I'd been hearing the rumors for years: "The best thing you will ever eat is the fried spicy lobster at Newport Tan Cang."
I'd also been deeply hesitant about checking it out, because Newport Tan Cang is legendary for how long it takes to get a table. Like, we're talking the kind of wait normally associated with a new ride at Disneyland, or a late-era Soviet Union breadline.
And the thing about me is, I become a huge asshole when I'm waiting in line while hungry. Seriously, when I'm underfed and stuck in limbo, I get meaner than a Republican with a UTI. My extremely patient friends might say something like "Maybe you should've eaten an apple before we left", to which I respond with "Maybe you should run backwards and naked through A FIELD OF DICKS." So for the sake of preserving my relationships, I'd been avoiding making the trek to this San Gabriel Valley institution.
Besides... it's lobster. Lobster tastes like lobster. How good could this really be?
Oh man.
The Newport Special Lobster is a 6-pound behemoth that comes to your table hot enough to melt the lacquer off your chopsticks. It's been wok-fried in a benediction of chilis, garlic, black peper, scallions and sesame oil, redder than hellfire and hacked to pieces like it lost a fight with a samurai. And when you pull one of those suculent morsels out of its steaming shell and take that first bite, an strange thought goes through your head: "I've been lobstering wrong my whole life." Your fingers will smell like the ingredients even after you wash them, and you wouldn't have it any other way.
This is the very definition of "worth the wait."
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- WHAT: The Spicy Lobster at Newport Tan Cang
- WHERE: 518 W Las Tunas Dr, San Gabriel, CA 91776
- WHEN: 7 days a week, 11:30 - 9:30,
- $$$: Bring a group, you're dropping at least $100