Honey Pig BBQ — Restaurant in Irvine

I meant to give two stars but raised it to four, and here's why.

On a busy Sunday night around 6pm, my friends and I (a party of 7) went to dine at Honey Pig. We were lucky that there was only one group ahead of us, and the younger server told us it would be about a 10-minute wait. The group ahead of us got seated, and we saw two side-by-side tables that were clearing out, so we assumed those would be ours. However, an older server (possibly a manager?) kept skipping us each time as he seated other guests.

After about 45 minutes, I went in to ask what was going on. The older server said he was planning to seat us at a corner table by the entrance. I politely mentioned that it looked a bit small for our group and asked if we could be seated at one of the two tables we had seen earlier. He assured me the table could seat up to 8 people and that we'd be seated there once the current diners left. We waited another 15 minutes, then I approached him again, expressing that we didn't mind sitting separately and that it would've been nice if he had asked us ahead of time on how we prefer to be seated.

At this point, the server mentioned his 15+ years of experience in the industry, but upon sensing my unseased tone, he quickly apologized for not asking earlier. I told him to seat us at whichever table became available first since we had already waited over an hour. When the larger table finally opened up, he seated a group of 5 before us and then gave us two separate tables. This was frustrating, but we were hungry, so we tried to move past it.

The food, however, was excellent. I was a bit frustrated at first, but after eating the pork belly, I felt a lot better. As I was taking photos for my review, the restaurant surprised us with two complimentary dishes: corn cheese and octopus (nak-ji).

While I initially wanted to give only two stars due to the seating issues, the attentive service from the remaining servers and the great food, along with the complimentary dishes, won me over. So, as a thank you for the freebie, I'm giving them four stars. But please, next time, do ask your guest first if they wouldn't mind seating separately (especially if it's a large group) prior to seating...

Today we went to the Honey Pig BBQ and my family’s experience was a nightmare. The worst Korean BBQ in my life. First of all, in the AYCE menu, which my whole family bought, had limits on how much you could order an item. Regular for all AYCE BBQs. But one of these limited items wasn’t ready when they just opened, then when they made the supposed “marinated beef” that was originally sold out, was just a bunch of sauce on some beef. And I thought it was out, but then they just brought it out? Didn’t taste good at all. We thought that was it, but it got even worst, every single item on the menu was very low-quality; the only things that were actually okay were the brisket and the bulgogi, which the bulgogi was very inconsistent with its flavor. Also my daughter, who never eats brisket, ate the brisket because there was nothing good to eat. My family ate so much brisket that we got sick of it. Next, the service, only one person was basically managing 5 tables or maybe even more. I feel bad for the woman, her co-worker was basically doing nothing while she was preparing dishes simultaneously. And since of this overworked waiter, our order kept having things we didn’t order. Our receipt was also wrong at the end. They seriously need to hire more people. It was also taking so long just to get dishes out. We also ordered tofu and the egg omelette, both tasted strange. Overall, food is bad, orders are unorganized, service is slow, and workers are overworked. This place is just not the...

I was excited to try this place, but was severely disappointed by the service and the food. I would have given 3 stars, but the price I paid for the mediocre food and awful service bumped down the rating.

The food was average, at best. The signature pork belly was sadly dry and lacked much fat, which is what you look for in pork belly.

The wagyu was probably the best meat we had, and melted like butter in our mouths. The dipping sauce and salt complimented it well.

The LA kalbi was good, no complaints, but it was pretty average KBBQ flavor. Nothing to run home about.

There were 3 wait staff that alternated serving our table, but I ended up doing the majority of the cooking due to the lack of attention we received. There is supposed to be a fried rice service at the end with the table leftovers, which we never got offered. We didn't want it because we were stuffed, but it left a bad taste in our mouths that we weren't even offered. We then sat at a table piled with dirty plates and an empty stove top and waited another 20 minutes before anyone came by with our check. There were only 3 other tables aside from ours, so I can't even give them the excuse that they were busy.

Sadly, I have to give them 2 stars for their average food, poor service, and...