Ay-Chung Flour-Rice Noodle

Finally decided to go this Memorial Weekend with Honeybear. When I drove up, it’s gone!
AY-​CHUNG IS CLOSED. Gone out of business.
It’s now a Chong Qing Mei Wei Chuan Cai. Which means they serve authentic Sichuan food, plus Yunnan rice vermicelli soups. We took a look, and the amount of chilies is staggering … it certainly looks authentic. We may try this place next time.

I came here and had ordered a noodle dish and the red bean dessert. I found that the noodle soup was not to my liking. I felt that it could have tasted better and the noodles were over-​cooked. The red bean was ok, nothing special in my opinion.

This place is right on the mark for ‘A-Ok’-ness. I’m not dying to eat here, but their food doesn’t suck. Their status might change when summer rolls around, because I think I went there nearly every week last summer to eat their cheap and delicious mung-​bean shaved ice mountains topped with extra condensed milk, thank you very much. Now, Ay-​Chung is a bit of a sticky-​floor, sticky-​tables kinda place if you know what I mean, so I’m not all that sure if the ice they use for their shaved is all that clean – but I have never gotten sick, so I’m still gonna indulge.
Good entrees: Minced Pork rice and chicken thigh rice. I love the tofu they give you that comes with the bigger rice plates, it’s so juicy and good. Also, shaved ice mountains with extra condensed milk.
Okay: I love oysters, so I always get the oyster pancake when I feel I can spend a little more (btw this place is already pretty darn cheap). It’s true that they don’t give you that many oysters and totally load up on the cheap bok choy, but I still like it.
Skip: I personally don’t like the House Thin Noodle, but that’s just a matter of taste. My Taiwanese friends are in love with it. But they agree with me that the stinky tofu is a no-​go here.
Sucks that this place is cash only, but then again so are a lot of other Taiwanese restaurants.

2.5 stars
I went here on new year’s day for breakfast, brunch and lunch all rolled up into one. Yes, it was a late start to the day after NYE celebrations. I was really excited by the prospect of good food as this café menu had snackly stuff, noodles and rice dishes.
We ordered some pig ear (crunchy) and tofu (smokey), the oyster omelette (a bit slimey which is the style… I was expecting a regular omelette with sauce), deep-​fried chitterling with spring onions and salt/​pepper (crunchy when hot from the fryer), chitterling noodles and some veg. I think I would’ve switched out the omelette as it wasn’t my fave.
NB: It also seems that this place has a problem with hair in the food as noted by another Unilocaler. I also discovered one in my omelette. I pulled it out and my friend Sam wrapped it in a tissue and we looked at eachother: «it’s so Chinese not to complain.!» I mean… What are they going to do? Bring out another omelette. No thanks :)

Wow
I really love this place. This place is pretty nice. I used to eat pork chop rice and oyster pancakes. The prices are cheap and their food is pretty decent. The services are pretty nice. It is worth it for the Taiwanese food. I also loved musics. It is really nice to eat foods with musics.
Next time, I’m going to come back to try the crispy squid and crispy chicken.

OMG. so disgusting.
i ordered the pork chop rice and halfway through eating it, i saw a thick hair protruding from the pork chop. i brought it to a waiter’s attention and he said they would bring me out another one. by that time, i lost my appetite and just packed the new one ‘to go’. i got hungry a couple hours later and decided to give it another try when i find ANOTHER strand of hair affixed to one of the pork chops. they seriously need to invest in some hairnets back there. blech!

I freaking love their house special thin noodle soup. The broth has this weird thick almost slimy texture (I know, I make it sound so appetizing right?) with thin noodles and tripe, topped off with some ground nuts and cilantro. I know it sounds kinda gross, but it’s absolutely delicious, and CHEAP!
The Stinky Tofu isn’t very good. The Tofu pieces come out super fried, and there’s pretty much no «tofu meat» left inside… so it’s basically like biting into a fried shell. «Hey who stole the insides?» :(My diehard stinky tofu fan friend won’t even order it here.
I’ve also tasted one of the sizzling platters — I think it was chicken with spaghetti noodles, all covered in a peppery dark sauce? Anyways, it was delicious on the first bite, but the flavor was a little too strong. I don’t think I could have handled more than a couple of bites.
Honestly, I’m a little confused by this place. I like how they redid their menu and everything looks a lot nicer… but Krn Bbq? Jap Chae? Stinky Tofu? I’m not sure what kind of theme they’re going with here… but I haven’t had the opportunity to try any of their Korean dishes yet.
I also love the asian pop videos they play on their tv in the corner. An endless source of entertainment
A-​Ok for Ay-​Chung!

No good. No good at all. I ordered the won ton noodle soup and it was just awful. I may as well had rice noodle in boiled water.
There was something wrong with the soy sauce on the table — it was as if it was a mixture of water and soy sauce. Yuck.

I like the beef noodle soup here
The siao lum bao is not reccomended
From what I recall they had karaōke on TV which is always fun

This place has a reputation of having authentic Taiwanese food. And while I am Taiwanese, I don’t feel like I’ve eaten enough to properly judge the authenticity of the food served here.
I was able to get immediate seating around dinner time but don’t think the restaurant was empty. There was just the right amount of bustle. The menu lists small eats as well as some rice dishes and noodles. There’s also some Japanese and Korean fare amongst the sea of Taiwanese entrees.
Minced pork rice: The portion was perfect. It came with half an egg (where’s the other half?), and a side of pickled greens. I felt the pork was borderline dry — perhaps it was because there weren’t that many fatty pieces.
Oyster pancake: Confession: I think this is the first time in my life I’ve had one. I found it to be quite tasty. with the semi-​crispy edges and starchy potato texture. My friend commented that the pancake was laid on a bed of bok choy as opposed to the bok choy being mixed into the pancake; she didn’t favor this version but declared it decent. Also, there weren’t that many pieces of oyster throughout the cake.
Stinky tofu: By request of my friend. I enjoyed the thin crispy skin surrounding the tofu. The texture inside differed from that of normal tofu in that it was more dense and has almost a spongy consistency to it.
Bean curd: A nice mild side dish. Perfect with the minced pork rice.
Milk tea: Normally, I’m hesitant and defer from ordering milk tea at restaurants because it’s so hard to find a good one, and more often than not, I just end up wasting my money. Ay-Chung’s milk tea reaffirms my suspicions; the milk tea was extremely diluted and mild.
CASH ONLY!

I love coming to this place just for quick bites.
The minced meat rice (#1 on the menu) and their dry noodles are really good and filling. Definitely order the minced meat rice (it comes out really quick).
I also really enjoy their shaved ice, which is about $ 3 for a large bowl of red bean shaved ice enough to share between 2 people.
The fresh watermelon juice and papaya milk juice are also pretty good.
This place is pretty Taiwanese, with it’s red and yellow furniture and the kitchen smell inside the restaurant (it definitely stinks up your clothes).
There’s always fast seating, and the service is pretty decent.

Pros:
Very Good Taiwanese Food
Pretty Fast Service
Cons:
A Bit Pricey (Can Find Similar Quality for Cheaper ie. Simbala)
Below Par Service (But What Do you Expect for a Chinese Restaurant. :)

Cute café stylish place. I’ve been here three times. I’m a sucker for the mustard flavored pickles. I love places that serve that condiment with their dishes. I always order the mince pork on rice and my friend usually orders the beef noodle /​wonton soup and we split ⁵⁰⁄₅₀.
Despite the meat consistency of half fat/​half actual meat, I love it! Plus, they play Jay Chou videos in the background– I rarely get the chance to listen to fob music– so it’s a good thing! They recently redid the place and now it’s an Asian fusion of Korean, Japanese, and Chinese and the menu is even more attractive– matching the McDonalds inside color scheme of red and yellow. (colors known for further inducing an appetite) On the menu, they spell «Specials» as «Spacials”– that gave me a real kick. Laughed out loud for quite awhile. More points to this place. Plus, on the menu, they advertise «Fresh vegetables, friendly service, etc,» and the waitstaff definitely is friendly. The lady that is the waitress there has always been kind and provided service with a smile. =)

Is this place still open? Apparently so. I’ve been here three times, first was actually in the Milpitas location, second was when this place first opened, forgot that I’ve been here before and didn’t really like it but wanted to follow the crowd and see what all the fuss was about, and the third. well, I don’t know why.
Tried the Special Oyster Noodle, personally I don’t like this dish in general since I don’t like corn-​starchy snotty soup with oysters. But the last time I was there they had a buy one get one free deal for it (not sure if they have it all the time or not), and a lot of the patrons were slurping it down like crazy. Although that can be partly attributed to the Asian love of a good deal as opposed to the quality and deliciousness of the dish.
Anyhoo, also had the Pork Chop rice, you get a good amount of bok choy as a side and pickled veggies. I always need to add extra salt and pepper to my pork chop but this location, just like in Milpitas, don’t have S&P condiment shakers, instead they have to get a little bowl and fill it up with some from the back kitchen, I find that just weird. Another fried dish I had was the Salt pepper chicken, not great, but it’s hard to mess up deep fried food.
It’s not a horrible place or anything, it has decent food at a good price, but it doesn’t seem to have anything special or great to offer and that shows in their dwindling popularity. And I agree with other Unilocalers that the service can be lacking at time.

I only give this place two stars based on the service that it was probably the slowest service I ever received on orders coming from a Chinese food place. Now maybe it took longer, for the mere fact that I purchased Steak (yes I’ve been a steak person for a cool minute), but that doesn’t take away the idea that 4 customers get their multiple orders done earlier all of which were native Taiwanese (hm, a bit selective aren’t we?).
On that note, I ordered the steak and the Strawberry Milk Tea with pearl. The portions were of medium size, and the noodles well speak for themselves since it was pretty good I’ll admit. They tossed a behemoth of onions which I didn’t like and only a morsel of broccoli. With the accompanying salad, it didn’t really make much of a balanced diet heh. As for the milk tea, it was decently good. The place is clean and well kept, and felt like every other modern Chinese (maybe I should say Taiwanese to be politically correct) establishment I’ve been to.
What should have done is put my mandarin to good use and say…“Wo bu xihuan Ay Chung!”

Wow — what a disappointment.
Dumpy looking place, limited menu, all Asian customers.
Looked very promising.
Service was awful — we got 2 dishes and then 3 others 10 minutes later (all man courses).
I had duck noodle soup. The broth tasted like armpit. They must have used frozen or nasty chicken parts to make it. It was also too thin. The duck was cross sliced leg. Lame. Noodles were tasteless. Some spinach would have been nice. Overall, a half assed effort on what should be a signature dish.
#1 son had noodles with chopped up meat, which was ok. Noodles were pretty weak though.
Daughter had fish soup –also pretty thin and weak.
What a dissappointment.

Visited on 12/​30/​2006 before I went shopping at 99 ranch. It was my second time there. First time, I tried their infamous Ah-​Chung mien-​sien. It’s a little gooey for my taste. It was kinda blend. I ordered the noodles with the little green oysters (??). It was ok. It got to me half way eating them. I didn’t think it was anything special but I am not expert oin this.
Second time visit, I had their pork chop rice plate and spicy salted chicken. I must say I liked it better than JJ Bakery! Very generous amount of pork chop (1.5 piece) of it. Spicy salted chicken was very cripsy. I would come here for their pork chop rice plate and spicy salted chicken.

I was starving and luckily I managed to find parking here (it was close to 1pm) and I thought I’d give this place a try since I’d never been before. Since you had to order before sitting down, I was perusing the menu quickly standing in line. I looked around at what other people were eating, but didn’t feel like rice, so opted for the beef noodle soup. I then saw some veggies on someone’s table, so ordered those as well.
The veggies (water spinach) arrived pretty hot. They were boiled but then were doused with some oily fried shallots or onions. It was strange that even though there was this coating over it, there was a definite lack of flavor.
My beef noodle soup arrived piping hot (I can’t fault them for bringing lukewarm stuff, it was nice and hot both times). I tasted the broth… mmmm very tasty. There was the ubiquitous sour pickled vegetables so often seen in Taiwanese cooking. I like it.
The noodles were slightly over cooked as it was too soft, but the beef was delicious. They even gave me a piece with tendon on it – YUM. My only big complaint is that it was extremely greasy. I couldn’t really drink the broth because it just was so oily.
I’m going to come back and try the pork chop rice on a day I feel like rice. Even so, I thought the flavors were good, just really oily!

Some taken from Elmom Monster Munching Blog: Ay-​Chung Noodle, which carries with it the name recognition of a popular Taiwanese chain that already has stores in Rowland Heights, Milpitas, and elsewhere. I was assigned another number. This time it was the numerical I.D. of my table, which was being bussed by some very short Latinas in Ay-​Chung baseball caps. Next, I stood in a line which snaked its way to the cashier. Once I found myself at the head of the queue, I placed my order, proclaimed the preassigned table number where I’d be sitting, and then paid for the meal — in cash, of course. As my roommate would put it, «It’s one of the dirty Taiwanese street vendors come to Irvine.»
I ordered the House Special Steak ($ 7.95). A thin slab of griddle-​cooked beef was sluiced with a goopy tomato sauce, paired with spaghetti and a runny fried egg. It’s served on a sizzling platter not unlike those used for restaurant fajitas. This one had us scratching our heads, and not just because they included a salad and corn chowder, both in soup bowls.
The steak was decent size. It was larger than I expected, but the quality was okay. More like Denny’s or Norm’s quality. I had the black pepper sauce. It was rather spicy and salty and thick. Too saucy for me and the noodles. You could tell it was cornstarch based as well as the MSG filled corn chowder with extra cornstarch.
I probably won’t come back, except to maybe try their house noodle specialty. The only nice thing was they kept refilling my water, which I really needed more of because of the salty sauce on my steak and noodles. More Nice Time Deli for me!
Nice Time Deli better than Ay-​Chung Noodle

This popular chain from Taiwan has made its way to Irvine and provides competition among the likes of Nice Time Deli right next door and other Taiwanese style «quick eats». The ordering style is different in that you sit down but pay first at the front when ready to order.
I’ve been here a couple times and the food is decent. It’s good but not great… At least the prices are cheap and their wide variety of menu items ensures there’s something for everyone. A lot of the items that you can order at Nice Time Deli can be had here but the store goes beyonds that providing other items such as oyster pancake, sizzling platters and soup noodles that makes this place better in a lot of respects than it’s next door competition.
And it’s one of the rare Irvine eateries that are actually open past 9pm… up to 11 on the weekends. So for those last minute hunger cravings beyond the usual fast food junk, you’ll be glad to know you can have good food late at night. There’s also a plasma TV playing Asian music videos and the place is generally pretty occupied. Ignoring the ugly McDonald’s-like yellow and red interior façade, the place definitely has that Taiwanese feel complete with the «fobby» yellow noodle bowls I see only in Taiwan. Nice touch.
Two particular items stand out at Ay-​chung:
The first is the shaved ice. Unlike, the scattered fruit plastered on a mountain of just pure ice at Guppy Teahouse, Ay-​chung does shaved ice right: Taiwanese– style. That means you get to have your liking of toppings such as red bean, green bean, taro, boba, fruits, etc that are put together in a nicely presented yet generously served bowl. And for $ 4 – 5, it’s a good deal.
The other item, is the beef soup noodles which is surprisingly good and flavorful. The taste is definitely Taiwan-​style as the broth isn’t watery-​based as is with all the noodle places I’ve eaten around in SoCal.