The Los Angeles Chinatown Renaissance Is a Sequel We've All Seen Before - Same But Different

The Los Angeles Chinatown Renaissance Is a Sequel We've All Seen Before - Same But Different--Menuism Dining Blog, April 25, 2016

 

With the arrival in the past couple years of restaurants like Roy Choi’s Chego, Little Jewel of New Orleans, Scoops, Pok Pok and Pok Pok Thai, Burger Lords, Unit 120, Amboy, Endorffeine, Howlin’ Ray’s Hot Chicken, Lobsta Shack, Oleego and Ramen Champ, Los Angeles Chinatown is once again a dining destination, albeit not particularly for Chinese food.  But unbeknownst to many current Angelinos, this is not Los Angeles Chinatown’s first dining renaissance as once before it had emerged from its dining slumber to be a culinary hot spot.

 

While it is natural to lump Los Angeles Chinatown with other historic core city Chinatowns like New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Vancouver and many others, in reality Los Angeles Chinatown is uniquely different in one respect.  That’s because today’s Chinatown in Los Angeles actually began as two Hollywood set like tourist ethnic theme parks with stylized buildings, wishing wells, touristy restaurants and gift shops, but very few Chinese people actually living in the area.   Yes, Los Angeles did once have a real historic central city Chinatown founded in the 19^th century, but it was levelled in 1933 to make way for the Union Station.  While civic do-gooders thought they were providing two separate suitable replacements for the historic old Chinatown nearby in the form of New Chinatown on North Broadway and China City on North Spring, by the time these projects were completed, virtually all of old Chinatown’s residents moved out of the area, leaving Los Angeles without a real Chinatown for a good three decades.   

 

During this time,  the Hollywood ambiance was so strong that China City was sometimes also known as “Chinese Movie Land” thanks to its set decorations from the movie “The Good Earth.”  Unfortunately China City pretty much disappeared after only 10 years due to a series of disastrous fires, leaving behind just a small number of random Chinese businesses on North Spring St., with barely an existing reminder of China City today.   Meanwhile, New Chinatown did survive and flourish.  But from its opening in the late 1930s through the 1960s it was primarily tourist oriented, not only due to the lack of local Chinese residents, but also to its layout where most businesses faced an open pedestrian plaza, with pedestrian walkways sporting exotic names like Gin Ling Way, Jung Jing Way and Mei Ling Way, as opposed to fronting on streets with real traffic. 

 

As such, dining in New Chinatown was likewise largely tourist oriented.   As I kid the only time I ever went to Chinatown was for an occasional banquet at one of the larger restaurants in New Chinatown or the somewhat more authentic North Spring Street (the two districts had not yet merged to form today’s Chinatown) such as Hong Kong Low, Lime House, General Lee’s, Grand Star, New Hung Far, Golden Pagoda or New Grand East.    Except for banquets, or entertaining out of town guests, we otherwise didn’t go to Chinatown to eat, though some Chinese families did have area favorites such as Chung  Mee Café on Ord St. near Spring St.  Rather we ate in one of the Chinese restaurants by the San Pedro St. City Market produce terminal, the real Chinatown of that era that few outsiders knew about.  The City Market produce terminal area was where many Chinese Angelinos moved and earned their livelihood after old Chinatown was torn down, the rare mid-20^th Century American Chinatown without camera toting tourists or souvenir shops.  Many of the best Chinese restaurants of the day, such as New Moon, Man Fook Low, Paul’s Kitchen. Modern Café, Paul’s Cafe and On Luck were located on or near San Pedro St. in the City Market.

 

Then came the game changer, the 1965 repeal of the restrictions on Chinese immigration to the United States.   With the influx of immigrants from Hong Kong, New Chinatown saw its first critical mass of Chinese residents who moved into the apartments up the hill, west of New Chinatown.   Chinese commerce grew, with the buffer zone between New Chinatown and the North Spring St. absorbed by expanding Chinese businesses.  Restaurants serving a more modern type of Cantonese food sprang up in Chinatown in the late 1960s and 1970s, such as Phoenix Inn, Won Kok Center and Golden Dragon.  Meanwhile, Grandview Gardens captured the imagination of Angelinos, both Chinese and non-Chinese, who swarmed the restaurant on Sunday mornings for their dim sum service.   Miriwa upped the ante by opening its newfangled dim sum service on carts in 1976 on the second floor of Chunsan Plaza  (in the space currently occupied by Ocean Seafood).    

 

Los Angeles Chinatown reached the peak of its first culinary rebirth in the 1980s as restaurants filled the street to street Food Center between Broadway and Hill St.  Mon Kee on Spring Street may have been the first Chinatown restaurant to serve Hong Kong style seafood, though it was soon left to the downtown lunch crowd.   But in 1984 ABC Seafood stepped in and introduced advanced Hong Kong seafood cuisine in the old Lime House location, for over a decade serving the best Chinese food in Los Angeles, if not the nation.   However later in the 1980s Monterey Park, and then the rest of the San Gabriel Valley gradually overtook Chinatown as the locus of Chinese dining in Los Angeles.  Ironically, it was the opening of the sister restaurant to ABC Seafood, NBC Seafood in Monterey Park, that marked the ascent of the San Gabriel Valley over Chinatown as the premiere dining destination.  (For those who ask, the owners claimed ABC meant America’s Best Chinese, while NBC stood for Next Best Chinese.  And breakoff CBS Seafood meant Chinese Best Seafood.)

 

From that point on, it was a continuous downward descent of Chinese food in Los Angeles Chinatown, such that there is nothing close to a destination Chinese restaurant in Chinatown today.  Indeed, as far as Los Angeles Chinatown is concerned, the best known restaurant may be the touristy Yang Chow with its slippery shrimp, which annually wins the "Best Chinese Restaurant" award from downtown office workers.   The 1989 opening of the massive Empress Pavilion restaurant did bring some life back to Los Angeles Chinatown dining, particularly for large banquets.  However Empress Pavilion recently closed, reopened under new management, and then quickly pared back to a banquet only facility. 

 

Ironically ground zero for Chinatown’s second renaissance is the old Food Center complex, since renamed Far East Plaza, as over the years fewer and fewer eating places populated the center’s premises.  But now, housing Chego, Pok Pok Thai, Scoops, Unit 120, Amboy, Endorffein and Ramen Champ , it really has become a food center again, albeit without much in the way of Chinese food.  So with crowds of diners once again revitalizing a moribund Chinatown, like Yogi Berra said, it’s déjà vu all over again.