Episode 21
· 58:01
I saw you were number seven at Air Canada's best new restaurants for last year. Can you tell me all about Yan Dining Room and what was your vision and inspiration?
Eva Chin:Yan means banquet in Chinese. It also is a very similarly pronounced Chinese word between Cantonese and Mandarin, which is important to me. For someone who's Chinese, I'm not just Southern or Northern. My family spans through all different regions of China. And so it's always very important to me that Yan represents being able to show how diverse Chinese cuisine is and also how much more diverse it has become through all the cultures it has infiltrated through.
Eva Chin:Coming from my family who's also not just Chinese, but North American Chinese with other mixed Asian races in it. No matter where you go in the world, you will always see a Chinatown. And that becomes a form of cuisine. American Chinese, British Chinese, Mauritius Chinese. And so Yan became a love letter for my community, my culture, and that cuisine, that ever evolving cuisine.
Eva Chin:Hongsheng Restaurant is owned by Colin Lee and his family, who became one of my first closest friends in Toronto. Hongxing went through a very devastating fire in the year 2020, and that was technically how that private dining room was born out of reconstruction and out of hope. It gave Colin a chance to fully reform the restaurant, renovate the restaurant after twenty nine years. He took away the round tables, the classic Chinatown Chinese American looking restaurant with your round lazy Susans. He took away the sports TV.
Eva Chin:He took away a classic Chinese bar, and he installed a modern restaurant bar design. And he built that room. And at first, it was a room that entertained friends, and I became one of those friends. And as we're sitting there, it became very evident that this room wasn't just a room that we wanted to entertain and cook for friends. It was also something we wanted to share about our food and share within our community and beyond.
Eva Chin:It wasn't intentional that we wanted to build this room. It was we had this room. What are we gonna do with it? And then Yan became born.
Alex Abbott Boyd:I've heard you describe Yan as a storytelling tool.
Eva Chin:Yes. Yes. In some ways, because of such a unique experience, we're all surrounded within the four walls. It's a very intimate eating experience. It's at most, we can fit 28 people.
Eva Chin:26 is best, and it's communal seating. And I get to address the room in one go. Most restaurants that are intimate tasting menus, you will have a dedicated server, a dedicated chef almost per table. We don't have the luxury of that. In many ways, Yan Dining Room shows all the luxuries that one cannot have from not having a restaurant space.
Eva Chin:We are a dining room within a restaurant. I often joke to people that I share my we don't have our own bathroom. It's the Hongsheng bathroom, and everyone has to share it. And it's it's a 29 year old building with limited HVAC. And yet amongst all of that, people show up at Yan for two things.
Eva Chin:Incredible service by my team and all the resources that we have and the food that my my back of house team prepares. And so I had to tell myself there has to be something else I can complete this experience to not make it transactional. And storytelling by myself in the room to all 26 guests became the best way of serving that gap that I'm not able to provide beyond my space. And so every night, for the three nights we're open, I address the room three times. At first, it's introduction.
Eva Chin:The menu changes every month. So I usually give everyone a quick spiel of what Yan Dining Room is about, the seasons we follow, the format of the menu, and the first few bites you have. Then after that, I disappear. The kitchen does their job. And right before the middle of the menu, I come back out to the room, and my server brings around a display box.
Eva Chin:This is a box that my team put together every night before service, and it contains all the ingredients we have chosen to cook in that night's menu. And then I guide the room through all the ingredients that we use, the stories behind it. Sometimes I tell them, this is my favorite dish on this month's menu because of this reason. And oftentimes, I hear towards the end of the night when I'm saying goodbye to guests, a lot of times they come up and thank me for that extra level of communication, and they really feel a difference in dining experience based on
Alex Abbott Boyd:Where did you get the idea for that? It's so unique.
Eva Chin:It's the luxury of not being able, like my friend of house is a team of two for 26 guests. It's my partner. It's my wife and and another server. And she carries the weight of the entire room on her shoulders from the guests walking in to the glass of wine they choose or nonalcoholic, sparkling tea that they choose, to every little bit, she goes above and beyond to take care of them. And that is already that's asking a lot from one person.
Eva Chin:I cannot fathom what it would be like for her to explain the food, serve the food, on top of that, take care of all the guests' needs. And so it kind of brushed off the divide that most restaurants have between front and back. At Yan, there is not really a front and back because we're it's just this one space. Yan is pretty much just a little bit bigger than this very podcast room we're sitting in. That's how small it is.
Eva Chin:And so a lot of times, I just put on the owner hat. And I'm like, I can come explain the food. I don't see myself just as a chef hiding in the kitchen. It has taught my entire kitchen team to also bridge that gap too. I think more than ever, our industry needs more understanding between both houses.
Eva Chin:And I think being able to learn how to storytell the food, learn aspect of what it's like to share the room with my guests while they're eating the food has changed me and my perspective. It's made me closer to the food. It's made me closer to the customer. And the last two years, it has really brought me closer with all my diner.
Alex Abbott Boyd:How would you describe the food at Yan?
Eva Chin:Whimsical. It's fun. It's whimsical. It's incredibly deep cut Chinese cooking. I say the word cooking and not cuisine because oftentimes we limit ourselves when we use that word.
Eva Chin:A Chinese meal for a toddler growing up in Canada is very different to a Chinese meal for a young toddler growing up in China, and that affects your culture. But one thing one thing that really connects all of the North American raised Chinese will always be their parents cooking. It doesn't matter if you grew up in Saskatchewan, in Texas, in Nova Scotia. It doesn't matter if you grew up around seafood or prairies of meat or a vegetarian neighborhood. What your parents cook is your first memory of who you are ethnethic ethically.
Eva Chin:And so it started with a collection of nostalgia memories of the first flavors of what it's like to be Chinese, to taste Chinese, plus the memories of Chinese Canadian, Chinese Americanized food that we started seeing in the restaurants around us that my family and I go to eat at, and also what is happening right now in China. The three of these added together is what I call neo Chinese cuisine. It's where I ensure that traditions are followed, but rules are most certainly broken.
Alex Abbott Boyd:It sound so beautiful to to create dishes that evoke those childhood experiences. Could you share just maybe the specifics on a couple that that really do that for you and maybe some of the guests?
Eva Chin:Of course. Oftentimes, our memories are woven with experiences. So an example is I had a dessert that was eight treasure rice pudding, eight treasure condry, and eight treasure stuffed duck. These are two dishes that I grew up eating in my family, and it does make me think of my dad a lot. My father is a man who loves fiber, and that's why anything that is filled with oatmeal, muesli, grains, seeds, he loves it.
Eva Chin:And so a treasure porridge is a Chinese porridge that's loaded with there's nuts. There's all these different types of barley grains. And so this is a health a healthy snack that my dad loved eating, and I ate it. As a child, you were just not a fan of all these healthy ingredients. And then flash forward to my young cook days where I arrived in Paris, and I went to a restaurant that a lot of my friends recommended me to go called Les Amis.
Eva Chin:And they had a beautiful rice pudding dish there, the mijan. They had more than 10 different textures in that rice pudding. They put this beautiful anglaise on top. It's caramel sauce. There was nuts.
Eva Chin:There was candied orange peel. And as I was eating this rice pudding, it was this beautiful French dish that I've never had in my entire life. And yet, all I can think of was my father's eight treasure
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah.
Eva Chin:Pudding, rice porridge. And so when it was time for me to think about that dish, I wove two memories together. I made a French rice pudding, but I chose specifically and intentionally eight different ingredients plated at the very bottom of the rice pudding that was surprising textures. And I chose specifically the eight ingredients indigenous to Canada because I also wanted to share with people the next step and the next phase, I think, for us to see an ethnic cuisine is that what is local to us. And cooking cooking with the seasons, cooking with what is locally grown, that is going to finally complete our entire story because we're finally adding community to it.
Eva Chin:I've seen that you've
Alex Abbott Boyd:said that fusion is confusion. Yes. What do you see as a difference between that confused fusion and kind of breaking all the rules and mixing, say, Canadian ingredients with Chinese techniques?
Eva Chin:For me, the confusion is confusion of who you are actually. Oftentimes, when we are cooking our fusion cuisine, to me, when I see a Chinese Italian pasta dish, I don't think of fusion. I just think, okay, this person must have grown up eating a lot of spaghetti, and their mom must have added a lot of Asian ingredients to it. And that's the first thing I think of. And that has been our confusion growing up our whole life.
Eva Chin:I think this is me saying speaking up for third culture children. These are children who grew up in multiple different nations of different or moved around a lot. I also speak for Chinese diaspora kids who grew up in North America, but was limited in their connection of their heritage and are now just starting to grasp at what they're missing. Oftentimes, they like to use memories of foods that they're used to eating mainstream, but with added nuances. Oh, I added a little bit of Chinese chili oil to this.
Eva Chin:Yeah. Because that's how my mom would make it because she didn't know what a spaghetti would taste like. And that's why I use the word confusion. Our parents were doing the best they can. I had a dish on the menu that was called my childhood s'mores.
Eva Chin:And that was when I learned about s'mores. All my friends were talking about it. And when it was time for us to get away for camping, I asked my parents to pack me s'mores. Didn't even realize I should have explained to them what it was. And my parents did their best, and they packed me they didn't pack me hot chocolate.
Eva Chin:They packed me Ovaltine. They didn't know what marshmallows were, so they packed me little mochis, little mochi bubbles. And then they gave me hobnobs, digestive cookies instead of graham crackers. And but that was it. If if you're Chinese and you grew up in America and you told your parents you wanted s'mores, that's what you're gonna get.
Eva Chin:And we made that. We my team executed that beautifully. I told them the story. So we ended up pouring our heart into dessert. We made a jasmine oolong tea digestive biscuit.
Eva Chin:We actually made pipeable mochi in between, and we added marshmallow. And then we made ovaltine ganache, and then we sandwiched it, and we torched it just like what a s'more would look like. But when you're eating it and you're like, oh, what's the sticky thing? This is the chance for me to be able to explain Yeah. What was in the Chinese pantry growing.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. I love that. You reminded me you made me smile so much with that story because my wife tells a similar one. Her parents are Tamil. And when she asked for pasta, they just put spaghetti and ketchup because that's what they thought.
Alex Abbott Boyd:It looks like
Eva Chin:I've had that too. I've had that too. Yeah. I've had Campbell soup with spaghetti cooked together. But now that I think about it, I wanna reclaim it almost.
Alex Abbott Boyd:What does it mean to you personally to bring those deep memories to life again and to share them? It feels very vulnerable Oh, to just put yourself out there like that. Is that It is.
Eva Chin:I assume this movement happened in the nineties with Italian chefs. Everyone talked about their nonas recipes, and we've all been there. We've all been through that. It's a little delayed, obviously, for my culture and my community. All wins is a win for my community.
Eva Chin:But this is what we're going through right now. And I see so, so much broken communication between generations, specifically. I see the difference in how our families interact with each other, and that has caused a lot of lost information. A lot of lost information, lost communication. And it's extra hard for our cuisine because, a, in a culinary professional culinary perspective, there Mimi's and Sunny's Chinese will be the first of their kind in the history of Toronto culinary history as fully functioning Chinese restaurants that's able to train cooks.
Eva Chin:In English, in Western cooking culture, every cook who comes out of Sunny's and Mimi's will finally have a standard or some sort of Chinese food education in them to spread. But before that, we didn't we had Dai Lo, but that was Asian. Yeah. So there is no one for us to look up to. There's no pillar of Chinese cuisine for us to send cooks to and decorate the city with.
Eva Chin:We've only just begun. So that is number one's problem. Number two, then you have all these lost recipes in our families. And when we ask our families, they're like, we didn't write this down. What's a little bit of this, a little bit of that?
Eva Chin:And my favorite answer is, why do you need to learn this? I didn't put you through school so that you're gonna go slave in the kitchen. Right? So the act of cooking is a mean of survival more than a portrayal of our culture and our food. We have to change that first.
Eva Chin:All of these are reasons why we've suffered for so long of not being able to have a standard or a longevity for young cooks to wanna come and cook. And this is only just right now the beginning. So we're all it feels like we're groping in the dark.
Alex Abbott Boyd:And do you think that's why the stereotype so often persists that Chinese food is not elevated in the way that you're cooking and describing?
Eva Chin:Yeah. First of all, Chinese food was seen as fast, cheap, and easy in the very beginning of history because it was open for their own folks. It started with Chinese railway workers who were only given a quarter of the pay, a quarter of the break time from their fellow Caucasian colleagues. For that reason, when these restaurants were open to feed their own people, it had to be fast, cheap, and easy so they were able to get back to work in time, and they were able to pay the bills. And that notion carried on to the survival of folks who didn't celebrate Christmas, Jewish folks during Hanukkah.
Eva Chin:And so Chinese food expanded to that community and remained fast, cheap, affordable, and so forth. And as history went on, no one ever really changed it. This the act of resilience and survival was always the key to Chinese food. When you're when you're in a pinch, when you're having a party and you want something fast, it's either pizza or it's Chinese food. For four years, Chinese takeout was the number one takeout in North American statistics.
Eva Chin:Like, when you have such a strong brand, why would people wanna change it? Right? And every cuisine is suffering from that. Italian cuisine took a long time to also step away from tritoria, pasta, from pizza. People are still learning about regional Italian food, Indian food, Mexican, and so forth.
Eva Chin:Everyone is suffering from that. I'm not taking that away from anyone. But for something that's so mainstream, such as Chinese food, where soy sauce is probably more guaranteed in every North American pantry than cheese and ketchup, it's daunting that no one has actually been able to accept that we're so behind internationally on the view of Chinese food. Because what's happening right now on Chinese cuisine, even in Europe or in China itself is on a very different level. One that I can't even compare.
Eva Chin:There is not a single restaurant in Canada that can be on the same level as the fine dining restaurants that are happening in China.
Alex Abbott Boyd:If you're enjoying the episode, I have a quick ask. Ratings and reviews actually matter a lot more than most people think with how the show grows and how I can keep getting great guests like this. You can do it right now while you're listening. Leaving a rating takes about ten seconds, and I'd really appreciate it. And if you already have, thank you so much.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Alright. Back to the show. Comparing them to what's going on in China, that makes sense to me. But you're saying Europe is like, I guess, obviously, it's way better in China. But Europe is even kind of way ahead of North America.
Eva Chin:So in terms of fine dining, Asian restaurants, the past few years, we've been seeing a lot more European restaurants receive international recognition. Goldfinch in Copenhagen is an example. Tak is an example. And also very proudly led by Jonathan Tam. He's actually Canadian.
Eva Chin:Canadian Chinese chef. But, yeah, actually, they're not being fully promoted as a Chinese restaurant. That's a thing. But Jonathan Tam is unabashedly cooking Chinese cuisine and kinda like how I'm doing at Yan Dining Room in his way in a chef's counter in Copenhagen. The first sentence of his menu is, we're following the Chinese solar lunar calendar of the farmers.
Eva Chin:That's 24 micro season. No one is doing that.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Do you think it's a legacy here in North America of that history you mentioned of the railroads and
Eva Chin:It will always be. Yeah. It will always be a legacy. It is something I hope that will always stay with us to remind us of how we got here, but it most certainly something we also should be walking away from to progress.
Alex Abbott Boyd:On that subject, Yan seems to be sold out most nights.
Eva Chin:However, not always. I know we were very lucky that we are sold out quite often. But I tell people, please don't ever assume.
Alex Abbott Boyd:But how has the reception been since you opened?
Eva Chin:I think the fact that we're still open after twenty months is is a testament of its own. It's I don't think I don't think I see it as a pop up. It isn't a pop up. There are everyday things that doesn't make it feel like a pop up. It feels like a brick and mortar space.
Eva Chin:But then there are also moments where I remind myself that I still desire to turn Yan into a proper restaurant space, but I really did not expect it to still be operating. And I feel very lucky. I feel supported by people of all communities and and a testament of why Toronto was a
Alex Abbott Boyd:city that Yan would work. That's great. Were there some people who have given you a hard time over the cuisine, say, using nontraditional ingredients or breaking the rules?
Eva Chin:Of course. Course. I think every everyone is going to. Everyone is going to get that. I get together with other chefs, and I hear stories.
Eva Chin:I had I'm not gonna mention names, but I had a chef who had guests criticize why do they have a salad on a tasting menu. I've had an Italian chef friend tell me that they had guests who threw a tantrum because they wouldn't serve butter with their bread, that they only served olive oil. So it this happens to everyone.
Alex Abbott Boyd:It's not That sounds like very expected behavior from my three year old.
Eva Chin:Exactly. Exactly. But I have to say, first and foremost, this happens to everyone. So I'm not trying to invalidate everyone's experience. For us, we definitely have our usual suspects.
Eva Chin:A couple of my favorite stories. I had a guest who was very unhappy that we served them Jasmine tea. Their exact words were any reputable rest Chinese restaurant would never serve Jasmine tea. This is meant for guai lo's. Guai lo is a derogatory term for Caucasians.
Eva Chin:And the fact is, the first thing I think of when I hear a sentence like that is I laugh. I laugh because how sad it is that in this culture, jasmine tea has only one grade. Like, how sad is that? That people are not willing to understand that just like wine, just like coffee, there are grades of jasmine tea. Any reputable Chinese restaurant wouldn't serve bad tea, period.
Eva Chin:Not jasmine. Just bad tea. And that's the thing. People are holding on to one type of food item and representing a whole culture. That is something we need to move away from.
Eva Chin:One dim sum item does not represent all of Cantonese cuisine. One type of tea most certainly does not represent the whole Chinese tea drinking culture.
Alex Abbott Boyd:No.
Eva Chin:So it is very absurd when people think of that. When people think dairy doesn't belong in Chinese cuisine, I tell them that dairy has a very strong part in Chinese cuisine, in nomadic cuisine, Mongolian food. China produces a high amount of milk for their own country to have. There's six major IPO milk brands in China itself. Four of them in Mongolia.
Eva Chin:What do you think our prairies are? Yeah. So just the education that people have of our culture is what then affects what they see of our cuisine.
Alex Abbott Boyd:That makes sense. But even if that wasn't true, even if everyone in China was lactose intolerant
Eva Chin:Yeah.
Alex Abbott Boyd:You still have a right to use it. Right?
Eva Chin:Of course. But it's such a it's a very sensitive and personal thing. People are always gonna come to me and be like, my mom doesn't make it that way, and they're not wrong. But that's when I tell people, now you're forgetting to connect the culture with the cuisine. Now the culture behind why your mom won't make it the way my mom makes it is what they've been through separately on their own that led to them to making that version.
Eva Chin:Filipino cuisine is always dawned between precolonial, postcolonial because that sheer political change is what affected the entire produce line of a country's cuisine. So same thing for Chinese cuisine. I urge people to actually visit the country, learn about it geographically, learn about the land, understand that it's not just Sichuan food that serves spicy food. That it's not sweet and sour pork means all of Cantonese food is sweet and sour and deep fried. Broccoli is not the only vegetable we use.
Eva Chin:We have our own stories of seasons. We have our own calendar that we follow accordingly just to have the right food to eat at what month. And there are stories of how the Torah works with the food that people need to learn that will impact it.
Alex Abbott Boyd:What are some of your favorite stories that you've been able to tell with Yan that were both extra delicious and extra meaningful for you to share?
Eva Chin:There's a lot.
Alex Abbott Boyd:I mean, you touched on a few, but I'm just be curious if any other stand out.
Eva Chin:I I incorporate a lot of different stories. I'm a big fan of eating lychee. When I was young, my my parents had to ban me, had to give me a a quota for eating lychee because I would overeat it. And in Chinese history, one concubine is a very big fan of this lychee. This particular breed of lychee, so much so they named it after her.
Eva Chin:It's called a concubine lychee, literally the name of it. And she was also one of the four most beautiful women in Chinese history. It is it's it's an entire story of its own. We had obviously, we have a lot of beautiful women, but for some reason, there was four four just chosen. But these four women also played an important part in the historical role.
Eva Chin:And so I went on a deep dive just on her. I made a dish that became her it was an entire dish based on not just her favorite lychee, but also at her most the peak of her time, she would make the king spend lots of money to bring in rose petals, a rose petal wine, osmanthus flower syrup to eat along with the lychee. And so we made a dessert based on all of her ingredients, grapes that were brought in from the Portuguese ministers. Yeah. The Portuguese ministers.
Eva Chin:And then for me to be able to incorporate that story and share with folks, these are the things that kids are learning in school in China that will never get mentioned in our textbooks here. And this is part of our culture. There's proverbs, myths. It's like Aesop's fables made out of this lychee and this concubine. And I'm only just able to portray you a small bite.
Eva Chin:But at least I get to portray something.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Well, it sounds so fun. I'm guessing people love that story.
Eva Chin:They did. They did.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. You've touched on this a little bit with the Jasmine tea, but what role do beverages play
Eva Chin:at Yan? I don't drink alcohol. So I have to depend on my wife to do a lot of a lot of swallowing for me. I usually just taste and spit, but my wife and I pick every single wine on our menu. We are a wine focused program only.
Eva Chin:We do not have any cocktails available. One, we actually don't have a bar at Yan Dining Room. The Hongsheng Bar is very busy on its own. And just on a logistic level, it just doesn't work because it's separated from the room itself. And number two, I also find that there is such a bad rep for wine pairing with Chinese food in North America.
Eva Chin:People immediate immediately think of very sweet, vertsmeter wines, really dad juice style, deep, full bodied red wines constantly. And there is so much fun pairing Chinese food with vibrant young wines, even orange wines, natural wines as well, or even just sparkling wines that I wanna showcase to people. Yeah. And so my wife and I made that executive's decision to let's focus on sparkling tea for nonalcoholic and a wine only for alcohol program.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Are there certain wines that that work especially well that are breaking that mold? Because I agree. It's really boring when people just do Gewurztraminer, sweeter riesling.
Eva Chin:Lambrusco goes really well. With my cooking, I am I have a very acidic palate, which I balance out also with sweet notes at the end, and that just pairs beautifully with Ambrusco. I also as someone who loves drinking carbonated drinks in general twenty four seven all the time, I love sparkling wine that are not champagne related. I'm always on the hunt for a beautiful sparkling gamete. I'm always on the hunt for rose.
Eva Chin:I'm always on the hunt for a nice fizzy orange. We had specifically Macedonian wine for two months that our guests loved. And it paired really good as well with the food that I had.
Alex Abbott Boyd:And what is the split generally between people going for the wine or for the non alk pairing?
Eva Chin:Really varies. It varies on the demographic and the age. Every night is a surprise, and every night is a demo different demographic. So I would say some weeks are healthy fifty fifty. Some weeks are all alcohol.
Eva Chin:But our sparkling teas are very interesting, and so it does spark a lot of interest even on people who are drinking alcohol. They would mix and match.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Are they all caffeinated teas?
Eva Chin:Or No. No. Not at all. I started learning about people's sensitivity as well to caffeine at night.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah.
Eva Chin:So after the Jasmine tea incident, I actually wiped out all caffeinated teas from our tea serving, and we only serve floral teas. So right now, we're serving a beautiful Hangzhou chrysanthemum tea, which is purely floral.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Oh, that's great. Yeah. I love tea, but I wouldn't wanna have five cups of it before bed. Yeah.
Eva Chin:And that's part of what I learned from being constantly so close with the diners. It was something I I brought up to my team. I was like, I think people are avoiding the caffeine. Yeah. The tea.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Shifting gears just a little bit. When did you know you wanted to be a chef?
Eva Chin:I worked as a chef just always for money as a very young kid. I started washing dishes at 16 at mama's fish house in Maui, And it was purely because I wanted to buy Game Boy. It was just a job. And I love food. I felt very comfortable with food.
Eva Chin:There were many other job babysitting available for a high school kid. I had all these different options, but I felt so comfortable just being like, washing dishes, being in a kitchen. That's my thing. And so as time progressed, after university, I wanted to take a gap year, and I wanted to travel before I really locked it in. My dream was to work in Quantico.
Eva Chin:Nothing to do with the kitchen. I was gonna dedicate myself to government, Quantico. A lot of my family members dedicate themselves to service. So I wanted to dedicate myself to not crime fighting, but more crime evaluating. It was more behind the science behind it.
Eva Chin:I want to work in cognitive science research. But I also said, I'm gonna go crazy and backpack and just experience my life. This was very popular in the nineties, And then I'll come back. I'll pack it in. And when I was traveling, the best way to find a job under the table was cooking.
Eva Chin:So it didn't hit me until midway. I couldn't tell you exactly when. But at some moment it clicked. I was in the middle of service and I was just looking forward to finishing work. But instead, I started enjoying it.
Eva Chin:And I started wanting more. And the thought of going back and moving to Virginia just seemed farther and farther away. And I just felt like I just kept putting myself into deep until there's a point where I couldn't go back. And I felt like I've put it in too much now.
Alex Abbott Boyd:It's very high energy to then go and sitting in an office and doing research. Did you end up going to get a formal culinary education, or was it just you continue going through kitchens?
Eva Chin:I never got a formal culinary education. I took advantage of backpacking culture in the nineties, and I staged. And I worked and staged. After Europe, we went to Australia.
Alex Abbott Boyd:I saw you at Bray. Right?
Eva Chin:Yes. I was in Bray. I it was wonderful staging opportunity there. And then my last stop was Asia before I moved back to North America. And Asia, I would say, is where it awakened my diaspora.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Just really quickly because I actually grew up in Victoria,
Eva Chin:and then
Alex Abbott Boyd:I I was in Victoria in the nineties. I lost my accent because then I moved to New York, and I'm
Eva Chin:You've completely lost it. You know, if I
Alex Abbott Boyd:because I moved when I was 11. If I moved when I was 13, it would have stuck.
Eva Chin:This is very strong in Victoria.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. So I'm just kinda curious if you could share more. What was it like cooking there? What was the food like? What was that
Eva Chin:experience? Dan was a very eccentric chef. He's very peculiar. But for me, what really opened my eyes was the entire area it was in. Half of the day, our job was not even in the kitchen.
Eva Chin:At Bray, it was foraging. It was out in the garden. The philosophy of the food is very natural. I would say the sense of nature, I would say, in Australia is a very different style. It's very outback.
Eva Chin:It's very it opened my eyes in many ways. And Bray opened my eyes to a lot of indigenous Australian ingredients that I never tasted in my life, never worked with in Sydney, never worked with in Melbourne. It opened my eyes about the culture of Australia, and I saw it in a different lens than what a tourist would see. It he really showed me the true indigenous culture that people never talk about in Australia.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Could you share maybe just one one ingredient or story that
Eva Chin:comes this? Like, I had this curry once. And I was like, wait. Why am I having curry in Australia? It was like this crab curry.
Eva Chin:And it was a recipe we followed that was an indigenous Australian recipe, and it opened my eyes about what travelers brought in here from back in the day. And there's a lot more diversity than I ever imagined that is just more hidden amongst the culture of foods in the terroir Australia compared to what it's shown mainstream.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Oh, 100%. Yeah. Here, people just make fun of Vegemite.
Eva Chin:That's what I mean. Like, it's a lot more than Crocodile Dundee.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. But then so you mentioned Asia is where things really like, your eyes are more open.
Eva Chin:I got sassed in the border. I got sassed in the border when I arrived in Hong Kong, and I had to write something on a piece of paper. And he sassed me about my calligraphy. And he's, wow, your Chinese is really bad. Was Savage.
Eva Chin:I was shot. I just remember I was so young and I was just looking at him and, did you just say that to me? Did you just say that to me? He's, yeah, wow. Really need to brush up on your Chinese kid.
Eva Chin:Welcome back. No. That kinda stuck with me. And I just remember having a really heated conversation with my parents. And my parents were like, they're not wrong.
Eva Chin:You're very Americanized. You don't know what's going on, and you're very out of touch. And that kinda woke me up. And so I, at first, was just gonna go back to Asia to recover financially after my traveling and just stay with my parents for a bit. But then I said, you know what?
Eva Chin:I am going to not I'm just not I'm not just gonna stay with you. I'm going to do something out of my time here. And so I took advantage of the fact that there was a home base in China. And I put on my backpack, and I tried backpacking in China, which was very different from Europe. But in a way, it changed me.
Eva Chin:It changed me forever. It is forever the way I will see Chinese cuisine is my entire train journey. So this was this was early two thousands. Qinzhang Gaoyuan is the name of the railway that opened in China. This was a big deal because this railway connected from Guangzhou to Tibet.
Eva Chin:This is when it first started. It was a seven day train journey. First of its kind. Now China's filled with bullet trains everywhere. But this was first of its kind at one time.
Eva Chin:My dad lined up for a day almost to get those tickets. He got his business class. I was very lucky. The windows of the train was so big. It's like a classic European train.
Eva Chin:But for seven days, you got to see this entire nation through this window. And this is before how crazy China has become now. It was a lot more I wouldn't say the word rural. I would say rustic. It was a lot more rustic.
Eva Chin:It was a lot more pure, a lot more terroir driven than skyscraper driven. And you really at that time was for me, I felt was the best time to learn about this country and its food. Because this train was pretty much following the exact same line of the Yangtze River. And the entire nation is the the cuisine of this nation is based on where it's where this region is located in proximity to the source of the river. And it just just learning all of that from looking is very different from reading in a textbook, watching YouTube videos, which is nothing wrong with.
Eva Chin:But once in your lifetime, if you're into Chinese food and culture, get a backpack and ride that train ride and really see and connect all the dots together. It will change your life.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Were you able to experience the food along the journey? Did you get off?
Eva Chin:On our way back,
Alex Abbott Boyd:we did. Okay.
Eva Chin:The first, the my dad wanted to first make it there. And then on our way back, we did not take the train back. So then we took our own route back. We rented a car. We flew to some places.
Eva Chin:But then on our way back, we were able to to taste and experience. But I still never that gives me goosebumps when I think about all the memories I have of watching it through that window.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Oh, it sounds beautiful. What did that trip mean from your dad's perspective? Was he discovering the same thing? Did he already know the stories that you were learning?
Eva Chin:He's always known, and that trip actually is a very fond memory of my dad and I. Still is. I think it's where we really got to share the love that he's always had that I never got to see. He's yeah. He's always been he was saying in a very matter of fact way when I was making these discoveries.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Did you can then continue to explore? So you went up to Tibet. You came back. Did you then
Eva Chin:I did. I continued to stay in China for the rest of that year, And I never said no to my parents whenever they asked me to visit. I would always try to visit once a year for lunar new year. And that was like, okay. I'm good now.
Eva Chin:But from then on, do I wanna come back in summer? I'll come back in summer. You wanna come back in thanks I'll come back in Thanksgiving. And that was it. And I would go back four or five times a year with my parents' support.
Eva Chin:And it was the one thing we were able to bond was food. We didn't get along with anything. I was very out and a very non accepting family. So we couldn't talk about my personal life. They did not agree with me being a chef, so we couldn't talk about my work life.
Eva Chin:So the only thing we're able to talk about was how much we love to eat Chinese food. And so it became a blessing to them that I was willing to visit them by sharing our love for food.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. And they didn't see your cooking as a reflection of that bond you share with them through food?
Eva Chin:My parents up to this day refuses to eat by cooking. But it's a work in progress. I haven't talked to my parents in ten years since the day I married my wife. It is part of the reason why I really dove into neo Chinese food because it was my way of thinking that food could be the reason for our generation to heal the trauma. And in some ways, it has for me because I have never felt closer to my parents until I started cooking food at Yan without having to talk to them.
Eva Chin:I know. That's crazy. It is.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Do you think food can heal in a way that conversation sometimes can't?
Eva Chin:Absolutely. It has healed for me. I went from sad and rejected and angry to now as I'm cooking this food, I am understanding my parents and almost having conversations with them in my head as I'm cooking this food because it's almost as all the words that they didn't know how to say is coming through our cuisine.
Alex Abbott Boyd:This might be too personal, but I hope that they're proud now that you're getting accolades and recognition.
Eva Chin:I think so. But I think their generation also needs their own trauma to be fixed. That's something I can't help them with. It's holding ourselves accountable is the only way to move forward. And I tell this to all perspectives.
Eva Chin:There's a perspective of my fam my parents' generation that they need to do work on and also our generation. When I meet kids over 30 who still can't speak our mother tongue, Chinese, and they're like, when I was a kid, our parents really wanted us to assimilate. I'm like, I agree with you, but you're 30 now. You have a job. You can pay for Mandarin lessons or Cantonese lessons.
Eva Chin:What happened to our childhood cannot be the reason why we're not willing to take that step. If you're 30 and you have a full time job and you've paid for every bill in your life and every hobby except for classes of your mother tongue. Like, how are you gonna teach your kids one day? And, yeah, it's unpopular opinion, but I am I have become one of them.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. You're making me think. My my daughter, I know she understands Tamil, but I've never heard her talk. She's three. But I'm gonna have to
Eva Chin:make sure she learns that alphabet too. It does something. It does something. I never thought it would till that border patrol. No.
Eva Chin:No.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Switching gears again, what was it that initially what was the what was the cooking opportunity that brought you to Toronto?
Eva Chin:It was Momofuku. I was quite happy and set in my life in Vancouver. I was not content, but I was happy. I just married two years in with my wife. And so we were not actually looking to move.
Eva Chin:The pandemic looked a little scary, but this is 2019, so it hasn't hit yet. And then right when Christmas came, I got a call from a recruiter, and they have been trying to get in touch with me. And I came here for the interview in January 2020, and I had to fly here alone without my wife. So that was a different way of seeing the city. Because every time I came to Toronto, was straight into the car, into my in laws.
Eva Chin:Summer would go up to the cottage. So I actually didn't really get to experience Toronto. Momofuku put me in a Airbnb right downtown, and I had some time to myself. And I just went to experience the city, and I was like, wow. I really like the city.
Eva Chin:And, obviously, the interview continued. And when they offered the job, my wife was this is a no brainer. There might be a global pandemic coming, and I wanna be close to my mom. And I'm like, alright. Let's do this.
Eva Chin:And sure enough, three days after I moved in, the city was state of emergency.
Alex Abbott Boyd:How long until you could cook?
Eva Chin:So I had to start work immediately even though we had to lay everyone off. Because we were such a big brand, Momofuku had was very strict on safety regulations. We could not cook until we all the entire company has set out a book of SOPs, which is fair. And so my first month was all on the computer. I was working diligently with the company on how to bring the staff back in safely.
Eva Chin:And so after a month, then the next question was, okay. So how are we gonna make money again without dying it? And so the first three months of Momofuku was not cooking. It was cleaning, organizing, admin, brainstorming. And then about four or five months in, then we start bringing staff in and cooking.
Eva Chin:And I gotta say it was really fun because almost every job other than Momofuku was European or Western for me. Yeah. And so the pantry was very standard. I can close my eyes, and I would say 99% of the kitchens I worked in are standard olive oils, powders, spices, vinegars, all that. But when I stepped into the Momofuku pantry, it was like stepping into my grandmother's home.
Eva Chin:It was crazy. Fermented black beans, fish sauce, Sichuan peppercorn oil. I'm like, where am I? What's happening? And it was eye opening.
Eva Chin:It was almost as if someone gave me permission. My boss did. My boss is, yeah. You're cooking Asian now. And David Chang always had the, why not?
Eva Chin:If you think about it, why not? Nothing's gonna stop you. Whereas I was raised in a very European cooking environment where you put your head down, you don't question the chef, you don't bring up ideas unless related. And so it sparked my curiosity. Why?
Eva Chin:Why do Chinese food tastes like this? Why do we use this? And I started applying that to cooking like I've never done before. For years of us just following, reciting procedures. I get to be like, let's create.
Eva Chin:And we're I'm creating something that I'm connected to. Yeah. And so I would say Momofuku was the best way for
Alex Abbott Boyd:me to start my journey in Toronto. Is that just a company policy that they really try to empower their staff, or is that just the role that you landed in you're finally at a level where you could be empowered to?
Eva Chin:I think it was David Chang's always been his philosophy, and I think that's why his company created such incredible restaurants and chefs. It wasn't printed in paper, but most of the culinary leaders that I talked to in the company always empowered me and gave me really good advice. I had very good mentorship when I was in that company that really opened my eyes in terms of daringness in cooking Asian food again.
Alex Abbott Boyd:What was the reception to Koja? I remember when Momofugu came hearing about it, that it was a very big deal. Was the
Eva Chin:city immediate site? Beautiful restaurant. I think they spent a lot of money on it. It was it started as an Argentinian steakhouse, I believe so. Because the previous chef oh, no.
Eva Chin:Brazilian. Because the previous chef is from oh, Colombia. Sorry. Colombian. Paula wanted a Santa Maria grill in the center of the restaurant.
Eva Chin:It was her vision. But, obviously, the after they left the restaurant, it felt like it felt lost for a little bit. And I took over, and it was the word fire was the logo of Kojin. The word fire. And it's funny because in the company book, it wrote that Kojin, the calligraphy of the Kojin logo is the Japanese word for fire.
Eva Chin:But it is also the Chinese word for fire. It is a Sino alphabet letter, which means it is a character that is shared between multiple Asian dialect. And it's really funny because even though the company saw it that way, it opened my eyes. And I remember specifically, it was January 2021 at that time. And I'm like, what if I did some Chinese barbecue and some I don't know why.
Eva Chin:I that was the first time I was like, let me cook some Chinese food in Cojin of all places. And the reception was actually incredible. Obviously, there is there's still some people who are like, oh, we still miss the steaks and the flatbread and all of these. But majority of the people embraced me in Toronto. I had a lot of DMs from people.
Eva Chin:When we sent out our first ever Lunar New Year collaboration menu, I received huge feedback from the communities in Toronto. They're like, wow. We've never seen this before. Welcome to the city. Thanks for cooking this food.
Eva Chin:And that's why I up to this day, I tell people that Toronto is the reason that gave me the courage to cook the food I'm cooking now.
Alex Abbott Boyd:That's so good to hear that kind of reception from the city.
Eva Chin:Yeah. It's incredible city.
Alex Abbott Boyd:So one thing that I read is that you have a dream of a Western chef cooking pasta in a wok. Yes. I guess I'd love to hear why that could be so awesome.
Eva Chin:First of all Yeah. When you see those flat pans that majority of the Western kitchens have and they're flipping it, tossing the pasta, ergonomically, it actually doesn't make sense to me. Because all that pasta is doing is going up and slapping back down. But a wok is ergonomically created to have noodles roll back to you when you toss it. So regardless of the ethnicity of a wok, on a scientific level, it is the best tool for tossing anything that's noodled or tossing anything in general.
Eva Chin:A flat pan will always be best for searing. But on a scientific level, you cannot argue with me that a flat pan is better at tossing something back than a wok. That's just the physics behind it. And so it is my dream that we see past the ethnicity of the cooking tool and genuinely use it for its proper usage. And that is why I dream of seeing an Italian chef or a French chef tossing his pasta in a wok rather than a pan.
Alex Abbott Boyd:I feel like that just fits into the honoring tradition, but breaking the rules.
Eva Chin:Yeah. Rules are meant to be broken. Traditions are meant to be followed.
Alex Abbott Boyd:So I guess you'd say your your belief is anti gatekeeping, but also
Eva Chin:Anti gatekeeping.
Alex Abbott Boyd:But also don't just, like Yeah. For all saw us and call it Chinese.
Eva Chin:Exactly. Put in the work put in the work and build that community together. Don't gatekeep. I want to see everyone book Chinese, but I also want to see everyone love it for the right reasons. And I also wanna see people advocate for it
Alex Abbott Boyd:for the right reason. For you, what are the right reason?
Eva Chin:How is a community being uplifted and benefiting from what you are benefiting from it? That is the best way.
Alex Abbott Boyd:That makes sense. I was also gonna say because it's delicious.
Eva Chin:Yeah. Yes.
Alex Abbott Boyd:So Rick Bayless and Mexican food maybe I don't know. Where does that fall on this?
Eva Chin:Rick Bayless brought Rick Bayless was more than just Mexican food as well. He is what Julia Child has brought in to America about French food for Mexican food. I see him at the same range as Fusia Dunlop. She is a white lady, but she also dedicated forty of her forty years of her lifespan into the country of China. She put herself through Chinese cooking school.
Eva Chin:Julia, she wanted to learn French food. She put herself through cooking school. She really embedded. She moved to the country. She learned the language, and she's nonstop learning, and she's nonstop going around.
Eva Chin:She has dedicated her life to Chinese food. And she doesn't have to make an announcement for it, but she's just living and breathing what she's doing. She's walking the walk and talking the talk. And I think that's what I really wanna see from folks who are trying to champion our cuisine.
Alex Abbott Boyd:At one point, you spent time working on an organic farm in BC?
Eva Chin:BC. Yep.
Alex Abbott Boyd:K. How did that shape your approach to food and ingredient?
Eva Chin:For me, coming from a farmer's family myself in Hawaii, it's important for me to first learn the terroir and the food before I worked into the kitchens. And so Canada was such a new country to me. I was just I wasn't familiar with what I was gonna cook with. So when I arrived in BC, I applied to to work in organic farms, specifically not working in restaurants, just to be ahead of the game and understand what I'm working with. And that helped me cultivate an incredible relationship with farmers that benefited me when I became a head chef in Vancouver.
Eva Chin:Okay.
Alex Abbott Boyd:I've read that you describe the farmer as the author and the chef as the middleman.
Eva Chin:Yep.
Alex Abbott Boyd:How do you find meaning as just a middleman?
Eva Chin:The source of the story is this fish. There is no story if I don't have this fish. I'm able to turn this fish into a book for the reader. There's a Chinese saying, When there's no lip, the teeth chatter. When there's no teeth, the lips feel empty.
Eva Chin:So it's just everyone is connected. Just the way culture, cuisine, community is connected. As chefs, we're tastemakers. We're part of community and culture, and we create the cuisine. As farmers, as fishermen, as ranchers, they are the creators.
Eva Chin:They are the culture. They are the community, and they are the
Alex Abbott Boyd:Do you think they get enough respect?
Eva Chin:I don't think so.
Alex Abbott Boyd:But that's why you have that tray with all the ingredients that you bring to every table?
Eva Chin:Yeah. I try to fight for what they're growing. The farming industry is facing more dire situations than getting credit, to be fair.
Alex Abbott Boyd:What do you think a truly sustainable restaurant would look like? Do you think you're close or closer than you've been with Yan before?
Eva Chin:I think I've started the journey. I think a true sustainable restaurant is being able to build an ecosystem with the three pillars that I mentioned, the cuisine, the culture, the beauty, where everyone in that ecosystem is benefiting. Everyone is helping each other. No one aspect is bearing too much of it, And that that's all I can ask for a sustainable restaurant.
Alex Abbott Boyd:What are the longer term goals? Because you mentioned wanting to potentially turn it into a full
Eva Chin:We are. We are trying to turn it into a full restaurant.
Alex Abbott Boyd:And you also mentioned just the block being under assault by
Eva Chin:Yeah. The that whole block, that whole strip on Nunnas West is gonna turn into condos eventually. The goal right now is we are in the middle of looking for a space for turning it into a restaurant space. And I'm not in a rush, so we're just trying to find the right spot. But that is the next goal.
Eva Chin:Right now, I'm just enjoying every minute of it.
Alex Abbott Boyd:That's awesome. What do you think that right spot might look like? Do you have a list of things you're looking for?
Eva Chin:I do. I do. I'm not gonna share too much yet, only because it's a wide range of space. It's a wide range of neighborhoods I'm looking at. So it really can go any way on depending on which neighborhood I choose from.
Eva Chin:I adapt and adjust to the community that I'll be surrounded with based on the space that I choose.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Which makes perfect sense given everything else you've said.
Eva Chin:Yeah. And depending on the space, it might become a destination restaurant too. So it really the longer I've the longer Yan has operated, the more I'm willing to hold on to things I need to make it happen. I don't know if that makes sense. It's become a lot more fluid for me.
Eva Chin:I'm not as adamant that it has to open a certain way. It has to be done a certain way. And I know for a fact that no matter where it opens, it will always be a space where I get to do both high end and at low end at the same time.
Alex Abbott Boyd:I love that you're under no rush too.
Eva Chin:No. Yeah. No. Oh my god. Our whole career takes the fun out of our life.
Eva Chin:I didn't work this hard to work this hard again, so I am enjoying every minute I can. And for so long, chefs have a feeling that they have to wait till they have the restaurant to cook the perfect menu, to cook the perfect dish. And the fact is you need to make a new dish every year. It doesn't matter if you have a restaurant or not. Your creativity should not be bound of what space you're in.
Eva Chin:If this if right now at Yan Dining Room, I'm cooking the best food I can cook and I can't anymore, then that's my time to go. But it shouldn't be because I'm opening restaurant. That's when I'll cook my best food.
Alex Abbott Boyd:And does the do you think the three day work week is important to having that those four days where you're not in front of people? Does that give you more room for creativity and recharging? And
Eva Chin:Yeah. I definitely think talking to people definitely takes a toll out of me. I don't know a 100% sure if I will be addressing the whole room in the new Yan space. I don't know if I will have the capacity to talk to everyone. I might have a chef's table and have a separate part of dining room, but I know it's not sustainable to always put myself in front of people.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Is there anything else you'd like to talk about before we wrap up?
Eva Chin:No. I think I think you covered some really good things today. I certainly had fun talking about them.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. Thank you so much for questions. For coming and for being honest and and I think there'll be some people that get a lot out of the conversation.
Eva Chin:Thank you. I like I said, I don't take lightly in our experiences, and so any chance to be able to share them because I know none of us feel alone in the industry. Awesome.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Thank you so much for your time.
Eva Chin:For having me.
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