chinese in los angeles robertson-olympic area

[winophile]

I need recommendations for good/great Chinese food in Robertson/Olympic area within 10 miles. And its just 2 people so please keep that in mind. Large groups are always better as one can order more dishes to sample.

[echoparkdirt]

Hop Li and Hop Woo are, to my taste, similarly mediocre and acceptable.
Hu's Szechuan is a Maoist conspiracy to poison White America
Mandarin Kitchen is fine, *yawn*
Gengis Cohen is fun

[foodiemahoodie]

Hop Li - mediocre and acceptable is about right. The one on Santa Monica Blvd. has such disgustingly dirty flithy greasy gray carpets that I have a hard imagining the health dept. going in there and not being disgusted by it. It just creeps me out. On the westside I often find myself going to the very in-authentic Chin Chin - the food is fresh and often very good. I get the Szechuan dumplings and the steamed white fish with ginger soy. I can recommend both without any embarassment.

I used to like Hu's - but that was, oh, around 35 years ago. Tried it fairly recently and was pretty disappointed. (just the Kung Pao chicken).

[echoparkdirt]

my peeps in BH say Fu's Palace is fine standard american chinese fare.

[J.L.]

Nothing great in that area, but for good:

Hop Woo (Olympic & Sepulveda) has pretty good Cantonese food.
Century Dragon (on Pico, near Manning) fits the bill also.
Hu's Szechuan (on National) is decent.
Mandarin Kitchen (on Westwood) has already been mentioned.
Cheng Du (on Pico, west of the 405) has gone downhill a bit.

Are you sure you don't want to travel to the San Gabriel Valley (30-35 minute car ride, assuming no jams) and have your socks blown off by the jump in quality in the Chinese food there?

[Servorg]

Hop Li on Pico just a bit east of Sepulveda still draws a crowd: http://www.hoplirestaurant.com/

[J.L.]

Hop Li was purposefully absent from my list...

[Servorg]

If Chen Du deserves to be on that list then, at the very least, Hop Li does too...

[bulavinaka]

Went to Cheng Du once years ago on a Saturday afternoon. It was horrible - never went back again. To top it off, their fish tank was a mess. Is it worth giving a second chance?

[Servorg]

We get delivery from them. They have credible hot & sour soup and we also like their pan fried pot stickers.

[J.L.]

Cheng Du is on the bottom of my "good" list. Maybe it should just be off the list altogether...

[Thor123]

A fun choice would be Gengus Cohen on Fairfax near Melrose. I think they still have live music too.

[ipsedixit]

Probably on the outer bounds of your 10 mile radius, but how about Bao Dim Sum House?

Sure, it's not exactly authentic, nor is it even the best Chinese west of DTLA, but it has a menu that is very friendly for a party of 2.

[ipsedixit]

No, it is most definitely not great.

It is -- at best -- passable, and probably meets many of the criteria of the OP.

[Ciao Bob]

Far from great. Far from it.

[paprkutr]

Just a little east is Hunan Tasty(previously Hunan Taste) just east of Olympic and Fairfax on Olympic and San Vincente. I like it a lot and it has always been consistent.

[happybaker]

I like Twin Dragon. A tad more jewish Chinese but good and nice folks.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/twin-dragon-chinese-restaurant-los-angeles

Also as your daughter is Pico/Robertson - it's easy to hop on the 10 to go downtown. Dim Sum is fun for brunch. And for dinner, yes Yang Chow but also JR Bistro for the $10 crab or lobster special...

http://www.yelp.com/biz/jr-bistro-los...

[carter]

Well, the ownership of Twin Dragon is reverting back to its origins about a million years ago, give or take, and hopefully the food and service will improve.
Right now, the food is dreadful, even by Jewish standards!!!
Xi'an is good enough, and way better than most mentioned on this post, but still.....

[winophile]

Thanks for the quick reply. My daughter leaves in that area and has an out of town guest from Pensacola, FLA wanting authentic Chinese.

[Chandavkl]

Neither Twin Dragon nor Hunan Tasty are authentic Chinese, though they aren't bad.

[paprkutr]

I am curious why you say Hunan Tasty isn't authentic Chinese food?

[ipsedixit]

I don't know about "authentic" but the food there is simply awful.

Hunan Tasty makes Yang Chow taste like Sea Harbour.

(And demerits for spelling your own name wrong on your own signage.)

[Chandavkl]

The pan fried beef dumplings are more than edible. The inauthentic part is probably best demonstrated by the fact that everybody behind the counter speaks Cantonese.

[Chandavkl]

Hunan Tasty serves what I refer to as "faux Hunan" food, which arrived in New York about 40 years ago and purported to be Hunan style Chinese food. However, if you compare the menu at Hunan Tasty to those at the Hunan style restaurants in the San Gabriel Valley, there is almost no overlap except for some noodle dishes. Also, authentic Chinese restaurants don't serve chop suey, like Hunan Tasty does.

[Chandavkl]

Well, several places fall within your 10 mile radius--The Palace on Wilshire and Barrington, Mandarin Kitchen on Westwood near Santa Monica, and Hop Woo on Olympic and Santa Monica immediately come to mind.

[Thor123]

Hop Woo has good duck and pork but like Twin dragon is old schools greesey Chinese. Joss near Century City and Xian in BH are better Westside choices.

[Chandavkl]

With all due respect, Joss and Xian are terrible and particularly inauthentic.

[Hughlipton]

My daughter got her middle name from the restaurant Joss having seen same just before her birth when they still were on Sunset and Doheney (approx). Are they really that bad? There duck used to be a really good item with a bottle of Pinoit Noir. You make it sound as thouugh each person should have the Peking duck with their own bottle of Pinot Noir.