If Yan can cook, so can you. That’s been Chef Martin Yan’s signature saying since the early '80s when the chef and cookbook author appeared on television sets across the country bringing Chinese food to American tables.
Since then, he’s written more than 30 cookbooks and starred in more than 3,500 episodes of “Yan Can Cook." It is still one of the longest-running cooking shows in the world.
Now Yan is bringing his delicious flavors from hand-pulled noodles to Peking duck to the Las Vegas Strip. Chef Martin Yan is opening M.Y. Asia at the new Horseshoe Resort very soon. He says it will be like nothing you've seen before.
“We basically hand pull noodles … turn one piece of dough into 16,000 strands of noodles by hand. And sometimes, we do it blindfolded.”
Yan, 73, is known as much for his enormous energy as his innovative cooking. He can still debone a chicken in 18 seconds! One of the YouTube clips of this feat has almost 4 million views. So how does he do it?
Food is medicine. When you ... diet and exercise ... I exercise everyday. I have not gained one pound. And I feel very, very good.
Yan also feels good about his influence on younger generations of cooks and on the Asian American and Pacific Islander community. He realizes in these times of political divide, racial tension and uncertainty, his message that food can unite is essential.
I actually feel that food is a very good equalizer. Food is a great connector, to connect people. And if people understand food and love food, in a round table, we are all good friends.
If you're like me and you'd like to sit at one of his roundtables in Las Vegas, Yan hopes to open M.Y. Asia at the incoming Horseshoe, currently Bally's, by late summer.
Chef Martin Yan, M.Y. Asia chef, cookbook author
