Midtown Lunch

What’s better than Chinese food on a Sunday night?  A great movie about Chinese food on a Sunday night.  Join me and Evan Kleiman from KCRW’s Good Food this Sunday night, January 4th, at the Arena Cinema in Hollywood (1625 N Las Palmas) for a special screening of The Search for General Tso, a great new documentary about Chinese food in America.  After the screening there will be a Q&A with the film’s producer Jennifer 8 Lee (author of the Fortune Cookie Chronicles) plus free General Tso’s chicken and beverages in the courtyard.  The screening starts at 5:10pm and you can buy tickets here>> 

Check out the trailer, here

Related:
China Catering Unlocks the Mystery Behind General Tso

I’m not sure when it happened, but at some point over the past 10 years pad thai went from being the most popular Thai food dish to the laughing stock of so called serious eaters everywhere.  “You don’t want to order the pad thai” has become the rallying cry of so called “foodies”, even though it blends together all the best parts of Thai cooking. Sweet. Spicy. Sour. Funky.  Well, consider this the backlash to the backlash.  There is some seriously awesome Pad Thai to be had in Los Angeles right now… and with Andy Ricker’s Pok Pok Phat Thai set to open any day now, it’s only going to get better.  In the meantime here’s a list of my 10 favorite versions of pad thai that I put together for DineLA.

It would appear as if L.A. is in the midst of an Asian chain invasion. Following in the footsteps of Din Tai Fung, the famous Taiwanese dumpling shop with 2 locations in Arcadia and 1 in Glendale, we’ve seen a steady stream of big (?) names from overseas open all over the city.  Korean BBQ from Kang Hodong Baekjong, Sichuan specialities from Meizhou Dongpo, Hai Di Lao’s hot pot, and Japanese ramen chain Larmen Dosanko are just a few of the new spots looking to test how hungry L.A. eaters are for “authentic” Asian experiences- without having to go through LAX.  The latest to join the parade is Mister Bossam, a South Korean cafe specializing in pork belly and something called “LA Grilled Cheese Baby Pork Ribs”.

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8 years ago this week as a wee lad lunching in Midtown Manhattan I stumbled upon this sign perched high above Madison Avenue.  Promising the world’s finest noodle shop; pointing to nothing. Being a hub for Japanese businessmen, Midtown already had its share of ramen joints but it would still be another two years before the Japanese chain Ippudo brought truly great ramen to New York City.  In other words, the opening or closing of a Midtown ramen shop in 2014 would barely register a raised eyebrow.  In 2006, the Larmen Dosanko sign was a truly exciting mystery.

With a little bit of online sleuthing, I discovered that Larmen Dosanko was one of very first and largest ramen chains in Japan.  “The McDonald’s of Japan” according to this 1981 article in the New York Times.  In the 70s they expanded to New York, serving up noodles in soup or sautéed with meat or veggies, but by the time this photo was taken all of the branches had closed down.  Well, last week Dosanko quietly returned to the United States. But instead of New York they decided on Los Angeles, taking over the Ramenya space on Olympic near Barrington.

And 8 years after seeing that mysterious sign, I finally got to taste what Larmen Dosanko was all about.

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