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4 BURGERS 4 CHEFS 4 WEEKS
LIL WOODY’S MARKS 10 YEARS OF BURGER COLLABORATIONS HIGHLIGHTING 40 TALENTED CHEFS
Chefs Aisha Ibrahim, Conner Cronin, Janet Beccera, Taylor Cheney Lend their Creativity to Culinary Collaboration from February 6- March 4, 2024
Chef Lineup
Paju Jr
Ingredients: 1/4lb Royal Ranch Beef Patty, American Cheese, Kalbi Sauce, Kimchi
Cucumber Coleslaw, Gochujang Aioli, Lil Woody’s Bun
Each year, Lil Woody’s brings back diner’s favorite sandwich from the previous year. Starting Tuesday, January 30, Lil Woody’s will feature the Korean-inspired burger from Paju Chef Bill Jeong. Bill was born in the countryside of South Korea and grew up in an environment where love and respect for food and healthy produce were pillars of family education. Throughout his childhood, he would spend many hours in the kitchen helping his mother prepare the nightly family dinner. This formative experience helped instill the foundation that led him to make a career of cooking.
Bill honed his cooking craft working for some of the best chefs on both coasts of the United States. His kitchen experience includes many Michelin star restaurants such as Fifth Floor, Jungsik NYC, and Gunter Seeger. Learn more about Bill at Paju.
Says Bill: “During the 2020 pandemic, we pivoted from in-restaurant dining to creating a Japanese sandwich pop-up for takeout. We needed to come up with food that could withstand traveling. We created many sandwich recipes, but the one that included kimchi coleslaw on our pork loin sandwich was a favorite. Our Paju Jr. burger for Lil Woody’s Burger Month is a play on that sandwich. The kimchi coleslaw counterbalances the richness and gives it texture. It is even more delicious with the umami built into it.”
Pyanggang Fried Chicken Sandwich
Ingredients: Fried Chicken Thigh, Burnt Coconut Aioli, Sawsawan Pickled Cucumbers, Scallions, Lil Woody’s Bun
Aisha Ibrahim was born in the Southern Philippines before immigrating to the United States as a child. Having no previous interest in cooking or hospitality, she first attended university on a basketball scholarship before shaking up her more traditional career path to leave behind a full ride to pursue her culinary career by attending the Le Cordon Bleu program in San Francisco at the age of 20. She graduated from the Le Cordon Bleu program, and launched her career in the Bay Area to hone her skills as a cook at notable restaurants such as Aqua, Commis, and later became a sous chef at Manresa before moving to the Basque Country to train at Azurmendi.
She was eventually tapped to become Chef de Cuisine for Eneko Atxa’s Aziamendi (listed as one of the World’s 50 Best’s original six restaurants to watch) in southern Thailand. Throughout her career, she has spent time at some of the best kitchens in the world including Kagurazaka Ishikawa, Kohaku, L’effervescence, and Ryugin.
She accepted the executive chef position at Canlis Restaurant in 2021 becoming the seventh executive chef in its 72-year history. She was most recently recognized as a 2023 Food & Wine Best New Chef of America. Learn more about Aisha at Canlis.
Says Aisha: “My sandwich is inspired by chicken pyanggang from the Tausug people. The Tausug are a neighboring tribe to my tribe in Mindanao. This chicken uses a paste made with burnt coconut, ginger, chili, garlic, onion, green onion, cane vinegar, Okinawa sugar, salt, and coconut milk. This paste is folded into an aioli which coats the fried chicken. This is a spicier and brighter version of the original and includes pickled cucumbers and scallions.”
Burger 4 Burger: Youth Development Program at Filipino Community of Seattle.
The Bremerton Burger
Ingredients: Royal Ranch Beef Patty, Crispy Coppa, Roasted Shimeji Mushrooms, Gruyere Cheese, XO Sauce, Garlic Aioli, Pickled Red Onions, Cilantro, Lil Woody’s Bun
*XO sauce contains shellfish
Conner took on the chef role at Darkalino’s Italian café in Pioneer Square when it opened in the summer of 2023. He oversees the menu focused on extruded pastas, fresh baked focaccia sandwiches and Italian dishes made from scratch with an emphasis on seasonality and approachability.
A native of Bremerton, Washington, Conner cooked fast food while in high school, but it was his job as line cook at Georgetown’s Mediterranean and Middle Eastern restaurant, Ciudad, that inspired him to take cooking on as a career.
In April 2021, Conner became sous chef at pop-up, Karachi Cowboys, started by a fellow coworker he knew from Seattle’s Mamnoon restaurant where he was sous chef/line cook in 2018. In 2019, he was chef at Bite Box on Upper Queen Anne, serving breakfast and lunch, and later pivoting to take-out amid Covid shut downs.
From 2022-2023, he held a line cook position with noted chef Maximillan Petty of Eden Hill in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood. Conner took on the role to work with chefs with more fine dining experience and to cook with food and ingredients with which he was less familiar. Learn more about Conner at Darkalino’s.
Says Conner: “Inspiration for this burger comes directly from my earliest memories growing up in Bremerton, WA. Growing up on the Puget Sound, I'd spend plenty of time combing the beaches looking for agates and sand dollars, crabs and starfish. It's these smells and flavors that I wanted to incorporate into my burger, which is a spin on the classic (and my favorite) mushroom - Swiss burger. I chose to utilize an "XO" sauce to achieve the incorporation of flavors from the sea. Traditionally "XO" sauce is a very luxurious and expensive sauce to create, often utilizing dried scallops, shrimp and cured ham. My version omits the scallops and features prosciutto scraps from Darkalino’s. While Bremerton is about as blue collar as they come, the natural beauty of the Puget Sound meeting the Olympic mountains always struck me as an interesting contrast. That contrast is what I am trying to capture with my Bremerton Burger: simple, classic, blue collar... but elevated in execution and flavor, which is most definitely a main tenet of my approach to my cooking style in general. ”
Burger 4 Burger: Seattle Children’s Hospital
Pancita Tostada Crunch
Ingredients: Royal Ranch Beef and Pork Patty, American Cheese, Jalapeños, Tomatoes, Onions, Mixed Greens, Morita Kewpie Aioli, Tostada, Ketchup, Mustard, Lil
Woody’s Bun
Janet Becerra is a first-generation Mexican-American chef with a passion for Mexican cuisine. She has over 10 years of experience in the culinary industry. Her achievements include working as Chef de Cuisine at Eden Hill Provisions and staging at Pujol in Mexico City. Birthed from a desire to highlight the beauty of fresh ground masa, and merging Mexican dishes with local PNW ingredients, Pancita is Janet's vision for culinary expression. Learn more about Janet at Pancita.
Says Janet: “I wanted to keep the burger classic and simple while highlighting the flavor and texture of our in-house nixtamalized and ground masa. I chose to add a couple Mexican twists to the traditional elements of a classic burger, like adding morita chile to our fry sauce, using our house cure to season the pork/beef patty, and swapping out sweet pickles for pickled jalapenos.”
Burger 4 Burger: YouthCare
Try all four!
Win Big!
Diners who purchase each burger in stores can receive a limited-edition, Lil Woody’s water bottle at the end of the event. Stamp cards are available at any location.
The Nadia
Ingredients: Grilled Halal Beef Kefta Patty, Tahini and Lemon Garlic Aioli, Pickled Cucumbers, Cabbage Salad, Yalla’s Fermented Hot Sauce, Ben’s
Bread Brioche Bun
Yalla Seattle’s Owner + Chef, Taylor Cheney, was named one of Seattle’s 2016 Culinary Tastemaker’s and Seattle’s Next Hot Chefs 2014 for her exploration of traditional Arab cuisine and has worked in many of the city’s most reputable kitchens including Lampreia, La Bête, Harvest Vine, and Mistral Kitchen— where she started Arabesque, her first of many Middle Eastern cuisine pop-ups. Taylor has traveled and cooked extensively through the Middle East including: Palestine, Jordan, Turkey, and Lebanon, and has lived in Cairo, Egypt.
Taylor and the Yalla crew are proud to bring the vibrant cuisine and culture of the Middle East to Seattle with time-honored methodologies and warm hospitality. Learn more about Taylor at Yalla
Says Taylor: “My burger is named after my cooking mentor. The inspiration is from a famous street food called Kefta arayes, also in Egypt it is called hawashi and it’s one of our favorites and our customers favorites at our store. The accompaniments are a fun way to incorporate some of the amazing pickles and ferments of the Middle East like their purple cabbage salad, spicy cucumbers and chili pastes, the tahini toum is just a fun way to mesh two of the most popular sauces that our customers and many of Americans here have loved so much. When it comes to a burger, lots of pickles and spicy accompaniments make it the best for me. A good bun is important too, and I think we have that in Ben’s bread…they make a delicious one! My cooking style is usually a lot of salt, acid, and heat; this burger represents all of those.”
Burger 4 Burger: Wasat
