Restaurant: China Red

Location: 855 S Baldwin Ave, Arcadia, CA 91007. (626) 445-3700

Date: September 30, 2018

Cuisine: Chinese

Rating: Very good Cantonese, has some DM though

Another Sunday, another Chinese. In this case we came to China Red because our friend Derek, former manager of Elite and World Seafood has moved here.

For some reason I’ve been on a run of places on the slightly more “Eastern” half of the main SGV. Slightly more annoying drive too as it’s 10-15 minutes further.

The interior is typical midsized Cantonese. There is some DM (deferred maintenance). This is very Chinese, but the place is only a couple years old and is showing some wear and tear.

Here is Derek on the left with Yarom.

We were in the private room — which is eclectic to say the least.

Peanuts to start.

We started with a few classic bits of dimsum, even though it was evening.

Har Gow. Pretty solid shrimp dumplings.

Shu Mai. Pork and shrimp. I always love these meat bombs.

Roast Pigeon. Finger licking good.

Garlic fried fish. Or maybe it was frog, I can’t remember. It was crunchy, garlicky, salty, and pretty good.

Peking duck. Can never go wrong with that and this was a fairly juicy version.

Even if they only had the buns (I prefer the pancakes).

Roast pork. Nice crispy skin.

Mixed seafood chow mein. Carby goodness.

And the next noodle, because we needed a LOT of them. This was some sort of meat and black bean and black pepper wok fried noodle – it was delicious.

String beans with eggplant.

Pea tendrils or whichever type of colon sweeper with garlic.

Everything fried rice.

Lobster. A solid lobster. I’ve had better sauces but the meat was good.

Sweet and sour squirrel fish. Very fried, which makes it extra tasty.

More noodles, chicken noodles I think. Not quite as good as the beef pepper noodles.

Custard buns. Tasty.

I can’t even remember if I brought gelato this night. Lol.

Food was quite good at China Red and Derek really takes care of us. We have so many Cantonese feasts that it’s hard to remember which ones are the best, but this was quite solid, although not super “unique.” China Red was oddly quiet, and the place looks a touch shabby, but it’s certainly better than most (but not all) SGV Cantonese by a good bit.

For my catalog of Chinese restaurant reviews in China, click here.