Results tagged “chinesefood”

    

A few weeks ago, food maven extraordinaire Jonathan Gold described this new restaurant, saying “There are ladies who lunch….and ladies who lunch in Chengdu.” Drawn by this description, I pulled together a posse of ladies and headed for Sugar Spice Café, in the mini-mall next to the Hilton on Valley Boulevard in San Gabriel.

       

Bamboodles (you know you will like saying that name over and over) has two great things going for it: freshly-made noodles in a variety of flavors, and soup broths made without MSG. For those of us who love the foods of the SGV but are MSG-intolerant (hello, migraine!), Bamboodles is a welcome new choice.

     

Eating one’s way through the San Gabriel Valley is the task of a lifetime. For anyone with the intestinal fortitude, it’s a worthy quest. I have taken up that challenge – most recently at Noodle House in Monterey Park, which has gotten a lot of internet buzz recently. Here’s what’s special about Noodle House: their dumplings, of the northern Chinese variety, are made to order, while you wait, and they are worth waiting for. Dumplings can be boiled, steamed, or pan-fried (“Pot stick” on the menu); steamed buns are also available. Best of all, Noodle House adds no MSG.

Trader Joes, based here in Southern California in Monrovia, made a big announcement today regarding imported food from China:

Garlic, frozen organic spinach and other "single ingredient" food items from mainland China will be phased out by April 1, although products that include ingredients from both China and other sources will remain.

Continue reading "Trader Joe's Says 'No' to Some Chinese Foods "

Welcome to a two-part review of the year’s best cookbooks. In part one, I’ll list five new books that inspired me in the kitchen in 2007…part 2 will include five rediscoveries that you might want to add to your shelf.

This is hilarious... and weird. Back in 1998, my family took my grandmother out for her 89th birthday to a restaurant that fused French and Asian. The quaint little restaurant in Chicago's suburban North Shore village of Wilmette was appropriately named Chinsoiserie. The seven of us were seated and we immediately ordered fifty dollars worth of delicious appetizers. When it came time to order our meals, half of what we desired sent the waitress...

Okay, we know that it's kind of 2002 of us to get jazzed by Boba tea drinks, but we haven't really talked Boba here before, except the last time we had one--at the Chinese Food Festival this summer, and we constantly see puzzled faces when we tell someone we're craving Boba. That's because so many people don't know what Boba is. And we're talking about Boba today because we're hungover and have a vicious craving for one, which means cheating on our no-sugar regimen (Shut up. We know all that alcohol we sucked down last night is really just sugar, but Match makes a great dirty martini and now we're just trying to recover.) and actually getting dressed, facing sunlight (ouch!) and getting one.

Over the weekend we made a trip to Chinatown to check out the second annual Chinese Food Festival that we mentioned last week. The central plaza of Chinatown was packed with booths and festival attendees, and the smart ladies wielded parasols to shade themselves from the plentiful, strong sun. It was some ungodly temperature, surely, and this, admittedly, took a bit of the wind out of our festival-going sails.

This weekend, the Chinatown Business Improvement District is putting on a two-day Chinese Food Festival, aimed at getting folks out and about and eating in LA's historic Chinatown. Food and fun are on the menu, with attendees having the opportunity to sample tasty dishes from local restaurants, see Taiwan’s spectacular Hsiao Hsi Yuan Puppet Theatre, catch continuous showings of two of our favorite Chinese films, Eat Drink Man Woman and The Wedding Banquet, meet faculty and interns from the Yo San University School of Traditional Chinese Medicine who will offer free acupuncture demonstrations, tongue reading, and pulse analysis, and see some teapot-juggling, tai chi, martial arts, plate-spinning, bowl-kicking, and contortionists. There are tons of games and activities, including a kids' "Chinese Fear Factor." And...tons of food to eat. You can even taste some of Fosselman's Chinese-inspired flavors (and, hey--they're our #2 pick in the Ice Cream Summer series!)

LAist has nothing against fast food and the cholesterol-clogged arteries it produces simply because, well, it tastes damn good. But the recent trend of two fast-food powerhouses (in reality, one taking over another for their lack of success) joining forces and combining under one roof makes us question which food items are safe to eat.