Live From Lu's Garden: Congee, Culture, and Identity with Kaila Yu

On this episode of Taqueando, Bill Esparza sits down with Kaila Yu for a deeply personal and wide-ranging conversation recorded over bowls of congee at her favorite San Gabriel Valley restaurant, Lu’s Garden.Kaila Yu is a Los Angeles–based luxury travel and culture journalist whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Rolling Stone, Condé Nast Traveler, National Geographic, and more. She’s also an on-camera correspondent, certified PADI scuba diver, freediver, and mermaid. In this episode, Kaila and Bill talk food, identity, and the SGV as a cultural anchor, using the intimacy of a shared meal to explore topics from food to fetishization.They also dive into Kaila’s powerful new book, Fetishized: A Reckoning with Yellow Fever, Feminism, and Beauty, a deeply personal memoir-in-essays examining Asian fetishization, feminism, beauty standards, and the ways media, pop culture, and colonialism have contributed to the oversexualization of Asian women. Drawing from her own experiences as a former pinup model and lead singer of Nylon Pink, Kaila reflects on reclaiming narrative, agency, and voice.This episode of Taqueando blends food culture, journalism, and lived experience, offering a thoughtful conversation on representation, identity, and why the San Gabriel Valley remains one of the most important food regions in America.Now streaming.Powered by Acquired Taste.