In our continued quest for good Chinese food in the San Fernando Valley (yes, we know about the San Gabriel Valley; we just don’t live there), tonight we went to the local Sam Woo BBQ restaurant.
Sam Woo BBQ restaurant is part of a chain large enough to have its own Wikipedia entry. This explains why we also saw what appeared to be a related restaurant in Chinatown last Saturday.
The restaurant is very bare-bones; the first thing you see is the takeout counter, with roast ducks hanging in a display case. For sit-down service, you write the number in your party next to the first open number on a list, and then write down that number on a slip of paper. You sit when you’re called, and the dishes come when they’re ready–not all at one time.
We had beef with black bean sauce, BBQ pork and roast duck with rice, BBQ pork fried rice, and porridge with minced beef (neither one of us had tried this before, so it was our adventure within an adventure). As our waiter pointed out, that’s a lot of rice.
But everything was excellent, and we’re looking forward to leftovers. As well as to a repeat visit.