Long He Chinese Cuisine

In the United States, most Chinese restaurants historically identified themselves as offering “Cantonese,” “Hunan,” or “Szechuan” cuisines, each referring to the characteristic flavoring, cooking, and ingredient choices associated with a city or province in southern China. Orange County residents today are lucky enough to have access to a far wider range of regional Chinese cuisines (see: Noodle Nest, Six Alley, Xibei, Xishang Roodle), and those classic categories have been modified to better align with their Chinese names or modern transliterations. Cantonese cooking is also known as Guangzhou or Yue cuisine, reflecting a focus on the authentic flavors of proteins and vegetables, keeping spice/sauce levels comparatively low, and preferring steaming and stir-frying to dry-frying, oil-braising, or stewing.

As the first U.S. location of a Taiwanese chain specializing in dishes from Guangzhou and nearby cities, Long He Chinese Cuisine in Tustin offers multiple Cantonese-labeled items, as well as individual recipes from Chaozhou (raw marinated shrimp, $18/half, $26/full), Macau (salted fish eggplant in clay pot, $20), and Hong Kong (typhoon shelter prawns with crispy garlic, $28). Without individually naming each of the nearly 80 soft opening menu items, we will characterize the initial list as incredibly compelling and locally very distinctive. Beyond temporary paper menu pages, a smartphone-based ordering system includes beautiful photos of every dish that are extremely close to what’s actually delivered – the products, we learned, of a head chef with over 40 years of experience, unquestionably visible in both Long He’s concepts and execution.

Worth underscoring: We visited Long He twice during its soft opening in April and May 2026, a stage when restaurants typically work out small kinks and aren’t up to their full potential. Even at this early stage, the dining room and service style approximate places like Din Tai Fung or Meizhou Dongpo, which is to say a step below fine dining, but with the same Michelin Bib Gourmand-level of aspirational culinary quality and attentiveness. On our first visit, the restaurant was about to install new grill hardware in its kitchen, apparently to add Chinese-style meat skewers and other grilled items to its menu. Old signage from the prior tenant (Roast Fish & BBQ House) still hangs outside, showing a raucous beer and kebab scene that doesn’t quite fit Long He’s more upscale, expensive vibe, which is a somewhat odd fit for a plaza known best for Bodega R-Ranch Market, Yoshinoya, and a Mexican torta sandwich shop. We’ll have to see how this settles out after the soft opening period, when the restaurant’s signage and exterior decorations are finalized.

On our first two visits, we focused mostly on dishes that were particularly distinctive locally, while skipping dozens of more common choices that also sounded worthwhile. At a high level, we’ll note that excellent quality and impressive presentation were consistent across virtually all of the dishes we ordered, so we won’t nitpick either of those elements in describing them; unlike many Chinese restaurants, Long He is comfortable serving guests white plates that spotlight individual items without using vegetables or starches to pad them. Additionally, individual proteins tend to be larger than one might guess from pictures, using jumbo shrimp and big pieces of beef that really benefit from two or three small bites rather than one.

Shortly after placing our first order, our attentive and friendly server delivered two complimentary appetizer items: a plate of candied walnuts (not listed on the menu), and crispy anchovies with peanuts ($6), combining lightly oiled, skin-on Spanish peanuts and small, salty dried fish; only the second was brought over on our second visit. Collectively, these nuts provided a wonderful sweet/savory contrast to kick off our experience, and helped stave off hunger as we waited for other dishes to arrive from the kitchen. (While our first meal took around 90 minutes, a bit slower than typical pacing, our second was properly paced, and service remained excellent throughout.)

During visit one, seaweed pomegranate dumplings ($12) were the first of our ordered dishes to arrive, and gorgeous: six room temperature, rice paper pouches stuffed with pom-flavored, minced seaweed, sealed with thin seaweed knots, and topped with black roe. Each was simultaneously delicate, plump, and uniquely flavored in ways that only sophisticated chefs can execute at this level. Pan-fried stuffed lotus root with wagyu ($22) was one of several Long He dishes starring the wheel-like roots, here placing umami-rich minced beef directly between two peppered lotus slices in utterly savory, oversized Oreo-style sandwiches. Having enjoyed many dishes where lotus stands out, we found this one special in physically fusing the roots to the beef, turning every bite into a contrast of dense root and soft, rich meat.

Next up was crispy prawns with golden shreds ($32), one of the menu’s multiple delicately presented seafood options. Here, the classically sweet, creamy dish walnut shrimp is reimagined without nuts, instead using thin taro strips as a more texturally interesting coating, while placing a stack of deep-fried pumpkin slices at the center. While we loved the shrimp – something we typically don’t say about rare creamy Chinese dishes – the fibrous pumpkin was just a little too dense and unsauced to enjoy in this form, properly prepared yet akin to sweet potato fries that hadn’t softened. It was literally the only thing we would have significantly modified in our meal.