Chinatown Staple Known for Cheap Bites and Chinese Comfort Food Closes

The Chinatown restaurant known for affordable entrees and Chinese comfort food is closing permanently in a couple of weeks so its owners can retire. Located in the same shopping center as other Chinatown staples, including Kabuto, Raku, and Trattoria Nakamura-Ya, the small, casual restaurant has offered affordable and home-style Chinese cooking, noodle soups, and fried chicken for 12 years.

Wai Lee, and his wife Connie, opened the restaurant in 2011 as a means of re-creating the food they grew up eating in New York’s Chinatown, reported Food & Wine. For years, most of their entrees were under $5, with deep-fried pork chop with udon noodle soup, curry chicken over rice, and thin ribeye over pasta going for $4.95 each. They raised prices in recent years, but standouts like the fried pork chop in light gravy and Hainanese chicken with seasoned rice are still $10, each.

A spokesperson at the restaurant shared that the Lees opened the restaurant in 2011 and would be closing “in two weeks or less” so they can retire. She says that a restaurant from California is expected to move into the space. Big Wong at 5040 Spring Mountain Road will close in early May.

Janna Karel