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Archive for Chinese Food

GV (is) Yummy

Sep12

Restaurant: GV Yummy

Location: 203 W Valley Blvd Alhambra, CA 91801. 626-872-6677

Date: May 26 & July 3, 2021

Cuisine: Qing Dao Chinese

Rating: Really good kitchen, albeit sketchy service

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I’ve eaten at this location as at least 4 restaurants. Because of this Yarom and I went out on one of our reconnaissance missions nad tried it ourselves and determined that it was worthy of a real dinner later.

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It’s the familiar spot that once housed Sham Tsem (Alahambra), New Bay, and Happy Table.
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Then after that it was “New Qing Dao” and the sign still lingers, but now it’s “GV Yummy.” It’s still Qing Dao style though.
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The interior looks the same.
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Big menu, poorly printed.

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For our real dinner we grouped in the private room.
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Jellyfish heads with cucumbers and aged vinegar. These were some of the best jellyfish I’ve had. The heads were most definitely heads, not tentacles, and the sauce was sweet and tangy.
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Special Qing Dao “tossed clear noodles” made out of some kind of starch. These had a jelly-like texture that was pleasing, but basically no flavor. The sauce was a bit sweet and savory at the same time. Not my favorite. Not bad in any way, just bland.
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Pigs feet in brown sauce.
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Special scallops with glass noodles. These were superb. Very garlicky too. Unusual with great texture and flavor.

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Stir-fried shrimp with Chinese cabbage. Amazing dish. The shells and head juice are cooked down into the sauce and both the shrimp and the cabbage had tons of flavor.
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Walnut shrimp. Yeah, a guilty pleasure, but very enjoyable.
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Golden lobster. This was the heavy egg yolk fry which isn’t my favorite. I prefer more garlic.

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Seafood with tofu. This is a Qing Dao dish and while very interesting, it was fairly bland. Cottage cheese like texture.
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Spicy fried chicken. Superb version of this dish.
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Eggplant with pork (and potatoes). Another fabulous dish. Succulent pork and a really great flavor. We ordered 2-3 times.
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Hot Chili Oil Beef. The classic Sichuan boiled chili beef. Good version with some mala.
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Stewed Beef Brisket with Tomato. Another great homestyle dish.
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Cumin Lamb. Excellent version.
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Grilled chili lamb chop. Very succulent with a strong lamb flavor.
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Fruit.

Overall, the food was very good here. Most of the dishes were very on point with a lot of flavor and great texture. I really think the kitchen is quite excellent and the Qing Dao style is relatively new to me and tasty. There are some Sichuan dishes as well.

Service was mixed. At our lunch we had a really nice young English speaking server who was very friendly and helpful. But for our larger dinner we experienced a pretty steep language barrier and very confused and sluggish service. There was definitely some “self serve” with regard to napkins, plates etc (where I go up and loot their supplies from the main room). Still, I only really care about the food.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

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Related posts:

  1. Rice Yummy
  2. Raw Crab Guts are Yummy
  3. Squid Guts are Yummy
  4. Yasu = Yummy
  5. Yamakase Yummy
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Chinese Food, GV Yummy, Qing Dao, SGV

China Red by Day

Mar04

Restaurant: China Red [1, 2]

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

Date: January 23, 2020

Cuisine: Chinese

Rating: A- dim sum

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Continuing our Lunch Quest series of random lunch visits we decide to check in on the China Red dim sum.
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For some reason I’ve been on a run of places on the slightly more “Eastern” half of the main SGV. Slightly more annoying drive too as it’s 10-15 minutes further.

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The outside.

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The interior is typical midsized Cantonese. There is some DM (deferred maintenance). This is very Chinese, but the place is only a couple years old and is showing some wear and tear.
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Zoom.
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Sauces.
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Har Gow (shrimp dumplings) – large, but hot and good.
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Chicken feet in XO sauce.
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Pork ribs — ugly but tasty.
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Shu Mai (pork and shrimp dumplings) — large but tasty version of the classic.
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Shrimp and Leek Dumplings — quite nice. One of the better dumplings.
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Sticky rice in lotus leaf — good.
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Crunchy baked BBQ pork bun — slightly mushy interior.
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Pork Rib Chow Fun — I didn’t realize that this was just the ribs on top of some chow fun. I would have ordered a different one had I known.
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Dumplings with an interesting peanut and meat paste inside. I didn’t adore.
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XLB (Xao Lao Bao) – juicy pork dumplings. Very nice version.
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Shrimp paste with almonds – Basically a shrimp spring roll covered in almonds. Interesting texture.
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Another dumpling type with a brown spinach mush inside — not my favorite at all.
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Beef balls — ok.
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Crispy fried squab — very dense and meaty. Not my favorite squab.
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Spicy cabbage — I love this dish as always.
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Double Shot Gelato — Hot brewed espresso gelato with house-made dark chocolate hazelnut ganache — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — this will keep you up! — #dessert #icecream #FrozenDessert #nomnom #dessertlovers #dessertporn #icecreamlovers #gelatoitaliano #foodporn #gelatolover #food #foodgasm #foodblogger #dessertgasm #desserttime #foodphotography #gelatoartigianale #gelatomania #dessertlover #icecream #icecreamlovers #chocolate #valrhona #espresso #coffee #hazelnut #ganache

Peppered Lemongrass Ginger Creme Brûlée Gelato — A blended milk and Thai coconut cream base steeped with lemongrass and ginger and then juiced up with yuzu and black pepper. For sugar, I used coconut palm sugar and even torched the top! — created 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 #lemongrass #ginger #CremeBrûlée #BlackPepper #coconut #yuzu

China Red is a solid “made to order” dimsum place. It’s better than pretty much all the cart places, but it’s not the best ever, and the menu is pretty small and straightforward. Which place is the best in the SGV is always changing, but generally 2-3 are A+ and a whole bunch are good but not quite as good — that’s where China Red falls.

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

Related posts:

  1. Derek moved to China Red
  2. Ring in Tang Gong
  3. Jiang Nan Spring
  4. Shanghailander Arcadia
  5. SGV Nights – Seafood Palace
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: BYOG, Cantonese cuisine, Chinese Food, Dim sum, dimsum, Gelato, Har Gow, Lunch Quest, SGV, Yarom

Last Supper – Ho Kee

Feb21

Restaurant: Ho Kee Cafe

Location: 558 Las Tunas Dr, Arcadia, CA 91007. (626) 822-3399

Date: December 29, 2019

Cuisine: Hong Kong Chinese

Rating: Quite good

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The last Sunday of 2019, the last trip to the SGV, the last (restaurant) Chinese meal of the year…

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Skylar arranged this banquet at Ho Kee Cafe in Arcadia, ordering a bunch of off menu dishes.
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The decor is fairly modern.
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Our menu was all in Chinese.
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And we had this cute private room all to ourselves.
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Salty peanuts on the table.
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Pork belly with tangy jellyfish — first rate jellyfish, snappy with a great marinated flavor.
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Hoisin and sugar to use on the pork.
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Causeway style crab — salty and garlicky. Had to crunch thru shells but they were soft enough.
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The house collected the garlic afterward so we could snack on it.
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House special lobster — excellent — on tasty garlic noodles.
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Succulent shrimp with celery — very delicate and nice with good textural contrast.
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Vegetables featuring lily roots, mushrooms, greens, and oyster mushrooms — very nice actually.
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Lily Snails — but I think was actually conch — crunchy. Attractive plating.
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Ginger steamed turbot — very delicate.
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Sesame 100 flower chicken — layered with shrimp paste — nice.
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Sliced Peking duck — served with buns.
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Duck meat and sweet sauce — nice meat, not as boney as some and very moist.
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French Style Beef — one of the most succulent and tender I’ve had.
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A-choy with garlic — good.
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Typhoon Fried rice — a touch dry. Used the same seasonings as the lobster (in theory).
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I was winding down gelato production for the year and so the freezers were already off but I did have this large bowl of fresh Sweet Milk Gelato Chocolate Mousse that Jerome and I made a day or so before. This is serious chocolate mousse made with classic French technique and Valrhona chocolate.
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The gang.

Overall, Ho Kee Cafe was very good. Pretty similar to Cantonese. Plating was very attractive, service great, and kitchen execution excellent. A fitting way to finish out a year filled with lots of great Chinese food!

For more LA dining reviews click here.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

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Related posts:

  1. SGV Nights – Seafood Palace
  2. So Many Palaces, So Few Sundays
  3. Top Island Seafood
  4. Day of the Dumplings
  5. Cui Hua Lou – Szechuan Shed
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: BYOG, Chinese cuisine, Chinese Food, Chocolate Mousse, duck, hedonists, Ho kee, Ho Kee Cafe, Hong Kong Cuisine, Lobster, SGV

888 Seafood – Banquet

Feb03

Restaurant: 海珍大酒樓 888 seafood restaurant [1, 2]

Location: 8450 Valley Blvd, Rosemead, CA 91770. (626) 573-1888

Date: December 8, 2019

Cuisine: Cantonese Chinese

Rating: Amazing whole pig

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Sunday night is always the night for full on SGV adventures and December was a banner month. Tonight’s dinner starts off a run of four back to back Sunday Asian dinners.

First up is at 888 Seafood which is one of those “grand dames” of the SGV, being an old Cantonese Banquet hall serving dimsum during the day and Cantonese Banquet at night. It’s got some serious 1980s Hong Kong style decor. Ron was here recently and wanted us to return because he said the pig was amazing (which it is, as you shall see).
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Check out our ginormous private room and its Trompe-l’œil marble style — plus really grungy Vegas carpet. But the room was great. Tons of space and a HUGE round table!

Yarom, Jerome, and I dropped by a few days in advance and planned the menu personally with the manager, Lucy.
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Boiled peanuts.
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XO sauce.
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A bevy of other sauces.
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Cold appetizer plate.
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Zoom on the plate with cold cuts, jellyfish, pickled seaweed, vegetables, preserved egg etc.  The meats were good and interesting. This wasn’t my favorite jellyfish — it was fine — but it wasn’t as tangy or “snappy” as I like it.
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Spicy beef tendon. This wasn’t super spicy, and it had a chewy gelatinous texture, but it was really really good. Nice flavor and really fun to chew.
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Spicy hot and sour soup. Full of tripe. Super spicy. Actually, too spicy even for me. I could eat it, but it had this INTENSE green pepper heat that made your throat burn, your eyes water, and you want to cough. Seriously spicy even for a spice addict.
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Curry lobster. We meant to order Causeway Style Lobster but they goofed — glad they did because this “Singapore-style” curry lobster was very interesting.
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Here comes piggy!
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Suckling pig. Maybe full grown pig. haha. This giant pig was amazing. Super crunchy skin, super hot and succulent meat.

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He’s propped up on some kind of canister.
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And was served with buns.
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Plus hoisin and scallions.
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Afterward, the face came back to haunt us. Jeffery munched on it.
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Salt and pepper shrimp. Eat whole. Quite nice.
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Bacon wrapped scallop. Interesting.

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100 flower chicken. Pressed boneless chicken with layers of shrimp paste. I love this dish, although this particular version was a bit mild — it was hard to even taste the shrimp.
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Roast pigeon. Nice and livery.
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Meat balls with leeks. Very dense texture to the meat, chewy, almost rubbery. I liked the leeks though. A lot. Most people did not love this dish. I think they had a hard time with the black hole dense balls.

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Peking duck, buns, and condiments. A solid peking duck. One of these Cantonese style peking ducks — not incredibly crispy.
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Peking duck meat as lettuce cups. Served stir fried with water chestnuts.

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Lettuce cups.
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Lotus root, walnuts, snow peas and various other veggies. Plain, but nice crunch.
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Seafood over crispy noodle — great! I love this dish and this was a nice one.
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Mango pudding — a bit bland. I do love mango pudding, but this one didn’t have an intense mango flavor like it should.
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Toasted Almond Truffle Gelato (upper left) — My new egg yolk based nut formulation with Toasted Sicilian Noto Romano Almond makes a sublime base stacked with layers of house-made Valrhona Almond Amaretti Ganache — 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 #almond #amaretti #cookie #ganache #ChocolateTruffle

Root Beer Float Gelato (lower left) — Sarsaparilla flavored gelato base with house-made vanilla cream cheese layers — 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 #RootBeer #RootBeerFlaot #Sarsaparilla #vanilla #creamcheese

True Tiramisu Gelato (upper right) — after long hiatus, one of my best flavors remerges for a holiday party — This is a genuine tiramisu in gelato form, with a Marsala Egg Yolk Zabaione, fresh Mascarpone Cheese, and real Espresso. Then it’s layered with Valrhona Cocoa and Lady Finger’s soaked in house-made Espresso Rum Syrup — 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 #Tiramisu #Espresso #coffee #chocolate #marsala #Zabaione #Eggyolk #Rum #Mascarpone

Mint Meringue Strawberry Sorbetto (lower right) — An intense dairy-free base made from Avignon Strawberries and layered with house-made Spearmint Meringue — created 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 #strawberry #sorbetto #mint #Meringue

Overall, this was a great meal. Execution was a bit mixed, with dishes varying from good to great. Pig was amazing. One of the best pigs we’ve had. Service was good. Room is amazing, being huge, with a table fit for like 20. Portion sizes were great too, as was pacing.

We decided to return for dimsum too and try it out.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

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Related posts:

  1. SGV Nights – Seafood Palace
  2. Szechuan Impression Tustin
  3. Noodle Harmony
  4. Không Tên – Brunch
  5. Shanghailander Arcadia
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: 888 Seafood, BYOG, Cantonese Chinese, Chinese Food, Gelato, hedonists, Peking Duck, SGV, suckling pig, Wine

Earl Grey – Nanjing Duck House

Jan29

Restaurant: Nanjing Duck House

Location: 9961 East Valley Blvd

Date: December 5, 2019

Cuisine: Nanjing Chinese

Rating: Looks funny — tastes great

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Lately, Yarom and I have been doing more lunch excursions — particularly to Chinese places that aren’t really going to cut it for wine dinners. I’ve named this series Lunch Quest.
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Anyway, today it carried us to Najing Duck House which specializes in Nanjing style cured duck.
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And we met up with Tony Lau, Kirk, and some others.
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This is one of those tiny SGV places with no decor — although they don’t have a drop ceiling — and exactly one employee. She was taking orders AND prepping the food. Tony had to help her out by busing!
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Much of the food is cold and cured and on display in this takeout deli cabinet.
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Oh yes, Nanjing style cured Turkey Gizzard!
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The very short menu.7U1A3610
Boiled peanuts.
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Shredded seaweed. Pretty much as described.
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Pickled cabbage with soybeans and mustard greens. I loved these. I love cabbage. I love fermented. What’s not to love?
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Nanjing style beancurd. What’s brown, rich, savory, slightly sweet and has a texture like a mop sponge? All true but it was actually great. Loved it.
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Turkey gizzard, Nanjing style. Sounds extreme, but once you slice this dense cured muscle with the deli-slicer it’s quite delicious with a nice firm chew and a lovely cured flavor.
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Turkey liver. Foie gras it ain’t. Decent enough though, if livery.
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Sliced turkey leg, Nanjing style. More deli-slicer action. This was actually a very lovely cold sliced turkey leg. Salty, but tasty.
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Boiled dumplings stuffed with pork and shepherd’s purse. Great. I love these home-style dumplings.
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Boiled pork dumplings. More goodness.
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Wonton soup with pork wontons and egg strips. Also lovely. Reminded me a bit of a better version of the classic wonton soup I’d get in my youth.
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Nanjing style meatballs. Meaty good.
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Half a Nanjing style duck. Much like the turkey, but duckier. A bit of a salted ham flavor.
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Beef shank noodles with bok choy. The meat was great. The soup was simple.
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Pork rib noodle soup. Again the meat was great. Rich. Soup was exactly the same.

Overall, I was surprised how interesting (and good) this place was. Service was a bit slow as there was only the one lady doing EVERYTHING. And most of the food was grey, cold, and kinda sketchy looking — but it tasted pretty good. Small menu though. We had almost everything except for the seasonal corn noodles (have to try these).

For more LA dining reviews click here.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. More Mark’s Duck House
  2. Duck House – Crawl part 4
  3. Mark’s Duck House
  4. Tasty Duck Will Bring You Luck
  5. Tasty Duck X 4
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Chinese Food, cured meats, duck, lunch, Lunch Quest, Nanjing Duck, Nanjing Duck House, SGV, Tony Lau, turkey, Yarom

Eastern Heat – DJ Kitchen

Jan22

Restaurant: DJ Kitchen

Location: 4040 City Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19131. (215) 586-8888

Date: November 29, 2019

Cuisine: Szechuan Chinese

Rating: Surprisingly good

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For “Fat Friday” — the official Friday dinner after Thanksgiving, we broke with the tradition of another house meal and headed partially into center Philadelphia to:
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DJ Kitchen — a surprisingly authentic Szechuan place.
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Typical modern interior of the newer more casual Chinese joints.
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Part of our giant 20 person table.
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The kid corner.
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The auspiciously colored menu.
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From my cellar: 2006 Billecart-Salmon Champagne Cuvée Elisabeth Salmon. AG 94+. The 2006 Rosé Cuvée Elisabeth Salmon is powerful, intense and also classically austere in its make up. Crushed flowers, mint, red berries and cranberries are all finely sketched. The 2006 finishes with striking mineral-driven precision, and while it doesn’t have the opulence or exuberance of the 2002, it is still a very pretty and appealing Champagne. The Elisabeth Salmon is 50% Pinot Noir and 50% Chardonnay, with about 8% still Pinot Noir. Dosage is 6 grams per liter. (Drink between 2018-2031)
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Scallion pancakes for the kids. Certain adults, even certain adults who are supposed to be avoiding carbs, felt compelled to gobble these as well.
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Spicy crispy cucumber. Solid (and garlicky) version of the classic cucumber opening.
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Chicken in chili oil. Classic Szechuan appetizer of cold chicken in chili sauce. Not a bad version.
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More bubbly.
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Cumin fries (again mostly for the kids).
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Pan fried pork dumplings. Pretty generic.
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Dan Dan Noodle.
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Mixed up. Not bad, but lacked the complex nutty flavor I like in great dan dan.
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Dumplings in chili oil. These were delicious.
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Vegetarian Spring Rolls with sweet sauce.
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XLB (Xiao Long Bao). Always great little steamed pockets of delicate dough filled with pork.
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From my cellar: 2017 Joh. Jos. Prüm Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spätlese. 92 points. Orange, pineapple, graphite and earth. Step up in weight here on the palate but has superb acidity that cuts through and drives onward. Great length and detailed layers give this excellent palate presence.
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Homemade egg with tomato for the vegetarians. We had too many people with dietary restrictions tonight — always a touch difficult at real Chinese food.
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Chinese cabbage with dried pepper. I love this dish. Really nice texture. Somehow makes cabbage delicious.
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Mapo Tofu. Pretty good rendition — and one of my favorites.
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Kung Pao Shrimp. Okay, but not a fan of the bell peppers (too Chinese American).
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Tea Smoked Duck with hoisin and buns. More like Cantonese roast duck.
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Dry pepper Chicken. Always a super delicious pile of crunchy fried chicken. This particular one was very spicy. Often it isn’t.
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Not bad for 20+ people!

Overall, while not as good as a place like Sichuan Impression, pretty real Szechuan Chinese. About as good as a second rate SGV place — and for a city like Philadelphia that’s excellent. I enjoyed my meal a lot. The kids and vegetarians maybe a bit less so!

For more LA dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Century City Heat
  2. Eating Beijing – Country Kitchen
  3. Chicken Crawl – Savoy Kitchen
  4. Eastern Promises – Holly’s
  5. Valley Heat
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Chinese Food, Fat Friday, Philadelphia, Sichuan, Szechuan cuisine, ThanksGavin, ThanksGavin 2019

Dirty Dozen at Capital Seafood

Jan13

Restaurant: Capital Seafood Beverly Hills [1, 2, 3]

Location: 50 N La Cienega Blvd #130, Beverly Hills, CA 90211. (310) 855-1234

Date: November 25, 2019

Cuisine: Cantonese Chinese

Rating: Good for this far west

_

For the second time in a single weekend, I return to the only really good Cantonese west of the SGV.
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Capital is the latest SGV place to move west, occupying the Newport Seafood Beverly Hills location that failed to work out. Not that I love even the original Newport, but Capital is fairly straight up banquet / dimsum Cantonese.

This event is the Dirty Dozen white, our blind tasting sub group of the Hedonists. Theme is Champagne tonight. I worked with the manager King to do this custom menu that has only one repeat dish from the Sauvages lunch a few days before.
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The space looks pretty Chinese, even in Beverly Hills.
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Coves. Gotta have the coves!
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We are back in the private room — same as 3 days before, and same as years ago when this place was Newport Seafood.
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This time I photographed the giant nighttime menu.

Wines before the meal:
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1982 Moët & Chandon Champagne Cuvée Dom Pérignon. VM 97. Both 1982 Champagnes are utterly spellbinding. It is amazing to taste these wines at 30 years of age and see that their signatures are all very much intact. Of course, the magnum format is so ideal for Champagne. The 1982 Krug Vintage is warm, toasty and totally expressive, with gorgeous exotic orange peel and white truffle overtones. This is one of my very favorite Krug vintages. Although fully mature, the 1982 is going to continue to develop at a glacial pace. The 1982 Dom Pérignon is just a little more focused and vibrant in style. Here it is the wine’s salivating minerality that really sings. It, too, is quite youthful and vibrant for its age.
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1997 Didier Dagueneau Pouilly-Fumé Silex. Peter 91. Caramel, roasted nuts, nectarine pit, sweet richness with elevated acidity, juicy and mouthwatering, complex and long. Really liked the age on this which turned slightly rich, ripe and tangy on the palate. Capital Seafood for DD.
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2014 Hubert Lamy Saint-Aubin 1er Cru Derrière Chez Edouard Vieilles Vignes. BH 89-91. An expressive and slightly more elegant nose offering up notes of red currant, wild flowers and spiced tea, leads to detailed, stony and energetic middle weight flavors that possess a relatively refined mouth feel before terminating in a moderately austere but well-balanced finish. This beautifully delineated effort will need at least 3 to 5 years of bottle age first. (Drink starting 2021)
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Edamame.
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Peanuts.
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2002 Billecart-Salmon Champagne Cuvée Nicolas-François Billecart. VM 94. The 2002 Cuvée Nicolas François Billecart comes across as rich, powerful and opulent. This latest release of the 2002 was disgorged in July 2015 and finished with a Chardonnay-based liqueur whereas the previous release, disgorged in May 2014, was finished with a Pinot Noir-based liqueur. This is a distinctly vinous, almost shockingly raw, visceral Champagne from Billecart-Salmon. There is no shortage of volume or intensity, that is for sure. Stylistically, this year’s release inhabits a whole other world relative to last year’s release. Dosage is 4 grams per liter. (Drink between 2018-2042)
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2008 Bollinger Champagne La Grande Année. VM 97. Bollinger’s 2008 Grande Année is rich, ample and full-bodied, with all of the pedigree of the vintage on display. Dried pear, dried flowers, chamomile, red plum and mint develop as the 2008 shows the breadth and creaminess that are such signatures of the Bollinger house style. A whole range of brighter, more floral and chalky notes appear later, adding translucence and energy. The 2008 is 71% Pinot Noir and 29% Chardonnay taken across 18 crus, and it is the Pinot that very much informs the wine in both flavor and texture. More importantly, the 2008 is one of the best Grande Années I can remember tasting. Bollinger fans won’t want to miss it. Disgorged November 2018. Dosage is 8 grams per liter. (Drink between 2020-2048)
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2007 Taittinger Champagne Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blancs Brut. VM 96. Taittinger’s 2007 Comtes de Champagne will be nearly impossible to resist upon release. Soaring aromatics, mid-weight structure and soft contours give the 2007 its alluring personality. Lemon oil, white flowers, mint, chamomile and green pear add brightness and freshness throughout, with a persistent, clean finish that makes it impossible to resist a second taste. Today, the 2007 comes across as a slightly more open version of the 2004, with freshness that makes that wine so appealing, and a touch of textural richness that recalls the 2002. Although the 2007 does not have the explosive energy or verticality of the profound 2006, it will drink better earlier. The 2007 has been positively brilliant on the three occasions I have tasted it so far. (Drink between 2018-2047)
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Deluxe Combination Cold Appetizer Platter: Roasted Pork Belly, Capital BBQ Pork, Jellyfish.
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Jellyfish. Nice and tangy.
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Roasted Pork Belly. Basically Macau style.
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Capital BBQ Pork. Similar, but a bit less fatty.
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Fish Maw Crabmeat Soup. Mild and delicious, but packed with MSG.
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2004 Dom Pérignon Champagne. VM 97. Another stellar wine, the 2004 Dom Pérignon is just starting to show the first signs of aromatic development, as well as a bit of added weight it did not have as a young wine. The 2004 remains a bright, mid-weight DP built on persistence and length more than overt volume. I have always had a soft spot for the 2004. This tasting does nothing to dampen that enthusiasm. (Drink between 2019-2039)
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2006 Dom Pérignon Champagne. VM 96. Powerful, dense and tightly wound, the 2006 Dom Pérignon is fabulous today. To be sure, the 2006 is a broad, virile Champagne, but I find it compelling because of its phenolic depth and overall intensity. Chef de Caves Richard Geoffroy adds that August was quite cold and wet, and that ripening only happened at the very end of the growing season. Although numbers alone can never explain a wine, I find it interesting that the 2006 has more phenolics than the 2003. Readers will have to be patient, as the 2006 is easily the most reticent Dom Pérignon in the years spanning 2002 and 2009. I am confident the 2006 will have its day, but in its youth, it is not especially charming or easy to drink. (Drink between 2026-2056)
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From my cellar: 2006 Louis Roederer Champagne Cristal Brut. VM 96. The bouquet is drop-dead gorgeous, lively and broad, and beautifully defined as always, offering scents of citrus fruit, toasted walnuts and a hint of brioche. The exquisitely balanced palate displays spine-tingling mineralité and real tension and grace. The long, quite deep finish makes me wonder whether this 2006 will meliorate with further bottle age. Should I care, when it is so delicious now? Just superb. (Drink between 2019-2032)
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Lobster in Causeway Bay Style. Aka with TONS of great crunchy garlic.
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Stuffed Bean Curd with Shrimp Paste. Interesting.
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2008 Louis Roederer Champagne Cristal Brut. VM 98+. The 2008 Cristal is a wine that takes over all the senses and never lets up. The brilliance and cut of the Chardonnay finds an extra kick of resonance from the Pinot Noir to carry the mid palate and finish in this stunningly beautiful, chiseled Champagne. Lemon oil, almond, flowers, dried herbs and Mirabelle plum are some of the many aromas and flavors that develop as the 2008 shows off its pedigree. The 2008 is a regal, towering Champagne from Roederer. That’s all there is to it. (Drink between 2023-2058)
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NV Krug Champagne Brut Grande Cuvée Edition 160eme. JG 94. The Krug Grand Cuvée “160ème Édition” is from the base year of 2004 and is now starting to really drink well today. It was disgorged in the spring of 2014 and the oldest reserve wines used in this iteration being chardonnays from the villages of Avize and Oger dating back to the 1990 vintage. The final cépages ending up forty-four percent pinot noir, thirty-three percent chardonnay and twenty-three percent pinot meunier. I had not tasted this bottling in a year and it was every bit as beautiful at the estate as I remember it when it was paired with the 2004 vintage during its inaugural showing in New York last autumn. The wine offers up a classic and blossoming bouquet of apple, pear, almond, fresh-baked bread, a superb base of soil tones, a touch of upper register smokiness and an exotic topnote of fleur de sel. On the palate the wine is pure, focused and refined, with a full-bodied format, lovely focus and grip, elegant mousse, a lovely core and a long, vibrant and seamless finish. I love this version of Grande Cuvée and would love to have a case waiting in the cellar to start drinking ten years from now, as that is when it is really going to start firing on all cylinders! (Drink between 2018-2050)
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2004 Krug Champagne Vintage Brut. VM 97+. Krug’s 2004 Vintage is absolutely mesmerizing. Layers of bright, chiseled fruit open up effortlessly as the wine fleshes out with time in the glass. Persistent and beautifully focused, with a translucent sense of energy, the 2004 captures all the best qualities of the year. Moreover, the 2004 is clearly superior to the consistently underwhelming 2002 and the best Krug Vintage since 1996. Readers who can find it should not hesitate, as it is a magical bottle. (Drink between 2017-2044)
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Peking Duck.
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Served with buns in the Cantonese style. Meat was good. Not amazing, but good. I wish there were pancakes.
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Here is a bun ready to eat.
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The “meat” or “bones” from the duck. Hard to eat this particular version.
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Sautéed Sea-cucumber with Greens.
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A zoom in. Sea cucumber is mixed in with some mushrooms and bok choy. I liked this dish — I generally like sea-cucumber — but a couple white boys complained slightly.
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2002 Krug Champagne Vintage Brut. BH 97. There is a distinctly phenolic character to the secondary-tinged yet super-fresh nose reflects notes of bread, yeast, pear, baked apple, spice and a hint of citrus. The bold and full-bodied flavors possess superb complexity while being underpinned by a notably fine but dense mousse, all wrapped in a gorgeously persistent finish. This is a seriously impressive effort and one of the best of the Krug Brut vintage series released in many years. Note that while this should continue to age effortlessly, it could certainly be enjoyed now. (Drink starting 2017)
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some other fool didn’t declare and just brought the same wine I did: 2006 Louis Roederer Champagne Cristal Brut. VM 96. The bouquet is drop-dead gorgeous, lively and broad, and beautifully defined as always, offering scents of citrus fruit, toasted walnuts and a hint of brioche. The exquisitely balanced palate displays spine-tingling mineralité and real tension and grace. The long, quite deep finish makes me wonder whether this 2006 will meliorate with further bottle age. Should I care, when it is so delicious now? Just superb. (Drink between 2019-2032)
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1995 Krug Champagne Vintage Brut. VM 94. The 1995 Krug is gorgeous. I chose it because one of my guests loves Krug and I thought the 1995 would have the right amount of complexity to pair beautifully with the smokiness in Saison’s caviar. Although the 1995 Krug is not a truly epic wine, it is in a sweet spot right now. (Drink between 2018-2023)

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The one repeat from the Sauvages lunch: Filet of cod, Virginia Ham with Chinese vegetables (Double Pleasure Rock Cod). This is an unusual dish, but in looks and ingredients. Having the cod, mushrooms, vegetables, and Smithfield ham is really… interesting. The ham dominates with its strong salty flavor.
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Scallop with Snow Pea Leaf. Instead of just getting the plain snow pea leaf with garlic, this version was covered in scallops — two for one!
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Random cab. Not part of the blind tasting. Some people wanted some reds.
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1996 Domaine du Colombier Hermitage. 87 points. Fading, delicate, not much primary fruit, a little tannin left.
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Crispy Sesame Chicken. Very nice mild chicken.
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Lamb with scallions. I liked this. Some cumin flavor.
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Prime Ribs in House Special Sauce. This is an odd “modern” Chinese dish. Not my favorite. Chinese don’t know how to cook “steak”.
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Baked Seafood Fried Rice with Coconut Curry Sauce.
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Never had this one before — King suggested it — a curry fried rice with seafood drowned in curry sauce and then baked crispy. Delicious — if a touch heavy after a long meal.
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Fruit (aka Chinese dessert).
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Strawberries and Cream Gelato — A dairy strawberry base with Avignon Strawberries plus Strawberry Jam Ripples and Strawberry Wafer Cookies — 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 #strawberry #cream #jam #wafer #cookies

House favorite and my son’s birthday pick: Triple Chocolate Cloud – As usual the base is made with Valrhona 62% Satilla Chocolate and then layered with Dark Chocolate Cream Cheese Ganache and the rotating ingredient is crushed 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 #creamcheese #ganache #icing #Oreos

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The wine lineup.
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Results.
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And the gang.

Overall, Capital Seafood is quite solid SGV-style Cantonese banquet (as well as dimsum). I’d say that the food quality is about on par with middle of the road SGV Cantonese. Price is higher, but still not bad. I worked with the manager, King to create this very interesting menu and we had a variety of nice wines. Service is excellent, particularly with a special party like this. We did all the wine service, and there wasn’t really enough space for more than 3 glasses (too few) but they did this interesting hybrid food service where they brought out the large dishes, then individually plated about 2/3 of the dish and served it to each person, but leaving enough for repeats for us gluttons. This worked out quite well and was less chaotic and much neater than the lazy-susan craziness across so many wine glasses.

Great night. They did “bait and switch” up the price of the menu at the end of the evening, but it was still fairly cheap considering all the great stuff we had.

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

Related posts:

  1. Dirty Dozen Cabernet
  2. Dirty Dozen at Water Grill
  3. Dirty Dozen Grand
  4. Dirty Dozen – Locanda Veneta
  5. Dirty Dozen Ride Again
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Beverly Hills, BYOG, Cantonese cuisine, Capital Seafood, Champagne, Chinese Food, Dirty Dozen, Gelato, hedonists, Wine

Capital Sauvages

Jan10

Restaurant: Capital Seafood Beverly Hills [1, 2, 3]

Location: 50 N La Cienega Blvd #130, Beverly Hills, CA 90211. (310) 855-1234

Date: November 22, 2019

Cuisine: Cantonese Chinese

Rating: Good for this far west

_

Finding great Chinese west of the SGV has long been a problem, but the “great wall” between east and west has been cracking with lots and lots of new openings closer to (my) home. Today I visit with the Sauvages Friday lunch group for another one of our epic lunches — guaranteed to finish off your week in style — and a nap. This lunch was coordinated by Tony Lau and John Gordon.
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Capital is the latest SGV place to move west, occupying the Newport Seafood Beverly Hills location that failed to work out. Not that I love even the original Newport, but Capital is fairly straight up banquet / dimsum Cantonese.
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The space looks pretty Chinese, even in Beverly Hills.
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Coves. Gotta have the coves!

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Our special menu for today.
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We were in the private room.
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Some intro champ.
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Peanuts on the table.
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And addictive candied walnuts.
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Plus XO sauce — fermented spicy umami.
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From my cellar: 2007 Taittinger Champagne Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blancs Brut. VM 96. Taittinger’s 2007 Comtes de Champagne will be nearly impossible to resist upon release. Soaring aromatics, mid-weight structure and soft contours give the 2007 its alluring personality. Lemon oil, white flowers, mint, chamomile and green pear add brightness and freshness throughout, with a persistent, clean finish that makes it impossible to resist a second taste. Today, the 2007 comes across as a slightly more open version of the 2004, with freshness that makes that wine so appealing, and a touch of textural richness that recalls the 2002. Although the 2007 does not have the explosive energy or verticality of the profound 2006, it will drink better earlier. The 2007 has been positively brilliant on the three occasions I have tasted it so far.
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2007 Ruinart Champagne Dom Ruinart Blanc de Blancs. VM 97+. The 2007 Dom Ruinart is the first vintage made entirely by Chef de Caves Frédéric Panaïotis, which shows just how long the production cycle is in Champagne. A striking, tightly-coiled wine, the 2007 Dom Ruinart will leave readers week at the knees. In this vintage, Panaïotis took Dom Ruinart, which has traditionally relied on a relatively high percentage of Chardonnay from the Montagne de Reims and tilted the balance to 75% Côtes des Blancs and 25% Montagne de Reims fruit. As a result, the 2007 is much more chiseled and steely than is the norm. The citrus, slate, crushed rock, white pepper, mint and floral notes really sizzle in this powerful, dramatically rich Champagne, with bright saline notes that add freshness and vivacity to the striking finish. The 2007 is a stunning Champagne by any measure. Although it is very early, the 2007 has the potential to go down as one of the great Dom Ruinarts. It is every bit that special. Dosage is under 5 grams per liter, a pretty striking change from the 2006, which was closer to 10. Readers who can grab the 2007 won’t want to miss it.
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Bonus goose web and bok choy. Whole steamed and sauced goose foot!
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2008 Dom Pérignon Champagne. VM 98. The 2008 Dom Pérignon is once again stunning. More than anything else, I am surprised by how well the 2008 drinks given all the tension and energy it holds. Then again, that is precisely what makes 2008 such a unique vintage – namely that the best wines are so chiseled and yet not at all austere. Lemon peel, almond, mint, smoke and crushed rocks are all finely sculpted, but it is the wine’s textural feel, drive and persistence that elevate it into the realm of the sublime. The 2008 will be even better with time in the cellar, but it is absolutely phenomenal even today, in the early going. Three recent bottles have all been nothing short of magnificent.
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2004 Philipponnat Champagne Brut Clos des Goisses. VM 96. Broad, ample and pure, the 2004 Clos des Goisses seems to be going through a closed period. The wine’s texture an tension are evident, but all of the wine’s energy is focused inward. The 2004 is without question a brilliant, striking Champagne, but it needs time in bottle. Disgorged December 2013.
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Bonus seafood stuffed spring rolls.
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2011 Trimbach Riesling Cuvée Frédéric Emile. VM 92+. Pale straw-green. Minty green apple, jasmine and minerals on the enticing nose. Bright flavors of green apple and ripe citrus fruits are joined by stone fruits and minerals on the long finish. Has enough acidity to maintain clarity and cut. According to Pierre Trimbach, this is on a par with other great recent vintages for this bottling.
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2015 Weingut Schnaitmann Uhlbacher Götzenberg Riesling Großes Gewächs. 92 points. Apple, peach, pear, lemon zest with a hint of petrol. Long dry finish. Well balanced. This is an excellent German Riesling.
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2014 Schoffit Riesling Rangen de Thann Clos St.-Théobald. VM 92. Bright golden yellow. Musky, chalky aromas of ripe peach, flint, orange oil and lychee. Then more crushed rocks and orange oil nuances than peachy fruit on the dense palate. Finishes lively with well-integrated acidity and noteworthy length. Leaves a lingering impression of steeliness, heightened by the only 7g/L residual sugar and razor-sharp 8.1 g/L total acidity; but strikes me as rounder and more tactile than the Sommerberg, most likely thanks to higher pH (3.4 compared to the Sommerberg’s 3.1). At only 12.1 percent alcohol, this is very easy to drink already.
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Stir fried conch with XO sauce. Tony loves conch. It did have a nice crunchy/chewy quality.
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Steamed lobster with Fresh Garlic. Classic simple steamed lobster with garlic.
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Alzinger Grüner Veltliner Smaragd Loibenberg (didn’t catch the vintage in my photo).
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From my cellar: 2012 Weingut Knoll Grüner Veltliner Reserve Loibenberg. 93 points. Rich bouquet combines candied pineapple, dried apricot, flinty minerals and white pepper. The fleshy, unctuous palate is marked by acacia honey, herbs and smoke plus a touch of botrytis. Complex and certainly voluptuous at 14.5% alcohol, this Grüner Veltliner combines a supple sweetness –which is why it is labeled as a Reserve and not a Smaragd–and a salty tang on the finish. Excellent potential.
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2013 Schloss Gobelsburg Grüner Veltliner 1ÖTW Reserve Ried Renner. VM 95. From Renner’s geologically complex Urgestein mix characteristically emerges a Grüner Veltliner of comparable complexity that’s indescribable without resorting to mineral vocabulary, and that is certainly true of this 2013. But there is so much more going on that it nearly makes me dizzy. A heady nose of lilac and iris, radish and raw ginger, along with hints of citrus and roasted root vegetables, sets the tone for what follows, an explosively concentrated interaction of grippingly piquant, pungent, incisive and brightly juicy elements. Apple and lime, caramelized parsnip and golden beet are mingled with smoky nut oils and laced with ginger, radish, iris root and white pepper. The reverberating finish adds to a kaleidoscopic whirl of the aforementioned elements an otherwise ineffable ore-like depth and saliva-inducing salinity. I was holding my breath that what I first tasted would be captured in bottle with complete success, and that’s happened.
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Filet of cod, Virginia Ham with Chinese vegetables. This is an unusual dish, but in looks and ingredients. Having the cod, mushrooms, vegetables, and Smithfield ham is really… interesting. The ham dominates with its strong salty flavor.
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Lettuce cup with shrimp, Chinese sausage, jicama and pine nuts. Very tasty for this common dish. Nice presentation.
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2001 J. Rochioli Pinot Noir East Block. BH 89. Quite deep and ripe on the nose with a distinct vegetal component and in contrast to some wines in this flight, this is very clean and pure. The palate reveals round, supple and sweet flavors that are relatively forward and deftly oaked, indeed the wood is almost invisible. There is good density and a succulent sweetness to the finish where the structure is buffered by good sap. I quite liked this.
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2007 Bergström Pinot Noir Durant Vineyard. VM 90. Deep red. An exotically perfumed bouquet offers scents of red berries, cinnamon, clove and smoky minerals. Lithe, finely etched red berry flavors gain depth and power with air, taking a turn to bitter cherry. The spicy element expands on the taut, nervy finish. Pretty sexy now, but has the vibrancy and balance to reward patience.
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2005 Radio-Coteau Pinot Noir La Neblina. VM 90. Medium red. Bright, spicy aromas of cherry and minerals, with a deeper note of cherry pit. Picks up a cocoa powder note on the palate and repeats the fresh cherry note. The spice notes return on the sweet, persistent finish, which features a dusting of fine tannins. This gained in brightness with air, suggesting that it will hold well in a cool cellar.
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Crispy whole suckling pig. Excellent pig, nice crispy skin.
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Kistler Pinot Noir Cuvée Catherine (can’t read vintage again).
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2009 Marcassin Pinot Noir Blue-Slide Ridge Vineyard. 94 points. Great nose. Lots of wild black cherry there. But there is a bit of alcohol. Palate similar. A “big” Pinot. Loads of fruit. But again, some heat on the finish diminishes this for me.
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Stir fried filet mignon with macadamia nuts. I’m not really a huge fan of these “French style” beef dishes, but this was unique with the macadamia nuts — and quite delicious.
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2007 Domaine de la Mordorée Châteauneuf-du-Pape Cuvée de la Reine des Bois. VM 93-96. Inky ruby. The nose offers a highly complex, wild array of dark berry and floral scents, along with anise, herbs and smoky minerals. Utterly stains the palate with deep black and blue fruit flavors complemented by strong notes of lavender pastille and tobacco. Tannins come up with air but the fruit seems to suck them up. Finishes with a strong wallop of luscious blueberry and mocha and outstanding persistence. This looks to be one of the best wines of this superb vintage.
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2000 Domaine de la Vieille Julienne Châteauneuf-du-Pape Reserve. 96 points.
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2000 Clos des Papes Châteauneuf-du-Pape. VM 91+. Very good deep red-ruby. Roasted plum and black fruit aromas, with notes of violet, dark chocolate, smoke and game. Fat, lush and superripe; shows more of a roasted character than the 2001, but also boasts solid acidity. A huge, full-blown wine with exotic notes of roasted herbs. Finishes with big, dusty tannins and excellent length.
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Salt and pepper stuffed eggplant. Nice and garlicky!
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Capital house stir fried special. This was a unique “crispy” stir fried veggie dish. Very interesting texture.
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Braised abalone mushroom with snow pea sprouts. This classic vegetable dish is covered in the meaty abalone mushrooms.
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Crispy pan fried egg noodles with chicken. I always love variants of this dish with its mix of saucy and crispy.
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1994 Zind-Humbrecht Pinot Gris Rangen de Thann Clos St. Urbain Vendange Tardive. 98 points. Absolutely glorious. A monumental bottle. Deep amber color. The nose is a kaleidoscope of goodness: honey, caramel, apricot. Viscous, layered, long. Perfect acidity on the back end. Truly exceptional.
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Macau egg tarts.
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Strawberries and Cream Gelato — A dairy strawberry base with Avignon Strawberries plus Strawberry Jam Ripples and Strawberry Wafer Cookies — 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 #strawberry #cream #jam #wafer #cookies

House favorite and my son’s birthday pick: Triple Chocolate Cloud – As usual the base is made with Valrhona 62% Satilla Chocolate and then layered with Dark Chocolate Cream Cheese Ganache and the rotating ingredient is crushed 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 #creamcheese #ganache #icing #Oreos
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Strange bonus: 2014 Groth Cabernet Sauvignon. 91 points. Solid napa cab without being exciting in anyway. On the nose a nice bouquet of pencil shavings, a hint of earth of red fruits. Sinewy chewy mouthfeel, with Cassis, deeper red fruits in the entry, shortish finish dominated with oak tannins was a bit of a disappointment. Overall, it felt like there was decent material here but a general feel of safety first wine making is a bit of a let down.
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Fruit.

Overall, Capital Seafood is quite solid SGV-style Cantonese banquet (as well as dimsum). I’d say that the food quality is about on par with middle of the road SGV Cantonese. Price is higher, but still not bad. Tony and John worked with the manager, King to create this very interesting menu and we had a variety of nice wines. Service is excellent, particularly with a special party like this. We did all the wine service, and there wasn’t really enough space for more than 3 glasses (too few) but they did this interesting hybrid food service where they brought out the large dishes, then individually plated about 2/3 of the dish and served it to each person, but leaving enough for repeats for us gluttons. This worked out quite well and was less chaotic and much neater than the lazy-susan craziness across so many wine glasses.

As always, Sauvages is great fun.

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

Related posts:

  1. Sauvages 2 at Upstairs 2
  2. Sauvages Amarone but Not
  3. Sauvages Chinois
  4. Sauvages Bordeaux
  5. Sauvages Rioja at the Bazaar
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: BYOG, Cantonese cuisine, Capital Seafood, Chinese cuisine, Chinese Food, Gelato, Sauvages, Tony Lau

Tang Gong at Night

Nov29

Restaurant: Tang Gong [1, 2]

Location: 111 N Atlantic Blvd #350, Monterey Park, CA 91754. (626) 888-5188

Date: October 20, 2019

Cuisine: Cantonese Chinese

Rating: Very solid banquet Chinese

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Our friend Derek has been the manager variously at Elite Seafood, World Seafood, and China Red. Tonight we return for one of those awesome Tony Lau special Cantonese feasts.
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Now he’s helping open up Monterey Park newcomer, Tang Gong.
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Tang Gong is upstairs in the Northwest Corner of the busy Garvey/Atlantic intersection.
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In an era when the Cantonese Palaces are closing, it’s rare to have a new one opening up — including all the glitzy Hong Kong style trappings. These places cater (haha) to big Chinese weddings.
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We had a nice single table private room with lots of space.
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On the table to start, candied walnuts (yummy) and peanuts.
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Conch with shrimp paste. Nice chew, crunch from the celery, and a bit of yummy “shrimpy” flavor from the paste.
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Cantonese hot sauce and mustard.
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Scallop covered in shrimp paste. One of these pan fried dishes that is related to a dimsum dish. A whole scallop covered in shrimp “macnugget” material.
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Salt and pepper prawns. Super delicious huge prawns so deeply fried that you eat the whole thing shell and all.
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Whole suckling pig. Awesome and porcine.
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Yarom (right) and Tony Lau (left) with their bones.
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Cantonese style Peking duck. Served with buns, hoisin, etc. Not as good as real Peking duck — as it’s not so crispy — but still delicious.
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Roast chicken. Super moist. Some of the best chicken I’ve had in a long time.
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Black pepper beef with asparagus. Always wine friendly, if a touch “boring.” Very tender.
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Roast quail. Always excellent.
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Garlicky Greens. Great, perfect for the colon.
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Chard with egg and mushrooms. Now I’ve never had this Chinese vegetable dish before. It had a slightly sweet and sour (more sour) taste. I preferred the classic garlicky greens but this was certainly interesting.
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Crispy egg noodles.
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Beef topping for the noodles.
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The noodles with the topping.
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More noodles with beef and bean sprouts. Carby, but delicious.
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Mochi-type balls with red bean (the dark ones) and custard (the light one). I LOVED the custard flavored ones. Really nice jelly consistency and rich custard inside.
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Red bean and coconut jelly. Loved these too. I always like these weird smooth jiggly Chinese desserts. Some of my favorite Chinese desserts.
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Nocciola Caramello Budino Gelato — Nocciola custard base made with Pure PGI Piedmont hazelnut paste, infused with house-made caramel (instead of sugar) then mixed with toffee and topped with Toffifay — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — so good it’s an instant signature flavor –#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 #caramel #caramello #toffee #toffifay

Key Lime Pie Gelato – base is a key lime egg custard, layered with house-made frozen graham cracker and covered with house-made meringue — 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 #KeyLime #lime #custard #meringue #GrahamCracker #cookie

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The manager Derek posing with Yarom.

Overall, very solid new place. Service (thanks Derek) was of course perfect. We loved the private room. Tony always does a great job of planning the menu and tonight was no exception. Lots of classics and lots of interesting new dishes. Highlights were the crispy prawn, chicken, duck (of course), pig, scallop with shrimp and more.

For more LA dining reviews click here,

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

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Related posts:

  1. Ring in Tang Gong
  2. Late Night Longo
  3. Thai Tour – Night+Market Song
  4. Ring the Ji Rong Gong
  5. So Many Palaces, So Few Sundays
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: BYOG, Chinese cuisine, Chinese Food, duck, Gelato, hedionists, SGV, suckling pig, Tang Gong, Tony Lau

Moonlighting at Moon House

Oct26

Revisiting Moon House for a private room dinner. Click here for details.

Half Peking Duck

Related posts:

  1. Moon House
  2. Duck House – Crawl part 4
  3. Twilight Saga: New Moon
  4. Meat under the Moon
  5. Eating Boston – Hei La Moon
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Chinese American, Chinese Food

Mandarin Plaza Crawl

Sep18

Earlier in the year, Yarom and I hatched and plotted this particular all afternoon mega crawl at the Rowland Heights Mandarin Plaza — partially at least while sucking down some serious hot pot in said plaza. This place is far from LA proper, way out 40+ miles to the east but is in the heart of the “new Chinatown”.

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Restaurant: Leung Kee

Location: 18908 E Gale Ave, Rowland Heights, CA 91748

Date: August 3, 2019

Cuisine: Chinese BBQ

Rating: check: roast pig before noon

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We start at 11am, “meating” (haha) up at the former Sam Woo BBQ, now Leung Kee Chinese BBQ.
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It’s right smack in the middle of this huge mall that contains tons of Asian restaurants, including Chinese, Korean, Thai and more.
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They do a lot of takeout biz, pigs and ducks and the like.
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The space is typical old school SGV.
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Boba must be a new thing.
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The menu.
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Tea comes in a mug!
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And there is free eggdrop soup — which was pretty darn good.
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Macau style roast pork. Must have just been reheated as it landed on our table in 2 seconds, but pretty tasty.
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Crispy beef. Very fried, but very delicious.
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Peking Duck. It wasn’t the best peking duck, maybe a bit soggy, but peking duck is always pretty good.
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Buns instead of pancakes.
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And sketchy extra duck meat — that was actually pretty good.

Overall, just fair. Pretty much what you’d expect. But I like pretty much all (real) Chinese food at a good bit.

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Restaurant: Mandarin Bay Seafood

Location: 1015 S Nogales St, Rowland Heights, CA 91748. (626) 839-7738

Date: August 3, 2019

Cuisine: Cantonese Chinese

Rating: check: Just ok

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Next up, we leave the actual mall and cross the street on foot to:
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Meet up with more people at noon at:
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Cantonese Mandarin Bay Seafood Restaurant.
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The gang (minus yours truly).
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The takeout menu.
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It’s noon, by 1 minute or so, so time for wine.

From my cellar, a touch too dry — bone dry rose sparkling from France.
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Nice.
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Second free soup of the day, hot and sour — this was not good hot and sour. I saved the stomach space.
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Marinated Jellyfish. Vinegary and chewy good.
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Salt and Pepper Shrimp. Salty, crunchy, very tasty.
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Salt and pepper squid — somehow we ended up with the same prep twice. These were good too.
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Ginger and Green Onion frog. Kinda fried, but the sauce was great.

Overall, Mandarin was fine too, but nothing super exciting.

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Restaurant: Spicy Moment

Location: 1015 S Nogales St, Rowland Heights, CA 91748. (626) 581-4966

Date: August 3, 2019

Cuisine: Szechuan Chinese

Rating: check: Surprisingly good, big menu

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Next up we walked 2 doors down.
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To a new style Szechuan place.
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This is what I mean by new style. They still have the ugly drop ceiling, but they have made a tiny effort at decorating.

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The menu is gargantuan.7U1A5046
This is a great wine on any day, and particularly great on a hot day with Chinese.
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Recycled from the Vietnamese crawl.
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Grilled pork jowl with Yunnan sauce. Delicious.
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Fish in pickle pepper soup. This wasn’t spicy, but it was amazing. Really, really delicious. Soft tender fish and very distinct and lovely sour flavor.
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Dry pot pork rib and shrimp. Also filled with potatoes to sop up the sauce. I generally like dry pot and this was particularly delicious. Lots and lots of flavor.
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Black pepper lamb shoulder. Not spicy, but very tasty with a strong onion flavor.
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Eggplant with garlic sauce. Fine rendition.

Overall, I was very pleasantly surprised by Spicy Moment and would totally go back for a full meal. Plus they let us drink our wine on the down low. Menu is huge and execution was good — and interesting. It should be noted, that as of Feb/March 2020 Spicy Moment “rebooted” into a totally different, more homestyle Szechuan place with the same name. I have, of course, already eaten there.

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Restaurant: Hunan Restaurant

Location: 1015 S Nogales St, Rowland Heights, CA 91748. (626) 964-8458

Date: August 3, 2019

Cuisine: Hunan Chinese

Rating: check: Solid

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Then we popped back to this spot:
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Located in between the Mandarin Bay and Spicy Moment.
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Hunan is more old school than Spicy Moment, but it also has a vast menu:
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Vast menu.
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More sweet wine.
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And a rhone blend.
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Peanuts.
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Shredded minced pork with corn and pickled vegetable. Super tasty — pork really helps a veggie. Sure to make things really move along later.
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Sautéed lamb. Tasty.
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Crispy pork ribs with garlic and chilies. Lots of flavor, not so much meat.
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Fish filet with fire cracker salt. Very delicious boiled fish with garlic and chilies.
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Spicy pickled cucumbers. Also delicious. Generally a fan fave.

Overall, Hunan was also very good. Sort of a blend of (more old school) Szechuan AND Hunan, but who cares. It was excellent. While the pictures above cover what we ate during the crawl, I’ve also been to this place my specifically, and a more detailed write up can be found here.

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Restaurant: Happy Tree House BBQ

Location: 18904 E Gale Ave, Rowland Heights, CA 91748. (626) 581-9886

Date: August 3, 2019

Cuisine: Chinese Skewers

Rating: check: hmmm

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When I was spotting during the hot pot night, this place seemed intriguing.
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Happy Tree BBQ. It’s a new style skewered meats place.
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Very snazzy new interior.
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Real coals.
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And this warmer thing on the table where they put your skewers.

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Powders.
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Seaweed salad. Tastes like it looks.

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Spicy octopus salad. Ok, but the sauce tasted a lot like Sriracha.
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Beef skewers. Not bad.
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Shrimp skewers. You eat shell and all.
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Hot dogs. Well they didn’t call them that, but they basically are.
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Chicken skin skewers. Crispy!
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Lamb skewers. Pretty good too.
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Chicken wing skewers. Just so so.

Overall, we were kinda disappointed in Happy Tree. Chinese skewers aren’t nearly as good as good Yakatori. They’re fine, but not super exciting. This place looks good, and is probably packed with young people on dates in the evening, but it just doesn’t feel as “Chinese” somehow. I’m not really sure where in China this kind of food is actually from.

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Restaurant: Silk Road Garden

Location: 18904 E Gale Ave, Rowland Heights, CA 91748. (626) 581-9886

Date: August 3, 2019

Cuisine: Uyghur Chinese

Rating: check: great

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So our final place is all the way west.
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And merely across the parking lot next to the first spot.
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It’s Uyghur Chinese like Dolans and has the decor to match. Very cute and intimate.
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Being Uyghur doesn’t mean their menu is any smaller! They have skewers here too — I bet they would be better.
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Garlic pickles. Nice crunchy garlicky cucumbers.
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Yellow noodle with cumin lamb. Delicious tender cumin lamb on top of spaghetti-like noodles.
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Meat and Vegetables in Homemade pastry. A giant golden meat pie. Extremely hot on the mouth, but tasty.

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Special homemade noodle with minced beef. A western Chinese bolognese — tons of flavor. Nice thick al dente noodles.
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Manti, meat and onion filled dumplings. These were superb, with really delicate skins. They could have used a dipping sauce though.
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They had a little freezer of ice cream macarons.
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Overall, I was also very pleasantly surprised by Silk Road. First rate execution. Small, intimate, and clearly cooked with precision. The dishes are typical of the region — half way between Shaanxi and Afghan — focused on lamb, and delicious.

In Summary, we only hit 6 of the perhaps 20+ restaurants in Mandarin plaza, and we “only” had 8 people, but we dined like Emperors on a cross China trek! Seriously, so much variety of style. The far SGV (aka Rowland and Hacienda Heights, Dimond Bar, etc) is where a lot of exciting culinary growth is.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

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Chevy and Mary may have skipped the first place (the BBQ) but they made up for it by getting shave ice and boba tea!
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Related posts:

  1. Chicken Crawl – Dong Nguyen
  2. Chicken Crawl – Side Chick
  3. Chicken Crawl – Tasty Food
  4. Chicken Crawl – Red Chicken
  5. Broiling Pit is the Pits – Crawl part 3
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Chinese cuisine, Chinese Food, crawl, food crawl, hedonists, Hunan Cuisine, Mandarin Plaza, Rowland Heights, SGV, Szechuan cuisine, Uyghur Cuisine, Wine

Q by Peter Chang

Jan04

Restaurant: Q By Peter Chang

Location: 4500 East West Highway #100, Bethesda, MD 20814.  (240) 800-3722

Date: November 20, 2018

Cuisine: Szechuan Chinese

Rating: Great food, but flavors not as strong as in Szechuan

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Any excuse to go to a Chinese restaurant is a good excuse in my book — and that goes doubly so for Szechuan Chinese.
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So back in DC visit my parents and friends we were drawn to “famed” (in Washington) chef Peter Chang’s flagship: Q.

Peter Chang is an award winning chef specializing in Szechuan cuisine who has cooked for restaurants throughout cities in the American southeast and the DMV area. Chang was born in Hubei Province and trained in China, and cooked a meal for former Chinese president Hu Jintao. He moved to the United States to work as the chef at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C. In the past, Chang has disappeared and left restaurants, inspiring a group of fans to follow his movement in Internet discussion boards, such as DonRockwell.com and Chowhound.
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The interior has a decidedly nice build out in the modern Chinese style — done in a way that doesn’t look garish to Western sensibility.
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From my cellar: 2011 Selbach-Oster Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Riesling Kabinett. VM 87. Fresh bouquet of pear and apple blossom. Delicately sweet on the palate, offering a nice interplay of apricot flavor and luscious citricity. A lovely kabinett to drink now.
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The menu. Authentically long.
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Vegetable Dumpling (steamed).
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Flounder Fish with sour cabbage soup. My mom didn’t “trust” that I had over ordered and got an extra soup for herself. Lol, we had at least two dishes barely touched.
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Dipping sauces.
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Scallion Bubble Pancake. A unique and delicious take on the standard scallion pancake — basically crossed with one of those puffy Indian breads.
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Fresh Lily Dan Dan Mein. Had a touch of numbing flavor, and actually fairly authentic in taste profile. Not the super nutty kind. More like a typical Chengdu dan dan.
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Sichuan Chili Wonton. The typical “numb taste wonton”. Flavor was pretty typical, not super spicy. Wonton type was a bit different than usual, closer to a dimsum.
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Bought this champagne off the list.
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Dragon eggplant with spicy garlic sauce. Pretty much eggplant in fish sauce — which is a dish I love. This version had good flavor and really lovely plating. The eggplant was cut in this interesting spiral. Disadvantage was that it was hard to get just some out, as the vegetable was all connected. It also emphasizes the slippery texture of the eggplant — I like it better mushed up. But still a nice dish.
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Jade shrimp with crispy rice. Gluten free rice dome.
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I think this dish might be related to the Westlake style tea shrimp? Not sure. Very unusual. The sauce was pesto-like, but with a cilantro flavor. The crispy rice was neat too. Never actually seen this combination.
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All their rice is pink rice (with the red bean).
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But we didn’t realize that it came with, so we also ordered egg fried rice with green onion.
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AND Emperor’s fried rice. Alaska king crab leg with shredded scallop. So we had a LOT of rice.
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Mapo tofu. An okay version of the classic. Needed more mala and maybe some more meat. Maybe it didn’t even have meat.
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Braised kale noodles with lobster. Unusual too. Very mild in flavor.
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Peking duck. A couple people at the table had never HAD peking duck. They loved it of course. Everyone does.
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The traditional condiments plus a red horseradish sauce that was unusual.
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Hot and Spicy Fish in Clay Pot. The classic fish filet in chili oil. Pretty nice version of the dish.
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Cumin Lamb Chop. A more modern lamb chop version of regular cumin lamb. Excellent.
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Plain lo mein.
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Green pepper beef with leek. A sort of cross between the green pepper fish (but with beef) and the fatty beef in golden sour soup dishes. Very hot actually and quite good although we were all very full by the time it came.

I was surprised to find actual Szechuan food in Bethesda — and fancy at that! There are a lot of classic dishes here and somewhat updated takes on others. Decor and service are very updated. The modern updates on the dishes are mostly good (like the cumin lamb chops). But I would like slightly stronger more brazen Szechuan flavors — the elements are there but they are toned down a bit for the setting. Still, quite excellent.

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

Related posts:

  1. Chang’s Garden
  2. Hop Woo is Hop New
  3. Huolala Hot
  4. Silk Road Journeys – Shaanxi Gourmet
  5. Century City Heat
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Bethesda Maryland, Chinese cuisine, Chinese Food, Peter Chang, Q, Q By Peter Chang, Szechuan Chinese, Szechuan cuisine

So Many Palaces, So Few Sundays

Dec24

Restaurant: Monterey Palace Restaurant

Location: 1001 E Garvey Ave. Monterey Park, CA 91755. Phone number (626) 571-0888

Date: November 11, 2018

Cuisine: Cantonese Chinese

Rating: Tony always gets great stuff out of the kitchen

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Tony Lau’s Cantonese dinners are some of the best Chinese dinners of the year. He always manages to get the best out of these old school Cantonese kitchens.
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Monterey Palace is definitely one of these old school 80s Cantonese Palaces on Garvey.
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The interior is the usual somewhat overdone, slightly Chinese wide space.
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We had a nice private room.
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They specialize in roasting so there were pigs and ducks in the window.
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Peanuts on the table to begin with.
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Suckling Pig. Of course we had to. This was pretty typical of good SGV suckling pigs. Crisp skin, nice porky meat and the light hoisin sauce.
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Garlic shrimp. Crispy fried/baked. Not sure how they get them exactly like this.
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With roe too and WAY better than the similar steamed “bug” dish at Newport Seafood. This had a lot of flavor. You could munch on the shells if you like too.
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Scallops, pea pods, and sea cucumber. Very light sauce. A totally different sea cucumber prep than I had in China. But good. The scallops and pea pod part of the dish reminded me of velvety dishes I’d get at Chinese places in my youth (early 80s).
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Beef with mushrooms. Simple, but nice tasty beef actually.
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Sizzling pork. It came first in a bowl.
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Then they transferred to the hot skillet to finish it off. Much like the old “sizzling war bar.”
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Cantonese roast duck. This is close to Peking Duck, but not as crispy. Basically roast duck. Served with the heavier buns.
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And the usual condiments. Not nearly as good as a great Peking Duck, but still excellent.
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Lobster steamed with garlic. This simple prep is often one I get for crab. Just steamed, over glass noodles, and with lots and lots of garlic. Actually turned out to be excellent with lobster as it played up the moist and tender meat.

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Mushrooms, veggies, and pan fried meat (can’t remember which type). This was a slightly different dish and nice.

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Some ancient dessert wine for my gelato.
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My son’s favorite and his birthday pick: Triple Chocolate Cloud Gelato – the base made with Valrhona 63% Satilla Chocolate and then layered with Dark Chocolate Creamcheese Ganache and house-made Valrhona brownie cubes — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — #SweetMilkGelato #gelato #SummerTime #TripleChocolate #chocolate #valrhona #javara #brownies #icecream #dessert #FrozenDessert

There was also a tiny bit of Saffron Pistachio Gelato – Persian Saffron infused milk and Pistachios from Bronte Sicily — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — #SweetMilkGelato #gelato #dessert #icecream #FrozenDessert #saffron #pistachio #nuts #sicily
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The restaurant brought fruit.
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Overall, this was a great meal. Monterey Palace is a pretty dated old school Cantonese place and I bet that if you just went and ate dinner it would be fairly middling (although enjoyable enough). However, Tony Lau always manages to get the very best out of them. This meal wasn’t my favorite Chinese style, I like a somewhat more varied, spicier, and more “Chinese” Chinese food style personally. In some ways it actually reminded me of what we had in Guilin China (which isn’t that far from Canton). You can see a lot of examples from China itself below in my Chinese dining guide.

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

Wines jumbled below:
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Related posts:

  1. Lincoln Seafood Restaurant
  2. NBC Seafood – Best Ever?
  3. SGV Nights – Seafood Palace
  4. Cui Hua Lou – Szechuan Shed
  5. Day of the Dumplings
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: BYOG, Cantonese Chinese, Chinese Food, Gelato, hedonists, Monterey Palace, Monterey Palace Restaurant, Monterey Park, SGV, Tony Lau

Szechuan Impression West

Dec01

Restaurant: Sichuan Impression

Location: 11057 Santa Monica Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90025. (310) 444-7171

Date: October 10 and November 6 & 30th and December 17 & 19, 2018 and Jan 9 & 30 and April 21, 2019 and July 16, 2019

Cuisine: Szechuan Chinese

Rating: SGV on the Westside

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I’ve been waiting all summer for Sichuan Impression — one of my favorite SGV haunts — westside branch to open up and so it was that Yarom, Keong, and I descended on them at 11am opening day! Plus returned twice a month later for more updates.
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They took up residence in the old Jin Jiang which I used to eat at all the time in the old Flektor days. Right above Hamasaku. Only problem with this location is the lousy parking (the lot’s always full).
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The interior is newly redone — except the icky bathrooms.
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Crowded on a Friday night.
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There is some patio space too. Never see that at Chinese!
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The menu is posh.
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Yarom with the chef from Chengdu and the owner Kelly (on the right).
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For my 11/6/18 lunch Liz brought this perfect light (low alcohol) Riesling. 2016 Peter Lauer Ayler Kupp Riesling Spätlese Faß 23. VM 93. This “two-star” auction lot is more northerly in fruit personality than the corresponding Fass 7, prominently featuring grapefruit and white peach laced with fresh lime and garlanded in apple blossom and honeysuckle. The lusciously fruited palate is buoyant, glossy and subtly creamy, but at the same time almost electrocharged in its expression of brightly juicy citrus. The vibrantly sustained finish gains mouthwatering appeal from a suffusion of mineral salts and invigorates with an impingement of grapefruit zest, peach fuzz and stone.
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Juicy Steamed Chicken in Chili Sauce (10/10/18). This classic cold appetizer was excellent here. Not absolutely perfect. The sauce was great, but the chicken maybe could have been slightly better. But still very strong.
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Impressive Bean Jelly (10/10/18). Green bean jelly, crushed peanuts, scallion. This actually was impressive. First of all, it’s cut in Chengdu street style instead of the longer noodles (which I also like). It’s cold, with the jello-like texture and the awesome tangy/spicy chili sauce. 10 out of 10 for this fabulous dish.

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On our second and third visit (11/6/18 & 11/30/18) the dish was cut more like noodles. I actually preferred the slab version slightly although it was still great.
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Bamboo shoots in chili sauce (1/30/19). This is a simple dish, possibly just steamed bamboo shoots with chili oil on top, but I liked it a lot. Nice crunch. Some real heat — and kinda healthy!
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On 2/10/19 a version of the bamboo shoots with sauce on the side.
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Cold Noodles (11/30/18). This is the worst dish I’ve had here. Cold, chewy, an not much flavor.
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Szechuan French Fries (11/30/18). A little soggy but great flavor.
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Eggs and tomatoes (2/10/19). A Chinese home classic.
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Wonton’s in chili oil (11/6/18). Could have used a bit more chili oil, but the wontons were delicious. I just dipped it in the noodle sauce.
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Impressive Sausages (4/21/19). Very good cold Chinese Sausages. Spicy and Sweet and Salty at the same time.

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Shredded Pork with Garlic (11/6/18). Cold bacon-like pork with garlic and cilantro. I was actually expecting the pork in fish sauce but this was a great dish too. Not as hot as at Gu Yi.
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Twice Cooked Pork (7/16/19). An excellent example of the classic Szechuan Dish. Tender meat, lots of salty/pork flavor, offset by the big strips of green onion.
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Steamed Pork with Rice Flour (10/10/18). Marbled pork, pumpkin, scallion. I’ve never had this dish before. The meat was very fatty and very soft and had a moist texture from the rice flour — not to mention an interesting almost almond-like taste. Quite comforting and nice, if a touch “weird” to American standards.
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MaPo Tofu (10/10/18). 10 out of 10 version of this classic dish. Salty, but not too salty, with lots of mala.

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Everything hot pot (11/30/18). This had tripe, spam, shrimp, veggies, and some kind of scary dark organ meat. It was delicious though, particularly the spam.
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Fish filet with green chilies (11/30/18). Really nice version of this dish. Thick soft fish and lots of green heat. Very delicate and flavorful.
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Fish filet in golden sour soup (11/30/18). Photo is after it was mostly eaten. Awesome fish dish. The soft fish complemented perfectly with the mild tangy soup/sauce.
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Tea Smoked Pork Rib (10/10/18 & 11/30/18). Pork rib, dry chili, scallion, minced peanuts. This was a moderately contentious dish in the group, but I loved it as always. The meat is super tender, melt from the bone, with a dry and nutty heat.
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Sweet and Sour Shrimp (10/10/18). Super garlicky, spicy, tangy. Really like this dish too.

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Sizzling chicken with chilies (11/6/18). Nice version of this dish. Not as heavy on the peppers and aromatics but I liked the celery (coated in chili bits).

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Pig trotters (11/30/18). Chewy, but lots and lots of flavor.
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Kung Pao Chicken (11/30/18). Fabulous. Very much Chengdu style with the heat, sweetness, and tangy quality.
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Kung Pao Shrimp (12/19/18). Not only did it have the same goodness (and lots of ginger) but there were tons of succulent shrimp!
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Griddle Style Shrimp (11/30/18). Really nice flavor.
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Frog hot pot (11/30/18). Not our favorite. The frog meat was good, if boney but it was a bit overcooked and the sauce more flat.
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Ginger Rabbit (4/21/19). Rabbit was meaty and had minimal bone for rabbit. The sauce had a nice ginger flavor and was HOT — very hot for mortals.
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Spicy Hot Free Range Chicken (1/9/19). This dish was one of the hottest dishes I’ve had here, with a searing green/red almost Hunan style heat. Nice flavor and a lot of good garlicky burn.
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Griddle Cooked Squid (4/21/19). Great griddle cooked flavor. Hot but not too hot. Nice chewy squid. Crunchy vegetables. Excellent dish.
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Cumin mutton (11/6/18). Super tender. Awesome version of this Szechuan classic.

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Mustard Greens (11/30/18). Really delicious. Crunchy with lots of garlic.
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Lettuce (11/30/18). Also very good.
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Crunchy veggies and egg with tomato (11/30/18). Boring stuff for vegetarians.
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Rice cake with syrup and peanut dust (11/30/18). Interesting gooey/chewy texture and pleasant flavor. Mild though like most Chinese desserts.
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Natural Bubblegum Gelato made by me for @sweetmilkgelato (11/30/18) — turns out you can simulate bubblegum with a bunch of fruits and vanilla! — #SweetMilkGelato #gelato #bubblegum #weirdflavors #natural
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Pina Colada Sorbetto — just like the cocktail with Thai coconut milk, pineapple, a touch of lime and dark rum — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato (11/30/18) — #SweetMilkGelato #gelato #dessert #icecream #FrozenDessert #PinaColada #CocktailIceCream #pineapple #coconut #lime #rum

Service was nice but very slightly confused as this was the opening hour for the entire restaurant. The owner Kelly was super nice. They have one of their chefs in from Chengdu for the opening, and the food was extremely tight, extremely authentic, and as good as the SGV branch. He will head home at some point, and so it will be interesting to see where it goes. The menu is big and interesting with all sorts of non-American favorites like intestines and kidneys and rabbit. Yum!

Super excited to have this on the westside — and they have a liquor license too so we will be coming back for a wine dinner in November.

I have heard that the lines are quite bad at dinner time and the staff hasn’t totally figured out how to service the demand yet — but they seem committed to figuring it out. I’m happy it’s busy too because that means it will do better and last longer! Because this is real Szechuan food (or as close as we come in America).

My second lunch on 11/6/18 was medium crowded. They took a bit of time to take our order but it came fast and everything was still delicious. It maybe was 5% less on point than the first time, probably because the Chengdu chef returned home, but it was still really really solid and about the same as the SGV version.

Third dinner on 11/30/18 was very good. A few dishes were off like the cold noodles but most were great. They had a bit of a tough time (although they tried) with the complex two table ordering and were bringing things out a bit fast. But they also had the best bus boy ever!

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

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Papa Limor 83rd bday!7U1A2414
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High acid, fruit hiding a bit, but very nice.
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Tasted like a pinot. VERY fruit forward.
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Great with the spice.
IMG_1443Nice and dry.

Related posts:

  1. Cui Hua Lou – Szechuan Shed
  2. GuYi — Szechuan in Brentwood?
  3. Eating Chengdu – Szechuan
  4. Hop Woo is Hop New
  5. Serious Szechuan
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: BYOG, chili, Chinese Food, Gelato, hedonists, mala, mapo tofu, opening day, Sichuan Impression, Skylar, spicy, Szechuan Impression, West LA

Derek moved to China Red

Nov20

Restaurant: China Red

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

Date: September 30, 2018

Cuisine: Chinese

Rating: Very good Cantonese, has some DM though

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Another Sunday, another Chinese. In this case we came to China Red because our friend Derek, former manager of Elite and World Seafood has moved here.
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For some reason I’ve been on a run of places on the slightly more “Eastern” half of the main SGV. Slightly more annoying drive too as it’s 10-15 minutes further.
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The interior is typical midsized Cantonese. There is some DM (deferred maintenance). This is very Chinese, but the place is only a couple years old and is showing some wear and tear.
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Here is Derek on the left with Yarom.
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We were in the private room — which is eclectic to say the least.
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Peanuts to start.
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We started with a few classic bits of dimsum, even though it was evening.

Har Gow. Pretty solid shrimp dumplings.
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Shu Mai. Pork and shrimp. I always love these meat bombs.
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Roast Pigeon. Finger licking good.
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Garlic fried fish. Or maybe it was frog, I can’t remember. It was crunchy, garlicky, salty, and pretty good.
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Peking duck. Can never go wrong with that and this was a fairly juicy version.
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Even if they only had the buns (I prefer the pancakes).
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Roast pork. Nice crispy skin.
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Mixed seafood chow mein. Carby goodness.
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And the next noodle, because we needed a LOT of them. This was some sort of meat and black bean and black pepper wok fried noodle – it was delicious.
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String beans with eggplant.
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Pea tendrils or whichever type of colon sweeper with garlic.
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Everything fried rice.
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Lobster. A solid lobster. I’ve had better sauces but the meat was good.
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Sweet and sour squirrel fish. Very fried, which makes it extra tasty.
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More noodles, chicken noodles I think. Not quite as good as the beef pepper noodles.
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Custard buns. Tasty.

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

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

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

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Related posts:

  1. Japanese in China – Izakaya Akatora
  2. World Seafood is Elite
  3. SGV Nights – Seafood Palace
  4. Top Island Seafood
  5. Mark’s Duck House
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Cantonese, Cantonese cuisine, China Red, Chinese cuisine, Chinese Food, Dim sum, hedonists, Lobster, Peking Duck, pigeon, SGV, Wine

Elite Wines at Elite Restaurant

Nov05

Restaurant: Elite Restaurant [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Location: 700 S Atlantic Blvd, Monterey Park, CA 91754. (626) 282-9998

Date: September 17, 2018

Cuisine: Cantonese Banquet

Rating: Elite!

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Elite is well known as one of great LA’s top dimsum places, but less well known is how great a Cantonese banquet place it is. On this particular night I met Paul R and a bunch of his friends out here for Burgundy night — sure it was a week night and 2 hours in traffic, but great Burgundy and Chinese is worth it!

They actually have a couple private rooms, but this time we had the small one, although it was certainly big enough for the 8 of us. The above photo is the same room, different dinner.

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1996 Deutz Champagne Cuvée William Deutz Rosé. JG 91. This is a very young bottle of Rosé that offers up excellent promise on both the nose and palate, but I would be inclined to give the wine at least a couple more years to really allow it to blossom. The bouquet is deep, young and classy, as it offers up scents of tart cherries, orange peel, sourdough, a touch of new leather and a lovely base of soil. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied, crisp and complex, with lovely focus and bounce, bright acids, tiny bubbles and good length and grip on the slightly muddied finish. I suspect that a bit more precision will come on the backend with further bottle age.
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2000 Deutz Champagne Cuvée William Deutz. JG 93. The 2000 Cuvée William Deutz is a deep, young and powerfully-built wine with superb depth and structure for long-term aging. The bouquet is really quite fine, offering up a deep and classy nose of apple, wheat toast, tangerine, some gentle leesy tones, a lovely base of soil, a touch of fresh nutmeg and a smoky topnote. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and rock solid at the core, with excellent focus and balance, elegant mousse and excellent length and grip on the crisp and complex finish. This is a very classy bottle of bubbly that is already drinking very well and which will continue to age gracefully for a couple of decades.
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Peanuts on the table.
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From my cellar: 1983 Domaine Clair-Daü Bonnes Mares. JK 94. Insanely pretty- aromas of cherry, sweet tea, violet, rose and potpourri. On the palate this shows cherry, tea and lavender. Picks up mineral elements as it sits in the glass. Flavors of cherry liqueur, mineral, rose water and mineral. Balanced, with a long finish. Just awesome.1A0A7552
Cold BBQ Plate with Macau style BBQ pork belly, Char Sui, roast chicken, and jellyfish. Good stuff all around, particularly both porks.
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2001 Domaine Denis Mortet Chambertin. VM 92+. Full, bright red. Brooding, very ripe aromas of black fruits, licorice, graphite and gunflint, all lifted by a subtle oaky perfume. Big, broad, rich and okay, with powerful, dense black fruit flavors and excellent length and thrust. Five or six years in bottle should bring greater refinement as the wine loses some of its baby fat.
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Peking duck. Despite the fact that I’ve been to Elite 20+ times, I’ve never had their peking duck — didn’t even know they offered it. It wasn’t bad at all. Sure they offer only the buns, not the pancakes, but it was still darn good.1A0A7572
2007 Domaine Ponsot Griotte-Chambertin. BH 93. A moderately complex but quite densely fruited nose of earthy red berries, underbrush and warm earth tones leads to silky, rich and round broad-shouldered flavors that possess taut muscle but no hard edges or tannins, in fact the mouth feel here is quite sophisticated, all wrapped in an impressively intense, mouth coating and harmonious finish. The structure is dense but fine and this should benefit from at least a decade of cellar time. A Griotte of class, grace and distinction.
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Duck part deux, which is mixed with water chestnuts etc and served with…
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Lettuce cups.
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Here it is as you eat it.
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2001 Gunderloch Nackenheim Rothenberg Riesling Auslese. VM 94. Tangerine and sassafras aromas put one in mind of Erden. On the palate, honey and rich marzipan sweetness are leavened by tangerine citricity and the whole suffused with pungently smoky minerality. A hundred grams of residual sugar are brought to heel by 10.5 acidity and heaps of extract. The braid of fresh fruit, botrytized, faintly caramelized fruit and minerals here is uncanny. Juicy and refreshing in the finish even as it is profoundly botrytized and rooted in its classic red soil terroir. Smoke and almonds linger longest of all.
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Santa Barbara prawns with garlic. Very simple prep, but good. Way, way better than the steamed bugs at Newport Seafood.
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1989 Domaine Bruno Clavelier Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru La Combe d’Orveau Vieilles Vignes. a rare wine, you don’t see Combe d’Orveau that often.
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Steamed pork with salty fish. Yeah, it looks like the cat barfed up on a plate, but it’s really delicious with a mild porky flavor.
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Sautéed scallops. Simple, to go with the wine, but nice.
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2001 Domaine Armand Rousseau Père et Fils Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cru Clos St. Jacques. BH 93. Knockout aromas of wonderfully intense black and red cherry fruit loaded with cassis and a touch of new oak introduce medium-bodied, sweet, harmonious, very expressive and long flavors all underpinned by racy minerality and firm structure. The tannins are prominent but ripe and the density of extract is impressive and this both coats and stains the palate. As it always does, this delivers finesse with real mid-palate punch with near perfect grace. For my taste, I would hold this for another 1 to 3 years but it would be no vinous crime to be drinking this now. Note to be sure to serve this cool as the alcohol becomes noticeable if it becomes a bit too warm.
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House special lobster. Super delicious with lots of juicy lobster meat.
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2001 Louis Jadot Chapelle-Chambertin. BH 93. A still very fresh nose is just now beginning to display the initial hints of secondary development that leads to rich, intense and beautifully well-detailed medium-bodied flavors that ooze a fine minerality on the vibrant and impeccably well-balanced finish. There is a touch of austerity present on the finale that serves as a balancing element to the naturally sweet mid-palate. This has reached that point in its evolution where it’s still on the way up but still far enough along where it can be drunk with pleasure. In sum, this is really lovely juice and a classic Chapelle.
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Mushrooms and other vegetables in brown sauce.
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2001 Joh. Jos. Prüm Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese. 95 points. Prum calls this wine “typically somewhat reserved vis-a-vis the Graacher Auslese” but I apprehend a level of sheer flavor intensity that goes beyond the other wines here today, with apple, honey and spice supported by a volatile esterous note of botrytis and even a prickly Eiswein-like whiff of chili pepper. Impressive custardy richness in the mouth, yet ripe, refreshing citricity keeps the wine dynamic and salty minerality helps extend the finish. (In the interest of full disclosure I pass on Prum explanation that this is one of “three or four comparable lots” of Wehlener Sonnenuhr Auslese which will be bottled separately.
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Seafood chow mein. I always love this dish, particularly when the sauce soaks into them and softens them up. Oh so good.
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2006 Domaine Ponsot Clos de la Roche Vieilles Vignes. VM 93-96. Good full ruby-red. Incredible nose melds wild cherry, mocha, brown spices, iron, orange peel and underbrush. Like liquid silk on entry, then hugely concentrated in the middle, with an extraordinarily fine-grained texture and no easy sweetness. Impeccably balanced, soil-driven wine that finishes with noble tannins and great persistence. This is Clos de la Roche, not pinot. As of November, one of the most promising wines of this stealth vintage.
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I wish I knew what they called this fried rice as it’s super awesome with that chopped pork and whatnot on top!
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2008 Bouchard Père et Fils Meursault 1er Cru Les Perrières. BH 93. The intense stoniness of this wine is immediately evident as it suffuses every aspect from nose to finish. An ultra elegant aromatic profile features notes of acacia, pear and dried rose petal before sliding gracefully into detailed, driving and explosive medium-bodied flavors that display cuts-like-a-knife precision on the almost aggressively mineral-driven finish that seems to go on and on. A study in purity and a classic Perrières.
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Gotta love the Mango Pudding.

A lot of these dishes were stunning, like the pig and all the crab dishes. The private room was great and we had a stunning lineup of (mostly) Burgundy. A wine or two had serious issues, but that’s par for the course. I feel that Burgundy shows off by far at dinners where it dominates (although it can mix fine with Champy). You can’t easily go back and forth between the big extracted wines and the more subtle Burgundy.

For more LA Chinese reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Elite – King Crab Custard
  2. Elite Dim Sum
  3. Elite New Years
  4. Elite Wine Night
  5. Lincoln Seafood Restaurant
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Cantonese cuisine, Chinese cuisine, Chinese Food, Elite, Elite Restaurant, Paul Rosenberg, Peking Duck, SGV

Eating Guilin – Chunji

Sep28

Restaurant: Chunji Roasted Goose Restaurant

Location: No. 12, Jiangan Road, Qixing District, Guilin, China / No. 21, Qixing Road, Qixing District, Guilin, China / 1/F, Nanxi Square, Chongxin Road, Xiangshan District, Guilin, China / 2/F, Jinshuiwan International Restaurant, Jinshui Road, Lingui County, Guilin, China / No.2 Middle Zhongshan Road, Xiufeng District, Guilin, China / No.1, North Zhongshan Road, Diecai District, Guilin, China

Date: August 6 & 8, 2018

Cuisine: Guangzhou Chinese

Rating: Big menu, great service, good food

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The Guangzhou province city of Guilin is famous for its unusual and beautiful mountains.
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Like Elephant Trunk Hill (above).
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While staying here, we went twice to Chunji Roast Goose, at two different locations — like most successful Chinese restaurants there are several locations in the same city.

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This location’s spacious interior.
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The kitchen was impressive to see.
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Look at the army of wok cooks!

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This is the second location frontage.
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And here we had a private room.

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Both shared the same Guangzhou style menu.
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Chinese beer, local I think.
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Chunji brings an hour glass to the table. If it runs out (30 min) before all your food has come your meal is free! I don’t think it ever happens with that army of cooks.
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Egg pudding/custard, soy sauce, salted steamed pork. A delicious dish we ordered twice. The egg has a lovely soft texture and the pork adds savory flavor.
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BBQ pork (char siu). This is the kind of sweet “candied” pork I really love. It was soft, rich, and delectably flavored.

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Glass noodles with mushrooms and egg. Pleasant.

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Beef of some sort with chilies.
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Pork and green peppers.
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Cauliflower. This was the second “version” of this dish they made. The first had bits of pork in it and was delicious. This was properly vegetarian but flavored mostly with soy sauce and was a bit salty.
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Bamboo shoots with spring onions and pork. This wasn’t supposed to have meat either, but they included more of the “sneaky meat.” I do have to say, it improved the flavor.
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Shredded potatoes and vinegar. I love the slightly sour quality of this dish.

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Cabbage.

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Stewed tofu (with sneaky pork). The kind of pan fried tofu in a light broth.

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Bean curd. Not my favorite version of this dish as it was a bit dry, but I do like the texture of this scum from the soy bucket bean curd.

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Beer fish. This is a local specialty. Fish braised in a sauce of tomatoes, beer, and chilies.
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Steamed fish. Blander.

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Vegetable fried rice. Always a favorite. Meat version is better, but any fried rice is good.

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Toffee taro. Chunks of taro deep fried and coated in syrup. They tasted just like glazed donut balls. Delicious and rapidly stick together.

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Toffee water chestnuts. Same think, different “filling.” I liked the crunch of the water chestnuts. Tasted very slightly less desserty.
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Durian puffs. Flakey buttery dough filled with durian paste. These had a very strong durian (petrol) flavor. I find it really delicious at first but the aftertaste wears on me.
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Fruit plate.

Chunji does a very good job. Service was solid and they have a big menu that seems well executed as most dishes were delicious. I don’t have that much experience with Guangzhou fare although certain dishes are familiar to me from Cantonese.

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

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Observe the city’s iconic mountains

Related posts:

  1. Eating Beijing – Xiao Long Pu
  2. Eating Beijing – 3.3 Noodles
  3. Eating Beijing – Xian Lao Man
  4. Eating Xi’an – Warrior Lunch
  5. Eating Chengdu – Alley Noodles
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: China, Chinese Food, Eating China, Eating Guilin, Guangzhou cuisine, Guilin

Eating Chengdu – Alley Noodles

Sep19

Restaurant: Somewhere near the Kuanxiangzi Alley

Location: ? Central Chengdu

Date: August 4, 2018

Cuisine: Szechuan Noodle House

Rating: OG dan dan

_

Chengdu has a couple areas now of older style buildings that have been restored and turned into pedestrian streets filled with different mixes of stores, restaurants, and vendors.
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This one, apparently Kuanxiangzi Alley (someone who reads Chinese can confirm), is very popular and upscale.
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And crowded!
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Among other Szechuan delicacies they offer spicy fried rabbit heads!
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And ear cleaning!
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We asked our guide to bring us to the most authentic dan dan mein possible and he took us here. I have no idea what it’s called.
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They double as a vendor out front. Or maybe there just is a vendor out front.
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The food appears to be made right in the lobby.
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And the decor is definitely not aimed at the western crowd.
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We split into two tables and ordered everything on the menu.
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Like non-spicy pork (spam?) and mushroom and bamboo noodles (thin).
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Or the same thing with thick noodles.
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And the main event, dan dan mein, one of the world’s greatest noodle dishes — which I even make at home.
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This is Chengdu-style where it’s not very soupy, has less sesame/peanut and is spicer. You mix it up to experience the really complex savory/spicy/numbing flavor. There was a good bit of preserved mustard greens in here for that unusual umami crunch. Excellent!
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And the spicy (beef?) and bamboo noodle.
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Plus two kinds of dumplings. This numb taste dumpling which was awesome — not that you can really taste what’s inside under that chili sauce.
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And the same non-spicy pork dumpling in the non-spicy broth (same as above with the non-spicy noodles).
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Chopsticks you help yourself to.

Good place. Not a big menu, but I could certainly lunch off top notch Chengdu style dan dan mein and numb taste dumplings often enough!

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

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New and old – east and west!

Related posts:

  1. Eating Chengdu – Chen Mapo Tofu
  2. Eating Beijing – 3.3 Noodles
  3. White Guys Can Cook Noodles
  4. Chengdu Taste – Power of the Peppercorn
  5. K-Town Report – Lee’s Noodles
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: China, Chinese Food, Dan Dan Mein, Dan Dan Noodles, Eating Chengdu, Eating China, spicy, Szechuan cuisine

Eating Chengdu – Chen Mapo Tofu

Sep14

Restaurant: Chen Mapo Tofu

Location: 197 W Yulong St, LuoMaShi, Qingyang Qu, Chengdu Shi, Sichuan Sheng, China, 610000. +86 28 8675 4512

Date: August 3, 2018

Cuisine: Szechuan Chinese

Rating: Most balanced Szechuan I’ve had

_

Being an obsessive lover of Szechuan food I’ve been wanting to go to Chengdu for years.
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It’s really quite a neat city with both modern…
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And “antique” buildings — something you don’t see as much of in many Chinese towns. It also has A LOT of crowds having grown in the last 20 years from about 3 million to over 16 million people!
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For our first night we arrived late from the train and rushed around the corner from our hotel to this recommended classic Szechuan place named Chen Mapo Tofu. The downstairs part looked hipped and was MOBBED. The guy at the front barely talked to us but basically told us that there were more people waiting than were going to eat tonight so he sent us upstairs to their less crowded area — we think.
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The upstairs was through this portal.
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And here is the menu.
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I took a picture of the first page of the huge menu. Wish I had the patience to photo 20 pages, but alas I did not.
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Signature mapo tofu. I’ve had a lot of “pocked marked old lady face tofu” and even make it myself. This might have been the best I’ve had, certain was great. Look at all that Szechuan peppercorn on top for the extra numb effect — love it!
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We had to get some rice, of course, for the quintessential combo.
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Mapo over rice.
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Had to try some Kung Pao Chicken at the source. Really nice. Not too spicy, but with a complex savory/sour kind of flavor that was really good and much more lively than the bland American versions.
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Tofu and mushrooms. Very nice mild yellow broth type of tofu. The chewier more fried kind.
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Clams and chicken with chiles. The chicken had all the bones, beak, feet etc. Very tasty sauce though with all the pepper. I really enjoyed this dish.
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Fresh whole fish boiled with chilies. Really nice version of this Szechuan classic soaked in chili oil and oozing with peppercorns and chilies. The only problem was all the bones.
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Greens.

Overall, this was a great meal, best we had in Chengdu. I’ll have to go back because I know the city has so much good stuff to offer. I really enjoyed the complex spicy, numb, tangy, sour flavors.

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

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The face of a (bamboo eating) angel

Related posts:

  1. Pockmarked Old Lady Tofu
  2. Chengdu Taste – Power of the Peppercorn
  3. Quick Eats: Tofu Ya
  4. Tofu with a Seoul
  5. Eating Beijing – Xiao Long Pu
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Chen Mapo Tofu, Chengdu, Chinese Food, Eating Chengdu, Eating China, mapo tofu, Szechuan cuisine

Eating Xi’an – De Fa Cheng

Sep10

Restaurant: De Fa Cheng

Location: 28 Pingan Market, Bell Tower Square, Xi’an, China. +86 29 8767 6615

Date: August 2, 2018

Cuisine: Chinese Dumpling House

Rating: Really interesting if a bit “big”

_

When I came to China in 2008 I ate at De Fa Cheng and enjoyed it tremendously. That trip, it was one of my favorite meals and I always regretted only taking a photo or two (it wasn’t until 2010 that I started photoing every meal I ate). It claims to offer “authentic” Tang Dynasty dumpling feasts. I have my doubts as to the historicity of the food, but it’s sure good.
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The place is located right across from the central Ming Dynasty Bell Tower and is at least 3 stories!
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I remember this golden dumpling from last time and used it to locate the restaurant again this trip (by some creative googling).
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Last time we had a big group and therefore some private rooms upstairs but this time we were in the “grand hall” on the first floor.
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They have plastic models of dumplings.
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There is a sauce bar you can make up your dumpling sauces at — unfortunately I only noticed after the meal!
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We got tea, plum juice (which I love), and some weird herbal/fruit dark brown juice with a highly intriguing and not entirely pleasant flavor.
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Cold dishes to start, including the world’s largest dates.
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Wood ear mushroom with onions. Loved it.
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Spinach, egg, and garlic.
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Pickled veggies and meats.
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Shrimp and cucumbers.
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And super spicy crawfish.
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There are many levels of dumpling banquet, varying from about $10 a person to several hundred! We got level 2 or 3, it was about $15, and was a staggering amount of food. There was even a custom veggie version for my wife.

The normal course we ordered came with what seemed to be “all you can eat” boiled pork dumplings, a comfort food I always enjoy. Each time our plate got low they just brought another.
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The veggie course likewise had a plate of boiled veggie dumplings. She level got it low but I’m sure they would have replaced it too.
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Each person then got one of each type of specialty dumpling. I’m going to have to guess for most what was in them because I couldn’t read Chinese. The brown ones were walnut dumplings. I dunno about the other.
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There were duck dumplings and something else here.
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A whole selection of veggie dumplings here.
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And a second round of different veggie dumplings here.
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Then some veggie and some other type here for us.
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The orange ones were a touch sweet and really good. Maybe pumpkin.
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These dumplings were in a soup with Szechuan peppercorns and hence had a nice numbing bite.
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Fried pork dumplings.
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Baked dumplings.
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More rounds. I can’t remember what they were but the ones with the green edge were really good. Like meatball dumplings.
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The middle ones were a strong tomato dumpling and I can’t remember about the outside.
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Finally there was a wonton soup.
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We got this whole story about the Empress Cixi and how this was made for her. It contained little wontons and the random number in your bowl denotes your fortune somehow.
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Watermelon.

This was a fun meal and a great deal at $15 a head for an epic gut bursting feast. Light eaters could split a course. In fact we ordered 4 for 3 adults and the kids. The dumplings were interesting and flavorful. My only complaint was that sometimes the skins were a bit chewy/thick. I wonder what the hell is in the expensive banquets? I think they go up to 100 dumpling types!

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

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De Fa Cheng is right across the street from the iconic Bell Tower

Related posts:

  1. Eating Beijing – Xian Lao Man
  2. Eating Xi’an – Jia San Soup Pau
  3. Eating Xi’an – Warrior Lunch
  4. Eating Beijing – Country Kitchen
  5. Eating Beijing – Dadong
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: China, Chinese Food, De Fa Cheng, dumplings, Eating China, Eating Xi'an, plum juice, soup, Xi'an
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