Milpitas Square and vicinity... what to try?

[Mr Taster]

Hi Bay Area 'hounds

I was in your area this past weekend and discovered Milpitas Square, which appeared to be a larger, more suburban sprawl version of the Focus Plaza in San Gabriel, here in the Los Angeles area.

Unfortunately we had already eaten a pretty good meal at China Eastern, and so we were strictly at Milpitas Square for sightseeing.

If we ever go back, what restaurants would you recommend?

Thanks!

Mr Taster

[Chandavkl]

Note that Milpitas Square appears a lot bigger than San Gabriel Square because the former is single story while the latter is double decked. I suspect footage may be close to comparable.

Pound for pound, so to speak, SGV slightly but clearly trumps the Bay Area both as to Hong Kong/Cantonese and other regional cuisines, with the exception that there's nothing in LA as good as Koi Palace, nor is there anything like SF Chinatown's Jai Yun. The most striking thing is the relatively lesser diversity of regional cuisines in the Bay Area. If you're partial towards Taiwanese, there's absolutely no comparison as to the availability. Ditto for dumplings (not counting XLB), beef rolls, odd regional cuisines found in Monterey Park and San Gabriel (e.g., Lizhou, Tianjin, Shenyang, Guilin, New Territories) and even true Hunan. Don't get me wrong--the Bay Area has great Chinese food and I love trying the different restaurants. But there are few true Chinese dining adventures for those who are used to frequenting the San Gabriel Valley.

[Mr Taster]

That's really okay... I'm primarily concerned about figuring out what my options will be if and when my wife is accepted to UCSF and we move up to the Bay Area. Any and all info and tips on local availability of regional specialties is greatly appreciated.

Mr Taster

[Chandavkl]

Probably depends on the particular location where you settle. In LA it's easy to make a bee line to the San Gabriel Valley, even from a fair distance away, because the food there is clearly superior to what's in your own neighborhood, so you make the trek. In the Bay Area, a really good authentic Chinese restaurant can show up anywhere (well, almost anywhere) and there are quite a few nodes that have a nice accumulation of good Chinese restaurants of comparable quality (e.g., Milpitas, Millbrae, Cupertino, the Richmond District, San Mateo, Oakland Chinatown, Fremont/Newark, among many others). Consequently, if you live close to Cupertino you're probably not going to drive to Fremont to eat because the stuff in Cupertino is just as good. There are some exceptions to the rule (e.g., Taiwanese in the South Bay), but it is a factor to take into account.

[Mr Taster]

Very interesting.... thanks for this. I really had no idea what the lay of the land was for Chinese food in the bay area-- this is extremely helpful. I'll certainly be posting more if and we we make the move.

Mr Taster

[K K]

Should you return to Northern California, here are some more places you may want to try, although I'm not so sure how they would compare to Southern California's finest.

Formosa Bento House (Redwood City) - they specialize in Taiwanese style bento (dine in or take out). The only interesting item here of note is their Hakka noodle soup. The owners are Taiwanese from Yilan with Hakka roots. The Hakka noodle soup is light and to those who prefer spicier and more fragrant food may find it bland, but it's unique in that nobody else is offering it.

San Tung (San Francisco) - very crowded and popular. Some purists might say it's not even close to Lu cuisine in China, or it's dumbed down Korean Chinese, but it's an old fixture that has way too many fans. While people rave about stir fried string beans and their dried fried spicy honey chicken wings, the noodles and dumplings (particularly boiled pork and cabbage), appetizers, and even their in house style kim chee, are excellent.

5 Joy Restaurant (Foster City) - this is along the vein of sit down restaurants in Taiwan (tablecloth and all but not fancy upscale, but not cheap street food type) but it's various Northern styles of Chinese (Shanghai, SIchuan, maybe Beijing, and bits and pieces in between) put together on one menu, made and catered towards Taiwanese tastebuds. Some say it is our best Taiwanese one stop shop in the area (although you will not find much Taiwan street food fare except the expanded brunch menu on the weekends). Stinky tofu (fried and steamed), beef noodles, "hakka stir fry" (a spicy mixed dish with I believe basil, squid, tofu strips), XLB, shanghainese style eels, orange crispy eels, mapo tofu, yen du xian (claypot soup), pork blood sour cabbage seaweed soup, stir fried pork intestines, minced pork rice, 8 treasures stuffed duck, beggar's chicken etc etc. Liou's House has a similar menu, but the offerings on the special menu appear to be a bit more exquisite.

A&J (Cupertino) - the same branch as the one in Irvine. Great for beef noodle soup (Taiwanese style) amongst other things

Shanghai Flavor Shop (Sunnyvale) - hole in the wall, excellent for shen jian bao. Incredible amount of soup inside, delicious pork filling. Might even be comparable to Kang Kang Food Court's in Alhambra if that one's your bag.

Old Islamic Mandarin Restaurant (SF) - if you ever come back to SF, go here. Focus on the lamb and beef Beijing style hotpots. Perhaps try lamb nasty parts. Multi layered beef pancake thingy (greasy but delicious). Preserved sour cabbage adds to the experience.
As overrated as Darda in a different vein, but this one I fully endorse.

Little Sheep Mongolian Hotpot (San Mateo, Union City) - official branches of the ones out of China. Do you have a real one (not a clone or bootleg) in SoCal? Herbal hotput broth is quite soothing, and ahem can clean your pipes a little too well.

Kingdom of Dumpling (San Francisco) - a very small place that specializes in dumplings and Northern style eats (in and around Beijing). Good stuff

Spices restaurant (San Francisco) - two on Clement street. Taiwanese style and take on Sichuan food. 95% of the menu I'd say is numbing or at least very spicy. If you love stinky tofu or even numbing spicy stinky tofu hotpots, this is it

Everday Beijing (San Mateo) - home style Beijing cuisine. No Peking Duck, but the dumplings, noodles, multi layered pork pancake, fish dumplings, lamb dishes are all very good. I want to say we have probably no more than 4 restaurants that specialize in Beijing style cuisine in the SF Bay Area, at least being well known and good (and not just in name only with nothing to show for).

Come to think of it, all the major and more well known regional Chinese places are quite well represented in one form or another in the SF Bay Area, whether it be Hunan, Sichuan, Shanghai.

But if you want something really specific, whether it be xinjiang style this, or shangxi that or something a whole lot more obscure, it's going to be a lot easier to find in SoCal SGV/MP than it is up here.

[Mr Taster]

Great list... I'm hoping we'll be back up north soon as my wife had an interview at UCSF, and this will give me something to explore while my wife is studying biopharmaceuticals :)

I'm rather fascinated by the focus on Beijing style food, because I don't feel Beijing-specific food is well represented (certainly not by the duck, as I said before... the only sort of Beijing food I've found are the yang rou chuan. I'd kill to find a great Beijing snack shop like the kind we experienced in Beijing..... there was a dish we kept returning for, essentially a core of cabbage slathered in the most sinus-blistering hot mustard. Here's a pic from our blog... several more of the snacks we ate at "Old Beijing Noodle House" if you click the right arrow. (OBNH is south of Temple of Heaven park, kitty-corner from the pearl market there.)

http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-...

As for Little Fat Sheep, yes we've been to it several times and love it. There are of course several knockoffs, but there is one we keep returning to specifically because it's not quite as polished as LFS.

Spices restaurant also sounds really intriguing... my wife likes the stewed stinky tofu hotpots but I'm a deep fried night market kind of stinky tofu guy. Speaking of which, are there any exceptional versions of the street market style stinky tofu in the bay area? How about other kinds of night market foods, like the white pepper fried chicken, the wheel cakes, Taiwanese sausages, fried pigs blood rice cakes, etc.? Speaking of night market food, I do loves me some shen jian bao, but I have been largely disappointed by the offerings in LA. Kang Kang hypes them but I've gotta tell you, there's something off-putting about the odd sweetness of the meat. In addition, none of the SJB I've had in LA ever has more than a slight trickle of soup. I'm definitely interested in checking out Shanghai Flavor Shop.

Thanks for all your advice, K K!

Mr Taster

[K K]

This should be a good starting point with regards to where to find Taiwanese style street/night market food in SF Bay Area and should answer most of your questions.

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/684454

Never been to Kang Kang myself but a friend says that theirs are comparable to Shanghai Flavor Shop's. But I don't recall SFS's being sweet in the meat department. Then again I plaster a little chili sauce on the inside after I poke a hole, or rinse with a little black vinegar (chili sauce ends up being better for me) and it's all good. A heads up that SFS is a bit of an elbow grease joint, where the table surfaces and even the chopsticks seem to be a bit greasy (I'm sure the folks try their best to keep the dishes and surfaces clean but when the inside smells like a sizzling grill, it's hard to avoid)...but in some warped way it adds to that "authentic" ness as if they imported the elbow grease from China.

What are wheel cakes?

[K K]

Great observation. Actually San Gabriel Square on Valley Blvd (if that is Focus Plaza) that has a 99 Ranch on the inside, Ten Ren and Kee Wah on the outside, is the older sister mall to Milpitas Square. I used to work for the folks in charge of the mall, which is how I learned of the SG mall relationship.

You have better regional Chinese selections in SGV and environs actually....I don't think you will find anything comparable in Milpitas Square. My recommendation is to skip it (ie you didn't miss anything). There may be some decent Shanghainese inside Milpitas Square as well as the Ulfert's Plaza further down Barber Lane, but that's about it.

So yeah venture out further next time. Try

Taste Good Beijing Cuisine
76 S Abel St
Milpitas, CA 95035
[phone]

South Legend Sichuan
1720 N Milpitas Blvd
Milpitas, CA 95035
[phone]

Lious House
1245 Jacklin Rd
Milpitas, CA 95035
[phone]

The last listing is worth mentioning if you have a large party, try the specials menu and perhaps advanced ordering of dishes like 8 treasures stuffed duck, buddha jumps over wall, and many more. The chef used to cook for the former VP of Taiwan (Lien Chan).

Just a note, Darda is not that bad. It is however overrated and overcrowded, and perhaps inconsistent. It is an original tenant of Milpitas Square going back 1996, but despite the accolades I feel you made a better choice with the smaller Chinjin Eastern House (thx for mentioning my writeup that I forgot about....time to go back).

[Mr Taster]

Ah ha! Thanks for chiming in, K K. My wife is from Taiwan and she was reading the Chowhound posts to me as we drove down the peninsula to Silicon Valley... as she was reading your posts, she made the comment to me that "Hey, this K K really knows what she's talking about!" Pardon us if you're not female.... but you know, the gender neutral mandarin 'ta" makes that point somewhat moot anyway ;)

Yes, "Focus Plaza" is the official name of San Gabriel Square (or as many of us LA hounds lovingly call it, "The Great Mall of China"). By the way, it's actually a Tea Station on the outside, not Ten Ren. But you were close :) Very interesting that it's the same ownership... that's not terribly surprising as it appears to be extremely similar in style to Focus Plaza... just sprawled out since there's more open land available in Milpitas than San Gabriel.

Thank you for the recommendations... I am really interested to find Chinese food (or any food, really) that is not well represented in Los Angeles. I've read before that Hakka food is available in Silicon Valley. Is this true? Where would you go to find excellent representations it? My wife read a post about the special rice noodle Hakka dish that we got in Pingtung... those were wonderful, and all but impossible to find in LA.

Do you have true Peking duck (the real kind, with the special open oven and the fruit wood, Quanjude style-- not Cantonese style) available anywhere in the Bay Area? We used to have a branch of Quanjude in Rosemad, but sadly they closed just before my arrival in LA. Currently we have a place called "Duck House" which makes an OK but extremely unspectacular duck. I really miss that deep, rich velvety smokiness of the duck I had at the Tianmen Quanjude in Beijing.... this flavor and texture was difficult to recreate even among other famous duck restaurants in Beijing (I'm specifically thinking about Made in China and Liqin).

Any other suggestions for Bay Area places cooking underrepresented regional cooking in LA would be greatly appreciated and immediately bookmarked! :)

Thanks K K (and everyone)

Mr Taster

[K K]

I'm a dude, thanks for asking. Your wife is from Taiwan? Then she's going to be a tough cookie to please food-wise up here. She's reading my userid initials from a Chinese perspective which sound like Kei Kei, a little girl's name. Doh....but I get the joke.

I'm not clear on the style but probably the best Peking Duck experience they say is at Great China on Kitteridge in Berkeley. Never been but it's always been on my to-try list.

The way I remember it, Focus Plaza, on the outskirts, at least back in 2003...next to Kee Wah was Ten Ren tea store and adjacent to that Ten Ren Tea Station Cafe. But yeah unless ownership has changed, back in the 96 they were sister malls with Milpitas Square. I remember meeting Roger Chen (founder of 99 Ranch) once, didn't think much of it then!

There is "Hakka" food in SF and SF Bay Area but unfortunately it is 1) relegated to Hakka Cantonese 2) watered down to be mixed in with Cantonese that it's not quite recognizeable, maybe 2 or 3 representative dishes and 3) not the Hakka Taiwanese you are looking for. In fact you probably read exilekiss's writeup of Bon Marche in Monterey Park/SGV....the chef's Hakka Cantonese representative dishes arguably trumps our so called Hakka Cantonese dishes up here. But the style is not what your wife is looking for or is used to.

Hakka Taiwanese....oh gosh, we used to have a place in Milpitas that offered the southern Taiwanese delicacy "mahn luan ju jiao", it's a special prep of stewed pig feet and I'm sure is also very famous in Pingtung. Also ginger with blanched pork intestines (not great but a remote taste of that regional Taiwanese), but they closed down some years ago. A blog post mentioned that Ocean Harbor Cafe re-hired the chef that knew how to make that pig feet dish, (in Fremont in the East Bay) but they closed down. Now only one place offers this style of pig feet, but they pre-cook it, refrigerate it, and sell it with the bones (sliced to order) and frankly it's not that great, but it is better than nothing. This place, is actually a chain of 4 to 5 locations scattered around the South Bay (one in Fremont) called Won Stew House. They specialize in Taiwanese style bento/to-go and I wouldn't even call it regional Taiwanese, but it is there and better than nothing at all.

Should you return to the South Bay, check out Sogo Tofu in San Jose (southern end of De Anza Blvd near Highway 85). It's strictly Chinese vegan, and the family that runs it is Hakka Taiwanese. It's not going to taste the same as non vegan fare, but I suppose not bad for a quick fix. They have the vegan version of Hakka Taiwanese sticky rice bun, while not authentic like in YangMei/Hsinchu/Zhongli, is probably the only effort I've found.

What's the rice noodle you and your wife are looking for? Mifen or mi tai mu? The latter no longer exists as the chef that knew how to make mahn luan ju jao also used to make mi tai mu in house (mi tai mu looks like Japanese udon, but is slightly thinner and more dense, chewy, QQ).

[Mr Taster]

This is great info... thanks for this. Very interesting about the Hakka-Cantonese distinction. You're right, I'm sure, that she is looking for Taiwanese-Hakka flavors, but if it's delicious it really won't matter-- she'll find it interesting nonetheless. Although I've read about the history of Guangdong people in San Francisco, I know so little about modern non-Cantonese Chinese in the Bay Area and I'm really fascinated by the history (and food) and kind of starving for info on the topic. Before I met my wife 5 years ago, I knew nothing really about Chinese food. Now I can't get enough of it :)

The noodles I'm talking about are most definitely *not* mifen, though I am also unsure of the Mandarin (or Hakka) words for it. I do, however, have picture of these noodles which are, as you say, like Japanese udon. This photo is from our travel blog, which covered my first visit to Taiwan in 2006 and our subsequent 6 months traveling through Asia.

http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/adamandeva/asiatrek_2006/1142483520/tpod.html#pbrowser/adamandeva/asiatrek_2006/1142483520/filename=pingtung___noodles.jpg

Does this look like mi tai mu to you? (There's a second photo of it as well if you click on the right arrow)

On a totally unrelated note, we saw this massive crowd of people waiting to get in to a SF Chinatown place called R&G Restaurant and Lounge. We didn't see comparable crowds anywhere else in Chinatown. What's your opinion on this place?

http://maps.google.com/maps?oe=utf-8&...

Mr Taster

[K K]

Yup that picture of the mushy noodles is mi tai mu, interestingly enjoyed in Taiwan by the Hakka Taiwanese and folks of Fujianese descent. This is very common street food in Taiwan, usually a main side of starch and you order side dishes (veg, meat) to go with it. The key is a good broth. I too never had Mi Tai Mu until I met my wife, and I dare say it bears more than just striking resemblance to udon, in addition to Cantonese style "lai fun" (although to be fair the lai fun sold at supermarkets up here are closer to mi tai mu, whereas lai fun in Hong Kong is a bit more slippery smooth, more translucent and food snobs eat it in soup with roast duck or roast goose). On a side note, Hakka Taiwanese style flat rice noodles, while they call it Ho Fun in Cantonese restaurants, back in Taiwan they're called Bahn Tiao but they taste a lot different (and way better, especially when it has hardly met any low refrigeration).

Others can chime in, and although I have not been back in a few years, R&G Lounge is a firm known and good staple in Chinatown for Cantonese food. It's definitely one of SF's best restaurants, even though it is crowded and expensive. I still like it a lot, as the food is definitely a lot more refined than the competition in Chinatown. Practically everything on the chef recommendations/specials menu is good, and even standard stuff like claypots, steamed fish, stir fry, steamed pork patties etc. Of course there will be off nights. About 85% of time when we have relatives in Hong Kong visiting from the last 20 years, they've always enjoyed their dinners at R&G Lounge.

I wasn't sure where you were coming from for regional Chinese and whether you were looking for Cantonese as well, which is also very well represented for the most part up here.

[Mr Taster]

Ah well, I should clarify.... since Cantonese cuisine is the "de facto" Chinese style cookery of America, I was speaking of regional Chinese as being anything aside from Cantonese.

The R&G question was totally unrelated to my search for regional non-Cantonese food... just an artifact from our recent trip to SF that stuck in my mind that I was seeking some insight on.

Mr Taster

[Ruth Lafler]

Darda, for Islamic Chinese.

[Mr Taster]

You know, I saw the recs for Darda but ultimately we chose Chinjin based on these posts:

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/623053
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/594079

I'm really quite surprised that the SF boards are not overloaded with recs for regional Chinese as they are on the LA boards for the San Gabriel Valley. It seems like you've got some options... why aren't more Bay Area hounds talking about them as effusively as we do on the Los Angeles boards? Or should I be broadening my search to more than just Milpitas?

Mr Taster

[Ruth Lafler]

I don't know why you think we aren't talking about regional Chinese restaurants -- maybe because the regional Chinese restaurants are less geographically concentrated in the Bay Area. And yes, you should broaden your search beyond Milpitas -- probably the richest area for regional Chinese restaurants is the Peninsula. You would have to do a search for each "region" separately, as we tend to discuss them by type, rather than by location.

[Mr Taster]

OK, this is a great tip... I was doing searches for "Milpitas Chinese" and "San Jose Chinese". I'll search for specific regional styles next time. Thanks Ruth

Mr Taster