5/3/00 Hop Louie
Jill and Kay take a hair raising ride from Silverlake down Glendale Boulevard (which Jill insists is a SHORT CUT!!) to Chinatown, where they are the first to arrive at Golden City Restaurant on Hill Street. Observing the Formica tables and B rating, their small splinter faction of 2 renegades decide that they've arrived at the wrong place and splinter off over to Hop Louie's £æ on the way over they flag down a few new potential splinter-factionalists that they decide have also gone to the wrong restaurant and Shanghai them into their secessionist sub-clique. At Hop Louie's (the wrong restaurant, mind you) they were two people short of the ten person minimum to get the cool dark red round room table in the corner, so they opt to sit in the semi-lit dining room that still has New Year 2000 decorations in it. Reading the clean menu (always a plus) there are dinner options galore, (imagine that! WOW!) all at extremely reasonable prices, esp (extra sensitive person) the dinner combos of shrimp, chicken or pork with mountains of fried rice, soup and two huge spring rolls. They ordered and ran the service insane with their substitution requests and by ordering one beer at a time. If only we'd used that technique in WWII ! Kay wanted Kung Pao tofu and was informed by the older gentleman waiter that there were NO SUBSTITUTIONS!! Just like during the Cultural Revolution. That's what you get for abandoning your comrades and striking out on your own when your people need you most.

" I ADMIT OF MY OWN FREE WILL THAT OUR SPLINTER GROUP, THE ECHO PARK DINNER CLUB, ATTEMPTED A COUP D'ETAT AGAINST THE SILVERLAKE DINNER CLUB. THE E.P.D.C., WITH FULL KNOWLEDGE OF THE IMPORTS OF ITS ACTIONS, IGNORED S.D.C. DIRECTIVES. AFTER INITIAL SUCCESSES AT THE DINING TABLE WE WERE FORCED TO ADMIT DEFEAT WHEN THE EXPECTED LEGIONS OF DEFECTORS FAILED TO MANIFEST THEMSELVES. WE RETREATED BACK TO THE ORIGINAL MEETING PLACE AND ATTEMPTED TO INFILTRATE THE RANKS OF THE SDC. OUR EFFORTS WERE THWARTED AND SDC PHOTOGRAPHERS HAVE RECORD OF OUR NEFARIOUS INSURGENCY ON FILM. I TESTIFY THAT THIS CONFESSION IS NOT OBTAINED UNDER TORTURE."A2 (Owww!)

Overall, Hop Louie was a good restaurant and most of them entered into abstract relations with their food. The service started off shaky but improved as they realized that it was an effective way to get them out of there. Although it was almost time to close the kitchen they didn't't worry about the traitor's intrusive tardiness and politely took their mewling orders.

Most of our dishes seemed to belong to another table. Our pal Seth, the hungry tall blonde (see Seafood Village review), kept us on the edge of our seats waiting for a very pale punch line. He's cute, though. WE shared our piles of greasy brown food spinning around the table, and felt like rebels dodging fluorescent lights and daytime events to relax in a dark setting where we all felt beautiful and smiled at our loving, bonding, newfound friendship. The conversation was informative and comfortable - which might have been a side-effect of the Tsing Tao beers which were bountiful and flowing. The mixed vegetables came with a light sauce and special mushrooms - more broccoli would have improved the deal - and the spring rolls were far from the light and healthy counterparts found in Japanese restaurants, as they were brown and deep fried to death. Magically, a Crab Rangoon with no crab in sight appeared without ordering.

Peter suggests that the best thing about it was that it was awfully dim. Not that the food is bad, it's just that he's sort of ambivalent towards Chinese food. If you go with a party of ten they'll let you sit in the second floor of the pagoda, (the dark red round-table room). Dinner for ten in a round room--clearly the makings of a secret society of super-intelligent chimpanzees bent on total sexual freedom.

Golden City 5/3/00
Gruvlicius wished she had arrived in time to join the retreat to Hop Louie, but our usual SDC (Socially Distracted Children) lagging meant we (the ORIGINAL dining faction) missed that bunch and stayed at Golden City, home of the stickiest Formica in Chinatown. Our lazy-susan was thick with years of grease, but that's ok cuz it both created and amplified the greezy diner look of the place. The little table (remember we're talking about the main, non-splintered group at Golden City now) did the family thing and shared and sampled all dishes ordered. We dug the duck and shroom soup that Bazamataz brought in to the mix. Then for the main course - duck with leeks, duck with pork, sautéed shrimp, braised tofu, seafood chow fun (like chow mein but way more exciting!!!!), what's the diff it all tastes the same! We are true connoisseurs. (ChrisLove thinks the leeks and shredded duck along with brocolli in oyster sauce were the best things and the only things that tasted different from any of the other things covered in ordinary and proliferous spoogy brown suace, I mean sauce. Thanks.)

FrancisX says that at their big table the intermittent arrival of an ambiguous mélange of ordered dishes led to tactful restraint masking a self-loathing fear of self-interested hoarding. Meit/haus knows how to order, but next time baby, get some rice. The little table is not here merely to fulfill each and every one of your ignored ricial cravings, ok?

Our itty-bitty waitress was nice, but she looked pissed off, and we have to say she's lucky she didn't get the complete barbarian horde the SDC is reputed to be (and is). Our penchant for too much booze and freakish wig/hat combos could send the lesser server running for the cops, who, luckily, were over at Hop LoUie's where fascists belong. Big plates of fresh and yummy orangesunshine juice dripping multicolored waterfalls of love flowed and flowered betwixt the infinite and this sticky cantonese dining experience and of course, fortune cookies. The easily-amused little table cackled like cute baby hyenas as the fortune cookies were read out loud. Who's clever idea was it to add "in bed" after every fortune, anyway? I want to marry that fox! (ChrisLove says it was Groovy baby, who else but gogo extraordinaire?).

I have heard it said that Canton is to Asia what Paris is to Europe. This place is called Golden City and is to China what Alonzo's Tacos is to East L.A. It is truly authentic. Now as far as Chinese restaurants are concerned, there are a couple of rules: first, if they have an espresso machine forget it; it is not authentic. If there isn't an old man and women screaming in Cantonese in the kitchen its not gonna feel like home. This place is like home. Also, the waitresses speak little English; they are used to screaming to the Chinese, so its more likely to be authentic screaming.

Meit/huas says the double tables had two kinds of soup hot and sour and sizzling rice, (wait - isn't that three kinds?) both delicious and very different The Hong Kong style of chow mein I have 1 word: YUM! The sizzling Cantonese beef platter was funking increadable the orange chicken was really wonderful the way it is prepared is a method called twice cooked which is deep fried in a chestnut coating and then cooked again in a sauce in a reduction of orange juice and ginger delicious in fact everything I had was increadable there was a dish of mustard greens and Smithfield ham the best peking duck this side of Puerto Rico, this was definitely first class chow! Now here's the kicker: this place is dirt cheap - 12 people for 122 bucks increadable! On a scale from one to 10 I give it a ten. On a scale from expensive to clean it's off the scale!

Things that rhyme with Chow Fun - Better go get your gun; Can I get you anything else, Hon?; Chao Phun; Now Run !; Bow Won; Cow Dung; Ow Pong, Cow Cum, Logan's Run, Atilla the Fun, Meow Sun, Idiotic Pun, ìì.geez, what an imbecilic exercise. Can't we do something that's funny or clever or something? Petey Meister doubts it!

So..anyway..I didn't make it this week cause I've been having some 'financial' problems (which means I'm a bum) so I went to 7-11 and bought a tasty Tuna Stack that I shoved in my cake- HOLE which left me smilin' and thinkin' of THE KNACK's "She's So Selfish" from the immortal GET THE KNACK album which came out when I was a seventh grader in 1978 and 1979 (and part of 1980). The banana that I ate afterwards really hit the KURT COBAIN spotìpotassium is good for your RUDIMENTARY PENII! Time to figure it out already..geezus thank the holy titties of the universe that I still have a brain heh I thinkì.I dunnoììmaybe notì... The afterparty, as always, was exquisite; just like when ABE VIGODA and GIBBY and the BUTTHOLE SURFERS partied on crack at my house. DISCO always makes me feel like a real man and DAISY tried to french-dog-kiss me..so ..that proves it! Remember this quote-"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not after me."

When did pot become a high class drug ? Sincerely yours, Farrah Rocker.

It's a trick question; pot is for artists only!