Chung King Restaurant - San Gabriel

Since I'm on this Beijing Olympics tangent, did anyone else get choked up when Sichuan earthquake survivor Lin Hao marched in the parade of nations? In case you missed it, when the 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck Sichuan province on May 12, the 9-year-old was trapped with 30 classmates. Twenty of them did not survive. He managed to climb out, and despite a broken arm and head injuries, went back in to save two other classmates. Then he urged everyone to sing until they could be rescued. He lost both parents in the earthquake, and afterward walked with his sister for 7 hours until they reached safety.

What does that have to do with food? Not much. I don't often talk about current events, but gosh, I still get teary-eyed whenever I see replays of that moment. So it's a bit of a stretch, but let's talk about Sichuan cuisine. Also, spelled Szechwan and Szechuan. The preferred spelling now is Sichuan, so that's what I'll go with.


According to Wikipedia, Sichuan, located in the southwest corner of China, means "four rivers." The four styles of Sichuan cuisine are separated by location - Chung King/Chongqing (Ah, understand the significance of the restaurant's name now?), Chengdu (Where Ma Po Tofu (Chinese Pockmarked Old Lady's Tofu) originated.), Greater River (Yangtze), and Lesser River (Jialing).

Sometimes I'm not quite sure why some things stay in the queue for so long. I've been going to Chung King Restaurant in San Gabriel for several years now after reading Jonathan Gold's review in LA Weekly. Come to think of it, this is one of the few restaurants that I actually tried after reading his review. I'd driven past it many times before and watched it change ownership and didn't think much of it. Must have been his descriptions of the ma la, the mind-numbing spice, from the use of real Sichuan peppercorns.

My first visit was with my brother, actually, most of my visits here are with my brother. He's one of the few people I know who sometimes gets spicy cravings. So that's when we hit up Chung King.

Chinese Food from Xinjiang -- Beef, Horse, and Chocolate and Yogurt Raisins

Since it's 8/8/08 and the opening day of the Beijing Olympics, I thought it was only fitting to showcase the diversity of Chinese cuisine. Can I count Xinjiang as my X? Or does it fall within Chinese cuisine? I guess it counts as part of Chinese cuisine since I don't divide any of my ethnic cuisines but list them by nationality. But then if I subdivided Chinese cuisine into Cantonese, Sichuan, Shanghai, Xinjiang, etc., I'd have to do that for all cuisines. The thought of that gives me a headache.

So instead, far better that I go with my original thought and show you the diversity of Chinese cuisine. Xinjiang, or rather the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, lies in the far northwestern corner of China. This large area is sparsely populated with 45% ethnic Uyghurs, 41% ethnic Han Chinese, 7% Kazakh, and other minorities. Xinjiang is also where the Tarim mummies were found. The mummies were controversial for their European and Central Asian features such as lighter skin and reddish-brown and blond hair.

My brother recently came back from a 10-day horseback riding trip in Xinjiang, along the Kazakhstan border. (I suggested he do a series of guest-posts of his trip for the blog, but he hates to write.) He brought me some edible souvenirs. Starting clockwise from the chocolate and yogurt raisins, horse sausage, dates? (Can someone identify the bag of dried stuff?), and Xinjiang beef. He said there was camel but it was sold out.

WC's Bo Luc Lac (Vietnamese Shaking Beef) by Hong P.

Man, sometimes the reader's version of my recipe looks even better than my version. This edition of Readers Cook WC Recipes comes courtesy of Hong P. of Secret Garden Studios.

He made my recipe for Bo Luc Lac (Vietnamese Shaking Beef). Umm, typical guy, very few words. I guess I'll let it go since his photo makes my recipe look really enticing, eh? :)