Eater was present as the announcement was made by Yujean Kang’s Gourmet Chinese in Pasadena last night. After 20 plus years, chef Kang, owner of the eponymous joint, will shutter his landmark eatery on July 22:
We signed the new lease back in 2006 just before everything went bad and we are stuck with a very high lease especially for today's standards. So after all these years and months ... this morning our landlord finally willing to work with us on the rent reduction. I decided to closed this location on Sunday July 22, 2012 due to the slow economy here in S Cal ... meanwhile I like to take a few weeks off and regain my vision about food.RIP Restaurant Kang. It was a haven for "classic" (think hundreds of years) gradiose Chinese banquet cuisine which used seasonal ingredients before the farm-to-table glut ever invaded the US. Yujean Kang’s withstood the invasion of the cheap Chinese regional cuisine in nearby West San Gabriel Valley during the last decade, but it was the economic downturn that finally shuttered the house which chef Kang single-handedly built during the 90s. Stay tuned to see where he ventures next. [EaterWire]