Cooking is one of the most zen things - you have to be there.
Roy Choi
It's so easy to produce food, throw it away, and watch people starve. It's so hard to produce food mindfully and to feed and to reduce waste.
In mainstream media, everything gets turned into a stereotype of ourselves.
Straight up, Oreos, sodas, chips, salsa dips, egg white omelets, yogurts, breads, ketchups, mustards, barbecue sauce, frozen pizzas, hot pockets, ice cream, all these things that you eat in your normal life - I think if chefs got more involved in that, then it could be better. Because we're the ones that know flavor.
I was a salary man for so many years. I never had to worry about the ins and outs of business or entrepreneurship or funding. I just had to show up and do my job. And then, all of a sudden, I was having to be responsible for my own business.
When you have parents that come from a country that you weren't raised in, you feel this weird sense of familiarity, like you've returned to something.
When you come out of the ocean after surfing all day, loco moco is the best thing you ever tasted.
All Korean food is not just one thing.
I'll never be able to outlive Kogi. Kogi is a beast.
TV is a hard thing to do. It's a hard thing to get a show.
I have a tendency to trail off in conversations. I don't look up at people sometimes when I talk or cook, and those are all pretty bad no-no's being in front of the camera.
A-Frame was a real, pivotal moment because that's where I really got to channel a lot of emotions.
The things that make Korean food delicious are garlic, ginger, soy sauce, sesame oil, chili powder, and chili paste. They make anything delicious.
Go out one day and treat yourself. Go out and have the best sushi you can find, or go to the best barista in your city and have just a cup of cappuccino, and tell yourself that you deserve this. I think that is very empowering.
Korean food is primarily based on herbs and shoots and sprouts. There's no pasture land in Korea; we eat like Hobbits.
Public television is a very important thing for our human race, and it allows us the ability to discuss the elephants in the room and understand stories beyond the headlines.
Oh yeah, the 'Chef' movie was awesome.
I typically like Sicilian pizza.
As a young manager, I had no idea what it meant to be a chef.
Food trucks are an essential part of people's days. They are important to the fabric of feeding people, like hotel chefs cooking breakfasts or for weddings.
I realized why I can cook for different environments. Because of everything I've gone through growing up. Why can I cook for a Hollywood event without blinking an eye? Because I cooked at the Beverly Hilton and because I moved to Villa Park. Why can I cook for kids on Hollywood Boulevard at night? Because I went through it.
Cooking is not a craft to get into for money. The money may come, or it may not. But you must get into it for the craft and the culture.
A-Frame became an expression of creating a place where everyone would feel comfortable, even if you were made to feel uncomfortable in restaurants before. It's a place where I explored my own insecurities as far as being mistreated in restaurants or being given the worst table.
I know all about Orange County.
Pico Union is an underrated part of L.A., and not a lot of people go unless you live there.
I dream like a shaman.
When Kogi started, I was dead broke, selling tacos on the street just to survive.
You have to believe in something, and you have to believe in the things that you feel and find value in those things, and not be swayed all the time. Maybe you're gonna get swayed 90% of the time, to keep those things submerged, but you can't distrust yourself 100% of the time.
I don't really care about job security.
I've got a lot of experience under my belt, but I still have a very naive and idealistic outlook on life.
My restaurants are about community and about sharing and about warmth.
I go by 'Papi' on the streets.
Even as a kid I wasn't, like, a natural entertainer, where I would gather everyone around me and then sing or something at family parties.
I want to pay homage to Los Angeles.
I didn't just grow up lowriding: I grew up lowriding and also in mansions in Orange County.
I don't really have a strategy for social media. I think that's my strategy is that I don't have a strategy.
A lot of my friend's mothers and parents worked at Paramount Studios, so I would always go. I met the Fonz when I was really young, like four or five years old. I was always around people in entertainment all the time throughout my whole life.
I don't go for average.
Kogi changed what a generation eats, introducing people to fermentation and different vegetables and flavors.
I'm a quiet person in real life.
For us in Asia, fermented, bubbly, creamy things are just the norm.
There are certain foods that are somewhat sacred or you're not supposed to mess with. When you do mess with them, it touches a nerve where you have to compare it to the original, and then that thing you're creating has a loosing change right out of the gate.
My parents and friends, they're Ph.D.s that worked as custodians, that owned their own businesses, that went bankrupt, that moved seven times, that sent their kid to Harvard, that don't have any money for retirement. Highs and lows of life.
Animals have been talking to me. And any shaman will say that that's not that weird.
Myeong-dong in Seoul is an area that is crazy at night, just packed.
I was a latchkey kid, from 4 or 5 years old.
When you never see yourself in the mainstream format, you are stripped of the strength of your identity.
At my lowest point, I found cooking.
I wanted to be a topographer when I was young.
A lot of times in television, you don't get the opportunity to show real life because we're brainwashed to believe the propaganda that these things aren't marketable, that these things don't sell.
