Enjoy Your Food Like a Chef with Chef Nelly Buleje of Grand Geneva Resort and Spa

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Let me tell you, at the age of 17, finding out that somebody puts st steak, mushrooms, and sour cream together and puts it over noodles and calls it strogonoff, I was like, what are you guys thinking?

SPEAKER_01 0:12

That's Wisconsin, man.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Later on to come to find out to this day, it's one of my favorite dishes. That's one of my favorite dishes to this day. But 17 years, I went through 17 years of life not knowing how delicious Strogonoff was.

SPEAKER_02 0:32

Welcome to the latest episode of the Dinner Plus Drinks Podcast interview series. I'm very excited to have you here for this interview. For this interview, we're talking to my friend and a very talented chef, Chef Nelly Balehe from Grand Geneva Resort and Spa. Nelly is a guy that can cook like few people. He's worked his butt off and has a great journey to get him to where he is of running 11 kitsches out of Grand Geneva. For this interview, I wanted to talk to him because he's someone that cooks a lot of different cuisines. And they're not necessarily cuisines that are in his ethnic background. He's also someone that's traveled a lot and experienced a lot of different food from all around the world. I've asked a lot about different cuisines. How do you make a great Italian dish? How do you make a great Thai dish? Hey, could you make an Indian curry-inspired sausage? And I'm always a little uncomfortable with that, as somebody that doesn't have any of that in my ethnic background, hasn't been to any of those places, and really doesn't have any training in those cuisines or how to cook them. So while I do my best to learn about them, those cuisines, those cultures, and share them with people and get excited about them, I always have that little bit of uncomfortableness about am I being authentic? Am I taking someone else's culture and pushing it off as my own or trying to own something that I don't own? And I thought Nellie would be a great guy to talk about the subject with. How can you experience new things without being the quote unquote ugly American that thinks you know everything? How can you respectfully do that? How can you be true to the dishes, learn about people's cultures, learn about different cuisines in a respectful way, and also a way that brings joy to you? So this is a great interview. I'm really excited about it, and I hope it brings you a sense of wanting to try new things and a little bit of confidence that you can do it in a respectful way and in a way that brings joy to your life. So take a listen. How are you doing, buddy? I'm doing good, Nick. Thanks for having me here. Got a little bit of a lull at the resort. You're usually 24-7-365, but uh appreciate you taking a little time out. So, could you give a little bit of background on yourself and how you got into being the executive chef at a four diamond resort?

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Yeah, so definitely. Um, you know, I've I've always had a love for food. I don't know if I necessarily had a love for cooking um until I was about 13, 14, but um, you know, I uh started cooking here in Lake Geneva at what used to be Annie's ice cream parlor downtown Lake Geneva when I was 13 years old. Um I at first I was scooping ice cream, then I wanted to get into the kitchen, then I wanted to run out of the kitchen, so I went back to the front. And uh up until I was about 17, I worked in a couple different places here in Lake Geneva as a busser, a hostess, a server, front of the house. I didn't want anything to do with back of the house. And my uh my sister uh she worked at the Grand Geneva when I was 17, and she's like, hey, you when I graduate high school, you gotta do something. If you're not gonna go to college, you gotta find out something. So I was like, Well, I'll cook. I love food, why not? You know, and um she got me a gig at the Grand Geneva where I started as uh carving prime rib in the Grand Cafe. Um and I was fortunate that I I found out that my passion for eating food um was just as big as my passion for making food. Um you know, once I gained an understanding for it. And at the Grand Geneva, there's 13 kitchens. So let me tell you, that passion was just uh abundant, abundant, abundant, and and and and more so and more so. So, you know, I got the opportunity to cook there. I stodged um I didn't go to I don't have a culinary uh school uh uh background, but I got the opportunity to stodge with great chefs in the area, you know, at uh BJ Wentiker's uh back then, at um um with Ken Nilo here in Lake Geneva when when he was right at the lakefront and a couple other places what the the entire time I was at the Grand, and uh from there I went to Milwaukee. I went to Milwaukee as the executive chef of the Steakhouse Um at the Milwaukee Chop House at the Hilton. Um then I became Banquo Chef. Um I was there for about three years as well, and then I decided to head out east, and I got a great opportunity to go to Virginia to be an executive chef of my first property when I turned 26 of uh uh Marriott. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 4:58

That's really young.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

You realize you're that young when you I don't know what I was thinking about, man. You know, when when I left the company, the GM's like, Nelly, you don't have to be in a race. Slow down. I was like, I'm ready for it, let me go. I wish now I would have slowed down and I'd be at my maybe my second role as an executive chef, right? But nonetheless, you learn from it, right? Um, but six months later I got the phone call from my mentor who I had worked with here at the Grand Geneva, Robert Fodorco, and he's like, Hey Nelly, I have an executive chef position in South Carolina, Hilton Head Island. I had no idea what Hilton Head Island was. I thought it was like Hilton Hotel's headquarters or whatever, and that right. He's like, I bought you a hotel ticket, you're gonna come and interview. I was like, Oh, I don't even know if I can, you know, and he's like, Nope, you're coming out. So I went out there, I flew on a plane that was large enough for me and five other people to land, and you want to talk about scary. But um got there, landed on the island, you know, um, beautiful island, saw the resort, fell in love, and I spent three and a half years learning low country cuisine, southern cuisine, learning southern coastal cuisine, um, eat the cuisine out on the east, and just getting a really true appreciation for you know for that southern seafood um um um gullah um Caribbean uh melting pot that is that of what that entire region is, right? I mean, there's even with all that, there's still delicious barbecue, delicious fried chicken, amazing seafood, you know. I mean, it's best a little bit of everything, right? Um, but I spent three and a half years there. Then I found myself in um Cleveland, Ohio, where I was executive chef of the Metropolitan at the Nine, which um had a beautiful food and beverage program. We had a rooftop bar that was on the 12th floor that we served food. Um we had beautiful banquet space, we had a Daga, which is our modern Mediterranean restaurant that we had there, that was our three meal a day restaurant, fine dining as well. Um, and I was uh fortunate to spend uh a little over three years there. I opened up the uh Wild Eagle Concept. Um I uh helped create the Wild Eagle Concept and then which was a uh like a pub and uh bar and uh uh bar. And then from that we grew that and we opened up a Wild Eagle steak and uh Wild Eagle Concept, which was which was really big as well and beautiful. And then um and then I got that then I got the phone call to come back home and see if I wanted to see if see if see if I wanted to be back here and I came back home and lo and behold, one year and five months later. Has it been that long? It's been a year and five months later. Man is small. Yes, it has.

SPEAKER_02 7:26

I gotta say, I love that you're here because we can do a lot of cool stuff together. I can't believe it's been that long.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

Oh yeah. No, yeah, I mean and I didn't think about it, in a year in a year and a half we could say we've we've worked with each other on quite a few projects and had quite some fun, you know. So it's good just to be back, be back at the resort, you know, bring a little bit of life, culture, um, back in an area that really needs it, you know, and that was asking for it, and I believe that it's at a pivotal time for it.

SPEAKER_02 7:50

So you said it's your love of eating that got you into cooking. What was it that made you love eating? Because I think something I see is a lot of there's a significant portion of the population that views eating just as as fuel, as maintenance. It's not something they love. What put that love of eating in you that eventually you got into the kitchen and decided you wanted to to really be at the top of the cooking game?

SPEAKER_00 8:16

I'd say that the top happy that that the most happiest moments of my life were surrounded around food. And you know, my family was a part of that. My family, anything that we did, my mother has 11 brothers and two sisters. So you want to talk about a massive side a massive family just on one side of the family, that that's it right there. Yeah, that's huge. Yeah. And and it was just there was always laughter, always happiness, always excitement, you know, and and and food tied to that. You know, so my love for food grew on that, and then when I when I realized, you know, when I realized how happy I could make somebody by giving them, creating that same experience for them, versus it just being for n for the sake of nutrition, for the sake of part of what the day is, you know. For me, food's an experience, you know, dining, going out to eat is an experience, cooking at home is an experience, you know. It's it's all those beautiful things, and that's where that connection and where I fell in love with wanting to cook, you know, because it's that it's that self-gratification of you know knowing that you were able to touch somebody and be part of someone's special moment indirectly in a way, because I'm not at the table talking to you guys. You know, every now and then I get the chance to head out there and chat with people, but through what I do and what come out of and what comes out of my hands, you know, uh that passion, that love, and that's what the guests get to experience. So that's where you know that connection came in, came in for me.

SPEAKER_02 9:38

I think when you talk to good chefs, when you talk to our butchers here like Mark, people at work with their hands, furniture makers, whomever it could be, it's that that passion that you want to put something of yourself into whatever it is you put in front of your customer, whether it's uh a piece of really great heirloom furniture, whether it's a steak we send out, a dish you send out. I love hearing that pride from people's voices, and I think that's something that you put in every dish. I love I love the care you put into stuff and making the experience great for people. But what I want to talk to you about today is you touched on this briefly that you think around here, people need to branch out a little bit more, have their eyes open to some new cuisine. We're we're a pretty steak and potatoes place. Um and I'm I'm about as white dude as white dude gets. I don't know, man. I don't know. We uh we growing up, you know, we we didn't do a whole lot of cooking, you know. We I'm ashamed to say we we did we hammered the pork chops to 165, you know, put them in the cream of mushroom soup and baked them. And the closest thing to any sort of like what you'd call ethnic cultural cooking I got was my grandma's depression era farmhouse stuff. You know, let's let's make sure we don't throw anything out from the turkey. So I love you know, we were always interested in meat, and you know, okay, let's make sure that we got the good meat. But I love cooking. I discovered that joy too of how much I enjoy food. I got my eyes open to some people, and I go and I I discover, you know, like, oh, this is Thai food. This is pretty good. I like this. And then in my position, I can share out recipes with people or I can say, like, hey, you should try this, you know, this curry powder that we got. It's from this specific place in India, it's different. But at the same time, I feel pretty inauthentic. You know, like, oh, cool, white dude discovers Indian food, you know? You're a guy that has uh a lot of different ethnic roots that are varied, a lot more varied than mine. You're a guy that's traveled a lot to different places of the world, experienced cuisine, and you're a guy that cooks a lot of different concepts. You talked about learning low country food, and I've had some of your barbecue, I've had some of your South Carolina stuff, and it's pretty darn good. And you definitely don't look like someone that would know how to do low-country barbecue. So I wanted to ask you, how how do you think people can respectfully approach learning about someone else's cuisine and making it a part of their life and being proud of it and being proud to show it off without you know, acting like they own it or just being annoying, I guess. Like what do you think the best way to approach that is?

SPEAKER_00 12:18

You know, I I I educating ourselves is is one of the most important parts of it, right? You know, um I I I think that you know we're fortunate that we live in a day and age that if we don't know what an Indian curry is or a French curry is, they're two two different things, right, that are very similar but yet different. We have the we have the opportunity to pull out that tiny thing that sits that very rarely sits in our pocket that we almost never use to make phone calls. Yep. And hit Google, right? Or we can go to our computer, or we can go to a laptop, or or you can say, Alexa, tell me the difference, right? You don't even have to look it up anymore, right? And and there's a little there's a little somebody waiting to answer you, you know. Um I think self-education is really important and relevant to you know, to not n not for the sake of saying I'm gonna be authentic, because as as uh as Lat Latin as being a uh a Latino born in America, you know, I tell everybody I'm as American as apple pie, but my my heart's my my heart's Mexican, Guatemalan, Peruvian. That's who I am, that's what runs inside of me, you know. But you it's it's it becomes part of that, you know. I oversee an Italian restaurant. Yeah. A very good one. How how how how is this guy how is Nelly Bulehe, whose real name is Denir Licino Bulehe, gonna run an authentic Italian restaurant, right? How you know how do you do that? You you you you you do that through education, you do that through looking up different cheeses, studying different regions, you know, and I I'm not telling anybody that if they want to go out or if they want to try a new recipe, you have to do that. But give yourself that opportunity to be able to educate yourself a little bit on what it is what's new to you. Because we all know what's comfortable for us, you know. I I I even though I continue to learn my culture and continue to learn different cuisine because there's so much of it, I know how to make rice and beans. I I I knew how to make a carne sala, right? Let me tell you, at the age of 17, finding out that somebody puts st steak, mushrooms, and sour cream together and puts it over noodles and calls it strogonoff, I was like, what are you guys thinking?

SPEAKER_01 14:24

That's the skeleton, man.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

Later on to come to find out to this day, it's one of my favorite dishes. That's one of my favorite dishes to this day. But 17 years, I went through 17 years of life not knowing how delicious Stroganoff was, right? But you know, but you know, so then I find out, you know, and and at that time I had just started cooking at the grand. I've got to go to the library. I gotta ask the other chefs, well, what is this? And they're like, oh, it's what's kind of well, no, give me the blah blah blah, right? Yeah. So, you know, I think becoming familiar with what you're going to eat, what you want to eat through a little bit of um research is the way to do it. And then what what is authenticity? You know, I mean, what what what what does that really mean? And are are we really looking for authenticity or you know, are we looking for what makes us happy? When people ask me how is being a Latino influence your cooking? I very seldom have cooked cuisine that is the cuisine that I grew up eating. Yeah. I didn't want to be known as the I mean, brother, you look at me, I'm I'm 5'9, I tell everybody I'm a copper brown, jet black hair, I'm I'm as la Latino as Latino comes. I don't want to be known as the guy that all he he built he built his name on cooking what he knew, what he grew up on. So I veered very far away from that, and I cooked everything else I could possibly cook and at home and through certain little specials, mastered who I was and continue to develop that to this day. You know? Um but but but you you so you so so you look at that and you say, you know, let let me teach myself, let me educate myself on what some of the on what some of those are and what what is authenticity. So instead of making a authentic lomo saltado, which you may not understand what that is, maybe you know what? Maybe I'm gonna use the fries, the French the fries that go into it, and I'm gonna introduce you to the aj amarillo, which is one of the peppers that go into it. My grandmother America, you can't get ajamarillo, so what does she do? She used black pepper.

SPEAKER_02 16:23

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_00 16:24

So yeah, so through black pepper, that was her aj. She found out that that was spicy, that's what she used, fresh milk uh black pepper. Now you can get ajamarillo, you know, you can order it, get it wherever get at once again. Alexa, order me four ounces of ajia marillo, and it's in the doorstep in two days, right? Um, but you know, I I think that that's what is becoming is is authenticity, is you know, is it's amazing to be able to go to a restaurant and order authentic cuisine, you know, and get an understanding of what that is from maybe somebody who is a true master of that. But the beauty about cooking and the beauty about food and the and the day of age that we live in, it's taking what comes from culture and making that your own and introducing that into your pal into into your little not your not only your palate but into your flavor profile of what you cook, and that's how you can speak boldly to hey, you know what? This might not be an authentic Lomo Saltada, but let me tell you the Aja Mario that comes from it is right here. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. It's beautiful. We're educating one another on cultural cuisine, whether it's authentic or not, or non-authentic as we want to call it, and you can speak to it with confidence.

SPEAKER_02 17:36

When you're cooking at Brasago, which is a pretty authentic Italian place, uh the menus shifted, I think, a little bit to go more towards authentic Italian dishes and give you that experience of what you know these traditional timeless Italian recipes are. How much do you want to put a little Nelly stamp on there and put your twist on something? And how much do you want to say, no, this is you know, this is a 400-year-old recipe, and we want to stick with that. How how do you balance wanting to put your own stamp on it? Because you're a guy that's very talented, has ideas on how to present food. How do you balance that with presenting that authenticity? Which is like you said, it's a tough thing. What is that?

SPEAKER_00 18:16

Yeah, no, I mean it it's a hundred percent. It's you know, you go back to the r respecting respecting the recipe, respecting the dish, and it's all about how am I gonna do it in and in a setting like Brasago, I'd say that seven out of ten times I need to respect the recipe. And those seven out of ten times I respect the recipe, you know, and I give it my thing by you know, I I I I may influence it in the ingredients I get in where I get them from. You know, um does it all does it all able to come from Italy? No, but am I able to get you know something from over here and you know, oh, you know what? Let's talk about the bolinesse. We're gonna do a bolanese, but you know what to make it to to to make it my bolinese, I'm gonna use the Geneva Country Meats short rip to create my bolinese or my pork, whatever the recipe we may have. Yep on an item like that, that's how I'll influence it. Now if I'm creating a fish and I like the way that this fish is cooked this way, there's really no traditional way to make a fish. Now I'm given about 50% freedom to do what I want and just use the Italian ingredients to make it my own. You know, so I think I just I look at it in that way, and you know, for me the biggest thing is respecting technique. Respecting technique and making sure that your flavors are bold and delicious, you know, and not overpowering when I say bold. I don't want, you know, I don't want you to think bold and oh my goodness, I'm gonna eat a pico de gallo salsa that's so stinking spicy, I I'm gonna drink a six-pack of whatever I'm having with it, right? No. Bold is a few.

SPEAKER_02 19:46

You're not doing the guy fiery, you know, I'm just driving this a time.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Boom! Bold. No, not not not at all. I want it to be memorable.

SPEAKER_02 19:54

Yeah. I think one of the things I've noticed how you influence how dishes are perceived is how you plate it and how you have everything plated, and how people then have to attack the dish from a textural component. And I think you do a really good job of that, because not everybody thinks of texture as part of a dish, and you can really affect how people have a bite by how you plate it. That's one of the things I've actually noticed on your dishes that I think you do a really nice job with, is and putting your own little flare and making it look pretty and giving people that experience with their eyes first.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Thank you, and I appreciate that because that is something that we focus on. We'll plate up a dish 10, 15, 20 times before we commit to saying that's it. You know, and when we sit there and we draw up a recipe or we draw up a new dish, we we write down flavor profiles, cooked, raw, textural, and what does it look like? What are the colors? We do all of those things to make sure that we hit every component. And one of my biggest things is making sure food looks beautiful. Because if it doesn't look beautiful, you lost half of the battle. It's 50% beauty, 50% flavor. And if your mind told you it doesn't look beautiful, doesn't ta doesn't look like it's gonna taste delicious, then it's probably not gonna taste delicious.

SPEAKER_02 21:06

When you get the opportunity to get out of the kitchen and talk to customers, how much do you I guess guests in your world, how much do you enjoy, I don't know if educating them is the right word, but give them a little backstory about either the people that cook the dish or where the dish came from or the suppliers from the dish. How much do you try to balance that, give them a little bit of, you know, something to take home versus just being like, that's pretty good, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 21:31

Yeah, I mean, you know, so you know, some people want to say hi and some people want that story. Some people want to know where's the farm that it came from. You know, I and I I think that what what makes it memorable is I always want to make that connection. It's not about was the dish amazing, it's what's the story, what connects you to the dish, what's gonna make you say, I want to go back and have their 38 year Bolinessa recipe that was handed down from the chef's grandmother's, so on and so on. You know, so I think that that is something. And really beautiful and and and something that I do try to communicate to the guest, you know, and and and and I like to let the guests know that because that's how that's where I can show not only my passion but my team's passion in what we do and like I say help create that connection with them. You know, it's that that's really, really important.

SPEAKER_02 22:20

You're a guy that's traveled a pretty fair amount. What is the role of travel you think discovering new culture, new cuisine? How much of a role does that play? Do you think you should do some research before you go or just go dive in? And you know, I've never been to Thailand. I'm probably never gonna go to Thailand if I'm being completely honest. There's a lot of other places I'd like to go first. Does that, you know, can you cook Thai food? Can you be someone that is is doing that without ever actually being there, experiencing that culture?

SPEAKER_00 22:50

Uh 100%. I mean, what you're you're 50 minutes outside of Milwaukee, an hour and something out of out of out out of Chicago, where you have true authentic Thai cuisine. I learned to make some good ones in Walworth, Wisconsin, too now. Yeah. You know, uh I I learned to make green papaya salad, Tigr Thai green papaya salad when I was in Milwaukee from these Thai ladies at one of the Asian stores, Australia's 25th, that spoke no English, but I said teach me. It took me like two weeks to get them to understand what I wanted and and to trust me to go into the kitchen and they taught me how to make it. You know, and I was able to get the ingredients and be able to see it, you know. So I you know, it it's the opportunity is there.

SPEAKER_02 23:35

So what's your favorite place that you've traveled and you know, found something new or or really just been like, wow, I didn't expect this.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

I'd say I there's been a couple of them. So when I lived in South Carolina and and one of my cooks was like, Chef, let's go crabbin'. I was like, That's such a weird I was like, crabbin'? Let's go crabbin'. I was like, all right, I was like, It's like what you did in the wrestling mats in gym, you know? Exactly. I'm like, is that code for, you know, is it code you know let's stop by the gas station? Oh, that's code for drinking. All right, I got it, you know. Pulls out a five-gallon bucket, that the a five uh five-gallon pickle bucket, a drill, drills a bunch of holes into it. Um, when we stop by the gas station to pick up our six pack, we also stop by the we also stop by the by the one by the grocery store and we end up getting some chicken wings. I'm like, what are we doing? You know, I'm like, alright, whatever. I'm my day off, I committed to you, let's go do it. You know, we go crabbing, we we we we we drop a five-gallon bucket in in a stream that goes out to the ocean, runs through the island, try a chicken wing around it, drop it in the middle of it from the top. He's like, Alright, let's go enjoy that six pack. I was like, I was like, alright, he's like it's just like ice fishing, right? We go, we come back, we pull it out. We have like eighteen, eighteen crabs in there. Eighteen hard shell crabs. He's like, Alright, Chef, you're doing you're doing you're doing the boil. We get the ingredients, do a boil for the first time in my for the first time in my life of and I and as we sit here and talk, I close my eyes because it takes.

SPEAKER_02 25:14

I should take a picture of you right now.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

It does. It just, you know, when people tell you that crab is sweet, you don't know what that means. We don't know what that means, unless you're there and you're in you you're two hours of of a river of pulling the crab right out of the water in a five-gallon bucket, dropping it into this uber seasoned uh boil uh uh pot that's boiling with seasoning, you open it up and my god, that's what sweet crab tastes like. The finding moment in my in my life, my career, where I I even get goosebumps thinking about it because it it's you you never as a chef, you hear as a cook, you hear crab is sweet, crab bah bah, this is this. And you get to experience that, you know, in the Philippines. I go to the Philippines and God, what a beautiful culture. Yeah, an amazing culture. They're they're they are the Mexicans of Asia. You know what I mean? If I'm not mistaken, that's actually, you know, they're Mexico's cousins. They really are, you know, besides the language and a couple of things here and there, good lord. I mean, if they had enchiladas, it'd be Mexico or uh halfway around the world. But you you you go there and we and we we we it's all island, you know, and we go to we go to the market and I'm looking at the fish, I'm picking the gills up, I'm looking at the eyes, I'm opening them up, and and and and and the guys selling the fresh fish are like, you know, when I went there, they thought I was they thought I was Arabic because of my seafood knowledge, you know. I'm like, no, those gills don't look right. The eyes aren't I want this one, give me that price. To go back and take a yellow, uh, a yellow fin tuna was just coarse salt over embers that have been cooking for about an hour and a half, and put the tuna right over the top of it, cook it with coarse salt, and I'm there with all these with with with my now fiance and all of her Filipino friends that she grew up with in high school who are now making tortillas because the Mexican took a five-pound bag a five-pound bag of maseka with him because he wanted to experience pork lechón with maseka. Her friends are making fresh tortillas off the embers that were about to have fish tacos in the Philippines with this beautiful, gorgeous, like nothing else I've tasted yellow fin tuna right off of there.

SPEAKER_02 27:28

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 27:29

So I'd say that those are two, you know, that you know, that just have been embedded in me and will ne I I can I'm right there as I have the conversation. I'm full of goosebumps. You know, it's just a thing of beauty.

SPEAKER_02 27:41

I wanted uh give a shout out to the Philippines, your lovely fiance here is with us, making sure you don't get in too much trouble. But it's interesting how you two are together. The Philippines are such a melting pot of different cultures of Spanish, you know, Asian cultures, uh, you know, coming over from Mexico, even, and then you know you have the Peruvian roots, which Chinese, all sorts of African influences, the Spanish influences, and then it's you know, Peru is one of the most diverse agricultural producers in the world, they're the most species of potatoes. You think about all the potatoes that they have. You have all these in your life relations with people that come from fusion-y type of cuisines. I know some chefs really hate that. Oh, it's blah blah blah fusion cuisine, you know, it's just throw all a bunch of stuff together. But you made some Filipino-Mexican fusion. How do you how do you think the role of quote unquote fusion cuisines and and taking these things from different cultures of marrying them? Is that disrespectful? Is that something that's worth trying? You know, how how do you balance that off too? Because I think like I enjoy taking some I love tacos. Occasionally it's fun to put sour cream and and you know, American salsa and shredded cheese on it. That's not a taco.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

But it's delicious, it's delicious sometimes, right? And um it I I go back to what's the authenticity of it, you know. In my mindset, I was like, I'm gonna have Lechron, which reminds me of Carnitas. I need I need to take tortillas, because they don't need tortillas. So for me, it's where do I find my comfort to something that's authentic, and how is that gonna fulfill me? And that's how I look at fusion anything, and I think that that's where fusion comes from. You know, we were just in LA a month ago, and we finally got to have um um um the Koji tacos. Oh finally, oh my god, they were delicious. It was one of the highlights of our trip, you know, and and when I told her, she's like, she's like, she's uh she what what what did you say to me? You're like, we're we're gonna have Korean tacos? That's disgraceful. My Filipino fiance. My Filipino my Filipino fiance who we've made, um where we've made where we've made her and I together have made pork pork belly, um, pork belly, why am I losing the name right now? Um El Pastor Chopau. You know what I mean? You want to talk about about melding things together, but when you're sitting like, oh my god, this would be delicious with this, and we did it and it was phenomenal. It was phenomenal, you know. So even even us being chefs and being so open to being able to have had that opportunity to see so many things are still so subjected and blind and have our blinders on to like, ugh, Korean tacos? And what did she think of them? They were amazing. Korean tacos are just phenomenal.

SPEAKER_02 30:37

I love, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

We could go back and eat them again. You know, so I I I think it's it's all as long as they they not necessarily I don't want to use the word respect, but as long as they um they you one doesn't overpower compliment, as long as they compliment one another that's what fusion food is. Fusion food is complimenting one another.

SPEAKER_02 30:58

So when someone's going to a new place for the first time, whether it's uh going to low country, whether it's going to Germany, you know, India, wherever, what do you think the best way someone can approach eating there is? Should you do some research ahead of time or just dive in, or you know, how do you avoid being the ugly American and end up eating at McDonald's right down the street from the Nifle Tower?

SPEAKER_00 31:29

You know? Um I I you know, if you're gonna go to another country, do some research. And do some research only so then you can say that I'm gonna have the best of what they make the way they make it. You may not like it. You might think that it's absolutely disgusting. But you know what? You tried it, you were educated on it, it wasn't for you. Now maybe you say, you know what, maybe I would have liked it if it wasn't so overpowering in this, or if it wasn't that, you know, and you know, as much research as I like to do though, I also love to dive in. I'm the guy that goes to a restaurant and uh once again with my fiance and our seven-year-old, we'll order 40% of a menu. Yeah. And and we'll end up taking it up, we'll end up taking it home and having leftovers because I want if it's brand new, I want to experience as much of it as I potentially can. And I think that that's an exciting and fun thing to do, you know. Food becomes experent uh experiential, right? So you you you you get to do that and order as much as you can. And if you don't like it, it's okay. We're not meant to like everything. You can go overseas, and you know, my my uh my uh uh my uh um my uh future future mother-in-law, when she saw me grab a piece of fried fish and put it in between bread with cheese and tartar sauce, looked at me like I was creating one of the most heinous cramps in the world. God, I love I love me a good old Falado fish. Yeah. You know, you know what I mean? Big bread is delicious. It it it it is, right? But what we may find delicious, other cultures don't find delicious. So you can't be afraid of what are they gonna think? Am I gonna offend them? You know, now you're gonna sit at a table and be like, uh no, I think we're all past the age of 13 for the most part. Now my seven-year-old, I gotta coach him. Hey, Jacob, we're not, if you don't like it, shh, napkin, quiet. We're good. All right? You know, but no, I think you shouldn't be afraid, you know. And if you can educate yourself a bit, so then you can say, okay, I want to try this, but if not, tell them, give me your three best appetizers, give me your four best entrees, give me all the dessert, because God, dessert should all be delicious. We shouldn't limit ourselves to the top three desserts. Let's have all of the dessert, right? You know, and and you know what? And don't have the booze stop. Keep that coming too.

SPEAKER_02 33:39

That's that's such an important part of it, too, is uh, you know, have the pisco when you're in Peru. You know, have have the tequila when you're in Mexico. What um have you ever had a time when you're out someplace and you tried something, you were excited, and you're like, oh, I do not like this.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

Oh yeah. Oh yeah, it's happening. It's happened at my mother's dinner table. You know what I mean? Um, but no, yeah, I mean, it's it's it's definitely happened. You know, I'm trying to think of, you know, I mean, at 300 pounds and five foot knot, there's not a lot, five foot nine. There's not a lot of things I don't like. You know what I mean? So I'm pretty easy going when it comes to that. But um, you know, I I'm not a fan of of super spicy food. You know, I remember, you know, and I go back to the Philippines because that's that's been my latest travels of where I've been able to leave the country and do things, but I remember being there and and and and and watching my fiance's brother grab the chicken, uh chicken or beef that we were eating. I can't remember. And he dips it into fish sauce. I know I don't like fish sauce.

SPEAKER_02 34:42

I don't like fish sauce.

SPEAKER_00 34:43

I am not a fan of it. Pat Thai, I want it, give it to me, no fish sauce. I got into an a server got into an argument with me one time because, like, no, it's too fishy. Give me well tell tell me you don't want fish sauce. I'm like, all right, I'm sorry, I don't want fish sauce in there, right? But I remember watching him and he ate it with such pleasure. Like, talk about closing your eyes. You know, you put a piece of chocolate, Uber chocolate cake in front of me, that's happening. That's how he was eating it. I looked at him and I'm like, you know what? Maybe I'm confused. Maybe I don't like American fish sauce. I grabbed whatever the protein was we were eating and I dip it in there, close my eyes, and I thought I was about to gag at the table. Let me tell you, I do not like fish sauce, whether it's American made, Asian made. I I am not a fish sauce fan, and I remember looking at him like, how in the world do you eat that? So you asked me about have I had one of those experiences? That was definitely one of those I am not a fish sauce kind of fan.

SPEAKER_02 35:34

Have you ever had Roman fish sauce? Ancient Roman fish sauce, the garum. So I took Latin as my foreign language in college, it's only three years instead of four. I thought it was really smart. And you know, you had to do a little of a cultural thing too, and obviously I love doing food. And I thought it'd be like in in high school when you know you took Spanish, and then you could go over to Hernandez's in Belavan, get your picture with Ralph over there, he eats some tacos, and you call it, you know. Call it a date. I'm in Mexican culture now. But I thought it'd be like that, and there are these old recipes because there's some good Roman cookbooks that survive from like 200, 300. And it's this fermented fish paste sauce. It's called garum, it's what they seasoned everything with. And if you think modern day Asian fish sauce is pungent, oh boy.

SPEAKER_00 36:21

I can only imagine. I don't even know. Oh boy, I don't know if I can.

SPEAKER_02 36:26

An experiential dinner, you know, it's like I think next in Chicago actually did one of the did a Roman menu once. They did. They did. Yeah, I was this close to going until I saw like, oh, there's caramel.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

I don't know. I am not chancing, I am not chancing this amount of money on a dinner.

SPEAKER_02 36:42

You should you should you should try it someday.

SPEAKER_00 36:45

Maybe we'll see.

SPEAKER_02 36:46

Maybe you're into fermenting stuff.

SPEAKER_00 36:48

Yeah, something like that, right? That's one of the light things, one of the things that I've rarely touched on is the fermenting.

SPEAKER_02 36:53

So, a couple last questions. Is there something out there that's really exciting you now? New cuisine, I know you've been in the Philippines a lot recently, or something that new ingredient, um, new method of cooking, even that you think people should really get into. Stop by the restaurant, check it out, try it at home, find a restaurant where they can try it somewhere around here?

SPEAKER_00 37:15

So, you know, in in the indo in the culinary industry, while there's so many, so many things happening, so many different techniques of cooking, so you know, I've I find myself at the current stage in my career that being able to dive into certain cultures and not only worldly cultures, but cultures from within the US, there's so much to learn and appreciate that right now I find myself in the, you know, um, you know, what's great food from Texas? You know, what's great Texas barbecue, you know, what's what's what's what's good cuisine from you know Peru? I'm Peruvian, but you know, what why why is Peruvian cuisine the number ranked best Peruvian uh rate ranked best cuisine in the world for eighth year in a row? Yeah. You know, you know, I'm I I coach the Pro Start students for Badger High School. Um, I'm their culinary coach, and they're like, Chef, we want to do an Asian menu. I'm like, oh guys, I'm I'm I'm not Asian. Look at me. Like, you don't want to do Spanish, something, you know, like we can do American, we can do Italian. You like I did everything I could to keep them away from it. God, I've learned so much with them. And and the fusion we've done within Asia with those students has me so I I learned how to make this potato, which I I still don't even know the name for it, but I I believe it's it's from it's from um uh South Korea. Um they eat it in the mountains where they they they uh I can't remember exactly where it's from, but the where there's a lot of potatoes, and they actually um cut up the potatoes to look like linguini pasta. They run it through the um, I don't know why I can't think of that swirly thing right now. I don't use it too often. But yeah, and and it comes out looking like linguini, put it in water, they fry it off in a little bit of oil, they have the different peppers in their seasonings, and it tastes just like pasta, and it looks just like pasta. And you know, they're serving that with a beautiful seared, with a beautiful seared duck breast, and on top of it they're using um what what's the sauce that goes on top of it? Like gochujang or nope. Um my uh my my brother-in-law made it at the house the other day when he made some kind of pork. Um tocino. Filipino tocino. So we have how many different Asian cultures infused into one dish that I don't know, for me that's just that's where I'm excited, that's where my mindset's in right now is you know, when I hear something that is I'm unfamiliar with, I'm more into let me learn and continue to expand and and dive into that, you know, versus trying to create and develop these new wild ideas. There's so much of the world to see, whether it be a thousand miles away or ten feet or a hundred feet, ten feet away. You know, so that's kind of where I find myself right now.

SPEAKER_02 39:54

Nice. And what do you say to the guy then says those kids put that in for judging? But I'm sure there's some curmogeny judge somewhere that says this is three different things, this doesn't go together. What do you what do you say to that guy?

SPEAKER_00 40:07

I'm sorry you feel I'm sorry you feel that way. I'm sorry you're that close-minded and couldn't understand how they all balanced one another because that's what food is. Being able to put being able to create an Asian menu with so many different and Asian influences through all of those, through all the Asian countries, and to be able to find balance and harmony is such a thing of beauty. And if you can't see that, especially as a judge or a culinarian or anybody in general, that's what you need to see. It's not was it authentic, it's not was it this, it's was there harmony in what I just ate? Is there musical notes, uh a symphony roaring in the back of my palate? And if you were able to do that, that's what food should be.

SPEAKER_02 40:52

That's awesome. I love that. That's one of the best descriptions of what food should be I've ever heard. So, what do you got coming up at the resort?

SPEAKER_00 40:59

We got some exciting stuff. We got uh we have uh a wine dinner coming up on I believe the 28th, if I'm not mistaken, at the end of this month. Um doing some uh, you know, you just said it right there. We're gonna do a little bit of dry aging, a little bit of souvine. We got um some beautiful wines that we're um that that we're using for that. Um you know uh we also have uh another uh we have uh another wine dinner that we'll be hosting in Brasago. We're looking at um doing our menu changes coming up for late spring right now throughout the resort. Um hopefully middle of March, we're gonna be publicating all brand new banquet menus and catering menus throughout the entire resort. I've been there for a year and a half and it's we finally we're finally getting this project going. Um yeah, so just you know, keeping busy, um, keeping busy with everything that we got going on.

SPEAKER_02 41:46

We got Lake Chenima Festival of Wine coming up April 17th, 18th, 19th. I'm gonna get you back on sometime before then. I want to talk about wine pairing with you because you are really good at putting together some fun wines and some fun dishes in ways that a lot of people wouldn't necessarily expect. So I want to I want to get you back and talk about that, talk about the festival of wine before it happens.

SPEAKER_00 42:07

Yeah, that would be great. And you know, and then we'll be able to talk about what what pairings you and I are gonna do together, right? Yeah, what are we gonna do?

SPEAKER_02 42:13

I mean, we've got to think this through. I think we got a meeting on that one soon that we're supposed to have some ideas.

SPEAKER_00 42:18

We we do, you know, and and that's the beauty of it. We get to partner up with one another once again and bring the community together and and show them what we can do as a community together.

SPEAKER_02 42:26

All right, man. Chef Nelly Belehe, Gran G Resort and Spa, awesome interview. Thanks so much, man.

SPEAKER_00 42:32

Hey, it's my pleasure, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 42:44

Thanks again to Chef Nelly for joining us on this interview. I really appreciate his time. He's a busy guy. Marvi's fiance is out here with us, so I appreciate her coming and uh keeping him in line too. She's pretty awesome herself. I think his perspective on trying new foods, traveling, and what authenticity is is something we all should hear. I think it makes me feel better about how I can cook great cuisine from around the world and uh not feel like I'm being a faker, so thanks, Chef. I really appreciate that. If you love good cooking and you get excited about good food and good people, Chef Nelly is someone you should meet. He is just so enthusiastic about food, and his enthusiasm is infectious. He talked a little bit about the wine dinner he's got coming up Friday, February 28th at Grangy Resort and Spa. It's gonna be a good one. It's featuring wines from Duckhorn, and then a lot of different foods for that have been dry aged, cured, or sous vide cooked. Um, it's gonna be a great dinner. I've been to a lot of these dinners, and I I gotta tell you, they're first class. Nelly comes out, does a lot of presenting. Brian, um who's been on the podcast before, is a good friend of mine, talks about the wines. It's gonna be a great night. Check it out. Grandeneva.com for information and tickets. We'll put up some links in the show notes for you to get more information about it too. So definitely check that out. And then we have Lake Shaneva Festival Vine coming up in April. That's gonna be a great time too. Thanks for listening. I hope you appreciate this interview. I hope you took something away from it. We're gonna be back on Sunday, Bridget and I, with our normal weekly episode talking about all sorts of fun things. So I hope you tune into that one too. Have a good one. Cheers. Talk to you later.