I Ate Bambi

Ha Tien Quan,but there are many unique Vietnamese dishes at this restaurant that are not typically found at Vietnamese restaurants. One of the more fun bizarre food dishes I recently had there was Deer sate noodle soup. Yup, I ate Bambi. Sorry. 

Deer is very lean with minimal fat. It is more favorable. If you’ve never had deer, the closest way to describe would be that it has a similar texture to lamb, but tastes like a more flavorful beef.

Would you go have deer?

529 E Valley Blvd

San Gabriel, CA 91776

Go Big or Go Home! Brick Toast Edition!

My dessert last night. Go big or go home! A teddy bear brick toast with layers of ice cream, fruits, chocolate, and cookies scattered throughout the monstrosity! Can you hang?



534 E Valley Blvd
San Gabriel, CA 91776

Happy Eatings! 

Japanese Fusion Food

Bust out your wallet because this post is a little on the pricer side!

The Open Door is a small Izakaya-style (tapas/small plates) Japanese restaurant in Diamond Plaza. It can get pretty pricy, but if you love Honda-Ya or Furaibo, then TOD will absolutely blow you away. Seating is limited and TOD has some awkward hours. So beware! FYI, they’re only open for dinner. They're also closed Monday and Tuesday. Since Open Door likes to switch up their menu frequently, I like to pop in periodically to try out new dishes. Here are just some of the dishes I've tried. 

 Whitefish with Yuzu sauce 

 Oil seared scallop with chives, cherry tomatoes, and garlic. 

 Edamame Vichyssoise with uni and quail egg.

 Beef tongue carpa with chimichurri & crostini.

 Beef Tataki 

Tuna on crispy rice sushi. 

Two sashimis in one! Uni on scallop sashimi. 

 Salmon sashimi.

Clams.

 Fried soft-shelled shrimp.

Japanese shishito peppers. 

 Bone Marrow.

 Pork belly – which came with a little fried pork skin on top.  It comes with a poached egg which you need to mix and pour over each piece.

Beef Stonepot Rice.

Yes, The Open Door seems a little out of place in Monterey Park perhaps, even to the point of being a tad pretentious for the San Gabriel Valley. They also have Happy Hour for cheaper prices!

If you like watching the game, then this may be perfect for you. They have a good happy hour, decent parking, and allow  you to store your unfinished bottles of alcohol. I loved how they had typical tapas dishes for the people in my party that didn’t like to try anything out of the ordinary and more of the unique dishes for the more outrageous eaters like me.

122 S Atlantic Blvd

Monterey Park, CA 91754

I'm Featured on Huffington Post. Take a Look!

A preview of the video. I promise that it's all sorts of crazy. 

(Click to see the video for 'How to Eat a Xiao Long Bao').

Huffington Post also picked up the video and wrote an article about it. Click here to read it! Thanks for watching and reading!

Happy Eatings! 

Pa Pa Walk

Would you go into a restaurant that looks like a foot massage parlor? Yes, really. The restaurant is filled with pictures of feet. They sure decided to go with a peculiar theme, but hey they sure stick to it throughout the entire restaurant. If you can get over the interesting decor, Pa Pa Walk has a few excellent dishes! 

 My absolute favorite is this beef with spinach noodles! The broth is done really well and I love the the noodles. It really gives it an extra tang! 

 Stinky tofu! I love ordering stinky tofu, but it's not amazing at Pa Pa Walk. It's not horrible either. 

A definite must order at Pa Pa Walk, is the mango shaved snow. Topped off with condensed milk, this concoction is mouth watering delicious and a lot closer than Class 302 in Rowland Heights. It's not as good, but a very close second, indeed.


Another must order is their 'coffin' brick toast, which is filled with soup. It's like an Asian version of soup in a bread bowl! Not everything at Pa Pa Walk is tasty though, their Har Lam Chicken rice fails to impress. But no worries, those dishes mentioned above take the cake. Just try not to concentrate on the feet pictures hanging around!




Happy Eatings!


227 W Valley Blvd
Ste 148-B
San Gabriel, CA 91776

Shaved Snow!

Bàobīng or shaved ice is a staple in Chinese culture.  At Class 302, shaved snow is the norm. Shaved show looks like thin ribbon shavings of condense milk infused ice, with various Asian toppings like moochi, grass jelly, red bean, tapioca, and more.The snow is then topped off with your favorite fruits or syrups and drizzled with more condense milk to finish off. The consistency is silky and smooth with a creamy, but not too sweet, finish …unlike that of shaved ice. 

So whether you’re a Mango, strawberry, green tea, or chocolate lover, there’s a shaved snow combination for you. The theme of an Old fashion classroom runs throughout the restaurant. The inside has school desks and chalk board menus. And for about $7 a bowl, one order of shaved snow can feed more than 3 to 4 people. Unless you’re like the foodettes, that is, then you have to sacrifice for your work. Here’s the damage after ordering all 7 shaved snow combinations.

 (Images courtesy of 626foodettes.com)

1015 Nogales St # 125  Rowland Heights, CA 91748

Lincoln Hotel

Sometimes the best food can come from the strangest of places. Take Lincoln for example. This restaurant is located inside the very ghetto and very old Lincoln "Hotel." Who are we kidding... that place is less than a motel. In fact, the whole place even burned down a few years ago. The place is destroyed with bad reviews on yelp, but no worries that's where I come in handy. This IS absolutely a great place for Cantonese food. 


At night, there are amazing specials. They give each table refillable 老火湯 aka soup made from scratch for many hours. The soup is different every night and it's amazing! Plus, free dessert if you eat there for dinner. There's a menu for the cheap specials hanging from the wall. 

Here's their steamed pork belly with preserved mustard greens.Delicious.  梅菜扣肉

Here's Lincoln's version of duck. It's called their pipa duck. It's different from Duck House's duck in that it is much cheaper and they use the steam buns instead of the tortilla-like skin. You can also order it done two ways. I didn't take a picture of the 2nd way, but it consists of mashed up duck meat and lettuce. You wrap the meat into the lettuce as a bun and eat it. 

Here is the inspiration of orange chicken. Here are the ribs. They are sweet and sour, but not in a ridiculous Panda Express way. The meat is fried to perfection and the sesame adds a sweetness to the flavor. Their fish and lotus dishes are also very good. 

But why is Lincoln so amazing? Because others don't realize its amazingness. There's great specials at dinner but their lunch dimsum specials are spectacular as well. They offer cheap duck lo mien for $1.99. I've taken 4 people to dimsum there and bought several to-go dishes without going over $20. When I get lazy or am hosting small parties at my house, sometimes I'll just call in and get my favorite dimsum dishes to go. 

 Pork and shrimp dumplings. Har gow and shiu mai. 

 Hong Kong egg tarts. 

 Pineapple buns with cha siu BBQ pork and pineapple buns with custard filling. 

 And of course their signature roasted pig. Here's a trick: If you want to take your roasted pig to go, you should make a hole in the to-go container. Give your piglet some room to breath and then the skin will remain crispy for the rest of the day! 

 Baked BBQ pork buns! 

Don't expect a great atmosphere, but I can assure you that the Cantonese food is good!

123 S Lincoln Ave
Monterey Park, CA 91755

My top Cantonese Places, not including HK style cafes are:

Delicious Food Corner

Happy Harbor

New Lucky

Sham Tseng

Banh Xeo Quan

Allow me to profess my love for Banh Xeo Quan. My love for them began on one of my earlier trips to Vietnam. I can't remember which trip it was, but it was one that was more than 8 years ago. There, we had some delicious bahn xeo aka Vietnamese pancake at a place called Banh Xeo Quan. After returning from Vietnam, my mom and I were driving through the San Gabriel Valley and saw a restaurant with the same name. Of course, we stopped and enjoyed. Sure, the food was good but the restaurant was literally that of a ghetto Mexican taco joint. In fact, the restaurant just took over a Mexican bar. Ghetto fab indeed (not that I minded). Fast forward many years, and I remember how I hadn't been to Banh Xeo Quan in a long time. Their decor has not changed, but now there's a personal TV on each seat so you can ignore whoever you're eating with in typical Chinese style. (Chinese people don't like having conversations during dinner.) 

And here was the famous banh xeo. They have a regular one and a "special" one. The special has different types of meat inside and just sounds more awesome. So pay a few bucks more for this baby. It's good! Make sure to use fish sauce and chili sauce for the dip. 

Also, don't forget to order their banh canh. It's the traditional Vietnamese flour soup dish. I'm so-so on the typical broth that banh canh is made with, but the one from here I love. Their broth must be Northern style because it's definitely different. 

The real standout of the place is the sugarcane juice!!! I don't like plain sugarcane juice, but add some kumquat inside and I'm all yours. This is definitely the best sugarcane juice you can find in L.A. outside of Singapore. Nothing can beat Singaporean sugarcane cause they have the mini limes and other exotic fruits you can only find in Asia. But hey, for L.A. it's pretty darn good! Plus it's so healthy for you! Why wouldn't you want to come here?

If you've been keeping up with my blog, then you know I've been coming here for balut. They only serve it on weekends though. So whether you want to try some good Vietnamese food or try out balut for your inner bizarre foodie, you should definitely check this place out. Plus, I'll be there drinking up their whole sugarcane supply.

Happy Eatings!

Banh Xeo Quan

8742 E Garvey Ave

Rosemead, CA 91770

SinBala, You Make Me Happy

SinBala. Oh how I love thee. If you want good authentic Taiwanese comfort food, then this is the place to go. Keep in mind, the place is small. The room in the back has a sign that says their maximum capacity is 25. Best part is it's open til 10 p.m.. And complimentary Chinglish menus bring Taiwan to you. 

Would you like a Chewing Drink? Why, yes. I would. Thank you. 

 And Taiwanese sausage with sliced garlic cloves. It gives it the sausage a spicy kick when you eat it together. I even bought their famous sausage rice with eggs and veggies home. It was delicious! 

 Duck grass noodles. Not my favorite, but the noodles were of good quality. 

Oyster Pancake. Yum. They do a really good job at this. I always have to get this at Taiwanese places to gauge how authentic the place is. Plus, this dish is the only dish I can order in Taiwanese so I got to practice. 

Service was lightening fast. Had all the dishes within 3/4 minutes. Loved it. Reminded me of Taiwan. Sinbala, you have my seal of approval. P.S. Their shaved ice is good as well. Not THE best I've ever had but yummy nonetheless. I can live off their oyster pancake and sausage rice all day. 


651 W Duarte Rd
Arcadia, CA 91007




Happy Eatings!

626 Asian Night Market Disappoints

"The Chinese have an expression “人山人海”， which literally means “mountains and seas of people” – the entire setting is either obscured or literally composed of millions upon millions of bodies so much so that not even an ounce of landscape can be seen among the bodies of people.

Seas of people all right. Perhaps those unfamiliar with the saying are best left with this picture to imagine the scene. Imagine the insane lines at the Disneyland Theme Park on steroids times three. The sight is a familiar phenomenon for those who frequent night markets in Asia, but at the first 626 Night Market in Pasadena the scene was the only thing that was comparable to the Asian Markets it was trying so hard to emulate..."

To read the rest of my blog post go here. 

Shanghainese Food & Drunk Chinese Men

Hey there! I'm currently heading home from what's called my official last Spring Break of my academic career. Whoooo and Booo! I've been in Hong Kong for a week. Leaving in a few hours back to Los Angeles, but I'm behind on my LA posts. So Yelp.... it's a great place. I love learning about new places and checking in, but it's a tool I use to supplement my foodie research. I would never rely solely on it because we all know there's been times when Yelp was way off. Here's one example: Shanghai Village in Alhambra, CA has a whopping low 3 stars. The place is small, sketchy looking, and old Chinese men like to bring in their liquor from the supermarket two doors down. Should this turn you off? No! Don't come with a big crowd though, this restaurant can only handle a few people at a time. 

 Shredded squash. It's really good. Light seasoning, much better than salad. 

 BBQ pork. I usually don't like sauce like this. It reminds me of Panda Express gone wild, but it's quite tasty. Add a bowl of white rice and this will fill you up and put a smile on your face.

 Potstickers. Yes, potstickers are all about the skin. It needs to be crispy and thin at the same time. This place does it pretty darn good. Not the best I've had, but pretty darn good. 

Now my favorite dish is the meatball noodle soup. I love the veggies just sitting in the boiling soup. If I'm ever sick, which I foresee will happen, screw chicken soup. This is what I want. Better than congee and  there's lots of vermicelli noodles inside. Don't be fooled from this angle-this clay pot is hot and huge! Perfect for a cold day!

There's a big screen TV inside if you wish to follow the Linsanity craze. I'd rather just get in and get out though. Definitely not a place for a date, but if you dig the ambiance or lack thereof, this is a solid Shanghainese place that is worth trying. 


There! You have my endorsement.




Happy Eatings!
1281 E Valley Blvd
Alhambra, CA 91801