Chang's Garden

While reading the LA Weekly's "99 Essential Restaurants" edition last November, I stumbled across Chang's Garden. I had not heard of it, and was surprised to see the address on Duarte Rd in Arcadia. Where exactly is that?, I thought to myself. So I used Google Maps. The recognition built slowly. Wait a second... In that shopping center?... In that location? Son of a gun.

Once upon a time this was my grandmother's favorite restaurant. But it wasn't called Chang's Garden then (believe it or not). Nor was it Cafe St. Michel, nor Mediterranean Cafe, nor any of the previous incarnations of this location. Nope, I'm going way back a couple of decades to when the place was called Jeannie's.

To be honest, I spent half an hour trying to remember the name of the place. I could not. I remembered that it was one word and I thought it was a person's name, but I just couldn't get there. Then I had an idea: query the California ABC website. The oldest listing did not include a DBA, but it did have the name of the owner: Jeannie. Then it all came flooding back. I can't remember how many meals I ate with my brother and grandmother at Jeannie's, but it was a lot.

I immediately emailed my friend Bryce, with whom I have been discussing Asian restaurants around the San Gabriel Valley for almost a decade. "Have you ever been here?" I asked.

"How funny you ask," was his reply. "Been meaning to. My parents told me about it several weeks ago- they love it and buy tons of take-out and eat it for days at a time."

We intended to visit Chang's Garden soon after that, but something always came up. Eventually we made it there, bringing along Bryce's two-year old daughter, Lucy. (Her favorite thing to say to me is "Hi Uncle Justin!,"  a phrase she repeated no fewer than 50 times during lunch, though I'll be honest: I never get tired of it.)

Obviously, this is not what Jeannie's looked like. We arrived shortly after opening and were the second customers (a woman was getting food to-go). By the time we left less than an hour later the place was much busier.

Lucy is 29 years younger than Elizabeth, but her reaction is exactly the same when I ask if I can take her picture: she grabs whatever she can and holds it in front of her face.

We talked about what to order. I had planned to order a lunch special, but the juicy dumplings off the regular menu intrigued me. "Have you ever had them?" I asked Bryce.

"No," he said, "let's start with some."

One minute later he asked me if I like fish; I said yes.

"Wanna try the seaweed fried fish?" he asked.

"Sure," I said, realizing at the time we were going to have a lot of food.

They brought us three bowls of hot & sour soup, as if the 2-year old was going to have a bowl. (I suppose it's possible that some 2-year olds do; what the hell do I know?)

The first thing to hit the table was a dish of fish fillets with vegetables - something quite bland so that Lucy could snack on something if she wanted. Despite the fact that there wasn't a lot of flavor going on, the fish was still tender and juicy and the veggies were delicious. I did not have more than this tiny amount, but I really liked it. 

 I ordered the Szechwan Spicy Beef.

"It's really spicy," the waitress informed me.

"He likes spicy," Bryce interjected.

"It's really, really spicy," she replied. I am not sure if she thought the additional adverb would make me rethink things (Hmm, well, I can take really spicy, but not really, really spicy) but I still smiled and said "That sounds great."

It was delicious. Would I call it "really" spicy? Just barely. It did not blow me away, but the heat was there. Bryce announced after eating some that he was perspiring, and I could feel my forehead heating up too, but at no point did I need anything more than my little cup of tea and I did not hesitate to have a second and third helping.

"Let's give some to Lucy," I said.

"No."

(The tone in Bryce's voice suggested this was not negotiable and I let it go.)

The dumplings we had intended to start with came out after both of the entrees. Oh well. They were quite good - the skin was just the right amount of thickness and the filling was tasty. They would have been better if hotter. (The first time I ever ate at Din Tai Fung around the corner, with Bryce and his wife Amy seven years ago, I burned my mouth on xiao long bao, probably the hottest thing I have ever eaten.) But I was pleased we ordered these.

A half-hour after our food had started hitting the table, Bryce announced "Oh, we haven't gotten our seaweed fish yet." I hadn't actually heard him order it - I was probably paying attention to Lucy, as she is much cuter than he - so I'd assumed he decided not to get it, especially when it did not arrive for so long.

"If you haven't made the fried fish we ordered," Bryce told the waitress, "can you cancel that? We're both stuffed." She said okay and walked away, returning 30 seconds later with the dish.

But I was glad she did, because this dish was fascinating. The batter was as delicate as any I have ever had. I'm not sure how they managed to envelop the fish so completely and keep the ultra-thin batter intact, to say nothing of the fact that it was not at all oily. The fish was as fresh as the previous fish entree, and the seawood and salt flavors worked wonderfully together. I cannot think of a single dish I have ever had quite like this and yet each bite seemed so familiar, like it's something I have been eating and loving my whole life.

There were plenty of leftovers.

Not only do I like Chang's Garden much, much more than I ever liked Jeannie's, I liked it more than any Chinese restaurant I have been to in Arcadia or Monrovia. There are no fewer than one dozen items I would like to return and try.

Weekend Eats

 My Boneless Wing Predilection

I've mentioned before that it is almost impossible for me to pass up boneless wings. Early in the week I was at Vons and they were giving out samples of boneless wings in an Asian-style sauce. I said I would take some; the girl behind the counter told me that they are for sale in the cold case.

"They're $8.99," she said, "but actually there is a one-day sale on Friday when they're going to be five dollars."

I appreciated her giving me the heads up, and since I wasn't actually going to eat them that night - well, I wasn't going to eat more than one or two that night - I decided to just come back on Friday. When I did show up on Friday, I was surprised: I had thought that maybe the five dollar deal would be a small container of the boneless wings. It was two pounds of chicken.

I'm not going to say this was great, but it was certainly tasty. I snacked on chicken pieces all weekend. And I still have more than half left.  

An 80 Degree Afternoon

It was a very nice day. We wanted to eat lunch outside. No surprisingly, other people had the same idea. We went to two places but both were packed. I suggested Porta Via. It too was very crowded, but we were able to snag a table on the patio.

I did not have the camera with me so I used the phone camera. Elizabeth had the turkey dip and I had the meatball & Provolone. The former (I got to eat about a quarter of it) was as delicious as ever. Other than a Zankou chicken tarna wrap, this might be my favorite sandwich in Pasadena at the moment. Juicy turkey, sweet caramelized onions, and spicy mustard, all on a roll with just the right amount of crunch to it.

My meatball sandwich was good, don't get me wrong. It just wasn't as good as that turkey dip.

 A Ginormous Gummi Bear

I won a gift certificate to Fair Oaks Pharmacy & Soda Fountain almost two years ago, a $100 card that I got at a charity event in April of 2010. But you can't actually use the certificate for anything from the pharmacy section of the shop (otherwise I would have used it up pretty quickly); you can only use it at the soda fountain. And I really don't think much of their food, so every few months I would duck in and buy some candy from their ample selection. It's pretty hard to buy $100 worth of candy, even at their prices, which is why it took me almost two years to use the certificate up.

But I just used the last of it, and I picked up this "ginormous" gummi bear because I thought it looked cool.


Here it is next to a DVD to give some perspective.

The serving size is 1/4 of the bear. Apparently that means there are four servings. 

It was pretty terrible. I don't know how old this was but it was all crusty at the edges, rock-hard in some places. I thought it would be fun to chew the bear's face off like Hannibal Lecter, but even that proved to be a hollow thrill. 

Even More Karma Than I Thought

Remember when I wrote about Papa John's a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that karma had rewarded me for a good deed by allowing me to win three Papa John's pizzas? It turns out I won five pizzas. I only noticed that after I had ordered those three pizzas. Saturday night, after having a few beers with Elizabeth and Tracie, we decided to order those other two pizzas: one with pepperoni, one with banana peppers.

I decided to add the freebies of Parmesan cheese, crushed red pepper and pepperoncini to one of my slices. They did not improve the slice.

Last time, I accidentally threw away one of the garlic sauces. Elizabeth was not pleased. So to make up for it, I ordered an additional three of them for her. So we had five in total.

Empanadas

Those Vons frozen empanadas that I have written about several times really do make a nice snack. Yesterday I baked some for lunch, drizzling them with a vinaigrette I like to make consisting of olive oil, vinegar, mustard, green onion and cracked black pepper. These were as good as always.

Sunday Dinner

The last time Elizabeth's dad visited, he made a huge amount of his (famous in certain circles) lasagna, including a pan for us to eat at a later date. Our freezer wasn't big enough to store it, though, so we kept it in Tracie's freezer. On Sunday, we decided to break it out for dinner. Tracie, Tim and Murph joined us.

It took three hours in the oven to reheat, but it was another beautiful day and we were able to relax on the patio while the dish cooked.

I thought garlic bread sounded good, too.

With a simple salad. This was a great dinner.

As usual, Tim provided the perfect wine(s): bottles of 2000 and 2001 Capezzana Ghiaie Della Furba, a Tuscan red wine that complemented dinner wonderfully.

A Year Of Burgers

Maybe not every burger I ate in the last year, but every burger of which I took a picture.

Goodbye Little Buddy

I will miss you so much. Especially the way you always needed to share our food and drinks with us.

The Back Abbey

I've known of The Back Abbey for years and heard almost nothing but good things about it. My brother and his buddy Nick, who live nearby, both love the burger. My friend Bryce works in Upland and has told me how good the place is; ditto my friend Tim who knows pretty much every restaurant between Orange County and Ventura.

But I never made the trip out to Claremont. I've heard how crowded The Back Abbey can get, so I never felt the motivation to drive out on a weekend. And weekday lunches usually consist of places closer to home. But the other day I went out to San Dimas to see a project my brother is working on (it's about ninjas, so I couldn't pass it up) and he suggested we visit The Back Abbey for lunch. I said that sounded great. We got there on the early side, just before noon, and there were only a few other patrons. We sat ourselves on the patio.

I looked over the whole menu, although I knew exactly what I was going to be getting.

The beer list is almost exclusively Belgian - not terribly surprising, given the name of the place - although I did spy a couple of other things mixed in.

But it was an iced tea day for me. I suppose it's part of getting older, but afternoon beers these days make me want to do one of two things: have another or take a nap. Neither is a particularly attractive option when dining 30 miles from home.

My brother announced that we would be splitting a large order of fries. They came out in a cone and we immediately ate a few off the top, then he unwrapped the paper and dumped the fries out on the table. They were delicious, fried in duck fat the first time around and soybean oil the second. They could have used some salt, but having no salt is preferable to having too much. Especially when...

... you get dipping sauces. Remoulade, horseradish chive sauce, and ketchup. 

The remoulade was my favorite of the bunch. The horseradish chive sauce was good, but would have been better with more horseradish kick to it. Even as I was eating the fries, I wished strongly that I had some Sir Kensington's Gourmet Scooping Ketchup. That feels like it would be a match made in pommes-frites-heaven. But I don't carry that in my car like I do Trappey's. Not yet, anyway.

And now, my friends, the burger. I've been lucky enough to have eaten some truly amazing burgers around this country: the fancy, short-rib-stuffed things that cost more than twenty bucks in Los Angeles and the perfectly-seared backyard burger in Upstate New York. Green chile cheeseburgers in Santa Fe and venison burgers in the Rocky Mountains. A Memphis burger fried in grease that hasn't been changed in 100 years. Enough Double-Doubles and Hutch's burgers to form a reasonable replica of the Petronas Towers should they be stacked side by side.

I feel quite comfortable calling this one of the five best burgers I have ever had.

I had been a little surprised when I noticed the menu advertises a 6oz patty; that seemed a little small for the $13 price tag. But the ratio of meat to the buttery-soft bun - a bun that melted in my mouth like almost none I've ever eaten - was perfect. There was shaved Gouda, a mustard aioli, caramelized onion, bacon, micro greens; just enough of everything, not too much of anything.   

It almost seems like an afterthought, but the salad was also one of the greatest side salads I have ever eaten. The dressing was creamy and tangy and the greens were quite fresh.

I told you why it took me so long to make it out to The Back Abbey. If I had known how truly delicious the burger is - despite several friends telling me - I probably would have gone sooner. I will be back.