The Chef Show (2019) s01e11 Episode Script

[upbeat salsa music playing]
[tires screech]
[cow moos]
[man] So the lamb
needs to get going first.
We're marinating this lamb
for the al pastor.
We're gonna cook it on a spit.
[Jon] You're going to stack them up.
We're going to stack them.
I'll show you how to stack them
and then, that way, you can open up
a taco truck right after that.
We'll hit it with a bit of pepper.
Now, al pastor is sort of
The roots are in the Middle East? Yeah?
Yeah. It's, like, shepherd-style.
I think it's from the Lebanese
emigrating to Mexico.
And then the Mexicans ran with that.
And then so I'm running it back.
They swapped it to pork,
which isn't big in the Middle East.
They swapped it to pork
and I'm swapping it back to lamb
and then adding some fun stuff,
like porcini powder,
chile de árbol, span style="style1"a little dried parsley.
span style="style1"Here's a little granulated garlic.
You can go heavier,
like double what you did on that.
-[Jon] Yeah.
-A little bit of salt.
A fair amount.
-Oh, it looks good already.
-I know.
-It smells great.
-I'd eat it as a tartare.
Right? A little bit of olive oil.
So this one we're going to mix up
really well.
-[Jon] Just--
-[Wes] Just go for it.
Whenever I see, like, chefs try to make
span style="style2"Trompos, right?
-Mm-hmm.
-It always looks--
-Sad? [laughs]
-Sad. Every chef, whatever--
-What are span style="style2"trompos?
-It's al pastor.
But then you see a true taquero make it--
-And they get down, like, fat and heavy.
-And it looks like Yogi Bear, you know?
-Looks like a linebacker. [chuckles]
-[Roy] Yeah.
[Wes] Yeah. So, this one,
we can start assembling.
We start with a good base.
We're going to open it up just slightly.
And then you'll start.
It's really important
to kind of build it up like this.
And even these looser pieces,
it's just kind of
Kind of tucking it around
and pushing down.
Because, eventually, if you cook it right,
it's going to coagulate and create one.
[Wes] This is a little, mini version
of what we normally do.
Normally, it's, like, probably
five times this amount of meat.
So the whole thing is to layer, basically,
some this way, some this way,
and then give it a good push
every time you do it.
It's sculpture.
-[Wes] That's exactly what it is.
-We're in the right neighborhood.
-That's actually looking really good.
-It's all in the marinade.
[laughs]
-[Jon] Good start?
-[Wes] Yeah.
[Wes] Next, we'll start the sweet potatoes
-so they cook while we do our fish dish.
-[Jon] Great.
We've got a pot of water over here.
Nice cold water.
It's got some big, red garnet yams.
I cook them whole so they
hold their shape when we slice them,
so, in the taco,
it looks, like, pleasing to the eye.
-And you keep them a little al dente, too.
-[Wes] A little bit. Just a touch.
-Salty, like the sea.
-And why do you start cold on the water?
So it heats up all together.
Because if you start with hot water,
the inside will stay really, really hard
and take much longer to cook.
So we need to cut these chives
nice and fine.
I don't know
if that knife is really sharp.
No, I like this one.
-[Roy] You grew up in Pico Rivera?
-Yeah. Born and raised.
-I used to cruise. All the time.
-Whittier Boulevard?
-Really? What did you drive?
-From 16 to 18, I had a lowered Blazer.
I was going to say, like a Blazer,
the CRXs.
[Roy] Yeah. I was
part of a crew out of Norwalk
called Street City Minis and then--
-Did you have the airbrush on the back?
-Oh, I had the whole airbrush, everything.
Those are so rad, man.
I played Dungeons & Dragons.
[Roy] Yeah. He played Dungeons & Dragons.
I cruised a halfling thief.
[laughing]
[Wes] So, yeah, we're cutting this
for the lamb taco.
We're just getting ready and ahead.
And then
So I'll help you with cutting the onion.
You cooked with Ducasse, right?
To be correct, I cooked at his school.
I was trained at
the Centre de Formation d'Alain Ducasse.
-Oh, wow.
-In Argenteuil, just outside of Paris.
So both of you
had the traditional French training,
and then you went back
to the roots of what you grew up with
and then combined the techniques with
Yeah, well, because, back then,
the only thing really was French training.
-That's all there was.
-Yeah.
But I mean,
most people, you walk into a kitchen,
-most kitchens, if you--
-Yeah, it wasn't culinary school.
There's people who are learning
by working their way up the ladder.
Movies are the same way.
When you're on the set
you're learning
about the culture of the set.
So, like, I learned by being an extra.
I learned by being an actor,
and I would watch and ask questions.
So I never went to film school.
-[Roy] Yeah.
-It's the same with chefs.
You have some people who learn
by working their way up
and then they, you know,
become a sous-chef
and they start running a kitchen.
Now, there's so many options
for this next generation,
because now you could work for Wes
in this kitchen,
which now you're a lineage of
So you don't have to go
to a French kitchen.
You can work through Wes
and then get the lineage all the way up.
So we can slice up these little radish,
just on the mandolin.
Just be really, really careful,
because these Japanese ones
tend to be, like, rather dangerous.
[Roy] When I first started cooking,
I, um
I was trying to impress a girl
and I was cooking for her
and I was doing this
and I sliced half my thumb off.
And so it went from being a date
to her taking me to the emergency room.
It was a horrible night. [chuckles]
-I'll--
-That was
Our date might have been over right there.
That one got interesting.
How much radish do you want?
Oh, that's plenty.
You do, um You do breakfast tacos, too?
Yeah. We do breakfast burritos.
I can do something for you guys
if you guys want to munch on something.
Can we munch on something
while doing it?
-[Wes] Absolutely.
-[Jon] I'd love to see how you do it.
And I'll keep working.
Next, we need to do the supremes.
-These ones or--
-Yeah, both of them.
Yeah, both of them.
They're going to be for the tostada.
-[Jon] What are we doing over there?
-Pork belly breakfast burritos.
-So it's essentially uncured bacon, yeah?
-[Wes] Yeah.
This one, we smoke with a little bit
of cherry wood and pecan and white oak
for about four hours at 275.
[Jon] You going to work, too, Roy?
We getting you in here?
I'm working! I'm
I'm cleaning up after you. [laughs]
[Jon vocalizing]
[Wes] Green onions. A little bit of salt.
Thyme.
Potato.
I'm doing supremes
with a butcher cleaver. [laughs]
[Jon] You got to show how it really is.
Yeah, this is how it really is. [laughs]
So this is what happens when you say,
"Please give me a job
staging in your kitchen
so I can learn from you."
Then you do this for--
Oh, no, you would just be doing this
for eight hours.
I'm just going to have you do, like,
two cases, three cases of that stuff.
And if we run out of that,
it'll be picking cilantro from out of that
or picking thyme.
And if you want to mess with somebody,
you have them chop flour.
[laughing]
[Wes] Hope you guys are hungry.
We can use a little bit of that salsa
over there, the molcajete.
It's pretty spicy,
so, if you like spicy, add it a lot.
Yeah, that one's just
It's Fresno chili, garlic.
The Fresno chilies,
we roast them on the wood fire.
Oh, it is spicy.
Here you go. [laughs]
Chef likes it spicy.
Just a little bit of cheese,
not too much
for some saltiness.
-And then, when we roll them
-[Jon] Yeah.
[Wes] just go like that.
[Jon] Whoa, I missed it.
-[Roy] Two ends.
-[Jon] These two?
-[Roy] East and west.
-[Wes] Yeah.
[Roy] East and west.
And then tighten it. And then
Yeah. And then use your pinkies
and just, like, roll it south over north.
-South
-[Jon] Over north.
-No, no, no, start here.
-[Jon] Show me.
[Roy] And then use this
and then roll in. Just roll.
-Okay.
-[Jon] I want to see.
-I'll watch the tape.
-Oh, the tortilla broke down here.
-Can I get a new tortilla?
-Yes, sir.
-Sometimes tortillas break.
-[chuckles]
-[Roy] Do you serve burritos here?
-Yes.
There you go.
-[Jon] Wow.
-Beautiful.
[Jon] Thats nice.
Oh, that's a nice salsa, too.
-The hot salsa.
-See, you just roll it.
-Excellent, Chef. Thank you. Excellent.
-Yeah? Awesome.
Good, yeah?
There you go. There you go.
[Jon] Thank you, Chef.
Oh, I'm okay for now.
-When you cook your own food [chuckles]
-I know.
It's funny, I go to my aunt's house
and they're like,
"Oh, I don't know if you like my food,"
and I was like, "No, please.
Please cook your food.
Don't cook my food."
I get sick of my food.
I have it every day.
So when somebody offers to cook for me,
it's just something
that's so, like, nice to have, you know?
What do you call this one?
Uh, those were special burritos
just for you two guys.
-Off the menu?
-[Wes] Yeah. Off the menu pork belly.
We'll clean up the uni.
We're trying to get it open
so we can get the roe out.
-[Roy] You need, like, spoon over scissor?
-[Wes] Mm-hmm.
[Roy] Yeah.
Because we don't typically serve it
inside it, so we're just--
-Okay. You just crack the whole thing.
-[Wes] We crack the whole thing.
So you can see the roe right there.
That's the only part you eat, right there?
[Wes] That's the only part you eat.
So for our tostadas, we always offer this
as kind of an additional thing
if you'd like to add it on top.
Most of the time, people do,
because it's such good stuff.
This is an example
where, since you're in California,
you incorporate ingredients that you
already have here that are good?
One of the things that people get jealous
of is the Santa Barbara sea urchin.
That it's so abundant.
It's so good year round.
-Want to give it a shot?
-Yeah.
Oh, should I need gloves for this?
If you don't want your fingers
to turn purple,
yeah, I'd put some gloves on.
-[chuckles] Okay.
-Here, Jon.
[Jon] Thank you, Chef.
-Right handed or left handed?
-[Jon] I'm a righty.
[Wes] Then you need
this one to tap that in.
[Jon] Oh, I see.
There you go.
[Wes] And then you use the other one.
-I'm in enough?
-Wedge it.
And then just kind of pop them through it.
-[Jon] I'm not in enough, boss.
-[Wes] Yeah.
[Jon] There we go.
[Wes] And then Yeah, there you go.
There you go.
-[Roy] Nice.
-[Jon] Look at that.
[Jon] Oh, that's nice.
You open it with your hands.
-And then just scoop out the
-Scoop out the good stuff.
-The good bits.
-[Jon] And these are the sex organs?
[Wes] Yes, sir.
[Jon] Oh, yeah, that's nice.
How do they mate? Do they send it out into
the ocean and then It's hard to get in.
-Very carefully.
-[Roy] Very carefully.
I think they spawn.
-They spawn, right?
-Oh, okay.
-Yeah, they don't
-[laughing]
They don't get in there with each other.
A long evening.
[Wes] You want to use that spoon
to kind of get all of it.
Why do you go for this
instead of just buying the box?
-Because it's fresh.
-Yeah.
It's available year round
and, 95% of the time, it's fantastic.
Yeah.
[Wes] And I like supporting
the local fishermen, too.
I'll get started on that fish.
-[Jon] Is that going to be fried?
-[Wes] No, this is going to be raw.
-[Roy] Crudo.
-[Wes] Yeah. Hamachi crudo tostada.
This is gonna go
with those segments you did earlier.
[Jon] Oh, nice.
-[Wes] Do you wanna give this one a shot?
-Sure.
-Is that the right
-Was that the thickness he showed you?
-I'm just looking at what he has before.
-Yeah.
Raw fish is the one thing
that you don't want a bigger slice, right?
You're not fighting for the thick one.
It looks like we're looking pretty good.
-How about we assemble one of these?
-Let's do it.
[Wes] So, these, we fry in-house.
Just a corn tortilla
that's been fried in rice bran oil.
-[Roy] What's that on the bottom?
-[Wes] So this one is a miso mix.
A little bit on the bottom
so it won't slide around so much.
-[Roy] You get a lot on each taco.
-[Jon] Yeah.
-[Wes] Yeah.
-[Jon] Tostada, yeah.
-[Wes] A little Maldon salt.
-[Jon] Oh, nice.
-[Wes] Segments from earlier.
-Oh, those are beautiful.
-[Wes] Those are great.
-Oh, my God. [chuckles]
-It's like uni.
-[Roy] Yeah.
-[Jon] Oh, I see.
-This one is span style="style2"chile del valle.
It's made with pine nuts,
guajillo chili and span style="style2"chile de árbol
and a lot of olive oil.
That looks great. Yeah.
-[Jon] That right there, that's dinner.
-I know. It's so good.
And this is the span style="style2"salsa bruja.
It's got fish sauce,
lime juice, serrano, garlic, sugar.
You know, kind of Vietnamese.
-[Jon] What's the green?
-[Wes] The green is serrano chilies.
-[Jon] Serrano chilies.
-You cut some beautiful chives earlier.
-[Jon] I did.
-[Roy] Here. Right here.
-[Wes] And that's it.
-Oh, man. That's gorgeous.
-Can I try to assemble one?
-[Wes] Yeah, absolutely.
-[Roy] I'll make one as you make one.
-[Jon] Okay.
Those look great.
-[Jon] Uh-oh.
-Breakfast of champions right there.
[Wes] Here's the Maldon.
Let's go, Jon.
Picking up.
[chuckles]
There you go.
Boom.
[Roy] Oh, beautiful.
[Wes] Mm. Look at that.
-Service.
-There it is.
Three-card monte. Let's see who can
[all laughing]
Which one is which?
-Can you tell yours, Jon?
-Yeah.
Which one's yours?
Mine's that one. It looks like I made it
on a truck while it was moving.
-I'll eat the messy one.
-Shall we try?
How do you do this?
Oh, now you just go for it.
Try to just have it all in one.
Hard to share.
Once it's going in, it's going in.
What do you think?
-It's delicious.
-It's good.
Mm-hmm.
What's the smooth, like, silky fat
in there?
-It's the fish and the miso, probably.
-The miso?
Well, all three. And the uni.
It's probably the alchemy of all three.
-That's great.
-It's good stuff.
You want to do the sweet potato?
-[Roy] Yeah.
-[Wes] Let's do it.
So the idea of this one
came from my aunt.
After my mom passed away, she would bring
just bags of pre-fried potato tacos.
So it really, like, meant a lot to me,
like, to have that kind of unctuousness
when I developed this.
This was, like, around October of 2012.
So, the sweet potatoes, you know,
the holidays were coming up.
It kind of stuck and then evolved and--
Is this a yam or a sweet potato?
Same thing, different thing?
I've learned the hard way
that this is actually red garnet yam.
We just call it sweet potato,
because I assumed it was sweet potato.
But, like, whenever I've ordered them,
I'm like, "Why the hell
are they sending us yellow sweet potatoes
when I want the orange ones?"
This is red garnet yam, that's why.
[Roy] If there ever was a signature,
-this might be your first signature.
-This is the signature, yeah.
[Jon] Yeah.
Roy, you made it look easy.
-[Wes laughs]
-[Roy] Um Let the knife do the work.
Just Once you commit on the slice
[Wes] There you go.
-It almost cuts like butter.
-Yeah.
-[Roy] There you go.
-How do you know it's done? You feel it?
Yeah, I poked it
with this really thin knife or tongs.
Like once it
When it kind of comes in
[Jon] Yeah.
It comes right back out, it's done.
[Jon] That one I can't commit to.
Were you cooking it at home a lot?
On the truck? For the mise en place
-Always. [laughs]
-[Roy] Yeah, right.
Always.
My wife, I remember
she would get so nervous
when I'd cook duck
or pork belly overnight,
because there have been so many times
where we'd wake up to smoke,
like, just black smoke,
because the duck fat had dripped over,
went under the oven
and was burning in the oven.
So I don't cook like that
at the house anymore.
All right, so next we're going to go
with actually cooking it.
So we're going to go
with clarified butter.
[Roy] It's amazing.
We try to keep their shape.
You're like the potato whisperer.
[laughs]
[Wes] A little bit of salt.
And thyme.
On a truck, did you have a plancha
that you would do these?
That's Yeah, the truck that I had
wasn't custom. It was a route truck.
-I'm sure Chef knows.
-Yeah, same trucks we have.
There's a plancha,
three-steam table on that side
and a three-compartment sink.
That's horrible.
I didn't want to do a truck initially
because I was on the cart.
It wasn't until police came and literally
shut me down from being on the street cart
that I was like,
"I need to get my things together and--"
So why? Street carts aren't legal?
-Then they weren't.
-They are now?
They're decriminalized now. So now you
can set up and you won't get shut down.
The good thing about the food truck
was it had the license and the inspection.
All that was done off site.
[Roy] But even back then,
it's still street politics.
After the sun goes down,
even if it's legal
if the police don't like you,
-they can harass you.
-They'll have you move on.
But, usually, what we tried to do
was we tried to feed
Whenever police came up to us,
or even neighborhood folks,
if they tried to harass us,
I'd just hand them a burrito.
And then be like--
Nine times out of ten,
they're like, "Cool."
Yeah, "Eat that
and let me know how you feel afterwards."
Usually, it was all right after that.
[chuckles]
-Want a shot warming up these tortillas?
-Yeah.
We'll dip them in the butter a little bit.
Go like this.
-[Roy] Oh, wow.
-[Wes] And then
And then we layer like this.
And then we would do the whole thing.
So about five fit.
And then the same thing.
-[Jon] Overlapping?
-[Wes] Overlapping slightly, yeah.
Because when we're cranking here,
and we're doing, you know, a full house,
shingled like that, they're easier
to turn. You just go three at a time.
I do a lot of vegetable cooking, too,
so I use butter instead of lard typically.
A lot of taqueros would just dip it in,
you know, the fat that's dripping,
the fat that's doing this.
And then these tortillas are so nice
that it's just like
So traditionally you'd be using lard here,
but because of your
Is it because of the French influence,
do you think?
I think it is. Some of the chefs
I worked for are like, "Butter"
They loved butter, you know.
So I really grew to like butter.
And then, growing up, as a kid,
our main snack was tortillas with butter.
-[Jon] Really?
-[Wes] Literally
But a flour tortilla.
Flour tortilla rolled with cold butter.
And just It is just like
the best snack ever. It's super good.
So we're ready
to actually assemble these now
on the LA blue.
So the tray's the plate.
[Wes] Tray's the plate.
Just like that.
Do you want to go with this one?
This is the almond salsa.
So
Just like that.
Yes, Chef.
Roy.
This is, uh, feta cheese.
[Roy] That looks good.
This one?
-[Jon] Cap'n Crunch?
-Cap'n Crunch.
Corn nuts. [laughs]
-[Jon] Is it really?
-[Wes] Yeah, it's corn nuts.
-How much do you like?
-It's good like that.
Corn nuts, man.
It's a man after your own heart.
-We're basically the same person.
-Are you?
Just different eras.
Then we're hitting it
with some green onions to finish.
So this is--
-That's the signature.
-[Roy] What version is this?
[Wes] This is version, like, 5.3.
Just like that. Sweet potato tacos.
All right, Chef.
Oh, I love that salsa. Mm.
What's in the salsa?
It's almonds, bell peppers, uh
almond chili, habanero
garlic, olive oil.
Yeah, it's some good stuff.
It's a good taco. [chuckles]
I'm going to give it a shot.
Two for two, man.
When I first started eating your food,
it was playing tricks on my mind,
'cause a lot of your stuff
has soft texture.
It's like you don't think it's going to
eat this way because it's all soft,
but it's fucking good.
-It's fucking great, you know.
-Thank you.
I probably haven't tasted this in
probably at least a year.
I need a little more
of the corn nuts, man.
That's the move.
Even though you're channeling
your family heritage,
it was almost like a perfect storm,
because you opened here,
in front of a coffee shop
where a lot of people are either
eating healthy or vegetarian.
[Wes] Mm-hmm.
And so it was almost, like,
not on purpose, you hit the right
-It was just perfect.
-zeitgeist, yeah.
-And it's satisfying.
-[Wes] Mm-hmm.
-That's fantastic.
-That is pretty good. [chuckles]
-Let's do the lamb.
-Let me see what it looks like.
As it's cooking right now,
we want to mainly just kind of shave it
and anything that's under-cooked,
we'll throw on the plancha.
-Want to give it a shot?
-Yes, I'd love to.
-[Wes] That should be plenty for us.
-[Jon] All right.
So we can walk that to the front
and we'll make some tacos.
[Jon] Oh, we're making the tortillas.
-[Wes] So these are more gordita style.
-Is that masa or wheat?
No, this one's actually flour.
Yeah. So it's like your version of span style="style2"árabes?
Yeah, kind of.
Will you shoot me the olive oil, please?
I'll show you the first one,
then you can let 'er rip.
Make sure you have enough oil.
These always get stuck.
[Roy] Yeah, man, it's beautiful.
-[Wes] Want to give it a shot?
-[Jon] I may give one a shot.
-That's olive oil.
-Mm-hmm.
-So it's very Middle Eastern, yeah?
-Yes.
[Jon] So how is this
different from pita bread?
[Wes] Not too much, actually.
-[Jon] Same technique?
-[Wes] Same.
There you go.
Then you want to pop it back open.
There you go. Set it down
right up on top of that. Beautiful.
[Jon] All right, Roy.
All right.
[Jon] No pressure.
[Roy] Actually, pressure.
[laughing]
[Jon] Nice.
-This is when the kids come over.
-Yeah. [chuckles]
-Yeah, they'll just--
-[Jon] This is fun.
-[Wes] You can put the meat on this side.
-[Jon] There we go.
-[Jon] Is that the hot spot?
-[Wes] Yeah.
[Jon] Here we go.
[Wes] Any of the ones that are
really bubbling, you can flip them.
-Like a pancake?
-[Wes] Yes, sir.
So while this is going,
we can get the salad ready.
The garnish for the top of it.
Now the onions.
These cucumbers have been
slightly marinated already.
-[Jon] Salt?
-Yeah.
-Not Maldon?
-[Wes] Oh, you can hit it with Maldon.
-Is that good?
-That's good.
Garnish.
A little bit of cilantro.
Let me get a bigger bowl.
[Jon] If I were to look at just this,
I wouldn't know it was a taco place.
-Yeah.
-You know what I mean?
-This is a Greek restaurant.
-[Roy] A Greek restaurant.
So, this one, we're going to garnish
with, uh some fried shallots.
And will you grab
that span style="style2"chile del valle again?
Go ahead.
[Jon] Say when.
[Wes] That's good.
[Jon] Mexican flavors
are working their way back in.
Mm-hmm.
A little fried garlic and fried shallot,
so it's real punchy.
-[Jon] And lime would be Middle Eastern?
-[Wes] Mm-hmm.
So now we start assembling.
We're going to put the labneh
on the bottom.
It's that thick yogurt I told you about.
[Wes] Just like that.
[Jon] Beautiful.
[Wes] This is a habanero tahini.
[Roy] Wow.
-And this just on top?
-[Wes] Right on top. Just like that.
-Ooh.
-[Wes] Boom.
[Jon] The difference between Roy and I
is Roy's looks like he put a lot of
thought into it, but he does it quickly.
I put a lot of thought into mine and it
looks like I didn't think about it at all.
I'm going to copy Roy.
Roy's technique
Yeah, that way,
you can kind of caress it up.
[Jon] There we go.
Wow, this is a masterpiece.
This is beautiful.
Do people ever get mistaken
You know, like when you go to a taqueria
or something and you order,
"Can we get seven tacos?"
-Sometimes.
-That was me.
-Six of these come out.
-No kidding.
You're like, "Here you go."
Mm. Mm.
Mm-mm-mm!
Mm!
Mm.
-[Roy] Mm. Mm.
-[Wes] Mm-hmm.
[Roy] Mm!
[Wes] Yeah,
that's a happy one, right there.
[Wes] span style="style2"When I first started, it was really
span style="style2"a plancha with a propane stove.
That first year was
That first year was fun.
I would show up in flip-flops
and my boom box that's out there
and I never thought
that, like, having the cart
Like, with me and my wife just like,
"I need to make some money. I'm broke,"
that it was going to be what it is.