Food. Curated.

Liza: Welcome everyone to food.

curated.

a show that takes you behind the scenes to meet today's most inspiring food makers.

Stick around as we uncover outstanding food startups that came to life in the pandemic.

Liza, voice over: I'm Liza de Guia documentary filmmaker and food lover.

I invite you to discover the people and passion behind good food in New York City.

This is food.

curated.

Funding for food.

curated.

is made possible by.

Stele is a globally curated collection of artisanal and independent perfumes.

Hand-picked olfactory experiences that tell a story.

Available online and at two New York locations.

For more info, we're at Stele (dot) nyc.

Support for food.

curated.

comes from CMD Psych.

Bringing a holistic approach to child wellness and women's mental health care.

Helping patients find balance and harmony in their lives.

For more info, head to CMD Psych (dot) com Additional Funding provided by.

(Music) Liza: As the pandemic sent the majority of New York City into lockdown.

Many chefs and food makers learned to pivot for the first time.

Some lost jobs returning home to help their families, while others stumbled upon wild new ways to feed their communities.

For many, these new businesses were an act of survival.

For Maxi's Noodle, keeping the family business going was purely an act of love.

[music] [music] Maxi: So my brand and my Chinese name of my shop is actually Wonton Girl.

So when you hear wonton girl and you're going to a Chinese, you know, noodle shop, that's called wonton girl, you would think wontons.

Of course you got to get wontons, you know, like everything else.

Okay.

But we have to get the wontons.

But, I always tell them: the wonton is like the cover up.

Yeah.

This is the wonton noodle shop.

The name is wonton girl, but you have to try the dumpling.

These are our dumplings.

[Liza: oh] They remind me of like little piggies sleeping.

Like you see the little ears, the little piggies.

And once they try it, they don't go back.

They don't look back.

They're like, you're right.

That dumpling always have that extra crunch.

You're right.

I know now exactly what you're talking about.

The wonton is good, but dumpling is better.

And because, you know, I only have six items, I always tell them mix and match.

So you can try a little bit of everything.

But if you want to just try, just the wonton and dumpling, you can't go wrong with that.

[music] Michael: Hi, my name is Michael Lau Maxi: And hi, my name is Maxi Lau we're the owners of Maxi's Noodle, based in Flushing, Queens.

[Liza: yeah] [Liza: cute!]

[touching music] I love you.

Bye bye.

[music] Maxi: Every single day I come into the shop, I see my logo.

I see my shop.

I see my mother.

So this is like, [chokes up tears] Sorry.

This is like, you know, this is.

This is mom.

Welcome to my kitchen, at Maxi's Noodle.

Ah, so, this is what we do every single morning.

We start with, um, the tank right here, which holds nine buckets of soup.

We make sure that this is boiling every single morning.

When we first come in, and then once it boils, we have it come down to here.

And then after that, we start doing our wonton and dumpling filling.

I have her picture right there by the counter.

So I see every single day I have her tattoed on my arm.

So I feel like, you know, she's with me every day.

So it was always like a dream for mom to open up a shop.

But, um, sorry, I get choked up when I talk about mom.

But, yeah.

So, mom has a lot to do with it.

[mixer sound] So what we're doing right now, we're mixing the wonton, we get something we call in Cantonese: Hae-Gao.

which is kind of like glue, like texture.

But once you mix everything in, it turns out like this.

So this is like the finished product.

Hong Kong style wontons, we use majority of shrimp and just a little bit of pork.

So the recipe that we learned is mainly from the family friend that taught us.

It's actually like their family recipe.

They always told me, make it your own.

You know, this is like mommy telling us this is our call.

So we're going to do this and we're in this together now.

So it goes right there.

When she passed away 2017.

[Liza: Do you kind of feel her rooting you both on?]

Michael: So you want to see, her mother picture?

Like this.

[laughter] [Liza: Oh, really?]

[Liza: Hold it.]

Maxi: Yeah.

That's mom cheering us on every single day.

[music with mixer sounds] This is filling for the dumpling.

So the shrimp goes in first.

This is my secret ingredient.

So this is what.

[Liza: The spices?]

Yeah.

This is the spices.

So I measure everything out like to the T. So the quality is always the same.

[Liza: What's your relationship to each other?]

Michael: Oh, she is my daughter.

Maxi: And he is my dad.

[laughter] We're very close to where we have that friendship.

Michael: She is a smart girl.

And a creative girl.

Okay, Dad.

[laughter] I'm an only child.

So I'm very, very close with my parents.

So he is really, really one of my best friends.

So we use a lot of slang in Cantonese.

So this behind me um, the characters, says: pretty girl.

[Liza: And is that just for you or for all the workers.]

Maxi: It's just for me is a joke between me and my dad.

So, I made a shirt for my dad, and it on a back is says pretty boy like, handsome guy or something.

Yeah, he wears it every single day when he's here.

[laughter] So I hide in the back and do all the cooking, while he's in front of the house, greeting all the customers and, you know, chit chatting with everyone.

Maxi: So it doesn't matter if you're young or old, he can get along with you.

So, Maxi's Noodle, it's a family owned business.

We are a little mom and pop shop.

We specialize in Hong Kong style noodles, and very specific Hong Kong style wonton noodle shop.

We're the first one here that sells, like, the ginormous wonton and dumpling and the fish ball.

Um.

And I think we don't really have any other competition.

[music & mixing] So this is the dumpling filling.

And here we have a little bit of yellow chives, right here.

We have the wood ear strips in here.

We have a pork.

And then of course we have the shrimp.

And then we have the bamboo shoot strips right here.

Hong Kong is known for one of the, you know, like, have the best food in the world.

Michael: Everywhere, we have, wonton noodle soup.

Maxi: Yeah.

Wonton noodle is like a comfort food.

So we got our skin, from a very special vendor that only makes, specializes the skin for us because our wonton and dumplings are so big.

This is, like, actually a perfect skin.

So the stretch and the thinness of it, you know, because we have to pull, we have the turn, we have the, you know, we want it durable to wear, like I'm doing like a stretch test right now.

And like this is good.

Like when I learned, I was told that the more you wrap, the more your hand becomes your scale.

I know the weight of the wonton, how big it's supposed to be.

You can't waste time and weigh every single one.

So what do I look for when I teach them?

When you open this, you don't have the, opening of, like, the shrimp and the pork pouring out.

We want everything thin.

So when you bite in, you don't have a thick skin.

So once we tuck it in nice and we roll it, and we have into, like, a little pearl, the skin is loose like that.

[music] Michael: I'm coming everyday to try the wonton, dumpling, fish ball...each one, of course.

And then make sure the soup is good.

Every day.

Maxi: This is like the soul of your wonton noodle soup: pork bones.

So the, the wonton noodles here in New York, It doesn't taste like home, or you don't really taste like, you know, the egg taste, that chewiness that we call, like, in Mandarin, like Q.

The fact that we only have, you know, like six items.

You come literally 2 or 3 times.

You really tried everything already.

Okay, so this is our beef stew.

This is called ngau lam in Cantonese.

This is like the perfect bite of brisket that you can get.

Michael: I'm very happy right now because everybody coming.

Everybody say, oh, it taste good.

Your (food) tastes really good.

That's it.

[Liza: That's all that matters.]

Yeah.

We're happy!

When people happy.

I'm happy too Maxi: I usually do the wonton, the dumpling and the beef stew.

lomein-style also.

Soup on the side.

[Liza: Are you proud of your daughter?]

Michael: Of course.

I'm proud... Maxi: He better be.

[laughing] So I try a little bit here, a little bit of the pork.

[music & kitchen sounds] This she wrote in my card.

One of my birthday cards that forever got your back Pretty much, love you the most, mom. And I have the tattoo right here.

Yeah.

And then my dad wrote another card and said, oh yeah, I love you more than your mom. You're daddy. [laughter & tears] So I have that tattooed right here.

So these are from my from the birthday cards that they write to me.

[Liza: That's hilarious.]

Maxi: She's like.. [Liza: You got this.]

Maxi: Yup.

Mom's voice message: Good night, bye bye, Love you... [music] [sizzling meat] Luis: As soon as I tasted it, I was like, this is $1 billion burrito.

This is going to be huge.

This is going to be ginormous.

She was like, well, I don't, know... I'm like: No, This is going to be huge.

[music] [sizzling sounds] Hi, I'm Isabel Lee.

Hey, I'm Luis Fernandez Isabel: And we are the founders of Forsyth Fire Escape, a scallion pancake burrito Pop-Up Luis: Located in Chinatown, New York.

[music] Isa: It wouldn't have happened if we didn't move to NY.

And we would have never been influenced by all these different cultures living literally on top of each other.

You know, on the one corner from our old apartment was Don Juan's Dominican bodega.

Literally, on the other corner was the Chinese bodega.

And then across the street was it was called Chinese Hispanic Deli.

Yeah, we were influenced to create this dish, to be in that space and be inspired by it wouldn't have happened if we didn't move to New York.

[music] [kitchen fans whirring] Isabel: It's bake day, today.

We let the meat come to room temperature after marinating for about 48 hours in the fridge.

We wanted to steam and we slow roast it.

And that way, you know it kind of cooks in, in its own juices.

Essentially, this is pulled pork and pulled pork, it's not about the temperature.

It's about the consistency.

And so I think total time will be like five-ish hours [singing a tune] And it gets that tender flavor.

Isabel: [clapping] Yay!, Coming from California, I'm used to eating tacos all the time.

Going to taco trucks.

Mexican cuisine is very, very prominent.

I hadn't found those places here.

And so I think that's kind of how like a burrito was formed.

Okay, there's oil... -Luis: there's liquid gold!

Isabel: It's liquid gold!

Ok, so now, the meat has been in the oven for about three hours.

So I'm removing the liquid gold is what it is.

Every piece of meat is covered in marinade.

The very last step broil it so that the fat gets crispy and the meat gets a little bit charred too.

And that's really where the flavor comes together.

Luis: And we just drink this like water, don't we?

that's our secret.

That's what keeps us going.

[laughing] Yeah.

We don't really drink water.

We just drink this.

[music] Isabel: I had been making scallion pancakes a lot at home because I was missing home.

And that's a lot.

You know, it's a dish that we had at home that my mom made.

At the same time Luis was eating pernil, like, four times a week, because around the corner is Don Juan's bodega.

So he's bringing these foods back home.

I'm eating the scallion pancakes and we just start to naturally put them together.

I added the guacamole.

He was like, put in the queso blanco, and it kind of eventually formed into this burrito.

[music & sizzling sounds] Isabel: Yes, that is the dough.

It's almost ready.

The beginning was a lot of trial and error, a lot of scallion pancakes.

We're eaten.

Traditional scallion pancakes are very crispy.

So I made it a little bit thinner.

Still flaky, still chewy, still crispy, but not too hard because you're just ...it's a big bite.

At the bodega we were making around 100 per week.

And now that we're at the food hall at Olly Olly, I mean, we have a ginormous kitchen.

And so we're able to make more the bite of all the flavors together of the, you know, of the pernil and the scallion pancakes, the, the chili sauce, everything together was a bite that I had never had.

It was just there's no way that we couldn't share it with people.

[uplifting music] So I just want to show you the fire escape where it all began.

It's not the first one, but the second one on the right, right there.

That's where I would crawl over my bed, out the window, stand on the fire escape and lower the burritos in a bucket down to the sidewalk where people would come and pick it up.

Yeah, there's no contact.

It's easy.

It's fun.

This is a cool way to just bring some light in Chinatown too.

That would be a fun thing to do.

But the excitement was very palpable, and you could feel it on both ends, yeah.

Luis: So we only had it for a couple weeks.

But the people who had it, Isabel: It was fun.

Luis: I was there when they had the bucket though.

Isabel: I mean, the origin of the burrito has always been about, you know, community and bringing our cultures together.

Luis: And then Gus, the owner and Freddy, the owner, they're just like, dude, we have a whole bunch of people that are never in here.

Isabel: Yeah, that just added in another dimension of like supporting, now this small business in Chinatown.

Luis: My favorite feedback is when I have, when Dominican people come and they're like: This pernil is fire!

Because that just means the pernil is cooked perfect.

You know?

Isabel: People come back and they're like, I just I just finished it.

But I need to tell you that that was amazing.

Luis: Yeah.

The the comment we get all the time is people will come back and like, I get it now, I understand now, I, I get it.

One of my friends came back, he's like: This is it, this is it, this, this was it.

[Isabel laughs: yeah] [music] [music] Eric: I think if you kind of just boil down what is fine dining, and at its core, it's like an obsessive attention to detail, even the most inane and, you know, often unnoticed details, you know, that a customer would never perceive.

But, your hope is that the collection of all these details that you're paying attention to is what delivers a fantastic experience.

And that's, to me, something, and you know, that fits my personality.

I really enjoy.

And I think what makes the food good here.

[music] I'm Eric Huang, I'm the chef and owner of Pecking House, located in Brooklyn, New York.

[music] This is the face of concern.

It's the face of [the buzzing sound of stress] Eric: Alright, that works.

First piece of fried chicken in this ... I was a little worried.

But, you know, it's okay.

[music] This important Pecking House is a, restaurant that was created out of trying to help my uncle out in the pandemic.

We started this September 2020, but the food was a really neat distillation of the kind of cooking I grew up with.

We describe it as Nashville hot chicken meets Taiwanese fried chicken.

And because we use a lot of pure starches, like an Asian fried chicken, like potato starch, corn starch, that's how gums up really badly.

So to get like a really crisp, airy crust, you really need to like immediately add the dredge.

I never expected this concept to go viral.

It genuinely was just trying to make a little bit of scratch just to help my family pay the rent at the restaurant.

I've been closed for six months since lockdown.

This waitlist chicken that spawned from it, this like very coveted delivery chicken that was, all the rage in the pandemic was absolutely unplanned.

I genuinely never really thought this was going to happen.

I was just trying to help my family out.

It is a really unusual and unique style of chicken that didn't exist, which is why another reason I think it really took off.

[music] Eric: Hi Mom.

[laughs] How are you?

Cathy: Eric is my son.

My baby [laughs] Eric is a very bright kids, very difficult kid.

[laughs] He always has a lot of a lot of his own mind.

That's what probably makes him so good now.

When he decided to be a chef, he told me.

And he just graduated from Northwestern University.

So I said, why didn't you tell me earlier?

I saved 350 thousand.

[laughs] Eric: This is our kitchen at Pearl East.

It's tiny, considering how much food comes out of here.

It's really crazy how tiny it is.

My mom's always in the kitchen.

She's watching every dish come out.

She's yelling at people.

So, yeah, I mean, during the pandemic, I was, you know, here basically every day helping out as much as I could.

So, it was a pretty crazy time.

Yeah, that I was not fast enough.

But I can work the grill.

Give it another coat.

So in the beginning of the pandemic, there was no chance my mom was going to close.

Of course she was going to keep working.

You know, I worked really hard in fine dining for a really long time.

I wanted to be the best, but, like, there was no one really working here.

So I came in and tried to be the chef.

It's very crazy.

It's not easy.

A lot of people, they can't handle it.

She disapproved of my plating.

Three plating to do it over, chef.

You know, she raised us as a single mother and, you know, her resilience is really incredible.

[Liza: Do you like fried chicken?]

Cathy: I love fried chicken, yes.

Eric: Who doesn't like, everyone loves fried chicken Cathy: And I think his fried chicken is very good.

Eric has a very good sense of the seasoning.

Eric: I tried out a bunch of different things, but, you know, I think a lot of people are always like, how did you come up with this recipe?

And the simple answer was like, I was looking around me and see what I had.

You know, of course we had five spice.

There's mustard and then there's chilies.

It just kind of all came together one day, kind of all came together in a vision.

All right.

Chili mix okay.

So this is a giant container of ground chilies.

We ground them ourselves.

They're Tianjin chilies.

It seems like a medium heat and has a very nice, like, vegetal aroma.

And then these are Sichuan peppercorns that we toss and grind ourselves as well.

Yeah.

It's a numbing sensation.

Some people describe it as looking a nine volt battery.

I've actually never done that.

I wouldn't say most people use vinegar powder at all.

I wouldn't say common, but this is something that you would find more in, like a high end kitchen, like in fine dining.

So you need a decent amount.

And this is where all the sniffling and the misery begins.

[sniffling noises] Okay.

All right.

Moment of truth.

It's been really hot lately, so I'm a little nervous about it, but.

[smacking lips] [Liza: laughter - Look at that face] [more intense sniffling and coughing from the spiciness] -Liza: Too hot?

Eric: Oh, it's okay, needs sugar.

Eric: (coughs, keeps coughing) Oh, God, I gotta do it again.

[sniffles] [Liza: So you just added more sugar?]

Eric: Yeah.

[lips smacking, more sniffling] Yeah.

[laughs in pain] It's pretty good.

– Liza: What are you looking for?

Eric: It just needs to be more [painful laughing] balanced through the sweetness of the vinegar.

We mix it with duck fat and form kind of like a chili oil.

And then we brush the chicken with that.

And then if you're doing it right, it should be pretty balanced throughout and not overly hot, but on its own, without the fat, without all everything else going on, it's really hot.

[sniffles, laughs] [smacks lips to taste] Eric: Okay.

That's good.

[Liza: laughing] -Eric: [sniffling & struggling] Eric: All right, [sniffles] [Liza: wow] Eric: [laughs off camera] this is so hot.

Just going to the office and cry for a second.

Ha.

Okay.

I would not have chosen such an ambitious project for the first one, but it just kind of worked out that way.

I do really like the space.

I think the location's sick.

It was really fun to be in a Chinese kitchen and be able to play with flavors and ideas.

And then the first time I cooked it, we were like, oh wow, that came out pretty nice.

Our menu here is, It's pretty, It's pretty homey and pretty approachable.

They're all heavily inspired by traditional Southern cooking.

[music] Eric: I think, you know, being in restaurants really brought by me and my mom a lot closer.

She never.

It makes me have to ask for help.

She's always offering.

Cathy: Well, I live for my kids, I have to say.

And, I work so hard just for them, [Liza: do you think one day you want Eric to take over this place?]

Eric: [laughter] -Cathy: I don't Eric going to take over this.

Eric: She wants me to, but I would not.

[laughs] Eric: The final moment: It's a big test.

She tests everybody on their fried rice.

She judges them by their fried rice.

Pretty good?

[Liza: Oh!]

Eric: Not bad?

I kind of nailed it.

Maybe?!

[laughs] I learned a lot from my mom about how to run a business.

And, yeah, it's really impressive.

Oh.

[music] [music] Liza: New York City is coming back to life with more clarity, more determination to prioritize what matters at work and at home.

This bright new era we're building makes me believe there are stronger, more resilient times ahead.

That's it for this episode of food.

curated.

Thanks so much to all our featured guests.

I'm Liza de Guia.

Be sure to connect with us on social media and eat more stories.

I'll see you next week.

[music] Funding for food.

curated.

is made possible by.

Stele is a globally curated collection of artisanal and independent perfumes.

Hand-picked olfactory experiences that tell a story.

Available online and at two New York locations.

For more info, we're at Stele (dot) nyc.

Support for food.

curated.

comes from CMD Psych.

Bringing a holistic approach to child wellness and women's mental health care.

Helping patients find balance and harmony in their lives.

For more info, head to CMD Psych (dot) com Additional Funding provided by.

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Dive deeper into the makers we care about.

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