Roy Choi
I was watching TV and saw the 'Emeril' show, and it spoke to me. I went out and started researching the culinary world and chefs that I knew nothing about. Then I moved to New York and went to culinary school, and everything just fit like a glove. It's been on ever since.
I think that a lot of times, we all want to help each other and be a part of each other's lives. It's just - we don't allow ourselves into each other's lives.
I've got a lot of experience under my belt, but I still have a very naive and idealistic outlook on life.
Public television is a very important thing for our human race, and it allows us the ability to discuss the elephants in the room and understand stories beyond the headlines.
TV is a hard thing to do. It's a hard thing to get a show.
It's so easy to produce food, throw it away, and watch people starve. It's so hard to produce food mindfully and to feed and to reduce waste.
A-Frame was a real, pivotal moment because that's where I really got to channel a lot of emotions.
I was a salary man for so many years. I never had to worry about the ins and outs of business or entrepreneurship or funding. I just had to show up and do my job. And then, all of a sudden, I was having to be responsible for my own business.
When you never see yourself in the mainstream format, you are stripped of the strength of your identity.
In mainstream media, everything gets turned into a stereotype of ourselves.
Kogi changed what a generation eats, introducing people to fermentation and different vegetables and flavors.
I've lived through a lot of different neighborhoods.
I know what it's like to be a teenager in Orange County. I know what it's like to be a kid in L.A. I know what it's like to not have any money and have your lights turned off. I know what it's like to live in a house with five rooms.
I was a latchkey kid, from 4 or 5 years old.
My parents worked and sold and hustled; they were gone from the morning, and I pretty much took care of myself. But in a Korean household, you're always eating with your family no matter what, and you're always cooking. And our food is not one you can just open a package and eat right away; a lot of our food takes time to develop.
Yes, a business should thrive, but it shouldn't thrive at the expense of everyone else losing.
People think that being Korean is all one thing.
All Korean food is not just one thing.
Even as a kid I wasn't, like, a natural entertainer, where I would gather everyone around me and then sing or something at family parties.
I'm a quiet person in real life.
I have a tendency to trail off in conversations. I don't look up at people sometimes when I talk or cook, and those are all pretty bad no-no's being in front of the camera.
A lot of my friend's mothers and parents worked at Paramount Studios, so I would always go. I met the Fonz when I was really young, like four or five years old. I was always around people in entertainment all the time throughout my whole life.
When Kogi started, I was dead broke, selling tacos on the street just to survive.
Being a cook, there's always pressure - not for your ego but for people to love your food.
I don't have a boss. I don't answer to anybody. I do everything that I want to do out of the purity of making people happy.
You have to believe in something, and you have to believe in the things that you feel and find value in those things, and not be swayed all the time. Maybe you're gonna get swayed 90% of the time, to keep those things submerged, but you can't distrust yourself 100% of the time.
I go by 'Papi' on the streets.
What if every high-caliber chef told our investors that for every fancy restaurant we build, it would be a requirement to build one in the hood as well?
I dream like a shaman.
I'll never be able to outlive Kogi. Kogi is a beast.
I don't know if I'll ever be as good as I was when I started Kogi, but I strive for that.
Korean food is primarily based on herbs and shoots and sprouts. There's no pasture land in Korea; we eat like Hobbits.
For us in Asia, fermented, bubbly, creamy things are just the norm.
I don't really care about job security.
Everything I do is like tough love; everything I put out there in the universe is me trying to feed you. I really care.
I'm a little old-school in that I think there's some value in the classics and the steps of achieving a certain profession. If we start slanging the word 'chef' on anybody and everybody who cooks, it takes away a lot.
I make food as affordable as possible.
My restaurants are about community and about sharing and about warmth.
If you look at my life, I wasn't just poor; I was rich and poor.
I didn't just grow up lowriding: I grew up lowriding and also in mansions in Orange County.
I grew up around so many different people in so many different neighborhoods, but the Latino heritage, the neighborhoods, and people have always been a part of my life, ever since I was a kid.
American barbecue is all slow and low, you know, or low and slow, as they say down in the South, in Texas. But Korean barbecue is thinner cuts of meat.
I don't really do that much office work. I just go to the office, and I'm like Steve Carell in 'The Office.' You know, like, I just go around and like - I don't know what I do in the office. I look at paperwork and act like I'm understanding what's going on there, and I shake my head and put my hand on my chin and like, 'Hmm.'
There is no typical day, not when there are so many people out there that I care about that can't access good food in their neighborhoods.
I want to reshape fast food in America.
The Korean taco was a phenomenon... It just came out of us. We didn't really think about it.
Sometimes, in the deepest moments, there are no words. There is only food.Collection: Sometimes
Through that windshield I saw a city that didn’t know it was hungry and a reflection of a guy who was FREE.Collection: Reflection
For me, I never abandoned the truck. Even though I’ve opened other things, the truck is still the lifeblood of who I am. That’s because I enjoy it. I believe in it. It’s everything that I am.Collection: Believe