H & H Restaurant Opens In Monterey Park

[Chandavkl]

Reading TonyC's Eater LA column that H & H Restaurant had opened in the abandoned O T Kitchen space, I headed down to 429 W. Garvey to check it out. Unlike the more recent Cafe-ish tenants of this space, H & H appears to serve mostly Shanghai and Sichuan style food. The Shanghai dishes are listed under the "Huaiyangese" heading, while the Sichuan dishes are referred to "New Szechwan Food". Also a number of "Nanjin" denominated dishes and interesting sounding dishes which may or may not be old dishes with new names (e.g., special beef big egg roll, just noodle soup). They're still a little disorganized--three workers had to open up their wallets to give me a change from a $20 bill.

[odub]

Went here for lunch today, on the recommendation of TonyC b/c they do a Lanzhou style lah-mien.

•Big space, very empty. Provided, we were there early but still, not a great sign.

•None of their noodle or skewer dishes are on their english menu. Kind of strange, especially for a restaurant that's been in business since last summer.

•Their English menu has some notable typos and mistranslations, i.e. instead of "fungus," they use "bacteria." As in "three fried bacteria." Mmmmmm....

Me and a buddy ordered:

•cumin lamb skewers - pretty good. 10 sticks for $10. Just a little gristly but otherwise solid.

•fried noodles with chicken - the lah-mien was, indeed, pretty good. Not better than, say, Omar's but absolutely no complaints. The problem is that you have to read/speak Chinese to even figure out they serve noodles. TonyC said their beef noodle broth was weak so we opted for fried noodles instead but I'd still be curious to try these noodles in a soup.

•big bone with flavor sauce - this was a pork dish built around some kind of massive pig joints (shoulder? ankle?) that still have a little bit of meat attached. It's an impressive, caveman-looking platter but the actual amount of meat is modest. They give you disposable gloves to use with the dish; I liked that touch. Overall, it was fine but I wouldn't order it again.

Next time, if I ever go back, I'd want to try their take on Dong Bei-style chicken bones.

[TonyC]

Thanks for giving them a try. Don't know how much longer they'll last there. Pretty sure chandavkl can verify that spot is basically haunted.

To answer your post ( http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/6823... ). Yes, the Lanzhou noodles/skewers menu were clearly added well after the restaurant was opened last summer. In fact, (I'm too lazy to check the records) pretty sure the joint has already been flipped since July. Hence, the noodle/skewers menu only in Chinese. Sorry about that, I should've mentioned.

Don't know what else to order here, not sure I'd go back for anything else. The pan-Northern Chinese menu is just too scary. Someone else can take it for the team? FWIW, prefer these Lanzhou-style -- in case someone questions "authenticity" ala whether JTYH is actually Shanxi -- over the Malan noodles of similar thickness. There's a certain opagueness in these noodles that call out to me.

If "kevin"'s reading: the Lanzhou la mian are available in:
Red Braised Beef Noodle Soup
Red Braised Beef Tendon Soup
Beef Tendon Soup (clear broth
)Sichuan-style Dan Dan Mian
Zha Jiang Mian
Mixed Seafood Noodle Soup

The stir fried noodle odub ordered appears nowhere. To add to the obfuscation, the take-out menu clearly touts: "knife-cut noodles", while the noodle menu writes: "Lanzhou la-mian". IDFK.

[edit: after staring and thinking about these noodles for the last 10 min, I think I'll take the Chowchickie back for zha jiang mian. She loves that isht. I do not. But a dry/tossed noodle will feature the carb strands upfront without having to deal with the shat soup]

[odub]

Tony: just to confirm, you said the noodle soups were wack, right?

And I think they made our noodles off-menu. We simply asked (in Mandarin), "you guys do fried noodles?" And they said, "sure. You want beef or chicken?" So we just rolled with that.

I'd try either the dan dan or zha jiang mien.

[JThur01]

Any suggestions for those who are just beginning to recognize Hanzi? And the pan-Northern menu is scary, how...in what way? Did you notice any other Lanzhou specialties aside from the noodles? What about Niang Pi Zi and Zao Rou?

So, H&H starts as Sichuan then becomes Dongbei. Opp of Lao Bian that started Dongbei before turning Sichuan seemingly in a heartbeat.

[will47]

Went there for lunch today. Service was a bit slow considering the place was pretty deserted, and the music was a little bit much so early in the day. The business did pick up a little bit later on, but seems like they're in a space that's a little too large.

I got the 'chuan wei dandan mian' (Sichuan flavor dandan noodles), which was similar to that at some other Northern noodle places more than to any Sichuan place I've been to. I enjoyed it, though the cold blanched bai cai served with it would have been better if it were hot. It had some chili oil, but wasn't at all hot or numbing. The noodles themselves were great. I would probably go back again, though for this style, I slightly prefer the dandan mian at Mandarin Deli on Atlantic, which has better preserved vegetable and more Sichuan peppercorn. A bit soupier than even the soupiest versions I've had.

My other half got the 'hai xian tang mian' (seafood noodle soup); she gave it a C+.

We also got a potato and eggplant stir-fry, which was pretty decent.