 ThinkTek Hawaii, civil engagement lives here. And welcome to Hawaii Food and Farmers' Series. I'm your host today, Matthew Johnson, and we're here every other Thursday-ish. We get here as much as we can. This is where we're talking to Hawaii's farmers, foodies, restaurants, everyone who's helping to make Hawaii's local food industry stronger, better, and that much more tastier. As always, you can join the conversation by going into ThinkTek HI through Twitter. And you can also call the hotline by calling the phone number 808-374-2014. So as always, we have great, fantastic guests. And with us today, we have the two owners from Yield Restaurant, is the hottest new brunch spot in Chinatown. So we have Kale and Chef Patrick here with me today. Thanks so much for coming on the show, guys. Thank you, man. Yeah, so I've been down. I was just at the restaurant, kind of like a hurricane weekend. It was fantastic to see you guys were open, a good spot to go and get some food, get out of the house. So yeah, thanks so much for that. Yeah, there are a lot of people like that. Yeah, I mean, you guys are pretty busy. People are finding you. Dude, the two days that we were closed, I was losing it at my house. I was trying to clean anything and everything I could. I was cleaning the AC and the louvers. And everyone was tired of cooking for themselves, for sure. So it was perfect, you guys were there. So yeah, why don't we jump right into it? Just tell us about Yield Restaurant. What's it all about? Well, we are a farm to table brunch spot right now. And we're focusing on 90% of our local ingredients being local. We need that little 10% of play because we can't get everything that we need year round. So right now, we are sourcing with farm aggregate companies, like Wallam Fresh, and working with about 60 different local farms. And we like to keep our menu seasonal, changing it every month or so. And our fall menu is coming up soon. Yeah. Right, awesome. Yeah, it's cool because I feel like a lot of restaurants kind of patronize, like, oh yeah, we're farming the table. And then for people like us, you kind of look at the menu and kind of tell how legit it is. But you guys are super legit with your menu and really making it the focus. So it's just exciting, especially for someone like myself to really see that because I know it's not easy. And that was one of the things that we wanted to accomplish was, I mean, we had a juice company. We worked on a juice company together before. And we tried to do as much local as possible, but it was limited to fruits and leafy greens. And we couldn't use like meats or eggs or. You can have that sirloin steak juice. So you know what I mean? And when we decided to do a restaurant, we wanted to do farm to table, but very genuinely, and as best as we could at least. And calling something yield, I think, adds some weight to that and leaves less room to be fake about it. And so that was definitely one of our missions was to try to do it as best as we could genuinely. Right on. Well, yeah, so let's talk about some details. Where is the restaurant and how do people find it? Inside the corner of Hotel and Nuanu, right next to FET. And you can find us on Instagram at Yield Restaurant. And on our Yelp page also, if you want to check out our menu and what our food looks like. Our specialties are right now Dutch baby. Everyone says we have the best steak and eggs in town. Make a really good bruschetta. We bake all our bread in house. And we have two, like, one to three juices every day from what we can get locally. OK. All right, so you mentioned before that you guys were doing a juice company before. What was that all about? So it's called Nalo Juice. And I studied botany and tropical plants and soil sciences. I didn't graduate though, which is a big thing because there's been a few articles that say that I have a degree in that. I do not have a degree in adjoining college. I mean, we've heard of some local politicians that come back to fight them in the bus. I do not have a degree. OK. I'm glad that you put that in the office. I did study it, yeah. And so my first year at UH, I decided to travel and work on some farms in the mainland, in Thailand, and then in Hilo. And that started the juicing thing was seeing how much produce goes into one bottle of juice and that you don't really need the stuff that would be on the shelf. You don't want rotting produce, but you could do off-grade different shaped produces, I guess. And then we did that in the farmer's markets for two and a half years. And then we got approached with this opportunity at Hoi Office Centers, which is currently our space now. And it was a little too big to just do a juice bar. And we never wanted juice to limit what we did. We wanted to be able to expand. And we, yeah. I mean, we learned a lot from it. We've made a lot of relations. That's how I met you, I'm pretty sure, through Lauren and the farmer's markets. And then it just kind of made sense. Like, hey, Patrick's chef career started really taking off. And like I said, the space was just too big to just do a juice bar. And we've wanted to expand their wings. And then it rolled into what's the juiciest time of the day is brunch, really. And there was no brunch in Chinatown at the time after Scratch moved toward. So it kind of just all happened pretty organically. And now we're at now, yeah. Perfect. Yes, so you guys are pretty much starting the restaurant off as a brunch spot? Yes. Yes. And then, oh, it's interesting, too. So the space is actually kind of just on the Malka side of the restaurant. And it's part of the Hoi Office Center. Hoi Office Center. So it's like a co-working space-ish type of place. So upstairs is shared co-working offices, which is cool, because downstairs there's a lot of, not collaboration yet, but there's a lot of communication. People trying to help each other out with the restaurants. And it's just like all one thing from upstairs to downstairs. It's a cool little community. Yeah, it is a neat spot. And it seems like you said, a lot of good potential, especially kind of tapping in. I mean, it's great you have Chuck and Robin right there with the vet just kind of holding down the corner. And then you have the office center. Encore, and then you have Brookfire Tavern, and Hachi Bay. And everyone does their own thing, you know? It's not like. You're not really stepping on anybody's toes. Yeah. And it's cool, too, because we were kind of joking earlier that to find you guys, you really kind of have to know where you're going, because it's not a big space. I think we even have a picture on the inside where it's about 500 square feet. 400. 400. So it's 20 seats on the inside. Oh, OK, there we go. There's a picture, and yeah. I love wearing the same shirt, same man. But that was kind of, I mean, it's manageable for us. It's our first restaurant. We can kind of run it lean with the staff until we figure out, I mean, now that we've been open. But in the beginning, it was kind of nervous, like taking on staff and being accountable for people where we can pivot easier. It's more manageable. We can focus on the food, the sourcing, like what exactly we're trying to do a little bit more. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Instead of having a staff, something like 50 employees right off the get go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, I think it's super smart, kind of control your costs and really, like you said, focus on the quality of the food, quality of the service. But we were saying before where you guys have it set up as brunch right now, just kind of get it up and going. That kind of gives you time where there's availability at night time for like private parties. Like, I think we already have a think tech party planned. We're going to bring all the think tech crew over there for one night. And it's cool because you can do that because, I mean, how many total seats are in the space? Like 24. OK, yeah. Yeah, so yeah, it's easy to find 23 other friends and kind of train by. And the brunch thing, for us, it's nice to get off of work by four-ish, you know? And you're available to go on to shows like this? It's more sustainable in the beginning, you know, rather than being down there until midnight or 2 AM and dealing with that whole crowd. And I think once we do, what we always talk about, once we do open up for dinner, we'll already have some sort of following. And that's where we can kind of do different stuff than what we're doing now. And it leaves us time, basically, to grow, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it gives you a life outside of work so that you can appreciate it and enjoy it versus, you know, I'm sure, some other restaurant operations. It's just like 24-7. It's all you can really think about and do. And it just kind of drags you down. But it's nice because you guys also have kind of like that courtyard space that I think you guys are working on as kind of like, I guess, a common area with some of the other restaurants that are there that you can take advantage of. Because you said you were like building out some tables. We just haven't moved out there yet. For one, it's been super hot in summer. And we're open in the middle of the day where it's cooking out there. So I mean, it is a priority for us. We just open. So it's nice to have everyone in front of us. We just finished building our tables for the outside. So we're talking with the building of how the layout goes exactly. But it'll be about an extra 18 to 20 seats out there. So it's about going to double the amount of space that you guys have. That's great. It's nice being able to kind of have that when you're ready to really kind of double down on what you're doing. I mean, you just have to make sure everyone gets their food that tastes good and comes out right. And you have to train kitchen staff and just to get everything going for sure. Yeah, yeah. Oh, fun. I'm stoked. I mean, it's dagger seating and ordering. We can't just sit like right now. We can sit the whole restaurant one time and we'll be getting pounded. But for the most part, it's manageable. But once we have that extra seating, then comes in like the fine tuning of that, like not taking on too much at one time. And now we're getting to a point where we need extra space to accommodate people who've had a weight and it doesn't feel good to have to turn people away. You don't want to be super exclusive or anything like that. You're the popular kid at school that everyone's come and hang out with. Just make a reservation. Nice plug. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely. Svetlak, talk a little bit about your background. So did you go to culinary school or where did you come from? I just battled in the kitchen. So I used to work at two fine dining Japanese restaurants, Restaurant Wada and Tepanyaki Ginzo Onodera. And Tepanyaki Ginzo Onodera is a fine dining Japanese restaurant, 13 seats. And they are one of three restaurants in America that's certified to sell A5 grade Kobe beef. So which is the highest type of wagyu you can probably get. And from there, I got to learn from some really good chefs. The chef that was the head chef there when I first started, he made sous chef at Robuchon in Tokyo in Roppongi when he was like 33. So that's pretty badass for sure. And then the other chef was the chef owner of Mimasia in the Raqqa Tower before. And then he was a really good Italian chef. So I had to learn from them. I got to learn from Takanori Wadasan. And then I just kind of got my chops from them. I had to teach myself Japanese, and I had to communicate with them in all Japanese. And then I kind of got to learn my aesthetic of cooking. And also, if I cook something, how do people know it's my dish? Which is kind of what I got from all these different Japanese chefs, because when they cook something, even though it's the same recipe, the same ingredients, you can tell whose dish it is or who made it, basically. Talk a little bit more about that. That's interesting. So just kind of like your own personal, because now you've moved in your own space and you're kind of creating, explain more about that for people who aren't necessarily. Because when I cook, I'm just kind of going off a recipe, and I don't necessarily have my form. What does that mean? I mean, basically, when you're cooking at a high level like that, you have to kind of show what your soul looks like on a plate. If you get really into it, you have to think about, OK, something really fine and specific. Should I fine grind the spices? Should I make it coarse? And then that changes the texture, everything about the dish. So you're basically like an artist slash product designer. We have to think about how is the diner going to interact with the plate, which is half of it. And then you also think about your style of cooking. So it's like how my grandma would make something and my dad would make something. And it's the same exact recipe. But of course, my grandma's going to make it better because she adds her own aesthetic. She adds her own secrets that aren't on the recipe card. So it's just all about experimentation and figuring out what works for you, basically. Awesome, right on, guys. All right, well, we're going to take a quick one-minute break, and we'll be right back to it. Cool. Aloha. I am Howard Wigg. I am the proud host of Cold Green for Think Tech Hawaii. I appear every other Monday at three, and I have really, really exciting guests on the exciting topic of energy efficiency. Hope to see you there. I'm Jay Fidel, Think Tech. Think Tech loves energy. I'm the host of Mina, Marco, and Me, which is Mina Morita, former chair of the PUC, former legislator, and Energy Dynamics, a consulting organization in energy. Marco Mangostorf is the CEO of Provision Solar in Hilo. Every two weeks, we talk about energy, everything about energy. Come around and watch us. We're on at noon on Mondays every two weeks on Think Tech. Aloha. Welcome back to White Food and Farmers series. I'm your host today, Matthew Johnson, and I almost forgot to mention today is our 100th episode. So congratulations to Think Tech and all the great guests that we've had on the show and all the other hosts as well, Stephanie Pomei and Justine. So we're very excited for this milestone. So thanks guys for joining us for number 100. Oh, that's amazing. So yeah, so we have Chef Patrick and Colle with Yield Restaurant, just talking about the hottest new brunch spot in Chinatown. And we're just kind of talking to Chef Patrick here about just really what it means to kind of, because we all talk about cooking at home, but then really how do you create that experience and kind of taking your cooking and being a true chef and how that works. And we were talking briefly during the break about, you guys are really focusing on, hence the name of the restaurant, Yield Restaurant. You're working with whatever the local farms are yielding and what's available. It's not an easy concept. I mean, instead of beginning the show, a lot of restaurants want to do that and talk about that and kind of patronize that, but you guys are doing it. So let's talk a little more about that. So you guys have been open for now for two and a half months. And before that, you guys are doing a local juice company. So you're very familiar with local farms and the products that are available. What's been working really well and also what's been challenging for sourcing for these dishes that you're trying to do? Well, I mean, if something's not available, we have to change it up. So I mean, it's just that flexibility with our concept and the talents of our kitchen. And also having a customer base that understands that for the most part, like no one's really complained, which is super cool, I think. And I think that the way that we've positioned ourselves allows that, where if something's out, it's, I mean, we're trying our best to make sure that that doesn't happen, but we can only do so much. I mean, we always have to ask ourselves, what is yield? Is this yield or yieldy? We have to think about, OK, this dish sounds good, but how can we make it local? How can we make it our own? How can we show who we are as a restaurant and how we want to help our local agricultural community? Which is really important to us, because when we were in high school, maybe 95% of our food was imported, and now we're at 85% 10 years later. So hopefully we can keep bumping that number down. But we would like to see more duck eggs. Duck eggs, yes. That's a big thing. Tell me about the duck eggs. We need duck eggs. I'll keep working on that. And yeah, like this week, the kale didn't show up. So I'm sure that kind of messed you guys up, where you're kind of banking on kale for some of the dishes. When we deconstruct some of the dishes that you have and just kind of explain what are the items that are going into it, like the bruschetta. I mean, obviously the grains itself for the bruschetta probably isn't local. But why don't you talk about that dish? So we make an in-house sourdough that has a starter that's about 30 years old and passed on from baker to baker. And then we proof that for about three days. And then sometimes we put a naked dairy buttermilk way inside. So we make cheese from the naked dairy buttermilk. And then we put the whey inside just to boost the sourness. And then after that, we get whole-farm tomatoes, some sweet-evo onions, and then caramelized onions, garlic, olive oil, and then put a little bit of white wine, flambé it a little bit. Then add the whole-farm tomato medley. And then we finish that with balsamic vinegar, reduce it, caramelize it, put it on some parmesan cheese and some cilantro. Wow. Yeah, so I mean, as far as what we can get locally, we're really stoked on having a local dairy. That's huge, you know? Because I mean, for the last 20 years, we haven't had a local dairy. And it's good to kind of see that grassroots movement happen, like how it's happening all over America right now, where people are going back to these small farms and the FDA is being a little bit more lenient on raw milk products, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. Yeah. So why don't you talk a little more about what kind of products? So you mentioned duck eggs as an item that you hope to see. What are some other items that you're just really like, ow, we want to get your hands on? Finger limes. Finger limes, OK. Finger limes? You know, like really cool examples. The okra medley was pretty cool. The okra medley we've seen from, I think it was a V Farms, was pretty cool. It was there was purple okra, red okra, all different sizes. And we just asked if there's anything that farmers would want to grow, if we can help in any way by testing it. I don't know how much different kinds of produce are out there that this farmer might have something that has been special to him, that he wants to grow, that he hasn't been able to grow. And just pushing that limit to be comfortable with doing stuff like that, I think, is the message. And also finding farmers who have surplus and excess. And they're going to throw it away. And then part of the yield concept, which is part of the knowledge use concept, is that we're going to take what you got and at least give you some money for it, rather than it all going to waste. And then that helps the farmers at least make their waste into a little bit of cash. And then from there, we can all support building on each other. Yeah. I think there's been a lot of talks around ugly produce. It's definitely almost like a hot topic within local ag. But what I've seen is just the realities of making it happen can be challenging. And it's great that you guys are putting yourselves out there. I was like, hey, yeah, we're flexible. We're open. And I think you have to create that dialogue and get that dialogue started and just saying, hey, if you have this available, we can take it. I think to build on that is to see how much produce actually gets wasted that a farm produces. I worked on this tomato farm. And maybe out of the 100% of tomatoes that this plant grew, maybe 50% was actually harvested, either got attacked by bugs or fell on the ground. And out of that 50% harvested, maybe 50% went to market. So you're talking about like 25% of the tomatoes that this plant grew actually got to the market. And then who knows how much waste is there. But we would get dump trucks filled with tomatoes that we couldn't use. That's crazy. What was happening with the tomatoes that you couldn't use? I think they were just being dumped or composted. But I mean, that's crazy to see that much. I mean, and there's this guy, Joe Salatin, who's like a really famous cattle rancher and stuff. Out of Virginia, right? Yeah. And he talks about how we don't have a food hunger or a world hunger issue, have a world waste issue. So it's like trying to build on that as much as we can from our small little neighborhood restaurant. But I mean, that's like the ideas that we think about every day. Yeah, I've had some conversations and spoken to different groups that are trying to focus on the food waste part of it. And it is really challenging. And there's not a lot of benefits for the farmer, too. I mean, the more that he sells his waste, the devalues his good tomatoes that are on the shelf. You know? Like if someone's going to wait four days to get a cheaper product, they will do that. So you're devaluing your premium. I don't know what the solution is, but that was like a huge eye-opening thing for me. Yeah, I think even the challenge, too, is the county doesn't even have an actual composting system. So there isn't a county-wide program for it. And even to, and I'm not sure what you guys are doing with any food waste that you have, but I think it's like technically illegal just to give it to a farmer. It's got to be like a certified process on how that food is being properly handled. It has a lot of bacteria and stuff involved. Yeah, because you're still dealing with rotting food that is going back into the food system, so it could still get people sick. This one lady that does FETS compost said it has to be all pre-prep, no meats, no dairy, just all vegetables pre-prep. So it's just all your cores and all that kind of skins and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. Cool. Well, hey, let's talk about your guys. I know you guys are super young guys, super ambitious, and you have lots of ideas. So usually what we like to do with the guests that we bring on is kind of talking about the future of the things that you want to do, but also just kind of overall like here we're talking about a better composting system for Hawaii. What are some of the bigger concepts of what you guys want to see for your Hawaii, your local hag, local restaurant scene? I mean, we would like to see definitely more farms on board with slaughterhouse or butcher or what were you talking about? FDA certified slaughterhouse. So like right now, if people are growing any type of meat, producing any type of meat, they have to go to FDA slaughterhouse. And so we send a lot of our cattle to the mainland. And then like right now on the big island, what they're doing is they have a big 16-wheeler truck that has a slaughterhouse FDA approved built into it. The most slaughterhouse. Yeah. So that's kind of what we want to see is keeping more of the meat on island and also seeing like better local meat also, which means that they just have to have more business so they can make a superior product. You guys checked out Butcher and Bird yet? No, I've been wanting to go. Yeah, I've heard good things about it. I'll take you guys. Yeah, this guy Chuck, he's been on the show before. And so he's doing this kind of like an in-house butcher shop. He's doing a lot of work with like Kunoa and some other meat products. And yeah, you guys will love it. Yeah, for sure. I mean, just have access to be able to do share cuterie and stuff like that, but do it locally would be cool. Yeah, it's kind of like we're talking to Bob with Pono Pork, yeah, and just kind of some of the challenges where he's got all those amazing ideas in these products. But we've all kind of seen firsthand just the challenges of being able to do it. It's got to be this proper facility where you have a USDA guy on staff. And it's really challenging when you start going into it. And you really have to have it planned out and figuring out the cost and everything to go with it. Yeah, you definitely can't wing situations like that at all. And then so with the restaurant, so we have about a minute left. So you guys are planning on opening up for dinner at some point soon, I think you mentioned that. And it'll end of November around there. We're just working on with the building about more cold storage. If we want to do another service for that day of different menu, we would need more cold storage. Our liquor license kicks in soon, either this week or next week. And then we'll be moving outside, like we said, very soon. 8-part Bloody Mary menu, cold-pressed juice mimosas. There we go. Champagne cocktails. Champagne cocktails. So we're going to miss brunch ever. Yeah, we just started. And we're seeing definitely what we can do with what we have so far in our local agricultural community. Yeah. We're out, guys. Well, thank you so much. And first, that's all the time that we have. Really appreciate you guys coming on the show. Just hearing more about everything you're doing. So stoked to just keep going back there and look forward to the Bloody Marys. Right, awesome. Thank you for joining us, Hawaii Food and Farmer Series. And we are here every other Thursday. Aloha.