[LOS ANGELES TIMES] Yang’s Braised Chicken Rice is hearty winter comfort food

Yang’s founder Xiaolu Yang has braised chicken stew in his blood. His family owned several restaurants in Jinan in the 1930s and he learned to make its signature dish from his grandmother, whom he grew up watching prepare it.

Xiaolu first tried opening a traditional Shandong-style restaurant in Jinan with a full menu, but soon realized everyone only wanted to order his grandmother’s huang men ji. And not only were people ordering the stew, they were getting it with a side of rice that they then mixed in to it, a nontraditional but now-popular way to consume it.

The one-dish concept was born.