If there's a category for restaurants like Wong's in Garden Grove, it's old-school. This is the Americanized Cantonese food that fed the Baby Boomer generation. Think chop suey, egg foo young, and “sweet and sour” everything. Now there's another category: endangered.
A reader named Steve wrote in to inform us that Wong's will be closing permanently after this Wednesday, August 31st. Although they started cooking back in 1952 in LA, Wong's has been at its current OC location since 1972. Throughout its lifespan, the world inside its doors has been set on pause, frozen in the age of leisure suits, 8-track tapes and Bruce Lee. When I ate there last in 2007, I sat in a brown room with wood paneling, ornamental lamps with dangly tassels, cottage-cheese ceilings and aging leather booths that squeaked whenever we shifted.
And now, all of that is going to be gone very soon. Better get over to Garden Grove, on Westminster and get your pupu platters while you can.
It's turning into something new, though.
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The new place that will replace it will be called “Spicy Claw”, another Vietnamese Boiling Crab clone. Reader Steve added, “I asked Mr. Wong if any of the same cooks or menu will be retained, but he wasn't sure. A sad day for fans of old-school Cantonese style food.”
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Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.