I’ve eaten very well at Qin West.
Chef Tony was phenomenal for dim sum. Some items still stand out as the best I’ve ever had, their truffle dim sum and their chicken knee - swoon.
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I am happy that I can get cold chili tripe and intestine with veggies at GuYi and mapo with brains and their fried chicken at Hop Woo.
Slightly off point, but there is a bok choy specialist in Hollywood called Box Choy. Giant mural on the wall praising the benefits of bok choy and bottles of bok choy juice for sale. But alas, being steps away from Hollywood Blvd., this is a hipster place, though I can’t complain about the food. The build your own tofu bok choy lo mein was quite tasty.
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I wish they prepared their rice better.
Glad I asked for noodles.
Ok. Did that take long enough? 
I finally have time to update. Overall, there still hasn’t been much change.
I. North: I might drop JYTH and replace it with Shanxi Noodle House. Beijing Tasty House is fairly = to Beijing IMO.
II. Northeast: Lots of changes. Both Yao’s and Shen Yang are gone, Thousands Tasty burned down. I’d say Shen Yang (Monterey Park) and Chef Geng are the Dongbei leaders now.
III. East China: In lieu of no one nominating any “standout” Shanghainese place, this is unchanged save for Bamboo Creek closing and Wang Xing Ji changing to Long Xing Ji. Perhaps slot P&R Taste in there for Hangzhou-style items in place of Bamboo Creek, though it’s hardly interchangeable.
IV. South Central China: Little change here other than the “other” Wuhan-style place, Tasty Dining, closed.
V.Southwest China: Same as then.
VI, Northwest China: Shaanxi Gourmet faded rapidly, then closed. The Shaanxi banner has been taken by Shaanxi Garden and Xi’An Tasty (Xi’An Kitchen is still the ESGV leader). Omar and Silk Road Garden are still the Uyghur places.
With more and more menu homogenization, this has been a remarkably stable - and rather boring - time for the SGV scene. The old favorites continue to be the “(b)est”, or only. New places are pretty much down to hot pots and skewer & beer joints, with the occasional Taiwanese snack house, Sichuan or Shanghainese breaking up that monotony, maybe a new dim sum place here or there. Also, pan-Chinese type places. Openings as unique as a Guizhou-style or Anhui-style place are few and far between. The best one can hope for seems to be an occasional localized specialty from some chef, but more often than not those dishes seem to quickly drop off the menus 
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Yeah, those corn noodles at Yao’s were interesting.
i was interested more for health reasons at the time. i only had them in soup and they were rather mushy. i loved their tangsuyuk though.
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i’d include shanxi next to shaanxi and give a shout out for lao xi noodle house over heavy noodling II at the JYTH plaza.
the menu’s not extensive, but shanghai dumpling house is very good at what it does, especially the XLB (xiao long bao).
and i’d give a shout out for the post-franchised liang’s kitchen, whose regional thumbprint eludes me and could be one of the few decent pan-chinese places in the SGV. if nothing else, their noodles and lamb noodle soup merit patronizing the place.
i’d also suggest that 101 noodle express is no longer the solitary king of beef rolls anymore. there are a lot of worthy contenders out there, including my personal favorite over at zui xiang yuan (i have to keep looking up the name since it will always be ‘flavor garden’ in english to me) which leads me to suggest further the inclusion of taiwanese.
Do you consider Tai Kadai to be a cuisine?
Not to sound like ipsedixit here, but, no, I consider it a fusion restaurant in Rosemead.
Or, for the non-punch line answer, I consider it a family of languages.
That’s why Lao Xi Noodle House and Shanghai Dumpling House were included in the original piece I linked to 
I didn’t mention Liang’s at the time, that was an oversight, but had its reasons (one being space limitation). At the time, Liang’s chef was from Henan, so there was overlap with Shaanxi Gourmet in style. I’ve heard the dreaded “downhill” or “change” for Liang’s of late, so that needs some intel to see what’s up there.
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i’d have to look to see what article that was - the thread is 2 years old.
i’d not heard about the fluctuation in quality at liang’s. i think we’ve already bemoaned how the search for new stuff inhibits the ability to visit favorite places.
FWIW, a Bay Area Liang’s just closed. Perhaps they’re spreading themselves too thin.
this liang’s is a post franchise version that abandoned the liang’s menu and created its own. do not associate the liang’s jthur01 & i are referring to with the liang’s kitchen franchise except in name only.
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As per what secretasianman mentioned, the original Liang’s chain collapsed, leaving some to carry on independently. The Monterey Park location came up with their own Henan/Shaanxi-style menu, heavy on lamb dishes. Are there any Liang’s left in the Bay Area? The San Diego location closed.
It’s always interesting when chains leave former franchises to fend on their own.
Even more bizarre was how, after the collapse and closures, a Liang’s Kitchen popped up in Hacienda Heights, apparently a real deal, and lasted several months…without anyone seeming to notice! Last time I went by that plaza, the signage of Mama Liang’s face was still there.
There’s one Liang’s left, in Cupertino. I also spotted one in Vegas this past January, on Flamingo.
We’ve got international chains a plenty, but I’d love to see some of the LA chains now in Vegas come to the Bay Area.
Did anybody pinpoint the reason for the collapse–overly rapid expansion or “personnel” issues? I truly regret not eating six years ago at the Liang’s branch in Flushing which was conveniently located in the hotel that I was staying at.