A Visit To Shanghailander Palace in Arcadia

When the top Shanghai restaurants in the Los Angeles area are mentioned, the name of Shanghailander Palace seldom comes up.  But really Shanghailander Palace is at or near the top of the category.  Just ask Mr. Chow (yes, that Mr. Chow), who likes the food at the Arcadia branch of Shanghailander Palace so much that he has his own private dining room on premises.  With locations in Arcadia and Hacienda Heights, perhaps it's just enough out of the way to not get the same publicity as restaurants such as Jiang Nan Spring and Luyixian.  Also the price point trends a little bit higher, with quite a few premium items that we passed on for this meal.  (I do highly recommend the crispy whole sweet and sour fish.)    Our excellent meal there included the following dishes.

 

Opening with cold vegetables in sesame sauce.

  

Shanghai Spare Ribs.

Stir fried shrimp.

Pork, tofu and vegetable soup.

 

 

 Signature seaweed fish.

Xiaolongbao

Shanghai chow mein

Fried buns.

Pork belly.

Sesame ball dessert.

This Gem of a Chinese Restaurant is Hidden in Plain Sight - L.A. Weekly--June 21, 2017

With L.A. Weekly apparently having cleared out their online archives, here's a repost from an article I wrote for them in 2017.

 

This Gem of a Chinese Restaurant Is Hidden in Plain Sight

David R. Chan | June 21, 2017 | 9:00am

 

When people talk about the best Chinese restaurant in Los Angeles, the same names come up time and again: Sea Harbour in Rosemead, Chengdu Taste, Lunasia, King Hua and Szechuan Impression in Alhambra, Newport Seafood and Mian in San Gabriel, and Din Tai Fung in various mall locations. (Or if you’re Yelp, then it’s Americanized restaurants such as Sea Dragon, Yang Chow and Wah’s Golden Hen.)

But what if we throw another contender into the mix: Embassy Kitchen in San Gabriel, located directly in front of the Embassy Billiards pool hall, whence it derives its name.

Given its location, this is equivalent to bowling alley dining, in a sense. And it's been around for 20 years, making it senior to all the other top non-Yelp contenders except Newport Seafood, which opened in San Gabriel a year earlier in 1996. Embassy Kitchen started as a small adjunct restaurant to the billiard parlor around 1997, even using the Embassy Billiards moniker. It then moved to the large restaurant space in front of the pool hall around 1999.

Like other top Chinese restaurants Sea Harbour, Lunasia and King Hua, as well as most all of the other banquet-sized Chinese restaurants in the San Gabriel Valley, Embassy Kitchen serves Hong Kong–style cuisine. But Embassy Kitchen diverges from these other restaurants in many ways. There are no tanks full of live seafood, nor is the dining room huge, loud or boisterous. There is not a gaudy menu with so many choices that it could be made into a movie, and the restaurant gladly takes reservations.

But what really distinguishes Embassy Kitchen from the pack is the food selection. Yes, you will find Cantonese favorites such as rock cod in corn sauce, walnut shrimp, fish maw crab meat soup, e-fu noodles and steamed chicken with ginger and scallions. But what you also find at Embassy Kitchen are two extremes not typically seen at most Hong Kong–style restaurants in Los Angeles — complex dishes that require ordering in advance, and wonderful home-style dishes. Most of these dishes are obscured on the Embassy Kitchen menu, as they are only found on Chinese-language paper inserts on the inside cover of the permanent menu. On the other hand, that might not make much of a difference, since non-Chinese faces are rare at this restaurant. There is no nefarious intent in relegating these dishes to a Chinese-language supplement — the owners indicate that they just weren’t sure how to accurately describe these dishes in English.

Perhaps the best exemplar of the complex advance-order dishes is the boneless chicken stuffed with shrimp paste. The chicken skin is light and crispy and the shrimp paste provides a savory contrast.

Then there are the tilapia rolls with whole carcass, one of the most visually interesting dishes you will find at a Los Angeles–area Chinese restaurant, though from a taste point of view the re-stuffed fish (where the bones are removed and the fish is filled back up with fish and ground pork) might be a better choice. 

One of the special items that does not necessarily require an advance order is the "eight treasures" stuffed duck.

Other signature dishes include the chicken stuffed with sticky rice (a traditional Cantonese dish still popular in the San Francisco area but difficult to find in Los Angeles) and the fried rice with whole Dungeness crab or lobster. Note that all of these dishes are large and cost around $50, and hence are more suited to large parties. Indeed, Embassy Kitchen has a larger quotient of large-size tables compared with most other Chinese restaurants in Los Angeles.

At the other end of the spectrum are the many uncommon home-style dishes on Embassy Kitchen’s menu. However, be aware that these dishes are not inexpensive, as there are few items on the Embassy Kitchen menu that are less than $15, and many are $20 or more. But these dishes contain expensive ingredients. For example, our party was stumped by the steamed egg with tofu and seafood topping, so we had to ask what was in it. The answer: “shrimp roe.” Such ingredients also explain the higher price point.

Try the steamed eggplant with dried scallop and ground pork; the clear rice noodles with cabbage, egg and dried scallops; stir-fried beef; and French-style beef stew (which comes with noodles at lunchtime but not at dinner).

When the kitchen is in top form, this is the closest thing to artisan Chinese cooking that you will find in Los Angeles.

218 S. San Gabriel Blvd., San Gabriel; (626) 286-8148.

 

 

 

The Most Surprising Buffet in Los Angeles County - L.A. Weekly--April 13, 2017

With L.A. Weekly apparently having cleared out their online archives, here's a repost from an article I wrote for them in 2017.

Throughout Middle America, Chinese food is often synonymous with buffets. In many smaller and medium-sized cities, in particular, the Chinese buffet is an especially attractive option for restaurant owners due to lower labor costs and a perceived lack of sophistication about Chinese food, which permits serving simpler, low-cost dishes. This model is particularly effective east of the Mississippi River, where a plentiful supply of restaurant workers and owners originally from Fujian province in China has radiated out from Manhattan's Chinatown. In contrast, in the Los Angeles area, Chinese buffets appear to be a comparative rarity, perhaps due to a higher degree of sophistication about Chinese food relative to other parts of the United States.

In areas like the Westside and the San Fernando Valley, no more than a handful of Chinese buffets are to be found. There is something of a concentration of Chinese buffets in the San Gabriel Valley — and not just for the obvious reason. But probably there are not even a dozen there. 

Having said that, the number of Chinese buffet restaurants around Los Angeles is actually quite a bit higher than one might guess, because most Chinese buffets in Los Angeles have Japanese names, and are often described as Japanese buffets. (Indeed, I am aware of only one buffet restaurant in the Los Angeles area with a Japanese name that actually serves predominantly Japanese food.)  

One may wonder why most Chinese buffets use Japanese names such as Hokkaido, Sumo, Hibachi, Minato, Kyoto, Kami and Ichiban, instead of something that is obviously Chinese. The most likely explanation is that the primary draw for most of these buffets is the sushi, despite the fact that, aside from an occasional teriyaki or tempura dish, the Japanese food selection stops with the sushi. So the Japanese name really just serves as a reminder that there's sushi inside.

All of which brings us to the recently opened FuJi Buffet and Grill, located in Glendale near the intersection of the Ventura and Glendale freeways. FuJi Buffet took the place late last year of another Chinese buffet, Osaka Seafood Buffet. 

Most local "Chinese" buffets serve a combination of sushi, Americanized Chinese food, rudimentary factory-made dim sum, chicken wings, fruit and desserts. It's what one would expected from FuJi, but a surprise awaits. The dim sum section contains standard dim sum selections such as BBQ pork buns and taro buns, but there are many other items one might not expect to see. Chicken feet? Cantonese dim sum–style spare ribs in black bean sauce? Xiao long bao? Zhong zi (glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo leaves)? Chinese beef balls? Siu mai with fish roe? Who knew?

Over in the soup section, you'll finds Fujian fish balls (filled with ground pork) in broth and fish maw soup. There is a wood ear fungus salad, grilled whole mackerel, salt-and-pepper shrimp and chopped whole yellow croaker, a San Gabriel Valley favorite. Entrees include sweet-and-sour fish fillets, steamed sole fillets, salt-and-pepper squid and clams in black bean sauce and marinated dry bean curd slices, which were all San Gabriel Valley–quality.

Obviously we're talking buffet food here, not gourmet food, but for diners who appreciate an occasional Chinese buffet, FuJi Buffet and Grill might rocket to the top of your list.

300 Harvey Drive, Glendale. (818) 553-1688.

 

 

1987 Beedle House - L.A. Weekly -- May 12, 2017

With L.A. Weekly apparently having cleared out their online archives, here's a repost from an article I wrote for them in 2017.

1987 Beedle House — The Name Is Funny But The Food Is No Joke

David R. Chan | May 12, 2017 | 8:34am

 

For a century, Chinese restaurants in America were marked by simple, slightly "exotic" names. Iconic Chinese restaurants in Los Angeles were called Golden Pagoda, Grandview Gardens, General Lee’s, New Moon, Man Fook Low. It was thought that non-threatening restaurant names were a way to make peace with the outside community. This strategy proved to be quite successful, as Chinese restaurants became quite popular in the U.S. beginning early in the 20th century, even though the Chinese-Americans running these restaurants were treated as second-class citizens in all facets of life. More recently, however, some Chinese restaurant names in the U.S. have turned 180 degrees, from simple and perhaps even a little boring, to some real head scratchers.

This is because many Chinese restaurants have started targeting primarily, if not exclusively Chinese-speaking clientele, in which case the English language names of some of these restaurants have become an afterthought. Consequently we see the San Gabriel Valley peppered with Chinese restaurants with off-the-wall monikers such as Why Thirsty?, Smelly Pot, Garage Restaurant, Suit Ur Buds, Whatever and Chongqing Dezhuan Morals Village.

 

The latest addition to the list of oddly named Chinese restaurants is the newly opened 1987 Beedle House in Walnut. And in some respects, the quirkiness continues once you get into the restaurant. 1987 Beedle House adopts the fast casual approach where you order and pay for your food at the counter, then have the food delivered to your table. Except that you can’t see the counter when you walk into the restaurant, since it’s in the back and to the side. And then there’s the menu from which you order, which runs just two items deep — stewed beef noodle soup, made with their “secrect” beef broth, and the "mo," a flatbread pork belly sandwich. Indeed, if you know the system, you don’t even have to say anything to place your order, since there are baskets full of markers the size of a large, thick credit card. Put the noodle and/or bread marker on your tray, and they’ll know what you want. 

 

 

There are actually more than two items available to eat, as there is also a small adjacent self-serve area full of Tianjin-leaning cold items (or as the menu says, “clod dish”), like pickled vegetables, which you pile on a small plate for $3.95. Also there is fried chicken for 95 cents per piece.

Of course, quirkiness aside, the only thing that matters is the food, and in this regard, 1987 Beedle House delivers. The stewed beef noodle soup is a superior product, which the owners attribute to extreme care in crafting both the broth and the beef. The recipe for the broth is said to have been handed down from generation to generation, with hundreds of ingredients tested and winnowed down to 30 seasonings. While many Asian noodle soup broths are flavorful thanks to an unhealthy combination of salt and fat, this beef bone broth is light. The beef itself is stewed for more than 20 hours to be flavorful, but not greasy, and is very tender. The handmade egg noodles have just the right amount of "Q." 

 

 

The pork belly mo was also excellent, not being the typical slab of pork belly meat and fat that you may be used to, but rather a hash including other ingredients, highlighted by a flavorful Chinese flatbread bun. And the fried chicken turned out to be boneless cutlets, crispy and tasty.

And what exactly does “Beedle” mean? An internet search of “beedle” and “noodle” does pull up a large number of hits, but they all go back both in English and Chinese to 1987 Beedle House. It's a portmanteau of “beef” and “noodle.” Mystery solved.

358 N. Lemon Ave., Walnut.(909) 468-1666, facebook.com/1987beedlehouse. 

Enter The New Dim Sum Contender - L.A. Weekly -- August 15, 2017

 

With L.A. Weekly apparently having cleared out their online archives, here's a repost from an article I wrote for them in 2017.

 

Enter the New Dim Sum Contender

David R. Chan | August 15, 2017 | 7:18am

 

The past decade or so has produced a sea change in Chinese dining in Los Angeles, as well as the rest of the United States. Decades of Cantonese dining dominance have nearly evaporated as regional cuisines representing the entire breadth of Chinese cooking have come to the United States in great numbers, reflecting the migration of mainland Chinese residents and money to our shores. Indeed, in recent years, new Cantonese restaurant openings in the San Gabriel Valley have dwindled to roughly 10 percent of total new Chinese restaurants opening in the SGV.

However, while Cantonese food may be down, it is not out in our local Chinese community. The toughest Chinese restaurant ticket continues to be the most popular dim sum palaces on Saturday and Sunday afternoon, and the greatest wish among Chinese diners is that, despite the high quality of our local dim sum purveyors, some new dim sum player, equal to or better than the existing dim sum leaders, will open its doors. In this regard, it's disappointing that we have had the same leaders of the dim sum pack for several years. As it has for the past 15 years, Sea Harbour in Rosemead is on the top of most people’s dim sum list, followed variously by Lunasia and King Hua in Alhambra, Happy Harbor in Rowland Heights and Elite in Monterey Park, all of which date back to 2008 or earlier. The only newcomer in the top tier of local dim sum is Arcadia’s China Red, which opened in 2013, and it sits at the bottom of this top tier.

Not that new operators haven’t tried to crack the top group. In 2014, Shi Hai opened in Alhambra with the express purpose of becoming the top dog, dim sum–wise, in the San Gabriel Valley. However that endeavor ended unsuccessfully last year when Shi Hai rebranded as World Seafood, with a new, lower-priced menu. Other dim sum palaces have opened in the same period, such as Shanghai #1 Seafood Village in San Gabriel, Grand Harbor in Temple City and Pleasure Ocean in Hacienda Heights, but while they certainly purvey good dim sum, they do not match up to our historic leaders.

However, a newly opened restaurant in Temple City, though a bit on the small side, may prove to be the new contender that everyone has been hoping for. Xiang Yuan Gourmet opened last month and is already showing great promise. 

First of all, it serves its dim sum from a menu, as does every other restaurant listed in this report. While romantics may gush about dim sum carts representing the true dim sum experience (although there was no such thing as a dim sum cart in Los Angeles until introduced by Miriwa Restaurant in Chinatown in 1976), the best dim sum comes from a menu since it arrives fresh and cooked to order. Secondly, Xiang Yuan Gourmet shows a creativity and imagination in some of its dim sum creations that is consistent with that found at the top tier dim sum restaurants. While it is important that a dim sum restaurant gets its har gow, BBQ pork buns, beef cheung fun rice noodle rolls, siu mai and other favorites right, it is the unusual dish that sets the top-tier dim sum restaurants apart — think bamboo shoot dumplings shaped like carrots, mushroom buns and egg and seaweed rolls.

Other interesting dim sum items include sauteed chicken feet with chili and ginger, crispy seafood cheung fun, spare rib cheung fun, pork blood jelly with chives, and baked almond cream bun.

One unique thing about Xiang Yuan Gourmet is the dinner menu. Every other dim sum restaurant mentioned here serves Hong Kong–style seafood at dinnertime, with the except of Shanghai #1 Seafood Village. However, Xiang Yuan Gourmet’s dinner fare is a mixture of Hong Kong–style seafood and “traditional Hunan cuisine"; this mix represents the direction of Chinese food in the San Gabriel Valley these days.

9556 Las Tunas, Temple City; (626) 286-6788.

 

 

 

 

The Most Unlikely Restaurant in Chinatown - L.A. Weekly -- October 19, 2017

 With L.A. Weekly apparently having cleared out their online archives, here's a repost from an article I wrote for them in 2017.

 

The Most Unlikely Restaurant in Chinatown — but for How Long?

David R. Chan | October 19, 2017 | 7:44am

 

 

Depending on whether you’re looking at the menu, the signage over the door or the sandwich board in front of the building, a restaurant called Noodle Time, Noodles Time or Noodle Times opened in Alpine Plaza about a year ago. The complex is a compact shopping center (sometimes described as an indoor bazaar) located on Alpine Street between Broadway and Spring. For more than 30 years, Alpine Plaza was home to the venerable Chiu Heng Restaurant, until its closing last year, and it's still home to Salathai Restaurant. Over the years there has been a parade of Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai restaurants occupying the plaza’s three restaurant spaces.

Clearly, Alpine Plaza is in a part of Chinatown that has not yet benefited from the restaurant boom triggered further south in Chinatown by eateries such as Howlin Ray’s, Chego, Baohaus, Little Jewel of New Orleans, LASA and all the other new restaurants opening up in Far East Plaza and the Jia Apartments. With the completion of Blossom Plaza around the corner from Alpine Plaza on Broadway, there have been proposals for a number of new developments at this end of Chinatown, but nothing has been finalized, and this stretch still looks as it did 40 years ago. At the moment, Alpine Plaza is really suffering. Bustling for 40 years, the grocery store space is vacant and subdivided but unrented, and only two operating business, Salathai and Noodle(s) Time(s), are apparently open.

But the mere presence of Noodle(s) Time(s) and the fact that it has already lasted a year may be an indication that things are changing on Alpine Street, because it doesn't resemble anything seen before, either in this shopping center nor anywhere else in Los Angeles Chinatown. First of all, the menu. At first glance, Noodle(s) Time(s) would seem to be best described as a Thai-Chinese noodle restaurant, with a menu of standard favorites such as Thai boat noodle soup, beef stew with tendon noodle soup, pad Thai and chicken chow mein. But the menu also goes off on a Japanese tangent, with varieties of sushi, pork chop ramen soup, bento boxes and teriyaki bowls. And for Malaysian influence there are satay skewers, pork jerky and roti. Nothing unusual so far, as pan-Asian restaurants are gaining a respectability they never had before, but certainly something new for Chinatown — though Chinatown is clearly ready for something like this, given its recent culinary evolution.

But then there's the "Vegetarian (or Vegan)" section of the menu. It includes Thai and Chinese dishes such as Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce, green beans with garlic, and pumpkin with yellow curry. At the bottom of the section there are truly odd dishes that are neither Thai, Chinese, or of any Asian ilk, such as the lentil burger (quite tasty) with French fries, the vegan fried soy chicken burger, or the "cowboy" burger wrap. With these items on top of its Asian offerings, Noodle(s) Town(s) clearly has the most eclectic menu ever seen in Chinatown, which by itself distinguishes it from the competition.

It's also decorated differently from other restaurants on this end of the neighborhood: American pop culture icons smile from the walls; the seating is wood benches. Of course, given the recent changes that have come to Chinatown dining, Noodle(s) Town's menu and decor wouldn't appear terribly out of place if it were located in the booming southern part of Chinatown, and if it were operated by a millennial chef or hipster owner. But Noodle(s) Town(s) is run by an older immigrant couple on a block in Chinatown that has escaped recent gentrification, which makes the entire operation totally unexpected and noteworthy.

So far, based on Yelp reviews, Noodle(s) Town(s) seems to be best known for the fact that it delivers almost anywhere. But those who get their food delivered are missing out on something unique that can only be appreciated in person. You might want go on down there sooner rather than later, because Alpine Plaza is the proposed site of a massive, seven-story mixed-use residential and retail real estate complex. Of course, not every proposed real estate project makes it to fruition — downtown Las Vegas would have a hundred condominium towers if all the projects planned a decade ago were built. But still, as Howlin’ Ray’s, Little Jewel, Chego and all the others have proven in just a few years, anything is possible in Chinatown.

Westfield Santa Anita's Chinese Restaurants - L.A. Weekly -- September 17, 2017

With L.A. Weekly apparently having cleared out their online archives, here's a repost from an article I wrote for them in 2017.

 

Westfield Santa Anita's Restaurants Are Getting Even More Impressive — Here's the Latest Addition

David R.Chan | September 7, 2017 | 8:08am

 

For those who remember pre–civil rights–era Los Angeles, it's ironic that communities that once did not allow Chinese people to reside within their borders now sport a significant Chinese-American population: San Marino, South Pasadena and Rancho Palos Verdes, for example. But the greatest irony is that of Arcadia, which once vehemently excluded Chinese-American residents but now has become the face of the globally known San Gabriel Valley Chinese-American community. A city whose entire character has changed as its single-story homes have been replaced by mega-mansions built to the lot lines, thanks almost exclusively to the influx of Chinese homebuyers. A city whose famed Santa Anita racetrack is probably now better known these days for hosting the summertime 626 Night Market and its panoply of Asian food offerings than for horseracing. And a city whose signature shopping mall, Westfield Santa Anita, is beginning to resemble an Asian community center.

While the Santa Anita mall has a long history of Chinese food options (albeit originally just your typical food-court Chinese), it is now becoming a conspicuous powerhouse for Asian food in general, and Chinese food in particular. The seeds of this food transformation began in 2013, when the famed mainland Chinese Sichuan hot pot specialist, Hai Di Lao, opened its first U.S. branch here. Even with a $50 or more per-person tab at lunch or dinner, Hai Di Lao was booked for months, and the precedent was set. While more authentic Chinese eateries opened up in the interim, 2016 was the year when the mall’s Chinese food scene exploded. In the spring, Beijing-based Sichuan-style restaurant Meizhou Dongpo opened up Dongpo Restaurant, its second American branch following up its surprisingly successful initial opening in the Century City mall, supposedly bringing much of its kitchen staff from Century City to Arcadia. A few weeks later, the big dog, the legendary Taiwan-based Din Tai Fung, opened up its massive 300-plus-seat flagship restaurant to replace its two modestly sized locations a half-mile away — but there are long waits here, too. And at the end of 2016, Johnny Lee opened his acclaimed Hainan chicken specialty eatery, Side Chick, as part of Westfield Santa Anita’s Asian food court alley around the corner from Din Tai Fung.

Now in 2017, the beat goes on. Once again it’s a famous Chinese mainland-based chain, Sichuan Kungfu Fish, opening its first U.S. location (and its second North American location — there's one in suburban Toronto) in Westfield Santa Anita. The opening of Sichuan Kungfu Fish in mid-August shows just how far Sichuan-style food (as well as other regional Chinese cuisines) has evolved in the United States in the 21st century.

When "authentic" Sichuan food first came to the United States in the late 20th century, it was all about the chilies and fiery spiciness, as typified by the water-boiled fish at Chungking Restaurant in Monterey Park. At the time, the ma la numbness of Sichuan peppercorns was virtually unheard of in local restaurants, since those peppercorns were banned from the United States as a carrier of citrus disease. It wasn’t until a dozen years ago, when properly treated Sichuan peppercorns were allowed into the country, that ma la came to our local Sichuan restaurants (though bootleg peppercorns did previously manage to slip through for personal use).

While San Gabriel Valley Sichuan cuisine is now synonymous with those numbing Sichuan peppercorns, and the establishment of destination purveyors of ma la such as Chengdu Taste and Szechuan Impression is making the biggest splash, Sichuan cuisine continues to evolve in the San Gabriel Valley. Chengdu Taste has opened Mian, its noodle spinoff, Chengdu Impression has a broad Sichuan menu that goes beyond numbing and spicy, and a number of small restaurants have opened up featuring Sichuan grilled whole fish and fillets — most impressively, Sichuan Kungfu Fish, just a few doors down from Dongpo and Hai De Lao.

It’s not clear what the relationship is between kung fu and either Sichuan or fish, but the restaurant plays it up to the hilt. As you open your relatively slim menu, you are urged to “choose your opponent” from Top Secret Sea Cod, Professor Swai, Killer Catfish and Commander Tilapia. You are given your choice of several spicy and nonspicy base sauces, along with a number of sides and appetizers. There are also set dinners for two based on the same opponents. Those still in a fighting mood can select from a listing of “Fighting Skewers.” Fish dishes are served hot pot–style in fish-shaped vessels. 

 

All in all, the presentation and the ambiance at Sichuan Kungfu Fish are in line with the new wave of more upscale Chinese restaurants opening up in the San Gabriel Valley in the past two years. The entrees at Sichuan Kungfu Fish run generally in the $20 to $35 range. One interesting section of the menu is marked “Reservations Required,” which is apparently Chinese for “order in advance.” Included in this section is the "Ultimate Seafood Boss," containing lobster, crab, shrimp, scallops, clams, sea cucumbers and mussels for $199. (It does serve five to six people, so pricing is comparable to the individual and set dinner items.)

A lot has happened in Arcadia in the past few decades. And in traversing Westfield Santa Anita these days, perhaps the ultimate irony is catching yourself wondering “What are those non-Asians doing here?”

400 S. Baldwin Ave., #2360, Arcadia; (626) 898-5733, kungfu-fish.com.