Welcome to the Dave Chang Show, part of the Ring of Podcasts network presented by Major

Goa Momoria.

Today's episode is a special pre-opening diaries of Momofuku Kawi with Executive Chef

Unjo Park.

We recorded a couple of podcasts three months ago or so and we edited it down into one longer

podcast.

This will be the first of two podcasts we launch today and tomorrow where Unjo and I

talk about her career where she's traveled to, the amazing restaurant she's worked at,

her time at Momofuku Kau and my pitch to her to become an Executive Chef of a new restaurant

that none of us had any idea about what it was going to actually be.

And we open it on March 15th, Friday at the fifth floor of Hudson Yards, big new development

and it is something that we are very excited about.

We may hear some trepidation and some uncertainty in Unjo's voice.

We call her Joe, her nickname.

It's because the prospect of being the head of a restaurant for the first time, especially

when she said no previous management experience is a daunting task for anyone.

And the idea that it was going to be easy, I think we all knew it wasn't going to be easy,

but there's something about the lore of pre-opening where everything seems possible.

And then as it gets clearer that it's going to be a little bit closer to opening, things

almost always in my experience go off the rails and panic starts to set in.

And all the beautiful ideas that you had about what you were going to do, all the things

on paper that you thought were going to be flawlessly executed start to wilt under the

...