Kitchen Conversations With Norman Van Aken: Ming Tsai

Norman Van Aken, a member of The Daily Meal Council, is a Florida-based chef-restaurateur, cooking teacher, and author. His restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton in Orlando, Norman's, was nominated for multiple James Beard Awards. He has a forthcoming cookbook called 'Norman Van Aken's Florida Kitchen.' This interview is one in a regular series of 'Kitchen Conversations' — informal but revealing interchanges with key culinary figures — that Van Aken will be contributing to The Daily Meal. He also writes a regular series of Kitchen Meditations for us. You can find all of Norman's contributions on his page at The Daily Meal.

This month, Van Aken spoke with chef Ming Tsai. In an age when bold-face chefs are constantly opening new restaurants, Tsai has remained focused. He's only recently opened his second restaurant, Blue Dragon in Boston, after having run Blue Ginger in Wellesley, Massachusetts, since 1998. Tsai is best known for blending the flavors and techniques of Asian and French cooking schools.

In addition, Tsai hosts a popular PBS cooking program, Simply Ming. He has hosted several cooking programs on Food Network and has been a constant contributor to NBC's Today show.

Here he shares his cooking history and what he really thinks about fusion cuisine.

The Daily Meal: When did you realize that cooking would become serious to you?

Ming Tsai: The first time, I was 10 years old and I made my uncle and auntie happy. And that felt good.

I think it was serious to me when I was taken seriously and I realized, "Damn! I actually can cook." When I realized I could actually blend East with West, which was Chinese and French at that first time. I made black bean beurre rouge with garlic-chive-stuffed Dover sole.

I'll describe the place. You walk in the door, and it was so small you had to pull the deuce out to let the other deuce in. Only about 30 seats upstairs and 20 downstairs. The kitchen held three people. We had Shareef. He was the dishwasher, or plongeur, as well as the garde manger all at once. I was the sous chef as I was No. 2 in the kitchen and then there was Jean-Marc. And there is something to be said for small kitchens, because I could turn and plate. We would peek out at 120 diners on a Saturday. It was crazy with such a small team. Shareef plated the one or two desserts, which we purchased, though we did make ile flottante [a rich dessert]. I had a piano with eight burners, salamander above that, reach-in on the other side, plates everywhere. We were doing French food — pan-seared calf's liver with vinegar and shallots, we had some kind of pasta, we had lapin de moutarde [rabbit cooked in mustard], we had beautiful lamb with mirepoix and Gruyère mashed potatoes, of course. I fell in love with pain Poilâne. So chef served chèvre crottin on it with the most simple frisée salad with the most exquisite vinaigrette. We had saumon cru with a basil vinaigrette, always a special of the day, and that is when I got to create my stuff.

We had one small [pick-up] window that could hold two plates.

At the top of the skinniest staircase there was a "locker room," where they literally had one shower head but you would still shower because you were so dirty and it was so hot in that little kitchen, and we loved to party so it was great fun for me. Since "statute of limitations" is over, I totally got paid under the table. It was hundreds of francs, and it was really great money for me since I had no expenses. It was a fantastic job, but most importantly, it gave me the confidence of "Oh my God, I created a dish and people actually liked it." Of course, not just the owner nor chef Jean Marc, but the plates came back clean, and sometimes there would be a note with a comment from the happy guest! Sometimes they would peek their head into the kitchen, and boy, did that feel good. But that is not why I cook, but it is probably why I keep cooking. It's so nice to actually have a job where you can make people happy. We are very blessed.

Are you the first chef in your family?

Technically, no. My mom was the chef-owner of Mandarin Kitchen in Dayton, Ohio, the culinary capital of the world [laughter]. Although my dad helped design the restaurant including the $5,000 stainless-steel egg roll cart, which I took out to the middle of the town square in Dayton and sold egg rolls and drinks. [My mom] was an empty-nester early. My brother and I both went to Andover. So at the urging of friends she did a lot of local cooking classes. And just like my grandmother, who was my mom's mom. She is in Heaven now. She was way ahead of her time. When we used to visit Iowa City, she was the head nutritionist at the famous heart hospital there. She used to put hoisin chicken on cheese pizza, and we were like, "What are you doing?! We want pepperoni. We want sausage." I wish I listened because Wolfgang Puck started doing that too. I'm like eight years old when this was going down, so we are talking about 1972, way before Wolfie was putting anything on anything.

My dad was also way ahead of his time. He decided because of the lunch rush at the Mandarin Kitchen he needed "quick service," but Chinese food is made to order. He created batch cooking, as we know the famous batch cooking restaurant now is called Chipotle, where you cook in batches. You put it in steam-tables. He had the steam-tables behind. We had the fried rice, chow mein, Mongolian beef, sweet and sour pork, all of the specialties, and bam, bam, bam, served them. We could bust out 150 to 200 lunches, no problem. It's too bad they didn't patent those processes!

So, to answer the question, no, I'm technically not the first chef. I am the first to make it my career. Again, my mom didn't start until after both kids were gone. Both of my grandparents on my dad's side were great cooks. In Dayton, they would grow their own cucumbers and chiles to make their own sambal. But, I was the first professional. My junior year in college I knew I wanted to be a chef. I went to Cordon Bleu. I had the realization, 'Damn! The French can cook too!' That is when I started blending East and West.

Do you feel this kind of life caused you to sacrifice having a normal life?

You know, I've been very blessed. You know this. You know me well. And I've always, always put quality of life ahead of everything else. Quality of life changes the older you get. When I was in Paris cooking after college, quality of life was cooking up a storm, eating well, playing pro squash on the weekends, traveling through Europe. Easy, no kids, no wife, no nothing, but my one common denominator was always one thing: good food. I love — always will, still do — good food. I'm always asked why I'm a chef, and my go to is that I was, still am, and will always be hungry. That's why I am a chef.

As a little kid, two or three years old, I was hanging out in the kitchen because my parents or grandparents would throw me a scrap. Plus, I was always fascinated by the fire, the chopping, the smells.

As soon as I graduated from college I was cooking in Paris. I never had a 9-to-5 job. I didn't really "sacrifice" because I didn't really know what it was. I couldn't imagine not wanting to cook at night. That was always the dream, right? You always started at lunch, and when you made the big time you became the cook at night because dinner was more important than lunch. That was my normal life. When I used to work as the assistant [food and beverage manager] at the Inter-Continental in Chicago, it was literally 70- to 80-hour work weeks, six days a week — that was "normal." So again, what is a normal life? What I did always was to squeeze in "normal stuff" like still playing squash or still doing yoga — still having "me time," if you would. It's easy not to do that. It's easy to sleep in until noon or 1 p.m. if you are the p.m. sous chef or line cook and then work until close and then go out drinking and then repeat. So I was somewhat disciplined at a younger age to make sure I got that stuff in. Plus, I was very competitive in squash. So in Paris, for example, I would work Monday through Friday, take a TGV train to somewhere in France, play in a tournament late Saturday morning. Luckily I was ranked high enough that I didn't start playing until the quarterfinals. I'd play Saturday and Sunday, and go back to work Monday. It was the best, best life. I miss that life.

Did you ever come close to quitting the business and finding something more "sane"?

No. But I've also been also very blessed. I opened Blue Ginger with my wife, Polly, 16 years ago. Blue Dragon is my new joint, which I opened with my new [business] partner and which is also awesome. [Blue Ginger] is 4.2 miles from my home. Also, it is in Wellesley, Massachusetts, home of Wellesley College, where Madeleine Albright, Hillary Clinton, and other illustrious women attended. The point is, unlike in New York City, our last seating on a Saturday was like 9:30. Saturday! So, even as the working chef in the middle of the line, I could be done by 10:30, 11 at the latest. So there were never 1 and 2 a.m. nights (working at least!). So I had a much more normal life as a chef than most.

It took me 16 years to open my second restaurant. I was always going to be a 'one restaurant chef.' One of my best friends is a commercial realtor, and he owned the spot where Blue Dragon is. It's a small, single-story, standalone building. He basically made me a real estate deal, which is a deal I could not refuse. So we own the space together, and honestly it is a business decision to own a restaurant outright, which is what I wanted to do with Blue Ginger because I'm so sickened by paying rent for 16 years. So that is how Blue Dragon came along.

I purposely, methodically, did not open up a bunch of restaurants. I had many opportunities. My wife and I were looking to open our first restaurant by ourselves. We knew we wanted to be in a city that had a Chinatown, that was our first criteria. That meant [the city] was big enough to support a Chinatown. Secondly, I could get my products inexpensively. I was laughing at how bok choy was $8 or $9 a pound 'cause that was a specialty item, and so we needed my products easily accessible, cheaply. We wanted quality of life. We always wanted to get good dumplings, a good bowl of noodles, so that eliminated most of the country. You had Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Boston, London, Paris if you also looked but that didn't work. We didn't want to raise kids across the ocean. Boston ended up being the No. 1 choice. San Francisco was too expensive to buy a home. LA, I didn't want to drive my whole life on interstates.

I did almost get a job in New York City. You know the man. You know the restaurant, Union Pacific. There were two of us left in the finals. One name was Rocco DiSpirito, and one name was Ming Tsai. Rocco beat me out. The rest is history for him. He is doing really well right now actually. He had his bumps in the road. My wife would have lived in New York City. She did not want to. She was going to sacrifice to let me cook in New York. I'm somewhat relieved in hindsight. I ended up almost opening in Boston, but we couldn't find a space big enough so we ended up in Wellesley. And that became a really fantastic quality-of-life decision. We built where there was no competition. Not no East-West restaurants, but where there were no good restaurants period.

I kept my sanity by not expanding. So two weeks before this, meeting my wife and [saying], "Look, we got to get out of Santa Fe." We were sick of the desert. She actually said, "By the way, we are not going to move from a fucking desert to a fucking desert" — meaning no Vegas. So two weeks after that, a man came up to me on Saturday night. We just did 450 dinners. He said, "Chef, I had a great meal with you. I'd love to open a restaurant with you in Vegas." My dad trained me to always 'listen to the opportunity, 'cause you just never know.' This man was throwing numbers at me I had never heard of as a chef. I was making $75,000 maybe at the time. He was saying, "We could spend $10 million building your restaurant out to spec. You are going to get 15 percent top line, 20 percent bottom line." He was basically offering me, per his estimate, a $400,000 to 500,000 salary! He just kept on going how great it was going to be. What a big success. I let him finish and I said, "Sir, thank you so much for that offer. I never heard anything like that. It's ridiculous but for personal reasons I cannot accept." He said, "No problem." He hands me his card and says, "My name is Steve Wynn. I am opening up The Bellagio. If you change your mind let me know." It was the Olives spot in the Bellagio, which does — I don't know — $12 or 15 million. So, I certainly would be richer now, but back to quality of life, not so much. I don't think it would be any better. It would probably be worse for so many reasons. By the way, no offense to Vegas or New York, but to raise kids? No. Not my cup of tea.

What was your arc in terms of the first kinds of cookery you loved and how it morphed over your career?

I've cooked Chinese food my whole life. I spent many summers in Taiwan, where my grandparents lived. I would always hang out in the kitchen with their cook and watch her work. My grandfather would cut the heads off chickens in that kitchen. The chicken would run around and get blood everywhere. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. We'd go down to the markets, and eat the street food. We'd eat a dish [that] when translated means "so bad not even dogs would eat it," but they were the most delicious things ever. The dumplings were totally juicy, which I now make and call them 'Ming's Bings' at Blue Ginger.

Chinese was my whole career before I went to Paris. Then once I went to Paris I started doing stages and learned about pastry and I learned the French can cook too. The restaurant was where the writers and artists went, very artsy. Natasha, the patron, was this Russian-French lady, who was very generous and open. That is when I first did my French-Chinese cooking — things such as chive-tied fish with black bean beurre rouge. Ever since experimenting with East-West I've never looked back.

I got to go to Osaka, Japan, and my mission was to learn how to make proper sushi rice. There is an art and etiquette to breaking down fish, but breaking down fish is breaking down fish. In Japan there is more water to clean, clean, clean, but at the end of the day you take the skin off. Sushi rice is the heart of all sushi. I spent three months in Osaka literally learning how to make sushi rice. I learned other things too. My cooking as a lot of Japanese and Southeast Asian influences. Funny enough, the flavor profile of Santa Fe — Mexican cuisine with chilies, cilantro, lime juice — is the exact same profile as Southeast Asia. The one main difference is Southeast Asia has fish sauce, which is their soy sauce.

My food continues to develop, mostly on travels. I was in Spain with José Andrés and really had the most tremendous paprika and jamón. I'm loving a local hot sauce right now. It will morph into a few dishes somehow. You do try stuff when you are on the road and think, "I could take that profile, that flavor and put it in." I hate calling East-West cuisine "fusion," because that is what you do with atoms to create nuclear energy. It forces them together. It is a forced combination. I like to think of my food as blending, blending Eastern and Western techniques to produce a food that is bold in flavor. If you say "lemongrass broth," you need to taste the lemongrass. I love contrasting temperatures and textures.

I'm not a health nut. I'm not a "diet chef." I don't count calories. The little butter I do use is to finish a sauce. I don't make cream sauces. I have a high ratio of veg to protein to starch. I like whole grains. I've always cooked that way. I'm not cooking that way to be trendy. It's just the way I've cooked. It's the Asian diet. Meat is used to flavor food. Having said that, do I have a steak at Blue Ginger? Of course I do. But when I really cook for myself, my kids, and my family, I cook the Asian way.

My biggest pet peeve is what I call "confusion cuisine." The good news in this country is that you can get any product any time. So now people can get white soy sauce, Hawaiian baby ginger and fresh uni. I think you have to earn the right to start blending cuisines. Either go to Japan and learn how they use white soy sauce or wasabi, or if you can't, go online or get Japanese cookbooks. I'm not saying you have to master Japanese cuisine, but understand it. My best example always is sesame oil with Chinese cuisine. I went to a very acclaimed restaurant where we know the chef. He's a great chef and he did a tuna carpaccio dish and drizzled sesame oil on top of it as if it were olive oil. When its perfect fruity extra virgin olive oil from Spain or Italy, it's awesome, but you don't put that much sesame oil on a tuna carpaccio. You taste sesame oil for the rest of the dinner. That chef didn't understand how the Chinese use sesame oil, which is like a tablespoon in a gallon or two of chicken stock because it's such a strong flavor. So learn from the Thai how you buy, store, and break down lemongrass. Learn from all the cultures what they do with their indigenous products. Then once you learn that then you have earned the right, as I say, to then blend. Unfortunately you see people buy these products online, and they blend it and you get this horrible mass of unbalanced flavors. They didn't earn the right to be blending. Master the cuisine first. I also don't ever do East with East, like Thai and Japanese. They are both incredibly delicious, well-flavored cuisines. You don't need to blend those two. But blending one of them with a beef tenderloin from the West or my Foie Gras Shumai makes sense.

Who is the most important chef of the past 100 years?

For me? Jacques Pépin. This man can do it all, and he turned down the White House to invent the clam roll at Howard Johnson's! What Pépin did with La Technique is break down the basic French techniques for all of America. I have never met a better all-around technician, with the most amazing palate, the most amazing artist between menus and truly great landscapes and fun paintings like this one he gave to Polly and me, "Ballet des Chefs." And with all this amazingness, the most humble and revered chef ever!

If you could go out for drinks and dinner with a "food person" (living or up in the Great Beyond) who would it be and why?

[The 19th-century French writer] Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin. What didn't he do? Lawyer, mayor, magistrate, violin master, and of course author of The Physiology of Taste (and an erotic novel too!), spoke five languages, which is two more than moi! He was so ahead of his time by denouncing the consumption of flour and sugar as it causes obesity, and he was right! Who else has a gâteau and a cheese named after him?

What food or ingredient do you adore?

Obviously, ginger! We use it everywhere: stir-frys, marinades, sauces, breads, fried rice, desserts, and cocktails. It's the most versatile flavor and so good for you as it keeps nausea away and is a natural antioxidant.

What is your favorite holiday?

Christmas Eve with my garlic-salt three-day crusted leg of lamb with the best 1er grand cru classé Bordeaux I own. I love Haut-Brion.

We always start with tea-smoked salmon and caviar with, again, the best Champagne. Cristal rosé always works

What food, drink or ingredient will never enter your body again?

Natto — fermented, bacteria-laced soy beans.

Where in the world would you like to dine now and why?

Los Cabos, because I just landed here! I'd love to go to India as I was again inspired by Madhur Jaffrey. I have never been and love Indian flavors. I'm sure it's as varied in flavor and technique as Chinese food.

What part of your body has taken the biggest beating over the years in the kitchens?

My liver!

What famous guests have you enjoyed cooking for the most?

Julia Child, because she is Julia!

I also just had the time of my life cooking with Jacques [Pépin]. I was at his house for his boules [lawn bowling] tourney, and Claudine put his iconic apron on me and we cooked. I was in heaven. He still cooked and busted out like six hors d'oeuvres for 100 guests while I did one.

What's your favorite food movie of all time?

Tie between Tompopo and Babette's Feast. Tompopo because it was such a parody on the strict Japanese culture — especially the scene when the young kid ordered all the fancy food and a bottle of Bordeaux! So funny. And Babette's Feast because — and I've always said this — if all of us, both sides of a war, could sit down and eat together, we would have less time to fight!

If it all came down to the world knowing your life's work through one dish that you created, what would you choose?

Foie Gras Shumai with a caramelized Sauternes shallot broth. The classic French foie gras with the pairing of Sauternes and one of the most recognized dim sum techniques of making shumai. Julia loved this dish.

You've created a buffet so you can sit and join three guests from all of history. What six items did you cook? Who are your three guests?

On the menu: red roast pork butt with garlic bok choy, Mandarin fried rice, Peking duck with all the fixin's, Indonesian lamb curry and sweet potato shepherd's pie, buttermilk tempura chicken with sambal Slaw'ce (a cole slaw puréed into a sauce for dipping), and finally, the Best Evah Buttery Chocolate Chip Cookie served hot in hotel pan with Tahitian vanilla bean ice cream and soy-caramel sauce.

Guests: The first two: Einstein and Brillat-Savarin.

Then also Huang Di, one of the first emperors of China, invented Chinese and governmental systems back in 2700 B.C. and who is incidentally my great-great-times-100 grandfather. I'm the 100th generation Tsai. [This was discovered on the Henry Louis Gates show Finding your Roots.]

If you had not made it as a chef and money were not an issue, what profession would you have chosen?

I would love to be "Ming Bond 008."

Would you want your child to become a chef?

Only if they wanted to be. 14-year-old Henry loves pastries, like me, so we will see. He has already said he loves to be an owner!

If you wrote a book of advice for aspiring chefs what would you choose for its title?

Taste As You Go!

This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.