Food Karma: Tell us more about yourself, chef Francis?

Chef Francis Rattantana: So my name is Francis Rattantana and I’m the Chef de Cuisine at Tong Brooklyn. I have been working in the restaurant business for 10 to 11 years, mostly in Asian restaurants ranging from Japanese, Thai, Chinese and Korean. I do have 2 years in Italian cooking and 1 year in French. In terms of cooking style, I try to create traditional flavors with modern techniques and equipment. 

FK: And how does that apply to what you are doing at Tong Brooklyn?

FR: Well, it’s a little hard to describe but sometimes there are more efficient ways to make a certain dish. With dishes that require a long brazing time, for example, you can add a crockpot to the equation to shorten it. 

Nonetheless, we try to keep it as authentic as possible by getting authentic, traditional ingredients in all of our dishes. We also pay close attention to the flavor and try to keep it as Thai as possible. 

FK: Can you take us through the menu for more details?

FR: Sure! So our restaurant’s concept is a small tapas style with small plating coupled with beer and wine, with our Kub Klaem section. We also have familiar dishes that people are used to ordering at Thai restaurants like Pad See Ew or Tom Yum Sea Food Soup, so our customers can be comfortable with the stuff they know and adventurous with the stuff they don’t yet know about Thai cuisine, both in the same meal. 

What I think really separates us from other Thai restaurants is how hard we try to keep it interesting with menu items that you just can’t find anywhere else — which are still authentic Thai dishes in their own way!

FK: That’s really cool! Why did you choose the focus on small plates and alcohol pairing though?

FR: This is for you to come in and try as many new dishes as you can before getting full! It’s also for people to be more comfortable ordering an unfamiliar dish, knowing that they won’t have to waste a big portion if they don’t end up liking it. 

FK: Do you think this small-tapas concept along with your cooking style — incorporating new techniques with traditional flavors — might affect what you guys are trying to do in terms of authenticity?

FR: That’s a really good question! We have thought about this as we set up and experiment with our recipes, and I don’t think they are able to jeopardize our authenticity. The plating might be modern but the ingredients are still there, the flavors are still there, and our intention to keep the Thai traditions are definitely always there!

FK: Glad to hear that! Now that this authentic presence is settled, will you guys focus more on making the drinks more Thai as well, or will you try to add in more modernity to the concept?

FR: We actually are gonna focus on both at the same time. Authentic food will come first for sure, and a modern touch will make the presentation more pleasing to our customers and fitting to our concept. We are also trying to add Asian influence into our drinks menu for sure. 

FK: Can you let us in on the new menu?

FR: I can with the food! We are gonna have a new seafood stir-fried called Pad Cha Talay with a new Corn Salad. We are also adding the Massaman Brisket that got us Best Original Dish at Brisket King to the menu temporarily. It might stay permanently if the customers love it. We didn’t actually smoke this one, but we brined it with fish sauce, water and sugar for 18 to 24 hours, before confitting it for 4 to 5 hours using lemongrass, bay leaves and some other Southeast Asian herbs. 

(This was Francis’s answer at the time of the interview. All three dishes are still on the menu for you to enjoy right now!)

FK: I love to see the Brisket King influence! Have you been to events like ours before?

FR: Brisket King 2022 was actually our first restaurant event! I have been to other events in my chef career, but this was also my first BBQ event. 

FK: And how was your experience?

FR: I liked it! I got to meet a lot of other chefs, and some of them were from all over the country. I wanted to come to Rib King too but it was a little too far away. And we didn’t have enough staff on a Saturday. But I’m glad that I get to show people that we can BBQ brisket and add Thai flavors onto it as well! Can’t wait to come back next year!

There are still a few more months till both Brisket King and Rib King 2023, but our holiday-exclusive for Brisket King as well as for Pig Island are out! You can check them out right here and here! For the meantime, visit Tong Brooklyn in Bushwick for a New Year’s Eve celebration on Saturday and show your support on their social media!

Food Karma: Tell us more about yourself and your culinary career!

Chef Emily Hersh: Sure! My name is Emily Hersh. I’m from Texas, born and raised in San Antonio. I have been a plant-based chef for four and a half years, so I’m still a baby in the industry.

I was a life-long dancer growing up, got my undergrad in kinesiology, being in dance teams and interacting with other dancers — and kinda didn’t know what to do with my career. Through that experience, I ended up developing a really negative relationship with food. And the way I healed from that was actually learning how to cook, and loving how to cook, specifically plant-based food. 

FK: Why did you decide to shift your diet?

EH: When I was a dancer and I developed an eating disorder, I was really just searching for one, a normal way to eat, and two, a creative outlet, because dance was such a creative outlet for me — it’s my whole personality. So when I quit dancing, I was really searching for something to feel like myself again. 

And I had a vegan roommate at the time who cooked all the time. I just watched her and saw her love for food, so I was like “Wow! Maybe if I just start cooking and eating plant-based, I will feel like myself again.” And after that, the lifestyle just stuck — I felt like I was eating like a normal person, I wasn’t shaming myself for food, and I was so much more passionate about cooking.

Looking back, I thought that I was really fortunate to have done this healing subconsciously through food. That’s why I want to help others to talk about mental health and their struggles over food, and be able to help them through food. 

FK: And how have you been doing that?

EH: During the pandemic, I moved home to Texas and worked my way through different categories of the culinary world: recipe development with my gluten-free almond flour mix, food media with my YouTube channel where I invite people to cook plant-based food for them while we talk mental health, and I was invited to compete in Hell’s Kitchen (and got top seven!).

But more on my YouTube series, which is actually now on hold because restaurant life is crazy. It’s called “The Self-Help Chef” and it combines experts in different fields like therapists, nutritionists and even Run-D.M.C, and I’ll facilitate the conversations through cooking plant-based recipes using ingredients we both love. Some of the past episodes are “Hot Noodle Soup and Therapy” or “Being Confident in Your Passion and Veggie Burger.” 

It’s really fun to cook for people and hear their advice because I’m no expert on therapy or anything like that, but it’s great to listen to and spread their stories. Our founder Kerry Fitzmaurice was actually on the show once and that’s where we developed our Impossible Cut 1.0.

FK: And was that also how you guys decided to start Pure Grit?

EH: Actually, while I was in Texas, Kerry found me through Instagram and she reached out saying “Hey! I’ve had this idea for vegan BBQ for three years now, and we’re thinking of opening a restaurant.” They were already hitting it off with sauces and rubs, and I was looking to move back to New York, so why not? Texas BBQ and vegan BBQ — all things that I love. 

So we partnered up and did a couple of pop-ups in Queens and Brooklyn. Both of them sold out so we know that we had a good concept and good food. I developed the menu for the next couple months using inspiration from Texas and what my dad loved to grill, and just kinda vegified it. 

It’s basically taking the delicious dishes that I grew up with and making them more welcoming for everybody. And that’s basically our goal for this restaurant — making good food that happens to be vegan and not shying away anyone. 

FK: Tell us more about the restaurant and your menu.

EH: Yeah! So we just went through a menu transition. We’ve decided to trim down our menu and make it more fast-casual because it might look a bit intimidating to people who are not plant-based. 

Our bites are fun food that you can share: our cashew queso — inspired by Texas queso with jalapenos and tomatoes mixed in, our fried tofu bites — fried tempura-battered tofu, our mac and cheese — which took a long time to find the right cheese for. We also have great salads and desserts, with classic sides.

Things that we are known for are our smoked main plates. We smoke each thing for about an hour, then we toss them into BBQ sauce. For our Impossible Cut, which is our vegan brisket, we mix Impossible ground beef, lentils and onions, our rub and sauce, then we form it into a loaf and smoke it. And we actually cover it in BBQ sauce and burn it to give it an amazing crust, before re-hydrating it so it slices like brisket. The mushroom, jackfruit, tofu — all smoked for an hour — are also really yummy.

The sandwiches that we’re keeping on our menu are our fried chicken and waffle sandwich, served open-faced on a waffle with hand-breaded chicken and BBQ ranches or hot maple butter. We’re also doing a sandwich on a bun coming soon, which is a bit more casual, and we’re still doing our Impossible queso burger with our secret sauce. 

All of these are awesome, and they are filling but they don’t weigh you down. My sister came in one day, and she’s a big meat-eater. She ate the fried chicken sandwich and she said “I’m full, but I feel like I could run, and it also feels good not to eat a chicken today.”

FK: And how have other customers reacted to the concept and the food?

EH: The reactions have been mixed but I would say it’s mostly positive though. There are a lot of open-minded people in New York and even the meat-eaters would come in and check out what this is. A guy came in the other day and tried our sample platter — which we usually give people when they are on the fence — and loved it!

I think what we still struggle with is how people think of “vegan” as a bad word. We don’t have a lot of messaging about that around here. People are very set in their ways, but like I said, our goal for the restaurant is not to make vegan food, but to make good food that happens to be vegan. 

FK: What about among the BBQ community?

EH: Very positive actually! We did a couple of events at Pig Beach in Queens and there was a blogger called NYCBarbecue, and he’s actually the one who really pushed for us to be successful. That’s really surprising because the people who are really supportive of us are the people who are in the BBQ community.

There are still people that love BBQ and aren’t really pitmasters that are still hesitant, because they think BBQ should be one way, but there’s Korean BBQ, Brazilian BBQ — there’s BBQ everywhere and so many ways to do it. It’s something that people don’t think a lot about but we realized that BBQ is just a word for a lot of things and it shouldn’t be so cut off. It should be inclusive because BBQ is about community and good food, and that’s what we have to offer to you all.

FK: Are you excited to meet all these people again at Pig Island?

EH: I’m so excited! It was such a fun experience at Pig Beach so I’m sure Pig Island is gonna be amazing as well. To see pitmasters in their fields and their elements is so inspiring, and to see others who are also passionate about food is something that Pure Grit loves.

FK: And do you have any specific goal for this year?

EH: I just want to make people happy with food. That’s my goal everyday — to be able to serve excellence, community and happiness all in one bite!

Try Pure Grit BBQ and meet chef Emily this Saturday at Pig Island, or support her at her restaurant and through social media platforms. Pure Grit also offers a student discount to Baruch students and they will be at VeganDale in Randall Island this September 24. Come by and try more great food that also happens to be vegan!

Food Karma: Tell us more about yourself and your chef career!

Chef Robert Austin Cho: I’m Robert Austin Cho. I’m the chef, pitmaster and owner of Kimchi Smoke. Currently I have two locations in Westwood and Ridgewood, New Jersey, but it all started out as a pop up in 2013. I don’t have a formal chef training, but some time in the mid 2000s, I was watching TV and seeing BBQ, smoked meat, all that, blew my mind! I instantly gravitated toward it. 

Living in an apartment at that time, I bought a small grill, went to the park and just started smoking some ribs. And I thought I got pretty good at it! It was just a hobby at the time — I didn’t try to sell it, just do it more and more. I would go out to eat at BBQ restaurants, read about places. And after a while, I thought “I can make food like these people,” why not give it a shot?

FK: And was there anyone aiding your aim while you were giving it a shot with Kimchi Smoke?

RAC: I didn’t have an official mentor figure, but Aaron Franklin was on TV at the time becoming a household name. He’s a guy that I studied a lot — watched all his videos, anything about him I would read and see what he was doing — because I wanted to perfect my brisket like he did. 

I also read a cooking book, “Smoke & Pickles” by chef Edward Lee. His story resonated with me since he’s Korean-American, raised in New York then decided to move down South and became influenced by Southern cuisine. His words definitely gave me a lot of inspiration and guidance throughout my career. 

Over the years, I watched a lot of Food Network and saw a lot of great people, but the first one I saw was Bobby Flay, and then I got to meet him and then competed with him on his show, which was pretty cool. Chef Carl Ruiz came into my restaurant once and we became friends. We spoke at Pig Island 2019 right before he passed. I looked up to him as a chef and a Jersey guy. The way he ran social media definitely influenced me to be more of myself. He gave me great advice and sadly, we lost him way too soon.

FK: Apart from these influential people, were there any other inspirations, like your family or close friends?

RAC: One thing that I’m very proud of is because I’m Korean-American, I believe Koreans in particular have a very good palate. That might be coming from our parents because they’re very picky. If something’s slightly too salty or spicy, or too sweet, that would really bother me. That was the foundation of my flavor profile. So I incorporated that type of standard into my food and in a sense, it’s Korean BBQ or Korean food because of how well-balanced it is. 

People also ask me if the recipes are family recipes. My parents did not teach me how to cook but when I look back, since they were always working and I’m home by myself a lot, I just ended up cooking things for myself as a mode of survival. And that’s also how Kimchi Smoke came to be because there was always kimchi in the house and I would just slab them over frozen pizzas or leftovers — that’s the way I ate things.

And that’s the weird thing, because I was always ashamed to be Korean growing up, but I just love Korean food!

FK: How did those mixed feelings play a part in your upbringing?

RAC: So I was born in South Korea, came to the States when I was 4 years old — I’ve been here pretty much all my life. Growing up here at a time when there weren’t so many Asian-Americans going to school, maybe five kids in the whole school. I always felt like I was one of two Asian kids in my class, or even the whole grade, so I just wanted to fit in. 

I was shying away from my ethnic background, embarrassed to be Korean at times. When we go to the beach, my parents would bring kimchi and smelly food while I just want to eat hamburgers and hot dogs. When I started doing Kimchi Smoke, it was healing. It wasn’t my goal to do it as healing but as I was doing Kimchi Smoke and promoting Korean food, meeting all different people, it was great! 

It’s also because growing up, I was considered too American by some Koreans, and not American enough for Americans. I felt accepted by neither but as people accepted my food as BBQ, I felt acceptance of me as an American. Which is why I’m trying to make my BBQ just BBQ — I don’t even have to say this is Texas Korean BBQ or any other label there is. 

FK: And has the unique naming of your dishes, like Chonut, Cholent or Chominican rice, helped you a lot with this?

RAC: Yes, for sure! It’s breaking down barriers in people’s minds about what type of food they are having and what it’s supposed to taste like. But it’s also two-fold. My name just somehow magically goes with a lot of things, and when I’m doing a hashtag on social media, if I put “Cho” in front of something, no one else is gonna have that. This is for marketing as anyone can easily search for my dishes on social media.

FK: Has your Korean heritage ever been an obstacle on your way to become a pitmaster?

RAC: When I did my first BBQ competition in 2013, when I showed up with my banner that said “Kimchi Smoke,” I could feel the racial overtone. It feels like I’m on a middle-school basketball court again, being picked last because “he’s Chinese, he can’t play basketball.” It felt like I was going against the grain, definitely. 

But now it’s 2022, I know the sport of BBQ has changed a lot, there are a lot of different chains and different styles of BBQ-ing. It is definitely changing, but when I first started out I did feel like an outsider at times. And when I didn’t get invitations to festivals or competitions, I do wonder, because there usually aren’t a lot of people of different ethnicities at those as well. 

And I’m from Jersey, so it’s like a double-disrespect. So I’m always working hard and bringing my A-game to events like Rib King or Brisket King, because I’m representing Korean flavors, I’m representing Jersey. In 2019 when I won People’s Choice in Brisket King, it was for Jersey, because I know it doesn’t get the respect that it deserves. And I feel really good this year too because the SmoKING of Meats won and he’s from Jersey too!

FK: And how did you feel being a part of those past Food Karma events?

RAC: I guess, prior to 2019, there were three years that I’ve done it and a part of me felt that I had no chance of winning, because I was nobody. But I always thought, I love what I do and my meat is just as good as anyone’s there. And I’ve gone around tasting other’s briskets and ribs — which tasted really good — and I know I’m in the big league now. But I’m always going in thinking I’m the underdog, I have to work hard and bring my A-game, and go represent.

The crowds at these events are also great, and that’s the reason I keep coming back. It’s definitely exciting just to be there slicing the meat and watching people taste it, especially with their reactions afterward. The people are the most important to me, and that is why I’m so proud of my People’s Choice award, because ultimately it’s the people that are coming to the restaurant and supporting my food. 

FK: Are you coming back next year?

RAC: I think about that a lot actually. In the past, I always thought I’m not gonna do it again, but then I always ended up going. So we’ll see!

If you can’t wait till next year to see chef Robert, support him through social media platforms or visit him at 301 Center Ave., Westwood, New Jersey. His personal accounts are pretty fun to follow too if you want to see his journey to become a hipper food influencer.