Here’s one thing you should know about Los Angeles: it is huge. The reason the traffic is legendary is because people don’t walk anywhere, and the reason people don’t walk anywhere is because everything is so spread out.

Here’s one more thing: If you want Chinese food in Los Angeles, you don’t go to Chinatown. You go to San Gabriel Valley. In the 1970s, this area was settled by wealthy Asian immigrants, because you get a lot more bang for you buck in the valley than you do in the downtown, central LA area where Chinatown is located.

Personally, I live 30 miles from SGV (as we affectionate call it), so if I’m going to drive 30 miles in LA traffic, I’m going to make a day
of it.

On this particular day, my mission was xiao long bao. Xiao long bao (XLB) are Shanghainese style dumplings, served steamed and miraculously filled with scalding hot pork and crab broth, they are eaten with a dash of soy sauce and vinegar and topped with pickled ginger. And, on this particular day, we visited 4 separate dumpling shops.

Stop 1

I don’t know the name of this shop because it was written in Chinese and I don’t speak any Chinese. Also, this place didn’t even have XLB. I just walked by on my way to the ATM, saw a lot of Chinese families, and decided to stop. We had tea, pan-fried soup dumplings, and egg tarts. It was a good start.

Stop 2: Mei Long Village

Mei Long Village is more of a typical Chinese restaurant, but they serve killer crab XLB. Because they are a full-service, sit-down restaurant, the cost for 10 XLB is a little higher than you average dumpling shop: about $6. Yes. $6. In LA. Enjoy! Tea is complimentary!

Stop 3: Jin Jian Restaurant (AKA J&J)

Located 2 doors down from Mei Long Village, J&J is all dumplings, all the time. The tabletops are formica, and the booths are uncomfortable plastic. There are no frills here. Just more delicious dumplings for $5.

Stop 4: Dean Sin World

Dean Sin (an alternative spelling for “dim sum”), is the farthest of the bunch, but worth the distance. Your sauces will be in small pastic cups and the bathroom is located across the parking lot. But the dumplings here are the best. It’s like going to your friend’s house in Shanghai and getting XLB from their mom, only with the added perk of being able to buy 30 to take home and steam in the steamer basket of your rice cooker.

Finally, I have a few important tips for you on your XLB Adventure:

1. Do some research. Look up places and then walk. Yes, walk! I know I just said that no one in LA does this, and you’ll probably be the only person on the sidwalk that day, but you need to walk to make room for more soup dumplings. It just makes sense!
2. XLB are, well… not easy to eat. You might want to practice your chopstick skills first. They are served to you directly in the steamer, and you’ll need to pick them up very delicately with your chopsticks, dip them in soy and vinegar, and put them in your Chinese soup spoon. Top that with a sliver of ginger and take a delicate bite. At no point do you want to squirt hot broth everywhere. At some point, you absolutely will.
3. Bring cash! Lots of place in SGV are cash only. Plus, walking to the ATM might bring you by a new dumpling shop!
4. At the end of the day, stop by Savoy Kitchen for Hainan chicken rice. This is the only restaurant in LA where you can get Hainan chicken rice. It doesn’t look like much, but one bite of that savory, chicken-y rice and you’ll be hooked.

Andrea

Twenty-seven-year-old long-time resident of Los Angeles. Laughs too much and too loudly. Addicted to coffee, sarcasm, and hyperbole. Patient and honest to a fault. Loves include photography, food, yoga, music no one else likes, tube socks, good whiskey on the rocks, cuddling, and coveting clothes and trinkets from Anthropologie. Vices include hair cut/color maintenance, making uncomfortable faces, eating out, cuddling, and coveting clothes and trinkets from Anthropologie. Also notable: She is very small. Andrea blogs at Caffeinate Me. Follow her on Twitter @andreaki.

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I left out one of the most crucial details of my second LA trip, not because I forgot about it or didn’t like it, just because I didn’t want to post this without the proper photo.

Oh trust me, it’s worth it.

What I failed to mention was this crazy phenomenon LA kids know of as “Taco Truck.”

Yes, TRUCK.

Apparently there are these various TRUCKS that show up at specific locations around the city after [bar] hours and serve up some delicious Mexican fare to the drunk and hungry masses.  Nico made sure I didn’t miss out on this during my visit last month, god bless him.

We’d spent the previous couple of hours at a bar in Nico’s neighborhood (Shooters?  Sneakers?  Help me out here, Nico) after I’d landed at LAX and by the time we left the bar, I was HUNGRY.

Enter: taco truck.

Patrons order at that little window and we waited probably 10 minutes or so from the time we put in our order until the time we were sitting on the median in the middle of the four-lane road, enjoying our little taco truck picnic.

I had chicken tacos and a cheese quesadilla and yes, my taste buds were totally blown away.  It was the perfect amount of carbs and cheese for this weary little nomad, and a phenomenon certainly worth NOT missing.

Thanks, Nico!

doniree

Doniree Walker is the Nomadic Foodie. She loves the exploration and community of food, and currently lives in Portland, Oregon, and loves the region's focus on local and seasonal food, daily farmers' markets and food carts at seemingly every turn. She's on twitter as @doniree and @nomadicfoodie, and blogs her adventures and life in general at doniree.com.

I was fortunate enough to get to the LA area not only twice this summer, but over back-to-back weekends.

I spent a Friday night at the start of August catching up with one of my best girlfriends. Nicole lives (I use that term loosely in that at the time this is being written, she is currently packing up and prepping to move out) in an LA suburb, and we wanted a night to catch up on all the ridiculousness that had transpired in our lives over the summer so far.  So I abused the flight benefits I have access to and headed out to her place for the night.

SLEEPOVER WIN.

The second weekend, I randomly decided to join a new friend – a blog friend – as his plus one to a wedding of a friend of his. Both weekends were fabulous, and of course, included delicious dining that will be highlighted below.

Weekend One -
We did dinner in Malibu on Friday night (I just love saying that. Doesn’t dinner in Malibu just roll off your tongue a little? No? Just mine? Ok FINE.) at a place on the beach called the Paradise Cove Beach Cafe.

We had giant margaritas and I enjoyed the seafood tacos (two fish, one shrimp) that were HUGE and delicious and spicy and nearly perfect.

The setting of the Beach Cafe was great, in that it was – naturally – on the beach.  I’m not accustomed to ocean outside my windows so I basically just sat and stared off in daydreamland while we ate.

On Saturday morning, Nicole took me BACK to this bagel shop – East Coast Bagel – we’d stopped in prior to our Vegas trip back in June. As you can infer from the name, they’re all East-Coast-style and stuff… not sure what that means exactly except for two things:

• they are fucking DELICIOUS
• they actually make chocolate and/or chocolate chip bagels, which I haven’t found elsewhere YET. So when I get chocolate chip bagels, toasted with peanut butter and the peanut butter gets all warm and amazing because the bagel was just toasted… my heart does a little song-and-dance routine that not many other food combos can elicit.

(Rachel promises me that their available on the East Coast and when she comes in from Jersey this weekend, I’m getting a suitcase full. What a great friend )

Weekend Two -

I joined Nico out in the Hollywood Hills area the following weekend as his plus one for his friends’ wedding. It was kind of fun to tell people I was from the Internet (and since Nico and I met because of 20-Something Bloggers, that’s what we told people), until we realized that the people seated with us at our table – Nico’s friends – were also major social media nerds so that wasn’t as impressive as we thought it’d be. Anyway, Nico writes a lovely recap of the event here (and says some sweetheart things about me). But let me talk about the food at two different places.

Breakfast.  We did breakfast at what apparently is a famous little eatery.  And by famous I mean it was in the movie Reservoir Dogs, or so I’m told (I actually haven’t ever seen that movie, whoops!).

We enjoyed multiple cups of coffee at Pat and Lorraine’s in (on?) Eagle Rock.  I had classic French toast that was the perfect amount of comfort breakfast food to start the day.  It was a really cute, diner-ish place with a great patio and friendly staff.  Seems like the kind of place that the locals frequent and that certainly has it’s “regulars.”

Then, after a few hours of tooling around Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and other nifty little neighborhoods, we did a late lunch at The Alcove.  It’s a gorgeous little bistro/deli place in the Los Feliz neighborhood of the LA area.  We sat outside, drank mimosas, and I ate the most ridiculously amazing crab cake sandwich in the history of crab cake sandwiches.

Here’s what they say about it on their menu:

crab cake sandwich
maryland style crab cake made from sweet blue crab meat on a caramelized onion bun, caramelized bermuda onions, wild arugula, tomato and chipotle aioli on the side

Don’t even tell me you’re not salivating.  That aioli?  AMAZING.  And you really can’t go wrong with arugula; it’s one of my favorite greens of all the greens.

So, mid-afternoon outdoor lunch plus good company plus champagne plus crab?

Le swooooon.

doniree

Doniree Walker is the Nomadic Foodie. She loves the exploration and community of food, and currently lives in Portland, Oregon, and loves the region's focus on local and seasonal food, daily farmers' markets and food carts at seemingly every turn. She's on twitter as @doniree and @nomadicfoodie, and blogs her adventures and life in general at doniree.com.