790: Brendan Chareoncharutkun Built Uncle’s Thai Food. Curry Fans Are Following.

34:41And they were talking about these stereotypes around Chinese food being greasy or unhealthy and how it wouldn't make you feel good. And then obviously there was a whole response of people being like, nobody is asking you to do this or to make this. Nobody's asking you to open this spot. But that was, I think, a big kind of hallmark of that era in some ways. Oh my God, yeah. It was called Lucky Lee's. Oh my, I need to look this up. This is crazy. It's crazy and it's so real, right? And I think even for the people who are not, you know, who are Asian and who are not as self-conscious, it made us think about our own food differently.

35:21and you know it really it really like it just makes it and it's almost like the the lack of sort of context of like nutrition and genetics and body and like how we digest food changes from person to person or our lifestyle has such a huge impact on the food we need and the oversimplification of like what's good and what's bad for you that really sort of you know i wanted to get into marketing because I was like, marketers are the ones who are doing this. And little did I know, I ended up reading Marian Nestle, who's like such an icon, right? She wrote, I think it's called Food Policy. Right. She's written many incredible, like the OG Nutritionist.

36:06Yeah. The Thank You for Smoking of Food Marketing. And literally, I know I'm actually the one who's doing the food marketing now. Okay. And I worked at ad agencies. They were interested in me at taking a chance of like, you know, it's like, oh, he has an interesting story. He has some perspective. You know, we're in the era of Thursday drops. Let's all be like supreme. You know, you see a kid like me still wearing like Nikes and Jordans. And you're like, oh, he's the perfect one to give us the answers for how to sort of market to this generation. and and at that time I didn't have any skills or I didn't have those skills and so I wanted to gain those skills and I felt you know almost like the last 10 years as a sort of like grad school for me a way to sort of understand business and to understand like communications and to do it in a way and now that I have the skills and have the knowledge and and I feel like oh it's it's It makes it easier for me to do it on my own brand, but it also makes me very careful of what I'm doing.

37:13Right. And I think it is so interesting to look at you have this experience on the farming side. You have this experience on the restaurant side. You have this experience on the marketing side. And then it all kind of comes together into this brand that you've been working on. When did you begin to think about making uncles? Oh, my God. When I was in the marketing, I always knew I would come back to food. I knew it was where, like, where my sort of, like, core was. It was, like, what would always make me feel happy. And I would do these pop-ups. Right. Oh, my God. I would be like, let's take over a restaurant for a weekend and do a pop-up.

37:50And mind you, when you're a line cook, you actually have no idea how to manage, like, orders. You're just a cook. And so the first pop-up I did, I was like, show up at 6 p.m., first come, first serve. I think like 60 people showed up at the exact same time. It was me on a Weber grill, Pierce Abernathy. And at this time we were so junior. And we were at one point - And you don't have anyone like running Expo also. Nobody running Expo. I have a mentor who is like my secret weapon in food. And I had met her in Thailand. She's an older woman who used to be a pastry chef in New York and worked for a restaurant group.

38:34I think she's opened over 10 restaurants and has trained hundreds of dozens of hundreds, if not more of pastry chefs in New York city. And she gets there and she's like, I brought my apron and my knife. I knew you were going to bomb. What a queen. And she jumps on and she's like, you do that, you do that, you do that. I got this. Even to this day, she's still a ghost chef in a lot of ways for me. She tests all my recipes, everything I make, it goes to her first. And I would do these pop-ups, and obviously I got better. I did one with Edmund. It was a really good one. And we did 140 covers in two days.

39:16And at that time, we were sort of mixing our Korean and Thai food. And I did a green curry from scratch, which kind of gave me the idea for it. But I also realized after that pop-up that I'm never, ever going to be on the line like that again. I just was like I'm not good enough to be honest I'm not built for this like this is not where my skill sets lie is to sort of sit on the line and do this and it made me it helped me realize like the restaurant is not where I want to be and I took a year off from cooking pop-ups like that and I was like what is really missing and I was just thinking about product.

40:00And I think about product as a way to sort of embody a message or embody a sort of motive. And so I was really interested in sort of figuring out what that exchange was from Bangkok to New York and how I can sort of take what I'm seeing there and encapsulate it and bring it here. And so that was the start of the sort of journey of like, I'm going to make a food product and a food brand. And I didn't know what it was going to be yet. My first idea was a vegan fish sauce. And I don't know why, because I'm not vegan. It's like 2016 in the back of your head. Yeah, I just cannot get over this vegan thing.

40:45And I went to Chinatown, which is actually where a lot of white label is done. And I was like, I'm going to find a white label. Chinatown in Bangkok. Yeah. And I'm going to reformulate it with a few different ingredients and call it uncles. I already had the name uncles. Because you are an uncle. I'm an uncle. I have a niece who's 20, maybe she's 19, a nephew who's 21, and my youngest nephew's 16. And I'm super close with them. I mean, we talk every day. I taught them how to cook. we would do these fun games when they would stay with me in New York where we would go to a grocery store and we would like set a budget and we would just be like put whatever you want in the cart for a hundred bucks I like want you to be my uncle like I feel like you would be the most fun uncle I'm the most fun and the most OCD and the most sort of like hovering over you until I feel like you figured it out and then we would just cook and I would have all these cookbooks in my house I'm like let's just make some stuff And that's honestly how we also kind of broke the sort of ideas of like authenticity.

41:51When I was like, they don't want to eat it that way. Like, why am I cooking it that way? So you had the vegan fish sauce idea. You left that behind. So I went there. I brought back eight vegan fish sauces from Bangkok back to New York. All of them soy based. None of them taste that much different than a mushroom soy sauce. In my head, I was like, there needs to be pineapple. There needs to be black garlic. There needs to be fermentation and acidity that can match the sort of umami of fish sauce. And I already knew that the old way for making fish sauce or bara, which is fermented fish, was to stack a layer of pineapple rinds on top of the anchovies before you encapsulate it.

42:33And that way, the acid from the pineapple would trickle down and ferment the fish faster and also add a sweetness to it. And so in my head, I was like, that's the foundation of the fish sauce. And I think I still think I will get there at some point because I'm obsessed with the idea of making one. But it just I needed to backtable it until I have like a real R &D team and like a lab. And it's not me in my Chinatown apartment, you know, with science experiments. Totally. And then the curry brick idea kind of came. Yeah. So the idea of reformulating has always been something interesting for me because that's what food is.

43:11Right. Like every chef has their own rendition of a classic. And so I was like, what if I could take more modern flavors or interesting ingredients that I see in the world today that are not inherently Thai? And what if I can add them to a foundationally Thai dish like a curry? And then you get to rename it. And that's what I think was so fun. Like who decided Masaman? Right. Who decided green or mala or, you know, Chuchi or any of these sort of like curries. It's like they actually all have about 60 % the same ingredients. There's a little bit of a spice mix different, a little bit of added aromatics, and then it's a completely new one.

43:55And so I was like, oh, I can do that. And I was obsessed with canned food, like the beautiful like canned curry paste. Yeah. And I called my cousin in Thailand or my friend in Thailand. All friends are cousins. Right. And he's like, that idea is so stupid. He's like, dude, nobody needs your canned curry face. Yeah. He's like, you got to go further. You got to think harder. He's like, you got to get it ready to eat. You got to make this thing easy for people. And at that time, I was camping a lot. And so there's like dehydrated foods. At that time, there was freeze-tried foods. Like freeze-tried miso soup is awesome.

44:41And I was like, why does this not exist in America? One is so expensive. Only a few places can really freeze-tried that. And so he was like, look, freeze-trying is new technology. He's also in manufacturing. He's like, you need to try to make a freeze-tried curry. He's the one that really gave me the idea. and and then so what I did was landed on that idea I still was obsessed with making my own curry recipe so I would pound curry paste everything to 100 grams because I knew it would be an easy formula to replicate when I sent it to a manufacturer and I would do all of these recipes 100 grams and then I'd send it to a factory and then let them sort of formulate it from there so you were making curry in New York in 100 grams and then sending it to a factory in No, just a recipe.

45:29Oh, okay. Yeah, I would pound it to a two-portion, two-people portion, two-saving portion, and then I would set it aside and make sure all my calculations were right. Right, and I think a lot of people listening are probably familiar with freeze-dread curry brick in terms of the Japanese golden curry. Yeah. But I imagine there's probably a lot of different specifications and problems that arise when you're talking about a coconut-based Thai curry. So what was that kind of process like to figure out what would work in that context? Absolutely. And so golden curry is 100 % a reference point for me.

46:01It's one of my favorite hacks. I bring it camping. I bring it everywhere. Always have one in my pantry. Yeah, it is so good. And I was like, why don't we have the ease of this in Thai food? The thing about a golden curry is there's no sort of liquid in there. Right. And so it's actually just a curry spice mix that has been sort of binded together into a chocolate block. and with Thai food, with the freeze-fried curry, it's like if you did that, you would just end up with a paste and you would still have to find a way to add the coconut to it. The freeze-drying allows us to sort of combine everything together and then blockify it.

46:38So the way we make it is we actually just cook a curry in Thailand like we would any other curry with paste that's fried in coconut. Then we add the coconut milk and then we reduce it to the consistency we like it. And then we season it, which is a step that most people don't do at home. You need to re-season the curry with fish sauce and palm sugar. And without that, your curry is always going to be too salty or too milky. And then once we get it to the way we like it, we sort of pour it into these big ice trays and we let it temp in a freezer and then we send that to a freeze dryer and then that pulls out all the moisture and then we vacuum seal it and then we send it here.

47:25It's so genius because the cooking experience from the user side is when you, you know, this jarred curry paste that you were talking about wanting to do before is just kind of the flavorful aromatic base and you still need to add your coconut milk or your broth or your salt, all these other things to that. And then the product that you've created is basically all in one. All you have to add is like actual water to it. Yeah. And honestly, when I was making this thing, I didn't realize what I was doing. I was thinking simply as how do I make this thing as easy for people? I didn't realize I was unlocking a lot of other benefits in the product.

48:01One, when you freeze dry something, it doesn't need to go through a pasteurization process, which keeps the flavor intact. And I think I always was wondering in America, I was like, why am I not into the curries? and I and I and it had this epiphany moment after I launched I'm like oh my god it's because we're using pasteurized canned food to cook what should be a fresh dish and that's why everything is a little flatter and you need so much you need to do so much work to the curry to get it back to its full flavor and there's that and so by free-strying you can just the recipe is pretty simple it's still like foundationally strong and i've worked through a lot of renditions but it's the it's the freeze-trying process that really gives it its flavor and then second when you freeze-try something it doesn't um it doesn't need any preservatives so you don't have any weird ingredients um that that are required to sort of keep it together um and then also now it's so pack of one lightweight that it becomes not just a pantry staple but something you can bring with you you know when you're camping car camping all of those things right I think those all are really nice benefits and then another part of it that I really enjoy is just kind of seeing all the applications that you've created for it I think a lot of people would probably imagine making just a curry at home which is a great jumping off point but can you tell me about some of the other kind of recipes or applications that you've been using the curry for yeah i think one thing that that occurred to me quickly well one i want to shout out like cabbages world they're i think they're just so smart because they really make cooking feel doable and familiar they're not scared to use shortcuts they're not scared to sort of like add dashi powder or do certain things and they're not scared to sort of freak it where it's like super japanese and American at the same time.

50:00And not all of their recipes are purely Japanese. There's some Hawaiian things in there, you know, and, and so I really looked to them as like, oh my God, like that's the sort of baseline of what I think people want right now is they want like really comforting, delicious, easy to make food. And so I really took that as a sort of like point of view on like, what am I, what am I going to do? And so, you know, when you, when I dropped the curry, I was doing some Thai dishes, you know, and then at some point I'm like, hold on, like people are more interested in fun. And I think there's enough sort of classic Thai food recipe people out there that our recipes aren't going to look that different from one another.

50:49And so obviously I will still do some like classic, like steak curries, beef curries, chicken curries. But then And I was like really just looking at what people were eating. And I was like, how do I curry-fy it? And how do I think about the block in a way that it can sort of substitute for other sort of Western ingredients? And I think about like the bolognese is such an interesting one for me. Because bolognese has cream in it. Or classic bolognese has cream in it. And you can use the coconut milk in the curry block to replicate the cream. and so it can be dairy free and then i was like oh my god like green curry bolognese is so good you did a green curry loco moco at a pop-up yeah so the before i launched i me and michelle my girlfriend i was like this is gonna be fucking hell once i launch this thing like there won't be that many vacations after we went to hawaii for two weeks and we just ate and i was obsessed with loco moco I was like this is the best bro food two hamburger patties a sunny side egg on a top of rice it's like your post post like Muay Thai meal oh my god I'm like if the bros in New York could see this thing like there's so much in here there's no veg at all which is also crazy and and I was like it just looks so fun and so I was like oh this gravy is just a um a beef like classic golden curry they use like a golden curry right and i was like what if i just use my block and so that's kind of where that idea came from and there's a movie called tom popo do you know it iconic movie iconic there's a scene where everybody's slurping the ramen at the bar and when i was in hawaii i was just obsessed with hawaiian diners and all the versions of that whether it's say mean or like just like pancakes and diner food and i was like i want to take over a restaurant and shoot a version of that and i was like i only want to serve one dish so i went up to food which is in lower east side and i asked lucy and like hey i have this idea he's like you want to do dinner service i'm like absolutely not i was like i only want to do a 12 o 'clock service on a sunday and he let me take over the restaurant and we just wiped the menu we just served loco moco and people were into it people were into it we sold out I think we had like 40 orders we sold out in like less than two hours I think we turned over the tables three times and we're done I feel like seeing the pop-ups that you do as a way to kind of bring people into the world of the brand is really interesting like I really loved the Apollo Bagels pop-up you did with the green curry chicken salad bagel which my brain didn't know what to do with like having a green curry flavor in a bagel format It was pretty trippy, but in such a delicious way.

53:44How do you kind of think about what pop-ups bring to the brand? I think there's a few ways to think about it. I think about, which is a shame for me to say, I have content brain now. And so I think visually I have these sort of like environments that I want to shoot in. I have like a movie reference or like an experience that I've lived and I want to replicate it. And I want to put uncles into it. And I want to put it into these very comforting places and very young and fun places where the food isn't so sterile and the environment isn't so stuffy. And so I think about that as one aspect. And then I also think about who the people are who own these spaces.

54:30Apollo's Bagel is so interesting. Like, why wouldn't I want to work with Joey who is like, yeah, a bagel doesn't have to be this sort of like really tightly bound piece of dough. It can be airy. It can be soft and crunchy at the same time. I want to really work with people who are like just fucking with food. I think food has gotten very serious in a lot of ways. and in a lot of ways unserious but unserious in a way that maybe is a little too unserious where there's probably a lot of people cooking who actually are not putting out like amazing food right you want to be doing something playful but taking it very seriously yes 100 i'm you know and i and i want everybody i work with to be i want us if we're like you know me and joey like the owner of apollo's like we stayed up until like you know midnight cooking the night before you know and we had gotten to the kitchen at like eight o 'clock nine o 'clock and we just had a great time we you know we popped open a pack of beers and we just cooked and just talked and just caught up and that was just amazing so i'm always looking for people like myself or people who i'm i'm inspired by and i want to work with them um and i want to do things with people who are a little bit more subtle with what they're doing, where they have a point of view, but it's not so heavy handed.

55:52It's just embedded in the food. They're not talking about it. Apollo's never says it's like a sourdough starter bagel. You know what I mean? Everybody knows it at this point, but he doesn't, he will never need to say it. Right. Cause you can taste it and you can tell. On a recent episode of This Is Taste, we visited Colorado, a state that has been quietly and then not so quietly building one of the most exciting culinary scenes in America. From Denver's Michelin-starred restaurant boom to the peach orchards and wine country of the Grand Valley, we visited to find out why Colorado is a serious food destination and came back convinced.

56:29Check out Taste Travels Colorado, episode 786 on the This Is Taste feed. This episode is brought to you by Rula. Finding a great therapist is hard. Finding one who actually takes your insurance, that's where most online platforms fall short. Rula does things differently. They work with over 100 insurance plans, so the average copay is just$15 a session. Real therapy from licensed professionals at a price that makes sense. They match you based on your goals, preferences, and background, with appointments available as soon as tomorrow. No wait lists, no runaround, just therapy that fits your personal needs.

57:03Rula patients typically pay$15 per session when using insurance. Connect with quality therapists and mental health experts who specialize in you at Rula.com slash taste. That's R-U-L-A dot com slash taste. This episode is brought to you by Wayfair. I spend a lot of time in restaurants thinking about how the spaces work and sometimes don't work. One of my favorite dining rooms in New York City is Michael's in Midtown. It's so inviting. And there's all this incredible art on the wall from Frank Stella, Jesper Johns, and David Hockney. And here's the thing. When I went home to my own outdoor space, it was kind of the opposite.

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58:27What's going to be for the future of uncles? Yeah. New products. I'm going to be working. I have a Massaman that it's in development. Exciting. I put fermented black beans in it. I put dates in it. So there's like a weird sort of funk from it. There is a smooth sweetness from the dates, which also was solving for a challenge because I wanted to, I mean, Massaman has so much peanuts. And, you know, one of the challenges of free-shrying something is like, if it separates and it's not combined correctly, it just breaks. And so as much penis as I wanted to add, actually, it wouldn't work in a block.

59:07So we needed to find another solve. I have a red curry, which I'm going to call mala curry, which is just a classic red curry paste. But then I added all these Szechuan spices into it. Cool. Yeah. So I want to have a curry family. Mm-hmm. And I want to do more fun takeovers. I met a chef named Annie Faye Chang. She's just awesome. And she created a green curry ice cream. And that was actually so interesting for me because I was eating coconut and salted fish ice cream when I was in Bangkok at the place called Rassik in Chiang Mai. And I was like, hold on, like a savory ice cream is so good. And so we want to do a sort of ice cream pop up at some point this summer.

59:55Oh, I would love that. Yeah. I got to get you your own ice cream truck. Yes, that's exactly what we want. We're like unsure if we want a truck or like a little cart. The cart is definitely a more achievable goal, but I think maybe the trajectory of this conversation is about dreaming big. So we'll see what shakes out. I want to like poke my head out the window. Yeah. You know, and be like, here's your scoop. Handing it through the window. Yeah. I think that's perfect. Maybe Mr. Softy will let you take over a truck for the day. Oh, that's a good one. That's good. so are you trying to release the other curry flavors around the same time or are they going to be kind of like an individual roll out yeah I'm going to roll them out masamon will be first and that's already pretty close to being done and then I will probably do mala at some point maybe in the spring but maybe in the fall you know it's like the brand feels big in New York but it's not big across the country and I feel like there's still so much work for me to do to just get it in people's hands, to be honest.

1:00:55And I'm happy I have a two block because I feel like everybody sort of has to figure it out with the first block. And then the second block is where they really get inspired to do something. Yeah. Well, I think there are so many different ways that they can take the block even based on this conversation. So as a consumer and someone that loves to cook, I'm just excited to, now that I've had the curry chicken salad, like what am I going to try to make with it? you know there's so much opportunity there it's really special yeah the biggest unlock for people is like you can play with the water levels on the block so if i want to do like for we did skewers yesterday too and we probably hydrated the block with like 60 less water so maybe like a quarter of a cup so it's like this thick curry and then we just rub the chicken in it and let it sit overnight before we throw it on the grill oh i love this i'm going to be thinking about what to do with it and And I could talk to you about this truly all day, but for the sake of time, I want to play a rapid fire game with you to close.

1:01:52So I'm going to make you play some favorites and you can just tell me the first answer that comes to mind. Cool. Okay. Your favorite cookbook. I'm in love with Six Seasons by Joshua McFadden. I think that one really just helps people and myself understand how to eat seasonally. And I think that's such an important aspect of when it comes back to like sustainability. Your favorite, like more unconventional use for a curry brick. I love actually just reducing it down with way less water and using it as a marinade. I did a fried chicken marinade a few months ago where we did the exact same thing.

1:02:31We rubbed the fried chicken in it, let that sit overnight, and then we quickly battered it in a little cornstarch and then deep fried it. So good. It's almost like Thai Malaysian style fried chicken. A place in Bangkok that you wish would open in New York? Senchai Pochena, which is this super late night spot. It opens to like four in the morning. All they serve is crazy salty stir fries with a side of rice porridge where they just pour like hot water into cooked rice and you just eat it with like the crunchiest, spiciest, most extreme flavors. It is so salty. It's crazy. But everybody goes there at 2 a.m.

1:03:13after partying. and they have a whole wall that's like a wo-hop wall. All the photos of everyone? All the photos of every movie star in Thailand. Wow. And it's amazing. All the tables are outside. Everybody eats there around like midnight, one o 'clock. I would love that to open here. Oh, one more spot. Tukla Di, which is hidden inside of food land. It's an all-night diner inside of a grocery store. I think Thai diner is very Tukla Di coded. Tukla Di stands for good and cheap. That's literally what it stands for. And I eat the macaroni salad. You can ask them to make custom dishes too when you're drunk.

1:03:51Wow. Yeah. Okay, your favorite Thai restaurant in the U.S.? It has to be Sap Coffee Shop in L.A. It was like the first time I felt like I had real good noodles in America. Okay, your favorite Thai place in New York then? Has to be some Thumbder. That place is like, yeah, that place has been my spot forever. Your favorite grocery store in New York? And it's funny, I would say, hmm, favorite grocery store in New York. That's a tough one. I've become such a Dimes guy. Yeah. Yeah. And I love them because they were the first one to take my product. They were my first store. Dimes, just because I think what it represents is this sort of like, it's elevated but not pretentious in a lot of ways.

1:04:52and they didn't call it dime squares because they didn't call it dime squares. Somebody else did. It's not their fault. Someone else named it. It's somebody else's fault. It's them and then Bangkok Grocery on Moscow. And I've been shopping there since I moved to New York. And I remember I left New York for a year and I came back and I restocked my pantry. And the guys there were like, we're going to give you a discount because we know you just moved back. That's really sweet. Yeah. Your favorite occasion restaurant in New York? favorite occasion restaurant right now is Haas Haas Bistro um I just love what they're doing they're actually a huge point of inspiration for me as far as like being super Asian but not really having to talk about it too much um and then I have a lot of memories of just going to um going to Odeon after a pop-up it's not that far from where I live and I make my girlfriend work those pop-ups and then I got to take her to steak dinner.

1:05:51That's what she deserves. Yeah. And you can walk in, which is also so hard to find nowadays. Okay. Final question. A fictional food scene, like from a book or a movie or something made up that you wish you could magically eat in real life. There's not a scene where I want to eat, but there's a scene that will be embedded in my memory forever. And I just rewatched the movie actually. That's why it's so stuck in my brain right now. It's Jackie Chan's Super Cop. Hold on, do you remember this movie? No, I've never seen it. I just already love this answer. And there's a bad guy in it and somebody talks about his wife and the bad guy takes the guy's head, slams it on the table, grabs a durian, and smashes the other dude's head with the durian and kills him.

1:06:35Every time I look at a durian, I think about that scene. I don't think I'm going to be able to get this out of my head either. It's the best movie. I think it's like 90 % of Rotten Tomatoes. Well, I really appreciate leaving me with such a good movie, Rick. And thank you so much for coming on the show, Brendan. It's been so fun. Thank you so much for having me. Nelson German, welcome to This is Tate. So great to meet you. Thank you. Great to meet you, too. It's an honor to be here. This is going to be a fun conversation. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Draymond Green is your business partner. Yes, he is.

1:07:03Yes, he is. What's it like when Draymond, you know, comes by with maybe some friends, maybe some of his teammates? If he walks in that door, that means it's a party. even though even if we're all ready to close we're going to be there for a few hours he's a party animal but super chill down to earth very humble very different than when he's on the court you know he's pretty rough on the court but it's so intense but when he's out of it it's just like super chill it's amazing to be around that's nice to have to have a partner like that but I mean he's also competitive yes so is he like looking at other restaurant views is like man you guys should we should be higher we've been very fortunate a lot of great reviews definitely he has he has his input uh he loves to come by he loves the concept cool he's really into it he's always promoting us too which is great yeah so now it's been a great partnership to have somebody like that with a big name um who really knows his stuff like he's he's a smart guy that's what you see him on tv doing podcasts and everything too like he knows his stuff he's great marketing yeah michigan state as well yeah that's where i'm from i love i love to see michigan state spartan doing well in the world That's awesome.

1:08:10That's awesome. So you're back in New York. You grew up here. So when you're back in town, are there restaurants you like to visit? I'm still getting to know a lot of the new ones. Yeah. I'm glad to be and honored to be back home. This is my hometown, man. Yeah. Definitely miss it. Been out in the Bay Area now 16 years. Yeah. So I come by, put on the Timbs, got the Yankee hat on. I love it. Feeling proud. But it's amazing to be here and be amongst family and friends. but I'm still getting to know a lot of the new restaurants. You know, I've been kind of like, I come in every once in a while, every year, once or twice.

1:08:45Visit grandma, visit friends, you know, up in Washington Heights. But definitely classics, I would say El Malecón. If you've never been there, it's 175th and Broadway. The quintessential like Dominican restaurant. The ones that all sorts of people go in there, but especially Dominicans. I remember best times with family, going in there, getting that rotisserie chicken. Man, with that mojo, it was crazy. It's amazing. I know the place. My wife lived in 186, so I think we may have popped in long ago, but I know that name. It's great. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. But New York, it's amazing to see it kind of thriving again in all these new restaurants.

1:09:21Red Rooster has been around for a while. Yep. Great place. You got the new Hava Mar. It's amazing. I heard Marquette. My boy Danny Garcia, Top Chef winner, opening up his place. For sure. It's amazing. Great chef. Yeah. It's amazing to see everything. Well, let's talk about the Bay a little bit, too, like restaurant-wise. Because that's your home of 16 years. You're a chef. You are in the business. Yeah, exactly. Great restaurants, obviously. Great city. What's on your radar when you're not working at your three restaurants? When I'm not working, and that's hard to find. I know. They cannot work.

1:09:52I know. Owning three restaurants, and again, and a baby, it's hard to have the time off. But we have our chances to go on date nights, me and the wife, where sometimes we take the kid. My baby's 19 months now. But I got to say, at probably four months, he came to his first pop-up. Cool. So this kid has been around. Yeah, that's the best way to raise him. Oh, yeah. So he's eating good food, loves everything. You know, he's become kind of a little foodie. Cool. He's all right. But I got to say, one of my favorite places, Parche, it's a great one. They're neighbors out in Oakland. It's a contemporary Colombian restaurant.

1:10:28Colombian cuisine is really, like, up and coming right now. Yeah. It's been amazing. you know we got a baka which is a great Filipino restaurant in San Francisco Francis Ang is amazing Piglet and Co like there's so many different cultures being represented the cool thing about it too is just kind of what I'm doing is that a lot of us are whether we're celebrating Asian heritage or Latin or black we're all doing like regional stuff so it's all so different but still familiar within it's diaspora so it's a cool time to be a chef where you can really be yourself and really represent where you came from.

1:11:02And you know, the diners are recognizing this regionality and like when menus are not trying to cover a wide expanse, but getting a little more focused. Exactly. Telling a story, right? Yeah. And that's what, you know, Caribbean cocktails is all about. It's telling these stories. We'll get more to that. But I want to go back to 2018 with First Friday. You're short-staffed and you jump behind the bar for the first time. You've never mixed a cocktail. Like, what put you in this position that you were having to work a shift and have never mixed a cocktail? Yeah, it was nerve-wracking, man. But, you know, when you own your own place, you got to do it all.

1:11:39You got to be an electrician, a plumber, a marketer, bartender, chef. You know, for me, being a chef for such a long time, that was my thing, right? But that day, you know, first Fridays is crazy in Oakland. That's kind of like the big festival days. Happens once a month. There's a lot of people out and about. There's music everywhere. The energy is so infectious. And it's a busy time for all the restaurants. And we're very close to where the art murmur for Fridays is. So we get an influx of guests coming in. And I'm like, oh, man. Had to get rid of one bartender, one quit. Kitchen staff, we're good.

1:12:17But I have no bartenders. And we have to make our money. We make a lot of money on alcohol. Especially on that day. I'm like, yo, what am I going to do? But deep down inside, I told myself, just go get your ass in the bar and just go for it. You know, and I did it. For me, it was crazy because at that time in my career, because when you own your own place, there's a time where you can get kind of complacent, right? You're doing the same food a lot of times, especially if you don't have a seasonal. We have seasonal menus, but not something that rotates so much because we have our signature menu.

1:12:50And people come up for these dishes all the time. They get mad if you take it off. So you're doing the same food quite a bit. You can get a little complacent and kind of bored, even if it's your own food and your story. So I was like, this is a new challenge. I think, let me go for it. You know, the New Yorker came out. I'm like, let me try this out. But I was so nervous, man. Like I never. Doing a shift is crazy. Wow. I respect the bartenders. Me too. Like I gained so much respect for them. The biggest thing for me was at this time, I have to be in front of the people. have to be in front of a guest.

1:13:24That's what bartenders don't get much respect for. And you should because they're creating these beautiful products and telling these stories with these liquids, bringing it together that they're also in front of the guests. It's people asking you questions, putting in orders. Why are you creating? Compared to us, we're in the kitchen. Chefs get the - We're in the world. Your own world, your own music. Nobody messes with us. We're doing our thing, having fun or stressed out. But that day I was like, okay, I got to get through this. These are the cocktails I'm going to do. these are the recipes let me just do my thing i told my my my team don't bring too many people to the bar but you know i'll take a few but throughout the shift i was the nerves started settling down and it became really fun for me like i was mixing and i kept thinking back of times where i didn't realize i was making cocktails but when i was younger for my friends i wasn't just cooking we're you know in the stoop in new york and uh you know in an apartment just kind of mixing these juices and rum and vodkas, whatever, before the club, you know, pregame.

1:14:25Oh, for sure. That's what we do in New York. Yeah, you got Nutcracker, too? Oh, yeah. A little bit of Nutcracker. You know about the Nutcrackers? Oh, for sure, at the bodega. Oh, yeah. I've had some Nutcracker. Nice, nice. That's basically what we're creating, man, these cool things. And I'm like, okay, it was bringing me back to that time and having fun with it. I was like, oh, this is cool. But it got more nerve-wracking when that first guest sat in front of me. That's why everything changed. But for some reason, I realized, like, okay, they're asking me questions I should know the answer to.

1:14:54And I do because they're asking me about this restaurant. And who can tell the story about this restaurant better than I can because this is my story. And that's when it became more comfortable for me. And I was like, okay, I'm mixing, I'm mixing, I'm talking, I'm putting in orders. This is really cool. I'm falling in love with this. There's something here. It's like cooking. It's familiar. But it's still different. And at the end of the shift, I was, like, so excited about it. I was like, wow, this is really cool. I did it. Yeah. Did you end up hiring a new person or did you start taking shifts yourself?

1:15:24I started taking shifts myself. That's cool. Yeah. I was like, yo, I do need to hire. Yeah. But let me take my time. This is kind of cool. I'm pretty good in the kitchen. Let me just try this again. And I did it for a while and a while and just gained a passion for it because, again, it was like cooking, a new challenge. but what really happened for me not just creating cocktails and learning that craft but also being an open like a speaker now being able to tell my own story be doing panels and all this stuff being on tv bartending really started that for me i was a shy introvert for years and so do you feel by being behind the bar as you know somebody who's well known as a chef it opened up a new creativity for you?

1:16:06Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Even, even, uh, just the way the craft one gained so much respect for bartenders behind the bar, um, for the, its own craft, the way things are created, because what really was fascinating for me is that you got to realize that first drink that a guest gets sets the precedence to the whole experience. Completely agree. It's too sweet and unbalanced. If it's too much, too pricey for what you get. Yeah, you start getting angry. You're like, who's running this place? Yeah, and then the food really has to knock it out the park to be able to save everything. Definitely to make up for the cocktail.

1:16:40The cocktail game right now is insane. There are chefs behind the bar. Oh, for sure. And you are one, literally. And I have to ask about the book because the book is very good. It's breaking ground for a wide topic. Thank you. Caribbean cocktails. You're welcome. It's true. And I think one point that you bring up with your co-author, Andrea, is that you coined the term distillery justice, which is a really important topic. And it's recognizing how enslaved labor was a big part of the rum industry. Absolutely. It's like a topic that's hard to talk about when you're behind the bar and serving these delicious cocktails, but it needs to be said.

1:17:24Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. It's telling the stories of my people. you know people have been making run for so many years the oldest spirit created um and it's just the way it's been exploited for years and you know everything is like you think about tiki right tiki is it's it's a cool concept we love going to tiki bars but who is it really representing you know um you don't really see pacific islanders in there drinking at a tiki bar but it's still a fun place, fun concept. You know, so the main thing is it has to be fun, right? For Caribbean cocktails, we're telling a story that's deeper in past and really showcasing that where it really came from.

1:18:05Imagine tropical cocktails. It's starting in the Caribbean islands. Caribbean cocktails, right? Tiki culture became something so new from, you know, certain people and authors that were traveling the world, traveling to the Caribbean, fell in love with the culture, fell in love with rum and those cocktails and just expanded it in their own minds and became this whole thing. But for us, it's really telling the story of how, where it all began, how it started, why it started. You know, for me and telling these stories is about showcasing that the people were making rum and harvesting sugarcane for a living, to feed their families, to bring more revenue to these countries, but also to create things that kept people happy.

1:18:51You know, it was a way of, you know, the term is live life to the fullest. I always write that down, like live life to the fullest. It's instilled in me from my people, from my culture, about no matter what you're going through in life, no matter what's happening, whether you're oppressed or whatever, you still live life to the fullest no matter what, you know. It's a great sentiment, and it's taking something that has a lot of dark history and recognizing it, but realizing that there's resilience. And on the other end, you've got folks like yourself who's from Dominican public heritage, and you're representing the Caribbean.

1:19:27And it's not the people who represented Tiki years ago who were mostly white. Exactly, yeah. And I think this book covers not just DR, but a wide swath. How do you think about geography when you were writing this book? One thing is like celebrating the Afro-Latino diaspora, right? Showcasing our, you know, African roots, but also Latin heritage and telling that story. So think about not just the arc, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Panama, all these great countries in the Caribbean. A lot of us speak Spanish, but we're still black, you know, telling that story. Not forgetting and more embracing where we came from.

1:20:08and all the influences that we have, you know, through these cocktails, through the food also in the book. It's also food recipes. But going back to the Distillery Justice, it's one thing with this book, we want to keep it positive. We want to showcase because the mindset is, and my thing philosophy is Sankofa, for example. You're always looking back and remembering the past while your feet are always moving forward. You know, so it's like for this book we wanted to embrace that like we're definitely not forgetting about the past and the people have been exploited and Kind of enslaved in that is still just harvesting and doing these things to bring money to these, you know colonizers that came in to take over but You're always moving forward because things are changing If you look at these countries, there's a lot of positive things happening There's a lot more money coming into the country where people are investing in their own neighborhoods now because they learned that this is our country, this is our culture.

1:21:09We got to take over. How did you research the book? It seems like a big undertaking to take the full Caribbean. Yeah, yeah. Reading other books, for sure. Reading history. Dr. Jessica B. Harris is a big inspiration for us and her stories and the way she explains things. Just watching internet, of course. Just kind of talking to people, reading these books, learning as much as we can, and knowing our own story. Asking my grandma about things, my great-grandfather, about what they've seen and grew up on. So it's a fun thing. Again, it's like not forgetting about what's happened in the past, but knowing that the future is changing in a positive way because people are kind of, again, investing in their own country.

1:21:59You organized the book by flavor profile, Warm and sweet, sour and bitter, spicy. It's a progressive way to think about it, not by country, not by spirit. How did you, how were you able to represent the full swath of Caribbean countries with this format? Well, that's the, you know, mind of a chef, right? Yeah. We're thinking about Flare Profiles. Sure. I think it makes it fun and different. You know, we're trying to break ground with this book. Yeah. To showcase something different. Because honestly, the original thing was to do a cookbook. Yeah. That was the original idea. We were writing a cookbook about my story and everything I've done in the AfroLatino diaspora.

1:22:37But when our wonderful publisher Tenspeed came by, they were big fans of my cocktails from Soda Mesa, my cocktail lounge. And that's because of me making cocktails for years. I opened this beautiful cocktail lounge. Super sexy. Tropical. And opened in nine days before the first shutdown. Oh, my gosh. Which is crazy. Yeah. But we're still there. We just hit our six-year anniversary. Incredible. It's been there for us. but they were fans of the cocktails they were like yo you're a chef that makes cocktails what do you think about a cocktail book because they had so much success with Spritz which is pretty much the highest sounding cocktail book out there ever and they're like I think it'll be cool because there's so many cookbooks out there it's kind of oversaturating everyone's doing a cookbook so they're like okay this sounds pretty awesome I got excited I was like okay this is exciting I love cocktails Yeah.

1:23:30Love that you guys enjoy what I do. It's a really big passion for me. And I was like, let's do it. And it became this thing like, okay, we're writing a cocktail book. But there's definitely food recipes in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we wanted to do something so different. And that's what we thought about these titles and chapters about flavor profiles. Because I think it would be easier for guests to see that. Okay, I want something warm and sweet this time. Next thing you might want something spicy. You know, this book is made for you creating a Caribbean party. a chitcha we call in the Dominican Republic.

1:24:02Like you're inviting good people around you to have a drink, eat some good food, and just, again, live life to the fullest. How difficult are these recipes to make? I think of some bartending books, cocktail books are pretty complex, lots of syrups, and I'm sure you have that, but talk about the way that you can make these cocktails at home. So we made a short fact that we wanted to do something that's easy for anybody to do at home, right? Again, when we first started, definitely it was overcomplicating things. As you will as a chef. Yeah. And we want respect from our peers, you know. But it's made for people to really create something really cool and different, unique, celebrate the culture in their own homes, you know.

1:24:44So the recipe is super easy and simple. Of course, there's some cocktails that are more complex. Somebody wants a little something more high level. But they're all fantastic, delicious, easy to do at home. There's a lot of batch cocktails. So we teach you how to do the cocktail from scratch for just one or two yielding or for batches for, again, a big party. Give me an example of a great batch cocktail for a party. A great batch cocktail. I got to go to our Today Dreaming cocktail. So Today Dreaming in Spanish is called Morizoneando. If you ever go to Washington Heights, there's this beautiful creamsicle drink that we drink called Morizoneando.

1:25:20So there's a cocktail for that, a spiced rum, allspice dram, aged rum in there. It has this tangerine orange flavors is fantastic with this great Angostura cream on top. Oh, yeah. So we teach you how to batch this in full where you can have one big batch of give you about 12 to 15 cocktails. That's great. So we make it easy where you can go instead of just by ounces and all that. I teach you just one bottle of this, one bottle of that, half bottle. Those are the best recipes for a party. We need to talk in terms of bottles. It's like making jungle juice back in the day. Yeah, definitely. You remember those times?

1:25:55Oh, I do. I attended a Big Ten University and certainly know those times. My nutcrackers, all that. Yeah, no, it's definitely, and these are great drinks just for parties. Obviously, these flavors, not just for the summertime, which is great, but also year-round, you just want to be transported. So good, so good, so good. New markdowns up to 70 % off are at Nordstrom Rack stores now. Stock up and stay big on shoes, tops, dresses, accessories, and more must-haves for summer. Join the Nordiclub to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals first, and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite rack store for free.

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1:27:23Plan B is available nationwide at all major retailers and through delivery apps like DoorDash. No ID, prescription or age requirement. It's the number one OBGYN recommended brand of emergency contraception and it won't impact your future fertility. That's Freedom to Be. Use as directed. Did you travel for this book at all? Did you get to go to any of the countries? I did. A few places. Cuba is one of the biggest ones. Wow, cool. Yeah, Cuba was awesome. Really, it's amazing, the cocktail culture there. Pretty surprising. If you think about, you know, Ernest Hemingway, he speaks a lot about these cocktails from there.

1:28:00And all the other Caribbean. And it's created cocktails that are some of the most iconic cocktails ever. The mojito, right? Yeah. And it's funny because bartenders out here, even me, like, we have to make a lot of mojitos. and get kind of tired of it because you got to muddle all this mints. But it's crazy how when you go there, they're making literally 12 mojitos at one time. Like it's nothing. It makes them happy because it's bringing revenue to the country. And it's something that represents them so much. But that was great, of course, to make a republic. Been dying to go to Puerto Rico. So I'm in Puerto Rico.

1:28:35Hopefully next. But Jamaica, Barbados, those places. And the culture they have, the rums out there are fantastic. and it's crazy because Caribbean cocktails, there's not many of them, right? There's not many of them we think about. We think about the daiquiri. We think about the mojitos. There's a small amount, but there's so much out there that's coming now. Well, thinking about the tropical fruits that are seasonal and obviously this rum agricole that's always flowing. That's just beautiful stuff. Absolutely. It's not just spice. Me put spice in there, but rum agricole is pretty special. I love that.

1:29:11Tell me about meski. this restaurant sounds really cool oh man it is it really is meski just hit a year yeah it's fantastic concept it's caribbean ethiopian yeah so really really fun combination uh we wanted to celebrate east africa my business partner is ethiopian and he loves my food and what i'm doing so i was like we wanted to bring everything together and do something unique and new right Right now there's a big, big kind of highlight on anything Afro-Caribbean. You see it in the restaurants opening up. The chef's being represented and highlighted. You know, the whole Bad Bunny thing in Super Bowl really brought a lot of— That was a beautiful performance.

1:29:51Oh, right? That was so cool. Oh, that was amazing. So cool. That was amazing. He really brought it to the next level. But it really highlighted who we are. People want to know more about Caribbean culture and Afro-Latinos especially, where now we have to come full force and celebrate who we are and embrace it, embrace the highlight because now we're getting more respect. It comes with the food, the drinking, the music, just the lifestyle. And again, it goes back to living life to the fullest, no matter what you have. So it has people, when they see who we are, it's all about just like, again, no matter what you have, you're still enjoying life.

1:30:29You're still staying positive. Still showing love and kindness, you know? And you're just bringing, this is energy that's different around you. So with Meski, when we opened it, we wanted, again, to do something so different and unique, something that's going to change the game. There's not many Black-owned places in San Francisco, so that's already one thing that it's positive about us coming there. But the unique part of it is that these are flavors that nobody thought about putting together, but it makes sense. Never seen it myself, and I love Ethiopian cuisine. It's amazing. It's amazing, right?

1:31:02The earthy and spicy flavors are awesome. eating with Andrea. There was a lot of similarities when I was cooking the food. I was like, you know, a lot of the stews that they make is similar to stews that we make. Yeah. You know, because we have West African roots. So it was like putting these things together. One of my biggest, best things to cook is my business partner. So Meski is named after my business partner's mom, Meskidem. She opened one of the first Ethiopian restaurants in the Bay Area. Oh, wow. Cool. It's still there. It was called Ethiopia. He just changed the name to Meski's Kitchen and Garden for that.

1:31:35She passed away a few years ago, unfortunately, but brought so much positivity. She was like everyone's mom. So we wanted to really give tribute to her. And this restaurant is a tribute to her and to women who give us life. That's great. You know, for using interior designers, women, our artists is in there. A lot of spirits that we have are women owned. Like, we want to celebrate that so much. And when we were cooking, we were like, she was known for her misiwat, which is that spicy lentil stew. and my mom was really kind of famous for her beans, Dominican beans, avichuela. I put them together.

1:32:11Wow. And together, man, it makes the most amazing, like, bean stew. It's awesome, man. It sounds amazing to blend these two cultures that are so close to each other. Yeah, man. So close. You think of that bright flavor from the Dominican Republic to the earthy spicy from Ethiopian? Yeah. It's just a match made in heaven. What's the drinks menu looking like there? Oh, it's fun. Yeah. It's fun, yeah. Building, like, these tropical flavors of the spices, So, like, we have a great cocktail. It's called Axiom. It's passion fruit. There's guava in there. There's bebe de spice. Mita, which is, like, spicy chili from Ethiopia.

1:32:45And this Entej, which is honey wine. Oh, yeah. With a little bit of rum, too. So you got all the cultures being put together in one. Tropical, spicy, refreshing. It's just absolutely delicious. How's business going? It's going well. It's going well. You know, we hit our year anniversary. Yeah, congrats. It's huge. The Warriors, unfortunately, got out to the playoffs, but Knicks are in there. Yeah, you're like torn because you're a guy wearing the Yankees hat, but you got Draymond, he's your partner. Yeah, yeah. So the Knicks are looking pretty good, though, as of this recording. Yeah, Knicks are looking amazing.

1:33:17But, you know, we love our Warriors, too. Warriors have done great for us and my business. And they brought so much positive energy to the Bay Area when things were kind of down. Oh, definitely. We lost the other teams, unfortunately, but we still have the Warriors there. You got the Warriors. So, Steve Kerr, well-traveled guy. Yeah. Like, has he been in? I feel like he would like your restaurant. No, he hasn't been in. And we should tell Draymond, you got to tell Coach, what's up, man? Yo, bring the Coach in. I know you guys have beef sometimes, but obviously off the court, you guys are cool.

1:33:48Yeah, yeah. Have a cocktail. Exactly, exactly. Hash it out. But Mesky's special, man, because, and it's that beat, right? Because the eyes that they have, not just with me, my name, Brent, but with Draymond, there's all these great celebrities coming in there. Yeah. So we feel like we're that place where, like, it's a who's who kind of place. But it's comfortable. Like, when they come in there, they're not coming in there where it's 10 security guards trying to hide from people. They're amongst the crowd. And that's what Meski brings. It brings this, like, comfortability and this, like, feeling of being at home, you know?

1:34:19Yeah. What neighborhood is it in? It's in Tenderloin. Not Tenderloin. Tender Knob, they call it. It's Lord Knob Hill. Yeah. Tenderloin, not the most marketable neighborhood historically. but it's gotten, I was staying in Tenderloin about a year and a half ago. Gotcha. Things have changed. Yeah, it's changing. You know, the new mayor is doing amazing work. Yeah. So, yeah, we're riding that borderline. Nordknobs Hill was a block away from Tenderloin, so they call it Tenderknob. Tenderknob. Yeah. So we're in the border, but, you know, we're a really good place. No craziness happening by us, but we're trying to bring just positive things to the neighborhood.

1:34:52For sure. And I respect that you're opening in a neighborhood that has gone through a lot of change. Yes. It was a difficult place to operate. But I know there are a lot of restaurants that are in that neighborhood. Yeah, a lot of great ones, man. Exactly. I totally see it. So interesting. The mayor's been doing a good job. He has. He has. He's been doing a fantastic job. Really investing in the businesses and really making the city better in a positive way. You know, everything I hear about SF, it's like everything's up, man. I hear there's great energy there. My writing partner, Duki Hong, has a restaurant in the dog patch.

1:35:24Oh, amazing. Son. And he tells me things are going great. Yeah, yeah. It has more people coming out. You know, the city is not 100 % there. It's getting there. Definitely not. But we've had such amazing luck with, you know, Super Bowl being the Bay Area. Now World Cup, too, just like here. Yep. We had All-Star Weekend. And that was crazy. Before we even opened Meski, we opened in April 5th of 2025. Yeah. And we were like, okay, we're not ready to open, but we have the space. We have things in here. Yeah. All-Star Weekend coming up. Come on. We got to take advantage of it. We got Draymond on the team.

1:36:02Yeah. So we did so many pop-ups during that time. It was the craziest parties, man. You got amazing people coming in there. Gary Payton, Metta World Peace, Ronald Tess was there. Dude, Ronald Tess is a real legend. Man, it was crazy to see him. Yeah, it was amazing. But, like, all these amazing people, again, just coming in there to have fun and eat good food. And that's one thing we wanted to do with Meski. Because we have a name brand of celebrity behind it, we wanted to make sure that it's not one of those places that, or celebrity owned, it has to be just all hype, right? No. We wanted to tell a story with the food, honor the people we wanted to honor.

1:36:35The drinks has to be top notch and has to still have that feeling of like you're at home. You're someone's home. I mean, Nelson, I mean, you got this long career. So it's not just a celebrity spot. I mean, you got a celebrity chef, I guess. Thank you, man. Got some of that going on. But it's one of those places, I agree, like some of the celebrity can be associated and the food is not that great. But this sounds like a really cool menu. Yeah, man. It's amazing. Yeah, plantains and tomahawk steaks. It's awesome. I like that. It's awesome. Nelson German, thank you so much for joining This Is Taste.

1:37:05Thank you for having me.

1:37:10This Is Taste is hosted and produced by Matt Rodbard and me, Eliza Abarbanel. The show is edited by lead producer Clayton Gumbert and supervised by Pat Stango, director of media production and development at Penguin Random House. Thanks to Shalia Harris and the production team at Penguin Random House. Theme music by Steve Rydell Episode portraits by Louise Zergang Pomeroy Logo design by Ellie Skurzat and Ian Dingham Visit Taste Online at tastecooking.com And make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to keep updated on all cool things in the world of taste

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