The Yang Chow Dynasty

Those who love Chinese food--and who can resist it?--have something to cheer about in the opening of Hoklai and Anna Chan’s Yang Chow restaurant in Pasadena, the couple’s third establishment under the Yang Chow name in the Los Angeles area. Their new venture gives further proof that the three Yang Chow restaurants are a family affair. Anna Chan’s brother Kim Tak Yun manages the new site. He is a veteran of the Chinatown Yang Chow, which the Chans opened in 1977.

Meanwhile, chef Man Ho Chan, who oversees the kitchens in the Chinatown and Pasadena restaurants, is brother to Hoklai Chan. Many other members of the clan also work for the hospitable Chans, who came to America some 20 years ago from Shanghai via Hong Kong, Switzerland and Germany.

The Pasadena restaurant, like those in Canoga Park and Chinatown, offers a number of Mandarin and Sichuan dishes that keep people coming back to Yang Chow, beginning with a cold, not-to-be-missed appetizer called vegetable goose made with bean curd, mushrooms and bamboo shoots, and continuing with such entrees as lamb with scallions, a spicy concoction called slippery shrimp, and, on the specialties menu, steamed fish fillet with scallions and peppers in a sauce of soy and oil.

Not all of these dishes appear on the menu all the time, and the Chans delight in serving them up to people who ask for them specially.

Appetizers range to $6.95, entrees to $12.50.

On the lunch menu: diced chicken in a hot pepper sauce for $6.55, moo shu pork for $6.55, shrimp with broccoli for $8.15, and dry-sauteed string beans with minced pork for $6.25, among other items.

The new restaurant is at 3777 Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, (626) 432-6868. The Canoga Park Yang Chow, which the Chans opened 19 years ago, is at 6443 Topanga Canyon Blvd., (818) 347-2610. The original Yang Chow is in Los Angeles’ Chinatown at 819 N. Broadway, (213) 625-0811.

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Those who, on the other hand, love a good cigar and good music may cheer the appearance of an unusual lounge, the Havana Banana Cigar Co., in Old Town Calabasas.

Opened about four months ago, Havana Banana serves no food at all, but if you hanker for a good cigar and a drink after a meal elsewhere, it’s the place for you. Havana Banana offers a full bar and sells a wide variety of cigars and other tobacco products. It also offers live music Friday and Saturday nights.

“This is our first place,� says Craig Miller, who runs Havana Banana with his wife, Rosa. “The thing that makes us unique is that we’re an elegant lounge and a place where people can smoke a pipe or a cigar.

“We have a chess table, or you can sit and smoke your favorite cigar and read a book or watch sports on our big-screen TV.�

Havana Banana is open from 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and 10:30 a.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday, when there is live music.

“On Sundays we draw a completely different crowd--all the guys, the doctors and lawyers, from around here who drive Harleys on weekends,� Miller says. “So on Sundays we say that we’re open from 10:30 a.m. until the last ash drops that night, whenever that happens to occur.�

Havana Banana Cigar Co., 23504-B Calabasas Road, abuts the site of the Farmers’ Market held Saturday mornings in Calabasas. Call (818) 224-4286.

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Majic Khabaz, whose resume shows stints at some of Southern California’s best restaurants, has taken over the lease of the defunct Loozy Anne’s Cafe in Agoura and reopened as Cafe California, offering an eclectic mix of cuisines--California, French, Italian and Latin--at prices under $10.95.

Khabaz and partner Ahmad Shams, who took over the lease in early March, had variety in mind when they created the menu for Cafe California, in large part because the state itself plays host to so many ethnic groups, each with a different culinary heritage.

“That’s what California itself is--a melting pot,� Khabaz says, “and that’s why we offer a little bit of everything in the cafe.�

Cafe California is at 28700 Roadside Drive, Agoura, (818) 707-6286.

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* Juan Hovey writes about the restaurant scene in the San Fernando Valley and outlying points. He may be reached at (805) 492-7909 or fax (805) 492-5139 or via e-mail at JH[email protected]