Fresh Off the Boat (34 page)

In the green room was Thalia Patillo, who was from the Bronx. She worked as a newscaster and was gonna make empanadas. There was this dude Dave, wearing a bright yellow aloha shirt that made him look like Jon Bon Jovi, and lastly, Karate Grandma. The casting director somehow
found this old woman from Wisconsin who was a second-degree black belt and made ill crostinis. You could tell from jump that we weren’t picked solely for food, but because we represented different demographics and a “clash of civilizations” could unfold. That is one of the more interesting things about food TV. It’s very difficult to separate race, culture, and food. Yet the network doesn’t want to approach it in any sort of intelligent or meaningful way. They just want to infuse race into the conversation with food, code words, and friendly faces of color.

Thalia had big dreams of opening some sort of empanada catering business. Karate Grandma was a competitive cook and went around the nation doing things like
Ultimate Recipe Showdown
, and Dave was a music producer who wanted some cash for studio equipment. Me? I was using the appearance to build my reel for comedy appearances so my intention was to blow the thing up. When I went in for the interviews, they kept asking, “Are you excited to meet Guy Fieri?” I remember telling them, “Do I look like I’m excited to meet some fake tan backwards-sunglasses-wearing asshole with frosted tips?” When it was time for the competition, I was already a few drinks deep, taking shots of the Moutai that I was supposed to cook with. If I won, I won, but I just wanted to have a good time and throw the show off. I hated television, I only watched HBO.

About fifteen minutes into the competition, my skirt steak was braising and I had to piss like a motherfucker so I left the set and went to the bathroom. I didn’t think it was that big a deal but apparently it was “crazy” to go to the bathroom since this “super-intense” cooking competition was going on. The thing that bothered me the most about food TV was that they were trying so hard to create drama. Reality TV never worked for me because it was all manufactured story, drama, and hype. To this day, the only reality show that I’ve ever enjoyed watching was
ego trip’s The (White) Rapper Show
. They basically parodied the entire industry of reality television and stunted on white people for a season; it was my dream come true watching that shit unfold. Not only was the concept bulletproof, but your boi boi MC Search hosted it, with random appearances by Prince Paul. For heads, there wasn’t a better reality show.

At
Ultimate Recipe Showdown
, you could tell the action was already
scripted.
^*
During the interviews, they kept asking me how I felt about Dave cooking Asian food, since his dish was wontons in some sort of fucked-up kitchen sink peanut sauce. I could tell there was a
Last Samurai
story line brewing and Dave was being set up to take me down. I didn’t care because
of course that’s what they were doing
. They asked me on the show what I thought and I responded, “To be honest, it’s really bad Asian fusion, but some people like that.” Not only did I get away with it, but people were laughing their asses off.

That’s the confidence that New York gave me. There was finally a city that appreciated what I had to say and the honesty with which I said it. When I would speak my mind like that in Orlando, people would literally call me “racist.” I wasn’t, though. Chinese or not, seeing food or any cultural artifact bastardized just pissed me and most New Yorkers off. In my mind, America’s culinary scene was premature with the whole fusion jump-off. Most Americans don’t even understand the differences between Shanghainese, Hunanese, Sichuanese, or Cantonese food. Even in New York, where these cuisines are readily available, people are just now starting to understand and identify the nuances. A lot of chefs are in a hurry to profit off of appropriated versions of ethnic food without any respect, recognition, or understanding of where these flavors come from. There’s a double standard, too. When my dad had a steakhouse, everyone questioned whether a Chinese person was qualified to open a steakhouse. We had to have white people front like the chef and owners. It was not OK for my dad to sell steak, but white people cooking Asian get more attention than the people in Chinatown who actually know what the fuck they’re doing.
†

(Note to Reader: as you read the next three pages, go on Spotify and play that motherfuckin’ Gershwin
Rhapsody in Blue
. That’s the only thing that should be in your head right now.)

What I liked about New York was that food took priority. For immigrant families, food drives your daily life, holidays, vacations, everything. You put in work just to maintain your food culture and eat the things you would back home. In most American cities, dinner is an afterthought. In Orlando, my friends and I would almost never eat before heading out. We’d get high, watch sports, and wait till 11
P.M
. to wild. New York was different: dinner was the event. Everyone fights for the 9:30
P.M
. seating, the 11:30 cabs before the changeover, and beating the door before midnight if you’re not on the list. People follow the big fall openings, wait hours for café seating in the spring, or buy out their favorite courtyard in the summer. Even in the winter, people are taking car services from TriBeCa to East Harlem for a table at Patsy’s on First Avenue in ten-degree weather. There are your cornball Yelpers, bloggers, and photo takers, but most of us are into it as a culture and foundation of the city. Restaurants are gateways into New York’s neighborhoods. You may never go to the Heights if you don’t cop haze, but Malecon may be the hook that gets John from accounting on the A train. Somehow, food has become a social equalizer. There’s no way you’re getting John into Le Baron and there’s no way you’re letting John drag you to Turtle Bay after work, but dinner is something you can agree on. Peter Luger’s, steak for five, Canadian bacon, tomato salad, hash browns, no one use the fucking steak sauce—who can’t love that?

In New York, everyone’s a historian: we know what used to be on what block, who replaced it, and how the neighborhood has changed since Shopsin’s moved from the West Village to the Essex Market. People protest closings, fines, violations, and fight for their restaurants. But most important, New Yorkers know their food. I remember the day Frankie’s 17 on Clinton took the pepperoncini with olive-oil-packed tuna off the menu. It was 11
P.M
on a Sunday night, an hour before close.

“Frankie’s 17, how may I help you?”

“Yeah, I want to make a delivery order.”

“Lemme get your address?”

“One-oh-two Norfolk Street, apartment seventeen.”

“Oh, hey, how’s it going?”

“Wassup?”

“What can I get for you?”

“Same shit: cavatelli with red sauce, broccoli rabe on the side, pepperoncini with tuna.”

“Ohhh, we took the pepperoncini off the menu.”

“What?”

“We don’t do the pepperoncini anymore.”

“How do you not do the pepperoncini anymore? Nobody told me about this shit.”

“Ha, ha, they just took it off, I’m sorry!”

“No, for real, I don’t think you understand, I NEED that pepperoncini. I order it every time I blaze. Like, is there someone we can talk to, to like fix this.”

“Ha, ha, Eddie, I’m sorry, we love you, but it’s just not on the menu anymore.”

“Ugggggggghhhhhh.”

This happens every time a menu or ingredient changes. When I opened Baohaus, one day we switched purveyors for red sugar and customers noticed. I never thought anyone but myself or Evan would care, but people complained. I didn’t want to switch, but our old purveyor just ran out of stock. I liked how we all took ownership in the city, its culture, and its food. We still argue all the time about soup dumplings. Tourists and cornballs love Joe’s Shanghai, but everyone knows it’s Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao holding down Flushing. Just like we argue whether Riley should have pulled Starks in Game 7, we’ll go on and on about how great the lox and whitefish are at Russ & Daughters, but how undeserving their bagels are. The biggest travesty in downtown New York is that you have to buy your lox at R&D then take the train up to Ess-a-Bagel to put together a proper lox, caper, red onion, cream cheese, on sesame or salt bagel. We wish 2nd Ave Deli was still on Second Avenue, we worry about the old man’s health at Di Fara Pizza, and we still don’t understand how
people can go to Szechuan Gourmet and order from the American Chinese menu while we get busy with the chili leek intestine casserole and a Diet Coke.

But despite the misfires, overhyped openings, and super-restaurants that mar the landscape, New York is the best eating city not named Tokyo or Taipei, and we owe it to people Fresh Off the Boat. From the old chick selling churros on the Sunset Park D train to the stray cat crawling over the counter at Fort Greene’s Farmer in the Deli to Peter Luger’s in Williamsburg to Great N.Y. Noodletown on Bowery to Shopsin’s on Essex to Baohaus on Fourteenth to La Taza de Oro on Ninth Avenue to Sapporo on Forty-ninth to the golden elevator at Kuruma Zushi to Lechonera in Harlem to SriPraPhai in Woodside to Mario’s on Arthur Avenue, it’s an army of first- and second-generation immigrants that feed this city. I love the Knicks, I fux with Fool’s Gold parties, and I stay coppin’ kicks, but living in New York, it became clear to me what I loved the most was the thing I loved all along: food.

By the time we reached the midpoint in the competition, it hit me like Woody at the end of
Manhattan
. Was it too late? Did I fuck up? I needed that girl! At that point, I wasn’t even paying attention to the competition. It was more fun fucking with the audience, but something woke me up. After the scores for the first round came out, Dave was in the lead, I was second, Grandma was third, and Thalia was fourth. As I walked into the test kitchen, I heard the staff chefs and cooks mumbling to each other.

“This is such bullshit. His wontons sucked.”

“For real, did you try Eddie’s baos?”

“Are you kidding? I made rice to eat it on.”

“It’s better on rice?”

“It’s Chinese food; of course it’s better on rice.”

I wish I knew the Asian woman’s name, but she was a Food Network chef who came up to me before the second round and said to me, “Hey. Don’t worry about the competition. This thing never works out the way it should.”

“Ha, ha, yeah. I figured Dave gonna be the last samurai standing, like Tom Cruise and shit.”

“That’s so fucked-up but true. You know how it is … television. But seriously, everyone in the kitchen ate the skirt steak and it’s phenomenal. Where’d you learn to cook?”

“My mom.”

“Well, we see a lot of people come through here and you’re good.”

“Thanks.”

In the end, I lost the competition, but won the crowd. After we finished taping, people kept coming up wanting to try the skirt steak. Thalia’s family was mad cool and said they were even hoping I would win. Thalia herself was gracious, wished me the best, and everyone encouraged me to cook professionally. The last one to come by was magenta Guy Fieri himself.

“Hey, bro. You kicked ass today, man.”

“Thanks, Guy.”

“No, for real. Look, this is TV. Don’t pay attention to it. You got the chops. Don’t give up.”

“Give up on what?”

“Cooking, dude! Go for it.”
^‡

Anytime I went to restaurants, I would pick on what could be improved, write notes, and practice at home. Cooking was something that I loved to do on my own. I didn’t agree with people on their interpretations, their favorites, or their preferences and didn’t care because my tastes were mine. That’s the thing I really loved about food. I couldn’t build my own Jordan Vs, I couldn’t draft for the Redskins, but I could make my own food. Nothing stood between me and the flavors I craved. The only thing that kept me from cooking professionally was the feeling that people wouldn’t understand my food. I saw idiots ordering lo mein for most of my adult life at Cantonese restaurants that made amazing seafood panfried noodles. I didn’t want to be those motherfuckers’ Captain Kirk.

I remember at Cardozo, there was this kid Barry Goldstein who thought he knew everything about Chinese food because he lived in China for a year or two after college. When I ate hot pot, I always mixed sa cha sauce with sesame paste, garlic oil, a raw egg, and a teaspoon of soy. Barry said to me once, “That’s not how you eat hot pot! That’s some new-age Taiwanese thing. In Beijing, you don’t mix the sauces.”

“Son, I’ll say this the nicest way I can. I’m Chinese and you’re an idiot.”

Barry had a false sense of confidence. He had been impressing his white friends for years with his “knowledge” of Chinese food and figured he could school me, but it was a joke. One of his friends at dinner that night mixed his sauces and said to the table, “You know, it’s pretty good when you mix it, Barry.” For the most part, people who have grown up eating a food their entire lives love learning new techniques or variations within the same pantry. My mom’s beef noodle soup takes on a new ingredient every three to five years, and hot pot seems to find a new protein every season. I’m confident in my taste because it’s been refined over thirty years of eating the same dishes hundreds of times. The problem with expats is that they never get to say shit in China. When they’re over there, they are like dogs being led around from restaurant to restaurant by locals trying to take them for a ride. They may taste one or two variations of a dish and form opinions based on that cursory knowledge, hanging on every word like it’s the holy grail. When the expat gets home, he’s in such a rush to impress false maxims on any fool who will listen. People who don’t understand something need poles to grasp, but those who truly love and understand something through experience don’t need those training wheels. Food is that way for me. There’s a difference between bastardizing an item and giving it the room to breathe, grow, and change with the times. When Chinese people cook Chinese food or Jamaicans cook Jamaican, there’s no question what’s going on. Just make it taste good. When foreigners cook our food, they want to infuse their identity into the dish, they have a need to be part of the story and take it over. For some reason, Americans simply can’t understand why this bothers us. “I just want to tell
my story?!? I loved my vacation to Burma! What’s wrong with that?” It’s imperialism at work in a sauté pan. You already have everything, do you really really, really need a Burmese hood pass, too? Can we live?