Yu’s Garden

I come here for the Salted Soy Milk and Chinese Donuts… I know I sound like a «Gwylo» saying that but… Hey!!! Its good SH@T!!!
Also very affordable… You can eat here with the change out of your ashtray… lol!!!

Pure comfort food, I was nearby getting my car serviced, popped in on a really cold morning for a hot tureen of porridge and pickled sides and cold meat.
Really authentic filling meal for under $ 10.
I haven’t sampled the lunch or dinner entrees but breakfast was spot on.

I love this place. Reminds me of Taiwan. They always have a wide variety of authentic Chinese food, and comes with either rice or porridge.
The vegetarian options are awesome: I love the eggplant, the tofu dishes and veggies. Great flavors and open late!

Ew and gross!!! i didn’t know what i was getting myself into when i walked in. My sister felt like having taiwanese breakfast and i agreed since it’s my first time there. But i was so disgusted when i walked in. The ceiling had 2 sticky fly traps dangling above the food. There were at least 6 flies dead on the sticky tape. I was grossed out seeing that after we already sat down. I totally lost my appetite afterwards. This places reminds me of a dirty shao mei restaurant back at SGV. The style of the dishes were pretty similar to where you pick a few dishes to eat with porridge. The prices were dirt cheap but the quality of the food was below average. Every dish was super oily and greasy. Taiwanese breakfast was okay as well. We ordered turnip cake and egg burrito with soy bean milk. The flavor was super bland and oily. I will not ever come here again and would rather go have fast food than to step another foot in this restaurant again.

Food quality is bad. Fly stickers are on ceiling. Place is very dirty. Smelly newspaper are randomly placed. Will not go again.

They have good authentic flavorful tasting food. The ladies there are super nice and friendly. We used to go almost every other week to take home as they give very big portions and they are great for lazy to cook nights. However, their food is on the oilier side, so haven’t been back for a while.
Deducting one star, because once in a while – one of the dish’s food went bad :(

I’ve never even eaten in the restaurant. I always get the 3 item combo to go. If you want it to go, you walk in the door and stand in line over by the food counter. It can be a bit crowded in that corner of the restaurant, but just move out of the way for waitresses holding plates and wait patiently for your turn.
I think it is $ 7.99 when you get it to go, and there is so much food! You get to choose from the premade items on the counter and then either rice or porridge. This week, I picked the spicy sliced pork plus two portions of the roasted peanuts. My husband looooooves the peanuts — there are a couple types. One is a sweet and salty one, which is sort of like kettle popcorn flavor. The other is a spicy version, which is very spicy, but still good. I definitely prefer the sweet/​salty version. I took the box of rice and made fried rice — I think there are 4 cups of cooked rice in there!
I also like the soy sauce bamboo shoots, the mapo tofu, cold wine flavored chicken, and green vegetable choices. Once or twice I’ve ordered two 3 items combos just because I couldn’t settle on only 3 items — I needed to have all 6! The food is authentic and similar to what my mom would make at home. It isn’t amazing food, but that is okay. The cashier I had this time looked new, but the previous cashier was so friendly and nice! I’ve never had an issue with the service!

The people who work at this establishment are batshit INSANE. I came here with a party of 6 to eat a quick breakfast before setting off on our vacation. We weren’t offered tea (who doesn’t offer tea at a Chinese restaurant??) and every single food item we ordered was drenched in oil. We ordered Chinese donuts, soybean milk, and green onion pancakes, and I honestly could’ve gotten better food at 99 Ranch Market right next door.
On top of this already unpleasant experience, in the middle of our meal, 2 men who worked in the kitchen started literally FIGHTING each other and screaming in the middle of the restaurant. The went on for at least ten minutes, and it finally got so uncomfortable that we decided to leave before someone got hurt. When my family started heading out, the woman who worked there CHASED after us and starting yelling that we didn’t tip enough for a party of 6 people. Um… what the fuck? My family always tips well and the fact that she physically came after us for not tipping what she thought was «acceptable» was absolutely ridiculous. Not only this, she threw us back the money that we had left on the table and said she wouldn’t take it unless we put more money on there.
This is a sad excuse for a restaurant, and the fact they they even have 3.5 stars is astounding to me. This was one of the most unpleasant eating experiences of my life, and they need to do 3 things here: improve their manners, improve their food, and change their name to Yu’s Garbage because this place is a piece of shit.

Food is decent and authentic, some dishes are better than others.
It’s NOT the meal you ask for highlight or anything too memorable. Just averagely good and we always had satisfying meals here.
For dine in dinner, I think you can only choose 2 items combo, the portion is big. (lunch you can choose either 2 item or 3 item combo. that’s my understanding)
However, I would not recommend ordering from their menu. Last time we ordered the scallion lamb from the menu item, the flavor is right but they just don’t have that quality lamb to make this dish enjoyable.
Service is always very friendly and efficient. Ordering process could take a while during dinner hours since lot of people can not decide fast what they want.
Food quality is a little better than RH area similar types of food.
You can choose steam rice or porridge. If you like more sweet potato for your rice porridge you can always ask for more. My friend’s mom likes their porridge but I think both their rice and porridge were just alright because they do not use very good quality rice.
Their food is like comfort food to me but don’t forget the fact that this type of food is greasy and high in sodium that’s why they taste so good with porridge (or rice).
$ 20 minimize to use credit card.
(I think they changed to cash only as of 1÷30÷2016)

We have tried the scallion bread, chicken fried rice, and assorted meats («Assorted Delights») fried noodles off the menu. We also tried the tomato and egg dish and a chicken dish from ready-​made options. The fried noodles were very good (although they were not as good the second time) as was the tomato and egg dish. I would order both of those again.

The worst service on a non-​busy night. We just wanted to order from the to go side and the hired cashier (she must be new) ignored us completely. 4 other people walked in and she helped the 2 older people.
Then the owner who used to be nice to us ignored us and helped the other 2 younger kids.
The man was also there staring but did not say anything. And we wondered if we were invisible or why we were getting the cold shoulder.
10 minutes passed and we said what’s going on? And just walked out. Never returning again.
Shame on you for ignoring your customers. The sad part is we are (now were* past tense!) regulars.

like many other Unilocal review said, this place has comfort food that is bang for the buck.
I have been coming here for many years since I have moved down to Irvine from Nor cal and has been satisfied every time. I mean who wouldn’t come back when you get 3 sides (pretty large portions, and a bucket of porridge for under $ 10?)
But last time I was here, My bf and I saw a roach near their dish area (where they serve the varieties of side dishes that you can choose from). We alerted the waitress, who did nothing but tell another waitress who was near the cashier area then walked away. the 2^nd waitress tried to shoo it away by using a tong… but failed because roach fell inside one of the dish. good thing is she asked someone else to take away that dish (i don’t know what they actually did with the pan though in the kitchen). But seeing the roach already made me feel uneasy about how clean their kitchen is, and whether the food is sanitary at all.
Before reading other Unilocal reviews about this place, I never knew how bad/​dirty this place is. This is very unfortunate since Yu’s Garden is the closest place I know in Irvine that serve this kind of style of food. If I ever have a craving for this, I would rather wait and drive to Rowland Height area instead of coming to Yu’s again.

Food is okay but please don’t expect piping hot dishes. They are all extremely cold! Pretty pushy in selling their boba tea and onion pancake. When someone says no, stop pushing.
Also, I dined in and they had me pay afterwards at the counter which is totally fine with me because most places are that way. And they had a tip jar right beside the counter which I dropped my tip in. When I was about to leave the restaurant, the lady who cleans the table stopped me and said that I didn’t leave a tip on the table. Wtf. I asked her «I tipped in that jar, so what is the jar for?»
She acted like she didn’t know what I said. Seriously? If the tip jar is for to-​go orders, please state there «Tips for to-​go orders only»
So guys, please leave your tips on the table next time and make it very visible.
Never coming back!

Was craving some Chinese breakfast items, so randomly swung by here and ordered the following items:
(1) tofu and intestine soup w/​glass noodle — the soup flavor was plain; just eat the noodles, bok choy, and the intestine. I had to dip the intestine in some spicy sauce in order for it to taste good. haha
(2) salty soy bean soup w/​chinese donut — this was good, but super salty. I couldn’t drink all of it; only ate the soggy chinese donut soaked in the soup, and had a couple spoonfuls of the soup before I had to set it aside.
(3) beef roll — this was not that great. I’ve had better beef rolls at other restaurants, where they actually use pan-​fried dough to wrap the beef rolls.
This place was OK overall, didn’t think anything was too special. If you want congee, they only have 1 flavor (plain congee w/​pumpkin or squash).

The only person who is nice when it comes to service is an elder lady who is cheery and is very welcoming. I used to come pretty often but eh I just don’t, the past times I’ve come, I just wished for another porridge spot nearby my house instead of driving to this place.
The employees seem to be friendly if you’re actually Chinese or Taiwanese, other than that, they just treat you different and poorly. The card minimum is $ 20 and it’s like your typical 50 cents extra charge.
I’m sure the employees are nice and all but eh I’ve seen my fair share of rushed and annoyed service being served so I try very hard not to come here.
This place will do if it’s a cold day and all the phở places are packed or if you just want some homemade porridge.
If you’re a first timer, I’d recommend the bamboo shoots, salty duck egg and the spicy beef that looks like half of every piece has fat on it. Those are good! My family likes the cucumbers, spinach, vegetables in general. 1 star for I don’t know… Having barely decent food? Lol.

Of all the years I lived in irvine and came to this plaza, I never once step foot in Yu’s and now I know why. The food is meh.
My friend wanted porridge for breakfast and suggested coming here. We ordered the pancake, salty egg, a bunch of veggies and meat dishes with their porridge. The porridge was extremely watery and all their food but extremely cold. Granted, the dishes are probably supposed to be served cold but something about cold meat with a luke warm porridge just didn’t do it for me.
The salty egg was extremely salty. I just didn’t like anything. The only decent dish was the pancake.

Comfort food!!!
I used to eat at a place like this in the 626 all the time when I was a kid. There are just so many choices and the food is pretty good.
I’ve never ordered from their set menu like noodles are rice plates. I always get the 3 item combo. It comes with rice or porridge and it’s a really good price ($ 7-​$ 8)
There are certain items that I always go for including the seaweed, pig ears, cauliflower tofu, cuttlefish, spinach, and gizzard. Sometimes some of the items are a tad bit too oily but most of the time they’re okay. The stuff sits out too so if you’re taking it to go it won’t really be hot but I’m okay with that. It’s a lot of food for a good price.
Their teas are also always buy 1 get 1 free. The drinks don’t stand out but I think it’s better than lollicup.
Also $ 20 minimum for a credit card charge.