A new place to eat in Los Angeles, every day.
  • Hop Woo (West LA)

    4
    scissors
    January 25th, 2009JonahUncategorized

    Good, authentic Chinese food is not easy to come by on the Westside. When you don’t have time to make the drive all the way out to Alhambra though, you can find Hop Woo on the corner of Olympic and Sepulveda.

    With whole roast ducks hanging in the window and crispy fried whole shrimp (shell and head on) on the menu, you know this isn’t a run of the mill Chinese takeout spot.

    We eat in sometimes, we take out sometimes, and may have even done delivery. When you do go to Hop Woo be prepared for some parking challenges. The lot is impossibly small for the number of stores in the mini-mall and sometimes cars just double park. You can find street parking around the corner on Pontius, which is the street west of Sepulveda.

    There are Hop Woo locations both in Chinatown and in Alhambra, but I haven’t been to them, so I don’t know how the Westside location compares.

    Some of the hits on the menu are the soups, the Pepper Salted Shrimp, the Roast Duck, Gai Lan (Chinese Broccoli), Snow Pea Leaves, Sesame Chicken, Braised String Beans (Hot!), or the Chow Fun noodles.

    The first time we went with a couple of friends, we let the waiter do much of the ordering for us and it turned out great. Tried a couple dishes I wouldn’t normally have and learned about some of the food.

    If you are having a party, you can also arrange to have Hop Woo fix you up with a whole suckling pig. They also have whole lobster specials which are really cheap.

    Prices are pretty standard with most dishes between $8-$13 and portion sizes are generous.

    Hop Woo
    11110 W Olympic Blvd
    Los Angeles, CA 90064
    (310) 575-3668


    View Larger Map

    Tags: , , ,

4 Responses to “Hop Woo (West LA)”

  1. Huh–would have never thought to have tried this place.

    I know it’s nothing close to what you can get in the SGV, but I used to really like Little Hong Kong Cafe on Sawtelle–I haven’t been back in years, though.

  2. Little Hong Kong Cafe is pretty good, better than I would have expected when I first went in there. It’s on The List!

  3. This is where we go when we don’t want to cook Chinese food. Parking is really bad, and sometimes we have parked in the little area on the Southwest side of Sepulveda/Olympic when those shops are closed. Sometimes it is a little high on the oil content, but overall is good Cantonese-style food. I haven’t gone back to Hop Li in a while (or to their new location on Santa Monica Blvd) to see if their food has gotten better. VIP is I think the only place left that does dim sum. I’m surprised that the Westside can’t support a better Chinese restaurant, you would think that there would be a demand since it is at least a half hour to SGV in no traffic.

  4. Came clueless, left worried. Thanks for the post. - Few things are harder to put up with than a good example. - Mark Twain 1835 - 1910

Leave a Reply