Kat's 9 Lives

Sigh! Even with a coupon of buy one get one free can't save this place. I have seen their coupons around a bunch of times and this was the first time I have tried them. My apologies to you Tofu, but it was one of the rare places still open late at night. It's the OC and Mission Viejo, nothing was open past 9pm. As soon as you see the menu with very limited choices, you can immediately tell that it was not an authentic place. Their name gave it away too, any place named Bistro d'Asia could not be authentic. The service was nice, we were the only ones there dining late at night. I was astonished to see how busy their bar was, but then again this was one of the RARE places I know in Mission Viejo that's open until 1:30am on a weekday!
The nice server, who looked like Dave Navarro, suggested that the Chinese Tacos were very good that night. No offense, but as soon as I heard taco I was like uh ok... He said it would be like Mu Shu but in a pita. It was much better than I expected it to be. He recommended it with Saracha and it really added a kick to the whole thing. For a $1.50 it was actually pretty good and much better than what Tofu had.
I went the safe route and decided to order the Orange Chicken, crispy chicken stir-fried in a fresh orange peel sauce. There were many slices of orange in the dish. The presentation was decent but the flavor was mediocre. They actually gave a decent amount of chicken and it was fried nicely but the sauce was lacking.
Tofu decided to get Mongolian Beef, tender beef stir-fried with scallions & onions served atop a bed of crispy noodles. The sauce was very bland, but luckily there was soy sauce at the table. It's hard to imagine that they could mess up on this common dish. The presentation was nice, although the food was almost swallowed up by the crispy noodles. Later on the server asked for our opinions of the food. Tofu told the truth and the server was super nice and concerned about it.

All in all the service was very nice, but the food was definitely lacking. If you are looking for delicious Chinese food, then this would not be the place for you. I had a buy one get one free coupon so it was cheap or else I would complain a LOT more. This place would only be good for a late night bar or hang out place, but not for the food. Their advertisement said there would be live entertainment after 9:30pm, which never happened. Sorry to say since the guy was pretty nice, but I definitely won't be back for their food and I apologize again to Tofu. Gomenasai!