Sam Woo Restaurant
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Sam Woo Restaurant is a Chinese-American restaurant chain serving Hong Kong-style cuisine. It has numerous locations in many predominantly Chinese-speaking communities of Southern California (for example, Los Angeles Chinatown, Monterey Park, Cerritos, and Irvine just to name a few) and Las Vegas, Nevada in the United States and Scarborough, Ontario (a suburb of Toronto) in Canada.
The first restaurant started in 1979 in the Chinatown of Los Angeles and then spread to suburban Monterey Park, California.
There are generally two versions of Sam Woo Restaurant: Sam Woo BBQ Restaurant specializes in barbecue (such as mouthwatering scrumptious roast Duck; it also offers congee and won ton noodles on its menu) and Sam Woo Seafood Restaurant is a usually more upscale restaurant serving seafood and dim sum.
The restaurant chain tends to be operated in the suburban "Chinatown" areas. Several, but not all, Sam Woo Restaurants in Southern California are located in shopping centers that contain the major supermarket chain 99 Ranch Market. While Sam Woo does not maintain a Web site, its restaurants can usually be located by using the store locator on the 99 Ranch Market site.
Sam Woo Restaurants are generally popular as long waits (i.e., before being seated at a table) are not uncommon. As with most Chinese cuisine restaurants, it is also popular with non-Chinese-speaking patrons such as Filipino Americans and white people.
In 1992, presidential candidate Bill Clinton held a fundraiser at a Sam Woo Seafood Restaurant in the predominantly Chinese American city of San Gabriel, California.