Tasty Noodle House

Had lunch here today and we had the sweetest server. Super friendly staff all around. I wish they had small plate offerings so you can try multiple items. But we ended up looking like fat Americans ordering 4 dishes. We were redeemed at the end because we took most of it with us. I had the House Curry and chicken soup. It was delightful. The broth was light but flavorful. Lots and lots of nudo, so next time I will ask for less. The noodles did soak up that lovely curry flavor and turn yellow. The few potato wedges in the soup were huge on flavor. Wish I knew what they did to make them so tasty. My friend had the pickeled vegetable and pork noodle soup. She said it was very bland and that she wanted to order my soup next time. They have a very large selection of soups, which I love. I could eat soup everyday. The garlic eggplant was good, but could have used more garlic flavor. The real stand out was the Tiger Skin Peppers. I could eat just those alone. The black bean sauce and ground pork smothered on the soft peppers was a perfect combo. Next time, I definitely want to try the pork belly and calamari. This place will definitely be in the lunchtime rotation.

Waited a 30 minutes just waiting for them to serve us… then waited 30+ just for dumplings … Food was fine just came out really slowly … Disappointed

The worst, poorly run noodle house I have come across. They are close from 3−5PM daily. Today, we go in there at 2PM for a late lunch and I have tried to order the pan fried pork bun. Somehow, the chef refused to make that even it was ordered one hour before their afternoon closing time, and no explanation offered, none whatsoever.
We ended up ordering four items.
The smoked fish, which should be served at room temperature and they were brought to us fridge cold. The Shanghai style pan fried noodle which should have shredded cabbage and pork. All we got was noodle with lots of cabbage and hardly any pork. Also, instead of using the udon style thick noodle, they used the thin one that’s for noodle soup. Stir fried rice cake with «ji cai» and shredded pork, once again all we found were lots of the ji vegetable and hardly any pork in the dish. Noodle with fish fillet in tomato soup, the first time they brought that to our table, it was the wrong thing. The second time they brought the right thing but the noodle soup turned out to be bland, tasteless and the noodles were mushy.
We were at this restaurant one time when they first opened and the food and service were not that good then. Today, we decided to give it another try and whole experience had go south even further. Don’t think we will ever patronize this eatery again.

I’ll give a three as max for this place. I almost gave two, but I’m a nice person. Because I came to Bevmo, and was planning to go to another noodle house, but saw this one with lots of Chinese people, so I thought that must be a good one. I ordered Prawn Spicy Noodle Soup. Sauce on top of noodles was sweet than spicy. Soup was a OK. Noodles were nothing special. Big prawns were not peeled with heads on! Is this how Chinese people like to eat prawns or cooks are too lazy? I had to pick up all of prawns out and peel them with my hands. Usually if the shells are not peeled, at least the back is cut and poops are taken out. They were not. I should have gone to the place I originally planned. That’s why I don’t like to try a new place.

I was pretty excited to go to Tasty Noodle when they opened in Irvine since there aren’t many really good Taiwanese options in OC. A little disappointed by the food and the service after coming a couple times.
Service was slow and waiters weren’t very friendly. The wait was very tedious since everyone was complaining. Unlike other places, the staff didn’t care much.
In terms of the food, they have so many things to pick which it’s overwhelming for me since I couldn’t make a quick decision and we were a big party! I really liked the walnut shrimp (4) and their sirloin beef with veggies (4.5)! We had beef soup (3), fried rice (3), hong kong milk tea w/​unlimited refills (4).
To be honest, I’d rather go back to Sam Woo!

Extremely underrated. Must try their Spicy Stinky Tofu. Seriously the best Stinky Tofu I’ve ever had. The quality and texture of the tofu is super authentic but it is served with a bit of a twist – their own special spices/​seasoning. Perfectly crispy without being grossly greasy. Super flavorful and unique taste. Gladly accommodated when I asked if it could be made without meat. ⁵⁄₅
For reference: I’ve had Stinky tofu in NYC, LA, and of course Taiwan and this is by far my favorite rendition of the dish. I’m Taiwanese and go back to visit fairly often, eating Stinky Tofu at least once almost every day I’m there and the Stinky tofu here is as good as my favorite place in Taiwan’s Shilin Night Market.
Husband said the same about the beef noodle soup and raved about how it is definitely comparable to the best ones he had in Taiwan. ⁵⁄₅
Fish and cilantro dumplings were another big hit. So light, fresh, and flavorful. Paired perfectly with the vinegar they served it with. So good I wanted to buy a frozen bag of 50 for $ 25 per their sign but unfortunately they are temporarily not selling the frozen bags due to the lunar new year. Next time I guess… ⁵⁄₅
Spicy Fish and Tofu noodle soup was good but not great. The fish and tofu on top were yummy but the soup and noodles lacked flavor. Noodles were a good consistency though and portion was generous. ⁴⁄₅
Garlic eggplant — not the best version of this but still pretty good. Very odd that they put meat in this dish as there usually isn’t supposed to be any meat in it. Wish they let me know or figured out that I didn’t eat meat after I questioned if there was pork in the fish and cilantro dumplings and requested the Stinky tofu without meat… lucky I’m not strict like many and don’t mind if my food touches meat. ³⁄₅ but probably could have been ⁴⁄₅ if made the proper way this dish should be (without meat)

Service sucks. I just walked out of there actually. It took over 10 min for them to ask me what I wanted to drink. Actually they never asked, it got to the 12 min mark and I left. Which is a shame because the pics of food they have really looked appetizing. But no excuse for such poor service on a Thursday night at 5:30. They weren’t busy. No excuse.

Was torn between giving this place a 3 or a 4 and decided to settle on a 3. The soup dumplings were pretty bad tbh and I wouldn’t recommend them. The bell peppers were really good though! I wish I could say it in Chinese but I know it has the word «tiger skin» in the name. Another dish I really liked was the fried rice with preserved veggies. Sounds weird but the sourness from the veggies gave the rice an addicting taste. The last fish I got was the Shanghai rice cakes but they were so stuck together and too chewy :(
The bell peppers and rice were so yummy to me that I still contemplated giving this place a higher review! But alas, I must be fair! :)

Since it was new year, I wanted to try something new, Marinated Pork Feet Noodle Soup. The pork feet was very so soft and they didn’t just give me all bones. There were chunks of meat. It has very nice flavor that I think it would go well with just steam rice.
Another new item I’ve tried is their fish noodle soup. It has a bit of a vinegar in it (I think) gives it a little different taste. Equally good! My husband wanted just wonton soup so he got the Shanghai Shrimp wonton soup. Most wonton soup is either dried scallop or chicken based but their added some seaweed so it has a strong seaweed taste to it. It’s matter of preference. My husband always like seaweed soup so he thought it was different but he enjoyed it.
Overall, this place always has good food and not too hard on the pocket. We come here so often that the staff pretty much know us.
Please note their business hours aren’t really what it’s specified. On Sundays, they do close by 9pm but on other days they seem to stay open til 9:30pm.

This is probably my favorite place with Shanghai Food! Good prices + big dishes!
What I like to ordered:
— Shanghai vegetables pork rice cake — one of my favorites! The rice cake taste perfect! There’s still a lot of flavor even though it looks bland.
— Braised pork belly with preserved vegetables — BEST DISH EVER. They are thinly sliced and have a lot of flavor! 100% satisfaction!
— Shanghai Style Chow Mein
–Xiao Long Bao– Very juicy and yummy! Not as good as DTF, but it’s still good!
–Shanghai Grilled Pork Bun — There’s lots of juice in this so watch out when you bite into it! It’s a bit doughy for me (But I think they’re all like this)…but the meat and flavor instead taste great.
Cons:
Usually there’s a long wait since the restaurant is so small. If you have a big group (5+), expect to wait a bit.

This place is sooooo stingy. I will never go back to a place that does business like them. I asked for more ginger and they barely gave me any. I finished that in one bite and asked for more. The waitress went and told her boss who gave me a dirty look. They came back with a tiny plate with barely any ginger, again. This ruined my appetite and I just took my food togo and left. I do not recommend this place, they have poor manners and the quality of food is decent.

I LOVE Taiwanese food. I came here with a friend for lunch on a Saturday at 12:00. There was a small wait, but the staff was quick about getting the tables cleaned and seating people. The restaurant itself is pretty small. The service was good. The waitresses checked in with us intermittently and boxed up our food as we ate so we could make room for more plates. The food doesn’t come out all at once. It’s almost made for group sharing, which I like because you can get more items and split everything. We tried the:
–Grilled pork bun: 8 steamed pork buns with a little soup inside. The bottom is dipped in sesame seeds and then grilled. The meat flavor is sweet like the soup. My favorite part is the bottom grilled portion. Dipping it in a soy sauce vinegar made it even more delicious.
–Xiao long bao: compared to other places, the skin is about average thickness. The soup is hot and sweet.
–House sauce noodles: this was a huge surprise. I didn’t think I would enjoy it nearly as much as I did. I would definitely get this item again. The noodles are served with a tofu/​meat sauce. I added some of the chili paste on top and it gave it a tiny kick. Very good flavor.
–Hot and sour soup: this would be perfect for winter. It was really hot, with a nice spiciness when you add the white pepper.
I can’t wait to come back and try the other menu items. If you can, come in a group so you can try a bunch of things. I came with one other person and we shared these 4 items with a little bit left over to take home.

Da bomb. Everything on the menu is tasty
A couple of stand outs
— the fried fish with seaweed
— the sesame dumplings — you’ll think you died and went to heaven
— tofu and mushroom
— the pan fried dumplings
And the list goes on and on
If you’re looking for Panda Express go there and leave this to locals who know and love good food
I have to say I like this more than din tai fung

I have to admit I have not been back for 9 months because I am on diet and I can not resist their food. Someone reviewed earlier that their chef’s been changed. I have no idea if that is the case or not.
I particularly liked their noodles, dry or with soup. Very authentic Shanghai cuisine. It helps if you speak Chinese there. Somewhat crowded.
If you are OK with pork, they have the best Hong Shao Zhu Rou (just pronounce it this way to them, I do not remember what’s its English name. with a bowl of white rice, it is to die for.
I have to admit, this place is not the cleanest restaurant you can go to. But it is OK.
Tim

I really felt like I was back in China from the moment I arrived at this restaurant… and not in a good way. I have Mainlanders children running into me as I wait, and note that there’s plenty of space all around us, and then her bumping me with her baby stroller without a care in the world. It’s like, I don’t know you lady… control your kid and stop rubbing your baby stroller on me.
We noticed a young couple, probably going to the local community college or UCI, chain smoking a cigarette who put their names down on the list after us, but a quick word with one of the waitresses, they sat down before the Mrs. and I… she wasn’t having any of this and was about to have a word with that waitress until our name was called next. I mean we were waiting a good 10 – 15 minutes
we walked by their table, we glared down these two couples.
Our waitress, the one who didn’t skip the order on the waiting list, was actually really nice and accommodating to our needs. I’ve eaten here before but from what I remember, it was just alright.
We ordered the following:
Shanghai pan fried dumpling — Probably the best dish of the night
Some dry spicy noodle with beef — Not good at all
Some spicy pork dish with bean curd — Tasted like the spicy noodle with beef dish
The Mrs. wasn’t too pleased with the overall experience from this place… next time we’ll go to Tasty Garden across the street… at least I can get unlimited refill on Milk Tea. By the way, we probably won’t be going back to Tasty Noodle House.

This place changed their chef for sure. Used to be pretty close to authentic shanghainese food. Now is a NO for sure. It was still good last time I came (March Aprilish). Now with whoever the new owner or chef is, it’s very disappointing.
French style stir fried beef (this is not even a shanghainese kind of food) recommended by our waitress, was dry and hard. Even next door Sam woo does a way better job on this dish.
Seaweed fried fish, too much bread, and very salty.
Pan fried pork buns, no soup inside, the buns were soggy and meat inside the buns were tasteless.
My sincere advise for the owner/​new owner, please let the new chef cook his hometown food and change the cuisine of this place. Mocking shanghainese food meanwhile doing a bad job at it, will do no good to the business… At least I won’t come back.

As a a Taiwanese food lover, Tasty Noodle House was on the list.
I came in with a friend, excited to try their pork XLB’s! We came around 7:00PM on a Sunday, and did not have to wait too long, probably 20 minutes. The restaurant is small, but typically, the turnover rate is pretty quick.
The menu is very big, larger than other Taiwanese restaurants I have been to.
We settled on an order of xiao long bao, yeung chow fried rice and seafood stir fried rice cakes to share. Overall presentation, excellent; it was made hot to order, the portions were family-​size and with three dishes, there was plenty of variety. The dishes all came out within a few minutes of each other, so we weren’t left waiting too long with our hunger.
Our seafood rice cakes came first… I love this type of flat rice cake and was so excited to try it out. However, I was a little let down. The flavor of the dish was good, but the rice cakes did not absorb any of it. And, on top of that, the rice cakes were too soft and didn’t have the chewiness I love.
However, there was a good amount of seafood, like squid, fish and shrimp, so it was a well worth the price. I may order it again just to give it another try!
Second to the stage… the yeung chow fried rice. It has chopped Chinese sausage and fat shrimps, and the rice has a lot of egg, so it’s a good «filler» plate. Filler or not, it tasted great and a dish to fall back on if you’re with a hungry party.
Last, and the biggest let down of the night… the pork xiao long bao. I’m a huge fan of dim sum and soup dumplings, and these did not hold up. The filling was… muddled. The wrapper was chewy and had good texture, but the soup, usually a clean-​tasting broth, had too much fat that seeped out from the pork filling. They smelled a little bit from the pork steam and dunking in soy sauce was really the only way to eat it.
Slightly disappointing, but I will come here again to give everything another chance. I saw a few dishes that I wanted to try. Service is alright, very quick to serve food and then quick to ignore. See you soon.

Only place acceptable for my mom (who’s a Chinese mom. That says a lot)
Only hiccup is the drinks I wanted were not available. Arg
Tip. Still a line at 8:30pm weekdays

Tasty Noodle House (NOT to be confused with Tasty Garden which is a Hong Kong Style café located in the same complex on Culver) is a small local gem serving primarily Shanghainese and Taiwanese comfort food. The place is small and it always draws a large crowd, especially on weekends, so the wait could sometimes be long.
What we’ve tried:
HOUSE SAUCE NOODLES: This is a boiled soft noodle dish without soup but served with a meat sauce — think Shanghainese Spaghetti Bolognese, but made with ground pork and a dark soy sauce based sauce which is rich and flavorful. The sauce is really authentic and tasty, although a bit too sweet for our taste.
SHANGHAI GRILLED PORK BUN: This dish is da bomb! You’ll observe that almost every table has this dish on it and it sells out fast. We went there last Sunday around 1pm and they were sold out already. What a bummer! The texture of the bun is just perfect — soft and almost melt in your mouth — so when you bite into it, the flavorful juices don’t squirt out. Definitely one of the best grilled pork buns outside of Asia.
SHANGHAINESE FRIED NOODLES: It’s aka Shanghainese «chow mein» but with a different kind of special thick noodles that has a nice slightly chewy texture. As with most Chinese fried noodle dishes, it is oily but very tasty.
XIAO LONG BAO: Freshly made, tasty and very juicy, the XLB’s are some of the best that I’ve had in Southern California. The skin is a tad too thick, but the texture is good. The juices are very flavorful. Add a touch of vinegar and some hot chili sauce, and you’ll quickly ascend to dumpling heaven.
BEEF DUMPLING: This was advertised as a new addition so we gave it a go. It is a pan fried kind of dumpling made with beef. It’s almost like a pot sticker but really juicy and not dry, although the Shanghainese spices were too strong for our taste.
PORK & PICKLED VEGETABLE SOUP NOODLE: This is one of the best that I’ve had in Irvine. Better than A & J. Better than Chef Chen. The soup is very flavorful and it perfectly fits the name — Tasty Noodle House.
Prices are reasonable as this is Irvine and you can’t compare it with SGV prices. Service is typical of most Asian places although I find the servers here more friendly than most other places. A solid 4-​star experience. Will return soon. Very soon!

«I just love Chinese food. My favourite dish is number 27.» –Clement Attlee
«I’m sure the food is fantastic, but just not tuned to our tastes. This food is not very Gringo-​friendly at all.» –My Hubby
This is a difficult review to write because the menu items we sampled were so «hit or miss.» It was a very popular eatery, with a wait list that ran well into the evening. We did not arrive for dinner until around 8:30 PM and there were still many people waiting after 9:30.
The best way I could describe these cuisine here is, «very ethnic.» Most of the patrons in the restaurant were definitely speaking (what I think was) Mandarin, and almost all of them seemed to be absolutely loving their dinner. I, coming from an Asian background, loved some of the dishes we tried! Unfortunately, my hubby found our dinner less than appealing, but to his credit he did sample my more ethnic menu selections.
Shanghai Grilled Pork Buns:
5 Stars.
Perfect bun texture with a delicious traditional ground pork filling. These dumplings are steamed, dipped in sesame seeds on the bottom, then seared to toast the seeds and give a wonderfully nutty flavor. They are then showered with more toasted sesame seeds and scallions on top. Served with a vinegar and soy sauce dip that adds a sharpness and zip to every bite, I could come back and eat these every day!
Pungent (Sweet and Sour) Spare Ribs:
2 Stars
My hubby put it best… «Well, there is a 0% to 90% chance that you will bite into a chunk of bone. And a 50% to 100% chance that you will bite into something unidentifiable and very chewy.» Honestly, in really ethnic Asian cooking, this really is the norm. What meat there was, was indeed delicious. The sauce was pretty awesome too. Just after considering how much of the actual dish was edible compared to the price brought it down a few stars.
Seafood in Crab Meat Noodle Soup:
2 Stars
This bowl looked and smelled fantastic! Sadly, the flavor was very bland. There was a good amount of seafood in it… white fish, small scallops, sea cucumber and shrimp. The crab was evident in particles floating in the broth. Even adding soy sauce and vinegar to the mix could not help it.
Seaweed and Cucumber Salad:
4 Stars
I enjoyed this dish very much! It was a great value for the price. The flavors of the seaweed, cucumber and cilantro were very balanced. The marinade was mild and refreshing.
So… I am not sure if we just ordered dishes that weren’t house specialties? We did let our server know it was her first time, and asked what she would recommend. She explained that we could not go wrong with the spare rib dish.
In the end, I would most certainly give the Tasty Noodle House another try. And I will surely be back for the Shanghai Grilled Pork Buns. In fact, I’ll probably grab some to go and bring it to my family to enjoy!