Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Feast From The East, West LA

A Small Chinese Chicken Salad

Why go to some place called Feast From The East and eat something called Chinese Chicken Salad when I'm just a few hours away from boarding my flight back to Asia? Because Chinese Chicken Salad is actually American rather than Chinese. And Feast From the East (1949 Westwood Blvd, 310-475-0400) is simply the one of the best at it. I used to come here a long time ago, and back then, they were just a tiny little hole in the wall with basically nowhere to sit. It looks like they have since expanded to have a full seating area, complete with silverware and food brought to your table. Wow...I guess they've been doing really well.

Anyway, what makes this one in particular so great is their ingredients: perfectly shredded chicken and generous heapings of almonds, sesame seeds, scallions, and deep fried wonton skin strips. Bring it all together with their mildly oily and sweet but killer sesame dressing, and all these random pieces suddenly hum together in harmony. Awesome.

They do have other things on the menu, but I've never tried any of it. To be honest, they don't sound like anything great, be it Vegetables & Black Bean Sauce, Teriyaki, or Spicy Thai Green Beans. Their Sesame Chicken Wings ("the best Asian fried chicken in town," so they claim) could be interesting, but I don't think I'd go out of my way to try it. For me, this place is good at the chicken salad, and that's my sole reason for coming here.

3 comments:

DK said...

I don't know why, but this Chinese Chicken Salad look like the Lo Hei that we eat during Chinese New Year season.

Except we use fish instead of chicken.

bma said...

Hey - good point. I didn't even realize that. Yeah, it is a bit similar, especially with the wonton skins.

Most of the Singaporean versions that I've had tended to be sweeter though, and obviously the American one doesn't do any salad tossing, but you're right...it is a bit similar in taste at the end of the day, even if the American one is much more lettuce-based.

Anonymous said...

THB, Try the Feast from the East Sesame Chicken. You won't regret it.

FA
Los Angeles