Midtown Lunch

All the chatter about Chinese New Year is making me hungry for some Chinese food! Of course who has time to trek to the San Gabriel Valley for a weekday lunch? So here are 4 of my favorite “Chinese” lunches between Downtown and Santa Monica. (With Chinese in quotes so that when the inevitable comments come in saying that nothing in this post is actually Chinese food, I can be like “Uh… dude. Didn’t you see the quotes!?”)

DOWNTOWN: If you work Downtown you could venture into Chinatown for some orange chicken from Yang Chow, or some dim sum from Ocean Seafood or Golden Dragon. But I’ll pretty much use any excuse I can get to eat lunch at Uncle John’s Cafe, the displaced Downtown diner that pairs Americanized Chinese food w/ greasy spoon breakfast fare. Salt and pepper pork chops or char siu with home fries and eggs? Yes please. [link]

KOREATOWN: The jjajangmyeon at Dragon Restaurant might not be as good as the versions you get a Zzamong or Mandarin House, but Dragon is the only place that serves it to you alongside spicy honey chicken for just $9.95.  Does Korean/Chinese food count as Chinese food?  If you live or work near K-Town I say yes!  [link]

HOLLYWOOD – If you love all you can eat Chinese buffets as much as I do than King Buffet is pretty much your only option in this all you can eat Chinese buffet starved part of Southern California.  My buffet cravings tend to pop on days when I want to feel extra bad about myself, but I suppose it works to celebrate Chinese New Year as well. It might not be the best Chinese food you’ve ever had, but for $9 you can’t really complain about anything (except how incredibly full you are after housing two plates of salt and pepper shrimp.)  [link]

WESTSIDE – If you want “real” Chinese food (i.e. food that doesn’t involved deep frying meat and covering them in a sweet gloopy sauce) your only option on this side of town might be the newish location of 101 Noodle Express in the Fox Hills Mall Westfield Mall Culver City.  It not only has the Taiwanese beef rolls that made their San Gabriel Valley location famous, but they also have a few decent noodle and soup dishes as well.  And if you like variety, their  $6.95 beef roll/teppan chicken/ground chicken combo might be the best food court Chinese food combo I’ve ever eaten- which by default might make it the best cheap “Chinese” food combo of all time (since everybody knows the best shitty Chinese food is the stuff you find in mall food courts!)  [link]