A Second Chance at Wok In Wok Out 

On April 18, the day before his wife, Kommaly's birthday, Ronnie Worasen, then owner and chef at Hunan Restaurant, was driving his sister-in-law and 4-year-old son to Safeway in Eureka to buy a cake. At the intersection of Harris and Dolbeer streets, a speeding red Ford truck ran them into a telephone pole and sent them spinning onto a front yard. When his own truck stopped moving, Worasen says, his sister-in-law was unconscious but his son was awake. When he heard gunshots, "I just put myself over my son."

Worasen and his family were caught in a police chase following an alleged armed robbery, assault and hit and run. It ended with Humboldt County Sheriff's Office deputies shooting both suspects only yards from where Worasen hunkered over his son in his smashed vehicle. At the Worasens' home nearby, Kommaly witnessed the lights and sirens as the chase passed by, but with little English and the street blocked off, was unable to get to her family.

Eight months later, still recovering from injuries and after nearly losing sight in one eye and, as a result, almost his livelihood, Worasen is back in a new kitchen, cooking beside Kommaly.

Kommaly came to Eureka from the city of Pakse in Southern Laos about a year and a half ago. She and Ronnie met through friends and family, and stayed in touch over Facebook, she says, with friend Vinai Mannorind translating. The couple got married and had their first child while she was still in Laos, awaiting a visa, a process delayed by the pandemic. Then, Ronnie was running Hunan Restaurant in Eureka, gradually adding Lao specialties to the Chinese menu with her help.

But the crash forced them to reconsider his whole career. "With the accident and the shoot-out right in front of us [we're lucky] we weren't hurt in the crossfire," says Worasen. "I was more scared for my sister and my son. My baby boy is OK and my sister-in-law is OK." Still, his sister-in-law was left with a badly broken leg and he had a fractured orbital socket, as well as a shard of glass lodged near his eye. After being flown to the hospital at the University of California at Davis, he learned he'd most likely need surgery and lose the vision in his eye. The resulting loss of depth perception would make his work in the kitchen unsafe. So he and Kommaly sold the business to his brother Steve Worasen, also a veteran of the business.

As he let go of a 23-year career in Chinese restaurants that started with bussing tables and working his way up to joining his father in the kitchen at the former Hunan Plaza, Ronnie tried to focus on healing.

In June, visiting UC Davis, they got unexpected news: Ronnie's eye had improved. He wouldn't need surgery or lose sight. His first thought was getting back to work. "I was like, 'That's great,' but in the back of my mind, I already got rid of my place," he says with a chuckle. "I guess we gotta find a place."

In October, after updating the kitchen and adding burners for woks, the playfully named Wok In Wok Out Asian Eatery and Boba Tea Shop opened at 307 Second St., the former home of the Greene Lily in Old Town. The couple's division of labor there is split down the middle of the menu, with Ronnie handling the Chinese dishes and Kommaly cooking the Lao ones. "She's from HQ so she knows how it goes on that end," says Ronnie, adding that in the new restaurant, Kommaly is the star.

Kommaly learned to cook from her mother in Laos, helping cook at home and for community events in her teens. She makes her curry paste and other foundational Lao sauces and seasonings from scratch, pounding spices, chiles and herbs with a stone mortar and pestle. Through Mannorind, Kommaly explains how she pounds bird's eye chiles with garlic and fermented fish paste for the khao poon noodles ($12). The effort pays off in the light coconut soup accompanying the silky rice noodles, with a deep umami base from the fermented fish, the heat of fresh chiles and the bright top note of mint.

For the larb, Kommaly finely chops beef shoulder with a knife in each hand, dressing it with mint, shallots, green onion, cilantro, toasted rice and another freshly ground blend of spices and fermented fish ($12). Mannorind notes that at first, Kommaly's recipes were hotter than most people make them here, and she's toned them down a bit since, but the flavor of the chiles and the heat are still there, and Kommaly will turn it up on request.

Even Ronnie admits the food in Laos is hotter than Lao cooking in America. Sometimes in Laos, he says, laughing, "I'm like, 'I can't eat that." And sometimes, eating with his now 4-year-old son, who spent his first couple of solid food years there, he marvels, "Man, this kid can eat more spicy food than I could."

Ronnie speaks about Kommaly's cooking with awe, both at the painstaking care she puts into it and the remarkable flavor her efforts yield. "There's not much Lao food around here," he says, but he sees it catching on in big cities, and he's excited at the prospect of newcomers to the cuisine and those who are homesick for it getting a taste of her traditional recipes.

It's still early days at Wok In Wok Out, and the couple still spends the restaurant's one closed day shopping and prepping. Things may only get busier in spring, when their second child is due. Still, Kommaly says she's already thinking about expanding the Lao cuisine on the menu with Lao ragout, a beef and tomato stew served with French bread, variations on the classic coconut milk dessert nam van and possibly even homemade noodles for khao piak sen chicken soup.

"If I had lost my eyesight, I wouldn't even think about opening up another spot," says Ronnie. He says he's happy to be working alongside Kommaly and offering Chinese staples that can ease customers into trying something new from her side of the menu. "I want my wife to showcase the Lao dishes," he says.

Jennifer Fumiko Cahill (she/her) is the arts and features editor at the Journal. Reach her at (707) 442-1400, extension 320, or [email protected]. Follow her on Instagram @JFumikoCahill and on Mastodon @jenniferfumikocahill.