This story aired on the August 12, 2024 episode of Crosscurrents
Many people have been glued to their screens keeping up with the Olympics. And in between videos of the world’s most impressive athletes, you’re likely to see one of those mouth-watering food videos that have captured our attention on social media since the very beginning. Today, there are thousands of food content creators sharing recipes, recommendations and restaurant reviews. In this story, we meet two people who started making their Youtube videos on the Bay Area food scene and in the process, transformed their lives.
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We are at Garden Cafe in Castro Valley with Victor Xie, his wife Karen, and cousin Terrence.
We are all sitting around two rectangular tables. There are laminated long menus that have Hong Kong Chinese-style dishes with English translations. Victor is excited to order, he says he comes here quite a lot.
"How does it smell? ... like home," said Terrence.
"Overall a lot of like the flavors... yeah savory flavors...
There are a lot of savory flavors here", said Victor.
"yeah, this is like comfort food," said Karen.
But this isn't an ordinary lunch, Victor is here to work. He's a digital food content creator. Today he is recording a video for his YouTube channel, Did You Eat Yet?
Victor pans his camera over the restaurant menu, as Karen sets up the small tripod at the edge of the table. They are gathering a B-roll for a video he will be editing at home.
Victor, Karen, and Terrence talk about what they want to order; Hong Kong milk tea, salt and pepper fried tofu, baked pork chops. and Victor zooms in and out.
"This is a garden cafe staple. it's a big pork chop with like tomato base sauce on top, cheese it's a big pork chop cheese over rice," said Victor.
Victor seems to be in his element.
"I'm just obsessed with food now I just want to share stories about food," said Victor.
He does, on his page “Did You Eat Yet.” It’s only been going since July of 2023 – BUT it already has over 13,000 subscribers.
Victor was born in Oakland and grew up all around the East Bay. His grandmother took care of all the caregiving and all the cooking.
Victor says, growing up, he didn't really understand the significance of those meals, It was only when he traveled to places like Japan, Mexico City, and Texas that he really solidified his love with food.
"That's when it's like oh shoot, there's like really good stuff out there," said Victor.
He started falling in love with the rich flavors of Texas barbecue, asada cooked over carbon, and fresh corn tortillas in addition to the flavors of his Chinese roots.
Feeling inspired, Victor created Did You Eat Yet? to share stories about the food he was discovering. He also wanted to shed light on the local food scene emerging out of COVID.
Not as a full-time job but as a passion project.
His most popular videos would have to be his four-part taco tour series. Where he visited different taco joints across Oakland’s neighborhoods; Fruitvale, International & High St, West Oakland, and East Oakland.
"So I'm like, what else is out there? You know, what other types of regional Mexican specialties are there?" said Victor.
Making the video series - has also helped Victor rediscover the food scene in Castro Valley. He first lived here when he was in middle school. all he remembers were fast food restaurants. Now, he’s finding new local places that he loves because of the diversity in food that’s growing in Castro Valley.
Victor says these videos aren’t about gathering likes or becoming famous.
"I'm not trying to influence anyone. I'd say I'm trying to be more of a storyteller," said Victor.
His favorite videos are the ones he’s filmed cooking with his parents.
They’re making doong, which is a Taishanese dish. From the Guangdong Province in China.
it’s made up of sticky rice, wrapped in a bamboo leaf stuffed with peanuts and pork. You can say they’re like Chinese tamales. He says he encouraged his parents to speak Taishanese as it isn't commonly represented in media or pop culture.
His parents came to the United States in the 80’s, and they didn’t assimilate or learn English.
"As We're growing up, there's always these like traditional Chinese dishes we would have. And at the time when we're kids, we don't understand why we're having them," Victor adds "So in the video series, we kind of covered some of that," said Victor.
Making the videos has given Victor the chance to learn more about his roots, and connect with his family.
"The the dishes I mentioned with my parents, I have that now in the future, even like, let's say, you know, 20, 30 years from now when my parents are gone, every time I have that dish, I'm still going to think about like, hey, we did this together," said Victor.
20 minutes west of Castro Valley, In Oakland, Wesley Woo is making fried rice in a giant wok. vegetables and rice fly up and down with smoke filling up the air.
He's the chef behind Woo Can Cook.
"The inspiration for the Woo Can Cook channel itself kind of started the very first recipe that I wrote was for this Mapo Tofu dish," said Wesley
Mapo Tofu is a dish that Wesley’s grandmother made for him and one of the most memorable dishes from his childhood. He says Mapo Tofu is a ground pork that’s slow braised in soy sauce and chili paste.
"Because it's Szechuan, it's got a, a lot of chili pepper in it because that's sort of the hallmark of Szechuan cuisine," said Wesley.
Wesley grew up in Marin County and is a professional musician.
He got familiar with the digital landscape by uploading videos of his band, Trace Repeat to YouTube.
During COVID, with music venues closed, he started looking for the next thing. That’s when he created a Reddit channel and began uploading videos.
This is a show where we are slowly cooking our way through all of the food from my childhood.
Quickly he gained 20 million views on Reddit. He decided to transition to YouTube to create longer and more detailed steps for his cooking videos.
"So then when the YouTube channel started getting really popular, uh, then people started asking where they could like find the food that I was cooking, which I had never really considered before", added Wesley "So I started looking into like different ways that I could feasibly do that without like having a huge overhead to like to cover basically a restaurant space," said Wesley.
His YouTube videos lead to viewers asking, where can we buy your food?
And then he remembered about his days as a performer, how event spaces would always have food.
"Everywhere that you see live music, you also see food. Like you see food and you see booze. Those are those three things, they almost always go together," said Wesley.
With only a $2,000 investment, Woo Can Cook hit its first pop-up event at the Alameda Antique Fair. Knowing what he could make in a wok, Wesley decided fried rice would be his specialty.
"And then I remember very shortly after that I had the idea of like, well, what if we stick it in a burrito? and that's where the fried rice burrito comes from," said Wesley.
and now, he has a space at the Prescot Market Hall in West Oakland, scheduled to open in late 2024.
Wesely wants his restaurant to have the vibe of a Taiwanese night market.
Wesly didn’t think that uploading those first videos would lead to him opening a brick-and-mortar restaurant. Just like Victor Xie didn’t know his YouTube channel would bring him closer to his Taishanese roots. For both guys, food content is more than just uploading videos; it’s a way to share their history around food, and in the process, it changed their lives.
