Lao Mu

This story is adapted from an interview with Mu Rui Chen, or "Lao Mu" (Old Mu) as we fondly call him at the hostel. He's the chef at the hostel and he's 22 years old. This is his story:

Lao Mu's Specialities. Yes, Lao Mu's Specialities. It has a nice ring to it, don't you think? The name even sounds tasty, like how a double fudge brownie with chocolate chips and sugar powder sprinkled on top would taste. Maybe I'd bake those at Lao Mu's Specialities. Girls would love that-- they're suckers for sweets, and especially chocolate. Why do you think I want to open up Lao Mu's Specialities? For the girls! My flabby stomach that screams “I LOVE FOOD! NOM NOM NOM” sure isn't going to win over any girl right away. It's gotta be brownies, cookies, and cake. Alright I'm not that girl obsessed; I've got another love. Cooking. I've always loved cooking. I remember frying my first egg when I was 8. It wasn't the kind of fried egg that just anyone would be proud of, it was a little burnt and took the shape of a manatee, but to an 8 year old, it tasted like a miracle, and by the time I was 17 I realized I wanted to cook as a career. So that's the muse behind my current dream: Lao Mu's Specialities. It would be a small restaurant in Beijing where I'd cook Chinese food, Western food, and anything else I think tastes good or I can cook well. A restaurant is the dream of most chefs because cooking for yourself is satisfying, but cooking for others is rewarding. I want to share my dishes with other people and give them the flavors and spice of Lao Mu. If you want to get at the root of it though, my true speciality is baking and that would be the real gem of Lao Mu's Specialities.

I love baking the most for three reasons. The first reason is that girls love it! Like I said before, girls are a sucker for baked goods, so why not be a sucker for the baker? I'd make a girl very happy with my lemon mousse. Lemon mousse is the best because of its sour taste. Now, you get easily sick of chocolate mousse because it's oily and very heavy, but not the lemon mousse. You could eat that day and night, and then some. The second reason is that my grandparents are Muslim so they originally wanted me to find a place to cook where I wouldn't have to cook pork. It's hard to find a place like that, but with baking it's really easy to avoid meat. I'm a Muslim myself, but a bacon-loving kind (I know there are more of you out there), so I don't know what that makes me. The third and last reason is that I have the most experience in baking. I've only been studying cooking for 5 years, and I originally started making regular Chinese dishes, and had only been making desserts for a year before I started my job at the international school in Beijing where I was the pastry chef for 2 years. My chef friend heard about the job from his friend, but my friend can't make desserts so he thought of me and introduced me to the job. I went for it thinking I'd take a big bite of the sweet glazed doughnut that is life.

Life was simple and straightforward working at the international school. I'd make croissants and doughnuts in the morning, and in between breakfast and lunch I'd have snacks available for the kiddies. The teachers also had a party every week and I'd make pastries for their parties. Once I made chocolate cakes in the shape of spiders for Halloween, they looked so life-like some kids were afraid to eat them! After 2 years though I decided to leave the job when my friend, Terry, told me about the job here in Sanya. I came here for the freedom. There's more of it here. If I want to add something new on the menu, I can just put it on. I don't have to consult my boss. In the international school the boss controlled my dishes, and wouldn't let me add certain things even if I wanted to. At the most basic level, I'd want to add certain garnishes to make the dish look nicer, but my boss would order me not to, and would tell me to add something else. I didn't have complete control of the foods I cooked, which is important to me. I cook for the reactions of the people who eat my food and say “DAMN, this tastes good!” and if I don't have control it feels like the dish I ultimately serve isn't my own. These kinds of comments are really important to me because they make me proud of my work. Even if I'm dead tired, making food that I know people are going to like restores me. Cooking and food itself are energizing because food to me is both freedom and growth.

Cooking and my conception of food have evolved the more I study it. You know, I didn't go to college. I started working and studying cooking at 17, and have learned a lot since then. After studying Western food, I started thinking about food as a way to stay healthy, especially when I was studying the salad. The Chinese don't have anything like the salad, which tastes good and is healthy. The only bad thing I've come to find is that sometimes when you eat Western food, you can't get full, but maybe that's because my stomach is home to a troll who eats all my food and leaves nothing for my own stomach. I've also learned that although Chinese food tastes good, some of the food is too oily and it's not good for your body. I think I could improve Chinese cuisine with a lot less salt and oil. Also, a lot of people in China use sewage oil to save money, which is disgusting and a disgrace to the food they cook. Those peoples' hearts are black. I could never use sewage oil because I'd be disrespecting my dishes and those I serve my food to.

The art of food is so vast and you can go to so many places with food, locations that both exist and don't in space; there are so many types of cuisine to be tasted and studied! If I ever get a chance to go abroad, I'd want to go to France and Turkey to learn their cuisine. I really want to learn French, Turkish, and even more of Chinese cuisine. If I have any time, I'd learn in Beijing because there are a lot of French restaurants where I could learn how to cook French food. French food is extremely exquisite, and they pay a lot of attention to the aesthetics of food, which I really like and want to incorporate into my own cooking. I'm not a personal fan of Turkish food, but I know that people really enjoy it and the way they make food is very good.

Everyone has a natural talent, and I think I've found mine in cooking. I think anybody can cook, but some people are more natural at cooking than others. In my case, I'm able to pick out a couple of things and add a little bit of this flavor and a little bit of that, and I can achieve what I want just by relying on my senses and not by anything I've learned in particular. The beauty of cooking is that you can always tweak something and improvise, and end up with something you even surprise yourself with, something completely unexpected.