To his friends and followers, Chef Tai Lee is ever the optimist: upbeat, creative, and not afraid of hard work. In the past year, those traits have been put to the test as Chef Tai has reinvented himself and his culinary brand since the start of the pandemic.
From the beginning
Growing up in South Korea, Tai Lee was regularly exposed to his mother’s and grandmother’s restaurant businesses. He watched and learned from his matriarchs, and in 2007, just five years after graduating from the Mays School of Business at Texas A&M University, he opened his own restaurant, Veritas. After that venture, he added a food truck, Chef Tai Mobile Bistro, to his burgeoning culinary concepts.
“It was the first food truck in the Bryan College Station area back in 2010,” says Chef Tai, as he is commonly known. Ten years have passed since he won the Food Network’s “America’s Favorite Food Truck” competition, in large part because of his immense fan base rooted in the Aggie network. Winning “America’s Favorite Food Truck” came with a handsome monetary prize, some of which he used to fix up the food truck to be interstate-travel ready, he says. Much has changed for Chef Tai in the past decade, save for the truck itself. “It’s the same vehicle which earned me the ‘Favorite Food Truck’ title,” Tai says. Sixty thousand miles later, that truck is still carting food to folks in and around B/CS.
In the 2010s, Paolo’s Italian Kitchen, Madden’s Casual Gourmet and Urban Table were added to the roster of what became the Chef Tai Food Group. Chef Tai was on a run: earning loyal customers, making good friends, giving back to the community and serving the on-air sportscasters during an ESPN College GameDay visit to Kyle Field. Then, in early 2020, Chef Tai feared the good times might be coming to an end as events unfolded on the other side of the world.
COVID-19
“When stories of the coronavirus in China began to circulate, my friends and family still in South Korea suggested that it could be an event on par with the SARS epidemic in the early 2000s,” Chef Tai says. “Well before COVID arrived here, I was already concerned how it might affect my business.” Not only did Chef Tai want to keep his businesses open, but he also wanted to keep his employees safe.
At first, Texas Governor Greg Abbott mandated restaurants reduce their occupancy to 50%, which provided Chef Tai a glimmer of hope. But when that proved insufficient to stem the pandemic tide, restaurants were ordered to eliminate in-house dining. By the summer of 2020, Tai was forced to close Veritas. At year’s end, Madden’s ceased operations as well.
Tai’s loyal following was also affected by the pandemic. For many, takeout, curbside pickup, or even a trip to the mobile bistro was a daunting proposition. “Curbside take-out isn’t going to go away,” Chef Tai says. “As we move forward, we will continue to keep more space between tables. As we expand, our dining rooms will be smaller.”
Zoom
What COVID couldn’t do was stem the community’s demand for Chef Tai Lee. Before COVID, rare was the local charity event that didn’t feature a live or silent auction item from the Chef Tai Food Group: dinner for two at Veritas, an in-person cooking lesson, or a catered in-home dinner for 10. Not even a deadly coronavirus could dampen Chef Tai’s enthusiasm and passion for giving back. “We quickly learned to make adjustments,” he says. “If someone paid $4,000 at a charity event for us to provide a catered meal in their home, we had to deliver.”
Deliver he and his team did, with Chef Tai on hand to lead the proceedings — Zoom-style. “People were surprisingly open to letting me help them prepare their meals via an online connection,” Chef Tai says. “We would send out the food in a chef’s or butcher’s pack; then I would get with the customer via Zoom and give them instructions for preparing the meal.” They’d be cooking in their own kitchen at their own pace, and Chef Tai would be there on their laptop screen guiding them through the process, he says. “It was a little time-consuming, yes, but it was also a lot of fun.”
Chef Tai used video-conferencing technology to come to the rescue in other ways, too. When a study-abroad trip to Russia through Texas A&M University was cancelled, Chef Tai pitched in.
He invited the 12 disappointed Aggie students to his Urban Table restaurant and hosted their virtual cooking class. “I was the Russian chef’s ‘avatar,’” Tai says with a laugh. “I had gotten the recipe ahead of time, so I had everything ready to go. [It was a] good thing her English was a lot better than my Russian,” he says. “All of us had a very memorable time that day.”
That experience made him think: What if I took advantage of streaming video technology to bring the Chef Tai experience to others? And so, the Chef Tai YouTube channel was born.
YouTube
Chef Tai’s YouTube channel is still relatively new, and with every how-to episode, he experiments, trying out different locations, including his own kitchen; adjusting at-home lighting configurations; and finding his groove in front of the camera.
“My first video on YouTube was pretty hideous,” Chef Tai admits. “The lighting was too dim, and I was, like, rambling on and on. But I wasn’t discouraged. I figured I had more of these coming, so I’d better get used to how to
present myself on camera.” He practiced with his cell phone, he says, “and sure enough, I got better.”
“I’m giving myself a full year to take the YouTube idea as far as I can,” Chef Tai says. Right now, he has approximately 350 subscribers. As he formalizes the effort and begins to promote it via his social media and Aggie networks, that number will likely increase.
“I have all sorts of plans for YouTube,” he says. “I envision offering cooking lessons and how-to advice on subjects like cleaning pots and pans and sharpening knives.” A series of video recipes is also in the works: a Chef Tai streaming video cookbook. “I think people are going to love that,” he says.
Chef Tai thinks he has found a home in front of a camera. “Even if I have only one viewer, even if my mother is the only person watching, that’s okay,” he says. “If my mom can share it with my grandma, well, that’s cool, too.”
Onward and upward
Undaunted by the past year’s challenges, Chef Tai replaced the space that was once Veritas with a new restaurant, Sôlt. The reimagined space is more casual, and its menu is crafted in the same spirit, with a plentiful offering of comfort food, Chef Tai-style. Chef Tai is also in the process of bottling some of his popular sauces for retail sales, including the sweet and spicy chili sauce that is served with the sushi roll, tartare, and calamari; the miso marinade that is paired with miso cod, seabass, and salmon and is the basis for the miso demi, miso mustard, and zest miso dressing; and the balsamic red wine glaze that is drizzled on salad and as a plate garnish. "These are now on their initial production for lab testing and initial field testing at our restaurants," Chef Tai says.
The community’s response to the new ventures have been positive, and so is his attitude. After what he acknowledges has been a stressful year, he is looking forward. He says, “Right now, my main goal is for me to enjoy what I do.”
Chef Tai’s Grilled Salmon with Green Pea Risotto from Sôlt Restaurant
Serving for 4
Lemon Butter
4 oz butter, softened
Juice and zest of 1 lemon
Half a bunch of parsley, roughly chopped
Place the butter, zest and juice and parsley in a food processor and combine.
Wrap in parchment paper, roll into a cylinder shape, and chill until needed.
Mushroom Topping
4 oz of brown Beech Mushroom
1 tbsp cooking oil
Salt and pepper to taste.
Pre-heat the sauté pan, pour cooking oil into the pan, and add the mushrooms.
Sauté until mushroom softens and browns.
Add salt and pepper to taste and set aside until ready to place on top of salmon.
Grilled Salmon
2 oz butter
6 oz frozen peas, thawed
2 small shallots, finely chopped
7 oz Arborio Rice
3 fl oz white wine
34 fl oz chicken stock
4 oz Parmesan cheese, shredded
4 salmon fillets with the skin on
Salt and pepper to taste 2 tbsp of cooking oil
Lemon butter to serve on top of salmon
Mushroom topping for garnish
Parmesan cheese, thinly shaved for garnish
Melt a third of the butter and the thawed-out peas. Cook for 2 minutes until cooked, add a ladle of stock to the pea.
Put on the lid and bring to the boil. Add the pea mixture into a blender and purée.
Melt the remaining butter in a pan . Add the shallot and cook for 1 minute but don’t let it brown. Add the rice and stir to coat with the butter. Add the white wine and cook until it has almost fully evaporated.
Slowly start adding ladles of the stock, one at a time, allowing the stock to be fully absorbed into the rice before adding the next. Stir continuously until the rice is cooked, about 20 minutes.
Finish with the Parmesan and pea purée, and season again. Set aside until needed.
Season the salmon on both sides with salt. Pre-heat grill on high flame.
Coat the salmon with oil and add the salmon fillets, skin-side down, and cook for 4 minutes, then flip over and give them one minute more.
Plate risotto on the plate and place the salmon on top with a slice of lemon butter on top. Garnish with sauteed mushroom toppings and shaved parmesan.
