Niu rou mian and more in Monterey Park:
PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
If you’re anywhere in the San Gabriel Valley and determined to track the openings and closings of purveyors of exotic cuisine − say, soupy xiao long bao dumplings − you’ll end up absolutely dizzy. The area’s countless Chinese restaurants, offering regional recipes culled from every corner of the homeland, can be almost impossible to follow, with restaurants sprouting and closing like desert flowers in time-lapse photography. The scene shifts so quickly it’s sometimes too fast even for the kitchens that occupy it, as new restaurants are often stuck with vestigial signage still displaying the names of places one or two generations behind. And so that endless evolution produces some unintentional consequences: restaurants hidden in plain view, customers confused by non-existent dishes.
Kam Hong Garden is part of that great gastronomical stretch of Garvey Avenue. It’s a comparatively steady spot, but not immune to signs of transience: Above the register, for example, there’s a backlit menu once intended for counter-based ordering. Now, however, the menu is reversed, flipped away from the dining room and made into a dim, unreadable reminder of some other restaurant’s short life. But once you get hold of the actual menu, one thing is clear: Kam Hong Garden offers a primer on the power of handmade noodles.
