Tim Ho Wan

It would be an understatement to say that Cantonese-style dim sum restaurant Tim Ho Wan has an unusual history in Orange County. Riding high on the success of its Hong Kong location, which earned a Michelin star in 2010 and was for a time the “world’s most inexpensive Michelin starred restaurant,” the chain expanded to New York City in 2016, then California in 2019 with the opening of an outpost at Irvine’s Diamond Jamboree shopping and dining center. Larger and more lavishly decorated than most of the plaza’s restaurants, Tim Ho Wan served such mediocre small- and medium-sized plates for most of its first run here that negative reviews piled up, and the space always looked nearly empty when we walked by to visit neighbors Kura Sushi, 85 Degrees C Bakery, or SomiSomi. We never returned after our first visit in 2019, and weren’t surprised when it closed in July 2024. Signs outside claimed that it was being renovated, but after a year (including missing posted reopening dates), we weren’t sure what would happen.

In late December 2025, Tim Ho Wan actually reopened – and while the new incarnation has plenty of old baggage (including years of not great online reviews) to overcome, it’s legitimately better than before… even if it’s not objectively great. A new chef and refocused menu have enabled the still quite large, still nice-looking space to finally feel like a peer rather than step down compared with plaza alternatives such as northwestern Chinese specialist Noodle Nest and Korean mainstay BCD Tofu House. Similarly, though the service experience still doesn’t include carts and is still in need of fine-tuning, you can now have a fine dim sum meal here – notably during lunch or dinner hours.

Rather than ordering with pencil and paper, as before, you now use a QR code and your smartphone to select items, with the option of large picture-filled printed menus and server assistance if you need them. When we visited, servers were somewhat detached from specifics – dessert dishes arrived first, with savory sauces – and joking around with each other in ways that suggest no local front-of-house aspirations to Michelin acclaim. At the same time, Tim Ho Wan’s prices have gone up: Four small shrimp har gow or three medium-sized baked BBQ pork buns now go for $7.50 rather than $6.50 or $6.65, which means a filling meal is now likely to be in the $50 range per person, including one tea and one dessert.

Apart from several apples-to-apples item comparisons, however, the 2026-vintage menu has changed a lot from what was available on our last visit in 2019 – and we intentionally ordered different items, as well. The strongest dim sum were the Signature Baked Barbecue Pork Buns ($7.50) and steamed Golden Lava Salted Egg Buns ($5.90): baking made the former wonderfully crispy on the outside with a hot rather than scalding sweet soy and diced pork filling, while the steamed buns had one of the strongest sweet/salty egg custards we’ve tasted in a soft bun, anywhere.