The article doesn’t say that Cantonese food still doesn’t dominate Los Angeles Chinatown. It merely points out that LA Chinatown was the final Cantonese holdout against the changing face of Chinese food in America, but things appear to be changing.
1 Like
I would hardly count 3 places as changing…
And all in the same plaza
what’s happening @ Far East will inevitably spread. I don’t think the people moving into that area are all that interested in porridge and won ton soup.
I mean, has any Cantonese shop opened up in Chinatown in recent memory?
And it seems like very little new Canto shops pop up in 626, unless you count new owners who change the name.
It’s all demographics/population.
Chinatown and the areas west, north, and northeast still have a working class and senior Canto population, not too mentioned some large senior apartment buildings. It’s gonna reflect more humble dishes at a lower price. So yeah nothing new in recent years, business owners probably don’t see it as profitable.
But who knows?
George Yu is the new Dai Lo of Chinatown.
and Leonard Chan is bringing in his concepts too. Gross.
I actually like the new multicultural Chinatown restaurants. I like that I can get a variety of everything all in the same hood. To me, it is one of the best hoods for food.
I too will assume the squat until it arrives.
I think San Francisco Chinatown sets the example. Still largely Cantonese but Z&Y and Bund Shanghai opened up on Jackson St., and now north part of Kearny St. is exclusively non-Cantonese. Last Cantonese opening in LA Chinatown was probably J&K Hong Kong, also in Far East Plaza.
In addition to Bund and Z&Y which now sports lines like Golden Gate Bakery in SF Chinatown at times, there are the following non Cantonese Chinese in the area
House of Xian Dumpling (near House of Nanking)
Hunan Homes
Little Szechuan
Spicy King
Chong Qing Xiao Mian
Wow! I haven’t been to Bund Shanghai is a year or two. Glad to see them that popular.
Don’t forget:
Hanlin
Hunan House
Boiling Shrimp
Kobe Bento (which isn’t Japanese)
Oolong Noodle (quasi Chinese, certainly not Cantonese)
What about Fortune Gourmet Kitchen?
1 Like
You are correct. My article says the last restaurant opening was four years ago, and that was Fortune Gourmet Kitchen.
Don’t think so. I’d say it’s more widespread Cantonese with a ton of variations. Sometime in the last 2 years there was a small fad in Hong Kong where one restaurant offered a super pricey rendition of steamed pork patty with razor clams (Scotland or Ireland)…a waste basically of fresh imported seafood.
The “country bumpkin” style renditions (whether home or cooked by Toishanese chefs) are likely to be more rustic in flavor and arguably a bit less refined in the preparations (the minced pork not chopped as fine [double cleaver technique] and/or hand mixed/tossed in the bowl to create that needed texture).
Some patty porn:
A rare rendition containing chopped squid:
A rendition with dried scallops, water chesnuts, and mushroom (classic)
A super refined minced beef with a lot of material, but more importantly, with aged dried orange peel
3 Likes
I’m not sure any one region in China can lay claim to 蒸肉餅 as being theirs. It’s just so ubiquitous a dish.
I mean, seriously, it’s essentially a flat meatball, or what American call “meatloaf”
1 Like
Great pix, brought me back to my childhood, when no Chinese restaurant would serve this rural dish largely because of its foreign smell. Now, while not common, it and its accompaniment, salted fish, can be found in many Canto restaurants, particularly in fried rice.
embassy kitchen offers 2 variants in their lunch special menu. they’re both pretty good. as a matter of fact we ordered BOTH for the same meal because we liked them so much.
and 20 years ago, wing hing deli at the corner of third & valley in alhambra would make one with chinese sausage if you asked but it wasn’t on the menu. i went there about once a week back then and would polish off massive amounts of rice with one of those.
It’s a well known Cantonese dish.
It’s also a well known Taiwanese dish, i.e., 瓜仔肉.
That is actually a taiwanese variation of cantonese 蒸肉餅… so you’re right that 瓜仔肉 is taiwanese…
“瓜仔肉屬於 粵菜（俗稱：蒸肉餅）”
1 Like
