L.A. Son: My Life, My City, My Food

Roy Choi · Tien Nguyen · Natasha Phan

Nov 2013 · Harper Collins

About this ebook

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.

Ratings and reviews

the read was more entertaining than the actual recipes..Roy is severly over rated, his food is never been great, most places he has tend to go out of business, without the media gloating his places do poorly..he had luck on his side, well, his parents were both extremly wealthly, but pretends to be gangster, social justice dude..lame sauce..I've tried numerous recipes, there lacking ingredients, sloppy prep..worth a read, don't be looking for any sort of techniques and insight..it's not here

Less a few expletives, he is great! Makes you want to hop in the passenger side, see his neighborhoods, and savor kim-chi for yourself!

Very bad aap