Eastside’s New Kid on the Block

When a new restaurant appears in Monterey Park, word gets around fast. Four days after it opened last week, the parking lot in front of East Lake Seafood on Garvey Avenue is jammed with cars full of families and groups of friends intent on getting a table at the new seafood restaurant. Even on a weeknight, the crowd at the door doesn’t let up until almost 10.

The requisite wall of tanks at the far end of the room is stocked with live crabs, lobsters, prawns and good-sized fish. Above them, a row of blackboards touts the specials written in Chinese script. These include a truly exotic seafood soup: Buy one for $29.95, get one free, but two bowls of the rich poultry broth laden with abalone, shark’s fin, fish bladder, sea cucumber and more is enough to serve four.

And while a hot pot of deer tendon, duck web and large chunks of white radish in a thick unctuous braising sauce may be something of an acquired taste, chicken braised in “ancient” soy sauce should please almost everyone with its moist, delicate flesh and burnished soy glaze. So should the crispy flash-fried squid tossed with sliced chile and scallions or the emerald pea shoots garnished with plump, sweet shrimp. There’s also a spectacular vegetable dish of gai choy (Chinese mustard) with flat black mushroom caps in oyster sauce.

In these opening weeks, the new kid on the block is cooking its best: How else to wean customers from the myriad other Cantonese seafood restaurants in San Gabriel Valley? The more the merrier, I say.

* East Lake Seafood, 684 W. Garvey Ave., Monterey Park, (818) 282-3000. Open seven days for lunch and dinner. Major credit cards accepted. Parking in lot. Appetizers, $5-$28; entrees, $6.95-$20 and more for specials. Also in Rowland Heights at 18443 E. Colima Road, (818) 912-8138.