What were your favorite desserts growing up?
My favorite five desserts were: lemon meringue pie, grass jelly shaved ice, strawberry ice cream or milk shake, maltesers candy (UK), and black forest cake.

When did you decide you wanted to be a pastry chef?
When I was 12, after having made a raspberry brown butter tart. Or perhaps after I had my first taste of chocolate ice cream at 2!

Where and when did your cooking career begin?
Cooking began at Project Open Hand in San Francisco, an organization that prepared foods and delivered them to homebound patients with AIDS, followed by a stint at Chez Panisse, and leading up to pastry chef position at La Folie in San Francisco.

If you didn't become a pastry chef, what would you be?
I would be designing men's clothes and intimate apparel.

Who/what has shaped your baking the most over the years?
So many elements have helped shape my style over the years, from growing up with a wide variety of Asian cuisines, particularly Chinese. My mother's and aunt's baking during Chinese celebrations, culinary figures like Jean Georges Vongerichten. Having learned how to cook from books, I also refer a lot to Lenô tre and the Fanny Farmer cookbook. Recently, my whimsical style has been embraced (and enhanced) by Max Brenner, who definitely makes desserts in general interactive and even more fun.

What are your favorite culinary weapons in the kitchen?
The whisk: anything aerated and lightened is better. Any spatula: you can cut, scrape, decorate.

What is your favorite secret ingredient?
There are so many, but I love the fermented flavors of cheeses, miso, soy, and vinegars; makes food taste deeper.

What are some recent dessert trends that you have noticed?
Using less sugar. Using more chemistry straight up.

What was the most challenging dessert you had to make?Why?
The classics like tiramisu, cannoli, chocolate chip cookie, etc...It is because it has been made (and eaten) so many times before and I have to make it better.

What is your least favorite food?
On-flight foods

What are some recent dining and culinary trends you have been observing?
Sweeter savory foods, with infusion of global flavors and technique. Fine dining disguised as casual.

When you are not eating at your own restaurant, where are you eating?
Restaurants that have great sashimi, dim sum, noodles, my mother's, and best of all, desserts at other bakeries and restaurants.

Which foreign country inspires your style most?
Sweden. Right now, Australia and New Zealand.

What was the most spectacular meal or dessert you have ever had?
There are too many to mention. Right now, i'm totally craving a slice of the nougat cake from Patisserie Glace in Copenhagen.

What is your best cooking tip for a home enthusiast?
Cook appropriately with the seasons, hearty and slow cooked dishes in the winter, lots of veggies and salads for the summer. Buy ingredients as local as possible and use fresh herbs!

What do you eat when you are home?
Terra chips, instant noodles, soft boiled organic eggs, kombucha tea, fresh fruits, avocado, salted almond, and lots of chocolates, particularly valrhona.

What was your biggest personal achievement in the culinary world?
Not sure, but I love to butcher whole fish, and think it's a great achievement to have figured how to do that all on my own.