Every day there is a stable of Korean language food blogs I check out to get inspiration and info on restaurants, ingredients and recipes. This is one of the most prolific restaurant bloggers–but the title is confounding. You see, look at the title board.

It says, “THE FACE BoA.”

That can’t be the title of the blog. It’s a 2008 Japanese album release by Korean pop star BoA. It looks like the blogger took a picture of the back of the CD and pasted it on there. This is the most puzzling thing about the blog.

The blogger’s name is “happiend.” But if you look at the title bar, you find what I think is the real name for the blog, “행복한 세상” (“Haengbokhan Sesang”), which I think loosely translates to “Happy Lifestyle.”

And what a lifestyle this blogger has!

You see, there’s a reason you don’t see many restaurants on ZenKimchi. Going to restaurants can be expensive. I don’t have a trust fund. I’m not rich. Yeah, I make decent money, but do you think my wife will let me spend that all on restaurants? She’s Korean. The general rule of Korean wives is that any excess money goes into one of many savings accounts. That’s why going to an ATM can be such a frustration with all the ajummae and their decks of bank books they’re updating.

Happiend goes to restaurants every day. And all kinds of them, too, concentrating on Seoul, Bundang and Jeju but really going all over the country.  She’s at her best (am assuming she’s female by clues I find on the blog) when she goes to Korean restaurants. She finds some good ones. There’s one she posted recently in Gangwon-do that I really need to take a road trip for–it’s a grilled duck and chicken place with a dirt floor and central wood burning furnace. I’ve been to some dirt floor places before, and I love them. There’s another one about a gejang (cured crab) restaurant that just makes me drool.

Happy Lifestyle follows the pattern of most Korean food blogs, especially the restaurant ones. You won’t find much restaurant reviewing here. It’s mostly pictures with short descriptions. It’s all about sharing what you ate rather than judging every damn thing put down in front of you, which I find dull and self-absorbed.

Nonetheless, HL does have some quirks. She photographs everything like she’s making a record of each item that goes through her gut. A can of Sapporo is a can of Sapporo. It’s no different wherever you have it. But she takes the shot anyway. She also seems to have some pretentious leanings and is fascinated by those silly tricks Korean fine dining restaurants do to impress the noveau riche.

Yes, a waiter is actually pouring makkoli from its plastic jug into a carafe like it's a wine that needs to be decanted.

Aside from these, Happy Lifestyle still is one of my top sources for restaurants just for the sheer number of places she goes to. And they’re easy to skim through to get the atmospheres of these dining spots. You don’t need to read Korean to get them. But, yeah, you would need to know some Korean to figure out the name of a restaurant and where it is.

행복한 세상 Happy Lifestyle

Incoming search terms:

• happiend
• korean blogger
• korean blog
• korean language bloggers

Delilah Snell, a master food preserver (MFP), taught a class in kimchi-making at the Eat Real Festival in Oakland, Calif., on Aug. 29. [See the Sept. 2 post "Korean cuisine rolls into Eat Real Festival 2010, San Francisco Bay area."]

Delilah Snell quickly chops some garlic and ginger for her kimchi demonstration.

At a stage in the “urban homesteading zone,” Snell spent 19 minutes going through the ingredients and steps in making the commonly recognized spicy Nappa cabbage kimchi (배추 김치 baechu kimchi). She also took questions from an audience of more than 100, several of which vied for a chance to help her with the demonstration.

Snell kindly answered a few questions via email about herself and her passion for traditional cooking methods.

What is the name of your store? What do you sell there?
My store is The Road Less Traveled, an eco-friendly store selling green, natural, organic and fair-trade products in Orange County [Santa Ana] for almost five years. We also teach a number of classes there.

What kind of culinary training led you to teaching food preservation?
I have always been into food and gardening. [I] started a non-pro several years ago, starting [at] farmers markets, food gardens, etc. in my area. I just always wanted to know how to preserve for the store, but I ended up falling in love with all sorts of preservation after becoming going through the MFP program.

How long have you been teaching classes on food preservation?
Over a year.

You noticed there were more than 100 people there at Eat Real Festival to hear your presentation on making kimchi. What did you think of that?
I loved and was so excited and happy to see people interested. It give me faith in the future of food. I was a little shocked though — didn’t expect so many!

Why are Americans “scared” of traditional fermented foods? This goes into what what you brought up during the lecture: people — here at least — are so removed [from] how to do things again — plus bombarded by marketing telling you that you don’t need to so you can by their “crap.” You mentioned the kimchi turning sour — and, yes, I agree [it's] totally fine and normal to eat. But from my perspective, I am teaching safety, and I just want to make sure that people don’t just leave it to rot thinking, “It’s OK if it is sour.” This [food safety], in my mind, is the baby-step for them to start exploring.

During the questions after the demonstration, someone in the audience asked her, “If you let it go sour, is it dangerous, or is it a flavor issue.”

“It went bad, so you don’t want to eat it,” Snell answered

I piped in at that point that Koreans often use sour kimchi to make a common stew called 김치찌개 kimchi jjigae.

She responded, “If it’s gone bad, you may have created an environment where other bacteria can come in.”

The interchange came in the last couple of minutes of her allotted time, so we had to pick up the discussion privately.

Why are people more interested in these traditional foods?
[The] local/DIY [do-it-yourself]/anti-big-ag[riculture] movement is and has been growing. People are taking food and food manipulation into their own hands as a form of self-empowerment.

Do you see a difference between Northern California and Southern California in regard to the interest in traditional cooking methods?
North California was so responsive. Here in South California[, it] might be a little less. But L.A. is growing. The size of the region is a problem, though, as far as people going to a lecture in this area.

What is your favorite meal to eat with kimchi?
The Kogi Truck success has been a real motivation. They use kimchi in their tacos and burritos. Being half-Mexican, this appeals to me — the crossing of cultures!

Youngsun Lee immigrated to Queens, New York, from Korea when he was 12 years old. He graduated in 2005 with a degree in culinary arts from the Institute of Culinary Education in New York.

Lee comes from a family of chefs steeped in the history of Korean cuisine. His aunt taught him the fundamentals of Korean royal cuisine, and another member of his family served as a sashimi chef in South Korea’s Blue House (residence of the President) in the ’70s and ’80s.

He interned under David Chang, proprietor of Momofuku, and Anita Lo, owner of Annisa, before opening the “neo-Korean” restaurant Persimmon in 2008 and closing it in recent  months. He is currently teaching classes in Korean cuisine (Korean Barbecue, Korean Cooking for Seasons and Kimchi) at the institute.

Lee is one of the featured speakers at the Asian Feastival in Queens on Sept. 6. If you want to meet him in person, he’s hosting the Asian Feastival Culinary Bike “Tour du Jour” from 9:30 a.m. to noon. Follow him on your bicycle for a food tour of a local Korean community garden and the Queens County Farm Museum. To sign up for bike tour in advance, send e-mail to biketour@asianfeastival.com.

He was gracious to answer five questions ZenKimchi Food Journal posed about Korean cuisine, restaurant management and culinary instruction.

How do you define Korean cuisine?

I can go deep in history but then it’ll be really long. So I’ll try to make this short, maybe by giving some examples.

Many people think that it should be close to Chinese cuisine. [Korean cuisine does have] many influences from China, but the “cuisine” itself is not very much close to Chinese cuisine. There is a category we called “Chinese-Korea cuisine,” which was formed by Chinese who fled from China and all. But that’s very different from Korean. (I can write a book with this topic.)

So, Korean cuisine is almost like combo between Japanese and Thai. We are very big into fish sauce like Thai [cuisine], but we have about over 100 kinds of fish sauces in Korea. Chinese and Japanese don’t use fish sauce in their cuisine. Like with Japanese food, we do [use] soy stuff — miso, tofu, soy milk, etc.

We are very seasonal. We have four seasons in Korea. So we do follow seasonal food, like, religiously. There are unwritten rules we have to follow as a Korean chefs:

• Spring — bitter (new sprouts, etc): This will bring our appetites back from the long winter. Also eating new sprouts means getting nature’s force — life, new life in spring — from the new life into our body.
• Summer — sour (vinegar base, citrus, etc): As the weather gets hot, we loose our [sense of] taste. So by having sour food, it brings our appetites [back] and also keeps our bod[ies] cool and moist.
• Fall — spicy (hot pepper, etc): Prepare for a long, cold winter. Pepper was introduced to Korea about 300 years ago. Before that, there was not much spicy food. All of our kimchi used be white. [배김치 (bae kimchi) is pickled but not spicy.]
• Winter — salty (kimchi, pickle, etc): Long-lasting food, such as fermented dishes are served to help in surviving winter. And we use “sweet” to balance all these flavors. But, again, sugar was introduced to Korea about 300 years ago, so before that we used to use honey or fruits for sweetener. Still till these days, we like to use honey or fruits for our sweetener instead of sugar.

We are known as health freaks — very health-minded. We watch what we eat. Therefore, we like mix and match our food right. Then it’ll benefit your body and soul. But if you mix and match wrong, then it’ll harm your body. For example, never mix eel and peach, but beef and scallion is very good match.

The restaurants in Korea are not like [those] in the States. [In the U.S.] most of the Korean restaurants have all sections and types of food. I’ve never seen this in Korea. [There] everything is specialized, so they only have one or two items on their menu. Most of the places don’t have a menu, because they only have one thing. So you decide what to eat first, not where to eat.

Korean cuisine is [a leader in] salty food. We do consume about 20 percent more [salt] than [a typical] European or American, which is a lot. So, when non-Korean people start [eating] Korean food as [a] Korean does, then he or she might have some problems. Koreans are fine eating all that salty food, because in Korea, we [start by using] very good salt. Plus, we’ve [eaten these] foods for a very long time. We are trying to cut down, because mixing with Westernized food has made the new generations of Koreans heavier and unhealthier than before.

Like I said, I can go on and on about the Korean Cuisine.

What are your favorite cuisines, beside Korean?

What did you learn from your experiences with David Chang and Anita Lo?

Incoming search terms:

• korean chef
• korean Family in New york
• organic kimchi sales
• young sun lee
• chef korea
• how does korean royalty ways influence current korean cuisine?
• korean food too salty?
• top 10 korean chefs
• www history of korean food com

Grace Young, known as a wok evangelist, has won many awards including the IACP Le Cordon Bleu International Cookbook Awards for her first book The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen: Classic Family Recipes for Celebration and Healing and her second book The Breath of a Wok: Unlocking the Spirit of Chinese Wok Cooking Through Recipes and Lore.  After spending 3 1/2 years on her latest project, she recently came out with her third book Stir-Frying to the Sky’s Edge: The Ultimate Guide to Mastery, with Authentic Recipes and Stories, which has gotten rave reviews for her demystified, detailed, and easy-to-follow guide for home wok-cooking.

You can find Grace Young on the web at www.graceyoung.com and on Twitter @stirfrygrace.  She will be also discussing Chinese cooking techniques and its evolution under the title of “Wok the Wok and Talk the Talk” at the Asian Feastival in Queens on Labor Day, September 6th, a one-day event celebrating Asian culinary cultures.

She was kind enough to answer some questions for the ZenKimchi Korean Food Journal.  Just as in her books, her genuine enthusiasm for wok-cooking came through in our interview.

1) You mentioned in an interview that your second book The Breath of a Wok started from your realization that Chinese cooking was losing its classical roots, especially wok cooking.  Do you see other cooking tools, methods or ingredients that are losing grounds that you’d like to see preserved or revived?

I think the fundamental problem in our society is that recipes are not being handed down from generation to generation. People have less time to cook and children are not growing up learning basic cooking skills from their parents. This is particularly sad to see with Chinese culinary traditions because the culture is so rich. With that in mind everything is at risk of being lost from the most basic knowledge of how to use a wok and steamer to all the fundamental cooking methods.

2) How do you see the balance of keeping up with tradition (e.g., wok cooking) vs. convenience (e.g., investment in time and practice to get used to wok cooking and seasoning a wok)?

It takes about 15 minutes to season a new wok so the process couldn’t be more “convenient.” With that small investment you become part of a culinary tradition that is over 2000 years old. A traditional cast-iron or carbon-steel wok is what I call an ancient nonstick pan. As it becomes more seasoned with cooking the pan creates a natural nonstick surface which means it requires minimal oil for cooking. Dishes cooked in an iron wok also absorb dietary iron giving added nutritional benefit. Best yet, food tastes extraordinary. For me, there is no question that wok cooking traditions must be maintained.

3) You show us a few examples of how a wok is not limited to what many consider as traditional Chinese cooking in your third book Stir-Frying to the Sky’s Edge.  What are some of the most unusual dishes or combinations you made with your wok?

Most people assume a wok is only used for Asian cooking, but I fry bacon, scramble eggs, and even pan-fry steaks in my wok. As you mentioned, some of the cooks I interviewed in researching Stir-Frying to the Sky’s Edge taught me some wild stir-fries. I think the two most unusual dishes are the Stir-Fried Bagels with Cabbage and Bacon which originated in Beijing and Stir-Fried Watermelon Rind!

4) At any point in your culinary career, did you face any inner conflict between your Chinese and American self?  How did you resolve it?  I became curious about this after reading about how you addressed the concept of ‘yin yang harmony’ in food in your first book The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen, which seems naturally understood by many Asians but completely a foreign concept to others.

I never felt an inner conflict between being Chinese and American. I would say for most of my life I identified with being American except I felt Chinese when it came to food. When I wrote my first cookbook, The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen, I set out just to record my family’s recipes. As I cooked with my parents, I was surprised at how they opened up. My parents, who are very private, began to share memories of their days in China and of when they first came to America. So in documenting my family’s cooking I accidentally came to learn a large part of my family’s history and in doing so could meld my two worlds.

5) What did you have for dinner last night?

I cooked Stir-Fried Tomato Beef and served it with steamed rice for my husband and me. I used heirloom tomatoes from the farmers’ market. The tomatoes are at the height of their season and have incredible flavor.

Incoming search terms:

• review of Grace young book stir frying to the edge

Courtesy of Joe DiStefano

Queens-based food writer, Joe DiStefano has been exploring the borough’s diverse food offerings for more than a decade and has been called “The Guy Who Ate Queens” by New York Magazine. DiStefano writes for the print publication of Edible Queens and is the editor of Edible Queens’ food blog, World’s Fare, which chronicles whatever happens to be on the end of his fork, or chopstick, as the case may be. His work has also appeared on Ed Levine’s food blog Serious Eats New York and The Village Voice’s food blog, Fork in The Road. If you’re in New York City on Labor Day be sure to check out Joe and the other panelists at the Asian Feastival, a one-day culinary festival that celebrates the diversity of Asian foods in Queens.

Joe was kind enough to talk me (other Joe) about Queens, lots of foods that I’ve never heard of, and the antics of Tony Bourdain and Eric Ripert.

1) You’ve become known as sort of an Asian food foodie. Do you remember what drew you to this calling?

Say it ain’t so Joe, I hate the f-word, but I am fascinated with Asian food and have been since I was a young boy. We had an Indian neighbor who baked crispy, savory disks studded with ajiwan seeds and black pepper; I couldn’t seem to get enough of them. There were also regular trips to Manhattan’s Chinatown. I have many fond memories of being boosted up to peer through the steamy window of a Cantonese restaurant to watch char shiu pork being hacked up with a cleaver. That, Wo Hop, and almond cookies. The regional Chinese wonderland that is Flushing’s Golden Shopping Mall and that squirmy delight san nakji are, of course, a far cry from sticky spare ribs and almond cookies. It was really living in Queens that turned me into a full-fledged Asian foodie. Having dozens of Asian cuisines– Chinese, Pakistani, Korean, Indian, Thai, Indonesian, Malaysian, Filipino, Nepalese, Tibetan, Burmese, even Central Asian kebabs and Silk Road fare from the former Soviet Union–just a subway or bus ride away really opened my horizons.

2) So, Queens. Why would a visitor want to go there and what should they not miss?

Well, apart from such wonderful non-food related attractions as Citifield, the Queens Museum of Art, and the World’s Fair grounds in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, I think the appeal of Queens can be summed up in one word: culture. And by that I mean cultural diversity, which brings us back, of course, to food. The Ganesh Temple on Bowne Street is a prime example. It’s a two-story structure devoted to the elephant-headed god. The Temple Canteen in the basement serves up some great vegetarian Indian food, including crisp foot-long dosa slicked with ghee and filled with curry-scented potatoes. Should their dosai and other veggie specialties prove unsatisfying Dosa Hutt is just next door. I can’t say enough about Golden Shopping Mall, the warrenlike collection of miniature Chinese restaurants that encompasses everything from the fiery Sichuan fare of Chengdu to the scented lamb dishes from Xi’an in Northwest China. For a taste of old school Queens hit the Lemon Ice King of Corona. Walk to nearby William F. Moore, a.k.a. “Spaghetti” Park, and watch the locals play boccie while you slurp away. Nearby find Tortilleria Nixtamal a tortilla factory and restaurant that makes its masa the old-fashioned way, by grinding seed corn.

3) What’s your unquenchable craving right now?

I can’t get enough tai shi bao bing – fluffy snowlike Taiwanese shaved ice topped with sugar syrup and loaded up with pineapple, pudding, chewy taro balls, and slippery black pieces of grass jelly.

4) How was it hanging out with Anthony Bourdain and Eric Ripert and a live octopus?

It was a real hoot. It was my third time eating san nakji, so I wasn’t too fazed. It was great fun watching Bourdain egg on his Buddhist pal Ripert and our photographer both whom had never tried the delicacy before. Tony recommended Japanese culinary manga Oshinbo to Ripert. I just finished the first volume; good stuff.

5) Two-parter–What’s your ultimate comfort food and what is the most exotic food that you want to try?

My ultimate comfort food is a Tibetan dessert called Bhaktcha Markhu, it’s a handmade pasta topped with roasted barley, sugar, and butter. It really reminds me of the cavatelli with ricotta and sugar that my Mom used to make. That second one’s a bit tougher as I’ve tried everything from Peruvian roast guinea pig to Japanese codfish sperm. Despite the fact that the sight of it might make me wretch, I want to try that Sardinian maggot cheese. I hear it’s tasty.

Incoming search terms:

• how to make edible food korean style

Born Baek Seung Woo in Korea and raised in Colorado, Akira Back has been executive chef at the Yellowtail Japanese Restaurant & Lounge at the Bellagio resort and casino in Las Vegas since 2008. He’s served notables such as U.S. President Bill Clinton and Mariah Carey.

Back trained with some of the best chefs in the business, including Masaharu Morimoto, Nobu Matsuhisa and Brian Nagao. He also competed against Bobby Flay in an episode of Iron Chef America. He makes himself available to the public via his own YouTube channel, Facebook page and blog.

He will be a panelist at the Asian Feastival in Queens, New York, on September 6th.

Chef Back was kind enough to answer a few questions for ZenKimchi Korean Food Journal.

How do you define your cuisine?

I consider my cuisine as pretty much a “melting pot.” You can call it new American cuisine, neo-American cuisine, whatever. Most people see my menu and immediately say, “Asian,” “Japanese,” etc. What they don’t understand is that Japanese is just a part of it. I incorporate a lot of Japanese, Korean, French and some classic American into my cooking. If you look closer, you can see it. It’s there.

How has being raised in Aspen, Colorado, rather than in Los Angeles, Hawaii or New York, influenced your cooking style?

Being raised in Aspen and being a former professional snowboarder has definitely influenced my cooking. Many of my dishes are influenced from my family and travels, all of which has been based out of my time in Aspen. It’s the culture there—the people, the environment. It has taught me to cook from the heart and to make food that can give the person eating it a little bit of insight about me.

What do you think of America’s increasing interest in Korean food?

As a Korean-American, I say, It’s about freaking time! It’s definitely a step in the right direction in showcasing Korean cuisine in the mainstream food scene here in the U.S.

Is there any downside to this development?

I would say a bastardization of classic Korean cuisine is the major downer. It’s like what happened to Chinese cuisine when it became popular in America. I would guess that around 85 percent of Americans don’t know what real Chinese food is due to all the knockoffs that are being labeled as “Chinese cuisine.” Korean food is not quite on that scale yet, but I think it’s definitely going to be headed in that direction.

What do you think of the Korean government’s efforts to promote Korean cuisine worldwide?

I think they are doing a great job. It’s absolutely positive effort to put Korean food, culture and chefs in the spotlight. In the past, Korea was shadowed by other larger, more popular Asian countries such as China and Japan. The Korean government knows this and is pushing Korean cuisine as much as it can and supporting Korean chefs by putting them in the spotlight. I love it. It makes me proud as a Korean-American here in the U.S.

Check out an example of chef Back’s neo-American cuisine in this video he posted on YouTube.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you want to hear more of what Back has to say about the future of Asian cuisine, go to the Asian Feastival on Sept. 6 in Queens from 3–3:45 p.m. He’ll be discussing “The Next Generation of Asian American Cuisine” with Eddie Huang and Lee Anne Wong.

Eddie Huang (photo courtesy of Hyun Kim)

Opening two restaurants in less than six months is a feat that would push any chef-entrepreneur to the point of exhaustion or criminal insanity. But Eddie Huang, “head cook” and owner of Baohaus and Xiao Ye in New York, still finds time to write a blog and travel across the United States to various food festivals, talking about his style of Asian cuisine.

Serving up pork, beef and chicken gua bao (Taiwanese steamed buns) with small doses of self-deprecating humor on the side has made Huang one of the newest stars in NYC’s restaurant scene. He’s one of the featured panelists at this year’s Asian Feastival, held in Queens, N.Y., on Sept. 6. When asked about his role at the event, he was uncharacteristically short on words, “Talking. What’s new?”

He kindly answered a few questions for the ZKFJ.

What is the difference between Taiwanese cuisine and other Chinese cuisines?

Compared to the Chinese food many people know, Taiwanese to me is really influenced by being an island. There is less meat, more vegetables, more dried ingredients — much like Cantonese cooking. Because of the heat, people had to cure things. You have salt-cured pork, preserved bamboo, dried shrimp, fried shallots, dried mushrooms. These things are all very common in Taiwanese food. Every cuisine has its signature dishes. For Taiwan, I’d say five of the most popular are:

1. stinky tofu (fermented tofu)
2. oh-a-mi shwa (intestine and oyster noodles)
3. Lu roh fan (minced pork on rice)
4. Taiwanese beef noodle soup (the rare beef dish)
5. Ba wan (a confit ball of starch with pork, bamboo, mushrooms and sweet chili sauce)

Taiwanese beef noodle soup features shank. So, from these dishes, you see, no one uses expensive cuts of meat. They are very proletariat recipes that use what’s available.

What do you like to eat, beside your own or your mom’s home cooking?

If I eat out, I end up eating a lot of Vietnamese, Mexican, Korean, Lebanese, Turkish, South American and Southern American. I’m not the biggest fan of French. I loved Italian growing up, but I cook it at home so I don’t go out for it as much. I also like Japanese food, but either its omakase or izakaya food.

In terms of Chinese food that I like — brunch — I like dim sum, obviously, but my favorite is Shanghainese food. They braise a lot of meats. They have a good amount of seafood. There are nice breakfast dishes like soup dumplings. It’s just a very balanced, regional cuisine. It covers a lot of techniques, and they do the best job, in my opinion, of balancing savory with sweet and herbal. I don’t like the style of cooking where certain flavors, herbs or elements are over-accented and stand out. I like food [in which] the flavors come together as one, and you aren’t looking to isolate flavors.

What is your definition of “environmentally conscious food”?

You do what you can. I’m not the type [who] goes around pulling people’s cards in terms of how environmentally conscious they are. I use all-natural meat at my restaurants. Chicken, pork, beef — all of it is no-hormone, antibiotic-free, all-natural, etc. We go to market for seafood and produce, but it’s very difficult. I also use soy milk when I can. At Baohaus, we use strictly induction cooking methods. When I cater, I use induction as well.

I think restaurants should just be honest with themselves and do what they can. It’s one of the hardest industries out there, and change is not going to [come] overnight. Some of these restaurants have trouble staying in business while paying for commodity meat, so I’m in no place to tell people to go all-natural.

A question anyone from Sonoma County, California: What was it like meeting and working with Food Network chef Guy Fieri?

Ha, ha. You know, going into the show, I thought he was going to be a s— show. Food Network has tapes of my interview, [in which] I’m imitating him, making fun of his backwards glasses, etc. But, in person, he’s really cool. You hear it all the time, “This guy’s down to Earth,” but it’s true. He’s a good dude — lower voice than on TV, knows his food, about his business.

I read you’ll be in the San Francisco Bay area for a showdown with the Chairman Bao food truck at the Real Eats Food Festival in Oakland [Aug. 27 to 29]. Tell us the history of this showdown and what you hope will come of it.

I actually think we’re coming for Off the Grid [a weekly gathering of mobile food vendors in San Francisco at Fort Mason]. Hyun [Kim, his communications coordinator] is talking to Mobi Munch about setting it up, so as soon as we have final details, we’ll let you know.

The history is very simple. I created the Chairman Bao. Every one knows it. If you [searched Google for] “Chairman Bao” before the Chairman Bao Truck, I was the first page of hits. I opened Baohaus in December 2009 and had the name out there a few months prior. If you are going to invest in a venture as big as Chairman Bao, it is reasonable to expect someone to [search Google for] the name before jumping in. So, obviously, they saw I was using this name and still went ahead with their knock-off.

I just want them to stop using my name and for people to know what the real Chairman Bao is. A lot of people think it’s petty. But I’d ask them to go work 16 hour days for five months straight, build a name for themselves, and then I’ll come jack it. [Read more about the controversy.]

If you want to hear more of what Huang has to say about the future of Asian cuisine, go to the Asian Feastival on Sept. 6 in Queens from 3–3:45 p.m. He’ll be discussing “The Next Generation of Asian American Cuisine” with Akira Back and Lee Anne Wong.

Incoming search terms:

• gua bao bay area

We’re expecting a new ZenKimchi team member in December. Her current name is “Alkongi,” or “Eggbeany.” Looks like a lizard right now, but I hear that he’ll become a cute baby that cries and poops.

It’s been a long time coming, but Fatman Seoul has finally recovered from a nasty hacker attack that had them red listed by Google. Everything’s been cleared now, and from what I’ve been told from the source, there’s a lot of pent up food blogging waiting to splooge out onto their pages.

Did I mention that I hate hacker attacks?

A Frog in the Kitchen