Restaurant: Chong Qing Special Noodles

Location: 708 E Las Tunas Dr, San Gabriel, CA 91776.  (626) 374-1849

Date: October 20, 2018

Cuisine: Szechuan Chinese

Rating: Good Chong Qing style casual place

I’ll take any excuse to head out to the SGV — and next to no excuse to head out to the SGV for Szechuan.

Most of the Szechuan places I go to have their culinary roots in Chengdu, but a few, like this one, in Szechuan’s larger, less iconic city: Chongqing.

Clearly this used to be a KBBQ or something because it has hoods over all the tables.

The classic Chinese joint Menu.

Watermelon juice. Pretty much just blended watermelon.

Smoked plum juice. Love this stuff!


They have the cold bar. We ordered pretty much all of it.

Salty/sweet garlic cucumbers.

Shredded potato. These I like with some spicy sauce.

Peanuts.

Wood ear mushrooms with celery. Aka “black fungus”.  Love ’em.

Pastrami like cured beef? Or maybe pork. Either way a bit spicy and really good.

Pork intestine with bean curd. Not my fav.

Pig ear with chili oil!

Cold steamed chicken with spicy sauce. Chicken itself was good, but didn’t like this version of the sauce (more BBQ like).

Spicy wonton with “soup.” Delicious little spicy pockets of yum.

Spicy fried chicken with aromatic peppers. Love this salty dish.

Ma Po Tofu. Just a so-so version of this dish. Not much mala and not that spicy.

Chongqing noodle. Noodles with pork, fried egg, and spicy goodness.

Dan dan mein. The nuttier other classic Szechuan noodle dish.

Mixed up this was fairly accurate to what I was getting in Chengdu. Quite good.

Noodle pull!

Shredded pork with green chilis. Quite hot and very tasty soft pork.

Cumin lamb. Good too.

Repulsive liver soup. This stuff was gross. The broth was that tasteless pork bone broth and the liver… ick.

Greens. Colon sweeper again. Maybe mustard greens.

Matcha White Gelato – ceremonial matcha green tea gelato base with white chocolate stracciatella layered in — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — #SweetMilkGelato #gelato #dessert #icecream #FrozenDessert #Matcha #GreenTea #WhiteChocolate #Stracciatella

Overall, we ordered a LOT for 4 people and enjoyed most of it. This is an older style SGV place, VERY casual, friendly but slightly indifferent service, excellent value, tasty food, average ingredient quality, authentic. They have a lot of dishes. And some are excellent and some are just okay. As someone who has eaten a lot of Szechuan food I tend to prefer places with a slightly tuned up kitchen, better ingredients, etc — but still, no serious complaints.

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