Halves Boiling Pot + Grill | Japanese Hotpot Shabu + Yakiniku BBQ

They have AYCE!

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

Recommended dishes: Chicken Karaage

Basic and not take cash!!

Atmosphere: 3

Food: 3

Service: 3

Visited Halves Boiling Pot + Grill in Foothill Ranch on a Wednesday for their AYCE, and it was such a great experience! We ordered the “halves” combo, half shabu, half KBBQ — and honestly, the quality of the meat blew me away. I’ve been to plenty of spots where the meat feels like an afterthought, but here it was fresh, flavorful, and a big step above the usual AYCE places.

Their appetizer selection is also impressive and unlimited. We tried the pork gyozas (soooo good), the bulgogi fries (amazing!), and the chicken karaage (really solid). Everything had great flavor and tasted fresh.

Food-wise, it’s an easy 5/5. Great taste, great portions, and great quality. Pricing is reasonable for what you get. It is a little pricier than big chain KBBQ spots, but the quality genuinely makes it worth it.

If I had one suggestion for improvement, it would be more frequent check-ins from servers. It wasn’t very busy, but we still had to flag someone down for water or extra orders a few times.

Overall, still an awesome experience with fantastic food. Definitely deserves 5 stars! Will be back.

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 4

I have been going to Halves for years, and they are always excellent. I have tried a number of other similar places, and they are all substandard to Halves. The broths, meats, and vegies are delicious and the service is top notch. I will be returning soon!

Atmosphere: 4

Food: 5

Service: 5

Recommended dishes: Shabu Shabu, Hot Pot, Veggie Set, Grill, Halves, Wagyu, Half and Half Tonkatsu, American Wagyu

I have been eating here for years. It is my favorite restaurant to go to for A5 Shabu Shabu. The soup flavor and meat is tasty and good.
Service: attentive but nothing outstanding. i feel like they are understaffed.
Ambiance: bar like decoration. Modern but nothing particularly awesome.

Atmosphere: 3

Food: 5

Service: 3

Came here twice and each time they are severely short staffed. The female waitress, Hanh, is the rudest person on both occasions. She said that the entire table has to order from the All you can eat menu and she even charges babies for the all you can eat! That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. There are so many better places - don't go here. Not worth the money. The food is also limited.

Atmosphere: 1

Food: 1

Service: 1

The meat was very good, the way to cook it is fascinating 👌. In taste 11/10.

The owner needs to hire more staff. We come here all the time and they have 1-2 waiters for the entire restaurant. The food is good however, the wait time takes away from the experience. I see the waiters struggling and running around due to the limited staff they have. A message to the owner, Jack, you can’t just think about your pocket all the time. Hire more staff and don’t be greedy. It took you a whole years to buy a new working tv for the bar. Shame shame

It’s the best of both worlds when you can combine shabu shabu and teppan grill! Halves is located in a plaza at the intersection of Auto Center Drive and Towne Center Drive in Foothill Ranch. There is plenty of parking except during peak hours. Our servers were attentive but also a bit too introverted.

Halves offers a decent beverage menu, whether you like your drink leaded or not. Besides sake and wine, they also carry craft beers so of course I had to try one on my recent visit. For dinner, it’s a no-brainer to go with their best seller which they coincidentally named the “Halves”. Enjoy two tender meat selections of your choice (I opted to boil the American Wagyu and grill the Angus Short Rib), fresh vegetables, and noodles in a savory broth of your choosing while grilling premium ingredients on their smokeless bbq grill. I always appreciate when you can customize what you’re eating. I enjoyed the bbq dipping sauce for items off the grill and the sesame dipping sauce for the shabu, but the ponzu sauce was disappointing and too sour. If you enjoy DIY dining, shabu shabu, Yakiniku or both, then you def I recommend paying a visit to Halves!

Very ordinary place with very medium quality food but is unreasonably expensive.service was bot OK. Waited for 10 min in almost empty restaurant to get seated. Another 15 min for napkin.
Overall not worth the price

For the money, I recommend going to another place for hotpot. This is 42.5 dollars before tip and tax which is fine, but I also never had a tonkustu broth being so foamy and overflow when the heat is up, but then when the fire is down, it takes 5 mins to broil up which is frustrating to wait. However, in the end the waiter helped find the right temperature that cooks fast . But the portion is just small and veggies are not free refill

first time doing halves, and what a surprise!! explosion of flavors!!! and fantastic service!! now i have to find it at home🫤

It was our first time doing shabu shabu and we found this place because my son Brad wanted to try it for the first time for his birthday. We went and got seated right away. Got our drinks. Then we asked how it all works, and it was clearly explained. Very cool! Pick a broth pick a meat. Vegetables and rice and noodles are served with everything. If you decide to do the grill as well, you pick another protein. It was a A little pricey, so I would probably do it differently next time and not get the combination with Broth and the grill. It was a lot of food, but a great experience. The food was high-quality. The service was great. Ted was very informative and showed us how the woo beef is sent to them with certificates. For my son birthday, they brought shaved mango ice, which was really cool. It almost looked like Parmesan cheese, but it was mango purée. That’s frozen and shaved - yummy! I’ll definitely go back 😋

Halves in Foothill Ranch offers a really unique dining experience! You get the best of both worlds with the option to have half shabu shabu and half Korean barbecue at your table. The food is fresh and the variety of options for both cooking styles makes it fun to mix and match flavors.

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

The grill is recommended. For shabu, the konbu soup is plain, not flavored. Service is awesome.

Atmosphere: 4

Food: 4

Service: 5