-Every day was --
whether it was a restaurant or some new situation,
it was like "The Hurt Locker" and you had a new bomb,
and it was like, "Holy 'F.
'" You know, you were freaking out
because you didn't know what was gonna happen,
and every problem felt like it could unravel to be the end.
You know, 10 years ago, I was 31, 32.
I honestly think back about those times as peak insanity.
I remember very clearly not knowing
what the hell was happening.
I still feel this way,
and I know it can seem false modesty,
but I genuinely didn't know what was going on.
What do you want to do, Chef?
We all know the real chef here is Genie.
Genie was a college student at NYU,
and Genie's been a mainstay,
the calming force over many, many years now.
We had no idea what we were doing.
-We still don't know yet.
We're getting better at it. What?
-Because we sort of had nothing, we could question everything.
That was the last period
where I think we were truly sort of the underdog.
If we didn't do whatever we did with ramen,
someone else was going to.
When's the last time you had a bowl?
Nothing in food is ever -- Everything's already been done.
Very, very few people have ever actually
done something new, and --
-Do you feel like you've done something new?
-I think we had something to say.
-Uh-huh.
-Open!
-Like, artists would say this -- you have to copy, initially,
to find your own voice.
But I guess I get irritated when people continue to copy
and they don't find their own voice.
I mean, mathematically, you're going to go
out of business anyway, so what the hell are you doing?
Do you have something to say?
Do you have your voice in your food in some way?
And that's where cooking actually is incredibly beautiful
because there is an artistic expression.
How do you personalize something that anyone can do?
And that's so hard.
And I don't know if that gets enough credit.
I've just reached the point where I'm okay
making really ugly food.
-Are we not going to eat anything?
I thought we were gonna get food.
We're not getting anything to eat here?
-When I look at something like "Ugly Delicious,"
all right, it's really hard to make.
And I'm like, "Why don't we just do an easier thing?"
It'd be so much easier if we just did something
that wasn't trying to unpack very difficult topics,
but I don't know if we know any other way.
In the TV show, I spit out the Chinese food.
We could have edited that out. I'm so sorry.
Can you tell them how sorry I am?
I just didn't know what to do,
because eating dried deer tendon is not easy for me.
And it's funny is, like, I got [bleep] on for it.
Fine.
But when I get to that point of eating something
that's out of my comfort zone,
I'm gonna really be in tune and simpatico with the culture
that I'm trying to understand.
-It's a good thing. He doesn't like it.
If a dummy like me can be open to new things,
then anyone else can, as well.
That's how I look at it.
And, if anything, it's not about my beliefs or anything.
It's legitimately like, if you ever ask yourself,
in any situation -- and you should --
This is how we try to teach our own team.
If you're ever in a situation, and you ask yourself,
why do you believe something,
or why do you do something a certain way?
And if your response is,
"This is how I've always done it,"
or, "This is what has been taught to me,"
and you've never been critical and to thinking, "Why?"
and, "Is there a better way?"
then that's just not good enough.
You know, I never really thought too much about,
I think, from a position from Momofuku's perspective,
hopefully, that we helped change how it's all done.
And I think it's bigger than me on a different front
that I've never really appreciated until now.
I hope that I was the first of many Asian-Americans,
or people that are not white, to help have a bigger voice.
-Pleasure. -Thank you.
You know, the real goal in that, in 2030, would be they're like,
"David who?" Right?
Like, "What'd that guy do?"
Because it's so commonplace that they can't even remember.
That would be pretty cool.
Yeah.