Jando S.
Yelp
Whenever I'm in Oregon and feening for Chinese, I have my haunts in Portland. It's a rare thing for me to be in Salem as it is nowadays, let alone eat Chinese food here. Due to a family event, many of us found ourselves here at Yan Yan (顏顏). My expectations were incredibly low, but they managed to surprise me with a number of family style dishes.
Situated right next to the infamous Wing Wa market (#1) Yan Yan has a bigger parking lot than they do a restaurant, which is fairly cramped quarters when it comes down to it. When my family came in to claim the reservation, the cute waitress ran into the kitchen screaming, "Help! They're speaking Chinese!" It's clear that we're not the usual customer base.
I took a peak at their menu, which is almost all Americanized Chinese food. The usual suspects, everything from from general tso's to almond chicken, were here. Some infamous items like egg foo young or mongolian beef and some head scratchers like hawaii chicken (?) and something called a triple dragon. Most of the food is in the sub $10-13 range, which in 2019 is considered fairly affordable.
The dishes they prepared for us however, were a slew of authentic dishes (well, mostly). Huge portions for our massive group was key and they did not disappoint. We were able to rock an assorment of dried up shrimp fried rice, special combination chow fun, Chinese broccoli in garlic sauce, some roast pork siu yuk with crispy skin and fatty meat, roast duck and steamed chicken (#2), salt and pepper squid, and some egg drop soup served in a big metal bucket. A little ghetto, but very awesome.
All in all, the food was passable but this was truly an extraordinary feat since they clearly went out of their way to make this happen for us. The service was diligent and friendly, despite the cultural barrier and I like to think that our experience was truly a unique one.
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(#1) Good ol Wing Wa (永華市場) is one of the only Asian markets in Salem. The fact it calls itself an "Oriental" market is a solid indication of how long it's been around (decades!).
(#2) It's also highly plausible the meats actually from Wing Wa's BBQ section. I still enjoyed regardless.