To a certain subset of home cooks, especially those interested in Japanese-influenced comfort food, Kevin Serai and Anna Archibald are a domestic god and goddess. Both born and raised on Oahu, the two met in New York City and quickly bonded over home cooking and mom-and-pop takeout spots back in Hawaii. Their shared love of both turned into a recipe, lifestyle and merchandise brand, Cabagges World. No, that is not misspelled.
Now with nearly two million followers across Instagram and TikTok, Ms. Archibald and Mr. Serai find themselves traveling and eating in cities around the world — Mexico City, Singapore and Taipei, Taiwan, to name a few — as well as their home base of New York City. Read on, for their favorite spots for family-style dining in Chinatown, why they think L.A. is best for lunch and New York is best for dinner, and where they’d have their farewell dinner if they ever left the city.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Cabagges World’s New York City Dining History
What was the first restaurant you remember eating at in New York City?
Kevin Serai: My first sublet was in Murray Hill in 2014. My roommate and I went to eat at Haandi, a Pakistani restaurant on Lexington. The owner told us to order at the counter, then sit down to eat, then pay at the register after. We were mesmerized by all the options and walked away stuffed. Hours later, after running some errands in the city, we had a moment of realization that neither of us had paid. So we went back the next day. I still eat there when I’m in the area.
Anna Archibald: Not necessarily the first, but I remember my older cousin taking me to Karasu, the Japanese speakeasy restaurant behind Walter’s in Fort Greene, very early after moving to New York City. I was a freshman in college and had never really heard of a “speakeasy” as a concept, and it was a type of dining environment I had never experienced before. I remember thinking how beautiful and elegant everything was, down to the plates and silverware, and how the back bar looked in the moody lighting.
What New York City restaurant do you miss the most?
Archibald: 88 Lan Zhou. It was the first place I loved in Chinatown when I moved here, and I would buy bags of their frozen dumplings to cook at home. Those dumplings and the noodle soup carried me through my first winters going to college in the city!
Serai: I think about Cup & Saucer all the time. It was the perfect diner in Chinatown, and I spent many hung over mornings there alone. It was peaceful, the food was exactly what it needed to be, and it had a counter facing the street that was perfect for people-watching. If you had leftovers, they’d pack it up and throw a doughnut in there.
If a friend asks you for a restaurant recommendation in New York City, where do you send them?
Serai: I tell a lot of people to visit S&P Lunch. It’s the perfect middle ground between touristy and local, contemporary and longstanding, and they have solid versions of all the deli classics. It’s a great meal to center a morning/afternoon around.
What’s a historical New York City restaurant where you wish you had eaten?
Serai: I’ve seen images of the Crystal Room at the old Tavern on the Green and wish it still existed. Would be such a fun place to have a celebratory lunch with all your friends in peak summer, when the park is most alive.
What is the most romantic or cozy restaurant in New York City?
Archibald: I showed him Hart’s — it was my favorite first. Jr & Son. I also love Estela. The food always feels special, even though their menu hits stay the same. I love that the interior is romantic but understated, not too fussy or overly decorated. It’s very intimate, and the space is quite small but not in a crowded way, just in a way that makes you feel lucky to grab a seat.
What is the most underrated New York City restaurant?
Archibald: Hart’s! Their other restaurants get a lot of love (Cervo’s, Eel Bar, et cetera), but Hart’s is our most beloved. It’s beautiful and tiny, I love the interior and that there are just three or four bar seats. But the food is consistently delicious! They iterate on a lot of their menu staples, keeping the format of dishes while changing the ingredients for seasonality. For example, they almost always have some kind of delicious Milanese with dressed vegetables on top, but it might vary from a cold cucumber and herb salad to roasted peppers or yogurt and a confit tomato week to week. It’s predictable but not, which I think is what makes it a place we want to visit regularly. We’ve had a lot of meals there that stand out above any other restaurants we visit in the city.
What is the most splurge-worthy restaurant in New York City?
Serai: I think any Chinese banquet-style meal would be fun to splurge on. There’s so many great versions of that in Chinatown. I’d maybe go somewhere like Uncle Lou with a bunch of friends and order a whole Peking duck, steamed Chilean sea bass and a black bean lobster. It’s such a fun place to eat, and they’re open late.
What New York City restaurant is on your bucket list?
Archibald: Earlier this year we crossed off our No. 1 bucket list restaurant — Eleven Madison Park! We wanted to celebrate us both hitting 10 years of living in New York, and that restaurant always felt like such an icon of the city to both of us. The experience was very cool. Everything that people say about the hospitality and the service is 100 percent true and blew us away. Just their attention and all the special touches. We sat for dinner at 6 p.m. and we were like, ‘Oh, this is our table.’ Even after you finish the meal, they have drinks for you. I think there’s something really special about that experience of like, this is the night. We’re not doing this on our way to somewhere else.
Next on our list, Le Bernardin, the Grill or Masa. We’re not into fine dining on the regular, but we’ve decided we want to treat ourselves once a year to an experience like that, as a way to celebrate milestones.
If you were leaving New York City forever, where would you have your farewell dinner?
Congee Village! It’s where we go most often with friends and have so many memories at that place. It’s perfect for a casual dinner, but the food is also good enough for a celebration. There are a few dishes we’d have to enjoy one last time: the house special chicken. A good sweet-and-sour pour. Beef chow fun noodles.
Where did you enjoy your favorite meal this year?
Serai: We had a trip planned to Singapore and Hong Kong. We knew we wanted to find a city to visit in the middle of that trip. We decided to head north to Penang, Malaysia, for the first time this year, and the food blew us away. We’ll never forget the hokkien mee (prawn noodles) we had on a popular hawker street there.
What is your favorite New York City neighborhood to dine out in?
Serai: Chinatown and the Lower East Side. Most of my time living in New York I’ve just learned so much about Chinese food and Cantonese cooking and really fell in love with it.
Archibald: And Fort Greene. It’s less about the specific restaurants. I just love that neighborhood. It’s such a nice neighborhood to meet up with a friend and be like, let’s get a drink somewhere. And then walk to the next place.
Cabagges World’s Dining HabitsWhat dish do you always order if it’s on the menu?
Serai: Steak frites. I can never really bring myself to make fries at home, so this dish really only exists at restaurants to me. And I’ll get it every time.
Archibald: Artichokes! I just love them so much, but we don’t usually make them at home so it feels like a treat.
What ingredient do you eat around or avoid if it’s in a dish?
Archibald: Raisins. I can tolerate them, but they’re one of the very few ingredients I consistently avoid. They’re always showing up in things I don’t want to be sweet.
Serai: Whole cherry tomatoes.
What is the best time to sit down for dinner?
Archibald: 8 p.m.
Serai: 7:30 p.m.
How long would you be willing to wait for a table at a restaurant you really wanted to go to?
Archibald: Forty-five minutes to an hour, but it totally depends on my mood that day and if waiting is accounted into my plan for the evening. If I’m with a friend, and we can leave to get a drink while we wait, then I’m content to wait. If I’m with Kevin, and I know one of us is going to get hangry, then I’d cut that time in half.
Linger after a meal, or pay the check and leave?
Linger, but it depends on the restaurant. We’ll usually hang out until the servers start hinting it’s time to go.
Obviously, you dine out most often with one another. How do your dining habits compare?
Serai: I think we’re generally on the same page when we go to a restaurant, both in terms of just, like, the vibe and the food. I think that probably when it comes to a menu, I lean toward the more meaty, richer types of dishes, and Anna kind of veers toward more fresh, acidic, bright kind of foods. But I think because of that, when we sit down, there’s always a combination of both of those types of things, you know, maybe there’ll be one thing that she orders that she probably prefers and maybe I’ll get something that I prefer. But it’s, like, as a complete meal, it’ll usually, like, balance itself out. And I think we’re also both down to just try anything.
Archibald: I’ll say the only thing is, I feel like you get more fatigued from the small plates of it all. Besides just each other, we eat out with our close friends a lot — we often end any given night out at a large family-style Chinese dinner.
What do you look for in a dining companion?
Someone who’s OK with over-ordering just a little. Bonus points if they have some gossip to share.
What restaurant dish has become too expensive?
All of them!
Do you order dessert?
We’re 50-50 on desserts. It really depends on the occasion. If it’s just us two eating, we probably won’t get dessert. If we’re with friends, we’ll probably get dessert. And we’ll usually lean toward icy or cold desserts, not pastry.
If you consider yourself a dessert person, what’s a restaurant you would go to just for the desserts?
Serai: Bonnie’s for the sundae: malted fried milk, Ovaltine hot fudge, vanilla ice cream, plus buttered peanuts.
Archibald: Leo for soft serve! I used to live quite close, and it was a go-to dinner spot for me, and one of the only places I would consistently order dessert! Their flavors are always so good: There was some kind of watermelon and basil combination a few summers ago that still lives rent-free in my mind
Family-style, or order just for yourself?
Archibald: Family style! Even when it’s just us two.
Do you ever dine at restaurants by yourself?
Yes, but mostly in Chinatown. Especially at a communal table at somewhere like Great N.Y. Noodletown, where your table mates are a mix of Chinese elders and tourists.
Do you order off the cocktail menu, or do you order the same drink everywhere?
Serai: The lightest, coldest beer possible.
Archibald: Dirty martini.
What is your stance on spiels from your server?
Servers and restaurants just need to communicate essential information. Sometimes spiels are needed when the menu isn’t straightforward or obvious.
Restaurant pet peeves?
Archibald: When restaurant menus only list ingredients instead of any descriptors or methods of preparation. But what is this?
Lightning RoundIs brunch good, or inherently evil?
Good in L.A. Evil in New York.
Archibald: My stance that I’ve developed about L.A. is that it’s really good at breakfast and lunch, and New York is good at dinner. I used to work brunches at a very brunchy place, and obviously everyone finds that to be evil.
Serai: Sitting outside, sitting in the sun, drinking a smoothie. Brunch feels good in L.A.
Bagel order?
Archibald: Everything bagel toasted, scallion tofu cream cheese, slice of tomato.
Serai: I love a bialy. Onion, garlic or plain. I’d rather have a garlic bialy, toasted, scallion cream cheese, slice of tomato. It’s the perfect texture and size. A bagel is too much.
Are there any taboo dinner subjects?
Serai: Anything that will make me lose my appetite.
Do restaurant grades matter to you?
Archibald: Honestly, not really. Having worked in restaurants I know how arbitrary and irrelevant to food safety some of the grading system can be.
If you had a restaurant, what would you call it, and what type of food would it serve?
A buffet that focuses on Asian stews, soups and curries. You can get these, like, comforting Asian staples that are kind of impossible to find unless you’re sitting down at a nice restaurant, like a Japanese curry or hayashi rice or Korean tofu soups. We stayed at this hotel in Singapore that did this for breakfast, and it was awesome.