-A lot of the recipes
that I came up with, they were really
just crazy experiments. I just cook
what I like to eat: a lot of fried chicken,
a lot of barbecue. I wasn't trying to start
a business just off Instagram. It was an accidental,
I guess, success. My family members are like
why are you frying this big giant
salt-and-pepper chicken? They're supposed
to be in pieces. I want to help evolve
Chinese American food. My name is Henry Cai. I'm the owner of
3 Little Pigs Chi. Based in Chicago,
at Humboldt Park, my restaurant, it has a lot
of different categories. It's barbecue,
Chinese restaurant mainly, and fried chicken.
So this is all it is. I know it's not much but this
is where the magic happens. This space is about
200 square feet. It's technically
just a kitchen but, you know,
it is what it is right now. It's a challenge, you know,
but we made it work. The main top sellers are the
salt-and-pepper chicken sandwich and the 3LP fried rice
and the barbecued pork. So we're going to be
smoking the pork now. It's been marinated with
a lot of different spices. How I do it
is I try to hit it like maybe like a couple
of inches before the end, and then you just
hang it like this. I know it doesn't look much
but people come in here for this magic.
As far as barbecue pork, there's different types of cuts
that a lot of people use. Some people use shoulders,
some people use butts. I use butt just because
it's fattier and I just think
it's a better cut, personally. I want to stay humble
but a lot of people have compared it
to the char siu in Hong Kong, and that's, you know,
probably my biggest compliment. I'm speechless when people
say stuff like that. Like that's like hitting
a Michelin type. The space that 3 Little Pigs Chi is in is in a shared kitchen
called Humboldt Park Eatery. For 3
Little Pigs Chi, like
it's mainly pickup only. There's no dine-in. You could
order through my website or you could just direct
message me on Instagram. That's the old-school way.
I still welcome that. You know, like I want
people to chat with me. Like five, 10 years from now, I still hope to maintain
that relationship with old customers
and new customers. And there's a lot of, you know,
going back and forth but you have to do that now
just to keep that, you know, relationship with your customer. And, you know, I don't want
anything to change for that. -Thank you, my man.
-You got to work today? -Yeah. I'm off to work. -Okay.
Where's your Celtics stuff? -Oh, it's Red Sox right now --
Celtics tomorrow. -I trust my customers
and they do find it weird sometimes
when they come pick up the food and I'll tell them like
I'll send you my Zelle later. That's the kind of style I want,
that whole mom-and-pop thing. Like if you don't have
the money today, you know, just pay me next week. You're going into a place
with no signs, nothing, and then just a random guy
comes out and brings your food. I think that mysteriousness
does lure people in. Outside of this building,
it's just a long warehouse. It's just an industrial area. There's not a lot
of foot traffic, as you can see. If people are coming here, they know that
they want to be here. So it's kind of like --
I don't want to say a hidden gem but like a secret place
to order food. That's what a lot
of people perceive it as. I think the craze is really from just a lot of food blogs
ranking my food. I've had people like take a bus
for an hour from the suburbs just to try a chicken sandwich. I've had people
from different states that have flown to try the food.
This guy likes to ride his bike. It has a TV or a tablet,
and he put my logo in there because he's just
such a big fan. Social media was probably
the number one thing that got me to where I am today. I didn't have a restaurant
at the time, so I didn't have
foot traffic coming in. So everything was word-of-mouth.
To be honest, it was all word-of-mouth
from the beginning. Like that's how I got
to the food bloggers. I've been doing this
for a while, just making sure that, you know, the customers have that personal
customization, you know? Like people just like having
their name written down. Usually, people just, you know,
just put it through it, but I mean, since the bags
are where the orders are, that's just how it is. I personally don't have
any culinary experience. I'd never worked at a restaurant but I just cooked at home
and cooked for my friends. And then they started
telling their friends and then they'll keep some and then they'll share it
with their friends and then they'll tell
their friends. It led to people
ordering through Instagram. So untraditionally authentic,
my slogan for 3 Little Pigs Chi, it represents me and just
all children of immigrants, the struggle to fit in
with American culture and staying true
to our ancestors, our roots. This food represents us,
you know, because we eat American food.
We eat Chinese food. We eat Mexican food.
We eat all kinds of food and then I just want
to put it all together. So I was born here in Chicago,
grew up in Chinatown. But you know, during my summers, I would spend my time
in Hong Kong. So I grew up in a Chinese
Cantonese-speaking household. Both of my parents
don't speak any English at all. So my father, he was a chef,
and my mom worked at a bakery. Food was just,
you know, all around. Chinese chefs, they don't
get home 'til like midnight because they have to clean,
they have to finish everything. So I would stay up and wait
for my dad to bring his dinner so I would take
a couple of bites. It made me fall in love
with the whole industry. -My dad, like he's just
like master of everything. Like he can do Chinese barbecue.
He knows how to do dim sum. I feel like,
with Chinese parents, they, you know,
they bring you a lot of food. They cut your food and they buy
you a lot of snacks and food. And that's how they show
they care. -So I learned how
to cook from my dad. He always told me that,
you know, you should always
pick up a craft. So I picked food.
I love to eat, obviously. I learned to love to cook too. This marinade recipe is passed
on by different generations. So I learned this recipe
from my father and he learned it
from other people before him. It's tough immigrating
to a whole foreign country where you don't speak
the language. So you have to work
your ass off. You have to do anything possible
to survive, you know? And I just don't want
his legacy to go to waste and I'm just carrying this on.
So, you know, when he's gone, you know,
he could live through this. For the future of 3 Little Pigs, I do want to have
a brick-and-mortar. I don't want to say
I'm successful but I want to say that I'm proud
of what I've done. I've created relationships
and I've had great feedback from people
that I've served food to. That to me is a ray of success. I think in this two-year journey
there's a surprise every day. The amount of support
I've gotten, the media coverage I've gotten, I don't even know
how to explain it. But I'm pretty proud
of what we've gotten to today.
