There's a bunch of Phoenix Food Boutiques in LA County. The restaurant chain, which includes the original Phoenix Inn in LA's Chinatown that opened in 1965, has grown to a little more than dozen locations. SGV is so particularly dense with Phoenixes that there are three within blocks of each other in Rowland Heights alone.
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A dozen years ago, one finally opened in Irvine at Heritage Plaza Shopping Center on Culver between the 5 and Walnut. It served the same food as the other boutiques: stir fried nodles, rice combos and an array of Chinese desserts and drinks that ranged from your typical tapioca pearl milk teas to warm black sticky rice in coconut milk. Despite the Irvine's burgeoning Asian population, Phoenix's Irvine location faltered and became a number of Chinese restaurants before its current iteration as Spicy City.
Now Phoenix has risen again in Garden Grove at 13345 Euclid Street. The full menu can be seen here. The restaurant had its grand opening last week and is open for business Sunday to Thursday from 11 a.m. to midnight, and to 1 a.m. on Friday and Saturdays, which means that it hasn't just risen again, it's staying up late.
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Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.