The good: I remember back in the days where Chako and Destiny ruled their respective genre of food. Presently, Chako is still going decently as a go to place for not-so-legit Korean BBQ, and yet it still has people going. It’s a one of those places where you feel like you crave it and then after going, you will totally regret that you even thought about the place. The bad: it ain’t premium meat like gyu kaku, but it’s decent. I can’t complain because it is what it is. They are all you can eat and they do have a good selection of food. The ugly: price can be a bit expensive but like I mentioned, it is all you can eat. Neutral: great for groups, come with an empty stomach, you can ask for the grill to be changed if it becomes too burnt! :)
Diana D.
Place rating: 2 Scarborough, Canada
The service and ambiance of this Korean BBQ are above average. The real miss in this place is the quality of the food and the cleanliness of the bathrooms. The experience of barbecuing meats and fish right at the table is fun and unique, but that isn’t enough to encourage repeat visits. How this place works is that you order as much raw meat, seafood, veggies and sushi as you want, then you cook it yourself. Sounds great, but the menu is extremely limited. The quality of the meat here is extremely low. The ribs are horribly fatty and plump, and the beef is a paper thin shaving of various cuts. No two orders had the same consistency. The shrimp were adequate but fishy, and the vegetables were very sad. An order of zucchini got you four dried out slices. Not even oil on them. The other meats were all marinated in a bland bbq liquid. The cocktail I ordered, as it was cocktail night, completely missed the mark. My Cosmo(the entire bar menu was a 90s wet dream, tequila sunrise and Sours) was not at all correct. I am convinced it was a screwdriver, orange juice and vodka in a martini tumbler. Not impressed. You’re better off going to the butcher and grilling at home. Plus at least your clothes won’t smell. Not interested in returning, but probably will with groups as its a non-offensive, comprise sort of place.
Joe L.
Place rating: 5 Brampton, Canada
All you can eat Meat. ALLYOUCANEATMEAT… and All You Can meat… did I say this place has all you can eat Meat… and oh ya… all you can eat Sushi too… But really you come here for the All you can eat Meat because the Sushi is subpar at best. I would describe it as kind of like going to a Chinese Restaurant and ordering a Burger so you can have it but… you already know it wont be good. Haha! This locations service is Much Much better than the location in Mississauga and the servers here are quick, attentive, and they bring out the food and drinks right after you order! I mean really how hard can it be to bring out Raw meat for you to cook yourself right? They have plenty of Protein options such as Beef, Lamb, Chicken, Pork, Shrimp, Squid, Mussels, and tons of other items as well. O yea… they have veggies such as Zucchini, Bell Peppers, and Pineapples which are so yummy on the grill! I come here every single time to feed my Bodybuilder Style Arms and Legs after an intense workout or helping my friends move into another one of their 5 houses. Come here if you need to bulk up and make sure you ear your $ 30 worth and make those servers work! Work! Work!
Aurora L.
Place rating: 3 Mississauga, Canada
Dined here on two occasions and quite a standard AYCE Korean BBQ and sushi offering. Prompt service in fulfilling our requests, removing empty dishes and changing our grills. Could really use more variety for their desserts… and larger size! The green tea and mango pudding orders came out in tiny mini cups the size of a sauce container… we had to order 3x as much on the second round! Not a really efficient use of packaging. Overall, a nice place for a gathering with family or friends.
Kevin K.
Place rating: 5 Toronto, Canada
Amazing. Clean place, attentive service, quality food. This place was great. Food was a little overcooked though… A big thing with me is i like my drink refilled constantly, like mr. pink from reservoir dogs. They were all over it. I cant think of one bad thing to say about this place. Great
Kaitlin O.
Place rating: 2 Toronto, Canada
Poor customer service. We had a reservation for 2:15 and when we got there they said they put the reservation in for 2:30 which isn’t a problem except for the rude way the hostesses dealt with the issue. The meal and serving staff were fast and accommodating so the meal itself was good. We had a great time until I left my phone at my table and I called to make sure they had it. The girl said no problem and they will hold onto it for me but when I got there they gave me an extremely hard time to get it back and ended with«if you leave something here next time I’m going to sell it on eBay» from the manager as he laughed at me. I worked in restaurants before and people are more than happy to return a phone or wallet to a customer. There won’t be a next time at all for me here when there are other Korean barbecue places to go.
Jessie L.
Place rating: 2 Toronto, Canada
Very unimpressive kbbq here. I didn’t come here with high expectations, but Chako seriously disappointed. The meat is very meh. Everything was just meh. It was a pretty forgettable meal. The main problem I have is that I’ve had better kbbq for cheaper. Also, don’t order the sushi here, it was pretty sloppily made and didn’t taste that great. Overall a very lackluster experience.
Mathieu B.
Place rating: 3 Roxboro, Canada
You know when you go to a AYCE Korean BBQ there can be some issue with quality and freshness but there isn’t here. The food is fresh and even if it feels like they are always missing some stuff ’cause you order way too much I had a lot of fun, The service was OK, as I had to get almost too noisy to get some of out super busy waiters to get rice. Instead of asking who needed more rice he just said yes, went to get the rice and somebody else at the table then proceed to ask him for more but he was already gone. In his defense, the place was super packed but if the place is always that packed they should get more staff to increase the quality of the service. Overall we didn’t wait much to get our first order, the food was good.
Adrian C.
Place rating: 3 North York, Canada
I usually eat kbbq downtown but for the times I have to go north I go to chako. It is the same as other kbbq places. I can’t complain. I love kbbq. Kbbq anywhere is good with me
Val K.
Place rating: 1 Toronto, Canada
Let me start out by saying the bbq here is pretty awesome. What I had issues here with is how the bill was handled. They charge an auto 10 percent tip for all party sizes, which is fine, but the menu didn’t make mention of this. What’s worse is that my server hid the bill from me and just gave me the credit card machine in hopes of me not realizing there is a pre tip and so that I tip a full amount on top. Only after submitting an additional 15 percent tip on top of the 10, did I realize something was not adding up. I asked the server to see the bill(he was still holding it far from my view) and automatically he started playing defence telling me some untruthful story how the pre tip is only for the bus boys and not the servers. It was a long day and so I left it as is. But I’ll have second thoughts about coming back given this experience.
Elaine K.
Place rating: 3 Markham, Canada
I came here with my brother and cousin for an impromptu dinner. The food was pretty good. I really enjoyed the ox tongue. Service was very very friendly. I’ve never had somebody ask to refill my water/pop so often! A decent spot, but a bit pricey considering the amount of options and if you’re not a literal eating machine.
Cindy W.
Place rating: 3 Toronto, Canada
I’ve been here twice and from those two experiences I say dinner service is much better in terms of selection for meats and seafood compared to lunch time. Wish they had more selection for vegetables too. Service is quick and attentive. DONOTORDERSUSHI. Ordered a cucumber roll one time, poor presention and the«cucumber» was pretty much just the skin of the cucumber. All on all average place for bbq. Would probably go again if I’m hankering for some meat.
Enid C.
Place rating: 4 Toronto, Canada
Came here afew times and its always been good. Fairly large restaurant and service has always been good, busy or not. Love grilling all the yummy meat. The only problem I had was that the chicken pieces were too large to completely cook and burns before it’s fully cooked. Although this isnt the traditional Korean BBQ, the prices are very good considering it’s AYCE. Make sure to get as much short ribs and beef you can eat to get your moneys worth. The downside is that it can get really smokey and cancerous inside!
Kay C.
Place rating: 1 Markham, Canada
KBBQ in Toronto is meh as fuck but this place is the meh-est of the meh. I don’t care how extensive your menu is if everything on it tastes like chalk. The Chako in Richmond Hill used to be good when it first open but everything since then went to shit. I don’t even bother ordering the sushi. Compared to the KBBQ in Cali: They have barely any side dishes. Meat quality is not worth the price. It’s rubbery and tough, and no matter how you cook it, it’s hard to chew. If you think the marinated meat here tastes anywhere close to good, then I pity your virgin taste buds. They often cut the pieces too thick and it tastes like it’s been sitting out. Don’t get me started on service. My friends and I are speaking English so the middle-aged female manager thinks we don’t understand Canto and rudely tells our server right in front of us to get us to leave because our time is up. First of all, we had 20 minutes left on our 2 hour seating limit. Second, your restaurant had plenty of empty tables so it’s not as if any potential customers are waiting. If it was up to me, I wouldn’t have even come here after it closed down for food safety violations(insect infestation) in 2014.
Kevin S.
Place rating: 4 Mississauga, Canada
This was my first time at a Korean BBQ spot and I was really impressed. The food came out really quickly and was really good quality. We ordered one of everything on the menu and doubled up on most of the meats. I guess the idea of having to cook your own food at a restaurant sounds weird to me but it makes sense because you can cook everything the way you like it. I did wish they had more of a selection of meats for lunch, but the dinner menu has some more interesting options and also includes some sushi. Overall, Chako was a great experience but watch out who is cooking the food because there will always be that one person who forgets about something and burns some of the food.
Vanessa C.
Place rating: 4 Toronto, Canada
We came here for all you can eat Korean BBQ and it was pretty good. The service was pretty fast and the waiter constantly made sure our water was filled. The menu isn’t very big for lunch. It had peppers, zuchini, green salad, miso soup, chicken, pork, sliced beef, beef ribs, squid, three kinds of Korean side dishes, and two flavours of ice cream. At night, you’ll have sushi options too. But sushi isn’t very good there. All the meats were marinated nicely but the beef ribs were cut pretty thick so it took forever to cook. Other than that, not much to say about the food. They were pretty good. If you’re a big eater, beware that the waiter only changes the grill plate once so if you eat a lot, you’ll probably have a hard time cooking your food near the end without getting burnt stuff all over your food. We found out the hard way! This is probably one of the better Korean BBQ places around. Prices are a little higher than say Korean Grill House but food is marinated better too.
Dan L.
Place rating: 1 Markham, Canada
just want to get this out of the way. i absolutely HATE korean bbq, but i’ll try to be as unbiased about this as i can. I just don’t like the idea of paying to cool my own food. paying $ 30 at that. the only reason i came was because it was a friends birthday. how many people can even eat close to $ 30 worth of food at a kbbq place? it’s so expensive. all you’re doing at the end of the day, is throwing pre-marinated meat onto a grill. i’d really rather go spend my $ 30 at a nice restaurant and get a nice rare steak. often times, you’re either over/under cooking certain meats and sometimes burning them cus you forget while in conversation with your group. the only things i actually enjoyed eating were the beef ribs and pineapple. speaking of pineapple, Brazilian steak house would be even better. WAY better. however, obviously, people do for some reason like korean bbq. so there must be some sort of appeal to it, and if you like it, then maybe you’ll like this. or if you haven’t tried kbbq. maybe this is a not so bad place to try it. verdict: i really don’t know why people are willing to pay $ 30 to cook their own food. I really hate to do this. because i always want to give places a chance. but this will have to be my first 1 star review. sorry.
Rupa S.
Place rating: 2 Markham, Canada
2⁄5 for food, service was alright could be way better, had to wait 15 mins to pay because of lack of machines. It was my first time and I didn’t know what flavours/mix ins to put in… obviously asked for some tips and the waiter either didn’t understand me or didn’t know. Either way, it was fine — I tried the squid and chicken. I found it to be bland and taking a long time to cook despite putting soy sauce and bbq sauce it as bland! I asked for lemon to spruce it up. The kimchi was good as was the tofu. I’m not sure I like the sauces they offer for flavour it was bland, took a long time. Mango ice cream was good. The waiter when paying said the gratuity was split among everyone and that it’s not just for him and that if we wanted– we could give HIM something — um like you want extra on top of substantial gratuity despite being a party of only three ?! Awkward and undeserved because of the service
Vi L.
Place rating: 2 Markham, Canada
Chako is alright. It is where you go when you’re hungry with a group of friends late at night. Sushi is not very good, but the meat is okay. If you’re going at regular dinner-price, it might be better to choose something else because it is pretty pricey. I think they were shut down for a while for health violations, but I don’t think they really changed anything.
Ven H.
Place rating: 5 Flushing, Queens, NY
I went to Chako for my graduation lunch. It a an amazing all you can eat Korean BBQ. The short ribs were the best. Make sure you eat a lot of them. Lunch wad really affordable. $ 15/person. Lunch has salad, short ribs, chicken, pork, beef, calamari, tilapia fish fillets, pineapple, zucchini, red pepper and ice cream. Dinner has a coupe more cuts of meat and sushi but is a little bit more expensive. The service was super fast and the food was amazing. We ate non-stop for 2 hours. The restaurant was quite big and could hold maybe 30 – 40 people. It was nice and modern. Overall, affordable and tasty. Highly recommend. Definitely can’t find a place like this in where I am from, NYC.