818 JN Kitchen ~ 818 E. Valley Blvd.  San Gabriel, CA 91776 ~ (626) 307-5128

In northwest China, there is a region known as Xinjiang and although lamb is rarely eaten in other parts of China, Xinjiang is known for its barbecue lamb or mutton. In fact, the Mongolian tribes who inhabited these areas were the ones who introduced lamb to the rest of China. Due to its geographical location, the food of north western China has been influenced by both Indian and Middle Eastern cuisine, which can be seen in the use of cumin in their cooking.

One of the most popular ways to prepare and eat the lamb or mutton is cut them in chunks, do a dry cumin/chili pepper spice rub on them, pierce with wooden skewers and then grill on a coal-fired barbecue. Considering how compact these skewers are, they have become a popular street-food staple in Beijing and now can be found in the city of San Gabriel.

Open for more than a year, 818 JN Kitchen is tiny. Their dining room can probably only fit 14 to 16 people at one time and part of the kitchen where all the grilling happens is the size of a phone booth. What it lacks in size, 818 makes up for in a variety of tasty skewers and other foods that will definitely not break the bank. In fact, most of the menu items were priced at $6.99 or lower with skewers that range from $1.20 to $5.00 a piece. This is recession dining at its best. After my group settled down and checked the menu, we placed our skewer orders and decided to share some other dishes as well.

The first to arrive was the Special Home Guoba Soup. It was the least popular dish of the table. The soup seemed more like a gravy than broth and no one knew what to make of the torn pieces of what seemed like crepes that filled the bowl. I was pretty ambivalent about it myself. I didn’t dislike it, but I was fine with just having a small sampling before moving on to the next dish.

A plate of Oil Pancakes soon arrived. Another thing that Northern Chinese cuisine is known for is their breads, which is why this made it to our table. Unfortunately, I would have been fine without it. It was very dense and dry. Perhaps, this oil pancake wasn’t meant to be eaten alone, but torn in pieces and dipped in a stew or hot pot? Whatever the case may be, the oil pancakes were disappointing.

The next two dishes turned everything around. First, there was the Beef Pancake, which was a Pac-Man looking sandwich and one definitely worth chasing and devouring. Basically, you had something like a roast beef with cilantro and green onions between a toasted sesame bread. One is a snack, but two or three of them could be dinner. What are sliders again?

Then there was the Cucumber Salad with a sesame paste. It was so refreshing and I loved that the cucumbers were so crunchy and juicy. Our table loved it so much, we ordered a second plate just so everyone could get second helpings.

The last two dishes we shared arrived in between the skewers. One was the Pork and Leek Dumplings. The dumpling wrapper was thicker than I would have liked and although the filling was a bit oily, it still had good flavor.

The second one was a plate of pickled mixed vegetables, which was also both refreshing and crunchy. These vegetables acted as the perfect foil for the highly seasoned skewers, almost like a palate cleanser.

So now let’s talk about the skewers. While I did mention that Xinjiang is known for their lamb skewers, there’s actually quite a variety of other grilled meats offered at 818 JN Kitchen. Along with lamb, there were organ meats like lamb kidneys and chicken hearts as well as chicken, shrimp, quail eggs, corn and even yellow grouper.

The first skewer that hit my plate was the lamb. Considering the meat had a dry rub of cumin and chili peppers, the flavors were intense. One of my dining partners created a mixture of soy sauce and chili sauce in a plate to dip her skewers in and I soon followed suit. It added even more zing to the meat. As for the lamb itself, it erred more on the dry and chewy side, but that worked for me.

My next two skewers were the Chinese sausage and quail eggs. Although the Chinese sausage was a bit salty, I would order it again. Like the lamb, it was both chewy and also bold in flavor. It was actually almost cute seeing the little quail eggs on the skewer. They were a bit over boiled, but I still enjoyed them.

The grilled steak wasn’t on skewers and the meat was a bit tough, almost like jerky, but still no complaints from me.

Next to last was the grilled corn, which wasn’t seasoned at all, but perhaps, it’s not meant to be.

Last, but not least, was the grilled yellow croaker fish. Of all the skewers, this was the mildest in flavor. I’m not sure whether they forgot to crust it with the cumin and chili pepper or they did, but the cumin and chili just did not adhere well to the fish skin, but in the end, it was crispy and the fish meat was quite delicate.

To end, there are a couple of things I do want to point out. One, the quality of the meat may not be up to par for some. As long as you don’t expect tender cuts of meat and are fine with the meat being grilled to the point of being chewy, you’ll be good. It’s really all about the bold seasoning that make the skewers the stars of the show.

Also, since the same cumin and chili pepper seasoning is used and depending on how many skewers you eat, they all may start tasting the same. I think ordering the cucumber salad and/or the mixed vegetables and eating them in between the meats can give your tastebuds a rest in between bites. Finally, English is pretty limited at this restaurant, but the menu is in English, so there shouldn’t be a problem pointing out what you’d like to order.

Overall, I really enjoyed my meal at 818 JN Kitchen and I didn’t even have to sell my car to pay for my share of the meal. One thing I also learned while I was there was that the owners are all friends who are actually from Xinjiang and decided to open this restaurant together, which definitely tells me that this restaurant really does know its Xianjiang skewers.

To see more pics, go to:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/la_addict/sets/72157617898390596/

Check out the Pleasure Palate blog for more tasty discoveries!

CROM Live @ Mountain Bar ~ Chinatown

Metal upstairs… dance party downstairs.  CROM destroyed.

http://www.myspace.com/crom1

Has it ever happened to you that while you’re reading through a restaurant review that sometimes one dish will stand out to the point that the only reason you want to visit that restaurant is just to try that one dish? That’s exactly what happened to me while reading Kevin Cheung’s blog, 50 Meals, about his visit to Pa Pa Walk, a restaurant that specializes in Taiwanese street food. Click here to read that review.

According to Kevin, the words “Pa Pa” means “all over town” in Taiwanese. Taking that further, “Pa Pa Walk” means to “get out around town.” Given the definition of the restaurant’s name, it seems fitting that they serve food that you might normally order from a stall or cart on the streets of Taiwan, which means that food portions are more similar to tapas.

So what dish caught my interest? On the menu, it’s referred to simply as “Cream Soup in Fried Toast”, but when placed in front of you, it’s reminiscent of clam chowder bread bowls. Kevin further translated that the name in Chinese sounds just like “coffin cover”. Fellow blogger, Wandering Chopsticks, also was so entranced by Kevin’s post that she paid a visit herself to try this dish and with further research learned that this soup/bread dish is referred to as coffin bread in Taiwan. In her words, “[it] hails from Tainan, the oldest city in Taiwan and the capital from 1663 to 1885. It was so named because of its coffin-like appearance.” In my own research, I came upon the Primitive Culture blog, where the blogger wrote briefly about his experience with “coffin bread” in Taiwan with a brief mention from his dining companion about a possible American naval connection to this dish.

Basically, “coffin bread” is what first got me in the door of Pa Pa Walk, but what brought me back for a second visit was how good the food was in general. For my first visit, a friend and I shared 6 savory dishes, including the “coffin bread” and 1 dessert. The first three items that hit our table included the smoked duck, the bbq pork fried rice and the grilled Taiwanese sausage. The fried rice was good, if nothing special. I enjoyed both the duck with its crispy skin and the slight sweetness of the sausages, which when eaten with a piece of raw garlic, had a great savory component to them.


Following the sausages, came the broiled leafy greens and the leek pie, which was shaped more like an empanada. I liked how the greens still had a crunch to them and of course, being cooked with pork made this dish even more of a hit to my taste buds. The leek pie, which also had glass noodles as part of the filling, was my least favorite of the bunch. It was too greasy and the leek/noodle filling had an aftertaste that wasn’t working for me at all.

At last, the “coffin bread” arrived and what a sight! The bread, which was golden brown, was hollowed out and filled with the creamy vegetable chowder. The top part of the bread that was cut off, served as the lid and you can see the soup dripping down the sides of the bread box itself. Of course, we devoured that bread lid first, which was crispy and toasted to perfection and it’s where you can first get a hint of what the soup will taste like.

Finally, I took a spoonful of the soup and while there weren’t any bold flavors, it was rich, thick, creamy and filling. As we ate into it more, we started breaking off pieces of the bread walls to eat as well. Amazingly enough, even as we ate towards the bottom of this bread box, the bread still retained is crispy, toasty qualities. Personally, I don’t really like the “coffin bread” reference because to me, it’s more of a comfort food, especially during those colder months of the year when you want and need some warmth going into all your nooks and crannies. Come on, how can you go wrong with toasted bread and soup?

I don’t even know how we had room for dessert, but we did and ordered the strawberry slush, which basically is just condensed milk poured over shaved ice topped with sliced strawberries – simple ingredients that definitely took care of my sweet tooth. I only wish that they had smaller more individual orders because our order was huge and was really more for 4, maybe, even 6 people as opposed to just 2.

For my second visit, I brought my dining group and this time, we shared 10 savory dishes. Three of them were repeats from my first visit, the Taiwanese sausages, the cream soup in fried toast and the leek pie and my feelings about those dishes didn’t change from my first visit. This time around, we ordered the following items: pork and leek dumplings, sole and cilantro dumplings, stir-fry rice noodles, stir-fry napa with dry fish, deep fried oysters, deep fried chicken roll, steamed mini pork buns and the Taiwanese meatballs.

Of the two dumplings, I favored the light and delicate flavors of the sole and cilantro dumplings. The leek in the leek and pork dumplings was a little overpowering, to the point that I couldn’t even taste the pork. The rice noodles were good albeit not mind-boggling while the steamed mini pork buns were disappointing. The pork buns are supposed to be XLBs, but the soup inside these dumplings was quite minimal. You’re better off going to J&J, Din Tai Fung or Mei Long Village.

I liked how the dry fish added just the right amount of saltiness to the stir-fry napa and both the deep fried oysters and chicken roll were wonderful. The batter for the oysters wasn’t heavy or oily and I liked how the tofu wrapper for the chicken roll still had a little bit of a chew to it. The only dish I had difficulty with was the Taiwanese meat ball.

When we ordered this dish, I was expecting little round meatballs and what arrived was something I didn’t recognize at all. It looked like a little mountain cut in quarters with some kind of meat filling inside the base. At first, I thought we had the wrong order, but checking with our waiter, it was the right order. Our waiter further told us that the covering was a kind of starch. I think he said it was made up of a rice starch.

I had a taste, but I couldn’t get into it. First, I didn’t really like the sauce and I can’t even tell you why. I just didn’t like it. The texture of that starch was also too glutinous for my taste and for the life of me, I couldn’t identify the meat that was inside this starchy mountain. If anyone has been to Pa Pa Walk and have tried this dish dish before, I’d love to know more about what the ingredients actually are.

With around 100 food items on their menu and I’m not even counting the beverages or desserts, Pa Pa Walk definitely offers a variety of Taiwanese foods. In writing this blog entry, it reminds me that I’ve only covered 10% of their menu. Considering that I really enjoyed both meals, even with a couple of exceptions, perhaps it’s time for a re-visit and it’s a place you my consider checking out for the first time yourself.

To see more pics, go to:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/la_addict/sets/72157610253741407/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/la_addict/sets/72157610330467497/

Pa Pa Walk
227 W Valley Blvd # 148B
San Gabriel, CA 91776
(626) 281-3889

If you’re into ethnic food, check out the Pleasure Palate blog for more tasty discoveries!

As you’re reading the title of this blog entry, you may be wondering exactly what is an “xia long bao” or XLB for short. While no expert, this is what I came up with in my initial research about this tasty dumpling treat.

To start, xiao long bao (literally “little basket bun”; also known as a soup dumpling) is a type of baozi (filled bun or bread-like item) from the Southern provinces of China, including Shanghai and Wuxi. Xia Long Baos are traditionally steamed in bamboo baskets, hence the name.

It can be filled with hot soup and meat and/or vegetarian fillings, as well as other possibilities. The fillings are wrapped in something like a jiaozi wrapper that turns almost translucent after being steamed. Also referred to as Shanghai steamed buns or juicy dumplings, they can be recognized by their unique design, as the filled wrapper is gathered up into fine folds at the top, prior to steaming.

One way to eat your XLB generally involves pouring Chinese black vinegar into the small saucer which contains ginger that usually arrives with your order. Gently dip the dumpling into the vinegar and than deposit onto a Chinese soup spoon. Take a bite out of the skin and sip the soup out. Then you can drizzle some vinegar on top along with the ginger and then enjoy the rest of the dumpling. Of course, there are may be other ways to eat XLBs, but in the end, just find the way that works best for you, keeping in mind that the soup coming out of the dumpling may be quite hot.

Those of you familiar with the San Gabriel Valley know that we are blessed with some of the best and authentic Chinese dining outside of China itself. What’s even more exciting is that there is quite a of variety of regional Chinese cooking styles reflected in the restaurants in the area, which is why I actually had to narrow my choices down to just 4 for the “Xia Long Bao” crawl that I set up for my dining group. Of the 4, I’ve already visited three on separate occasions, but this time I wanted to have more of a “side by side” comparison. The crawl started in a shopping plaza in the city of San Gabriel because there were literally three Shanghai restaurants right next to each other that served XLBs.

Our first stop was Mei Long Village where our group of 8 sat down and ordered an order each of their Crab and Pork XLBs and their Pork XLBs. When asked if we wanted anything else, I simply said No and believe me, we got some very puzzled looks from the wait staff during our short time there. Those puzzled looks basically followed us into the next two restaurants as well.

Soon both sets of XLBs arrive. By the way, as you’re looking at my photos, you may notice that I add black vinegar to my Chinese Spoon before adding the XLB. My personal preference is to sip the soup along with the vinegar. Anyway, back to the soup dumplings. First, I want to comment on the dumpling wrapper, which while not as thin as the ones at the famed Din Tai Fung or as thick as the ones at J&J, which we’ll be visiting later on, it still retained some delicate characteristics. It was a happy medium. As for the soup inside, it had a good amount, but while the pork filling was seasoned well, the crab/pork filling actually was literally a little hard and the crab flavors were not shining through, but for the most part, the soup dumplings at Mei Long Village were a good start for our crawl.

Next up was Dragon Mark, which was right next door. At Dragon Mark, they only had the Pork XLBs on the menu, so that’s what we ordered. When it came to appearance, they were smaller and tighter than the soup dumplings we had at Mei Long Village. They actually fit quite compactly on my spoon whereas the MLV dumplings didn’t. We were hoping that good things came in small packages. Unfortunately, while the pork filling itself was quite tasty, everything else fell beyond the mark, pun intended. The dumpling skin was thick, a little hard to bite into and there was hardly any soup to speak of. It was definitely time to move on.

Our next stop was J&J, right next door to Dragon Mark. Compared to MLV and Dragon Mark, this was the busiest of the three Shanghai restaurants which definitely was a good sign. At J&J, the menu had both pork and crab/pork XLBs and of course, we ordered both. One thing to note here is that the XLBs on the menu are referred to as Steamed Pao, so that’s what you’d actually order. Soon the dumplings arrived and compared to Dragon Mark and even to MLV, they were quite bountiful.

While not delicate like at MLV or hard like at DM, the dumpling skin for the J&J XLBs was thick and a little chewier, but given the filling, the skin was perfect for what was needed. As for the fillings, remember how I mentioned the word “bonanza” earlier? J&J’s soup dumplings were amazing. The crab/pork XLB was definitely the hit with the entire group.

Whereas with the MLV crab/pork soup dumpling, you could barely make out the crab, the J&J version was chock full of crabby flavor and along with J&J’s pork XLB, both of them really brought a new definition to the words “soup dumpling.” If the skin was any thinner, the soup probably would be leaking out. J&J definitely was not shy when it came to the amount of soup in their XLBs, especially when in immediate comparison to the stinginess of the XLBs we had at Dragon Mark.

If we had ended our XLB crawl at J&J, no one would have complained. That’s how happy we were about J&J, but how can you do a true XLB comparison without stopping by Din Tai Fung, the restaurant who many feel serves the best soup dumplings in town, so DTF became the last stop in our journey and for that we piled into cars and made the trip to Arcadia.

Although our primary reason to visit Din Tai Fung was their soup dumplings, both their pork and crab/pork XLBs, we decided to order a few other items as well. Since most of us have never had their regular non-soupy dumplings, we got the chicken dumplings and the shrimp/pork dumplings. Both were tasty and while not soupy, their fillings were moist and were seasoned well.

Other additions included the Shanghai rice cakes and the prettily presented rice and pork shiaomai. We also ordered red bean steamed dumplings which was a first for me since my usual experience with red bean fillings is in something fried/deep fried. The other dishes we ordered did not disappoint.

So now on to the famed Din Tai Fung XLBs, which were an interesting mix of the other three soup dumplings we tried. The dumpling skin was delicate or actually more delicate than the MLV version so I felt like I had to take extra care picking them up with my chopsticks. They were small and compact like the Dragon Mark version. Like the J&J version, these soup dumplings were definitely soupy and overall, I can see why the Din Tai Fung XLBs always gets lots of praise. What’s also fun about DTF is that you can actually see the dumpling makers at work through glass windows.

In the past, DTF has been my go to place for soup dumplings. However, after these side-by-side comparisons, my 7 other dining companions and myself came to one conclusion. Simply, of the 4 XLB versions we tried, we all liked the soup dumplings at J&J the best with the crab/pork being the top choice overall.

While we liked the DTF soup dumplings, the flavors of the fillings seemed almost too subtle. What J&J had over DTF was a bolder flavor. Simply, you took a bite out of the J&J crab and pork soup dumpling and you could really taste the crab and their pork XLBs really tasted “porky.” Our group also felt that the J&J XLBs had more soup and that the soup was more flavorful overall. In general, the conclusion of this whole XLB crawl was a bit unexpected. I really thought that Din Tai Fung would win the day, but for this group of diners, DTF was second place followed by Mei Long Village, with Dragon Mark being a distant last.

Overall, it was a really fun foodie experience and the fact that I was able to do something that involved visiting 4 different Shanghai restaurants just to eat one specific type of regional ethnic food is one of the main reasons I love dining in Los Angeles. I’m pretty sure that restaurants serving xia long baos in close proximity to each other is not something you’ll find in just any town across the US, so I definitely consider myself very lucky. One last thing to mention is that between the 8 of us, this crawl cost us around $16 each, with the bulk of the money spent at Din Tai Fung since we had ordered other dishes. So if you want to do a little XLB exploring on your own, pull a few friends together and maybe your outcome would differ from ours.

To see pics, go to:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/la_addict/sets/72157610565855764/

Mei Long Village
301 W Valley Blvd
San Gabriel, CA 91778
(626) 308-9238

Dragon Mark
301 W Valley Blvd # 110
San Gabriel, CA 91776
(626) 282-5953

J&J
301 W Valley Blvd
San Gabriel, CA 91804
(626) 308-9238

Din Tai Fung
1108 S. Baldwin Avenue
Arcadia , CA 91007
626-574-7068

Macau Street ~ 429 W. Garvey St. Monterey Park, CA 91754 ~ (626) 288-3568

The night before Ali “Wrath of” Khan and I hit Macau Street for one of the most epic cheap meals of my life, I ate at Golden City, a Chinese restaurant in downtown. At the time, it was pretty goddamn good, but by the time I left Monterey Park’s Macau, it had been reduced to mere shite in my burning eyes.

For anyone who doesn’t know Monterey Park, it’s spit-roasted by Alhambra on top, Montebello on the ass, and is more Chinese than Gin Ling Way, Grant Ave. and Hester St. combined. But it’s not shitty plastic ninja swords, tin dragons, and paper fans, it’s a nice suburban neighborhood of clean streets where families enter a Bank of America busting Mandarin characters on its sign and there stand legions of dynamite Chinese eateries like a Sino-Pico Blvd.

Macau, on the other hand, is one peninsula and two islands off of Southern China, ruled by the Portugese until 1999. I have a friend who is a major player from Vegas, familiar with just about every shade of sketchballl on the planet, who spent some time working in Macau’s gaming industry and said it was the sleaziest place he’d ever witnessed ( the Girls Gone Wild dude being the sleaziest person he’s ever met). It is literally overrun with pirates, hustlers, pimps, Triads, sheists, shylocks, and hired-muscle vying for pieces, according to him. China’s various parts have many different styles of cuisine and though Macau Street is light on Portugese influence, it still has unique dishes cooked in a one-of-a-kind way.

On to the feast! “King” Khan and I are big fellas with voracious appetites, no less when properly gassed-up on a drive from some Thai Town safehouse. The restaurant wasn’t too crowded on a Sunday, with a couple of families chilling in this clean, spacious, tasteful spot. We ordered up about four big dishes in our starved state, more food than a person should ever need, which all came in at about $20 each. The first dish to hit table was calamari.

The squid was piled up in fried golden rings and squiggly legs on a bed of jalapeno and chives. The pieces almost melted in my mouth, bursting open and oozing a creamy flavor, almost like warm baked brie or pierogi. They were not at all chewy or oily tasting, just fried lightly enough to feel cooked, with a refreshing garlic and black-pepper batter, and no fishy taste. We ate everything, even scooping up the shredded savory lettuce scraps on the bottom to get at more sabor.

Next came some mouth-watering lamb chops we spied on the menu, which probably had the most Portugese influence of our food. These fatty, luscious chops were like carniverous Sugar Daddies on a thin bone stick, near-carmelized with a natural, sweet flavor that was not overpowering, but divinely balanced and pleasing. Thin strings of grilled onion and cilantro were dashed over the slightly braised tops that provides a sheer cover for the purely tender middles, and the meat itself has tiny, thin pockets to crack open and get at the best juicy bits. Only the slightest taste of game lingers in this lamb, in the just the right way. All food we ate at Macau Street redefined freshness.

Next came noodles. OODLES of noodles in fact!!! The noodles were not drowned in oil like lots of Chinese places are into. The cappellini-thin angel-hair was not super-tasty itself, but made for an excellent conduit to the surrounding bits and pieces. Thin ribbons of egg were layered over chunks of pork and fat shrimp , that when combined, exploded in the intersection of so many subtle flavors, scallions providing the strongest base. There was really a lot going on here, with the various bit-players hitting their mark on my pallate at perfect intervals.

We were about to combust like the 45th and 46th drummers of Spinal Tap (respectively) at this point, but how could we go back without some Peking duck, especially knowing we’d be hungry an hour later (groan)? It was the best decision of my life, in a life of some very poor decisions. For five years I used to be the #1 temp at Martha Stewart Living when I lived in New York, helping manage the lives of their CEO and artistic director (and even the head felon herself) while simultaneously hustling whatever was handy to designers and mailroom friends in the company’s inter-office envelopes. I picked up a little knowledge on food styling there, how positioning a turkey’s pum-pum away from the camera makes for a more appetizing shot, lighting, patina and whatnot. The duck came out, no shit, with fucking golden bronze skin! It was glowingly glazed.

With the first crackle of skin, I was having a foodie ‘Big O,’ as I think was an ecstatic Ali, who like me was deliriously laughing as we stuffed our greasy faces with more duck. The crisp skin penetrates the soft warm flesh, making its own duck taco of shell and tender meat that almost liquifies like heated butter in the mouth. The duck was cooked-to-order perfection, not at all fatty, just fall-off-the-bone delicious, swimming in a slightly sweet sauce.

I’ve was once on a week-long food tour of Taiwan, where the intermingling of disparate parts of China produce what many say is the best place for Chinese food on the planet. After my trip to Macau Street, which ended up as a 3-hour feast well into moonlight, I’d argue the same about Monterey Park. Hit this spot if you like to eat well for not too much. Xie Xie!!!!

Empress Pavilion ~ Bamboo Plaza ~ 988 N. Hill St. @ Bernard St.

Los Angeles, CA 90012

On the second floor of a mini-mall at the crown of Chinatown, classic, authentic Cantonese cooking is done solidly at Empress Pavilion, and for decades long it has served as a popular banquet-hall for award-winning dim sum and seasonal specials. It’s easy to say the food at Empress is perfect, every bite confirms the suspicion that nothing is done too wildly, but with just the right amount of respect, skill and taste.

Empress boasts a gi-normous menu of Chinese eats. Cantonese style eats hail from Guangdong Province in South-East China where Hong Kong is located. Cantonese is the style we most commonly think of when we eat Chinese, where the food is pretty mild and “any animal whose back faces the sun can be eaten,” as they say.

Empress was empty when we stormed through, leaving an echo in the giant chamber of round, white-draped tables. Strong hot tea was poured, its herbal essences strong to the point of overppowering as the pot came closer to empty.

Spring rolls ($5 for 4) arrived with very thin, crisp skin giving way to a juicy intermingling of supple chicken and and firm, savory mushrooms. Soon, our dishes were dropped off one by one. First, a “spicy” shredded pork, dark from a sauce swimming in chilis and shallots, was divine, though not spicy. The juicy pork is cut into thin strands or coils almost, with sweet flavor…(Continued Below…)

A plate piled up with large white shrimp, medium-sized flat scallops and small bites of chicken ($11.75) lacked many vegetables or distractions, but was dusted with a garlic chili sauce that gave hints of red-wine over the softest scallops and crunchy, fleshy shrimp that were flavorful.

Proving that insanity is contagious, Kung-Pao Chicken (we had to go there-$8.25), a Sichuan dish, drowned in soft peanuts, bursting with tender chicken that picked up a sweet, nutty flavor from its companions. The chicken’s texture was almost reminsicent of a soft, well-made pastor, firm and supple in fringed curlicues, mixing with seared watercress and chilis, saturated in flavor.

Perhaps the Empress’ most famous dish is its Peking Duck or its Steamed Soft Dungeness Crab on garlic sauced flat noodles. Both are a little pricey, so we settled on the crab, it’s delectability legendary. The presentation of the crab alone was worth price ($24). Sitting in a bowl of buttery noodles and staring at us, daring us to figure out how to navigate it’s juicy innards, it was intimidating and beautiful.

The crab is prepared tableside and served in a small bowl, a leg or claw seduticely peaking out of the noodle broth. It is quite difficult to eat until you get hardcore about it, cracking its shell, sucking at its ball joints, wiggling a finger into it to get at every juicy bite. At first, the table didn’t feel it was the best thing on the table but as we accepted the challenge it’s simple flavors and juicy flesh seemed addictive. Eating its brains or whatever the odd looking guts were was equally challenging and rewarding with a subtle, clean taste. The crab was not overwhleming with flavor but definitely savory and soft, and the garlicky noodles underneath were amazingly tasty.

5 People stuffed their faces, with soft drinks too, for about $16 each. All food at Empress was outstanding, with well-balanced seasoning, alluring presentation and satisfying flavor. Its reputation endures with the class and elegance found in it’s food that is found in its black bow-tied waiters and tasteful decor.