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Archive for Peking Duck

Eating San Fran – Mister Jius

Nov08

Restaurant: Mister Jiu’s

Location: 28 Waverly Pl, San Francisco, CA 94108. (415) 857-9688

Date: April 2, 2024

Cuisine: Chinese Fusion

Rating: Hybrid modern Chinese

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Always gottta try the interesting Chinese, even if it’s a bit fusion.



Here we go.

The tasting menu.

Amuse of caviar and nori.

big eye tuna, beets, blood orange, lanzhou chili. Sweet and tangy.

grilled mackerel, snap peas, green farro, black bean, pistachio.

dungeness crab, asparagus, tofu skin, chicken consommé.

chicken, shrimp and pig trotter dumpling, preserved yuzu, black truffle.

Liberty Farms ‘Peking Style’ Whole Duck. Smoked, but otherwise fairly peking duck like.

The spring pancakes were a bit thick but the peanut hoison was excellent.

Duck foie and some fruity bit. Tasty!

mandarin custard pie, ricotta, walnut, rose geranium.

Sesame balls.

Fun evening and tasty food. A bit too fusion, although quite refined. It didn’t taste “that” Chinese — except for the Peking duck which was the best dish.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Eating San Fran – Lily
  2. Eating San Fran – Delfina
  3. Eating San Fran – Che Fico
  4. Eating San Fran – State Bird
  5. San Fran – Nopalito
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Chinese Fusion, Mister Jius, Peking Duck, San Francisco

Bistro Na avec Duck

Oct24

Restaurant: Bistro Na’s [1, 2, 3, 4]

Location: 9055 E Las Tunas Dr #105, Temple City, CA 91780. (626) 286-1999

Date: March 24 and September 15, 2024

Cuisine: Chinese

Rating: Upscale Chinese, really improved

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Chinese Restaurants in the SGV are slowly going more upscale in a way that’s different than the Cantonese palaces of Monterey Park of yesterday. I’ve been here several times before, even celebrating a birthday, but Jeffrey wanted to go, and we figured we’d check it out post pandemic (10/9/22) and then not long after Arnie wanted to try it too, so we went back (1/7/23).

And one of the latest is Bistro Na’s located on Las Tunas near this cool:

Teapot fountain!

The interior is very elegant Chinese, almost traditional but in a new way typical in China today. Ornate wood carvings, lanterns and antique music instruments abound. Technically it bills itself as “Imperial Cuisine”. Maybe there is some of that, but it’s also a bit of Chinese greatest hits. Still, it’s a different cuisine than nearly every other place in the SGV with more ornate plating.

The menu is a hardcover thick paged photo tome!


Various banchan like apps.

Pickled peppers and pepper sauce.

Bovon brought a mess of caviar!


Beef tripe and aorta in chili sauce. Sounds scarey but was lovely. Nice crunchy / chewy texture.



Pig’s Foot Jelly. These were the best I’ve had. Nicely porcine and delicious.

Na’s Spicy Chicken. The classic Sichuan cold dish. Super tasty with a nice balance of salt, tang, and heat. Some numbing as well. Very tender chicken.

Jellyfish Salad. Not bad, although not much jellyfish — and it replaces the now discontinued Jellyfish with Cucumbers that was amazing. Poor direction to go in.

Organic Cordyceps Flower & Celery Salad. Organic Cordyceps Flower, Celery, Fungus, Mixed Vegetables.

Old Beijing Smoked Duck Breast. Duck breast, strawberry sauce, endive lettuce.



Na’s secret tofu. Not that secret. Great teture. Slightly bland. Joe dish.


Scallion Pancake. Another Joe dish, but an excellent version.

Egg and chive “pockets.” The shells weren’t as crisp as I might have liked but there were lots of fresh chives.

They have Peking duck now (well at least they did in the spring), carved table-side. We ordered 2!

Extensive condiments for the duck.

Really nice thin spring pancakes.

Table-side!

The breast and skin, served by itself with sugar. Really crispy and nice.

Sugar for the skin. And great hoisin.

The main meat. The duck was great. 2nd best duck I’ve had in Southern California. All the elements were really good.

The bones return salt and pepper. Heads split in half. A bit too much of the bone and head thing but tasty.

Stew Crab Meat & Fish Maw. Fish Maw, Crab Meat, Pea Sprout. This was an insanely great dish. Very savory and umami and even better with a bit of caviar.

Dry Braised Black Cod Fish with Chili Sauce. Black Cod, Pork, Bamboo Shoots, Ginger, Garlic, Scallions, Spicy Chili Sauce.

Lobster with ginger and scallions. Supposed 5lb lobster. Not the best best version of this dish.

Lobster Roe noodles — these were the bomb!

Braised Sea Cucumber and Beef Tendons. Sea Cucumber, Beef Tendons, Scallion, Onion Sauce. Nice and chewy.

Crispy Salt and Pepper Scallops. Actually pretty spicy!


Spicy Tofu with Cod. Basically MaPo tofu with bits of cod. This added a delectable umami note.

Crispy Shrimp. This is Na’s signature dish and for a reason. The shrimp were perfectly cooked and the shells completely candied and edible. Delicious, if a touch sweet. They remind me somehow of cicadas escaping their shells.


Seafood crispy rice.

Here is the crispy rice and the hot seafood was poured over it — basically like those old “war bar” dishes at 1970s Chinese Resteraunts.

Seafood Crispy Rice. Really fabulous. Lovely mellow yellow curry sauce, with sea cucumber and other goodles. So good over the rice.


Simple fish. Too boring for my taste.


Drunken Chicken. Very nice flavor, but not zingy enough for me.

Chili Pork with Bamboo Shoots. Kurobuta Pork, Bamboo Shoots, Jalapeno, Black Fungus, Garlic. Yum. I loved this dish.

Shredded Pork with Sweet Bean Sauce. Matsutake Pork, Shredded Green Onion, Crispy Noodles, Cucumber. Served with Spring Pancakes. Great version of this Beijing dish.

Stir Fried Cabbage with Dried Shrimp. (March 2024) The dried shrimp give this version of the dish a quite significant pungency. They sliced it up this time which I don’t like as much as the larger homestyle cabbage peices.


Cabbage with Dried Shrimp. (Sep 2024) They went back to the proper torn texture.

Stir Fried Angus Beef with Garlic. Really interesting. The beef itself was tender and good, even if the peice size felt a little bit thick, but the real killer was the crispy candied chilies. These were incredible! Actually fairly spicy.

Braised Abalone & Pork Belly with Chinese Puffy Pie — very Chinese fancy. Great version of this classic Shanghai dish — plus abalone. The pork was super succulent and the sweet brown sauce had a nice depth of star anise.

The “Puffy Pie” (aka sesame bun).

Fried Mixed Mushrooms with Rice Cracker Bites. OMG these were like potato-stick crack. They felt “hollow”, crispy, and coated in an almost candied shell. So good!


Crispy Lamb Belly. Great dish, but I was getting full.


Mountain Yam in brown sauce. My least favorite dish — just because it was starchy.


Shrimp and Dried Seafood Fried Rice. Oh so good.


With a bit of tofu on it.

Pan Fried Beef Buns. Very nicely flavored beef and chive filling. Pretty temperature hot at the start and could have used a little vinegar/dumpling sauce to balance the hot fat.

Pecan Praline Gelato.


Mint Oreo and Chocolate Orange Gelato.

Coconut Mango Cake.



Crepe Cake — delicious.

Fruit.


Chocolate Potato Chips.

The works.
March 2024 wines.


The Sep 2024 wines were great.

March crew.

Sep crew.

Both of these 2024 meals were hands down the best Na meals yet. The duck was great, almost certainly the second best duck in SoCal, very close to the one at Chang’ans — but sadly, in September they didn’t have it, despite several of us trying. They claimed they were having a difficult time sourcing.

Overall, a complicated place (for the SGV) to review.

While a bit pricey for the SGV, the atmosphere is lovely and the plating much more elegant. In the private room, with slightly careful ordering, this can be some of the best food in the SGV. Some dishes were excellent, some just pretty good, and some outright bland. I’m not really sure what regionality of Chinese it is. Sort of Beijing/Shanghai maybe? They say “Imperial.” It does feel very contemporary Chinese and is certainly not aimed at white folk. I’ve had a general problem in the past with their “under-seasoning.” A lot of dishes just seem too sweet or too bland. But in 2024 they seem to have punched it up a bit and it’s not much of an issue.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

 


Related posts:

  1. NC Peking Duck – Double Duck part 2
  2. Big at Bistro Na
  3. Fancy Feast – Bistro Na
  4. DimSumQuest – Bistro 1968
  5. Bistro 1968 at Night
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Bistro Na, BYOG, Chinese cuisine, Gelato, Peking Duck, SGV

A Different Duck House

Sep11

Restaurant: Duck House [1, 2, 3, 4]

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

Date: January 7, 2024

Cuisine: Chinese

Rating: Good duck

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Duck House is a staple SGV restaurant for my gang. The food is good, it’s on the closer side, and the owner is incredibly nice. I’ve even housed a birthday dinner here. But this is my personal first return after the pandemic.

This was a slightly different Duck House crew, a bit more open to exotic ordering.

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Gift from the house – chili bamboo shoots. I’ve had this dish, but these were marinated/fermented with salt and something and had this delightful crunch and woody smell and taste. Quite strong on the woody so not eveyone liked it.
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Cold jellyfish. Nicely crunchy thick jellyfish “noodles.” Some, but not overwelming vinegar.
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Crack Chicken. As always this cold chicken with the mildly creamy, spicy, numbing sauce is amazing. It’s all about the sauce which I got to go.
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Fried fishcake and roe balls. Interesting, a bit like some of the ones that are offered with hot pot. Pretty tasty though.
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Corn and Shrimp Bird’s Nest. The nest is just a fried noodle of sorts. This was actually a very plesant dish with all that corn in white supreme sauce.
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Chinese greens with Egg and Crab Meat sauce. One of those goopy yellow sauces but quite pleasant.
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Sea Cucumber and Abalone. More a lot of mushroom. There wasn’t that much of the rare chewy sea creatures but the unctuous mushrooms sauce was kinda delicious.
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Peking Duck.
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Condiments.
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Pancake.
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Scallion Lamb. Very tender and not gamey at all.
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String beans. Duck House makes a great (and slightly sweet) version of this dish.
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Crispy Deep Fried Cumin Duck Tails. Super salty, fatty, and delicious.
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Noodles with scallions and beef. Worth the carbs.
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Shanghai Style Red Sauce Pork. Super fatty but tasty.
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Sweet Bean pancake. Yup, odd Chinese desserts.
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Egg and Sesame Ball Soup. This was one of the better versions of this oddball (bada bing) sweet soup.
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This was probably my favorite Duck House meal — in no small part because of the better ordering.  Service was absolutely first rate as always. So fun as always and I’d definitely say that Duck House is a great SGV gateway drug place for those who need to baby into the more extreme and different stuff.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Duck House without Yarom!
  2. Duck House – Crawl part 4
  3. Ray’s Duck House
  4. More Mark’s Duck House
  5. Earl Grey – Nanjing Duck House
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Chinese Food, Duck House, Foodie Club, Peking Duck, SGV, Wine

Ray’s Duck House

Aug22

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

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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.
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The aforementioned hills.
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It’s unusual for a Cantonese place to have real Peking duck.
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Check out the mysteriously featured “plastered over wall”!
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Nice new “classic” decor.
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Sauce station.
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The menu sheet.
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Specials. There was also a large glossy dinner menu I forgot to photo.
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Jeffrey waiting for Chevy (who was 45 minutes late). Grr.
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Chili sauce and very intense Chinese mustard.
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Soy Sauce and Red Vinegar.
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Smashed Cucumbers made special to order. Not marinated but very fresh and pretty decent.
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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.
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Spicy Wontons. Sort of drowned in lightly spicy broth. Wontons themselves were fine.
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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.

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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.
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Hoisin was great. It wasn’t goopy thick, nor too sweet, and had fabulous on-point flavor = 9
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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
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Pancake was thin and translucent and there were plenty of them = 10
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Duck Soup was bland although at least not unpleasant = 4
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Spareribs in Blackbean Sauce. These were a bit bony — fine — but not as (realatively) good as most of the rest of the dimsum here.
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Steamed Chicken Feet in Brown Sauce.
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Shrimp Har Gow. An excellent version of this classic. Pretty nice medium shell with a nice chunky shrimp interior.
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Pork and Shrimp Siu Mai. Excellent version. Very chunky with lots of good pork flavor.
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Shrimp and Chives Dumpling. Quite solid.
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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.”
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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.
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End on view.
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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.
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Inside the wrap.
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Pan-Fried chives & shrimp cake. I always love this dish and this was no exception. Greasy and delicious with awesome texture.
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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.
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BBQ Pork Bun. The fluffy bun might have been a hair dry but the pork interior was sweet, classic, and delicious.
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Inside view.
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Baked BBQ Pork Bun. The sticky sweet bun was spot on and the interior contained the same yummy sweet pork. Excellent.
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Inside view again.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Duck House without Yarom!
  2. Earl Grey – Nanjing Duck House
  3. Mark’s Duck House
  4. Duck House – Crawl part 4
  5. NC Peking Duck – Double Duck part 2
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Chinese Food, Chino Hills, Dim sum, DimSumQuest, Lunch Quest, Peking Duck, Ray's Duck House, SGV

Orange Opulence – Chang’an

Jul24

Restaurant: Chang’an

Location: 13051 Newport Ave, Tustin, CA 92780. (949) 324-5558

Date: December 10, 2022 and February 23, 2023

Cuisine: Chinese

Rating: Best Chinese in the Southland

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Among my friends Chang’an is a highly controversial Chinese restaurant. Personally, I think it has hands down the highest quality Chinese food in California, really the best I’ve had outside of China. But it’s high end, and in Tustin, and very expensive. There is a certain contingent who likes their Chinese grungier and at a better QPR feeling this is “more authentic.” The reality is that both are different aspects of modern China. Chang’an is extremely “authentic,” just to the style of recent high end eatery cropping up in China’s major cities. A good example would be Shanghai Tang.

They are also known for their elaborate table-side Peking Duck and are the winner of my in depth Ultimate LA Peking Duck Guide.

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It’s located in this “French Chateau” like structure way down in Tustin. The drive is a real pain.
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The decor is at a different level.
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Details.
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The have a dedicated peking duck oven!
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One of their several bars.
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The menu.

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For our first meal we ate out on the “floor” near the giant screen (oddly playing Christmas videos). For the second, we had the awesome private room.

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Gotta have champagne for:

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Bovon brought 16oz of caviar!

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Fist bump time!1A4A5158
And in a new first new BYOU (bring your own uni) — two trays of fresh Santa Barbara Uni!

 

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They serve a Shaanxi bread and this spicy bean sauce.
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Some Dec 22 wine.
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Out comes the “main event” – LA’s best Peking duck.
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Close up.
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The table-side Peking Duck Show really gets underway!

The duck was covered in Baijiu and lit on fire to crisp (and flavor) the skin.

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Carved table-side.
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Skin was thin and mildly crispy, aged ducky flavor, served with traditional brown sugar. But still this way of doing the duck, better for the meat, compromises the skin ever-so-slightly = 6.
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Natural cane sugar for dipping the skin into.
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Pancake was thin and translucent and there were plenty of them = 10.
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Accoutrements were scallion and cucumbers as usual plus pear = 9. Hoisin was good to great. Slightly thin maybe, sweet and savory, quite pungent = 8.
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Meat was served 2 ways, both with some skin on the white meat, straight up = 10 where it was really juicy and full of flavor.
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The burrito/bing together was a 7/10 or perhaps 8/10 as I didn’t pack it right. I should have made a second but I didn’t want the extra carbs.
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The smoke machine was used to smoke this second batch of duck meat.

Watch it in action.
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A second half of the meat was served smoked which was very different, a bit more like ham, and quite lovely = 9.
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Dec 22 wine. It takes something racy like this to pair with numbing clam.
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Spicy Arctic Surf Clam with Green Sichuan pepper 青花椒炝北极贝. Fabulous dish with chewy clam and pungent citrus-tinged peppercorns and a slightly sweet soy base. Underneath were unwraveled green onions. We ordered two of these they were so good.

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And Bovon just had to “do his thing” to the dish for the photo. The combo certainly didn’t clash with the clam and even the peppercorn, but it did mute the peppercorn, which to me was a slight distraction.
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Crispy Beef Tongue 脆皮牛舌. Fried, rich, but very delicious. The center was dense and chewy and the fry nice and light. The sweet and “spicy” sauce livened it up a bit.

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A touch thin and oxidative.

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Tons of lovely chevy minerality.

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Lovely.
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Cold Crispy Jellyfish With Hot and Sour Sauce 浆水海蜇. Incredible texture and a refreshing taste. Great jellyfish. The jellyfish itself was exceedingly firm with a great bite.

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Taking it up to the next level we “decorated” with uni and caviar! Actually the caviar really helped the dish.
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Tossed Cilantro, Scallion & Red Peanut Salad sweet & sour vinaigrette 陕西大拌菜. Extremely elegant salad. I could have eaten 2 all by myself. Very tangy with great texture, crunch, and tangy flavor.

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Cucumber & Cold Noodles in chili sesame or hot and sour sauce 老陕凉皮 (麻酱/ 酸辣). There were two variants here, the spicy bean sprout noodles and a less spicy sesame cold noodles. They were fairly good, and better than last time as they started the meal. Texture was great on both. I particularly liked adding some of the even spicer “bread sauce” to the spicy noodles.

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48-Hour Braised Sea Cucumber (per person) twenty-two different herbs and spices 招牌葱烧海参佐黑松露饭(每位). Wow! This was hands down the best sea cucumber I’ve had. They make a supreme stock and then slowly rehydrate the dried sea cucumber in it so that it absorbs the lovely and complex flavor. The rice is special Japanese snow rice with a very aromatic sauce. Really special.

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Stir- Fired Lychee Prawns with Sweet Sour and Spicy Sauce 贵妃荔枝虾球. Very sweet. The cashews were candied. The sauce was sweet. The shrimp were perfectly cooked and quite nice. The fried balls were lychee deep deep fried covered in caramelized sugar.
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Snow Crab with Egg pancake 风花雪蟹配鸡蛋煎饼. Eggy versions of the spring pancake with a very salty and delicious crab and seafood mix. Almost like a dry XO sauce it had little dried shrimps and scallops in there. Insanely savory.
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The ultimate umami salt pancake with the crab mix and a huge blob of caviar!
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Dec 22 wine.
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Live Fish (Seasonal/Reserve only) Market Price 时价. In this particular case Turbot. Steamed with scallion and soy. I usually find this a bland dish but the succulent quality of this lovely fish and the perfect sauce made this dish insanely good. It was even better topped with lots of caviar!

Turbot in action.

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On our second visit we decided to prep the Turbo a different way: Live Turbot Soup. I’m not sure what this was called, but this soup prep of the Turbot was incredible. The broth was mixed fish and chicken and seasoned liberally with white pepper. It was stunning. The chunks of fish were melt in your mouth and filled with that gelatinous softness that great turbot has. Amazing!

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Out comes our friend, the soon to be dinner, his highness, King Crab.

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Live King Crab “ginger and scallion.” I’ve never had this particular variant on the ginger and scallion. Instead of being a wet wok version, this was deep fried and then stir-fried with ginger and scallions in a spectacularly effective manner than leant it amazing Wok Xi (aka char flavor). Really delicious.
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Live King Crab legs steamed with garlic and vermicelli. Perfect light and sweet version of the leg meat.
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Jeff just had to Uni and Caviar this up too!
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The crab shell returned with steamed “tofu egg.” Very loose light version of this dish. It was good but I actually prefer it as a more “solid” mass of custard.

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Very nice, bright and deep. Not showing at that amazing level though.
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Dusty at first, but it blew off. More berries than the 2001 and also not amazing.

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Chang’an Squab 长安乳鸽 脆皮/椒麻 两种口味 Crispy/Peppercorn chili. Very nice classic Cantonese squab. Maybe a touch drier than the best ever, but really still quite lovely and amoung the better ones I’ve had.

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Spicy Stir-Fried Wild Mushroom Morels with Shanghai Bok-Choy 辣炒羊肚菌配小棠菜. Delightful veggies. I just love morels.
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Cucumber & Cold Noodles in chili sesame or hot and sour sauce 老陕凉皮 (麻酱/ 酸辣). I didn’t see any cucumber. These noodles were just spicy. They were fairly good, but the monotone of flavor made them one of the “worst” dishes of the night (given that every thing was great).

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For his birthday Erick was given a special Xi’an style soup with long knife cut noodles (for long life) and a fried egg (for good fortune).

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Sautéed Pea-Tips with Garlic 蒜蓉豆苗. Excellent version. Very delicate.

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Dec 22 wine.

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Extremely clean and concentrated.
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Qin Style Roast Lamb Leg 秦味烤羊腿. This dish was insane. I didn’t deal with the buns but the lamb was super hot and intensely flavorful. It just melted off the bone and had this sizzling fat and intense smoked and crunchy chili flavor. Insane!
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Close up of this perfect spicy meat.
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Buns for the lamb.
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Bovon caviared the buns!
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Braised Abalone and Pork Belly with hand made steambuns 一品鲍鱼红烧肉. Not the strongest dish. The pork was very good with that braised star anise flavor and tons of fat.
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Peppercorn Ice Cream 花椒冰淇淋 (每位). Very mild peppercorn flavors and very cold (and hard). But still good.
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Tangerine Ice cream was hard but had a delightful flavor.

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Strawbaccio Gelato — an awesome dairly Strawberry base with house-made Bronte Pistacchio DOCG “Fudge” — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — whacky combo day — #SweetMilkGelato #gelato #dessert #icecream #FrozenDessert #nomnom #dessertlovers #dessertporn #icecreamlovers #gelatoitaliano #foodporn #gelatolover #food #foodgasm #foodblogger #dessertgasm #desserttime #foodphotography #gelatoartigianale #gelatomania #dessertlover #icecream #icecreamlovers #strawberry #pistachio #pistacchio #fudge
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Dec 2022 wine.

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In one of the main dining rooms.

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Private room gang.

Overall, I think this is some insanely good Chinese food. It’s not just great for Chinese, it’s really up there in terms of meals available in Southern California. The downside is the distance — easily over 2 hours in traffic — and the price (can be several hundred $$ a person if you are getting King Crab, etc.). I feel it’s worth it, and so do all the people I went with, but some of my other friends do not like the QPR. It’s definitely not a “value.”

Decor is great too. The atmosphere is “interesting.” Service is earnest and quite excellent for Chinese but still fighting its own instincts. They want to serve in Chinese order and they want to serve FAST! (almost everything at the same time). We have our own preferences for order, designed to match the wines. Many items here are pre-order only, like the duck and crab. The duck in particular is a bit odd. The very strangely limit you to one a table. Really two would be good with a large party. And they have an extremely specific pre-arranged time where they are GOING to serve the duck. By default this is the minute of your reservation — like start milling around the table discussing seating and here comes the duck! So it’s very important to arrange this specific time some distance (perhaps at least 30 minutes) AFTER your reservation time. And it’s then difficult to arrange for it to be after all the seafood (because you don’t know how long that will take). But these little idiosyncrasies are well worth putting up with (IMHO).

Chang’an also blends a number of Chinese regional styles. It’s nominally celebrating the city of Xi’an and so has significant Shaanxi influence, but certainly isn’t a classic Shaanxi place. It has Beijing dishes (like Peking duck) and some somewhat Cantonese dishes. All are filtered through both a higher end and slightly western Chinese lens.

Highly, highly recommended — but know what you are getting into.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

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Related posts:

  1. Orange Afternoon — Garlic & Chives
  2. Arcadian Pastures
  3. NC Peking Duck – Double Duck part 2
  4. Orange Afternoon — Tai Buu
  5. Century City Heat
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: BYOC, BYOG, BYOU, Caviar, Chang'An, Chinese cuisine, Fancy Chinese, Gelato, Orange County, Peking Duck, Shaanxi, Tustin, Uni, Wine, Xi'an

Arcadian Pastures

Jul18

Restaurant: Meizhou Dongpo

Location: 400 S Baldwin Ave #2045, Arcadia, CA 91007. (626) 538-4136

Date: December 4, 2022

Cuisine: Beijing/Szechuan Chinese

Rating: A bit better than its Century City brother

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I’ve been to the Century City Meizhou many times, and I’ve even been to this Arcadia branch (which oddly opened LATER) for lunch, but I was always skeptical of going out here for dinner as there are so many other places in the SGV (and after all, we have one close by).

But off I went anyway.
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They do have EPIC private rooms. This one is huge, decorated, and has a nice “sitting area.”
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Sichuan Dumplings. Pork dumplings with chili oil. Pretty nice version with soft skins, good filling, and a tangy/spicy sauce.
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Spicy cucumber salad. Very solid version. A touch spicy, nice sweet and tangy sauce.
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Dongpo sausage. Two types. Actually a touch spicy/sweet. The light colored one was incredibly delicious in a sweet pork sort of way.
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Cold mung bean noodles with chili. This was a spectacular version of this Chengdu street dish. Tons of flavor and a hot of heat.
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Cold noodles with chicken and spicy sauce (not pictured). You mix it up and douse in the sauce. Quite nice cold noodle dish with good texture and flavor.
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Sole Filet with green onions. Very lovely as well with nice thick filets. Super silky texture.
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Lobster with Ginger and Scallions. The meat was tender and the sauce flavor was great.

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Meizhou Special Fried Rice.
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Condiments for the peking duck.
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Out comes the peking duck!

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The do it table side, which is sadly rare here.
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MDP skin was very thin and crispy but there was less of it because of the split skin cut = 6
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Carving away.

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The meat is served with legs in a separate dish. Each duck turns into two of these plates. We had three whole ducks this time around!

Meat was super juicy, even a touch pink, with real jus. Excellent. Some was served with the skin on = 9
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Great thin pancakes. Pancake was thin and resilient = 9
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The condiments. They include sugar for dipping the skin.

Hoisin was very good, but a touch savory = 7

Accoutrements were scallion and cucumbers as usual, but extra point for sugar = 8

The “burrito/bing” together was a 7/10 because the pancake/hoisin is the most important component of that.
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Cumin Duck Bones. A bit boney and dry, but great flavor.
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Duck Soup. They gave us this for free. Actually very pleasant, with a flavor like a great chicken soup.
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Eggplant in chili garlic sauce. Nice but a little sweet. Texture was very good though. Very temperature hot as is typical with this dish.
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Wok-Fried String Beans. Nice version of the dish.
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Beef Filet with Black Pepper. A bit boring, but nice enough.
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Steamed lobster with garlic and vermicelli. As good as the first lobster was (we actually had two of each!) this one was even better. Super moist and tender, just great lobster meat with garlic flavor!
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Braised pork hock with special sauce. Super delicious umami/msg/savory sauce. Rocked.
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Kung Pao Shrimp. It’s supposed to be a touch spicy — it wasn’t — it was sweet with nice crunchy peanuts. Despite the sweetness, it was delicious and addictive. Maybe a little too addictive. Texture was great.
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Chocolate Butterfinger Crunch Gelato – The base is made with Valrhona 62% Satilla Chocolate and then layered with Peanutbutter Cream Cheese Ganache and chopped Butterfingers! — 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 #peanut #butterfinger
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A rarity with our Asian dinners, people under 30! (some adult children of some of the other guests).
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The wine lineup.

Overall this was actually an excellent Chinese meal. Not only do they have the great private rooms (which really elevate Chinese dinners and make them a lot more fun) but MDP Arcadia is a touch more precise than the Century City version. Service is good at both, and the menus are almost the same, but there seems to be an extra level of consistency here that takes it up a notch.

I just wish they would balance a little bit less “sweet” and a little bit more sour/spicy. That would take it up from an 8 to a 10!

For more LA Chinese reviews click here.

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Related posts:

  1. Tong Tak – Epic Cantonese
  2. NC Peking Duck – Double Duck part 2
  3. Century City Heat
  4. Tasty Duck X 5
  5. Late Night Longo
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Arcadia, BYOG, Chinese cuisine, Gelato, Lobster, Meizhou Dongpo, Peking Duck, SGV, Wine

Far East – Beijing Tasty House

Mar10

Restaurant: Beijing Tasty House [Crawl: MK BBQ, Peking, Bafang, Spicy Home, Beijing Tasty ]

Location: 1380 Fullerton Rd Ste 105 Rowland Heights, CA 91748. (626) 573-8518

Date: July 31, 2022

Cuisine: Beijing Chinese

Rating: Okay, but not as good as Alhambra branch

_

Crawls generally need a good “closer” meal at the end where the group can mop up to a satisfying level. In this case, we chose the newish Hacienda Heights location of Beijing Tasty House.
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I’ve eaten at the Alhambra branch at least half a dozen times and always enjoyed it, even if their service is a bit “unrefined” and their execution at times uneven. This one is way out east in a typical strip mall.
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The interior is nice enough but much smaller and more cramped than the Alhambra branch.
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The menu. Very small writing.
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Hot and Sour Soup with Rice Noodles. Name was weird but this is exactly the dish I hoped it was. The “soup” is very tangy with a bit of spice and numbing. It’s warm and the noodles provide interesting texture.
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Smashed Cucumbers with Garlic. Properly done.
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Fire Exploded Kidneys. For the water sports enthusiast.

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A-Choy with sesame sauce. A bit weird, bits of lettuce with a sesame sugar paste.
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Peking Duck. Very solid spring pancakes and hoisin. Skin was good and crispy but the meat was very dry and low fat. Not bad, but probably a B+ Peking Duck, even by LA standards. I really should put this place in my Ultimate Peking Duck guide as they do serve proper Beijing Peking Duck, it’s just not the best in town by any means.
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The meat with skin on top.
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The usual condiments.
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Real spring pancakes (certainly NOT tortillas).
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The contents of the “bing” or “burrito.”
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Duck Bones with Cumin. Not a bad version of this dish, quite spicy too.
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Beef (and pork belly) Dry Pot. Quite tasty with very tender beef. Extremely spicy.
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Lamb Ribs and cumin. Also similar, but the ribs were awesome and tender.
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Strawberry Cheesecake Gelato — strawberry cream-cheese base with strawberry ripple and house-made graham cracker crumble — 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 #cheesecake #strawberry #GrahamCracker #ripple #creamcheese

Overall, food is very similar to the Alhambra outlet, but it’s further, smaller, and has no liquor license (although they let us use tea cups with the bottles hidden). So no reason to go this far, just visit the closer one for a better experience.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Beijing Tasty House
  2. Duck House without Yarom!
  3. Tasty Duck X 5
  4. Hedonists go to Beijing
  5. Beijing Pie House
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Beijing Tasty House, BYOG, crawl, Gelato, hedonists, Peking Duck, Rowland Heights

Quick Eats – Peking Restaurant

Mar04

Restaurant: Peking Restaurant [ CLOSED? ]  [Crawl: MK BBQ, Peking, Bafang, Spicy Home, Beijing Tasty ]

Location: 19240 Colima Rd Rowland Heights, CA 91748. (626) 363-4961

Date: July 31, 2022

Cuisine: Chinese

Rating: Sloppy and not worth recommending in any way

_

This particular crawl was not well researched. In fact, it was slapped together mostly from yelp or driving around to include places in the “far SGV” (Rowland and Hacienda Heights). This is our second stop after one tucked in a Supermarket!

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I love the look of these dives where they took some old 1950s-70s place and converted it into a Chinese restaurant.
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The menu is big — just not good.
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At least they let us open wines.
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Cucumbers were just plain chopped cucumbers. Not marinated. Not smashed. No garlic. Nothing.
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Jellyfish. Very mild flavor like they just dumped some distilled vinegar on them.
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Cold appetizer plate with MORE jellyfish, ok cold beef, and shrimp with ketchup and Chinese mustard. The shrimp tasted just like shrimp cocktail Chinese style. Lol.
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“Peking” duck. Wasn’t very crispy and the meat was quite dry. Total hack job.
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Messy pile of scallions.
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Gunky shredded cucumber.
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Hoisin was not so great.
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Tortillas! Yep, not spring pancakes. Packaged flour tortillas. Way too heavy and ruined the whole vibe.
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Fried sweet buns. Fried Chinese dough with a bit of sweetened condensed milk. This was probably the best dish. lol. It was best dipped in a 50/50 soy sauce and vinegar mix.
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Oranges.

This place appears to have closed (gone out of business). Not exactly surprised, it was one of the worst SGV Chinese restaurants I’ve ever eaten at. Kinda grungy inside too.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Quick Eats – MK BBQ
  2. Quick Eats – Earthen
  3. Far SGV – Hunan Restaurant
  4. NC Peking Duck – Double Duck part 2
  5. Quick Eats – Menya Tigre
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Chinese cuisine, crawl, hedonists, Peking Duck, Peking Restaurant, Rowland Heights, SGV

Ultimate LA Peking Duck Guide

Jan03

Peking Duck (also more correctly known as Beijing Duck) is one of those sublime foods that’s full of contrasts. It’s always good, but rarely perfect. Seemingly common, proper versions are hard to find. And it’s poorly understood and equally poorly distinguished from it’s ducky cousins. I’ve loved it for nearly half a century, enjoyed it in America and China, and recently made an exhaustive study of the offerings in the greater Los Angeles area. Myself and my good friend and infamous fellow-glutton Jeffrey (a.k.a. @xtremefoodies_) co-organized DuQuest, the search for the best in LA. But before we get to the rankings (click here to skip to them) we need to discuss the basics.

What is Peking Duck?

Fundamentally, Peking Duck is a kind of Chinese roast duck. But as far as I can tell there are at least 4 broad categories of roast duck COMMONLY available in LA’s vast bounty of Chinese restaurants (and a few fusion places). They are:

“Real” Peking Duck

For the purposes of this article, I’m focusing on this: A dish from Beijing (Peking) that has been prepared since the Imperial era. The meat is characterized by its thin, crispy skin, with authentic versions of the dish serving mostly the skin and breast/thigh meat, sliced in front of the diners by the cook. Ducks bred especially for the dish are slaughtered after 65 days and seasoned before being roasted in a closed or hung oven. The meat is often eaten with spring onion, cucumber and sweet bean sauce with pancakes rolled around the fillings.

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(Messy) Peking Duck spread at Tasty Duck

There are two major sub-variants (cutting styles) we will discuss later but for the purpose of distinguishing “real” Peking duck from other types of duck the main marker is spring pancakes. When served with pancakes it’s “real” and without them it’s usually one of the following:

“Pseudo” Peking Duck

Because Peking Duck is a popular premium dish most restaurants in LA’s amazing Cantonese scene offer it on the menu. However, the vast majority of these, nay, perhaps all, offer what I am calling “Pseudo” Peking Duck. This dish, somewhat beyond the already bloated scope of this article, is a variant of Cantonese Roast Duck, typically cooked in the Cantonese BBQ manner and served with steamed buns, hoisin, cucumbers, and spring onions. It’s a close cousin, and often delicious, but the duck itself is prepared differently, cut differently, and served differently. The buns do not offer the sublime minimalist carbohydrate balance of the pancake. The hoisin is usually sweeter, the duck is generally plated with shrimp chips, and most importantly the skin is never quite so crispy. Pseudo Duck can be delicious, but it’s just not the same thing.

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Pseudo Peking Duck with buns at Longo Seafood

Cantonese Roast Duck

This delicious dish is offered at nearly every Cantonese, dim sum, and Chinese BBQ joint in the city. It’s great, but it’s not Peking Duck. This duck is usually rough chopped with a cleaver (Chinese knife) and soaking in jus. It’s very moist and at it’s best has a very satisfying fatty skin. If it has any condiment it’s just some sweet (orange) plum-based sauce.

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Cantonese Roast Duck at Bistro 1968

Sichuan (or other) Tea Smoked Duck or Nanjing Cured Duck

I’m not sure if smoking counts as roasting, but many central Chinese restaurants, particularly from Sichuan, Hunan or Yunnan will offer a tea-smoked duck. As you can tell, I like duck, so I also find this a fabulous dish. The skin is not as crispy and the whole thing is dry with a smoked pastrami-like quality.

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Tea-Smoked Duck at Haige-Star

Nanjing Duck is salt cured and also dry, often cold, and has a lovely flavor. It’s not crispy at all.

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Nanjing Salted Duck at Nanjing Duck

Peking Duck in Beijing

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Aged ducks waiting to be roasted at Country Kitchen in Beijing

I’ve been to Beijing several times but on my most recent visit in 2018 I enjoyed several high end Peking Ducks, most notably at Dadong and Country Kitchen. On previous trips I also ate at a different Dadong, Made in China, and some old school spots. I’ve had high end duck at various places in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and other various other Chinese cities.

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Ducks roasting in the wood-fire oven at Country Kitchen in Beijing

Proper Beijing duck in Beijing is never quite replicated here in the states, although we have a few that come close. Over there, the duck is always dry-aged, seasoned, inflated with some kind of compressed or pumped air, often filled with a special broth, then slow roasted for 1-1.5 hours in a wood-fire oven. Here in LA they always use gas ovens. Wood-fire is just too complicated or expensive, probably because of annoying regulations. In China, a duck pit master tends the ducks, moving them around to cook them evenly. After roasting, some special bits of the belly skin are served by themselves with sugar. This is enjoyed as a crunchy snack with a sweet/salty/fatty contrast. The legs and wings are removed, and the breast meat is sliced into little ovals that contain both juicy meat and crispy/fatty skin. The meat skin pieces are combined with hoisin, cucumber, and spring onion inside a spring pancake and enjoyed rolled up. Remaining meat is often (optionally) stir-fried and the carcass is made into duck soup. Realistically, they don’t make YOUR particular duck into duck soup. Previous carcasses, probably from previous days are cooked into big batches of the soup and served on demand.

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Table-side carving at Country Kitchen

The Components

Peking Duck consists of several different components, each of which is worthy of separate evaluation:

Skin

The skin should ideally be super crispy/crunchy with just a bit of (mostly rendered) fat. It’s traditionally served by itself and often on parts of the meat. The solo skin can be eaten plain, with a bit of sugar, or dipped lightly in hoisin. It can also be placed inside the pancake roll (which I’ll call a “bing” as explained below).

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Crispy skin served atop some meat at Dadong Beijing

Meat

The “meat” of a peking duck consists of three main sub-parts. The most important is the breast, which is served typically in one of two styles in LA (see below) with or without skin. Then there is thigh meat, and at many places the legs and occasionally the wings. The legs (and wings) are eaten mostly by themselves but the breast and thigh bits are generally designed to go inside the rolled pancake (“bing”). Ideally the meat should be juicy and delicious with a distinct duck taste but not an overwhelming gamey or barnyard quality.

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The breast meat with attached skin at Country Kitchen

Pancake

A proper Peking Duck comes with ultra-thin delicate warm spring pancakes. In Chinese these are known as Chun Bing 春饼. They should be almost translucent, durable enough to wrap, and add just that touch of carbohydrate goodness to their task of binding together the contents. A “Pseudo” Peking Duck will often be served with steamed buns instead of pancakes. It’s not a Peking Duck. Even worse, some Chinese American places will attempt to serve “Pseudo” Peking Duck (it’s not roasted like a real Peking Duck either) with (store bought) Mexican Tortillas. Not only does this taste terrible, but it’s sacrilegious and offends the food gods.

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Spring pancakes at Country Kitchen

Hoisin

Peking duck sauce isn’t a true hoisin, but we will call it that nonetheless. Peking duck sauce is a thick, fragrant sauce commonly used in as a glaze for meat, an addition to stir fry, or as dipping sauce. It is dark-coloured in appearance and sweet and salty in taste. Although regional variants exist, peking duck hoisin sauce is not exactly the same as the Cantonese hoisin, but instead is usually made from Tian Mian Jian (甜面酱), a chef specific blend of fermented yellow soybean paste, fermented wheat, sometimes fruit (like plums), and the oil from roasted ducks in additional to aromatic ingredients. Tian Mian Jian translates to sweet flour sauce and despite it often having the work “bean” in the description is not primary made from beans. It should be salty, savory, a bit sweet, medium thick, and have a hint of medicinal/herbal quality. It should not be too jammy, watery, or too sweet. Interestingly, it’s actually one of the most important elements of the pancake roll (“bing”) even though it should be used sparingly. One of the reasons “Pseudo” Peking Duck is often inferior is the use of Cantonese hoisin, which while good, is not the same. Peking duck sauce (hoisin) is used — sparingly — to flavor the rolled up pancake (bing) and and to flavor meat eaten on its own.

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Hoisin (really duck sauce) in the SGV

Accoutrements

Accoutrements are anything else potentially added to the pancake roll (“bing”). Minimally it’s julienned cucumber and spring onion but pickles, melon, and other ingredients are frequently found in China. They make interesting and important combinations of flavor.

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Accoutrement dish at Dadong Beijing

Bing (Pancake Roll)

Since the rolled up pancake containing duck meat etc is such an important part of Peking Duck I’m going to give it a name, “bing.” Really, bing just flat cake in Chinese, and chun bing is a spring pancake, but I had to call it something. But regardless, the “bing” is the main event of any Peking Duck. It consists of the spring pancake, lightly coated in hoisin, meat, skin, and accoutrements then rolled up into a thin cigar-like shape, possibly folded over a bit at the ends. All of the above elements are required for a proper “bing” and it is very sensitive to flaws in any of them, particularly the pancake itself or hoisin. The score for this category is about the overall experience of the “bing,” not the individual components themselves. Hoisin should be used sparingly as it can overwhelm other flavors.

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Bing prior to rolling at Country Kitchen

Bones

It’s long been possible to get a plate of the “bones” of your duck. This is the hacked up remains of the carcass. Depending on the technique and skill of the carver these can be merely a pile of roasted bones or contain quite a lot of tasty meat. More recently, LA Peking Duck restaurants will stir-fry these bones either with “spicy salt” or cumin. This last seems to be new and non traditional but it is delicious. These stir-fried versions are almost always better than the plate of hacked roasted bones, which is often inedible. One place even stir-fries the duck tails, which are fatty and delicious.

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Cumin duck bones at Duck House

Stir-fry

For decades it’s been an option to get parts of the meat that aren’t served on the main plates for the “bing” stir-fried or prepped in some manner. The most common are stir-fried with bean sprouts or lettuce cups. I’ve never liked the bean sprout version. The lettuce cups can be fine. Both have very minimal meat and I rarely order them. This is sometimes called “2 ways.”

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Stir-fry with bean sprouts and microscopic duck at Tasty Duck

Soup

Duck soup is often sold in a “3 ways” package with the main event duck, a stir-fry, and the soup. At best it’s a mild chicken-like (but duck) soup with tofu and cabbage. At best it can be pleasant and soothing. At worst the soup is very gamey and kinda nasty.

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Duck Soup at Meizhou Dongpo Arcadia

Overall

An overall score takes all the relevant above elements into account, presenting a score of Peking Duck quality at a particular restaurant.

The LA Presentations

In LA, there are three basic methods of presentation, which end up in two “on the table” styles:

Table-side Carving, Beijing Style

In this presentation, only really performed at Chang’An in Tustin and Meizhou Dongpo, the whole duck is brought out and carved up table-side to the amusement of the guests. The breast skin is pulled off and the breast is sliced into ovals with some skin attached. It’s generally served on little white duck plates. The table-side presentation is not just for show — although it certainly is fun — but has material impact on the overall Peking Duck experience. Sliced duck meat, and particularly skin, has a lot of surface area and it cools rapidly. Ducks sliced in the kitchen often linger there for a few minutes and come to the table luke warm.

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Table-side carving at Meizhou Dongpo

In the Kitchen, Beijing Style

This is pretty much the same as the table-side style, but the carving is all done in the kitchen and the meat and skin are brought out on plates. It should be noted that one appears to get a lot more meat via the Beijing style carve, regardless of it being table-side or not. Generally there are two full plates of skin and meat as opposed to the bowl cut which seems to be closer to half a duck. Kitchen sliced duck will generally be cooler in temperature than table-side duck, and therefore will be drier and seem fattier (hot fat is always better).

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Plated breast meat with skin at Chang’An

The Bowl Cut

Many “classic” LA Peking Duck restaurants bring the duck meat and skin out from the kitchen together on a single large plate. The skinless meat is packed into a soup bowl and then inverted in the center forming a dry packed meat dome. The best skin is cut into rectangular “petals” and arrayed around this dome to form a floral pattern. This system has an efficiency for the kitchen, and does seem to provide some of the crispiest skin in the city (as it’s separate) but the plate is sometimes cool by the time it arrives and the meat is usually lean and dry. Overall, I find it an inferior technique but it does have it’s advocates — namely those who prize the crispy skin above all. There is certainly less meat available via the bowl cut method as it seems to be reserved for the other dishes (that you also have to pay extra for). An additional problem with the bowl method is that there is frequently some delay between carving the duck, arranging the platter, and serving it. The net result is that bowl cut duck is usually not very warm, sometimes room temperature. Hot duck means hot duck fat and is much superior.

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The Bowl Cut at JiRong

The Rankings

Overall ranking is just an order but all of the other categories are rated 1-10. Currently included are only Peking Duck specialty restaurants serving “Real” Peking Duck that I have visited recently and reviewed in detail.

Restaurant Overall (of 7) Bing Skin Meat Pancake Hoisin Accoutrements
Chang’an 1 7 6 10 10 8 9
Bistro Na 2 7 8 9 10 7 9
Array36 3 7 5 9 9 7 8
Meizhou Dongpo Arcadia 4 7 6 9 8 7 8
Ray’s Duck House 5 8.5 9 7 10 9 3
Duck House 6 8 9 6 8 8 9
JiRong 7 8 7.5 5 9 8 7
NC Peking Duck 8 6 9 8 9 5 7
Happy Duck 9 4 8.5 5 5 6 4
Tasty Duck 10 6 4 5 9 9 8
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Restaurant: Chang’An Tustin

Location: 13051 Newport Ave, Tustin, CA 92780. (949) 324-5558

Last visited: December 10, 2022

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Chang’An has a dedicated duck oven and aging cabinet that can be seen by the guests just like top places in China. Besides being a fantastic high end Chinese restaurant, they have superlative duck, arguably the best I have tried in Southern California. It’s brought table-side, covered in Chinese rice liquor and lit on fire to crisp. Then it’s carved up traditionally. Half of it is smoked too. Decor and service here are amazing. Ducks must be preordered and only one is allowed per table for some mysterious reason.


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The Skin was thin and mildly crispy, aged ducky flavor, served with traditional brown sugar. But still this way of doing the duck, better for the meat, compromises the skin ever-so-slightly = 6.

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Meat was served 2 ways, both with some skin on the white meat, straight up = 10 where it was really juicy and full of flavor.


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A second half of the meat was served smoked which was very different, a bit more like ham, and quite lovely = 9.

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Pancake was thin and translucent and there were plenty of them = 10.
Hoisin was good to great. Slightly thin maybe, sweet and savory, quite pungent = 8.

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Accoutrements were scallion and cucumbers as usual plus pear = 9.
The bing together was a 7/10 or perhaps 8/10 as I didn’t pack it right. I should have made a second but I didn’t want the extra carbs.
Extra bonus for table side, duck stand, flaming duck, and smoking!
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A full review of Chang’An can be found here.
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Restaurant: Bistro Na

Location: 9055 E Las Tunas Dr #105, Temple City, CA 91780. (626) 286-1999

Last visited: March 24, 2024

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Bistro Na briefly (first half of 2024) was offering some of the best duck around, almost certainly the best in the SGV. For some mysterious reason in the second half of 2024 the duck is on “pause” — they claim due to sourcing — but I don’t get it.


They carve table-side. We ordered 2!

Extensive condiments for the duck.

Really nice thin spring pancakes.


The breast and skin, served by itself with sugar. Really crispy and nice.

Sugar for the skin. And great hoisin.

The main meat. The duck was great. 2nd best duck I’ve had in Southern California. All the elements were really good.

The bones return salt and pepper. Heads split in half. A bit too much of the bone and head thing but tasty.

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Restaurant: Array36 – 36宴

Location: 5449 Rosemead Blvd, Temple City, CA 91776. (626) 866-0623

Last visited: July 21, 2024

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Finally, about an hour late, our Peking duck arrived. They do it like Chang’an, lighting it on fire with Baiju.

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Just the skin. It was good, but not quite as crispy as it should have been.

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Meat itself was delicious and juicy.

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Some of the meat was smoked, which is very enjoyable.

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This added more (smoky) flavor, of course.


We brought oodles of caviar for the duck.
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The condiments were solid.

A full review can be found here, but Array36 is a very solid place.

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Restaurant: Meizhou Dongpo Arcadia

Location: 400 S Baldwin Ave #2045, Arcadia, CA 91007. (626) 538-4136

Last visited: December 4, 2022

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MDP is right up there for best Peking duck in Southern California and for LA residents, with both Arcadia and Century City locations is far more convenient than Chang’An. They also carve the duck table-side, albeit without any flaming show or smoked second half. The also employ the Beijing style cut. This is a very modern Chinese chain with (particularly in Arcadia) a very elegant and fancy modern Chinese build out. Unfortunately both branches are located in Westfield malls which makes for annoying parking and crowds. They have very nice private rooms and service can be top notch.
Century city is very similar to Arcadia. The duck is essentially the same but the decor isn’t quite as nice and they don’t have the same great private rooms. They do however have a fabulous patio.

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The skin was very thin and crispy but there was less of it because of the split skin cut = 6.

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Meat was super juicy, even a touch pink, with real jus. Excellent. Some was served with the skin on = 9.

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Pancake was thin and resilient, but -1 ding for being folded (may cause sticking) = 8.
Hoisin was very good, but a touch savory = 7.

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Accoutrements were scallion and cucumbers as usual, but extra point for sugar (for the skin) = 8.
The bing together was a 7/10 because the pancake/hoisin is the most important component of that.

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The bones are solid and available in cumin stir-fry.

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Duck soup was very pleasant and mild = 8
Extra bonus for table side carving!
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A full review of MDP (Century City) can be found here.
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Restaurant: Ray’s Duck House晶瑞轩海鲜酒楼

Location: 4721 Chino Hills Pkwy, Chino Hills, CA 91709. (909) 606-9046

Last visited: January 26, 2022

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The overall spread at Ray’s. They used the modern Beijing cut (in the kitchen) and brought it out on the usual two white duck plates. Ray’s serves a really first rate Peking Duck (even if the leg’s and wings were missing). All of the top three places (Ray’s included) are very good and slightly different. Here the skin is the best of any of the modern cut places being delightfully thick and crispy.

In addition, at lunch they have a really excellent dim sum service. Really excellent. The only problem is that the restaurant is located very far east, about 50 miles from Santa Monica! It’s a shame that 2 of the top 3 places are extremely far from LA proper. I have to come back and try the Cantonese banquet dishes and seafood.

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Skin was thick, crunchy, airy, and quite spectacular, both the separate parts and the bits on the meat — it was all crunchy! = 9. I actually think this skin was even slightly better than the Happy Duck skin. The fact that the skin on the meat bits was also crunchy was incredible.
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.

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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. However, in the bing it was hard to tell.

Hoisin was great. It wasn’t goopy thick, nor too sweet, and had fabulous on-point flavor = 9.

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Pancake was thin and translucent and there were plenty of them = 10.

The bing pancake together was excellent largely due to all the ingredients other than the scallions being first rate = 8.5/10.
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Duck Soup was bland although at least not unpleasant = 4.

Bones were on the menu, but they didn’t think we needed them = N/A.

A full review of Ray’s is in the works.

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Restaurant: Duck House Restaurant 鹿鼎記

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

Last visited: September 30, 2024

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Duck House is one of the SGV’s classic… well you guessed it… duck houses. Hostess and owner Catherine used to operate Tasty Duck but moved years ago to this location and she’s one of the best hostesses in town. Not only do they serve great Peking Duck but they have a wonderful all around menu. The decor is excellent in the height of 2000ish Monterey Park style and they have nice private rooms. They prepare the duck in the kitchen with a gas oven and then serve it using the SGV “bowl cut” style. Bones and even duck tails are available a number of ways as I’m sure are stir-fries and duck soup.
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Skin was very thick and crispy, really delicious = 9.
Meat was dry without the skin, but fairly pleasant flavor = 6.
Pancake was thin and translucent, but a bit sticky = 8.
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Hoisin was very good. Not too thick, sweet and savory, with a hint of medicinal tone but not off-putting = 8.
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Accoutrements were scallion and cucumbers as usual plus a spread of pickles, mustard sauce, corn flakes, and raw garlic = 9. These extra four condiments were specially prepared for us by the owner, they aren’t always available, but is totally worth asking about!
The bing together was a 8/10 because the pancake/hoisin is the most important component.
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Bones are very good both salty and cumin style.
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The duck tails are to die for. Little bits of super crispy fat!
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Duck wings are another option.
Extra bonus incredible service!

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A full review of Duck House is available here.

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Restaurant: Ji Rong Peking Duck

Location: 8450 Valley Blvd Suite 115, Rosemead, CA 91770. (626) 280-8600

Last visited: July, 2022

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In recent years, Ji Rong has risen to be one of Alhambra’s “go to” places for Peking Duck. You must order ahead here and they serve using the “bowl cut” method, but it’s very dependable and they offer a vast array of modern Beijing food that is quite excellent. This includes a variety of western and Sichuan influenced dishes. It’s very popular and feels very 2010s SGV. The “private rooms” are merely separated areas to the side of the main dining room and it can be quite loud. Service is very efficient but young employees sometimes seem at the mercy of the kitchen staff. They have three ways and all that.
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Ji Rong skin was very crispy and some of the pieces that were thick were about as good as Happy Duck, however there was a slight funk to it so -1. point for that = 7. Thick pieces maybe an 8.
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Meat was packed in a bowl, no skin. White meat was medium dry, also with a slight funk = 4, but the dark meat was better = 7. They do offer the legs with the main dish.
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Pancake was thin and resilient = 9.
Hoisin was very good with really nice balance, not perfect, but extremely good = 8.
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Accoutrements were scallion and cucumbers as usual = 7.
The bing together was a 8/10 because the pancake/hoisin is the most important component of that.

A full review of Ji Rong can be found here.

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Restaurant: NC Peking Duck 老北方烤鸭店

Location: 17515 Colima Rd Unit A, City of Industry, CA 91748. (626) 839-0000

Last visited: October 27, 2022

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In just the last few years there have been more and more great Chinese restaurant openings in the “far SGV” (Hacienda Heights, Rowland Heights, City of Industry). NC Peking Duck isn’t the fanciest, but it is a Peking Duck specialty place with a broad menu of Northern Chinese Cuisine and very modern Beijing Style duck. They have a couple of minimalist private rooms and excellent service as well as many great dishes. The duck itself is served in the Beijing Style, but carved in the kitchen. Ducks should be pre-ordered.
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NC skin was ultra-thin and crispy, and gets an extra point for some of the pieces having some meat/fat on them = 9 for fatty pieces and 7 for regular ones.
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Meat was juicy and flavorful with skin on = 8. On some occasions they plate in the really “classic” double duck dish style.
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Pancake was thin and resilient = 9.
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Hoisin was tasty but “goopy”, extra thick, and with a bit too much medicinal tone = 5.
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Accoutrements were scallion and cucumbers as usual = 7. Before the pandemic they offered this incredible 9 way deluxe accoutrement spread, which would have earned a 10! Hopefully they bring it back.
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The bing together was a 6/10, dinged mostly by the hoisin.
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They offer cumin bones.
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Or very meaty “chopped” bones.

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A full review of NC Peking Duck is available here.

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Restaurant: Happy Duck House

Location: 18210 Gale Ave, City of Industry, CA 91748. (626) 581-4747

Last visited: October 27, 2022

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Happy Duck is also located out in the far SGV. As a restaurant I’m not that much of a fan. It’s just a little mom and pop place with no atmosphere and a fairly boring mixed “duck house” and Cantonese menu. Others like it better. It’s not bad at all, just not exciting to me (no spicy dishes). However they do offer “Real” Peking Duck and it’s pretty decent. Service is very friendly. Ducks should be preordered.
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Happy Duck skin is unusually crispy and delicious, almost spongy = 8.5 (some people in our group think a 9). This skin has its devotees and some people thing it’s the best skin in the city — certainly it’s very good skin. They have a special “torching” technique here that crisps up the skin.
Meat was dry and served packed into a rice bowl and served as a dome (no skin) = 5.
Pancake was house-made but chewy and uneven, really disappointing = 5.
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Hoisin was very sweet but tasty, with a strong medicinal taste = 6.
Accoutrements featured fresh spring onions but flabby cucumbers = 4.
Bing with everything rolled up was a 4/10, dinged hugely for the pancake and hoisin.
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Like most duck places they have duck soup.
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And duck and bean-sprout stir-fry, which is pretty bland and dry.
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A lot of duck houses also have eel sticky rice and this is actually the best version of this dish I’ve ever had. Eel was perfectly cooked and the rice was great too.

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A full review of Happy Duck is available here.

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Restaurant: Tasty Duck

Location: 1039 E Valley Blvd, San Gabriel, CA 91776. (626) 572-3885

Last visited: November 16, 2022

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Tasty Duck was one of our “go to” duck places for around a decade and it’s located in a small, crowded, not-particularly-attractive space in the center of Alhambra. Ducks should be preordered and they traditionally served in the “bowl cut” style. The last time we went they had new owners and tried to cut table-side in the Beijing Style and made a real hack job of the duck. They offer 3 ways and we did “up the ante” by bringing half a pound of fresh caviar.
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Skin was very thin, oily, and not very crispy. And there wasn’t that much of it = 4.
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Meat was juicy, but was gamey, luke warm, and not particularly appealing. Attached skin was soggy = 5.
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Pancake was thin and translucent = 9.
Hoisin was absolutely first rate. Not too thick, sweet and savory, with a hint of medicinal tone but not off-putting = 9.
Accoutrements were scallion and cucumbers as usual, but extra point for sugar and melon = 8.
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The bing together was a 6/10 because the pancake/hoisin is the most important component of that. Caviar was BYOC so not normally available.
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Duck soup was terrible with a barn-like flavor = 2.
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Duck stir-fry. Bleh. I don’t get this dish.
Extra bonus for table side carving — although it was a duck massacre!

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A full review of Tasty Duck is available here.

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As the Southern California duck situation evolves I will continue to update this page. In addition I may list places with “Pseudo” Peking Duck and revisit fusion restaurants with Peking Duck like Merois, Mr. Chow, and Chinois. There are also a couple places I haven’t been in a long time, like Shin Beijing, which serve a Peking Duck somewhere between “real” and “pseudo” or just some places like Moon House that serve passable (real) Peking Duck but are of a lesser status so I haven’t rolled into the grid.

Last Updated: January 3, 2023.

Related posts:

  1. NC Peking Duck – Double Duck part 2
  2. NC Peking Duck again
  3. Happy Duck – Double Duck part 1
  4. Peking Duck at A-1 Chinese BBQ
  5. Duck House without Yarom!
By: agavin
Comments (10)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Beijing Duck, Chang'An, Chinese Food, duck, Duck House, Duquest, Happy Duck, Ji Rong, Lunch Quest, Meizhou Dongpo, NC Peking Duck, Peking Duck, Roast Duck, SGV, Tasty Duck

NC Peking Duck again

Nov13

Update on this awesome place can be found here.

Ultimate Condiment Box. Tons of interesting things to put in the duck pancake, including sweet and spicy sauces, sugar, candied fruits, melon, etc.

Related posts:

  1. NC Peking Duck – Double Duck part 2
  2. Peking Duck at A-1 Chinese BBQ
  3. Happy Duck – Double Duck part 1
  4. Dragged out for Duck
  5. Tasty Duck X 5
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: NC Peking Duck, Peking Duck, SGV

Duck House without Yarom!

Oct30

Restaurant: Duck House [1, 2, 3]

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

Date: April 3, 2022 and December 22, 2022

Cuisine: Chinese

Rating: Good duck

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Duck House is a staple SGV restaurant for my gang. The food is good, it’s on the closer side, and the owner is incredibly nice. I’ve even housed a birthday dinner here. But this is my personal first return after the pandemic.

The logistics of this dinner were a bit odd as we had two tables and about 14-15 people so there were like 7 at each. Yarom had organized and preset the menu but his plane returning to LA was severely delayed/canceled and so Yarom wasn’t at his own dinner! This has never happened before, not in the approximately 400-500 dinners I’ve eaten with him! He never cancels or misses for anything. He’d show up with a freshly amputated leg if he had to. Also there was a full copy of each dish ordered for each table so there was way too much of most stuff.

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Peanuts. They always have these on the table. I swear I buy this same brand on a regular basis for home snacking — pretty tasty with a nice medium Chinese heat and numbing quality.
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Bang Bang Chicken. A bit of numbing. This was one of my favorite dishes actually, all owing to the “crack” sauce. The chicken was incredibly moist and juicy and the bang bang sauce is to die for. Really really great dish. I could drink the slightly numbing sauce.
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Squirrel Fish with the super goopy super sweet sauce. Too sweet. Too heavy.
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Lobster with ginger and scallions. Very succulent. Totally solid Cantonese lobster.

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Lobster “Typhoon Style”. Very meh. Meat was overcooked and dry. There were way too many breadcrumbs here as well. Garlic flavor was nice.
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Eel Sticky Rice. Tastes very Japanese somehow.
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Peking Duck. Duck House has very good duck. The skin is nice and crispy. They serve it in this old school manner which has the advantage of lots of skin but the disadvantage of being a bit cool (it was carved back in the kitchen) and the meat being a touch dry.

Duck House Peking duck spread:
Skin was very thick and crispy, really delicious = 9
Meat was dry without the skin, but fairly pleasant flavor = 6
Pancake was thin and translucent, but a bit sticky = 8

The burrito/bing together was a 8/10 because the pancake/hoisin is the most important component of that.
Extra bonus incredible service!

More details on duck and in comparison to others in my Ultimate LA Peking Duck Guide.
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Condiments. They have proper thin spring pancakes and good hoisin.

Hoisin was very good. Not too thick, sweet and savory, with a hint of medicinal tone but not off-putting = 8

Accoutrements were scallion and cucumbers as usual plus a spread of pickles, mustard sauce, corn flakes, and raw garlic = 9
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Duck Bones. The regular version just roasted. I didn’t really like these.
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Duck Bones stir fried with cumin. Much better flavor but not a whole lot of accessible meat.

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Duck Tails. Insanely good, insanely fatty, insanely salty bits of yumminess. VERY salty.
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Cabbage with Chinese Sausage. Delicious, although the cabbage was a bit mushier than I like. It should have some crunch.
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French Style Beef. Very sweet. Tender, but still very sweet. Boring.

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Buddha’s Chicken. Whole Boneless Chicken Stuffed With Mixed Seafood and Taro. Very soft and interesting, if a bit cloyingly sweet.
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Salt and Pepper Pork Nuggets. Very tasty but quite salty.

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Mu Shu Pork. Classic American Chinese (and a Beijing traditional dish) but very nice texture and flavor.

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Cumin Lamb. Not your typical version of the dish as it didn’t have much spice, much wok hei, or any cilantro. It was more a sweet slightly cumin brown sauce. Still, pretty tasty.
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Kung Pao Chicken. The brown sauce version, with only a little heat, but still very pleasant.
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Sweet Sesame Mochi Soup. These weird sweet Chinese soups are never good.

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Cherry Ginger Limonade Sorbetto – Fresh squeezed Lemons, Limes, and Avignon Cherries were blended with house-made Ginger to make this delightfully tart and tingly frozen treat — 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 #sorbetto #lemon #lime #cherry #lemonade #ginger

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An old Ramen Roll classic — Matcha White Gelato – Ceremonial Matcha Green Tea base mixed with White Chocolate Chunks — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato –#dessert #icecream #FrozenDessert #nomnom #dessertlovers #dessertporn #icecreamlovers #gelatoitaliano #foodporn #gelatolover #food #foodgasm #foodblogger #dessertgasm #desserttime #foodphotography #gelatoartigianale #gelatomania #dessertlover #icecream #icecreamlovers #WhiteChocolate #matcha #GreenTea
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The April 2022 dinner wasn’t the greatest dinner. Sure, the duck and lobster were excellent, but we had too much of each dish and a super tame boring order with too many sweet “crowd pleaser” dishes I’ve had many times before. I could totally do without squirrel fish, french beef, or salt and pepper pork chop. But they do have a very good kitchen and a big menu so there are plenty of different options for the more creative orderer. I’ve gotten some of them before.

The December 2022 dinner was a bit better, but we still could have ordered far more interesting stuff.

And it was so weird being at a Yarom dinner with no Yarom. Haha. (in April)

But still, service was absolutely first rate as always. Our big private room was nice and we were spoiled. So fun as always and I’d definitely say that Duck House is a great SGV gateway drug place for those who need to baby into the more extreme and different stuff.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. NC Peking Duck – Double Duck part 2
  2. Duck House – Crawl part 4
  3. Mark’s Duck House
  4. Tasty Duck X 5
  5. Happy Duck – Double Duck part 1
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Atlantic Blvd, BYOG, Chinese Food, Duck House, Gelato, hedonists, Peking Duck, SGV

Ji Rong Update

Oct14

Click here to see the full post.

Peking Duck.

Related posts:

  1. Ring the Ji Rong Gong
  2. Quick Update
  3. Villetta Update
  4. Quick Update
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Chinese Food, duck, Ji Rong, Peking Duck, SGV

Tasty Duck X 5

Aug17

Restaurant: Tasty Duck [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Location: 1039 E Valley Blvd. Ste B102. San Gabriel, CA 91776. (626) 572-3885

Date: November 28, 2021

Cuisine: Chinese

Rating: Great Duck — rest is a touch boring

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Tasty Duck is a regular spot with my Hedonist food and  wine club. We used to come here all the time. There are other duck places and it’s always the same so it’s less frequent, but as we went here post pandemic I figured I’d give them a new write up.

The interior is jammed and the turnover is high. There isn’t even a space inch to stand while waiting for a table as the serves need what little space there is to reach the tables. Although tonight being Sunday, the crowds died down by 8pm.

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The current menu. Like many places right now reduced to take out format.
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Cold plate with Poached Chicken, Jellyfish, Sweet Bran Cubes, and delicious Processed Meat Slabs.
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Squirrel fish. This is the super fried fish in the super sweet red sauce.
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Walnut shrimp. Always a favorite. I don’t dig the pineapple.
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Spicy Razor Clams with Cucumbers. Delicious with a bit of mala. One of the best dishes.
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The main event: Peking Duck. Not only was this delectable, with fantastic crispy skin and delicate meat, but it’s artfully arranged. We had two plates of these per table and it was a feeding frenzy!

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Here are the traditional accompaniments, starting with excellent pancakes. One mystery question I must ask: why do Chinese restaurants insist on putting far too few pancakes and too little hoisin sauce on the table?

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Scallions and cucumber.

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Hoisin. It is good here.

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Bean Sprouts and Duck. Good for what it is.
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Cumin Duck Bones. Lots of flavor.
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Cumin Lamb. Nice and spicy.
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Pork hock. Some kind of crazy pig leg. Some serious fat here and the skin was a bit mushy, but the meat fell off the bone and was incredibly tender and delicious.

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Pork Meat Ball Soup. Like Matza Ball Soup, but with porky meat balls. Same texture. Super delicious but seething with MSG.
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Mixed Vegetables. Terrible. Weird taste.
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Chocolate Butterfinger Crunch Gelato – The base is made with Valrhona 62% Satilla Chocolate and then layered with Dark Chocolate Peanutbutter Cream Cheese Ganache and chopped Butterfingers! — 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 #peanut #butterfinger
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Overall, another fantastic meal. Tasty Duck isn’t the most adventurous SGV place, but they do an excellent job. They were super friendly and willing to serve us the dishes one at a time over a long period. Tonight was better than on some of the overcrowded Saturday’s when they don’t have as much bandwidth for us.

The duck was first rate, as good as Peking duck gets — more or less. Although I have been disappointed in the hoisin sometimes. Some other dishes, like the pork hock and razor clams are very good too. A few others just so so, like the shrimp. Tasty Duck is all about the duck. But I do think Ji Rong is quite a bit better at this current moment in time.

For more Hedonist adventures or

For more LA Chinese reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. NC Peking Duck – Double Duck part 2
  2. Tasty Duck X 4
  3. Tasty Duck Lives up to its Name
  4. Happy Duck – Double Duck part 1
  5. Tasty Duck Will Bring You Luck
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: BYOG, Gelato, hedonists, Peking Duck, SGV, Tasty Duck, Wine

NC Peking Duck – Double Duck part 2

Apr01

Restaurant: NC Peking Duck 老北方烤鸭店

Location: 17515 Colima Rd A, City of Industry, CA 91748. (626) 839-0000

Date: February 16, 2020 & May 2, 2021 and April 24 & October 27, 2022 & January 14, 2024

Cuisine: Northern / Beijing Chinese

Rating: Awesome duck and great flavors

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Tonight is “Double Duck” night and while we had a “Peking Duck Appetizer” at Happy Duck, afterward the main event was at:
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NC Peking Duck — which is a Northern and Beijing style place that is quite new and seemed a bit closer in style to real Beijing offerings.
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In case you wondered if they have duck.
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The Menu 4/24/22 (reduced from how it was before the pandemic).
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Cold plater with Pig Ears, Cloud Ear Mushroom, Peanuts, and Seaweed. Mostly nice and spicy with good crunch, mala, and heat.
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Smashed Garlic Cucumber (older & 10/27/22). Nice version of the garlic cucumber. Extra good with the spicy sauce from the other dishes.
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Tofu with Century Egg. Awesome dish. Nice firm silky tofu with the incredible umami and jelly-like texture of the Century Egg. All doused in spicy sauce. Totally to die for.

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Century Egg with Chilis (4/24/22 & 10/27/22). Fabulous savory egg with very strong pickled Hunan style chilis.
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Szechuan Glass Noodles (2020 and 4/24/22 and 10/27/22). Actually a kind of mung bean noodle, here with a spicy sauce, peanuts, and a super umami mushroom paste or sauce. Nice, but I prefer them in the tangy/spicy sauce.

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Cold Spicy Chicken. Awesome tender chicken in this fabulous hot, spicy, and a touch sweet sauce. Tons of flavor.
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Child Chili Chicken (4/24/22). Great bang bang sauce with a bit of peanut butter in it.


Garlic Pork. Fatty delicious.

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Fried fish with seaweed (5/2/21). Pretty much a Shanghai dish, but still good here.

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Chili Fish with Glass Noodles. Now these were actual glass noodles. Nice tender fish too and lots of flavor.


Turbot, simple prep. Solid. Lots of meat (and bones).


Spicy Garlic Shrimp. A bit mushy.
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Peking Duck with pancakes (everytime). This is just one duck (we ordered 2 for 8 people). This meat had the skin more integrated and was very juicy and full of flavor. It was some of the best Peking Duck I’ve had in LA.
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Close up on the duck meat.

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Duck presentation on 5/2/21.
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Duck presentation (4/24/22).
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Duck presentation (10/27/22).
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The typical duck toppings, scallions, cucumber, and really really good thick hoisin.
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Ultimate Condiment Box. Tons of interesting things to put in the duck pancake, including sweet and spicy sauces, sugar, candied fruits, melon, etc. They haven’t had this since the first time I went in 2020.
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Pancake all done up.

The full DuQuest duck analysis (based on 10/27/22) is:

NC skin was ultra-thin and crispy, and gets an extra point for some of the pieces having some meat/fat on them = 9 for fatty pieces and 7 for regular ones.
Meat was juicy and flavorful with skin on = 8
Pancake was thin and resilient = 9
Hoisin was tasty but “goopy”, extra thick, and with a bit too much medicinal tone = 5
Accoutrements were scallion and cucumbers as usual = 7
The “burrito” together was a 6/10, dinged mostly by the hoisin.

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Duck Bones. Pretty juicy.

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Stir fried duck bones (5/2/21 and looked similar 4/24/22 and 10/27/22). Very nice version of “duck #2.”


Cumin fried duck bones. Good, although not nearly as good as the Duck House variant.
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Duck Soup (4/24/22). Very mild.

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Crispy chicken (5/2/21). Great version.
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Fragrant Spiced Lamb. Not their best dish. Sauce/soup was very watery and tasted mostly of mala. Not bad or anything, just the weakest dish out of a lot of great dishes.

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Delicious “bacon” (aka preserved pork) with garlic and leeks (5/2/21 and 4/24/22).

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Beijing Style Pork (5/2/21). With the fermented bean sauce, slightly sweet.

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Big Pot Cauliflower (2020 and 4/24/22). With a bit of pork. Nice and crunchy.


Garlic Shoots and Smoked Pork — awesome!

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Smashed garlic eggplant (5/2/21 and 4/24/21).
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Bok choy (5/2/21). Simple but delicious.
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Jiggly Pork Elbow (4/24/22). Certainly not a lean cut!
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Seasoned Rack of Lamb (4/24/22). Nice lamby flavor and good “hot fat” factor. Serious fat later. Seasoned western style with cumin.
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Sauces for the lamb.


Scallion Pancake. Nice and flakey.

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XLB (5/2/21). Always a favorite.
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Pork and Chive Dumplings. Tons of chive, delicious with vinegar.
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House Tianjin Pork Baos. Awesome. Really nice thick skins with a huge lump of very flavorful pork.


Lo-mein. I didn’t order this, one of the people who weren’t expecting interesting food did. Annoying as it filled people up with empty carbs.
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Chinese Sweet Bean Roll with peanut dust.


Chinese pounded Rice dessert.
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My wife’s Valentine’s Day pick: Dulcey Chocolate Cloud – The base is made with Valrhona 62% Satilla Chocolate and then layered with Dark Chocolate Cream Cheese Ganache and the rotating ingredient is house-made Vanilla Dulce de Leche — 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 #DulceDeLeche #caramel


Last gelato of the year! — Eggnog Gelato — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — pure traditional eggnog made as a gelato with a real rum/sugar/egg zabaglione core — #SweetMilkGelato #gelato #IceCream #eggnog #rum #nutmeg #cinnamon #egg #zabaglione

Overall, I really liked NC Peking Duck. First of all, the duck was some of the best I’ve had in the states, and even beyond that, they had a really interesting menu with lots of standout dishes. Almost everything we had tonight was great, particularly the tofu with century egg, cold chicken, fish, and the pork baos.

Returning here on 5/2/21 the food was still very good but the restaurant was suffering from immediate post pandemic operational changes. They had clearly been doing takeout for the previous year (good for them and I even had it once and it was very good), but hadn’t yet switched back over to normal service. I think we were the only dine in party and the menu had been pared back substantially. Hopefully soon they’ll be back to 100%.

Returning again on 4/24/22 the food was pretty much back up to the level of 2020 although the menu was still a bit reduced and they were missing some “fancier” items like the 9 condiment container.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

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Related posts:

  1. Happy Duck – Double Duck part 1
  2. Peking Duck at A-1 Chinese BBQ
  3. Dragged out for Duck
  4. Double Eagle is Pretty Standard
  5. Forget the Duck Soup, More Meat!
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: beijing Cuisine, BYOG, Chinese cuisine, dumplings, Duquest, Gelato, hedonists, Peking Duck, SGV, spicy, Wine

Happy Duck – Double Duck part 1

Mar30

Restaurant: Happy Duck House 金鼎轩

Location: 18210 Gale Ave, City of Industry, CA 91748. (626) 581-4747

Date: February 16, 2020 & May 2, 2021

Cuisine: Beijing Chinese

Rating: Great duck and lobster

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On 2/16/20 we decided to try some new Peking Duck places in the “Far East” SGV (Rowland Heights, Hacienda Heights, City of Industry). We thought to put two of them together with a quick stop here at Happy Duck. After this we moved on to NC Peking Duck House. On 5/2/21 as things were opening back up we again went out there and repeated the mini crawl!

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Typical strip mall for the area.
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Slightly more modern than not decor. One of our fellow diners recommended strongly that we try the lobster, so we did.
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Weird duck parts on the table as an “amuse.”
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Cold meat platter (5/2/21).
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Peking duck. The pancakes were great, very thin. The hoisin was good, although not as thick as I like. Scallions and cucumbers added nice crunch. The meat itself was good but a touch bland. The skin though was awesome. Super fried and crispy. Overall quite good.
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Duck 2nd way, with bean sprouts. Very bland and dry. Barely any duck meat.
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DL really wanted the duck bones and so after a bunch of asking we got them (5/2/21).
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House Special Lobster. With garlic, onions, and jalapeño. A bit of heat. Very nicely cooked and tons of flavor. Several people thought this was “the best lobster they’ve had in the SGV.” Now, I thought it was really good, but just put it in the camp of “lobsters about two standard deviations above average” — i.e. I’ve had many good lobsters.

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Scary carcasses in the kitchen.

Overall, this seemed a good kitchen. Duck was excellent for America. Lobster was great. We will have to return to try more.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

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Related posts:

  1. Duck House – Crawl part 4
  2. Dragged out for Duck
  3. Happy Table 2X
  4. Tasty Duck X 4
  5. Mark’s Duck House
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: City of Industry, Far East, Happy Duck, hedonists, Lobster, Peking Duck, SGV, Wine

Tong Tak – Epic Cantonese

Mar27

Restaurant: Tong Tak House Seafood Restaurant

Location: 1265 S Baldwin Ave, Arcadia, CA 91007. (626) 638-3388

Date: February 9, 2020

Cuisine: Cantonese Chinese

Rating: Really great execution

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Our friend Tony Lau organizes the best Cantonese banquets.
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He always manages to find new places that surprise. Tong Tak isn’t exactly new, but it’s new to most of us.
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Classic “palace” interior. It was pretty empty too. Sure it was Academy Awards night, but hard to say.
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After an initial foray into a private room that was way too small they set us up downstairs at this huge table with the awesome blue thrones.
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The whole gang.
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Salted peanuts.
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Spicy cold marinated cucumbers. Pretty good version of this typical Chinese starter. Nice crunch, garlic, and a bit of spice.

I ate a lot of these because oddly, they didn’t serve any real dishes for 45 minutes despite the place being deserted! Then the dishes came on like a storm.
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Chinese Mountain Yams with Raspberry Sauce. Crunchy yam, not slimey (sometimes it is). The yam itself doesn’t have a lot of flavor. Raspberry sauce is a bit odd..
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Beancurd wrapped mushroom rolls. Interesting texture.
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Marinated wood ear mushrooms. I love the rubbery texture.
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Beans. Not sure what kind. Very mild and I don’t love the pastey bean thing.
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Hot sauce.
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XO sauce.
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Spicy clam with vegetables. Very interesting spongy/chewy texture on the clam and very nice crunchy vegetables.
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Fried oysters typhoon style. Really delicious. Probably the best fried oyster’s I’ve ever had with the crispy fry and lots of garlic.
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Cheesy lobster. Nice tender lobster with a cheesy sauce. Very interesting combo.
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Condiments for the duck and pig.
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Suckling pig with buns. Nice small pig, actually a suckling. Nice crunchy skin and good flavor.
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The pig head returns after a discombobulating encounter with the cleaver.
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Beef with asparagus. Tony always orders a straight up beef dish like this. It was fatty and pretty tender with nicely cut asparagus.
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Crispy roast pigeon. Very nice hot juicy pigeon. Not too dark, not overcooked at all.
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Peking Duck (Cantonese style) with buns. Very tasty as always, but is of course much better with pancakes and cut a bit differently.
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Duck part 2: Lettuce cup duck. The meat from the duck mixed with water chestnuts and celery.
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Lettuce cups to go with the duck.
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Packed lettuce cup ready to eat. These were good.
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100 Flower Chicken. 2 ways. Pressed chicken with shrimp paste. This version was mostly shrimp paste. Almost no chicken meat under the skin. Still it was delicious.
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Wok cooked vegetables and oyster mushrooms. I like the double texture thing.
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Yin Yang Fried Rice. Two types of sauce covering fried rice. The lighter one was asparagus stalks and shrimp in a light sauce. Very savory and delicious. The red one was with chicken and a tomato based sweet sauce. A bit too sweet for my taste.
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Dessert Buns. The yellow topped ones were filled with pineapple and egg custard.
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Crackerjack Gelato – Smooth Peanut Base with homemade Dulce de Leche Ribbon, Toffee Peanuts, and Caramel Popcorn! — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — oh my! — #SweetMilkGelato #gelato #dessert #icecream #FrozenDessert #nomnom #dessertlovers #dessertporn #icecreamlovers #gelatoitaliano #foodporn #gelatolover #food #foodgasm #foodblogger #dessertgasm #desserttime #foodphotography #gelatoartigianale #gelatomania #dessertlover #icecream #icecreamlovers #peanut #caramel #DulceDeLeche #Popcorn #CaramelCorn

Raspberry Sorbetto — French Raspberries and a touch of lime juice — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — Unusual for me to go so “straight” with my flavors but I wanted a complement to a complex flavor — #SweetMilkGelato #gelato #dessert #icecream #FrozenDessert #nomnom #dessertlovers #dessertporn #icecreamlovers #gelatoitaliano #foodporn #gelatolover #food #foodgasm #foodblogger #dessertgasm #desserttime #foodphotography #gelatoartigianale #gelatomania #dessertlover #icecream #icecreamlovers #sorbetto #raspberry
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Overall, another great night. Really, these Tony Lau dinners are always great. Despite the slow start to the food, service was very good and the execution of the dishes was excellent. Very nice plating and on point flavors. The kitchen’s command of vegetables was particularly impressive. They know how to cut them into the proper shapes and to wok them quickly so they are still crunchy and tender.

It just goes to show that just because a Cantonese place has that “dated” palace look, doesn’t mean the kitchen isn’t first rate. Somehow they have 3 stars on Yelp. I wonder if we just got the royal treatment of if it’s just Yelp haters.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

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Related posts:

  1. Cantonese Pig Out!
  2. 888 Seafood – Banquet
  3. SGV Nights – Seafood Palace
  4. Tang Gong at Night
  5. Shanghailander Arcadia
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Arcadia, BYOG, Cantonese cuisine, Chinese cuisine, Gelato, hedonists, Peking Duck, Seafood, SGV, suckling pig, Tong Tak, Tony Lau, Wine

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 (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: 888 Seafood, BYOG, Cantonese Chinese, Chinese Food, Gelato, hedonists, Peking Duck, SGV, suckling pig, Wine

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

_

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!

_

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 Shanghai – Xinrongji

Oct08

Restaurant: Xinrongji

Location: Location near the Bund

Date: August 9, 2018

Cuisine: Shanghai Chinese

Rating: Excellent High end Chinese

_

Our Shanghai friend really spoiled us today, first with a lunch at Shanghai Tang and then heading (after lots of stops) to…
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The Shanghai Bund with its classic older European buildings.
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And it’s new hypermodern skyline across the river in Pudong.
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Then upstairs to Xingrongji for a second epic meal of the day.
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t

The space is extensive and beautiful.
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With all sorts of cooking stations including a roast duck oven.
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Fish station.
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Open kitchen, etc.

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Our table had a gorgeous view of Pudong and the Shanghai Tower (second tallest building in the world).
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I ordered the only “real” bottle of wine we had on the trip. Price wasn’t bad either considering the setting.

NV Pierre Péters Champagne Blanc de Blancs Brut Cuvée de Réserve. VM 92. The Cuvée de Réserve (2013 base) is rich to the point of being almost tropical in profile. Then again, that is 2013, a vintage that produced wines with both elevated ripeness and acidity, especially in the Côte des Blancs. Sweet floral notes add to an impression of exoticism. The 2013 finishes with notable depth and definition.
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Honey pumpkin. Again, for the second time today. This version was more pumpkin focused.
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Foie gras with fruit sauce. Second time for this too today. Not quite as good as the Shanghai Tang version as the foie itself was drier.
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Roast Pigeon. Excellent rendition of this classic Cantonese dish. Rich gamey bird and perfectly crispy skin.
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Roast Pork. Amazing super fatty succulent pork. Like pig candy. Just awesome.
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Fish and charcoal tofu boiled in chili oil. This Szechuan dish was not nearly as spicy as in Chengdu, although it did have some Szechuan peppercorns piled in. Fish and “tofu pudding” is very common in this dish, but the charcoal tofu was unique and had a very smoky quality.

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Braised beef. Another meaty rich meat dish but extremely tender and delicious.
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Kung Pao Chicken. The classic.
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Mapo Tofu. I always love this dish, although again it wasn’t as spicy or numbing as in Szechuan.
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Peking Roast Duck. Our last duck of the trip. Cry.
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The slice it table-side as they should.
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Served with pancakes.
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Here is the meat itself. This was a very good roast duck. Not quite as good as in Beijing, but better than we get here in California by a touch.
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The condiments were extensive.

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Duck soup, which I never love.
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Glass noodles.

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Meat pies. Pork and scallion quesadilla sans cheese.

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Rolled rice and red bean rolls for dessert.
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Our table.

Overall, Xinrongji was another amazing high-end Shanghai restaurant. The kitchen didn’t feel quite as perfect at execution as Shanghai Tang, but the menu was larger, offering dishes from a broad area of China, and everything we had was very good. Service was top notch and the atmosphere was fabulous.

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

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Related posts:

  1. Eating Shanghai – Shanghai Tang
  2. Eating Shanghai – Paradise Dynasty
  3. Banqueting at Shanghai #1
  4. Dim Sum is Shanghai #1
  5. Shanghai #1 Seafood Village
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Bund, Champagne, China, Eating China, Eating Shanghai, Peking Duck, Shanghai, Xinrongji
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