Welcome!
My name is Randy Lau 👋 I am a husband, father of 3 kids, and a proud son of two Chinese immigrants. To preserve my dad’s wisdom and recipes for our kids, I’m learning from him and sharing the results with you. Made With Lau is our story!
Our Story
My dad & his love language: cooking
My dad's started cooking when he was 12 years old, fending for himself in China after being separated from his parents.
Being thrust into adulthood at a young age, he now knows how to cook over 2,000 recipes from memory, ingrained by his childhood in Toisan, culinary school in China, running a food cart on Wall Street, opening his own restaurant in the Bay Area, California, and continuing to cook after said restaurant was burned down in the 90s.
My dad was a stud in his youth!
Growing up, I was spoiled by my dad’s food, and I’ve always wanted to capture my favorite recipes and his 50 years of professional experience as a Chinese chef.
After a lifetime of wanting, I pitched my parents on the idea of starting a YouTube channel together.
On September 1st, 2020, we finally published our very first recipe, Mapo Tofu, on YouTube and here on our blog to preserve our Cantonese heritage for our children and future generations to come.
As a nerdy engineer, I love dissecting how my dad flows effortlessly through the kitchen (and forcing him to use measuring spoons), so that the rest of us can recreate the Chinese dishes we all know and love.
Filming our first recipe video (June 8th, 2020)
Awards & Recognition
Since then, our family and Made With Lau grew faster than I could have ever imagined, from having our 1st, 2nd, and 3rd kids, surpassing 1 million subscribers on YouTube in 2 years, having YouTube make a documentary about us, being featured in CNN, Today, and New York Times (to name a few)!
Now, we’ve become one of the most trusted authorities for teaching Chinese cooking, reaching millions of people every month, with two James Beard Awards for our heartfelt storytelling and in-depth instruction.
4 years later, accepting our 2 James Beard Awards (June 8th, 2024). Photo Credit: James Beard Foundation
Our Why
When I started Made With Lau, I was doing it for my kids, so that one day, they might deeply understand what it means to be Cantonese and to learn how to cook the incredible food that my dad made for us every single day.
What I’ve come to realize is how many other people yearn for deeper connection, for preserving our culture, and to recreate the food that reconnects with our past, our family, and what it means to be human.
It’s an honor to be here and to share in the journey with you.
With love,
Randy & the Lau family
P.S - This video encapsulates our heart and soul really well :) (It's a vlog where I go to the White House, the James Beard Awards, and have my third kid, all in one month!)
J. Kenji López-Alt
It’s been only a few short years since the time I was introduced to Made with Lau, but in that period they have grown to become one of my most trusted resources. Their unique balance of tradition and modernity, of quality and practicality makes them uniquely useful for home cooks. They are an invaluable resource for anyone interested in Chinese cooking.
Meet our family
We are the Laus, three generations connected by our love of food and family! We didn't grow up with a ton of material wealth, but our parents nurtured us with selfless love, delicious food, and strong values.
Photo Credits: Sarah Yeoman
Chung Sun Lau
The patriarch. Expert chef, avid gardener, master flautist.
My dad was born and raised in rural Toisan, China, before eventually leaving his life behind and immigrating to New York in 1981, in pursuit of a better life for his future family.
Following his father's footsteps, he opened a successful Chinese restaurant in California's Bay Area in the 80s.
Decades later, he's now the internet's favorite Cantonese chef!
Jenny Lau
The matriarch. Intense work ethic, extremely frugal, constantly learning.
My mom was also born and raised in Guangzhou, China. Shortly after marrying my dad, she joined him in America, working her way up as a seamstress, co-restaurateur with my dad, and eventually a decades-long career as a nurse assistant.
In order to become a nurse, my mom locked herself in our bathroom for hours & months on end, studying not only English, but medical terms and concepts. She graduated at the top of her class.
Jenn Lau
My big sister. Fiercely loyal, full-time role model, mother of 2, auntie to 3.
During a brief pit stop in New York, my parents had my sister before finally settling down in California. She paved the way for me as a straight-A student, rebellious teen, and loving sister.
Jenn still lives close by in the Bay Area, thriving in the competitive world of enterprise sales, and happily married with two kids of her own!
Randy Lau
Extremely fortunate son, brother, husband, and father.
After growing up in the Bay Area, I shipped off to UCLA to study engineering. (Definitely not using my degree, but I did meet my wife there!) Through a 10-year-whirlwind of career choices that stressed my parents out, I had gathered all of these seemingly random skills in storytelling, video, social media & marketing, building websites and apps. When I discovered my calling to start Made With Lau, I leaned on everything I had learned to share our family's stories in the best ways that I knew how.
Kathlyn Hart Lau
My lovely wife. Effortlessly charming, always energetic, constantly inspiring.
Kat is a gorgeous hapa (half-Chinese), and a Bay Area native. We met volunteering for UCLA UniCamp (a youth summer camp). Apparently she had a crush on me from the start, but I had no idea how awesome she was until months later.
On July 30th, 2010, we set off in my Camry for a 5 hour car ride from LA to SF (just us two). We hit it off. Now, we're married with 3 kids!
Cameron Lau
Our oldest son!
Kat and I named Cameron after our love story. 10 years prior, we met volunteering in UniCamp, spent 5 hours in my Camry realizing we might be soulmates, flirting with her by taking pics of her with my camera.
My parents named him "Wei Hong" in Cantonese, which means great plans & prospects.
Mayalyn Lau
Our middle child!
Kat and I also named Mayalyn after our love story. We got engaged on May 5th (a nod to driving for 5 hours on Highway 5), and we spent a lot of time in Chiang Mai in Thailand while backpacking through Asia.
My parents named her "Wei Yee" in Cantonese, which means smart, bright, and beautiful.
Not intentional.. but Maya's initials are MWL, which is the same as Made With Lau abbreviated.
Julian Lau
Our youngest son!
For us, the name Julian is a quintuple entendre: Kat and I started dating in July, we spent a lot of time in an area called Laxman Jhula in Rishikesh, India, my mom's name starts with a J, he is our jewel, and "ju" sounds like "cook" in Cantonese.
My parents named him "Wei Jun" in Cantonese, which means mighty, talented, eminent, and handsome.
Joanne Molinaro - The Korean Vegan
Made With Lau is my first stop anytime I want to learn how to make my favorite Chinese dishes--and I'm vegan. The Made With Lau family makes Chinese cuisine so approachable and doable, I always feel inspired and empowered to figure out ways to make plant-based versions, armed with the cooking fundamentals their joyous instruction imparts.
Highlights on our Journey
Made With Lau has been one of the biggest blessings for our family, deepening our bonds and showing us places and experiences we could have never imagined.
Like my dad cooking for 100+ people with the James Beard Foundation:
Or us passing 100,000 subscribers on YouTube in our first 7 months:
Or that time I surprised my parents with a trip to Hawaii:
Or that time I surprised my dad with tickets to the NBA finals (go Warriors!):
We are so grateful we get to share such meaningful, fulfilling stories with all of you. Thank you for being on the journey with us!
Andrew Zimmern
I love Made With Lau because it’s about food, family and connecting both in a 1+1=5 kind of way. I also believe it is additive to our canon of culinary literacy, a rare thing these days where most food work in any media format is reductive or derivative. Most importantly, their food tastes good!
Our cookbook
We just started writing a cookbook! We’re planning for it to come out in early 2027.
But I’m already discovering that the cookbook is like an iceberg. In order to support the shiny part that everybody gets to see, there is a MASSIVE body of work underneath it all.
That's why we created a newsletter will share the best nuggets of wisdom, recipes, techniques, and stories as I learn from my dad, in hopes of making the most helpful, timeless book on Chinese cooking possible.
More than just recipes (of which we have many), I am seeking to understand and share…
- How my dad cooks with intuition - the “why” behind the subtle pinches of flavors, micro adjustments on heat dials, and all the sensory cues and unspoken rules he lives by.
- How my parents shop and keep ingredients fresh - learning how they sift through produce aisles and vegetable markets in Chinatown, and what to dishes to cook with them.
- “Mother Recipes” - the ratios and guidelines underlying every variety of fried rice, chow mein, congee, soup, and etc.
This newsletter is for curious food lovers, people who yearn to recreate the food they grew up with, and anyone who wants to understand the deeper “how” and “why” behind great Cantonese cooking.
Pull up a stool at our kitchen island as we create this book!