Diabetes is not curable. It's sustainable.
Alvin Leung
Change is always good. You can't keep tradition all the time. Yes, Grandma cooked on a wood stove but she would have used electricity if she could.
A dish should have flavor, texture, appearance and smell, but I'm doing it differently. We take Chinese food, play with your sentiments, memories of it, and then take you to the border; you won't fall over the edge, but you get excitement.
One good thing about being brought up with Chinese food from another country means that you're not a purist and you will accept deviation.
With caviar, you place a blob of it on sour cream or on a lettuce leaf and everyone is happy. I'm trying to get away from that.
Chinese cuisine has so much diversity, the area it covers is so great and so is the taste.
I grew up in a family that was aware of the consequences of diabetes.
We Chinese use a lot of ginger and green onions to flavor dishes but not to overpower them. Westerners have this misconception that we eat the ginger and green onion, but we leave those on the plate.
Being a scientist/engineer by nature, I approach everything as a problem.
The stock from a pigeon is unique. It's much better than quail or duck.
I've ruined a lot of hotel towels. I did a shoot in San Francisco and stayed at the Mandarin Oriental. I must have ruined thousands of dollars worth of towels. I dye my hair once a week. The dye is not temporary. It stains everything. It stains tiles, that's how powerful it is.
I like using Pat Chun in several ways but the most common one is to pair with tomatoes and Chinese preserved olives because of its sweet taste. I turn it into a sort of Chinese balsamic.
You don't call yourself the Demon Chef by being gentle. I am tough.
While you can have the cult of the celebrity chef, the food still must taste good.
I like using iconic things. What fine dining restaurant can get you to eat a breakfast sandwich that's like baby food?
The 'Maverick Chef' is one concept that I would really want to do again because I am traveling from country to country taking from what is in that country that is iconic, special, funky, weird and doing it my way. That is something I really enjoy.
Engineers are very logical and everything has to be tested so when we fail, we'll know why and how to improve things.
My grandmother passed away from diabetes. And my father died from heart disease as a result of diabetes. They were in their early 60s.
You have to be confident to be successful... I am somewhat confident.
Anybody can cook for chefs. I cooked for a three Michelin star chef when I was cooking at home.
I love to go to Hunter's Pizza on Huntingwood and Birchmount. That's in Scarborough, of course! It's been in the same family for two generations. It's been there since I moved there in '67, so it's been there for 50 years. I can't claim it's the best pizza in the world but I can say it's my favorite pizza place.
Cooking is physical; it's easier to learn than playing golf. You chop food, you pan fry it - what else is there to it?
My food is an extension of my personality.
I take whatever I can get with grace.
The core of who I am is Canadian.
All the earrings are mostly crosses. It's kind of a contradiction to wear it since I'm known as the Demon Chef. They're all custom-made. Some are Tiffany's. Some are Stephen Webster from England.
Everything I do is about Chinese culture. My dishes have to symbolize something because they taste better when people understand.
I honestly feel the term 'molecular gastronomy' is mostly misunderstood. It is not a style of cooking. Rather, it is a philosophy which encourages chefs to be more creative.
Don't go outside the box when you're still not very good inside the box.
My mom wasn't a good cook. No, that was an understatement. She was really horrible. And in a Chinese family, that's a disaster.
I don't like being labelled so I decided to label myself.
I want to explore the borders between being a genius and being an idiot.
I used to love eating rice and noodles, and that was all carbs, so I had to cut that out. I started eating mostly salads.
My approach goes way beyond simply ingredients and techniques. Every dish has to have a story.
My success rate is about 80 percent. Two of ten dishes won't work.
I said I want to get outside the box, but what can I change? I don't want my cookies to reek of ammonia, so we used baking soda instead of lye. We added ground almonds, which is expensive. We used butter, which is expensive. And we didn't want any food coloring.
A symbol in Chinese Buddhism is the lotus plant, which regenerates every year, symbolizing life, renewal, and the Buddha himself. Actually it is used in many Asian religions including Hinduism. Few people think of it as food even though it is used as an ingredient all the time.
I just love maple syrup!
I went from two stars to one star to two stars to three. In the history of the 'Michelin Guide,' I don't think there has been any chef to go up and down - and then up again.
I especially like to make my own ginkgo soup, bean curd sheet soup, and red bean soup. This way, I can control the sugar portions.
When I'm in the moment, I'm in the moment.
Kids always like the villain or the guy who's different.
Chinese parents always think you can do better. But it comes from wanting you to succeed.
Those who come into my restaurants expect something more, expect my 'fingerprint,' and trust me to give them a different experience.
My grandmother and father both had diabetes.
I have developed recipes that are diabetes-friendly for my restaurant menus.
There's a great vibe in Vancouver, and there's a market. If there's a market, then there's an opportunity.
One of the reasons I'm called 'Demon Chef' is because in Hong Kong, people were calling me God chef, and I right away took away that term because calling yourself God is blasphemous.
People keep saying I'm westernizing Chinese food. No I'm not. McDonald's, KFC, Starbucks, have done it big time, way before me.
Airplanes are a good place to concentrate because you get no emails, no phone calls.
