LAReview
photo credit: Jakob Layman
Garlic & Chives
Included In
In Orange County’s Little Saigon, there is a tight list of restaurant royalty. These are the spots that have been serving the same iconic dishes for decades and are viewed as founding pillars of the community. Their importance cannot be overstated. But when a community is built upon a rich cultural heritage - and long-standing recipes - it can be difficult to find places that are changing things up. That’s where Garlic & Chives comes in.
The modern Vietnamese restaurant is not only serving some of the most objectively interesting food in the neighborhood, they’re also serving some of the most delicious. And that makes it new royalty in our book.
Garlic & Chives has actually been open since 2014, so it’s hardly some new rebel in town. That said, walking into its bright, festive dining room, you’ll feel like you’re at a restaurant that opened five months ago, not five years ago. There are first dates happening in the corner, big groups of friends ordering everything until they run out of table space, and college kids who successfully convinced their parents to try something new tonight. There’s a youthful energy here that you can’t really find in Little Saigon restaurants, and as soon as you open up the menu, you’ll realize its source - the food.
photo credit: Jakob Layman
It takes one glance at the expansive menu to realize that, though this is Vietnamese food, there’s influences from all over Asia. You’ll eat pomelo salad, a citrus-and-shrimp-filled dish that’s typically found in Thai cuisine, Sichuan-style toothpick lamb we’d put up against the best in San Gabriel Valley, and a plate of shaken beef that left us, well, shaking.
While we’re certainly fans of having options, wide-ranging menus often lead to meals that feel disconnected - but not at Garlic & Chives. Every dish here feels intertwined and purposeful, whether it’s deep-fried salmon belly with an addictive house dipping sauce or a giant crab roasted with enough garlic to ward off a lifetime of vampires. When dishes have the intense, complex flavors as they do here, nothing feels out of place, or added simply to compete with every other restaurant in town. If it’s on the menu at here, it’s meant to be ordered.
Honoring tradition is important, and Little Saigon will always be a neighborhood rooted in its long-standing restaurant royalty - but there’s something to be said about the tradition of creating your own legacy, too. And Garlic & Chives proves it’s important to keep some extra room open on the throne.
Food Rundown
photo credit: Jakob Layman
Pomelo Salad
Deep-Fried Salmon Belly
photo credit: Jakob Layman
Toothpick Lamb
photo credit: Jakob Layman
Mi Toi Tom Xu Nuong (Charboiled Black Tiger Shrimp)
photo credit: Jakob Layman
Roasted Garlic Crab
photo credit: Jakob Layman