Eddie Huang's Morning Routine

The chef turned author on soy milk, astrology, and other...obsessions. Plus, an exclusive audio clip from his book, "Fresh Off the Boat"

By Alison Roman

January 29, 2013

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Welcome to My Morning Routine, where we take a look at how people kick-start the day. And by "people" we mean celebrities.

Between completing his first memoir Fresh Off The Boat (out today; scroll down for an exclusive audio clip), jet-setting to Taiwan for his VICE series of the same name, or making bao at his ultra-popular New York restaurant Baohaus, it's no wonder
Eddie Huang eats two breakfasts. In a rare chaos-free moment, Eddie chatted with us about his favorite egg dish, Asian lactose intolerance, and who he can't start his day without.

I do like to do this capicola-and-eggs thing where I'll caramelize onions, and then fry the capicola so you get the grease from the capicola, and then I'll beat eggs, and I'll mix it all together with some spinach or like, you know, chopped broccoli, and then I'll kind of steam the eggs so it all puffs up. I put a lot of ricotta cheese on the top--it's good.

For second breakfast, I love cocktail peanuts. Cocktail peanuts and gummy bears. Gummy bears and porn are probably the two things I like that ruin my life the most.

I drink a lot of hot soy milk in the morning. I just bring home quarts of it from the restaurant, then I'll heat it up in a pot. Before I go to the gym, I do a big 16-ounce hot soy milk and that will hold me down.

When I travel, like for the show, I always tell my producer that I like to stay in hotels with a pool because in the morning before shoots, I love to go swimming. You get time with yourself to think about the stories you're gonna do and everything. I don't know, I'm a water sign, a Pisces, and I just really like swimming. I read Susan Miller and that astrologyzone.com sh*t every morning. Susan runs my life.

When I travel, wherever I am, I will always wake up like two hours before shoots to get a local breakfast. If there's a Jamaican place nearby in Miami, I'll go get ackee and saltfish. When we were in Taiwan, I woke up in the mornings to get hot soy milk, and then shao bing, which is like a sesame pancake. Egg pancake, soy milk, and dumplings--I'd always go get that.

In Taiwan, we do a lot of porridge. You take old rice, and then mix it with chicken soup or pork soup--or just clear water--and make porridge. Definitely a lot of porridge, fried crullers, dried pork bao, fried peanuts, thousand-year-old egg, and cold tofu. It sounds crazy, but we always have that sitting in the fridge. And beef noodle soup. I really like beef noodle soup for breakfast. I eat dinner for breakfast, but that's kind of what Chinese people do.

If I'm in Portland,
Andy Ricker and I will go to Ha & VL together. But if we're in another city together, we always get noodle soup in the morning. I love to buddy up with him because we have the same eating habits. He's so Asian. He's a brother, like for real, because I've never seen Andy eat cereal--he always wants hot soup in the morning or porridge. Like, he gets it.

Oh, and we've also got an exclusive audio clip of Eddie Huang introducing the book. Check it out here: