Restaurant: Bistro Na’s [1, 2, 3, 4]
Location: 9055 E Las Tunas Dr #105, Temple City, CA 91780. (626) 286-1999
Date: March 24 and September 15, 2024
Cuisine: Chinese
Rating: Upscale Chinese, really improved
Chinese Restaurants in the SGV are slowly going more upscale in a way that’s different than the Cantonese palaces of Monterey Park of yesterday. I’ve been here several times before, even celebrating a birthday, but Jeffrey wanted to go, and we figured we’d check it out post pandemic (10/9/22) and then not long after Arnie wanted to try it too, so we went back (1/7/23).
And one of the latest is Bistro Na’s located on Las Tunas near this cool:
Teapot fountain!
The interior is very elegant Chinese, almost traditional but in a new way typical in China today. Ornate wood carvings, lanterns and antique music instruments abound. Technically it bills itself as “Imperial Cuisine”. Maybe there is some of that, but it’s also a bit of Chinese greatest hits. Still, it’s a different cuisine than nearly every other place in the SGV with more ornate plating.
The menu is a hardcover thick paged photo tome!
Various banchan like apps.
Pickled peppers and pepper sauce.
Bovon brought a mess of caviar!
Beef tripe and aorta in chili sauce. Sounds scarey but was lovely. Nice crunchy / chewy texture.
Pig’s Foot Jelly. These were the best I’ve had. Nicely porcine and delicious.
Na’s Spicy Chicken. The classic Sichuan cold dish. Super tasty with a nice balance of salt, tang, and heat. Some numbing as well. Very tender chicken.
Jellyfish Salad. Not bad, although not much jellyfish — and it replaces the now discontinued Jellyfish with Cucumbers that was amazing. Poor direction to go in.
Organic Cordyceps Flower & Celery Salad. Organic Cordyceps Flower, Celery, Fungus, Mixed Vegetables.
Old Beijing Smoked Duck Breast. Duck breast, strawberry sauce, endive lettuce.
Na’s secret tofu. Not that secret. Great teture. Slightly bland. Joe dish.
Scallion Pancake. Another Joe dish, but an excellent version.
Egg and chive “pockets.” The shells weren’t as crisp as I might have liked but there were lots of fresh chives.
They have Peking duck now (well at least they did in the spring), carved table-side. We ordered 2!
Extensive condiments for the duck.
Really nice thin spring pancakes.
Table-side!
The breast and skin, served by itself with sugar. Really crispy and nice.
Sugar for the skin. And great hoisin.
The main meat. The duck was great. 2nd best duck I’ve had in Southern California. All the elements were really good.
The bones return salt and pepper. Heads split in half. A bit too much of the bone and head thing but tasty.
Stew Crab Meat & Fish Maw. Fish Maw, Crab Meat, Pea Sprout. This was an insanely great dish. Very savory and umami and even better with a bit of caviar.
Dry Braised Black Cod Fish with Chili Sauce. Black Cod, Pork, Bamboo Shoots, Ginger, Garlic, Scallions, Spicy Chili Sauce.
Lobster with ginger and scallions. Supposed 5lb lobster. Not the best best version of this dish.
Lobster Roe noodles — these were the bomb!
Braised Sea Cucumber and Beef Tendons. Sea Cucumber, Beef Tendons, Scallion, Onion Sauce. Nice and chewy.
Crispy Salt and Pepper Scallops. Actually pretty spicy!
Spicy Tofu with Cod. Basically MaPo tofu with bits of cod. This added a delectable umami note.
Crispy Shrimp. This is Na’s signature dish and for a reason. The shrimp were perfectly cooked and the shells completely candied and edible. Delicious, if a touch sweet. They remind me somehow of cicadas escaping their shells.
Seafood crispy rice.
Here is the crispy rice and the hot seafood was poured over it — basically like those old “war bar” dishes at 1970s Chinese Resteraunts.
Seafood Crispy Rice. Really fabulous. Lovely mellow yellow curry sauce, with sea cucumber and other goodles. So good over the rice.
Simple fish. Too boring for my taste.
Drunken Chicken. Very nice flavor, but not zingy enough for me.
Chili Pork with Bamboo Shoots. Kurobuta Pork, Bamboo Shoots, Jalapeno, Black Fungus, Garlic. Yum. I loved this dish.
Shredded Pork with Sweet Bean Sauce. Matsutake Pork, Shredded Green Onion, Crispy Noodles, Cucumber. Served with Spring Pancakes. Great version of this Beijing dish.
Stir Fried Cabbage with Dried Shrimp. (March 2024) The dried shrimp give this version of the dish a quite significant pungency. They sliced it up this time which I don’t like as much as the larger homestyle cabbage peices.
Cabbage with Dried Shrimp. (Sep 2024) They went back to the proper torn texture.
Stir Fried Angus Beef with Garlic. Really interesting. The beef itself was tender and good, even if the peice size felt a little bit thick, but the real killer was the crispy candied chilies. These were incredible! Actually fairly spicy.
Braised Abalone & Pork Belly with Chinese Puffy Pie — very Chinese fancy. Great version of this classic Shanghai dish — plus abalone. The pork was super succulent and the sweet brown sauce had a nice depth of star anise.
The “Puffy Pie” (aka sesame bun).
Fried Mixed Mushrooms with Rice Cracker Bites. OMG these were like potato-stick crack. They felt “hollow”, crispy, and coated in an almost candied shell. So good!
Crispy Lamb Belly. Great dish, but I was getting full.
Mountain Yam in brown sauce. My least favorite dish — just because it was starchy.
Shrimp and Dried Seafood Fried Rice. Oh so good.
With a bit of tofu on it.
Pan Fried Beef Buns. Very nicely flavored beef and chive filling. Pretty temperature hot at the start and could have used a little vinegar/dumpling sauce to balance the hot fat.
Pecan Praline Gelato.
Mint Oreo and Chocolate Orange Gelato.
Coconut Mango Cake.
Crepe Cake — delicious.
Fruit.
Chocolate Potato Chips.
The works.
March 2024 wines.
The Sep 2024 wines were great.
March crew.
Sep crew.
Both of these 2024 meals were hands down the best Na meals yet. The duck was great, almost certainly the second best duck in SoCal, very close to the one at Chang’ans — but sadly, in September they didn’t have it, despite several of us trying. They claimed they were having a difficult time sourcing.
Overall, a complicated place (for the SGV) to review.
While a bit pricey for the SGV, the atmosphere is lovely and the plating much more elegant. In the private room, with slightly careful ordering, this can be some of the best food in the SGV. Some dishes were excellent, some just pretty good, and some outright bland. I’m not really sure what regionality of Chinese it is. Sort of Beijing/Shanghai maybe? They say “Imperial.” It does feel very contemporary Chinese and is certainly not aimed at white folk. I’ve had a general problem in the past with their “under-seasoning.” A lot of dishes just seem too sweet or too bland. But in 2024 they seem to have punched it up a bit and it’s not much of an issue.
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