Chef Bryant Ng Is Opening a Chinese American Restaurant in Santa Monica

Celebrated Cassia chef Bryant Ng is opening a fast-casual Chinese American restaurant called Jade Rabbit in late September. Located in a 3,400-square-foot space at 2301 Santa Monica Boulevard in Santa Monica, the restaurant will seat 50 diners, with 40 seats in the dining room and 10 more on an outdoor patio. Whereas Ng’s acclaimed restaurant Cassia is under the Rustic Canyon collection of restaurants, Jade Rabbit will be independently owned by Ng and his wife and business partner, Kim Luu-Ng.

Plans to open a Chinese American restaurant have been percolating in the couples’ minds for over a decade. With Jade Rabbit, the Ngs will draw on Bryant’s family history (the chef’s family has been cooking Chinese American food in the U.S. since the 1950s), as well as the genre’s long, diverse history across America. Specific influences, Ng says, will include the Hong Kong-style cafes, the Cantonese barbecue and seafood restaurants that proliferated in the 1980s and 1990s, and the regional Chinese food found in many corners of Los Angeles, particularly in the San Gabriel Valley. The Ngs hope to redefine the cuisine in innovative ways.

Jade Rabbit

“Just as Italian Americans celebrate Italian American food, we take pride in Chinese American food as its own regional Chinese cuisine [that] bridges two culinary cultures,” says Ng.

Standard orders at Jade Rabbit are centered around regular or large “combo” meals that come with two side dishes, two vegetables, and a main course (or two mains for the large combo). Main dishes include genre standards like beef and broccoli and honey walnut shrimp, along with creative mashups like orange mango chicken (“Our version of the awesome orange chicken, but crossed with Korean fried chicken [and] with a bit of tropical flavor from the mangos,” says Ng) and scallion-cheese toast riffing on Sizzler’s famous version.

Jade Rabbit will not have a license to serve alcohol and will prepare many of its beverages in-house, including Hong Kong milk tea, Cantonese lemon iced tea, and citrus-passion fruit iced tea.

“We want to offer delicious and higher quality food in a way that is not only accessible in terms of price point, but also approachability, convenience, and speed — taking the genuineness and love found in home cooking and combining it with the care of fine dining,” says Ng.