Love Panda Express? This New Fast-casual Restaurant Is Redefining Chinese American Food - Beritaja

What’s considered existent Chinese food? Is it the nuggets of fried chickenhearted glazed successful a saccharine orangish condiment from a steam tray astatine the airport? The fried ovum rolls and chow mein astatine your favourite takeout restaurant? My grandmother’s fried rice?

For cook Bryant Ng, it’s each of the above. And past some.

Ng and his woman Kim Luu-Ng are down the caller Jade Rabbit, a counter-service edifice successful Santa Monica that serves scallion ail food toast, orangish mango chicken, beef and broccoli and Almond Roca cocoa spot cookies.

The edifice setup is akin to a Chipotle aliases Sweetgreen. Make your measurement down the antagonistic and build a vessel of rice, crockery aliases noodles pinch a action of prepared proteins and vegetables.

It whitethorn look for illustration a bold pivot to those acquainted pinch Ng’s culinary trajectory. He was the opening cook astatine Nancy Silverton’s Mozza, past went connected to helm his ain room astatine the Singaporean-influenced Spice Table successful downtown Los Angeles. He was named 1 of Food & Wine’s champion caller chefs successful 2012 and has been nominated for a James Beard Award aggregate times. Cassia, the sprawling Santa Monica edifice known for Ng’s syncretic style of cooking, blended influences from each complete Asia and Southern California.

He and Luu-Ng decided to shutter Cassia earlier this year, shifting their attraction wholly to Jade Rabbit.

Cassia cook Bryant Ng and his business partner and wife, Kim Luu-Ng.

(Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)

“For the costs of 1 cocktail astatine Cassia, you could eat an full repast astatine Jade Rabbit,” Ng says. “We wanted to create thing much antiauthoritarian and much convenient and much value-involved.”

And arsenic acold arsenic the style of cuisine, it had to beryllium Chinese American. Ng spent overmuch of his puerility successful his family’s edifice kitchens. In the 1950s, his grandparents opened a Chinese American edifice called Bali Hai successful Culver City. For years, his parents ran Wok Way successful the San Fernando Valley.

“For us, Chinese American nutrient is simply a location type of Chinese food,” says Ng. “If you look astatine China, each location cuisine is influenced by the group and the accessibility of everything there. Here, pinch Chinese American food, it was built upon the difficult activity and dedication and necessity of the Chinese Americans who came earlier us. Many of them weren’t moreover cooks, but they had to unfastened a edifice to survive.”

Following the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Chinese immigrants applied for merchant visas eligible to edifice owners and workers. A Chinese edifice roar successful the U.S. soon followed, and dishes for illustration chop suey and General Tso’s chickenhearted became family names.

In her book “The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures successful the World of Chinese Food,” Jennifer 8. Lee writes: “Chinese cooking is not a group of dishes. It is simply a accuracy that serves section tastes and ingredients.” One could opportunity the aforesaid about a myriad of world cuisines, but the sentiment rings particularly existent for Chinese nutrient successful America.

Like galore Angelenos, Ng grew up visiting restaurants for illustration Panda Express and P.F. Chang’s. And he’s acutely alert of the stigmas associated pinch Chinese American restaurants.

The scallion ail food toast astatine Jade Rabbit is simply a motion to Sizzler.

(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times )

“There is this racist thought of Chinese American nutrient not being ‘real’ and that if I clasp autochthonal Chinese food, that makes maine much authentic too,” he says. “To opportunity it’s not existent Chinese nutrient flattens Chinese group arsenic a full and flattens really Asian Americans are viewed successful society. We should beryllium taking pridefulness successful what it is. We each emotion it. I’m not ashamed of it.”

At Jade Rabbit, Ng is embracing Chinese diaspora cuisine to create his ain style of Chinese American food. His beef and broccoli is simply a re-imagined lomo saltado, pinch beef and broccoli stir-fried pinch tomatoes, bulb and fried potatoes. The accompanying “Jade sauce” could beryllium mistaken for aji verde, pinch the aforesaid vibrant greenish colour and a subtle power from Bird’s Eye chiles.

Spicy Sichuan chickenhearted is heavy inspired by la zi ji, pinch diced acheronian nutrient chickenhearted marinated successful food sauce, buttermilk and achromatic pepper. The chickenhearted is fried successful a ray batter past tossed successful a basking wok pinch chile oil, Sichuan chile peppers, mushroom powder, sesame, ail and scallions. You could bid it arsenic a “50/50 combo” alongside the orangish mango chicken, pinch large chunks of caller mango mixed pinch chickenhearted coated successful a ray citrus sauce.

The Koda farms chickpea curry pinch flatbread was the champion trading crockery astatine Cassia successful Santa Monica. Now that the edifice is closed, diners could still find the curry (minus the flatbread) astatine the caller Jade Rabbit.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

For dessert, Ng turned his family’s emotion of Almond Roca into a cocoa spot cookie, crushed and mixed into the mixed pinch acheronian chocolate, crushed almonds and a patient pinch of oversea salt.

Those missing Cassia will beryllium happy to study that the chickpea curry, the best-selling crockery astatine the restaurant, is besides disposable astatine Jade Rabbit (without the flatbread). The creamy coconut guidelines originated from Ng’s family recipe, incorporating influences from some Singapore and China.

Ng’s top triumph astatine Jade Rabbit whitethorn beryllium a aureate portion of toast inspired by 1 of Los Angeles’ awesome concatenation restaurants.

“My family grew up going to Sizzler arsenic our typical juncture dinner,” Ng says. “We would spell for the crockery barroom and each you could eat shrimp. It’s 1 of those sensation memories that sticks pinch you for your full life.”

The Almond Roca cocoa spot cooky from Jade Rabbit.

(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times)

Ng’s scallion ail food toast is simply a motion to the Sizzler ail food toast, only merged pinch a scallion pancake. He starts pinch heavy slabs of sourdough bread, slathering 1 broadside successful a compound food pinch scallions, garlic, ail brackish and some Parmesan and Pecorino cheese. The toast is griddled until a aureate crust forms. If you’ve sampled the original astatine Sizzler, the sensation representation is immediate. The breadstuff is crisp and ultra buttery connected 1 side, past pillow-soft connected the other. And there’s capable food to time off your fingers shiny.

“We return the toast successful the backmost of the location and we heap connected the spicy Sichuan chicken,” Ng says. “And past if you get the kale salad, you heap that connected apical and past you put the Jade condiment connected it.”

As he continues to database the dozens of imaginable combinations, my mind races, and I eagerly crippled my adjacent visit. Even without a luck cookie, I could foretell a scallion food toast hodgepodge fried chickenhearted sandwich successful the adjacent future.