Restaurant of the Week: Wood Ranch BBQ

Posted on July 1, 2011 by David Allen

Wood Ranch BBQ and Grill, 3335 Grand Ave. (at Peyton), Chino Hills

Wood Ranch is a chain, and while I rarely spotlight chains here, I do so on occasion when one has only a few Inland Valley locations. Such is the case with Wood Ranch, which has a spot in the Shoppes at Chino Hills and otherwise nothing closer to us than Corona.

There’s an outdoor patio, covered, a bar with copious seating and a spacious dining room with a beam ceiling, lots of wood and ample, comfortable booths. It’s not overly light and not overly loud. Upscale and tranquil for a barbecue restaurant — which will be either a turn-on or a turn-off, depending on your tastes. At least it’s not hoked up.

The menu has beef ribs, tri-tip, chicken, burgers and salads. I got the immodestly named America’s Best BBQ Tri-Tip Sandwich ($12) and a side of smashed sweet potatoes. Those could be America’s Best Smashed Sweet Potatoes (they were excellent) but the sandwich was more like America’s Most Adequate BBQ Tri-Tip (it was fine but didn’t wow me, and the sauce was sweeter than I’d like).

My lunch companion, who eats there all the time, had the pulled pork sandwich (price forgotten), also with potatoes, and enjoyed it.

Later a foodie friend told me she loves the salmon. Well, maybe another visit. I’d give the edge to Lucille’s (which also has a Chino Hills location, as well as one in Rancho Cucamonga) for chain barbecue, but I’ve got no beef with Wood Ranch.

Restaurant of the Week: Seoul Garden

Posted on January 28, 2011 by David Allen

Seoul Garden, 4200 Chino Hills Parkway No. 130 (at Pipeline), Chino Hills

Seoul Garden is in a sort of casual-restaurant row near Indian, Mexican and other ethnic eateries clustered in an outlying building in the Chino Hills Marketplace center. It’s small but makes good use of the limited space, with cheerful yellow walls, a few partitions and exotic decor.

A couple of us had lunch there recently. Seoul Garden has various lunch deals, some depending on the day of the week. I had the Korean BBQ lunch box ($8.45 on Mondays) and my lunch companion had beef bulgogi ($5.45). A Korean food first-timer, he found the bulgogi (chopped, marinated beef) tender and very tasty. “I’m going to drag some people here,” he vowed. My short rib lunch was also pretty good. Service was friendly.

As Korean food goes, not outstanding like Young Dong Tofu House elsewhere in town, but pleasant.

Restaurant of the Week: Youngdong Tofu

Posted on April 15, 2010 by David Allen

Youngdong Tofu, 3233 Grand Ave. (at Peyton), Chino Hills

Yes, it’s a name that could launch a thousand off-color jokes, but forget the name and concentrate on the food. Youngdong has locations in Arcadia and San Gabriel besides this one in a neighborhood shopping center with an Albertsons. The Youngdong exterior is floor to ceiling glass, exposing the food hall atmosphere inside: rows of tables, bright lighting, minimal decor and lots of customers.

First they bring out the Korean side dishes: a half-dozen small plates with kimchi, fried pancake, seaweed, etc.

Our table of four ordered multiple dishes. Seafood and beef tofu soup, dumpling tofu soup and mushroom tofu soup ($8.83 each) come in bubbling pots, with a stone pot of rice on the side. Once they stopped bubbling, they were quite good, spiced to order (two of us went with medium, one with extra spicy). Spicy pork and BBQ beef ($13.95 each) were plates heaped with the meat in question, sweet and tender.

I’ve had Korean food only a few times, so I’m still a neophyte, but we all liked our meals very much and would go back. People on Yelp are excited too.

Restaurant of the Week: Rokuan

Posted on February 26, 2010 by David Allen

Rokuan, 14230 Chino Hills Parkway (at Grand), Chino Hills

Chino Hills is home to Ojiya, a Japanese restaurant well above the norm for the 909. Yelp led me to Rokuan, another Chino Hills Japanese restaurant that, like Ojiya, gets great ratings. I tried Rokuan out Tuesday evening with three friends before “Lost.”

Located in a small shopping center with a Stater Brothers market, Rokuan’s sign says only “Sushi” (“Rokuan” appears on the door.) The interior is less generic. It’s small, dimly lit, with five dark wooden booths, without padding, that would each seat eight; there’s also one standard table and a nine-seat sushi bar. A sign warns the parents of noisy children.

Most of the crowd that night was Asian, likely a good sign. Our table got teriyaki salmon with spicy tuna rolls ($20.95), a chirashi bowl ($16.95), a beef teriyaki bowl ($10.50), and assorted sushi: white tuna ($5), scallops ($5.25), squid ($4) and salmon skin cut roll ($5.95).

All four of us were impressed by the quality of the ingredients, their freshness and their taste. Rokuan doesn’t skimp on the fish, either: The cuts were generous. Service was attentive, if perhaps too eager to remove plates as they emptied.

Chino Hills isn’t easy to get to from my home in Claremont or my office in Ontario, but it’s now my favorite city for sushi.

Restaurant of the Week: The Boiler

Posted on July 24, 2009 by David Allen

The Boiler, 4665 Chino Hills Parkway (at Ramona), Chino Hills

Reader Charles Bentley once asked us in vain about the presence of any New Orleans-style restaurants in the Inland Valley, after the demise of New Orleans Express/Crescent City Cafe. Well, we now have one, albeit with an untraditional take on the cuisine.

The Boiler, a restaurant offering “steam kettle cooking,” opened at the start of June in The Commons at Chino Hills. I had dinner there a couple of weeks ago with my Chino Hills friends. (Everyone should have Chino Hills friends.)

The interior is dominated by a U-shaped bar at which most customers sit. The menu is short and almost entirely seafood. They have gumbo, jambalaya, oysters and pan roasts, plus some pastas.

The sauces are made in advance from scratch and once you choose your item and the degree of spiciness from 1 to 10, they quickly steam it in a small kettle in front of you, put it in a big bowl and hand it over.

I had the pan roast house ($18.95) with shrimp, crab, lobster, clams and trinity in a tomato cream-based sauce. My friends had pan roast crab ($17.95) and pan roast clam ($13.95).

We liked the food and took home the extra. One remarked lyrically on the “layers of flavor.” We weren’t convinced of the accuracy of the spice levels, with my “4” and another’s “7” tasting about the same, but that’s fine. I never know what the deal is with the sauces they mix at your table at P.F. Chang either. You just accept the gimmick and move on.

The service was friendly, and the person who explained the concept to us and answered our questions turned out to be the owner. Surprisingly, this is a single-location business, although he hopes to expand. He developed the recipes at the Oyster Bar in Las Vegas.

Our group’s only quibble is that the prices (entrees $12.95 to $21.95) might be a couple of bucks high given the fast-casual setting.

You can view the menu online here.

And what is The Commons at Chino Hills? Just off the 71, it’s the latest happening spot in suburbia. There’s a Pei Wei (the 909’s sole survivor after the Rancho Cucamonga one shut down last year), a wine bar with live jazz named Wine Down, a Lucille’s BBQ, Corner Bakery, Wahoo’s and BJ’s, not to mention a Lowe’s and a Toys R Us, with more stuff coming, in theory at least (what with the economy and the developer’s bankruptcy).

Restaurant of the Week: Pacific Fish Grill

Posted on May 1, 2009 by David Allen

Pacific Fish Grill, 13865 City Center Drive (at Peyton), Chino Hills

Pacific Fish Grill is at the Shoppes at Chino Hills and, from what I can gather, is a single-location restaurant, although it could be a chain in the making. It’s located between a Panera and a Johnny Rockets near Barnes & Noble.

Like Louie’s Chicken and Fish Grill in Upland, featured here last week, Pacific Fish is a rarity, a seafood-based fast-casual restaurant. Grilled fish plates run $8 to $15 and come with rice, salad and pita bread. They also have salads, fried fish, sandwiches, wraps and tacos. View the menu here.

I ate here in February after the library dedication when I bumped into friends and we decided to have lunch. That meal I ordered the tilapia plate ($8.95) with lemon-oregano seasoning. Not bad.

I returned recently (this time with my camera) and ordered a salmon caesar salad with Cajun seasoning ($10.95). I liked it. Not an outstanding piece of fish or anything, but it was fine, and there was enough salmon for each bite of salad.

There’s an open kitchen, high ceilings with visible piping and slowly revolving ceiling fans.

A place like this (or Louie’s) seems like a fairly inexpensive, no-fuss way to get more seafood in your diet. People on Yelp say the fish tacos are good; on Tuesdays they’re 99 cents.

Restaurant of the Week: Ojiya

Posted on June 20, 2008 by David Allen

Ojiya, 4183 Chino Hills Parkway, Suite J (at Pipeline), Chino Hills

I ate at Ojiya last week but saved the review for this week. It’s yet another of the sit-down restaurants in Chino Hills that the masses seem unfamiliar with. But it got good reviews on Yelp, so I met up with a couple of CHills friends for dinner.

Ojiya is in a strip mall — it’s a couple of doors from Peking Deli, a Chinese restaurant reviewed favorably here a while back — and once you’re inside you forget you’re in a strip mall. It’s a cozy interior with touches of bamboo and with a serious-looking sushi bar. I felt like I was in Little Tokyo.

I ordered various nigiri sushi items, especially ones I rarely see elsewhere: Spanish mackerel, seared salmon, fatty albacore and large scallop, plus my baseline dish, the salmon skin cut roll. (I don’t remember the individual prices but they added up to about $24.)

I’m confident in saying that Ojiya is the best sushi I’ve had in the 909. Then again, there’s still Rokuan, another Yelp favorite in Chino Hills that is still on my list.

My friends enjoyed their food, a chicken teriyaki bowl and a salmon teriyaki/crunch roll combination plate. Our only complaint was the green salad of iceberg lettuce was boring. At least it was only $3 for me, and free for them with their meal.

We met up, by the way, at 6:30 p.m. on a weekday, and the place was mostly empty. It quickly began filling up. By 7:45, when we left, the dining room was full.

Restaurant of the Week: Peking Deli

Posted on February 29, 2008 by David Allen

Peking Deli, 4183 Chino Hills Parkway Suite F-G (at Pipeline), Chino Hills

Diligent readers will recall this blog’s lament about the paucity of non-Americanized Chinese restaurants in the Inland Valley. My hope was that Chino Hills, with its proximity to Diamond Bar’s Asian population, might have something a bit more interesting. A friend recommended a place, and some Internet research turned up a second.

We tried the second one — we’ll go back for the first — on Tuesday. That was Peking Deli, which is in a strip mall off the 71 Freeway at Pipeline. It’s a simple storefront operation with table service. Nothing fancy, but comfortable.

The menu has 118 items, and while it includes such American staples as orange chicken and pork fried rice, there are plenty of dishes one doesn’t encounter in the 909. As another friend said after scanning the takeout menu later, “This is totally Taiwanese style.”

There are two dozen soups, not just hot and sour and egg flower but seafood tofu, shredded pork with preserved pickle, and salted duck. Cold appetizers don’t even have English translations but include beef brisket, duck leg, tripe and pig ear. (Try ordering pig ear at Panda Express and see what happens.)

We had pork fried rice cake ($5.25), dry noodle with Peking sauce and sesame sauce ($4.50) and beef with spicy sauce ($8.75). My friend liked the latter two best; I preferred the rice cake. It’s not like the diet-food rice cake but rather slices of soft, chewy rice that resemble bamboo shoots.

All the customers but us were Asian, a good sign. Peking Deli has been in business four years and survives on word of mouth, our server told us. But she was delighted to learn that the restaurant had been well-reviewed on Yelp.com.

The only downside to the place is that it closes at 8:30. They didn’t kick us out, but within two minutes of our departure, the lights were out.

I hope to go back sometime — after first sampling that other Chino Hills Chinese restaurant.

* Update October 2014: Well, “that other Chino Hills Chinese place,” Good Time Cafe, has since closed, but Peking Deli is still in business. I returned recently for dinner, getting shrimp chow mein ($8), wonton in chili oil ($4) and a boba tea ($1.50). I had actually asked for No. 62, shredded pork with bean curd, but they brought me No. 26, the chow mein. Well, I like chow mein, so no harm done. (I didn’t want to waste food by sending it back.) I liked my dinner and took home enough for a second meal. Peking Deli is still among the most authentic Chinese restaurants in the Inland Valley, one actual Chinese American people eat at. By 6:30 p.m. that Sunday, when I left, every table was in use.

The David Allen Blog

Field notes, observations and assorted 909-sense from the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin columnist

Category Archives: Restaurants: Chino Hills