Being a cook, there's always pressure - not for your ego but for people to love your food.

I don't have many hobbies or talents other than cooking, but I've always been good at figuring out a city.

I grew up around so many different people in so many different neighborhoods, but the Latino heritage, the neighborhoods, and people have always been a part of my life, ever since I was a kid.

When I was around 25 years old, I lost everything and was a complete dirtbag.

Oh yeah, the 'Chef' movie was awesome.

I know all about Orange County.

You have to believe in something, and you have to believe in the things that you feel and find value in those things, and not be swayed all the time. Maybe you're gonna get swayed 90% of the time, to keep those things submerged, but you can't distrust yourself 100% of the time.

TV is a hard thing to do. It's a hard thing to get a show.

I go by 'Papi' on the streets.

I don't go for average.

My parents and friends, they're Ph.D.s that worked as custodians, that owned their own businesses, that went bankrupt, that moved seven times, that sent their kid to Harvard, that don't have any money for retirement. Highs and lows of life.

When you never see yourself in the mainstream format, you are stripped of the strength of your identity.

When Kogi started, I was dead broke, selling tacos on the street just to survive.

I didn't just grow up lowriding: I grew up lowriding and also in mansions in Orange County.

I like to go to a Korean salon.

Chefs have always been leaders, but now, because of social media and the evolution of the chef identity, we have a voice that expands beyond cooking.

I translate Hawaii as a place where people make sure I'm having a great time, eating terrific food, without any expectation of anything in return. It's a place for people to be happy. It sounds corny, but in Hawaii, it's not; it's uncorny.

I was watching TV and saw the 'Emeril' show, and it spoke to me. I went out and started researching the culinary world and chefs that I knew nothing about. Then I moved to New York and went to culinary school, and everything just fit like a glove. It's been on ever since.

I grew up on Julia Child, Paul Prudhomme, Sara Moulton - and obviously, Emeril's first show had a huge impact on my life.

My parents worked and sold and hustled; they were gone from the morning, and I pretty much took care of myself. But in a Korean household, you're always eating with your family no matter what, and you're always cooking. And our food is not one you can just open a package and eat right away; a lot of our food takes time to develop.

There is no typical day, not when there are so many people out there that I care about that can't access good food in their neighborhoods.

What was important for 'Broken Bread' to do was show real life.

Why can I cook for tourists that come and visit L.A. and are so excited to see the Kogi truck? Because I cooked at country clubs and Embassy Suites hotels.

I make food as affordable as possible.

Yes, a business should thrive, but it shouldn't thrive at the expense of everyone else losing.

What if every high-caliber chef told our investors that for every fancy restaurant we build, it would be a requirement to build one in the hood as well?

I'm just trying to cook good food, and I'm not afraid to do whatever I need to do to keep the food evolving.

I went to high school in Orange County.

I've always wanted a straight-up cooking show since I was a child.

There is something timeless and beautiful about cooking straight to camera.

I know a lot of artists and chefs don't talk about this, but sometimes you just don't get to the finish line. That honesty and tenderness is something we're kind of not supposed to express.

I'm not a get-off-my-lawn guy. I embrace the new generation.

I have a fun side and a serious side.

I'm in a place where I feel comfortable not being a chef anymore. That's taboo in our industry. 'Chef' is supposed to be the ultimate end of the road.

With public television, they're making things that aren't driven by advertisers. They're one of the only platforms where we can really mine for truth.

Only if you're from L.A. do you know Elysian Park.

I used to be a chef.

I grew up around food and in a restaurant, so it never dawned on me that this was a thing to do; it just was. Then I found it as a profession in my mid-twenties after years of bad decisions and depression. The first step was going to the bookstore and learning about this craft. Then applying in kitchens and just getting to work.

I kind of feel for the vegetable world - the vegetarian world. It's almost as if people look at them like aliens or foreigners.

Chefs don't have a union. We don't have a Screen Actor's Guild.

I've lived through a lot of different neighborhoods.

I know what it's like to be a teenager in Orange County. I know what it's like to be a kid in L.A. I know what it's like to not have any money and have your lights turned off. I know what it's like to live in a house with five rooms.

I don't have a boss. I don't answer to anybody. I do everything that I want to do out of the purity of making people happy.

I don't know if I'll ever be as good as I was when I started Kogi, but I strive for that.

I've been through a lot of things in my life.

Everything I do is like tough love; everything I put out there in the universe is me trying to feed you. I really care.

If you look at my life, I wasn't just poor; I was rich and poor.

American barbecue is all slow and low, you know, or low and slow, as they say down in the South, in Texas. But Korean barbecue is thinner cuts of meat.