Wooga (우가) at Buena Park

An all you can eat Korean BBQ restaurant in Buena Park, $19.99 per person. It opens till late. Like most all you can eat place, you can't take away leftover food. There are many kind of meat to choose from. A decent place to come when you are hungry!

Mi Rak (미락) Korean BBQ in Fullerton

A Korean BBQ restaurant in Fullerton. Love the spicy squid in hot stone and the soup that came with it. Two people for $22, reasonably priced for lunch.

Bonjuk Korean Traditional Porridge Restaurant

This place only serves porridge and nothing else, located in Koreatown. My wife ordered pumpkin porridge and I had chicken ginsang porridge. Pumpkin porridge had korean rice cake inside. Overall dishes were good, $24 for two people. A lot of people seems to have ordered take out from here.

Palsaik (팔색 삼겹살) Korean BBQ in Koreatown

This restaurant is famous for serving pork dishes. We ordered set dinner which came with BBQ pork and seafood soup. Pork were marinated in 8 different flavor: wine, original, ginseng, garlic, herb, curry, miso paste and red pepper paste (hot). They were cook on a titling grill where fat and oil got filtered out to drain. The only minus point was that chairs had no back support.

This is the best place to eat BBQ pork. Parking may be an issue as there are many other shops within this complex.

Myungdong Kalguksu in Tustin

This restaurant is famous for noodles, and its most popular dish is Kalguksu. We also ordered dumplings called Mandu. Kimchi was fresh and garlicy, we both loved it. Customer services was good too. Dinner cost $35 for 3 people. Reasonably priced and definitely worth coming back.

Sagan (사긴) Korean Restaurant in Buena Park

A Korean and Japanese cuisine restaurant. They have sushi bar at the front and Korean BBQ at the back. The restaurant was big in size and look kind of posh. We turned up at the restaurant around 9-ish but they closed at 10pm, so we were one of the few remaining tables. We spent just a little less than 100 dollar on dinner for 3 people, which include BBQ meat and beer. Food was okay, nothing spectcular, not worth the amount we paid for. The waitresses were so keen to go home and close down, they hurried us to pay the bill and asked us to wait at the door when my wife went to restroom. Definitely poor service!

Koba Tofu Grill in Irvine

This restaurant locates in the Heritage Plaza, off 5 freeway. The plaza's undergoing renovation at the time of our visit. We ordered a seafood combo to share, it came with fish, BBQ beef, seafood tofu, stone pot rice. It is same style as BCD Tofu House. The beef smell really good. Other than that, nothing special about this place. They have 3 other branches, one in south Irvine (UCI campus), one in Fullerton and one in Diamond Bar.

To Bang (트방) Korean Restaurant in Fullerton

My wife likes this place especially their pancakes. Thin, crispy and... oily. The small side dishes were fresh too. Lunch was reasonably cheap, around $14 for 2 people. This restaurant isn't big, 8 tables and can seat 40 people at most. Open between 11am-12am. A great place to grab a quick bite.

Korea House BBQ Restaurant in Irvine

As we are not too happy with the service we got last time at Arirang  and Shik Do Rak always has a long queue, we decided to try a new Korean BBQ restaurant in Irvine today. This restaurant is closed to the University of Irvine, with many tables and private rooms. I was immediately attracted to the unlimited BBQ for $19.99 per person - choice of 5 types of meat (chicken, pork and beef). The quality of meat wasn't good (not nicely cut) and the small Korean side dishes weren't freshed. Plus on occassion I could smell odor coming from the restroom. The only good point about this restaurant - great friendly customer service! Doubt we will return though.

Ka Ju Tofu (가주순두부) Restaurant in Garden Grove

This is another Korean restaurant named Ka Ju. It has the same logo as the one in Irvine, so I can only presume they are the same chain. This small tofu house is in the same complex as H-mart, and has nice decoration. Unlike most restaurant, it opens even after regular lunch hour (i.e. 3pm). The food was okay but my wife didn't feel too well afterwards. They must have used quite a bit of MSG. Also when we asked the waitress whether we could order the tofu sets with lunch pricing, she said yes... but when we received the bill, the sets were charged at dinner pricing. We weren't impressed, and won't go back there.

Sam Han (三漢) Korean BBQ & Buffet in Rowland Heights

For a buffet restaurant, this place was surprisingly good. Quite a lot of choices for meat and seafood, price was affordable too.

Aria (아리아) Korean BBQ Sushi Bar in Buena Park

Tried this Korean BBQ restaurant in Buena Park today. Loads of side dishes and $60 for 2 people, managed to have some left over to take home. Service was slow though. Food was okay, nothing spectacular. Not sure whether we will come back for more though.

Shilla Restaurant in Gardena

Both service and food were good at this Korean BBQ restaurant. My wife loved one of the BBQ beef. There were 9 of us and we had the private room. Apparently, a number of sportsmen and sportswomen, e.g. tennis star Maria Sharapova, came to this restaurant before, pictures of their signed autographs were hanged on the wall at the entrance. Dinner was $240 altogether.

Ka Ju Tofu Restaurant in Irvine

Another soft Tofu place in the Irvine area. It is right outside the freeway 5 Jeffrey exit. This restaurant has various tofu sets. We tried seafood, mushroom and pork tofu sets, and they all came with grilled fish and rice as usual. My favourite dish was actually... Oi Kimchi. I previously tried curry tofu here but the flavor was so weak that I didn't feel like I was eating curry, so that dish is a no-go! $34 for 3 dishes was reasonably priced. May come again.

Freshia Market in Tustin

Freshia Market is a Korean supermarket in Tustin and Torrance. Things are generally cheaper than H-mart and they have over the counter marinated meat for sale. Within the same complex, there is a small food court, a boutique shop and a mobile phone shop. Korean beer also seems to be cheaper here.

Byul Daepo (Star BBQ) Korean Restaurant in Garden Grove

This Korean BBQ restaurant has a all-you-can-eat menu. The menu contained two choices: $15pp or $19pp. The difference was the choices of meat on offer. We ended up having 4 dishes of meat to share among 3 people. After the meat feast, we each had a bowl of hot noodles (as seen in the picture), that's actually my favourite dish. It's a great place if you're seriously hungry.

BCD Tofu House in Irvine

This is a Korean tofu chain store that opens 24 hour. They have many branches in Los Angeles area and Irvine alone has two. We went to the one in Diamond Jamboree Shopping Center. Each tofu set comes with grilled fish and small side dishes. Dinner was less than $20 for 2 people, which is fairly reasonable priced.

Surah Korean BBQ in Buena Park

A nice Korean BBQ restaurant. Loads of side dishes and meat were tasty. The cold noodles were great and the peaches compliment well with it. Maybe a bit pricey but worth the money I guess. Service was good. The restaurant has a TV showing my favourite channel - Gol TV! There is a Korean supermarket in the same complex, handy if you want to stock up some groceries on the way home.

Arirang BBQ Resturant in Irvine

We like this place. More authentic than yesterday's Shik Do Rak restaurant. We ordered BBQ set A, that came with 4 types of meat, pot of steamed egg and a bottle of my favourite Korean beer - OB. Price is slightly more expensive - around $70 (included 10% discount voucher), but there were plenty leftover to take home. We will definitely go back. Very friendly and welcoming, good service.

Shik Do Rak Korean BBQ in Irvine

A busy Korean BBQ restaurant, always seems to have a long queue outside. Today we came here earlier, around 5:30pm and managed to get ourselves seats without any waiting. We ordered a combo set #2 - a mixture of beef including two types of beef, dinner was about $55 for 3 people. Meat's good and we were all full. Queue was building up by the time we finished our dinner. We were given the bill even before we asked for it, tried to get rid of us asap. Anyhow, I guess it is one of the good Korean restaurants in Irvine, still prefer restaurants in K-town though.