Thank you Stephanie Breijo for chatting with me about Mama’s Way and putting it in the LA Times!!! As I told her briefly, Mama Fong had us add white vinegar and chili garlic sauce to her noodles growing up. I’m still not sure why she chose white vinegar instead of red, dark or rice vinegar, but this sensation stuck with my sister and I. The acidity of white vinegar cuts through the savory noodles while balancing the spice from the chili garlic. In our pop up days we would provide squirt bottles of both on our Woon cart. Michael Chen coined it the genius “Mama’s Way” which we added to the chalkboard instructions on how to eat the noodles. Once we opened up the brick and mortar shop we also provided both squirt bottles on each table.
When COVID hit, we were running into issues of using way too many to go containers for the vinegar and chili garlic. So, we formulated a proportion and blended them together. By blending it we discovered the chopped chili’s actually intensified the spice and it created the perfect consistency to put into bottles and add to all types of foods. I go through bottles of it at home and use it every day on eggs, pizza, tamales, etc.
You can now purchase the bottles (with label artwork by the one and only Ty Williams) on our online shop at woonkitchen.com and a few retailers in the US including Wine & Eggs (Los Angeles), Sara’s Market (Los Angeles), Sight Glass (Los Angeles), Queens (San Francisco), Wellspent Market (Portland), Local Foods (Texas), and Your Other Left Ear (New York)
Our Sous Chef, Jackson, has also been experimenting with a lacto-fermented version of Mama’s Way which turned out really tasty. However, the first batch got dropped in the walk-in and exploded all over Brian Wok Legend’s eyes which resulted in me pouring coconut milk in his eye balls. So, the next batch of lacto-fermented might not be for sale for a while...
