**** Shufeng Garden has closed
Aaaah Colima Road, how we miss thee.... not for the traffic, or the noise, nor the drivers who wouldn't pass the DMV driver's exam in my hometown for the matter. What we do miss, is the wall to wall....."stuff". While on the short end for Japanese and Thai, there's an abundance of Chinese and Korean restaurants. Man, did we love those 24 hour Korean Restaurants.... but I guess that's a bit too much to ask for. Though, even in Honolulu there's at least one 24 hour Korean Restaurant! Having lived two blocks from Colima Road, food was always at our fingertips.... though I probably could have done without the fragrance of Chou Doufu floating through the air.....
On Christmas Eve we had taken a drive through Rowland Heights on our way back to San Diego. We peeked in Shufeng Garden and liked what we saw, and ordered the Tea Smoked Duck, which we thought was pretty good. So recently, we returned for a meal.
There's a strange tropical-jungle like mural that runs the entire wall of the restaurant. The staff here was really nice, if a bit harried and over-worked. We've noticed that staffing in Rowland/Hacienda Heights seems to be much better than restaurants in San Gabriel-Alhambra-Monterey Park...perhaps it's my imagination; but things seem that way.
We were given some soup to start things off. When I caught a whiff, I told the Missus that She wouldn't like it, it smelled really medicinal..... and it was.
I started with a couple of dishes I had read about on Pam's Blog. I was fascinated by the Intestines with Chili ($9.95), prepared in the fashion of Chongqing Chicken, first deep fried, then cooked a second time with lightly scalded chilies.
The texture of these were top-notch, light crunch, followed by the mild chew of intestines. I enjoyed the spice, good heat, but not overwhelming. The Missus hit it right on the nose when She said, "blah, these don't have that intestine flavor. You don't know you're eating intestine!" Still great texture, nice heat, could have used a bit more "ma" numbing from Sichuan Peppercorns....... I would suggest this dish if you love chilies, but have never had intestine before. I'm actually going to print out this photo, and see if they'd make something like this for me at Ba Ren!
The Sliced Pork with Garlic Sauce ($7.95) was phenomenal.
This cold dish featured fatty pork, with a mildly sweet, chili based sauce that reminds one of the sauce used for the classic "Saliva Chicken". The pork is muy tender without a touch of waxy greasiness.
The cucumber under the pork refreshed my palate, making ready for more.......
The Missus saw the next dish on another table and ordered it. She shouldn't have.......
At first I thought it was something like Shui Zhu Yu (water boiled fish). And though it did look like that dish with bean curd added, it was pretty bad. It was spicy, but that's it.... nothing else was brought to the table, no savory Doubian Jian flavor, nothing..... it could have used some salt as well. Also, the fish was overcooked and too flaky for this type of dish.
Much like Earthen Restaurant, if we still lived in the area, we'd be eating here every so often. The Missus doesn't think this place is worth an extra stop on our road trips to the area. I'm going to have to talk Her into stopping for the pork dish.......
Shufeng Garden
18459 Colima Road
Rowland Heights, CA 91748
the Missus sounds pretty tough, may take lots of convincing...
Posted by: kat | Sunday, 20 February 2011 at 09:13 PM
OOOOH, that pork dish looks ono!
Posted by: Nate | Monday, 21 February 2011 at 11:16 AM
It may Kat.... I'm going to have to work on it!
That is really ono Nate! Just thinking about it makes my opu growl....
Posted by: Kirk | Monday, 21 February 2011 at 08:45 PM