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SGV’s Sichuan Impression Expands With a Fast Casual to Chinatown

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The popular Sichuan restaurant goes into the crowded Far East Plaza

Sichuan Impression
Sichuan Impression
Bill Addison
Farley Elliott is the Senior Editor at Eater LA and the author of Los Angeles Street Food: A History From Tamaleros to Taco Trucks. He covers restaurants in every form, from breaking news to the culture, people, and history that surrounds LA's dining landscape.

It’s getting crowded at Far East Plaza in Chinatown, the open-air mall that currently holds LASA, Endorffeine, Chego!, Lao Tao, and of course Howlin’ Ray’s. Next up is a fast casual offshoot of Sichuan Impression, the impossibly-popular spicy Chinese restaurant.

Per Food & Wine, Sichuan Impression will be partnering up with Ivy Wei of Fat Dragon (who, before that, spent years at Yang Chow) to move into an unknown and still-unnamed space at the plaza, with a slated opening to happen later this year. The team is keeping the full concept close to the vest for now, but did tell writer Andy Wang that there will be some classics from the Sichuan Impression repertoire, like those famous tea-smoked ribs. Otherwise expect noodles, rice dishes, and other menu items meant to please the multi-cultural crowds.

Sichuan Impression is largely considered to be one of the best Sichuanese restaurants in all of America. Its legions of fans certainly know it, as the company has been able to expand somewhat quickly to Orange County and, soon, even to the Westside. That said, they’re keen to move beyond the usual customers and into a wider audience base, hence the push to a more straightforward menu and this new Chinatown location. The fast casual model could also become easily replicable, meaning it’s possible there would be multiple locations in just a few short years’ time.

Far East Plaza
727 N. Broadway
Los Angeles, CA