Asian food in Inland Empire

Americas - USA West Los Angeles
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I moved recently from LA County to the Inland Empire for work, and have been trying to find good places to eat, and good Asian food of course.

Two places that have stood out to me are Aroi Mak Mak in Redlands (Thai), and Southeast Asian Food To Go (Pan southeast Asian, but specializing in Cambodian food) in San Bernardino.

Aroi Mak Mak I’d compared favorably to Holy Basil. It’s not super sweet Thai food, has some fish and shrimp funk and fresh curry paste. I’ve gotten khao soi, tom kha, kai jiao. They have Thai spicy which yeah is about as spicy as places I’ve had in Thai Town. The head chefs / culinary directors are Thai.

Southeast Asian Food To Go, I got two Cambodian dishes, Prahok Ktis and Steak and Prahok. Both are served with raw veggies (cucumber and cabbage for the steak; cucumber, eggplant, cabbage, and string beans for the Prahok Ktis). One of my relatives would make Cambodian food, and I’ve been to Long Beach Cambodian restaurants and Cambodia before. This is my favorite Cambodian food I’ve eaten so far, and am really glad to have had it. They have 4 main dishes and some on printed paper under their main menu. They even have Twakoh / Gwakoh, the lactic fermented rice Cambodian beef and herb sausage. It’s even air dried! In Long Beach they’re usually still moist. The pork in the Prahok Ktis seemed hand chopped, with great texture. It’s like a coconut milk enriched pork sauce, saltier and savory from preserved salted fish, and aromatic from lime leaf and some chili and galangal. The Prahok for the steak was really good too, lime leaf again and lime I think, with eggplant. The operators are Cambodian but there’s a for sale sign on the front. There were papaya and chili plants in the front so that seemed like a good sign. The fermented fish here is like a salted fish, think anchovies but a bit lactic acid fermented too, and a slight nuttiness and funk can develop as well. Varies by maker though.

Saigon Food To go in Redlands is also really good for Vietnamese food, but the noodles are cold, for Togo. I haven’t asked them yet if they do stuff hot . . . No seating for this places but the food has been tasty. Pho, Bo Kho, Bun Bo Hue, and Banh Mi I’ve tried and are good as ones in SGV / Garden Grove / Westminster.

Red Chili Restaurant in Redlands for Chinese had pretty good pork intestines in their dry pot dish, had the Chinese dried chilis and green Sichuan peppercorns.

No pictures sadly, I don’t usually food blog. But Asian food in the Inland Empire weren’t very well represented online. First post!

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Welcome.

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we got some good picks on this list that I helped curate.

Seven Grams is very good and is originally from Tustin.

Daddyji is good though that is technically South Asian cuisine.

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@matthewkang
Whooo hoo! Yeah I’ll go to check those out. Thanks @paranoidgarliclover and all for welcoming me.

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Maybe a little outside of proper Inland Empire, but my family’s favorite restaurant is Szechwan Kitchen in Covina. My parents think its the best out of all the Sichuan they’ve tried in Los Angeles, and find it superior to Chengdu Taste, Sichuan Impression, and Mountain House.

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Welcome to FTC!!!

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14 posts were split to a new topic: Where is the Inland Empire?

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Rancho Cucamonga is overrun with good Chinese restaurants. Some housing tracts there are probably majority Chinese. Also a rapidly growing Chinese communities in Fontana and Ontario. This isn’t your father’s Inland Empire. (And if you consider Chino Hills to be IE, it surpasses Rancho Cucamonga’s Chinese collection.)

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Went back to the Southeast Asian food to go. Talked with the male chef, who goes by the name Sydney, who’s very conversational. We talked about Cambodian restaurants in Long Beach, too. He uses Kiwi knives sharpened with tunsten carbide, haha, quite cool. This time I got the Somlah Machu Krueng – a sour, savory beef stew with some tripe and Cambodian greens, like ong choy I think. Also got chicken curry to go, less sweet and spicy than Thai curry, and some Prahok and lime leaf aromatic stuff. Chicken wasn’t dry or tough. He has fried yams with coconut milk inside the batter or yam, also really great. He said he has bananas when they’re ripe too. He has pretreyy, which is Indian date and tastes like a good sweet sour Korean pear, texture is similar too. Super cool. Will try more of the menu each visit. Got more Kwakoh to go for family too.

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I had been thinking about doing an article on the development of Chinese food in the Inland Empire so I figured I’d sit down and write this. Note that Chino Hills (if it falls in the definition of Inland Empire), Corona and Eastvale had been previously covered in other articles.

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