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Climb the Mountain

Dec03

Restaurant: Mountain House Rowland Heights 川山甲

Location: 18888 Labin Ct C101, Rowland Heights, CA 91748. (626) 986-5555

Date: June 9 & September 23, 2024

Cuisine: Szechuan Chinese

Rating: Best new SGV place of 2024

I had to wait nearly a year for them to get a beer and license before trying!

When we arrived, there was a Chinese American street fair going on in the middle of this mall courtyard.

Mountain House was hidden away in the courtyard. Parking ringed the outside basically looking at the service entrances. Really strange mall. I’ve been wanting to come here for 10 months but they didn’t seem to want to allow wine until V “sorted it out.”

Very nice build out.

With smoking koi bath — never seen one of these — and I wonder what the koi think about it

Fish extend to the ceiling.

Great private room. A touch cramped, but very private.

Pickled Spicy Cabbage on the table to start. These were awesome actually some nice chunks of aromatics.

Very good tea.

The menu.

Bamboo Grove Trio. Three various Szechuan drinking foods (including bamboo). Duck tongue, poached chicken, bamboo shoots.

Swing Garlic Pork Belly. Basically boiled bacon with super MSG spicy garlic sauce. It was all about the sauce.

Pepper Beef Tongue. More or less the same sauce, but the tongue was so tender — incredible dish.

House Chicken. The classic poached chicken in spicy chili oil. Not super spicy, but nicey balanced and very umami.

Szechuan Numbing Chicken. Last time we had the red pepper chicken — and on the tri — so this time we had the green.

Fu-Qi Special. Couples sliced offal, aka tripe and meat. Very nice version, although not as good as the perfect one at GuYi.

Okra Salad. Slimey and delicious in the same super savory sauce.

Spicy Hairtail. Some kind of slightly spicy fried fish.

Dumplings in Chili Oil. Solid version of this Sichuan staple.

Yibin Style Ran Noodles. Cold and a touch tangy with a little bit of sesame. Very nice.

Golden Baked Corn Kernels with Salted Egg Yolk. Awesome dunked in some red sauce.

Country Style Pork Belly with Preserved Vegetables. Great version of this dish. Not as salty as usual, just silky and delicious.

Ma-La Prawns. This was the hotest dish. Actually pretty spicy, but with an almost candied chili. Really fabulous.

Pepper Lover’s Frog. Very tender and only “some” bones.

Short Rib. Pretty damn good actually because of the spicy sauce.

House Ma-La Dungeness Crab. Super delicious sticky rice underneath with a very smoky flavor.

Crispy Fish with Pickled Pepper. Great fish. Tons of garlic and umami.

Red Pepper Fish Head.

Garlic Shrimp. So garlicky and so delicious. Shells perfectly crispy.

La-Zi Chicken. The famous fried aromatic chicken.

MaPo Tofu. Probably the best I’ve had in LA. Or certainly really up there. Just awesome.

Spicy Shredded Eel. Like the popcorn chili chicken — but with fried eel bits. Really great!

Crispy Tofu. Just fine.

Crispy Chicken with Chilies. Amazing version of this dish and highly aromatic with that deep chili flavor.

Western Szechuan Lamb Spine. Amazing Sichuan flavor. Not much meet, but really delicious.

Shredded Potato. Amazing dipped in the spicy lamb jus.

Green beans with pork.

Gizards with Taro. Awesome pickled pepper flavor and nice chew.

Hot and Sour Soup. Nice and silky.

Garlic Greens. Solid.

House Special Fried Rice.

Numbing Pepper Beef. So good with that green numbing factor. Very tender beef.

This was probably the best Chinese dessert I’ve had. Peanuts, watermelon, coconut, raisons, cool jelly, sweat syrup. Fabulous textures of chew and crunch. Sweet and nutty.

Chocolate Mint Gelato.

Chocolate and Arugula gelato.

Amazing meal. Not only was it very fun, but the food was really really good. And the total was all in $85/pp. Very large Sichuan menu and nearly ever dish was some of the best versions of it I’ve had. Nicely balanced and executed. Fun decor too and solid service. Plus they have the private rooms and now allow the wine. It wasn’t as hot as many Sichuan places, just balanced. And probably the menu is 2-4X as big. It’s a little fancier, but isn’t more expensive. So it’s a total win win win. Then it must be mentioned that this is a peerless Chinese food group :-).

The courtyard was empty when we left, but had this neat “not in America” feel.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: BYOG, Gelato, Hacienda Heights, mapo tofu, Mountain House, SGV, Sichuan Cuisine, Szechuan cuisine

Everything at Wagyu House

Dec01

Restaurant: Wagyu House by The X Pot [1, 2]

Location: 18558 Gale Ave Suite 122-128, Rowland Heights, CA 91748. (866) 610-0609

Date: May 26, 2024

Cuisine: Chinese Hot Pot

Rating: Maybe the best “upscale” hot pot?

We first came here for lunch but this is our return for a big blow out wine dinner…

Build out is pretty extensive. Sure, the build quality is “sloppy” and it won’t hold up, but it looks pretty cool right now.

If you pay for the “vip room” or have the NFT like Bovon does, then you can make a reservation.

Private rooms.

Sauce Bar. The sauce bar is excellent. Not quite as good as Shancheng Lameizi but very good. There weren’t very many snacks though (like cucumbers etc).

My usual pair of sauces. I tried not to make them very spicy today.

The menu.

And the special “expensive” package menu.

Spicy bear broth and Golden Chicken Soup broth.

Slightly less spicy and Herbal Chicken broth (with the pig but left out)

Braised Lotus Root snack.

Crispy Pork snack — awesome.

Bone marrow. Solid.

My sauces from the excellent sauce bar.

Baby octopus.

Mixed greens.

Lobster tails.

Spongy shrimp and roe rolls. Awesome.

Bean curd skin.

Super tasty fish and roe balls.

Squid.

Shrimp balls which were great and very fresh.

Squid legs.

Quail eggs.

Fish maw?

Lotus root.

Winter melon or similar.

Mushroom medley.

A5 cubes. Frozen, so were a bit hard to cook properly.

A5 of some sort — great.

Smoking!

Another cut.

Zombie food, aka Pig Brains.

Another bean curd.

And another A5, ribeye or similar.

Goose intestine.

Noodles.

Duck webs.

A non A5 beef.

Spam!

Beef stomach.

Another meat.

Beef tongue.

The man with the lamb.

Trio of sorbetto: chocolate, coco almond, and raspberry ginger.

Awesome night and probably the best hot pot I’ve had n the SGV / HH. Great service, great food, very fresh, nice private room, great sauce bar. Totaled up to $220/pp all in, so not the cheapest, but really good.

They had face dancers too!

Robo waiters.

This is so SGV.

Overall, if you get a private room and order it up, Wagyu X is one of the best hot pots in the greater SGV. Ingredient quality is high, they have a lot of items, the space is good, service is strong, the sauce bar is big. All great!

This place apparently has the same owners as Niku X .

For more LA dining reviews click here.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: BYOG, Chinese cuisine, gealto, hot pot, SGV, spicy, Wagyu House by The X Pot, Wine

SGV Sunday – Yang’s Kitchen

Nov03

Restaurant: Yang’s Kitchen

Location: 112 W Main St, Alhambra, CA 91801. (626) 281-1035

Date: March 31, 2024

Cuisine: Chinese Fusion

Rating: Tasty, but pricey

The press has been talking about Yang’s for some time as one of the new style SGV Chinese places — so had to try it.

The main street frontage.

The menu.

Very casual interior. Service was excellent, however, with an extremely knowledgable Somm.

Pickles. Nice and crunchy.

Cucumbers. Fabulous cucumbers with a bit of spicy.

Raw Oysters of the Day.

Chilled Tofu w/ Avocado & Roe. Soft and mellow.

Prawn ‘Ceviche’. Great texture.

Dungeness Crab Cold Noodle. Delicious with nice bit and cool crab.

Smoked Fish Dip. White fish salad!

Chicken Liver Mousse. Another “jewish” dish.

Yang’s Fried Chicken Wings. Lots of flavor.

Grilled Cabbage w/ Bagna Cauda.

Smoked Pork Jowl Cha Siu. Jiggly!

Grilled Dry-aged Fish Collars.

Red Wine Beef Cheek Stew.

‘Dan Dan’ Campanelle. Some numbing quality. This was probably my favorite dish. Really delicious.

Braised Duck Leg with Taro.

New York Steak & Crispy Potatoes or Chicken Fat Rice.

‘Hainan’ Fish Rice.

Dessert menu.

Black Sesame Cake.

Custard.

Tiramisu Gelato.

Pistachio Gelato.

Overall, some very delicious food. It’s very much fusion with a sort of 70/30 mix of Western and Chinese but a great kitchen. Price is fairly steep for “cafe ambiance.”

For more LA dining reviews click here.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Tagged as: BYOG, Chinese cuisine, Chinese Fusion, Gelato, SGV, Yang's kitchen

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

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.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Bistro Na, BYOG, Chinese cuisine, Gelato, Peking Duck, SGV

Yuan’s Hot Pot

Oct22

Restaurant: Yuan’s Hot Pot

Location: 8752 Valley Blvd, Rosemead, CA 91770. (626) 703-4458

Date: March 10 and October 5, 2024

Cuisine: Chinese Hot Pot

Rating: Probably the best Hot Pot in the main SGV

This high end hot pot place has a whole floor of nice private rooms.

The whole second floor is dedicated to private rooms.

This one was technically for 10, but really much better with 8. Had two pots. On another occasion I ate in a smaller room with one pot that sat 6-8 perfectly.

There is a very neat upstairs (VIP) sauce bar.

It didn’t have a huge number of items, but the ones it had were really good and really fresh.

Apps were like banchan. They were really good, particularly the two types of mushrooms.

Crispy pork. VERY fried.

Squid.

Shrimp.

Fish roe “dumplings.” Chewy and delicious.

Very nice boneless fish.

Another fish. There was a third which was very boney and not very good.

Tofu wrapped shrimp.

Shrimp or fish balls.

Meat balls and various mushrooms.

meatballs.

Quail eggs.

Tofu.

A5 Wagyu. Not sure it was really A5 but it was the best meat we had.

Smoking!

American or similar wagyu.

More beefs.

More beef.

More beef.

Lamb shoulder.

Bacon!

Spam. Always a favorite of mine.

Snausages.

Lotus.

Fresh bamboo.

Napa cabbage.

A lot of greens.

Sesame balls on the house.

Saffron Pistachio Gelato.

Yuan’s was one of the best classic but elevated spicy hot pot places. It had a broad menu with most everything, awesome private rooms, nice banchan, and a first rate sauce bar. The ingredient quality was also top notch. It doesn’t have some of the weirder broths (although they had spicy + about 4 non-spicy). The private room + high quality makes it pretty killer in my book. Some of the more crowded booth places just aren’t good for more than 4-5 people. Great place and stands out above a lot of the just “good” hot pots. The only one also in this league is Wagyu X.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: BYOG, Chinese cuisine, Gelato, hot pot, SGV, Wine, Yuan's Hot Pot

Second New Year

Oct10

Restaurant: Sea Harbor Seafood Restaurant [1, 2]

Location: 3939 Rosemead Blvd. Rosemead, CA 91770. (626) 288-3939

Date: February 12, 2024

Cuisine: Cantonese

Rating: Good, but very expensive

After many many dim sum visits to this SGV Cantonese classic I finally make it for dinner banquet — and this time on Chinese New Year.

I think Sea Harbor has been around for a long time and is one of the mainstays.

The interior is pretty typical.

The private room at Sea Harbor. I have been here countless times for dim sum but not for dinner in a long time.

Eve brought a huge amount of caviar — salt all night!

Peanuts.

Celery or asparagus with truffle. A bit truffle oily but the vegies had a nice crunch.

Fried squid. Salty and good.

Fried tofu with chilies.

Pig Trotter “Salad.” Nice flavor actually. Lots of ginger.

Geoduck (I think) salad. Great crunchy and strong (onion) flavor. I had a couple helpings of this as it seemed very fresh.

Fried Geoduck. Excellent fry. Super crunchy and chewy with a lovely flavor. Very salty.

Roast quail/pigeon. Very good version of this dish.

Shiitake and abalone in brown sauce. I’m not sure I prefer those so “straight up.”

Soup. One of those “all ingredients” brown soups.

Steamed crab. Good, but I prefer it with the garlic.

Typhoon style crab body. Very tasty fry.

Crab custard.

Fish head.

He’s looking at you!

Greens. Straight up.

Fish meat. Tasty and not too many bones.

Almond cookies for New Year.

Sweet soup.

Eve brought Basque Cheesecake.

Then covered it in caviar.

And lime zest.

It was really quite good this way. The zest really kicked it up.

Strawberry Jam Gelato.

Awesome wines.

This was a super fun dinner. Wines and company were amazing. Food was very good, if just a hair “staid” in certain ways. Mostly it was just that the price ($470 all in) was pretty outrageous. Sure it had a lot of luxury ingredients but it should have been more like $300.

For more LA Chinese reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: BYOG, Chinese cuisine, Chinese New Year, Eve, Gelato, Sea Harbor, SGV, Wine

Endless New Year

Oct08

Restaurant: Indian, The Tavern [1, 2]

Location: 633 S San Gabriel Blvd #105, San Gabriel, CA 91776. (626) 287-0688

Date: February 10, 2024

Cuisine: Chinese

Rating: Longest Chinese meal ever!

It’s hard to describe this particular SGV restaurant. But Andrea organized this special Chinese New Year’s banquet.

From the outside it looks like most of them.

But then inside it has this weird western saloon theme. Presumably it was some kind of “Indian bar” back in the 50s. The decor has partially stuck, but the menu is almost all Chinese.

We had this rustic table in the “party room.”

Not so PC!

We had the whole room.

Fried Stinky Tofu. Smelled bad, tasted like baby poop!

Crunchy spicy cabbage — good for removing the poop taste.

發財好市 Prosperous Market. Oysters with Black Moss, pork, and cabbage.

Incredibly interesting textures and great flavor — although not a looker in this format.

黃金仙子 Golden Fairies. Whole U-10 Scallops with Egg White Sauce and Fish Roe.

Very tasty.

海皇豆腐羹 Health and Longevity. Assorted Seafood and Bean Curd Soup. This was so good I had 3 bowls. Awesome!

年年有餘 More Than Enough Year After Year. Steamed Whole Live Fish.

Very tasty but a lot of bones.

Signature Prawns and Corn Kernels with Preserved Duck Egg Yolks. The crunchy corn was awesome.

Paul rapped — quite excellently.

包羅萬有 Ocean Treasures Discovered. Braised Gourmet Seafood (Abalone, Sea Cucumber, Fish Maw, Sundried Scallops…)

Icky looking again, but great flavors and textures.

飛龍在天 Dragon Above the Cloud. Lobster and Yee-Fu Noodles with Ginger and Scallions.

Delicious and tender.

金雞報喜 Chicken Bringing Good News. Authentic Fried Chicken. Very juicy and delicious.

Traditional Tea Smoked Duck. Smoky.

寶盆生花 Pearls in Treasure Pot. Mini Stuffed Gluten Balls in Light Peanut Paste (Desert).

Probably the best Chinese dessert soup I’ve had — actually quite delicious — like liquid peanut butter.

Lovechild, Pecan Praline, and Cremino Siciliano.

Crepe cakes!

The wines.

Overall, the place was surprisingly excellent. And they did these really interesting dishes. However, the timing was glacial to say the least. This meal was OVER 7 HOURS LONG! And Chinese food is usually super fast. There were two different 60-90 minute gaps between dishes. Twice I just went over to an empty booth, lay down and took an hour long nap!

For more LA dining reviews click here.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Tagged as: BYOG, Chinese New Year, Foodie Club, Gelato, Indian Tavern, Lunar New Year, SGV, Wine

MK BBQ

Sep26

Restaurant: MK Bbq Cafe

Location: 18406 Colima Rd D, Rowland Heights, CA 91748. (626) 616-1826

Date: January 28, 2024

Cuisine: Southern Chinese BBQ

Rating: Casual, but tasty

This is a new place run by our friend Derek, formerly of Elite. It’s basically a hong kong BBQ shack that used to be in the supermarket in this same mall. We actually went there in 2022. I was pretty skeptical because it’s hyper casual — and because it used to be just a shack inside the supermarket in this plaza.

The glamourous parking lot — we’ve been here a bunch for various.

Enter.

They still have the duck.

Minimalist decor.

The simple menu.

Decent lobster. A little shreddy, and a bunch of small lobsters, but tasty sauce.

Hong Kong Style Dungeness Crab. Lots of fry.

Macau style BBQ pork. Tasty, clean, light porcine flavor — luke warm (it’s actually supposed to be, but a little disconcerting).

BBQ Roast Duck. Excellent for this juicy type of Chinese duck.

Honey Glazed Sausage. Kinda delicious — probably my favorite dish.

Beef Stew “clay pot.” No clay involved, but this tendon and beef stew was pretty good. Would have been even better with silky curry sauce like at Henry’s.

Fresh veggies and mushrooms. Fabulous MSG flavored veggies. Nicely cooked.

Silken tofu. Also very good.

Salt and Pepper Pork Chop. Tasty but so fried and chewy.

BBQ Pork Neck. Fatty, greasy, kinda delicious and kinda gross at the same time.

Overall, this was better than I expected, but certainly no gourmet feast.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Cantonese, Chinese Food, duck, SGV

Sáu Can Fail

Sep24

Restaurant: Sáu Can Tho Vietnamese Kitchen [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]

Location: 8450 Garvey Ave #103, Rosemead, CA 91770. (626) 307-8868

Date: January 21, 2024

Cuisine: Vietnamese

Rating: Excellent (and so full)!

Every November/December my Hedonist club goes to this awesome SGV Vietnamese place — which used to be named Phong Dinh and is now Sáu Can Tho. Many previous meals have been “helluva epic” but not so much this time.

The new logo.

Shrimp chicken salad. decent.

Catfish. Less dry than usual because they were a bit smaller.

Condiments for the fish.

Boar ribs — tasty but INCREDIBLY tough.

Coconut snails. Great as usual.

Mushy disgusting half gold garlic shrimp. Tasted like they were cooked dead.

Cold bbq quail. Not very good.

Murky duck soup. Hmm. not really my taste. Yarom shot the duck.

Goat curry. Great!

Bread.

Mushy garlic rack of lamb. Taste was decent. Texture sucked.

Pandan jelly. I really enjoy these.

Pistachio and Choco-mole gelato.

Worst dinner we have ever had here. Many fewer dishes and half of them were blah.
I don’t know what happened. Normally this place is great. Part of it is scaled back and haphazard ordering. Part of it was just kitchen laziness or something as it seemed like everything had been cooked hours before and re-heated. One of the worst Sunday/SGV dinners I’ve done in a long time. Still a few good dishes, however (like the fish and snails).

More crazy Hedonist adventures or
LA dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Tagged as: BYOG, Gelato, hedonists, Sau can tho, SGV, vietnamese

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

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.

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.

Cold jellyfish. Nicely crunchy thick jellyfish “noodles.” Some, but not overwelming vinegar.

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.

Fried fishcake and roe balls. Interesting, a bit like some of the ones that are offered with hot pot. Pretty tasty though.

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.

Chinese greens with Egg and Crab Meat sauce. One of those goopy yellow sauces but quite pleasant.

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.

Peking Duck.

Condiments.

Pancake.

Scallion Lamb. Very tender and not gamey at all.

String beans. Duck House makes a great (and slightly sweet) version of this dish.

Crispy Deep Fried Cumin Duck Tails. Super salty, fatty, and delicious.

Noodles with scallions and beef. Worth the carbs.

Shanghai Style Red Sauce Pork. Super fatty but tasty.

Sweet Bean pancake. Yup, odd Chinese desserts.

Egg and Sesame Ball Soup. This was one of the better versions of this oddball (bada bing) sweet soup.

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.

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By: agavin
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Tagged as: Chinese Food, Duck House, Foodie Club, Peking Duck, SGV, Wine

Specials at Sands

Sep05

Restaurant: Sands Chinese Restaurant 金沙中餐館

Location: 15706 Arrow Hwy, Irwindale, CA 91706. (626) 338-6686

Date: December 30, 2023

Cuisine: Southern Chinese

Rating: Very good and lots of interesting dishes

Sands is a a newish Hong Kong / Cantonese place that Keong and Sklar really enjoy. Keong setup a very extensive custom banquet here on the second to last day of the year. Only problem is that it’s so far east — but at least there wasn’t much traffic.

This is a smallish mom & pop place, but they do have “fancier” food available for advanced order. The owner was the chef at some famous restaurant in Macau.

Double Boiled Winter Melon Soup. Interesting textures. A touch sweet and bland for me, but with some white pepper was quite pleasant. Had a lot of the tasteless but vaguely sweet melon. Some fish maw, mushrooms, and shrimp.

Lobster Salad. I’ve had this at least 2 times before. It’s like ambroisa salad, the Chinese lobster edition. Not to my taste as it’s sweet and the mayo and sweet fruit overwealm what was a very nicely cooked lobster.

Lotus Leaf Rice. Over-steamed, bland and heavy. This was my least favorite dish of the night and the most carbacious.

Steamed Cod. Lovely delicate cod. Hard to pick up with chopsticks as it was so delicate, but great taste and texture.

Sichuan Cold Chicken. Yarom ordered this because he didn’t want the rice. Turned out to be quite good. The sauce was full of “flavor” and delicious. Chicken was juicy.

Mushrooms with Shrimp Paste and “Lobster Sauce.” A delicious silky bite. The broccoli, as we shall see, was a stable for the night.

Crispy Fried Chicken. Great crispy fried chicken as described. They also debuted what was to be one of many little figurines made out of pressed flour and/or sugar or something.

Pipa Tofu. More broccoli and these “oyster-like” tofu fried balls. Delicious actually. Better than the real oysters (a few dishes later).

Sweet and sour sauce for the fried stuff.

Steamed Tofu with Minced Shrimp. Silky and delicious.

Deep Fried Oysters. The real oysters which were a touch heavy and fried — but I never love fried oysters. Did have a cool dragon head.

A5 Beef. Very soft.

Braised Stuffed Duck. Interesting duck. Very rich and quite delicious. It was stuffed with a LOT of stuff, known as the 8 treasures. List comming up.

The 8 treasures!

Beef Cube with Sichuan Sause (spelling intentional). Felt a little pork-like and was in one of those Panda Express type sweet and sour sauses (hehe).

Braised Pork Belly. Very decadent.

Oatmeal Shrimp. Never had this before. Actually pretty good!

Lettuce with Fermented Bean Curd. I prefer with cabbage, but this was pleasant too.

Chicken Skin Spread with Shrimp Paste. Another crispy chicken, this time sort of a version of 100 flower chicken. Hot and delicious.

Deep Fried Taro Tossed with Sugar. These actually weren’t bad for a weird Chinese dessert.

And it included yet another cute figurine.

Yar! Ghostly skeletal praline pirates are marauding — Pecan Pirate Praline Gelato — An eggy ultra-smooth Texas Pecan base layered with my creepy skull-shaped New Orleans style Vanilla Bourbon Pecan Pralines — 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 #vanilla #bourbon #pecan #praline #candy #halloween #spooky

Overall, a great and very interesting meal. There were lots of new dishes here, which I love, and lots of great ones. Interesting Southern Chinese style, simutaneously fancy and home style. Lots of fry. Not every dish was sucessful. Despite my comments, they mostly worked. The Lotus Leaf Rice was the only true dud. I just have issues with the sweetness of some of the others. But I absolutely love trying new things and this was chock ful of them. The staff were incredibly nice and really cared. As of 12/30/23 they were still applying for their Liquor Liscense.

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By: agavin
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Tagged as: BYOG, Chinese, Chinese cuisine, Gelato, hedonists, SGV

Szechuan Delicious Was

Sep03

Restaurant: Szechuan Delicious

Location: 8921 Valley Blvd, Rosemead, CA 91770. (626) 559-9017

Date: December 29, 2023

Cuisine: Szechuan Chinese

Rating: Very tasty

It’s been like 6 months since I was able to get out to an AFF, but the holidays provided a decent openning.

Szechuan Delicious is a relatively new addition to the profusion of often excellent SGV Szechuan restaurants.

Straightforward interior.

Good sized menu.

Salty / sweet peanuts.

Hot & Sour Jelly. Excellent version of this dish — which is always a favorite of mine.

Sliced Beef & Ox Tongue in Chili Sauce. This dish is known as Couples Sliced Offal in Chinese and delivers a very solid chili/salt flavor profile. There were some nice onions and celery underneath.

Szechuan Style Marinated Duck. Very solid duck with nice ducky flavor. Lots of bone of course.

It also came with this random Duck Fried Rice.

Szechuan Pork Slices with Preserved Vegetable. Super soft and fatty with great mustard greens underneath. This avoided either the mushy quality or over salting that some versions suffer from and instead had a lovely fat and savory quality.

Rattan pepper Live Fish. Great chili mala broth with delicate soft fish and plenty of bones. Not as hot as SI.

Sour & Spicy Shredded Eel & Vermicelli. This was a newish dish for me. I’ve had what was essentially the same without the veggies or eel, but I loved this sour/spicy sauce and the eel was soft and delicious.

Griddle Chicken. Lots of bones, but awesome depth of flavor. Really delicious.

MaPo Tofu. Very solid version of the classic. Some mala.

Dan Dan Mein. This is the soupy version. Pleasant, but I like the nuttier more intense variant.

OMG was this a deal. $35/pp all in. Szechuan Delicious is one of the better Szechuan places I’ve been to recently. Big menu and every dish was quite good. A bit on the rustic side, but very nice kitchen.

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By: agavin
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Tagged as: AFF, Chinese Food, SGV, Szechuan Chinese, Szechuan cuisine

An Array of Goodness

Aug24

Restaurant: Array36 – 36宴

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

Date: December 2, 2023 and May 5 & July 21 & Nov 11, 2024

Cuisine: Shanghai Chinese

Rating: Great new “high end” Chinese

I was eager to find out about Array 36, another new “high end” Chinese resteraunt in the SGV — most similar to Orange County’s Chang’an.

We booked a private room for 14 and pre-ordered a number of dishes. I did the menu planning.

The service was very nice, although they did make us wait about 30 minutes while the previous occupants of our room finished up.

Pressed Japanese yuzu-infused jellyfish head. Very tasty with nice texture. Of course the jellyfish itself has next to no flavor, but the slightly sweet sauce was great.

roasted chili sauce century egg with avocado. Very nice, if unconventional, century egg dish. I do love century egg.

Century Egg with Sea Cucumber. Very interesting blend of the soft and bitey and the chewy textures. A bit of kick and tons of umami. Really quite good. They changed this up as it used to have avocado. This was arguably better.

Mung Bean Noodles with Chili Oil. A very sesame take on these. Not bad, but not the best I’ve ever had.

sichuan style spicy and numbing chicken. A very solid version of this with one of those addictive spicy sauces. Chicken itself was nice and juicy.

Couples Sliced Offal (honeycomb tripe). Solid version of this Chengdu classic, but I’ve had better.

36 feast smoked pine pork. These tiny morsels tasted like Shanghai smoked fish, just pork.

Pork Neck with Japanese Yam. Kind of like spam with pineapple!

Bovon brought another tin of caviar!

hand-made crab golden noodles. I love crab roe and I love noodles so I had to try these.

They were actually very pleasant but a little bland — nothing a huge dollop of caviar didn’t fix!

House special shrimp. They were out of scallops so we got these sweet crispy shrimp.

I “fish egged” mine up but it was very nice. Extremly crispy and mildly sweet.

Shanghai crab stewed with its roe and tofu in a clay pot. I love this dish and it didn’t dissapoint. Super soft. I ate a mess. With caviar too.

Typhoon style lobster. The lobster itself was very well cooked. The garlic had a bit too much bread crumbs in it, but was still delicious.

6lb lobster with ginger and scallions. Excellent version of the wet lobster prep.

Buddha Jumps Over the Wall Soup. Several people insisted on this dish and it was incredible! This was the abalone version and was full of so many weird seafoods cooked down into a super intense seafood demiglace. It had incredible silky texture and density. Marvelous.

The version in 2024 was like a consommé. It had all the chewy seafood bits, but not the unctuous thick demiglace texture that it had in Dec 2023.

Braised cold abalone. Chewy!

Shanghai smoked fish. Very nice crispy version of the fish.

Shrimp with Garlic. LOTS of garlic.

Grouper steamed with soy sauce and ginger. Very nice fish. Lots of bones. Great sauce flavor. Some people LOVE this dish. I like the flavor, but the bone factor always leaves me a bit disintered in engaging with it fully.

Steamed Cod. Lots of meat on this one. Really excellent sauce.

Pickled chilis and spicy bean sauce.

Shanghainese sautéed eel. I really loved these garlicky sweet rich eels.

Abalone with Garlic. And that’s — again — LOTS of garlic.

northeastern-style marinated beef. Very tender and a bit sweet.

Grandmother’s pork belly. Extremely fatty and juicy. Great version of this Shanghai dish.

Super rich Shanghai Pork with Quail Eggs. Great version of this very fatty dish.

Secret Sizzling Lamb. Pretty good actually.

Prime Beef Ribs. The V’s ordered this secretly knowing I thought it would suck — it did. No one liked it. Very overcooked meat with slightly odd sauces and a sort of steakhouse creamed corn. Really weird non-Chinese dish.

Finally, about an hour late, our Peking duck arrived. They do it like Chang’an.

Lighting it on fire with Baiju.

Then carved tableside.

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

Meat itself was delicious and juicy.

Some of the meat was smoked.

This added more (smoky) flavor, of course.

Super thin pancakes, but they had a little clumping issue.

Oodles of caviar for the duck.

The condiments were solid. But overall the Peking Duck was a bit of a disappointment. It was good in the way that any real Peking duck is, but the skin could have been crispier. Part of the problem was also that both ducks came WAY at the end of the meal. We didn’t want them instantly at the start, but I had asked for them at 8pm and they came at more like 9:20 — and we were very full.

The May 2024 version of the duck was excellent, first rate really. Moist with crispy skin.

hand pulled cabbage. Delicious dish as always.

Seared string beans. Very nice sear and good flavor.

Garlic greens. Very well done, but a little on the “boring” side. Always good to have some greens but I like the cabbage.

Stone pot fried rice.

yangzhou egg fried rice. Very nice fried rice.

shanghai shepherd’s purse and pork dumplings. These XLB were super juicy, delicious, and had some kind of seafood, maybe even more crab roe.

Spicy XLB. Shells were ok and these were juicy, but they had quite a better — numbing and white — kick. I kind of liked them but many didn’t.

shanghai pan-fried buns. They looked a bit soggy but the pork was great.

The pan fried pork dumplings were better in May 2024, this time with a great pork filling.

Duck #2. We asked for it crispier. They flammed it longer, but it just ended up tasting a bit more “burnt.”

We also asked for the bones and got tons of meaty bones.

Baked papaya dessert. Sweet and kind of tasteless.

Variant on — Sultan’s Delight — Iranian Saffron and Sicilian Pistachio Base, with Rose-Water Turkish Delight — Saffron from the Istanbul Spice Bazaar — 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 #saffron #pistachio #TurkishDelight #Türkiye

Baileys Irish Gream Gelato — Stabilized 13% Bailys Irish Cream recipe, with a touch of seasonal coloring! — I have trouble resisting these once a year flavors — 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 #expresso #whiskey #baileys #StPatricksDay #cream #green

St Agur, Fig, Walnut Gelato.

Jellyfish head with grapefruit. Great “crunchy” firm texture to the jellyfish and a nice sweet and tangy sauce.

This century egg and sea cucumber dish is amazing.

Mung Bean Noodles with Chili Oil. A very sesame take on these. Not bad, but not the best I’ve ever had.

Couples Sliced Offal (honeycomb tripe). Solid version of this Chengdu classic, but I’ve had better.

Here comes one of our two ducks.

Drenched in Baiju and ignited.

Crispy Duck Skin with sugar.

Sliced Duck Meat.

Condiments.

Pancakes.

The duck spread.

T

T

Smoked duck meat.

Lobster with Ginger and Scallions. Excellent and juicy version.

Steamed Cod. Lots of meat on this one. Really excellent sauce.

Shrimp with Garlic. LOTS of garlic.

Tofu with Crab Roe. This is one of my favorite dishes here and didn’t dissapoint again. Great texture and great umami flavor.

Shanghainese sauteed eel. I really loved these garlicky sweet rich eels.

Abalone with Garlic. And that’s — again — LOTS of garlic.

Secret Sizzling Lamb. Pretty good actually.

Prime Beef Ribs. The V’s ordered this secretly knowing I thought it would suck — it did. No one liked it. Very overcooked meat with slightly odd sauces and a sort of steakhouse creamed corn. Really weird non-Chinese dish.

XLB. Not so great this time. Soggy skins.

The first lobster was so good we ordered a secrond, this time Typhoon Style.

Gianduia gelato.
Awesome Armenian pistachio cake.

Dec 2024: This was an awesome meal. Array 36 is one of the best Chinese “fancy” places I’ve been to in California. It’s not quite as polished as Chang’an, but it does have a varried menu. The general style leans toward the Shanghai region, although they have some other dishes. Chang’an is a little Xi’an inflenced and has a few more spicy dishes. Many dishes here were excellent, but fell slightly short of Shanghai Tang level execution. But there were lots of interesting and delicious dishes.
May 2024: Really great night. First rate in every way. The food at Array has stepped up, particularly the duck. The Buddha soup went from best to one of the worst dishes but everything else really improved. Service was great and the room cosy but prefect. They did rush the food a bit. Not that the overall length of the meal was too fast, but too many things came at once in a number of waves. But it’s really hard not to have that happen at Chinese unless you also want to gamble that you won’t have long waits. And we had A LOT of food. Jeff really helped set things up nicely. I would have ordered a couple more interesting things and left off the regular greens, shrimp, and the fish. But others LOVED the fish so they were crowd pleasers. Overall, a totally banger night.

July 2024: Another great night. Private room again and a slightly smaller (in terms of food) dinner with very successful but tighter ordering. Again the duck was fabulous. They also finally had the awesome river shrimp in stock. Even the pig’s ear was great.

November 2024 was another super fun and delicious night. Not every dish was perfect, but mostly it was our ordering. In general, the food is very slick and balanced and the dishes vary from good to amazing.

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By: agavin
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Tagged as: Array 36, BYOG, Chinese cuisine, Foodie Club, Gelato, SGV

Sichuan Modern – 19 Town

Jul09

Restaurant: 19 Town

Location: 18065 Gale Ave, City of Industry, CA 91748. (626) 669-7089

Date: September 3, 2023

Cuisine: Modern Sichuan Chinese

Rating: Very tasty, unusual modern style

19Town is the new modern fusion Sichuan place by the folks that brought us Sichuan Impression.

Tucked away in the corner of a giant parking lot with a Home Depot.

It’s going for a more bar-like feel.

There are a couple of private rooms.

We had this large table in a nook at the back of the resteraunt.

The menu.

Small cold drinking “snacks” are traditional in Chengdu.

Spinach Ball with Black Sesame Paste. Bonito Flake. Tightly packed in there.

Wasabi Edamame. Soybean sauce. Good for edamame.

Assorted Pickles. Bell pepper, lotus root, pickles, cauliflowers. Really crunchy, really hot, and really vinegared. Loved them.

Oil Bath Mushroom. Shiitake mushrooms, termite mushrooms. Nice little mellow mushrooms.

Bamboo Shoots Salad. Cordyceps flower, sesame oi. Crunchy with a bit of heat.

Shisito Numbing Tofu. Avocado, roasted green chili sauce, green Sichuan peppercorns. Delicious. Nice soft texture and some good heat and flavor from the salty sauce.

Cucumber with Sesame Paste. Elegant.

Dry-aged Salmon Tartare. Avocado, fennel, pickle capers, crisp wonton chips. A bit sweet, but very interesting flavors.

Slow-cooked Beef Tongue. Salt and spring onion sauce, red onions, garlic. Really tasty with some nice zing.

Scallop Ceviche. Shallots, yuzu sauce, pickles. Had that limey sour quality and I really enjoyed.

Grilled Octopus. Lime, vinegar, sauce of sous vide egg with black truffle. Pretty much like classic Spanish octopus.

Jiaoma Steak Tartare. Medium-rare ribeye steak pickled egg yolk, green onion, capers, peppercorn powder, rice crackers. Texture like a western tartare, but there was a very distinct Sichuan peppercorn flavor which I really enjoyed.

Sichuan Style Spicy Bullfrog. Chili oil, orange peel, dried chilis, baby arugula. One of the best Chinese frog dishes I’ve had. Yeah there were still the bones, but it had this nice flavorful spice to it.

Fire Belly. Kurobuta Pork, Butterhead lettuce, shisito peppers, dried chilis. Some good heat, but not overwhelming. Nice porky flavor.

Flaming Pork Jowl. Fresno Pepper, peanut butter, Everclear 120 Moonshine. Not spicy, with a distinct rich porcine note. Quite lovely.

Sauced Crispy Shrimp. Eggplant, garlic, green onions, roasted peppers, white flour. Really delicious and very fried.

Cheese Mapo Tofu. Roasted peppercorn powder, mozzarella cheese, baguette. The cheese really works. They do, however, chop up the tofu very fine in this version and I prefer the larger silky cubes.

Jasmine Tea-smoked Duck Leg. Cantaloupe, lavender, rosemary, thyme. Perfectly cooked. Both cured and juicy. Nice crispy skin as well. Interesting “alchohol” flavor? Delicious.

Farm-fed Silkie Chicken with Spicy Sauce. Chili oil, konjac knots, green onions. Great dish. Closely related to bang bang chicken and spectacular.

Slow-cooked Beef Ribs. Roasted pineapple, Fresno peppers. Well done, but tender.

Grilled Turbot with spices. Interesting like this with all the spices. But Turbot is best simply steamed.

Gnocchi con le Cozze. Mussel, garlic, pickled pepper, mozzarella cheese. Quite enjoyable.

Slow-cooked Oxtail. Dried-pickled Chinese mustard greens, dried chili pepper, rice, quinoa. Lots of bones as usual straight up.

Mixed up. Really nice and comforting when mixed up (without the bones).

Creamy Seafood Stew Noodle. Mussel, squid, shrimp, scallop, dairy. Interesting. Mild. Not my favorite dish of the night but certainly fine.

Waffle Fries with Salted Egg Yolk. Waffle fries!

Grilled Dry-aged Duck Breast. Sweet and sour vegetables. Cooked almost the same way as the leg — also fabulous.

Lamb Shank Paella. Carrots, peas, bell peppers, mushrooms, sugarcane, saffron. This was very addictive too, particularly the rich with the rich and flavorful meat.

served with pickles.

Black Sesame Cheese Tart. Barley.

Lemon au Courant Sorbetto and Mud Pie Gelato.

The wines.

Overall, 19 Town was REALLY good. It’s the most unusual Chinese cooking I’ve had in a while and is very fusion and hybrid, but instead of just making me want some “real” Chinese food, mostly these dishes were just excellent unto themselves. Occasionally I like the traditional versions better, like with the texture on the Mapo Tofu — and I love my traditional Chinese. But this was delicious and very interesting. It doesn’t replace traditional at all, but is a great compliment. Service was excellent too.

Yarom and the chef.

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By: agavin
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Tagged as: 19 Town, BYOG, Gelato, hedonists, SGV, Sichuan Cuisine, Sichuan Impression, Wine

Wuming Hot Pot

Jun29

Restaurant: Wuming Hot Pot

Location: 529 E Valley Blvd #168, San Gabriel, CA 91776. (626) 656-6568

Date: August 20, 2023

Cuisine: Chinese Hot Pot

Rating: Just okay mid-end hot pot

In our slow motion question to try all the decent hot pots in the SGV we end up at Wuming.

Nice updated decor. Details reveal a lot of SGV-style DM.

We ran into the manager from 1968.

Sauce and snack bar is decent, but missing the intriguing fermented stuff I like at the best bars.

My usual two sauces.

Brent brought this young Drappier mag that was “aged” in the Pacific! It tasted pretty normal.

Golden Soup and Extra Spicy “Butter Broth” (Ox fat). The spicy one was HOT. Made you cough in that good way and induced “the purge” later.

Fried pork chews. A bit chewy.

Beef and pepper skewer. Very hot.

Beef and cilantro skewer. Not as hot.

Surf Clam. A bit lost in these broths. Better chilled and fresh.

Prawn wrapped in a bean curd? skin. Very tasty.

Crab sticks.

Squid sheets.

Rehydrated abalone.

Mushroom platter.

Tofu platter.

Egg dumplings. Nice to see these on the menu as opposed to just regular dumplings.

Some veggies, like lotus root and potatoes.

Greens.

Luncheon Meat — aka spam. Always one of our favorites.

Lap cheong sausage. Not sure I’ve had this at hot pot but it rules. Once you let it boil for a bit it becomes more tender and retains that great slightly sweet and lactic flavor.

Regular Snausages. Just ok here.

Meat balls of various sorts.

One kind of spicy meat. It was pretty good, but lost a lot of the added flavor when dumped in the pot.

Spicy Numbing Meat. Also hard to tell given the intensity of the pot.

Velvet Meat (with egg). Tasty, and the peices are thicker, so can be a bit harder to chew given the chopsticks.

Meats and quail eggs. Liked the eggs as usual.

Our lady of the meat. Cute.

More meat.

More meat.

More meat.

Overall, Wuming was a solid middle grade hot pot place. Broth was good. It was spicy. Sauce bar was okay but could be better. The options on the menu were great — lots of items and lots of good ones. Quality was pretty good but not the best I’ve ever had. Private room was great. Service was nice but almost non-existent. Hard to place it overall in the ranking as they each have their pluses and minuses. I really love the sauce bar at Shancheng Lameizi but their quality isn’t perfect either.

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By: agavin
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Tagged as: Chinese cuisine, hedonists, hot pot, SGV, Wuming

Went to Wangjia

Jan28

Restaurant: WangJia Restaurant

Location: 800 W Las Tunas Dr Ste 300, San Gabriel, CA 91776. (626) 872-0618

Date: May 7, 2023

Cuisine: Shanghai Cuisine

Rating: Just pretty good

Another Sunday, another Chinese.

Wangjia is a 3 year old Shanghai style place on Main St (in Alhambra) that was written up in Eater. Somehow, probably because of the pandemic, it wasn’t on my radar until recently.

The Eater article made it sound “more upscale” but this is a narrow Mom & Pop place where the 20 year-old son (talking to Yarom) handles all of the front of house. He was very amusing actually. The place was very busy when we came in, but quiet by about 7:30 (Chinese eat early) and empty when we left at 8:30pm.

Jelly Fish with Soy Sauce. I didn’t actually see any Soy Sauce, but these were nice crunchy bits of jellyfish head with a very satisfying texture and a hint of something tangy, probably a vinegar.

Shanghai Style Smoked Fish. Sometimes this is warm, sometimes it’s cold. Today it was warm. There were some bones but it was tasty. The smoky taste wasn’t massively pronounced. It was drizzled with the sweet aromatic soy.

Black Egg with Seasoned Peppers & Choki Mushroom. The black egg was very mild but the peppers were decently hot, which enjoyed as it cut through all the sweet sauce left on my plate.

Shanghai Style Soy Sauce Duck. Braised duck drowned in sweet soy. It was actually very tasty as the sweet paired nicely with the rich bird.

Fried Fish Slides w/ Wined Sauce (aka Fish Filets with Fungus). This “wine sauce” tasted like really tasty chicken stock and a TON of “flavor” (MSG). It was actually delicious. The fish was soft and veyr pleasant. The wood ear mushrooms weren’t the best — and I generally do like them alot.

Fried Crab with Rice Cake and Ginger and Onion. The crab was a bit hard to eat but was delicious. The rice cakes were really good (if off diet) in the sweet brown sauce. Very classic Shanghai dish.

Stir-fried Baby Shrimp with Tofu. Very nice soft tofu texture and the shrimp, while few and far between had a nice snap to them. The soy beans (or similar) leant some textural contrast with a very pleasant crunch.

Braised Minced Eel in Brown Sauce. I asked the young server which eel dish I should order and he said, “I don’t eat eel.” He did suggest this one (which was the one I wanted anyway) because it had no bones. This is basically the same as pork strips in garlic broawn sauce except it’s eel (and maybe pork) in garlic brown sauce. It was sweet and garlicky and I very much enjoyed it.

Braised Meat Balls in Brown Sauce (aka Lionhead Meatballs). They do love the brown sauce at Shanghai restaurants. The meatballs themselves were very pleasant porky meatballs with a lot of good flavor. I also enjoyed the cabbage. This was a thinner brown sauce than the eels or eggplant, a bit less sweet, and more like a gravy. It was still kinda sweet though.

Red Pepper Fried with Cabbage (aka Cabbage Stir Fried with Red Pepper. haha). Great version of this dish. The cabbage had a really nice crunchy, that pork fatty greasy factor (good), and was actually quite spicy (also in a good way). First rate version.

Steamed Salted Pork with Dry Tofu Skin. Our server seemed agast at the idea that we would order this. He’d never tried it and declared that “no one had ordered it in 2 months.” As my intuition bore out this was a delicious dish. The stock was rich and full of “flavor” (MSG) and the very very fatty pork belly a bit, but not to salty and relaly delicious in that lardy way.

Braised Pig Knuckle in Brown Sauce. Here comes the brown sauce again. THis was the same “thinner” brown sauce as the meatballs. The huge hock of pig was jiggly and good as always. I do prefer the MSG and garlic version of this dish which you get at places with a bit more Beijing influence, but this was still piggy delicious.

Eggplant in Garlic Sauce (also brown). This sauce is very similar to the eel sauce. It’s thick, more than a little sweet, brown, and garlicky. Regardless, this was arguably one of the best dishes and a great eggplant dish. The texture was perfectly mushy and full of great garlic flavor. Not spicy. Sometimes this dish can be spicy in its Sichuan form (which I also like).

Shanghai Stewed Pork & Squid with Tea Tree Mushroom. The squid wasn’t obvious to me and this was basically the Dong Po (red) pork belly in sweet soy. Except it wasn’t red but was brown again. It was fatty and tasty and sweet and I very much enjoyed the texture added by the mushrooms.

Shanghai Style Fried Lamb. I guess they mean stir-fried. It seemed more or less like Cumin Lamb and not super Shanghaiese. It wasn’t my favorite. It was fine, but not that interesting.

Steamed Pork Bun (aka XLB). Always enjoyable. Took a second for the black vinegar to come. The skins were a touch thick but they were juicy and tasty.

Pan Fried Pork Buns. These were a standout here. They were slightly smaller than usual which was a good thing, with a nice crispy shell, lots of hot soup and a delicious porky center. The slightly smaller size made the dough less overwelming than at some places.

Overall, a total steal (at $45/pp all in) and tons of food. This is a more homestyle Shanghaiese place and family run. It’s not fancy but they are nice and the kitchen is quite solid. Yeah, Shanghailander and Shanghai Number 1 Seafood are more elegant and a bit better, but this is some really solid and well priced Shanghai style Chinese food. The menu is huge and there are also a lot of Sichuan dishes “left over” from the space’s previous incrnation as a Sichuan restaurant. Technically maybe the black egg and cabbage were Sichuan but I did try to order (almost) all Shanghai dishes.

For more dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Chinese cuisine, crab, hedonists, pork, SGV, Shanghai Cuisine

Northern Cafe Temple City

Jan26

Restaurant: Northern Cafe

Location: 9608 Las Tunas Dr, Temple City, CA 91780. (626) 286-5288

Date: May 5 & July 23, 2023

Cuisine: Northern Chinese

Rating: Great private room experience

Normal Northern Cafe is a solid but casual fast casual spot but…

Northern Cafe in Temple City sure is a bit different than the ones in Century City or West LA as we shall see in this special dinner organized by Eve and another I put together myself.

The normal dining room is fairly normal NC.

But they have 5 private rooms, a smaller one being shown here.

We set up in this larger one.

It’s pretty big.

It even has a bit of a lounge area, perfect for organizing our wines.

I think this is the “regular” menu.

And this epic tome is the special menu!

Spicy Cucumbers. Nice garlicky cucumber salad.

Cold Flavored Pork Head. Very chewy texture that was offputting to some with a lovely, but highly porcine, flavor.

Up first came this big installment of Geoduck sashimi. This is the body meat and it was served on ice with Astrea Caviar that Eve brought. Turns out geoduck is excellent with caviar! And this was some very fine geoduck with a very clean mild sea flavor and a nice chewy texture.

It was served with soy sauce and (faux) wasabi.

We had pre-ordered several large live lobsters and the tails were served as sashimi. Probably the best “Chinese” lobster sashimi I’ve had. Quite lovely and subtle.

Eve also brought her own King Crab! They sell it on the menu, but she BYOCed.

King Crab Salty Egg Yolk. The crab might have been a touch overcooked in this prep but the yolk batter, which is not normally my favorite, was quite good as it wasn’t too salty or too pasty.

Bamboo Shoot with Shredded Pork. I loved this dish. It was a pretty classic brown sauce, but very tasty, and the crunchy bamboo was delightful with that bit of porky flavor (classic Chinese velveted slivered pork).

Pork Spareribs with Garlic. Chewy, salty, and very tasty.

Pork and Scallion Pancake. This is a kind of classic Beijing meat pie with a filling that is probably the same as standard dumpling filling: pork, ginger, green onions. They were super greasy, but great.

House Special Smoked Duck. It was served with a bit of hoisin and some Northern style pancakes. The meat was really flavorful, but VERY salty, almost to the Smithfield ham level. Speaking of that, because it was salted, smoked, and cured, it tasted not unlike ham — just ducky ham.

This are the flaky pancakes for the duck.

Next they brought out this lovely Cloisonné hot pot.

This is the basic broth, but Eve ordered it as “mushroom chicken” and so…

They added a mess of mushrooms and…

Some raw chicken.

This mix was allowed to boil for 20-30 minutes (covered).

Here is the result.

First we were served cups. The broth was incredible, with a very deep woodsy and comforting chicken and mushroom flavor. The short boil had extracted a lot of flavor.

For extra things to add to our hot pot we kept it fairly simple, enjoying the legs of our crab. Boiled for 20-30 seconds they were incredibly sweet and succulent.

These lobster “bits” were chopped up and reason to be tossed into the pot.

Also some tofu.

And greens. We kept drinking this broth (with the stuff) throughout the evening as it was delicious.

As was this incredible delicious of live Grouper.

The grouper meat cooked in a bout 30 seconds and was subtle and delicious.

Rib Eye and Lamb Shoulder to boil in the pot. These meats, alone of what we had tonight, is better (IMHO) with the spicy broth served at various Sichuan hot pots.

Some extra fish was also fried up “salt and pepper” style — aka MSG style.

Clams with Basil. This is the classic Chiuchow dish that’s a bit Vietnamese/Cambodian. Some nice basil flavor and a good number of succulent clams. I enjoyed this, even if the clam meat was a bit evasive.

Sauteed Cabbage. I always love this classic and it didn’t dissapoint. This was a simple rendition with a lot of garlic and oil, but cooked perfectly. It didn’t have either the ham (and its nice lardy flavor) or dried shrimp or chilis that some versions of the dish have, so it wasn’t the most flavorful I’ve ever had, but the crunchy texture on the oily cabbage was lovely.

French Chopped Beef with snowflake. Chunks of filet with black bepper sauce. I don’t generally love this dish as I consider it a bit boring, but this one had a real black pepper kick which in combination with the onions was quite enjoyable.

The geoduck neck came back fried. Quite nice, but not nearly as delightful a fry as the Longo version.

Eve also brought not one but two Turbot!

Turbo steamed with ginger, garlic, spring onions, and soy. This fish is best done this way, simply, so that the soft mild flesh and generous cartilage can be enjoyed “as is.”

Crab Custard. This is the third dish from our King Crab.

The custard was a bit stiff, and while still delicious, didn’t have that silken texture I really love.

Yang Chow (or everything) fried rice. Absolutely awesome fried rice with big whole shrimp and chunks of fried pork.

Walnut Shrimp. Fu ordered this guilty pleasure classic, joking that it was for the white guys, but this was a first rate example. The shrimp were succulent and the fry nice and crispy, perfectly offset by the sweet mayo and walnuts.

Fried fish with green batter. This is a Hangzhou dish. There green tea is added to the batter. I’m not sure it was tea here or some other variant, but it was a nice tempura-style deep fried fish. Right out of the frier too as it was very hot and juicy.

House Special Smoked Duck. Very salty, but very good. With that smokey cured pastrami-like flavor. Lots of “flavor.”

Pea Tendrils with Garlic. Great version of this basic dish.

MaPo Tofu. Not a bad version at all. Some Ma and a bit of meat.

Beef & Scallion Roll. Awesome version of this with some hoisin and cilantro. Quite lovely.

Boiled dumplings. Probably pork. Delicious for sure. I didn’t (finally) manage to get some black vinegar for them. Really I like a proper dumpling sauce, but vinegar will do.
XLB. Solid versions.

Scallion pancake. Bready, but really tasty — particularly with some black vinegar.

Inside.

Pan fried dumplings. I’m not sure if this was the same filling. It was late, but they were also good. Skin was a little thick on these, not like the amazing You Kitchen variants, but like all decent dumplings they were hot and delicious.

Nocciola Crunch Gelato — Nocciola (hazelnut) base made with egg yolk and Pure PGI Piedmont hazelnut paste mixed with Nestle’s Buncha Crunch — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — new higher fat base formulation — #SweetMilkGelato #gelato #dessert #icecream #FrozenDessert #nomnom #dessertlovers #dessertporn #icecreamlovers #gelatoitaliano #foodporn #gelatolover #food #foodgasm #foodblogger #dessertgasm #desserttime #foodphotography #gelatoartigianale #gelatomania #dessertlover #icecream #icecreamlovers #hazelnut #nocciola #Chocolate #Nestle #crunch

Hojicha Latte NSA Gelato – Ceremonial Hojicha Roasted Green Tea base with No Sugar Added (Allulose) — 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 #matcha #Hojicha #GreenTea #Allulose #NSA

Cannoli and Baklava’s Evil American Lovechild — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — Base crafted from Galbani Whole Milk Ricotta and Sicilian Toasted Noto Romano Almond Paste with a touch of the sugar subbed out for Sicilian Honey. Mixed in is Malibu Honey, California Pistachios, and house-made Gluten Free Honey Graham Crackers (almond flour and so good you can’t tell them from the wheat flour version)! — #SweetMilkGelato #gelato #dessert #icecream #FrozenDessert #nomnom #dessertlovers #dessertporn #icecreamlovers #gelatoitaliano #foodporn #gelatolover #dessertgasm #foodphotography #gelatoartigianale #gelatomania #dessertlover #icecream #icecreamlovers #ricotta #almond #RicottaCheese #cheese #Sicily #honey #GrahamCracker #pistachio

Cap’N Crunch Gelato – Smooth Peanut Base with house-made White Chocolate Coated Crunch Berries! — 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 #cereal #CrunchBerry #CapNCrunch

Fu makes off with a bit of booty for the family.

Meal 1 (May 2023), was a super fun night. Awesome wines — and only one red thank Dionysus (given the food). Company was amazing too and the food really stood out. I enjoyed this slightly northern twist and they seem to have an excellent and very flexible Chinese kitchen and great private rooms. Who would have thought at a Northern Cafe? Service was super friendly and excellent too. We did get too many dishes too fast because no one gave them the “one at a time” instructions and fast is the Chinese default. Still, an awesome time and awesome food. That broth was really amazing!

Meal 2 (July 2023).

For more dining reviews click here.

Just a bit of great wine!

And some fire water.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Babykillers, BYOG, Caviar, Chinese cuisine, Foodie, Foodie Club, Gelato, geoduck, hot pot, Seafood, SGV, Wine

China Islamic

Jan09

Restaurant: China Islamic

Location: 7727 Garvey Ave, Rosemead, CA 91770. (626) 288-4246

Date: April 23, 2023

Cuisine: Western Islamic Chinese

Rating: Very tasty — although no wine due to halal

China Islamic is a Halal (hence no wine) Chinese place right there on garvey. Yarom has been coming here for over 30 years.

Interior is pretty much as you’d expect. They are on the 3rd or 4th owner, currently named Omar. That guy behind the counter did all the front of house work and after dark it got very crowded. He was very busy.

My crib sheet.

Cold Spice Sliced Beef. Not the “soaked in chili oil” version, but instead drizzled with an excellent garlicky chili oil.

Pickled Cucumber. It wasn’t actually really pickled, but was the smashed cucumber and a nice one with good crunch.

Spicy Ox Tripe. Very nice chili flavor and a good soft texture to the tripe. Quite excellent really although not the spicy sesame (super chewy) one that I had in Xi’an.

Lamb with Pickled Cabbage Warm Pot. The broth on this soup had a fabulous savory and sour flavor. The lamb was gamey, but delicious in contrast and there were glassy noodles. Really lovely soup. I kept drinking the broth.

Sesame Thick Bread with Onion.

This is a specialty of the area and the restaurant. It had a great crispy/bready texture but I found it just too bready (bland) for my taste — but that’s me.

Chinese Cumin Lamb “Burger.” This “Roger Moore” dish isn’t really a burger. These were however some of the best ones I’ve had. Really nice warm bread and great flavor to the meat.

Eggplant with Spicy Sauce and Ground Beef. Really nice garlic and chili oil eggplant. Great texture.

Spicy Lamb Ribs. Not particularly spicy but super fried, super salty, and mega delicious.

Mooshu Chicken. It was covered in an omelet instead of having the shredded omelet mixed in. This was actually quite tastey and a bit of a guilty pleasure. It’s here, like many of the dishes we didn’t order (aka Orange Beef) because as a Halal Chinese Restaurant a good number of non Chinese muslims seem to come in and just order regular Chinese American food.

The mooshu came with tortillas — lol.

And a sweet hoisin which was actually pretty good with it.

Beef Dumplings with Soup and Hot Soup. Awesome tender dumplings with great flavor (they were out of the lamb ones too) and a really nice tangy and slightly spicy broth. Kept drinking this too.

Braised Spicy Chicken Bone-in. This was our least favor dish. The chicken itself was tasty, but it was dominated by Jalepeno flavor — and it was fairly spicy.

Cumin Beef. Super tender with that strong cumin, onion, and char flavor.

Lamb Back Bone Warm Pot. Another awesome broth and the incredible lamb spine meat. So tender and almost like lamb pastrami.

The meat is a little scary but it tasted so good!

These noodles, cabbage, etc were for dumping in the warm pot.

voila.

Pita Bread Soaked in Lamb Soup. Another awesome broth — they really know broth here — with the shredded “pita” bread and lamb. The bread gave an effect like gnocchi and was very tender. Fabulous dish and a little different than the Shaanxi version I’ve had that is more like a pasta fazool or something.

Overall, this was some really tasty and a bit different Chinese. It’s fairly close in style to Shaanxi, although they also have a lot of Chinese American dishes on the menu (we only ordered the Mooshu). They don’t seem to have the knife cut noodles that are typical of Shaanxi however. But almost all dishes were really delicious, if rustic, and there was a ton of flavor. Particularly the addictive broths.

For more dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: China Islamic, Chinese cuisine, hedonists, SGV

Lunch Quest – Medan Kitchen

Jan05

Restaurant: Medan Kitchen

Location: 8518 Valley Blvd STE 102, Rosemead, CA 91770. (626) 693-6231

Date: April 21, 2023

Cuisine: Indonesian Market

Rating: Tasty

Another haul out east to try this interesting Indonesian market.

Medan replaces New Century Lobster, that mediocre South Chinese Place.

Some menu on the board outside.

But inside the format is more supermarket than restaurant. Basically all the food has been prepared and placed in take out containers. It’s cold or “cooling” and you just pick what you want and check out.

Our haul.

There are a number of tables outside and some very flimsy plastic utensils.

Peanuts with Dried Anchovies. Salty and just a little sweet with a delightful mix of crunch and chew.

Mackerel in Chili Sauce. Rich fish with a delicious (and pretty hot) chili sambal.

Beef Rendang. Very nice sweet, nutty, and rich version of the classic. The beef was a touch chewy, and give we had to cut it with plastic forks…

Tendon Curry. Very gelatinous and quite delicious. Not for everyone.

Eggplant. Nice slightly spicy and umami eggplant.

Shrimp with Saytan or Tofu. Solid

Fried Cassava. Didn’t try, too carby.

Shredded Chicken. Like Indonesian taco meat.

Sambal. In case you need more heat.

Rice Packet.

Mixed in with the rice was more Beef Rendang, various veggies, a hard boiled egg, and curried chicken. Curry was delicious on the rice.

Super sweet Pandan Coconut Milk Drink. Delicious, but boy was this sweet.

I don’t love the format, or the cold food, or the plastic plates and forks. But the food itself was delicious. Really quite good. It isn’t really cheap either. Certainly not expensive, but only a little bit cheaper than a similar (likely larger) dish at a full sit down restaurant like Simpang Asia. However, this is very authentic, and very tasty. Lots of crabs though, which we did our best to mostly avoid.

For more dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
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Tagged as: Indonesian Cuisine, Lunch Quest, Medan, SGV

OOToro Spring

Dec01

Restaurant: OOToro [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Location: 1569 Fairway Dr, Walnut, CA 91789. (909) 598-8299

Date: April 1, 2023

Cuisine: Japanese Sushi (with slight nod to China)

Rating: Ends of the earth, but very good

Chef Kaz of Totoraku, an occasional hedonist, sent us far east to this Sushi restaurant in 2016 and it was such a fun time that we had to return again for a sixth visit — it’s now become a twice a year thing. This is my second return since the pandemic — although some in the group went once in the middle for a meal that was supposedly not quite up to snuff. Because a bunch of us have engaged in a special Sushi Series this fall (tasting all the best LA sushi places) I figured I’d include OOToro in the mix.

And by far east I mean REALLY REALLY far east — to Walnut California. 40+ miles from my house. 20 miles past Alhambra (which most people consider to far to drive for food). It took an hour and twenty minutes on a Saturday night!

Look how clear it is after the rains (and snows).

The slick looking location is in the heart of the affluent Chinese American San Gabriel Valley. But yes, it’s Japan, if perhaps catering to Chinese taste. This photo was shot at about 10pm after everyone else had left.

Here is the private room — the only way to go.

They put up this weird curtain recently.

We ordered the $250 Omakase.

First course of various little morsels.

Marinated Baby Squid. Soft and juicy!

Baby Japanese Sea Snail. Quite tasty.

Shirako (aka cod sperm sac) with a bit of soy/ponzu. Awesome.

Steamed Abalone. Very tender, but not the strongest (or most intense) abalone I’ve had.

Fried Potato Wrapped Shrimp “Tempura.”

Sashimi course. OToro in the back (super soft). Needlefish in the middle. Squid with bad caviar in front with Uni blobi and Half a Live Octopus sucker with sour plum sauce (great).

Special house-made soy sauce that was actually incredible. I kept it all evening. It was so good it made me eat all the garnish and seaweed (with the soy). Even the shiso flower!

Live shrimp in front with wasabi and oyster with uni and ikura. They took head away for later.

Cooked belt fish.

Parfait of Uni, terrible truffle caviar, some kind of jelly, and crab salad. Once the bad caviar with its truffle oil taste was gone the jelly and crab salad was wonderful.

From the side.

Aji (Spanish Mackerel) Tataki. Lovely!

We went out and looked at the wine cabinet and low and behold there were some Leroys. Turns out they were cheaper than retail!

Duo of whitefish sushi, snapper specifically. The left was Red Snapper and the right Goldeneye Snapper.

Awesome ginger.

The “money plate” with OToro on the right and Kama Toro (collar) on the left. So good!

Skipjack Tuna with garlic and numbing chili crisp! The chili crisp was a new twist and actually kinda delicious.

Uni Toast! So good.

Turns out they had a whole tuna collar “in stock” tonight (the kama part) and we were able to order it.

An hour or so later out came the awesome “BBQ Kama Toro” plate. It’s like ducky tuna and fishy smoked duck and is incredibly rich and delicious. Great with that special soy too.

Yarom flintstones the bone.

Flaming Sea Snail with mushrooms. Creature alert!

Chawanmushi (egg custard) with shrimp, ikura (salmon roe), and hairy crab. This was wonderful and it was also presented with a leg of hairy crab.

The beef dish came out in these cute covered cooking boxes.

Inside was A5 Wagyu they cook tableside.

A5 Wagyu. Super tender and melt in your mouth.

The return of the heads.

Shrimp head miso.

Fried shrimp head for brain sucking fun.

Pure and Concentrated Evil — Kentucky Mud Pie Gelato — Expresso Knob Creek Bourbon Custard Gelato base with layers of house-made Crushed Oreo Valrhona Fudge Ganache, and house-made Vanilla Coconut Cream Cheese Icing — The Plaid Mode of Gelati and includes a hefty Caffeine kick — 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 #coconut #valrhona #chocolate #ganache #expresso #bourbon #custard #oreos #icing

Two of us grabbed these Leroys.

Overall, this was one of the best OOToro’s ever. Every dish was great — only exception being that gross caviar, but it didn’t ruin any dishes — and the preparation (hard to say cooking) was very on point. The collar as always really took it up a notch. Plus we had a great group with some first timers and a lot of very good wines.

The epic wine lineup.

After dinner we returned to the always fun valley view parking lot. Big plus over that miserable hotel across the street from Ootoro. Only problem was that it was cold and that on the way home an accident had the 60 closed for over an hour — so I got home almost at 1am.