Sam Woo B.B.Q. — Restaurant in San Gabriel

This is a Cantonese comfort food place. I remember when we were young, we used to come to have late night food after meeting with friends for a night out. The Chow Fen and congee always hit the spot leaving my stomach felt satisfied. After all these year, this restaurant is still one of my go to restaurants for Cantonese comfort food. Now they added fried fish skin and it goes well with wanton soup.

Having been caving for Chinese BBQ pork for a while, we stopped by this place today to pick up a pound to take home. I have to say, the BBQ pork is one of the best in San Gabriel Valley. Even though we didn’t buy other stuffs, we know they have good BBQ ducks and soy sauce chicken as well. During the pandemic, they provide varieties of take out foods that included all their favorite Cantonese dishes such as fried Shrimp, Mandarin Pork, chow fen & mian, Mapo Tofu and many others. Should go pick up a take out to help satisfy your stomach and help out a local business at...

Something about this Sam Woo seems a bit off compared to the other branches in the area. Service is a bit slower than the other branches. Oddly enough, their standard drinks like lemon tea and Hong Kong milk tea are unlisted on the menu. If you don't want to be disappointed, I would stick to the wontons and roasted meat items on the menu since that is their staple.

The egg noodles in the roast duck soup were not as flavorful and bouncy as I would expect. However, the pieces of roast duck in the noodle soup were surprisingly large and meaty. The roast duck itself had great flavor as did the wontons.

The curry beef over rice was a bit flat in flavor on a bed of overly dry rice. The braised tendon's texture was a bit too soft for my taste but some might like...

I was today years old when I found out that not all Sam Woo's are the same. We learned from the staff that the children of original owner now manages the various location. The same business model of BBQ counter attached to a restaurant, but the menu varies depending on the management.

We were craving some items we had in a Sam Woo location in the Valley, but they didn't have it here. So we just tried out a couple of items. Everything tasted good, as expected from a standard Chinese restaurant. The layout is a bit more spacious and slightly more upscale compared to the other locations. One of the older staff that spoke Vietnamese was super helpful and had great energy. His service alone...