We’re absolutely freaking delighted to be joined by Laurence Louie, chef/owner of Rubato and current Top Chef contestant.

We talk with Laurence about his beloved Chinese bakery staple bolo bao, how it shaped his culinary career, and its place on his current modern Chinese American menu.

Plus, growing up around his mom’s canto rock band, his journey from AAPI activist to hand-pulled noodle apprentice, and of course, representing the culture on Top Chef.

The lightest of spoilers for the first couple of episodes of season 23 of Top Chef, so listen with caution, but also go catch up immediately.

It might be 80 degrees out here in the Bay Area but we’re drooling over this episode’s dish, oxtail beef stew with Christina Wong Singh, founder of AAPI Empower Hour. On this episode we talk with Christina about her childhood disdain turned adult love of this arguably American Chinese dish.

We go hard on junior high school with New York City public school lunches, Jamaican beef patties, and math talents. Freesia can barely wrap her head around growing up in New York while Sam and Christina are incredibly nonchalant about it.

Plus, raising mixed Asian kids–as in, two Asian ethnicities–men who cook, and keeping culture and language alive through a generation or two of assimilation.

This episode we welcome Satsuki Ina, author, psychotherapist, producer and so much more! We talk with Satsuki about one of her favorite childhood and new year’s foods, inarizushi and her mom’s special take on it.

We spend some time talking about her very important book The Poet and the Silk Girl, which chronicles her parents' experience as Japanese Americans imprisoned during WWII, and talk about how so much of those experiences is still relevant today and the work for Satsuki that that continues to fuel.

We also talk about Satsuki’s experience as a kid running around Japantown and San Francisco in the 1940s and 1950s and her family’s weekend Chinese restaurant routine, which honestly sounds pretty great.