Capital Dim Sum Seafood Bar

Leveraging a long history dating back to the 1981-vintage Los Angeles restaurant Kim Tar Noodle House, Capital Seafood is a collection of Chinese restaurants that may or may not be a “chain” at this point: Three Capital Noodle Bar locations today confusingly share a website (capital-seafood.com) with each other but none of the Capital Seafood restaurants, which appear to be separately operated in Irvine, Garden Grove, and Rowland Heights. This article focuses solely on the Irvine Spectrum Center location, which is known as Capital Dim Sum Seafood Bar, and has a distinctively calligraphic logo that looks just like ones on the Noodle Bars. It opened in 2011, roughly 15 years after its relative in Garden Grove.

As its full name suggests, the Spectrum version of Capital combines a large paper dim sum menu – lunch specials on the back – with an even larger laminated traditional Chinese soup, entree, and drink menu, covering virtually all of the expected bases. A spacious, well-decorated dining room and bar area strongly resemble the now-defunct Irvine location of Sam Woo Seafood, including a separate bar area near the front, a charmingly abacus-laden cashier’s counter off to the side, and a set of sliding panels that can create a semi-private section for the large dining area.

Unlike 95% of the area’s Chinese (and other) restaurants these days, Capital maintains tablecloths on tables, well-dressed servers, and price points in the Meizhou Dongpo range. Appetizers and soups are commonly $17 and up, most entrees start at $24, and seafood options float around $28-$30, climbing to $39 or more for higher-end ingredients. Similarly, while dim sum start at nearly $7 per “A” plate, most are “B” or “C” plates at $9 or $10 each, with several “S” options at $11. The “lunch special menu,” you may learn after it’s been handed to you and you’ve attempted to order, is not available on a Saturday or Sunday, but you can have most of its items by adding $4-5 to their listed prices.