The first thing you need to know before you listen to this is a simple fact: I now realize that three people inside the Short Grain Food Truck is just too much sound, especially when we all have a good laugh and there’s traffic and train tracks nearby. But to get that food truck life, you have to get inside the truck. It was 90ish degrees on the afternoon I visited Shuai and Corrie Wang after a shift, so I brought shift beers and we sat on milk crates to talk about the real world challenges that as Shuai explains, are much less glamorous than that movie Chef. Although he was named a semi-finalist for the 2017 James Beard Rising Star Chef, an Eater Young Gun, a Zagat 30 Under 30 (I bylined that one, by the way), and Short Grain was named one of America’s Best New Restaurants by Bon Appetit in 2016, this sound, this space where he can’t fully stand up, is still pretty much his day to day. Corrie’s by his side, working the window, handling admin duties, and bringing the warmth, and there’s local sourcing for a rotating menu, the cult following of the OG bowl, Corrie writing (did I mention she is a badass young adult novelist working on her second book?), scheduling restaurant pop ups, and basically, hydrating enough to avoid heat strokes while working inside a metal box with Charleston heat and humidity pressing down on it. Pull up a milk crate and have a chat with us.