Good Life Project - Introducing: The Unusual Suspects with Kenya Barris & Malcolm Gladwell

Episode Date: February 12, 2025

Join Kenya Barris and Malcolm Gladwell as they bypass pleasantries and promotional banter to deliver raw, unfiltered conversations with some of today’s most influential figures. Featuring titans across a spectrum of professions (from Olympic gold medalists to trailblazing Fortune 500 CEOs and everything in between), The Unusual Suspects with Kenya Barris and Malcolm Gladwell pulls back the curtain to offer listeners unprecedented access to the minds of the world’s most extraordinary individuals and their distinct paths to success. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey, Good Life Project listeners, we have got a special treat for you today. We're doing things a little bit differently and sharing a preview of a new podcast we're really excited about, The Unusual Suspects. So when I first heard about Kenya Barras and Malcolm Gladwell teaming up, I just knew that this would be something special. They're sitting down with extraordinary people like Jimmy Kimmel, Ursula Burns, and David Chang, creating these incredible living room conversations that just feel refreshingly real.

And what struck me was how different these conversations are from typical interviews. There's no promotion, no agenda, just authentic stories about unexpected paths to greatness. You'll hear Ava DuVernay and Sue Bird share moments that they've never talked about before revealing the true fabric of their journeys. So let's get to it. Here's a fun and intriguing taste of the unusual suspects. To find more episodes, go to audible.com slash unusual suspects podcast and listen now. I was very much trying to figure out

the meaning of my life. At the time, when I graduated in 99, half the people I knew got jobs working in investment banks. The other half got jobs in 99 at www.tubesocks.com. Everyone was working at a.com. I couldn't get a job, because I have a 2.5 GPA in religion. Who's going to hire me? So the short answer to your question about why I got into cooking is,

like most people that got into cooking, they couldn't do anything else. Audible Originals presents The Unusual Suspects with Kenya Barris and Malcolm Gladwell, hosted by Kenya Barris and Malcolm Gladwell. Hosted by Kenya Barris and Malcolm Gladwell. Yo, I'm really excited for today's episode. Malcolm and I sat down with David Chang. David's known for being a chef. He's really known for somebody who fucking does it all. He's a restaurateur, an author, a podcast, a TV personality, a mogul. He's a pretty decent golfer, I found out. David Chang was your idea, right?

Yes. I'm a foodie. Do you cook? No, not really. I have a couple of things I cook, but I love going to new restaurants. I love when something's delicious. I'll take all my friends there. You know what I'm saying?

Because there's nothing worse than going to a restaurant and it's bad. You feel like you cook the bad food You're like I fucked you. You know things it's like so when you find a good restaurant It's it's a thing to be able to take someone to somewhere that you know time and time again They're gonna get I think his his restaurant to give you that yeah And I feel like he is one of the goats of food like you know in particular like contemporary cuisine you know ethnic cuisine in America like you know he's a real innovator he took tradition and things that may have been forgotten with cooking and he put his own spin on them he found a mama focal restaurant I think

like in 2004 since then he's opened up a gang of them all around the world. His restaurants have held Michelin stars, won James Beard Award. He even got named one of Times 100 Most Influential People in 2010. Had you met him before? I'd met him at his restaurant once or twice, you know what I'm saying, when he was the chef. But we have a really good friend, Rashida Jones. Their kids go to school, and that's like her brother.

And she's like my sister, so so we're really good friends in common. I never met him. I am not a foodie but I thought he was totally fascinating. This whole like we got him going on the whole Korean immigrant thing and I just yeah there's something really interesting about that world particularly then DC suburbs plus Korean immigrant thing and the way he's both fighting against his Korean-ness and embracing his Korean-ness, like, it's like he can't decide whether he wants to be in it or out of it or have a foot in both worlds. Yes. And I think about David, he's open about a lot of things people don't like to share from dealing with imposter syndrome, which I live with on a day to day basis, including doing this podcast, existential dread. And he's open about a lot of things people don't like to share, from dealing with imposter syndrome, which I live with on a day-to-day basis, including doing this podcast,

existential dread, and he's vocal about his experience as the son of immigrants. And I'm kind of feeling the same way about being the son of black people. It is the quintessential first-generation immigrants dilemma, right? It's blackish. It's blackish to me with raising my kids. He was the version of my kid. Like, what is he? Yeah, he was so open and vulnerable about it. Yeah. And he also was a little bit not comfortable with his success in a really humble, like, great way.

And he's intense as shit, as the best chefs are. Like, he has moments where he gets intense, you know what I'm saying, and he's focused. And, like, you know, everybody's falling in love with the bear. Yes, chef. No, chef know, like being in a kitchen, that kitchen is a militarized zone, you know, and to sort of run it the way it has to do, you have to have that sort of part of who you are. He has it. Yeah. David, thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. It's my honor to start the conversation.

And I want to talk about one of my favorite topics. Asians, Koreans in particular, are often referred to as the model minority. I want to do the model minority rankings. You guys are number one. And if you are number one, is it a justified number one? I say this as someone who's part Jamaican and Jamaican. We're down the list We still do okay. Here's the funny thing. Yeah, even if Koreans are number one. Yeah, no cream believes That is the genius of Koreans. But no legit, like your parents are Korean immigrants, right?

How old were they when they came? My father came here in 1963. And I think the model minority actually ties a lot to the immigration of academics and engineers that happened after a ban of what, 50 years. He came in the wave of Koreans that all worked at universities or something. Is that what he did? No, he was just hustling as a,

trying to get a job in a restaurant. Oh, I see. And that was growing up, it was always so weird because Koreans either start a business, a dry cleaner, or they start a church or something like that. In that church community growing up in Northern Virginia, everyone knew was an engineer or doctor or some academic. My dad just basically hustled away from New York

all the way down working in restaurants and then lucked his way into the golf business of all things. I never saw him growing up because he was always working. What was the racial composition of your high school? Quite international. I wound up going to a boarding school for golf. Wait, you went to a boarding school? I went to Georgetown Prep of all places.

A golf boarding school? No, not for... I played a lot of competitive golf. They recruited you to play... And I got into almost all the boarding schools that are prestigious. And I'm the youngest of four. I went to the closest school that I could board at to my house. And I wound up never even making the golf team.

You didn't make the golf team? No. Oh my God. So wait, this is the nineties. This is the nineties. I always say the model student for Georgia and forever. It looks like Brett Kavanaugh. Didn't he? He went there. Like, yeah, 70% is like trying to be Brett Kavanaugh. He went there. Yeah, 70% is trying to be Brett Kavanaugh. Right.

I lived in DC for 10 years. People underestimate how distinctive the DMV is. Oh, my goodness. For those who don't know, the DMV refers to the Washington DC, Maryland, and Virginia area. It is like this weird corner of America with its own social rules, its own, the composition of people is so unusual? Because it has a pocket of every socioeconomic demographic.

It's only 30 minutes from Arlington to Georgetown Prep, but it's, culturally, it's a long way. I had no idea a world like that existed. I went to public school. Everyone I knew went to Thomas Jefferson, except that I didn't. Can we just pause on TJ for a moment? Yeah.

For those who don't know, that's like a tougher school than MIT. I would rather go to MIT than TJ. One of the first charter magnet schools for gifted and talented people, which is arguably one of the best public schools in the world, was Thomas Jefferson. And everyone took these IQ tests

and literally like three quarters of my class disappeared like the following week. And I never saw them again. And they all went to TJ. And that was like a moment to realize, oh, you're not smart like these guys, right? Anyway, going back to Korean culture, culture of backhanded compliments and type of things.

It's like, oh, that's great. But Charles over here, he just made first string orchestra and he's in Thomas Jefferson. And I don't want to generalize all Korean, but it's very much like, that's great, but so-and-so is doing it this much better. Right. Right. You reflect a little bit about the kind of Korean cultural inheritance you got. I grew up not wanting to be Korean. Very clearly, I would talk to my brother about it. We'd always lament, I can't believe we're Korean. You know, because it sucked.

It sucks so much where we grew up to be Korean. You know, and I always joke with my wife, like our kids are two and five, like, they're not going to have any, thank God. Is your wife Korean? grew up to be Korean. I always joke with my wife, our kids are two and five. They're not going to have any, thank God. But I don't even remember all the crazy things that I was called growing up. Sometimes you'd have pockets of the DMV, right? and then Yudapaka, which is only Korean people. Very rarely was it mixed together in a proper balance. And I was in between those worlds. I never really fit in with white America,

which was yuppie affluent in the area, and I never fit in with the really smart Asian kids. I would never excelled academically. Where did black kids fall in this? I only had one black friend growing up, Vincent. And that was it. I had one black friend, and I was the only black kid that I could recall in my school.

Killed in a drug deal. No, I'm just kidding. That's the thing, yeah, because the M in DMV is where the black people are. Mural, correct. Peechee County. The V is like the Asians, and then the DC is, well, Georgetown Prep Corner is your Brett

Kavanaugh's. Yeah. It's a little bit of everything, but there's no easy blending. Yeah. I always thought when I lived in DC to continue on the food theme, you know, you're four blocks from a soul food restaurant that's been there for 50 years. And then you're eating like, like off the boat Ethiopian that is like, you feel like it's a weird. And that was my first non Korean or American meal.

I'll just think one of the restaurants, I don't remember how we went to an Ethiopian restaurant. And I remember at the time distinctly thinking that with injera bread wrapping, I was like, I don't know why, but this feels like I'm eating Korean sound. You know, it's like, it was the same to me. And these are like important moments.

So your first experience with Ethiopian food is something you remember to this day. Absolutely. Do you remember what you ate? I just remember there was all of these spicy things on this bread that I've never had before. The first out of body food experience with was Ethiopian food and tasting this bread, it was sour. I just remember these moments, but I remember distinctly thinking like, is it crazy to me? out of body food experience was Ethiopian food and tasting his bread, it was sour, I just remember these moments. But I remember distinctly thinking like, is it crazy to me, but this is like eating Korean food? Yeah.

Tell me about your love for food. I mean, it's a common story, right? Asian people don't talk. There's very few, I mean, I don't want to hate generalizing, but I feel like it's pretty true. There's no I love you. There's no emotive, like, feel good moments, because most of the times they're here because they left pain. And there's just, I just didn't grow up in a home

where there was a lot of like instructions, a lot of orders and I don't think I've, I think I barely had any conversations with my dad when I was a child. And the only way we communicated love was through food. And it was two kinds of love. My dad's side, both my parents came from North Korea, what is now North Korea, but my mom came from extreme wealth.

Like lived in a castle, all that disappeared after the war. My dad came from just like peasants basically, goat herders and stuff like that. You hear this a lot with Asian men too, I just want to eat a whole chicken. My dad grew up thinking like, man if I could just have a whole chicken that would be like the dream.

And growing up in hunger and poverty, and my mom had like German shepherds as dogs and like lived a very lavish lifestyle, but she grew up in a household where food was beautiful and always awesome. My grandmother on my mom's side was a fabulous cook and taught me so much. And this is a significant moment in terms of who I am as a culinary person in my formative years was my grandfather, because he was a well-to-do sort of intellectual, was more

Japanese than he was Korean. Because? Because Japan colonized Korea. So if we're talking about that bottleneck, is Japan above Korea? When I... See, when I start... Yes, Asian people so fucking pissed. When I land in Japan, I feel more at home than I do when I feel in Korea. Why?

I don't know. Because I think of some of my very first food moments was me as a child hanging out with my grandfather. And he would cook certain things like mochi and he would take the bus to go eat Japanese food. I remember that all the time. And he never ate Korean food. He hated Korean food.

There seems to be a little bit more in this outsider's point of view, a little bit more ceremony, a little bit more prestige to Japanese food. Yeah, Koreans are just more, I don't want to say unrefined. They're just, I always say like Japan's like the Star Trek Borg. Mexico is too, but they take it in different ways. And I never realized that Japan and Mexico are very similar in its culinary sensibilities. Koji is a beyond the perfect example of that.

Yeah, Mexico to me I love because they're just like, yeah, let's bring it all in. Who cares? Yeah. And I think I truly believe deliciousness, the idea of something delicious is a meme. And it always wants to survive. And it's going to do whatever it needs to do to survive. That's the board part. Not everyone's open to that.

Yes. I say that Japanese food is the French food of Asia. They make French food better than the French food. That's interesting. Yeah. Aren't there more five-star French restaurants in Tokyo than there are in Paris? Or am I making a mistake? Yeah. I mean, there's more Michelin stars.

And again, like, I hate getting whole groups of people pissed, but... Why not? I don't think it's that crazy. If you today got some demographics of the top restaurants, the most ambitious restaurants in Europe, I would argue that the number two to number five in the priority rankings of those restaurants, you have at least one Japanese cook there. And they've been working there in Europe for 50 years. They don't go for a year. They stay there for 10, 15 years, then they come back. And I think over time, they've brought all of their knowledge to Japan.

And it was just why I always say like Japanese pizza is arguably the best pizza in the world. What is it that's making you feel so at home there? I think besides the food, even my wife hates, she, I'm sorry, Grace my wife hates my Korean food. She hates it. Your food? Yeah, when I make Korean food because I'm always competing against nostalgia and I'm never going to win.

Which is why whenever I cook for anybody, I try to never make their mom or grandmothers classics because you're going to lose. And no matter what I make, my wife wife is like it's just not as good. But when I make Japanese food she's like you're just better at making Japanese food than anything else. Yeah. In 2004 Chang opened his first restaurant in New York City, a basic noodle bar. What gave you the guts to do any of it? I think it wasn't necessarily guts I think it was a healthy dose of naivete and just knowing enough of how to do something and being young enough to be selfish and realize that if everything failed, I would still be

27 years old and my whole life ahead of me. In 2004, David opened up his first restaurant, Momofuku Noodle Bar in East Village in New York. And that tiny ass little spot blew the fuck up, quickly gaining attention for its fresh take on Asian culture, cuisine, and everything in between. Then he opened up Momofuku Sambar a few blocks away in 2006 and that shit took off even bigger. Then Momofuku Co in 2008 and that shit got two Michelin stars. Not bad.

It was killing it. Then he opened up Momofuku Milk Bar and expanded into innovative fresh desserts. And from there, he just kept growing globally. Sydney, Toronto, DC, LA, Vegas. His rapid rise and unconventional methods didn't sit well with everyone in the culinary world, though. He was an outsider. He didn't follow traditional path.

He even faced a lot of backlash. I don't think he gave a fuck. But despite the criticism, his impact on the food scene was undeniable. His fresh take transformed a small noodle bar into an international empire, challenging norms and traditions and also introducing a whole new way of restaurant dining.

So you're bouncing around. a whole new way of restaurant dining. So you're bouncing around, golf, you're saying coming out of this, immigrants, the story of going into finance, do you do this? What turns you to food? I never had this like Proustian, Madeleine moment that I had an oyster and it changed my life. I honestly think that's a bunch of bullshit At least for me I just I grew up eating great food from my my mom's side and my dad was in the restaurant business and had a lot Of friends, but he worked his entire life to make sure I would never work in restaurants

Mm-hmm full stop and I had a couple moments that I wanted to drop out of college. And he made sure that the restaurant that I was trying to go to, he talked to the chef to make sure that I would never want to work there. So he did a good job. He wanted me to be a professional golfer, full stop. I think when he saw that that wasn't going to happen, and then I enjoyed playing other sports because I only played golf every day like 360 days a year. Oh my god Traveling playing tournaments. I just burned out and there's a moment where you could have you think you could have done it No, I was trying to qualify for tournaments that Tiger Woods was on the cover of the brochure already. It was that time Yeah, I mean I was two years younger than but you know, it was fit tiger and Phil and that was it

How good were you though at your best? I was really good. Oh wow. I stopped playing competitively around age 13, 14. Oh wow. Oh really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it shaped how I compete. I'm always looking at the leaderboard.

I'm always looking at who's better than me. I'm always looking at the strengths and weaknesses. I'm always doing a self-assessment. It's pathological now and I hate it. If I play golf today, even though with my bad back and everything, for the first 15 minutes, I fully think in this deluded way

that I could beat the crap out of everybody and any pro. But it's like that mentality is how I actually live my life when I was that young. And that's what I mean, I was a little shit. I was just so cocky, because I beat the crap out of everybody. If you're really good and you quit at that age, you never get humbled in the normal course

of doing our sport. Yeah, one of the most important moments that happened to me, and painful moments, was to be fetid and to be spoiled and to be treated like you're one of the very best. And the moments noticed, be treated like you suck one of the very best. And in a moment's notice, be treated like you suck. You're not shit. You're nothing.

And the dad to say, I remember like Teddy Oh, LA Open in like 93, was like my age or younger, he qualified for the final weekend. And he's like, that should have been you. You're so much better than us. He was like a 14 year old kid. Even when I started cooking, my dad thought like, oh, this is just a hobby. Wait till he's going to play golf again.

It was just, that was his. Anyway, my dad wanted me to play golf. David, you have daddy issues. Oh, please. When you got into it, were you ever a waiter in a restaurant? Yeah, I did everything. So here's the crazy thing.

I did terribly in school. I partied way too much, but the only classes that I did well in were classes that were at like two or three in the afternoon that I could attend. And they happened to be like religion classes and philosophy or religion. I would get like 20s and 30s on other tests in other classes, but I would get like A's in all my religion classes and certain philosophy classes. And one of the classes that I remember, Frank or Patrick, early Christian thought,

even though I got like a C plus in the class because he was really hard, the early Christian theologians had this philosophy that they would meditate on called via negativa. It was the idea that God is ineffable, you're not allowed to know what God is because you can't, the limitations of the human mind. But let's lean into that, and if we can say

that God is not this microphone, God is not this chair, and you continue to meditate on that, in theory, by meditating on you are now getting closer to the idea of God. And maybe I was just smoking too much pot back then, I don't know how, but that gave me the eureka moment, like maybe I should just try to do a lot of things. I'll try a lot of things, and that'll get me close to what I want to do.

And that's what happened. I worked a little bit in finance. I did a little bit of restaurant work, barkeep. I don't know. I had so many jobs. I love that. That's the transition. You took actually a really beautiful theological idea and made it kind of real in your own life. Work class that I did terribly yet. Hungover. All this is happening while you're hungover.

All the time. I was very much trying to figure out the meaning of my life. I was still am neurotic, but things didn't sit well with me as what I wanted to do. But at the time, when I graduated in 99, like half the people I knew got jobs working in investment banks. The other half got jobs in 99 at like www.tubesocks.com. Everyone was working at like a.com. I couldn't get a job because I have like a 2.5 GPA in religion.

Who's going to hire me? So the short answer to your question about why I got into cooking is like most people that got into cooking is, like most people that got into cooking, they couldn't do anything else. But always feeling inadequate in each of these situations. But it's helped me out, I think, to some degree. How soon were you fully immersed and committed to the cooking world? Senior year, I still didn't know.

Payne Weber at the time, I was working in asset management. They wouldn't hire me in Hartford, Connecticut before it became UBS. And I tried to get jobs, I'm like, so I couldn't get a job anywhere. So I went to the career fair and Mather Hall in the cafeteria and I literally went to the first booth on the right

and there was an English teaching program in Japan. I didn't want to go to Japan and teach English because everyone was like, what are you going to do with your life? What are you going to do? I was like, I didn't want to go to Japan and teach English because everyone was like, what are you going to do with your life? What are you going to do? So I was just like, I'm going to just accept this because anybody can teach English. So I have something to tell people that I'm going to do. I wound up going there in 99 to Izumi to Tori. Imagine like the outskirts, boonies of Jacksonville, Florida. That's basically where I lived in Japan, which is crazy.

There was one thing in my town, besides like the local Lawson 7-Eleven, which was instrumental because like I was eating most of my meals very cheaply there, there was this ramen shop. And I was too scared to ever go in because that's where the locals went. But before I left, I was there a few months before I quit, I mustered the to ever go in,

How? So I just went down to rabbit hole. It was like I'm gonna know everything about ramen and I knew something that no one else knew People would line up for an hour or two to eat this bowl of ramen in in like hundred degree weather And I also knew that it was delicious I also knew that people ate noodles instant noodles in America because everyone did not everybody but it's part of our culture I was like, oh there's like I hate the phrase that to say this It was like culinary arbitrage. There's like something here. These flavors are so Universally delicious to me that how can it only be located here? Yes, they had bowls of hard-boiled eggs that were just for you to peel and eat and

In the south of Japan further you get to the islands It's more of a Hakata style, which is much more of a Tonkotsu broth, which is probably the most predominant flavor in American ramen is a cloudy emulsified pork broth. It's the kind of broth that a French chef would be like, that's gross. It's what you're not supposed to do in making a broth. And that was another thing, right? Like living in Asia, growing up in Asian household, these things that were told to me, like pork is delicious, pork soups are delicious,

ramen is a pork thing. And ramen at the time, back then, was the lowest level of cooking. In that hierarchy of cooking, you'd have kaiseki and maybe sushi, but sushi at one point was considered the lowest. Being a ramen chef was like, you were like the lowest of the low. And it was the punk rock aspect of it that I loved. And that they could carve out

in this very hierarchical society that's structured and rigid, they could do the most because no one cared about them. Again, sorry to jump forward, but I'm in cooking school and my instructor says, we're going over stocks and broths. And I was like, Hey, when are we going to make pork soups? And he's like, that's for savages. What the fuck are you talking about? I'm pretty sure he said savages. I don't want to put words in his mouth, but like I'm, and I was like, what, what? Like that didn't make sense to me. I was like, wait, this is super delicious. I know unequivoc like, what, what? Like, that didn't make sense to me. I was like, wait, this is super delicious.

I know unequivocally objectively, it's not just Japan. Like, there's great bowls of noodle soup and you're telling me that none of it is like French worthy? That's when I was like, there's something fishy going on here. Yes. And so another thing is like, I felt that I was like, I had knowledge that no one else really knows about.

So this sticks in your head. You go to culinary school, savages, still sticking your head. But I suck. I suck at cooking. Suck at cooking? Yeah. Per them. No, no, really.

My first, there are six levels in cooking school and my first level partner refused to be my second level partner. And I remember there was a whole commotion with the chefs because she said that when she found out that we would be partners again in level two, she threatened, if I have to be partners with David, I'm going to quit. And they said, you're going to be partners with David.

So she quit. Please tell me you got her number. I hate, I feel like I got even longer. But cooking didn't come naturally to me. I looked like the person that was trying to dance but didn't have any rhythm. But I was so committed to it, but it just was awkward and annoying to everybody. Because I wanted to be so good at it, I sucked at it.

And the one thing that happened from golf that was a lasting impression for me was I became a total basket case in decision making. It's like, Oh, should I do this? Should I do that? Because that was like totally wrecked my confidence in high pressure moments. And the only reason I still cooked was I told everybody that I was going to do it. And after telling people I was going to become a cook, I was like, I couldn't back out now because this is what, job number 50 that I told everyone I was going to do.

So I was just like out of pride and ego. I was like, I just got to continue doing this. Is that a lot of what drives you? Pride and ego? Insecurity? Same thing. Sure. He's been named chef of the year in Wall Street Journal magazine named him food innovator

of the year in 2018. Now he's had to shutter his restaurants and lay off more than 800 of his employees. Joining us now is Momofuku founder David Chang. David, it's good to see you. Thank you so much. Oh, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID. Just like everyone else in the world, COVID hit David's restaurants really hard. It hit all restaurants really hard, if we're being honest.

In March 2020, with the world shutting down, David temporarily closed all his restaurants, including all of his international locations. But David also started something new, Momofocal Goods. He turned a tough situation into a thriving retail business with noodle packs, I just had one, sauces, and his famous chili crunch.

Oh my God, that's so good. I think that's what the story is about. Innovating, adapting, taking a bad situation or something that's neglected and turning into something good. What would have happened if you were a good cook in cooking school? I'm not here. I think about this all the time. I think so much of my life was just

randomness. And I happened to be at the right place, right time through grit and a lot of fortunate circumstances. And when I think about it that way, it doesn't make my head big. And I sort of have to downplay it because it's true. It's like, if I was better at cooking, I don't know if I care about how recipes worked. I don't know if I'd care about looking at how the kitchen flow worked. And I've seen a lot of great cooks. The irony is, it's not so different than being super talented in sports. If you're really good at something like preternaturally gifted,

very rarely do you have developed the empathy to be like, why does this person suck? And then it's like, it may take some time for that person to realize like, oh, it is my job to elevate this person. More often than not, if you're super young and talented, you're like, they're in my way. So I'm a much better producer, manager, executor of things, some ways organizing,

than I am physically cooking something. And I don't think I would have developed that muscle if I was super talented at cooking. There's something I always think about a lot, which is the, it is the blessing of mediocrity. If you were a 99th percentile student growing up, you go to TJ and you're an anesthesiologist in a mid-tier in Arlington, Virginia. If you are a great golfer, right now you're a golf pro at a nice golf country club somewhere, right? If you're an amazing cook, natural gifted cook, then you're like running a kitchen somewhere

at a five star restaurant. Yep. Right? Like what saves you and what makes everything else possible is the fact that you were not exactly you were not excellent at any of those earlier things. But when I say not talented, it doesn't mean I don't, I didn't make myself good. Sure.

You know, I don't even know if you've actually had a great chef that's changed the game from an Ivy League university. So I will say something kind of around what I do. There's a point where Black Rider, it's coming up. It's all CW shows and kind of almost the chitlin circuit of television, right? You're not on Friends. You're not on Seinfeld. You're kind of like any shows that that's fine.

But I used to always want to be on Friends. I always want to be on those shows. Theoretically, we all were on television, but I knew what I really wanted. But there was something inside my gut that like knew what I wanted to say and knew what was funny. And I think you saw it. You tasted that bowl of ramen. You tasted that pork broth. You knew what I wanted to say and knew what was funny. You tasted that bowl of ramen, you tasted that pork broth,

you knew what was delicious. You were like, I may not know a lot of things, I know what I know is good. And that's exactly it. I was collecting enough experience and data that I knew to be, I thought enough to be true. And as I'm working on the upper east side, I'm working for Danielle Balloud, and I'm making this food that is beautiful, but I'm making for a client base that I fucking hate. I hate.

Cause they would come in all the time. A lot of them are like famous Hollywood celebrities that live in the whatever. I would just like the ticket would come in. I was like, Jesus Christ, they're so specific and they're such a pain in the ass, so entitled and how they want to eat. And I'm working out what I think is like the best restaurant at the time. And it was, but I just felt that nobody had really tried to make great food with great ingredients at an affordable price, like I saw in Asia. So that's what I wanted to do with MoMo Food Group.

But Dave, your food's not cheap. So to me it's like affordable. I don't want to worry about it being cheap. Is it of value? Are you getting value? You have to imagine that the customer you don't know is a substitute teacher that drove in with their partner from Delaware and they're spending their entire year budget disposable income on this meal. Do you want to let them down? And that's how I would think. It's about like a value. And that's another thing I learned in Japan,

because a lot of these sushi, the top ones, will always reserve one or two tables for just regular teachers and citizens. It's not just for the tech sushi bros that populate these restaurants. And so using that, the idea of, I don't care what everyone else thinks, it's about how does this sort of serve.

You go and you start, I mean, I hate to use words like this, but you start an empire. You start something that feels like really, really astounding. Your lore begins to grow, the trademark thing. It was a battle for you. A hot debate over the ownership of a spicy Asian condiment has sent social media in a frenzy over food, culture, heritage, and business. This has really sparked a lot of feelings. People online criticizing David Chang's Momofuku for trying to trademark the word chili crunch. It's like

trying to own the word ketchup. But Momofuku argue crunch saying it's like trying to own the word ketchup but Momofuku argue instead it's like trying to own the word Heinz. A lot of Asian foodies and small business owners are turning on David Chang for trying to copyright the word chili crunch affecting a lot of their businesses David let's talk about it. Oh trademark stuff. Okay, so Momofoco has a popular hot sauce product. When they developed it, they wanted to differentiate it from Chili Crisps

and they wanted a name they could own. So they called it Chili Crunch. Interesting. It's a difference between the crisp and the crunch. In March, 2024, Momofoco sent out a cease and desist letter to other brands using the term Chili Crunch on their product labels. But a lot of people felt like trademarking Chili Crunch would be like trademarking the word butter or ketchup or barbecue or ish or some shit like that. And then there was also class and race component to the backlash.

In April 2024, David and Momofoco announced they would no longer enforce the Chili Crunch trademark. Part of this Chili Crunch, it makes me sad because I've pretty much spent my adult career trying to elevate AAPI and I seem to piss off a lot of people about it. But whether people believe me or not, it was like Fellowship of the Ring. It was like, I got this thing and I got to get rid of it, but I can't. We named it Chili Crunch, fully aware that everyone else was named it Chili Crisp. I wanted to name it Chili Crunch because I love alliteration. There's Catalina Crunch, Captain Crunch. And we've trademarked a lot of things over the years.

And I didn't think twice about it. We named it because of our respective Chinese cuisine. And we've had our versions of that over the years. And I didn't think twice about it. We named it because of our respective Chinese cuisine. And we've had our versions of that over the years. So I'm like, all right, I don't want to make it like something that's authentically Chinese, because I hate authenticity. I only like it when it preserves culture. So if I make it like salsa macha, which is a recent Mexican innovation of salsa, it's got soy, some Asian elements. It's delicious. It's very similar to Chinese chili crisp,

but not at all. And the irony is, it's like China is not, it doesn't have chili crisp without Mexico anyway. I always want to make something where the point on that Venn diagram that has as many overlaps as humanly possible. So I can pay respect and not say that I'm copying anything. I'm doing something that is a little bit of everything because that's just how I believe

things. That's paying homage to everything. Yeah. So in 2020, we named it Chili Crunch. And before then, at least on LexisNexis, there's not one mention in a periodical of Chili Crunch. After we launch it, whether it's coincident or not, there's a lot of Chili Crunches. 2020, we get a letter from Colonial Chili

and that says, we own the Chili Crunch, right? Like, you have to cease and desist. I don't even know what exactly happened, but we want to buy it. In that agreement, we have to protect. If you own a trademark, you have to enforce it. Enforcing means protecting it. We bought it.

Whether we want to protect it or not, I don't care. But we have to now because of this agreement. And now the conversation turned to number one, we're bullying small businesses, which is the last thing I want. And I can understand how that could be perceived. Two, we're taking from Chinese cultural heritage. I was like, I don't speak Mandarin. I don't know that the Mandarin symbol and that's on me I guess but I didn't know that families would say and interpret that as chili crunch

If people can believe that to be true, that's the truth So irony is over the years we've gone from being this really scrappy small punk rock thing into what people believe to be the establishment. And over the past couple months, it seemed like they're treating me like the worst version of Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg. That is the, like he said, the curse of any awkward. I will use ish as an example. I obviously didn't create ish. It was something that in doing it, it made sense. You know what I'm saying? Is that in culture, so many things had started aggregating

and blending, particularly with little black kids. My kids in particular weren't like the black kids that I remember growing up. They were, you know, an amalgamation of what kids in America become. Little white kids weren't the little white kids. I remember their amalgamation. And it all sort of kind of blended into this sort

of great thing, but I had to protect it. You know, I got a lot of flack, particularly from people in my culture because I wanted to protect something not out of selfishness, but because I wanted to sort of keep the integrity. And I kind of feel like in art, it's really hard sometimes because you want to share it keep the integrity. And I kind of feel like in art, it's really hard sometimes because you want to share it with the world. But at the same time, it's our business.

Yeah. The notion of when you're the person who sort of brings it to the masses and saying, how do we sort of deal with that? It's very similar to music and cooking are very similar in that respect. I did an audio book with Paul Simon, who is the kind of quintessential example of this. Some Jewish guy from Queens who sets on a lifelong journey from folk and

then he ends up in mid-career in a recording studio in Johannesburg with a bunch of guys who don't speak English, who've never heard of him, right? Producing one of the greatest albums of the 20th century. Like, and he got all of that and his response was always, but I'm a musician. Like he didn't understand, which I think is at your point is I'm a cook. You start from a tradition, but you have to, in order to grow, participate in many. I think that is one of the things that I feel like coming from minority culture that we have to deal with that The cultures that sort of a prevalent at large don't have as much issues with I look on on Twitter It's like another issue of saying all the ish jokes, right?

And it's like I'm like but dick wolf can have 20 versions of law and order Right, and there's no version of any type of hatred toward that. And no version. It's like that's just accepted because they're, they're supposed to grow. Do you have the perspective though, with the people that might be critical of you to be like, you're judging me now, but like, this is a long game. Like judge me when I'm all said and done. Yeah. Where I'm going. And the bigger I get, the bigger you get, the more doors I can open for us.

I just think that there's a very interesting sort of self-deprecating, self-hating notion with some time with us. You guys are both too young. When you get to my age... And you've been dealing with this shit for 30 years, it's like, yeah, it's fine. It's all... It all blows over.

When did you know, or when did you feel within your path that you might be a little bit different? I always felt I was different growing up, just because I never fit in. And the irony is, I have all kinds of neurotic issues. But I've never, very rarely do I ever believe And the irony is I have all kinds of neurotic issues, but I very rarely do I ever believe that everything that happened happened. I almost spend more time believing

that whatever was successful did not happen, and I don't even think about it. And the reason I say that is, if I spend so much time thinking that I'm different, then I don't wanna spin out of control. I'm gonna spin off the fucking planet. It's much better. I feel like to have this layer of neuroses that tells me that I suck all the time. It's like the highest level of imposter syndrome. And at times it loses the battle to the ego, for sure.

The moments of where I got to hatch this idea and it's so egotistical that I got to just fucking do it. That's when it happens. It's like, I got to get it out there. And I'm thinking of how to do it differently than everybody else. And I just think that mere fact is, again, loaded because I think by nature then I'm thinking like, everyone else isn't thinking like me. But it's been a real battle to sort of just like trying to be present and not blowing smoke up my own ass. And it's much easier to think that I suck. I'm David Chey and I love this.

I can just eat, taste, talk. It's when you eat a dish that reminds you of a dish cooked by your mom. I love how David started in food, but then landed in me and Malcolm's world of entertainment, TV, podcasting, writing. But this didn't come out of nowhere. He appeared as himself on the show Treme, on HBO in 2010. I used to love that show.

He also was a guest judge on Top Chef back in the day. He was a guest judge on Master Chef Australia. He also hosted one season of The Mind of the Chef on PBS. He's got the Emmy nominated Netflix series, Ugly Delicious. He's also got Dinner Time Live, a big part of Netflix's expansion in a live weekly content, then the David Chang Show, a podcast on The Ringer.

He's doing his thing. This kind of output would be like a full-time job for someone else, but this is just David's side thing. These shows are just another example of how David is always innovating, always expanding, even if he feels like he's an imposter at times. He doesn't let that stop him from trying new things and doing them his own way. What's the professional moment that makes you happiest? You know, it's winning. I

always say that winning. And winning is taking care of everybody in the restaurant, giving them the best wages, the best everything. And that's changed. Like, not a surprise. I was a big yeller in kitchens growing up. I'm not even in the kitchens anymore. But if you can create the right atmosphere where you can do things the right way, and that's winning. Also, it's like beating everybody else. So when you open a restaurant, it's like every single person on the street that's going to another enterprise,

they're against us. It's very much I have this versus mentality. Not everybody always sees this. You still look off course. Yeah. And I always felt one of the best ways to build a team, especially with a younger generation, is having them be part of the ground-up experience from zero to accolades. They were part of the fabric of the DNA where we're just like, we got the number one ranking,

we did this. That's winning But you seem just in observing you all of the magic comes from when you taste something that you think is delicious Yeah, what's the last thing you tasted that you thought was like just? transformatively delicious So I have this Netflix show that's live cooking which is another crazy crazy endeavor, and I gotta come up with a new menu every day. So tomorrow, we're cooking for J. Farrow and Little John, of all people. And I got their preferences,

and I try to make something that is maybe not out of the comfort zone, but they can understand. And I read some of the things that Little John says, he's really into some foods from North Africa the idea of North Africa Takes me to like a flatbread. So I'm gonna make it an everything bagel I'm gonna make it from scratch and I'm gonna serve it with some hot smoked salmon So it's gonna look familiar, but it's not gonna be like anything that you've ever had

And if you look at that dish, it's basically Jewish appetizing via Istanbul. So like, how do I turn this into something that is like bagels almost, without being a bagel. And I'm taking like French bake into it. So it's like six different cultures in this dish. And you tasted it. It's fucking delicious. And I love it because it's like, what are you copying?

I am copying all of it, but it's something that's new. Guess what? I saw my mom come here in the 60s and she changed so many of her recipes just to get American ingredients. That's what we do. That's what everybody does. And that's the fun part. I'm going to serve that with boiled chicken, which is something we do at Momo. I mean, a major demo. I love boiled chicken because it's a fuck you to all the

roast chicken that's out there. Right. It's also like a fuck you to everybody. Sorry, white people. Like I think it has to be like every other culture, like makes chicken soup and they would never think about roasting a chicken and like not using anything else. It's just true. As you can see, I'm super excited talking about this. You know, and it's like, to me, that's beautiful. Like that's what I love is when I can pile on culture and culture and culture and turns it

into something else where people think, I know what that is, but it tastes like something that they never had before, but it looks familiar. Or it doesn't look familiar at all, but they taste it and they're like, that tastes familiar. I love that paradox. I love it. I love it.

David, I would just point out to you that when you talked about winning, you're like all grim and you're 13 again and you're trying to win a golf tournament. And then when you talk about food, you're like. I know. Dad. I know. It's just about the food. It's just about the food, keep about the food.

Thank you so much. Thank you, bro. I wish I could's just about the food. It's just about the food. Keep about the food. Thank you so much. Thank you, bro. I wish I could stop by and get a little John and those guys to let me taste it. Yeah, they're going to have a good meal tomorrow. They're going to taste it and be like, what the fuck is this? I'm going to ask you to license a clip, because I want to see their face.

Thank you so much. This is so much fun. It's a real pleasure. That was one where I felt like what we really wanted to do was to put them on the couch and like psychoanalyze it for an hour. If either of us had Freudian training, it makes sense. The golfing stuff was my favorite. I did not see that coming. South Korea is the most golf-obsessed country maybe in the world.

So that's another example where that's the perfect first gen Korean thing to try and be. It's something that I actually envy because we kind of came into it a little bit later and now my kids don't have the same sort of like push that we would have had if we were sort of first year immigrant culture winner. But like I just saw Michael Chang's documentary, The Tennis Player. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was the same sort of thing. Like he wasn't supposed to be beating Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras and Yvonne Lindell,

but like he had this drive. It's the same way David was talking about golfing. There's this thing that's sort of like, whatever I do, I'm going to try to just conquer it. Yeah. So I no longer, and this is a true story, I went and got rid of, I will no longer ever eat Top Ramen again. He has his own brand of noodles, and they are light years.

Like I felt like an animal, not knowing that these were on the shelf. They are light years ahead of Top Ramen. So now my cupboards are filled with his brand of noodles. They are delicious. He asked me and Rashida if me and you would come on his show. Oh really? That he does live on Netflix. I was like, I'll try to ask Malcolm.

Wow. Yes to make it critical The only party in body, chippin' party in two Pass the power on the hour from the rebel to you Ay yo, just man, I don't understand this man Yo, you got this one out man, you losin' up