In preparation for traveling to Borneo, I wanted to get a taste of Bornean food. This, of course, is not an easy thing to do, but when you live in LA pretty much all food is a possibility. Thus, I found myself with my Bornean traveling companions at Borneo Kalimantan in Alhambra. This place is more focused on the Indonesian side of Borneo, and although we were heading to the Malaysian side it still seemed as close as we were going to get. Plus, it also had Singaporean and Malaysian, so we weren’t completely off.

We kicked things off with some Roti with Curry Sauce. Roti, in this case, was like a flakey pancake-esque bread and the curry sauce was mighty good. It was a solid preview of what was to come.

And what was to come was a plethora of goodness. I probably ordered the least interesting of all dishes, which was the Nasi Campur Kalimantan. It came with a pile of BBQ pork, fried chicken, sliced sausage, a flavored egg and cucumbers piled on some rice. I wasn’t happy about the cucumbers, but I knew I could pass them off to my wife. And fortunately, this was the case. But where I kind of expected some sort of banana leaf-wrapped delight, I was instead presented with some food on a plate. It doesn’t mean it wasn’t good, it just wasn’t what I expected.

But, my wife went ahead and ordered that delight up above. It was the Kie Kecil Hokkian, which is chicken, mushroom, BBQ pork, flavored egg and some veggies. It is also filled with delicious thin noodles with some soup on the side for either dipping or dumping pleasure. But while that was tasty, it didn’t compare to the Laksa Ayam Borneo, which is a curry chicken soup and was pretty much amazing. If I went back, I’d go straight to that curry soup.

And I would go back if I still lived in LA, because Borneo Kalimantan is not just a place for delicious food, but it’s food that is so unique that there are very few places in this hemisphere to eat something similar. In that sense, when you get a hankering for Bornean food, nothing less will do.

Not long after paying a visit to the hot pots at Element, I went to essentially the opposite sort of hot pot at Lu Gi. Now when I say opposite, I don’t mean in terms of the food itself, but the general setting. Here, the stoves weren’t built into the tables, but were portable and brought out to each table after ordering. It felt like eating hot pot in someone’s home, except for the whole paying of money and whatnot.

Per usual, I went spicy and my companions went mild. When I went to make my sauce, it was once again evidence that this was more like home-style hot pot because instead of nicely organized sauces there was just a tub filled with various bottles of sauces to mix together. Fortunately, this meant there was a variety and I made myself quite the mixture.

I got my usual mix of meats and potato-like vegetables and was very happy with the results. The spice level was solid and I can’t emphasize enough how good it felt to dip that meat into a concoction like that. It may not be luxurious or any degree of fancy, but it sure tasted good.

The world of hot pot is a divided place. I am not simply referring to the fact that most hot pot spots support the idea of dividing the pot into two broths, but also to the fact that some offer all-you-can-eat and some go a la carte. Hot Pot Hot Pot, a ridiculously named restaurant in Monterey Park, is on the a la carte side of the pot, but I did not let this get in the way of checking the place out.

We split our pot, as all good lovers do. She went with the rejuvenation broth and I chose spicy. Then it came time to order the meats. We went with sliced beef and sliced lamb, as well of a slew of other random ingredients that are made for hot pot, like taro, lotus root and a bunch of vegetables I had no need for.

The spicy broth was as delicious as expected, and went perfectly well with the meat. Then, of course, there was the make-your-own dipping sauce, which had all of the usual ingredients (sesame paste, garlic, etc.), but nothing especially unique. At this point, Hot Pot Hot Pot did a good job of meeting my hot pot expectations, but nothing beyond that. Yet, what surprised me was when I had myself a taste of the rejuvenation broth. Unlike the usual plain and empty non-spicy broths, this was rich in flavor and yet refreshing at the same time. If there was any differentiator here, the rejuvenation broth was it.

Hot Pot Hot Pot is a solid place to cook your own meats in a broth, but didn’t offer much that felt special to me. Nonetheless, if you’re in the neighborhood you won’t be disappointed.

There is a saying attributed to Jonathan Gold that goes something like “‘A’ is for ‘American’ Chinese food, ‘B’ is for ‘Better’ Chinese food and ‘C’ is for ‘Chinese’ Chinese food.” The letters, of course, are in reference to the health code and if you’ve ever been to China, you would know this to be true. Thus, when I heard great things about the dumplings at Emperor Noodles in San Gabriel and then found out it had a “B” rating, I got pretty excited to try it out.

Due to my familiarity with many things Chinese, I was put mostly in charge of the ordering and even used a bit of Mandarin to impress my waiter. It’s amazing how bad white Americans are with languages that even the correct pronunciation of Kung Pao Chicken (gong bao jidin) blows real Mandarin speakers away. So, I ordered two sets of shengjianbao (pan-fried soup dumpling) because I knew one per person would not be enough. It turned out I was right, as these were by far the biggest hit of the meal, beginning with the perfect dough, moving on to the delicious pork and finishing with the delightfully crispy sesame seed-laden bottom.

We probably could have just ordered a few more sets of those and been happy, but instead we added on some Salt and Pepper Shrimp, Kung Pao Chicken, Stir-Fried Rice Cakes and Duck Noodle Soup. It was quite the range of food and every bite was delicious. The in-laws weren’t exactly excited about peeling their own shrimp, but were pretty happy with the taste they found inside. Oh, and pepper in this case didn’t mean the seasoning, it meant the vegetable in case you’re wondering.

The kung pao chicken was the perfect throwback to my time in China, where I ate this stuff pretty often. It was just the right amount of oily, peanutty and spicy. And if you wanted it to be extra spicy all you had to do was take down a few of the peppers littered around the plate. They weren’t hard to find.

As for the rice cakes, they were probably my least favorite dish of the meal and also some of the lesser rice cakes I’ve eaten. The cakes themselves were fine, but the sauce was definitely lacking in flavor and there was very little meat to be found. In fact, nearly every time I thought I found a juicy morsel, it turned out to be cabbage with enough sauce on it to make it look like meat.

The duck soup was a nice way to finish out the meal (never mind that the rice cakes came out last, I saved the soup to finish things off). I say it was a good way to finish because it had great, yet subtle flavor, allowing me to wash everything else down while still enjoying some taste. It didn’t hurt that the noodles were also very enjoyable and the duck and bamboo shoots were pretty snazzy.

So, yeah, it was a solid outing. Not every dish was tops, but the overall experience felt ripped right out of my time living in Shanghai and frankly even real Shanghai would have trouble competing with this shengjianbao.

Sometimes you go to a Mexican seafood spot to get seafood. And sometimes, despite it being the middle of the afternoon, you go for breakfast. It wasn’t exactly the plan, but when I entered Baja Mar in Monrovia, I just couldn’t get my eyes off of the chilaquiles. Thus, I forewent shrimp and fish tacos for those delicious breakfast nachos.

Now, I’m not sure if chilaquiles are generally considered a breakfast food, but in America, when you throw an egg on something it almost automatically becomes breakfast. Egg on a pizza? Breakfast pizza. Egg on a burger? Breakfast burger. Eggs on nachos? Chilaquiles.

This variety came with sides of cheesey refried beans and rice that were just big as the main course. The chilaquiles were doused in an enchilada-esque sauce, cheese, scrambled eggs and…well shit…onions. I hadn’t been expecting these, but did my best to avoid them. It was a valiant effort, but a lot of work for mid-afternoon breakfast. The chips were of the variety you normally get at such corner Mexican spots and I did appreciate the salsa bar. It almost made up for the onions.

I wouldn’t necessarily turn Baja Mar into my regular Mexican haunt, but if I lived in the neighborhood I’d be pretty happy with the results.

Although LA has a pretty cool Chinatown, it’s not really the center of Chinese culture in the area. To got the real experience, you have to take a long ride northeast of the city to the San Gabriel Valley. For some reason, Chinese chose this land to create much more than just a little Chinatown. Driving into it, it almost feels like you teleported to China, as all the signs are written in Chinese and the people almost seem to have made no effort to learn English.

Since I had spent a year living in Shanghai and always missed real Chinese food, one night my friend’s family (they are Chinese) took me out to San Gabriel. We went to a Shanghainese restaurant called Wang Jia (yes, there is more than one kind of Chinese restaurant). The place was packed with Chinese people, which is always a good sign. If the waiter spoke any English, he made no note of it.

Then, my friend’s mom began to order, all in Chinese. Afterward, I waited nervously, hoping that she had ordered as few vegetables as possible. Soon, there came a seemingly endless swarm of dishes. (Pictures below)

Although there were so many dishes, a few of them stood out a lot more than others. Pictured above is xiao long bao, one of my favorite dishes when I lived in Shanghai. These are dumplings filled with pork, but also sealed off to hold soup. When you bite into them, you have to be extra careful or else you’ll spill the soup or end up with a mouthful of soup.

The spicy chicken was also really good. It’s actually not a Shanghainese dish, but more indigenous to Sichuan. It is an almost overwhelming amount of hot peppers with chicken bits.

Of interest was the fish head soup, which is a massive bowl of soup containing an entire fish head. And this isn’t like the little head of a trout, it is the head of some giant fish that I couldn’t hope to name.

There was also so good battered and fried fish, a couple pork dishes, shrimp and a spicy beef soup. Everything tasted just as I was living in Shanghai again. If only I knew how to get back to the restaurant (and speak fluent Shanghainese), I would be sure to pay Wang Jia another visit.

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Shout out to Fiona and the Chens for taking me to this wonderful place.