Flavors of AAPI: Chef Katianna Hong of Yangban Los Angeles
Chef Katianna Hong at her restaurant, Yangban in Los Angeles. Photo courtesy of Gonzalo Marroquin/Getty Images for Gold House
For generations, Lee Kum Kee has supported Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) home cooks and chefs that are looking to enhance their culinary creations with Asian flavors. Many of our sauces, like our Panda Brand Oyster Flavored Sauce, are especially used by the AAPI chef community. These sauces are key to crafting many of the essential dishes in Chinese, Filipino, Korean, and several other cuisines.
Lee Kum Kee celebrated a few trailblazing AAPI chefs during 2024’s AAPI Month. These chefs bring the #FlavorsofAAPI to life through not just their food, but through their inspiring stories and support of their local AAPI communities. If you know of similar chefs, we encourage you to share their stories with this hashtag, and we may feature them in the future as well!
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To kick off the month, we partnered with Gold House, a nonprofit that champions AAPI creators and companies, to share the story of rising AAPI chef Katianna Hong from Yangban in Los Angeles. Chef Katianna was honored at Gold House’s annual A100 Gala with the Gold Chef Grand Prize and was the Executive Director of Gold House’s A100 Welcome Dinner.
At Yangban, Chef Katianna’s renowned restaurant that she runs with her husband John, Chef Katianna crafts a menu of “autobiographical cuisine”, as she puts it. The dishes that they craft are an embodiment of Katianna and John’s combined Korean-American upbringings, like their famed YANGBAN Wings with a kimchi hot sauce that’s become a crowd favorite.
The grilled King’s Cut Short Rib from Yangban, as served at the A100 Welcome Dinner.
So why does a pioneering AAPI chef like Chef Katianna use Lee Kum Kee? For her, it’s about nostalgia. “It’s one of my first memories, is seeing the Lee Kum Kee products in the grocery stores,” she told us, “and being able to take them home and try to recreate these Asian recipes that I had learned.”
Chef Katianna’s work in creating a new style of Korean-American food was on full display at the A100 Welcome Dinner. The mouthwatering bites highlighting the AAPI chef flavors included crispy rice balls filled with a Korean black bean Bolognese, assorted banchan (side dishes) like a Chiu Chow Chili Crisp Oil Cucumber Salad, and her signature Grilled King’s Cut Short Rib with a potato puree.
The dishes that Chef Katianna creates are unique to her own story as a Korean American, and through using Lee Kum Kee sauces, she’s able to bring her autobiographical cuisine to life. Whether you’re cooking for yourself at home or for a crowd of hungry diners, you can use Lee Kum Kee sauces to make your own food journey even more delicious.
A set of banchan (Korean side dishes) served by Yangban at the A100 Welcome Dinner. Photo courtesy of Gonzalo Marroquin/Getty Images for Gold House
We know that there’s many incredible stories of AAPI Chefs like Katianna out there, and Lee Kum Kee would love to learn about and support as many as we can. Please share the stories you know using #FlavorsofAAPI on social media, and we may feature it down the road!
In the meantime, if you are in or traveling to Los Angeles, make sure to check Yangban out to taste Chef Katianna and John’s creative offerings for yourself.
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