Welcome to Hungry Onion!
Do you get down to the South Bay much? I’m really curious to hear a one-to-one comparison between some of the South Bay’s better regional chinese restaurants and the top ones in SGV. I asked a question similar to yours on CH right before it imploded, but didn’t get a lot of specific feedback. One person mentioned a Lucky Peach dumpling crawl that you might be able to create a local analogue to, but the SGV one sounds good!
I’ve only been to SGV twice, and some of the things I ate that had no equal here are:
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The chicken rack in cumin sauce at Shen Yang in San Gabriel (there are other locations, might not be as good) is amazing, and an umami/salt bomb. There’s only one SFBA place that has that, and it doesn’t come close. I had a mixed experience with some of their other Northeastern Chinese dishes, but thought their Shenyang “marinated pork bone” was great, and their braided Chinese doughnut better than one I had at a South Bay restaurant.
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Kang Kang food court (Alhambra): has a ton of delicious looking items from the steam tables, but their Sheng jian bao were why I went. The SJB are fried pleat side down, which only two places in the SFBA do (I’ve only been to one, and I think Kang Kang’s are better, but with only 1/4-1/3 as much soup as Yang’s in Shanghai).
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What are the good Shanxi restaurants in SGV? I had a disappointing meal at JTYH.
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101 noodle express (Alhambra) has better Shandong Beef rolls than I’ve eaten in the SFBA.
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I’d be curious to hear how Omar (San Gabriel) Uyghur/noodles compares to the two Eden Uyghur’s in the SFBA.
