Yigah

When it comes to Korean food, Irvine has recently become spoiled for choices – not on Garden Grove’s or Stanton’s levels, but thanks to two fairly recent H Mart openings with their own H Market Eatery food halls inside, the number of pretty good Korean options is multiplying. The flip side is that Yigah, which was previously one of a handful or two of Korean options in Irvine, isn’t quite as exciting as it was only five years ago.

In its prime, Yigah served what we felt were awesome cold and spicy bibim naengmyun noodles, a good nahjki dupb’ap (spicy octopus, rice, and vegetables on an iron skillet), solid tonkatsu, and few but tasty (and all spicy) banchan. Its short list of menu choices fit on two sides of a laminated card, requiring that much space only because of large photos; most of the items are soups, rice, or other Korean basics. Portions were on the large side, service was adequate rather than super friendly, and prices were fine, if a little expensive.

More recently, Yigah has felt like a fallback option if other, better places were too busy. In Irvine, it’s within line of sight from a big, popular BCD Tofu House with a larger collection of better-tasting menu choices and banchan, and just down the street from a place with great naengmyun (Yuk Dae Jang). By comparison, the Garden Grove location has a much larger menu (including grilled meat dishes), isn’t immediately next to better Korean restaurants, and has much higher customer ratings. Plan accordingly.