Yi Pin promotes itself as a Chongqing restaurant, and 7 of us enjoyed an awesome meal filled with highlights. Of eight dishes, our only letdown was the one “HK” style dish we ordered. Or maybe it just wound up on our table…
We had:
Sliced conch in chili oil
Lotus root with chili sauce
Pan long eggplant
Cumin flavor crispy pig feet
Spiced beef burrito
Hot and spicy fish filet with cumin
HK style pork rib with garlic seasoning
Fish filet with sour cabbage
The conch was first to come out and was impressively prepared:
Next was the lotus root, served extra crispy and firm:
Pan long eggplant. This came out piping hot in a faintly sweet sauce. Great texture:
Fish with sour cabbage. Although served in a huge tureen, like a soup, this was very rich and could be eaten by just scooping out the fish, tofu, cabbage, and bean threads. Not as sour as I thought it would be, but redolant with garlic. This was a complete delight:
Crispy pig feet. An ideal version of pig feet:
Our one mistake. Although the mound of seasoning looks impressive, this was simply a rather boring rendition of the excellent pig feet we already had. I thought we didn’t order this, but it came anyway:
Beef burrito ( 牛肉卷饼). Despite the name, the Chinese here indicates it’s the same dish as a typical beef roll that is quite common out in LA and in many areas of China. I like the pancake part crispier and hotter, but this was a very pleasant diversion. I could do without the hoisin sauce squiggled on top:
And finally the cumin fish was in mostly thin and crispy and chewy slices that were a great delight:
Both fish dishes and the pig feet stood out, but I found it all to be a great pleasure.
