When Adam Gottschalk and his wife Daria landed in Bangkok in 2021 with their two dogs and no real plan, launching a YouTube channel wasn’t top of mind. But after a long career in restaurants across China – and a sudden departure in the wake of the pandemic – Gottschalk found himself in a new country with time, curiosity, and a chance to pivot using his two career backgrounds: food and journalism.
The result was OTR Food and History, a YouTube channel dedicated to “the history, stories and people behind Asia’s best foods”. Gottschalk’s goal isn’t just to capture meals but to tell wide-ranging but incisive stories about food and its connection to culture. His videos are grounded in the Greater Mekong Sub-Region, but not afraid to cross borders to get the whole picture.
“My favorite videos are the ones where I’m barely in it,” Adam explains, “where we tell the story of a family, food, or place we might be the last to capture.”
In this wide-ranging conversation, we talked about why Bangkok is one of the world’s great foodie cities, why he believes Burmese food “deserves a spot among the world’s great cuisines”, and why he takes no credit for the popularity of the food spots he’s featured: “Media might bring customers in once, but it’s the restaurant’s job to bring them back… [successful] restaurants get all the credit for any success.”
How did your sudden relocation to Bangkok during the pandemic push you toward starting OTR Food and History?
We didn’t have any plans to move to Bangkok. We knew on very short notice we had to leave China. In the middle of a pandemic, the list of countries that would take an American, a Russian, and our two dogs with no notice was very short! The only country that would take us was Thailand.
The restaurant industry changed dramatically during Covid. OTR came from needing something to do. I have two career backgrounds – cooking and being a journalist. So that was an obvious combination.
Around 2017, Chris [Thomas], my closest friend during my time in China, and his girlfriend, now wife [Stephanie Li] filmed themselves cooking a Chinese dish because he was frustrated with the recipes online.
By the time I moved to Thailand, they were probably the biggest English-language Chinese food channel on YouTube. They were doing what they loved and putting it online. I’d never considered YouTube as something I’d do for a living. But Chris and Steph were making a living doing it!
When we moved to Thailand, I called Chris: “Dude, it’s great! You’ve got to get down here.” They moved to Bangkok and lived in our house for a while. Now we had two serious professional YouTubers living upstairs, while I was figuring out what to do that involved food. It was an easy decision, because I had guides – people who’d been through it and understood how it works.
And because we were close friends, Chris would give honest feedback: “Yeah, not as good as you think.” That was really helpful for finding our footing and… I won’t say “getting good at it”, but learning how to not be bad at it.
Your content is quite rooted in Bangkok. How does your present location influence the type of content that you make?
The first idea for the channel was to show that Bangkok isn’t one thing. It’s 30 small towns shoved together. If you don’t like where you are, go a mile and find something completely different – new history, culture, atmosphere. That’s not where the channel ended up going, but that was the start.
Bangkok is multicultural enough to let us explore different angles without a huge budget. People watch our “history of bread” video and think we flew to eight cities. Those were all filmed in Bangkok! Only a few places make that possible: Bangkok; Queens in New York; maybe Tokyo. Even Los Angeles and London might have international food, but it’s more high-end.
It’s rare to find a city with endless working-class food. Bangkok lets us, budget-wise, show real cuisine, not chef-driven fine dining.
However, as the channel grew, people started mistaking us for experts. I’m not, I’ve only been here three years! If you want someone to speak to your university on Thai food history, don’t ask me. Ask the grandmother who’s been cooking the same dish for generations. I’m just trying to understand it, and package it into content you can watch online.
Once people started calling us authorities, we stopped doing Thai food content for a while. I’m still excited by Thai food – it’s still our backyard. But I wanted it clear this is not a “Thai food channel.”
You seem to have a strong network of foodie friends who are happy to help out. Could you tell me more about these connections? How do you meet them, and how do you get them to feature their food on your show?
Everywhere that we’ve filmed, it’s been chosen because it’s a place that I know something about. I’ve been in Asia since 2009, which means there are a lot of places where I have been before. And whenever we’ve gone somewhere, we travel for food.
We find a restaurant that we like, get to know the chef or owner, become friends with them. Eight years later, I’m sending them a message, like, “hey, I got a YouTube channel now, what would you think about us coming in and doing a video?”
I’m not saying that the places that we shoot are always the best. But I have a platform, and it’s rewarding to give some attention to people that we like, not because they’re our friends, but because they’re people who are doing something really special.
Can you share any stories about a restaurant or food vendor where being on your show made a real difference – or one you were especially happy to feature?
Oh yeah, there are a few. The first six months we were shooting, we were putting out videos, but only getting about 20 clicks on a video. Over time, those old videos started picking up; once the channel grew, people went back and watched some of those old ones, One example is our Sriracha video – it only had about 300 views at first, but now it’s over a million.
One of the coolest things for me is going back to places we shot when no one knew who we were.
Daria and I used to spend weekends biking around Bang Krachao, a small island in the middle of the Chao Phraya River, close where we live. We fell in love with two places: a family-run stall that makes mango sticky rice, and a lean-to shack that makes Isaan grilled chicken. They became our regular weekend stops.
Once we started the channel, I drew from places I know. So when we had a chance to feature them, we did. Now every single time we go back to that mango sticky rice stall, someone recognises us and says they came because of the video. They didn’t even have a Google Maps pin when we first showed up; now, the owners are happy to see us because of how many new customers they see because of our video.
Another great example is Chef Gaa. We found him completely randomly in the Khlong Toei slum – “the worst neighborhood in Bangkok” that you’re supposed to avoid.
We went in there with our cameras without ever having set foot in in Khlong Toei before. And we ended up spending three full days there, uncovering layer after layer of the neighborhood.
There was a counter – just a “hole in the wall” with a piece of wood. Behind it there’s Chef Gaa making making crispy pork, moo krob. We just said, “okay, we’ll take a plate.” It was 50 baht, which is about a dollar-fifty. And it was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten in my life!
That video did pretty well, a lot of people saw it. To this day, every couple of weeks I’ll just check his Google Maps pin – now it’s full of great reviews. It’s still rated five stars. The whole neighborhood’s also changed because of his popularity, and it’s no longer scary.
I can’t say that’s all because of us; another chef we featured [Saiyuud “Poo” Diwong] also had a mission to make Khlong Toei known for food instead of poverty, she gets credit too.
But I always say – media might bring customers in once, but it’s the restaurant’s job to bring them back. So in my opinion, I can’t take credit [for their success]. The restaurants get all the credit for any success that they have. If we get them noticed, that’s great. That says something about them, not about us.
I was thinking about the places you’ve visited – Thailand, Lao PDR, Viet Nam, among many others. Within the six Mekong Subregion countries, are there any foods you feel are unsung and deserve more attention? Any cuisines that should be in the spotlight?
My big cause is Burmese food. Myanmar is surrounded by Thailand, India, and China, yet remains anonymous when it comes to food – one of the great tragedies of the globalized world.
It doesn’t fit any category. The flavors, the way people eat – it’s completely its own. There’s a lot of it in Bangkok, and it leans saltier than sweet, which suits my palate. The fermented tea leaves, the flavors – totally unexpected.
Myanmar deserves a spot among the world’s great cuisines. We’ve done three videos focused on Burmese food. The minute the situation allows, it’s a place I want to return to. Burmese food should be known globally; try it, you’ll fall in love.
The second is Cambodia. What is Cambodian food? It’s easy to tell a story about Thai food – their royal and family recipes go back 200 years. Cambodia’s history was mostly erased, not just food-wise.
When you dig into the Khmer Empire, you find fascinating links – like to the Javanese, who brought unique techniques. The first curry – if you define it as a paste of local spices – originated in what’s now the Mekong Delta, once Khmer territory. Dishes like Saraman Curry connect to Massaman, but much older. How that ties into the rest of Southeast Asia is unclear – those records are gone.
Cambodia depends on tourism, and presents what people expect. Since visitors don’t know local food, it’s often missing from menus or turned into Cambodian-Thai fusion.
But it’s a country with rich culinary history. Cambodian kroeung is nothing like other Southeast Asian curries – not coconut-based, not sweet. The texture’s different, it uses prahok (fermented fish), pumpkins, gourds. It’s a unique cuisine that deserves its story told.
Are there any specific food experiences or any experiences in general that surprised you about those countries in the Mekong?
The broader surprise is how national cuisines are exported and simplified, often misrepresenting real local food. I was confused when I moved to Bangkok and couldn’t find all the dishes I loved from restaurants back in Virginia or Hong Kong, where everything was on one menu – somtum, massaman, tamarind fish. I thought that was Thai food.
It took time to realize those are just the “greatest hits” picked from different regions and presented as a single cuisine. This happens in every country – what outsiders see doesn’t reflect how locals actually eat.
When we did our Lao food series, outside a few key dishes, I realized how little I understood. In Viet Nam, I discovered that people in the mountains north of Hanoi don’t eat the same food as those in the Mekong Delta.
Also, I want to add something important about authenticity. As Westerners, we often define “authentic” as street food – eating on a picnic mat in an alley. And we look down on more upscale concepts, even though many locals prefer them. In Thailand, something like mu kratha – hotpot meets Korean BBQ – is hugely popular, but foreigners might say it’s not “authentic.” Why? It’s what people actually eat.
Same in Viet Nam, where grilled meat restaurants are everywhere. Just because it looks clean or modern doesn’t mean it’s not authentic. Dismissing modern food as inauthentic is arrogant. Authentic is what people eat!
And nothing bothers me more than the “other-ism” in food YouTube. Many popular channels chase shock value – “look how weird this is,” especially in countries like Lao PDR or Cambodia. It’s disingenuous and disrespectful. And markets full of shock-value food don’t represent what these countries really are.
Southeast Asia doesn’t need to pretend. These are vibrant places – with good infrastructure, hotels, restaurants, and world-class food. We don’t need to sell scorpions to prove we’re “exotic.” The region is already worthy of global attention, just as it is.
What’s next for OTR? What are your future plans for the channel?
A lot of it comes down to budget. As the channel grows, we expand where we can go and what we can do.
I think about what would’ve happened if I’d started this channel when I first moved to China. My first years there were all about exploring food – before smartphones and Google Maps. We were really exploring.
That’s what made me fall in love with China and its food culture. Whether it’s because 16 years is a long time in the restaurant world, or the last generation is gone, or the building was torn down, or a dam was built – the places I wish I could’ve filmed are all gone now. Those stories are gone, like they never happened. I wish I’d told them.
So I feel pressure to get it right. My favorite videos are the ones where I’m barely in it – where we tell the story of a family, food, or place we might be the last to capture. Once it’s on tape, it exists. That’s important.
It also means our process is expensive. We have a three-person team that travels to film. The editing is serious. We started with Bangkok, then Thailand. Now we’re moving into neighboring countries. As the channel grows, we go further. Malaysia is our next trip.
We only have a small window when filming. We can’t spend a month making contacts, learning a place, then flying the team down. So we focus on stories I know – where I know the family, or the rare dish I want to capture.
Long term, we may do a book. People ask how we’ll branch out – maybe streaming one day. But even if we don’t, I’m fulfilled. I love the freedom – our videos are as long as they need to be, whether 20 minutes or an hour and 20.
I really like the process. It’s rewarding, fulfilling, exciting. If nothing changes and we just keep doing this, I’m happy. It’s not like we’ll ever run out of stories to tell in Thailand or Southeast Asia.
