Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Chinese Cuisine Mecca - The San Gabriel Valley In Los Angeles



Seems that the SGV or the 626 is starting to gain fame around the world! AFP did a story on called, "LA's San Gabriel Valley a new mecca for Chinese cuisine" with the abstract of "With a majority Chinese-American population, the San Gabriel Valley suburb of Los Angeles is home to some of the most authentic and innovative Chinese cuisine in the United States". The AFP is not from around the SGV.

Although locals know that restaurants are no longer just in the SGV, it still has the most in number and types. The SGV in terms of the Chinese stuff is broken into two sections. The half to the west of the 605 freeway and the other half to the east of the 605. Even within these halves, there are sections, but that's too much to try to explain in this post.

The half with the majority of the restaurants is the western half. You'll also find more varieties of restaurants. Like the Shanxi Gourmet featured in the video and other more regional foods. And it has Din Tai Fung. The eastern half is also mostly in the 626, but it also contains the 909 and 562 area codes. The eastern SGV does have more area, but the Chinese restaurants are closer to 200 (my humble estimation) and more centralized around the 60 freeway. Western SGV is just a mass of more stuff.

And just a comparison, back growing up in the 1980s, my family would trek out to Monterey Park to eat authentic Chinese food. Away from eastern SGV. =[

Chinese restaurants are popping up all over the Greater Los Angeles Area. There are legit restaurants from the other valley, San Fernando all the way down to OC. And that's just the Chinese restaurants we're talking about here.

No comments: