How a Master Chef Built a Michelin-Starred Taiwanese Restaurant in a Strip Mall — Mise En Place

this is a caviar, the caviar dish is based on an instant breakfast soup that is very much had in Japan or Taiwan, it is called corn matage, we get a kaluga hybrid caviar from China, Chinese caviar is surely becoming more popular, It is an interesting way to have caviar because in Chinese food you see different textures, like crunchy is not the first texture you resort to, so our caviar dish has different levels of softness, which is basically a different texture. of the egg yolk, but we just use it as a pedestal to keep everything upright, so it comes with a smoked onion cream and a soft yolk.

People always have an image of what good dining should be. I think it's very interesting for us to challenge those notions and do things our way to see if it pays off in the same way that stereotypical good food does a little milk we cook with corn on the cob, I mean I grew up in a home East Asian, like your parents were always like that, if you're going to play, you might as well win, so in food, yeah, three Michelin stars is the Goal I don't think you expect to come to a

mall

and have a good menu of tasting, but we make a deal with what we have.

It's 10:30. We are waiting for our fish to arrive. I wake up with night sweats. I'm like our entire

restaurant

depends on a seafood order, yeah we can't really do anything until the seafood starts see if today is pretty late. night, that's our refrigerator, yeah, so he finally said, Hey, you can set it up here. We're working with so much fish and it's like a time crunch, so Sifu comes in like we're rushing to break it down and store it properly. it's what we get every day turbo sea breeze lobsters crab oysters abalone yes, we're good, we basically have the next five hours to make everything and turn it into a tasting menu yes, this is a spiny lobster, they're seasonal, they're from Santa Barbara looks like something from Alien, it's not as bad as a Maine lobster, it's very lean, it's more like a giant shrimp, they're very strong and covered in spikes, so that's the tail, it's a lot more. more vibrant than a lobster main, I'm sure we'll make an oil with all this roasted as head fat and stuff the tails, they'll poach them lightly in rice wine and dashi, we basically let it sit in the warm poaching liquid and then it's gone. to get it out of the shell unfortunately this is Lalo, it's very handsome, it's very lightly cooked, so on the outside it's still a little bit translucent and it looks like it's fully cooked, but when you bite into it, it has a really interesting texture. barely set, it doesn't give in and then a toasted sesame vinaigrette is put on top.

It's just a sauce that was based on my mom's cold noodle sauce, so this is Alex, today he's making a sea bream for the rock horse that he's very good at. It's a sea breeze from Japan, yeah, it was pretty bad when I started. We would have to get extra fish to be able to have enough for the service because it would just destroy fish, yes, but that's what we do. I'm always willing to at least make that investment and let someone improve because other

place

s like once they tell me you're not going to do this for at least two months and then you can revisit it and you like how you're supposed to improve.

In about two more months, right, everyone can play everything. It's a good question, no, I'm afraid. I feel like people here are more united and improving much faster than other

place

s, for sure, so this. It could cure for 10 minutes and then we'll rinse off the salt and cure it in kombu. We just wrap it. Yes, we always try to call things by the Chinese version here, but the Chinese don't really eat raw fish, so we use it. english just raw fish we always say no it's not just raw fish this is free range Spanish turbo this is basically our biggest dish on the menu right now.

I never felt like we were a Taiwanese

restaurant

until we started doing Steamed Fish. I was always afraid to eat the food I grew up eating because you just take it for granted. People always have a biased perception of the value of Chinese food. You always want to use it like a live fish, so they always use it like a live tilapia. It's like the only live fish you can get in the supermarket, so we just wanted to use something that was a little fancier. I guess this is like the grid in the center that we like to make ginger tea.

I have to do it. 10 a day every day so make sure you get the quickest way, everyone has their different style. He runs along the central bone. I hope you go viral for this guy as fast as a turbo. I think that's all we do here. You teach someone. basics and they take it further, basically every Chinese household makes a version of this, so after cheating, you get these cute little ribbons, traditionally they are steamed and then they put ginger and chives on top and give it a little bit of flavor and then this will be wrapped around the turbo and then they will pour soy sauce on top of it so the spicy soy sauce essentially creates a broth for the fish.

This is for the turbo plate. This is the broth. I guess pork has about seven. that I liked 10 different types of soybeans, probably the hardest thing for me to learn was this brush because I thought, well, what's the recipe? Oh, there is no recipe, something difficult to try to

master

the first time we put it on. It was maybe two years ago and you never really know if putting something like that on the menu can really convey the same feeling you get when you eat it, but I think people really got it, which has been a nice surprise since then. more confidence in calling us Taiwanese restaurant tony do you want to start cooking steamed crab this is dungeness crab this enters our challenge today yes that is that is huge that is a big boy this is tony close friend our roommate slash soup

chef

who It will reserve any of the steaming liquid left inside the shell and then save all the fat from the head and then collect everything else.

We have so many steps that we can't necessarily all fit together. If something is not temperature sensitive, we will prepare it in the dining room sometimes you have to make sure you turn it so that all the juice stays there, that's golden, oh, that's delicious, that's possibly the best part of the crab. There is a dish in Taiwan that is like tofu or egg tofu and it is covered with crab fat sauce this is our version this is going to be all picked up I will go through all these types of review later and check the shelves for a second and third time , then these are abalones, this is one of my favorite dishes it's like our version of three cups of chicken, so I tell the people I work with abloy every day and then they look at me and say what's an abalone ?

I say ah, it's like a giant snail, abalone, tony, yeah, what is it? up bro so we go through about 45 for a day and that's a three to four hour process just not doing the last touch up just cleaning the edges take it off I don't know if it's like a silent kiss please sure, No. I'm not saying mucus, but it's like a sticky texture on the outside and then this is dashi in the pot here, two to three hours brazing a dried abalone very similar over low heat, it's very important in Chinese culture, it's one of Those luxury ingredients that Chinese people really value is that diners get used to eating abalone and treat it as a luxury ingredient, as an educational process.

It's called three cups because it's equal parts sesame oil, rice wine and soy sauce, so here we make our own version and turn it into a syrup and marinate the abalone in it, so it has basically the same flavors, but with fresh abalone I think it's important to not necessarily adhere to a culture's perception of luxury, that's part of sharing our culture, like sharing what we value, these are pretty yams. We are like Japanese roast potatoes, like when I grew up my parents ate them all the time for supposed health benefits, so this is our cdc dara and also another roommate that we have lived together with since the restaurant opened.

I think we've been living together for almost four years. Now we get along pretty well, we don't really fight or anything, it's nice honey, you want to move it up here, it just boils and turns into a tapioca dough ball, it'll be our version of shaved ice or boba. milk tea, it has almost exactly the same flavors, but just rearranged, yes people go crazy for this stuff and by slowly folding it, mixing it with a certain ratio of tapioca starch, cooking it until completely tender and they put on. soaked in muscovado syrup and then we make a fresh cheese that is whipped and placed on top of the boba and scraped with brown butter, yeah, it's like 4:30, right now we're getting ready for service, we'll do tastings around five. but now it's like when everyone has to rush this is the cordyceps for our meat dish so our meat dish is basically our version of braised red meat red coals means braising a meat in soy sugar sometimes chilies five spice ours is a slow roasted beef and then other components of that dish are braised red so we're going to add the cordyceps so for the next 30 minutes we're going to keep rolling it continuously on the grill it doesn't look like it's doing anything other than internally the heat. travel in it's five o'clock five o'clock every day we try everything we make sure it's good your liver is a little salty put some sake glaze on your tuna yeah and this is the turbo soy put some salt and sugar on this just a little bit more I don't have to try it okay, you're a good lineup please okay, today we're at 44 pretty good there's only one cover shot from seven at six okay, we'll do it yes, we all play face to face the day before the service is a bonding exercise wait who lost last time we did well the chocolate bar that is caramel on the outside people are eating it something is hot it is for washing oh yes, yes, it's a mint, you put it in the cafe, oh, that was close.

They are like two star restaurants they don't do that they are 5 45 we are about to play our Russian we are going to start seeing some dishes come out now the first dish is a set of three sandwiches I always say that this restaurant has been an exercise in understanding my culture and finding my identity, so limitations are good, it has pushed us to be creative with a lot of the things we do, I think they expand the way you think and how you execute, it challenges us to be the best. that we can be and represent our perspective well, but we want to move to a new space and aim for three Michelin stars and make the food we really want to make, we just don't want to commit to things anymore. in seven lobsters, yes you don't need to film in slow motion, he goes quite slow, honestly, yes, order a rice, this is roasted black cod for the rice dish, cooking is not a glorified career in East Asian cultures , so I just want to not do it.

Disappoint my entire family and you're fired for two CVs. Now I was on a different career path when I was in college and suddenly dropped everything to start cooking, so I don't want my parents to feel like they wasted their efforts. I shoot seven chawan it's the steamed egg custard it's where all the crab came in like it's always a risk to go against the norm but it's also that friction point where exciting things happen so it's exciting to be in uncharted territory? can I get hands for Siete please, it feels like you are defending your culture and sharing under-realized cuisine with everyone.