Category Archives: Chefs

Get to Know Asia Live — Billed As the Asian Counterpart to Eataly

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Pad Thai meets banh xeo at the new Asia Live.
Pad Thai meets banh xeo at the new Asia Live.

Last month, a massive new Asian venue opened to great fanfare at Westfield Valley Fair in San Jose, replacing what had been another enormous Chinese restaurant that had debuted with equal excitement.

Asia Live, sister restaurant to San Francisco’s China Live, opened its doors last month, replacing the opulent iChina that operated from 2021 to 2024.

A year and a half in the making, the two-story, 15,000-square-foot Asia Live is an ambitious undertaking not merely for its sheer size, but also because it is located in an upscale shopping mall that already boasts a lot of competition in the Asian cuisine category with such popular restaurants as Marugame Udon, Ramen Nagi, Baekjong Korean BBQ, and Northern California’s only outpost of Din Tai Fung.

But if anyone is up to the challenge, it’s restaurateurs, owners, and husband and wife, George Chen and Cindy Wong-Chen. This is the 17th restaurant that Chen has opened. And it’s not even his largest. That honor goes to China Live at 30,000 square feet, which just celebrated its 9th anniversary.

The second-floor entrance from inside Westfield Valley Fair.
The second-floor entrance from inside Westfield Valley Fair.
The main dining room on the second floor.
The main dining room on the second floor.
Century-old vintage Chinese posters.
Century-old vintage Chinese posters.

Last week, I was invited in as a guest of the restaurant, where Chen was on hand to show me around — and there is a lot to see.

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Tea Time with Slice-and-Bake Matcha Cookies

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Keep a stash of this slice-and-bake dough handy in the freezer and a fresh-baked matcha cookie can be had anytime.
Keep a stash of this slice-and-bake dough handy in the freezer and a fresh-baked matcha cookie can be had anytime.

Have we reached peak matcha point yet?

I hope not, because this ancient powdered green tea offers a taste of history, culture, healthfulness, and grassy deliciousness along with its distinctive, vibrant color.

Did you know matcha actually originated in China in the 7th century? A Zen Buddhist monk apparently brought the tea back from his studies in China to Japan, where it was initially prepared by whisking to a froth in hot water in a reverential ceremony.

Nowadays, of course, it can be found in most anything and everything.

I love it in desserts, such as these fragrant “Slice-and-Bake Matcha Cookies.”

This recipe is from “Love Japan” (Ten Speed Press, 2023). The cookbook was written by Sawako Okochi and Aaron Israel, the married couple who are owners of the singular Shalom Japan, a Brooklyn restaurant that melds their respective Japanese and Jewish heritages. It was co-written with New York Times Style writer Gabriella Gershenson.

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A Visit to N/Soto in Los Angeles

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Chicken thigh and chicken meatball skewers at N/Soto -- some of the juiciest chicken I've had in a while.
Chicken thigh and chicken meatball skewers at N/Soto — some of the juiciest chicken I’ve had in a while.

Think of Michelin-starred N/Naka as the older sister in a little black dress and diamonds with a chic persona, while N/Soto is the younger, more carefree sister in t-shirt and jeans — albeit perfectly tailor-made ones.

Both celebrated Los Angeles restaurants are owned and operated by married chefs, Niki Nakayama and Carole Iida-Nakayama. This spring, they celebrated both the 15th anniversary of N/Naka, their high-end, Japanese-meets-Californian kaiseki, and the 4th anniversary of N/Soto, their izakaya.

While “naka” in Japanese means “inside” and is a play on Nakayama’s surname, “soto” means “outside” and references the pandemic when for a time restaurants were forced to shutter, closed off from the outside world.

In fact, N/Soto originated during the pandemic as a pop-up offering to-go bentos. It proved so successful that Nakayama and Iida-Nakayama decided to go all in on a second, more casual restaurant.

Dinner at N/Naka is a 3-hour+ affair that will set you back $395 per person — that is if you can snag one of the hard-to-get reservations. In contrast, while N/Soto does offer a weekday $95 tasting menu, its main menu is strictly a la carte, meaning you can spend as little or as much as your appetite desires.

I’ve had the pleasure of dining at N/Naka twice, including earlier this month, and it remains an exquisite experience. On this particular trip to Los Angeles, I was fortunate enough to be invited in as a guest of N/Soto to try it in comparison.

The entrance to the restaurant.
The entrance to the restaurant.

The front of the restaurant is blanketed in a wall of ivy, with its noren or Japanese fabric divider providing the clue to where the entrance is located.

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Jose Andres’ Pollo Al Ajillo

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Pan-cooked chicken with plenty of garlic and sherry by Jose Andres.
Pan-cooked chicken with plenty of garlic and sherry by Jose Andres.

His list of achievements is breathtaking.

He is a Michelin-starred chef with restaurants nationwide, an Emmy Award-winning TV host and producer, and a New York Times best-selling cookbook author. Moreover, he is the founder of the humanitarian nonprofit World Central Kitchen that provides emergency food to war-torn and natural disaster-stricken countries around the world, an endeavor that has garnered him a James Beard Foundation “Humanitarian of the Year,” and a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

All that’s missing is a Nobel Prize. And frankly, he deserves that, too.

Jose Andres’ impact on the culinary industry and the world at large has been monumental.

The Spanish-born chef has made his home with his family in Maryland for more than two decades. But his homeland remains a constant influence on all that he does.

His newest cookbook, “Spain My Way” (Ecco), of which I received a review copy, exemplifies that.

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Pasta Lovers Rejoice Over Bosco

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Chicken for two -- brined, smoked, and grilled over a wood fire -- at Bosco.
Chicken for two — brined, smoked, and grilled over a wood fire — at Bosco.

Chef Ryan McIlwraith has a way with pasta.

After all, he’s the former director of culinary development at Michael Chiarello’s Bottega, the fine-dining Italian restaurant in Yountville and the former executive chef of Alora, the Mediterranean restaurant in San Francisco. In fact, his “100-layer ‘nduja lasagna” at Alora composed of silky, thin layers of pasta, bechamel, bolognese, and Pecorino, seared to order for the crispiest edges, remains my favorite lasagna ever.

Last September, he became executive chef of Bosco, an expansive Italian restaurant in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood. Fortunately for all of us, he and Chef Kaili Hill, whom he also worked with at Alora, are applying their skills here to turn out more sublime pastas, plus a whole lot more.

Bosco is part of the Absinthe Restaurant Group, of which McIlwraith and Hill are veterans. In fact, McIlwraith was the opening chef for Bellota, the Spanish restaurant that was housed in this same space until closing in 2024.

The two traveled through Italy prior to Bosco’s opening to hone their ideas for this wood-fired restaurant that’s named for the Italian word for “forest.”

The open kitchen that greets you as you enter the restaurant.
The open kitchen that greets you as you enter the restaurant.
The bar.
The bar.

Last week, I was invited in as a guest to sample the menu. The huge, 5,000-square-foot restaurant sits on the ground floor of an office building. In fact, the restaurant’s restrooms are actually located in the soaring atrium of the building.

Owing to its size, Bosco has a very open, airy, contemporary warehouse-like feel with soaring concrete columns. The open-kitchen with long waterfall counter is the first thing you see when you walk in, along with a large bar off to the side.

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