- [Jasmine] Hey guys, it's Jasmine.
I love food! I love that food connects us,
I love that it brings us together.
Made me start thinking,
Do you think we can use food to communicate with ghosts?
So today, we are going to a haunted restaurant
and it's also a historical Hollywood hotspot
and we're going to try and cook for a couple of ghosts!
What do you guys think about that?
- [Katie] I'm a little skeptical
that we're actually going to see anything.
- [Mimo] I'm scared. (laughs)
- You guys ready? - Yeah... I think.
- So you guys believe in ghosts, right?
- I, I get scared of ghost movies,
but I've never seen a ghost,
So, I guess part of me must believe.
(laughs)
- Well, we've got one avid believer.
- I'm skeptical that anything's going to happen.
I believe there's a possibility.
- I am terrified.
I hope we don't see anything or hear anything.
- Fair warning, I did bring us on this crazy adventure,
but if something happens, I may bail!
- First, we're going to talk to a couple of employees,
the historian, and a couple of others
who have had spooky experiences.
And then we're going to the kitchen
to try and communicate with the former owner, Lem Quon,
and then the former bartender Lindy.
- So those are two like known, ghosts? Potentially there?
- There's actually more. - Oh, okay.
- We're Here! - Okay.
- All right, let's go. Let's get out of here!
- [Maxim] My name is Maxim Shapovalov.
I am a historian and archivist for Formosa cafe.
Formosa cafe is a bar in the restaurant in West Hollywood,
which first was opened in 1939.
Formosa always famous for four things.
It's a place where you can have a decent meal,
stiff drink, cash a check, or make a bet.
Formosa was visited by many celebrities.
Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe,
John Wayne, all those big names.
They all been here. They've been here all.
Somebody's trying to get...
- No. - Nope?
- They're gone? No one was there?
- No one? - They are ghosts.
- Someone just tried to get through the door.
And no one was there
- Well, Lindy Brewerton,
is the gentleman who spent 40 years behind the bar.
Could he be a ghost? I would think so.
I don't have any ghost stories, but many people have.
When Lem Quon was a chef in the restaurant,
He, his specialty was Surf and Turf.
He would serve Steak, and Lobster,
and of course, Chinese food.
Seems like the most popular was Wonton Soup.
Many people made comments that, you know, I love Formosa.
I love food, atmosphere, but Wonton was like, the one.
If you want to make a connection with Lem Quon tonight,
or any ghosts in this place,
why don't you start with Wonton Soup?
I wish you luck.
- I feel like you're sending us to the ghosts!
- [Bobby] The Formosa cafe is a hundred percent haunted,
and I'll tell you why.
This is the main bar.
The main bar has been there since 1939.
Prior to that, it has been here since the twenties,
as a, as a cafe.
It was the kind of place that people felt at home.
And they also party, they had fun here.
And I think a lot of the spirits congregated back here
because that's where their friends were.
And that's where they had fun.
The lights go off randomly.
Right now, this light is off.
It'll be a different light every day,
It'll be a different light.
This light will probably come back on in an hour.
This booth is notoriously haunted.
It was Bugsy Siegel's booth,
and he had a floor safe installed.
And I've got another spot I want to show you,
in the back of the train.
So in the main bar is where I feel things,
but in the train cars where I actually see things,
I see silhouettes of people
in the back of the train car behind the curtains.
Now this is the oldest red car train in existence.
It probably brought the ghosts of travelers along with it,
when it was put here.
And then it's filled with ghosts, you know, until today.
This is Lem's booth.
He would sit here because he could keep an eye
on the front door, and he could keep an eye on the kitchen.
You should talk with Sunny.
She's the one that's had the most experience
with Lem and this booth.
- [Sunny] I'm Sunny. I'm a bartender here at Formosa.
And it's true! This place is haunted.
- [Jasmine] Run us through your experiences.
- The craziest thing that happened to me
was I was standing here one night.
I had patrons right here at the bar, and I turned around,
and I reached for this stack of glasses.
We had not touched it all night.
It hadn't been washed.
There's no temperature difference.
And I barely touch it with my fingertips, right here.
And the whole glass explodes.
And it went right down here on the ground,
like down into the left.
And there was no glass anywhere in the well,
in my hair, in my clothes, I was not cut.
Other nights, I have been hanging out
On the little, in the Rickshaw, the patio right out there.
The other bartender who was here, came running outside,
And she was like, where did that person go?
I just saw a guy walk through the bar area.
And I was like, nobody's here!
- Okay, I'm just going to be like,
I'm getting chills right now!
- Do you react well to these? Like you seem so like bubbly!
- I kind of just play it like that.
I don't think it's malicious.
It's just kind of like, Hey, we're reminding you,
who's place this really is.
They are friendly!
Maybe they'll talk to you today while you're cooking.
Good Luck!
- So something has happened!
When we were in the kitchen setting up for cooking,
- You can show them. - Come with me!
So basically Mimo is helping us,
she's our culinary producer.
And she was helping us prep,
and it was just sitting over in the kitchen by itself.
All of the, like the peanut oil
and the sesame oil was all spilled.
We have a ghost hunting tool,
she turned it towards the area where this tray was laying,
and straight up a silhouette of a man...
- A man standing on the counter!
So the tray was, I put it right here,
Next to like all these things,
And then I come back and it's all spilled.
And it's like glass and it's not broken.
It doesn't make any sense!
Like, how does oil spill from that?
(suspenseful music)
(phone rings)
- So I've never made Wonton soup before,
this will be my first time, - Yes.
- Are you seeing something? - I just heard something.
- What did you hear?
- I don't know, kitchen noises, I guess?
- I'm wondering if Lem is going to care
that we're using store-bought stock... I'm sorry!
We're going to keep up some stock in the pot behind us.
- While Katie is getting the stock started,
I have some shrimp here.
We're just going to roughly chop this.
I'm not going to do it, so that it's super, super minced,
just because I like the chunks in there, in the wontons.
- All right, Lem, if you're here,
can you give us a sign?
Do you like shrimp and pork wontons?
So we're going to start combining our dumpling filling,
which is going to be some pork.
(gasp) - Okay, okay. No Joke.
He's right here, guys! Ghosts, I swear to God.
Do you see him? - Yes.
- Do you see him? He's wearing an apron, I swear. Oh my god.
- [Katie] This is an app! So does the app
just represents where it's picking up a person?
- Why is he wearing an apron?
- So the shrimp's ready to go. - Yes.
I'm just going to set this to the side.
We have the pork here!
The next thing we're going to add, peanut oil.
- [Katie] We're going to do some sugar.
- [Jasmine] Some white pepper.
- [Katie] Corn starch, salt.
- [Jasmine] Some shaoxing wine.
- [Katie] Little dash of sesame oil.
- Now we're just going to mix this all together
and just using my hands...
So I am folding in the roughly chopped shrimp.
I left them slightly chunky, just because in wontons,
when you get like a little bite of it,
the shrimp juices make it really nice and moist.
- Jasmine, why don't you show me
how you like to wrap your wontons?
- So usually, I place it in the center
and take a little bit of water.
- Thank you. - Absolutely.
- I'm going to fold this bottom part
of the wonton wrapper upwards.
Nice and sealed.
And then I'm going to take these two corners
and fold it over like this.
Lem, If we are folding this correctly,
can you give us a sign?
- Okay, so we've turned on an app
that shows us like when voices spike and we hear things.
So we can ask a question
and then we'll see if anything responds.
- Lem, or any other spirits present,
please make yourself known.
So for the, the dumplings... (metal noise)
- Wait. - You heard that right?
- Yeah. Did you guys hear that?
That was weird. That gave me chills right there.
- [Cameraman] You guys reacted at the exact same time.
- 'Cause there was something over here.
- Yes.
- Like something got knocked over.
- Yes, I heard that.
- But there's nothing over there to be knocked over.
This is weird!
- [Jasmine] So our Wontons are done.
Now we're going to prepare our vegetables.
- [Katie] We'll julienne some carrots.
This was called 'War Wonton Soup.'
- [Jasmine] Pretty much, It's like
an everything Wonton soup.
Whatever you have at home, you kind of just
throw things together and you got yourself
a very hearty meal.
- The carrots are done, you want to prep the broccoli?
- [Jasmine] Now I'm just cutting up the broccoli.
I have these florettes,
I'm just chopping them a little smaller.
So now we're just prepping our bokchoy,
I just like to peal it like this,
and then give it a good wash
because a lot of bugs get stuck
in between the layers of the leaves.
And let's finish with the last vegetable,
which is the mushroom.
- Okay, you chop those up.
I'm going to start boiling water
so we can blanch our vegetables, and cook our noodles.
- [Jasmine] So I'm just removing the stems here
and then we're going to thinly slice them.
- Stuff definitely has happened today while we've been here,
but I'm still kind of skeptical
if that's my mind like playing tricks on me? I don't know.
- [Jasmine] I feel like it has to be something.
We're cooking food that is so closely tied
to like, this restaurant's history!
We're just going to get to cooking.
We're going to blanch our mushrooms,
blanch our bokchoy,
our broccoli,
our carrots.
- [Katie] We don't want to over blanch them.
We don't want them to be soft.
- [Jasmine] Now we're going to boil our noodles.
- [Katie] And for our noodles,
we want them to be a little 'al-dente' as well.
- [Jasmine] Our wontons.
We stepped away for literally one minute
and the fire is out.
- No one touched anything. - No.
- It's also not easy to bump into this.
- You actually really can't touch it.
- You can't.
- Maybe the ghost doesn't want us to be making this!
- Maybe he's like, "it's done!"
We're just going to drain them
and transfer them to our stock here.
So we added our wantons into our stock,
Now, we are going to add... careful your mic.
(swears) - How did that happen?
- [Mimo] What just happened?
- That is so weird. - Are you serious?
- Her LAV is on the counter, not on her...
Wasn't it hooked onto your jeans?
- I literally just checked it, and I didn't do that?
That was weird.
- Now that we've added our wontons into the broth,
we're just going to add literally everything we just cooked.
Our noodles.
- We got our carrots, bokchoy, broccoli...
- And our mushrooms.
We're just going to continue cooking this
for about two minutes or so?
- I was just outside talking to the staff
and they said that the crew that comes to clean at night
used to clean around like 3:00 AM
and they refused to do so now,
because of so many things that have happened.
They said all the glasses on the bar have been thrown down.
They said like, they've tried to take the mop away
while they're mopping. (ominous music)
- Well, this is done. (laughs)
So we're going to put it in our bowl,
and then top it with some green onions,
some beansprouts, and some white pepper.
- [Katie] Ooh, that looks so good.
- [Jasmine] So soupy, so comforting!
- [Katie] Lem is going to be thanking us
or whoever's going to be in the booth.
- So we are at Lem's booth.
And we have left a seat right here,
for Lem to join us, as we dine.
- [Both] Cheers!
- I don't know if we want the cheers.
- Cheers to all of the spirits.
- Yeah, thank you for hosting us!
I just felt something weird on my leg.
It was like someone pushed my leg!
- [Mimo] Delicious!
- I feel like the wonton soup is
very comforting, very homey.
- If spirits are here right now,
could you give us like, one final sign?
(lights dim)
- Are you guys doing that?
- No! I just saw the lights.
Like the lights just went out!
- [Jasmine] They're right there.
- Yeah, they're over here.
- No one was near any of the light switches.
This is really weird, because they're over there
and they're over there and no one was standing by them.
This is kind of cool!
I thought nothing was going to happen today.
And I feel like they're definitely here.
- I swear I have goosebumps!
- Let's go have a quick drink at the bar
because I want to see like,
that's where most of the action's been happening.
- Final drink at the bar.
- This is where some of the most activity has happened.
So we felt like we should just always have a drink here.
And I feel like the Formosa was known for drinks
and going to the bar and coming here late.
One of the most popular drinks was the 'Mai Tai', they said.
So that's what we're having, The Mai Tai!
- [Jasmine] Cheers guys.
- If our soup didn't get them here, this is gonna.
- Our soup, I think our soup got them!
- If there is a spirit presence,
will you please send us a sign showing us that you are here?
Perhaps I pick up a glass?
- Oh God, no, I don't want them to shatter next to me.
- Can you imagine?
- What? Those lights went out! Those lights went out again!
- Stop! I missed it!
- Oh! Another light! Those lights went off!
The light over there went off!
The lights went back on! (screaming)
So, just to recap what happened,
We asked for a sign, from any spirits.
All of those lights went off over there
that were above the tables,
And then, the lights all around
that like highlight all the headshots went out.
And then came back on!
- [All] Oh my gosh.
- And again, no one by the lights!
- I was very skeptical
that anything was going to happen today.
I definitely think we made some kind of communication.
- Yeah, I think today I felt like there were ghosts here.
And it was confirmed that there are ghosts here.
And I also think that food really does connect us all.
- I was scared before we got here and I'm leaving scared.
- [All] Cheers! - If you guys love Halloween,
Then you're going to love Tasty's Halloween special!
- Make sure to check out
Martha and Snoops' very tasty Halloween
featuring Martha Stewart, Snoop Dog,
and our very own friend, Alvin.
- [Mimo] It's now streaming on peacock, go watch it!
- Bye guys. - Bye Ghosts!
- [Mimo] Bye everyone.
- [Jasmine] Bye Lem! Bye Lindy, Bye Bugsy!
- [Mimo] Don't come home with us!
- [Katie] Yeah, don't come home!
- [Mimo] Please don't come home with us!
(suspenseful music)