Any Chinese Restaurant in the SGV Serve General Tso's Chicken?

[Chandavkl]

Some New Yorkers are doing a documentary on Chinese restaurants and they thought it would be ironic if they did a location scene from a San Gabriel Valley restaurant that served General Tso's Chicken. I don't recall seeing any, but if there is one we'd like to hear about it.

[ClarissaW]

vege paradise serves up a great faux meat version of it

[raytamsgv]

Shanghai Garden has it on their menu that I obtained from them a few months ago. I haven't ordered it, so I don't know if it is good or not. Of course, there's a question of whether such a Americanized-Chinese restaurant is really is "Chinese" restaurant.

[catbert]

doesn't chang's garden have it?

[ipsedixit]

No.

[ElsieDee]

Another possibility: Wang's Palace in Monrovia.

[ElsieDee]

According to this site: http://www.mandaringardenpasadena.com/ Mandarin Garden on North Fair Oaks in Pasadena has it - never been there, can't vouch for the restaurant.

[Chandavkl]

Thanks. I've been there and have no desire to go back. Note they serve sushi, tempura and Chinese food.

[K K]

Do Chinese vegetarian versions count? If you search Yelp for General Tso's Chicken in San Gabriel, there are some hits from reviewers mentioning the dish. But vegan chicken not equal to real chicken

One mention at Shanghai Garden Asian Bistro in Arcadia.

[Chandavkl]

Thanks. Shanghai Garden Asian Bistro is one about only literally three Americanized Chinese restaurants I can think of in the Chinese SGV (the others being Bamboo Garden in Alhambra and Ye Loy in Temple City, and not counting Panda Express), so they were one of the most likeliest possibilities.

[raytamsgv]

What about Young's Gourmet in Duarte? If their online menu is accurate, they have paper wrapped chicken, moo goo gai pan, and (drum roll, please)...."Flaming Pu Pu Platter".

http://www.chamberorganizer.com/duart...

[Chandavkl]

Of course, by implication. You should come out here to try the stuff in the SGV. You'll never go back, if only because it'll take you forever to visit all of the authentic Chinese restaurants there.

[K K]

Searching the net in Chinese, hints that Dumpling Master at Hacienda Heights has Zuo Zong Tang Ji 左宗棠雞, aka GTC.

I'm guessing that if it is not on the menu, and if the restaurant has Mandarin speaking staff, just order "Zuo Zong Tang Ji" in Mandarin. Whether you get the American Chinese rendition, or the Taiwanese style one (are there Taiwanese run Hunan restaurants in SGV?) might depend on how you order as well as the restaurant.

On a side note, Peng Jang Guei (invento" of GTC in TW and TW's first Xiang/Hunan banquet cuisine chef) is pushing his mid 90s, and there's some footage of his creation(s).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llOuqG...

Assuming the likes of Xiang Wei Lou and other similar Hunan type restaurants in SGV have something similar to Peng's dishes (like the tofu or the ham), then it wouldn't kill them if someone requested ZZTJ/GTC.

We actually have a banquet chef who used to cook for the VP of TW (Lien Chan) who owns a restaurant in Milpitas (NorCal) at Liou's House...the preorder banquet dishes are similar to what you get in TW for Chinese banquets...but more costly of course. There's the honey ham which seems to have the Xiang banquet and Hangzhou influence too. Does a chef of that caliber exist in SoCal/SGV?

But kids these days would rather have dried fried spicy honey chicken wings, or if at a Sichuan place, Chongqing Chili spicy diced wings/wing tips.

[mucho gordo]

<<"Zuo Zong Tang Ji">> How do you pronounce it?

[raytamsgv]

The easiest way is to print it out and show it to the wait staff. But if you really want to learn how to pronounce it, try this link:

http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict...

Click on the "zuo", "zong", "tang", or "ji" links underneath the Chinese characters to hear the pronunciations.

[Servorg]

You can listen to any foreign phrase via the "sound" icon on the Google translation page.

[scoopG]

左宗棠鸡 = zuò zōng táng jī

Copy the four Chinese characters and paste in the appropriate box at this site:

http://www.chinesetools.eu/tools/audio/

to hear the correct pronunciation in Mandarin - make sure the box is empty of characters first.

Edit: The site does not recognize complicated characters so I changed chicken to the simplified form.

[will47]

Well, if you don't speak Mandarin, it's pretty easy to mangle it. If you get the tones or sound wrong, it will probably take a bit for the staff to understand; printing it out would probably be a little safer.

zuǒ zōng táng jī is (roughly) phonetically pronounced like
zoo-uh [dipthong] zohng tahng jee
The diacritics represent the tones (3, 1, 2, 1), which would be a down-up tone, high flat tone, rising tone, and high flat tone, respectively)
You can also listen to the sound sample here
http://translate.google.com/#auto/en/...

[K K]

mucho gordo, if you click on the youtube link I provided above, at the 4 to 5 second mark, the female newscaster says GTC in Mandarin/Zuo Zong Tang Ji. Turn up the volume, and repeat as needed.

[ipsedixit]

Does Yang Chow in Pasadena count?

[Chandavkl]

I was thinking about them. They have it downtown, but I wasn't sure about Pasadena.

[Chandavkl]

I know there's a similarity between General Tso's chicken and orange chicken, but I think they want someplace where the dish is properly named. New Yorkers are quite proud of General Tso.

[ipsedixit]

Right.

Yang Chow's calls there's "General Tseng's Chicken"

Or is that still not good enough?

http://yangchow.com/menu2.html

[scoopG]

...New Yorkers are quite proud of General Tso.
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Only New Yorkers who like American-Chinese food!

[raytamsgv]

Is that any different from the orange peel chicken that's found in any number of restaurants?

How about the "Pei Wei Spicy" dish at Pei Wei? They claim its their "version of General Chu", which might be their version of General Tso.

[ipsedixit]

How about the "Pei Wei Spicy" dish at Pei Wei? They claim its their "version of General Chu", which might be their version of General Tso.
_________________________

My friend, are you assuming that Pei Wei is "Chinese" per the OP request?

[raytamsgv]

You have a point.

[mucho gordo]

Probably all of them. It's a very popular dish in L.A. and here in Las Vegas.

[Chandavkl]

Not in the San Gabriel Valley.