Apparently the chef/owner use to work with Bryant Ng at Spice Table and Cassia, so this has definitely caught my attention because I’m curious to see if a SGV person can leave and come back to open something in the SGV with great success.
After my experience dealing with opening Side Chick and dealing with the local mall crowd I’m not exactly racing to open another business in this area again so I’m hoping the community embraces this place but at the same time I’m a bit worried for them.
Damn, they’re making Malabar parathas / roti canai. With cultured Straus butter. On the same menu with strozzapreti.
Calling it a Chinese restaurant is a lazy mistake.
You raise an interesting definitional issue that’s critical to me, since I have to determine what is a “Chinese restaurant” that gets added to my list when I eat there. My convention includes counting a restaurant that has numerous Chinese dishes even if outnumbered by non-Chinese dishes on the menu, as well as any restaurant that primarily targets Chinese clientele based on its location and the prodominant composition of its diners. The latter, for example, includes a restaurant like Sesame Grill in Arcadia which is located in a Chinese community and has mostly Chinese diners.
He’s Chinese and has mostly Chinese customers. Assuming you aren’t Chinese that’s not your call to make.
They themselves don’t call it Chinese. On Facebook where they had to pick a category they chose Asian Fusion, which fits the menu:
https://www.yangskitchenla.com/menu
From their self-description on their web site it seems like they would prefer not to be pigeonholed at all, which fits the menu even better:
Yang’s Kitchen strives to source local, sustainable and organic when possible. We work hard to source premium ingredients and we cook everything from scratch with love. We also do our best to pay our employees living wages (tips are shared with all employees, including kitchen staff) and to reduce our environmental footprint wherever we can. Overall, these factors translate to higher menu prices, but we hope that you find value and feel a sense of comfort in knowing that we aim to get better everyday at doing what is important to us.
The menu reads for the most part Chinese, if they choose to throw in a few non-traditional things it doesn’t make it any less Chinese. Our food has incorporated outside ingredients for centuries thru trade with other countries.
BEEF NOODLE SOUP
BRAISED PORK RICE
COLD SESAME NOODLES
PREMIUM TEA
BABY GREENS SALAD
ROASTED SQUASH & KALE SALAD
PORK STROZZAPRETI
ROASTED ROOT VEGETABLES
TEA (all Japanese)
KOMBUCHA ON TAP
SOFT DRINKS
SOFT SERVE
WHOLE GRAIN SCALLION PANCAKE
Grist & Toll whole wheat flour, Straus organic butter, scallions
CHICKEN SCALLION PANCAKE WRAP
GoneStraw Farms chicken breast, shiso pesto aioli, avocado, alfalfa sprouts, slow roasted cherry tomatoes - optional, add four cheese blend
BEEF SCALLION PANCAKE WRAP
Santa Carota grass-fed beef, ponzu pico de gallo, pickled carrots & onions, lacto-fermented hot sauce, cilantro - optional, add aavocado
MISO TASTY CUCUMBERS
COFFEE
SEASONAL AGUA FRESCAS
Yes
I would’ve thought that they were co-opting Chinese food…
But since the place is an Asian-fusion place run by an Asian person, it’s not co-opting.
Cool, well call it what you want but I’m gonna keep calling it a Chinese restaurant, I’m not gonna waste any more time debating the semantics.
Kombucha possibly originated in China and has been consumed in China for thousands of years before it was “discovered”
Origins of kombucha aside, Health-Ade California Grape, Whalebird Mango Guava, Whalebird Pamplemousse, and Whalebird Strawberry Damiana are not beverages you’ll find at a Chinese restaurant.
For a food board attentive to the intricacies and varieties various cuisines, I’m disheartened by statements of cultural essentialism.
To be fair, how can not happen when we’re talking about a “type of cuisine,” esp in the context of geography (one can’t ignore that the SGV is, for good and “objective” reasons, strongly associated w/ Asian EVERYTHING) rather than, say, a cooking technique?
Also, the menu author is inviting such discussion by giving the items names that are also very strongly associated w/ a specific cuisine, even if the ingredients are unconventional vs. a more traditional prep of the dish.
I don’t know anything about the chef, but I imagine that, if they were aware of the thread, they might be getting a bit of a kick out of this. 
Yang himself said:
We’re serving food that we crave, food that we experienced on our travels, food that we grew up eating. … We’re not bound by tradition. We’re just making food the best it can be, with the best ingredients and techniques. … We’re creating a new genre of food that tastes good and makes you feel good afterward. [Emphasis added.]
and hazan said she changed the recipes herself. selective faith in quotes? or just quotes that support your predetermined opinion?
Yang’s comments about his own food seem consistent to me. Can you find a quote where he calls it “Chinese”?
matthewkang posted that a few days ago, sparking this discussion. That’s what I quoted to show that Yang avoids characterizing his restaurant’s food as “Chinese.”