Everything’s Changing in L.A.’s Chinatown, Except It’s Not

It’s close to 6 p.m. on a Thursday in L.A.’s Chinatown, and, as usual, there’s a long line snaking around Far East Plaza for the city’s best hot chicken atHowlin’ Ray’s。Down the corridor from Howlin’ Ray’s is the modern菲律宾餐厅Lasa，那里有一个嗡嗡作响，但快乐的人群，喝酒天然葡萄酒亚搏电竞and enjoying fantastic happy-hour specials like pork bellysisigsandwiches, crab fried rice, grilled pimento cheese sandwiches, and crispychicken wings与锡金粉。我喝了一些圣米格尔啤酒，然后将虾的油炸头浸入锯片中，这是一种用棕榈醋制成的蘸酱。我应该在不到一个小时的时间里在另一家餐厅吃晚饭，但是我已经决定要在洛杉矶闲逛，并有点晚了。

LASA总经理蔡斯·瓦伦西亚（Chase Valencia）说：“我们只是想成为一个小天堂，并摆脱周围发生的一切。”“您来到像我们这样的地方，获得不同的体验，并与我们一起放松身心，尝试一些美味的食物和美酒。亚搏电竞亚搏电竞我们的想法只是现在是那样的藏身之处。”

这听起来像是一个令人耳目一新的直接想法。但是几个月前，洛杉矶的这种幸福时间的经历是不可能的。在获得许可证的篮球场上，LASA于去年四月开始供应啤酒和葡萄酒。亚搏电竞So now when you visit for Lasa’s new weekend brunch, you can eat pan de sal French toast and country-fried tapa (air-dried steak) with black-garlic-gravy smothered rice and a fried egg while drinking pitchers of cava with calamansi juice.

It’s important to remember that Lasa, despite all its critical acclaim and its status as a 2018亚搏电竞食品和美酒亚搏电竞年度餐厅, was born as and continues to be a small family-owned business. And it’s finally starting to feel like a restaurant in full. For an independent venture like Lasa, selling beer and wine can be the difference between barely surviving and thriving.

“Beer and wine is that make-or-break,” Chase says. “It helps us out dramatically to find the support that we need to grow.”

Getting beer and wine has allowed Lasa to hire its first assistant general manager, Vi Nguyen, who was part of Lasa’s opening team and worked in the restaurant as a runner and a server. She had also helped out in the kitchen. Nico de Leon, who used to drive from San Francisco to cook at Lasa pop-ups, has been promoted from sous chef to chef de cuisine. The Valencias now have more time to think about collaborations (an event with Chinese restaurantwoon在历史悠久的菲律宾镇中，已经讨论过一种可能性，也是其他发展业务的方法。他们可以花更多的时间与家人在一起（追逐他在7月4日一周的背靠背夜晚的奇迹），而Chase研究葡萄酒并准备参加侍酒师的入门课程。亚搏电竞他不确定自己是否会真正成为侍酒师，但他很高兴自己有顶空考虑选择。

许多唐人街，那里的新学校家族拥有的景点，例如霍林·雷（Howlin’Ray's）（由厨师约翰尼·雷（Johnny Ray）和他的妻子阿曼达（Amanda）经营），lasa和cookbook商店Now Servingare bringing people to Far East Plaza, is changing in dramatic ways. Other notable newcomers around the neighborhood include奥基堡祖伊屋的房子，香港风格的咖啡馆东花园，葡亚搏电竞萄酒吧/小酒馆奥里尔, an outpost of cocktail loungeapotheke，当然还有大卫·张的Majordomo。

But there’s also a lot that hasn’t changed in Chinatown. There’s still a crowd, with a wonderfully diverse cross-section of Los Angeles, waiting outsideYang Chow, which opened in 1977 and still dazzles with its famous slippery shrimp and its namesake fried rice.

Over at Phoenix Inn, where I enjoy excellent wonton soup, Peking duck, and what’s accurately described on the menu as “mayonnaised shrimp with glazed walnut,” proprietor Elaina Chang serves Hong Kong-style Cantonese food to a diverse crowd that “is not mainly Chinese.” The guests are old and young. They’re white and Latinx and Thai.

这家餐厅于1965年开业。1967年，来自香港的移民凯泰·张（Kai Tai Chang）育有妻子和四个孩子来支持，他开始在菲尼克斯旅馆（Phoenix Inn）做饭。

“当时，他是家庭唯一的财务主持人，”埃拉纳说。

他还曾在农贸市场和另一家餐厅工作。他的孙子尼克说，几年后，他从他的三个同时工作中省下了足够的钱来购买凤凰旅馆。

从那以后，这家餐厅一直由Chang家族经营。凯太泰（Kai Tai）于2015年去世。他正在帮助父母汤姆（Kai Tai的儿子）和Elaina，同时还在商学院上进行策略和营销。

Elaina说，Phoenix Inn以“更多的村庄烹饪”开业。这是一家餐厅，收入有限的移民在大盘子上盛宴。亚搏电竞

“We still have some dishes that have remained the traditional way, like anchovies with minced pork,” Elaina says. “And the pork stomach, very thin slices with ginger and scallions. Nobody else makes those anymore because it’s labor-intensive. It takes four pork stomachs to make one plate of those delicacies. Those kinds of dishes are only appreciated by the older generation.”

It turns out, though, that the Chang family is also as modern as any restaurant group. They now have 15 restaurants, including dessert boutiques and fast-casual spots in the圣加布里埃尔谷。Their newest venture isPanasia Sweet＆咸味in Alhambra, which serves a huge menu of Southeast Asian food like bak kut teh (Malaysian pork-rib soup), Hainan chicken, andlaksaalong with Korean-barbecue sliced prime rib, Chinese fried rice, a soup of the day, and an extensive selection ofInstagrammable饮料and desserts.

Panasia is a passion project for Elaina, who has family from Singapore and Indonesia. She’s focused on high-quality ingredients like antibiotic-free chicken. She adds that she’s proud of how her Phoenix dessert shops are different than boba stores that use pre-made syrups.

“We actually make our strawberry syrup from California strawberries,” she says. “We buy organic kumquats from San Diego to make our kumquat syrup. We use fresh mangos. We buy cases of lemongrass to chop up and cook with rock sugar. I believe that customers can tell the difference.”

A similar kind of attention to detail is what sent Chase Valencia down the path of finding the best wines to pair with the high-acid, high-fat Filipino food at Lasa. He worked with his friend Geno Tomko of Lucid Selections to create a tightly edited list of whites (including albariño and falanghina), skin-contact wines, and light-bodied reds. He looked for wines that are “a little bit more coastal” and made an effort to select natural, biodynamic, and small-batch wines from family-owned producers.

他说：“作为菲尔皮诺 - 加利福尼亚餐厅，我想要这种葡萄酒反映我们的敏感性。”亚搏电竞

Chase recently went to New York and visited some longtime friends, Alvin and Anthony Cailan, the Filipino-American brothers who opened通常带有“移民的美国舒适食品”和深厚的酒单。亚搏电竞亚搏电竞纽约之旅包括“葡萄酒之旅”亚搏电竞四骑士,The Ten Bells， 和La Compagnie des Vins Surnaturels。Chase ate at Atoboy and immediately texted a friend, 2018亚搏电竞食品和美酒亚搏电竞最好的新厨师乔恩Yao，关于在家庭经营的现代韩国餐厅的经历多么美好。（厨师Junghyun Park成为2019年亚搏电竞食品和美酒亚搏电竞最好的新厨师at Atomix, his follow-up to Atoboy.)

Yao在他的父母租用的西洛杉矶脱衣舞购物中心为台湾倾斜的品尝菜单服务，最近得到了一个Michelin star但是，在加藤上仍然没有酒。他最近告诉洛杉矶航空乔丹播客他希望开设另一家餐厅，在那里他可以用鸡尾酒提供品尝菜单。

蔡斯说：“我们所有人，与家人一起，我们只采取我们所拥有的东西，并试图实现这一目标，我们只是继续前进。”