- All right, let's get started. This marinated short
rib is the last portion of our Butcher's Feast and Omakase, and we call it the "meat dessert" kind of. It's sweet, crispy.
(upbeat dance music) - We go through a shit ton of meat. I believe we go through about
3,000 pounds of beef per week. - People might think that
we work at a steakhouse so that we could be sick and
tired of meat, but we're not. Cutting this, marinating
this, eating this, it's so much fun. - But a lot of time, too,
a lot of time and effort. What we're gonna do, just
push both of them together, and you're just gonna work your way down. - Short rib is considered
not a super high-end cut, but the reason why the
short rib is so expensive is because it needs a lot of knife work. - Unlike conventional steakhouses, we need to create a lot
of fermentation process, which is meticulous, you
need to clean it really well, you need time to age it, it
means a shit ton of work. - There's a nice feeling about taking this clean off like this. I mean, I guess if you
do this long enough, you just kind of get into the groove, and something just feels
like, oh, that's a nice cut, that's a clean cut. So this is clean. From here, we're just
gonna take this down. Once you cut this in half,
you'll really see the marble. - People think that,
hey, you cook every meat on the table, little do they know. It's definitely a very
labor-intensive operation. - Final butchering stage of the short rib, it's gonna be scoring on
the diagonal, like so, making sure that we're not
cutting all the way through, and then we're gonna flip it around, do the similar thing, gonna
cut all the way through, and if you do it correctly,
once you pull it out, it should kind of do a little stretch. Short ribs usually are
prepared as a braised item, longer cooking techniques,
but if you do this with a correct marinade,
you can cook this under four or five minutes, and
it'll still be very juicy, tender, a lot of flavors, and it kind of stretches
like an accordion. So for me, this volume from the get go was just a normal day, a mountain
of short ribs, for sure. - As a chef, having really
great product is something that's not granted, it
just makes me really proud. - When you look at a swan
gliding through the pond, they look so graceful. Underneath they're paddling like hell, and I think that's what our operation is. - So after this, we're gonna
put it into our kalbi marinade that's made in-house with all
of our lovely fruit juices, and it sits in the marinade about minimum of six to eight hours before it's served. - [SK] All the food that we do over here, there's nothing that
we can make on the fly. If we don't pay attention
from the beginning, then the result is wrong, then we can't really
fast forward anything. - So after the short rib, we
probably have another six, eight more cuts to cut. It's a morning of butchery today. - A lot of times when you look at Cote, it's "get lit and have a lot of fun," but you cannot achieve that
without genuinely putting in the time, the muscle,
the sweat, and the tears. - Yeah, so right now,
these guys are preparing for dinner service. The sink on the right is
our scallion salad mix, which goes to every table. The julienne, or cut the scallion
with our scallion machine, and you cut scallion like this
by knife will take us days. A week where it broke and we had to, there was six of us with knives, just trying to julienne this for hours. - That happened to me when
I first joined the team. It was a Friday night, Saturday night. I don't want to go back. (laughs) - And, you guys, you just gotta
see how dense this thing is. I can't even pick this up. These guys are probably
going through four, six cases of scallion,
five, six cases of lettuce, and this is on the daily prep so we can feed our guests
a lot of vegetables. - Cote is a steakhouse, but we
are also a Korean steakhouse. I'm from Korea, so are both of our chefs. So it was a very important mission for us to bring forward
authentic flavors of Korea. - So this is the first
process of making the kimchi. So we take the outer leaves
that are a little bit wilted. - And what we didn't
want to be is this kind of a westernized, Americanized
version of Korean flavors. - And usually the stem is the part that gets salted the least,
so we just crack it open so there's more area for
the salt to penetrate. Salting is the most important part. If you mess up on the salting, the cabbage won't eat
the marinade so well, and instead of being crunchy, it's gonna get a little bit mushy, and that's when you kind of fail. - [SK] So this process,
there's no cheating, there's no fast forward for this one. Literally every single
leaf has to be salted. - [David] If you cheat, you waste- - [SK] There's no going back. - [David] 10 to 14 days
worth of your time. - Right, so this is called Topanyeom, which is a 1,000 day aged salt, which is typically super coarse. In Korean, there's a term
now that says "son-mat," which is your taste of your hand. It's a key aspect of Korean cuisine 'cause a lot of the recipe
says, "taste of the hand." - And usually when we do kimchi in Korea, usually three moms are together, and they get piles of cabbage. - [David] Aunties, your
whole family, yeah. - Yeah, aunties, and
then it's like a huge, huge, huge kimchi production
going on over there. - My parents and my
family know that I work at a Korean steakhouse, Korean restaurant. But when I tell them I'm making six cases of kimchi a week, they'll be like, "What are you doing making kimchi? Oh, you went to culinary
school to make kimchi? I could have taught you that." So after this video goes out, we might get a lot of calls from family. - My background, after
school, is from Jean Georges, basically both of us were coming from a French-based restaurant. I never thought that I was
gonna cook Korean food, but- - [David] Here he is. - Here I am, and then I really like it because when I came here, I was like, oh, this feels like home
because I know kimchi, I know kalbi. - After a certain point,
you kind of look at yourself or think back, it's like, what now? The more and more you think about it and what holds you to your past, I think really starts to bloom, and I think that's why we're here. - But now it's like on a restaurant scale. So it's a little bit
stressful, but it's fun because we always try
to perfect everything. So these guys are gonna
sit for about 12 hours, and it'll be ready to be
stuffed with our marinade. All right, so you want to make sure that there's a crunch,
otherwise when you ferment, it's not gonna have the texture
that you're looking for. Mm, salty, crunchy.
(group laughs) Everybody can scoop to their hotel pans, and we're gonna stuff
it, just like the salt, making sure that we get
in between each leaves. So once you stuff it nicely, I'm gonna put it into this bucket, have this closed off,
fermented in the walk-in for about 10 to 14 days. Two, four, six, eight, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 30 buckets of kimchi at a time that's being stored in the walk-in. It's our secret sauce, right? - Sourcing to us is probably one of the most important things. So right now we have two
kinds of caviar on our menu. We're actually looking to
expand our caviar program. Owning a restaurant, we get to taste a lot of different things, but
tasting caviar never gets old. This is definitely one
of the greater perks. - So I brought in six different kinds. - We want to bring really,
really difficult-to-find caviar. Having a great relationship
with your vendors really helps. And ideally, I'm looking for
something that's actually gray, with almost like a white hue
to it, like grayish white. - [Shaoching] Oh, I see. - But our restaurant is a
little darker and moodier, that kind of lighter pop kind of brings that kind of excitement to the table. This is the hybrid that we
already currently serve. Oh, man, that's so delicious. There's a reason why we use this, huh? - [Shaoching] And I have brought in today white sturgeon from California. and I also brought in another species that's a Siberian from Uruguay. - If you're gonna taste it, taste a lot, right, so you can actually
taste the whole thing, right? - All the big chefs do that. The next one, you should try the supreme. Supreme, yeah, it's white
sturgeon, and it's very aged. - That very pleasant salt, it's not that kind of bitter salty. - The next shipment, I'm
gonna send you something. I have to really pick... when
I open 10 tins, maybe one. - I want big pearl,
different flavor profile, kind of gray with the whiter hue, if you could create that. (laughs) - Okay, I can create that, I'm
gonna start raising new fish. - Shaoching, thank you
very much for coming. It's always a pleasure.
- Oh, it's a pleasure. - So all the trays that
you see they're building, this is a big part of
the morning production, and our opening runners and the prep team, they really get into this
banchan program hard. This is for every table
that's gonna be dining with us tonight, kimchi to
pickles to sesame leaves. We're gonna work on the raw bar. I think SK prepared some
awesome seafood, and- - Super excited, what you got? - Live king crab, live spotted prawns, and live razor clams. - [Simon] I'm excited, bro. - [David] Cool. - [SK] Let's do this. - Last year we introduced
our seafood platter. We call it the Grand Plateau. - And we got this amazing
king crab, all live. - [David] Damn. - [SK] Look at that. - It's missing that je ne sais quoi, so we're actually trying
to see what we can add to add that final shine
on that diamond ring. - So we're gonna do a
ceviche form of razor clams, spotted prawns, all live.
- Spotted prawns. - [SK] Yeah, so sweet, so
we're just gonna serve it raw. - So Chef SK and Chef David,
they're the culinary powerhouse behind this operation. Normally a steakhouse is
not necessarily a concept that requires very powerful chefs, whereas Cote, that's
where it all comes from. - Butchering all day and then into getting these
gastronomical techniques, how to poach, how to cook, how
to saute, or how to blanche, this is when our chef mentality
really comes together. We're like, zoom, how do I make this the
most awesome king crab that we can make? - Cote, we want to position
ourselves somewhere in between a steakhouse where everything's just a funnel through, and there's a super chef-driven
creative restaurant. I think somewhere in
between lies a perfect spot. - [SK] All right, and
we're gonna let this sit. All right, first here is the oysters. - I feel like Simon Kim is a medium. I try to kind of stay in
between what a customer wants and what chefs want to do. Initially, the tension between the chef and my vision has been kind
of difficult in the beginning, but at this point, we've
been open for four years. We've really worked just like one being. - Dealing with Simon's a
little... I'm just gonna say it, a pain in the butt. He wants to be the best version of it. - But he's always a great supporter. Yes, he pushes, but we all know that, where he's coming from, we
only want to get better. - Working in the kitchen, you
kind of lose the mentality of what the guests want
'cause you're always focused about, what do I want to
do, what do we want to do. We really want to respect
the guests' perspective, and Simon brings definitely
a big portion of that. So I think this iteration, we're gonna try to meet all of his
requirements to bring the best of what they have in the market currently. (gently chiming music) We love caviar here. I think we've definitely
made a different iteration of the ones that we've had in the past. Decided to put the caviar on the top to give that super luxe feeling. I mean, we'll probably
sit down with Simon, he'll give us shit a little bit, and we'll figure it out. - Basically, he's gonna be
like, "Okay, that looks good, but now we're gonna talk
about the food costs," doesn't make sense.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - And we're gonna need to
charge about $250 for one, and then he'll be like, "No, I think that's a little too crazy." And then we'll be like,
"Okay, these are the ones that you like and that we did it, and then what can we do?" - What's going on, chefs? - What's going on, Simon?
- All right, so. - Ooh, it looks really nice.
- We did a little bit of a different version of our tower. And the middle tier is
where it really went luxe. - It's really beautiful. I think the razor clam's
gonna be very difficult to eat, unless you're very
crafty with your chopstick, I think it's gonna be a little difficult. Maybe we get individualized
things per person so that everyone gets one,
and then they can do that because if I'm with four of my friends, if I make a mess, I'm
gonna be embarrassed. What is this, spotted prawn? - Yeah. - [Simon] That was live, no? - Yeah, yeah. Only the best. - So sweet, yeah. The spotted prawn looks really good. I don't know, caviar on top, it definitely looks like a
crown jewel, for sure, right? But in terms of elevation wise, right, being in such a top position, it's gonna be a little difficult, right, 'cause imagine, I'm assuming
that elevation wise, it's gonna be not that
easy to put together. Otherwise the customer has to go through, do this, and that's not
that fun either, right? So I think we need to figure out something that's a little easier
to take from the top. But otherwise, I love the king crab. I think it's gonna taste super delicious. Live, live, huh? - Yeah, all live. - That's awesome, wow, that's amazing. Yeah, king crab, it's
definitely... I mean, in terms of costing, do you think, what do you think this is gonna be? - I think it's gonna be pretty pricey. (group laughs)
(overlapping chattering) King crab only has six legs. (laughs) - [David] And there's two of them. - Yeah. - I think we're definitely onto something, but I think we need to figure out, A, we don't want to make it too expensive. I think the entire Grand
Plateau should be less than $225 for sure, right? I think caviar can be
just an add-on, right, so if somebody wants it,
caviar should be, right, because this thing is gonna
be $120 right here, right? - Right, it is, yeah. - Yeah, but it looks
good, let's get moving. - All right. - Thank you, Chef. - [David] We got beef coming in. - At a steakhouse, everything
starts and ends with beef. Beef is king. - We got American Wagyu flat iron. - And of course, trimming
is a huge part of it 'cause we receive everything, and we need to now take out the silver skin, and then make it just really presentable. - Oh, look, more short ribs. This arrival comes in almost every day, maybe twice a day, if
we're running before. - It all depends. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - And I don't know what
they're doing with it all, but what they with not only the rib meat, but with the short ribs,
with the chuck flat, with the flat iron,
stuff that's really not typically considered like a prime cut or a premium cut, it's unbelievable. - [SK] What we have here
is imperial Wagyu flatiron, which goes on our Butcher's Feast. - So Butcher's Feast is the foolproof way of enjoying Korean steakhouse. - We just gotta say this
flatiron probably is most, one of the most underrated
cuts of the cow. So the reason a lot of
people are turned off by this cut is because of this. So inside there's this thick membrane, or we call it the sinew. So this part, it's hardly noticeable. It kind of blends in with the beef. We're just gonna go
straight down the middle and take off the hard sinew,
the chewy part of this beef, and you'll be able to
grill this and slice, and it'll be a very tender
steak, and that's it. Next, ribeye? - So we have our own dry aging room, number one, because it's a swag. - So this is our dry aging room. I'm gonna be taking out a couple of the ones that are ready. We age them about 45 days minimum, and we'll cut it, portion it, and we'll be ready for service tonight. - It's so important that
we receive the best beef, and that beef never leaves our sight. - [SK] The meat is dry
aged, so when you cut, it's a little... you just
gotta be more mindful, if you follow the lines. - We're in full control of our aging room. It's important that we are in control of every aspect of our steak. - And show you the way. See, it's simple. We're just gonna go straight to the saw, and then we're gonna cut it into about inch and a half thick cuts. Not a lot of restaurants have a band saw because of it's dangerous, space, whatnot, but we figured this is
gonna be a key component into our operation.
(slow electronic music) And all of these are good to go. And what Victor's gonna do is he's gonna scrape off this fat,
and he'll clean it up nice. The next step after this is
we use this part of the fat on the grill, so when we butcher, normally we would take this part. Next, we'll take this off the bone. So this will be used
for the Butcher's Feast, and the cap, or the spinalis,
will be used for the omakase. All right, we have the last part of... oh. We have the last part
of our Butcher's Feast, which is the hanger steak. - Back in the day, when you go to a Korean barbecue restaurant, you needed to go with a Korean friend. - If I have to pick one cut
that I hate to cut the most, it's probably the hanger steak, (laughs) 'cause it never comes in
the same size, same shape. So this sits close to the organs, so it's definitely been more iron rich. I feel like this represents
the best translations to what beef is supposed to
taste like, in my opinion. So it always has two sides,
a larger muscle on one, a thinner muscle on the other. - So we wanted to demystify it, right? You can walk in and
order a Butcher's Feast, and you'll get everything that
authentic Korean guy ordered at a Korean barbecue restaurant. - And one side is clean. Many houses, if you were
to cook this in-house, I think it's okay to leave
a little bit of the gray on, but since we're gonna
present it raw to the table, just want to go down the middle, follow this line that's
never a straight line, but more a slanted horizontal line. Skin the silver skin. We like to wrap the beef. I think it definitely absorbs the blood, which prevents it from
oxidizing, but at the same time, I think it dries the
beef a little bit more, which gives it a nicer crust. So this is gonna be our
Butcher's Feast, four for four. So what we want to do is make sure that it is thick enough
so that they can grill. Here's the hanger steak. Next, the ribeye. - So Cote is kind of perceived
as a fancy restaurant 'cause it is, we have the
best beef that money can by. - [SK] Flat iron. - But if you came here and
only ate Butcher's Feast, it can be in and out at $58 per person. - [SK] And then the marinated short rib, so that'll be the feast set. - This smokeless grill
that's in the center of every single table is center of Cote. It's the most important piece. A steak is like a brand new Mercedes Benz. The moment it leaves the
lot, which is a charbroiler, it depreciates in value. So what we did is we
brought the power plant, which is a charbroiler, out to the table. If you're gonna ball
out, our Steak Omakase, it's about seven different cuts. - And we're gonna go from
a very lean cut, the filet, next cut will be the skirt steak. There's the ribeye cap. - And you get to eat all different beef, but very small portion. It's about lighting your palette, as opposed to consuming
a large amount of beef. - And then the Cote steak,
American chopped flat tail. So that's the Omakase for four. This would also be finished
with our marinated short rib. (gently chiming music) We got through most of our butchering. I think Victor's got a
few more things to do. Most of our runner teams
are starting to show up, getting ready for service. - We have a lot of regular customers that we're very grateful to continuously. They patronize us, so we
want to bring something new. - [David] Next thing we
have is Kobe A5 beef. - We want to bring really,
really difficult-to-find beef. - I never got a chance to
ever cut this, in poor taste. - One of the most expensive
cut in the earth, so yeah. - $300 per pound, all right? Uh-oh, moment of truth.
(slow orchestral music) Whoa, so we have the Miyazaki that we serve currently at
Cote, and this is a Kobe ribeye. So that it doesn't flare, I'm gonna trim this fat a little bit. Shall we, excuse me. All right, so we got our
charcoal grills ready. Only thing we're gonna do
is a little bit of salt. - So all of these things
that people have heard of it, we want to be the one that
actually tastes it and vet it. - [David] You know what,
I'm gonna pull this as is. - And make sure that we bring value and quality to our customers. - [David] I'm kind of nervous to cut it, but you know what, let's try it out. - And 99.9% of Kobe in
America are not really Kobe. This is actually born and
raised and slaughtered in Kobe. This is my third time
eating Kobe beef, so. - Third time, wow, lucky you.
- First time. First time for us. - [Simon] All right, let's do it. I'm gonna do actually Kobe first, yeah. - [SK] Okay. - [David] Okay. - Exploded and disappeared. - But that is really light, right, it's not as-
- Super. - It's very different, yeah.
- It's not as heavy. It's funny. - I mean, if you even
see the cutting board, and all the fat that came
from the Miyazaki compared to the Kobe, it's completely different. This just eats so much smoother, or- - It does, it doesn't
really feel that much strong on the fat right now. - [Simon] How much more expensive is this? - [David] Double. - It's double, okay. The question is, is it
worth it, double the price? (David laughs) - I'm not 100% sure yet. - I think what we should do
is we can just feature it, let's special it, and see how
our customers react to it, and then see how that goes. Very excited about this. So it is 4:30, chefs are
putting final touches on his mise en place. In 30 minutes, guests are
gonna be lining out the door. So we're gonna get busy, thank you. (group applauds) - [Amy] Simon, you want
to send us into service? - [Simon] Yes, we actually
have a really exciting thing that's not on the menu right now. We actually got some Kobe beef. I believe it's going to be $64 an ounce. To send you off, a lot
of new stuff here, right? It's a good amount,
right, so there's a lot of information to learn, right,
but at the end of the day, hospitality is about
making our guests happy. The hospitality of pleasing
people doesn't start at five o'clock, but it starts now, right? We please each other, we create a culture where we are constantly in habit
of making each other happy, and when the five o'clock
comes, customer comes in, it's natural for us to
make them happy, all right? So much love, thank you. (group applauds)
(overlapping chattering) - It's about five o'clock,
sort of quick line check. We have our egg souffle,
soybean stew, kimchi stew. We want to make sure everything
that is our mise en place, which is the things that we
need for service, is correct. (dramatic orchestral music) We might have to season the
kimchi stew a little bit, and we got a big, fresh push ahead of us, so let's get ready. First push, okay, we're
gonna take three shrimp, five oysters, table
62, fire steak tartare. - [Chef] They want this out. - [David] Bacon and
steak tartare, table 65. Can I have the two oysters
for Omakase, please? Service. Can we take oysters, table 32? Two steak and eggs, table 22. - For me, dining experience
is about having fun. Of course, there's the nourishment and the ingredient has to be great and the technique has to be great, but I want to bring real joy. When our customers come in,
and that little dry-aged fat, we kind of purposefully
leave it on the thing for a little longer so it kind of renders, and we go, boom, and
the flame just goes up. People go, "Wow," and as a restaurateur, those kind of small moments of where we wow our
customer is so important. - Followed by, can I have one,
(upbeat jazzy music) two, three, four scallions, please? 15 should have left, go, go, go. (overlapping chattering) Now the hotline's gonna get busy with all the stews coming in. Fire two stews. 23 out, 33 out, next table, 64. Oh, damn, SK? Four ounces of Kobe on the board. Can you, guys, next,
we're gonna go table 31 with the four ounces of
Kobe, table 22 and table 34. Next, 61, Pedro, if we can go 61. - So I'm from Korea, I became an American, and I have a love for
both of those cultures, that's who I am, it makes me Simon Kim, it's Korean and American. (speaking Spanish) I
need two more kimchis! So it's ultimately a steak dinner, but there's a lot of elements
that's hidden in there. The customer doesn't
feel like they're going to a Korean restaurant
when they come to Cote, but ultimately, they're
enjoying Korean flavors and way of eating. That approach is something that I really appreciate about Cote. - We're done with the first push. As soon as we send out the
last two stews, we're done. What's going on? - How's it going down here? Pretty rocking upstairs. - Yeah, I mean, first one was pretty hard. - You ready for the next round? - Yeah, of course.
(overlapping chattering) Thank you, always a pleasure.
(overlapping chattering) Always a pleasure.
- Thank you, thank you. - [Simon] Thank you. - Thank you.
- Yeah, thank you. When our customers leave Cote, I want them to feel like
they had the best time of their lives and they
ate the best freaking steak that they have ever ate,
and I think that's it. It's simple, they had
the best freaking time and they ate the best
steak in their lifetime, and let's do it again. (upbeat jazzy music continues)
(quiet overlapping chattering)
