Episode 19: Restaurant Kid with Julia Louie

We’ve talked a lot about Chinese restaurants in past episodes. On this one we’re getting a look into the kitchen from our guest and former restaurant kid Julia Louie. We hear what it’s like to grow up in a Chinese restaurant, the privileges and obligations of the owner’s kid, and code/mode-switching between family work life and outside life. 

We talk about Americanized Chinese food and try to figure out what the dividing line is between Americanized and not, how to fake Chinese “enoughness” when you don’t speak the language, and the foibles of being first a design student and then a real life design professional in a place where design is not a high priority. Plus sleeping at the restaurant in a snowstorm and the betrayal of Tall Guy!