Golden City
960 N. Hill St.
Los Angeles
213-253-2660
Going to a Chinese restaurant on Chinese New Year's Eve isn't a good idea because all Chinese restaurants will be packed, I mean packed. But a very cool girl I recently met, organized a Chinese New Year dinner for 44 people!!! She put together a ten course menu with some traditional Chinese New Year dishes all for $28 tax and tip included. You can't beat that deal. I only ate and took pictures of seven dishes. I do not eat oysters, egg plant, or squab, which is pigeon.
Hot and sour soup: Very good more sour than hot. But nice thick brooth, lots and lots of bamboo shoots and mushrooms. A very good soup and at $7.50 on the menu a steal!!!
Szechwan Mar-Po Bean Curd, which is tofu in a gravy with some peppers. This was an excellent dish, not spicy at all. The tofu soaked up the flavors fo the gravy and the peppers added more flavor. $8.50 on the menu.
Pan fried string beans, $8.95. Another great dish. Lots of fresh, crispy string beans, fried with some groud pork and seasoned well. I think this dish was my favorite.
Braised Yee-Fu Noodles. On Chinese New Year, you have to eat noodles since they represent long life. So you are not suppose to cut the noodles. The noodles were thick and sauteed in XO sauce with some mushrooms and cabbage. $7.95 on the menu.
Steamed cod, as you can see we got two whole cod. Eating fish during Chinese New Year, represents togetherness and abundance. The fish was a bit bland but fresh and well steamed.
Sizzling beef steak with black pepper sauce, $13.50. At most Chinese places, the black pepper beef steak has a ton of black pepper, but here there wasn't that much black pepper at all. I thought the beef was a bit tough, not as tender as some places. Still a good dish, though I've had much better.
Whole fried chicken, $19.50 on the menu. The whole chicken was presented with the head, feet, and tail. Chicken represents prosperity and the whole chicken means completeness. So we had the head, feet and tail on the plate. The chicken was a bit salty but tender and had a lot of meat. The skin was crispy.
Service was pretty good consider our group of 44 was almost half the restaurant. But I heard the servers tell a couple women at my table, "Later, Later" when they asked for water or tea. At times they took awhile to get more water and tea. But overall the service was pretty good.
Golden City is billed as a seafood restaurant and I would go back there for the crab and lobster. Overall the dishes we had today was good. I was very impressed with the string beans, noodles, and tofu. I had a great time here and the hostess was awesome. Glad I got a spot at the last minute.
