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Archive for Chifa

Monarch Madness

Aug27

Restaurant: Monarch

Location: 1212 S Baldwin Ave, Arcadia, CA 91007. (626) 596-2818

Date: January 29, 2023

Cuisine: Hong Kong fusion

Rating: Very good, but I like Chifa better

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The Leon family knew within the first week of opening their Peruvian Chinese restaurant Chifa in late 2020 that a sophomore effort was in the cards. Though no one in the family was especially well-versed in food service or hospitality, the tenacious squad that includes Humberto Leon, the co-founder of fashion brand Opening Ceremony; his mother, Wendy Leon; sister, Ricardina Leon; and brother-in-law, John Liu; navigated pandemic-related hurdles and ultimately found success. Now they’re ready to do it all over again with Monarch, which opened on South Baldwin Avenue in Arcadia on Saturday, January 14.
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Dressed up diner outside is totally SGV.
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Super cool dining room.

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8 is THE number for these round tables!
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Bead screen of Iguazu Falls!
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Jeffrey with Mama.
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The menu.
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Accidental grab as this was a $495 wine for Chinese!

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Michael Kaplan’s son’s home-made chili oil (excellent).
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Trusting the manager, I put in the entire menu organized into 4 flights. This 3rd flight item came out first but he graciously took it back, sorted it out, and sequenced near perfectly after that.
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Silken Steamed Egg. delicate steamed egg with monkfish liver. The texture on the egg was great. However, the monkfish liver was a bit underappreciated in this (very cooked) context.
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Decadent Spiced Okra. wok stir-fried okra in a Szechuan spice. Not particularly spicy, but very very pleasant with that goopy and crunchy okra texture.
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Filet Mignon Tartare. Westholme Australian Wagyu filet mignon with pickled snow cabbage, chili crisp and quail egg. We mixed this all up and the result was an extremely flavorful tartare.

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Shrimp chips for the tartare.
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Slippery Egg Crab Fried Fun. Cantonese wok fried rice noodle with egg, crab and salmon roe add Uni. The “Fun” was basically rice sticks but this thick starchy dish was awesome with that old school “lobster sauce” flavor + uni. Really lovely.
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Steamed Seabass Olive Tapenade. slow steamed chilean seabass topped with Chinese pickled olive tapenade. Olives are an unusual feature of southern Chinese cooking, probably courtesy of the Portuguese. They certainly worked in this night light seabass preparation.

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Black pepper lobster. This special order prep was absolutely to die for. This 5ish pound lobster was super juicy and the black pepper sauce on of the best stir-fry sauces ever. Putting it on those thick al dente noodles was absolutely to die for. Once the oily pepper sauce soaked into the noodles… oh yeah!
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Again, just because.
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The gang.
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Monarch Bolognese. simmered pork and tomato ragu with Chinese egg noodle. Even on their return in proper sequence this was a contentious dish. The porky Bolognese, while a touch dry, was quite lovely. But the noodles tended to clump.

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Addicting Curry Noodle. fragrant and spicy curry squid ink noodle with scallop, calamari and shrimp. We all much preferred this unusual noodle dish with its grainy yellow curry flavor. Really was addicting.
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Garlic Sweet & Sour Pork. crispy fried pork with Popo’s sweet & sour sauce, onions and kiwi. Like a high end Panda Express Sweet & Sour Pork! Very fried and drowned in this sweet and jammy sauce.
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Black Pepper Lobster Tail. Whole lobster tail wok tossed in sweet and spicy black pepper sauce — noodles added. The lobster (and its noodles) were so good that we ordered two tails worth of lobster with MORE noodles. However they were out of the thick round ones and substituted this linguine. The tail meat was easier to eat and I enjoyed its lobster flavor, but the shell had one up on it for being finger licking good. The new noodles were good, and if we had had them first would have been great, but they just weren’t as chewy and amazing as the larger noodles.
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Our special order Tomohawk came at first “well done” but again they graciously took it back and swapped for…
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Tomahawk, rare. Now this was an amazing steak and really delicious with its warm deep pink/purple center. I particularly enjoyed with the sauces.
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Black Pepper Cognac au Poivre sauce. Roasted Garlic Red Wine Reduction sauce. And special Chifa Cucho Sauce. My favorite was the black pepper.
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Braised Curry Lamb Shank. tender braised lamb shank in fragrant tomato curry with cauliflower puree. Great that this was on a cauliflower puree (low carb) and the meat was super tender and drowned in delicious sauce.
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Trinity Fried Rice. garlic, ginger, scallion trinity fried rice with egg, shirmp and fish roe. Nice large shrimp.
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Celery & Red Chidori Kale (V). simple wok tossed celery and kale with fresh garlic. This was a surprise stand out for me. I very much enjoyed the crisp crunch of the celery.
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Dessert menu, but we had better:
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Cremino al Siciliana Gelato — The base made with Galbani Whole Milk Ricotta and Sicilian Acacia Honey laced with house-made Bronte Pistacchio DOCG “Fudge” — 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 #ricotta #honey #pistachio #pistacchio #fudge

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Overall, this was an amazing meal. It’s sort of an interesting fusion, as it’s essentially Chifa — both the restaurant and the cuisine. Specifically this is a Hong Kong Peruvian hybrid fusion. It’s good and the decor and service are fabulous. But it’s also more expensive than almost all SGV Chinese. And I’m not sure it’s exactly better, just different. I actually like my Chinese very Chinese. I don’t even love Hong Kong “style” Chinese as much as most mainland restaurants because of the European (aka British) influence.

My favorite dishes here at Monarch were many of the ones that were at Chifa as well, like the lobster and steak. I do have to say, however, that the black pepper lobster is INSANELY GOOD. Best Chinese style lobster I’ve had. It’s also pretty expensive, but worth it. And the version we had was off menu, as the on menu one is lobster tail (which is also really good and we also had).

My recommendation would be that anyone very into SGV Chinese, or Chinese food in general, try out Monarch and see what they think themselves. I imagine many people will love it. I’ll certainly be back.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Ambrosia Salad Madness
  2. Hunan Chili Madness
  3. Chifa Rulez
  4. Arcadian Pastures
  5. Marche Modern Madness
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Black pepper, BYOG, Chifa, Chinese cuisine, Gelato, Lobster, Monarch, Wine

Chifa Rulez

Sep18

Restaurant: Chifa LA

Location: 4374 Eagle Rock Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90041. (323) 561-3084

Date: January 9 & October 21, 2022

Cuisine: Peruvian Chinese (Chifa)

Rating: Amazing

_
_

Jeffrey had the hookup here at this awesome Peruvian Chinese fusion place in Eagle Rock. Yeah it’s far, but it seems to be one of the only Chifa (Peruvian Chinese) places in LA that’s middle/high end. Most just serve on styrofoam. This is a composite of two visits but in both cases we ordered 80% of the menu, so between them I’ve covered almost all the dishes.

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The jazzy interior.
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A huge patio.
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Our table.

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The grill.

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The menu 1/22.

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The menu 10/22.
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Brûlée Char Siu . Wood fired pork toro marinated in house made Chinese BBQ sauce. Insanely good (and sweet). The meat itself was super tender with that porky goodness. The sauce is incredibly sweet, almost dessert sweet, but does pair very nicely with the pork.
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The caramelization is gotten via blow torch.

See it in action.
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Tiradito. Fresh Japanese sea bream chilled in a peppery orange and lime sauce. Hint of garlic and yellow chili topped with salsa criolla, sweet potato, and toasted Peruvian corn. The actual contents of this dish were irrelevant (in a good way) to the zesty Leche con Tigre sauce. It was so limey spicy and so delicious it would have made fabulous “pickles” out of just about anything. I could have soaked a big pile of the onions and carrots with it and devoured them no problem.
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Anticucho (GF). Peruvian street style skewered beef heart with cilantro & serrano chili sauce. Beefy! Chewy, because it was heart, but full of deep beefy flavor.

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Traditional Zongzi. With lap cheung, pork belly, shiitake mushroom, duck egg yolk, wrapped in bamboo leaf. Sticky rice texture with a very interesting herbal and deep flavor much like the stuffing for Beggar’s Chicken. Quite nice.

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Si Yao Chicken. 1/2 free-ranged chicken poached in Popo’s fragrant aged soy sauce with garlic steamed rice. Soy sauce chicken but the sauce was a very lovely aged soy with notes of star anise and cooked down rock sugar. This is known as “aromatic” or “seasoned” soy sauce in Chinese cooking.
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Mapo Tofu (VG). Wok cooked tofu and OmniPork Ground in fermented bean sauce with Szechuan peppercorn, garlic, scallion. This has a bit of numbing flavor, but not much, and isn’t nearly as hot as a real Sichuan Mapo but it was also quite pleasant with great texture.
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Braised Spare Ribs. Caramelized in soy sauce, shaoxing wine, golden sugar, ginger, garlic. Very soft and yummy spare ribs, although not as spectacular as the pork belly.
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Dan Dan Mian (VG). Fresh noodles with spicy Szechaun sesame sauce tossed with pickled radish. This isn’t a classic Sichuan dan dan as it’s not very spicy and has no chili oil or the layers of fermented flavors, but it was delicious. The sesame flavors dominate making it a great version of “sesame noodles.”
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Lomo Saltado. Filet Mignon, wood grilled and sautéed with cherry tomatoes and onions.
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Green sauce.

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Special order Cowboy Lomo Saltado. Cowboy Tomahawk Ribeye steak, wood grilled and sautéed with cherry tomatoes and onions. This was an incredible steak with great smoky flavor that was really amped up by the veggies. The beef fat soaked fries were incredible too. A real meat and potato feast.
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Black Pepper Lobster. Lobster wok tossed with sweet and spicy black pepper sauce. This was perhaps the best stir fried lobster I have ever had, like a lobster version of black pepper crab. This is a great “Chinese” lobster dish. The lobster was perfectly cooked and easy to extract from the shell and the flavor of the sauce was incredible. It’s related to the Singapore style black pepper crab dishes.

Meat on the grill.
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Cowboy Steak. Delicious with an incredible smokey flavor.
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Marinated Jalepenos for the steak.

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Garlic and Scallion whole Crab.

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Dessert menu.1A4A1222
Black Sesame Cheesecake Tart. Smooth black sesame cream cheese Chinese almond cookie crust. Also a little on the dry side, but kind of addictive.

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Alfajores. peruvian shortbread cookie with dulce de leche filling dusted with powdered sugar. A touch dry, as these South American treasts always are, but very pleasant.

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Lavender and Truffles Mint Strawberry Ice Cream. This vegan ice cream was coconut milk based and had a very lovely mint punch (stronger than the stawberry) and good texture for being vegan. It wasn’t nearly as rich though as a “proper” (dairy) ice cream would be.
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Lavender and Truffles Salgona Coffee Ice Cream. This vegan ice cream was a touch grainy and while the coffee flavor was nice it was certainly missing that rich milk coffee combination.
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I love this flavor — Peppermint Bark Gelato — Base is pure peppermint milk (subbed the sugar with crushed peppermint candies) and it’s laced with house-made double-sided peppermint bark, Valrhona Dark Chocolate and Ivoire White! — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — The Peppermint Bark recipe was developed by a famous pastry chef and author, the mum of a Naughty Dog Alum @nancy_baggett — this year I added the two layer thing which is awesome — #SweetMilkGelato #gelato #dessert #icecream #FrozenDessert #nomnom #dessertlovers #dessertporn #icecreamlovers #gelatoitaliano #foodporn #gelatolover #dessertgasm #foodphotography #gelatoartigianale #gelatomania #dessertlover #icecream #icecreamlovers #peppermint #bark #Valrhona #chocolate

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Le tab in 10/22.
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Chevy with the owner.
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Wines in 1/22.

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Wines in 10/22.

Chifa was really awesome. Basically super zest latin flavored Chinese food, so what’s not to love?

Service was great and the outside patio was nice and huge. Did end up surprisingly pricey though, particularly the lobster. We were treated like royalty. The family that owns it know Jeffrey and his wife and are incredibly nice with a real sense of hospitality. Highly recommended as this is the only “serious” Chifa I know of in Los Angeles.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

We weren’t really hungry, but there was a “famous” taco place across the street…

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Al pastor. Aka Mexican gyros/shawarma. Looking it up, I read that it’s ACTUALLY based on shawarma which Lebanese ingredients brought to Mexico! But it uses the “other white meat” instead of lamb.

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They fry the tortillas with cheese.
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Sauces. Street tacos are not a neat food.

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Taco al pastor. Tasty.
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A beef taco of some sort.
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Related posts:

  1. So Can Though
  2. Shanghailander Arcadia
  3. SGV Nights – Seafood Palace
  4. Racy Rosaline
  5. New Century Lobster
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: al pastor, BYOG, Chifa, Chifa LA, Chinese Peruvian, Gelato, Lobster, Peruvian cuisine, pork, Tacos, Wine
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