翠瓊樓
26921 Aliso Creek Rd #E
Aliso Viejo, CA 92656
(949) 360-7666
http://www.jadepalaceinc.com
After having dinner at Thai Bite that night, we walked around the plaza to see what other restaurants are there. I saw Jade Palace II Chinese Cuisine, and was really excited that there is a Chinese restaurant close by to our new house. We went back the next day to try their lunch special.
Soup
We browsed through their menu. They offer both Vietnamese and Chinese cuisine. For Vietnamese food, there are pho and rice dishes. The Chinese food they have on the menu all looked very Americanized. And there were no Chinese writing on the menu, only English. Hmmm, that's not a good sign. We ordered two lunch special dishes. A bowl of soup came with the lunch special. There were tiny pieces of chopped vegetable, minced meat, and rice in the soup. The soup didn't taste Chinese to me at all.
Szechwan Three Ingredients ($8.25)
Dr. P ordered Szechwan Three Ingredients. The three ingredients were beef, chicken, and shrimp. The shrimp was those super tiny little shrimp though. Dr. P didn't like this dish at all. It's a "Szechwan" dish, but it wasn't even spicy. The sauce was on the sweeter side, and definitely tasted like Americanized Chinese food.
Fish Fillet in Chef's Special Sauce ($8.95)
I ordered Fish Fillet in Chef's Special Sauce. There were big pieces of fish fillet and lots of vegetable, which I liked. But again, the sauce was a bit on the sweeter side, and just didn't taste like authentic Chinese food to me.
We were quite disappointed about the food at Jade Palace. Not only it's not authentic Chinese, it's not even good Americanized Chinese. I don't think we'll be back to this restaurant again.
[ad#ad-unit]
decent place but I cannot stand sweet sauces in asian food unless it's sweet and sour. I have no idea why the americanized asian places do that!!
ReplyDeleteI think that's what "Americanized" Asian food is like.
Remember that Thai place in Diamond Jamboree with the super sweet stir-fried sauce?
I ate there a few times with my boyfriend. Chinese food there is pretty average, but their pho is ok!
ReplyDeleteYeah? Maybe we'll go back to try the pho. ^_^
Sounds like you'll have to come back to Irvine for some authentic Chinese food. ;) Congrats on your new http://www.eileenlikestoeat.com in AV but I hope to still see some Irvine reviews from time to time.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad Irvine is only 15 minutes away.
Seems like we always have to go up north for authentic Asian food.
My new job is actually in Tustin/Irvine border. So I definitely will be eating in Irvine still. ^^
From what I remembered about Aliso Viejo when I worked there about 8 years ago was that it had a huge anglo population and not too many Asians (like in Irvine and other OC Cities). Unless the demographics have changed over they years, I think you will find it hard to find authentic Asian restaurants in south OC. Hopefully I am wrong and you won't have many "bland" meals in your nice new city. (it is very pretty out there!)
ReplyDeleteI feel the more South you go in Orange County, the less you see Asian people.
There's no good Chinese restaurant around here, but tons of good Japanese restaurants.
I wonder why is that?
I lived in Mission Viejo for 17 years, no luck for any Chinese food! It seems to me is that they believe in the "white" area you have to have the same sause food for all dishes, just like in Ohio, kansas....
ReplyDeleteI know! All the sauces taste the same.
They always use that overly-sweet brown sauce for everything!
So frustrating!
Eileen, I think the reason why there are lots of good Japanese restaurants in "white" areas is because Japanese cuisine is popular (especially sushi) with white Americans and is more familair to us. Thai, Korean, Vietnamese, and more exotic Chinese menus are relatively new and it will take time before us white people sample these new flavors and dishes (it wasn't that long ago when we knew nothing about pho & banh mi sandwiches!). I was born in L.A. and I remember when most of the Chinese restaurants were Cantonese-style (hardly any Mandarin/Schezhuan places) and only served bland Americanized dishes like chop suey, almond chicken, egg fo yung, chowmein, etc. A great thing about different Asian cultures immigrating to the USA is that they open restaurants that serve food that people like myself have never ate before. Thats the good thing about living in multi-ethnic neighborhoods----there are so many different types of foods to enjoy!
ReplyDeleteOne thing I love about LA is the diversity of food choices.
You can find almost all possible cuisine in this city, and most being very authentic as well.
I lived in Taiwan for 3 years after college. I was on a quest to find authentic pho there, but no luck.
I was surprised how Taiwan is so much closer to Vietnam comparing to LA, yet LA has better pho.
I like authentic Chinese food because that's what I ate growing up.
But I also like Americanized Chinese (haha you can laugh but I actually like P.F. Chang's) because it's something new to me.
I also find it very interested how the Americans made Chinese food their own way.
I guess every county has its own twist on international food, just like Taiwanese style pho.
By the way, if you ever have a chance to visit Taiwan, you gotta try Kentucky Fried Chicken there.
I know it sounds silly to go to another country to try KFC, but the fried chicken there tastes completely different, and much much better!
Even though there aren't many authentic Chinese restaurants in south OC, I am quite happy with the Japanese cuisine around the area. ^_^
In that plaza, Thai Bite is good. If I really crave for Chinese food, I go Panda...
ReplyDeleteThere is also Chili's and Macaroni Grill but people drive crazy in that plaza so be careful.
Congrats on your new house.
haha you're right. Panda is better than this restaurant. ^_*
Eileen, I'm 53 and remember when KFC used to taste much better when they were still owned and run by "Mr Colonel Sanders" himself. Later on, he sold the rights to a big corporation and to me the quality went downhill---especially the size of the chicken pieces, which seem so small now compared to what I remember from the 60's & 70's. I heard that other countries put their own little touches on American fast food----like at their McDonalds. It would be fun to sample KFC, McDonalds, etc in other nations to see how it compares to over here.
ReplyDeleteI love the big pieces of crunchy fried chicken at KFC in Taiwan.
When we moved to the US in 1989, we went to KFC thinking since KFC came from America, fried chicken must be even better here.
Yup, it was a big disappointment. The fried chicken wasn't even crunchy! What kind of fried chicken is that?
The McDonald's in Taiwan had specialty items like teriyaki pork burger and rice burger from time to time.
The "buns" in rice burger was made with rice.
You can see a picture of it here: http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1428/1468175411_bed24fe1a8.jpg
I agree with you. Trying American fast food in other countries would be a lot of fun! ^_^