Fresh Off the Boat (37 page)

That’s how everything went at Baohaus. Nothing was inspired by famous chefs, farms, or trends in food. It was the manifestation of my friends, family, and memories. I knew we’d kill it, because there’s nothing more powerful. We weren’t cerebral cooks inspired by Harold McGee. When we opened, there wasn’t even a budget for staff. All the money was spent on equipment and the first week of food. There was three hundred dollars left and if we didn’t break even the first week, we were done. Since I was a Yeshiva grad and it was an LES restaurant, it was only fitting that we opened on Christmas Eve 2009: Chinese food in a Jewish neighborhood on Christmas Eve. Our “staff” was composed of Steven Lau, Simon Tung, George Zhao, Ning Juang, Evan Huang, Stephane Adam, and myself. No one besides Evan and myself had ever worked in a restaurant, but that was the squad we opened with.

It’s a funny feeling. The lights go on, the door opens, and for a few hours, no one comes in. All day, there was this one girl, Lia Bulong, who kept asking when we’d open. Since we were still setting everything up, we had no idea so we kept telling her “in an hour or so.” She lived down the street on Clinton so she kept checking in.

“Guys! Lemme know when you open, I want to be the first customer!”

“OK, OK, like one more hour and this pork will be done.”

“Uggghhh, that’s what you’ve been saying for three hours!”

Of course, when we finally open, Lia is nowhere to be found. You may ask, “Why the fuck didn’t you just take her phone number and call?” That’s a good question: we didn’t have money for a phone. The first customer walked in about fifteen minutes after we opened and everyone jumped her with menus like a bunch of orphans in China trying to braid your hair. As everyone played twenty-one questions, I excitedly made the first bao. I can’t remember what it was, I can’t remember if we charged her, but I’ll never forget the moment. I don’t think anyone has ever enjoyed watching someone eat a five-inch sandwich as much as the seven of us smiling at this one Russian chick coming over from Alife. As she left, in busted Lia.

“What the fuck, dudes? Was she the first customer?”

“Ha, ha, ha, yeah, our bad!”

“Ughhh, you guys are the worst!”

Lia was hilarious and has been a customer and friend ever since. That’s how it started at Baohaus. Once Lia came in, this girl Sue came in who’d actually gone to high school with me. A few hours later, Warren’s dad called me on my cellphone because he saw on Facebook that we opened the shop and he just happened to be in the city for Christmas with Warren’s brothers. What are the fucking odds? You open shop Christmas Eve in the LES and your childhood best friend’s family is in the neighborhood with no notice? We made $260 the first day and we thought it was the greatest thing ever. Today, we make that in an hour.

After drinking, smoking, and cleaning up the shop, it was 3
A.M
., so we didn’t open for Christmas. By that time, food writers in the neighborhood were posting things. We didn’t know it but Lia actually worked for Serious Eats and Eater, two big foodie websites. Rebecca Marx of
The Village Voice
also came incognito and they had an article up about our opening that same day, but the next day, of course, we weren’t open. So we just tweeted that we were tired and didn’t want to go to work, which was the truth. Christmas is for the NBA in our house. On the twenty-sixth, we opened up a couple of hours late and a good number of people came in to try our baos. Without us saying anything, everyone was comparing it to Momofuku, which we wanted to happen. The difference was that we
braised our pork. Although Chang is Korean-American, his technique is French. Even
bo ssam
, a Korean pork belly dish, uses steamed pork belly. Asians don’t use the oven for anything but holding Jordans.

I WAS SICK
of immigrants not getting the credit they deserved. I was sick of the Jean-Georges of the world making a killing on our ingredients and flavors because we were too stupid to package it the right way. I was sick of seeing other Asian kids like myself walking to school with their heads down. I was sick of seeing them picking snow peas in the dining room after school and I was sick of not having a voice in America. The only Asian that I ever saw speak up for us was Miss Info on Hot 97 after the morning crew played a song making fun of the tsunami in Japan. My main objective with Baohaus was to become a voice for Asian Americans.
^†
Whether you accept it or not, when you’re a visible Asian you have a torch to carry because we simply don’t have any other representation. About three weeks after opening, we were the number-one hot restaurant in New York on Yelp. I think Yelp is doo-doo, but it drove a lot of customers to the shop. Day after day, we kept running out of food by 9
P.M
. We made more and more each day, but I was the only one that knew how to make the recipes and I simply didn’t have the time or equipment to braise more than thirty pounds of pork and beef each day. I’d show up at 8
A.M
., work till midnight, clean up till 2
A.M
., and take the train back to Brooklyn. If I got home before three I was lucky. We finally realized that the smart thing to do would be to close for an entire day, take a break, get bigger pots and pans, and hire some employees. We wanted to make sure the people we hired fit the idea of Baohaus so we decided to use nontraditional ads that weeded people out for us. The first post we ever put up was titled:

Surprisingly, we got an avalanche of resumes with subject lines like:

“I FUX WITH GHOSTFACE”

“I love multi-tasking AND Ghostface”

“RE: Baohaus hiring Ghostface listeners Tony Starks Pretty Toney n all of that …”

Our first hire was Asa Stella, an ex–Whole Foods cashier, bar mitzvah DJ, and Philly kid. He was exactly what we were looking for. Kid came in with fucked-up Adidas high-tops, random Japanese baseball jerseys from thrift shops, and a Phillies cap. We hired him on the spot. The second hire, and to this day my favorite Baohaus employee of all time, was Kate Francis. This was her cover letter:

Are you the same one cryin’ for that Billie Jean Jacket?

Date: 2010-10-18, 1:57PM EDT

Replay to: [email protected]

Baohaus Hiring People Who Like Pyrex and Cavalli Furs (Lower East Side)

Date: 2010-04-06, 2:35PM EDT

Replay to: [email protected]