The restaurant closed, but Hop Louie lives on as a dive bar.
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Ah, good news!
I have a similar question as Robert’s. A few friends and I are flying from the Bay Area for a Saturday morning to Sunday afternoon San Gabriel food crawl. I’ll ask advice on specific dishes later, but for now is there anything I’m missing restaurant-wise? We haven’t scheduled a weekend yet— any food events over the summer I should know about (626 Night Market seems like a waste of time as per comments here).
Here is the current short-list:
Sit-down
- Chengdu Taste
- Szechuan Impression
- Laoxi Noodle House (no Shanxi restaurants in the SFBA)
- Sichuan Kungfu Fish (Wanzhou grilled fish is available at several Sichuan/Chongqing places in the SFBA, but SKF seems more specialized)
Snacks
- Beijing Pie House (lamb pie, wild radish pie)
- Omar (meat pie specifically. Sama Uyghur in Fremont otherwise overlaps with the menu)
- Shen Yang on San Gabriel (cumin lamb ribs)
- 101 Noodle Express (Shandong beef roll) unless there is a better place these days
- hmm… our snacks seem very starchy. Any destination worthy lighter dishes?
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Yes.
Can’t speak for Captain Blueface here, but my 2 yuan:
Ahgoo Kitchen (da bing, leek dumplings)
Corner Beef Noodle House (niu rou mian)
Nanjing Kitchen (saltwater duck)
SinBaLa (yeou fan; Taiwanese as hell)
Newport Tan Cang (Chiu Chow; signature crustacean dishes on noodles, loc lac; San Gabriel location is best)
JTYH - mian geda (oft-mislabeled as “cat’s ears”)
Huge Tree Pastry or Four Seas (for Chinese breakfast soymilk, crullers, fan tuan, etc.)
Pine and Crane (veggies & Taiwanese)
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Thanks!
Cool, I hadn’t thought about Chiu Chow, but Newport Tan Cang might be a good contrast to the other styles of restaurants I’ve floated. Come to think of it, @beefnoguy elsewhere mentioned Seafood Palace for Cantonese style Chiu Chow.
Whoa, the fan tuan at Huge Tree Pastry look great and their 7am opening would make it possible to fit them in.
I had mixed opinions of JTYH the last time I went. How does Laoxi Noodle House compare? BTW, dang, those aren’t cat’s ears? The search continues … I thought geda were either the squarish Beijing “flour balls”, fluffy irregular dumplings things, or extruded spaetzle-like noodles.
Skip this one; it’s good for being west of the 710 but hardly destination-worthy, especially if already in SGV, based on the meal I had a month ago.
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Taiwan love.
I hear the Bay Area is lacking in Taiwanesse so this is a excellent list
The greens are top notch, straight from the family farm and better than anywhere else in 626. The cold appetizers are also excellent.
I used to think this place would suck because of the location but once I had a meal of sweet potato leaves, and Hakka stir fry I am a believer. This is real deal Taiwanese. What other Taiwanese place in the 626 is doing farm to table veggies? That’s pretty damn authentic if you asked me. Not every Taiwanese family cooks with heavy pork fat, but a plate/s of greens and veggies are a must on every dinner table not sure how the commies eat, but my family does.
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If you need a late night place and you are in LA, hit up Ruen Pair in Thai Town for Chiu Chow via Thailand.
In SGV, I like Blackball for dessert if you want to round it off with something sweet.
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Thanks!
Taiwanese restaurants have a larger concentration in Silicon Valley than SF/Oakland/Berkeley, and I don’t get to them often. I’ll make a point to try some Taiwanese food, and will bookmark Pine and Crane for a future business trip.
Interesting. Given the large Chiu Chow population in Thailand, it’s surprised me we don’t have that in the SFBA to my knowledge (more Teochew Vietnamese).
Yup. Among the other places you are considering, Newport will be a good spacer or contrast. Your initial list is heavy on Sichuan/ma la kind of food. And it’s not just the food. The Sichuan places tend to be far more casual. The dining rooms at Newport in San Gabriel feel more Cantonese, more dining-like, more amenable to celebratory/family gatherings. The main dining area is fine enough. But the partitioned semi-private dining rooms are great, particularly for larger groups (8-10). If your group is in that range, consider these spaces.
Service at Newport feels Cantonese restaurant as well. The waitstaff is prompt and always on top of things. I’m not sure if the veteran waitstaff members have migrated to the Newport-like clones. If you are open to or need suggestions, they are great at measuring out what size/how many lobsters and other menu items will be appropriate for your party.
Of the Sichuan places we’ve been, none serve alcohol. Newport does - beer and wine. I truly appreciate this, as I personally feel that an enjoyable meal centered around perfectly prepared seafood calls for at least something from a bottle. Has anyone BYOB here? @Porthos? 
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Newport Tan Cang is Chiu Chow by way of Vietnamese Chinese. The style of the food may resemble Cantonese and have very familiar Cantonese dishes, but it’s not HK Cantonese Chiu Chow by any means. With that said I do recommend people coming from SF Bay Area go give that a try since there’s nothing like that up here (and whatever was close is no longer offered in that quality). Super delicious when you have wok hay, scallions, 5 lbs of beast loaded with a ton of roe mixed together and some umami enhanced with nuoc mam all in that mix. (I hear Newport Tan Cang Seafood in Santa Ana is the original location). We used to have a guy in SF Bay Area who could whip something up like that, but he passed away unfortunately. Cooking Papa’s Food Stall lobster does not even come close (though also fun to eat when you crave spicy stir fry shellfish)
Seafood Palace / “Typhoon Shelter” of their Chiu Chow dishes I sampled in their now closed Temple City location (only remaining one is Monterey Park) has some very distinctive Cantonese Chiu Chow that closely resembles Hong Kong style Chiu Chow Cantonese (marinated pork intestines, marinated duck, marinated tofu, taro and ginko nut mash dessert, Chiu chow style congee of which the distant relative would be Vietnamese “chao” but different, anyways all excellent).
Regarding the BYO Bottles, pretty sure lots of folks have brought wines to Newport in some shape or another, and there must have been blog pictures of various banquets with wines.
Definitely must do Taiwanese breakfast at Huge Tree or Four Seas. If you can handle it do both, and you will get the best of both worlds.
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I wasn’t impressed with Omar’s meat pie.
QQ Noodle and the various places down Newark / Fremont / Milpitas way with Xi’an in their names aren’t?
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The Shaanxi/Xi’an places have hand-pulled/stretched noodles, but they don’t have Shanxi (one “a”) noodles. MY China has some Shanxi wheat noodles (e.g. scissor cut), but no buckwheat or oat noodles, which I’m eager to try more of.
Maybe we’ll skip Omar— I was hoping to find a good meat pie after eating a likewise greasy and soggy one at Eden Silk Road (kind of a disastrous meal overall).
You’ve got Beijing Pie House on your list.
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Look, I was underwhelmed by my visit. Is it good? Yes. Is it worthy of a drive from SGV? IMO, nope. If farm-to-table greens is your jam, great; overall I found my meal fell short of the hype. YMMV
Question to the Chinese-food connisseurs here (which might also be helpful for the OP): would Dai Ho be considered destination worthy?
These might have some useful tips:
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I’m actually with you. Menu is very short, so if you order things like beef noodle soup, Zha Jiang mein, you will not be overwhelmed. Great to have this in the neighborhood, but ordinary by SGV standards.