Saturday, July 18. The OTD and The Dude-ess met up with friends for our once-a-month dinner night, this time at the new KPOT Korean BBQ & Hot Pot on N Tarrant Pkwy. First trip to KPOT for all four of us, so when the host asked, "BBQ, hot pot, or both?" we went with both — no way to know which we'd actually want without trying them.
For anyone who hasn't done Korean BBQ: the short version is that you're the cook. Instead of a kitchen sending out a finished plate, raw meat — thinly sliced beef, pork belly, marinated short rib, that kind of thing — gets brought straight to your table, and you cook it yourself on a small grill built into the middle of the table, usually gas-fired. You control the heat, you control how done it gets, and you eat it straight off the grill as it finishes, a few bites at a time, rather than all at once. Hot pot is the other half of KPOT's concept: instead of a dry grill, you cook thin-sliced meat, seafood, and vegetables in a pot of simmering broth at the table, then fish them out as they finish. KPOT lets you order both formats in the same visit, which is part of the draw.
We got seated quickly, which turned out to matter — the line behind us was building fast the whole time we were there, and by the time we left, it looked like a real wait for anyone walking in.
Along one wall, KPOT runs a self-serve hot bar: banchan-style side dishes, a dessert/ice cream case, and a sauce bar with a wide range of options to build your own dipping sauce. Good idea in theory. In practice, the walkway in front of it was too narrow for the number of people trying to use it at once, and it got genuinely congested every time we went to grab something.
Our server was friendly and walked us through how the meal works—but he spoke fast, and between four first-timers, we ended up needing him to slow down and repeat a few things. Once we understood the drill, a two-hour clock starts the moment you're seated and runs through the entire cook-it-yourself meal. That gave us pause going in, but we figured two hours was plenty for a group that likes to eat and talk.
Ordering is done from a tablet at the table — you pick your meats and vegetables, send it to the kitchen, and they bring it out. Ours came in three separate waves spaced apart rather than all at once, which ate into the clock more than we expected. The grill built into our table was also noticeably smaller than the ones we've used at other Korean BBQ spots, limiting how much we could cook at once.
Twice during the meal, staff asked us to stop cooking so they could swap the grill plate for a clean one—a reasonable request— but each swap took a good five minutes, and the two-hour clock kept running the entire time. By the time we were full and satisfied, we had about 35 minutes left. Three of us grabbed ice cream cups from the dessert case and settled back in to keep visiting.
That's when our server brought the check and let us know our time was almost up, so we should wrap up the table. I have never, in any restaurant, in any country, been told it was time to go.
The honest read: the food itself was good, and the overall experience was fun and loud, but not so loud that we couldn't hold a conversation across the table, and clearly popular for a spot that's been open for less than two months. I wouldn't rule out going back just to try the hot pot side properly, maybe in the winter, once the crowds have thinned out some. But being told, mid-conversation, that our table time was up and we should get moving is the kind of thing that sours an otherwise good night out — and it's the reason I probably won't be back anytime soon.
I am going to flag this as a NO for returning.