Freddy's Harajuku

Get your wish: a chocolate-lucuma tart

I would be lying if I said that this recipe did not take forever to make. A huge reason why I don’t do tarts(besides my sexuality) is that there is a lot of temperature and waiting involved. If the dough gets too warm, it won’t hold its form. If it’s too cold, it could be…

Roasted cornish hen with umami rice cabbage roll

I really came up with this dish because I wanted to do a cornish hen dish for a while, but was not fully sure where to go with it, initially. I wanted to do something a little European, but obviously a little Asian as well, and that’s how I came to the dish I came…

Incan gold cookies

I don’t even know why I didn’t think about making these cookies the first time I ever used lucuma. It just makes so much sense, especially since corn is such a huge part of Peruvian cuisine, and lucuma, being a fruit that tastes exactly like caramel, would compliment that so perfectly! For these cookies, I…

Chocolate, olive oil, and sea salt macarons

I just randomly had the urge to make macarons with this specific flavor combination one day. The idea of rich dark chocolate against grassy olive oil, and sea salt to just bring both together, it made a lot of sense to me. Kind of like a chocolate zucchini bread, which as weird as it sounds,…

Strawberry tiramisu

So I have made many a strawberry tiramisu in the past. Ever since I was a student in college, I just loved the idea of making tiramisu that were not traditionally flavored. Ever since I moved back to Los Angeles, I fell in love with the aesthetic of the tiramisu at Cafe Bora in Koreatown,…

Milk bread gua bao

So I had been reading the Mr. Jiu’s cookbook recently, and something that inspired me was seeing them take milk bread dough and turning that into buns. I have done something like that before with my “Fred bread”, but seeing it done by a restaurant that I really look up to just validates my decisions…

Banana’s Foster Souffle Pancakes

I really wanted to make souffle pancakes again for quite some time, so that’s where this recipe really came about from. I just love how soft and fluffy these pancakes are, since they use a heavily whipped egg white just to get them to that light and airy consistency. The Banana’s Foster adds a playful…

Oatmeal (Rum) Raisin Icebox Cake

So I have feelings about oatmeal raisin cookies. Mostly of disappointment because it looks like a chocolate chip cookie from afar, and when you bite into it and realize that you have been deprived of your chocolate experience, only for it to be replaced with dried fruit, it’s infuriating. That being said, I wanted to…

Yuzu-white chocolate-macadamia pound cakes

I actually grew up eating tons of pound cake, but never really making it from scratch. I honestly did not even realize that what makes pound cake so unique is that while it is an American-style cake batter, it does not use any leavening! Typically, you would see French and European sponge cakes use eggs…

Sesame shortbread sandwiches

I feel like every Asian household has that metal tin of cookies in it. At least every household that that I’ve been to. One of my favorites were this cookie sandwiches that would usually feature some kind of cream in them. So that’s what these sandwiches were meant to be an homage to. I went…

Tangerine and chocolate “snack cakes”

These were kind of my ode to a Hostess cupcake. A dark chocolate cake with a cream inside and ganache on top. Fudgy, delicious, and definitely a guilty pleasure of mine. For this rendition, I went with a chocolate cake that uses black cacao, which has this almost fruity quality to it from being an…

Milk tea cookies with chewy “boba” bits

I really was inspired to make this dessert from seeing all of the “boba” desserts on Instagram. Truthfully, the idea of eating boba that is not warm and soft doesn’t appeal to me, and more times than not, boba sitting out on a pie or a cheesecake will turn hard and cold really quickly. Then…

Strawberry and pistachio pate choux

I was pretty happy with how these puffs came out, considering that ever since I got some Strawberry Inspiration(naturally strawberry flavored chocolate) couverture from Valrhona, I wanted to do a strawberry and pistachio dessert. There was something about crunchy and salty versus sweet and tart which just sounded like a fun combination, and while the…

Dango with black rice pudding and salted rice milk

I love mango sticky rice. The stewed down rice with salty coconut milk and juicy mango, it’s a fun combination to play around with. For this particular recipe, I wanted to accentuate that classic Asian dessert by doing rice three ways, and mango two ways. For the rice, I used black rice and did a…

Cutie Honey Scoop Cakes

Originally, these were going to be honey tiramisu, but I felt like the term “scoop cake” just sounded a lot more cute and fun. So we’re going with that description instead. With these little cakes, we have layers of bee pollen infused castella(Portuguese/Japanese honey cake), chamomile tea and gelee, honey-bee pollen infused quark(German cheese yogurt),…

Roasted cabbage with pork belly and mushroom dashi

So this is a dish inspired directly from mille feuille nabe. I wanted to do a dish that featured layers of roasted cabbage and pork in an umami-rich mushroom broth. I could imagine these soft, tender layers of cabbage that are steamed with the rendered pork fat from the belly slices between each leaf, sponging…

Sakura Parfait

I love Japanese styled parfait. American parfaits tend to just be fruit, yogurt, and granola, and while that’s all fine and dandy, Japanese parfaits just beat their American counterparts by a landslide. They usually contain cookies, ice cream, cream, jellies, fruit, cake, just everything unhealthy for you, but in one tall glass, and decoratively arranged….

Rainbow Carrot Cake

I have been putting off making this cake for quite a while. Mostly because I was lazy. The concept of taking rainbow carrots and individually highlighting them sounded like a ton of fun, and it would make for a cute and pretty cake. However, the execution of it sounded like a tall task. I wanted…

Scallion pancakes with braised oxtail and bone broth

So I was inspired by birria tacos, but knowing that I cannot make them authentically, I figured, why not take dishes and ingredients from my own culture, but just serve them in the same fashion? So I took the concept of a wrap with a dipping broth, and essentially made it Chinese/Taiwanese. I still remember…

Only a fool: a plated dessert

So a fool can refer to a lot of things. It can be somebody who undercooked his filet mignon on national T.V. despite being a trained butcher(whoops), somebody who does not know what 2+2 is, or it could also be a dessert that involves a fruit puree being folded into cream. In the case of…