Latest news with #BangBangNoodles
Eater
30-06-2025
- Business
- Eater
The Saddest Restaurant Closures to Know in Los Angeles, June 2025
Los Angeles's restaurants continue to face difficult headwinds, starting in 2020 with the onset of a global pandemic and exacerbating with the Hollywood labor strikes in 2023 , which led to an industry-wide slowdown that's continued into 2025. From the lingering impacts of the Hollywood strikes to adverse weather and increased costs (labor, rent, ingredients, etc.), many variables continue to batter restaurant owners who operate on razor-thin margins. Los Angeles restaurants also continue to struggle with the impact from the 2025 fires , including slow business and devastating property loss. Here are notable restaurant closures for June. For more closure news, visit our 2024 round-up . Nusr-Et— Nusret Gökçe, better known as Salt Bae, has sprinkled his last steaks in Los Angeles. The Beverly Hills outpost of Gökçe's global steakhouse chain, Nusr-Et, suddenly closed on June 4, four years after opening in 2021. The closure comes as the restaurant chain eyes further international expansion into markets including Mexico City, Rome, and Ibiza. Bang Bang Noodles— Chinese hand-pulled noodle shop Bang Bang Noodles has shuttered its location in Culver City's Citizens Public Market. Born as a pop-up in 2020, the Culver City location was the first permanent outpost for Bang Bang Noodles and its signature tingly cumin lamb noodles tossed in chile oil. The Downtown location of Bang Bang Noodles remains open. Verve— Verve Coffee Roasters closed its Downtown LA location on June 1, marking the end of a decade in the neighborhood. The Santa Cruz-based coffee roaster opened its Spring Street cafe in January 2015, serving a signature lineup of coffee drinks made with its own beans, as well as pastries, and juices from Juice Served Here. The cafe's closure was announced in an Instagram post, which reads, 'While the evolving landscape of Downtown has made it no longer sustainable for us to continue operating at this location, we remain deeply committed to our LA community.' Luckily, Verve has another location just a few miles away in the Arts District. Here's Looking at You— Groundbreaking restaurant Here's Looking at You closed on June 13 after almost a decade on Sixth Street in Koreatown. The restaurant, opened by the late chef Jonathan Whitener and Lien Ta, has occupied its corner of Los Angeles since 2016, serving an ever-evolving menu of cross-cultural dishes like uni panna cotta and salsa-negra-crusted frogs' legs alongside an inventive cocktail program to match. The closure coincided with the end of a 10-year lease on the building. Elf Cafe— Echo Park restaurant Elf Cafe closed after 19 years on June 1. Scott Zwiezen and his bandmates Astara Calas and Evan Haros, first opened Elf as a vegan restaurant in 2006, serving a Mediterranean-ish menu, with dishes like a vegetable tagine and morel risotto. In 2020, amid COVID-19, Elf suspended operations indefinitely, transforming into a space for roving pop-ups, before reopening in early 2023. Zwiezen says that over the years, the restaurant has shifted into a place that people only go to for special occasions, instead of a daily stop, though he doesn't point to one specific reason for the closure. La Azteza Tortilleria— Legendary Boyle Heights burrito stand closed its original location on Caesar Chavez Boulevard on June 13. But not all hope is lost — the restaurant has relocated permanently to its second location less than two miles away on Atlantic and Beverly Boulevards. See More:
Eater
23-06-2025
- Business
- Eater
Culver City Is Losing a Hand-Pulled Noodle Destination
Bang Bang Noodles, a Chinese hand-pulled noodle shop, is closing its Culver location in the Citizen Public Market at the end of June. The restaurant, which specializes in Xi'an-style biang-biang mian, announced the closure in an Instagram post on June 22. Bang Bang's Downtown LA location will remain open. Bang Bang Noodles was founded as a pop-up in early 2020 by chef Robert Lee, who had previously worked at restaurants in San Sebastian, New York City, and Los Angeles. In 2023, Lee opened the first permanent location for Bang Bang Noodles at Citizen Public Market, bringing his signature tingly cumin lamb noodles tossed in chile oil to the neighborhood. In the years since opening, the menu has expanded beyond just the cumin lamb noodles to include Xi'an tomato noodles and Szechuan garlic noodles. After Bang Bang Noodles closes in Culver, those looking for a great bowl of hand-pulled noodles should try Noodle Art in the Original Farmers Market or LAN Noodle, which operates locations in West Hollywood and the San Gabriel Valley. Shiku, a homestyle Korean stand in Grand Central Market from the team behind Baroo, is donating its proceeds from June to August to non-profits that support immigrants in Los Angeles. 50 percent of profits from this summer will be donated to the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, National Day Laborer Organizing Network, and the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA). Frogtown Mexican seafood destination Loreto is popping up at the Santa Monica Proper Hotel for the summer. The pop-up will take over the terrace at Calabra between June 20 and September 1. Expect crudos, ceviches, and seafood-topped tostadas, paired with mezcalitas, and more. Rihanna was spotted out and about in Los Angeles sporting a Saint Laurent dress and a Schiaparelli gym bag, paired with the iconic blue and yellow Fatburger soda cup. Rihanna, if you're reading this, please drop the Fatburger order. See More: Intel LA Restaurant Closings
Los Angeles Times
10-02-2025
- Los Angeles Times
Ever heard of Chinese hamburgers? Here's where to try the world's oldest sandwich
Rou jia mo can be an unlovely thing, uncouth as a sloppy Joe and as decadent and satisfying as your favorite steakhouse burger. Sometimes called a Chinese hamburger, when done well, it's one of the greatest meat-between-bread situations in the universe. It involves a split round bread bun with a meat filling that spills from the middle. It's commonly made with braised pork belly, but you'll find variations filled with lamb spiced heavily with cumin and also beef. Many credit rou jia mo as the world's oldest sandwich, originating in the Shaanxi province in north-central China more than 2,000 years ago. Its capital Xi'an was where the Silk Road began, a trade epicenter that brought an influx of different cultures, foods and customs through the city. You can find the sandwiches all over the streets of Xi'an, and throughout China, but rou jia mo is steadily gaining in popularity and availability in the U.S., thanks to restaurants like Xi'an Famous Foods in New York City. In his cookbook 'Xi'an Famous Foods: The Cuisine of Western China, From New York's Favorite Noodle Shop,' owner and author Jason Wang describes the dish as 'an English muffin-like bun stuffed full of fatty soy-braised pork.' He grew up eating rou jia mo as an afternoon snack. In Los Angeles, a growing number of restaurants in the San Gabriel Valley make rou jia mo, with styles that reflect regional versions made throughout China. At Bang Bang Noodles, executive chef Robert Lee is making his interpretation of the pork-filled rou jia mo found all over Xi'an. The noodle shop, which started as a pop-up, and now has locations in both Culver City and downtown Los Angeles, specializes in biang biang noodles inspired by the thick, chewy noodles Xi'an is know for. Lee's rou jia mo begins with a semi-fermented, white flatbread called bai ji mo. It's thin and crisp along its edges and soft and fluffy in the middle. He fills the bun with a braised pork belly he marinates overnight with soy sauce and a secret blend of herbs and spices that includes star anise and Sichuan peppercorns. The whole pork bellies are braised in a pot on the stovetop for around three hours. The meat is roughly chopped with the skin on, giving each inch of the burger its own medley of textures. Slivers of green peppers are crunchy and fresh, tangled throughout the filling with a heap of cilantro. Lee added rou jia mo to his menu last summer, wanting to introduce Los Angeles diners to a summertime food pairing that's popular in Xi'an. 'I wanted to stay true with the cuisine and give you a pairing of the cold noodle dish liang pi zi, rou jia mo and an orange soda,' Lee says. Now, in the middle of winter, the cold noodles are no longer available. But the rou jia mo is the ideal sidekick to a bowl of Lee's vinegar and chile-slicked hand-pulled noodles. XiAn Biang Biang Noodle in San Gabriel is another restaurant that specializes in the foods of Xi'an. The restaurant offers a sturdy, bready bai ji mo filled with your choice of pork, beef or lamb. During multiple visits, the spicy lamb emerged the clear favorite, with chunks of tender meat stewed with green peppers and onion in a spicy chile sauce heavy on the cumin with a mala kick. Offering an alternate style of rou jia mo is Good Alley, a dumpling-centric restaurant that opened in a Rosemead strip mall in September. Chef-owner Peter Pang swaps the bai ji mo for lao tongguan mo, wrapping his filling in a golden, layered pancake that flakes and shatters like a good croissant. 'The dough is made using high-gluten flour with a small amount of baking powder mixed in,' Pang says. It undergoes three rounds of resting, is flattened, thinned, brushed with oil, rolled and cut to form its layered structure. Pang uses the bread to nestle Kurobuta pork, A5 Miyazaki wagyu beef or cumin-spiked lamb. The wagyu is unsurprisingly the more decadent of the three, with cubes of beef that melt into the stewed peppers and onions. The effect of the flaky pastry and beef is similar to a Turkish meat-filled borek. 'We think the croissant-like crispy texture and rich aroma of meat are perfectly well-suited to the local tastes in Los Angeles,' Pang says. 'The inspiration came from a visit to Da Don in Beijing many years ago. Their Peking duck was served with a smaller, crispy flatbread used to wrap the duck. This idea inspired us to incorporate a similar texture and flavor concept into our version of rou jia mo.' On my last visit, my party ordered two rounds for the table. And it sparked a quest to find more rou jia mo made with the flakier style of bun. I searched for the dish on Fantuan, a popular Asian food delivery app and came across a business called Joynees Boy Chinese Hamburger. It's a small storefront in San Gabriel with a short menu of rou jia mo and noodles. The Joynees Boy buns crackle like phyllo dough around a filling of pork or beef. The pork is moist and tender, with chopped and shredded bits reminiscent of good carnitas. The beef is well-marbled and thinly sliced, a little on the drier side like deli roast beef. Lee suspects rou jia mo isn't as prevalent in the United States as some other Xi'an specialties due to how much work is involved in making both the filling and the buns. It may also have something to do with a lack of familiarity with the dish. 'People that want it and eat it are people who mainly grew up with it,' Lee says. 'And the places that have it, especially mine, I'm not sure I'm promoting it as well as I should.'
