New Station: Broadway Chinese Goodness

New Station
1800 Broadway
Sacramento, CA 95818
(916) 446-6688


Sacramento's Broadway area has a healthy population of restaurants, representing pretty much every culinary group found in the area - Nepali, Middle Eastern, Vietnamese, two Thai restaurants right next door to each other (how do they make money) - you've got it on Broadway. (You also have a profusion of bums/vagrant American citizens, but that just adds to the fun!).

I'm always on the hunt for authentic Chinese food, the kind of stuff that involves weird animal parts more then orange chicken and walnut-mayo shrimp glop concotions. We're sort of in a rut with our Chinese restaurant patronage, and by that I mean we go to New Canton a lot. Therefore we decided to take the radical move of hitting a new place: enter New Station.

As befits authentic Chinese restaurants, it's an extremely casual place: clientele is a curious mix of Broadway residents of all flavors, the television is playing sports, and decor is decidedly minimal. The menu, however, is a lot of fun: a good selection of Cantonese specialities, hot pots, and curious protein sources (frog legs and duck tongue? Yes, no? No?). It bills itself as a seafood place, and that's reflected on the menu: whole fish, crabs, and tons of shrimp dishes are on the menu. Another perk: the volume level is a lot lower then many similar Chinese restaurants.



We began with the scallops and ground pork in hot bean sauce. This was very nice: the big scallops were cooked correctly and avoided the curse of chewiness, and the combination with smoky, slightly spicy bean sauce, ginger slices, and sweet ground pork was unusual and good. I'd order this little taste-treat again.



This was the house special fried rice, filled with shrimp, chicken, pork, vegetables, and other standard fried rice ingredients. It's a good fried rice rendition, with a nice meat to rice ratio and a good browned, crisp flavor. I'd prefer it just a little more caramelized and crunchy, but it's still a worthy rendition of a real classic.



Ma-po tofu, or mapo doufu if you're going to be all specific about it, is an old-school Sichuan dish and can be really yummy in the right hands. This is prepared with a spicy bean and chili oil infused sauce, combined with ground pork and tofu cooked to compellingly slimy perfection. (This is not a bad thing). It also traditionally contains Sichuan peppercorns, although I cannot recall if they were present in New Station's version. This was good: I liked the combination of creamy tofu with sweet pork. I'd ask for it spicier next time.



This is shrimp with Chinese greens: a super light and rather refreshing dish, and a nice counterpart to all the chili oil filled and rich stuff we'd ordered alongside. The shrimp were cooked perfectly and had a nice springy flavor, and I enjoyed the flavor of the fresh, crisp vegetables. It's a pretty simple dish, and I would have wanted more taste if I'd just ordered this: but as an antidote to spicy, fatty, stuff, it's perfect.



Finally, we tried the hot pot with chicken, mushrooms, and Chinese sausage. This was a typical clay pot preparation, with a thick, soy based brown sauce and some chili: the Chinese riff on the casserole. The chicken was hacked up with a cleaver in the typical way - and I happen to vastly prefer chicken on the bone to tasteless white meat bits, so no complaints here. The Chinese sausage added a sweet and distinctive flavor to the whole affair.

On the whole, I really liked New Station, and I'll happily come back and sample the rest of the menu. The salt toast shrimp every other table ordered looked great, and I also was impressed by the whole steamed ginger-scallion chicken our neighbors were chowing down on. One complaint: all the dishes were a smidgen less warm then is ideal. We'll see if it happens again on my return trip - and I'll definitely be making it.

Old Mandarin Islamic Restaurant: Unique Beijing Style Food, Here's the Beef

Old Mandarin Islamic Restaurant
3132 Vicente St
(between 42nd Ave & 43rd Ave)
San Francisco, CA 94116
(415) 564-3481




China hosts a considerable number of Muslims, who have developed their own distinct and piquant cuisine. Centered around beef and mutton, Chinese Muslim food is richly flavored and always interesting - and a refreshing change from San Francisco's more typical Cantonese specialities. The Old Mandarin Islamic Restaurant in the Sunset District fills the gap, serving up traditional Beijing Muslim treats such as beef pancakes, super spicy hot pots, and lamb kebabs, among other favorites. Prices are eminently reasonable, the menu selection is impressive, and quarters are cramped and high-volume- now that's like Beijing!



We fell in love with hot-pot during our visit to China, and we knew we had to have Old Mandarin's version. We selected a hot-pot with two sides: one mild with a subtle garlic-scallion flavor, and one hot with plenty of soy sauce, star anise, and mouth-numbing Szechwan peppers. Hot pot is served with a variety of raw ingredients to dip into the roiling broth, and we selected fresh mutton, prawns, straw mushrooms and spinach. We also tried the garlicky and sesame-infused dipping sauce, apparently composed of fermented tofu. This was just the thing for a fun lunch during a beautiful day in the city. I remain astonished that hot pot hasn't taken off in the USA. It retains fondue's social appeal but is a heck of a lot healthier then the traditional Swiss treat - and I imagine you could easily package an upscale hot pot restaurant with some sort of luxe Western China theme and make it Trendy. Something to consider.



We managed to resist the spicy lamb ribs in a clay pot (though it took some effort,) but we did sample the spicy deep fried lamb kebabs - a flavor that took me right back to Xi'an's muslim neighborhoods. We also tried the onion cake, a deep fried, greasy, and oh-so-Beijing snack. (Admittedly, how can you not enjoy fried bread?)

The Old Mandarin restaurant is almost comically tiny, and a line is pretty much guaranteed on the weekends. It's a family restaurant and it shows, but the servers retain a friendly attitude and food comes out in a fairly timely fashion. You may also be pleased to know that the kitchen is spotless: since guests have to walk right on through to get to the kitchen, it better be. (Trivia: when in China, always look for bathrooms in Muslim run establishments. They will always be the cleanest in town.)

The Old Mandarin restaurant definitely brought back a lot of memories from my visit to Xi'an and Xinjiang, both hotbeds of China's Muslim culture and cuisine, and for your personal edification, I will tell you a little about both places. (Okay, you can stop reading if you want.)

Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi province and one of China's oldest cities, hosts a large Muslim population. The city's Muslim Street provides an excellent intro to these people's culture and (perhaps most importantly) their cuisine: street stands sell treats like cumin-drenched lamb kebabs, Babaocha or 8 treasure tea with dried fruits, and Yangrou Paomo, a type of mutton soup served with crumbled flat bread. Hand pulled noodles or lamian with beef soup are also a big element of both Xi'an and Beijing's Muslim cuisine - I subsisted primarily on this tasty dish when I resided in Beijing, and I was happy to see it on the menu at Old Mandarin Islamic. (I'll have to make a return visit!)

Xinjiang, China's far Northwestern province, is the homeland of the Uighurs, a Turkic people who follow Islam and are currently campaigning (with little success) for separation from China's Han majority government. Uighur food features lots of meat and lots of cumin, and it's a pretty winning combination for me - and indeed, the kebabs we had at the Old Mandarin were very similar to those that can be obtained just about everywhere within Xinjiang. Other Xinjiang favorites included sesame-crusted and delicious Nang flat bread and saffron-infused pilau, served with a distinctive local variant on honey beer. One Xinjiang delight that seems to be unknown in the USA is Dapanji or Big Plate Chicken, an intoxicating dish featuring chicken combined with potatoes, onions, garlic, green peppers, beer, and a whole lot of chili and Szechwan peppers. Generally served over lamian noodles, it's ridiculously delicious. I eagerly await the day when a Xinjiang restaurant opens near me. Hint, hint.

New Canton: Chinese Seafood, Fungi and Frog Congee (if you want)

New Canton
(916) 739-8888
2523 Broadway
Sacramento, CA 95818

New Canton is one of our favorite real-deal Chinese restaurants in Sacramento, known for its dim-sum, seafood tanks, and a menu that doesn't shy away from chicken feet and frog-leg-congee.

They're always dependable for dim sum and break out the carts: the BBQ pork and duck are especially tasty. The dining room is riskier territory: the food is often tasty, but orders are often messed up and the occasional dish falls flat on its (proverbial) ass. I'm still willing to roll the dice: when New Canton gets it right, it's well, right. And sometimes a woman just needs to eat some damn chicken feet.

In any case:



The crab in black bean sauce is especially good here. Crab is fished out of the restaurant's many large holding tanks and sauteed with spicy black bean sauce and plenty of fresh onion and scallion. The black bean flavor is not pronounced: the flavor tends more toward the scallion end of things, which is fine by me. This crab was nice and big and had a good sweet flavor. I will be tragically sad when Dungeness season is really, entirely, over.



What a disappointment! This nice big black cod was tragically overcooked, turning its flesh mealy and distinctly unappealing. I am very fond of a nice steamed ginger-scallion fish, and I find it rather offensive when a noble critter such as this gives its life for no good end. Badly played. A 30 dollar overcooked fish is especially, well, uncool.)

I ALSO did not get to eat any of the fish cheeks as my dad stole them before it even occurred to me to make a play for them. Admittedly if this is the biggest trauma in my recent life, I should be feeling rather fortunate.



We were set back on track with these clams in black bean sauce. Although the sauce is a tad heavier on the corn starch then I usually prefer, this is a worthy rendition of a classic dish. I can confirm it is prepared just about the same in Hong Kong, which is where my mom developed her taste for it. (Off topic, but it never even occurs to me to cook clams at home. I need to remedy that.)



Ah, I do so dearly love my Chinese greens and "assorted fungi." It's a simple preparation in abalone sauce, but its clean tasting and delicious and I generally finagle an order in whenever we go for Chinese. If nothing else, these make a nominally healthy counterpart to the fried and greasy dishes you may be partaking in as well. I really miss the truly wacky fungi I used to partake of in China: the tree-ear mushrooms, those glutinous and spongy (but tasty) web-like things, the ginormous meaty enokis...oh dear, I am becoming afflicted with nostalgia, I should be slapped.

Service at New Canton is usually distracted and disorganized, if earnest in that particular Southern Chinese way. I am usually pretty willing to forgive Cantonese restaurants on their service skills. I've come to consider disjointed service, ridiculous volume levels, and shouting matches in Cantonese to be sort of the appeal of authentic Chinese food. (This is not the case at New Canton for dinner, but is very much the case during Sunday dim sum service, if you were wondering.)

Despite occasional slip-ups, I'd still highly recommend New Canton for real Chinese food in downtown Sacramento. And you can most definitely order frog congee. Not that I ever do. But I like knowing that I can.

Tasty Chinese Food in New Orleans: Thank You, God

5 Happiness
3511 S Carrollton Ave,
New Orleans, LA 70118

New Orleans is unfortunately a Chinese food wasteland - as seem to be most cities not located on the coast, where Chinese immigrants have a market for real-deal Chinese cuisine. Good Chinese food is generally found only where the primary target market is Chinese as well. Still: I'd heard good things about Five Happiness, and I was developing a serious hankering for some Chinese food that needed immediate resolution. I met a friend at Five Happiness who is also a steely-eyed Chinese food critic, and we began our assessment.

The restaurant itself is quite nice: clean, open, and full of lots of wholesome looking types enjoying family dinners. This generally sets off my warning bells as the best Chinese food I know of is generally found in musty and badly-kempt back-rooms that may or may not be frequented by Asian gang members. It's part of the experience, man.

The menu covers all the American Chinese food basics - egg foo young, chow mein, General's Chicken, you know the score - but we were relieved to see some things more reminescent of actual Chinese cuisine....although there were no salt toast shrimp, which seem to me to be an ideal dish for NOLA.

Food came out quickly and efficiently: this is a Chinese restaurant, after all. We began with the Clay Pot of Subgum Bean Curds - braised bean curd sautéed with chicken, shrimp, roasted pork, and assorted vegetables in Sa- Teh sauce. ($13.95) This was a tasty and very Chinese clay pot, made with super fresh and tasty ingredients. Definitely a winner, and (as with all dishes here) more then enough for two meals. Score.

The beef with Black mushroom, snow peas, and bamboo shoots ($10.95) was also tasty and very fresh, although the flavor unfortunately ended up being rather similar to that of the clay pot. I do love me some funky, chewy black fungi.

Finally, one of my favorites: broccoli with crab meat sauce ($9.80.) Although the broccoli wasn't Chinese, this was a winner: plenty of juicy and fresh crab meat cooked to an almost buttery richness, on top of crisp and fresh broccoli. As a big old fan of both broccoli and crustaceans, this is my kind of dish.

Five Happiness seems to be doing a good job of presenting fresh and high quality Chinese food to the not-so-daring local palate, and for that I commend it. Now I'll just have to convince them to start serving salt toast shrimp (heads on please) and we'll be in business.

New Canton: The Real Deal in Sacramento

New Canton
2523 Broadway
Sacramento, CA 95818
(916) 739-8888



New Canton is another outpost of authentic Chinese goodness on Broadway. Known for its raucous dim-sum Sundays and the long lines to get in on most weekends here in Sacramento, I think it's popular for a good reason: this is real, good Chinese food. If I want a Chinese meal that reminds me of my time in Hong Kong, mile-a-minute Cantonese, super fresh seafood and endless cups of tea included, this is my choice in Sacramento.

Entering New Canton, you pass by a row of aquamarine colored tanks full of doomed sea creatures, gulping away at you as you mount the stairs to the big upstairs dining room. The servers, nattily attired in teal vests, plonk you down at a table, give you a menu (if you're not doing dim sum) and give you about two and a half minutes to decide what you want - which can be difficult considering the breadth and deliciousness of all that's on offer.

Dim Sum, however, is New Canton's main draw - and it's definitely got the formula down, slinging plates of tasty small bites off quickly moving carts. I may not be an expert, but the dim sum here is about as good as what you can get in San Francisco, and definitely is a huge asset to Sacramento's Asian dining scene. I'm usually impressed with the freshness and quality of the dishes. The dumplings (shu mai especially) are excellent, the rice noodle rolls are fresh and full of carbohydrate goodness, and the pork buns are thick and sweet. Be brave: try the chicken feet, which are delicious if a bit difficult to negotiate with chopsticks. Jook, noodles, and a variety of roasted meats are also on offer, as well as the usual line up of dim sum desserts - egg custards, sweet buns, and the like.



On my most recent visit, I was experiencing a terrible jones for oysters and decided immediately on the oysters in black bean sauce (market price.) The oysters here are as big as my hand - mutant creatures - and are very tasty indeed when doused in a meaty black bean sauce with a hit of vinegar and chili oil. You can't shoot these without choking yourself. I believe the shells could be used as a deadly weapon in a pinch.

Seafood is a good choice here, and I love the delicate, spicy and crunch rendition of salt and pepper squid done here - tentacles and all, which are sometimes neglected in Chinese versions of fried squid. The shell on salt and pepper prawns are a similar preparation and equally delicious, savory shells giving way to the plump and tender meat beneath. Do eat the heads....they have a curious and sublime nutty flavor which I'm addicted to.



On my most recent visit, I adored the sea bass cooked in a clay pot with eggplant. It was spicy, rich, and tasted just like a dish I ordered constantly while I was in Beijing. Something about the combination of tender-but-firm white fish cooked with meaty eggplant just creates Chinese food perfection. Leftovers were tasty the next day thrown into a noodle soup.



This dish with scallops and something described as "mushroom nuts" was tasty and perfectly prepared, although too bland for my tastes - I like my food to slap me around a little. We made the mistake of asking the server for a recommendation, which is a lousy idea if you're a lily white person in a real Chinese restaurant - they never are going to believe you if you say you really do like spicy food, and for good reason..they don't want to absorb the cost if they serve you something funkadelic and you send it back. They assume most Westerners want their Chinese food to taste like candy, and quite frankly, most of us do.

Thus, making such safe recommendations is not the servers fault, but it also means it falls upon you to figure out what you want. Still, the scallops and the vegetables were cooked just long enough, and the taro (I think) basket everything was served in was tasty enough in a candy like way.

New Canton has a damn fine hand with roast meats, and both the roast pork and the Peking duck are excellent. Peking duck is served traditional style with buns, green onion, and hoisin sauce, the light-as-air skin adhering in a greasy cloud to the rich dark duck meat beneath. I also love the crackly, vaguely citrus flavored skin left hanging on the pork - if you make any noises about cholesterol, you deserve to be slapped. Both meats are also available in small portions during dim-sum session. Keep your eyes open.

Service is quick, but dishes tend to come out in somewhat bizarre configurations and timing - which is admittedly how things are done in mainland China. It can get irritating to be immediately served one dish, then have to wait for indeterminable amounts of time for another to appear. Noise level is extremely high, especially when they're really cranking on the dim sum on Sundays. Do not expect to be able to carry on a quiet conversation, or any conversation at all when things get really crazy. Do expect to stand around in a long and confused line on the weekends as you wait for dim-sum. Hey, the fish are entertaining, especially the vaguely obscene looking geoduck clams. (Yummy!)


New Canton is an excellent place to get a fix of real Chinese food - and the ambiance is authentic as well, in both chaos and volume level. Look past it and dig in to some real Chinese food.

The Li Family Restaurant: Imperial Chinese Food

The Li Family Restaurant
Address: No.11, Yangfang hutong, Denei Dajie
Beijing, China





The Li Family Restaurant is a subversive foodie darling. You’ll hear it mentioned whenever you ask what’s good eating on the internet, whether on Chowhound or Egullet or just in casual conversation. “Try the Li Family Restaurant,” someone will say. “It’s imperial dining. Like the French Laundry Chinese style. Nothing else like it.” Run by Li Shanlin, an ex math professor, the restaurant attempts to mirror as closely as possible the kind of high-status eats that the Emperors might have enjoyed in pre revolution times. All menus are set - no ala carte here - and the restaurant supposedly has no employees, using only family members. Reservations are of course required, preferably far in advance.

Not being one to ignore praise like that, we made a reservation. We would eat at the Li Family Restaurant in Beijing.

Getting to the restaurant is an adventure in ourself. Our driver maneuvered our big (by Chinese standards) van down hutong after hutong in the lake district neighborhood the restaurant lurked in, racking up near misses with old women, children, and passing dogs and cats. As we continued onwards, the streets grew smaller, almost pin-prick small, and the pedi-cab drivers passing on both sides looked at us curiously as they squeezed by, captives in hand. And suddenly, the vehicle stopped. “Are we really here?” our guide said, a note of surprise in her face.

We were really there, although the tiny little hutong house we’d stopped in front of certainly didn’t look like much. We shrugged and continued through the alleyway, where we found ourselves in one of those postage stamped-sized but impeccable little courtyards that spring up in profusion in Beijing’s back-alleys.

The slightly sullen waitress led us to a small empty room, put large menus (and a wine list!) into our hands, and retreated. We looked.

The entire menu was prix-fixe, beginning around 60 yuan for the low-level set and around 200ish for the most luxurious. We toyed with going luxe, considering the ridiculously favorable exchange rate, but realized the only difference between the menus: shark fin soup and abalone, along with one lobster dish. We decided to give the endangered species a pass and stuck with the cheap menu.

Cheap, huh? More like “enough food to choke a horse.” Awesome.


Here’s the starters. I’ll attempt to identify them, starting left and going clockwise:



Boiled Eggplant: Yummy, although admittedly I am a huge sucker for eggplant. But yummy.

Mustard Seed Beijing Cabbage: A local speciality...a tasty variant on the usual pickles.

Spicy Chicken: Cold chicken...tasty, but nothing particulalry earthshaking.

Carrot Salad: This is actually a big speciality in Xinjiang, in Western China, and I can see why: it's delicious, with a vinegary, sesame-seed snap. This was a good version. I ate most of it.

Beancurd: This, along with the green variant, were totally delicious and the biggest surprise of the evening. My mom actually proclaimed it one of her favorite things on the trip. It might just be mashed tofu, but it had a buttery, incredible flavor that elevated it far and beyond any other rendition you might have encountered.

(middle) Pickled Celery - Nice, but it is what it is.

Green Beancurd: Very similar in flavor to the brown..in a word, incredible.

Roast Pork: Chilled roast pork, with a delicate, fatty flavor. Pig is always welcome with this crowd. (I'm looking at my North Carolina-raised father here.)

Next began what I will refer to as the Fried Course. As you can infer, this was an excellent part of the meal.



On top is a tasty lotus root cake, fried to perfection. The fried tofu with soy dipping sauce you see below was a surprise: the high quality tofu took on a creamy, paneer-like quality. Totally satisfying.



These ethereal fried scallops on a bed of frizzled seaweed were incredible - light, pillowy, and slightly doughy all at once, with a tasty marine crunch. If only all fried food were this weightless...I'd eat it more often.



These might look like standard issue Chinese fried shrimp, but these elevated the discourse a little. The coating had a bit of sugar on it, which gave it an unusual flavor that I had not expected but certainly appreciated. They were not particularly crispy, with an alluring softness.

Next came a couple of palate cleansers.



This frog and egg porridge was well-prepared, but probably my least favorite dish. I am not an egg person (I have no particular objection to frog) and I didn't bother to finish this.



This light broth of pork belly and cabbage was a nice way to segue from fried food to main courses.



Sweet and sour pork ribs: the greasy spoon Chinese joint dish the way it should be. These were tender, sweet but not too sweet, and would have passed muster in the American South, at least according to the whole hearted approval of my father. I apologize for the really awful photo.



More eggplant! My lucky day! I love Chinese style stewed eggplant, and this was a nice, meaty rendition - eggplant is one reason I might be able to withstand being a vegetarian. The soy sauce and chili flavor was excellently handled.



Lobster - a perennial favorite. This light stirfry with zucchini and edible funghi had an excellent, subtle quality...almost a French delicacy of touch. I loved the meaty, rich quality of the big chunks of lobster meat.



Sweet and Sour Fish - probably my favorite dish of the night. Sweet and sour is always a guilty pleasure, but this expert preparation alleviated some of the shame. The fish was lightly fried and covered in a not too sweet sauce prepared with pineapple, green and red chili, and onion, along with some chunks of egg. I was in food nirvana as I pulled out the cheeks and went to happy work on the jawbone and tiny, stone-white bits of meat hidden in the interior. I looked for something similar to this for the reminder of my time in Beijing...in vain. Dammit.



I believe there is some rule that you cannot escape a fine Beijing restaurant without having Beijing Duck. Which is not such a bad rule. This portion was very small, but certainly adequate for our overstuffed needs. The buttery, decadent meat and skin, wrapped in thin pancakes and covered in hoisin and chunks of scallion, made a great "dessert".

We kicked back a few minutes more and enjoyed ourselves, but this is China and dinner is an in and out affair. And we were stuffed.

The Li Family Restaurant definitely lives up to the hype, at least in our experience. It truly is reminiscent of the level of fine dining you might encounter at restaurants in the states, served with a unique and very Chinese flair. It was wonderful for me to encounter "standby" Chinese dishes done the right way - it was like seeing them for the first time, making their acquaintance all over again. Although the restaurant is tiny, the set back private rooms provide a much more relaxing experience then you might find at the typical Beijing restaurant. The Li Family Restaurant simply must make it onto your gastronomic hit list if you find yourself in Beijing.

Plum Blossom: Ooky Midtown Chinese

Plum Blossom
1830 J Street
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 443-8882




Plum Blossom is vastly mediocre. In a city with a pretty healthy contingent of good Chinese places, the fact that this joint gets business is both embarrassing and depressing. Save your money and taste buds and find somewhere else to satisfy your curious late night urge for fried rice, because this ain't your best bet.

And what should you order if forced to visit? Your options are fairly grim. The dumplings are gummy, oversized, and filled with a deeply unfufilling pork and vegetable mixture. The spare ribs are okay, but good luck getting them served to you warm.



(This photo makes them look tastier then they actually are, since I ganked it from their website and all.)

The mixed vegetable (your one vegetarian choice) is abysmal: think overcooked vegetables swimming in glutinous corn syrup. This can be made vaguely edible with chili sauce, but it's still pushing the boundaries of "food." Do not bother with the carbs on the combo plate - the chow mein is grease flavored and the white rice is only useful to sop up sauce, which you really, really don't want to do. The lemongrass items are okay, but suffer from the same pitfall of "gloppy tasteless sauce" that all the other menu items run up against. One okay thing: the teriyaki steak, which is generally edible. Just ask for a knife, because you're going to look pretty stupid gnawing at a huge piece of cow held between a couple of tiny chopsticks.

Upsides? The curry bun from the bakery section isn't half bad if heated up for breakfast. Portions are gigantic, although the odds of you wanting to eat their food for two meals are extremely slim. And everything is cheap, although you sure as hell get what you paid for.

The interior is slick, new and quite attractive, down to the expensive flat screen TV's displaying sports results and menu items. Do not be fooled by the attractive decor. The servers are listless and obviously don't care much, and it will take a while for them to get around to considering taking your order. Bring reading material. Service also is surprisingly unable to get orders out in the correct sequence. We received our appetizers about six minutes after we'd finished (or at least listlessly picked at, in my case) our main courses. Uh, nice going, guys.

Chef Bo

Chef Bo
2310 Fair Oaks Blvd
Ste A
Sacramento, CA 95825
(916) 568-6088


Chef Bo isn't exactly high-end, but they do serve Chinese dishes with a bit of bite here. You can get your gloppy chunks o' chicken in sauce here, for sure. But you can also get food with a bit more authenticity and a bit more soul if you ask real nicely and know what to order. (And are willing to explain yourself in mind numbing detail to the friendly guy taking down what you want.)

The menu is more interesting then most quick takie-outie Chinese joints. There's Singapore Noodles, ma po tofu, variants on Chinese long beans and greens, and some other interesting items that stretch the margins of the "deep fried lemon chicken" standard. Begin your meal with some of the Chinese pickles positioned in the cooler next to the drink fountain - they're crispy, refreshing, and a little bit spicy.

Our favorite item here is the basil chicken, which came in a hot pot before new ownership took over. We asked for it both none-deep fried and served in a hotpot like they used before - which was nice, although the rich, dark sauce achieved near molten levels of heat. But we asked for it!. The dark meat chicken took on a herby, molasses flavor from the basil sauce, and combined with onions, it's pretty delicious indeed. Just make sure to restrain yourself and hold back the chopsticks until the heat level goes down - third degree burns on the tongue can really cramp your style.



We also tried the un-fried garlic fish with bamboo shoots and mushrooms. This was okay - the accompanying vegetables were prepared well, but I found the sauce a little too sweet and gloppy for my personal taste. The worst part was the fish. It was obviously prefrozen and had that gross crumbly texture that instantly identifies low grade flash frozen cod. Yech. I avoided the fish and picked out the crunchy and sweet mushrooms and bamboo shoots instead.



Finally, we had the eggplant in garlic sauce, which was very nice indeed. It came with onions and black long mushrooms, cooked in an incendiary hot pot. The eggplant was falling apart and full of carbohydrate laden, rich goodness. The sauce was, again, a little too sweet, but the addition of plenty of muscular chili peppers lifted it out of insipid land and made it something to savor. Definitely recommended, especially if you're a vegetarian who wants something with more kick to it then yet another plate of arugula.



I've tried quite a few other things here before. The vegetarian chow mein is tasty and comes with a tremendous variety of (probably not so fresh) vegetables, and the serving size is monstorous. Prepare for leftovers. The chicken with green beans is bland and not so good, and it's fairly obvious the green beans were prefrozen - avoid. The scallion fried bread is tasty, but greasy as hell - de rigeur for that particular menu, item really.

Chef Bo doesn't exactly have any ambience, other then some hip back in the 80's paintings and suspiciously moody lighting. Still, service is reliably fast and the staff obviously wants to please you, which is always good. Chef Bo is definitely a good choice if you want quick and cheap Chinese food in the area that doesn't fall into the "amorphous glop" category. Just don't order any fish.

Peach Farm Restaurant, Boston, MA

Peach Farm Restaurant
4 Tyler St (Cross Street: Beach Street)
Boston, MA 02111-1904View Map
(617) 482-1116





The fashionably dressed concierge at the Taj leaned over the desk. We had just handed him a sheet referring to the Peach Farm Restaurant in Boston's Chinatown. His face twisted into a disgusted sneer. "Let me tell you - the last time I ate there, I was totally grossed out." Our looks of growing excitement confused him. He made a gesture with his hands. "You know, they have all those fish in the...tanks...and stuff."

I suppose this was intended to dissuade us. Hah. We ran over there as fast as our legs could carry us. If it was the kind of Chinese restaurant that could gross out luxury hotel concierge, we knew it had to be good.

A few minutes of poking around Boston's Chinatown and getting lost in construction, and we found the Peach Farm, located down a flight of stairs (and behind a small gallery of yellowing magazine reviews, features, and accolades.) The restaurant was nearly empty that Saturday afternoon, except for a couple of strange looking couples, the servers, and us.

The menu was huge, offering a variety of seafood dishes and a couple of safe options to satiate any misguided General Tso's Chicken fans. We made our decisions quickly: pan fried oysters with scallion and ginger (12.95) and the combination salt fried shrimp, pork chop, and squid. (17.95) My dad ordered a one-person hot and sour soup (1.75)for starters and we were off.

The hot and sour soup came in a large portion and was distinctly mediocre, featuring some rather incongruous green peas. The egg was a bit gloppy and overstated, although there were at least plenty of mushrooms and bamboo bits to work through. Positively, there was a decent hit of spice, although it could have gone much further. The disappointment of the soup disturbed us. Would the seafood dishes fare better?



Oh yes. The oysters were tremendous and expertly cooked, resting in a tangy black bean sauce. The ginger was chopped into huge, crunchy pieces that I found totally addictive. Eating them in tandem with the scallions was a completely delicious way to improve my digestion (ginger is good for you!.) We fought over every last oyster, though I managed to score a juicy straggler located beneath a large portion of sauce. Yum.



The salt fried shrimp, squid, and pork-chop combo was both incredibly delicious and 100 percent guaranteed to take a year or two off your life - in other words, the perfect dish. The huge shell-on prawns were expertly fried in the delicious salt batter Chinese restaurants do so well. I was in heaven as I chowed down on the crunchy and juicy heads, a nice counterpoint to the firm and juicy meat. I only had a few bites of the pork-chop in a desperate attempt to survive to at least middle age, but what I had was very good and tender. Finally, the squid tentacles were done extremely well, fried for just the right amount of time to preserve that salty oceanic snap. Delicious. The portion was tremendous and I was somewhat astonished we managed to eat it all - but how couldn't we?



A delicious meal in a perfectly nice location, Peach Farm is unlikely to "gross out" anyone who enjoys both expertly prepared seafood and authentic Chinese cuisine. My only complaint is that prices are unusually high for down n' dirty Chinese food, although judging by our experience, they're perfectly able to charge a little higher then the norm. I can't wait to return the next time I'm in Boston. The whole crab the table over from us ordered looked too delicious for words. Time to make plans for my next trip.

The concierge, by the way, had grossly overstated the hygiene of the place. I've eaten at locations in San Francisco's Chinatown where getting yelled at in angry Mandarin and brushing large chunks of someone else's food off your place setting is positively salubrious. In comparison, Peach Farm is the friggin' French Laundry.