Seven Grams, a soup dumpling restaurant based in Tustin, . It’s already been visited by L.A. food blogger David Chan, who has eaten at more than 7,000 Chinese restaurants.
Chan dined at the Victoria Gardens Seven Grams in March, pronouncing the sesame oil noodles “delicious” . He added that it was “a little surprising that this wildly popular Irvine-adjacent restaurant decided to open their first branch here rather than the San Gabriel Valley.”
And yet it’s not altogether surprising. Rancho Cucamonga’s Chinese American population is currently above 14%. And Chan has made repeat visits.
He two years ago that Rancho Cucamonga “first came on (his) Chinese food radar” when 99 Ranch, the Chinese supermarket chain, opened a branch in the city. That took place in 2010. The chain has an almost preternatural ability to be “the first Chinese business to open up in new burgeoning Chinese communities,” Chan wrote.
Six or seven years ago, he said, Rancho Cucamonga achieved “the critical mass of Chinese residents for dedicated authentic Chinese restaurants.” In 2022, he praised the “quality dim sum” at China Republic, the beef pies at Dumpling Village and the popcorn fish at Jojo’s Kitchen Taiwan Eats at the Haven City Market food hall.
And now Seven Grams. Why was Chan making the drive this time?
He’d been in Eastvale to check out its new 99 Ranch, he told me, and “took the scenic route back to Los Angeles” through Rancho Cucamonga — as one does. Incidentally, the 99 Ranch in Eastvale is probably a sign of things to come in that city, just as it was in Chino Hills, in 2007, and in Rancho Cucamonga.
Wanting to try Seven Grams myself, I invited Loraine and Max Hemingway.
You may recall at Dumpling Master, another of Rancho Cucamonga’s authentic Chinese restaurants. Over dumplings, pork buns, and tomato and egg noodles, Loraine and Max told me about life in China during pandemic lockdowns and then their difficulties in leaving the country with their Golden Retriever to return to Upland, where Loraine grew up.
At Seven Grams last week, we shared xiao long bao (soup dumplings), a beef roll, cold noodles in chili oil and a cucumber salad.
“This is very satisfying,” Loraine remarked between bites. “This tastes like food we had in China.”
Half Chinese and half Filipino, the former Loraine Ong was amazed by how much the area’s dining choices have expanded. When she grew up here, the only Chinese food was Americanized. Now many Chinese regions are represented and the food is truer to the home country.
Why are Chinese Americans relocating here?
Many have moved east from the San Gabriel Valley or L.A. in a quest for newly built housing, Chan wrote. That “incessant eastward march,” he observed, began decades earlier when people left L.A. for new housing tracts in Monterey Park and other San Gabriel Valley communities.
For me, the arrival of authentic Chinese restaurants makes the IE a bit more lively and livable. Like other culinary and cultural amenities that have drifted eastward, to our benefit, I accept them with gratitude.
Arrivals (cont’d)
So how are Loraine and Max Hemingway, two years later? Very well, thank you. They’ve bought a house in Running Springs and both have office jobs for a health care provider. At her job, Loraine, taking her married name to heart, is writing.
Max, who is from England, now has a green card, making him a permanent legal resident. He continues to marvel at life in America, to his wife’s amusement and affection.
Said Loraine, beaming: “I love seeing America through his eyes.”
“…through the innocent eyes of a child,” Max said dryly.
Also, JoJo, the couple’s Golden Retriever, who had to lose weight to board the airplane to America, has gained those pounds back.
‘Shrunk’ in Cucamonga
Free Comic Book Day is Saturday, May 4, at which participating comic book stores have a range of free comics for all ages as well as guests and giveaways.
The Inland Empire’s epicenter is probably 4 Color Fantasies in Rancho Cucamonga (8045 Archibald Ave.), which will have during its 11 a.m.-4 p.m. festivities. The ones most of interest to the general public will be Amy O’Neill and Thomas Wilson Brown, two of the child stars of the original “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.”
O’Neill was the movie’s Amy Szalinski, daughter of the Rick Moranis scientist character, and Brown was Russell “Little Russ” Thompson Jr., the neighbor kid. That movie came out 35 years ago: June 23, 1989.
“This is the first time we’ll be meeting fans together since the film’s release on video back in the early ’90s,” O’Neill told me by email.
A film prop company, DocsPropshop, will bring “a life-sized replica of the shrink machine,” which “moves and lights up with awesome sound effects,” O’Neill says. She knows the company’s owners, they invited her to 4 Color with them and she invited Brown.
O’Neill, an L.A. resident, has been to Rancho Cucamonga and in fact visited its Bass Pro Shops in April with her brother.
The question she is asked most frequently is if she stays in touch with her castmates. She does. Her favorite question, which she’s been asked more than once: “What does it feel like to get shrunk?”
Apparently the movie’s pre-CGI special effects were very effective, at least on impressionable minds.
brIEfly
Comics fan John Atwater of Rancho Cucamonga was watching vintage Looney Tunes cartoons on KPOM on April 21 when he delighted in back-to-back . Becoming lost while burrowing in “My Bunny Lies Over the Sea” (1948), Bugs Bunny consults a map: “Let’s see now: through Azusa, turn left at Cucamonga, ‘til you hit Los Angeles.” Next came “Raw! Raw! Rooster” (1956), in which a telegram is delivered to the home of Foghorn Leghorn in “Cucamonga, Calif.” Was Foghorn Leghorn Cucamonga’s most notable resident? I’d say yes, even if he did live in a barnyard.
David Allen writes Wednesday, Friday and — try, ah say, try to keep up, son — Sunday. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, like davidallencolumnist on Facebook and follow @davidallen909 on Twitter.
