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Comment by nemo44x | Hacker News Reader

He's really trying to build an empire based on his name and recognition from a few good restaurants he founded. I think he wants to scale it as much as he can right now and sell it. He has commented before that a restaurant based around the chef's personality isn't really a business you can sell one day. But products based around the celebrity chef are. But yeah, most things he's putting his name on are so super over priced they are clearly selling to people with no price sensitivity. I'm sure his margins are fantastic and he'll get a big payday if he sells at just the right time.

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I don't really understand any of this this thread, there's a lot of conflicting ideas. David Chang owns a frozen food empire that's super over priced and super low quality that's successful enough that he'll make a lot of money if he sells at the right time?

He has a personal brand built around his name and his in-person restaurant group, which are reportedly VERY good. Good enough that he has two Michelin stars.

He has used that reputation to start selling groceries under the same name. They are not very good in many cases, but he is able to charge high prices because of good marketing and his famous brand (Momofuku).

As an example he sells, what I judge to be not very good ramen noodles, for $4/pack. That is a lot of money for mediocre ramen noodles, even if it does have a famous name on the package.

A successful business is one that makes profits, not one that makes high quality goods. A profitable business can be retained for the profits, or it can be sold to some other entity. A chef, meanwhile, only makes money while they work.

Had two Michelin stars.

Momofuku Ko closed recently. I went once around 2016, partly exactly because of his name and brand. It was ok but nothing memorable, I think he wasn’t even there. I guess the closing probably aligns with his goals of maximizing a brand / money, and not actually cooking good food.

Wow, I didn't realize Ko closed either. I went there around the same time and really liked it. But even then you could start to feel the fade a bit in what Chang did. He certainly had his moment and he was very influential. I still remember the first time I ate at Noodle Bar - was amazing.

It looks like they've closed nearly every restaurant they had except a couple Noodle Bars in NYC and Vegas and some other restaurant. Rough times for that industry. Ssäm Bar was a pretty good place, sort of shocked they couldn't keep the lights on there.

Ssam Bar was really good when I went there (also closed, though). It was a not-fucking-around good fine-dining/gastropub hybrid. The Momofuku cookbook is also excellent, and well written.

> A successful business is one that makes profits, not one that makes high quality goods.

This attitude is the root of the problem with business culture in America today. A business needs to be profitable and make good quality stuff to be truly successful.

Yeah, pretty much. He's leveraging his celebrity to sell over priced food relative to its quality (it's not bad per-se, but not worth the money) and if he can sell it before credibility is ruined and growth stops, he'll make a lot of money. Did that make it easier for you to understand?

Pretty much. A great chef can only make so many meals in a day. That limits how much money you can make. So if you want to be more than a middle class income (even that is hard to reach) you have to do something else - become a brand that people will pay for, or start a business.

The great chefs are virtually never making any meals in a day; the actual test of a high-end chef is recruiting and retaining a CDC, sous, and line cooks that can deliver on the promises the exec makes. Grant Achatz has held on to 3 Michelin stars for I don't know how long, but I also don't know when the last time was he spent a night on the line. I assume it was a long, long time ago.

All this to say, going big doesn't necessarily mean blowing out all your quality.

I'm not even sure where the over-priced and low quality comments are coming from. The noodles are about 2.25 if you buy direct and the chili crunches are all great and highly addictive. I guess if you instacart individual noodle packs you would have a different take

$18 + shipping for a 5 pack on his own website. $97 with free shipping for 30 packs. Maybe I'm seeing different prices since I'm in Canada?

Even at $3.23 for the bulk price, it is an expensive bowl of ramen.

I buy my chili crunch from an asian market, and both their fresh stuff and their packaged imported stuff is cheaper and tastes better. David Chang's advantage is that he is selling in normal grocery stores so there isn't really competition. Put his stuff on a shelf at an asian market where there is 5 or 6 different brands and a consumer base that has been buying this for years, and they won't sell.

His chili crunch is fine but costs significantly more than many other chili crunch brands which are fine too. You're paying for the Momofuku branding on it that makes certain types of consumers feel good about themselves.

God, don't get me started on how insane his asking price for the "restaurant grade" soy sauce is. This is all subjective opinion on the quality and cost of good, of course. But the costs per ounce are very easy to shop.

His chili crunch has a lot of sugar, so it tastes great. Most other chili crunches are more subdued on that front.

The Momofuku soy sauce is $1.31/oz while the Kikkoman’s soy sauce is $0.37/oz. Truly ridiculous pricing.

His rice vinegar, which apparently is "restaurant tested" and has taken "years of research" to create the "vinegar of their dreams" is even worse in terms of pricing. But "you've never tasted anything like this before" as it comes from their "proprietary blend of rice".

Professional marketing copy like this costs money. When Chef Chang says "Buy it!" the only response is "YES CHEF!".

Not that it's well priced, but just because they're both "soy sauces", doesn't mean they are really comparable products intended to be used in a the same way while cooking. It's like the difference between an expensive olive oil you would use in a simple vinaigrette, eating with bread, or drizzling over a dish once it's cooked, and a cheaper neutral oil for sauteeing in the early steps of a recipe

I actually put his in a lineup with others when I got in a chili oil craze.

And while it definitely is good quality, it isn't mind blowing. And I personally prefer other brands instead! It's also, to my taste, much more Americanized. Much more refined sugar and using a different less complex method for the umami.

It's still delicious, but I personally won't be getting it again.

It tastes burnt to me.

To be fair he is American and primarily marketing to an American(ized) audience. I’m personally a big fan of Americanization of foods. I’ve had dozens of “authentic” Mexican tacos and I love them - they’re fantastic things. I had a GF with an obese white trash mom who made an Americanized version of tacos which to my taste was incredible. Took the real parts and amplified certain things to the local palette. Like best tacos ever and just as authentic relatively.

I've been eating packaged ramen since when I had to and when I saw momofuku "tingly chili" noodle packages I bought 4. Don't remember the price, it was immaterial.

Turns out they're so boring and flavorless that 2 packages have been sitting on the shelf for 6 months. I thought I would have an idea what to do with them but so far no. I keep home toasted/ground Szichuan peppercorns in my pantry so I can get any level of "tingly" that I want but come on, there needs to be something else.

I've had these Momofuku instant noodles... I thought the noodles themselves were pretty good but the sauces were nothing special. The noodles are definitely just the same stuff A-Sha already sold on their own, and apparently many of the flavors are too, with Momofuku mostly contributing the branding.

This is all reminding me of the mean dude in Ratatouille. Only the mean dude is now also Gasteau.

I was thinking the exact same thing! Lucky I searched the page for Ratatouille before commenting.

Ratatouille is one of my all time favorite movies, but if you read it as a metaphor for director Brad Bird's own career, it's hard not to feel like it lets Walt Disney off the hook. Often in real life, the creative genius who founded the enterprise and the sycophant who has taken over it in his absence are both assholes. Though Ratatouille does touch on this by making Gusteau an idealized figment of Remy's imagination, who is shocked when he hears that the real man had a child via an affair.

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