XO Karaoke

Came by this place for a very late reservation. They stay open until around 3am, which is nice. The people working here were quite upset in general and not very friendly or helpful. There is pretty much no service, so you have to go and get your own drinks. The bathroom was unbelievably bad, overflowing toilets and urinals, it was beyond nasty. Ugh, I’m getting the chills thinking about it again. Avoid.

I’ve only been here once before for a Holiday party and it was a lot of fun! We rented out a fairly huge room for 15 of us and it was prefect. A good selection of songs, but none of them were reallllly new (but thats okay because all you need is No Scrubs, right?) They also have a bar for those who need some liquid encouragement.
Sadly I wanted to book another party here but now they are only doing 19+ rooms so I had to choose a more family friendly spot. Too bad because I really liked this place!
xo xo xo

Had my most recent bday there with a group of friends and we got WILD AND CRAZY! Rooms are affordable, song selex decent, remote a bit hard to figure out, harder if you’re drunk, but overall a great experience every time I go. Do be careful that if some friends leave early that they leave you money for the tab tho, as you can get caught up in the heat of the moment and when it’s time to pay the tab only the last few drunkards are left to front the bill.

I ordered a large room for 3 hours for 15+ persons.
Pros: Nice room, very clean, helpful and personable staff members, in room service, individual AC in room, large song selection
Cons: Unidirectional mics that a lot of people had trouble singing into, only two mic inputs available for a room that can hold 15 – 25 people seems like a bit of a rip off as well, tricky song selection system, some songs didn’t have words, some songs had the wrong words, some songs weren’t even karaōke versions of the song and others were low quality midi versions, no remote volume control
Even more cons: Your room is calculated as one large tab (drinks everyone ordered, and room fee), it’s absolutely ridiculous to try to sort it out at the end of the night when you have over 15 people and honestly a little fishy (why aren’t we allowed to pay for drinks up front like other karaōke places?)
A large room here is also 60 $ an hour plus tax, this is more expensive than Bar+, and with a worse sound system and crappy mics I probably wouldn’t come here again.

Time travel. The concept has always fascinated me.
However, XO has taught me that time travel in real life is fraught with danger, annoyance, and confusion.
As you walk up the stairs, you are heading through a time portal back to the mid 2000s. There is no warning, so heed mine.
Your first challenge will be a classic test from that time period… deciphering a tragically designed TV system, with a bizarre remote control set up.
Possible fix #1: If you can’t see the remote because the room is dark, and some things are glowing, it’s a black light. A classic tool of misdirection from that era, though normally reserved for top 40 clubs. Look for the other light switch.
Possible fix #2: You might want to call your parents for help. Maybe all the times you taught them how to send a text message will pay off now.
Possible fix #3: Bring someone who is Master of the old technologies AND reads Korean. (yes, both)
If you’ve passed your first test, you are now flipping through a huge binder of songs. Cancel that. You are waiting for someone else who is flipping through the binder, because there is only one song binder.
Be patient when waiting. You will judge your friends for taking too long to choose their songs. But don’t forget where you are, and more importantly, WHEN you are. Song selection is not easy. Not here. Not now.
Hope is a dangerous thing. Be careful about getting your hopes up when you see an Artist that you love. There is an 80% chance that the song selection is completely irrational.
Pearl Jam? — hopefully your favourite songs are I am Mine or Light Years.
RHCP? — no Under the bridge. no Scar tissue
Pink F_​_​_​_​? — no. zero. but there are 300 Pink songs
Perhaps the worst offender was Kelly Clarkson. Undoubtedly, nobody will be listening to her music by the time you read this, but in that era she was famous for a song called Since you’ve been gone. Although the binder held about 50 of her songs, this was not one of them… except — wait… it’s listed as «Gone» !
nope. That’s just some other song called «Gone». Nevermind.
My best explanation for XO’s song list is that they acquired the collection via FTP from a bar mitzvah DJ. Unfortunately, they messed up the file transfer and ended up with the 80% least played songs.
2 stars because it’s still karaōke, and it’s cheap, and it’s one of the few time portals in this city.

20 per hour for a small room, 40 per hour for a medium room. Very reasonable price. I actually went there twice and become a fan of this place. Their sound system is not too bad, it’s not hard to order songs by remote controller. Service was good. Alcohol price is expensive. Suggestions: bring your own drink, so you can save a lot of money but still have fun.

This is a solid kareoke, good selection of English songs everything from bsb, nsync, j timberlake, etc.
Place is relatively clean, room came with 2 mics for 4 ppl.
The tv could use improvement, and sometimes the sound cut off at the beginning of a song but no big deal.
Overall very good time, paid 20 $ an hour

Just had celebrated a friends’ birthday last weekend and this place was disastrous. Only ended up there because our favourite place was fully booked.
They wouldn’t let us order at the bar and insisted on putting everything onto the room bar tab. This obviously was not ideal especially when some people were coming and going. You’d think that it would be more be the more responsible way of handling payment for beverages.
Rooms were so poorly ventilated that it was sweltering hot. The Karaōke machine crashed at one point probably from the heat. In the 5 hours I was there I had asked 3 times for toilet paper to be restocked and it was never done — I eventually had to get one of the girls to smuggle me a few sheets from the women’s washroom. I really would like NOT to defecate myself, thanks.
Lastly, the song selection for non-​chinese songs are very very slim. I couldn’t even find a fairly popular kaoraoke song like Lady Gaga’s «Bad Romance» or Styx’s «Mr.Roboto» in their poorly laid out song system. It was also incredibly hard to even navigate their menus.

Karaōke system in medium and the large room we were moved to was terrible. It would play songs without music or the reverse, without lyrics. The microphones barely worked, in fact they mostly didn’t. We had to constantly adjust the settings to keep it from being too quiet to deafening from one song to the next.
The rooms were dirty, unventilated so they felt sweaty. Pumping a/​c into an unventilated room might cool it down (even in the winter) but it doesn’t solve the fresh air problem. Get a proper HVAC system!
The biggest scam here is the tab. Rather than letting everyone in a large group just pay for their own drinks as they go, they purposefully complicate the bill by opening a communal tab so at the end of the night, there’s no way to figure who ordered what from a group of 20 people, or better yet, how much of what was ordered, especially when some people have left early.
If you get stuck in this scenario, someone is going to get stuck paying for drinks they didn’t order or no one ordered, but I suggest you give your receipts to the host to make sure to the bill isn’t overpaid by all since the guy collecting payment was not updating the total as he went along.
Very shady payment practices here and this is definitely a method for ripping people off.
Better suggestion: go elsewhere. Karaōke is supposed to be fun and this place is a major downer.

FatCat see Pretty Lady on dance floor of night club one night. So FatCat smooth his way over to her on dance floor, get her attention, and start dancing with her. FatCat thinking to himself «You one smoooth cat, FatCat… Good work.».
Just as FatCat thinking of moving to next step. Pretty Lady leaning over to FatCat, like she want to say something in FatCat’s ear. FatCat get excited… FatCat have expectation of hearing something enticing and seductive from Pretty Lady.
But BIG disappointment for FatCat. FatCat hear total opposite of expectations… «I want you to buy me a drink»… Very crass. FatCat turned off… turned off fast… faster than lights turning off during most recent blackout in Toronto.
Much like FatCat’s experience at XO recently where FatCat go for broken-leg-friend’s birthday party. XO worker complain to FatCat about not getting tip…
Things FatCat Like (give XO 4 stars)
— Room was very big and plenty of space for everyone — FatCat rolling 15 deep.(FatCat learn «rolling 15 deep» from hip-​hop friend)
— Lots of good songs on Karaōke machine — FatCat not find «wake me up before you go go» by Wham, but FatCat make up for it by singing «Mama said knock you out» by LL Cool J. FatCat thinking both songs have same message? FatCat not good with english so FatCat not know for sure…
Things FatCat not Like. (take away 1 star)
— FatCat thinking that actually asking someone for tip is in very bad taste under any circumstance, but especially on this night. FatCat and company have to coming out of room every time to get own drinks at bar because worker not come in to see if anyone need anything. So no tip very justified. But XO not agree I guess. FatCat easily give 20% tip for good service… but FatCat not auto-​tip like mindless robot.
SIDE NOTE: Btw. FatCat not forget about night club story. FatCat respond to Pretty Lady when she asking for drink… FatCat say like this. «Pretty Lady… FatCat would have been glad to buy you as many drinks as you want tonight… But absolutely no class in asking FatCat for it so bluntly… before you even have chance to chat with FatCat a little». Then FatCat tell Pretty Lady to enjoy rest of night and FatCat walk away.

The beer is overpriced and the place often smells like urinal cakes, but this is a good place to come with friends if you’re longing for a night of drunken singing off key and spending much more money than you should. The song selection is a bit outdated, but if, like my friends and I, you care more about songs from your childhood, then that’s perfectly fine.

Beware of the stairs! They should have this in flash on their website, as someone who nearly face planted the final set going down, they are steep and damn awkward when you have had a few drinks/​are wearing heels!
That said a group of 10 of us went to XO on Saturday, ready to screech along to our favourite songs. They have a decent selection of music, we were right on the top floor, fine getting up there… more difficult to manage on the journey back down. Black lights on, main lights out, long island ice tea in hand and I was ready to to belt out some «living on a prayer» and «if I could turn back time». For 10 of us, assuming we were in a mid-​sized room, there was not enough room for all of us to attempt the «Single Ladies» dance — especially the run at the wall bit haha!
Service with a smile… don’t expect it. I drink very fast as do some of my other friends and I do not think the girl seemed to get more and more miserable each time we called for service. On one occasion she walked in and out again without taking our order… just rude!
The washrooms… nothing quite like trying to perch on the loo whilst also holding the door closed!
The other noteworthy point is that everyone can hear you, my friend commented that she did not need to know which room we were in because she heard me from the floor below!
Despite all my bitching, I did have a good night. Get a decent group together, be prepared to sing your heart out… the time flies by!

Poor customer service (had or room booked incorrectly by a week), lack of help with basic questions, poor ventilation in rooms, medium selection of songs. Bar Plus, although not in Korea town, is much better.

XO is an all right, sort of, kind of, OK karaōke bar in Koreatown. It’s a sticky, sweaty place with thirteen rooms (in three sizes) that smells like beer and hot bodies. According to their website, it’s $ 20 per hour for a five person room. $ 40 for a 10 person room, and $ 60 for a 20 person room. Pretty standard for this strip, I believe.
As our group grew over the evening, we graduated from a medium to a large room. The large room was awkwardly laid out. I took the liberty of graphing price per person, quantity of people, and a coefficient of fun[1] against time:
As you can see, the sweet spot of fun peaks for the middle-​sized room. As your group and room gets larger, service grinds to a halt, the awkward layout makes it harder for everyone to see the screen and the general experience is less fun. This is science, people, don’t argue.
The staff are also a touch on the defensive. It’s true that hipsters like to sneak in alcohol in back-​pocket flasks, but having the servers declare that they «will catch you» was a bit Tommy-​Lee-​Jones-​esque and offputting. Add the decrepit facilities and this place makes BarPlus on Yonge street look like Caesar’s Palace. And since their prices are only marginally higher for facilities that are exponentially classier, I’ll probably be taking my karaōke needs downtown from now on.
Obligatory Title Pun: I am NAUGHT likely to CROSS paths with them again.
Menu Readability: I found their songbook a bit hard to navigate to be honest.
Need to mention: Lots of stairs. Be wary drunkos.
What this place teaches me about myself: Yeah, I’ll graph out my karaōke experiences. Wanna fight about it?
_​_​_​_​_​
[1] Coefficient of fun is a unitless measure that combines Enjoyment, Glee, Mirth and Happiness. It is inversely proportional to the coefficient of lame.

XO is a fun karaōke bar in K-​town, on par with nearby BMB Karaōke. It’s upstairs, just next to Clinton’s. It’s a great place to head after dancing! They are open until 3am on weekends, although last call at the bar is 2am. The rooms come in S, M, and L sizes and prices are good. For a small room for 4 people, it’s $ 20/​hour. The song selection is alright. Most of the new releases are not in English, but they’ll have enough classics to keep your group entertained. They had 3 microphones in our room, which is great for those group numbers! Most other places only have 2 microphones. Staff are helpful and nice. They explained how to use the machine and we had no problems. It was almost closing when we went, and they gave us bottled water and pop for free! Not as good as Bar+, but pretty solid if you happen to be in the ‘hood.

Xo, there are a few reasons why I love you.
Somehow, although «Love Shack» wasn’t listed in the booklet, you made it happen. Also, you brought all of us drinks and shots and overall happiness.
The place itself is nothing special– kind of dirty, some songs didn’t quite work at first, and the remote was not really explained to us so we tried to make it work for longer than is reasonable– but all in all, its provided plenty of photo opportunities, awkward and amazing drunken musical moments with friends, and an excellent way to say goodbye to Toronto.

My friend invited a huge group here for her birthday party, and thanks to this shithole, it was total disaster.
Most of the people were already in the booth when my four friends and I arrived. When we got there, there was no one at the bar, so we decided to look for them on the second floor. Halfway up the stairs, the guy working starts yelling and swearing at us from the bar. He has the nerve to accuse us of trying to steal equipment! Because apparently the upstairs was forbidden and there was an invisible flashing sign with nonexistent «do not cross» tape all over the stairs. We try to explain to him that we didn’t know, we’ve never been here before and we’re just trying to find the friend. He threatens to kick us out if we don’t apologize for trespassing and plead guilty. Well, excuse me!
One of my friends decides to call the party-​host, who shows up and saves us from the killjoy guy-​behind-​the-​bar (who really should be behind bars). The hallway smells like piss and the karaōke room feels greasy and dirty. None of us felt like partying much from what happened. Apparently the others suffered similar treatment; the host had called and confirmed twice for her reservation, but when she shows up the guy is pointedly rude and denies any such thing. We were left with the second-​class karaōke system, because those who did have reservations got the best equipment. In all, we spent about two hours singing and was charged a ridiculously high price for the substandard treatment from the barkeep. Stay away from this place!
P. S., I think it makes sense why they call it XO. If you look at XO sideways, it looks like a person crying out in pain. You’ve been warned.

I quite like this place. Everytime I’ve been here with my friends, we’ve stayed for two hours and were not charged over the basic room fee, which is quite good in my opinion since the other to go place is BMB in Koreatown. The song collection is quite recent as they update it monthly, which is good if you happen to be quite concerned about how recent their music is.
You can bring in your own drinks since we’ve done it once, and most karaōke establishments tend to be quite picky about that. I think we just got lucky with avoiding trouble concerning the drinks policy. So I’d just advise anyone who wants to avoid the drinks fees to drink beforehand and then come here.
Despite this place being my number one choice for karaōke in the Christie Korea-​town, there are a few things that I wasn’t too happy about. The first time I went there last winter, the rooms were quite cold, but the heating seems to have gotten better since I haven’t heard myself or my friends complaining about the heating recently.
If you happen to be picky about mic quality, the mics’ may have problems with their feedback. The last two times I went, that was the main problem. They do switch the mics though. As for cleanliness, it’s not that bad, we found one empty beer bottle hidden underneath the table top that they didn’t clean up, but it wasn’t so bad that it was detrimental to our karaōke experience.
I just hope that the next time I go there the rooms are completely clean and the mic problems are fixed. It wasn’t pleasant hearing feedback from the mics while singing a song.

XO Karaōke
Look XO, we’ve had some good times, some great times and a LOT of sweaty, ugly pics. But it seems like you haven’t changed since 2002. Oh sure, it was great at the time when you were constantly getting new songs from the White Stripes or The Strokes but what have you done for me lately?
You’re like that (proverbial) guy I taught ESL with in Japan in my 20s who decided to hang back «just a little bit longer» but now you’re in your 40s and rocking a gross ponytail and going to underground sex clubs in Tokyo because everyone else has moved on. Now the only difference is you are stingy with the echo and music volume controls and I have to summon the staff to move a dial when every other karaōke joint in Toronto let’s me do it myself.
And the art on the walls? FML!

I haven’t been here and years, and it feels like the song selection’s gotten smaller. I’m talking about the English songs, by the way, as we’re a bunch of cultural imperialists who appropriate other people’s entertainment and add a fuckload of beer.
P. S. They will bring beer to your room! You will need a lot.
The staff is really awesome about tolerating belligerent drunks, though – we stayed well past closing, but the front desk guy was really gracious and didn’t make us feel like we had to hurry out of there. Props to him!