Urban Belly to Get Unique Eats Spotlight

It looks like Crisp isn't the only local Asian spot to get a little TV love. We learned today that a six-person film crew from Cooking Channel's Unique Eats spent 10 hours shooting at Urban Belly yesterday.

Owner Bill Kim said the crew arrived around 4:30 a.m. and more or less set up at one table, which is 25 percent of the restaurant's space. On the plus side, Kim said they weren't slammed yesterday, which made filming easier. "The kitchen is like 150 square feet and to have three people in the kitchen with a camera person and a lighting person it was really tight," Kim said.

During the shoot, Kim said they prepared all five types of dumplings, the Urbanbelly ramen (with pork belly, shiitake and pho broth) and the phat rice. Kim said the team was pretty well organized, meticulous and got some great shots, including close-ups and some high-def captures. "It's going to be national exposure and we like to be in control of our destiny by going through different outlets," Kim said. "That gave us a lot of control and they asked if we were comfortable doing certain things and often people don't ask and they just shoot."

Kim has chef Art Smith to thank for getting Urban Belly on the Unique Eats crew's radar; he featured the restaurant's Rice Noodle with hominy, kimchi and a spicy pork broth on the show The Best Thing I Ever Ate.

The show is schedule to air sometime in March and Kim said it's an Asian-themed episode including restaurants from different parts of the country, including New York and North Carolina. "We're the noodle and dumpling part of it," he said.
· Crisp to Appear on Cooking Channel's Unique Eats

Unique Eats crew at Urban Belly [Photo: Rick Aguilar/Facebook]