Gen Korean BBQ House

After Tustin’s amazing Korean BBQ buffet Seoul Garden closed, our hunt for new and hopefully comparable all-you-can-eat options took us to plenty of other options around Orange County. Based in LA with three OC locations and around 40 elsewhere in the U.S., growing KBBQ chain Gen Korean BBQ House was one of the first we explored, and we’ve been back several times since.

Judged solely on food quality for the $22 lunch or $30 dinner prices, Gen is solid. At lunch, you can choose from 33 items, with 43 at dinner – that’s a lot of different options, including a mix of meat and seafood options that range from (relatively few) premium quality meats to numerous intriguingly marinated options. This is a great place to try six different flavors of pork belly (standard, spicy, smoked, red wine, cajun, or garlic), Hawaiian-style beef or bacon, galbi, standard beef or spicy pork bulgogi, multiple types of calamari, and fresh or marinated shrimp. Servers bring everything to the table for you, including banchan; this is an all-you-can-eat experience, with no buffet.

Most of the items are raw, requiring you to use your table’s built-in grill, which we’ve found to be mostly trouble-free in past visits – apart from an occasional tendency to waft smoke across the seating area. That smoke, a high noise level due to loud music, and sometimes iffy line management have been the biggest detractors from our Gen experiences; if you’re looking for superior ventilation or a quieter environment, Baekjeong might work better, albeit at a much higher price, and with fewer choices.