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Eating Leshan – Noodle Shack

Sep24

Restaurant: Noodle Shack

Location: ? Leshan China

Date: August 5, 2018

Cuisine: Szechuan Noodles

Rating: Solid

We drove t the small city (1 million, a Chinese small) from Chengdu to check out the world’s largest premodern statue:

The Great Buddha of Leshan, carved into the cliffside of the river 1200-1300 years ago!

And so we caught a quick lunch between tourist stops.

At this anonymous (unless you read Chinese) noodle shop our guide took us to. He has a penchant (apparently) for hole-in-the-wall noodles.

We sat outside so as not to broil in the 100deg heat.

Non spicy pork noodles. Pork “ribs” similar to what you sometimes get at dimsum places.

Plain noodles for my picky son. Chinese don’t actually like to make plain noodles, and in this case they felt compelled to at least stick some green onion on top.

I had the spicy pork noodles. Not bad, some kind of pork broth with a ton of chili and the same pork nuggets.

Not the greatest meal ever but it hit the spot.

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

The fiery line to view the Buddha was 2.5 hours in 100deg heat just to START climbing down the stairs!

Leshan has it’s modern side too (just across from the Buddha)

By: agavin
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Tagged as: Chinese cuisine, Eating Chengdu, Eating China, Eating Leshan, Leshan, Leshan Buddha, noodles

Hop Woo is Hop New

Jul11

Restaurant: Hop Woo

Location: 11110 W Olympic Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90064. (310) 575-3668

Date: May 30, June 3 & July 25, 2018 and January 6, 2022

Cuisine: American and Szechuan Chinese

Rating: Surprisingly excellent Szechuan!

Incredible as it sounds, just a few days after hitting up new Brentwood Szechuan GuYi Erick and I explore another new westside Szechuan. Plus, this is a composite posts with returns on my own and a Hedonist visit.

This time disguised as venerable American Chinese Hop Woo, which has been serving a big menu of Cantonese inspired classics for years — but it turns out they have a new Szechuan chef and a secret Szechuan menu!

The space is vintage LA Chinese.

At night, it’s packed with us Hedonists taking up 3 tables!

Here is the special Szechuan menu. You have to ask for it. Some of the more challenging items they didn’t even bother to translate!

The big regular menu has a few gems too, but everything here from my first two visits is from the Szechuan menu.

Cold Szechuan Noodles (June 2018). Not even on the Szechuan menu, but they can make them. Basically nice wheat noodles with a tangy/spicy Szechuan chili oil sauce.

You mix them up and they are quite addictive. But the third time I had them (7/25/18) they were different, heavier, not as much chili, and not nearly as good.

Toothpick lamb (June & July 2018). The classic cumin rubbed lamb nibblettes. Quite nice.

Griddle cooked Bullfrog (June 2018). Very nice sauce and flavor. Mind the little kermit bones.

Griddle cooked lamb (June 2018). Somewhere between a griddle and a cumin lamb.

Garlic Shredded Pork (June 2018). Big dish, full of flavor, and nice texture.

MaPo Tofu (June & July 2018). Really a 9 or 10 out of 10 version of this favorite of mine. Tons of mala (numbing Szechuan peppercorn), you can see it dusted on top. Eaten over rice this is just so good. I have had this every-time I have been.

Hop Woo Signature Fresh Rock Fish with Hot and Spicy Flavor (June & July 2018). A very nice white fish smothered in delicious chilies (and chili oil). Some good vegetables like lotus leaf are hiding in there too. Could use more veggies though.

Slightly spicy fried calamari (7/25/18). Not bad. Very fried.

Cold chicken in chili oil (7/25/18). Delicious dish of boneless white meat (and skin) with a tangy spicy Szechuan chili oil.

We liked the sauce so much we ordered some Hainan chicken (boiled chicken, ordered 7/25/18) to dump into the extra sauce. Tasted the same but had bones.

It came with this bagna caulda (aka garlic oil).

Spicy lobster (7/25/18). Salty and full of flavor. Excellent lobster actually, if perhaps very slightly over done.

Garlic greens (7/25/18). Typical greens and garlic.

Shrimp with chilies (7/25/18). This is normally chicken with chilies, but we got it with shrimp. Basically salt and pepper shrimp (you eat them whole) with dry aromatic chiles. Pretty good.

Cauliflower with bacon (7/25/18). Awesome dish. Nice crunch to the vegetables and made 10x better with the soft pancetta like ham/bacon.

Panda Express Fried Sesame Pork Balls (7/25/18). Someone wanted a “white guy dish” and this fit the bill perfectly. Tasty enough, but REALLY fried.

Fish filets with green peppers (7/25/18). A savory mix of regular green chilies (Jalepenos or Serranos) and Szechuan peppercorns. Nice flavor and burn and numb.

Braised eggplant (7/25/18). This might be their take on “fish flavor eggplant.” Hard to tell, but it was tender and had lots of garlic. Not that spicy.

Below is a return post pandemic 1/6/22 meal:

BBQ Pork (1/6/22). A bit chewy and overly sweet.

Cold chicken with chili sauce (1/6/22). Great sauce. Chciken itself was a little big on the tendon factor.

Garlic cucumbers (1/6/22). Pretty good.

Jellyfish (1/6/22). A bit chewy.

Honey Walnut Shrimp (1/6/22). Very tasty. Not the best ever version of this dish, but quite good.

Sichuan Garlic Scallops (1/6/22). A bit sweet and cloying.

Clams with garlic and scallions (1/6/22). Not bad, but not amazing either. Not so much clam meat.

Whole fish with Rattan Pepper (1/6/22). Awesome broth. Fish was very tender. Lots of numbing. Bones, yes, but delicious. DOTN.

“Peking Duck” (1/6/22). Not bad, but huge chunks of Southern Chinese style roast duck.

Thin sweet hoisin.

Buns.
Salt and Pepper Pork Chops (1/6/22). Very salty, but quite tasty.

Mooshu Pork (1/6/22). Extremely mushy and not very good.

Mexican Tortillas instead of real spring pancakes. Not kidding, just el patio.

Orange Beef (1/6/22). Super sweet and fried. Kinda delicious in a dessert sort of wait.

Cumin lamb (1/6/22). Pretty decent.

Fried Rice Cake with Brown Sugar (June 2018). The owner gave these to us on the house. Very interesting Chinese dessert, all about the texture as usual. Chewy inside and dusty sweet on the outside.

Mandorla Tostata Stroopwafel Gelato (Toasted Almond) made by me for Sweet Milk Gelato (7/25/18) — toasted Sicilian almonds and Dutch Stroopwafel, because, why not?

Classic oranges and Fortune Cookies.

Overall, I was very impressed with the Szechuan items. It’s not a huge menu of them, and they aren’t quite Szechuan Impression or anything, but a few of these dishes, like the MaPo Tofu and the fish were absolutely first rate. Nice balance of tangy, hot, and numbing. It’s great to have a few real Szechuan choices on the westside!

Given my repeat and must larger visit with a lot of dishes I actually think the Szechuan here is on par with a second tier SGV Szechuan like Lucky Noodle King or maybe Spicy City. Some dishes better, some worse. It’s not the BEST Szechuan in the city by any means, but it’s the real deal and surprisingly very good for Westside. The even have really legit dishes like MaPo tofu with pig brains!

On our 1/6/22 visit a certain spice hater forced us to order about 3/4 from the regular menu. It was pretty consistent that almost everything from the regular (Chinese American) menu was very mediocre while stuff from the Szechuan menu was pretty good.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

Random wines, only a few of the ones we brought:

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: BYOG, Chinese cuisine, Chinese Food, Gelato, Hop Woo, mapo tofu, Sichuan, spicy, Szechuan, Szechuan Chinese

GuYi — Szechuan in Brentwood?

Jun29

Restaurant: GuYi Restaurant

Location:11677 San Vicente Blvd suite 315, Los Angeles, CA 90049. (424) 293-0988

Date: May 24, 27 & June 18 & December 10, 2018 and May 2, 2019

Cuisine: Szechuan Chinese

Rating: Amazing for the neighborhood

I was stunned when I learned from a friend (Sklar) that they had opened a Szechuan place in Brentwood!

Yeah, Brentwood.

And not just Brentwood on Wilshire or something, but in Brentwood Gardens, least ethnic mini-mall in Los Angeles! I mean this place is gentrified to the hilt. It still features CPK.

In fact, GuYi is right on top of CPK and looks like… well a newish SGV place with a view.

I ignored these boring white bread lunch specials. Forget about ’em!

The usual large menu, featuring Szechuan and Northern dishes — but oddly very few noodles.

They have some bottled smoked plum juice. It tastes like it always does. Maybe it’s always bottled. I don’t think they have a liquor license.

Boiled dumplings with pork and cabbage. They were light and delicate, tasted mostly like cabbage, but were actually rather excellent.

Clear noodle with sauce (spicy). I didn’t expect this dish, although I’ve had it before and this was a decent version. More vegetable (cucumber?) than noodle. And it’s the pappardelle-like rice noodles. Strong mustard flavor as it should have, but I was alone and it’s hard to eat a whole bowl of these oneself.

Bean Jelly in Szechuan Chili Sauce. Got these twice. I love them in general, and I loved them here. Nice jelly texture and great tangy/spicy sauce.

Cold Beef with chili oil. Really excellent (and spicy / tangy) version of this dish. Lots of cilantro to balance it out. There was quite a bit of tendon in here too — which I find rather excellent due to its nice mouth feel (but I’m “adopted” Chinese).

Griddle cooked chicken (w/ bone) and mixed vegetables. What I often call dry hot pot. Very nice flavor. The celery and potatoes soaked up the chili. Chicken tasted really good, but did have all those bones (authentic style).

Popcorn chicken (sometimes known as Szechuan fried chicken with chilies). A nice rendition of this dish, a touch sweet with a fairly thick fry, but no bones and very tasty.

Fried Sweet and Sour “Squirrel” Fish. The squirrel refers to how it looks, all fried and fluffed up like that. Nice fish.

GuYi Sautéed sliced pork. Almost bacon with green and red peppers. This was REALLY good. Very spicy too with a longer burning heat from the green peppers. Like super spicy tasty bacon!

Boiled fish slices in hot sauce. A solid rendition of the classic Szechuan dish. Not enough mala (numbing Szechuan peppercorn) for my taste though.

Boiled beef with tofu pudding. You can get the fish this way too. Similar sauce, with beef and lots of tofu. Sometimes at Szechuan places you get it with beef, tofu, AND fish. I liked this one slightly better than the fish, but both were very good. Nice strong flavor. Maybe a touch salty.

Kung Pao Shrimp (12/101/18). Very nice Kung Pao sauce with that tangy/sweet/spicy blend. Not enough shrimp, but the ones that were there were great.

MaPo tofu (pocked marked old lady face tofu). An ok version of this dish, but not great. Some heat, but no numbing, not too much pork. Needed more depth of flavor.

Overall, I’m blown away that this is in a mainstream Brentwood mall. Hard to imagine most white Brentwoodians eating here, and if they did they’d just have the boring lunch special or American stuff. But service was very nice (if sometimes a touch slow) and it is very tasty. It needs more mala (numbing) and a slightly more tuned up Szechuan flavor balance, but great to have so close!

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Brentwood, Chinese cuisine, Gu Yi, Sichuan, spicy, Szechuan Chinese

Had to Write it Up – Mr Chow

Jun22

Restaurant: Mr Chow

Location: 344 N Camden Dr, Beverly Hills, CA 90210. (310) 278-9911

Date: May 19, 2018

Cuisine: American High End Chinese

Rating: Tasty, but bland and pricey

Mr Chow is an interesting place — and particularly for me, given my proclivities. It’s been open here in Beverly since 1978 (London in 1968!) and represents a mid-late 20th century attempt to bring international Chinese food to rich Westerners in an upscale format. I haven’t been in years, maybe 10+ years, and it will be interesting to see how it is after becoming much more knowledgeable about more authentic Chinese food.

Located on Camden in the heart of Beverly Hills, it’s still pretty darn crowded on a Saturday night.

The decor is dated but in perfect preservation.

Fairly elegant, if a little 70s-80s.

The menu.

Hot sauce.

Some noodles for my son. He didn’t really like them, just boiled noodles.

Gambei with goodies. Candied walnuts, crispy spinach?, fried lotus root. All carby, sweet, and tasty.

Vegetable lettuce cups. Basically chopped up vegetables with a light sauce.

The lettuce. These are all about the hoisin. Not sure they are particularly Chinese in any way (they seem far more Vietnamese), but they are associated with Asian restaurants. They may represent a staple of Mandarin places in Vietnam (with it’s heavy Southern Chinese influences).

Squid Ink Rice Noodles. Never seen these at a real Chinese place either, and the portion is small, and they weren’t the hottest, but they did taste pretty good in a lip staining kinda way.

Chicken Satay (Original Recipe). Definitely is. Not much like a Thai satay. Very sweet with this weird sweet mayo sauce. Not a huge fan myself.

Water dumplings. Basically very small standard “boiled” pork dumplings. Other than the price per gram, tasty enough.

Chicken Curry Puff. I like these flakey pastry puffs. The curry didn’t hurt either.

Drunken Fish. Filet poached in wine with mushrooms. Very nice Chinese white wine sauce. Incredibly soft and mild dish but very enjoyable as well.

Green Prawns. I think these are a slight Mr Chow variant on the Hángzhōu style prawns with green tea. These were sweeter, with less overt tea flavor, but tasty enough.

Ma Mignon. Tender and delicious (says the menu), since 1975. Also not very Chinese. Ok, but a little over cooked.

Mixed vegetables. Looks about like what it is.

Peking Duck. They carve it tableside.

The duck on the plate.

With the traditional scallions and cucumber.

And pancakes. I ate about 10 of these. Nothing at all wrong with them. Excellent duck.

They have a dessert cart with more or less Italian or French style tarts.
Mixed berry tarte. It was fine, a little dry.

The place was fairly packed, with the private room swinging with a very pretty, very blond Beverly Hills 16 year old celebrating her sweet 16. I don’t really get it, as it’s well over $100 a person and where “pretty good” about at the level of a very good Chinese American joint. The atmosphere is old school and interesting. Food doesn’t have the balance or zing of good real Chinese food. It’s extremely mild across the board. I don’t just mean in terms of spiciness, but flavors are soft and veering toward sweet. Some dishes are excellent in terms of taste, like the drunken fish, green shrimp, and duck — but all in the same soft modality.

Service was pretty good. It was LOUD though, like a more modern restaurant. Not really for me.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Champagne, Chinese cuisine, Chinese Food, Mr Chows

Cui Hua Lou – Szechuan Shed

Jun16

Restaurant: Cui Hua Lou [1, 2, 3, 4]

Location: 920 E Garvey Ave. Monterey Park, CA 91755. 626-288-2218

Date: May 13, 2018

Cuisine: Szechuan Chinese

Rating: Awesome!

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Chinese food is incredible regional, and we are blessed in SoCal with a lot of very specific restaurants (mostly in the San Gabriel Valley). My Hedonist group has returned to this little known spicy Szechuan in the corner of an undiscovered Monterey Park strip mall. We love Szechuan for its spicy/smoky flavors. This is a cuisine that packs a real punch and is one of my favorites in China and CHL is seriously “local.”

The storefront, as usual, isn’t much to look at.

A menu with fairly literal translations.

And the usual minimalist decor.

But we weren’t even in the restaurant proper, but across the parking lot in “the shed.”

Inside they’ve actually cleaned it up (significantly) since last time we were here (2 years ago) — back then there was a bunch of junk in the room including a band saw!

Szechuan pickles. Lots of garlic and some chili oil. Great stuff.

Cold beef tendon with chili. Nice and chewy with that hot chili oil flavor.

Vegetables. For plain steamed veggies these were actually excellent. Mildly pickled.

Cumin mushroom and snausage skewers. The mushrooms are pleasantly chewy and the little dogs delicious and a touch sweet.

Spicy Turtle Hot Pot. This Szechuan stew of turtle, chicken, tofu, and veggies was quite good. Though I’ve had better broth here (with the lame stew) and the turtle meat itself wasn’t doing it for me. I mostly ate tofu, veggies, and the sauce.

Turtle foot!

Lamb and gizzard skewers. Both good.

Szechuan chicken wings!

Sweet and sour pork ribs. Super yummy intense sauced pork niblets (with the bones).

Another view of the lovely room. Again, it’s much nicer now!

MaPo Tofu. A very good rendition of this classic dish.

Shredded potatoes.

Lobster. Not usual at Szechuan places.

Beef with green onions. Very tasty.

Fish filet boiled in chili sauce. The sauce for this dish was much hotter, more numbing, and better than the turtle broth.

Kung pao chicken.

Mixed noodles. We sorta wanted dan dan mein and they brought these, saying they were better. I’m not saying they were better but they were actually really good for this sort of simple fried noodle dish. Really good.

But we got the dan dan mein anyway. Very vinegary version, different, not so nutty, but delicious.

Noodle pull!

Three flavors of gelato by Sweet Milk Gelato (me):

White Chocolate Lime-Berry – lime infused milk blended with Valrhona Ivoire white chocolate and laced with frutto di bosco coulis.

Gianduja – Valrhona chocolate with Hazelnut Regina (the queen) from Turin

Black Madeira – Blackberry Madeira sorbetto

I have to regale you with the lovely bathroom!
Check out the mirror!

In conclusion, Cui Hua Lou, while apparently totally undiscovered, offers up some fabulous traditional Szechuan fare. Yarom thinks this is the best Szechuan in the SGV. I’m not sure I’d go that far, as it’s a little too home-style, but it’s certainly one of my favorites. They don’t use MSG. The flavors are great. It has a slightly different mix of dishes than some. But I like a lot of the top Szechuan places, and they are each a bit different.

The service is really friendly, particularly as Chinese restaurants go. Our hostess really took care of us, spacing out the dishes, bringing us whatever we needed.

We went crazy overboard and ordered up about 50% more food than we needed, still this feast, including tax and tip, only set us back $25 a person! If you like spicy, you should try this place. It’s not big, but it was still busy at 10pm!

For more LA Chinese reviews click here.

or more crazy Hedonist dinners here!

Wines pictured below:

By: agavin
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Tagged as: BYOG, Chinese cuisine, Chinese Food, Cui Hua Lou, Gelato, hedonists, SGV, Sichuan, Szechuan cuisine, turtle, Wine

Hunan Mao

Jun04

Restaurant: Hunan Mao

Location: 8728 Valley Blvd, Rosemead, CA 91770. (626) 280-0588

Date: April 29, 2018

Cuisine: Hunan Chinese

Rating: Good, but not super super spicy

My wife and son were out of town this Sunday in a school trip so of course I had to organize a bunch of dads (and others) to head out to the SGV for some “real Chinese (food).”

Hunan Mao is probably the second best known SGV Hunan restaurant and somehow I’d never been, so we decided to rectify that.

Crunchy pickled radish with chili on the table.

The giant Menu

I needed a crib sheet to organize the ordering!

Giant Steamed Fish Head Casserole w/ Special Hot Pepper and Tofu.This is a Hunan classic, with the pickled chili peppers, and the tofu takes it to the next level (I like this kind of soft tofu).

Beef served cold with special spicy sauce. Everything seems to be “special” but this is the relatively usual beef/beef tendon with chili oil. Like spicy corned beef!

Cold noodles. With special chili sauce, of course. Very nice tangy/spicy noodles.

XLB. These aren’t Hunan, but I had to order them anyway. They were pretty decent XLB too.

Smoked Hunan ham with bamboo and hot pepper. Really good, really aromatic dish. The bacon-like ham, the crunchy bamboo, the pickled chilies. Yum! All bound together by a deep heat.

House Special Chicken with hot sauce. This is the Hunan Mao version of the “most typical” Hunan Chili dish. Not as crazy red/green chili as at Hunan Chili King.

Eggplant with preserved egg. This unusual dish (which I’ve had once before at China Tasty) has spectacular umami. Everyone loved it.

Mao’s Special Braised Pork Belly. So good we ordered another round of it!

Cumin Lamb. More peppers — plus cumin and lamb.

These black plates make for nice photography.

Hunan style bullfrog with chilies. Same chilies as the chicken — different “white meat.” The frog actually had a better flavor. More little bones.

MaPo Tofu (pocked marked old lady face tofu). One of my favorites, and technically Szechuan, but this was a very good version with lots of salty/numbing/spicy goodness.And a MaPo zoom.

A trio of gelato flavors made by me (in my alto ego as the Sweet Milk Gelato chef). Lavender Blueberry Gelato, Pineapple Rosemary Sorbetto, and Brillat-Savarin Gelato with Sicilian Candied Orange.

Overall, Hunan Mao is very good and they really treated us well. We had a nice big table, great service, and no corkage. The price was ludicrously low considering how much food we had. Food is very good. Certainly quite Hunan, and medium spicy (very spicy for the neophyte). They aren’t as “serious” about their chilies as Hunan Chili King, which is still the SGV Hunan gold standard. HCK is hotter, and the chilies have both brighter red/green/orange color and a more serious pickled quality. But Hunan Mao (the former chairman came from Hunan province) has a lot of good variety and some really tasty dishes.

It wasn’t a serious wine night, but I photoed most of them the same:

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: BYOG, Chinese cuisine, Chinese Food, Gelato, Hunan Cuisine, Hunan Mao, SGV, spicy, Wine

Day of the Dumplings

May21

Restaurant: Long Xing Juicy Dumpling

Location: 140 W Valley Blvd, San Gabriel, CA 91776. (626) 307-1188

Date: April 14 and June 22, 2018 and January 27 & March 30, 2019 and July 15, 2023

Cuisine: Northern Chinese Dumplings

Rating: Great dumplings and tons of variety

As any loyal reader knows, the SGV is my favorite dining zone. It’s amazing how many Los Angelenos aren’t aware of the mecca for Chinese Food and culture. The SGV has a feel and style that is entirely unique, entirely Southern California, but very different and quite Chinese. Today we head out for a multi-stop lunch extravaganza. Many of the participants were doing a 48 hour “staycation” out here. I just went out for a couple hours.

Welcome to the Maxi-Mall. The California Mini-Mall’s GIANT SGV cousin.

Entering the 2 level maxi.

A view of part of it from upstairs.

Juicy Dumpling is upstairs. You could spend all day in this mall, there are so many restaurants, coffee shops, bakeries, and massage places.

Juicy is home to the jumbo dumpling with a straw, which is a bit of a gimmick.

The big menu.

You order by sheet. I filled out 4 sheets for waves of orders in advance, as I am a pro Chinese Food orderer.

The nice but typical room.

Our big table.

And the glassed in dumpling workshop!

Just like the pasta room at Felix!

We had to sneak the wine under the table — literally.

Smashed Cucumber Salad. Very tasty version. Tons of garlic and an almost sunomono-like sweet vinegar marinate.

Cold Beef Shank. Pretty much as you’d expect.

Deep Fried Crispy Eel. I liked this dish a lot, but it was many people’s least favorite as it was oily, fishy, very crispy, and sweet. Unusual combos for “white folk.” An advanced dish.

As was Preserved Egg with Tofu. But the pros like Yarom and I agreed this was a great dish. Really interesting and fabulous combination of soft cool tofu with salty umami 1000 year-old egg and what’s probably taro powder. Sort of a salty/sweet and smooth/dry soft/firm poles of taste experience.

Smoked Fish. Sweet, crispy, dry/wet, and delicious. Like the Shanghai version.

House Cold Spare Ribs. The delicious sweet red Chinese pork.

Giant Crabmeat Juicy Dumpling (6/22/18). You eat this with a straw! People said this was a gimmick, but the slurry of crab and pork inside this thing was to die for. And after you burn your tongue slurping it out you can cut it up and eat the shell like pasta.

Straw baby!

Me slurping!

Sweet Pork XLB (xao lao bao). Also known as Juicy Pork Dumpling. Really nice version of the classic. Soft skin. Juicy. Good filling. Maybe not as good as a Din Tai Fun, but great still. We actually ordered two types — savory and sweet. Never had the sweet before (pictured above).

Savory pork XLB. The classic every other place with XLB has.

Pork and Crab Dumpling. Great version of the pork and crab, with delicate but pronounced flavors. I think better than the DTF version.

Pork and Shrimp Dumpling. Whole good sized shrimp in each — delicious!

Fish Dumpling. Surprisingly excellent. Maybe even my favorite of the set.

Vegetable Dumpling.

XLB in the bath.

Boiled Pork Dumplings. I love these homestyle variants.

Crispy Onion Pancake. Not the most exciting dish, but people wanted it.

Fried meat wonton. Very nice texture and flavor. Who doesn’t love dumplings.

Fried fish wonton. Again I was surprised how good the fish ones were.

Beef rolls. Good version of this.

Salt and Pepper Crispy Cake. Buttery dough stuffed with pork and rolled in sesames.

Rich but delicious.

House Golden Crispy Cake.

Fried chewy mochi with amazing pork. Too bad I was getting very full. I still ate a couple.

Giant vegetable buns ordered by a vegetarian.

Hot and Sour Shredded Potatoes. I always love these as they are hardly a vegetable, more like Chinese French Fries.

Stir Fried Bean Seedlings with Garlic. Not bad for greens.

String beans. Good.

Garlic Eggplant. One of those perfect sweet, slightly spicy, and very garlicky eggplants.

A kind of boring noodle dish ordered by a lightweight.

Shanghai Shrimp in “supreme” sauce. Very succulent.

Hot Spare Ribs. Delicious sweet red ribs — hot.

Cumin Beef. Nice. Tender too.

Yangchow fried rice. The classic everything fried rice.

Kung Pao Chicken. Not your typical Szechuan prep, but more a pretty spicy brown sauce prep. Good though.

Shrimp with crab roe and peas. Scrumptious. Loved this dish.

Fish filets boiled in chili. Lots of mala surprisingly — very good. Hot hot.

Garlic Shredded pork. Fish flavor pork. A bit of heat. Pretty nice actually.

Red Bean Puff Pastry. What passes for dessert in China — not bad actually, I like the texture.

Chinese sesame ball soup. Eye balls in goo! Actually kind of enjoyable.

Since red bean isn’t my thing, I brought gelato on 6/22/18 when I returned. Made by me, of course: Almond Boba Tea Gelato — Oolong tea steeped milk, Romano Almonds from Noto Sicily, and topped with Boba! Here I discovered that boba get really really hard in the freezer. Next time I will have to keep them separate and add them.

On 3/30/19 I brought these:

Nocciola, Espresso e Bacio Gelato – using my new egg yolk based nut formulation with Piedmontese hazelnut to produce a stunning hazelnut base, then adding in house-made espresso caramel and chopped up bacio — 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 #Espresso #coffee #cafe #hazelnut #Nocciola #caramel #bacio

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Gelato – the base is a Fior di Latte but I made it with brown sugar instead of white so it matched the cookies better. Inclusions are cubes of house-made gluten-free (almond flour) artisinal chocolate chip cookie dough with Valrhona chocolate chunks! — 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 #CookieDough #ChocolateChipCookie #Cookie #chocolate #valrhona #BrownSugar #GlutenFree

Overall, I loved Juicy Dumpling, every time I’ve come, and will certainly return many more times in the future. I even chose this place to bring my friend Brent for our crawl. Sometimes I like this kind of northern more casual dumpling style over the more ornate Cantonese Dimsum. Just a different vibe. They also had a huge menu of other dishes. On my March 30, 2019 visit we finally ordered a bunch of the other dishes and they were quite good. They allowed us to open and drink our wines too.

Because we are hedonists, and despite being full (on 4/14/18), we had to go next door for “lunch 2.0” at Spicy City — just had to be done.

Lucky they have a red interior.

The dishes bar. Despite being super full, Yarom and I both ordered for a crazy over-eating-fest.

Cold dishes of soy beans and more pickled cucumbers.

And more cold dishes of smoked chicken and spicy pig ear.

Had to get some MaPo Tofu (pocked marked old lady face tofu). One of my favorite dishes and this version was at least a 9.

Best eaten over rice.

Then dan dan mein. Another of my favorite dishes. The spicy city version tastes great but is a little too soupy without as much nutty flavor as I like.

You mix it up.

This version has no pork — boring!

Tea Smoked Duck. Another great Szechuan dish. Like duck pastrami chunks.

Outside you can check out the size difference between a Hedonist and the typical youthful SGV denizen. And observe the whacky Chinese youth fashion. The photo doesn’t really do the outfits justice.

For part 3.0, had to get some Boba Tea.

Almond Milk Boba Tea. Good tea, but unfortunately hidden by the opaque glass.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
Comments (4)

Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Boba Tea, BYOG, Chinese cuisine, Chinese Food, dumplings, Gelato, hedonists, Maxi-Mall, Northern Chinese, SGV, Spicy City

Northern Chinese

May14

Restaurant: Northern Chinese

Location: 8450 Valley Blvd, Rosemead, CA 91770. (626) 288-9299

Date: April 8, 2018

Cuisine: Northern Chinese

Rating: tasty, interesting, and very inexpensive

Another Sunday, another fun trip to San Gabriel for more awesome Chinese!

This time to Northern Chinese, which specializes in you guessed it, Northern Chinese. Totally typical strip mall on Valley, walking distance from the previous place I went to, New Century Lobster.

Inside has that low decor drop-ceiling style we know and love.

Decent amount of space, and packed by the middle of our meal.

Meat pies. These might not look like much but they were (hot) and amazing. Very tasty ground pork.

Chinese sausage. Salty and kinda mild.

Cucumbers with chilies and cilantro. Good version of this dish with nice crunch.

Spicy sliced potatoes. I loved these with the spice already on.

Scallion pancakes. Hot but just tasted like oil. Not my thing.

Boiled dumplings. Solid versions of these, but no obvious sauce in the offering. I had to scrounge up some ingredients and mix my own.

Twice cooked special house sliced pork. Super crispy, super sweet, and amazing. Really good ultra fried pork slices.

Cumin lamb. Another great dish.

Cornbread. Looks like pancakes and who knew the Chinese made cornbread?

Chinese greens. Very nice crunchy greens actually.

Steamed fish. Boring, but decently cooked.

Spicy beef. Not a great dish. Tough beef and the sauce didn’t have any mala.

Fried chicken cartilage. Sounds gross, and the texture takes some getting used to, but actually pretty awesome.

Lamb bone soup. Bland with chunks of boney mutton. Not my favorite.
Sweet corn. Very sweet.

Overall, a tasty meal with some interesting stuff. Dishes varied in quality, but the better half were really good. Service was very “overworked” but extremely friendly. Super cheap too. We will be back.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

Love that drop ceiling.

I just gathered up the wines.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: BYOG, Chinese cuisine, dumplings, Gelato, Northern Chinese, SGV, Wine

Late Night Longo

Apr09

Restaurant: Longo Seafood Restaurant

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

Date: February 11 & June 10, 2018 and June 12 & November 6 & December 11, 2022

Cuisine: Cantonese Chinese

Rating: Great Meal, Good Deal

The first week of February (2018) my SGV radar was buzzing about a new Cantonese place in the SGV. I think because Jonathan Gold wrote it up and then several friends went. Mostly they were talking about the dim sum but most Cantonese places are really 2 in 1 with nighttime banquet service. Since then I’ve been many many times and this is a composite post of at least 5 or 6 dinners.

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

It’s one of these big formal Cantonese places.

Tanks with live seafood.

There is a big glitzy menu too, but this one is more compact.

They have tons of private rooms. Some even have their own “en suite” bathrooms.

Peanuts.

Cucumbers with a spicy bean paste.

Chicken Feet. Of course Yarom has to slip in his chicken feet to satisfy his foot fetish. These are the extra un-seasoned buggers. Pretty much no one else touched them.

Chili oil.

Cold plate. Jellyfish, Honey BBQ Pork, roast chicken, roasted pork belly. The jellyfish was spicy and first rate with nice texture. The honey BBQ pork was sweet, soft, and delicious. The pork belly had a bit of porky quality and nice crispy skin. I didn’t try the chicken but people loved it.

Sweet sauce, sugar, and hoisin.

The geoduck alive.
Geoduck and lobster sashimi. The lobster had a nice texture but almost no flavor. The geoduck, however, was incredible again with chewy clam texture and an almost sublime “of the sea” briny quality.

Wasabi and soy for the sashimi.

Fried geoduck neck, salt & pepper style. Some of the best fried clams I’ve had (again). Super light and crunchy with that chewy clam center.

Peking Duck (2/11/18). The meat was very good. This was a bun place and they serve the classic “Pseudo Peking Duck“. People have their preferences as to buns vs pancakes. I like both, but pancakes allow you to eat more!

NOTE: On my second visit, for my birthday, June 2018, I had called ahead (twice) and reserved Peking Duck — but when I got there they told me “no duck, sold out” — clearly they had sold away my duck to the highest bidder as I saw some on tables! I was fairly irritated.

Duck Meat. Sometimes they also serve the meat separately. depends. I’m not sure I actually got any of this. Looks pretty juicy, like the Cantonese roast duck that it is.

Condiments. I didn’t get to try as they were on the other side of our very large and very slow lazy susan. Again it was served with buns which are vastly inferior to pancakes. But still it was overall a very tasty duck — if not the real peking duck experience.

Duck Lettuce Cups. Totally PF Changs style but actually quite enjoyable. Nice flavor and crunch. The hoisin here is sweet and doesn’t have the punch that a good Beijing place hoisin does.

Lettuce for the duck.

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

Suckling pig (half, 2/11/18 & 6/10/18). Perfect pig. Really, really crispy with nice pork flavor.

What happened to piggy?

Macau Style Pork Belly. Piggy with nice crispy skin. Good stuff. This is what you get if you can’t handle a whole pig!

Lamb stew (2/11/18 & 6/10/18). Interesting.

Fish with garlic on bok choy (2/11/18). The garlic made it really delicious actually.

Clams with green pepper.

Scallops with snap peas. Lovely.

Frog with Chili Peppers. It was not spicy at all but the frog had a reaally nice flavor and the bones weren’t too anoying. Fish + Chicken vibe in great sauce.

Sweet buns to “calm the spice from the frog.” People loved these and they were very fluffy.

Here comes the giant King Crab!

Brian shows off the scale.

More live seafood on a different night.

El Crab returns wokked with vegetables. Stir fried crab (2/11/18).

Crab Legs with garlic (2/11/18 & 6/10/18) which was awesome.

King Crab Legs, steamed with garlic, on glass noodles. Super tender, sweet, and garlicky. Fabulous. Others raved about the noodles (which I avoided due to carbs).

Close up of that tender goodness.

King Crab Egg Custard (2/11/18 and others). This was actually the best version of this I’ve had. The custard was silky and infused with sweet soy and there were very substantial chunks of crab meat. Totally addictive.
Crab parts fried with salty yolk (6/10/18). As I’ve several times found, this isn’t my favorite prep. A bit too salty and with that grainy yolky texture.

King Crab Body, Typhoon Style. One of the best crab bodies I’ve had. Tons of meat, very sweet and still moist. The fry was very tasty with lots of garlic flavor, but was as much a bread crumb fest as garlic. This wasn’t the crack-like pure garlic crunch.

Crab fried rice (6/10/18). Great stuff!

Black Pepper Lobster. This is the head and legs part of the lobster — we ate the tail raw. It was okay, certainly well cooked, but the sauce wasn’t particularly peppery and the parts of the lobster we had (mostly legs) are a little tough to get the meat out of.

Fried tofu with mushrooms and broccoli (2/11/18 & 6/10/18). Very nice actually. Love the delicate sauce.

Kung pao chicken (6/10/18). A nice tasty version. I got some tame dishes on this day because we had a bunch of SGV noobs in the crowd.

Walnut shrimp (6/10/18). Fairly light, mayo forward version.

Sole with black bean sauce (6/10/18). Turned out to be moderately spicy!

Braised pork belly with preserved vegetables. Rich!

Filet Mignon with mushrooms. The mushrooms were great but the beef was kind of chewy. Yarom substituted this for the pork belly with preserved veggies which we supposed to have (a great dish). The beef was meh.

Pepper lamb chops. Not sure I get this dish.

Pea tendrils with garlic (2/11/18).

Ung choy (6/10/18).

Preserved fish eggs fried rice (2/11/18). Nice and salty.

Vegetable fried rice (6/10/18).

Yang Chow Fried Rice.

Simple lo mein (6/10/18). A lot of the Chinese food amateurs enjoyed this.

Seafood chow mein (6/10/18). I always love this dish.

Beef chow mein (crispy). I just ate the beef but it had that tasty MSG soft tenderized beef.

Weird sweet bean soup (2/11/18).

Another weird bean soup.

Walnut soup (6/10/18). MUCH much better than the bean soup — actually kind of pleasant.

Sweet Soup. Interesting textures and a sort of medicinal quality, it was just sweet with almost no flavor. Weird like most Chinese desserts. There were goji berries and some sort of sea plant with a jellyfish-like texture.

Custard buns (6/10/18) on the house. I enjoy these mild sweet things.

And a bit of cake (someone brought on 2/11/18).

For my birthday dinner (6/10/18) I brought some Sweet Milk Gelato I made:

On the left, a new flavor: Limoncello Zabaione Gelato, an eggy frozen zabaione made with Sorento Limoncello.

On the right, Gluten Free Triple Chocolate Cloud, Valrhona chocolate base, Valrhona cream cheese fudge, and gluten free oreo substitutes.

More gelato.

Triple Chocolate Cloud Gelato – The base is made with Valrhona 62% Satilla Chocolate and then layered with Dark Chocolate Cream Cheese Ganache and chopped Oreos! — 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 #Valrhona #chocolate #oreos #ganache #icing #NestléCrunch

Bloody Apple Pie Gelato — A Tahitian Vanilla Custard base layered with my house-made cinnamon bourbon apple pie filling, house-made Vanilla Caramel Blood, and house-made Grave Soil Charcoal Graham Crackers (GF) — 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 #applepie #apple #cinnamon #caramel #GrahamCracker #halloween

Got crabs?

The service was absolutely first rate the first time we came (2/11/18). The manager above really took care of us. The food was great too. Not the best Cantonese banquet I’ve ever had but really very nice with a lot of first rate dishes. The pig and crab were as good as it gets and the crab was a total deal at only $19-25/lb. The duck was very good too as were a number of the other dishes.

The second time for dinner (6/10/18, I had been there another time for lunch), the service was a bit different. They were mobbed. I had called ahead (twice) and reserved Peking Duck — but when I got there they told me “no duck, sold out” — clearly they had sold away my duck to the highest bidder as I saw some on tables! I was fairly irritated. They also took a LONG time to come over and take our order. Once it got rolling they were reasonably attentive. Food was still good, but they could have done a way better job with us.

In 2022 (and once so far in 2023) I went to Longo a whole mess of times. The meal follows a certain pattern, but it’s a great place for fresh seafood and lots of good Chinese eats. And the fact that they have big private rooms where they let you be loud, obnoxious, and do your wine thing is awesome!

For more LA dining reviews click here.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

I’ll post but not bother elaborate on the wines:

6/10/18 dinner wines:

By: agavin
Comments (2)

Posted in: Food

Tagged as: BYOG, Cantonese cuisine, Chinese cuisine, Gelato, Longo, Longo Seafood, Peking Duck, SGV, suckling pig, Sweet Milk, Wine

World Seafood is Elite

Mar16

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

Location: 1412 S Garfield Ave. Alhambra, CA 91801. (626) 282-3888

Date: January 27, 2018 and February 7, 2020

Cuisine: Cantonese Chinese

Rating: Elite Dimsum

I last went to World Seafood almost 2 years ago for dim sum but recently one of the Elite managers, Derek, came over to World Seafood and brought with him one of the Elite chefs. Because of the new kitchen and management I’ve decided to write a new from scratch review. Then about 2 years later Yarom, my brother and I hit it up again and it’s still great.

Typical big Cantonese house outside.
Inside a touch of new color encircles the giant Chinese-style banquet hall.

They have a much bigger space than Elite and gave us an elaborate private room.

The menu (1/7/20).

Sauces, including XO sauce on the right.

Spicy crunchy cold cucumbers.

Pork Shui-Mai. Great versions of the classic.

Chicken feet in house sauce. Not my thing, but some like it.

Shrimp and Chinese Chive Dumpling. What’s better than shrimp dumpling? Shrimp with Chive!

Fun guo, or Chaozhou fun guo sometimes spelled fun quor, fun gor, fen guo, Chiu Chow dumpling, Teochew dumpling, or fun kor is a variety of steamed dumpling from the Chaoshan area of coastal eastern Guangdong, a province in Southern China.

Shanghai Style Steamed Bun. We love XLB, and these particular examples were awesome. Nice and delicate and easy to slurp out of the little tins.

Har Gow (Crystal shrimp). Excellent versions of the standard.

Special dumplings with meat, shrimp, and vegetables.

Scallop and shrimp dumplings.

Sea Cucumber Roll. Lettuce leaves filled with pork, shrimp, sea cucumber and topped with masago.

Beef balls. A touch dense.

Tofu wrap. Mostly vegetables and some pork? wrapped in bean curd. Hot and soft and delicious.

Sautéed pea tendrils with garlic. A nice version because lots of garlic.

Sautéd string beans with minced pork. A touch bland, or under salted.

Special shrimp. A lot of good flavor with peanuts and a bit of spice.

Baked chicken bun. Delicious slightly sweet crunchy exterior top filled with chopped seasoned chicken meat.

BBQ Pork Bun. Like a jelly donut, just filled instead with porky goodness!

Fried Meat Dumpling. This was the chewy fried rice coating with sweet ground meat paste inside. I’ve had better versions of these, the filling here was a bit boring.

Crab cream roll. Some bits of crab and maybe cream-cheese deep fried. Much like a crab rangoon. Mayo sauce. Pretty tasty if very fried.

Flakey baked pork bun. The buttery flakey batter around sweet BBQ pork. Really delicious.

Peking duck! We asked and he had — even at lunch! Very nice duck too.

Pan fried shrimp and scallion cake. I had these in Fuijian province. Really delicious and very greasy (in a good way).

Preserved meat crepe. Chewy and bland.

Green onion rice noodle. Bland.

Fried shrimp rice noodle. Excellent.

Sticky rice with chicken in lotus leaf. Pretty good.

White boy shrimp (aka walnut shrimp). Nice version.

Macau pork. Pan fried roast pork. Tasty!

Macau Style Roast Pork Belly (2/7/20). Delicious. Different than it was a few years ago.

Fried Chicken Cartilage with Garlic. Crunchy and the garlic was great. Chewy insides.

Roast Duck. Nice and juicy. Served with sweet sauce.

House special fried rice. Nice kitchen sink rice.

Seafood Chow Mein. Those crispy little noodles I love soaked in a seafood sauce. Great noodle dish.

Coconut buns. Delicious!

Milk buns with custard. Also good. They have a lot of interesting Chinese desserts here but we were full.
Plus I had brought my own homemade dessert: PeaNutella & Jelly Frenzy Gelato – Peanut Butter base layered with everyone’s mob crazy spread and strawberry jelly. Plus bonus peanut butter cookies!

Overall, World Seafood has now leapt into the top SGV dimsum houses. It’s very much like Elite (wonder why) and super yummy. Big menu of with all sorts of Cantonese treats. Their banquet is great too.

As of 2/7/20 I still thought World Seafood was very good, in the “A level” of SGV dimsum. Big menu, interesting stuff, fresh, piping hot, and all that goodness.

By: agavin
Comments (4)

Posted in: Food

Tagged as: BYOG, Cantonese cuisine, Chinese cuisine, Dim sum, dimsum, Gelato, hedonists, Lunch Quest, SGV, World Seafood, World Seafood Restaurant

Mountain Hot Pot

Mar05

On one of my 2018 trips to Mammoth for skiing some friends hosted us (two nights in a row) at their condo for homemade Chinese Hot Pot. Yay!

And we returned on New Year’s Eve for even more great hot pot.

I was in charge of the libations. From my cellar: 2011 Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey Saint-Aubin 1er Cru En Remilly Cuvée Nicholas et Mathis. 93 points.

Our hosts Wendy and Alex pulled out all the stops, cutting up all the additives like the above tofu and veggies.

Beef — higher quality than at most hot pot places.

Beef, pork, squid, and fish balls. I love these.

Shrimp.

Mushrooms.

Glass noodles.

From my cellar: 2004 Domaine Michel Gros Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru Aux Brulées. BH 89. Deep ruby. Distinctly ripe and perfumed aromas of warm earth, underbrush, spice, dark berry fruit and a subtle smokiness complement perfectly the supple, sweet but robust medium full flavors that finish with impressive complexity and solid power. This is firmly structured but not hard or aggressive and the natural ripeness of Brulées comes through here.

The broth by itself. It was a pork broth.

Some of the ultra-tender pork meat that came out of the broth.

Condiments to use in constructing dipping sauce. This was also my job.

Our hosts, Wendy left and Alex right. Chopping away!

The loaded hot pot!

So on 12/31/18 we returned for another round of even more over the top hot pot.

This is one serious home hot pot spread!

Three types of mushrooms, tofu and bean curd.

On the right 3-4 flavors of “meatballs.”

Fish cakes!

From my cellar: 1997 Maison Roche de Bellene Chambertin Collection Bellenum. 96 points. This wine was drinking superbly tonight.

Four kinds of meat including pork belly, lamb, and two awesome types of beef!

Veggies.

Marinated tofu.

And an array of sauce components.

As New Year approached we, of course, cracked the Krug.

Our host additionally made this amazing Apple Pie.

And homemade mochi / red bean “brownies”.
Wendy takes her Ice Cream seriously. Look at the freezer drawer!!!

Overall, a fabulous and fun meal. Better than at some of the hot pot restaurants I’ve been too and loads of fun.

By: agavin
Comments (2)

Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Chinese cuisine, home cooking, hot pot, Mammoth Lakes

Eating Adelaide – Ding Hao

Feb22

Restaurant: Ding Hao

Location: 26 Gouger St, Adelaide SA 5000, Australia. +61 8 8211 7036

Date: December 25, 2017

Cuisine: Cantonese Dim Sum

Rating: Not bad

Christmas Day in Adelaide and what do you do, even when on the other side of the world? Eat Chinese Food!

Adelaide’s chinatown was just around the corner from our hotel so I picked the busiest looking dim sum parlor.

Inside it doesn’t look much — if any — different than it might in the states.

Chili sauce.

Sadly, since the rest of my party doesn’t like Chinese food I was ordering just for myself and so couldn’t get that much. Had to try the classics though.

Shu Mai. Fine version. Not too gigantic (I don’t like them huge).

Steamed pork bun. I would rather have had the baked type with the sweet glaze but the filling was very good.

Scallop and shrimp dumplings. Nice. Very fresh too.
I was full but I saw XLB (xao lao bao) pork soup dumplings on the menu and had to order some up. Took 20 minutes to steam too but totally worth it.

Not bad at all from the couple dishes I had. Considerably better than the place I ate at in New York’s Chinatown last summer.

For more Australia dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Australia, Chinese cuisine, Dim sum, dimsum, Ding Hao, eating-australia

Quick Eats – Tasty Noodle

Jan25

Restaurant: Tasty Noodle House

Location: 2117 Sawtelle Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90025. (424) 248-3232

Date: November 27 & December 15, 2017 and January 5 & February 23 & March 16, 2018 and February 12, 2020

Cuisine: Shanghai Chinese

Rating: Large menu modern Chinese Cafe

Sawtelle Blvd is on fire and has 4-5 new opening in the last 2 months. One of the latest is Tasty Noodle House which is a very Chinese, SGV style, modern Chinese cafe. Pretty much appealing to 20 year old Chinese — and me. A bunch of these new openings are actually Chinese so the street focus is drifting from all Japanese to pan-Asian.

I think it used to be the Okonomiyaki place.The interior looks exactly like all these cheaper Chinese places on the street. Basically how to get a hint of decor while spending the least money possible.

But they did spend some bucks on the gigantic menu. It’s pretty much broad modern mainland Chinese with favorites, a lot of Shanghai and Beijing dishes.

Slightly spiced peanuts on the table to start.

Strawberry smoothie.Mango slushie. For some reason they don’t have boba!

Spicy Cold Cucumber Salad (2/12/20). Good crunch and a bit of garlicky spice.

Cold Spicy Chicken (2/12/20). Very nice. No bones, juicy meat, and a savory/sweet/spicy sauce with excellent flavor.

Xiao Lao Bao (XLB) pork soup dumplings (everytime). These are the best XLB I’ve had on the westside. They were considerably better than at nearby ROC which actually specializes in them. They had a tastier filling. You add the vinegar and soy sauce to the ginger bowl above.

Pan fried Shanghai Dumplings. These are the breadier, more fried version of the pork soup dumplings — awesomely tasty too.

Sticky Rice Shu-Mai (2/12/20). Interesting carb on carb action as these felt like dumplings filled with brown sticky rice!

House Sauce Noodles w/ Pork. Translation leaves a bit to be desired.

Mixed up. I enjoyed this dish a lot. The sauce is very sweet with a broad bean base and a TON of pork. If you mixed in a cup of Szechuan chili oil, some sesame paste, and used less sauce it would basically be a dan dan mein. I’m not sure they have real dan dan here. I’ll look next time. But this one, despite being sweet, did have a flavor profile I really liked. Noodles were a touch thin.

Plain noodles for my son.

Pan-seared green chili pepper w/ minced pork black bean sauce (many times and 2/12/20). Probably the same sauce as the house special noodles, but delicious just the same. I really liked this dish.Prawn with spicy minced pork sauce noodle soup. The soup itself is a mild light pork broth like a super mild cabbage ramen. Actually fairly tasty.Then the prawns come on the side like this. The sauce for the prawns is that goopy, garlicky, slightly spicy sauce that is often used for shrimp and I LOVE. It went well enough in the soup, but I will have to get this dish in a variant with lots of the sauce over rice on a return trip.

And here it is a few weeks later, the full sized prawns doused in sauce all by themselves (comes with a bowl of rice on the side) — yum!

Fish, shrimp, crab, and squid with crab sauce and snake gourd (2/12/20). Snake Gourd turns out to just be a green Chinese squash. Nice light garlicky seafood mush with slightly crunchy vegetable.

Spicy fish filet and tofu with rice (2/23/18). Pretty much similar to the Szechuan boiled dish below, but a sauce over rice. Almost more successful in this format, I enjoyed the soft textures.

Fish Fillet & Beef w/ Spicy Sauce. This is a Szechuan dish, but it’s not really a Szechuan place. There was plenty of garlic, but not much mala. The chili oil was too one note for my taste, it should have been fried with aromatics. So this dish turned out to be like a 6/10 for it’s type (which is a very typical Szechuan type). They actually have a better one across the street at Popcorn Chicken (and that one isn’t that great either). But as I said, this isn’t a Szechuan restaurant and you can bet the chef isn’t central Chinese (but more likely from Shanghai or Taiwan).

Spicy Beef with Tofu (3/16/18 and 2/12/20). Slightly spicy variant on the brown sauce. Nice texture with the firm bean curd. A touch salty.

Pork Belly with preserved vegetables (2/12/20). Meat was a touch dry and the vegetables not as salty/umami as they are in the best forms of this dish, but still enjoyable.

Cumin Lamb (2/12/20). Not very spicy, or massively cumined, but nice.

Pork with Leeks (2/12/20). Perhaps a twice cooked pork? Very nice smoked flavor and porky grease tone to the dish. Made the leeks delicious too.

On 2/12/20 I brought some gelato too:

Raspberry Sorbetto — French Raspberries and a touch of lime juice — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — Unusual for me to go so “straight” with my flavors but I wanted a complement to a complex flavor — #SweetMilkGelato #gelato #dessert #icecream #FrozenDessert #nomnom #dessertlovers #dessertporn #icecreamlovers #gelatoitaliano #foodporn #gelatolover #food #foodgasm #foodblogger #dessertgasm #desserttime #foodphotography #gelatoartigianale #gelatomania #dessertlover #icecream #icecreamlovers #sorbetto #raspberry

Crackerjack Gelato – Smooth Peanut Base with homemade Dulce de Leche Ribbon, Toffee Peanuts, and Caramel Popcorn! — 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 #caramel #DulceDeLeche #Popcorn #CaramelCorn

In the bowl you can see that Dulce de Leche.

Wines from 2/12/20.

Overall, I’m glad to have so many real Chinese dishes move to the westside. This is a cafe style restaurant, like Northern Cafe, and as such has more casual cooking at a lower level than a big menu more “dinner” restaurant like Beijing Tasty House. But it’s very welcome because it gives yet another great option to an already awesome area. It’s slightly Shanghai in style but with a lot of Beijing type and lightweight Szechuan dishes in the way that’s very popular in China now.

I do have to say that on my 2/12/20 visit the food had really sharpened up. It wasn’t perfect, or again as good as a very good “higher end” SGV place, but execution was pretty on point and we had many delicious dishes.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

Wines from 2/12/20:

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Chinese cuisine, Sawtelle Little Tokyo, Tasty Noodle, XLB

OG Monterey Park – Dean Sin World

Jan22

Restaurant: Dean Sin World

Location: 306 N Garfield Ave, Monterey Park, CA 91754. (626) 571-0636

Date: December 8, 2017

Cuisine: Chinese Bakery

Rating: So OG

One of my friends wanted some Chinese pastries to take home for an event later in the evening so we got a referral to a “takeout pastry place.” Little did we know it would be the most old school spot imaginable.

Check out this frontage. It can’t even decide if it’s Tastito or Dean Sin World. And what the hell is a Dean Sin? And why is it a world? They get a B, which is impressive given the kitchen. Apparently though “dean sin” is Mandarin for dim sum.

Anyway, inside barely looks like a store. But it’s actually a restaurant (with two 2 tops)!

The menu is on the white board.

Various “pies” lay about.

We got some of everything. There was red bean, pork, crab and stuff. Sesame bun. Who knows what else. The pork was good but DENSE. The crab and stuff was strange but kinda good.

The nice owner was proud to show off the (scary) kitchen. There were vats of pink goo (I think red bean paste) on the floor. The health department doesn’t let you keep pots of food on the floor (because of vermin), but I don’t think Dean Sin cares.

Buns in the oven.

Out in the main room a fridge of mystery.

And why is this in the dining room? What is it? Costco table.Cool ceiling panel!

An experience to be sure. Apparently they make real hot food here too if you order it. I’m not sure I’m brave enough.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Chinese cuisine, Dean Sin World, SGV

Chang’s Garden

Jan19

Restaurant: Chang’s Garden

Location: 627 W Duarte Rd. Arcadia, CA 91007. (626) 445-0707

Date: December 8, 2017

Cuisine: Shanghai Chinese

Rating: Solid place

Friday lunch is the perfect excuse to head out to the SGV for Chinese — actually being alive is a perfect excuse for Chinese food!

My friend George has a list of top regional restaurants in the SGV and this one came up, so we decided to try.

Typical SGV interior from years ago.

Takeout counter. And look, they even have wine!

The usual large menu.

Lunch comes with free hot and sour soup. The typical (yummy) kind.

Lotus wrapped pork spareribs.

Inside is a sticky-rice coated pork spare rib. Delicious. Succulent, and lotus flavored.

Long Jing shrimp. Delicate shrimp with famous green tea. They had a nice green tea flavor.

Three ingredient lo-mein. The server pushed this on us. It was fine, but nothing special.

XLB (pork soup dumplings). Delicious!
West Lake Style Fish. A whole fish in a goopy sweet and sour sauce. Delicious, although tons of bones.

This was a nice place and all the dishes except for the lomein were great (noodles were just fine). I think this place is actually Zhejiang Cuisine (i.e. the Hangzhou lake district south of Shanghai).

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Chang's Garden, Chinese cuisine, Chinese Food, SGV, Shanghai Cuisine

Fancy Feast – Bistro Na

Jan10

Restaurant: Bistro Na

Location: 9055 E Las Tunas Dr #105, Temple City, CA 91780. (626) 286-1999

Date: November 29, 2017 & March 3, 2018

Cuisine: Chinese

Rating: Upscale Chinese, solid kitchen

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.

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.

The menu is a hardcover thick paged photo tome!

Here I am with it.

NV Billecart-Salmon Champagne Brut Rosé. VM 92. Pale orange. High-pitched red berry, orange zest and jasmine aromas, with suave mineral and smoky lees notes adding complexity. Spicy and precise on the palate, showing very good punch to its strawberry and bitter cherry flavors. Opens up smoothly with air and picks up a bitter rhubarb quality that lingers onto the long, tightly focused finish. This bottling showed more brawny character than many past renditions of this <em>cuvée</em>, but with no lack of vivacity.

Pork trotter jelly. Yes, a vinegary jelly of pig’s feet. Actually pretty tasty.

Spicy marinated pork (3/4/18). Not really spicy but very delicious cold marinated pork. A bit pastrami-like.

Traditional Beijing Noodles (3/4/18). Served with noodles, radish/soy bean/cucumber and the sauce. You mix it all together.Lovely complex flavor. Not super strong or anything, but very nice.

Smoked pork ribs. Very nice soft roast ribs. Very aromatic.

From my cellar: 2014 Domaine Sylvain Pataille Bourgogne Blanc Chardonnay Rose.

Crispy shrimp. You can eat the shells.

Grandmother’s pork belly. The super fatty red pork belly. A nice version.

Lobster in salty egg batter. This very salty egg-yolk batter is usually used for shrimp. Here it was lobster. Pretty good, although rich and salty.

Lobster steamed with garlic (3/4/18). Having learned from the salty lobster we went with this simple steamed with garlic version — over thin egg noodles. Great. Really nice sweet preparation.

House special scallops (3/4/18). Usually I’m not a fan of the brown sauce but this was a great one, with some sugar, but complemented nicely with the tender scallops.

Spicy Fried Whole Fish (3/4/18). Very tasty Szechuan style fish. The sauce was very similar to the Ma Po (below) and also had that slightly bitter tinge.

Chevy brought: 2015 Tablas Creek Côtes de Tablas. VM 90-92. Inky ruby. Ripe cherry, floral pastilles, black pepper and allspice on the perfumed nose. Densely packed, sweet and focused in the mouth, offering intense dark berry and bitter cherry flavors that slowly become sweeter with aeration. Shows very good energy and strong lift on the clinging, spicy finish, which is framed by youthfully chewy tannins.

Lamb chops in pepper sauce. Nice, although certainly not traditional. Even the onions were good.

Scallion pancakes. Very doughty, which I didn’t like because it was bland. A Chinese friend who is there said they were nicely home style though.

Beef pies. These I liked a lot. Very hot and full of juice. We had a couple incidents with them spraying out and splattering on others!

Chevy brought: 2013 O’Shaughnessy Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain. VM 95+. Deep, inky and powerful, the 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain is a classic wine endowed with tons of regional character and personality to burn. The inclusion of all seven Bordeaux varieties in the blend adds layers of nuance and complexity. Hints of game, smoke, licorice and dark spices add nuance to a somber, brooding Cabernet Sauvignon that is going to need at least a few years to fully open up.

Kung Pao Chicken (3/4/18). A slightly unusual variant with candied walnuts. But had a really nice and interesting balance of hot, sour, sweet, and numbing. Slightly different, but excellent.

Beef in chili sauce. The classic Szechuan dish. There was some mala and a lot of garlic. Not a bad version of the dish for a non-Szechuan restaurant. It didn’t have the depth of flavor a great one has though.

Crispy Lamb (3/4/18). Tender lamb with a very flakey but thick crispy fry. Super delicious. This dish was a 10.

Chinese Mustard Greens. The usual Chinese green prep, but with mushrooms and a slightly less usual green. Nice and crunchy.

Broccoli and pork shoulder (3/4/18). Fabulous vegetable dish with nice crunchy texture and good porky flavor.

Cabbage. I always like these cabbage dishes.

Fried tofu. Very interesting texture. I liked it.

Ma Po Tofu (3/4/18). Good amount of heat and mala (numbing). A touch bitter, maybe becuse of the particular Szechuan peppercorn or maybe because of the chili oil. Tofu was a touch firmer and less silken than I like. Still good though.

Purple Rice (3/4/18). Numerous Prince jokes ensued, but we had to take the purple rice because mysteriously, and amazingly, they we “out” of white rice — how is a Chinese restaurant out of white rice? It was 9:30ish and they had turned off the rice cookers to clean them.

Shrimp fried rice. Nice.

Cheese fish. It was a kind of cheese jelly/custard with a mild caramel sauce. The overall effect was very mild. Not even super sweet but not a lot of flavor. Nice texture though and looked cool.

Free fruit.

On 3/4/18, I brought 3 flavors of Sweet Milk Gelato that I made as well. Gelato al Cioccolato di Modica – This weekend’s treat heads to the deep south (Sicily) for some ultra local/traditional fun. A medium super smooth chocolate base with chunks of of Modica Chocolate (a classic crumbly Sicilian chocolate made in the old style).

And I had a bit left of:

Turmeric Latte Gelato – milk base steeped in turmeric with a touch of cinnamon, cardamon, and ginger! And yep, that yellow is all natural.

Blueberry Cheesecake Gelato – a cheesecake base with French blueberries layered with graham cracker crumble and topped with house-made blueberry coulis.

The gang poses in the room on 11/29/17. We finished the place out since Chinese rarely stay past 8:30. Look at the table carefully as it’s small for a Chinese round table and they consider it 6-8 people but it’s barely 6 for us.

Our 3/4/18 table. They consider this 8-10 people. We were a little tight with 7.

It didn’t include space for all the wine baggage either!
Overall, a nice place. The allowed corkage and service was very pleasant — however it was a touch confused as is often the case at Chinese places. They had all these managers and the like but couldn’t quite coordinate. But they were extremely nice!

Food was good. A tiny bit pricey for the SGV, but the atmosphere was lovely and the plating much more elegant. Some dishes were excellent and some just pretty good. I’m not really sure what regionality of Chinese it is. Sort of Beijing/Shanghai maybe? It does feel very contemporary Chinese and is certainly not aimed at white folk.

On the second visit the food was even better — really very good — and slightly different than many SGV places. There was a brief wait at the beginning, and they don’t have large enough tables except in the private rooms (booked). However, service was excellent and very attentive. They modified dishes a bit, gave us 7 pieces of things that were 6 by default, and were accommodating to our pacing needs. I really like Bistro Na and will return again.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

A few of the wines from the 3/4/18 dinner:

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Bistro Na's, BYOG, Chinese cuisine, Chinese Food, Gelato, SGV, Wine

Chicken Crawl – Savoy Kitchen

Dec13

Restaurant: Savoy Kitchen

Location: 138 E Valley Blvd, Alhambra, CA 91801. Phone number (626) 308-9535

Date: November 04, 2017

Cuisine: Hainan Chicken

Rating: Decent curry

Occasionally those of us Hedonists who are really serious about our Chinese food do a food crawl of some sort. Today’s was 5 stops, all for Hainan Chicken Rice. This is a traditional dish of Hainan Provence in southern China and is one of the national dishes of Singapore. Poached at low temp with garlic and ginger. The broth is supposed to be used to cook the rice. It is served with a variety of sauces.

This is part 5. The full set is: [Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5]

Savoy is a corner on the main drag of Valley Blvd right in Alhambra, close to dozens of places I’ve eaten at.

The menu.

Hainan Chicken of course. This was my least favorite chicken. It was pretty straight up. Soy, ginger, and spicy sauce. The rice was totally normal white rice — fail!

“famous” beef curry. It wasn’t bad. Typical Indonesian brown curry with potatoes and beef. Here is a closer aproximation of the garlic rice.

This was my least favorite place, or at least my least favorite Hainan Chicken. The menu was really odd, Hong Kong cafe style in that it has curry, chicken, lots of sloppy looking weird pasta, and pizza! Woah.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Chinese cuisine, Chinese Food, Hainan Chicken, hedonists, Savoy Kitchen, SGV

Chicken Crawl – Dong Nguyen

Dec11

Restaurant: Dong Nguyen

Location: 1433 E Valley Blvd, Alhambra, CA 91801. (626) 300-8618

Date: November 04, 2017

Cuisine: Hainan Chicken

Rating: Good sauce

This is part 4. The full set is: [Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5]

Somewhere, somewhen, someone decided to build a mall in the SGV and decorate it with Old West meets New Orleans style! Then it was occupied entirely by Asian businesses.

Yeah, even the tower.

Now there is a tough name to say.

The inside is “casual.”

With an intriguing east/west blend of decor. Notice those 19th century French portraits.

House soup. Everyone gets one. It was very mild and basically spinach soup or something but was actually surprisingly good.

Hainan Chicken. Dark meat. Rice was just regular rice as far as I could tell. The sauce, which can only be described as garlic fish sweet and sour sauce was delicious. Best sauce maybe of the day. The closest rival was at Red Chicken.

They also have a good sized mixed Chinese and Vietnamese menu. We didn’t try any of it though.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Chinese cuisine, Chinese Food, Dong Nguyen, food crawl, Hainan Chicken, hedonists, SGV

Chicken Crawl – Tasty Food

Dec09

Restaurant: Tasty Food

Location: 8150 Garvey Ave, Ste 117C, Rosemead, CA 91770. Phone number (626) 569-1867

Date: November 04, 2017

Cuisine: Hainan Chicken

Rating: Very succulent

This is part 3. The full set is: [Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5]

Inside this mall food court is another world.

A place straight out of early 80s Singapore or something. It’s incredibly “old school” and “value oriented.”
Tasty Food has a reputation for having great Hainan Chicken.

As a food mall kiosk, the menu hangs on the wall.

They also have both poached and friend.

Alas, they ran out of rice and wouldn’t serve us any chicken without it! So we had to move on with no chicken!!

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Chinese cuisine, Chinese Food, food crawl, Hainan Chicken, hedonists, Mall Food, SGV, Tasty Food

Chicken Crawl – Red Chicken

Dec08

Restaurant: Red Chicken

Location: 1001 E Las Tunas Dr, San Gabriel, CA 91776. (626) 872-0620

Date: November 04, 2017

Cuisine: Hainan Chicken

Rating: Fried chicken was amazing

This is part 2. The full set is: [Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5]

Red Chicken is a Singapore/Thai place on Las Tunas.

Small and casual.

Limited menu, but a few things besides Hainan Chicken — plus it comes in 2 main varieties (fried and poached).

Hainan Chicken. The poached variety. A bit stronger than Side Chick, with milder broth. Might be dark meat. The rice wasn’t as good.

Fried chicken. This was incredible. Perfectly crispy delicious chicken strips. The tangy/spicy sauce was good too.

Here the straight spicy and a slightly sweet spicy one that was awesome.

Chicken curry. The noodles were just meh but the curry itself, while a touch sweet, was delicious and the flakey pita-like bread incredible in the curry.