May 15, 2023 • 38 mins
Tournament of Champions winner and Top Chef, Mei Lin, is in the kitchen as she and Tyler flavor up with her line of hot sauces, her famous fried chicken recipe and everything mouthwatering coming out of her restaurant Daybird!
Find out which sauce is Tyler’s favorite and the truth about why chefs are so cut-throat!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Two Dudes in a Kitchen with Tyler Florence and
Wells Adams, an iHeartRadio podcast. Hi everybody, Tyler Florence here,
Welcome to Two Dudes in the Kitchen with myself and
Wells Adams. Wells is traveling this week, so instead of
the two dudes double decker sandwich, you are going to
(00:21):
get the open faced, single slice two dudes version today.
But we still have a really juicy show for you
with a fantastic guest that I know you're going to
get a lot out of, Specifically, if you love reality television,
if you love you know, Cupcake Wars, Top Chef and
Great Food Truck Race. Today's guest is a competitor of competitors,
(00:44):
and she has the belt and the receipts to prove it,
Ladies and gentlemen. So our guest today, May Lynn is
a chef in television personality. She is best known as
the winner of the twelfth season of Bravo Television Networks
reality series Top Chef, and then after winning Top Chef
in twenty fourteen, Lynn worked as the personal chef for
(01:05):
Oprah Winfrey. That's gonna be kind of cool to jump
into that one and then she opened up her first
restaurant called night Shade in Los Angeles in twenty nineteen,
and then, after some delays of whatnot with the pandemic,
in twenty twenty one, she opened up her second casual
restaurant in LA called day Bird, and Lynn describes it
(01:25):
as the first fast casual sess one hot chicken restaurant
in the United States. Those are three things that I
love altogether. Those sounds amazing. And then recently, if you're
a big fan of Food network and yes I am
as well, Lynn just won the fourth season of Food
Networks Tournament of Champions. Now to celebrate twenty seasons of
(01:47):
Top Chef, Bravo has teamed up with a sauce expert, Heatonist,
and Top Chef Season twelve winner Maylen to create a
line of game changing hot sauces based on pantry staples.
And I got a chance to try all three hot
sauces this past weekend. And if you are a chili
head just like me, hang tight, this is going to
be a good one. And without further ado, let's welcome
(02:09):
in our guest today. Hey chef, how are you good
to see you?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Hi?
Speaker 3 (02:12):
How are you?
Speaker 1 (02:13):
I'm doing great. I'm doing great. Look at all your
your your cookbook collection behind your wall right there.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
I know it's a little disorganized right now, but.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
That looks like my house looks at my house. You know,
my wife did my because I have I have no joke,
I have over like a thousand cookbooks, have a lot
of cookbooks, right my wife like organized them by color.
Oh no, my wife's like that. She's like super organized.
So if you look at the cookbooks, there's no like
rhyme or reason of why like one cookbook is next
to the other other than the shades of the spine
(02:42):
or both kind of baby blue.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Yeah. I actually contemplated doing that, actually, yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
But it looked really really great. I mean, and to me,
like that's one of the great things about being a
chef is also you're kind of a historian in a
lot of ways because you get to get a chance
to kind of track and trace the history of food
the way it's being documented. And I just think your
cookbooks are so incredibly cool as you are too. Chef.
By the way, congratulations on all your success.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Thank you. I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Fantastic And so just recently, let's back it up because
I want to talk about Top Chef, but also I
really want to talk about tournament champions first and foremost.
So you just won season four TOC, which is a
really really big deal.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
It was really hard.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
It was really really hard. So walking to that, how
many and also, if you're following basketball right now too,
kind of like a similar sort of bracket tournament of
like you and how many chefs start out on for
the folks who haven't seen the show yet, how many
chefs start out with tournament champions?
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Well, for our season, I think it started in the
first season, it started out as with sixteen chefs, but
from last season and season four that I'm on, we
started out with thirty two chefs, so we definitely doubled
the Amuna chefs, which is actually pretty insane if you
think about it.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
It's a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
It's a lot of people, right, So so walking through,
do you remember all your battles or I'm sure you do.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Right, Yeah, it's pretty fresh, I guess.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
All right, So so walk me through that. So thirty
two chefs and is everybody there at the same time.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Or now everybody is there at the same time? Everybody
is there?
Speaker 2 (04:18):
I mean, it's a it's a really relatively quick you're
not you know, you're not so questioned for a long time,
and you're there for about two weeks, and you know
that first week you're going through the whole or all
of the thirty two chefs, So it's it's a little
bit of a waiting game. You're basically competing once that
(04:38):
first week, and then if you move on to the
next round, then it kind of goes by faster in
the following week. But it's four battles a day, and
like that four battles is basically the one episode. But yeah,
it's it's pretty crazy, and like you know, the seedings
are are pretty I mean, I don't know how it's determined, but.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
It's really interesting. It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
It's a lot of fun and chef, it's also a
lot of fun to watch you cook that you're so
incredibly competitive all of it too.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
I mean, I think as as chefs, like we're naturally competitive,
and I definitely have to say that every single chef
on TOC was incredibly competitive and we're all but you know,
I think at the end of the day, like we
all have respect for one another and you're not necessarily
competing with the other person. You're competing against yourself and
(05:32):
you're competing against the randomizer. And I think that's what's
great about the great about the show, Like the concept
is fantastic, and I love the blind judging aspect of
the show and that's what really drew me in to
want to compete on TOC.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
And Okay, so, so walk me through some of your
toughest battles that you had on Tournament Champions.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
I mean, I think they're all pretty tough and it's
in their own right.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
The first battle was chicken.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Breast, something that is nutty. We had button mushrooms and
we had to use an immersion blender and we only
had thirty minutes to cook. I think thirty minutes to
cook in general is a short amount of time because
you don't necessarily have.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Thirty minutes to cook.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
You have one of you to twenty five minutes to cook,
depending on how fast you can shop.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
So you know, you're it's your's.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
It was my first ever battle, my first ever time
of being in the arena, and so you're you can
go through a walkthrough and and kind of mountainize where
things are, but once you're in competition. I think that
you're only focused on where you're going to cook, So
you know, your mind's just racing a million miles a
million miles a minute, and you know you're you're just
(06:57):
thinking about the next three steps that you're going to take.
So it's just it's just a lot going on in
your brain. So it's to kind of fully form a
concept is really incredibly hard in the amount of time
that you have.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
I completely agree. I've done plenty of like you know,
black box cooking competitions in the past where it's like
you open up the box and like you've got you know,
five to seven minutes to like sort everything out and go, Okay,
I'm gonna put this together and put this together, and
it's your best first instinct you got to go with.
You don't have time to second guess anything. So whatever
your first decision is going to be, that's it.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
No.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
No, with the show, do you have sioux chefs? Are
you're by yourself? Oh?
Speaker 3 (07:35):
You're your solo. You're solo all the way.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Yeah, So there's nobody to you know, to hand off
cards to the way Iron Chef used to roll because
you could roll in with like three other people with
your team and Visious you by yourself.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
And I think like the differential, the difference between Iron
Chef and TC is that Iron Chef you you get
to practice, You get to practice with your team, and
you kind of know going in where you're going to cook,
not necessarily no which ingredient you're going to get, but
you have an idea and you have fully formed ideas
of what you're going to make, Whereas in TOC, you
(08:10):
don't know what you're going to get, and you can't
necessarily practice that type of competition because the randomizer's going
to totally dictate what you're going to be making. So
I think I, you know, knowing that going in, I
didn't want to cloud my brain with what am I
going to get? What's going to be on that randomizer?
I just you know, put some I put some earbuds in,
(08:31):
listen to music, and really just up until I had
to go into the arena and went in with a
clear mind because I just didn't want to think about
all the things that could happen. I just wanted to
be you write them in there and figure out what
I was going to make on the spot.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Now, tell everybody at home what the randomizer is.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Ooh, the randomizer is this wheel of madness. I would
like to say, there's five different categories of the randomizer.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
You have protein, you.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Have produce, you have a type of equipment that you
have to use, a style that you had to adhere to,
and normally you would have time. But on TOC four
we had this thing called the wild card, which could
basically ranges from an audience could change a category on
(09:21):
the randomizer, or a guy could have changed a category
on the randomizer, or it could have been on stay,
and it kind of changed throughout during every round, so
it always it just kept you on your toes, right.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
And so with the selection of the protein and the
cooking style and the ingredients that you get, do both
chefs that you're kind of going up against you and
the other chef they have the same ingredients and same
cooking method, or do both chefs, So it's two chefs,
you know, and basically three different options on how this
is going to roll out.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Right, So you have it's you against another chef, you
have the same randomizer, and it's it's pretty incredible because
you know, I think the randomizer really dictates what you're
going to be cooking. But everybody cooks so differently and
they cook something completely opposite of another of another chef.
So I think that's what's really fun about the competition
(10:15):
is you also don't know what the other person is
cooking while you're cooking, and you see it when your
food is being judged. So that's what's really incredible is
you see what the other person cooking, you're like, oh,
I didn't even think about that, you know, and yeah,
it's just so much fun, so much fun even like
(10:35):
thinking about it now, Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Know, right, That's what I love about this about cooking
competitions because like it's you and your raw gut instinct,
what are you going to make? And then if you
take the same ingredients they hand to three different chefs
or four different chefs, or thirty two different chefs, you're
going to get thirty two different dishes and thirty two
different outcomes, which is kind of amazing. So then it
kind of boils down to the technique. Now, I think
(10:57):
that the American home cook and it goes through their
own tournament of champions every night for dinner when they refrigerator,
am I.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Right, yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
You open up the refrigerator, and then the clock is
ticking because you've got kids going, hey, you know, mom, dad,
what's for dinner tonight? And you've got literally a randomized,
like like like oddball things. So if I throw you
a couple of ingredients, right, could you just the top
of your head riff and kind of put something together
in real time?
Speaker 3 (11:28):
I mean I could try it.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Okay, let's do it. I think it'd be kind of fun.
I'm making this up as we go, but that that's
what two Dudes is all about. We're just gonna okay, great,
So you open up the refrigerator and you've got you've
got pork chops, you've got Brussels sprouts, okay, right, you've
got mustard, right, and you've got onions.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Oh my god, I feel like that. I mean that's
so classic. I mean I.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Would, honestly, I would start up the grill and I
would marinate the pork chops in shiokogi. I would get
those brussels cleaned, and how get a cast iron pan
ripping hot, add a little bit of oil and put
those brussels sprouts on the cut side down, get those roasting,
and then use the mustard and make a simple vinaigrette
(12:13):
out of that and and kind of use that as
the sauce. If you don't want to start the girl,
you can definitely do that in a pan and then
kind of use the mustard as like a like use
it in a pant sauce. It definitely deglaze with a
little bit of remooth or something, some type of white
wine that you would have in the fridge. I'd probably
(12:34):
add a little bit of honey and some a little
bit of a soy sauce.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
For for floating flavor.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Add a little bit of that shiokogi that I used
to marinate the pork as the sweetness and umami, and
there you go. I mean, obviously add onions in with
the Brussels sprouts and kind of do like a quick saute,
and that's that's your meal.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
And that's how fast chefs think when it comes to
putting dinner together. And I think it's sometimes it's that
missing link when people are opening up the refrigerator going, God,
what am I going to make tonight? That I feel
like it almost kind of feels like a superpower because
my wife will do the same thing. She's like, we're
getting takeout tonight and I'm like, why she goes there's
nothing in Frederick. I get some groceries. I'm like, well,
hang on and I'll come back thirty minutes later, and
(13:15):
I've got like for what we got in the house,
I got a masterpiece, you know. I mean it's like
really big, nice, nice touch. And I think having that
sense of like that, you know, just like those thousand
cookbooks you got in your wall, you get a thousand
places to go with the ingredients, and I think that's
just practice and doing it and kind of sticking with
cooking because the more you know, the more sort of
like ways you can, you know, split the hair and
(13:37):
like like move this way and move that way and
just kind of flow like water until you get something
that's really great because at the end of the day,
technique wins.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Absolutely. I totally agree.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
And I say the same thing about giving out recipes
is when someone asks for a recipe, I have no
problem giving out recipes.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
It's all about how you execute that dish.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
At the end of the day, I can give the
same exact recipe to you know, another chef and they
can totally interpret it a different way and create something
totally different than what you intended, and so it's all
about technique and it's all about the execution.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
I completely agree. I'm so not selfish with my recipes
because we've written. With Food network we're written. I know
it sounds like a big number, but it's true, almost
twenty thousand recipes and twenty seven I believe it with
Food Networks. So we have so much content. So like
my you know, I just finished my seventeenth cookbook.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
So congratulations, thank you very.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Much, thank you. It's called American Grill. It's come out
next summer or next spring. It's gonna be awesome. But
with that, like to me, like that's our gift to
the world to be able to share our knowledge and
our content. And it's also what I love about what
we do for a living is because we'll never get
kicked off the island, right, We're set proved because like
we're there for the good times, and we're there when
you want like a bulletsuit by the fire, you know
(14:52):
what I mean. And and we've always got something to
share with somebody that somebody feels like, Okay, great now
they're kind of speaking.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
My language absolutely.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
All right, now, let's go back to top Chef for
a second, because like Top Chef again, yeah, and you
want to hear a crazy story on Top Chef two?
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Yeah, of course always.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Okay, So god, this is this is going back in
the early two thousands, right, So I got married in
two thousand and six, so this must have been like
two thousand and five or two thousand and four, So
is going kind of going back. So I was in
I was in living in New York City at the time,
and Magical Elves, which is the production company that produces
(15:32):
Top Chef, they called me in for a casting call
and I did three casts. I did three sessions with
Magical Elves in Tom Klichio's position for the show.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Oh wow, and.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
They offered me the job.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Oh wow.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Now that same summer, I had rented a house in
Mexico for the summer and it cost me fifty thousand
bucks for the summer. And we had we had we
had like you know, there's like ten or twelve different
people that were kind of coming out. So we had
like different groups of people stage all summer long, and
we're out there and I had a podcast at the
time and like a radio show in New York and
(16:10):
we're gonna be broadcasting there, and it was like it
was just complicated, like like our lives are now. I mean,
you know, I'm sure the same way. I'm booked up
like the next like four or five months. Yeah right,
I can't move anything, right. So they said, well, we'll
give you the job. We're shooting in two weeks in
New York, and and the episodic fee was like twenty
five hundred bucks an episode. Oh wow, And I passed
(16:31):
on it. Wow, I passed on to Well. That that
being said, I think Tom Klicket was a right after
the job because obviously he's done a master with it
for his years and and and the credibility and the
James Beard Awards and him as a person. I mean,
he's obviously obviously an amazing guy. But it's just kind
of this funny thing about Top Chef that it's like
it's like, you know, because professionally sometimes it's like the
one that got away, you know what I mean, Like
(16:53):
we've got success before that was like a like I
wish I could see the future on that one. But
let's talk about Top Chef for a second, because like
Top Chef as an institution, it's a worldwide phenomenon that
I think was was that supplanted iron chef as the
the culinary competition of record determined who was the best
(17:13):
chef in America.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
I agree, I totally agree.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
What was it like winning That's a big one.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
I mean, I think, you know, I was.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
I was on season twelve, my mentor, Michael Ovitaju had
won season six.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
And you know, I think.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
It's it's a really incredible show, and it really puts
you on the national platform, and it kind of really
puts you out there and gets you. I guess known,
you know, as I mean I was, I wasn't. I
wasn't really I wasn't in a chefch cuisine position. I
was still a chef when I won, And so I
(17:50):
kind of for me, I was a little lost at
the time because I didn't know what my next steps were.
Do I go and work, do I continue working for Michael,
or do I go lou to do my own thing?
Speaker 1 (18:01):
So were you ink in l A at the time where.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
I was.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
It's a fantastic restaurant, fantastic.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
The ash potatoes kind of dipped in like there's such hits.
I mean, he's he's a genius, He's he's he's a
friend and he's touched. The guy is so.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Yeah, he's he's a literal genius. And like, I mean,
I I've learned so much working for him, and I mean,
he's just an incredible guy. And you know, it was
it was.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
I feel really blessed to.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Been able to work for him and and for Brian
as well, for for a short time. And you know,
I the show in general, I think it it really
just I like to say this a lot, and I
tell a lot of people this is being on top
Chef really made me the chef that I am today.
It really molded me into finding myself and finding out
(19:00):
what kind of food I wanted to cook because me
being in the position that I was in, I was
working for Michael as a soou chef. I went on
to do the show, and of course you know I
was I wasn't necessarily cooking his food, but bits in
parts of it, right, Like it's in parts of the
food that he cooked, the food that I learned working
(19:20):
at Spago, the food that I learned working at Seahouse
in Chicago for Marcus Samuelson, And I think, you know,
putting those little things together, it's it's a little disjointed sometimes,
but you don't really have a voice in the food, right,
And I think as a young cook, like you don't
really know that, and I think like chefs can see
(19:42):
some of that. So I really thought long and hard
about what kind of food I wanted to cook, and
I really tapped into my roots Chinese American, and I
really wanted to cook the food that.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Was most nostalgic to me, but kind of reinvent.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
And sash one specifically, right.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Not necessarily, I grew up eating a lot of sash
One food, but my family's from the South, so more
Cantonese cuisine, a lighter fare, very seafood heavy, but you know,
dishes like kanji, Like I grew up eating kangi. My
grandpa taught me how to make kanji, and you know,
(20:22):
that was like one of my That was my first
dish that I made.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
On Top Chef and I won with that dish.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
And I think cooking food like that that is really
nostalgic to you, but also tells a story. That's what
Top Chef is all about. You want to show who
you are as a chef, but also tell a little
tell a little story about who you are as well
in your background.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
And I think it's so important for like a lot
of chefs because especially in the day and age of
Instagram and social media, where you know, when I'm fifty two, right,
so when I was like twenty five, like you would
have to fly from New York to San Francisco, drive
to nap, but get a reservation the French Laundry, eat dinner,
take pictures with a camera, take that stcr, put it
(21:04):
on your laptop, fly back to your team in New York,
and then show them what they were doing and at
the French Laundry. And now you can see what these
people are posting for specials every night. So in a
lot of ways, like I think we have the best
generation of American chefs for sure. For sure, there's talented,
there's great restaurants popping up everywhere, but there's so sort
(21:25):
of a sense of sameness that I think a lot
of chefs are starting to kind of copy each other
doing you know exactly what the other chef is doing,
and you kind of sort of repetitive thing. So I
think how you're going to stand out as a chef
and be original is kind of looking at your own
backyard and where you're from, because like that's the flavor
and the food solid. You're going to represent the best,
(21:47):
and of course you can kind of take it do
magical things with it. Like I grew up in the South,
so fried chicken is on you know, is our number
one best seller at Way for tabern San Francisco and
it has been for thirteen years. Right, And then you
because if you look at the menu, go, okay, there's
a boy from the South from this kitchen here, and
I get that lot clear. But if I wasn't from
the South, I couldn't own I mean I can, I
(22:07):
can mimic it, but it couldn't own way. You know,
you can own amazing Cantonese style, fantastic Chinese American food,
and I think that's really great.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Yeah, And it really all has to do with your
life experiences as well. So I grew up in Dearborn, Michigan,
which is predominantly Middle Eastern, and so I have a
little bit of me I can cook a little bit
of Middle Eastern flair, and there is a lot of
that in my food as well. So you know, I
have there's a Chinese girl from Dearborn, Michigan cooking Chinese
(22:37):
food with with like sumac or like baharat and some
of the dishes, you know what I mean. And it's
like it's very that's authentic to me because that's the
food that I grew up eating.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
And I think that's what makes.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Every single person who's cooking interesting food great because it
speaks to their experiences, their life experiences. And so I
think food can be really interesting when you really tap
into those to those to those different things.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
And speaking of towp and those different things. So to
celebrate twenty seasons of Top Chef, and it's got to
feel good to be in that that legacy of such
an amazing show that's done so many things for so
many people. That Bravo has partnered up with heat Nests.
And if you're a chili head like me. As a
matter of fact, today is the day. My gardener guy
(23:28):
just is at my house right now planting all of
our chilis for the season. So I have I have
seventeen different varieties of chili's that I'm playing this year.
I have my gosh bananas like so every year, like
I make a big batch of hot sauce. But let's
talk about the sauce that you would put together with
Heatness and top Chef, and I don't have them with
me Chef, but I cracked into all of them this
(23:49):
past him, and I got a chance to eat them all.
As a matter of fact, I did some damage with
that one. You can see the level right there.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
That's my favorite one.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Yeah. I thought the peppercorn sauce was really nice, and
I thought there were really really lovely enough. And if
you like heat, but not to the point where it's
kind of silly, you know what I mean, Like it's
just heat for heat's sake. If you like flavor, if
you like you know, sort of like a very well rounded,
delicious zesty. Can I say balance, because they're perfectly balanced.
(24:17):
Let's talk about some of the sauces you put together,
because I think they're amazing, and you made three.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
I mean, I think what's great about the collaboration is
that all three of those different sauces are incredibly different.
But they're not over the top spicy. They're very mild.
You can do so many different things with every single sauce.
You know, you can use it as a marinade, you
can use it as a condiment, you can use it
in addressing. You can use it in virtually anything, and
(24:45):
it can really it can really just top your your dinner.
You know, you can really just take it to that
next level, which I love.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Yeah, especially if you've got, like I thought, the peppercorn sauce,
I think that'd be really nice with chicken thighs or
more like sort of a steak with some good marbleine
or some good something's got like a little bit of
fat to it, because I felt like the heat kind
of mixed with the pork fat I think would be
like or any kind of like protein fat I think
would would be really really nice. I thought the garlic sauce,
that to me feels like your chicken go to, like
(25:16):
if you're gonna grill chicken, and what I'd like to do,
especially because the weather's starting to warm up a little
bit like spring has sprung for sure. Now this feels
like a good mop sauce too. Right, So if you're
gonna take chicken, like a whole chicken, break it down
ten pieces, brine it, ad it dry, rub it a
little bit of olive oil, and then start to grill
it off and then mop it with the sauce right
(25:37):
towards the end, I think you're gonna get a great cockering,
great caramelization with the sauce, and it feels like it's
it's savory with a little kick, you know. I think
it feels really kind of nice. But I think my
favorite was the herb chili sauce, which is the earth
I thought was really really nice because to me, it
just it just kind of felt like typood right, Like
to me, I would blend that with milk like I
(25:58):
would slice chicken breast paper thin. Uh, take some of
the sauce at it with like coconut milk, lime juice,
fish sauce. Uh, and then and then you know, throw
in some veggies of whatever you want, and then and
then have that with like good sticky jasmine rice or
it makes it really kind of nice. It really kind
of felt like a good ti green curry.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
I mean I think take that in concept and put
it in some mix it with some buttermilk, some sour
cream and kind of use that as like your ranch.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
Yeah, it's like really really great for our.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Sound bang it. I think it sounds really nice with
like a like a tomato wedge.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Yeah, yeah, definitely like a fat beef steak.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Fat beef steak, tomatoes, ice cold, yeah, juicy iceberg lettuce,
you know, and have a drizzle with a crunchy fried
onions and like cilantro or something on top of that
pickled red oniony.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
I definitely like to add fish sauce into a little
dressings like that because it just like gives it that
boost of umami, which is fantastic.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Yeah, and and the like to me, like it really could.
As soon as I tasted this, I'm like, boom tygrin
curry like that. That's where that's where my imagination goes.
Was that the goal when when you kind of put
that one together.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
A little bit, Yeah, and the concept I can't take
all the credit. The concepts of the sauces were from
Heat ANDSS so I just kind of took that direction
and really helped.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
You know, giving giving giving little like critiques here and
there in terms of the sauce.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Well, and they're absolute delicious. So congratulations on that, by
the way. Kind of celebrating twenty years or twenty seasons
of Top Chef, one of the most iconic shows that
has made such an impact on the culinary industry and
created names and created you know, incredible careers for so
(27:51):
many chefs out there, and it's just so exciting to
watch you chef be a part of that whole legacy.
And can we talk about your restaurants because I want
to talk about this too, like I'm sure, yeah, yeah,
I love a good fried chicken sandwich. Tell me about that.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
You know, we opened up day Bird in March of
twenty twenty one, and you know it's you know, you
know LA. You've been to LA multiple times, I'm sure,
and there's saturated with a lot of different fried chicken sandwiches.
And I love fried chicken sandwiches. I love fried chicken
in general, but how can I I really wanted to
(28:27):
put my take on a fried chicken sandwich but make
it a little bit different, and growing up eating Sashuan food,
I really love the different spices that they have to offer,
and I kind of wanted to make a spice mix
and kind of integrate that into a chicken sandwich, but
also done so in the style of a Nashville like
Nashurville hot chicken. When I went to Nashville for the
(28:50):
first time and had hot chicken, that's kind of where
the light bulb lit up, and I decided to, you know,
create the day bird sandwich. And it's really us a
double fried piece of chicken thigh. And after it comes
out of the fire, it gets dipped in chili oil,
a super aromatic chili oil.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Up you go too fast now now, because like there's
lots of ways of fried chicken. Right, okay, So do
you chicken thigh so boned out chicken thigh obviously right.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Boned out chicken thighs. They are a little bit pounded
out because you don't with a chicken thigh. There's there's
a piece that's a little bit thicker than the other end,
and so we just pound out that other side to
make it even, and we brind the chicken thighs.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
You want to hang off the bun a little bit
of my right, chef, you want to see what you're
got a lot of it paying for it. I want
to want to see it like it's like like it's
ten pounds of potatoes and a five pound bag, you
know what I mean? I want exactly chicken thyce. Okay,
So we pound the chicken dyed okay, great, now, so
then there's a brine or a marinate for that.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
So it gets brined overnight in buttermilk brine, and it
gets taken out the next day. So basically, when we're
done with serf, we put the chicken on brine, leave
for the night, come back the next morning, take the
chicken off brine, and it goes through a dredging process.
Our flour dredge consists of ap some potato starch, corn starch,
(30:15):
and some salt, pepper and baking powder, so very very
simple goes through that dredging process, gets fried. Once taken out,
let it rest and gets fried. It gets a double fry.
And so once it gets that double fry, you're gonna
ensure not a double dip, but a double fry. So
(30:38):
kind of like in the sense you think like Korean
fried chicken. The chicken gets double fried, so you get
that extra crispiness that really doesn't go away. So it
can sit for hours and it will still be crispy.
Once it comes out of the fire, it gets dipped
in chili oil or super aromatic chili oil with a
lot of warming spices, and it gets dusted with or spice,
(31:01):
which consists of like thirty different things, and then it
gets dried, drizzled with a little bit of honey, and
then we build the sandwich. The slaw consists of red
and green cabbage, along with some cilantro and chive sticks,
some pickled schallets and pickle holopenos and fresnos, and the
(31:22):
sandwich ranges from five different heats. We have a no heat,
which is completely not spicy. It still has a little
bit of tingle from the sechu one peppercorns, but no
heat at all, so there's no heat mild, medium, hot,
and extreme, And of course, as you've probably seen, like
the sandwich sticks out of the bun, and we have
(31:44):
an array of three different sauces, and the whole experience
of eating the sandwich is really just to try the
chicken in its purest form, and then you can kind
of dip it in all those three different sauces and
kind of taste it throughout until you actually get to
the sandwiches. Completely different experience, and you whish you kind
of have like a hot and cooling effect with the
(32:07):
cooling slab, but then there's like still chili's in it,
so you're still burning your mouth, and it's just a
really fun eating experience, and that was kind of like
the goal of creating the sandwich.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
So fried chicken sandwiches to me are just one of
like God's gift to man. It's one of the greatest
dishes ever and and so. And I'm also a big
fan of Nashville hot chicken too, right like the princes
like sea and and uh and to me, like I, I,
it's just it's just the thing, you know, like I,
I wish I came up with it. It's just so
incredibly delicious. So yeah, because because it was like the
(32:40):
the hot that Princess fried chicken in Nashville, because you're
talking about Naville Chicken earlier. Their hot chicken will literally
induce sweat and and your mouth up and and and
cry if if you can't take the heat. I mean
it's literally that hot. So when you're talking about your
extreme heat thing, is yours in that range? Like what
are we talking?
Speaker 3 (33:01):
I would say it's in that range. I don't think
that it's that extremely The extreme is really hot, don't
get me wrong.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
I can I can say that I can eat a
medium sandwich and be okay, I'll probably have beads of sweat,
but it's not like dripping with sweat. So with the
different spices. The medium or the mild has a little
bit of cayenne and dried halapenos, and then you kind
of go into the medium and you have both of
(33:32):
those plus the addition of chili to dourible, and then
you go into hot, you have all those three and
you have an addition of dried halapeno. Then you go
to the extreme and you have every every all of
those different spices and those chili is in the in
addition to Scotch bonnet and uh reapers. So it's it's
(33:55):
pretty intense.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
It's kind of like that build. Yeah, like all the
all the chilis in place. Yeah, oh my god, it's crazy.
That's crazy, Like like one chili enough enough top it's
like a five from chill.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
No, that that one, that one reaper. Yeah yeah, it's
enough for that entire batch of of spice.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Well yeah, but so I I put together a hot
sauce every year called Sicilian Slap, and it's like a
fourteen day lacked of fermentation of of like all my
chili and I let I kind of like like pluck them,
you know, for different reasons throughout the year, Like I
like my you know, uh Serrano's green. But then you know,
(34:35):
but then I really like the red You kind of
let them just go all season long. And so they're
they're big and they're full of shugar. Like the red
ones are just so delicious, right, And so thing we
got hobb and arrow and and reapers and thy bird
and like like dragons like like crazy red hot chilie.
And then I'll put them together into a fermentation tank.
I've got like these kind of laboratory things in the
(34:55):
house and and and it's basically a salt solution, two
percent salt solution. But then I add I capers from
sicily sundry tomatoes from anchovies from whatever the grocery store,
and then citrus from my backyard, garlic margin from my backyard,
and then all these chilis and then and then uh
and then kind of let it go and let it
start to percolate. And then the it also had raisins
(35:17):
to it too, for a little little uh uh heap
out yep. And then and then I'll sort of like
percolate and kind of do its things. So it does
this like kimchi thing. It starts to kind of feels
fresh and fragrance like lacto lack silvera's acid really fresh tasting. Yeah,
and then and I'll and then I'll clear the house
out after about two weeks. Put on my goggles, put
on my gloves, and then I'll and then I'll ruin
(35:39):
my vita prep and I'll blend everything together and create
napalm in the house, no joke, nobody can the room.
My gosh, it's an hour to clear out. But I'll
purate everything right, and then I'll pass it through a
shin wah and then then I'll bring it up to
about one hundred and thirty degrees just sort of like
to level off the bacteria so it stops producing. And
(35:59):
then I'll had a touch is just to kind of
stabilize it so it feel, it doesn't run, it drip right,
and then I'll let that kind of cool and then
I bottle it and then I give it away for Christmas.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
I love that. I love that.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
And that's actually how my my exosauce kind of came
to fruition. And it was just kind of like a
pet project that I did as as gifts for my
chef friends, like many moons ago, like back in twenty thirteen.
And yeah, during the pandemic. I just kind of created
the exosauce and started bottling it and stuff, so like
it's it's it's truly incredible. I would love to try
(36:33):
your sauce for sure.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
Fine, I'll send you something.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
Yeah, I wuld love that.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Well. Congratulations on everything, chef. I'm so excited. Congratulations, Internment
of Champions. It's Food Networks new big hit guy. Fieri's
done it again. Uh, he's just kind of come up.
He's a hit machine. And everybody's talking about it because
I think the show is starting to evolve and I
think it's starting to tip where people it's not just
like like real big chefs to start and recognize this
(36:58):
as like a thing you got to pay attention to,
and it's it's it's creating. It's a king and queen maker.
You know. I'd like people that make it all the
way through thirty two chefs slugging it out, one Battle
of the Time, and then one chef reigned supreme. Congratulations
on one. Season four. It's a big deal.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
Thank you, thank you so much, Thank you so much
for having me on the pod.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
My absolute pleasure. And yes, so Wells is traveling this week,
so you got you got the single open face sandwich,
not the two dudes Becker. But I'm a good time.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
Fun I mean yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
And I like your cookbooks, I like your style. Congratulations
on anything. Now, tell everybody where they can find you.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
On social media on social media on Instagram and Twitter.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
My handle is at Meylan twenty one. That's N E
I L I N two to one.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
All right, Well, listen, Cheff, thank you so much for
hopping the podcast, and best luck with everything. And then
if you ever need anything, let me know. I'm happy
to help. I've bet everywhere, I've seen everything, done it all.
If I can help you do anything like no, congratulations,
You're on the right steps and it was was a
obvious a pleasure to talk to. You're incredibly charmed.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
Thank you. The pleasure is mine. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
All right, Jeff, thanks so much. Well everybody, if you
haven't had a chance to check out a Tournament of
Champions season four, chef may Lynn brought the whole thing
home one hundred thousand dollars in cash, and she also
has the belt to prove it. It's such a good
(38:25):
news series on Food Network and you can watch that
on Food Network on demand. Also Discovery Plus, so check
it out and we will see you guys next time
on Two Dudes in a Kitchen. All right, guys, thanks
for listening. Follow us on Instagram at two Dudes in
a Kitchen. Make sure to write us a review and
leave us five stars. We'll take that and we'll see
you guys next time. See you next time.
It's Two Dudes in a Kitchen with Tyler Florence and
Wells Adams, an iHeartRadio podcast. Hi everybody, Tyler Florence here,
Welcome to Two Dudes in the Kitchen with myself and
Wells Adams. Wells is traveling this week, so instead of
the two dudes double decker sandwich, you are going to
(00:21):
get the open faced, single slice two dudes version today.
But we still have a really juicy show for you
with a fantastic guest that I know you're going to
get a lot out of, Specifically, if you love reality television,
if you love you know, Cupcake Wars, Top Chef and
Great Food Truck Race. Today's guest is a competitor of competitors,
(00:44):
and she has the belt and the receipts to prove it,
Ladies and gentlemen. So our guest today, May Lynn is
a chef in television personality. She is best known as
the winner of the twelfth season of Bravo Television Networks
reality series Top Chef, and then after winning Top Chef
in twenty fourteen, Lynn worked as the personal chef for
(01:05):
Oprah Winfrey. That's gonna be kind of cool to jump
into that one and then she opened up her first
restaurant called night Shade in Los Angeles in twenty nineteen,
and then, after some delays of whatnot with the pandemic,
in twenty twenty one, she opened up her second casual
restaurant in LA called day Bird, and Lynn describes it
(01:25):
as the first fast casual sess one hot chicken restaurant
in the United States. Those are three things that I
love altogether. Those sounds amazing. And then recently, if you're
a big fan of Food network and yes I am
as well, Lynn just won the fourth season of Food
Networks Tournament of Champions. Now to celebrate twenty seasons of
(01:47):
Top Chef, Bravo has teamed up with a sauce expert, Heatonist,
and Top Chef Season twelve winner Maylen to create a
line of game changing hot sauces based on pantry staples.
And I got a chance to try all three hot
sauces this past weekend. And if you are a chili
head just like me, hang tight, this is going to
be a good one. And without further ado, let's welcome
(02:09):
in our guest today. Hey chef, how are you good
to see you?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Hi?
Speaker 3 (02:12):
How are you?
Speaker 1 (02:13):
I'm doing great. I'm doing great. Look at all your
your your cookbook collection behind your wall right there.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
I know it's a little disorganized right now, but.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
That looks like my house looks at my house. You know,
my wife did my because I have I have no joke,
I have over like a thousand cookbooks, have a lot
of cookbooks, right my wife like organized them by color.
Oh no, my wife's like that. She's like super organized.
So if you look at the cookbooks, there's no like
rhyme or reason of why like one cookbook is next
to the other other than the shades of the spine
(02:42):
or both kind of baby blue.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Yeah. I actually contemplated doing that, actually, yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
But it looked really really great. I mean, and to me,
like that's one of the great things about being a
chef is also you're kind of a historian in a
lot of ways because you get to get a chance
to kind of track and trace the history of food
the way it's being documented. And I just think your
cookbooks are so incredibly cool as you are too. Chef.
By the way, congratulations on all your success.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Thank you. I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Fantastic And so just recently, let's back it up because
I want to talk about Top Chef, but also I
really want to talk about tournament champions first and foremost.
So you just won season four TOC, which is a
really really big deal.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
It was really hard.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
It was really really hard. So walking to that, how
many and also, if you're following basketball right now too,
kind of like a similar sort of bracket tournament of
like you and how many chefs start out on for
the folks who haven't seen the show yet, how many
chefs start out with tournament champions?
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Well, for our season, I think it started in the
first season, it started out as with sixteen chefs, but
from last season and season four that I'm on, we
started out with thirty two chefs, so we definitely doubled
the Amuna chefs, which is actually pretty insane if you
think about it.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
It's a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
It's a lot of people, right, So so walking through,
do you remember all your battles or I'm sure you do.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Right, Yeah, it's pretty fresh, I guess.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
All right, So so walk me through that. So thirty
two chefs and is everybody there at the same time.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Or now everybody is there at the same time? Everybody
is there?
Speaker 2 (04:18):
I mean, it's a it's a really relatively quick you're
not you know, you're not so questioned for a long time,
and you're there for about two weeks, and you know
that first week you're going through the whole or all
of the thirty two chefs, So it's it's a little
bit of a waiting game. You're basically competing once that
(04:38):
first week, and then if you move on to the
next round, then it kind of goes by faster in
the following week. But it's four battles a day, and
like that four battles is basically the one episode. But yeah,
it's it's pretty crazy, and like you know, the seedings
are are pretty I mean, I don't know how it's determined, but.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
It's really interesting. It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
It's a lot of fun and chef, it's also a
lot of fun to watch you cook that you're so
incredibly competitive all of it too.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
I mean, I think as as chefs, like we're naturally competitive,
and I definitely have to say that every single chef
on TOC was incredibly competitive and we're all but you know,
I think at the end of the day, like we
all have respect for one another and you're not necessarily
competing with the other person. You're competing against yourself and
(05:32):
you're competing against the randomizer. And I think that's what's
great about the great about the show, Like the concept
is fantastic, and I love the blind judging aspect of
the show and that's what really drew me in to
want to compete on TOC.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
And Okay, so, so walk me through some of your
toughest battles that you had on Tournament Champions.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
I mean, I think they're all pretty tough and it's
in their own right.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
The first battle was chicken.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Breast, something that is nutty. We had button mushrooms and
we had to use an immersion blender and we only
had thirty minutes to cook. I think thirty minutes to
cook in general is a short amount of time because
you don't necessarily have.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Thirty minutes to cook.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
You have one of you to twenty five minutes to cook,
depending on how fast you can shop.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
So you know, you're it's your's.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
It was my first ever battle, my first ever time
of being in the arena, and so you're you can
go through a walkthrough and and kind of mountainize where
things are, but once you're in competition. I think that
you're only focused on where you're going to cook, So
you know, your mind's just racing a million miles a
million miles a minute, and you know you're you're just
(06:57):
thinking about the next three steps that you're going to take.
So it's just it's just a lot going on in
your brain. So it's to kind of fully form a
concept is really incredibly hard in the amount of time
that you have.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
I completely agree. I've done plenty of like you know,
black box cooking competitions in the past where it's like
you open up the box and like you've got you know,
five to seven minutes to like sort everything out and go, Okay,
I'm gonna put this together and put this together, and
it's your best first instinct you got to go with.
You don't have time to second guess anything. So whatever
your first decision is going to be, that's it.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
No.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
No, with the show, do you have sioux chefs? Are
you're by yourself? Oh?
Speaker 3 (07:35):
You're your solo. You're solo all the way.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Yeah, So there's nobody to you know, to hand off
cards to the way Iron Chef used to roll because
you could roll in with like three other people with
your team and Visious you by yourself.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
And I think like the differential, the difference between Iron
Chef and TC is that Iron Chef you you get
to practice, You get to practice with your team, and
you kind of know going in where you're going to cook,
not necessarily no which ingredient you're going to get, but
you have an idea and you have fully formed ideas
of what you're going to make, Whereas in TOC, you
(08:10):
don't know what you're going to get, and you can't
necessarily practice that type of competition because the randomizer's going
to totally dictate what you're going to be making. So
I think I, you know, knowing that going in, I
didn't want to cloud my brain with what am I
going to get? What's going to be on that randomizer?
I just you know, put some I put some earbuds in,
(08:31):
listen to music, and really just up until I had
to go into the arena and went in with a
clear mind because I just didn't want to think about
all the things that could happen. I just wanted to
be you write them in there and figure out what
I was going to make on the spot.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Now, tell everybody at home what the randomizer is.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Ooh, the randomizer is this wheel of madness. I would
like to say, there's five different categories of the randomizer.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
You have protein, you.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Have produce, you have a type of equipment that you
have to use, a style that you had to adhere to,
and normally you would have time. But on TOC four
we had this thing called the wild card, which could
basically ranges from an audience could change a category on
(09:21):
the randomizer, or a guy could have changed a category
on the randomizer, or it could have been on stay,
and it kind of changed throughout during every round, so
it always it just kept you on your toes, right.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
And so with the selection of the protein and the
cooking style and the ingredients that you get, do both
chefs that you're kind of going up against you and
the other chef they have the same ingredients and same
cooking method, or do both chefs, So it's two chefs,
you know, and basically three different options on how this
is going to roll out.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Right, So you have it's you against another chef, you
have the same randomizer, and it's it's pretty incredible because
you know, I think the randomizer really dictates what you're
going to be cooking. But everybody cooks so differently and
they cook something completely opposite of another of another chef.
So I think that's what's really fun about the competition
(10:15):
is you also don't know what the other person is
cooking while you're cooking, and you see it when your
food is being judged. So that's what's really incredible is
you see what the other person cooking, you're like, oh,
I didn't even think about that, you know, and yeah,
it's just so much fun, so much fun even like
(10:35):
thinking about it now, Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Know, right, That's what I love about this about cooking
competitions because like it's you and your raw gut instinct,
what are you going to make? And then if you
take the same ingredients they hand to three different chefs
or four different chefs, or thirty two different chefs, you're
going to get thirty two different dishes and thirty two
different outcomes, which is kind of amazing. So then it
kind of boils down to the technique. Now, I think
(10:57):
that the American home cook and it goes through their
own tournament of champions every night for dinner when they refrigerator,
am I.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Right, yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
You open up the refrigerator, and then the clock is
ticking because you've got kids going, hey, you know, mom, dad,
what's for dinner tonight? And you've got literally a randomized,
like like like oddball things. So if I throw you
a couple of ingredients, right, could you just the top
of your head riff and kind of put something together
in real time?
Speaker 3 (11:28):
I mean I could try it.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Okay, let's do it. I think it'd be kind of fun.
I'm making this up as we go, but that that's
what two Dudes is all about. We're just gonna okay, great,
So you open up the refrigerator and you've got you've
got pork chops, you've got Brussels sprouts, okay, right, you've
got mustard, right, and you've got onions.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Oh my god, I feel like that. I mean that's
so classic. I mean I.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Would, honestly, I would start up the grill and I
would marinate the pork chops in shiokogi. I would get
those brussels cleaned, and how get a cast iron pan
ripping hot, add a little bit of oil and put
those brussels sprouts on the cut side down, get those roasting,
and then use the mustard and make a simple vinaigrette
(12:13):
out of that and and kind of use that as
the sauce. If you don't want to start the girl,
you can definitely do that in a pan and then
kind of use the mustard as like a like use
it in a pant sauce. It definitely deglaze with a
little bit of remooth or something, some type of white
wine that you would have in the fridge. I'd probably
(12:34):
add a little bit of honey and some a little
bit of a soy sauce.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
For for floating flavor.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Add a little bit of that shiokogi that I used
to marinate the pork as the sweetness and umami, and
there you go. I mean, obviously add onions in with
the Brussels sprouts and kind of do like a quick saute,
and that's that's your meal.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
And that's how fast chefs think when it comes to
putting dinner together. And I think it's sometimes it's that
missing link when people are opening up the refrigerator going, God,
what am I going to make tonight? That I feel
like it almost kind of feels like a superpower because
my wife will do the same thing. She's like, we're
getting takeout tonight and I'm like, why she goes there's
nothing in Frederick. I get some groceries. I'm like, well,
hang on and I'll come back thirty minutes later, and
(13:15):
I've got like for what we got in the house,
I got a masterpiece, you know. I mean it's like
really big, nice, nice touch. And I think having that
sense of like that, you know, just like those thousand
cookbooks you got in your wall, you get a thousand
places to go with the ingredients, and I think that's
just practice and doing it and kind of sticking with
cooking because the more you know, the more sort of
like ways you can, you know, split the hair and
(13:37):
like like move this way and move that way and
just kind of flow like water until you get something
that's really great because at the end of the day,
technique wins.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Absolutely. I totally agree.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
And I say the same thing about giving out recipes
is when someone asks for a recipe, I have no
problem giving out recipes.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
It's all about how you execute that dish.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
At the end of the day, I can give the
same exact recipe to you know, another chef and they
can totally interpret it a different way and create something
totally different than what you intended, and so it's all
about technique and it's all about the execution.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
I completely agree. I'm so not selfish with my recipes
because we've written. With Food network we're written. I know
it sounds like a big number, but it's true, almost
twenty thousand recipes and twenty seven I believe it with
Food Networks. So we have so much content. So like
my you know, I just finished my seventeenth cookbook.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
So congratulations, thank you very.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Much, thank you. It's called American Grill. It's come out
next summer or next spring. It's gonna be awesome. But
with that, like to me, like that's our gift to
the world to be able to share our knowledge and
our content. And it's also what I love about what
we do for a living is because we'll never get
kicked off the island, right, We're set proved because like
we're there for the good times, and we're there when
you want like a bulletsuit by the fire, you know
(14:52):
what I mean. And and we've always got something to
share with somebody that somebody feels like, Okay, great now
they're kind of speaking.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
My language absolutely.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
All right, now, let's go back to top Chef for
a second, because like Top Chef again, yeah, and you
want to hear a crazy story on Top Chef two?
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Yeah, of course always.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Okay, So god, this is this is going back in
the early two thousands, right, So I got married in
two thousand and six, so this must have been like
two thousand and five or two thousand and four, So
is going kind of going back. So I was in
I was in living in New York City at the time,
and Magical Elves, which is the production company that produces
(15:32):
Top Chef, they called me in for a casting call
and I did three casts. I did three sessions with
Magical Elves in Tom Klichio's position for the show.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Oh wow, and.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
They offered me the job.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Oh wow.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Now that same summer, I had rented a house in
Mexico for the summer and it cost me fifty thousand
bucks for the summer. And we had we had we
had like you know, there's like ten or twelve different
people that were kind of coming out. So we had
like different groups of people stage all summer long, and
we're out there and I had a podcast at the
time and like a radio show in New York and
(16:10):
we're gonna be broadcasting there, and it was like it
was just complicated, like like our lives are now. I mean,
you know, I'm sure the same way. I'm booked up
like the next like four or five months. Yeah right,
I can't move anything, right. So they said, well, we'll
give you the job. We're shooting in two weeks in
New York, and and the episodic fee was like twenty
five hundred bucks an episode. Oh wow, And I passed
(16:31):
on it. Wow, I passed on to Well. That that
being said, I think Tom Klicket was a right after
the job because obviously he's done a master with it
for his years and and and the credibility and the
James Beard Awards and him as a person. I mean,
he's obviously obviously an amazing guy. But it's just kind
of this funny thing about Top Chef that it's like
it's like, you know, because professionally sometimes it's like the
one that got away, you know what I mean, Like
(16:53):
we've got success before that was like a like I
wish I could see the future on that one. But
let's talk about Top Chef for a second, because like
Top Chef as an institution, it's a worldwide phenomenon that
I think was was that supplanted iron chef as the
the culinary competition of record determined who was the best
(17:13):
chef in America.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
I agree, I totally agree.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
What was it like winning That's a big one.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
I mean, I think, you know, I was.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
I was on season twelve, my mentor, Michael Ovitaju had
won season six.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
And you know, I think.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
It's it's a really incredible show, and it really puts
you on the national platform, and it kind of really
puts you out there and gets you. I guess known,
you know, as I mean I was, I wasn't. I
wasn't really I wasn't in a chefch cuisine position. I
was still a chef when I won, And so I
(17:50):
kind of for me, I was a little lost at
the time because I didn't know what my next steps were.
Do I go and work, do I continue working for Michael,
or do I go lou to do my own thing?
Speaker 1 (18:01):
So were you ink in l A at the time where.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
I was.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
It's a fantastic restaurant, fantastic.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
The ash potatoes kind of dipped in like there's such hits.
I mean, he's he's a genius, He's he's he's a
friend and he's touched. The guy is so.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Yeah, he's he's a literal genius. And like, I mean,
I I've learned so much working for him, and I mean,
he's just an incredible guy. And you know, it was
it was.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
I feel really blessed to.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Been able to work for him and and for Brian
as well, for for a short time. And you know,
I the show in general, I think it it really
just I like to say this a lot, and I
tell a lot of people this is being on top
Chef really made me the chef that I am today.
It really molded me into finding myself and finding out
(19:00):
what kind of food I wanted to cook because me
being in the position that I was in, I was
working for Michael as a soou chef. I went on
to do the show, and of course you know I
was I wasn't necessarily cooking his food, but bits in
parts of it, right, Like it's in parts of the
food that he cooked, the food that I learned working
(19:20):
at Spago, the food that I learned working at Seahouse
in Chicago for Marcus Samuelson, And I think, you know,
putting those little things together, it's it's a little disjointed sometimes,
but you don't really have a voice in the food, right,
And I think as a young cook, like you don't
really know that, and I think like chefs can see
(19:42):
some of that. So I really thought long and hard
about what kind of food I wanted to cook, and
I really tapped into my roots Chinese American, and I
really wanted to cook the food that.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Was most nostalgic to me, but kind of reinvent.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
And sash one specifically, right.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Not necessarily, I grew up eating a lot of sash
One food, but my family's from the South, so more
Cantonese cuisine, a lighter fare, very seafood heavy, but you know,
dishes like kanji, Like I grew up eating kangi. My
grandpa taught me how to make kanji, and you know,
(20:22):
that was like one of my That was my first
dish that I made.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
On Top Chef and I won with that dish.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
And I think cooking food like that that is really
nostalgic to you, but also tells a story. That's what
Top Chef is all about. You want to show who
you are as a chef, but also tell a little
tell a little story about who you are as well
in your background.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
And I think it's so important for like a lot
of chefs because especially in the day and age of
Instagram and social media, where you know, when I'm fifty two, right,
so when I was like twenty five, like you would
have to fly from New York to San Francisco, drive
to nap, but get a reservation the French Laundry, eat dinner,
take pictures with a camera, take that stcr, put it
(21:04):
on your laptop, fly back to your team in New York,
and then show them what they were doing and at
the French Laundry. And now you can see what these
people are posting for specials every night. So in a
lot of ways, like I think we have the best
generation of American chefs for sure. For sure, there's talented,
there's great restaurants popping up everywhere, but there's so sort
(21:25):
of a sense of sameness that I think a lot
of chefs are starting to kind of copy each other
doing you know exactly what the other chef is doing,
and you kind of sort of repetitive thing. So I
think how you're going to stand out as a chef
and be original is kind of looking at your own
backyard and where you're from, because like that's the flavor
and the food solid. You're going to represent the best,
(21:47):
and of course you can kind of take it do
magical things with it. Like I grew up in the South,
so fried chicken is on you know, is our number
one best seller at Way for tabern San Francisco and
it has been for thirteen years. Right, And then you
because if you look at the menu, go, okay, there's
a boy from the South from this kitchen here, and
I get that lot clear. But if I wasn't from
the South, I couldn't own I mean I can, I
(22:07):
can mimic it, but it couldn't own way. You know,
you can own amazing Cantonese style, fantastic Chinese American food,
and I think that's really great.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Yeah, And it really all has to do with your
life experiences as well. So I grew up in Dearborn, Michigan,
which is predominantly Middle Eastern, and so I have a
little bit of me I can cook a little bit
of Middle Eastern flair, and there is a lot of
that in my food as well. So you know, I
have there's a Chinese girl from Dearborn, Michigan cooking Chinese
(22:37):
food with with like sumac or like baharat and some
of the dishes, you know what I mean. And it's
like it's very that's authentic to me because that's the
food that I grew up eating.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
And I think that's what makes.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Every single person who's cooking interesting food great because it
speaks to their experiences, their life experiences. And so I
think food can be really interesting when you really tap
into those to those to those different things.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
And speaking of towp and those different things. So to
celebrate twenty seasons of Top Chef, and it's got to
feel good to be in that that legacy of such
an amazing show that's done so many things for so
many people. That Bravo has partnered up with heat Nests.
And if you're a chili head like me. As a
matter of fact, today is the day. My gardener guy
(23:28):
just is at my house right now planting all of
our chilis for the season. So I have I have
seventeen different varieties of chili's that I'm playing this year.
I have my gosh bananas like so every year, like
I make a big batch of hot sauce. But let's
talk about the sauce that you would put together with
Heatness and top Chef, and I don't have them with
me Chef, but I cracked into all of them this
(23:49):
past him, and I got a chance to eat them all.
As a matter of fact, I did some damage with
that one. You can see the level right there.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
That's my favorite one.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Yeah. I thought the peppercorn sauce was really nice, and
I thought there were really really lovely enough. And if
you like heat, but not to the point where it's
kind of silly, you know what I mean, Like it's
just heat for heat's sake. If you like flavor, if
you like you know, sort of like a very well rounded,
delicious zesty. Can I say balance, because they're perfectly balanced.
(24:17):
Let's talk about some of the sauces you put together,
because I think they're amazing, and you made three.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
I mean, I think what's great about the collaboration is
that all three of those different sauces are incredibly different.
But they're not over the top spicy. They're very mild.
You can do so many different things with every single sauce.
You know, you can use it as a marinade, you
can use it as a condiment, you can use it
in addressing. You can use it in virtually anything, and
(24:45):
it can really it can really just top your your dinner.
You know, you can really just take it to that
next level, which I love.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Yeah, especially if you've got, like I thought, the peppercorn sauce,
I think that'd be really nice with chicken thighs or
more like sort of a steak with some good marbleine
or some good something's got like a little bit of
fat to it, because I felt like the heat kind
of mixed with the pork fat I think would be
like or any kind of like protein fat I think
would would be really really nice. I thought the garlic sauce,
that to me feels like your chicken go to, like
(25:16):
if you're gonna grill chicken, and what I'd like to do,
especially because the weather's starting to warm up a little
bit like spring has sprung for sure. Now this feels
like a good mop sauce too. Right, So if you're
gonna take chicken, like a whole chicken, break it down
ten pieces, brine it, ad it dry, rub it a
little bit of olive oil, and then start to grill
it off and then mop it with the sauce right
(25:37):
towards the end, I think you're gonna get a great cockering,
great caramelization with the sauce, and it feels like it's
it's savory with a little kick, you know. I think
it feels really kind of nice. But I think my
favorite was the herb chili sauce, which is the earth
I thought was really really nice because to me, it
just it just kind of felt like typood right, Like
to me, I would blend that with milk like I
(25:58):
would slice chicken breast paper thin. Uh, take some of
the sauce at it with like coconut milk, lime juice,
fish sauce. Uh, and then and then you know, throw
in some veggies of whatever you want, and then and
then have that with like good sticky jasmine rice or
it makes it really kind of nice. It really kind
of felt like a good ti green curry.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
I mean I think take that in concept and put
it in some mix it with some buttermilk, some sour
cream and kind of use that as like your ranch.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
Yeah, it's like really really great for our.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Sound bang it. I think it sounds really nice with
like a like a tomato wedge.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Yeah, yeah, definitely like a fat beef steak.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Fat beef steak, tomatoes, ice cold, yeah, juicy iceberg lettuce,
you know, and have a drizzle with a crunchy fried
onions and like cilantro or something on top of that
pickled red oniony.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
I definitely like to add fish sauce into a little
dressings like that because it just like gives it that
boost of umami, which is fantastic.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Yeah, and and the like to me, like it really could.
As soon as I tasted this, I'm like, boom tygrin
curry like that. That's where that's where my imagination goes.
Was that the goal when when you kind of put
that one together.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
A little bit, Yeah, and the concept I can't take
all the credit. The concepts of the sauces were from
Heat ANDSS so I just kind of took that direction
and really helped.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
You know, giving giving giving little like critiques here and
there in terms of the sauce.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Well, and they're absolute delicious. So congratulations on that, by
the way. Kind of celebrating twenty years or twenty seasons
of Top Chef, one of the most iconic shows that
has made such an impact on the culinary industry and
created names and created you know, incredible careers for so
(27:51):
many chefs out there, and it's just so exciting to
watch you chef be a part of that whole legacy.
And can we talk about your restaurants because I want
to talk about this too, like I'm sure, yeah, yeah,
I love a good fried chicken sandwich. Tell me about that.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
You know, we opened up day Bird in March of
twenty twenty one, and you know it's you know, you
know LA. You've been to LA multiple times, I'm sure,
and there's saturated with a lot of different fried chicken sandwiches.
And I love fried chicken sandwiches. I love fried chicken
in general, but how can I I really wanted to
(28:27):
put my take on a fried chicken sandwich but make
it a little bit different, and growing up eating Sashuan food,
I really love the different spices that they have to offer,
and I kind of wanted to make a spice mix
and kind of integrate that into a chicken sandwich, but
also done so in the style of a Nashville like
Nashurville hot chicken. When I went to Nashville for the
(28:50):
first time and had hot chicken, that's kind of where
the light bulb lit up, and I decided to, you know,
create the day bird sandwich. And it's really us a
double fried piece of chicken thigh. And after it comes
out of the fire, it gets dipped in chili oil,
a super aromatic chili oil.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Up you go too fast now now, because like there's
lots of ways of fried chicken. Right, okay, So do
you chicken thigh so boned out chicken thigh obviously right.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Boned out chicken thighs. They are a little bit pounded
out because you don't with a chicken thigh. There's there's
a piece that's a little bit thicker than the other end,
and so we just pound out that other side to
make it even, and we brind the chicken thighs.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
You want to hang off the bun a little bit
of my right, chef, you want to see what you're
got a lot of it paying for it. I want
to want to see it like it's like like it's
ten pounds of potatoes and a five pound bag, you
know what I mean? I want exactly chicken thyce. Okay,
So we pound the chicken dyed okay, great, now, so
then there's a brine or a marinate for that.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
So it gets brined overnight in buttermilk brine, and it
gets taken out the next day. So basically, when we're
done with serf, we put the chicken on brine, leave
for the night, come back the next morning, take the
chicken off brine, and it goes through a dredging process.
Our flour dredge consists of ap some potato starch, corn starch,
(30:15):
and some salt, pepper and baking powder, so very very
simple goes through that dredging process, gets fried. Once taken out,
let it rest and gets fried. It gets a double fry.
And so once it gets that double fry, you're gonna
ensure not a double dip, but a double fry. So
(30:38):
kind of like in the sense you think like Korean
fried chicken. The chicken gets double fried, so you get
that extra crispiness that really doesn't go away. So it
can sit for hours and it will still be crispy.
Once it comes out of the fire, it gets dipped
in chili oil or super aromatic chili oil with a
lot of warming spices, and it gets dusted with or spice,
(31:01):
which consists of like thirty different things, and then it
gets dried, drizzled with a little bit of honey, and
then we build the sandwich. The slaw consists of red
and green cabbage, along with some cilantro and chive sticks,
some pickled schallets and pickle holopenos and fresnos, and the
(31:22):
sandwich ranges from five different heats. We have a no heat,
which is completely not spicy. It still has a little
bit of tingle from the sechu one peppercorns, but no
heat at all, so there's no heat mild, medium, hot,
and extreme, And of course, as you've probably seen, like
the sandwich sticks out of the bun, and we have
(31:44):
an array of three different sauces, and the whole experience
of eating the sandwich is really just to try the
chicken in its purest form, and then you can kind
of dip it in all those three different sauces and
kind of taste it throughout until you actually get to
the sandwiches. Completely different experience, and you whish you kind
of have like a hot and cooling effect with the
(32:07):
cooling slab, but then there's like still chili's in it,
so you're still burning your mouth, and it's just a
really fun eating experience, and that was kind of like
the goal of creating the sandwich.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
So fried chicken sandwiches to me are just one of
like God's gift to man. It's one of the greatest
dishes ever and and so. And I'm also a big
fan of Nashville hot chicken too, right like the princes
like sea and and uh and to me, like I, I,
it's just it's just the thing, you know, like I,
I wish I came up with it. It's just so
incredibly delicious. So yeah, because because it was like the
(32:40):
the hot that Princess fried chicken in Nashville, because you're
talking about Naville Chicken earlier. Their hot chicken will literally
induce sweat and and your mouth up and and and
cry if if you can't take the heat. I mean
it's literally that hot. So when you're talking about your
extreme heat thing, is yours in that range? Like what
are we talking?
Speaker 3 (33:01):
I would say it's in that range. I don't think
that it's that extremely The extreme is really hot, don't
get me wrong.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
I can I can say that I can eat a
medium sandwich and be okay, I'll probably have beads of sweat,
but it's not like dripping with sweat. So with the
different spices. The medium or the mild has a little
bit of cayenne and dried halapenos, and then you kind
of go into the medium and you have both of
(33:32):
those plus the addition of chili to dourible, and then
you go into hot, you have all those three and
you have an addition of dried halapeno. Then you go
to the extreme and you have every every all of
those different spices and those chili is in the in
addition to Scotch bonnet and uh reapers. So it's it's
(33:55):
pretty intense.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
It's kind of like that build. Yeah, like all the
all the chilis in place. Yeah, oh my god, it's crazy.
That's crazy, Like like one chili enough enough top it's
like a five from chill.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
No, that that one, that one reaper. Yeah yeah, it's
enough for that entire batch of of spice.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Well yeah, but so I I put together a hot
sauce every year called Sicilian Slap, and it's like a
fourteen day lacked of fermentation of of like all my
chili and I let I kind of like like pluck them,
you know, for different reasons throughout the year, Like I
like my you know, uh Serrano's green. But then you know,
(34:35):
but then I really like the red You kind of
let them just go all season long. And so they're
they're big and they're full of shugar. Like the red
ones are just so delicious, right, And so thing we
got hobb and arrow and and reapers and thy bird
and like like dragons like like crazy red hot chilie.
And then I'll put them together into a fermentation tank.
I've got like these kind of laboratory things in the
(34:55):
house and and and it's basically a salt solution, two
percent salt solution. But then I add I capers from
sicily sundry tomatoes from anchovies from whatever the grocery store,
and then citrus from my backyard, garlic margin from my backyard,
and then all these chilis and then and then uh
and then kind of let it go and let it
start to percolate. And then the it also had raisins
(35:17):
to it too, for a little little uh uh heap
out yep. And then and then I'll sort of like
percolate and kind of do its things. So it does
this like kimchi thing. It starts to kind of feels
fresh and fragrance like lacto lack silvera's acid really fresh tasting. Yeah,
and then and I'll and then I'll clear the house
out after about two weeks. Put on my goggles, put
on my gloves, and then I'll and then I'll ruin
(35:39):
my vita prep and I'll blend everything together and create
napalm in the house, no joke, nobody can the room.
My gosh, it's an hour to clear out. But I'll
purate everything right, and then I'll pass it through a
shin wah and then then I'll bring it up to
about one hundred and thirty degrees just sort of like
to level off the bacteria so it stops producing. And
(35:59):
then I'll had a touch is just to kind of
stabilize it so it feel, it doesn't run, it drip right,
and then I'll let that kind of cool and then
I bottle it and then I give it away for Christmas.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
I love that. I love that.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
And that's actually how my my exosauce kind of came
to fruition. And it was just kind of like a
pet project that I did as as gifts for my
chef friends, like many moons ago, like back in twenty thirteen.
And yeah, during the pandemic. I just kind of created
the exosauce and started bottling it and stuff, so like
it's it's it's truly incredible. I would love to try
(36:33):
your sauce for sure.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
Fine, I'll send you something.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
Yeah, I wuld love that.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Well. Congratulations on everything, chef. I'm so excited. Congratulations, Internment
of Champions. It's Food Networks new big hit guy. Fieri's
done it again. Uh, he's just kind of come up.
He's a hit machine. And everybody's talking about it because
I think the show is starting to evolve and I
think it's starting to tip where people it's not just
like like real big chefs to start and recognize this
(36:58):
as like a thing you got to pay attention to,
and it's it's it's creating. It's a king and queen maker.
You know. I'd like people that make it all the
way through thirty two chefs slugging it out, one Battle
of the Time, and then one chef reigned supreme. Congratulations
on one. Season four. It's a big deal.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
Thank you, thank you so much, Thank you so much
for having me on the pod.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
My absolute pleasure. And yes, so Wells is traveling this week,
so you got you got the single open face sandwich,
not the two dudes Becker. But I'm a good time.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
Fun I mean yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
And I like your cookbooks, I like your style. Congratulations
on anything. Now, tell everybody where they can find you.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
On social media on social media on Instagram and Twitter.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
My handle is at Meylan twenty one. That's N E
I L I N two to one.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
All right, Well, listen, Cheff, thank you so much for
hopping the podcast, and best luck with everything. And then
if you ever need anything, let me know. I'm happy
to help. I've bet everywhere, I've seen everything, done it all.
If I can help you do anything like no, congratulations,
You're on the right steps and it was was a
obvious a pleasure to talk to. You're incredibly charmed.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
Thank you. The pleasure is mine. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
All right, Jeff, thanks so much. Well everybody, if you
haven't had a chance to check out a Tournament of
Champions season four, chef may Lynn brought the whole thing
home one hundred thousand dollars in cash, and she also
has the belt to prove it. It's such a good
(38:25):
news series on Food Network and you can watch that
on Food Network on demand. Also Discovery Plus, so check
it out and we will see you guys next time
on Two Dudes in a Kitchen. All right, guys, thanks
for listening. Follow us on Instagram at two Dudes in
a Kitchen. Make sure to write us a review and
leave us five stars. We'll take that and we'll see
you guys next time. See you next time.
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