That’s quite helpful. Thanks!
I’m definitely not rushing. I’ve been kicking this two boards gently for at least couple of weeks before posting this question 
I don’t think I confuse the serial and tcp, probably it’s the way I combined all the findings together made that impression. The AIR board indeed have plenty of documentation, however I cannot fully rely on it as the documentation is actually for the chip itself, not the board I’m using. I did request the seller for the board documentation, but am yet to hear back. E.g. a noticeable difference is that the chip work off 3.3v as per the chip doc on the site, however the board states 5v which was a confusion for me at the beginning. Ended up operation on 5v. Which means I cannot fully reply on the docs depending on what else they injected into the board.
To begin with I’d like to try your suggestion:
You can connect that board to the Serial port of the computer first!
Try to establish a connection using the AT commands. (PASS/FAIL)
However I’m not sure I fully understand this. How do I connect the serial pins to my PC for testing? Through some serial to usb hardware converter? Or are there other methods?
To clarify, the board has two sets of pins each on an opposite side of the board. One provides usb connectivity, the other for serial connection. USB side works fine with a PC, while not sure how to test the serial pins connecting to a PC (the ones I fail to communicate with from the esp32 board). Hope you can advise