0:00 [Music] welcome back to another amazing episode of the hot seat where we got way over here nervous you know so we all play hot season before computers clothes and everything you just want to you know just kick back put a little bit of spotlight on you get to know you a little bit better all the spotlight but don't worry we can warm up into a we always like to start cold with a little bit of a sterile bark question something really catches you off guard and then we get really dark we'll heat it up gotcha maybe it gets a little spicy here but we'll see what happens go ahead bar hit her off um do you like plastic bags or paper bags oh man that's your most sterile question yet dude wow plastic why do you like plastic because it doesn't rip as easy ████ oh ████
0:52 you ████ dude what are you dumb or something i do not know that god damn you can't get paper bags wet i never realized this like sibling energy y'all got until today because like before like i didn't really sense this until like today bart was like on a roasting fire on twitter like all day long i feel comfortable with it yeah feel comfortable with that all right and i feel like i got two vietnamese sisters over there [Laughter] oh fire bro there you go pet peeve when people are loud for no reason you mean like just a big voice ████ no you guys are cool whatever but it's just like on the plane or like on somewhere where you're not supposed to be loud and
1:43 you're just like obnoxiously loud and you don't care who's the loudest person in your circle so you don't like chinese people [Laughter] ████ loud for no reason how would you say like for no reason like why but like a loudest friend he's a loudest friend still a friend so it's all nice and ████ yeah i'm gonna say um this girl nikki shout out nikki what's up nicky you loud ass ████ nikki like when we're in a group like she's the one nicki actually just screaming and ████ loud loud for no reason they should talk with claps yes oh one of those ladies yes she might have a ear boogers backed up because i how are you once i took out my ear boogers i was like ooh i talked i talked loud that's like david so of this room yeah
2:34 he's pretty loud he always i also really hate like just loud noises like unnecessary noises for no reason just like describe an unnecessary noise um honking or drinking or like car isn't that alarms though they just heard all those kind of sounds okay okay get off the vietnamese sisters back all right i want to sock you for her bro what please ask your innocent questions all right you you came to america in 2006 did you come with your family or did you come traveling alone i came with my family so my sister my dad my mom and my auntie everybody decided to come over here no we got sponsored over here because i my mom's sister sponsored us they they came kind of late right yeah
3:24 like did they say i'm going to america i want a better life no it was more of a situation where paperwork just went through because the whole process is really really long my mom's been waiting for like 10 12 years and then i just she just happens to have a family in vietnam yeah waiting for the papers to go through yeah that happens yeah and so like once the paper went through she just happens to have a family so her whole family can go with her when you're a kid and you came to the states and then you don't you didn't know english right all of a sudden you're just thrown into the school all this ████ how was that like it was um i think it was a situation where it was like ignorance is bliss because i was like i didn't understand what they were saying i just had no comprehension in it loki just kind of went so fast to where i'm just like or maybe i'm just like suppressing those thoughts and feelings that i felt
4:15 back then were you around asians um no i moved to oxnard so it was a lot of hispanics yeah and what was your first impression of america mexico cold i came in during december i came on december 25th so christmas christmas merry christmas america yeah my taiwanese relatives when they come here in the summer they're still wearing jackets and ████ yeah i'm like it's cold here like cold cold so i have a bunch of vietnamese friends that came in their childhood too right but they never shook off their accent but you how did you do that i'm not sure i think it's a lot of television i watched a lot of spongebob and the food network and anthony bourdain yeah is that how you got to cooking yeah is that how you got into cooking um yeah anthony bourdain definitely inspired me
5:06 to be kind of fascinated with food because he um came at an angle where it was just beyond the food so that yeah that intrigued me so you um growing up you knew you wanted to do something with food no i i didn't when was your first moment where you're like i'm going to cooking school when my mom wanted me to be a nurse and i knew that i didn't what what made you go i'm gonna nurse what what made you say i'm gonna ████ nurse because that's not what i wanted to do i never felt a passion for it i i'm really really scared of blood um yeah i just didn't want to do that what about blood and cooking does that freak you out like a steak no what part of blood are you afraid of that like people getting cut and like just drawing blood and ████
5:56 it makes my legs weak okay yeah like even in the kitchen when somebody like cuts themselves or when i cut myself i'm just like uh like wow you gonna jump in the freezer cool down yeah let's see damn so it became like like one of those things where the asian parent goes you must do this and you're like oh it wasn't even a situation like that it was kind of like they kind of expected me to be and i was like okay i think i'll do that and so throughout high school i was like volunteering at the hospital just like setting myself up for this path and then at the end when i was really about to go to school like in like during senior year doing the paperwork and stuff like that i was like i really don't think i can finish this i really don't think that i can go through with this so then yeah so then i was just like what do you really like to do and i'm like i love to eat i don't know
6:46 how to cook ████ it just go to culinary school and then when when your mom heard that was she like you're not part of this family no more um we had a disagreement but at the end of the day i like stood my ground and that like she realized that she couldn't change my mind what was the biggest dish you told your mom biggest whole life what was the what's the biggest or the funniest thing you ever called her i don't remember like a fat cow or something no did you get into a fist fight with her i almost almost when i was like oh big enough to like fight back and then she realized oh ████ yeah like you're big enough your mom must be small oh ████ yeah she's like 4 11. did you guys come here on the same seat then both you guys said in one chat bye
7:37 that's the right answer that's the right answer what what do you think of your mom's cooking i mean it's what makes my cooking really special because i learned she's not the type of person that would teach you how to cook because she's like you just add this at this you feel it you just know you smell it so i can't learn like that but i've learned through tasting her food of like what i want my food to taste like if it wasn't cooking what would you be doing if it wasn't cooking she's like nurse no i think i would be like in like maybe like just print modeling something like that yeah like i love like just the fashion world as well why did what also you would have got done something with clothes yeah if you're in charge of uh the ai the future ai group
8:28 describe what you think the ideal man should be and what would you create dude ideal me to come out and create this ideal man yeah ooh ideal man i think black okay we got that one what else quick i'm dead no big and tall fashion sense oh wow i think i date this guy already wow likes to eat yeah wow loves vietnamese food yeah maybe i know her more than she knows herself yeah you you treat me what is it what is it what would it be huge heart um oh man i think it's it i for me it always goes beyond the physical because if i can't like have a conversation with you if i can't like connect with you on
9:19 like be on the surface level then i can't be with you so anything that's like if you're mentally challenging me like i love that ████ hmm who's your high school crush then coming to america and then zac efron for real yeah and like damn he's so fine yeah ████ i don't see you in vietnam man zac efron all the way do you still feel that way now he's cute but not yeah he's not the same not the high school musical not not that cool now we all in this together yeah yeah yeah yeah he aged today's video is brought to you by upstart it's almost a new year so it's time to start thinking about your resolutions how about adding financial freedom to the list with a little bit of help from upstar upstart is the fast and
10:09 easy way to pay off your debt with a personal loan all online whether you're paying off credit cards consolidating high interest debt or funding personal expenses over half a million people have used upstart to get one fixed monthly payment upstart knows you're more than just your credit score and is expanding access to affordable credit unlike other lenders upstart uses your credit and current employment to find you a smarter rate for your loan with a five minute rate check you can see your rate up front for loans from 1 000 up to 50 000 dollars wow and receive your funds as fast as one business day after accepting your loan so find out how upstart can lower your monthly payments today by going to upstart.com off the record that's upstart.com
11:01 off the record and don't forget to use this specific url so they know that we sent you go get it baby loan amounts will be determined by your credit income and other information that you provide on the loan application go to upstart.com off the record and get your financial freedom today who's your goat like besides anthony bourdain as far as like uh tv chefs growing up like who was your favorite to watch favorite i would say giada de laurentiis yeah i thought she was just always really beautiful to watch like pleasant to watch um and she was always on at three and that was after school so i've just always watched her you've been watching giada since you were a kid yeah oh that's like really your thing huh yes like i didn't realize it then but like that's what i would always watch like just the food network i love chopped um
11:53 all of that ████ i love the cookies if you if you couldn't cook vietnamese food french food french fruit that's damn near vietnamese food is the cooking technique similar like because of the french style cuisine so in like mixed with vietnamese food um similar yes there are like certain differences because like vietnamese people we don't really care about like techniques that much like different knife cuts and all of that stuff it's more of just like flavor profile they're pretty their clothes and flavor profile but not really like techniques okay i got a question for you if you're in charge of real laughing you throw me off if you had to rename the five most popular vietnamese foods with std names which ones would they be
12:45 which one would be aids which one would be gonorrhea two big pass hard pass hey that's our first pass of the house we're at the 12 minute and 14 second moment of the show i like the premise well we like to start getting a little bit deeper a little bit spicier with our questions get to know you a little bit better okay okay all right when was the last time you cried yesterday night damn oh ████ you're too sensitive please please do tell yeah um it was during dinner service and it was just like stress and all of that just combined and me having to prep for like two days ahead and having just people in my ear and it was just like building and building so i just had to step away let the tears run down for a bit and then gather myself and went back to the kitchen um oh because you were serving yes it was i got it because she had onions no it was drink service yeah does
13:35 that happen a lot like it does it gets stressful yeah it gets real and i it was like my name on the line too so it was like people referring to me as like chef so i was basically head chef so it was a lot do you feel like you semi thrive in the stress though that's something that makes you yeah did you did you cry during the the pop-up that you did recently too or no no because i know that was pretty stressful too yeah no what was your biggest obstacle along this journey like can you look back and be like that that ████ ████ traumatized me like a ████ what journey like career-wise or yeah like just coming to america i would just say like um anything that comes to mind that was like yo that should ████ me up dude yeah your movie you're the main character i think it was a situation where um rick and i put out a video where we
14:26 um talked about our open relationship and it just i wasn't ready for the amount of people that were gonna like that had a lot to say that had their opinion like a lot of guys started hitting on you no no like it was more like just ████ talking oh like they didn't like and oh they didn't accept that yeah like oh it's crazy it's like this is your ████ yeah yeah no we put that video we made that video with the intention of like this is our this is our story this is our perspective like i feel like we could bring a different perspective to the table yeah and it just didn't turn out like that and it almost how did people receive it like were they like you're ████ wrong or like yeah they were basically like oh she's not into him or he's a semp um what uh she's a ████ like she just doesn't like him like that stuff like that you know and it like
15:16 just a lot of like outside voices and i wasn't ready for that at the time yeah ████ everybody they all project me you know for sure yeah like that was definitely like really really difficult because of like the amount of like opinions that were pushed upon me that i wasn't ready for so the follow-up to that is i think when you're in the public eye like we all experience something along the lines of that right but then like i've seen a lot of people stop social media after getting canceled after doing things but then you decided to keep going um what got you to go like you know what ████ these opinions um i think it was more of a situation where i was like i don't have to put my relationship out there like that like i at the end of the day we know who we are
16:06 we know what we are and so we're just like ████ them whatever so now i'm just i just focus on what i do and that's cooking so i use the platform to just push my career more than just like oh this is my life look at my house look at my boyfriend's i closed it up a little more made it more focused on on the career on the food yeah yeah [Music] if you had a piece of advice uh for other aspiring either chefs or little immigrant vietnamese ladies or whatever it might be what would you give off based off of everything you've experienced um pay attention to what what fills your cup like pay attention to what really makes you feel fulfilled and whole even if it feels scary even if it feels like it's never gonna work out like once you align yourself in that situation once you align yourself to
16:56 receive the things that you want it's gonna come to you wow very wise if you had to deal with either a itchy butt or itchy vagina for the rest of your life what would you deal with that's a good question that it's important that we all learn from that yeah yeah i'd like to answer that afterwards and there's nothing i can do about it no it's one or the other it's one or the other and it's so itchy where you have to scratch it in public yeah oh in public or you try to hide i mean try to go behind the bush or something but it's it's it's pretty crazy it's your butthole i'm gonna say butthole really really yeah i don't know having an itchy vagina i don't know yeah i think butthole's better too because you don't want people to think you're masturbating in public yeah you get like a sex crime on you and ████ and like it's your butthole you can kind of like scratch it like when you're sitting you know and
17:46 you can put your arm behind you they don't know what you're doing like if it's vagina you kind of have to like put your legs in between something and it's just weird yeah that's how i scratch my vagina you know so what's one of the hardest things you've done for your career one of the hardest um i think it has to be like cooking for people in real life because that is your career yeah yeah i've done it before but it was under the guides of like the the chefs that have like experience like years and years of experience that's guiding us through the kitchen and we just have to like prep for him whatever so like running your whole operation i see that's the hardest part you got all the liability and building like a team that could work well together um handling like little ████ yeah dang what's your advice on team building oh
18:36 advice on team building um like only asians or keep one race on team building i think team building really comes from like you because if you are i i think a lot of times people think of like your team like if it's my team then i'm the leader it's i i have this mentality of like if it's my team i am serving them like i if you're working for me i'm gonna make sure that i take care of you because i know that if i take care of you you're gonna do better work than having you feel like you're working for me so i just like make sure to treat my team members no matter who they are really well because at the end of the day like they know how much they're getting paid and they know that i'll take care of them no matter what
19:26 yeah very good snaps for that yeah where do you feel like you've learned that from like do you feel like that's something that was always a part of you or do you feel like this is something that was very intentional when you're trying to work with the team i think it's from my experience of working with leaders that have big egos um that was that was it you're like that's not gonna be me yeah that's not gonna be me which one of your family members is the most fun when they're drunk workers my dad your dad my dad what what's so fun about drinking with them um i mean i've drank i've literally like have partied with him ever since i was over in vietnam they don't have an age limit whatever yeah so like i would be the person that drinks drinks with him and then that is the wildest thing that i do remember is like when there were night life like restaurants there's like here it's like oh over 21. out
20:18 there you see family bro like it's like two o'clock in the morning and there's a ████ baby and mom's drinking and the whole family's partying together i would go to the i would tell people this all the time and they don't believe me i'm like i would go to the club with my parents and just chill like just hang out and party with them that's time there's that street in um saigon where it's like hella ████ party i forgot the name of it sesame sesame sesame street my first experience crazy ████ is like you know there's like karaoke bars there's like bars and then there's like um you know little chairs out on the patio there's shisha smoking or whatever and if you look closely there's people on dates whatever but then there's full families yeah drinking having a blast and there'll be like a
21:08 table full of kids just hanging out and eating and just sitting around and everyone's just getting wasted obviously the kids aren't drinking well at least not that i know they're like picking up cockroaches and ████ but it's it's like a family environment and i was like this is the craziest thing i've ever seen but it's that's just like the norm yeah just families that hang out i remember my family owning a restaurant in vietnam and um there were like private rooms and there was a private like dinner going on in one of those rooms and it was my dad's friends and i would i was drinking with them and then i just remember like just being getting drunk and going back to the room like my room and i can just hear like my mom like where's where's dway where's toy and then they come in and they find me and we had to go somewhere and we had to get dressed but i literally got out of the bed and like
21:58 just laid back on the floor because i was so wasted and that was me that was me in vietnam so i was little little yeah now you're huge that's huge massive how dare you you
// end of tape