Moo Bong Ri

South Korean chain Moo Bong Ri (sometimes stylized Moobongri Soondae) has had an unusual trajectory in Orange County, opening two Irvine locations near-simultaneously in early 2023: the first was in one of H Mart’s H Market Eatery food halls, while the second abruptly replaced Irvine’s second location of jajangmyun chain Kyodong Noodles at Stonecreek Plaza. Each location had a fairly limited menu focused on soups and soondae – blood sausage – but the H Mart location closed in 2026, and the Stonecreek store expanded its menu with a wider collection of non-soup and non-soondae options. (In October 2026, its operator used a separate Stonecreek Plaza space to open Jjamppong Zizon, a second Korean restaurant franchise with a completely different menu.)

The original Moo Bong Ri was founded near Seoul in 1994, and has since expanded to over 100 locations in South Korea and roughly a dozen in the U.S. – some estimates peg the total number of franchises at over 300. According to the chain’s official history, one of its major innovations involved “years of trial and error to get rid of the odor” of pork intestines (a topic you can read about in detail elsewhere if you’re interested), enabling its soondae blood sausage to be served edibly with a more typical porcine aroma.

Today, Moo Bong Ri’s Irvine menu includes a nice, somewhat locally unique, and generally somewhat pricey collection of seafood items – blanched octopus, chopped live octopus, seafood pancakes, chilled sea eel sashimi, jumbo prawns, and oyster hot pots – as well as spicy pork or beef rib soups, pork katsu, spicy pork bulgogi, and galbi ribs. When we visited in fall 2026, a “summer menu” added mul (beef broth) naengmyun, spicy bibim naengmyun, and additional sashimi items: abalone, fermented octopus, and raw squid.

Moo Bong Ri’s banchan plates are surprisingly limited but individually quite good and refilled as much as you want – earthy cabbage and radish kimchis each arrive in bigger dishes, with chili-sauced onions and soy-soaked green onions in smaller ones. While we enjoyed what we received, the variety of side dishes is not comparable to what you’ll get at places like 9 Dish Tofu House, and fewer than most other Korean places, as well.

Following the arrival of banchan, we began with Moo Bong Ri’s smallest soondae plate ($11), which included two sliced, glass noodle-filled sausages – one the signature dark red color of typical blood sausage, the other lighter-tinted – as well as various slices of organ meat, all very lightly seasoned as well as cleaned and boiled to the point of eliminating any trace of unpleasant scent. Small dip-ready bowls of a light, spicy chili sauce and a chili-salt powder added nice flavors to the soondae without overwhelming the soft textures or natural tastes of the meats. Though we wouldn’t call these our favorite sausages by any means, they weren’t bad at all, and soondae fans will like that they’re available here across a wide variety of dishes at different price points.

One of our favorite Korean items is chopped live octopus, which was only available locally before at places like K Soul Food at The Source; it’s now sold here for $36 (one) or $65 (two) from a tank near the registers. While this delicacy isn’t for everyone – the pieces of octopus continue to move well after they’ve been cut and garnished with a salt and sesame oil – we enjoyed it here as much as at K Soul Food, and appreciated that our server proactively offered a second set of grippy chopsticks to help ease grabbing the small, wiggling pieces. Two dips (spicy and soy) were included with this dish, but not needed or particularly easy to access given the moving octopus bits.