L.A.'s Westside Goes From Chinese Food Wasteland To Chinese Food Hotspot

L.A.'s Westside Goes From Chinese Food Wasteland To Chinese Food Hotspot - Menuism Dining Blog, August 18, 2018

 

It wasn’t even three years ago that we reported on the lack of great Chinese food on the Westside of Los Angeles, though acknowledging the Westside was no longer a total wasteland for Chinese food.  We also lamented how New Port Seafood, the first signature San Gabriel Valley Chinese restaurant to open up in the Westside on Beverly Hills’ fabled restaurant row, was struggling, and in fact they shuttered their doors with barely a whimper last year.  

 

From wasteland to powerhouse

 Yet amidst this seeming gloom, the past year has seen an explosion of authentic Chinese restaurants opening up on LA’s Westside.  Where the 2014 opening of the Mainland Chinese chain Meizhou Dongpo in the area’s premiere regional shopping mall, Westfield Century City, had been seen as an anomaly, Westfield Century City is in the process of turning into a powerhouse of local Chinese dining.   Earlier this year saw the addition of the famed Din Tai Fung, where just three years ago the thought of a Westside location of Din Tai Fung would have been a pipedream of delusional foodies.  And now the mall is awaiting the opening of the fabled 85°C Bakery and Café chain, as well as the upscale Mainland Chinese Hai Di Lao hotpot restaurant chain.   Chinese hotpot on the Westside of Los Angeles?  Three years ago you couldn’t find any Chinese hotpot on the Westside and now the Cadillac of Mainland Chinese hotpot chains comes to Westfield Century City mall?   And also opening soon in West Los Angeles will be Sichuan Impression, one of the two Alhambra Valley Blvd. giants that have reshaped Sichuan cuisine in the San Gabriel Valley and indeed the United States. 

 

So what has happened to change the Westside Chinese food scene so drastically, so quickly? As it turns out, the end of the 2015 article described what turned out to be the seeds of a new era of Chinese dining in West Los Angeles.  While Chinese restaurants were sprouting up nationwide near college campuses having students from Mainland China, this phenomenon had bypassed the major universities like UCLA in Los Angeles, likely because Los Angeles was already home to hundreds of authentic Chinese restaurants.  But then we noted how UCLA student oriented Chinese restaurants were just starting to appear.  

 

The Pioneers 

Interestingly it wasn’t the big names in Chinese dining in the San Gabriel Valley that initially turned the tide in attracting the Mainland Chinese student crowd from UCLA, and then building further upon that base throughout the Westside.  Indeed some of the ultimate key players had little or no presence in the San Gabriel Valley.  First up was Qin West opening on Westwood Blvd., which still holds the distinction of being the only authentic Mainland Chinese restaurant to be located in Los Angeles Chinatown.  With its unique blend of Shaanxi, Lizhou and Guilin style cuisine not even seen in the San Gabriel Valley, its success was the inspiration for the opening of other Westside Chinese eateries.

 

But while Qin West’s opening up was important, it was located almost two miles south of the UCLA campus.   In that regard, it was the 2016 opening of Northern Café right in the heart of Westwood Village, the shopping district immediately adjacent to the UCLA campus, which triggered an almost gold rush mentality with the subsequent opening of authentic Chinese restaurants near the UCLA campus and throughout the Westside.  The opening of Northern Café was really big news.  Finally, an established Chinese restaurant operation from the San Gabriel Valley was setting up shop, not just on the Westside, but actually adjacent to UCLA!  But Northern Café was hardly a big name in the San Gabriel Valley, not coming out of the West San Gabriel Valley, the center of Chinese dining in the Los Angeles area, but rather 10 miles further to the east from Hacienda Heights in the East San Gabriel Valley.  [Link to Eastward march}.    Would they be able to survive in the pricey Westwood Village environment, where not even the San Gabriel Valley big boys had dared to enter?   The answer was resoundingly positive, with Northern Café’s Westwood Village location so popular with its student-friendly offerings of dumplings, noodles and small plates, that they have since opened two other Westside locations, in the Beverly Center/Cedars Sinai area, as well as on Wilshire Blvd. in the upscale Brentwood neighborhood.

  

The second wave

The next two Westside openings from out of the area Chinese restaurants really came out of nowhere.     Late in 2016, a branch of Irvine’s Popcorn Chicken, featuring fried Chinese snacks, opened up two miles from UCLA on West LA’s Sawtelle Blvd.   Sawtelle Blvd. was once known as Little Osaka, but has recently become more of a Pan Asian focused dining area, especially popular with UCLA students.  And 2017 saw the most improbable opening of all of Little Highness Bao, a small single location Chinese bun shop in Rowland Heights in the East San Gabriel Valley, unknown to even most local residents in that area, which landed on Wilshire Blvd. in Beverly Hills, right across the street from Neiman Marcus.  After that came Tasty Noodle House and its Shanghai style noodle and dumpling repertoire, another restaurant operation without a West San Gabriel Valley presence, though with existing branches in Hacienda Heights, Irvine and other Chinese American communities.  Tasty Noodle House has opened branches both in the Beverly Center/Cedars Sinai, and Sawtelle Blvd. areas.

 

The  independents

This is not to say that all the newcomers to the Westside are branches of existing Chinese restaurant operations.  There have been new independent authentic Chinese openings around the Westside including Flaming Hot Pot on Sawtelle Blvd., iFood on Sepulveda, Gu Yi in Brentwood, and Little Fatty on Grand View Blvd, along with the upcoming Westwood Village opening of Dan Dumpling & Noodles.  Furthermore, established Chinese restaurants have added authentic Sichuan dishes, such as the Americanized fixture First Szechuan Wok in Westwood Village and Golden China in Culver City, while longtime Cantonese favorite Hop Woo near Sawtelle Blvd. has partnered with Monterey Park’s little known Meet With Chengdu Restaurant on a separate Sichuan style menu. 

 

And perhaps most significantly, the first Guangzhou based Mainland Chinese restaurant chain to open in the Los Angeles area, Ooak Kitchen, this year chose Culver City on the Westside for its first US location, serving up vegetarian and vegan Cantonese food in a large and tastefully decorated dining room.  Their thinking in locating on the Westside, rather than the San Gabriel Valley, was to appeal to the Westside hipster crowd, but their operation has attracted a surprisingly large Chinese clientele.   As a result, days ago they changed their name to 51 Kitchen and added dim sum and seafood items to the menu, while planning to spin their vegetarian operations to a new location.  

 

Does this mean that the Westside which lost its status as a wasteland for Chinese food just three years ago, is now on the cutting edge?   Well, if 51 Kitchen becomes Los Angeles’ first Guangzhou style dim sum palace, the answer will be a resounding “Yes.”