Downtown Los Angeles has many interesting sights and places to not only satiate your hunger for food but your hunger for life as well. Au Lac, a Vietnamese vegan restaurant located on 1st street here in downtown, has all that you need to fulfill both. With their weekly, hosted by actor, spoken word artist, and overall cool guy Sean Hill, some of the most talented people you havenāt heard of out there get a shot to display their talents to an enthusiastic and welcoming audience.
Host Sean Hill has collaborated with Au Lac to make a safe and open-minded place for artists of all backgrounds to come and share their talents in a beautiful downtown setting without feeling judged. As Sean puts it at the beginning of the open mic every week, āthis isnāt American Idol, Americaās Next Top Model or anything like that.ā Upon sitting at the open mic you can feel the positivity on the faces of the fellow performers and audience. There is a care and professionalism about this open mic that shows the effort that Sean and members of the Au Lac staff put into every show they do.
āPeople have driven from as far as the OC to come here,ā says Sean, who himself comes here from Inglewood. Au Lac is the perfect venue to have progressive, free thinkers come together, as its 100% vegan plant-based menu has its roots in the owner overcoming her battle with illness through adopting a meat-free lifestyle.
Through art, poetry, music, and comedy, the open mic crowd at Au Lac have been able to share personal stories of success and failure and everything in between. The cuisine is a monumental success of fusing various cultures together with a vegan underlining. Traditionally meat based Vietnamese food on the menu is adapted to the vegan palate in dishes like the vegan Pho, along with Japanese items like the Ramen Solstice and Mexican items like the Ito Burrito. Also, you can enjoy clay pot of fish and seafood thatās all soy based among many more options. Thereās even vegan beer and teas which are consciously absent of animal byproducts of any kind. The restaurant itself is a triumph through and through for those who abstain fromĀ animal protein of every kind, land, sea, and air.
The prices at Au Lac are amazing as well, and the interior dĆ©cor of the restaurant gives you a clean and beautiful dining experience with a killer modern twist. Au Lac and their Monday night delight open mic are just a few reasons why DTLA is enjoying an enthusiastic revival in the arts and food sector. Monday night delight has just celebrated its one year anniversary of doing Au Lac and with people new and old every week, with many years to come. So if youāre aspiring to be an artist, activist or foodie of any kind, and meet new and cool people and make friends from every part of the world and Los Angeles, youād be doing yourself a disservice by not heading to Au Lac as a part of your evening, especially on Monday night.
Check out Sean Hill on Twitter and instagram @letsbendreality
Check out Au Lac on instagram @aulacrestaurant
Check out Monday Might Delight on Facebook
@mondaynightdelight where you can watch the replay of the full show at any time.
