The Fine Dining Restaurant in a New York City Subway Station

[water gushing]

[water sizzling]

Noksu is located

underneath the 32nd Street subway station,

which is unconventional

for a typical fine dining restaurant.

[water gushing] [machine whirring]

Working in the subway station

definitely has its limitations.

We can't have any guest stoves or open fires,

and we have to get creative with intricate techniques,

is also a small space,

so we have a really small team.

As the chef, the cuisine I'm cooking, plating and creating,

but I'm also in charge of the operations.

People come in the subway,

they're not really expecting anything,

and then here we are doing all this cool sciency stuff.

I'm here at Noksu. [Jing laughing]

So awkward.

Hi, my name is Jing.

I'm the chef cuisine here at Noksu

located underneath the subway station.

Let's get to work.

[tranquil ambient music]

So to get into the restaurant, we actually input a code

because we don't want people from the subway station

to just walk into the restaurant

and also gives like a little speakeasy vibe.

[machine beeping]

So we changed this code daily.

So it's just a restaurant, it's 15 seats.

Chef counter.

This place used to be a barbershop.

So our owner Bobby, was actually inspired

by the movie Giro Dreams of Sushi,

where the restaurant is actually located

in the [speaking foreign language] subway station,

so he decided to create one here in New York City.

So this is the main area of the kitchen

where we prep, we cook and we serve everything.

Chef Dae and chef Fred are already here

so I have to go and change [tranquil ambient music]

and get some work.

So this area is where we call the cave

'cause it's technically underground,

it's kind of under construction still.

This location is not owned by the MTA,

it's actually part of the Martinique hotel.

It's going to be a dessert hall in the future

and they have very kindly built as a little area

where we store our dry stuff in the subway station,

there's not a ton of space in the main kitchen.

So I'm gonna go over here to change.

I gotta change now, so see you later.

[Jing chuckles]

[tranquil ambient music]

The first thing I do

when I come in and work is look at the prep list.

So we fill out the prep list the night before

based on the reservations.

So today we have two seatings or 14, we're doing 28 covers.

For example, I wrote oysters with 28 people,

today we're gonna chuck 29 oysters with one extra

just in case it falls on the floor or something.

I typically check in with chef Fred over here.

Hi chef Fred.

Hey chef, how are you?

As the chef the cuisine for the restaurant,

I have to make sure that things are done in a timely manner

and that we have the prep we need for today.

He is our AM sous chef

and he is in charge of all the AM prep in the kitchen.

Fred, can you make the dashi foam

and then fry the big [indistinct]?

Yes, sure. Which is, I see it.

Okay, cool.

Thank you.

Yes. It's definitely easier

to prep for a tasting menu,

especially a tasting counter like this,

knowing how many people are coming in

so that we don't over prep or under prep.

Cool, so I'm gonna start the squab sauce

and I'm gonna go grab the squab wings right now.

[tranquil ambient music]

This is chef Dae, he's our executive chef.

Hey guys.

[Jing chuckles]

These are the squab wings.

We break down from the squabs

because we don't serve them to the guests,

so we use it for the sauce.

Squab is a pigeon, it's a domesticated pigeon.

We get our squabs from California.

We like to make fun of,

oh, we're using the pigeons from the subway.

[Jing chuckles]

But no, obviously we get them from a purveyor.

The first thing I do

[oil sizzling] is sear the squab wings.

We want to caramelize the squabs wings

to get the most flavor out of the squabs.

[oil sizzling]

It's very important that the oil is really hot

before we start.

When we deglaze it later with the madera and port,

all that caramelization in the bottom

is gonna transfer in the sauce and makes it nice and tasty.

I think squab [tranquil ambient music]

has a really nice like gamey flavor to it.

It's like a cross between duck and a chicken.

We do serve half a squab head.

It has a texture of a soft chop crab,

so you're supposed to eat the whole thing in one bite

because that's a limitation [oil sizzling]

of this space

where in the subway station

we can't really have like gas hooked into the space,

so we use electric stove,

and we have a nice little hood to suck up all the smoke.

Then we're gonna use the same rondo

to finish cooking the vegetables and to make the sauce.

So we add things here in layers,

like chef Dae's cooking has a lot of layers in them.

You wanna extract

like the most flavor out of each vegetable,

so you get them from adding things

from different stages before moving on to the next one.

So here we have black pepper corns and ding dongs,

Korean soybean paste.

It adds another layer and texture because it's fermented.

That's the CDC, I make this sauce

because I think it's a little technical,

and I really enjoy making it.

It's therapeutic.

Pour it.

It's a 45 wine, so it has more sugar than regular red wine

and we use this for a sauce

just to add a little bit of sweetness into it.

So I'm gonna bring this down to sec,

which means I'm gonna take it down so it's dry.

I'm reducing it low and slow

to extract the most flavor out of the squab wings,

as well as the vegetables.

Uh-oh.

The induction kind of stopped working.

I'm gonna have to reset it.

Definitely one of the struggles, so.

Things get broken here,

I do have to find solutions to fix it,

it's just part of being a chef

to cuisine for the restaurant.

Yeah, she's back.

[tranquil ambient music] I'm gonna add the Madeira

in here and it has that more a acidic flavor,

so it has that nice like fermented barrel oak flavor.

This still needs to reduce for about 10 to 15 minutes

and I'm gonna add the [indistinct]

and then mushroom essence,

which is the last thing

[sauce sizzling] that goes into this sauce.

In the meantime, I'm gonna start with pastry stuff,

which is something that I do as a CDC in this restaurant.

[upbeat ambient music]

Right now we're making the Hawthorn granite tea

that goes on top of the free dessert,

it's a palate cleanser.

In the bottom, there's pistachio custard

and then it's taco berry sorbet [indistinct] foam

and topped with this Hawthorn granite.

Verju, it's like a non-alcoholic grape juice.

It's nice and tart and acidic.

But this is a cherry puree

that I'm adding into the [indistinct].

We don't have a pastry chef

because essentially we're just like a very small restaurant.

There's only four or five of us

cooking in this kitchen at one time.

You can't have a tasting menu without desserts.

Haw flakes is, it's like a traditional Chinese candy.

It looks kind of like that.

It's like a little disc.

This is a childhood snack for me and chef Dae actually.

I'm from Singapore and we do have this candy,

and I hated it as a child.

But it has a really good acidic flavor.

I think it goes really well with the huckleberry.

So now I'm adding the glucose.

It's kind of like wet sugar.

Glucose actually helps to thicken the product

that I'm making and also makes it sweeter.

So this will come up to a boil

and then I'm gonna let the haw flakes steep

for about 30 minutes before I strain it

and then make something else out of it.

While this is going, [tranquil ambient music]

I'm gonna be adding the Beal Jew into the squab sauce.

So there's a lot of multitasking going on.

For example, like this is boiling,

I have time to do something else

so I don't have to stand here and wait.

If you don't have a whole lot of time before service.

I do have a ticking clock in my head always.

I try to like in my head mentally like time each project,

so I know that this is gonna take three hours to make,

so I'm gonna start it first.

Oh, it's boiling.

So I'm just going to strain it into a pint.

Now it's a syrup, yeah.

So now I'm gonna make the actual granate mix.

It's a ratio of syrup to water.

So I use this tool called the refracto meter.

The refracto meter measures the sugar content,

it a mixture.

And then from there we can figure out

if it's the right percentage that we want

or we can adjust it with more syrup or more water.

We're trying to hit between 18 to 22,

that's the most ideal

'cause anything more than that would be too sweet

and then it wouldn't snap like a granite would.

That's just what we do

[tranquil ambient music] is strive for perfection.

Right now it's very low,

so I'm gonna add more syrup to adjust it.

A bricks is just a measurement unit for sugar content.

So when you put any liquid

or something that you wanna measure on here,

it shines a light

and the light would reflect whatever solid,

in this case it's sugar in there

and it measures how much light is reflected.

Okay, perfect, we're at 19.

And now we're gonna put them into the molds

and then I'm gonna blast freeze it.

So we only have one of these moles here,

so that's why I'm doing it one tray at a time.

Also space.

We only have this little blast freezer

that can only hold up to two trays

and there's already a couple things in there.

The blast freezer is different from a normal freezer.

Blast freezer is protein cake.

Yeah.

Next I'm gonna do some inventory and invoicing

because as a chef the cuisine for the restaurant,

you're also in charge of the operation side of things

and that's just what entails it.

This is our ordering board

where we write down the things that we need to order.

There's also the clipboard where we put all our invoices

as well as the order guides that I use to place orders.

So the chef de partie

will write down what they would need for me to order.

I also put down cutoff times over here

'cause different purveyors

have different ordering cutoff times.

Basically it's actually easier

to order for a smaller restaurant,

especially for a tasting menu.

Well, based on the reservations,

we can tell how many people are coming in for the week

and then we'll order accordingly.

But we also don't wanna order too much earlier in the week.

Space is very limited here

because we are in a subway station,

and we just try to make everything work.

I take my order guide here [tranquil ambient music]

and then I look through the regions to see what we have,

what we don't have, and I'll write it down

and then I'll place the orders after.

I'll also grab the invoice clipboard

and I'll start scanning the invoice

into a system that we use, that way we can track inventory

and make sure we're not overspending.

It's called Craftable.

It's a really powerful tool

that we use to track our inventory, our spending,

I use that to calculate costing.

It keeps track of the price changes for the ingredients,

so then I'll know what costs more now

while I have to source for a cheaper product.

That is my job as CDC [tranquil ambient music]

is also to sustain the business

'cause at the end of the day,

the restaurant is still a business.

The goal is to have the menu cost below 25%.

Usually the most expensive thing

right now in this restaurant are actually the squabs

and we typically get about three to four cases a week,

and that would cost us maybe like $1,700.

I like to budget weekly spending between 4,000 and $5,000.

So right now this is done,

I'm gonna be making the truffle pearls,

which is kind of like a cool little sciency project

that we have here in a restaurant, and it's really cool.

[Jing chuckles] [upbeat ambient music]

So this is just really cold oil

that we would need to make the spheres.

The spheres are basically just little like truffle curls.

It looks like very, very small tiny boba.

[Jing chuckles]

This is kind of like a spear verification process,

so we are gonna add agar into this,

and once it hits the cold oil,

it's gonna seize up immediately

and it's gonna spear up almost like right away.

This is mushroom essence and truffle juice

that I'm putting it in here.

We make the mushroom essence inhouse.

It's cremini mushrooms cooked down with water.

We're gonna add squid ink for color.

[loud thumpign] It's just the sound

of chef Dae.

Sign that you know he's in the kitchen.

[Jing laughing]

He's hashing some perilla.

So this goes on to the oyster dish.

I'm gonna add dashi.

Dashi is a stock made with kombu in bonito.

For agar to activate,

it needs to boil for at least a minute

while you're whisking, if not, it's not gonna work.

Agar is a setting Asian.

This is our rack of chemicals.

They're also called hydrocolloids, which we use in cooking

and it basically helps to

stabilize [tranquil ambient music]

the sauces that we make except they love the chemical wreck.

[Jing chuckles]

It does feel like a science experiment

and it's definitely very fun to play with.

Just helps to make a better product.

Which for example, in like sauce making,

it can help to prevent things from splitting too quickly.

I'm gonna just like transfer it here

so I can put it in a squeeze bottle.

It doesn't have to sit in the oil for too long,

it almost just starts to sphere instantly,

once I add the mixture in there,

it does really have to be very cold for it to work.

And the spinning the bowl

as I'm dripping the chocolate spheres in there

so that it's not too hot.

All right, we're just done here.

I only knew I wanna be a chef when I was about 14,

when I really suck at school,

and I think it's the only thing I'm really good at,

so that's why I'm doing it.

It's actually really fun.

This is just a paset or a patois.

We used to stream stuff.

A lot of French lingo, a lot of kitchen lingo.

It really just turns into nice little pearls.

Chef Dae had this idea

of making the dish look like it's in a pond.

So the spheres look like the soil next to a lake or a pond.

It also adds an interesting texture and flavor to the dish.

It's really pretty and I think the guests enjoy it.

And if they enjoy it,

then I think it makes it all very meaningful

and worth it for all of us.

And it's almost 15:30 now,

so I'm gonna start making the beignets.

So I have the beignet batter over here

as well as the ISI gun,

which I am going to charge the batter in.

The ISI gun is typically used

to aerate any kind of products,

very commonly whipped cream,

but I use it for the beignet

to incorporate more air into the dough

so it's nice and fluffy.

This batter is almost like a sourdough.

It has yeast in there so it's alive

and it's constantly fermenting.

So this dish is basically a savory custard

made with Parmesan, as well as a little bit of uni

and some truffle oil to make it extra luxurious.

Right now I'm gonna charge this gun.

Charging the gun means that I am putting nitrogen,

this guy in here.

[gun sprays] [upbeat ambient music]

So now it is charged and ready to be piped.

So I'm just shaking it up to incorporate all the gas

from the little charger.

It [indistinct] it basically.

And the induction burner actually bring things up quicker

than a typical guest stove

because of all the magnet from the actual induction,

clinged on to the pot or pan that we're using,

and it heats it up almost like instantly.

I want it at between 180 to 200.

So I do make sure

that there's a little bit of oil in the ladle

before I pipe the batter in there

just so that it doesn't stick to the bottom of the ladle.

Right after I pipe it,

it should start to bubble if it's the right temperature

and then I'm gonna base it

and it should puff up like a little ball.

So this ladle actually helps keeps the shape of the beignet

'cause I want them nice and round.

As a CDC, I definitely help with

a little bit of the creative aspect of the menu.

So this is what it looks like on the inside.

It's nice and airy.

This is before we pipe the Parmesan

custard that goes in there.

It is chef Dae's favorite, he loves it.

Chef Dae, do you want one? Absolutely.

[Jing chuckles]

So we just finished frying all the beignets

[tranquil ambient music] and now

I'm gonna start cleaning up.

It's currently four o'clock,

have about two hours until service.

So right now I'm basing the squabs

30 minutes before service, just get it ready for service.

We base this at a lower temperature

and then we let it rest for about 30 minutes.

It helps to tighten the skin a little bit

so that when we do the final fry at a higher temperature,

it starts to become crispy.

One squab is two portions,

so we do 14 squabs all day.

[tranquil ambient music] So I'll be here from

when service starts at six

all the way till we close around 11 o'clock.

My role primarily is help plate the food

and cook the squabs as well as some small garnish.

Plating is really important in the tasting menu

because I think it gives the visual for the guests

to try to understand and see what we're trying to do here,

especially here in Noksu,

we try to be very, very detailed.

During service, it takes us about maybe like

10 minutes to plate some things.

Once service starts,

it's like a little dance we do with each other,

we're guest facing.

I think it's really cool that we're plating the food

and then we're serving it to the guests.

All right, so it's service.

I have to finish frying these squabs.

Thank you for joining me today,

the day live at CDC at Noksu.

Come try out food sometime.