Category: Chinese Restaurants

Back in April, I noticed that a restaurant named Tasty House was replacing Tealightful Cafe in that strip mall on Clairemont Mesa Boulevard that houses EE Nami and Village Kitchen among others. I was interesting in what they would be serving. One day, while driving past, I noticed that the open sign was lit. It was around lunch time, so I decided to dive on in and visit.

The place was completely empty when I visited.

There was a really nice woman working. She pointed me to a seat and brought me a menu.

The nice lady didn't speak much English, but I saw the older woman behind the counter making jiaozi. Looking at the menu, it seemed like Northern style cuisine. There are even suan cai ("Sauerkraut") dishes on the menu. 

The prices seemed quite reasonable, so I ordered three items. I think there was a communication mix-up, as to my surprise I was brought a takeout order! Perhaps because I ordered so many items she thought it was to go? I had ordered three dishes so I could take the leftovers home to have the Missus sample. I just had to crack up and took my order to go.

The Red Oil Pig ears were cut too thick, making it hard rather than crunchy. It was also served hot….which was a bit strange as I thought it would be a cold dish.

It wasn't particularly spicy and cold have used more seasoning.

Of course I got some jiaozi. I had pointed to the menu and asked in my terrible Mandarin "jiaozi???" and the woman laughed and said "SanXian" (三鲜 – three delicacies). 

    It came with some chili oil and the appropriate (for the region) black vinegar.

The wrappers on several of the dumplings were broken, thus H2O had leaked in during the boiling process nullifying a lot of flavor.

The wrappers were too thick (I still think Dongbei style jiaozi has thicker wrappers) and on the hard side.

   As was the filling. Really chewy and tough. 

I saved two for the Missus, who took one bite and said "you can have it….."

The best item was the Suan Cai with Glass Noodles. Which also came with pork.

The main feature of this was the very sour-fermented tones of the suan cai. This was definitely not a "shrinking violet"! The glass noodles were overcooked and mushy and the pork on the chewy side. But man, that sourness….whoa! 

Well, this was interesting. The Missus was even a bit interested….so much so, that while driving past the place She determined that we should stop in, take a look at the menu and perhaps order some takeout.

By this time, the Grand Opening sign was in place.

While talking to the very nice woman, the Missus determined that their from Dongbei and She proceeded to order two very typical Dongbei Cai dishes that are quite hard to find on menus here in San Diego.

First was the Dōngběi Luàn Dùn which is on the menu as One Pot Out of the Farm ($15.90). It's basically whatever veggies you have stewed with pork.

A large portion size, very home style, potatoes as the base……..quite a bit of pork.

This was kinda bland…versions I've had before also used Doubanjiang or something similar to add a nice savory component, this was very plain. A very generous portion though.

The other dish was Páigǔ Dùn Dòujia on the menu as Pork Ribs Stewed with Beans ($15.90).

Man, as if things couldn't get more bland……

Very much simple country cuisine. The beans were still crisp; the pork tender, but the dish was really in need of flavor.

All in all very much like home cooked, simple, country dishes.

The Missus was done with the place…and I was kinda not impressed. But, I thought the folks working here was so nice, that I decided to do one more visit and to actually try to dine in.

It was quite charming; the woman saw me parking my car and actually waved at me….you know I had to give the place one more try, right?

On my previous visit, I saw this sign. A quick Google translate and it said "noodles"…..

Which, along with the dumplings, they make inhouse.

So, okay…….this time, I did have a seat and actually dined in.

I really enjoy Zi Ran Yang Rou – Cumin Lamb, so I decided to try the version here. I noticed that the price on the menu had been reduced by a dollar.

This was by far, my favorite dish that I've had here.

While on the salty side; the lamb was decently tender, there was a good amount of earthy-savory cumin. This was by far my favorite dish.

And of course I wanted to try a noodle dish and saw this.

No, it's not the savsage, ahem, probably sausage noodle….but what the heck was Spam Fried Noodle? Well, I was really interested to find out!

Well, this was another "interesting" dish. The noodles were a bit too mushy for my taste. The simple seasoning, soy sauce based, was just like home cooking. As for the "Spam"…well, it was this.

It was beef! I sent the Missus a photo of the menu and She said it said beef in Chinese…..I'm guessing that whatever translation tool was used for the menu….like the "savsage", was perhaps a bit off? The beef was on the chewy side and could have been a bit more "velveted". It lacked the wok hay that I expect with restaurant level food.

In the end; well, to repeat things once again, this is like home cooking and lacks the attributes that separates what one makes at home with what one expects when dining out. It's kind of a bummer since the folks that work here are so nice and the prices are quite reasonable…but really, I'm not going to spend that amount for something I can make at home!

Tasty House
4726 Clairemont Mesa Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92117
Current Hours:
Wed – Mon 11am – 930pm
Closed on Tuesday

Funny how things just incidentally happen. I had been wanting to return to Lanzhou Noodlelicious before the weather got too hot. So, I did that "Google thing" to check hours and lo' and behold, a place named Silk Road Lanzhou Beef Noodles appeared. Now how the heck hadn't I heard about this place? Could it be because it was located in what would seem to be a rather unlikely location for a Chinese Noodle House, on Mission Boulevard? I was intrigued; so I decided to pay the place a visit. I drove down on Grand and decided to park on the street, not knowing what the parking policy was for the restaurant. Which is located right next to Ralph's in the Pacific Beach Marketplace.

Any doubts I had about this being an "ABC" type restaurant went out the window as I was greeted in Mandarin! In fact, all the customers I overheard on this day were speaking Mandarin. I was the exception….except for a few words.

The menu is fairly small right now two noodle dishes and some side dishes (liang cai), along with drinks and few other items. I was really only after one thing.

I ordered the Lanzhou Lamian ($14.99)…the young man was impressed that I said lamian and I jokingly told him "my wife is form China, so I better get at least one thing right!" He cracked up. You get to order your preferred thickness of the hand pulled noodles. I went with Medium Thick, but also requested extra firm….I almost said "katame"…whew, good thing I caught myself. I also got a soy sauce egg ($2.00).

Soon enough my bowl arrived, steaming hot.

   Of course I couldn't help but compare this to Noodlelicious. The broth was on the lighter side, a bit heavy on the MSG, lightly beefy, a good amount of white pepper. The chili oil is a must (just as it would be in Lanzhou) to help balance things out. I think the broth at Noodlelicious is much better.

The beef was a bit chewier than I prefer, but it was really beefy. I enjoyed that two different cuts were provided as well. Texture and quantity to Noodlelicious, flavor to Silk Road. I enjoyed the slices of daikon as well.

As for the noodles….man, this was superb, super springy, bouncy, with a great mouthfeel. Totally "QQ". While Noodlelicious does hand pulled noodles, I thought this was a level above that.

  My egg didn't arrive until I was half way thru my noodles. I'll leave that to soft opening jitters. While a bit overcooked, it was nice and warm, great soy sauce flavor, a hint of cinnamon-anise. 

So, it looks like at least in the case of the Lamian, I'm going to give the slight edge to Lanzhou Noodlelicious. But for a soft opening visit, this was quite good. It was interesting to see the shop slowly fill up. There were quite a few older Chinese couples….something that I don't recall seeing much during my visits to Pacific Beach.

Like Luscious Dumplings which just opened in Eastlake, I'm not sure why the ownership decided on this location. It'll be interesting to see how things go. BTW, you can park in Pacific Beach Marketplace when visiting Silk Road.

There was on last pleasant surprise. I asked for my check and the really nice young man came by with the card reader device and told me it was like a bit over nine bucks! Huh??? He then informed me that during the soft opening everything is 50% off. I guess I missed that sign before walking in? Duh…

He also told me that the 50% off should be going on until the end of this week……just in case you'd like to give the place a try…..

Silk Road Lanzhou Beef Noodles
4305 Mission Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92109
Current Hours:
Sun – Thurs  12pm – 2pm, 5pm – 1030pm
Fri – Sat         12pm – 2pm, 5pm – Midnight

Since we revisited Taste of Hunan after a long gap back in April of last year, it had become the first choice with regards to Hunan dishes in San Diego. Since then we've visited about once a month; the service has always been nice and even though they no longer have some of our favorite items on the menu anymore, we've found a new favorite dish that we need to get on every visit.

Here's what we had on our latest visit.

The Xiangxi Style Beef Entrails is now a must order dish for us.

It arrives over a heating element to get the sizzling pot effect. We let is heat for a while before mixing things. Below the usually buttery tendon and the crunchy tripe are the onions, which grow sweet and absorbs the savory-mildly spicy sauce/seasoning.

On this visit, we also got the Pig's Feet.

The sauce was salty-sweet-savory. This leans toward almost a red-braised Hu-Cai (Shanghai style) dish. Nice porkiness; but the trotters were a bit harder and chewier than we enjoy.

We had seen several tables ordering the Mei Cai Kou Rou, the steamed pork belly and preserved vegetable, that is served with Bao. We had hesitated in ordering the dish because it really isn't Hunan, being, if I recall of Hakka origin, but quite popular in Guangdong and Jiangxi; regions which border Hunan. It did look good; so we finally went ahead and ordered it.

This turned out to be quite good. The pork looked firm, but was quite tender and buttery, not overly waxy, rich, and nicely flavored. Not overly sweet, very porky, good soy sauce, with mild anise tones. The meigan cai (dried preserved vegetable) had been nicely rehydrated-prepped and cooked with a pleasant, slightly crunchy texture. A nice umami-bitter flavor was present.

I think we found another winnah dish at Taste of Hunan! Now, both the Missus and I know that Village Kitchen serves Mei Cai Kou Rou as well…..hmmm….looks like an idea for dinner!

Taste of Hunan
9880 Hibert St.
San Diego, CA 92131
Current Hours:
Mon, Tues, Thurs 1130am – 230pm, 5pm – 9pm
Friday 1130am – 230pm, 5pm – 930pm
Sat, Sun 11am – 930pm

**** Fish With You has changed their name to Yonny Mini Hot Pot, though it seems that the Suancai Fish is still offered

We had enjoyed our meals at Fish With You and the Missus wanted to return before the weather gets too hot. We ended up making two more visits in the last couple of weeks.

Here's what we had.

We tried the Pickled Pepper Fish Skin ($6.95).

Fishy and way too sour….like eating rubber bands. Not a favorite.

The Missus wanted to try the Green Peppercorn and Suan Cai Fish…with snakehead, of course (Regular Portion $17.95).

If you want something not as sour as the Signature Suan Cai and Fish; this might be the way to go. It's also less spicy; but the green peppercorns provides a citrusy-numbingness. The tofu is really nice in this dish as well.

I was curious about the version of Shui Zhu Niu Rou ($19.95), the "Water Boiled Beef" a classic Sichuan dish. I know, after having the "Golden Beef Soup" on on one of our previous visits, I had mentioned staying away from the beef dishes here, but curiosity got the better of me.

While this was better then the other beef dish we tried, the meat was again a letdown. This time it was a thick cut, very chewy, lacking in velveting that is essential for this type of dish. The broth was decently spicy-savory-smoky, with a hint of ma-la. In fact, I used the leftover broth for tofu and soy bean sprouts, with an addition of some doubianjang. It's just that beef needed some tenderization. So, I guess I'm back to saying no to beef dishes here.

They make a big deal about serving Wuchang Rice from China, but we've never been impressed. It is often mushy and not very fragrant. Still, a key point is that they do not charge for a bowl of rice for each main course ordered. Quite a change from other Chinese restaurants these days.

Of course, on both visits we got the Signature Suancai & Fish (regular size – $17.95).

Love the sourness from the Suan Cai and the pleasant spiciness of the chilies. Snakehead does well in this dish. We also like the crunchy, slightly slippery celtuce in the dish. The level of sodium is not very high.

The folks working here are so nice as are the prices. So, it looks like Fish With You has made the "rotation"; at least for now. Not sure about when the weather starts heating up though.

Fish With You
3904 Convoy St. #101
San Diego, CA 92111
Current Hours:
Daily 1130am – 10pm

Well, in a blink of an eye, Sizzling Pot King became a location of Jiang Liang Malatang! Now, on my last visit to Sizzling Pot King just last month, the woman, whom I believe is one of the "owners" of the franchise told me they were "adding" Malatang. I thought they were just going to start serving hot pot in addition to the dry pot, but a drive past the place a couple of weeks later revealed what was going on!

Whoa! So, it seemed that Sizzling Pot King has become a location of Zhang Liang Malatang. From what I could gather it's a pretty big chain. I know of locations in Rowland Heights and Irvine to name a few places.

It took a bit of work, but I managed to talk the Missus into visiting, because they do a version of dry pot, which they call the "Stir Fried Spicy Pot". We found parking on Engineer Road since the parking lot was full. Upon walking in, I recognized the previous owners of Sizzling Pot King. They explained that we'd fill up a bowl of ingredients just like Malatang and just tell the folks we want "dry pot". So, it was off to the races.

One good thing I liked about this process was you get to choose your ingredients. I've noted that over time Sizzling Pot King had stopped offering or removed items from the dry pot. Now I could pick my own and there was tripe, Chinese cauliflower, even stuff like Konnyaku Knots, several types of bean curd.

Of course, all this comes at a price. It's $13.99 a pound for ingredients and another $3.99 charge for the dry pot. Rice is $1.50.

You can season and et things as spicy as you want by adding items from the sauce bar.

What we picked ended up being $40, with the dry pot upcharge, and one rice. Even with us getting a bunch of different bean curd and mostly offal, this was cheaper than before.

The place filled up pretty quickly. The clientele seemed to be on the younger end of the scale.

Soon enough our order was delivered. It doesn't look like a whole lot of food, but there was enough for me to have the leftovers for lunch the next day.

   Not quite as "numbing-hot" as what we had before; though it had more of a pronounced soy sauce – white pepper flavor. It was still decently spicy; but the "stuffs" from the sauce bar made up for things and then some.

The rice was mushy and not very good.

   We enjoyed the frozen tofu; there was a firm bean curd we didn't care for. The intestine and two types of tripe were lovely….of course the Missus loves quail eggs. The lamb and sliced beef were meh…..at least to us. It seemed that offal was the way to go for this dish. At least for us.

And so, we decided to see what takeout would be like. And I returned and put together a bowl.

And got a variety of various sauce mixes…….

This came out to be $35.

The Missus enjoys the raw garlic- chili flakes – raw chilies – sesame oil combination the best.

In the end Zhang Liang does a decent job of replacing Sizzling Pot King for takeout. Which is what we'll be visiting for.

Zhang Liang Malatang
8058 Clairemont Mesa Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92111
Current Hours:
Mon – Fri 1130am – 3pm, 5pm – 930pm
Sat – Sun  1130am – 930pm