Part 1

“I never thought that my relationship with food would result in me opening a restaurant,” says Sung Kang, acclaimed American actor and co-owner of Saketini in Brentwood, CA. But he gives credit where it’s due—to the special ladies in his life. Here’s a more introspective side of Sung Kang’s dinner table.

Sung Kang has developed a reputation for playing bad guys…most recently, he appeared as a car-racing thug on NBC’s Knight Rider. Click to watch the full episode.

But in real life, he talks softly and carries a big wok. Check out this video interview with journalist Sara Sohn:

Saketini Creative Asian Cuisine is succeeding in the tough L.A. restaurant market, largely on word of mouth and eager repeat guests. You can enjoy the bulgogi, from Kang’s mother’s secret recipe, along with a few other Korean favorites. Yet Kang describes the overall menu as “Asian-American fusion cuisine,” drawing on Japanese, Chinese, Thai, and even French influences. Fans the world over admire Kang’s chiseled good looks. But the food at Saketini is equally beautiful.

After reading Part 1 of my interview, a friend in Singapore checked out the restaurant’s website, and told me she’d fly to L.A. just to dine there.

“Sung, tell us about a dish at Saketini that you’re particularly proud of.”

Korean black cod—it’s jumbo cod, cooked over lava rocks. It’s a fish that’s popular in Korean cuisine. It’s time consuming. You take the fish, and make a gravy off the bone. You cook it for 11 hours, continuing to add water…

“Eleven hours? Really?”

Yeah. Then you strain off this intense broth, and add ponzu sauce, and some other stuff. Then you take the cod, and marinate it overnight in this sauce. You cook it over lava rocks. We serve it over Chinese-style garlic bok choy, and with wasabi mashed potatoes. And then we serve it with an 8-inch uzu sweet potato, fried, with ginseng. It’s our flagship dish—very few restaurants serve it, and no one does it quite like us.

Sung cooking on set

“So, do you cook?”

If I retired as an actor, I’d just stay in the kitchen and cook. But because my acting jobs take me out of town, I try to stay away from the kitchen. I don’t have to be in there—when I’m at the restaurant, I look at portion and presentation, and I try to taste as many dishes as I can.

I never cook; our lifestyle in LA is, you get up in the morning and go, go, go. But I look forward to the day I can cook for family and friends.

When I asked Sung about food-related injuries, I got another surprise. The former athlete is accident-prone.

What hasn’t happened with me?! I’m just clumsy. I knock things over. I’m always the guy who breaks glasses at dinner. Every disaster that’s ever happened has happened to me. I’ve even been on fire. I had a tonic bottle, and I was playing with it, and a lighter, and I was standing in the kitchen. What was I thinking? It was a big lighter, like where the gas would run when you pressed the button, and I caught my hand on fire—burned it bad!

“Wow, that’s really something of an occupational hazard—being an actor, you have to be so cognizant of how you look. Have they ever had to edit your burn or scrape out of a film?”

No, fortunately, I’ve been really lucky. I guess all the little accidents make me avoid the big ones. I’m good at chopping things—but then I’ll cut myself transferring the knife to the dishwasher.

“For us humans, food has many emotional connections. Can you recall some of the comfort foods of your childhood?”

My number one comfort food is the homemade doughnuts my mom made my sister and I. They were the most awful-est, unhealthiest food known to man. We had Krispy Kreme at church, but we could not afford to buy them all the time. So my mom would get flour, all-purpose flour, and form the dough in strings or balls, fry them, dip them in sugar.

It came from the heart—I mean, there was love in those doughnuts. She would tell us all week, “If you’re good, I’ll make the doughnuts.” To this day, every time I see doughnuts or drive by a Krispy Kreme, I think of her.

I was warmed by this thought, the way that food expresses parental love. Are your own food memories flooding back yet?

“Now, Sung, let’s talk about relationships. Who should do the cooking—the man or the woman? Or can both be in the kitchen at once without killing each other?”

Sung approached this question with objectivity.

It depends on what food means to them. I mean, if you grew up in a family environment, where you had breakfast and lunch together, then yeah. A meal can be a time of reflection, a time of family, and there can be collaboration in the kitchen. I mean, I could make you my mom’s donuts, and tell you a whole story about my childhood, and that’s a way for us to be together. In Korean families, the women congregate in the kitchen, and the men congregate in the living room and drink Scotch.

On the other hand, the kitchen can almost be territorial, where there are expectations—like, your mother cooked, so you have to. But the kitchen can be a wonderful place. I’ve eaten with so many different people, and not everyone had that.

“Do you mean people who had a very fractured family, or people whose parents were so busy working that they didn’t have time for dinner and [the kids] ate with the maid? Or both?”

Yeah, I’ve seen both kinds of situations.

It seems Sung and I both consider ourselves fortunate to come from strong kitchen traditions.

Being married myself, I wondered what it was like to be in business with your significant other. Sung gave credit where credit was due.

I have a really good staff. Once Miki [Kang’s fiancée and Saketini co-owner] and I trained them, we let them go. My contribution is I have ideas. Miki does most of the training. Miki is the backbone of the restaurant-she does most of the management, really. She makes it happen. I’m just the benefactor.

Sung’s respect and affection for her are obvious. Perhaps his years on film sets prepared him for this role—an intimate team with different gifts, working to build a shared source of pride.

Sung’s commitment to his family and the family business have a tremendous grounding effect. In the entertainment industry, Sung has a reputation for fighting for the roles that he wants. But armed with the knowledge that the bright lights will someday fade, he keeps his life in balance.

I had this dream of being an actor, and I’ve been so focused on my career. But is that the end of it all? It’s something I love to do. [But] what makes me happy is my friends and family—to be a part of their lives. Acting became irrelevant as a gauge of my happiness. I could have 50 million dollars, and an Academy Award, but it would not make me happy.

My relationship with Miki has completely evolved for the better. My emphasis now is on making the world a better place, and on the person I’m trying to become.

Sung and I talked a little longer, and then I passed the phone to my husband so he could say hello. We’d both met Sung in person at last year’s New York City premiere of Finishing the Game.

Sung Kang and I are in the middle. Also in the photo is my husband, Jeremy Stevenson, and Sung’s co-star Monique Curnen.

They chatted about our two sons and the baseball playoffs. I reflected on how a shared love of the good things in life connected us across three time zones and thousands of miles. Who says it better than Bruce Lee? “Under the sky, under the heavens, there is but one family.” Food for the soul as well as the palate. Thank you, Sung.

To get better acquainted with Sung’s delicious cuisine, visit the Saketini web site, or check out the real thing when you’re in Brentwood. They’re open seven days a week. It’s a small, bistro-like space, so reservations are recommended.

An ad from Sung Kang's recent collaboration with Jump Shoes

Upcoming film appearances include Ninja Assassin (slated for release in 2009, possibly October), Fast and Furious (slated for release June 12, 2009). Check this page for more news on these as it breaks.

Check out Sung’s blog, pictures, and more at sungkang.com.

Tags: Fast and Furious, Jump Shoes, Knight Rider, Miki, Ninja Assassin, Saketini, sung kang