New Fusion — Restaurant in Arcadia

New Fusion has definitely taken some of the attention away from Tasty Garden, drawing new customers to a new Asian type fusion restaurant. With new lunch specials and the additional BBQ menu, I can see why many customers are eager to give this place a try. They've been open for quite awhile, serving up various HK styled dishes as well as the more Asian American café type dishes.

Location is on Baldwin Avenue in the same lot as LA Fitness. New Fusion is located near the music store and Tofu House, but parking right by the restaurant is almost impossible to find. Good thing there are a plethora of spots in the plaza. Decoration and restaurant ambience seemed quite nice - reminded me a lot of Tasty Garden.

We ended up going with the more HK typed dishes. Service was great; the manager who took our order was friendly and offered us different types of dishes when we asked him for recommendations.

Food: -Walnut Shrimp: $11.50 Definitely a pricey dish that does not compare to Tasty Garden's. They gave a decent number of shrimp, and the walnuts were caramelized and sweet enough, but the execution of the dish just didn't do it for me. Sauce was a bit too much and the shrimp's outer coating was not crispy enough to give it that crunch upon biting into the shrimp.

-House Chicken: $10.75 Not too bad. This chicken had more yellow coloring and there was a good amount of meat to the chicken. Not too oily - I would order this again. Very simple dish.

-Stir Fried Plain Choy Sum: $8.50 My mom wanted something healthy to eat along with all the other dishes. The vegetables they gave us were really nice; thickly cut and super green. But also something you can probably buy and do yourself at home.

-Crispy Roasted Pork Belly: $12.25 This was definitely a letdown! We were interested in seeing how their new bbq selection would play out, and after this meal - it doesn't look too good. The skin of the pork was way too hard, almost to the point where I had to forcefully clamp my jaw down to eat it. I think they overcooked the pork way too much, probably in order to preserve the crispiness of the skin. The meat was not too bad, but that skin just was not good.

-Free BBQ Pork: Because we had ordered above a certain amount, we were given a free plate of BBQ pork. I thought it was quite good. The slices of bbq pork were much leaner than I'd prefer and it was a bit on the dry side, but overall - it was decent.

All dishes come with a side of rice. Since we had so many dishes, they gave us a pot of rice that we could refill.

tl;dr - I can see myself returning for another meal, but I don't think I'll come with too many expectations. My mom thinks the Western dishes are much better than the Chinese dishes. Service was good, but definitely want to order different things if I...

Should you eat here? Lemme answer that for you...

My order beef chow fun, har gow, siu-mai.

Of the 3 items I'll start with

siu-mai Flavor was average, portion was reasonable, price was little above average.

Har gow Flavor was below average. I've had better at many places that serve dim sum. Food temperature was not steamy at all. Portion was average and price was little above average.

Beef chow fun Flavor was near bland. I've had better at many places. Portion was reasonable. I was expecting filet migon as one of the ingredient. Filet is the most tender cut off beef. The beef chow fun that I paid for had meat that did not resemble the tender texture of filet. At the price of $14, I do feel cheated.

All in all I think there are many places in the area I would choose rather than this place. You might find better value and flavor.

If they were able to do the most average they would receive 2.5 stars. The less than average flavor, the bait and switch of the beef in my order, I will award New Fusion a one star.

Hopefully you will avoid this place and find an even better place.

Thank you for reading my review,...

Located right next to Ann Karen is this Hong Kong restaurant. I am usually not a fan of canton food because of its overly oily induced food, and its not so welcoming staff. I was throughly surprised at #1 the decor, It really was trying ...It had fancy chandelier and clean plates. Clean Plates is that a given? Not at asian places...so we were very surprised.

Also a lot of the dishes brought out especially the vegetable dishes were really good. I really enjoyed the Fried Tofu, My gf said it was her favorite and she understood I am not a fan of fried stuff but I trust her judgement and boy was I glad I did. The tofu was crispy on the outside and silky smooth on the inside a delicious combo. The only thing that left a weird taste in my mouth was the Tap water- it was fine for everyone else but i tasted iron..So i switched to milk tea and that...