The 'white guy' who cooks Asian
Michael Schulson talks about his culinary journey from the Jewish foods of his childhood to ownership of two stylish Asian eateries.
He has two places of his own now - Izakaya, a sexy Japanese pub in the Borgata that does 710 covers on an unremarkable Saturday night, and, at 13th and Sansom, a sleek, new-Asian cafe called Sampan.
So Michael Schulson, a self-described "white guy" with well-received runs at New York's Buddakan and West Philly's Pod, can lay credible claim to being one of the savvier interpreters of updated Asian fare. (Think slick Korean rice cakes with spicy Italian sausage "Bolognese"; steak and poached egg bahn mi sandwiches bright with pickled shallot; ramen noodle soup with a succulent shred of smoked pork neck.)
He cut his teeth in the kitchen. But what a kitchen it was - his grandfather, a Long Island kosher butcher, would supply the hanger steak ("We got it because no one else wanted it"), his grandmother would spread the whole kitchen table with kreplach.
We're talking the whole canon of Jewish home cooking - stuffed cabbage, schmaltz (not butter), chicken soup involving the whole chicken, the feet always included.
Which might not have been such bad training after all.
Rick Nichols: So, your mother would grind the matzoh by hand for the matzoh balls. Did your dad pitch in?
Michael Schulson: Every year at Passover time he'd dig up the horseradish root from the garden, wash it, and attach this piece-of-junk hand-grinder to the table with a towel under it, and someone had to hold the table from shaking. We'd see who could hold on the longest without crying.
R.N.: What was up with those chicken feet in your bubby's soup?
M.S.: She made the best chicken soup ever. The key was those chicken feet. So years later I'd go out to eat with these Chinese guys and they'd order all this stuff, and soup with chicken feet sticking out and they'd say, "You're not going to eat that, are you?" Little did they know.
R.N.: You're not a Philly boy?
M.S.: No, I grew up in Roslyn Heights, in Long Island, between two richer towns. My parents were both schoolteachers. I was the guy who delivered the Penny Saver . . . to make a dollar.
R.N.: And your paying culinary career started there?
M.S.: Yeah, my first job was stocking the salad bar at Bob's Big Boy in Roslyn Heights.
R.N.: You started your more formal training under a Laurent Manrique, a French chef at Peacock Alley in the Waldorf Astoria. How'd that go?
M.S.: He was a crazy French chef. He yelled and screamed all day long. If I got anything on my chef's jacket, he'd make me take it off and work in my T-shirt. But he was probably one of my greatest influences.
R.N.: One bridge between French and French-Asian cuisine was the estimable Susanna Foo. How'd you end up in her kitchen?
M.S.: My girlfriend - now my wife [Jill] - was making good money working at Rosenbluth Travel when I was working at the Waldorf. She was making like $30,000. I was making like $7 an hour. So it made more sense for me to move down to Philly. One of the guys knew Georges Perrier, so that's when I went to Le Bec on Walnut Street. Doing salad again. I still remember, it was 168 covers every night. Didn't matter if it was Tuesday or Saturday.
R.N.: But Susanna Foo?
M.S.: After work we'd go out to Oscar's, the bar on Sansom Street. I'd see these Chinese guys sitting in the corner, yapping away. They worked at Susanna Foo. I [went over to her restaurant] and said I wanted to work for her. She said you don't speak Chinese! I came back the next day. She said "no" again. The third day I brought my knives and said I'd work for free.
R.N.: That training led to your first Buddakan (Philly) job, and later to Food TV gigs, including Go Ahead and Make My Dinner. You got great reviews after Stephen Starr moved you up to Buddakan (New York). Then you disappeared to Japan. What happened?
M.S.: I always said I wanted to go to Japan to learn. But the whole story is that my wife lost her job at Rosenbluth and went to law school at Temple. And they had a semester-abroad plan in Japan. That's how we ended up there; she got a student visa and I got a spousal visa.
R.N.: Did you cook there?
M.S.: I worked for the Four Seasons in Tokyo, and Spago, Tokyo.
R.N.: How'd you come to open a place in a casino?
M.S.: Well, the TV shows were rocking and rolling, and you grow your career, and someone at Borgata said they'd build out a space for me. I wasn't sold at first.
R.N.: What sold you?
M.S.: They sent a car. They put me up in the Presidential Suite. They showed me the places that Bobby Flay and Wolfgang Puck opened. They said what would I want here. I said an izakaya like in Japan, sushi, cooked food, and drink; nobody was doing that around here.
R.N.: Has the downturn in gaming hurt your Atlantic City business?
M.S.: We've been doing great. I think you've got people saying, "I can't go to Vegas. But I have $1,000. A room is $250. Instead of gambling with all the rest, maybe I'll get a good meal." We're not out of sight. We're a $55 check average. I