Yang Chow

We celebrated Mom's (my mother-in-law's) birthday at Yang Chow restaurant on Friday, March 14.  My sister-in-law generously treated us since she had just gotten a raise.  The restaurant's sign says "Mandarin and Szechwan Food."  Yang Chow is famous for its "slippery shrimp."  They get their name because the batter of the meal and spices in which they are coated makes them very slippery prior to cooking.  They actually aren’t too slippery after coating but they taste delicious (more on that later).

Yang Chow is located in Chinatown just north of Downtown L.A.  We got there by taking the Gold Line light rail.  Now I've been on all the MTA light rail and subway lines named after a color and including the Orange Line busway.  Yang Chow is a couple of blocks from the Chinatown Gold Line Station right down College and Spring streets.  It is near a shop that sells wheel rims and another that sells herbal remedies.

We arrived just before 6 pm, our reservation time.  It wasn't very crowded, but that would change very quickly.  The walls are decorated with Asian art and, in one corner, Laker and Clipper jersey lights.  The Laker Jersey had Magic Johnson's signature.  We weren't sure whose signature was on the Clipper jersey.  We noticed a poster for last year, the Year of the Boar on the wall and there was no poster for this year, the Year of the Rat.

Everyone in our party arrived and we looked over the menu.  We planned to order only seafood and vegetable in accordance with the Lenten restriction of no meat on Fridays.  We ordered and Dad talked about what was going on with our cousins in the Philippines.  He had just gotten back from the Philippines on Monday.

Our food arrived fairly quickly.  We ordered the Kung Pao Squid, the broccoli with black mushrooms, the pan-fried noodles with shrimp, the Three Tastes with snow peas special, and the slippery shrimp.  The Three Tastes normally comes with scallops, shrimp, and beef but we substituted beef with fish to conform to Lent.  The squid was cut up fancifully mostly into cross-hatched cylindrical shapes.  They cooked it with spicy peppers and peanuts.  It was delicious and not too spicy.  We also enjoyed the broccoli, the Three Tastes, and the pan-fried noodles.  My wife said the latter were more comparable to pasta than other places' crispy thin noodles and that this was a good thing.  But the best dish by far was the slippery shrimp.  Nearly golden in color, with the right combination of sweet and spicy, and cooked to the perfect consistency, they were on another level altogether above the others.  We finished eating them first.  I noticed that one party of two at another table ordered only the slippery shrimp and rice and I understand why.

We finished all our entrees and they gave us fortune cookies with our checks.  With them came the only negative aspects.  They charged us more than they said they would for substituting the fish for the beef in the Three Tastes.  My fortune wasn’t exactly a fortune but more of a backhanded compliment.  It said something like “you struggle for self-improvement and it shows.”  They gave us our check quickly.  By this time every table was filled and many people were waiting near the entrance.  It wasn’t even L.A. dinner time (8 pm) yet.

As we left we looked at the autographed photos on the walls near the entrance.  One wall was devoted to city, county, and other local leaders such as Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, former mayors Jim Hahn and Richard Riordan, Councilwoman Janice Hahn, Councilmen Bernard Parks, Tom Labonge, Jose Huizar, and Dennis Zine, City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, District Attorney Steve Cooly, and L.A.P.D. Chief William Bratton.  Just about every civic leader was there.  On another wall were some signed photos of entertainment and sports celebrities such as the casts of Numb3rs, Heroes, and CSI New York, and Yao Ming.  The slippery shrimp brings in just about everyone both famous and not famous.