Stopped by Shanxi Noodle House on Gale Ave., and found it surprisingly packed for a weekday lunch. Quite an array of interesting dishes including oat flour rolls, oat noodles (visually similar to what is sometimes referred to as silver noodles, with a similar taste), filet mignon in Chinese corn bread, Chinese jujube with sweet millet, lily with millet, sea buckthorn soup, jujube pancakes, Pingyao style buckwheat crepes and more. A Din Tai Fung type kitchen where you can watch them roll the oat noodles, dumplings and other noodles.
Shanxi Noodle House is at 18219 E. Gale Ave., #A in the space formerly housed by FFY Noodle House. Further east on Gale, Xu Garden has been replaced by Jasmin Garden, a growing Shanghai specialist that started in West Covina and which has also expanded to Hacienda Heights and Corona. And in the same shopping center, Hong Kong Dim Sum is stunningly gone after just opening up in the fall. Not to worry, though, as something called Golden Valley is going to move in.
So, how many items were they “out of”? I’ve had this place on my radar since first stumbling across its opening in December. It is the place I referred to in my tweet about having a stylish menu with a large number of interesting Shanxi items whited out. The manager told me: “Not enough chefs.” Thanks for the report chandavkl. I’m not surprised about Xu Garden. I never got to have the Guizhou-style fried tofu balls. They’d dropped them before I made it in.
That’s about on a par for what I’ve heard. Yes, Xu Garden had some Guizhou-style items before converting to a beer house. They kept the Guizhou-style cold noodles and, I think, one other item after the switch, but dropped most - if not all - the others.