Nathan Uy
Executive Chef
When Nathan was a young boy in 1975, his family fled their home in a war-torn city of Cambodia and migrated to the country to work the fields. His family planted rice and sweet potatoes and Nathan learned to cook from his father on the farm.
Nathan was a newly married man when the ruthless Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia. He worked for four years as a cook for the Communist Committee, making meals for 200 villagers every day. In 1979 he and his wife escaped this cruel lifestyle by walking 120 miles through the jungles of Thailand to Vietnam.
He left Cambodia when he was twenty six and moved to Renton, just outside of Seattle. Working in various Asian restaurants before landing at Wild Ginger, Nathan has worked here for over thirteen years, and runs the entire kitchen and its team of cooks. As part of his job, he is also responsible for training both line and prep cooks and speaks several languages - Cantonese, Vietnamese, Manchurian and English.
Like most chefs in the kitchen at Wild Ginger, Nathan plants a garden at home. Lush with pumpkins, tomatoes, salad and squash for soups, he is in charge of cooking at home, as well. At the moment, his favorite foods are Thai-inspired as they tend to include a bounty of herbs.
Sachia Tinsley
Pastry Chef
Food runs in Sachia’s blood – her mom is an amazing cook that drew from lots of cultures – Asian, Italian, Indian & Southern Creole, and her sister is the chef at Osteria la Spiga, a tratorria just up the way from Wild Ginger in Capitol Hill. Sachia is the resident Pastry Chef at both Wild Ginger and the Triple Door and oversees a staff of four in a small, organized space of the downstairs kitchen. She embraces the challenge of infusing Asian flavors into her pastry, using sesame, taro and black sticky rice when she can. Her love of food has extended into preserving the season and she has freezers full of fresh cranberries, Lapin cherries from Wenatchee, kumquat marmalade and peaches – all making an appearance on a plate in one of the restaurants sometime soon.
At her house in Burien, Sachia grows some ingredients of her own, harvesting cannellini beans and big stalks of beautiful corn. Her kitchen must-have is a pair of tongs, and at home she favors long braises cooked in one of her several cast iron pans. She never tires of cooking and continues to have ‘A-Ha!’ moments, most recently discovering that if you invert a plate over a saucepan of caramel, you diminish the risk of crystallization, which would ruin the whole batch. Pastry is fascinating stuff, especially for Sachia and her enthusiasm extends to the plate.
Ming Tan
Chef
For over ten years, Ming has been cooking in the kitchens at Wild Ginger, starting off in our first kitchen on Western Avenue. Ming moved with his family to Seattle from Kai Pan, China, and quickly became a key member of our team. He currently oversees a staff of over fifty cooks and manages the production of some of our most vital sauces and recipes. On any given day he can be found quietly leading his team by example; most often working right along side them as they prepare for the day. In Ming’s kitchen, there is no ‘boss’, just staff. For him, they are all passionate cooks.
At home, Ming cultivates his own kind of home-cooking by growing several vegetables in his backyard – an assortment of Asian greens, plums and green beans among them. He favors shopping at his local Asian Market and has never succumbed to the Western style of eating, preferring simple steamed fish (his favorite meal) over fast food. There are three practices to live by in Ming’s kitchen, whether at home or behind the stoves at Wild Ginger – clean, fresh, flavor – an admirable commitment to food that is evident on every plate.
Fei Yuma
Satay Chef
Fei was born in China, in southern Canton and moved to the United States in 1989 so that she could rejoin her family whom had immigrated years earlier. Wanting a larger family (which is not permitted in China) Fei moved here with her son and husband and they had another child. Fei’s first kitchen job was at a small restaurant in Chinatown making dim sum – something she had never done before. She lied to the owners so that she could find work and eventually honed her cooking skills before finding a home in the kitchen at Wild Ginger.
Fei now runs the satay station at Wild Ginger prepping over twenty different satays and making many of the sauces by hand. Teaching new cooks the recipes, Fei makes nine different sauces daily, mixes several marinades and preps the satays for the grill.
At home, Fei prefers to cook from her large wok. Her daughter says, “Mom, you’re the best,” and Fei, a self-taught cook, can not be more pleased with the compliment.