I decided to host an early Chinese New Year dinner banquet with our LA Sushi & Asian Foodies group and originally figured 10-20 of our group would like to step out and fight the mid week LA traffic and join me in sharing a Chinese Banquet . Hop Li's is not a big place, but it's off the beaten path and so tourists will never find this place. My family (I'm Chinese) has been coming here for MANY years. I been here and dined at countless banquets celebrating birthdays, weddings, nieces/nephews Red Egg and Ginger (1 yr old) parties and there's always been a couple of dishes I didn't like so I thought this would be a great opportunity to order all the dishes I wanted so it was fun!
After I posted the event, it filled instantly within minutes, so I add another table of 10, filled, another and another table until finally we had about 60 RSVP! Figuring on the flake out factor, I went to the restaurant a day in advance to give them my menu and the order I want them served and negotiated with them free corkage. We had a total of 50 Foodies attend this event and about 8 brought wine or champagne so that was a great savings! See the menu below
Sizzling Rice Soup
Peking Duck
Minced Squab with bamboo shoots & lettuce
Sizzling Beef Steak * with black pepper sauce
Pacific Red Snapper rock cod Whole - Steamed w/special sauce
Crab With Garlic And Black Bean Sauce*
Shrimp with honey glazed walnut
Hot & Spicy Eggplant *
Chinese Broccoli with Oyster Sauce
Steamed rice
House Special Pan Fried Noodle With Sizzling Platter shrimp, chicken, beef, b.b.q. pork, baby scallop and vegetable
I thought they did a great job. The service was excellent, food was great and they were all very accommodating. The total cost including tax and tip was only $20 per person! I'm thinking of doing it again and as a joint event with the www.LAfoodies.org group and maybe jam the place up with about 100 of us! This is a great place for groups. The parking can be a bit tough but they do have a free parking lot across the street for about 15-20 cars and free street parking within a 2 block radius and there's plenty of paid lots for $3-5. If you host a big group and want to have an early weeknight dinner, I think the hot tip is to tell people to arrive at 6:01pm and the street will be completely wide open for free street parking because before 6pm it's No Stopping everywhere.
I kept the menu price down by avoiding the high end dishes such as Shark Fin or bird's nest soup or lobsters, but I think that the dinner we got for the money was a real deal! This is the kind of food I'm used to (Cantonese) so it tasted really good to me. Others used to Mandarin or other styles or regions of Chinese cooking may not have enjoyed it as much as I did. Example: The Peking duck here was cooked exactly the way I like it and used to it. Whereas others are used to the style like Lu Din Gee's Peking Duck which I wasn't bowled over, so we all have our taste preferences and no restaurant or meal will ever be the best of the best to everyone.
I'm planning another major banquet and we'll probably try to jam 100+ foodies in here.
After I posted the event, it filled instantly within minutes, so I add another table of 10, filled, another and another table until finally we had about 60 RSVP! Figuring on the flake out factor, I went to the restaurant a day in advance to give them my menu and the order I want them served and negotiated with them free corkage. We had a total of 50 Foodies attend this event and about 8 brought wine or champagne so that was a great savings! See the menu below
Sizzling Rice Soup
Peking Duck
Minced Squab with bamboo shoots & lettuce
Sizzling Beef Steak * with black pepper sauce
Pacific Red Snapper rock cod Whole - Steamed w/special sauce
Crab With Garlic And Black Bean Sauce*
Shrimp with honey glazed walnut
Hot & Spicy Eggplant *
Chinese Broccoli with Oyster Sauce
Steamed rice
House Special Pan Fried Noodle With Sizzling Platter shrimp, chicken, beef, b.b.q. pork, baby scallop and vegetable
I thought they did a great job. The service was excellent, food was great and they were all very accommodating. The total cost including tax and tip was only $20 per person! I'm thinking of doing it again and as a joint event with the www.LAfoodies.org group and maybe jam the place up with about 100 of us! This is a great place for groups. The parking can be a bit tough but they do have a free parking lot across the street for about 15-20 cars and free street parking within a 2 block radius and there's plenty of paid lots for $3-5. If you host a big group and want to have an early weeknight dinner, I think the hot tip is to tell people to arrive at 6:01pm and the street will be completely wide open for free street parking because before 6pm it's No Stopping everywhere.
I kept the menu price down by avoiding the high end dishes such as Shark Fin or bird's nest soup or lobsters, but I think that the dinner we got for the money was a real deal! This is the kind of food I'm used to (Cantonese) so it tasted really good to me. Others used to Mandarin or other styles or regions of Chinese cooking may not have enjoyed it as much as I did. Example: The Peking duck here was cooked exactly the way I like it and used to it. Whereas others are used to the style like Lu Din Gee's Peking Duck which I wasn't bowled over, so we all have our taste preferences and no restaurant or meal will ever be the best of the best to everyone.
I'm planning another major banquet and we'll probably try to jam 100+ foodies in here.
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