We both liked Kar Son and recommend it. It’s not going to blow you away—it’s not “must try”—but it’s our favorite Chinese restaurant outside the SGV. All five dishes we tried were good and at a consistent quality level. We liked that the dishes tasted light on oil (but otherwise pretty standard preparations). No liquor or wine license yet. They offer only two teas—“green” and “black”—but the green tea turned out to be good quality jasmine.
p.s.: the dishes marked vegan are actually vegan optional (the default mapo tofu has meat). I wouldn’t be surprised if even the vegan mapo tofu has chicken broth.
I enjoyed a delicious lunch at Kar Son yesterday. The cooking felt earnest and focused. Wok hei in my Chinese sausage fried rice took it to another level.
Chef Son and I spoke for a bit. Super nice guy. He hails from HK, but is skilled in many other Chinese repertoires in addition to Cantonese cuisine. He is aiming for a more traditional approach to the menu here, although he has space to interpret certain dishes through his own lens, as his terrific sweet and sour pork exemplifies. As for location: Why ROW? Well according to the chef, he actually tried to open elsewhere Downtown, but ROW offered him the best space and accommodations for the extreme high-heat traditional wok setup which he desired. This place reminds me of what Chef Ryan was doing at Needle, but in a bigger edifice. Best of luck to the team at Kar Son!
They said they were out of the branzino but instead had steamed seabass. I think it was a whole “black seabass” that was rubbed with Shaoxing rice wine, nicely steamed, seasoned with soy sauce, and then covered with scallions that were “sizzled” by pouring hot oil over them. Basically, this recipe: Steamed sea bass with ginger and spring onion/Qing zheng lu yu æ¸…è’¸é±¸éš | Matching Food & Wine
Everything I know about Chinese cooking I learned from Fuchsia Dunlop.
Went last weekend. Quality and pricing is solid for the area. I live super close so looking forward to slowly trying more. Chef/staff super friendly. Would skip the XLB and fried milk.
