Mapo Chicken in Koreatown, 2000th Cafelala Post

This is the 2000th post for Cafelala. It's been an amazing seventeen years.

I can't thank everyone enough for the continued encouragement to continue this. Certainly, there's no shortage of LA eateries to discover.

For the 2000th post, I asked Jeff Mohr to meet me and we went to Mapo Chicken,  1008 South St Andrews Place, LA CA 90019.

The cozy one room restaurant has been around for decades but this was both of our first time there. There's no English spoken but they understand English so please feel welcome.

The obvious and recommended menu item is the spicy chicken, after all it's in their title. Our server did all the cooking at our table. She was very nice and apparently very used to novices like us who are enthusiastic foodies but a bot clueless as to how to cook this style of food.

I admit, Jeff and I , although always open, was a little skeptical at first. There was something underwhelming with the prep and ingredients. Is this going to be enough? but about ten minutes into the sizzling and steam it started to all make sense.

Even though there's delicious Bancha, there was something of a doubt that this one dish cooking on the plate is going to be a meal for the two of us. Well, when we started to eat the spicy chicken, it was an AHA moment and we barely finished it. One order for the two of us, was more than enough.

We ordered it medium spicy which was perfect for us. With the occasional spice induced cough and steamy-hotness in your mouth, the food was absolutely delicious. Any more spicy and I would be afraid I wouldn't have been able to taste the savory depth of this dish. 

I would go back any day.

The few hours reunited with Jeffe, who was so often at the meals of which I posted in the first several years of this blog, were heartwarming and nostalgic. The perfect dinner companion to celebrate the 2000th meal on Cafelala. Thank you Jeffe and thank you everyone! Looking forward to more posts.