Hako — Restaurant in Irvine

I've been here several times. First time was before COVID probably under old ownership.

I don't want the business to fail since Hako has pretty good Katsus and their cold noodle is also good. But I see the quality of service and small dishes are diminishing, and it probably hit the lowest last week when I went there.

We ordered a takoyaki as appetizer and two of 4 or 5 didn't have any octopus, just batter slightly uncooked and not even hot at all.

3 of us ordered each dish and one of the dish didn't come out until I finished 2/3 of mine. It could be because of two things. They were busy fulfilling online take out oder of like 20 boxes or the wait staff who are young naive and proably not trained properly never paid attention or communicated with the kitchen. The waitress put the bill on our table within 15 min of us started eating. Then we told her we don't want the 3rd dish you never brought out. She said that the bill already had 3rd one charged. So we said, we would wait for it. Magically she brought the 3rd dish within a couple of minute but i could tell the dish as been sitting somewhere all this time. Added gyoja looked stale, not fully fried (still somewhat whie) and I could tell they were frozen ones they bought probaly from next door Zion market. Even if they didn't, both small dishes, takoyaki and gyoaj, two of the staple japanese food were duds and we didn't finish not even half.

Another thing was a roll. They need to learn or train how to make rolls, not just throw anyone at it. The topping on the roll falls off as soon as you tough it. It was mechanically warped together but missing something in taste and flavor.

As mentioned, their katsu and noodle were good. Then I may ask why mess up by offering mediocre side sides and small dishes? Just get rid of all these ancillary dishes and stick with what you are good at.

Also when we were waiting for the lat e 3rd dish, a different waiter quietly put a bill on my table and walked away without saying anything. I looked at it and it was for a different table with Wells Farco Master card. I don't own any wells Fargo cards...

I don't like leaving bad reviews and I wasn't small business to succeed. That is what I took my time to leave this was review. I wish the owner read these and make improvements.

Train your a staff to be real waitstaff not just part time teen or college student tyring to make some spending money.

Trim menu to focus on a few good dishes.

Unless your kitchen and staff can handle a large order, don't take the large orders and ignore or pay less attention on patrons who eat in your...

Food: 4.5/5 Service and Setting: 3/5 Value: 3/5

Hako, located in the plaza with Zion Market, is a Korean tonkatsu restaurant that does a lot of things right. Parking here is super easy and vast, it should never really be an issue. The interior of the restaurant is sort of grey on grey and a bit industrial. Overall, it seemed clean and I prefer this over something corny. I wish I could go into more details about the interior dining experience, but the front server told us that they were not doing a waitlist anymore about an hour before closing and told us to order to go just to be safe. We received our food, ate outside the restaurant, was called in because we put our names down just in case, and the same waiter offered us to come back in to finish our meal because the weather was cold. He was very nice, but it seemed a bit overly cautious to tell us to order to go instead. I get it, but very odd. Hopefully your experience is a little more straightforward than mine.

Cheese Tonkatsu: 4.5/5 This tonkatsu is great. While Japanese tonkatsu tends to be thick and have a fluffy coating, Korean tonkatsu is thin and has a denser, flatter coating that leads to a harder crunch. While I do usually prefer the Japanese style of katsu, Hako’s rendition tasted like a meal my mom would make if she nailed the frying process. The cheese is luxuriously salty and rich while not being too melted that it leaks totally out. The flavor of the cheese is mild but not milky. They are probably not using anything special but that’s exactly how I like my cheese. The tonkatsu sauce and salad dressing are also a little different being more nutty and savory in general. The slaw was probably the most disappointing part because it really does taste like my mom’s haha. A bit too wet and not thinly shaved, it is charming, but cannot stand up against the care other restaurants take to dry and perfectly chill the shredded cabbage. Because it was so cold, it would be nice if the miso soup came with to go orders but it does not, but I totally get the packaging and spilling drama that to go soup can entail. Overall, this is probably the best cheese tonkatsu I have had but the small details prevented this from being a “perfect” experience.

Alaskan Roll: 3.5/5 The rolls seemed to be really good so I decided to splurge on one. They are definitely better than premade rolls but the rice was too soft for my taste. The freshness and portion of fish were good, but meh, something felt weird about eating raw fish with melted cheese in the same meal. I would pass on getting sushi here unless the cravings are...

The wait time at this restaurant is ridiculous long and not accurately told in advance. After we added our name into their waitlist machine around 715 pm, they said it would be about one hour wait. An hour later, I want an update and they said maybe another 30-40 min, which would be 9 pm and after and they closed at 930 pm. So to ensure we have dinner, we order takeout instead. I ordered 4 sets of tonkatsu dinner and waited another 20 mins when they called my name and handed me my order. However, when I got home, I realized they only gave me 2 out of 4 sets of dinner. I tried calling them at 906 and no one picked up the phone, so I have to drive all the way back to get the rest of my orders. I explained to the cashier at the front that he forgot to give the rest of my order. He just said "it is not my fault. I just handed out orders". He told me to speak to the bagging people in the back. I again explaining my missing orders to bagging people. I would think they forgot to give it to the front and I should find it in the back, but no orders and no one claimed they bagged order #508. So I have to wait another 10-15 mins for my orders. The most frustrating about this situation is you found yourself dealing with irresponsible people who are not trained properly nor would take ownership of their mistakes. There is no quality control, nor checklist of orders attached to the bag. Then how would you know what order details you are packaging inside and what you are handing to customers. Their bulking order box trying to look fancy, but could not be easily open to check the content inside. There should be an attached order list to check off and initial, so there is an audit trail of who is responsible in case of order errors. When they hand over the orders to customer they need to read off the order details to confirm it was the right orders. So for a simple and not so outstanding tonkatsu dinner, I waited and wasted almost 3 hours of my time. After the bad service experience, I wouldn't call it a satisfying dinner. Missa at Mitsuwa food court has the same tonkatsu quality, but better service, price and order accuracy. This place doesn't allowed online reservation nor online waitlist. So I recommend you go in person and put your name into the waitlist machine at the restaurant and then go hone or go off shopping for an hour or two to come back when they text you. Or don't bother eating...