A Chinese Restaurant Where Service Is King

If you live in south Orange County, it is practically a given that you live near a Chinese restaurant. It seems almost a prerequisite, in fact, that each new shopping center feature a Chinese eatery along with a yogurt shop and video store.

What isn’t a given, however, is that you’ll find the kind of quality food, service and personal attention that has become the hallmark of the Long King Chinese restaurant in Mission Viejo, tucked away in the Alpha Beta shopping center on Marguerite Parkway, near Estanciero Drive.

Long King is what owners Wood and Julia Lin proudly call a “family-style” Chinese restaurant--no frills or fancy tablecloths, but a long menu of traditional Mandarin and Sichuan dishes at extremely reasonable prices.

Where Long King really stands out is in its service--attentive but not overly aggressive, and fast. Children are especially welcome at Long King, and Wood Lin makes it a point to individually greet his returning customers to make them feel at home.

For lunch, the restaurant features two daily menus listing dishes that go for $3 and $3.50, each featuring tea, soup, an appetizer, fried rice and an entree.

The dinner menu is equally easy on the pocketbook, with most entrees running in the $6 to $8 range. There is also a children’s menu featuring egg roll, won-ton soup, fried rice and a main dish for just $3.95.

Besides the familiar kung pao chicken and the like, there is Long King chicken, a house specialty that’s not too spicy and is prepared with orange peels and scallions.

The crystal shrimp (Wood Lin guarantees 23 to 25 shrimp with every serving) is another good dish. And, for an appetizer, nothing beats Wood Lin’s Chinese pot stickers, sausage rolled in a light flour--not too greasy--at a reasonable $3.65 for six.

If you want to splurge, go for the Peking duck--served with Chinese pancakes and hoisin sauce and scallions--an ample meal to feed four for $20. Top it off with a Tsing Tao Chinese beer.

For Wood Lin, whose family fled mainland China for Taiwan in 1949 after the Communist revolution, Long King represents the achievement of a family dream. Long King, which has been in business at the same location for nearly nine years, has enabled Wood and Julia Lin to send their oldest daughter to Stanford and enjoy success in the community Wood calls home.

A former chemical engineer in Taiwan who spoke little English when he arrived in California, Wood Lin went into the restaurant business and never looked back.

“Most of my customers are repeat customers,” he said. “If I didn’t prepare quality food, they wouldn’t keep coming back.”

Long King Restaurant, 25482 Marguerite Parkway, Mission Viejo. Open Monday through Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday till 10:30 p.m. (714) 951-8418.