n/Naka- Bringing Kaiseki to California

[Music] [Applause] [Music] it feels like such a long time ago it's hard to remember but I do remember really enjoying eating food and for the longest time I thought that I was associated a really big meal with the celebrations so every time Thanksgiving rolled around or when we'd have like New Year's festivities it was the most exciting part of my childhood I recall and I remember one time being bribed by my dad to eat sushi it's like I wanted something he's like if you eat it if you eat all - all of today's selections I will gladly buy that thing for you and I was like okay fine and then I was eating it and I was as I was eating I think this is really great this is so delicious I don't think he's gonna make effort of this because I'm enjoying this so much so I just remember growing up really enjoying food a lot and being Asian American I was it's always easy to consider the differences between being an Asian person in the States and and how my fellow students around me like it's easy to know the differences between people and myself but one of the things that I always talked to care about is that the greatest thing about having like mixed cultures is that opportunity to be able to pull from the cultures what we like most about it and to grow from that and to take those things and help let those things shapeless versus being just like one culture one mentality it's like this multitude of mentalities that sort of help us recognize how we can be better as people so I think that's the best part of having an Asian background as well as growing up in the States so my family own decision restaurant growing up so I totally took it for granted but oh my god we have to eat sushi again it probably wasn't until like high school when I really realized how lucky I was to have a family that was constantly cooking you know fresh food and having all that fish you know supplied without having to go actually paid for sushi as a kid you know it never really occurred to me but yeah I think that influence of being around the kitchen and being surrounded by food I really didn't appreciate it until a little bit older in life probably after high school and food was always just something that was part of family because of the restaurant and I remember growing up thinking that I don't know why anyone would do this for a living it's like so much work and you come home smelling and you know I would always think oh my parents smell like fish of it yeah I never had that amazed because I never out you know this sushi until college I was like oh my god I'm never ordering ot unless I know where the source is coming from again I think for the most part Karen and I always talk about how initially when and NACA was started there was this concept that we had to make it as luxurious as any restaurant that you would find in Japan and that meant like Oh bringing in all these ingredients that came from Japan or like trying to make it as Japanese as possible but in time-waster we started to realize and recognize that that's not really representative of Keisuke the philosophy in general because Keisuke is about really showcasing what's local what's nearby what's really a part of your you know look for the lack of a better word in your backyard so we thought we should look into this whole concept of the California Kaiser case so that we can sort of like help people recognize that when they come here they're where they are we're in California we're not in Japan it doesn't make sense to create a meal that's like Japan because you should enjoy that in Japan so to be traditional just sort of kind of weaved its way out of our style and then a more California style of cooking came into by California and California ingredients and ideas sort of naturally evolved for us yeah and I think sometimes the subtleties of flavors in Japanese cooking they work well in Japan because the base ingredients you know are so much stronger or have much more exactly closer yes and even with vegetables or seasonal things you know there there's just not the access to those particular Japanese vegetables here so to try and you know use subpar vegetables to recreate that Japanese dish that makes sense it started to really shine when we went foraging and we noticed like you know this is something that we grew up with this in our backyard but never really understood sure anything that was here yeah we really started digging yes and then the whole idea became well how do we take these ingredients that aren't inherently Japanese but turn it into think that even a Japanese person could understand sure then when they ate it they're like oh this is still Japanese but it's got something kind of different about it that's not inherently Japanese and I think that's the best way to describe what we're trying to aim for right now so we want it we're thinking it would be an amazing thing to get to this place where when you came to an naka and you died in here and you thought well this is a very Japanese experience yes but there's so much of it isn't Japanese but it's uniquely its own thing and not something that is recreated a few things the seafood definitely comes to mind right well black hot black cod as a sashimi which is unheard of in Japan because it's not naturally thought of as a fish for sashimi but since we're able to catch it in our waters and then do a key chain me to it and I mean I picked a really nice quality ones it's it's a possibility which is really amazing and just for example in another dish that we presented with the ogo seaweed I've never seen OCO seaweed anywhere until I met our local fishmonger who brings it and it was quite an amazing discovery because it has such a pronounced flavor that is um it's very there's something very ocean about it but yet it's also very reminiscent of what Japanese seaweed is like and it's it's kind of a wonderful it's wonderful to discover these new things that are local to us that we never thought about using before we sleep we catch up but lately we've had a lot of trips that are work-related but then we after the work parts over we'll get to travel and see different towns and cities yeah it's always nice yes we were in Europe just well last March and we visited Amsterdam and my first time in Paris and there was really a wonderful experience to visit you know the country of food or the land of food and it was also very educational but yet really fun to try so many different things we tend to go to Koreatown on our day off quite a bit to the Korean spa and then post spa we usually either do like Korean shabu shabu or sometimes Korean barbeque a little both yes yeah yes we have Dan who's amazing he the week we have we work with farm scape gardens and they basically set up everything for us and then Dan he's an amazing farmer slash you know I think he also owns the company as well and we've known each other since I think the beginning of their company as well as our restaurant days and we've been ever since become friends and we work together all the time but he does most of the teaching with but he teaches us what to do and he shows us how to work the garden right and to turn the soil each season and to hunt for grubs which is not very fun but a part of the process and it's just an amazing thing to sort of really get in touch with earth - I find it meditating like you just sit there and I mean that's it there but when we're working on the garden and kind of chatting and things it's very it's a very it feels very meditative to me and it really brings you into that moment where you just kind of enjoying it for what it is and it's very I like it a lot and then Carol does a lot of harvesting I do a lot of the harvesting of our micros and right now we have quite a bit of mizuna different types that Dan goes a little crazy with the variety which is great because then next season we know what worked what didn't but right now we have a ton of beautiful museu which yeah works great on plates and it's just been wonderful to be able to just pick it fresh every day as opposed to like you know purchasing from sure the grocery store and having it kind of just sit there so yes know the little micros he's wonderful about supplying those on a weekly basis and so it's wonderful cuz he always goes out of his way to help us source things that are unique and different aside from the things that we asked him for and right now he's helped us we're going a red turnip so it's a it's a Japanese red turnip Akaka blue but it's wonderful because we never see it in the markets anywhere and it was it was such a great ingredient for us to have during Valentine's Day because we were able to sort of like take it and use it in turn into a puree and develop this really beautiful pink color that otherwise wouldn't have come naturally had it not been for this red turnip so I mean just to work with all these ingredients that sort of helped us become more creative with the work that we're doing is it's really inspiring [Music] we think ow it's hard to say when we look back on like last year's Valentine's menu for example since we just had Valentine's Day it was kind of shocking to be like huh that's all we did you know which is a good sign I mean not that we weren't proud of it in that moment at that time but it's nice to see that progression of how far you've come in a year right I feel like the menus that we're doing now have a little bit more complexity than the originals that we're doing Carol does a great job of thinking throughout that thinking that dish through even deeper but and to better answer your question I think what we'd really like to do is my dream is to create more themed type menus because I feel like themed menus are so fun to work towards they're wonderful because they tell a story or they tried to tell a story and in that telling of story it's wonderful to be able to somehow get people thinking and maybe have those thoughts be towards something better a greater cause something more like as I like to sort of move people into not just eating the food but having it be a thoughtful piece where it makes you like what do you we were talking about it this morning we're you know we're in such technologically like advanced place in society now where everyone's on their phone and but eating together is one of the last like real human things key interactions that people still love to do and part of what we're trying to do with the food and the whole experience is to continue the joy you know that can be felt or like the human connection that could be felt through food and through meals and I think that shared meal is such an important experience that we can't substitute with technology that we can't have all these artificial things come because there always has to stay real and it would be great if the actual dish could provoke thought beyond just being food in the sense that like you know people flip on their phones and they're constantly bombarded with political news or you know do this or do that or buy this or buy that but if you could just sit there and enjoy the food not just for sustenance but if it could allow that moment of thought that you're participating in as opposed to just being fed information sure I'm kind of living for the moment yeah yeah just really really enjoying it you know and I'm not just looking at it as I live oh yeah I'm here in this moment and just just feeling connected to the other League to the person you're eating with yeah us and the back cooking it for you to the server's trying to you know provide great service for you tonight [Music]

Channel: Giant Robot Media

Views: 7,048

Rating: 4.6825395 out of 5

Keywords: giant robot, n/naka, japanese, kaiseki, cuisine, food, foodie, los angeles, la

Id: _qTzSNUE7LU

Length: 14min 4sec (844 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 07 2017