SGV's Popular New Port Seafood Can't Hang On in Beverly Hills

Restaurant Row quietly lost a Southeast Asian favorite this month, this time with Newport Seafood. The place seemed to have closed some time in the last week or so, but the exact date is unclear. Husband and wife team Ly Hua and Wendy Lam own two other well-established restaurants: Newport Seafood on Las Tunas Boulevard in San Gabriel, and Tan Cang Newport Seafood in Rowland Heights.

With limited options for quality Chinese cuisine west of the 710, New Port Seafood was a welcome addition to Restaurant Row in 2014. Taking their name from frequent runs to the Newport Fish Market, Newport’s menu ventured beyond Chinese, and took inspiration throughout Southeast Asia, especially the Lams’ homeland of Cambodia. Stir-fried lobster was the restaurant’s specialty, but customers were happy to order beef luc lac and salt and pepper squid without having to trek to the San Gabriel Valley.

Hua and Lam opened the Santa Ana Newport Seafood in 1989, their San Gabriel location in 1996, along with a third outlet in Rowland Heights. The owners sold the OC location, and moved the SGV location into a larger space to accommodate the crowds.

The closure comes as a surprise, as Hua and Lam received an affectionate write up in the September Los Angeles Times.

• San Gabriel's Famed Chinese Restaurant Newport Seafood Coming to Beverly Hills [ELA]
• New Port Seafood, Remarkable Chinese in Beverly Hills [ELA]
• Xandros is the Future Home of Newport Seafood Bev Hills [ELA]
• The story behind the spicy lobster at Newport Seafood [LAT]