HI House — Restaurant in Irvine

Okay, this was a bit confusing. Hi House used to be Hot Pot Legend, which used to be Alien (or Ah-Lien) Hot Pot. Anyway, it's still a hot pot place, and pretty decent. Servers were quite helpful in understanding the set-up. There are quite a few choices here. Some people had individual bowls of soup. There are also barbecue skewers that sounded quite good. We went for the hotpot. After some discussion, we opted for one large bowl of bone broth, which is made from chicken and beef bones. This was quite tasty, and included red dates, goji berries, corn, and tomato slices. This seems to be one of the few places that offers chicken. It was frozen and sliced very thinly, like Mongolian BBQ. This was good, and cooked quickly. We also had beef tongue and tendon. Both of these were good. The baby octopus cooks fast and gets tough. Didn't get the hang of cooking these right. Other than the chicken and beef tongue, everything else came on bamboo skewers, which made cooking them and pulling them out of the pot easier. There are also utensils available. The pot boils on a flat-top electric burner, so keep a careful eye on young children. Most of the flavor comes from the individual's dipping sauces. The sauce bar is included in the price, and has lots of good choices, either as individual sauces, or to your own preferred mix. Unfortunately, it is arranged in a corner that makes it difficult for more than one person to serve himself at a time. We also tried a number of the mushroom skewers which were good, as was the fungus(woodear). The winter melon takes longer to cook, as does the taro. Together, all of this made for a tasty soup, and after serving ourselves some of the soup, we requested a free refill of soup. It was a great time of chatting with our friends, and we all left satisfied. It cost us a little less than $100, including tip, for the 4 of us. Restrooms are nice, but are also used as storage closets. I'd give...

I found this place to be underwhelming. But then again, I'm more used to better Hot Pot places that are in the San Gabriel Valley which is too far away to drive to. I've really have yet to find a decent hot pot place in Orange County that I really like. Food was good enough but I don't believe it was worth the price I paid for the evening. I found that the mushroom broth was a bit too strong, though that is easily remedied by mixing it with the chicken/beef broth which actually made both better. I would give this place a 3 based on food alone, however they need to be more careful with their choice of music as I was with my kids and they were playing rap music, which isn't a problem in itself except for the fact that the music they played contained profanities which some families might take issue with(I really didn't mind as I have no issue with my children hearing said words as it's not a big issue if they know not to use them and should eventually know that there is a time they...

We just moved to Irvine, CA from Seattle and would like to try some Chinese food in Irvine.

My wife told me that Hi House promotes the product - Champion Beef Noodle Soup (紅燒冠軍牛肉麵). Free Refill for Noodle and Soup. Since my kids love noodles, I would say it is a good deal.

We went there twice.

First time: We ordered the Champion Beef Noodle Soup ( 1 bowl) for my 2 kids, but the soup was mild spicy. But it was fine for them. They enjoyed eating noodles especially free refill.

My wife ordered Tomato Beef Noodle Soup (紅燒番茄牛肉麵) and she really loved it.

Second time: My kids still wanted to have Champion Beef Noodle Soup. This time, the soup a little bit spicy compared to the dining experience for the first time. They did not like it.

Suggestion: Since free refill is the good marketing strategy, why not create a kid's menu where they can enjoy eating, but the soup can be either non spicy or mild spicy?

Please make non spicy soup for kids if they love it.

Will go...