By Nina Huang
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
From job shadowing Seattle-based food writer Nancy Leson to sharing pastries in Taipei with Phil Rosenthal, Charlene Yang is making a name for herself in the food scene.
Born and raised in Taiwan, Yang came to the United States by herself when she was 15. She first lived in Kentucky because her parents wanted her to learn English, but after a year, she followed one of her older brothers to Seattle where there was a larger Asian influence.
She shared that one of her earliest and fondest memories in Seattle was when she shopped at Uwajimaya.
Yang graduated high school from King’s School in Shoreline. During her senior year at King’s School, she shadowed Leson, the Seattle Times’ food and beverage editor back in 2011.
She then went to the University of California at Irvine for undergraduate school and graduated in 2015.
In one of her first jobs working at a media group, Yang had a wonderful boss who encouraged her to start her own food account and blog because she loved cooking and baking.
Yang doubted she had what it took to become a content creator. She had only 300 followers in 2015, but her former manager believed in her which motivated her to believe in herself.
Her boss even offered to pay for a year’s worth of lunches to support Yang’s food account.
Her content creation journey began with taking photos on her iPhone and then she invested in a FujiFilm XT30 camera. She later transitioned to a Sony Alpha 73 when she realized she needed to create more videos due to the everchanging social media landscape and demands.
She started the Taipei Eater Instagram account in 2016. Yang now has over 55,000 followers on Instagram.
“The core of it was to share what’s great about Taiwanese cuisine with everyone, not just within Taiwan, but for people around the world, too,” Yang said.
Currently based in Los Angeles, Yang is focused on tapping into the Taiwanese cuisine and restaurant scene to help promote the culture, as well as her Taiwanese American identity.
Yang tries to go back to Taiwan every year and hopes to spend a month there to explore the new restaurants that she’s been invited to visit. Her whole family is still in Taiwan and shared that she possibly would move back to Taiwan at some point.
“Taiwanese cuisine is different from other cuisines because it’s about the people and the warmth; the ‘ren ching wei’ in Mandarin Chinese,” she shared.
She added that it’s about the people and the warmth because of its history of being colonized by so many different countries. There’s a heavy Japanese and Chinese influence, but beef noodle soup, for example, has similarities to some European dishes.
“It’s just so unique. Taiwanese food isn’t overly spicy or salty or sweet, it’s perfectly balanced with flavors and every single dish has its own umami,” Yang said.
Some of her favorite dishes include minced braised pork over rice with sesame oil chicken and oyster omelet. She also enjoys a nice and fragrant herbal bone soup.
Yang loves to cook a wide range of cuisines, but one of her proudest accomplishments was her cinnamon roll.
Yang started her cinnamon roll project in 2018. She tried a famous cinnamon bakery in Taipei, but felt like she could make it better so she experimented with her own recipe. She shared it with her restaurant owner and chef friends, and one of them said it was one of the best cinnamon rolls they’ve had in Taiwan and wanted to buy more from her.
She started selling them in bulk by the dozen.
“That was a fun and fascinating experience because I was able to meet people through the power of social media. People flew in from Hong Kong, South Korea, and Malaysia to buy the cinnamon rolls. Seeing all the progress and being able to do that through my platform was amazing,” she said.
Yang went to Northwestern University for graduate school in 2022 and started to build her portfolio after landing a job at LA Weekly as a PR and communications executive. In that role, she was able to create fun food content to engage with audiences. She developed content for her portfolio which was when she was able to share examples with the Netflix production team.
When the production team reached out to her in April of 2023, Yang was skeptical. But she did some research and realized it was the real thing.
A large reason why she accepted the opportunity to be on the Netflix series, Somebody Feed Phil, was to connect with her online audience and give her platform a recognizable face.
“Everything that you see on TV is raw and real and who we actually are,” Yang said.
The episode was filmed last May and took about two days.
Overall, it’s been a really fun and rewarding experience for Yang. She has kept in touch with Phil Rosenthal and his family after the filming.
She recently invited him to lunch and Rosenthal brought his whole family to Bistro Na’s in Temple City, California.
“That was really fun, our relationship and friendship didn’t just end because the show ended,” she said.
Yang shared that it was incredible to see that the production crew hires local production teams when they travel to each country for filming.
“I just think it’s so cool you can see the beauty of Taiwan through their lens. The team dynamic was so amazing and Phil was really good at making me feel comfortable. I didn’t even know what parts would end up in the episode and I was really nervous because I thought I joked around too much,” Yang said.
In the Taipei episode, Yang takes Rosenthal to Chiseng Temple Market in the Dadaocheng area to try pork knuckle soup and baked black pepper buns. They also taste some desserts like Japanese-inspired red bean wafers and pineapple cakes at Lin’s Wagashi Confectionery.
Rosenthal is also joined by chef Ivy Chen, NBA superstar Dwight Howard, comedian Brian Tseng, and TV host Janet Hsieh on his adventures through Taipei.
She went into the filming process without any expectations. But she later realized that there would be several celebrities on the episode when they get together in the final scene for the family-style meal at Mountain & Sea House.
Yang looks forward to collaborating with more Taiwanese people to help increase the spotlight on social media. Her dream collaborator is Taiwanese-Japanese-American Atsuko Okatsuka.
Nina can be reached at newstips@nwasianweekly.com.