A few years ago, two friends of mine, one Caucasian and one Cantonese, and I were planning to meet up at a Hong Kong style cafe in the San Gabriel Valley. The Caucasian fellow asked about what is good on their menu. I brought up that many people prefer to try the steak, which is almost universally a popular, palatable, and well-priced option at such a place. My recommendation might have gotten him a little bit preemptively judgmental.
After all, why anyone go to a Chinese-owned restaurant in the SGV to have steak? How good can steak be for $15? The truth is, the modern generation of Chinese-Americans have been loving these places for quite a while now. HK style cafes, known in Hong Kong as cha chaan teng, have long been a part of her culinary landscape. It would be almost mistaken to call this fusion food in the modern sense of the term fusion; The cuisine served at HK-style cafes has evolved through decades of organic cultural melding.
The Western food that we see now in the Hong Kong style cafes are not the flattering imitations by Chinese-Americans living in California in recent times, but rather, by the people of Hong Kong over the course of 170 years of British rule. Steaks served at cha chaan teng may be pre-seasoned with soy sauce, salt, and some kind of garlic or black pepper sauce.
Perhaps this was done to enhance the middle-of-the-pack quality of the meat. And perhaps, to the utmost steak purist, the meat itself ought to be the star of the meal, and only the slightest sprinkling of salt would be the acceptable way of seasoning the steak. But I insist that there is a place and time for sacrificing a tad bit of natural meat marbling for some precious bucks. In fact, given how some well-known steakhouses are hit-and-miss in terms of quality, I would sometimes even prefer the consistently delicious ethnic versions of steak.
After all, wouldn’t you want to chow down a good Cuban bistec de palomilla once in a while? Or perhaps, wouldn’t this plate of steak and chicken look like exactly what you want to eat on some nights?
Well I am glad that we landed here today. This the combo plate that you would get on at Rosemead’s E.A.T Bistro. For about $15, the plate comes with your choice of two proteins, one of which must be chicken or sole filet. It also comes with a choice of sauce on the side and a carb of either rice or spaghetti. I recommend going with the garlic sauce and rice, since these themselves make a great combination when eaten together. On a side note, the meat itself is already delicately seasoned and hardly needs the sauce on the side.
Of course, you can still find authentic Cantonese favorites such as seafood tofu casserole and wonton noodle soup on the menu.
There are still tons of excellent menu items just like these, that are worth trying on a separate venture. To summarize, you might really have to do something terribly wrong to have a bad dining experience at E.A.T Bistro. After all, this is the SGV.