have you considered sourcing from American Unagi?. Believe they may already supply some local japanese places in LA and yes, for all the home cooks out there, they sell over the web already cleaned to boot.
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Where the mushrooms?
Will Horowitz in NY is the US expert: The Hard-Core Ingredient More Chefs Are Serving As a Point of Pride . If you PM me, Iâm happy to put you in touch.
Finally tried Needleâs charsiu.
Itâs as advertised. Excellent even after reheating. Really well balanced flavors, not cloyingly sweet or sticky and perfectly juicy and tender.
Ran out of our own charsiu and supplemented with needleâs for this Cao lau.
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Lean or fatty?
Are you joking? our home made one was porkbelly⊠
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A study of Needle char siu
char siu | salmon creek farms pork shoulder, honey glaze, hot mustard
Picture says a thousand words. I need more char siu! @JeetKuneBao
Lovely lacquer with a bit of char. @Sgee
beef curry | short rib, potato, tomato, carrot, yellow curry, chili oil
This HK style curry is super robust in flavor but itâs got enough acidity in the sauce and the occasional burst of brightness from the tomatoes to balance it. Almost everythingâs dialed in and refined. You think that the potato and vegetable in this curry wonât have much bite because theyâve been stewed down too much? Think again! Needleâs curry isnât your typical HK cafe curry. Each ingredient here is treated with care and retained its structure and color vibrance. As if thatâs not enough, the delicious chili oil that accompanied the dish is essentially an umami-ladened XO sauce that gives the curry a generous kick and lifts the dish to another level.
Even though this curry is already my favorite HK style curry in the city and a winner in my book, I do have two minor quibbles that most people wouldnât care about:
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The potatoes are typically a star of a nice HK curry because theyâre so flavorful. However, even though I like that the Needle potatoes are creamy and comes in big chunks, but perhaps due to its size, the flavor of the curry didnât get soaked in. Maybe these potatoes can sit in the curry longer to suck up more delicious curry flavor?
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The âidealâ beef briskets texture in a HK curry should be juicy, tender, yet gelatinous/elastic(the sinew) with a healthy amount of fat cap retained and the layer of membrane, or sinew, mostly untrimmed which is what makes it called ćè © in Cantonese. On the other hand, the Needle short ribs are slightly dry, lacking a bit of unctuousness that the fat cap brings and that all important gelatinous/elastic texture is pretty much missing. It would be nice if less of the fat cap and the white layer of membrane is trimmed off. But this could very well be what Needle is aiming for from the start.
For reference, the red arrows below show the parts that are trimmed off in Needleâs short ribs. Theyâre the key! But I do understand that many Western palates often donât appreciate this gelatinous/elastic texture.
Picture stolen off Google
Picture stolen off Google
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Those are the most aesthetic pictures I seen of Char Siu. Careful donât let Eater jacked those.
That curry looks great but I agree with your minor quibbles. Chef Ryan family is from HK and he is a SGV son so he has probably had this curry dish many times over the years growing up. I think he was definitely look for refinement. But yeah for me I love the fat/tendon etc
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If it can potentially help out the restaurant, Iâm all for it.
I briefly conversed with Needle on IG today and they said that they typically use russet potato but switched to Yukon Gold for this batch because they found some nice ones at the market and felt compelled to them. Apparently, these donât soak in the flavor as well even after a couple of days.
As for the fat and membrane trimmings on the short ribs, what theyâre offering is their preference especially in regards to the fat cap because they donât want unappealing oil pooled up in the sauce. But the doneness on this batch was a bit off to his liking.
You really should try this curry. Itâs both refined and nostalgic at the same time! But for others, YMMV if they didnât eat a lot of HK style curry growing up!
With the char siu, I really appreciate the thicker cuts (itâs juicier if cooked well and a much more satisfying bite vs thin cuts) and how evenly they were divided. This takeout char siu was also cooked better and cut much thicker than when I had it pre-pandemics during a dine-in visit. So theyâre more dialed in right now.
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Omg! 
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Forgot about Needleâs almond jello. It gets the Not too sweetâ ultimate Asian dessert compliment.
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replated the almond jello, amazing.
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That replating effort 
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if you hope to DIY, youâll probably want to go with fresh water eels (unagi) vs. sea eels (anago); some sushi chefs prefer to avoid deboning anago from scratch because itâs such a painstaking process. itâs an issue for sushi as the eel bones are an integral part of the sauce.
BBQ over binchotan. See yaâll on Tuesday.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CFqynuFjqJ6/
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Peaking through the grill slats, it looks like they are using real ($$$) binchotanânot the composite stuff. Impressive. This should be tasty.
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I may just brave traffic (whatever it may be in the current conditions) to try this. Looks amazing.
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Itâs 6 - 9 PM so you can probably avoid traffic by going late?