Creators in Residence - Tien Nguyen | Los Angeles Public Library

On view at Pio Pico-Koreatown Branch Library
December 7, 2025 to April 1, 2026

A hand on a bookshelf and a hand on a tree trunk.

2025 Creator in Residence Tien Nguyen has expanded on the Library’s renowned menu collection, exploring both iconic restaurants and those that have been lost over time, uncovering the histories of the people and communities behind them. Her work with the collection has resulted in informative videos, oral histories, and a display at our Pio Pico-Koreatown Branch Library, featuring a unique menu made from gourd that was donated by Monica Lee, the founder and chef of Beverly Soon Tofu, a Koreatown institution that closed in 2020.

Menu painted on a gourd, from Beverly Soon Tofu [1986]

Explore stories from the Menu Collection that Tien highlighted:

Project Introduction

Olympic Menus

Menu Collection History

Menu Diversity

Remembering Jonathan Gold

Ladies Menus

You can also take a deeper dive by checking out the oral histories Tien recorded as part of her project, available on the library's oral history collection.

Tien Nguyen i is a food writer focused on the intersection of food and culture, blending a journalist’s depth with an author’s storytelling skills. She is the former senior food writer at LA Weekly and has written for the Los Angeles Times and Eater. Nguyen co-authored L.A. Son: My Life, My City, My Food and The Choi of Cooking with Roy Choi, and Sohn-Mat: Recipes and Flavors of Korean Home Cooking with Monica Lee. A longtime Angeleno and an instructor at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, Nguyen works to highlight how food tells the story of Los Angeles—its neighborhoods, traditions, and migrations.

The Library, in partnership with the Library Foundation of Los Angeles, has established a residency program, Los Angeles Public Library Creators in Residence, designed to engage creative Angelenos from a multitude of disciplines. The program supports local interdisciplinary creators and inspires new work informed or enhanced by the Los Angeles Public Library’s collections and services, while also highlighting the impact of the library as a creative haven.

Tien Nguyen is part of the 2025 Los Angeles Public Library Creators in Residence cohort, along with Creator Ashley Walker.

Back to Creators in Residence

Find A Library

Choose Branch:

Support Your Library

Why support the Library?

The Los Angeles Public Library serves the largest most diverse population of any library in the United States.

Through its Central Library and 72 branches, the Los Angeles Public Library provides free and easy access to information, ideas, books and technology that enrich, educate and empower every individual in our city's diverse communities.

With more people than ever before using the library—a record 17 million last year alone—your support helps the Library provide people with the resources they need to succeed and thrive.

How to support the Library

You can support the Los Angeles Public Library in several ways:

Join a “Friends” group. There is a “Friends of the Library” group for most branch libraries and departments of the Central Library. Friends groups raise money for improvements to their library through memberships, used book sales and other activities. For more information click here or talk to your local librarian.

Join the Library Foundation of Los Angeles. The Library Foundation is a non-profit organization that raises funds for Library enhancement programs such as adult and early literacy, children and teen reading clubs, technology, and cultural programs. Foundation members receive a variety of benefits with their membership. For more information, see http://www.lfla.org.

Make a donation by check to the Los Angeles Public Library and send it to:
Support the Library, 630 W. Fifth St., Los Angeles CA 90071 or call (213) 228-7272.