jmix "hole-in-the-wall hunter"

Being my second time coming here, I knew to be prepared. This involved fasting for an entire day, doing stomach stretches and seal stretches, and swimming to widen that appetite. I don’t know why I do this — I just end up suffering massive fullness pains after the meal anyways.

FOOD: Whew… where to begin. Eating here is like food Christmas. The all you can eat involves pork bellies, beef, chicken, beef brisket, etc. The server brings it to you and cut up the meat for you. I found it hilarious when there’s still meat on the grill, but space must be cleared for new food so the server lady just took the tongs and distributed the pieces to all of us, sort of like my mom. The food itself is a good selection of Korean BBQ, with the mini dishes included. I thought the bean curd soup tasted sort of too salty, and had a weird jive to it. I would recommend getting the steamed egg instead.
I also attempted wrapping various meats with the rice patties and eating it in one mouthful. * So what if the soy sauce dribbled down my lips, onto my chin in a disgusting primal scene as my cheeks expanded to take it all in? So what if there were girls sitting across me seeing this? There was only one thing on my mind: To consume AS MUCH MEAT as possible *.

After consuming the food until my denim were about to burst, the all you can eat dessert option is a cooling touch to all the food. One can combine green tea, cookies and cream, and/or strawberry ice cream! This is part of my secret strategy for a “last stand”, as I always crave salty things after sweet things. So I stuffed one last piece of chicken before I slouched over in defeat.

Random note of advice: Remember to dress for the occasion when coming to Cham Sut Gol with friends. I sported a “Chinese Association” T-shirt and my old Gap jeans. Yes, the funk after-smell of Korean Barbeque WILL stick to your nice jackets and expensive pants/dresses.

*That is NOT what she said, thank you very much

Since the U.C budget cuts are drastically affecting study places for students (library closes at 8PM wtf?), my friend Lillian found this place to study. It is a manga store + tea place + wifi hotspot all rolled into one! The place is open until 2AM so we did our studying there. The only stipulation to get wifi access is that they require you to buy a food or drink that is more than 3 dollars.

Food: I intially ordered the thai iced tea, which is the size of a boba milk tea plastic drink container. It was three dollars, and I thought that was a little bit overpriced. After studying for a while, I ordered one of their specials, a curry-rice bowl for $2.50. That was alright for the price, something that can be easily made at home.

Wifi: Regrettably, I forgot to Speedtest (will update if I ever go back again) the wifi but my torrent was downloading at 50-100kb/sec if that means anything.

The place isn’t too loud or overly obnoxious which made it a good place to study. Plugs are available for laptops underneath the tables.

Overall, pretty cool concept and good for late night studying, when it really clears up.

What can I say, this place fills me up everytime I go. The food is what you would expect at a tofu house, not too bland, but not too savory either. I’ve come here on many occasions for lunch and dinner, and even once at 3AM for a midnight snack.

The best part about this restaurant is that it is 24 hours, one of the first Asian restaurants to do this! I used to have to resort to the BCDs in Westminster, and that is not a pleasant drive to satisfy a quick craving or empty stomach.

Fun Fact: There is a mouthwash gargle/rinse in the bathrooms. To this day, my friend still doesn’t know how I “brushed my teeth” while in the bathroom! hahaha

WOAHHH EDIT
Taking off a star because I came back late night .Seems like the quality has declined.
My soup was extremely watery and the panchan they gave out was CRAP. Pickles, crappy kimchi, fish (which is always good), dried out broccoli, and bean sprouts (which was the only other good item). When I asked for more bean sprouts, the guy brought out more broccoli (which i evidently did NOT touch since it was gross). Damn you service!

Their xiao long bao’s are pretty succulent — watch out for the juice soup squirting out on you when trying to eat them.

roasted chicken was good.
tofu + salty fish was ok.

overall an average experience, nothing too fancy for my chinese liking but nothing bad either.

My sister somehow LOVES this place, along with my other friend. I didn’t really see the hype. To each their own.

I should’ve read the reviews before coming here first, because looking at their hand-written menu I had no idea what was good. I ordered the Cheapskate meal #2, not because it was ‘cheap’ but it was the only thing in the menu that had coffee, pancakes, and eggs (salty+sweet combination). I’m sure the other food is good, but in the morning I usually crave something sweet and salty.

First impressions: So I came here @ 11 for brunch with my old high school friends. The place (like the bottom reviews had mentioned) is pretty small, but miraculously there was a table open for us. There is also outside seating for a good sunny day. It reminded me of an old diner, and there are some humorous signs and proverbs from the 70’s and 80s on the wall to read.

Food:
Coffee: Tasted like a generic blend. Add some cubed sugar and creamer and it was good. Not great, not bad.
Scrambled eggs + bacon: Something I could’ve made myself!
Pancakes: Big ol’ pancakes that I wolfed down. Filled me up.

This review is to be taken with a grain of salt though, as I didn’t order their more ‘specialty’ items as suggested by the below reviewers. Next time I go i’ll order something more specific than bacon, eggs, and pancakes. Can’t expect much from a “Cheapskate Menu” tho, but still thought it was overpriced @ $8.00

Back again from a food reviewing hiatus to review this place. I had Kimera two years ago with my friends, but didn’t really get to experience what they had since the majority of our group was 21+ and i was just a little kid tagging along. I have the feeling the management can really turn this joint into a nightclub on weekend nights for some extra revenue.

Anyway, I digress. First thing to notice is that Kimera is tucked away in a little business park, and parking requires validation (very important!). First time i went i balked at the $14 parking fee for the parking structure, but this time around I went in with my girl friend and confidently got my ticket validated like a pro. Not to mention it made me look so damn suave. I digress again.

I had made reservations at 8, but they made me wait until like 8:10 before finally seating us. This was my first flag about the service that was about to come. (If you are a constant reader of my reviews, you will probably notice that I rate heavily on service. As Mr. Pink had said in the classic “Reservoir Dogs”, why tip if the godamned waiters are just doing their job? I rarely go above 12% if my water is never filled, my food is slow, takes forever to order, etc. 12% is very generous for me when i feel like the service is crappy).

Finally, we get seated and takes us about 5 minutes to decide on the Swordfish, Chicken sausage pasta, and a bacon cheeseburger. Waiter didn’t come for at least 10 minutes. WTF! Come on it wasn’t even that crowded. He finally takes our order, and we wait another 15-20 minutes for our food to come while commenting on the MJ, Frank Sinatra, and Marilyn Monroe paintings on the wall. I have to admit the ambience and layout was very good, which is preventing me from giving this place a bad rating.

Food: Swordfish in risotto: Not bad, fish was good, risotto was good…. costed about 24.95 i believe. Fish was grilled to a soft tender texture and garnished with an intruiging tasting sauce (No, i don’t know what it is. but i shall ask next time).

Chicken Sausage pasta: Average portion, was decent. lots of red bell peppers. Dunno what else to say about it, since i didn’t eat much of it as I was full from my Bacon Cheezburger. $14 something.

Bacon Cheeseburger: I ordered this cos the old man next to me was having it. It was HUGE!!! came with a side order of fries too. I barely finished it. Getting the Chicken pasta was a mistake since me and my girl friend coudln’t finish all three plates. Price was around $12.95 i believe.

When the bill finally came, the fat bastard of a server forced us a 18% tip!! Motherfucker never re-filled my water and had the nerve to charge us 18%.

I would like to mention that apart from the eating area, there is also a bar. I am not sure about the happy hour prices there as I have never ordered anything from there. However, if you do decide to come to Kimera for an eat, come on MONDAY NIGHTS for their 50% off the menu. Don’t forget to mention it while booking reservations.

ADDITION edit
Came here with a small group of 21+ friends on a Friday night. Got outside lunge seating, which was totally not expected. Happy hour == $5 drinks and appetizers @ bar side. Don’t know if it was just today, but they seem to put their drinks on the strong side. Also don’t know if it was just that day, but they had an in-house DJ that played some really nice remixed contemporary music. Service was good and prompt, so I am going to add an extra star. for now.

I think this was the first chinese restaurant I ate out in Irvine. Yeah, not the most glamorous, but it was where my friends decided to go eat.

The title says it all: For $5.50, they give you a Chinese version of pho noodle soup + a huge chunk of crispy pork chops that goes really well with the sriacha sauce.

Overall, it’s a pretty small shop, but it still gives the classic Chinese restaurant feel with good food.

edit: This place is cash only.

Came here twice, both times I ordered the chicken and waffles (Roscoe’s most popular dish). for $10.50, they give you two huge waffles with two pieces crispy chicken. I must admit that this meal filled me up fully, even though it seemed pretty expensive and simple….

Which led me to think…
If i toasted my own waffles…. and ordered KFCs…. I could have the same result, for cheaper…

Which made me realize that I didn’t have an industrial sized toaster. So score one for Roscoes!

Waking at 2PM my friends and I decided to try out this place for the “Las Vegas buffet experience”. We strategically went in around 2:45, so we paid 20? something for the brunch menu, stuffed our faces, alloted some time for the food coma/previous night’s alcohol to wear off, then went back for their dinner menu around 4.

Thoughts: The food was good and even involved some exotic meat (Elk, Ostrich, Kobe beef..) Of course, there’s a wide variety of food ranging from shrimp to Asian to their custom made omlettes for brunch. Their dessert menu was a little bit iffy, with their “non-fat/low-fat” and fake sugar bullshit. Hey if I am at a buffet I want my full-fledged high fat, sugar loaded cake ok…. sorta defeats the purpose.

Overall we left satisfied with the feeling that dinner was going to be very much later in the evening.

Came to Ra’s for happy hour on Sunday night 8-close? This is a very trendy sushi bar and the ambience was OK. The reason why it was only “OK” is because they play modern, trendy music (stuff on KISS FM) but its sort of too loud. We sat outside because it was warm, but when I walked indoors the music was BLARING.

Food: Happy hour everything was cut 50%. I had the shrimp tempura (decent serving), Scallop Dynamite ($12.50… wasn’t on happy hour, oops) which really filled me up, and spicy tuna roll (it was alright, what you would expect).

Service: Waitress was a tatted up chick who would’ve been better at a hick country restaurant (LOL jkjk). Her demeanor was of sort of a rushed person, and she wasn’t exactly, err, cordial. S’ok though, our food came at a good pace and drinks were refilled relatively fast.

Overall: A good place to come to chill with friends (or perhaps a place to relax with a date for drinks after work). But only during happy hour! I hear some not-so-happy reviews from non-happy hours. Don’t forget to bring your cigars to puff on outside (yes, I did see two businessmen doing this next to us).