Supposedly a branch of the mainland Chinese restaurant chain Ba Shu Feng was going to open early this year in the San Gabriel Sheraton hotel. The hotel website described the restaurant as if it were open. I went down there in person and the restaurant room was brightly lit up, fully decorated and with place settings, but no workers inside. There were no Yelp reviews. Now the website doesn’t mention the restaurant at all, just the steakhouse that opened six months ago. But Yelp now lists a restaurant called Opal at that location, complete with hours of operation and a description of the high quality, sophisticated Cantonese cuisine served there. States an opening date of July, 2018. No current reviews though. Any further information?
I don’t believe they were ever really going into that space in the Sheraton.
So the hotel paid for all the tables and chairs, dinnerware, serving trays and stuff that I saw out there back in February?
It’s not going to waste. As I’m pretty sure the current restaurant OPAL is putting it to use.
i called to hotel several times to inquire if it had opened yet. the first two times they told me it would be open in about a month. after about six weeks they said it would open around the end of may. i called back around then and the person at the front desk said they would not be opening and that another restaurant was coming in.
according to their FB page, opal opens tomorrow (23rd):
The Sheraton Los Angeles San Gabriel is adding more value to our guests’ experience. July 23 we are introducing OPAL!
Sounds like the Sheraton was trying out The Secret to ask, believe, yet still not receive.
If you weren’t aware, there is/was a location in San Jose Under the name Szechuan chili that opened as Ba Shu Feng USA and seems to have dropped that name from their menu. I don’t think anything on that menu before or after the name change would be new to SGV, but location location location
There have a number of instances in the LA area where branches of Mainland Chinese restaurants have been established locally but then later drop the name. In some cases the US branches were fake (best documented examples was Little Sheep), in other cases the local operator broke off and converted to an independent operation. In the case of Ba Shu Feng in San Gabriel, apparently the chefs couldn’t get visas to the US so they scrapped the San Gabriel location.
Interesting! More than once I’ve been to a restaurant and the Chinese/English menus and food looked nothing like the beautiful menus from the (I guess supposed) mainland chain from which they derived.
There have been some fascinating cases around the SGV. Places that were legitimately part of the chain that people thought weren’t (like Little Sheep) and restaurants looking the part that were knock-offs. In the latter, I’m thinking here of the Hui Lau Shun in San Gabriel that was asked to cease and desist. Or, the recently closed ID Cha House that operated as 85C Tea House until likewise asked to knock it off.
That’s not exactly accurate. Or accurate, at all.
Well that’s the story they gave me. Sounded pretty convincing with the comment that the kitchen had actually opened up for recipe testing.