Kat's 9 Lives

A rare day indeed. For Mother's Day, I took my Mom and Dad out for dinner. Those of you who know me, know how rare and scary this is. As always, they wanted to head on over to Rowland Heights for some Chinese Food. First we did some massive shopping at the newly opened Hong Kong Market at a new location, then we moseyed on over to VIP Chinese Restaurant. It's an Islamic Chinese Restaurant. They are located at the corner plaza, near the Yoshinoya side. The interior is your typical simple Asian design with booths and tables. I think they have changed ownership. It is now owned by Koreans I believe. Makes you question the authenticity of the food... but honestly we know the kitchen barely has any Asian cooks in these kind of places.
They start off by bringing you little snacks to snack on. Sometimes you have to be careful in places like these because they tend to charge you for the side dishes they bring you. I know it might not make sense, but it happens! So always be a little wary if you are not into the side dishes. I don't think we were charged this time, but the previous owners did.
So in Islamic cuisine they do not serve pork and they are known for their big Sesame & Green Onions Pancake. My parents like the thin type because it is suppose to be crispy on the outside, yet maintain a chewy texture on the inside. You use this instead of rice with the meal to tone down the strong flavors of the dish. My Dad did not like the pancake here anymore. It didn't have the same texture and "oomph" as it used to. I thought it was a bit bland and only had hints of salt flavor and nothing else.
My family is a huge fan of lamb so I chose Mongolian Lamb for the first dish. This was the best dish of the night. There was a lot of green onion flavor nicely infused into the dish. The sauce was a good combo of salty with a slight sweet essence from the onions. I wish we ordered 2 of this dish rather than the other ones. The portions were not too big but at least there was a good meat to veggie ratio. My Dad decided to get a spicy lamb dish, Hunan Lamb. It was not what we thought it would be. I rarely see slices of tofu skin in a Hunan Lamb. Not a big fan of leek so I avoided them. O=) The flavor was only so-so, but once I finished off the lamb on the other dish... I resorted to picking off of this dish.
I made the mistake of ordering the Hand Made Noodles with Lamb since I really liked them the first time I went to Fatima up in San Jose. The one here was not that good. I felt that the noodles were a bit flat in texture. They must have over cooked the noodles because they were very flimsy. The sauce was a bit too salty. I didn't enjoy the egg since it was over salted as well. My bad for wanting this dish. Maybe I should just stick to the meat dishes and avoid all carbs! O=P
The reason why I agreed to come to this place was for their dessert, as well as to please my parents. Even though it is under different ownership, I still had to have the Red Bean Pancake. if you know me, you know that I abhor red bean. So if I willingly order any dish with red bean, you know it must be good! I love the thin crispy texture of the pancake. The sweet flavor of ground red bean meshes well with the toasty outer texture. It was still good here. Maybe not as good as it used to be, but I got my fix. ^_^
All in all my parents weren't too pleased and they won't be back. At least I didn't drop too much for dinner but it would be nice if they actually enjoyed the meal... oh well... my parents are always like that. At least we made it through the meal without killing each other! ^_^ It's kind of funny, but they were more critical about the food than I was this time. =P

VIP Chinese Restaurant
18331 Colima Rd
Rowland Heights, CA 91748
(626) 810-2499