I don’t recognize a lot of the people on the wall of framed celebrities at Park’s BBQ. Though she doesn’t like to admit it, neither does Jenee Kim, the restaurant’s 69-year-old proprietor.
Celebrity is subjective. Everywhere I go, on every wall, there are usually plenty of famous, unfamiliar faces.Each wall is a window into a different pop cultural universe, whether it’s Hollywood, Bollywood or Hallyuwood . The Korean American comedian Bobby Lee found he wasn’t on the wall at Park’s, and joked about it on his podcast TigerBelly. A few days later, Kim looked at the wall and found that one of his fans had smuggled Lee’s portrait onto the wall. She thought it was so funny that she left the photo up, and added another she later took with Lee.Kim said she doesn’t really watch a lot of movies. Her favorite actor is Richard Gere.
Hollywood played a major role in popularizing Thai food in Los Angeles starting in the 1980s. Thai restaurants and grocery stores located next to movie studios brought more visibility to the cuisine, which at the time was still relatively new to the United States, according to the book “Flavors of Empire” by Mark Padoongpatt, an Asian American studies professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Thai food even starred in “Star Trek,” standing in for Klingon cuisine.