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Luke’s Diner: House of Fang · I Am All In with Scott Patterson

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I Am all in again. Lets you.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Luke's Diner with Scott Patterson, an iHeartRadio podcast.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Hey Everybody, Scott Patterson, iomal and podcast one of Lee productions.
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio Media, iHeart Podcast. We're doing Luke's Diner with Kathy Fang.
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  Speaker 1: Let me tell you about Kathy Fang. She is a chef,
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  Speaker 1: restaurant or, a cookbook author, television personality. Grew up in
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  Speaker 1: the Bay Area, San Francisco's legendary House of Nan King
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  Speaker 1: founder founded by her dad, Peter Fang, and initially pursuing
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  Speaker 1: a career in the corporate world, she followed her true
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  Speaker 1: passion to Le Cred'nbleau and returned home to open Fang
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  Speaker 1: Restaurant with her family, blending tradition with her own modern style.
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  Speaker 1: Cast These are two time Chopped Champion, not once. She
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  Speaker 1: won twice at Champion, a star of Food Networks, Chef Dynasty,
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  Speaker 1: House of Fang, and was named San Francisco Magazine's Culinary Queen.
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  Speaker 1: It's you, You're the Culinary Queen. Her new cookbook shares
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  Speaker 1: more than one hundred recipes and stories from three generations
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  Speaker 1: of Fang family cooking, bringing authentic Chinese techniques and flavors
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  Speaker 1: into the home kitchen and we have her here. Welcome, Kathy,
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  Speaker 1: how are you?
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  Speaker 2: I'm doing fantastic and so happy to be on your show.
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  Speaker 2: It's a nice little reprieve from being in the kitchen.
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  Speaker 1: Well, in a sense, there is some kind of food
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  Speaker 1: served here. It's on more spiritual side. But justice nurching,
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  Speaker 1: we like to think anyway, So you grew up in
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  Speaker 1: a dining room, yes, and kitchen. What's your earliest memory
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  Speaker 1: of put the work at House of Nanking.
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  Speaker 2: I would say from the get go. You know, when
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  Speaker 2: my parents opened, I was seven years old and my
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  Speaker 2: dad was the one who was building everything from the
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  Speaker 2: tables to the chairs because it allowed him to save
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  Speaker 2: money from hiring contractors. And so it's a very immigrant
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  Speaker 2: you know style, like we do everything ourselves, roll up
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  Speaker 2: our sleeves, you know, put the daughter to work. It
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  Speaker 2: was joint families like my mom, my dad, and my grandfather.
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  Speaker 2: We would go in there and do whatever we needed
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  Speaker 2: to do with extra hands. But you know the other
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  Speaker 2: thing about House nan King is that I would say
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  Speaker 2: people know it for its craziness. It's super crowded. There's
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  Speaker 2: really no room for you to stand as a child,
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  Speaker 2: and I had nowhere else to go, right, there was
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  Speaker 2: no day care for me. We couldn't get like a
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  Speaker 2: nanny that we couldn't afford to nanny. And so being
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  Speaker 2: in a place like that kind of like a mini
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  Speaker 2: Cat's deli sort of vibe. You had to do something right,
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  Speaker 2: You had to be useful. You couldn't even just be
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  Speaker 2: in one place.
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  Speaker 3: That's incredible. That's just incredible.
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  Speaker 1: So I guess your surroundings really rubbed off on you
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  Speaker 1: in a very good way. Yes, so tell me how
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  Speaker 1: this works. You're in a corporate job, right and you're
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  Speaker 1: in this world, and that's a.
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  Speaker 3: Very specific world. Was there a specific.
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  Speaker 1: Moment where you knew you just needed to be in
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  Speaker 1: the kitchen and you went to you just said, I'm
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  Speaker 1: out here and I want to go to culinary school.
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  Speaker 3: Was there a specific moment I did?
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  Speaker 2: I had kind of this epiphany, you know. At that time,
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  Speaker 2: I was on my second corporate job. I started at
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  Speaker 2: Merrill Lynch in wealth management, and I was just very uninspired.
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  Speaker 2: I didn't feel like I learned anything. It was sort
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  Speaker 2: of it was like over twenty years ago. Not the
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  Speaker 2: best in my vi for a female either. I was
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  Speaker 2: the only female in the office and it was just
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  Speaker 2: like not the right place for me, and so I
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  Speaker 2: left and thought, why don't I go work for Johnson
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  Speaker 2: and Johnson, a family friendly company, work in Neutrigena, which
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  Speaker 2: was under Johnson Johnson with skincare and all that. This
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  Speaker 2: should be a great place for a female and it
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  Speaker 2: was a really nice place to be. I did operations,
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  Speaker 2: but again I just didn't feel any passion around what
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  Speaker 2: I was doing, and that to me, was really depressing.
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  Speaker 2: It was really sad. I'm a very like passion driven person.
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  Speaker 2: I love kind of digging my mind into things that
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  Speaker 2: are creative, right. It makes me feel really alive, it
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  Speaker 2: makes me feel happy, and I wasn't able to do
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  Speaker 2: any of that in the corporate world. And so there
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  Speaker 2: was this one day at the office and I was
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  Speaker 2: very excited for this one thing that would happen. Once
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  Speaker 2: a month, they give these goodie and these goodie bags
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  Speaker 2: are actually defective products. They're products that they cannot sell.
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  Speaker 2: They're not harmful, but it's like a mislabeled bottle or
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  Speaker 2: the pumps don't pump really well. And so every month
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  Speaker 2: you would get this bag and that was what I
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  Speaker 2: was looking forward to working at this company, and it
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  Speaker 2: just dawned on me that this this is not good. Right.
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  Speaker 2: My life is heading this way, and mind you, I
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  Speaker 2: can't use all these products. And so every month I've
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  Speaker 2: had these bags and I give them away. They weren't
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  Speaker 2: even for me, how.
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  Speaker 1: Much they thought of the human beings working there. You know,
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  Speaker 1: here's a bag of junk for you.
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  Speaker 3: That's how we feel. Oh God.
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  Speaker 2: So that was that moment I had. It was like
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  Speaker 2: that one day with that bag, I went back and
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  Speaker 2: I said, I can't do this. I told my father,
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  Speaker 2: I'm going to come back home. I thought a lot
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  Speaker 2: about it. The one thing that I love the most
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  Speaker 2: is cooking. I love food, and I need to come
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  Speaker 2: back to where it all starts arted, which is House
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  Speaker 2: of Banking. And I started working there for a full year,
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  Speaker 2: every single day just to show my dad this is
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  Speaker 2: something that you know, I'm like really committed to doing,
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  Speaker 2: right because he just sent me to USC and I'm like, yep, never.
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  Speaker 1: Mind, right, right, right, right, right, So okay, So that
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  Speaker 1: leads me to my next question. Did you come back
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  Speaker 1: there as a trained chef to work alongside your dad
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  Speaker 1: or you went from the corporate world to being next
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  Speaker 1: to your dad and learning the trade he taught you,
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  Speaker 1: and then you went to culinary school.
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  Speaker 3: Got you?
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  Speaker 2: So number two, I went back worked side by side
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  Speaker 2: with my dad for a year, and then I went
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  Speaker 2: to culinary school.
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  Speaker 1: And then did you ever after you became you know
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  Speaker 1: this this master chef? Did you ever cook with your
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  Speaker 1: dad after that?
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  Speaker 3: And what was that?
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  Speaker 1: Like?
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  Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, I mean you know, so my dad and
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  Speaker 2: I ended up actually opening a restaurant of our own
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  Speaker 2: called Fang And you know that happened after I finished
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  Speaker 2: culinary school. I came back. You know, at this point,
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  Speaker 2: I've worked with my dad for a full year at
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  Speaker 2: House of Nan King. I've got the credentials. My dad said, well,
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  Speaker 2: what do you want to do? Because three as a crowd,
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  Speaker 2: we don't really need all three of us that House
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  Speaker 2: of Nan King. And it's truly really like my mom
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  Speaker 2: and my dad's venture, right right, And so I said, well,
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  Speaker 2: I've always felt like we could have another House of
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  Speaker 2: nank King, like so many people have said, hey, expand
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  Speaker 2: open more restaurants. We need more locations. And we thought
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  Speaker 2: a lot about it and decided, you know, since this
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  Speaker 2: is a father daughter venture, it's not quite House of
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  Speaker 2: Nan King. Right, it is something different because now there's
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  Speaker 2: my voice as a chef, and I need to have
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  Speaker 2: my own creative control over what this concept needs to be.
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  Speaker 2: And so we decided to call it Fang, our last name,
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  Speaker 2: and we wanted to feel slightly different. Like the food,
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  Speaker 2: the flavors should still remind you of House of Nanking,
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  Speaker 2: but the feel of it should be different because now
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  Speaker 2: it has more of a younger and modern take to things. So,
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  Speaker 2: you know, we put in a bar, and I started
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  Speaker 2: doing corporate events and cocktail parties, just you know, things
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  Speaker 2: that my dad never had exposure to, which I did,
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  Speaker 2: and so I brought that into the business and we
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  Speaker 2: created something a little different.
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  Speaker 1: Oh that's good, beautiful, all right, let's get into your cooking.
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  Speaker 1: What are the ingredients that every household should have on
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  Speaker 1: hand if they're gonna if they're gonna, you know, do
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  Speaker 1: anything in the kitchen and serve some meals.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I feel like for Chinese pantry staples, there's a
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  Speaker 2: couple that I think everybody already are very familiar with. Right,
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  Speaker 2: You've got to have your soy sauce, and there's two kinds.
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  Speaker 2: There's regular soy and then there's dark soy. Dark soy
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  Speaker 2: is it adds a little bit more color, there's more
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  Speaker 2: caramelization in it, a little deeper in flav You need
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  Speaker 2: shaushing wine. So Chinese people cook with Chinese cooking alcohol
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  Speaker 2: that's used for marinates, but also for creating sauces. You
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  Speaker 2: could use like wine, but the flavor profile is very different.
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  Speaker 2: So that's like another important pantry staple cornstarch. You cannot
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  Speaker 2: do any Chinese food without cornstarch. Cornstarch is used as
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  Speaker 2: a thickening agent for sauces, but is also key for marinating.
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  Speaker 2: You cannot marinate any meats for a stir fry without cornstarch.
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  Speaker 2: If you think of a walk, every protein that goes
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  Speaker 2: into there has to be treated with cornstarch. Sesame oil
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  Speaker 2: is another staple. But I feel like, you know, as
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  Speaker 2: far as just ingredients, staple ingredients, those are kind of
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  Speaker 2: your your your core, and then you can get really creative.
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  Speaker 2: There's so many other things like fish sauce, and you
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  Speaker 2: can do dashy powder, but the core is really soy sauce, smeal,
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  Speaker 2: the cornstarch, and the Chinese shaushing wine.
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  Speaker 3: Is what is your favorite dish to prepare?
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  Speaker 1: Do you have one?
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  Speaker 2: It's really hard but right now, I am very much
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  Speaker 2: into tonics and bone broths. I'm very very like health centric.
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  Speaker 2: I'm around amazing food all the time, and so of
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  Speaker 2: course I'm indulging, which means I have to take care
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  Speaker 2: of my body as well. And so Chinese tonics are
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  Speaker 2: a little different from typical bone broths. It is all
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  Speaker 2: based off of TCM traditional Chinese medicine. So I have
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  Speaker 2: a couple of those recipes in the book. But that
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  Speaker 2: is my one thing that I do consistency. Once a
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  Speaker 2: week I make a huge pot and it feeds the
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  Speaker 2: whole family, and I live off of that.
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  Speaker 1: I want to get in a little bit, get into
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  Speaker 1: MSG a little bit. Is it misunderstood and do you
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  Speaker 1: use it in your cooking?
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  Speaker 3: Tell us about that.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's absolutely misunderstood. In the book, I
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  Speaker 2: actually talk about it. We definitely use it. We use
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  Speaker 2: it at both restaurants, We use it in the cookbook.
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  Speaker 2: And you know, I tell this kind of funny story
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  Speaker 2: in the book on how as a child I was
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  Speaker 2: actually impacted really negatively by it, right because there was
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  Speaker 2: just all this talk about, oh, this is you know,
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  Speaker 2: such a bad ingredient for you, that one day I
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  Speaker 2: went home and told my grandmother that she shouldn't use
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  Speaker 2: MSG in the cooking for our family. And she goes,
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  Speaker 2: because you said that, I'm going to put even more
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  Speaker 2: MSG in the food. She makes you smarter and he
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  Speaker 2: and she goes. Our whole culture, like our whole country,
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  Speaker 2: like we basically lived off of this, and we're all fine,
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  Speaker 2: so don't listen to that. And so, you know, growing up,
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  Speaker 2: I was kind of I felt like it was thing
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  Speaker 2: that was hard for me to even have a conversation
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  Speaker 2: around with my family, right because they're just like, that's crazy.
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  Speaker 2: But you know, now as an adult, we know that
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  Speaker 2: this myth that came about was over something that two
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  Speaker 2: people came together and wrote down as a joke. It
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  Speaker 2: wasn't like something off of true studies, and this thing
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  Speaker 2: like just you know, it became viral basically, right, it
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  Speaker 2: became viral, and so many people have these misunderstandings around
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  Speaker 2: like what this can do. And so yeah, it's something
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  Speaker 2: that we deal with quite like quite often at the restaurant.
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  Speaker 2: But we just tell people, you know, if it's something
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  Speaker 2: that you can't have, then we can definitely make something
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  Speaker 2: without it for you. But we're not like MSG free
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  Speaker 2: and I grew up around it. I put some of
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  Speaker 2: it even in my food for like my kids, because
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  Speaker 2: it just really does alter some of the flavors, the
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  Speaker 2: authentic flavors that I grew up with. I want to
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  Speaker 2: pass that down to them.
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  Speaker 1: And what is the weirdest or strangest ingredient you've ever
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  Speaker 1: had to turn into like making something delicious?
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  Speaker 2: Oh, that's easy. Camel.
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  Speaker 3: Let's use me camel.
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  Speaker 2: Camel that was popped.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, like like camel, the actual camel, like the actual camel.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, tell they can explain that.
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  Speaker 2: That was the craziest ingredient. I have to say. It
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  Speaker 2: really like threw me for a loop. I've never worked
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  Speaker 2: with an ingredient like that before. And and you know,
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  Speaker 2: us being Chinese, we work with a lot of different ingredients, right,
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  Speaker 2: Like we cook with innerds a lot. And it was
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  Speaker 2: on chopped where they gave like the whole loin, and
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  Speaker 2: that loin was the entire basket. It was so huge,
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  Speaker 2: and I ended up making it into like this kind
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  Speaker 2: of like donn mir and I don't know if you know,
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  Speaker 2: don mean it's like minced up pork, but we didn't
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  Speaker 2: minced up cam meat and made this like Hoiston sauce
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  Speaker 2: to toss with noodles. But that is probably by far
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  Speaker 2: the craziest. Uh. Camel, Yeah, is.
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  Speaker 1: Camel is staple anywhere in the world, Like you can
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  Speaker 1: walk into a restaurant and you could order camel anywhere
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  Speaker 1: in the world.
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  Speaker 2: Or I don't think so. I don't even know how
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  Speaker 2: they got it. How did Network even source that.
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  Speaker 3: You can't get a camel burger?
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  Speaker 2: Have you seen it before?
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  Speaker 1: I've never. No, I don't think if camel is food never.
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  Speaker 1: That's very interesting. All right, So what's the biggest mistake
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  Speaker 1: people at home make when trying to cook Chinese food?
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  Speaker 3: In your opinion, I.
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  Speaker 2: Think Chinese food is very much about organization, Like you
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: have to be very well organized and have everything set
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  Speaker 2: up before you start the cooking process because the cooking
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  Speaker 2: process itself in general is very fast. Right when you
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  Speaker 2: think about out walk cookery, Now, walk cookery is in
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  Speaker 2: all of Chinese food. There's also braises, there's other types
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  Speaker 2: of dishes. But when when people are attacking, not attacking,
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  Speaker 2: trying to approach cooking Chinese food, I think they're always
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  Speaker 2: going that route of walk cookery, right. All the stirfries,
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  Speaker 2: the chimes and the fried rice, and so that is
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  Speaker 2: about planning. The cooking takes about thirty seconds to a minute.
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  Speaker 2: That means everything else your museum plus has to be
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: in order and you know what goes in what order.
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  Speaker 2: As long as you nail all that down, it's actually
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  Speaker 2: incredibly easy and it becomes almost like muscle memory for you.
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  Speaker 2: Then Chinese food is actually I think one of the
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  Speaker 2: easiest things to do. You know, if you do all
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  Speaker 2: the marinads, all the sauces, the timing of everything, you
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  Speaker 2: can whip something up really quick with protein and vegetables
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  Speaker 2: at the same time, right within ten minutes.
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  Speaker 3: Wow.
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  Speaker 1: All right, not to get too personal in here, but
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  Speaker 1: what's that's one dish that you prepare for your family
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  Speaker 1: whatever that instantly takes you back to your childhood.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, So there is a steamed pork patty or pork
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  Speaker 2: hash with eggs that I prepare for my kids now
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  Speaker 2: on a weekly basis. It's also something that I love
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  Speaker 2: having because I grew up around this dish and I
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: like to compare it to like meat loaf for Americans. Right,
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  Speaker 2: this is just something like Grandma and mom always makes.
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  Speaker 2: Everybody kind of has their own version and it's not
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: really something you actually go to restaurants for. We call
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: this like homestyle cooking. It's not fancy, right, but the
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: flavors and sort of the textures of this meat loaf
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  Speaker 2: is that it's super moist, it steams and this like
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: aus like this pork broth, intense flavor comes out with
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  Speaker 2: ginger and then you've got perfectly steamed eggs on top.
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  Speaker 2: You put that on top of jasmine rice. It's just
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  Speaker 2: like the smell, the scent of everything is comfort. And
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  Speaker 2: also we came with really like nothing, right, we can't.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: We were very poor at the time, and so these
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: were just very affordable, easy one pot meals that could
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: stretch and feed a lot of mouths. There's just something
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  Speaker 2: very I feel like grounding about a dish like that.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: And you know, most of the stuff I make at
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  Speaker 2: home are all all like that. They're all really simple
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  Speaker 2: one pot meals, and I love sharing that with my kids.
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  Speaker 1: Well, that's wonderful, wonderful. All right, one last question before
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  Speaker 1: we got to go, and then you have to get
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  Speaker 1: back in the kitchen.
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  Speaker 3: Sorry.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, if you were to come into Luke's diner, okay,
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  Speaker 1: what would you order and where would you sit?
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  Speaker 2: Oh? By the window and good and I would love
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  Speaker 2: to get a Patty melt.
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  Speaker 3: There you go, you've got one. You've got it it anytime.
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  Speaker 1: You're welcome anytime, and hopefully there will be a Luke
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Steiners sooner or later and you can come in and
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: we'll give you that. Kathy, thank you so much for
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: sharing your stories, very very interesting, fascinating. Congratulations on all
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: your success, and congratulations for getting out of the corporate
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: world the empty shell.
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  Speaker 3: Wherever it is right and being creative and giving.
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  Speaker 1: And it's just just wonderful story. And remember you can
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: get Kathy's cookbook, The House of Nan King, and it's
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  Speaker 1: got one hundred fantastic recipes, so go out and get it. Kathy,
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  Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us.
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  Speaker 3: Please come back and.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: We'll try to keep up with your journey. It's quite
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: an interesting path you've taken, so all the best to
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: you and to the best fans on the planet. We
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: really appreciate all the cards and letters from coming and
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: remember where you lead.
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  Speaker 3: We will follow. Stay safe everyone, Hey, everybody, don't forget
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Follow us on Instagram at I Am all In podcast
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: and email us at Gilmore at iHeartRadio dot com.