Good Chinese Restaurants on the Wane?

[Diamondback]

And then you have the pains in the butt like me that have to make arrangements to leave ingredients out--I love Pad Thai but can't eat anything with fish or shellfish in it, so I usually have to ask if it can be left out or replaced with soy-sauce as a "stand-in liquid ingredient". Being a semi-regular at the particular places I frequent and a generous tipper means I usually get my way... it also helps that I frequent a couple little "mom 'n' pop" places run by folks with strong Old Country ties (can't tell if they're 1st or 2nd generation this side of the Pond).

I know, it's Thai not Chinese and this thread has expanded to "catchall Asian food", but if you're around Seattle, you might give Saya and Savan, both located in Kent, a whack.

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[Lincsong]

Let's move this thread to Connosieur.

 

[Brad Bowers]

Let's move this thread to Connosieur.

Good idea.

I'm sure folks on both coasts sneer at my choice for Chinese food, but it made the NY Times today!

Missouri Chinese - Two Cultures Claim This Chicken

I love finding these regional variations that you can't get anywhere where else. Some might decry the Americanization of a culture, but I think the melding of two cultures' foods is exciting and dynamic. But then, I've never had real Chinese food, so what do I know?lol

Brad

 

[FStephenMasek]

A few months ago we found a wonderful Korean restaurant in a very unlikely place. The food was good enough for it to be a white tablecloth place, and many Korean people eat there. The prices are low. It is on the basement level of a highrise, next to the chiller and boiler rooms, along the way to the parking levels. The address is 3540 Wilshire Blvd.

The best Asian food I've ever had in my life was a place called the "Mongolian Bar-B-Q" on upper State Street in Santa Barbara, when I was living out there in the early eighties. You pick the meat, vegetables and sauce and hand your bowl over to the chef, who stir-fries it with a long sword on a big round sizzling-hot griddle. Fresh, hot, delicious, and very inexpensive.

The best Mongolian BBQ we have found is Ghengis Khan at 23615 El Toro Rd. in Lake Forest, CA 92630 (949) 951-8296 in a "strip" shopping center in Lake Forest, CA near the Office Depot. They have the best pocket biscuits of any we have visited. There is one (Three Flames) on Manchester at Osage (near the RRR tracks) near LAX which has also been there 30 years or so and is good. We have seen some in malls which have noodles to pile high on the bowl, but don't like them.

 

[John in Covina]

I did have a pretty good encounter with a Dumpling specialist not too far from my house.

About a 5 minute ride south of the 10 freeway on Vincent Avenue in West Covina is a place called Hong Kong Plaza and they have about 10 different Asian restaurants. One is my closest good Vietnamese Pho place, but I did try the "1+1 Dumpling House" with friends recently and had some really good dumplings. Now I hope they don't change.

Transient Sparkling Double Happiness

 

[Feraud]

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Funny you should say that, yesterday I did a little search and the Yelp list came up with this:
http://www.yelp.com/biz/din-tai-fung-dumpling-house-arcadia

I got to swing by in the mid afternoon and had some of the pork-shrimp dumplings as a late lunch. It was excellent. The maitre'de came and made a sauce with the fresh ginger, the vinegar and chili paste/oil to which I added some soy sauce.

Yelp* has a cool Iphone app. You can search for restaurants by location, name or restaurant, or theme, and see a reviews and locations.

 

[Lou]

We've been pretty lucky in the Philadelphia area.

Yeah, we still have some good places in Philly. I've gotten good food from Beijing, a no-frills restaurant in the middle of Penn's campus. I haven't made it to Chinatown yet. In the burbs, I've found a couple of winners. But for every winner, it seems there are twenty glop joints. Good Japanese is even more difficult.