“The hanging meats in the windows, the crispy whole pork, the soy sauce chicken–that’s my definition of BBQ. I also wanted to showcase Carolina-style BBQ so incorporating smoke into Chinatown-style BBQ.” Today Bon Appetit spends a day on the line with Shuai Wang, chef and owner of King BBQ in North Charleston, Carolina. At his restaurant, Wang puts a southern spin on his Chinatown-style dishes inspired by his years living in Flushing, New York.
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00:00People in the South have a very different definition of barbecue.
00:02Carolina barbecue is always pork, lots of mustard, a little bit of vinegar.
00:07I miss eating Chinatown-style barbecue, the ones I used to get in Flushing, Queens.
00:11The hanging meats in the window, the real stuff, the crispy whole pork,
00:14the soy sauce chicken, that's my definition of barbecue.
00:18I also wanted to showcase Carolina-style barbecue,
00:21so incorporating smoke into Chinatown-style barbecue.
00:24So that's how King Barbecue was born.
00:30Good morning, my name is Trey Wong.
00:32It's 6.30 in the morning, we're here at King Barbecue in North Charleston.
00:37We're about to light a pit.
00:41Welcome to the pits of King Barbecue.
00:43This is our pit master, Brendan Olsen, right here.
00:45We're about to grab some of our wood, which we stack over here.
00:47It's a mixture of white and red oak.
00:50Red oak, we kind of use more for the consistency of the heat.
00:53And the white oak, I've noticed, is a little bit greener,
00:55so it has a little bit more smoke to it.
00:57One of the biggest things about smoking is that you forget
01:00the weather absolutely affects how much wood you use.
01:03When it's colder, it takes a lot more wood to get it nice and hot.
01:05So we're going to split some of these,
01:07just so smaller pieces will light a little easier.
01:10We ghetto-rigged this a long time ago.
01:12This is actually a cutting board with another piece of stump underneath it.
01:16It's a really good way to take some stress out sometimes.
01:20I've been cooking since 2007.
01:22I've cooked mainly classic French or, like, New American or, you know, Chinese food.
01:27Learning how to use a smokebox is a really fun learning experience for everybody.
01:30My entire career, I've been doing barbecue, but for the past eight years,
01:34I've been learning Chinese cuisine from Shuai,
01:36and it's really cool to have, like, a full-circle moment now.
01:39I'm just, like, a country kid, you know?
01:40I'm not used to all this fancy stuff.
01:43So, like, Shuai would take me to New York.
01:44I'll never forget the first time we went.
01:46I took him to a Chelsea market.
01:47He's never been there.
01:48We were leaving, and I turn around.
01:50Brandon's holding the door for every f***ing body that's coming out.
01:53I was like, Brandon, this isn't a cell.
01:55Let the door go.
01:56It was like, oh, oh, yeah, oh, oh, sorry.
01:57You're not a doorman at Chelsea Market, Brandon.
01:59I was for about 30 minutes.
02:02Our learning curve for both of us is that
02:04how to incorporate Chinese barbecue with Southern smoke.
02:08Chinese barbecue has always been all direct heat,
02:11and that, like, renders and cooks the meat very differently
02:14versus a smoker where it's such indirect heat and such lower temperatures
02:18that curing and marinating meat turned everything into ham.
02:21So it took us a long time to figure out how to incorporate this smoke
02:24into the meat itself.
02:26These are Lange smokers, the reverse flow.
02:29You add your fire right here.
02:30Heat goes underneath this hot plate,
02:32basically hits right here,
02:34and then comes back all the way through to this.
02:37So it actually ends up creating a convection.
02:39So we're going to light this bad boy.
02:45Once this thing gets hot, it retains the heat pretty well.
02:48So I like to crack it just a little bit like this
02:53so I get some of the smoke to come out the bottom right here
02:56and also heats up the entire thing.
02:58And now we'll go season the ribs.
02:59I'll put the ribs on as well.
03:02Oh, the gas is off.
03:04Maybe we lost power.
03:07So this is the fun part of restaurant owning.
03:09Every day something goes wrong.
03:10I was just told that our gas is off, so we'll see what happened there.
03:18There we go.
03:19My favorite things in the morning is
03:21looking at the millions and millions of Texas that I got
03:26telling me what went wrong.
03:28Okay, crisis averted, guys.
03:30Crisis averted.
03:31Back to the important part.
03:32Delicious, delicious ribs.
03:36This is our AP rub, a mixture of sugar, salt, five spice,
03:41and just a little bit of magic seasoning, MSG.
03:44You know why people love Doritos?
03:45Because when they eat it
03:46and you get this little bite in the back of your teeth,
03:50same with mushrooms, same with any cheese that's super aged,
03:53it does make a huge difference in flavor.
03:56I think the whole scare of it is, I don't know,
03:59to each his own, right?
04:00But we love it here.
04:01Somewhere down the line, we'll put a little bit of this
04:03super, super secret Chinese barbecue sauce.
04:06Traditionally, if you're doing Chinese barbecue ribs or char siu,
04:10you're marinating all your pork in this.
04:11We wanted to get more flavor of the char siu glaze onto the ribs,
04:14but we didn't want to cure it.
04:17So what we do now is just put a very light layer on there.
04:19It's mainly sugar.
04:21There's also hoisin in there.
04:23Instead of just doing a straight dry rub or a wet rub,
04:26it's a little bit of both.
04:27So we'll season all of them
04:28and then we'll get a little bit of this char siu sauce.
04:31Kind of just start making it look like a carry.
04:34I feel like most people do their dry rubs heavy on chili powder
04:38or brown sugar, which is like very common
04:40because you want that molasses-y kind of flavor.
04:42We're just like, yeah,
04:43this is like very heavy on white sugar and the five spice
04:46and the glaze really gives it that extra little layer of flavor.
04:49And we use spare ribs versus like baby back or whatever
04:52just because that's very old school Chinese restaurant.
04:55Chinese people are all about texture when it comes to food
04:57because that's why Chinese barbecue sometimes a little chewier
05:01than like a southern style barbecue.
05:02The cartilage part is one of our favorite parts.
05:05If it's cooked correctly,
05:06it's not chewy to the point where you can't eat it.
05:09It gives that really nice crunch.
05:10So now this is all blizzied up.
05:13We'll hit that in the smoker.
05:14With a smoker like this of different hot spots
05:17and different heat points,
05:18you're gonna have to rotate and move around individual ribs.
05:22It's like, oh, this rib is almost done.
05:24This rib is not.
05:25I'm gonna have to move this rib up top,
05:27that rib on the bottom.
05:28So there's a lot of adjusting like that.
05:30Same with our butts, same with our ducks,
05:32same with like just all of it.
05:33This is what we use to reheat some stuff.
05:35This is originally created for KFC
05:37because they used to keep their chicken super crispy.
05:40If you don't know about sea bass,
05:41they're basically steam and heat.
05:43Our fresh ribs are not as good as our next day ribs.
05:46That reheating process,
05:47all that steam breaks it down a little bit more
05:49and it like makes it a little softer.
05:51This is like a magic maker.
05:52And then like, you know,
05:53is that these are all covered in foil
05:55versus a lot of places will do paper.
05:58And then we started with paper and it just dry them out.
06:02So more learning.
06:049 a.m., we're about two hours away from service.
06:08While the meats are going, smoking,
06:09and the line's getting ready,
06:10we're gonna do some quick butchering
06:12to get this out of the way.
06:13Chef Olsen is butchering ribs for tomorrow.
06:16Also butchering his duck to get ahead for tomorrow
06:18because both of these things are like two day processes.
06:20Duck is not one of the things you find on every single menu
06:23at a Chinese barbecue restaurant.
06:24Growing up in Queens,
06:26Flushing was the Chinatown that I went to.
06:28Every weekend we would go to Flushing
06:30and we would go to a Chinese restaurant
06:32Every weekend we would go to Flushing
06:34to go grocery shopping
06:36and then we'll stop by one of the barbecue restaurants.
06:39We always get roast duck
06:41and we always get crispy roast pork.
06:44When we started doing this,
06:45we made our rubs and we tested it
06:47and tested and tested
06:48till it tasted exactly like how I remember.
06:50And that's kind of how we did most of the menu, honestly.
06:53I don't like to write recipes down
06:54until like more recently, you know,
06:56when I had to step away a little bit
06:58because of two restaurants.
06:59Brandon used to just follow me around with a notebook.
07:02Like an intern, just like,
07:03and then I would just make things
07:04and he would write it down,
07:05like how much I put of it.
07:06So I try to get,
07:07I've been trying to get better about it.
07:08As far as breaking down the duck,
07:09we'll take the wings off.
07:10Take any excess fat off.
07:12We'll separate the legs
07:13and the thigh from the breast.
07:16I like to keep it on the bone
07:19and that's our duck breast.
07:20And our duck leg,
07:21we'll go right down the middle.
07:23So we keep it on the bone.
07:25We used to take it off the bone
07:26but then we realized that
07:27it would create a much moister product
07:29and that's what you kind of want on the end.
07:31We used to do it whole
07:32and then we found out that,
07:33oh yeah, the breast will be cooked
07:35and the leg will be under
07:36or the legs will be cooked
07:37and the duck breast will be overcooked.
07:39But you know, you only learn when you fail.
07:44That's the life lesson everyone needs to learn.
07:46Failing is great.
07:47I fail all the time.
07:53We're about to prepare for our special today.
07:55What we're doing today for our special
07:57is kind of our version or take on a BLT.
07:59I try to hit on my specials always
08:01something fatty, creamy, acidic, crunchy, and heat.
08:05We had these bellies cured for 10 days
08:08and then we smoked it nice and low and slow
08:10until it was super tender.
08:11And then these gorgeous heirloom tomatoes
08:13we got from Growth Food Carolina.
08:15Tomato skin is one of the biggest things
08:18that dulls your knife out.
08:19So if you don't have a super, super sharp knife,
08:21I just honestly use like a serrated.
08:24It just makes everybody's life a lot easier.
08:26We don't always necessarily do specials
08:28that are Chinese.
08:29One of my favorite sandwiches is a BLT.
08:30So we'll just make a really good BLT.
08:32And then sometimes we'll try to keep it very Asian.
08:35You know, we'll do like a soy sauce chicken.
08:36Again, I'm like, sorry, just take one.
08:38Like just, just look at this.
08:40Okay, so we'll go on to sausage in our belly.
08:42We wanted to make BLT,
08:43but we didn't want to put just like standard bacon on there.
08:46We still kind of want to get that same feel.
08:48So it's like slightly more cured.
08:49It's a little more saltier,
08:50but then you get like that nice still tender belly
08:53you would get from like a regular smoked pork belly.
08:55We have all this belly sliced, tomato sliced.
08:58And then we'll pick this back up around 10 a.m.
09:01for a lineup.
09:01So everyone can try the special.
09:05It's about 10, 15.
09:06Typically that's what I do around every day around this time.
09:09I'll put up a special.
09:10I'll do social media stuff.
09:12It's like one of those costs
09:13that you either spend a ton of money on social media
09:16for someone else to do it for you,
09:17or you just do it yourself because you're a small business.
09:20That's us.
09:21So this is my wife, Cora Wong,
09:22and also boss bitch lady.
09:25She's literally the only reason
09:26why this restaurant hasn't fallen apart yet.
09:28Hold this for me.
09:30So bun, tomb, delicious pieces of pork belly, lettuce,
09:37big old piece of mater, mayonnaise,
09:40top bun, squish moment.
09:43That's good.
09:44Funsies.
09:47And it's now 11 o'clock, guys.
09:49So we're going to try to crank out some of this
09:52shrimp toast right before service.
09:54Just kind of get ahead for today.
09:55You never know how much these bad boys we sell.
09:57This is probably one of our most popular items.
09:59I came up with this dish when I was like super stoned.
10:02I was like, oh man,
10:02you know what would be really freaking good right now?
10:04Shrimp toast.
10:04And I was like, oh,
10:05you know what would be really freaking good right now?
10:07Filet-O-Fish.
10:08So what we came up with was this combination
10:10of Filet-O-Fish and shrimp toast slider.
10:12It's a piece of deep fried shrimp toast
10:14in between two slider buns.
10:16Tartar sauce, dilly pickles, white onions.
10:18It's literally one of my favorite bites here.
10:20So we start with some local North Carolina shrimp.
10:22They're peeled and deveined.
10:23Give it a really rough chop.
10:25You will still want kind of a shrimpy bite.
10:26So just give it a quick couple of pulses.
10:31For the longest time,
10:32it didn't have all the tartar sauce or pickles or onions.
10:35We weren't sure what the sauce we want to do.
10:37We did a little bit of sweet and sour for one minute.
10:39I was like, well, that doesn't really work well.
10:41And we just realized, yeah,
10:42fried fish and tartar sauce is so good.
10:45Why fix something that's not broke?
10:46My mom always made filling by hand.
10:48She never used any kind of machine
10:50because you get a better feel of the filling
10:53and how much is emulsified with your hand.
10:56So now we'll put them on sandwich bread.
10:59So what we got here is just really,
11:01really crappy white bread.
11:02It has to be authentically shitty.
11:04When I was talking to our purveyors,
11:05I was like, I don't want anything fancy.
11:07I want the shittiest white bread you have.
11:10And we'll just take a tiniest bit on the other side too.
11:13What we call a shrimp glue.
11:14We'll help it adhere together.
11:16So we make about almost a hundred sandwiches
11:19every time we do this prep work.
11:20We'll go through that in about two, three days.
11:23And it's a hundred sandwiches yields about 400 sliders.
11:27My biggest thing with making sandwiches
11:29is always spreading every single ingredient
11:31on that sandwich edge to edge.
11:33This ensures that every single bite
11:35of the sandwich is exactly the same.
11:36You're like, what's next?
11:37Shrimp toast is ready.
11:38Not.
11:39Government cheese.
11:40When you eat filet of fish,
11:42there's always a piece of shitty yellow cheese
11:43that's on there that's barely melted.
11:45It's like very like significant part
11:47of a filet of fish, right?
11:48So we're like, we had to put cheese on there.
11:49I call it government cheese
11:50because when I was growing up, we were super poor.
11:52We had like food stamps.
11:53We had to get cheese from the government.
11:55And that was one of the options that was available
11:57was shitty American cheese.
11:58Because it's one of those cheeses
11:59that kind of melts, but not really.
12:01So that's pretty much it.
12:02And then we'll cut this in four
12:04when we finish all of this.
12:05And then each little square will be one sandwich.
12:10About four and a half, five hours
12:12into the smoking process.
12:13As I've been smoking the ribs,
12:15I've been rotating them,
12:16trying to get that even heat through everything.
12:18So I started doing one rotation.
12:19These were originally on the top.
12:20You can tell how the color's already starting
12:23to change a little bit,
12:24getting that amber color on them.
12:26I'm gonna glaze some ribs here in a second.
12:28So these are the ones from yesterday.
12:30So the big thing is checking our consistency
12:32on these guys.
12:33And you can see right here,
12:35all that moisture and fat from the pork
12:38is contained in the foil.
12:39And that's a big thing.
12:40And then we have all that sauce that's in there
12:42that's also getting right back into the meat.
12:45It bends, but it doesn't break.
12:46That's how you know it's a good rib.
12:48It can fly off.
12:48That's moist.
12:49Since it was sitting in moisture,
12:50you try to glaze it now,
12:51all the glaze will just fall right off.
12:53But you let it sit,
12:54let it dry for a quick second,
12:56to be able to get that glaze on there easier.
12:58Whenever you take me out and flesh it,
12:59a lot of the char siu would have this,
13:01almost like a candy coating on the outside.
13:03And so what we're trying to do with these ribs,
13:06is still have the integrity of awesome tender ribs,
13:08but also trying to get that crunch
13:10that you would normally get
13:12from the maltose coating on the outside of the ribs.
13:14So that's why we glaze it the way we do.
13:15We'll get this in the hot box.
13:17You can see a lot of that moisture is dried out.
13:19So this is the same exact glaze that we use
13:22for when we wrap the ribs
13:23and when we season the ribs as well.
13:25So if you ever see a traditional Chinese barbecue restaurant,
13:29you ever see them take the char siu pork out of the roaster,
13:33you'll see that what they immediately do
13:35is dip it in a big vat of that and let it hang.
13:40Give it a quick torch,
13:41just to kind of get that caramelization on there.
13:44We'll hand this over into the case and they're ready to go.
13:53We're about to start service.
13:55Unfortunately, you guys have to get out of here.
13:57You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.
13:59So adios.