We tried Dumpling House on our recent visit to LA, and were not impressed at all. We ordered XLB, beef rolls, and sheng-jian bao. All of these were executed quite poorly - lack of flavor, soggy buns, etc. Even second/third-tier Taiwanese/Chinese places back home in Seattle tasted better - and that's pretty sad.

The next day, we went into SGV proper and got a much, much better experience.

That sign is hilarious. I can't decide if it's intentional.

The 3 Chinese characters on the left means "Go Eat". The one on the right (same as the 3rd character on the left side) means "rice" when used by itself.

Yes. I believe the current chef used to own Noble Court in Bellevue.

Not too much of a fan of O'Asian myself - their stuff always tastes so "sanitized". A lot of interesting sauces/spices/herbs are absent from many items. But they certainly seem to get more business from a higher-end clientele than Joi's in Bellevue, so that makes sense.

Cantonese is certainly more prevalent in Richmond...but Vancouver as a whole has certainly shifted to more and more Mandarin for a while now. I think the last census report I saw, Mandarin and Cantonese are about neck and neck in BC.

I still remember when there was almost no Mandarin heard in Van around 20 years ago.

Last time I was in Guangzhou, it didn't even seem like many people spoke or understood Cantonese anymore - even in the service industries. I've been told that less than half of the Shanghainese can't speak Shanghainese anymore. All the migrants from up north will only exacerbate the dominance of Mandarin over other Chinese dialects.

Early in the morning, and out of an old lady's thermos.

I think concluding that "tastes have matured" gives a little too much credit to the general dining public. Let's face it, people who post on CH are the 1%ers of food. Randomly pick any 5 coworkers (and your spouse's) and most are just not plain adventurous - and will go for what's "safe" and "in vogue". Shoot, I work in Redmond in high tech and there are plenty of people who flat out refuse to eat out in "ethnic" restaurants. In 2013. Sandwiches every single day. Literally.

Thai is in vogue now. I know lots of people who go to "Thai" (in quotes because 99% of Americans would vomit up the fish-sauce-laced real stuff) restaurants and order fried rice and egg rolls - but hey, it's not from a Chinese joint so it's "not as greasy and nasty" (rolls eyes).

But agreed with the lack of progress on service issues - Chinese diners traditionally don't really give a hoot about service. Westerners are much more likely to need the whole "check 15 minutes after the food comes" charade, and Chinese restauranteurs are frankly not equipped to deal with that - not when it's a 1:50 waitress-to-diner ratio at some of these joints. Some of these other Asian cuisines have figured out more collectively about these types of things, and as a result are getting more business.

Another good point already raised - there's already tons of high quality world-class Cantonese offerings not too far north of here. The Chinese community in Seattle/Portland haven't blinked twice before driving up there for a food trip for the last 3 decades. There simply isn't the critical mass in Cantonese population here to support anything interesting in Cantonese cuisine. Mainlanders have long ago overshadowed the old-guard Cantonese migrants in most major American cities (these days, you hear more Mandarin spoken on the streets of Vancouver than Cantonese - eek!).

A well deserved death.

It's a toss up now between Joi's and Top Gun, both in Bellevue. The ID stuff has gone downhill for a while now...

Rolls are certainly an inventive way of getting rid of older ingredients.

The worst offenders are spicy tuna rolls. There's a reason they have to add the spice for you beforehand.

Can lobster be even considered a luxury food anymore? The last several years have seen prices drop below $10/lb at supermarkets. At certain Chinese seafood restaurants, they'll serve it up all cooked and prepared sometimes for $8/lb. Even pedestrian tilapia costs more to procure sometimes.

When the restaurant owners are that lacking in English proficiency, chances are they are patronizing printers that are from the same recent immigrant network with the same or slightly better level of English proficiency.

I've seen the words "Terry Yaki" printed in a giant banner in a mall food court some years ago.

This was in Portland, OR - so teriyaki is not "exotic".

It was owned by barely-speaking-English Koreans, so it wasn't someone trying to be "ironic".

I'll defend the Chinese-only menus.

Years of experience of taught Chinese restauranteurs to hide the "interesting" items away from the general public. No restaurant owner wants to see the inevitable Yelp review where a diner complains about how his sweet-n-sour chicken may have been "contaminated" by whatever meat they use in "husband wife lung slices" and vows to never return; 1 star.

"fokacha"

or mis-translated menus. At this noodle shop, the Japanese clearly stated "bukkake udon". Well, of course the first part was eliminated in the English translation to stifle the chuckles coming from the young uns.

I buy the Omega seed and nuts bread regularly. That was discontinued towards the end of 2012.

That's exactly what they did with Darlie's toothpaste.

You mean the one who declined to run for a 3rd term because of racially-motivated death threats against him and his children?

http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article...

Thanks for making my point for me.

The fact that there are even people here on this debating and rationalizing about "legacy" and such shows how little political clout Asian-Americans have in the United States.

Had the "nickname" been descriptive of a more politically powerful minority group, no one would have complained about the name change. At least not publicly.

I'd drop Seastar.

Skip Hector's.

Trellis would be a good place for Kirkland.

Maybe Purple Cafe or their offshoot Lot No. 3 in Bellevue?

I'm much more irked by "cutesy" names of pho places - "What the Pho", "Jenni Pho", "Phobulous". Ugh. The "cleverness" is without exception inversely exponential to the quality of the establishment.

Mayuri and Spice Route in Redmond.

Pabla in Renton.

I've been to the one in LA, the original Xinyi flagship in Taiwan, as well as the Michelin-starred one in Hong Kong.

The stateside ones really do not compare favorably to the ones in Asia - though the Bellevue one has improved significantly since its opening troubles and certainly stacks up quite well against offerings in Vancouver. Overall, the Bellevue location's quality is about on par with the LA location, so you may consider it to be a "waste" of a meal. But if you eat Chinese/Asian in the Seattle area, you could do a lot worse very easily.

But even in Taiwan, one could find XLB of equal or greater value within a stone's throw from DTF for significantly less money. Except you lose the uniformed waitresses bowing at you in unison.

As mentioned, Chiang's, Szechwan Garden/Szechwan 99 are the places to check out on the north end. Perhaps also Yu Shan on Lake City Way. Lots of people seem to like Fu Man - I think they're OK.

It's my opinion that Chiang's doesn't do a very good job with bun or dumpling-related items. They do a pretty decent job otherwise.

King's is like Cafe Ori - cheap convenient Cantonese fare, but with variety branching beyond the basic Hong Kong style cafe menu. They have average quality dim sum (but still comparable to say, Noble Court down the street), and that $20 family meal for 2 (or $40 for 4, etc.). Nothing offensive, but nothing to get excited over either. I've done a traditional Chinese banquet menu there once a few years back with a table of friends and it was not too bad.

A couple doors down is Kiku - which is a hit and miss, but given the poor state of Japanese in the Eastside it's not too bad albeit a tad expensive for what they serve. And there's that interesting Persian food store Persepolis there also - I think they have some sort of a limited food menu there as well.

I can literally walk to Little Taipei from my house in about 15-20 minutes, but I don't like it enough to even go every once a while.

There's a new place 2 doors down from Little Taipei which advertises "New Style Sichuan Cuisine" in a "kebab/karaoke bar" environment. But the storefront looks like it caters to the Chinese equivalent of "bros", so the food itself may play second fiddle to hawking beers. Anybody tried this place - I think it's called Twilight 7 or something.

But in any case, I'm really starting to dig Little Garden nearby on 20th instead. Seems to be pretty popular with the Mainlander Microsofties.

I'm surprised they lasted this long.

It was a compentent burger, but in a bad location, and competition from an obviously much better funded Blazing Onion.

Izumi is that strip mall place.

It's not everyone's favorite place, as it has many flaws and is more a "quantity > quality" type of place especially after the change of ownership a few years back. But some of you may be interested to know that the Wallingford-based Musashi has opened a 2nd location in Factoria.

Given the general sad state of Japanese offerings in the Eastside (are there even any legitimate places other than Izumi?), having Musashi close by is pretty nice.

It's one of those places that you clearly don't go for service (1 waitress : 100 diner ratio at busy times?).

Though the chef is an oddball sometimes. He would periodically poke his head out - almost seemingly to get a mental picture of who's ordering what.