How Irvine, CA Became A Chinese Dining Destination

How Irvine, CA Became A Chinese Dining Destination - Menuism Dining Blog, May 15, 2017 

In our previous discussions of Chinese dining in Los Angeles, we have only incidentally mentioned the Orange County community of Irvine.   This omission should not be interpreted as a minimization of Irvine’s importance on the Chinese food scene, as indeed Irvine ranks second in the Los Angeles metropolitan area behind just the San Gabriel Valley as the preferred source of authentic Chinese food.  Rather, we haven’t said much about Irvine because of its geographic distance, some 40 miles from both Los Angeles Chinatown and the San Gabriel Valley, and 55 miles from the Westside of Los Angeles.  As such, Irvine’s Chinese food options are seldom utilized by diners from these other areas.

Irvine is a city of roughly 250,000 people, and is visually unlike any other city of such size in the United States.  Irvine was built from scratch beginning in the early 1970s as a planned community on parts of the previously undeveloped Irvine Ranch, which comprised 15 percent of the total land area of Orange County.  Irvine is a city with no downtown business district, and indeed with no stores or businesses fronting the city’s major thorofares.  For that matter, there is no street parking permitted on the major boulevards either, meaning no corner restaurants, gas stations, or stores.  Rather, all retail activity is confined to about 30 neighborhood shopping centers whose buildings are generally set back from the street, with signage strictly controlled and not particularly visible from the street.   

Interestingly, Irvine’s status as a center of Chinese activity, and particularly Chinese dining is a 21^st century phenomenon.   Despite dozens of authentic Chinese restaurants in Irvine today, the Chinese presence in Irvine was negligible for the first two decades of Irvine’s existence, though like every other city in America, Irvine did have its obligatory Americanized Chinese restaurants serving chop suey and New York style Chinese food, such as Northwood China Garden and Chinatown Restaurant.  While Irvine did gradually build up an Asian presence, the Chinese were among the last to discover Irvine’s neighborhoods after the Vietnamese, Japanese and Koreans, though they did populate the University of California Irvine campus, whose initials UCI have humorously been interpreted for many years to stand for the University of Chinese Immigrants.

Indeed I remember being stunned in the early 1990s encountering a restaurant in Irvine called China West, which in addition to General Tso’s Chicken and multiple varieties of chop suey dishes, added fried oysters, whole lobster and whole crab to its menu.  But it wasn’t until the mid-1990s that the flow of Chinese residents into Irvine began, initially Taiwanese attracted by the excellent school system in Irvine.  With the customary lag time between Chinese settlement of a geographic area and the appearance of Chinese stores and authentic Chinese restaurants, it was around 1998 when the first authentic Chinese restaurants showed up in Irvine, in the Arbor Village Shopping Center on one corner of Jeffrey Road and Walnut Ave.  The first two restaurants there were the Cantonese dim sum and seafood restaurant China Garden, which is still in operation today, and the Hong Kong style café O’Shine Kitchen.  O’Shine Kitchen eventually closed, but other family members revived the name and now operate a Taiwanese café just over the border in the city of Tustin.  China Garden and O’Shine Kitchen were followed quickly in Arbor Village by the first Taiwanese restaurant, A & J Restaurant, which also is still in operation today, and shortly thereafter in the Orange Tree Shopping center across Walnut Ave. by  the Cantonese style S.W. BBQ Seafood, and the Taiwanese Yu’s Garden, both still operating.  Also in the late 1990s, the Sam Woo chain opened up a branch in Culver Center.

 

 

With Irvine’s unique commercial and retail layout, the expansion of Chinese dining in Irvine naturally followed its own path.  Chinese dining in the San Gabriel Valley spread from block to block, with dedicated Chinese developed shopping centers being developed as the community grew.  In Irvine, the Chinese influence first largely focused on the existing Arbor Vista and Orange Tree shopping centers, then essentially moved on after these two centers filled up with Chinese establishments.   Orange Tree is now home to a dozen Chinese eateries, including branches of 101 Noodle Express, Tofu King and JJ Bakery, as well as Chong Qing Mei Wei Szechwan and the newly opened Royal Dumpling and Noodle.

 

While there were a small number of random one off Chinese restaurant openings in other Irvine shopping centers over the years, the next significant event was the opening of the new, pan-Asian Diamond Jamboree center in the southern part of Irvine in late 2008.  Diamond Jamboree was the landing spot for the first US location of Taiwan’s now legendary 85°C Bakery and Café.   The opening of 85°C in Irvine created a frenzy never before seen in the Chinese American food world, with customers regularly queuing up for an hour or more for the chance to purchase 85°C ‘s buttery pastries and salted coffee drinks, with the crowds not subsiding until 85°C opened a number of Los Angeles county branches starting two years later.  85°C was joined at Diamond Jamboree by the Hong Kong style Capital Seafood Restaurant, and later by eateries such as Chef Hung Noodles, Meet Fresh Taiwanese desserts and the new branch of Mama Lu’s Dumpling House.

 

As the Chinese influence in Irvine has spread, most every shopping center in Irvine is home to one or more Chinese restaurants.   There’s even an Uyghur restaurant, Kashgar Grill.  But the latest big news is the transformation of Irvine’s largest neighborhood center, Culver Center, into a powerhouse of Chinese dining in the past five years.  For many years the center’s only Chinese food options were Sam Woo Seafood, later followed by J.J. Bakery and Café, and Tea Station.  However Culver Center is becoming the location of choice for newly opened Chinese restaurants, including local branches of San Gabriel Valley favorites Tasty Garden and Tasty Noodle House, as well as Popcorn Chicken, Panda Express, and international chain Little Sheep Hotpot.  But the most telling direction of where Culver Center, and Irvine, are headed, is the landlord’s refusal to renew the lease of the Marie Callender Restaurant in order to accommodate the newly opened 6,000 square foot branch of the mainland Chinese restaurant chain, Meizhou Dongpo.

 

Irvine’s Chinese population continues to grow, increasing the demand for Chinese food.  But Irvine’s shopping centers may be running out of space for new entrants, as indicated by two significant recent openings in the city of Tustin, immediately west of Irvine.  The upscale dim sum and Hong Kong seafood specialist J. Zhou, cousin to notable San Gabriel Valley restaurants of the same ilk, Happy Harbor and Grand Harbor, opened up in the District shopping center in Tustin.  And Alhambra’s Sichuan style darling, Sichuan Impression has opened up in the same shopping center as O’Shine Taiwanese Kitchen.