You are reading our Cooking newsletter
Sign up to get a taste of Los Angeles — and the world — in your own home and in your inbox every Friday
By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Service, which include arbitration and a class action waiver. You agree that we and our third-party vendors may collect and use your information, including through cookies, pixels and similar technologies, for the purposes set forth in our Privacy Policy such as personalizing your experience and ads.
There’s queso, and then there’s queso laced with Thai Panang curry.
New cookbook “Asian Smoke” — one of our favorites of the year so far — shares this and other sweet-spicy, smoky-funky recipes for the likes of crying tiger bao buns, brisket curry, smoked chicken pho and beef cheek barbacoa pad see ew.
It’s written by the trio of friends behind Texas and Tennessee restaurant Curry Boys BBQ, who combine Southeast Asian flavors with classic Texas barbecue technique, and their book is just as much about reinventing the craft as it is revering it.
“Texas barbecue is steeped in such rich, deep tradition that I think there’s a lot of people who are kind of afraid to buck that,” said Sean Wen, who operates Curry Boys BBQ with Andrew Ho and Andrew Samia. “We treat it like a religion in Texas. But I think because there are so many more first-gen immigrants and people who have grown up with this food and this idea of Texas barbecue, it’s just become second nature to us to start trying these things with our flavors. … I think the tide is slowly turning, and I think it’s a really cool thing to see where barbecue is going.”
Ho’s parents often grilled steaks and would serve those or Texas barbecue leftovers with homemade Vietnamese dishes, while Wen’s family would combine Taiwanese and Chinese classics with buckets of fried Church’s Texas Chicken. As they reached adulthood, this blending of flavors spelled comfort.
All three of the restaurateurs were raised in Cypress, Texas, just outside of Houston, though they connected later in life. Ho and Wen cooked together in college and later opened an Asian-inspired curry and seafood boil spot, which closed during the pandemic. Then they tapped pitmaster Samia — who also owns South BBQ — to smoke meats with Southeast Asian flair for a Curry Boys pop-up, which became so popular the trio opened a bright pink brick-and-mortar. Then they opened two more.
They’ve racked up two James Beard Foundation Awards semifinalist nods, flowers from Texas Monthly, CNBC and others, and now, a hot-pink cookbook to match their restaurants’ aesthetic.
It’s filled with 120 recipes, many of which require a smoker and/or a grill, though some — such as their salads, curry pastes, fish sauce cheddar bay biscuits, Vietnamese-meets-Cajun seafood boil and calamansi bars — do not.
They walk the line of balance, using the tang of fresh citrus, the funk of fish sauce or the searing heat of spicy curry paste to cut through big, rich Texas barbecue meats.
“If you’ve got super fatty brisket and you mix that with something aromatic and bright and fresh, I think that’s just what your body craves,” said Wen. “I started realizing, every protein we smoke, everything we do, I’d always love to dip it in lime or fish sauce because it mellows out the meat a little bit, or the fat. I think that’s a big part of why it works.”
L.A. locals are also blending these flavors. Winnie Yee of Smoke Queen Barbecue introduced her Chinese American smoked meats and sides through pop-ups and a Smorgasburg residency, and now operates a full restaurant in Garden Grove. Chad Phuong, who goes by “the Cambodian Cowboy,” pops up throughout L.A. with Battambong BBQ. Full Send BBQ’s Dominic Cagliero, another familiar face at Smorgasburg, weaves Filipino recipes through Texas-style smoked meats.
Wen, Ho and Samia hope their new cookbook can introduce home cooks to this wave of barbecue, with reverence for both Southeast Asian and Texas traditions. And they hope it inspires others to follow suit in sharing their own stories and cuisines.
“We were excited by the idea of being able to share our food, but it was also just a really cool opportunity to be able to tell our story and how our upbringing as Asian Americans affected the world of barbecue,” said Wen. “I thought that was just a really cool perspective that we wanted people to hear.”
Visit the L.A. Times Food and Now Serving booth at the Festival of Books on April 18 and 19 at USC for signings with cookbook authors Roxana Jullapat of Friends & Family, Nikki Hill and Claire Wadsworth of La Copine in Yucca Valley and other writers from L.A. and beyond.
Eating out this week? Sign up for Tasting Notes to get our restaurant experts’ insights and off-the-cuff takes on where they’re dining right now.
Curry Boys BBQ’s Curry Queso
Try your hand at Curry Boys’ global barbecue with this recipe from their new cookbook. This curry queso found its way to the menu after Wen, Ho and Samia created it for a Fourth of July hot dog special. Impressed with the nutty note that Panang curry paste lends to the creamy, classic dip, they added this queso to all three of their locations and it’s become one of their most popular items ever since. It’s served simply with chips, and also smothers their pulled-pork nachos.
Get the recipe.
Cook time: About 20 minutes. Makes 1 quart.
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)