Yang Chow Restaurant

Yang Chow is an absolute Chinatown classic. After leaving Hong Kong in 1977, five brothers (the Yuns) opened Yang Chow, a Mandarin and Sichuan-style restaurant named after their hometown. At the time, it existed below the Bing Wong Hotel, and was a casual, communal place where families could gather over lazy susans loaded with shrimp toast, egg drop soup, and pan-fried noodles. Over the next 40 years, Yang Chow expanded to two other locations (Pasadena and Long Beach) and has become renowned for their slippery shrimp. It’s a deep-fried concoction made with garlic, ginger, cayenne, and yes, ketchup. How else would they get that perfect, deep orange color?