faulker056

Little China, or as most people know it, San Gabriel Valley, welcomes a new restaurant to an otherwise homogenous land of Chinese restaurants ranging from Hong Kong/Cantonese, the mainland including Yunnan, Hunan, Sichuan and Chiu Chow. Instead of being greeted by someone saying " ni hao " or " how meh-nee peepo! " on an old Aiwa stereo-turned-PA-system, you'll hear " so waat dii ", which is Thai for "hello". Thai restaurants are not a new thing in San Gabriel Valley but from many experiences, most seem to offer the usual suspects during lunch special and sport purple tablecloths and Buddha paintings. Over the last two decades, Thai has become the new "Chinese" and offer the same old pad thai , tom yum soup and papaya salad – not many of them feature soup noodles. Although this place is nearly hidden in an ugly grey shopping center, this place actually sticks out like a sore thumb. You may know of Hoy Kha Thai Noodles, former...

Los Angeles is a city with over 4 million people, and it's a surprise that this massive tally still lends itself to many it's-a-small-world occurrences.  Cut back 10+ years to high school.  I was much different then, as most people are.  I actually did really well in school, I was a soccer jock and I spent a good part of my days practicing how to do windmills, flares and headspins only to have my parents scream at me about studying for SAT's.  Like most high school groups, you had your own territory somewhere on campus.  For that 10 mins between every class, my friends and I would report back to basecamp, which was a tree that probably heard way more than it should have.  Not surprisingly, being in San Gabriel Valley, my group was entirely Asian except for this token white guy named Willie Wood, which we later knighted as Willie Woo.   Behind us was a nice mix of girls that were really into SKA & punk music that we would say hi too.  One of the girls, was this really qu...