< Top Chef finalist Shuai Wang cooks Chinatown BBQ with a Lowcountry flair

DEBBIE ELLIOTT, HOST:

I love food, and I love watching people cook and eat on television.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "TOP CHEF")

KRISTEN KISH: Shuai, you want to start us off?

SHUAI WANG: Oh, yeah.

ELLIOTT: Usually, I live vicariously through the judges on, say, "Top Chef."

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "TOP CHEF")

S WANG: I made a scallion pancake hand pie with a Malay-style chicken curry inside and a curry buttermilk dressing.

ELLIOTT: But recently, my job took me to the foodie city of Charleston, South Carolina, the home of Chef Shuai Wang and his wife and business partner, Corrie Wang.

CORRIE WANG: Well, hello, everybody.

ELLIOTT: Hi.

Shuai competed on this season's "Top Chef." And spoiler alert - he did really well, making it to the finale. While he didn't end up winning the grand prize, we don't care. We just care about good food.

C WANG: This is King BBQ. She's been open for about a year and a half.

ELLIOTT: The menu here is mouthwatering - crab rangoon with buttermilk hush puppies, Chinese barbecue egg rolls with habanero duck sauce, moo shu chopped smoked pork. They call it Chinatown barbecue with a Southern smoke.

S WANG: Yeah, it is really just a restaurant for the community.

C WANG: That's what we always wanted to open, was just a neighborhood joint.

ELLIOTT: The couple moved from New York City to Charleston 10 years ago. They had a food truck before opening their first restaurant, Jackrabbit Filly - it's named after their zodiac signs - and now King BBQ. Both places are in North Charleston - outside the touristy city center, so you have to go looking for them.

S WANG: We're going to cook something from both restaurants today.

ELLIOTT: And the journey is worth it.

S WANG: King. We're going to make a crispy smoked duck on top of noodles with just a little blanched bok choy. That's just kind of my fondest memory of growing up in New York - going down to Chinatown.

ELLIOTT: First up, the duck.

S WANG: So we cure it. We smoke it. And then we just drop it in the fryer very lightly to get it super, super crispy.

(SOUNDBITE OF FRYER SIZZLING)

S WANG: The smoking is more, you know, of an ode to Southern-style barbecue.

(SOUNDBITE OF KITCHEN UTENSILS CLACKING)

ELLIOTT: Chef Wang says it's a fairly simple dish.

S WANG: Wonton noodles is what you always want to use. They're very thin egg noodles.

(SOUNDBITE OF KITCHEN UTENSILS CLANKING)

ELLIOTT: But that doesn't mean it's easy to cook well.

S WANG: If you talk to a legit Chinese person, they'll know when the noodles are literally two, three seconds overcooked.

ELLIOTT: When the duck is ready...

S WANG: So nice and golden-brown skin.

ELLIOTT: Ooh, I smell it.

Wang chops it with a hefty meat cleaver.

(SOUNDBITE OF MEAT CLEAVER CHOPPING)

S WANG: Chinese barbecue's always chopped 'cause it's always the way of the cleaver, where you cut it through bones.

ELLIOTT: Next up, a dish from their first restaurant.

S WANG: Jackrabbit's very much more playful, and it's recipes inspired by my grandma and my mom. I'm making a chili tofu, which is kind of our take on the mapo tofu. That's the first dish that Corrie and I shared on our first date. The dish showed up on the table. And I immediately scooped it up and put it in my mouth, not thinking that it would be a million degrees. And I spat it right out onto my plate and everywhere.

ELLIOTT: (Laughter).

C WANG: Yeah, we're both, like, crying. First date, and everything's so spicy and so hot. But, you know, it was a great time.

ELLIOTT: As an homage to their relationship, this dish has always been on the menu...

S WANG: Pasta's cooked.

ELLIOTT: ...Albeit in different iterations.

S WANG: Just like the Italians do - little bit of pasta water.

ELLIOTT: Today, Shuai says it's in the traditional Asian Italian style of fancy Hamburger Helper.

(SOUNDBITE OF FOOD SIZZLING)

S WANG: Soft tofu, chili sauce, which is sweet, spicy, tangy. And then the pasta that we're using is lumache - like, a thick elbow. And then we top it off with a little mozzarella cheese. Yeah, so it's...

ELLIOTT: But mozzarella cheese and tofu...

S WANG: I know.

ELLIOTT: ...Sounds a little weird to me.

S WANG: It sounds funky, but I swear it all somehow works.

(SOUNDBITE OF KITCHEN UTENSILS CLANKING)

ELLIOTT: And it did. No spitting here.

S WANG: You serve that. I'll serve this.

ELLIOTT: Mm-hmm.

S WANG: OK, get a little bit of a bite of everything - the pork, the pasta, tofu. Make sure there's a little cheese on there, too. It's probably very hot - careful.

ELLIOTT: Mmm.

S WANG: How is it?

ELLIOTT: Mmm. Super. Mmm.

S WANG: OK. Eat up, guys.

(SOUNDBITE OF KITCHEN UTENSILS CLACKING)

ELLIOTT: You know, you talked about mother's recipes and grandmother's recipes. How big of an influence were those women in your style of cooking?

S WANG: So big. I was raised by my grandma. Like most Asian households, your grandparents raise you while your parents worked. I remember - I immigrated to the States when I was 9 years old, so I don't remember every single thing, but I remember a lot about her cooking, at least. And I cook from nostalgia, so there's always flavor profiles or combinations that reminds me of my grandma or my mom.

ELLIOTT: So we've gotten a little bit of a sense of this, but I want to talk a little bit more just about how heritage affects what you cook.

S WANG: Yeah.

ELLIOTT: You were born in Beijing, grew up in New York...

S WANG: Yeah.

ELLIOTT: ...But you had Japanese cooking training. And now you have the Lowcountry influence.

S WANG: Yeah. Like, the Lowcountry influence came pretty naturally just 'cause we live down South, you know? So, yeah. You know, I grew up in Beijing at the end of sort of where they were still giving out rations. I think you got a piece of lard, a dozen eggs. I don't remember how much rice. And then you got some money to buy your own groceries, as well. And my grandma had to feed my grandfather, my cousins, my uncle, my parents with, like, very minimum amount of food, trying to utilize small amount of ingredients and lesser cuts or whatever to make a great meal. That's what I feel, like, so connected with Southern food. The Gullah Geechee community, the slavery that's behind the South - they'd gotten the lesser parts or the parts that no one else wanted and made such amazing meals with it, right? That's where collard greens came from.

ELLIOTT: Ham hocks.

S WANG: Ham hocks, the field peas, butter beans. It kind of really helped build that foundation of my cooking. But, yeah. Like, when I came out of culinary school, I was cooking American-style bistro or classic French, as any culinary student do. And I wasn't so sure of what I exactly wanted to cook. You know, when I was growing up in high school, I was partially very ashamed of being Chinese. My mom would pack me lunches, and it would be very different. So it's not ham and cheese sandwiches. It's Chinese food. I was just throwing it out before I'd get to school. And at some point, I just realized I really just want to embrace myself and my culture, and cook Chinese food. And...

C WANG: It's the most natural progression I've sort of ever witnessed - that, you know, the menu started one way, and then suddenly, he's just creating legit Chinese food. Originally, we were doing, like, mac and cheese with that chili tofu sauce on it, and just felt so gimmicky and not us, and that the food that we loved and the food we missed was sort of legit Chinese barbecue.

ELLIOTT: And the best food is, what is your story, right?

S WANG: Absolutely.

ELLIOTT: Let's talk now a little bit about "Top Chef." At one point, you tell them that you thought you had already peaked.

S WANG: Well, prior to going to "Top Chef," I felt very stuck as a chef. I felt that I wasn't learning anymore. Being in that competition mode and forcing yourself to be creative, learning all these new techniques from other chefs and recipes from other chefs, it kind of just rejuvenated my creativity. And just came out of it with all these new ideas or just new attitude of, like, oh, yeah, - like, here I am again.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "TOP CHEF")

S WANG: Sour cabbage sauce - smells just like Mama's house.

Well, tiny baby ants is crispy. Let's make sure I'm going to get enough ants on here.

Feel pretty great about this dish. Whenever I feel like I cook out of memory and love, it always comes out pretty well, so I'm excited.

ELLIOTT: So are we going to be adding ants to the menu?

C WANG: (Laughter).

S WANG: Oh, my goodness. It was honestly one of the best things I ever had. It was crunchy and it popped. And it just reminded me of, like, citric acid or, like, lemons - such a wonderful, zingy flavor. I was like, oh, my, I have to use these (laughter).

C WANG: It was kind of, in a way, like, the best camp you could ever go to...

S WANG: Yeah (laughter).

C WANG: ...That you only had to think about food and talk about food.

S WANG: Yeah.

C WANG: It was amazing.

S WANG: "Top Chef" summer camp.

C WANG: Oh.

S WANG: Oh, there you go.

C WANG: That's the idea.

ELLIOTT: What do you think you're going to take from that now?

S WANG: I think what "Top Chef" kind of did for me is that I realized, oh, I didn't peak. Chinese food has 500 years of history. I've explored very little of it. So, you know, there's this place in Lower East Side in New York where this old Chinese man has been making chow fun for the past five decades, and it's the best chow fun you can get in all of New York City. And he just only makes that - nothing else. I want to just focus on what we do now and just make it better every day.

ELLIOTT: That's Shuai and Corrie Wang at King BBQ in North Charleston, South Carolina.

(SOUNDBITE OF ONRA'S "MS. HO")

Copyright © 2025 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.