“Local” Means Asian American at Yang’s Kitchen

By Julie Chung

Julie, our Food Roots Fellow, had the opportunity to chat with Chef Christian Yang of Yang's Kitchen to talk about changes to the restaurant during the pandemic, the importance of sourcing produce locally, and the roots of Asian American cuisine. Here are some of the highlights from the conversation.

Chef Christian Yang (left) and Maggie Ho (right)

When I stepped into Yang’s Kitchen on a sunny September afternoon, the restaurant looked like its usual bright and cheerful state. Yet the sunlight that poured through the large front windows also highlighted significant changes to the restaurant since the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of a bustling dining area, seating tables were cleared to accommodate tables that displayed local crafts and market goods for community members. A neat row of brown takeout bags lined the counter. The kitchen area was quieter than usual, apart from the commotion of unpacking and sorting through our Food Roots produce delivery.

Homemade crafts for sale at Yang’s Kitchen

These changes reflect the ways in which Yang’s Kitchen has adapted through creativity and necessity during these difficult times. Chef Christian Yang later explained that restaurant sales began dipping as early as February, and when the COVID pandemic fully hit the US in late March, he and his wife Maggie Ho had to close for one week to figure out what to do. In order to stay afloat, they decided to reduce staff capacity, hours, and menu items. 

Despite these difficult decisions, Christian and Maggie also looked at alternative ways they could sustain their business while supporting community needs. “That’s the time people were hoarding things, so we decided we could use our resources to provide whatever we could to the people who needed it. We started selling eggs, produce, and chicken, and we went to the Alhambra Farmers’ Market to buy more produce from local farmers. They’d lost a lot of their restaurant clients, so a lot of farmers were struggling too. We went to them, and we tried to buy whatever we could, and then we would sell it to our customers who were afraid to go to the grocery store, which weren’t enforcing masks or social distancing in the beginning.”

Supporting Local Farmers

As a Food Roots partner restaurant, Yang’s Kitchen sources a portion of its produce from our local network of farmers of color. When I asked why it was important to source locally, Christian explained that as a mom and pop business themselves, they could empathize with small farmers. Supporting small businesses especially matters now more than ever if they are to weather the storm of COVID-19. But another reason to support local farmers, Christian explained, has to do with their careful approach to their land and crops, which aligns with his restaurant’s own stance on addressing climate change.

“[Small, local farmers] do things the right way. They take care of the land, they take care of the soil, they're not using tons of fertilizer and pesticides. They’re not polluting or destroying the lands around them. This is a big part of it for us too. Because when we talk to the farmers, we ask them, ‘Hey, how are you growing these things? What are you doing to put more back into the soil rather than just to deplete it? Do you spray pesticides?’ Most of these small farmers don't do any of those harmful farming techniques because they take pride in their produce; they want to grow great tasting food that’s seasonal. And I think most of these farmers have a connection with the land, since they know that land is their livelihood. They don't want to destroy it, at least the farmers we work with.”

Reflecting on the ways in which our nation has not been equipped to handle the COVID-19 pandemic and its racist policing system, chef Christian wondered if the world would ever be equipped to tackle the issue of climate change. “Farming and agriculture are actually surprisingly really big drivers of climate change. For us, [supporting small farmers] is thinking in action—voting with our dollars—because we think that they're doing things that ultimately will help the earth and climate change. A lot of the large companies, they're still doing things the old ways with tons of fertilizers and pesticides to add to the problem.”

Still, a restaurant is a business, and Christian was clear that a socially-driven mission could not sustain his restaurant alone. “At the end of the day, when you go to a restaurant, it can't just be locally sourced or just be organic. We can't just talk about the food. It’s gotta taste good,” he said. “It’s not supporting small farmers just because they're small. There's this cycle in food as in life where, if you do things the right way, they usually turn out better. So we start with the farmers—if we support the farmers who grow things the right way, their produce actually tastes better because they've been taking care of the earth. They've been doing things the right way. We start with better produce, and if we cook things the right way, we end up with better food. At the end of the day, local small farmers grow better food, and it translates to us cooking better food.”

Food Roots Favorites

Better produce, better food. For chef Christian, sourcing from Food Roots’ local farmers made a difference in quality for his kitchen creations, which resulted in better taste for his customers. Tagging along a Food Roots delivery to Yang’s, I noticed the difference in quality myself. Huge boxes of Japanese sweet potatoes with vibrant purple skin tumbled into clear bins for trimming. Plump, shiny bok choy were nestled together in cozy layers. Crisp cucumbers were trimmed and sliced for the next lucky customer.

Persian Cucumbers. Sourced from Food Roots.

Japanese Sweet Potatoes. Sourced from Food Roots.

Baby Bok Choy. Sourced from Food Roots.

“My top favorite [Food Roots-sourced item] is the Japanese sweet potato,” Christian revealed. “It’s always consistent, really sweet, and has a great texture. We steam that one or sometimes roast it. We serve it with just a little bit of sea salt, olive oil, and sesame seeds. It has really great flavor and is filling and nutrient dense.”

You can taste other produce sourced from Food Roots in the cold noodles, which features our julienned cucumbers and pickled carrots. Yang’s Kitchen also creates one-offs and special items with our produce. They recently made a sauerkraut with Food Roots-sourced napa cabbage. In the pre-COVID full menu, they also loved to serve our mustard greens, fermented and prepared as a relish, in their braised pork over rice and beef noodle soup.

Persian Cucumbers. Sourced from Food Roots.

Local Food and “Asian American” Cuisine

Finally, sourcing locally reflected chef Christian’s larger outlook on his upbringing as an Asian American in his hometown, the San Gabriel Valley. When I first asked Christian to explain the concept of Yang’s Kitchen to me, he immediately responded, “I would describe us as an Asian American restaurant.” What makes Yang’s Kitchen distinctly Asian American? Chef Christian pointed to the ways in which he was nourished by both his Asian family heritage as well as the Southern California land around him.

“I grew up here [in Los Angeles] and grew up eating a lot of Asian foods that my parents cooked or when I travelled to Asia. So when I opened Yang’s Kitchen, a lot of those foods were influenced by these nostalgic comfort foods, but a lot of techniques and ingredients were more local,” Christian said. 

While Yang’s cuisine pays homage to his childhood comfort foods and travels throughout Asia, he was clear that he is not trying to create an exact replica of “authentic” or “traditional” dishes. “You can’t just copy food from other countries and other lands,” Christian explained. “There’s a reason why those dishes became popularized or invented in China, Hong Kong, or Taiwan. It’s because they had to use what was available, fresh, in season, and delicious to them.”

“I thought it was important to make it unique to what we have available here. In my career, I came up in kitchens in Los Angeles. I didn’t work in traditional Chinese kitchens or go to traditional Chinese culinary schools to learn to use a traditional wok. I blended all the techniques I learned here and all the ingredients available here [in Los Angeles],” Chistian said.

Yet according to chef Christian, the labels of “local,” “organic,” and “healthy” are not readily associated with Asian cuisine nor the cultural narrative of the San Gabriel Valley. Such restaurants and produce items are usually not affordable for local residents. And these labels, along with their associated higher price points, are usually more accepted for non-Asian cuisines, as chef Christian explained, “If you were doing Italian food, or American food, you know, or something else, the conversation might have been a little different [when we decided to open our restaurant].” But by stitching together his Los Angeles hometown and diasporic Asian family heritage, chef Christian shows us that sourcing locally is not an anomaly for Asian American restaurants today—it is part and parcel of a distinctly Asian American cuisine. 

Menu items at Yang’s Kitchen have been updated during the COVID pandemic

Eat at Yang’s Kitchen Today!

“It's just hard to have full confidence right now. I’m really trying to get through it day by day, and I think everyone's in the same kind of survival mode.”

- Chef Christian Yang

Local businesses and farmers have been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. Support your local restaurants and farmers today!

Yang’s Kitchen is currently open for online orders and walk-ins, take-out only (no seating)

Hours: Sunday through Thursday, 11am-6pm

Find them on IG @yangskitchenLA

Website: www.yangskitchenla.com

You can schedule orders in advance at https://www.toasttab.com/yangs-kitchen/v3