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EDDIE HUANG: Yo, let me get one real quick, son.
Thank you.
-How you doing out here?
I just can't let you know who I am, you know what I mean?
You can't see me.
EDDIE HUANG: I appreciate that homie.
Fly that red flag--
Soo Woo, soo woo.
[LAUGHS].
[THEME SONG PLAYING]
EDDIE HUANG: Yo what up?
It's your boy Eddie Huang.
We're in San Francisco's Mission District today.
We're going to go visit the Rice Paper Scissors crew.
These girls do a lot of guerrilla cooking, so we're
going to pop up curbside, grill some octopus, eat some
rice paper, see what's really good.
This is "Fresh Off the Boat."
EDDIE HUANG: Hi, I'm Eddie.
VALERIE LUU: Hey, I'm Valerie.
EDDIE HUANG: Valerie, hi.
KATIE KWAN: And I'm Katie.
EDDIE HUANG: Katie, great.
So you all are Rice Paper Scissor.
VALERIE LUU: Yeah
KATIE KWAN: Rice.
EDDIE HUANG: Rice paper--
I got it.
That's what's up.
So what do you guys want to make today?
KATIE KWAN: We basically are going to grill.
So we just want to find stuff to grill.
EDDIE HUANG: Check for the smell, y'all.
No smell.
All right, we're about to try and make some Asian
parents proud now.
Order in all Vietnamese.
VALERIE LUU: All right [SPEAKING VIETNAMESE].
-[SPEAKING VIETNAMESE]
VALERIE LUU: Some, octopus.
EDDIE HUANG: I think he just *** you up because you had
to use some English.
KATIE KWAN: No!
[SPEAKING VIETNAMESE]
EDDIE HUANG: [SPEAKING VIETNAMESE]
-[SPEAKING VIETNAMESE]
EDDIE HUANG: The little cooking lesson for y'all that
he's giving us is, he's saying, if you're going to
grill oysters, get the bigger, fattier one because it'll
stand up to being cooked.
If it's smaller, it's not enough, it's too delicate--
you just want to eat it raw.
VALERIE LUU: Big and fat.
Big and fat.
EDDIE HUANG: Big and fat.
EDDIE HUANG: I do.
I think the think that bothers people in the Chinese
community or Asian community is, we don't have a food
critic or a food writer who grew up in a Chinese home or a
Vietnamese home.
So don't come tell me what's the best until you've really
tried to immerse yourself and give credit to
where it comes from.
EDDIE HUANG: When it's not a food that I really grew up
eating and really feel like I understand, I let people tell
me about it.
And then I go to explore.
You have to eat your way through a cuisine and a
culture before you can say something about it.
That's how I feel.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
VALERIE LUU: Welcome to San Francisco.
EDDIE HUANG: I like this town.
I *** with this town.
VALERIE LUU: So we're going to Duc Loi supermarket, which is
our go-to spot.
It's like a Vietnamese haven in the heart of the Mission.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
EDDIE HUANG: This is a nice grocery room.
Very multicultural, serving the neighborhood.
Got some galanga for the Thai people, epazote, Mexican, baby
dill for the WPs.
KATIE KWAN: I think we're going to
grill some rice paper.
EDDIE HUANG: That's your ***, right?
Grilled rice paper.
VALERIE LUU: Three Ladies?
KATIE KWAN: Three Ladies.
I love the Three Ladies.
EDDIE HUANG: Three Ladies go great with sausage.
Usually bagels, hard outside, right?
Watch what happens to these bagels?
Doof.
Do you see that?
This is not a bagel.
It's like a hamburger bun with the middle taken out.
If the bagels were good, burritos would not be this
popular in San Francisco.
VALERIE LUU: Who's got the cash money?
KATIE KWAN: Eddie.
EDDIE HUANG: That's my-- oh.
I got money.
Yo, David, where that "Vice" money at?
Pop-ups are everywhere, man.
Like, I think pop-ups are actually played out.
But what these girls are doing transcends the moniker of
"pop-up." They're culturally relevant beyond the box that
people want to put them in.
This is a funny situation.
Like, pop-up or not, man, like, what the
*** is this, man?
VALERIE LUU: So the Vietnamese way to get all your friends
and family to work for you-- this is what's
happening right here.
Food is a lot about stories.
It's about where it came from, and who is eating it,
and how it's made.
And to get people together.
And so that's what we do at our pop-ups, to get people
together on the street, and look at each other, and
rubbing elbows and kneecaps.
[MEOWING]
EDDIE HUANG: Oh, we got cats?
That's the authentic Vietnamese food.
[LAUGHS].
KATIE KWAN: So I'm American.
I was born and raised in Sunnyvale.
Vietnamese food was my way to get into my culture.
After college, I didn't really want a real job.
I wanted to do my own thing.
And again, that's that Vietnamese blood.
You want to hustle and be your own boss.
And then food was just a way to do that.
EDDIE HUANG: Food is a great gateway drug
into any foreign culture.
Because you can consume it, and it's like the base level
that you share with people.
That is just perfect.
KATIE KWAN: And it was a great way to hang out with grandma.
Like grandma--
I grew up eating Red Baron frozen pizzas because mom was
a single mother, and that's all we had time for.
And also grandma's cooking when she took care of us.
As I got older, I got more into that.
And so it's my way of getting to my culture.
Because my parents won't understand the tech stuff I
would have done in another life.
Social media stuff.
But we could all understand food, and geek out about it,
and connect around it.
EDDIE HUANG: This one looks good.
-Ooh, limes.
-Octopus.
Put it in your mouth.
-Excuse me.
-Put it inside your body.
-Ooh.
Ai-yah.
I saw that.
EDDIE HUANG: This is *** delicious.
-[INAUDIBLE] soba?
VALERIE LUU: Soba?
EDDIE HUANG: Yo, y'all can actually cook.
VALERIE LUU: Aww, yeah.
-Are you surprised?
EDDIE HUANG: Mm-hmm.
Food, to me, can get boring when all you're talking about
is the things that are on the plate, within the dimensions.
But they're really embracing the culture of dining, the
lifestyle of being a cook.
It's just great to see, man.
I eat at a lot of places.
I tell a lot of horrible stories, but
this is a good one.
KATIE KWAN: OK, I think it's time for some rice wine.
EDDIE HUANG: Rice wine.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
[CHEERING]
EDDIE HUANG: Oh please, please, more doo-doo water.
This is some horrible, horrible ***.
ALL TOGETHER: [SPEAKING VIETNAMESE].
-There's like floating *** in there.
EDDIE HUANG: I love counting in poor Asian languages.
Next up on "Fresh Off the Boat--"
burritos, burritos, burritos.
Then I'm off to Little Manila to hang with the Pinoys.
Get a fresh cut, and get your lotus flower game up.
-We *** with lotus flowers.
No, that's ***, right?
[MUSIC PLAYING]