Super Yummy

Although the sign at this Irvine Corporate Park dining establishment has one name, Asian food delivery service Hungry Panda lists it as five different restaurants: “Super Yummy,” “Fragrant Hot Pot,” “I Ordered a Chicken,” “Chongqing Grilled Fish,” and “Distant Mountain Youth – Handmade Steamed Buns.” Located between well-liked businesses ranging from House of Kabob and Jam Jam Tea Lab to Poke Tiki and Siam Station, you’d never suspect that a space of the same general size could fit multiple restaurants inside. But when you walk inside the Super Yummy space, you’ll discover that the malatang hot pot and fried skewer restaurant previously known as Yummy Yummy has evolved into a collection of ghost kitchens with a single dining room – notably staffed on our visit by one person alternating between the front counter and kitchen. If there’s any Irvine business operating more restaurant concepts with one person doing most (or all) of the work, we’re not aware of it – and deeply hope that this model doesn’t become more common.

We chose to dine in, and found the dining room concerningly but unsurprisingly understocked: Napkin holders, serve-yourself water stations, and spice containers were empty; buffet-style trays of by-the-pound malatang ingredients were in various states of depletion; and tables were just barely clean enough to use. Perhaps if we had visited the correct website or app, there would have been some explanation for inexplicably large collections of boxed Pop Mart toys that were stacked at the counter and next to the buffet, but we didn’t see any prices or references to them on Super Yummy’s multiple laminated menu cards.

One of those cards offered access to the “I Ordered a Chicken” collection of fried chickens ($6 to $23), fried chicken sandwiches ($10 to $14.50), and $4 to $5 sides including french fries, onion rings, and mozzarella sticks, but the one intriguing item we tried to order – “Hey Cuttlefish Ink Whole Fried Chicken” ($23) was out of stock. Another card offered grilled fish dishes and a list of “staple foods,” including appetizers, soups, and noodles. No inventory became a recurring theme as we tried to order unique items such as “Tear Apart Flesh and Blood” ($6), so we gave up and went with obviously available options.

Super Yummy’s biggest draw continues to be its by-the-pound malatang and dry pot offerings, sold at $15 per pound for soups (chicken, tomato, gold, pork bone, vine pepper, mushroom, tom yum) or $17 per pound for spicy dry pot with one of five spice levels. Large plastic bowls and tongs let you self-select seafood, vegetables, noodles, and meats – notably including pork belly, tongue and ear, lamb, frog legs, aorta, tripe, duck blood, beef shank, spam, and Taiwanese sausage. If an item’s bin is empty, you can typically ask for it to be refilled.