Quotes from Alvin Leung

Cooking is physical; it's easier to learn than playing golf. You chop food, you pan fry it - what else is there to it?

One overseas diner told me that he was not going to come back to Hong Kong, but after visiting my restaurant he saw that there was more to our city than he originally thought, and he would therefore be back. That made me proud.

I feel and look healthy. So I will look good in a waitress uniform.

Foie gras is a breeze to cook, something that can't go wrong.

I especially like to make my own ginkgo soup, bean curd sheet soup, and red bean soup. This way, I can control the sugar portions.

I used to create meals for my friends. Eventually one of them suggested opening a restaurant. So I did.

The core of who I am is Canadian.

I'm not cheap but I'm not unaffordable.

The Brits like to see their local chefs do well - when a foreign chef comes in - even Joel Robuchon - they are harshly critical.

I love to go to Hunter's Pizza on Huntingwood and Birchmount. That's in Scarborough, of course! It's been in the same family for two generations. It's been there since I moved there in '67, so it's been there for 50 years. I can't claim it's the best pizza in the world but I can say it's my favorite pizza place.

Airplanes are a good place to concentrate because you get no emails, no phone calls.

We Chinese use a lot of ginger and green onions to flavor dishes but not to overpower them. Westerners have this misconception that we eat the ginger and green onion, but we leave those on the plate.

I can't remember a dish my mother made that to me was pleasant. To this day I have a phobia of instant noodles.

Diabetes is not curable. It's sustainable.

A symbol in Chinese Buddhism is the lotus plant, which regenerates every year, symbolizing life, renewal, and the Buddha himself. Actually it is used in many Asian religions including Hinduism. Few people think of it as food even though it is used as an ingredient all the time.

I just love maple syrup!

Anybody can cook for chefs. I cooked for a three Michelin star chef when I was cooking at home.

While you can have the cult of the celebrity chef, the food still must taste good.

Calling yourself God is blasphemous, but calling yourself demon isn't.

All the earrings are mostly crosses. It's kind of a contradiction to wear it since I'm known as the Demon Chef. They're all custom-made. Some are Tiffany's. Some are Stephen Webster from England.

I grew up in a family that was aware of the consequences of diabetes.

I like a lot of things but I am diabetic so I have to be careful with sugars.

It is not difficult now to make good food because we have sophisticated equipment and refined ingredients. Being innovative also helps you. It sets you apart from other chefs. But taste is king.

Lowbrow ingredients don't equal inexpensive or not tasty food. In fact, it requires even more skill to make something simple into something spectacular.