Road Trip: Kingburg Kitchen - San Gabriel (LA)

Yes, I have a "little black book"......no, not that kind of little black book! This Moleskin that I carry around is full of little handy dandy notes...things like addresses, how to change the time on my wristwatch, and sometimes, when I anticipate that all to often occurrence nowadays, where the heck I parked my car. And of course, it contains names of restaurants, many restaurants, an unmanageable list of places to eat in several cities, some which I'll probably never set foot in....but like making sure you wear clean underwear, you know, "just in case", I'll jot down a restaurant, the address if I have it, what to order, and other stuff, in my own little undecipherable scribbling....just in case. And recently it dawned on me, this list of restaurants, having no rhyme or reason, has become untenable. Luckily for me, I can, most of the time, locate my restaurant scribblings when necessary. A good example is Kingburg Kitchen. Several months back, I scribbled "Kingburg - Shengjian Bao". And after reading first, Eileen's post on Kingburg Kitchen, which led me to Pepsi Monster's post on said dining establishment, we just had on head on over during a recent trip to the SGV. Please check out their wonderful posts.

Kingburg Kitchen is located on Las Tunas Drive, quite close to Lucious Dumplings, a place that we'd been to a few times. And yet we had never noticed it, in spite of the very bright and yellow banner.

 

The interior is San Gabriel Schizoid......everything from a faux cloud ceiling, to the fake fish tank. And man does this place love fliers....sheets of paper posted everywhere. Many of them saying, "We have the best buns in town".

The tables were only mildly "San Gabriel sticky", and the usual suspects were in display with regards the soy and vinegar.

 

The menu is a simple two sided laminated page full of soups, dumplings, buns ("the best in town!!!"), and cold appetizers.

The woman working was very efficient, and quickly brought out some pickled napa cabbage, which was pretty bland, but kept the starving Missus satiated.

We started with the Niu Rou Mein (spicy beef noodles soup - $6.50):

 

  My first thought was, "this looks nothing like what I saw in Eileen's post." And to put it bluntly, we didn't care for it very much. Nice mild spice, but no beef flavor to speak of, the meat was very tough, and tasted a bit off. The noodles started out with a decent chew and pull, but went mushy real quick.

The broth needed a more richness, it just reminded us of soy sauce water. Perhaps this was the first bowl of the day, and it needed more simmer time?

 

We couldn't finish half of it.

Of course we ordered the Shengjian Bao, starting with the pork and cabbage version ($6.50). After the requisite 20 minute wait, it arrived nicely browned on both sides.

 

The Missus and I both bit into our buns simultaneously, chewed and stopped, well, I swallowed. There was something wrong with these, the taste was decent, full of pork flavor, and well seasoned. But the texture of the buns was on the "gooey" side. This is when we took a look at the buns.....

 

Good God, the pork was still raw, and the dough on the interior of the bun was uncooked! I watched the Missus turn several shades of yellow, or was it green. The Missus managed to flag down the Server, who was already working on several tables, and explained to Her quietly in Mandarin what was going on, and of course we displayed the uneaten portions of the Shengjian Bao. Now, when something like this occurs, there are a whole range of responses we've gotten from restaurants. Everything from very defensive attitudes, to actions that try to place the guilt on us ("well, it's your fault you ordered this"), to where everything would just be reheated and dumped on our table. This lady responded in the best way possible to make things right. She was very, very, apologetic, and told us that they would like a chance to make us a fresh batch (this is a Chinese Restaurant, ain't no way you're getting comped, and we're not into making a scene). Of course this would take 20 minutes. So we decided to go ahead, but take the Pork Buns to go. In all honesty, I still get the heebies just looking at that photo.......

By this time our Vegetarian Buns($6.50) had arrived, and to be perfectly frank, I was ready to turn into a vegetarian about now anyhow.

   

Of course, we didn't just dig in this time, but daintily cut the Bao in half to check out what was going on first. Overall, we both weren't too pleased with the bun, in spite of the decent browning on both sides, we found the overall texture to be a bit too gummy, and the browned areas hard instead of crisp.

Personally, I love bitter greens, so I enjoyed the filling.

 

The smoked tofu and cloud ear fungus really just adds texture, but there was enough seasoning and flavor of my tastes. I think the Missus was still mentally consuming raw pork.........

We did have an entire order of Bao which we took home....but we really had a hard time eating them. I tried to have a few, but for once, we wasted food......which I feel real bad about.

 

We thought the service to be efficient, and the Server was very nice and professional. We really wanted to like this place, but I'm just not all that sure we'll be back.

 

Kingburg Kitchen
715 W Las Tunas Dr
San Gabriel, CA 91776

Comments

[Tammy]

Oh my! How yucky!

[Liz]

That is too bad. I was thinking of trying this place.

[Eileen]

Oh that's just too bad! And you guys drove all the way here from SD for it! I'm sorry (now feel a little guilty about my post)...

The beef noodle soup indeed looked way different. Where were the veggies? My mom said the same thing about the texture of the bun. This restuarant is now officially on my "don't go again" list.

[Fat Fudge]

Just looking at the picture of the raw dumpling turned my stomach! I hope you and the Mrs. don't get sick.

[Kirk]

Hi Tammy - Yes, that was kinda gross....

Hi Liz - I think you should still try them out....but check the dumplings before just eating them.

Hi eileen - Don't feel bad, stuff like this happens. Even if you hadn't done your post, I still had the place on my list.

Hi FF - Thanks for thinking of us. This was a couple of weeks back, and the only time I feel ill is when I see that photo.....

[Carol]

The bowl of beef noodles looked more like the one on Pepsi Monster's post. Bad buns are just wrong!

[Dennis]

Hi Kirk, would you or the missus know if they sell frozen shengjian bao at Ranch 99? Maybe I'll check them out at lunch today.. Thanks for the post.

[Green Turtle]

Hunan in RB has good NRM, and it's the same price as this place (6.50).

[Pepsi Monster]

Hey Kirk,

Sorry to hear about the bad experiences at Kingburg Kitchen for you and the missus. It's a bummer because obviously I have a much different take on what the food was like. Poor Eileen got the subpar service to ruin it for her.

To be honest, if the events had happened to me the same way it was presented to you, I would be mortified myself as well. So it is not that easy to trust it again. But in all honesty, I do enjoy that place immensely and very sorry to hear about your experience after your long trip.

[kat]

eww with the buns but wow with the black book!

[Kirk]

Hi Carol - Uncooked pork buns are wrong....

Hi Dennis - You know, I have never looked for them, so you can tell me if you find them. We're trying to see if my MIL knows how to make them.

Hi GT - Thanks for the rec....I've eaten at Hunan before, and thought the food mediocre at best, but not the NRM....so I'll make sure to give them a try.

Hi PM - Since we all had/have different experiences, I made sure to link to both of your posts.... For me, I found the NRM to be particularly bad, lacking any depth of flavor. The Bao filling (when they are cooked) is good, but there's something about the bun that's not right for us...it lacks any of the fluffy lightness.

Hi Kat - I needed to start carrying it around to help me remember stuff...

[foodhoe]

that sounds like such a drag especially since you travelled so far - and to be on the road and not sure about what your future holds... but at least the server was nice about it. dang now you got me thinking about those buns again!

[Kirk]

Hi FH - We try to make the best of our trips back to the SGV.....and weren't too concerned about our health. I mean, you see all the stuff we eat. We were a bit disappointed, but we'd never have known unless we tried it out.

[daantaat]

Hi Kirk,

We've never tried the buns that you did, but have gotten their frozen potstickers twice (fish w/ chives; beef w/ ginger; chicken) and chive pockets which are all very good. Granted, we're cooking them at home, so no problem w/ undercooke meat. Their tsoung yao bang is ok, not great. Might be better if we deep fried it, but it comes out a little tough in the frying pan.

[Kirk]

Hi Daantaat - How are you? It's been ages, I hope all is well. We've really never been back and usually get our Jiaozi fix from QingDao Bread Food or Lucuous Dumplings.