SongHak Korean BBQ

Before it was devastated by the pandemic, Tustin’s Seoul Garden represented the peak of Korean BBQ value, providing diners with AYCE access to dozens of premium meat and seafood items on a spacious buffet. SongHak Korean BBQ stepped into its shoes at the same Red Hill Plaza location, but struggled to fill them, somehow managing to fill the once-beloved space with the least impressive KBBQ buffet we’d experienced.

Huge gaps in the previously loaded buffet area accentuated that SongHak only offered a handful of AYCE meats, using different sauces (Hawaiian barbecue, honey mustard, gochujang) to create the illusion of greater choice. At the same time, Seoul Garden’s numerous banchan were reduced to four: a hybrid kimchi-fishcake, bare japchae noodles, cold pancake cubes, and mixed jalapeno and onion slices. A selection of a la carte items appeared, all at steep prices, just in case someone wandered in with the desire to pay two or three times as much for a combination set with “marbled” and “highly marbled” versions of the AYCE dishes.