Why Is Chinese Food in Irvine So Expensive? Hidden Neighborhood of Chinese Wealth Holds The Key

Several years ago I wrote an article for the now defunct Menuism website on how Irvine, California had arrived as a major Chinese restaurant dining destination with which few Los Angeles area residents in the San Gabriel Valley (40 miles away) or the Westside of Los Angeles (55 miles away) were particularly familiar.  So why now has Irvine likely become the most expensive locale for authentic Chinese food in the United States?  Chinese restaurants having branches in both Irvine and the San Gabriel Valley often charge $5 or more for the same regular entrees at their Irvine branches than in the San Gabriel Valley.  Portion sizes are said to be smaller in Irvine, and while Irvine Chinese food on balance is very good, it is as a whole an obvious cut below the San Gabriel Valley.  There are few, if any lunch specials in the local Chinese restaurants. And to top it off, the most expensive Chinese restaurant I’ve ever eaten at in the United States, Chang’an, where $1,000 tabs are said to be commonplace and the special roast duck is $398 (with a limit of one duck per table) is in Tustin, right by the Irvine border.  

One of the big reasons for the higher cost of Chinese food is shown in these two pictures.  These are houses in a large Irvine subdivision in the north part of the city called Orchard Hills.  Orchard Hills is a typical 21st century suburban residential tract development.   They’re almost cookie cutter houses (A, B, C and D floor plans), with small front and back yards.  You’ve probably seen developments like this many times.  Except that the average value of these 15 tract houses on adjacent blocks of a street called Granite Knoll is about $3 million.  Sort of Pink Houses on steroids. Oh, and all these houses are under the median value for houses sold in Orchard Hills, which is $3.6 million.  And most of these houses are occupied by Chinese and other Asian residents.  

 

Since Orchard Hills is just one of many neighborhoods in Irvine, and one which has just developed in the past 10 years, there is little demographic data available with regard to this specific community.   Consequently there is no information in circulation about the existence of a wealthy Chinese American enclave here.  However it would not be surprising if Orchard Hills has the greatest concentration of Chinese wealth in the United States.  While Asian Americans are probably not quite a majority in Irvine as a whole,  they are easily a majority of the homeowners in Orchard Hills.  The one piece of available demographic information on Orchard Hills indicates that in 2018, Asian Americans comprised 68 percent of the population in Orchard Hills.  And these days if you drive around the streets of Orchard Hills, I wouldn't be surprised if that figure is even higher today.  In my one visit to Chang'an Restaurant, which is convenient to Orchard Hills, and where lunch by myself ended up costing over $100, I was amazed to see at the table next to me two little first or second grade kids dining there along with the adults.

As noted, the existence of this wealthy Chinese enclave has gone virtually unnoticed, except to the restaurants and businesses serving the Chinese community.  Earlier this year a perplexed resident of Irvine posted a question on Reddit asking why house prices in Orchard Hills had surged so much compared to other Irvine neighborhoods since the beginning of the pandemic.  While there were a number of replies to the posting, most if not all from other Irvine residents, nobody specifically mentioned Chinese buyers as being a factor, though someone did speculate that foreign investors might possibly a cause of the housing prices.  However, while there are doubtlessly some foreign Chinese investors who own residences in Orchard Hills, most of the Chinese houses here appear to be owner occupied by Chinese-Americans.  

As I stated in past articles on the historic expansion of the Chinese San Gabriel Valley, Chinese American (as well as foreign Chinese) home buyers love new residential housing development, especially in hillside communities, as they have gone on a decades long eastward march which began 60 years ago in Monterey Park and traveled dozens of miles since then.  While Irvine is not on the geographic trajectory as that which shaped the Chinese San Gabriel Valley, certainly the appeal of brand new residential neighborhoods, especially those in the hills, Orchard Hills suits Chinese buyers to a T, and in this case, particularly buyers whose price range is $2.5 million and upwards. 

Of course there are parts of the San Francisco Bay Area that are home to large numbers of Chinese residents and also have sky high housing prices.  Santa Clara County and San Mateo County both have median home prices north of $2 million, which is higher than the median home price for all of Irvine of $1.5 million.  But both these Bay Area counties are larger geographic areas with a diversity of neighborhoods, and consequently no corresponding inflation in Chinese food prices. In contrast, we're talking about Orchard Hills a compact neighborhood in the city of Irvine. 

 

Also Irvine is a truly unique city.  The population is roughly 325,000 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.  The Irvine Company continues to own all the undeveloped land in the city.   Irvine is a city with no downtown business district, and indeed with no stores or businesses fronting the city’s thoroughfares.  For that matter, there is no street parking permitted on the major boulevards either, meaning no corner restaurants, gas stations, or stores.  That's because all retail activity is confined to a few dozen neighborhood shopping centers, mostly owned by the Irvine Company, whose buildings are generally set back from the street, with signage strictly controlled and not particularly visible from the street. Large parking lots, mostly outdoor surface lots, generally provide ample free parking for shoppers. Residential and commercial development has been rolled out over the decades pursuant to the Irvine Company master plan.  Each residential neighborhood has its own community center and neighborhood parks (with homeowner association assessments to finance them).  There are nearly 70 parks in Irvine, and the houses pictured above border one of the parks.  Shopping centers are all kept in A-1 condition.  One would expect therefore that the rents facing a restaurant operator in Irvine would be above the norm, adding an extra layer to the cost of doing business in the city.

 

And labor costs are definitely higher as there no working class neighborhoods in Irvine and few that are close by.  There are probably no single family detached residences in Irvine priced under a $1 million--a two bedroom, one bath, 50 year old house with under 1,000 square feet will probably cost you at least $1.1 million.  So obviously there are no bad parts of town.  I did see one homeless person once on Culver Dr. in front of a large shopping center, but the next week he was gone.  

 

But really the cost of Chinese food in Irvine really didn't separate itself from the pack until the Orchard Hills homes came on line, and then started skyrocketing from there, so it's likely that’s the real answer.