![]() Your best bet for late-night dining in Los Angeles is Koreatown, which has more 24-hour restaurants per square foot than any other neighborhood in the city. Considering the strong support he’s found from the all-important regulars and neighborhood locals, he’s found a savvy formula.Become a sponsor Koreatown, Mid-City, Pico-Union In other words, if there is a need for a non-fussy rendition of any particular Asian cuisine on the Westside, we might count on David Kuo to fulfill that next. “We saw an opportunity because there’s just no Vietnamese in this pocket of town.”īanh mi at Skinny Dave’s // Photo by Robert Campbell “We make our own pâté, our own banana leaf-wrapped ham, and our own sugar-cane shrimp that goes in the noodle bowl and sandwich,” says Kuo. He sources entirely from Vietnamese manufacturers to keep things on point. As with Little Fatty, he’s simply learned to give his customers what they want, which here means everything from traditional banh mi to ones made with fried chicken, Salisbury steak, even sweet potato. ![]() Originally featuring a swath of globally inspired sandwiches, he recently retooled it into a banh mi-only shop. Last month, Kuo opened Skinny Dave’s in Westchester near LAX. I wanted people to come into the bar later than that, operating like it’s our accomplice: we make food and drinks,” says Kuo. “We noticed people stopped coming in after 10 p.m. Performing above and beyond Kuo’s expectations, the bar’s origin story was to complement Little Fatty’s food while keeping service going. The equally popular XO noodles are made with the restaurant’s trademark rolled chow fun, a toothy canvas for the savory sauce that’s just a touch sweet and a little shrimpy.Īccomplice, an adjacent bar with its notable cocktail program, has earned consistently high marks for its imaginative, nuanced, and visually stunning drinks. Kuo made it his own by kicking up the spice with dried chiles. The most popular item, orange chicken, is akin to what you’ll find at Panda Express, where it was first conceived by chef Andy Kao. It’s more complex.”īut Kuo also is committed to giving people what they want, while incorporating a little twist in each dish to keep them guessing. “People are used to the version their mom made, or what their favorite Chinese restaurant made. “I hear a lot that we’re not authentic,” he says. The Meiji tofu is sourced from friends in Gardena. For instance, for the base of his mapo tofu, Kuo uses an organic red yeast black bean soy paste chosen from more than 13 he tested. Like so many restaurateurs saddled with the impossibly subjective expectations of authenticity, Kuo created a menu that he’s personally happy with, by ensuring each dish presents a tapestry of thoughtful and fully researched ingredients. “What stopped me was, I was worried about what people were going to say,” Kuo says. When that didn’t pan out, Kuo accepted that it was time to embrace his roots, something he’d previously been concerned about trying. ![]() ![]() In 2014 he left to open Status Kuo - an Asian-fusion restaurant with a rotisserie at its heart of the menu. He then worked in the kitchen at Jean-Georges in New York before a stint with Charlie Palmer at the Hotel Bel-Air. After graduating from UCLA, he entered property management and, disenchanted with the corporate world, instead enrolled in the California School of Culinary Arts in Pasadena. The journey to the restaurant’s current iteration doubled as a personal one for Kuo. (Jon Yao’s Kato, in nearby West L.A., is a much higher-end experience.) That he wanted to do it in Mar Vista, one of the more diverse parts of town, is part convenience - he lives in Culver City - and part smart business strategy: a lthough it exists in a vast city that boasts the largest Taiwanese population in the United States, Little Fatty is presumably the only casual Taiwanese restaurant on the Westside. And it was her approachable and flavorful cooking that directly inspires his menus today. As the youngest of four boys, he says he had to “eat really fast” when his mom would put out four or five dishes for meals. The name is a nod to his own Mandarin nickname, xiao pang. ![]() Kuo’s upbringing is a big part of what Little Fatty is about. ![]()
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