One Street, 13 Cuisines

Middle East Restaurant. Probably the best Lebanese restaurant in the San Gabriel Valley, the Middle East is a big, old place with the garlic pungency of a really good delicatessen and a takeout counter that seems to run on for a city block. Dinners here are huge--if you order an entree, you get a relish dish, a cool plate of hummus , a dinner salad (or a giant bowl of the parsley salad tabbouleh for a buck or so more), pita, and probably a free pastry, in addition to the main course, which might be a garlicky half roast chicken or what seems like a solid pound of cinammon-spiced raw-lamb kibbe . In addition to the usual assortment of kebabs and dips, there are daily sautees and stews, mostly Armenian, listed on signboards.

910 E. Main St., Alhambra, (818) 281-1006.

Bun ‘n Burger is a great-looking American diner, a San Gabriel Valley institution for more than 50 years--not gimmicked up with plastic “neon” and James Dean posters, but the real thing, animal heads and all. What you get at Bun ‘n’ Burger: burgers, pretty good ones in the thin-patty/thousand island dressing California mode. Also, coffee, banana-cream pie, waffle-shaped fries and tacos. Wednesday nights, it seems as if half the neighborhood comes in for the Bun ‘n Burger Special: buy one burger, get one free.

1000 E. Main, Alhambra, (818) 281-6777.

Luong Hai Ky Mi Gia, a Chinese-Vietnamese place that is the only tenant in the brand-new Landmark Center, serves what are among the most delicious noodles in town. The thin egg jobbies, al dente as a plate of expense-account pappardelle , come in a powerfully scented broth with dumplings or fishballs or shreds of roast duck, and a little heap of garnish--crunchy Chinese lardons , fried garlic, crumbles of pork--imparts a deep, smoky taste to the whole. And as a tip o’ the spoon to the Vietnamese side, you can accompany your noodles with an order of spring rolls or a glass of iced filter coffee.

1300 E. Main St., Alhambra, (818) 458-9606.

Yama Seafood Market is just the sort of homey, personal market that’s getting hard to find in Southern California. The selection is small but complete--you’ll find everything from enoki mushrooms and Japanese soda pop to American laundry detergent. Thin-sliced beef for shabu-shabu is something of a specialty, but what owner Kenzo Yamada knows best is fish. He holds court behind the counter, handing out samples for inspection and advising cooks on what fish might best serve their purposes. Those neat-looking shrimp with the yellow stripes, for instance, aren’t very good for sushi but are fine--and inexpensive--for soup.

911 W. Las Tunas Drive, San Gabriel, (818) 380-8990.

Golden Duck Seafood & B.B.Q. perfumes the entire mini-mall with the aroma of crisp-skinned barbecued duck, and it’s probably the best place in the neighborhood to pick up a roast chicken or a pound of chashu to go. The Cantonese seafood specialties include all the usual suspects, and the place is known for bargain lobster dinners.

841 W. Las Tunas Drive, San Gabriel, (818) 282-7628.

Numero Uno Pizzeria. Yep.

835 W. Las Tunas Drive, San Gabriel, (818) 282-8486.

Little Siam is a decent mini-mall Thai restaurant, nothing to make you forget the better places in Hollywood or Norwalk perhaps, but with perfectly respectable pork omelets and grilled shrimp salads, and dishes with sweet Thai sausage.

833 W. Las Tunas Drive, San Gabriel, (818) 570-9923.

Borobudur Garden might be an Indonesian greasy spoon, but it’s a great greasy spoon, focused and satisfying, with crisp shreds of fried tripe that sing of dark soy and garlic; with meltingly tender beef rendang , redolent of a dozen spices; with pungent mee goreng noodles fried with chicken, cabbage and herbs. Order lamb soup, and you’ll get a bowl of intense, chile-red coconut curry, resonant with garlic and lemon grass, puddled around a mound of meltingly tender lamb ribs.

821 W. Las Tunas Drive, San Gabriel, (818) 281-6521.

Sun Shine Taiwanese Food. Taiwanese cuisine is quite similar to what a lot of restaurants call “Northern” cooking, shot through with hot spices and pungent with pickles. Although current chef-owner Chi Chou Chen took over just last month, he’s already developed a following for his spicy scallops, intensely gingery red-cooked claypot chicken and pan-fried vermicelli. Fried fish rolls, wrapped in a thin, crackling skin of bean curd and served with a blistering chile dip, are terrific. Mornings, there are Chinese crullers and steaming bowls of tofu to dunk them in. Sun Shine is open both early and very late.

819 W. Las Tunas Drive, San Gabriel, (818) 284-0255.

Golden Deli Vietnamese Restaurant. Hearty, gamy, chewy and shot through with sweet spice, Golden Deli’s version of Vietnamese beef noodle soup, pho dac biet , is quite different from what you’ll find elsewhere, and also popular--on Saturday afternoons, the line for tables at the Golden Deli surges out the door. Bun bo hue , beef-noodle soup in the style of the central-Vietnamese city of Hue, is tart and hot, complexly herbal. Vietnamese spring rolls, cha gio , are sweet and tasty, amped up with black pepper, and could be crisper . . . though by the time you’ve finished wrapping them in lettuce leaves with mint and fresh opal basil, cilantro and marinated carrots, bean sprouts and cucumber, the spring rolls are so delicious you may not care.

815 W. Las Tunas Drive, San Gabriel, (818) 308-0803.

El Pollo Loco. America’s craaaa - ziest bird.

729 W. Las Tunas Drive, San Gabriel, (818) 576-5438.

Connie’s Cafe ’91. There are a lot of Chinese-American coffeeshops in the San Gabriel area, and Connie’s might be the most homespun, serving modest versions of noodle soups and Hainan chicken rice, also sandwiches and macaroni ‘n’ pork chop casseroles.

712 W. Las Tunas Drive, San Gabriel, (818) 576-1693.

Pagode Saigon Gourmet Restaurant. Oodles of beef.

See Counter Intelligence, H29.

710 W. Las Tunas Drive, San Gabriel, (818) 282-6327.

Smart & Final Iris. Here we are in the land of the giants: bales of frozen vegetables, bags of dry dog food the size of an Alaskan husky, and gallon bottles filled with pickled eggs, like a Price Club without the membership fee . . . though not quite so cheap. Even the brooms are brobdingnagian. When you need La Victoria salsa by the gallon, this is probably a good bet.

708 W. Las Tunas Drive, San Gabriel, (818) 281-2949 .

Kintaro Sushi & Bento. If they had AM/PM Mini-Marts in Japan, they might look a lot like this teensy place, lined with refrigerated cases and steam-table counters and charming hand-drawn signs. Kintaro, a Tokyo-style “combination store,” is well-stocked with things like California rolls and miso soup, ramen and fried vegetable cutlets and also many varieties of Japanese lunchbox assortments: curry rice, chicken donburi , cutlet plates, miscellaneous low-tide goodies. Point to what you like, and somebody will make it up fresh. On the way out, pick up some Pocky stick cookies and KissMint chewing gum, or maybe a cold can of milky Kirin Afternoon Tea.

706 W. Las Tunas Drive, B-5, San Gabriel, (818) 281-7665.

Yazmin is less a home-style restaurant than the sort of smartly casual Malaysian cafe you might expect to find in a swank neighborhood of Singapore or Kuala Lumpur, serving delightful light snacks: crispy curry puffs, ginger-spiked Hainanese chicken rice, the sweet, complex vegetable salad rojak , a version of the intense pork soup bah kut teh , that is fragrant with star anise and brilliantly clear. Indian clay-pot fish curry is complex and delicious. Best of all may be nasi lemak , sweet coconut rice served with half a dozen condiments.

706 W. Las Tunas Drive, San Gabriel, (818) 308-2036.

Greenleaf Produce does not reward the casual browser. There are no beautifully lit piles of vine-ripened tomatoes, for one thing, no dewy heads of romaine. To judge by the practically empty bins, any mom ‘n’ pop grocery has better stuff. But that’s because Greenleaf is basically a wholesaler: The good stuff is all in coolers in the back . . . just ask for what you need, glistening Japanese eggplants or ultra-fresh Chinese long beans.

704 W. Las Tunas Drive, San Gabriel, (818) 576-2124.

May Chieu Coffee Shop is where young Vietnamese men come to chainsmoke, watch racy Vietnamese-language rock videos on a big screen and drink inky Vietnamese iced filter coffee lightened with sweetened condensed milk. If May Chieu were in Beverly Hills, Mickey Rourke and the Hollywood Harley crowd would probably hang out there.

704 W. Las Tunas Drive, San Gabriel, (818) 281-8612.

Fortune Bakery. Like most other Chinese-American bakeries in the Southland, Fortune specializes in strawberry whipped-cream cake, the sweet, bland stuff that office birthday parties are made of, as well as assorted cookies, sweet Chinese dumplings and carefully made pastries. Not quite at the level of the popular Maria’s chain of Chinese bakeries, but good.

700 W. Las Tunas Drive, San Gabriel, (818) 576-0514.

Canterbury Shop. Lace is the main business here, but there are also Andrew and Fergie dinner plates, Queen Elizabeth coffee mugs and blue-and-white salt and pepper shakers from Holland. If you’re hungry, there’s a section of mostly British imports: shortbread, marmalade, brown malt vinegar, marmite and creamed semolina pudding.

625 W. Las Tunas Drive, San Gabriel, (818) 300-0186.

Casa Calderon is a time capsule of a restaurant, a musty, museum-quality reproduction of a state-of-the-art suburban Mexican joint circa 1963, tiled roof and all, complete with green-chile burritos, taco-enchilada platters and something called “tostada goopie”--it’s very goopie indeed. Useful for nostalgia binges, perhaps, but not really the most interesting restaurant on this stretch of road.

622 W. Las Tunas Drive, San Gabriel, (818) 289-0661.

Yaohan. Just like suburban Osaka but without the language problem, Yaohan is a branch of the well-known Japanese supermarket chain, slightly smaller than the Little Tokyo mothership but with the same quality produce, exotic seafood and Japanese cuts of meat. Because of its size, there are no live-fish tanks and there’s no in-store butcher, but the store is clean and bright and well-organized.

515 W. Las Tunas Drive, San Gabriel, (818) 457-2899.

Sandi’s Family Restaurant, a regular-guy coffeeshop, has been doling out pancakes and malts and cheeseburgers for as long as anyone can remember.

545 W. Las Tunas Drive, San Gabriel, (818) 284-2564.

Stuffed Sandwich. Walk into this place, and you’ll see something that seems very much like a Seventies “Olde Tyme” sandwich joint, with sawdust on the floor, stained-glass and macrame planters. Even the menu--subs, ribs and spaghetti, mostly--seems like a throwback. Take a second look, though, and you’ll see the monument to one of the most beer-obsessed individuals on the planet, proprietor Sam Samaniego.

413 W. Las Tunas Drive, San Gabriel, (818) 576-9554.

The Brunch Bag. Sandwiches, egg dishes, beef melts . . . you know, brunch.

340 W. Las Tunas Drive, San Gabriel, (818) 289-2071.

The Other Taste. Well, if you’ve never had the beverage “half and half,” which is half tea, half coffee and half-and-half, this Chinese coffee shop might be the “other taste” all right. (The effect is strange, like some unfamiliar medicinal tisane.) Here you’ll find Western food such as spaghetti, beef stew, and steak on a sizzling platter, prepared for the Chinese palate. African chicken, fried and topped with a thick black-pepper gravy--a rendition of a Macanese rendition of a Portugese rendition of some long-lost Angolan original--isn’t bad, really, though something might be lost in the translation. The untranslated list of specials includes Chinese things that aren’t too exotic, on the order of chicken-ginseng soup and salt-baked prawns, and there is a good selection of noodles. The Other Taste is open late, and quite hip with young local Chinese, who go for the Chinese and American fountain drinks.

301 W. Las Tunas Drive, San Gabriel, (818) 300-8171.

CJ Sales. Narrow, deep and packed to the ceiling, this Asian-owned restaurant-supply store is the place to go for a daikon grater, Japanese and Chinese patterned dinnerware, or sizzling-beef service plates in the shape of a ring-nosed bull. There are rice cookers big enough to keep gargantuan dinner parties in starch, and ultra-power wok stoves, just the thing to bring panfuls of vegetables to iron-smelter heat, in addition to the usual stockpots, utensils and roasters.

131 E. Las Tunas Drive, San Gabriel, (818) 285-4990.

The Cookie Pop Shop. It looks like a flower shop from the outside, but when you open the door, you are greeted not by the scent of roses but by the sweet stink of cookies in the oven, a smell you might recognize from your local mall. The places sells bouquets of long-stemmed chocolate-chip-cookie roses, flowerpots filled with cookies, chocolate-chip pizzas and chocolate-chip pig rumps . . . even a “Get Lost” bouquet made from burnt cookies, stale marshmallows, black ribbons and a black rose.

219 E. Las Tunas Drive, San Gabriel, (818) 285-5851.

Bavarian Inn. The first thing you’ve got to know about the Bavarian Inn is that the bar is pretty wonderful, a dark, cavernous gemutlich sort of thing decorated with mooseheads and beer steins and cowbells big as butter churns. This is the place to drink Weissbier with lemon and special Bavarian martinis fragrant with juniper. The German cuisine, though, is pretty average, not up to the standards of, say, Silver Lake’s Red Lion Inn, or the old-fashioned places in downtown Chicago. You may find, as we did, wilted salads, limp schnitzels, overcooked fish and bland, salmon-pink Eisbein , pig-shanks jiggly as Jell-O. (Good mashed potatoes, though, and fine smoked chops.)

324 E. Las Tunas Drive, San Gabriel, (818) 286-3810.