When Diane Willis brought chicken salad to a dinner party, she never imagined it would become Pasadena’s most famous lettuce bowl.
It was 1979, and Willis was making a green salad with poached chicken for his friends Michael and Joanne Hawkins. It was topped with crunchy fried noodles and toasted almonds, and drenched in equal parts sweet and tangy dressing. Salads were the undisputed party favorite.
When the Hawkins family and partner Bob Harrison decided to open Green Street Restaurant in Pasadena a month later, Willis Salad remained on their minds.
They asked Willis if they could put the salad on the menu and name it after her.
The restaurant served the Diane salad on its second day open (Harrison said it didn’t have all the ingredients the day it opened), and its popularity quickly spread.
Neither Willis nor Harrison nor the Hawkins family could have predicted that the Diane salad would become a Green Street signature dish and account for one-third of the restaurant’s sales.
“No one expected this to happen,” Harrison said. Harrison’s family still operates the restaurant.
For the Diane salad, the restaurant shreds the iceberg lettuce, fries the noodles, roasts the almonds and sesame seeds, and boils the chicken. And they make some dressing every day. A special combination of corn oil, rice vinegar, sugar, black pepper, and dry mustard gives the dressing a unique sourness and mild sweetness. For a bright pop of citrus, squeeze an orange wedge over the top.
Harrison said the restaurant serves about 500 to 600 types of Diane salads a week, with another 100 available for takeout. It is used for office parties, anniversaries and all kinds of celebrations. There is a small refrigerated area next to the entrance where you can purchase bottles of dressing. If you move out of state, you can also order Diane’s salad kits and have them delivered to your home. T-shirts that say “I grew up on Diane salad” are also on sale.
Growing up in Pasadena, I spent many lunches, dinners, and weekend brunches at restaurants. I was a kid growing up eating Diane salads. Diane Salad has become synonymous with Pasadena’s unpretentious, laid-back cafe lunches.
Researching the origins of the Diane salad for this column got me thinking about the many other dishes associated with this city and the places I would most recommend to visitors. Below is a short list of my favorites in the area. Mostly old standbys, but unthinkable without a few newcomers.
