Tet. Seollal. Songkran. Xyoo Tshiab. Whatever you call the Asian Lunar New Year, it's big business for local Asian restaurants. For the past couple of weeks, restaurants in Little Saigon, Little Seoul and Irvine's Chinatown have hosted bacchanals in anticipation of each culture's shared Lunar New Year, which happened on Feb. 9. We can devote an entire cover story to great Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese joints—instead, here are five per culture you might overlook in the mad dash toward Sam Woo.
DINNER FOR TWO:
¢ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Less than $10!
$ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $10-$20
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $20-$40
$$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ¡Eres muy rico!
CHINESE
DIN DIN AT THE BAMBOO TERRACE
If you like a spicy bite, pop into your mouth a tempura-like Firecracker calamari. You'll think you've bitten into a light, delicate cloud of tasty batter, but a second later, when the half-chewed concoction reaches your tongue, a spicy blast will render it useless. 1773 Newport Blvd., Costa Mesa, (949) 645-5550. $$
DRAGON PHOENIX PALACE
Get your chopsticks ready for the weekend dim sum because in minutes, you'll have a tableful of sizzling pork and shrimp pot stickers, savory dumplings, won-ton soup, and wonderful salt-and-pepper squid. 9211 Bolsa Ave., Ste. 106, Westminster, (714) 893-1976. $$
JAMILLAH GARDEN
Drones at the industrial park at the corner of Tustin Ranch and Walnut welcome the noon hour with joy. Like an oasis in the Gobi lies Jamillah Garden, one of the county's two restaurants specializing in Islamic Chinese cuisine, a type of dining tradition combining Middle Eastern opulence with the austere tastes of Northern China. Corporate types crowd into the restaurant in a sort of hunger haj throughout the day, drawn by the affordable lunch specials; curry chicken; and the sesame bread, a Frisbee of flour speckled with scallions. 2512 Walnut Ave., Tustin, (714) 838-3522. $$
KIM SU
A funky little place to eat lunch—traditional Chinese, great dim sum, but we usually go for such lunch specials as sweet-and-sour pork, broccoli beef, and kung pao chicken. Weeklings like this place because you can mix and share food so easily—and because we're cheap bastards. 10526 Bolsa Ave., Westminster, (714) 554-6261. $
PEKING RESTAURANT
The family dinners are fabulous with interesting choices, including an entire steamed fish. 8566 Westminster Ave., Westminster, (714) 893-3020. $$
KOREAN
HWANG BBQ
The ultimate Korean dining experience is a barbecue house, and Buena Park's best version is Hwang's. The hostess will cook at your grill-anchored table your pick of 16 meats, ranging from the expected (a fine pork cutlet) to the exotic (both the bull and cow stomach—both melt in your mouth) to the eeewww (you tell me how grilled eel tastes). 6552 Manchester Blvd., Buena Park, (714) 736-0707. $$
KAJU SOFT TOFU RESTAURANT
This is an idyllic eatery that specializes in a soft, spicy tofu soup. Depending on what you want to put in the soup, it becomes a sort of paella, except with paella, the waitress doesn't drop a raw egg into it as it's being served. The bulgogi—thinly sliced, seasoned beef with sweet caramelized onions served on a fajita-like skillet—is a good complement to the soup. 8895 Garden Grove Blvd., Garden Grove, (714) 636-2849. $$
MYUNG GA TOFU HOUSE
Myung Ga is a straightforward Korean tofu house, down to the spartan presentation and Korean karaoke shows that blare from a television near the cash register. It prepares the Korean staple the way George Washington Carver once tinkered with the peanut. Each tofu pot arrives in a clay vessel bubbling like a mini-volcano; only the cracking of a raw egg into the cauldron calms it to a sputtering mess. 10131 Westminster Ave., Ste. 214, Garden Grove, (714) 590-0021. $
SEOUL GARDEN KOREAN BBQ BUFFET
This place does violate the First Commandment of Dining Out—thou shall not cook—but that's beside the point. The buffet gives you license to stuff your face with everything from ribs to spicy squid, sushi and two kinds of combustible kimchi. 13828 Red Hill Ave., Tustin, (714) 573-9292. $$
SEOUL SOONDAE
You won't find the sort of pretty, colorful foods that look good in a “Welcome to Korea!” travel pamphlet here—no Korean barbecue, no short ribs, no dainty cold noodles or boiling soft tofu bowls on your table. This restaurant is all about the hog: rustic, delicious platters originating from such pig parts as trotters, blood, intestines, fat and other assorted offal that our prime-cut society ships to the hot-dog factory. 8757 Garden Grove Blvd., Garden Grove, (714) 636-0686. $$
VIETNAMESE
BÁNH CUÔN HÔNG MAI
This chain of two near-closets in Garden Grove and Santa Ana offer most of their dishes—fragrant com tam, slippery bún and satisfying drinks—in 27 different fashions. But Hông Mai's ultimate specialty isn't numerology, but rather the studious preparation of its namesake, the rice roll delicacy known as bánh cuôn: silky, light, furtively filling, a good sponge for the accompanying fish sauce. The rice paper itself is a bit bland, but that neutral flavor somehow amplifies a bánh cuôn's innards tenfold. 10912 Westminster Ave., Garden Grove, (714) 534-4526; 5425 W. First St., Santa Ana, (714) 554-9190. ¢
GRAND GARDEN
Boasting a wide variety of traditional Chinese/Vietnamese/French cuisine. Patrons come in droves for the ga quay da don, a roasted-chicken platter, but if you're looking for a savory alternative, try the ca kho to, a spicy, salted fish baked in a clay pot. 8894 Bolsa Ave., Westminster, (714) 893-1200; www.grandgarden.com. $$
MAI HUONG
Keywords here are “cheap” (combination dinners are less than five bucks), “tasty” (especially the shrimp spring rolls in peanut sauce) and “healthy” (whether they're Vietnamese or Chinese, dishes here feature intriguing combinations of garden-fresh herbs and vegetables). 1113 Baker St., Ste. E, Costa Mesa, (714) 957-0451. $
PAGOLAC
Pagolac will show you another side of beef—seven, to be exact. “Bo 7 Mon,” the restaurant sign's subtitle, is Vietnamese for seven courses of beef, the restaurant's specialty. Ungodly slabs of sirloin are transformed into wisps of flavor-packed beef. 14580 Brookhurst St., Westminster, (714) 531-4740. $$
PHO HIEN VUONG DAKAO
How many sit-down Vietnamese eateries, let alone fast-food places, offer audacious dishes like a green papaya salad dotted with dried beef livers or an escargot bún soup? But among these, the sinh to is the true item of veneration: smoother and slightly sweeter than those of other hawkers—and extremely affordable at two bucks per serving. 9200 Bolsa Ave., Ste. 306, Westminster, (714) 897-4330. $
View our complete dining guide at www.ocweekly.com/food.
