Support for food is love is provided by Wild Alaska Salmon and Seafood 100% Fisherman family owned independent seafood sourcing, catching, processing and delivering seafood directly to the consumer's front door.

From caught to bought Wild Salmon direct from the fisherman.

Information at WildAlaskaSalmonandSeafood.com Here's to the local restaurants to the chef's owner operators, the staff, the ones who love being in the weeds night after night.

when we go to work each morning, that's who we have in mind from where we source our food to how we deliver it here's to them, the ones who are out there cooking for us every day.

Restaurants are the heart of everything we do.

We are Performance Food Service proudly supporting Food is Love When someone mentions the St. Louis landmark Man on Horse, you might think they're talking about this one, but there's actually another man on horse statue.

Fernando Botero's Man on Horse, located in Clayton, is a black statue of a naked man on a horse.

Both the horse and the man has exaggerated features, giving critics and observers plenty of fodder when debating the meaning behind it.

Some thinks it's a political statement, others social commentary on beauty standards.

The statue is actually a very valuable piece of artwork, but in the beginning, there is some question if the statue belonged to her or not.

Obviously, it stayed and has since then become a landmark For me, when I see the Man on Horse statue, I know I'm about to have an unforgettable meal.

As a chef, I need to stay curious in order to evolve.

For me, that means looking beyond a good meal to learn more about who made it.

and what inspires them to cook "La comida es amor" every great city has great food.

I'm going on a journey around the world right here in St. Louis I'm on a quest to find passionate chefs who cooks from the heart "Its exciting, "And I think it's the best" to prove that food is love. "

it's going to be delicious."

Food is love.

Love your food.

This is a very interesting part of Clayton here.

And there are so many landmarks in St.Louis.

People don't even know they're here.

There is another landmark right next to this beautiful landmark.

And that is Akar Restaurant Hello, Bernie good to see you Good to see you!

This is Bernie Lee, a Malaysian immigrant to St. Louis who owns and operates Akar in Clayton, where elevated Malaysian food is the focus.

It's the smallest restaurant I've ever seen Well, we try hard.

But do you know what they say about small little chili?

Very spicy.

Yeah.

Even I would admit that I don't know a lot about Malaysia.

You know, I grew up in Malaysia, which is a multicultural country.

Every part of the life are influenced by a different culture, from Muslim, from Indian, from Chinese.

We are a big, melting pot, taking all the spices.

Food, style, technique, culture everything.

At what point were you in Malaysia and decided you want to come to America?

Early 20s..

I think it's because of the 90210.

90210?

That one!

Well, you know, this is the wrong zip code.

It is the wrong zip code.

It is.

I came here for school for education.

By chance, I became a bus boy.

And that's how I stepped into the restaurant.

That first step into the restaurant business, turn into a head first, dead run into his pursuit.

I was a busboy, then I became a server.

And then the rest is history.

It may have derailed his original plan of getting an education and getting back home to his family.

But food has become a passion that Bernie never stops feeding.

And you have a family here now or friends?

Yes.

A lot of close family friends.

So what do you miss the most about home?

Definitely family, parents, sibling, nephew, of course and food.

All these ingredients here is very common in Southeast Asia.

kitchen.

And one of the dish I have on my menu today is Balinese chicken.

This guy already blended.

Our Balinese chicken We're using airline chicken.

And with the skin on, I like the skin on the chicken breast just because it brings up so much flavor and the most important part is, I love this little pocket right here.

So this little pocket right here is where I put my spices into it and marinate the chicken.

And now I push them evenly.

Now we have the spices between the skin and the flesh.

So now I do a little more on the other side just to get the flavor evenly and some on the skin for the color.

You see the color?

Isn't it gorgeous?

Yes.

So by the time we finish up, this will be a very delicious and gorgeous piece of protein.

I live in St. Louis over 20 years.

It's definitely a big improvement since the day I arrive until today, we could be sitting on the culinary epicenter of America, because of immigrants.

Absolutely.

That's why we're bringing the culture, We're bringing the flavor.

We're bringing a different perspective.

This is a little piece of Malaysia, and it's a big piece of Bernie Lee.

This restaurant really give me a platform to experience myself not only to showcase the spice that I know where I'm from, but also allow me to share my experience through my travel and everything into one place, one plate.

That's right.

That's what your job at my job is.

So this is this that we have done just now, and we have the fermented rice underneath with the garlic jam over.

Lobster ravioli, here's an interesting story with that.

So St. Louis are known for the ravioli, but also a founder of Crab Rangoon So with these two concepts I emerged them, elevate them with lobster meat and turn into our version of the lobster rangoon ravioli.

Wow.

and serve with our favorite mango sauce.

So this is kind of like an old to St. Louis Absolutely.

This is what St. Louis inspired me.

This is very St. Louis, to me.

Both ideas combined to one.

And it's one of our popular items on the menu.

One of the things I noticed when I ate here was your plates They are very different from what I see anywhere else.

Most of the plates are made with local pottery artist Jeremy Moss So this is Jeremy.

He made all these beautiful plates for my restaurant, and they are all individually made by hand.

So we meet up and we talk I designed a pattern, and he delivered all these beautiful pieces.

I like art that is incorporated into your daily.

So my studio is called Cherokee Street Ceramics, I live and work on Cherokee Street in St. Louis which is an art district.

And this is also a great tool to send out messages, at the same time, support the community.

What is a winwin situation Why not?

All these materials are all custom, the pattern, the shape and everything.

To make it a little more unique, He make every single pieces.

He has a little stamp to like in the middle, like a little hibiscus flower logo stamp on it to initiate the art and the uniqueness of the plates.

You're an amazing person, because it's not only food for you I mean, there's so many elements in your cooking that you normally don't see for a chef, your clothes, you know, the cocktails and the China.

Yes.

That makes it really unique for me to watch that.

That's what the ceramics is all about, and the food is all about it.

This thing you're interacting with.

Its not something you just hang up on the wall and go, wow, that's pretty.

Its something you actually interact with.

And its practical.

Yeah.

I love them.

They make my food looks delicious.

Well your food is delicious.

It's Bernilicious.

Bernilicious!

Part of what you do, too, Is your cocktails.

They're amazing.

Yeah.

I mean, we try to get every guest come in to really just experience a full dining experience.

Not only food, our cocktail program, the wine program, has been very carefully thought through.

We have a really fun cocktail menu, inspired with Asian ingredients and concept It's alcohol from Asia that you use too?

Every one of our cocktails is meant to represent what Akar does.

We want to represent that on the cocktail menu just as much as Bernie does with the food.

So we take inspiration from those ingredients, for example, the Hubiki Japanese whiskey that we use in what we call the Shibulya, which is like a Japanese old fashioned.

We were inspired by that ingredient.

Your Chef pants looks much more comfortable than my chef pants.

Well, this is one of my favorite favorite chef pants, made with the local designer, fashion designer Skif I love coming here.

This is like I said, one of my therapy Taking my interest in his clothing.

literally.

Bernie wants me to meet the designer who made them.

I was introduced to him from a pastry chef, Simon This is Nina.

She's the owner and clothing designer at Skif here on Olive.

Nina possesses all the pizazz That seems to be such a part of the creative psyche.

Basic.

But it fits everybody individually, uniquely, because everybody is in different shape.

So we say every body is a sweater designer.

Designing the wardrobe for the second and third Matrix films.

Her humble demeanor would never lead on to how much she's done with her work.

But the faces of her clientele almost tells the story for her So we have the same methodology.

Yes, and belief We just do it differently.

I'm doing with the food.

She's doing it on the fabric.

Like when he's cooking for me.

I just tell him, just cook whatever you want to do.

Thats what I do.

I never order at a restaurant.

She said I show up, and I look hungry.

Same with my personality.

Do you like hip hop?

I'm not sure how to answer that.

I have a thing about hip hop being the mainstream now.

Exactly.

Oh, You're showing up hungry?

Yeah, I'm showing up hungry, for Skif Lets do it!

Her energy is positive.

And right away we had a natural report.

And along for the adventure today is Bernie's dog, Ruby.

I've heard stories that Ruby can eat with chopstick.

But don't quote me on that.

An innocent question about chef pants.

And here I am.

A crowd is literally forming outside the curtains.

A dress up experiment for the whole shop.

Those pants will look great when you're not on camera, right?

When you're relaxed.

I have a bar at home.

It's more like the tiki bar, right?

That's a tiki bar pant.

That's a tiki bar pant.

I like it.

Yeah.

Jimmy Buffett would approve.

Other shoppers have started to put things together for me to try on.

Well, what do you think now?

Yellow might be harsh Its your personality.

it is?

It brings the blue out in my eyes?

It brings out the yellow from not sleeping Okay!

I don't know...

The pink one was better.

I feel Bernielicious!

It's very distinctive.

But do you guys think it should be shorter in the back?

I think so.

Do you go back to your country frequently?

Not enough.

Yeah Its better.

It's lighter, right.

You do look Danish, though now Now you look more like you're from Denmark than Carbondale And see, Now it doesn't look as bad.

I'm not sure what's going on, but I'm going with it.

In the end, I actually did find a shirt that I like here.

And I made several new friends in the process.

And I told her I said, you know, it's called a Russian salad.

And she says, yes, of course I know what it is.

She knows!

Nice!

Part of the Jewish cuisine For me.. Eastern European where they come from not Spartic like from Spain And you're my favorite person now, you know Russian herring salad!

Swapping recipes and finding common ground on what else, food.

The only person who wasn't impressed with the clothing was Ruby.

Just because he's got the world's greatest outfit on permanently.

But it's all about getting out of your comfort zone.

Same thing with food and different cultures.

You might be a little nervous about it, but then why don't you try it?

see if you like it.

I'm way out of my comfort zone right now.

Way out of my comfort zone Just go explore in St Louis I'm at Bernie Lee's house.

I'm not sure what he's making, but he's told me that it's all about rice.

Tonight, Bernie is having me over to meet some of his friends and participate in a ritual.

A ritual that a lot of restaurant people in the city shares when the scene closes down on Monday to get together with friends and cook.

And I heard Ruby will be in attendance too, so I'm looking forward to that.

By the smell of things, Bernie has already started cooking.

All I know about the dinner tonight is that it's rice themed.

Come on in.

This is my friend Tim and Sean.

Lasse, Nice meeting you.

A little bubbly to start.

Cheers.

Welcome to my house.

And happy Sunday.

You get together quite often?

We work and then when day off, sometimes we support our local friends restaurants, things like that.

But a lot of times we get together to cook, to eat to drink to chat.

But at home we can hang up with our dogs, too.

So that's important.

Today we're going to just focus on rice.

A lot of different types of rice, white rice, black sweet rice, and sticky rice.

So right now, what we have here, it is a steam gluten rice and wrap.

The bamboo leave has usually eggs and pork meat, nuts things like that.

There are a few different types of shapes going, but I particularly like this shape, because this is how my great grandmother used to do.

Okay.

And my mother doing the same way.

So this is a family tradition.

Yeah.

And very, very close to my heart and delicious.

So usually you just steam them.

So it's a lot of work, all hand wrapped.

Dessert wise, We are doing the sweet black rice with red bean and so it's a sweet dessert.

And with that, we're going to do a little bit of white fungus to put with it.

We believe, so it was dehydrated this way.

And then we cook with it, and it's a lot of almost like gelatin.

We always believe this is a secret of youth.

Okay.

I need to have a lot of that.

I'm going to be 55.

Well, have the whole thing then!

We eat that, we grew up with that.

So you got Okra.

And what's that?

This is Pandan leaf.

And the leaves?

Kiefer lime, Kiefer lime leaves just to get a little bit of sense of smell and taste to the core that we're doing and Then obviously lemongrass.

I cannot live without this guy.

Akar menu today is a lot of encouragement and idea from these guys.

Open it up then.

You'll see there's mung bean, there's pork belly.

And Ruby loves this too.

Ruby, you ready?

It's almost like a Tamale, right?

Yeah, the same concept.

Same concept.

Wow.

Come on.

Yeah.

Ruby, you ready?

Okay.

Gentle.

Alright.

There you go.

I find out he also love sashimi Yeah, it's absolutely delicious.

You don't need to finish it all because we have more.

Oh, I'm going to finish it all.

So look at the rice and this is an all natural color from the flowers, it isn't overpowering everything.

It's just a really nice flavor.

We have cucumber is because we have curry and all that.

So it kind of balanced up the spice, cool down.

This is Ikanbalise, So anchovy's play a play a really big role in Southeast Asia as well.

This is how my mother will cook at home.

So that's what we're going to have.

Oh I love anchovy.

Its anchovy, and some onions and chili.

Drumstick or thigh?

In Maylasia, in Southeast Asia.

If you're a good boy, you have drumstick.

Its a reward.

Yeah, well, I'll take a drumstick then.

So you good boy.

A thigh.. What, I'm not getting a drumstick after you said that?

You know a lot of people when they think of anchovy they get scared right.

You know, its fishy and all that.

It's such a beautiful fish.

So tasty if you do it right.

I really think St. Louis food scenes will get even better.

A lot of people come to St. to St. Louis and are surprised How advanced the cuisine here in St. Louis.

There's so many items they can choose from now.

So many restaurant are also like myself really focus back to the root, not so Americanize their cuisine to please the market Anymore, they are not afraid to show themselves, to show their cultures, to show their cooking, to show what they know and show what they miss.

Just in a few years time.

I think St Louis food sceneis going to be even stronger.

Well, that's very encouraging.

I think.

I mean, you would know because you've been here for a long time Yeah, I see that.

I see that movement.

Like what I do right now.

I'm on a mission to to tell you there's so much more out there.

Maylasia has so much to offer from food to culture if you want to try durian, a little bit for you.

So this as a kid, this is our dessert, however more fancy or more rich.

Then they have a scoop of ice cream.

Dorian.. Just a little bit?

Sure.

King of fruit because it's that good.

If it tastes as good as it smells.

Isn't that what they say?

I think so.

Then don't eat it!

I love it.

Like I said this scares me because it's an initiation to this dinner club here.

I grew up with it.

I love them.

Yes?

... No?

If you can get past the smell.. You get a little bit of the funk.

One thing about durian I don't know!

I don't think I like it!

I think of myself to be very open to new things, to keep my palet advancing.

But to say it's an acquired taste might be a stretch, but in all honesty, the durian was tough for me.

The taste, the smell, the texture all questionable.

You'll remember this for a long time.

Yeah.

Duran is one of my favorite fruits.

I'm so, I'm so sorry Bernie.

It for myself, but also to challenge..

He loves it.

I love it.

So anyone who has never have dorian, I will go find them And say Try this please.

It's been a great education for me.

I know when I'm in the Asian grocery store and I see that I can walk, right on by it!

I mean, dining is supposed to be fun and experience.

Yeah.

I mean, you're going to eat that calorie anyway, so make it fun and good.

Well, I have this salad that I'll introduce you to, just like the dorian it's chopped herring, mayonnaise, beats and macaroni.

So we'll see, to be continued To continued with a food adventure!

Yeah, but that's the great thing about having chef friends, You can always help each other out.

Oh, yeah.

When you put love into the food.

I mean, people are going to come because, of course, they got to know it's there.

And then they'll find their way to your place for sure.

A new customer of mine had the food that we made, and then she stopped.

She cried and she said, that the flavor made her think of her mother.

And that is great.

Yeah.

I love that.

I don't get any better than that.

No it doesn't!

Unless you have a mean mother!

Seeing the food coming out of Akar and getting to know Bernie a little better, makes the night sort of feel like the happy ending that you always hope for.

As for the meaning behind the Man on Horse statue, there actually is no real debate.

When asked, Fernando Botero himself says, he saw it as an exercise in aesthetics.

His work has found its way from his Paris studio, to prominent places all over the world, places like Park Avenue in New York Or, right here in Clayton.

When you think about how far the statue had to travel and where it came from, it's cool to think its destiny was to end up here.

Really Not that different from Bernie Lee.

At first, Malaysian food might seem out of place in Clayton, but once you've had it, you realize the value it brings by being here.

The biggest thing is, I have the opportunity, like a platform to showcase Malaysia.

Not many people knows about Malaysia.

He came here knowing nobody and has built a reputation as an innovator and has come to be respected.

I love Bernie, but his tomato sauce.. Is out of this world!

You love that more than Bernie?

Yes!

The atmosphere in the room this evening is unmistakable.

It's the feeling of family.

All these chefs playing together.

Oh, yeah.

Great conversation and new food experiences.

Nights like this are filling to the soul.

You learn that you really need to treasure your friends, your family, and the time we have here.

Yeah, because you never know.

That's why you have to eat and drink and be merry every day.

Every day!

Every day!

Food is Love.

And maybe he didn't even realize it himself But Bernie was destined to end up here too.

This dish is a perfect reflection of Bernies cuisine, in my opinion, he's very delicate.

A lot of fragrant flavor.

It's actually an idea that's created from a breakfast dish in Malaysia, where they eat anchovies and rice in the morning.

And it's now one of the most popular dishes over there.

Just gonna add a little lavender to the dish, and it's gonna be Bernielicious!

Food is love!

Food is love you know.. that's what I love about you.

When I have the ice cream in the big container in my house, I say, he said, Food is love!

Support for Food is love is provided by Wild Alaska Salmon and Seafood Fisherman family owned, Independent Seafood Sourcing Catching, processing and delivering seafood, directly to the consumer's front door.

From caught to bought, wild salmon direct from the fisherman..Information at WildAlaskaSalmonandSeafood.com Here's to the local restaurants, to the chefs owner operators, the staff.

The ones who love being in the weeds night after night, when we go to work each morning, that's who we have in mind from where we source our food to how we deliver it.

Here's to them, the ones who are out there cooking for us every day.

Restaurants are the heart of everything we do.

We are Performance Food Service Proudly supporting Food is Love