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Far SGV – Hunan Restaurant

Apr20

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

Date: August 3, 2019 & March 1, 2020

Cuisine: Hunan Chinese

Rating: check: Solid

We visited this Hunan place both during or Mandarin Plaza Crawl and as part of a 2 part dinner (after Spicy Moment V2.0).

Located in between the Mandarin Bay and Spicy Moment.

Hunan has a vast menu with pictures and funny translations:

Vast menu.

Peanuts.

Shredded minced pork with corn and pickled vegetable (8/3/19). Super tasty — pork really helps a veggie. Sure to make things really move along later.

Sautéed lamb (8/3/19). Tasty.

Crispy pork ribs with garlic and chilies (8/3/19). Lots of flavor, not so much meat.

Fish filet with fire cracker salt (8/3/19). Very delicious boiled fish with garlic and chilies.

Spicy pickled cucumbers (8/3/19). Also delicious. Generally a fan fave.

The gang on our 3/1/20 dinner visit.

Bacon with garlic (3/1/20). Basically smoked Hunan pork with leeks and garlic. Nice smokey flavor.

Doughy buns (3/1/20) with white chili-garlic sauce. Dipped in the sauce these were pretty awesome (if carby).

White garlic chili oil.

Ginger chicken (3/1/20). Lots of little bone bits in the cleavered chicken. Nice ginger and garlic flavor.

Spicy steamed fish (3/1/20). Whole fish with Hunan chilis. Nice and light. Hunan classic.

Mountain mushrooms and bacon. Great fibrous texture and nice flavor.

Jeremiah was a Spicy bullfrog hot pot (3/1/20). Very tender frog and nice Hunan frog.

Pork with preserved green beans (3/1/20). Nice crunchy “pickled” beans with chopped pork.

Spicy lamb (3/1/20). Soft and fairly tasty.

Grandmother’s pork (3/1/20). With its own buns. Very soft, salty, Hunan pork belly. Melts in your mouth.

Gizzard with celery (3/1/20). Gizzard is a bit chewy and surprisingly delicious.

Sliced beef boiled with chilies (3/1/20). Very mild and very soft beef. Not everyone’s favorite dish.

Overall, Hunan was also very good. Sort of a blend of (more old school) Szechuan AND Hunan, but who cares when it’s tasty. This place isn’t nearly as spicy as Hunan Chili King (or as good) — and there is a bit of a uniformity to the dishes. But it’s certainly pretty good and distinctly Hunan.

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For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

More sweet wine.

And a rhone blend.

By: agavin
Comments (2)

Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Chinese cuisine, crawl, Hunan, Hunan Cuisine, Mandarin Plaza, SGV, spicy, Wine

Crawling with an Old Friend

Feb27

The SGV (or San Gabriel Valley) of Los Angeles is not only a Chinese Food mecca (best in America) but lends itself to the peculiar but extremely fun tradition of the “food crawl” or as we sometimes call it the “SGV Parlay.” This involves heading out there and visiting multiple locations in the same day. Everything is so close together and the density is very high.

My oldest friend, Brent, and I have been eating Chinese food together for about 40 years so on this particular Sunday night (January 27, 2019) when he was in town we went out at about 4pm for the crawl.

First stop the Hunan Chili King and late Lucky Noodle King mini mall. This is a classic old school SGV mall, probably from the 70s.

Here’s HCK, the best Hunan joint I’ve been to in the state.

They were decorated for Chinese New Year.

And here’s Brent.

Hunan style cold cucumber salad with marinated cucumber, Cilantro, and chilies (everything has chilies). This was really tasty, and one of the least spicy dishes. The marinate lent it a slight cool quality. Very salty though.

Snails with preserved vegetables. This dish was amazing! Sure it’s an “advanced” dish, and incredibly spicy. Hottest dish we had that night by far. Super deep potent heap. The combo of the chewy snails and the unusual pickled green beans (with their crunch) was stunning.

This might have been our most expensive stop too. Lol.

Next over to King Kho Bo for some dried snacks like dried seasoned mushrooms and whacky New Year’s coconut strips.

Then into this weird low rent mall. Like a cheap mall in China as there are all sorts of “stores” tucked away inside this vast drop ceiling hall. Pretty ugly! And classic SGV charm (actually is fairly charming).

Speaking of charm, this guy in the parking lot drives a manga rice rocket!

Next we moved over to another (newer) minimall on Valley. I’ve eaten here at Mian, Mei Long Village, J &J, and Tasty Dining! This is in the heart of Alahambra and very dense.

Mian, where we decided to get some Szechuan on, gets a serious line. About 30 min at 7pm on Sunday for 2!

This place is much newer (2 years) and popular with the young Chinese couples on cel phones — wait, that’s all young Chinese (and other) couples.

Weird cold tea.

Slightly fermented spicy cabbage adorn the table — like Szechuan kimchee.

The awesome cold smoked plum juice — so good (too much sugar when you guzzle it though).

Egg custard with ground pork. One of those delicate fluffy egg custards covered in savory ground pork. Yum! I really enjoy the texture (and taste) of this kind of custard and with the pork was fabulous.

Beef in chili sauce. Quite spicy, dry, and nice.

Szechuan Cold Noodles.

You mix up the above cold noodles and eat. These were superlative. Nice noodle texture, good weight, and this scrumptious tangy chili sauce. Loved them. I adore when the acid balance is right and these really had it down. A bit of nuttiness, but not nearly as nutty or heavy as a dan dan — different, but great.

Then we went across the mini mall to the Foot Soak for a 1 hour Foot Massage ($20!).

This particular FM “spa” is one of my favorites because the guys on staff are strong and do a good job. There is NO GLAMOUR here. In fact, it has the oddest (not for the SGV but to the uninitiated) ambiance. The chairs are packed together almost touching and period Chinese dramas (in Chinese, of course) play on the TV. Plus, quite a number of people just hang out or sleep. The massage is good though and the price right ($20 is for a full 60 min).

Now on to our third minimall, well actually welcome to the Maxi-Mall. The California Mini-Mall’s GIANT SGV cousin.

You could spend all day in this mall, there are so many restaurants, coffee shops, bakeries, and massage places. But since we’d done two spicy spots, we figured we’d finish up with some awesome carbs. Juicy Dumpling is upstairs.

They have a glassed in dumpling workshop!

Brent pounds the hard stuff — tea!

XLB (xao lao bao) “sweet”. Also known as Juicy Pork Dumpling. Really nice version of the classic. Soft skin. Juicy. Good filling. Maybe not as good as a Din Tai Fun, but great still. They have two types here — savory and sweet. We ordered the sweet because it’s more unusual. I kinda like it, although maybe not as much as the savory.

Pork and Shrimp Dumpling. Great version of the pork and shrimp, with delicate but pronounced flavors. Like the savory pork only version but with a shrimp inside!

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

Here with the straw — so good, just watch you don’t burn your tongue.

As our final (7th!) stop we wanted some boba tea. There were options to choose from, like Boba Ave but we went instead to:

Whacky name.

Typical young clientele.

Slick modern (industrial) decor.

They double as internet cafe and offer unusual savory treats. Brent joked that “real men” would polish off the evening with an egg and prosciutto waffle — couldn’t manage it.

Instead just got a milk boba tea (small for me).

Overall, a total blast of a night. It’s really hard to convey how fun these crawls are — which is the purpose of this post. It feels kinda like teleporting to a section of a some slightly (American) Chinese city for an evening. Everything is so close together and if you like Chinese food the density of places is off the chart. We walked by a good 15-20 other places that looked delicious, some of which I have been to, many not.

This whole adventure was probably about $120 for the both of us too, including the Foot Massage and tip. Food was probably $80. With 4 people it would be even cheaper (each) and one could try more dishes. Hard to crawl with more than about 4-6.

By: agavin
Comments (1)

Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Chinese cuisine, crawl, dumplings, Hunan, parlay, SGV, Shanghai Cuisine, Szechuan, XLB

Hedonists Hunan Style

Aug05

Restaurant: Hunan Style Restaurant

Location: 529 E Valley Blvd. Ste 108A. San Gabriel, CA 91776. (626) 288-0758

Date: August 4, 2013

Cuisine: Hunan Chinese

Rating: Great Authentic Hunan

The San Gabriel Valley is packed with hundreds of examples of regional Chinese restaurants. Would that I could try them all.

Hunan Style offers up the hearty spicy cuisine of the Chinese heartland in the typical unassuming format of this vast array of strip malls.

This is clearly a place that does NOT cater to the tourist crowd as it doesn’t even bother to advertise its name in English, or the menu for the most part!

But fortunately, one of our vast (18ish) party speaks not only fluent Chinese, but the Hunan dialect.

It’s traditional in China to offer up cold appetizers before the meal proper and Hunan Style has a big case of them. Check out these poultry parts!

And mood interesting delicacies.

2010 Cantina Terlan Pinot Bianco Terlano Riserva Vorberg.

As usual, we bring wines (and to this kind of place, stems). There is no corkage!

We start with a bean curd with peppers (everything in Hunan has peppers). This was very pleasant, with only a mild heat.

2001 Cottonwood Canyon Chardonnay. In great shape, this older (for Ca Chard) wine tasted a tad like a Montrachet.

Same with this seaweed.

2011 Domaine Daniel Dampt et Fils Chablis 1er Cru Les Lys. Burghound 92. This offers even more classic Chablis character with its expressive and airy nose of oyster shell, sea breeze and mineral reduction. There is fine detail to the solidly precise, intense and racy flavors that exude a fine minerality on the tension-filled, saline and balanced finish. This understated effort is textbook Les Lys.

These duck necks were cured, tasty, and spicier. Like Chinese slim jims!

From my cellar, 2009 Dönnhoff Oberhäuser Brücke Riesling Spätlese. 94 points. Enticing aromas of apricot pit, guava and mint leaf. Creamy, almost sweet tropical fruits tantalize the palate. Spicy, refined and mineral-driven on the finish. A beautiful wine for a summer afternoon on the patio.

And this jellyfish and “beef” (think pastrami) was awesome.

1983 Joh. Jos. Prüm Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spätlese. 94-96 points. This is just spectacular right now. There’s a prominent forestal herbal/pine needle element here that brings Grünhaus to mind, along with layers of mature Mosel fruit and florality, smokiness and mineral elements that all come together seamlessly on the nose and palate. So complex, fragrant, impeccably balanced with a gentle creaminess and faint sweetness on the palate matched by bright acids, and just a fantastic bottle of Riesling.

Sadly, our bottle was corked.

I was not so enamored of the trotters, although many people liked them. The whole idea kind of bothers me.

This chicken soup was surprisingly good. It’s really just a classic Chinese… chicken soup, with a salty rich broth made by cooking down the chicken parts like forever. It’s mild.

2011 Grasshopper Rock Pinot Noir Earnscleugh Vineyard. Not bad for fake (not Burgundy) Pinot Noir. Too young of course.

This chicken hot pot was not. But it was very tasty. Similar in style to the Wuhan hot pot place we tried, this included ALL the chicken in true Chinese style. I mean, all the chicken: bones, beak, feet, etc.

Spicy shredded potato. Tasty, with a vinegar tang. Like a twisted hunan potato salad!

2010 Hirsch Vineyards Pinot Noir San Andreas Fault. 91 points. Very austere upon opening and needed about 30 minutes to relax. Nose is tart cherry, strawberry, reses, violets with some vanilla. Palate is tight, austere, med to light palate weight, earthy and vegetal. Definitely some whole cluster fermentation here (was described as cinnamon-hots candy). This is a cool and lean wine with good alcohol balance, good acidity although I thought was a little green, lead pencil and tasted somewhat under ripe for my taste.

Corn porridge. This is supposed to “cool” you off. We all hated it, as it’s so bland as to be gross.

2011 Matanzas Creek Winery Sauvignon Blanc. 87 points. It offers a nice combination of crisp citrus fruit, kiwi and field grasses, all adorned by a dollop of oak. Medium-bodied, it carries its freshness and well-integrated alcohol (13.5%) throughout a solid middle palate and lengthy finish. While not necessarily a favorite of those who prefer light-styled, un-oaked Sauvignon or those who favor heavily-oaked white wine offerings.

This is the hunan classic, Yu Tou? Anyway, it’s giant fish head in chilis. The sauce is awesome (spicy of course). There was really nice soft tofu in there too. He fish itself is very good, but there is relatively little meat an a lot of bones and cartilage. That’s the way the Chinese like it (more flavor).

1978 Clos du Bois Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley. Not in bad shape for a wine that was never intended to make this kind of age. Bitter and thick on the finish. The problem is, that with such spicy food all one could taste is the bitterness. I personally think sweet wines like the Rieslings are the only way to go with spicy.

Spicy green beans with ground pork? Tasty for sure.

This cabbage was arguably the best cabbage I’ve every had. There had to be some kind of meat fat in the sauce.

2010 Anakena Carménère. 83 points. Colour: cloudy purple, almost magenta at edges. Nose, strangely enough, bolgnase sauce and damp cardboard. Palate well oversweet but sharp at the back of the throat. in-descriptively fruity. weird, even for a really cheap wine.

Cumin lamb. Very nice with understated cumin and plenty of chilies.

2010 Malibu Rocky Oaks Syrah. What little I could taste through the heat wasn’t bad, for a young Cal Syrah (I prefer Hermitage).

Cold marinated duck. Smoky and really tasty.

This dish, apparently, is NEVER done anywhere else in america. It’s some kind of incredibly bitter vegetable with a sweet “bacon.” The mean was awesome, just awesome, like blueberry candied bacon. The vegetable was, as advertised, extremely bitter. Together they made an interesting combo.

1999 Château Guiraud. IWC 90. Pale yellow-gold. Lower-toned aromas of orange zest, herbs, spices, earth and vanillin oak. Textured, rich and sweetly oaky, with notes of vanilla and creme caramel Showing plenty of personality today. Ripe and rich for young Guiraud. Big but essentially gentle, with an impressive, slow-building finish.

Went great with the spice. Along with the Rieslings, was most of what I drank during the later 3/4 of the meal.

I think this was beef, as usual, with chilies.

Duff Gordon Inida Sherry.

And for dessert, sweet sticky pumpkin cakes. These had a gooey texture like mochi and a mild pumpkin flavor. There were incredibly hot (temperature) too. Very nice.

Overall, one must compare this to Hunan Chili King across the street. It’s hard to tell which is better, but they’re different. Hunan Style isn’t nearly as hot, but perhaps the dishes are a little more varied. At Chili King everything is DROWNED in chilies, but here there are a lot of distinct flavors. I think we ordered well (thanks to our Hunan friend) this time, so that is a big factor too. Both are pretty great.

After, we went down the street and availed ourself of that awesome San Gabriel tradition, the $15 (an hour) foot massage and then over to a nearby “tea house” for some awesome second dessert.

In this case, this amazing mango shaved ice which mixes ice cream, shave ice, mango, and sweetened condensed milk.

There was also an almond jelly (not pictured) and this passionfruit “slush’ with lychee jelly! Good stuff.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

or click here for more crazy Hedonist adventures.

By: agavin
Comments (7)

Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Chinese, hedonists, Hunan, Hunan Style, Hunan Style Restaurant, san Gabriel valley

Hunan Chili Madness

Dec26

Restaurant: Hunan Chili King

Location: 534 E Valley Blvd. San Gabriel, CA 91776

Date: December 23, 2012 & August 9, 2015 & September 1, 2017 & August 19, 2018

Cuisine: Hunan Chinese

Rating: Great, spicy, cheap

Way back in the day, Hunan Chili King was only the SECOND time I went to the SGV for Chinese food with the Hedonists! And twice in one week, I was invited to head back east into the San Gabriel Valley for some more Chinese (my earlier adventure can be found here).

This time we tackled the hot and spicy cuisine of the Chinese heartland, the Hunan province.

Here is just a sampling of the pickled chillies and vegetables they make here for use in this smokey, earthy, inferno hot style of Chinese cooking.

Hunan style cold cucumber salad with marinated cucumber, Wood Ear/Black Fungus, shredded Broccoli stems, Cilantro, and chilies (everything has chilies). This was really tasty, and one of the least spicy dishes. The marinate lent it a slight cool quality.

Hunan spicy chicken. This roast then chopped chicken was served cold. Super tasty and enjoyable, except, perhaps, for that oh so Chinese need to chew around all the bone bits.

This particular dinner was sort of 25% hedonist in that it had some members of my hedonist wine club. There were a lot less bottles than at a full fledged event, and because of the spicy food we went mostly with sweet whites like:

From my cellar: Incorporating fruit principally from Wehlener Nonnenberg, Graacher Himmelreich, and Bernkasteler Johannisbrunnchen, the generic Prum 2011 Riesling Kabinett displays an archetypal Mosel Riesling nose of fresh apple, lemon, and clover allied to faintly cheesy, leesy youthful “stink”; and comes to the palate bright and zippy, with hints of wet stone, and prominent cyanic piquancy of apple pit invigoratingly extending its mouthwateringly juicy, if tart and relatively simple finish.

Lobster head, tofu, meat, and noodle soup. Really yummy, with noodles underneath the broth. After the chillies and the heat of the soup my head was really sweating.

Fried lobster with chilies. A superb lobster preparation, like a spicy version of Lobster Causeway Style.

From my cellar: A fine combination of textural creaminess with refreshment and lift characterizes the Weins-Prum 2009 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spatlese, which combines lusciously ripe, fresh pear and apple with vanilla and marzipan and finishes with both soothing and stimulating length. This impeccably-balanced, textbook example of its site and style ought to retain its allure for at least two decades.

Flavor intestine. Not my favorite conceptually.

Hunan steamed fish head. This is a Hunan classic. The fish is very soft and full of all sorts of weird cartilage texture.

Sautéed frog. Tasty, lots of bone bits. The Christmas theme to all the food isn’t seasonal, it’s just all the chillies!

A chardonnay someone else brought.

Shredded squid with bamboo shoot. Tasty.

Sautéed whole “crystal prawns,” Hunan style. These were great and an expensive specialty shrimp.

Hunan chicken (8/19/18). Chicken in a similar mix of red and green peppers. Very tasty.

To go with the meat we step up the intensity a bit.

Parker 91-93, “The extraordinary 2007 Cotes du Rhone-Villages Rasteau offers up aromas of chocolate, black cherries, dusty, loamy soil, scorched earth, garrigue, and spice. This full-bodied, powerfully concentrated, meaty, expansive, substantial wine should age well for a decade.”

Chicken with potato. Also very good with a nice soft texture and mercifully no bones.

Cumin beef with snow peas. Some though the beef itself was too tough, but it did have a lot of flavor.

Cumin lamb. A nice version of this classic dish.

Braised fatty pork with mountain yam and preserved vegetables (9/1/17). Super tender and really interesting complex pickled flavor.

Snails with preserved vegetables (8/19/18). This dish was amazing! Sure it’s an “advanced” dish, and incredibly spicy. Hottest dish we had that night by far. Super deep potent heap. The combo of the chewy snails and the unusual pickled green beans (with their crunch) was stunning.

Special fish in brown chili sauce. Looks almost like a sweet and sour but it was salty and spicy.

Extra chilies, just in case. Fire in the hole!

Chicken fried rice. Really yummy and served nicely to cool stuff off at the end.

Fried banana and fried pumpkin. Really hot (temperature and yummy). Sometimes called “toffee banana” or similar.

But wait, you thought we were done? Let’s start all over with an entirely different array of pepper dishes 2.5 years later (August 2015):

Pickled turnip or potato and peanuts.

One of the few repeats: Hunan style cold cucumber salad with marinated cucumber, Wood Ear/Black Fungus, shredded Broccoli stems, Cilantro, and chilies (everything has chilies). A welcome relief to the heat.

Skewered frog legs with chilis (15 and 9/1/17). Delicious. Really delicious, but lots of little bones. The “sauce” is crunchy chili garlic.

Hunan chicken. The “classic” combo of red, green, and orange with boney bits of chicken. Flavor was fabulous though.

Hunan bacon. Slices of cured pork belly — delicious smoky bacon — with peppers!

Giant Hunan fish head. Again.

Hunan frog. More frog, which brings up one of the better quotes of the night, “How many frogs had to die for this dinner?”

Glass noodles with garlic and gizzards. Sounds scary, but this was a delicious dish with a good bit of Szechuan peppercorn heat.

Hunan hotwings. Not much meat, but a lot of taste.

House special lamb (12? 15, and 9/1/17). A repeat, but a good one. This is one of the better cumin lambs I’ve had. I like how the cilantro is used as a green, almost like a salad.

Cabbage. I loved this, particularly with the sauce from some of the other dishes. Really nice crunchy texture.

Braised eggplant with garlic (15 and 9/1/17 and 8/19/18). A delicious eggplant with the texture I like, soft but not slimly. Great flavor to the sauce with lots of garlic. Very nice version of this spicy dish. The Hunan version of eggplant. A bit less chili oil than the Szechuan version (which I guess is usually fish flavored eggplant). There was a version with 1000 year-old eggs that would have been even better.

Pork belly and tofu. Thick fatty pork belly and bag like tofu. Not everyone liked the soft mushy type of bean curd — but I loved it.

Crab. A little hard to get into, but the body meat on the end could be eaten like a lolipop and had a delightful flavor.

Egg fried rice. Straightforward but cut the heat.

Shredded potato. Nice crunch. I loved this covered in the eggplant sauce.

Lobster. More peppers! Actually we didn’t have this dish, but I saw it and had to photo it.

Glass noodles with ground pork (8/19/18). Tasty dish with nice textural contrast between the crumbly meat and silky noodles.

Beef in chili sauce. Sort of a Szechuan dish, but the Hunan variant.

Noodle soup with fish balls, mushrooms, and meats of an indeterminate nature.

Spicy pickled eggs (8/19/18). Interesting. Event eggs can get the Hunan treatment! Quite good actually.

Scrambled eggs with peppers (8/19/18). Usually in China this dish is with tomatoes. Hunan people can’t resist the pepper.

Cauliflower (8/19/18). Very nice. Not really spicy.

Vegetable buns. Interesting source green flavor, but nice.

Sweet egg drop soup. A sweet soup with goji berries and balls of tapioca. Not bad, for a weird sweet soup.

Sweet bean buns. Chinese desserts. Know them. Don’t love them.

A variant on a house favorite: Triple Milk Chocolate Cloud (8/19/18) – the base made with Valrhona 40% Jivara Chocolate (usually I use 63%) and then layered with Dark Chocolate Creamcheese Ganache and Belgian Chocolate Thins (3 flavors, for triple on triple action) — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato.

And some house made butterscotch in case the above wasn’t rich enough.

Together it’s amazing.

This was an awesome pair of meals and very different than your typical Cantonese American. Traffic isn’t bad on Sunday night, but during the week it took me almost two hours to get to this area. Hunan Chili King isn’t where I’d take Chinese food novices. EVERYTHING is spicy. In fact, a few people obviously didn’t read the warnings on the meetup because they couldn’t handle the heat. Someone said of the heat, “I feel like I’m going into menopause.”

The flavors and proteins are a bit weird by American standards. But this is my favorite SGV Hunan so far, and I really like it for the variety compared to some other regional cuisines. At the restaurant itself you have to take some care to end up with different flavors, as there are a lot of dishes with the “usual” tri-color pepper melange (tasty as it is). But great stuff.

And as usual, we even went next door afterward and got a Chinese massage for $15 an hour! Just the perfect thing to work out the hedonistic over-indulgence!

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