Food tour

[jcemsoff]

I'm a newbie here, but hopefully you all can give me some good suggestions.

I'm a junior in high school and over summer break, which starts in two days, I want to visit as many good restaurants as possible. I live in Monrovia, CA, so any restaurants in any surrounding area including Pasadena, Duarte, Arcadia, Sierra Madre, Azusa, San Dimas, or anywhere else in or near Los Angeles would be awesome. I also go to Disneyland a lot, so anything you can recommend in Anaheim would be good as well.

I love all types of food so anything from Thai to Mexican to Chinese to Japanese to Korean to Italian to American or anything else you have would be appreciated,

Along with the restaurant, it would be cool if you could include your favorite dish or some of their more popular dishes.

Thanks everyone!

[raytamsgv]

I've collected some mini-reviews of restaurants in this part of the SGV. Most of them are pretty cheap. There are a lot of great places around here:
http://www.geocities.com/raytamsgv

[rantsnravesnreviews]

There are lot of great San Gabriel Valley places to eat! my recent favorites are Mei Long Village for their soup dumplings and other offerings, Babita, and 54 Holly for breakfast.
http://rantsnravesnreviews.blogspot.com

[dinami]

You mentioned Pasadena so if you like In and Out burgers you have to try Pie n Burger in Pasadena. :) They are so good, and their apple pie is delicious as well!

[jcemsoff]

Sounds great, not many places I know of sell a good burger and pie, I'll be sure to go.

[slacker]

Ralph Brennan's Jazz Kitchen, the cafe, at Downtown Disney, for beignets for breakfast, before going into Disneyland.

[jcemsoff]

I always walk by the Jazz Kitchen, but have never tried it. I'm going to Disneyland Monday so I'll be sure to check it out.

[brandnewuser]

Have you been to Dino's Burgers in Azusa on Arrow Highway?

http://losangeles.broowaha.com/articl...

[jcemsoff]

That sounds great, any personal favorites there?

[WHills]

Full House in Arcadia for Cantonese and/or dim sum (Duarte/Golden West). Try their Peking duck special for $10.

Din Tai Fung in Arcadia for soup dumplings (Baldwin/Duarte)

Kiyosuzi in Arcadia for sushi (Baldwin/Huntington Dr.)

Moffett's in Arcadia for the best chicken pot pie (Baldwin/Naomi)

Young Dong Tofu in San Gabriel for soon tofu (Las Tunas Ave/San Gabriel Blvd)

La Vie in Rosemead for French (San Gabriel Blvd/Garvey Ave)

[jcemsoff]

Thanks, I've tried Din Tai Fung and it's amazing. I can't wait to try that pot pie. I haven't had good pot pie in forever.

[Das Ubergeek]

Well, near Disneyland is what many consider the best Thai restaurant in Southern California, Thai Nakorn. It's on Beach Blvd. and Chapman Ave. in Stanton (be aware that if you Google, you'll come up with a bunch of hits on Garden Grove Blvd. -- that location burned down 6 months ago and is being rebuilt).

You live in Monrovia -- you are within twenty minutes' drive of the best Chinese food on the West Coast, all in the San Gabriel Valley. To get you started, there's fantastic dim sum (888 and NBC would be my picks for cart-style dim sum, Mission 261 and New Concept for order-from-a-menu kind -- bring your friends). Green Village on Valley Blvd. in San Gabriel has fantastic Shanghainese cuisine -- get the pork pump (actually part of the leg, despite its weird name), get the bean curd in pork sauce. Directly across the street is Mei Long Village, which might be the best xiao long bao (steamed pork or crab dumplings with soup actually inside the dumplings). There's so much more -- there's a branch of Seafood Village, for very good Chiu Chow style cuisine, there are more Cantonese restaurants than you can shake a chopstick at, there are Sichuan restaurants, there are Beijing restaurants, and oodles and oodles of Taiwanese places (including Sin Ba La, in Arcadia).

Also in the SGV, on San Gabriel Blvd. between Valley Blvd. and the 10, is Babita Mexicuisine, which is very, very good sit-down Mexico City-style Mexican food. These are not the tacos you know... they serve things like chiles en nogada, which is meat-stuffed peppers in pomegranate sauce.

[jcemsoff]

Thanks so much, I've written them down on my to try list. A friend has recommended Babita Mexicuisine before, so I might have to try it real soon.