Ah, the Westside of Los Angeles: that wonderful place where you couldn't find an authentic Chinese restaurant if your life depended on it. L.A. has a huge Chinese community, and the Monterey Park/Rosemead/San Gabriel areas have about a zillion high-quality, rock-bottom-cheap Chinese restaurants with authentic Chinese cuisines and sub-cuisines, but the entire Westside is as dry as the Mojave desert. (Perhaps the vast number of Thai restaurants appeared there to fill the vacuum.) Still, an introductory course in thermodynamics and entropy would tell you that a situation so unequal could not long persist: sooner or later the distribution of authentic Chinese restaurants must equalize.
Consider J.R. Seafood on Santa Monica Blvd., a Westside version of the J.R. in Monterey Park. It is a titanic space of tablecloth-covered family tables and booths, reminiscent of the seafood mega-restaurants in the San Gabriel Valley. It appears very clean and respectable, you would not hesitate to bring your Aunt Agnes here. But sometimes it feels more like a food distributor than a restaurant. At lunchtime on weekends the place is packed, and the waiters efficiently whisk you to your seat, slap down some bowls of soup, and produce your meal with amazing efficiency and speed.
Still, even if the food is zipping through your mouth, you can't help but notice that it really is very good. My Chinese friends tell me I'm biased; I should say "excellent" not "very good". I must confess I'm not too fond of seafood.
But even I enjoyed the fish filet in black bean sauce, which has a very clean, fresh taste, and the spicy Szechwan shrimp. OK, I never had octopus before, but it seemed fine to me. Just about any of the Cantonese seafood dishes are reliable here. Also try the sizzling beef and the Hunan bean curd. If you order the juicy and flavorful deep-fried crispy chicken whole (you can get whole or half), they'll bring you the whole thing, including the deep-fried crispy chicken head. Stick it under a napkin or something; don't let Aunt Agnes see it.