Work Begets Work: A Pop-Up Recap at Daily Cali

The more you do something, the more people seek you out to do more of that thing. You hear it from child actors who grow up into working-age adults — the common theme is that you get locked into a perception of what got you there, frozen in time at the age you got famous.

Not to say that I'm by any means famous, nor a successful child actor. But after the apartment café post, I've had several friends reach out asking me to host even more pop-ups. Which is great — work begets more work, and in doing it, you figure it out along the way.

Some I couldn't commit to because of scheduling conflicts, but I was more than happy to help my friend Desmond at Daily Cali for his fifth anniversary celebration. Tucked away in Sheung Wan, he and his team have built a community over the past year helping people realize they can get a seriously good workout with just their body weight — no gym, no weights needed. As it turns out, the burden of carrying your own body weight can get you pretty far, and earn you some pretty impressive looks at the monkey bars and gymnastics rings at your local park.

As my first paid event (woo — income!), there were learnings from the apartment café that I knew I wanted to carry forward:

First — don't do new things. Just repeat the hits. Second — vibe is as important as the food. And third — give them the hits, but also give them something unexpected. As much as it matters to give people what they want, you have to keep it fresh for yourself. I mean, why else would Bieber play his new stuff alongside his classics at Coachella? There's something to learn from that.

These three rules shaped everything about how I approached the Daily Cali pop-up — from the setup, to the menu, to the way I wrapped each pastry.

As the first paid engagement for Backyard Izakaya, the vibe had to be right. Special shout-out to Desmond and the Daily Cali team for being gracious enough to hook me up with a banner and a very cool Daily Cali tee — it made the whole setup look a little more official.

Having a logo that people can attribute to your brand matters more than you'd think. You want things to look cohesive, to have a visual style that's representative of what you're trying to provide. We also brought in flowers, which helped create what I call the "homey feel" — because at its core, Backyard Izakaya is about inviting someone into your backyard to share a meal and a conversation. Flowers add a warmth to that. As a guy, I don't naturally gravitate toward florals, but I've come to recognize how much of a difference they make. It's the easiest way to make a setup look a level nicer than it otherwise would.

(Fun backstory: before Backyard Izakaya and all my other ventures, I was trying to sell enamel porcelain jars on Amazon as a private seller — and that's actually where the original idea came from. But that's a story for another day.)

And then there was the packaging. I had this memory of watching Chef's Table — the Christina Tosi episode — where she's hand-stamping the Milk Bar logo onto each of her coffee cups. I thought it was such a brilliant move. It makes everything feel a little more personalized, a little more custom, than just printing out a sticker and slapping it on a label. So that's what I did — I hand-stamped the Backyard Izakaya logo onto each paper pastry wrapper. It's a small thing, but I think it shows people you took the time to care. And because it doesn't look perfect — which is exactly the point — it feels more homey. My recommendation: put on a movie, grab some ink, and start stamping. It's actually pretty therapeutic.

One thing that didn't go to plan: the table. I'd ordered a nice one on Taobao, but it arrived in two separate packages, the legs weren't level, there were no instructions, and — the kicker — the tabletop didn't even show up in time. I borrowed a table day-of. Lesson learned: always have a backup table, and be very careful buying furniture off Taobao.

But between the banner, the flowers, the hand-stamped wrappers, and the borrowed table nobody knew was a last-minute save — the stage was set. Now it was time to see if the food could match.

The philosophy is simple: give them the hits, then do something that keeps it interesting and fresh for you — something that gives you room to experiment. I didn't have much labor to work with — just me and my tiny, tiny kitchen oven.

This was the weird one — and the headliner. I'd found a butter mochi recipe on NYT Cooking that was already great, and I happen to live down the street from a specialty shop that only sells black sesame products — black sesame ice cream, powder, soup, soy milk, you name it. In my infinite creativity, I thought: why not combine the two? And lo and behold — a deep, jet-black sesame butter mochi.

It turned out to be a genuine hit, partly because it was a little weird. Most people in Hong Kong don't know what butter mochi is, but the black sesame flavor was familiar enough to make them curious. And here's what I learned from Costco: always give people samples. It might feel like you're giving something away for free, but more often than not, they end up buying it. Let's be honest — if you saw this on the side of the street and had no idea what it was, you're probably not reaching for your wallet. So I upcycled the scraps into tasting portions. Try before you buy. It worked.

These were the hit — carried over from the apartment café, and significantly better this time around. Puff pastry rolled up with candied cinnamon pecans, no glaze — just the caramelized sugar doing its thing. The lesson? More filling. When you roll it up, you want it packed so that every bite has crunch and satisfaction. My issue at the apartment café was that the buns were too small, too many, and not satisfying enough. Nobody wants a tiny bean-and-rice burrito when they could have the super burrito. So I went with the super burrito version of the sticky buns, and it paid off.

This one was also an easier sell — people already know what a sticky bun is, so as long as it looks good, they're in. I also had a jar of Trader Joe's pumpkin spice lying around, which turned out to be a great way to use it up. People loved the cinnamon-forward flavor. One learning: the American flavor profile runs sweeter than what lands here in Hong Kong, so I kept it dialed back.

For drinks, I made a black sugar ginger hot chocolate — and this was the other experiment. In traditional Chinese medicine, ginger is supposed to warm you from the inside out, and paired with rich hot chocolate, it felt like a proper wintry drink. Granted, this was March, but it still worked.

One technical note for next time: use baking chocolate — pure cocoa, pure sugar. I learned the hard way that you can't just grab any chocolate bar, melt it down, and add milk. A lot of commercial bars have emulsifiers and additives that make the drink taste off. My first trial batch was a little weird, but once I switched to pure baking chocolate, it was a different drink entirely.

I didn't mind giving this one away for free. Hot chocolate is a conversation starter — an icebreaker. "Want some hot chocolate?" and most people say yes. It's low-friction, it's warm, it draws people in. I also learned that while I personally like my hot chocolate thick, most people prefer it thinner — more like a hot chocolate milk. Note taken.

So that was the full lineup: two hits, two experiments, and all four things I'd happily make again.

In some ways, I'm writing this article as a selfish note to myself — a post-mortem to remember what worked, what didn't, and what to do differently next time. And maybe, just maybe, it's also a way to solicit any other offers out there. You want me to do more pop-ups? I'm listening.

People have told me I should open a bakery. Others ask if this is a real izakaya, or where the izakaya is located — and they're pleasantly surprised to find out it's actually a side gig, not my full-time thing.

But hey, maybe it will be one day. Who knows.

Savoring this moment with you,

Kevin L