Historic Filipinotown Is L.A.'s Next Great Dining Neighborhood
"Woon, a wonderful new Chinese restaurant in L.A.'s Historic Filipinotown, got slammed with customers. 'There was a line out the door,' Keegan says. 'Everything just went wrong at once. The rice went mushy, the noodles went mushy, the pork belly fell apart, and there were tickets, like, stacked. I was just like, I don't know what the fuck to do. I've never been in this situation before. I've never been in the restaurant business.' But Keegan is a smart and sincere operator. He walked over to every table and told customers how sorry he was. He admitted that he was inexperienced. He offered to get guests beers. The diners at Woon told Keegan that they appreciated his honesty and his effort. They said that they were happy to have Woon in the neighborhood and that they would keep supporting the restaurant. Later that night, Keegan put up an Instagram post thanking customers for being so gracious during Sunday's dinner service. Earlier that day, he had posted about Mother's Day and revealed that his mom, affectionately known as Mama Fong, had been diagnosed with breast cancer a few weeks after he signed the lease for Woon. Keegan wrote about how she underwent treatment and still found time to train the Woon staff and take care of her grandchildren. Mama Fong, who is now cancer-free, had no idea that her son was going to post this. I visited Historic Filipinotown, also known as HiFi, last week because I wanted to tell a story about L.A.'s next great dining neighborhood. I wanted to tell you about the beef noodles, perfectly chewy and beautifully charred, that the born-in-Shanghai, raised-in-Hong Kong Mama Fong has served her family for three decades. I wanted to tell you how Woon, which is Mama Fong's first foray in the restaurant business, started as a pop-up and has turned into one of L.A.'s most exciting new restaurants. I wanted to tell you about great dishes like Woon's sausage-laden fried rice and fried tofu fishcakes." - Andy Wang
