Sorabol

Parking is terrible! The lot is small and so we had to go round and round for street parking. Having said that, the kalbi and kalbi stew was really good! Would definitely get those two dishes again even thought they are expensive. But what isn’t in Hawaii. The price of paradise so they say. We had a party of eight and the service was ok. Not as bad as some reviews say but not a 5 * restaurant. It’s about on par with other Chinese/​Korean restaurants in this price range.

*EVERYONE MUST READ*
I would give this place 0 stars because this place very much deserves it.
This is a SHADY ASS korean establishment that I myself, as a korean been going since I was a young girl since the 90’s. Well fast forward to today which most koreans DONT come here bc the food is shitty and ppl are getting ripped off by these shady ass waitresses and owners.
So I was given a $ 20 Sorabol gift card by my mother who received it as a gift, but she, herself didnt even want it because she knows how SHITTY THE FOOD AND PPL ARE. maybe I should’ve caught on with why someone didnt even want to keep a free gift card from sorabol.
Well I did when i revisited this crappy ass restaurant and remembered WHY to NEVER EVER RETURN AGAIN. I came here with my non korean bf and really, got the shitty end of the stick.
We ordered the meat jun and chicken lunch combo that costs you 20 $ for 1 pc of meat jun and 1 pc of chicken. GO TO YUMMYS instead: better quality food and worth your money! And i order this measley shitty ass cold noodle. Our bill came out to $ 40. I gave my debit card and put the gift card over my debit and the waitress comes back with the most obvious, fake act and said she didnt see the gift card and charged tye whole bill onto my card. She was telling me to come back again and use it next time bc its a «complicated» task to refund my money back on my card. She told me that they thought it was a point card for everytime you dine. THAT SOUNDS LIKE A CROCKFUL OF SHIT. How come I NEVER heard about this point system? These bitches really must think im some retard and thought I would eat it up and politely tell them that okay. NO! This is the typical shady ass korean ppl excuse. Like really? I know what theyre trying to pull and thats BS. After i told her that i wasnt coming back, she left and charged the correct amount. Then she drops the check and waits to see if I leave her tip, so i gave her this look and she decides to walk behind me while my bf is looking at her and while im signing my check, she peers over my shoulders behind me to see if i was leaving tip. WTF!!! And if there is a point card system… how come she didnt offer to give me points!!!
WHAT A LAME ASS EXCUSE AND SHAME ON YOU SORABOL FOR RUNNING YOUR BUSINESS LIKE THAT. WHAT A DISGRACE TO KOREANS AND HOW COULD YOU DO THAT ESPECIALLY TO YOUR OWN PPL!!! AVOID THIS SHADY PLACE. WHAT A DISGRACE. YOU KNOW THE PLACE IS A SINKING SHIP IF THESE OWNERS GOTTA CHEAT THEIR WAY TO DOING BUSINESS JUST TO KEEP IT AFLOAT.
A MESSAGE TO SORABOL: MAYBE IF YOU PRACTICE INTEGRITY, YOUR RESTAURANT WOULDNT BE STRUGGLING AND DONT HAVE TO CHEAT YOUR CUSTOMERS. MAYBE THEY’LL WANT TO COME BACK. ITS COMMON SENSE, WHICH THIS PLACE LACKS DESPERATELY!

At first I was blown away by this restaurant. I’m very much in love with the Korean cuisine, so I am more than happy to say that I have experienced more than enough yakiniku restaurants here on Oahu. Sarabol, even on a busy night is a great place to spend with friends and family. They even have little party rooms that are available for your celebration needs. Perfect place to gather with your family and friends for a small event! How much is it? I wish I knew. I only know of it since I’ve seen it while dining there tonight.
I’m pleased with how extremely fast we were sat at our table. Whenever a restaurant is able to accommodate me as fast and quickly as possible, if is always a PLUS kudos points! Also, our food came out quickly. Even better!
The waitress we had was an adorable cute little Korean lady. I could tell my boyfriend and she had some issues with each other in the beginning but throughout our meal it became entertaining. When we go here, we always get that dinner for two special that comes along with sashimi. The dinner course for two comes with: fish Jun, Kalbi, fish, raw crab, two scoops rice, two soups and a whole bunch of Korean vegetable sides… Oh not to mention, Koreans famous seaweed!
Sarabol definitely has one of my favorite dinner course for two deals! If you haven’t tried this place, go! It’s worth it! :)

Sorabol is my mom’s restaurant of choice for kalbi, so we find ourselves here whenever she’s craving it. I always steal a little of her kalbi since I can’t bring myself to deviate from my standard order of tofu soup. The kalbi is never a disappointment. The meat is well flavored (savory and not overly sweet) and cooked perfectly. It is also not overly fatty. Our only gripe is that the kalbi is a bit expensive for a lunch special, which is usually more reasonably priced. For $ 17 during lunch hour, it would be nice to get 3 kalbi (versus just 2).
The tofu soup is pretty spicy, but as long as I have my water constantly refilled, I thoroughly enjoy it. They are very generous with the tofu (my favorite part), so I always leave feeling satisfied.

Check you bill.
I am a haole who goes to Sorabol a few times a year for the past 12 years or so. Its like a dozen Korean cuisines all under the same roof. I enjoy the ginseng chicken, seafood pancake and they cook a great saba. I’ve never had a bad meal there. Side dishes are SOP, kind of boring though.
Old fashion Seoul style service. Less than courteous however wait time is always quick, even when they’re packed. They haven’t gotten the memo that customer service is now in, even in South Korea.
In three consecutive dinings they’ve padded my bill a few dollars. As far as I know they’ve been doing it for years. Considering the fact that Sorabol is already on pricy side for what you get, its annoying.
They whisk the menus away from you quickly, even before you’re done ordering. This time I asked to keep one menu and they still took it away a minute later. I got in the habit of photographing the menu item I order with my phone before I order. Three consecutive dines and each time one item is priced $ 1 higher and another item is $ 2 high. Maybe they have a $ 3 haole tax or they do that to all their customers, who knows. Its petty.
When I bring it to the attention of the woman at the cash register, she apologizes and three times now claims I accidently received a bill from another table however my printed bill states the proper items I ordered, just with higher prices.
I’ll continue to dine at Sorabo and its a good place to bring island visitors who have a hankering for anything Korea.
Check you bill. Hopefully yours will be correct.

This place has fallen of the map. It’s service it terrible. I went with a group of four and none of us got our food at the same time. We even got out appetizers after some of our entrees. The waitress rushed everything and brought our bill at the same time as our food. It was the worst service I’ve experienced at any restaurant. I wouldn’t go back and don’t recommend anyone else try it.

Ok, food was decent, nice place to eat late at night cause it’s 24 hours. Buuuuuut, servers definitely need a lesson in manners…
Ate here with a friend and we split the check, he left a cash tip and the server made a comment about it saying «this isn’t even 15%, not knowing that I left her the difference on my card.
Anybody that knows the service industry would know that is completely unacceptable to say no matter what the client leaves you! Extremely rude. So unfortunately we will never come back to this place.

So my BFF took me here for the first time and popped my Sorabol cherry. She comes here often with her family. I must say, very authentic Korean food. I really enjoyed it and it was tasty! Great service too!

I gave this restaurant five stars because the waitress was pleasant/​efficient, the food arrived quickly, there was a lot of sides that came with the meal and everything we ordered was tasty. We had the japchae, Kalbi ribs, bi bim bap and pig’s feet. Way too much food for three people, especially since you get soup, rice and selection of sides.

There’s something strangely comforting going into a place where every single waitress looks like one of your friend’s moms. I was feeling hungry for kalbi jjim the other day, and when you want a dish that’s not commonly served in our local Korean restaurants, you end up at Sorabol.
Not all of the food here is expensive, just the good food that you’d actually want to order. Of course, you can order some cheap dishes like bi bim bap or soon du bu, but then again you could just as easily make that at stuff at home. The kalbi and kalbi jjim here are both really good. The restaurant even serves samgyetang and gopchang. I would rate this place higher had it not cost $ 100 for three people on my past visit.

First time here in a while. Had read some of the reviews here on Unilocal and wasn’t sure if we should have our mom’s birthday dinner here, but wanted to try somewhere different for a change.
The banchan, or small side dishes, were of a standard nature. Kimchi, potato salad, bean sprouts, steamed cabbage and shredded daikon kimchi were good. But I especially enjoyed the kkakdugi (cubed turnip kimchi), crunchy and flavored with just the right balance of heat and acidity.
We ordered the brisket, and were a little disappointed to find that the portion sizes weren’t as good as where we normally go for Korean yakiniku.
I had the Sanchae Bibimbap, mixed rice with a variety of vegetables and beef. My sister ordered a variation of this, served in a hot stone bowl, which required her to stir ingredients that continued to cook in the ultra hot cast iron bowl.
The kimchi pajun (pancake) was ok. Mom’s Sundubu Jigae (spicy tofu stew with clams and vegetables) looked delicious. I suppose it was, being that she ate the entire bowl!
The rest of us were served and light seaweed broth with our meals, and of course, steamed white rice. Two generous piles of green leaf lettuce also accompanied the meal, to create lettuce wraps with some rice, meat, veggies and gochujang (fermented chili and soy paste) for a bite full of flavor.
Prices seemed a bit high for the amount of food we received. I think next time we’ll go back to our old favorite, where we get twice as much meat for less than what we paid here.
The service was exceptionally good, and the food was all right.
There is a parking lot, but when it gets very busy it’s $ 3 valet only.

I love this place. Very authentic. Dinner is a little pricey but service and food is awesome. They also have a full sushi bar which is always fresh. I love the korean ajjumas, they are all so cute and hard working. Shelley is my FAVORITE! ^^ They also have valet. Oh and if youre lucky you can meet famous korean people, it is the go to Korean restaurant!

After a night of karaōke and comparing cute cat pictures while we were suppose to be discussing where to eat, it came down to Sorabol korean food or Liliha Bakery (both of which I’ve personally never been to.) We all decided on Korean food and even then we challenged Korean food with Korean bbq.
Being from Seattle, there’s not many Korean places that open late. I think the latest we have is 11pm with last customers served at 10/10:30pm. So access to Korean food any time of day is awesome! (Sikdorak & Sorabol)
We had a party of 13, so we got our own private room. 9 of our guests arrived and they allowed us to order on ahead. Most of our table ordered the bi bim bap but I really wanted jjigae (stew.) Once we ordered, we got two sets of ban chan right when the rest of our party arrived.
Soft tofu & clam jjigae $ 11.99 — I thought it wasn’t flavorful and paired with rice it tasted really plain. My cousin, who got the same thing, also agreed that it tasted really plain. We both added some kimchi into the stew and it helped a little bit but all in all, it tasted too plain. The tofu was indeed soft but I was really looking forward to the clam — of which I received 2. and part of a shell. None of it fell off into the soup there was just 2 pieces. Ah, I was so sad. And for $ 12 I thought I would AT LEAST get 4.
It seemed like everyone finished their food over half way (3am feeling: you’re either hungry or you think you’re hungry.)
We had a cute ajuma take care of us. She was very nice and polite but she left us alone for most of our meal.
Once everyone was done and we received our check, we started separating everything ourselves. It was kind of surprising that they didn’t add gratuity since our party was so large as we couldn’t find it anywhere on the ticket. Also, it was kind of hard to understand because the written ticket and the register ticket were a $ 2 difference.
We went up to the cashier to pay. Since I was the only one of the two paying with card, I paid first. After I paid, I went to the bathroom and when I came out everyone was already outside talking about the bill.
I guess our cashier demanded a gratuity of 19%~ for our bill of $ 203. On their menu or in their establishment, I didn’t see any fine print that stated if you have a large party there would be gratuity added OR being orally told by our waitress. That stuff kind of irks me because your customers would just feel ripped off if you keep adding stuff on, which is how we felt. Of course we were going to give a tip; we’re not selfish or stingy. Maybe it was just too short of a tip for them.
It was an okay experience, but I wouldn’t come back any time soon.

Korean restaurants in Honolulu are plentiful in number, yet sparse in quality.
Sorabol is a large establishment with convenient hours, perfect for when we wanted a later meal. I imagine being open ²⁴⁄₇ makes it a popular spot for the late night weekenders.
One of the first things that stood out to me was the organization. Take out containers and napkin boxes were stacked in the middle of the dining area, which to be honest was kind of an eyesore. A Korean waitress with an angry expression (maybe normal for her) and short tone waited on us, and the food arrived surprisingly quickly.
I had ordered a bibim naengmyun, which had a large amount of noodles but very little beef (2 small slices) and vegetables (some pieces of cucumber and daikon). The sauce was also more sweet than Spicy. There has half a boiled egg and an apple slice that were a nice addition, but not nearly enough to make up for the chincey offering, especially at $ 12.
The real kicker was my friend’s bulgogi plate, which was a good sized serving of «very dry» meat for $ 23! And if that wasn’t bad enough, they rang him up for Kalbi which was $ 30! Absolutely appalling.
The only good thing I have to write about is their kimchee. Our batch in the banchan was very tangy, to the point where it felt tingly in my mouth. It really added another dimension to the meal, and I wish there was another reason to come back for more.

Came here on a Saturday evening for dinner around 5:30 PM and the place was pretty packed. Good thing we walked because there wasn’t parking available whatsoever. Even then we were seated pretty quickly.
I was actually disappointed when my aunt and her ex husband’s niece suggested coming here because I remembered the food not being very good from my last visit, but since it’s conveniently located to our condo, I didn’t make a big deal.
I ordered the al jjigae, my aunt ordered the hwei du bap and her niece ordered some stir fried octopus with noodle dish. I was pleasantly surprised that everything tasted so much better compared to my last meal here.
Glad I gave them another chance to prove me wrong… I hope they’ll keep it up!

I’ve been coming here for many years. Some days are good, others, just so so.
Soon Tubu; spicy soft tofu soup served in black hot pot, brought to the table boiling hot
Raw Beef with Egg Yolk; not my dish, but served authentically fresh beef
Ginseng Chicken; ginseng & cornish hen in broth, served in a black hot pot, which is bland and you add your own amount of salt if you wish
Oxtail Soup; nice pieces of oxtail served in hot black pot, you add your salt and pepper
Seafood Pancake; all kinds of seafood, big round Korean style crispy pancake
Side dishes; napa cabbage kimchee, turnip kimchee, cucumber kimchee, bean sprouts, shiitake mushrooms, korean spinach, sesame leaves, potato salad, fish cake, you can ask for refills and if you don’t get the side dish you’re expecting you can ask for it
Cook your own meat broiler or have them cook for you in the kitchen; Kalbi, Beef Tongue, Pork Belly,
I’ll be back

Solid Korean restaurant open ²⁴⁄₇! Who hasn’t been to Sorabol at 2:30am after a night out in town starving and in need of a some hangover prevention? This morning I came because everywhere was closed in observance of President’s day, but not Sorabol!
Atmosphere: Decorated with a traditional Korean flair. Plenty of seating available no matter the time of day.
Service: These waitresses are well tested and forged in the fire of drunk patrons and late nights. They are straight to business, as soon as you look like you are ready they are there to take your order. They also have call buttons if you need anything. They also make the food fast, I got mine in less than 5 minutes from ordering.
Food: Average Korean food. Their menu is all inclusive. I think this may hurt their ability to make great quality food because of the breadth of their menu. I ordered the galbi tang, the meat was still a bit tough and the quality of the meat was low. The broth also didn’t seem like it was cooked/​simmered for a long time either like a really good galbi tang should be. The side dishes were semi-​fresh but lacked variety.
Overall, this place is the best after-​hours but there are many other options for Korean food close by that you should look at…

Four solid stars for Sorabol! I can’t believe I haven’t written a review for this place as I’ve been coming here for years! Home cooked solid Korean food!
Sorabol is located on Keeaumoku close to Ala Moana shopping center. The place has a large parking lot and a lot of tables inside. The hosts greet you with excitement as you walk in and the servers are all super nice and friendly. Some have very limited English skills, but you can get around it.
There are a few things that I love at Sorabol.
First is the intestine hot pot /​tofu soup. The soon tofu soup is filled with the cow intestines. The meat is super chewy and tasty. The tofu soup is ordered to your preferred level of spicyness. Tons of kim chee, tofu and intestines in it. Amazing and out of this world delicious! Grade: A
Yuk Hwe Bi Bim Bap: Raw beef beef with mixed veggies and hot rice. You get the raw beef and mix in the raw egg, then put it into the stone hot pot with the hot rice and assorted veggies. Add your hot sauce (ko chu jang) and you are good to go! Grade: A–
Soon Tofu: Delicious hot pot made with kim chee, tofu and assorted seafood (primarily clams and shrimp). Made to your spicyness and served with a raw egg to crack inside of the soup while it is hot. Grade: B+
Yuk Hwe: A nice portion of sliced and serloined raw beef served with a raw egg, slices of Asian pear and cucumber. Outstanding delicious verion of Steak Tartare. One of the must haves on the menu. Grade: A!
Food Grade: A–
Service Grade: A–
Worth the Money Grade: B+
Overall Impression Grade: B+/A–

I love their intestine stew and their raw beef dish.
Been here several times and service is usually fast. Portions are usually pretty huge too.
They have a lot to park in. When it’s crowded, they offer free valet service.

It’s 3am and we’re drunk as hell after a crazy Halloween night in Waikiki. Clearly we need some food to soak up some of that alcohol. What could be better than some late night korean bbq? As we stumbled into Sorabol we were accompanied by a lot of other people who had the same idea. Eating meat jun while surrounded by ninjas, marios and zombies in the middle of the night is definitely an experience to remember.
The food here is actually pretty good. I had a combo meat jun with kalbi plate which came with pretty generous portions. The kalbi was a little tough for my liking but the meat jun was definitely tasty. Or maybe I was just drunk. Who knows. What I do know for sure though is that this place is not cheap. For just two meals our total came out to $ 50.
Overall, this is a decent place for a very late night meal despite being quite overpriced. For what it is I think it’s «A-​OK.»