Chinese cuisine :: All Things Andy Gavin

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Everything at Wagyu House

Dec01

Restaurant: Wagyu House by The X Pot [1, 2]

Location: 18558 Gale Ave Suite 122-128, Rowland Heights, CA 91748. (866) 610-0609

Date: May 26, 2024

Cuisine: Chinese Hot Pot

Rating: Maybe the best “upscale” hot pot?

We first came here for lunch but this is our return for a big blow out wine dinner…

Build out is pretty extensive. Sure, the build quality is “sloppy” and it won’t hold up, but it looks pretty cool right now.

If you pay for the “vip room” or have the NFT like Bovon does, then you can make a reservation.

Private rooms.

Sauce Bar. The sauce bar is excellent. Not quite as good as Shancheng Lameizi but very good. There weren’t very many snacks though (like cucumbers etc).

My usual pair of sauces. I tried not to make them very spicy today.

The menu.

And the special “expensive” package menu.

Spicy bear broth and Golden Chicken Soup broth.

Slightly less spicy and Herbal Chicken broth (with the pig but left out)

Braised Lotus Root snack.

Crispy Pork snack — awesome.

Bone marrow. Solid.

My sauces from the excellent sauce bar.

Baby octopus.

Mixed greens.

Lobster tails.

Spongy shrimp and roe rolls. Awesome.

Bean curd skin.

Super tasty fish and roe balls.

Squid.

Shrimp balls which were great and very fresh.

Squid legs.

Quail eggs.

Fish maw?

Lotus root.

Winter melon or similar.

Mushroom medley.

A5 cubes. Frozen, so were a bit hard to cook properly.

A5 of some sort — great.

Smoking!

Another cut.

Zombie food, aka Pig Brains.

Another bean curd.

And another A5, ribeye or similar.

Goose intestine.

Noodles.

Duck webs.

A non A5 beef.

Spam!

Beef stomach.

Another meat.

Beef tongue.

The man with the lamb.

Trio of sorbetto: chocolate, coco almond, and raspberry ginger.

Awesome night and probably the best hot pot I’ve had n the SGV / HH. Great service, great food, very fresh, nice private room, great sauce bar. Totaled up to $220/pp all in, so not the cheapest, but really good.

They had face dancers too!

Robo waiters.

This is so SGV.

Overall, if you get a private room and order it up, Wagyu X is one of the best hot pots in the greater SGV. Ingredient quality is high, they have a lot of items, the space is good, service is strong, the sauce bar is big. All great!

This place apparently has the same owners as Niku X .

For more LA dining reviews click here.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: BYOG, Chinese cuisine, gealto, hot pot, SGV, spicy, Wagyu House by The X Pot, Wine

SGV Sunday – Yang’s Kitchen

Nov03

Restaurant: Yang’s Kitchen

Location: 112 W Main St, Alhambra, CA 91801. (626) 281-1035

Date: March 31, 2024

Cuisine: Chinese Fusion

Rating: Tasty, but pricey

The press has been talking about Yang’s for some time as one of the new style SGV Chinese places — so had to try it.

The main street frontage.

The menu.

Very casual interior. Service was excellent, however, with an extremely knowledgable Somm.

Pickles. Nice and crunchy.

Cucumbers. Fabulous cucumbers with a bit of spicy.

Raw Oysters of the Day.

Chilled Tofu w/ Avocado & Roe. Soft and mellow.

Prawn ‘Ceviche’. Great texture.

Dungeness Crab Cold Noodle. Delicious with nice bit and cool crab.

Smoked Fish Dip. White fish salad!

Chicken Liver Mousse. Another “jewish” dish.

Yang’s Fried Chicken Wings. Lots of flavor.

Grilled Cabbage w/ Bagna Cauda.

Smoked Pork Jowl Cha Siu. Jiggly!

Grilled Dry-aged Fish Collars.

Red Wine Beef Cheek Stew.

‘Dan Dan’ Campanelle. Some numbing quality. This was probably my favorite dish. Really delicious.

Braised Duck Leg with Taro.

New York Steak & Crispy Potatoes or Chicken Fat Rice.

‘Hainan’ Fish Rice.

Dessert menu.

Black Sesame Cake.

Custard.

Tiramisu Gelato.

Pistachio Gelato.

Overall, some very delicious food. It’s very much fusion with a sort of 70/30 mix of Western and Chinese but a great kitchen. Price is fairly steep for “cafe ambiance.”

For more LA dining reviews click here.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Tagged as: BYOG, Chinese cuisine, Chinese Fusion, Gelato, SGV, Yang's kitchen

Bistro Na avec Duck

Oct24

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.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Tagged as: Bistro Na, BYOG, Chinese cuisine, Gelato, Peking Duck, SGV

Yuan’s Hot Pot

Oct22

Restaurant: Yuan’s Hot Pot

Location: 8752 Valley Blvd, Rosemead, CA 91770. (626) 703-4458

Date: March 10 and October 5, 2024

Cuisine: Chinese Hot Pot

Rating: Probably the best Hot Pot in the main SGV

This high end hot pot place has a whole floor of nice private rooms.

The whole second floor is dedicated to private rooms.

This one was technically for 10, but really much better with 8. Had two pots. On another occasion I ate in a smaller room with one pot that sat 6-8 perfectly.

There is a very neat upstairs (VIP) sauce bar.

It didn’t have a huge number of items, but the ones it had were really good and really fresh.

Apps were like banchan. They were really good, particularly the two types of mushrooms.

Crispy pork. VERY fried.

Squid.

Shrimp.

Fish roe “dumplings.” Chewy and delicious.

Very nice boneless fish.

Another fish. There was a third which was very boney and not very good.

Tofu wrapped shrimp.

Shrimp or fish balls.

Meat balls and various mushrooms.

meatballs.

Quail eggs.

Tofu.

A5 Wagyu. Not sure it was really A5 but it was the best meat we had.

Smoking!

American or similar wagyu.

More beefs.

More beef.

More beef.

Lamb shoulder.

Bacon!

Spam. Always a favorite of mine.

Snausages.

Lotus.

Fresh bamboo.

Napa cabbage.

A lot of greens.

Sesame balls on the house.

Saffron Pistachio Gelato.

Yuan’s was one of the best classic but elevated spicy hot pot places. It had a broad menu with most everything, awesome private rooms, nice banchan, and a first rate sauce bar. The ingredient quality was also top notch. It doesn’t have some of the weirder broths (although they had spicy + about 4 non-spicy). The private room + high quality makes it pretty killer in my book. Some of the more crowded booth places just aren’t good for more than 4-5 people. Great place and stands out above a lot of the just “good” hot pots. The only one also in this league is Wagyu X.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Tagged as: BYOG, Chinese cuisine, Gelato, hot pot, SGV, Wine, Yuan's Hot Pot

Second New Year

Oct10

Restaurant: Sea Harbor Seafood Restaurant [1, 2]

Location: 3939 Rosemead Blvd. Rosemead, CA 91770. (626) 288-3939

Date: February 12, 2024

Cuisine: Cantonese

Rating: Good, but very expensive

After many many dim sum visits to this SGV Cantonese classic I finally make it for dinner banquet — and this time on Chinese New Year.

I think Sea Harbor has been around for a long time and is one of the mainstays.

The interior is pretty typical.

The private room at Sea Harbor. I have been here countless times for dim sum but not for dinner in a long time.

Eve brought a huge amount of caviar — salt all night!

Peanuts.

Celery or asparagus with truffle. A bit truffle oily but the vegies had a nice crunch.

Fried squid. Salty and good.

Fried tofu with chilies.

Pig Trotter “Salad.” Nice flavor actually. Lots of ginger.

Geoduck (I think) salad. Great crunchy and strong (onion) flavor. I had a couple helpings of this as it seemed very fresh.

Fried Geoduck. Excellent fry. Super crunchy and chewy with a lovely flavor. Very salty.

Roast quail/pigeon. Very good version of this dish.

Shiitake and abalone in brown sauce. I’m not sure I prefer those so “straight up.”

Soup. One of those “all ingredients” brown soups.

Steamed crab. Good, but I prefer it with the garlic.

Typhoon style crab body. Very tasty fry.

Crab custard.

Fish head.

He’s looking at you!

Greens. Straight up.

Fish meat. Tasty and not too many bones.

Almond cookies for New Year.

Sweet soup.

Eve brought Basque Cheesecake.

Then covered it in caviar.

And lime zest.

It was really quite good this way. The zest really kicked it up.

Strawberry Jam Gelato.

Awesome wines.

This was a super fun dinner. Wines and company were amazing. Food was very good, if just a hair “staid” in certain ways. Mostly it was just that the price ($470 all in) was pretty outrageous. Sure it had a lot of luxury ingredients but it should have been more like $300.

For more LA Chinese reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Tagged as: BYOG, Chinese cuisine, Chinese New Year, Eve, Gelato, Sea Harbor, SGV, Wine

Specials at Sands

Sep05

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.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Tagged as: BYOG, Chinese, Chinese cuisine, Gelato, hedonists, SGV

An Array of Goodness

Aug24

Restaurant: Array36 – 36宴

Location: 5449 Rosemead Blvd, Temple City, CA 91776. (626) 866-0623

Date: December 2, 2023 and May 5 & July 21, 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.

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.

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.

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.

Pickled chilis and spicy bean sauce.

Shanghainese sautéed eel. I really loved these garlicky sweet rich eels.

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.

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.

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.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Tagged as: Array 36, BYOG, Chinese cuisine, Foodie Club, Gelato, SGV

Wuming Hot Pot

Jun29

Restaurant: Wuming Hot Pot

Location: 529 E Valley Blvd #168, San Gabriel, CA 91776. (626) 656-6568

Date: August 20, 2023

Cuisine: Chinese Hot Pot

Rating: Just okay mid-end hot pot

In our slow motion question to try all the decent hot pots in the SGV we end up at Wuming.

Nice updated decor. Details reveal a lot of SGV-style DM.

We ran into the manager from 1968.

Sauce and snack bar is decent, but missing the intriguing fermented stuff I like at the best bars.

My usual two sauces.

Brent brought this young Drappier mag that was “aged” in the Pacific! It tasted pretty normal.

Golden Soup and Extra Spicy “Butter Broth” (Ox fat). The spicy one was HOT. Made you cough in that good way and induced “the purge” later.

Fried pork chews. A bit chewy.

Beef and pepper skewer. Very hot.

Beef and cilantro skewer. Not as hot.

Surf Clam. A bit lost in these broths. Better chilled and fresh.

Prawn wrapped in a bean curd? skin. Very tasty.

Crab sticks.

Squid sheets.

Rehydrated abalone.

Mushroom platter.

Tofu platter.

Egg dumplings. Nice to see these on the menu as opposed to just regular dumplings.

Some veggies, like lotus root and potatoes.

Greens.

Luncheon Meat — aka spam. Always one of our favorites.

Lap cheong sausage. Not sure I’ve had this at hot pot but it rules. Once you let it boil for a bit it becomes more tender and retains that great slightly sweet and lactic flavor.

Regular Snausages. Just ok here.

Meat balls of various sorts.

One kind of spicy meat. It was pretty good, but lost a lot of the added flavor when dumped in the pot.

Spicy Numbing Meat. Also hard to tell given the intensity of the pot.

Velvet Meat (with egg). Tasty, and the peices are thicker, so can be a bit harder to chew given the chopsticks.

Meats and quail eggs. Liked the eggs as usual.

Our lady of the meat. Cute.

More meat.

More meat.

More meat.

Overall, Wuming was a solid middle grade hot pot place. Broth was good. It was spicy. Sauce bar was okay but could be better. The options on the menu were great — lots of items and lots of good ones. Quality was pretty good but not the best I’ve ever had. Private room was great. Service was nice but almost non-existent. Hard to place it overall in the ranking as they each have their pluses and minuses. I really love the sauce bar at Shancheng Lameizi but their quality isn’t perfect either.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Tagged as: Chinese cuisine, hedonists, hot pot, SGV, Wuming

Went to Wangjia

Jan28

Restaurant: WangJia Restaurant

Location: 800 W Las Tunas Dr Ste 300, San Gabriel, CA 91776. (626) 872-0618

Date: May 7, 2023

Cuisine: Shanghai Cuisine

Rating: Just pretty good

Another Sunday, another Chinese.

Wangjia is a 3 year old Shanghai style place on Main St (in Alhambra) that was written up in Eater. Somehow, probably because of the pandemic, it wasn’t on my radar until recently.

The Eater article made it sound “more upscale” but this is a narrow Mom & Pop place where the 20 year-old son (talking to Yarom) handles all of the front of house. He was very amusing actually. The place was very busy when we came in, but quiet by about 7:30 (Chinese eat early) and empty when we left at 8:30pm.

Jelly Fish with Soy Sauce. I didn’t actually see any Soy Sauce, but these were nice crunchy bits of jellyfish head with a very satisfying texture and a hint of something tangy, probably a vinegar.

Shanghai Style Smoked Fish. Sometimes this is warm, sometimes it’s cold. Today it was warm. There were some bones but it was tasty. The smoky taste wasn’t massively pronounced. It was drizzled with the sweet aromatic soy.

Black Egg with Seasoned Peppers & Choki Mushroom. The black egg was very mild but the peppers were decently hot, which enjoyed as it cut through all the sweet sauce left on my plate.

Shanghai Style Soy Sauce Duck. Braised duck drowned in sweet soy. It was actually very tasty as the sweet paired nicely with the rich bird.

Fried Fish Slides w/ Wined Sauce (aka Fish Filets with Fungus). This “wine sauce” tasted like really tasty chicken stock and a TON of “flavor” (MSG). It was actually delicious. The fish was soft and veyr pleasant. The wood ear mushrooms weren’t the best — and I generally do like them alot.

Fried Crab with Rice Cake and Ginger and Onion. The crab was a bit hard to eat but was delicious. The rice cakes were really good (if off diet) in the sweet brown sauce. Very classic Shanghai dish.

Stir-fried Baby Shrimp with Tofu. Very nice soft tofu texture and the shrimp, while few and far between had a nice snap to them. The soy beans (or similar) leant some textural contrast with a very pleasant crunch.

Braised Minced Eel in Brown Sauce. I asked the young server which eel dish I should order and he said, “I don’t eat eel.” He did suggest this one (which was the one I wanted anyway) because it had no bones. This is basically the same as pork strips in garlic broawn sauce except it’s eel (and maybe pork) in garlic brown sauce. It was sweet and garlicky and I very much enjoyed it.

Braised Meat Balls in Brown Sauce (aka Lionhead Meatballs). They do love the brown sauce at Shanghai restaurants. The meatballs themselves were very pleasant porky meatballs with a lot of good flavor. I also enjoyed the cabbage. This was a thinner brown sauce than the eels or eggplant, a bit less sweet, and more like a gravy. It was still kinda sweet though.

Red Pepper Fried with Cabbage (aka Cabbage Stir Fried with Red Pepper. haha). Great version of this dish. The cabbage had a really nice crunchy, that pork fatty greasy factor (good), and was actually quite spicy (also in a good way). First rate version.

Steamed Salted Pork with Dry Tofu Skin. Our server seemed agast at the idea that we would order this. He’d never tried it and declared that “no one had ordered it in 2 months.” As my intuition bore out this was a delicious dish. The stock was rich and full of “flavor” (MSG) and the very very fatty pork belly a bit, but not to salty and relaly delicious in that lardy way.

Braised Pig Knuckle in Brown Sauce. Here comes the brown sauce again. THis was the same “thinner” brown sauce as the meatballs. The huge hock of pig was jiggly and good as always. I do prefer the MSG and garlic version of this dish which you get at places with a bit more Beijing influence, but this was still piggy delicious.

Eggplant in Garlic Sauce (also brown). This sauce is very similar to the eel sauce. It’s thick, more than a little sweet, brown, and garlicky. Regardless, this was arguably one of the best dishes and a great eggplant dish. The texture was perfectly mushy and full of great garlic flavor. Not spicy. Sometimes this dish can be spicy in its Sichuan form (which I also like).

Shanghai Stewed Pork & Squid with Tea Tree Mushroom. The squid wasn’t obvious to me and this was basically the Dong Po (red) pork belly in sweet soy. Except it wasn’t red but was brown again. It was fatty and tasty and sweet and I very much enjoyed the texture added by the mushrooms.

Shanghai Style Fried Lamb. I guess they mean stir-fried. It seemed more or less like Cumin Lamb and not super Shanghaiese. It wasn’t my favorite. It was fine, but not that interesting.

Steamed Pork Bun (aka XLB). Always enjoyable. Took a second for the black vinegar to come. The skins were a touch thick but they were juicy and tasty.

Pan Fried Pork Buns. These were a standout here. They were slightly smaller than usual which was a good thing, with a nice crispy shell, lots of hot soup and a delicious porky center. The slightly smaller size made the dough less overwelming than at some places.

Overall, a total steal (at $45/pp all in) and tons of food. This is a more homestyle Shanghaiese place and family run. It’s not fancy but they are nice and the kitchen is quite solid. Yeah, Shanghailander and Shanghai Number 1 Seafood are more elegant and a bit better, but this is some really solid and well priced Shanghai style Chinese food. The menu is huge and there are also a lot of Sichuan dishes “left over” from the space’s previous incrnation as a Sichuan restaurant. Technically maybe the black egg and cabbage were Sichuan but I did try to order (almost) all Shanghai dishes.

For more dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Tagged as: Chinese cuisine, crab, hedonists, pork, SGV, Shanghai Cuisine

Northern Cafe Temple City

Jan26

Restaurant: Northern Cafe

Location: 9608 Las Tunas Dr, Temple City, CA 91780. (626) 286-5288

Date: May 5 & July 23, 2023

Cuisine: Northern Chinese

Rating: Great private room experience

Normal Northern Cafe is a solid but casual fast casual spot but…

Northern Cafe in Temple City sure is a bit different than the ones in Century City or West LA as we shall see in this special dinner organized by Eve and another I put together myself.

The normal dining room is fairly normal NC.

But they have 5 private rooms, a smaller one being shown here.

We set up in this larger one.

It’s pretty big.

It even has a bit of a lounge area, perfect for organizing our wines.

I think this is the “regular” menu.

And this epic tome is the special menu!

Spicy Cucumbers. Nice garlicky cucumber salad.

Cold Flavored Pork Head. Very chewy texture that was offputting to some with a lovely, but highly porcine, flavor.

Up first came this big installment of Geoduck sashimi. This is the body meat and it was served on ice with Astrea Caviar that Eve brought. Turns out geoduck is excellent with caviar! And this was some very fine geoduck with a very clean mild sea flavor and a nice chewy texture.

It was served with soy sauce and (faux) wasabi.

We had pre-ordered several large live lobsters and the tails were served as sashimi. Probably the best “Chinese” lobster sashimi I’ve had. Quite lovely and subtle.

Eve also brought her own King Crab! They sell it on the menu, but she BYOCed.

King Crab Salty Egg Yolk. The crab might have been a touch overcooked in this prep but the yolk batter, which is not normally my favorite, was quite good as it wasn’t too salty or too pasty.

Bamboo Shoot with Shredded Pork. I loved this dish. It was a pretty classic brown sauce, but very tasty, and the crunchy bamboo was delightful with that bit of porky flavor (classic Chinese velveted slivered pork).

Pork Spareribs with Garlic. Chewy, salty, and very tasty.

Pork and Scallion Pancake. This is a kind of classic Beijing meat pie with a filling that is probably the same as standard dumpling filling: pork, ginger, green onions. They were super greasy, but great.

House Special Smoked Duck. It was served with a bit of hoisin and some Northern style pancakes. The meat was really flavorful, but VERY salty, almost to the Smithfield ham level. Speaking of that, because it was salted, smoked, and cured, it tasted not unlike ham — just ducky ham.

This are the flaky pancakes for the duck.

Next they brought out this lovely Cloisonné hot pot.

This is the basic broth, but Eve ordered it as “mushroom chicken” and so…

They added a mess of mushrooms and…

Some raw chicken.

This mix was allowed to boil for 20-30 minutes (covered).

Here is the result.

First we were served cups. The broth was incredible, with a very deep woodsy and comforting chicken and mushroom flavor. The short boil had extracted a lot of flavor.

For extra things to add to our hot pot we kept it fairly simple, enjoying the legs of our crab. Boiled for 20-30 seconds they were incredibly sweet and succulent.

These lobster “bits” were chopped up and reason to be tossed into the pot.

Also some tofu.

And greens. We kept drinking this broth (with the stuff) throughout the evening as it was delicious.

As was this incredible delicious of live Grouper.

The grouper meat cooked in a bout 30 seconds and was subtle and delicious.

Rib Eye and Lamb Shoulder to boil in the pot. These meats, alone of what we had tonight, is better (IMHO) with the spicy broth served at various Sichuan hot pots.

Some extra fish was also fried up “salt and pepper” style — aka MSG style.

Clams with Basil. This is the classic Chiuchow dish that’s a bit Vietnamese/Cambodian. Some nice basil flavor and a good number of succulent clams. I enjoyed this, even if the clam meat was a bit evasive.

Sauteed Cabbage. I always love this classic and it didn’t dissapoint. This was a simple rendition with a lot of garlic and oil, but cooked perfectly. It didn’t have either the ham (and its nice lardy flavor) or dried shrimp or chilis that some versions of the dish have, so it wasn’t the most flavorful I’ve ever had, but the crunchy texture on the oily cabbage was lovely.

French Chopped Beef with snowflake. Chunks of filet with black bepper sauce. I don’t generally love this dish as I consider it a bit boring, but this one had a real black pepper kick which in combination with the onions was quite enjoyable.

The geoduck neck came back fried. Quite nice, but not nearly as delightful a fry as the Longo version.

Eve also brought not one but two Turbot!

Turbo steamed with ginger, garlic, spring onions, and soy. This fish is best done this way, simply, so that the soft mild flesh and generous cartilage can be enjoyed “as is.”

Crab Custard. This is the third dish from our King Crab.

The custard was a bit stiff, and while still delicious, didn’t have that silken texture I really love.

Yang Chow (or everything) fried rice. Absolutely awesome fried rice with big whole shrimp and chunks of fried pork.

Walnut Shrimp. Fu ordered this guilty pleasure classic, joking that it was for the white guys, but this was a first rate example. The shrimp were succulent and the fry nice and crispy, perfectly offset by the sweet mayo and walnuts.

Fried fish with green batter. This is a Hangzhou dish. There green tea is added to the batter. I’m not sure it was tea here or some other variant, but it was a nice tempura-style deep fried fish. Right out of the frier too as it was very hot and juicy.

House Special Smoked Duck. Very salty, but very good. With that smokey cured pastrami-like flavor. Lots of “flavor.”

Pea Tendrils with Garlic. Great version of this basic dish.

MaPo Tofu. Not a bad version at all. Some Ma and a bit of meat.

Beef & Scallion Roll. Awesome version of this with some hoisin and cilantro. Quite lovely.

Boiled dumplings. Probably pork. Delicious for sure. I didn’t (finally) manage to get some black vinegar for them. Really I like a proper dumpling sauce, but vinegar will do.
XLB. Solid versions.

Scallion pancake. Bready, but really tasty — particularly with some black vinegar.

Inside.

Pan fried dumplings. I’m not sure if this was the same filling. It was late, but they were also good. Skin was a little thick on these, not like the amazing You Kitchen variants, but like all decent dumplings they were hot and delicious.

Nocciola Crunch Gelato — Nocciola (hazelnut) base made with egg yolk and Pure PGI Piedmont hazelnut paste mixed with Nestle’s Buncha Crunch — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — new higher fat base formulation — #SweetMilkGelato #gelato #dessert #icecream #FrozenDessert #nomnom #dessertlovers #dessertporn #icecreamlovers #gelatoitaliano #foodporn #gelatolover #food #foodgasm #foodblogger #dessertgasm #desserttime #foodphotography #gelatoartigianale #gelatomania #dessertlover #icecream #icecreamlovers #hazelnut #nocciola #Chocolate #Nestle #crunch

Hojicha Latte NSA Gelato – Ceremonial Hojicha Roasted Green Tea base with No Sugar Added (Allulose) — 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 #matcha #Hojicha #GreenTea #Allulose #NSA

Cannoli and Baklava’s Evil American Lovechild — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — Base crafted from Galbani Whole Milk Ricotta and Sicilian Toasted Noto Romano Almond Paste with a touch of the sugar subbed out for Sicilian Honey. Mixed in is Malibu Honey, California Pistachios, and house-made Gluten Free Honey Graham Crackers (almond flour and so good you can’t tell them from the wheat flour version)! — #SweetMilkGelato #gelato #dessert #icecream #FrozenDessert #nomnom #dessertlovers #dessertporn #icecreamlovers #gelatoitaliano #foodporn #gelatolover #dessertgasm #foodphotography #gelatoartigianale #gelatomania #dessertlover #icecream #icecreamlovers #ricotta #almond #RicottaCheese #cheese #Sicily #honey #GrahamCracker #pistachio

Cap’N Crunch Gelato – Smooth Peanut Base with house-made White Chocolate Coated Crunch Berries! — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — oh my! — #SweetMilkGelato #gelato #dessert #icecream #FrozenDessert #nomnom #dessertlovers #dessertporn #icecreamlovers #gelatoitaliano #foodporn #gelatolover #food #foodgasm #foodblogger #dessertgasm #desserttime #foodphotography #gelatoartigianale #gelatomania #dessertlover #icecream #icecreamlovers #peanut #cereal #CrunchBerry #CapNCrunch

Fu makes off with a bit of booty for the family.

Meal 1 (May 2023), was a super fun night. Awesome wines — and only one red thank Dionysus (given the food). Company was amazing too and the food really stood out. I enjoyed this slightly northern twist and they seem to have an excellent and very flexible Chinese kitchen and great private rooms. Who would have thought at a Northern Cafe? Service was super friendly and excellent too. We did get too many dishes too fast because no one gave them the “one at a time” instructions and fast is the Chinese default. Still, an awesome time and awesome food. That broth was really amazing!

Meal 2 (July 2023).

For more dining reviews click here.

Just a bit of great wine!

And some fire water.

By: agavin
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Tagged as: Babykillers, BYOG, Caviar, Chinese cuisine, Foodie, Foodie Club, Gelato, geoduck, hot pot, Seafood, SGV, Wine

China Islamic

Jan09

Restaurant: China Islamic

Location: 7727 Garvey Ave, Rosemead, CA 91770. (626) 288-4246

Date: April 23, 2023

Cuisine: Western Islamic Chinese

Rating: Very tasty — although no wine due to halal

China Islamic is a Halal (hence no wine) Chinese place right there on garvey. Yarom has been coming here for over 30 years.

Interior is pretty much as you’d expect. They are on the 3rd or 4th owner, currently named Omar. That guy behind the counter did all the front of house work and after dark it got very crowded. He was very busy.

My crib sheet.

Cold Spice Sliced Beef. Not the “soaked in chili oil” version, but instead drizzled with an excellent garlicky chili oil.

Pickled Cucumber. It wasn’t actually really pickled, but was the smashed cucumber and a nice one with good crunch.

Spicy Ox Tripe. Very nice chili flavor and a good soft texture to the tripe. Quite excellent really although not the spicy sesame (super chewy) one that I had in Xi’an.

Lamb with Pickled Cabbage Warm Pot. The broth on this soup had a fabulous savory and sour flavor. The lamb was gamey, but delicious in contrast and there were glassy noodles. Really lovely soup. I kept drinking the broth.

Sesame Thick Bread with Onion.

This is a specialty of the area and the restaurant. It had a great crispy/bready texture but I found it just too bready (bland) for my taste — but that’s me.

Chinese Cumin Lamb “Burger.” This “Roger Moore” dish isn’t really a burger. These were however some of the best ones I’ve had. Really nice warm bread and great flavor to the meat.

Eggplant with Spicy Sauce and Ground Beef. Really nice garlic and chili oil eggplant. Great texture.

Spicy Lamb Ribs. Not particularly spicy but super fried, super salty, and mega delicious.

Mooshu Chicken. It was covered in an omelet instead of having the shredded omelet mixed in. This was actually quite tastey and a bit of a guilty pleasure. It’s here, like many of the dishes we didn’t order (aka Orange Beef) because as a Halal Chinese Restaurant a good number of non Chinese muslims seem to come in and just order regular Chinese American food.

The mooshu came with tortillas — lol.

And a sweet hoisin which was actually pretty good with it.

Beef Dumplings with Soup and Hot Soup. Awesome tender dumplings with great flavor (they were out of the lamb ones too) and a really nice tangy and slightly spicy broth. Kept drinking this too.

Braised Spicy Chicken Bone-in. This was our least favor dish. The chicken itself was tasty, but it was dominated by Jalepeno flavor — and it was fairly spicy.

Cumin Beef. Super tender with that strong cumin, onion, and char flavor.

Lamb Back Bone Warm Pot. Another awesome broth and the incredible lamb spine meat. So tender and almost like lamb pastrami.

The meat is a little scary but it tasted so good!

These noodles, cabbage, etc were for dumping in the warm pot.

voila.

Pita Bread Soaked in Lamb Soup. Another awesome broth — they really know broth here — with the shredded “pita” bread and lamb. The bread gave an effect like gnocchi and was very tender. Fabulous dish and a little different than the Shaanxi version I’ve had that is more like a pasta fazool or something.

Overall, this was some really tasty and a bit different Chinese. It’s fairly close in style to Shaanxi, although they also have a lot of Chinese American dishes on the menu (we only ordered the Mooshu). They don’t seem to have the knife cut noodles that are typical of Shaanxi however. But almost all dishes were really delicious, if rustic, and there was a ton of flavor. Particularly the addictive broths.

For more dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Tagged as: China Islamic, Chinese cuisine, hedonists, SGV

Hot Pot Longo

Nov29

Restaurant: Longo Seafood Restaurant [1, 2, 3]

Location: 7540 Garvey Ave, Rosemead, CA 91770. (626) 280-8188

Date: March 30, 2023

Cuisine: Cantonese Chinese

Rating: Great Meal, Good Deal

I’ve been to Longo MANY times, both for lunch and dinner, but one of our friends who knows the owner set up this special off menu hot pot dinner — normally they don’t have hot pot at all.

Longo is on Garvey right next to the Longo Toyota. Lol.

It’s one of these big formal Cantonese places.

Tanks with live seafood.

Our private room.

Peanuts (with sugar underneath).

Chicken Feet. Yarom has to order them whenever he can.

Cucumbers with a spicy bean paste / oil.

Yarom and the owner.
The owner hung out with us for a bit — she was supposed to actually eat with us, but her kid needed her at home — still, she did bring us a 2012 Unico as a “substitute!”

Tonight’s dinner centered around Longo’s off menu special hot pot.. Each of us had one of these individual pots.

Here is the mild but delicious broth.

The main dipping sauce was this spicy garlic soy.

It could be “juiced up” with garlic, chilies, green onions etc.

Geoduck. Both parts of the giant clam were served raw and could be eaten either as sashimi or dipped in the hot pot to be cooked. I tried the body both ways, but the neck seemed much better cooked. It was pretty delicious this way.

King Crab. We had an entire live king crab who was hacked up into parts. These were cooked in the hot pot for 2-3 minutes and then became extremely juicy and delicious. Could have used some garlic paste too.

Red Rock Cod. This delicious fish was also served raw and was cooked in the pot where it was moist and delicious.

Glass or rice noodles were also served on this platter.

Deep Fried Cod. The head of the cod was hacked up and deep fried. It tasted like Longo’s usual clam neck fry and was delicious.

Scallop. Whole scallops were cooked in the pot and also delicious.

Silken Tofu. This soft tofu was awesome. I must have cooked about 5-6 of these in my pot.

Carby Veggies. Some kind of yams and taro. I didn’t bother with.

Greens. Two kinds of greens, incudling an endive-like thing.

Pork Meat Balls. These were basically sui mai innards that had to be cooked for 10 minutes. They were pretty awesome.

A5 Wagyu Beef. Supposedly. But in any case, it was fatty wagyu and really delicious when briefly cooked — incredibly soft and melt in your mouth.

Velveted Beef. Thicker, but also tender and delicious when cooked. Perhaps more “beefy” flavor than the wagyu.

Cantonese Roast Duck. Juicy.

Fried Squab. Super delicious with crispy skin and very dark rich meat.

Macau Style Pork Belly. Piggy with nice crispy skin. Good stuff.

Sliced Pig Leg. Yep, Yarom couldn’t resist another marinated foot. But the full slices were pretty tasty.

Beef. Just a meh beef. Not bad, but not exciting.

New Flavor — Cherry Bakewell Tart Gelato — While watching every episode of the Great British Baking Show I was introduced to the Bakewell Tart, which I liked it enough to make a gelato — Sicilian Noto Romano Almond Custard Base is layered with house-made Honey Almond Graham Crackers and Cherry Preserves. For extra fun I made an Almond Icing and glazed the Grahams with it in the traditional pattern (first time trying it) — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato –#SweetMilkGelato #gelato #dessert #icecream #FrozenDessert #nomnom #dessertlovers #dessertporn #icecreamlovers #gelatoitaliano #foodporn #gelatolover #food #foodgasm #foodblogger #desserttime #foodphotography #gelatoartigianale #dessertlover #icecream #icecreamlovers #Sicily #Almond #Cherry #GrahamCracker #BakewellTart #tart #bakewell #jam #icing

Strawberry Margarita Sorbetto! — like a frozen cocktail — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — Strawberries from Avignon, blended with fresh lime, Reposado Tequila and Cointreau –#SweetMilkGelato #gelato #dessert #icecream #FrozenDessert #nomnom #dessertlovers #dessertporn #icecreamlovers #gelatoitaliano #foodporn #gelatolover #food #foodgasm #foodblogger #dessertgasm #desserttime #foodphotography #gelatoartigianale #gelatomania #dessertlover #icecream #icecreamlovers #sorbetto #strawberry #Margarita #cocktail #Tequila #Cointreau

Chinese Baklava?

Chinese Sweet Bean Soup.

Overall, it was nice to have a bit of a “different” Longo experience and this was a super fun night. This was some of the best hot pot I’ve had. It was different than the super spicy ones, but the broth wasn’t bland like the typical pork or bone broths. Basically it really worked with the ultra fresh seafood. Lots of fun and very tasty.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Tagged as: BYOG, Chinese cuisine, Gelato, hot pot, Longo, SGV, Wine

DimSumQuest – Colette

Oct23

Restaurant: Colette

Location: 975 N Michillinda Ave, Pasadena, CA 91107. (626) 510-6286

Date: March 8, 2023

Cuisine: Contemporary Chinese

Rating: Solid, slightly experimental dim sum

There is a lot of buzz about Colette, which is part of the “next generation” of LA Chinese restaurants. They opened in a cafe-like space and are serving both Cantonese-esqe and dim sum. From their website:

Colette is a Cantonese-based creative Asian restaurant that welcomes people from all walks of life for all occasions. Our goal is to provide you with an inviting experience whether you’re joining us for a fine new Asian cuisine, after hiking, a friend or family gathering, a business meeting, a date, or other special occasions.

Whatever the occasion, our ambiance, and setting at Colette will serve your needs. Whether you are on the go or want to bring your pets to relax and hang out with friends, our indoor seating area and the outdoor patio are designed to offer you a cozy and comfortable space for you to enjoy your meal. In addition, our food is cooked to order and is prepared with quality in mind. Whenever it is possible, our food is prepared using ingredients from local farmers’ markets.

At Colette, we believe dining is an experience involving all senses, not just taste. Therefore, we try to ensure that our guests will enjoy the service provided by our staff and our decor, in addition to the excellent quality and taste of our menu items. We want to offer a memorable experience to each guest so that you will return with your friends and family.

Not your classic decor.

The lunch menu.

We decided not to throw down $79/lb for some geoduck. Did at a dinner a few months later, but more on that later.

Pretty tea service.

Abalone sauce chicken feet. Chicken feet braised in condensed seafood sauce. Those willing to try these nasty things thought they were bland and generally a poor showing.

Shrimp & Pork Siu Mai. Shrimp and pork filled in thin wonton wrap. Not a bad siu mai. One of the better dim sum.

Lotus Leaf Wrapped Sticky Rice. Sticky rice, chicken, salted egg yolk, mushroom, wrapped in lotus leaf. Torched mozzarella cheese. Nice presentation, but we weren’t sure the melted cheese added in any way to the rather bland classic sticky rice. It did have a good amount of filling, however.

Zoom!

Crispy Abalone Taro Tart. Fried taro tart topped with braised abalone. The abalone on top was great and the “body” of the dumpling was a giant ball of taro that was wrapped in a crispy shell and deep friend. While hugely carby, it was kinda delicious.

Sauces. We had to ask for these.

Shrimp Egg Roll. Not a bad spring roll and stuffed with shrimp.

Inside.

XLB. Very mediocre typical dim sum XLB. Not great but not bad.

Zoom.

Jumbo Shrimp Har Gow. Shrimp with rice noodle wrap. The filling was pretty good but the wrapper was sticky and tore easily.

Char Siu Bun. Bun stuffed with minced Char Siu. Pretty sweet but a solid (normal) version of the dish.

Cross section.

Lobster sticky rice. This whole lobster was stir friend and somehow blended with a fried Chinese sausage sticky rice. While an odd frankenstein of two dishes, this was actually pretty tasty.

Zoom!

Crispy stuffed chicken. Deboned air-dried chicken, shrimp paste. This is known as 100 flower chicken. It’s basically a pan fried shrimp paste cake sandwiched in chicken skin. This was a solid version of the dish, and it’s a great dish, so probably one of the best items we had.

More close ups.

Golden Pork Trots. Fried pork trots marinated with red bean sauce and garlic. These were terrible. Overcooked and with a nasty “ripe pig” taste. Yuck.

Overhead on the nasty things.

Black Pepper Diced Beef. Sauteed black angus beef dice. Fairly typical “shaking beef”, pretty sweet, but enjoyable enough.

Overall, this is a weird place. It feels like an American breakfast cafe, but it’s Chinese. The food is mildly fusion. It’s partially dim sum, partially other Chinese. Dishes were hit or miss but nothing really stood out as amazing and it’s not actually “better” in any way than most SGV restaurants. But that’s just the dim sum. A follow-up dinner here turned out an absolutely first class meal. So while I think Colette is nice enough at lunch, it really rocks for less dim sum oriented Cantonese — more on that in another post.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Cantonese cuisine, Chinese cuisine, Dim sum, DimSumQuest, Pasadena

Dumplings at You Kitchen

Oct21

Restaurant: You Kitchen

Location: 1402 E Valley Blvd, Alhambra, CA 91801. (626) 977-8088

Date: March 7, 2023

Cuisine: Cuisine dumplings

Rating: top notch dumplings

When my High School friend Mike comes to town (from Hawaii) we love to hit up new SGV Chinese places.

This dumpling specialist doesn’t even have a liquor license, so we went dry, but the dumplings were worth it — and the carb coma.

Short but sweet menu.

And some specials.

Still tasted awesome!

Very minimal interior, classic old school SGV.

Freezers full of frozen dumplings that can be purchased for home.

Dried beancurd salad. Mildly spicy with great texture but not a ton of flavor.

Spicy Wonton. These were probably the best spicy wonton I’ve ever had. The skins were thin, the filling delicious porky goodness, and the sauce a lovely blend of tangy, a touch numbing, and medium spicy.

Spicy Beef Tendon. One of those typical spicy braised sliced meat Chinese dishes. Excellent.

Boiled Chives, Egg, and Vermicelli Dumpling. A rare non pork classic boiled dumpling. Very nice and light.

Steamed XLB with pork. Excellent and deliciate XLB.

Steamed Pickled Cabbage and Pork Dumplings. These might have been my favorite because of the touch of crunch and acidity from the pickled cabbage.

Pan-fried Pork and Celery Dumplings. Great classic dumplings and you could taste the celery.

Moist Pan Fried Pork Buns. Slightly shrunken versions of the Shanghaiese buns with great pork filling. Still a bit doughy, but nicely cooked and better at this size.

Beef Roll. Great version of this. Smaller than some and light with a good bit of sweetness. That beef, sweet, and cilantro combo is excellent.

Preserved Pickled Shredded Pork Noodle Soup with hand-made Noodles. A nice bit of pickled crunch with a very mild and pleasant broth. The thick hand-cut noodles were excellent.

Bowl ‘o’ soup.

Pan Fried Chive Egg Pillow. Like awesome Chinese chive and egg hot pockets!

Thousand Layer Pork Cake. Very nicely formed and cooked, although it was still pretty mild and doughy.

Sesame Chinese Pizza. Now this was interesting, like a giant version of the bun on the “Roger Moore” sandwich. It was very fluffy and lovely but way too bready for me in my current state.

Bready!

Uh, oh!

Overall, You Kitchen was really good. These were actually some of the best northern style dumplings I’ve had. Now I always like this sort of dumpling, even from a place like Northern Cafe, but these were in another league. They were smaller (which was good), light, delicate, with really tasty supposedly-no-msg fillings. Everything was perfectly cooked. This isn’t fancy food, but it is very very good. Interesting as well, for a tiny place where we saw one owner/employee, they had a very functional on the table ipad ordering and payment system!

A lot of dumplings!

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By: agavin
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Tagged as: Chinese cuisine, dumplings, SGV, You Kitchen

DimSumQuest – Lunasia

Sep08

Restaurant: Lunasia [1, 2, 3, 4]

Location: 500 West Main Street Suite A, Alhambra, CA 91801. (626) 308-3222

Date: February 23, 2023

Cuisine: Cantonese Dim Sum

Rating: Excellent

The DimSumQuest group continues to scour San Gabriel Valley dim sum restaurants. I’ve actually been to Lunasia many times before, but this is my first trip here for dim sum in a long time, so I figured that instead of updating the old post (it’s almost a decade old) I’d do an entirely new report.

Pretty menu.

House Special Stir Cucumber. The cucumbers themselves were fine, but they dumped packaged sweet and spicy dipping sauce on them. Kind of meh.

Seaweed Salad. This “seaweed” salad seemed like Jellyfish Salad. It was chewy, which was okay, but with a grainy mustardy dressing that lacked acidity — so not very pleasant.

Hangry brought some Beijing Lamb Buns from next door.

Steamed Chicken Feet. Bland.

Spare Ribs w/ Black Bean Sauce. Pretty good actually with lots of meat. Not much “black bean” but one of the better versions of this we have had — not the best but pretty good.

Jumbo Shrimp & Pork Siu-Mai. Huge but delicious with tons of pork meat and whole shrimp suspended inside.

Truffle Siu-Mai. The truffle version was identical but with canned truffle on top. Actually quite good but perhaps not legions better than the basic version.

Jumbo Shrimp Har-Gow. Great version, with fabulous shrimp inside and a good shell. Not the thinest shell ever but with first rate texture. After a few minutes the shell got a little sticky but that always happens.

Scallop Dumpling w/ Squid Ink. Sometimes the scallop dumpling falls a little short but not this one. The squid ink wrapper was nice and there was a lot of scallop inside, almost like a cooked “battleship” scallop sushi.

Spinach Shrimp Dumpling. Unusual, usually this is chive. It had both a green “spinach” wrapper and spinach inside with the shrimp — which surprisingly worked well.

XLB. Solid dim sum version. Not amazing or anything but better than many.

Pork Bean Curd Wrap w/ Broth. Really quite nice. This is the broth version, as opposed to the “flavor corn starch sauce” version, but the broth was pleasant and the rolls excellent.

Steamed BBQ Pork Char Siu Bao. There was plenty of filling but it was overly sweet and the bun itself was soggy and over-steamed. Not terrible but fairly meh.

Contents.

Baked BBQ Pork Char Siu Bao. The baked version had the same overly sweet pork. The bun was oddly small and just okay.

Inside.

Pan-Fried Pork Bun w/ Crab Meat. The buns seemed a bit soggy but the “crab” filling was interesting.

Inside again.

Stick Rice Wrap. This classic was great, probably second only to the 1968 version. Lots of stuff inside the rice and a great rice flavor. Excellent.

The guts.

Supreme Beef Ball. I’m the only one who liked these chewy beef balls.

Shrimp Egg Roll. Nice and crispy with a lot of shrimp inside. Quite good.

Deep Fried Taro Cake? Not sure exactly what this was but the texture was fabulously crispy. Quite lovely.

Mixed Puff with Pork. Just okay version. Not crispy enough and not enough flavor in the filling.

Live Lobster Chow-Fun. I’ve never had lobster chow fun, but now I have and this was awesome. One of the best regular chow fun I’ve had. The sauce cold have been a little strong/sweeter but the texture was very nice and there were lots of nice lobster chunks.

Crispy Seafood Noodle. Just fair version of this generally excellent dish. Seafood itself was pretty good but the MSG factor was very high.

Pan-Fried String-Beans. Woah — MSG string beans. Nicely crispy but they were also stir-fried with the same sweet chili sauce that were used on the cucumbers. Weird.

Assorted BBQ Combination Quartet with Hong Kong Roasted Duck, Lunasia Boiled Chicken, Macao Style Roasted Pork Belly, and BBQ Pork (char siu). Kinda excellent, particularly the char siu. But the duck and Macao pork were also great. Some great sauces for them too.

BBQ meat sauces.

Pineapple Bun and Macao Style Egg Custard. The Pineapple Bun was small but very good with a nice flavored custard and good texture. The egg tart was quite good, although still not in the same league as the Montery Palace one. Macao (caramelized) egg tarts are almost always better than the regular ones.

Pure and Concentrated Evil — Kentucky Mud Pie Gelato — Expresso Knob Creek Bourbon Custard Gelato base with layers of house-made Crushed Oreo Valrhona Fudge Ganache, and house-made Vanilla Coconut Cream Cheese Icing — The Plaid Mode of Gelati and includes a hefty Caffeine kick — 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 #coconut #valrhona #chocolate #ganache #expresso #bourbon #custard #oreos #icing

Overall Lunasia was much better than I expected. It’s always been quite good for dim sum, and there is some uneveness to the kitchen, but the steamed items were in general excellent, in the A tier. Fried items were good too. But baked savory items a bit meh, and some duds like the cucumbers and jellyfish. Desserts were excellent. The non dim sum dishes here generally aren’t great, but the BBQ was very solid. So overall maybe A-, slightly under 1968 and Tonys, but very close.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Cantonese cuisine, Chinese cuisine, Chinese Food, Dim sum, DimSumQuest, Lunch Quest, SGV

DimSumQuest – Chef Tony

Aug31

Restaurant: Chef Tony Dim Sum

Location: 1108 S Baldwin Ave, Arcadia, CA 91007. (626) 623-6668

Date: February 2, 2023

Cuisine: Chinese Dim Sum

Rating: Most dishes quite good

Continuing our group survey of LA’s best dim sum is Chef Tony, the original Arcadia location. I once went to the Pasadena branch, now shuttered, but I haven’t been here.

Frontage is strip mall.

A much smaller, pleasant, but less upscale dining room than the Pasadena location.

You can see into the kitchen and the steaming chamber.

Where the magic happens.

Epic menu!

The dim sum menu.

Cucumber Salad with Garlic and Vinegar. A very solid version of this classic. Cucumbers were nice and crisp and “fresh” tasting. It wasn’t smashed cucumbers, more cut, and there wasn’t much garlic. It did have a decent sauce though and was taken up a notch by the addition of our high end “Jing” chili oil.

Wood Ear Salad with Mature Vinegar. This might have been the best marinated wood ear I’ve had. Perfect chewy texture and a great sweet/sour sauce.

They had very solid sauces here at Chef Tony’s including strong mustard, black vinegar with ginger, and a very nice chili paste with a strong vinegar tang.

Preserved Chicken Feet with Chili. Yuck. And I don’t see any chili.

Steamed Chicken Feet with Brown Sauce. Not much better. Everyone thought these were bland.

Spareribs with Black Bean Sauce. Very soft and juicy with lots of meat. This might have been the best pork niblets we’ve had!

Har Gow. Very good thin skinned with nice whole shrimp inside. Great texture and not over-steamed. I think I liked these better than the “fancy” black version.

Squid Ink Shrimp Dumpling with Gold Leaf. Basically har gow. The Squid Ink shell didn’t taste like much. Not bad at all since these are great har gow, but nothing too special.

Shrimp and Pork Dimpling with Black Truffle. Siu Mai. Really nice ones at that with a more al dente wrapper. I’m not sure the truffle adds here, but it wasn’t offensive like it sometimes is.

XLB. Probably the best dim sum place XLB I’ve had. Nice and juicy and served with good black vinegar and ginger.

Scallop and Shrimp Dumpling with Fish Roe. Somehow not that exciting and not quite as balanced as the har gow — although certainly tasty.

Shrimp Wonton with House Spicy Sauce. These were great. Very delicate with lots of great shrimp plus the sauce, which was more sweet than actually spicy, was fantastic.

Rice Noodle Roll (Chow Fun) with Minced Beef & Chinese Parsley. I haven’t had a beef Chow Fun in a while. This had great texture as it was steamed perfectly. The meat was very soft, pleasant tasting, and extremely mild. Overall nice, but it would be useful to try some of the other flavors. It also wasn’t sauced with the usual seasoned sweet soy, which I do like with Chow Fun.

Sticky Rice wrapped in Lotus Leaf. This is a classic and we liked how they were actually smaller. It was perfectly stick and steamed and had a realative lot of filling. While it wasn’t quite as awesome as the 1968 version it was a very good example of this dish, possibly the second best I’ve had recently.

It’s not all rice which is great.

Whole thing.

Deep Fried Shrimp Spring Roll. The exterior was solid, but not awesomely flakey. The interior was more real shrimp and was excellent.

I think these were crispy fried shrimps.

Deep Fried Pork Dumpling. This was a very solid example of the Glutinous version of the pork dumpling. It had a nice chew and a decent amount of filling. It fell just slightly short of perfection as it wasn’t really crispy on the outside.

The interior.

Savory Deep Fried Chinese Donut stuffed with Mixed Shrimp, Squid, and Fish Paste. This was a polarizing dish. Jeffrey didn’t like the mayo (which was probably Kewpie) but I LOVED it. In fact I ate almost all of them even though I shouldn’t have. It had a great exterior crunch, a really nice umami shrimp cake interior, and that nice bit of acidic fatty zing from the “flavored” mayo.

Eggplant Stuffed with Shrimp Paste. Just okay, although the sauce was great (possibly the same as was on the spicy wontons).

Steamed BBQ Pork Bun (Char Siu Bao). Certainly a very solid version. Smaller than usual, which wasn’t bad, with a good ratio of sweet juicy BBQ pork filling. The bun was nicely steamed. This isn’t my favorite classic, but this was well executed.

Interior.

French Baked BBQ Pork Bun. Same filling as the steamed, and also a bit smaller than some, but with a nice crispy sweet exterior. Not the absolute best but a solid 8/10 version and better than the steamed (not realtively, but just because I like the baked better).

Interior.

Ginger, Chicken, Shrimp and Pork Bun. Interesting shape and the inside had a very pronounced shredded ginger chicken thing going on which was quite lovely and unique. Maybe it was the hit of ginger pungency. Very good.

Interior.

Pan Fried Shrimp and Pork Pandan Bun. The pandan leaf lends this bao its distinct pretty green color. It was nicely pan fried too and the dough was quite pleasant. The interior was fine too but overall I didn’t love it as much as I remembered from the last time I had it (at the Pasadena location).

Interior.

This chicken was displayed this way first.

Roast Crispy Chicken with Black Truffle. I’m not sure about the black truffle part, but we ordered this because of the irresistable “Vlad the impaler’s chicken” vibe the menu gave at — and the impaled chicken didn’t dissapoint. The dish too was actually great. Really nice juicy chicken with a crispy skin. Just a very nice roast chicken.

Poached Sliced Beef in Hot Chili Oil. This is a classic Sichuan dish and a fairly solid version at that. Quite a bit of numbing Sichuan peppercorns and tender beef — plus way too many bean sprouts but that’s a thing with this dish. I’ve had versions with more depth to the broth but this was quite solid and had the proper more water/oil texture rather than the goopy corn sauce vibe.

Sateed String Bean with Minced Pork. Very solid version with crispy beans and lots of umami almost XO-like pork.

Deep Fried Durian Pastry. After so many great dishes it was surprising to bite into this one — it was awful. The outside was a bit greasy and the durian inside overcooked and heavy with a bannana-like texture. Ick. Nothing like the incredible crispy puff with light durian cream at Monterey Palace.

Interior.

Egg Custard Tart w/ Milk. I’m not sure what the “milk” deal is but these pale soft tarts had almost no flavor and certainly not much egg flavor. Barely seemed like a custard at all. Big fail and maybe the worst egg tart I’ve had. Again the divine one at Monterey Park comes to mind.

Coconut Bunny Pudding. So cute and served very very cold. These had that agar agar jelly texture, much like a chilled hard-boiled egg white. The taste was mildly sweet and mildly coconuty. It was actually pleasant but not much to it.

Cute!

Overall, Chef Tony’s was one of the best dim sum place we’ve been to. Hard to remember exactly how it compared to Pasadena (3-4 years ago) but while the menu was almost the same I think this is quite a bit better. Almost all the savory dim sum was great, particualy the steamed dishes. The desserts were weirdly awful. The wood ear, spareribs, har gow, XLB, shrimp wonton, and sticky rice were first or second in class. Given how good the chicken, beef, and stringbeans were I suspect the rest of the menu would be pretty good too.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Tagged as: Chef Tony, Chinese cuisine, Dim sum, DimSumQuest, Lunch Quest, SGV

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

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.

Dressed up diner outside is totally SGV.

Super cool dining room.

8 is THE number for these round tables!

Bead screen of Iguazu Falls!

Jeffrey with Mama.

The menu.

Accidental grab as this was a $495 wine for Chinese!

Michael Kaplan’s son’s home-made chili oil (excellent).

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.

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.

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.

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.

Shrimp chips for the tartare.

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.

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.

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!

Again, just because.

The gang.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Our special order Tomohawk came at first “well done” but again they graciously took it back and swapped for…

Tomahawk, rare. Now this was an amazing steak and really delicious with its warm deep pink/purple center. I particularly enjoyed with the sauces.

Black Pepper Cognac au Poivre sauce. Roasted Garlic Red Wine Reduction sauce. And special Chifa Cucho Sauce. My favorite was the black pepper.

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.

Trinity Fried Rice. garlic, ginger, scallion trinity fried rice with egg, shirmp and fish roe. Nice large shrimp.

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.

Dessert menu, but we had better:

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

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.

By: agavin
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Tagged as: Black pepper, BYOG, Chifa, Chinese cuisine, Gelato, Lobster, Monarch, Wine

DimSumQuest – Bistro 1968

Aug01

Restaurant: Bistro 1968

Location: 402 S San Gabriel Blvd Ste A, San Gabriel, CA 91776. (626) 766-1968

Date: December 30, 2022 & January 4, 2023

Cuisine: Chinese Dim Sum

Rating: One of the current best

Bistro 1968 opened with considerable fanfare (for the SGV) at the tail end of 2022. It serves up a large but focused menu of Cantonese dim sum and unusually is not two restaurants in one like most of the Cantonese places. Instead they have the same (dim sum focused) menu for both lunch and dinner.

The underground parking lot here sucks. Upper level was full and the lower level had this mechanical gated “resident only tow zone” that was poorly labeled and easy to get trapped in.

Escaping the parking lot involved this endless corridor.

Brand new!

Double-sided order sheet

The long form menu.

The main dining room. Several private rooms spawn off the sides.

At first we were in this claustraphobic interior room, but then we moved.

Into this much nicer (and larger) room. It had a window!

Holds a good sized group.

Jasmine Tea.

Basic sauces. They put several on the table, plus some chili oil.

Black and Red Vinegar.

XO Sauce was an extra $4, but totally worth it.

Chili oil is always better than paste.

Bean Curd Skin Roll in Soup. Great texture but very mild in flavor.

Shrimp Har-Gow. Fairly perfect textbook har-gow. Shrimp was delicious and skin was light.

Golden Har-Gow. I think these had a little bit of truffle inside plus the dark (squid ink?) skin. Normally I don’t like these “amplified” classics but these were excellent.

Pork Siu-Mai. Awesome version. Light, meaty, tasty. We had 5-6 orders.

Abalone Tart. A “lard short crust” pastry with shredded pork and abalone. Gorgeous. The tart was very crumbly. The pork itself was sweet and very nice, the abalone was great, not at all chewy — well it was abalone but it wasn’t too chewy.

Pumkpin Dumplings. Seasonal. Very mild and pleasant.

Leeks and Shrimp Dumpling. I really liked these. I’m not sure the wrapper tasted different, but the interior had a nice leek and shrimp (big surprise) vibe.

Shanghai XLB. Usually at dimsum houses the XLB are heavy and just “kinda nice.” These were delicate with fabulous pork soup flavor inside, arguably better than at specialty places like DTF. Really great.

Spicy Minced Pork Dumpling. Chewy and a bit sweet with that sweet porky filling. I’m not sure what was spicy about it but it was good. Sometimes this dumpling type, which is normally light brown, is underfilled. These were generous.

Stuffed Morchella Elata Fungus. They spelled it Fungas. Lol. This was one of the best dishes. It was a nice shrimp paste ball with a “fungas” wrapper” and a sweet soy sauce. Delicious.

Shrimp Noodle. The shrimp were large and succulent and the chow fun texture was excellent. The sauce could have used slightly more punch.

Wagyu Beef Noodle. I’ve never had chow fun with wagyu. It was silky soft, a touch sweet, and did pack quite a bit of flavor.

BBQ Pork & Mixed Fungus Noodle. Again they spelled it “Fungas.” Lol again. These were actually some great Chow Fun with nice Sweet BBQ Porky filling and a hint of mushroom.

House Special Seafood Congee. I didn’t try because of the carb factor — hey it’s all carbs — but some of my friends complained that it wasn’t jammed with enough goodies.

Close up.

Sticky Rice Wrap. This is the usual lotus leaf wrapped sticky rice. It was fabulous though with all sorts of flavor goodness and perfectly sticky rice.

Sticky Rice. These were mild, a bit sweet, and filled with Chinese sausage, ginkos, egg yolks, etc. Not nearly as good as the lotus leaf sticky rice.

Pan-fried Turnip Cake. I didn’t try because of the carbs.

Crabmeat Egg-Roll. I didn’t try but everyone else toasted them in two seconds.

Seaweed and Shrimp paste cake. Nice firm shrimp cake with an interesting spongy texture and a bit of crispiness from the seaweed. The mayo complemented.

House Special Crispy Lobster Roll. Very fluffy and crunchy texture stuffed with noodles and tiny bits of lobster. Interesting.

Steamed BBQ Pork Bao. The bun was a bit soggy and the filling overly sweet.

Snow Capped BBQ Pork Bun. This version was leagues better than the steamed version. Great slightly cirspy donut style bun with nice pork filling.

Deep Fried Taro Puff. Pretty but carb on carb — plus I hate taro. Anyway there were some little bits of pork in there too.

Supreme Beef Balls. Great spongy texture. I ate a ton of these.

Ground Minced Pork. Not a very descriptive label but these were delicious pan-fried pork patties. Nice and greasy.

Wonton w/ Chili Oil Sauce. This was one of the weakest dishes. The wrapper was soft and pillowy, but the chili sauce was weak, and the filling was shrimp (would have been better as pork). Mostly it just didn’t have the chili oil punch this dish deserves.

Lobster with Ginger and Scallions. Pretty nice lobster in the “wet” style.

Soy Sauce Chicken. A bit sweet, but very aromatic and juicy so a lovely chicken.

Hongkong Style Roast Duck. This was probably the best Hongkong style roast duck I’ve had. It was extremely juicy with fabulous skin and lots of great flavor.

Smaller sized portion of the same dish.

Slightly Sweet Sauce for the duck.

Sichuan Sauce Hen Chicken. Cold chopped Hainan Chicken style chicken with nice numbing sauce. Really good.

Sauce for that.

Barbecued Iberian Pork w/ Honey. Classic sweet red Chinese BBQ pork. Very sweet sauce but pretty damn tasty!

Deep Fried Quail with Spicy Salt. Yummy, but extremly salty and mostly bones with little bits of meat on them.

Roasted Squab. Leave it to Yarom to order every bird on the menu. These were solid, but not in the top tier.

Crispy German Pork Knuckle. Very piggy, nice crispy skin, succulent meat. I enjoyed these.

Oxtail Stew with Wine Sauce Clay Pot. There was the oxtail bone factor, but this did taste great. Moderate amounts of tasty meat clung to the tail bones and the whole thing was drowned in some sort of gravy.

Poached Watercress w/ Fish Ball. Basically a nice light broth with lots of greens and fish/shrimp balls. I actually really liked this dish, particularly given the nasty rainy weather. It was very soothing and provided needed carbs.

Creamy Egg-Yolk Bao. Tasty and the yolk inside almost exploded out. I just nibbled for dietary reasons.

Macau Egg Tart. A classic. Nice and eggy.

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

The wines.

Yarom and the owner and the manager.

The whole gang.

They collect all the steamer trays in rolling huskee’s!

Overall, I thought Bistro 1968 is currently one of the best dim sum places in the SGV — and therefore in SoCal. Not every dish is perfect but they have a big menu, many interesting dishes, and an overall standard of execution that is just higher than most of the older places. Sure, there are a lot of good (and even great) options in the SGV but you totally can’t go wrong with this one!

For more LA dining reviews click here.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
Comments (1)

Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Bistro 1968, BYOG, Cantonese, Cantonese Chinese, Chinese cuisine, dimsum, DimSumQuest, dumplings, Gelato, SGV

Orange Opulence – Chang’an

Jul24

Restaurant: Chang’an

Location: 13051 Newport Ave, Tustin, CA 92780. (949) 324-5558

Date: December 10, 2022 and February 23, 2023

Cuisine: Chinese

Rating: Best Chinese in the Southland

Among my friends Chang’an is a highly controversial Chinese restaurant. Personally, I think it has hands down the highest quality Chinese food in California, really the best I’ve had outside of China. But it’s high end, and in Tustin, and very expensive. There is a certain contingent who likes their Chinese grungier and at a better QPR feeling this is “more authentic.” The reality is that both are different aspects of modern China. Chang’an is extremely “authentic,” just to the style of recent high end eatery cropping up in China’s major cities. A good example would be Shanghai Tang.

They are also known for their elaborate table-side Peking Duck and are the winner of my in depth Ultimate LA Peking Duck Guide.

It’s located in this “French Chateau” like structure way down in Tustin. The drive is a real pain.

The decor is at a different level.

Details.

The have a dedicated peking duck oven!

One of their several bars.

The menu.

For our first meal we ate out on the “floor” near the giant screen (oddly playing Christmas videos). For the second, we had the awesome private room.

Gotta have champagne for:

Bovon brought 16oz of caviar!

Fist bump time!
And in a new first new BYOU (bring your own uni) — two trays of fresh Santa Barbara Uni!

They serve a Shaanxi bread and this spicy bean sauce.

Some Dec 22 wine.

Out comes the “main event” – LA’s best Peking duck.

Close up.

The table-side Peking Duck Show really gets underway!

The duck was covered in Baijiu and lit on fire to crisp (and flavor) the skin.

Carved table-side.

Skin was thin and mildly crispy, aged ducky flavor, served with traditional brown sugar. But still this way of doing the duck, better for the meat, compromises the skin ever-so-slightly = 6.

Natural cane sugar for dipping the skin into.

Pancake was thin and translucent and there were plenty of them = 10.

Accoutrements were scallion and cucumbers as usual plus pear = 9. Hoisin was good to great. Slightly thin maybe, sweet and savory, quite pungent = 8.

Meat was served 2 ways, both with some skin on the white meat, straight up = 10 where it was really juicy and full of flavor.

The burrito/bing together was a 7/10 or perhaps 8/10 as I didn’t pack it right. I should have made a second but I didn’t want the extra carbs.

The smoke machine was used to smoke this second batch of duck meat.

Watch it in action.

A second half of the meat was served smoked which was very different, a bit more like ham, and quite lovely = 9.

Dec 22 wine. It takes something racy like this to pair with numbing clam.

Spicy Arctic Surf Clam with Green Sichuan pepper 青花椒炝北极贝. Fabulous dish with chewy clam and pungent citrus-tinged peppercorns and a slightly sweet soy base. Underneath were unwraveled green onions. We ordered two of these they were so good.

And Bovon just had to “do his thing” to the dish for the photo. The combo certainly didn’t clash with the clam and even the peppercorn, but it did mute the peppercorn, which to me was a slight distraction.

Crispy Beef Tongue 脆皮牛舌. Fried, rich, but very delicious. The center was dense and chewy and the fry nice and light. The sweet and “spicy” sauce livened it up a bit.

A touch thin and oxidative.

Tons of lovely chevy minerality.

Lovely.

Cold Crispy Jellyfish With Hot and Sour Sauce 浆水海蜇. Incredible texture and a refreshing taste. Great jellyfish. The jellyfish itself was exceedingly firm with a great bite.

Taking it up to the next level we “decorated” with uni and caviar! Actually the caviar really helped the dish.

Tossed Cilantro, Scallion & Red Peanut Salad sweet & sour vinaigrette 陕西大拌菜. Extremely elegant salad. I could have eaten 2 all by myself. Very tangy with great texture, crunch, and tangy flavor.

Cucumber & Cold Noodles in chili sesame or hot and sour sauce 老陕凉皮 (麻酱/ 酸辣). There were two variants here, the spicy bean sprout noodles and a less spicy sesame cold noodles. They were fairly good, and better than last time as they started the meal. Texture was great on both. I particularly liked adding some of the even spicer “bread sauce” to the spicy noodles.

48-Hour Braised Sea Cucumber (per person) twenty-two different herbs and spices 招牌葱烧海参佐黑松露饭(每位). Wow! This was hands down the best sea cucumber I’ve had. They make a supreme stock and then slowly rehydrate the dried sea cucumber in it so that it absorbs the lovely and complex flavor. The rice is special Japanese snow rice with a very aromatic sauce. Really special.

Stir- Fired Lychee Prawns with Sweet Sour and Spicy Sauce 贵妃荔枝虾球. Very sweet. The cashews were candied. The sauce was sweet. The shrimp were perfectly cooked and quite nice. The fried balls were lychee deep deep fried covered in caramelized sugar.

Snow Crab with Egg pancake 风花雪蟹配鸡蛋煎饼. Eggy versions of the spring pancake with a very salty and delicious crab and seafood mix. Almost like a dry XO sauce it had little dried shrimps and scallops in there. Insanely savory.

The ultimate umami salt pancake with the crab mix and a huge blob of caviar!

Dec 22 wine.

Live Fish (Seasonal/Reserve only) Market Price 时价. In this particular case Turbot. Steamed with scallion and soy. I usually find this a bland dish but the succulent quality of this lovely fish and the perfect sauce made this dish insanely good. It was even better topped with lots of caviar!

Turbot in action.

On our second visit we decided to prep the Turbo a different way: Live Turbot Soup. I’m not sure what this was called, but this soup prep of the Turbot was incredible. The broth was mixed fish and chicken and seasoned liberally with white pepper. It was stunning. The chunks of fish were melt in your mouth and filled with that gelatinous softness that great turbot has. Amazing!

Out comes our friend, the soon to be dinner, his highness, King Crab.

Live King Crab “ginger and scallion.” I’ve never had this particular variant on the ginger and scallion. Instead of being a wet wok version, this was deep fried and then stir-fried with ginger and scallions in a spectacularly effective manner than leant it amazing Wok Xi (aka char flavor). Really delicious.

Live King Crab legs steamed with garlic and vermicelli. Perfect light and sweet version of the leg meat.

Jeff just had to Uni and Caviar this up too!

The crab shell returned with steamed “tofu egg.” Very loose light version of this dish. It was good but I actually prefer it as a more “solid” mass of custard.

Very nice, bright and deep. Not showing at that amazing level though.

Dusty at first, but it blew off. More berries than the 2001 and also not amazing.

Chang’an Squab 长安乳鸽脆皮/椒麻两种口味 Crispy/Peppercorn chili. Very nice classic Cantonese squab. Maybe a touch drier than the best ever, but really still quite lovely and amoung the better ones I’ve had.

Spicy Stir-Fried Wild Mushroom Morels with Shanghai Bok-Choy 辣炒羊肚菌配小棠菜. Delightful veggies. I just love morels.

Cucumber & Cold Noodles in chili sesame or hot and sour sauce 老陕凉皮 (麻酱/ 酸辣). I didn’t see any cucumber. These noodles were just spicy. They were fairly good, but the monotone of flavor made them one of the “worst” dishes of the night (given that every thing was great).

For his birthday Erick was given a special Xi’an style soup with long knife cut noodles (for long life) and a fried egg (for good fortune).

Sautéed Pea-Tips with Garlic 蒜蓉豆苗. Excellent version. Very delicate.

Dec 22 wine.

Extremely clean and concentrated.

Qin Style Roast Lamb Leg 秦味烤羊腿. This dish was insane. I didn’t deal with the buns but the lamb was super hot and intensely flavorful. It just melted off the bone and had this sizzling fat and intense smoked and crunchy chili flavor. Insane!

Close up of this perfect spicy meat.

Buns for the lamb.

Bovon caviared the buns!

Braised Abalone and Pork Belly with hand made steambuns 一品鲍鱼红烧肉. Not the strongest dish. The pork was very good with that braised star anise flavor and tons of fat.

Peppercorn Ice Cream 花椒冰淇淋 (每位). Very mild peppercorn flavors and very cold (and hard). But still good.

Tangerine Ice cream was hard but had a delightful flavor.

Strawbaccio Gelato — an awesome dairly Strawberry base with house-made Bronte Pistacchio DOCG “Fudge” — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — whacky combo day — #SweetMilkGelato #gelato #dessert #icecream #FrozenDessert #nomnom #dessertlovers #dessertporn #icecreamlovers #gelatoitaliano #foodporn #gelatolover #food #foodgasm #foodblogger #dessertgasm #desserttime #foodphotography #gelatoartigianale #gelatomania #dessertlover #icecream #icecreamlovers #strawberry #pistachio #pistacchio #fudge

Dec 2022 wine.

Feb 2023 Wines (up a notch!)
In one of the main dining rooms.

Private room gang.

Overall, I think this is some insanely good Chinese food. It’s not just great for Chinese, it’s really up there in terms of meals available in Southern California. The downside is the distance — easily over 2 hours in traffic — and the price (can be several hundred $$ a person if you are getting King Crab, etc.). I feel it’s worth it, and so do all the people I went with, but some of my other friends do not like the QPR. It’s definitely not a “value.”

Decor is great too. The atmosphere is “interesting.” Service is earnest and quite excellent for Chinese but still fighting its own instincts. They want to serve in Chinese order and they want to serve FAST! (almost everything at the same time). We have our own preferences for order, designed to match the wines. Many items here are pre-order only, like the duck and crab. The duck in particular is a bit odd. The very strangely limit you to one a table. Really two would be good with a large party. And they have an extremely specific pre-arranged time where they are GOING to serve the duck. By default this is the minute of your reservation — like start milling around the table discussing seating and here comes the duck! So it’s very important to arrange this specific time some distance (perhaps at least 30 minutes) AFTER your reservation time. And it’s then difficult to arrange for it to be after all the seafood (because you don’t know how long that will take). But these little idiosyncrasies are well worth putting up with (IMHO).

Chang’an also blends a number of Chinese regional styles. It’s nominally celebrating the city of Xi’an and so has significant Shaanxi influence, but certainly isn’t a classic Shaanxi place. It has Beijing dishes (like Peking duck) and some somewhat Cantonese dishes. All are filtered through both a higher end and slightly western Chinese lens.

Highly, highly recommended — but know what you are getting into.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
Comments (1)

Posted in: Food

Tagged as: BYOC, BYOG, BYOU, Caviar, Chang'An, Chinese cuisine, Fancy Chinese, Gelato, Orange County, Peking Duck, Shaanxi, Tustin, Uni, Wine, Xi'an

Lunch Quest – Spicy Impression

Jul22

Restaurant: Spicy Impression

Location: 17110 Colima Rd B, Hacienda Heights, CA 91745. (626) 363-4948

Date: December 20, 2022

Cuisine: Sichuan Chinese

Rating: Mostly for takeout

For today’s Lunch Quest Yarom, Chevy, and I hiked out to one of our favorite “corners” in the Far SGV, close to Shanghailander, Spicy Home, and others — all to try out this casual new Sichuan place.

Typical box store.

Casual interior. There was only one other table, although lots of takeout in progress.

The menu.

“Stir-fried” cucumber. I don’t think that word means what they think it means, as this was smashed cucumbers (with garlic and peanuts). It was actually an absolutely first rate version with a nice crunch and GREAT garlic flavor. The peanuts were a nice addition as well.

Stir-fried clams with Chinese pepper. Now this is actually stir fried. The flavor on this dish was awesome. The crispy green pepper corns were delicious and the flavor from the chopped chilis intense. Eating them was eye watering and they were the only genuinely spicy element at this lunch.

Spicy Soup with Sneakhead Fish Filet and Pork Intestine. Very nice flavors in this dish. The fish was oily and almost eel-like and very tasty. There was also “douchi” (fermented salted black beans) and a very flavorful broth, although it had a strong undertaste of “pig poo.” Yeah, and that was a deliberate (pig) intestinal funk. Oh yeah baby!

Stir-fried lamb belly with Chinese spices. Not sure how the belly was different from the lamb in the next dish, but the stir fry mix was a bit different. It had celery and the hot peppers again (as opposed to dried) and no cumin.

Cumin Lamb. Classic cumin lamb. Fairly “intense” lamb flavor with quite a bit of cumin. I would have liked slightly more “Wok Hei” as I’m not sure they charred the lamb on the hyper hot wok first.

Spicy Pork Feet. Pig’s feet that were braised in an interesting star anise and black cardamom broth, then stir fried with chili oil, onions, garlic etc. I don’t like flabby pig skin but the gelatinous and fatty meat below the skin was good.

Mapo Eggplant. I’ve never had this dish, basically Mapo Tofu with eggplant instead. It was delicious with a very strong flavor of Sichuan Peppercorn. It wasn’t actually that numbing as perhaps that was cooked out, but it was strongly flavored with the complex herbal-citrus notes of the peppercorn.

Chinese Spicy & Sour Cabbage. The cabbage had a nice crunch and was very enjoyable. It didn’t have that totally addictive “pork fat” flavor but I still ate at least half of this dish.

Overall, this place was tasty, but is really just a Sichuan takeout shack. Clearly people aren’t eating in here as there were stacks and stacks of takeout containers at the ready. As such, they don’t have much variety of prep. Nearly everything on the menu is wokked and most dishes are just different proteins stir-fried in a set number of preps. There are no different cooking styles like “Tea Smoked Duck” or even many cold dishes.