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课代表立正的官方Podcast
深度访谈，有用干货，亲身验证的「真本事」
Superlinear Academy创始人，Maven Top AI Instructor
前Statsig布道师（OpenAI收购），腾讯副总监，Meta，Amazon；康奈尔经济学博士
社区：Superlinear.Academy
课程：ai-builders.com
个人：lizheng.ai
hello folks welcome back to my channel
and today i have the honor to interview
with miles the chef at insu in shenzhen
hello guys
yeah
so uh i just know a little bit about you
and i just had dinner here yesterday it
was quite impressive and very unique and
i
like personally i felt there is a lot of
personalities behind those dishes
and i also write an article the article
about
work experience and a concept
about food so i want to do a
basic conversation with you okay to
figure out
what's happening
yeah what's going on in my mind yeah
so yeah what's your what's your question
then
yeah so i guess my first one
uh that i've been having
uh
like when the dishes were coming to me
right it's about the ingredient and in
the article i
read you have this concept of
california
cantonese if i put them all together
yeah because they didn't like farm to
table
uh like i don't like that the term yeah
since it's uh
yeah i mean every restaurant is farm to
table even mcdonald's that's true right
so
uh i always say that i think it's uh
farm to table is how every restaurant
you know
operates
i think it's more a deeper philosophy on
just
connecting where your food is coming
from so that you kind of understand a
little bit more
who's growing the food how it's grown
and choosing
making choices
that you know i think are better for the
planet better for flavor
better socially
so that
you know the whole supply chain and
where your food is coming from is a
thoughtful process
and so i think when people say farm to
table
uh you know usually in america it's like
you know you know the the farmers that
are producing the food that's where the
term comes from um and
here it's a little bit more complicated
uh in china so oh that's interesting
yeah it's not um
it was actually kind of because i i most
of my
experiences in farm to table farm to
table
but it was you know to quite an extremes
you know
in canada i worked at one restaurant
that every we lived on the farm
we grew our own food which one was that
eigensyn farm
so far yeah it's it's above toronto
about two hours north in toronto in the
countryside
and uh
you know it had it was a chef that
doesn't really care so much about
accolades but
at one time he was number nine in the
san pellegrino world's best restaurants
uh right around the time al buli and
stuff was uh you know popular
uh
and so i think it was you know
he's been doing the same thing you know
before it was a fad and after it became
less popular he's always been doing this
you know farm to table this connection
to the land i just realized we have
those kind of restaurants here exactly
really you go to the countryside yeah
and they have like villagers set up a
local restaurant and of course the
chicken is raised right in the backyard
right right right yeah and i think you
know i mean that's normal that's how it
used to be right yeah so and then the
modern media kind of like really you
know we were away from that
i don't think it's the fault of modern
media it's a part of modern industry
right the food especially in north
america is so industrialized
and uh yeah like
a lot of stuff is processed and heavily
you know modified
yeah i mean also people you know live in
cities now yeah you know like shenzhen
30 years ago was just farmland so
and now you know when you eat food you
don't know where it's coming from and so
i think
there was a movement you know 10 15
years ago in north america that people
started to say well where does the
people living in the cities where does
my food come from
and so they started to adventure you
know to and
uh i think these restaurants that became
popular
at this time were just you know doing
the same thing you know i already have
so many questions following up that i
think i'll try to do three questions
following this topic one what's the
difference between uh united states
which is you know a developed
world people have been through the
industrialized process and
now try to get back to nature be more
self-conscious and environmental
conscious right then how is the trend in
china
you know experience because you know
we've gone through a different path yeah
and the second is there are so many
layers in this concept right uh first is
being knowing the food
knowing how it's produced
but from that concept
to a fun dining restaurant there are
also other things right so what are the
other things
uh
that's two questions
let's start with the two yeah
the third one i actually prepared for
later okay yeah uh so the first part is
um you know the difference between i
think china and america and i think
uh
you know like you said that
you know
there's these restaurants already in
china and i think
you know china's gone through this very
rapid industrialization yeah and
now
i find a lot of
culture in china is kind of
uh
it's not copying it's like
like branding means a lot of to a lot of
people in china yeah and so when
something becomes cool in america
like from the table like
i i was thinking about applebee's just
factually yeah i mean
or gucci or you know there's a
riot of brand but i mean the concept of
of you know let's say like social media
in america instagram is used a lot right
so you know people go to you know those
hosts yeah avocados taking picture their
their food going to the farm showing
like farm day hashtag you know all these
things
then the same kind of things are
mimicked here in china but when i try to
experience these things that experience
is very curated
meaning that
it becomes a tourist kind of trap you
know it's like not a trap it's just
they've calculated every aspect of it so
you know you get on a bus you go to a
campsite
and every time there's like a spot
picture spot the tents are all perfect
you know there's heaters in the the
thing it's like very curated experience
and this
um you know this extends to i think like
picturesque farms you know so if
uh you know for example like the
sunflower chicken i don't know if you
know the sunflower chicken
is i know now it's like a you know it's
not they don't even do it anymore but
you know five years ago he's you know he
started feeding his chicken sunflowers
and it's super delicious
became super popular and then you know
gironji you know starts running
sunflower chicken the price goes way up
because the farmer can charge that and
then he starts you know people can go
there and then it's a sunflower fields
and there's special paths and he serves
the sunflower chicken and he's making
lots and lots of money off this process
it's no longer about you know let's
you know let's feed the chicken or let's
do something different with food it's
become a
a tourist uh money-making
endeavor i follow dan barber's uh
instagram a lot yeah he does a lot of
this uh processing experimenting but he
doesn't turn that into a touristy
activity yeah but i mean even uh like
blue hill is successful and it is a
visitor center and you go there and you
see all of the the farming and all this
stuff
you know i haven't been to blue hill in
a very long time
but
when i was looking for a job in america
i
i had two places in mind meadowwood
and blue hill and i went to visit both
of them and
you know because i had come from this
farm in canada like i were and
uh
and so like i'd end up not choosing blue
hill i didn't choose blue hill because i
did feel that
they had
curated the experience
for their diners like almost like
they're trying too hard
and
uh i know it's one of your favorite
restaurants yeah so i i do agree with
the curation part like
the way i describe my experience at blue
hill is almost like a theater it's not
only about food it's also about the
presentation the whole behind the thing
right so to take you to different you
know this is our grill this is how we
make the bread yeah this is our compost
look how you know
it's a lot of things in the comments
presentation but i do think it's
like i enjoy the education because yeah
i'm not used to the the whole concept
right and
a lot of uh presentation over there is
the first thing i ever get educated on
this concept and i became more uh
environmental conscious after the
dinner so i welcome that uh yeah and i
think they're doing and because of that
reason it's amazing right because it's
the
the person that doesn't know
becomes educated and then they know and
i think of course this you need all of
you need this because we need to teach
more people um but from a personal
experience when i
i had already known
and i already had a lot of experience in
things i felt like it was a little bit
uh fake you know it was it wasn't
authentic and it's
not
deliverance 99 attention on food and
yeah
the rest of the stuff come naturally
it's more let's
center our food around the presentation
right the presentation of these
sustainable concepts yeah and like i
said it's all very important
that's the other thing i noticed in your
dishes
uh
i i feel like you were almost holding
back
of course yeah you are holding back yeah
yeah like i this isn't this isn't me you
know my like i said i'm i'm the guy who
will be in the garden
first and who will be trying to you know
like tasting things in the garden and
you notice that
nothing is predictable in nature
nothing is consistent you might have an
amazing carrot one year not the amazing
carrot the next year and you know the
weather is always changing uh things are
always contributing this if you can have
a restaurant like my my dream restaurant
is a restaurant that can
change and
adapt to nature at any given moment so
that you're always getting very
interesting amazing products yeah it's
so great it's not necessarily reality
you know this uh so my three
restaurant the third one is central yeah
and uh when i described to adi i told
him the food is almost unpleasant
right because the flavor is so raw and
natural but i still like the experience
because it gives you the experience of
nature in its most natural
form
did you do you have a vegetarian or
no okay
uh i haven't been to central but he came
to do a dinner at meadowwood when i was
working there and you know i mean
sometimes it's hard to transplant a
place like that out of the country and
into it's impossible so you know like
his food was very colorful and
uh
yeah i mean it was beautiful but
obviously you need to be in that place
that sense of place to get the
experience only recently i started to
appreciate uh the natural flavor of food
before i was like this is good this this
one tastes good that one tastes bad
but now it's more like this one tastes
natural and that one tastes artificial
right right right i think yeah that's
as you know
chefs develop they always you know they
start off they always want to add so
many things and by the end of their
career
it's very simple and natural process but
you're very young
yeah
i got a lucky early education you know
like i said when you're in
you're immersed in the food as it's
growing and you're tasting the first
buds of a flower the final flower the
fruit of the flower the branches of the
tree you can taste one plant one product
in many different stages through its
life cycle in nature and then each one
of those can you know add a different
flavor as a sweet bitter you know
but a spacious people get more
disconnected from nature as a natural
tendency right more and more people
living in the city and even if they want
to get close to nature they have to
visit a touristy farm and there's no way
of them knowing
then
how frustrating it is to try to present
the natural flavor to people because
many people may not
they have their own standard which is
trend in this brandy industrial uh
right uh
process that
they don't actually appreciate what you
try to do
yeah i mean here i can't even do it to
the full extent i can do just a small
bit of what i know and how and how i
was trained and grew up
uh in the industry
but i try to you know i have to balance
it here like you said i was holding back
you know we have guests that have the
expectation as a western restaurant
that they should be getting luxury
western imported products
and when we deliver chinese products
some of our clients are
you know displeased
this was more so at the beginning and
i've noticed
that they're more accepting now
especially with the pandemic borders
being closed i think
more people are looking in and
actually accept
our you know that we're using local
ingredients
and i've noticed the shift in the in our
guests here at the restaurant
you know
at first there was a lot of complaints
about why is it about do you feel it's
the same group of people changing their
minds or different groups of people
maybe 50 50. you know maybe like the
people that uh
you know weren't happy because we didn't
have import ingredients didn't come back
but the ones that did come back have now
accepted us i found this to be very uh
that's actually my third question by the
way my third question is uh the rare of
the like
like the quality of ingredient what is
important because in a lot of height and
chinese restaurants they stress on the
rarity like rarity the rarity of the the
ingredient you know this is uh the king
crab from alaska this is the you know
the fish uh the big yellow fish from the
eastern sea right right and they charge
you a high price and that's what people
in
that kind of financing expect but here
you uh stress on you you emphasize on uh
you know
the
source or the you know uh the story
behind the ingredients right right right
i mean it's still the same it's like the
yellow yellow croaker from the east
china sea
was a fish that was
a poor person's fish
but then it got overfished and then it
became so rare that it became a rich
person's fish yeah you know it's kind of
funny that that story you know had its
but even when they catch it they'll i
know that story because when i ate it
yellow croaker and shiranjuri and he
said this is a wild yellow croaker
here's the story behind it i was like
okay so even even a luxury product
whether it is
it's always they're always telling you a
story because they're trying to validate
the price
which is with the story and so
i need to give the perception of value
no matter what yeah and it's me
balancing so that i'm i'm giving you the
perception of value but also
i'm giving you the story of the
inspiration because you know that's you
know that's where the value comes from
it's like you know we're trying to
change the perception
of the chinese consumer that
you know you can you have just as many
beautiful products in this country of
course and not everyone agrees with us
and
we won't change everyone's mind but
that's you know that's our goal right
and even then uh
like if i go eat at one of the japanese
restaurants here it's the same thing
they tell me about all of these japanese
products and how expensive they are and
where they are
and i think
in america you wouldn't have that you
wouldn't have
that storytelling as it pertains to the
value of something you know especially
you would never tell the dollar amount
some some of the japanese restaurants
i'm getting they're telling me it cost
us this much it cost us so i'm like why
are you telling me that like you know
it's shocking but but for
i think for the chinese consumer it's
important you know they need to be able
to validate the validation
yeah exactly probably sometimes to their
guests as well yeah i treat it to you
very exactly i think it's also a subtle
a subtle uh
i don't know tradition but uh concept
environments that uh food has magical
power healing power right so for example
if you eat prevention how do you see it
if you eat uh jensen yeah it can heal
you from you know uh desperate
desperative uh diseases
so we always associate expensive food
with this magical power so if we eat
something very uh
expensive it is super good to a body not
only the taste is also like
you
yeah but it probably came in the other
way around first like probably because i
mean china has a strong history
a long history
and then certain foods were known to be
of benefit no and then because of that
they had more demand and because of more
demand then they can increase the price
and so medicinal products
you know start to get
extremely expensive yeah i think it's
also 50 50 right like expensive food is
better for our body but also then you
start to believe uh
the goodness you
ingest from the food is associated with
the price of the food yeah so that's
kind of the first question right
how different
it is in united states and here
yeah compromise that i don't like is is
you know doing something for the guests
uh to make them happy that i know
they're equal yeah to feed their ego
that i think compromises on our
philosophy