Motherhood has changed the way Esther Choi looks at food, she told Fox News Digital at the opening of her new restaurant in Las Vegas earlier this month.
Choi, a chef and TV star, was celebrating the opening of his new restaurant, Mokbar, at Caesars Palace.
“Being a mother to a one-year-old has changed everything about how I look at food,” Choi told Fox News Digital. (See the video at the top of this article.)
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“Normally I like to cook for people, but to cook for my child? Next level,” he said. “Very sweet.”
Choi, 38, gave birth to her son, Leonardo, on February 22, she announced on Instagram.
Becoming a mother, chef Esther Choi told Fox News Digital, “changed everything about how I look at food.” His son is now one year old. (Fox News Digital)
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given his mother’s cooking expertise, little Leonardo is exposed to a variety of foods at an early age.
“I feed him everything,” Choi said, adding that he wants “his palate to be bigger and bigger.”
“That’s the type of chef I am,” he said, noting that he cooks “with an open mind.”
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“I love all different kinds of food. So, cooking for my child has been one of the best joys in life. And that’s how I lived,” he said.
As a chef, Choi said she “loves to cook for people, and my child is no different.”
“It’s the heart you have as a chef – wanting to cook for others.”
Chef Esther Choi recently opened a Mokbar location at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. (Caesars Entertainment)
Choi has always been influenced by her family, even before she became a mother herself. He told Fox News Digital that his grandmother is his “biggest inspiration,” not just as a cook but as a person.
“He’s one of those people who has a special impact on my life,” Choi said. “He raised me to love people. And the way you show that love came from food, from him. And I learned that from him.”
Her grandmother cooked everything with all her heart, Choi says – which Choi believes is the secret to why her grandmother’s food tastes so good.
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“And that’s what I always like to keep in my mind. That’s my motto as a chef,” he said. “Cook with your heart, cook with love and think about the person you are cooking for.”
Mokbar’s new Vegas location is Choi’s fifth restaurant and first outside of the New York area.
“Cook with your heart, cook with love and think about the person you are cooking for.”
Choi’s other restaurants include Mokbar locations, and a gastropub on New York’s Lower East Side named after Ms. Oh, in the name of his grandmother.
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Mokbar’s menu is “a twist on modern Korean food,” he told Fox News Digital, featuring “authentic Korean spices, but done in a modern way.”
Many of the items include Choi’s favorite food, kimchi, he said.
Mokbar’s menu is “a twist on modern Korean cuisine,” Choi told Fox News Digital. Many items include his favorite food, kimchi (pictured above). (Caesars Entertainment)
“We make five different brands [of kimchi] in the house, and it’s special to me because kimchi is kind of the heart of Korean culture,” she said.
As with his other restaurants, Mokbar’s menu features items that are either Choi’s grandmother’s recipes or inspired by his own cooking.
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“Mandu, which is a Korean dumpling, is my grandmother’s recipe. Like kimchi, like Korean barbecue,” he told Fox News Digital.
“Most of the spices you see here are my grandmother’s recipes, too [they are] flavors I grew up with.”
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