After hearing everyone rave about this place, I've finally been able to pay a visit, and it definitely lived up to the hype. This place is such an authentic, down-to-earth, neighborhood staple. They make all the simple comfort food dishes so well and so cheap! The stars of the show shengjianbao and xiaolongbao were so juicy and simply flavor bombs! I'd definitely be driving out here more often!
This Chinese snack bar is on the side of the commercial street, in a place with very busy traffic Very affordable and cheap $10 for four dishes and the soup tastes great I eat here often
Good noodle. Under cooked XiaoLongBao. And over cooked - rock like fried baos, it actually made loude noise when I grabbed one and hit the table. gotta have strong teeth to have those.Good luck. Never coming back that’s for sure.
Nice place to have a quick dine-in food-to-go meal. Inexpensive and surprisingly better zhong (Chinese tamales) than my favorite bakery's version. It just looks old, but hole-in-wall restaurants most of the time have great value! Especially if there's lot's of Chinese seniors eating!
A little bit of language barrier made me order a family size beef noodle soup. I realized after seeing other tables get personal size. Also be careful with the dumplings if this is your first time eating them. The juice exploded and burnt my lip. Flavor-wise I would say average.
A SGV staple , I come here all the time for their Sheng Jian Bao, so juicy! I haven’t tried much else, but I do recall their shanghai style rice cakes being good as well.
This one was listed among the top restaurants in SGV, and it is probably iconic. We went after a morning visit to the Huntington library, and Alhambra is actually not too far from Pasadena. I can see the appeal of the place; it has a large variety of dishes, large portion sizes, and good for the budget. I just thought it would be "whole-in-wall" delicious but it was just ok. Service is, well, old school Chinese, they will bring your orders to the table. Items are a bit hit or miss in general, and I've heard that the quality is not the same as years ago, where they get their fame. Having said that, the place is iconic; I guess if I were a local, I would dine there on a regular basis, but there probably a lot of options in SGV for similar budget and experience.
The employees do not speak much English so you should know what you want to order. The vegetables, all the meat, soup dumplings and side soup are delicious. The portions are big so be prepared to have extra. The dishes are even better the next day.
Food is good, but service is lacking. Don't expect everything to be available and ready when they open, and don't catch them when they are behind on prepping. The ladies can be super friendly or extremely impatient.. sometimes even a bit rude.. depending on the day. I do keep going back because of the food is worth it.
My husband was craving Chinese food, so we decided to stop in this place.Super affordable and I like the food option, quality and huge portion. Should try their pan fried bao.