Yiran & Grill

Used to come here when portions were a little bigger and prices were cheaper. But now it is more expensive and smaller portions and not as good.

Good flavor with the right tasting sauce and spice. The lamb and beef skew meat was little tough. Will be back!

Found roaches in their cold noodles after we finished the dish. Freaking disgusting! Yet the cook insist it’s a overcooked sesame.

I was there this noon to take my lunch. I love their sticky tofu, squid so much. Their sour & hot glass noodle is ok, not bad. The boy over the counter is pretty nice and helpful. It’s a quite place, not so many clients. So I like go there to enjoy my lunch. I don’t like crowded place for lunch though.

$ 25 for 3 pound lamb for hot pot.
It’s very good quality!
The meet quality is as good as Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot.
I can stay home and still can enjoy very delicious hot pot at home!

I loved their lamb and sausage mostly.
I couldnt eat them without rice since i enjoyed so much. Must put spicy pepper powder on the table for meet. I would definitely come back again with my gf since i came with my chinese brother.

I love love love the squid legs skewer. It’s grilled to perfection and the sauce is fantastic. The dry spices is a bit too strong for me personally but you can always ask them not to put it on the squid.

Try to look beyond the stars if you crave authentic northern Chinese cuisine.
I’m from SF, and finding authentic northern Chinese eats is like picking out a needle in a haystack in NorCal, which is why I would trip down to get my fix here: spotlights on the lamb skewer. The food here brings back my childhood memories of shanty diners down the block that charges pennies for what I found here. After my recent dining experience, I was a little surprised to find the deteriorating ratings, only to discover that most of the low commentaries target the service with a few negative opinions on the food itself plus the one reviewer who would be better served at a buffet… As far as the dishes are concerned, perhaps one needs to acquire the necessary upbringing to fully appreciate their authenticity. They serve the Chinese equivalent of soul food and hard to evaluate objectively.
Physical setting here is 2 stars, but for me pairs well with the simple and non-​pretentious culinary style. Half star reduction if allowed for general cleanliness. Price point is reasonable for today’s inflated dining scale for a $$ meal. Clearly crowded with a packed house at 10pm on a weekday. Low 5 overall experience. Lamb skewer responsible for ²⁄₅ stars!

My favorite place for authentic northern Chinese skewers around the neighborhood! Try their enoki mushroom, squid legs, chicken gristle, and of course lamb. You won’t be disappointed:) They are pretty busy during the late night hours, but never had to wait. The décor is ghetto, but that never bothered me since the food is beyond expectations for its price.

This place… is slightly ghetto.
What does that mean? Space is sort of limited, and décor is somewhat lacking. Although for first impression doesn’t seem too great, it definitely makes up for it with the flavor of the dishes.
First thing upon entry: The smell of Chinese powdered spice. It has that nice tingling pungent smell that makes you want it. Upon viewing the menu, there is quite a decent selection of different skewered meats. Each is spiced to a different level with a different kind of texture. Each cut of meat from different animal has a complete different experience.
Personal favorites? Pretty much all that I’ve eaten. Squid is definitely the way to go because of it’s chewy goodness and spicy tingle. Lamb skewers are really smooth and easy to consume. The real winner of the entire meal would be the gizzards. Holy balls, I have not had gizzards that were spiced, seasoned, and cooked to perfection.
I think I just may come back for the gizzards. Oh boy, Yiran grill, what have you done to me?

Chicken and lamb skewers are cheap and well proportioned, but if you dislike fennel and spicy rubs on your meat, you should know that they generously spice their skewers with those. The spice is a little overpowering, and if you eat enough skewers, the spice takes away your ability to taste to some degree. I greatly enjoy eating skewers here as a meal once in a while and recommend it if you don’t mind spicy foods.

The menu has a lot of funny typos! The lamb skewers are golden, must have! The chicken is ehhh, I would pass on that. The sausage by itself is whatever, but if you add some chili oil, it makes a world of difference! The buns are also very good. Overall, cheap place to grab a few skewers and go. If you’re really hungry though, try the AYCE skewer place a few doors down!

Tried this place out at 626 Night Market and I got the Squid Sticks (2/​$ 7)
Squid in general is chewy, but it’s how you marinate the food. It Their marinade was good and I enjoyed the dish. I think/​hope it’s cheaper at the store than at a festival.

I’m trying to get something to go. I don’t wanna wait there so I call that number6262801088. I’m keeping calling, nobody answer the phone. I don’t know what’s going on. everybody has to go there and order food? Then why you guys provide phone number? Maybe those servers are too busy to answer phone call. Who knows. Their food is good though. But I already ordered from the other restaurant

Super Expensive!
Price looks cheap, because dishes are tiny!
Try the Super small BBQ! I’ve never seen any BBQ like those size!
maybe enough for a cat!
would not recommend to my friend!

I like this place because it has the most Big 6 vibe of any restaurant I’ve been to in the states. Hits me right in the feels and brings me back to my time living in Beijing. Now this kind of experience isn’t for everyone, this isn’t a fancy 5 star dinner at Le Bernandin with servers fawning over you and anticipating your needs or even the Olive Garden. The experience here is more like hanging out at a neighborhood eatery on the streets of Beijing, getting some of that local flavor. This is the kind of place where you drink all night with your friends and keep the chuar (skewers) coming as you bullshit with your friends. This means that the place is going to be a bit messy, its going to be loud and the service is going to be kind of minimal.
So what’s the draw? Well obviously the food and also the don’t give a fuckness about the place. The place is apparently BYOB and the table next to me was going to town with a case of King Cobra Malt liquor and some Red Star Erguotou Baijiu (ultra buff chinese rice wine thats 112 proof or if you prefer ~56% ABV). The left a right mess on the table and a bit on the floor too with some of their 40 oz bottles chilling under the table, but it seemed like they were having blast. Nobody was smoking cigarettes inside the store, so you won’t get the full China experience, this you may or may not like.
Now on to the food… We ordered a bunch of skewers: chicken cartilage, enoki mushroom and bacon, lamb, chicken gizzards, oyster mushrooms, chicken wings. The skewers had some good flavor oto them and that thin dusting of cumin and chili powder and spices thats common to the north. We also ordered a plate of stir-​fried eggplant and that was really tasty if a bit oily, but thats just how its done in Beijing. I approve. The only real disappointment for the place is this stir fried calamari dish my friend ordered. He thought it was deep fried calamari with seasoned salt, but it was actually a stir fried calamari with bell and chili peppers, that dish was bland and uninspiring.
The only caveat about this place is that when I order skewers at a restaurant, I’m expecting it to be grilled either on an open fire or a charcoal grill of some sort (preferably over the charcoal). This place seems to fry their skewers instead of grilling them. This isn’t the only restaurant that does this though, I ran into this issue at Shenyang restaurant which is down the street on Garvey. I’m guessing these restaurants don’t want to pay for the expensive equipment you’d need to filter and draw out the filter smoke? I’m not sure. But if you’re eating skewers in MPK, be forewarned about the frying vs grilling of the skewers.
Bottom line… I’m coming back with a bottle of Baijiu and some Tsingtao or Yangjing if I can find it.

Take out order to go. Waiteress service was ok, when order was nice after when time to pay then was a little not too nice. Price is average. Min $ 20 to able to use credit card, this is wht i dont like.

We tried their food stand at the OC Night Market and well… uhhh… they serve a MAJOR HEALTH CODE VIOLATION on a stick. The girl who prepares your squid skewers has gloves on which is fine. She’ll make sure that there’s plenty of sauce and then pat on some spices. BUT… then she’ll take your money with the same well sauced gloved hands and to make matters worse give you back the change! We were stunned, speechless and grossed out. She’s completely oblivious and just continues the process with the next group in line! Yet after waiting in line for so long we were compelled to at least try a bite (avoiding where she might have handled the money) to see what all the fuss was about. Unfortunately, the skewer was not good or maybe we completely lost our appetite. In fact one of us got an upset stomach afterwards!
I think we will avoid their restaurant as they have such a poor understanding of basic food safety and handling.

I came here after saving the business card of this place after having braved a VERY LONG line during the last Asian Night Market for lamb & squid skewers.
FOOD:
The main reason we decided to try the actual restaurant was based off of how fat and juicy the squid skewers were that night! My bf & I both ordered 2 squid legs, 2 squid heads and 3 lamb skewers. I don’t know what it was, but they all seemed a little better on the night of the market…
1. The squid leg skewers: Very good! Super juicy and HUGE!
2. The squid heads: DISSIPOINTMENT! They were really tough and nothing like I had the first time…
3. Lamb Skewers: Good, pretty much your standard Asian lamb skewer.
* I’ll also note that they do do a very good job at seasoning everything
OVERALL:
Nothing here is bad, but it needs something else to bring me back… My biggest complaint about this place is that they don’t have enough skewer options to make me return along with the issue of the language barrier.
Normally I’m not one to complain about lack of English in an Asian place, but this time it really did make things difficult! There were like 6 menu options under the skewers menu that weren’t translated and because the waitress doesn’t speak English she couldn’t help out at all!
TIPS:
* Make sure to get the squid leg skewers every time!
* Bring someone that speaks & reads Chinese or be prepared to have a little bit of difficulty …

So I went to the 626 Night Market and this particular stand had a lot of customers waiting for their lamb skewers — so my curiosity led me to the actual store located at Monterey Park.
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Parking:
There’s a supermarket parking lot (Hong Kong Supermarket) behind the restaurant.
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Price:
One lamb or chicken skewer — $ 0.89
Fish Balls — $ 0.89
Sausage — $ 0.89
Free fried shrimps if you purchase more than 30 or 40 dollars (?) worth of food
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Environment:
1^st of all, some of items on the menu were written in Chinese without any English translation. The waitress didn’t notice our existence for 5 minutes after we walked into the restaurant — oh and she ASSUMED we all speak Mandarin … just because we looked Chinese — definitely one of the worst service among all the Asian restaurants I’ve been to.
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Food:
Lamb skewer — one of the cheapest lamb skewer you can find around the area — not the best lamb skewer but hey they were cheap … so we ordered 40 lamb skewers. However, lamb skewer will taste a bit salty after the initial 10 lamb skewers (³⁄₅)
Chicken skewer, fish balls, and sausage — they were actually a little bit spicy, but overall tasted pretty average (³⁄₅)
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Rating:
Super cheap food, average taste, non-​English friendly environment, and sub-​par service.