Read the JUN ISSUE #114 of Athleisure Mag and see IN OUR BAG | When Taking in the Sights in Mag.
We've enjoyed a number of dishes at Mokbar, Chef Esther Choi's restaurant which has phenomenal Korean dishes that are full of flavor. In addition, we always enjoy seeing her whether she is judging or in the midst of a cooking competition on Food Network or other networks.
We were invited to hang out with her as well as to enjoy an immersive experience at a pop-up with Listerine for their Clinical Solutions Sensitive Teeth which allow those who suffer with teeth sensitivities to have a moutwash that they can use. At this event, we enjoyed a number of dishes curated by her as well as to talk with her a bit about what led her to being a chef, why she loves Korean cuisine and S2 of 24 in 24: Last Chef Standing!
ATHLEISURE MAG: We are so excited to be able to chat with you as we have been fans of yours between your restaurants as well as the shows you have been on.
CHEF ESTHER CHOI: I’m so thankful for your support! We have to support each other!
AM: Absolutely!
What was the first dish that made you remember why you fell in love with food?
CHEF EC: I think for me, it might not be a specific dish, but an ingredient and it's kimchi.
AM: I love kimchi.
CHEF EC: Yeah, awesome! You'll have some tonight.
AM: I was so hoping.
CHEF EC: I mean, I love kimchi. I grew up eating kimchi, and it reminds me of not only like my family, but like my grandmother specifically. She taught me how to make it, and kimchi is something that you kind of - there's not like a real recipe for it.
AM: Right.
CHEF EC: It's really more about, like, the true nature of like cooking. So, I think, for me, it always kind of gave me those feelings, which is why, I'm so obsessed with it. It's pretty much on every item on my menu, and it's something that, I, you know, treasure. It's not only like a food item, but also like a culture. I like to say that kimchi, it's a way of life.
AM: Yeah.
CHEF EC: So, I'd say, that's my dish - forever.
AM: When did you realize you wanted to be a chef?
CHEF EC: I loved food, always like my whole life. I grew up cooking with my Grandmother. Food was such an important part of my family and growing up. When I was thinking about what I wanted to do with my life, I knew that it had to be food related. I didn't know if I wanted to be a chef specifically at the time, but I think the path of like going into food led me to want to be the closest to it, which is the chef.
AM: You have amazing restaurants.
CHEF EC: Thank you!
AM: Can you tell us a little bit about each of your restaurants?
CHEF EC: Yeah, of course.
So, the first restaurant I started when I was 28 was Mokbar, and that is in Chelsea Market, and it's a tiny little noodle shop in, one of the busiest markets in New York City. So, like, I wanted to bring something that's totally unique, but also being true to who I am and my heritage. So I chose this concept of doing Korean style Ramen, which you'll actually have some tonight.
AM: Very excited about this!
CHEF EC: Yeah, it's not your traditional Ramen, but like, it's Ramen infused with a lot of Korean ingredients, so it's kind of like your first step into trying Korean food, and so that has kind of been my philosophy and motto throughout, like my entire career and all my restaurants kind of go by that, where it's like, I want people to fall in love with Korean food and make it into their repertoire. So, like if you're ordering Chinese every week and Sushi, why can't you order at Korean?
AM: I’ve been known to have it 3 or 4 times a week. It is one of my favorite cuisines!
CHEF EC: Really! Oh my God! I love it. I love it. So, what’s your favorite Korean dish?
AM: So tough! I love Korean Fried Chicken, of course kimchi and I’m always down for kimpbap!
CHEF EC: In addition to kimchi, we're doing Korean Fried Chicken tonight.
AM: Yum! With kimchi, I literally will have it multiple times a day.
CHEF EC: I love all of this! You should be Korean!
And it's so healthy, too!
All of my restaurants are inspired by like Korean cuisine heritage, but they're done in more modern ways. So I do have a sit-down restaurant called GAHM in Brooklyn, and that one is definitely like full service.
The one that I started in Chelsea Market Mokbar, we have now several locations, and it's more of a fast casual. So, grab and go. We just opened our 5th location in Vegas a few months ago. We're very excited definitely my food concept is always going to be Korean forward.
AM: Why did you want to partner with Listerine?
CHEF EC: I would say this partnership is really special for me because I mean, there's a few reasons. First is because Korean food is, like, we're very into temperatures like the hot food has to be very very hot. You can see, you know, when you order a Korean dish, it always comes out like piping piping hot, almost like boiling at the table.
And then cool. Things are like, super cool, so you know lots of people who come to eat food, I want them to experience it fully without being disrupted by like having sensitive teeth, which is a big thing. So partnering with Listerine, it was like the perfect marriage. So, curating a menu that, can you know, kind of, let you think about all those sensitivities, it's like a perfect match.
Korean food also is very garlicky and very, you know, kimchi is very pungent.
AM: Everyone needs to have it!
CHEF EC: Yeah, exactly. So, there needs to be like Listerine always around after eating Korean food, so I just felt like, I'm like, what a perfect partnership.
AM: I love that!
You're back hosting S2 of 24 in 24: Last Chef Standing, how excited are you?
CHEF EC: It's crazy - I thought S1 was crazy, but S2 is even crazier! Which I don't even know how that's possible. But, um, yeah, this season's gonna be super exciting, especially because of the lineup of chefs that are competing. It's insane with the list. There's a lot of drama around it, Lots of emotions, so it's like, real, true, I'd say the closest to reality as opening up a restaurant as it can be!
IG @listerine
PHOTOGRAPHY CREDITS | PG 36 Patrick Wymore/Netflix | PG 39 LISTERINE
Read the APR ISSUE #112 of Athleisure Mag and see APRES SPICY | Chef Esther Choi in mag.
For those of us that grew up in the 90s, many of us remember watching Blossom and Joey Lawrence with his "whoa" catch phrase. He appeared in a number of series throughout this time as well as maintaining a music career, going on Broadway and of course being The Walrus on Season 8 of Masked Singer!
We wanted to take some time to catchup with him to find out about his career, the importance of oral care, his podcast with his brothers Matthew (Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Mrs Doubtfire, Hawaii Five-O) and Andy (Bean, NCIS: Los Angeles, Hawaii Five-O) as well as his upcoming movie and other projects!
ATHLEISURE MAG: You've had a great career that has included Gimmie A Break!, Blossom, being on Broadway in Chicago as Billy Flynn, The Masked Singer, and more! What do you love about being an entertainer?
JOEY LAWRENCE: It's always been sort of my calling and I was very lucky at a young age to have an opportunity to explore that passion of mine. My mom was just influential in seeing that love that I had for the arts and just going, alright, let's see if we can make this happen. It just came about in the most amazing way, and then being able to go to New York and audition for commercials at the age of five years old, and get a lot of those commercials and then go on the Johnny Carson Show and have the reaction be what it was on that and lead to a deal with NBC, which led to give me a break and all the other shows that I ended up doing. It was just sort of an amazing thing that happened and 43 years later, to be able to still doing it, is truly a remarkable thing, quite a journey.
AM: What have been three of your favorite moments in your career that made you smile?
JL: The explosion of the whole WHOA thing on Blossom and the whole Teen Idol thing was an amazing moment. I know a lot of people sometimes look back on that stuff as not so great when they experienced it, but for me, it was really amazing. The fact that I'm able to still work even past all that is great. It was that explosion, and still to this day, all these years later, two decades later, people still walking around saying that word and how it still has transcended time. It's seen all over popular vernacular today. That was a pretty cool moment to have that happen to a character that I played become so iconic like that. Being on Broadway was great. The whole different world of being able to utilize my love for singing and acting at the same time was really great. Also, having a number one record was really cool, writing a song at 16 - having a hit number one on the charts. Experiencing that was great and the other top moments are hopefully yet to come.
AM: Achieving a great smile means that you make your oral care a priority. Why did you partner with LISTERINE?
JL: Well, to me, LISTERINE truly is the benchmark of oral care. I actually use LISTERINE – it's been in every medicine cabinet in my house growing up, and now is in my home and used by kids.
AM: What is your oral care routine and how did you turn your woes into "Whoas"?
JL: I have red, irritated gums, so I religiously care for my whole mouth. I use an electric powered toothbrush and I floss basically almost after every meal, but certainly in the morning and at night. Then I follow it up with my favorite LISTERINE mouthwash – Clinical Solutions Antiseptic Gum Health from their newest line of superpowered products. It is actually incredible and it really works. Truly, I used the Antiseptic Gum Health mouthwash for one week and I started to see a difference – it literally made me go “WHOA!”
The LISTERINE Clinical Solutions line was developed with dentists to tackle and help prevent top oral care issues, and so I’m very excited to see what other people think because I think they're gonna feel the way I do.
AM: It seems like you and your brothers - Matthew and Andy continue the good vibes, smiles, and fun conversations with your podcast, Brotherly Love. Why did you want to launch it in this format and what can we expect when we're tuning in?
JL: That's what we do. I mean, our thing is just escapism, right? We want people to come in and just have some fun, take your mind off of things. I feel so many times people forget the the true essence of entertainment, which is to entertain, and we get bogged down in making it mirror exactly what's going on in our lives. But so many times, I don't want to watch something that's mirroring exactly what I'm going through, because that's life. I want to have a little bit of escapism. People have never really seen us like this, which is kind of cool. When we've worked together in our careers, it's always been with scripts. This is no scripts. This is actually how our inner dynamics are and we're dinner table conversation, we're not a specific podcast based on a certain idea or ideology. We talk about anything and everything that friends and family would talk about over a dinner table. I think that's what's really been the reaction so far and why people have enjoyed it so much. We never really thought it was going to turn into this. We really did it during the COVID lockdowns to just have something to do because like everybody, we thought the world was ending, and we got to do something. The reaction to it has been incredible. To see the rise of this little baby pod, the pod that could as we say, has been humbling. It's been really, really neat. I think we're like the 45th ranked pod overall, which is really crazy. There's like 5 million pods out there. So, you know, this little pod that me and my bros do to have this much love thrown at it, it just really feels great. We're just so thankful the community that supports us is pretty dope.
AM: Tell us about your upcoming film, Heart Attack.
JL: We’re doing it with Fox and Tubi. Big action movie, which I'm excited about. I haven't done a lot of action - I did a little bit on Hawaii Five-O and CSI New York, but I really haven't although I've loved that genre so much. Big fan of Die Hard and these movies growing up as a kid so to be able to jump into this sort of genre is going to be really, really cool. It's a nonstop juggernaut from page one with a clock that ticks – your classic action movie stakes, but it really is cool. it's all set in the hospital. It's going to be a lot of fun. My baby brother, Andrew, is actually going to direct it, which is gonna be fun because he's a great director. We're gonna have a lot of fun. We're going to shoot that later this year, and really looking forward to it.
AM: How do you take time for yourself when you're not focused on projects, navigating personal and family schedules, etc?
JL: You just have to make the time, right? Life is about making time for things, that's what you got to do. It's easy to say we don't have time, right? It's easy to say, Oh, I don't have time to get that workout in, or I don't have time to floss. You have to figure out a way to do it. There's always time. I feel like where there's a will, there's a way. I live my life like that - we'll figure it out. There's a way to figure something out, I don't ever feel like nothing is, you know, can't be accomplished if we put our minds to it, just figure it out. So I try to live my life that way every day and you know, I fail sometimes, like everybody, but I also succeed sometimes. When you succeed, it feels good and that motivates you to continue to work hard and try to fit everything in. That's what I try to do.
AM: Are there any upcoming projects that we should keep an eye out for that you would like to share?
JL: There's a lot of exciting stuff going on. We have a sequel to our Christmas movie that we did together, the brothers and I, Mistletoe Mixup, which was actually the number one Christmas movie on Amazon in 2021. The sequel is coming out later this year, so we're excited about that. It's actually funnier than the first one, it really is, so we're very excited because he first one again, we did it sort of as an independent project, and Amazon picked it up, and then it just did so well. It was their number one movie for Christmas a year and a half ago. So, then we were like, wow, well, we got to try to make it good now. So, you know, the sequel, we had a lot more time to do it and we're excited about it. So that's coming out. We're actually working on a scripted series together for the first time, since like the early 2000s, which is crazy. That is something that is in the late stages, so we're excited about that. There's a couple other exciting things that will be on tap soon, but you know, and I'm working with LISTERINE, so that's like top of the top and super excited.
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY | LISTERINE Clinical Solutions
Read the MAR ISSUE #99 of Athleisure Mag and see WOAH! Joey Lawrence in mag.
