( CNN ) -- Celebrity chef Bobby Chinn has tried his hand at a number of things . Chinn 's face for television : Picking up his Asian TV Award in 2007 . English boarding school taught him that food could be an awful experience ; Wall Street taught him that creativity was more important than money and a stint as a stand-up comedian taught him that you ca n't always get it right . Half Chinese , half Egyptian , Chinn 's grandmothers were his first introduction to the variety and pleasure that food can bring . While his palate was subdued by the meals he was given at school in England when he was a boy , his meandering route to becoming a chef came some time after attaining a degree in Finance and Economics . Moving to New York after graduating he worked on Wall Street . `` You did n't produce anything at the end of a day and you did n't breathe fresh air , you did n't know what the weather was like outside because you were on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange . It 's like the dungeon of capitalism where time and money met , '' he told CNN 's Talk Asia . Chinn escaped `` the dungeon '' after a year and a half to the sunny climes of California , but it was n't to laze around . An addiction to high-octane and challenging environments saw Chinn explore the possibility of being a stand-up comic . `` I was always afraid to talk in front of the class and now I am trying to make them laugh '' he told CNN . `` One day you are really funny and then you go to another gig the same night and nobody laughs and then at the same time you are living a life of poverty . When you are bombing as a comic I do n't think there can be a worse life . '' While finding out the hard way how funny , or not , he was , Chinn was working front-of-house in restaurants , nurturing his love of food . His break came when Hubert Keller from San Francisco restaurant Fleur de Lys took him on as a volunteer in his kitchen . `` He gave me a job and after one week he said 'OK , you can stay . ' And then when you work with one really great chef , then I think you can work anywhere , '' he said . After also training with chefs in France , Chinn made his own mark on the culinary world when he opened his first restaurant in Vietnam in 1995 , and at first found the going tough . `` Supplies were not consistent , the language barrier , the taste barrier , the hygiene barriers . Those are very taxing on a person like me with very little patience . '' A high-energy chef and now a TV celebrity who presents `` World Café Asia '' -- he won an Asian Television Award in 2007 -- Chinn is aware that being flavor of the month on TV is transitory . `` It is just a machine that feeds on people like me and then spits me out when my time is done . You just have to go with the flow . ''
Half Chinese , half Egyptian , Chinn made his name as a chef in Vietnam . worked on Coronation Street and as a stand - up comic before becoming a chef . Has two cook ##books and has own food blog called ' World Cafe Asia '