For a while there, Irvine had two Hong Kong-style cafes. First Koko's Cafe came in, opening back in 2011 to serve Asian interpretations of Western diner food. Then came, Tasty Garden. The latter seemed to suck all the oxygen out of the Hong Kong-style cafe space. And Koko's was barely breathing as it is.
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Now according to Anne Marie, Koko's has folded. It has ceded its space to a new restaurant called Li's, which serves beef noodles, this in a town which seems to have an unlimited appetite for beef noodles.
If I were to take a guess, there are at least half a dozen beef noodle joints in Irvine, but now, only one Hong Kong-style cafe.
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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.