Los Angeles Journals

Ethnic L.A.

A travel journal to Los Angeles by TravelQueen2001

View of Chinatown Photo - Los Angeles, California

Quote: Los Angeles is a hard city to get to know in a few days: very spread out, several focal centers, and bad public transportation. But you can have a great time and learn a lot about other cultures if you go beyond the touristy stuff.

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Ethnic L.A.

Overview

View of Little Tokyo Photo - Los Angeles, California

Quote:

Don't miss the following ethnic neighborhoods: Chinatown, Koreatown, and Little Tokyo. LA is like many cities in one; 50 percent of the population speaks Spanish as their first language, and many Asian languages flourish as well. If you want to see booming ethnic neighborhoods, with interesting stores and delicious food, you've come to the right place. It's OK to walk around Hollywood Blvd and look at the stars on the sidewalk for a while, but don't get stuck there for whole time here. Often, people are disappointed when they visit -- LA is a town people love to criticize. Anyway -- this place is awesome if you know what to do. It's one of the biggest immigrant destinations in the world. What...Read More

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Pho OK

Restaurant

Quote:

This Pho (pronounced "Fa") restaurant is not just OK as its name may lead you to believe -- this place is absolutely GREAT! Hidden in a little commercial strip on the edges of Koreatown, this small unpretentious (hole in the wall, yes) restaurant serves great PHO, and excellent Thai iced tead and Vietnamese iced coffee (BEWARE! Either of those concoctions will keep you up for hours!). In case you're new to PHO: huge bowls of Vietamese noodle soups with lots of stuff added depending on what flavor you get -- among the choices: seafood, brisket, and other beef choices (stomach, instestines, and so on -- you don't have to get the intestines or the stomach, so don't get freaked out). The broth (beef brot...Read More

Member Rating 4 out of 5 on March 23, 2001

Pho OK
4220 Beverly Blvd.
Los Angeles, California
(213)487-5002

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Zankou Chicken

Restaurant

Quote:

An Armenian mini-chain serving the juiciest and most tender roasted chicken ever, as well as kebabs and many delicious side dishes. Tucked in a corner strip mall in Hollywood, this place looks like nothing from the outside, but it's truly a find: super cheap and amazingly good! Although the food is done very quickly, this is REAL, not fast food.

The place is tiny, too bright, and there's always a line. You could eat there in one of the five or six tables or, as I prefer to do, take it to go. The whole chicken costs about six bucks and comes with pita bread and delicious garlic sauce on the side. I always splurge and get the tabouli salad as well. YUMMM!!

Member Rating 4 out of 5 on August 7, 2001

Zankou Chicken
5065 Sunset Boulevard
Los Angeles, California 90027
323-655-7842

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Shabu Shabu House Restaurant

Restaurant | "Shabu Shabu House"

Quote:

This is a great restaurant in Little Tokyo. They only serve one thing (Shabu Shabu) and you sit at the counter and eat there. Shabu Shabu consists of a platter of thinly sliced raw beef and vegetables that you cook yourself in boiling broth that sits by you in a bowl. Each party gets their own bowl and meat. It's lots of fun! Really delicious too! The coffee with liquid sugar and cream is yummy as well.

Member Rating 4 out of 5 on March 9, 2001

Shabu Shabu House Restaurant
127 Japanese Village Plaza Mall
Los Angeles, California 90011
+1 213 680 3890

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Empress Pavilion

Restaurant | "Empress Pavillion Restaurant"

Quote:

This is a great place to get dim sum in Chinatown. The lines are amazing on weekends at brunch time, so come prepared. The restaurant is in a little mall that houses several other Chinese businesses. While you wait for your number to be called, browse around, it's fun. The restaurant is very large, Hong-Kong-style, with lots and lots of tables. The waitresses walk around pushing carts of delicacies, and they stop at your table and open the lids off the bowls and you can point to explain what you want. The food is delicious; try lots of things! When your teapot is empty, turn the top upside down so it gets refilled. Bon appetit!

Member Rating 4 out of 5 on March 9, 2001

Empress Pavilion
988 North Hill St
Los Angeles, California 90012
+1 213 617 9898

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Ocean Star

Restaurant | "Ocean Star Restaurant"

Quote:

The dim sum here rocks! My favorite dim sum place in Los Angeles, and I don't mind the drive if I get to have the sticky rice wrapped in tea leaves! OK, this fabulous restaurant is not in Chinatown, it's in Monterey Park, aka "the first suburban Chinatown." Quite an experience to come to this neighborhood off the 10 freeway (exit Atlantic Blvd) not only for the fine dim sum fare (and it's so good that coming for the food would be enough for most) but to experience the vibrancy of an evolving ethnic neighborhood. A bit about the neighborhood before I tell you more about the food at Ocean Star: this ethnic enclave is quite different from a traditional Chinatown because it's based on a suburban model (read: you need a car). Drive on Atlantic Blvd to get a glipmse at the number of Chinese businesses on strip malls, offering all kinds of products and services: restaurants, tea and Chinese medicine stores, book stores, banks, supermarkets. It's worth stopping at any of the supermarkets to buy great cheap fruits and vegetables, as well as tea and other products you may want. Monterey Park is a rather recent phenomenon -- it has become a Chinese enclave in the last 20 years (mainly Taiwanese, and thus Mandarin-speaking, as opposed to Chinatown which is more than a 100 years old and has traditionally been a Cantonese-speaking area).
More about the restaurant: there are generally long waits here on the weekends, and you can sit on the couches of the waiting area and look around at the fish tanks and the paintings, as well as the almost-all-Chinese clientele: quite a cultural experience without leaving the LA area. You'll get seated in a large dining area with hundreds of tables and dozens of servers pushing tin carts full of the most delicious food: shrimp dumplings, sticky rice, pork buns, and lots more. The staff often does not speak English, but you'll make yourself understood by pointing at the dish you want. An amazing cultural as well as culinary experience. Read Less

Member Rating 4 out of 5 on March 12, 2001

Ocean Star
145 North Atlantic Blvd
Monterey Park, California 91754
+1 626 308 2128

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Tung Lai Shun Islamic Chinese Restaurant

Restaurant

Quote:

Tucked in a large outdoor mall in The San Gabriel Valley near Monterey Park, this Islamic restaurant offers delicious dishes at a very good price. Many of the offerings you'll be familiar with, such as a variety of noodle dishes, sauteed chicken and beef, and shrimp with scallions and ginger (all excellent here). Some tasty surprises are in the menu as well: get the sesame bread with scallions to share; it's a delicious warm round bread that comes cut into large slices, covered in sesame seeds and stuffed with scallions (the full order is huge; it's enough to get half an order for 3-4 people). Try a variety of great soups (try the sizzling rice soup or the melon soup) -- soups come i...Read More

Member Rating 4 out of 5 on March 15, 2001

Tung Lai Shun Islamic Chinese Restaurant
140 W. Valley Blvd.
Los Angeles, California
(626) 288-7726

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El Cholo

Restaurant

Quote:

This Cal-Mexican restaurant has been around LA since the 1920s and has become a local institution. Located on the south edges of Koreatown (where Koreatown gives way to several Latino neighborhood -- observe that the Korean signs on the stores as you drive south on Western Ave become less frequent, and the Spanish signs start to appear), this restaurant is huge, tremendously popular, and full of delicious offerings. The margarita pitchers are a must, particularly if you couldn't get a reservation and have to wait at the bar anyway -- very strong, but not too strong to be enjoyable. A great night to come here is Monday nights (packed as if it were a weekend) to watch and listen to the female mariachi b...Read More

Member Rating 4 out of 5 on March 12, 2001

El Cholo
1121 South Western Ave
Los Angeles, California 90006
+1 323 734 2773