Auntie Qiu Kitchen — Restaurant in Arcadia

I walked past a table—a young man was sitting there, eating a giant zongzi (sticky rice dumpling). The rice filled an entire large bowl. The scene was funny and cute.

As a Shanghainese and a writer of Shanghainese food books, I visited this restaurant solely for a food review. Generally speaking, I would recommend this restaurant. It meets the average standard of local Shanghai noodle and dim sum establishments.

Let's review the food:

Pan-Fried Pork Bun 裘家生煎 4/5 The wrapper was quite decent, but the pork filling wasn't generous enough. Still, pretty good. By the way, I was the moderator of the documentary Shanghai Pan-Fried Pork Bun Map (上海生煎地圖).

Shanghai Salty Tofu Pudding 上海鹹豆花 4/5 It exceeded my expectations—very authentic Shanghai style. The only pity was the egg wrap slices. They weren't made of pure egg but were mixed with flour or starch, which made the texture weird.

Wonton with Shepherd's Purse & Pork Soup 砂鍋薺菜大餛飩 3/5 Shepherd's purse is the favorite vegetable of all Shanghainese. The version you can get in Los Angeles is frozen and packaged, but it's still much better than nothing. The wontons were too small to be called "big wontons (大餛飩)," and the filling was insufficient and too dry. Traditional Shanghai-style vegetable wontons would mix shepherd's purse with bok choy, or add sesame oil to moisten the filling. Anyway, the flavor was accurate. (Same weird egg wrap slices as in the tofu pudding.)

Pan-Fried Curry Beef Bun 咖哩牛肉煎包 4/5 Much better than expected—better than some in Shanghai. This had the thinnest wrapper I've ever seen for a curry beef bun. However, the flavor had a slightly bitter note, although very faint—most people won't notice it.

Fried Shanghai Spring Rolls with Napa Cabbage 4/5 This was the first time I've had napa cabbage spring rolls in a restaurant in almost a decade. The restaurant used an American deep-frying pot, which made the spring rolls slightly overcooked and turned them dark brown instead of golden. The picture looks a bit brighter than the actual rolls because I brought professional lighting.

Spicy Diced Pork (Noodle Topping) 0/5 Yes, that's a zero. It wasn't even diced pork—more like diced fat. The pieces were wrapped in starch and pork fat. They weren't chewable but just melted in the mouth. The color was too dark, and the flavor was completely off. Definitely not Shanghai-style spicy diced pork. Not at all.

Shanghai-Style Soft Egg Pancake 上海雙蛋薄脆火腿腸軟蛋餅 5/5 It was on the house—thanks to the young waiter, who provided excellent service and shared some background about the restaurant with me. He called the owner, and the owner decided to give us the pancake as a compliment. The pancake was perfect in every way—except the ham sausage, which felt unnecessary. Ignoring the sausage, the taste, flavor, and texture were spot-on-purely Shanghainese. Good!

Zongzi (Sticky Rice Dumpling) 粽子 4/5 They offer two sizes of zongzi: giant and extra giant. The giant one has two salted duck egg yolks and one piece of pork belly; the extra giant contains seven yolks and three pork belly slices. I ordered a giant one to go—for dinner tonight. It was good, but a bit too salty (though I eat lighter than average).

A good Shanghai food restaurant. I’ll try other dishes next time.

To...

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