A memoir and cookbook from the creator of the gourmet Korean-Mexican
taco truck Kogi, the star of Netflix's "The Chef Show," and the culinary
advisor to Jon Favreau's film "Chef."
"Roy Choi sits at the crossroads of just about every important issue
involving food in the twenty-first century. As he goes, many will
follow."--Anthony Bourdain
From the maverick chef the New Yorker called "The David Chang of
L.A." comes a cookbook that's as inventive, creative, and
border-crossing as the city to which it pays homage: Los Angeles.
Los Angeles: A patchwork megalopolis defined by its unlikely cultural
collisions; the city that raised and shaped Roy Choi, the
boundary-breaking chef who decided to leave behind fine dining to feed
the city he loved--and, with the creation of the Korean taco, reinvented
street food along the way.
Abounding with both the food and the stories that gave rise to Choi's
inspired cooking, L.A. Son takes us through the neighborhoods and
streets most tourists never see, from the hidden casinos where gamblers
slurp fragrant bowls of pho to Downtown's Jewelry District, where a
ten-year-old Choi wolfed down Jewish deli classics between diamond
deliveries; from the kitchen of his parents' Korean restaurant and his
mother's pungent kimchi to the boulevards of East L.A. and the best
taquerias in the country, to, at last, the curbside view from one of his
emblematic Kogi taco trucks, where people from all walks of life line up
for a revolutionary meal.
Filled with over 85 inspired recipes that meld the overlapping
traditions and flavors of L.A.--including Korean fried chicken, tempura
potato pancakes, homemade chorizo, and Kimchi and Pork Belly Stuffed
Pupusas--L.A. Son embodies the sense of invention, resourcefulness,
and hybrid attitude of the city from which it takes its name, as it
tells the transporting, unlikely story of how a Korean American kid went
from lowriding in the streets of L.A. to becoming an acclaimed chef.
