Soft egg, Batch 03 -
The smoke finds the yolk. The chili crisp itself is sweet and add many textures to the egg.
Soft egg, Batch 04 -
Sesame first. Then warmth. Then a memory you didn‘t know you had.
We had introduced the top, heart, dry down note in the last post.
This is what I call an encounter note, the moment two things meet and become something neither was before.
The chili oil born in New York. 🌶️
Sat down with @marieclairetw on slowing living.
I first came to New York for work in 2016. By 2019, I decided to stay.
This city teaches you speed by default. The ambition, the responsiveness, and the constant movement. They said, If you can survive here, you can survive anywhere.
But over time, I survived and then I was looking for a way ….to live!
For me, slow living isn’t about doing less. It’s about returning to sensation through food, space, friendships, and time.
Cooking, hosting, planting, listening.
Creating moments where people can relax, talk freely, and be themselves. That’s when hospitality became more than a gesture. It became a language of care and a practice of unconditional love.
I’ve added the recipe for Miso Caramelized Pork Neck - link in the bio.
This year, please be my guest in the @the5house_ .
More to come x
Special thanks to
Photos by @zwr_____
PA @sungyoonlim
Editor @skychen
Word by @chalyhs@julianacala & @ricardo__johnson for coming!
Most people ask how spicy. I ask what‘s the dry down. 🌶️
Three batches. Three directions.
This is what I found:
Batch 02 — cranberry and hint of tea open first.
Mild heat. Fruit acid cuts through fat. The dish becomes three-dimensional.
Batch 03 — dark chocolate. Longan(龍眼). Smoke.
Five minutes after the plate is gone, it’s still there. Smoke arrives last. It stays the longest.
Batch 04 — roasted sesame. Hojicha warmth. Popcorn Chicken (!!)
The moment it hits…you‘re back at the night market in Asia, 11pm, the oil still sizzling.
Chili oil has always been tasted.
Never this way.
📍 Made in New York By Yours Truly.
Comment below and let me know which batch you’d like to try!
Quick busy-Monday lunch: Spicy Tofu Salad 🌶️
Monday mornings are the most important part of my week.
Workout schedule, earnings reports, portfolio check, weekly intention. I go through everything one by one, and there's something quietly grounding about that ritual. But by the time it's all done, my stomach has already been growling for a while, and somehow it's past lunch.
I don't want to break the flow. So I need something fast, no-brainer, but actually filling, something I can eat and immediately get back to my desk.
I’ve been fermenting at home for years. Kimchi and hot sauce are my favorite things to make in the summer.
This summer, I’m hosting a fermentation salon (!) on my patio.
Small group. Seasonal ingredients. You take home what you make.
Bring your jar (1L). Bring a bottle of wine or tea. Let’s ferment, sip, exchange ideas :)
5/10 Vol. 01: Ramps. Cabbage. Daikon.
DM us to join! Booking available by 5/9 4:30 pm EST. 📮
New American cuisine was built on convergence. So was this salad.
Growing up, acid was the whole point, kimchi, lime, the kind of heat that sticks around. So when I make a burrata salad, I don’t reach for more olive oil. I reach for my chili oil. Grapefruit for bitterness. Blood orange because sweet alone is kinda boring.
This dish doesn’t ask for your passport. It asks what your most familiar flavor does when it lands somewhere completely foreign.
Spicy Citrus Burrata Salad 🔗 recipe in bio.
Celine told me the one dish she‘d want on her last day on earth is dong po rou.
That felt like the only brief I needed.
The rest of the menu built itself around the people comingm everyone from somewhere different, so I wanted to cook something that felt like new American cuisine. Familiar, but with something slightly off. The kind of thing that makes you pause mid-bite and go wait, what is that.
The burrata and fennel salad is a good example, classic combo, until you hit the citrus chili oil. Then it’s something else entirely.
Almost every dish had my chili oil or chili blend in it. That‘s just my mother tongue at this point.
🗒️ April menu:
Dong po rou
Burrata & fennel salad with citrus chili dressing
Flounder crudo, yuzu dashi, herb oil Roasted
quail, passionfruit tomato butter sauce (curry leaves, lapsang souchong… just trust me)
Confit duck larb
Potato pavé
Recipes in this video will be sharing soon. 🌶️
@celine.dussaud told me the one dish she'd want on her last day on earth is dong po rou.
That felt like the only brief I needed. The rest of the menu built itself around the people coming, everyone from somewhere different, so I wanted to cook something that felt like new American cuisine. Familiar, but with something slightly off. The kind of thing that makes you pause mid-bite and go wait, what is that.
The burrata and fennel salad is a good example, classic combo, until you hit the citrus chili oil. Then it's something else entirely.
Almost every dish had my chili oil or chili blend in it. That's just my mother tongue at this point.
🗒️ April menu:
Dong po rou
Burrata & fennel salad with citrus chili dressing
Flounder crudo, yuzu dashi, herb oil
Roasted quail, passionfruit tomato butter sauce (curry leaves, lapsang souchong… just trust me)
Confit duck larb
Potato pavé
Recipes in this post will be sharing soon! 🌶️
Gluten-Free Don Po Rou 東坡肉 (Braised Pork Belly)
Gluten-free doesn’t mean you miss anything.
The spice blend is homemade. The soy paste is homemade. The only thing you can’t make yourself is time.
Three hours. That’s it. The pork melts in your mouth, rich but doesn’t knock you out. No gamey smell, no greasiness. Honestly, the hardest thing to get right with pork belly.
I always think texture is what separates a home cook from a restaurant. This recipe is how you close that gap.
Try it. Play restaurant at home.
Full recipe link in bio.🥢 share it with your friends who need this recipe!
酸湯米線 Spicy Sour Rice Noodles Soup
People always ask why I use Mexican chilies, Ancho, and Pasilla in my chili oil going into a Yunnan recipe. The more I cook, the more I think these two places are basically the same. Both border cultures. Both know acid is a backbone. This bowl is what happens when you stop rushing and let two things find each other.
Recipe in the video. Written Recipe in Comment. 🌶️
Turns out ”farm to table“ is not just a menu category. I went to an actual farm, picked things with my actual hands, and ate a tomato that was still warm from the sun. It had a hint of passion fruit. A TOMATO. Apparently fresh tomatoes have aromatic compounds that cold storage suppresses, and once damaged, they don‘t fully come back. So the tomato you know from the grocery store has probably never tasted like itself!
Directed & Written by Silver Chang @silverchang_
DoP & Editor Leo Hsu @bodycook
Trip with @_groundcycle
Full video link in bio📽️
Last weekend we did our second chili oil tasting.
Guests from New York, Israel, and Seoul, everyone hit the spoon differently. The back of our menu is where guest write down their tasting notes, we kept all of them carefully.
@lulala.nyc popped up with Taiwanese braised goods, bringing the soul of Taiwanese night markets straight to Brooklyn.
Join our next chili oil tasting night. Link in bio. 🌶️
