Taste of MP — Restaurant in Monterey Park

11am-5pm Daily Lunch Special with rice and soup. Our favorite simple Canto LUNCH SPECIAL restaurant, and just takeout Chinese restaurant overall!! Its not the best, but quality is decent, and they have the variety I like.

Depending on what you order, it can be oily, especially the dishes we ordered this time. This visit, it felt like Chinese fast food but better quality. Maybe it was a different chef today? Many places offer too much meat, become a carbo load place, or it's just more mainland China taste and dishes. This place is typical OG Canto lunch specials. They give alot of meat and veggies.

Lunch special prices: Pan fried String Beans with Minced pork $12.99 Eggplant and Minced Pork with Garlic Sauce $12.99. Forgot this dish here is too oily and soggy for us. Beef with Bitter Melon in Black Bean Sauce $14.99. We've been trying to get into the bitter melon life for better health. Fish Filet with Black Bean Sauce $14.99. Preserved Vegetable with Pork Intestine $15.99. Will order again because we love intestine. They give alot. We ordered to a certain point where lobster was an additional deal for us...$30 lobster. Lunch Special soup is always the typical light version. Rice is typical, nothing special, nothing bad.

This visit, we ordered pretty oily items. In previous visits we ordered different dishes. Lettuce and tofu, and shredded bamboo tofu fungus we're not for us last time. We're not into sweet and sour dishes, sweet, spare ribs but we have tried it here; it's not for us but good for those who usually like those dishes. I'll probably order the house special dish (lotus, sausage, fungus), seafood crispy chow mein, crispy intestine, walnut shrimp, jelly fish again.

I'm not a fan of the new popular fad of Canto breakfast specials around 626 SGV. My mom loves deals and loves lunch special...but I think her social circle has changed (with age too) to breakfast special.

We also order (full price)...

Went for Father's day, got 4 items Item 1: black peppered beef (forgot what it was called on the menu but that's the gist of what it was) Item 2: chicken (I assume it was Hainan style chicken but it tasted like it was just boiled/steamed and it came with some aromatics emulsed in oil for a sauce.) Item 3: Fried squid with spicy salt (tasty for what it was but was unevenly seasoned) Item 4: Bean curd with fried scallop and Abalone sauce (came with some broccoli and was by far the best item of all of them) Each item seems to come with an order of rice.

Each item in the menu was approximately $12-$22 dollars with the majority of the food items ranging from $17-$22. This excludes drinks and deserts.

When it comes to the food, I cannot recommend Items 1 and 2 at all. Item 2 was especially problematic given the ratio of meat provided to bones. Either they have used a tiny chicken or something weird is happening with the chicken. You can get better quality food of that description in most other Chinese restaurants even on the same street. Item 3 is recommended because it was fried well and was very tasty with rice. Item 4 was the highlight of everything that was ordered. Bean curd was fried well and paired with the sauce perfectly all of which is highlighted when consumed with the rice.

Parking lot was of good size so unless there is a lot of people eating there at the time of your arrival you should easily find parking.

Wait time after ordering the food was a bit long for my group but considering the restaurant was full and I enjoyed at least some of the food moreso than what I have had at other establishments of this cuisine I found...

12/31/24 lunch, I ordered steam fish to go. The cashier said 20 minutes. I went for a near grocery store and came back about 20 minutes later.

I found a steam fish box on top of a to go order plastic bag with other dishes beneath. The order is not mine but the steam fish was almost sure mine. {(1)The timing. (2)The possibility of giving the same order to other customer if a customer ordered and went out.)} The set up is more on purpose because the steam fish box on top was bigger than other cup and box beneath it: a reverse packaging to show the steam fish.

I wait about 1 hour to get my order. The restaurant took excessive time had some hostility by business. During I waited, I read a enewspaper. The front table and waiter combination abuse identity without consent hostile seek confrontation to the door close for the room table and the waiter go inside. I observed the restaurant. The cashier brought my steam fish out. The packaging is the steam fish large box was beneath and the rice cup was on top the traditional packaging.

The steamed fish is half cooked so I have to heat till fully cook it again at home. The steam fish only had water and fish (may be salt). The steam fish dish usually comes with soy sauce but the restaurant did not...