19 Town Is San Gabriel Valley’s Most Exciting Modern Chinese Restaurant

In the eastern San Gabriel Valley’s Metropolis of Sector, a new modern-day Chinese restaurant called 19 Town opened in early January 2023 from Sichuan Effect chef Wang Liu. Liu, who previously utilized Lynn as her English name, was 1 of the driving forces guiding the Sichuan culinary wave that took the San Gabriel Valley by storm in the early 2010s, bringing Chengdu-fashion requires on boiled fish with rattan pepper and Leshan bobo hen. Even though the head chef of the Eater Necessary 38 restaurant for over a ten years, Liu made a decision it was time to prepare dinner over and above the traditional.

Rather of a lot more exact renditions of the classics, Liu is hoping to press further than preconceived notions of Chinese delicacies with 19 City. Below, the mapo tofu arrives laced with cheese when the oxtail soup employs a tomato foundation. Sour and spicy seafood pasta was influenced by Liu’s appreciation for Italian gnocchi con le cozze (gnocchi and mussels), though lamb shank paella uses gardenia fruit, a Chinese spice, in lieu of saffron to attain the Spanish dish’s patented yellow color.

“When men and women talk about Chinese foodstuff, they like to debate about what is genuine vs . not reliable,” suggests Liu. “People have a extremely distinct impression of what Chinese meals ought to search like. We want to crack out of classic stereotypes.”

The restaurant’s sleek and urbane interior capabilities steel-backed booths framing a eating area accented by inexperienced chairs and black tables. The minimalist structure is Liu’s way of challenging what men and women consider a Chinese cafe really should search like — there are no vibrant-pink paper lanterns or lazy Susans for spouse and children-design and style dim sum. On the heated outdoor patio, a lounge place and cocktail bar accommodate beverages. The constrained seating, which needs reservations, enables servers to cater attentively to just about every desk in a way one would be expecting of a wonderful eating cafe. Three tiny rooms, which fit about a dozen persons each individual, are established aside for non-public events and special situations.

The name of the cafe is a perform on text — in Mandarin, the phrase “nineteen” is shi jiu. Shi is a homophone for the Chinese phrase for “food” when jiu is a homophone for “drink” — 19 Town is a accumulating put for food items and consume, a house for individuals to appear alongside one another and expertise a new kind of contemporary Chinese delicacies.

Liu suggests she picked the Town of Marketplace for 19 Town’s spot for the reason that of its proximity to Rowland Heights and Diamond Bar, sizeable Chinese American communities, although the cafe is in just a 50 percent-hour drive of other Chinese American neighborhoods, from Alhambra to Irvine.

According to Lu Huang, the brand designer for 19 Town and Sichuan Effect, youthful people in the Rowland Heights place who want cocktails or a semblance of nightlife typically have to generate all the way to Los Angeles for those activities. Even in a strip shopping mall setting, 19 Town has produced an aesthetic that would impress Angelenos in West Hollywood, Silver Lake, or Venice.

Alex Feng, the bar supervisor behind the cocktail menu at 19 City, says that Asian individuals in the spot are not essentially as seasoned with intricate cocktails, but she aims to produce improved beverages that befit an upscale restaurant. “We want to make improved cocktails for Asians. We know what the people are wondering and we’re striving to generate drinks for them.”

Feng’s beverages consist of the Odd-O, a baiju-dependent cocktail that blends a pleasantly bitter base with fragrant notes of elderflower. Feng suggests that youthful Chinese individuals today watch baiju as an outdated man’s consume, but her cocktail reintroduces the superior-evidence spirit, generally served in little half-ounce glasses, in a refreshingly brilliant natural mixture. Likewise, the Foggy Plum Grove features hand-produced plum juice, a notable Sichuan beverage, in a vodka-based concoction.

Even on weeknights, 19 Town is packed with teams of stylish diners digging into Liu’s assorted baskets combo of Sichuan-style treats, like imported Sichuan mushrooms, a spinach ball with black sesame paste, and pickled vegetables. Hip-hop bumps overhead as people today sample the flaming pork jowl, a popular dish that servers established on fire at the table.

The cheese mapo tofu retains the abundant silkiness and spiciness of the original delivered in a fondue-design and style dip. Slices of bread are pulled via a mozzarella and tofu mixture for a playful vegetarian update on the Sichuan staple. Peppercorn-infused steak tartare, topped with sprinkles of ou dai (infant lotus root), packs a delightful mouth-numbing punch. The wok-tossed lobster tails keep a shiny and pure tenderness inside a fried crispy exterior, served atop a springy mattress of tea tree mushrooms. Dry-aged trout arrives with crackly skin, which can be dipped into peppercorn powder and chili sauce.

But not almost everything is rooted in Sichuan flavors. The sluggish-cooked oxtail, showcasing soften-off-the-bone beef, is reminiscent of a Zhejiang pickled mustard pork belly dish. One of the most noteworthy standouts is the gnocchi con le cozze, which fuses Chinese pickled-pepper bitter and spicy sauce with mussels and pasta. The gnocchi’s chewy consistency operates as the perfect vehicle for Liu’s umami-prosperous sauce.

Liu knows this menu could be dangerous in this area the place diners could be used to extra previous-faculty fare. But she’s self-assured 19 Town will prosper amid open up-minded Angelenos. “If you go back again to China and go to big cities like Chengdu, Shanghai, Beijing, or Guangzhou, you’ll obtain that Chinese meals does not have just a single style. There is previously been a whole lot of mixing of cuisines,” says Liu. “In The united states, in a welcoming and diverse city like Los Angeles, why not do the exact same?”

19 City is positioned at 18065 Gale Avenue, Metropolis of Sector, CA, 91748. The restaurant’s grand opening is on February 17, 2023. Reservations are expected.