Mala Sichuan to expand to Katy, Sugar Land Ambitious plans aimed at suburban Asian centers and — possibly — upscale urban food hall

Cumin beef at Mala Sichuan Bistro Cumin beef at Mala Sichuan Bistro Photo: TODD SPOTH, For The Chronicle Photo: TODD SPOTH, For The Chronicle Image 1 of / 20 Caption Close Mala Sichuan to expand to Katy, Sugar Land 1 / 20 Back to Gallery

Mala Sichuan Bistro, the well-regarded regional Chinese restaurant with outposts in Asiatown and Montrose, is looking to expand its reach with new restaurants spread across the Greater Houston map — from the suburbs to the heart of downtown. It's an ambitious plan that not only jibes with the continuing redevelopment of downtown Houston, but also with the emergence of satellite Chinatowns away from Bellaire Boulevard's crowded restaurant and retail hub.

Owner Cori Xiong says she and her husband, Heng Chen, plan to open a location in Katy's new 16-acre Asian Town shopping and dining development by the end of this year. They'll also launch a Sugar Land location in the food court attached to a big new Jusgo supermarket on Highway 6.

Mala's hat is in the ring, too, for a slot in The Jones on Main, downtown's new upmarket food hall, which is slated for the glamorous Art Deco lobby of the 1929 Gulf Oil Building. (It's now the JP Morgan Chase Building.) Mala has made it through to the final rounds of the selection process organized by the Midway development group. Letters of intent have gone out to prospective food operators, and those selected will be announced later this summer.

First to open will be the Mala at Katy's Asian Town development, which is on the northeast corner of I-10 at Grand Parkway, near the University of Houston's new west side campus. The owners of Asiatown's bustling Dun Huang Plaza complex are spearheading the Asian Town project, which will be anchored by Houston's third edition of H Mart, the Korean mega-grocery.

The Katy H Mart's sprawling 50,000 square feet will be surrounded by twice that amount of space devoted to restaurants and retail. Mala Sichuan Bistro will have its own storefront and seat around 100 diners. Xiong hopes the Mala there will open by the end of the year, although she concedes that, "more realistically speaking, it may be the beginning of next year."

Mala's outpost at the Sugar Land complex will open on roughly the same timetable, in the site that formerly housed the GattiTown "eatertainment" venue, on Highway 6 South and Settlers Way Boulevard.

There a big new Jusgo Asian supermarket, currently in build-out, will feature an attached food court like the one that enhances a similar Jusgo complex in Plano, where Chinese, Filipino, Indonesian, Korean, Vietnamese cuisine and more are on offer.

Mala Sichuan Bistro will be inside the Jusgo market building with other food court operators, but they will have their own outside entrance and signage. The location will seat around 70 inside, with a small patio to bring the total to 80 or 90.

Not so coincidentally, Plano is where Xiong grew up, and where her father's Sichuan restaurant is located. She still relies on him for sourcing authentic ingredients out of China, where he travels frequently.

To serve these far-flung sites, Xiong and Chen will designate a central kitchen at one of their restaurants, where the foundations of the menu will be prepped for delivery to other locations. "It's to make sure quality is more uniform and stable," says Xiong.

They've already lured Mala's founding kitchen guru, Chef Rong Wu, back from China; and they've brought on one of Wu's original teachers, Zhenou Lei, as research and development chef for all the restaurants.

Lei and Wu are working with 2016 James Beard Best Chef Southwest nominee Jianyun Ye, Mala Sichuan Bistro's current chef, on a new core menu for all the restaurants, which will be supplemented by monthly specials menus customized for each location.

The downtown food hall menu, should that come to pass, will be different in that it will entail lunch, dinner, breakfast and brunch, plus happy hour service, in line with the developers' requirements.

Does having so much on their plate make Xiong nervous? "Yes," she says, laughing. "It's all very tight. I think about that every day."