This week's On the Line is a twofer: We hear from two people instead of just one. Daniel Woo is the owner and Greg Ong is the chef at Sushilicious, the Irvine revolving-sushi restaurant that has its waitstaff use an iPod Touch instead of a notepad and features fanciful names for its fun dishes.
The first part of our Q&A is answered by chef Ong, who will focus on the food side of things. For the second part, we'll hear from Daniel Woo with more on the business and its use of social media and that crazy name. And on Thursday, it'll be a recipe!
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What are six words to describe your food?
Flavorful, appetizing, unique, beautiful, fresh and tasty.
What are 10 words to describe you?
Precise, punctual, honest, disciplined, humble, hardworking, funny, happy, reliable and friendly.
Your best recent food find:
Fried-pork-rind tacos.
Most undervalued ingredient:
Sesame oil.
Rules of conduct in your kitchens:
Cleanliness, punctuality, discipline.
One food you detest:
None so far.
One food you can't live without:
Fried chicken wings.
Culinarily speaking, Orange County has the best:
Fusion cuisine.
What fast food do you admit to eating?
KFC!
Best culinary tip for the home cook.
Don't flip the steak more than once; finish it in the oven.
After-work hangout:
My kitchen.
If you could cook for one person, dead or alive, who would it be and why?
My wife. She's my best friend and worst critic!
Favorite celebrity chef.
Morimoto from Iron Chef.
Celebrity chef who should shut up:
I love all the celebrity chefs. There is always something you can learn from them.
Favorite music to cook by:
Alternative rock and R&B.
Best food city in America:
Portland, Oregon.
Favorite restaurant in America:
Tsuruhashi in Fountain Valley.
What you'd like to see more of in Orange County from a culinary standpoint:
I'd love to see markets specializing in seafood, both regional and global fare.
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What you'd like to see less of in Orange County from a culinary standpoint:
McDonalds.
Favorite cookbooks:
Morimoto cookbooks.
When you're not at your restaurant, what are you doing?
I'm either cooking for my beautiful wife or working out at the gym.
What show would you pitch to the Food Network?
A show about having chefs create tapas-like dishes and put the dishes on our conveyor belt. Diners would pick the dishes they thought were the best, and the chef who sold the most dishes would win.
Weirdest thing you've ever eaten:
One-day-old duck eggs.
You're making an omelet. What's in it?
Tapatío.
You're at the market. What do you buy two of?
Wine!
Weirdest customer request:
Nothing extreme, but we do have customers who request their sushi to be cooked.
Favorite OC restaurant(s) other than your own:
Tsuruhashi.
Hardest lesson you've learned in life:
Be dependent on other people as little as possible.
What would the last meal on Earth be?
A big slab of perfectly cooked kobe beef steak with a side of creamy garlic mashed potatoes.
Who's your hero? Culinary or otherwise?
Morimoto.
Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.