(knife chops) (pan rustles) (dumplings sizzling) (tense music) - You know, when you think of restaurants, when you're the restaurant owner, you think that that's only the place that life happens, and then when we leave, we just don't exist as people.

(mellow music) For the longest time, I didn't want these people that I'd work with and like spend a lot of time with, to eventually want to do their own thing or leave.

(mellow music continues) I have to be okay with people moving on, because that's selfish.

That's like, I just want my situation to be great.

They need to have their experience too.

Peng, did you clear your schedule up tonight?

What are you doing tonight?

Are you inviting your girlfriend?

Don't worry, I'll send you guys an invoice.

(person laughs) Your restaurant's not your family.

That's a community that you're building, but it's not your family.

Life is... You're always figuring it out.

And I think family is just people that are kind of figuring it out with you.

No matter what, they're there.

(mellow music continues) (catchy whimsical music) (body parts creaking) (catchy whimsical music continues) (eye boings) (body parts creaking) (mellow synth music) (mellow synth music continues) I kind of loosely know this area over here, but the area back there, that's where I got married.

There's like a traditional Korean wedding hall.

(mellow synth music continues) So they do like 50 weddings a day here.

It's like, they bang 'em out.

Kinda like Disneyland when you go put on the bespoke old-time thing and get the photo taken.

I was wearing a traditional Korean like hanbok, like the wedding dress.

It was like a two minute rundown.

They're like, "Okay, go."

And they pushed me on stage and I was like, I started freaking out.

I was like, "Youngmi, I don't know what they said.

I don't know like what am I supposed to do."

And she's like, "Don't worry, it'll be fine."

(mellow music) You know, it was happening.

(mellow synth music fades) Before I met Youngmi, I wanted to like date girls and do cool stuff, but I couldn't, because I couldn't afford it, and I was always working.

I was working at Tsunami part-time.

Kind of phased myself out of... Making sushi and just worked like 50 to 60 hours.

It was very lonely.

Working there, I worked there...

It was an oyster bar.

And I also worked at this place called Bar Crudo.

There was a bodega next door.

I remember I was going to buy a Red Bull or something, and like a California roll.

I saw these people walk in and I was like, "Wait a minute, who is this?

Damn like, I need to just hang on a second."

(tense drum music) (Danny gulps) I hadn't felt that feeling in a long time.

In your chest you feel it.

You're like, "Whoa."

And it was a very pure, kind of just like out of a movie or something silly.

Youngmi and her friend Alicia.

They were buying like dried spaghetti and brownie mix.

And I was like, "Oh, here's my in.

Is that all you guys are buying?"

They're like, "Yeah."

And I was like, "Okay.

You don't need any sauce or anything?"

They're like, "Oh, no, we have it at home."

I'm just booting this.

This is horrible.

It was so awkward.

And I was like, "I gotta go back to work, whatever."

I didn't know how to like talk to Youngmi.

I didn't know how to ask for her number or anything.

It was like, definitely like outta my league situation.

I was like, "What do I do?"

Like, there she goes.

(whimsical music) One night, it was Valentine's Day.

And at that point, Alicia had given me Youngmi's number.

"Here, call us tonight.

We're going to this bar."

And I couldn't, because I had no money.

I couldn't even buy her a drink.

So, I went home.

I like threw the phone number under the bed.

A bed with like no sheets on it, and just laundry and Shin Ramyun bowls everywhere.

So then I didn't go, and Youngmi ended up meeting this guy that she dated for two years.

(whimsical music continues) And I'd run into Youngmi at like a show.

I was like, "Oh, hey, how's it going?"

And she's like, "Great."

We went outside and we were just talking, and you know, it was nice to be together.

But I was like scared.

I was like really scared.

Youngmi, I think she went to like kiss me or something, and I saw a cab coming.

(cab screeches) I just started running, I was like, "See ya later!"

And like got in the cab and went home.

And that moment was the moment where I felt like, "Oh, I just totally blew this.

Like, what am I thinking?"

Because I knew.

Like, you know.

You know that you like each other.

You know there's this chemistry there.

(calming music) I remember the next morning, we went for lunch at this restaurant.

We were extremely hungover, and we were eating Chinese food.

What could be better?

And I ordered mapo tofu, and then Youngmi ordered like scallops three ways.

And I was like, uh, that's like $19.

But I had so much respect for that move, I was like, "That's amazing."

To come in and order like the baller-ist dish on the menu.

I remember calling my friend Nick Haggard.

"Dude, I think I met the girl that I'm gonna marry."

That was it.

Things got amazing.

Where you feel invincible and you feel like anything is possible.

(soft piano music) (Youngmi speaks in Korean) - She's coming.

I said we're by the swing.

(catchy electronic music) - Ah!

(kid laughs) - Are you hungry, Mino?

No?

(catchy electronic music) I love you.

You're so much bigger than you used to be.

(catchy electronic music) Mino, I think the delivery guy is here.

(Youngmi speaks in Korean) - [Mino] Someone too.

I feel like Korean-Chinese food always delivers.

It's satisfying in a way that like, Americanized Chinese food or takeout Chinese food is.

- I think it probably developed in the same way that American Chinese food developed.

Is that a great representation of Chinese food?

No, but it's like kind of fun and easy to eat.

(whimsical music) There are three things that Korean people order.

One is jajangmyeon, which is a black bean sauce over noodles.

Jjampong, which is a spicy seafood soup.

Same kind of noodles as in jajangmyeon.

And tangsuyuk, which is sweet and sour pork.

It's like a deep fried pork donut covered in sugary sauce.

Also, bokkeumbap is really popular.

Like fried rice.

- [Danny] Right.

- [Youngmi] And they, you know, serve it with the classic Korean black bean sauce.

- Is black bean sauce fairly ubiquitous when it comes to Chinese food?

- In Korea, I think this is the most popular thing by far.

If you were to ask a Chinese Korean restaurant the percentage of like what people order, it would be probably like 90%.

(calming music) Where's... Oh, we didn't get a jajangmyeon.

- Jajangmyeon, the Korean black bean sauce noodle dish, always has like pork.

Sometimes it has like squid or cuttlefish in it.

A lot of the pork fat renders into the dish, and helps create the sauce, and give it this really silky textures.

After being in Korea and going to the park and seeing like a lot of people ordering this, I'm having all these food memories that I didn't know I really long for.

There's some comfort there.

There's definitely flavor.

Food should be shocking and surprising, but it's gotta be delicious.

(mellow synth music) We're gonna start with a fair amount of oil, garlic, rosemary and bay leaf.

I think that the clams in black bean sauce, it's such a comforting flavor.

I mean, the flavor of black bean sauce is just pure umami.

When I had jajangmyeon for the first time, it reminded me of clams and black bean sauce.

There was a shared flavor experience between the two dishes.

These are already starting to open.

I'm gonna help them along.

I'm gonna add a little bit of whiskey... And then we're gonna add a good amount of white wine, just for flavor.

This is black bean sauce that we make here.

So if you were just to add a little bit of soy sauce, you could stop here, and you would have clams and black beans sauce.

But I like to take it a step further.

Instead of adding the red chili at the beginning, it would've lost a lot of its punch.

I'm gonna add it now.

Pinch of sugar.

And then I'll add a two finger pinch of mushroom powder.

Just the fat and the clam juice and the wine and the whiskey are making this like sauce.

Add about a teaspoon of squid ink, and you'll see the color will immediately change.

I'm gonna take the pig's blood.

You want to add it when it's off the heat.

'Cause you don't want to cook it.

If you cook blood, it curdles.

And the heat from the pan is enough to start thickening it.

(clams rustling) And then I'm gonna add a little bit of the ham fat now.

I was really adamant about having some sort of pork fat in the dish, but not having pieces of pork.

(mellow synth music) Right now, the sauce is where you want it to be.

It really coats the spoon.

If someone eats this and they're like, "That reminds me of something."

And it takes 'em a few days to figure it out... That's the magic of food.

For me, this dish really is symbolic of me finding my own voice, and figuring out how to do it my own way.

And then later down the road realizing, "Oh, that's just basically jajangmyeon."

But, you know, not really.

(mellow music) (Danny whistles) Oh.

Ready?

One... - Two.

- Three.

- Three.

(Danny whistles) - Oh.

(Mino chuckles) Can you one bite for me, please?

The idea of one big happy family is something that I chased for a really long time.

(mellow acoustic music) Whoa, whoa, whoa, careful.

After Mino was born, I felt like I had this family finally here.

I'd never had blood relatives growing up, and now I do.

(mellow acoustic music continues) It was very scary having a kid.

What it does is it makes you realize the things that you do wrong in your own life.

The things that were done wrong to you.

And you have this responsibility now to make sure that you protect this child.

I'm about to go.

(Mino raspberries) What?

(Mino speaking) (knife chops) - [Mino] Now.

- Are you ready, Mino?

I'm gonna make your soup right now.

(knife shops) (soft music) So I'm making Mino kalguksu, which is like one of the first soups I had when I went to... (Danny speaks in Korean) It's one of my favorite ones.

It's like a noodle soup.

Make a little beef broth, and you put the clams in it, so it's more of like a clam and beef broth.

I put the broth on last night, 'cause it's better if the broth goes low and slow overnight, and then put it all together in the morning.

I do this every morning.

Well, not every morning, but most mornings I do this.

It's nice to make something he likes, and it's fun to like bond with him over that.

It's also just very zen.

It's not like you're in a loud kitchen or anything.

Okay, you ready to eat breakfast?

- Yeah.

- Okay, wait, I'm gonna make you noodles.

How many noodles do you want?

- All of them.

- All of these?

Okay.

(mellow music) When he likes something, he really likes it a lot.

He's kinda like me.

And he kind of gets in these phases of wanting to eat something a lot.

So like right now he likes noodles.

- [Mino] Dada?

- Yeah?

- I want something.

- Okay, gimme a second.

- [Mino] Ah!

Woops.

- You know what these are, Mino?

What are these?

- What?

- They're clams.

- [Mino] Clams?

- [Danny] Yeah.

- [Mino] Can I have some please?

- Yeah, I'm gonna put some in your soup, okay?

(calming music) (broth steaming) Chefs thrive off of control.

We'll do mise en place, we'll get everything ready, so that during this moment that we know is very important, and that we excel.

Right?

Okay, you ready for your soup?

(mellow music continues) (spoon clangs) Mino, I'm gonna put some gim inside.

(seaweed crunches) (mellow music) You sure you want all these noodles?

It's a lot of noodles, Mino.

Blow on it, okay?

It's a little hot.

(ice cubes rattling) I made the mistake for a long time, "I'm a chef.

I'll be great at having a kid."

That's not necessarily true.

There you go.

Here you go.

This is your soup.

(Mino yelps) You want the soup with noodles?

Or just noodles by themselves?

Here, why don't you eat this one now?

- By themself.

Oh, no.

- Oh, you like it by itself?

Okay, here.

I'll leave this spoon here if you want soup.

You can't prepare yourself for things going wrong all the time, or being able to just give up control.

Here.

Eat the soup.

Kids are very humbling in that way.

You have to let things ride out, and let them come to their own conclusion sometimes.

Oh, oh, hang on.

(Mino laughs) - You haven't unlocked it.

- Oh, do we have the key?

Here.

Chk-chk.

Okay, it's unlocked.

Is it still locked?

I thought I unlocked it.

Chk-chk-chk.

It's hard, bro.

Here.

Do you have the key?

Can you unlock it for me?

Thank you.

Oh, that's a good face.

I love you.

- You can't step on that.

- Okay, let's step over it!

We made it!

You're a movie star now!

(mellow synth music) (mellow synth music continues) This is like my favorite thing about coming back to Seoul.

You can't go eat this for breakfast in like New York anywhere.

I'm so excited.

The first time I met Youngmi's mom, I was very intimidated.

I surrendered myself because, you know, I knew nothing about Korean food.

Oh, what is this?

What is this fish called?

(Sumi speaks in Korean) - Sumi, what is this thing?

So this is like seaweed?

What is this?

- Hanchi, they call.

Oh, oh, Danny!

- [Danny] What are you doing?

What are you trying to- - Look, it's trying to bite you.

- Yeah, I know!

- Stop, stop!

(Sumi speaks in Korean) - [Sumi] Is best for.... - How do you know all this?

How do you know all this stuff?

You know, with Sumi, she's always like testing me and being like, "Are you sure you like this?

Are you sure you wanna try it?"

For me, like being able to get someone else's perspective on food that they've grown up with, to share it, to eat it, it's really...

It's a breath of fresh air.

So when you were a kid, like, did you come to the fish market at all or... - If you have party something, you come here, and make a sashimi upstairs in the restaurant.

So, we can buy here and cook up there.

- I definitely wanna get some clams, and like some crab.

I know Youngmi loves crab, so we should definitely get crab.

- Oh, this is... (Sumi speaks in Korean) - Yeah.

- [Sumi] Oh, they peel all skin out.

- [Danny] Oh, wow.

- You can taste.

- No, I know, I mean... - [Sumi] (laughs) You hate it?

- [Danny] That's one of the few things I just don't really like.

- Let's try anyway.

- All right, all right, all right.

- Okay, thank you.

Ooh!

Airplane coming in!

(Danny laughs) Mm.

- It's good.

It's got this weird thing where it kind of makes your mouth feel like... - Yeah, yeah- - Numb.

It's not as I remember it.

(mellow music) Upon first meeting her mom and her dad, those horror stories of like, "Oh, my in-laws are so horrible."

And propaganda that's pumped into your head from TV shows and stuff as a young kid, I was like, "Oh my god, they're gonna hate me, and her dad's gonna like be cleaning his guns when I walk in the front door."

It was nothing like that.

They were very welcoming and like very loving.

And then the more I warmed up to Youngmi's parents and they warmed up to me, Youngmi's mom, she really loves pasta.

I was like, "Let's make something together, and utilize whatever you have in your house."

And she had lots of pork bones.

(bouncy electronic music) So I have all the ribs here kind of taken off.

There's a lot of really good meat here.

I'm just gonna season it very evenly with some salt.

So, I have a fair amount of olive oil on the bottom of this pan.

I have a little bit of butter, garlic, and I don't want this to brown at all.

I just wanna kind of infuse it really quickly.

I'll add the sofrito.

Pine nuts.

Have some rosemary in.

I'll take some bay leaves.

What you don't want to happen is for all of the liquid to evaporate and just have a bunch of fried sofrito and nicely seared meat.

We're gonna use some Japanese whiskey.

(flame whooshes) And then we'll add our wine.

The alcohol just makes it taste really good.

You want to like kind of let the wine come up to almost covering but not completely covering.

That's very important.

We're looking for the liquid to come from the meat.

Once the meat is almost completely immersed in liquid, put a piece of parchment on top of this.

A good thing to look for are these little bubbles from underneath the parchment paper.

Really gentle bubbles.

Nothing too crazy.

Kinda hear it when you walk by it and see it, but you don't want it to be ripping.

Because again, we're gonna look for that liquid to come out of the meat.

Actually, Youngmi's mom took a little nap.

She got really tired.

"Why is it taking so long?"

I feel like that was the big pressure, which is nothing that I'm unfamiliar with as a chef, but that sauce takes three hours.

This is the part that we got through before she laid down to take a nap.

(mellow music) (tray clatters) This is like a fluke, right?

- [Sumi] Yeah, fluke.

Oh, that one is nice!

- [Danny] Oh my God!

- [Sumi] Oh my God!

- It's so big!

- Woo!

Oh my God.

Beautiful, look at that.

Oh, oh!

- [Danny] I can't wait for Mino to come here.

- [Sumi] Oh, look at that!

- [Danny] It's really insane.

(soft music) How excited do you get whenever Youngmi comes back?

- I'm so excited, I can't sleep two days.

(Danny laughs) - Really?

- Yeah.

Butterfly inside.

Like, I couldn't wait for Mino.

Especially Mino.

- [Danny] It's exciting for you to be around Mino?

- [Sumi] Yeah, of course.

- He knows what he wants.

- [Sumi] Yes, definitely.

- Was Youngmi like that as a little kid?

Was she like pretty... - Oh, no.

She's tough, but she has a lot of passion.

- Oh, really?

- And she's shy.

- Yeah.

- I never knew, she has a lot of things she put on the inside.

- Uh huh.

- So I concerned about Mino, those too.

- Mhm, mhm.

- But no, Mino is speak up person.

- [Danny] Yeah.

- My favorite grandson.

- It's your only grandson though.

I can't promise any more, Sumi.

I think that's it.

I think that's all- - [Sumi] Oh, I don't know.

I crossed my fingers.

- No!

Stop, stop!

(Sumi laughs) - I do.

I do, I do.

(soft wondrous music) (knife chops) Oh, looks good, huh?

- Yeah, it looks so good.

(mellow string music) I love this, 'cause there's so much collagen.

You know, when you eat something, you eat like a really awesome dish that like kinda makes your lips a little sticky.

It creates that really luxurious mouth feel.

(mellow acoustic music) So if you wanted to make this really pretty and beautiful, you could run it through a food mill.

And that would look like a meat sauce.

But I like that it's really nice and rustic.

(pan sizzles) Pork rib sugo is done.

(mellow acoustic music continues) And so today, I'm gonna make this with ramen.

It's an alkaline noodle, so that there's no egg in it.

It uses an alkaline salt to set the dough, and it gives it this really, really chewy, springy texture.

I'm gonna pull a little bit of the pasta water here.

It's gonna help me make this sauce.

(mellow music) So what we're looking for here is a nice, glossy texture.

When you pull it back like that, there should be sauce that kind of runs from underneath it, but not a lot.

(spoon scrapes) (mellow music) One of the things that I love about Italian food is that when you eat it, there's no doubting that it's satisfying.

Kind of like Korean food too.

If you do it right, you don't even have to add salt.

You just add a little bit of cheese.

(mellow music continues) Everybody ate really fast, 'cause it took so long for me to make the food, and then kimchi and rice came out afterwards, and I was like, I asked Youngmi, I was like, "Wait did I not make enough food?"

I was like, "Did I do something wrong?"

She's like, "No.

Even if you go eat at a restaurant, you go home and you kinda eat kimchi and rice afterwards."

I thought I'd done something wrong, but...

It's like something about that new thing, but always wanting to go back and have something that's comforting and familiar.

(mellow acoustic music) (knife chops) (water splashes) (flames whooshing) It's a breakfast of champions over here.

(calming string music) (pan sizzles) - [Sumi] Ooh, looks nice!

(camera shutter snaps) Wow!

- [Danny] I got all this for you, Youngmi.

This is the best.

- [Sumi] This is good with soju, but Danny not gonna drink.

(Danny laughs) (Sumi laughs) - Having a family, it's about appreciating everything.

Things are gonna be difficult.

You're gonna have all these things that are huge challenges.

And it's all about recovery.

(Sumi laughs) (Mino laughs) - Mm.

- Kind of embracing those moments of discomfort, and getting better.

And that's what I see in my own family.

Mino, look at Daddy.

(Danny whistles) - [Youngmi] Mino, look at Daddy.

- First time you visit Korea, you remember?

You tried this and that and that.

I said, "Oh!'

- The last day I was here, you made me eat five restaurants.

- [Sumi] Uh huh.

You never say no.

You just appreciate.

(mellow music) Thank you.

- Don't worry about what will or could happen, just worry about that when it happens, and just be here now.

(all cheersing) - [Sumi] Cheers!

(box whooshes) (whimsical electronic music) (whimsical electronic music continues) (whimsical electronic music continues) (logo beeps)