Closings: Little Tokyo's Fat Spoon Shutters This Weekend

Good and bad news from the Michael Cardenas camp, one of the founders of Sushi Roku and current owner of Lazy Ox Canteen and neighbor Toranoko. First, the shutter: According to Eater, Cardenas will close his year-oldFat Spoon restaurant after service Friday, Nov. 30. The little spot had a fun menu, like curry smothered beef tongue, pork cutlets or chicken, plus pasta and the little corn dogs with curry ketchup (our fave). Cardenas says he wants to relocate the concept to Westwood, so keep an eye out. A sanuki udon restaurant is planned to take over the space.

Over at Lazy Ox, which recently lost Perfecto Rocher as exec chef (who himself only came on board earlier this year), chef Octavio Becerra, who closed his Palate Food + Wine last spring, has been tapped to consult on the menu with current chef Travis Chase. The Spanish influence is gone, making way for a more Americanized menu. That's a lot of chef shuffling going on at the Little Tokyo gastropub since Josef Centeno, who helped put it on the map, left to run Baco Mercat. Hopefully things will smooth out for LO soon; it's always been high on our Downtown LA list.