What say you?
Looking for a place in Chinatown to eat tonight with 4 adults and 4 kids. Thanks
Jade Wok
Get the house special tofu, Shanghai small ribs, and shrimp scramble eggs.
Super nice owner.
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This may seem a little cynical, but Qin West would get my vote.
So I guess Mayflower is where Manny Pacquiao goes when he is in town.
Also I heard that the restaurant is filled with Pacquiao memorabilia and pictures. This would be my main reason to visit! If the food is solid that would be a bonus lol but 3 stars on Yelp. I donāt think I ever been to a Chinese-Filipino restaurant.
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Weird, I just went to Mayflower for the first time in years (and the second time overall) a couple weeks ago. I do think the food is good enough for another visit but I donāt think itās a Chinese-Filipino restaurant from my inexpert opinion.
There doesnāt seem to be anything particularly Filipino on the menu (not even Chinese derived Filipino dishes like lumpia, pancit, siopao, etc.). Rather, the menu itself seems like a mix of Americanized Chinese and Cantonese, including stuff I donāt see much elsewhere (eg, salty fish tofu claypot and salty fish patty, a separate section for lo mein in addition to chow mein and yee mein).
When I was looking for a menu I ran across this plaque on their yelp and (again, in my anecdotal experience) I donāt think Iāve ever met any Filipinos with names like that inside or outside my family. I also found this reddit post (I know, I know) which made me wonder if maybe Pacquiao just liked the restaurantā¦?
Either way, Iāll probably be going back for more salty fish dishes and some other stuff we havenāt tried yet. In my experience, most (but not all) of the dishes here can be found elsewhere - that said, it was tasty, the food is decently priced, the owner is friendly and pickup and dine in are both easy. As a bonus, we accidentally ordered two dishes with the same vegetable in it and they offered to swap out the vegetable in one for something else which was pretty cool.
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had i seen this earlier, i would have volunteered the suggestion of hop li though i havenāt been there since the inception of the pandemic.
itās actually kinda ironic that thereād be a good chinese restaurant in what was named chinatown since itās the chinese equivalent of the native american reservation (but no casino); IIRC the actual chinatown was displaced in order to build union station. the chinese that refused to be moved to the ānewā chinatown actually moved to around ninth & tenth for a while. @chandavkl probably knows a lot more of the details surrounding that.
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Yup Paulās Kitchen if itās still there might be the last remnant of that time period.
Aww cool thanks for the great response.
Salty fish pork patty over rice is 
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And the current Chinatown is what used to be LA version of little Italy. No? The lone hold out Italian restaurant closed like 15-20 years ago. Little Joeās?
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Itās both the ānewā touristy Chinatown as well as the former Little Italy and French Quarter (although I donāt know if those particular names were used). I believe it was the building of the freeways that dispersed the Italian and maybe French populationā¦? The Joan of Arc statue from the latter article is gone now but it was still there as of a few years ago.
The lone hold out Italian restaurant closed like 15-20 years ago
I believe Eastside Italian Market and Deli is the last holdout from the Italian population. There was an article explaining why Italian delis in LA are spread out with Chinatown as the vague epicenter but I canāt find it at the moment
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Hell yeah. We also like Zen Meiās salty fish fried rice but I donāt recall if they have salty fish in anything else.
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From what my mom tells me, mayflower is a Chinese restaurant beloved by Filipinos. But it is chinese. At least it was many years ago.
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Zen Mei is such a good local spot. Love the location across from the park and down the block from a pretty cool temple.
Itās good solid Cantonese food. They low key have the best orange chicken in LA lol
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Also Chinatown adjacent is Lanza Brothers Market on Main St. Decent sandwich if youāre in the area.
Another Chinese restaurant beloved by Filipinos is Won Kok for takeout dimsum. Always a line in the morning
Hereās a tip: Go down to Mama Luās (formerly CBS Seafood) for better takeout dimsum and no wait.
Edited.
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May Flower was/is in Jonathan Goldās Counter Intelligence.
I know the original write-up, which was probably in The Weekly, before the book was published, sent me there to have my first tastes of Canto beef stew, Chinese cruller/donuts - wrapped in rice noodles, and congee.
It went terribly downhill at some point, those crullers werenāt even on the menu, so I stopped going.
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Hop Li tends to be my chinatown go-to (as a former long-time chinatown resident).
Went before a show a few months back and can confirm its still great. Steamed rock cod with squid in black bean or clams in XO is always a great meal.
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Seconding Jade Wok. The house special tofu, whatever greens they have that day, and the pig tails with peanuts, though thatās maybe an acquired taste.
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Influenced. Gonna try and have Jade Wok cater our office lunch one of these daysā¦ #SupportChinatown
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I prefer the take out dimsum at Longs, but Won Kok is open until like 9pm so we tend to get it more often than not when searching out for a later in the evening morsel. I especially like their Curry Buns.
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