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Roy Choi: Cooking with Purpose and Flavor · Dos Amigos

0:05
Speaker 1: Welcome back to those amigos. This is part two of
0:08
Speaker 1: this incredible conversation with our brother over here. And we're
0:12
Speaker 1: talking his book, we're talking heritage, we're talking the struggle
0:16
Speaker 1: in the climb up and uh, Freddie, I know that
0:19
Speaker 1: you you.
0:19
Speaker 2: Have some thoughts on the matter, and you were going
0:21
Speaker 2: to ask something.
0:22
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I'm just I'm just so happy and grateful to
0:25
Speaker 3: have my boy Roy here.
0:27
Speaker 2: But that after after you you put out, especially.
0:31
Speaker 4: With all the intention and the media that we got,
0:33
Speaker 4: because then the media gets involved, right, and then the
0:36
Speaker 4: media wants to understand the craze, right, the craze. They
0:40
Speaker 4: want you to put it in some poetic one liner
0:43
Speaker 4: right right. And for me, in those early days, you know,
0:46
Speaker 4: I was just speaking, spitting my truth, you know, kind
0:50
Speaker 4: of like the hip hop that we love, right Like
0:51
Speaker 4: I was, I was speaking like early Queen's Bridge, you know,
0:54
Speaker 4: I was describing where I'm from, you know whatever, uh
0:58
Speaker 4: and uh. For us, it was like I was just saying, like,
1:01
Speaker 4: this is our food, this is the way we talk,
1:04
Speaker 4: this is our slang. This is if you eat this taco,
1:07
Speaker 4: it tastes like this block, you know, it tastes like
1:10
Speaker 4: Vermont and eighth Street, you know, and then those things
1:12
Speaker 4: were written by Australian journalists, English, you know, people from
1:18
Speaker 4: around the world. And then then then what happened was
1:20
Speaker 4: instead of la being this huge thing, it started to
1:23
Speaker 4: get very regional micro right, and then they would say, oh,
1:27
Speaker 4: because of this flavor and this chili and this block
1:32
Speaker 4: that these flavors come out.
1:33
Speaker 2: So that's so interesting.
1:35
Speaker 1: I mean, it's such a I think, like the street
1:37
Speaker 1: food is now being celebrated worldwide in a way that's
1:40
Speaker 1: just like, I mean, I I was shooting in Europe
1:43
Speaker 1: or like a year and a half ago, and uh,
1:45
Speaker 1: you know, you go to Rome somewhere and there's a
1:48
Speaker 1: corner with a bunch of food tructions, Like, whoa, what's.
1:50
Speaker 2: Going on here?
1:50
Speaker 1: I mean, everyone's like really getting inspired. What what do
1:54
Speaker 1: you think to you what do you think change in
1:56
Speaker 1: the view? What what do you think this brought to
1:58
Speaker 1: people that it became such a worldwide phenomen You know.
2:01
Speaker 4: We were we were right there in the middle of
2:03
Speaker 4: it all. And again, why was it an Asian fusion Mexican,
2:09
Speaker 4: Korean Korea town tackle truck that ended up being the
2:13
Speaker 4: focus of all this? But you know, I can't speak
2:17
Speaker 4: for that. All I know is to tell you the truth.
2:19
Speaker 4: And we were there, you know, and the time that
2:22
Speaker 4: we started cooking on the streets, there was a lot
2:25
Speaker 4: of racism around street food.
2:27
Speaker 2: You know, and perception.
2:30
Speaker 4: You know, they were called roach coaches. You know, the
2:32
Speaker 4: lonchettas and trucks were called roach coaches. The whole negativity
2:38
Speaker 4: and racism around the way that Western culture looked at Latinos.
2:44
Speaker 4: You know, the water in Tijuana diarrhea, If you eat
2:48
Speaker 4: the food, it's dirty, it's roach coaches. These are words
2:52
Speaker 4: that like people were using to describe culture, you know,
2:56
Speaker 4: to describe life. And what happened was we just went
3:01
Speaker 4: out there with this truck. I think it was the
3:02
Speaker 4: technology and the social media and then the craze of
3:06
Speaker 4: everyone being able to access it. A lot of racism
3:09
Speaker 4: comes from ignorance and fear right and so finally people
3:13
Speaker 4: that didn't have access to food trucks or street food
3:17
Speaker 4: or vendors, they were finally able to access things in
3:21
Speaker 4: their life because it was this new kind of hip
3:24
Speaker 4: thing and they realized it wasn't what they were led
3:28
Speaker 4: to believe, you know what I mean, It wasn't dirty,
3:31
Speaker 4: it wasn't it wasn't gross, It wasn't a roach coach,
3:35
Speaker 4: you know, and it was actually delicious. And we're all
3:39
Speaker 4: human and these are this is culture, and so that
3:42
Speaker 4: all led to things moving from roach coach to gourmet
3:47
Speaker 4: and then all of a sudden, you know, and that
3:49
Speaker 4: shows how powerful language is, right, you go from calling
3:53
Speaker 4: something a roach coach to calling it a gourmet food truck. Right,
3:56
Speaker 4: then all of a sudden, that same person that was
4:00
Speaker 4: saying those things is now hiring that same truck for
4:04
Speaker 4: their kids' birthday party. And that's all within one It's
4:09
Speaker 4: a circle of life. And then that leads to the
4:12
Speaker 4: next thing. Then all of a sudden, corporations and economy
4:15
Speaker 4: gets behind it, and the industry gets behind it. So
4:18
Speaker 4: all these things start to change. We see it in
4:20
Speaker 4: your guys, this world with like storytelling, right and you know,
4:25
Speaker 4: you know, different projects being funded now, and then people
4:29
Speaker 4: like yourselves becoming producers and you know, and investors and
4:34
Speaker 4: you know, bringing in stories that were not brought in before.
4:38
Speaker 4: All of that stuff changes.
4:39
Speaker 2: It really does change until your point.
4:41
Speaker 1: It takes individuals like you to say that fusion is
4:46
Speaker 1: not only allowed, right, I mean we always talk about this,
4:48
Speaker 1: you know, they always try to make us you're either
4:51
Speaker 1: Korean or you're American, or you're either Latino or you're American,
4:55
Speaker 1: you know, And we always talk over here about the
4:57
Speaker 1: two hundred percent, Like why can't be two hundred percent?
5:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean to one hundred percent of that one
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Speaker 2: hundred percent of this and that makes it really special.
5:04
Speaker 1: I think that the idea that these these collaborations with
5:08
Speaker 1: flavors and culture that happened in the streets now have
5:12
Speaker 1: a moment.
5:12
Speaker 2: In pop culture worldwide.
5:14
Speaker 1: You know, these are restaurant ideas that were never allowed
5:18
Speaker 1: to be because they weren't allowed to play nice with
5:20
Speaker 1: each other. You know, they weren't they weren't seen as mainstream.
5:23
Speaker 1: They weren't seen as as crowd pleasers or you know.
5:26
Speaker 1: And so that's what I think, Like what Kogie did
5:29
Speaker 1: in such a you know, in such an iconic way,
5:33
Speaker 1: is that it allowed it for it to be like
5:36
Speaker 1: why not all these fusions were happening in the streets,
5:39
Speaker 1: but they were never allowed to be a real business.
5:41
Speaker 2: You know.
5:42
Speaker 3: I'm a strong believer in like the cream rises to
5:45
Speaker 3: the top, right, Like like good is good, right, Like
5:49
Speaker 3: I have family members in Chicago and Wisconsin who don't
5:53
Speaker 3: know anything about acting, nothing about movies or TV. But
5:56
Speaker 3: they can sit there and they can tell you if
5:58
Speaker 3: an actor is good or not or I or if
6:01
Speaker 3: the thing that they're watching is good or not, because
6:03
Speaker 3: they have this sort of instinct this this this visceral
6:06
Speaker 3: reaction to it. And I just think that part of
6:09
Speaker 3: what made you successful was that you were telling your truth.
6:12
Speaker 3: This is your truth, right, this food was your truth
6:15
Speaker 3: and good is good. You know, people got over this
6:18
Speaker 3: sort of like, oh, how could you merge sort of
6:21
Speaker 3: Korean and Mexican, And then once they took a bite,
6:23
Speaker 3: they were like, damn, this thing is good.
6:25
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, and that truth goes back, It goes
6:28
Speaker 4: back deeper than just the beginning of the truck. You know,
6:31
Speaker 4: like I grew up around Latinos my whole life.
6:34
Speaker 5: You know.
6:35
Speaker 4: That's why I really want to do this podcast. It
6:37
Speaker 4: just like it feels comfortable to me. It feels it
6:40
Speaker 4: feels very familiar to me. It's you know, I was
6:43
Speaker 4: low riding when I was sixteen.
6:46
Speaker 2: It's part of who you are too, who I am.
6:47
Speaker 4: I was Wittier boulevard. You know, you could you could
6:50
Speaker 4: you could check the receipts, you know, like you know,
6:52
Speaker 4: I was on with your boulevard cruising Pico Rivera back
6:55
Speaker 4: in the day. I was. I was spitting game at
6:57
Speaker 4: you know, you know, trying. I was at the dances.
7:01
Speaker 4: I had the pompador, you know, you know, I was
7:04
Speaker 4: listening to freestyle. I was out there, you know, and
7:08
Speaker 4: I was in kitchens. I was, you know, at the
7:10
Speaker 4: side of teas and moms and you know, helping them
7:14
Speaker 4: cook and watch. And I was a good eater. You know,
7:16
Speaker 4: growing up, I was real chubby kids. So like the
7:19
Speaker 4: moms used to love me. Man, you know, like all
7:21
Speaker 4: my friends, I go to the houses and again, like
7:23
Speaker 4: I told you, I was alone a lot. So I
7:26
Speaker 4: just rolled to my friends houses and I was a
7:28
Speaker 4: little chubby can they loved me.
7:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had to.
7:35
Speaker 1: I couldn't leave the table whole they would clean.
7:38
Speaker 4: And so I think once I started cooking, and once
7:41
Speaker 4: I especially when I went out there to the streets,
7:44
Speaker 4: it just felt natural and people could feel that I
7:47
Speaker 4: wasn't a poser or or my you know, they felt
7:52
Speaker 4: something familiar as well, from from us, I want to believe,
7:56
Speaker 4: you know, and even from the early early nights, we
7:59
Speaker 4: would come back because the just so you all know
8:02
Speaker 4: the trucks here in Los Angeles. We we're like our
8:06
Speaker 4: own subculture. We're like, we're like the kind of like
8:10
Speaker 4: the gangs of the movie The Warriors. Yeah, like we
8:13
Speaker 4: go back to our own little kind of like compounds
8:16
Speaker 4: at night. So at night we all chuck back to these.
8:20
Speaker 4: There's three three or four big compounds here in Los Angeles,
8:23
Speaker 4: one up here in the valley, there's one on Slawson,
8:25
Speaker 4: and one in downtown LA, and then one in Huntington Park.
8:29
Speaker 4: And basically all the trucks you see out there on
8:31
Speaker 4: the streets, we all go back to one of these
8:33
Speaker 4: four compounds. And in these four compounds are surrounded by
8:36
Speaker 4: these big cinder block walls, and it's like it's like
8:40
Speaker 4: a big prison yard but in the in the but
8:43
Speaker 4: if a prison yard was like a musical.
8:45
Speaker 5: You know, it's like colorful truck colorful trucks and a
8:51
Speaker 5: bunch of like uh like ladies teas that are really bossy,
8:57
Speaker 5: really bossy, but in charge and amazing, and they've been
9:00
Speaker 5: working all day.
9:01
Speaker 4: And then there's so much gossip, street gossip, as.
9:04
Speaker 6: You all know, like it's the best got each other
9:08
Speaker 6: and everything, everything so much that thing's awfully does so
9:13
Speaker 6: much gossip and then so you think they're not the
9:16
Speaker 6: ladies got egoized. Man, you think they're not gonna notice
9:19
Speaker 6: like a bunch of Asian guys coming in on a truck,
9:22
Speaker 6: you know.
9:23
Speaker 4: So they spotted us right away. But we were accepted
9:26
Speaker 4: right away and loved and they tasted our food and
9:29
Speaker 4: they're like.
9:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, what y'all was gonna ask you that? Have you
9:31
Speaker 3: ever had like a straight up like Mexican dia, like
9:35
Speaker 3: taste your food, taste your burritos, taste.
9:36
Speaker 4: From the early days, they knew, they knew too, you know.
9:39
Speaker 3: What did they What was their reaction or something like that?
9:41
Speaker 4: They I got my nickname. They call me Poppychulo from
9:47
Speaker 4: they one they want they want get that level of
9:51
Speaker 4: difficulty eleven eleven, that's it. From day one, they christened me.
9:55
Speaker 4: They christened me like at first they were just like who,
9:58
Speaker 4: you know, who are they? Everyone was on water again,
10:00
Speaker 4: like a prison yard. Everyone truck, So our truck we
10:04
Speaker 4: pulled in, Everyone's you know, whistling, Everyone's like who is this?
10:07
Speaker 4: You know, they knew everything, They knew everything about us
10:10
Speaker 4: from day one, you know, and then they tasted the food.
10:14
Speaker 4: Then I'll tell you exactly exactly, but they I fed
10:23
Speaker 4: everybody the food. I walked It was almost like I
10:26
Speaker 4: walked out of this pile and I had like lipstick
10:29
Speaker 4: marks all over that I've seriously, it was like a movie.
10:34
Speaker 4: That's what happened on day one, and we haven't looked
10:36
Speaker 4: back since.
10:36
Speaker 2: You know, you know this is this.
10:38
Speaker 1: I am so happy that we were able to do
10:40
Speaker 1: this episode of Euroy because what we've been trying to do,
10:44
Speaker 1: and I'm going to use this word that's like so
10:46
Speaker 1: terrible for everybody, but we've been trying to preach for
10:48
Speaker 1: so long, is that we all share the same passions.
10:53
Speaker 1: We our cultures are co existing together for decades and
10:57
Speaker 1: decades and hundreds of years in this country.
10:59
Speaker 2: And then that allowed us to actually.
11:02
Speaker 1: Acknowledge that we're not only in the same room together,
11:05
Speaker 1: but we're all winning and losing together, you know. And
11:07
Speaker 1: I think the idea that we can bring all of
11:10
Speaker 1: our cultures in one room, and whether it's an industry,
11:12
Speaker 1: whether it's a project, whether it's a movie, whether it's
11:15
Speaker 1: a business, whatever it is, you know, you have an
11:18
Speaker 1: opportunity to tell everyone, hey, we're not like we've.
11:20
Speaker 2: Never been different.
11:21
Speaker 1: We all want the same thing, right, especially when we're
11:24
Speaker 1: in America.
11:24
Speaker 4: Man, I love what you're saying, because it's going to
11:27
Speaker 4: be even more difficult as we move forward with the
11:29
Speaker 4: algorithms and technology and AI and all.
11:33
Speaker 2: That they're gonna make us categories.
11:34
Speaker 4: Everything is so categorized, everything is so binary. It's either
11:38
Speaker 4: your this or that. I think that's why it's even
11:42
Speaker 4: more important for us that are still are the the
11:45
Speaker 4: last legs of these legacies to continue to speak our truth,
11:49
Speaker 4: share our truth, and try to shape culture moving forward.
11:53
Speaker 4: You know, we can't stop it, but we can at
11:56
Speaker 4: least continue to water the garden because there was a
11:59
Speaker 4: very special time. I mean the times that we talk
12:01
Speaker 4: about at dinner. You know, I come we come from
12:04
Speaker 4: an era of hip hop where it didn't really matter race.
12:07
Speaker 4: You were a part of cruise, right, Like if you could,
12:10
Speaker 4: if you could be boy, it didn't matter what color
12:12
Speaker 4: res you were. You're nice. You just had to be nice.
12:18
Speaker 4: And there's something about that that I want to translate
12:22
Speaker 4: in the right words, in the right expression for for
12:26
Speaker 4: the future. You know, I want to still make it.
12:28
Speaker 4: I want to make it relatable and use the language
12:32
Speaker 4: that you know, the algorithm can pick up on or whatever.
12:36
Speaker 4: But there's something about that that I want to continue
12:38
Speaker 4: and you're just talking about that, is that you know,
12:40
Speaker 4: we're all here together. You know, we spend so much
12:44
Speaker 4: energy separating each other. What if we spent that energy
12:50
Speaker 4: like really, you know, investing in each other. Like, imagine
12:53
Speaker 4: where we could be.
12:54
Speaker 2: I mean, you did, right.
12:56
Speaker 1: Nobody everybody really frown on cross pollinating. Right, They're like, Okay,
13:03
Speaker 1: you know, you stay your lane. You're living this block,
13:05
Speaker 1: they live in that block. But look at what happened
13:07
Speaker 1: when you cross polanated. Look at what happened when you
13:09
Speaker 1: took what you knew when you grew up with and
13:11
Speaker 1: embraced the culture.
13:13
Speaker 2: That you were being raised around.
13:14
Speaker 1: Right, all of a sudden magic happened, and you are
13:17
Speaker 1: not only feeding that community, we're feeding others and welcoming
13:19
Speaker 1: other communities to discover the fusion and the gift of
13:22
Speaker 1: two cultures coming together in one.
13:24
Speaker 4: Truck picking up on that and we're just food. We're
13:28
Speaker 4: like the lowest not the lowest thing, but we're like.
13:31
Speaker 1: But it's the most powerful cultures.
13:35
Speaker 4: Have fusion happened in politics, in storytelling, in business, in
13:41
Speaker 4: the wealth gap, you know, in education, in access to
13:47
Speaker 4: UH to opportunities. You know, you know you asked me
13:51
Speaker 4: earlier about why do I do these things? You know
13:53
Speaker 4: the reason I do them because I'm still out there
13:57
Speaker 4: on the streets every day feeding. And when you're out there,
14:00
Speaker 4: you're still plugged in and connected. And no matter how
14:03
Speaker 4: much we want to believe that the world has changed,
14:06
Speaker 4: it hasn't. We could go right now, I could take
14:09
Speaker 4: you block by block, city by city for miles and
14:13
Speaker 4: miles neighborhoods and schools that don't have Wi Fi, you know,
14:17
Speaker 4: that don't have access to nutritional food or fruits or vegetables.
14:22
Speaker 4: They can't they can't even get a job, you know,
14:25
Speaker 4: because there's no industry around where they're living. You know,
14:28
Speaker 4: that don't even have like sports programs or arts program
14:32
Speaker 4: that they can funnel their energy into because all those
14:35
Speaker 4: things are cut, you know what I mean. And so
14:38
Speaker 4: like we got we got to start investing in each
14:40
Speaker 4: other in some way, because, as you say, look at
14:43
Speaker 4: the magic that happens when we strip away like all
14:46
Speaker 4: of the barriers and we just let who we naturally
14:49
Speaker 4: are grow and we we have no idea like how
14:53
Speaker 4: much magic there is out there in the world, And
14:56
Speaker 4: I hate to be so passionate about you guys, but like,
15:00
Speaker 4: you know, like we don't even know the potential of
15:03
Speaker 4: where we could be as humans.
15:06
Speaker 3: You know, are people ever surprised that that you're you're
15:19
Speaker 3: still that plugged in, that you're still in the trucks,
15:21
Speaker 3: that you're still I'm sure the perception is like, well,
15:24
Speaker 3: why are you still on these trucks, Like why aren't
15:26
Speaker 3: you and like why haven't you started your gigantic restaurant chain?
15:30
Speaker 1: Why aren't you there? Why aren't you?
15:32
Speaker 3: But like every time I see you, I've been with
15:34
Speaker 3: you on your you know, I've seen You've gotten me
15:37
Speaker 3: burritos from your truck before, and I found that really like.
15:40
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, you saw me when I did the pop
15:41
Speaker 4: up last day, right Tacos Vida you saw it was
15:44
Speaker 4: just like oh.
15:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, that one man.
15:46
Speaker 3: You should have seen him.
15:47
Speaker 4: He was like out there, you were, you were in it.
15:49
Speaker 3: But like like why, like like for the people who
15:53
Speaker 3: wonder like why, and I know you just sort of
15:55
Speaker 3: answered it, But like I find that incredibly humbling that
15:58
Speaker 3: you're still that you're still like in the trenches where
16:01
Speaker 3: where you you clearly could be somewhere else doing other stuff.
16:05
Speaker 4: Thank you. I I don't know. I think on one end,
16:09
Speaker 4: I don't know if people are too surprised, because I
16:12
Speaker 4: think once they meet me, they know like, yeah, you know,
16:15
Speaker 4: like I haven't gone anywhere. But I think a part
16:18
Speaker 4: of it is, you know, it's what I love to do.
16:23
Speaker 3: You know.
16:23
Speaker 4: It's like and I feel tapping into your two hundred
16:27
Speaker 4: percent idea. I feel like I can do two hundred
16:30
Speaker 4: percent of things, Like I can still use my brain
16:34
Speaker 4: for things and think think about you know, other things,
16:39
Speaker 4: or you know, manage projects or be a CEO of something.
16:43
Speaker 4: But I could still do that one hundred percent. But
16:45
Speaker 4: I could still be on the ground one hundred percent.
16:47
Speaker 4: You know, this doesn't take away from that, so that
16:50
Speaker 4: that's partly probably why.
16:52
Speaker 2: But that's authenticity.
16:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, that's authenticity speaking at the loudest form.
16:56
Speaker 1: H you know, in the speaking of authenticity, I wanted
16:59
Speaker 1: to pay it because.
17:00
Speaker 2: It's so important. It's very hard.
17:04
Speaker 1: To publish a book, Yes, it's very hard. And you
17:08
Speaker 1: have absolutely immortalized, you know, your legacy in this cookbook, right,
17:16
Speaker 1: and you have a lot of really great dishes here
17:20
Speaker 1: and I wanted to give you. I don't know if
17:22
Speaker 1: you knew this, but our two producers Leo and and
17:25
Speaker 1: and Social Death Sophie, they took up on themselves to
17:31
Speaker 1: pay a little tribute to you, and they took this
17:33
Speaker 1: and they cooked something or they made something from this cookbook. Leo,
17:37
Speaker 1: do you mind? Do you want to explain what you
17:39
Speaker 1: guys did here?
17:43
Speaker 4: Good? Yeah, that's a great recipe. Let's see if Leo, yes,
17:54
Speaker 4: let's see if my recipes work.
17:58
Speaker 2: Before we do the test.
18:00
Speaker 1: Looking forward to the test, tell us a little bit
18:01
Speaker 1: about this book and how this came about.
18:04
Speaker 4: So it's called The Choy of Cooking. It's a play
18:07
Speaker 4: on the joy of cooking. If any of you had
18:09
Speaker 4: ever grown up with that book, I was made my
18:14
Speaker 4: name rhymes Roy Troy, so as a kid, you can
18:17
Speaker 4: imagine all the shit I had to deal with. But
18:21
Speaker 4: I finally took that and put power into it. And
18:24
Speaker 4: the first cookbook that entered my family life was The
18:27
Speaker 4: Joy of Cooking. And as I was, as me and
18:30
Speaker 4: my team were writing this book trying to find the title,
18:33
Speaker 4: like I did a deep dive into who I am
18:37
Speaker 4: and what legacy I want to leave on this planet,
18:40
Speaker 4: Like I don't think it's the end of my physical life,
18:44
Speaker 4: right now. But I thought of, like, what if this
18:47
Speaker 4: book was still around one hundred years from now, two
18:51
Speaker 4: hundred years from now, and someone found it, like at
18:53
Speaker 4: the Pasadena flea market or something, and they found it
18:56
Speaker 4: digging in a bin, Like I want to have this
19:01
Speaker 4: like long life, and it could mark like a timestamp
19:05
Speaker 4: of who this person was.
19:07
Speaker 2: Impression.
19:08
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think that person who I am is
19:11
Speaker 4: I just want to bring joy to people's lives. Man.
19:13
Speaker 4: You know, I've I've been around on this planet enough
19:17
Speaker 4: to where I've lived through so many different life cycles.
19:20
Speaker 4: You know, I had my you know, I was you know,
19:22
Speaker 4: I've been angry. You know I've been mad, I've been uh,
19:27
Speaker 4: down and out. You know, I've been a piece of shit.
19:32
Speaker 4: You know, I've been all the things that you go
19:34
Speaker 4: through in life. And and I think where I finally
19:37
Speaker 4: have landed is uh you know, I just want to
19:42
Speaker 4: bring happiness.
19:43
Speaker 3: You know.
19:43
Speaker 4: That's that's like where I want to do. And that's
19:45
Speaker 4: what this book's about. Man. It's this books about like
19:49
Speaker 4: recipes and stories that bring happiness to someone's life, you know.
19:54
Speaker 4: And yeah, you know, cookbooks hard to write, because any
19:58
Speaker 4: books hard to write, because like there there's editors, man,
20:03
Speaker 4: those editors, you.
20:06
Speaker 2: Know, Construgress like this word better.
20:08
Speaker 4: Yeah, I like freestyle man.
20:10
Speaker 1: So but I'll tell you this though. You what you
20:13
Speaker 1: did in the cover. I mean I see, I see
20:15
Speaker 1: all the influences that we just talked about here, yeah
20:18
Speaker 1: you so all the little pictures here, who's this right here?
20:22
Speaker 4: That's me?
20:23
Speaker 2: That's it's me, So that's you.
20:24
Speaker 1: And then uh and then I see the palm trees
20:27
Speaker 1: and is that is that an impollo?
20:28
Speaker 5: Yeah?
20:29
Speaker 2: Is that actually your Paula?
20:31
Speaker 4: It wasn't mine, but you know, my friends have all
20:33
Speaker 4: had one.
20:34
Speaker 2: Yeah.
20:35
Speaker 4: I had a Chevy Blazer that was Chevy.
20:38
Speaker 7: Yeah, twelves in the back, speakers in the bag, I
20:41
Speaker 7: have fifteen fifteen yeah, Alpine pulled out which yeah, I
20:47
Speaker 7: had a pioneer, Yeah, I had I was a pioneer, sir,
20:51
Speaker 7: and vega.
20:52
Speaker 3: Yeah.
20:52
Speaker 4: And in the back inkis rooms lowered all the way
20:55
Speaker 4: to you.
20:56
Speaker 2: You have you have children?
20:57
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, one want children.
21:00
Speaker 1: Think about what you're leaving to your kids, right, I
21:03
Speaker 1: mean your kid is gonna look at this. Yeah, it's
21:06
Speaker 1: gonna pass it on. It's gonna pass it on. And
21:07
Speaker 1: this is now two versions of your family going down
21:12
Speaker 1: down the road. You know, eventually this is who Grandpa was,
21:17
Speaker 1: you know what I mean?
21:17
Speaker 4: And books still books still a big deal. It's not
21:20
Speaker 4: as a big deal is maybe it used to be,
21:23
Speaker 4: you know, like growing up in America, like there used
21:27
Speaker 4: to be a dream for all creatives of like if
21:28
Speaker 4: I could just write a book. Right, it's not the
21:32
Speaker 4: same anymore, but still it's still pretty important.
21:34
Speaker 1: No, but you're more immortalizing your legacy, motalizing your heritage.
21:38
Speaker 1: And you know, you're letting them know that while you.
21:40
Speaker 2: Were here you did something.
21:41
Speaker 1: Man.
21:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that and that's beautiful. So congratulations.
21:44
Speaker 4: Make you think about it that way.
21:46
Speaker 2: We're we're trying to are gonna try.
21:49
Speaker 1: We're gonna we're gonna either leave on a high or
21:52
Speaker 1: leave on a low.
21:53
Speaker 4: We're eating with peed chips.
21:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's is I guess it's speaking of
21:58
Speaker 1: two hundred percent?
22:00
Speaker 2: Is this too? You should.
22:02
Speaker 4: Mm hmm?
22:04
Speaker 2: Yeah? Oh, Leo, it was good?
22:09
Speaker 3: Great?
22:09
Speaker 2: Did you you worked on this as well? Yeah?
22:15
Speaker 4: How was the recipe pretty easy to follow? I was
22:18
Speaker 4: very easy to just stick everything in a blender. Yeah, right,
22:22
Speaker 4: all the herbs were it was very interesting and you
22:25
Speaker 4: mentioned the.
22:27
Speaker 3: Smell there.
22:28
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, I smelled it.
22:30
Speaker 1: And in Venezuela there is a similar sauce like that
22:34
Speaker 1: cold and please don't judge in their name. It's it
22:38
Speaker 1: comes from indigenous sounds or whatever, but it's called Guasa
22:41
Speaker 1: Kaka's CoA.
22:44
Speaker 2: Did you ever hear of us of an isueling kind
22:45
Speaker 2: of sauce.
22:46
Speaker 1: It's a dipping sauce, could be addressing, could be anything
22:48
Speaker 1: that you can put it on steak and chickens, or you.
22:51
Speaker 2: Can put it on yuka and you can dip the yuka.
22:53
Speaker 4: That yeah, especially with the ya. Yes, it's just this consistency.
22:58
Speaker 2: Exactly right, exactly. My mom makes it, and uh, you know, I'm.
23:02
Speaker 1: Obsessed with with food I launched multiple restaurants in my
23:06
Speaker 1: life too, so I you know, I went in La.
23:08
Speaker 1: We had adults, we had Getesha House, we had the lotch,
23:11
Speaker 1: we had all kinds of different stuff in La. So
23:13
Speaker 1: I was really obsessed with food. My mom was a
23:16
Speaker 1: great cook too. So there was a cuta. So as
23:18
Speaker 1: soon as I saw that, I was like, oh, that
23:20
Speaker 1: looks like what's a cutga? And it smell and actually
23:22
Speaker 1: has an interesting same consistency. This has a little bit
23:25
Speaker 1: of a sweet finish.
23:27
Speaker 2: Rights a little.
23:28
Speaker 4: Sweet from the rice vinegar, I believe.
23:30
Speaker 8: And then yeah, and then the man, yeah, great job,
23:37
Speaker 8: and you yeah, you got the emotion correct.
23:41
Speaker 3: So so Roy you we have these recipes, you have
23:44
Speaker 3: the book, like you have the trucks, you have all that,
23:47
Speaker 3: but you're you're also expanding. I mean, you know, we
23:50
Speaker 3: obviously saw you in Chef, which was awesome.
23:54
Speaker 4: Yeah. I try to do what you all do.
23:57
Speaker 2: Man, let's go.
23:59
Speaker 4: The only problem is I can't remember shit, you know
24:01
Speaker 4: when I'm the worst at auditions too. I'm great at
24:05
Speaker 4: playing myself, but every time they asked me to play
24:07
Speaker 4: someone else, Oh no.
24:08
Speaker 3: No, How did it finally start to transition into into
24:22
Speaker 3: movies into television? Was was Chef the first sort of
24:25
Speaker 3: foray into into uh into movies and just the.
24:28
Speaker 4: First big one. But I think you know, on one level,
24:30
Speaker 4: like as creatives, it's really easy when you see another
24:34
Speaker 4: creative or when you connect you know, across the table,
24:38
Speaker 4: doesn't matter whether it's music or food or or acting
24:43
Speaker 4: or whatever. Like you you share something and you can
24:45
Speaker 4: like get to shorthand right away. Right. So there's that
24:48
Speaker 4: one thing. But the true bridge was that kogie from
24:51
Speaker 4: the from the early days after the whole kind of
24:55
Speaker 4: first initial phenomenon took off. We started really getting hired
25:01
Speaker 4: a lot to feed film sets because the creatives picked
25:05
Speaker 4: up on it first, and so within our first year
25:09
Speaker 4: at the end of us so the first year was
25:12
Speaker 4: really just pounding the pavement, being on the streets, going
25:15
Speaker 4: neighborhood and the neighborhood blocked the box. But then as
25:18
Speaker 4: as that year started to come to an end, then
25:21
Speaker 4: people started to understand like who we really were, and
25:24
Speaker 4: then we got our shit together a little bit and
25:27
Speaker 4: we had we put up an email. We had no
25:30
Speaker 4: email like that email like, you know, to contact us.
25:36
Speaker 4: We were just out there, man, we didn't have no plan,
25:38
Speaker 4: you know. And then finally we got an email up.
25:40
Speaker 4: As soon as we put the email up, you know,
25:43
Speaker 4: people from Radford Studios, from Paramount, from Warner Brothers, from
25:47
Speaker 4: everywhere being like, oh dude, like, you know, can we
25:50
Speaker 4: hire you for a rap party? Can we hire you
25:52
Speaker 4: to feed our crew? You know, we wanted to do
25:56
Speaker 4: a surprise, So we started showing up to film sets,
25:59
Speaker 4: the movie sets really really early. And then there were
26:03
Speaker 4: a lot of people within the industry that were really
26:05
Speaker 4: early on Koge too, and one was Gwyneth Paltrow. So
26:08
Speaker 4: Gwyneth hired us for Iron Man two's rap party. So
26:12
Speaker 4: that was like the first one of the first big
26:14
Speaker 4: ones that we did. So this is the story. So
26:17
Speaker 4: what happened was this was one of our like this
26:20
Speaker 4: is in the second year, early part of the second
26:23
Speaker 4: year coche. We didn't know anything. We know our head
26:25
Speaker 4: from our asshole. And then we went to the rap party.
26:29
Speaker 4: But it was in Malibu, up on this hill, and
26:31
Speaker 4: our truck is an old ass truck. And then we
26:33
Speaker 4: went up this driveway but we got stuck there. So
26:37
Speaker 4: we served the whole party and everyone loved it, licking
26:39
Speaker 4: their fingers everything. But then as we said bye, you know,
26:42
Speaker 4: and we were backing up, the truck didn't move. So
26:44
Speaker 4: we're there all night. And then so we got to
26:46
Speaker 4: know everybody and everything. Everyone remember Kogie. And then later
26:50
Speaker 4: when John was in final kind of like pre production
26:54
Speaker 4: for his film Chef, he remembered our truck, he remembered us,
26:57
Speaker 4: and he found me. He reached out to my team
27:00
Speaker 4: and found me and uh hired me to come in
27:04
Speaker 4: to you know, see if I could just be a consultant.
27:07
Speaker 4: So I was supposed to be initially kind of like
27:11
Speaker 4: if you were doing a boxing movie. I was just
27:12
Speaker 4: supposed to come in for like two weeks and just
27:14
Speaker 4: teach him, you know, like just to.
27:18
Speaker 2: Like as a tech.
27:19
Speaker 4: I was just a technical consultant. But from day one,
27:23
Speaker 4: John and I just hit it off. Yeah, I mean, like,
27:26
Speaker 4: you know, shout out to John, that's my brother. You know,
27:28
Speaker 4: like we just we just hit it off from day one,
27:31
Speaker 4: and then we forgot about just being like the dudes
27:35
Speaker 4: that we are, Like, we just forgot about why the
27:37
Speaker 4: hell we even were supposed to be together. We just
27:39
Speaker 4: started spending every day together, you know, we were dose
27:41
Speaker 4: of eagles, you know. And uh, and then that just
27:45
Speaker 4: that just naturally moved into I brought him into because
27:48
Speaker 4: he was studying to be a chef. So I was, yeah,
27:51
Speaker 4: because the movie he was playing a chef he was.
27:54
Speaker 3: I know that, but I'm in real life he was
27:55
Speaker 3: studying No.
27:56
Speaker 4: No, he was studying so the movie. So what I
27:59
Speaker 4: did was, because we hit it off from day one,
28:02
Speaker 4: I pulled him into my world. I just like started
28:05
Speaker 4: bringing him to the inside inside world of being a
28:08
Speaker 4: chef running a kitchen, and he brought me into his world.
28:12
Speaker 4: And it just felt so natural for the both of us.
28:15
Speaker 4: You know, like I had never been that close to
28:18
Speaker 4: a camera before. I'd never.
28:21
Speaker 1: You know, you've never seeing the same thing and you know,
28:24
Speaker 1: laid out twenty five times.
28:25
Speaker 4: But you know, your guys' world is very similar to
28:27
Speaker 4: the cooking world in the sense that there is a
28:30
Speaker 4: level of brigade, you know, to start from pa to crib,
28:33
Speaker 4: you know, and you go up and you don't necessarily
28:36
Speaker 4: you know, you have to pay your dues to get
28:37
Speaker 4: all the way up to the camera, you know, or
28:39
Speaker 4: get up to give direction to something. You know, same
28:43
Speaker 4: thing in the kitchen you're starting peeling potatoes and cutting chives.
28:47
Speaker 4: You're not saucing until you know, a few years in.
28:50
Speaker 4: But John let me see every level of the of
28:53
Speaker 4: the industry, and I felt very natural with every every
28:57
Speaker 4: layer of it, and and that just led to you know,
29:01
Speaker 4: then then it was like the people I would meet
29:04
Speaker 4: along the way, you know, within your guys on set,
29:07
Speaker 4: they're all like, yeah, you know your kogie, I have
29:09
Speaker 4: kogi yesterday, this is that, and so everyone was very familiar.
29:12
Speaker 4: So that world was very natural for me. And then
29:15
Speaker 4: and then from that, you know, like people just asked
29:19
Speaker 4: me to be in stuff, so then I got asked
29:20
Speaker 4: to be in Gilmore Girls. Right, I did Gilmore Girls.
29:24
Speaker 4: I got my SAG card because.
29:28
Speaker 2: They always.
29:31
Speaker 4: Yeah, because of the Gilmore Girls, you got me as
29:33
Speaker 4: an actor. Uh. And then uh I did some other
29:37
Speaker 4: cameos here and there. You know, It's always been fun.
29:41
Speaker 3: But but but even but even on like behind it,
29:43
Speaker 3: like like even this book right like that that that
29:45
Speaker 3: obviously was sort of the the doorway for the more
29:49
Speaker 3: commercial version of of Roy Troy right like and and
29:53
Speaker 3: and you haven't you started like restaurants and do you
29:56
Speaker 3: have other stuff?
29:56
Speaker 4: And yeah, I have a restaurant in Las Vegas. I
29:59
Speaker 4: always try to bounce. I think we touched on it earlier.
30:01
Speaker 4: It's like every time I get into an endeavor that
30:06
Speaker 4: maybe feels bigger or mainstream or whatever, I always try
30:12
Speaker 4: to balance it maybe with something that is like involved
30:17
Speaker 4: in like the social justice of something. So like even
30:21
Speaker 4: even in entertainment, I do the same. You know, if
30:24
Speaker 4: I have a Netflix show, you know I've been involved.
30:26
Speaker 4: I cooked on you know, uh, you know Megan the
30:31
Speaker 4: Duchess of you know, where is she the Duchess of Sussex? Yeah?
30:37
Speaker 4: Sorry man, but yeah, the you know, I'm on a
30:41
Speaker 4: Netflix show. But then I do public television, you know,
30:45
Speaker 4: and try to do a show based around, uh, the
30:48
Speaker 4: inequities of access to food. So every time I'm doing
30:52
Speaker 4: something maybe mainstream entertainment, I try to balance it with
30:54
Speaker 4: underground you know. I just kind of you know, it's
30:57
Speaker 4: like open mic. And then you know, doing like a
30:59
Speaker 4: big comedy special. Like it's like, you know, comedians do
31:02
Speaker 4: it all the time too, right, It's kind of like
31:04
Speaker 4: how you stay sharp and connected, you know, like all
31:07
Speaker 4: the comedians you see doing arenas are you know, popping
31:11
Speaker 4: up at the comedy store late night on Thursday, you know,
31:15
Speaker 4: And it's just like, I don't know, it's just the
31:17
Speaker 4: way that I do things.
31:18
Speaker 3: So so, so tell us about the restaurants in Vegas. Uh.
31:22
Speaker 4: Yeah, I have two restaurants in Vegas. One that's called
31:24
Speaker 4: Best Friend, you know, and that restaurant is kind of
31:29
Speaker 4: like it's kind of like me bringing Los Angeles to Vegas.
31:35
Speaker 4: So it's like pulling people into like that specific part
31:40
Speaker 4: of Korea Town and South Central and East LA that
31:44
Speaker 4: we've been talking about, and we created kind of like
31:48
Speaker 4: a world like in Vegas with that and you walk
31:52
Speaker 4: through this portal and it takes you into Los Angeles
31:55
Speaker 4: through the fields, the sounds, the music, the design, and
31:59
Speaker 4: the food, and then the show and the movie. Chef
32:04
Speaker 4: we built the truck, so that movie is built around
32:07
Speaker 4: a food truck that serves kubanos. So you know we
32:11
Speaker 4: turned that truck. Yeah, is the chef of that truck
32:17
Speaker 4: and we turned that truck into a restaurant in Vegas.
32:20
Speaker 2: So cool.
32:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's incredible, man. We look, we are so incredibly
32:24
Speaker 1: grateful to you know, to call you an ally, to
32:27
Speaker 1: call your friend, and it's incredibly inspiring for all of
32:31
Speaker 1: us to continue to hear these Brazilian stories that you know,
32:34
Speaker 1: define who we are, not only as immigrants, spread the
32:37
Speaker 1: humanity that we actually experienced with one another. I know
32:41
Speaker 1: that the whole season we'll be talking about you coming on,
32:43
Speaker 1: so we we definitely you know, you've been in like
32:46
Speaker 1: the top of the.
32:50
Speaker 4: Superstars in this.
32:51
Speaker 2: But really, really he's another one who we.
32:56
Speaker 4: Got to get John. Where are you at? Come on, John,
32:58
Speaker 4: let's go we do a partner piece.
33:01
Speaker 1: But John John winsa a moment from being available, and
33:04
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, Christopher Nolan called him and
33:07
Speaker 1: he's like.
33:07
Speaker 2: Hey, you know, there's this little movie co.
33:11
Speaker 1: Yeah no, but but you know, John's heart is here.
33:15
Speaker 2: But that's the most important. But we're so excited. Thank you.
33:20
Speaker 2: I appreciate it so much.
33:21
Speaker 1: And everybody get get his book and watch his movies
33:25
Speaker 1: and and the Gilmore Girls spot too, because that's gonna
33:27
Speaker 1: be a really.
33:29
Speaker 4: Great mom is crazy the fan base. I love you all, crazy, dude.
33:36
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Freddie Rodriguez and I'm Wilmaldama and I
33:39
Speaker 1: think you were watching or listening Amigos. Uh everywhere you
33:43
Speaker 1: got your podcasts.
33:50
Speaker 3: Is a production from WV Sound and iHeartMedia's Michael through
33:53
Speaker 3: That podcast Network. Hosted by Me, Freddie Rodriguez.
33:57
Speaker 1: And Wilma of Aaldorama, Amigos is produced by Aaron Burleson
34:01
Speaker 1: and Sophie Spencer Zabos.
34:02
Speaker 3: Our executive producers are wilmri vald Rama, Freddie Rodriguez, Aaron Burlson,
34:07
Speaker 3: and Leo Clem at WV Sound.
34:10
Speaker 1: This episode was shot and edited by Ryan Posts and
34:12
Speaker 1: mixed by Sean Tracy and features original music by Madison
34:15
Speaker 1: Devenport and Halo Boy.
34:17
Speaker 3: Our cover art photography is by David Avalos and designed
34:20
Speaker 3: by Deny Holtz.
34:21
Speaker 1: Clau and Thank you for being at third Amigo today.
34:24
Speaker 1: I appreciate you guys always listening to those amigos.
34:27
Speaker 3: More podcasts from My Heart, visit the R Heart Radio app,
34:30
Speaker 3: Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
34:33
Speaker 2: See you next week.