A brand new restaurant called Rasa Rumah is getting ready to debut in Los Angeles later this year, located at 3107 Beverly Blvd.
This is the latest concept from Johnny Lee, who was previously chef-owner of Pearl River Deli in Chinatown, according to Eater Los Angeles. Now, the restaurateur is partnering with Last Word Hospitality, led by Holly Fox and Adam Weisblatt, to open this new restaurant in the former home of Vaka Burger in Late Fall 2024. Last Word Hospitality is known for some of the best restaurants in Los Angeles, including Found Oyster, Barra Santos, and Queen St. Raw Bar & Grill. The exact opening date is to be determined.
When the new restaurant opens later this year, customers can expect a variety of Malaysian-inspired dishes, including satay skewers, fried chicken, noodles, and a savory fruit salad called rojak. There will be enough space for 38 people within the restaurant. To drink, Rasa Rumah plans to offer a little bit of everything, from soju and sake to beer and wine. Eater points out that the interior will resemble Penang architecture with checkered floors and ironwork.
“The food of Rasa Rumah will be Malaysian for the most part, but what exactly is Malaysian food? It’s difficult to state in short but it is an amazing combination of the indigenous Malay cuisine with immigrants from China, India, and Indonesia,” according to the company’s Instagram. “Then you see fusions of all of these cuisines such as Indian-Chinese, Peranakan (a fusion of a Chinese and Malay), Malay leaning Indonesian added with a history of trade with the Dutch, Portuguese, and British. Given a few centuries of this mixing, you get a vibrant hawker culture that comes out in the most brilliant way. The food of Rasa Rumah will only be partly inspired by the hawkers because there’s also a rich restaurant culture as well but that talk is for another day!”
