The Missus had enjoyed our last overnight Road Trip to Monterey Park so much, that She wanted to do another one ASAP. This time, She wanted to try some places we hadn't visited before. I did a bit of research and found that a Szechuan restaurant with origins in New York had recently opened. In of all places, old neighborhood of Rowland Heights….Rowland Heights?
Well, we decided to make it an overnight kind of thing and I went and found another place for sort of "brunch" the next morning. We made good time and got in kind of early and decided to drop by Hong Kong Plaza which we hadn't been to since before Covid. First we dropped by Hong Kong Market, which had kind of changed a few years back. It's now got a bunch more snacks and stuff.
And a more interesting variety than 99 Ranch Market.
I will get various snacks and also items like aged black vinegar and better quality soy sauce from here. One thing we noticed, the market was totally dead on a Friday afternoon.
We decided to take a walk around; places like Hong Kong Fishball House, Yi Mei Deli, and Shau Mei, remnants from when we lived less than half a block away in the late 90's are still open. We decided to take a stroll in the indoor portion of the mall and was shocked.
Good lord; it was totally empty…..
It felt so eerie walking along past the empty businesses.
And passing Happiness Restaurant made us especially sad.
And not because we've had great meals here, it's because on our last visit there was a turtle named Manie, who was 6 1/2 at the time and was the actual namesake of Manie's Restaurant which preceded Happiness. We wondered and hoped that Manie is ok.
The end of the parking lot was layered with trash and the overall feel was quite depressing.
We then headed to our accommodation for the evening. I had read that the Best Western Plus on Gale had been renovated and got a "interior" room, which was a major blessing because the freeway noise (the hotel faces the 60) can be quite loud. As it is, we had a pretty quiet room, with noisy, but effective A/C, and got in a short nap before we headed off to dinner.
Refreshed after our nap, we decided to walk to our dinner destination a mere 15 minutes away. Of course, no one walks around here and we got some stares, especially with all the cars entering and exiting the 60 as we crossed over.
The mall where Mountain House is located is fairly new and the area used to be on the seedy side when we lived close by. Indeed, there are still homeless camping out behind the Motel 6 next to the mall. But man, this looks a lot different than when we lived around here.
We arrived 15 minutes before opening and there were already folks waiting in line for the place to open. Mountain House only takes reservations for parties of 6 or more people.
The interior is pretty fancy, almost Traditional Taoist in nature. With everything from a koi pond to semi private alcoves in the somewhat maze like set-up.
Things started off with some tea, which the Missus enjoyed.
And we liked the ornate patterns on the lovely tea cups.
In spite of the rather fancy setting; we found the prices to be quite reasonable. Of course, it had been so long since we'd had good Sichuan in the states so we went a little crazy.
The gratis cabbage with chilies was a nice start. Nice ma-la sensations were brought to the forefront.
We started with what might be the signature dish at Mountain House the "Liang Yi" – Hanging Laundry ("Swing Pork Belly" – $13.95). Where strips of pork belly and cucumber are hung on a rack.
The Laundry" hangs over a bowl with a smoky-mildly spicy chili oil, with a large dollop of garlic paste in the middle. We quickly noticed that fat was dripping off the slices of pork belly enhancing the concoction.
This was the Missus's favorite dish of the evening. She loved the combination of mildly spicy-pungent-savory flavors all finished with the clean, refreshing cucumber.
Of course we had to order the La Zi Ji ($19.95). Which was brought to the table on the blade of a shovel.
This was also lovely, great ma-la, the small pieces of chicken were nice and crunchy. There was some bones to be found so you approached things with some caution, but this was really good. The leftovers were also great, heated in an air fryer, though I almost blinded myself when I opened it!
The Rabbit with Mixed Pepper ($25.95) was indeed spicy.
But there were too many shards of bone and it was way too salty.
I loved the Ma-La Intestine ($23.95).
Crisp and light, offal-ly pork intestine, perfectly numbing and spicy, not overly salty….the swiney excellence came thru nicely.
We ordered something called the Bamboo Trio ($16.95). Which featured Duck Tongue, Bamboo Shoots, and "Poached Chicken" (Ko Shui Ji – $16.95).
This was an interesting Liang Cai (cold dishes) trio; the Duck Tongue in a chili oil was interesting. Usually, when we've had duck tongue, there's a hard inedible piece of bone in the center making eating it somewhat ponderous. The center of the tongue in this dish was cartilaginous, reminding us of nankotsu, with a pleasant crunchy shewiness.
The Bamboo Shoots were crunchy, with pickled peppers, creating a nice earthy dish.
The chicken in the Ko Shui Ji was tender and the overall flavor was by the book Sichuan.
The dish we enjoyed the least were the Won Tons in Hot Sauce ($9.95).
The won tons were decently flavored and tender, but the sauce lacked balance…..in spite of looks, it was overly greasy, not especially spicy, and just not pleasant to eat.
The Missus ordered one….then another dessert. I guess She really enjoyed it.
Overall, the highs really outweighed the lows. And we thought this was the best Sichuan we've had in over a decade. The Missus couldn't wait to return to try other dishes….and we'd end up returning sooner than I thought. My goodness, if the Sichuan here in San Diego was half as good as what we had here.
Mountain House
18888 Labin Court
Rowland Heights, CA 91748
We returned to our room with tons of leftovers; fat and happy.
Our room overlooked the strip mall with all the restaurants on Gale across from 99 Ranch Market. It was interesting watching the battle for parking spaces…..
We were really enjoying our time here……
Thanks for stopping by!
This was not bad, the dumplings were on the smaller side, but it came with 14 in my order. The skins were a bit on the more chewy-doughy side, decent. The filling was pretty finely minced, light and tender, very moist, though the flavor was quite mild. The black vinegar came in handy in upping the flavor.
So, how did the dumplings handle the drive back home? Well, even though the wrappers looked a bit "stiff", these were more tender then those on my previous visit. A good amount of chives provided an almost garlicky "zip" to the dumplings. Even though I really couldn't make out shrimp in the finely chopped filling, I could taste them. Again, the fillings were fairly light, and this went rather well with the 6 year aged Zhenjiang Black Vinegar we keep at home.
First off, the grilled sourdough was fantastic, texturally and in taste. As for the mussels, well the shellfish was tender enough, but the "escabeche" was really weak. I'm used to a good acidic, flavorful escabeche, the addition of paprika for smokiness, more points for garlicky-oniony tones, all of which seemed to be missing here. To be honest, any number of tinned mussels from Tunaville (post upcoming) would be more enjoyable to us then this. But heck, that sourdough was good on its own. On a positive note, this brought back wonderful memories of our lunch 
And yes, it was quite full of Cha Lua, Thit Nguoi…… What I think banh mi purists' will appreciate, I'm looking at you "Billy" is that Phoung Nga still includes cucumbers in their banh mi, a rarity these days. The bread, as usual is a bit heavily baked (onsite), making it more hard and crusty than having a nice balance of light, crusty-flaky. But these days, this is almost a blessing, as much of what I've had is soft and doughy. There's a good amount of pickled veggies, the jalapenos were present, but not overly spicy on this visit. This was a nice lunch for me.
Man, this location of Boston Market had been here forever! I decided to walk on over to see what was up….hoping that perhaps an interesting eating establishment was coming to this location. I should have known better. It's a chain swap out. At least it's California Fish Grill which claims serve only "Responsibly Sourced Seafood". You can read about 
I ordered this at a heat level 4 (on the scale of 1-5) and it was adequately spicy. Though I'd return with friends a week later and we ordered heat level 5 and it wasn't as spicy as this. Of course you can instantly see this is missing the salted crab and the tomatoes are just wedges that haven't been poroperly "briused" in the "kruk". This was slightly funky, not a savory as we enjoy and the liquid was kind of watery.
