I was born and raised in Jacksonville. My family has had 12 Chinese restaurants in town in my lifetime. I went away to culinary school and to work for bigger restaurant companies and then started Blue Bamboo in 2005.
My grandfather had his first restaurant, Eng’s Chop Suey, in LaVilla. As recently as maybe eight years ago, it was a pool hall. I think the building’s gone now. My first memory of the industry was of standing on a little stool next to my grandfather and watching him cook in his wok. As a teenager, I worked in my uncle’s restaurant and he taught me a lot.
I tried to do other things. I took the law school entrance exam; I took premed classes in college; and nothing really, really interested me as much as the food world, the restaurant business.
After college I went to work for Disney in customer service and guest relations. I learned to give the orientation program and the Disney way of doing things. Knowing I wanted to open my own restaurant one day, I went to The Culinary Institute of America and had the best two years immersed in the food world.
I worked at Bravo Development Inc., now the Bravo Brio Restaurant Group, in Orlando and Palm Beach Gardens, five years. I learned a lot about the restaurant business and a lot about financials and then I felt like I was ready to continue this family legacy.
Part of our training at The Culinary Institute of America is an externship. Mine was at a place called Blue Ginger in Boston and Ming Tsai, the chef-owner, is a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu. He has TV shows on the Food Network and on PBS. His two restaurants are Blue Dragon and Blue Ginger. When I told him I wanted to open my own restaurant, he said whatever you call it, it has to have the world Blue in it. He said it’s good luck. I asked him, how about Blue Bamboo? His two words were “like it.” That his blessing and I knew we could do something great.
Our menu is a lot of the food I like to eat. It’s a little bit Southern, because I grew up in Jacksonville, with an Asian twist and Asian technique and some Asian flavor. One of our signature dishes is Red Curry Shrimp and Grits, a perfect blend of East and West.
I’m often asked, why wouldn’t you open a second restaurant? If I could clone everyone that worked here and how much they care about the place, then I would do it in a heartbeat. But that’s not possible so we continue to grow by taking care of everyone that comes in. The property’s owned by my uncle. If you were to put a dart in the center of Jacksonville, it’s close to where we are.
All my family’s in town. We seem to be the gathering place. Thanksgiving is always here at Blue Bamboo. We do a potluck, so everyone brings something.