Ren Asian Bistro

I used to go to this place a couple times a week but the food quality has gone down in my last few visits. The house chicken used to be amazing but now it’s overly breaded which gets soggy instantly in the sauce. Bummed because this was one of my favorite Chinese spots.

Pretty standard average Chinese place, and portions have fluctuated a bit.
When I went in the place was steaming hot, lack of AC on a hot day. It really is the little things when it comes to restaurants that bring customers back. Hopefully the reviews speak for themselves and the owners can make adjustments.
I ordered the Chicken Lo Mein. Very oily, I have not tried much else, but if a basic staple in Chinese fare isn’t up to par (with a small half filled to-​go container) you need to make subtle changes and impress customers.

I’m not sure why there’s a lot of people hating on this place but it could be because the chefs change often? I live in the area and came here for the first time on a Friday night.
As long as you keep your expectations reasonable (while I personally thought this place was pretty good I wouldn’t call it the most authentic Asian food in Irvine), then you should be happy here. I would definitely come back for lunch specials one day.
I ordered:
Chicken lo mein (⁴⁄₅) — solid portion for around $ 8. This was half dinner and half breakfast for me the next day. The flavor was good and tasted fresh.
Xiao long bao (⁴⁄₅) — not as up to par as other places in Irvine but still pretty good nonetheless if you don’t feel like waiting in line elsewhere. For about 7 of these babies you pay about $ 8 and I thought they were pretty good.
Service was super friendly and accommodating for me and they refilled my hot water without me asking multiple times. I will be back. For two ordered for fatty me the bill came to be about $ 17 for dinner.

THE FOOD IS UNDENIABLEY GOOD, Fried Rice is like a drug and im hooked
I literally lay awake at night thinking about the fried rice.
Went here with my parents last week, we go all the time and the service is always been so so but this last time we literally waited forever to get our food
an hour ridiculous if you ask me like are the understaffed? what is the dealio?
All that being said THE FOOD IS SUPER DELICIOUS it is literally our go to place and its like a running joke that the service is always so bad when we go.
So if your down to kinda struggle for a bit to get some amazing food this is your place

First visit last night, and so happy we found this place! We ordered Xiao Long Bao, Shanghainese rice cake, Eggplant, and. Fish dish. We enjoyed all of it, and will be back! Very authentic and lots of variety.
Came back to try some different dishes. Did not disappoint!

I was surprised to learn that there aren’t many Chinese restaurants in Irvine (plenty of Korean, Shabu Shabu, and Japanese). So when the craving hit for Chinese, I was at a complete loss (which is rare for this gold elite Unilocaler).
After consulting the app, this was the closest Chinese restaurant to me. Yet, one problem… NO Delivery!!! What? So we decided to hoof it to the plaza to place a to-​go order, all while in jammies.
We chose the Crispy Wontons, chicken with mushroom, and veggie lo mein with a side of white rice. After 10 minutes, our order was hot and ready (oh wait, that’s Little Caesar’s).
We get it home and saw, no dipping sauce for the crab wontons :(We ate one, and well, were quite underwhelmed. They were runny and bland. The chicken with mushrooms, well, another just ok. The veggie lo mein was my favorite of the three. Thick udon style noodles with big veggies. But couldn’t the book choy be chopped up a bit more? More filler not enough meal.
We got a couple fortune cookies too. I probably would only go here if desperate; the food was ok but nothing to brag about. $ 25 later… I did get a meal for the next day.

yasssssss homegurrrrrrrl this place is da bomb get the orange chicken it tastes so good and it’s not all fried and disgusting like the other orange chicken I’ve tried. I’ll be real the waitress looks like she’s sporting a permanent duckface but she’s pretty nice so whatever ya luvvvvv ren

We came back for our second visit. The experience this time was just OK. Friendly staff and quick service however.
The garlic noodles with beef was not too bad just a bit sweet and very greasy.
I also had their pork chop rice to go. Even though it says Taiwanese pork chop rice, there was no preserved/​sour veggie, instead it’s cabbage with gravy. It didn’t look appetizing at all. The plus side is that they packed the pork chop separately. It’s pretty thin but has decent flavor. There’s also a braised egg too. I ate everything except the cabbage with gravy.
My husband and I agreed that the experience was just OK. We still prefer Asian Tapas and since it’s a lot closer to home, most likely we’ll go there instead.

First time trying this place and would never eat here again. I ordered the chicken chow fun, salt and pepper fish, beef with Chinese broccoli, and the pork chops. The chicken, beef, and pork chops had no flavor and the fish was too salty.
When I ordered over the phone, the lady was rude and impatient.

We come here almost every week. We are the big fan of their Hot & Sour and Won Ton soup which taste great with their vinegar sauce. But, We tried the Mongolian Beef this time and it was the best Mongolian I’ve ever had.

We wanted to try somewhere different and came across this restaurant. This place is spacious and not crowded. You could dine in or take out.
We ordered two dishes to give it a try. Apparently, we were quite disappointed. The dishes we ordered were very plain and not very flavorful, as we anticipated.
Tips: They need to make it more rich in flavor and colorful.

Gave them another try and it seem the service is much better. It was prompt and the food was solid. Will try them again soon.

Bottomline: Really delicious AND authentic Chinese food. Do you know how rare it is to hit that golden spot? Plus, the environment is immaculately clean and service is polite and attentive.
As a Chinese person who wants to eat delicious, fresh, authentic home-​style cooking (due respect to all the chow fun loyalists out there), I am routinely frustrated by the Chinese food offerings of Irvine. I’ve been to Ren about 15 times over the span of a year, ordering 3 – 5 dishes each time, and have had a consistently great experience. The flavor of each dish is exactly as it should be, the ingredients are fresh. Even the brown rice is of great quality rice and cooked to the right moisture content. My favorite foods here are the xiao long bao (soup dumplings), which are wonderfully flavorful and have perfect soup-​to-​meat content, fresh meat (unlike A&J, which has grossed me out twice), and homemade skin (ie right texture). I have ordered this every time I come and always been pleased. Everything else I have tried (about 60% of the menu) has also been on point. Prices are fair/​good (most dishes are about $ 9 at dinner).
During the one hour I ate there today, I heard 6 different parties call out to the waitstaff as they left «See you next time!» That’s not something you hear customers proactively say at restaurants often. There’s a reason :)

Got take out and good experience overall. Staff was nice, got the order right and included utensils (surprisingly, I’ve experienced a lot of places who apparently thought I ate with my hands). We had the kung Pao chicken, steamed pork buns and basil leek fish.
Kung Pao chicken was good, but lacked other veggies. It was only chicken and peppers, but flavor was really good. The fish dish was good as well. Portions are great!
I’ll definitely be coming back for more.

Definitely place I will go there again and again.
Great and gentle service from the waiter! Delicious food with traditional Chinese Taste, the volume is always huge! A 25 $ dinner can serve 4 people.

Not a bad spot to get a lunch special if you happen to be around this part of Irvine. The specials range from $ 7 — $ 9 and they come w/​a choice of white or brown rice, soup, salad, & egg roll. I’ve tried the stir fried prawns and the house special chicken — both equally very good. The Thai iced tea comes unsweetened, so make sure to ask for a sugar caddy. Luckily, I always carry a stash of Stevia packets in my purse so it was a non-​issue for me.
Service was very friendly. I would recommend having some cash for the tip, though… the server asked me how much gratuity I wanted to leave because she would need to add it when she ran my card, as they didn’t have that option on their credit card machine. Uhhh… that was probably the most bizarre thing I’ve ever heard for a restaurant to have (not have?). This is simple fix that would probably save them from losing tons of repeat customers. It’s awkward to say the least… Other than that minor fluke, I enjoyed my lunch here and would come back.

Lost count of how many chef changes, but I do like the current one. Hope this one sticks around. The garlic noodles are decent not great, skip the beef dishes, its tough and cut too thick. They need to tenderize or cut the beef strips thinner. Kung pao chicken is also decent, not too spicy and my daughter likes it, and she’s pretty picky. My favorite is the beancurd stir fry with pork, it reminds me of my families version. The Haka stir fry is pretty good as well, but I don’t like peanuts in my chinese dishes.
To the owner: if you’re reading this, keep this chef!

I’m guessing the owner must read these reviews and recommendations because in the past month or two, they’ve really made a turnaround. Ren has improved significantly both in terms of service and quality and the man we presume is the owner or manager is frequently there on sight. The menu has also been edited to include a lot more traditional dishes and it’s neatly organized into seafood, vegetables, chicken, lunch, etc. which makes ordering much easier. The lunch portions are a great value and have a good variety for each price point ($ 7, $ 8, $ 9). The lunch portions also come with salad, soup, a slice of orange, a spring roll (mine was a bit overfried) and your choice of brown or white rice. I’m including the photo of the lunch order of house special squid which was pretty good.
Overall, if they can maintain the quality and service they have now, that would be awesome and I wouldn’t mind eating there frequently.

I haven’t actually read the reviews here, but I’m surprised to see the lowish star rating. My wife and I have eaten here (or taken it to go) 5 – 6 times in the last month or so, and we may even be back again tonight because there are so many dishes we love and others we want to try.
So far we haven’t had a dish we didn’t love. At our last visit we had cashew chicken (we made it level 2 spicy), bean curd with pork strips, and watercress with chicken. Those were all excellent.
The previous visit we had kung pao chicken, which was nice and saucy, but we added Sriracha for more of a zing, watercress (no chicken), and Mongolian chicken. Again, those were delicious.
The chicken in all the dishes we’ve had is always really good quality, very tender, and flavorful. We had the bbq pork 2 or 3 times and while the sauciness tastes great, it’s like most bbq pork in that it has fatty areas, so we’ll probably not order it again.
Overall, this is our new favorite local Chinese food restaurant and love that it’s so nearby. There aren’t a ton of choices in north-​eastern Irvine.
Oh, and the one thing I could potentially knock half a star off for is the service, which is often awkward. When we come in they often don’t give us menus until we ask. And whenever we ask questions they seem blown away or confused that we’re asking them something. They aren’t usually bad or rude guys, just some of them are kind of… «duh» sometimes.

Me and my friend were the first customers! I heard about their soft opening on facebook and as a foodie, of course I have to scout the new restaurants! When we arrived, the staff were still getting ready but were all super nice. The manager, Jenny, was walking around greeting people and seemed like a super warm person.
The food was delicious! We ordered the Thai coconut curry, Home made BBQ pork, Spicy Garlic Noodles and Steamed Mini Pork Bums!
Thai coconut curry — ¹⁰⁄₁₀ — omgurd~! The curry here is DELICIOUS and high quality! I’m super picky about curry because lots of places make watery curry. Well that’s not the case here! A savory curry sauce with chicken, potatoes, cucumbers, and carrots! The sauce is perfection over rice or noodles! NOMS~!
Home made BBQ pork — ¹⁰⁄₁₀ — When I received the plate, I thought the portion size seemed a bit small but it was enough for 2 people (assuming you get 2 dishes). This is probably the best BBQ pork I’ve ate in my life. The savory sauce and the tenderness of the BBQ pork — holy molys!
Spicy Garlic Noodles — Hmm I thought this was just okay by itself, it needed a lot more flavor and sauce in my opinion. But boy oh boy, when you pour that coconut curry over it~ that spiciness mixed with the curry is DIVINE~!
Steamed Mini Pork Bums — ⁸⁄₁₀ — These are basically Xiao Long Baos. These are pretty good here but I’ve had god-​sent ones so I’m a bit of a harsh critic. I recommend them change their black vinegar sauce to another brand that complements these babies better.
The venue was super clean and nice. There are also tables and chairs outside so if you want to see the beautiful sky, sit outside!
TIP: GET THE BBQ PORK~~~~~!!! IT’S GLOORRY~~~~~~