Golden Leaf Restaurant — Restaurant in San Gabriel

With six people in our group, we had the chance to sample quite a few items from the menu—and I have to say, most dishes were authentically close to what I had in Taipei.

We ordered: • Pork fish cake soup • Ground pork noodles • Oyster vermicelli • Intestine vermicelli • Pork belly rice ball • Fried pork chop • Fried popcorn chicken • Fried oysters • Fried squid ball • Pickled cabbage and cucumber

Each dish had its own charm, but what really stood out was how well they captured the flavors of Taiwanese street food. The vermicelli dishes were rich and flavorful, the rice ball was comforting and satisfying, and the fried items were crispy, well-seasoned, and not overly greasy.

The pickled cabbage and cucumber added a nice refreshing contrast to the heavier items. Everything felt thoughtfully prepared and brought back great food memories...

We were so looking forward to eating here, but was thoroughly disappointed, unfortunately. The positive of this place is for the price you do get a good amount of food. The beef noodle soup had 6 big chunks of beef. That's probably where the positives stop. All the components were there for good dishes, but the execution was sorely lacking. The food had no depth of flavor. Oyster pancakes were heavy on the starch and the sauce sort of blandly sweet. For some inexplicable reason, they dont use lettuce in the pancake and instead used. a green that would used in hot pot. The Duck was cut in a way where each piece had small bone fragments in it. The beef noodle soup had no savory note and all the flavor was derived from the hot oil. I would only recommend if you just a had huge craving of Taiwanese food and you couldnt find...

Golden Leaf has been on my list of restaurants to try for a while. The restaurant doesn’t have air conditioning, so it can be a bit stuffy, but it's manageable with the large fan running. There are no drinks available on the menu, only water. We ordered four appetizers and two main dishes for the two of us. Every dish was delicious. I particularly enjoyed the braised pork rice I ordered, which exceeded my expectations. The meat was generously spread over the rice, and every bite was flavorful. We also had the oyster vermicelli, which was very fresh. I highly recommend the kimchi among the appetizers. It was plentiful, crisp, and tasty. Since we ordered quite a bit of food, it became a bit heavy, and the kimchi was perfect to balance it out.

Overall, I highly recommend...