- Hi, I'm Josh.
- I'm Ollie.
I'm Chef Chris Cho.
And we are here to try some Korean food in South Carolina.
- Let's go. - With bibigo.
Let's go!
We are currently in the middle of a food tour around Italy with a very different chef,
who looks a bit more like a Bond villain.
- You look friendlier. - You look the part.
- Oh, wow. - Oh my.
Look at those guns.
I'm Korean, I gotta be humble.
My apologies, my apologies.
We're currently at the CJ Cup, a golf tournament.
I love that all of the food stands here are selling Korean food.
- Let's try some of it shall we. - Let's go.
Wow.
Not sure there's enough here.
- It's not enough, you want some more? - Yes, please.
I mean, I always want more.
You got nice accents.
Thank you very much. You, too.
Alright, let's do this.
Alright.
Why do I feel like this is an early summer day by the Han river?
- Ooh, we literally could be in Korea. - Yeah.
My mouth is watering just looking at it.
- Shall we start with the dumplings? - Let's do mandu.
Let's do mandu first.
I love that they give you a little bit of coleslaw.
This feels like a little Southern touch.
Mmm.
bibigo classic.
Can't go wrong.
- Is that bulgogi flavour? - I think so.
So this is crazy.
We just got this from a food stand at a golf tournament in South Carolina.
Rory McIlroy is playing just over there.
My dad was super upset he couldn't make it though.
So, we run two restaurants and he's at the other one right now.
Your dad is also a chef?
That's cool.
Pops, uncle. A family of chefs.
Oh, wow.
So, born in Korea. Lived there for 8 years...
Then I moved to Philly, first grade.
I moved back and forth a lot.
I think a lot of Asian Koreans, we talk about how hard it was growing up in America.
- But it was fun, you know? - Really?
Like, eating hamburgers for the first time, hot dogs.
Like, mum, I'm ready to go to school.
Because she's not cooking me any of this.
It's like fried rice every day and stews,
- which is cool. - Yeah, it's great.
I moved to the suburbs in 8th, 9th grade.
And they're like, "You eat school food?"
Hell, yeah, I eat school food.
Beans and hot dogs.
Because you've just been having fried rice at home?
Yeah.
- So this was your culinary inspiration? - Of course.
You've got incredible Korean food, and your dad was already a chef at that point.
Plus a little bit more unhealthy but also delicious American school food.
Honestly, as an English person, it sounds incredible.
On that note, Kimchi bulgogi fries.
Combing Korean and American flavours.
In a way that shouldn't really work, but it actually really does.
Gotta go for the big...
Is it good, Josh?
- That's really good. - It is.
So if I were to make this Philly style.
Philly, we're definitely known for our Cheesesteak.
- Oh, yeah. - So it'd be like a ribeye steak,
Cheese Whiz, which is like a Philly thing.
In British, "Cheese Whiz" would be a cheese expert, I suppose.
How did you go from 8th grader, who loves school lunches
to a chef with two restaurants?
I'm just being who I am.
I never did this to blow up.
My dad was a chef, my uncle's been a chef for 43 years?
When I was born, my dad and uncle were already top chefs in Korea.
Doing what they did. So that's the background.
And I became a chef naturally, through family.
I honestly started TikTok to do motivational videos and that never popped up.
And then I started making kimchi and it went viral.
I'm like, "Oh, shoot, this is what they want to hear about."
Most interesting, I have a brand consultant right now.
And he's been talking about your brand a lot.
- Oh, really? - Okay.
Sorry, I thought you said, "a brain consultant".
Oh, man. Such a relief.
They were telling me to watch your content more.
'Cause it's not only similar to what you're doing
but if you look at what they're doing, you can learn a lot.
- Aww. - That was nice of you to say.
No, it's really encouraging.
Say thanks to your brain consultant.
Honestly, I got nervous when I met you guys.
- No! - Today, I think that's the only time I got nervous.
Everybody else I'm not that nervous, you know?
You should not be nervous.
- Fried chicken. - I'm up for this.
Korean fried chicken, you just can't go wrong. Literally, can't go wrong.
If it's good, let's say I made it.
"If it's good."
Thank you for personally making this, Chef Chris.
This one has a very "tteok-kkochi" flavour.
It does, yeah.
So, you're into Korean food, Korean culture.
How long did it take for you to blow up or hit a certain mark?
Wait, before we get onto that.
I feel like we should move onto the next thing, we should make a move.
I heard there's even better Korean food in that direction.
I still can't get over the fact,
that we've flown across the entire world to South Carolina
and we're having a bunch of Korean street food
- with a Korean chef! - It's amazing.
Hot dog.
So we actually got really lucky.
Pretty much the first video we uploaded went really big
We gotta speak quieter.
I think there's golfers over there.
- There's golfers over there. - There's golfers everywhere.
Golfers, they're like rabbits.
You can't talk too loudly or they'll scamper for the bushes.
I don't think that's how it works.
Korean food, over there. It's really good.
England.
- In South Carolina. - That's exactly what he does.
That's exactly what today is about.
That's the eighteenth hole.
We gotta be quiet.
Vermins.
Rabbits.
So yeah, we got really lucky
and then we did a video where fans could send us mail.
We actually just shared Ollie's office address at the time.
I got in a lot of trouble with my boss.
And in those boxes was some Korean Fire Noodles.
And we made a video giving those to our friends
- And that just blew up, it went viral. - It went crazy.
Wow.
This is VIP stuff right here.
- Oh, dang. - This is fancy food.
- So, the LA ribs. - Oh, LA ribs.
I like this, that's a very Korean cut of meat.
Cheers, man.
That's good.
That's good. Hits the spot.
I've just noticed how cute this little fried egg is.
Look, it's a tiny fried egg. Love that.
I'm actually really looking forward to this fried rice.
How did you get into the restaurant business?
My parents never wanted me to cook.
One day, my mum just really wanted to go to Korea.
She was like, "can you please just fill in for me at the restaurant?"
So I cover for two weeks.
But around that time, my dad got sent to the Emergency Room.
And we thought, "Damn, the restaurant might close."
He was just panicking.
So I decided to go in just to help a little bit.
I went into the kitchen and I started learning
and the second I was chopping it up, I started really enjoying it.
And then I got really competitive and then I just went from there.
Amazing.
Did you train?
So I did actually go to Culinary school.
Just because, in the industry, there's always a "Did you ever get trained?"
"Who did you learn under?"
I'm like, "my dad! My dad's hot!" You know?
But that wasn't good enough.
Plus, they'll always give you the, "Oh, you learned from your dad."
Patronising.
So all this YouTube stuff or being a TikToker.
I hate being called a TikTok chef
but I can't hate on it 'cause I came up from there.
'Cause I worked so hard to be a (beep) chef
only to be called a TikTok chef.
But I'll take it.
- Chris, thank you so much. - Thanks, man.
If our audience want to check you out, where can they find you?
@chefchrischo everywhere, I guess.
- Fantastic, @chefchrischo - Awesome.
And do you have any plans to open up more restaurants?
To be honest, right now, I'm just enjoying shooting content.
I just had a new-born who's like six months old.
So my game plan has changed.
Boy or a girl?
Errrr....
Boy.
I don't know why I thought so long.
No, I can relate. You're six months in, you're pretty tired.
Not much sleep.
I haven't collabed or flew in a year and a half.
I missed it, I'm a full-out dad now.
I'm still gangster out here.
I mean, I miss my son.
Carter?
Aww, that's a nice name.
Shoutout to my little baby.
We're gonna finish this food off.
And in the meantime,
We'll see you JOLLY soon.
- See you later, guys.
Bye!