Bon Marche Bistro - Monterey Park

Returned to try a la carte instead of the pun choi. I prefer a la carte, you get the taste of any dish, not all cracked together. Still lovin’ this village house style food. The dishes are kind of small, so you need to order a little more than usual, but they are cheap, so everything works. Service is always courteous, helpful and friendly. ———— I'm lovin! Finally something new, different and very good. This is village homecooking, with care and attention in the ingredients and execution. Her speciality for dinner is Pun Choy, literally, a sink of food. They pay per person for the base that is a rich broth, vegetables, and I found some scallops and fried pork skin in it. Then select over 30 elements to add the base. What you get is a large bowl / sink of Goodies stacked high. The roasted duck is homemade and a real standout. This is not like the roast ducks available everywhere. The duck is marinated in five spices, then roasted. The skin is thin and crunchy, there is hardly any fat, and the meat is genuine duck meat that will put your teeth in, not like this floury duck with a thick fat layer hanging in all these Chinese delis. The pig bell was also a standout that it was a higher ratio of meat to fat, and it was very tasteful. I have eaten pig bells everywhere, in Asian and western dishes, and that was really good pig bell. We also ordered separately a plate of the steamed ground pig. It was made with small pieces of octopus, wellots, scorpions, some other objects. Juicy and delicious. Their homemade fish balls are also excellent. I went back to lunch a few days later because they told me they were also fun in the house. We had the sticky rice chewing fun – different! The chicken and dried scallop Jook: delicious, tasteful, savoured jook, surprisingly large pieces of scallop, you can see the individual flowering rice grains, not served as the broken rice jooks in most places. Fishball and shrimp fun soup: the fun was thin and silky. Siu long bao: these were quite good, and served with a darker vinegar, which was still perfectly sour for this dish, not the light red. They do not use msg here, no preservatives, and the food is not fat. Soy sauces and other sauces are high quality. All I had here is very tasteful and delicious. I'll go back soon.

Came here with a group of eight months ago. Btw, it is a small restaurant, located behind another building, so it is hidden from the street. You might miss it when you drive, so just look for the street number. to find it. Anyway, here is my order: Started with the Tanger Peeling fish balls. These were delicious, similar sponge texture to the Filipino fishballs street food, but had a slightly different essence round the seafood taste (although not from tangent, not quite sure what it was); these fishballs also had a little drizzle of thick, sweet soy sauce. We also had an order of steamed dumplings, which were average. With regard to Entrees I have never tried Poon Choi before, but I really liked our combination of duck, pork ribs, disc pork, meatballs, taro root and other veggies, which was very hearty and filled. I also enjoyed the chicken in rice wine in a clay pot that had a beautiful, gentle, local taste. The baked scalop with egg and dried scalop was more like a delicate omelette or a savory Custard and was quite interesting. This was not my kind of dish since I don't really like egg cells but it appealed to those who do. I was not a fan of pan roasted “York Shire” roast beef with onions, tomatoes and roasted potatoes (Bland, Bland, Bland), and mutton with Chinese sausage and rice in a tone pot (fine, but nothing special). A big complaint: They offer karaoke at the evenings for their diners who are so fucking loud! I'm sorry, I'm NOT guessing people who slide on loud Chinese karaoke when our group tries to chat over dinner! Overall, Bon Marche is good, but not one of my Faves in SGV. The Karaoke Tho is unacceptable!