A&J Restaurant

Tony Chun

Amazing as always. This time I got the jjia-jjang mian {black bean sauce noodles with minced pork), pan fried beef bun, cucumbers in spicy garlic sauce, and pork xia long bao (pork soup dumplings). Used to frequent this spot almost everyday when I lived in Costa Mesa. Now, if/when I'm nearby I make sure to go! Sad to see the other locations have all closed now and it's just the Irvine location. If anyone knows why, let me know. I asked and all I got was that the Irvine location was the busiest...ah, well, as long as I can get my grub on at an A&J I'm happy.

Yule Show

The Pickled Mustard Greens are so good, so tasty and so delicious. They are fresh, green, a little sour, crunch, crispy, and just-right sweet. I had a lot of Chinese/Taiwanese Pickled Mustard Greens, literally we call it Sour Greens, and this is one of the best. I hope I had only ordered Pickled Mustard Greens, I will give the restaurant 5-star. On the way from La Jolla to Pasaneda, this is the midway. We went there around 7:40 pm. No one guided us to the seats, that's ok. But no greeting even no wording at all, the owner just gestured us to an area with empty tables. Waited too long, then got the menu, and you can just mark the items on the order sheet. The Wonton Soup, was full of sesame oil smell, which was good. But the stuff had too many vegetables but too little meat. The broth was watery, it was too light to be considered as broth. The egg sheet slices with so many shapes, the chef didn't pay any attention to cutting it. The Steamed Dumpling, 2 pcs were broken of 4 pcs. Half broken? Come on! One was stuck with the steam trap, and once peeled off it caused broken. The Thousand Layer Pancake was too dry to be eaten, and tasteless, that's why I ordered a separate Pickled Mustard Greens to eat with the pancake. And eventually, it became the best thing of the dinner. What a pity of a so-called famous and good Taiwan restaurant.

KC Chen

It’s like a combination of Taiwan and Northern China style cuisine. They are good at noodles and hand crafted pancakes. Of course they do have famous authentic Taiwan street food like deep fried pork cutlet, chicken cutlet and braised pork rice are recommended as well. It won’t take long wait to get a table even though you could see fully seated in the restaurant, probably 15-30 minutes for waiting. Nice food, nice staff and nice dining experience!

V

PHENOMENAL and FRESH food. All their noodle dishes are excellent. We ordered the cold noodles 涼麵, which was so refreshing on this hot day. Loved all their 小菜. Fast and efficient service. Takes COVID seriously. This is the real deal; very genuine and delicious Taiwanese cuisine.