Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave O'Round, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you live from the heart of Manhattan and New York City. Rockefeller Center, New Stand Studios, joined as usual with John behind me. John, how you doing? Doing great, thanks?
Yeah, yeah. Everything good? Yeah. PC? Yep.
Going great. It doesn't sound like it. I don't feel it. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's I don't know. It's my Monday, so just easing into the week, I guess.
Are you one of those guys that's uh kept down by the weather? You don't like bad weather? I don't really care. Oh, good. Good.
So that's why Nastasia can tolerate working with you because she hates people that care about the weather? Oh, I I I guess. What do you Nastasi the Hammer Lopez? You're there in California, right? Yep.
Yeah, don't you hate people that that change their life based on how the weather is? I do I do. Yes, I hate it. Yeah, yeah. You're like, oh, you can have a good time now because the weather's good.
Week, right? Week. No week. Yeah. Especially in New York City where we're not about the weather.
What are you gonna do? I'm gonna go surfing here. What the hell? Uh got uh Jackie Molecules not with us today, unfortunately. Where is where is Jack?
Is he doing something fun at least, Nastasia? Or is is he uh is he laid up in bed somewhere? He's at Southway Southwest. Oh. Okay, listen, I have to say something.
Well, we'll we'll get it. We'll we'll we'll come back. We got uh Joe Hazen rocking the panels. How you doing? I'm doing great, man.
Good to see you. Good to see you as well. And uh our special guest, Homer Murray, restaurateur and chef uh Brooklyn and Manhattan, again, uh extraordinaire of uh 21 Green Point, formerly of Ombre Taco here in Rockefeller Center, which we will talk about uh in a little bit, and the newer 21 Greenpoint here. Welcome. Thank you.
Welcome to me here. A lot of mutual friends, but we've never met. I know. It's nice to make your acquaintance. Yeah, yeah.
So if you're listening live on the Patreon, call in to 917 410 1507. That's 917 410 1507. Now listen, have any of you been to South by Southwest or South by is the they call it? No, I think I missed that boat 20 something years ago, right? Yeah, you know what?
That's a boat that you are so listening I know everybody loves it. Oh, you love it, right? I'm like, nah. No, it sounds terrible. I mean, like, you know what?
Anastasia, you'd probably like it because like you can go see all those bands and stuff, but like in terms of eating, it's just one big line. It's just one giant line. I hate lines. Yeah, I hear you. My dad likes to go.
He goes, but he gets to cut the line. So it's not fair. That's not fair. Like, that's why, like, uh, like I, you know, I don't mind going to some events if I know that I can just be like, come on. Like, if I know the people who are like running, I'm like, come on, go on.
I mean, like, I feel bad cutting, but on the other hand, I don't know how I hate lines. I just hate I I don't like uh events that descend upon a city, an otherwise peaceful town. You know what I mean? If I lived in Austin, I would dread that time of the year more than anything. I think the pe I know some I have some friends of mine live in Austin, and I think that they actually like it, kind of.
Because they could they can go home. They can go home. They don't have to stay in an Airbnb. Right. And, you know, if they want to go home and eat something that they bought at a supermarket, they don't have to wait an hour and a half for like half of a breakfast burrito.
You know what I mean? Yeah, for sure. I mean the breakfast burrito, though. Oh, well, you know, those people I don't know if you know this. Austin invented the breakfast burrito.
Yeah, I heard about that. They invented a lot of things that I thought had been around for a long time. I like Austin. Austin's awesome. Hey Stas, did you ever go uh when we were doing the uh the Austin crap?
Do you go with us? No, no, I didn't go with you. All right, all right. We have a main one in Brooklyn for brunch. If you ever need a breakfast burrito.
Oh, oh yeah. So what what uh what makes a good breakfast burrito for you? Um we have great tortillas. Yeah. Uh nice flower tortillas that a friend of mine makes, and it's just simple.
You know, there's nothing crazy about it. Oh, is it there's one guy, I uh what's his name? The the guy who makes the flo the good flour tortillas. I think so. No, he is the chef, his name's Nikki, Nikki Gorgeous.
He's the chef of a place called SFBK, which is in Williamsburg. And uh he's from Arizona, so he's sort of passionate about it. And uh yeah, that's that's the building block to any good burrito, right? Yeah, does he uh does he use the the Hayden uh the Hayden Mills? I'm not sure about the process.
Yeah, but I know. That flour is like uh it's like super expensive. Okay, look, look, it's expensive as flour goes. Yeah. It's not expensive compared to steak.
Right. You know what I mean? But it's very expensive compared to flour, and it's milled by um oh my god, her name's out of my it went out of my head, but she has a book on milling, and she uses primarily white Sonora and wheat. And when you add milk to uh not milk, we add water to white Sonora and wheat to make a uh to make a dough, it almost smells like cereal milk. Yeah, it's got this amazing kind of aroma, and it's got a like it's just a perfect texture for flour tortillas with like you know, a little bit of lard up in that piece.
Right, you know, and uh it's uh doesn't take much. No. Yeah, no, lard, water, salt, flour, yeah, winning. You know what I mean? Uh yeah, but uh it took me many years to appreciate a good flour tortilla because the ones, you know, I was like, you know, I've been exposed to really good corn tortillas, but I'd never really been exposed to excellent flour tortillas.
Oh, you know what? Like you've been in New York a long, long time. Do you remember that place fresco? Yes, absolutely. That those were not terrible.
No, yeah. Gosh, I hadn't heard that. Really good flour tortillas at Yellow Rose. Yeah, Yellow Rose is a great uh original shit. And they just opened this little place next to Yellow Rose, a Taco Bell.
Looks great. Yeah, I got it. Charming. Artisanal taco. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It might be a cantina. Yeah. Do they actually have something called Taco Bell Cantina? They do. I've never been to one, but they sell booze.
Really? Yeah. Yeah. Here in New York. There are a few in New York.
36 and 6. There you go. Like booze booze. They have a full license. I have probably a frozen margarita or something along those lines.
But yeah, liquor. Yeah. You know what? I've just been working on frozen margaritas recently. I've been working on frozen drinks.
Yeah. I'm trying to get uh my frozen drink program up. Yeah. Well, what's your what's been your issues with it? I don't have one.
Look, the issue with it, I think is that like uh the frozen machines that most people are using, like it's a it's a trick look, people love the frozen drink machines because you know, pull and pay, pull and pay money, money, money, money, right? But they don't get cold enough, right? Well, they're in general, people are doing really, really high sugar levels, like 12, 13%, 14%, and low alcohol levels, and they're getting very long. Um, you know, it takes a long time for it to melt because it doesn't have a lot of alcohol. Whereas like a lot of my old recipes were like, you know, 13, 14% alcohol, and they come out when they're really cold.
They come out like a perfect slush, but they melt, you know. Right. And I I drink them so quickly, it doesn't matter, but like they end up like kind of slushing out. So like I would have low sugar, high alcohol. So I've been working on trying to do kind of a middle of the road situation where you know you're still over 10%, uh like just over 10% at or just over 10% alcohol.
So the backbone's still there. And just knock the sugar down a little bit. You know what I mean? And you get a good, you get a good uh get a good melt, uh get a good melt rate. Cool.
Well, we'd love to have you over. Yeah. Uh uh, definitely well. Like, you know, the trick is also like it's like what size machine? Like, you know, uh, I think the mistake people made, I'll never forget uh I was uh I had done a bunch of uh stuff for tails of the cocktail with frozen machines.
I was using El Meco machines, which is a machine, but they rented some like you know, crappy little miniature air-cooled daiquiri machines. So for anyone who cares about refrigeration, like the question is, is it gonna be first of all, how much power you gotta put into it? And secondly, is it air cooled or water cooled? Right? And air-cooled machines, there's only so much power you can get out of them.
Uh, but you know, you're like no one can afford in a in a restaurant to add a frozen drink program, you're like, I gotta put a freaking 220 line, I gotta water cool that sucker. And where am I gonna put it? It has to be countertop. So everyone ends up with everyone ends up usually with a 120 air cooled machine. And there's limits, hard limits to what a 120-air cooled machine can do.
And I think the other mistake uh then people make is is that because I had to run this, we all did this event, none of us had ever done frozen drinks before. It's years ago in New Orleans, hot as hell, New Orleans in July. They rent them all from some Mardi Gras garbage company. Yeah, you know what I mean? Sure, what I don't know.
Yeah, may not be though. Human trash cancer. Yeah, I don't know. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah.
Anywho, so we get all these machines, and then you know, we all dump our batches in and they all freeze down, all of us, like like 30 people. And then as soon as we start drawing and putting back in, they all water out. And so like that's when I learned gotta keep your batch frozen. Gotta keep your batch frozen. So if you don't have something right next to your machine to keep your batch pre-frozen, you're toast.
Yeah. You're you're absolutely especially because you know, if you're busy, you pull five of them, you know, so ah, give me five. Then you dump five drinks in. You say, well, we're good 20 minutes for the next one, folks. Right.
You see a lot of that. Yeah. Yeah. It's uh, you know, easily rectified by just having like a cheap, you know, a cheap uh freezer. Yeah, or even like we used to have um uh at existing conditions, we had a freaking uh what's it called?
A uh uh just a like a you know, one from PC Richards, like a little like oh, like a dorm room kind of situation, yeah, for freezer only, like you know, under counter, and then we we weren't have a drink machine, but we could load frozen stuff out of it, you know, or like you know, extremely fancy ice or whatever crap we didn't want to go bad. You know, you're sitting there watching dollar ice cubes go in the in the ice well, and you're like, you know, uh Christ. Anyway, uh so this is the part of the show where we discussed anything interesting that happened uh last week in in the food or otherwise world. You guys got anything? Anyone do anything interesting in the food world?
I went to Yellow Rose and it was delicious. Uh, there you go. Right. Yeah, it's right by my house. Yeah.
I go pretty regularly. That's nice. I've never I've never been, so give me the give me the scoop. Uh he used to work for Brooks at Superiority. Um, and then he's from Texas originally and decided to open up this place with his wife that does phenomenal Tex-Mex food.
Really, really, really good. I think he even the chili that one of the chilies that they used to do at Superiority Burger, he used to make, and it was the recipe he got or he got second place with at the Texas State Chili Cook Off and a V as a vegetarian submission too. Well, let me ask you this. Yeah. Was there a vegetarian category?
I don't know. I think he submitted it with all the meat dudes. I don't believe that. Not even for a second. James if I just because have you it was really delicious?
Have you ever I'm not saying that facts? I'm not I'm not saying that. Have you ever hung out with Texans? A little bit. And you think that a non-beef based recipe in a in a beef-based category.
Maybe you didn't tell them. Yeah, maybe. Maybe. You know what it was? You know what the main ingredient is?
Silocide and mushrooms. There you go. Right. You know what I mean? It's like, so they're like, oh man, this beef.
You know what I mean? Yeah. Because they're they're hallucinating into thinking there was beef in there because you can't. Is it got meat analog or is it a bean chili? It was a bean chili.
See, I the honor, great honor to bean chili. Yeah. Oh my God, here's a food story. Don't do. So over the summer I went to Maine.
I bought, you know, you go to Maine, you buy weird beans. Sure. Right. So, like, you know, I got I'm at a roadside stand, you know, you know, way up, way up near uh uh Acadia National Park. I go in, I'm like, where are the beans?
And they're like, and then like I go in and like all these little sacks of weird beans you never heard. Lowe's Champion Early, and inside is Graham's Saturday beans, like one of those old like courier typewritten recipes. Ah, I try it. And it's weird because a standard bean recipe, you you soak, well, I'm not gonna get into soaking, I don't care. Anyway, but you soak it, then you pre-cook it until you know you do the thing and the beans are almost pardon, and then you bake it for a while, right?
But Graham, in her infinite wisdom with this Lowe's early, which is specifically was this, because her other beans had different recipes in it. Just cooks them straight for like five hours, no pre-cook. Like that. At 250, it's good. I was getting nervous because at like four hours they were still kind of hard.
And I was turning them over so the ones on top would go underneath, and they weren't breaking. It was really good. And you know, around five hours, they they you know, they finally softened up. You know, no acid, no gussie, just a small amount of molasses, mustard, salt, no freaking pepper, onion, no freaking garlic, piece of salt pork. I have vegetarians coming, so I left it out.
I had some nutritional yeast to try to boost it a little bit because I didn't have the pork. And I added a little bit, even though salt pork's not smoked, I added a little bit of hickory smoke powder. Just to make up for the fact I didn't have the pork. Don't judge. No, none.
Anyway, I have a technique I use now with beans where what I do is I cook them in excess liquid first, let them cool a little bit, add bean o knock all the farts out of it, and then do my reduction cooking afterwards once it's been defarted. And then now, so I'm used to being like bean champion because I'm like, I can eat anything without like getting sick, but the bacteria in my gut are as strong as I am in terms of what they can tolerate. And so they'll just, you know, they'll blow me apart. You know what I mean? You know what I'm saying?
It's a nice problem to have. Yeah, yeah. Or like, you know, like, you know, like Nastasia is with uh, what's it called? Jerusalem Martichokes, where she likes to, you know, she likes to expand her her friend's bottom sides with uh with gas. That's one of your favorite tricks, right, Saz.
In my 20s. That was not even your 20s. This was like six years ago. Yeah, anyway. So I followed Graham's recipe to the tea, and I ate it like I had defarted it.
And I have not been in so much pain from a recipe. I was like, I will never cook beans like that again without doing the defart technique. Or just eat fewer. Right. Who wants to eat fewer?
Yeah, that's not a that's not a compromise. That's not, right? Yeah. Because I'd made like the shaksuka for everyone else, but they were going so hard on the shaksuka that there was almost none left. I eat it for dinner, call me an whatever.
It doesn't matter. Whatever. Crap on you. I can eat it for dinner. It's not only for breakfast, John.
No. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Shaksuka's welcome any time of the day.
Right? Certainly. Right? Yes. Yeah.
Why are you turning around and yelling at meeting? Because I I can feel your eyes. Anyway. Looking right through you. Yeah, yeah.
Anyway. So like I ate mostly beans and also like, I don't know, another jerky move. I poached the eggs. I don't put the eggs into the shaksuka to cook them. Oh, really?
No, because what the hell? Yeah. It makes it harder to save it if you have more leftover. At home. I'm not talking about it like you're serving it to somebody.
But like when you're making a when you're making like a 14-inch, I've I've I use like a 14-inch Volrath Centurion freaking big old thing. And I'm doing like, you know, large format, comes out, the whole table's doing it. I don't know what's gonna, what people want, what they don't. So I just poached. I poached the eggs.
Sure. Uh so I'm just eating poached eggs and beans and bread. You know what I mean? Just poached eggs and beans and bread. And uh, yeah, it's very bad.
Yeah, very, very bad. Very bad. Although, I don't know whether the Lowe's champion early bean is a particularly 2D bean, though. I don't know, because I've never had it before. How do we track this lady down?
Ask her some questions. I I guarantee based on the font that Graham is dead. Yeah. Well, no one uses that font. Yeah, if I ever go back to Acadia, I'm just gonna like top of the list.
I got some questions and I want them answered. Man, she's just bust through the door and start screaming at this lady behind the she's like, I don't know. Waving this type recipe over your head. Yeah. What the hell is this?
Um, all right. So uh let's go back to and Destas. Did you wait what did you did you say you had anything or no? My mind is totally erased today. I don't know.
Nothing I want to share, no. Oh that means that's the most interesting. He's digging there, yeah. That means that's the most interesting stuff. Although I will say this uh for people who are looking for a centrifuge, we're getting ready to have announcement on that, right, Stas?
Oh. Yeah. Like announcement within a month. What did you say? No.
No. Uh all right. All right. So let's get on to stuff. Let's get on to talk stuff.
You want to uh promote the Patreon there, John? Do the do a little business? Patreon.com slash cooking issues. Join there a couple different uh membership levels, and you get awesome things at each membership level, including access to the community Discord, um discounts uh uh from books that Kitchen Arts and Letters with guest authors that we have on. I believe Katie Parla's is discounted.
Um yeah, just really a whole bunch of great things, prioritize questions, all that kind of good stuff. So become a member. It's uh it's a good time for all. I DM'd Katie Parla. It's my first DM ever.
Really? I never I've never like slid into anyone's DMs, but I I listened to the show and I enjoyed it so much. I wanted to say, hey, I'm going on this show, what do I talk about? And uh I will say congratulations, she sounded great. I had my I had several people around me helping me craft it, so I hope it didn't come off too weird.
It wasn't a lecherous DM, it was a complimentary one. Well, I mean, I don't know, she lives mostly in Italy, so it might be okay, right? Great, yeah, why not? It's a reason to get over there. So uh did uh did she respond?
Not yet. She's on a book tour, I'm sure she's very busy. Oh yeah, she's in some other place now. I saw on her Instagram, some other place. All right, so let's talk about opening a restaurant in New York City in a place.
So you had ombre taco, and let's talk about why that place closed. Uh well, I I I'm not entirely sure. I I I may not have gotten the full story, but we opened um 2020, 2020, I would say, September, sort of right in the middle of all the guts of it, uh, of the pandemic. And it was it was sort of bleak and and dark down here. I don't know if you were in the building.
Yeah. Yeah. So you know what it was like. And we struggled through, but we we really uh were sort of getting our footing and realizing uh what it what it could be, and and then um and then uh an idea was proposed that it would be sort of uh reimagined as a second location. I've had my place 21 Greenpoint in Brooklyn for for a decade now.
And uh the idea was a good milestone. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, it feels nice. Yeah, I was talking about it the other day, and and uh and it it it sort of hit me that we had had sort of contributed to to shaping the neighborhood in the way that it is now, and and that that was a nice feeling. And we're uh we're very fortunate out there to have some great regulars and some great neighborhood people that have really um cauterized us there.
Well, Greenpoint got so cool that like people who live in Greenpoint are like, I don't really leave Greenpoint anymore. I know it's a real problem. I it it was for me. I I spent a decade there as well, uh, and and just recently left. Uh and it it does feel like a very small, very tight-knit community.
It is separate because of the G train specifically, it is its own little spot up there, so people don't leave as often as they do, and there's less um, yeah, it it it's it's a wonderful neighborhood full of incredible people. Is the well to go back to my other question? So, first of all, is is all the industry gone out of Green Point? Because I remember like in the 90s, it was like half little old ladies on their stoops talking to each other, and then somebody grinding because I had a job as a metal worker in Greenpoint in the 90s, and it was like either like industrial filth or little old ladies having like you know, pastries and coffee. Yeah, the ladies are still there.
Uh some of the filth is, thankfully. Uh a lot of the stuff that was by the water has been forced out of there, and now is very tall, glass buildings full of people. I don't know. Uh but uh the further you get from the water, the more industrial there. There's still a lot of uh, you know, film and movie production takes place over there.
And then you still have all those weird places like where Sydney Lamette was shooting and stuff, yeah. All that stuff is still there, which is neat. And and that'll take a little while uh to ruin, but they'll find a way. They'll find a way to ruin it. Certainly.
Yeah, yeah. All right. Uh so what I heard uh was that they obliterated the space that was ombre taco it no longer exists. That is true. That is true.
Uh there was a uh a reimagining of what the concourse level of 30 rock would be, and that involves uh bringing in some black iron and some ventilation systems and and expanding the uh the scope of what people were able to do. And uh Ombre Taco before it was uh a bibigo uh sort of a dumpling place, and before that was uh it was a candle store, and I think a video game shop. So it was never uh a place for for a restaurant to be, and now it is. We're we're we're in the final stages of getting our gas turned on. How long has that taken?
It's taken a while. There's been uh some uh you know, some red tape with the FDNY and Con Ed and stuff. No, no fault of anybody, but it's just bureaucratic silliness, which is you know, a lot of T's to cross. And we're working in a cathedral, right? Uh uh a landmark building where you know changing a light bulb requires several emails and stuff.
So things go slow. Ever since uh ever since the explosion, remember the explosion uh downtown uh in uh what year was that? It's like 20, I wanna say like twenty fourteen, 2015. There was a gas explosion on second. No, I guess not.
Blew up a whole building from a restaurant. They were doing illegal work in the restaurant. Two people were killed in the restaurant, leveled the entire building on the corner right next to uh Oh by the Palm Frits on like a on like uh seventh. Yeah, yeah. Oh, okay, I remember that.
I wasn't aware that that was what caused it. Yeah, gas gas explosion. And there had recently, right before then, been a gas explosion in Harlem on like 125th Street in it was either a commercial building or some sort of like a older schoolish kind of building. And those two gas explosions happened kind of very close to each other. And ever since then, I mean, rightfully so.
I mean, we we're eight million of us stacked up in this little freaking place, you know what I mean? But like gas work is just a nightmare. Yeah, there's a lot of new uh regulations that I didn't know about. Well, what do you think about this whole uh in the future going non-gas though? Well, I mean, as long as uh, you know, the radical left tries to take our gas away, we'll always have something to fight for.
But uh, you know, I I like I like the idea of it. Sure. I if it can be if the same amount of uh power in production can can take place in a smaller area that doesn't require ventilation and and is possibly a nicer work environment, then great. More power to it. I I've haven't worked with a ton of it.
You know, I have a bunch of induction burners and stuff, but to see it operating on a full scale level would be interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you're not gonna uh you're not gonna just burn a bunch of gas in a pickup truck going down the highway.
No, I do that at home. You know, that's a that's a personal choice. I don't bring that into the work of it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Uh so I mean, I just hate how long things take. I think I've said this many times. I don't think the average person who hasn't tried to have a small business understands how anti-small business, like everything seems to be. Like we we talk a lot about as a culture about how much we like small business and it's just not it's just not yeah it's just it's it's really it's really challenging and uh a lot of the uh a lot of the things that you fall into you know whether it's penalties or regulations or or or whatever especially in a place I'll use myself as an example in in a building like this where you know I I joke a lot about you know Ben and Jerry don't come down and inspect the the stuff as often as I'm here inspecting stuff and the things that are asked of of a small business are are a lot to take you know the the financial uh risk and the financial investment is is is profound and and little things that that maybe wouldn't register so much on a on a larger scale uh can be deeply effective to a small business and it it does feel in a way that the deck is is is stacked it feels that way I'm sure it's not and I know that those safeguards are there for a reason and they're there to be enforceable and to be profound against anyone of any size but if the same uh force is applied to a large uh matter as as a small one yeah then the small one does get obliterated yeah yeah and that feels uh like a hard hill to climb sometimes right right so like when it takes six months to get the gas installed you may not be burning gas but you are burning money yeah I'm employing people they're standing there you know looking for stuff to do uh yeah uh yeah yeah it's it's hard it's awesome awesome awesome but you know it's it's it's my job uh so uh on 21 Greenpoint, I read you were what was the name of the restaurant you worked at right before that was right there? River Sticks.
River Sticks. When we opened, that's what it was called. Okay. So what's that like? You just take over and then you change it?
Like how what's that? What's the how does that work? Well, River Sticks, I was um a partner of. I I was sort of uh um I I was I went to it with two partners, and I was sort of the head, you know, cook, you know. I I I was the guy who was sort of running uh the the day to day kitchen operations.
And that's where I was very content to stay for a long time. But we had some issues with partners, as as is often the case. And they both uh left. And then I was sort of sitting there and and I I was sort of asked to uh to take this on, uh maybe a little before I had anticipated that. And uh and and you know, I was in intimidated and and a little worried because I don't have uh, you know, I I was I planned to sort of sit at River Sticks and learn the business, right?
But I was sort of it was thrust upon me and and then I uh you know decided to to change the name to a little uh fix up on some stuff that was broken and uh and stay. And and we've turned it into something that we're all really proud of. It's it's a great thing. It it was it was it all came too fast, but it's always best to be sort of asked to do something when you're kind of not ready to, you know, just before you're you're good enough because it inspires you to try, you know. Yeah, and also I guess, you know, people always get people always second guess get bent when you say things like this, but like you need to be at a place in your life where you kind of give yourself the permission to try things out.
Yeah, like you know, most of the people I know who were uh successful in restaurants stuff like Dave Chang will say this about Psalm or any of these and any of these other places that when you kind of have the permission to mess around and do things and put things right, it can be kind of more satisfying. You can build something, you know, better where it's harder, it's a lot harder and costs a lot more to try to open something that's a specific way from the get. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah.
I mean, yeah, having those constraints is is a lot, especially when you you you you feel obliged to them and you can't you can't, you know, change because it's a it's a constantly, you know, changing business. You have to once I once I really started trusting uh, you know, the my gut and the stuff that I wanted to serve and the and the the environment that I wanted to to have for people, that's when I started uh enjoying my job and doing a better job at it, you know. So back to uh hombre uh ombre taco and not not you said a reference to not a bad ombre reference. No, although I am, but uh no, ombre is what my my uncles used to call me when I was a kid. Wait, oh yeah?
Yeah, ombre. Hey, ombre, uncle beer. Even when you were like not really an ombre yet? Yes. Yeah.
Yeah. Homer. Yeah. Yeah. So like let me ask you this.
What are your thoughts on getting small children to hand uh like mad mad men style handing uh alcohol to adults? Pro, anti? Very pro. I mean, so they're the only ones that can nestle uh, you know, a brandy glass just so and bring it to the appropriate temperature. Wow.
You know, sometimes that stuff is very thin and delicate. You need a soft hand. Can I taste something horrifying? Please. Uh in the 70s, which I remember.
I was young, but I remember people still used to heat brandy. Yeah. And people would have little like I'm not kidding. My uncle would have me warm it in my hands for him. That's all you want to have.
It's what he said to do. I know, but where did this come from? And like, thank God it died. Yeah. You know what I mean?
Like, do you want your brand? Like you bring a snifter of hot brandy up to your nose. You're like, what? Why? Well, it's a greater, it's a greater appreciate the perfume, certainly, right?
I've seen a little tea candle and like a little setup where you can balance your glass over. Yeah. Happier time. They don't still have that anymore, right? Well, you have to make your own.
But it's out there, you know. I don't know. I mean, that's that's one of those things from the 70s that I'm like, glad it's glad it's gone. Sure. You know what I you know what I do miss though with candles?
Christmas time. They used to have these these things with candles in it, and then like a little fan above it, and the candles would make the fan go, and there'd be these little like metal angels that go ting ding ting ding ding ding ding. Yeah, I remember those. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. That was good. So let's bring those back. It's a good use of a candle.
Yeah. Speaking of candle, my brother-in-law. So I did something like my brother-in-law Wiley is opening his pizza place stretch. Anti-candle. He's anti-candle.
Is that right? Yeah. I'm very pro-candle. I I enjoy the light that it emits. You know why?
Because it looks better. That's my understanding. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, so like uh what is Wiley like LED lights or something?
No, look, look, look, look, look, like, what like I I'm like, I have a conversation with him. And I'm talking high school, whatever. He's my brother-in-law, whatever, whatever. I know Wiley. Yeah, but he's like, I don't know, he just doesn't like them.
Because they are a hassle. They suck. You know, you have to keep buying. What part? They're candy.
Oh, no. Emptying them out of the thing. Yeah, yeah. Bringing them. You know, you know, you know, they at the beginning, you know, you just hired this person.
No one told them to put water into the tea light thing, they can't get the freaking candle out. Learning opportunity. Uh yeah, it's a learning opportunity with a butter knife and a bunch of people screaming at you, but you know what I mean? It's like, whatever. But uh, ever since I read this book, what was it called?
Disenchanted Night by uh somebody, last name, you ready for it? Shivel Bush. Nice, yeah, yeah, Shivel Bush. Independent scholar named Shivelbush. Uh not independent for long.
Yeah, exactly. And uh he's like 90 now. Anyway, he's still alive. Uh anyway, he wrote this book, and he was like, yo, electric light is ugly on people's faces. He's like bad.
Yeah, he's like gaslight was awesome. And but you know, no one can have that now. But a candle, it's like the movement, it makes everyone look like maybe like 30% sexier. Agreed. Yeah.
Yeah. And so like I feel that one of the main goals. Why does Wiley hate that so much? I don't know. I don't think he thinks about it because he's thinking kitchen.
Anyway, so like I don't recommend them in the kitchen necessarily. Yeah, no, they're terrible. Can you imagine? Oh, you know, you're slicing together. So you look great while you do it.
Oh, fantastic. The blood like coming off of your face. Like little but like uh, you know, yeah, I mean, like people just look a lot better. And I think, you know, if someone's going out, right? I mean, whatever, a business meeting, whatever, but like a lot of people who are going out are going out to have a good time.
And if you want them to have a good time and an even better time when they leave and go back home or wherever they're gonna go, you want them to look good. Agreed. I always was like, I want I want my I want the people to look good when they're here. Absolutely. You looking your place looking good is one thing, but the the guests should feel like they look great.
There's no place without the guests, right? You know, yeah, yeah. We're there to facilitate a nice time. That's my understanding. This is why at the bar, you know, the way that you really are like the if you turn the lights on to get people out, people are like, oh for the Yeah, that's a harsh reality.
Let's save that for the the unflinching sun in the morning. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let us let us live in this fantasy for another hour or so. I don't know. I should uh I I'm sure he'll eventually get some candles.
Because candles are not gosh, I hope so. I like candles. I do too. I think they're great. I feel like he would too.
Maybe he's gotta find the right candle. Yeah, he's not a votive guy. You know, he needs something made out of whale blubber or something that he can. Oh my god. Or like one of these uh who is it that was uh we were talking uh uh uh Nick.
Nick was gonna do the uh olive oil candles where he can you can dip there. Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think Wiley would enjoy you dipping the crust into a candle. I don't think he'd appreciate it. Maybe he made one out of garlic butter or something.
Get this, get this. So Wiley made because of course, because why is Wiley made his own magic shell. Naturally, yeah. It's just coconut oil, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Peanut butter, peanut butter magic shell. Right. I'm like, of course you made a magic shell. I can't wait to try it. Yeah, it's good.
Anyway, uh all right. So back to uh Ombre Taco. Yeah. Uh the place that's been closed for a year. Yeah, yeah.
But like uh, so but you know, we've talked about uh uh this so you know we went down after the show because right when we went here, it was it was going like right when we started, and that's when Joe was like, Hey, you know, Homer's like, no, I know I know I don't I don't know him personally, but I know him. So we went down and talked about the broccoli versus the avocado. Oh, right, yeah. Um well we make a thing called broccomole here and in in in Brooklyn, and it started as a as a reaction to uh not using avocados or trying not to use avocados because uh how much water they require and and the states which grow them uh have to import water from other places, and the people who harvest them are are not treated particularly well and myriad sort of social uh morate moral issues as to not using avocado. I I I've recently found a guy, duh avocado guy, d avocado guy, who makes an incredible product, and they're they're they're sourced from uh people that you can get behind.
But that's not AAA avocado in my neighborhood on the other side. I don't believe so. I don't know. It's not yeah, we've been over the stuff. Yeah, no, it's spelling the same in Dave's neighborhood.
It's a storefront. Oh, all right, great. Well, this guy's great, and you can get him at your house as well and stuff like that. Oh, really? Uh, but anyway, it's it's uh braccamole is just uh guacamole without the avocado, all the same flavorings, all the same stuff, tastes similar, looks the same.
It's cheap too, so I you know, broccoli compare d'avocato, so I can give it away. You don't have to charge extra for uh for Brock and stuff like that. Do you do the overcooked broccoli or do you overcook it, uh you know, blanch it essentially, but like you know, boil it and then uh combine it with all the stuff. Who is it that used to love the over, over, overcooked broccoli? Was it Marcello Hazan in the thousand people in general, right?
Uh hey, this is crazy. I printed out the wrong question list. I printed out a question list from like two weeks ago. Well, I like this then. Yeah, I feel good.
All right. I don't know much about uh Gage and Toler, but I I can make a big Alaska if we have to. Can you? No. Uh but I can make one.
I'll give it a shot. Yeah, all right. Uh I think some of the questions uh I didn't get to, so we're still there. All right. This one uh actually I thought uh was interesting.
Quinn, this is the one that uh I think you wanted to go into anyway, A X B Y C Z D zero, which is a difficult, it's a difficult username to no underscores or anything because you can't pronounce it like axe bibwizidzo Elon Musk kid? I don't uh no what was his name again? I don't recall. It's like but it's a normal name. I find him very uncharming these days.
Oh, the musk. Musk melon. I'm still gonna get that dang cyber truck though. I'm still gonna get that cyber truck if they ever throw a cannonball through it. So I mean, what my bother.
Yeah, listen. I have to say, when he did that, and when Fritz put that that, like when he broke the the window, I was like, of course the window broke. Sure. It seems you shouldn't do that to car windows. But what a the dummy move, the hilarious dummy move was then he's like, Oh, go try it on the other window.
Like, no, Fritz, don't man. But like if you did that to my Subaru, yeah, that's you know what I mean. Projectile steel balls work. Yeah, yeah. No, Fritz.
Do you think he got fired or murdered? Um yeah, I guess probably. Yeah. I mean, it probably would have been a bit more of a public crucifixion these days, but he maybe quietly was asked to leave. Like uh, all right.
So, uh, question is uh, and you know, we were talking about this actually before we went on the air, given the fracture state of media in general, which is kind of that's kind of loaded a lot, it's a lot right there to uh as they say these days unpack, right? Uh razor thin margins and and the profitability of restaurants, environmental impacts and sustainability, uh, and ethical trade. Do uh do we have any predictions as to where dining and or fine dining is headed next? Wow, it's it's a tough it is a tough like you now you have you know Red Zeppy saying that you know he's done with it, right? In a couple of years after he Yeah, but like come on, man, he's the guy, right?
He's the you know, it can't it can't be done. Fine dining cannot be done anymore on the level that he wants, right? Well, wasn't it 20 years ago you couldn't forage for things in Copenhagen and and complete a restaurant menu with just stuff that you found on your walk? He found a way to do that, yeah, right? If he's the greatest in the world, right?
And he's given us a chance to do it. Which I don't believe anyway. But if he's the best, if that's the top, right? Well, then maybe he could find a way. Maybe all the leaders in this world, instead of saying, Oh, it can't be done.
Uh I'll just gonna open a fast casual place and fry chicken instead. It's like, well, how about you figure it out, man? Are you passionate about what you love, or are you just here for the awards? Wow. Wow, that came out of nowhere.
Wow, I've been drinking. Wow. But you know what I mean? It's like, come on, we're we're here, we're here to effing work. Let's do it.
You know, it's instead of like and the guy's guy knows more than I'll ever even begin to know, and it's contributed more to the culinary world than I do by a long shot. But it's like I I don't get to walk away. You know, a lot of people don't get to just throw their hands up and walk away. Right. So you're saying like, you know, it's yeah, it is a definite, like uh, he can leave on top if he wants to.
And that feels great. And Mazletov could go out on top. He's a cool guy. You know, I got nothing but wonderful things to say about him, except for that le that stepping away. Because just because that opens the door for so many other people who are not as deserving to do it as well.
You know what I mean? If your leaders let you down, then who are you supposed to follow? Because I'm supposed to follow him, right? He's the top. Stas, you remember what we used to say when we when someone was uh chasing something, we didn't think they were gonna get it in the food world?
Yeah, but did you what did you come up with? Wake up and smell the red Zeppy. Like there you go. You know what I mean? Because there can't be that many, first of all, there's only and this is what I think is changing.
So I think part of this is talking, we were talking also about like Pete Wells changing the stars rating here at the New York Times and the way media in general is changing, right? So, you know, in the heyday of you know, when Noma and before that, whoever whoever was the fine dining blah blah blah of the world at the time, there's only a certain amount of oxygen in that space, right? So no matter how good any person is, it's actually hard to get to be the person that receives all the oxygen, you know what I mean? Sure. Um, and I think the the issue is it's so expensive to do that kind of work now that unless you have a chance of absorbing all the attention, it's almost like, well, then how can you even do that anymore?
That's is that part of the argument? Maybe you know what I mean. Like then the question is to what end? And that has to be self-assigned, right? That don't you get don't you have to answer that?
Like, how much do you want this? Does it matter to you that much? That you get that kind of accolade. Right. Or would you do it without it?
You know? Well, I mean, so, you know, uh so Pete So Pete Wells, whom I like, by the way, if for those of you that don't know or aren't in the United States, Pete Wells is the food reviewer for the New York Times, which since, you know, for at least 50 years, probably more, but since I've been alive and could look at words, was the, you know, premier uh restaurant reviewing venue in in New York. You know what I mean? And they're there, therefore, regardless of what you think of us as a city, therefore one of the most important in the country, right? And so, you know, the star system and and Pete Wells is funny and a very good writer.
You know what I mean? And uh, so you know, he's switched recently the star system whereby he I'm just saying this for people, you know, who aren't part of the New York scene, where like, for instance, like uh uh a food truck can get three stars, right? Now I think the star system started changing its meaning back when, you know, uh, you know, my business partner at the time, friend Dave Chang got three stars for Sam because that was not what a three-star restaurant had been because it didn't have the right kind of bathroom, it didn't have the right kind of table service, didn't have the right kind of chairs. So it started changing, but like I don't really understand a world in which in other words, like I don't think we've reached, I don't think we figured out what the meaning is. Like we want, we all as a community want to give more oxygen to people who aren't just like the Rennie Rezeppies and this kind of fine dining thing.
But on the other hand, is isn't there still a place for that for that kind of work, that kind of control, that kind of like uh desire to achieve a certain level of perfection. And so I don't really know where this is shaking down. I I remember when I was a young man in the early 2000s, and we I worked at a place that made fantastic food, and we did we worked really hard and it was a great, great place to go. And we would always talk about the idea of getting a great two-star review. Because those those stars sort of were sacred, and it did mean a certain level of dining, but it meant a certain expectation as well.
And you could get a great review and still get two stars. That I thought was a really genuine and sort of fair way of treating it. But then like Katz is got two stars, and so did per se. And you go like, well, this can't be right. You know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah. Then it became about only get you had to get four. Four was the pinnacle. For us, four was never a goal. Can't get four stars.
Less Circ has four stars. You know what I mean? It was about the review, and if the reviewer understood the food that he was, they sorry, we're talking about Pete Wells in this in this instance. And um, I think I think I think that that tiered system is helpful. And I think it's interesting, and it's kind of fun to have a four-star restaurant like La Bernadette.
Like, but that's that's a different place than even a great restaurant with amazing food and wonderful service and drinks and whatever. So I think if we could return to the intent of the reviewer and the and their emotions that they shared with the place they were going to, and then uh signing, keeping them in their little box was sort of nice in a way. Because it you you were safe and defined in your box. And it wasn't about beating other things, it wasn't about getting four stars, it was about getting the best two-star you could. Yeah, and also, here's what another thing.
Because uh, you know, I listened to the uh what's it called, the the New York Times podcast where Pete was uh The Daily. The Daily, yeah, where he was uh kind of you know defending this this choice. Yeah, and you know, he said something at the beginning of the podcast that I thought was really interesting and telling. He's like, there's only a certain number of fine dining restaurants in New York at any one time, and you can know what they you can know what they all are. I'm like, exactly.
Yeah, but I can't go to them. Right. You can, you know what I mean? And so like the point is is that like that is a beat, right? Once you sometimes restaurant review, you know what I mean?
It's he can write other reviews, but when he puts on that hat, the critic for the New York Times, there is a lineage and and an expectation that people have. I think it's okay to have that be a sort of rarefied air. You know, there used to be that great 25 and under column. That's what I'm saying. That was the that was the most exciting column of the week.
That's what I'm saying. Yeah, so like that is a different beat. Yes. And I think it should just be a different totally agree. Or like the other thing is like once it's open to all 20,000 restaurants or whatever we have now in in you can't know them.
Right. You can't know them. Right. How do I know that the how do I know that the the truck that you reviewed in the South Bronx is even in the top 10 of that kind of truck? Because there's just you don't know them all.
They're probably you know, they're probably clamoring everybody. There's so much more information. Right. There's so many blogs and there's so many whatever the hells, and and there's so many experts out there that they they feel obliged to write stuff that people will read and get and talk about. You know what I mean?
So a three-star review of a taco truck gets people talking. Right. But I think it's weird is that like, you know, it's a bit I think I'm sorry to interrupt, but on the daily, the the host accused him, and he he deflected it well of being performative. Right. And it does seem a bit that way, and that's okay because it is uh a stage, you know.
But um, there's there's I don't know, it is but then so then, okay. So here's what happens. So in the in the podcast, this is the first time we've ever talked about a different podcast, whatever, it doesn't matter. Here we go. So like they're they're together, he accuses Pete Wells of being, I'm accused him, says, is it performer?
Basically throws it out there and being like, you know, George Floyd happens, people don't want to just do like old, old white people crap anymore. You need to give oxygen to other people. All true, by the way. Absolutely. All fact.
And then, you know, uh, he's like, but you're just being performative because you are the New York Times, and so you're saying I'm gonna give my first starred review after the pandemic, because they stopped giving stars during the pandemic. My first star review is going to be to uh a pork truck, the piranha, that literally it's a truck, it doesn't even have wheels, it's on blocks, right? Right, and self-described by Pete Wells, you get coated in pork as he's hacking up the pork with a machete, and you can tell that he likes the experience because it specifically isn't the fine dining crap that he's had to do for years. Totally understandable. By the way, everyone gets sick of course, everyone gets sick of fine dining, right?
Which is why you should really maybe only do that job for a certain number of years. That's another conversation. Yeah, that's an important one. So um, so he's like, is that performative? But then he wins over um, you know, the host by taking him to a Vietnamese restaurant in my neighborhood, a North Vietnamese restaurant, and the guy was like, Yeah, that was a fantastic experience, and so now I kind of see what you mean.
No, of course, it a star review is it supposed to be It's not like it's not a good restaurant. We all understand that the food here is fantastic, right? So, like it's gonna get a good review, even though literally they put the table that they sat on in the bike lane, yeah. Which by the way, I'm against. Please don't put tables in the bike lane.
If I run into you, yeah, you're gonna get hurt real bad. Real bad. You know what I mean? Like, real bad, and then you're gonna get mad at me. Now these delivery guys are on motorcycles, they're all totally silent and they're 400 pound bicycle, whatever.
Okay, okay. Listen, listen. I'm of three minds on this, right? Like, so I understand they're not bikers. This is just their job.
Totally. They're gonna get the they're gonna get in trouble, not their boss if something happens. They have to buy the bikes. So I'm not gonna, but I but it just makes me nervous. Do you ever see the one where they don't even get on the bike?
They're riding, they're standing on one side of the bike like the bike is a moped. Well, they're dressed like they're they're they're they're gonna be jumping off of some sort of thing. You know, I mean they dress like for the X games, they're ready to die out there. Yeah, yeah. I don't know, but look, whatever.
You're Chinese. Yeah, yeah, anyway, whatever. It's like uh I don't know, right? I don't know. Anyway, the point my point being that uh he was won over because he had a great time, but that's not what it's about.
Correct, it's not about yes, absolutely. And you know what I think part of it is is that you know, New York Times was the kind of paper of record for a bunch of things, right? So like you would look at them for art reviews, you would look at them for restaurant reviews of a certain kind, and then 2500 for the but we also back in the day, because there was no internet, you know, you had people who were known for certain things. So, like time out back in the day when timeout came out. I used to, we would wait.
You would all year they would wait to do their cheap eats issue. Absolutely, and they would have an editorial team and a whole group of people who all they did was go around to every neighborhood in the city all the time trying to find the best cheap eats. And it was well curated. They they didn't get all this stuff, but like, you know, then we were like, oh, what a you know, and like that is a super important valid thing, which maybe now has been taken over by Yelp, so there's no curation on that. I don't know.
I just don't think it's I don't think it's right to poison the star system that way. I agree. I think it's okay to to ask the paper of record, right, to have a little rarified air about that stuff. And and like, and that's why it's various in the different kinds of journalism, like time out, like that cheap eats thing. That was something when I was a young person in college that meant I would I loved reading the New York Times reviews.
I would never go to these restaurants, but that's what that was for. And the cheapest thing was for me to have a little checklist and and try to go to as many as I could that year. Yeah. And again, yes, memorable meals, awesome meals at those cheapies places. You know, like you know, you discover some of those places.
Most of them, sadly, you know, they don't last that long. But most restaurants don't last. But yeah, I mean, like, I remember I found like my favorite, you know, what was it called? Sweet and tart, which was an amazing restaurant that everyone started going to. Yeah, it was uh it was down near the Chase Bank on Canal Street in a basement.
Oh god, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and they had, you know, they had like the really good, you know, fried pork-fried rice in the bamboo that would come and they had a bunch of great stuff, you know what I mean? But you know, that's what that's for. Whatever. So we're in semi-agrement.
John's been deadly silent on this. He has no opinion. He's been furiously shaking his head. You can't see him. What do you think, John, about star system?
I it's I don't know. It's I obviously it's a super flawed system, but I have always kind of placed a lot of credence in it, not necessarily it has great food, but it says a lot about the current like cultural context of dining, I think. You know, even even just like looking at the eater heat maps and all that stuff, you know, which I claim to it's not hierarchical or things like. I don't know. It's just uh I don't know.
This is like what I wrote a lot of my master's thesis on, you know, it's like notions of taste and dictating taste. And it's it's I don't know, it's just it's so it's so freaking arbitrary, right? Like I I don't know what Pete, I mean, I know what Pete Wells likes to eat, but I don't know. Do he and I enjoy eating the same things. Like I've read some reviews of places that he's been to that I haven't really had super pleasurable experiences at.
Um so yeah, I don't know. I I like it. I think there is definitely a need in a market for it. I just wait for what? For for a star system, a you know, that kind of review system.
Um I do it is frustrating, you know, to talk about the the meat truck and then you know, places like Globern Dets or you know, Teresa just also got the three stars, as did Kwame today. Um I didn't read their review yet, but you know, congrats. And you know, Don Lee, my former partner is doing the the beverage uh, you know, working with as is Karen Stanley, my old manager over there. So I have I haven't been because uh I was supposed to go for friends and family, but something happened. I don't I don't know what happened, but yeah, I haven't been yet.
But yeah, congrats. Yeah. Yeah. Um I don't know. It was interesting.
In the in the mid 2000s, right? You know, you would sit around with like, you know, groups of chef uh chefs like, you know, uh um Sam Mason, you know, and uh Wiley and Dave Chang, and they would all, you know, all of which had worked at four-star restaurants, um, you know, had their own, you know, threes and whatever. And, you know, they would be like, why do you have to buy into this star system? Why can't we just make food that we like? And that was really Chang's point with Noodle Bar.
Sure. Right. And then, you know, but then you know, the the stars ended up coming to him. He got the three stars at Sambar, which again, I say is is kind of kind of weird. And he was out to kind of change, at least he said he was out to change kind of what we thought fine dining meant.
In other words, fine dining could just be where the chef got to make the most delicious food and the most kind of fun atmosphere. And I guess that's true. But once you truly open it up to people who aren't him, don't have that kind of pedigree, that's good because I think in a way we all should know who's doing fun and interesting stuff. I want the good information. Yeah.
You know what I mean? That's the only reason a guy like me, you know. I didn't go to culinary school. I never trained under some master. I never went to France, and I certainly haven't worked at the places that those people have.
But I uh I followed them, you know, they they broke those barriers for for young people, you know, like me. And I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, certainly. But uh, you know, it it seemed so inaccessible that it took people that had already infiltrated it to open it up to others, and and arguably too many people can do it now, and maybe I'm one of those people, but uh you know, it was it was revolutionary at the time and it felt that way, but it was all sort of rooted in this reverence for what came before. Maybe that's getting lost a little bit. Yeah, I mean, I think look, like someone who I think and to go outside of food for a minute, someone who I think is doing a really good job of saying we, you know, only amplified a certain kind of voice before and we're gonna do it differently, is MoMA.
Like if you go to like the interesting the new shows at the MoMA and like the way that they're hanging, what do you think, John? You go to the MOMA, right? Yeah, so amazing. Yeah, so so good. Like a really amazing new curatorial groundbreaking stuff.
Fantastic. But you consume art in a different way than you consume food because you can you know if you're unless you're nuts, you can only go to one restaurant a night, and honestly, most of us can you know go out maybe once a week, maybe you know what I mean? Maybe once a month, right? You know, it depends on how much money you have, how much time you have, where you live. Um so I think that it's a lot harder to do it in our world than it is maybe to do it in the food world to go back to AXBY C Z D zero's question.
Uh I am glad that changes are being made. I don't think we figured out the correct answer yet. I think you're right. But uh, you know, it's it's the kind of thing that you have to just keep asking questions around. So we're we're we're sort of all in agreement.
We're circling around the final diagnosis, but uh, we'll get there, or somebody will come. Yeah, somebody something. Um I don't have today's question, so I don't know. Quinn. Oh, I'll give one for that I have that was a couple weeks ago that I gonna answer.
Ready? You like mustard seeds? I do. Do you? Yeah, yeah.
Tom Calicchio taught me how to pickle them, right? Come on, really? No, not really, but he did, and uh, so now everybody has this is a pickle mustard question. See, well, I'm gonna do it, but I'm gonna tell them the way that I do it, and then you can tell them the way that uh your boy the the Coleconator taught you. I've never met the man.
Really? No, not one time, not one time. Never never. Not that I can recall. Seems okay.
Seems great. Yeah, power too. I remember when when craft opened and he was pickling mustard seeds and everybody's mind just went. You know, I never went to craft. It was great.
It was really great. Still very good. It's still yeah, good. Okay, here's the thing, right? Because I I've met I've met him once or twice.
He's a good guy, everyone loves crafts. Uh but I was always like, I hate making choices. You're taking me to a restaurant where literally I have to choose things. And it sounds like hell in the kitchen, right? Like, oh, here's a bunch of stuff, and they're gonna tell you how to cook it.
I go, What? What? Yeah, it's like it's like like if I want to make all the choices, I'll go to the store, I'll buy my food, I'll cook it. Yeah, that's choosing. You know what I mean?
Like, you're like, yeah, just choose for me, man. Yeah. And same at the bar. Like, I just like, you know, just like just give me something that's delicious that you like. That means isn't that why you go?
Like take a few things out of your hands for once. Yeah, you do the cooking. What? Yeah. All right.
Uh every time I use mustard seed in a dressing or anything else, it's excessively bitter. Is there anything that can be done about that? Or is it likely to be an issue with my source? Couple things, Monty. One, you might also find mustard seeds particularly bitter because and you know, my palate has changed.
So I used to, I remember I mu years cook mustard seeds, and then all of a sudden, one year I was like, oh, these are more bitter than they used to be. And then someone else next to me was like, no, they're the same. And I'm like, oh, I've changed. Weird. You know what I mean?
That's interesting. I I I've had the same thought. I've I think they got more bitter. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but I think maybe it's just us.
Anyway, uh, first thing, Monty, are you blanching them in a couple changes of water? Gotta blanch those suckers in a couple of changes of water. Uh, and then uh what I like to do is I like to pressure cook the mustard seeds in vinegar, and uh pressure cooking the mustard seeds in vinegar uh knocks out some more of uh the pungency anyway. Uh and and then uh I stir sugar in afterwards. And then then that's how uh I do it.
20 minutes or 15 psi. What what else? Do you have anything to add? Oh no, I mean I kind of do it the same way. I don't pressure cook them, I just cook them forever on low in a bunch of vinegar, but you have to blanch them several times, certainly.
Yeah, and then uh vinegar and then stir in some sugar, and if you do it right, pressure cooker for 20 minutes, 15 psi. That's good. Is all you need. And then uh they kind of pop like caviar. Yeah, that's it's super fun.
Yeah. When you get it right. So I used to do it like we used to do it like when I was at the French Culinary Institute all the time. So I developed a pressure cooker thing, I just did it constantly, blah, blah, blah. And then one day, it's bitter.
Ah. Yeah. So I just stopped doing it. I haven't done it in years. Oh, I haven't either.
I mean, you know, maybe it's time to bring 2012 back. Bacon on everything again. Oh my god. Yeah, 2012 had its had its moments. Oh, it did.
Yeah. Yeah. Uh so Quinn, what else we got? Uh what else we got on the questions there since I've uh since I've uh since I printed the wrong list. Uh you have a question from uh Bift on there?
From biscuit? No. What does biscuit want to know? Sounds delicious. Bift it.
Oh, biffed it. No, no, what do we got? Yeah. Uh you mentioned to Carolyn Shift that you steam your fries and then double fry and then uh why two fries wouldn't the steam and the first fry be in a no listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen. Uh one thing I think that I hate is anyone saying that there's a best way to do anything.
There's like a million ways to do everything, and a lot of them can be like incredibly delicious. Like if you go to Belgium, right, they don't they don't pre-blanch, they just do uh an oil blanch, they just do it at a lower temperature for a longer time. Yeah, right. But if you also go to Belgium, they have a really amazing fry setup. They have like that counter with the kettle in it.
And you know, they do very long low first oil blanch. The problem is is that you know, as an American running, okay, there's making fries at home, and there's making fries in a restaurant. And when you're making fries in a restaurant, like during service, you're not turning your fryer down. You're keeping your fryer at, you know, probably 365 thereabouts, the whole service, and you have to make everything cook at that temperature, right? And so, you know, and even when you're pre-doing it, it's hard to get uh, you know, whoever your prep person is to do a really long low oil blanch on potatoes and get it exactly right every time because this is not what they're trained to do.
They're not Belgian. They don't they don't breathe this stuff, you know what I mean? And so um pre-steaming the problem with boiling, I used to boil it is that they're they they break up too much, they get too damaged. So if you have a big steamer or a combi oven, you can do rack after rack of them and you can cook the hell out of them, and that's gonna make it easier to do a shorter first fry and have an amazing uh crust texture. So it's all about what you're what you're willing to learn to do on your own and what you're how repeatable you want it to be for someone who doesn't do it every time or isn't necessarily as skilled as you need them to be.
And so for me, the easiest way to do it is steam fry fry. But it's not the only way. Wait, what do you think? I I do it what I have now learned to be called the Belgian way, which is a super low uh oil, you know, poach essentially, and then just finish them off at the end. Yeah, and that's what they do, and they make the best fries in the world.
What's your gate? What's what what are you doing three eight, half, what size, three? Yeah, yeah. My favorite are half, but they're much harder to do well. Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, three eights gives you a little bit more flexibility. It really does because uh, you know, the a French fry is a fight between the crust and the center. A struggle. And it is. And like, you know, and and then and if you are a master of it, you can do the, you know, what you freaks would call 12 millimeter fry, but like what we would call, uh, I'm pointing back at John for those of you that can't see me.
Uh, you know, although do you eat are you a metric man, John? Yeah, yes. And no, I don't know. I learned more about the metric system growing up, but then going to college, I just kind of had to forget about it and start learning the imperial system, and I've just been confused ever since. Sorry, man.
That's all right. Anyway, so like a 12 slash half inch fry. When a half inch fry is perfect, uh, it's godly. You know what I mean? No, that's too, yeah.
You know, but it's just not, it's too much. Yeah. And three eighths fries are delicious. Agreed. You know what I mean?
I love a three of I I I can't wrap my head around the the thin ones. Yeah. They're super easy to get good. For sure. I've never been a fan.
I don't get it. No. No. No. No, no.
Wasting my time. Yeah. So and what do you uh oh because we got two minutes. So here's the question. I've never actually asked someone, uh I've never actually asked someone this before.
Oh, good. So burgers are a higher margin item, right? Okay. However, you charge a lot less for them. So is who?
Well, I looked at I looked at your menu. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they cost a lot less. Like, so you know, your steak free is a lot more than the burger. Yeah.
And it costs a lot more for you. Sure. Do you are you happy when someone orders the burger? Or I'm burger's great. I'm I'm I'm I I I mean, whatever.
Wouldn't put anything under that I didn't like. That burger means a lot to me. It's very special. Yeah. Talk to me about the burger then.
Well, you know, it's uh you know two four ounce uh patties, and uh it's just sort of seasoned simply, seared on one uh seasoned on one side, seared on the flat top, American cheese, a little bit of sauce, whatever. We get a beautiful bun from these people do called native bread out in Bushwick, and uh lettuce tomato. What kind of what kind of bun are they making? It's a potato bun. They call it the Martin's Killer.
Oh, yeah. So it's uh it's uh another political stick. Without the political level. Right, exactly. So let me ask you this.
Does it have the same uh hyper fast browning that the Martin's do? No, it's it it's un it's not similar to a Martin's roll in any way, except that it's a potato bun. It's not soft and squishy, it's not all the stuff that you love and I love about that bun, but it is uh it is something that I felt was an important uh so what are you getting out of the potato if it's not this soft? Is it just not stale as fast? Are they using potato or are they or they are they using like mashed potato or potato flour in it?
I'm not sure though. Big difference between potato starch and potato flour. I use I like potato flour in my uh Parker House rolls. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, I like that.
I love Parker House rolls. Me too. You know what Wiley's putting his sliders on? The savory Hawaiian buns. Nice.
It's nice. Anyway, Homer, thanks for uh coming. I want I'm gonna come over and see you in your restaurant. Come back anytime. Hope you had a good time.
Yeah, you know where to find me. Yeah, cooking issues.
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