The Green Zone

While looking for bento supplies in the area, I came across a sustainability-oriented website that had listings of various restaurants that matched their mission. One of the restaurants on that list is the Green Zone, which advertised itself as having "entrees using locally-raised, farm fresh ingredients." I was intrigued because this restaurant in located smack-dab in the middle of the eating landscape that is the SGV, a place not well-known for that kind of organic, pro-local attitude.

I double checked with a browse through other SGV blogs and a quick perusal of yelp and chowhound. It seemed to be very favorable and generally the sentiment was "I can't believe it's located on Valley!" I convinced my sister to tag along yesterday and soon we were there. It's located in Valley Plaza next to many other restaurants.

The inside is modern but not cold, with wood accents and a green theme. Almost everyone else inside spoke Mandarin. Our waiter was nice, and I'm pretty sure he is the co-owner of the restaurant. The menu is sort of a pan-Asian, not-quite-fusion affair.

We decided to each order a dish and share the wild-caught sea bass over spinach salad. She got the seafood pasta with linguine. There's a choice of sea bass, salmon, or shrimp scampi, but our waiter offered to do a mix of the three. I decided to get that SGV standby: Hainan chicken over rice. I also ordered an organic ginger ale and my sister ordered a pomegranate-apple juice.


The salad came out after about a 10-minute wait. I liked the balsamic vinaigrette on the spinach, but the sea bass was a little bit too cooked for my liking. My Hainan chicken came out soon after. The presentation was beautiful, and everything tasted really, really good. I liked that they poached the dark meat so that it was not dry at all, and I didn't have to deal with picking the meat off the bones. The rice was very flavorful, and all the sauce accompaniments worked well with the chicken and rice.


After a bit of a wait the pasta came out and we both thought the portion was huge. There was quite a bit of seafood and the sauce was very liquidy. The pasta itself had a nice bite to it, and all of the seafood was cooked perfectly and tasted fresh. However, my sister felt it wasn't their strong point and said she would come back but not order the pasta again.


With everything we ordered the price came out to more than we would normally spend for lunch (this is the SGV after all), but I am sure it would have cost way more had it been in west LA or Pasadena. I look forward to returning. In fact, I think I will go back next week and try some of the other things on the menu, like the salmon triangles with tri-colored salt, or the organic wonton soup. I recommend the Hainan chicken and may even like it better than what they serve at Hainan chicken standard Savoy down the street.

The Green Zone
534 E Valley Blvd.
San Gabriel, CA 91776
(626)288-9300
menu

Emperor Taste Seafood Restaurant

I pretty much grew up with dim sum. Even before preschool my heart favored certain dim sum dishes and I consumed unhealthy amounts of tea.

For the sake of this review, I will try my best to phonetically translate the dishes--I know only how to speak it in Cantonese.



When Emperor Taste Seafood Restaurant had its grand opening, it disappointed and subsequently warded off many people. Fast forward to now: The dim sum is great. The service? So attentive that my plates were changed several times in one hour. In addition, its prices are competitively low: barely under two dollars per dim sum dish.

One factor I use to judge the skill of a dim sum maker is the wrapper of the har gow. The har gow presented to me had all great qualities. It was not made the day before--you can tell this by the smell of the shrimp and the way the wrapper breaks when you bite into the dumpling. The wrapper was translucent and thin--in addition, when I bit into it, the wrapper did not fall apart in my mouth in chunks. The shrimp was definitely fresh and had no strange smell.

Another factor I use to judge a restaurant serving dim sum is the quality of their gee hung (basically congealed pork blood cut into squares). This is used to judge the overall quality of the restaurant as it is one of the hardest dishes to make well. Again, like the shrimp in the har gow, smell is key. This gee hung tasted well and its consistency was rightly firm. The only smell coming from it was the smell of cooked gee hung and nothing else. Had it smelled like anything else--be it putrid, or flowery, or especially if there is an overwhelming, powerful smell--I would have raised my eyebrow.

The rest of the dim sum was just as good as the har gow and gee hung. Nothing was lacking--a good example was the cheung fun. The noodle itself was smooth and its filling was fresh.

Despite all these attractive qualities of this restaurant, there is a low number of customers. I attribute the bad grand opening as the culprit. Because of the amount of customers there is no waiting in line--but! the dishes are not steaming hot.

I recommend this place for high quality dim sum. Not only do you bypass long lines found at other dim sum restaurants, but you also get the superb dim sum at a great price.


Emperor Taste Seafood Restaurant
1039 E. Valley Blvd., #B201
San Gabriel, CA 91776
(626) 280-6668

Mon - Sun 9:00AM to 3:00PM, 5:00PM to 10:00PM

Seven Courses of Beef

My all-time favorite Vietnamese food would have to be the specialty served at Anh Hong Restaurant: 7 courses of beef. As soon as you walk in the door the delicious smell of the food overwhelms you. I would not wear my best clothes, because they end up smelling like the restaurant. Also remember to wash your hands before going, because you'll be using them a lot.

What is 7 courses of beef? Well, not only is it literally its namesake, it also entails a special interactive way of eating. Each course is accompanied by rice paper and a bevy of vegetation like green leaf lettuce, cucumbers, bean sprouts, and marinated carrots and daikon. The idea is to wrap the various courses of beef in the rice paper filled with your choice of vegetables. Two sauces for dipping come as well, and I like to mix the two for the flavor.

The courses are:

• Special Beef salad (strips of beef with a lot of carrots, celery, onions marinating in a vinegary dressing)
• Beef Fondue ( cooking strips of beef in a boiling broth)
• Beef meatballs
• Beef meatloaf
• Beef wrapped in Hawaiian Lot Leaves
• Grilled beef with lemongrass and onions
• Special beef rice soup (my favorite, a great tasting beef broth with rice, ground beef, and tiny pasta)
  

One orders by telling the waiter how many "orders" of the 7 courses of beef you want. One order is enough to feed two. Usually my family gets 3 "orders" for 5 people, but we also order an extra course: grilled shrimp and squid, which can be found in the menu under the heading "House Specialties." In this interactive meal, you grill it yourself, of course.

It's a fun group experience and worth the wait on busy nights. I always eat here at least once during my visits home, although it's not something I would eat daily because it's so rich.

Seven Courses of Beef
8748 Valley Blvd. #A
Rosemead, CA 91770
(626)572-9805

The busiest noodle place on Valley

Luckily, I unknowingly did research for my first post yesterday: I ate at one of my favorite restaurants on Valley Blvd, called Mien Nghia Noodle Express. The place is always packed on the weekends because the noodles there are awesome. I personally like what's called "Cha Siu dry noodles" in Cantonese, because it's a one of a kind dish that I can't (and haven't) found at any other restaurant. It's not on the menu, but you can ask for "BBQ Pork Egg Noodles" with the soup on the side.

The cuisine is labeled " hu tieu" in Vietnamese because it's not your typical pho or bun. There's seafood noodles, beef stew, and the "dry" noodles I like to eat, that come with soup on the side. The noodles aren't plain, however, because they pour flavored oil in along with your Cha siu or seafood. Most items can be eaten with rice noodles or egg noodles.

The service is informal, the host speaks several languages (Cantonese, Mandarin, Vietnamese, and English), and usually the same woman will take orders at every table. If you eat there often enough, she'll remember what you like. Try the iced coffee with condensed milk (Ca Phe Sua Da) or the lemonade with soda (Soda Chanh) if you want, and iced tea comes without question.

It's a great place to eat noodles, and one of the places I miss when I'm away at college. It's open from 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week except on holidays when they close at 6 p.m.

Mien Nghia Noodle Express
406-408 Valley Blvd.
San Gabriel, CA 91776
(626) 570-1668