Hi! In this episode of Chinese Food Fight Club, we check in with Lydia and Leo Lee, the mom-and-pop team behind Cantonese barbecue restaurant RiceBox in downtown Los Angeles.
Lydia and Leo Lee opened RiceBox in 2018 and quickly turned their tiny restaurant into a game-changing standard-bearer for contemporary Cantonese barbecue, including what Los Angeles magazine named as the city's best char siu in 2020. The success of RiceBox involves a family recipe from a Hong Kong restaurant that Lydia's grandfather owned. But the restaurant's ascension is also largely due to Leo's cooking experience and creativity, which has led to innovations like merging Cantonese roast pork with porchetta. Leo was born and raised in Mexicali, Mexico, where his parents had a Chinese restaurant. He then graduated from The Culinary Institute of America in New York and worked at the Patina Restaurant Group in LA before opening RiceBox with Lydia, who grew up in Hong Kong and Vancouver. The Lees are also new parents, who had their son, Ari, during the pandemic.
Stuff we mention in this video:
• Los Angeles magazine's Best of LA 2020
• LA Food Gang's Clubhouse fundraiser and Pop Off LA events
• The Culinary Institute of America
• Patina Restaurant Group
• Anti-Asian hate incidents experienced by restaurants and other small businesses
• The Chinese community in Mexicali
• The San Gabriel Valley
• RiceBox's holiday baked chicken
• Chrissy Teigen and the power of her Instagram posts
• Yu Tsai
• Phil Rosenthal
• Bling Empire
• Delicious Food Corner
• Alice's Kitchen
• Golden Deli
• Ms. Chi and Shirley Chung