Category: Chinese Restaurants

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

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

I first noticed that a shop named "Fish With You" was opening in the former Shentang BBQ (remember when it was Pho Paradise for a minute?) location back in July of last year. I took the Missus to have a look at the sign and She got kind of excited, telling me the place specialized in Suan Cai Yu – literally "sour vegetable fish". She also mentioned the "fun-pum" in the Chinese name.

If you recall; the Missus, being from QingDao grew up eating Suan Cai and it is a staple in our household. So I was pretty excited to try the place once it opened. And after reading this post on Eater, I was even more interested. It's a chain from China with many locations around the world. Looking at the original posted ABC notification, the business name was supposed to be "Wei's Fish" which is located in Cupertino, but I guess eventually the place took on the name of the chain. It has the same owner as Yin Tang Hot Pot and Zhengxin Chicken Steak (which I need to return to) two other chains that have entered the Convoy "sweepstakes".

The restaurant finally opened in March and I was excited to try it. Except, for some reason, the Missus was suddenly not? Go figure. But I finally talked Her into visiting during a weekday at an odd hour figuring the place would be busy. And of course, that parking lot at 3904 Convoy, the strip mall with The Original Pancake House, Izakaya Sakura, Tsuruhashi, Bistro Kaz, Yakitori Koubou, Mekong Cuisine, and several more restaurants is no vehicle's friend when it comes to parking.

We did find parking and entered the brightly lit restaurant. There were still several tables filled, even at this odd hour. Ordering was done via QR code and phone.

Though the really nice folks working will bring you a paper menu if requested. We also noticed the nice young lady taking the order for a four top with older Chinese folks as well.

There are four versions of Suan Cai Yu, a version of fish with lemon, a version with tomato, several versions of beef soup, and one chicken and tomato stew. Along with several side dishes and desserts. You can add sides to dishes. Two types of fish are available; except for the "Signature Soup" which will have Snakehead, which are quite popular in Asia, but an invasive species and illegal in California and and cannot be imported, transported, or possessed without a permit. The other fish available for the soup is Basa, which to me is more commonly known as Swai, not a favorite of mine.

On this visit; the Missus was interested in one of the desserts, a side dish, and two versions of the Suan Cai Yu. So, we placed our order on our phone.

Strangely, the first item to arrive was the dessert! The "Sweet Pumpkin Cake ($6.95).

 Think fried mochi/manju. The exterior was crisp, giving way to a chewy interior along with a filling that was a bit too sweet for us. We tried one when it arrived and saved the rest for after the main courses were finished. Unfortunately, by that time it had started getting soggy. We ended up taking the rest home to heat in the air fryer. Still, I don't think we'll have this again.

We also ordered the Crispy Pork ($6.95). The Missus thought the portion was on the smallish side, but I thought it was ok based on prices these days.

It was crunchy, more tender than similar versions I've had recently. Crisp-crunchy, the Missus didn't care for the seasoning which She said didn't have enough spice and was on the sweeter side for Her.

All the soups come in two sizes. We chose the smaller size so we could try two different versions. In what was a surprise for these days, one bowl of rice is included for each soup free! Yes, you got that, no two-dollar charge for rice. The rice is supposedly Wuchang Rice from China; though it wasn't as fragrant as I would have liked, it was ok. Things can get pricy quickly though as every "extra" you add is $3.99 – like what looks like 4 quail eggs???

Our favorite of the two soups was the Signature Suancai & Fish (regular size – $17.95) that came only with Snakehead. The portion size was quite good.

Don't let the chilies fool you; this was pleasantly spicy (with one caveat I'll mention later) but not overwhelming, you could make out the fermented cabbage flavors, good salt and acidity, and every once in a while you'd get a peppercorn to wake you from your slumber. It had that suan-tian-ku-la-xian thing going. The fish was tender, with a mild flavor, and absorbed the taste of the soup nicely. We both really enjoyed this.

We also got the Laotan Suancai & Fish (regular size – $14.95) with Basa. We didn't care for the fish, even though it was meatier, the texture was mushy and the flavor had hints of muddiness.

Don't let the photo fool you. The bowl is quite shallow; seems like just over an inch deep. We didn't care for this soup as much either; the flavor was fairly straight forward, the spice level not bad, but for some reason we really couldn't make out the flavor of suan cai in this.

The Signature Soup was quite good and the service very nice. And the prices were quite reasonable for these days. Heck, the bowl of pho I had before this was more expensive than the Signature Soup!

And more importantly; the Missus was sold! So we returned a few days later. It was Sunday and I lucked out and found a parking space right before they opened.

There were already four tables full when we arrived. They had seated people, but no one was able to put in orders until 1130.

This time around we wanted to try a beef dish; so we got the Golden Soup Beef ($16.95).

The sliced beef was the typical thin sliced stuff you can get at the Asian grocer, not a big deal. The soup had very little spice and was actually on the bland side. It was also not hot when it arrived to the table, thus giving the broth a greasy tongue feel. Not sure what happened with that.

Luckily, we got the Signature Suancai & Fish again. And just like before it delivered!

And lunch, with leftovers for the two of us was less than $40! A note regarding the Signature Soup….you see all those chilies? Well, they add them right before delivering the bowl to your table; so there's a decent spice. If you do have leftovers however and are not having it until the next day; I'd remove the chilies, cause it gets quite spicy!

Anyway, we found a dish we really enjoy and can't wait to try out a few more items from the menu. In spite of wanting more mom-and-pop restaurants in the area, we're glad to now have Fish With You and Juewei. I see both as fairly regular stops for us in the land of endless Hot Pot, KFC, AYCE K_BBQ, and Cantonese Restaurants.

If you do try Fish With You out; let me know what you think and what are the dishes you enjoyed!

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

I know "FOY" DerekR was wondering about this place – so here's the post!