This one is bluefin tuna.
This one is 40 pounds.
Move that for me.
Very long.
Bluefin tuna from Spain.
This one we have bought three kinds of.
We have belly, we have a medium fatty, and we have akami.
I want to stand out in doing omakase.
Because I want to create something unique.
Create an identity,
my own signature style.
Akami, bluefin tuna.
I start with what I like to eat first.
I take what I like and add it to sushi.
Then I add a unique flair, making it...
Chutoro, medium fatty tuna.
...more Thai, more me, without removing the image or ingredients of Japanese food.
Otoro, fatty tuna, on top with caviar.
Welcome to our restaurant.
I think this is the only place with Thai omakase in New York.
I am proud of what I do,
because I brought together two things that I love.
This one is Nodoguro.
The difference between Thai and Japanese food,
is Thai food has
more ingredients, flavors, and intensity than Japanese food.
Japanese food, on the other hand, emphasizes simplicity.
It is more attentive to details.
This one is a Kinmedai.
In U.S., it's called a golden-eye snapper.
Each country's cuisine has a mix of easy and difficult elements.
The difficulty depends more on how much care you put into it.
So this one is my favorite fish.
It’s a Shima-aji.
So actually I don't like uni
because it's like fishy and tastes
like something I don't want to talk.
But I got the best uni for you guys, don't worry.
This one is from Hokkaido.
I chose to be a sushi chef over a Thai chef
because I know I won't ever be able to cook better Thai dishes than my mom.
But I make better Japanese food than my mom. She can't beat me in that.
This one is a king salmon from Scotland.
Tastes like a dream.
It depends on the season
but I chose the king salmon because
I personally like king salmon and I think king salmon from Scotland is the best.
I'm gonna break it down
and then I'm gonna do a Thai tradition
and between Japanese, it's called miang kham.
Ready?
I'm gonna break it down right now.
"Miang kam" originates from the northern region.
Can you smile, yeah.
Good boy.
It's like a snack in the North.
It has wild pepper leaf, peanuts,
ginger, lime, sauce.
You see the color?
This one's the fat part, this one's the lean part.
The sauce is similar to a tamarind sauce.
That gave me the idea to fuse it with Japanese food.
You see that?
The bone, you see the line over here.
You're gonna check if the salmon
is fresh or not when you take out the bone.
If it's difficult to take out, the meat is really fresh.
Oh, that is the 7 train.
You want to take a train, let me know.
This one's the belly part.
I always use it for the sushi.
You torch the skin and then you put truffle sauce,
really oily, and people love it.
If you want to get fat, this part is for you.
Salmon belly has a lot of fat.
I torch it to bring out the fat.
When coupled with the tamarind sauce, it goes very well together.
We have this one because we don't have a kitchen.
We have nothing, but we still do it.
So we're gonna boil the water first
and then we're gonna put in the sugar cane.
Sugar cane grows everywhere in Thailand.
So next is gonna be tamarind juice.
Tamarind, in Thailand, is called makham
It's a fruit, I really like it.
A little bit of sour and sweet.
And then we put in the fried onion.
I don't use fresh onion
because fresh onion, the taste and flavor is really strong.
It's gonna overpower other flavors.
And next we're gonna put the chili paste.
I think, a little bit spicy
if you're not a Thai person.
My mother-in-law taught me how to make the tamarind sauce.
It's important for us to learn
from chefs who are older than us.
Yeah, look very good!
I did it.
My mom's gonna be proud of me.
I torch the salmon because I want it to have more
flavor and a more unique aroma.
The reason I bring in Thai flavors, strong flavors into sushi
I want to use those flavors in enhancing the flavor of Japanese fish
in a unique way that better represents my identity
without destroying the flavor of the fish itself, which is already good.
So this one is smoked king salmon with tamarind sauce, smoked with the rosemary.
So this one is Isaki.
It's a Japanese fish from Southern Japan.
So we're gonna clean up the scales
and cut off the head and take out the gut,
and clean everything nice.
I like isaki because it's a white fish with a light and delicate taste.
It's not a popular fish in the U.S. or it's not that well-known.
Yellow one is like,
the liver inside the fish,
and then we have to cut it over here
because of blood inside.
If you don't cut and clean it, it's gonna be,
The fish is gonna be bad.
To cut the small fish is like the same thing.
You cut both sides,
and then you're gonna see the middle of the bone and then, just...
So actually my favorite fish is white fish.
I don't like the fatty fish
because I don't want to get fat.
Just kidding.
White fish in Thailand is common
and is popular among Thais, because there are many ways to cook it. You could grill, boil, or fry it.
In Thailand, we can catch fish
in any river, anywhere.
We don't need a permit or anything.
But in US you have to,
when you want to catch it you have to get the permit.
What the f***?
Yeah.
So we're back to isaki, ok?
For me, everything is difficult,
but you have to pay attention.
You have to think about what life,
you have to respect the ingredient.
That's what I do.
My wife picked my outfit today
because, she told me, she wants me to be myself.
This is myself.
Rock and roll.
I came to the U.S. 11 years ago.
because my parents wanted me to do my master's degree in Chicago.
But I didn't graduate.
I became a sushi chef first.
In Chicago, my mom was a chef,
a Thai chef in a Thai restaurant in Chicago.
I want to take care of my mom, to support her.
This one is isaki.
Right now we're gonna do the panang curry.
It's a Thai tradition.
Actually from the center of Thailand normally but,
all of Thailand has curry, but different flavors.
So this is my favorite curry in my life,
because my mom always made it for me.
Panang has many ingredients. There's actually a lot.
There's panang paste,
coconut milk, salt, sugar, and makrut lime leaf.
Those are the main ingredients.
The panang paste is galangal, mixed with the red chili,
with curry and they mix together.
galangal is kind of a ginger,
but different flavor and different smell.
Yeah!
You smell that?
Little bit spicy, smells spicy.
Coconut milk over here.
And then the last thing,
This is lime leaf.
In Thailand, it's called makrut.
I love it because it smells really herby.
My grandmother planted it.
The old people always plant everything,
and you don't have to buy it.
Curries are important to Thai people,
because everyone eats curry. It could be curry or soup.
Each is significant in its own way.
So today we're gonna do like a Thai tradition,
panang curry with anago.
So this one is anago, it's a sea eel.
Anago comes frozen from the winter.
So this one is from Japan.
Anago are sea eels.
There's a difference between unagi and anago.That is...
anago is sweeter and crispier.
So I had this idea that the crispiness and sweetness
would go well with the spiciness of the panang curry.
The people who make the best panang curry are... my top two are my mother and my mother-in-law.
And third place goes to me.
I think I can make my mother proud now, being able to make panang for her.
So this one is anago panang curry from Thailand.
This is Shima-aji, it's a horse mackerel.
This is my favorite fish.
Why?
Because I just like it.
Shima-aji is horse mackerel.
Its taste is between a saba and a baby yellowtail, or kampachi.
It has a tenderness to it. It's light. It's a bit fatty.
That's why I like it.
So we're gonna do the scale differently from the other fish.
So we're gonna take out the skin,
we're gonna use the knife.
It's really difficult but I do my best.
This one is called kumamoto.
It's like a band, it's too thin that's why.
You see, the scale is really thin,
that's why you have to use a knife.
So Shima-aji is in season right now.
When it's in season, it's really fat.
That's why I love it.
I do nothing to the Shima-aji,
just soy sauce, wasabi, and that's it.
Because the taste is good already.
So you don't have to do anything about Shima-aji.
The one thing you have to do, pay attention.
When you take off the skin,
you have to make sure every scale is out
because you have to use your hand and touch it.
When I became a chef in Chicago,
people doubted I would succeed.
A lot of people questioned whether I could become a sushi chef.
And I focused on improving myself,
working hard,
working harder than others, double or triple the effort,
so that I would succeed.
So I'm gonna put the tissue because it holds the tail,
so it doesn't slip, and then, one chop.
I think making sushi is like making art.
Because cooking requires experience,
emotions, in presenting our food.
It's a way of expressing ourselves to others.
So this one is Shima-aji, horse mackerel.
I wouldn't be here today
if it weren't for my family,
my kids,
my brothers and sisters.
Omakase in most people's understanding is
"chef's choice," a menu that a chef decides on.
This is my meaning of the omakase I'm doing today.
I'm not Japanese,
but I respect food.
I love Thai food.
That's why I'm combining the two.
I took everything I have,
my experience, my struggles,
what I want to prove, my family,
and expressed them through the dishes I create
with care and attentiveness.
I want everyone to experience my feelings
I want to create something unique for people to see that it's possible.
Thai people can do it too.