J&G Fried Chicken

In Irvine, full-menued Taiwanese restaurants such as A&J Restaurant are now wildly outnumbered by narrowly focused specialists in dumplings (Bafang), fried porkchops (Kingchops), and boba tea (Class 302, One Zo, Wushiland), thanks in part to closures of well-established alternatives including Chef Hung, Han, and O’Shine. During 2024, 85 Degrees C Bakery‘s U.S. franchisors opened America’s first two locations of Taiwanese chain J&G Fried Chicken in Hacienda Heights and Irvine. The latter restaurant opened at the Irvine Spectrum Center only weeks after its new next-door neighbor, rotisserie chicken spot Dizzy Bird, and not coincidentally sits immediately next to 85 Degrees. With a small menu of almost entirely fried items, J&G would be forgettable if not for its atypically strong fruit tea boba drinks, and its brand’s half-century heritage, which over the past 15 years helped it expand from Taichung, Taiwan’s Jiguang pedestrian shopping street to roughly 500 total locations through franchising.

In addition to fried chicken sandwiches, which are sold only in $14 to $20 combo meals, Irvine’s J&G offers five a la carte fried chicken options: popcorn-sized bites ($8-$10), tenders ($6-10), leg-and-thighs ($10), spicy fillets ($10), and cartilage ($8). Most can be ordered in $13-$14 combos with curly fries and small plastic cups of creamy corn salad, the latter made with what seems to be ranch dressing. No other food item beyond a house salad ($9) is healthy, as J&G’s sides include fried king oyster mushrooms ($6), curly fries ($4), fried fish cake ($6), and fried yam balls ($5). Five fruit green teas (mango, pineapple, orange, guava, or lemon) include boba, mini boba, or tea jelly for around $6 each, and that’s it; seafood items served overseas (including calamari and cuttlefish) are not available here.