Sichuan restaurant (closed) · Downtown
La Bu La
Sichuan restaurant in Soma Towers, successor to the pioneering Bamboo Garden; its name means 'spicy not spicy.'
La Bu La was a Sichuan restaurant located in the Soma Towers in downtown Bellevue. It was the successor to Bamboo Garden, which owners Stacy Zhong and Dietmar Schimmel opened in Bellevue in 2007 and named after a famous restaurant in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province.
When redevelopment forced Bamboo Garden to close, the couple reopened nearby in Soma Towers in spring 2015 under the new name La Bu La, meaning roughly 'spicy, not spicy' to signal a menu spanning both authentic Sichuan dishes and American-Chinese fare.
La Bu La has since closed, but it remains part of the story of how authentic Sichuan cuisine took hold in downtown Bellevue during the 2000s and 2010s.
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