Macau Street ~ 429 W. Garvey St. Monterey Park, CA 91754 ~ (626) 288-3568

The night before Ali “Wrath of” Khan and I hit Macau Street for one of the most epic cheap meals of my life, I ate at Golden City, a Chinese restaurant in downtown. At the time, it was pretty goddamn good, but by the time I left Monterey Park’s Macau, it had been reduced to mere shite in my burning eyes.

For anyone who doesn’t know Monterey Park, it’s spit-roasted by Alhambra on top, Montebello on the ass, and is more Chinese than Gin Ling Way, Grant Ave. and Hester St. combined. But it’s not shitty plastic ninja swords, tin dragons, and paper fans, it’s a nice suburban neighborhood of clean streets where families enter a Bank of America busting Mandarin characters on its sign and there stand legions of dynamite Chinese eateries like a Sino-Pico Blvd.

Macau, on the other hand, is one peninsula and two islands off of Southern China, ruled by the Portugese until 1999. I have a friend who is a major player from Vegas, familiar with just about every shade of sketchballl on the planet, who spent some time working in Macau’s gaming industry and said it was the sleaziest place he’d ever witnessed ( the Girls Gone Wild dude being the sleaziest person he’s ever met). It is literally overrun with pirates, hustlers, pimps, Triads, sheists, shylocks, and hired-muscle vying for pieces, according to him. China’s various parts have many different styles of cuisine and though Macau Street is light on Portugese influence, it still has unique dishes cooked in a one-of-a-kind way.

On to the feast! “King” Khan and I are big fellas with voracious appetites, no less when properly gassed-up on a drive from some Thai Town safehouse. The restaurant wasn’t too crowded on a Sunday, with a couple of families chilling in this clean, spacious, tasteful spot. We ordered up about four big dishes in our starved state, more food than a person should ever need, which all came in at about $20 each. The first dish to hit table was calamari.

(Continued)

Empress Pavillion ~ Bamboo Plaza ~ 988 N. Hill St. @ Bernard St.

Los Angeles, CA 90012

On the second floor of a mini-mall at the crown of Chinatown, classic, authentic Cantonese cooking is done solidly at Empress Pavilion, and for decades long it has served as a popular banquet-hall for award-winning dim sum and seasonal specials. It’s easy to say the food at Empress is perfect, every bite confirms the suspicion that nothing is done too wildly, but with just the right amount of respect, skill and taste.

Empress boasts a gi-normous menu of Chinese eats. Cantonese style eats hail from Guangdong Province in South-East China where Hong Kong is located. Cantonese is the style we most commonly think of when we eat Chinese, where the food is pretty mild and “any animal whose back faces the sun can be eaten,” as they say.

Empress was empty when we stormed through, leaving an echo in the giant chamber of round, white-draped tables. Strong hot tea was poured, its herbal essences strong to the point of overppowering as the pot came closer to empty.

Spring rolls ($5 for 4) arrived with very thin, crisp skin giving way to a juicy intermingling of supple chicken and and firm, savory mushrooms. Soon, our dishes were dropped off one by one. First, a “spicy” shredded pork, dark from a sauce swimming in chilis and shallots, was divine, though not spicy. The juicy pork is cut into thin strands or coils almost, with sweet flavor…(Continued Below…)

(Continued)