Sam Woo Restaurant is a restaurant chain that serves Hong Kong-style cuisine, and has many locations Southern California. While the restaurant sounds like a person’s name, there is no Sam Woo. “Sam Woo” is a loose Cantonese pronunciation for the word “triple harmonies”.
There are two types of Sam Woo restaurants: Sam Woo BBQ Restaurant, typically small in size, offering popular Cantonese meats such as roast duck, soy sauce chicken, BBQ pork, roast pig, fried rice, and noodles on its menu. Usually, cash is the only accepted payment, and popular for food to go.
The second, Sam Woo Seafood Restaurant is more upscale restaurant that serves dim sum and focus on seafood dishes, such as lobster and fish, and will accept credit cards.
The Sam Woo in Cerritos, Calfornia offers both BBQ and Seafood, and houses both restaurants under one building. The entrance to the dining room faces South Street, while the BBQ is strictly for food to go, and has its own special entrance off Pioneer Blvd.
I came here specifically for one thing. The roast pig. Normally, I get my roast pig from the 99 Ranch Market in Anaheim or at Lien Hoa, a Vietnamese/ Chinese barbecue chain in Little Saigon. I wanted to try Sam Woo and see how it compared to those other stores.
In addition the traditional BBQ items, this location has Cantonese favorites such as sauteed vegetables, stir fried meats, noodles and fried seafood.
Hanging on the deli hooks were roast ducks and a side of crispy roast pig, and I made this special trip for a pound of it. The roast pork at Sam Woo was $14.99 a pound, which was a bit more than the competitors, and, of course, cash only.
The roast pork was worth every penny. The meat was tender and moist, and the skin was so light and crispy. Hands down a completely different experience compared to the other places I’ve been to, and definitely worth that special trip to Cerritos.
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