L.A. Son

by Roy Choi

  For three months, I practiced and practiced dozens and dozens of recipes. And I loved it. The more I worked with the foods and embraced the ingredients, the more I bridged the gap between what I loved and what I thought I was supposed to do as professional chef. Everything clicked.

  Meanwhile, opening crews from other Cheesecake Factories were brought in to start the construction. The scope of the restaurant matched the ambition of the menu: a giant, 7,500-square-foot glass box with seats for 250 guests located right at the front of the huge office towers of Century City Plaza, a high-end outdoor shopping mall. There would be extremely high ceilings. An enormous Buddha watching the diners from on high. Massive red doors. Teak imported from Thailand. Computer screens on the kitchen line instead of tickets—a big deal for 2008. Gardens in the front. Every whisk, each packet of sugar was part of the restaurant master plan—nothing more and absolutely nothing less.

  Then seemingly out of thin air, poof, we had the full command station: point-of-sale systems, computers, computerized recipe stations, an office, and full staff, all ready to go. We cleaned the restaurant and filled the massive walk-ins with produce and proteins. We put together a kitchen staff of forty-five to fifty people, and, under my order, we trained and trained and trained. Tweaked the recipes, practiced the recipes. Then trained some more to perfect formulas and build muscle memory so it all would be effortless once it was game time. Because when shit got real, the volume for the restaurant would be tremendous, and there wouldn’t be time to think. We couldn’t be anything less than perfect.

  Then, boom. Open for business.

  Covered in sweat and fish sauce, we bumped out plate after plate. Caramel shrimp and Indonesian fried rice. Samosas and bang bang chickens. Green curries and spicy, pungent satays. All huge dishes, served family style.

  The crowds were amazing from the get-go. The fact that RockSugar was a restaurant in a mall didn’t seem to matter; the place was packed, and we somehow cleared 1,500 covers a day. Reservations were available only at 6:15 or 9:45; otherwise, forget it. Go to Mozza. I had never seen so many people in one restaurant in my life. It looked like a club. Word got out, and the celebrities started coming in full force. Megan Fox at lunch. The Beckhams for dinner. Halle Berry in the private dining room.

  At first, I was on it. Tickets in, dishes out. But the pace was relentless. Order after order. Table after table. Shaking beef after shaking beef. And sure enough, soon it was me shaking in my boots. With the hours I put in at the test kitchen, plus the stress of the first opening weeks, my tires were spinning and there wasn’t much rubber left.

  I wasn’t losing my traction so much because of the volume—no, I was just too damn close to the flame. At the Hilton, we’d prepare as much food as on any night at RockSugar, but the pace and pressure at the hotel was steadier. An even keel. At RockSugar, though, there was the eighty-plus-item menu book. The multiple layers of ingredients. The frenzied pace of the restaurant, the tight storage spaces, the numbers analyzed without mercy. The place was just too damn big. The pressure became too damn much. Everything moved too damn fast. And like Lucy at the chocolate factory, I just couldn’t keep up with what was coming down that conveyor belt and finally fucking cracked.

  What was once second nature all of a sudden became as foreign to me as the Persian alphabet. I fucked up crabs while cleaning them. I fell behind on prep lists. I couldn’t run the line and tell my cooks who needed what, when, and where. The recipes I had practiced over and over and over again during the test kitchen phase seemed to disappear from inside my head. I could feel the frustration of Mohan and the others. Mohan gave me a few talking-tos, one on one, chef to chef, man to man. But his voice was too far off in the distance, and I couldn’t connect. I hadn’t been this incompetent since my first years as a beginner cook.

  So I did what I did when I was a beginner cook and crashing at Le Bernardin: tried to find my swing again through sheer muscle. I clocked in earlier and clocked out later than anyone else, spending fifteen hours a day going over recipes, looking at prep, cleaning, studying, rearranging the walk-in, organizing the pantry. Anything I could do. But it didn’t work. Things didn’t get better—they only got worse. I was sinking fast in a quicksand trap, and the more I fought it, the faster I sank. I’d come to work in a daze, fumble through work in a daze, and leave in a daze.

  Three months of my being dazed and confused later, Mohan asked me to join him in the private dining room for a meeting. It was midmorning, right before lunch. I knew I was beaten up and things weren’t going well, but I figured this would be one more one on one. Maybe Mohan had some new ideas on how to improve, simplify.

  I entered the dining room. From the east, the sun hovered above Santa Monica Boulevard and crept up on my neck. Corporate was already there, waiting for me at a big table. They asked me to join them and sit. I sat. A big manila envelope waited in front of me. The room was calm as they told me they had to let me go.

  You know those cartoons where someone’s jaw drops to the ground? You could have swept dust into my mouth. I couldn’t believe it. I was working fifteen to eighteen hours a day. How could I be fired? I was dedicated, obviously. Loyal, no question. Who would fire me? They saw my confusion and backtracked a little so I could process what was going on. They went through all the good things we had accomplished together, all the stuff we had perfected in the test kitchen, how great a launch we had had. And then they said it again.

  Fired.

  There were no questions about whether I wanted to stay or wanted to go. It wasn’t my decision to make. In the envelope were a small severance and my final documents. I couldn’t speak. Tears rolled down my face. We shall escort you out. Please do not disturb the staff. They were very polite and professional. My time was done. The door was thattaway.

  Faster than I could understand what had just happened, I was out on the fake boulevard of the outdoor mall, holding my books and my knives like I was back in culinary school. But instead of being excited about going to a redbrick castle to learn from the very best, I was dumbfounded, surrounded by the long legs of Beverly Hills MILFs, their Louis Vuitton purses and little blue bags full of little blue boxes, everyone staring at me like I was some alien.

  I ran to my car and threw up. I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t know what to do. So I just drove. Went up the coast to Santa Barbara, trying to figure out what had just happened. What to say to my wife and my daughter. When I finally got back home, I still didn’t have an answer. So I didn’t say anything for a couple days and played like nothing had happened. Just dressed up and left for work like I normally did. But instead of going to Century City, I drove around the entire city, numb. Three dazed days of eating nothing, drinking nothing, being nothing.

  Then on the fourth day, I finally told my wife everything. Being the person that she is, she understood. She didn’t know why I had lost my step or the circumstances of the firing, but she just understood that I had fucked up. And that there was no time to dwell on the past. We packed our bags, took a trip to San Diego, and got lost at Legoland for a few days.

  Then I came back to L.A. and tried to rebuild the blocks of my career. Any other time, the firing would have been a minor, shitty setback, but just a setback. I probably still could have picked myself up and found something somewhere. Except this was 2008. The economy was turning to shit. I started with my old contacts first, but no luck. No one was hiring. And even though I was reluctant to reach back out to Hilton, I swallowed my pride and gave them a call. They weren’t too happy about my having left, and, anyway, they didn’t have anything available.

  I called headhunters and recruiters and hit websites and classifieds. Monster .com. Craigslist. Jobfinder.com. Every daily and weekly in town. Nothing. I did some consulting work in San Rafael, but that was just enough to pay the rent. Money was running out, and bills were piling up.

  Then, a glimmer of hope. A recruiter came through and scheduled a 1:00 P.M. interview for me at the Viceroy. Perfect. I got this, I th
ought. I showed up for the meeting at 1:00 on the dot, all suited up with résumé in hand, ready to meet with the main guy and shake hands for another job well done. Then it was 1:15. He’d be right with me, I was told. 1:30. I could hear him yelling in the office, then a phone slamming. He poked his head out of his door. The meeting wasn’t gonna happen that day, he told me curtly, then put his head back into his office and slammed the door. I picked up my jaw and got up to reschedule my interview. I didn’t need to reschedule, they said. They’d call me back.

  They never called me back. Goddamn it.

  I went back to the classifieds and found something at a Simi Valley country club. They were looking for someone who could do country club food: Club sandwiches. Caesar salads. Spaghetti Bolognese. Hamburgers, hot dogs. Garden salads with Italian vinaigrettes. Breakfast burritos. Clam chowder. A piece of cake, I thought. I could do all this stuff in my sleep. Man, I was a CIA grad, I had worked the line at Le Bernardin, I did nothing but country club food for years, I cooked with the Iron Chef in Japan, I was the chef at the Beverly Hilton. In. The. Fucking. Bag.

  But I must have talked gibberish at the interviews, manifesting the wrong thing at the wrong time. Instead of showing how I was a confident, eager chef, I probably looked like a desperate guy in an old wrinkled suit, his wrinkled soul on his sleeve, holding out a wrinkled résumé, asking—almost expecting—a job. Of course I didn’t get the job.

  By then, it was late autumn. I couldn’t even get an entry-level chef position that paid $35,000 a year. The more I looked, and the more I was rejected, the angrier I became. I felt betrayed. Cooking didn’t want me, fine. I didn’t want anything to do with cooking. Maybe I wasn’t ever really good at it anyway. Maybe my knees were giving out, and it was time for me to stop running the bases, finally retire and move on to the next thing. Just like I had done my whole life.

  So I thought about my other options. Maybe I could go back to my childhood dream of being a tour guide, driving a bus with a Janet Jackson microphone. Opening a door with a swing handle and showing people the beauties of L.A. Taking them down our streets and alleys and corners and blocks, pulling curbside so they could see, breathe, and almost taste our City of Angels. What the hell, right? I was only thirty-eight. I could re-create and live in my adolescent dream. Why the fuck not?

  My mind made up, I packed my knives away. I was in the middle of shifting gears, all set to go pound the star-studded pavement on Hollywood Boulevard and see how I could start driving one of those tour buses, when my phone rang.

  “Yo, whatcha doin’, dawg?”

  It was Mark Manguera from my Hilton days. And he wanted to talk to me about a crazy idea.

  EGGPLANT CURRY OVER RICE

  * * *

  I think eggplant is overlooked here in America. Sure, we do the whole Parmesan thing, but overall, not many people enjoy eggplant as much as I think we should. Maybe it’s because we think we gotta eat it by itself, the same way we eat carrots and broccoli and every other vegetable, as if we gotta eat that shit steamed, making funny faces in the name of health. Fuck that. Mix this eggplant up with some curry and fish sauce and coconut milk, serve it over some rice with hot sauce, and you’ll stop making that funny face.

  SERVES 4 TO 6

  CURRY PASTE

  2 tablespoons minced shallots

  2 Thai bird or serrano chiles, minced, (including stems and seeds)

  1 lemongrass stalk, white part only, minced

  2 tablespoons minced galangal

  1 tablespoon minced peeled fresh ginger

  2 kaffir lime leaves

  2 teaspoons ground coriander

  2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

  2 tablespoons minced garlic

  2 tablespoons green curry paste

  EGGPLANT

  ¼ cup vegetable oil

  4 tablespoons water

  One 14-ounce can coconut milk

  6 Thai eggplants or 2 Japanese eggplants, cut into medium-size dice

  Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

  Limes, halved

  Combine all the ingredients for the curry paste in a blender and puree.

  In a pan over medium heat, heat the oil and, when it’s smoking, sauté the curry paste for a few minutes. Thin it out with 4 tablespoons water, then add the coconut milk. The mixture will become a little soupy.

  Add the diced eggplant and cook it all for another 5 minutes. Taste the curry and adjust for seasoning.

  Serve over rice with a squeeze or two of fresh lime.

  CHICKEN SATAY WITH PEANUT SAUCE

  * * *

  Chicken satay is usually bland and dry dry dry. But the true satays of the world, the ones you’ll find throughout the streets of Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand, come off the charcoal moist, smoky, and bursting with amazing flavor. This one’s an ode to the flavors and the work of those satay vendors.

  SERVES 4 TO 6 AS AN APPETIZER

  MARINADE

  2 tablespoons fish sauce

  2 tablespoons soy sauce

  1 teaspoon ground cumin

  2 shallots, minced

  ½ cup coconut milk

  2 tablespoons pineapple juice

  1 tablespoon condensed milk

  1 tablespoon palm sugar

  2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

  1 tablespoon cognac

  1 tablespoon sambal oelek (chile paste)

  2 tablespoons roasted sesame seeds

  CHICKEN

  Bamboo skewers soaked in water

  1½ pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 8-to 12½-thick strips

  Salt and freshly ground black pepper

  PEANUT SAUCE

  ½ teaspoon chopped lemongrass

  ½ teaspoon chopped garlic

  ½ teaspoon chopped peeled fresh ginger

  Splash of water

  ½ tablespoon vegetable oil

  ½ cup peanut butter

  ½ tablespoon soy sauce

  ½ cup coconut milk

  ½ tablespoon sugar

  ½ tablespoon sambal oelek (chile paste)

  1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

  GARNISH

  Fresh cilantro

  2 limes, quartered

  Combine all the marinade ingredients in a blender and puree. Transfer the marinade to a flat-bottomed dish (like a casserole dish) large enough to hold the chicken.

  Place the chicken in the marinade for at least 3 hours.

  Meanwhile, prepare the peanut sauce. In a blender, combine the lemongrass, garlic, and ginger with a splash of water and puree to make a paste.

  In a small pot, combine the paste with the oil, peanut butter, soy sauce, coconut milk, sugar, sambal oelek, and lime juice. Cook very gently over low heat, stirring constantly, for about 2 minutes. Turn off the heat and allow the sauce to cool.

  Remove the chicken from the marinade and skewer. Heat a grill to medium-high heat. Season the chicken skewers with salt and pepper, then grill the skewers until the chicken is charred.

  Serve with the peanut sauce, fresh cilantro, and lime wedges.

  COCONUT RICE

  * * *

  Sometimes we get caught up with our ways and think that rice can be cooked only with water. But water is just a liquid medium. Try cooking rice with chicken stock or lobster stock or even coconut milk mixed with stock, as I do here. Make rice fun and different.

  SERVES 4 TO 5

  2½ cups jasmine rice

  ½ cup coconut milk

  ½ teaspoon kosher salt

  2 tablespoons julienned peeled fresh ginger

  2 cups water

  3½ cups chicken stock

  GARNISH

  Limes

  Papaya, chopped

  Rinse the rice thoroughly, at least 5 times, until the water runs clear.

  In a medium-size pot with a tight-fitting lid, combine the coconut milk, salt, ginger, water, and stock. Add the rice, bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer, covered, for 12 to 15 minutes, until
cooked. Fluff it up and serve with limes and fresh papaya.

  YOU MAY NOT NEED

  ANYTHING ELSE.

  CARDAMOM MILK SHAVED ICE

  * * *

  Once you make granita at home, you can forget the whole homemade Popsicle game: this is way more fun. There is something really special about how flavored ice shaves off itself and breaks up into crystals and how that reacts on your tongue. Just like a kiss.

  SERVES 6

  One 14-ounce can condensed milk, plus a little more for garnish

  3½ cups water

  One 14-ounce can coconut milk

  ½ teaspoon ground cardamom

  3 tablespoons cold brewed coffee

  1 teaspoon roasted and crushed sesame seeds

  1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

  Grated zest of 1 lime

  GARNISH

  Fresh or canned lychee

  Fresh mint leaves

  Combine the condensed milk, water, coconut milk, cardamom, coffee, sesame seeds, lime juice, and zest in a big bowl and give it a good whisk. Run the mixture through a sorbet machine or freeze it in a pan, running a fork through it every 30 minutes until frozen.