The restaurant used to have a chicken congee pot pie and then an abalone congee pot pie. The Hongs started serving lobster claws as an appetizer and wanted to find the best way to use the rest of each lobster, so they ended up with a lobster-tail congee pot pie.
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I didn’t have nearly the number of dishes you did 
but did get the Dine LA menu (with upgrades of course) and a side order of banchan.
This is what, Yangban 3.0 now? Whatever iteration it is, it’s by far my favorite version so far!
Golden Prawn Toast 
This is what this city has been missing.
Green Tea Leaf Salad
Tea leaf salad is my favorite salad of all time and at first I was a bit worried if this would come out alright since you don’t see much Burmese food in LA, but this was a banger. Executed just as well as some of my favorites in SF.
Banchan (Honey Glazed Carrots, Brokaw Avocado & Shinko Pear, Grilled Cucumber, Steamed Broccoli, Yangban Kimchi)
I still ride for these carrots, but mostly these were fine. I appreciated the vegetable section, but I felt like I could have eaten all of these myself and not split them with two other people.
Tteok
This was heavy, but so delicious. It was best split up between people because of its richness.
Grilled King’s Cut Short Rib
Yangban Wings
Garlic Butter Black Rice
Short rib was probably the best meat dish I’ve had at Yangban ever. I still love how big the wings are. And the rice was actually outstanding.
I hope this version of Yangban sticks around.
And of course, power rankings:
- Golden Prawn Toast
- Grilled King’s Cut Short Rib
- Green Tea Leaf Salad
- Tteok
- Yangban Wings
- Banchan
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I’m liking everything you’ve had too.
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Very solid meal at yangban. I did not love it as much as some others on the board but I agree this is the best iteration of yangban that I’ve had. I would say no dish was bad but only 2 dishes that I completely loved being lobster pot pie and soft serve.
A couple of random notes I thought the crab was overdressed with gochujang and overpowered the crab flavor. King cut short ribs were cooked perfectly and delicious but the sauce that accompanied it was too sweet which distracted from the beef, potato, and mushrooms. Golden prawn toast tasted delicious but was luke warm in temp.
Rankings as follows:
- Lobster congee pot pie
1a. Buffalo Milk soft serve
2.Golden prawn toast - king cut short ribs
- Tea leaf salad
- Crab tostada
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how busy were they?
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Packed
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Was there last night too (they were packed) and got to try a couple new things: the wagyu stuffed perilla leaf and the squashini jeon.
Both were great, but I’d only had pancake style jeon before, not just a fried zucchini round lol
The large dishes don’t hit as much for me as the small bites do, so I think in future visits I’ll try to build around those.
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Went here on Sunday night and came to a similar conclusion held by @hungryhungryhippos since the group did not enjoy most of the dishes. A common complaint was that the dishes were over salted, to the extent that the king cut short ribs were uneatable and had to be sent back. Happily, the restaurant did not charge us for that dish.
The best dish were the wings and the rice that accompanied it. The tea leaf salad was a nice break of fresh vegetables in a pretty heavily sauced meal. Lastly, we also liked the soft serve; the carmelized doenjang was a neat and interesting experience.
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We used to go JUST for the Double 8 soft serve. It was that good.
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@matthewkang had the answer in his latest piece on Eater.
“Owned by Mike Glick, Sprout’s portfolio of affiliated LA restaurants also includes Republique, Redbird, Yangban, and Vespertine.”
Makes a lot of sense now as the Republique revenue can cover more than a few different build outs I imagine.
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I’ve eaten at republique where’s my patio set?
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you seem pretty certain about the Republique revenue situation, but do you know about its profitability? just wondering
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That would be an extraordinary profit margin.
I don’t know a damn thing, but it’s not like any of those other restaurants are paying the bills. It’s possible he’s just interested in being a benefactor rather than an investor. Now that I see he’s partnered with Aileen Getty that’s probably the more likely scenario.
I think Vespertine’s money pit is probably big enough to swallow the profits from a score of Republiques.
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Looks like mostly stuff that’s…on the regular menu am I mistaken? For 2 people at 300$ I can probably order all of those dishes already…
They are remixing some dishes they have on the menu, but it doesn’t seem like they are just dishes from the menu unlike their previous prix fixe menus. Like the matzoh ball is similar to their mandu, but not in a dumpling and added white truffle shmaltz (which probably uses truffle oil, given that the season should be over).
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Looks like it’s still in the dumplin’
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It’s the tail end of white Alba truffle season. They’re still available (at around $175-200 an ounce).