It is, easily, the most iconic to-go container in culinary history — a Totem of Takeout, an origami box built for noodles, pork, shrimp and chicken. It’s technically an isosceles trapezoid solid, a three-dimensional representation of a high school geometry problem.
The Chinese food takeout container was born in the last decade of the 19th century, when it was known as an “oyster pail” because, well, it was used for to-go orders of oysters. It was also used, for many years, for honey — and was until after World War II, when Chinese takeout competed with pizza for the food most Americans took home to eat while watching The Beatles on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” on small black-and-white TV screens. And for most Chinese restaurants, it’s still the standard for takeout.
This white, waxed container more often than not comes with a red drawing of a pagoda on the side (which is, of course, Japanese) and the words “Enjoy” and “Thank You” emblazoned on the top, and over the fold. Some years ago, the Smithsonian paid tribute to the container with an exhibit called “Sweet & Sour: A Look at the History of Chinese Food in the United States.” And the phrase “sweet & sour” is especially apt, for this is not a container built for searing spices of Szechuan and Hunanese cooking. I guess dim sum will work okay in the boxes. But dim sum isn’t what comes to mind.
Rather, the box is for the classics of Chinese-American cooking. For meals consisting of one from column A, two from column B, white rice and fortune cookies at meal’s end. It meant chicken chop suey, pork fried rice, sweet-and-sour something or other, egg foo young, and lots and lots of tea. It was something you ate on Sunday nights with family. And an hour later, in the old American anti-vegetable parlance, you were hungry again. Or at least you were if your basic diet consisted of white bread and deep-fried everything.
Chop suey is the defining dish when it comes to Chinese-American cooking. The name may (or may not) come from the Cantonese sap seui, which translates as “mixed leftovers.” It was a mishmash, created in the mid-1800s by Chinese immigrants to make their native food more appealing to American taste, what there was of it.
Since there was no bok choy or white radishes or soybean sprouts to use, celery, bell peppers and onions became the ingredients of choice, with shredded meat added, and enough soy sauce to turn the white rice black. Louis Armstrong recorded a song in the 1920s called “Cornet Chop Suey.” It was culinary jazz. There’s an Edward Hopper painting called “Chop Suey” — which is not of food, but of two women, seated in a restaurant, with a sign out the window that reads “suey.”
And it was chop suey that I went looking for. Or at least chow mein and lo mein. In the case of chop suey, old school Chinese-American cooking. In the case of chow mein and lo mein, the Cantonese cuisine which faded in recent years behind a veil of super-spiced cooking. In either case, this is soul satisfying food to take home, and be filled with nostalgia, as you sip your tea, eat your rice, and enjoy your chow, eaten directly from the container with chopsticks, if you can’t muster the energy to put it on a plate or in a bowl.
This is food that tastes good no matter how you gobble it. And if you want, you can still find Ed Sullivan on YouTube. This is a journey into the past, taken one bite at a time.
20527 Devonshire St., Chatsworth; 818-486-1221, www.orienteatsla.com
Should you feel the need for classic Chinese-American cooking, here it is. There’s lo mein and chow fun, sweet & sour chicken and orange chicken, steamed chicken shui mai and wonton soup. If it’s Japanese cooking that cries out to you, there are soba noodles in broth and seared ahi with a yuzu wasabi dressing. You feel a tad like Vietnamese? No worries. There’s a whole section of pho with a choice of many meats and tofu; and the rice vermicelli noodles called bun. You want Thai? How about the papaya salad, the shrimp and crabmeat cakes, and the Thai tom yum soup?
But that’s just the tip of the culinary iceberg lettuce, as it were. What really intrigues at Café Orient are the culinary amalgams, the fusions of this cuisine and that cuisine. Consider the baby back ribs satay. Now, most of us are familiar with satay as a Southeast Asian standard of (usually) beef and chicken, cooked and served on a skewer, with a tasty peanut sauce. And though there is a tasty filet mignon satay on the menu here, with a good peanut sauce — the fusion is in the baby backs, an ingredient rarely (if ever) encountered in Southeast Asian cooking.
The ribs aren’t served on sticks — that would be a bit of a trick, since they come on the bone. What you get is a plate of ribs slathered with peanut sauce. The best way (and perhaps the only way) to eat them is to pick them up and start gnawing. This means you’ll wind up with globs of peanut sauce on your digits. Consider as well the salads. Thai cooking is heavy with salads, unlike numerous other Asian cuisines. And that’s well reflected here.
I like the Vietnamese slaw, the garlic barbecue salad, the grilled lemongrass pork salad. But what made me happiest was the caramelized seabass salad — big chunks of sweet seabass over greens, red bell peppers, onions, cucumber and tomato. Somewhat obsessively, I ate the seabass first, and then went to work on the greens and veggies — which seemed to lack a certain sense of purpose without the fish.
I liked the fish so much, I went back and ordered the sautéed seabass in a ginger-garlic sauce. Greens are nice; seabass is nicer.
It’s a big menu, and an easy one in which to get lost. Kalbi is a Korean dish. But here it’s presented as Vietnamese kalbi with pickled veggies and a garlic-lemongrass sauce; which cuisine is it? And does it really matter?
Pushing the edge even further, there’s a dish of egg noodles tossed with a tomato and garlic sauce, spinach, parmesan and a choice of shrimp, seabass, crabmeat or scallops. Is it Italian? And if it’s made with soba noodles (another option), is it Japanese? Is the Hawaiian fried rice Hawaiian because it includes pineapple with the eggs, peas, chicken and shrimp? And from what cuisine come the Vietnamese firecracker hot wings? Are they Buffalo chicken wings, gone traveling? Whether you play the game at Café Orient or not, the food is fun.
9635 Reseda Blvd., Northridge; 818-886-6928, www.chischinese.net
Chi’s doesn’t just do a little takeout — it has long done more takeout than eat-in. People arrive in droves to pickup orders they had called in, and to place orders on-site. And goodness knows how many more bags of food go out for delivery. Chi’s feeds a lot of locals, and a lot of students. And it feeds them very well, at a good price, in portions that guarantee leftovers.
The barbecue spareribs (not very meaty, sad to say) came out fast. There are dumplings — the har gow, the char siu bao, the scallion pancakes, the steamed dumplings. This is a Chinese restaurant that offers dim sum during non-dim sum hours. I’ve long bemoaned that at numerous dim sum restaurants, the service of dumplings ends after lunch — a pity, for they sure would taste great late at night. And at Chi’s, they sure do.
The shrimp har gow — those happy pinkish crescents packed with shrimp — are just fine. The siu mai, one of the basics of dim sum, are steamed dumplings, filled with pork, shrimp and mushrooms; order extra, for you’ll probably eat more than you expect.
They do a proper char siu bao, with lots of deeply red pork bits inside. The Shanghai dumplings are their version of soup dumplings, with a steaming hot spoonful of broth waiting to spill into your mouth if you’re not careful. The spicy peanut sauce with the steamed chicken dumplings is good, but it’s not as a good as a satay sauce — not as piquant, as it were. On the other hand, for a dish called “Peanut Butter Dumplings,” it’s not a peanut butter either. It’s something halfway in between.
The scallion pancakes, always a favorite, are crispy and heavy with scallion bits; and they travel home very well, easy to reheat in the toaster-oven. You can get a good assortment of dim sum on the sampler plate — har gow, siu mai, char siu bao, chicken dumplings and, for better or worse, cream cheese wontons.
There’s also Chi’s Spicy Pizza — a scallion pancake topped with chicken, peanut sauce and cilantro. It’s not a pizza. But it’s also not not a pizza — a thing of many worlds that can be eaten like a pizza, and tastes just fine, as long as you don’t wait too long and let the crust get soggy.
The rest of the menu is…familiar, in a reassuring fashion. The soups run to wonton, hot & sour and chicken corn. There are all the usual sections dedicated to noodles, rice, chicken, beef, pork, seafood and vegetables. If you only want your dim sum as an appetizer, not problem — there are such old favorites as shrimp in lobster sauce, cashew chicken, beef with broccoli and mu shu pork — ID’d on the menu as a “Chinese Burrito.”
Century Dragon
3711 W. Magnolia Blvd, Burbank; 818-846-3711, www.centurydragonmagnolia.com
This longtime Burbank favorite has a menu awash with favorites, classics, oldies and goodies — definitely goodies. There’s fried rice done four ways. Barbecue pork three ways. Lo mein. Snow peas and water chestnuts. Orange tofu and sweet & sour tofu. Indeed, orange and sweet & sour just about every protein on the menu. Plus, paper-wrapped chicken.
And the great culinary mystery of fried cream cheese wontons. They have always puzzled me. They always will. This is not a cream cheese cuisine. Yet they’re pretty much everywhere. Famously, they were born (maybe) at Trader Vic’s, where Trader Vic Bergeron filled them with crab, and called them Crab Rangoon. He claimed it was an old dish from Burma. It wasn’t. Wonton wrappers are from Canton. And dairy products are from nowhere in the area. But that was Trader Vic — he created a myth about himself…and about his cooking as well.
6117 Reseda Blvd., Tarzana; 818-881-8886, www.yihting429.wixsite.com/gardenwok/about
The prices are low, the portions are generous, the food is tasty — whether you go for the many vegetable dishes, or the many pretend meat dishes. I tend to think of faux meat as a sort of Trompe-l’œil — it exists to fool the eye, and in some cases the palate. But mostly, not.
In my experience, vegetarian beef is vegetarian beef, vegetarian seafood is vegetarian seafood, and vegetarian chicken is vegetarian chicken. It comes close enough for those who want to be meatless. For the rest, a longing for animal protein persists that would probably enrage PETA. Oh well.
Unlike the edgier Chinese vegetarian restaurants of the San Gabriel Valley, Garden Wok does not offer vegetarian “intestines,” vegetarian “jellyfish” or vegetarian “kidney”; the vegetarian equivalents pretty much hew to the old reliables of veggie chicken, veggie beef, veggie pork, veggie fish and veggie shrimp — along with a sundry of dishes that are vegetables served as vegetables.
And though I do have great respect for restaurants that have come up with vegetarian equivalents of animal proteins, my leaning has long been toward the clean flavor of vegetables qua vegetables. During my travels, I’ve had several meals put on by the Hong Kong Taoist Association, including a breathtaking feast of two dozen stir fried mushrooms in a noodle basket. I did not feel the need to eat faux anything; the mushrooms more than satisfied. (I dream of that dish, when I need something to dream of.)
And under the heading of “Garden Flavor,” you’ll find lots of vegetable dishes — including the always good Buddha’s Feast, a mix of vegetables that’s about as healthy has any dish you’ll ever find in a Chinese restaurant, along with mu shu veggies, dry sautéed string beans, sautéed eggplant, black mushrooms with bamboo shoots or bok choy and more — lots of choices. There are crispy spring rolls, Vietnamese style summer rolls (seasoned tofu and soy ham), wontons with minced veggies, potstickers and lettuce wraps, along with orange veggie chicken, moo goo veggie chicken, sweet and sour chicken, veggie chow mein — so many dishes we know…but just a bit different.
Golden City
17719 Vanowen St., Reseda; 818-343-2665, www.goldencityreseda.com
For those looking to take a culinary trip down Memory Lane, Golden City is a shiny destination. Fried rice comes seven ways, including the rarely defined “House Special Fried Rice,” and “Yang Chow Fried Rice.” (You pays your money, and you takes your choice!)
In terms of chow mein, it comes six ways, including Three Delights, which translates as a mix of three of the added proteins — shrimp, beef, pork and chicken, plus of course lots of veggies. And as an added option, you can have any of the chow meins done “crispy” — for an additional 25 cents. Chow fun, moo shu and egg foo young all come four ways. And look at this: A section of sizzling dishes, which may not travel home all that well, but sure do bring back fond memories of a dish that always messed up my spectacles — a mess that was always worthwhile. There are five sizzling plates. And I guess at home, you can always pretend they’re sizzling. Making them all steak…but no sizzle.
New Moon
2138 Verdugo Blvd., Montrose; 818-249-4868, www.newmoonrestaurants.com
The Tom Family, often referred to as the creators of Chinese chicken salad, head for the ‘burbs with this impressive (and impressively large) family friendly Chinese with a menu of classics (shrimp Rangoon, along with many chow meins, both Shanghai-style and Hong Kong-style; chow funs; lo meins; and kung paos), and newer creations (dragon beef, chicken with roasted jalapeños, shrimp with Thai chilies); and yes, they do serve their chicken salad, a dish with roots in LA’s long-forgotten past.
The website tells us, “Our signature dish of slow roasted chicken rubbed with aromatic herbs is tossed with a mélange of crisp, crunchy and nutty delights. We purposely dress our salad ever so lightly so that the combination of flavors and ingredients can be savored…”
They offer “Jumbo New York Style Egg Rolls,” which in the Big Apple style are at least double the size of the local rolls. And there’s Shrimp Rangoon, because if you’re going old school, it’s essential. Chow mein, chow fun and lo mein dishes abound. And at the bottom of the menu, under “Chinese Classics,” there’s chop suey. Along with egg foo young and sweet & sour pork. Classic as they get!
6450 Sepulveda Blvd., Van Nuys; 818-988-6813
The Sam Woo chain is global, with branches at every level of Chinese cuisine — from opulent seafood palaces to this takeout shop adjacent to a 99 Ranch Market, with an extensive menu of old school dishes.
Most customers are there for the barbecue meats. But there’s so much more — as big a menu as any in town. The numbers are boggling. Fourteen beef dishes. Ten chicken dishes. Fifteen pork dishes. Eleven fried rice preps. Seventeen rice porridge options. Thirty rice dishes. Fifteen more barbecue rice dishes. Fifteen shrimp. Seven fish. Seven squid. Seven clams and scallops. Fourteen barbecue meats. Twenty five noodle dish, times three different style of noodles — 75 in all. And more! Eleven lo mein. Twenty seven chow meins. Twelve soups. And seven hot pots. All from a kitchen that doesn’t seem nearly big enough. Sam Woo is a marvel. And shopping next door at 99 is one of the great joys of Asian LA.
More good choices
- Gourmet 88: 230 N. San Fernando Blvd., Burbank; 818-848-8688, www.gourmet88.com
- Gourmet Palace China Bistro: 12910 W. Magnolia Blvd., Sherman Oaks; 818-763-0083, www.gourmetpalacechinabistro.com
- House of Joy: 818 N. Pacific Ave., Glendale, 818-241-0707; 3220 Foothill Blvd., La Crescenta, 818-248-5884; www.houseofjoychinese.com
- Ping Pong Chinese: 17267 Ventura Blvd., Encino; 818-501-0088, www.pingpongencino.com
- Sun Moon Garden: 1511 N. San Fernando Blvd., Burbank: 818-846-7660, www.sunmoongardenca.com
Merrill Shindler is a Los Angeles-based freelance dining critic. Email mreats@aol.com.
