Restaurant: Array36 – 36宴
Location: 5449 Rosemead Blvd, Temple City, CA 91776. (626) 866-0623
Date: December 2, 2023 and May 5 & July 21 & Nov 11, 2024
Cuisine: Shanghai Chinese
Rating: Great new “high end” Chinese
I was eager to find out about Array 36, another new “high end” Chinese resteraunt in the SGV — most similar to Orange County’s Chang’an.
We booked a private room for 14 and pre-ordered a number of dishes. I did the menu planning.
The service was very nice, although they did make us wait about 30 minutes while the previous occupants of our room finished up.
Pressed Japanese yuzu-infused jellyfish head. Very tasty with nice texture. Of course the jellyfish itself has next to no flavor, but the slightly sweet sauce was great.
roasted chili sauce century egg with avocado. Very nice, if unconventional, century egg dish. I do love century egg.
Century Egg with Sea Cucumber. Very interesting blend of the soft and bitey and the chewy textures. A bit of kick and tons of umami. Really quite good. They changed this up as it used to have avocado. This was arguably better.
Mung Bean Noodles with Chili Oil. A very sesame take on these. Not bad, but not the best I’ve ever had.
sichuan style spicy and numbing chicken. A very solid version of this with one of those addictive spicy sauces. Chicken itself was nice and juicy.
Couples Sliced Offal (honeycomb tripe). Solid version of this Chengdu classic, but I’ve had better.
36 feast smoked pine pork. These tiny morsels tasted like Shanghai smoked fish, just pork.
Pork Neck with Japanese Yam. Kind of like spam with pineapple!
Bovon brought another tin of caviar!
hand-made crab golden noodles. I love crab roe and I love noodles so I had to try these.
They were actually very pleasant but a little bland — nothing a huge dollop of caviar didn’t fix!
House special shrimp. They were out of scallops so we got these sweet crispy shrimp.
I “fish egged” mine up but it was very nice. Extremly crispy and mildly sweet.
Shanghai crab stewed with its roe and tofu in a clay pot. I love this dish and it didn’t dissapoint. Super soft. I ate a mess. With caviar too.
Typhoon style lobster. The lobster itself was very well cooked. The garlic had a bit too much bread crumbs in it, but was still delicious.
6lb lobster with ginger and scallions. Excellent version of the wet lobster prep.
Buddha Jumps Over the Wall Soup. Several people insisted on this dish and it was incredible! This was the abalone version and was full of so many weird seafoods cooked down into a super intense seafood demiglace. It had incredible silky texture and density. Marvelous.
The version in 2024 was like a consommé. It had all the chewy seafood bits, but not the unctuous thick demiglace texture that it had in Dec 2023.
Braised cold abalone. Chewy!
Shanghai smoked fish. Very nice crispy version of the fish.
Shrimp with Garlic. LOTS of garlic.
Grouper steamed with soy sauce and ginger. Very nice fish. Lots of bones. Great sauce flavor. Some people LOVE this dish. I like the flavor, but the bone factor always leaves me a bit disintered in engaging with it fully.
Steamed Cod. Lots of meat on this one. Really excellent sauce.
Pickled chilis and spicy bean sauce.
Shanghainese sautéed eel. I really loved these garlicky sweet rich eels.
Abalone with Garlic. And that’s — again — LOTS of garlic.
northeastern-style marinated beef. Very tender and a bit sweet.
Grandmother’s pork belly. Extremely fatty and juicy. Great version of this Shanghai dish.
Super rich Shanghai Pork with Quail Eggs. Great version of this very fatty dish.
Secret Sizzling Lamb. Pretty good actually.
Prime Beef Ribs. The V’s ordered this secretly knowing I thought it would suck — it did. No one liked it. Very overcooked meat with slightly odd sauces and a sort of steakhouse creamed corn. Really weird non-Chinese dish.
Finally, about an hour late, our Peking duck arrived. They do it like Chang’an.
Lighting it on fire with Baiju.
Then carved tableside.
Just the skin. It was good, but not quite as crispy as it should have been.
Meat itself was delicious and juicy.
Some of the meat was smoked.
This added more (smoky) flavor, of course.
Super thin pancakes, but they had a little clumping issue.
Oodles of caviar for the duck.
The condiments were solid. But overall the Peking Duck was a bit of a disappointment. It was good in the way that any real Peking duck is, but the skin could have been crispier. Part of the problem was also that both ducks came WAY at the end of the meal. We didn’t want them instantly at the start, but I had asked for them at 8pm and they came at more like 9:20 — and we were very full.
The May 2024 version of the duck was excellent, first rate really. Moist with crispy skin.
hand pulled cabbage. Delicious dish as always.
Seared string beans. Very nice sear and good flavor.
Garlic greens. Very well done, but a little on the “boring” side. Always good to have some greens but I like the cabbage.
Stone pot fried rice.
yangzhou egg fried rice. Very nice fried rice.
shanghai shepherd’s purse and pork dumplings. These XLB were super juicy, delicious, and had some kind of seafood, maybe even more crab roe.
Spicy XLB. Shells were ok and these were juicy, but they had quite a better — numbing and white — kick. I kind of liked them but many didn’t.
shanghai pan-fried buns. They looked a bit soggy but the pork was great.
The pan fried pork dumplings were better in May 2024, this time with a great pork filling.
Duck #2. We asked for it crispier. They flammed it longer, but it just ended up tasting a bit more “burnt.”
We also asked for the bones and got tons of meaty bones.
Baked papaya dessert. Sweet and kind of tasteless.
Variant on — Sultan’s Delight — Iranian Saffron and Sicilian Pistachio Base, with Rose-Water Turkish Delight — Saffron from the Istanbul Spice Bazaar — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — #SweetMilkGelato #gelato #dessert #icecream #FrozenDessert #nomnom #dessertlovers #dessertporn #icecreamlovers #gelatoitaliano #foodporn #gelatolover #food #foodgasm #foodblogger #dessertgasm #desserttime #foodphotography #gelatoartigianale #gelatomania #dessertlover #icecream #icecreamlovers #saffron #pistachio #TurkishDelight #Türkiye
Baileys Irish Gream Gelato — Stabilized 13% Bailys Irish Cream recipe, with a touch of seasonal coloring! — I have trouble resisting these once a year flavors — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — #dessert #icecream #FrozenDessert #nomnom #dessertlovers #dessertporn #icecreamlovers #gelatoitaliano #foodporn #gelatolover #food #foodgasm #foodblogger #dessertgasm #desserttime #foodphotography #gelatoartigianale #gelatomania #dessertlover #icecream #icecreamlovers #expresso #whiskey #baileys #StPatricksDay #cream #green
St Agur, Fig, Walnut Gelato.
Jellyfish head with grapefruit. Great “crunchy” firm texture to the jellyfish and a nice sweet and tangy sauce.
This century egg and sea cucumber dish is amazing.
Mung Bean Noodles with Chili Oil. A very sesame take on these. Not bad, but not the best I’ve ever had.
Couples Sliced Offal (honeycomb tripe). Solid version of this Chengdu classic, but I’ve had better.
Here comes one of our two ducks.
Drenched in Baiju and ignited.
Crispy Duck Skin with sugar.
Sliced Duck Meat.
Condiments.
Pancakes.
The duck spread.
T
T
Smoked duck meat.
Lobster with Ginger and Scallions. Excellent and juicy version.
Steamed Cod. Lots of meat on this one. Really excellent sauce.
Shrimp with Garlic. LOTS of garlic.
Tofu with Crab Roe. This is one of my favorite dishes here and didn’t dissapoint again. Great texture and great umami flavor.
Shanghainese sauteed eel. I really loved these garlicky sweet rich eels.
Abalone with Garlic. And that’s — again — LOTS of garlic.
Secret Sizzling Lamb. Pretty good actually.
Prime Beef Ribs. The V’s ordered this secretly knowing I thought it would suck — it did. No one liked it. Very overcooked meat with slightly odd sauces and a sort of steakhouse creamed corn. Really weird non-Chinese dish.
XLB. Not so great this time. Soggy skins.
The first lobster was so good we ordered a secrond, this time Typhoon Style.
Gianduia gelato.
Awesome Armenian pistachio cake.
Dec 2024: This was an awesome meal. Array 36 is one of the best Chinese “fancy” places I’ve been to in California. It’s not quite as polished as Chang’an, but it does have a varried menu. The general style leans toward the Shanghai region, although they have some other dishes. Chang’an is a little Xi’an inflenced and has a few more spicy dishes. Many dishes here were excellent, but fell slightly short of Shanghai Tang level execution. But there were lots of interesting and delicious dishes.
May 2024: Really great night. First rate in every way. The food at Array has stepped up, particularly the duck. The Buddha soup went from best to one of the worst dishes but everything else really improved. Service was great and the room cosy but prefect. They did rush the food a bit. Not that the overall length of the meal was too fast, but too many things came at once in a number of waves. But it’s really hard not to have that happen at Chinese unless you also want to gamble that you won’t have long waits. And we had A LOT of food. Jeff really helped set things up nicely. I would have ordered a couple more interesting things and left off the regular greens, shrimp, and the fish. But others LOVED the fish so they were crowd pleasers. Overall, a totally banger night.
July 2024: Another great night. Private room again and a slightly smaller (in terms of food) dinner with very successful but tighter ordering. Again the duck was fabulous. They also finally had the awesome river shrimp in stock. Even the pig’s ear was great.
November 2024 was another super fun and delicious night. Not every dish was perfect, but mostly it was our ordering. In general, the food is very slick and balanced and the dishes vary from good to amazing.
