Taste the Pow! Bang! Zap! of Lao Cooking at This Hidden Spot in LA’s Chinatown

Tharathip Soulisak had never slurped a steaming bowl of khao soi noodles before attempting to make his own in 2013. With some guidance from his mother, techniques gleaned from watching Food Network, and a handful of online recipes as a reference, the self-trained chef cooked up a version so utterly convincing that diners at his first West Hollywood pop-up — and at subsequent events across Southern California over the years — who’d eaten the northern Laos specialty before told him it was “even better” than their past experiences.

“It was just an imagination of how these flavors might taste,” he says. Stained a rich shade of burnt orange, every bowl begins with long-simmered chicken and pork broth ladled over a tangle of wide rice noodles. A savory heap of fermented soybeans, minced pork, and dried chiles comes next, while fresh scallions, cilantro, fried garlic, and a crispy rice cake add the finishing touches. “I am really proud of that dish,” says Soulisak. “To this day, I have not ever had khao soi that somebody else has made.”

Hidden away in a shared community kitchen in Chinatown, Yum Sະlut (pronounced “yum slut”) is an exploration of “authentic Lao refugee cuisine” that Soulisak opened with his associates Alex Hoang and Daniel Hammonds this past March. From an 8-by-8-foot kitchen equipped with just a single stove, two deep fryers, and a standard refrigerator, the 38-year-old chef, who has an easy smile and curly mop of hair, prepares a tight menu of Lao culinary hits while shining a light on the vibrancy of its culture. “Opening the restaurant, aside from a business venture, is also an advocacy project,” he says. “I would just love for the world to know Lao food, Lao culture, and that Lao people are here.” Soulisak is considered one of the only Lao culture experts in the country; he consulted on Netflix’s Dahmer and performed a sou khuan (blessing ceremony) on the set of Disney’s Raya and the Last Dragon, among other projects. That willingness to share manifests at Yum Sະlut, where he brings people in with the warmth of hospitality and the joy of good food.

When Yum Sະlut opened earlier this spring, Soulisak had already spent a decade serving Lao food around town — first from his backyard in West Hollywood and eventually at two dozen or so events and farmers market stalls across the Southland. The current menu is a distillation of dishes that he considers both representative of Lao cuisine and appealing to the masses. The khao soi noodles have been a standby from the start, while the fried sausages were added to the lineup upon customer request; each link is tautly plumped with coarsely ground pork, makrut lime leaves, lemongrass, shallots, chiles, and garlic. Soulisak doesn’t hold back on the pork fat because “that’s what makes it good.” The Laos national dish of larb (pronounced “laap”) found its way onto the menu at Soulisak’s mother’s urging. “The word ‘larb’ itself means prosperity,” he says. “Every wedding, every party, every Lao major event that you go to, larb has to be on the menu.”

For first-time diners, Soulisak recommends coming with a group and ordering the herb-flecked catfish lettuce wraps (“that is a very uniquely Lao dish”), the larb (“if they really want something traditional”), and the snappy sausages (“I think that is definitely everybody’s favorite Lao item”). Food arrives on colorful metal platters prettied with an array of sauces like padaek (fermented fish sauce) and a tomato-based chutney, clear-broth soups, and vegetable accompaniments like lettuce, herbs, and cabbage. Diners can ask for dishes to be served a la carte, but Soulisak insists that everyone eats the Lao way. “When you eat a dish like larb, you have to eat it with some soup to wash it down and some sticky rice and some crispy vegetables,” he says.

Here, everything is meant to be shared among hungry tablemates. “There’s this saying in Lao that if you’re not fighting over food, it’s not as good,” says Soulisak. “If you’re fighting over that one bite or that last piece, that’s what makes it that much better.” The avalanche of flavors coming from Yum Sະlut’s kitchen is something out of a 1960s Batman action scene: The Pow! of fresh chiles, the Zap! of lime, the Bang! of fermentation, and the Whap! of torn herbs. The flavor punches somehow get more powerful with each bite.

With appetites sated, diners might wonder aloud where Lao food has been all their lives or remark on the similarities between certain Lao and Thai dishes. While some chefs shy away from explaining the nuances of their cuisine and foodways, the desire and ability to enlighten others has become second nature to Soulisak.

Born and raised in northern Virginia just outside of Washington D.C., Soulisak was the youngest of nine half-siblings within a “small but mighty” Lao refugee community that mostly hailed from the capital city of Vientiane. His mother insisted that only Lao was spoken in the home and ensured that cultural, culinary, and religious practices thrived even while living in the U.S. “My mom wasn’t able to bring me any type of valuables or heirlooms or monetary riches, but what she was able to bring me was our culture,” says Soulisak. “And for me to keep that as the treasure that she was able to pass on.”

The shared dishes between Lao and Thai cuisines are the result of a long and complicated history of colonization, migration, and urbanization. “Before we had countries, there was just a bunch of kingdoms with Lao ethnic groups on both sides of the Mekong River,” says Soulisak. A series of power struggles in the region led to a three-way negotiation between France, England, and Thailand that ultimately drew the border lines of each country at the Mekong River and led to the Lao ethnic group living in two countries, Soulisak says. In the decades that followed, inhabitants on both sides of the Mekong River — officially citizens of Laos or Thailand — continued to interact and share a common culture. Bangkok’s emergence as a major commercial hub in Southeast Asia further spurred migration and immigration, contributing to the proliferation and adaptation of certain shared culinary traditions.

“It’s not unfair for [Thai people] to claim certain dishes because it is a part of their culture as well,” says Soulisak. “I wish we could have that conversation, like, ‘Hey, you guys are crediting all this food to Thai people while the origins of the dish and the people who are making it still are totally under-recognized.” Soulisak appreciates how food invites curiosity and provides a platform for cross-cultural conversations, and he takes every opportunity to bring more people into the fold.

Looking to the future, the path from operating in a community kitchen to running a standalone restaurant is daunting, but Soulisak thinks it’s a definite possibility in time. While Thai restaurants are present in nearly every neighborhood across Los Angeles, some even serving Lao dishes, exclusively Lao establishments are still few and far between. (Kop Jai Lai in Mission Hills was the only Lao restaurant in Los Angeles until Yum Sະlut came on the scene.) Lao food is primed for its moment, and Soulisak is more than ready to lead the charge. “Success is Lao people seeing that their food or their culture is relevant, that it is something that others are interested in,” he says. “It’s not something that we should let die out.”

Yum Sະlut is located inside Lokels Only at 635 N. Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90012, and is open 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. from Thursday to Sunday.