![]() ![]() Meats and starches, and liberal use of vinegar, are common. As one might expect, hearty food is in order. Styles and traditions: Collectively known as Dongbei, which literally translates as “east-north,” the three provinces in the heavily industrial region are known for brutally cold winters. Target areas: Lianoning, Jilin, Heliongjiang The Lao Xi’er fried mixed vegetables is a Shanxi version of home fries, using shredded potatoes. A fairly recent opening, Lao Xi Noodle House (600 Live Oak Ave, Suite A, Arcadia 62) features those familiar Shanxi items with some obscurer items, such as potato starch noodles and thickly sliced buckwheat noodles. For Shanxi-style noodles, JTYH (9425 Valley Blvd, Rosemead 62) has been the favorite for dao xiao mian (knife-shaved noodles) and cat’s-ear noodles, so named for their resemblance to feline ears. ![]() Tianjin Bistro (534 E Valley Blvd, San Gabriel 62) features a menu filled with dishes from its namesake city, including the bone-filled yellow croaker fish with dense corn cakes, and meat-filled Tianjin-style steamed buns. The lamb pies, however, are the most touted. Beijing Pie House (846 E Garvey Ave, #3A, Monterey Park 62) serves meat pies to doorknob-sized xian bing, which feature a thin layer of pliable dough and are lightly pan-fried. For that, there are a couple of aptly named duck specialists, most notably Duck House (501 S Atlantic Blvd, Monterey Park 62). Though run by someone from Tianjin, the restaurant features a large menu of items from the nation’s capital, but you won’t find Peking duck. Where to find it: Beijing cuisine is in surprisingly short supply in the SGV, but fortunately there is Beijing Restaurant (250 W. It’s said there are 1,000 types of noodles in Shaanxi. Located over the mountains to the west of Beijing, Shanxi Province has a reputation for its noodles and aged vinegar. Corn and millet also turn up in Tianjin-style cuisine. Both cities are known for use of salt as a seasoning, though Tianjin less so than Beijing. Located not far from Beijing, the seaport city of Tianjin makes use of more seafood and river fish. Offal dishes are also popular, like the pungent garlic-drenched liver and intestine stew, chao gan. Peking duck might be the best known dish from Beijing, but lamb and pork are the most common meats. Styles and traditions: Wheat is the grain of choice in the north, where it’s primarily used for noodles, buns, and dumpling wrappers. To parse out the overwhelming amount of options, from lamb meat pies to soup dumplings, here we give you a breakdown of regional Chinese food in the greater Los Angeles area.Īll photos by Jim Thurman, unless otherwise noted. Los Angeles attorney David Chan, a keen observer of the Chinese restaurant scene, estimates there are 800 total restaurants, with 200 of those situated along Valley Boulevard (a.k.a., “The Magic Mile”). L.A.’s sheer number of restaurants-and resultant increased competition-didn’t hurt its cause either. Sichuan restaurants had long been part of the area, so what made Chengdu Taste different? It was Xu’s creative use of Weibo, the Chinese version of Facebook, and his higher-quality ingredients that set a higher standard for the cuisine-and spawned a series of copycats in its wake. When chef Tony Xu opened Chengdu Taste in Alhambra in 2013, it proved a game-changer-hour-long waits made folks perk up and take notice. In the 1980s, one of those suburbs, Monterey Park, was billed as the ‘Chinese Beverly Hills,’ ushering in a population comprised of professional, technical, and upper middle-class Chinese with legit spending power. That type of clientele attracted not only serious international investment, but also classically trained chefs with impressive pedigrees from places like Sichuan. Currently, 25 of those 32 cuisines are represented in the SGV. China, meanwhile, is made up of 22 provinces, four autonomous regions, four municipalities, and two special administrative regions. Eight of the ten suburbs with the highest percentage of Chinese population reside in the San Gabriel Valley. The New York metropolitan area boasts a larger Chinese-American population than metro Los Angeles, so how did this shift in power take place?įrom 2009 through 2013, more Chinese immigrants came to Los Angeles County than any other U.S. If there’s a de facto mecca for Chinese food in this country, it’s surely located in the greater Los Angeles area-more specifically, the suburban enclaves of the San Gabriel Valley, whose satellite communities have earned SoCal elite status as a destination for Sichuan specialties and grapefruit-sized dumplings. ![]()
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