East Side King

Paul Qui and Moto Utsunomiya started East Side King in 2009 as a trailer in the backyard of the Liberty on East Sixth, moonlighting from their jobs at Uchi, and the menu was five numbers with Thai chicken karaage at the top of it.1 2 The brand's last public door, at 2310 South Lamar, shut in June 2025.1

Why go

Matthew Odam broke the closure in the Statesman on 28 May 2025: the South Lamar room would close before 8 June, catering would continue, and that would end the public-facing run of the brand.1 Qui told him why the room mattered: It was a very special place for me, and one reason Moto and I held on for so long.1 The history is the reason the page exists. East Side King opened the same year as Franklin Barbecue and Odd Duck, all three in trailers, and Odam counts it among the trucks that spawned the imitators and fed a generation of cooks between kitchen jobs.1 By December 2012 there were four trailers, and CultureMap ranked the Liberty original first of them for the deep-fried chicken thighs with basil, cilantro and jalapeños.2 Hole in the Wall on the Drag got the first kitchen with running water and a fusion ramen menu, South Lamar followed a little over a year later with tacos in steamed moo shu wraps, and Thai Changthong's Thai-Kun took its own corner of East Sixth.3 In December 2019 Murphy Adams Restaurant Group, which owns Mama Fu's and Austin's Pizza, took the Central Texas licensing rights with four suburban openings planned, and Utsunomiya stayed on as managing partner.4 Thai Kun at the Domain closed in March 2025, South Lamar in June, and Qui is putting Roselle Pizzeria, New York slices and itameshi pasta, into the same address.1

Order this / avoid

Order: nothing. The window is gone.
What the numbers were, for the record: number 1 was the Thai chicken karaage, breaded fried thigh meat tossed in a savory-sweet dressing with onions, mint, basil, jalapeño and cilantro, and Melanie Haupt found it a perfect balance of flavors every single time.3 Number 2 was Poor Qui's buns, fatty pork belly under hoisin on a doughy steamed bun. Number 3 was the beets, roasted, lightly breaded and fried, with a cup of Japanese mayonnaise that melted a little against them while they were hot.2 3 Number 5 was the liberty rice, and the fried Brussels sprouts with red cabbage, herbs and jalapeño were the dish CultureMap called the star.2
Avoid: walking into the Liberty's yard for this. The bar trades; the trailer does not, and its own critic in Austin says the brand's public run is over.1

What locals & experts say

Four chefs named this trailer as their own late-night stop, in 2011 and 2016. David Bull, then executive chef of Congress and Second Bar + Kitchen, told the Austin Chronicle it was Some of the best late-night food and scene in the city. Aaron Franklin put East Side King at the Liberty bar on his list, and Ray Tatum of Three Little Pigs went for late night.7 Tyson Cole, who employed both founders at Uchi, told the James Beard Foundation five years later: The East Side King trailer at Liberty Bar has amazing buns and Southeast Asian karaage.6
Time Out Austin, Dan Gentile, 30 June 2016, five stars: If there's one spot that sums up the first wave of Austin's trailer boom, it's undoubtedly East Side King, a trailer painted with a psychedelic mural by the Japanese punk musician Peelander Yellow, and the original is still the best of the offshoots.5
The Austin Chronicle, Melanie Haupt, 11 April 2014, reviewing the South Lamar room: the beets and the karaage are a study in sophisticated simplicity, while the veggie meshi there lost its Brussels sprouts in the cacophony of onions and cilantro.3
Paul Qui, on what replaces it, to Odam in May 2025: It's not that later-night punk rock-and-roll scene. We're trying to create something for the neighborhood.1

Good to know

Closed. The South Lamar room, the last one open to the public, shut before 8 June 2025. Nothing I have read prints the day the Liberty trailer itself stopped; the Chronicle's venue listing still carries its old hours, and listings outlive the doors they describe.1 8
Where it stood: the backyard of the Liberty at 1618 1/2 East Sixth, which is still a bar with picnic tables and a pool table and has its own page here.2
Hygiene: the trailer was a mobile vendor, and Austin Public Health does not publish mobile-vendor scores in its inspection dataset, so there is no record for the yard's food. The name returns two fixed premises: the South Lamar room, facility 11049507, inspected three times between 88 and 94 with the last on 3 June 2025, the week it shut; and a premises at 7601 North Lamar, facility 11049525, at 86 in July 2024. The Liberty's own bar kitchen scored 91 in November 2025 and 91 in September 2024.9
Catering continues under the East Side King name, per Odam.1

Verdict

listed — There is nothing left to eat. The trailer that taught Austin to line up behind a bar for Japanese fried chicken is gone, and the South Lamar room that outlived it shut in June 2025; go to the Liberty for the yard and the pool table, and go to Roselle Pizzeria on South Lamar if you want to see what Qui did with the address.