On our first attempt to dine at Dongbu Live Fish, my friends and I were greeted by dimmed lights and a “closed” sign. We were eagerly anticipating a feast of fishes, but alas, it wasn’t in the cards this Sunday evening. After coming to terms with the heartbreaking situation, we changed gears and headed to one of Danny‘s staple restaurants in Rowland Heights: Golden China.
Located in the same indoor mall as Ranch 99 Market, Golden China cooks up a variety of homey Szechuan, Cantonese, Taiwanese, and Shanghainese fare. Nearly every table was filled at this no-frills comfort food haven when we arrived.
Danny took care of the ordering, while Hong and I kick backed and relaxed. The first dish to arrive was a braised bean curd and pork stir fry. The braised bean curd, which had an extra-firm texture not unlike meat, was delightfully savory mingling with the bits of pork and salty seasonings. The spice level was completely manageable even though the waitress warned us otherwise.
While I order yellow cupcakes topped with chocolate frosting to test out unfamiliar cupcakeries, Danny uses “water boiled fish” as an index for Szechuan establishments. Bathed in a goopy chili pepper sauce, the chunks of white fish were firm and flaky. The sauce didn’t pack us much punch as we could’ve handled, but the dish was very good nevertheless.
Danny selected the Shanghai rice cakes from the house specials menu. The chewy texture of the rice cakes, coupled with the sauteed pork and cabbage, was pretty darn fabulous, though not as smoky as Mama’s Lu.
Also from the specials menu was the braised pork belly with carrots. When the dish arrived at the table, Hong and I both commented that it looked just like Vietnamese bo kho. The similarities were apparent in the flavor as well. The glossy sauce coating the carrots and pork had hints of star anise. Our only complaint was the overwhelming number of carrots compared to the meat. More pork, please.
The last dish was a fragrant plate of fried intestines sauteed with scallions and Szechuan peppercorns. The peppercorns numbed our tongues, while the crispy intestines brought the crunch.
Golden China: no-fuss, good service, and solid food. What’s not to like?
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Golden China Restaurant
1015 Nogales Street
Rowland Heights, CA 91748-1315
Phone: 626-964-8800
you’re on a row(land hts) with these trio of posts!
You are my new best friend w/ all these Rowland Heights reviews…now I know where I’ll be eating lunch for the next few weeks! 😀
the fried intestines sound damn yummy.
I love your first picture so much! It really makes me happy. As much as I love Chinese food, I don’t know about the intestines 🙂
We need to find more places in the Rowland Heights area lah!
You got me craving some Bo Kho now…with some fresh hot French bread!
We used to frequent this place all the time 😉 If you go back, you need to try their knife cut noodles! Either in the spicy three flavor (think seafood – calamari, fish, shrimp, in a savory fiery broth) or beef noodle (niu rou mein- braised beef with chinese pickled mustard) soup. Both are pretty solid.
Anh – I saw a bunch of tables eating NRM and wanted to order it badly. The hand cut noodles looked so good. But alas, noodle soups are hard to share with a group and we wanted to order multiple dishes. Next time, for sure!
That pork and tofu dish sounds delightful! I love when restos do that — play with meat and soy proteins. It’s so wrong and so right.
We no longer have a decent go-to Chinese restaurant in our neighborhood. We need a Golden China in our neck of the woods.