Kowloon
As I mentioned a few pages back in writing about a Chinese restaurant called Wan-Q, my family had its favorite place to get chow mein and it wasn’t Kowloon.
Kowloon was at 6124 W. Pico Boulevard, just east of La Cienega. It was across the street from where the post office there now is located. I remember it as a dark place with nice decor but they didn’t prepare the food the way Wan-Q did and so we didn’t like it and now that I think about it, I’m not sure why we even went there. I think it was my Aunt Dot’s penchant for trying new things that caused us to forsake a Chinese restaurant we loved and which was closer to us for one that was a bit farther away and an unknown quantity. To this day, if I find a place I like, I stick with it and don’t bypass it for something that, at best, might be just as good. I think this all flows from the lesson I learned when we tried Kowloon.
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7 Responses to Kowloon
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I went to Kowloon many times when I was younger and I worked across the street at Big Town Market for several years. Great memories.
Kowloon had a dessert that I loved: pineapple chunks awash in a puddle of creme d’menthe. It is the only place I’ve ever been served that. The rest of their food was good, but not particularly memorable.
Went their as a child. Never have had better Chinese appetizer fried shrimp since.
Oh, dear. I’m salivating. The tastes, the smells and the decor (behind the rows of booths on one side was a recreation of a miniature chinese garden). We went there on Friday nights and one time were met with an odd sign stating that the restaurant was closed to accomodate the wedding party of Margaret O’Brien.
Oh – and the pressed duck – like everything else – was delectable. I have since learned to appreciate other styles of Chinese cooking, but Kowloon’s was best of all.
I would love to find an old menu from there someday….I remember their biggest special was the “Foreign Correspondents Special” — featuring a lot of items — but for the whopping price of $7.50 per person in 1970.
I grew up in Beverlywood, on Olin St, between Robertson & Canfield, but I went to Uni High, and then Santa Monica College, and I remember a lot of my classmates at Uni, and Santa Monica College knew this restaurant as a place that didn’t card people for alcohol, even when it was pretty obvious that they were underage. Of course, back then, in the mid to late 80′s, a lot of places weren’t as strict, and didn’t check ID’s like they do now. Never ate here though, but my family did eat at Wan Q’s on Pico a couple of times.
By the time I went in the 1980s, I don’t think the main selling point was the food. But I do remember them serving a drink called The Scorpion that was served in a big punch bowl, which you sipped from straws. Talk about a potent potable…