Digital Social Hour - Chef Min Kim On Learning from Chefs in Japan, Starting Mizumi & Weirdest Food He's Eaten | DSH #231

Episode Date: January 13, 2024

On today's episode of Digital Social Hour, Chef Min Kim talks about his tough upbringing in the restaurant space cleaning floors with toothbrushes, how he partnered with the Wynn & future plans for Mi...zumi. APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://forms.gle/qXvENTeurx7Xn8Ci9 BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: Jenna@DigitalSocialHour.com SPONSORS: Opus Pro: https://www.opus.pro/?via=DSH Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 What's the weirdest thing you've eaten? So in Japan, there's a thing called shirako. And actually, it's one of the delicacies in Japan, especially during the wintertime. It's basically a fish sperm. I'm trying to picture this. I can't be disrespectful to the chef. So sometimes I just close my eyes and I just shove it in my mouth and I just swallow. And I'm like, this is not good.
Starting point is 00:00:22 This is not good. Welcome back to the show, guys. I host as always sean kelly got a special guest for you guys today chef min kim how's it going sean how are you i'm good man thanks for having me man i'm really excited absolutely when we met um that was so you're part of mizumi obviously and uh got to meet you at your restaurant and that was one of the best meals i've ever had thank you that's how much of a mark you left obviously, and got to meet you at your restaurant. And that was one of the best meals I've ever had. Thank you. That's how much of a mark you left on me. I had to have you on the show.
Starting point is 00:00:48 And considering that was two years ago, I was looking back at my feed and the messages that we've been sending back and forth. And I'm like, holy hell, that was like two years ago. It's been a while. Time flies. Time flies. And obviously, I'm a big fan of yours. I've been following your journey and stuff.
Starting point is 00:01:06 But just to think that was two years ago, and I'm like, wow. Yeah, before I even started the podcast or anything. Right, right. Crazy. So how did you get involved with Mizumi and being at the Wynn as a partner? That's an incredible feature to accomplish. Yeah. So I've been with the company for almost nine years now.
Starting point is 00:01:24 My journey with Wynn started in Macau. We have our sister property in Macau. We have our sister property in Boston, but also in Macau. And back in 2015, there was a property called Wynn Palace, which was second Wynn property in Macau, was being constructed and getting ready to open. So then one of my friends that I used to work with back in Australia, he was there already in Macau as pre-opening team of their property. And he called me, I remember I was in Australia
Starting point is 00:01:58 at the time when he called me, he's like, hey, there's a really cool gig like and this is like grand this is you know off this planet type of thing you know and i'm really excited for it and i want you to be part of it like if you want and i was like man like sounds pretty cool i've never even thought about working in macau right i'm like okay you know let me just go and check it out so even before committing to anything i went over there just to see what it's like and it was actually really cool so i'm like okay like i'm in right so that was back in 2015 started my journey with win and then after um four and a half years of my time in macau i kind of thought it was my time to just move on and then you know at the time this opportunity came up in las vegas so i just got transferred
Starting point is 00:02:45 from macau to here and you know um it's just been here ever since beautiful so you never been to vegas before you moved here so i have a couple of times um but just to like travel right like just to visit and i think there is a like huge difference between like visiting a place and liking it versus like living there right it's a completely different i guess dynamic so um and like to be honest like i don't drink i don't smoke i don't gamble right so that's rare here very rare for a chef right being a chef like when i tell people like oh i don't drink and they're like what is wrong with you literally they're like they're seriously concerned and they're like are you okay are you okay um so you know like so just in that sense like being in Vegas wasn't really top of my list
Starting point is 00:03:33 the place to live and work right but you know I thought about the culture and the people that I work with at Wynn and you know being a professional and being a professional in my field and in my industry, for me, I work so much that I don't even get a chance to go out and enjoy the actual city so much anyway. So for me, it's about, I spend almost like 70 to 80% of my life at work. So what mattered more for me,
Starting point is 00:03:59 and which still is, is about where I work and the people that I work with. So that really attracted me to come here because I knew enough professional people around me that I'd be working with. Yeah, wow, 70, 80% is high. So you're pretty much at the restaurant all day.
Starting point is 00:04:12 All day, all day. And I have my different business that I run in Asia as well. So because of time difference, let's say I'll finish my work at my restaurant at Wynn at 1 and I'll go home, have dinner, work out a little bit and shower. And from 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. I'll work on my business in Asia. Holy crap. Yeah. So I only sleep about like five hours every day.
Starting point is 00:04:36 So you don't sleep till 6 a.m.? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes, sometimes depending on what's going on over there, like, you know, during the time, especially, I mean, Asia, Asia generally struggled a lot. The F&B industry, they suffered so much. I took my restaurant and my business took a lot of hit and damage during the time.
Starting point is 00:04:58 I had to focus a lot more on them in terms of operations and profitability and stuff like that. So now I only spend about two or three hours every day with them. But comparatively speaking, back in 2021, I was spending probably about four or five hours every day just going through the strategies and plans and long-term plans and short-term plans and stuff like that. It's amazing to see you thrive in this space because a lot of restaurants fail. A lot, a lot. I mean, you know, I mean, you probably know these, but statistically speaking, they say four restaurants out of five that open generally fails, like globally speaking. So, you know, only one restaurant out of five that opens actually survives and strives.
Starting point is 00:05:41 So which is like a crazy number if you think about it. Yeah. Did you know that going into the restaurant industry? Not really. I mean, you know, like my dad is a chef, right? So like, in a way I'm like second generation chef and I was born in a restaurant. My dad, you know, I grew up in a poverty. I mean, for lack of better terms, poverty, like we didn't have a lot of money. Right. And, you know, back in the days people become a chef because you're right people like you don't become a chef because you you pursue glory and money and success like you know i'm talking like 40 50 years ago you become a chef because you have no other skills in your life like oh what i do okay i'll just go restaurant and wash dishes and then you slowly move up the rank and before you know you're like hey chef right that's kind of what happened to my dad as well so you know when he decided to open
Starting point is 00:06:31 his own restaurant he didn't have too much money so what he did was he bought a property he actually built it himself him him and his friends so half of those half of that property that he bought he transferred into like a restaurant the forefront of it and then the back he bought, he transferred into like a restaurant, the forefront of it. And then the back end of it, he turned into like residential housing, I guess, like spa. So when I was born, like literally I was in a literal sense, I was born in a restaurant. Wow. So like, you know, because we didn't have too much space, we actually even didn't have a kitchen. The only kitchen space that we had for the house was basically the kitchen of the restaurant.
Starting point is 00:07:07 So we shared the same space. So every single day, every breath that I took as a kid in that area was being part of the restaurant. So I couldn't think of anything else but to become a chef. Because that was almost the only option that was shown to me as a kid growing up for over a decade. Yeah. Was this in Australia? It was in Korea.
Starting point is 00:07:31 Korea. It was in Korea. So my dad specialized in Japanese cuisine. He studied and trained a lot in Japan, came back to Korea to open up his own restaurant. Nice. And it was pretty cool, right? I mean, like, you know, as a kid,
Starting point is 00:07:42 I would go into the kitchen, you know, and then I'll always see my dad, like, yelling and screaming. And he's, like, throwing around and he's, like, telling people off. And, like, you know, nobody's, like, talking back to him. And I'm like, dude, that's cool, right? In my head, I'm like, man, like, I want to be like, I want to be that. I don't know what that is, but I want to be that. You know, that's how I was kind of inspired to become a chef.
Starting point is 00:08:06 Dang. So he was a ****. Were you kind of fearful of him? Very. Like very, right? Like, I mean, he was a very, he was such a like authority type of figure, right? I wouldn't say he was a tyrant, right? He was more like very honorably respected from his staff, right?
Starting point is 00:08:24 But even his presence spoke a lot like you know when he entered the room you know like one of those people that comes into the room comes into the space and immediately you would feel the energy change right he was one of those type of people like he will walk into the kitchen or he'll walk into the restaurant and straight away, the air immensely just changed. Wow. That type of like, it's, I don't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't want to say it was a fear. It was more of that, I guess, like predominant, like alpha male type of energy, right? Like you walk in and you're like, oh, dude, respect type of feel.
Starting point is 00:09:05 Wow. So do you kind of carry that in your restaurants too? To a degree. I mean, I try, right? I try and, you know, I'm a very, very strict, you know, like type of leader because, you know, I have very high standard to achieve, right? And in order to achieve the high standard and excellence,
Starting point is 00:09:26 you have to pursue a pathway of discipline, like hardworking ethic, right? Like commitment, dedication, your passion, everything, right? Like in the pursuit of excellence, it comes with a lot of sacrifice. People don't realize that, right? They think like, oh, just be good. Just make it nice or be excellent, right? with a lot of sacrifice people don't realize that right they think like oh just be good i just you
Starting point is 00:09:45 know just make it nice or like be excellent right people think it's just like it's as simple and easy as just saying it but there's just so much sacrifice that comes with it right and you know like what i mean by sacrifice there's a lot of that long hours right when i was working in japan i used to work like 80 to 90 hours a week, right? And like, you know, and like they are very, very strict and sometimes even like physically violent type of environment, right? They will like literally like kick you in the leg, right? They're like, why'd you stuff up, right? So there was a lot of that intense environment that really like makes you into almost like a monster but not in sort of bad way right monster in a way of like you are you are like fearless like you're strong
Starting point is 00:10:33 and you are you know like the you have that dominance right you get through anything correct yeah yeah so how long were you learning in japan for So I was there for four years. And, you know, probably like working in Japan was the hardest experience that I ever had in my career, right? Like I was saying, you literally work 80 to 90 hours a week. And that's like normal. Like when there is like big event or when it's a peak busy season, whatever, you will literally break like 90 to 100 hours. And you're standing the whole time, right? The whole time. the whole time right whole time like running like literally running in your sweats wow so i remember some like during the summertime like i would finish work like 2 a.m 3 a.m because
Starting point is 00:11:16 like you gotta like clean the kitchen like oh you had to clean too oh spotless clean dang like on my knees on my hands and knees like scrubbing the floor with like toothbrush like toothbrush toothbrush holy crap yeah like literally they give you like like one of the bigger ones like toothbrush and toothpaste and they're like okay you go from there to there all the way scrub wow and i'm like like literally like literally scrubbed? And they're like, yep. So that, I mean, like I could literally sleep on the floor. That's how clean the place was. Like in Japanese people are very like sensitive about hygiene, the cleanliness and stuff like that. So, you know, which I thought it was really good thing for a restaurant to focus on.
Starting point is 00:12:04 So I didn't have any complaints, but you know, sometimes I'll finish really good thing for a restaurant to focus on so i didn't have any complaints but you know sometimes i'll finish at 2 3 a.m in the morning and i will like come out of the restaurant and i don't realize how much i sweat right but like sometimes i'll come out and i'll see my like black t-shirt completely almost white whoa from like the salinity from my sweat crazy yeah, that's on yeah. Yeah, why why is the sushi so good in Japan? I think I think it's a dedication. I think it's a dedication to Master craftsmanship a lot of Japanese people they dedicate their whole life in One craftsmanship like you know you go to Japan like for example you go to sushi restaurant and they only do sushi right for example like you know comparatively speaking in America or like in more like Western societies even Australia Europe
Starting point is 00:12:54 you go to Japanese restaurant and they do sushi they do tempura they do teppanyaki yeah they do like everything right so you know it's good from a consumers perspective it's good from a consumer's perspective. It's good because you have a lot more different varieties to try. But I think when you stretch out your pool so far, it's a lot more difficult for you to go in depth in terms of quality. And I think that's what Japanese chefs do so great. Like you go to like tempura restaurant in Japan, in Tokyo,
Starting point is 00:13:25 and, you know, the chef you talk to, he's like third generation of tempura chef. Like his father was a tempura chef. His grandfather was tempura chef. So literally he's been, like the whole family has been running that restaurant for like century, right? So then obviously when you do something for a century,
Starting point is 00:13:43 you know, it's probably safe to say you pick up a trick or two here and there, right? So they literally master their craftsmanship. And it's accumulated experience and knowledge over the course of so many years. And that's how you become a master at something. I agree with that. Whenever I go to a restaurant and the menu is super long, that's a red flag for me. 100%. Like a diner, it's like five pages i'm like oh my gosh you're probably freezing
Starting point is 00:14:09 everything on this right 100 like you literally feel like you're reading a bible right like page after page after page you're like okay at this point like i'm lost yeah right yeah i like simple menus for sure correct yeah which dishes took the longest for you to perfect? I know sushi is pretty hard, right? Very hard. And I think, and to be very, very honest, Sean, like I don't think I actually perfected any of that yet, right? Again, comparatively speaking, like, you know, I know there are a lot of good chefs out there,
Starting point is 00:14:44 and, you know, I know there are a lot of good restaurants out there. And, you know, I know there are a lot of good restaurants out there. And every time when I go out to eat at those restaurants, especially like in Japan, it really humbles me. Like, to a shame. I'm like, and I'm eating sometimes like at this like, you know, two mission, three mission. Well, like sometimes not even like that level like sometimes you go to like you know this like really simple casual restaurant holding the world type place in the back alley of like tokyo shinjuku whatever yeah and you walk in and literally they don't have the menu right and you you talk to these like masters or like the the head chefs and they're like oh you just eat whatever i give you and i'm
Starting point is 00:15:21 like okay and they start giving you all these crazy ass dishes and like just mind blowing dishes. And just like to see how much they know and how skilled they are and how talented they are. And they're like nobody's, right? Nobody knows them. Literally, they own like small joint with a hole in the wall in the back alley of like, you know, back of the Tokyo somewhere. But like you look at them and you're like man you are so much better than i am and like it just it just really humbles you the notion of that right yeah so even though like i like to think that i'm good at what i do and i believe that i am good at what i do to a certain point but i don't think i'm to a level where i can say yeah I perfect I've
Starting point is 00:16:06 perfected like any of my skill set or craftsmanship wow and that's crazy to say because you've been working at this your whole life like 20 years yeah but there's always people doing better always right yeah is it hard for you to eat in the us like eat out restaurants um yes and no sean like yes and no i mean yes in a sense i've i've worked at like seven different six different countries so and i travel a lot right i travel like i think almost 60 countries so so you know there's so many things i get so many references for me to compare to right so in a sense i would go out and, you know, especially like this day and age, like everything is so inflated. Like you go to a restaurant and you literally like have like half full type meal and it still costs you like 200 bucks, right?
Starting point is 00:16:57 Especially in Vegas. Especially in Vegas, right? So then like you think about the value for money that you pay, right? Yes, it was a good meal, but when you really think about the value versus how much you pay, I don't think it amounts to what you actually pay. So in that sense, I think about, oh man, if I was in Japan or if I was in Korea or Singapore or China, I think, man, I could have had a beautiful meal at a fraction of the cost that I paid for. So in that regard, in that aspect, I'm like, oh, it's kind of tough me going out to restaurants in America to pay that much money and get that sort of quality.
Starting point is 00:17:37 But no, in a sense, because in America, there are so many different options, so many different options. And I feel like i love the sense of when i go out to restaurants a lot of like servers and you know waiting staff like front house staff like they are very friendly right whereas like you go to a restaurant in japan in korea or like you know asian countries they are they're like the waiting staff are a little more reserved they don't even talk to you they don't even talk to you. They don't even talk to you. You know, right?
Starting point is 00:18:05 I mean, I've heard about it. Right. And they just stand there and they literally like just look at you like, you know, like with their side eyes like, are you done? Are you done? Right. So it's kind of awkward. But whereas like in America, like everyone's kind of friendly, right?
Starting point is 00:18:19 You have actually great experience and time interacting with the staff at the restaurant. Right. So, yeah, I think that's probably the biggest difference. That's cool. Yeah, I didn't even think about it. You know all the margins, so from that perspective, you're like, oh, this guy spent like 20 bucks on this and I paid 200. Right. So it's a curse. It's a blessing and a curse at the same time. And I try not to think about the business aspect of the dining experience when I go out because once you start getting into the more technical
Starting point is 00:18:46 and business side of the whole dining experience, it's just not fun anymore. Yeah, you're becoming too anal at that point. What's the weirdest thing you've eaten? There are so many. Weirdest, I mean, there are just a couple of things. So in Japan, there is a thing called Shirako, Shirako is
Starting point is 00:19:08 it's very commonly eaten and actually it's one of the delicacies in Japan especially during the winter time, it's like in a literal translation it's basically a fish sperm how did they even capture that?
Starting point is 00:19:28 I'm trying to picture this like it's it's actually not as crazy as you think so you catch a fish and when you got it when you take the gut out there is a sack if there is a sack of sperm yeah right um so it's almost like if you think of any type of organ right but there is like a part where like the fish stores its sperm in its own like little sack okay so they basically extract that out from the fish and they whether cook it or sometimes they serve it like sashimi roll um you know most times with the ponzu with a little like citric soy sauce to sort of cut down that like fishiness to it. I understand it's a delicacy and I understand it's a cultural thing, but that is something that I can just never get used to.
Starting point is 00:20:14 I've tried a few times and, you know, when you go to this like top high-end omakase restaurants and you just have to eat what chefs give you, you have no choice, right? And I can't be disrespect to the chef so i like sometimes i'm just like i just close my eyes and i just shove it in my mouth and i just swallow and i'm like yeah this is not good this is not good i can't see that being good yeah and even just like conceptually think like the notion behind okay this is a spoon you know what i mean you know what i mean like it's just like something that I would never put in my mouth for a million years, but I'm doing it because I'm a chef, right?
Starting point is 00:20:51 And it's, yeah. You're doing it for the people, man. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And there's, like, probably one other thing is, like, fugu. Fugu. Like, blowfish. Blowfish? Oh, that's a poisonous one, right?
Starting point is 00:21:01 Poisonous fish. And, like, which is like delicious. But, you know, there is obviously like 70% of the actual fugu fish, blowfish, that you can't eat because it's like poisonous. So there's only like 30 to 40% of the whole fish you can actually, which is edible. But like, I love it, right? Especially like it's such a winter delicacy during the wintertime. Like I crave it so much. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:21:26 But every time I eat it, I think about like I'm just trying to comprehend like, okay. So at some point through the human evolution, some guy must have thought, hey, what's that like weird looking blowing thing in the water? Like I wonder if I can try to eat it, right? And then he would cut it up and whichever way he cut it, he's like, hmm, I wonder if it's edible. Hey, come here, do you wanna try this a little bit? And this guy dies, right?
Starting point is 00:21:54 And then this guy must be a psychopath. So at that point, instead of saying, oh man, this is not edible, don't eat it, don't eat it. He's like, oh, okay, so that part is not edible. What about this part hey hey yeah call another guy he's like hey try this part and this guy dies too right yeah you go through so many of that practice to figure out what is edible and what part is not edible yeah and like just the notion behind somebody even like willing to try something that he's seen people die from,
Starting point is 00:22:28 but just to pursue that procedure of, like, I want to keep trying until I figure out which part that I can eat. There's someone out there that did that once probably. Right? It's just like that is just mind-blowing to me. Yeah, that's funny. I tried jellyfish once. Oh, that's, what did you think of it? I didn't like it.
Starting point is 00:22:40 Yeah? Yeah, do you like it? I do, but it's got to be done right, though. Okay. It's got to be done right. What was the part that you didn't like? So I was at Wing Lay. I tried it.
Starting point is 00:22:50 I guess it was kind of rubbery. Yeah, the texture. Texture, yeah. The texture, right? What about the flavor? It just tasted bland. Is it supposed to have a flavor? No, I mean, depends how you do it.
Starting point is 00:23:00 I mean, there are different ways that you can prepare. You know, you can season it and sauce it in a way that it can it can be infused into jellyfish but the jellyfish itself like naturally doesn't have any flavor okay like bland like yeah that's probably why i didn't like it then yeah yeah it didn't have any it didn't come with the sauces or anything like that no just plain yeah yeah yeah um so i'm assuming the best sushi you've had is in Japan, right? It's hard to say. Like, I think for me, yes. But I think a lot of times when you go to Japan,
Starting point is 00:23:34 like, people have this weird, not weird, I guess it's normal, but to me it's kind of like strange idea and expectation of, like, I'm going to have the best sushi experience ever. Yeah. So at that point, doesn't matter what they feed you, you're going gonna like it because you're in that already set of mind this is where the best sushi is at yeah right yeah and i like i understand like some of my best sushi experience definitely was in japan but even like some places outside japan like hong kong singapore like you can still go to japanese restaurant in
Starting point is 00:24:02 those cities and countries and have exceptional sushi experiences. For example, I do my sushi a little bit differently. I do it more in a contemporary way, which is not accepted in Japan. If I made my sushi the way I do in Japan, people would tell me, Go back to America! It's very contemporary. But Katy Perry used to come into my restaurant a lot. And like, literally, she said like,
Starting point is 00:24:28 chef, you can quote this anywhere you go. She goes, your sushi is the best sushi that I ever tasted in my life, even compared to Japan. That's awesome. Because for her, like for Katy, my sushi was more comfortable in terms of flavor, right?
Starting point is 00:24:44 It's not as fishy, right? I sauce it differently. I garnish it differently. right it's not as fishy right i sauce it differently i garnish it differently so it's not you know even like for example when you try uni sea urchin some people don't like it because of texture because that's briny flavor yeah fishy right right but i sauce it differently i garnish it differently to a point you're tasting uni, but it doesn't taste as fishy and briny. Right. Right. Whereas like in Japan, the taste of ocean, taste of that brininess is what is considered as tasty.
Starting point is 00:25:12 Yeah. So different, like, I guess different concept. I noticed you did that because I don't like oysters, but when I tried it at Mizumi, it didn't taste as fishy as normal. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So do you source your stuff from like certain parts of the world that are not as fishy, I guess? I source a lot of my seafood, like majority of my seafood and fish from Japan. And I think there's a lot of authenticity behind that, right? Like I'm a firm believer in authenticity. And one of the best way to bring out authenticity in the cooking is try to source
Starting point is 00:25:43 ingredients from where the cuisine is originally developed. It just makes sense. So that's why I try to source a lot of stuff from Japan. So even the oysters that you had was actually local. It comes from the West Coast. I love West Coast seafood. So I'm not really married to the idea of like i have to source everything from japan like for me it's about the quality right sometimes some stuff that i get from japan is good but then again i can actually find and source better ingredients locally surprisingly so you know for me it's always i try to go by obviously the belief of
Starting point is 00:26:21 authenticity but at the same time it always comes down to the flavor and then quality of gradients i love that i also saw khabib stopped by right i love him yeah what was that like he's so he's the type of guy that i respect a lot like even before i met him like i've i've always loved him right like the way you know his his work ethics and his mentality and his striveness towards success and winning is just so fascinating. So when he came by, I was almost starstruck. I'm like, oh my god, it's Khalid! And then I have a lot of friends who are part of UFC. Dana, who's a good friend of mine.
Starting point is 00:27:05 So, you know, he stopped by and, you know, they kind of hooked me up with him. And I said, hey, chef, come here and say hello to Khabib. And he was a very, very nice guy. And he talked to me a lot about, you know, because I asked a lot of questions. I'm like, man, like what it's like to be like one of the best champs in the world. And, you know, a lot of answers that he gave was very humble. I like humble people. I think having that humility and modesty is really important in people.
Starting point is 00:27:32 For sure. Not to the point that you don't want to dismiss yourself, but to the point that I don't like people with boasting of the energy of arrogance. Right, right. Whereas Khabib was, you know, considering how big he is and how successful and like famous he is, he was very, very humble.
Starting point is 00:27:51 Nice. And I love that about him. Yeah, he's undefeated, one of the best of all time. Yep. And then you got guys like McGregor that are the opposite. Yeah, I have a lot of things to say,
Starting point is 00:28:01 but I will not say. Which I've, you know, I've met Conor a couple of times too. Oh, nice. He was on the property promoting his whiskeys and stuff. I've met him a few times and I will just stop there. Yeah. I want to dive into the business side of Mizumi for a bit.
Starting point is 00:28:19 It's one of the top restaurants in Vegas. It's been open for four years, right? Yep. What have you learned throughout that process about running a successful restaurant in Vegas? I would say Sean probably one of the biggest lessons that I've learned is the power of the marketing and we've talked about
Starting point is 00:28:36 this briefly before jumping on a podcast for example and again I'm being very careful mentioning these names and brands but for example let and again i'm i'm being very careful mentioning these names and brand like but like for example like let's say nobu right great brand great restaurant and you know i have i want to stress out this like i have so much respect for nobasan right he's a great chef you know he's one of the greatest mentor um you know but the thing the thing about the Nobu and what they do so great is the marketing, right?
Starting point is 00:29:07 People, like, automatically think of, like, Japanese food and they think of Nobu. Like, where do you want to go Japanese food? Like, one of the probably first thing that people think about is, what about Nobu? For sure. You know, so it's one of those, it became such an iconic institutional figure in this industry. And that's what I sort of learned and realized. Like even though Mizumi has, you know, almost on par level of quality with Nobu, right?
Starting point is 00:29:30 And it's arguably, in my opinion, one of the best Japanese restaurants, not only in Vegas, one of the best Japanese restaurants that you could have like station-wide. Like it's just like national-wide, right? It's just such a great concept. The food is great.
Starting point is 00:29:44 The quality is great. Like the standard is great, but it's just like a national one, right? It's just such a great concept. The food is great. The quality is great. Like, the standard is great. But it's just so under-marketed. So that's what I really focused on with, obviously, the marketing team from The Win for the last four years to really, truly try to develop that power of the brand, right? Really strengthening the brand power, which is everything in this industry. Right. Yes.
Starting point is 00:30:04 Do you want to get your personal brand out there more and become more known? Yeah, absolutely. You know, I'm just starting to pursue my own venture soon. Right. And I think what I've done at Mizumi and Wynn is really great. And, you know, and obviously I will continue to do that. But, you know, I want to like really grow personally, but also like, you know, have really my own brand out there, you know, just to, you know, compete with Nobusan and right. One of those top chefs levels out there. And I really want to be on that level one day. So that's what I'm trying to pursue very soon. Nice. Do you ever want to go on those cooking shows? I, um, I've been on a couple of those cooking shows, and the thing about that is,
Starting point is 00:30:47 I don't want to mention the name because it's a very, very well-known cooking show, but I was on this cooking show a couple of years ago, and so that was filmed in Tennessee, and what I didn't realize was, well, I only realized when I got there, the whole thing was staged. Oh, yeah? there was a script it was it was like so upsetting and disappointing oh to find out obviously not to the whole extent of it yeah but basically they've already determined who's going to win what ah
Starting point is 00:31:21 so you can't even win you can't like unless you are so good to the point you can convince the director or producer at that at that point on the spot to like change his mind thinking you know what i actually don't want that guy to win i want this guy to win wow which never happens right because everything is already scripted to a point around knowing that who's going to win that's not cool and so you know and like there was a lot of different competitors and, you know, people on the show and nobody like except the guy who knew who was going to win. Everybody else had no clue of that idea. That's crazy.
Starting point is 00:31:57 So everyone was like really dumbfounded, right? Like, oh, so why are we even here? Yeah. What's the point? Right. So that was really disappointing. and I hear a lot of shows Maybe not every show but a lot of shows like that. That's upsetting. Yeah. Yeah, but a lot of like viewers We don't know that right?
Starting point is 00:32:13 I had no idea we get so sucked into for example Like, you know shows like Master Chefs and you know Stuff like you you like you watch and you get so drawn into that whole competition as if you are participating yourself But you know, so it's it's quite upsetting sometimes wow so what's next for you man i know you got min's test kitchen going on right now yeah and you said you want to open up eight more restaurants yeah so you know i'm sort of partnering up with um venture capital people that i've known for a long time you you know, and I think it's really time for me to just be on my own and just really spread the wings and just see where the sky limit is, right?
Starting point is 00:32:53 I just really want to, like, get out there and start developing my own brand and, you know, see where that takes me. Love that, man. Anything you're trying to promote or end off with? You know, like, I think I'm in a stage where I'm still like a little bit cautious about like, you know, what to promote and, you know, how to sort of like world it
Starting point is 00:33:12 and how to like sort of strategize it a little bit. But, you know, when I have more definite plans of what I want to do and where I'd be, I would definitely hit you up again, Sean. And, you know, we'll make another session of it. Love it. Thanks so much for coming on, man. Thank you, Sean.
Starting point is 00:33:24 Thanks for having me. Absolutely for watching guys and i'll see you next time

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