MCow Yakitori & Bar – Buhn

Came here with a few friends a month ago. First impression, very modern and clean. They even have a barf sink for those who drink a little more then they can handle. The food here isn’t that good, but they do have different varieties of beer and the service is pretty good.

Went to take some food to go today and came back with a ridiculously tiny portion. «What the heck!» Is what I thought when I opened the container because it was so light I thought it was empty. When I opened it… This tiny piece of fish filled up of less than ¹⁄₃ a to go box. Looked like leftovers. With a piece of lime. For $ 8? I’ll never come back. It was overcooked. Nothing buttery about it. Don’t come here to fill your bellies. You’ll just be disappointed. Too many other options in Irvine. Pic attached!

This place is pretty good if you get your expectations right.
First of all, do not assume you get any value from any of the higher priced skewers ($ 5+). They’re meant for taste. If you’re a cheapass, you go for the 2 buck skewers since you want to get full. I mean c’mon, kobe =/​= value. My friend and I ordered the higher priced skewers and I was like: O but after we got the lower priced ones, I was like :)
The fact that you can get toasted at 1:30 am in Irvine off of asian liquor is pretty sweet imo. Since it’s Irvine, this makes it the only place you can get hammered off of Sapporo at 1:30 am. :X Of course, since it’s Irvine, nobody but me gets toasted at 1:30 am apparently: O
When it gets busy, (Fridays at 6 until 830), it’s busy. Like, wait ½ hour for your food busy :(. And when it’s empty, it’s totally empty ;_​:. If you need other people to enjoy your food/​drink, then come when it’s busy ^_​^. Otherwise, if you’re a sensitive person, you’ll feel awk being the only person there: S Of course you could use the time to talk to your servers. They all seem like college students/​youngsters.
The service varied when I was there, the worst being not getting attention when it was busy to the best being getting offered to get my food replaced when I complained about it. As long as you let them know, they’ll take care of you: D
Don’t come here expecting awesome cheap yakitori that will blow your mind. Come here expecting good yakitori, decent service and a place where you can get toasted until 1:30 am.
PS: If you want to get full, drink beer. I recommend the red ale for $ 6. It’s like firefox in liquid form. The Asahi Black is like Internet Explorer, gets the job done. Haven’t tried the sake yet. Too much of a cheapo.
PS2: I suggest you guys revamp your salad because that stuff had raw onions. I don’t think asians eat raw onions. We put that soy sauce ponzu sauce on it a la Japanese style. Also, the lettuce leaves were really big in the lettuce. Make em smaller. Asians love small things! ;)
PS3: Has anyone actually used the barf sink? I question its pretense since I haven’t seen anybody get smashed yet.

They need major improvement for me to come back.
First of all, there’s major flaw w the lighting. The restaurant doesn’t look too dark but its very difficult to read their menu. They need to provide flash light or and some hanging lamps or something.
Food took forever to come out. We came here for a late lunch and there were only 2 full tables, including us. We ordered from the yakitori menu, they came out stick by stick, litterally 10 minutes apart. If you are not familiar with yakitori, each order is like 2 bites. So us 4 would share those 2 bites then waited for another 10 minutes for another bite.
The food was decent except for my beef tongue that was undercooked.
Lots of waters and waitresses and they are nice but they dont know how to wait tables. Water was not refilled, questions about menus were not answered correctly.
Will i come back? Well its so close to my house and i liked a few dishes there so may i will give it another try in a few months before i cross it off my list

If you want Yakitori, just go to a Japanese place since they’re renowned for this type of food. We came here since we got a flyer for 20% off our bill and a free Halibut entrée with purchase of at least $ 30 of each. Given that we found out after the fact that they charge $ 6.50 for ONE skewer of 3 small pieces of beef, hitting $ 30 is not hard to do,
The grilled meat that we did eat was pretty good but the price is not justifiable. The non grilled items like the fried appetizer was not very good and filled with mostly cheap items like fried fish cake/​fries. I wasn’t a fan of the popcorn chicken as it was too greasy and covered in salt. This place is definitely not efficiently run as we had to «wait» to be seated even though the restaurant only seated two parties when it first opened. They need to beef up on wait staff and also be more clear about their pricing. We thought the $ 6.50 covered two beef skewers but we found out from another waiter that it only counted for one. Kind of BS if you ask me.
I likely will not go back here since I don’t want to paying an exorbitant amount of money for mediocre food. There’s so many other options around the area where you can get a better bang for the buck.

I had the fried tofu combo, and was surprised by how good the fried tofu was. So good. It’s usually hard to find it fried so well, crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, and the seasoning was really well done too.
It was really good pricing considering Sunday dinner. $ 7.95 for the fried tofu, with 3 side dish, and rice, plus a small black tea. Totally worth it.
Definitely will come again

This place was a little hard to find because it’s tucked away in the corner of the plaza next to the Kaya restaurant. We came here on a Saturday night a little before 10 p.m., and we were the only customers. The space is big, and the servers are very friendly. The person who seated us was also our cook, and he gave us a good rundown of the menu. We ordered a few yakitori items but had them seasoned with only sea salt, which is the only way to go. Also, they had corn, which was really good too. We ordered the soft-​shell crab, which came with 2 small crabs. That was also good. My only complaints were that the prices were kind of high and they had clips of cows playing overhead.
Also, they have a puke sink, which is cool, I guess. Just having that in your restaurant is asking for a certain type of clientele. They have the sinks outside the restroom, which is convenient. The servers were friendly but really soft spoken. They gave us a few complimentary items, which was nice. They have $ 12 draft beer pitchers and 15% off appetizers during their happy hour, which starts at 10 pm on Saturdays.
Overall, it is a nice place to hang out. They said that they haven’t had their grand opening yet, so maybe that’s why it was so empty? The food was good, but on the expensive side. This place definitely has a lot of potential!

This place sucks, sorry.
I was the ONLY person here. It’s fairly pricey and the food is honestly mediocre at best. Very disappointed!
For the same price you can eat at Honda Ya… yes…ya…no good. Booo…

MCow’s décor is very modern with a nice lounge-​y feel to it. Seems like a good date place, although I do agree with another Unilocaler that the music is a bit too loud. As for the food, while the yakitori we ordered were all quite tasty, it was sooo pricey. One skewer generally runs anywhere between $ 3 – 5 (I think some are even higher). And that’s just ONE skewer with like 2 – 3 pieces of meat. Be ready to spend at least $ 30−40/person if you’re planning to get full from this meal.
Notable yakitori include the unagi, the hot dog (chinese sausage with sticky rice), and the fish cake stuffed with cheese. The rice patties stuffed with salmon were also pretty good and are filling if you’re tired of spending a lot on yakitori. They have four different seasonings you can choose from; I highly recommend the house special. The meal also comes with salad, which I enjoyed. We kept asking for more, but nobody told us that it would cost $ 5 for unlimited refills. Not sure if that’s still their policy, but I thought I’d mention it since another Unilocaler pointed it out.
While the food was good, MCow is just way too expensive. And I’m sure other people share this sentiment because the place was completely dead for dinner on a Friday night. We thought it was because MCow was trying to market itself more as a late night snack/​drinking place (hence the barf sink lol), but sadly the place was still dead at 10pm. Also, despite there being only a few seated tables, the yakitori took forever to come out and the service got progressively worse as the night went on. Unfortunately, I won’t be back because it’s just too expensive. Everything adds up quickly.
Located in the shopping plaza with Boiling Point. It’s right next to the Super Irvine market in the corner. Plenty of parking, although the parking lot can get pretty busy.

A bit pricey and small portions but delicious food!
Our server was very friendly and explained everything about the food very thoroughly.
Everything here is delicious– the starter salad, the unagi rice, and the skewers!
We didn’t get to drink here for happy hour but the prices look pretty okay which helps make up for how expensive their food is.
We spent about $ 60 with tax and tip but only left with our stomachs half full.

As a yakitori place, it doesn’t come close to shin sen gumi but then again nothing does!
Tasty skewers but ohhhhhh so small for their price. Taiwanese tempura and the pork enoki mushroom are a must get.
Maybe if they cut back on the employees the portions can be just a bit bigger. Hopefully they have some happy hour prices for me to frequent this place. Went home hungry and we already spent $ 80!
And you must hit up the bathroom to see their barf sink!!!

very limited selections. i wish they’d expand their menu, maybe one day!
everything we got (the yakitoris only, and the complimentary salad since it was our first time there) was pretty good, since the selection is limited — i guess unless you order their rice dishes — this would probably be good place for some just light ‘snacks’ and drinks…

Somehow I stumbled upon M Cow Yakitori & Bar — a new spot located right next to Kaya and Caspian while searching for a place to eat. There may be some confusion because there are two MCow locations right next to each other, but the one closest to Kaya is the yakitori bar and the other door to the right leads to the restaurant.
Because they are very much new, they are currently running a Facebook promotion — LIKE their page and get a free beer with purchase of 2 beers. NOT a bad deal and if you get a little cray, don’t worry! They have a barf sink in the restrooms — definitely worth checking out. It looks like a giant urinal LOL!
Anyway, the yakitori list is pretty minimal, but they have four different types of seasonings: salt, yakitori, spicy yakitori and house special (garlic/​cilantro pesto). For first timers, they suggest going with salt to taste the quality of the meat. The quality is there, but the price points are a bit high for some things that are not comparable in portion or size. We left full, but we racked up quite the bill too.
Here are my recommendations–
My favorites. I would probably come back for these two alone.
— pork toro (yakitori /​house special)
— prime ribeye (salt /​house special)
— Australia lamb chop (house special only because lamb has a strong flavor)
Ours was cooked pretty well, but it was still very tender and moist.
— Hokkaido Scallop (house special)
Barely grilled. It was bomb, but not sure if that’s how it’s supposed to be — served slightly raw.
— Unagi
— Cheese stuffed fish cake (yakitori)
— Beef Tongue
They use two skewers to grill. Thin slice, not thick cut. They were a bit tough to take off the skewers and chewy — possibly overcooked.
Still in it’s soft opening phase, I expected a lot of kinks and bumps along the way. We were seated promptly, but were not checked upon after… at any point in time during the meal. We had to keep waving down the servers to get their attention.
By the time our first order came out, our table wasn’t prepped for it — we didn’t have the platters where the yakitori skewers were to be placed on. At the same time, we got a bowl of salad. First bowl is complimentary and then you have to pay $ 5 for unlimited salad, which is WORTH IT because WAIT TIME takes FOREVERRRRRRRR in between your orders. I would say like 5 – 10 minutes between each type of skewer, and we had ordered a loooooot. So we went ham on salad. For real.
Personally, I think I would just come here for drinks with the possible option for some yakitori as a light snack to hold me over. But hey, it’s open late. Wait. whaaaat? in Irvine? YES GUYS — 1:30am.

Found this place while visiting some friend in irvine. Well the wait was little long at BP.
I think this place just recently open, I like the sport bar in the front with the M COW light décor, pretty cool definitely the spot for my NBA season.
Nice high ceiling for the rest of the place, with some hanging TV above you, pretty interesting design, and I think there’s some private room in the back but the employee said it’s not open yet.
Over all food it’s decent, not that much selection yet, the managers told us he is currently focusing on the quality and the yakitori, more and more will be added, must order the Kobe beef, pork toro, chicken thigh, Chinese fish cake. For most part I like the original taste with sea salt due the quality of the meat, but you gotta try the house sauce, little green-​ish sauce that goes really well with some skewer. Brings back the night market feeling of Taiwan food :)
Overall a pretty good restaurant, really friendly staff, nice décor, comfy setting and seat. A good place for few friends to hangout in Irvine. But I had to say its little hard to see cause it’s in the corner.
I would definitely come back with some friends to grab a cold one.

was pleasantly surprised with my dinner here at MCow Yakitori & Bar…
Note: this is located in the Buffalo Wild Wings shopping center and its tucked in a corner next to the Super Irvine Market. This is a yakitori (skewer) place only. If you want Taiwanese food like beef noodle soup, that is next door.
Anywho, the skewers here are pretty good. me and justin b. pretty much ordered one of everything on the menu haha. My favorites were the Kobe Beef, Chicken Thigh, Scallops, and Prime Beef. Also you can get these skewers grilled in 4 different sauces — my favorites were the normal sea salt and then their house special sauce which kinda reminded me of a ponzu sauce. Also ordered a couple of appetizers like the unagi rice (bowl of rice with unagi on top) and deep fried broccoli. it was good to get some other dishes to mix up the straight up meat that we were eating haha. although the deep fried broccoli wasnt just like normal tempura, but rather it was seasoned in something that reminded me of the popcorn chicken that you order at tapioca express — so that was kinda weird haha
The skewers range from about $ 4 – 6 and you only get 1 skewer per order. so this dinner will add up fast b/​c you definitely need multiple skewers to even get remotely full. oh they do serve you salad as well and the first bowl is complimentary but you will get charged for a 2^nd serving. but the salad and then our rice bowl and broccoli still didnt leave me super full. i think if they add other appetizer like items then that would be better… but our waitress did tell us that their goal is to eventually expand their menu and add sashimi too.
For now MCow is good if you’re feeling like some yakitori but just beware of the price and value. it is a very hip/​modern looking restaurant and i just hope they get the crowd to stick around for a while!

Pros: Australian Kobe Beef ($ 6)
Cons: Prices seem a little steep for the amount of food you get
3.5 stars
Went here yesterday and I was actually pleasantly surprised with the food here. It’s in the corner of strip mall where the Buffalo Wild Wings and Caspian are located. The décor inside is pretty interesting. Seems a little out of place in that plaza. Also, this is a review for yakitori place, I guess there’s another MCow noodle restaurant next door that has the same owners.
Anyway, I ended up ordering a couple skewers that range from $ 3-​$ 6. There’s usually 3 or 4 pieces of meat on each skewer, but you’ll definitely need to order a couple to get full. Additionally, you get to choose what type of seasoning you want. I ended up getting some skewers with sea salt, yakitori, and house special. All of them were pretty good. For the skewers, some of my favorites were the Australian Kobe Beef skewer ($ 6) and the scallop.
The menu itself is pretty small and mostly skewers. Our waiter said it’s because they’re still in their «soft opening» phase. At any rate, I don’t think it’s up there with Honda-​ya, but I think it’s worth checking out if you like yakitori.

Food is average. Portions is ridiculously SMALL! Pricy.
You only get ONE chicken heart per skewer, sliced.
And you get ONE scallop per skewer, sliced.
The fried oyster mushroom was the best dish all night.
And the skewers took FOREVER to come. Waited 40 minutes for our first order of food.

I came to this place by accident. I was supposed to go to their Taiwanese food side, which has a white/​cream door entrance on the side, but walked in here because I saw the big, lit up M COW sign in the inside.
The menu is easy to read, and almost all the items come on a skewer. It’s kind of expensive for such little food on a stick. You can easily order a lot because the food is very yummy! Everything tastes really fresh and grilled to perfection. I recommend the house special sauce. It’s pretty good.
Here’s what I ordered:
— unagi rice: It came with two pieces of unagi. Pretty good because you don’t taste any bones. Quite expensive for just a small bowl of rice and two pieces of unagi.
— pork toro: My favorite! It’s pork belly that’s crunchy on the outside.
— jidori chicken thigh: Its really tender but there’s nothing special about it.
— lamb: I almost never eat lamb because I don’t like the distinct taste it has. But my boyfriend ordered this and he said it doesn’t have that taste so I tried it. So good! It’s very tender and juicy. It kind of reminds me of steak.
— pork belly: Nothing special. Recommend spending just a little more for the pork toro.
— chicken wings: Most disappointing. It was really small, and there was just one for $ 2.50!
I didn’t try any of their alcohols or look at the prices but it seems as though most of the people that were here got beers.
It’s a really nice environment to come here with friends, share a pitcher of beer, and snack on the food.
Food definitely won’t get you full unless you order a lot or consume a lot of alcohol.
Also, the bathroom has a barf sink for all your alcoholic needs. It makes it really convenient to get really drunk. You can feel more clean about throwing up.
Staff is extremely nice and helpful.
Although our stomach didn’t leave satisfied, we were glad to have tried it because quality of food, service, and environment were good!

This was the second time dining at MCow Yakitori & Bar. My family actually owns Kaya next door to MCow so we’ve had a chance to meet and get to know the owner of MCow before they opened. The staff at MCow are very nice people and hard working. When I first heard about our new neighbor opening up, I was really excited to hear the news. Finally a place close from my home to grab a beer and dine in for some great food and snacks!
I think I’ve tried almost everything on their menu. They were ALL exceptionally fresh and delicious. I was able to tell that they only use high quality ingredients. The prices may be viewed a bit high to some but if I wanted to get full with low quality food, I’d go to a fast food chain and fill myself up for less than $ 10. We went to MCow expecting fresh yakitori and great service. That was exactly what I got both times I dined here. My family and my friend all loved it.
I can understand some customers not being satisfied with the value or price of the food here. Service may be slow at times and some items may be sold out for the day. But they JUST opened and are still in soft opening stage. I really urge you to give them another chance if your experience was less than stellar. They are trying their best to make things better. Compared to my first experience, I can already see that they have improved every aspect of running the business smoother the second time I dined in. They hired more staff and are in the process of adding more menu. I’m looking very forward to their upcoming additions to the menu. Wait staff are attentive and super nice also.
From what I’ve tried, I loved the sea salt Prime Rib Eye, Pork Toro, Salmon Dumplings, Crispy Fried Crab, Lamb Rack, Fried Eggplant, and Jidori Chicken Thigh, just to name a few. I honestly thought everything they served was fresh, tasty, and exceeded my expectations. They also have a good selection of alcoholic beverages as well. The Asahi Draft Beer was very refreshing after a hot day. I need to go back and try their Hoegaarden beer next time.
I believe that my review coming from the next door, a competitor in a sense, says a lot about my experiences at MCow. Give them a chance and you won’t be disappointed. I’ll definitely be back!