Call me Mr. Eats!

I believe that food and cooking are the most enjoyable things in life.

No matter where you’re from, how old you are, or any immutable characteristics that make you, you, I think we have one thing in common:

A love for great food.

My goal is to share with you some of my favorite foods, which will hopefully be some of your favorites, too!

What is Straight Up Eats?

Straight Up Eats is a community for food lovers to learn about and explore the culinary experience. Whether you’re a first-time home cook, or a seasoned professional, I want to bring you amazing Asian recipes that you can make at home! 

Join This Food Adventure!

I want to inspire you to cook and enjoy the experience of eating something truly delicious that you’ve made yourself! I invite you to join my email newsletter, where I share all of my amazing recipes, news, and updates with you! Just fill out the form and click “Send!”

Our Story

Growing up, I’ve always had a love food. It was so strong, that I was known in my family as “the boy that loves food.” 

In fact, some of my childhood pictures where I looked the happiest had food in them!

 

In 2011, I moved to Japan to teach English. It was one of the biggest changes in my life. I loved every minute of it. I enjoyed the town I lived in, the students I taught, and the friends that I made.

Then one day, I met the love of my life.

 

Mrs. Eats and I met at a party. And although we lived 3 hours apart at that time, we called each other every night and met up every weekend. The more we got to know each other, the more I realized how special this girl was. She was funny, cool, interesting, and we had so much in common.

She was positive and adventurous, and loves all things new and different; things that I am not and do not enjoy (although I swear, I’m working on it!).

We also have a shared love for great food.

After a year of dating, I decided to resign from my job and move to be closer to her.

Our relationship has been an incredible journey for both of us and I don’t regret anything at all. I finally found my soul mate, my true best friend, and my life-long eating buddy 🙂

But one thing really bothered me.

We were sitting at our usual cafe one Saturday afternoon having coffee and croissants. At the time, Mrs. Eats enjoyed making little videos of us on her phone.

Not just short recorded clips, but videos with titles and music. She recorded the events of the day and made stories with them.

In the cafe, she showed me the latest video she made. It recapped what we did that day, and ended with clips of us in that very cafe, eating croissants.

As these clips flew across the screens, the words, “LOVE”, “LAUGH”, and “ADVENTURE” popped up on screen.

My heart broke when I saw that.

“Is this really an adventure? Eating croissants in the same cafe we’ve been going to almost every weekend?”, I thought to myself. She yearns for something new and exciting. She yearns for adventure. This is not it.

We both enjoyed watching a variety of content creators on Youtube. In particular, we both enjoyed food and travel videos.

Sometimes when we went to restaurants together, we would pretend we were making our own videos, talking to each other, as if we were recording the whole experience!

What if we actually DID record ourselves?

So we tried it. I made a few videos and posted them on Youtube. I was the on-camera guy and she was my camera girl.

We went to some of our favorite restaurants and made a few videos and had a blast! It made going out to the “same old places” an adventure in itself.

When we started receiving comments, that’s when everything changed! We realized that people were actually ENJOYING our videos!

We were able to, not only create an adventure for ourselves, but take others along for the ride!

But in order for us to make videos consistently, it takes two things: time and money.

At the time, I was working 10-hour days, 6 days a week. I barely had time, not to mention, energy. But if I cut my hours back, we wouldn’t have enough money. 

I brought the idea up with Mrs. Eats, and she was on-board 100%. She told me this:

I know how important this is to you and I want to support you. Please don’t worry about money, I will work more.”

I cut back my hours at work, which freed me up to continue making videos. Mrs. Eats took extra hours at her job to support us.

I began to make more food and travel videos on Youtube, but I also tried livestreaming on Twitch.tv. I had a live cooking show three times a week, and although it was hard work, the viewers really enjoyed it.

Mrs. Eats said, “Wow, cooking is one of your great strengths!” I never considered myself to be good at cooking, but hearing her say that changed my mind a little bit. So, I decided to make a few cooking videos on Youtube, just to see what would happen.

They became the best performing videos I had ever made at the time.

Suddenly I saw more views, likes, and comments than I’d ever seen on any one of my videos before. Mrs. Eats said, “See, I told you! Cooking is one of your great strengths!”

That brings us to today

Although we both have a love for food & travel, we’re now focused on showing you how to make amazing Asian recipes at home!

I want to share my passion and my strength with all of you! And after watching one of our videos, I hope to inspire, educate, and entertain you all!

Thanks for getting to know more about us! 

– Mr. & Mrs. Eats

 

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