Tender Greens

So I tried this place for the first time on 6÷22÷16 but it was at the Spectrum location, and it was THE BOMB! I told my sister about this place and she wanted to try it out. Instead of going to the Spectrum location, I decided to try a closer location in University Plaza.
This is the perfect feel good lunch place. My sister and I both ordered the Big Plate combo for $ 12 and $ 11.50 respectively. I got the same items I got at the other location which was the Fried Chicken, Butter Lettuce, and the Mashed Potatoes. My sister got the Backyard Marinated Steak, Tender Greens Salad, and the Mashed Potatoes. The Fried Chicken at this location was actually greasier than the other location. Besides that, the Butter lettuce and mashed potatoes were bomb! My sister loved her plate. She thought that the steak was marinated perfectly, the mashed potatoes were buttery, but the salad needed more dressing.
Portions are fair, prices around $ 12 per plate and you choose if you would like your protein on a salad, sandwich or plate with side. The eating area is nice and clean. Although this place gets pretty busy, the line does move quickly.
I don’t recommend going here if you are starving, but a very nice light lunch option would be perfect.

Um… Small portion of Arugula with 3 bland pieces of albacore, that would be $ 12.00 plus tax. Nooo thank you. The salad is just bland too, besides a little bit of cheese, salt and some lemon vinaigrette, a piece of hardened bread, there is nothing else. I was still hungry after eating this salad, they could have done better than three tiny pieces of albacore. Overpriced even for Irvine spectrum food.
What also bothered me is the customer service, it was my first time there and the person taking the orders just want to rush me through. When I started asking questions about their menu, she was annoyed.
Would I ever come back? Probably a big NO, unless I have to.

I’ve been going to UCI for the past two years but for some reason I have not tried tender greens until now. I got the plate with arugula salad, mashed potatoes, and steak and I also got the baby broccoli and bok Choy.
My favorite part about my meal was probably the arugula salad, it was super refreshing and complimented the steak really nicely. I was sadly not impressed by the meager three slices of steak that I got, the meat was extremely tough and hard to chew.
The baby broccoli was very delicious but the bokchoy was not very good, it seemed a little old.
Considering this place is pretty pricey and I was not very satisfied with my meal, I would probably not come back.

I had Tender Greens for lunch the other day. Overall it was good.
I got the falafel wrap, the flavors were really good and it was a decent size. If you like falafel this is a good choice. I wasn’t as thrilled with the «simple salad» on the side. The dressing was good, but the salad was a little too simple. It was basically just lettuce with dressing.
The price for the wrap and the side of lettuce with dressing was $ 12.65. Felt a little steep. I wouldn’t count the lettuce and dressing as a side, so I would’ve been more satisfied if it was a side of vegetables or something.

I really love Tender Greens, please know that. But I just found a nice green bug in my food and I’m still hyperventilating about the fact that there may have been others I didn’t see. So I’ll try going to another location.

This is the perfect feel good lunch place.
I got the tuna as a salad and it was perfect!
The quality excellent and coked just right.
Portions are fair, prices around $ 12 per plate and you chose if you would like your protein on a salad, sandwich or plate with side.
Ambiance is nice, bright, airy, while it does get busy the line moves quickly.
Not ideal if you are starving, but a very nice light lunch option.

Pretty good Ahi Tuna Salad.
Busy at Lunch but good.

I saw some negative reviews so was hesitant to try this tender greens, but after being a regular at the Irvine spectrum location and being disappointment by the quality on 2 separate occasions as well as the staff’s carelessness in rectifying the situation I decided to give this location a try and I have been pleased thus far.
First, there is def more assortment and number of deserts here versus the spectrum location. At spectrum there are ALWAYS out of deserts by like 6. I went there 4 times and they were always out of their cookies. I even spoke up a couple times but nothing changed.
Secondly, the food tastes consistently good. There was one time the cookies were burned and one time the sandwich wasn’t cooked Right, but what I loved was that the major — sorry I can’t remember her name, maybe Nicole, was sooo nice and fixed everything. She remade my sandwich and refunded me my entire order because I had to wait. She also replaced my cookies on a separate occasion.
Due to the outstanding service by the manager (I really hope i got her name right), and her dedication to ensuring customer satisfaction I continue to drive to this location though the spectrum location is closer to my house. Also the food consistently taste better. And she actually mentioned that they were working on their portions after noticing people complaining about that.
What a DIFFERENCE good management makes .
So far I’ve been here at least 6 times and am very happy with the service, staff and food.
Love Tender Greens!

Located inside of Irvine spectrum. Their food are light and the portions are just about right so I highly recommended This restaurant if you are looking for a healthy meal.

The tuna nicoise salad was soooo delicious. It tasted light and healthy while filling and a lot of salty flavors and crunchy textures. I would order again! It’s a fun place to meet someone for upscale casual dining!

This place is very okay and very expensive. Urban plates is a similar concept restaurant but gives you a lot more options and amount for the price! Quality is good too.
I’ve been pretty disappointed every time I went

Tender Greens is a fresh and casual eatery located at the university center in Irvine.
OK now, I really wanted to like this place! The three stars I’m giving are for what they’re doing with their healthy, organic approach, which is refreshing. They have a farm to table mindset. That’s a good thing. In a World full of GMOs and poultry and beef pumped full of hormones and antibiotics, I can appreciate it. That’s why I tried it.
What I WASN’T impressed with was the blandness of the food itself. Sorry guys, just didn’t do it for me. Eating organic and healthy doesn’t necessarily mean that it has to be bland. I ordered chicken over the arugula salad. Unfortunately the chicken was totally cold but to their defense, they were happy to fix my plate with a warm piece of chicken. Even with that, it didn’t exactly leave me planning my next visit.

Meal was great! They were running a deal where you can get a free 3 oz of yogurt for a check in on Unilocal!
I got a blend of bao’s cherry tart and mei mei’s dragon warrior passion tart! I also got cheesecake bites and gummy worms because it reminds me of my childhood :-3 Highly recommend to anyone looking for a frosty treat on a frosty Friday night!

Marinated steak on top of spinach simple salad. So good. The meat was so tender that when I was cutting the pieces into halves, it only took one swipe of my knife. The dressing for the salad was simple and fresh, and although the spinach was tossed in the dressing, there was the right amount of dressing without overdoing it.
It’s also perfect for one meal and leaves you feeling full all day. Everyone seemed to get the mashed potatoes though so I will have to try that next time in addition to another type of protein.

Tender Greens is similar to Urban Plates in that it’s a cafeteria type establishment. Ordering is done at the front.
One has a choice of Big Plates or Big Salads, which are each priced at $ 11.50. The choices for Big Plates consists of the following items:
Salt and Pepper Chicken (white and dark meat, garlic, oregano, thyme)
Chipotle BBQ Chicken (white and ark meat, chipotle barbecue sauce)
Fried Chicken (white and ark meat, buttermilk, rosemary, thyme)
Backyard Marinated Steak (grilled medium rare)
Herb Brushed Albacore (grilled rare, sea salt, lemon and olive oil)
Falafel (cumin and coriander spiced chickpea fritter)
Each Big Plate can be prepared as a sandwich, hot plate with mashed potatoes, or on a simple salad. The Big Plate also comes with a choice of salad: Tender Greens, Baby Arugula, Baby Spinach, Butter Lettuce, Kale or Romaine Hearts. Soup can be substituted for mashed potatoes or salad for $ 2, otherwise a side of soup is $ 4. A slice of grilled tast is served as well.
Each Big Salad choices consisted of the following selections: Salami & Kale, Chipotle BBQ Chicken, Chinese Chicken, Grilled Chicken Cobb, Sothern Fried Chicken, Tuna Nicoise, Market Fish, Backyard Steak, Harvest, Happy Vegan or Falafel.
I opted for the backyard marinated steak, mashed potatoes, and baby spinach salad (goat cheese, hazelnuts, and a vinaigrette). The steak was grilled to perfection. This medium rare bad boy was so juicy and had great flavor. My only complaint was that it was kind of small, less than 6 oz. I’m not a big fan of mashed potatoes, so I wasn’t that impressed with them. They tasted just ok. The salad was good as well with a good amount of hazel nuts and goat cheese. The vinaigrette was not over powering and I kind of wish it had a little bit of sweetness to it.
Overall I enjoyed my meal and the flavors. This is definitely a healthy option that tastes wonderful. The only negatives I can think of is that the pricing should be lowered to $ 10 so that the meal is in line with Urban Plates pricing.

I came here for a lab party last week and thought the food was absolutely delicious! I had the trout salad. the food was light, fresh, and flavorful! The salad was seasonal and came with grapefruit so it was a little sweet which I like but not overly so. The portions are big so you get your money’s worth and don’t have to worry about not being filled up by a salad. I was stuffed when I left. I also had a side of roasted broccoflower that was out-​of-​control but I think covered in a ton of oil. So delicious but not low-​fat.
Don’t skip the desert! We shared the olive oil cake, carrot cake, chocolate brownie, and some type of strudel. I thought the olive cake and carrot cake were awesome. Great frosting on the carrot cake. Which is my favorite part of all cake.
Good selection of hot tea as well. Helpful and friendly staff to answer all my obnoxious questions about ingredients and what’s good etc. Didn’t seem annoyed at all!

I was going to write a little spiel about this lovely and unique salad called the Thai octopus salad. It had grilled octopus, peanuts, coriander, green papaya, orange slices, and a chili lime vinaigrette. It was delicious and refreshing and I was going to recommend you try it because the salty bits of octo work well with the other ingredients (
).
Apparently they took that off of the menu. This is what happens when I have review drafts and no time to write. Menu items that I love disappear…
Anyway, Tender Greens has a limited yet solid selection of large salads, hot entrees, and plant-​based sides. They have fried chicken, BBQ chicken, steak (
), and grilled tuna steak. I typically only order these if I am in need of comfort food and have enough time for a food coma. More often than not, I’ll order a salad. Since the octo salad is no longer available (goddamnit tender greens…), my 2^nd favorite salad is the falafel. That one features four pieces of falafel, little gem lettuce, red onion, cucumber, parley, tzatziki, and cabernette vinaigrette. The salad was refreshing and the falafel was falawesome! It was crispy on the outside and somewhat light on the inside. Flavor was good too.
I am impressed that a salad place such as this wold also boast some sort of craft beer menu. Tender Greens only has six taps or so, but that is still pretty good. While this is good and dandy, I do have a problem with their beer menu as it only lists the breweries and not the actual beers. I pointed this out to one employee and she looked at me confused and repeated to tell me the names of the breweries.
«We have a stone, a bootleggers, and some other beers»
That does nothing for me. Breweries make different beers in much the same way as car manufacturers make different models. Telling me who is on tap is only partially useful.
Other than that beer frustration, the removal of that octo salad, and their sub par desserts, I don’t have much of a problem with Tender Greens. I have no doubt that I will be back.

Holy crap. Rabbit food costs so much here. Not sure if my wallet can keep up with this «healthy» eating lifestyle.
This location is inside the University Center near UCI. Tender Greens is right across from Veggie Grill. Parking is really easy; park towards the movie theater and Trader Joe’s. Some of the spots say only 45 minutes though.
The dining area looked very spacious, but maybe because it was empty at the time I visited. When lunch and dinner times come around, it gets really crowded. There are a lot of large tables for everyone to share. I love the dining area outside! It’s also spacious, and you can enjoy the lovely OC weather. I also love that the menu is really simple. You can either get a set salad or get an meat entrée (as a plate or salad). The cashier told me their harvest salad is most popular because it has fresh fruits. I decided to choose an entrée and make it into a kale salad. The steak turned out well; it was more on the medium side rather than medium rare, as the menu described it. The kale was good, but it would have been even better without so much dressing.
Maybe I’ll be back if I feel like paying $ 12 for more greens.

Tender Greens is yet another option in the suddenly crowded farm to table genre of fast casual restaurants invading Orange County.
Hmmm… Mendecino Farms, Urban Plates, Native Foods Café, Veggie Grill and now Tender Greens. These are all farm to table fast casual concepts that have popped up in Irvine in the last year alone (I bet there are 5 more I cannot recall right now) and there is no sign of the trend slowing down anytime soon. I guess one could be excused for complaining «more of the same» but 15 years ago these would have been fast food, pizza or some other franchise-​chain-​from-​hell so I will count my blessings.
Back to Tender Greens.
Same concept as every other farm to table with a higher price point (the average plate tops a superior Mendo Farms!) and a quirky, (okay… straight up lame and confusing) ordering drill. The interior is about as cliché as it gets in the genre but it is kept immaculately clean.
After looking for a vegetarian choice I came up with the Falafel Salad weighing in at a considerable $ 11.50. Little gem lettuce acts as the canvas and super fresh chunks of tomato and cucumber are peppered with parsley along with red onion and then the lot of it tossed in a light cabernet vinaigrette. Crunchy and warm Falafel balls flank the salad swimming in Tzaziki. Very good, if not totally delicious and I will admit I was perfectly full as I left to head back to the office without feeling bloated.
Will I return to Tender Greens? I assume I would so long as I didn’t think of Mendo or Native Foods first.

I still come here sometimes, but they have some noticeable issues with portion control. Sometimes they give decently sized portions, and other times (more often than not now) it’s definitely on the smaller end. I always order the octopus salad, and on a couple occasions, I only got a few measly pieces of octopus.
I also feel like the quality of the greens used has gone down. I remember the salad vegetables used to be abundant in variety and extra fresh, but now the greens are usually in pieces and noticeably not as fresh (I even got a few wilted pieces during my last visit).
I held off on writing this update for as long as possible, but my last visit was equally bad if not worse — noticeably wilted vegetables, measly portions, and they even forgot the green papaya in my grilled octopus salad. In addition, these issues are not ones that I alone have noticed — my mom and a couple friends have pointed this out as well.
However, I will say that the flavors are at least consistent, and the staff are always friendly.
Guess I’ll still visit occasionally, but they need to have a talk about portion and quality control.