Mr. Huang’s path has been nomadic and unsteady. Raised in Orlando, Fla., he moved to New York in 2005 to study at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University. “Yo, I was the president of the Minority Law Students Alliance,” he said. “It was ill.”

After graduating, he practiced corporate law at Chadbourne & Parke but was laid off in March 2009. Rather than continue law, he found work as a stand-up comic at the Laugh Lounge on the Lower East Side. Using the stage name Magic Dong Huang, he was a loud and high-energy figure, telling jokes about soy milk, Osama bin Laden and growing up Chinese in Orlando.

“My only goal as a comedian was to stomp the life out of the model-minority myth,” he writes in the memoir. To make ends meet, he said, he also ran a loose network of marijuana dealers. “I had other comics selling my weed,” he said.

Seeking greater exposure, Mr. Huang appeared on the Food Network show “Ultimate Recipe Showdown,” hosted by Mr. Fieri. Although he did not win, the show gave him the confidence to open BaoHaus with his brother, Evan, just nine months after being laid off.