Around Rowland Heights, a suburban Chinatown new restaurants start all the time. We went to one tonight and sadly, I"ll give it 6 months before it's gone. There have been a lot of restaurants where that one is.

Observations:

• Glass window on kitchen. Seems to be the new thing.
• Water tasted horrible (get a real filter).
• If your cook has nothing to do, don't talk to loud! My family could hear him clearly with a nice Beijing accent on the other end of the restaurant.
• Check out the competition and figure out why you will be better. Check out pricing.
  
• If you make Shau Lon Pau (sort of a steamed dumplings, dim sum), serve with a bowl, soy sauce, and spoon. And do it so the skin is not to thick, but not to thin. Tonight's was too thin resulting in the juice escaping. The correct way to eat it is put one on a spoon, so this way you don't lose any of the juice after you dip it in sauce in your bowl.
• Gifts are nice. This place gave a cup of soy bean juice. Nice gesture, but I thought it was a bit watered down and not ice cold. My wife said it was fine and I was just picking on the restaurant.
• JJ Bakery opened a cafe down the street and serves the same type of Taiwanese comfort food. And has a really cheap dish to bring people in. My wife's comment is JJ Cafe will just kill this place.
• Don't make your food to salty.
• Refills on ice water are nice! As well as tea.
• If your going to use a number in a menu, don't keep on restarting the number in each section. Start at the front and keeping on incrementing! This avoids translation issues. So you want which #5?
• A picture book is always nice! It saves guesses on a menu. Pork Chop Rice is one of my favorite dishes, but I have seen it done so many different ways! From the name you would think it's pork fried rice. Nope, it's a piece of deep fried pork on top of white rice, usually has some ground pork on it, Soy Sauce Egg, some cabbage, and tofu. Sometimes the pork chop is cut up, sometimes boneless, sometimes coated, and other times not.
• Give the bill before asked! And don't wait till it's asked for to calculate it.
• If you have nothing to do, instead of chatting, check on how your customers are doing.

Some very good food related books and dvd's:

• Dim Sum For Everyone! by Grace Lin
  
• Cooking with Kids - Exploring Chinese Food, Culture, and Language DVD
• Cooking with Kids - Celebrating Chinese New Year, DVD for kids!
• The Ugly Vegetables by Graced Lin
• Fortune Cookie Chronicles - Adventures in the World of Chinese Food by Jennifer Lee

The books by Grace Lin are great! So is the cooking with kids DVD's. The Fortune Cookie Chronicles is for adults and is a good read.

Labels: Chinese Food