16 September 2020
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This is a caviar the caviar dish is based off of instant breakfast soup that you have a lot in Japan or Taiwan is
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called corn potage we get a Kaluga hybrid caviar from China Chinese have yours for sure didn’t want to popular
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it’s an interesting way to have caviar because in Chinese food different textures are appreciated and like crispy
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isn’t the first texture you resort to so our caviar course is different levels of softness that’s basically a different
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texture of egg yolk but we just use it as like a pedestal to kind of keep everything upright so it comes with a
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smoked onion cream of sake oh people always have an image of what fine dining should be I think it’s super interesting
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for us to challenge those notions and do stuff our way seeing if it gets rewarded in the same manner that stereotypical
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fine-dining does some milk that we cooked with corn cob I mean I grew up in an East Asian household like your
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parents are always just like if you’re gonna play like you might as well win so in food yeah pretty much like SARS is
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the goal I don’t think you’d expect to come to a strip mall and have like a nice tasting
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menu but we make deal with what we have it’s 10:30 we’re waiting for our fish to get here
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I wake up with night sweats I’m like our entire restaurant hinges on a seafood order yeah we can’t really do anything
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until seafood said see if it’s pretty late today this was not this isn’t staged or anything that’s that’s our
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fridge for everything 600 plates of food every night that’s our fridge yeah so he’s like finally here you get set it up
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over here we’re just working with so much fish and it’s like a time crunch so see who comes in like we’re racing to
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break it down and store it properly this is what we get in every day turbo sea bream lobsters crabs oysters Avalon yeah
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we’re good we basically have the next like 5 hours like to fabricate everything and turn into a tasting menu
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yeah this is a spiny lobster they’re seasonal these are from Santa Barbara it looks like the thing from alien it’s not
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as fat as like a Maine lobster it’s really lean they’re closer to like a giant shrimp they’re really strong and
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they’re covered in these spikes so that’s the tail it’s a lot more like vibrant than a Maine lobster we’re gonna
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make a out of all this roasted like head fence the tails get lightly poached in rice
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wine and dashi basically we used to let it sit in the warm poaching liquid and then he’s gonna take it out of the show
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unfortunately this is Lalo he’s very handsome this is really lightly cooked so on the outside it’s still a little
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bit translucent and it kind of looks like it’s fully cooked but when you bite into it’s a really interesting texture
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it’s just like barely set there’s no give it’s and then it gets a roasted sesame vinaigrette over the top it’s
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just the sauce that was kind of based on my mom’s cold noodle sauce so this is Alex he’s doing a seabream
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for the rock horse today he’s really good at it this is a seabream from Japan that’s pretty bad when I first started
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we’d have to get like extra fish just so we didn’t be able to have enough for service so it’s just breakfast yeah but
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that’s we’re always willing to at least make that investment and letting someone get better because other places like
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buck up once there like give me that like you’re not gonna do this for at least two months and then you get to
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revisit in like how the supposed to get better in like another two months really everyone gets to touch everything I feel
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like people here a closer and they get better a lot faster than like other places for surfing this is good cure for
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ten minutes and then we’ll rinse off the salt and we’ll cured in kombu you just wrap it yeah we always try to call
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things by the Chinese version here but Chinese selling it really he brought there so we use English raw fish is raw
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fish [Music] this is farm Spanish turbo this is for
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basically our most important dish on the menu right now I’ve never really felt like we’re a Taiwanese restaurant so we
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started doing the steamed fish I was always scared to do food I grew up eating because you just take it for
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granted and people always have a skewed perception of the value of Chinese food you always want to use like a live fish
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so they always use like a live to Latvia which is like the only like fishing get at the supermarket so we just wanted to
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use something that is a little more like luxurious I guess this is like the rack in the center that we like make a tea
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with ginger we have to do like 10 a day every day so should I get the fastest way everyone
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has their different style he goes around the center go I hope you go viral for this dude just fastest turbo I think
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that’s like that’s everything that we do here you teach someone the basics and they
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take it further basically every Chinese household does a version of this it’s uh bravi so after shading get these like
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nice little ribbons traditionally it’ll be steamed and then they’ll put ginger and scallion over the top get a little
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bit of relish and this would get wrapped around a turbo and then they’ll pour soy sauce over it so like hot soy sauce
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essentially creates a broth for the fish this for the turbos dish this is the prophetís port just gets about seven to
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like ten different types of soy this is one of the hardest thing to learn for me was this brush because I was like okay
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well what’s the recipe there like there’s no recipe a difficult thing to try to master the first time we put it
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on was maybe two years ago and you never really know putting something like that on the menu if you can really convey it
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the same feeling that you get when you eat it but I think people really got it which was a pleasant surprise ever since
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then I felt more confident calling ourselves a Taiwanese restaurant so you want to start steaming crab
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this is Dungeness crab this goes into our con Moshi yeah that’s that’s that’s a you
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this is Toni close friend of ours / roommate / sous chef he’ll reserve any of the steaming liquid
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left inside the carapace and then it will save all the head back and then pick everything else we have so many
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steps that we can’t necessarily all fit if something is not temperature sensitive we’ll be prepping the dining
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room sometimes he has to make sure it’s uh flip it backwards so all that juice stays in there that’s cold
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oh that’s delicious that’s arguably the best part of the curve there’s edition Taiwan where it’s like
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tofu or egg tofu either/or and it’s smothered with crab fat sauce this is our version of it this is gonna be all
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pigs I’ll break through all these kind of go through that afternoon check for shells or for like a second and third
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time these are Avalonia one of like my favorite dishes it’s like our version of three cups chicken so I tell people I
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work with abalone every day and then they look at me they’re like what’s an abalone I’m like yeah it’s kind of like
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a gigantic snail abalone Tony yeah what’s up so we go through about maybe 45 for a day and that’s a three hour two
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for our process just doing the last like touch-up just clean off the edges take off the I don’t know if it’s like new
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kiss kind of Lee for sure don’t say new guys it’s like this thick he’s actually on the outside and then this is dashi in
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the pot over here two hours to three hours crazy I’m very like low simmer tryna Avalonia is really big in Chinese
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culture it’s one of those luxury ingredients that Chinese people really value getting diners used to having
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abalone and treating as a luxury ingredients like an education process it’s called three cup because it’s equal
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parts sesame oil rice wine and soy sauce so we make our own version here and i marinate the abalone in it so it’s
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basically the same flavors but with fresh abalone i think it’s important to like not necessarily adhere to like one
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cultures perception of luxury that’s part of sharing our culture right like sharing what we value these are boniato
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yams they’re like Japanese roasting potatoes like when I grew up my parents ate these
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all the time for suppose at health benefits so this is our CDC Dora also another
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roommate we’ve lived together since the restaurant open I didn’t been living
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together for years now we get older well I don’t really fight or anything like that
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dartie you want to move that up here it just gets boiled and turned into like a tapioca dumpling it’s gonna be our
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version of like shaved ice or bubble milk tea it’s almost the exact same flavors but just rearranged
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yeah people go apeshit for this thing and it’s slowly holding it in this gets mixed with a certain ratio of tapioca
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starch it gets cooked until they’re completely tender all the way through and I get
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soaked in Muscovado syrup and then we make a fresh cheese that gets whipped and placed on top of the boba and it
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gets shaped brown butter sadly yeah it’s like 4:30 right now we’re gonna get ready for service will do tasters around
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five but right now is like what everyone has the muscle this is the cordyceps for our big dish so our meat dish is
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basically our version of bread braised meat redgraves means to braise a meat and soy sugar sometimes chilies
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five-spice ours is a slow grilled beef and then other components of that dish are red brace so we’re gonna have the
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cordyceps [Music] so over the next 30 minutes we’ll keep
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continuously rolling it on a grill it doesn’t look like it’s doing anything but like internally the key like travels
00:11:04
inward it’s five o’clock five o’clock every day we taste everything make sure it’s okay
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your livers a little salty go a little sake glaze in here tuna this is the turbo soy go little salt and sugar in
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this I’ll just a little bit more I don’t have to taste good line up please okay we’re at forty four today fairly smooth
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there’s only a seven cover bump at six okay [Music]
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we play heads up every day before service the bonding exercise we did right the chocolate sounds close
00:12:43
they’re like the to start restaurants it’s 5:45 we’re about to hit our Russian you start seeing some plates come out
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now the first course is a set of three snacks I always say this restaurant has been
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exercising me understanding my culture and like finding my identity so the limitations are good it’s pushed us to
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be creative with a lot of the things that we do I think they expand how you think and how you execute it challenges
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us to be the best that we can be it might represent our perspective well but you want to move into a new space and
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shoot for three Michelin stars and do the food that we really want we just don’t want to compromise on
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things anymore you’re on seven lobster yeah [Music]
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you don’t need a referral um I’m pretty slow yes ordering one rice this is grilled black
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cod for the rice of course cooking isn’t a glorified career in East Asian cultures so I just want to not
00:14:07
disappoint my entire family if I don’t succeed remember I was on a different career trajectory when I was in college
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and I just suddenly dropped everything to start cooking so I don’t want my parents to feel like they wasted their
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efforts on me fire seven cha want the steamed egg custard sort all the crab went into like it’s always a risk going
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against the norm but it’s also the point of friction where exciting things happen so it’s exciting to be in like uncharted
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ground can I get back for seven please I just feels like you’re championing your
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culture and sharing like under-under realized cuisine with everybody [Music]