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!
And just wandered around. I ended up buying more Tarbais beans in the shop/deli above….yep, 35€ a kilo and I bought another half kilo.
The pig tongue was as expected, fairly chewy and very porky. Quite typical.
We quickly noticed that on this visit, the dumpling wrappers were very soft, lacking in the slight "pull" that we enjoy in jiaozi wrappers. The filling of the shrimp, pork, and leek was very moist and actually had a good amount of "soup" in them…very nicely flavored, though a bit short in the shrimp department.
But man, that filling was so gamy, moist, juice just poured out of it when I took a bite.
We did notice that the dish has changed since our last visit. The shrimp shells and the shrimp seems to have some coating; like the tofu skin, the portion size is smaller. The shrimp is not quite as delicate as it used to be. But the flavor is still there and the shells and tail are a pleasure to eat.
Soon enough the large plate of bun, herbs, and veggies. And of course the Missus enjoys the Banh Trang Me dipping it into the mam nem. As for the Mam Nem, we noticed that it's not quite as potent as it used to be.
As you can see, the Missus was all about the tamago on this day. This bowl had a lot of "stuffs"; scallion, spinach, bean sprouts, cabbage. The best item in the entire bowl was the menma which had a wonderful texture and the earthy-soy sauce tones were on point. The two slices of "chashu", I use the quotation marks because the two thin slices were not pork belly, it was lean and tough. 
The the outrageous price of NT$45….yes, I'm kidding, this equates to about $1.45/US we got a bowl with a large dumpling which was fried before entering the thick miasma of a sauce. The wrapper had a pleasant, somewhat glutinous chewiness. The sauce was thick, quite savory, with a hint of sweetness. The meatball was very tasty, though a bit on the tough and chewy side. The combination of flavors was excellent. And this was pretty filling.