Day In The Life of A Michelin Star Chef

hi i'm alvin and i like making videos about the people who cook the food we love to eat one thing i've always wondered is what's it really like to be a chef meet my friend jane she's the chef to cuisine at jeju noodle bar a korean inspired restaurant in new york city with one michelin star they're also the first michelin star noodle bar in america which to me is pretty special they serve creative takes on korean ramyan which is quite different than japanese ramen but aside from ramyun they also have a variety of beautiful dishes that i wanted to learn more about and possibly eat lucky for me jane was kind enough to let me spend the day with her and the team at jeju for real behind the scenes look and so this is a day in the life of a michelin star [Music] chef at 11am i get here and make sure everything's working i think it's important that i'm the first one and it's important for staff to see that i'm present so as a chef the cuisine i oversee the whole operation the kitchen side like the food everything so in the morning i like being by myself it's just me in the kitchen it's very calm quiet i can put everything in place the way i want it i start putting on the socks right away i'm gonna get that going first thing it takes about like 10 hours for us i know we started yesterday so today it'll only be like five hours so this is all the caviar that we get for the tourism up each order gets like an ounce of failure one of the most popular dishes so i have to make sure we have everything for the dish or we can't sell it this is the kroberta pork ribs that we use for the jeddah the judge i'm gonna brine the first kid especially this industry people drink very good amount of caffeine ice to drink it's called venti rice juice yeah every day yeah your green tea meat yeah oh wow thank you [Music] that all gets cooked down overnight and we shred it and we put it back into the yk ramen as a noodle bar we cook a lot of things that you wouldn't see in a regular korean restaurant we break down about 30 pounds to 40 pounds of tuna a week to be able to handle that kind of protein takes some skill and technique and i learned it from doug he has sushi background he was always around fish and butchering things like that so we have to be fast because we don't want the fish to just be sitting here so after the blocking of the tuna the staff and the cooks scrape off the meat so toro is japanese for baddie tuta sam is wrap in korean and pop is rice so when you put that together it's toro wrapping with rice we hope to get it done in like two hours you know with no trouble for one dish at 1 pm the fish delivery comes that box includes about 10 kinds of fish so usually like dog and i will tag team the fish making sure like the quality is right there's nothing like weird smelling look at that [Music] you still see everything so we salted the skin of the the snapper and then now we're blanching it because the skin is tough and it also kind of um it extracts like the oils so you gotta put it in the iceberg so all the fish you guys are working on that's for one one menu item right wow at 2pm we usually get some kind of premium delivery so when the truffles come in i pick out the the size and the quality and make sure they're to our standard currently now we've gotten our prairie wood truffles in for like 550 a pound so one pound of truffles is basically a ps5 yeah i'll try to get one so i don't know how to get one jason there's a lot of groceries today yeah we have like a few more coming in more usually dave's like dating oh i'm alvin by the way it's gonna be like documentary yeah i don't know that's why i'm here i'll time so after all the deliveries are put away everybody goes to their stations and starts setting up so we have about 20 items on the menu every dish on that menu has about three to four components in one noodle we have about like eight components so irene is in charge of the noodle station she sets up about 25 components it takes a lot of work just to get everything together it's a lot of cooking it's a lot of prepping it's just you know making sure everything's 100 so this is all the proof that we did start to finish hour and a half two hours i'm gonna prep for family meal trying to figure out what i need to use uh religion black bean chili sauce it's nice because i have all the stocks ready to go so i can just use like the nice socks for some of the family meal what's that oh this is a family meal i think he's a little bit more like right now you little goodies everywhere [Music] good yeah yeah while i'm setting up the family meal the cooks are usually getting rest over their bees and paws ready so visa plus for us is the things that we need on the station for the day the wagyu is sliced for the wagyu ramen and then the seafood we save for last to cut as well so doug just comes in and he hangs out and eats all of my snacks is that your cookie over there yeah i i liked it i tasted it it was too sweet go ladies family meal for a lot of people is like the first meal of the day i think this is like our time to kind of wind down and think about the service that we have coming are you gonna grab them wait me yeah oh thanks [Music] great start to the weekend yesterday did about 42 covers we're looking at 56 to start the evening the birthday at 7 15 for two 171 a birthday at 5 30 for two on 72. we have a few large parties uh 7 45 six top nine o'clock six stop a few fours in the mix with everything else institutions 20 tables this evening 56 cars for me busy service so jason which are your credit free robotics we have a lot noodles um before service just to check it out because sometimes the quality of the noodle or the time of the noodles are changing so after pre-shift is over we all kind of run downstairs and then we get ready for war [Music] the 10 minutes right before service is a little intense we make sure we double check all those like last minute touches just because you don't really know what to expect uh radish [Music] don't break it it lets me also see what's going on in the kitchen it keeps me moving around the whole floor and then see every particular station so basically when this heats up it's gonna turn like that and when that cools down it's gonna turn like this like pudding how do i feel [Music] another day another dollar veterans we're off the line five o'clock is when we get the first seating we usually get the appetizers in a lot of toro sambops the ribs the ribs and the bokum are very popular items we get a huge amount of those orders in the beginning they're glazed with a black bean jajung sauce so jajang is fermented black toothpaste it's a little funky so it's kind of like a korean barbecue sauce finished with like maple soy and then on the side we have like a pickled potato salad do i want it oh heck here thank you so good is another popular dish a beef ragu that we serve over iceberg lettuce some kimchi then rice you know when you eat instant noodles you want to like put rice in the soup and eat it like that so basically that was what that was for but then it just kind of took off into its own like appetizer and so that's why it's happening we had this over the summer and it was so popular that we had to keep it on the venue and i guess this is gonna stay so the torah sambap is another popular dish during this flow of service we get so many of these orders that doug and i just kind of like dance with the way it builds without me even saying anything i can just pass him a bowl and he'll know exactly what i need in that bowl so i added shallots and some sea salt just because like the toro this time is like super fatty this is a vinegar rice with um black tomico how many of these do you usually sell on a busy night what a busy night 20 orders i mean so far we already sold like five it's only been like an hour it's a dish that we find special and a little bit more premium than before because we include it with caviar now so when we played the toro samba we use plastic spoons if we use metal spoons i think it would damage some of the caviar we don't want to like alter the caviar itself we don't want to crush anything we drop it on the table with one bowl of the toro samba which is the rice and toro and then on the side of that is the roasted seaweed and when we do give it to the customer we tell them to take a piece of seaweed and take your spoon get a whole layer of all of that and put it in the seaweed kind of like a taco and so torah sambap is essentially just a toro rice wrap so after the appetizers come in the noodles will start coming in family while you laugh the noodle station is all about timing and it's all about having everything ready the noodles have to be cooked for one minute and then one minute after that it needs to be plated within that minute or the noodles will get soggy the soup will get cold there's so many things that can happen in that time that there's no room for any air what are you thinking about uh during service i stand back and watch how the cooks are moving and if they have everything it's just me making sure that they're on top of their game if it's four noodles one person can't handle four noodles at one time they're gonna sacrifice some of the integrity of the other two noodles so that's when he kind of jumps in and it all goes out in a timely quarter like noodle station is i believe like what got us on the map the time that we spent making all these stocks in the morning and it's just a lot of labor we have noodle bar on the on the door so we have to make sure those those noodles are like 100. when you become a line cooker like seasoned cook in this industry you have this flow of motion once you get in that flow there's like no stopping it it's just like this dance that we have it's very satisfying the orders come in and you know where everything is you can close your eyes and grab the sauce the bottle the spoons that you need once you get to that point where you can do that that's when it's fun [Music] it's like a mind reading i think they both will turn around with the bowls of noodles and then they'll kind of finishy each other's goals according to what's done and not done you just kind of learn how to anticipate each other's moves literally like no words are spoken but two people working together and it's like a gracefulness my job is done on this side [Music] 52 52. starting at 6 30 until like 8 o'clock we're gonna get like a full turn yeah it's so i just like write it in consolidated 31 when we get these big ticket items it's fun for everybody i think it's like who can cook it the best who can get the best year like who can make the perfect piece of meat so this is all getting sliced bite size and then it's all getting served with like some lettuces to wrap sauces and some pickles this is like korean barbecue style does anyone order the the play right here no usually we get like a couple in the beginning throughout service uh doug kind of goes through like the fish box and he'll make like these sushi snacks for us snacks wow thank you what are you doing this is my time of [Music] relaxation so when i get a whipwater in it's fun for me because i could still like plate something and make it my own and building a plate is super fun it's super colorful it's like decorating or being like a florist i think this is the daikon that we cut and wash and everything she's so i'm trying to like deviate up so your eyes just kind of move around on the plate every angle has to look you know nice and put together i'm constantly turning the bowl of cherry [Music] wait for me yeah right that's it so that is the stick piece but we gave them a little extra with a seasonal firefly switch i like the white platter because it really showcases not like a sashimi platter but it's like the korean butt butter the way like i would eat it at home we just got all of our orders in 9 30. so yeah you have a wing tour right now you have a wagyu with a rib eye fire but that's a long time on the back you have two lamps two family gold wagon truffles once the final orders go through and the past is cleared we start breaking down and then with all the leftover like fish trim collect it all and mix up with rice and then these guys gonna have something to eat at the end [Music] you know your service is done and you just want to go home you know you're tired but it has to be done you come together at the other night and you push through the moments that you don't want to be doing sometimes it's like 11 bags of garbage and bones from the stock and it's heavy but we still don't have to do it it's about like maintaining that integrity the hardest part about being a chef i think is i mean it's personal right for me it's you know being away from families you know giving up holidays not having so much of like your personal time to yourself there's always different kinds of hardships everywhere you go that's it i think a lot of misconceptions about this industry is you know the time you have to put in to actually like make a name for yourself to you know get the respect from your comrades around you and this is the way i want to grow in this career so where we are now is like nothing compared to what we started from on our busiest nights we do a little over 200 covers before the michelin it was barely 20. some days we would have like maybe like five covers it just nothing was happening we were on the verge of shutting the whole thing down i remember making a bet with douglas in the beginning like let's let's try to get a michelin star you know no way you know but then we got it to come back to jeju every day is the team and what we can bring to new york city spending an entire day with jane was eye-opening to say the least i've eaten their food before but seeing all the time effort and hard work that goes into each dish made me appreciate them a lot more you know often times when we go out to eat we sit down have a nice meal get the check and then we go home but rarely do we see the sheer amount of labor that has to happen before we arrive and long after we leave a restaurant if there's anything i've learned today it's that being a chef is a lot harder than it might seem i mean i was exhausted after today and all i did was press buttons and eat all i know is that the next time i go enjoy meal at a restaurant i definitely won't be taking anything for granted i'll see you guys in the next adventure [Music] you

Channel: About To Eat

Views: 3,046,882

Rating: 4.9659519 out of 5

Keywords: about to eat, about to eat alvin, about to eat inga, alvin zhou, buzzfeed tasty, chef, day in the life chef, douglas kim, food, how to start a restaurant, inga lam, jeju noodle bar, jeju noodle bar michelin, korean noodle chef, korean ramyun, master sushi chef, michelin chef, michelin star, michelin star noodle bar, new york, one michelin star, ramen, restaurant, restaurant owner, restaurant owner life, sushi, sushi chef, tasty, what its like to be a chef

Id: -gal8E_dgE8

Length: 21min 11sec (1271 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 03 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/tearfueledkarma]

A kitchen where the staff actually eats good and doesn't just scarf down the nearest edible thing while perched upon a milkcrate in a corner. Not one shot of someone crying in the walk in either

Looks like an amazing place to work.

[u/wtmh]

Note to self: Make a documentary about a fancy restaurant so I can scoop up those tastings from the dishes all day.

That Chef Doug is a total bro.

[u/121gigawhatevs]

I feel like I would enjoy the hustle and bustle of a kitchen, of mastering a set of tasks via constant repetition. Someone burst my naïveté.

[u/Asiriya]

I love how shocked the filmmaker was whenever someone said anything.

“More?!”, “one dish?!”, “for me?!”

It’s a really nice video, I liked the calm during prep then the ramp up in tension as they got busy.

[u/snailking]

really pleasant watch man, thank you.

[u/rtphokie]

One of my takeaways here is her 13 hour work day. First there in the morning, last to leave at night. Making sure she's set the team up for success that day and taking some time to better herself there at the end. That's leadership.

[u/chicklets-and-gravy]

This was a pleasure to watch

[u/naliko_dobipa]

They all look very together and professional and warm at the same time. I'm glad they held out and worked for a Michelin star. Very inspiring.

[u/elessarjd]

Thanks for sharing. Really makes me want to make the trip to try, I'm sure they're booking out for weeks.