Favori Restaurant

This place is good for groups. Their ca nuong is spot on and canh chua is to die for.

well my favorite food is sea food but i am not an asian. this ethnic restaurant serves a cat fish that is supper supper delicious. i have tried the other sea foods and frog legs (fried one) too and they are all excellent. i have been going to this place for 5 to 6 years and the quality has not changed. however i have to mention that besides their good food, it is their service, their people that have always created a wonderful experience in this restaurant for me. I should have written this to thank them for those wonder full time long time ago, but .
I highly recommend this place specially to those who love sea food or very ethnic foods.

Looking for a good place for baked fish for a long time. Then I heard this one. The fish was really good! Almost every table ordered the fish! But it seems they don’t have enough server, after all the dishes on, they didn’t show up any more.

I took my dad here for a Saturday brunch. He told me his friends had recommended this place. The ambiance was really nice. Food was alright and a decent portion. Prices are reasonable. I think service could be a little bit better in terms of servers being more attentive. Overall experience was really good. I’d definitely come back if I’m in the area.

. The best item on the menu and what they are famous for is the Ca Nuong AKA fried Cat Fish so this is a must try, also the lemon beef appetizer is also great. Overall the food is great but service can be hit or miss which is why I rate the resturant 4 star

This review is based solely on their ca nuong (baked fish). It is by far my favorite place to have a spring roll party! My family and I come here at least once a month. It is that good. The cat fish is crispy on the outside and moist and juicy in the inside. It comes in small, medium, large, and extra large. The medium is our favorite to order. It can feed 4 people easily. We usually order 2 to 3 fish depending on how many is in our party. This entrée comes with two dipping sauces. It comes with vegetables and spring roll wrappers. You have to order the noodles separately. It’s DELICIOUS!
Beware: The service is a hit or miss. One day you’ll have excellent service, and the next day, you’ll want to punch them in the face and never return, but the fish is so good that you’ll return anyway.

This place ha good food but there are a lot of tables close together and it’s quite noisy. If you have no need to talk during dinner then this place is probably fine, but terribly noisy. Family friendly but large groups of folks were very noisy and the screaming kids added to the noise. Headache-​generating noise.

This review is only for the non-​vietnamese items:
New York Steak American Style: 1 star, the plate came out barely warm, the meat was chewy, the sauce is like diluted ketchup.
Escargots: 3 stars hard to mess up this one but it came out when we were half way done with the steak.
Banana Flambé: 3 stars, good enough for a simple dessert
At first, we were going to order the catfish but the people next to us said it was not fresh today so we decided to have some steaks instead. Big mistake, these people should stick to Vietnamese dishes and remove these items off their menu.

Really pricey here…
Came here 2 times…
Got the clams here (basil sauce)…not too much clams… some clams were missing its meat… meatless, but full of shells…
I only enjoyed their banana desserts here (the one where it’s lit on fire). Their ice cream is also good.
I got the ca nuong here too aka baked fish. However… the person I dined with didn’t like the brown sauce there. He said it tasted like @$$.
Well…since he’s not Viet. I guess I understand. LOL.

This is a good place to get baked Ca Nuong fish. This is a nice quaint restaurant that has been around forever! It used to be our go to spot for Ca Nuong. This time it was just okay, I remember it being a lot better in the past, but I think the quality has gone down.
We ordered a large cat fish and we always make sure that it is extra crispy. A large is good enough to feed about 4 – 5 people. I feel like the fish lacked flavor this time and usually we would be the smaller fish, I think that it’s more fresh. When you get the larger fish, I don’t think that it’s live fish because the texture of the meat was kinda soft and mushy.
Ca Nuong is baked fished that you can get all the meat and wrap it into spring rolls. It has a really good texture because of the crispy skin. You can wrap the fish with lettuce, herbs, cucumbers and carrot and radish mixture. You have 2 kinds of dipping sauces. One is the regular fish sauce, and the other is the anchovy sauce. The anchovy sauce is more pungent in smell and taste and it is definitely an acquired taste.
I think that you pretty much get full off 5 – 6 rolls per person. I love spring rolls because it’s fairly healthy and I absolutely love all the herbs and veggies that you wrap the spring rolls with.
There are a lot of Ca Nuong places in OC and this is one of the original spots that pretty much everyone knows about.
I think with the many spots that are opening up, I would probably go to the other locations now. I feel that the fish is a lot fresher and the the fish is better seasoned.

I’ve been coming here with my family for years. The best dish is the grilled/​fried catfish that you can wrap in rice paper with fresh veggies. Super delicious and filling, and kind of fun to do your own wraps. I brought my boyfriend here and he really enjoyed it.
We also got the fried squid (kind of like calamari), which had a great flavor and texture. The goi was good as well – lots of meat and vegetables. We also got the hotpot which isn’t my favorite, but some people like it!
In the past I’ve also had the fried banana for dessert here – they come out flaming and DELICIOUS!
It’s definitely a Vietnamese restaurant, so try to come with someone who can speak Vietnamese. The service isn’t that friendly but I think people come here more for the food than for the service.

I love going to Favori restaurant for dinner with my family. The wait time can be up to 30 minutes or more during dinner rush time hours and they have a waiting area where you can sit, so it’s not too bad if you have to wait a little. The décor is simple, nothing fancy but overall it’s pretty clean inside. The service is pretty good… Some nights are better than others, but overall the service is good. The food is fusion Vietnamese and French. We always order the banana flower hot pot and the crispy baked catfish. We have tried the sizzling soft shell crab and escargot… really tasty. We like the ‘bo tai chanh’ (rare beef marinated in lime juice) and also order that whenever we go as well.

Feels like you hopped back to the 80s with its décor of mirrors on every wall but their staff is courteous and eager to answer questions about their menu. Their beef salad was great and the catfish was phenomenal, the skin as crispy as a roasted pig. Order ahead if you don’t want to wait an extra 20 min. Awesome

I come here all the time! This is a Vietnamese family style kind of dinner. I always get the large deep fried catfish. It comes with veggies and rice paper so you can wrap spring rolls yourself. There’s hot water provided, you dip the rice paper and rotate it a little bit and wait for it to dry a bit then you put your ingredients in it. The fish isn’t greasy or heavy. I also recommend the goi bo tái chanh (rare beef marinated in lime juice). The service here is good but some of them aren’t fluent in English but they are still nice.

Not super fancy from the outside or inside. Service is like any other Asian restaurant in this neck of the woods– ok.
But if you want some delicious baked catfish then you’re in for a treat! I love meal because you can eat the cat fish as is with the fresh Mint and cucumbers or rolled up in a spring roll. The fish is cooked to perfection and very soft on the inside! Good amount of meat.
Not sure what pricing is like compared to other places. But I would come again just to eat this :)

A friend suggested we come to Favori for the fried cat fish dish that this place is known for and we are so glad that we came! The restaurant is a small place with dim lighting, but the spotlight directly above the tables helped the ambiance. The servers did not speak much English so it was a little difficult to get a thorough explanation of the dishes and quantity.
With 2 males and 1 female in our party, we ordered the small fried cat fish dish. Thinking, «how full can we really get with catfish spring rolls?» So we ordered the seafood hotpot for 2 as well. We were so wrong!
The fried cat fish dish is presented so well and it comes with the rice paper and tons of veggies to wrap it all up. It also came with two different sauces.
TIP: to make the spring rolls, you dip the rice paper into the bowl of hot water that they provide. Now, it might seem a little weird, but all you have to do is dunk one side of the rice paper and rotate it in the bowl just to get the paper wet and THAT’S IT! Don’t wait for the rice paper to feel soggy before taking it out. It well get softer once the water settles into the rice paper and then you can wrap it easily. If you wait for the rice paper to get soft before taking it out of the water then you well get a rice paper blob.
After we each had roughly 3 – 5 spring rolls each, we were stuffed but forgot that we ordered the seafood hotpot. I’m glad we didn’t cancel the hotpot because the soup was so good! They give you a huge dish of seafood and noodles to put in the hot pot and the soup was similar to a tumyum soup. SO good!
Verdict: I definitely would go back to Favori for the fried catfish spring rolls and to try other dishes as well. The spring rolls were filling, but I didn’t feel heavy and gross. It was very refreshing and different. I loved the whole dinner!

Favori is obviously known for their Ca Nuong. Perfectly cooked with the crispy skin. I have tried the
Muc rang muoi– (salt and pepper squid) battered perfectly.
ca nuong — it can be a little pricey here but the cook is on point.
Cha ca thanh long — comes out on a sizzling plate. They really skimped us and we got like 2 small pieces of fish covered by lots and lots of dill
We were seated at such a small table and we had ordered a lot. They insisted on squeezing every last plate on the table even if some plates had to be stacked on another with food still on it. My biggest pet peeve is being seated at a small table because… I tend to order a lot.

Came for the baked catfish, of course. Loved the oh-​so-​crispy skin! It’s not just a meal, it’s entertainment too — watching everyone scrape all the meat from the fish. Remember, the head has a bunch of meat too, those cheeks are scrumptious. You make a spring roll out of all the ingredients they put on the table, don’t forget to order noodles. Dip the rice paper in the bowl of water and put on just the right amount of stuff so you can still wrap it all up. Then dunk that thing into some fish sauce and chili and you are good to go. We got a medium sized fish for 5 of us along with the Queen fried rice, which was really good as well. We made sure to tell them with our reservation that we were going to order a medium catfish as it takes a while to prepared. Our total was about $ 70 for those who are interested.
Parking is easy in their private lot. Décor isn’t much to look at, but the lighting is very dim, so you aren’t really looking around anyway. The staff wear red jackets and are constantly hustling and bustling around, not really looking up to see if anyone is trying to waive them down, but someone will eventually get to you.

As a proud Vietnamese American that grew up in the great city of Santa ana and went to an elementary school a block from this place! I have to pay homage to FAVORI. You are crazy if you are expecting top notch service from any Vietnamese restaurant, French influenced or not. In the end of the day a box of rocks is a box rocks even with a bow on it. Hands down the best baked cat fish in town and the place has a huge variety of other dishes to choose from too. People can go off and complain all they want about the service here, but Favori is one of those places you keep giving second chances to. Believe it or not if you grew up here in orange county Favori is apart of your roots.

Came here for a late lunch on a Sunday, there were only a couple of other parties. The restaurant was very dimly lit, and had a romantic feel to it. But they do have an adequately bright light that shines on the center of the table, so the darkness is not an inconvenience.
We ordered the 5 course beef, spring rolls, seafood hot pot, French onion soup, escargot, a filet mignon dish, and some kind of omelette dish. The 5 courses beef was delicious, and came with a good variety, there was only 1 beef dish that it came with that I did not thoroughly enjoy. The seafood hot pot was also very delicious, and the «small» order came with a generous amount of noodles and seafood.
The only dish I disliked was the French onion soup. It was WAY too cheesy, had cheddar cheese on the bottom, and was just overwhelming.
Service wasn’t exactly friendly, but the servers were polite and efficient.