Your meal at Bistro Na’s is meant to be regal, or as close to regal as one can come in a Temple City strip mall. This is food fit for an emperor, with a menu bound like an ancient text and dishes inspired by Chinese imperial kitchens. There are platters of pork feet jelly, golden soup teeming with the jewels of the sea. Shrimp are fried and lacquered with a sticky glaze made from sweet hawthorn and dried chiles. The Peking duck requires a table reservation and preordering one week in advance. Making the duck is a three-day process that involves marinating, scalding the skin and hanging and drying the bird multiple times before it’s roasted. The finished duck is presented whole to the table, impossibly plump with shiny skin the color of warm honey. Each crisp square of skin seems to shatter, then melt on the tongue. There are gossamer chun bing for wraps and a third course of soup or deep-fried bones. I prefer the soup, a calming respite between bites of lavish skin, shrimp and the rest of your royal feast. — J.H.

9055 LAS TUNAS DRIVE, #105, TEMPLE CITY, (626) 286-1999 l BISTRONAS.COM