(eerie music) (soft music) - [Host] As Asian Americans, we celebrate our history at the same time that we constantly recreate our identity.

In this episode, we're going to meet people who take that process of creation in new and exciting directions.

We'll sit down with the editors of Banana, a magazine creating a voice for contemporary Asian culture, visit an urban rice paddy in the heart of New York City, and talk to the creator of the hot Chinese cooking blog, Omnivore's Cookbook.

We'll also spend time looking at the future of Asian cocktail culture, and how traditional Asian brews, like sake and soju are growing in popularity.

Join us as we celebrate innovation in this episode of Lucky Chow.

(orchestral music) Maggie Zhu founded Omnivore's Cookbook to celebrate the delicious Chinese cooking that she missed from her younger days in Beijing.

Her blog focuses on modern Chinese cooking for the novice home chef.

We sat down at Hunan Slurp in New York, one of her neighborhood favorites, to learn how she uses the blog to teach people about the breath of Chinese cooking.

- [Maggie] You've probably heard about this like thousands of times.

Like, people don't like their day jobs so much.

So, they started something outside.

That's where I was.

I didn't like my, I used to- - [Host] What were you doing?

- I used to work in a bank.

Can you believe that?

- Oh really, oh I can't believe that.

- It was very boring.

So, I wanted to start something different.

I went back home, I googled how to start a food blog and I got started.

I used to live in Japan for two years for graduate school.

That's when I actually l earned cooking.

Because that's the first time I leave home, like I grew up with my parents and you know, my mom cooked all the food so I've been, I had no need to learn how to cook.

I just eat like really nice homemade food everyday.

- Everything feels incredibly approachable and doable, but yet, somehow it's also incredibly refined.

- So, of the 500 recipes or so that you have now on Omnivore's Cookbook, how many of them did you know before you started the blog?

- Actually, like probably like a very small number.

Like 50 or something.

You know there are dish I know and the dish you know, my mom taught me.

Or like it's just like a family thing where we make it so I understand how it works.

But, then are like so many others, you know, I'd say a lot of them are something I've been eating.

But then you know, I didn't really understand how to cook it so I have to do research, I have to do like trial and error and.

(bouncy music) - [Host] We head over to see where the blog comes to life.

Maggie's new lower east side apartment, where William and Maggie make a signature dish from her blog, pressure cooker curry beef stew.

- [William] What are some of the essential ingredients to a Chinese pantry?

- [Maggie] Soy sauce, Shaoxing wine, very, very important.

Zhenjiang vinegar.

- [William} What kind of vinegar is that?

Is it black vinegar?

- Yes, its black vinegar, like Chinese black vinegar and because it's from Zhenjiang, so usually people call it Zhenjiang vinegar.

And dried chili pepper and peanut oil.

- You had almost these two different personalities because there's Maggie of Ominvore's Cookbook and you don't really show what you look like.

With your fashion site, it's all about you.

How does it feel to be in front of the camera there?

- [Maggie] You know I used to be, I don't feel comfortable in front of the camera, I feel more like better behind the camera.

But then I realized that, I don't know, people want to see your face because you know like, so when they cook your dishes you know, they associate you with like a real person instead of you know, you're just a website.

- What do you think people are coming to your fashion blog for?

- I think like a lifestyle and people actually like the clothes I wear, the clothes I curate and people follow some of the brands I recommend.

It's a totally, totally separate business.

At the beginning I didn't like the idea of the Instagram or social media because I did not grow up with that.

But the funny thing is, the longer I do it, I think it's a process of self-discovery, because I used to be this person who worked like nine to five job and you know, my life wasn't very interesting, but now I've moved here.

I used social media as the medium to, as a platform to actually document what I do.

And during the process I started to find out who I am and what I'm passionate about and sometimes I create something beautiful, I want to show it to people and I get response.

And it's like a really interesting circle that actually I feel like it makes my life more interesting.

- [William] Okay, here we go.

(beeping tones) Wow, let's try it.

Just want it swimming in this beautiful gravy.

Oh my god.

- [Maggie] Was it good?

- Mmhmm.

So easy!

- Yeah right, and tender.

- Super tender, wow.

Thank you.

- [Maggie] You're welcome.

- Really such a treat.

- I'm glad you like it.

I think I start to, I actually you know, I start to appreciate Chinese food more.

That's like actually very, very special food and they make me want to promote it more.

(soft rousing music) - [Host] In Manhattan's West Village, bartender Masahiro Urushido operates the unassuming Katana Kitten.

Which recently won the coveted Spirited Award for Best New American Bar.

Katana Kitten is a cocktail bar that reminds us of places we visited in Tokyo.

Quiet, well-crafted, with an attention to detail that is very Japanese.

We have the fun job of trying Masa's signature cocktails.

Which, can be as simple as a hinoki martini, served in a cypress wood box and sprayed with hinoki tree essence or as complex as a leche de gato, which has mezcal, black rice vanilla horchata, cream sherry, ancho chili, lime zest, nutmeg, and iichiko saiten shochu, which we'll soon learn more about.

Cocktail culture involves the same attention to quality ingredients and unexpected flavor combinations as culinary culture these days, and mixologists can truly be called bar chefs.

We had a great time watching them in action.

We were being offered front row seats to a multisensory theatrical experience.

At Peachy's, on one of Chinatown's most iconic and idiosyncratic streets, lies a gem of a subterranean cocktail bar.

It's the sibling of Chinese Tuxedo, the fine dining Chinese modern restaurant that occupies a majestic space that held a late 19th century Peking opera house.

Here, the Australian native, Eddy Buckingham has restored the historic spot into a cocktail destination.

One that is staying true to the roots of the neighborhood, but that also feeds on the growing trend of cocktails as elixirs.

- This is, I think kind of like a new wave cocktail bar for New York City.

- What do you mean by that, new wave?

- It's been an interesting time in the cocktail world, the last few years.

My background is actually from night life, before I got into the restaurant game, so much of my adult life I've been working in the cocktail space.

There have been some interesting evolutions in the last few years.

People speak of the early 2000s cocktail boom, the Cocktail Renaissance, and it was a really important time, special time, it's when I came up in my career.

But it was very, without me being critical in any way, it was a very self-serious time.

People were taking the art of the craft very seriously, which is fabulous, but in recent years and something we really wanted to do, was to do it with a sense of fun, a sense of play, but also keep those principles of quality and excellence.

- [Host] Like at Katana Kitten, we were transported to an other-worldly space at Peachy's.

Both by its lounge-like design, as well as by the drama and artistry of the cocktail making.

In fact, this notion of theater seems to define much about the future of Asian cocktails.

Well, I saw that you had the word elixirs as cocktails.

I mean, what's behind that?

- So, that's been part of our concept.

We've broken our signature drinks range into two sections.

We obviously have the cocktail range, which are more, they're all interesting and signature to our offer in here, but they're probably more traditional in their preparation.

But, we also have another section of drinks which we've termed the elixirs.

The reason we use that term is in addition to the liquors and the fresh juices and all the other elements that we incorporate, we've tried to work with super foods and a lot of super foods that are anchored n Chinese medicine.

- Oh, really?

So, we like to call it detox while you intox.

(laughs) (funky upbeat music) - [Eddy] You're drinking the Jade Tiger Lounge - [William] Right.

- Which is a rum-based drink but we also incorporate chlorella, which you might know, chlorella is in ayurveda, in Chinese medicines, but also popular in Western natural medicines.

It's kind of considered, like, a complete super food.

- Okay.

- So, digestive, of myriad, myriad benefits.

- So, it's basically a smoothie?

- Halfway, yeah, halfway to a green juice.

(laughs) - What are you drinking?

- I'm drinking the Great Protector, which is my favorite drink on the list.

Definitely an acquired taste, its a mezcal based drink, which we do with a cashew orgeat.

So orgeat is like a nut milk, typically almonds, we use cashews.

- Mm, oh that was delicious.

- And we infuse it in a Thai bird's eye chili.

It also includes astragalus, which is the great protector.

That's what its known in Chinese medicine.

So we took that name from it's Chinese property.

As the great protector is great for the immune system, hair, skin, and nails, things of that nature.

- What is the adaptogenic benefit in William's cocktail?

- So, in the Jade Tiger Lounge, is the chlorella, which is that bright green element, hence the jade term.

So we take some Chinese culture, some of the medicine culture and everything.

- Amazing.

(whimsical music) - [William] I love this room.

I love everything about this room.

I love the lighting, I love the wallpaper, I love all the flowers, the whimsy.

I feel like I'm in an incredible Wong Kar-Wai movie.

(laughs) And this lighting looks good on everyone.

What was the inspiration behind the design?

Because this place is really, like jaw-droppingly beautiful.

- Thank you, thank you.

I love to hear that.

My business partner, Jeff Lam and I, we design our spaces ourselves, it's a part of the role we really enjoy and its somewhere where you can really kind of put your own signature or style or values in a space.

- I mean, you're really in the heart of the historic Manhattan Chinatown.

I mean how do you feel as being an ambassador of it all?

- I don't think I've earned those rights.

There's a long-standing history here and I love being a part of that, and-- - But, I mean the way you tell your story you know, I mean you're really recreating this culture in space that you love.

- And like, even your sign, which you know, "There's no finer town than Chinatown".

I love that.

- We believe it, and we kind of wanna shout it from the rooftops.

- So, what's the future of cocktails, and Peachy's role in that?

- I think that's a really good question and a really good question to ask right now.

What I hope, and what I'm seeing is, I think it's really gonna be about diversification.

Like any craft, there's a lot of storytelling that can go into a venue, a cocktail range, an identity.

So, here at Peachy's, considering, like, what's our story?

What's a Chinatown identity?

Incorporating that Chinese medicine thing.

I thought, one, it makes a lot of sense.

Two, it has a lot of fun.

Three, it speaks to our story a little bit.

So, I'm hoping in the future we see more people tell their story, and more diversification, because the new stuff can be really, really exciting.

There's always space for the old stuff.

That's an important story too.

But, I'm loving seeing people from different parts of the world, of different backgrounds using their imagination, telling their story.

- [Host] We sat down with the ambassadors of a growing Japanese sake and spirits company that is targeting a new generation of American sake and soju drinkers.

- Sake has an image that its for your grandfather.

Like, that's what my grandfather did his entire life.

That's what he drinks.

So, it has an image that it's not hip, not cool, and it's started coming over to the US maybe about 40 years ago.

Jinmai sakes are higher, premium quality sakes, became popular in the US and from there they started kind of tailoring the flavors, tailoring the packaging for the US market.

- Tyku has a very interesting history in Japan as well.

- We're actually brewed in the birthplace of sake in Nara, Japan.

Our brewery is 124 years old.

- [William] Wow.

- So, it's fifth generation ran, but for the last three and a half years, were run by one of the daughters, a woman.

- Wow!

- One of the first women in Nara, Japan.

So, it's pretty awesome to see that's where the flavored sakes come.

A little different take on traditional way of making sake, but adding the flavor.

- Tetsuro, what is this beautiful drink we have here?

- So, this is ichigo sitan negroni.

- Oh!

I love negronis.

- Yeah.

It's amazing how versatile chochu is.

And, I can imagine how bartenders or mixologists are going crazy over having a new spirit that is rich in flavor and has umami, but is also so versatile.

- What makes this a premium chochu?

- Iichiko create higher, longer, chochu.

This is called Honkaku Shochu.

And then, so iichiko is made from 100% two-row barley.

Two-row barely.

Also, we polish out our barley about 40%.

- [William] And your distillery has an incredible history.

- [Tetsuro] Our distillery was established with co-owner, the whole family.

At that time they used to make sake and then they came together to create chochu.

And they we, in 1979, we reintroduce chochu to the market.

- It's all about high proof chochu.

It's all about citrus.

- Well, it's all about how innovation in the Asian lifestyle sector is happening in the US first.

- And then going the other way.

- Yes!

And I love that we're at Teppanyaki, at Benihana where it all kind of started, you know?

- This is OG!

- OG Asian revolution!

- OG, 100%!

- [All Speakers] To the OG!

Kampai!

(glasses clinking) - [Host] As first generation Asian American pioneers in the hayday of the magazine industry, we were proud to see the next generation continue to break the so-called bamboo ceiling, and to continue building on the power of representation.

- [William] So, why's the magazine called Banana?

- White on the inside, yellow on the outside.

(laughs) - Is that what you were called when you were growing up?

- Yeah , yeah.

So actually my sister came up with the name.

We all grew up in Texas, me and my sisters, and my parents would kind of just call us bananas when we were growing up.

- What we love about the term banana is that it's a very insider term, right?

For us Asians, we know what a banana means, we've been able to build a pretty strong community that understands the phrase banana and like the context that we're providing behind that phrase.

I don't know, I had such a sense of pride growing up.

I grew up in a mostly Asian dominant neighborhood as well.

I went to an Asian-dominant high school.

- [William] Which one?

- Brooklyn Tech.

- Okay, I went to Science.

- Oh, you did, oh my gosh, yeah.

(laughs) You know I was like in prep school since junior high, like for the SATs.

- [Williams] - Yes, of course.

- [Vicki] But anyhow, like I dealt with a lot of identity issues during that time of wanting to shed my Asian identity.

And so, you know now that I met Kathleen, we started Banana, like it was just like this bubbling moment that I was like oh, I'm feeling the same way I felt when I was in junior high and high school and had that AZN term.

And, I think it was honestly just through entertainment, slowly but surely there was just more Asian faces and with us starting banana, I mean I honestly feel like it kinda turned into a catalyst for other Asian publications or blogs or Instagrams to really start having their own platform and voice too.

So, I see it as a renaissance.

Like here's just more and more people being outspoken about their heritage.

- And a sense of pride and a sense of ownership in that and not necessarily running away.

I mean when I look at Banana, I think to myself like, growing up I would have loved to have had a magazine like this to go through and see people who look like me.

Creative people, interesting people, arty people.

But, how great it is for you, your generation now.

I mean I feel so old saying that, but like you youngins have this incredible sense of pride in what you're doing.

- We wished we had this growing up too and it was really funny, we had an email come through, Like I think a few years ago, where an Asian mother gifted an issue of Banana magazine to her daughter.

- That's amazing.

- And she was like, "My mom told me that this is like," "the rawest Asian culture publication out there," she said "she wished she'd had this growing up."

- With food, it really allows us to showcase, I guess like the fusion aspect of things and how people try to understand their own identity through food.

We get the opportunity to talk about like, okay this is how Japanese people eat it, this is how Filipino people eat it, this is how- - [William] Taiwanese people eat it.

- [Kathleen] Yeah, exactly!

We can really kinda tell this larger story about like all these different regions and cultures in like one package in kinda how it all ties together into like one kinda food item.

- [Vicki] We both started out in the fashion industry.

I was in fashion PR, Kathleen was in fashion trend forecasting.

So, we were friends for maybe like two years, got really drunk from the margaritas and we were just like, how come we can't work together?

Like, we should find a way to do that.

- But it's a story that has a happy ending and five years later you're sitting here with five beautiful babies.

- No, yeah totally.

And you know, we looked at our community, we notice a lot of our friends were Asians in the creative industry or publishing industry, food industry, but they, no one ever interviewed them.

- [William] Right.

- So, we were like, we should be the ones to do that.

Like, why not?

Just work with our friends, and make this happen.

And so, you know you see the evolution of, from issue one to five it's like.

issue one I would say is what, like 80% of our friends.

And we came up with the concept and the ideas in there through really eating dim sum with our friends, getting hotpot, getting their opinions, hanging out in Chinatown, just like really tryna get as inspired as we could for this.

- Your food spreads always looks like fashion spreads.

I mean what is it that you want to communicate through your food editorial?

- [Kathleen] We just want to make it feel different.

Like, you know, we're not a food magazine, we're like a culture magazine, so how does Banana magazine tells a story about food?

And it really is about how can we talk about the culture and the differences in like the different regions?

That's like a main piece of it, but also how do we like inject our little, like a little bit of personality in it.

I think one thing that me and Vicki always talk about is we have to put our friendship first, and I think that allows us to continue such a long partnership.

- [Host] Like Vicki and Kathleen, I also share an affinity for storytelling and cultural representation.

Particularly through the lens of food.

As a former contemporary art curator, I relish the opportunity to stage a public art installation, in the form of a terraced rice paddy on Manhattan's World Trade Center campus.

We started our education in rice with Nick Stores, a farmer who pioneered rice growing in New York City when he was the urban farm manager at Randalls Island.

Later, we transported rice seedlings from Nick's farm upstate to the World Trade Center, where the rice grew over the summer and was harvested in the fall by the community.

I was so honored to officially cut the ribbon with Port Authority Executive Director Rick Cotton.

We showcased five varieties of rice.

From Italy to Madagascar, Africa to America.

(speaking foreign phrase) Rice is so central to the everyday that many Asian cultures greet each other with, "Have you eaten your daily rice yet?"

Instead of, "How are you?"

I'm really excited about this part of the rice paddy because look how much this has grown.

I can't believe it.

- Wow.

These are all little kernels.

- We actually grew rice, I mean it's kind of a miracle.

(crosstalk) - [William] I remember when we planted them, they were like barely hanging on for dear life and now look at that, it's like.

- Yes.

- So completely lush.

- I'm so proud to have accomplished this 'cause its been a 10 year journey honestly.

- You should be proud, absolutely.

- Because everybody was like, "Why do you wanna grow rice in the center of the city?"

And I was like, well, I wanna shock people you know.

I want people to kind of, just take a step back from their busy life and ask themselves, why is there this rice paddy in the center of my daily commute, you know?

And, I think that this rice paddy means something different for everybody.

The undulating curves of the rice paddy just mimic Calatrava's Oculus.

It's this beautiful interplay.

And then, as the light changes, from day into night, you can see the different shadows as well on the rice paddy.

Asians eat up to 300 pounds of rice a year, Americans eat more than 20 pounds, so I mean just I think fundamentally it is much more of an integral part of Asian meals.

(bouncy music) The festivities culminated in a giant rice feast during the Harvest Moon Festival, which also celebrated the 10th anniversary of the founding of the Lucky Rice Festival.

At the top of 3 World Trade Center, we gathered chefs to commemorate the harvest with the globally inspired rice feast that showcased the diversity of rice as a culinary staple.

It's really a showcase of how rice connects us all through this very simple grain.

I think having a piece of this here in this sight also is especially important because it's kind of like a symbol of rebirth and of regrowth and the variety of rice really represents kind of the diversity of the city as well.

- As you you were thinking about this project, were you also thinking about some of the more, kinda environmental implications of the project?

- On a very simple level, you know, it's just an educational vehicle for people to understand where their food comes from.

It's a miracle that they're here ad ready to be harvested.

From bloggers to magazine editors, bartenders to brewers, New York is a hub of creative energy pushing the frontiers of what Asian American representation looks like today.

At the same time, the creators we met in this episode showed us how universal Asian food is.

Even if it is just a humble grain of rice.

(rousing music) (bouncy)