The Noodle King location in Alhambra is in the process of being taken over by Supreme Dragon. I’m guessing it might be the same Supreme Dragon that was in San Gabriel and Rowland Heights for many years, as the logo looks sort of familiar.
that would be noodle king on valley in the plaza next to wendy’s?
Yes, that’s it.
H K Grand Cafe just opened in the old Fresh Qbake (and previously Zen Buffet) location on Rosemead Blvd., south of Las Tunas. One Yelper claims this is fake Canto as employees were conversing in Mandarin.
like at lunasia (where the patrons are also conversing in mandarin)? (which is a good thing because the hostess is calling out numbers in mandarin as well.)
that zen buffet was nasty. the monrovia branch has (as i understand it) become just as nasty.
At the start of this year, Sham Tseng BBQ on Garvey in Monterey Park tweaked its name to Sam Tseng BBQ. As JThur01 has noted in his quest for new SGV restaurant openings, minuscule name changes often mask a major ownership change, presumably because the new owner wants to mask the change of control in a well trafficked brand name. Well now the restaurant has another small name change–New Sam Tseng BBQ. Any idea what’s going on?
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Confirming that the Supreme Dragon that just opened up in Alhambra is the return of the historic Supreme Dragon which had previous branches in San Gabriel and Rowland Heights that opened in 1990 and 1991 respectively. Strangely both gave up the Supreme Dragon name, with the San Gabriel location becoming Dragon Mark in 1993, until it closed in 2011, and Rowland Heights tweaked the name to Supreme De Dragon in 2012 before closing in 2015 (blaming the closure in a public statement on Yelp on its employees who had become lazy and sloppy.). My guess is that in both cases the ownership didn’t change when the names did. In any event it’s interesting to see the original name revived.
I love that. First question that comes to mind is: So who hired and managed these “lazy and sloppy” employees?
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Supreme Dragon!
Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in a very long time
My mom use to say they would change their names often because they would try to technically close and reopen as a new business then declare they are losing money to avoid paying taxes but supposedly you can only get away with it for 3 years. I dunno if I heard her correctly back when she told me this years ago, someone who knows the tax laws can confirm or correct me if I wrong?
It’s a sales tax dodge occasionally used by some Chinese restaurants. Don’t pay all your sales tax, liquidate the corporate entity, and if they don’t catch you in three years, you’re generally past the statute of limitations. Meanwhile you can set up a new entity with a new restaurant name. Kind of risky, though, since you stay in the same location, often with a similar name. There could also be an unemployment tax play, too, if your claims run too high, but I suspect that’s much less common.
it might have been because it was xmas eve, but wei’s kitchen was dark when i stopped at ranch 99 to get some hot pot ingredients.
of more interest is a new szechuan chongqing place on main near atlantic in an ungodly bad location in cakelly plaza.
XIANG LA HUI (for the FTC search engine)
was featured in a recent eater article. i was able to try the place for lunch yesterday. i ordered only two dishes, but from what i ordered, i’m willing to go back and try more of the menu.
first, an order of the cold saliva (mouth watering) chicken. the same dish comes complimentary with a minimum order over at chongqing special noodles but this dish is worth it at $10.99 because of the sauce.
my one complaint - poor knife work resulting in bone slivers making it more work than necessary to eat. but otherwise, it was sufficiently spicy so as to complement the slipperiness of the skin but there was a full balance so you could appreciate the garlic, cumin, etc. and catch the roasting of the peanuts without having your palate mala’d to oblivion. it was good enough to leave a few pieces to justify requesting a container to take home every bit of sauce i could scrape from the bowl. i added some shredded poached chicken breast (with skin) to the sauce when i got home. if not for the slivers of bone left in the sauce i would have inhaled that puppy in seconds. as it was i still ate it pretty quickly. they should bottle that sauce and sell it on the side. you could put it on shredded cardboard and people would think you were a great cook.
at the recommendation of the waiter our other order was (oh god i forget the name of the dish, but you know it from the menu pic since it includes cubes of pig blood). at first, we thought it might be a little pricy at $19.99, but dang, the bowl could easily serve four people:
that ladle is normal sized (and my lunch partner accidentally dropped it into the bowl) to help give you a sense of scale. it included: tripe, beef, tofu, what looked like spam (and reminded me of budae jjigae except there’s no US army surplus in szechuan province), cubes of pig blood, bean sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, lotus root, and bits of other things i couldn’t identify. the broth is oily; i would have preferred a hot pot strainer to a ladle to retrieve what i wanted from the bowl. while i liked having the cold chicken sauce on my rice, i did NOT enjoy having that much oil on my rice and for one of the few times in my life i left rice in my bowl. (at $1 per bowl! for those who can appreciate the nuances of a toisan heritage.)
try the place before it closes due to its really really bad location.
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Yes it’s like the 12th Chinese restaurant at that location but the buzz at Xiang La Hui has grown startlingly fast so maybe the hex is over. Went to Wei’s about a week ago so it’d be surprising if it closed since then.
part of the reason (as i see it, anyway) is that parking is so bad on that stretch of main - it’s the west-most location on main before the car wash on atlantic. only 4-6 street parking spots serving 3-4 store fronts, along with a relatively small parking lot at the east end of cakelly plaza. it’s not going to get any random foot traffic as in “hey, never saw this place before, let’s try it” because you have no reason to walk in that direction. the stretch of main on the other side of atlantic is pretty much all car dealerships. the movie theater is on the south side of main at atlantic - and its parking lot is south and east of the theater. the location pretty much has to be your destination to get there.
Do you happen to know any updates on Chef Tony in Old Pas? I should have asked the last time I was at Sea Harbour