Restaurant: Moon House
Location: 11058 California Route 2, Los Angeles, CA 90025. (310) 966-9988
Date: May 9 & June 2, 2017 and September 22, 2019
Cuisine: Chinese
Rating: Fine “classic” Chinese
As an obsessor over Chinese food and a someone who constantly drives to the SGV for Chinese, I’m always trying to find decent places on the Westside. I can’t remember who told me to check out Moon House, but someone did, probably Sklar.
It’s on Santa Monica Boulevard and isn’t much to look at. The interior has a smidgen of decor.
So two years after my initial foray (which is documented below), I returned with a bunch of Hedonists for a last minute Sunday dinner.
Turns out they even have a private room.
The giant menu.
XLB. Decent enough and like pizza XLB are never truly bad.
Chicken Lettuce Cups. Shades of PF Chang, but not bad actually. Hoisin makes everything good.
Tofu Lettuce Cups — different filling, same idea.
Salt and Pepper Fish. Very soft breading, but pretty delicious.
Sweet and Sour Fish. Same dish, but sweet goopy sauce to make it even better.
“Szechuan” Shrimp. Not actually very Szechuan, but salty and garlicky, so pretty good.
Chicken Egg Foo Young. This is so old school, but it was actually super delicious. Fried omelet with chicken and veggies and yummy sauce.
Pea Leaves.
Half a Peking Duck. Not bad. Not the greatest duck or anything, but it’s still Peking Duck. They do carve it table-side too.
We asked specifically for the “bones” and got a lot more meat.
And then decided we needed even more duck, so ordered another whole duck (two halves).
Tofu with Veggies. Same goopy brown sauce, but I like tofu.
Veggie Crispy Egg Noodle. Simple, and would have been better with meat (we had a bunch of kosher folk) but the noodles were good.
Cumin Lamb. Not hot, but tender and tasty.
Garlic Pork Belly. This was delicious with a nice garlic and onion flavor.
Mutton Hot Pot. This was repulsive. EXTREMELY stinky mutton taste. Interesting vegetables — and I like mutton — but I couldn’t get over the stink.
Regarding this dinner, it was pretty decent, fairly similar quality level to The Palace. And I do love Chinese food, but it’s nowhere near as good as almost any SGV place I’ve been too. Style pretty Chinese American. Although I do have to admit that the Egg Foo Young was great.
Anyway, below is a lunch visit from 2017:
My first visit was just a quick lunch but I had to get hot and sour soup, which was fine. This Chinese American favorite is also a favorite of mine. I liked it as a kid and I still like it.
XLB. Decent enough and like pizza XLB are never truly bad.
Szechuan Pork. Shredded pork, mushroom, onions, red and green pepper stir-fried in hot spicy szechuan sauce. This is a typical (non spicy) dish at Szechuan restaurants. This version was just fine. Not bad really, although hardly great. And they did use MSG.
Spicy Garlic Shrimp. I was hoping for the more orange Szechuan version. This is the pretty much typical Chinese American brown sauce (although it did have a big of chili in the mix) with water chestnuts, green peppers, onions — definitely a “classic” blend.
As far as I could tell with this limited one person lunch sampling, Moon House is a fine Chinese American spot. It’s no SGV rival, but it isn’t the really lousy kind of place all too common in West LA either. So if you just want some cheap Chinese to remind you of your childhood it’s pretty solid.
