A Conversation with Chef Que Vinh Dang in Hong Kong

This is part of a series of reports on my recent gastronomical vacation in Hong Kong. Return every Monday and Tuesday to see some of the things I ate at this major Asian city on the other side of the Pacific.

Second of two parts

HONG KONG
One of the most interesting dining experiences I had in Hong Kong was my dinner at Tbls, a so-called private kitchen on the seventh floor of a residential building in the Central-Soho neighborhood.

The restaurant was opened a little over a year ago by Chef Que Vinh Dang (pronounced “Kway Vin Dang”), a Vietnamese-American who grew up in New York and went to the Institute of Culinary Education before working in Manhattan restaurants such as Union Pacific (when Rocco DiSpirito was head of the kitchen).

Tbls (the shorthand for tablespoon) seats just 20 people (24 when the weather is warm and they open up the patio) and Chef Dang creates a new menu every month. Needless to say, reservations are required, especially since you need to get the code to get through the building’s front gate.

I was lucky to get a reservation for the counter bar, and I showcased my dinner yesterday. Prior to dinner, Chef Dang was nice enough to take some time to chat with me about his venture, and how a boy from the boroughs of New York winds up in Hong Kong.

The following are edited excerpts from that interview.

Single Guy: When growing up, did you ever think about becoming a chef and owning your own restaurant?

Chef Dang: I wouldn’t say I thought about ever opening up a restaurant. I guess it’s a progression. It all depends on the personality of the person. Some people are just content at just being a pastry chef. Some content being a chef de cuisine. … There’s no knocking any of those positions at all. If you make it there it’s good. But I always feel like there’s always something more.

SG: How did you decide to go to culinary school and pursue a career in the restaurant business?

CD: One of my closest friends actually went to culinary school. I was always interested in food in general, and even back then I might not know it but it was always the pursuit of finding something good. When I was younger, when I went to the supermarket, I would get the Campbell’s clam chowder and I would eat it and think, “Oh this is good. But you know what would be even better? If I added more clams, add some of this, add some of that.” Then you take a normal can of clam chowder and you add all these other ingredients to it and you go, “This tastes really good now.” I always want to see if I can make something taste better.

SG: Sounds like you were very curious about things?

CD: I am very curious about things. I think you cannot be a chef if you’re not curious about a lot of things. If you’re closed-minded about anything in (the food and beverage business), then your growth is very limited.

SG: What was your first cooking job?

CD: It was a small classic French place called Alison on Dominick (Street in New York). I went while I was still in school. I just wanted something more, to get ahead while going to school.

SG: Did you feel you learned anything that you wouldn’t have in class?

CD: Discipline. After I graduated and really started to be in restaurants, one of the most underestimated or underrated thing in the restaurant business as far as being in the kitchen is discipline. Nowadays I don’t think a lot of cooks have that. They watch a lot of television and they see all these food shows, all these cooking shows, and they want a part of that. They want to be the celebrity chef. … What a lot of young chefs lack is the discipline to basically stick it through, and understand what they’re cooking and not just follow a recipe.

SG: I read somewhere that you started off as a pastry chef. What made you start there?

CD: I just think everyone should start in pastry. It’s understanding the measurement part of cooking. I got a lot of crap for being a pastry chef. They think it’s not manly to make pastries. Pastries are for girls, blah, blah, blah. … I always look at it as, if I know pastry, I don’t have to be a master at it, but I think I’m so comfortable at it I know exactly what I want out of it. And so from there I can build a menu from beginning to end.

SG: Sounds like you want to be in control of everything in the kitchen. Do you ever get accused of being controlling?

CD: It’s not the controlling part. Every chef has that control issue just because at the end of the day, nobody gets blamed except for the chef. Whether I’m in the kitchen or not, if the food goes wrong, I’m to blame, no one else.

SG: So how does a kid from New York find his way to Hong Kong?

CD: It’s more the wife.

SG: Oh, so it’s one of those following love storyline?

CD: Yeah, pretty much. I met my then girlfriend in New York and she moved out to Hong Kong for work. And I figured, I guess cooking is one of those things you can do anywhere. And why not Hong Kong? (I figured it) should be an easy transition from New York to Hong Kong. I speak enough Cantonese to get by and most people here speak English.

SG: When did you move to Hong Kong?

CD: 2002 or 2003. I moved out here, worked for a year. Hated it.

SG: What was it that you hated?

CD: I found most cooks out here weren’t serious. I mean, compared to New York. You’d expect everyone to have the same level of drive as you would have, if not more. And it was far less. Everyone out here sees (cooking) more as a job, never as a career. In New York, everyone working in the kitchen strives to one day be a chef, running his own restaurant. Here everyone strives to be the best number two they can be, never to be the head guy.

… I moved back to New York and went right back into the kitchen. That’s the level I wanted to work at. After awhile I was thinking I didn’t give Hong Kong the full 100 percent.

SG: So when you came back to Hong Kong after about a year in New York, you worked for awhile and then decided to strike out on your own. What made you decide to open up Tbls, and in this sort of small open kitchen format? Was it a money issue?

CD: Part of it is definitely financial. But it’s more I want the freedom to do what I want to do.

SG: But as an owner of a restaurant you do have your own freedom. It’s interesting that you chose this type of restaurant that seems a bit hidden compared to a restaurant with a storefront.

CD: Having a storefront cost a lot of money, rent-wise. Ground floor spaces are just ridiculous. Not a lot of restaurants can survive (in Hong Kong) when you’re not part of a restaurant group.

SG: Did you go into developing a restaurant with this concept or did you fall into it?

CD: It’s a combination of everything. Something like this makes a little bit more economical sense. It’s not the same rental as ground floor spaces. For me, this place really did come about because of everything I hate about the F&B (food and beverage) business in Hong Kong. … Everything is so much about making money; they lose sight of why people go out to eat. Everyone goes out to eat for the carnal reason of “I am hungry. I want to go out to eat. I need food.” And then part of dining out is just because you want to go out and you want to go out with friends and you want to eat and you want to have good conversations.

…. The emphasis on money is about turning tables. … One of the things I hate at restaurants is if I make a booking and they say, “yeah I have a booking for you, but I need my table back by 9 o’clock.” … I want to erase that from this place. This place, I fill about 20 seats, maybe 24 depending on the weather. I want to concentrate on the full overall dining experience. I have one seating only. I want to make sure whoever is eating here feels comfortable. And again, I want people to come back and have a completely different dining experience. So the menu changes once a month.

SG: How would you describe this type of restaurant?

CD: Hong Kong is very big on their private kitchens. This has a private kitchen feel but I’m actually a fully licensed restaurant.

SG: What kind of food are you trying to do here? I’ve read some descriptions of your food that sounds like comfort food but with a refined touch.

CD: It is comfort food. (SG: I heard you once made a Sloppy Joe?) For me the definition of comfort food is food that brings back memories of something. And so the Sloppy Joe menu was my little tribute to American supermarket items, where I grew up eating Chef Boyardee and Hamburger Helper. I did my own version of an alphabet soup. Same with the Sloppy Joe. … but with a lot better ingredients and a lot better technique in making it.

SG: So in a way when people dine here it’s like learning more about you?

CD: I’ve always wanted to tell a story through food. This month’s menu is Vietnamese cooking, but it’s the food I grew up eating from my mom.

SG: What would you say you’ve learned about living and working in Hong Kong?

CD: Be open-minded. It’s a good thing I would say I moved out of New York. If I didn’t move out of New York, I’d keep that New York mentality of New York is the center of the universe. Everything we do is the best. … I think a lot of chefs fall into that trap. … Like I think dim sum here is absolutely mind-blowingly good. So when I go back to New York, it’s not the same.


SG: The business can be intense and a lot of people burn out. Working in Manhattan and now Hong Kong, do you ever feel like you’re burning out? (CD: Oh yeah.) What keeps you going?

CD: The guests. The whole reason why I got into cooking was I was curious about cooking. And then it was more that you make food for friends. And then it was like: “Oh my God I really like this.” And then it’s “Oh wow, I made something with my hands that somebody else liked.” And it’s a very addictive feeling. So sometimes as tired or as stressed as I am, you get the customer saying “I love your place,” or “I love your food,” and that makes it so much more worth it.

After trying Chef Dang’s food, I’m sure he’ll be hearing a lot of “I love your food” comments. Special thanks for Chef Dang for taking the time from his busy day prepping for service to sit down and chat with me. In a cosmopolitan city like Hong Kong, it’s nice to discover a chef who pushes for quality and innovation as he feeds the people.

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My 1,000th Post — But, really, who’s counting?

If Blogger is correct, this is officially my 1,000th post. (I guess I could click on my archives and count, but I’ll take their word for it.)

Yes, I can’t believe it myself. One thousand posts made up of more than 220 restaurant reviews, about 170 recipes, more than 132 trips to stores that I shared, nearly 80 recaps of “Top Chef” and “The Next Food Network Star,” and countless other interviews, video demos, cupcake love notes, and peeks into my frig. No wonder I’m always so tired.

This 1,000th post comes just a few weeks after I marked my blog’s three-year birthday. When I started, I thought I’d post maybe two or three times a week, so I didn’t expect to reach the 1,000 milestone so soon. But you’ve turned me into this obsessive posting machine, always wanting to put up something new to keep you guys happy and returning for more. So I hold you partly to blame for my prolific nature. ;-)

I tried to think of something significant to do for this 1,000th post. But I couldn’t come up with anything that grand to match the occasion. (You know, if I were a TV show I’d be in syndication.) So I decided, like usual, to just go with what’s on top of my head. Instead of just free-styling it, I decided to do it in one of my interview formats. So basically, I’m interviewing myself, which as a Single Guy isn’t that unusual since I’m constantly talking to myself. I just hope I can open up.

The following are edited excerpts of my conversation.

Single Guy: So can you believe it? 1,000 posts?

Ben: No, I can’t. I guess it just means I really love writing for this blog. Or maybe I just don’t know how to self-edit.

SG: Do you plan to keep up this pace? 1,000 posts in three years is kind of a lot.

B: Awhile back, I thought maybe I should slow down. Because, really, coming up with posts, then processing the photos to go with them, do take up a lot of time. I’m practically working on my laptop every night as I’m watching TV. I post about three to four times a week, and I thought I should drop back to maybe two to three times a week. But then I always find something I really want to talk about, and then I start getting a backlog of post ideas, so then I just end up throwing them up on the blog.

SG: People forget that you have a day job. And it’s not related to cooking.

B: Yes, this is just a side thing for me. I work full time in corporate communications, but this blog has been my way to creatively express myself in ways I can’t really do at work.

SG: What’s the best thing about having this blog?

B: Oh, so much. For one, it’s really given me a purpose. Before I never knew what to do with my weekends, but now I think, “oh, I should go out and find something to blog about.” And it’s given me a reason to go out and try a new restaurant. I used to hate dining alone, but now I have a reason to because I’m going to blog about it.

Second, it’s connected me to a community. Through my blog I’ve met people who also love food, and I’ve heard from readers or people who post comments, and that interaction is something that makes me feel like I’m part of something.

SG: What’s the worst thing about having the blog?

B: It would have to be the haters. I give people credit for being passionate about their beliefs and their opinions, but I’m a sensitive guy [awww] so I really do take the comments I read personally. So on the few occasions, and luckily it’s only been just a few times, when some anonymous person dumps on me or gives me some snarky, back-handed insult, it’s depressing. It makes me kind of sad knowing a stranger feels comfortable putting down someone they totally don't know.

There were a few times when I felt like I wanted to stop blogging because a comment made me so upset. I’m all for free speech, which is why I don’t require approval before a comment gets posted, but I think there’s a difference between expressing an opinion and just attacking someone. Readers don’t always see the full onslaught because I delete the really hateful comments. But since I have to read it first in order to decide to delete it or not, then it sticks with me, you know?

SG: So comments get to you?

B: Actually, I love comments. And I wish there were more comments on my posts because it makes me realize people are interested in what I posts. It’s my way to gauge what kind of posts you like reading. It’s just the hateful anonymous posts that I don’t like. In reality, a lot of the really hateful comments are to my cooking demos that I post on YouTube. I spend so much time blocking users on that site.

I do want to take this time, though, to give a shout out to my readers who consistently post comments, people like Foodhoe, Food Gal, Hungry Dog, Mrs. L, and Cookie. It really means a lot to me that you take the time to share your thoughts, even if it’s just a thumbs up because it lets me know that you like what you read. When I first started, I had no comments, and then this guy Seth started posting (and my friend, David, too but I told him to post). I realize readers come and go, and I haven’t seen a post from Seth for a long time. But if he’s still out there, I want to give him a hug for being one of my first commenters!

SG: Back to the point about YouTube, why do you post there if you get such hateful comments?

B: I treat it like a hosting server for my videos. Now that Blogger allows you to upload videos, I’ve thought of just doing it here on my blog. But even with all the negative people on YouTube, there’s also been a lot of new viewers who enjoy my videos and probably wouldn’t discover my blog if it weren’t for my YouTube channel. I have about 30 videos up and so far they’ve been viewed a total 208,000 times.

SG: That’s a lot. Which video is the most popular?

B: At first I thought it was the one where I made the spam musubi (more than 40,000 views) but when I last checked it was the one where I killed a live crab (58,500 views).

SG: So your blog is called “Cooking With The Single Guy,” but you haven’t actually been cooking that often lately. Or at least you haven’t been posting recipes.

B: When I started the blog, I figured I’d post a recipe a week. And my thing was posting simple recipes that single people who are cooking for themselves could easily make, especially after coming home from work. But after the first year, I went through my repertoire of recipes that I rely on as a single guy. I still cook a lot for myself, but it’s just I’m cooking the same recipes I’ve already posted. I’m hoping in the future to get back to posting more recipes. What I’m doing is thinking of past things I ate growing up and putting my own spin on them, or being inspired by ingredients I find or dishes I eat at restaurants. But yeah, I’m definitely going to get back in the test kitchen.

SG: What are your standbys that you’re always making?

B: When I don’t know what I feel like eating, I know I can always make paella and that gets me happy. There’s something about the paella rice that’s so hearty and comforting to me, and I love the flavors. You can just create your own paella by throwing whatever you have in the frig and then adding maybe chorizo or pimenton. So I make that often.

When I come home from work, I eat salmon often and would either steam it with black bean sauce or glaze it. Other dishes I make often are mapo tofu, spaghetti and meatball, or a stir-fry. When it’s in season, I love making my peaches and pork stir fry and sometimes if I remember I’ll make my sticky chicken. I have to make a point to make that dish because you have to marinade the chicken pieces ahead of time.

SG: People think you eat pretty healthy because you’re always writing about how you don’t eat deep-fried foods or fatty dishes like foie gras. But I know you’re not perfect. So what are some of your food vices?

B: Well, it’s true I don’t drink sodas and I never go to fast-food places like McDonald’s. But I admit that I’ll sometimes go to KFC, mostly because I love their cole slaw. I peel the skin off the original-flavored chicken before eating them. And also when I’m out and about and can’t decide where to eat, I’ll sometimes resort to Panda Express because I do like their orange chicken even though I know they deep-fry it first before smothering it in the orange glaze. (Foodhoe, my secret’s out so now you can’t blackmail me! I did a Letterman! Ha!)

SG: What’s the question people seem to always ask you?

B: People always ask me about the name of my blog and what I’m going to do when I’m not single any more, whether I’ll change the title. I tell them that I don’t know because I don’t know if people will find me if I changed my URL or name, plus now I’ve built up some equity being the Single Guy.

SG: Um, I’m the Single Guy.

B: You know what I mean.

SG: So why are you still single?

B: That’s kind of personal, don’t you think?

SG: I think people want to know. I mean, you’re getting older and you’re still single. What’s the deal? I would think you’d find someone, especially since you like to cook, and they say the path to someone’s heart is through the stomach.

B: Is this leading anywhere?

SG: Yes, why aren’t you dating?

B: I don’t really like this line of questioning.

SG: Do you have something to hide?

B: I don’t think it’s any of your business. In fact, I think we’re done. This interview is OVER.

SG: Awwwk. Waaard.

So this is the point where I couldn’t get myself to continue the interview, and boy, was it quiet around my apartment when I wasn’t talking to myself for three days! But eventually I came around and while I never really finish the interview, I am open to answering any of your questions. So if you have any additional questions you want to ask, just post a comment. I’ll be happy to answer them, except the one about why I’m not dating! And thanks everyone for visiting my blog and coming back regularly. I hope you enjoy reading my next 1,000 posts!

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Food TV on the Road: A Conversation with Daniel Delaney of VendrTV

Here’s a bonus post from my New York vacation earlier this month. While I was in the Big Apple, I got together with Daniel Delaney, host and executive producer of a relatively new Web-based show about street food called VendrTV.

Delaney and his crew were in San Francisco earlier this summer taping episodes, but I didn’t catch them before they wrapped up their episodes (which include visits to places like Blue Bottle’s original alley shop, Spencer on the Go, and Let’s Be Frank). I checked out their Webcasts and was impressed by the quality of the production. I wanted to find out more.

Since I was heading to New York, where Delaney is based, we arranged to get together and check out a street vendor. Delaney suggested one of the hallmark of street foods in Manhattan, the Halal chicken and gyro cart on 53rd Street and 6th Avenue just north of Radio City Music Hall. Halal goes into full swing in the evening, when hungry diners leaving work stand in line for the famous chicken and lamb rice dishes or gyros. But we got together in the early afternoon on a weekday. (The Halal Guys are so famous that they’ve spawned several copycats around town, even imitating their signature yellow shirts. In fact, I was late for our meeting because I went to the wrong Halal cart.)

After we grabbed our orders of chicken and lamb with yogurt and hot sauce, we sat down on some sidewalk seating and talked about the growing popularity of street food and about VendrTV.

The following are edited excerpts from our conversation:

Single Guy: So tell me how VendrTV got started?

Daniel Delaney: Essentially when I was in school — I have a design degree — I studied street food, and I studied it from a design perspective. And when I was finishing school, I was looking at a few different ideas … then I kind of realized that I’ve always had a desire to either be or support entrepreneurs. As a child I was walking dogs at the age of 14 with business cards and contracts.

… So I love entrepreneurs and I love food and I’m very proficient in technology and I had this multimedia background, so this just made a lot of sense to me. It was a way to do something that I loved, support people who work their asses off, and create a product that ultimately I was proud of and now people are starting to enjoy.

SG: Most people right out of school who want to do their own shows usually would just pick up a camcorder and upload their videos on YouTube. Your Web site and videos really look professionally done. Do you have backers who are funding all this?

DD: No backers. I have the good fortune of going to a university with other wildly talented people. So when I did decide to start the show I called some people I knew very well and explained what I wanted to do and sort of got the ball rolling.

Now, I won’t say it was easy. The initial four months of pre-planning before we got the show off the ground was very difficult. I learned a lot about what it takes to create a group mentality and create consensus. I made a lot of mistakes starting the show and I learned a lot. … But no, there were no backers. It was just the good fortune of friends and the desire to create something new and exciting.

SG: So what are your programming goals? You want to do an episode once a week?

DD: We put a new episode up every Wednesday, and right now we’re focusing on probably this next year on covering the United States and then most likely thereafter we’ll start to travel internationally with the show. We have a lot more to cover in the States. …

Already in the seven months that we’ve been out we’ve covered a lot of ground. We’ve done Boston, New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, (Washington) D.C., Connecticut, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and Santa Barbara. So a lot of cities.

SG: Usually when you travel to another city to film episodes, how long do you stay in one city?

DD: We shoot really aggressively to the point where some days we might do five shoots in one day. For example we went out to the West Coast. We started in Seattle, and we rented this Ford Mustang convertible and we toured all along the West Coast and in three weeks we filmed 35 episodes of the show in seven cities. My crew does not like me for that.

SG: How many people do you travel with? Is it like traveling with your buddies on a road trip?

DD: Right now it’s myself, Andy (Buckmaster) the cameraman, and it was Florian (Dirringer) who did the sound for the show. Moving forward we’re going to be iterating once again and go to a two-camera shoot. We can get the right wireless microphone technology so we can do the show without a sound person and while I’m sad to not have a third person on the trip, it might make things more efficient for us and also make the cost of travel a little less.

As we chat, we dig into the Halal food. The hot sauce really sneaks up on you, but in a good way. I got the combination rice dish of chicken and lamb, and really enjoyed the mix of meat with rice and shredded lettuce covered with yogurt and hot sauce. It was a big plate of food, so I can see why the Halal guys are so popular because it’s a real value meal.

SG: Do you have any problems getting people to appear on your show?

DD: Never. I think in the whole time we had two carts we couldn’t get on the show. One of them was just unresponsive and the second just couldn’t allow for cameras in their kitchen because it was too tight so we couldn’t do them. But the vendors love it. It’s free publicity for them. It shows them in a light that most of them never get. Even when we looked at the Kogi barbeque truck in LA, they got tons of publicity from CNN, NBC, Wall Street Journal and New York Times. But it was never about them, or their food, or their family. It was the fact that they used Twitter, and it was a passing thought. So no, the vendor loves this. … It’s almost like a reward. These guys have been here over 25-30 years [pointing to the Halal truck], and the piece we did on them was probably the first time they were truly truly profiled in detail by a program.

SG: How do you decide which street vendor to feature?

DD: We research every vendor ahead of time. In a city that’s accessible like New York or Philadelphia or Boston, I’ll drive up and try the food ahead of time. In places like the West Coast, we were fortunate enough to have really great people working with us. In Seattle we had a few food writers help us locate the proper parts to visit. Same thing in Portland, there’s a Web site called foodcartsportland.com, which is great. … But it’s at this point now where we’ve put up all these episodes that I’m actually getting a little bombarded with emails now because people watch it so much we get a lot of suggestions all the time from food cart vendors and also from viewers of the show.

SG: Do you ever feature so-called illegal vendors who don’t have permits?

DD: Yeah, we filmed an episode on the roving vendors in the Mission (District in San Francisco), where we featured the Sexy Soup Lady and the Crème Brulee Guy and Magic Curry Kart … We did a bunch of illegal vendors in Los Angeles and we did taco crawls. … A lot of vendors who are illegal are illegal not because they’re so intent on being malicious, but the city makes it very difficult for a lot of people to sell food.

I think it’s very disappointing too. To me, I really can’t think of something that really transcends time and culture than the idea of selling food on the street. I mean, we can trace it back to the beginning of our civilization and the culture of bazaars where they’re selling food in large outdoor markets. It’s the same thing, it’s just changed shape. And unfortunately bureaucracy makes it difficult for people to get the ground.

SG: Do you see any particular trend with street food right now?

DD: Yeah, what it is are MBAs who got laid off and are starting street carts. They have the tech savvy to understand how to use social media tools like Twitter and Facebook and they have some reserve money to build beautiful carts with wonderful writing and that’s most certainly a trend.

SG: What do you think of these fancy new vendors compared to the taco trucks, for example?

DD: I have mixed feelings. On one hand, part of me is reserved about it because it feels a little like these people who come from little more affluence are taking up space dominated by primarily immigrant cultures. So there’s something that’s difficult and not so pleasant about that.

On the other hand, this is America. It’s a free market. We operate in a free market society, and I don’t think competition is ever a bad thing. Honestly, I’ve tasted some of the street food 2.0 carts, if you will, in different cities. Sometimes the product is awesome, and if the product is awesome, that’s great. Sometimes the product is rancid. … I think a lot of stink is made about it, but at the end of the day, they are restaurants. Mobile vendors are restaurants, and if your product is good and you’re in a good location and you build a community, it doesn’t matter if you’re on Twitter or Facebook. The restaurant industry is not built on one-trick ponies; it’s built on repeat customers.

SG: Earlier you said you loved street food. Was that something you grew up with, eating a lot of street food?

DD: No, the exact opposite. As a child growing up I jokingly say I was abused. I only really got to eat Italian food. My father is Irish, so when you’re Irish in America you eat Italian food because you can’t eat potatoes all day. So there’s a lot of chicken parmesan, spaghetti and meatballs and things like that. Then I went to college. I was dating this girl at the time and she was like, “let’s go get sushi.” And I was kind of shaking in my boots because I’d never had anything like that. Sushi? Raw fish? Disgusting. But we went out and I didn’t want to go, “oh, I’m not going to have that.” So we went out and got sushi and I was so nervous, and I tried it and it was fantastic.

And then I had tabouli and all these other delicious things, and I started to realize that there’s so much out there that I haven’t had and a little switch went off in my head and instead of being the timid person that I might have been growing up with food, or if not timid then not exposed, then a switch went off and I decided I needed to try everything that I could try.

SG: But how did that translate into street food?

DD: Well, I was a college student, so I was broke. And I’m still broke. And often you can get great food for not that much money from street vendors. … One of my larger interests came from the design perspective. I kind of wanted to open a restaurant, but that was too big. Why don’t I open a food cart? That seems more attainable, an easier goal to shoot for. And in doing this project (for school) I learned more about street food, and started to develop a kinship toward them.

The thing I like most about them is how transparent they are. I get a little annoyed when I hear people say: “I’m not going to eat street food because it’s dirty.” In my mind, street food is one of the cleanest. The difference is in a restaurant you don’t know what they put in the food. But there’s such a level of transparency in street vendors. In my mind, when you walk up to the cart, you’re going to see if it’s dirty. Then it’s up to you if you want to take that risk.

Generally the guy who’s making the food is probably the proprietor, the owner of the cart, and if he makes a bad product for you, if he makes you sick, you’re not going to come back to his cart and that’s his meal ticket, and that’s his bread and butter, or, in this case, halal and white sauce.

SG: Is this something you want to do for awhile, or do you have any other goals? When I saw your videos, I have to say I thought you’re probably an actor-wannabe who fell into hosting a food show.

DD: I used to like theater (in school). I was at one point really excited about theater. But I never really wanted to be an actor, ever. So what’s going to happen now, we have two routes we’re going to go now. Did I tell you about our book deal? [Delaney explains he has a deal to publish a picture book with recipes of the best street food in America.] … The trajectory as we see it, we’re going to be doing the show in America for about a year. Then at that point the book will be coming out, and we’ll do a book tour. And then after that we’re going to end VendrTV as you know it and start a new show, “VendrTV: World Tour.” And that’s going to be the international version of the show. … We’re going to be doing that for a year and a half, and working on a second book about world street food and that’s where we see the trajectory going.

SG: In all your episodes there’s always an extended shot of you eating the food. You really don’t seem to mind being filmed eating. Is that for real or are you just doing that for the camera?

DD: For me food is always about comfort. It’s about no pretension, getting down and enjoying yourself. I don’t go to Per Se (Thomas Keller’s restaurant in Manhattan). I don’t like those places. I like street food. I like eating with my hands, that’s what I like. And I think part of what we have to do is tell stories. … At the same time, it’s my goal to make myself as relatable to my audience as possible. It’s my goal to make them feel like, oh yeah, that’s Dan. It’s not some person behind glass.

SG: So you’re trying to make it as real as possible.

DD: Yeah, and it’s also funny. It adds some humor. In Boston we did the Speed Dog episode, and Andy was editing that episode and he basically put the camera down and filmed me eat the whole fucking hot dog. And then put it in fast motion and you like see me chewing away at this disgustingly large hot dog. It’s funny. We played it the other day at some conference and everyone’s laughing at that point because it’s this gargantuan disgusting thing. And I’m sure there are people who see that and say it’s disgusting, you shouldn’t eat like that. You should take a bite and then take a bite off camera. But you know what? I’m not every other show. We’re our show and we like that. And it’s not only that I take the bite, but very literally my cameraman as soon as I take the bite he goes in for a really tight shot. It’s about the grit. Street food is gritty. You’re eating off the street. There’s something nice, I think, about how unpolished like stuffing your face is. So to me the two are harmonious.

After our interview, Delaney walked a few yards down the block to check out another street food vendor, this one was a dessert van called Street Sweets. The street food research apparently never stops.

Special thanks to Daniel Delaney for taking the time to chat with me and for introducing me to the Halal guys. They’re definitely worth checking out if you visit Manhattan. You can see more of Delaney on his Webcasts by visiting VendrTV’s Web site.

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Julienne, Diced or 'Chopped'?

The Food Network seems to be churning out a bunch of new shows lately and surprisingly not one of them stars Bobby Flay.

One of the more interesting shows in the current crop is called “Chopped,” which premieres tomorrow (Tuesday) night at 10 p.m. It’s interesting because 1) it stars one of my favorite guides to food, Ted Allen, and 2) it’s bound to draw comparisons to the highly popular “Top Chef” on BRAVO TV.

I was invited to take part in a call today to interview Allen about his new show. I generally skip these calls because they drag me back to my old days of being a newspaper reporter, but I was anxious to hear what Allen had to say.

Ever-so-charming, Allen was quick to distinguish “Chopped” from all the other cooking competitions out there. Unlike “Top Chef,” the contestants on “Chopped” compete only in that one episode. They make three courses (which includes the dreaded dessert course) in 30 minutes and the winner gets $10,000, which he or she pockets and leaves, never having to come back to defend his or her title.

And unlike “Iron Chef America,” there’s not one secret ingredient but three to five. The chefs competing in the one-hour show have to use all the ingredients in their dishes.

Here are some of the other things Allen had to say about “Chopped” and other things from the world of food:

On the realism of “Chopped”:

“Whatever panic or bloodshed or tears, it’s entirely about can you make a good dish with these ingredients or not? A lot of drama, buckets of tears will come out in the first episode. It’s a good one. I’m excited about it.”

On whether the secret ingredients really are secret (I asked this question because I read in a magazine that the Iron Chefs get an idea of possible secret ingredients beforehand; they just don’t know which one will actually be selected during taping. So I wondered if it was the same deal on “Chopped.”):

“They have absolutely no idea what they’ll be cooking with. … We’re really looking for really spontaneous responses. While the ingredients are totally edible and naturally respectable things like fish and vegetables, we still want people to be shocked.”

On some of the more unusual ingredients:

“When I first saw Gummi Bears, I just wanted to make sure (the producers) agreed with me we can’t get too jokey. And they did; they just want to have something in there that’s funny once in a while, but we don’t want ingredients so precious and exotic that viewers can’t relate to them.” (Earlier in the call, he said: “Gummi Bear makes a fabulous glaze for ham.”)

On the difficulty of the challenges:

“About a third into the run (of the series), the (Food Network’s culinary department) thought it needed to be harder. … Like if the basket was full of Asian ingredients, they’d remove items from the pantry that those ingredients will likely lead you to. Like soy sauce. They do want to make life difficult. It’s not a challenge if it’s not hard.”

On three ingredients he can’t live without in his kitchen:

“A bottle of Champagne in the frig for when people pop over. Lots of cheese and mustards. I think I have a mustard fetish, especially spicy ones. … Bacon. I left out bacon. Oh my God, you got to have bacon.”

On him no longer being a guest judge on BRAVO’s “Top Chef” or the Food Network’s “Iron Chef America”:

“I knew all along I wouldn’t be able to keep working on both networks. Should I be a judge on half of someone else’s show or be on my own show? It’s a pretty easy call.”

Allen adds that he’s addicted to “Top Chef” but hasn’t been able to catch the current season because of his work commitments. He also talked a bit about his rediscovered love for cauliflower (which his mom served a lot during his childhood) and making a roast chicken in his microwave/convection oven while he and his partner renovate their kitchen.

On “Chopped,” Allen serves as the host and facilitator, and won’t actually be judging the food. While he’ll miss out on the free tasting, Allen says he’s enjoying his new role as a show’s star. “It’s a different challenge. I have to learn different lines. I have to learn to find my mark. It’s fun to do something different. It’s a lot harder than judging where you can just sit back, have a drink and complain about other people’s food.”

Here’s a preview clip of the first episode of “Chopped.”



“Chopped” starring Ted Allen airs every Tuesday on the Food Network at 10 p.m./9 p.m. Central. Check your local listings.

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Home Cooking: A Conversation with Daniel Perlman of Casa Saltshaker

This is part of a series of reports recapping my recent trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Check back every Monday and Tuesday when I’ll be giving you a taste of my food adventures in this South American metropolitan city.

BUENOS AIRES
I got to do some interesting activities while in Buenos Aires, and one of them was attending a home-cooked dinner. It’s not like I was friends with the host. This was part of a regular weekly meal prepared by Dan Perlman, a former chef and wine sommelier in New York who moved to this city about four years ago.

Perlman started cooking meals for strangers at his apartment that he shares with his partner (in life and business), Henry. I read about his dinners, Casa Salt Shaker, when I was doing some research for my trip. I scoured Chowhound for recommendations for Buenos Aires restaurants, and I kept noticing that the sharpest comments came from this one particular poster. When I checked his profile, that’s when I discovered Perlman’s blog and read more about his unique dinners.

Of course, I booked myself for one of his dinners while I was in Buenos Aires, but I thought it would also be interesting to find out how a boy who grew up in Michigan and worked in the kitchens of New York City finds his way to welcoming strangers into his home in Buenos Aires.

The following are edited excerpts of our conversation.

Single Guy: How did you get into cooking?

Dan Perlman: I started actually as a teenager when I was 14, working in a neighbor’s restaurant in Michigan. I worked there all through high school — after school and on the weekends — and onto the start of college. Then I took time off from the culinary world and didn’t get back into it until I was living in New York five or six years later.

I’d always wanted to get back into it but just hadn’t figure out how to do what I wanted to do, and it just happened my grandmother died around that time and left each of us kids a decent amount of money — enough to pay for tuition for me and time off from working.

SG: I heard you worked with Tom Colicchio of Top Chef fame. When was that?

DP: I went to work for Tom Colicchio at his first New York restaurant, Mondrian. I started as an intern there and continued to work for him afterwards. From there I went to work at a Cajun-type restaurant in the West Village and worked my way up to sous chef there, then went to the Kitchen Club as a chef. The Kitchen Club was a Japanese-Dutch fusion restaurant.

SG: What did you think of Chef Colicchio?

DP: I like Tom Colicchio. This was his first New York restaurant so it was the only place he was working. I think he was 24, 25 years old at the time. It was his first shot as head chef. He’d actually come in to work with a different chef, Dennis Foy, and then I don’t know what happened between Dennis Foy and the owners but Dennis Foy left and Tom sort of stepped into the position. I don’t know if it was intended he be the head chef long term except that they got a review from Food and Wine Magazine that named him one of the 10 rising stars. So at that point, there was no question they were going to keep him. But the restaurant didn’t last very long; it was only opened a couple of years at the most.

SG: What was he like in the kitchen?

DP: Very intense. … One of the things I really liked about him was he had this really great power of, he could imagine how things would taste together, and he would put them together and they would taste the way he would imagined. And he likes to train people to do that. I think I’d gotten to the point where I could generally do that, not always, but in large part due to the training I got from him.

SG: So you left the kitchen and got your certification as a wine sommelier. How did you end up getting back into cooking?

DP: I was in the sommelier world and I basically continued to work in the wine world, but I did these monthly dinners during the time I lived in New York for about 10 years. People would come over once a month and there would be a big dinner party with six to eight people, just experimenting with food. … People would say, oh, you should do this professionally again.

SG: How did you wind up in Buenos Aires?

DP: Came down on vacation.

SG: Oh, so it’s one of those stories where you came on vacation and just fell in love with the place?

DP: Liked the city. Fell in love with Henry. I met Henry and we hit it off and I spent a couple of weeks down here. I went back to New York and we kept in touch. I was planning to leave New York at that point, thinking of going to Key West and opening a place. And I decided to take about six to eight weeks to come down here, to see if (Henry) and I still had something interesting, and then think about whether or not we could get him to come to the states or whatever. About that time was when the series of hurricanes kept hitting the Florida Keys so I thought, well, I’m not going there. So I just decided to stay here.

Perlman’s partner Henry is originally from Peru and had been living in Buenos Aires for more than 12 years when the two met. A quiet, soft-spoken man, Henry works with Perlman with the home dinners, serving primarily as the head server.

SG: Other than Henry, what else attracted you to Buenos Aires?

DP: It just felt comfortable from the time I arrived here. I liked the place.

SG: Did you already know how to speak Spanish?

DP: Nope. Just taco burrito and combo No. 1. That was about it. You know, just a little bit of kitchen Spanish just from being around New York restaurant kitchens. Enough to ask for a clean plate or some more ice, things like that. … I saw this as an opportunity to live somewhere overseas and as an opportunity to learn a language intensively.

SG: How soon after you moved here did you start doing the home dinners?

DP: It was close to eight or nine months. We’d gone to a few places that were doing restaurants in homes and really liked that idea and decided we could do something similar. And I thought about the dinners I used to do in New York and I thought let’s try that format and see if people like that, and it turns out that they did.

SG: Do you do this full time?

DP: It’s not full time. We do the dinners two to three times a week. But then I’m also a food and wine writer. We teach cooking classes here as well. I take people on food-related tours. Anything food and wine related.

SG: How would you describe your food?

DP: Good.

SG: Yes, I’m sure it is. But is it a particular type of cuisine? Are you influenced by any particular country?

DP: No. If you look at our Web site we do everything all over Europe, all over Asia, to Australia, to South and North America. We do everything. The only continent we haven’t hit yet is Antarctica. … There’s obviously going to be influences from the things I was trained primarily. It’s got some influences of working at a Japanese fusion restaurant. Every now and then a little bit of the Cajun stuff sneaks in. A lot of the presentation tends to come from working with Tom (Colicchio). And the first restaurant I worked in back in Michigan was an Italian restaurant. But it’s a real mix. Tonight we’re doing Malaysian.

SG: So you have a theme for your dinners?

DP: Yeah, we pick a theme that often connects with the date. But the food’s not traditional. For example, nothing we’ll have tonight will be like what you’ll get at somebody’s house if you went to Malaysia. But the flavors and ideas are inspired by Malaysia.

For the dinner, Perlman prepares five courses and also offers a wine tasting to go with each course for an additional cost. At the Malaysian-themed dinner, we started with a Malaysian-inspired ceviche called umai, an Indian-influenced soup, an eggplant tart inspired by a Malaysian dish called tiyung belacan, fillets of white tuna in a sauce inspired by a dish called ikan tenggiri and finally dessert, which was simply slices of melon in a caramel-coconut sauce (loved the sauce!).

SG: Who typically comes to your dinners?

DP: It’s about 40 percent tourists and the rest split between Argentines and ex-pats from all over.

SG: And how do they hear about it?

DP: Word of mouth, searching the Internet. We don’t do any kind of advertising. At this point having been in business for three years, we’ve gotten written up in a bunch of places, different blogs refer to us, we’re in a couple of guidebooks now. … When we started out we were thinking of doing it once a month or once every two or three weeks at a time, and it built very quickly. Within six months we were doing it once a week and within another six months we were doing it twice a week.

Perlman’s home is in the Recoleta district, which is a really fun neighborhood close to the main shopping street and filled with a lot of little shops and cafés. In his house, he sets up two tables that can seat a total of 12 diners. On the night I went, everyone was from out of town and from the United States. So as a solo traveler, it was a fun evening talking to fellow travelers and listening to their discoveries in Buenos Aires.

At my table, there were three young recent college grads from Southern California, a nice couple from Chicago and newlyweds from outside Vegas. I also chatted with a couple from Los Angeles who travels often to Buenos Aires and has eaten at Casa Salt Shaker more than a few times.

SG: How do you handle issues like vegetarians?

DP: I look at the menu. Like when I sent you the response (confirming my reservations), I ask if there’s any dietary restrictions. There are times when I can’t do it. We had a dinner recently where four of the courses had meat in it. I think it was a Romanian dinner. I just said I wasn’t going to make four totally separate dishes. … I’m the only person doing the cooking. There’s no assistant or anything like that. It has to be something I can easily substitute. If it’s leaving a piece of steak off and putting a piece of fish or tofu or something, that’s easy. If it’s something that’s integral to the dish or stewed together, that’s not going to happen.

SG: So for those people do you just tell them not to show up?

DP: I just let them know, this is what I can do, this is what I can’t do. You make the decision. Some people still want to come and they’ll skip the course, and that’s fine. That’s their choice. As much as we can we try to accommodate people’s requests.

SG: Do you notice if the people who come to your dinners are certain types? Like are many of them real foodies?

DP: Not necessarily more food-oriented but more adventurous. I think it takes a certain spirit of adventure to go to somebody’s house in a country, especially for the tourists, to go somewhere where you don’t know what the language will be. There are nights where out of 12 people, 10 of them speak only Spanish. Then you get two people who speak only English. In general there are a few people who are bilingual, and other languages, too. We’ve had nights where we had French, German, Dutch, Turkish, whatever going on. Although I’d say English and Spanish are the most common.

SG: It must be fascinating meeting people from all over?

DP: It is. It’s fun for us. We get to meet new people from all over. A good number of people who’ve come have become friends. We have a lot of people who are regulars who live here and even some who are tourists who just come back often. We have a guy who comes down to Buenos Aires every year for three months. While he’s here for three months, he’s here every Friday night. He books it in advance. …

During the dinners, Perlman is tucked away in his kitchen preparing the courses. At the start of the evening, he holds a cocktail hour as people arrive and meet each other, then after a brief welcome, he’s back in the kitchen and stays there all night until after dessert. His partner, Henry, takes care of bringing out the courses and wine, and the guests are left to marvel at each course and talk about the meal and Buenos Aires.

SG: What do you think of Argentine cuisine?

DP: It depends what you’re looking at. If you’re looking at what most people think of which is the typical steak-salads-potato sort of stuff, it’s not that interesting. The beef is good, and who doesn’t like a real nice grilled steak that’s simply seasoned with salt and pepper and maybe a little steak sauce on the side? But there’s a lot more to Argentine cuisine. You’ve got Patagonian game dishes, and fish and shellfish dishes.

From the north you’ve got all sorts of stews and the different empanadas, most people think of empanadas as mostly steak and potatoes, but there’s a whole sort of mushrooms, lamb, spicy vegetable ones. It just depends what part of the country you’re talking about. So there’s a wide variety of cooking. You don’t see it all here in Buenos Aires. There are very few restaurants serving much in the way of northern Argentine cuisine.

SG: Is there a particular kind of approach to cooking that represents Argentine cuisine?

DP: Given that it’s heavily European influenced with the Italian and Spanish populations and English populations that are here, there are all those same techniques that we’re used to from straight-forward oven baking to sautéing to braising. There’s nothing really out there that’s what we would think of being different.

There are a lot of creative Argentine chefs here that are doing interesting stuff, ranging from being very creative about traditional dishes and creating modern versions of them, to those restaurants doing molecular movement cooking. I wouldn’t say it’s taking off, but there’s a local molecular gastronomy association that a lot of chefs belong to and a lot of home cooks take classes there.

SG: Do you ever think about opening your own restaurant?

DP: I think about it. Then I think about how easy and simple it is to do this by comparison. How much fewer headaches and how when I want to take two weeks off to go on vacation it’s not a problem.

SG: Many ex-pats moved here a few years ago because of the cheap cost of living, but with the recent inflation, I’ve read a lot of them are thinking of moving back.

DP: At one point I think that was a stupid reason for people to come here to live. I think it’s a perfectly valid reason to come here for vacation, even an extended vacation. Anybody who moved down here just for the cheap cost of living thinking it’ll stay that way given Argentina and any country’s history of economics, Argentina has had economic crisis before and they always have hyper inflation for the next five or 10 years until it gets back to a quote-un-quote normal level. …. I hear from people, it’s like they take it personally like it’s been done to them. It’s a recovering economy. The fact that their entire economy collapsed wasn’t done to make their life cheaper.

SG: How much longer do you think you’ll be living in Buenos Aires?

DP: No idea.

SG: Do you miss the United States?

DP: Not really. I miss things about it like the access to certain ingredients. It’s much easier now than it was a few years ago to find things. But a few years ago it was hard to find ingredients to do stuff. Now it’s gotten a lot easier. … then friends, family. It’s just a place to live.

It was a wonderful evening of tasting some excellent cooking without the stress of ordering in Spanish or struggling with explaining what I need from a confused server. I enjoyed my time at Casa Salt Shaker and meeting all the people who gathered to taste Perlman’s dishes.

Special thanks to Chef Perlman for letting me hangout as he prepared our dinner, and for a wonderful home-cooked meal!

If you’re in Buenos Aires and would like to learn more about Perlman’s home dinners, check out his blog at http://www.casasaltshaker.com/.

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Still Hot in The Kitchen: A Conversation with Former “Top Chef”-testant Ryan Scott

This Wednesday night people will be putting down their knives and tuning in to watch the latest installment of “Top Chef.” This season, its fifth, comes from the make-it-there-or-go-home-crying Big Apple (love it). So I thought it would be fun to catch up with one of last season’s cheftestants and local celebrity Ryan Scott, formerly of Myth Café and now at Mission Beach Café in San Francisco.

UPDATE (11/18/08): SFGate.com is reporting in its "Inside Scoop" column that Chef Scott is leaving Mission Beach Cafe and starting Dec. 1, Chef Thomas Martinez takes over the kitchen. Chef Scott didn't hint at this during our interview, so this is surprising news.

Chef Scott was one of four San Francisco cheftestants who traveled to Chicago (or ground zero for Obama nation, I imagine) last season to chop, puree and flambé their way to the title of Top Chef. That honor eventually went to Chicago native Stephanie Izard (the first female chef winner, woo-hoo!), and Chef Scott was sent packing when he got too fancy at a tail-gating challenge with Da Bears.

Since coming back home, he’s become a partner and executive chef of Mission Beach Café in the Castro-Mission neighborhood and has been making the rounds of appearances for charity cook offs here and around the country. In fact, when I got together with him recently at his restaurant, he had just came back from Chicago where he did a fund-raiser with Izard and other “Top Chef” alums for the Common Threads charity co-founded by Art Smith, Oprah’s one-time personal chef.

If some of you forgot, Chef Scott was pegged early on in his season as the pretty boy. And there was no mistaking his made-for-TV smile when he came out to greet me. He wasn’t wearing any of his chef’s whites, but was wearing what he called his “winter Ryan” with a military-style jacket and plaid-print scarf.

I chatted with him about whether he’ll be watching the show, what his life is like a year since leaving “Top Chef,” and his numerous charity work (which leads to a very personal, revealing moment).

The following are edited excerpts of our conversation.

Single Guy: Like I mentioned, I wanted to do this interview as a build up for the next season starting up.

Ryan Scott: What? What are you talking about, what show? “Project Runway”?

SG: You know, that small little kitchen show.

RS: Got me. [[He shrugs his shoulders.]]

SG: So are you planning to watch it?

RS: I didn’t watch the last part of mine. (laughs) I didn’t have time, we were so busy. I would really like to watch. I’m a huge fan of Jamie (Lauren, executive chef of Absinthe Brasserie and Bar and the only San Francisco cheftestant in Season 5.) Yeah, we’ll see how she does.

SG: Yeah, she’s the only chef from San Francisco this time. Why do you think that is?

RS: Because they put too many of us in Season 4. (laughs)

SG: That’s right, they bunched you all up.

RS: … It takes a certain talent to be on the show. I think (Chef Lauren) really fits the bill. She’s adorable. Hopefully she rocks it. I’m sure she’ll do well.

SG: Did you watch the show before you applied for your season?

RS: I watched a little bit. I watched Harold (Dieterle) win Season 1. I remember watching it and thinking, “there’s no way I would ever do this show.” … The house that they lived in (in San Francisco) is like two blocks away from where I live now, so I run past it every morning. So I’m like, it’s kind of surreal, kind of funny.

I said I wouldn’t do it, and then I saw Season 2, and watching Marcel (Vigneron) and Sam (Talbot) and all the other guys and thinking, you know, I think this is something I’ll do.

I remember I opened at Myth Café and I said OK, I’m going to fill out an application for it and check it out. I actually got a phone call right before I filled out the application that they were casting for Miami. Somebody called and asked if I was interested, and I said, yeah, so I got all the way to the final (interviews) for Season 3, but I didn’t make it. I went to LA, tried out and didn’t get on. So I was a little bitter with Season 3. I watched, maybe, none.

SG: I didn’t realize it was such a long process for the casting.

RS: It’s sooo long. It’s so arduous. They really don’t want you to stay on; it’s that hard. They pound you and pound you and pound you. They make sure that they don’t have somebody who’s going to turn out to have been a porno star before they were on “Top Chef.” That’s what they really want to find out.

So I didn’t make it on (Season) 3, then I made it on (Season) 4.

SG: Do you still think about your experience on “Top Chef”?

RS: I didn’t think about it until this last week when I was in Chicago. It was one year ago last month that I left Chicago. So it was the first time I was back since the show. It was really cool to go back, and it was very cool to hang out with everybody. And when we would go into a bar, um, coffee shop, not a bar, and to have people come up, it was so cool to be in Chicago. … To go back and see it all again, and drive past the house, and see how people react still a year later about the show. I’m very fortunate. I just watched the reruns of Season 1 the other day, and I’ve been very fortunate people know who I am, to stand out only half-way through the show.

SG: Do you still get recognized because of “Top Chef”? Like when you’re just walking around San Francisco, do you have people come up to you and …

RS: freak out?

SG: Yeah, freak out. So how exactly do they freak out?

RS: It depends on what area you’re in. Castro area, they freak out. The Marina, they point. I was at the Castro Street Fair to support some friends of mine. It’s so funny. I had such a blast to where I had to end up leaving. They just want to take a bunch of photos, sign a bunch of autographs. People just want to converse, and I just love it.

SG: Have you gotten used to this whole celebrity chef status you gained from being on “Top Chef”?

RS: I think notoriety has been great. It’s helped us out a lot. I really want us to grow and expand. The one thing I’ve gotten from the show, which I love, is to be able to help people. Between fund-raisers and functions and more functions and more fund-raisers and more fund-raisers, we’ve done a lot this year and we’ve helped out a lot of people, which is great.

Things that are near and dear to me a year ago—without the pull of the show—wouldn’t have gone that far.

SG: I’ve noticed some chefs on the show who really seem shy and a bit overwhelmed by the attention they get afterwards. So you don’t feel pressured or stressed about it?

RS: No, it’s been phenomenal. … I saw Spike (Mendelsohn) last week, and he and I, the intention when we went on the show was to get exactly what we wanted. We didn’t go on the show to get a TV show. We went on there to excel and make ourselves better with the quality of our skills, and also get the notoriety to expand our brand and do the things we want to do. Like Spike just opened the first of his many chains of restaurants. Taking this (Mission Beach Café) over really made this place get on the map. We just got recognition from Gayot and Zagat, and I’ve been here less than six months. That’s huge.

[[Chef Scott was referring to Gayot’s recent inclusion of Mission Beach Café as one of 10 Hot Spots for Dining in San Francisco.]]

RS: The greatest thing about the show was it put me on the map, but it also let people know that I’m not a one-trick pony. I can actually do more than what was shown on there and what we did at Myth Café. I think we’ve really excelled at this restaurant. It’s grown exceedingly. And we’ve really enjoyed it.

SG: I do want to get to your experience here at Mission Beach Café, but I do have one more “Top Chef”-related question. Was there anything about the show that you felt never really came out or was never really shown to viewers?

RS: I think me, personally.

SG: So you don’t think the person people got to know on the show is really the real Ryan Scott?

RS: No, not really. Because I think I’m more a really fun-loving guy. You can put me in any situation and I’m the person that makes everyone crack up and have a good time. In six episodes, and, you know, how many minutes? Forty-seven minutes, maybe less than that, they’re trying to display 16 people’s personalities. I think if I made it a little longer you would have seen more of me. I think the fun-loving guy that a lot of people on the show get along with was shown a little bit. But now the times I do the demos, go do live things, I did the “Top Chef” tour, that way I got to reach out to a lot more people. Yeah, I do talk a lot. They did get that across.

… I would have liked to show a little bit more of my talent, but now it’s my turn to come back and do it here. This place has been the vessel for me to do that.


SG: How has it been at Mission Beach Café? Do you feel you’ve been able to accomplish what you set out to do?

RS: I think so. When you come into something that’s already a little established, you have to put your stamp and your mark on it. I think one of the best pastry chefs (Chef Alan Carter) in San Francisco if not the nation is here. The way he thinks about food is amazing. You think about pies, and you think that’s all you do, try his stuff.

SG: Was working with Chef Carter one of the reasons you decided to come here?

RS: He’s the reason why I came here. Yeah, we went to school together (at the California Culinary Academy). We always had a thing for each other about the way we can cook together, and it really has excelled since I’ve been here. It’s been phenomenal. This is definitely just a great vessel to get started, to see new things and a new demographic for me to cook for.

The financial district was more a fast-paced, 300 people turn and burn, and I get to put a little spin on a few stuff. But doing four menus (at Mission Beach Café)—breakfast, lunch, dinner and brunch—has been challenging in a little shoebox, and with no walk-in (refrigerator). We’re "cooking for people out of a house" is what I tell people. Imagine cooking at your house and trying to do it for 60 people a night, 300-plus on the weekend for brunch, and turn around and do it for dinner and then do lunch.

We just bust the format on lunch here. I’m doing brunch and lunch. And it’s grossed so much just in two weeks. It’s just a huge response. I think people really like to get eggs all day. People don’t think twice about $13 for eggs, but you put $13 for a sandwich and they freak out. So they want the big platter, the hash browns, the pancakes, and you know what? That’s what we’re giving them here. You cook for the clientele. You’re cooking for where you’re at.

SG: How would you say this is different than what you were doing at Myth Café (which has since closed).

RS: I don’t even think there’s even a comparison. The palate just on the other side of town is way different. This is a vegan, vegetarian-driven neighborhood and then you get every two or three covers you see the guy that wants a slab of beef on the plate. … At Myth I had fun and I didn’t have a lot of competition, and this genre, this area where we cook for, we have Range four blocks away, we have Delfina, Dosa, Foreign Cinema, Tartine and Bar Tartine. I mean, the fiercest of the fierce are cooking down here. I think the best chefs in San Francisco are in this area right now.

SG: What’s your approach to the cuisine that you’re doing differently here?

RS: First of all, it’s completely lunch driven, and I’ve tried to bring that format here. People have definitely bitten into it and they like it. But this is not like other fast-paced neighborhoods. People here definitely can have a glass of wine with lunch and relax a little bit more, and don’t mind having roasted salmon with lentils and yogurt dressing, and it’s not a big deal. That was something I wasn’t used to over there. And I worked with strictly electric at my last place. So having BTUs and being able to use gas, to be able to hone that and find out who I have been.

I haven’t been able to cook fine dining since Gary Danko, and that’s been almost four and a half years ago. It’s been awhile, so it’s been great to be able to figure out who I am as a chef again, on the food level, and the simplicity of how I think I cook on a certain level. So we’ve taken simple Mission Beach Café food and put it on to a beautiful plate and brought some flavors that you wouldn’t think would be in this area. So when you walk by this place and you walk through the doors and sit down and order something, you’re amazed by every bite.

SG: How often do you change the menu?

RS: A lot. Monthly, if not seasonally. It changes so much I’m getting yelled at about how much paper we go through. (laughs)

SG: Do you feel that even in this short time you’ve been able to come up with your culinary point of view?

RS: Definitely, I think it’s definitely been shown.

SG: How would you describe it?

RS: New American cuisine. It’s an angle on a twist on what the classics are. But when you sit down and get caramelized gnocchi and cherry shallot butter on top of a grilled New York (steak)—simple combinations but when you get the flavors it’s pretty killer.

SG: Is it fancy café food or fancy comfort food?

RS: I think it’s fancy food in a café atmosphere. You have these tables we’re sitting on that are about $1,000 a piece, and when you get the Heathware plates, which are handcrafted too, what we’re spending the time on each of the dishes are really amazing. And the products are just out of the world.

SG: So how much of your clientele is coming in because you were on “Top Chef”? Do you still get people coming in to see you and not necessarily the food?

RS: Yeah, every night.

SG: So what do you think about that?

RS: I think if that’s what gets them in the door, then I win them over with the food. I mean, that’s my job. The whole goal of the show was to let people know who I am and that’s been absolutely great. If that’s what draws them in, and they come in and say they came to see Ryan Scott but the food blew them out of the water, then we did our job. … So be it if people come in and want to say hi and take a photo. I dig it. It’s such an honor. I mean, I love that people want to say hi and talk food. That’s why I’m here.

SG: So it’s pretty obvious you like to talk … (RS: Really?) … and it’s really obvious that you’re charming. So do you ever feel like you want to go into TV? I think I read in an interview soon after you left the show that you wanted to develop some TV shows. Do you have anything in the works?

RS: First of all, food is first and foremost. And this restaurant is my main priority, and working here and developing other concepts and looking at all the things possible to grow with these guys will be phenomenal. I’ve had offers, and I’ve flown down (to LA) to check out some stuff, but I want to make sure the brand and who I am here stays true. And I want people to be able to come talk to me non-stop all the time and stop me on the street.

As long as the show’s concept that comes to us is something we believe are who we are then I’m totally fine with that. But I’m also not sitting there and pitching a show to anybody. I’ve had people come to me, but my main priority is not to do a TV show. I’ve turned down some really good offers. This career to me is about longevity and having a career for the rest of my life.

My main goal coming back from the show is not being a has-been or a five-minute TV star and that’s it. And we’ve really exceeded that and have done well with it.

SG: How do you think you’ve been able to stretch our your 15-minutes?

RS: I think if you’re out there in the right way. We’ve been called a gazillion times. … We really work together as a team (referring to his publicist who was sitting in on the interview) because I honestly couldn’t have done it without my friend, first and foremost, and then a great publicist. I mean, what’s been great is, OK, the American Heart Association comes to us. What is important about the American Heart Association? Are you just going up there just to do it? And we’re not. It’s something that’s near and dear to her, and I had it in my family and so on. Doing things that are near and dear to us and helping charities have been the best part about doing “Top Chef.” …

SG: You seem really passionate about helping charities. It really seems like it’s something you really want to do and not just because people ask you. Where does that come from, this wanting to help? I’m sure a lot of chefs get calls all the time. For you it seems almost like a passion.

RS: Wow, you’re actually going to get this out of me and I don’t think I’ve ever told anybody. … I had colon cancer when I was 8. And I remember my family being super poor, and I’ll never forget my dad working double (shifts) and my mom working doubles and us having to drive down to Fresno and I had to do all these scans and blood transfusions and so on. I’ll never forget my dad waking me up one night when I wouldn’t take my medications, and my mom cried and called my dad and said, “hey, Ryan’s not taking his meds,” and I didn’t know what was happening at the time because I was 8. Anyways, he says, “it’s not your time.” And to have that and to see my parents breaking their backs and doing whatever to take care of a half-a-million dollar doctor bill we had to keep me alive. I was 8 years old, I just turned 29. That was 21 years ago that I wasn’t supposed to be around. And to see that, and to see my parents doing anything and everything. And all I have to do is cook for somebody to raise money to have another family take care of their child, why not?

I’m not doing this for any other reason but to help people, and that’s the best thing that’s come out of “Top Chef.” The friendships that we’ve gained from this and the charitable actions that we do, it’s phenomenal. It’s not about money, it’s never about money. Trust me, check my bank account.

SG: So what’s in store for you? Do you have projects coming up?

RS: Oh, besides a gazillion charities to do? We’ve actually launched, finally, it’s taken a year since the show, the Web site is almost up, Ryan Scott to Go is just a private little catering company that I do that’s basically I can go to somebody’s house and do little team building and so on. The logo just got finalized today. It’s going to be all online. I just finished getting all the paperwork from the city. It takes a lot of work. Since the show aired, it’s taken me a year to get the license and everything else.

… We’ve got another show we shot with Bravo that airs in February, it’s going to be great. I’m not going to tell you what it is, but watch for it, it’s great. I can’t say yet.

SG: Oh, is it some kind of Bravo “Top Chef” reunion?

RS: I don’t know. [[He’s faking ignorance right now in case you can’t tell.]] But it has my name on it. It’s has to do with something like that. That will be on and there are so many different things that have come our way. San Francisco is our home, it’s where I’ve been almost eight years and I’m not leaving. So it’s finding the best way to work through what’s going on right now and finding the best results and what will work, and Mission Beach is succeeding and hopefully we can keep going strong and we’ll go from there. There’s definitely things in the burner. I’m always looking for other things to expand and make a name for, but also be very smart about it. I know my demographic and I know my clientele and I’m going to stay in those confines.

We chat a bit more about where he gets his energy and he confirms, because I know you all want to know, that he’s currently dating someone. Throughout the interview, he had his Blackberry beside him with the light blinking as he constantly gets e-mails.

Mission Beach Café, Chef Scott and his partners just launched a new quarterly dinner to help raise funds for a local non-profit. For the first dinner in November, a five-course, prix fixe dinner will benefit Creativity Explored, a Mission neighborhood non-profit visual arts center. The Nov. 19 dinner starts at 5:30 p.m. and costs $75 per person (not including alcohol, tax and tips). To reserve, call 415.861.0198, ext. 2. If you can’t make it for the five-course dinner, you can just dine at the restaurant every Wednesday nights between 5:30 and 7 p.m. and 15 percent of your food tab will be donated to Creativity Explored.

After the interview, I snapped some photos of Chef Scott outside the restaurant and he showed me his colorful pink argyle socks. Turns out, they belong to fellow Season 4 cheftestant Jennifer Biesty (who’s also from San Francisco). She leant them to him in the episode where they had a neighborhood block party and Chef Scott got all wet when he was dunked in the dunking booth. So Jennifer, if you’re wondering where your socks are, you know whom to call.

Special thanks to Chef Scott for taking the time out of his busy schedule to chat with me. And you can check back on this blog every Thursday night when I’ll be posting, yet again, my recaps of the new “Top Chef” season.

Mission Beach Café, 198 Guerrero St., San Francisco. PH: 415.861.0198, http://www.missionbeachcafesf.com/

“Top Chef” Season 5 premieres Wednesday, Nov. 12, at 10 p.m. (9 p.m. Central) on Bravo TV. Check your local listings.

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