Order and pretend you’re a gourmet gangster
‘THE BROTHERS SUN’ STAR JUSTIN CHIEN AND WRITER BYRON WU INDULGE IN THE SGV
JIDORI CHICKEN, if you’re reading this, Justin Chien is a fan. A big one. Chien, who plays a Taiwanese triad pistoriophile in the Netflix series “The Brothers Sun,” buys what he estimates is 40 to 50 pounds of the L.A.-based chicken processor’s California free-range birds each time he places an order. “When I have time, I’m cooking four or five days a week,” he says. He’s sitting behind a wall of steam at Xiaolongkan, a hot pot restaurant in Alhambra, with a large bubbling vat of broth in front of him. Next to him is “The Brothers Sun” co-creator and writer Byron Wu. “Mostly I cook chicken and rice, and I will say that my chicken is very good,” he says. “I’m on the Jidori VIP list.” He swipes through his phone and proudly shares an old email from Jidori, informing him that he’s on the VIP list and that he has special access to Black Friday deals. “Like, dude, I made it.” sauce with bits of chopped mushrooms, chive sauce, oyster sauce and soy sauce.
Wu fills his bowl with sesame paste, fermented red bean curd, some green onion, cilantro, garlic and sugar.
The food is presented on an elaborate cart: slivers of raw Wagyu beef splayed over a mound of crushed ice with dry-ice smoke tendrils dramatically swirling across the top; a plate of tightly rolled slices of lamb; napa cabbage and enoki mushrooms. A plate of fried rice. Chien and Wu take turns swishing the meat around in the hot broth, then dunking the slices into their prepared sauces.
“We wanted the food to not just be something that’s shown onscreen,” Wu says. “Hot pot is something that’s really meaningful to me, and it’s something I grew up eating a lot of at home.”
Wu, who is originally from Seattle, lived for a time in Hacienda Heights, a city in east San Gabriel Valley.
“I had no idea where the SGV was before that,” says Wu. “When ‘Love’ came out, everyone was talking about how amazing it is that they are showing off Echo Park, this cool part of L.A. that nobody really sees. I was like, really? The SGV is such a bigger area that has a huge community, and nobody has ever really filmed here. So when it came to setting the show somewhere, I really wanted it to be the SGV.”
The SGV is almost its own character on the show, the many strip malls providing a backdrop for the series.
“I’ve been to many hot pot places, but this place is definitely up there,” Chien adds. The actor grew up in Taipei and Hong Kong and moved to the United States when he was 18 to attend USC.
“I have really sweet memories of doing hot pot at home,” Chien says. “I’ve made my own stocks before too. If you’re a serious eater, you should be a serious cook.”
Much like his character in the show, Charles, who enjoys watching “The Great British Baking Show” and is as passionate about baking as he is about his six-pack, Chien likes to cook. And he has serious opinions about food.
“My friends make fun of me because they say I’m a bit of a food snob,” Chien says. “I have an ice cream rating of all the different ice creams I’ve had. But I watched ‘The Menu.’ I don’t want to be that guy.”
His reference to Nicholas Hoult’s food-photo-snapping character in “The Menu” elicits a laugh from Wu. “But you do talk about mouthfeel,” Wu says. “I could feel you trying to avoid it just now.”