Japan (studying food specifically.) I can easily identify when something is tainted or not what it seems. This was not sake and there was definitely water added.
We asked repeatedly to cancel our order and said we’d be leaving and not paying for the fake drink. They physically blocked our exit, totally illegal!
After trying to convince us that it wasn’t watered down, the manager finally challenged us, shouting, «How do you know it’s water down?! How would you know?!» and I said, «I was raised eating Japanese food and studied food while living in Japan, that drink is not sake and there is hot water added to it!»
And guess what? She turned red with embarrassment and admitted it. She suddenly shrunk and said, «Oh really… Okay.» And let us leave.

My friend and I were in the mood for J-​BBQ and she found this restaurant on Unilocal with good ratings, enticing reviews with good pics of the menu items. So we came and was not disappointed. We did not make reservations even though it was Friday night. Turns out the restaurant was not packed so we lucked out.
I ordered the $ 29 dinner combo and she had the $ 39 one. We thought we would end up with too much food but thankfully that was not the case. I like eating meat, the more protein the better so no worries there. I can never be a vegetarian; well, I suppose I will if my doctor says my life was dependent on it but until then please pass the Kobe beef and garlic beef tongue.
The service was good. The place was clean. The server was friendly and the food was delicious at reasonable prices. Like, what else is there to say?

It’s really hard to remember a place that has service that is worse and slower than in this restaurant. We waited for well over an hour even though the place was half empty. Service is ultra slow, and when we finally got a table we still had to wait 10 minutes to get served. Our waitress looked super annoyed, like someone was forcing her to do her job. With service like this, I see zero reasons to go to this place again, especially given the number of other restaurants in Japan Town.
Food was actually not bad (especially the hanger steak), but the portions were small, and a bit overpriced.

3 meals @ juban thus far, all lunch on a wknd
all 3 meals were very pleasant, but the last one was great! our waitress (the youngest one) was AWESOME. she was so polite, she even said ‘thank you’ when i said thank you!
+‘s
* never had to wait in line
* i never end up smelling, even though you grill at the table (the side vents are AWESOME and WORK!
* service is always good, as each waitress walks around (even if it’s not their table) they check your table for water refills, dishes that could be cleared off, etc.
* food and taste is pretty spot on. we typically get the kalbi which is so good but decided to also add the skirt steak, to our surprise it was extremely tender
* lunch special good quantity (banchan, soup, salad, rice + meat)
* place is clean
* only negative is that you have to pay for the kimchi, but it’s good!
note, wknd lunches may run out of kalbi. not sure if it was a fluke or they preserve quantities for dinner… in any case, we heard the waitress telling the table next to us that they lunch portion of kalbi was sold out. whew! we got the last orders! woot woot!
happy eating

Wagyu Beef. If you haven’t had it, you can cook it yourself at Juban. It has superb flavor. I would say that Juban is Japanese with a bit of Korean influence. Don’t be afraid to politely ask the server for a fresh (clean) grill top when it comes time to cook the wagyu. So, beef aside theres also a ton of tasty meats & veggies on the menu — desserts are fun too. Nothing beats a bottle of hot sake at the beginning of a meal. I lived in san fran in 02 and 03, my coworkers and I used to stop in once a week or so and whenever I’m in town for work, I stop by Juban.

Overpriced but delicious and fun for a special celebration or date night. Our most recent visit was on Valentine’s Day. Luckily we made reservations!
Atmosphere: Quiet with dim lighting, perfect for a date.
Food: We ordered a few good dishes like rib eye but also a few mediocre «filler» dishes like chicken and pork. Dishes add up quickly because they don’t give much meat! For dessert, we ordered the Honey Toast Mountain. It took over 20 minutes for them to make it, but it was worth it.
Service: Service has always been good and attentive, but never pushy.

I like this place… good eating but service can be horrible at times lol Shoot I dont get mad over it… lol

2 stars mostly because service was really awful (almost inexistant). No one at the entrance to welcome us, then we waited 45min to get our order. For a restaurant where you cook everything yourself it’s a bit too much… Apart from that, the meat was fine. But skip the beef udon it has no taste at all.

A very nice place for Japanese BBQ. Definitely will come back.
I give it 4 stars instead of 5, because:
1. Service is barely acceptable; it’s hard to find the staff when you need them.
2. The Juban salad is horrible… Both my gf and I don’t like it. But the tofu salad is pretty awesome.

I’m a fair and forgiving person, REALLY!
We decided to give Juban SF another try and paid a return visit here earlier this month. I’m glad we did because they seem to have corrected the kitchen and service problems that we experienced last year.
The lead server (tall brunette) was awesome and made sure the timing of our dishes came out perfectly! She would check in, without being obtrusive, and was adroit at managing the timing of both the kitchen staff and fellow servers. I mean, this is what every hella good dining place needs… someone in charge who has brilliant communication, insight, and organization skills to time, expedite, and quality assure orders! As a result we had a truly great meal! YAY!!!
The quality of the food, as always, was brilliant. You can’t go wrong with the oxtail soup and tomato salad, but be sure to start out with the assorted kimchee (stock up on breath mints in advance) and namuru! The «Ichiban» is the way to go for an ultimate meal splurge. What’s not to love about grilled lobster and Fillet Mignon?!
Most of all, this time, they made sure to save me a «Honey Toast Mountain» for dessert. The deal is that it takes the kitchen prep staff an extra 10+ minutes to make. If you arrive around closing, make sure to order it early, just to make sure.
Will we come here again? Oh hella YES!!!
Rock On Juban SF!

Unilocal reviews were right on for this place, a 3.5 star effort. Good effort.
Ordered 5 dishes for three people: chicken, salmon, shrimp, beef tongue, fillet mignon. And I’m still freakin hungry. Trust me when I say the portions are tiny for what you pay. Good quality food but small portions.
The experience of bbq’ing is pretty cool though if you have never done it. Makes me feel special, makes me feel, like a man.
Place is pretty clean and a nice peaceful environment where you can eat in peace. If I were an Asian pop star I’d totally come here.
I’m so freakin hungry still and I’m too cheap to buy more.

Clean, roomy and you get your own grill! They offer a variety of meats that include, pork, rib eye, teppanyaki steak and salmon. My favorite include the Fillet Mignon $ 10.95, Rib Eye Rosu $ 8.95, Beef Tongue $ 7.95 and the Scallops!
Pair your dinner with a glass of Kirin Draft and you are SET!
You can even be healthy by ordering «Sanchu Wraps» $ 4.95 were you can wrap any of the grilled items with a crisp green leaf lettuce wrappers and sweet miso paste. mMMMm!

A bit rundown for a BBQ grill restaurant in Japantown, but the staff is friendly.
When one of the tables with the grills weren’t functioning and we were seated, the host moved us to another table and offered complimentary drinks as a gesture for the inconvenience.
They are a bit understaffed because it took awhile for us to get the attention of the waiter and for him to come over to us.
We got the dinner combo of 2 meat selections from the back of the menu that came with salad, house sauce and rice. Their garlic pork lacked the strong flavor of garlic I usually like and was a bit on the dry side for me. The beef was really tender and the marination of the sauce with the beef complimented each other really well.
I actually felt pretty healthy eating all that, but that complimentary drink, mango shake, cancelled it all out!
Prices are fair and food is good, but overall, this BBQ grill restaurant is mediocre. Tough competition with having other restaurants being next to each other and with this one being on the corner, it is really hard to entice customers to come here.

Juban is a great place to go with a group especially young kids. The kiddies have a lot of fun here because it’s an interactive dining experience. I had dinner here with a few cousins including a 14 and a 10 year old. We decided to choose the Première Sakura Combo for 2 – 3 people. It was $ 88 and included an assortment of meats, seafood, veggies for grilling and a bibimba. The combo also included lettuce wraps. We were also served some appetizers of edamame, kimchi and yakinori. It was plenty of food for 5 of us. The younger cousins liked grilling up the food. The garlic pork was marinated nicely. I liked the salmon and shrimp as well as the steak. I didn’t care too much for the beef tongue.
Our waiter was super friendly and came to check on us several times during our dinner. He also advised that the vents were installed inside the grills at the table so that there wouldn’t be steam rising up and this eliminated any strong bbq smell. I was skeptical but when we left, there was no bbq smell on our clothes or hair. Score!
I would go back just for the Honey Toast Mountain! It was the most awesome dessert! My lil cuzzo had his eye on that the moment we sat down and saw the menu. Then we saw the table next to us order it and we knew we had to have it. The 5 of us devoured that toast mountain. We wished that it had an extra scoop of ice cream.
Definitely a fun place to go for a meal! Parking is easy and cheap… Kabuki garage is the way to go.

For my Birthday I chose to come to Juban Yakiniku House. I of course as you know love to spend my time here in Japan Town and also have to have the Family happy. I had alot of different options to go drink with friends and party and be irresponsible but I chose only a small intimate gathering for a party of four.
As I arrived we were greeted very well and had a reserved table. We were promptly attended which is always what Super Serg likes. The Waitress seemed to be a bit nervous and she gets a five star rating from my end.
The menu was a bit confusing for the fam but they let me order for all of us.
I went crazy on the ordering. Of course since I didn’t have to pay but the accountant paid. lol
I had the Juban Salad and we also ordered 2 Tomato Salads which were not as tasty as my Juban Salad.
We ordered 2 bowls of steamed Rice, 2 orders of Sweet Onions, Asparagus, and 2 orders of Zucchini.
For our main course we ordered a bunch of goodies.
2 orders of Filet Mignon, Rib Eye Rosu, Outside Skirt steak, 2 orders of Chicken Breast, and 3 orders of White Prawns.
A few diet drinks and water as well as a lemonade.
Total amount came out to $ 140.00 + tip.
I even got a Birthday Candle and a Birthday song.
Super Serg really is appreciative to a wonderful night in the city !!!