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" Charlotte, North Carolina How&amp;#039;s this for the next Will Smith movie: A Brooklyn-born African-American kid \u2014 we&amp;#039;ll call him Bryan Emperor, a little hyperbolic but what the hell \u2014 becomes an exchange student in Japan, falls in love with Asian cooking, but becomes a banker for Lehman Brothers! While there, he delights in entertaining investors at top restaurants in New York, Tokyo, and Hong Kong. Then he gives up the high-finance life to follow his passion for cooking, attends the Culinary Institute of America, then endures long, grueling, humbling apprenticeships in tradition-bound Tokyo, including one at a kaiseki restaurant that almost never accepts Americans. He returns to New York to cook at Nobu, sells rare sakes. Then he becomes chef and manager at one of the most exciting Asian restaurants in America. Located across from the Time Warner Cable Arena, the stunning Kalu \u2014 that&amp;#039;s the restaurant in real life \u2014 is cavernous, with more than three hundred seats and a long, polished sushi bar. Emperor works every station and still finds time to check every table. He explains, he recommends, he educates his guests about his sublime sashimi, the Korean spicy wings, the Wagyu steak skewers with garlic chips, and, above all, the kamameshi iron rice pots (he&amp;#039;s one of few to use them in America), which cook rice and other ingredients to a savoriness and texture that will make you believe you never really tasted Asian rice before.  505 East Sixth Street; 704-910-4877; kalunc.com "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/restaurants/reviews/a8620/kalu-asian-kitchen-north-carolina-1110/>