My first restaurant review: Mao's Kitchen in Venice Beach

This week-end I decided it MIGHT be fun to write reviews of the restaurants my boyfriend and I have been going to. Lately we decided to try to get out more and try all kinds of new places. So to start out with, yesterday we went to …

Mao's Kitchen – 1512 Pacific Ave. Venice, CA 90291 - one block from Venice Beach.

Getting there: We rode our bikes from West LA (my apartment is a couple blocks from Westwood, near the UCLA campus.) Only taking about 30 minutes, it was an easy ride – especially once we made it down to the bike lanes that line the beaches of Santa Monica, Venice and Marina Del Rey.

Service: “C” for “average”…that is, not especially bad, NOR especially good either. The lady who served us was in a big fat hurry, and so, as my boyfriend said, she was “not a very good listener.” Even though she was in a hurry, it took 4-e-ver for our food to get there. Also, for what it's worth, the entirely non-Asian/predominantly Latino staff created a rather off-kilt sensation amidst the so-called “Chinese proletariat” cafeteria atmosphere.

Atmosphere: Quirky, clever and fun. The menu was amusingly original, for example, offering dishes such as the “Eggplant Pamphlet” (five eggplant-bound volumes filled with shrimp or tofu propaganda), the “People’s potsticker,” and the “Model citizen noodle soup.” Rounding out the sense of our sharing a "workers’" dinner at the commune were the restaurant’s long rows of wooden tables and benches where we customers sat shoulder to shoulder awaiting food for the masses.

Food: What I liked best about this “Chinese” restaurant was that the food was definitely not typically the type of Chinese food you get in United States. That is – there was little to no taste of MSG, and the food did not seem as oily or rich as what I might normally expect. The restaurant seemed to live up to its adverts, which promise “country-style Chinese cooking with Red memories”- although, given the prices, I am not sure what was so truly “Red” about it. If they meant "Red" for communist cheap - then they were way off base. But if they meant you'll see Red because the prices are kinda ridiculous - then maybe. Especially given that we just wanted a snack/lunch, it was a little "pricey." On the other hand ... and to be fair, really... given the gigantic quantity of food we got, it WAS really worth it.

We ordered two noodle dishes (one was technically under the soup list, but anyway…) which were both excellent: #7a, the model citizen noodle soup with beef (long long long noodles), and #14, Bock choy over chow fun with chicken. Yummmm…! I'll definitely go back for sure – but next time I will bring a snack to tide myself over for the long wait until my food gets to the table.