Arcadia: A Taste of Taiwan with Discount Tickets available through GoldStar. By SixTaste

Includes:
- Soup Dumpings at Din Tai Fung
- Traditional Taiwanese Baked Goods at JJ Bakery
- Taiwanese snacks and street food at Sinbala
- Japanese influenced Taiwanese desserts at Bin Bin Conjac

Din Tai Fung is very good, but expensive, portions are small, and a long line. Being able to see the kitchen is nice. Longer blog post about them.

JJ Bakery is very nice. Post about the different types of Chinese bakeries.

I have not been to the other two places yet. I like Live Plaza with their Mango Smoothy, but the dishes there are not very Taiwanese. There is a food court at the 99 market just down Duarte.

Labels: Chinese Food

Good article about sweets and their symbolism for Chinese New Year!

Savoring sweet somethings to ring in new year - SF Chronicle.

Labels: chinese customs, Chinese Food, Chinese New Year Dinner

On my families Southern Vacation after visiting the Everglades my family decided to go try a Taiwanese place. Chu's Taiwan Kitchen Bar. Surprising to find a Taiwanese restaurant in Miami. The owner came out and had a chat with my in-laws in Taiwanese, and he was nice enough to make up some real Taiwanese food for us. My in-laws had a great time and I had my usual pork shop rice :-)

Labels: Chinese Food

Yesterday after dropping off my daughter at So. CA Honor Choir practice at Nazarene University on Point Loma in San Diego, we stopped by a bread place that had a lot of people there. I did not even check it using Yelp on my iPhone that morning since I was in desperate need of a Hot Chocolate and the name was so cool, Rustic Bread.

We walked around the area after the Hot Chocolate (A+ quality, tables outside were a little unstable so a slight spill on me when I bumped the table). So we then went sight seeing and I finally got to see an air craft carrier. I had wanted to see one in New York, then another in Oakland, but there was never enough time. So finally I had enough time due to my daughter's choir practice in San Diego. The aircraft carrier Midway was a great tour. There were a huge amount of volunteers who were just full of information. We spent 4 hours on the carrier and finally left because we were hungry (they have a cafeteria that is OK, my only complaint was charging $3 a bottle of water, but it is worthy cause).

So ate lunch and went back to get my daughter. We asked if she wanted a hot chocolate and found out she had a group meeting at 8PM that night. Answer was yes on the Hot Chocolate - good genes :-) and we stopped at the Con Pane Rustic Bread, but right outside I checked it out on Yelp and it has 115 reviews! Wow on the food. Lots of it and very fair prices.

There are a lot of Chinese and Korean Bakeries in the Rowland Heights area, but the usual Chinese Whip Cream pastries. Not real bread places at all. At Con Pane Rustic Bread we had some more Hot Chocolate and I had a Roast Beef Sandwich. We also ordered a selection of the 3 sweet breads (my thought to0, but it was the sugary type) and we just told the person taking the order to select 3 pieces. We got 3 huge pieces of bread, one was chocolate, another hazelnut, and the third was a white bread along with cream cheese, butter, and a cranberry topping). And a seasonal scone. We only ate about a third of what we ordered, because there was so much food! And it was delicious. I hope one of the local Chinese/Korean restaurants decides to emulate this place (and separate themselves from their competition).

Labels: Chinese Food

Bao is Chinese dough with meat or filling, wet steamed to yummy goodness.

After reading this article on bao from the LA Times, I certainly have cravings for this yummy steamed dough.

The char siu bao I always get to eat are the ones filled with minced meat in sweetened soy sauce paste.

I have always took this food for granted and never realized there could be a "food science" behind the perfect bao.

Also after seeing this article, it has been dancing in my head to try and make some bao for the family. I wonder how my child would react to a homemade bao?

Labels: Chinese Food

Around Rowland Heights, a suburban Chinatown new restaurants start all the time. We went to one tonight and sadly, I"ll give it 6 months before it's gone. There have been a lot of restaurants where that one is.

Observations:

• Glass window on kitchen. Seems to be the new thing.
• Water tasted horrible (get a real filter).
• If your cook has nothing to do, don't talk to loud! My family could hear him clearly with a nice Beijing accent on the other end of the restaurant.
• Check out the competition and figure out why you will be better. Check out pricing.
  
• If you make Shau Lon Pau (sort of a steamed dumplings, dim sum), serve with a bowl, soy sauce, and spoon. And do it so the skin is not to thick, but not to thin. Tonight's was too thin resulting in the juice escaping. The correct way to eat it is put one on a spoon, so this way you don't lose any of the juice after you dip it in sauce in your bowl.
• Gifts are nice. This place gave a cup of soy bean juice. Nice gesture, but I thought it was a bit watered down and not ice cold. My wife said it was fine and I was just picking on the restaurant.
• JJ Bakery opened a cafe down the street and serves the same type of Taiwanese comfort food. And has a really cheap dish to bring people in. My wife's comment is JJ Cafe will just kill this place.
• Don't make your food to salty.
• Refills on ice water are nice! As well as tea.
• If your going to use a number in a menu, don't keep on restarting the number in each section. Start at the front and keeping on incrementing! This avoids translation issues. So you want which #5?
• A picture book is always nice! It saves guesses on a menu. Pork Chop Rice is one of my favorite dishes, but I have seen it done so many different ways! From the name you would think it's pork fried rice. Nope, it's a piece of deep fried pork on top of white rice, usually has some ground pork on it, Soy Sauce Egg, some cabbage, and tofu. Sometimes the pork chop is cut up, sometimes boneless, sometimes coated, and other times not.
• Give the bill before asked! And don't wait till it's asked for to calculate it.
• If you have nothing to do, instead of chatting, check on how your customers are doing.

Some very good food related books and dvd's:

• Dim Sum For Everyone! by Grace Lin
  
• Cooking with Kids - Exploring Chinese Food, Culture, and Language DVD
• Cooking with Kids - Celebrating Chinese New Year, DVD for kids!
• The Ugly Vegetables by Graced Lin
• Fortune Cookie Chronicles - Adventures in the World of Chinese Food by Jennifer Lee

The books by Grace Lin are great! So is the cooking with kids DVD's. The Fortune Cookie Chronicles is for adults and is a good read.

Labels: Chinese Food

If you go to Mystore Bakery, a Chinese Bakery in City of Industry right before closing you can get baked goods at half price. We stopped by tonight and were told 2 for a $1. So we bought a few nice pastries. They also have Fan Twans. It's rice, with a fried dough inside, with dried pork, and sometimes Chinese pickles. This one also had an egg.

My only suggestion was the place should also sell soy bean milk in the fridge. They have coke, 7 up, etc.

Labels: Chinese Food

Moon Festival is coming soon (October 3) and we're getting all excited here at ChildBook. (Not too loony, but loony enough heehee.) Gets me frequently thinking about the different Moon festival customs. This time, since I feel my stomach rumbling before blogging, I thought, why not blog about... ehmm... food.

Besides the iconic moon cake, did you know there are a few other food traditionally eaten during the Moon Festival? Here are some:

• Taro - a yummy root crop. It was said to be discovered by starving Ming Dynasty soldiers (brave dudes who lived about 1368-1644 C.E.) IN THE MOONLIGHT. Guess when? On the 15th night of the 8th lunar month! What an interesting coincidence. These days, taro is used in main dishes, breads, even drinks. Remember how I said it's yummy? Try it sometime.
• Pomelo - the Chinese grapefruit. It's yellow, and robustly round. Yup, looks like the moon. But remove the rind and you find a delicious pink citrus flesh inside. It was believed to ward off evil spirits and promote good health. In the Qing dynasty, the leaves were believed to be sacred.
  
• Snails - Hold that "Ew" and "Ick" first. Edible snails are nyom nyom nyom. Don't believe me? In the 1700s, it was said that there were 2 farmers with uncontrollable garden pests (snails). Each one thought it was a bright idea to catch the snails and dump it into the neighbor's yard. Soon, the bickering turned real nasty. (Wouldn't you if your neighbor kept dumping stuff into your yard? Anyhoo,) A wise magistrate attempted to restore the peace by hosting a meal for the nasty neighbors. The 2 neighbors were delighted with the sumptuous meal, only to find out that the menu was ... snails. Yum.

There are a lot of other food that people like to serve on the Moon Festival. Usually these symbolize the moon or other good values. Examples are apples, pomegranates, pears, persimmons,grapes, peaches, melons, peanuts, coconuts, watermelon seeds.

Don't forget your tea service and your moon cakes (!) on your Moon Fest table.

Labels: Chinese Food, Moon Festival

Students 'Express' Themselves20

20 students are protesting plans to have Panda Express take over unused retail space and transform the space into a restaurant. They would prefer to have a student run coop using local food. The only problem is money, which is why the group that manages the retail space is so interested in having Panda Express. This is the first time that Panda Express has had anyone protest them putting a restaurant in a school. Cal Poly Pomona where I got my Engineering degree even has one now.

Labels: Chinese Food

Teaching kids how to cook Chinese Food is a fun project for parents and kids. I have two DVD's as well as a book that are great for teaching children Chinese Cooking. The cooking DVD's have been pretty popular. The book the ugly vegetables is a fun book to read and learn about Chinese Vegetables, hence the title, The Ugly Vegetables. The book is one of my favorites.

				Cooking with Kids - Exploring Chinese Food, Culture, and Language
				Our Price: $24.95
				A cooking feature for kids, by kids A fun way to learn Mandarin Chinese tones, words, and phrases. For ages 8-12 1-pc DVD
				Cooking with Kids - Celebrating Chinese New Year, DVD for kids!
				Our Price: $19.95
				Second DVD for Teaching Kids Chinese Cooking, focuses on Chinese New Year with recipes. A cooking feature for kids, by kids A fun way to learn Mandarin Chinese tones, words, and phrases. For ages 8-12 1-pc DVD
				The Ugly Vegetables by Graced Lin
				Our Price: $6.95
				A little girl wonders why she and her Mom are growing plants in their garden that are so different from their neighbors'. Recipe for Ugly Vegetable Soup included!

Labels: Chinese Food

Drought Shrivels China’s Wheat Belt - NY Times.

Many people when they think of Chinese food, immediately think of rice. That is true for Southern China, but for Northern China think of noodles, which are made out of wheat. China is currently undergoing a drought, along with poor usage of water, is reducing the amount of wheat grown. This should help the US wheat crop, bringing a better price for it since recently the price of wheat has decreased due to increased plantings which were made based on use in Ethanol (which has gone down).

Labels: Chinese Food

1. Open restaurant offer great food and prices.
2. Raise prices to make a profit.
3. Less customers, so need to sell.
4. Lower prices to get lots of customers.
5. New person buys and starts over.

Other steps.
a. Chef leaves, changing taste of food, less customers.
b. Same type of restaurant opens next door. Landlord has no ethnics, price war ensues.

My wife and I went out to dinner at a local noodle house (the one in HK Plaza in RH) that just raised it's prices, and the waitresses are wearing jackets (may be they turned down the heat to save money). Good food, but the latest price hike does not make sense.

Labels: Chinese Food

Brazil bans Chinese food products from eTaiwan News. And I thought my friend who tried so hard never to eat anything from China about eight months ago was going overboard. An example was in the restaurant, he would only order a vegetarian dish and not even tofu, since you never knew where it was coming from. And this is a nice article for reference - Wary US Olympians Will Bring Food to China.

Of course some countries are being careful not to upset China, such as Thailand. A public health scare, a PR failure Bangkok Post, Thailand - Oct 4, 2008

Labels: Chinese Food, made in china

Best Asian breakfast restaurants in Los Angeles from the LA Times. Yes, this morning I had a Fan Twan with cold soy bean milk (traditionally should be hot) for breakfast. My bribe to get my daughter out of bed to keep her on a regular schedule since school starts this morning.

A Fan Twan is sticky rice, with a Chinese Donut inside, along with some dried pork and often Chinese pickles.

The list in the LA Times is around San Gabriel area, which is about 20 minutes from my house in good traffic. The place I went to was around 5 minutes, in the Hong Kong Plaza near Fullerton and Colima. On weekends the service is horrible, but the food is good. No competition in the area, unfortunately. I do want to convince my favorite Chinese bakery to start selling Soy Bean Milk, it would go great with the rolls and pastries they sell. They sell Coke and 7 Up, but not Soy Bean Milk? Hello, what is your customer more likely to buy? I also have a dream of convincing them to make and sell Fan Twans, there service is a lot nicer. Nei Nei Bakery on Colima in Rowland Heights is our neighborhood Chinese Bakery with a good selection, wonderful service, and nice people.

Labels: Chinese Food

Picking the right Chinese restaurant is challenging, especially when different people like different styles of Chinese food.

The following list, tongue and cheek, is meant for real Chinese restaurants, I understand that some people love their Orange Chicken at Panda Express (I have relatives like this), and if that's you, this list is not for you.

1. Does the menu have Chinese on it?
2. Is the menu only in Chinese? Good sign!
3. Health grade is other than an A (C shows real Chinese style, B is OK, A is pretty suspicious. A friend of mine told me this one :-) The exception to this is Vegetarian restaurants that should always have an A.
4. Does the restaurant have lunch specials? Do the lunch specials include a salad? If includes salad, that cancels out the positive of having lunch specials.
5. Does the restaurant only accept cash?
6. Is the restaurant a buffet all you can eat? Usual buffet is beef and brocalli, fried rice, orange chicken, almond chicken, egg flower soup, vegetarian egg rolls (not fresh).
7. Does the restaurant charge for rice (real Chinese Restaurant don't).
8 Do they charge for hot tea? Dim Sum restaurants are an exception.
9. Do they automaticaly serve you tea?
10. Are all the waiters Chinese? There was one Chinese restaurant in Yreka (Northern California near Oregon) I went to, where the only Chinese was the owner hidden in the back.
11. Do they have strange things on the menu like pigs legs, chicken feet, blood soup, etc. The more strange things the more authentic.
12. Does it have the word American in their name? Chinese American is always suspicious.
13. Do they server Boba? Good sign if they do.
14. Are you treated a bit rudely and the staff treats you like you are lucky to be served? Good sign.
15. Are there at least 3 typos on the menu?
16. Are the bathrooms not up to the standard of McDonalds? I see this issue even at nice Chinese restaurants unfortunately.
17. Are there employee lockers in the restrooms?
18. Are there a lot of Asian people eating there? Or is it mostly non-Asian.
19. How busy is it? Per a Chinese friend of mine, only go to restaurants that are busy.
20. At your table is there a bottle of soy sauce, vinegar, and hot sauce?
21. Are the specials only in Chinese on the wall?

Great read/book about Chinese Food - Fortune Cookie Chronicles - Adventures in the World of Chinese Food by Jennifer Lee For the younger Dim Sum For Everyone! by Grace Lin is a great book as is The Ugly Vegetables by Graced Lin

Labels: Chinese Food, Chinese Restaurants

Hong Kong Palace - They have a custard that is nice! Long lines on weekends!

Happy Harbor Restaurant - Next to 99 Ranch Market and you order from a menu.

Rowland Harbor Seafood Inc - More traditional, no frills Dim Sum. Little less costly than Hong Kong Palace. Long lines on weekends!

New Capital (I have not been to since they changed names). Parking in this plaza can be frustrating. On the second floor.
www.yelp.com/biz/new-capital-seafood-restaurant-rowland-heights

Newport Seafood Rowland Heights is very good for sea food and has good lunch specials.
www.yelp.com/biz/tan-cang-newport-seafood-rowland-heights

Cute book about Dim Sum

				Dim Sum For Everyone! by Grace Lin
				Our Price: $6.99
				Just right for young children, Dim Sum for Everyone! celebrates a cultural custom and a universal favorite activity--eating! Great book!

Labels: Chinese Food

Neat idea for a fun party. Make Dumplings! Dumplings consist of dumpling skins, ground meat (pork), and some vegetables (cabbage, sometimes mushrooms). And some egg whites for sealing the edges. There is not a lot of difference between making the filling for dumplings and making meatloaf.

Associated items:

				Dim Sum For Everyone! by Grace Lin
				Our Price: $6.99
				Just right for young children, Dim Sum for Everyone! celebrates a cultural custom and a universal favorite activity--eating! Great book!
				Cooking with Kids - Exploring Chinese Food, Culture, and Language
				Our Price: $24.95
				Should your kids Learn Chinese Cooking & some Chinese words? This DVD for ages 8-12 includes much more than just Chinese cooking! It gives your kids a fun way to learn Mandarin Chinese tones, words, and phrases.
				The Ugly Vegetables by Graced Lin
				Our Price: $6.95
				A little girl wonders why she and her Mom are growing plants in their garden that are so different from their neighbors'. Recipe for Ugly Vegetable Soup included!
				Fortune Cookie Fortunes by Grace Lin
				Our Price: $6.99
				After a young Chinese American girl opens fortune cookies with her family, she notices that the fortunes seem to come true, in a story which includes brief notes on the history of the fortune cookie.

Labels: Chinese Food