Hello, and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you live from the heart of Manhattan, Rockefeller Center, New York City, New Stance Studios. Join as usual with John way in the back. How are you doing, man? Doing great, thanks.
Yeah. Yeah? Peachy, good. Great, awesome. Got Joe Hazen rocking the panels behind me.
What's up, Joe? Hey, hey, hey. Good, good, good. And uh way over there on the other coast down low. We got Nastasia the Hammer Lopez.
How you doing? I'm good. Good. Yeah, yeah. Got Jackie Molecules also in Los Angeles.
What's up? Yo. Saw both of those fools because I just got back yesterday. Yesterday? Jesus.
Yesterday? Yesterday. From California. Yesterday. And uh then in uh holding down the upper left off the coast, we have Quinn on the island of Vancouver.
How you doing? I'm good. Great. And uh, like I say, we have a full house today. I have two, count them, two chefs here from well, the Momofuku Empire.
But that's that's kind of what joins them, but we're we're gonna discuss that separately and not even necessarily talk that much about the moms. Maybe we will. I don't know. We'll see what you guys want. We have uh starting from the back of the room, Dennis No, who also owns DeAndi.
You've been on this show before. I have, yes. Twice? I think so, yeah. Once just for your voice.
Yes. You're just in the give me some voice. This is the reason why I'm here, Dave. I'm trying to get a second job, and I think voice over acting is is somewhere in the future. So Nastasia, Nastasia, Dennis versus Phil Bravo.
Give me your best radio, Dennis, and then Nastasia, make make a decision here. Well, you gotta give me something to say. What do you want me to say? I mean, like, you know, it's it's like my friend Ted, the bass player for uh uh shooter Jennings says, you know, like you could sing the phone book, you can read the phone book, it doesn't matter. Like, like people, like, look, Snoop Dogg, James uh James Will Jones, say whatever in the hell they want.
It does not matter. Well, you know, um, how about this? Welcome to Cooking Issues with Dave Arnold. Wow, see? What do you think?
What do you think, Stas? What do you what do you what do you got for me? I still just uh fell bravo. Jesus. Well, harsh.
I you know, I I think there's an element here that I have to practice for sure. Um, you know, so you also gotta do more of like uh like you know, like Phil Bravo, like like a little more, like, you know, like a little more Don Pardo kind of a sitch, you know. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's definitely an acting component to this that I've never explored. So the thing is if you combine like the cheese with like the low rumble, yeah.
That's what like people can't. That's what the average person can't do. They can't do cheese plus rumble. They can do like, they can gravel out their voice or they can do cheese, but they can't cheese and rumble. See, these are good notes.
This is why I'm here. Yeah, yeah. And uh I see uh uh uh diligently thinking about these problems here. We have Paul Carmichael, currently from uh Kabawa, but uh from everywhere, really. Is that how you pronounce it?
Kabawa? Yeah, Kabawa. I'll tell you what, hard place to get a reservation. It's tiny, that's why. You got two places.
All I know is I'm walking, I'm just walking past it one day, literally looking for a restaurant to eat that night. And Paul's like, Arnold, what the hell? I'm like, I need a place to eat. And he hooked me up. And I have to say, worth the hype.
Great food. I think, like, honestly, like, just like refreshingly delicious. You know what I mean? Well, thanks, Arnold. And you're you're a tough cookie.
I've known you for years. You'll you'll call it like you see it. I'm a tough bastard. Like the thing is, if I didn't love it, I would just say it was fine. But it was not fine.
It was really, really good. Like, like some of the best food I've had out in a long time. And also, confusing. I had to look crap up. Like blaff.
Blaf. And dog sauce. Yeah. Which I guess is actually from French. It's not they don't call it dog sauce, right?
They call it like sauce. Yeah. Oh, how do you pronounce dog down there? How you say chien? Yeah, same.
Cane? Yeah. With it, uh with a heart? Oh, nice. All right.
And uh, yeah, there's a bunch of stuff. We'll go through. Also, I noticed on your menu, or maybe it was something you wrote. We'll get to it later. But you guys get sour sop that's good in New York.
How the hell do you get good sour sop in New York? I gotta connect. First of all, like you're from Barbados, right? Original or all around, but like Barbados. Yeah.
All right. Do they call it sour sap there? They call it Guanabana, what do they call it? No, we call it sour sap. Call it sour sap.
Guanabona is the uh Spanish version. So like Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic. Show me with your hands so only the Patreon people can see on the video how big are the ones you're getting. So decent. Decent.
Decent. Like not huge. Yeah, like a fool. Yeah, okay. Oh, maybe you're helping them out.
Yeah. Football. Football size. Yeah. Maybe a little bit smaller.
What's the secret in the United States in New York City of getting a decent sour sap slash. First of all, for all you out there who have never had a good one, I'm so sorry. Yeah. And also, like if you've had it, if you've had it in the United States, but you've never had it where they grow, I'm so sorry. Like, you know what I mean?
Like, because you don't know how to compare it. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's very true. Yeah. It's like one of those things like custard apple or something, you know, where it's uh it's a fruit, you don't see around a lot.
And then when you get it, you're just like, man, this is pretty special. Yeah, yeah. Here's another thing that's not so good. No offense. I love all those people who make that stuff.
The puree is fine. It's sour sop? Yeah, it's fine. It's not at least the ones I get. Oh, like you shit in the supermarket.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's yeah, no. That so if you taste that and you think you've had sour sap. Nah. No.
It's like night and day. I'll tell you something else. After I've clarified it, I don't like it as much. Same with same with lychee. When I clarify lychee, I don't like it as much.
Gets sweaty. A lot of these like like hot weather like fruits, not passion fruit. Passion fruit. That clarifies like a dream. But to me, like lychee, I think sour sap didn't get sweaty.
I just I was like, ah, it's not as special as it used to be. Like oranges. When you clarify an orange, it's like, uh. Yeah, it loses like uh its soul. Yeah.
So are you gonna tell us where you get it, or is it a freaking secret? Oh, this is this one I can't blow my guys' spot up. I can't run out of source. It's not like uh down where I live in the Lower East Side of New York City, there's like an avocado joint, just sells avocados. Yeah, they're dope.
Yeah. Shout out to Sonny. Yeah, but wait, which one? Because there's two actually, right? You used it A A A, the one that's on uh Christine.
Christie, yeah, Christy. If the he doesn't know you, doesn't want to talk to you. Oh yeah, it took me, it took me a year for him to like acknowledge my existence. Yeah, I walked in there once just off the street. I was like, Do you have like, do you like have different like varieties?
Is it like has bags like we avocados get out? I was like, all right. You know what I mean? Easy with you was 72 or 36. I'm like, ugh.
Yeah, yeah. But uh avocados, man. I live in the avocado, cheap avocado district of New York, right? So there's a couple. There's like it used to be like up near Port Authority.
There was a couple of Styles farmers markets and a bunch of not there were not real farmers' markets. You know what I mean? Styles markets where they were all buying the cheapest stuff, and you could always one of the two, oh Stas used to shop there. You used to live in that neighborhood, right? You went to Styles uh Styles.
Yeah. And there's always cheap produce there. You had to get it right before it went off, right? Yeah. Yeah.
But cheap as hell. You know what I mean? And then down near where I live, Essex Market, there's a big competition for selling avocados to the um Dominican and Puerto Rican community down where I live, and so avocados. Cheap. And you can always find someone who has them soft.
Yes. Some morons out over there buying baseballs. When I see people picking those baseballs, I was like, either you're the most patient person on earth or an idiot. I don't know which one it is. You know what I mean?
And all you gotta do is a little bit extra work just to like it's a it's like a couple blocks away. Yeah. Yeah. Let me ask you this. Who here, when they're shopping for home, actually has the foresight to buy the avocados for three days from now.
In in my life? No. Yeah, me either. No, not at all. I mean, I barely cook at home, so yeah, but if you if you needed avocados, you need them like today.
You need today's avocado. Yeah, you don't want you don't want Friday's avocado. Who wants that? Unless you're one of those. No, but here we have so many of them that you just like have a bunch for two weeks, you know.
You can plan ahead. Nice. Oh, yeah. By the way, speaking of that song, uh, anyone who cuts out the puties is a bad person. You can't cut out the putties at the end.
You know what I mean? If you cut out the puties. Even at a bar, if you if you have the the stones at this point of to play like an old school, like super overplayed, classic, awesome song. Play the PewDiePie's or go home. You know what I mean?
Anyway, uh, that's just my feeling. You you can disagree with it. But uh yeah, Stas, yeah, you come from the land of avocados, but do you guys eat so many avocados out there that you just always have them around no matter what, and if they go bad, you just throw them in the garden and hope they plant a tree or what? Yeah, so many go bad. That's the problem.
You can't eat them fast enough. How much is an avocado? Not at what's what's your fancy bouge market called? Erwan. Yeah.
Yeah. So uh how much is uh an not at erwan. If you go to a normal human place, how much is an avocado cost? I don't know because there's so many trees that we don't have to buy them. What you s now it is scrumping only apples, or can you scrump an avocado?
It's like stealing fruit, or that it's like fruit that falls that you steal it, scrumping it up. But Stas also does it with flowers. She let me ask you a real question. Be real. At Nastasia's house, I saw a bunch of uh lilacs.
Did you actually buy them? She said I she said I bought them because she didn't want to talk about it with me. I bought that. All right. No, I definitely shots fired.
Yeah, yeah. I'm not saying, I'm just asking. Not saying, asking. Just questions. Yeah, just questions, man.
You're allowed to ask questions. All right. So this is the part of the program where we shoot the breeze for a little bit of time, because I know we got a lot to get to about what happened in the previous week. Let's start in the upper left. Quinn, what do you got for me?
Uh actually, two weeks ago, we managed to source uh local emergen eggs. So that was uh interesting. They're very mild taste, but very rich texture. So we did a a carbonara and a French style omelets. Pretty good.
How many humans are more? How many humans were at your house? Is an emu egg like an ostrich egg? It's roughly like like more it's more than a dozen. I know that an ostrich egg is more than a dozen eggs.
No, these are about ten. How many yolks? How many yolks in it? Well, I mean, we didn't get a super clean break on the yolk. Didn't use a Dremel, did you?
Didn't Dremel it, did you? Gotta dremel that side. No, no. What are you, Fred Flintstone? You need a Dremel for that, man.
You know what I'm saying? How'd you crack it? Uh just uh the back of a knife and just like tap tap tap around. Again, they're not as like crazy uh thick as a ostrich I've seen. But yeah, they're yeah, they're interesting.
And we're getting more this week, and they're definitely like a lower water content, I think. So I'm gonna try some form of custard and then uh fresh pasta. Yeah, I hard boiled one once and I was like, nah. I don't ever need to do that again. What a pain in the butt.
You know what I mean? That's what happened to me. I never tried to do anything else. Be real, Quinn. Did it taste any was it like, oh, I need that.
Emu meat's delicious. I like it. But like, do you need that's coming? Do you need to have emu egg again in your life? Or are you done?
You're like, I went big, now I can now I can chill and just eat normal sized eggs. Uh I think the the mild the mild taste actually could be interesting for complications where there's gonna be some other strong flavor, but I think the texture could be better than a normal egg. When you say texture better, is it because it doesn't have the correct yolk to white percentage, which is as much yolk as possible? I I think that's the correct percentage, right? Just general water content.
Like the yolk and the egg white when raw look a lot more risky. I see. Should make a sponge cake, see if it's eggy. Oh yeah, whip that thing. Yeah.
How about you want to try that? Do do a uh like what what should what should he do with only the yolks? You should do an angel food with the white, but crack it right. Don't be don't break those yolks. Do it do it uh uh an emu angel food cake.
I know it's every time an angel gets its wings, it's emu. It's emu. Like a one egg angel food cake. And then but like what what should what should uh what should what should I do? Emu eggs gives you wings.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. What but what should what should the yolk prep be? Which one of the many yolk only preps? Like either a a customer, custard gelato or meal.
Listen. Like uh crime angle. Queen lemon, yeah. There you go. But let me give you, what'd you say?
Mayo. Yeah, there you go. See, what you need is something that is gonna highlight only the yolk. Yeah. Right?
You need something that's yolk-only situation. Like ancient food cake is the most egg white, other than just like an unsweetened meringue, which no thanks. You know what I mean? Like, or even like uh, I don't really do you does anyone like eating just those giant meringues that are like kind of just sugar puffs? No, right?
No one likes little Pavlova. They're good. Pavlovas are good. But then you're adding all Pavlova delicious. But then, you know, but then you're adding all like fruit or size.
So I think that the cleanest way to just taste uh egg white. Angel cake. Start throwing emy whites and cocktails? Oh, you can see how they shake. That's true.
Well, because I was thinking whipping it is gonna give you an idea of how it holds, like how the protein holds, right? Like how stable it is in a in an angel food kind of sitch. But yeah, what's the most yolk yolk? I think we're getting two. I mean, could just do like uh a creme creme caramel, creme brulee.
I mean, you're adding all this brown sugar and stuff. I'm saying, like, what is like just go the plainest, plainy, plain McPlane, so that you know what the yolk tastes like. You already know what caramel tastes like. You know what I mean? That's all I'm saying.
Like, yeah, that's all. Just isolate so you can and see whether it's actually different. You know what I mean? That's my you do what you want. It's your yay, it's your emu egg.
You know what I mean? That's it's all for you. Also, I think you need an ostrich and a ria next to it. Right. The comparison.
Yeah, yeah. Comparison. Not maybe at the same time. You can remember, he's recorded. I don't know.
Take notes. Take notes. You can buy a farmer. Ostrich eggs. You can buy unshelled ostrich eggs.
But because, yeah, the ostrich farmer or is it ostrich or email? The one who was uh at uh Union Square. Uh-huh. I think I asked him for in shell, and he was like, nah. I think they cr he like cuts them with a saw and then like puts them in like cartons.
Or he used to. This is I haven't asked in well, well, well over a decade. That dude might not be at the farmer's market anymore. Because I'm not looking for that. You know what I mean?
Who is looking for that? I don't know. It was a stunt that everyone wanted an ostrich egg. I want to say, like, like back in like early Sambar days, like 2012, everyone's like, I'm gonna cook an ostrich egg, and you do it one time. You know what I mean?
One time. Any of you guys ever cooked the ostrich egg and had some amazing? No. No. I've never even cooked the ostrich egg.
Yeah, no need. You know what I've never cooked on your menu? Yeah. Cobia fish. Never cooked it.
Good fish. Yeah? Strong fish. Literally. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Good fighter, right? Also, the only member of its genus and family. It's like a ginkgo tree, but fish. You know what I mean? I mean, I'm not saying it's smelly like a ginkgo.
I'm saying it's like it's like a it's like an evolutionary outlier. It's like, you know, a fighter that survived while all of its cousins die. You know what I mean? Like one of one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I've never cooked one. I've had it. Anyway. Uh so uh all right, we covered and sm we covered and smothered the eggs. Yeah.
We're egged up. Covered and smothered. Exactly. Uh all right, uh, let's go, uh let's go over to John. What do you got for me, man?
Uh forget me, nothing exciting this week. It'll just be like two weeks, fool. Yeah, but I don't know it's okay. Let's still let's get to the guests and everything. We can talk about it.
Someday he's gonna come and he's gonna be like, I just developed 35 sandwiches. And then exactly Well, we're gonna talk about that in a in a minute, because we got to talk about what makes a bon me roll different and why I should care and what other sandwiches should be served on a bon me roll that aren't. For instance, meatball sub. Yes. Actually, quick note about next week's episode.
We have uh India Doris on from Marquettes, and we're gonna have her talk a little bit about fundraising for restaurant and things like that and restaurant finances. So I think that's something that's really none of us know about. So if listeners, you guys have questions about that, this is gonna be hopefully like the start of a little series I want to get going. Okay, so I don't know whether you guys heard because we we were all but Paul Carmichael, it was him. You could tell because he has a good voice, but it's no it's no Dennis.
Yeah. No, no. That's Dennis is like smooth and sexy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So uh said that pois should be served on Bon Miri.
Those are fighting words. Not to me, because I don't care. But like, so you like the thing about a po-boy roll is I think it needs to have something. Do you not like the super dry outside with the soft inside? Because that's it needs to be like they're achieving that texture.
That's the texture they want. I think a magical bon mi roll that's like crispy and soft and chewy and pillowy would be phenomenal with fried shrimp. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Although to me, I uh I'll I'll uh I won't die on this hill, but uh maybe two, three shots and then run on this hill.
But it's like uh debris. That's the po'boy. That's to me, that's the one to beat. I like fried seafood, but I could just eat fried seafood. You know what I mean?
Like the debris on a on a roll, that's good business. You know what I mean? I love a good sandwich, man. Sandwiches are good. Yeah.
My man John doesn't want to talk about it, but he's developing a whole boat, maybe developing a whole boatload of sandwich. It's happening. We just don't know when yet. But yeah. What's the worst sandwich?
Well. The worst sandwich everyone asks for. What's the worst thing that everyone, when you're opening a restaurant that's gonna have sandwiches, they're like, you need to have a and you're like, no. Ooh, good question. Yeah.
Yeah. What about a BLT? Whoa, BLT is brains. Whoa, stop, stop, stop. Slowly roll.
Yeah. That's a that's a God level sandwich, Quinn. Yeah. Maybe if you don't have the right tomato. If you if it needs to be on the menu, well like, what if they want a BLT on the menu every day of the year?
Well, that's you know, look, I have to say this. I'm gonna say this, and you're gonna know I'm a low quality individual. Because it's true. Kampari tomatoes are fine on a BLT. They're not God's BLT, but like you can now source tomatoes that are edible all year.
Yeah. Yeah. And honestly, a tomato on a BLT is fodder. It is just it's extra water with the freaking lettuce. It depends.
Like what makes a BLT, in my opinion, is the bacon and the mail. And all that extra water helps cut all the fat. Let me ask you a question. Are you like uh are you do you need Are you okay with a commercial male? Are you a male freak, like freaking this guy at the end of the, like my Monsieur the Francophone Jean who only freaking like can I make my own mail?
You know, like are you are you a buy mayo? Depends on the application. Okay. So if I was running a business that made a ton of sandwiches, I'm buying mail. Hell yeah.
Yeah. Which one? Well, you uh you're nodding your head. You're with me, Dennis. Yeah, I mean, oh no, I'm with Paul.
You're buying, yeah, I'm a big one. You're buying it. Me too. I buy it. John's the maker.
Hell of that. Not with what I'm gonna be doing. Yeah. So and what do you do? Are you a Hellman's, a Dukes, a Cupie, whatever the application you go different?
I I I'd go different. Cupies, like probably, and these are gonna be some fighting words, my least favorite, agreed. Because you hate touching the bottle? No, because it just dominates everything in its flavor. Cupie.
Yeah. You know, and when it's in a thing, you're just like, oh, Cupie. All right. I'm gonna say this. I'll say this and tell me if I'm wrong or if you agree.
That in the way I think Rust and Daughters does some stuff. I mean, Rust and Dollars plain cream cheese is all about the cream cheese. And so it's a very special plain cream cheese. All of their flavor cream cheeses are Philly. If you're gonna flavor a mayonnaise, get home and slash best made.
Because it doesn't get it. Just buy it. You know what I mean? Hellman's is great. That's good stuff.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm not anti-Dukes. I've had Duke's canes, if you're up in Boston, I've had all of the regional mayonnaise that I could. Whenever someone has a regional mayonnaise, it's like I will try your regional mayonnaise.
You know his mayonnaise is not good. Sorry, Trader Joe's, your mayonnaise sucks. Is it too sweet or something? It's thin. It just doesn't hold up.
You can't like, you can't like put that on a fish and grill it. It's thin. You know what I mean? You know what's a sandwich I hate? What?
To answer your question? Steak sandwich. Oh. Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like thinly sliced, like cheese steaks.
Like a roasted piece of meat. Like a rib-eye sandwich. Like a red buy sandwich. Stuff of that nature, I never really understand. Either cold or hot.
Cold or hot. Like even in the in like the Japanese sense. I mean, like the Sando's? Yeah, you know, like I mean, when they're making those sandos, amazing beef. So long as a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a we stipulating not millon, not millinese.
Not like you're okay with like a chicken fried steak on on a s on. That's fine. But like a grilled piece of, I don't know, hanger or whatever. Yeah. Yeah.
It's it's too hard to eat. You don't like that thing pulling out, you bite on it and comes out. And then some people will slice it and they think that makes it easier. No. Nah, that should have just come out too.
No. No. Now a roast beef sandwich. Totally different. So you're pro-roast beef.
Pro roast beef. Love roast beef. Yeah. And shave beef shaved style. Shave style beef.
Yeah. Yeah. But whole primal cuts put into a sandwich format. For me, a roast beef sandwich, gotta have horseradish. If they don't give me horserad on a cold roast beef sandwich, if I don't have horseradish, I just don't want to be there.
You know what I mean? It's like, what happened to me? You know what I mean? Why am I here? You know what I'm saying?
Yeah. It's like a hot dog with a mustard. Yeah, it's incorrect. Although uh Nastasia the hammer Lopez, when I was with her last, like I don't know, three days ago. We went to uh we went to see Brandy Carlisle in concert.
Who by the way, I don't know if you've ever seen Brandy Carlisle in concert. Fantastic. Right, Stas? Fantastic concert. Yeah.
Yeah. She she can send it to the show. She can sing she can sing her heart out. But Nastasia in the in the parking lot of the forum, right? Uh the person who drove us in almost killed a biker because they told us to go in the wrong lane.
So that was fun. But like we park and she's like, you need to get one of these LA hot dogs. So you had an LA hot dog? No. Okay.
So check the situation. It's a cart with a sheet tray. Yeah. With a yeah, like a like a full, I think it was a full, not a half, a full sheet tray. Underneath it is the high output Iwatani butane burger.
And so it's like it's like an aluminum pseudo camal made of a sheet tray. The danger dogs. Yeah. What? That sounds sus.
And then whatever. Dude, they can pump them out though. She's making a living, dude. And then she takes the dogs, which are fatter than our dogs, fatter than our dogs. They're almost they're closer to what used to be called uh hot beef here in in in Manhattan, if you're a old school Manhattan person.
She wraps it in bacon. Oh, yeah. And then she rolls them around until the bacon's like a little bit crispy. And then she moves it to the edge of her aluminum camal, right? Which it's, by the way, also bent the wrong way.
So it's bent, it's bent up, not down. Anyway. So, and then she's got like onions and like all kind of stuff. And then a pan and and like uh, you know, kind of roasted off or like, you know, aluminumed off uh jalapenos whole. I think tip off, like uh stem off.
And so Nastasia's like, you need to get it the way they make it, you need to get all all of the stuff on it. And and so all the stuff is I'm sorry, people who aren't from LA, mayonnaise, which I like love mayonnaise, right? I knew this was coming. Mustard and ketchup. It's a lot.
All three. Yeah. That sounds like Barbados. With with all the goop, with with like all the onions and peppers, and then the jalapeno. And the lady was like, You want a jalapeno?
I was like, of course. And she was like, huh. I was like, what? Anyway, so she put puts it all on, and then it just can't get the whole thing into your face. It tastes good, but it's not really like a it's like it's like Chicago dogs and Toronto dogs.
Like, I had to eat it. I you know, I'm making the motion. So you look like you're trying not to vomit on your shoes. Because you you know you're gonna be dropping stuff. You gotta you gotta assume the stents.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it'll bend over, but uh like yeah. But Nastasia Nastasia said, Nastasia said, I don't need to get it with all the things on because I already know what that tastes like, so she has got it the way she wanted it. Fear.
And sorry, John, they don't put it in the fork. They don't put a fork in it, so yeah. Oh darn. So yeah. I knew she was gonna that's why I brought that story up, because I knew she would dig on John for the time that we went to Billy Joel and the man ordered a rice platter with a fork while we were rushing to go see Billy Joel.
We had to go around around the whole MSG. I stand by the stuff. Who was the only person who was in in seat in time for uh for the concert with like uh yeah, who was it? Who's the only person in their seat in time for the concert? John Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, and he had better food than everybody else. So I don't know better. Thank you, Jack. I don't know better. Like anything on a anything on a pita tastes good if the pita's okay.
And I have to say, for garbage for like standard like blah blah blahs, yeah, the bottom tier bread stuff in New York City, sorry, it currently is pretzels. Every pretzel you buy out blows. You know what I mean? It's just yeah, it's just not good. I'm sure when it came out of the oven, it was good.
Here's another thing. Maybe I went to the museum like like the day before uh I went to the Met the day before we I went to LA. This should be illegal. They have all of these carts in front of the Met. So my wife goes to the cart that looks like the pretzel's properly salted.
Stunt pretzel. Stunt pretzel. They gave her, they gave her this thing with almost no result. I was like, what the hell? What the hell?
Disappointing. Yeah, I know. Uh stunt pretzel. You should not be allowed to do that. You know what I mean?
That should be illegal. And why don't they make a hot hold for those things that actually hold. If we're gonna pretend that we're a pretzel town, someone, I we know the people, museum. Jesus, we have a we have a uh a literally an exhibit up now about food vendors. Uh but in New York.
But there's gotta be a better way to hot hold a pretzel. There's has to be a better way to hot hold a pretzel. This might be your new thing. Yeah. So that's bottom, that's for me, that's bottom tier because it should be top tier.
The reason it's bottom tier is because it should be top, top, top tier. Pretzel. You know what I mean? A good pretzel's good. But they're hard to come by.
Yeah, they are. Yeah. They are. Um There used to be this little restaurant in uh not used to be, it still exists, in Sydney called Ten Williams. They make a good pretzel.
Yeah? Servicely term Lasana. Okay, so hold up. So, Paul, how long were you in Sydney? Uh, ten years.
Just about a long time. Yeah. Yeah. You ever go back or no? I haven't been back since I've been here.
The entire time you were in Sydney, if I'm assuming at one point you ate. No hot dogs. Well, you ate down you ate down near the near the what's it called? There's all the sandwich shops down near where the botanical garden and all that stuff is, down near the water, near the opera house, near all that crap. Oh, uh Barangaroo-ish area.
Yeah, yeah. Anyway, uh, did you ever have to punch a seagull? No, no. It's it's like seagulls and bin chickens, the uh royal ibis. Uh they know what's up, man.
You know? So they knew I was a tourist, that's why they attacked me. Oh, yeah. I gotta fight. You you gotta walk there like a certain sort of energy not to get attacked by animals.
Yeah. Like, you know, I like for many years, I I I would say I've never been in a fight. And then now I I can't say that anymore because I fought a seagull. I won though. I won.
You're lucky to call his friends. Oh man, I know they would have a. I just looked, I don't know, it's weird. That's it's a it's a cool it's a cool place. Hey, did you go to the while you were there?
Did you go to the what's the famous uh dry uh dry age fish dude there? Uh Josh's place. Yeah. St. Peter's.
Good? Yeah, St. Peter's great. Have you ever had the side by side? I've never had someone do side by side.
This is the fish, this is the fish after the aging. Ooh. I've I've had that, but I've never had it like in a restaurant. No. Yeah.
Well, I guess you wouldn't, I guess you could do a tasting in the restaurant that is both delicious and instructive. Yeah, but it could get old real quick. You mean to do as a cook? No, to just as a diner. Well, no, but if like let's say it's an app and you're like same fish two ways, and you highlight the you highlight it like at like it's normal, however old that particular fish wants to be, you know, four days, five days, whatever it is.
And then like your dry age one and you highlight like we like the thing with that is that because animals are so different, you know, like beef, whatever. Yeah, like that four you might have like an amazing piece of fish at UVH for 14, and then you might get a piece that's just like a tuna is just like mid at you know, so it's like it's like finding finding two fishes that there's no like baseline, you know what I mean? But you have to find two fishes that are like top quality to to then try and weave the story. So then you pull down your glasses, like, can you afford only the mid-tuna? Or do you want the best to it?
Like the ham weasels do in s in Spain. You know what I mean? But all you know, I mean, sushi guys have been doing this a while. You go to like uh old school sushi spots, you'll get some old fish. Oldfish.com.
Yeah. Um, all right, hey, Jack, we didn't do you yet. What do you got? What do you got, Senor La Molecule? We're gonna move the show along, but w what I do have is um the live podcast from Night on Earth, which will be released soon for Patreons only, uh, for an exclusive window.
Um, and that was that was a blast being with all you guys recording that. And uh, so yeah. So that was Kevin that was Kevin Jung, who's uh running the R D right now and uh basically menu development at the Noma pop, which we can't talk about, but we toured the the place. Crazy. Oh, it always is.
I mean, crazy. Crazy. Uh Harold McGee needs no introduction. Harold McGee and Ariel Johnson also needs no introduction, but go buy her book, a flavorama. You know what I mean?
Anyway, uh all right, cool. And when we we're gonna put that up just for Patreon, you said for a while, right? Yeah. Yeah, cool. All right, Stas, what uh what of our trip do you want to uh pop out for today?
Um, well, I don't know. We ate at some good places, that's the thing, right? So you ate at where what was it the first night? We went to uh firstborn Lisa Lisa over there hooked us up at Firstborn. It was uh it was awesome.
It was good. And she banged out a whole tasting for like a bunch of us in like forty five minutes because I had to go with uh McGee and Kevin uh and we did a book because Ariel hadn't arrived yet, so we did a book talk at um at uh now serving, which is a cool bookstore. I don't know, I don't know neighborhoods, so I apologize, LA, but it's a cool bookstore, like a cookbook store. So like, you know, like if you're like I'm gonna buy a cookbook and I'm in New York, where do they go? Kitchenars and letters.
Ying ding. If you're in LA, go to now serving. You know what I mean? They're good people and they have like a good selection. The whole the whole time like we're talking, I'm like looking up and be like, I have that book.
I have that book. You know what I mean? I had such a good cookbook collection, like massive. It's all now stuck in Puerto Rico. Back to Mapesh.
So it's been in Puerto Rico for like 15 years? Yeah. Huh. Huh. Do you maintain a house there or you have a storage unit?
No, it's at my ex-mother-in-law's house. Ex-mother-in-law's house. Maybe she sold them. Maybe they're in a bin. Who knows?
Are you in good relations with her? Yeah, I would say so. Enough that she's gonna keep all of your books in her attic. There's no attic. Like, but like, are they in bookshelves then?
No, they were just a boxes like stacked up in in like the laundry room and a bunch of places. Probably. Those are gone. I'm holding on. You hold a hope?
Yeah, we're gonna be able to do it. You gotta get in contact. But how about this? They're gone. I know I've never been to Puerto Rico.
Never. Never. Like no, never. The only Caribbean place I've ever been is on the mainland. I've never been to an island.
I've never like crossed water. I mean, unless you count like the keys, but that's a bridge. You take a bridge. Here's the thing. Like sun and sand.
You could avoid the sand. Yeah, good, good. All right. All right. I mean, like, I I love like uh like good fruit and food.
So I I would like to go. Yeah. But you know, I know that if I go there with my family, they're gonna want to do like this kind of like paradise beach thing. That's not for me. Well, that's where they go, and then you hit the bars.
There you go. Yeah. The streets. Yeah. You know?
Someday. Someday. I'm I'm very similar to you in that regard. But I my wife's conditioned me to learn to love those kind of experiences. Because it can just be very, very casual and chill.
You're just laying out somewhere, someone's bringing you drinks and food. The kids and the wife can run around in the water. Yeah, but you're near the sand and nightmare. When my kids were little, when my kids were little, like it used to be that I had to watch them so they wouldn't drown. So it's also like not like, and I don't want to be in there doing that stuff.
So it's like I have to stay just the right distance so that if anything happens, I could go. But that's not the case anymore. So now like they go to this place that uh, you know, Wiley's friends with the we're all friends with the GM Colleen, place called Tourists in North Adams, where it's like, you know, one of the partners is from Wilco and they they have this like whole thing that they took over, and you can go there and the whole family can chill. It's kind of funny because across the street is a shop and stop or stop and shop, whatever it is, whatever the real word is. And then supermarket?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like it's like in a highway. So you get right there, but as soon as you cross the threshold, it faces all the other way, and it's like you're with no one. It's like a little like resort thing. So it's kind of cool, right?
North Adams, which a bunch of cool stuff there. I don't know how I how I got on this. I don't know what we're talking about. It's over. Uh Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico. No, no, but no, but like, no, so like the family, they just rent all pool time. They're like, oh, we're just standing by the pool all day. Like, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna read.
I'm gonna walk in the woods. That's what I like to do. I like to walk in the woods. Tell you you go to Puerto Rico. You could go to the rainforest, you can walk all you want.
I like that. And it's beautiful. I bet. Look at me. Shout out to Puerto Rico.
Yeah, you know. Um. All right, wait, because we went through all the stuff for the week. Now we can talk about stuff. Wait, I mean, anybody talk about the combine?
That just ended. No? No call my fans here. The NFL combine? Yeah.
We can definitely get into that if you'd like. What is that? The NFL combine just ended. To me, a combine is something that gathers grain. That's why I wasn't sure.
Well, and in all fairness is probably how they look any players as green as I'll say this. We'll talk about it later because we're gonna run out of time. But Nastasi and I went to Disneyland and let me tell uh well we didn't, we went to it's called Californialand. I don't know why you have a place called California Land in California, it doesn't make sense. I'm already in California.
Whatever. But it's like an it's like a Disneyland adjunct. So Nastasia took us there and we tried almost every alcoholic cocktail on premise. Which Any good ones? I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you.
But uh but well it's a it's a it's a challenging problem, actually, and I think they don't because they need to keep the alcohol level down so that a 500 mil serving is still not too much alcohol to hand someone. So they're all very diluted, which means that like they haven't brought they haven't really thought about using low alk technology in their drinks to make the drinks taste like standard cocktails, even though they're way low ABV and very tall. They could, but then I was thinking about this is the freakonomics problem. Why would they? They're already selling them as fast as they can pump them out of their systems.
Yep. So, like, you know, why would they wanna take on a new ingredient that's difficult to source or something that might, you know, need to balance on a razor's edge when they can just do what they've been doing and make that m make them margins. Make money, make money, make money. Yeah. So, but then uh we went to the um Grand Californian hotel.
Grand California, right, Stas? That's what the hotel's called? I think so. Grand Californian, Grand California, which is their like giant fancy resort hotel on premise where you can stay and then go afterwards. But you can also just go in the parking lot.
By the way, they've they they fix your parking. So you don't need to pay eight billion dollars. How much was parking, Stas? 40. Oh, it's not as bad as I thought.
I thought it was gonna be a million dollars. Those suckers stole my TSA approved pocket. I have a I have a Swiss Army TSA approved no-blade pocket tool that I have with me at all times. I was like, yo, it's TSA approved. And the lady's like, we're not TSA.
I'm like, I am aware. I was like, what I'm saying is you're being unreasonable, regardless of who pays your your paycheck. You know what I mean? Anyway, so they threw that away. But uh, if you want to eat at the restaurant, they vouch it so you don't pay parking, you can just park there and and eat.
Very good restaurant. And like totally different vibe, a different team. They still have to work with Big Disney. It the restaurant's called the um Napa Rose, and it's all like a a shout out to like the West. So on their cocktail menu, every cocktail is named after a place in California and has some referent to a place in California.
So it's part of the theme of like California land. Is there a drink called Joshua Tree? Hmm. There's a sequoia. Uh there's not a Death Valley either.
Needed missed opportunities here. Yeah. It's a real short drink. Back to the drawing board, guys. But uh I thought it was good.
What do you think, Stas? Patrick there hooked us up. Patrick, who's their Psalmslash, I guess GM. Uh-huh. Like, because they just reopened recently, uh, and they hooked us up.
So Nastasi, of course, got her favorite cocktail, which is wine. Of the red variety. Uh she got some of the all some of the all, right, Stas. Yeah. Yeah.
No, it was great. That was a really, really nice. Yeah, they have a they have a uh they have a woman on the menu that's literally called Surprise Me. Oh. You know what I mean?
And then Patrick comes over and surprises you. But what's cool in the backup house is they have everything on a coravan system, including their champagnes. So like if they have a week where no one comes in and wants to get like their like crew or whatever, I don't forget what their higher, you know, their higher dollar value ones are. They're like, they say it it lasts like forever, so they can have a bunch of stuff by the glass, it stays good, even at a big place like that, and they super up their bottle count and everything. So anyway, that's what we did.
Napa Rose. Napa Rose. All right. This is a real deal restaurant. Yeah.
And well, it's like, you know what? You also have like when you're at a Disney place, it's like it's you have a different different expectation. You walk in, you'd be like, it's gonna blow. And it's like so he's like, oh, it's good. They're actually doing a good job.
And it's probably hard as hell because they do, I think a large volume. Yeah. Oh. They're a volume situation. Huge.
Oh, yeah. Big. Big. Probably. Probably.
Let me ask you, because I ask uh a lot of people, and I know the answer, but I just like to hear different. Why do chefs hate brunch service so much? I don't hate brunch. You guys are the only chefs on earth who hate don't hate brunch? What about this?
What if you had to do it? I did my brunch service. Really? Yeah. That was my favorite service to do.
Remember my pet. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So tell me, tell me.
Why are you why are you guys swimming against the current on the brunch hate? Is it the I think most people just don't like the crowd that comes in and the fact that I had to get up early to do brunch after a Saturday. I think that's what it is. I I think for me, brunch from a business perspective needs to be worth the squeeze. So if you're getting up early and you're gonna do a bunch of covers, like the revenue better reflect that rather than it be like, you know, you're busting your balls to do freaking three K.
You know what I mean? Yeah. The other problem is that, right, is if you're gonna be open on that Sunday anyway, like either if you weren't gonna be open on that Sunday, then you have to open a restaurant for the whole for the whole day. That's uh or it also if you weren't already open for breakfast, it it totally borks out your prep schedule because now your kitchen's in service during when your normal prep fools would be doing their stuff. Is that another reason why people because it messes their schedule?
I mean, that could be it. I think people I I honestly feel like a lot of chefs and restaurant people hate brunch because it's on a Sunday. Yeah. And it starts at like 10. Yeah.
And you're like, boo, I'd much rather be in bed. Because I'm hungover from Saturday. Right. Is that is that the only meal where Americans still get turned at at lunchtime? It's definitely one of them for sure.
Yeah. I think a good bottomless brunch. Yeah, alcohol's still v tied very closely with brunch, and especially as people start drinking less. That's the one it still feels like. Let's go celebrate.
Yeah. Let's just get loose. I have an excuse to, you know, get loose and stuff. Bottomless bubbles, bottomless margaritas. Yeah.
Well, I'll tell you about like it wasn't bottomless because we pay for every single one, but like all of those cocktails at like 11 a.m. at Disney, man. Oh my God. Oh my God. Like it was a whole team of us.
We have a video which we'll post, I don't know, at some point, of like Harold McGee and Ariel Johnson tasting all of the Disney cocktails. And there's some priceless looks on Harold's face. You know what I mean? Anyway. Uh all right.
So both. Okay, so I I don't know how to approach this because we have we have different questions. Should I just start randomly asking some questions? Or you guys want to talk about anything in particular about working. Are you random away?
Yeah, random. Random. All right. So uh Dennis. Yeah.
First of all, Bobo, you buy, you know, on uh John sent me an eater freaking video from I don't know when, like three, four years ago. You're calling out Bobo Chicken, which used to be in the Lower East Side. Yeah. And now it's in Brooklyn, Williamsburg. Right.
And they always said that they didn't do any slaughtering on premise. Okay. Yeah. Uh I mean, I don't know if that's the case at the new location, but I I would believe so, but I've never seen that room. Used to be a lot more live chicken joints in New York than there are now.
Yeah. You know what I mean? I saw one on the air train. I was like, oh, live chicken joint. Because there used to be, I think maybe even the ones in some of Utica.
Like out by the bagel place? Yeah, in like Utica. I go down there sometimes to get goat if I can't get goat. And there is from a live chicken place. Is the one uh is the one up above 116th uh on the on the east side in Harlem still open?
That one I'm not sure. The one I think on the west side over near Broadway, I think closed, Anzi's or whatever it was called. I don't know. Like we we we keep losing them because nobody wants to live next to a live chicken place. I well, I mean I used to live across the street from one in Green Point back in the day.
That, you know, that cadence of 5 a.m. getting woken up by the truck coming in and the birds clucking and then the feathers everywhere. It's it's not attractive. I mean, so for those of you that have never chicken chicken smells not a good stuff. Yeah, chicken smells not good.
Those of you that have never so the the weirdest thing is uh this is many, many years ago, decades ago, the wind was blowing away from me and I was at nighttime and I was uh walking on the sidewalk and I was walking and I was passing a chicken truck, but I couldn't smell it because the woman was going the other way. But it sounds like this. I was like, what the hell? Chicken truck. Chicken truck.
Chicken truck. Chicken truck. But um so Bobo, here's what irritates me. Anytime you have one of those metal Buddhist chicken things on the thing, why? I I don't know.
And they're they're a pain in the butt to clip off and make sure that you're not ripping the skin and all that stuff that nature. I agree. For those of you who don't know what we're talking about, the I don't even know really like what the slaughter method of a or a raising method of a quote unquote Buddhist chicken is. I don't know what actually what that means. But we yeah, yeah, you do you you do strike a pose when you're doing it.
But they take the equivalent of imagine when you go to a museum and they hand you one of those little metal McGillas that you stick on your sweater. Right, right. But instead of it being something you can just lift off, it's got a spike and it goes clack into the stapled it. Yeah. It's the and and and they put it like like in the underarm area, usually, you know what I mean?
And it's just uh it sucks. I agree. Um if that's one piece of feedback I'd give them, get rid of the metal thing. But they've been doing it for decades and decades and decades. And other companies, I guess, do it too.
Like when you go to the markets, some of the some of those have it, you know what I mean? If they're uh usually the head-on chickens. Yeah. You know what I mean? Have the the Buddhist chicken.
Does anyone know what that means? Not really sure. No. So here's what you said. You can go to Bobo.
Do you have to ask special? You can get an older bird. How old are they? Are they actual stewing hands? They're actual stewing hands and really great for stock.
Just a really really rich yellow chicken flavor that um just really hard to achieve with any other kind of bird that I found. So if they're old, but they're not like, you know, like like super super fat, like grained up, like what is what is one weigh? Like three? Yeah. Three and a half, four.
Okay. And so you're doing you're doing uh about a pound per quart then. So you're doing a 15 gallon stock with 15 chickens. Yeah, more or less. So okay.
So all right, so we're getting your meat ratio down. Now, here's some fun. No roast on the uh you're you're blonde. You said you you like, you know, dentists prefer blondes. I Yes.
I I I don't canceled. I never really I never really appreciated roasting my aromatics. So I put them in blonde, yes. I like the color of the this of the stock afterwards. Um meat goes in, meat goes in also unroasted.
Yes, yeah, yeah. For for for my application, yes. And no aromatics at the get. No. Meat.
Meat only. Yeah. Meat, water. Yeah. Meat water.
Then an hour beforehand. That's when you add an hour before you're done, you add the Aeromax, which in the in for the for the pho, it was ginger and onion. Onion, yeah. Also unroasted. Unroasted.
Yeah. And then fish sauce and salt and sugar. MSG as well. And sweet, sweet. But the question so you're you only use it for that one application.
Would you salt it if you weren't gonna, or would you wait to put the fish sauce in? Do you need to put it in beforehand if you were gonna like multitask it out? If you're gonna do it like, you know, use it as a basement. Why the aromatics at the end? I don't know.
If I find it's in there too long, it starts to get kind of muddy and just kinda both ginger and onion? Yeah. Uh okay. All right. You know what?
That's that's my take. Yeah hey, hey man. Like you're doing it. You're loving it. Like uh for me, like I'm the opposite.
I'm a brownie brown, brown brown, brown brown, brown. You know what I mean? Like I'm like I roast off the bones. First of all I'm using BS chickens. And BS doesn't mean bow but means bull crap.
I use just garbage chickens. They're not garbage. They're fine. Right. You know what I mean?
There's they don't have a crap ton of flavor. Yeah. And there's no metal band. No metal band. And I'm using and they're they're only six weeks old and I'm using mainly backs and bones, right?
Stuff that like gets taken off when I'm taking the meat off and I save it up. And so I have to roast the hell out of that and then I usually roast the carrots and the celery. I do like you know euro equally just delicious. Just as good. I don't I'm not reading that on your face, man.
I'm not saying it I mean like I there's an application for that that, you know, I enjoy but for the style of chicken pho that I was producing at the time, like I said, I just wanted something very clean and light and very chickeny, you know. So um that's the the reason why we went with those birds and hence why I just like didn't avoid I avoided roasting and all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Uh I also saw that you're pretty hardcore about making everyone squeeze the meats when you're doing rolls.
They squeezing the meats. They Oh well, I mean, you know, it's wrapping everything in towels and meat squeezes. I mean, I learned this from you. It's moisture management when you're frying stuff. You know?
So like you gotta get all the liquid out. So, you know, when you're making those spring rolls, you're already introducing a lot of water into the rice paper. So if you don't want them exploding on you and bubbling up, squeeze that meat. You've got to squeeze that meat. Squeeze that meat.
Squeeze that meat. Hey, I remember are we dropping the track right now? Squeeze that meat. Squeeze that meat. Yeah.
Squeeze that meat. Uh I remember last time uh you were here, I don't know if it was on air or not, like uh you uh were lamenting the quality of the general rice paper that we get, like it's jacked with tapioca and stuff. Yeah, is it better now? Uh no, not really. And I think it's just a product of the demand here and just the transit time from Vietnam.
So I wouldn't say is the purpose to make it less brittle before it's been rehydrated? To adding a tapioca? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
So it's a guy, right? What's that? Yeah, the guy. I had a guy that was I was like from Carolina or something. I yeah, I I have a guy in North Carolina that was pro that still does provide us with all our rice noodle products.
It's a guy, he runs this place called Kana Noodles. That's the one you were like, those these are my favorite. These are my favorite, yeah. So um You want to shout shout them out. Well, what's your what's and what makes them better?
Uh I mean, well, just his attention and care to it. He developed his own line. So he was an engineer, I think, um previously in a previous life. So he really nerded out, developed his own line. Um, but just his attention to detail, you know, and the product that he makes, specifically the rice vermicelli noodles, I found just really the best that I've had in the United States.
There's actual texture, there's a bounce to it versus the dried product that most people are using um for this application. Um I'll bring some next time when I come back to talk about Vinnie Me's food, Dave. But on a bounce on a rice, how do you get the I mean, like it doesn't have the same function, like you can't like can't sway concept rice. No. Yeah.
Yeah. I don't know. It's his technique, you know. It's uh he's uh he's a mad mad scientist doing some unique things down there. Probably like finely titrating the different rices out.
Yeah, I mean, he has a very, very unique detailed process. Um yeah. I I went down to visit a couple times to witness it, and um it's quite a scene. Yeah. So at the end of this 15-minute uh video from eater that uh John sent me, this segues into what you're doing now.
You actually, and this I think I wish everyone would do this. I wish everyone would do this when they're doing tours of their restaurant, and they never do. You showed some R D. Like at the end of it, you're like, we're RDing this. Like uh I have this, I have this person, he's he's good at pasta, he's Italian.
So we're gonna like allow, we're gonna we're gonna let him do pasta. He was doing a fried fried lobster, which frying whole lobster, like just tossing like the shell and flour. I haven't had them, I'm sure it's fine I'm sure it's good. Yeah. But but these the average American suck on the suck on the carapace?
No. Suckers, dumbass. Dumb people. Yeah, anyway, whatever. Like some people do though.
Yeah, yeah. So, but then uh and then you also showed a dessert development, which I thought was really interesting. I still don't understand why that banana so he steams a banana. It was it was plantains, baby plantains in like uh sticky rice patches. Surrounded by banana leaf steamed overnight, she said.
It's a long time. A couple hours. Long. Yeah. Banana comes out red.
Why? Oh, the the the plantains? Yeah. I don't know. Some sort of oxidation process when it's cooking.
I don't know. It's not like it's not exposed to air or anything. No, it's not regular, like plantain brown color. It's red, yeah. Like brick.
It like looks almost like you colored it. It almost looks like you put like jujubi in it or something. Yeah. You know what I mean? It was like I don't recall.
That was a while ago. Yeah. Yeah. But that's it. That was a tasty dessert.
Um I mean, who doesn't love sticky rice stuffed with things? I believe your comment was too much banana for the rice. But I but I'm sure they had I'm sure they had it for the because what they do people is they they cook it, cool it, open it, deep fry it. Deep fry anything with rice. It's gonna be good.
It's gonna be good. It's gonna be good. Yeah. You know what I mean? Anyway, point being, uh, I think it's really good to show the RD process.
I think it's really helpful. So I think I wish more chefs when you know folks were gonna come would do that. And so now you're doing RD. This is unlike Paul here, who was quoted in one of the articles that was sending me, I'll give you the recipe, but it's not gonna taste as good as when I make it. I mean, that's true as well.
Those are facts. Off you go. That was the pull-out quote. I mean, like, I'll give you the recipe, but you know, you suck, so that's not a tri that's that's not the case. It's like I think I think recipes are guides, and people who are exceptional at cooking have uh a space that they are dialed in when they're doing a thing, and reps help, and just because you got a thing that's grammed out doesn't mean you're gonna make something that's gonna be delicious.
It's true story. Yeah, I mean it is. We were at WD and everything was done to the gram. You could tell who made something and who didn't, you know. You're just like, uh X person made this, X person made this, same recipe.
So we had I always forget because everything blends together. Which era of WD were you there? Like which, like who is who it was, was it Sam era or Alex era? Both. Okay, so you crossed the border.
Yeah, crossed the border. Um, so that was Mikey Sharing was the same thing. Oh my god, he's so good. Is he is he's where where is he still cooking in Chicago? That's the last I heard.
Yeah. With his brother. Yeah. Um so on the 10th anniversary of WD, I really liked his beat dish, and I don't like beat dishes. And he did a really good beat dish.
Yeah. Mike's a great cook, man. Yeah. Well, look, WD, first of all, you started Aquavet. No, well, I I caught wind of you at Aquavit with Nils and Marcus, then WD, or is it the other way around?
No, no, Aquavit was first. Yeah, and then uh, and then, you know. It was at the tasting room before WD. Yeah. But monster cooks came out of both places.
Monsters and like a good network. Momo poached a bunch of those fools. You know what I mean? But uh anyway, WD was interesting because a lot of those techniques, everyone assumes that they're and you can look at a lot of those techniques, at least the ones that Stu Pac is putting up on his uh on his Instagram now. He was on the show a couple weeks ago.
They all take the hand. Like, so even though they're very technical, like they require the hands to have practice. You know what I mean? Especially like like the egg yolks, all of those things. The amount of things that were on that menu that seemed super simple, and the recipes were simple.
It took a lot of like repetition to like nail because it's just like they're all the variables when it comes to like temperature, the actual ingredient, who's pissed off that dish, how many pint containers we had. That was a crazy kitchen for chefs to cook in, though. It was so nice. It was the f best. It's nice.
Yeah. I mean, like, you I don't think you could spend that. Oh my god, only two minutes. All right. Hold on.
Uh all right, what do we got? What do we got? Okay. I asked you about uh dog sauce. I oh, your patties are laminated dough.
They look laminated. Is that standard or is that you? That's so our baked patties and laminated and they're a fusion between Haitian technique and Jamaican technique. So the Haitian patty is a laminated patty. And they focus a lot on their dough.
Whereas like I find Jamaican patty focuses a lot on filling. Right. Whereas the dough is very good and flaky. It's not like layered like uh like a puff, right? So we just melded the two.
Where it's like the dough tastes like Jamaican patty, but it looks like a Haitian patty, and the fillings are generous. Yeah, now we had um we had the Lion Dance Cafe folks on, and they use a flavored oil for the oil portion of their oil dough and their laminated uh stuff. Do you do you use a flavored oil or no? No, we just use fancy French butter. Oh, butter, butter, butter, butter.
Uh which what's your what's your are you are you one of these barat people? What are you? We use uh was it Eve something? Isn't it? Yes, Latin.
Look at John. Verdict, yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah, I knew you were gonna bust out the you're gonna bust out the friend. All right, so listen, in the 32 seconds we have remaining, what have I not asked?
I've not asked anything about how so for the we have not talked at all about like doing development for Mamufuku. We've talked a little bit about the restaurant, but I don't know what to say. I feel maybe we could do this for another 45 to hour. I mean I will say this. Parting words.
You want a good hot dog in New York City, go to McSorley's. Really? I always get cheese plate and liverwurst sandwich. Very good as well. Yeah, with the spicy mustard.
All right. What's uh Dennis? What are your what are your parting words of wisdom? We didn't get to talk about the fact that you still own a restaurant, but you're not there, and you're now researched. You're head of culinary bubba boob, East Coast and Momo.
That's a lot. It's it is a lot of work, yes. Um I don't know. Yeah, I have nothing to say. No parting words.
Nope. Come on, no parting words of wisdom. Uh I look forward to coming back to talk about Vietnamese food. How about that? Oh, yeah, because we're gonna come back.
I can't taste anything today. I don't want to talk about why my colonoscopy press press sucks so hard. But pooping issues. Yeah, pooping issues. But uh yeah, I want to come back and you were we are you coming back with Andrea or no?
Yeah, I was gonna coordinate something to Andrea and we'll come back. We'll do a little tasting this time. We should also taste maybe the vegetarian one. Yes. And we should we'll taste some we'll taste maybe some non-standard fish sauces.
Squeeze that meat. Squeeze that. Squeeze that meat. All right, cooking issues. Thanks.
Thanks for coming on. Yeah.
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