LAGuide
Where To Get Chinese Delivery And Takeout In LA
photo credit: Jakob Layman
Chinese food is meant to be shared. Pre-COVID, if you’d have gone to any dim sum restaurant on a Sunday morning, you would have seen families picking out of the same basket of siu mai, friends handing each other glistening BBQ pork buns, and loaded-up Lazy Susans on every table. These small, communal exchanges are half the experience, which is why it feels so weird to not be able to sit down at any of these places right now. But if we’ve learned anything from these past few weeks, it’s that - as Julie Chen warns the houseguests at the beginning of every Big Brother episode - we should always expect the unexpected. So we’re here, we’re adapting, and we’ve got 24 spots now offering Chinese delivery and takeout, just for you.
The Spots
photo credit: Bang Bang Noodles
After a brief hiatus, Bang Bang Noodles is back, baby. Pre-shelter-in-place, this mega popular street cart was drawing lines that rivaled the ones at Howlin’ Rays, with hour-long waits for their signature hand-pulled noodles. Now, they’ve shifted to weekend preorders, where you have your choice between beef shank, lamb shoulder, shiitake wood ear mushrooms, or seitan tofu, placed upon their tingly cumin noodles, served either dry or with soup. Limit four per order, check their Instagram for details.
Unlike other houses of pies around town, you won’t find any banana creams or Dutch apples at this Alhambra restaurant. Instead, they specialize in xian bing, a disk-sized, savory dumpling from northern China that’s served dangerously hot and filled with everything from beef and green onion to summer squash and lamb. Call them directly at (626) 782-7928 to place an order, or find them on most major delivery platforms.
The portions at Chang’s are huge, which makes this Arcadia restaurant an ideal option when ordering for families (or if you’re single and want to stock your fridge for the week). The specialty here is Hangzhou-style cooking, a city in eastern China that focuses on dishes like pork ribs steamed in lotus leaves, dong po pork, and fish fried lightly with seaweed. Call (626) 445-0707 or order through most major delivery platforms.
Oh, Din Tai Fung. With their infamously long lines and much-discussed soup dumplings, no other Chinese restaurant in LA has inspired as much awe, fear, or tweets from @Americana at Brand Memes. Their locations in Glendale, Arcadia, Costa Mesa, Century City, and Torrance are all available for delivery/takeout, so there’s no better time to get your fill of wontons, Shanghai rice cakes, and, if you’re as serious about meal prepping as we are, 20-30 orders of soup dumplings. Order through their website or on most major delivery platforms.
This spot is Permanently Closed.
Elite should be on every self-respecting dim sum enthusiast’s short list. They’re currently offering their entire menu for delivery or takeout from their Monterey Park location, including golden cream buns, steamed taro rice cakes, pork siu mai, and a BBQ pork pastry that we dream about on a near-daily basis (what would Jung have to say about that?). Call (626) 282-9998 to order.
With locations in Silver Lake and Highland Park, the utility of Fat Dragon is simple - casual, affordable Chinese food in neighborhoods where that’s sorely lacking. The best things on the menu are the wontons, spicy eggplant, and steak with the broccolini, but it’s all pretty solid, reliable, and exactly what you want while going on Twitter for eight hours (screen time is nothing but a man-made concept). Call the restaurant directly at (323) 667-9193 to place an order, or find them on most major delivery platforms.
For more than 30 years, Genghis Cohen has been a favorite of East Coast transplants longing for a “New York-style” Chinese fix. The menu includes dishes like sweet and sour chicken, walnut shrimp, and Szechuan green beans, but they’re also offering all of their drinks to-go, from sake to beer to… White Claws? Nice. Call (323) 653-0640, or order through most major delivery platforms.
Hot pot might not seem like the kind of food you can eat at home (because who has hot pot equipment just lying around?), but in addition offering their full menu to-go, this Sichuanese restaurant is also selling “self-heating” hot pots that even the most culinarily challenged can manage. All you have to do is add water to the heating pack and let it do it’s thing. Pick one up from either of Hai Di Lao’s outposts in Arcadia or Century City.
Open since the ’90s, Hop Woo is a family-owned Chinatown staple. Their vast menu of over 100+ dishes includes everything you need for a night at home, like Hong Kong- style BBQ (think roast duck and pork), seafood, chop suey, wonton soups, and more. They’re also offering a few specials if you pick-up in-store, like free egg rolls with orders over $18, and a pound of lobster (!!) for orders over $68. Call (213) 617-3038, or find them on most major delivery platforms.
iXLB is your one-stop-shop for quick and easy dim sum. This Hollywood restaurant has all of the classic Chinese brunch foods, like shrimp har gow, baked char siu bao, pan-fried turnip cakes, and Hong Kong-style egg custard tarts, and at relatively affordable prices. So while there aren’t a lot of frills, bells, or whistles here, if we’ve learned anything from Infinite Jest - maybe that’s for the best? Call the restaurant at (323) 848-4766 to order, or find them on most major delivery platforms.
Even though you’re not a bao specialist (that takes years of training, Karen), that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy Kang Kang’s dumplings at home. They’re offering an entire freezer full of options, from pork and Napa cabbage to crab and pork, all of which are perfect for steaming, boiling, or frying whenever you’re hungry or need something to stall you from making a TikTok account. Pick-up in store, call (626) 308-3898, or order through their website.
Handmade in-house, served in a fragrant broth, and physically impossible to eat too much of, Lao Xi makes some of the best noodles in the SGV. They’re all prepared in the regional style of the northern Shanxi province, where they are apparently adept at making amazing lamb soup noodles and dumplings filled with pork and Napa cabbage. In addition to their regular menu, they’re also selling frozen packages of those dumplings for takeout - call (626) 348-2290 to order.
Besides being the name our relatives called us growing up (they weren’t wrong, per se), Little Fatty is a cool, casual Taiwanese restaurant in Mar Vista. And not only is their entire menu now available to go - we’re partial to their scallion pancakes and squid ink xiao long bao - they’re also selling frozen packages of siu mai, har gow, and dan dan sauce by the quart. Call directly at (310) 574-7610 or order online.
When it comes to the realm of dim sum, Lunasia is king. We’ve yet to find a single miss on their 100+ item menu, but if you are, for some reason, not ordering enough food to feed an entire football team, here’s the game plan: Jumbo pork siu mai, followed by pan-fried string beans. A crunchy shrimp roll. Add in an order of the Macau-style roasted pork belly, before finishing with one or two of the shrimp har gow, depending on your level of stir-craziness. All three of their locations (Alhambra, Pasadena, and Cerritos) are open for delivery and takeout, call or order through their app.
Mama Lu’s just might have the best dumplings in the SGV. The pan-fried ones come crisped to perfection, and although we’ve eaten thousands of soup dumplings in our lives (maybe? We’re writers, not mathematicians), their xiao long bao are still some our all-time favorites. And now you don’t even need to wait in line (or put on pants) to enjoy them - frozen packages of Mama Lu’s dumplings are available for curbside pick-up. Call (626) 282-2256 to order.
This family-run restaurant in Monterey Park specializes in Chinese Islamic cuisine, which means that everything from their spicy JinHai chicken to their thick chive dumplings is completely halal. This is the kind of bold, flavorful food that’ll be able to bring you back from the brink of existential collapse when you accidentally glance at a calendar with your now-canceled plans on it. Their entire menu is available for takeout and delivery, call (626) 703-4468 or order through their website.
Located in the DTLA’s Spring Arcade Building, RiceBox is a Cantonese restaurant that specializes in modern BBQ. That means a mix of dishes like bao filled with Monterey Jack cheese and Impossible meat dumplings alongside honey-glazed char siu and soy-sauce chicken. They’re also now selling frozen bulk packages of their egg rolls, and entire Peking ducks for pre-order. Call (213) 988-7395, email (riceboxla@gmail.com), or find them on most major delivery platforms.
Pizzas and pastas coexist with bone broth and baked halibut on Savoy Kitchen’s eclectic menu, but what’s gained this Alhambra restaurant their cult-following is their Hainanese chicken. If you’re unfamiliar, the set up is pretty straightforward: Boneless chicken, white rice, and a variety of sauces, like sweet soy, ginger-scallion, and lime-chili. Simple, and straight to the point - unlike your relationship with your roommate, now that you’ve seen them eat alfredo sauce out of the jar. Call (626) 308-9535 to place an order.
One of our all-time favorite restaurants in the San Gabriel Valley, Sichuan Impression is now offering all of their fantastically spicy (and not-so-spicy, if you’re not a fan of mouth-numbing Sichuan peppercorn) food to-go. You’ll find all of the bold flavors of the southwestern Chinese province in their dishes, like toothpick lamb skewers with dried chili and scallions, boiled fish with rattan pepper, or tender tea-smoked pork ribs. Call (626) 283-4622 to place an order. Their West LA location is also available for takeout and delivery - call (310) 444-7171.
With its sleek, all-white interiors and monochrome furniture, this Chinatown tea shop looks more like a Muji showroom than a place to eat and drink, but don’t be mistaken - Steep is serving some of the highest quality teas around. Now available for delivery/takeout on their site they’re offering a variety of unique loose-leaf teas like spring snail green tea and spring in Bulang pu-erh, as well as a freshly brewed options, for those without a strainer (or patience). If you’re feeling hungry, they also have a few Taiwanese dishes like braised pork rice bowls, clear broth noodle soup with beef shank, and radish cakes.
This spot is Temporarily Closed.
Yes, the food at this San Gabriel restaurant (in addition to their other locations throughout LA) is tasty, but you’d be remiss to limit yourself to just noodles. This tiny shop specializes in the flavors of Dalian, a coastal city in northeastern China, which translates into a variety of potent seafood dishes, like jellyfish in spring scallion oil and stir-fried sea snail. Just make sure you also have these three things in your cart - buttery scallion pancakes, the enormous beef noodle soup, and juicy pan-fried dumplings so good, they might even inspire you to put jeans on for the first time this week. To place an order, visit their website.
One of our go-tos for all things involving chewy noodles and perfectly curated playlists, Woon is back after a temporary closure. There’s a few key things to note regarding their return, namely that in addition to their normal menu, they’re now selling packages of the aforementioned chewy noodles, as well as meal kits for as many as six, plus beer, wine, sake, and milk tea. Order contactless delivery and takeout through their website, Wednesday-Sunday, 4-9pm.
Although the kitchen side of Yang’s is now closed (for the most part), this modern Taiwanese restaurant has since transformed into a full-time marketplace. Their Alhambra location currently functions as a one-stop-shop for goods and foods from local vendors, including bread from Bub and Grandma’s, fresh pasta from Semolina Artisanal, produce from Chavez Family Farms, as well as a variety of T-shirts, ceramics, candles, and the greatest good of all - toilet paper. Preorder for pick-up through their website.
