BOISE, Idaho (CBS2 News) — After 12 years in Meridian, Ling and Louie's has opened a Boise location.
"It was about 10 years in the works," said Ling and Louie's regional manager, Caleb Padgett. "It's one of the closest restaurants to the Boise River."
Ling and Louie's is a locally owned and operated restaurant. Padgett says the meaning of the word restaurant is what Ling and Louie's strives to embody.
"It's an 18th-century French word that means to restore and to revitalize, and I coach my staff every day that that's what we're doing," said Padgett. "We don't know where people came from or what's on their docket for the day or what they're dealing with in their lives. We're here to give them the fuel and the energy and the experience to get them through whatever it is, whether they're on their lunch break or they're hanging out with friends and family or they're tired and ready to go home and don't want to cook and clean afterward, we're just here for them."
Padgett describes Ling and Louie's as an Asian fusion restaurant with an American flare.
"Ling and Louie are fictional people. Ling is a chef from China and Louie is a baseball player in America," said Padgett. "They kind of fell in love through food and sports and became Ling and Louie's Asian Bar and Grill."
Ken Richmond, Ling and Louie's Executive Sushi Chef, says their fish is as fresh as it gets.
"This is probably the best restaurant I've ever worked in and the freshest product I've ever worked with," said Richmond.
Richmond says their never-frozen fish is flown in from Hawaii multiple times a week.
"We're breaking down fish every day, we're breaking down vegetables every day, we make rice three times a day, you know, discard it after four hours," said Richmond. "We're getting number one tuna fresh, not frozen, it has to be hand-picked off the dock and then flown in."
Richmond takes pride in all of his fresh rolls.
"I wrote all the recipes, so there's there's a lot of creativity in that," said Richmond. "We do a weekly special now, where we create a role and kind of run it as a special, get feedback from guests, customers, the servers, try it out, get to play around with it, and then decide if it goes on our menu or not."
Ling and Louie's is located on the Boise River Greenbelt at 2288 N Garden St, Boise, ID 83706.
"People should come for the service, for the atmosphere, for the fresh fish, sushi, fresh food. It's amazing," said Richmond.
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