D&D FireArt Chinese Cuisine — Restaurant in Yorba Linda

First time at D&D FireArt (after having eaten in this physical location, which was a previous Asian restaurant in the same space, different owners, many times over the years). This place BLOWS THE SOCKS OFF the former tenant's food!!! If you used to eat at this location, and haven't tried D&D, please do yourself a favor and TRY IT - you won't be disappointed!! (sorry, completely forgot pictures, I was so taken with the food quality!)

First up, we eat late, like very close to closing on weeknights, so no problem getting a table immediately. Service is prompt and very friendly.

They have an unusual chicken egg drop soup that is very flavorful! Veggie egg rolls are nothing to write home about - standard fare, fresh, hot, but too oily for my liking. Will skip next time.

The Mongolian beef was good... not great... beef was a bit chewy, not necessarily overcooked, but just good. The sauce was very good.

The sweet-n-sour shrimp - WOW!!! GINORMOUS ( like HUGE), plump, fresh shrimp (largest I think I've ever seen in a restaurant anywhere), perfectly cooked, smothered in a very flavorful, but not overly sweet (if that's possible) sweet-n-sour sauce, with plenty of pineapple. Just excellent, both quality and flavor! Can't say enough about it.

House Special Fried Rice (chicken, shrimp, bbq pork) - very, very good! Definitely NOT your standard strip mall (did I mention this place is a little hole in the wall place in a small strip mall next to Vons... you'd likely miss it if you didn't know it was here)... but I digress. ;)

Definitely NOT your standard mall or strip mall restaurant fried rice, which is usually regular rice with some soy sauce and other flavoring tossed in, with frozen peas and carrots added. NOT HERE - this is the real deal - fresh, plump chunks of chicken and smaller (regular-sized) shrimp, perfectly scrambled egg, and whatever the mix of seasonings - just perfect!! Although, personal preference, I like my house fried rice to have beef instead of the bbq pork, but I suppose we could request that next time. And no cheap frozen veggies here, just quality, piping hot, well-prepared, tasty ingredients. I literally will have to go in sometime just for the fried rice as a meal!

BTW, the family-style dishes are HUGE!!! A "small/regular" is plenty for 4, maybe 5 people, if a few dishes are ordered. And the "large" dishes should be called "HUGE," more than enough for 5-7 people if sharing a number of dishes!

Arrive hungry... you will leave fully satisfied. However, one small blip... did not get to try fried ice cream from the menu, in fact, for some reason, the server said there were NO desserts available? Didn't ask why, the food was so good, we just let it go (and there is a great walk-up ice cream place just a few doors down ;).

My only regret is that there are only 2 locations to this advertised "chain" restaurant, in the entire U.S. that I could find - this one (the newer) and Santa Clarita, CA. At least everyone in these 2 cities and surrounding areas can have the pleasure... it's...

The reviews are strong, so my expectations were high. I was impressed with how generous the regular sized servings were, plenty for two of us as we shared two different dishes and had leftovers. The food was very colorful and appealing and fresh looking. In Particular, I appreciate that the chicken seemed to be freshly prepared for the dish rather than the very typical pre-cooked tough and dry chicken I find in so many Asian dishes. This was a huge plus!

However, based on the taste of the food it was a three star experience. I wish I could give them five stars, and I gave them an overall of four because of the above reasons. The two dishes we had, cashew chicken and spicy tofu eggplants tasted almost identical. They were bland, and there was absolutely no spice in spicy eggplant. There was nothing outstanding in the flavors. Just blah! No garlic or spices or ginger or anything to distinguish them. I love Asian food and food from around the world when it has interesting flavors and they use lots of spices that are not typical in American food. So to go to such a restaurant and have a great start with the beautiful appearance of the food was hugely disappointing.

It won’t take much for them to up their game and become outstanding. I hope they read this review and pay attention to the flavor profile of their dishes. I would love to go back and look forward to interesting flavors because of the great things they’re doing well.

Lastly, the restaurant is very fresh and clean looking to be very new. Apparently it’s been open about a year. They are so close to being great. I hope...

I had been seeing people talk about this place on Facebook, so we decided to check it out. Full disclosure, I was expecting this place to be just another Americanized Chinese food place. And to some extent, it is. Also, I lived in Shanghai for 7 years, so I’m no stranger to most styles of Chinese food.

The service was great. They’re happy and friendly. The food exceeded my expectation. For what they offered, the flavor was great.

My recommendations: 香辣茄子豆腐 (spicy tofu) 木薯肉 （mushu pork wrap) 炒河粉 (chow he fen) 生姜鱼片 （ginger onion fish) 三鲜锅巴汤 (Sizzling rice soup)

They also gave us 糯米鸡 which is a sticky rice filled with chicken and wrapped in lotus leaf.

I’d definitely come back. I felt it was a good compromise of flavors. It’s definitely localized for the areas taste buds but still has enough flavor for me to consider it fairly good...