The Adventures in Starry Kitchen

Our Garlic Noodles are... BACK!

Thu, 20 Oct 2022 12:02:26 -0700

SO our Garlic Noodles are available for public consumption… AGAIN!!!You can order them now at our...

SOOOOOO I’m doing a Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL) BIG READ “variety show” zoom/online book talk…

Fri, 13 May 2022 14:52:26 -0700

SOOOOOO I’m doing a Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL) BIG READ “variety show” zoom/online book talk...

Sorry for the delayed posts… it’s now been like 3-4 weeks since we announced #weaintdeadyet AND… we…

Tue, 10 May 2022 22:18:59 -0700

Sorry for the delayed posts… it’s now been like 3-4 weeks since we announced #weaintdeadyet AND… we...

SO since you now know #weaintdead yet, (or are still questioning it) we at #shinstarrykitchen did…

Fri, 22 Apr 2022 15:48:00 -0700

SO since you now know #weaintdead yet, (or are still questioning it) we at #shinstarrykitchen did...

Good News: Button Mash Is Re-Open, Bad News..

Fri, 15 Apr 2022 11:59:00 -0700

Hi,Happy Good Friday for any good Catholics. Good news- you get to eat meat on Fridays again after...

Ho-ly SHIT @chowhound ! 😥😥😥 13 years ago when our...

Mon, 07 Mar 2022 22:49:02 -0800

Ho-ly SHIT @chowhound ! 😥😥😥

13 years ago when our illegal+underground (apartment) “restaurant” was on the rise, one of our fans that tried to post about us on CH got their post taken down BY CH, and got an official response (on slide 3) from Chowhound that they wouldn’t allow the posts about us or future unlicensed+underground places to protect all of us from getting busted (despite the fact we still did- blame it on our 5-star @yelp rating 🤣LOL).

I later found out on a chowhound video shoot we did (when we were legit) that, THAT rule they called (I might recall this incorrectly) “the Starry Kitchen rule” internally because they had never encountered this issue until us, and on the fly they decided to protect us+others going forward (have I mentioned that the health dept printed up my ENTIRE Twitter feed with NO mention of CH when they busted us?!? I guess it worked???🤦‍♂️😅🤷‍♂️).

While I haven’t used CH in so long (SO good for ANY road trip 😫), I’m still fond of that memory and CH will always be part of our unlikely story.

Thanks so much for… ummm, TRYING to protect us and those like us, and of course for being the OG board for highly specific tasty recs+hilariously overly-serious -amongst-the-anonymous-culinary-internet-elite food fights ABOUT food too. We’ll miss y’all mucho. (And who’s going to protect us now?!?🤷‍♂️😆) FYI- we ain’t at Living at Noho anymore suckaaaaaaas 😝😏🥳 (at Living at NoHo)
https://www.instagram.com/p/Ca1VdRprGPL/?utm_medium=tumblr

It's been too long...

Mon, 20 Dec 2021 15:01:43 -0800

(You know, we KNOW we haven’t made an actual tumblr specific POST that wasn’t a IG repost in a LONG...

Really digging the Campy series! Ever see how people in the mountains of Japan clean and cook trout? I introduced a Japanese method of fly-fishing called tenkara here in the US. Would love to take you out on a foraging and trout cooking trip if you are ever interested. Would be happy to send you a bit more info - Daniel, Tenkara USA

Mon, 20 Dec 2021 12:42:47 -0800

Hi Daniel. I THOUGHT I replie to this. That sounds awesome. I'd love to check it out if the offer...

Where in LA can one find House brand Java Curry for the recipe on pg 21? This has become the quest of my quarantine as I made the meatballs on pg19 with the homemade roux and it was too much work but the meatballs were so, so delicious! The best I’ve found is S&B brand Golden Curry at the Thai supermarket on Hollywood.

Mon, 20 Dec 2021 12:41:52 -0800

Sorry for the late reply to this. ANY Korean grocery store, or any 99 Ranch in LA carries it too....

I would like to commemorate this incredibly momentous day I...

Fri, 23 Jul 2021 14:00:09 -0700

I would like to commemorate this incredibly momentous day I never thought would ever come in my or Cillían’s lifetime… we found our very first 24 hr @popeyes today!!! 🙌🙌🙌😭😭😭🍗🔥💫⚡️🌈🏖 (at Oxnard, California)
https://www.instagram.com/p/CRrxPTWsEaL/?utm_medium=tumblr

Ok LA- there’s literally NO excuse now. Let’s get our city back...

Mon, 03 May 2021 17:23:53 -0700

Ok LA- there’s literally NO excuse now. Let’s get our city back to being normal.

Get vaccinated, get (MUCH closer) to getting rid of quarantine restrictions! 🙏🙇‍♂️🙏 (at Los Angeles, California)
https://www.instagram.com/p/CObki3iD8wB/?igshid=l7vtqhprz0cf

Chúc mừng năm mới aka Happy Lunar New Year 😘 Pssssst - if you...

Sat, 13 Feb 2021 19:48:18 -0800

Chúc mừng năm mới aka Happy Lunar New Year 😘

Pssssst - if you want to see ALL that we’ve been eating literally the entire pandemic go follow @skkitchenninja and go WAAAAAAY back. There’s a LOT of food, and she’s more active on social media than I have been since I’ve been kind of ambivalent and honestly it’s better for my mental health🙋‍♂️😉🙏

Bye for now 😘😘😘
https://www.instagram.com/p/CLQhJABj1Fh/?igshid=gzuxq61hdnar

(from my pandemic social media slumber I come back out to tell...

Tue, 09 Feb 2021 15:14:44 -0800

(from my pandemic social media slumber I come back out to tell you…)

I am doing this thing TODAY (Tues, 2.9.21 just to be clear) @ 4pm (and making Garlic Noodles FYI 😉) with @lapubliclibrary . JOIN, even if you aren’t a teen!👍

(Disclaimer: I am in LA right now, and not in Singapore eating a delicious, FRESH durian in the blistering heat in my banana suit like I was in this picture taken 5 years ago… 3 Hainan chicken plates, 1 pepper crab and 1 chili crab later that day😋) (at Los Angeles Public Library)
https://www.instagram.com/p/CLFupscjnDA/?igshid=1tpjw2trdhm93

I’ll take this win… for the future our son+kids every...

Sat, 07 Nov 2020 13:50:52 -0800

I’ll take this win… for the future our son+kids every where. (Aka I’m so FUCKING RELIEVED RIGHT NOW+FULL OF WAY TO MANY EMOTIONS TO TYPE ABOUT) #bidenharris2020 🙌🙌🙌🇺🇸 (at Los Angeles, California)
https://www.instagram.com/p/CHTiVLlj-ei/?igshid=14sd465yjg2c5

👋👋👋YOOOOO Everyone in LA 👇👇👇 (now going back into social media...

Mon, 19 Oct 2020 17:28:28 -0700

👋👋👋YOOOOO Everyone in LA 👇👇👇 (now going back into social media slumber after this 😉) #VOTELA (at Los Angeles, California)
https://www.instagram.com/p/CGi5QoTjlK_/?igshid=lh85b14mhidr

#blackouttuesday 🤜🤛🏿 (at Van...

Tue, 02 Jun 2020 11:23:07 -0700

#blackouttuesday 🤜🤛🏿 (at Van Nuys)
https://www.instagram.com/p/CA8U9BtjUfZ/?igshid=134m19b6gg48f

New #fuckcovid19 recipe from the book up on that-there reddit...

Fri, 24 Apr 2020 09:52:07 -0700

New #fuckcovid19 recipe from the book up on that-there reddit 👉👉👉 https://bit.ly/CocoRicoVietFishSauce : Coco Rico Vietnamese Fish Sauce!!

(2nd pic is… something someone asked for and was what we were preparing for in the last pic in our kitchen. Namely a GINORMOUS food feast+photo shoot we hosted+publicly invited anyone to for the book!)

Oh, and sorry I haven’t posted much. I’m trying not to be a social media fiend like I used to be (aka I don’t really give a shit as much these days LOL🤷‍♂️). ALSO, I realized the recipes on reddit weren’t easily printable so I went through all of them, created PDFs of all of them, updated all of them with links to the corresponding pdf and then created a master list of recipes+PDFs aka… I care too much about unimportant things.😆 Back to the importance of the recipe:

1.I REALLY never thought of Coco Rico as soda (barely don’t even now) AND never knew it wasn’t an Asian product until I had to look it up for the book (it’s from Puerto Rico!)

2. I’m sure I sweat in Vietnamese Fish Sauce now having grown up with it for decades now. (Someone should make a short or movie about a future, cybernetic super human whose body is comprised of only fish sauce instead of water+blood and is the key to immortality… and FLAVOR- I’D WATCH THAT🙋‍♂️👍😅) I don’t have as much poignant babbling to say here, but this shit is SUPER DUPER good w/ anything that needs a savory SPLAAAAAAASH of flavor.

-📷 cred: @baomnguyen (For really like 99.76% of pics in the book; 1 was graciously from @theoffalo and like 1 or 2 crappy ones from me in there: guess which ones if you’re really bored 🤣🤣🤣) (at Banana Suit Enterprises)
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_XvIkfDNTu/?igshid=g9bagbao29v9

Someone on Reddit asked us “Have you guys thought about...

Mon, 20 Apr 2020 11:00:06 -0700

Someone on Reddit asked us “Have you guys thought about going back into the restaurant business?” Photo cred: @baomnguyen

Here’s a shortened version of my response below. Click link to read the full response👉👉👉 https://bit.ly/wouldTeamSKopenanotherrestaurant

When opening any restaurant, every concept, location (incl. @buttonmashla)+pop-up we’ve done+been a part of, we’re usually there every waking moment possible NOT because we have to be there, but it’s honestly because we WANT to be there.

We take a LOT of pride in what we do. Honestly, I’m not sure if that makes us any good, but we’re decently confident at this version of how we manage+grow places.

BUT we have a child now+we CHOOSE not to live that life to not miss the special moments.

I hope+don’t think we’ll ever part ways with our history w/ food. We’ve learned so much about food, how to make it better, becoming better at making it+honestly, learned so much about ourselves in this process.

When we helped open up Button Mash, while it was exciting+I love our dysfunctional family there-I didn’t feel as challenged anymore.
It’s really hard to come to terms w/ that feeling for the business of food I do, despite “the disease” of loving/hating the restaurant business, as some people put it, that I actually DO love.

With all that said, if we find a fully capitalized partner that wants to work w/ us to expand that side of our business, but keep us in the big picture scope of things (while having a fully operational staff+management handling day-to-day)… we wouldn’t be opposed to that. BUT… it’s not even a priority for us. Not something we’re actively chasing on our own. Not even a dream (even if I have a Magnum Opus idea😅), but something we would definitely entertain w/ the right kind of partner.

I really hope Starry Kitchen lives on for as long as we can push it because I feel like we’ve inspired so many+we owe so many a responsibility to see it through. To which end, I’m not sure though. Until we figure that, we’ll just continue trying to fuck shit up+see how much more we can get away w/ in this wonderful industry we’ve carved a tiny piece of for ourselves to meet+feed so many wonderful people we’ve grown alongside w/ like you guys.🙏 (at Banana Suit Enterprises)
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_NjrKGH7-x/?igshid=17o90ajafv6um

New recipe up on reddit👉 https://bit.ly/spambrusselsfriedrice +...

Tue, 14 Apr 2020 10:25:28 -0700

New recipe up on reddit👉 https://bit.ly/spambrusselsfriedrice + please check out the #savebuttonmash link too 👉 https://bit.ly/BMQBP - read my previous post if you missed info on🙏🙇‍♂️) : our @buttonmashla Spam Brussels Sprout Fried Rice which is a GREAT recipe to just read over to understand the philosophy (yeah, I used THAT word🤓) on how to construct your own fried rice with whatever it is you have avail.

Pics: Hainan Chicken search in Singapore (a little more story below, and a LOT more story [because I’m loquacious AF😊🙋‍♂️] if you ask me in person lol)

Y’all should look it over the recipe w/ this mindset: I don’t know enough history of fried rice (bad Asian food person?!?🙋‍♂️🤷‍♂️), but the basic thing I gather is… it’s great way to reuse uneaten (like when made at a home, just to be clear NOT at a restaurant 😅), unused rice to toss a shitload of leftovers together+make Frankenstein something delicious really. This is like a (super fucking deliciously serious) evolution of our spam fried rice from our lunch days. We’ve gotten lots of compliments for it. (We also get weird trolls that claim to hate Spam… and yet they’ll unapologetically admit they’ve never had it, so weird… so sad… so much more Spam for all of us then☝️🤣) And on to the Hainan Chicken chronicles: my search (and growing obsession) w/ Hainan Chicken Rice in Singapore. The 1st set, the most famous one in all of Singapore. The 2nd set, the splinter family fighting faction competitor… that’s 2 stands down. The 3rd set, one that a 7-11 worker told me that if I don’t find+try that she would have no respect for me because this is where actual Hainanese people actually eat at that took me ALL DAY to find, and accidentally found in my last hours in Singapore - it’s solid. Serious #protip: take the 2 fighting families plates, and merge them. 1 makes better rice. (I can’t remember which one). 1 makes better chicken. Hopefully 1 day, they kiss, make up+”Voltron” their recipes for THE super Hainan Chicken plate Singapore (and ostensibly, the world, whenever we get opened up again post- #fuckCOVID19 that is🤔) deserves cause together, it was like #foodwars OR #godofcookery clothing exploding off my body DELICIOUS!! 😭😭😭 (at Maxwell Food Centre)
https://www.instagram.com/p/B–C5BpjVD3/?igshid=a6lnveb9zjty

About 8-9 years ago a fan emailed us this 7 page email about a...

Thu, 09 Apr 2020 08:50:35 -0700

About 8-9 years ago a fan emailed us this 7 page email about a crazy idea of a craft beer bar, arcade and Asian restaurant concept. In consistently SK-like impulsive fashion, I literally sent a 1 line email to the extent of “Ok, let’s do it!” And to be honest, it was one of the best, impulsive decisions we’ve made in our accidental career of #failingupwards.

When this quarantine fell upon us, our staff (like many of you) got fucked in the process of this #fuckCOVID19 madness, and my partners had to sadly lay off 30+ employees that make @buttonmashla live, breathe and exist today. Our close friends+big fans @adamrobezzoli + @iam8bit independently came up with this idea, graciously and honestly really fucking thoughtfully put together this fundraiser to #savebuttonmash and our wonderfully, disfunctional family of staff hosts, servers, runners, bar and kitchen staff that I’ve worked with all these years (and some as far back as our lunch days!) 🙇‍♂️🙏🙇‍♂️

Flip through the pics to see the different levels, and hit the link to find out more 👉👉👉 https://bit.ly/BMQBP

It ends 4.22.20.

There’s a LOT of great downloads (like GAMES+COMICS) and rare swag people amazingly donated from ppl like our book+restaurant illustrator @joseph_harmon and so many others like @amandavisell @doublefine @a.wintory @jonvermilyea @jiojio_warudo @chrisprynoski and our friend @superphamicom including a digital version a Button Mash-ONLY recipe edition of our book from us!

Thanks for everyone’s support over the years, and if you can, we’d love you to support the people makes us/SK/BM what we are today and we couldn’t do without.🙇‍♂️ (at Button Mash)
https://www.instagram.com/p/B-xASJ-DNoU/?igshid=1pe1l2xmbzkna