David Chang
Cooking and gardening involve so many disciplines: math, chemistry, reading, history.Collection: Gardening
Growing up, my dad owned a restaurant in Washington, DC, and food was something I was passionate about. But when I finally got into it, I felt like it was so late in the game; that's why I worked seven days a week at Craft and Mercer Kitchen. I wanted to see how far I could take it.Collection: Food
America is a country of abundance, but our food culture is sad - based on huge portions and fast food. Let's stop with the excuses and start creating something better.Collection: Sad
Food, to me, is always about cooking and eating with those you love and care for.Collection: Food
'Tampopo's amazing. I think it's an absolutely fantastic movie, but I don't think it captures for me the meaning of food.Collection: Amazing
Fear is a driving force for most of the things that I do. I don't know if that's healthy.Collection: Fear
I really don't care for the proper chef coat.
I hate to say 'chain restaurant,' but we're sort of a corporation now. How do we defy that concept, where people assume each restaurant can't be good?
Life's too short to just breeze on by.
If I have a really bad cook or a bad manager or bad sous-chef, I previously would have fired them or lost my temper. But now I realize that if I'm so right, then I should be able to communicate it so clearly that they get it.
I'm grasping with how you do something on a large scale with multiple operations and not have quality decrease.
I was quite cocky, but having been hailed as this great young golfer, I couldn't even make the high school golf team once I got there. I had a big dose of humble pie then, and ever since, I've always known that there is always someone out there better than you, more talented. Always.
The one reason why I got into cooking was because I wasn't good at anything else - not that I was good at it, but it was considered honest work.
Be careful what you wish for - getting to be a successful business and maintaining it is so hard. Anyone can be good one night; being good over several years is incredibly difficult.
Just because something's been good in the past doesn't mean it will continue to be good.
To me, there are two types of celebrity: there's good celebrity - people that are attracted to the food and working and trying to create something great - and then there's bad celebrity - those who are working on being a celebrity.
I work so hard that I forget to take care of myself.
I've never bribed my way into a restaurant. I've never slipped a C-note or greased a palm. In truth, I've never even considered it. I've assumed, of course, that people do such things.
Chef Thomas Keller was an inspiration to me and many, many young cooks like me. He told us that the role of the new, modern chef is different.
I look forward to the spring vegetables because the season is so short. Mushrooms, edible foraged herbs, wild leeks, early season asparagus.
There are many things to admire about Japan but this is the one thing I love the most and probably the only time I eat breakfast. Fish, eggs, soup, salad, veggies; all in the tiniest bites. It's a full meal, but it's so refreshing.
Before I had my own restaurant, I was never top dog in the kitchen. I've always had a low opinion of myself as a cook.
I doubt I'd ever do television to the extent that, say, Gordon Ramsay has.
People are getting famous now for serving food out of a truck, or for, well, pork buns. I don't know if I'm really pleased to be a part of that. I'm somewhat terrified of what the future holds, especially in America.
If you ask what people say what American cuisine is, they cannot really do it. I don't know what it is.
Everyone tries to compare cooks to rock stars. I see more comparisons to the fashion world.
I think the best restaurants in America should be in California.
I was terrible at desk jobs.
I learned so much more prepping vegetables than I ever did in cooking school.
Any processed chicken from any place - I'll order it in a heartbeat. I'm very picky about my pork, though.
I'm always criticizing and only see the mistakes.
I don't like eating in restaurants.
I constantly think I'm a fraud - that this success is not warranted or justified.
If people ask me, 'What do you think could improve in Toronto dining,' I'd say there's nothing to improve on.
People are trying to figure out what American food is; it's certainly an amalgamation.
One of the benefits to ordering food in New York is that you can get food 24/7.
I think being Shaquille O'Neal would be the most amazing thing. There's nothing I would have done differently in his life. Everything he's done I think is pretty spot on, even, like, the bad rap videos, the shoes, the movies, everything.
Fine dining teaches you how to cook many different things, and it gives you the basic fundamentals, but these specialty restaurants, they're not teaching you the broad foundation you need to become a well-rounded cook.
There's the common misconception that restaurants make a lot of money. It's not true. If you look at maybe the top chef in the world, or at least monetarily, it's like Wolfgang Puck, but he makes as much money as an average crappy investment banker.
I think that the Japanese - and I do love Japanese cuisine and adore Japanese food culture - I think that they're going to plow through the entire world's fishing. They're going to eat everything anyways.
I think the basic thing that home cooks can learn how to do is just season properly... If the home cook realized how little salt they use compared to what's needed, it would make their food taste better.
As a child, I didn't see my dad that much because he was always working at the restaurant. He became pretty jaded after working at the restaurant for so long.
I love to eat sushi, and, you know, those flavors and wasabi and really eating spoonfuls of it... I would just mix it and put it on everything, literally.
I love chicken. I love chicken products: fried chicken, roasted chicken, chicken nuggets - whatever. And going to Japan, I would see that these chicken were smoked and then grilled and then have this amazing crispy skin.
Contemporary ramen is totally different than what most Americans think ramen should be. Ramen is not one thing; there are many, many different types.
I'm not cooking every day anymore, and that's the biggest withdrawal. Cooking is honest work. Now I don't know how to measure myself.
I feel like I'm losing my ability to understand reality; like when someone loses their hearing, they can still speak English, but their speech eventually becomes distorted because they can't hear themselves.
Why can't it be awesome to work for a food company? Why can't we create an environment where people are trying to push each other to do great things, and we're not trying to steal from anybody - we're trying to be good to our farmers and run an honorable business, if there is such a thing anymore?
Don't even get me started. I'm not against all vegetarians. But if you're a vegetarian for ethical reasons, you may be causing more harm.
If you're going to be a vegetarian, limit yourself to food from a place you can go to in two hours and just eat that.