Restaurant: Sands Chinese Restaurant 金沙中餐館
Location: 15706 Arrow Hwy, Irwindale, CA 91706. (626) 338-6686
Date: December 30, 2023
Cuisine: Southern Chinese
Rating: Very good and lots of interesting dishes
Sands is a a newish Hong Kong / Cantonese place that Keong and Sklar really enjoy. Keong setup a very extensive custom banquet here on the second to last day of the year. Only problem is that it’s so far east — but at least there wasn’t much traffic.
This is a smallish mom & pop place, but they do have “fancier” food available for advanced order. The owner was the chef at some famous restaurant in Macau.
Double Boiled Winter Melon Soup. Interesting textures. A touch sweet and bland for me, but with some white pepper was quite pleasant. Had a lot of the tasteless but vaguely sweet melon. Some fish maw, mushrooms, and shrimp.
Lobster Salad. I’ve had this at least 2 times before. It’s like ambroisa salad, the Chinese lobster edition. Not to my taste as it’s sweet and the mayo and sweet fruit overwealm what was a very nicely cooked lobster.
Lotus Leaf Rice. Over-steamed, bland and heavy. This was my least favorite dish of the night and the most carbacious.
Steamed Cod. Lovely delicate cod. Hard to pick up with chopsticks as it was so delicate, but great taste and texture.
Sichuan Cold Chicken. Yarom ordered this because he didn’t want the rice. Turned out to be quite good. The sauce was full of “flavor” and delicious. Chicken was juicy.
Mushrooms with Shrimp Paste and “Lobster Sauce.” A delicious silky bite. The broccoli, as we shall see, was a stable for the night.
Crispy Fried Chicken. Great crispy fried chicken as described. They also debuted what was to be one of many little figurines made out of pressed flour and/or sugar or something.
Pipa Tofu. More broccoli and these “oyster-like” tofu fried balls. Delicious actually. Better than the real oysters (a few dishes later).
Sweet and sour sauce for the fried stuff.
Steamed Tofu with Minced Shrimp. Silky and delicious.
Deep Fried Oysters. The real oysters which were a touch heavy and fried — but I never love fried oysters. Did have a cool dragon head.
A5 Beef. Very soft.
Braised Stuffed Duck. Interesting duck. Very rich and quite delicious. It was stuffed with a LOT of stuff, known as the 8 treasures. List comming up.
The 8 treasures!
Beef Cube with Sichuan Sause (spelling intentional). Felt a little pork-like and was in one of those Panda Express type sweet and sour sauses (hehe).
Braised Pork Belly. Very decadent.
Oatmeal Shrimp. Never had this before. Actually pretty good!
Lettuce with Fermented Bean Curd. I prefer with cabbage, but this was pleasant too.
Chicken Skin Spread with Shrimp Paste. Another crispy chicken, this time sort of a version of 100 flower chicken. Hot and delicious.
Deep Fried Taro Tossed with Sugar. These actually weren’t bad for a weird Chinese dessert.
And it included yet another cute figurine.
Yar! Ghostly skeletal praline pirates are marauding — Pecan Pirate Praline Gelato — An eggy ultra-smooth Texas Pecan base layered with my creepy skull-shaped New Orleans style Vanilla Bourbon Pecan Pralines — 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 #vanilla #bourbon #pecan #praline #candy #halloween #spooky
Overall, a great and very interesting meal. There were lots of new dishes here, which I love, and lots of great ones. Interesting Southern Chinese style, simutaneously fancy and home style. Lots of fry. Not every dish was sucessful. Despite my comments, they mostly worked. The Lotus Leaf Rice was the only true dud. I just have issues with the sweetness of some of the others. But I absolutely love trying new things and this was chock ful of them. The staff were incredibly nice and really cared. As of 12/30/23 they were still applying for their Liquor Liscense.