Innovative Rice Noodle Rolls Anywhere?

[Chandavkl]

I'm seeing different types of rice noodle rolls (cheung fun) these days today, but not in Los Angeles. I had the prize winners today--in of all places, Houston, Texas (actually Sugar Land). At Jade Garden they have cheung fun with fish roe and scallops (large size, not the tiny ones), and another one with egg tofu. Also, Cooking Papa in Santa Clara and Foster City has like a dozen and a half varieties which includes shredded duck. But locally most of the restaurants only have the standard beef, bbq pork and shrimp. I think King Hua has it with chicken and bitter melon and somebody has it with mushrooms. Silver & Gold Amazing had the big ones with fish before they were smoked out. Anybody run across other varieties lately?

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Silver & Gold Amazing
728 S Atlantic Blvd Ste 103, Monterey Park, CA 91754

King Hua Restaurant
2000 W Main St, Alhambra, CA 91801

[granadafan]

Does anyone know if there's a place to buy fresh made fun noodles? Up in the Bay Area, Oakland, there's a noodle factory where you can buy sheets of the fun noodles right off the press for about 50 cents a pound. In a sheet it's easier to make chow fun than the rolled up kind.

[K K]

Fish CF reported by a Taiwanese blogger in 2009 at Empress Pavilion

http://blog.roodo.com/chenjack/archiv...

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Empress Pavilion Restaurant
988 N Hill St, Los Angeles, CA 90012

[TonyC]

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest Delicious Food Corner. It's a mom/pop joint, but she's so keen on cheung fun I bet she'll make whatever you request.

Just last night, an HK blogger tweeted a thousand year old egg cheung fun. I rather love the idea of that.

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Delicious Food Corner
2327 S Garfield Ave, Monterey Park, CA 91754

[Peripatetic]

I saw your tweet about the thousand year old egg cheung fun. It looks depressingly amazing. Depressing to those of use who are an ocean away.

[K K]

Couldn't find much in the way of info at DFC with very few blog posts...then again I'm not a member of the twitterati and am in the iron ages. Seems to be more of a starch themed comfort food type Hong Kongnese kind of joint with some stir fry plates, but nothing terribly exciting from the few blog posts and pics.

The century egg CF sounds cool. Then again if a CF + jook joint can't casually custom make items based on ingredients they throw into congee for CF, then something's wrong.

[TonyC]

You're spot-on KK.

DFC's lady said her CF is the best in LA. Though it's just a hole-in-a-hole kinda brekkie joint, they've become the de-facto CF/jook joint, over taking that other congee joint on Valley Blvd. The HKers LOVE it mang. Every Sat/Sun, line out the door rivaling Elite.

I don't get it, but I love their spirit. It's an American tale come true, as she's scored a few Benzes from selling lowly rice rolls.

[K K]

Yeah you have to have grown up in HK (or Southern China) and eaten at these nitty gritty joints to appreciate it.

DFC in addition to being a CF+jook joint also has a lot of cha chaan teng fare....found a microbloggy comment about them having pineapple bun with butter 菠蘿油 but you need to order it before 11 am (when they sell out). Looking more at their menu and approach, they may seem closer to the "dai pai dong" experience, very laid back and extremely casual. Seems like they might do it a few notches better than the SGV stooges depending on the dishes ordered.

The spicy minced pork rice looks awefully perverted in a good way

http://www.syorithefoodie.com/2011/03...

maybe they can make it into a CF? Or julienne black pepper tender beef CF?

CF is a very typical breakfast item in Guangzhou, the skins are pulled a lot thinner and fresher, and usually paired with some crazy innards ladened jook (or uber fresh local fish for the squeamish). In addition to the silly multiple sauces that create the texture for the plain CF, the locals seem to like to slurp it up by unrolling it and eating it like...ho fun. They might do that as well in parts of Ipoh Malaysia at some of the Malaysian Canto joints that also do their take on plain CF. Just don't wear white shirts. Oh the horror.

[ns1]

had a different take on rice noodle rolls @ Sea Harbour this weekend, rice noodle rolls with ox tail

SUPER unctuous, various parts of the ox tail.

[darrelll]

While I don't have any places to recommend, your topic points to making your own rolls at home. I never really liked the restaurant versions much as most contained hardly any filling so it was mostly just the noodle so I would prefer to order chow fun instead.

I think homemade versions could be made that will kicka$$. The restaurant versions are boring with little filling in order to keep prices inline with other dim sum item prices. But at home, I would not be limited by that restriction. Thanks, you've given me food for thought.

[raytamsgv]

What an interesting idea! If I get around to it, I might start experimenting with carne asada cheung fun or something similar. It might be interesting to have something like ja leung but with a hot dog inside of the fried dough. Maybe that's just my deep-fried hot dog experiment coming back to haunt me....

[will47]

I think the ones steamed at the restaurant are better than the premade chang fen / banh cuon you can buy at the market, though. And while making them from scratch at home, whether on a griddle (Vietnamese style) or in a steamer (Cantonese style) is possible, it's definitely a bit of work.

[K K]

Elite's website dim sum menu:

沙葛絲帶子腸 - that's jicama (julienne) with scallops cheung fun

There's also what appears to be asparagus shrimp cheung fun, but if the pic is any indication, the asparagus are two spears placed externally on the plate, not inside the CF.

It's interesting that we in the USA call anything that is not tried and true, e.g. ja leung, beef, shrimp, cha siu to be innovative...when in fact the other renditions have been offered in Hong Kong at cheung fun specialist late night snack shops for quite a number of years. It is just a matter of taking known Cantonese themed ingredients and putting them inside the steamed rice crepe/rollades, much like building your own savory Brittany style gallette or sweet crepe. My guess is that most dim sum restaurants in California don't want to stray or mess around too much, and something like pork liver cheung fun won't be heavily ordered and make their lineup seem more pedestrian than upscale. Bitter melon and chicken cheung fun will probably be only ordered by post 30+ year olds and senior expat types, while the younger crowd might still consider ja leung or XO sauce stir fried plain cheung fun to be more trendy and palatable.

To people in Hong Kong, innovative would be foie gras or black truffle...but they are somewhat not so fashionable now and more so a gimmick for the noveau riche.

Here are two well known CF specialist shops in HK

Tong Kee (a favorite amongst late night snackers and taxi cab drivers on nightshift)
http://www.openrice.com/english/restaurant/sr2.htm?shopid=10816

and the recently opened #1

http://www.openrice.com/english/resta...

The latter has a small menu, nothing that we would deem innovative necessarily, but the focus is more on "pulled" to order CF (using some strainer/cheesecloth like sheet).

There are probably more local yet rustic toppings used for cheung fun (and congee) in Guangzhou, which are common breakfast items.

[The Chowhound Team]

Just a friendly reminder, this board is about finding great food and drink in the L.A. area, please keep the focus on food currently available in the L.A. area.

[Chandavkl]

Indeed a sad commentary on local dining! I'm not sure if once can even find chicken or fish varieties locally any more.

[ipsedixit]

Tasty Garden has both -- chicken and fish cheung fung

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Tasty Garden
288 W Valley Blvd 110, Alhambra, CA 91801

[K K]

You know, it doesn't hurt to ask your waiter or floor manager/pit boss of a local dim sum restaurant if they can customize a CF to your specs, even if it is not on the menu, provided they have the ingredients, and especially if you want a shredded roast duck CF and they have a roasties deli in-house. Of course it is likely more effective if you request in Cantonese.
The biggest obstacle is whether the restaurant is willing to take a more challenging request like having the CF skins be pulled thinner, resulting in a more "authentic" textural experience (which of course is kind of an oxymoron, you're paying the same for essentially less CF skin thickness, but you get hopefully a better smooth/slippery/sliding down the throat factor if the CF chef is on his game).

I would be surprised if a dim sum restaurant refuses to do bitter melon and chicken shred CF, or fish....especially if they offer a fresh live fish filet congee option during lunch.

[will47]

King Hua wouldn't even give me a (fresh) completely plain one - they gave me the pre-made rolled type that tastes a little bitter. This leads me to think that they pre-make them and can't easily make them to order, at least when it's busy.

They (and other places, such as Sea Harbour) do have various stir-fried chang fen (again, the rolled type), and King Hua has one that is served in a hot aluminum dish and looks a little like san bei [whatever]. Not sure what it's called, but saw someone eating it last time I was there.

[K K]

Their logo looks a little bit Ceasar Palace and 99 Ranch like!

Found this on a blogger's page of a King Hua review:

http://blog.yahoo.com/_KXTMOO5UCHDYJY...

排骨手拉腸

black bean sauce pork spareribs stir fried with CF. Looks like a cheapened wet chow fun, except the ho fun is replaced with mini frankfurter bite sized CF rolls that might not work so well. Or maybe it could be slightly better if they included the dim sum chicken feet together with the spareribs... Also the pic of the dude slurping the mini CF rolls makes this dish very unappetizing even more (not to mention creepy).

There are some places in Northern Calfornia that do stewed beef brisket over a bed of mini CF rolls, although I fail to see the appeal, let alone innovation of pairing these things outside.

[Chandavkl]

Various places do the small cheung fun flour rolls both in the San Gabriel Valley and in New York. Typically a dim sum in the San Gabriel Valley, but a all day menu item in Manhattan (e.g., Yummy, Yogee).

[condiment]

I had the ones with chicken and slivers of bitter melon at Sea Harbour last weekend. They were very, very good. And the stir-fried cheung fun rolls with a juicy ox-part stew on top were delicious too.

[kevin]

Did Sea Harbour on Rosemead Blvd take over the old location of Farrell's Ice Cream parlor (which is now making quite a resurgence)?

[raytamsgv]

Yes