What's the deal with China Garden in OC?

[cls]

My mom lives in Irvine so some Sundays I drive down Jeffery near the five. On Sundays, there are lines out the door of Chinese families waiting to get in to China Garden. Is this dim sum? Anyone been?

[cqt]

I don't understand the lines - I've waited 2x and was so underwhelmed by the dim sum. Aside from the mediocre dim sum, the place felt a little gross.

You really can't get good dim sum in Irvine. Despite the large Chinese population, you really dont' get the same caliber of Chinese restaurants as SGV or Rowland Heights - more's the pity.

The one place that I do frequent at lunch is Crystal Jade in Quail Hill - very small selection but decent dim sum and rarely a wait. It's a bit Americanized than I would like but it's still pretty good.

[empfam]

I agree. Not a fan of China Garden. Everything felt greasy and the food was really not good. There was nothing in the dim sum offerings that was worth a second visit.

Crystal Jade is much better; as far as I can tell, they cook the dim sum to order so it's totally fresh. It has a much more south orange county feel, without completely pandering to Americanized chinese menus (no egg foo young as far as I can tell)...

[kingkong5]

It's good for dim sum for irvine, which explains the crowd. IMHO, I think they do a better job with king crab, geoduck and peking duck for dinner. Elmomonster had a great writeup about China Garden dim sum, and being exiled to the back room.

[exilekiss]

Hi cls,

Yes, this is for Dim Sum. Sadly, it's not worth it. I've tried China Garden's Dim Sum a few times and it's consistently mediocre. Well, for OC, it's probably one of the better choices if you live in the Irvine area and don't want to drive too far, but compared to the SGV, China Garden's Dim Sum would rate ~6.0 (out of 10.0), honestly.