The Brief

If you’re looking for a quick, decent quality bite, there’s likely a chain in SoCal to hit the spot: In-N-Out for burgers, Mendocino Farms for sandwiches, Cava for Mediterranean food and yes, Chipotle for Mexican food.

But South Asian options at this level of speed, scale, and convenience are harder to come by.

The family behind Biryani Boys, the Pakistani fast-casual joint currently operating out of Anaheim Food Co., is hoping to fill that void. Owner Irfan Ahmed said he is focusing on making Pakistani food scalable.

“The concept behind Biryani Boys is to make South Asian food approachable in much the same way that Chipotle or Cava is approachable,” Ahmed said.

“They took these cultural cuisines, and they made them household staples in the American culinary experience and cultural experience,” he added.

Ahmed said he thinks folks are ready for a fast-casual South Asian option because he’s already seen it work in the U.K.

“Desi food is very much part of the cultural fabric there. There's quick-service, nice sit down, and everything in between," he said. "But for Americans whose lifestyles are begging for convenience, I think desi food generally does not yet serve that segment very well.”

Biryani Boys staff and team

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Courtesy of Biryani Boys

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Signature dish

Ahmed is the son of South Asian immigrants; his father, Jamil Ahmed, was born in India pre-Partition, after which he moved to Pakistan, where Ahmed’s mother, Talat Iqbal, was born and raised.

Growing up in Anaheim, Ahmed saw his mother, an excellent cook, operate a catering service out of their family home and in kitchens at local mosques.

One of her signature dishes was her biryani, a piping hot, long-grain rice cooked with a warm, salty, savory blend of spices like cinnamon sticks, cardamom pods, cloves, and cumin; vegetables like potatoes and onions; and usually a type of marinated meat, often served alongside a diced cucumber and tomato salad and a serving of yogurt.

Biryani Boy combo

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Courtesy of Biryani Boys

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Ahmed began sharing his mother’s biryani with his friends at annual friendsgiving potlucks with “the boys,” which is what inspired the restaurant’s name. As the potlucks grew over the years, drawing up to a hundred people each year, the biryani quickly became a mainstay.

While her food played a big role in the family, outside the house, Ahmed rarely saw any restaurants that offered the type of Pakistani food he wanted to eat.

So he worked with his family — including his parents, sister Sadaf Ahmed, and wife Sohila Khalili — to make his own, using his mother’s recipe to open up a restaurant different from the sit-down spots and buffet-style offerings he saw around him. The family opened their kitchen out of Anaheim Food Co. in October 2023 and has plans to open a brick and mortar space later this year.

Biryani Boys logo

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Courtesy of Biryani Boys

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To make a meal quick and simple to produce, Ahmed has narrowed down choices and created a customizable, modular system like the one found at Chipotle.

Diners can choose between two types of biryani: The Sindhi biryani, pulling from southeastern Pakistan and characterized by its spicy, savory, and tangy spice blend, plus additional flavor from prunes or plums, or the pulao, made with a simpler and lighter spice blend.

Both biryanis can be ordered with a ground beef seekh kabob, a pulled beef nihari or pulled chicken (both of which Ahmed likens to a birria), boneless chicken breast marinated overnight in cream and yogurt, or a potato kabob for vegetarians.

Then you have the sauces: raita, made with yogurt and spices, plus chutneys: a mild, cilantro based green chutney; a tamarind chutney; and an extra spicy red chutney to add flavor.

Ahmed noted that he is not hoping to create a fusion dining experience, or even one that is driven by authenticity alone. “You’re going to get your purists who are going to say, ‘This isn't my mom's Hyderabadi biryani.’” he said. “I'm not fusing flavors, I'm just changing the medium or the modality in which it's served. So I'm taking desi flavors, and I'm serving them in a way that's more familiar for the average common American.”

There’s also a range of rolls (flaky parathas wrapped around a meat or veggie filling), crinkle-cut masala fries topped with a house spice blend, and potato balls, similar to the beloved Porto’s classic from the outside, but more akin to a classic chapli kabob by taste. A range of lassis flavored with rose or fruits like guava, mango, peach, and strawberry, add a bit of sweetness along with South Asian-inspired cheesecakes topped with nuts and rose petals.

Ahmed emphasized how important it was for him for the brand to be visibly Pakistani. “There's a reason why I was very particular about choosing Pakistani, as opposed to just South Asian or Indian,” he said, adding that while there are cultural and culinary similarities between the two countries, the regional distinctions and the visibility matter.

“There are some distinctions in Pakistani food that you wouldn't find in Indian food. For example, it's heavier on the meat base, it's a little less spicy depending on where the region is," he said. "To me, biryani uses ingredients that are indigenous to the region of Sindh. Some of the kabobs have heavy Afghan influence, especially chapli and shami kabob, which is very unique to that part of the world as opposed to India."

Rose flavored lassi to quench your thirst

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Photo courtesy of Biryani Boys

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For the brand, he opted for a modern, sleek blue design, inspired by the Badshahi Mosque in Sindh, Pakistan, and embellished with Islamic motifs, like geometric patterns and crescent moons.

“The aftermath of 9/11 deeply affected the American Muslim community, leading to a reluctance among many Muslims to incorporate Islamic cultural elements into their public personas due to concerns about potential backlash or harm," Ahmed said. "I felt that it was time to correctly represent my true Muslim-American identity.

“Most Pakistani restaurants in Southern California, and maybe the U.S. in general, will call themselves Indian because it's easier to do that from a business perspective, because it's less controversial," he added. "And you expand your market; there are more Indians than there are Pakistanis, and you don't want to disenfranchise your core constituency. So it's better to say Indian than it is to say Pakistani."

He noted that while a majority of the response to Biryani Boys has been positive and supportive, he’s gotten some pushback on social media, including from folks who ask what makes his food distinct from Indian food.

“I was very scared when I put ‘modern Pakistani eats’ on the branding, and I am still to this day, but I've been blown away overall by the positivity and the reception, because I would say maybe 50 to 60% of our consumers are actually Indian, and they love the food,” Ahmed said.

Classic Desi Desserts include: Rasmalai Biscoff Cheesecake and Gulab Jamun Biscoff Cheesecake

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Courtesy of Biryani Boys

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Ahmed notes that he is most proud of starting a restaurant despite all the challenges that come with it and for seeing if he can make biryani scalable.

“Most restaurants don't do well selling biryani because it's hard to scale biryani. It's too labor intensive. It's not monetizable in the same way, you can't make money selling it in the same way here. Labor is much cheaper in India and Pakistan,” he said. “The second thing to be proud of is the fact that I am Indian and Pakistani, and am really creating and elevating our cuisine in the eyes of the average Westerner. If I could do that right, I achieved my goal.”

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Boxing has never just been about throwing punches for Daysi Garcia.

“When people say boxing saves lives, we don’t mean that superficially,” Garcia said, a Pico Union native and boxing coach at gang intervention programs across Los Angeles. “We literally see boxing save people’s lives.”

That belief has become visible in young people like Elijah Rivera. The teen’s father Daniel Lopez said his son was able to avoid returning to juvenile hall after Garcia advocated for him in court and connected him to her boxing program.

“She showed up on his behalf as a third-party program,” Lopez said. “That ultimately helped him with his case. She really does dive deep into these kids and gets real personal with them. She cares about all aspects of their lives. It’s not just in boxing.”

Lopez said his son, now 17, was able to complete probation while participating in the program.

“It was a real good diversion for him to be able to focus on boxing instead of the streets,” Lopez said. “He was able to ultimately turn his life around.”

For Garcia, stories like Elijah’s reflect the kind of impact she hoped she could have through boxing. Over the last several years, Garcia has helped young people across Lincoln Heights and Echo Park build confidence through boxing and mentorship in gang intervention programs. And now she’s also back in Pico Union coaching at the Graff Lab, in the same gym where she once trained herself.

“If my neighborhood didn’t invest in me, I wouldn’t be who I am today,” Garcia said. “So being able to pay it forward is a big deal for me.”

The 35-year-old started the program because she saw firsthand the impact boxing had on her own life.

Born and raised in Pico Union to Mexican immigrant parents, Garcia said she first discovered boxing around age 20 through a gang intervention program connected to the University of Southern California boxing team. At the time, she said she was struggling to find direction in her life.

“It worked for me,” Garcia said. “Training in a neighborhood gym alongside collegiate boxers helped put me on a pathway back to college.”

Six months later, Garcia said she found herself in college. She eventually earned a bachelor’s degree from Mount Saint Mary’s University and years later enrolled at Southwestern Law School, where she completed her first year of law school before taking time off during the pandemic.

It was during that break that Garcia began working at PUC Excel Charter Academy, a charter school in Lincoln Heights, where students were barred from playing traditional sports because of COVID-19 restrictions. Garcia proposed creating a boxing fundamentals program as a way to keep students engaged after school and off the streets.

Within the first week, between 20 and 30 students signed up.

“Five, six years later, those students are still with me training,” Garcia said.

Garcia first launched the boxing program in Lincoln Heights during the height of the pandemic. The program later expanded to El Centro del Pueblo in Echo Park and eventually it will also be held at the Graff Lab in Pico Union. 

For Silvia Martinez, an 18-year-old immigrant from Michoacán, Mexico, joining the boxing program in Echo Park was a way to build discipline.

“I’m working on that because in the future I want to go into the army,” Martinez said in Spanish. “The first few times I started boxing, I was scared of getting hit, but now it feels normal to me. I like it because Daysi and the other coaches make you feel safe and supported.”

Garcia’s programs now offer mentorship, literacy support through a boxing-themed book club, court support for young people involved in the juvenile justice system, college guidance, emotional support and conversations around the school-to-prison pipeline and students’ rights.

Garcia said she and members of the boxing team often show up to court hearings to advocate for students like Rivera and demonstrate to judges that they have community support systems behind them.

“I started my boxing program to help students get off the streets and get students out of juvenile hall,” Garcia said. “I really want to finish my law degree because I’m passionate about juvenile justice.”

Garcia was recognized for her work this week at Los Angeles City Hall by Los Angeles City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez, an honor she said felt emotional because many of her students were standing beside her during the recognition.

“When people celebrate me, it’s not just me,” Garcia said. “I want my students to know they deserve to be celebrated this way too.”

Garcia also played a role in the creation of the inaugural World Boxing Council collegiate amateur belt with the USC boxing team. Now collegiate boxers can compete for a WBC-recognized title. Garcia also said students in the program have received scholarships through the Los Angeles Collegiate Boxing Scholarship initiative she created.

For grandparents like Marcela Sanchez, even though her grandchildren aren’t competing in boxing, she’s also seen how the program has affected them positively. 

Sanchez said she saw changes in two of her grandchildren after they joined Garcia’s boxing classes and other youth activities connected to the program, including art, sewing and tutoring programs.

“They talk more, they understand more, they listen more. Their behavior is way different now from the beginning,” Sanchez said.

Garcia said one of the biggest misconceptions about her work is that the hardest part is dealing with students or the courts. In reality, she said, the biggest challenges are often securing funding, transportation and safe spaces for youth.

Still, Garcia said she continues to push students with a disciplined but trauma-informed coaching style that she believes helps them build resilience.

“We’re all in this together, we want to see our students succeed,” she said. “And we want to see more boxing gyms in L.A.”

Brad Thomas has been up since 6 a.m. on a Sunday — farmer's market first, then prep. By 2 p.m., he's back at the craftsman on 7th and Cherry, the home of his business partner, Clay Wood. The tablecloths go down. The gold cutlery comes out. By 6 p.m., the first of two seatings will fill the living room and front yard — 32 people across the night, all for a six-course dinner at $69 a head: hanger steak, crispy frites, a rotating dessert spread, much of it prepared over open flame in the backyard of the old craftsman.

This is Steak Freaks, and it is exactly the kind of food business that Long Beach just made legal.

Earlier this month, Long Beach became the 19th jurisdiction in California to authorize Micro-Enterprise Home Kitchen Operations — or MEHKOs — joining Riverside County and L.A. County and a growing statewide movement reshaping who can afford to start a food business.

What makes Long Beach different is that it's allowing renters to run these businesses from their homes. (Wood's house, for example, is a rental). In a city where 60% of residents rent and more than half of those renters are cost-burdened, these home kitchens aren't just a creative outlet. For many, they're an economic lifeline. And for those who find success, the program's own limits may push them toward the next step faster than they planned.

Guests dig into the hanger steak frites course during a Sunday dinner at Steak Freaks in Long Beach. The supper club seats 32 people across two seatings and has sold out every dinner since opening.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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Who's behind them

Prior to AB 626, the informal economy long existed in immigrant communities where neighbors sold plates, fed the block and cooked for whoever showed up. That changed in 2018 when the bill passed and gave it a legal pathway and a social media following.

A screenshot from CookConnect, the COOK Alliance's map of permitted MEHKO operators across California, shows the concentration of home kitchen businesses across Los Angeles and Riverside counties.

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CookConnect/COOK Alliance

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According to the COOK Alliance, the nonprofit at the forefront of MEHKO adoption statewide, 79% of operators are people of color and 70% are women. The home-based model removes barriers that have historically kept certain communities out of the food business — no need for a commercial kitchen, massive upfront capital, or to be in two places at once.

Geraldine Gonzales works the wok at Lomo Fuego, where lomo saltado is cooked over an open flame in the backyard.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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It’s worked for Heidi Randolph, who didn't set out to run a restaurant. A couple of years ago, she was selling plates of Peruvian food to soccer players at Lakewood parks on weekends.

I visited Lomo Fuego in March and found families pulling up chairs, her brother working the wok over open flame and her mother pitching in between shifts at her day job. It's started with a handwritten chalkboard and a MEHKO permit posted to a bulletin board that Randolph had to find herself after the city told her it was impossible. What's changed since then tells you everything about both the promise and the limits of the program.

The hanger steak frites at Steak Freaks are finished tableside with a kitchen torch. The six-course dinner runs $69 a head out of a rental home in Long Beach.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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Brad Thomas of Steak Freaks came to it differently. A pastry chef who spent years alongside teams trained by Thomas Keller, Nancy Silverton, and Josiah Citrin, he moved to Long Beach from Texas three years ago and started leaving anonymous pastry deliveries on doorsteps across the city — Lover Boy Provisions, with a flirty note attached.

That's how he met Clay Wood, who owns Clayonfirst pottery studio in the East Village Arts District. When Long Beach passed its MEHKO ordinance, Steak Freaks was born. Every dinner has sold out.

The Steak Freaks menu and a welcome note from collaborating poet Vic Hurtado of Vessel Poetics, set out before service at the Long Beach supper club.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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The landlord question

The council's vote this past April came down to one sticking point: should operators who rent be required to notify their landlord? Councilmember Tunua Thrash-Ntuk, who pushed the motion forward, believed that notification should be voluntary. The COOK Alliance's Roya Bagheri backed that position for a practical reason — even informal landlord approval can evaporate once paperwork gets involved.

Wood's situation says it plainly: his landlord is a former neighbor who follows Steak Freaks on Instagram. No formal conversation has happened. "I make pottery here," Wood said, "and the stuff I do for my pottery business is way crazier than a couple of steaks in the backyard."

The ceiling

When I revisited Lomo Fuego recently, a sign outside announced scaled-back hours — two days a week, down from four. After a neighbor complained, the county health inspector paid a visit and told Randolph she was approaching the annual revenue cap of $110,442 in gross annual sales (a figure adjusted every year for inflation by the California Department of Public Health).

To stay under the cap, she’s opening only on weekends for the near future.

Heidi Randolph with her mother Fritz and brother Luis at Lomo Fuego, the Peruvian restaurant she runs out of her Lakewood home. Randolph is now scouting restaurant locations and pursuing an additional permit to sell at farmers markets.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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Randolph took the health department visit as a sign to move forward. She's actively scouting restaurant locations, and her daughter left her job at a local restaurant to cook alongside her full-time.

Randolph didn't see any of this coming — from the park to the backyard to her daughter cooking beside her, her mother finally getting a day off. The program did exactly what it was supposed to do. She just needs a bigger kitchen now.

"I hope in the future," she said, "people can say — this still tastes like food from home."

A couple who paid nearly $15,000 in monthly rent while displaced by the Eaton Fire are now taking their landlords to court, alleging they violated bans on price gouging in the wake of a disaster.

The lawsuit was filed Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, during the same week the county is set to end its post-fire rent gouging protections.

Over the last 16 months, state prosecutors have filed a handful of criminal rent-gouging charges. But the couple’s lawyer, Josh Nuni with the People's Law Project, said to his knowledge this is the first civil rent gouging case filed by private citizens following the January 2025 fires.

“They want to get back the money that was taken from them, and they also want to make sure to send a message to others that this shouldn't be done to other families when they're in times of crisis,” Nuni said.

How the alleged rent gouging began

Candy Renick’s home in Altadena was left standing after the Eaton Fire, but it was severely smoke damaged. Until it could be professionally cleaned, it would remain uninhabitable.

Renick said when she started looking for temporary housing, she quickly realized thousands of other families were competing for the same listings.

“I started feeling pretty desperate, like I needed to move on something fast,” Renick said.

Less than two weeks after the fires, Renick and her daughter spotted a new Zillow listing for a three-bedroom home in Glassell Park. She said the landlords were asking for $12,990 per month on a one-year lease.

When Renick and her husband asked for a shorter, six-month lease, the owners agreed to a higher monthly rent of $14,938.50, she said.

“I was telling friends what we were paying and everybody was like, ‘Are you kidding? That is crazy,’” Renick recalled. “But we had to do it… We were just kind of desperate to get settled so that we could move on with our lives and move on with fixing our house.”

Candy Renick stands outside her family's home in Altadena.

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David Wagner/LAist

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How rent gouging laws worked 

Once the Palisades and Eaton fires erupted on Jan. 7, 2025, state and local governments quickly passed emergency declarations that triggered price-gouging bans. These laws made it illegal for landlords to increase rents by more than 10% from pre-fire levels.

For properties that were not listed for rent before the fires, a different limit applied: Landlords offering furnished properties could not charge more than 165% of the area’s fair market rent, as determined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

For the ZIP code where the Glassell Park property is located, the legal monthly limit for a furnished three-bedroom unit was $5,032.50. The Renicks paid nearly triple that amount.

A warning letter and a short text exchange

Shortly after moving in, the Renicks got a letter from the L.A. City Attorney’s Office, according to the lawsuit. It alerted the tenants and the landlord that the listing may have violated post-fire rent gouging bans.

The letter said if the landlords were violating the law, they should “immediately lower the rental rate” and “refund the tenant the overcharged amount plus 10 percent interest.”

According to the lawsuit, the Renicks texted a screenshot of this letter to their landlord, Catalina Chow, and she responded: “We did not increase rent due to the state of emergency.”

Her text went on to say, “I hope this does not apply to me. Thanks for sending anyway!”

When LAist called Chow to ask about the lawsuit, she picked up but said she was on another call and ended the conversation. LAist was later unable to reach her or Terrence Chow, another defendant named in the complaint.

LAist also contacted the City Attorney’s Office to ask why it did not pursue the case beyond the warning letter. No one from the office responded.

Why tenants are taking cases into their own hands

Tenant advocates have expressed disappointment over what they see as a lack of price gouging prosecution in the wake of the Palisades and Eaton fires.

By the one-year anniversary of the fires, a group called The Rent Brigade had found more than 18,000 listings that appeared to have broken the law. The group found that few criminal charges were ever filed, and laws that allowed private citizens to file their own cases and gave county departments the ability to fine landlords directly went largely unused.

Chelsea Kirk, a founding organizer of The Rent Brigade, said tenants like the Renicks are taking action on their own because governments failed.

“Tenants should never have been put in the position of having to enforce disaster protections themselves,” Kirk said. “After thousands of reports and virtually no meaningful action from the city attorney or county and state agencies, people have realized they can’t rely on government enforcement to protect them from exploitation.”

What the plaintiffs say they want

The Renicks returned to their Altadena home in November after it was professionally remediated. The complaint alleges they paid $95,758 more than what should have been legally allowed during their stay at the home in Glassell Park. The lawsuit asks the court to award damages, civil penalties and attorney’s fees.

Candy Renick said money was not the primary reason she and her husband decided to file the case. Any overpaid rent they manage to recover will largely go back to their insurance company, she said.

Instead, Renick said, she hopes the lawsuit sends a public message.

“People should not tolerate being overcharged for rent again, especially when they're in a very difficult situation,” she said. “And landlords need to know they can't take advantage of people in a crisis.”