Breaking Bread with Tom Papa - Episode 100 - Takahiro Sakaeda

Episode Date: April 12, 2022

Taka Sakaeda, the talented chef and owner of Nami Nori, shares his true artistry and badass knife skills.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hey, it's also a show. Hey, everybody, welcome to another edition of Breaking Bread with Tom Papa. I'm Tom Papa. Thank you for joining us at the table once again. Don't you wish you could eat some of the stuff we talk about? We're always bringing bread out and talking about it. Hopefully it inspires you to go get a snack at the very least. And then maybe, who knows?

one day we'll be traveling around doing this, and I can bring you some snacks that way. The thrust of it is that I'm concerned that you're hungry and that we make you more hungry, and I feel like I should be feeding you. And I know it's illogical, and I can't really do anything about it, but just know that I care. Just know that I care. We have a great episode for you today. I had this great conversation with an amazing chef. Taka Sakayeta. He is the head chef and one of the owners of Nami Nouri in New York, in the West Village and in Brooklyn.

An amazing guy, a real artist, and we'll get into all the stuff about why I really love this conversation with Taka and why you need to go and seek him out and his food. Just an amazing, amazing guy. I think you're really going to enjoy it. I would like to thank the good people at PolicyGenius for sponsoring today's show. Life insurance gives you peace of mind and you can trust PolicyGenius. They don't add on extra fees or sell your info to third parties. Just head to policygenius.com to get your free life insurance quotes. They consolidate all of the life insurance out there, put it into one easy to analyze, space and then you get to get life insurance for the people that you know and love see how much you

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More from those friends a little later. All right, let me tell you why you're going to love chef. Taka Sakaieta. He is an artist. He's a regular guy who is also an artist. He grew up in Long Island and he found his way into the sushi world, not just from his background, which we'll get into, but also under the mentorship of Masiyosha, Masa Takayama. Masta is this amazing world-renowned spot in New York. And being able to study under Masa, you can tell the influence. You can tell the influence. I mean, we talk about not just the, not just the beauty of the food and the thoughtfulness that he puts into his food, but also in the same way, and you can tell that it comes from Masa,

this real thoughtfulness into every detail of the dining experience, from the, from the plates to the design of the restaurant, to the attitude of the people, and of course to the food and the artistry of the food. It's such a cool thing to see. And I was growing up around the same time on the other side of New York over in New Jersey. And at the time when I was a child, Japanese food was just starting to emerge. And it wasn't really what I'm describing here with Taka. Chef Taka is kind of the culmination of a lot of a lot of people working really hard and bringing the true. cuisine to the area. When I was a kid, it was just starting out and really the antithesis of it is my father and I used to go to all you can eat sushi. And that was kind of the New Jersey

start of it. There was just, they weren't, you know, look, as cuisines come up and you start to people in these environments, it takes time. And I guess, I'm imagining, I'm guessing, the way that you got people in New Jersey, white people in New Jersey to even be exposed or walk into the doors of a Japanese restaurant that was newly opened was to make it all you could eat, because that is how New Jersey rolls. It is just, let's just get a mass of it. And I have to say it took me years to kind of shake that off because I literally thought, like in my little pea brain, you walk in, it's not the quality of it and the special elements of the dish. It's how much can you stuff into your fat face to make the restaurant suffer. You can say all you can eat,

and that's a nice offer, but we're going to get our money's worth. And we would just plow through, which was probably, I mean, it was probably California rolls out the wazoo. But I just remember as a kid and my father just bearing down and we would just plow through sushi. And then you'd walk away thinking, yeah, we experienced Japanese food. It was the starter kit. It was the New Jersey starter kit. when you listen to Taka Talk in, that should be the name of his book, by the way, Taka Talk, when you listen to this conversation, you will understand how far away

we've come from the All You Can Eat Jersey stops. Are they bad? No. It introduced people to a new culture into a new thing in a sea of Italian restaurants and pizza places and bagel shops. whatever it took. And now to see the evolution of it, and of course, Masa, and now Taka's spots, it's just great. And I just, I love talking to people that there's a little artistry behind it,

and that really just comes from a thoughtfulness. And you'll see just in this conversation, you will be inspired just from that, just from thoughtfulness. And I think you'll enjoy it. And again, it'll leave you feeling a little more hungry. And again, I'll feel guilty that I don't have food for you. But just know, there's bread in the oven, and eventually it'll come to you. All right, now, enjoy this conversation I have with the great Taka Sakhaeda. Taka.

Hi, how are you? Good. How's it going? Fantastic. Nice to meet you. How are you? I'm going to meet you, too. Yeah, this is good.

This is good. All right, you sound good. You look good. Thank you. We'll go right into it. Thank you for being here. This is very cool. Thank you. Thank you for having me. This is exciting for me as well, you know? Yeah. We're going to, we're going to look back on this and be like, remember when we had Taka on that giant superstar?

Do you remember when we got him? Now we won't return our calls. I hope I don't change that much. Now he's got 25 locations. It's really cool to meet you. There's a real artistry to what you do. And I'm excited to kind of explore it. It has your place has such a cool.

People should just go to your Instagram just to see the combination of the design of the place and the design of the food is a, is really a wonder. Like it is, it creates a feeling just from looking at it just on social media. You will immediately get this kind of, kind of feeling. And that was the main question I had on my mind this morning was, how do you, I mean, you're, explore food, you have a great chef, but that thing of like making it a destination that actually conveys what you are in the physicality of the place and in the in the food. How does that happen? Yeah, I mean, obviously, there's a lot that goes into it and a lot of thought, you know.

But, you know, I guess this is almost like a question of like, how do you kind of create something, you know? And specifically for us, I mean, especially, you know, especially the design of the space and how it looks, you know, Lisa, on my partner. in Nami Nori, you know, she had, you know, so much, you know, there's, there has to be a level of sense is something that we always talk about, right? Like that's a kind of culmination of your life experience and, you know, drawing on inspirations from other people that you kind of want to emulate or, and so, you know, it comes together. But at the end of the day, when you sit down with something, you know, it's just steps, right? So specifically for the food aspect, it's like, what do I want to eat?

Right. It kind of starts with there. It's like, what is it that I want to showcase? And so it kind of goes from a very big idea. And then we kind of focus down, okay, so if this is going to be a scallop dish, what does that mean? What kind of influences do I want to draw on? Right.

And really starts by, you know, the foundation has to taste good, right? Yeah. At the end of the day, all these things, the Instagram and things, it's great to kind of draw people in. But at the end of the day, if you want people to stay, it's got to taste good. Yeah. So, you know, we really work on building those flavors and building the, that foundation first. Right.

And then all of the kind of the more visual aspects come on top of it. Right. And so, you know, that comes into play with like knife skills, right? How do we want to cut this vegetables for this dish to look a certain way? Or, you know, what layer of these, like the sauce should it go on this layer? First layer, second layer, where should it sit? You know, based on maybe it's a color thing, right? So maybe it's a color.

You want to have lighter colors on top. And so I'm just thinking about actually the scallop excels that we have. Yeah. You know, you have this background of this white scallop. Then we have an exos sauce that's kind of red and brown, right? And then on top of that goes orange Tobico and on top of that lighter lemon zest goes on top of it. But all these layering and like it's very conscious, right? The decision is they're going to go and how they kind of come together.

Right. Knife skills. Knife skills. I've heard you talk about knife skills. And as an amateur home cook, and I'm in there with my knives of varying dull proportions, where did you develop your knife skills? Let's start there. Yeah.

I mean, so pretty much most of my professional working experience, like, 10 years I spent at Masa restaurant. Right. It happens to be, you know, the only three. Michelin Star Japanese restaurant in United States. Crazy. And how did you get there? Because you didn't start as a, you started pretty much at the ground level there, right? Well, yeah.

I mean, I think that generally, you know, unless you have some serious experience, if you go there, you're, everyone's the ground level. Right. Yeah. But previous to that, I worked in a small Japanese restaurant, local Japanese restaurant called Nagashima in Jericho, Long Island is where I grew up. Right. And actually, I still am in contact with the sushi master.

who kind of got my, you know, my career started in some way. Okay. His name is Kobayashi-san. But, you know, I worked there for about three years. And, you know, I was looking to kind of move on and see different things. And so, you know, I actually replied to a Craigslist ad and went to go interview at Maza. And they happened to like my personality enough to let me through the door, I guess. Oh, that's great.

I'm sorry to jump the question. This was on my mind as well. I grew up in New Jersey. You grew up in Long Island. And I grew up an Italian-American, and where there was just, you know, you couldn't go. It was like the Starbucks of my child. There was like pizza or Italian, there's red sauce covering every avenue I went down. When you were starting in Long Island as a kid and you were growing up in a Japanese home,

was there, did it feel like it was at the time? Was there now that seems like Japanese is celebrated and there's a lot of it around. Was there at the time? Yeah, actually, so in the town that I lived in, you know, Japanese community was pretty small, right? I think that it was myself and another family with the only two Japanese people in our entire school system, I think. Wow. Really. But there happened to be, I forgot exactly, maybe there was so much.

or something, there was a, there was an office in like Port Washington or something. So there were Japanese people that would come through business and, you know, come fly in from Japan and things like that. Right. So because of that, I think there, you know, there were at least two Japanese restaurants in my local town growing up. Okay. Um, that I can remember. Right. Right. So, but, you know, at home, it was strictly speaking Japanese at home and in, you know, outside of that, I was speaking English. And, you know, my mom was a stay-at-home wife. So, you know, my mom cooked all the meals.

So a lot of our dinners and breakfast and dinner was all Japanese food. Right. So, you know, without that, so actually my mom was a nutritionist in Japan. And so she kind of put together meals for, you know, in hospitals for people with special dietary restrictions or coming out of surgery. You can only eat certain things. Right. And so she was a nutritionist plus part of that training.

was to like learn how to cook, uh, these meals as well. So, you know, right. You know, she always try to balance like things that tastes really well and trying to be healthy. Um, you know, but yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, I was spoiled in some ways, you know, growing up with somebody like that in my family. How are her knife skills? Oh, pretty good. Pretty good. Yeah. That's definitely above average. Right. She can hold it. She can hold it. Yeah. So when you, so when you, so when you, you first get that that that first uh that first uh that first gig in uh in before massa um did you feel what what age you at that point that's actually i uh so i dropped out of college to pursue this

so i was i think 19 or 20 was the first time i stepped into like a professional kitchen right so you left school to to go do it uh were your parents cool with that not at all I mean, actually, this was something even during high school that I wanted to pursue. I wanted to go to culinary school and I actually applied to like Johnson, Wales in Rhode Island and CIA. And they kind of pressured me to like, hey, you know, they didn't say it so straightforward. But basically it was like, you know, we're an immigrant family. We didn't move from Japan to raise you in America so that you can become like a cook. You know, it wasn't time during when I was 19.

It wasn't like a glorified position. There wasn't this media attention surrounding chefs. And they looked at it out of this like grueling job, which it is, right? But, you know, they wanted something, quote, quote, quote, better for me, you know. Right, right. This was something that I just love to do. I wanted to share the experience of having a great meal, you know, eating great food, you know, breaking bread is such an important thing in so many cultures.

And it hit home with me growing up with a mother who cooked dinner every night. you know and having this time to spend around the table and share what you did for the you know throughout your day and just catch up with your family yeah it hit home for me and i wanted to just share that with people so were you so for this to be a passion at 19 that where you're you're you're going to blow up school and make your parents very unhappy in the in the to make this first step that means it was on your mind from what age i mean you were i mean i would say you could do it 15 16 yeah yeah but i mean even before that. So, you know, as I was saying, my mother, you know, growing up was making dinner all the time. So

even I can, maybe it was like nine years old or something. I remember, you know, I get home from school. My mom is like prepping. She's like, make, you know, getting ready for dinner. And I would just be kind of hanging out at home. And, you know, I would be like, hey, mom, I'm hungry. You know, and yeah. And it was really out of a out of like, I want to eat quickly. So let me help you, mom, to get dinner on the table faster. That's kind of how it started. But through that process, it's like, wow, like I helped to create something that I made with my own two hands. Right. And contributing to that and to see the satisfaction.

And, you know, my mom would be like, oh, you know, Taka helped to make this dinner and whatever. And I'm like, oh, you know, you get kind of some positive feedback or whatever. You feel good, you know. Yeah, sure. It's very deeply rooted in like from early childhood for me, like making food, feeding people, getting feedback, you know, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. I know. It's amazing how it, it's such a cool thing. I love when there's, I love when things hit us when we're young. And it holds. I don't know if it's fate or

luck, but it's just like for you to know that as such a young age and you're just, there's no way around it. It's like they can make you go to school and they can do all this stuff, but you're not going to be knocked off that path. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if so much of it was that I was, you know, I was never in a professional kitchen up to that point. So I didn't really know, you know, but what I did know was I knew what I didn't want to do. Right. And I just couldn't see myself sitting like in an office, you know, in front of a computer and like just doing that kind of office job, you know, in Japanese, you'd call salary men. You know what I mean? I just couldn't see myself in that path, you know, through my high school, I was always an athlete. Like I did sports and

And I think that that's part of it, right? I just wanted to do something with my body, create something. And it just resonated with me. And once I stepped into that culture, into that restaurant world, that's when I really knew. It's like, this is it. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, you know it immediately. What sport were you in in?

I wrestled and I played football. Those were my two strongest sports. I did like a little bit of lacrosse, a little bit of track and field. But, yeah. Nice. Yeah. What did you play in football? I was an offensive guard and a defensive linebacker.

Ah, nice. Yeah, I was a fullback and a defensive linebacker also. Nice. And yeah, I know your track and field thing. That's like when you want to stay in shape for football, but you hate track and field. Yeah, but it's just torture. Oh, man.

So when you go into, when you make the, when you, when you go into Masa, are you very aware of like, holy cow, this is now an opportunity. Like now, now this is kind of like a special place, or is it just not total, total ignorance. Really? Really? All right. You want to take care of your health.

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They just do all of that work for you. Go to policy genius. come. I think it was for my benefit, you know? Yeah. Like, I didn't have, if I had actually understood what I was stepping into, I might have, you know, behaved very differently, you know. And I might not have had the same level of like, like,

I don't know how to like ignorant courage, you know, just like, not knowing. So I was just like, oh, yeah, just could do it, whatever. Yeah, so you'd be yourself there and that works your benefit. Yeah, so actually like the at the time, my girlfriend at the time was the one who actually found the ad. And funny enough, she's the one who's like, you know, she did all this research and she's telling me about Michelin and New York Times reviews. And I'm just like, I had no idea, I had no idea about the world of culinary world, you know, before that point.

And so she's even if she's telling me all these things about accolades of chef Masa and it didn't resonate at all. And I'm like, okay, cool. Like what does that mean? Is that like Olympics? Or like, what is, you know, there's no like frame of talking? Why are you talking about tires right now? No frame of reference at all. Right.

I just kind of went in there like, okay. And just like, but I, you know, as I was saying, I think it really helped me just to like not have any nerves. Just this is like a progression. This is what I want to do. And so people are telling me he's the best. Why not learn from the best, you know, you know? How looking back now, how great was he? Oh, I mean, he's, he's like a genius.

He's an artist, you know, first and foremost. And I think that, you know, when we talk about like sense, you know, he has like that's just, that's his DNA. Right. Like not just with food. It's like with the pottery and the plates. Like he designs all those things and he molds them and creates a blueprint so other people can handmake them. And so it's like it's much deeper than just that, right? It's the even designing the space, the cutting board, all of those things, Chef Masa is, is, has.

his hands in every single detail about the entire experience there. And so understanding that and seeing that, it's like, wow, you know, like there's, there's only a few people in the entire planet that has that ability to do that. Right. But you can see the influence in your work. Like, you obviously. Right. Really?

Really? There's that thing. I mean, that was my first question was, how do you get the design of all this stuff to, to sync up? It's obviously those that was a you, you soaked it up. You soaked it up like a, like a. I think, I think it's important to at least, you know, be exposed to thinking in that way. You know, honest to God, this is not like trying to be humble.

It's just, it's just really like it's a lifelong process, you know, and and understanding art on that level is, you know, I think it comes also with experience and life experience. You know, you just, it's not something that you can just, you can't teach somebody those kinds of things. It's not, you know. Yeah, yeah, exactly. No, that's like, that's just like you staying on the right path as a human being and exploring and going and going deeper. But what about the, what about the basic skills? Like, when did you start to feel like, all right, now I'm getting, because you become, you become head sushi chef? You become, is that the first place where?

You're being called on for that role. I mean, when I first started there, you know, I did every position and I worked through the rankings, I guess you can say, like through the different stations. Yeah. And during that time, I started there at 2007. So this was September 17th. Actually, I can still remember my first day. Yeah. But, you know, during that time, Chef Masa was kind of like, you know, the following year, he got this three Michelin stars.

And then, you know, he started to explore maybe expansion, different concepts. And so one of the big projects that he started 2009 was Las Vegas. And so, you know, we opened up Las Vegas November, December of 2009. And so that was the first time that I was kind of promoted to like the head sushi chef of opening this new location. Wow. It took me about, you know, about two years to get that first kind of like, you know, management head chef position. That's quick. Yeah, but, you know, I would say it took me about, you know, a solid.

year of just grinding it, you know, to feel even comfortable that I was at my, like, a base level that I can, that I'm useful at Masa restaurant, right? Right. Yeah. Right. That you're not getting in the way. Right. But I mean, that's like, you know, you know, obviously restaurant business is like, you know,

notorious for long hours and, you know, working crazy. And at the time, we were working 80 plus hours a week, six days a week. And on my days off, I was literally, you know, on my one day, I was buying 50 pound bags of carrots and practicing, like, we have a technique called Katsdamuki, you know, and I was just cutting. And I would go and, like, get, you know, fish from the Chinatown or something and just try for practicing butchering fish, you know, and so. Or like a solid year. It was just like nonstop as much as much as I could do, you know. Amazing. Is it the kind of thing that you, is it one of those crafts?

it seems like it's one of those crafts that you never stop learning. You never stop. Yeah, you always, there's always things to learn. Right. Absolutely. Even still, like every day I go in and I talk to somebody, I'm like, oh, wow, that's an interesting perspective or, you know, interesting, like new technique or new way of cutting or, you know what I mean?

And there's still nice skills that I still want to kind of put into my repertoire as well, you know. So, but, you know, time becomes a factor. Right, exactly. Yeah. So what, how many knives should I have in my kitchen? I would say all you need is one knife. Really? Yeah.

And, you know, I think it's more important to hone in your personal skills. They say, like, you know, how sharp is your knife? In Japanese, we say, how sharp is your arm? Right. So basically, you know, if your arm is very sharp, you can take a dull knife and you can still cut with it. It's really about honing your personal skill. Yeah.

Right. Yeah. I mean, obviously there are outside of that, this is like a more philosophical statement I just made, right? Outside of that, like, you know, if you have a really good chef knife, and for me, personally, if I have a chef knife and if I have an Usuba, I think I can do almost anything. Yeah.

Usuba is the Japanese vegetable knife. It's kind of like. The square? Yeah, it's sometimes square. And then there's the little rounded style as well. But the bevel is much thinner, so it makes it easier to glide through like vegetables. I was given one of those at Christmas, and it's all I'm using. I just can't believe how much better it is than any other knife I've ever used.

Really. I have to say, that is one of the very appealing things of Japanese culture in general to me is there's, you know, as a writer, as a comedian, it's always about distilling things down, as simple as you can. And it seems in the Japanese culture that that is the best artistic expression of the culture from the outside. It seems like it's always getting down to what's simple and powerful. Am I right? I always just try to find what is the root, right? And that's why like the words like foundation always come to mind.

Like what is on the bottom? Like what's holding it up everything, you know? And that's really comes down to like fully trying to really understand something. Right. Like when we're talking about like human beings, we like get very, you know, down to the molecule. Right. Down to the cell. Like what is the cell doing to understand what the human being is?

Right. I think that we just take a similar approach. Like what is the flavor of this? carrot. Why is it taste this way? How is it grown? What's the soil? What's how much water? What time of the year? And so really just trying to like as many details as you can collect as much information you can collect, the more tools you have to manipulate something. Right. Right. Right. It's so interesting. It's funny. This is a total side thing, but I was in the supermarket and my nephew's a farmer and I saw this big bag and it said a big thing of carrots at the supermarket, it said hydro washed.

I was like, how else would you wash it? Why is this special? Why is this on the bag? Why is this? Another thing, like, okay, so you dial it in and you get, you're always exploring and you're changing the menu. The design is probably, I'm sure, evolving. People now start to rely on you in the West Village and Brooklyn.

and you've got, you know, there's a reputation. There's a thing that you're getting when you go to these places. How are you able to maintain consistency? That is, yeah. Wow. That to me it seems like it's so, I mean, I know it takes hours and hours and hours, is probably the short answer, but that to me is a very impressive thing. And how the hell do you do it?

Yeah. So, I mean, there are obviously many strategies. and many, you know, many approaches to this problem. One of the simplest ways is to have a small restaurant and, and have the one chef do everything. Right. Which is like, which is a lot of like the philosophy and idea behind like Japanese sushi

or macashe restaurants, but there's only like 10 seats. And, you know, it's like the husband and wife and the, you know, that's just that's it. That's the entire staff. Like, you don't teach anybody. You don't need to like delegate.

You know, it's just like you do it yourself. Yeah. That is one approach, right? But obviously for like a restaurant group and growing. And so, you know, one of the strategy that we implemented for us is we do have a commissary kitchen. So we do have a centralized location where we do all the fish butchery, all the sauces are made in one location. And so we can minimize from location to location. You know, obviously everyone has a palette.

We want to standardize the palette across the board. But, you know, people are different. It can only be so continuous between different chefs, different people. And so we have one location where majority of all of our products are processed and created. And then that's disseminated between our locations. So that's one way. But at the end of the day, you know, once you get to the location, there's still the staff that we need to put it together.

There's still that happens in the locations themselves. And at the end of the day, there's no big secret. It's really just training and training and just being, you know, and just making sure your standards are high and your staff, you know, can appreciate that and they understand it. Right. Was that a part? I can just get from your vibe that dealing with the people is probably comes pretty natural to you. I think that that's the most important thing. Yeah.

I mean, there's at the end of the day, again, if you want to go to. the approach of, you know, you're the only chef and that's it. And you don't have to deal with anybody. But, you know, if you're dealing with, you know, any kind of scaling or any type of, you know, you want to have a team, you know, you have to be able to communicate. You have to be able to talk to them. Yeah. You know, get the message across, you know.

Right, right. So what's exciting right now? You were just in Hawaii, I think? Yeah, we were. We actually did a pop up there. It was a Oberg, Oberg resorts. hotel called Manalani in the Big Island. You know, it was a, it was a very, it was a lot of work, a lot of work.

You know, basically we were there for about two weeks doing kind of some lunch takeout services plus sit down kind of more one process style temaki experience that we created just for that problem. Wow. What was the idea? Where did you come up with that idea? So actually, last. Actually, last year, it was right around February last year.

And, you know, pandemic was still happening. And one of our partners, he was staying at that resort and kind of just invited us to just, you know, we haven't taken any time off since we opened the restaurant. So it just invited us to take a couple days and just relax and ended up that he knew, like, the general manager of the property. And then they had a conversation and kind of sparked, hey, what about potential pop up? because they were looking for maybe, you know, adding another restaurant venue to the, their property and,

you know, all these kind of small little conversations bloomed into, okay, well, why don't we just do a pop-up and see how things work out? Right. So really, it was like a year in the, in the making, you know, to get details together and all the logistics and to figure everything out. So yeah, I mean, you know, everyone on their end was happy, guests were happy. I mean, considering everything,

that needed to be done and everything that happened. I mean, I think it was a real success. Yeah. Yeah. And really, like, we had literally two days to set up for our first nights of service and, you know, trying to open a full service restaurant in two days. It's not recommended, you know? That's crazy. It's always crazy when you go to a place like Hawaii,

and it's like everyone's enjoying themselves to the nth degree, and you're just busting so much harder than everybody. out. It was quite an experience. I mean, it pushed me to my limits, my, my physical limits, you know. Yeah. But at the end of the day, it was so rewarding, you know, to be able to have that experience, not just for me personally, but, you know, we brought 10 of our staff members over there.

Wow. And, you know, for them to have that kind of experience and for them to see that and to experience that. Like, it's, that's like, you know, I was, we're just talking about this, how this is going to be like a lifelong memory, you know, for all of us. Oh, God. Yeah. the family like that. That part was especially special for me too. Yeah. It's amazing.

Like that would have been like doing that, that undertaking is in normal times is a big deal. But also like coming after what restaurants, what you must have dealt with over the last couple of years in New York. I mean, that must have tested you in a whole different way. I think it tested all of us. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, sometimes we have conversations like, well, if it wasn't, you know, this, if it wasn't this pandemic, you know, we're, we're fairly confident it was going to be something. Like this is the restaurant business by nature of what it is. It's like, it's just there to touch you.

Like, constant. And so kind of like, you know, maybe it was good that we had a shared experience with between all restaurant people. And we had, you know, we didn't have our individualized challenges. It was like a more of like a restaurant industry wide. where we can come together and find solutions as an entire team of like hospitality team versus our solo restaurant, right? And so in that kind of way, it was very unique, unique and but it doesn't change the fact

that yeah, I mean, the amount of things, the legislation, the rules changing from week to week sometimes and just, you know, having to retrain the staff on new protocols and yeah, to build out new training programs and new protocols. It was just like, Like, it was a lot to do, you know? And then on top, the restaurant. Right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

I mean, all the artistry and all the stuff that you're putting into just doing the basic stuff that makes it successful. And then now here's a whole other, a bunch of hoops you can jump through. What do you do? I mean, this is kind of crazy because this is kind of a free time question, which you don't have free time. But is there, how do you feed your, how do you feed your, how do you feed your, how do you feed your, mind and how do you feed your being with what other kind of art and music or reading or anything

else outside of food what are some of your actually uh one great way of like being able to read is like audiobooks yeah so it's on an audiobook that's great you know i can do that on the train right there or you know just in between whatever podcast great too you know yeah i mean i hear i learn a lot you know, from that as well, that experience as well. So, I mean, you know, there's so many different avenues in which you can, you know, gain information. There's like, it's actually, there's too much. I know.

There's too much, too much, too much access to information almost, you know, to, you know, I know. Yeah. Sometimes it's overwhelming and sometimes I want to control it, you know, like, I need to take a rest. Right. Yeah, exactly. And have, and have none of it. I know it's, the amount of people I run into and talk to, I'm always jotting down the name of an author,

the name of a podcast, the name of a thing to get to. And then I never end up even looking at the list because I, it's too many. Yeah, it's just too much. Infinite, it feels like, you know? Yeah, it feels like we're at this tipping point.

It's like everything is knowable in a way. All right. As someone who loves Japanese food, but as someone who doesn't make much of it, can I? Absolutely. I think that, I think that fundamental.

mentally, actually Japanese food is like at the core is very simple. Like it's soy sauce, sake and meat. It is mostly found in all sauces and a lot of the sauces is just like a balance of of those three things. And then adding maybe some sort of like different type of stock, whether it's conbu dashi, which is just like your kelp seaweed stock or katsuw dashi, which is like the the Bonito that's been dried, fermented, and then shave very thin. And then you make a broth out of that.

So adding kind of different flavors. to your soy sauce sake meeting right what's the last word a meeting meeting is like the cooking sake okay a bit sweeter sake yeah so it's kind of like you know can be replaced with sugar or something like that got it um and just understanding the balances of those things but yeah i mean i think that generally japanese cooking is pretty simple um really very very ground level you know okay i think it's it's very easy to pick up if you learn a couple things i think yeah all right all right i'm inspired You ever put out a book? Yeah, I mean, yeah, think about it.

You know, I think that's still a little bit weighs down. You know, I think we have a lot of things that we want to accomplish before, you know, any kind of book comes up. You know, I think that, you know, whatever it is, sharing story, sharing knowledge, I think that's so important. Like, whatever it is, whatever story you want to tell, if people want to hear it, I'm more than happy to share. Yeah. And that's kind of the philosophy and the way I go about cooking and food. And if people are willing to learn, I'm more than happy to sacrifice my time and my energy to share that with somebody else. Oh, that's great.

That's great. Is it, do you have a lot of turnover or when people come? I would imagine if the people that have talent that would come into your orbit at the restaurants would probably stick around for a bit. Yeah. I mean, I think that, you know, each restaurant has different challenges. And I think that depending on the position, our turnaround is very, very different. And so, you know, I think that we do have people that have been with us from the beginning. Yeah.

You know, but then again, everything that's been happening with COVID and all that. So it's like a hard, hard, hard, you know, time to really determine where we stand because things are still not normal, right? Yeah, yeah. You know, people got sick. People had families to take care of the schedule no longer worked for them, whatever. You know, like there's so many exterior things happening. that it's hard to gauge. Right, right.

But again, I think that that's something that we really focus on, right? You want to make sure we want to create a family. We want that Nami Nori family. Yeah. And it's, you know, it's really important to us that we connect on like a deeper level than just employee and employer. Yeah. Yeah.

What's on your mind these days when you're on your way to work just food-wise? Take all the, the business and the people out of it and all of that. What's what have you, what's kind of turning you on, what's making, what's on your mind? Oh, well, I mean, very recently, we actually, this starting this yesterday, this is not a plug because just yesterday, we started a collaboration with Lama Inn. And so that's Eric Ramirez is a, you know, a Peruvian restaurant. And so, you know, just, you know, obviously this kind of naturally happened, you know, they reached out and they were like, hey, you know, we should do something.

and we have our restaurants are very close to each other. And so, you know, having his food and being, you know, tasting, it was just amazing food. Really? Like, thinking about all these different, right? Like, I was just exposed to something new, like Peruvian flavors and Peruvian herbs. And just now I'm like, wow, like totally new information coming into my head about food and flavors. And so I just been pondering about Peruvian herbs. food a lot lately.

That's great. So we actually, for this collaboration, we designed a tamaki. We both started with a fluke, a local fluke, sustainable. And so they made a tiradito out of it. We made a tamaki out of it. And so, you know, I made a play on the kind of the, you know, in Japanese, the umme plum, pickle plum and chiso is kind of like a, you know, very, you know, traditional kind of, you know, understood flavor combination.

nation. Right. And so I made a basically lechere teigre, but using katsuadashi as the fish stock and using the plum with the red shiso in as kind of like the acid. And so it made a sauce out of that and add a shiso. And so they exposed me to this great herb. It's kind of, I think they call it a black mint in English, but it's called huakate, is, is the is the herb. But it's very has an herbaceous, you know, has some similar notes to the shiso leaf. And so kind of using that. And so, in conjunction with the Shihil also kind of made it. I love it. I love to see your,

the wheels turning. This is very inspiring. Do you, do you ever get to go back to Japan and, and, I mean, the last time, the last time I was there was probably about five years ago, you know,

you know, I'd love to go more often, but again, comes to time, you know? Yeah. It's not traveling that far. It's like you spend two days just traveling. Yeah, it's a lot. You get there and then there's like, you know, you have only so many days to get out of town. So, yeah, it's, it's been hard to get back there.

I've never, I've never been there. And, uh, oh, wow. I really, yeah, I really, that's, it's been on my mind a lot. Yeah, I mean, uh, you said you should definitely make it out there. But I mean, they've been, they've been closed off too pretty much. I know. This isn't the time. It's very difficult.

Yeah. Something about the mountains that just seems like, I don't know, it just seems like it's a place that has to as we return it should be like on the top of the list yeah i mean i as soon as they open i i'd like to go i i i do have plans to go there next year yeah um yeah to uh you know actually my father passed away like we you know in buddhist religion it's like the the seventh year is like a significant year so uh-huh um there's certain like year markers to go visit your you know your past ones and so next would be those years now to go really is the seventh year the seventh year after they pass? Yeah. So there's like a three year mark, a seven year mark. Yeah,

there's different like year markers. But this is like their path after after death. That's they're walking towards like divinity. Wow. Wow. Wow. That sounds pretty special. Yeah. I mean, you know, we were we weren't raised to, you know, strict Buddhist or anything. But we just kind of followed, you know, whether, you know, it was never like the Buddha says. It was intrinsic in like our upbringing and how we were, you know, how we were. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's the same thing with me with Christianity. It's like, I'll take the good parts. Actually, interesting enough, in high school, I had a group of friends who introduced me to Christianity. I was baptized actually when I was, I think, a junior in high

school or something. Really? Yeah. And so, but through that experience, it exposed me to all the religions and another way of thought. And so I'm not, like, I wouldn't consider myself Christian at this point, but it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, uh, eye opening. I was just trying to explore, figure out life. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just to have a different perspective. It was, it was good. It was interesting, you know. Well, this was so cool. I thank you so much for spending the time with me. It's, uh, it's, it's, it's, it's kind of funny when you have an idea of what somebody's like when you go in and then you kind of even, uh, heighten it. Like, you're very, very thoughtful. Really, there's a thoughtfulness and a joy that, like, that totally comes

through and I'll have to reach out when I'm back in New York and come see you live. Yeah, please do. And I'd love to. Maybe we can get together and I can show you how to make some Japanese food. Yeah, I'll bring my knife. All right, Taka. Thank you so much. All right.

Thank you so much. Have a good one. All right. You too. I'll see you soon. All right. That was our conversation with Taka Sakkaeda. Go to Nami Nori and check out his restaurants.

amazing, amazing spots. I told you it was going to be good, right? Thoughtful. Is that what you came away with? Thoughtful. Yes. So great. Thank you so much for listening.

Thank you for liking and subscribing and giving me your comments and begging for bread. Again, I'm doing my best. I will get you bread. Eventually. We'll work at it, kids. We're all in this together. Thank you for joining me at the table.

And we'll see you again next week.