Seoul Haus
Unremarkable Korean fare in a northern Irvine neighborhood
Some of the restaurants we visit stand out as impressive in one way or another. Seoul Haus is one that blends in with the pack.
Located in Irvine’s Northwood neighborhood, this small Korean family restaurant has disposable paper menus-slash-tablemats with 33 choices ranging from a $17 ox bone soup to a $51 oxtail, tendon, and steak su-yuk platter, though almost everything is a roughly $20 entree. You can order pork mandu, but that’s it for appetizers, and the remaining choices span soups, naengmyun noodles, donkatsu, spicy octopus, and spicy pork belly. The naengmyun will set you back $18, but you can either add bulgogi ($9) or refill the noodles for $10, the same price as five mandu dumplings.
On one visit, we ordered the donkatsu pork cutlet, an atypical version of bibim naengmyun (with pollack) and another with beef, and also received several banchan side dishes, all fine. The pollack was forgettably bland compared with the beef naengmyun, blending in rather than sticking out from the spicy gochujang-based sauce, and the pork cutlet itself was pretty good, though too thin for our liking, and paired with a scoop of corn rather than rice. On our second visit, we tried the $27 sweet garlic soy beef ribs (gungjoong galbi jim), but found them to be largely bone.
Nothing was terrible with our meals, but nothing was great, either; service was active during the ordering process then mostly absent before and after food was delivered. We haven’t revisited after our second try, and have no plans to do so.
Stats
Price: $$
Service: Table
Open Since: 2013
Addresses
13925 Yale Ave.
Suite 140
Irvine, CA 92620
949.784.8780
Instagram: @seoulhausirvinechinohills