1 W. Main St., Alhambra 626-289-7938
Type: Cantonese BBQ/Seafood
Quality: !!! Price: $-$$$ Ambience: ***
Lunch specials here are great: $5-$7. Quality is pretty good. It's located across the street from the 14-screen Regal cinema. Because of its location, they have a well-translated bilingual menu--easily one of the better ones I've seen. But whatever you do, avoid the egg foo young and chop suey. These are dishes Chinese restaurants used to recommend to non-Chinese customers because they were the equivalent of white bread--decent, familiar, and inoffensive. Chinese customers almost never order these dishes.
1108 S. San Gabriel Blvd., San Gabriel 626-289-8839
9014 E. Garvey Ave., #H Rosemead 626-569-9511
Type: Chiu Chou/Cantonese
Quality: !!!! Price: $ Ambience: *
This is a Chiu Chow restaurant. I placed it with the Cantonese restaurants because it is part of Guangdong. Anyhow, the food here is great. Flat rice noodles are very popular here. The Ribs in Black Bean Sauce w/ Rice Noodles was great. These are pork ribs cut to about an inch long and tender to the point of falling off the bone. A side order of Fried Floury Stick (item #53) is a great accompaniment. It's basically fried rice noodles. It has a very mild flavor, but the texture goes great with the rice noodle soups. The Beef Satay w/ Rice Noodles has quite a kick to it--much spicier than one would usually expect from a Chiu Chou/Cantonese place. Fortunately, with my years of training in eating Mexican food, it was no problem--absolutely delicious. Service isn't too bad once you figure out how to get their attention. I went to the one in San Gabriel. Once we entered, no one greeted us. The staff courteously ignored us and everyone else who was waiting. It was a busy day. I somehow figured out that you need to walk straight ahead to the cash register near the back wall and sign up for a table. I guess if it wasn't so busy, they may have treated me like royalty. Parking is limited, but there's plenty of street parking.
3939 Rosemead Blvd., Rosemead 626-288-3939
Type: Seafood, Dim Sum
Quality: !!!! Price: $$-$$$$ Ambience: ****
The dim sum here is sort of like nouveau dim sum that must be ordered from the menu. Nouveau dim sum tries to take the best of traditional Cantonese dim sum and add extra flourishes, such as more exotic ingredients or a different presentation. I like Phoenix Claws, and they have the best ones I've ever eaten. Moreover, they must have come from the biggest chickens in the Northern Hemisphere--I've never seen such big chicken feet in my life. The dishes were all hot, fresh, and very flavorful. I wasn't that impressed with the traditional siu mai and some other dishes, but that's OK, because they don't specialize in those dishes. You pay through your nose for it--it's pretty pricey as dim sum goes. Just becareful--they charged us for a number of dishes that we ordered but didn't receive. One of the dishes never even made it to the check, so it never came.
Dinner was decent, though not exceptional. To me, it's too expensive for what you get--good, but not great quality dishes. I do not recommend this place for dinner, but I highly recommend it for dim sum. They open at 10 AM on weekends for dim sum, which is rather late. Lines form very quickly .