L.A. Son

For foodies and celebrity-chef watchers, Roy Choi is a name that is hard to miss. A classically trained entrepreneur whose Korean-Mexican taco truck helped usher in the gourmet food truck revolution of the early 2010s and loosely inspired the 2014 film Chef, Choi’s impact on the last decade of American culinary culture is considerable. In this book, originally published in 2013 in the early stages of his rise to fame, Choi shares the story of his origins, inspirations, mistakes, and lucky breaks as a frequently wayward Korean American youth growing up in greater Los Angeles. In a uniquely informal voice marked with gratitude and profanity, Choi vividly narrates the sights, sounds, tastes, and smells of L.A’s sprawling neighborhoods and the complex, resourceful people with whom he often found deepest community. Even as Choi’s story moves to his more formal period of culinary development, his emphasis never strays from the importance of other people, without whom one cannot hope to survive, let alone succeed. Recipes interspersed throughout (but thankfully not read aloud in full) underscore Choi’s journey and broad cultural influences.