Post #274051 by TIKIBOSKO on Wed, Dec 20, 2006 5:09 PM

The correct spelling is Yee Mee Loo and the “lounge” area was known as “Kwan Yin Temple”. The cocktail bar area was a dark dive-ish place we would frequent down in Chinatown back in the 80’s. To my friends and I it was home of the mysterious “blue drink” I recall thinking they tasted really great but I have a feeling if I gave it a try now it wouldn’t be so great an experience. They had an old antique Chinese style thing for the back bar (I assume this was the Temple in Kwan Yin?). Everything behind the bar looked like it had started leaning in an earthquake and stopped, we’d sit there transfixed looking at this portal to the orient, all the lamps, booze bottles and the setting before us.

Below is their amazing matchbook art with right to left captioned cartoon, there was always some debate whether this was intentional or a Chinese translation problem?

Interestingly the main portion of the back bar decor was saved and has a new lease on life behind the bar of a (new) uninspiring restaurant down in Glendale. But looking at it in it’s current environment is kind of sad, (I would never have recognized it) it painfully lacks without the cool depth of the original locale, all that layering with everything stained in nicotine, a dark bar room in Chinatown. The place is on Brand (I think), although I haven’t been there in a few years maybe it’s gone by now too?

My very best alohas,

Bosko