Kirin Noodle House – Kirin Express

For the better part of two years, He’s Noodle Zone appeared to be a temporary addition to Irvine’s Heritage Plaza – but a good one – thanks to the decidedly non-permanent-looking vinyl sign that hung above its front door. In mid-2024, that sign came down and was replaced by another for Kirin’s Noodle House, and though the menus here say Kirin Express, it’s actually the second location of a Lake Forest Chinese restaurant with the same confusing dual identity, opened only months earlier.

Kirin offers both digital (smartphone) and printed menus, the latter easier to canvas but the former accurate as to what’s actually available here. Some of the items that caught our attention on the print menu were “out of stock” when we tried to order them, a mild disappointment given that there were plenty of compelling choices: we went with dan dan noodles, cold chili beef and Nanjing salted duck, plus braised beef brisket – a recommended entree – the house special dumplings, and the “pork meat pie.”