As I wrote back in August of last year, Tasty Garden, the chain of Hong Kong-style cafes (cha chaan teng) with branches in the San Gabriel Valley, is planning to open in Irvine.
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At the time I said it 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.
But as I discovered this weekend, it also does one more thing, it takes down the number of Irvine's Vietnamese restaurants by one. Tasty Garden will replace Thanh, which has been in Culver Plaza for as long as I can remember.
In place of pho and banh mi, Tasty Garden will serve honey glazed walnut shrimp, Hong Kong-style waffles, chicken steak and other cha chaan teng staples.
More news on this as it comes.
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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.