The Empress Restaurant

The Empress Restaurant

The restaurant is in Los Angeles and it is a place filled with families, and children all over the place. It has great aromas, from shrimp to ginger hot tea.

The Empress was very crowded, and I saw the families with their seat numbers waiting patiently to be called and placed. There were a few dozen customers waiting. The Empress is the largest restaurant in Chinatown, so it is important I would imagine going out to eat there.  This was so different than when I was growing up, the meals were quiet and alone. Usually very boring. Here I see the Chinese culture and it was a very different feeling. The families stayed close together and the father was in charge. 

The tables at Empress were busy with families having a great food experience. The food items are dim sum, a type of appetizer that is beloved by many, and some soups and the main menu. Steam carts would come around to tables and we could choose what we wanted. I wasn’t very sure always what I was ordering, as they spoke little English. It was a unique experience being one of the few that didn’t speak Chinese in the restaurant. I felt like a real outsider trying to understand what the ingredients of the foods were, and not knowing how to ask. That is very unusual, it was an uncomfortable feeling.

The flavors and tastes were all foreign to me. There were very few signs in English. I would never have mixed a bun with sweet beans or ate tofu and white rice at a meal. I recognized the fried rice, we have a similar rice, nuts and raisins dish, but their flavors were all new to me. Some I liked, some were too spicy or fishy smelling.

They had large tanks with live fish, lobsters, and crabs. It was like being in a large aquarium. I enjoy being able to see the fish, although I couldn’t imagine killing one after picking it from a tank. The restaurant was very clean, and the staff made sure that problems were quickly taken care of. The food was also very different than I was used to. Most of our meals are centered around salads, cheeses, vegetables, olives and cooked or smoked fish. Here they ate a lot of rice and bread-based dim sum.

The experience of eating in the restaurant had a surrounding ethnic feeling since the music was playing throughout the meal. I had not heard this type of Asian styled music before and it was very different than my own variety of sounds.

The families ate and laughed, and the children ran around with an at home feeling, this was very different to my culture. They shared all the food, with large family sized portions being placed on the table. I even noticed some people looking at me and some kids asking questions about me. That was a strange feeling. At my house, children were not allowed to run around or make a lot of noise. At the Empress, kids did what they wanted, and the parents let it all go, and they were fine. It appeared that they even encouraged it. We shared a similar feeling of family. My family ate all their meals together and we would wait for my father before starting our meal.

The Chinese culture is very prominent in Los Angeles. Some refer to la County as the Capital of Asian America. In a recent research report, A Community of Contrasts: Asian American Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders in Los Angeles County it says that the Asian American population has grown by 20 percent. The report also confirms that Los Angeles as the capital of Asian Americans.