With Wang Jia seeming to have closed and Old Shanghai Kitchen replaced by Shanghai Bistro, does anyone have any consensus as to what they’d currently rank as the “(b)est” Shanghainese place in the SGV? Yes, this is for consideration for part of an article (no, not a “Top 10 list”), but I’d like input from y’all so I can make sure I haven’t missed or overlooked someplace worthy.
wang jia closed? i’d heard that they’d changed ownership in the past year.
bamboo creek which technically wasn’t shanghai-ese anyway has changed names twice i think
there’s
- shanghai restaurant in focus plaza,
- shanghai dumpling house in the SG hilton plaza
- kuan’s (self advertised as “K & Y” for reasons beyond my ken) that has the buy one get one free XLB (the free rack has XLB with holes in them) and offer some shangai dishes on their menu;
- shanghai gourmet in monrovia;
- chang’s (arcadia) has a few shanghai dishes on their menu but i hesitate to categorize them as such;
- rice yummy in rosemead - haven’t been yet;
- tasty dumpling house in alhambra was rumored to have dumped the multi-colored dumplings for a shanghai-ese menu - haven’t been yet;
- the aforementioned shanghai bistro went to a more bistro type approach and i hope it works out for them;
- the 3 XLB places in prospect plaza (NOTE: i do not automatically lump XLB with shanghai-ese even though the shanghai-ese claim them as their own - there are a lot of taiwanese places serving XLB, but IIRC those three places (J&J, meilong village, and… the one with the eyebrows if you get the reference) are shanghai-ese in origin;
those are the ones that come off the top of the head, anyway. i’m sure there are a few others.
S & W China taste in Industry and Shanghailander Inn in Hacienda Heights.
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is lake spring still there?
and ho ho in el monte?
and of course, that place in focus plaza that does the giant soup dumpling?
and emperor noodles for their overly doughy SJB.
and southern mini-town
has shanghai no.1 closed? surprised no one’s mentioned them yet.
Are you just listing them, or you are listing them as the best Shanghainese in the SGV?
I hope it’s only the former.
These are my Shanghai food informant’s favorite Shanghai style restaurants, and I kind of like them too. I also like Shanghai Mini Town myself, but I wouldn’t trust my taste in Shanghai style food.
If you like Shanghailander, then you should check out the new Queen’s Kitchen in Walnut. Manned by a bunch of kitchen staff refugees from Shanghailander.
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“There can be only one.”
Oops - I mean “There can be only 一個 .”
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Hi @ipsedixit,
Ooh! Does that mean that Shanghailander is no longer worth visiting? I had bookmarked it ever since @Porthos talked it a while back, but just never made it out there.
Do you have a favorite Shanghainese place, ipse?
I did not mean to imply that. And I honestly don’t know. I don’t get to Shanghailander very often, and find very little reason to go out of my way to get there. I was just noting that Queen’s Kitchen is staffed by many of the same kitchen talent that was at Shanghailander.
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Jim,
Check your PM’s.
I just scanned the Yelp pics for a handful of SGV Shanghainese places…
How is Lion’s Head not ordered? My dad side is Shanghainese via Taiwan, really you don’t have to eat XLB’s and SJB’s with every meal, really. My paternal Grandma, from what I hear made really good Lion’s Head, that cabbage probably tasted better than a XLB filling. Over rice, it is pure soul food.
Shanghainese is not only about XLB’s and SJB’s?? So true.
Surf n’ Turf Shanghai/Taiwan style, recent meal in Taipei. A double “header”, Lion’s head and Fish head. Food for the soul, indeed.
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Eating the Lionfish!
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That looks glorious!
So jealous
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i tried tasty dumpling house last week.
the XLB were juicy, though the skins were on the thick side.
their pork in garlic sauce was intriguing as it included what seemed to be dried orange peel.
and their spicy fried chicken was actually pretty good
i didn’t choose the hot & sour soup, but i noted that the hot was entirely from black pepper, which is kinda rare in my experience.
that and the orange peel in the pork isn’t necessarily better, but it’s unique enough to make me want to go back and see what else they do differently.
i forgot to include emperor noodles as a place that claims to serve shanghai-ese cuisine. their SJB are too doughy for my tastes, and the noodles were awful.
Barry, you mentioned Emperor Noodles in your follow up post. I concur on the SJB, flavorful, but too dry and doughy. When I’ve had noodles, they were decent, but nothing spectacular.
Does anyone have any idea about Wang Jia? It’s been closed every time I’ve gone by since December, even on Saturday nights and even during CNY festivities, which was once quite bustling there. I’ve checked and all the booths and tables and restaurant furnishings are still inside. I noticed a note in Chinese in the window the last time I went by, but as I leaned in to get a closer look, a homeless woman went psycho when her dog wandered off. Her dog came around the corner towards me, not to attack, but I think seeking help in escaping. Felt sorry for the little guy.
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