Eating Eating Edited by Erin Kuschner
timeout.com/los-angeles/restaurants @erinito
The new Far East Plaza
L.A.’s best new food hall is an old Chinatown institution. By Erin Kuschner Photographs by Rozette Rago
IT’S 1PM ON a Saturday, and the line for Howlin’ Ray’s inside Chinatown’s Far East Plaza is obscene, snaking past picnic tables draped in vibrantly patterned tablecloths and full of people who have carved an entire day around this meal. Some hopeful diners have been waiting for 45 minutes and then give up, deciding instead to head to Chego for rice bowls or Unit 120’s take-out window nearby. Others have driven from Orange County, and there’s no way in hell they’re leaving without some of the famous Nashville fried chicken. Close by, the team at Endorffeine pours
iced pandan coffee across from Baohaus, Eddie Huang’s New York import where you can order a Chairman or an Uncle Jesse bun. Swaying lanterns hang between Taiwanese eatery Lao Tao and the Shaolin Yanxu GongFa Center upstairs, where kung fu classes spill out onto the walkway and thick tonkotsu broth bubbles inside Ramen Champ. This is the latest iteration of Far East Plaza, a neighborhood shopping center that has served as a corridor between Hill Street and Broadway since 1979, though its tenants
Time Out Los Angeles January–March 2017 Scoops
May 2013 Chego
Mar 2014 Ramen Champ Jan 2015
today are vastly different from those of the past. Longtime vendors still inhabit a number of units—Ten Ren’s Tea Time sells both loose-leaf and boba tea, Kim Chuy Restaurant specializes in noodle dishes, and a travel agency sits quietly upstairs— but since 2013, a slew of new players has been turning the plaza into a destination instead of a drive-by. For the most part we can thank George Yu, Chinatown’s Business Improvement District president, who has reignited interest in the plaza by enlisting talented chefs to bring something new and modern to the space. The
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“Unit 120 is unique in that it gives me opportunity and
possibility.” –Fabro
first one to make a splash? L.A. son himself, Roy Choi, who opened Chego in the spring of 2013. A year later, artisan ice cream shop Scoops opened, followed by Ramen Champ, Endorffeine, Unit 120, Howlin’ Ray’s, Lao Tao and Baohaus— one experimental eatery after another. “I was driving to Long Beach one Saturday [about a year and a half ago] and heard George Yu on KCRW calling for young chefs and entrepreneurs to come back and support the old Chinatown,” says Ying Xie, who co-owns Lao Tao. “For us, the choice wasn’t just spontaneous. We felt the sense
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