Rice is an essential part of the Afro-Asian-American flavor conversation. We take it very seriously. There were certain people at the restaurant who we didn’t let cook the rice. Alfredo, for example, was 100 percent not allowed to cook rice. On the other hand, one day, one of our wok cooks called in sick. (Turns out he was driving an Uber on the side.) Melvin, who at the time was our dishwasher, offered to fill in. I said, “No way, Melvin, you can’t just jump from dishwasher to wok cook.” But it turns out that Melvin, who’s from Grenada, has a gift for cooking rice. He grew up cooking with his grandmother. When Tsering, our lead wok cook, who’s from Tibet, came back from vacation, he began to train Melvin. Melvin became one of our lead wok cooks. It’s in his bones.