West Covina Becoming A Haven For Chinese Food

While West Covina is clearly one of the major communities of the San Gabriel Valley, it has not been a center for authentic Chinese dining because of a smaller Chinese resident population than other San Gabriel Valley cities.  This was because as the Chinese community spread out eastward from it's arrival in Monterey Park in the 1960s, spilling into cities like Alhambra, Rosemead, San Gabriel and Arcadia, it then started leapfrogging over infill areas into newly constructed residential communities such as Hacienda Heights, Rowland Heights, Walnut, Diamond Bar and Chino Hills.  However, as these new communities became more and more distant, the existing communities in the San Gabriel Valley that had been hopscotched over in favor of new construction began attracting Chinese residents not willing to travel so far.  So a little over 20 years ago, West Covina had obtained a sufficient critical mass of Chinese residents to support a large Chinese supermarket, Hong Kong Supermarket, which developed a Chinese centric shopping center, Hong Kong Plaza, that included numerous Chinese restaurants.  And as the new residential communities started to be developed in more and more distant parts of the Inland Empire, the Chinese infill accelerated, with quality Chinese restaurants like LAN Noodles and Thumbling opening up.

But now, Chinese food has taken a great leap forward with the open of a Haven City Market in the former food court area of Hong Kong Plaza, containing over two dozen Chinese and other mostly Asian eateries into the fading food court area.   I have previously written about the Haven City Market in Rancho Cucamonga and was surprised to hear about their venture into the San Gabriel Valley.

 

The interior of the food court, formerly highlighted by Indonesian restaurants, had been smartly remodeled.

 

One thing about the Rancho Cucamonga Haven City Market is that they brought in a lot of new vendors, rather than just having new branches of old restaurants.  Indeed they have gone further in West Covina in bringing in eateries from far away.  This is the first branch of Taiwan's Fat Daddy American Fried Chicken.  Except that the name is merely Fat Daddy Fried Chicken, since back in Taipei they aren't really serving American fried chicken, but a version of Taiwanese fried chicken which is marinated in milk.

 

Fat Daddy is iconic in Taiwan, but I passed on eating it because it is rather pricey, with the smallest three piece order costing about $10.  However, I was intrigued by their deep fried okra balls, which were quite good.

 

Besides bringing Fat Daddy in from the Far East, they also brought in a business from the closer east, Brooklyn, New York to be specific, boba vendor Partea NYC.  But I’m not sure what’s the point here. My drink wasn’t anything unusual. If there’s one thing that distinguishes Partea from the run of the mill boba shop, it’s a shorter list of drinks (though apparently they sometimes serve alcoholic boba but that wasn’t an available choice when I ordered. Plus the alcoholic version is not available in their original Brooklyn location.). The shorter drink menu, however, couples with a bigger selection of edibles, including chicken sandwiches and short ribs. In reality this is a Taiwanese snack shop that sells drinks on the side.

 

At Taipei OG Noodle Shop, I had the most unusual bowl of chicken noodle soup ever.  I mean when do you see chicken noodle soup in a brown broth?

 

 At Cr8zy Bao, a mild mannered looking mantou bun is something wild and crazy.

 

It's pizza bao!

 

Golden Roast has the best Chinese roast meats in the area.

 But its extremely short list of entrees contains this gem, stir fried pepper beef udon.

 

And an interesting visit to Baoshutang.

 

I first noticed their pure fruit smoothies, a little expensive at $7.75, but for fruit, rather than syrup, certainly worth it.  Was I surprised when they gave me two drinks for that price! 

More significantly, this seems to be another one of the new style Hong Kong Cafes with a Taishan/Cantonese Mainland bent.  This is defined as much as what's not on the menu, as dishes customarily found on historic Hong Kong style cafes aren't there, as much as what is on the menu, in what may be described as country or rustic dishes, particularly with innards.  But purists, or maybe just because they're old fashioned, are upset that these are described as Hong Kong Cafes.