A & J Restaurant

Came here to satisfy my Taiwainese craving. Wasn’t too hungry so I just ordered an order of pork chop, beef wraps and green onion pancakes. The pork chop was good and tender and the beef wraps were quite good. They had the right balance of vegetables, beef and sauce. The green onion pancakes were alright though, not the best I’ve had. They were a little too thick and hard for my liking. I’ll def come back some other time for breakfast to try their other items.

Perhaps my favorite Chinese noodle restaurant. I crave their dishes when I’m away for too long. My top picks (for authentic) is the Jia Jiang Mian tossed noodles and Preserved vegetable and pork soup noodles. The noodles are always perfectly cooked, soup is very flavorful and the food comes out FAST.
The price is great. They remodeled the place which ups the star rating from 4 to 5. I go here whenever I’m in town.

The specialty here is definitely… SPICY BEEF NOODLE SOUP… Not the best I have had… but definitely up there … see my review of my accidental find driving down Valley Blvd…
also… The Mexican staff here can speak fundamental Mandarin Chinese and know the slang… So don’t talk bad about them or they might give you some extra spice in your Won Ton Soup… LOL
Great Place… been coming here for the last 15 years…

How do people like this place? I ordered the spicy wontons to-​go and it was seriously like a joke when I opened it. The wontons were SUPER tiny like the size of a nickel probably or smaller. More carbs than protein means unsatisfied Tracie! The sauce was ok, but A&J has nothing on Din Tai Fung’s spicy wontons! For the price I paid at A&J it wasn’t that much more than DTF and I’d rather spend my money at DTF for a more fulfilling meal. The service here isn’t that great either.

Overall: This is one of the best Taiwanese restaurants that I have been to. The homey dishes are clearly freshly made and they come out fast! The service is good, the restaurant is clean, and the price is fair. Yes, I’ll definitely be back.
Food: 5
I like their small portion sizes because it lets me try a lot of different dishes. However, their noodles are more than enough for a one person meal.
Beef Noodle Soup (Clear Broth): I know that there spicy beef noodles are usually more popular, but this is a good alternative for spice whimps like me. The broth is well balanced, the beef is tender, and the thick noodles are chewy.
Noodle with Ground Pork, Bean Sprouts, and Cucumber: Flavors were well balanced. I’m not usually a fan of this dish, but it was actually quite good.
Pan Fried Beef Bun: The beef filling was juicy, and the bun was crispy. I highly recommend this.
Thousand Layer Pancake: It’s like green onion pancakes except better. It’s composed of a bunch of thin layers, which create a fluffy inside and crunchy outside.
Smoked Chicken: This was hands down one of the best chickens that I have ever had. The smokiness was intense, and the meat was moist.
Service: 4
The staff is quick and efficient, but it never feels like they’re rushing you. Although I get the feeling that their English isn’t the best, they are helpful and able to answer all the questions I asked about the food. The only downside is the fact that they are CASH ONLY!
Ambiance: 5
It’s a small, clean, brightly lit store. I came on the weekend before Chinese New Years, and parking wasn’t too bad.

Cash only!
Huge portions and quick service. Paid about $ 24 for a dinner for two (2 beef noodle soups and thousand layer pancake). Thought it was much better than Capital Seafood’s noodle house.

Always and forever my love. There is no comparison when it comes to the spicy beef noodle soup!
I’ve been coming to A&J since I was an undergrad more than ten years ago (totally just dated myself). Back in the day, my friends and I would play Texas hold ‘em, and rather than playing for actual money, we’d play for dishes at A&J, no joke. To this day, whenever I pass through Irvine, I NEED my spicy beef noodle soup with sour mustard greens fix! And maybe a scallion pancake to dip in the soup or other side dishes.
The shop is on the smaller side, and accepts cash only, which is a little annoying, BUT THE SOUP IS JUST THAT GOOD. The service is fast, and bonus, I love that the ladies who work here speak Taiwanese. Not that I can, but it’s a bit of home, you know? Adds to the authenticity. The ordering can be a little tricky, especially if they give you the ordering sheet in Chinese, but what I end up doing is just matching the characters from the menu to the ordering sheet like a 5 year old. ;)
I have yet to find a shop that makes the spicy beef noodle soup as consistently tasty as A&J’s. Order it with the sour mustard greens and the thick noodles! You will not be disappointed!

Satisfies my cravings for wontons and dumplings ANY DAY!
Spicy Wontons (5 stars) — sauce that goes on the wontons is REALLY flavorful and great. A little spicy but nothing most people can’t handle (imo). It’s made with (I believe) pork wontons and comes with about 8 pieces. It’s my favorite thing to order here and for approx $ 5, it’s a steal!
Pork pan fried Dumplings (5 stars) — you can definitely tell these are made in-​house and they just hit all the right spots for me! The meat mixture in the middle is flavorful and the dumpling skin is thin, and thus not floury. Comes with 8pcs for about $ 9
Spicy Beef Noodle Soup (3.5 stars) — Hit or Miss. I’ve had it a couple times and some days are better than others. But, in general, they satisfy your craving if you ever want some noodle soup. It’s beef broth with tender beef slices and some bok choy. You can choose thin or thick noodle, but I recommend thick! It’s not the best I’ve ever had, but it’ll do in a pinch!
Thousand layer pancake (1.5 stars) — Not good in small groups. I don’t quite understand the hype over it, but the pancake itself lacked a lot of flavor and just didn’t impress me. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it, but I wouldn’t get it again based on my tastes.
I’d come here again any day!

Love this place. Gets crowded so prepare to wait. Went to Taiwan in Nov and missed the food. Met some people at a friend’s birthday that recommended this place. We met up with our new friends here, and they did the ordering. Love their Cold noodles, never had this dish before and now I have a new love. The minced pork over rice was outstanding. Scallion pancake and beef noodle was also on point. Prices are decent, only complaint is that it’s super tiny for how busy it is. Can’t wait to go back

A&J does not serve the best tasting food. It’s like a mom and pop shop. Their food grow on you. It HAS become my comfort food.
The weekend breakfast is my absolute favorite. They open at 10a & serve fresh hot soy milk and Chinese donut, in additional to their regular menu. The hot soy milk and the crunchy Chinese donut are the best combination. It’s like the movie-​ratatouille. You can almost hear the crunchiness singing in the pipping hot soy milk like a symphony in harmony– perfect for a weekend morning. If you are on a budget, two person, two hot soy milk and one crunchy donut to share. $ 6. Ta-​da!
What we usually order for weekend breakfast– the soy milk & the Chinese donut of course. Then I HAVE to have my spicy wonton. You can even get the scallion cake and dip in the spicy sauce. It’s that good. And then I always want to try something different. If you are adventurous, try the thousand egg with tofu. The cucumber is good if you feel like eating green. If you are eating for lunch too, I recommend the beef tendon noodle soup.
The only issue I have is cleanliness. They have recently remodeled so it’s cleaner than before. But the floor– it’s like greasily slippery that I always worry someone might slip and fall.

Not too shabby… except for the fact that it’s CASH ONLY!
So I ordered the beef noodle soup, and the won tons.
Beef Noodle Soup: tasty, loved the broth, the smell. The texture of the large noodles. All great. The beef was whatever though. Beef wasnt as tender and was more on the chewy side. ⁶⁄₁₀
The won tons: ⁹⁄₁₀ MAN THESE BAD BOYS WERE DANG GOOD. The flavor, the spiciness. Just everything. TRY THESE! They’re a bit on the expensive side though, since there were only like 7 won tons without any soup haha. Small servings. If they doubled it, I would totally come back.
Anyway, parking was terrible and I didn’t think the servings were big enough for the price. Good place to eat if you’re craving Taiwanese food and need something nearby Irvine.

This place is actually pretty good. The price was reasonable for its portion. The reason I gave it 3 stars is because this place can get quite crowded for a small shop. It took me awhile to get a hold of a server to order, than it took awhile to ask for napkins, and also the check. I think to improve the should have at least 3 – 4 servers instead of around 2. The food was quite good though so don’t get me wrong. You should try it for yourself.
I got the dumpling with soup, it was alright wish I had more soup. The spicy wonton was great I Recommend it. They’re known for their beef noodle but I thought the noodle was quite thick. I would like to ask for skinny noodles next time. The beef bun was not bad a good try for $ 2 I guess.

Really great Chinese/​Taiwanese food. However, you may have some trouble with the ordering sheet if you can not read Chinese. Once you get past that part though, you’re in for a pleasant surprise.
Get the spicy dumplings. ¹⁰⁰⁄₁₀ You can not go wrong with those. Easily my favorite part of the meal.
Dan Dan noodles (spicy sesame sauce and peanut powder) 9.5÷10 Best Dan Dan noodles I have ever had.
Spicy beef noodle soup 7.5÷10 Very tasty and heavy broth. The beef is super tender and generous amount. Good, but not my favorite dish out of the ones we tried.
Service is decent. Nothing to complain about.
Normally I hate seeing the bill after a huge meal, but there was no shame in my game after this one. With most dishes ranging from $ 3 – 10 you can stuff yourself silly with delicious foods and not hurt your wallet!

Loved the beef noodle soup here! Met up with a friend for dinner and there’s plenty of parking but also a lot of Asian shops so be weary for Asian parking lots. The spots were actually pretty big for an Asian perspective.
NOTE: THIS PLACE IS CASH ONLY! There’s a bank right across the street that has an ATM with a $ 3 fee for withdrawal.
The restaurant is relatively roomy and looks very clean. We got hot tea and they have a pretty good selection of Taiwanese noodles and appetizers. I ordered the beef and tendon spicy noodles and my friend and I shared the Xiao Long Bao (steamed pork buns) and also a beef pancake. The noodles are about $ 10 and the Xiao Long Bao was 4 dumplings for $ 3.50 and the beef pancake which was pretty small was $ 1.50. The soup in the noodles soup was soooo delicious! I think the portion is definitely enough to keep you full. I probably wouldn’t order the appetizers just because they’re so small.

Location:
If you are listening to the maps, you don’t need to make a U turn, you can just make a left turn into the complex before the U turn.
Décor:
It is fairly small, but has fairly nice wooden chairs and tables.
Food & Drinks:
We ordered a ton of food: Seaweed salad, spicy cucumbers, soy milk, rice porridge, beef noodle soup, beef wrap, beef sandwich, Chinese doughnut, vegetarian fried bun, green onion pancakes and pork slices. Everything was just like the flavors back in the bay. The friend dishes were crispy and not too oily, the sides were crisp and fresh, and most of dishes were flavored well. The soy milk was a little disappointing as it tasted a little bland and the portion of meat in dish was a little on the smaller side. Overall it tasted great, but I just wish they added a little more meat or veggies to their dishes as this ended up as a very carb heavy meal.
Happy Chinese Breakfast eating my friends!

Since I’ve been sick for a while, my friend suggested we come here for some comfort food. There was a little wait before we got seated for a lunch.
We got the spicy beef soup, Xiao long bao and scallion pancake. Everything tasted great!
The décor is plain and it’s a bit loud. Otherwise it’s clean and the staff is helpful.
Will be back for sure!

Taiwanese food — YASSSSS.
Okay so I used to live in Irvine and would frequent this place. It’s so good, I would even go by myself just to enjoy a big bowl of beef tendon noodle soup.
Everything I’ve had here has been tasty! They give you a little paper menu where you can mark what you want and how many. The difficult part is that it’s in Taiwanese. On my last visit with my boyfriend, sister, and brother in law, we managed to match the items on the menu in English to the paper order form in Taiwanese. I think it’d be easier if they just had the form in English too…
Some of the descriptions of items are not exactly what you’d expect. For example, we thought we were ordering soup dumplings, but we ended up getting dumplings in soup. Oops! There was some confusion explaining what happened to the worker as well because she only spoke Taiwanese. It all ended up alright and she brought what we wanted.
The place is small, so you may have to wait, but it’s worth it! They give you a number on a piece of paper and call your number when it’s your turn.
My favorites are: wontons in hot chili oil, beef tendon noodle soup, green onion pancake, pork potstickers, and soup dumplings!
My boyfriend LOVES the beef buns.
Would recommend and return (when in town)!
Note: as with any Asian strip mall, be careful of other drivers!!!

Is it just me or are there a lot of taiwanese restaurants all over the country called A&J?
One of the things that socal does better than NYC in terms of the food scene is definitely taiwanese food. Still have yet to find a good place in NYC after almost 10 years… sad.
Super excited when my bf took me to a taiwanese place in Irvine for some brunch — I basically wanted to get every single thing on the menu haha. We got seated immediately but it seemed like they were super busy with a small line forming. From what other customers were saying, the restaurant got a renovation and just reopened two weeks ago :) They give you a paper menu where you can mark off what you want to order — very authentic taiwanese way of ordering!
We started with a hot salted soy milk 鹹豆漿 and an iced soy milk 冰豆漿…I must say, I’ve never liked the savory soy milk, but this one was delicious with little bits of fried dough mixed in. The iced soy milk tasted exactly like how I remember it from back home in Taipei (not any of that american soy milk crap sigh). OFF TO A GOOD START.
Then we ordered a few more items to share:;
Salted rice ball (飯糰) — awesome glutinous rice texture with yummy pork floss (肉鬆) and fried dough.
Spicy wonton with hot red sauce (紅油抄手) — pretty standard, I liked the flavor of their chili sauce!
Spicy beef noodle soup — they ask you if you want thin or thick noodles. We opted for the thick, which kind of reminded me of hand pulled noodles. The broth was very peppery, not really what I expected from a normal beef noodle soup, but it was still good.
Bean curd vermicelli soup (油豆腐細粉) — I’ve been trying to find a good one in the US but have never been able to… I had high hopes, but unfortunately A&J’s fell flat on this too. Why can’t I get good vermicelli with the right texture here?! The soup was also super bland… BLAH. Do not order.
If I came here again, I’d probably focus on the more breakfast-​y items!!!

I stopped by on my way to San Diego from Los Angeles because I heard good things about it and was very happy that I did. I got the clear broth beef noodles with thicker noodles and I really liked it. The broth was flavorful but not heavy or overwhelming. I also enjoyed how tender the beef was. I hate it when you have to chew forever. I’ve always eaten pretty light so depending on preference, one might think the soup is bland.
I also got their potstickers and they were good too! Very hot, though.
At about 7:45pm on a Saturday night, my friend and I waited about 10 – 15 minutes which wasn’t bad at all. The rate at which patrons come and go is very quick and service is very attentive. The place is Cash only and the parking lot is annoying during peak meal hours. I definitely loved what I ordered so I will be back to try other things.

A&J has been around for over 16 years BY (before Unilocal). I use to come to A&J to get my Taiwanese food fix when I worked in Tustin. Nothing has change same table and chairs good staple Taiwanese faire and cash only. We ordered the following items
Ja Jaing Mein dry noodles with ground and veggie toppings
Clear Broth Beef Noodle soup tender beef in a non greasy lite broth like (phở)
Beef Bun pan fried bun with beef and green onion stuffing
Dry Bean Curd strings with veggies
Pickled cabbage salad
Pei Dan Egg with Tofu
Spicy tripe
Service is minimal but fast. Parking in the very busy center for lunch is a problem. Cash Only.