Chef Eunjo Park shares what's inside Momofuku Ssam Bar's Kitchen

• Eunjo Park is the executive chef at Momofuku Ssam Bar, one of David Chang's restaurants in New York City.
• Chef Park takes us on a kitchen tour of the restaurant, highlighting essential tools and appliances.
• Items include a $6,000 bingsu machine, a kimchi fridge, and culinary scissors.

Following is a full transcript of this video.

- So, this is our newest addition to our kitchen, bingsu machine. I'm super excited to share this with you. We just got it a few days ago. Seals are still on, and I'm excited to peel this here.

This bingsu machine just like rice-cake machine. It's from Korea. And the best thing about here is that we don't have to use our frozen, like, a block of ice to shave it. I would love to show you. So, I'm just pouring water. And just gonna start it.

Herrine Ro: Do you want to talk about the converter?

Eunjo: Just because we have two machines from Korea that are not meant for here, we have to use this giant converter to use it every time for ice-shaving machine or rice-cake extruder.

So, what it's doing is water is slowly dripping into a little panel, and this modem is rolling, touching the water, freezing, and then just shaving right in there. And you see how powdery that is, that it's so cold. It goes into negative 50, where it becomes still powdery. And it gives me a freedom to change the flavor of anything shaved underneath.

Herrine: How did you find the machine?

Eunjo: I Googled. [laughs] I Googled, and then we also visited different locations in Chinatown and found one location that was certified to ship this too. So we talked to them. They're Korean, so they were very excited to work with us too. So they came two days ago to install them. And for what it's worth, this was about $6,000.

Herrine: OK. Wow, I didn't know that. OK, great. So, what's next?

Eunjo: So, rice-cake machine was one of the hardest thing we could source it, just because it was directly from Korea and how big and heavy it was. From here, I will show you how to make the rice cakes. Go for it?

Herrine: Uh-huh.

Eunjo: OK.

Herrine: What does the rice-cake extruder do?

Eunjo: Basically it just binds it and then extrudes it. First one always a little rougher, just because it's the force that's coming in, and I will do this about two more times. [extruder squeaking] They make funny noises.

Herrine: So, what kind of consistency are you looking for?

Eunjo: For right now, just a smoother, bouncier texture. So, from next one, I'm going to start shaping them. These are the classic, the disk we like to do. The great thing about having your own rice-cake extruder is that you can do any different size or any different shape that you can do.

Herrine: How is the taste different?

Eunjo: Taste, flavor is same. It's because it's rice. The biggest difference is the texture and ability to do your own. Oh! Also the fresher rice cake is a lot more softer than the store-bought. So texture is soft, but chewy.

Herrine: Great. Where are you taking us next?

Eunjo: So, we are in front of our Ssäm Bar storage room where our kimchi fridge is located. All the Korean restaurant, it's the heart and the soul. [drumroll] And here's our baby.

Herrine: So, how many different kinds of kimchi do you have here?

Eunjo: Here we have the red kimchi that's been aging for about two years. It's going to be on the lowest temperature to go lowest fermentation. Very nicely crisp. We just made white kimchi. Vegetarian. I like to not age it too long because there's a lot of fresh fruit, Asian pear juice, there's a little apple in there as well. And use it as an appetizer or as a side.

As you can see, they're into their own little cubicle. The reason for that is you can control the temperature. Regular refrigerator, you go in and out so much where the temperature drops and it fluctuates a lot, where kimchi fridge, there's three types: high, medium, and low. When it's low, it can get the low fermentation. So the temperature drops to about, like, negative 1 to 0 Celsius. When it's high, it goes up to about 1 to 2, where it ferments slower than a regular refrigerator.

Herrine: Do you have one of these at home too?

Eunjo: I wish. My mother has two, but I don't have anything. I live in a tiny, tiny apartment in New York City.

All right. I go?

Herrine: Yeah.

Eunjo: All right. Feel a little weird 'cause Chef Daniel had all these fancy knives, and here I am showing you a knife from H Mart that I picked up for $15, but this has a built-in garlic smasher. I think it's very, very cool. They say for the garlic to really have their flavor, you have to pound it so the oil comes out. And that's the reason for the mortar and pestle. And that's the same reason, for small kitchen, if you don't have a mortar and pestle, [pounding knife] garlic, right into it.

These are the two most-used knives that I use in the kitchen. This one is a Masamoto. They're sturdier, so I use it for chopping up hearty vegetables or even the proteins. And this one is a Misono chef's knife. I use it a lot for actually breaking down fish, just because how delicate and thin they are. But I use it so much it ate all the blade and now it's thinner.

Herrine: Do you have a brand preference when it comes to knives, generally?

Eunjo: I actually, many chefs have, like, this collection of fancy knives. I'm not big into, like, brand or, like, other type. For me, it's about accessibility.

At Ssäm Bar we use a lot of garlic. I do like to get a whole garlic and peel it myself, because I do really believe that fresh-peeled garlic and regularly peeled garlic you purchase has that distinct flavor difference. Easiest way to peel garlic is not getting the freshest garlic. Garlics are harvested in between June to August. And if you eat them right away, they're very, very bitter and very spicy. So what I learned is that they actually let it dry. So the longer they are drier, you can actually see they're peeling super easy.

There's two ways to do it. First way is using a bowl the traditional way. So I'm just going to cut the bottom of the garlic, and right into the bowl. OK. I'm gonna make a noise now. [clanging] You see? Half peeled. Other way, let's say the garlic is not as dry, that easily after you shake it they're not peeling, you can cut the bottoms off as normal and soak them in a little warm to lukewarm water for 15 minutes, and you should be able to peel off easily.

Herrine: Generally how much garlic would you say you use at the restaurant?

Eunjo: At least -- we will say the one container is about 3 pounds of peeled garlic. And we go through at least one a day, so 15 pounds at least a week, and it will be more if we're making kimchi or a chili oil that requires more.

Herrine: Perfect. I think that is it for garlic. And is the next thing you're going to show us the scissors?

Eunjo: Yes. I think one of the most underrated tool in the kitchen is scissor. Especially in Korean kitchen we use a lot of scissor, not just in the kitchen but also in the dining room as well. For this one, I picked up in H Mart, and I thought it was cool. It's actually a scissor for pork belly. As you can see, Koreans love pork belly, and they have their special scissor for it. You can see they're in a little -- how do you say? Like --

Herrine: A curve?

Eunjo: They're a little curved, so the idea is you can go into the soft pork belly and then cut right into it. Here, we use this beautiful one for service tableside cutting. And you can see, more sturdier, stronger one for cutting the bones or the backbone of a protein. And little cute ones, I use it for everything from cutting the green tape or cutting the little herbs of the plants. And I'll use this pork belly one for the uncooked rice cake to show you how to cut them using scissor.

Herrine: What do you use the rice cakes for at the restaurant?

Eunjo: For our rice-cake dish. We have, right now -- I can say?

Ryan: Yeah.

Eunjo: OK. [laughs] We'll be starting with our classic. So we have one that are classic to Ssäm Bar, and one that's classic to Kāwi.

Herrine: Great. Love that.

Eunjo: One of the most used but underrated thing, I will say, is a green scrubby in the kitchen. They're great for scrubbing dirty pots and, you know, whatever's sticking to the bottom. But other than scrubbing, doing dishes, they're great for many other things. Scrubbing the vegetables, usually root vegetable, or scrubbing the table to make sure they're nice and shiny.

Herrine: Do you have, like, a brand preference? Is that a specific type you go for?

Eunjo: Yes. I don't know what they're called.

Herrine: Oh, it's fine. We can put that information in.

Eunjo: So, we have this beautiful carrot that we picked up from the market. Easiest way using a green scrubby -- I usually like to cut them in half so we're not wasting so much of it. I always make sure you wash them. So, if you want to keep their natural shape but to clean them other than peeling, is lightly scrub them. Be gentle. You don't want to go too hard, or you're gonna bruise them. Just like that, and this is what comes out.

Thank you for joining. I hope you enjoyed our tour of new Momofuku Ssäm Bar. Subscribe to Food Insider for more pro kitchen tours.

Herrine: And make sure to check out the first episode through the link above.