FWIW, at least the last few times I did a side-by-side comparison, I found the SGV to have two or three regional variations not represented in the Bay Area.
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Yes, Clarissa did qualify that in her article.
Ooh, quality and variety of dishes aside, what regional styles are in LA but not the SFBA? ( I’m heading down there soon and would appreciate learning about stragglers that didn’t make it into the Destination Chinese thread)
I suspect the answer would involve particular cities or subregions—- at the province level, I think LA and the SFBA are tied. LA’s one Anhui restaurant closed (i really hoped to get there). After Clarissa researched her piece, two Lanzhou chefs opened restaurants In the SFBA (one has closed). Tawainese and Malaysian notwithstanding, neither the SFBA or LA to my knowledge have chefs cooking food from Fujian (SFBA’s Wenzhou restaurant closed). The two SFBA Jiangxi restaurants aren’t standouts (one isn’t very good, the other has two token dishes).
LA certainly seems to have a broader range of dishes from particular regions than the SFBA, e.g. no oat Shanxi noodles dishes. I’m curious to what extent different dish representation reflects chef’s training/origins prior to LA vs SFBA. SFBAHubei chefs here are from Wuhan, Dongbei (mostly) from Shenyang. At one time, our Sichuan chefs were from Chengdu (or northern China, like Royal Feast’s Sichuan and Tanjia Cai specialist, Chef Liu and Z&Y’s owner Chef Han), but we’re seeing more Chongqing chefs (not necessarily same quality as in LA). SFBA Shandong restaurants are either Shandong Korean or directly from Shandong focusing on noodles and dumplings (though, two newer places have Dezhou chicken, maybe other dishes).
No Fujian down here except for Foo Chow in Chinatown, which still touts it’s location being used for one of Jackie Chan’s rush hour movies. One might discount Foo Chow since (1) it’s been open for 40 years and (2) it’s in Chinatown. But supposedly they have some real Fujianese food there, though I never bothered. @JThur01 keeps much better track of San Gabriel Valley restaurants by regional cuisine. There are a few Wuhan style places. One shopping center (301 W. Valley in San Gabriel) has a Wuhan place (Tasty Dining) and Lizhou snail broth noodles (Happy Kitchen). Tasty Noodle House, also in San Gabriel, serves Dalian cuisine. I know you like to categorize Chinese food by regional cuisine, but another way to approach the food scene is focusing large Mainland Chinese restaurant chains that open up here. Two years ago that was such an unusual phenomenon that I wrote an article about it. Today it’s so commonplace that you may not know that the new place that just opened up is part of a Mainland chain. But they bring a level of authenticity that we didn’t have before. One of these chains that might fit your regional criteria, though, is Bistro Na’s in Temple City, which serves Chinese Imperial cuisine. Interestingly, the only other Imperial cuisine restaurant in the area that I know about is in the same shopping center, Simmer Huang, which serves something called Imperial style hotpots.
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not having been great china i have point of reference. but the only korean-chinese place i can think of is young king in k-town. the jiajiangmian & tangsuyuk are pretty good, but that’s about it. if you include dongbei in that designation, the best of that lot was probably is-it-closed-is-it-open shen yang in monterey park. their naengmyeon rivaled yu chun’s in k-town. chef geng has a pretty good sized menu but i haven’t had occasion to try a lot of it.
Thanks!
Oh cool, Dalian is not represented in the SFBA to my knowledge (Berkeley’s “Da Lian Restaurant” is a northern generalist, with nothing particularly Dongbei)
I’d like to explore more Wuhan food locally, but will flag those LA places too. Most places that I’ve tried aren’t great. The best I found was the only NorCal location of Qiwei, which I wrote up for the Chronicle’s Many Chinas Many Tables project, but it closed before publication.
Your update on Bistro Na’s caught my eye! Obviously different styles of food, but in terms of overall experience to out of towners from SF, would you prioritize it over Chengdu Taste or Sichuan Impression?
It’s crazy how many chains have expanded to the SFBA since your 2016 article. In addition to a ton of tea, pastry, and dessert places (e.g., 85 degrees), Asian chains in the SFBA serving Chinese/Taiwanese/etc. food now include Chef Hung, Crystal Jade, Din Tai Fung, Dong Lai Shin, Eden Silk Road (Herembag), HaiDiLao, Hakkasan (well, London), Hanlin Tea Room (Ten Ren Tea), LiLian Gui XunRou DaBing , Little Lamb Hot Pot & BBQ, Liuyishou Hotpot, several Little Sheep, Paik’s Noodles (Korean Chinese), Shihlin Taiwan Street Snacks, Tai Kee Won Ton, and Wonderful (Hunan chain based in Beijing). US chains include Boiling Point, Inchin’s Bamboo Garden, and Liang’s. As you said, I’m sure there are plenty more that don’t advertise that they’re part of a chain! It’s probably good to keep track of them— I added a new section near the end of the SFBA Regional Chinese list.
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Chengdu Taste was on another level compared with the Sichuan in the SFBA.
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I can believe that. I’m going to try to convince our group to go to Chengdu Taste for one meal— it’s been high on my priority list, and the Las Vegas location of Mian, also owned by Tony Xu, was at another level compared to the Chongqing noodles in the SFBA (menu layout, vegetarian friendliness, etc. also made it notable). Likewise, the Tustin Sichuan Impression distinguished itself in quality from SFBA Sichuan places, though most of its specialties are now available locally at South Bay places I’ve not fully explored. Noting his menu contains mostly Sichuan standards, cooked impeccably, I’m curious if anyone has compared the Sichuan dishes Chef Liu cooks at Royal Feast to the best of LA.
What is Imperial Court style Chinese cuisine?
If you were to have one meal in the SGV, the question isn’t whether you’d take Bistro Na’s over Chengdu Taste or Sichuan Impression, but whether Chengdu Taste or Sichuan Impression is the better choice. Sichuan Impression seems to have as many proponents as Chengdu Taste as to which does the best Sichuan. I personally have a slight preference for Chengdu Taste, but I’m otherwise stepping away from that discussion.
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Thanks!
Understood. I’ll leave that discussion to another thread (and do some more background reading) 
Yeah, I have to get there.
Let’s see, I’ve been so busy lately that I haven’t kept up on the SFBA recently, so you’ll have to bring me up to date on it region-wise.
There haven’t been any regions added in the SGV, but there’s been a couple of subtractions, as the Anhui place closed and the lone Qingdao-style seafood place closed (there still is Qingdao Bread Food, but they are a dumpling and noodle house, not quite the depth of menu. For example, no sea intestine).
It probably is down more to city styles at this point. At the very least the regional gap has narrowed. Dali was mentioned, Lizhou (there are two Lizhou-style places)…
What you mention about the regions seems to hold pretty true in the SGV as well. There always seems to be at least one Chongqing-style place, but Chengdu-style has replaced it as de facto Sichuan. The SGV Shandong places are pretty much noodles and dumplings, aside from Earthen. Though I have seen Dezhou chicken at at least a place or two around the SGV for a decade now.
I don’t know that you’d find much different about Wuhan-style food in the SGV, as QiWei is the “leader” in the area as well (at this point, it pretty much is them, as one of the other Wuhan places closed too). A few of the Dongbei-style places have shuttered in recent months as well, including Shen Yang (San Gabriel), which (IMO) had the deepest menu. The unrelated Shen Yang (Monterey Park) continues on, and is good, and Chef Geng has a good-sized menu, although they dropped the stir-fried sea hare 
The SGV also lost Yao’s, which was Chinese-Korean from the borderlands.
I feel you about writing about a place and having it close (or dropping a specific item from the menu).
and also offered corn noodles.
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I also forgot to mention a place that has a few Hangzhou-style items.
Is there any Guizhou-style place in the SFBA?
Interesting. What’s the name of the place? There are some scattered Hangzhou specialties in the SFBA, but no place markets themselves as such. Is there a good version of Beggar’s Chicken in LA? Little Shanghai in San Mateo is the only place in the SFBA to (on a written menu) offer Beggar’s Chicken, and no one at my table thought much of it.
No Guizhou in the SFBA to my knowledge. What restaurants have Lizhou dishes (is that Sichuan province?).
I’m sad to not be able to revisit Shen Yang’s cumin chicken ribs. A few SFBA Dongbei immigrant owned skewer places have a similar dish, but they lack Shen Yang’s umami bombing.
The SFBA has the following. I can’t speak to how these compare to the quality, breadth of dishes, or chef expertise present in LA/SGV, but enjoy reading comparisons (if you have a few hours free to read, these are fleshed out more on the SFBA Regional Chinese roundup).
Northwestern
- Shaanxi (several places now, Terra Cotta Warrior in SF is consistent and good)
- Shanxi (mostly knife shaved wheat noodles; a new place has a Shanxi pork dish. Slim pickings)
- Lanzhou (one chef from Lanzhou has a restaurant)
- Uyghur / Xinjiang (@robert speaks highly of Sama Uyghur, and I agree)
Northern/Northeastern
- Dongbei (mostly Shenyang and general Dongbei stuff; one place has a Harbin sausage; Yang Dumpling’s chicken mushroom stew is made with chanterelle-like 榛蘑, hazel mushrooms (mellea armillaria sporophore), OMG)
- Shandong (mostly Chinese Korean or noodle/dumpling focussed)
- Beijing, including some Beijing court dishes at Chili House
- Tan Family Cuisine / Tanjia Cai at Royal Feast
- Islamic Chinese (none of the owners to my knowledge are from the NW provinces)
- Tianjin
- Inner Mongolia (hotpot at least; there’s also an actual Mongolian restaurant in Oakland with a small menu)
- Dumpling and noodle places, various bing, pies, Huoshao, Shandong pan-fried buns, etc.
Yangtze River Environs (to borrow Carolyn Phillips’s categorization)
- Shanghai (quality has been improving; decent soup-filled SJB available now)
- Nanjing (Jai Yun has become a permanent pop-up, prix fixe inside another restaurant)
- Wuxi / Suzhuo (Jiangnan Cuisine in the Outer Richmond)
- Jiangxi (two restaurants, one not great, the other has two token dishes)
- Hubei Wuhan (seven places, majority pair with hot pot or skewers; Wuhan duck is at other regional restaurants too)
Central highlands
- Hunan, Hunan noodle, and Hunan dry pot
- Sichuan, Sichuan dry pot, Sichuan hot pot
- Chongqing, Chongqing noodles (probably better in SGV), Chong Qing WanZhou grilled fish is available at several places but customizations & fish variety seem to be available in SGV , Chongqing hot pot
- Guangxi (two Guilin noodle places)
- Yunnan: two noodle places, one has a few non-noodle Yunnan items; Chef Z’s, a Sichuan restaurant, has a Yunnan chef who says he’ll cook a Yunnan meal
Coastal Southeast
- Teochew (mostly via Southeast Asia or noodle places; Teo Restaurant has Teochew hot pot and dishes not available at the other places)
- Hakka (two specialists, a few dabblers)
- Taiwanese & Taiwanese hotpot
- I’ll punt to others on regional Cantonese
Random
- Upswing in the past few years is Malatang, hot pot, Shaokao / skewers
- A guy in chinatown makes Dragon Beard Candy
- Z & Y has a Gong Fu Cha tea ceremony
- @chandavkl has commented on places serving different cuisines at lunch vs. dinner in LA. A few places switch to hot pot at night, but other than that I don’t think that’s a thing in the SFBA.
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Happy Kitchen in San Gabriel has the Lizhou snail noodle broth. When I walked in the menu only referred to Lizhou soup, so I ordered it not realizing it was snail broth. Not a happy surprise. Lizhou soup is also available at Qin West Noodles, which has three branches, none of which are in the San Gabriel Valley. Qin West has a unique mix of Shaanxi, Guilin and Lizhou noodle dishes. First branch, strangely, was in LA Chinatown, where for now it remains the only authentic Chinese restaurant in Chinatown that isn’t Cantonese or Taiwanese. Next branch opened up on Westwood Blvd., a couple of miles from UCLA, then branch number three opened a mile from USC. (There was a predecessor to Qin West in a shopping center food court near USC, but then the shopping center was torn down.) They should be opening their first SGV branch in Arcadia in a few weeks.
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P&R Taste in Rowland Heights. Only three or four Hangzhou-style items, most notably the pian er chuan noodles and Hangzhou-style bao, but the owner is super proud of the fact he serves Hangzhou dishes.
As far as the rest, I’ll defer to this for now (as I did in the Destination thread):
There have been some changes since, which I’ll get to when I have the time.
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Lizhou is a city in the Guangxi Autonomous Region.
chandavkl, I completely forgot about Qin West, because of it not having a SGV presence. The other Lizhou-style place I was thinking of is Noodle Kang in Arcadia. So, that’s officially six restaurants around Greater Los Angeles that serve Lizhou-style river snail based dishes!
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