Popcorn Chicken Noodle Soup at Guppy House - Irvine

It was 1 a.m. when we'd ambled in through our front door with our luggage. It had been a long day of traveling that included a harrowing ordeal with near-missed flights and a shuttle van that made us wait on the curb for over an hour after our flight arrived at LAX.

Not having consumed more than Pop Chips and Coke the whole day, we were starving. She was craving Tapioca Express' Crispy Chicken while I wanted noodles in soup. But earlier that night, as we waited on that arrivals terminal sidewalk cold and with stomachs growling, we realized our options for food were dwindling fast. It was close to midnight and the Tapioca Express we usually go to has long since closed. Honda-Ya for ramen would've been a possibility. They close at 1 a.m. But our negligent airport van company took that off the table since we were still on the road at 12:30 a.m. after finally picking us up fifteen minutes earlier.

There was hope. There was Guppy House. It was still open when we got home at last and managed to drive over without passing out. Yet it wasn't just open; it was still hopping with thump-thumpy music and customers in their twenties who would presumably go off doing something else after they ate their meal and the restaurant closed at 2.

We ordered the dish which seemed to be there just for us: the popcorn chicken noodle. An enormous bowl of fried chicken chunks dusted with spice for her; a big steaming bowl of noodles in soup for me. It was the kind of food I probably wouldn't think twice about under normal circumstances, but it was exactly what we needed at the moment we needed it. We Hoovered the noodles and gulped the salty broth as though it were the manna from heaven. In between sips, I marveled how good it was. How the al dente, snow-white strands danced in the green-onion and fat globule-flecked soup. How its steamy vapors warmed my face as I hunched over the bowl and slurped, slurped, slurped.

While we shoved those chicken pieces into our mouths as if they were actual movie theater popcorn, we said to ourselves: "Home sweet home...and let's not use that shuttle company again."

Guppy House
2730 Alton Pkwy #101
Irvine, CA 92606
(949) 851-9788

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