The Grub Street Diet

Eddie Huang Does Dim Sum at Nom Wah, Diets to Make His Mom Happy

Huang, fighting a hangover to eat some falafel.
Huang, fighting a hangover to eat some falafel. Photo: Melissa Hom

“Do you want to hear about all the meetings and everything?” Eddie Huang asks as we start to go over his diet. It’s a fair question, since he’s been everywhere this week promoting the release of Fresh Off the Boat, his new memoir. “It’s super tiring, to be honest,” he says of the media blitz, but he also admits it’s been “a dream come true to see people respond the way they have to the book.” Admittedly, a Grub Street Diet does add to the pile of Huang-heavy stories this week, but we still wanted to see what he ate because, between all the interviews and events, Huang still managed to find time for some omakase lunch, some weekend dim sum, and plenty of green juice to keep his mom happy. Read all about it in this week’s Grub Street Diet.

Friday, January 25
I’m trying to work out. I’m trying to get healthy. But with everything going well for me, you know what my mom’s first instinct was? She bought life insurance policies and she’s like, Your premium’s going up because your cholesterol’s going up. But it’s cool because it shows that she’d rather I be alive than collect on the life insurance. But that just means that Friday when I woke up, I had a chocolate protein shake.

Then I ran over to Vice. We were working on season two and some other things. I brought pork on rice from BaoHaus.

After we finished the edit, I went home and got changed to play basketball with my friends. Afterward, we went to Bar Six down the street and I had a bisteeya. It’s kind of like a filo pastry filled with pulled chicken. It’s a Moroccan dish. It’s very good. That’s my thing. I don’t go out Fridays. I play basketball instead. My mom will be happy to see that.

Saturday, January 26
I had a green juice that I made myself at home. Spinach, kale, ginger, lime, cucumber, and pineapple. Then I went to check Baohaus. I don’t want it to seem like I’m just plugging my restaurant, but every day I head there to taste the dishes. That day, I tasted the mala chicken and the house bao.

I had a catering thing Sunday, so I did prep on Saturday and didn’t eat again until late. My girlfriend and I went to the Beagle. I had fried oysters on egg salad, a kale salad, and then we split, like, a chicken sandwich.

After that, this is the worst thing I ate all week. For some reason, after eating that chicken sandwich, I ate a Red Mango ice cream downstairs from my apartment. The two girls working there were just on their phones texting and sitting in the dining room.

Sunday, January 27
I woke up at 7 a.m. and finished all the dishes for the catering. It was for my friend Mariko Gordon, who runs Daruma. It was her mom’s 80th birthday. I made them some three-peppers fried rice; it’s a vegetarian fried rice that I do. And I made some eggplant with pickled chilies and garlic. And Tiger’s Head meatballs, which is my version of Lion’s Head meatballs that I do with beef noodle soup stock and beef meatballs. Cumin-lamb string beans, and the Mantou bread pudding that we do. So that was breakfast, tasting all of those things we made.

I finished working then went to have dim sum at Nom Wah with Kenzo Digital, so Sunday’s the day my mom really doesn’t like.

Went home, took a nap; Men’s Journal had a profile with me about working out with my trainer, and then had seafood hot pot at Wonjo after that.

Monday, January 28
Woke up, green juice. I don’t really do coffee. The green juice actually gives me energy, and I drink a lot of tea. But I’m stupid. I never drink tea in the morning. I drink tea at night.

I had a meeting with Barnes & Noble people at Aldea. I had the uni open-face sandwich and also the octopus in squid ink, which was really, really good.

For dinner that night, I had a gyro on salad and spinach pie from Rocco. I just wanted to stay in Monday because I had a huge day the next day.

Tuesday, January 29
Tuesday, again, I had the green juice. I’ve been doing a good job. And I went to the gym. That was the carazy day. I did more press, and then I had the book release at Barnes & Noble with Tom Colicchio.

But before the big event, I just wanted to have lunch with my two best friends, my editor and my brother. So we all got the omakase at Kurumazushi. That was awesome.

On my way to Barnes & Noble, I passed by Baohaus on the way and saw Tom [Colicchio] in there, so I went in to hang out with Tom before the event. We went over together, did the event; that was awesome. Signed some books, then went straight down to the party. I ate three tacos at La Esquina on the way: the veal tongue, cochinita pibil, and picadillo. All three were pretty bad.

After the release and the party and everything, I had to go to Noodletown. I got a wonton noodle soup, roast pork, roast duck, and soy sauce chicken. I’m not proud of that.

Wednesday, January 30
I was so hung-over that I couldn’t drink the green juice, I just needed hangover food.

I had leftovers from the catering event in my fridge, and I just ate the Tiger’s Head meatballs on fried rice. Then I had falafel at Murray’s, but I didn’t even want to think about food. When I ate breakfast, I knew that was all the food for the day.

Eddie Huang Does Dim Sum at Nom Wah, Diets to Make His Mom Happy