Mei Long Village is one of the best XLB places in town, and many people prefer their version to Din Tai Fang. We went there a couple of weeks ago and had a fantastic meal there, so good that my brother-in-law commented at the end of the meal that “we hit the jackpot” that evening. As we left the restaurant I noticed a change of ownership notice in the window. Now in the Chinese restaurant community that doesn’t necessarily mean anything since since there are often changes of ownership that are merely paper shuffling. And it was the regular serving staff in the restaurant that night. But then Mrs. Chandavkl returned yesterday for lunch where she had what she described as a disappointing meal. Again that by itself doesn’t meaning anything since it wasn’t the first time that lunch over there fell well short of dinner. However, now she just pulled out her receipt from yesterday’s lunch, and it says Lucky Star Kitchen, not Mei Long Village. Again, still not conclusive as it could just be a name change. If anyone has any intelligence it would be appreciated.
Technically, change in ownership occurred back in/around October 2015. But it’s the same menu, same staff, except for the change of corporate facade.
How come? … well, it’s not necessarily for tax reasons. You went to law school, and are definitely smarter than the average UCLA law grad, I’m sure you can figure it out.
Maybe EB-5?
Well I guess that explains this one.
After employees at the small Vietnamese restaurant Nem Nuong Ninh Hoa in Rosemead were awarded $360,000 in unpaid wages, the restaurant changed its name. The food and décor were the same, but the business is now known as Summer Rolls. This has made collecting the money incredibly difficult.
Here’s a new one. In the city of San Francisco, health department restaurant closures are cataloged by restaurant name. So if you change the name of your restaurant without a change of ownership you’ve pretty much buried your past record… Leading, of course, the an increase in pure name changes.
this was scary. Since Giang-Nan closed, my favorite East Chinese/Huaiyang dishes aren’t available. Mei Long has/had some of them. Does anybody here like a particular “shanghai” style place? in the mode of Giang-Nan (chinese name, de yue lou).
the former location of giang nan has changed names about 3-4 times since. never got there before they shuttered so i have no frame of reference for you.
i would have suggested old shanghai kitchen (the original founders of wang jia came back from china) but they recently went through a name/menu change. shanghai restaurant in focus plaza does a shanghai style chicken with chestnuts i’m partial to. the cooking at shanghai dumpling house is very good, but the menu is limited to what you’d find in a, dumpling house.
there are a couple new shanghai-ese that are on the list to try but i have not gotten there yet, such as tasty dumpling house which was taken over and now features shanghai-ese cuisine.
Scout said the food was pretty much the same, BUT there appeared to be a new wait staff. Perhaps I can check it out in a couple of weeks.
+1
First visit post “change of ownership” was inconclusive. Actually it was rather disappointing compared our last visit there a couple of months ago, but given the inconsistency I’ve noticed over the years I don’t know if that by itself means anything. However, the restaurant was only half full, something I’ve never seen on a Saturday night. So perhaps something has changed.