The Dish:
Ramen-savvy Soma Sushi chef serves up Southern soul.
It was certified master chef Fritz Gitschner, who is opening a new restaurant in Houston soon, who provided Mark Gabriel Medina with the best culinary advice he’s ever had: “He said, ‘Don’t follow the money, follow the talent,’ ” Medina recalls. “He said if you’re doing it for the money, you’ll never become great. If you have the skills and the talent, money will follow you. It has stuck with me since and had become my creed.”
As co-executive chef at Soma Sushi, Medina has had the good fortune — some might credit his own culinary intuition — to follow talent. The local chefs he has worked for, learned from or counts as inspiration is a who’s-who of Houston culinary talent: Gitschner, Kata Robata’s Manabu Horiuchi, David Cater of Utility Research Garden, Underbelly’s Chris Shepherd, Cloud 10’s Chris Leung, Haven’s Randy Evans, the Pass & Provisions’ Seth SiegelGardner, El Big Bad’s Randy Rucker, Killen’s Steakhouse’s Ronnie Killen, and Revival Market’s Ryan Pera.
Local foodies who are adept at following talent have descended on Soma Sushi since Medina joined co-executive chef Pascal Choi at the Japanese restaurant last November. Since then, Medina has been listening to his own voice to create entrees (to augment Choi’s sushi skills) that are branding the 30-year-old Houston native as a chef to watch.
“I like creating food that’s really comforting, and doing food as local as I can. I like knowing where food is coming from,” said Medina. “I also like to show Southern influences. I’m a huge fan of the South.”
The South shows up in dishes such as vermillion snapper (steamed or fried whole) on a bed of local vegetables, and mesquite-smoked Mangalitsa pork collar with caramelized yuzu fish sauce and Chinese okra with kimchi succotash. But the dishes that continue to impress local foodies are of the noodle kind: ramen. Soma Sushi’s seafood ramen, pork belly ramen and red miso and tofu ramen score big. Medina also is proud of his tsukemen “dipping noodles” — dry ramen served with a hot pork broth into which the noodles and roasted pork can be dunked. Or the broth can poured into the generously-filled bowl.
However, there was a time when Medina was following money. After years of studying finance at Seton Hall University — he wanted to work in Asian banking — he lost interest. And that’s when cooking took hold. One day he was dropping off his cousin for orientation at the Art Institute of Houston when he saw that there were culinary classes. “I jumped right in and didn’t look back,” he said.
His culinary education soon took him to the Houston Country Club where he worked under Gitschner, then to Kata Robata under Horiuchi.
Medina said he has a fascination with sauces and soups. He’s getting pretty good at the latter. Earlier this year, he won the People’s Choice award at the second annual Go Pig or Go Home chef competition where he scored with pork ramen. That ramen is becoming one of the hot culinary trends in Houston should serve Medina well.
The chef with Filipino roots hopes to one day have his own restaurant. Ramen? Filipino food? Asian fusion? Medina’s not saying. But he does know that his food will have to be both modern and comforting and, ultimately, please the customer.
“It has to make that connection. That’s what food is all about — that happiness.”
How will he make that happen? Obviously by following his own talents.
greg.morago@chron.com