The son of a seamstress and a cook, Chi Mui didn't speak any English when he left Hong Kong for the United States in 1963. At the time, San Gabriel, the city where he would be elected to office 40 years later, was still a mostly sleepy white and Latino suburb.
Mui, 53, became the city's first Chinese American mayor last week, the latest symbol of San Gabriel's rise as the new center of the region's Chinese community.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday April 14, 2006 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 48 words Type of Material: Correction
San Gabriel: An article in the March 31 California section about San Gabriel's Chinese community said the city's Hilton hotel was believed to be the only Hilton in the continental United States with a fully equipped Chinese kitchen. The Hilton in Universal City also has a Chinese kitchen.
San Gabriel has seen an explosion of Chinese retail and commercial development in the last few years, fueled by a wave of new immigration from China. But the city has emerged as far more than just another ethnic enclave, luring foodies from around the country to high-end restaurants such as Mission 261 as well as second- and third-generation Chinese Americans to its diverse array of stores and eateries.
A drive down San Gabriel's stretch of Valley Boulevard -- which Mui likes to call the Golden Mile -- reveals a flourishing Asian commercial district with more than 100 Asian restaurants and multistoried, Mediterranean-style shopping plazas featuring noodle shops next to appointment-only jewelry stores selling $40,000 watches.
Even the 14-month-old Hilton hotel was configured to serve a community where half the 40,000 residents are Asian, printing such things as menus and floor plans in English and Chinese.
The hotel is believed to be the only Hilton in the continental United States with a fully equipped Chinese kitchen -- a workspace that caters to the half a dozen Chinese weddings that take place at the hotel each weekend.
With its trendy boutiques, warehouse-size Asian supermarkets and seemingly endless dining options representing all corners of Chinese cuisine, many say San Gabriel has become what Monterey Park and Alhambra used to be: the prime destination for local and visiting Chinese.
"San Gabriel is the epicenter of where the Chinese community is today," said Carl Chu, a Taiwanese American and author of "Finding Chinese Food in Los Angeles," who insists that the only place to find authentic Peking duck -- not deep-fried -- in Southern California is in San Gabriel.
Chu said San Gabriel's rising profile has supplanted the San Gabriel Valley's traditional Chinese powerhouses of Monterey Park and Alhambra. More than a generation ago, Chinese, Taiwanese and Hong Kong immigrants transformed the strip malls of those two suburbs into Chinatown east.
