new cuisine, you have to be kind of savvy and also a little bit careful, right? you're trying to create a market when it's not there. the fact that thai food had gained a reputation in west hollywood and other places as, you know, delicious food, but it was a certain kind of thai food.hat opened the way for these newer chefs to say, "you know what, we can be unique and different within ts food cultu." like, chefs are artists, and so they're coming up with stuff all the time. it's not to say it doesn't happen in thailand, but i think being in l.a., this kind of cross-pollination might be opening up new tastes and

flavors in thai cuisine. it's been established. thai food is well-known, but this is something different. second man: from moving to l.a. 4 years ago to now, my goal was to bring my story to l.a. and cook the food that i was taught from my family, from my mentors and through my travels. ok, new order kokoda, tomatoes, szechuan. new order lamb neck tomato, mapo, chicken. i always branded our food as southeast asian, though kind of our own take of it.

it's not traditional. you know, it's definitely served in a different style of setting. but i feel like maybe we created a niche for that group of people. man: i think the core ingredients for thai cuisine-- you have to have kefir lime leaf, galangal, lemongrass, and many different kinds of chili. these ingredients mix with all other kinds of ingredients, but it's the flavor profile that makes it stand out--the salty, the sweet, the sour, and the spicy. the best measurement of a cook is how they balance those flavors. that seems to be what louis is really doing... and doing well! ha ha! louis: to balance these bold heavy flavors is almost impossible. it's not like you're dealing with oregano and olive oil. you know, it's--it's just such contrasting ingredients. i have a spicy, aromatic, sweet- sour duck larb. i roast it and baste it first, wood grill it, then mix it with tamarind, lime juice, fish sauce, chili, palm

sugar, lemongrass, lime leaf, galangal, thai basil, cilantro, mint, and mix it up. and then around it, we have cabbage and cucumber and lime and herbs that help to balance it out texturally and flavor. so when people eat the dish, they're, "wow! i've had a green curry. i've had a duck lar but doesn't taste like that." it's like, "yeah, 'cause it's got, you know--sometimes it's got close to 30 ingredients in just that one plate." mark: i mean, he's very skilled at the foundation and the essence of balancing all those flavors that then can be applied and translated to a million different dishes. louis: that's why i fell in love with thai food and that's why i love to go that extra mile in how we prepare and how we create the dishes because people get that experience in this restaurant that i feel that it's quite unique, especially in l.a., to to receive that amount of flavor and balance in one dish. woman: i met louis almost 4

years ago before he was opening his restaurant here. you know, he's fijn, he's australian. you know, he has aeally big background from a lot of different places. and i was like, "wow, what is he gonna do with his food in l.a.? you know, what's his style gonna be?" louis: my grandmother is fijian- chinese, and my grandfather is fijian-indian. so growing up in fiji, my nickname was "fruit salad" 'cause my father's a mix of all of that and my mum's half-irish, half-scottish. i just didn't know where to start. do i do dishes that my grandmother taught me when i was 7 or 8? do i stick to what i know and what i know works, or do i throw caution to the wind and just put it all together a if i like to eat it and i like to taste it and it's something i like, it goes on the menu? i wanted to do what i felt was right, which was put on nama, which is fresh- squeezed coconut cream seaweed. just a beautiful dish that my gran--was the first dish i ever made, and that's on the menu and

it's been on the menu from day one. jenn: he's doing what l.a. chefs do best, which is he's taking where he's from, the flavors, you know, that he's used to from back home, and he's putting them on a plate and really giving you something magical that really demonstrates who he is as a person. louis: so this one's great, especially for l.a., as i feel there's so many people so into, like, japanese and sushi. so this is like a vegan-style ceviche. louis: so a chef actually came and sat at the chef's counter. he said to me, like, "you're ballsy, man," you know. and i was like, "oh," you know, "what do you mean?" he's like, "in this neighborhood cooking this food..." i'm not gonna move to l.a. and not cook the food that i want to cook because i just don't--it's not honest to myself, it's not honest to the clientele. and they're not getting the true picture of the story i'm trying to tell. mark: it's really pushing us to think about what thai cuisine is and what are the boundaries around thai cuisine. these aren't dishes you will find on other menus, and i think jitlada is a thread that he's using

that's really influenced his menu in that way. woman: at jitlada, first thing that we thought, "how are we gonnmake people love the food?" i feel like they come to my home. i have to make the best for them. the people have to be happy and say a word--say like, "oh, my god," like--this is what the pride of jitlada is. like, we so honored with cooking, we give them the good ingredients. even though you don't like spicy, you cannot put the spoon down. the spicy here is very tasty. it is our home food, you know, the ingredients and everything. usually when you sell the food, you want profit. you're thinking about profit, how you make ney, bunot at jitlada. we think about quality of the food and how people are going to be happy. our palate is very strong. people from thailand tell us we make the food better than thailand. that what make us so proud. you born in thailand, you growing up with thai food. but when you came to

jitlada, it better than thailand because of the fresh ingredient, and we love to cook and cook with love mark: jitlada has represented the best of thai culture and thai cuisine and thai people. that's something that i think the family is really proud of, that they were able to be an ambassador. jazz: if you go to thailand, the street food pad thai is so good. but growing up in southern thailand, our pad thai is made from tamarind. every single thing in the garden turn out to be ingredient at jitlada. we growing up that way. that's why we bring all the ingredient that we used to eat when we we kids. mark: immigrant restaurants always are very cognizant of the fact that they are thai migrants. they have to cook food thatone, can sell but that they're also representing a gro of people. jazz: my kids go to school and ashamed to bring out the rice and the bok to eat in

front of friends, but i understand they're growing up in america. that's why i try to find something that she take it home and she doesn't have to be ashamed. since that until now, i don't have ingredient. whatever in the kitchen, i throw it on the burger. and i think it's something in my mind when i was kid. that's why it came out jazz burger without bun. and then one day, the food critic--she ell fromhe kitchen, say, "jazz what are you doing?" i say, "oh, my kid's lunch." she say, "i want to try because the smell, it make me want to try." and when she try, say, "hot damn, it's so good." i think 2009, we start getting money to pay the bills. but before that, 3 years we were like suffer. but i tell tui, "the only way you're gonna make it, you're the one who have to step in the kitchen." he's the older brother, and he

have 12 sibling. whoever the older have to cook for the younger. we have different kind of cooking because tui not believe in sugar. and if you cook in front of him and you put sugar, he gonna throw away because he's saying "where did you learn from? you know, this is southern thai. is not sugar in this southern curry. if you put, we cannot eat." louis: my only kind of relationship with tui was really through the menu. everything was very funky, which i liked. so, a lot of guppy, as they say in thai, which is like shrimp paste and a lot of chili. there are specific dishes that were meant to be hot, they're hot. they're meant to have kapao instead of thai basil, he would use kapao. you know, like, he wouldn't substitute these traditional dishes with anything else. and then if he didn't have kapao, he wouldn't make that dish. mark: jitlada was at least one of the first to get notoriety or recognized for cooking just a different kind of thai food.

the typical things that you find on a thai men tui and jitlada blew that wide open. jazz: he loved to cook. he cooked with love. he balance all the food that no one never can do that in the world. i can say that. when tui pass away, people thought without tui the food is not gonna be the same. but in the other way, a lot of people love me come to support. man: tui was a special person. this is our family reunion gathering, you know. we're gonna try to evoke his spirit into the universe. he's like an uncle. he's like an uncle. he's like an uncle to everyone. and...he's like...tui was just a very, very kind beautiful soul. man: he created a restaurant institution, right. thai food's been in america since 1966, but there are a handful of restaurants that will be remembered in 20 or 50 or

100 years, and he created one of those restaurants. roy: he definitely moved it into another stratosphere. i think it was a combination of a relationship with a lot of things: definitely jonathan gold; the courageousness and the vision of jazz and himself to cook the food that they wanted to eat and that they grew up eatin their, i guess, patriotism or nationalism towards southern thailand; and then creating a bridge so this new wave of chefs that you see behind me here had an ility to make food real funky. you know, that's really what he did. nn: we are here tonight to pay tribute to a very dear friend, an incredible chef, and a wonderful human being-- tui sungkamee. [cheering and applause] jazz: i never dream that i have this day for my brother. because tui always at the back, and i'm in the front. that's why i know all the chefs will love him. and never thought one day they'll return

it big. man: on the tables that had once held chicken coconut soup and pork satay, there were things like herb-zapped rice salad from the south of thailand and beef simmered with the most phenomenal pickled cassia buds that we'd never seen here before. and it popularized the idea of regional cookingthe idea that a chef could specialize in the food of a specific area--in tui's case, his beloved southern thailand where he grew up and came of age. i think it was the first place where i've ever been to that was cwded with people not looking for the generic food but looking for the very specific taste that you could get only ere. louis: this is how powerful he was. you know, like, matt groening turned up with a "simpsons" portrait of tui, and we had thai elvis playing. and i think for jazz it was almost

kind of closure for her, especially at like a food event. i think that would definitely be the way she wanted to remember him by. thai elvis: ♪ ...and the wonder the wonder of you ♪ thank you very much. ...play music, everybody. welcome to the show. everybody! ♪ oh ho ho ho... ♪ thank you very much. louis: a reassuring thought kind of went through my head when i moved to l.a., and i noticed the climate, for one, and the abundance of farms-- being introduced to another really, really cool farmer named kong and what he's bringing down to the farmers market. it's, like, really super legit tasting, smelling, and so bright and aromatic and flavorful as well. kong: the climate here in central valley is very similar to southeast asia besides the fact that we get the frost season. our basils we grow

them indoor enclosed like this just to keep a better more consistent temperature. once it cools down a little bit, it's still warm enough in here to where we could still be producing. so it just gives us a longer season and realistically, it gives us a better product, more consistent product. louis: a light bulb went off in my head that this food will work because all these ingredients is grown really, really locally. there's a really great thai and southeast asian community growing them, but not many people are using them. so i took it as a personal almost goal to expose these types of ingredients that are grown here and are readily available that aren't being used by chefs and home cooks. jazz: welcome to my messy home. we can buy from the market but, you know, i grow my own when i want to cook and i just run to the backyard. because i love healthy food and home

cooking food, california--you can grow anything like thailand. and i'm so lucky that i growing up with a family that always eat fresh. i don't know how to explain in english, but it's "senh," "senh." it mean like charming thing. it like, "oh, you beautifulcharmin..." thai food is one of the charming thing on earth because you can find ingredient from your garden. you can tell me, like, "oh, my god, you never know. this is so yum." louis: you know, when different things are coming in and different ingredients and different seasons. you know, we'll te the guys and we'll go down to the farmer's market and it normallyust snowballs. and then when you sit down with the guys and you just start to brainstorm and bounce off each other, you usually come up with some pretty amazing items that you want to play around with. one dish i have on the menu at the moment is some beautiful omega blue baja kampachi, that we wood grill and then th

some really tart green mango, jalapeno, and cashew nut nam jin, tons of cilantro, fresno chilies. it's kind of my favorite dish on the menu at the moment using really great seafood with really great local produce with the very kind of unique-style dressing. texturally, it's all there. it's crunchy, it's smoky, it's spicy. it's--yeah, it's really good. kong: so, at our stand, we'll get guys that come in and they come in with a fresh mind and they're ju looking at the produce. and, "wow, the big [indistinct] are really good today. i'll take a few cases of this. the ramram is really good. i'll take a few bunches of this." and they're just picking off what's good. they'll take it back to the restaurant, sit down with their team. they'll write a menu, and they'll serve it that night. that's--it's een really cool to seehings likehat happen. louis: and then they come to the restaurant and eat at a restaurant, and then, yeah. "now where can i buy this?" i'm like, "any asian grocer." kong: yeah. it's a great-- louis: you just have to go, and your mind will be blown. you

know, like that's a thing. "oh, we don't have that here." i'm like, "yes, you do. you've got a whole thai wn. it's right there on hollywood. it's about 3 miles that way." louis: so, ultimately, it shaped the restaurant because if i couldn't find it, i wasn't gonna operate and move here and cook things i didn't really want to cook with the ingredients that i couldn't get. i really feel like thai town in l.a. was a huge influence on a lot of--lot of diners. places like ruen pair, i think, is a really great restaurant. when i moved to l.a., that was just the one thing. it was, "oh, you need to shop at bangkok market." so, you know, pulled into bangkok market, looked legit. the doors opened, and iwas like, ♪ ahh ♪ they had everything. louis: this is the first place i come when i move to l.a. jazz: oh, wow. louis: when i came in--even just the smell. i knew i was like, "ah, this will have everything, everything." chaokoh coconut cream, they had, you know, all the different rices,

noodles, indonesian products, malaysian products, thai products, vietnamese products. and that was when i was like, "ok, where do i sign? we can do it." yeah, and that was like where l.a. became a possibility. jazz: bangkok market got everything we use in thailand and they have them all in here. louis: yeah, even just for some things like-- jazz: this is my favorite-- my favorite oyster sauce. louis: oh, yeah, idol. right there. boom. it's the idol. when i order this, i say, "one case oyster sauce grandmaster frying," and they send that. even things like this--this is wild ginger krachai. it's very-- it's not commonly used, but you can see we have whole, shredded, two brands, a different brand in whole, a different brand in whole again and a different brand in shredded. so this is-- jazz: that's what he work for numya. louis: this is what i used f my numya at the tui tribute event. this is how i made it, but this dish isn't--this isn't a popular product, but there's like 6 different options, you

know, and that's why it's very thorough. louis: my publicist said jazz really wants to come in. she really wants to try your food. and i was, like, "oh, no way, really?" and she's like, "yeah, yeah, yeah." so i was a little bit--not nervous, but i was a little bit kind of, you know, like i was--i was nervous. ha ha ha ha! because i know she's the type of person that would be like tell me straight up if she didn't like it and in front of my crew. so i was like, "oh, damn." people who have been cooking thai, you know, a lot or are thai, i understand where they come from, where it's like, you know, "who's this guy cooking these--fijian-australian dude? like, what would he know about cooking..." but i never-- you know, i've never really argued. i've just always let my food do the talking. jazz, one of the favorite dishes was the kakoda, which is a fijian-style ceviche. it's fresh-squeezed coconut cream, lime juice, fish sauce, some lemongrass, lime leaf, and a lot of chili. and it

really just lifted the kokoda up, and it's a great dish to represent the style of food at ep with my kind of upbringing, but then this amazing cuisine that i fell in love with and almost colliding in this single dish, and she just got it. she loved it. louis: oh, here's a khao soi noodle. jazz: one thing that i didn't see in yours-- pad thai. louis: yeah, i don't do pad thai, bro. jazz: why? louis: because, man. jazz: you do thai food, you need to learn how to do pad thai. louis: i know how to cook pad thai. jazz: but you don't want to sell them? louis: if i have a customer that comes in and they say to me, "i really love that. i've never had thabefore in my life. that's like what means the most to me, so..." mark: that standard time menu of pad thai, curries, the typical things that yofind on a thai men tui at jitlada blew that we open. itas like here are some dishes you've never had before and when you look at the menu for ep+lp, it's like these are some dishes you've never

had before. louis: when we're talking about pad thai, jazz helped create that culture of what people know and encouraging them to then try restaurants like mine and continue to learn and evolve and see kind of different styles. jazz: you want to know one thing? louis: yeah, of course. jazz: since i met you that day, i tell the whole world that they should walk into ep+lp. "even thai cooks couldn't do it like louis does. you have to go." jazz: you know why louis is all right? when i walk in, the thing that they gonna make make me laugh because louis learn from the house. they learn from the house that they home cooking. that's what louis learn. louis: lots of people don't accept me as being a thai food chef, so it was really cool for her to give me the seal of approval and be like, "ok, he's doing the cuisine justice. he's all right." for us to open and

for so many people to mention jitlada, to me that was really the icebreaker for a lot of people to probably try ep because yes, they've had thai, they like thai, they've been there. jazz: louis is number-one in thai food cooking because 's not thai. but trust me, i'm shocked when i walk into his kitchen. he's the only one in los angeles after my brother's footsteps. i think louis learn a lot and create more than what i thought. louis: want to listen to some music? jazz: ok. louis: what do you like? hip hop. rap? jazz: the beatles. the beatles, the bee gees. louis: beatles or bee gees. oh, my god. you being serious? jazz: i am serious. louis: i'll play one beatles song and then one hip hop song and then one bee gees song and then one hip hop song. ok, deal? jazz: deal. louis: ok. she's--she's got mussels, fish, some shrimp, eggplant and thai basil and the

. paste, a ton of coconut cream, and she's got all the boys in the frenzy over there showing everyone how to make this curry. it's really beautiful that the curry this curry--it's very luxurious. it's one of my favorite curries, especially in the summertime. it's not too heavy. it's coconut-based, so it leaves you feeling very fresh and light. perfect for a beautiful day like today. jenn: jazz and tui are responsible for l.a. people loving spice and knowing what real thai food is and the fact that louis is here, you know, getting to bring his flavors, and i tink that really plays into the foundation that jazz and tui set in l.a. and i just love that the two of them get to work together. it's--it's a beautiful partnership. i love it. jazz: i will do once a month from it. louis: you want to do it? jazz: yeah, you are good people. anyone want me to come back cook again, hand up. [laughter] i will come back, we said, once a month. next

time more spicy. jazz: you wouldn't know tui died 8 months ago. i keep all the recipes because it's home recipes. if tui know it, i know. i may not cook exactly like tui, but i'm a good cook. perfect. jenn: jazz is one of the strongest human beings i've ever met. she is a character. she's got a lot of love in her, a lot of life, but she works really hard, and she is keeping that restaurant going. she loved her brother so much. she learned so much from him. she was always by his side. and so i think her keeping the flavors up here, i think, is really her way of saying to tui, "i love you and i'm gonna keep this family business going." jonathan: tui taught each of us that it was ok to challenge ourselves, that we could dive into flavors and sense and aromas and textures that we'd never before imagined possible-- most of them seasoned with a blow torch it seemed like and we'd all come out ok onhe other side.

jazz: you want to know the truth? i don't want to work anymore. i want to retire. this is the al storyf me, but if i still have the support in a year, it's so much love in jitlada that no one ever can find. did you you guys enjoy the food? woman: yeah, it's so good. jazz: oh, that's what jitlada for. you know, everyone came here because they're looking for spicy and they never get enough spicy. jenn: i think what's special about l.a. ithat the chefs here aren't abiding by any rules. they're cooking what is good to them and lucky for us we get to eat it. louis: something i rarely enforce in the kitchen for the guys to talk, to let us know they need anything. you know, we do a lot of outside of the kitchen kind of activities as well. i just don't want to see them burn out or make silly mistakes at work or in their

personal life either. having that balance, it keeps me sane, it keeps me healthy, it keeps me kind of sharp. it also keeps creativity flowing as well. and i think that's a really important part of being a chef, especially in l.a. you need to keep moving. you can't stand still. wñabñcñcñcñc

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