Go to Little Sister in El Segundo for the Deep-Fried Sticky Rice

Chef Tin Vuong's East-meets-West Vietnamese menu deep-fries its xôi and tops it with lap cheong, pork floss and a slow egg.

Sticky rice, deep-fried, then topped with lap cheong, pork floss, crispy shallots and a slow egg, with roasted chili vinegar to finish. That's the xôi on Little Sister's posted menu, and it's the reason to point the car toward El Segundo.

On Oct. 27, L.A. Taco published a guide to eight L.A. restaurants it says are pushing Vietnamese American cooking forward, and the first photo in it is that sticky rice from Little Sister's El Segundo location. I'd take the hint. Of everything on the menu, it's the plate I'd order first.

Chef Tin Vuong and partner Jed Sanford founded Little Sister, What Now reported, and the El Segundo branch is at The Point. The restaurant's own website calls the cooking East-meets-West, built from what European colonization left in Southeast Asian kitchens: the region's spices next to French technique, with Dutch and British touches too.

The menu doesn't hide any of that. There's a bouillabaisse that comes with toasted baguette, pâté and butter. There's "the shorty," a char siu braised short rib over thin egg noodles. Pho and banh mi are there too for anyone who came for the classics.

That's the interesting wrinkle. L.A. Taco's guide credits the city's Vietnamese diaspora with moving past the usual Chinese and French nods. Little Sister leans on those nods so hard that they become the point. The Chinese sausage lands on fried Vietnamese sticky rice, and the French pâté lands in a Marseille fish stew.

Little Sister's online sample menu doesn't list prices. The restaurant also has locations in Redondo Beach and Irvine Spectrum, What Now reported, but El Segundo's sticky rice is the one L.A. Taco photographed.

Little Sister lists that sticky rice under "for the table." So bring a table.

Source: lataco.com, retrieved October 28, 2026. Other sources: dinelittlesister.com, whatnow.com, the restaurant's website.