A local Hawaiian restaurant run by a hardworking and stubborn auntie. There are other surprising favorites, too, beyond the explosion of Asian flavors. There’s Cantonese soup dumpling restaurants where the liquid-filled parcels are hand-wrapped, and Taiwanese cafes that feature porkchop rice. There are Sichuan specialty shops with oxymoronic spicy and numbing cold noodles. And although a good portion of them are Asian - specifically Chinese - it’s important to note the regional diversity of the many cuisines. Of the approximately 525,000 self-identified Asian Americans that call the SGV home, almost two thirds of them were born elsewhere, according to a report by KPCC. Arcadia, the city where I grew up, and the San Gabriel Valley as a whole, is home to hundreds of Asian Americans and immigrants, which in turn means excellent ma-and-pop restaurants.