LATIMES.COM/FOOD THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2019F3
All the drinks at V DTLA, the new bar and restaurant located on
the ground floor of the Seven Grand whiskey bar, are made for sip-
ping and designed for Instagram. The most fantastical — and the
most popular — is the Smoking Pot.¶Diners turn and follow the
path of the drink as it travels from bar to table. Fog billows over the
edges of the serving tray, leaving behind a gossamer trail. The drink
arrives in an actual clay pot, still “smoking,” thanks to a ramekin of
dry ice beneath it.¶The nonornamental — i.e., imbibable — part of
the drink is made with cucumber syrup, fresh grapefruit juice, lime
juice and vodka, a little bit like a sour and a gimlet, according to bar
manager Chrystian Lopez. It’s a simple, sunny cocktail that’s brac-
ingly tart then sweet, like a boozy Sour Patch Kid. And the dry ice
isn’t entirely for show: It ensures your drink is ice cold until you get to
the bottom of the pot, without getting watered down.¶Make one for
Halloween, or for the next time you need a reward for adult behavior.
— Jenn HarrisV DTLADRINK ME
A boozy, smoky Sour Patch Kid
A right-place-right-moment
spirit animates Yang’s Kitchen.
The fast-casual, counter-service
operation, which opened in Au-
gust, could go barely noticed on a
stretch of downtown Alhambra
crammed with restaurants: A
Korean barbecue joint, a beer pub,
a sushi bar, a cigar lounge and a
diner that slings burgers and
burritos all are steps away.
But the community is herefor
this newcomer — above all for the
beef noodle soup. Chris Yang, the
restaurant’s chef and co-owner,
simmers neck, knuckle and shank
bones for 36 hours; the resulting
broth is collagen-rich and pure in
its beefiness. He adds coriander
and Sichuan peppercorn. They’re
used with such restraint you have
to close your eyes and scan for
their presence,
like dredging
for a child-
hood taste
memory.
Yang and
chef-partner
Joseph Marcos developed the
noodle recipe; the strands resem-
ble whole wheat fettuccine,
stretchy-soft and flecked with
bran. Chrysanthemum greens
thread through each bowl, as do
lobes of braised brisket and shank
cuts from Santa Carota, a ranch
near Bakersfield that’s becoming
known for its carrot-fed cattle.
Slurp a spoonful or two of the
broth to savor their craftsman-
ship. Then stir in the condiments:
fermented mustard greens, finely
chopped with garlic and ginger,
and scarlet, oily chile crisp. Now
the soup’s flavors erupt.
For inspiration Yang looks to
Taiwan, where beef noodle soup is
a sovereign dish, but his version
dials the spice way back compared
with, say, the roiling fireball served
at the venerable Dai Ho three
miles up the street. This finespun
take characterizes Yang’s aes-
thetic; the soup anchors a short,
globally informed menu that feels
wholly personal in conception and
utterly universal in its comforts.
Yang is 29 years old. He said
he’s been thinking about opening a
restaurant since he met his girl-
friend, Maggie Ho, general man-ager and co-owner of Yang’s
Kitchen, a dozen years ago when
both attended nearby San Marino
High School. After college Yang
cooked for Bryant Ng at the Spice
Table in Little Tokyo, absorbing
Ng’s fluidity with cultures and
cuisines; when Spice Table closed,
the couple went on to work at Ng’s
Cassia in Santa Monica.
On the weekends, lines at
Yang’s Kitchen frequently back up
to the door throughout the day.
The space rehashes pervasive
design elements: white subway
tiles, blond woods, cracked con-
crete floors, dangling lights, soar-
ing tongue-and-groove ceilings.
They’ve endured for a reason.
Even when it’s busy — even when
Ho has to police the dining room,
making sure squatters don’t claim
tables before their party has or-
dered — the soft-focus atmos-
phere unfurls the senses.
The food has a similar effect.
Yang’s heritage is Chinese, Ho’s
background is Taiwanese; the
menu dips into Italian, Japanese
and Californian influences. The
couple routinely name-check their
sources: flour milled by Pasa-
dena’s Grist & Toll for noodles and
scallion pancakes; vegetables from
Food Roots, a network of local
farmers. Modern fusion cooking,
priced to accommodate quality
ingredients, has not had much
traction in the area previously;
Yang’s approach has cracked the
code, particularly with a younger
generation of local diners.
The beef noodle soup is Yang’s
Kitchen’s early tour de force; lu
rou fan, Taiwanese pork over rice,
soothes almost as deeply. Yang
braises the meat with onions,
garlic, apple and a whisper of dried
tangerine peel into a gravy he piles
over nutty-sweet Koshihikari
white rice with a soy egg (itsjammy yolk seemingly lit from
within), ringlets of fried shallots
and more of the mustard greens
relish. The braised pork — fla-
vored with the same shallots and
greens — becomes the sauce for
hand-rolled strozzapreti, blank-
eted with a fine dusting of Par-
mesan cheese to decisively thrust
the flavors in an Italian direction.
Cold sesame noodles have the
familiar slip and slide, dressed
with cucumbers, pickled carrots
and peanuts for varying degrees of
crunch that keep each forkful
compelling. The optional and very
California additions of sliced
chicken breast and avocado give
the dish more heft, as do smart,
easy-to-like sides of miso-marinat-
ed cucumbers and roasted root
vegetables.
For effortless variety, there’s a
complete meal, channeling Japa-
nese breakfast sets, that includes
a choice of fried chicken leg,broiled salmon or (not to be dis-
counted) a block of soy-braised
tofu served with purple-ish multi-
grain rice, pickles, half a jammy
egg and a bowl of tomato-seaweed
soup that is liquid umami.
Yang and Marcos spent
months tweaking their maverick
rendition of the scallion pancake:
They paint the dough with Strauss
butter before it’s coiled, rolled out
and griddled. Whole wheat flour
imparts a dark russet color and a
sturdy flakiness. They use the
flatbread as the foundation for
open-faced wraps meant to be
folded like tacos. I favor the one
that pulls the soup’s braised beef
into service, robed with ponzu-
amped pico de gallo, pickled car-
rots and onions; eat fast while the
pancake remains hot and pliant.
I’m less fond of the pancake
with chicken salad in a cloud of
shiso pesto aioli, crowned with a
nest of alfalfa sprouts with avoca-
do and roasted cherry tomatoes
(and a melted shellac of white and
yellow cheeses if that’s your thing).
It’s unwieldy to eat, and the sum of
its parts time-travels too far back
to 1980s SoCal clichés. This crew,
I’m certain, has more leading-edge
ideas to express.
Gentle, culture-leaping themes
of nostalgia play out tangibly in
Yang’s cooking, though, and the
restaurant’s one dessert is a
clincher: Strauss milk soft-serve
scattered with cornflakes boosted
from powdered sugar, milk powder
and salt. I always have a moment
of regret when the cup arrives in
its swirled glory. I’m already full of
noodles or rice (or both), some-
one’s eyeing my table, it’s time to
move along. Then the ice cream
tastes like the sugary bowls of
cereal I lapped up every morning
as a kid. I’m elsewhere for an in-
stant. I scrape the cup clean.Two-year-old Theodore Beteta, top right, tries the salmon rice. The beef noodle soup, top left, and assorted dishes and sides at Yang’s illustrate its modern fusion food.
Photographs byMel MelconLos Angeles TimesRESTAURANT REVIEW
Going all in
on Yang’s beef
noodle soup
BILL ADDISON
RESTAURANT CRITIC
Smoking Pot cocktail
10 minutes, plus cooling. Makes 1 drink.(^2) tablespoons granulated sugar
¼cucumber, peeled and thinly sliced
2 ounces vodka
2 ounces fresh pink grapefruit juice
1 ounce fresh lime juice
1 Combine the sugar and 2 table-
spoons water in a small saucepan and
bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the
sugar. Remove from heat and immedi-
ately add cucumber slices. Press them
into the liquid. Let stand until room
temperature, about one hour, then strain.
2 Add 1 ounce of the strained cucumber
syrup to a cocktail shaker, along with vodka,
grapefruit juice and lime juice. Fill the shaker
with ice, cap and shake for five seconds. Strain the
cocktail into a highball glass with crushed ice.
Yang’s Kitchen
LOCATION
112 W. Main St., Alhambra, (626)
281-1035, yangskitchenla.com
PRICES
Noodle dishes $10-$13.50, wraps
$12, other dishes $9-$14, dessert
$5
DETAILS
Credit cards accepted. No
alcohol (but homemade
kombucha and aguas frescas).
Street parking. Wheelchair
accessible.
RECOMMENDED DISHES
Beef noodle soup, braised pork
rice, Yang’s set meal with salmon
or tofu, milk soft-serve with corn
flakes