Tasty Garden, the chain of Hong Kong-style cafes (cha chaan teng) with branches in the San Gabriel Valley and Westminster, is planning to open one more Orange County store in Irvine.
This does two things: it ups the cha chaan teng count to two in a city that once had none, and it also adds one more restaurant to be called “Tasty” at Culver Plaza.
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A few months ago, I also wrote about Tasty Noodle House, which is also planned for the 99 Ranch Market-anchored complex. Besides the name, the two seem to be unrelated. Tasty Noodle House will serve Shanghainese noodles and pan-fried pork bao while Tasty Garden is known for their honey glazed walnut shrimp, Hong Kong-style waffles, chicken steak and other cha chaan teng staples.
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.