Where to Eat Now

Comments (0) By Jonathan Gold Monday, Oct 15 2007

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AD?Noodle House It is always fried bao time at this Taiwanese breakfast specialist, fluffy, steamed pork buns sizzled until their bottoms crisp up like eggs fried in oil and the jellied juices of the pork heat and melt until they are pressurized enough to rocket across the table the moment that your teeth breach the substance of the dough. The buns, a lucky eight of them, are served browned-side up, arranged into a bao fairy ring connected by a gauzy scrim of batter. You detach a bun and dunk it into a bowl of spicy garlic-infused soy sauce. The sauce-saturated pastry assumes a soft, mousseline texture; the soy mingles with hot porky essence; the buns seem to hop into your mouth one after another as if propelled by an alien force. When you are done, there are is delicious soy milk and Tianjin pancakes to contemplate, which is to say northern-Chinese-style burritos stuffed with freshly fried crullers. 46 W. Las Tunas Dr., Arcadia, (626) 821-2088. Daily Tues.–Sun. 7 a.m.–9 p.m. No alcohol. Cash only. Taiwanese. JG G

Monterey Park/?San Gabriel and vicinity

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Palms Thai Restaurant

5900 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90028

Category: Music Venues

Region: Hollywood

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El Cholo

1121 S. Western Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90006

Category: Restaurant > Mexican

Region: Mid-Wilshire/ Hancock Park

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Indo Kitchen This small, crowded restaurant on an Alhambra side street serves a sharp, spicy brand of Padang-style cooking — meltingly tender slabs of beef rendang bathed in a dense sauce of coconut milk and spices, boiled eggs fried in a fire-breathing coating of belado, whole catfish fried to the crispness of potato chips and served with a mound of sweet, powerful fermented-shrimp sambal. When you’re in the mood for a proper nasi Padang, there is nothing like it in Los Angeles. 5 N. Fourth St., Alhambra, (626) 282-1676. Open Tues.–Sun., 11 a.m.–9 p.m. D, MC, V. No alcohol. Lot parking. Dinner for two, food only, $11–$20. JGGL

AD?Elite Some restaurants are rocks of stability, operating on more or less the same level until they go out of business. But the quality of fancy Hong Kong–style seafood palaces in Los Angeles is as volatile as the NASDAQ average, bursting forth into brilliance, only to have chefs and headwaiters poached by competitors, recruited by wealthy Las Vegas kitchens, or lured back to China. So forget what the Weekly told you last month: The sharpest Chinese seafood house in town at the moment is Elite. It is certainly the most expensive Chinese restaurant in the San Gabriel Valley — its banquet menu includes options costing up to $2,288 for a table of 10. The customers tend to drink big red wine instead of beer, and there are enough unsustainable species on the seafood menu to make a Heal the Bay member weep salty, salty tears. Yet the frog stir-fried with fresh chiles and the dried-shellfish concoction known as XO sauce is formidable, with an exquisite low-tide pungency punching through with every bite. The roast squab has skin as delicately crunchy as any Beijing duck. The Shunde-style soup of seafood with minced ham and bits of bitter melon is as tautly balanced as the exhaust note of a Lamborghini. And the morning dim sum breakfasts, ordered from menus instead of carts, are divine. 700 S. Atlantic Blvd., Monterey Park, (626) 282-9998. Dim sum Mon.–Fri. 10:30 a.m.–3 p.m., Sat.–Sun. 10 a.m.–3 p.m.; dinner nightly 5–11 p.m. Beer and wine. Street parking. AE, MC, V. Chinese. JG JMK