Ever since I got back to LA, I’ve been craving for dumplings and noodles. Dumplings and noodles, dumplings and noodles, dumplings and noodles my mind and stomach would chant every freakin day. Yep, seriously. I’m not sure what is it about going home that makes me crave for Chinese food maybe it has something to do with the plethora of Chinese restaurants in LA? Also the obvious thing is that it is way cheaper there than here in NYC.
My Experience at Shanghai Bamboo House
I’ve been to Shanghai Bamboo House a few years ago at its old location. My friends took me there because they serve this crazy good dish, a giant braised pork knuckle. The meat and fat were so tender and crazily juicy. Give me just that and a few bowls of rice and I’ll be set.
So after a few years, I was back. The new location was bigger but sadly the food didn’t really improve, some of the dishes weren’t so great actually.
Notable Dishes
Let’s start off with, well the pork Truly truly an amazing dish. I was slurping the fat into my mouth followed by a couple of mouthfuls of rice. Ah man. I made sure to eat some of the meat too so I wouldn’t feel so guilty about eating the fat.
Another good dish was the crystal shrimp. It was great and when you bite into it you’ll know why it’s called crystal shrimp. It had a really almost crunchy snappy texture to it.
The deep fried fish served with a bowl of pepper and salt was pretty good also. I wasn’t sure what the green stuff was. The batter was light.
Other Dishes
We also ordered a plate of potstickers and a plate of veggies which were alright, nothing special. The bowl of lion’s head or giant meatballs were alright too. We thought we ordered the braised one but what we got was a boiled one. Oh well.
The juicy buns were meh. Sometimes the buns, when you get juicy buns, tend to stick together, sure that’s normal-ish but these when I picked 1 up part of the skin from the bun pulled off which resulted in all the juices pouring out.
My friend had ordered a noodle dish. The chow mein where half of the noodles were crunchy while the other half was soft. Straight translation, “2 face yellow”. This dish looked promising but it was horrible. The noodles were all crunchy like they had just opened a bag of dried noodles and threw on top some sauce and veg and meat. This was not what we had expected. We couldn’t tell if the noodles were uncooked or not. This was terrible.
Shanghai Bamboo House is located in a strip mall off Duarte Road, Monrovia, California, and is open 11 AM every day for lunch. For more comprehensive details, visiting the restaurant’s official website or contacting them directly might be necessary.
