When it comes to eating at restaurants for me it’s all about the food and never about the decor. Until now. But it’s not a case of finally appreciating an exquisite decor, but rather being annoyed by an incredibly unbelievable dining setting..
Philippe Chow has to have the most weird and bizarre layout of any restaurant I’ve been to, so much that it detracts from any dining experience there may be (and which itself is very limited). When you step through the doors you are confronted by an interior alley (actually more like a back alley) without a rooftop, with the podium on the left, the bar and small dining area on the right. Continuing down the alley there is a mess hall like dining room painted in black and white on the left, and the kitchen door on the right, so as you sit at your table you get a great view of the wait staff coming in and out of the kitchen, and if you go to or leave your table, you have a great chance of bumping into a server. There appears to be a private dining area at the end of the hall.
Instead of paying more attention to the meal, I was sitting there wondering what they were thinking when they designed the place. Maybe they thought painting everything black would hide flaws, but that's not the way it works. If they were trying to be Beverly Hills hip they completely missed the mark. Maybe would have been hip back in the 70's but I can't get away from the tackiness and sloppiness of it. All this might be unforgivable if we were talking about a hole in the wall dive that serves fantastic food. But this is Philippe Chow in Beverly Hills, where the menu items run three times the price of what you would pay for Chinese food in the San Gabriel Valley that is three times better.
Of course I’d rather not dwell on the negative so I would like to say some positive things about Philippe Chow. The food wasn’t nearly as bad as I had expected and the $20 lunch special was reasonably priced for Beverly Hills, if they hadn’t run out of dessert and for which they gave us a raincheck, as if we’ll ever go back to this house of horrors. Indeed the entrees, breaded fried salmon and velvet chicken, were quite interesting even if the dishes themselves missed the mark. And the satay chicken was actually pretty good, though the deep red batter was a little disconcerting.
Also, I was happy to get the chance to eat here because when we arrived for our 11:45am reservation the restaurant was locked tight, which led me to assume they were out of business. Fortunately we saw a construction worker inside and when we waved at him, he came to tell us that they didn’t open until noontime, which makes you wonder why they accept 11:30 and 11:45 am reservations. And since the wait staff didn’t arrive until the noontime opening, he let us in, brought us menus and solicited our orders. (It turns out he was part of the dinner crew and was daylighting as a handyman. Nonetheless I had never been served at a restaurant by somebody dressed like one of the Village People.)
Perhaps our thoughts about the decor were overly influenced by the fact that we were there in the daylight, where based on the fact that there were no other lunchtime diners the entire time this may well be a dinner restaurant, and at night the cheap and sloppy look of the premises is obscured by darkness. But then I read that at night the interior is lit up in red lights, so it's probably even sleazier.
Finally I want to reiterate how happy I was to finally eat here, since a previous attempt to dine at Philippe Chow two months previously was postponed by rain--literally since we arrived to a flooded restaurant after a brief late winter rainstorm, without being timely notified that our reservation was cancelled. (Whoever designed this restaurant without completely enclosing it must have listened to "It Never Rains In Southern California" one too many time.) That's why my heart sank when the restaurant appeared to be locked up when we arrived for our reservation. After all, based on these comments, this place could easily go out of business at any time.
[Thanks to Judy Isozaki who was equally taken aback by the premises and co-authored portions of this piece.]
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Ten Thumbs Up! The Search For General Tso, the movie
As I have mentioned in the past, despite all my musings about food I have written a grand total of one restaurant review about a specific restaurant, and that was back in 1977. So I’m now matching that number for movie reviews in this short review of the new film The Search For General Tso, which opened last month at the TriBeCa film festival and will be making its way around the independent film festival circuit. My feelings about this movie are unrelated to the fact that I’m one of the interviewees–it’s a fantastic movie even (or perhaps especially) without me.
For my California friends, I do need to make this prefatory remark. General Tso’s Chicken is a sweet, spicy, savory dish made with deep fried chicken nuggets. It is seldom seen in California. Indeed Mrs. Chandavkl and her cousin who saw the movie with me at TriBeCa had never eaten the dish before, until we found Chinese Fast Wok Restaurant around the corner from the screening in Chelsea after we watched the movie. Few, if any of my family and friends in California have ever had the dish, as it seems to have been pre-empted out here by the sweeter orange chicken dish, popularized by Panda Express. But if you move east from California, General Tso’s Chicken is one of the most ubiquitous dishes found in Chinese restaurants in the U.S.
Ostensibly, The Search For General Tso deals with the mystery of the origins of General Tso’s Chicken, a standard Chinese restaurant dish in much of the United States, and the ultimate success in ascertaining where the dish came from creates a highly satisfactory conclusion to the movie. Yes, in a progression from New York to China and back, even involving one of the descendants of General Tso, the creator of the dish is found and interviewed, as is the restauranteur who took the dish and ran with it, creating perhaps the signature dish of the secondary, non-Cantonese wave of Americanized Chinese food.
But the movie is much more than that. It is the story of the struggle of Chinese Americans against racial hatred and enmity to ultimately find a place in America. Of immigration laws which prevented Chinese (singled out over every other nationality) from migrating to the United States for decades. Of the Cantonese roots of the Chinese American community and Chinese food in America which only diversified to include Chinese of other regional origins after the repeal of Chinese Exclusion. A story of how Chinese restaurants and Chinese food developed in the United States, and how the Chinese evolved from mass targets of scorn to a measure of acceptance. Ask David Leong, Springfield, MO’s creator of the regional favorite Springfield cashew chicken, how long it took to gain that acceptance, as when opening his first restaurant in the 1960s his restaurant was bombed before it even opened. (Not to mention local bankers who refused to loan him the money to start his restaurant.) Through interviews with academics, writers, chefs, restauranteurs, food critics and more, Ian Cheney concludes the search for General Tso, in a tale that tells a much larger story.
In bringing author Jennifer 8 Lee’s search for General Tso to the movie screen, filmmaker Ian Cheney has done so much more. As I told him at the post-screening Q&A in front of the sold out audience at the Bow Tie Cinemas in Chelsea, “As a Chinese American, I want to thank you for telling our story.”
For my California friends, I do need to make this prefatory remark. General Tso’s Chicken is a sweet, spicy, savory dish made with deep fried chicken nuggets. It is seldom seen in California. Indeed Mrs. Chandavkl and her cousin who saw the movie with me at TriBeCa had never eaten the dish before, until we found Chinese Fast Wok Restaurant around the corner from the screening in Chelsea after we watched the movie. Few, if any of my family and friends in California have ever had the dish, as it seems to have been pre-empted out here by the sweeter orange chicken dish, popularized by Panda Express. But if you move east from California, General Tso’s Chicken is one of the most ubiquitous dishes found in Chinese restaurants in the U.S.
Ostensibly, The Search For General Tso deals with the mystery of the origins of General Tso’s Chicken, a standard Chinese restaurant dish in much of the United States, and the ultimate success in ascertaining where the dish came from creates a highly satisfactory conclusion to the movie. Yes, in a progression from New York to China and back, even involving one of the descendants of General Tso, the creator of the dish is found and interviewed, as is the restauranteur who took the dish and ran with it, creating perhaps the signature dish of the secondary, non-Cantonese wave of Americanized Chinese food.
But the movie is much more than that. It is the story of the struggle of Chinese Americans against racial hatred and enmity to ultimately find a place in America. Of immigration laws which prevented Chinese (singled out over every other nationality) from migrating to the United States for decades. Of the Cantonese roots of the Chinese American community and Chinese food in America which only diversified to include Chinese of other regional origins after the repeal of Chinese Exclusion. A story of how Chinese restaurants and Chinese food developed in the United States, and how the Chinese evolved from mass targets of scorn to a measure of acceptance. Ask David Leong, Springfield, MO’s creator of the regional favorite Springfield cashew chicken, how long it took to gain that acceptance, as when opening his first restaurant in the 1960s his restaurant was bombed before it even opened. (Not to mention local bankers who refused to loan him the money to start his restaurant.) Through interviews with academics, writers, chefs, restauranteurs, food critics and more, Ian Cheney concludes the search for General Tso, in a tale that tells a much larger story.
In bringing author Jennifer 8 Lee’s search for General Tso to the movie screen, filmmaker Ian Cheney has done so much more. As I told him at the post-screening Q&A in front of the sold out audience at the Bow Tie Cinemas in Chelsea, “As a Chinese American, I want to thank you for telling our story.”
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
The Search For General Tso--The Saga Ends
Shortly after my first 15 minutes of fame that followed from Clarissa Wei's piece on the crazy lawyer who had eaten at 6,000 Chinese restaurants, I was contacted by Lily Spottiswoode, associate producer at New York based Wicked Delicate Films (and unbeknownst to me at the time, the granddaughter of actor Jack Palance), regarding a documentary film they were shooting on Chinese restaurants. The film was titled The Search For General Tso and was based on a segment of Jennifer 8 Lee's book, the Fortune Cookie Chronicles, which searched for the origins of General Tso's Chicken, an Americanized Chinese dish commonly found in the eastern United States. The filmmakers' plans were eventually to travel out to the west coast to shoot some interviews and they asked if I was available to speak about regional differences in Chinese restaurants across the United States.
It took six months for the interview to take place, where I met with Lily, along with film director Ian Cheney and producer Amanda Murray. At first they wanted to shoot the interview at a local Chinese restaurant that served General Tso's chicken. However since General Tso's chicken is as rare in Los Angeles as it is common in New York, we ended up at Mission 261 in San Gabriel. Our interview lasted over two hours, well in excess of what the film's running time would be, so it was clear to me that most of what I said would never make it into any film. Since my interview was one of the last they conducted, they indicated that they would soon start the editing process. I don't know anything about filmmaking, but I figured it would take maybe 6 to 9 months to pull the film together. I did get a short informational request four months after the interview. However, as the months rolled on I started to suspect that the film would not get finished, my guess being funding problems being the culprit. Not only did I not hear from anybody, but the General Tso account on Twitter fell silent.
So it was a bit of a surprise that last month, a little over a year after the interview, the General Tso Twitter account revived to announce that the movie would be screening at this month's TriBeCa film festival. The movie really has two parts--the successful search for the origins of General Tso's chicken, and an account on the Chinese restaurant landscape in the United States. The movie premiered two days ago before a sellout crowd of 500 viewers at the Bow Tie Cinema in Chelsea. This Thursday's showing is also sold out, and I'm looking forward to seeing the film with great anticipation.
It took six months for the interview to take place, where I met with Lily, along with film director Ian Cheney and producer Amanda Murray. At first they wanted to shoot the interview at a local Chinese restaurant that served General Tso's chicken. However since General Tso's chicken is as rare in Los Angeles as it is common in New York, we ended up at Mission 261 in San Gabriel. Our interview lasted over two hours, well in excess of what the film's running time would be, so it was clear to me that most of what I said would never make it into any film. Since my interview was one of the last they conducted, they indicated that they would soon start the editing process. I don't know anything about filmmaking, but I figured it would take maybe 6 to 9 months to pull the film together. I did get a short informational request four months after the interview. However, as the months rolled on I started to suspect that the film would not get finished, my guess being funding problems being the culprit. Not only did I not hear from anybody, but the General Tso account on Twitter fell silent.
So it was a bit of a surprise that last month, a little over a year after the interview, the General Tso Twitter account revived to announce that the movie would be screening at this month's TriBeCa film festival. The movie really has two parts--the successful search for the origins of General Tso's chicken, and an account on the Chinese restaurant landscape in the United States. The movie premiered two days ago before a sellout crowd of 500 viewers at the Bow Tie Cinema in Chelsea. This Thursday's showing is also sold out, and I'm looking forward to seeing the film with great anticipation.
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Thanks To The Asia Society For Expanding The Audience
It’s been nearly two years since food writer Clarissa Wei plucked me from obscurity to profile me as the crazy attorney/CPA who had eaten at 6,000 Chinese restaurants. Within days I was contacted by the Asia Society to do an article on my picks as the 10 best Chinese restaurants in the United States. Eating at so many Chinese restaurants didn’t make me an expert on Chinese food, as my knowledge was about Chinese restaurants, which is a completely different thing, but I gladly accepted the challenge. The Asia Society article led to the opportunity to write articles on Chinese restaurants on the Menuism website on a recurring basis. This has opened the door for me to publicize the Toishanese roots of Americanized Chinese food and the Chinese community itself, along with important facts about Chinese American history, such as discriminatory immigration laws that barred Chinese from coming to the United States for decades, and the post-immigration reform shift in the mix of Chinese immigration. There’s not a single traditional restaurant review among my writings.
However, it’s only at this point almost two years later that I recognize what an opportunity that the original Asia Society article has provided me. First of all, it’s given me an insight I would not have otherwise had into how the internet works. No, I’m not talking servers and stuff like that, but how content originates on the internet, and then how that content speeds its way around the world. Secondly, I also now just realize what a chance that first article provided to reach so many people with what I had to say.
When I wrote my Top 10 Restaurant story I had no idea as to the attention and controversy that would follow. And it’s really all thanks to the Asia Society because my intended article was merely a listing and description of 10 restaurants, hardly anything to garner a wide audience. The one thing that I wanted to explain to the editor when I submitted the article was that my list was different in that I made no effort to be geographically correct, and explaining in detail why all the restaurants were in California, and specifically why none were in New York. These comments were meant solely as an aside to the editor and not for public consumption, so when I saw that the raw introductory comments were included at the start of the article, I cringed at seeing my unfiltered comments in public.
What I didn’t realize, but Asia Society’s editor did, was that the purpose of internet content is to drive traffic, and nothing drives traffic like controversy. And in those terms, the article turned out to be a blockbuster. Through well placed links in social media and on restaurant message boards, a firestorm of commentary ensued, much of it negative from outraged New Yorkers who felt that had been dissed. Indeed, reaction was so negative that I didn’t bother to re-read my Asia Society article again until just recently. And when finally visiting the article again I was shocked to see the statistics on the page–3,200 likes on Facebook (probably an even larger number of dislikes, if there were such statistics kept) and over 300 tweets on Twitter. Given that a minuscule percentage of web surfers bother to affirmatively interact with a like or tweet, the readership for that article must have been staggering. I could only dream about reaching those kinds of numbers again. And it was due entirely to the inclusion by the Asia Society editor of what I intended to be off the record remarks.
However, it’s only at this point almost two years later that I recognize what an opportunity that the original Asia Society article has provided me. First of all, it’s given me an insight I would not have otherwise had into how the internet works. No, I’m not talking servers and stuff like that, but how content originates on the internet, and then how that content speeds its way around the world. Secondly, I also now just realize what a chance that first article provided to reach so many people with what I had to say.
When I wrote my Top 10 Restaurant story I had no idea as to the attention and controversy that would follow. And it’s really all thanks to the Asia Society because my intended article was merely a listing and description of 10 restaurants, hardly anything to garner a wide audience. The one thing that I wanted to explain to the editor when I submitted the article was that my list was different in that I made no effort to be geographically correct, and explaining in detail why all the restaurants were in California, and specifically why none were in New York. These comments were meant solely as an aside to the editor and not for public consumption, so when I saw that the raw introductory comments were included at the start of the article, I cringed at seeing my unfiltered comments in public.
What I didn’t realize, but Asia Society’s editor did, was that the purpose of internet content is to drive traffic, and nothing drives traffic like controversy. And in those terms, the article turned out to be a blockbuster. Through well placed links in social media and on restaurant message boards, a firestorm of commentary ensued, much of it negative from outraged New Yorkers who felt that had been dissed. Indeed, reaction was so negative that I didn’t bother to re-read my Asia Society article again until just recently. And when finally visiting the article again I was shocked to see the statistics on the page–3,200 likes on Facebook (probably an even larger number of dislikes, if there were such statistics kept) and over 300 tweets on Twitter. Given that a minuscule percentage of web surfers bother to affirmatively interact with a like or tweet, the readership for that article must have been staggering. I could only dream about reaching those kinds of numbers again. And it was due entirely to the inclusion by the Asia Society editor of what I intended to be off the record remarks.
Monday, March 31, 2014
The Miracle of Glucosamine
We often hear about dietary supplements which supposedly are effective at dealing with various health conditions. Gingko biloba for memory loss, St. John’s wort for depression and echinacea for the immune system are examples of supplements which seem to have lost some of their following after becoming fad favorites, and it's not clear as to whether they in fact have any value. However there is one supplement which I eagerly will stand for as the poster boy, glucosamine for the relief of arthritic knee pain.
It was 15 years ago and I began to experience extreme kneecap pain from prolonged sitting. Football games, airplane trips, and even automobile rides of over an hour were events of extreme discomfort for me. Then I heard of glucosamine, so as much as out of desperation I started taking two pills daily. The very next day my knees felt better, though that was either coincidental or the power of suggestion, as my pain quickly returned. And after more than two months, I saw no results and was about to stop taking the pills. But I decided to stay with it a little long, and am I sure glad I did. For in that third month, the knee pain disappeared. Now I can sit for hours on a transoceanic airplane ride or a sporting event and not go through the agony that I did 15 years previously.
About the same time that I conquered that pain, I also bought a treadmill and started running daily 7 to 8 minute miles. However, while my kneecap pain from sitting was cured, I was now beginning to experience pain from running, particularly on the outside and back of the knees. I just chalked this up as part of the cost of running on a daily basis, perhaps the onset of arthritis, and didn’t think any more of it.
Indeed, I went along like this for 10 years, living with the minor knee pain, and skipping my run on more painful days. Obviously I’m a slow learner, for it wasn’t until after 10 years of relief from my kneecap sitting pain that I asked myself the question as to why the glucosamine pills didn’t alleviate the pain in my knees from running. So I thought about it and I concluded that maybe it was because my dosage wasn’t large enough. So I doubled my intake of glucosamine to four pills a day. And guess what? The pain from running also completely went away. I now run my daily mile (slower than I did 10 or 15 years ago) and never have any knee pain at all. That is certainly proof of the miracle of glucosamine.
It was 15 years ago and I began to experience extreme kneecap pain from prolonged sitting. Football games, airplane trips, and even automobile rides of over an hour were events of extreme discomfort for me. Then I heard of glucosamine, so as much as out of desperation I started taking two pills daily. The very next day my knees felt better, though that was either coincidental or the power of suggestion, as my pain quickly returned. And after more than two months, I saw no results and was about to stop taking the pills. But I decided to stay with it a little long, and am I sure glad I did. For in that third month, the knee pain disappeared. Now I can sit for hours on a transoceanic airplane ride or a sporting event and not go through the agony that I did 15 years previously.
About the same time that I conquered that pain, I also bought a treadmill and started running daily 7 to 8 minute miles. However, while my kneecap pain from sitting was cured, I was now beginning to experience pain from running, particularly on the outside and back of the knees. I just chalked this up as part of the cost of running on a daily basis, perhaps the onset of arthritis, and didn’t think any more of it.
Indeed, I went along like this for 10 years, living with the minor knee pain, and skipping my run on more painful days. Obviously I’m a slow learner, for it wasn’t until after 10 years of relief from my kneecap sitting pain that I asked myself the question as to why the glucosamine pills didn’t alleviate the pain in my knees from running. So I thought about it and I concluded that maybe it was because my dosage wasn’t large enough. So I doubled my intake of glucosamine to four pills a day. And guess what? The pain from running also completely went away. I now run my daily mile (slower than I did 10 or 15 years ago) and never have any knee pain at all. That is certainly proof of the miracle of glucosamine.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Great Chinese Restaurants Continue To Open
As many of you know a couple of years ago I came out with a Top 10 Chinese Restaurant in the United States listing for the Asia Society , and which was reproduced as a sidebar to the Los Angeles Times article about my quest for 6,000 Chinese restaurants. Unlike most best restaurant listings seen in print or on the air, I made no attempt to balance the list for geographic locale, regional cuisines, or any other factor to make the article more palatable to a wider group of readers. Rather I gave my personal opinion as to what were in fact the best Chinese restaurants in the country. As a result my list consisted of restaurants all located in California, the majority of which represented Cantonese style cuisine. The reaction from two quarters was swift. I was pilloried by New Yorkers, incensed that no New York restaurants were included, with innumerable internet comments that I was obviously a “homer” who was biased towards California food. A lesser degree of complaint came from supporters of Sichuan and similar non-Cantonese Chinese food who made similar allegations based on my Toishanese/Cantonese ancestry.
As to the status of New York Chinese food it appears that while it had been previously unspoken, many people were thinking what I said. After the original wave of outrage from New Yorkers, it is common to see concessions from New Yorkers on the restaurant message boards that New York Chinese food is behind the curve compared to California and Canada. And my more recent comments on the second class state of New York Chinese food draw little negative reaction. All this is not to say that Chinese food in New York is bad. There are many excellent Chinese restaurants in New York, and I look forward to visiting Manhattan Chinatown and other venues in New York City to sample Chinese restaurants. My only point is that, to use a boxing term, pound for pound the Chinese food in New York is clearly inferior to that in the Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay areas.
With regard to Cantonese vs. non-Cantonese food, the analysis is slightly different. No question, there is outstanding Sichuan, Shanghai, Beijing, Dongbei, Taiwanese and other regional Chinese style restaurants to be found in California, New York and other locales. However, at the time that the original Top 10 listing was published, there just weren’t enough signature restaurants in those categories to make a large dent in the Top 10, though some of the Sichuan style restaurants in various parts of Manhattan outside of Chinatown definitely deserved honorable mention.
However supporters of New York Chinese food and Sichuan style Chinese food can rejoice in that they now have recently opened restaurants that clearly are of Top 10 caliber. Just weeks before my Top 10 list was published, the London based Hakkasan chain opened its first US branch in midtown Manhattan at 310 W. 43rd St. At the time, many people assumed it was just another expensive Chinese restaurant that served Americanized Chinese food a la Mr. Chow. However, it did not take long for observers of Chinese food to realize that Hakkasan was the real thing, and that their mantra of offering modern authentic Chinese food was a valid description. While some of their fare may not seem like authentically Chinese fare, such as Peking duck with Kaluga caviar, it is certainly consistent with modern Chinese food trends in places like Hong Kong and other Chinese food centers. Hakkasan has since opened branches in San Francisco, Las Vegas, Miami and Beverly Hills.
Meanwhile , in the San Gabriel Valley outside of Los Angeles, since its opening less than a year ago, Chengdu Taste has taken the food world by storm, becoming the hottest ticket in town both in terms of taste and buzz, and even capturing the attention of New York food writer Ruth Reichl. With its mouth numbing Sichuan menu full of complex flavors, the lines at this relatively small restaurant at 828 W. Valley Bl. in Alhambra are ridiculous. Prime time waiting time may be upwards of two hours and if you can get in with a wait of under an hour at anytime, consider yourself fortunate. To accommodate its crowds, Chengdu Taste extended its closing time by two hours and is hastily opening up a second location a few miles east on Valley Bl. As I have said many times before, Chinese food continues to evolve and the next great restaurant is waiting to raise the bar once again.
As to the status of New York Chinese food it appears that while it had been previously unspoken, many people were thinking what I said. After the original wave of outrage from New Yorkers, it is common to see concessions from New Yorkers on the restaurant message boards that New York Chinese food is behind the curve compared to California and Canada. And my more recent comments on the second class state of New York Chinese food draw little negative reaction. All this is not to say that Chinese food in New York is bad. There are many excellent Chinese restaurants in New York, and I look forward to visiting Manhattan Chinatown and other venues in New York City to sample Chinese restaurants. My only point is that, to use a boxing term, pound for pound the Chinese food in New York is clearly inferior to that in the Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay areas.
With regard to Cantonese vs. non-Cantonese food, the analysis is slightly different. No question, there is outstanding Sichuan, Shanghai, Beijing, Dongbei, Taiwanese and other regional Chinese style restaurants to be found in California, New York and other locales. However, at the time that the original Top 10 listing was published, there just weren’t enough signature restaurants in those categories to make a large dent in the Top 10, though some of the Sichuan style restaurants in various parts of Manhattan outside of Chinatown definitely deserved honorable mention.
However supporters of New York Chinese food and Sichuan style Chinese food can rejoice in that they now have recently opened restaurants that clearly are of Top 10 caliber. Just weeks before my Top 10 list was published, the London based Hakkasan chain opened its first US branch in midtown Manhattan at 310 W. 43rd St. At the time, many people assumed it was just another expensive Chinese restaurant that served Americanized Chinese food a la Mr. Chow. However, it did not take long for observers of Chinese food to realize that Hakkasan was the real thing, and that their mantra of offering modern authentic Chinese food was a valid description. While some of their fare may not seem like authentically Chinese fare, such as Peking duck with Kaluga caviar, it is certainly consistent with modern Chinese food trends in places like Hong Kong and other Chinese food centers. Hakkasan has since opened branches in San Francisco, Las Vegas, Miami and Beverly Hills.
Meanwhile , in the San Gabriel Valley outside of Los Angeles, since its opening less than a year ago, Chengdu Taste has taken the food world by storm, becoming the hottest ticket in town both in terms of taste and buzz, and even capturing the attention of New York food writer Ruth Reichl. With its mouth numbing Sichuan menu full of complex flavors, the lines at this relatively small restaurant at 828 W. Valley Bl. in Alhambra are ridiculous. Prime time waiting time may be upwards of two hours and if you can get in with a wait of under an hour at anytime, consider yourself fortunate. To accommodate its crowds, Chengdu Taste extended its closing time by two hours and is hastily opening up a second location a few miles east on Valley Bl. As I have said many times before, Chinese food continues to evolve and the next great restaurant is waiting to raise the bar once again.
Saturday, February 22, 2014
What We Ate In Hong Kong, Part IV - The Pictures
As regular readers know from reading this this blog, I am not a foodie and do not photograph my meals. However, the descriptions of the food we had in Hong Kong last month has led to requests to see what some of the items described look like. Fortunately my daughter, Supertina, is a foodie and does photograph her meals. So since she was on the trip, we do have photographic coverage on my Picasaweb page. The pictures are at https://picasaweb.google.com/117066920837972224028/HongKongFood
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