Chinese Mainlanders Drive Los Angeles Chinese Food Scene To New Heights

Chinese Mainlanders Drive Los Angeles Chinese Food Scene To New Heights - Menuism Dining Blog, October 2, 2017

 

Since Chinese food first came to America in the mid-19^th century, the best Chinese food in the United States has generally been found in California.  With by far the largest Chinese population from the 1850s through the mid-20^th century, it is no mystery why San Francisco had the best Chinese food for well over a century.   However with the late 1960s immigration act once again permitting large scale immigration from China to the United States after more than eight decades of tight immigration restrictions, changing immigration patterns had shifted the apex of Chinese dining in the United States in the 1980s to New York, and in particular, Manhattan Chinatown.  

However by the late 20^th century, the pendulum for Chinese food supremacy had swung back to California, though this time to Los Angeles.   But one area where New York kept the lead over Los Angeles was with regard to upscale authentic Chinese food, where New York had a number of dedicated, pricey, authentic Chinese restaurants, geared to a mixture of Chinese as well as non-Chinese diners, while this category was not to be found in Los Angeles.  This could well be due to New York being much more of an “expense account” town, home to Wall Street, as well as innumerable corporate headquarters.  In contrast, Los Angeles is neither an investment banking or financial markets center, nor does it have a critical mass of corporate headquarters aside from the entertainment industry.

Of course, there is a lot of expensive, authentic Chinese food to be found in Los Angeles, given the large numbers of well-heeled Chinese residents who love their Chinese food.  However, these rich Chinese in the San Gabriel Valley and other parts of Los Angeles up to now have not been frequenting dedicated upscale Chinese eateries.   Rather, they patronize Chinese restaurants serving the entire spectrum of Chinese diners, from economical diners looking for lunch and dinner specials, to deep pocketed business owners willing to spend $10,000 per table for dinner

There are at least a couple of reasons for this Los Angeles phenomenon.  First of all is the dilemma we previously discussed concerning Chinese food in America, that many diners at Chinese restaurants, both Chinese and non-Chinese alike, expect Chinese food to be economical, if not downright cheap.  Consequently, most Chinese restaurants are unwilling to ignore the lower end of their market.  Secondly, the ultra expensive Chinese food in the San Gabriel Valley has been of a singular type—Hong Kong style restaurants serving live seafood, quite often imported from the other side of the world.  These high priced meals are made expensive by the cost of the ingredients themselves, rather than by posh settings, a high level of service, or the talents of a celebrity chef.

However, there are seeds of change in Los Angeles, which is in the process of leading Los Angeles to usurp New York in the category of upscale authentic Chinese dining, albeit under a different model.  In the past two years, some new Chinese restaurants in the San Gabriel Valley have been upping the price point of the entire menu beyond what we have been used to paying, often in elegant surroundings not previously encountered.  And like the other things that have changed the face of Chinese dining in the United States in the past decade, we can think the people from Mainland China for this new paradigm, too.

As we have recently recounted, with 300,000 Mainland Chinese college students studying in the United States, in less than a decade, authentic Chinese food has come to practically every college campus in the country that is home to at least a few hundred Chinese students.  More recently, authentic Chinese food has sprouted up for the first time in areas frequented by Chinese tourists.  So how are Mainland Chinese now driving the opening of upscale Chinese restaurants in the Los Angeles area?  Well this time, the triggering factor is real estate.  

In the past five years, there has been a massive upsurge in purchases of residential property in the United States by Mainland Chinese nationals.  According to a presentation by Professor Richard Green of the USC Lusk Institute of Real Estate, in roughly the past five years, Chinese have supplanted Canadians as the leading foreign buyers of homes in the US, and by a wide margin.  In this time period, Chinese purchases of US homes has jumped from 10 percent of foreign home buyers to a whopping 30 percent.  Furthermore, the geographic distribution of Chinese purchases of US homes is heavily skewed.  32 percent of these purchases were in California, with the next most popular state being New York, with 10 percent.  So to put it bluntly, rich Chinese buyers are piling into residential areas in California, particularly in the Los Angeles area.   Whether or not they live full time in California, they have money to spend on the best Chinese food when they are here.   As a result, we are seeing Mainland style Chinese restaurants in places from Temple City to Rowland Heights and communities in between where most entrees go for $20 and up, well beyond previous typical price points.

The poster child for this new trend is Bistro Na, which opened up in Temple City in late 2016, offering the first “Chinese Imperial Court Cuisine” in the United States.  Bistro Na is the US beachhead of the Beijing based Na Jia Xiao Guan, offering opulent food that was supposedly served to the Chinese emperors, in an equally opulent setting.    Bistro Na’s top dishes include crispy shrimp for $24, prime beef rib for $39, and peppered lamb chop for $36.  Strangely, when I had lunch at Bistro Na, virtually all of the other customers were women, which may indicate that Bistro Na is a gathering spot for the “Rich Housewives of the San Gabriel Valley.”  

A number of other newly opened Chinese restaurants have similarly pushed price points into new territory.  At Hai Di Lao in Arcadia and Yu Tian Xia Hot Pot in San Gabriel, you can easily drop $50 on a hotpot lunch.  In Rosemead, Fresh Qbake, a steampot restaurant, provides a live seafood option which can up the ante to $100.  In Rowland Heights, Bian Yi Fang charges $88 for their Beijing duck.  Arcadia’s Chengdu Impression adds an upscale option to the growing market for Sichuan style food with their $45 per person tasting menu.  Interestingly, most of these restaurants are branches of restaurants headquartered in China. With these and other newly opened upscale Mainland Chinese restaurants leading the way, Los Angeles is leaping further ahead over New York in the race for Chinese food supremacy.