Advertise on podcast: Feast Meets West

Eric Tran didn’t set out to open a restaurant during a pandemic, but here we are. Eric took over the lease for Falansai and now operates the Bushwick restaurant as a reimagined 2.0 version, making his interpretation of delicious Vietnamese dishes with a focus on whole animal butchery and seasonally and locally sourced ingredients. We talk about the food, what it was like to open with a takeout and delivery focus to start, and what’s in store for Falansai as the city reopens.

Early last year, Eric Huang left his sous chef position at Eleven Madison Park to open his own restaurant. However, the pandemic forced Eric to switch gears. It led him back to his family's restaurant, Peking House, where he started Pecking House—a delivery concept for chili fried chicken dinners, so successful it has an 8-week long waitlist. Tune in to hear Eric talk about his new culinary path, one that he never expected but is far more rewarding and fun than he ever thought it would be.

Hetty McKinnon, the internationally renowned cookbook author and food writer, joins us to chat about her latest book To Asia, With Love. It’s filled with a mix of comforting Asian dishes that her Cantonese mother prepared for her growing up, as well as her modern spin on favorites for her own family. We talk about her incredible culinary journey across continents and the powerful ability to capture identity in home cooked meals.

We’re thrilled to be back! For our first episode of 2021, we chat with Joe Boo, Founder of Asian Veggies, a business born out of the pandemic. Joe started Asian Veggies, a New York City based grocery delivery service, as an effort to save his dad’s wholesale vegetable business in Brooklyn when COVID hit. In the span of a year, the delivery service has expanded from selling 40 to 650 products. Tune in to hear about the incredible journey of Asian Veggies and what’s next.

For the last episode of the season, we chat with Tracy and Tiffany Pham of Red Boat Fish Sauce, a product beloved by chefs and home cooks around the world. Tracy and Tiffany tell us about what makes their fish sauce special, what the company is making beyond fish sauce, and what it’s like to work with the Red Boat founder, their dad, Cuong Pham. The sisters also reveal a new product launching this summer.

We catch up with a former guest, Joanne Kwong, President of Pearl River Mart. Joanne tells us about the changes she's made at Pearl River Mart due to Covid, as customers shop online instead of in-stores, and the wide range of projects she’s taken on for her local communities, including her participation in Mayor De Blasio’s Small Business Sector Advisory Council.

We continue our Corona Diaries conversations with Chef Lien Lin of Bricolage, the Vietnamese gastropub in Park Slope, and Owner Maiko Kyogoku and Chef Emily Yuen of Bessou, the modern Japanese comfort food restaurant in Soho. Tune in to find out how the pandemic fast forwarded Lien’s plans to move her family to the West Coast, complete with a cross-country RV adventure. Hear how Maiko and Emily have been adjusting Bessou for takeout, taking on projects to support frontline healthcare workers, and more.

Vanessa Pham and Kim Pham are first-generation Vietnamese-Americans, sisters, and co-founders of Omsom, a brand of Asian pantry staples that have been designed to make cooking your favorite Asian dishes with uncompromised flavors and hard-to-find ingredients possible in any home kitchen. While launching a new product is tough enough as it is, they did it in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic this May. We talk about how they brought the Omsom concept to life, and how they adapted the launch to work for these unusual times.

This summer, we’ll broadcast a handful of new episodes where we catch up with our friends in the Asian food industry to see what they’ve been up to, and how they’ve adapted their restaurant operation or small business for a pandemic. This episode, we call on Amelie Kang, Owner of MaLa Project, and Dennis Ngo, Chef and Co-owner of Di An Di.

Restaurateur Roni Mazumdar and Chef Chintan Pandya, the dynamic duo behind Adda Indian Canteen in Long Island City, Rahi in Greenwich Village, and the soon to opened Dhamaka in Essex Street Market, are opening the eyes and palettes of New Yorkers to what authentic Indian food looks and tastes like. The menus composed by Chef Chintan are inspired by recipes found across the Indian subcontinent, nostalgic dishes that he and Roni grew up with, and innovations using Indian flavors and cooking techniques.

We chat with Matt Le-Khac and Jimmy Tran of Bolero. Located in the heart of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Bolero features a hyper-seasonal menu that emphasizes the rare fresh herbs that form the foundation of Vietnamese cuisine — sourced from Matt’s family farm and showcased in the restaurant’s Vietnamese Tea Garden. The Bolero team will use the Northeast Corridor to bring awareness to lost traditions.

Joanne Kwong, President of Pearl River Mart, the iconic NYC “friendship store” specializing in Asian goods since 1971, joins us to chat about her favorite Asian snacks! We find out what the best selling classics are at the store, as well as what’s new and trending. Joanne will also speak to the history and progression of the Pearl River brand, and give us a sneak peek of the soon-to-be opened fourth location dedicated to Asian foods.