Cafe PappaRich is a recent addition to LA Koreatown’s dining scene, serving Malaysian fare, alongside signature baked “roti” pastry buns. It’s actually the first American location of a Malaysian restaurant chain by the same name (papparich.com.my). If anybody knows me, Southeast Asian food is my favorite, so I was excited to try this place out.
Category Archives: Malaysian
Little Malaysia – El Monte
Socal suffers from a paucity of good Malaysian places. My parents love insular Southeast Asian food, so we decided to revisit one of the few left in the San Gabriel Valley. Little Malaysia is in a strip mall off Peck Road, anchored by a now defunct Asian supermarket, and perhaps its 2nd most well known occupant, Ocean Bo (海寶點心外賣快餐), a dim sum cafe and take-out joint. Dishes range from $8 to $12.
Penang – West Covina
Penang is one of a handful of Malaysian restaurants in the San Gabriel Valley. It’s located off Glendora Ave, in Hong Kong Plaza, an ostentatious strip mall anchored by a big supermarket. Word has it that Penang was first opened and run by a Burmese film actress, Soe Myat Thuzar. Upon divorcing her American husband, she sold the business. Since then, the restaurant has changed hands several times.
Litz – Monterey Park
Litz is an old haunt, a Hong Kong style cafe that primarily serves Chinese-adapted Southeast Asian fare. And by Chinese, I mean less intense and pungent than the original, but still just as tasty. Hey, subtlety has its own charms, no?
Off the Grid at Fort Mason – San Francisco
Off the Grid is a a food truck experience more so than anything. I first stumbled on this event on Yelp, essentially a food truck market held once at a week at Fort Mason Center, which was once a military port.
Now I must admit, I’ve never been too fond of food trucks (especially those of the bourgeois sort), and Off the Grid didn’t really change my general opinion of them. Granted, there were a lot of interesting dishes I ended up having, given the sheer volume of trucks present on site.
Oh My Food Coma! 