Meet the Bay Area sushi chef who’s become a YouTube star
In “Outdoor Chef Life,” the Bay Area’s Taku Kondo harvests raw uni and makes fresh-caught lobster ramen right on the beach.
Some people see the ocean as a beautiful sight. Taku Kondo sees horseneck-clam sashimi, crunchy kelp pickles, and sea-urchin pasta served in its own spiky shell as he looks out over a beach.
Outdoor Chef Life, a 700,000-subscriber YouTube channel devoted to foraging and cooking in nature, was founded by the Bay Area native. On any given day, you might find him and his partner, the channel’s videographer Jocelyn Gonzalez, scraping herring eggs off seaweed, flipping rocks to find octopus for ceviche, or anchoring a smoker in a river to make whiskey-maple-glazed steelhead trout.
It’s a lot of fun, but cooking in the wilderness can be dangerous. They had a close encounter with a curious Alaskan grizzly (“Bear approached and I feared for her life”) in Alaska. Kondo was once yanked from his kayak by a dogtooth tuna (“Big fish pulls me in! These fish are crazy”).
Many people create content about wilderness cooking, but Kondo stands out for his knife skills and culinary prowess, which he gained while working as an omakase sushi chef in San Francisco. Hunkered down over spiny-lobster ramen he boiled on a windy beach, or expertly sliced sashimi he caught and prepared on his bobbing kayak, you might overhear him say, “That’s some Michelin-star plating right there.”
Kondo no longer works in restaurants and instead devotes her time to YouTube adventures full-time. He and Gonzalez just returned from a whirlwind tour of New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and the Pacific Northwest. From his temporary base in Guerneville, he’s now working on a cookbook about foraging, fishing, and knives.
Q. What are you doing right now in the Russian River?
A. Last night, we filmed a YouTube video for a series called Deliciously Invasive on my channel. We take invasive species in the area and transform them into something delicious. We caught bullfrogs in the nearby calm waters and made Thai-inspired fried frog legs.
Q. Are bullfrogs an issue in California?
A. Yeah. They eat a lot of native frogs, baby birds, and whatever else they can fit in their mouths.
Q. How did you become interested in foraging?
A. I was inspired by a book called The Bay Area Forager (by Mia Andler and Kevin Feinstein) that I had picked up at random. It mentioned a lot of edible plants in the Bay. I’d walk around the city or go on a hike and start identifying plants, like which ones are edible, which ones are poisonous, and which ones are poisonous. From there, I progressed to coastal foraging, which is higher in protein, such as crab, fish, and eel. That opened my eyes even more, especially since I used to go fishing with my father in Osaka when I was younger.
A. We live in San Francisco, but just outside the city limits, you can catch a ton of fish and forage for the freshest seafood. As a sushi chef, I think it’s amazing to be able to connect with your ingredients and some of the best seafood available.
Q. What are some of your favorite foraging items?
A. Mussels, mussels, clams, and mushrooms. From Santa Cruz to Berkeley to the North Bay, we get all kinds of mushrooms, including porcini, chanterelles, hedgehog, cauliflower, and matsutake, which is probably my favorite. Also, seaweed, which is abundant along the coast and is both delicious and nutritious. Kelp can be dehydrated or used to make seasoning, and it is used in Japanese cuisine for stocks and sauces. (See Kondo’s recipe for dehydrated seaweed chips.)
Q. Your video “Best Lobster Catch and Cook” has 2.6 million views…
A. It was my first night diving experience. We were in the Los Angeles area, it was pitch black, and we jumped in the water to look for lobster. They’re just walking around the rocks, which range in depth from 3 to 30 feet. I removed the meat from the shell, sliced it lengthwise into bite-sized pieces, and served it with Asian pears, shallots, and sea salt. It has a really nice creamy texture and is also quite sweet.
Q. In another video, you make pickles out of washed-up kelp stalks. How did they fare?
A. It was delectable. I still have fond memories of those. We’ve actually made friends with a company called Barnacle Foods, and our own product, Kelp Chili Crisp, is now available at every World Market in the United States.
Q. Do you have any tips for people who want to start foraging?
A. Go for a walk in nature, slow down, and observe the plants. Take pictures of anything that looks edible and try to identify it when you get home. Books are great, but being in nature and feeling the plants is the best way to remember.
