Pine & Crane, A Serene Taiwanese Cafe in Silver Lake

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Silver Lake's feng shui is going up about fifty notches with the entrance of Pine & Crane Noodle Co., a light-filled cafe nestled into the heart of Silver Lake. Touting a short, 20-item menu of Taiwanese and Chinese classics like twice-cooked pork, beef noodle soup, potstickers, and farm-fresh veggies, this production by Vivian Ku and chef Allan Lai is sure become a community hub for those wanting a little more SGV without actually trekking there. With a debut planned for either later this month or early April, Pine & Crane was named after Ku's grandfather's noodle shop back in the motherland.

The menu, which is currently in the process of getting whittled down to fewer items, will include a more Taiwanese version of dan dan noodles, jjia jiang mien, and plenty of vegetables from a family farm that will rotate seasonally. So instead of bok choy, one might see a Taiwanese spinich or cabbage variety. Pea shoots will be available year-round because they're grown in the family greenhouse. Also, though most clamshell baos in SGV are sourced somewhere else, Pine & Crane will be baking them in house.

For beverages, six beers on draft run the likes of Coronado Mermaid, Eagle Rock Solidarity, and Racer 5 IPA, though Taiwan beer will be available by the bottle. Wines will be simple at first: two reds and two whites. Instead, Ku and GM Moon Lynn Tsai have a strong focus on tea, with exclusively sourced oolong and black teas all from Taiwan running the gamut of light to fully oxidized. Oh, and they're not forgetting about boba either, so expect to see some of those chewy black balls floating in glasses as well.

When they do open their doors, Pine & Crane will be soft open as a gesture to the local community to come and check out. Once full hours commence shortly after, the place will be open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Sunday to Thursday, and until 11 p.m. on weekends.
·Pine & Crane Noodle Co. Replacing Cru in Silver Lake [~ELA~]