Chicken Cartilage
Cui Hua Lou

Cui Hua Lou

920 E Garvey Ave, 91755, Monterey Park, US, United States

Soup • Fish • Casual • Chinese


"*CASH ONLY* Bring your bills. You're going to have to pay double digits! This Szechuan restaurant is at the back corner of the Monterey Park Plaza. It's on the side of the dental office. They had some canopies for outdoor seating. I saw some patrons bring their own beer and were offered a bottle opener. Parking is easy but can be busy during peak hours. There is no public bathroom. The food I ordered was too much for two people but I really wanted to see what they had to offer. I loved the water boil fish $18.99! It goes so well with white rice, and I loved that they put cabbage on the bottom (as opposed to bean sprouts). It was so flavorful and better tasting than the water boil fish I had at Chengdu Taste the night before. The servers speak some English! The lamb hot pot seemed like the thing to get here because every table had one. They legit put a plug in stove on our table and asked us to plug it in the wall. We had to wait ~5 minutes for the vegetables to cook, but this was an enjoyable dish. The soup tasted similar to beef noodle soup to me. In addition to the abundance of chunks of lamb (with bone), there was some soft tofu cubes, tofu skin, and clear noodles. We clearly couldn't finish this between two people, so we packed like two Tupperwares to take home. The beef shank cold dish was alright. I think they could have added more sauce to make it a tasty dish by itself, but considering the meal as a whole, it was fine. We dipped some of the beef slices in the spicy fish sauce/soup because it was so good. There is a minimum order of 5 for skewers. I tried the lamb, chicken gizzard, and fish tofu. Lamb was best. I'd come back to get more skewers here, but I can see how it can easily get expensive! It seems like another popular dish is the beef pastry, so I would like to try that on another visit. Rice is like a dollar per person. The servers helped us pack the leftovers. A lot of people order take out here. Their two-sided menu is in English and Chinese, but it doesn't have photos."