San Francisco restaurateur Lauren Kiino runs three businesses: Il Cane Rosso in the Ferry Building, the grab-and-go café Fearless, and the newly opened Red Dog Restaurant in SoMa. Her favorite smell is freshly baked bread, her least favorite is hot asphalt, and she'd rather be an archaeologist.
Hey, Lauren Kino. Welcome to another Vood Dinner.
Thank you very much.
So this is fun because it's not at the Vood in Seattle, and I need you to speak up really loudly because we're in a clean room. Look at this crazy place where we're doing dinner tonight. This is so cool. So tell us a little bit about yourself.
Well, I own 3 restaurants in San Francisco and 3 businesses in San Francisco. The first one is called Il Cane Rosso. It's located in the Ferry Building.
Awesome. I've been there. Yeah.
Opened 2 more places, one called Fearless, which is a grab-and-go cafe with coffee, and then we also just opened Red Dog Restaurant in SoMa as well.
And you never sleep.
Well, the last few weeks haven't been very sleep-friendly, so—
If you go to the Red Dog site, you'll see that it's 10 hours and 2 minutes and 7 seconds before they open. Really fun to watch the countdown. So congratulations.
Thank you.
I can't believe we're so lucky to have you tonight when you're doing all these things, so thank you very much. Hand of God is on us as we get you tonight. So, as I explained, we always love to do the Inside the 'Boud Studio. So just a couple questions and learn a little bit more about you. Number 1, what is your favorite smell?
Probably a freshly baking bread.
What's your least favorite smell?
Food-related or—
Could be anything.
Probably hot asphalt.
Yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah.
What's your favorite spice?
Um, I guess lately it's probably been smoked pimentón from Spain, like a smoked paprika. Yeah,
yeah, yeah. And your least favorite spice?
Least favorite spice, um, probably bay leaves, actually. Dry bay leaves.
Yeah, yeah. What turns you on?
Really fresh ingredients from the farmers market.
What turns you off?
Probably Cisco truck food. Food from the Cisco trucks.
Yeah, yeah. So if you could do any other job except the one you're doing, what would it be?
I don't know. Let's see. That's a hard one. I would probably be an archaeologist or something like that.
Archaeologist?
I could travel and, you know, like just dig things up and be in the field.
Fantastic. What's your favorite curse word?
Um, I don't know. Um, probably, uh—
You can say it.
Probably ming mongs. I mean, it's not really a curse word, but yeah.
Meatballs?
Ming mongs. Ming mongs?
What is ming mong?
It just means basically a ding dong. Someone who's not very smart.
Ming mong. And finally, when you go into heaven and you're at the pearly gates, what would you like the man to say to you?
I guess welcome, Crystal.
Awesome. We're super excited. Thank you for being part of this tonight. I can't wait to try the wine with your amazing Awesome. Thanks so much.
Thank you.
