i’m more and more impressed everytime i come to yang’s. execution, consistency, attention to detail, and ingredients are all high-level and reminds me of the cooking at needle.
highlights on this visit:
chex mix (seasoning was addictive)
chicken liver mousse
pork jowl - great pairing with the yuzu kosho, could just eat this with some
dry-aged fish collars
cabbage with bagna cauda
fish and roe
pork ribs
black pepper steak and crispy potatoes - save some rice to soak up all the delicious black pepper sauce.
I really really enjoyed this meal, surprisingly so to be honest. Did not expect such a great meal going in but happy to have gone and definitely on the “will return” list. While not everything worked for me, most things did and when they worked they worked very well. Felt like it punched above its weight given the location and price range. I don’t expect something like this in Alhambra so this is a really nice surprise for me.
Since we got what seems like almost everything on the menu I’ll break out my personal rankings/thoughts by group:
Appetizers/Snacks
Dry aged fish collars - Sometimes last is best and in this case I got probably the tastiest portion of this wonderful fish collar. Dish of the night for me.
Smoked Fish Dip
Chicken Liver Mousse - If I had it again I’d probably pick the more complex taste of a fully assembled bite but that night I was fish dip > mousse
Crudo & Pork Jowl - tie; both good but can’t quite remember if one was better
Chips and Roe
Chicken Wings
Chex Mix & Bar Nuts
Ribs
Cabbage - Fine; reminded me of something I had at Majordomo a while back
Mains
Steak
Hainan Fish Rice
Prawns and Millet
Dan Dan - very peanut forward, wasn’t my preference
Desserts
hppzz bingfen
Black Sesame Cake
Sorbet
Milk custard - think this had red bean?
There is clear Asian influence here. But I don’t think of this as Asian food, I just consider it great food.
the execution is very high here. every single thing was a highlight. can’t get enough of the crispy potatoes and straus soft serve with kumquat marmalade.
I went back last night, first time since I had dinner there in August 2019. It’s so great they’re with us!
My party of three wandered in between 5 and 6 head of our Guardians of Galaxy 3 tickets. The place was empty, but I’d recommend reservations as it fills fast!
Our orders:
Chex Mix
chilled tofu with roe and ponzu
Aromatic Pork Ribs
Sesame Toast
Dan Dan Campanelle
Chicken Fat rice
We also ordered non-boozy Strawberry Amazake Smoothie, and modified for no booze Don’t Be Salty. I really loved this place - the only miss for me from the above was the chilled tofu, but that’s likely because I like more contrasting textures. It was ordered for a soft food loving table mate. The sesame toast was a surprise banger. I ordered it thinking it was goign to be puffy like shrimp toast (and clarified that there was no shellfish element).
It was really great two slices of western style sesame toast. Grilled to perfection, and I’d love more of it.
Yang’s is one of those places I was so afraid I’d be disappointed by because it’s been building up in my mind for a while now. But, we wanted a place to celebrate early Father’s Day dinner - while my wife had booked a nice LA steakhouse, I decided to pull a last minute audible to Yang’s.
Some high level thoughts: What struck me was the density (?) of the food. Like the smoked fish spread was dense and had a really nice mouth feel. It felt substantial when spread on the delicious sesame toast. The meat in the fish collars was denser than your typical hamachi collar, I assume because of the aging. The food wasn’t heavy by any means and it was quite enjoyable. I’d also note that it’s not a light meal - I tend to not like too much grease or heavy saucing and at first glance, some of the dishes might seem to be heavy; however, they were anything but. Packed with flavor and rich, but not overly so (perhaps the only miss for me was the crispy potatoes that came with the steak, which had clearly soaked up a ton of oil during the frying process…) I ate a ton and a couple hours after the meal, I feel great and ready to eat again! Finally, many of the dishes had an addictive quality… the fish spread was like that, my wife couldn’t stop eating the chex mix, the mala seasoning on the fish collars kept finding its way onto my chopstocks, etc. Few places are like that for me.
I think most of our dishes have been well covered, but as you can guess, I loved this meal. Smoked fish spread + sesame toast was a must order. The aged fish collars, despite being so loved by all, was better than advertised. The dungeness crab noodles were a very fair portion for the price and my 12yo basically licked the bowl clean. The hainan fish rice with barramundi - not everyone loves this dish but the barramundi was perfectly cooked… tender, moist and flaky. And our medium rare NY strip was perfectly grilled. For dessert, the family shared a couple orders of the tangerine oro blanco sorbet and cream soft serve that tasted somewhere between a hichew and an orange julius when eating together.
Definitely one of my favorite meals since moving to LA and we look forward to coming back for brunch!
It’s funny, the one miss for me, which you loved, was the potatoes. Just too heavy / oil-laden for me. I did love the crispy exterior and the creamy interior but it was a bit much. And I was so bummed they didn’t have the orange marmalade for the soft serve. We could get salted cornflakes or black sesame cake crumbles. We got the former, but I would have loved that orange marmalade!
LOL! Between the four of us at our table… I didn’t eat them for the reason above… My wife and older son tried them but stayed away as they have more finicky stomachs that sometimes don’t react well to oil/grease… And then there was my younger son, who is 5’2 and 95lbs soaking wet, who could not stop eating them! Every time I thought he was done, I’d see him sneaking in another bite of potato, ha!
To be clear, the potatoes are absolutely delicious and possibly the best-tasting rendition of crispy potatoes I’ve had. Just couldn’t eat too much of it.
Ordered basically the whole menu since we had 6 of us.
A restaurant like this is very important for the neighborhood. It’s basically a sea of chains or uninspired American food. While Yang’s is by no means fancy - it brings a level of respectability to food and service. There’s also an energy in there that other restaurants in Alhambra don’t have.
I hope they get a bit more creative with their dinner menu as it still feels more of a derivative of the VERY excellent brunch menu - not lean in so hard to the taiwanese background that it becomes Yangs 1.0 again but get a little more creative. I think with time they’ll get there.
We went last night for an early-ish dinner. If you go, probably make reservations, as most tables were full the whole time I was there.
We tried a new entree - a riff on a taiwanese dish with tomato and egg, with a mix in of steak. The dish swapped in semolina pasta for rice. Really good, and the tomato came out nice and sweet.
The Barbie movie was terrific, and I’m so glad I got to have dinner in this nice space after.
