103 Jia Ji of @JiaAnimalSelfies

We're joined by Jia (you may know them as @JiaAnimalSelfies), a Pittsburgh creator with roots in Chengdu, Sichuan, and a deep love for the kind of food that doesn’t apologize for being specific. Jia shares their family’s path from China to Pittsburgh, including stories shaped by the Cultural Revolution, immigration, and the restaurant work that helped make education possible. 

We talk about what “secret menu” really means, why it exists, and how to explore it without treating culture like a dare. For anyone chasing authentic Sichuan cuisine in Pittsburgh, Jia defines what mala actually is, how to prep your stomach before hot pot, and how sesame oil and soy milk fit into the tradition. Jia drops a smart Squirrel Hill hack for finding QR-code promos and ordering off-menu through delivery apps, plus local recommendations including dry hot pot at Little Corner Grill House and late-night options when the shift ends after midnight. 

If you like Pittsburgh food podcasts, Asian American stories, and real tips you can use tonight, hit play and come hungry. Subscribe to The Pittsburgh Dish, share this with a friend who always orders the same thing, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Transcript

Doug 0:01

Welcome to The Pittsburgh Dish. I'm your host, Doug Heilman. Have you ever met someone new that's just instantly fascinating? That's how I feel about social media and podcast creator Jia Ji. We talk about growing up Chinese American in the local region, food and of course the secret and not so secret menus and deals at Asian restaurants, and so much more. I hope you enjoy it. All that ahead, stay tuned. The Pittsburgh Dish is supported by Chef Alekka. From knife skills to puff pastry and even classes for kids, visit her website to book your next food adventure at chefalekka.com. And if you want to advertise your food-related business or event on the show, just DM us on Instagram at the Pittsburgh Dish or visit our website at Pittsburgh Dish.com and use the contact us form. Now, on to the show. Thank you so much for coming over and for being on the show.

Meet Jia And Panda Cooking

Doug 1:04

Would you introduce yourself to our listeners and what you have going on in the world of food?

Jia 1:10

Okay. Uh I'm Jia. You can find me online on Instagram at J-I-A-Animal Selfies. There's a double A in that. Okay, yes. Uh, I guess I'm like starting to do a little bit more food content. I used to have this like not very popular cooking show with my ex, who was a nutritionist. Oh, okay. It's called like Panda Cooking. We produce like a few episodes. So the only one that I would consider broadcast quality is we have um communal bake oven in my neighborhood in the north side, East Deutschtown. Yes. So like across from the community garden, this like nonprofit was called New Kirsch. It collapsed. It's one of the standards. They took an abandoned church and did something with it. Okay. But they only lasted a few years. But they did build this thing that's still being maintained vaguely in the neighborhood that we're doing our own kind of like revamp on it. And we filmed like a really nice episode there about how to stoke a fire to over a thousand degrees and then fast-fired pizza. And then the I like the history of it. And I I've actually been to Italy where this happens, where you have a communal hearth, and then everyone kind of like bakes there. You all stoke the fire together. It's the communal because it's actually really difficult to stoke a fire over a thousand degrees. So like the whole village comes to the fire. We had programming for kids when it first launched, and I did lead the programming for a couple. And like the amount of kids who were like kind of messing around, and just like guys, it's over a thousand degrees too. So this one kid. Little dangerous. This one kid actually wrote his college essay about how he kind of messed around and accidentally burned himself. He has a permanent burn mark. Oh my god. But he considers it a treasured memory. Wow.

Doug 2:45

And that essay got him into a pretty good school. Can somebody still find this episode like on a YouTube or something?

Jia 2:52

Um yeah, yeah. It's on my my personal YouTube. I think it's just Jia Videos, J I A Videos on YouTube. It's called the Tripoli Street Bakyard. Okay. It's on Tripoli Street. Um maybe. I become that fidgety. No, that's hold. Hold for a second. Okay. Is it like a like an Asian bakery?

unknown 3:14

Yeah. Yeah.

Jia 3:14

It's kind of like a look at the. I'm so bad at reading characters nowadays. Yeah, it it smells like a Chinese bakery.

Doug 3:21

I just gave Jia a kind of squeezy toy. So uh Yeah, yeah.

Jia 3:24

So the the the place of production is Zhejiang Province. It is from the People's Robo. I am mainly in Chinese. I was You are. So uh more background about me.

Doug 3:34

Okay, so can I can I back up the bus a second? Well, we met at Trace Brewing after I did a talk for the food and beverage network. Keynote speaker. Sure.

Jia 3:44

I'm gonna be honest, I normally don't go that frequently to it, but because we were like launching the podcast and I I wanted to meet you. You're the main reason why I went. Thank you. Also, they do a good job on production. They do a good job on production. Yeah. I also like Trace.

Doug 3:57

It's a great space. And we had good food from Chef Jackie Page that day. But you and I just got to talking about food and you know, all the things you're into. And and you also, I would call you a bit of a promoter.

Jia 4:09

I do so like the the new thing that I was getting into, like we also have edify.com. It comes from that E. Cummings poem Man Unkind. So like electrons DFI every razor blade into a mountain range, if I'm getting it correctly. My goodness. So it's it's just like this thing where like we're doing honestly a lot of free promos, like for Pittsburgh Vegan Restaurant Week. Just wrapped up. Which people don't know. It's sponsored by um Humane Action Pittsburgh or Pennsylvania. They're just like an NGO, a nonprofit in the area that is ethically into veganism. Yeah. Because people think, oh, it must be a spin-off of Pittsburgh Restaurant. No, not at all. Pittsburgh Restaurant Week is its own like nationwide and it's like corporate and stuff. Like this is very grassroots. This is just a local nonprofit that like so we did a lot of free promos for them. We occasionally do like some kind of like paid work, like pliables is a nationwide chain that I've seen you do a couple of theirs, right? Yeah, yeah, but but we generally like, and it's just like a new thing where in my 20s I did a lot of social media for local startups and like local ad agencies. And I'm just getting back into it because um, you know, I try to eat healthy. I'm like aging well. People think I'm Gen Z. I'm not, I'm an elder millennial. What? Um that's like my specific, I don't like that's my specific demographic, but like, you know, like I'm as old as you can be while still being a millennial. Because if I was a year or two older, I would be Gen X. I'm right at the cutoff.

Doug 5:40

All right. Um well, you know, it's also funny that you did social media so long ago when it was so sort of groundbreaking and new. And now you're coming back into it, and it's really I'm like coming out of retirement.

Jia 5:51

Like, I am also associated with uh the Pittsburgh Podcamp Conference back in the day. We got into podcasting way too early, two decades ago, when people don't even know what it was. When we were still deciding whether to associate with Apple, because people forget that it's called podcasting because of the iPod. That's right. And we're like, should we? And that's when um Libsen, which is a local company, yes, got started.

Doug 6:14

So local podcast posting service right here.

Jia 6:17

Shouts out to Justin Zerak, who is very influential and is from the area. Um and had a, you know, this is the spit's Pittsburgh thing. Sometimes you had to like, she was live streaming on Justin.tv, which is the precursor to Twitch two decades ago.

Doug 6:36

Well, so see, you have their your finger on the pulse of all of this where things started and how we're doing things now. Um, you and I also got to talking about a variety of things.

Chengdu Roots And Sichuan Flavors

Doug 6:45

As you mentioned, you're from your family's from mainland China. Is that where you were born?

Jia 6:50

Yeah, I was born in Chendu. It's the capital of the Sichuan province, where um what's been known as Sichuan Fu, they pronounce the the romanization of my hometown has uh and my province has evolved over the years. So it used to be spelled differently. Right. But nowadays the preferred spelling of it is S-I-C-H-U-A-N. But the previous romanization had like Zs and W's in it. Yeah, S-C. Yeah, yeah. Um, but I would say um if you like stuff like Hogor hot pot, if you like chili crisp, yeah, um, uh, all those things are like associated with my hometown and my home province, and also like panda bears. Panda bears originate from uh outside of Chendu. We have the panda research center. Wow. Pro tip a red panda is not a real panda.

Speaker 2 7:36

Uh-huh.

Jia 7:36

It's a thing we invented to charge white people more money because we don't allow you to take photos with the pandas anymore. But when I was a kid, uh, because I was born in Chendu, but like um my family immigrated here to Pittsburgh for my dad to get his PhD, and also, you know, he got sent to like a labor camp under Mao and such.

Doug 7:56

Wow.

Jia 7:57

Um, but uh he came here on educational scholarship to get his PhD in civil engineering at Pitt. So that's what brought the whole family. Yeah, yeah. Well, like he had to work in Chinese restaurants for the first. So this is the thing. He already had a master's, but back then, and I still this is weirdly still true of some places, they didn't honor his master's. He had to get a duplicate master's here, even though he was here for a PhD program. Over again. And he had to work in uh Sichuanese Chinese restaurants here for a year to save up money. He was eating leftover restaurant food, like just whatever was left at the end of the day, saving all his salary to um bring the rest of you over?

Doug 8:39

And what year would that have been? Uh that would have been like 85, 86. Yeah, yeah. How crazy. That's such a story. What about you and coming over? And you know, I always like to keep it close to food. When you were mentioning the Sichuan province, I have a partnership with uh 50 Hertz Foods, and I make more Western style recipes using Sichuan peppercorns, red, green, my friend uh.

Jia 9:01

Yeah, I'm a big, I always tell people like, even if you don't like spicy, try a Sichuan peppercorn. It's completely different. It's a numbing, it's not tingly. Yeah, it's not because people think, oh, I know what a peppercorn is, I know what spicy is. No, it's a very unique, playful flavor that's used in like cocktails, like drinks now.

Doug 9:19

That's what we're doing. That's what we're trying to do. That's fun. That's fun. Yeah. And what about you then coming over? You know, I'd love to hear your standpoint, even from a standpoint of food. Like, what was home food like before you moved to the United States? Do you remember much?

Jia 9:33

I mean, well, we would still go back. It's it's tougher now because of geopolitical tensions and things like that. Like, we used to go back once we could afford it every five years, and then we when we bumped up yet another socioeconomic class. Because the thing you have to remember, and this is just a little Chinese history, is everything was reset during the Cultural Revolution. Under Mao, religion is the opiate of the masses. So we lost all Taoism, Confucianism, like anything like that. It became almost more monoculture. Monoculture. And then also, like if you were like a landowner, an educated class, so like on my mother's side, my grandmother is very fancy. She had her feet bound. Wow. She is used to servants, she's always properly dressed, like lived into like her 80s, and um is descended from minor royalty. She smartly made the move of marrying a general during the Civil War. Otherwise, she would have been probably sent to a labor camp, too. Uh, my father did get sent to a labor camp. Uh, he comes from like one of the more scholarly class, like school teachers, accountants, and such. So all these groups were persecuted under Mao because Maoism is, you know, we all love small farms, but we don't worship small farmers like gods. But that's Maoism. Maoism is like the ideal job and person and values is farm culture. And I'm all for farm culture, but we we don't worship at the altar. This is a balance. So, like what they did is they would take city kids who have no skills whatsoever, send them to the farm with no training, and they would starve. Wow. So my dad tells these stories of like he's like a city kid, you know, he's like very scholarly, book smart, yeah, weirdly into Russian literature, you know, just like a like a nerd. And he and his friends get sent to this like labor camp because they're not even dissidents, they're just like nerds.

Doug 11:37

They're just different, they're just different enough.

Jia 11:38

They're just different enough, and then like Mau's like, we gotta toughen these boys up. And some of them starve or die. Like he tells this tragic story that they're so hungry, and luckily he's away on like some other kind of like farming work trip expedition thing. But while he's away, a bunch of them go foraging for wild mushrooms, not understanding anything about wild mushrooms. He gets back, they've had a mushroom stew, and he's originally kind of salty that he didn't get any. Later, all of them started vomiting and one of them dies.

Doug 12:10

Wow.

Jia 12:10

From like wild mushroom poisoning.

Doug 12:12

And were these labor camps more like in the country producing food or they didn't know anything?

Jia 12:19

So it didn't work well for the farmers either because so this is when you have an authoritarian government led by one charismatic figure who doesn't think things through. I would hate for that to ever happen again, but no. Mao would just have these grand initiatives like we're gonna uh increase iron quotas and he doesn't really care how, and you get all these bonuses and punishments if you don't meet quotas. So people just started melting down their pots and pans to meet iron quotas. So on the farming side, he promised the the farmers free labor, but you're getting free, uneducated labor.

Doug 12:56

Free unskilled labor, completely unskilled.

Jia 12:59

And then if you don't want these kids to starve, you're giving them your food.

Speaker 2 13:05

Yeah.

Jia 13:06

So, like, so you've really not working out. You've reduced the efficiency of production, and you have all these spoiled city kids who like okay, so some of the farmers just let the kids die. Some of them just literally share their meager rations with them. So, like, it's a bad situation all around.

Doug 13:21

Nobody benefited.

Jia 13:22

No one benefited.

Doug 13:23

Yeah. All right, I'm gonna fast forward us.

Growing Up Near Pittsburgh

Doug 13:26

You come to the States. How old are you? I come around age three. Okay. All right. So you are most of your thoughts growing up here in the Pittsburgh area then?

Jia 13:35

Uh yeah, yeah. I actually um uh so by that time, okay. I guess when I first came, these are like very early memories, we were in the city, and I think we like lived around like what's now the Montessori school. Okay, but then very quickly, like my dad graduated from his Ph like he defended his dissertation, and then his first like job job was in Canonsburg prior to the tech park. So this is the mid to late 80s in Cannonsburg. We are literally the only Asian family in Canonsburg, and people don't know what to make of us. Yes, so they're not racist because they don't know how to be racist, they literally have not had any exposure. It's like you're from another planet, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so um I lived there until middle school and then uh moved to Monroeville, where I experienced racism for the first time because then people actually have exposure to stereotypes. So I was weirdly shielded from racism in the small town because just no one identified us as the Asian family. No one had built that kind of mental picture in the brain of why you were different. Yeah, yeah. Racism is a learned virus from external influences. So, like, I think I have a lot of sympathy or just like, no, like I am just like a small town boy. You know what I mean? Like, I live in the city now. I'm I was born in a big city, but a lot of my formula, like I have a lot of fond memories of just like playing with other neighborhood kids, like that thing where you like spend the entire day outside during the summer doing stupid stuff like building like a tree fort or like a zipline or like looking for four-leaf clovers. I love that. Yeah, yeah. Hi, this is Jia of JIA Animal Selfies on Instagram, and you're listening to The Pittsburgh Dish.

Doug 15:25

When we were at Trace, we were talking about like the secret Chinese menu at restaurants and stuff. I'd like to ask about your family food, especially living in Canonsburg. You know, what was food life like growing up?

Jia 15:36

Yeah, so like my mom always cooked a lot, and she made like some very specific Sichuan recipes. The one that I cook a lot for comfort food, especially for like friends who are having a tough time, is do you know the eggs and tomato dish? It's all technique.

Doug 15:52

It's all come up. I think eggs and tomatoes has come up three times on this. Okay, so you get like it's such a simple dish, but it's all technique. But also, isn't every family's just a little bit?

Jia 16:02

It's a little there's a variance. So, like, we like to put fresh scallions on it. Okay. We don't r necessarily need the specific like high-end like rice vinegar and such. We just use whatever is around. We do sweeten it a little bit with sugar. I think that's the trick. If you can't get like vine ripened, if you can't get high quality tomatoes, like super ripened tomatoes, you just need a little bit of sweetness. Yes. All that balance. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. To be honest, because my mom's such a perfectionist, I didn't actually learn that much cooking from her. She is hot in the kitchen. She just did it. Well, no, for first of all, I I'm back in Pittsburgh because my mom's recovering from rotator cuff surgery. So now she can't really cook as much as she used to. So she's having my dad cook. My dad's an all-right cook. My mom is on him like the toughest. Like, like that kind of thing where you just curse out your sous chef for like being slightly inaccurate with like cutting.

Doug 17:01

Like she's like a yes chef. She's the bear.

Jia 17:03

Yeah, yeah. And like she is not pleasant to learn. What it is is just that the cultural difference. When my dad comes from like more the scholarly class, and she's hates to admit it, but she's descended from minor royalty. So that thing where, like, oh, your manservant is slightly inaccurate cutting the veggies.

Doug 17:20

He doesn't have the skills.

Jia 17:23

Well, like, so like, so a lot of my technique I learned from like my grandma, honestly, like traveling around. I mix in a lot of fusion because I uh like I'm also fluent in Spanish. I spend a lot of time in like Mexico, Spain. Um, I worked in Mexican kitchens when I was uh at Stanford on the West Coast. So And do you like to cook? I do, I don't have as much time to do it anymore. I do do it when I'm traveling. One, to learn local regional cuisine, two, to justify why you should host me. Like that thing where, like, you know, that thing where you like catch up with friends and like they host you, but you don't want to be ungracious. So, you know, you bring like a little host gift. I do have some gifts to celebrate you. Congratulations on a hundred episodes. Thank you. Big achievement.

Doug 18:10

You have a huge bag here, and I'm not sure what you're gonna pull out of it.

Jia 18:12

I I don't know. We we can do that right after this, but you know, it's a big achievement. Uh again, you should just, you know, drop a P.O.

Doug 18:18

box and let people just send you gifts, money, whatever. Money's fine, bribes. You can support the show uh through our website. Exactly, exactly. Um and you want to start your own

Black And Yellow Podcast Plans

Doug 18:30

podcast. Yeah, yeah. So we're kind of going all over the place.

Jia 18:33

Let's talk about your podcast coming up. Okay, okay. So it's coming up soon. We're producing it out of the uh Pearl Arts Dance and Recording Studios. So um, if you don't know, Stacey Pearl and DJ Soy Sauce are like a lovely couple that have a new space out of Braddock that has a professional um recording studio. Amazing. So they'll be helping produce our podcast. We might also shoot video. Uh, one of my undergrad degrees is a documentary film, so we might do some video too. And um this has been vaguely cleared with Wiz Khalifa because um I was an early investor in Shadow Lounge, Justin Strong, that whole group. We also uh I also invested the restaurant, the Ava, which was a very brief but popular restaurant. Um but the podcast is gonna be called Black and Yellow. Oh. And it's gonna cover local African American and Asian American issues through a relatively comedic lens.

Doug 19:27

I think that's amazing. Yeah, because we you know we there's issues, but we don't want to like I think it's easier to talk about those issues through some laughter. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jia 19:36

And we don't we don't want to milk the white guild too much, just like a reasonable amount to get donations or sponsors. But yeah, like that uh this month is Asian, American, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. So we're only interviewing Asian guests this month. We have um our first book guest is this um amazing guy who is Japanese and has been teaching tango locally for 20 years. And guess guess what the question he always gets. Please. Why are you this Japanese guy teaching? Why aren't you Argentinian? You know what I mean? It's the most, it's the most common, and everyone is kind of embarrassed to ask, but it's the most logical question. What is the story of this guy? Why are you in Pittsburgh? Yes, why are you the main? He is the main Tango team. He leads the scene, um, and he's a fascinating guy. So um that should be an interesting interview.

Doug 20:28

Very

Squirrel Hill Deals Via QR Codes

Doug 20:29

interesting. Uh you know, and related to as you mentioned AAPI month, I noticed on your feed you were walking around Squirrel Hill, going into all of these local businesses.

Jia 20:38

Yeah, yeah. It was originally for Mother's Day, but um I try to feature more Asian American businesses uh during this month. And um a cool little hack for your listeners is if you're in that part of Squirrel Hill that's just all Asian, like it's so much so now it feels like you're in Taiwan because it's bubbly. People really like bubblety. That's how it started. But now you have very authentic, um, not just Asian restaurants, but even these like little stores that sell like the little chotchkis. What you want to do is you find the ad that is just no English, but there's like a QR code. Yes, scan it, that blah dap, immediately switch the language to English. Now you have the same vouchers and promos as like DoorDash and Uber Eats like five to ten years ago when they were giving out like the nice deals. Because um, these new delivery app companies coming in, they realize they don't actually need the non-Asian market. They can just service the Asian market. They can just service the Asian market. So the amount of value you get is crazy. Yes. And it also allows you to order off menu. So the the the the menu items that you would only have access to if you have at least one Mandarin speaker at your table. Yes. Or just like know the owners, you have access to through those apps.

Doug 21:51

Like I this is where I wanted to go with you too. We are talking about, you know, going into restaurants and they have, I would call it the American Menu. But there's an off-sheet menu or a secret menu.

Jia 22:05

Now I think it's getting more mainstream. So originally it was like in the 80s. And you know, the history of like Chinese restaurants is very interesting in America. Where like the history is because of the Chinese Exclusion Act. So the history of Chinese America, and a lot of people forget this. Pittsburgh used to have a Chinatown. It used to be downtown.

Doug 22:22

And now we have one small block.

Jia 22:25

Yeah, and the reason why we have that, like that one, uh the Chinatown Inn is because their daughter is literally Mulan. She is the voice of Mulan from the original movie. She prevented the destruction of it. But everyone else got kicked out when they wanted to build the Boulevard of Allies. Used to be over a hundred Chinese-owned businesses in downtown Pittsburgh at the turn of the century. But when the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed, mainly because they didn't want Chinese Americans to stay, even though you brought us to build your railroads and we established families, you kicked us out. And then because of that, Chinese restaurants became the way to like stay in the country and like bring relatives and such, because there was like a very specific thing where like we were only allowed to own restaurants and like launch, these like things that you associate with Chinese Americans.

Doug 23:10

Yes, yes.

Jia 23:12

But nowadays, okay, so Chinese restaurants, like everywhere. As palettes have evolved, we've taken like the secret hidden menu that was used to be just for like other Chinese or like just the family menu that like the red menu. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was the one, and like some places, they don't even have the printed menu. You would just have to know the items off the top of your head, or just like catch up with them in your hometown dialect to like request certain items. Now those are becoming not quite mainstream, but made available or known. Yeah, to like people with like progressive palettes, but they are very uncompromising. They're like the dishes that have like pig's blood in them. This is it. Duck tongue, thousand-year-old eggs. These are again, you can try these, but I would say these are for adventurous eaters.

Doug 23:54

You're hitting what I wanted to ask, which was about ingredients. Yeah, yeah. So you've mentioned a few of those. What about flavor? Are we talking about high spice?

Jia 24:02

Okay, okay. So mala. Okay, yeah, yeah. So mala literally means like ma means like insane, and la means spicy. So what it is, it's the combination of Sichuan peppercorn. Yes, the numbing that we talked about. So basically, the numbing allows you to push your threshold, spice threshold higher. The trick is before doing like traditional mala hog or like uh crazy spicy hot pot, is to coat your stomach with a lining. So, like I would say, almond milk or like soy milk is the most traditional, like doujang, like freshly made soy milk, which some local restaurants do have. Ask if they make it in-house and if it's freshly made.

Doug 24:37

Wow.

Jia 24:38

Um, it will line your stomach. And then another trick is having a dipping sauce that is primarily sesame oil. Uh-huh. Because then that also coats your stomach. The oil and the soy coats your stomach and just makes it like easier to digest. That's the traditional way of like eating it. And a lot of people, they will not have no idea. They will not go into that with you. Because like the assumption is if you're ordering the authentic menu, someone at your table is explaining this. Right. But if you're just looking this up on Wikipedia or Astro AI, they're not gonna give you that context and you're gonna really enjoy the food, but pay for it the next day. Right. Yeah,

Dry Hot Pot And Late Night Spots

Jia 25:13

yeah.

Doug 25:13

Right. What about you personally? Are there a few places andor a few dishes seek out Chenu Gourmet, Sichuan Gourmet?

Jia 25:21

I know the owners, my family used to work for them. They're always highly recommended.

Doug 25:25

Sichuan Spice?

Jia 25:27

These are the newer ones. I don't know them as well. There's also this new place, like I think north of the city, that's a combination like hot pot place plus like other stuff, like Korean barbecue. I've heard great things about them. Again, any of these people can DM me at J I A Animal Selfies, and I will do a review and check it out. Because, like, again, I don't know the new owners. I know the old school people who've like been around forever, and so that's who I tend to recommend by default. Also, my parents used to work for them. And like, there's this new place, and I wish I knew. Okay, it's the one that actually has Chinese characters in their name on Google Maps. It's like near the other places that you saw on my feed. They are, I think, are the only current place in Pittsburgh that has what's known as dry hot pot. I have heard about this. Okay, so you know conceptually what this is. You're using the spices from hot pot, but you just subtract the liquid. So it's like like it takes less time and transports easier. This is a thing that emerged after my family left China. And it's I think it's gonna be the globalization of hot pot. Because the issue with hot pot is you need all this equipment. You need like the burners and like sometimes the vent fan. Like it's like Korean barbecue. You need all this stuff. Stuff, right? Well, the dry hot pot gets you the flavors without having to invest in all this equipment. So um, I wish I knew the name of off the top of my head, but if you just search for like dry hot pot Pittsburgh, it's gonna be the only result. They're the only restaurant that currently does it. I had it. Um, I ordered the one that was like intestine. Like I ordered like the most challenging one. They did a relatively authentic version of it. I do approve of it.

Doug 27:03

Um, we need to look this up. Hold on a second.

Jia 27:05

Okay, it's it is little corner grill house. Here's another trick that you can tell if someone's pioneering a menu. They have a few bad reviews because people ordered stuff. You know, like when something is like, look at this, look at this spread. See, a lot of five stars and a weirdly high number of one star.

Doug 27:22

It's either you love it or hate it. Yeah. Because you don't know what you're getting in.

Jia 27:25

Nothing in the middle. So this is actually a good sign of a place that is challenging stuff. So that's that one again. This is called Little Corner Grill House. There's articles about them. Let me look up the 301, 301 North Craig Street. Okay. Uh 15213. It's little corner.top. Um, it is also open really late. So like I have a thing where they also like produce shows in the area, help, help out with like other stuff that's like later. You're a promoter. Well, I used to. Well, like, because I was an early investor in Shadow Lounge and Ava, and that's where like Mac Miller and Wiz Khalifa came up. I like the nightlife in the city, especially when I'm back in town. So I'm often, you know, that thing when you're in industry, you finish after midnight. What is open? So my other go-to's everyone, Cambod-ican Kitchen. It's open weirdly until 3 or 4 a.m. If you pay them cash, Venmo, Cash App, it's so much cheaper. You know what I mean? It's definitely like I one time they catered my friend's baby shower. It was great. People don't even realize that they do catering.

Doug 28:27

Let's give them a shout-out again.

Jia 28:28

Yeah, yeah. Uh that's Cambod-ican Kitchen in the south side. It's open super late. I always recommend that to people who work in the industry. Uh and then this place is open until 2 a.m., which is so impressively late for a restaurant. They're doing 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. That's a long shift. Anyway, so they are very polarizing. People either leave them a perfect five-star review or they don't know what they ordered, and they leave them a one-star review, which I feel like is not a nice thing to do. Like, it's your fault for ordering some. You thought you were that adventurous of me here, and it turned out you were not that adventurous.

Doug 29:02

That you liked hot pot, and then you ordered dry hot pot and you got something you didn't expect. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. We have been going for a while. I want to make sure that we hit up anything else you have on the horizon. Okay, so coming up. So the new podcast is coming up.

Jia 29:16

The new podcast, and uh, we don't know the launch date yet, but we do have our first guest. And then our eventual end goal, and this is a realistic goal, not outside the realm of possibility, is to interview Wiz Khalifa in February of the coming year or a future year. What are these years? I think it's amazing. We will interview Wiz Khalifa.

Speaker 2 29:37

Yes.

Jia 29:38

One of our first guests will also be Justin Strong, founder of Shadow Lounge and Ava, which you know, Wiz came up in. We're gonna interview some disciples of Mac Miller, like uh Fungi Flows, uh Parker who did a lot of work for the NFL draft. But I I just want to clarify: you do not have to be black or Asian to be on this podcast. We are favoring that for the initial guest. Sure.

Doug 30:02

It's setting a tone.

Jia 30:03

Yeah, and and I I might eventually have a co-host or uh when I'm traveling, another person might be interviewing. But generally, we are covering issues through that cultural lens because I think a lot of people underestimate the contributions of African-American Asian culture to the area, but they are very strong.

Doug 30:21

Yes. You're gonna tackle some issues. You want to do it with comedy, but I also think it ties so often back to food. Yeah, it does. Food as a tie that sometimes gets you into the society.

Jia 30:31

Historically, the reason why we have uh safety, honestly, in Squirrel Hill, and I have a lot of Jewish friends, um, kind of because traditionally Chinese restaurants were the only ones that would stay open on Christmas and other holidays.

Doug 30:45

On Christian holidays.

Jia 30:46

On Christian holidays when Jewish families wanted food and wanted to go out. Just throughout the US, there has been weirdly just this like a like a little kind of like symbiotic relationship between like Asian, specifically Chinese restaurants. Like I used to host this like dinner party for my Jewish friends. I'm friends with um Rabbi Chuck's family, the former rabbi of Tree of Life. Um, it was called uh Feast for the Chosen People. It was just on Christmas, we would make a homemade meal for like Rabbi Chuck's family and some other Jewish friends in the area.

Doug 31:15

Amazing. Ja, is there anything else?

Jia 31:17

Oh, final thing is uh we're doing a lot of stuff for Pride next month. Uh we'll see you at Pride next month. Like some of the fun. Okay. So um I am on the fundraising committee for pride behind the scenes. Uh, because of various issues with the current culture and the administration, we are facing a quarter million budget shortfall. So, because of that, hey guys, no Chapel Rowan or Billy Porter this year, but a lot of other great acts. And we're trying to encourage more local artists. You might not see Chapel Rowan, but you'll definitely see a local queen dressed as Chapel Rowan with almost as good of a show. So um on June 14th, we are producing um, it's called Lesbos for Lebanon and kind of like um a ravey type atmosphere, but benefiting charity. And then on the 16th, we'll be producing uh a comedy variety show out of controversy in the South Side. Uh, we'll still have musical acts, probably mainly rap, but also like a lot of local comedians in the area, and we are still doing a similar thing where it's mainly queer or femme acts.

Doug 32:20

You have so much going on. We try, we try. Yeah. Let's remind listeners again if folks want to find and follow you. So the easiest is, and I also do like giveaways.

Jia 32:29

Like, if you ever see me do a live stream, every live stream, I'm giving away because I get mailed all this stuff. In these live streams, I'll do an unboxing and then I'll give away half the items. And it's like five people in chat. Your odds of getting like a especially if you're very high. They're very high. If you just live and I don't have to mail it, I will just give it to you so I don't have to mail it to somebody. Um, so yeah, just uh follow JIA Animal Selfies on Instagram. Turn on the notification that specifically notifies you about live streams. Um, to celebrate me hitting the 10k benchmark, I am gonna launch a new, I just got qualified. You know, the subscription thing? They invited me to do a subscription thing. I'm picking the lowest possible price, which is 99 cents, I think, a month. Is this an Instagram? It's like an Instagram thing. I don't really understand that much about it, but they like invited me to try it. But I'm gonna do it as my like 10K celebration. Yeah. And then if you get it, you'll you're just gonna get like a ton of stuff, like all the cut content, guaranteed giveaways. Um, and then on YouTube, I am J I A Videos. On Facebook, it's just my name, J I A Space J I. Um, and then edfi.com is our new, just like we're mainly doing free promos for like nonprofits in the area. But if you actually want to book us for like work work, yes, we charge slightly below competitive industry rates. So uh feel free to shoot an email to PR at edifi. That's e-d-e-if y.com, and uh one of our staff or interns will get back to you about cool promos in the area.

Doug 34:12

Thank you so much. Thank you, Doug. It's been such a pleasure to get to know you. We've been all over the place, but I love you. I know I know I get a little easily distracted. We talked about food, which is what I wanted to do. And we did, I think.

Jia 34:22

We probably have taught them more about the history of Chinese Americans in Pittsburgh than they've heard ever. I love

Best Bite Pliabowls Mermaid Mood

Jia 34:29

it.

Doug 34:29

The name of the show is the Pittsburgh Dish. What's the best dish you've had to eat this past week? Ooh, this past week.

Jia 34:40

I kind of like they do pay us, but I have to admit. Playabowls launched a new location in Bakery Square, which already has like some great restaurants. I mean, it is pricey. It's literally next to the Google headquarters.

Doug 34:55

Okay, like City Kitchen is there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jia 34:57

And they got like a bunch of great concepts and like that high-end ice cream plays, jennies, and such. They are expensive bowls. I would say they range from like 15 to 20. We gave out free bowls to the first like 20 people. I'm there doing I'm just shooting, I'm just literally asking for the most aesthetic bowl. I have yet to have a bad bowl from them. Well, that's good to know. Yeah. So they're like, they're not just the standard acai bowl. They also do like mango, pataya, which is dragon fruit, coconut, and like they're you know that thing where you want to eat, but you want to eat relatively healthy, but then like sometimes it doesn't feel good to eat healthy. It doesn't satisfy. Yeah, yeah. So this is like it's fresh fruit, no sugar added. They'll let you know if they use something like honey or like Nutella. They have like some stuff like that. But they also, you know, like they put healthy oatmeals and grains in it. They are good.

Doug 35:43

Okay, like filling and probably makes you feel satisfied.

Jia 35:47

I literally ask for a random bowl that would be most pleasing in an inscript. So I'm not even asking for the tastiest bowl. I have yet to have a bowl that I'm really picked. That I have picked, like, I'm getting the most random bowls, and like they're and also half the time I'm giving, I gave one to like one of my hippie friends who produced um it's peaceful gather of hands. He's from the area, but now he like travels a lot. He produces like one of the biggest hippie gatherings. I gave him a bowl as a gift because he has this ridiculously strict paleo diet. He was so happy to have something that he could eat and like feel good about. So well, we love to eat local when we can, but sometimes the options are it is a nationwide chain, right? But there is no low, like every acai bowl restaurant here is a chain. I don't know of a single one because we're not a beach town. There is no local, no one's like, oh, my family history of producing acai bowls.

Doug 36:41

The ocean has not come to us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the best bite this week was applyable. Yeah, and I would say you don't know what was in it.

Jia 36:48

No, no, I do know which one. The one I specifically liked, and this makes it less healthy, but it is the most delicious one that I liked. It is mermaid season. This is the seasonal bowl. It is from now until June 15th. And it is the mermaid mood bowl. It is pataya, which is the Thai word, I think, for dragon fruit. Um, and it has a ton of antioxidants. Uh, so it has like some coconut and then uh fresh strawberry and mango on top. And this is what makes it it has a cool chocolate shell. It's very aesthetically pleasing, like a like a little, like it's a mermaid bowl, and then it's drizzled with as much Nutella as you want. The more Nutella you add, the less healthy it is. The better it is. Yeah, the better. You get it. This is why it was my favorite bite of the week. So the base is very healthy, but like if you don't want to be that healthy, they'll put as much Nutella. That thing where they ask you how much cheese, and you just never say stop. Right, you just keep going. If you mention my name, they will probably give you some kind of discount. No. Because they again, these are all price. I'm just being honest, these are pricey bowls, but they're nice. Listeners, listen up. Only available until uh June 15th. Okay, okay.

Doug 38:04

Thank you so much for spending time with me today. I appreciate this.

Jia 38:07

This is a very, very fun interview. I enjoy I enjoyed it.

Doug 38:09

I enjoyed it. Thanks for being on The Pittsburgh Dish.

Jia 38:11

Thank you. Bye-bye.

Doug 38:13

If you enjoyed the show, we would love for you to become a monthly monetary supporter. Just click the link at the bottom of this show's description, or visit our website at Pittsburgh Dish.com and tap the support button. And if you want to follow my own food adventures, you can find me on social media at DougCooking. That's our show for this week. Thanks again to all of our guests and contributors, and to Kevin Solecki of Carnegie Accordion Company for providing the music to our show. We'll be back again next week with another fresh episode. Stay tuned.