Northern Cafe & Chinese Dumpling House — Restaurant in Los Angeles

I love Asian cuisine. Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, it does not matter which. I love them all. After continually walking past "Northern Cafe" for many months I decided that now was as good a time as any to try their cuisine. I placed an order with Grub Hub but elected to get some exercise and walk over and pick it up instead of delivery. The first thing you notice about "Northern Cafe" from the outside is that it is a very appealing and inviting restaurant. Upon entering I noticed that they have a much larger dining area than I had originally thought. The restaurant was also very clean and the fragrance of cooking food wafted in the air adding to the inviting feel. I had very little interaction with the staff but the lady behind the counter was very friendly and inviting. I picked up my food and headed home to feast. Before getting to the food, I should comment that this location has already housed many different restaurants since the complex it is in was completed. No one restaurant has lasted more than a couple years in this location and I think that has a lot to do with its location. This is prime tourist location for the Hollywood walk of Fame. The restaurant is also half a block away from the W hotel and a major subway stop for L. A. 's Metro subway line. You would think that these would all be big pluses for an upstart restaurant but things don't always work that way. The prime location alone makes the monthly lease payments very high. The fact that the building has been renovated and is in great condition and the restaurant itself is a good sized location simply adds to how high the monthly lease rates are. A young restaurant will need to do a lot of business to be profitable at this location. Not one restaurant has been able to survive at this location so far. Bad cooking may have been the downfall for a few of those restaurants but I know from prior experiences that not every past restaurant was plagued with bad cooking. I fear that "Northern Cafe" will be the next victim of greedy landlords. But let's get into the food. I had ordered Mongolian Beef and Orange Chicken. The ingredients of both dishes were fresh and both dishes were properly cooked. They also had wonderful fragrances that made my stomach growl. The Mongolian Beef was a bit of a disappointment for me though. It was somewhat bland tasting and left me feeling that there was so much potential for the dish that was left out. I get the feeling that this is intentional though. This is a big tourist area. Many of those tourists come from other parts of the U. S. that are rural or do not have large Asian populations like Los Angeles does. The owners of "Northern Cafe" know this and they have "Americanized" many of their dishes to make them more palatable for tourists that are not used to Asian spices. Don't get me wrong, the dish was not bad. I enjoyed it but at the same time found it disappointing that the flavor was on the bland side. The "Orange Chicken" was very good tasting though and I thoroughly enjoyed that dish. "Northern Cafe" already shows good skill and great promise but I fear that it will become just another forgotten victim of its location and greedy landlords. And...

My new wife and I came stopped by during our honeymoon. I was feeling dumplings and just so happened to see this shop, so decided to pop on in. The waiter was pleasant but it took a while before they came to take our order. (We did come in an awkward time around 2:30p ish.)

We ordered just dumplings. I ordered some pork and shrimp dumplings, veggie dumplings, juicy soup dumplings, and fried pork shrimp dumplings. It was a fairly long wait for them. Which is dont mind given the food is tasty. All the dumplings came out in quick succession. The steamed pork and shrimp dumplings were pretty good. They tasted very similar to the ones I make myself at home. Kind of surreal but chalk one up to knowing it's homemade! The fried ones (my wife's fave) were good as well. The veggie dumplings were sooo close to tasting like my mom's. My mom adds a few additional ingredients that elevate hers over these, but they were very good.

For the soup dumplings, here in lies my disappointment. Most of the dumplings broke, letting the juices seep out into the steam basket. I've eaten soup dumplings many many times and the bottoms of these dumplings were just wrapped a little too thin. When I did manage to get some of the soup into a spoon and not leaking everywhere, it was a little underwhelming. The soup wasn't as rich and the meat was a bit too firm (for my tastes) decent flavor but I've had better.

Overall, this is a lovely dumpling restaurant. There were many other items I would love to try, maybe on my next visit. If you're looking for some simple home cooked dumplings give this place a try. Decently...

I am not sure why this restaurant doesn't get better ratings. Let me explain - I am a Singaporean Chinese in my 30s and this is by far one of the best Chinese food I've eaten in my life. My husband and I got the sour cabbage/sauerkraut with beef noodles, chilli oil pork wontons and pot stickers through Uber Eats and we honestly didn't expect much.

Surprisingly, the dumplings were very juicy and meaty!! Usually, Chinese restaurants would just serve vinegar on the side for the pot stickers but our dipping sauce was quite different - besides vinegar, there were also garlic bits and what I might suspect was sour plum juice? The chilli oil pork wontons were also not too spicy or acidic, but full-bodied and not overwhelming.

As for the beef noodles, the soup was just perfect on a (not too cold) winter night. Again, it was not overly sour to stomach and had a nice well-rounded flavour. Though the noodles were slightly soggy from the delivery, my husband and I didn't mind it too much because we were busy downing the delicious soup. It probably would have been better if we ate at the shop itself with everything piping hot!

What a way to end my last night in LA! Great food with American-sized portions with Chinese flavour intensity!!! My husband even said that he would drive one full...