Kowloon: Cantonese Cuisine

Headed by George Lim and Joe Ho, Kowloon was a Chinese restaurant located at 6124 West Pico Boulevard. Likely active from the 50s into the 70s, guests enjoyed their cuisine in a bamboo-lined environment shaded in rich hues of red and yellow. A bygone restaurant, not much remains of Kowloon except for menus and other paraphernalia. Research findings amounted to newspaper clippings with only sporadic mentions of the restaurant, yet this shouldn’t imply it lacks significance. An amalgamation of numerous contexts, the restaurant was founded upon the pillars of immigration, Chinese cuisine, and the surrounding neighborhoods.

George Lim & Immigration George Lim, a Kowloon native, immigrated to the United States and brought his culture with him. When Lim arrived in California he missed his home food and decided to study as a cook to resolve that problem. In California, he worked in American, Chinese, and French restaurants, adapting to each food culture. He realized he needed to learn how to cook authentic Kowloon food, so for months he sought out the greatest chef in Kowloon (Lim 2). After apprenticing, Lim became the equal of his chef. Lim left his family, moved back to California, and opened a restaurant with Joe Ho, Kowloon Cantonese Cuisine (2). His immigration from his homeland to America allowed him to bring his food culture to America. Lim opened his first restaurant in the late 1950s, years before the Immigration Reform of 1965. Prior to the law, Americans looked down on Chinese immigrants. Although they only made up five percent of all immigrants, they received excess negative attention (Walter 1). The discrimination Chinese people endured resulted from popular American beliefs that the country should stay white and European-descended (1). Despite that fact and after countless immigration struggles, the reforms catapulted the Asian-American cultural network. The act abolished the quota ideal, and instead based entry to the United States on skills a prospective entrant could offer and reuniting families that separated because of the earlier immigration laws. Although the restaurant is now closed, Kowloon Cuisine, a result of Chinese immigration, managed to make the newspapers in its early days. In 1969, Lim’s restaurant opening in Chinatown made Rafu Shimpo, a less than popular newssheet targeted to the Japanese-American population. Despite the newspaper’s unpopularity, Lim received political customers. The Los Angeles mayor who ran for governor at that time, Sam Yorty, held a cocktail reception at Kowloon to campaign (Rafu Shimpo 1). Despite Lim pushing for Yorty as governor, he lost with an unimpressive twenty-six percent vote. This low vote resulted from Yorty’s previous scandals. His affiliation to the Kowloon Cuisine could also be a factor of the restaurant’s decline in popularity.

Authenticity of the Food After the 1965 Immigration Act, large waves of Chinese came to Los Angeles, and the population growth led some Chinese restaurants to serve more authentic Chinese foods. This phenomenon seemed to be limited to Monetary Park and the San Gabriel Valley, where new immigrants gathered. To attract local American customers, most restaurants still served Americanized Chinese food that catered to western preference (Liu 107). In Kowloon Cantonese Cuisine’s menu, there were sixteen types of chop suey, a totally Americanized Chinese food that was never found in China. Other Americanized food also appeared on the menu, such as bacon-wrapped shrimp and rumakie. Moreover, the restaurant served rum and cocktails rather than traditional Chinese beverages such as oolong tea, bringing South Seas and Caribbean flavor to the restaurant (Kowloon 8). The other Cantonese dishes at Kowloon Cantonese Cuisine were quite authentic. George Lim was not only the owner of the restaurant but also a chef, and he spent two years learning Cantonese cooking from the best chef in Kowloon before he opened the restaurant (Dwan O57). His professional knowledge ensured the Cantonese food’s authenticity and taste. In China’s eight regional cuisines, Cantonese cuisine might be the most similar to western cuisine, because of international trade, many westerners chose to live in Canton, and their food preferences gradually became a part of Cantonese food. Thus, authentic Cantonese food was not hard for Americans to accept, and along with several Americanized dishes, Kowloon Cantonese Cuisine became very popular.

The Los Angeles Times The Los Angeles Times gave several accounts of Kowloon in the 1960s. Joan Winchell and Lois Dwan wrote articles or snippets about different aspects of the popular Cantonese restaurant. The restaurant’s impact was clear, and impressive to many. Joan Winchell praised the restaurant for its reputation and appearance in an unspecified holiday magazine, and gives an interesting quote that suggests Kowloon is the best Cantonese food in California (Winchell A24). Lois Dwan explains the origins of George Lim’s restaurant, and how he originally understood French cooking and went to China to learn Cantonese cuisine. Dwan explains how Lim originally owned Normandie but decided that French cuisine was not what he wanted to pursue in life. Dawn explains the types of dishes served at Lim’s Cantonese restaurant, and tells of Lim’s “seven rules to happy dining”, which consisted of “Try a new dish every time, Chinese food is almost infinite in variety, Give us time to give you pleasure, Chinese banquets are optimized for 10 people…” and so on (Dwan O57).

Surrounding Neighborhoods 6124 West Pico Boulevard is no longer an active address, as newer business have overtaken the original building. Near the intersection of West Pico and La Cienega Boulevard, the restaurant sat on the border of two different neighborhoods, Carthay to the north and Pico-Robertson to the west. Based on information from the Los Angeles Department of City Planning (LADCP), Carthay was founded by J. Harvey McCarthy in the 1920s and was home to the Carthay Circle Theatre during Hollywood’s Golden Age, holding premieres for major films like Gone with the Wind and Snow White (LADCP). Following World War II and mass suburbanization, the theatre closed and Carthay declined as a commercial area. This economic shift likely played a part in Kowloon’s demise, but this was not the only nearby neighborhood.

West of Kowloon lies the Pico-Robertson neighborhood, which has become the center of LA’s Jewish community. The area became popular among Jews after World War II, but “German Ashkenazi Jews were the first to make the area home in the 1910s” (Garner). By the 1930s Pico-Robertson was no longer unpopulated farmland, but a complete neighborhood “with a mix of single-family and apartment buildings that were within easy walking distance of the shopping and business districts” (Garner). The main hub for Jewish Angelenos, there are plenty of kosher restaurants with some even serving kosher Chinese food (Garner). Did Kowloon adapt their cuisine at time to fit kosher needs? More importantly, did they acknowledge this nearby Jewish community at all? Kowloon bordered these two neighborhoods. Without strong ties to either one it could have blended into both of them, taking into account its surrounding economic and cultural landscape.

Kowloon Cantonese Cuisine Menu, Collection of Menus, 1900-1999. Image courtesy of UCLA Library Special Collections.

Kowloon Cantonese Cuisine Menu, Collection of Menus, 1900-1999. Image courtesy of UCLA Library Special Collections.

Letter about Kowloon Cantonese Cuisine by Richard Sharpe, Collection of Menus, 1900-1999. Image courtesy of UCLA Library Special Collections.

Newspaper clippings, Collection of Menus, 1900-1999. Image courtesy of UCLA Library Special Collections.

Works cited

1. Carthay Circle. “Carthay Circle.” Office of Historic Resources, City of Los Angeles, Office of Historic Resources, City of Los Angeles, 26 June 2015
2. Carthay Circle Theatre. “Carthay Circle Theatre (Demolished).” Los Angeles Conservancy, Los Angeles Conservancy, 30 Aug. 2014
3. Carthay Square. “Carthay Square.” Office of Historic Resources, City of Los Angeles, Office of Historic Resources, City of Los Angeles, 26 June 2015
4. Chiland, Elijah. “Exploring Carthay: LA’s Other Smallest Neighborhood.” Curbed LA, 20 Sept. 2016
5. Dwan, Lois. “ROUNDABOUT.” Los Angeles Times (1923-Current File), Jul 20, 1969, pp. 3-57, ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Los Angeles Times
6. Garner, Scott. “Neighborhood Spotlight: Pico-Robertson an Evolving Hub of Jewish Culture.” Los Angeles Times, 3 Feb. 2017
7. Kowloon Cantonese Cuisine, Collection of Menus (Collection 1306, Box 10). Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
8. Liu, Haiming. From Canton Restaurant to Panda Express: A History of Chinese Food in the United States. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London, 2015.
9. RafuShimpo. “Los Angeles-Nagoya Sister City Affiliation Party at George Lim’s Restaurant in Chinatown, Los Angeles, California, August 1969.”
10. Walter, Yvonne. “Asian Americans and American Immigration and Naturalization Policy.” American Studies Journal
11. Winchell, Joan.”AROUND TOWN with JOAN WINCHELL.” Los Angeles Times (1923-Current File), Nov 04, 1962, pp. A24, ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Los Angeles Times

Cite this article

Dylan Berzabal, Ouxun Jiang, Chelsea Lawson, Stephanie Perez, Melisa Sales. "Kowloon: Cantonese Cuisine." Los Angeles: The City and the Library. Colleen Jauretche, Editor. Fall 2017. /article/2017-12-20-f17-01