In the very first South Park (back when it was a video Christmas card and not a show on Comedy Central) Jesus is walking around the town when he encounters the kids. One of the kids yells out "What are you doing in South Park, Jesus?"
That's how I feel today, and for me it's a good feeling. My neck of the woods north of Sacramento is a culinary wasteland. Like most of suburban America, most of the mom and pop restaurants have been squeezed out by the big corporate McChain restaurants. I try to do what I can by promoting my favorite restaurants on here, but I can only drive so much traffic to restaurants.
This is compounded by what I consider the area's general palate. A lot of people in this area just love generic food. I don't know why, but there's no denying it. Most of the fast casual chains are packed solid every day. Even Johnny Garlic's, Guy Fieri's Hindenburg of a restaurant, packs them in every day. It makes me sad.
Because of this, I'm always pleasantly surprised when a good Asian restaurant opens in the area. There aren't many Asians around, and there aren't many adventurous eaters around either (and most of them probably read this blog, lol). So opening a good Asian restaurant with traditional food in this area is sort of a deathwish.
So I was more than pleasantly surprised when I found out that Culinary Wonderland opened a restaurant near me. These are the people behind some of Northern California's best traditional Chinese restaurants. We are big fans of their south Sacramento restaurant New Hong Kong Wok.
Is their inexplicably chosen Citrus Heights restaurant up to the task?
When we sat down we got the complimentary pot of hot tea. And peanuts. Peanuts?
Next up, the ribeye chunks in Chinese sauce. Let me happily point out here that most "beef chunk" dishes served in Chinese restaurants use very chewy and dry beef. Not this place. I would rate the meat in this dish on the level of a Sizzler ribeye steak. It makes for an ok steak, but a spectacular stir fry.
I was feeling kind of sick today, so I needed the healing power of rice porridge. This is my serving of empress chicken congee complete with you tiao (deep fried Chinese breadstick). This made me feel 1000% better. They don't use as much MSG in this as they should but I think that's just my personal taste.
Braised beef noodle soup. The beef is perfectly braised brisket. Noodles were of thin and eggy variety. Great broth. Bok choy being stolen by Jody.
Our fried dim sums. Clockwise from top: deep fried shrimp ball, the aforementioned you tiao, crab rangoons and potstickers. All were spectacular, especially the potstickers.
Our steamed dim sum. Clockwise from upper left: shanghai dumplings, scallop dumpling, house dumpling, pork dumpling (shu mai). The shanghai dumplings were my highlight of the meal. Think juicy soup dumplings except without too much soup inside. The house dumplings were in a rice wrapper and had an interesting chopped filling with a lot of chives and a peanut.
I approve. I approve so so very much! Thank you, Culinary Wonderland, for opening one of your wonderful restaurants near me *wipes tear*.
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