September 25, 2025 • 34 mins
Wilmer and Freddy sit down with the legendary Roy Choi, Korean-American chef, cultural icon, and street food pioneer who changed the culinary game with his Kogi BBQ taco truck. The amigos and Roy dive into their shared immigrant journeys, growing up in LA, and how family, struggle, and identity shaped their creative paths. Roy opens up about how Emeril Lagasse helped spark his passion for food and shares the story behind Kogi’s rise from a truck to a movement that redefined LA’s streets.
“Dos Amigos” is a comedic and insightful podcast hosted by two friends who’ve journeyed through Hollywood and life together. Wilmer Valderrama and Freddy Rodriguez push through the noise of everyday life and ruminate on a bevy of topics through fun and daring, and occasionally a third amigo joins the mix!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, what's up and women about drama. This is Freddie Rodriguez.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I'm the Dusin Eagles podcast for iHeartRadio and today today
you have the third Amigo. My good friend Roy Choy
is in the house.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Forming.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Indeed, indeed, man, I'm so personally thrilled that you're here
because you're you're one of my good friends. And for
those who don't know, Roy and I have a have
a monthly dude dinner right myself alex Ey wonderful showrunner
h DJ King Tech from the wake Up Show, and uh,
(00:42):
it's it's uh. I'm just I'm just thrilled that you're
here man, and and those dinners have been so important
in my life just to get to sit down with you,
get to sit down with us and get the break bread,
and for us to just chat as humans, as men,
talk about life, talk about business and uh, and just
just to be surrounded by really good people man, and so.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Our mobile man cave, it's it's space. We have to
talk about old stuff, old stuff, right.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
Yeah, we feel the same way. The way this podcast
started was the same way. We went to the one
dinner and this one dinner just turned into like, wow,
how much do we need this, you know, you kind
of really need this moment to kind of recharge and
and uh, you and I shared share a moment together
during some of the most vulnerable times in the history
(01:31):
of the world, really during COVID. I, you know, as
Lee and I had started this as a podcast called
Essential Voices, which was talking to individuals that nobody really
knew they were in the radar of essential you know,
because people were rightfully so giving all the flowers to
you know, to our doctors and to our nurses and
(01:52):
shout out to them again for everything they did for us.
And there was a lot of other unsung heroes around it,
you know, the you know, the the truck drivers taking
the food, you know, or bringing even the you know,
when all the truck stops were shut down and then
all these incredible visionaries of food. Food was one of
the biggest stress points of the COVID when things started
(02:15):
running out when they're when the farmers couldn't really be
and the farmers turning and the food and then transportations
started getting tough to get food.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
To all the grocery stores.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
As soon as the people started seeing the empty shells,
you know, people started really feeling that this is a
post apocalyptic moment, you know, But it was individuals like Roy.
You know that with his company, his vision and his
healing and the healing that he was providing with his
food also showed up in a moment well not just vulnerability,
but a moment where that that was also calling for
(02:46):
us to be united and bringing together. And he had
food programs that were incredibly effective during that time, and
he came on essential voices and we had a really
honest and deep and vulnerable conversation about what he had
had to do to kind of show up for his
community and for everybody around him. He needless to say,
his food, right Roy, You know, Roy toy Is And
(03:07):
I love for you to talk a little bit about
his business too, But I love for you to tell
everybody who has not discovered yet, which I think would
be very rare, somebody doesn't know what this truck looks
like and his business looks like.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
But really, proud have.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
You here, man, Thank you great to be here. Yeah,
those times it was essential. It was toilet paper and
food that was yeah. But what made us kind of
jump in to the fire on everything was that we
had four wheels and being a mobile food vendor, being
a street food vendor, you know you're one, you're mobile,
(03:41):
but you're also connected to whatever is happening on the ground,
you know, And so when things fall and things break,
and even in times and crisis like now with the
immigration situation of the politics, you're able to mobilize and
figure things out. And the fires most recently in Los Angeles,
you know your business is threatened. But then what happens
is a bigger purpose comes up sometimes when you're kind
(04:03):
of pushed to the eggs and you have to confront
the I guess the capitalism and the commercialization of what
you do, and there's if there's nothing left, then you
look at yourself and say, well, if there's no money,
if there's nothing, no ROI to worry about, what is
it that you can really do in life? Life is
not over just because you can't make money at that moment.
(04:25):
And so then we turn that into well, you know,
we still can get food, we can get donations, we
can do crowdfunding. We can not make profit, but we
can go out and feed. And that's happened in COVID
and happened in the fire. So we learn every day.
But I think the biggest thing is being able to
go to where the crisis is.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah, you know, Roy, One of the things I always
admired about you is that not only are you a
celebrity chef per se, right, but like philanthropy and activism
has always been such a big part of your history.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
It is part of the DNA or who you are. Yeah, yeah,
what why is that? Why?
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Why why aren't you just the dude driving a Lamborghini
and like on every cooking show and like, uh, you know,
I I came to know that Roy, Right, Yeah, I
knew I knew the other celebrity Roy, but I came
to know that Roy based on the conversations, the countless
conversations we've had about stuff like that, Like why why
is that such a big part of who you are?
Speaker 3 (05:24):
I think it's because I don't make that much money,
you know, the Laborghini.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
This episode has been brought to you.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Available everywhere.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
You know. The food business, you know, it's really a
day to day business, so you have to no matter
how successful you are, you have it really you can
never really get ahead. There's no big payday in the
food business. So then what happens is it pushes you
to really confront why are you here? Why do you
wake up every day and climb up this mountain? And
(06:03):
for some people, like immigrant families, like ourselves, sometimes it's
the only thing you can do.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Right.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
You don't speak the language of this country, you're not educated.
Sometimes you left your country before you even finished a
certain level of education. You're not getting hired, so the
only thing you can do to provide for your family
is open a small donut shop or open a restaurant.
So there's that thing. But then becoming a chef is
another thing. And I think it's for me personally, is
(06:31):
that you know I come from you know, the ground up.
I know what the struggles like, and I know I
had been through a lot of struggle and then I
had hit rock bottom a few times in life and
it was food that saved me. So on the final
time I hit rock bottom and food saving me, I
kind of made like it was like a movie. I
(06:52):
kind of made like this silent promise, you know, whatever
happens from here, I'm going to make sure that whatever
I take, I give back tenfold, you know. And it
was just a personal agreement, you know, It wasn't like
some soapbox or anything like that. It's just I believe
in loyalty, and loyalty I think goes to your own
(07:13):
promises too, right, and and they don't have to again
be on stage or anything like that, but you have
to be true to them and those That was just
one thing that I was true to it, and I
think because I've stayed true to it, I believe that
it it feels and feeds me as well. You know,
(07:34):
I think if I, as I got maybe I guess
more famous or bigger or whatever, if I started to
veer away from that, then you know, I would have
to confront personally me breaking that promise. And so anyways,
like because of that, everything I do has a balance.
It has It's almost like it's almost like you know,
(07:57):
a green red switch, right, So it has If I'm
doing this job for this much, or if I'm doing
this this kind of like endorsement thing, or I'm doing
this TV show, then I'm going to balance that with
something you know, for charity or for purpose or for
you know, for I guess you know, meaning and retrospect.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
What you get in return with that is also you're
building community, You're showing up to the places where emotionally
they see, you know, the loyalty you have with the people,
and yeah, it turns back into hey, man, if I
had a choice between that truck and this truck, I'm
going to this one.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
You know.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
And in retrospect is that you're building a our community.
But talking you said something that really you know, that
that really hit me in the heart. Just you know,
for us immigrants, it's not about the soapbox. You know,
we don't have the luxury of a soapbox, right. We
gotta you know, we gotta put some dirt on it
and get back in the back in the saddle, because
that's just the way the American dream goes.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Right.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
The more you keep digging at it, the faster you're
going and going back little bit of your of your
of your beginnings. I you know, I relate so much
in the last time we talked to, you know, in
the podcast, and also you're reading so much more about
you know that realized that we have a very similar
you know, growth, how we grew up in the structure
of that. Ultimately, you know, you know, we came to America,
(09:20):
we went back, you know, then came back you know,
and you might tell us a little bit about that.
You know, how how your family and your influences and
you know when when you returned back to your family's
country and then you came back and because you were
born and.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Yeah, I didn't go, but my parents went came and
went back. So and then I was born in Korea.
So my my both my parents met here in l A. Yeah,
they met here in l A. While they were both
like graduate students or my mom was I always say,
quote unquote at art school, but you know art schools,
Like I don't know what that means.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Where'd you go? Where'd you go?
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Uh? Think she went to the Pasadena Arts Center, I believe.
And then my dad was a graduate student here at UCLA.
So they met through their own circles back then. I
think it was like the mid sixties, late sixties. Back then,
Asians weren't that much many out here in there, you know,
like there was a there was an exclusion act that
(10:20):
was lifted in nineteen sixty five. So like not to
get into too much history, but like you know, Asians
were clowned upon in this country for many, many years.
I mean, you go back to World War two, you
go back to the Chinese railroad occupation. So you go
back to you know, the internment camps and the concentration
camps of the Japanese because of World War Two, and basically,
(10:41):
you know, and the way Hollywood treated Asians, you know,
with Charlie Chan and all that stuff, and basically Asians
were just like clowned on and pushed to the corner
and we weren't even allowed in this country, like we
were like not even you know, you couldn't even get in.
And then in nineteen sixty five, because there was that
actually a law that forbid Asians to come in. So
(11:03):
then so in sixty five it lifted and people started coming.
And then so where this all leads is like by
that time, my parents like I think men in sixty
eight or something like that. You know, the Asians were
just starting to come in. So there were no neighborhoods. Really,
there were some old China towns. There was no creative town,
there was no Little Saigon, there was no Tie Town.
(11:24):
There's none of that. And so anyways, the circles of
Asian people were really small. So if you saw someone
yeah yo.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Yo, let's look up, it's like a podcast. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
So that's how all our parents went and uh. But anyways,
they they met, they had a blast. I've seen some
old pictures of the man. They were living it up man,
you know, you know, especially can you imagine, like they
come from these kind of small countries they come to America.
Back then it was the wayfarer, sunglasses, cigarets, you know,
(12:02):
old old like impalas and stuff like that. But they
weren't old. They were the year of time, but a
beautiful you know, like big bucket seat, you know, you
got your arm around driving, and so it must have
been amazing for them. And then they had to move
back as the risas ended. And I always think that
I haven't I talked to them about it, but they
(12:22):
never really tell me too much. But I put the
pieces together. I think they went back and all they
did was plot for like three years to figure out
how the fuck they get out of Korea and how
to get how to come back, and so in that
time I was born. And then they came back. But
the thing is, the weird thing is they went back
(12:44):
to their country with like a higher education, and they
could have lived a life, but they were willing to
give all that up to come back here and start
at the bottom again, you know, so they came back
(13:04):
here and started at the bottom. You know, graveyard shifts,
janitorial shifts. Well that's where it all started again. You know.
He was studying to become like a political ambassador, you know,
like he was. I mean, if everything had gone the
way it was supposed to go, he was probably going
(13:26):
to be like like working for the embassy or a
political ambassador or some sort of high governmental position. But
he came back here and it doesn't matter as as
especially as Asians during that time. That's why you see
a lot of Asians from that period, from the early
seventies to the early eighties, that ten year period, the
(13:49):
reason why so many own again like liquor store, strike cleaners,
donut shops, you know, small restaurants, noodle shops, hamburger shops,
all that stuff, because you couldn't get a job. Nobody
would hire an Asian person. You know, we were completely
like foreign to the American Even with him with a
(14:10):
degree from it don't matter. Yeah, it didn't matter unless
you had like a science degree or something. So that
took a lot of humble pie I think for that
that group of Asians where no matter how educated they were,
they had to go down and get some dirt on them,
like you say, and take whatever job is available. You know.
(14:30):
My parents basically worked from I would say eight nine
am to about eight nine pm every single day.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Did they have a What did they do? What do
your folks do during that time?
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Again? Run liquor store, run liquor stores, work at gas stations,
the janitorial graveyard, door to door sales, amway, all that, restaurants,
small restaurants, I think, all that kind of all that
kind of stuff. And but they'd be gone the whole time,
and that kind of shaped me into who I am
(15:05):
because with them being gone, and then it's, you know,
like life is all about those timing and I'm sure
people growing up right now, kids growing up, it's they're
going to have their own timing points. But for me
growing up in the seventies, it was the timing of
them having to figure things out, being the first wave
of Asian immigrants, the seventies being a time where there
(15:29):
weren't that many rules in place yet, you know, and
so they basically just say peace out at like eight
nine am, and they wouldn't Like I was five years old, bro,
I was fucking five years old and they would say
peace and then they would be gone, the whole whole
damn day.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Who would watch you nobody?
Speaker 3 (15:49):
I watched myself to watch it.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yeah, I love Lucy.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
I used to get on the bus over here. It's
called it used to be called RTD here La Rapid
Transit this year and I guess on the bus at
five years ago. So so in the bus driver, Yeah,
and then you just get on the bus and nobody cares.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
So we talked about a little bit about that moment
in time because my family had a pretty similar you know,
my parents met in Miami, you know, during the early seventies,
you know, and my dad and my mom you young,
got married and all the stuff in Miami, and they
had it all same thing, you know, the fifth Will Continental,
you know, the whole thing. And then and then my
(16:27):
dad moved back to Venezuela.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
You know, very similar, and that we.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
We were raised in Venezuela, was about fourteen years old, right,
and then we came back to the United States around
that time, learned how to speak englishrom scratch and the
whole thing, you know, what really call my attention in
your story so much was that at five years old,
it goes and I want to say that, I want
to say this in capital letters.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
They don't make it like that anymore.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
They don't make them like that anymore, you know what
I mean, like a five year old kid to be
able to like handle his stuff, understanding the gravity that
her that his parents are out there doing what they
gotta do.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
And then you got to find your own way too
at five, five, seven years old. Yeah, it's like you
have to.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
You have to.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
I mean, I think about think about parents and their kids.
Now there's I mean, obviously technology helps, but in most
cases they know where their kid is at every single
second of the day. You probably know where your kids
are every single second of the day iPhone.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
Yeah, Well back then, man, they didn't even know.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
By the time they go home, you could be in
New York.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
You could be in New York home alone, you know,
you know, ten hours, twelve hours, definitely, you could.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Be in Italy. Did you have siblings you had to
watch over?
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Yeah, but we're uh, six seven years apart, so by
the time and then in early infant days, they would
strap her on their backs and go and used to
go door or door and go do the work she
used to sell, like she would she would do a
lot of I mean you see it now today in
La a lot. She would do a lot of what
you see on the corners where you see the mom
(17:58):
selling manudo or posole on the weekends, or their tomates
or anything like that. You know, we were just the
Asian version of that, you know, Like my mom would
make kim chi and what's called pun chan, which is
basically marinated vegetables and then marinated meats, and she would
pack all that up and she would wrap it up
in these cloths, put it in our backpack and put
(18:20):
the kid on the side, and basically go door to
door wow. Or she would show up at like my
mom was very smart, Like she would show up at
places where she knew people would gather, you know, like
back then bowling was really popular and pool like billiards
and all those.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Things, and everybody wants to eat when everyone.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
Wants to eat, and she would just show up there
and then like if everyone a little taste, and then yeah,
it's very smart. Again, very very similar to I think
those probably where it's not maybe a direct line, but
it's definitely it's definitely a crooked line to where a
lot of my instincts for street fe.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Yeah, I was going to ask you about that.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
Where did where did all the inspiration and how did
it all come full circle for you?
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Well, being a lot, I think it's all again. All
those pieces are like a shattered kind of glass that
come together one being alone at such an early age,
I was roaming the streets a lot, and so I
would see street vendors or I would smell the food.
I was very familiar, you know, with the smells of
(19:21):
the streets and the foods of the streets from a
very early age, and being a kid. When you're walking
around as a kid, people don't really pay attention to
you in the same way they do maybe adults. Right,
So what I mean by that is like you can
slip in and out of things. You know, you can
kind of listen to conversations, you can like study things,
(19:42):
be exposed to things without anyone noticing you're there, especially
if you have the eye for it. And so for me,
that was something that I did a lot. I was
alone a lot. I would just walk around. I would
just witness things or absorb things, I guess studying, and
I kind of like what you guys do is actors,
you know, like I would study the movements, the asyncrasies,
(20:04):
the small little.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Nuances, sufficiency of business.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
The efficiency. I would see how people operate, how they
how they set set up. You know. These are and
these are all little things that were like my own
little kind of hobbies or interests. You know, most people
had hobbies of like building, uh you know, model airplanes,
or working on their motorcycles or things like our bikes
(20:30):
or things. For me, it was watching like how a
street vendor exchanges cash, you know, watching how they flip
flip their foods and things like that. But I didn't
know growing up that those things would ever turn into something.
Those are just my own personal hobbies. Being around my
mom by her side, and the way she handled stuff
(20:50):
and the way she like knew how to pack things,
knew exactly how much she was going to pack and
why she was going to this place, and all those
things were I guess like by the time I got
into street food, they were already ingrained in me. You know.
Jason Bourne, you know.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, what was that magic that magic moment?
Speaker 4 (21:14):
What was that moment when you say I'm going to
start this thing? See how it goes, like, what was
that moment?
Speaker 1 (21:18):
How did that start?
Speaker 3 (21:20):
For Kogie? It was I was out of a job,
so it was kind of like my hand was forced.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
What were you doing before? What were you doing?
Speaker 3 (21:28):
I was a chef. I was a chef for fifteen
years before Kogie happened. Yes, but I was at the
Beverly Hilton. Oh yeah, So if you were at the
Golden Globes ten thousands, yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Slid so eight.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
I probably served you made those lighters.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
I love great triple triple fright fries.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Yeah, so I was. I was doing that whole thing.
I was working in hotels.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Did you did you go to school to be a chef?
Speaker 3 (21:59):
I went to school to be chef. I was on
the path to my goal, my dream because I didn't
know I was going to be an entrepreneur. So my
dream up until that point was to eventually maybe become
like an international chef. Like that was as far as
my vision could go. Was like, like my biggest mountaintop
(22:20):
was could I be like the executive chef or the
regional chef for like, you know, like a four season Singapore.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
That was my Mount Everest.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
That was my Mount Everest, you know, that was because.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
First of all, that's a really great that's a.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Great job, man. You know, like you're working in in
you know, Singapore or Bangkok, or you know, even Puerto
Rico or you know wherever, and then you have this
great job. You're cooking amazing food, you have an amazing
clientele and guests, and then you know, you can stay
around the world wherever you want at a partner hotel.
(22:54):
So that was that was a dream. I lost all
that and then in two thousand and eight, and and
then I was out of a job for about almost
six months.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Why can we, may we ask, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
I think you know, the economy crashed. It was the
real estate crisis at that time. And then also what
happened was I think I had, for all that success
as a as an executive chef, in that time in life,
I was maybe a little overqualified for any jobs out there.
You know, it was a time in the world where
(23:27):
everyone was downsizing. But I think it was also spiritual
in a sense that maybe that part of my chapter
of my life was over because I was interviewing. I
was out there interviewing, and I wasn't getting any jobs.
(23:49):
I wasn't getting the jobs that I thought I should
get and.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Within the world, somehow the universe was telling you, Hey,
I think so there's another there's another world, there's another
street over there.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
Yeah, I think so. I don't thank you for asking
that woman, because I you know, it's hard to talk
about it, because like in the world when you talk
about mystical shit, you know, like nobody wants to really listen,
you know, and it's like, oh, it's hard.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
To put in your words.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
I hear you in that that's a really interesting thing
that you tap into it because we you know, we're
not shy to tap into the why us right, We're
not shy to tap into that into that aspect because I,
you know, I look at you, and I look at
the you know, nothing short of a really good will,
beautifully well built empire. You know that you have, and
(24:36):
you know, to reflect on this this moment, that the
moment where you were being compressed the most, you were
led to make a different type of diamond somewhere else,
you know, And I think that that was an interesting thing.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
We talked about it, like why us right, Like no in.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
Our family, no in our family decided to go into
this thing.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
We're like, we decided to do.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
The hardest thing that we could possibly do, and somehow
we ended up a path where not only sustainability, but
we were to you know, hopefully do some positive things
that we can take with us in the graveyard. But
but I'd love to tap a little bit deeper into
that part because you know, in that moment, and we
always try to offer this to a lot of our
(25:16):
listeners and our viewers and everybody who watches us or
listening to us, is is that is the moment that
don't call it a test, It is those moments of
of of hardship and and turmoil are the manifestation of
where you know where like you did that that chapter
is closed. We got to tell you otherwise you're going
(25:36):
to keep going in and roll possively inhabities.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
But I'd love for you to dive it a little
deeper on that point.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
Yeah, you know, like if we if you do open
yourself up to the mystical communications, you know, and you
may not know it at that time, you know you
may feel it and you know it's it's weird because
in hindsight, I can completely diagram it all out for you.
I can really pinpoint that if there was something happening
(26:03):
that there were these kind of mystical road signs that
led me to make a lessons to signals that turned
things and move them this way. You know, I couldn't
get a job I was. I completely lost my ability
to do things that were second nature to me. I
(26:24):
couldn't I had built a career for fifteen years doing
it would be like if you couldn't read pages anymore,
memorize anymore, like these things that were innate within you,
I couldn't even do anymore. And then there was these
these moments that happened where I would listen to different
(26:44):
signals at that time that allowed me to see that
there was a new path ahead of me. You know,
my friend calling me and saying, hey, let's start a
taco truck. Me normally saying probably would have said no,
but because I was out of work for soul long,
I was open to it, you know, me finally confronting
(27:05):
the food and the flavors that I that I was
kind of shying away from. I was always cooking like
European food, and then finally I started to but I
would be eating tacos, burritos and Korean food. And then
I never really cooked that food, and so then finally
I opened myself up to cook it. The night we
opened Kogie, you know, there was no press or fanfare
(27:27):
or anything. We opened at two am in front of
a club, and we parked there right at midnight. But
the day, the day we opened, was the same day
Twilight opened at the Arc Light at the Cinromadome, and
so it was just like I look back at that
moment and then there was all it was. It was
like midnight on a foggy November night with all of
(27:49):
these vampires like dressed up doing cosplay, doing cosplay, waiting
in line for and we noticed that.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
At first screen.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Yeah, for the screening, and we're just like, there's something
going on right now, you know. And then and just
all those things as I look at it together, and
then the moment people ate the taco and the burrito,
like everything just stopped. Time stopped, and so I think
all those things, uh, you know, they were all meant
(28:18):
to be.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
And that was a very pop culture moment.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
Yeah, you know, and your point, you're pointing out the
release of Twilight, you're pointing out that the time of
the night in which.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Time, but there's also two other things. One is social
media just happened. Twitter just came out, and then the
iPhone just came out. So it was all these things
happening at one time that allowed us to kind of
plug into that that energy. And did we know everything
at that time, No, but we trusted it and we
(28:51):
listened to it and we followed it. And I think
if you're looking for something right now or wherever you
are in life, I don't know it's easy to look
back on it, but if you're in the moment, I
think if you can open yourself up to information that's
not just in your brain like other information, you know,
(29:13):
and you know a lot of native indigenous cultures do
it all the time, right right, and you know, tap
back in, tap, tap back in.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
And I think that's that's the thing that's a really
interesting theme to kind of follow here as well, because
what you're describing is you saying, like, Okay, I achieved
the cuisine that was unlike my heritage culture to where
I came from, you know, the stuff that I saw
my mother make and all that, and then all of
a sudden you went back to your interest, to.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Your what you what you liked, what you work from it.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
And when you can co sign on something I like
this tackle, somebody else probably will.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
That's the magic moment.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
And everybody felt it at that time. It wasn't just
me or my team. It was the reason why I
think that there was something happening is because everyone around
us felt it. Like there's if you write it on paper,
there's no reason that an Asian guy making tacos out
of a truck, you know, wouldn't make any sense. Right.
(30:12):
But as soon as we got out there, like everyone
was like, yeah, you know right, Why do you think
they didn't see race, They didn't see anything. They just
they saw the saw the truth in the future.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Why do you think that is right?
Speaker 2 (30:25):
And and and you know what was super interesting about
this is before you and I even met, right, I
remember driving down what was that place on Washington where
you where you first had your your your tacos at
you know that place?
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Remember that place like on in Culver City, the bar,
the bar Dalla By Room.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
I remember going like on a midnight taco run, Like
I keep hearing about these tacos, man, I gotta go
half so and I went there at midnight and I
thought it was one of the most amazing, amazing things
I had ever tasted. But what I found that was
so interesting was that you had the foresight to go,
I'm gonna murder you know, these Korean flavors with like
(31:04):
Mexican delicacies.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
It's like, yeah, to talk to me about.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Like what what I know that you were saying that
you came up eating tacos and burritos and all that.
But what gave you sort of the vision to go,
I'm going to merge these two flavors, these two cultures together.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Well, really, what it was it was an expression of
the area of Los Angeles we came from, yeah, you know.
And it was more than it being this like cerebral
idea of like, hey, we're gonna you know, we're gonna
do these things and make a new culture. It was like,
we're just going to cook and speak the way that
we are and where we're from, you know, and we're
(31:42):
from Koreatown, Los Angeles, right, And if you go to Koreatown,
Los Angeles between Vermont and Cranshaw and Beverly and Pico,
if you go in that square block, it's all mixed up,
you know, like it's Central American Wahawkan Mexican Korean, and
the Guatemalins are speaking Korean and the Koreans are speaking
(32:06):
Spanish slang, and you know, the kids look are dating
each other, you know, the young Latino girls are all
into k pop. You know, it's like all mixed up together,
and you can't really distinguish the line between the two.
You know, like you go to the high schools, you
go go to Koreatown at three pm, and in front
(32:28):
of like the junior high schools and high school you
come out. All the kids come out there, all in
the k pop, right, you know, And then go to
the markets and the restaurants. Everybody working in the markets,
in the restaurants all speaking Korean and not speak just
speaking like like school book Korean, but speaking like slanging
Korean r like arguing with the Korean like lady or
(32:51):
worker or whatever. And they're eating together the food of
each other. So they have a rice bowl with kinda
hot sauce, but kimchi and the cilantro and onion all
mixed together, you know, and it's all mixed up together.
Everything's mixed up together. And that mix up is kind
of what our food was. And so what we did
(33:12):
was we just got out of the way, you know,
And that's really what it was. Was like we were
able to like kind of like harness it, but we
got out of the way and let it speak for itself.
And I think what it did was it made our
area of town like worldwide, you know.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
All right, So let's low it down right there.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
This has been part one of a two part conversation
with ROCHOI and we'll see you guys for a part two.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Those Amigos is a production from WV Sound and iHeartMedia's
Michael through That Podcast Network, hosted by Me, Freddie Rodriguez,
and Wilmer Valdorama.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
Those Amigos is produced by Aaron Burlson and Sophie Spencer Zabbos.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Our executive producers are Wilmer Valdorama, Freddie Rodriguez, Aaron Burlson,
and Leo Clem at WV Sound.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
This episode was shot and edited by Ryan Posts and
mixed by Sean Tracy and features original music by Madison
Devenport and Halo Boy.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Our cover art photography is by David Avalos and designed
by Deny Holtz.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
Claw and thank you for being there third Amigo today.
I appreciate you guys. Always listening to those amiingos.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
More podcasts from my Heart, visit the ir heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
See you next week.
Hey, what's up and women about drama. This is Freddie Rodriguez.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I'm the Dusin Eagles podcast for iHeartRadio and today today
you have the third Amigo. My good friend Roy Choy
is in the house.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Forming.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Indeed, indeed, man, I'm so personally thrilled that you're here
because you're you're one of my good friends. And for
those who don't know, Roy and I have a have
a monthly dude dinner right myself alex Ey wonderful showrunner
h DJ King Tech from the wake Up Show, and uh,
(00:42):
it's it's uh. I'm just I'm just thrilled that you're
here man, and and those dinners have been so important
in my life just to get to sit down with you,
get to sit down with us and get the break bread,
and for us to just chat as humans, as men,
talk about life, talk about business and uh, and just
just to be surrounded by really good people man, and so.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Our mobile man cave, it's it's space. We have to
talk about old stuff, old stuff, right.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
Yeah, we feel the same way. The way this podcast
started was the same way. We went to the one
dinner and this one dinner just turned into like, wow,
how much do we need this, you know, you kind
of really need this moment to kind of recharge and
and uh, you and I shared share a moment together
during some of the most vulnerable times in the history
(01:31):
of the world, really during COVID. I, you know, as
Lee and I had started this as a podcast called
Essential Voices, which was talking to individuals that nobody really
knew they were in the radar of essential you know,
because people were rightfully so giving all the flowers to
you know, to our doctors and to our nurses and
(01:52):
shout out to them again for everything they did for us.
And there was a lot of other unsung heroes around it,
you know, the you know, the the truck drivers taking
the food, you know, or bringing even the you know,
when all the truck stops were shut down and then
all these incredible visionaries of food. Food was one of
the biggest stress points of the COVID when things started
(02:15):
running out when they're when the farmers couldn't really be
and the farmers turning and the food and then transportations
started getting tough to get food.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
To all the grocery stores.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
As soon as the people started seeing the empty shells,
you know, people started really feeling that this is a
post apocalyptic moment, you know, But it was individuals like Roy.
You know that with his company, his vision and his
healing and the healing that he was providing with his
food also showed up in a moment well not just vulnerability,
but a moment where that that was also calling for
(02:46):
us to be united and bringing together. And he had
food programs that were incredibly effective during that time, and
he came on essential voices and we had a really
honest and deep and vulnerable conversation about what he had
had to do to kind of show up for his
community and for everybody around him. He needless to say,
his food, right Roy, You know, Roy toy Is And
(03:07):
I love for you to talk a little bit about
his business too, But I love for you to tell
everybody who has not discovered yet, which I think would
be very rare, somebody doesn't know what this truck looks
like and his business looks like.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
But really, proud have.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
You here, man, Thank you great to be here. Yeah,
those times it was essential. It was toilet paper and
food that was yeah. But what made us kind of
jump in to the fire on everything was that we
had four wheels and being a mobile food vendor, being
a street food vendor, you know you're one, you're mobile,
(03:41):
but you're also connected to whatever is happening on the ground,
you know, And so when things fall and things break,
and even in times and crisis like now with the
immigration situation of the politics, you're able to mobilize and
figure things out. And the fires most recently in Los Angeles,
you know your business is threatened. But then what happens
is a bigger purpose comes up sometimes when you're kind
(04:03):
of pushed to the eggs and you have to confront
the I guess the capitalism and the commercialization of what
you do, and there's if there's nothing left, then you
look at yourself and say, well, if there's no money,
if there's nothing, no ROI to worry about, what is
it that you can really do in life? Life is
not over just because you can't make money at that moment.
(04:25):
And so then we turn that into well, you know,
we still can get food, we can get donations, we
can do crowdfunding. We can not make profit, but we
can go out and feed. And that's happened in COVID
and happened in the fire. So we learn every day.
But I think the biggest thing is being able to
go to where the crisis is.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah, you know, Roy, One of the things I always
admired about you is that not only are you a
celebrity chef per se, right, but like philanthropy and activism
has always been such a big part of your history.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
It is part of the DNA or who you are. Yeah, yeah,
what why is that? Why?
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Why why aren't you just the dude driving a Lamborghini
and like on every cooking show and like, uh, you know,
I I came to know that Roy, Right, Yeah, I
knew I knew the other celebrity Roy, but I came
to know that Roy based on the conversations, the countless
conversations we've had about stuff like that, Like why why
is that such a big part of who you are?
Speaker 3 (05:24):
I think it's because I don't make that much money,
you know, the Laborghini.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
This episode has been brought to you.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Available everywhere.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
You know. The food business, you know, it's really a
day to day business, so you have to no matter
how successful you are, you have it really you can
never really get ahead. There's no big payday in the
food business. So then what happens is it pushes you
to really confront why are you here? Why do you
wake up every day and climb up this mountain? And
(06:03):
for some people, like immigrant families, like ourselves, sometimes it's
the only thing you can do.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Right.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
You don't speak the language of this country, you're not educated.
Sometimes you left your country before you even finished a
certain level of education. You're not getting hired, so the
only thing you can do to provide for your family
is open a small donut shop or open a restaurant.
So there's that thing. But then becoming a chef is
another thing. And I think it's for me personally, is
(06:31):
that you know I come from you know, the ground up.
I know what the struggles like, and I know I
had been through a lot of struggle and then I
had hit rock bottom a few times in life and
it was food that saved me. So on the final
time I hit rock bottom and food saving me, I
kind of made like it was like a movie. I
(06:52):
kind of made like this silent promise, you know, whatever
happens from here, I'm going to make sure that whatever
I take, I give back tenfold, you know. And it
was just a personal agreement, you know, It wasn't like
some soapbox or anything like that. It's just I believe
in loyalty, and loyalty I think goes to your own
(07:13):
promises too, right, and and they don't have to again
be on stage or anything like that, but you have
to be true to them and those That was just
one thing that I was true to it, and I
think because I've stayed true to it, I believe that
it it feels and feeds me as well. You know,
(07:34):
I think if I, as I got maybe I guess
more famous or bigger or whatever, if I started to
veer away from that, then you know, I would have
to confront personally me breaking that promise. And so anyways,
like because of that, everything I do has a balance.
It has It's almost like it's almost like you know,
(07:57):
a green red switch, right, So it has If I'm
doing this job for this much, or if I'm doing
this this kind of like endorsement thing, or I'm doing
this TV show, then I'm going to balance that with
something you know, for charity or for purpose or for
you know, for I guess you know, meaning and retrospect.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
What you get in return with that is also you're
building community, You're showing up to the places where emotionally
they see, you know, the loyalty you have with the people,
and yeah, it turns back into hey, man, if I
had a choice between that truck and this truck, I'm
going to this one.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
You know.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
And in retrospect is that you're building a our community.
But talking you said something that really you know, that
that really hit me in the heart. Just you know,
for us immigrants, it's not about the soapbox. You know,
we don't have the luxury of a soapbox, right. We
gotta you know, we gotta put some dirt on it
and get back in the back in the saddle, because
that's just the way the American dream goes.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Right.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
The more you keep digging at it, the faster you're
going and going back little bit of your of your
of your beginnings. I you know, I relate so much
in the last time we talked to, you know, in
the podcast, and also you're reading so much more about
you know that realized that we have a very similar
you know, growth, how we grew up in the structure
of that. Ultimately, you know, you know, we came to America,
(09:20):
we went back, you know, then came back you know,
and you might tell us a little bit about that.
You know, how how your family and your influences and
you know when when you returned back to your family's
country and then you came back and because you were
born and.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Yeah, I didn't go, but my parents went came and
went back. So and then I was born in Korea.
So my my both my parents met here in l A. Yeah,
they met here in l A. While they were both
like graduate students or my mom was I always say,
quote unquote at art school, but you know art schools,
Like I don't know what that means.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Where'd you go? Where'd you go?
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Uh? Think she went to the Pasadena Arts Center, I believe.
And then my dad was a graduate student here at UCLA.
So they met through their own circles back then. I
think it was like the mid sixties, late sixties. Back then,
Asians weren't that much many out here in there, you know,
like there was a there was an exclusion act that
(10:20):
was lifted in nineteen sixty five. So like not to
get into too much history, but like you know, Asians
were clowned upon in this country for many, many years.
I mean, you go back to World War two, you
go back to the Chinese railroad occupation. So you go
back to you know, the internment camps and the concentration
camps of the Japanese because of World War Two, and basically,
(10:41):
you know, and the way Hollywood treated Asians, you know,
with Charlie Chan and all that stuff, and basically Asians
were just like clowned on and pushed to the corner
and we weren't even allowed in this country, like we
were like not even you know, you couldn't even get in.
And then in nineteen sixty five, because there was that
actually a law that forbid Asians to come in. So
(11:03):
then so in sixty five it lifted and people started coming.
And then so where this all leads is like by
that time, my parents like I think men in sixty
eight or something like that. You know, the Asians were
just starting to come in. So there were no neighborhoods. Really,
there were some old China towns. There was no creative town,
there was no Little Saigon, there was no Tie Town.
(11:24):
There's none of that. And so anyways, the circles of
Asian people were really small. So if you saw someone
yeah yo.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Yo, let's look up, it's like a podcast. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
So that's how all our parents went and uh. But anyways,
they they met, they had a blast. I've seen some
old pictures of the man. They were living it up man,
you know, you know, especially can you imagine, like they
come from these kind of small countries they come to America.
Back then it was the wayfarer, sunglasses, cigarets, you know,
(12:02):
old old like impalas and stuff like that. But they
weren't old. They were the year of time, but a
beautiful you know, like big bucket seat, you know, you
got your arm around driving, and so it must have
been amazing for them. And then they had to move
back as the risas ended. And I always think that
I haven't I talked to them about it, but they
(12:22):
never really tell me too much. But I put the
pieces together. I think they went back and all they
did was plot for like three years to figure out
how the fuck they get out of Korea and how
to get how to come back, and so in that
time I was born. And then they came back. But
the thing is, the weird thing is they went back
(12:44):
to their country with like a higher education, and they
could have lived a life, but they were willing to
give all that up to come back here and start
at the bottom again, you know, so they came back
(13:04):
here and started at the bottom. You know, graveyard shifts,
janitorial shifts. Well that's where it all started again. You know.
He was studying to become like a political ambassador, you know,
like he was. I mean, if everything had gone the
way it was supposed to go, he was probably going
(13:26):
to be like like working for the embassy or a
political ambassador or some sort of high governmental position. But
he came back here and it doesn't matter as as
especially as Asians during that time. That's why you see
a lot of Asians from that period, from the early
seventies to the early eighties, that ten year period, the
(13:49):
reason why so many own again like liquor store, strike cleaners,
donut shops, you know, small restaurants, noodle shops, hamburger shops,
all that stuff, because you couldn't get a job. Nobody
would hire an Asian person. You know, we were completely
like foreign to the American Even with him with a
(14:10):
degree from it don't matter. Yeah, it didn't matter unless
you had like a science degree or something. So that
took a lot of humble pie I think for that
that group of Asians where no matter how educated they were,
they had to go down and get some dirt on them,
like you say, and take whatever job is available. You know.
(14:30):
My parents basically worked from I would say eight nine
am to about eight nine pm every single day.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Did they have a What did they do? What do
your folks do during that time?
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Again? Run liquor store, run liquor stores, work at gas stations,
the janitorial graveyard, door to door sales, amway, all that, restaurants,
small restaurants, I think, all that kind of all that
kind of stuff. And but they'd be gone the whole time,
and that kind of shaped me into who I am
(15:05):
because with them being gone, and then it's, you know,
like life is all about those timing and I'm sure
people growing up right now, kids growing up, it's they're
going to have their own timing points. But for me
growing up in the seventies, it was the timing of
them having to figure things out, being the first wave
of Asian immigrants, the seventies being a time where there
(15:29):
weren't that many rules in place yet, you know, and
so they basically just say peace out at like eight
nine am, and they wouldn't Like I was five years old, bro,
I was fucking five years old and they would say
peace and then they would be gone, the whole whole
damn day.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Who would watch you nobody?
Speaker 3 (15:49):
I watched myself to watch it.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yeah, I love Lucy.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
I used to get on the bus over here. It's
called it used to be called RTD here La Rapid
Transit this year and I guess on the bus at
five years ago. So so in the bus driver, Yeah,
and then you just get on the bus and nobody cares.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
So we talked about a little bit about that moment
in time because my family had a pretty similar you know,
my parents met in Miami, you know, during the early seventies,
you know, and my dad and my mom you young,
got married and all the stuff in Miami, and they
had it all same thing, you know, the fifth Will Continental,
you know, the whole thing. And then and then my
(16:27):
dad moved back to Venezuela.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
You know, very similar, and that we.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
We were raised in Venezuela, was about fourteen years old, right,
and then we came back to the United States around
that time, learned how to speak englishrom scratch and the
whole thing, you know, what really call my attention in
your story so much was that at five years old,
it goes and I want to say that, I want
to say this in capital letters.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
They don't make it like that anymore.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
They don't make them like that anymore, you know what
I mean, like a five year old kid to be
able to like handle his stuff, understanding the gravity that
her that his parents are out there doing what they
gotta do.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
And then you got to find your own way too
at five, five, seven years old. Yeah, it's like you
have to.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
You have to.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
I mean, I think about think about parents and their kids.
Now there's I mean, obviously technology helps, but in most
cases they know where their kid is at every single
second of the day. You probably know where your kids
are every single second of the day iPhone.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
Yeah, Well back then, man, they didn't even know.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
By the time they go home, you could be in
New York.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
You could be in New York home alone, you know,
you know, ten hours, twelve hours, definitely, you could.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Be in Italy. Did you have siblings you had to
watch over?
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Yeah, but we're uh, six seven years apart, so by
the time and then in early infant days, they would
strap her on their backs and go and used to
go door or door and go do the work she
used to sell, like she would she would do a
lot of I mean you see it now today in
La a lot. She would do a lot of what
you see on the corners where you see the mom
(17:58):
selling manudo or posole on the weekends, or their tomates
or anything like that. You know, we were just the
Asian version of that, you know, Like my mom would
make kim chi and what's called pun chan, which is
basically marinated vegetables and then marinated meats, and she would
pack all that up and she would wrap it up
in these cloths, put it in our backpack and put
(18:20):
the kid on the side, and basically go door to
door wow. Or she would show up at like my
mom was very smart, Like she would show up at
places where she knew people would gather, you know, like
back then bowling was really popular and pool like billiards
and all those.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Things, and everybody wants to eat when everyone.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
Wants to eat, and she would just show up there
and then like if everyone a little taste, and then yeah,
it's very smart. Again, very very similar to I think
those probably where it's not maybe a direct line, but
it's definitely it's definitely a crooked line to where a
lot of my instincts for street fe.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Yeah, I was going to ask you about that.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
Where did where did all the inspiration and how did
it all come full circle for you?
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Well, being a lot, I think it's all again. All
those pieces are like a shattered kind of glass that
come together one being alone at such an early age,
I was roaming the streets a lot, and so I
would see street vendors or I would smell the food.
I was very familiar, you know, with the smells of
(19:21):
the streets and the foods of the streets from a
very early age, and being a kid. When you're walking
around as a kid, people don't really pay attention to
you in the same way they do maybe adults. Right,
So what I mean by that is like you can
slip in and out of things. You know, you can
kind of listen to conversations, you can like study things,
(19:42):
be exposed to things without anyone noticing you're there, especially
if you have the eye for it. And so for me,
that was something that I did a lot. I was
alone a lot. I would just walk around. I would
just witness things or absorb things, I guess studying, and
I kind of like what you guys do is actors,
you know, like I would study the movements, the asyncrasies,
(20:04):
the small little.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Nuances, sufficiency of business.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
The efficiency. I would see how people operate, how they
how they set set up. You know. These are and
these are all little things that were like my own
little kind of hobbies or interests. You know, most people
had hobbies of like building, uh you know, model airplanes,
or working on their motorcycles or things like our bikes
(20:30):
or things. For me, it was watching like how a
street vendor exchanges cash, you know, watching how they flip
flip their foods and things like that. But I didn't
know growing up that those things would ever turn into something.
Those are just my own personal hobbies. Being around my
mom by her side, and the way she handled stuff
(20:50):
and the way she like knew how to pack things,
knew exactly how much she was going to pack and
why she was going to this place, and all those
things were I guess like by the time I got
into street food, they were already ingrained in me. You know.
Jason Bourne, you know.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, what was that magic that magic moment?
Speaker 4 (21:14):
What was that moment when you say I'm going to
start this thing? See how it goes, like, what was
that moment?
Speaker 1 (21:18):
How did that start?
Speaker 3 (21:20):
For Kogie? It was I was out of a job,
so it was kind of like my hand was forced.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
What were you doing before? What were you doing?
Speaker 3 (21:28):
I was a chef. I was a chef for fifteen
years before Kogie happened. Yes, but I was at the
Beverly Hilton. Oh yeah, So if you were at the
Golden Globes ten thousands, yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Slid so eight.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
I probably served you made those lighters.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
I love great triple triple fright fries.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Yeah, so I was. I was doing that whole thing.
I was working in hotels.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Did you did you go to school to be a chef?
Speaker 3 (21:59):
I went to school to be chef. I was on
the path to my goal, my dream because I didn't
know I was going to be an entrepreneur. So my
dream up until that point was to eventually maybe become
like an international chef. Like that was as far as
my vision could go. Was like, like my biggest mountaintop
(22:20):
was could I be like the executive chef or the
regional chef for like, you know, like a four season Singapore.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
That was my Mount Everest.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
That was my Mount Everest, you know, that was because.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
First of all, that's a really great that's a.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Great job, man. You know, like you're working in in
you know, Singapore or Bangkok, or you know, even Puerto
Rico or you know wherever, and then you have this
great job. You're cooking amazing food, you have an amazing
clientele and guests, and then you know, you can stay
around the world wherever you want at a partner hotel.
(22:54):
So that was that was a dream. I lost all
that and then in two thousand and eight, and and
then I was out of a job for about almost
six months.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Why can we, may we ask, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
I think you know, the economy crashed. It was the
real estate crisis at that time. And then also what
happened was I think I had, for all that success
as a as an executive chef, in that time in life,
I was maybe a little overqualified for any jobs out there.
You know, it was a time in the world where
(23:27):
everyone was downsizing. But I think it was also spiritual
in a sense that maybe that part of my chapter
of my life was over because I was interviewing. I
was out there interviewing, and I wasn't getting any jobs.
(23:49):
I wasn't getting the jobs that I thought I should
get and.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Within the world, somehow the universe was telling you, Hey,
I think so there's another there's another world, there's another
street over there.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
Yeah, I think so. I don't thank you for asking
that woman, because I you know, it's hard to talk
about it, because like in the world when you talk
about mystical shit, you know, like nobody wants to really listen,
you know, and it's like, oh, it's hard.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
To put in your words.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
I hear you in that that's a really interesting thing
that you tap into it because we you know, we're
not shy to tap into the why us right, We're
not shy to tap into that into that aspect because I,
you know, I look at you, and I look at
the you know, nothing short of a really good will,
beautifully well built empire. You know that you have, and
(24:36):
you know, to reflect on this this moment, that the
moment where you were being compressed the most, you were
led to make a different type of diamond somewhere else,
you know, And I think that that was an interesting thing.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
We talked about it, like why us right, Like no in.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
Our family, no in our family decided to go into
this thing.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
We're like, we decided to do.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
The hardest thing that we could possibly do, and somehow
we ended up a path where not only sustainability, but
we were to you know, hopefully do some positive things
that we can take with us in the graveyard. But
but I'd love to tap a little bit deeper into
that part because you know, in that moment, and we
always try to offer this to a lot of our
(25:16):
listeners and our viewers and everybody who watches us or
listening to us, is is that is the moment that
don't call it a test, It is those moments of
of of hardship and and turmoil are the manifestation of
where you know where like you did that that chapter
is closed. We got to tell you otherwise you're going
(25:36):
to keep going in and roll possively inhabities.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
But I'd love for you to dive it a little
deeper on that point.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
Yeah, you know, like if we if you do open
yourself up to the mystical communications, you know, and you
may not know it at that time, you know you
may feel it and you know it's it's weird because
in hindsight, I can completely diagram it all out for you.
I can really pinpoint that if there was something happening
(26:03):
that there were these kind of mystical road signs that
led me to make a lessons to signals that turned
things and move them this way. You know, I couldn't
get a job I was. I completely lost my ability
to do things that were second nature to me. I
(26:24):
couldn't I had built a career for fifteen years doing
it would be like if you couldn't read pages anymore,
memorize anymore, like these things that were innate within you,
I couldn't even do anymore. And then there was these
these moments that happened where I would listen to different
(26:44):
signals at that time that allowed me to see that
there was a new path ahead of me. You know,
my friend calling me and saying, hey, let's start a
taco truck. Me normally saying probably would have said no,
but because I was out of work for soul long,
I was open to it, you know, me finally confronting
(27:05):
the food and the flavors that I that I was
kind of shying away from. I was always cooking like
European food, and then finally I started to but I
would be eating tacos, burritos and Korean food. And then
I never really cooked that food, and so then finally
I opened myself up to cook it. The night we
opened Kogie, you know, there was no press or fanfare
(27:27):
or anything. We opened at two am in front of
a club, and we parked there right at midnight. But
the day, the day we opened, was the same day
Twilight opened at the Arc Light at the Cinromadome, and
so it was just like I look back at that
moment and then there was all it was. It was
like midnight on a foggy November night with all of
(27:49):
these vampires like dressed up doing cosplay, doing cosplay, waiting
in line for and we noticed that.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
At first screen.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Yeah, for the screening, and we're just like, there's something
going on right now, you know. And then and just
all those things as I look at it together, and
then the moment people ate the taco and the burrito,
like everything just stopped. Time stopped, and so I think
all those things, uh, you know, they were all meant
(28:18):
to be.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
And that was a very pop culture moment.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
Yeah, you know, and your point, you're pointing out the
release of Twilight, you're pointing out that the time of
the night in which.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Time, but there's also two other things. One is social
media just happened. Twitter just came out, and then the
iPhone just came out. So it was all these things
happening at one time that allowed us to kind of
plug into that that energy. And did we know everything
at that time, No, but we trusted it and we
(28:51):
listened to it and we followed it. And I think
if you're looking for something right now or wherever you
are in life, I don't know it's easy to look
back on it, but if you're in the moment, I
think if you can open yourself up to information that's
not just in your brain like other information, you know,
(29:13):
and you know a lot of native indigenous cultures do
it all the time, right right, and you know, tap
back in, tap, tap back in.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
And I think that's that's the thing that's a really
interesting theme to kind of follow here as well, because
what you're describing is you saying, like, Okay, I achieved
the cuisine that was unlike my heritage culture to where
I came from, you know, the stuff that I saw
my mother make and all that, and then all of
a sudden you went back to your interest, to.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Your what you what you liked, what you work from it.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
And when you can co sign on something I like
this tackle, somebody else probably will.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
That's the magic moment.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
And everybody felt it at that time. It wasn't just
me or my team. It was the reason why I
think that there was something happening is because everyone around
us felt it. Like there's if you write it on paper,
there's no reason that an Asian guy making tacos out
of a truck, you know, wouldn't make any sense. Right.
(30:12):
But as soon as we got out there, like everyone
was like, yeah, you know right, Why do you think
they didn't see race, They didn't see anything. They just
they saw the saw the truth in the future.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Why do you think that is right?
Speaker 2 (30:25):
And and and you know what was super interesting about
this is before you and I even met, right, I
remember driving down what was that place on Washington where
you where you first had your your your tacos at
you know that place?
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Remember that place like on in Culver City, the bar,
the bar Dalla By Room.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
I remember going like on a midnight taco run, Like
I keep hearing about these tacos, man, I gotta go
half so and I went there at midnight and I
thought it was one of the most amazing, amazing things
I had ever tasted. But what I found that was
so interesting was that you had the foresight to go,
I'm gonna murder you know, these Korean flavors with like
(31:04):
Mexican delicacies.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
It's like, yeah, to talk to me about.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Like what what I know that you were saying that
you came up eating tacos and burritos and all that.
But what gave you sort of the vision to go,
I'm going to merge these two flavors, these two cultures together.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Well, really, what it was it was an expression of
the area of Los Angeles we came from, yeah, you know.
And it was more than it being this like cerebral
idea of like, hey, we're gonna you know, we're gonna
do these things and make a new culture. It was like,
we're just going to cook and speak the way that
we are and where we're from, you know, and we're
(31:42):
from Koreatown, Los Angeles, right, And if you go to Koreatown,
Los Angeles between Vermont and Cranshaw and Beverly and Pico,
if you go in that square block, it's all mixed up,
you know, like it's Central American Wahawkan Mexican Korean, and
the Guatemalins are speaking Korean and the Koreans are speaking
(32:06):
Spanish slang, and you know, the kids look are dating
each other, you know, the young Latino girls are all
into k pop. You know, it's like all mixed up together,
and you can't really distinguish the line between the two.
You know, like you go to the high schools, you
go go to Koreatown at three pm, and in front
(32:28):
of like the junior high schools and high school you
come out. All the kids come out there, all in
the k pop, right, you know, And then go to
the markets and the restaurants. Everybody working in the markets,
in the restaurants all speaking Korean and not speak just
speaking like like school book Korean, but speaking like slanging
Korean r like arguing with the Korean like lady or
(32:51):
worker or whatever. And they're eating together the food of
each other. So they have a rice bowl with kinda
hot sauce, but kimchi and the cilantro and onion all
mixed together, you know, and it's all mixed up together.
Everything's mixed up together. And that mix up is kind
of what our food was. And so what we did
(33:12):
was we just got out of the way, you know,
And that's really what it was. Was like we were
able to like kind of like harness it, but we
got out of the way and let it speak for itself.
And I think what it did was it made our
area of town like worldwide, you know.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
All right, So let's low it down right there.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
This has been part one of a two part conversation
with ROCHOI and we'll see you guys for a part two.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Those Amigos is a production from WV Sound and iHeartMedia's
Michael through That Podcast Network, hosted by Me, Freddie Rodriguez,
and Wilmer Valdorama.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
Those Amigos is produced by Aaron Burlson and Sophie Spencer Zabbos.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Our executive producers are Wilmer Valdorama, Freddie Rodriguez, Aaron Burlson,
and Leo Clem at WV Sound.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
This episode was shot and edited by Ryan Posts and
mixed by Sean Tracy and features original music by Madison
Devenport and Halo Boy.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Our cover art photography is by David Avalos and designed
by Deny Holtz.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
Claw and thank you for being there third Amigo today.
I appreciate you guys. Always listening to those amiingos.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
More podcasts from my Heart, visit the ir heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
See you next week.
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