House of Benny

Let’s just say I probably ordered the wrong thing.
I was in the area for lunch a few months ago and ordered an Orange Chicken Lunch Special. With tax and tip it came to over $ 11. I requested white meat chicken and I think that is where I went wrong in the ordering process. I should have left well enough alone and just ordered it the way it comes. I paid $ 1 or so extra for white meat chicken but what I got tasted nothing like chicken breast. Whatever it was, it was sliced very thin, I was eating mostly crispy puffed up breading which tasted of oil and sauce, it may have been passable if I could taste chunks of chicken but there was barely any chicken in each crispy fried and sauced nugget of breading. For a minute I wondered if I was eating fish? Needless to say I lost my appetite and could not wait to pay the bill and get out. I am sad I did not love the food like some of the other Unilocalers.

House of Benny has amazing food and wonderful customer service! Hands down, I highly recommend this place. Its incredibly affordable for the top quality of food and service you get.

First time trying this place food was great and service was excellent! We will definitely be back.

First time eating here and the food was great! I went with my parents and we ordered the hot and sour soup which was amazing! Very thick and spicy soup not watery and oily like some places make it. Then we ordered the chicken chow mein, chicken fried rice and orange chicken. The noodles and rice were good but the orange chicken made the meal. So much flavor and had a good crunch to it. Only thing my mom had to complain about was they didn’t have hot green tea. But other than that we’d definitely be back. Found our new spot!

Still closed as of Oct 2015. And still closed as of Jan 2016. Don’t think they are opening again.

ORANGE CHICKEN!!! Found this place on Unilocal and wanted to try the orange chicken that all the other reviewers were raving about. This place definitely has the best orange chicken my husband and I have ever eaten. This is a hidden gem, small, cozy, hole in the wall restaurant. Make sure you sit down and eat the orange chicken as soon as ordered. Its crispy and a BURST of flavor in your mouth. I’ve ordered the orange chicken as take out, its not the same after the drive home. Service is expeditious, it seems as if our food is ready as soon as we order it. We never wait more than 10 minutes for our food. HIGHLY RECOMMEND

Horrible. The House Chow Mein was completely inedible. The pork was overcooked, the chicken was dark mystery meat that you couldn’t chew, and they only gave me 1 Shrimp in the entire dish. This place is lousy.

Great food. Love the Hot & Sour Soup!

I just ordered out from here. The curry chicken yummy, I asked if I could have just white meat and that is what got. I also ordered mushroom egg foo young very good the gravy is so good. I will be a regular now can’t wait to try the specialties. Oh yeah and I saw a soup I can’t wait to try

Excellent food, friendly service and the price is right! Sizzling chicken, chicken chow mein and war wonton soup delicious!

I enjoyed my one and only visit at this establishment. The food was fresh and tasty. I wish I could recall, what I ordered, but at this point, who really cares. The service was good. A little pricy for the portion size, but all is forgiven. I will return some day.

How is this place rated so high? It was expensive for one, horrible seating for two, and the worst thing about it is that they had no meat on our entre they put mostly vegestables. The service is also bad, servers cant understand what u want to drink. I really dont know what was worse the service or the food. The two places that are next door are alot vetter than this one the bbq place is great and the mexican place is also great.

My family has been with Benny since 1981 when he was with House of Louie. When he left and opened his own place we followed. The new place is smaller and more casual but the food is why we come. We live in Orange County but we drive here since we have not found another restaurant that is remotely comparable. Sure you can drive to Chinatown for authentic food and deal with the traffic and parking, I’ll eat at Benny’s any day.

This place is hidden because there’s always a crowd next door (Fonda Don Chon). We were actually going to be on that line to eat Mexican, but since the wait was way too long, we decided to go to House of Benny, where there was no wait or crowds. Pleasantly surprised by good Chinese food. Tried dim sum combination for appetizer. Though this dish was pricey, it’s well worth it and actually filling. The owner talks to customers and so does the chef (Benny). Benny used to be the chef for another restaurant, House of Louie, but he left and started this one. Have gone back a few times here. Tried wonton soup, sweet n sour pork, bbq pork, chicken lo mein, cashew chicken, fried rice… All were great but the bbq pork (tasted stale).

Okay, some background here. I’m from the east coast (Florida, specifically). I grew up eating DELICIOUS New York Style Chinese food (as lots of New Yorkers come to Florida – you get a lot of amazing pizzerias too). I moved out here to Cali 4 years ago and thought things would be BETTER. How wrong I was! Every Chinese place I tried (and I tried many, believe me – even highly rated Unilocal ones) was just… Ugh. Either they were Panda Express style buffets (which is the SCOURGE of good Chinese food. It turns out greasy and horrific), or were just underwhelming or bland. I missed those little hole in the wall New York Style places that seem to be on every corner in FL where they make the food to order when you order it. Even the places that cook to order out here don’t compare.
And now I’ve found House of Benny.
Oh, Benny, Benny, Benny. Your house is so rad, Benny. You don’t advertise that it’s New York Style, but you’ve definitely got it down. This is, hands down, the BEST Chinese food I have had since leaving FL. It even blows my old favorites out of the water. I had the lunch special and stuck with my «safe» food choice – orange chicken. I feel you can really judge a Chinese place based on its orange chicken. I opted for the fried rice as – again – you can generally judge a place from its fried rice. If a Chinese restaurant has watery fried rice and bad orange chicken, run far, far away.
I work around the corner, so picking it up was a breeze. «Ten minutes» they told me, and sure enough, I rolled up ten minutes later to pick it up. The food was ready, but when I introduced myself the lady went and added my fried rice. They’d left it in the cooker ’til I got there – a really nice touch since it can cause condensation in your take out box if it’s in there too long. The restaurant is a bit on the small side, but I was in it for take out, so that’s fine. It was about 70% full at around 1PM – not bad considering the taco place next door is super popular.
The packaging was really good – they package the cookies, silverware, salad, and soup in its own bag so if something horrid happens and your soup leaks it doesn’t get into your entrée. Mine didn’t leak, but I still appreciate the gesture. Even through the bag I could smell the orange chicken. Heavenly.
I got back to the office and unwrapped everything – the lunch special came with a HUGE helping of orange chicken and fried rice (someone on here complained about portions – I don’t get it. This was huge.), a small portion of egg drop soup (with mushrooms and water chestnuts!), a nice little salad, and two fortune cookies. I couldn’t resist the chicken, so I started with that.
It’s sweet, but not too sweet. It sort of has this light, tempura-​like texture. The batter isn’t overwhelming or too thick, and – most importantly – the sauce wasn’t 95% sugar. The chicken wasn’t oily or soggy either – this is the biggest sin that I encounter with saucy chicken dishes like this. It was refreshing. They were SUPER generous with the portion like I said before – I probably ate maybe a third of the chicken before I was full to bursting.
The fried rice was pretty good. It was a simple egg fried rice (thought I did get a few stray pieces of pork!), and they were generous with the egg. Way more generous than I’m used to actually – there were some genuine mouthful-​sized bits of egg that I had to break up. No peas, carrots, or onions though – this is basic egg fried rice. Like with the chicken, the portion was huge and I could only finish half of it. I can’t wait to take their house fried rice for a spin.
The egg drop soup was a really nice surprise since their website just said the special comes with «soup». I’m not sure if they change the soup up, but I hope not. Egg drop soup is one of my favorites. My dad used to bring me huge things of it when I had my first job way back in the day – eating it even now made me think of him. It was really good soup too – sometimes egg drop soup comes out flavorless or oily, which is just augh. The egg drop soup had little bits of mushrooms and water chestnuts in it – a real surprise as I’ve never had egg drop soup with anything other than wontons in it. I didn’t mind the veggies as they were tasty.
I attacked the salad last as I forgot about it (all on its own, off to the side). Like everything else, it was AWESOME. There was a lot of dressing, but it wasn’t… Oily. I don’t know how to explain it. It reminded me of the vinegar sauce you sometimes get to dip springrolls into. It was refreshing and just great. The rest of the salad was your basic green salad. I liked that they put it in the little rice box so it didn’t leak everywhere – I hate it when takeout places try to bundle the salad with your entrée. Most of the time the salad ends up superheated or mixed with rice!
House of Benny gets an A+ from me!

My boyfriend showed me this place when we first started dating and now I can’t get enough! In an area where there are a plethora of Chinese food around, this one is definitely one of my favorites. It’s not one of those fast-​food Chinese places where they pre-​cook your food and you just point at what you want, it’s one of those sit-​down restaurants where they prepare your food as you order so the food comes out fresher than ever.
Right as you walk in you’re greeted not only by a smiling owner, but also the smell of the sweet sweet aroma of the Chinese food they’re preparing which intensifies my hunger 100 x! Everything on their menu is good, and what I love is that it’s not super greasy like other Chinese places. They also give you complimentary hot green tea when you dine-​in. The staff are all friendly and accommodating. They also play really relaxing music, as if you’re dining in one of those fancy restaurants.
Love coming here!

I didn’t expect to eat much because I still had father’s day dinner to go to. It didn’t go as planned. The food was so good, ended up eating the whole two dish. We ordered orange chicken and beef chow mein hong kong style. Both dalicious! I will definitely be back.

By far, the very best & most unique Orange Chicken I have ever eaten. It’s like eating funnel cake from Knott’s.
Pork Chop with Salt & Pepper, (My girl
Likes the Chow Fun) and pretty much everything on the menu is top shelf.
When you walk into this small restaurant, the aromas alone make you want to stay the night.
Great, great place.

I really, really like this places. I’ve only had it twice, so I know that’s saying a lot. Benny lost a star for our first experience getting take out and having to wait an hour for everything.
Second try was with our little one and taking a chance that the wait wouldn’t be as long.
Really small place, but much nicer on the inside than what you would think from the outside. Very clean too. They have one waitress and one bus girl. The menu has all your traditional items and a few exceptions.
I can’t fully remember what we had but it was fantastic. I remember some sort of shredded beef (which wasn’t actually shredded) and it was amazing. We did opt for some egg flower soup, delish. I ordered a hot tea, and they bring you a whole pot, which is nice.
The wait, was almost non existent.
We’ll be back

Unilocaled a Chinese restaurant to give in to our cravings after shopping In the area.
This place is definitely a hidden gem
Small to say the least but BIG on service and quality of food.
Service:
Melissa our server was the BEST I’ve ever had considering this is a Chinese restaurant
I always had a hot tea and never ran out of water.
Food:
we ordered the house fried rice
Mongolian beef and orange chicken
Mongolian and orange chicken were great.
The house fried rice was good but I wouldn’t come here out of my way just for the fried rice.
This is definetely a place I would love to
Come back to and explore the menu