Diamond Jamboree Shopping Center

The shopping mall was named appropriately. It is certainly the diamond of all your Asian dining and shopping needs.
I also appreciate that most places are open late which can be difficult in south OC.

I have mixed feelings about rating this place because they have great restaurants, but the parking is horrendous. There are cars coming from every which direction and this place is so popular that there just aren’t enough parking spaces. It’s worse than mall parking during the holidays. But they have such a good variety of places to eat and it’s a fun place to hang out.

Full of great restaurants and some really cute Asian shops that you can do some shopping in!
I was really mesmerized on how many popular restaurants they had in this plaza and I’m dying to try ALL of them soon! Restaurants range from ramen, revolving sushi, crawfish, finger foods, boba, baked goods, curry, and an upcoming ice cream place: AFTERS! I’m sure there are much more, but there are just too many for me to remember them all (which should hint to you that there’s a lot of variety to eat to fulfill any day’s cravings)!

This place is a feast;
When my friend told me to meet up at Diamond Jamboree SHOPPING Center I seriously thought it’s a shopping center: H&M, Forever21, Hollister etc.
NOPE
It’s every foodies paradise. I didn’t even know they have such a place in Irvine. It’s clean, great vibe and great food. Kicking Crab, BCD Tofu, CoCo, 85 °C Bakery etc.
Hungry? Come here!

Plethora of restaurants and desserts located at DJ. Come here if you’re hungry or want something sweet!
Parking structure located at the back.
Parking at the lot gets a little difficult during peak meal times.
Enter through Alton Pkwy, but you can enter through the back way through McGaw. No entrance on Jamboree.

One of my favorite plazas to go to in Irvine.
Parking is usually terrible during lunch, dinner, and weekends in general. I’m usually able to find parking in the stucture, which is actually located behind the plaza. You can always just follow someone to their car.
There’s a great selection of food for lunch! I come here to go to Coco Ichibanya, Chef Hung, and Kicking Crab pretty regularly. There’s also 85, Meet Fresh, and Lollicup for dessert. I can’t wait for Afters to open.

+ LOTS of food places to choose from, LOTS
+ Very cool place to bring anyone here
— Parking SUCKS, SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS.
I’m conflicted about this. This place, I’d say 4 stars. but their parking layout really really sucks. If your lucky, you’ll pull in and find a parking spot and then enjoy the whole plaza for what it is. If you’re not lucky, you’re left driving up and down aisle after aisle in the parking lot looking for a spot. Sure, you can also try their parking structure, but good luck with that one as well.
With parking out the way. you’re left with lots to explore. You have an array of dessert shops to choose from, you can have sushi, ramen, you can have BBQ here. a bunch of options to choose from. You can even shop at H-​Mart if you need some groceries, albeit pricey, you’re still given the option to go there. Very cool place, but held back by its lack of parking.
Parking is probably one of the main reasons why I don’t come here more often than I should.

+ Great restaurant/​store options
— Terrible parking situation
— Single exit for entire plaza
— Other exit near church has ridiculously large speedbumps
While the restaurant options at Diamond Jamboree are great, the actual plaza is not. I’m not certain who designed the layout of the parking, but it makes zero sense.
More parking spots are needed for the number of businesses here. I’m not sure what the parking space to business ratio should be, but if this plaza meets this requirements, it needs to be reevaluated. The parking lot in the main area gets full almost immediately, and if you are visiting on the weekend, don’t plan on finding a spot here.
The entire plaza also has a single exit. This is a terrible idea with the current parking situation. There is a «secret» entrance if you come through the church, but there are several speed bumps there that are GINORMOUS. If all your speed bumps have deep gouges in them, maybe it is a good idea to fix them and make them normal sized.
There is a parking deck that is for some reason hidden behind the plaza. There is a lower level that doesn’t have an exit which doesn’t make any sense. The rest of the deck also fills up very quickly.
That being said, there are a number of very nice restaurants here. Either plan to come here during off hours to get parking, or have your passenger get out and reserve a seat while you spend the 10 – 20 minutes to find a parking spot.

It’s a great shopping area filled with alot of different eateries spanning from little mom and pop places, to sit down restaurants to dessert places to a coffee/​tea shop, there are also services, like massage, hair salons, karaōke, etc.
There is always long lines for a couple of the eateries, like 85 degrees, which mostly serves desserts and breads. And lollicup always seems to have a long line in it.
The shopping center is pretty popular, as it’s really the only place in irvine where the restaurants are open late, so it’s a great area to go hang out with friends/​family and get some good eats.
There seems to be nearly every type of cuisine you could want. I like the convenience of this center as it’s only 5 minutes from where i live.
The major drawback of this shopping center is the parking, if you insist on parking in the main parking area during the high peak time. Be prepared to compete for parking spaces, or wait for awhile for a parking space. The shopping center gets really crowded at times. There is a parking structure in the back, but it also fills up quickly. Also, seating seems to be few and far between. Besides a couple of open eating areas, there are hardly any places to sit and eat outside.
I definitely recommend this shopping center, especially if you’re looking for a variety of asian cuisines or need a place to go later in the evening after 9pm.

What weekends look like here:
People drive with their eyes closed here. Pedestrians everywhere. Parking is like playing musical chairs with 1 spot and 10 cars. GOOD LUCK EVERYBODY!
But I still come from time to time, in between the peak hours, when everything is much more tolerable. It is one of the nicer Irvine plazas, but the lack of parking for the abundance of people just doesn’t really work out well if you do the math.