Pearl River Deli

cutlet on a domed homemade milk bread bun with a vegetable relish and pickled cucumber. Compare it to the one chef Johnny Lee is making at his brand-new Pearl River Deli in Chinatown’s Far East Plaza. Lee makes a pineapple bao, a sugared bun so named

on television). Pork chop on a pineapple bao at Pearl River Deli. (Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times) It’s a staple on the Pearl River Deli’s short, mercurial menu. Lee took over the space recently vacated by Eddie Huang’s Baohaus, which sits next to

At Pearl River Deli, Johnny Lee’s tiny Cantonese restaurant in Chinatown’s Far East Plaza, weekends bring revolving specials that expand his short staple menu of char siu, silky scrambles and sandwiches. Come Saturdays there may be Hainan chicken

Canton). Along with poon choi, Johnny Lee’s Lunar New Year specials at Pearl River Deli will include a Tray of Togetherness, featuring lotus root chips with haw powder, Ovaltine fudge, peanut sesame brittle and candied ginger. (Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles

-find natural wines. The uncanny talent scouts behind Chinatown’s Far East Plaza struck paydirt again in early 2020 when they installed Johnny Lee in the space formerly occupied by Baohaus. Pearl River Deli is his love letter to Cantonese cooking: His

Pearl River Deli’s much-anticipated foray into poon choi. And tomorrow? Probably another fan tuan from Today Starts Here. Advertisement Dinner with Dear John’s and Jamie Lee Curtis The next Los Angeles Times Dinner Series event is on Saturday, Feb. 20

. Advertisement More broadly, the finest comfort foods that emerged in 2020 roundly represent Los Angeles: its pluralism, its fluidity, its complexity. I love that at Pearl River Deli, in Chinatown’s Far East Plaza, Johnny Lee makes public his ambivalence about

River Deli (which serves an amazing Macao-style pork chop bao) in Chinatown sits Katsu Sando, Daniel Son’s ode to Japanese convenience-store sandwiches he’s evolved through pop-ups at his now-closed West Hollywood restaurant Kura and a stall at

in advance. In an untraditional move, he adds the chicken fat to rice after cooking it, making for a more even, unctuous coating of the grains. Lee puts just as much thought into regular dishes on the menu, and Pearl River Deli is worth a visit during

right notes. His chicken is amazing, but Lee is no one-hit wonder. Pearl River Deli, 727 N. Broadway, Chinatown, 626-688-9507. That most amazing slice of pizza you had that one very drunken, late night in your early twenties in New York lives on . . . in

chop bun and shrimp fried rice from Pearl River Deli for lunch, I swung by Phoenix Bakery, a Chinatown institution in business since 1938. They were already selling out of mooncake variations stuffed with multiple salted egg yolks (symbolic of the full