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
no, but they could have made some serious money last night with everyone camped out on the rose parade route. the last time i happened by it was after dark and no signs of anybody inside.
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Apparently the signage is up so it’s getting closer.
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LOVE this place!
Sauce on that cold chicken is as mouth-watering as I have ever had (though the chicken was not meaty). Dan Dan Noodles were also some of the SGV’s finest. Wonderful Twice cooked pork.
Spice level was perfect - not too much, not too little.
The restaurant is very new, clean and comfortable with good English speakers.
Beer/Wine Lic. pending (February was the guesstimate).
To steal from (that fucking thief) @J_L : HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
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so you also hold out when you don’t like a place?
Seriously, dude. Move on.
Bopomofo Cafe, about a year old I think
Taiwanese fusion place featuring Mapo Tofu tots, Lu Rou Nachos with Cong You Chips, a chicken sandwich, and all white meat popcorn chicken.
The most Taiwanese thing on the menu might be the Mofo Club Sandwich, their take on Taiwanese breakfast sandwiches (white bread, triple layer, crusts off). I’ll give that a try. The rest of the menu…
Taiwanese Fusion has arrived in this corner of SGV. Golden Deli, Tasty Noodle House, Southern Town are pretty traditional. Nearby across is also OG Luscious, and Hui Tou Xiang. The other place across you got Golden Leaf and Kingburg are both Taiwanese as f. Labobatory of course, still a hard pass for me when you can’t even make a traditional milk tea right.
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for some reason i keep thinking of that place as being mainly about boba, which isn’t a high priority for me. i had a friend who managed to develop kidney stones because he was guzzling boba all day.
and you neglected to mention the korean chicken place at that intersection and benten ramen next to golden deli; and there’s family related vietnam house on the SE corner. it’s as pan-asian an intersection as i can think of in LA when it comes to food: vietnamese, shanghai/taiwanese/dalian, korean & japanese. and IIRC there’s actually another korean place at that intersection as well that serves bo ssam.
I haven’t tried those places.
Feels weird to eat Korean and Japanese in SGV. That’s me though.
both japanese and korean places are starting to chase (the new) chinese $ in the SGV. more obvious with japanese places after major japanese car companies left town; there’s a magazine (in chinese) with someone like 30,000 circulation (in LA) that’s about nothing but local japanese restaurants. you’ve got road to seoul in alhambra that does pretty well. the branch of sun nong dan in san gabriel hired mandarin speaking wait staff. i still partake of their breakfast special from time to time, at and first it threw me to hear them speaking amongst themselves in mandarin instead of korean. and IIRC there’s been a significant number of openings in the ESGV as well.
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You shouldn’t, at least for Japanese, as many had settled into the southern section of Monterey Park in the early 1950s. That’s why you’d find a few restaurants in that southern section such as Shinano on Atlantic and Tai Hei on Garfield.
And in the East SGV, there’s been a growing Korean community from Rowland Heights to Walnut over the last 10+ years.
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Bopomofo took over the space that was once Fine Garden Chinese Vegetarian Restaurant. The only place that serves a large variety of vegetarian dim sum items.
+1 on the Japanese in Monterey Park comment. Indeed as I explained in the LA Times Off Menu video on Chinese food in the SGV, the Japanese move into that area in the 1950s was the triggering event for the San Gabriel Valley becoming the gigantic Chinatown it is today.
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there’s still a fairly small concentration of japanese left in MP, but most of the restaurants that were a result of that emigration have since bitten the dust. taihei might be the only one left in MP that’s worth mentioning. ducks has been in san gabriel since 1995 or so.
when i moved here from the midwest in the late 80’s i thought tokyo lobby was the greatest. truly, ignorance is bliss (i think the place was run by chinese). but i still have fond memories of the place. order a $6 special, take home leftovers you could take to work the next day. they had those rolls underneath plastic wrap to show what they looked like. once i was there when i noticed that one of the pieces of california roll was missing and the cashier was hoping no one had eaten it since it was about five days old. yeek! the ESGV location is still going strong, but i haven’t frequented that location in over 30 years.
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xiang la hui also received a favorable review from the times back on the 13th of this month.
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the times posted another WSGV article, this time mentioning 3 places that have recently opened in the SGV. two of them were already on my to do list: guilin rice noodle and 1919 lanzhou, but the 3rd was completely off my radar. happy table at 2nd & valley in alhambra has been replaced by new qing dao chinese. and @chandavkl has already been there and posted a yelp review last december.
i note that the new place still has a number of happy table items on the menu including the lamb ribs with four different sauces (which i recommend)
but they’re supposed have qing dao style fish dumplings, among other specialities.
One strange sidelight was that I must have been one of their first customers since there were zero Yelp reviews. So why were the menus that had the restaurant name on it all so dog eared?
the laminated ones or the paper ones? there’s pictures of what looks like a laminated menu on yelp, probably submitted by the owner.
those glass noodles you had are definitely a dongbei style dish, which doesn’t surprise me since dongbei lies directly to the north regionally but the inclusion of the lamb ribs from the former menu prompts me to imagine that someone from the former restaurant is on the current staff in some way.