From “Wok Hei” to Robots: Next Robot Showcases New AI-Powered Cooking Technology

LAPost/Walnut, CA (Sept. 1, 2026)
By: Richard Ren/LAPost

On Sept. 1, Next Robot, a Walnut-based robotics company, hosted a luncheon demonstration and tasting event at its Southern California office, inviting food-service professionals, restaurant operators and chefs to experience a variety of dishes prepared by its robotic cooking machines.

Drunken Noodle, salted fish and chicken fried rice, black bean lobster, shrimp with scrambled eggs, Italian orzo and rice pudding were among the dishes served. Unlike in a traditional restaurant kitchen, the main cooking process for these dishes was carried out not by a chef holding a wok, but by robotic cooking equipment developed by Next Robot.

Next Robot develops and manufactures robotic cooking equipment in Walnut. Its signature product, Robby, is a roughly 550-pound automated wok capable of handling about 17.64 pounds of food at a time. The machine resembles a large, vertical washing-machine drum. During cooking, the wok rotates continuously, turning the food as it cooks.

The machine contains compartments for seasonings and sauces that automatically dispense ingredients according to programmed recipes. Robby does not require an open flame and can rapidly heat the wok to temperatures of up to about 700 degrees Fahrenheit, creating the high-heat cooking environment traditionally associated with wok cooking.

Bui Demonstrates Robby: Salted Fish and Chicken Fried Rice in Four Minutes

The live demonstration was led by Nguyen Bui, culinary director at Next Robot.

Bui first selected a recipe on Robby’s screen. The machine then displayed the ingredients needed for the dish. As the wok heated, it automatically dispensed cooking oil to begin the process.

Throughout the cooking cycle, Robby displayed a countdown and alerted Bui when it was time to add each ingredient.

For the salted fish and chicken fried rice, chicken, eggs and diced salted fish were added in sequence. As the wok rotated, the rice tumbled inside the drum and was turned primarily through gravity rather than by a chef constantly moving a spatula.

The entire process took about four minutes.

After the fried rice was removed, Robby automatically cleaned itself, preparing the machine for the next dish.

Bui said the dishes selected for the demonstration—including salted fish fried rice, black bean lobster and stir-fried noodles—were intended to show that robotic cooking can go beyond basic fried rice and stir-fry dishes. The goal, he said, was to demonstrate that the machines can handle more delicate foods while maintaining ingredient integrity and producing the “wok hei,” or smoky, high-heat flavor, associated with traditional Chinese cooking.

“We want to show how delicate these dishes can be and how high quality the food can be coming out of the machine,” Bui said. He emphasized that the equipment can maintain high wok temperatures without breaking noodles such as chow fun or rice noodles, while also handling seafood dishes.

The company also demonstrated its new product, Al Dente, which Next Robot plans to launch by the end of this month. Designed for pasta and other foods, the machine was demonstrated with dishes including orzo, rice pudding and shrimp with scrambled eggs.

The dishes were intended to demonstrate the equipment’s ability to handle different types of cuisine while maintaining consistency and food quality.

High Heat and Precise Seasoning: Teaching a Robot to Cook

According to the Next Robot team, one of Robby’s key features is its ability to precisely control seasonings.

The machine’s seasoning systems are equipped with weighing mechanisms that allow ingredients to be dispensed according to exact recipe specifications. If a fried rice recipe calls for six grams of soy sauce, for example, the machine can dispense six grams.

Recipes can also be adjusted through an accompanying app.

During cooking, Robby automatically controls temperature, rotation speed and the timing of ingredient and seasoning additions. Instead of standing over the wok throughout the cooking process, workers can use the time between steps to prepare other ingredients, clean the kitchen or operate another machine.

The demonstration showed how one worker could potentially oversee multiple machines, increasing the amount of food that can be prepared by a single employee.

Giggs Huang, co-founder and CEO of Next Robot, said the company’s goal is not simply to replace chefs with robots, but to use automation to bridge different levels of skill in the restaurant industry.

“We’re creating a bridge between jobs that require very high skill and jobs that don’t require as much skill,” Huang said.

He also believes that lower food-production costs could create new consumer demand.

“When food is more affordable, more people will come out to eat,” he said.

Huang noted that some traditional dishes disappear not because customers no longer like them, but because they are too expensive or labor-intensive to produce, making it difficult for restaurants to maintain a viable price under the traditional labor model.

In his view, if robots can take over repetitive cooking tasks, chefs can devote more time and energy to creativity and product development.

Rice, Chow Fun and “Wok Hei”: Food Professionals Weigh In

Food-service professionals attending the event sampled the robotic cooking creations and offered their assessments.

Duyen Ha, a Michelin-trained chef, entrepreneur and contestant on Season 23 of Top Chef, said she came into the tasting with high expectations but was genuinely surprised by the results.

After sampling several stir-fried dishes and Italian preparations, Ha said she was “very pleasantly surprised” by the overall quality. Most of the dishes, she said, delivered both in flavor and texture.

The one area she felt could use further improvement was the risotto. Otherwise, she said, “everything else” had essentially hit the mark.

“It’s really cool to see kind of where the future of cooking’s going,” she said.

Karen Chung of Sam Woo Restaurant said this was her third or fourth visit to Next Robot, and she remains impressed by the technology each time.

She sampled Sam Woo’s own yang chow fried rice and beef chow fun prepared using the machine, paying particular attention to the consistency, texture and flavor of the rice and noodles.

Chung said the consistency of the machine-prepared rice and noodles was particularly impressive and said she was already considering whether the technology could eventually be incorporated into one of her restaurants.

Kelly, co-founder of Sichuan Impression, focused particularly on what many Chinese chefs consider one of the defining qualities of wok cooking: “wok hei.”

She said the beef Drunken Noodle, had genuine wok hei, while the beef itself remained tender. She also noted that the dish delivered different layers of spiciness.

The fried rice retained a distinct, grain-by-grain texture, she said, while the diced salted fish blended well with the rice to create a balanced flavor.

“I was really surprised that they could achieve this kind of result,” Kelly said. She believes the technology could create more possibilities for restaurants in the future.

From fried rice and Drunken Noodle, to seafood, eggs, pasta and desserts, the Sept. 1 luncheon was more than a product demonstration. It served as a real-world test of Next Robot’s technology in front of chefs, restaurant operators and other food-industry professionals.

For those attending, the key question was not simply whether a robot can “cook,” but whether a machine capable of consistently controlling temperature, timing, seasoning and movement can begin to reproduce some of the experience traditionally dependent on human cooks.

As Huang put it, the company hopes to use AI, machinery and robotics to preserve traditional dishes that are becoming increasingly difficult to produce through conventional methods.

“We want to preserve these traditional dishes that are hard to make, and we can do it with the help of AI, machinery and robotics.”

Harry Zhou, who oversees sales for Next Robot, said Robby is already being used by hundreds of restaurants and has also found applications in airline food service and Southern California school districts.

The machines can operate and provide instructions in English, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Italian, French and Korean, and can be switched to other languages as needed.

For a restaurant industry facing rising labor costs, increasing demand for consistency and a shortage of skilled kitchen workers, Next Robot’s technology points toward a future in which robotics may become not just a back-of-house tool, but another way of preserving and scaling the flavors of traditional cooking.