Tasty Noodle House - Irvine

Overall good Shanghainese restaurant. Portions are quite big and well worth the price - dishes are yummy but not exceptional. First, for the Shanghai grilled pork buns (sheng jian bao), it is written on the menu that there are 6, but they actually serve 8. They are good, but not exceptional. Solid among of juice and flavor, but kind of doughy. Still recommend though. Next, for the Shanghai grilled beef bun, they are also quite good. The braised noodles with onion sauce is delicious, but it definitely is quite greasy - you can’t taste the grease, but it is quite visible on your plate afterwards. Sauce is delicious though, full of onion flavor and not too salty. Still recommend trying though.

Portions are big so for 15-17$ you can have leftovers. And they help to pack the rest of your dish to go. In the picture 2 dishes - chicken fried rice and combo fried rice so you can see that the rice looks and tastes differently so that is a little bit of confusion. But there's a good correlation between price and quality.

Finally found a good restaurant with homemade vegetarian dumplings and noodles. Came here with my young son and he ate the entire 10 pork dumplings himself while I enjoyed the vegetarian dumplings. Wow, he was hungry & so full at the end of our lunch. I must say the best vegetarian dumplings are at Din Tai Fung. The vegetable noodles are tasty and would order these dishes again. There aren't many Chinese restaurants that serve vegetarian dumplings so this is a plus. Restaurant is small so come early or later and definitely come hungry! Service was fine.

We came here for early dinner and was able to avoid the crowd. We were seated fairly quickly. We ordered 5 items and all came out quickly except for the pan fried meat buns. Unfortunately the food was nothing spectacular. The garlic pork and the noodles were overly sweet. The basil fish tasted extremely salty and the garlic cucumbers were watery. The only thing that was good were the buns. I really wanted to like the place but it just didn't live to my expectations.

Before we moved to Irvine, CA, we went to Tasty Noodle House in San Diego. It's very Impressive , delicious and my kids love it. After moving to Irvine, we went to 2 locations in Chino Hills and Irvine. Very disappointed. Why not follow the standard in San Diego? We ordered the following items in Irvine. Spicy Marinated Mix(麻辣滷三拼) Comment: This is the appetizer. We would expect it tastes good. Shanghai Style Chow Mein(特色上海炒（細/粗）麵) Comment: This is just OK. Not impressive. Shanghai Grilled Pork Bun 8 Pcs(上海生煎包) Comment: No soup inside. The skin is thick. Does not taste the one in San Diego. Shanghai Xiao Long Bao W/ Pork 8pcs(上海小籠包) Comment: My kids said why there is no soup inside and it's thick. Maybe it's overheated? My daughter did not want to eat anymore because it's the bad taste. I had the same taste. Very frustrated and disappointed. Since we tried this one and felt very disappointed, we will not go back definitely.