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Little Cambodia – Hak Heang

Oct12

Location: 2041 E Anaheim St, Long Beach, CA 90804. (562) 434-0296

Date: February 23, 2022

Cuisine: Cambodian Chinese

Rating: Cambodian drifting toward Chinese

Yarom and I went down to Long Beach in February 2022 to check out a bunch of Cambodian restaurants in a mini crawl. Alas we couldn’t convince anyone else to come with us on this particular day.

Our third stop was Hak Heang which is a Long Beach Cambodian institution.

The interior is vast, dingy, and typical of Chinese banquet halls. On one side a bunch of older Cambodian guys were playing cards and drinking tea.

The many is VAST with a hybrid of Cambodian, Chinese, and Cambodian Chinese dishes. Presumably the owners are ethnic Chinese from Cambodia.
We tried to order Cambodian dishes and asked the server for recommendations. But because we were two people and this was our third stop could only handle two more dishes.

Curry Fish (073). Mam Bo Hoc Nuoc Dua. TONS of flavor, very spicy, and unusual herbal notes.

Ground chicken, Shrimp, and Lemon Grass (098). Ga Tom Xao Cai Ot. Also very delicious and unusual. As can be found at many Thai restaurants this “meat paste” was served with chunks of veggies as a kind of dip or topping.

Hak Heang also has a huge menu and it would definitely be possible to do a large group dinner here. The two dishes we had were delicious and interesting. However, I can’t say the dingy old Cantonese banquet hall vibe — like a relic of the late 70s or something — is super appearing.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Cambodian Cuisine, Chinese cuisine, food crawl, Hak Heang, Long Beach, Lunch Quest

Little Cambodia – Sophy’s Cambodia Town Food

Oct10

Restaurant: Sophy’s Cambodia Town Food

Location: 3240 E Pacific Coast Hwy, Long Beach, CA 90804. (562) 494-1763

Date: February 23, 2022

Cuisine: Cambodian

Rating: Very good, huge menu of diverse dishes

Yarom and I went down to Long Beach in February 2022 to check out a bunch of Cambodian restaurants in a mini crawl. Alas we couldn’t convince anyone else to come with us on this particular day.

Our second stop was Sophy’s Cambodia Town Food. Very odd long building with the entrance hidden in the back. We had to walk all the way around to find it.

Inside there are a selection of take away snacks.

The large interior was clearly a diner or family restaurant decades ago.

The huge menu. Food here “overlaps” in a Thai and/or Vietnamese direction. I’m not enough of a South East Asian culture buff to know if that’s just that, being adjacent, “town food” in Cambodia is loosely similar to Thai and/or Vietnamese or if this particular restaurant just leans that way.

Beef Jerky. Sophy’s signature dish. Flank steaks deeply marinated, then oven-dried and then deep fried. Served with garlic and vinegar sauce. Definitely dry, definitely flaky and full of flavor.

A sour soup of chicken, maybe fish, and watercress. Unusual flavors but kinda delicious.

Banh Cheo. Pan fried crepes filled with ground chicken, shrimp, bean sprouts and onion. Served with assorted vegetables, a variety of mint and crushed peanuts in our tasty sweet and sour sauce. This can (more or less) be found at many Vietnamese restaurants and is probably typical of the Peninsula (aka South East Asia). Regardless, it was delicious here. The egg, tangy fish sauce and herbs all combine to make a lovely fresh combo.

Sauces and peanuts.

Yarom with the owner.

Sophy’s was quite tasty and given the vastness of the menu could be good for a full on 12-15 course dinner. I guess it’s in the “Cambodian corner” of the spectrum of fancier traditional “town food” found in South East Asia and as such has many overlapping dishes with Thai and Vietnamese restaurants, but it’s certainly got plenty of uniquely Cambodian ones as well.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Tagged as: Cambodian Cuisine, food crawl, Long Beach, Lunch Quest

Little Cambodia – A&J Seafood Shack

Oct08

Restaurant: A&J Seafood Shack

Location: 3201 E Anaheim St, Long Beach, CA 90804. (562) 386-2000

Date: February 23, 2022

Cuisine: Cambodian

Rating: Well… it’s a shack

Yarom and I went down to Long Beach in February 2022 to check out a bunch of Cambodian restaurants in a mini crawl. Alas we couldn’t convince anyone else to come with us on this particular day.

Our first stop was A&J Seafood Shack.

It’s well know, but it really is a shack.

The menu and our order. This place is basically intended for a grabbing a quick lunch plate.

Grilled oysters. Fresh, sustainable oysters are grilled and served with zingy lime juice and pepper sauce as well as fried garlic.

Cracking them, they were pretty much just grilled oysters. The “sauces” were all on the side.

Grilled Beef Stick. Using the best cut of beef, marinated with fresh lemon-grass, garlic, turmeric and spices. Nice bit of char.

Khmer Sausage. Known as “Kwa Koh” in Khmer, this link is packed with flavors. Filled with hand chopped beef, rice, garlic, galangal and spices. This was my favorite, slightly sweet and fatty.

This stuff was kinda tasty, and the prices are right (aka very inexpensive). Unfortunately, it’s not all sold ala cart and it’s just a shack with a counter to eat at, so good mostly if you want a quick and tasty lunch.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Tagged as: Cambodian Cuisine, food crawl, Long Beach, Lunch Quest

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”.

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

We start at 11am, “meating” (haha) up at the former Sam Woo BBQ, now Leung Kee Chinese BBQ.

It’s right smack in the middle of this huge mall that contains tons of Asian restaurants, including Chinese, Korean, Thai and more.

They do a lot of takeout biz, pigs and ducks and the like.

The space is typical old school SGV.

Boba must be a new thing.

The menu.

Tea comes in a mug!

And there is free eggdrop soup — which was pretty darn good.

Macau style roast pork. Must have just been reheated as it landed on our table in 2 seconds, but pretty tasty.

Crispy beef. Very fried, but very delicious.

Peking Duck. It wasn’t the best peking duck, maybe a bit soggy, but peking duck is always pretty good.

Buns instead of pancakes.

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.

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

Next up, we leave the actual mall and cross the street on foot to:

Meet up with more people at noon at:

Cantonese Mandarin Bay Seafood Restaurant.

The gang (minus yours truly).

The takeout menu.

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.

Nice.

Second free soup of the day, hot and sour — this was not good hot and sour. I saved the stomach space.

Marinated Jellyfish. Vinegary and chewy good.

Salt and Pepper Shrimp. Salty, crunchy, very tasty.

Salt and pepper squid — somehow we ended up with the same prep twice. These were good too.

Ginger and Green Onion frog. Kinda fried, but the sauce was great.

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

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

Next up we walked 2 doors down.

To a new style Szechuan place.

This is what I mean by new style. They still have the ugly drop ceiling, but they have made a tiny effort at decorating.

The menu is gargantuan.
This is a great wine on any day, and particularly great on a hot day with Chinese.

Recycled from the Vietnamese crawl.

Grilled pork jowl with Yunnan sauce. Delicious.

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.

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.

Black pepper lamb shoulder. Not spicy, but very tasty with a strong onion flavor.

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.

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

Then we popped back to this spot:

Located in between the Mandarin Bay and Spicy Moment.

Hunan is more old school than Spicy Moment, but it also has a vast menu:

Vast menu.

More sweet wine.

And a rhone blend.

Peanuts.

Shredded minced pork with corn and pickled vegetable. Super tasty — pork really helps a veggie. Sure to make things really move along later.

Sautéed lamb. Tasty.

Crispy pork ribs with garlic and chilies. Lots of flavor, not so much meat.

Fish filet with fire cracker salt. Very delicious boiled fish with garlic and chilies.

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.

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

When I was spotting during the hot pot night, this place seemed intriguing.

Happy Tree BBQ. It’s a new style skewered meats place.

Very snazzy new interior.

Real coals.

And this warmer thing on the table where they put your skewers.

Powders.

Seaweed salad. Tastes like it looks.

Spicy octopus salad. Ok, but the sauce tasted a lot like Sriracha.

Beef skewers. Not bad.

Shrimp skewers. You eat shell and all.

Hot dogs. Well they didn’t call them that, but they basically are.

Chicken skin skewers. Crispy!

Lamb skewers. Pretty good too.

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.

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

So our final place is all the way west.

And merely across the parking lot next to the first spot.

It’s Uyghur Chinese like Dolans and has the decor to match. Very cute and intimate.

Being Uyghur doesn’t mean their menu is any smaller! They have skewers here too — I bet they would be better.

Garlic pickles. Nice crunchy garlicky cucumbers.

Yellow noodle with cumin lamb. Delicious tender cumin lamb on top of spaghetti-like noodles.

Meat and Vegetables in Homemade pastry. A giant golden meat pie. Extremely hot on the mouth, but tasty.

Special homemade noodle with minced beef. A western Chinese bolognese — tons of flavor. Nice thick al dente noodles.

Manti, meat and onion filled dumplings. These were superb, with really delicate skins. They could have used a dipping sauce though.

They had a little freezer of ice cream macarons.

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.

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

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Chinese cuisine, Chinese Food, crawl, food crawl, hedonists, Hunan Cuisine, Mandarin Plaza, Rowland Heights, SGV, Sichuan, Szechuan cuisine, Uyghur Cuisine, Wine

Chicken Crawl – Dong Nguyen

Dec11

Restaurant: Dong Nguyen

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

Date: November 04, 2017

Cuisine: Hainan Chicken

Rating: Good sauce

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

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

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

Yeah, even the tower.

Now there is a tough name to say.

The inside is “casual.”

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

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

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

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

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

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

Chicken Crawl – Tasty Food

Dec09

Restaurant: Tasty Food

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

Date: November 04, 2017

Cuisine: Hainan Chicken

Rating: Very succulent

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

Inside this mall food court is another world.

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

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

They also have both poached and friend.

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

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

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

Chicken Crawl – Red Chicken

Dec08

Restaurant: Red Chicken

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

Date: November 04, 2017

Cuisine: Hainan Chicken

Rating: Fried chicken was amazing

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

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

Small and casual.

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

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

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

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

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

Pad Thai omelet. Pad Thai under all that. We mixed it up and it was delicious.

Overall, Red Chicken had the most interesting food and the best non-Hainan food of our little crawl. It’s a limited place, but quite tasty.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Tagged as: Chinese cuisine, Chinese Food, food crawl, Hainan Chicken, hedonists, Red Chicken, SGV

Chicken Crawl – Side Chick

Dec06

Restaurant: Side Chick

Location: 400 S Baldwin Ave, Arcadia, CA 91007. (626) 688-3879

Date: November 04, 2017

Cuisine: Hainan Chicken

Rating: Very succulent

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

I’ve been to the Santa Anita Westfield mall (on Baldwin) a couple times for Hai Di Lao, but didn’t notice the little food court area. This mall is incredibly Asian oriented (haha).

Googling Side Chick’s name taught me a new slang word, Side Chick, meaning the girlfriend on the side. Lol. But it’s also this kiosk restaurant.

They pretty much only have Hainan Chicken.

As you can see on the short menu.

Hainan Chicken. Side Chick uses mostly (all?) breast meat. The meat was the most tender, moist, and chickeny of all the places we went. I liked the rice too. There was soy sauce, spicy sauce, ginger sauce, and…

Chicken jus. Which made it even more moist. A whole lotta chicken flavor.

Boba tea from next door.

Side Chick is a one trick pony, and it’s in the mall which means the parking is spectacularly annoying. That being said, if you want a mild, moist, but very flavorful Hainan Chicken, it’s a good spot. Probably actually my favorite of the Hainan Chickens per se.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Tagged as: Chinese cuisine, Chinese Food, food crawl, Hainan Chicken, hedonists, SGV, Side Chick

Duck House – Crawl part 4

Jun05

Restaurant: Duck House

Location: 501 S Atlantic Blvd, Monterey Park, CA 91754. (626) 284-3227

Date: April 23, 2017

Cuisine: Chinese

Rating: Excellent

After the totally lame Broiling Pit we had to get some good Chinese for stop 4 — so we returned west toward:

A total classic on Atlantic not far from Elite.

They immediately treated us like pharaohs and put us in a private room.

Cold appetizer of mysterious chicken wing bits.

Fillings for the peking duck.

Peking duck, awesome as always with both meat and skin!

Fancy pancake case with bunnies!

House fried rice with Chinese sausage.

Fried sweet and sour shrimp. Decadent and delicious.

Lobster.

Garlic crab. Delicious, but a bit hard to get into.

Mysterious fruity jellies. I was so full by this point (3 meals in) that my stomach hurts just remembering.

Duck House was great, even if we only had a few dishes. I’ll have to come back for a full mega meal. But anyway, the Chinese crawl was huge fun even if not every place was successful!

The full crawl consists of these visits: Yaha, Broiling Pit, Duck House

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

or more crazy Hedonist dinners here!

By: agavin
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Tagged as: Chinese cuisine, Duck House, food crawl, hedonists, SGV

Broiling Pit is the Pits – Crawl part 3

Jun02

Restaurant: Broiling Pit

Location: 939 S Glendora Ave, West Covina, CA 91790. (626) 813-3777

Date: April 23, 2017

Cuisine: Chinese BBQ

Rating: Yuck

Continuing our food crawl from Yaha, we ventured across the minimal to:

This was supposed to be a skewers BBQ place.

The interior is way more modern.

This was just the specials menu. There was a giant picture menu too.
This wine traveled with us.

Fake pinot!

2008 Valdicava Brunello di Montalcino. VM 93. A complex mix of savory herbs, plums black cherries, leather and sweet spices emerges from the 2008 Brunello di Montalcino. Beautifully layered from start to the finish, the 2008 impresses for its exceptional balance and finesse. The mid-weight style will likely come as a surprise to Valdicava fans, but all the elements come together in the glass. Proprietor Vincenzo Abbruzzese describes 2008 as a solid vintage across the board, but without the peaks of quality that would have allowed him to make the flagship Madonna del Piano. Instead. Abbruzzese bottled just one Brunelli, and it is fabulous.

Lamb skewers. Tolerable, but salty.

Roast chicken. Again, passable but nothing special.

BBQ ribs. So so.

Corn. Sweet. I mean like they put sugar on it.

Broiling Pit just tasted flat, not particularly good at all. And it was empty and took awhile — although they were perfectly nice. I marveled at all the custom signage and the enormous custom color menu. I can’t see how they can make money. Just not particularly good in an area with so many good places.

The full crawl consists of these visits: Yaha, Broiling Pit, Duck House

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

or more crazy Hedonist dinners here!

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Broiling Pit, Chinese cuisine, food crawl, hedonists, SGV

Yay for Yaha – Crawl part 2

May31

Restaurant: Yaha

Location: 983 S Glendora Ave, West Covina, CA 91790. (626) 480-7130

Date: April 23, 2017

Cuisine: Chinese

Rating: Solid

Tonight’s Sunday excursion to the SGV is a crawl — a multiple stop Chinese Food extravaganza. I was caught at work and couldn’t get out in time for part 1 (of 4) which was supposedly just so-so, but made it in time for this place.

Located in a far (an extra 15 minutes east) mall in Covina, Yaha is some kind of western/northern Chinese restaurant.

Crunchy cucumbers.

Spicy beef tendon. Not bad for this typical dish.

The menu.

XLB. This dish never disappoints, even when medium level. These were good, probably a 7/10 for XLB, which means 9/10 on the normal food scale!

NV Bruno Gobillard Champagne Vieilles Vignes Brut. BH 92. A very fresh and expressive nose combines notes of green apple, white flower and yeasty hints that carry over to the moderately effervescent flavors that possess fine detail and solid precision on the still developing finish. To be clear, this is certainly more than one-dimensional at this point but it seems clear that it’s likely to produce notably better depth in time.

2012 Xavier Châteauneuf-du-Pape Cuvée Anonyme. 91 points. Ruby in color with and a light red rim. On the nose it was very soft, subtle with a definite grape juice quality. Also, obvious hints of blueberries, cherries, plums, spices, pepper, and some faint licorice. A medium bodied, smooth wine, with acidity due to the high alcohol that never really dissipated. Great long legs.

2008 Paul Hobbs Chardonnay Richard Dinner Vineyard. VM 91. Hazy gold. Pungent aromas of orange and grapefruit peel, smoky minerals, honeysuckle and spicecake. Juicy, intense and nicely focused, with very good extract to the smoky flavors of pit fruits and citrus pith. The wine’s lively acidity adds intensity to the long, sappy and penetrating finish.

Twice cooked preserved pork. Salty, but very tasty.

Garlic eggplant. Tasty, although I’ve had better (and spicer versions).

Meat pie. I always love these.

Fried dumplings. Solid too.

From my cellar: NV Drappier Champagne Rose Brut Nature. VM 90. Pale orange. Mineral-accented red berries and citrus fruits on the nose, complemented by hints of candied rose and white pepper. Stony and precise, offering lively strawberry and orange zest flavors that expand slowly with air. Closes spicy, stony and tight, with very good clarity and floral persistence.

We only had a few dishes at Yaha, but what we had were all very tasty, so they seem to have a solid kitchen — and rock bottom prices. The above was $9 a head including tax and tip!
The full crawl consists of these visits: Yaha, Broiling Pit, Duck House

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

or more crazy Hedonist dinners here!