Monday, January 20, 2025

Chicken Chop Suey At Seree Coffee Shop Is More Than A Blast From The Past.

 

My visit to Seree Coffee Shop was more than a blast from the past, but also an adventure and a visit into my own childhood, though not in the way you would imagine.  Seree Coffee Shop on Grand Ave. in the shadow of downtown Los Angeles has been on my radar for over a decade, but not high enough for me to visit until now.  Seree serves American breakfasts plus old style Chinese  food like chop suey, fried rice, and other rice dishes.  It’s been open over 50 years with the same owner-chef, Kenny.  You could probably drive by it every day and not realize there’s a restaurant inside.  


 

And the inside is as spartan as they come.  Just a small window into the kitchen where you could place your order with the owner/chef.  

 


Talk about walking into a time warp!  It took forever to get my food because there were two large orders ahead of me, but I really didn’t mind.


 

The closest thing I could find to a menu had pictures but no prices.   This chicken chop suey on a bed of fried rice weighed over 2 pounds and cost $11.50.  And everyone gets a brownie in the end.  

 

Now while I said that this trip brought back childhood memories, I don't mean memories of chop suey.  I really don't remember eating chop suey as a kid and I’m not sure if I’ve had it more than a handful of times in my life. I don’t remember the last time I had chop suey.  Maybe Fargo, North Dakota in the late 1970s, not counting the Princess Cruise chop suey that wasn’t.  

Where the childhood memories come in is as I was plotting Seree’s location I noted that the junior high school my mom attended in the 1930s was just two blocks away.  When I saw that I had thought I had never been by John Adams Junior High before, but I did recognize it as I drove by.  


 

I also noted that the house I lived at as a 3 year old was just 3 blocks away from there. As I slowly drove down the street checking addresses, I thought I recognized where I lived. But the address was off by 2, 213 instead of 215.  Then I saw the building next door, a newly built multi unit monstrosity with unit addresses like 215½ and 215¾.  What had they done to my house?  

And as I looked past where my house used to stand, there was another old house, in pristine condition.  Why did they have to tear down mine?  Oh, and it's for sale for $900,000.


Oh well.



Friday, January 10, 2025

John Wooden Predicts Ohio State over Notre Dame in BCS Championship

 

Of course not really, since John Wooden passed away in 2010.  However this blog has posted predictions several times based on the principles of John Wooden which have in fact come to pass.  John Wooden has articulated a truism of sports which strangely has never been acknowledged by the sporting public, yet keeps proving itself over and over again.  That truism is that a long winning streak can turn into a heavy and potentially insurmountable burden, with the burden increasing as the winning streak continues on. Time and time again there have been stunning upsets in sports, with the only common denominator being the fact that the losing team was a long winning streak.  In this regard, Wooden stated that a loss at the right time can be a good thing that actually insures a team's success as it acts like a reset button.  
 
Playoff history is replete with examples of this, perhaps the best example being Kentucky’s unbeaten basketball super team a decade ago.  This has often been the case in the BCS championship, with undefeated Alabama, Georgia, LSU, and recently Oregon teams not prevailing. In all of these cases, the postgame analyses were strictly limited to the discussion of the X's and O's, without a hint that maybe the losing team was burdened by a losing streak.  Consequqently, with its 13 game winning streak, and Ohio State's regular season ending loss to Michigan, Notre Dame's streak appears to be in jeopardy.
 
It also seems strange to see this idea from Wooden, whose basketball teams had some epic winning streaks. Those streaks can be explained by the fact that those Bruin teams were so superior to their opposition that even a lessened performance was enough to keep winning.  But in the context of a single elimination tournament like the BCS championship, the chances of running into a clearly inferior opponent is not very great.


Wednesday, January 1, 2025

Umi Buffet In Industry Restores My Faith in Chinese Buffets

Barely six months after bemoaning the disappearance of all the good Chinese buffets in Los Angeles in my recent retrospective, we once again have a local Chinese buffet worth talking about, Umi Hotpot and Seafood Buffet (yes, another Chinese buffet with a Japanese sounding name).  Not surprisingly it's located in the space once occupied by one of my all time favorite buffets, Kome Buffet, which closed down several years ago.  However, the space has been totally remodeled with sleek new lines and compartmentalization.  There is the obligatory sushi section, justifying the Japanese sounding name.

 

What I like about Umi is it introduces so many new elements.  For example it offers hotpot via portable table hotpot units, and a dedicated hotpot ingredient section.  Yes, a few all you can eat hotpot restaurants may have a table of prepared food, but those are clearly incidentals.  In contrast, at Umi you can make the hotpot a major portion of your meal.



 

Umi also includes drinks in the price of admission.  A few buffets do include soda fountain drinks, but here the fridge is full of things like milk tea, grapefruit tea, and mango coolers, as well as cold desserts.  Plus a separate ice cream freezer.


Not to mention a ramen station.  Yeah, I've seen this in buffets before, but not on top of all the other extras.


Plus lots of seafood and goodies on ice.




 But what I liked best was the items that I had never seen before at a Chinese buffet.  How about fish with pickled mustard green soup or perhaps spicy pig feet?


Sichuan style saliva chicken.  No, not made with the saliva from a chicken.  Rather an unfortunate, but common translation of chicken-that-makes-you-salivate.


Lamb chops???


Pineapple fried rice.

 

The dim sum section is small, with only four varieties.  But three of which I've never seen in a buffet.  First the semi-mochi bun with a mystery green cream filling.  I say semi-mochi because only the top of the bun has mochi.


This wonderful mango cream filled bun.


And these date topped cornbread.  I've seen these in Dongbei restaurants and I never would have classified them as dim sum.


And best of all, there's no mistaking where the restrooms are.


About $25 for weekday lunch, $35 for dinner and $50 for weekends with senior discounts.  My faith in Chinese buffets has been restored.





Friday, December 20, 2024

Macanese Cafe Embraces Its Casino Heritage

At San Gabriel's HK Macau Bistro, the restaurant creates an ambiance of Macau's casino culture, as well as some reminders of Hong Kong.

When you walk in, your table is like a mah johng table, with mah johng tiles under glass.

 

And your eating dish wishes you good fortune and riches.


The placemat does not have a picture of James Wang Law staring back at you, but rather invites you to visit the casino.


The menu highlights favorites from Macau, like this Macau Beef Stew.  Naturally the serving dish is adorned with mah johng tile images.


Macau style fishballs, made with mashed potatoes and shredded fish meat, on a serving plate encouraging winning times.


On the Hong Kong side, some great Hong Kong style seafood chow mein, again with a mah johng tile plate.


And awesome pineapple bun sandwiches.


As the crowds attest, while the premises are gimmicky, the food is excellent.


Thursday, December 12, 2024

The Most Intriguing Chinese Restaurant In The United States

Back a dozen years ago, Clarissa Wei first wrote about me and the thousands of Chinese restaurants I had eaten at and launched me on my journey to telling the tale of Chinese food in America in the context of the history, demographics and culture of Chinese Americans, and somehow ending up getting my own Wikipedia entry.  In the interview, she asked me the innocuous question, which of all the Chinese restaurants I had yet to eat at would I most want to eat at.  I'm sure the expected response would be some iconic Chinese restaurant in a distant Chinese community.  However, I gave the unexpected response of a unique version of cashew chicken served only in Springfield, Missouri, albeit found in dozens of restaurants in that city.  I recounted how Springfield cashew chicken had been on my radar for at least a couple of decades, but really had no opportunity to go there.  But thanks to that article, just a few weeks later I was in Springfield, sampling various renditions of their cashew chicken.

So it's a dozen years later, and if you asked me the same question, what would be the answer now?  Well, it most certainly would be the newly opened Black Dragon Takeout in Philadelphia.  Why?  Because it has the most intriguing lineup of dishes I've ever seen in a Chinese restaurant.  General Roscoe's Chicken.  Collard green fried rice.  Egg Wu Young.  Oxtail Rangoon.  Gumbo fried rice.  Pecan shrimp.  And the list goes on.

Collard green fried rice
 
  
Of course there's a backstory to all this.  Black Dragon Takeout is a Black American take on Chinese food.  Not to say that there hasn't been an intersection of the communities in the past.   For many years the black owned Howard's Cafe operated near downtown Los Angeles serving food to a mixed (actually largely Hispanic) clientele.  It would not be surprising to find other examples like this.
 
Then there's the story of Yakamein which a century ago could be found in Chinese restaurants all over the United States.  The Chinese name of the dish was yat gaw mein, which really meant one order of boiled noodles.  Strangely, the dish was not uniform throughout the United States, but rather mutated into regional variations, sometimes stir fried, sometimes in soup, and under different names depending how "yat gaw mein" was Romanized.  In New Orleans, not only did yat gaw mein evolve into its own unique style under the Yakamein moniker, but it has also become primarily associated with the African American community.  Indeed so much so that currently the label "Yak-A-Mein Lady" refers to Linda Green, a soul food caterer who has specialized in advancing the popularity of Yakamein.
 
Meanwhile many Chinese restaurants were operating in neighborhoods throughout the United States, even where there was no existing Chinese population.  In Washington D.C.'s African American neighborhoods, many Chinese restaurants extended the Chinese menu to include subs, chicken and seafood, filling the void created by national chains declining to operate in those neighborhoods.  And also in Washington DC, where mumbo sauce is associated with the city's African American community, it is also closely identified with the city's Chinese-subs-seafood restaurants.
 
More recently there has been a growing succession issue for the 40,000 or 50,000 Chinese restaurants in the United States.  For neighborhood Chinese restaurants, often operated by uneducated immigrants from China, succession of the business to their educated, American born children is not an option.  To some extent, the succession issue has been ameliorated by the arrival of new immigrants, but in other situations, neighborhood Chinese restaurants have been closing down.  And this is where Black Dragon Takeout comes in to fill the void in West Philadelphia, thanks to award winning Black American restauranteur-chef Kurt Evans.   Going down the menu, reading every item I think to myself "I gotta try this."  Before my retirement when I was regularly flying to the East Coast, I would have already figured out a way to get to Philadelphia to eat at Black Dragon Takeout.  These days I'll just have to dream about it.


Friday, November 22, 2024

Mama Lu's - From Rags To Riches (With A Side Trip to Prison)

While dining earlier this month at Capital Seafood Restaurant on Beverly Hills' famed restaurant row on La Cienega Blvd., adjacent to the world famous Lawry's Prime Rib restaurant, I was surprised to see a special section on the menu devoted to "Mama Lu's Famous Dumplings."   It was truly stunning to see one Chinese restaurant highlight a dish from another Chinese restaurant.  But if any Chinese restaurant were to be featured on another Chinese restaurant's menu, it would be Mama Lu's Dumpling House, which is in the past five years has exploded into a major player that has grown far beyond its San Gabriel Valley roots with branches in a number of Chinese American communities in the Los Angeles area.


 

What makes this transformation all the more incredible is that it was just over 15 years ago, where we would stop by a house on Avondale St. in Monterey Park, ring the doorbell, and buy frozen wontons and dumplings from the living room freezer from the lady there.  That lady turned out to be Mama Lu, and in 2008 the first Mama's Lu Dumpling House (sic) opened on east Garvey Avenue in Monterey Park, followed by Mama Lu's Dumpling House on west Garvey Avenue in Monterey Park (notice the slight difference in name to avoid having two identically named stores in the same city), Lu Dumpling House on Garfield Ave. in Monterey Park (subsequently obliterated by an errant Alhambra Fire Department truck and never to reopen), Mama's Dumpling House in San Gabriel (a joint venture later sold off), and Mama Lu's Dumpling House in Industry.

However, things seemed to fall apart in 2021, when Mama Lu and her brother were caught red handed for avoiding over $2 million in taxes, primarily California sales taxes.  By repaying the avoided taxes, the owners were able to reduce their jail sentences.  You can read the government press release here.   However, unlike the similar tax evasion woes of the Sam Woo chain which resulted in the sale of several branches in order to repay the evaded taxes, the Mama Lu chain has prospered after their owners were caught and sent to jail. (Presumably they served their time and have been released.) 

Shockingly they bought one of the best known Chinese restaurants in Los Angeles Chinatown, CBS Seafood, eventually converting it into a Mama Lu branch, and being the first San Gabriel Valley Chinese restaurant to establish a presence in Los Angeles Chinatown.  Next, they took over the space in Old Town Pasadena previously occupied by Vancouver's legendary Chef Tony Dim Sum, and have also established itself in Irvine's wealthy Chinese community with their branch in Tustin. Another branch is headed for Arcadia in the space abandoned by the fine Chinese dining restaurant Monarch.. And now, through Capital Seafood, they are also playing in Beverly Hills.


Saturday, October 19, 2024

Ji Rong Peking Duck--Not Just A One Trick Pony

While there might not be a consensus, the most highly regarded Peking duck specialist in the Los Angeles area is most likely Ji Rong Peking Duck in San Gabriel.  For sure nobody can quarrel with the premise that they serve a high quality product.


Now once upon a time some 30 years ago, the legendary Quanjude Beijing Duck restaurant opened up a branch in the San Gabriel Valley.  The problem is that they served duck and not a lot of other types of dishes.  So yes, you could have a banquet there, but it would include eight different duck dishes.  No such problem at Ji Rong Peking Duck.  Look at some of their other fabulous dishes, like their sweet and sour whole garoupa.


No complaining about the lobster.


Pork belly anyone?

 

Snow pea leaves in broth.


Cumin lamb.


No joke.  Sometimes I like to use orange chicken as a litmus test as to how broad the culinary skills are at a Chinese restaurant.  Ji Rong passes with flying colors.


And a news flash!  The operators of Ji Rong have opened another restaurant next door called Good Alley Artisinal Dumplings, serving, well, high quality dumplings, noodles and other things, like this large premium beef roll.