I Luv Ur Buns represents many things as it celebrates its first year serving fusion-influenced bao buns. It is happily queer women-owned thanks to wives Sonya Sonya Suon and Mandy Bardisbanian. It is also a Cambodian-owned and -led business thanks to the heritage of Sonya. And it is a proudly Asian-centric space that also honors the flavors and cultures that define SoCal—hence fusion buns.
If you haven’t been inspired yet, it is a space that reflects the resilience required to make a small restaurant succeed.
Birthed in the pandemic, I Luv Ur Buns is an ode to SoCal’s cultural melting pot and chasing your dreams.
Working the world of human resources via staffing, Sonya found herself in the doldrums of corporatized labor. Her pseudo-serious bemoaning eventually reached the ears of her wife. And it reached far enough that Mandy pitched what seemed like an audacious idea at the time.
“We had our honeymoon in Bali and Singapore,” Sonya said. “We’re food-driven by nature: All our vacations revolved around food. And we had these steamed buns—folded like a sandwich, not the stuffed ones—and we couldn’t stop talking about them. And my wife, completely out of the blue one day, said, ‘Why don’t you just quit your job and do something? Do something you wanna do?'”
Then there was a pause before, though they didn’t know it at the time, the birth of their concept. “‘Seriously,’ Mandy said. ‘Why don’t you do bao buns and call it—wait for it—”I Luv Ur Buns”?’ I thought she was hilarious and didn’t give it a thought for a while.”
Honing in on the generational tradition that is home cooking among Asian families and her experience in the past within the food world—Sonya worked in the hospitality scene for a decade before going corporate—I Luv Ur Buns was born.
I Luv Ur Buns has a wildly eclectic, cool-without-trying array of bao buns that are as addictive and they are warming.
There is something dangerously good about their Hot Bird breakfast bun. Buttered’n’toasted bao, a succulent, perfectly-fried, cornflake-crusted bit of chicken breast is drizzled with hot honey and layered with egg and American cheese.
Or their Seoul on Fire bun, a traditionally steamed concoction that blends beef bulgogi with sesame seeds, kimchi, and green onion.
Or their Porto-Bao-Lo, an ode to multiple things but especially the vegetarians and vegan friends tagging along. Chunks of portabella mushroom are lined with the space’s house-made chimichurri, onion, cilantro, and a drizzle of lime.
These are but a few of the examples of a better bao bun meant to represent Sonya—as a chef, as a person, as a Long Beacher—than the wittily and aptly named “U Make Khmer Day” bun. Lemongrass-stained bits of beef. A drizzle of house-made hoisin sauce that has a slight bite of heat. Bit of cilantro. And an array of pickled cucumbers, carrots, and onions. Savory, slightly sweet, earthy, this buns represents everything beautiful about Khmer cuisine.
And deeply reflects Sonya’s incredible journey.
Like many in the Cambodian community, Sonya’s story is threaded with the resilience embedded in her and her family.
Bataan in the Philippines is certainly not Cambodia. But it is where Sonya was born to Cambodian parents in a time many of our Cambodian neighbors find rightfully traumatizing. Like the hundreds of thousands of other Cambodian refugees, Sonya’s parents were escaping the genocidal Khmer Rouge dictatorship and largely had two choices. Take the trek to the Thailand border to the Khao-I-Dang refugee camp or boat to the Philippine Refugee Processing Center in the province of Bataan in the Philippines.
Sonya’s parents fled for Bataan and, at the camp, gave birth to Sonya. Five months later, Sonya found herself in Washington D.C. and, eventually, Long Beach. This cultural resilience is something I continually note whenever I have the honor of writing about a Cambodian business. Threaded into her DNA, Sonya (and her family)’s resilience gave her the power to leave her job. Birth the idea of I Luv Ur Buns. To try out a ghost kitchen. To discover that ghost kitchen wasn’t good enough. And now, finds herself at her own space at SteelCraft in Bixby Knolls.
Her work is a reminder of the beauty of asylum and how the Cambodian community has not only become one of Long Beach’s most cherished gifts
“Who am I—a Cambodian woman—to tell someone to try my carne asada bao bun?” Sonya said, assembling a bao bun while greeting guests. “Well, like most humans, I love food. And I believe we can connect with food. If it took me an ocean to get here, surely you can explore your palate a little more with me, right?”
I cross Khmer heart and hope to die otherwise, Sonya.
I Luv Ur Buns is located at 3768 Long Beach Blvd inside unit 105 at SteelCraft.
