Oak & Coal — Restaurant in Costa Mesa

We ordered take out today. 6 different dishes

1.Steamed Chicken lemongrass dumplings 9/10 The noodle around was so delicious. I loved the texture and flavor. The lemongrass chicken was well seasoned and also really good.

Bao Buns 10/10 These came with a twist. I somehow thought of Bao, round, steamed dumpling. But these were more like little Tacos , except the shell was a Bao Bun. Flavor was amazing. The little sprouts added a little tinge of spice , the ginger was pickled and sweet and a little sour. The pork belly tasted smokey and juicy. Overall perfect!

Kurobuta Pork Belly Skewers 12/10 Omg!!! This! Coming from germany I am used to grilling pork belly. We call it either "belly-rag" - "Baulappen" or a "grill-torch" - "Grillfackel" (name explains itself, since they love to light on fire due to the high fat consent. The smoky flavor and seasoning was on point. I loved that they weren't dried out. Just pure deliciousness .

Plain Garlic Noodles 8/10 The noodles were ok , overall really greasy and sloppy. The flavor was good , but I wouldn't order them again, others loved them.

Blistered Brussle Sprouts 8/10 Generally really good , crispy and a mild spiciness. What we noticed was that a lot of the dishes included lemon flavor. I liked it but others commented that it was generally too much

Chicken Karaage 6/10 We somehow expected something totally different. The thighs were jucy , but not as crispy as we thought they would be. The batter reminded me of calamari and my brain tricked me and said - that's calamari! It somehow weirded me out and I didn't want to finish the chicken. But this is my own opinion someone else's brain might not play mind games.

The ordering happened over the homepage and was super easy. We didn't even wait 30minutes. The food was hot and fresh. This was definitely not our last time. Thank you for making...

Usually I never leave reviews but this experience was terrible.

The meat skewers were extremely cold, hard, and were obviously cooked hours ago. They are supposed to be known for their meat skewers, but it was a big disappointment.

We got salmon sashimi which was extremely rotten and smelly. Thankfully, they took it back and refunded the salmon, but we still got food poisoning from it immediately after. (Only ate 1 piece with my friend but we both got food poisoning/stomach pain for 2 days afterwards)

We tried many food items, and the only good things were the dumplings (which are likely store-bought) and bao buns. Both were 3/5 good, not amazing - but the only two items that were not 0/5

The service was also atrocious. I have been a server myself for 10+ years at several restaurants so there is no excuse. After we were seated, it took way too long to come get our drinks/order (about 30 minutes with an almost empty restaurant). On top of that, they FORGOT our drinks after taking so long to take the order. We had to ask for our drinks 3 times before finally, our server said someone else forgot it. When we ordered more food, we again had to remind and ask multiple times - with only 2-3 other tables in the entire restaurant.

We went on 3/1/2024 at 9pm. I assume that probably the service and food are not regularly this terrible. But on this night, it was a really terrible experience, such that someone who never leaves reviews was...

I’ve been here pre-Covid but came back for the first time last week. They’ve now expanded to the place next door which is where we sat. We started with the shishito peppers and cabbage salad. Occasionally a shishito would be spicy otherwise cooked to a nice blister. The cabbage salad was light but a good way to begin our meal. The garlic noodles were delicious as well as the skewer of organic chicken with scallions. Dip the chicken in the yuzo kusho to bring out the full experience. Just my opinion but I wouldn’t order the Wagyu donburi ever again, pretty mediocre bowl of mush. Unfortunately we had to send the seared hamachi back (I rarely ever in my life send food back) but it was too briney or oceany tasting. It was the last order and the waitress told the table next to us they had sold out so not sure what happened but luckily they were nice enough to take it off our bill. The snake river Wagyu beef skewers will have you drooling they’re so freaking good. These also come with the yuzo koshu which make for a great flavor combo profile. Ended things off with the ube banana pudding that came out in a jar. I shared it with 2 other people and by then...