^This. I confess I rarely got around to trying many of the Yunnan items on the menu at Yunkun/Yunchuan/Yunnan, as I go back far enough in the SGV to remember when it was one of the better places for Sichuan, and I usually got the Sichuan items there. But, I enjoyed the Crossing The Bridge noodles, and as mentioned, I didn’t see but a small bit of oil atop it. No heavy schmaltz.
this is pretty rich coming from someone who insists that hazan didn’t change her recipes even she said in print that she did.
you may choose to crown yourself official arbiter or credibility of this sandbox given that you’re funding it, but i’m not obliged to bend my knee.
ok. sounds like you’ve frequented places mentioned by la eater. i find their coverage & recommendations to be geared towards a demographic that doesn’t seem to include me. that’s not a good or bad thing.
@JThur01 who used to write SGV-centric articles for la eater (but sadly, they’ve gone in a different direction) has some good suggestions, especially since he’s also grouped them by region; the helpfulness of the responses you’ll get can be improved if you also clarify specific regions as china is huge and the cuisines are affected by demographics, geography, etc. and as a consequence are vastly different in terms of things such as ingredients (the vast majority of chinese don’t eat rice, for example) as well as cooking methods.
i will add the caveat for lao xi noodle that as they’ve expanded, they’ve hired additional staff who are adding things to the menu such as a sriracha shrimp noodle dish that should not be categorized as authentic shanxi (i tried not to blanch noticeably when the wife (who seems to run the baldwin branch which might explain why the food is better there) cheerfully told me about the new addition to the menu - although that also segues nicely into the nebulous concept of ‘authentic’ regional cuisine. while i’m more of a purist when it comes to this, when you come to hole-in-the-wall type places, what they may offer could reflect how a dish is made in that particular sub-region. chong qing special noodles is an example. they’re essentially szechuan, but chong qing & cheng du (the two major cities in that region) are somewhat like boston & NY when it comes to clam chowder. another good choice for szechuan - but not necessarily what you’d expect would be xiang la hui as they (like luyixian mentioned below) de-emphasize the “mala” that most associate with szechuan cuisine.
since you haven’t clarified what under the radar means, i’m going to define it as places that don’t get a lot of press, even on this board which has a lot of users who are big on chinese cuisine. lao xi noodle house is actually on michelin’s bib gourmand list, as is jiang nan spring. there are a couple of other places on their list in the SGV which haven’t been mentioned.
i’d add shanghai dumpling house, which offers (or at least used to before the pandemic) some of the best xiao long bao (hereafter referred to as XLB). DX-labs was another good example of an under the radar recommendation. i’d also add zui xiang yuan as a personal favorite. also golden leaf for more… domestic home-style taiwanese - particularly the oyster pancake. taipei bistro is fairly new but seems to have caught the attention of a few knowledgeable folks here for the same reason, but a bit higher end.
i would have suggested shanghai restaurant in focus plaza (for their chicken/chestnut dish) but sadly they shuttered for good last month. another hole-in-the-wall place that’s gotten a mention or two in eater IIRC but deserves a plug IMO for being under the radar is a small stall in a food court in rosemead called harlam’s kitchen while the clientele is almost exclusively chinese expats whose presence is a tribute to price/value ratio of their wonton noodle soup among other offerings. i can’t speak to any of the other stalls in that food court, though the hainan chicken rice offered by the now defunct tasty food was one of the best i’ve had in the SGV. there’s ahgoo kitchen (the sesame bread, fried fish in seaweed) in termple city. if you like cold plates, another recommendation for yunnan on garfield in monterey park. if you want a bowl of soup and a side order of dumplings at a great price, try kingburg kitchen. in the mall across the street but still on the north side, southern mini town does more home-style shanghai-ese.
recently opened luyixian in alhambra serves of a number of chuan style dishes (from the szechuan region), but they feature a subcuisine that doesn’t emphasize the spice one would normally associate with szechuan cuisine. and again, right across the street ipoh kopitiam deserves a mention even though it’s technically singaporean/malaysian. this way you might be able to do what’s referred to on FTC as a bang-bang - trying multiple places on a single trip.
there are a lot of other places i’d mention but i can’t guarantee that the level of food hasn’t suffered as a consequence of the pandemic.
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A bold statement for a culture where the actual translation of the phrase “to have a meal” in the Chinese language is literally 吃飯 (“eat rice”)…
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Taipei bistro across from Golden Leaf (on Las Tunas)? That’s been around for years. Been almost a decade now. Pretty much the same restaurant as Golden Leaf to me price/quality wise. Both of them are just Taiwanese Street Food style cafes - not really home-style Taiwanese. Home-style Taiwanese would be like Eat Joy Food and Orange Bistro.
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The question I raised was with the “vast majority” portion of that statement. But thank you though, for China-splaining to me the divide between north and south (from a traveler blog). As one side of extended family hails from Northern China while the other side is from Southern China, I’ll make sure to go home and tell my folks that they (and the ancestors before them) have been eating incorrectly all this time…
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Ha, first you insult me and double down on your obnoxious and insulting post, then in your next post you tacitly admit I was right.
“Approximately 65% of the Chinese population consumes rice as a staple food …”
That is one of the craziest statements I ever heard of! Wow!
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Couldn’t think of a crazier statement.
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Not to pile it on, but, seriously, where are you getting this from?
I don’t agree when posters tease you for things you have said in the past, but when you make really ludicrous statements and have a super haughty tone, you are kind of asking for it, TBH.
I believe mantou is a staple in northern parts of China rather than rice…not sure whether that would constitute as majority or not.
The reality is that there are lots (and lots) of people living in Central China who eat both wheat and rice as staples. #TheMiddleKingdom
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Good place than is def Under the Radar!
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Shanghai restaurant at the “great mall” closed?
Heartbroken
I remember first having the chicken w chestnuts in clay pot at the old Deyuelou/giangnan in Monterey Park. Loved it at Shanghai
What a loss!
Wish I’d known it was closing.
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Mantou and noodles and wheaten foods like jiaozi were common in Beijing 40 years ago but so was rice although rationed
Just so rumors don’t get started, Eater LA didn’t go another direction, and I didn’t either. In early 2020, I had several SGV restaurants on my radar to cover for Eater LA or other outlets (since I am a freelancer), but, um, something came up that put an end to those plans. @matthewkang posts here from time to time and he can back me up on this. The first part. I don’t think he has to back me up on the second part. At least I hope he doesn’t have to 
Although, I am open to hearing any and all rumors about me. They probably are quite entertaining 
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Affirm, @JThur01 was never put on the sidelines. You can still definitely pitch and write for us.
@secretasianman We didn’t move in a different direction. We’re open to any and all pitches/writers, and recently we’ve had many new voices on a site.
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Like @CiaoBob, I heartily second Ruby’s. Also Mr. Chopsticks (El Monte) and Sands (Irwindale) for super legit Canto.
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