Restaurant: Ray’s Duck House晶瑞轩海鲜酒楼
Location: 4721 Chino Hills Pkwy, Chino Hills, CA 91709. (909) 606-9046
Date: January 26, 2023
Cuisine: Cantonese (and more) Chinese
Rating: Quite excellent, but really really far
So strong is my commitment to Chinese food that I was willing to drive a small group of us ALL the way to Chino Hills (roughly 1.5 hours each way) just for the chance to try this newish recommended Peking Duck and dim sum restaurant.
The aforementioned hills.
It’s unusual for a Cantonese place to have real Peking duck.
Check out the mysteriously featured “plastered over wall”!
Nice new “classic” decor.
Sauce station.
The menu sheet.
Specials. There was also a large glossy dinner menu I forgot to photo.
Jeffrey waiting for Chevy (who was 45 minutes late). Grr.
Chili sauce and very intense Chinese mustard.
Soy Sauce and Red Vinegar.
Smashed Cucumbers made special to order. Not marinated but very fresh and pretty decent.
Spicy Vermicelli. This wasn’t quite what I expected as I was looking for the Sichuan tangy spicy numbing version. This was basically the same but not very tangy or spicy. It was good though and a little vinegar and chili oil half solved the problem.
Spicy Wontons. Sort of drowned in lightly spicy broth. Wontons themselves were fine.
Ray’s Peking duck spread. Style was modern Beijing cut in the back room.
Skin was thick, crunchy, airy, and quite spectacular, both the separate parts and the bits on the meat — it was all crunchy! = 9
Meat was served mostly moon cut with the skin, some dark meat by itself. The wings and legs were missing. And while the meat wasn’t as juicy as MDP it was very very tasty with great duck flavor. Probably the third best meat = 7.
Pancake was thin and translucent and there were plenty of them = 10
Hoisin was great. It wasn’t goopy thick, nor too sweet, and had fabulous on-point flavor = 9
Accoutrements were scallion and cucumbers as usual. This was the weakest element as they had been cut the previous day (most likely) and were dry = 3
Bones were on the menu, but they didn’t think we needed them = N/A
Duck Soup was bland although at least not unpleasant = 4
The burrito/bing together was excellent = 8.5/10.
More details on our giant survey of LA peking duck can be found here in the Ultimate LA Peking Duck Guide.
Skin was thick, crunchy, airy, and quite spectacular, both the separate parts and the bits on the meat — it was all crunchy! = 9
Meat was served mostly moon cut with the skin, some dark meat by itself. The wings and legs were missing. And while the meat wasn’t as juicy as MDP it was very very tasty with great duck flavor. Probably the third best meat = 7.
Hoisin was great. It wasn’t goopy thick, nor too sweet, and had fabulous on-point flavor = 9
Accoutrements were scallion and cucumbers as usual. This was the weakest element as they had been cut the previous day (most likely) and were dry = 3
Pancake was thin and translucent and there were plenty of them = 10
Duck Soup was bland although at least not unpleasant = 4
Spareribs in Blackbean Sauce. These were a bit bony — fine — but not as (realatively) good as most of the rest of the dimsum here.
Steamed Chicken Feet in Brown Sauce.
Shrimp Har Gow. An excellent version of this classic. Pretty nice medium shell with a nice chunky shrimp interior.
Pork and Shrimp Siu Mai. Excellent version. Very chunky with lots of good pork flavor.
Shrimp and Chives Dumpling. Quite solid.
XLB. Not the typical over heavy buns in the tin foil, so a step up. Shells were decent, if still a little thick. The meat was good but there wasn’t that much “soup.”
Rice Noodle Roll with BBQ Pork. The sauce was more savory than usual, but very nice. The texture on the chow fun itself was really stretchy and excellent and the pork was juicy and great.
End on view.
Sticky Rice Wrapped with Lotus Leaves. The rice itself was very good and the filling bits tasty, but minimal. Needed a bunch more and some eggs.
Inside the wrap.
Pan-Fried chives & shrimp cake. I always love this dish and this was no exception. Greasy and delicious with awesome texture.
Bean Curd Skin Rolls in Brown Sauce. This was one of the best versions of this dish I’ve had. Maybe not THE BEST but very good. The quality came down to the extremely “flavored” (MSGed) brown sauce and the nice texture of the wrap and veggies inside.
BBQ Pork Bun. The fluffy bun might have been a hair dry but the pork interior was sweet, classic, and delicious.
Inside view.
Baked BBQ Pork Bun. The sticky sweet bun was spot on and the interior contained the same yummy sweet pork. Excellent.
Inside view again.
Tianjin Pork Bun. I wasn’t sure what to expect with this one. What we got was a classic bao bun, the kind that’s also common in Japan, with a dumpling like pork ball interior. The meat was good. This felt quite old school.
Beef Ball with Dried Tangerine Peel. These were a bit fluffier than usual, although still stretchy. The flavor was nice so quite excellent, although subtly different.
Fried Shrimp Ball with Egg Yolk. Not sure where the yolk was, as these were served with what seemed like a sweet mayo. They were good though, being classic shrimp balls with a crunchy shell.
Deep Fried Vegetarian Spring Roll. This was like the ideal veggie spring roll, perfect. It was super hot, crispy, and then the cabbage and white pepper interior was absolutely lovely.
Deep Fried Pork Dumplings. The glutinous shell was a bit sweet and quite good and there was a different (if understuffed) pork filling inside. Quite excellent.
Baked Egg Tart. Shell was a touch heavy but the eggy custard filling was excellent. Not as amazing as the Monterey Palace ones, but still good.
Overall, Ray’s was reasonably impressive. The Peking Duck was quite solid, definitely real Peking Duck and right int he middle of the pack. It would have been even better if Chevy wasn’t 45 min late (during which time the duck sat and waited for him, growing soggier). The dim sum was also very good. It’s not the BEST and the dishes were pretty standard, but execution was overall quite good, allowing for a totally solid classic dim sum experience.
