In 5 words: 5 stars for Exit 5!
I hadn't been to a Korean BBQ restaurant, especially for lunch, in years, so I was looking forward to being invited over for lunch with a group of a dozen others on a Tuesday.
Exit 5 is located in The Landing, a large shopping center in Renton. It's in a building shaped like a quarter circle, and the Korean BBQ restaurant is located on the round portion of this quarter circle next to ShareTea. If you're facing Regal Cinemas and Five Guys, turn around; Exit 5 is just on the other side of 10th Pl.
Ordering is done on a tablet, which there is one of on each table. With the exception of the banchan, we weren't planning to share our orders, so we would have preferred separate checks. I thought that meant each of us would have to place an order individually, but one of the others who has been there before mentioned they can do separate checks even if we place one large order for the whole table.
For my portion, I went with the lunch box, which is pretty much a bento box. It was lunchtime when we went*, so I figured it'd only make sense to order a lunch box; it's also worth mentioning that dinner options were available to order during lunchtime. For the lunch box option, they have four choices of meat: Beef, Spicy Pork, Chicken, and Katsu. Actually, the laminated menu did list Salmon as a choice, but Salmon was not listed as such on the tablet. If it were listed, I would have chosen the Salmon, but alas, I settled for the Beef.
I estimated the wait time to be about 15 minutes for my lunch box. Another tablemate also ordered a lunch box, but got chicken instead. Her lunch box was ready before mine was; I suppose the choice of protein was the reason why I waited longer?
At first, I wasn't totally sure how large a lunch box was, especially since the laminated menu didn't even specify this information, so when our server, Eric, came to our table to drop off some orders, I asked him what a lunch box would look like. He had a couple ready to show me, though they were for others at the other table. I especially appreciated how Eric was very patient and helpful, especially when answering my questions and processing our payments when we asked for separate checks.
Regardless of your choice of protein, a lunch box will typically contain two orange halves, two gyoza, a mound of white rice, a small salad, and a dipping sauce that was kind of like soy sauce, but I don't think it was soy sauce. The size was much bigger than I was expecting; in fact, the tablemate who had the chicken lunch box was impressed I was able to finish the whole box for lunch whereas she was only able to eat half, and I guess she boxed the other half to be consumed at a later time.
Did I enjoy the lunch box? Perhaps my rating and the previous paragraph can give you an idea. I loved how fresh everything tasted from the crispiness of the gyoza to how well done the beef was! Well, there was one piece that was pretty tough, but I definitely wouldn't dock a star for one measly piece out of a handful. I could also dock another star for not providing enough of the dipping sauce, but I wouldn't do that either. The small size of the dipping sauce was really my only criticism about Exit 5; everything else was flawless!
They have a waiting list on a tablet at the front, but since we went at lunchtime, it wasn't needed; most tables inside were vacant on our visit, but during dinner time, I can definitely see the need for said waiting list.
They have a half dozen dishes of banchan available at each table; Eric or some other server would keep an eye on our banchan and refill whenever one dish was running low. These dishes are placed next to a bucket of silverware, which included chopsticks! Banchan tasted good overall.
There's also an ice cream chest by the front desk. I wasn't planning to get ice cream on my visit. The only comments I can make about their ice cream is that a Melona is $2.50 and a Samanco is $4.
Another thing to keep in mind is that if you're in a party of more than 4, an 18% service charge will be applied to your bill. I don't know if all of these service charges go directly to the servers, but if they do, Eric deserved every single penny of it, at least from my bill.
One thing I did find odd was that a couple others at my table ordered ramen, but their ramen bowls came about 10-15 minutes apart despite our orders being put in at the same time. I'm not sure if the choice of protein was the root cause of this discrepancy? In any event, Eric offered a bowl of rice as a way to compensate for the extended wait, another reason why I had to praise Eric as our server that day.
* My visit was back in November when I was taking a brief hiatus from posting reviews, hence why I posted this review kind of late.