September 1, 2020 • 36 mins
Iron Chef Judy Joo left a booming career on Wall Street to pursue her passion for Korean food. As one of just a handful of female Korean-American chefs in a male dominated industry, Judy talks about her stint as Executive Chef at the Playboy Club and her career as a successful food media personality, global restauranteur and author of "Korean Food Made Simple" and "Judy Joo's Korean Soul Food."
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
I've always loved Korean food always. It's my comfort food.
I've always been extremely proud to be Korean. And I've
never had this like chip on my shoulder wishing I
was like Chinese or Japanese or something, you know what
I mean. I've I've always been extremely proud of our
rich culture, rich heritage and and the colors of a Korea.
And I've I've loved the food ever since, you know,
since I was little, and to this day, it's it's
(00:24):
food that I I gravitate towards, you know. So it's
having a deep passion for it. And I always felt
to that Korean food was the unsung hero, and I
wanted it to be in the spotlight. Welcome to get
down with kay Town. I'm your host Esther CHOI. Today's
guest has been a long time mentor, colleague and someone
who I have admired so much. Judy Do Hello, everyone,
(00:48):
Welcome to the show. Thank you, okay. So, Judy is
like the female Korean celebrity chef. Um She's the first
female Iron Chef of the UK. And I actually met
Judy on the set of Iron Chef America because she
was a regular guest on the show. But Judy, you
probably don't remember seeing me at all because this was
(01:09):
like back in the day. I was an intern and
you were too busy eating and judging all of the
wonderful suits the chefs were cooking up. And from what
I remember, you were a pretty tough judge. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
you have to be always. It's a tough show, you know. So.
Judy also hosted several Korean cooking shows on the Food
(01:29):
Network and has written countless cookbooks, all specializing in Korean cooking.
Everyone check out our newest and latest cookbook, Korean Soul Food.
By the way, you still owe me a signed copy.
Oh my gosh, I have. I'll have that sent to
you immediately. Awesome. I can't wait. Okay, so this isn't
all because Koreans are such overachievers. She also opened several
(01:49):
modern Korean restaurants, chin Ju, with locations all over the world,
including London and Hong Kong, which you recently left. So
you can move on to newer projects, which we can
talk about later. Judy, welcome to the show again. Thank you.
I'm so happy to be here and everything. Yeah, and
I'm I'm honored to be your mentor I mean, are
(02:11):
you seriously every time something I'm like, I gotta ask Judy, Yeah,
of course, of course. Yeah. I'm so glad that I
am your your person that you turned to and shoulder
to cry on too, and whatever and give you guidance
and light through this, you know, and navigating this industry
is extremely difficult as as we know, particularly as a
(02:32):
minority female, and so all the help that we can
give to each other I think is really really paramount
because there's not many of us. Know, they're like five
of us exactly, which is not fewer, I guess, which
is like the first topic I want to talk to
you about, Like being a Korean female chef in this industry,
there's only five of us. You know why. Well, I
think it's it's hard being female in this industry. It's
(02:54):
it's hard to you know, survive in in in the industry.
You have to have a really kind of you know,
formidable spirit, you know, because you get knocked down so much,
you get rejected so much. It's so hard. There's nothing
easy about it, you know, I mean, and you just
have to kind of just just keep plowing through it.
So it's difficult. And also it's even more difficult because
it's not you know, that high pain. The monitor rewards
(03:16):
are not that lucrative, you know, and also the stigma
thing for our generation also like my parents were not
supportive at all, you know, and so kind of yeah,
so kind of like going against the grain and rebelling
against your parents and telling your parents like basically a
few I'm going to do what I want to do,
Like you can't troll my life is part of it too.
Where are they're always staring you towards like, you know,
(03:36):
being a doctor, being a lawyer, being an engineer, like
the more stable things and things that they can brag about,
you know. So but backtracking, you haven't started with being
a chef that I didn't because you've done the like
Korean parent, you have to do this thing and you
have done that thing. Can you talk about that? So?
I was, you know, a good daughter. I had a
very typical tiger upbringing. You know, I had three piano
(03:59):
lessons a week. I mean, my parents are crazy, you know.
I had dictation, which is like SOULFA, had ear training,
which is completely stressful and scary, and like, please don't
ever put your kids through SOULFA and and air training
because it's just it's like painful. Then I had like
competition lessons, and then I had fundamental lessons, Like so
I was literally changed to the piano and I hated it,
And to this day, I can't sit in front of
(04:19):
one without like ships going down my back and I
can't play at all. So it did nothing. Wait so
you can't play piano. I can't play piano. But if
it did teach me like dedication and hard work and
practice and not giving up, etcetera. Um, so I had
a tiger parent upbringing. Um, the scientist is really all
I knew because my dad was a physician, my mom
was a chemist. And so I went to engineering school
just because I didn't know that there was anything else
out there and not knowing how damn hard it was
(04:41):
gonna be. And like when I got to school, I
was like, oh my god, I am the most stupid
person here. I cannot know it's true because you know
it's true, like going from because I think everybody feels
this when like when you go from like high school
and you're kind of like top of the class because
you study here, and then all of sudden you go
to like an Ivy League school and all a sudden
you're like, wow, I'm a dumbass. Like here, you know
what I mean not to say this, but you're from
(05:02):
Jersey and you went from a girl Jersey girl, say yeah,
small town. I was born in Summit. I lived at
Berkeley Heights, went to school in Summit, and then um,
you graduate top of your cloths and then go to
like Columbia University and you're like, well, everybody is smart,
everybody's top of the class, and you're like deer in
headlights and like I can't hack this. But I stuck
with engineering, and then I went into finance. Um, because
(05:25):
back then, you know, I'm dating myself. It was like
Wolf of Wall Street days, you know, and you know,
it's like leaving Brothers is still open, Solomon was still open. Barrassers.
I mean, it was like money was growing on trees
and so it was a lot of fun. Everybody went
into finance and then I kind of just became just
disenchanted with it. What just wasn't for me. And then
after five years of doing that, I kind of had
this epiphany. I was like, you know, I don't like this,
(05:46):
Like life is too short to live My parents dream
for me, you know, and I was like, I want
to do what I want to do. So I quit
and I enrolled in cooking school here in New York
at the French Culinary Institute. And I didn't know. You
went to looking school here in New York at the
f CI, And I actually went to pastry school. So
I have a pastry degree. Oh I didn't know. Yeah,
I'm a pastry chef. So that's actually my my my
(06:08):
forte because I have that strong science background. I really
enjoy the science part part of the kitchen. And then, um, yeah,
the rest is history. But I first started working in
food media, so I was just working for magazines writing.
I worked at sever magazine for Coleman Andrews for a
long time during the recipe development and working in their
test kitchen. And I also worked on the editorial side.
I worked at Time Out magazine writing restaurant reviews. Um,
(06:30):
you know, all kinds of stuff like that. Media training
was always the beginning of your Yeah, it was like
but very much like behind the scenes, you know. But
but you've also cooked at some of the most prestigious restaurants. All. Yeah,
I've done stadges. Yeah, you've done stages. I think at
one point you were the executive chef at the Playboy Mansion,
Playboy Club, at the Playboy Club. Yeah, okay, we got
(06:51):
to talk about that for a hot second. That was
so much fun, And I thought long and hard about
that because it's a weird appointment, you know. I was like,
do I want to work for Playboy because I am deaf,
a feminist, I'm all about like female rights, and but
you're also very fun and you liked the party definitely,
and so the fun factor is what got me kind
of to sign on. And also, like I did a
(07:11):
lot of research on the company. You know, it's one
of the few super brands of the world. One of
the recognizable icons. You know, it's like Coca Cola, Disney Playboy,
like that little Bunny is worldwide recognizable. Doesn't matter if
you're in Africa, in the middle of Molly or whatever,
they know what it is in middle of China. It
is one of the superbrands. And I think they're only
like four or five or something like that. So it's
it is. Is it a massive brand? For you have
(07:33):
to to have built that in one generation is pretty incredible,
And you've really wanted to kind of experience like working
for an American company, um kind of relaunching it in
it's nineteen sixties glamour where it's like you know, mad
Men Eras like kind of it was very elegant, very
very kind of retro vintage, you know, I had that
glamour to it, and also within the company like also
(07:54):
these like small facts that that that nobody knows, like
you know, you Haven was actually the first person to
ever put in an African American model on the cover
of his magazine ever know, very cutting and very cutting edge.
He's the first person his company to give gays like
full rights, employee rights, etcetera. So he's always been a
champion for equal rights for everything. So he was always ahead,
always ahead, always ahead. And that's what you really like
(08:15):
that exactly exactly. And also it's ridiculously fun. Can you
give one story? There's so many stories. I mean, I
don't know how how this is going to come across,
but like I you know, just having been forced to
study so hard, like I didn't come from like a
super privilege upbringing, like my father was in North Korean
war refugee and they just dumped everything into our education.
So we didn't have nice shoes, nice cars, and I
clothes and everything, but everything went into our education. So
(08:38):
I went to good schools. And because of that, you know,
when you go to these schools, your your friendship based
tends to stay within that top percentile, which isn't necessarily good,
you know what I mean. So when I when I
started working at a playboy, I never really kind of
like had such good friends with people who had no
interest in studying, like no interest in going to school,
(09:00):
Like what we're the common interests then, because there were
the bunnies, you know what I mean, Like they just
wanted to find a husband, get married, be a playmate,
like they actually the ultimate goal was to be a playmate.
Everybody wanted to be discovered and to be the centerfold
of play woman. And that was just such a foreign
goal for me, Like I just didn't know anybody that
(09:20):
wanted to pose naked as a lifetime but you know
what I mean, And not to say that's anything bad,
you know, it was interesting for you. It was different
because I had always been taught like study, study, study, study,
play the piano, play the flute, you know, you have
to achieve and everything. I never even thought that like
that was considered like a career path. It was really
good for me, and in the sense because like I
(09:40):
had never really become good good friends with people who
had such different types of goals and aspirations than I did,
you know, because I've always been surrounded by people who, like,
you have to go to college, you mean, like you're
gonna get youse. Yeah, that's exactly, And like you freaking
like if I came home with like a tattoo or
a you're just like, you know what I mean, let
(10:02):
alone post naked that I have a Tattoo's totally I
don't want them to know ever exactly, So let alone
like it being like your goal to be a bunny
or a playmate? Is this completely like not even within
the cultural like language, you know. So that was interesting,
you know, and and so but I really kind of
opened my because I was like there because like before
(10:23):
I might have like Popoda, have been snobby about it,
but it's you really can't because not everybody is born
you know, beautiful or smart or skinny or fat or whatever,
you know what I mean. So you're born as you
were born, and you have to use whatever assets that
you were given and try to make it in this
crazy world anyway you can. So this is kind of
like what you learned working at yeah, you know, and
(10:46):
so amazing. It's great. And then like you know, like
so I tell like a couple of cute stories. Okay,
Like there was one bunny. She's just beautiful but like
you know, like and they hardly go to school, you
know what I mean. And so she was talking to
one of the customers and she was and he was,
you know, telling her how we spoke like ten languages, right,
(11:07):
and she was like, no that, no, you don't whatever.
And he's like, yeah I do. And she's like, no,
you're you're you're you're you're lying to me. You can't
speak ten languages, Like yeah I do. He's like why not.
She's like, because they're only three languages out there. Oh
my god. Yeah, Like this is like the level man
(11:28):
kind of cute. It's like charming but charming and Larius.
And then that was another bunny. Oh I love her
to death, Like they just don't know the world, you
know what I mean. And so she was new was
her first day, and all my shots are flirting with
her because she was beautiful, like super super super hot.
She comes in and she's asking questions about me, and
they're like, yeah, you know, Judy's this, and she's that whatever,
and you know she's Korean and she tilts her head
(11:49):
and she's like Korean, what's that? You know? And then
he's like, oh, you know, like she's from Korea. Like
Nick here, he's Malaysian because he's from Malaysia. And she
looks at him and she's like, mal Asia. Isn't that
what Cheryl Cole had when she got sick? Oh my god,
it's malarias Like stories like this all the time, and
(12:11):
you're just like, yeah. But some of them were brilliant.
Some of them were actually trying to get through, you know,
a master's degrees or PhD. So some of them, so
there was like a wide spectrum of bunnies, you know
what I mean. Some of them were you know, very smart,
very put together, you know, etcetera. But some of them
were not, you know, like I didn't want to study,
didn't you know, like we're not but very street smart.
Oh my gosh, I have never seen women talk their
(12:33):
way into you know, meals or whatever you gotta use whatever. Yeah,
and good for them. So which kind of like, as
a female in a very male dominated industry, you have
to do that. Like, let's be real, there have been many,
many times that we both have used our assets. Exactly.
(12:57):
It's just like a smile, you know what I mean,
whatever you need to do, yeah, to get it done right. Well,
not anything, but like there's a very there's a very
firm line in the sound what is appropriate, what is
not appropriate? Definitely a yeah, when it was a turning
(13:21):
point for you to like want to represent Korean food
as a chad because obviously, you know, when you were
first starting out, you were dodging, you were doing different jobs,
but it was never focused on Korean food or Korean culture.
But I think at one point, you know, definitely they
are focused on Yeah. So, Um, I've always loved Korean
food always, It's my comfort food. I've always been extremely
(13:43):
proud to be Korean. And um, I've never had this
like chip on my shoulder wishing I was like Chinese
or Japanese or something, you know what I mean. I've
I've always been extremely proud of of our of our
rich culture, of rich heritage, and and and then the
colors of Korea, and I've i've loved the food ever since,
you know, since I was little, and to this day,
it's it's food that I I gravitate towards, you know,
(14:04):
so it's having a deep passion for it. And I
always felt that Korean food was the unsung hero, and
I wanted it to be in the spotlight. And it
bothered me that there was no cool Korean restaurant that
I could take my friends to or my business colleagues,
you know, from banking to that you know, had great cocktails,
a good bar, they could get a good martini, you know,
a great champagne, a great wine list. You know, it
(14:26):
didn't exist, you know, like fluorescent lighting, rough gruff waiters,
Like a cool, elegant Korean restaurant did not exist. And
this was back back in like ten years ago. You
cannot find a cool Korean restaurant like the nobu types
of the world. And this was when you were still
living in New York. In New York and going back
and forth with London, didn't even know know what Korean
food was like, like, let let alone have a cool
(14:49):
Korean restaurant. But even in New York, and I kept
like beating down the door of food. Now work et cetera. Whatever,
And um, finally you know, got Korean Food made Simple
on the on the air for for two seasons and
then a book wrapped around it, and so that kind
of was the start of it. So you saw definitely
that there was an opportunity to here. There's a massive opportunity.
(15:09):
The flavors are so incredibly delicious, and and I just
I just saw that the second that people get through
the door, they love it. It's just about getting them
through that threshold, you know, and over the hump to
experiment within and and and to try it. I just
love waving the Korean flag. It sounds cheesy, but like
that's what I wanted to do. And also with my restaurants,
(15:31):
like I was so adamant about everything in the design.
Everything had to be kremed. I'm like, no, that's Japanese. No,
that's Chinese. No, this is Korean. These are Korea as colors,
this is we're going to serve this, this is Korean, etcetera. Whatever.
And obviously, you know, Korea was occupied by Japan for
thirty five years, so there is some overlap with with
with Japan and China. There you know, we're we're between
two nations, you know, but there are things that are
(15:51):
uniquely Korean and are very cramped, and I wanted to
showcase that, and that I did like with through through texture,
color design, obviously with my food offering, the beverage offering,
et cetera, to show everybody how cool Korean food and
Korean culture is. Yeah, and and also with my show
Korean Foodmates Made Simple. So your restaurants came after your
(16:13):
show and your books, right, yes, did you have like
a turning point or did it just kind of naturally?
It kind of naturally came because I was like, what
do I love? Because food is all about passion, you
know what I mean, Like what do I love? What
do I know? What? What? What? What runs through my veins?
And that's Kim chiming cheek totally, you know, Like I
(16:34):
smell like Kim ch exactly, you know. And if I'm
going to do this, if I'm gonna downgrade my life
like in every way possible from you know, high flying
Wall Street job to do cooking and do and do
this interesting, I gotta do something that I absolutely love
and feel and I breathe, sleep and eat and and
it runs through me. And that's and that's Korean food
and Korean culture. So when you see Korean cuisine being represented,
(16:58):
now what you're feeling about it because obviously we came
a long way, and you were one of the pioneers.
You were one of the first. I think it's great.
I love the fact that now I can go to
literally a restaurant in the middle of nowhere and they
have something Korean on the menu, like even t g
I fried. Yeah, exactly, exactly exactly, you know, and they
have like Korean fried chicken wings or you know, like
(17:19):
kim chi mac and cheese or or something like this.
You know, it is amazing. I love it, yeah, because
because then it just like opens the gateway for more
chefs and more restaurants and more TV shows and more
media and more awareness of Korean culture in general, and
and create such a small country, you know, tiny, it's tiny,
you know, and and it deserves too, you know, because
(17:41):
Italy is a small country too. And let look at
Italian food, you know, I'm saying, you know, Greek food
or Spanish food or Scutch or whatever, you know, like
create Korean food is definitely one of the major players
in the world because it's just like that good. It's
so good, it totally is. Yeah, you have not worked
under any Korean chefs though, or Korean restaurants. You were
not like trained in Crean cuisine at all, So like,
(18:03):
how did you learn and navigate your way to being
this professional in Korean food? You know a lot of
it comes from my mother and my aunt. Yeah, so
every single time I go back to Korea, I'm picking
up you know, like recipes, techniques, ingredients, etcetera. You know
a lot of it is research on my own, I guess.
On on the Crean side, I'm self taught, but I
(18:25):
think it's really about flavor and educating your palate because
we grew up, we lived it our entire lives, So like,
you know how something is supposed to taste? Yeah, exactly right, exactly,
So you just kind of keep because I didn't have
any former training in Korean food either, but it was
just this is what my grandma made. For example, my
(18:45):
grandma would you know, cook for me? Obviously, growing up
in her food was all I knew, and I don't
necessarily know how she made this type of this dish,
but when I cook it, it tastes exactly like hers, right, exactly.
So it's really I think it's about taste palette. Palette, Yeah,
it really is, you know. And a lot of that
also comes from like sourcing the right kind of ingredients,
(19:07):
you know what I mean, like the like the right
soy sauce, like the right which you're join, the right
tin tongue, you know what I mean. But I think
it's coming up with that type of flavor. And and
also your palette also comes into and and and particularly
in my case when I when I'm cooking for an
audience that isn't necessarily so familiar with the funkiness of
crean flavors, to tone it down a bit, you know,
(19:27):
So in you're introducing people, right exentially, and I I'm
running a business at the end of the day, I
had to be commercial, you know. I mean, I Am
not going to try to sell something that doesn't sell
and nobody wants to eat, you know what I mean.
So like, if something doesn't sell, I take it off
the menu, you know what I mean. I'm replaced with
something that will. You know, if people think that generally
this is way too spicy, I'm going to tone that
on the spice, you know, because I have to make
(19:48):
money and survive, you know what I mean. And so
whereas in my Hong Kong restaurant, I could afford to
be a lot funkier, a lot more quote unquote authentic.
You know, I could put things like on the menu
and they would sell. Whereas I try to put we
did take on the menu in London, Nobody understood it, No,
nobody got it, you know. It means so yeah, so
you have to tailor for your audience and exactly your
restaurants are obviously a gateway for people to understand Korean food,
(20:11):
and and my number one sellers were obviously like the
creamfied Chicken, my Booglegee Burger and beat them pop. I mean,
there's nothing to be a shamed that those things are amazing.
It's it's so delicious. And also it's like I just
want to introduce Korean flavors to people around the world.
It doesn't have to be a PC authenticic, you know
what I mean, like if and some of my most
(20:32):
rewarding like tweets or whatever are from people in like
Kansas who have seen my show and who don't have
the writing greenness or anything, but you know what, like
they made like the crab fritters, you know, like ton
you know, and like and I'm like, oh my god,
that's awesome. And it's a picture like, you know, like
an African American guy with his son like eating John
in Kansas, and I'm like, that is awesome. You know,
(20:52):
it's like what what you love? And that's that's what
I do it for, you know what I mean. And
so now they've tasted a little bit of cream food,
you know, and that's that's that's what gets to me,
you know, that's that's the goal is to globalized cream food.
That way, speaking of globalizing cream food, I think once
(21:20):
you called yourself a citizen of the world, I still remember. Yeah,
I'm like I've always been so not only envious watching
you do this in all different countries. Can you talk
about that a little bit because obviously doing it in
New York or l A that's easy, but doing it
worldwide very hard. How has that expect Like you like
went to like Nevus and he's like cream food and
(21:43):
my Nevus Like that's so random, and how do the
people respond. So I've cooked all over the world. I'm
about to u to do something in Switzerland and we're
looking at um what they can and cannot get as well.
You know, tel Aviv was very challenging also to get
ingredients Nevus on the small island is very challenging. But generally,
you know, people love it, love it. But I also
(22:05):
choose wisely, you know, I'm not like you're not gonna
you know, stuff like that, you know, like like super
spicy like seafood soup, like a whole octopus inside. It's
like scared people. I always describe that soup as like
like the ocean threw up into a bowl of spicy broth,
and because everything is whole, you know, like you literally
(22:27):
pick out an entire whole octopus and everything. But in Nivas,
like everybody loves it because I made like mango kimchi,
you know, and they have a tradition of spice on
island because they love hot sauce and they're making their
own hot sauces and so they love chili. So did
you make the kimchi with like mango mango and you
bought like fish sauce over or like no, so yeah yeah,
yeah yeah definitely, so so we we we bring everything over.
(22:49):
So I've done like both like musan cha with like
creen mango, you know, say like kind of like punch
on slash kimchi, but like like with with with vinegar
as well as like kimchi, but just a very fresh
kim chie that we bring everything and and and toss it. Um.
You know, it's not it's because we're only there for
like a week. We don't like fermented too long. But
it's so hot there it kind of gets um quicker.
(23:11):
But it's it's when it ferments too quickly, gets a
little bit sour. But that's okay, you know, for for
the purposes here. But but I've done everything from like
different types of mango kimchie too, like um, I mean
koream food. I feel like cream flavors are very adaptable,
like totally you can make like kim chi out of anything,
you really think. Absolutely, it just has to sound up
to the fermentation processing exactly. Yeah. And even like like
(23:33):
I was making sumjong and I and I chopped up
mango into the sumjong for the for the sweetness and
gave it a bit of texture, you know, and and
some of the local nuts like walnuts and stuff like that,
I mix it in. And so I was just like
you always ask like what they have locally, you know,
because Korean food is very versatile. It's like you can
add like jung to anything and it'll taste not amazing. Yeah,
and I was using mangoes to marinate the meat also
(23:56):
asks as a tenderizer, you know, for the kind of
by so us. So that's easy. Um. And and Tel
Aviv people loved it because they also love pickles there,
and plus they also have you know, they like spice
as well and chilies and things, and so it went
down extremely well. Yeah. So you find that people all
over the world are like wanting these flavors, love the
(24:17):
flavors kim Cheese hit or miss what what I've seen,
because some people just are so turned off by the smell.
But these are the same people who don't like go cheese,
who don't like blue cheese, who don't like you know,
a plus or something, you know what I mean. But
people like who don't like strong, funky flavors, like they're
not gonna like Kim chie, you know what I mean. Um,
But I mean it's you. Your palette still has to become, yeah,
(24:39):
definitely accustomed to funkiness exactly. That's exactly. It's a lot
of yeah, but there's also a lot of non funky
things like people love the dumplings, they love chop to noodles,
they love you know, the cream barbecue, all of that stuff.
So you've had an amazing career obviously trying trying, future
of amazing that's happening. I don't know, I'll see what
(25:00):
what is your next move? Like, what's your next um step? Yeah,
I'm opening up a fast casual concept based around my
Korean Fried chicken in February March time and um one
of the Westfield malls in London and Shepherd's Bush that's
on the calendar. Are there any Korean fried chicken chains
in London? Right? There's some small ones, but the big
franchises haven't hit London yet so or Europe in general,
(25:23):
they haven't. Yeah, Crean Food is still very much up
and coming. Yeah, And it's just it just maddens me
because like when I opened up my Jingu like five
years ago, like the top food critics where it's their
full time job to review restaurants, like they were comparing
made to Thai restaurants by name, it's so ignorant. It's
still like very so ignorant. Arrogant um. I just I mean,
(25:44):
like you cannot compare Korean food to Thai food not all. Yeah,
it's actually like it's like we speak different languages exactly.
It's totally and there's like and that's a tropical country.
There isn't even a shared flavor profile. So I got
in a lot of fights with the food critics. I mean,
that's pretty amazing concerning all of the globalization that's happening
(26:04):
around Korean culture, like k pop, in the Korean cultural phenomenon,
and people are still kind of a little bit ignorant
towards it. They're just like ignorant towards the cultural differences
in Asia in general. I find, you know, we still
have a way to go. Yeah, I mean I was
just talking to somebody in l A like last week,
and I was explaining to them how every country in
(26:25):
Asia pretty much has their own language, you know what
I mean. He was confused. Yeah, He's like, he's like,
I thought everybody spoke Mandarin. I'm like, well, the Taiwanese
will speak Mandarin, and Hong Kong people maybe speak Mandarin,
you know, but like Hong Kong, you know, people speak
Cantonese and and Taiwan has their own work. But I
was just trying to explain that, like Koreans don't speak
Mandarin like they have un you know, huncha with some
(26:45):
of the letters are used, and you know, of course
in Japanese they have kanji and stuff like that, but
it's a different alphabet. So he didn't know that. Yeah,
so we're still we're depending on you and no way
and we do this right exactly because there's so much
education that still needs to be done around. Definitely, definitely,
(27:09):
And I actually think that it's pretty incredible that Korea,
you know, maintains such a unique culture given its history.
Because you're so freaking awesome. Yeah, amazing exactly. So I
have a little bit of a surprise for you. So, Judy,
I brought your favorite and you know what, I'm not
going to make this for everybody, but I've made this
(27:30):
for you. I feel so special. Yeah, because I was like,
you know, and I made it this morning. You know,
oh my gosh, it's a little cold right now. Didn't
make your chefs make it. I usually do, but like
this one, it's you. I have to make it. Yeah.
I was like, oh my gosh, I love this. Um
do you not have so many memories of eating this?
Oh my god, so many memories. Can we talk about
(27:52):
your first memory or your fondest memory? Okay, first of all,
they served this on the street in Korea twenty four
hours a day, and they have to describe what is Okay,
so duck Booky is duck which is rice cakes and
they're like noki if anything. Always try to describe it
like super chewy. And they come in different shapes and
(28:14):
sizes and you can put them in soups and stews.
But I love it in this like kind of trashy
like streets that like you know snack where it's just
mixed with like a like a spicy sweet sauce but
it's mostly spicy. And they serve this all over the
place on the street in Korea. Actually they've been cleaning Korea,
but much everything is going sad. I know, are gone right?
(28:37):
It does it? It's really hard to find one. Yeah,
you cannot find street sells anymore. But when I used
to go in my in my youth, um, they used
to serve du Booky like they have it going like
for hours and hours and they just give you like
a plate that's been covered with like a plastic bag
and they spoon it in and there's nothing in it
other than the rice cakes and the sauce and toothpicks.
(28:58):
Tooth picks and you just each one like the style,
and it's like less than a dollar, less than a dollar. Good.
See you hear that that That chewiness is what makes
this so appealing, right, I love it so addictive. I'm
sorry that this has been like kind of sitting. So
Ramen noodles happen like it's so good, then you have
(29:21):
to have it with the noodles. See, this is Robb
So this is a newer invention. And now they're doing
like with cheese, and there's stuffing the duck with cheese.
You know, there's so many different types of duck now
and I know you specifically wrote ramen notice which I brought,
but now it's gotten. They're so good, yeah, but the
flavors are still like very they're so good, like street style.
(29:43):
I love it. So what's your favorite or what's your
first memory of duck? Bookie? So m mmmm mmmmmmm cheating
you made this for yourself to girl, Okay, so like
half of it it's like still all my solf top
was not gonna eat it later for dinner. So I
(30:04):
don't know if you noticed, Judy, but I lived in
Korea from third grade of sixth grade, and my parents
put me in Korean school like in the nineties, so
like I went to Korean school, like Korean Krean school,
not school. So that's why your Krean is so good.
That's why my Koreans pretty perfect because my parents purposely
(30:24):
did this because they wanted me to like really kind
of like learn about the culture, learn the language, and
learn how to you know, be a real Korean, which
was terrifying because I didn't speak a lick of Korean
when I first got there, so um. Yeah. But in
the third grade, I remember the kids they brought me
to this like hole in the wall like Korean chip
(30:47):
punch chip meaning like I guess crane street food, and
she and they kind of intuned to me to like
that style of duki, and I remember eating it for
the first time and it was just so spicy, and
I was just like, what is this? But it was
so addicted. Now yeah, I'm addicted. Now I've never like
really liked it that much because I just thought that
(31:11):
it was just like that it was so like you said,
it's very dense. So I thought it was just like
it's really filling without like having much anything. But now
I learned to really appreciate it and love it. It's
a very starchy, you know what I mean. I mean
it's full of carbs. It's just like carb carp carp,
you know. And actually it's all like white carbs and
like nonnutritious carbs and super msg and and the mooding
(31:33):
and this is so good. Molding is fish cake, fish
cake and it's like these like we it kind of
looks like a flat noodle but it's fishing. Its gross,
but it's good. It's so good. And well it has
so much EMISSI in it. Let's be real. But that's
it's so good, so good. And this is another late
night snack too, that they just have on skewer. It's
(31:54):
just like in that like water, like seafood molding, fishy water.
I mean, it's like street me, you know what. And
those of you who have never tried to bookie, that's
insane that you haven't. Um, you must go look for
it or if you can't find it anywhere, you have
to like learn to you just make it. It's so
(32:14):
easy to make you can you can find it. And
most Carean restaurants will have a version of Duck book.
But if there's no Crean restaurants where, yeah, then you
have to buy my book Korean Food Made Simple. Yeah,
I'm sure you have an amazing Actually I have duck
booking in both books of my new one and and
and my my first one. Yeah. I feel like this
(32:36):
is like a very classic Koreans. I have not met
one person that does not like the Bookie. It's like sweet,
it's it's spicy, it's got noodles, I mean, has everything,
and I mean and a lot of times like you
put dumplings in it, but put like different kinds of
noodles or have like you know, beef in it, like spam,
all different kinds of what's your favorite version? Mm hmm.
(33:00):
How's to have the noodles? Have? How to have the
the raw buki um any any protein? And you like
meat in your No, I'm too old, m Golding. And
you know what I love, I really love like the
egg yolk and like mashing it into the sauce. Then
that's always been like my favorite part of so so good, right,
(33:24):
it's so tasty. Yeah, with these little rice cakes, Oh
so tasty. And it's just like the texture of it.
M m mmm mm hmm. And I know all of
y'all are solivating right now, So go make yourself some
duck booky by Juty's book ye, or go to Esther's restaurant.
And how do you have it on your menu? Here's
(33:45):
the thing, Chelsea Market, I had it on the menu there.
Didn't really sell that much as much as like, you know,
man do like dumplings or the other very typical I
speak that Chelsea Mark is very commercial, so people didn't
know rice cakes are Yeah, yeah, they're it's all tourists, yeah, exactly,
get like dumplings and barbecue. But um, I do have
(34:08):
it on my menu in Brooklyn, and I refused to
take it off. And actually when people first tried, boy like,
they get so obsessed with it. They become regulars and
they order it all the time. And that's like the
one dish that they can't forget. What do you put
in your on that one? The one that I do
in Brooklyn. It's like saltat in brown butter, so it's
kind of crispy, and then some bacon and pork and
(34:28):
then we top it with white kimchi, some scallions, a
poached egg. So it's like a modern version. But I
feel like I like, I like textures a lot, and
I like that crispinus. Yeah totally. Well, I mean like
I all my food is modern cream food. Like my
parents would come to my restaurant like where's the Korean food?
Like they literally was like what is this is totally
(34:52):
this is not what I taught you exactly Like my
parents like actually didn't like yeah, They're like what's going on?
So like when my parents or my family comes to
my restaurants, I have to do like off menu like
cream Korea because they don't get it. They don't get it,
don't get at all. Judy, I'm so happy that you
were one of my first guests on the show. I
(35:15):
need this for you, you know, thank you. It's all
it is. That's what food is. It's a language of love.
It is Korea style. Judy, how can we find you?
You can find me on social media Instagram, Twitter, and
Facebook at Judy ju Chef j U d Y j
o o Chef, and you can also find my two
books on any online retailer like Amazon. First one is
(35:38):
called Korean Food Made Simple and the next is called
Judy Jews Korean Soul Food. Thank you and that's our show.
Thanks for listening. If you like what you heard, please
subscribe and leave us a five star review. Get Down
with Kaytown is a production of I Heart Radio and
was created by our executive producer Christopher Hasiodes and me
as the CHOI follow me on also show media at
(36:00):
toy Bites and I'd also like to thank our producer,
editor and mixer Marcie to Peina. For more podcasts from
I Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
I've always loved Korean food always. It's my comfort food.
I've always been extremely proud to be Korean. And I've
never had this like chip on my shoulder wishing I
was like Chinese or Japanese or something, you know what
I mean. I've I've always been extremely proud of our
rich culture, rich heritage and and the colors of a Korea.
And I've I've loved the food ever since, you know,
since I was little, and to this day, it's it's
(00:24):
food that I I gravitate towards, you know. So it's
having a deep passion for it. And I always felt
to that Korean food was the unsung hero, and I
wanted it to be in the spotlight. Welcome to get
down with kay Town. I'm your host Esther CHOI. Today's
guest has been a long time mentor, colleague and someone
who I have admired so much. Judy Do Hello, everyone,
(00:48):
Welcome to the show. Thank you, okay. So, Judy is
like the female Korean celebrity chef. Um She's the first
female Iron Chef of the UK. And I actually met
Judy on the set of Iron Chef America because she
was a regular guest on the show. But Judy, you
probably don't remember seeing me at all because this was
(01:09):
like back in the day. I was an intern and
you were too busy eating and judging all of the
wonderful suits the chefs were cooking up. And from what
I remember, you were a pretty tough judge. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
you have to be always. It's a tough show, you know. So.
Judy also hosted several Korean cooking shows on the Food
(01:29):
Network and has written countless cookbooks, all specializing in Korean cooking.
Everyone check out our newest and latest cookbook, Korean Soul Food.
By the way, you still owe me a signed copy.
Oh my gosh, I have. I'll have that sent to
you immediately. Awesome. I can't wait. Okay, so this isn't
all because Koreans are such overachievers. She also opened several
(01:49):
modern Korean restaurants, chin Ju, with locations all over the world,
including London and Hong Kong, which you recently left. So
you can move on to newer projects, which we can
talk about later. Judy, welcome to the show again. Thank you.
I'm so happy to be here and everything. Yeah, and
I'm I'm honored to be your mentor I mean, are
(02:11):
you seriously every time something I'm like, I gotta ask Judy, Yeah,
of course, of course. Yeah. I'm so glad that I
am your your person that you turned to and shoulder
to cry on too, and whatever and give you guidance
and light through this, you know, and navigating this industry
is extremely difficult as as we know, particularly as a
(02:32):
minority female, and so all the help that we can
give to each other I think is really really paramount
because there's not many of us. Know, they're like five
of us exactly, which is not fewer, I guess, which
is like the first topic I want to talk to
you about, Like being a Korean female chef in this industry,
there's only five of us. You know why. Well, I
think it's it's hard being female in this industry. It's
(02:54):
it's hard to you know, survive in in in the industry.
You have to have a really kind of you know,
formidable spirit, you know, because you get knocked down so much,
you get rejected so much. It's so hard. There's nothing
easy about it, you know, I mean, and you just
have to kind of just just keep plowing through it.
So it's difficult. And also it's even more difficult because
it's not you know, that high pain. The monitor rewards
(03:16):
are not that lucrative, you know, and also the stigma
thing for our generation also like my parents were not
supportive at all, you know, and so kind of yeah,
so kind of like going against the grain and rebelling
against your parents and telling your parents like basically a
few I'm going to do what I want to do,
Like you can't troll my life is part of it too.
Where are they're always staring you towards like, you know,
(03:36):
being a doctor, being a lawyer, being an engineer, like
the more stable things and things that they can brag about,
you know. So but backtracking, you haven't started with being
a chef that I didn't because you've done the like
Korean parent, you have to do this thing and you
have done that thing. Can you talk about that? So?
I was, you know, a good daughter. I had a
very typical tiger upbringing. You know, I had three piano
(03:59):
lessons a week. I mean, my parents are crazy, you know.
I had dictation, which is like SOULFA, had ear training,
which is completely stressful and scary, and like, please don't
ever put your kids through SOULFA and and air training
because it's just it's like painful. Then I had like
competition lessons, and then I had fundamental lessons, Like so
I was literally changed to the piano and I hated it,
And to this day, I can't sit in front of
(04:19):
one without like ships going down my back and I
can't play at all. So it did nothing. Wait so
you can't play piano. I can't play piano. But if
it did teach me like dedication and hard work and
practice and not giving up, etcetera. Um, so I had
a tiger parent upbringing. Um, the scientist is really all
I knew because my dad was a physician, my mom
was a chemist. And so I went to engineering school
just because I didn't know that there was anything else
out there and not knowing how damn hard it was
(04:41):
gonna be. And like when I got to school, I
was like, oh my god, I am the most stupid
person here. I cannot know it's true because you know
it's true, like going from because I think everybody feels
this when like when you go from like high school
and you're kind of like top of the class because
you study here, and then all of sudden you go
to like an Ivy League school and all a sudden
you're like, wow, I'm a dumbass. Like here, you know
what I mean not to say this, but you're from
(05:02):
Jersey and you went from a girl Jersey girl, say yeah,
small town. I was born in Summit. I lived at
Berkeley Heights, went to school in Summit, and then um,
you graduate top of your cloths and then go to
like Columbia University and you're like, well, everybody is smart,
everybody's top of the class, and you're like deer in
headlights and like I can't hack this. But I stuck
with engineering, and then I went into finance. Um, because
(05:25):
back then, you know, I'm dating myself. It was like
Wolf of Wall Street days, you know, and you know,
it's like leaving Brothers is still open, Solomon was still open. Barrassers.
I mean, it was like money was growing on trees
and so it was a lot of fun. Everybody went
into finance and then I kind of just became just
disenchanted with it. What just wasn't for me. And then
after five years of doing that, I kind of had
this epiphany. I was like, you know, I don't like this,
(05:46):
Like life is too short to live My parents dream
for me, you know, and I was like, I want
to do what I want to do. So I quit
and I enrolled in cooking school here in New York
at the French Culinary Institute. And I didn't know. You
went to looking school here in New York at the
f CI, And I actually went to pastry school. So
I have a pastry degree. Oh I didn't know. Yeah,
I'm a pastry chef. So that's actually my my my
(06:08):
forte because I have that strong science background. I really
enjoy the science part part of the kitchen. And then, um, yeah,
the rest is history. But I first started working in
food media, so I was just working for magazines writing.
I worked at sever magazine for Coleman Andrews for a
long time during the recipe development and working in their
test kitchen. And I also worked on the editorial side.
I worked at Time Out magazine writing restaurant reviews. Um,
(06:30):
you know, all kinds of stuff like that. Media training
was always the beginning of your Yeah, it was like
but very much like behind the scenes, you know. But
but you've also cooked at some of the most prestigious restaurants. All. Yeah,
I've done stadges. Yeah, you've done stages. I think at
one point you were the executive chef at the Playboy Mansion,
Playboy Club, at the Playboy Club. Yeah, okay, we got
(06:51):
to talk about that for a hot second. That was
so much fun, And I thought long and hard about
that because it's a weird appointment, you know. I was like,
do I want to work for Playboy because I am deaf,
a feminist, I'm all about like female rights, and but
you're also very fun and you liked the party definitely,
and so the fun factor is what got me kind
of to sign on. And also, like I did a
(07:11):
lot of research on the company. You know, it's one
of the few super brands of the world. One of
the recognizable icons. You know, it's like Coca Cola, Disney Playboy,
like that little Bunny is worldwide recognizable. Doesn't matter if
you're in Africa, in the middle of Molly or whatever,
they know what it is in middle of China. It
is one of the superbrands. And I think they're only
like four or five or something like that. So it's
it is. Is it a massive brand? For you have
(07:33):
to to have built that in one generation is pretty incredible,
And you've really wanted to kind of experience like working
for an American company, um kind of relaunching it in
it's nineteen sixties glamour where it's like you know, mad
Men Eras like kind of it was very elegant, very
very kind of retro vintage, you know, I had that
glamour to it, and also within the company like also
(07:54):
these like small facts that that that nobody knows, like
you know, you Haven was actually the first person to
ever put in an African American model on the cover
of his magazine ever know, very cutting and very cutting edge.
He's the first person his company to give gays like
full rights, employee rights, etcetera. So he's always been a
champion for equal rights for everything. So he was always ahead,
always ahead, always ahead. And that's what you really like
(08:15):
that exactly exactly. And also it's ridiculously fun. Can you
give one story? There's so many stories. I mean, I
don't know how how this is going to come across,
but like I you know, just having been forced to
study so hard, like I didn't come from like a
super privilege upbringing, like my father was in North Korean
war refugee and they just dumped everything into our education.
So we didn't have nice shoes, nice cars, and I
clothes and everything, but everything went into our education. So
(08:38):
I went to good schools. And because of that, you know,
when you go to these schools, your your friendship based
tends to stay within that top percentile, which isn't necessarily good,
you know what I mean. So when I when I
started working at a playboy, I never really kind of
like had such good friends with people who had no
interest in studying, like no interest in going to school,
(09:00):
Like what we're the common interests then, because there were
the bunnies, you know what I mean, Like they just
wanted to find a husband, get married, be a playmate,
like they actually the ultimate goal was to be a playmate.
Everybody wanted to be discovered and to be the centerfold
of play woman. And that was just such a foreign
goal for me, Like I just didn't know anybody that
(09:20):
wanted to pose naked as a lifetime but you know
what I mean, And not to say that's anything bad,
you know, it was interesting for you. It was different
because I had always been taught like study, study, study, study,
play the piano, play the flute, you know, you have
to achieve and everything. I never even thought that like
that was considered like a career path. It was really
good for me, and in the sense because like I
(09:40):
had never really become good good friends with people who
had such different types of goals and aspirations than I did,
you know, because I've always been surrounded by people who, like,
you have to go to college, you mean, like you're
gonna get youse. Yeah, that's exactly, And like you freaking
like if I came home with like a tattoo or
a you're just like, you know what I mean, let
(10:02):
alone post naked that I have a Tattoo's totally I
don't want them to know ever exactly, So let alone
like it being like your goal to be a bunny
or a playmate? Is this completely like not even within
the cultural like language, you know. So that was interesting,
you know, and and so but I really kind of
opened my because I was like there because like before
(10:23):
I might have like Popoda, have been snobby about it,
but it's you really can't because not everybody is born
you know, beautiful or smart or skinny or fat or whatever,
you know what I mean. So you're born as you
were born, and you have to use whatever assets that
you were given and try to make it in this
crazy world anyway you can. So this is kind of
like what you learned working at yeah, you know, and
(10:46):
so amazing. It's great. And then like you know, like
so I tell like a couple of cute stories. Okay,
Like there was one bunny. She's just beautiful but like
you know, like and they hardly go to school, you
know what I mean. And so she was talking to
one of the customers and she was and he was,
you know, telling her how we spoke like ten languages, right,
(11:07):
and she was like, no that, no, you don't whatever.
And he's like, yeah I do. And she's like, no,
you're you're you're you're you're lying to me. You can't
speak ten languages, Like yeah I do. He's like why not.
She's like, because they're only three languages out there. Oh
my god. Yeah, Like this is like the level man
(11:28):
kind of cute. It's like charming but charming and Larius.
And then that was another bunny. Oh I love her
to death, Like they just don't know the world, you
know what I mean. And so she was new was
her first day, and all my shots are flirting with
her because she was beautiful, like super super super hot.
She comes in and she's asking questions about me, and
they're like, yeah, you know, Judy's this, and she's that whatever,
and you know she's Korean and she tilts her head
(11:49):
and she's like Korean, what's that? You know? And then
he's like, oh, you know, like she's from Korea. Like
Nick here, he's Malaysian because he's from Malaysia. And she
looks at him and she's like, mal Asia. Isn't that
what Cheryl Cole had when she got sick? Oh my god,
it's malarias Like stories like this all the time, and
(12:11):
you're just like, yeah. But some of them were brilliant.
Some of them were actually trying to get through, you know,
a master's degrees or PhD. So some of them, so
there was like a wide spectrum of bunnies, you know
what I mean. Some of them were you know, very smart,
very put together, you know, etcetera. But some of them
were not, you know, like I didn't want to study,
didn't you know, like we're not but very street smart.
Oh my gosh, I have never seen women talk their
(12:33):
way into you know, meals or whatever you gotta use whatever. Yeah,
and good for them. So which kind of like, as
a female in a very male dominated industry, you have
to do that. Like, let's be real, there have been many,
many times that we both have used our assets. Exactly.
(12:57):
It's just like a smile, you know what I mean,
whatever you need to do, yeah, to get it done right. Well,
not anything, but like there's a very there's a very
firm line in the sound what is appropriate, what is
not appropriate? Definitely a yeah, when it was a turning
(13:21):
point for you to like want to represent Korean food
as a chad because obviously, you know, when you were
first starting out, you were dodging, you were doing different jobs,
but it was never focused on Korean food or Korean culture.
But I think at one point, you know, definitely they
are focused on Yeah. So, Um, I've always loved Korean
food always, It's my comfort food. I've always been extremely
(13:43):
proud to be Korean. And um, I've never had this
like chip on my shoulder wishing I was like Chinese
or Japanese or something, you know what I mean. I've
I've always been extremely proud of of our of our
rich culture, of rich heritage, and and and then the
colors of Korea, and I've i've loved the food ever since,
you know, since I was little, and to this day,
it's it's food that I I gravitate towards, you know,
(14:04):
so it's having a deep passion for it. And I
always felt that Korean food was the unsung hero, and
I wanted it to be in the spotlight. And it
bothered me that there was no cool Korean restaurant that
I could take my friends to or my business colleagues,
you know, from banking to that you know, had great cocktails,
a good bar, they could get a good martini, you know,
a great champagne, a great wine list. You know, it
(14:26):
didn't exist, you know, like fluorescent lighting, rough gruff waiters,
Like a cool, elegant Korean restaurant did not exist. And
this was back back in like ten years ago. You
cannot find a cool Korean restaurant like the nobu types
of the world. And this was when you were still
living in New York. In New York and going back
and forth with London, didn't even know know what Korean
food was like, like, let let alone have a cool
(14:49):
Korean restaurant. But even in New York, and I kept
like beating down the door of food. Now work et cetera. Whatever,
And um, finally you know, got Korean Food made Simple
on the on the air for for two seasons and
then a book wrapped around it, and so that kind
of was the start of it. So you saw definitely
that there was an opportunity to here. There's a massive opportunity.
(15:09):
The flavors are so incredibly delicious, and and I just
I just saw that the second that people get through
the door, they love it. It's just about getting them
through that threshold, you know, and over the hump to
experiment within and and and to try it. I just
love waving the Korean flag. It sounds cheesy, but like
that's what I wanted to do. And also with my restaurants,
(15:31):
like I was so adamant about everything in the design.
Everything had to be kremed. I'm like, no, that's Japanese. No,
that's Chinese. No, this is Korean. These are Korea as colors,
this is we're going to serve this, this is Korean, etcetera. Whatever.
And obviously, you know, Korea was occupied by Japan for
thirty five years, so there is some overlap with with
with Japan and China. There you know, we're we're between
two nations, you know, but there are things that are
(15:51):
uniquely Korean and are very cramped, and I wanted to
showcase that, and that I did like with through through texture,
color design, obviously with my food offering, the beverage offering,
et cetera, to show everybody how cool Korean food and
Korean culture is. Yeah, and and also with my show
Korean Foodmates Made Simple. So your restaurants came after your
(16:13):
show and your books, right, yes, did you have like
a turning point or did it just kind of naturally?
It kind of naturally came because I was like, what
do I love? Because food is all about passion, you
know what I mean, Like what do I love? What
do I know? What? What? What? What runs through my veins?
And that's Kim chiming cheek totally, you know, Like I
(16:34):
smell like Kim ch exactly, you know. And if I'm
going to do this, if I'm gonna downgrade my life
like in every way possible from you know, high flying
Wall Street job to do cooking and do and do
this interesting, I gotta do something that I absolutely love
and feel and I breathe, sleep and eat and and
it runs through me. And that's and that's Korean food
and Korean culture. So when you see Korean cuisine being represented,
(16:58):
now what you're feeling about it because obviously we came
a long way, and you were one of the pioneers.
You were one of the first. I think it's great.
I love the fact that now I can go to
literally a restaurant in the middle of nowhere and they
have something Korean on the menu, like even t g
I fried. Yeah, exactly, exactly exactly, you know, and they
have like Korean fried chicken wings or you know, like
(17:19):
kim chi mac and cheese or or something like this.
You know, it is amazing. I love it, yeah, because
because then it just like opens the gateway for more
chefs and more restaurants and more TV shows and more
media and more awareness of Korean culture in general, and
and create such a small country, you know, tiny, it's tiny,
you know, and and it deserves too, you know, because
(17:41):
Italy is a small country too. And let look at
Italian food, you know, I'm saying, you know, Greek food
or Spanish food or Scutch or whatever, you know, like
create Korean food is definitely one of the major players
in the world because it's just like that good. It's
so good, it totally is. Yeah, you have not worked
under any Korean chefs though, or Korean restaurants. You were
not like trained in Crean cuisine at all, So like,
(18:03):
how did you learn and navigate your way to being
this professional in Korean food? You know a lot of
it comes from my mother and my aunt. Yeah, so
every single time I go back to Korea, I'm picking
up you know, like recipes, techniques, ingredients, etcetera. You know
a lot of it is research on my own, I guess.
On on the Crean side, I'm self taught, but I
(18:25):
think it's really about flavor and educating your palate because
we grew up, we lived it our entire lives, So like,
you know how something is supposed to taste? Yeah, exactly right, exactly,
So you just kind of keep because I didn't have
any former training in Korean food either, but it was
just this is what my grandma made. For example, my
(18:45):
grandma would you know, cook for me? Obviously, growing up
in her food was all I knew, and I don't
necessarily know how she made this type of this dish,
but when I cook it, it tastes exactly like hers, right, exactly.
So it's really I think it's about taste palette. Palette, Yeah,
it really is, you know. And a lot of that
also comes from like sourcing the right kind of ingredients,
(19:07):
you know what I mean, like the like the right
soy sauce, like the right which you're join, the right
tin tongue, you know what I mean. But I think
it's coming up with that type of flavor. And and
also your palette also comes into and and and particularly
in my case when I when I'm cooking for an
audience that isn't necessarily so familiar with the funkiness of
crean flavors, to tone it down a bit, you know,
(19:27):
So in you're introducing people, right exentially, and I I'm
running a business at the end of the day, I
had to be commercial, you know. I mean, I Am
not going to try to sell something that doesn't sell
and nobody wants to eat, you know what I mean.
So like, if something doesn't sell, I take it off
the menu, you know what I mean. I'm replaced with
something that will. You know, if people think that generally
this is way too spicy, I'm going to tone that
on the spice, you know, because I have to make
(19:48):
money and survive, you know what I mean. And so
whereas in my Hong Kong restaurant, I could afford to
be a lot funkier, a lot more quote unquote authentic.
You know, I could put things like on the menu
and they would sell. Whereas I try to put we
did take on the menu in London, Nobody understood it, No,
nobody got it, you know. It means so yeah, so
you have to tailor for your audience and exactly your
restaurants are obviously a gateway for people to understand Korean food,
(20:11):
and and my number one sellers were obviously like the
creamfied Chicken, my Booglegee Burger and beat them pop. I mean,
there's nothing to be a shamed that those things are amazing.
It's it's so delicious. And also it's like I just
want to introduce Korean flavors to people around the world.
It doesn't have to be a PC authenticic, you know
what I mean, like if and some of my most
(20:32):
rewarding like tweets or whatever are from people in like
Kansas who have seen my show and who don't have
the writing greenness or anything, but you know what, like
they made like the crab fritters, you know, like ton
you know, and like and I'm like, oh my god,
that's awesome. And it's a picture like, you know, like
an African American guy with his son like eating John
in Kansas, and I'm like, that is awesome. You know,
(20:52):
it's like what what you love? And that's that's what
I do it for, you know what I mean. And
so now they've tasted a little bit of cream food,
you know, and that's that's that's what gets to me,
you know, that's that's the goal is to globalized cream food.
That way, speaking of globalizing cream food, I think once
(21:20):
you called yourself a citizen of the world, I still remember. Yeah,
I'm like I've always been so not only envious watching
you do this in all different countries. Can you talk
about that a little bit because obviously doing it in
New York or l A that's easy, but doing it
worldwide very hard. How has that expect Like you like
went to like Nevus and he's like cream food and
(21:43):
my Nevus Like that's so random, and how do the
people respond. So I've cooked all over the world. I'm
about to u to do something in Switzerland and we're
looking at um what they can and cannot get as well.
You know, tel Aviv was very challenging also to get
ingredients Nevus on the small island is very challenging. But generally,
you know, people love it, love it. But I also
(22:05):
choose wisely, you know, I'm not like you're not gonna
you know, stuff like that, you know, like like super
spicy like seafood soup, like a whole octopus inside. It's
like scared people. I always describe that soup as like
like the ocean threw up into a bowl of spicy broth,
and because everything is whole, you know, like you literally
(22:27):
pick out an entire whole octopus and everything. But in Nivas,
like everybody loves it because I made like mango kimchi,
you know, and they have a tradition of spice on
island because they love hot sauce and they're making their
own hot sauces and so they love chili. So did
you make the kimchi with like mango mango and you
bought like fish sauce over or like no, so yeah yeah,
yeah yeah definitely, so so we we we bring everything over.
(22:49):
So I've done like both like musan cha with like
creen mango, you know, say like kind of like punch
on slash kimchi, but like like with with with vinegar
as well as like kimchi, but just a very fresh
kim chie that we bring everything and and and toss it. Um.
You know, it's not it's because we're only there for
like a week. We don't like fermented too long. But
it's so hot there it kind of gets um quicker.
(23:11):
But it's it's when it ferments too quickly, gets a
little bit sour. But that's okay, you know, for for
the purposes here. But but I've done everything from like
different types of mango kimchie too, like um, I mean
koream food. I feel like cream flavors are very adaptable,
like totally you can make like kim chi out of anything,
you really think. Absolutely, it just has to sound up
to the fermentation processing exactly. Yeah. And even like like
(23:33):
I was making sumjong and I and I chopped up
mango into the sumjong for the for the sweetness and
gave it a bit of texture, you know, and and
some of the local nuts like walnuts and stuff like that,
I mix it in. And so I was just like
you always ask like what they have locally, you know,
because Korean food is very versatile. It's like you can
add like jung to anything and it'll taste not amazing. Yeah,
and I was using mangoes to marinate the meat also
(23:56):
asks as a tenderizer, you know, for the kind of
by so us. So that's easy. Um. And and Tel
Aviv people loved it because they also love pickles there,
and plus they also have you know, they like spice
as well and chilies and things, and so it went
down extremely well. Yeah. So you find that people all
over the world are like wanting these flavors, love the
(24:17):
flavors kim Cheese hit or miss what what I've seen,
because some people just are so turned off by the smell.
But these are the same people who don't like go cheese,
who don't like blue cheese, who don't like you know,
a plus or something, you know what I mean. But
people like who don't like strong, funky flavors, like they're
not gonna like Kim chie, you know what I mean. Um,
But I mean it's you. Your palette still has to become, yeah,
(24:39):
definitely accustomed to funkiness exactly. That's exactly. It's a lot
of yeah, but there's also a lot of non funky
things like people love the dumplings, they love chop to noodles,
they love you know, the cream barbecue, all of that stuff.
So you've had an amazing career obviously trying trying, future
of amazing that's happening. I don't know, I'll see what
(25:00):
what is your next move? Like, what's your next um step? Yeah,
I'm opening up a fast casual concept based around my
Korean Fried chicken in February March time and um one
of the Westfield malls in London and Shepherd's Bush that's
on the calendar. Are there any Korean fried chicken chains
in London? Right? There's some small ones, but the big
franchises haven't hit London yet so or Europe in general,
(25:23):
they haven't. Yeah, Crean Food is still very much up
and coming. Yeah, And it's just it just maddens me
because like when I opened up my Jingu like five
years ago, like the top food critics where it's their
full time job to review restaurants, like they were comparing
made to Thai restaurants by name, it's so ignorant. It's
still like very so ignorant. Arrogant um. I just I mean,
(25:44):
like you cannot compare Korean food to Thai food not all. Yeah,
it's actually like it's like we speak different languages exactly.
It's totally and there's like and that's a tropical country.
There isn't even a shared flavor profile. So I got
in a lot of fights with the food critics. I mean,
that's pretty amazing concerning all of the globalization that's happening
(26:04):
around Korean culture, like k pop, in the Korean cultural phenomenon,
and people are still kind of a little bit ignorant
towards it. They're just like ignorant towards the cultural differences
in Asia in general. I find, you know, we still
have a way to go. Yeah, I mean I was
just talking to somebody in l A like last week,
and I was explaining to them how every country in
(26:25):
Asia pretty much has their own language, you know what
I mean. He was confused. Yeah, He's like, he's like,
I thought everybody spoke Mandarin. I'm like, well, the Taiwanese
will speak Mandarin, and Hong Kong people maybe speak Mandarin,
you know, but like Hong Kong, you know, people speak
Cantonese and and Taiwan has their own work. But I
was just trying to explain that, like Koreans don't speak
Mandarin like they have un you know, huncha with some
(26:45):
of the letters are used, and you know, of course
in Japanese they have kanji and stuff like that, but
it's a different alphabet. So he didn't know that. Yeah,
so we're still we're depending on you and no way
and we do this right exactly because there's so much
education that still needs to be done around. Definitely, definitely,
(27:09):
And I actually think that it's pretty incredible that Korea,
you know, maintains such a unique culture given its history.
Because you're so freaking awesome. Yeah, amazing exactly. So I
have a little bit of a surprise for you. So, Judy,
I brought your favorite and you know what, I'm not
going to make this for everybody, but I've made this
(27:30):
for you. I feel so special. Yeah, because I was like,
you know, and I made it this morning. You know,
oh my gosh, it's a little cold right now. Didn't
make your chefs make it. I usually do, but like
this one, it's you. I have to make it. Yeah.
I was like, oh my gosh, I love this. Um
do you not have so many memories of eating this?
Oh my god, so many memories. Can we talk about
(27:52):
your first memory or your fondest memory? Okay, first of all,
they served this on the street in Korea twenty four
hours a day, and they have to describe what is Okay,
so duck Booky is duck which is rice cakes and
they're like noki if anything. Always try to describe it
like super chewy. And they come in different shapes and
(28:14):
sizes and you can put them in soups and stews.
But I love it in this like kind of trashy
like streets that like you know snack where it's just
mixed with like a like a spicy sweet sauce but
it's mostly spicy. And they serve this all over the
place on the street in Korea. Actually they've been cleaning Korea,
but much everything is going sad. I know, are gone right?
(28:37):
It does it? It's really hard to find one. Yeah,
you cannot find street sells anymore. But when I used
to go in my in my youth, um, they used
to serve du Booky like they have it going like
for hours and hours and they just give you like
a plate that's been covered with like a plastic bag
and they spoon it in and there's nothing in it
other than the rice cakes and the sauce and toothpicks.
(28:58):
Tooth picks and you just each one like the style,
and it's like less than a dollar, less than a dollar. Good.
See you hear that that That chewiness is what makes
this so appealing, right, I love it so addictive. I'm
sorry that this has been like kind of sitting. So
Ramen noodles happen like it's so good, then you have
(29:21):
to have it with the noodles. See, this is Robb
So this is a newer invention. And now they're doing
like with cheese, and there's stuffing the duck with cheese.
You know, there's so many different types of duck now
and I know you specifically wrote ramen notice which I brought,
but now it's gotten. They're so good, yeah, but the
flavors are still like very they're so good, like street style.
(29:43):
I love it. So what's your favorite or what's your
first memory of duck? Bookie? So m mmmm mmmmmmm cheating
you made this for yourself to girl, Okay, so like
half of it it's like still all my solf top
was not gonna eat it later for dinner. So I
(30:04):
don't know if you noticed, Judy, but I lived in
Korea from third grade of sixth grade, and my parents
put me in Korean school like in the nineties, so
like I went to Korean school, like Korean Krean school,
not school. So that's why your Krean is so good.
That's why my Koreans pretty perfect because my parents purposely
(30:24):
did this because they wanted me to like really kind
of like learn about the culture, learn the language, and
learn how to you know, be a real Korean, which
was terrifying because I didn't speak a lick of Korean
when I first got there, so um. Yeah. But in
the third grade, I remember the kids they brought me
to this like hole in the wall like Korean chip
(30:47):
punch chip meaning like I guess crane street food, and
she and they kind of intuned to me to like
that style of duki, and I remember eating it for
the first time and it was just so spicy, and
I was just like, what is this? But it was
so addicted. Now yeah, I'm addicted. Now I've never like
really liked it that much because I just thought that
(31:11):
it was just like that it was so like you said,
it's very dense. So I thought it was just like
it's really filling without like having much anything. But now
I learned to really appreciate it and love it. It's
a very starchy, you know what I mean. I mean
it's full of carbs. It's just like carb carp carp,
you know. And actually it's all like white carbs and
like nonnutritious carbs and super msg and and the mooding
(31:33):
and this is so good. Molding is fish cake, fish
cake and it's like these like we it kind of
looks like a flat noodle but it's fishing. Its gross,
but it's good. It's so good. And well it has
so much EMISSI in it. Let's be real. But that's
it's so good, so good. And this is another late
night snack too, that they just have on skewer. It's
(31:54):
just like in that like water, like seafood molding, fishy water.
I mean, it's like street me, you know what. And
those of you who have never tried to bookie, that's
insane that you haven't. Um, you must go look for
it or if you can't find it anywhere, you have
to like learn to you just make it. It's so
(32:14):
easy to make you can you can find it. And
most Carean restaurants will have a version of Duck book.
But if there's no Crean restaurants where, yeah, then you
have to buy my book Korean Food Made Simple. Yeah,
I'm sure you have an amazing Actually I have duck
booking in both books of my new one and and
and my my first one. Yeah. I feel like this
(32:36):
is like a very classic Koreans. I have not met
one person that does not like the Bookie. It's like sweet,
it's it's spicy, it's got noodles, I mean, has everything,
and I mean and a lot of times like you
put dumplings in it, but put like different kinds of
noodles or have like you know, beef in it, like spam,
all different kinds of what's your favorite version? Mm hmm.
(33:00):
How's to have the noodles? Have? How to have the
the raw buki um any any protein? And you like
meat in your No, I'm too old, m Golding. And
you know what I love, I really love like the
egg yolk and like mashing it into the sauce. Then
that's always been like my favorite part of so so good, right,
(33:24):
it's so tasty. Yeah, with these little rice cakes, Oh
so tasty. And it's just like the texture of it.
M m mmm mm hmm. And I know all of
y'all are solivating right now, So go make yourself some
duck booky by Juty's book ye, or go to Esther's restaurant.
And how do you have it on your menu? Here's
(33:45):
the thing, Chelsea Market, I had it on the menu there.
Didn't really sell that much as much as like, you know,
man do like dumplings or the other very typical I
speak that Chelsea Mark is very commercial, so people didn't
know rice cakes are Yeah, yeah, they're it's all tourists, yeah, exactly,
get like dumplings and barbecue. But um, I do have
(34:08):
it on my menu in Brooklyn, and I refused to
take it off. And actually when people first tried, boy like,
they get so obsessed with it. They become regulars and
they order it all the time. And that's like the
one dish that they can't forget. What do you put
in your on that one? The one that I do
in Brooklyn. It's like saltat in brown butter, so it's
kind of crispy, and then some bacon and pork and
(34:28):
then we top it with white kimchi, some scallions, a
poached egg. So it's like a modern version. But I
feel like I like, I like textures a lot, and
I like that crispinus. Yeah totally. Well, I mean like
I all my food is modern cream food. Like my
parents would come to my restaurant like where's the Korean food?
Like they literally was like what is this is totally
(34:52):
this is not what I taught you exactly Like my
parents like actually didn't like yeah, They're like what's going on?
So like when my parents or my family comes to
my restaurants, I have to do like off menu like
cream Korea because they don't get it. They don't get it,
don't get at all. Judy, I'm so happy that you
were one of my first guests on the show. I
(35:15):
need this for you, you know, thank you. It's all
it is. That's what food is. It's a language of love.
It is Korea style. Judy, how can we find you?
You can find me on social media Instagram, Twitter, and
Facebook at Judy ju Chef j U d Y j
o o Chef, and you can also find my two
books on any online retailer like Amazon. First one is
(35:38):
called Korean Food Made Simple and the next is called
Judy Jews Korean Soul Food. Thank you and that's our show.
Thanks for listening. If you like what you heard, please
subscribe and leave us a five star review. Get Down
with Kaytown is a production of I Heart Radio and
was created by our executive producer Christopher Hasiodes and me
as the CHOI follow me on also show media at
(36:00):
toy Bites and I'd also like to thank our producer,
editor and mixer Marcie to Peina. For more podcasts from
I Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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