Chef Tom Colicchio, Duke Wins, Arkansas Upsets Gonzaga And More March Madness

Hey, Pardon My Take listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,

or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.
On today's Pardon My Take,

we have Chef Tom Colicchio in studio. We're going to break down some March Madness, Tyreek

Hill to the Dolphins. The NFL free agency just won't stop.
They basically have hijacked the

entire month of March. NFL is king.
NFL is king. We've got a great Friday show for you.
The Barstool Golf Time app makes it easy for golfers to find the best tee times at the best prices. Stop searching all over Google for your next tee time.
Start searching multiple courses in your area from one app. It's annoying to have to create accounts for each individual course to book online.
Just make one account with us at Barstool Golf Time and book all of your tee times. Plus, the new reservation sharing option allows you to take control and book tee times for your entire group.
Earn golf time rewards every time you book or leave course reviews. And then you can redeem those rewards for free Barstool Golf Merch in our store.
Download the Barstool Golf Time app now.

Start earning those rewards and booking those tee times.

Barstool Sports Welcome to part Oh, we're gonna rock down to Elaine. It's a part of my take presented by Barstool Sports.

Welcome to part of my take presented by Venmo. Go right now and do any transaction on Venmo in the month of March.
Use hashtag PMT and you can win up to $500 for free with Venmo. Today is Friday, March 25th, and the Arkansas Razorbacks are going to the Elite Eight.
Woo! Big Sue! Woo! Big Sue! I'm telling you what, right now, the Cougs are in. Absolutely.
John Daly is fucking hammered-er than usual tonight, celebrating Arkansas. Big news.
And then there was, of course, we should probably bring up, like, yeah there was a A gigantic loss tonight For us as a podcast Yeah Billy Football Could not finish the cheeseburger bet He got bodied by food yet again You got down like Eight and a quarter cheeseburgers Billy From McDonald's Food reigns Food has three wins now Billy is still with a goose egg And I saw a tweet Did you retire from eating? You can't. I retired.
No, you can't retire. What the tweet said.
I'm retiring. You can't retire.
I said I'm retiring. No, Billy football versus food challenges is my favorite rivalry.
It's the Harlem Globetrotters and the Washington Generals. My body simply cannot do this anymore anymore.
My body simply cannot do this anymore. No, you do it.
Billy, now part of your job description is you doing as many competitive eating challenges as possible. No, no.
Just losing all of them. All of them.
Here's the official statement from my agency. Okay.
I retire from competitive eating. After these past three L's, I just want to eat regular-sized portions.
Please respect my decision. Yeah, that's kind of a wimp move, Billy.
No, no. back on that horse.
I've seen my body. It's gotten banged up by the food.
Billy, no. Please.
I will not permit you to retire. The answer is no.
The sodium intake. You cannot.
The people demand more food challenges. Until you complete one, an official one, that is your freedom.
By the way way i got a text from erica while you were doing the challenge she was not impressed with your behavior and your your ability she said that she will not be uh renewing your contract until you can complete oh that's funny challenge because i got a text from dave and he's like this billy losing to every food challenge ever is genius how can we monetize it? And I was like, and then he said, P.S., all the money that we could get out of it will go directly to Billy football. Oh, wow.
Yeah. Both those things truly happen.
I'm going to go talk to my family. They're the number one on my list when I make decisions.
My dog feels very strongly about the time I spent on the toilet. You're not allowed to retire.
Whitey would kick your ass in a food challenge. You're not allowed to retire.
By the way, we should say McDonald's, delicious, and we got a little extra special sponsor from McDonald's because it's March. The big tournament is here, and we're tuning in to catch all the action across the games this month.
And, Billy, we're also tuning in to the McDonald's All-American Games where hype becomes legacy. I actually would like a complete blog after both of these games from you, and then I'll reconsider your retirement because the McDonald's All-American Game is awesome.
These players are high school athletes today, but there will be household names tomorrow. 2022 is a big year.
The games are back on for the first time since 2019 and returning to their many-time host city of Chicago, celebrating 45 years of legacy and commitment to high school basketball. Tune into the game Tuesday, March 29th.
The girls' game starts at 6.30, and the boys' game begins at 9 p.m. Catch the games live on March 29th at Wintrust Arena in Chicago, beautiful arena where DePaul plays.
Go check it out. Watch the games.
Billy's going to do a full recap of the games. Wednesday morning.
Wednesday morning it will be live. So tune in.
March 29th girls game starts at 6.30 p.m. Boys at 9 p.m.
Watch a bunch of young women and men before they become household names. So you can say i knew them before they became big time and were playing in march uh you know in the future so tune in mcdowell's all-american game march 29th girls game starts at 6 30 p.m boys at 9 p.m um you know which school had a lot of all-americans so villanova who played great tonight and they were amazing should get some.
We should definitely pat them on the back. Colin Gillespie, when you need him, he comes up big.
Of all John Rothstein's sayings, Jay Wright being a Fortune 500 company fits the most. It does, but he also says that Villanova, a Fortune 500 company, it just runs itself.
Yeah. I don't think he knows how Fortune 500 companies work.
No. Run the shareholders right like the green bay packers right but he is like every time you watch a villanova game there'll be a moment where you're like uh-oh is villanova in trouble nope they're just gonna hit shots they're gonna make free throws they got a big test against houston elite eight's gonna be quite something but i'm excited for our razorbacks yeah we've always been razorbacks and uh nfl news well big choke job there was like there there was a heartbreak in the tournament tonight gonzaga losing oh yeah they're never going to get to a final four that's tough mark few at least he doesn't have to have podcast hosts bring up his dui with his giant german shepherds yes facts and muss great game plan Mus, great game plan by Mus.
Stopped him in transition.

Attacked the rim.

Poor Chet Holmgren.

Didn't know what to do.

Is there anything we missed?

Game of the year?

Oh, yeah.

The lads got a result on the road.

Yes.

Nil-nil in Mexico.

And then there was another tie out there.

Draw, excuse me, tonight in our CONCACAF table.

Yeah.

So we're in the catbird seat right now. Looks like the boys are going dancing in Qatar.
Go ahead, Hank. Go ahead.
Wait, wait, the spreadsheet. Oh, yeah.
The spreadsheet did an amazing thing. There we go.
Gonzaga went down. That was a big L.
Freaking Arizona. Arizona went down.
Another big L. Houston.
We're about to make money. I'm going to need that money, by the way.
Yes. We're going to flip it.
Yeah, I'm going to need that. So was Texas Tech losing to, I forget who they played, but was their loss, is that good for the spreadsheet? Texas Tech would have been a huge L comparatively.
Sounds good. Duke winning is good.

Well, Duke is also a big L.

Oh, okay.

Well, yeah.

So it doesn't matter.

That's an L that's going to be eliminated by Arkansas, which is a W.

Big Dubs.

Here we go.

Got it.

I got a future in Arkansas.

Same.

I would make my money back if they won it all.

I got a huge.

Yeah.

Tonight was one of the most contentious nights on the podcast.

I was on big on Duke. You two were huge, huge on Texas Tech.
Go ahead. Have your moment.
It was a lot. No, I mean, we haven't really talked afterwards.
I've been avoiding you. I'm, like, very scared of you right now.
I was happy that you showed up to work today at 9 p.m. Yeah, I'm sick.
I came for the show. I came to perform.
Listen, I. And I performed.
We performed. Me and my alums.
Me and my Blue Devils. Listen, I took a shot.
I don't regret taking a shot. Gambling is about taking shots.
Life is about taking shots. It is.
You can laugh. It was thrilling to take a big shot, to tweet all those tweets today.
And as much as I want to complain about the refs I don't think they decided the game Duke just didn't miss in the last seven and a half minutes they made every single field goal attempt in the last seven and a half minutes it was a great game like an actually a great game to watch every possession felt intense and yeah that's gambling baby that's life I think I put my nuts on the table and i got them smashed like a fucking gallagher watermelon i i think the two things are mike mccarthy watermelon yeah updated well no i if i had smashed a watermelon we probably would have won that's true yeah so there are a couple things that stand out to me in this game big cat's not going to complain about the refs i will thank you coach k we were we were actually dumb for thinking that they were going to let him lose on his 99th career victory in the ncaa tournament no brent of course he's going to get to 100 he's probably going to lose the next game so he can walk away with exactly 100 clean wins just straight up three figures okay you get it great job coach k 100 everyone's going to remember that for all time it will look back on it 50 years from now if we're still alive and be like, oh, yeah, Coach K had 100 wins in the tournament. Of course he wasn't going to lose at 99.
That was dumb as shit on our part to think that maybe he was going to, that the refs were going to let him lose. That inbound play at the end where they trapped him 90 feet from the basket and they called the foul on what was a clear turnoff, that was the game right there.
The kids back hard from texas tech that was a big moment of the game also i will give some credit to coach k he switched up to zone in the second half like this up like a coward he told his boys to play zone like a bunch of like a bunch of scaredy cats called in the rain and he called in the rain rain but the zone the zone cheated that's jim boheim got on the phone He's's like i know exactly what you got to do here tonight coach you got to go to the zone and he did it and it worked credit to him they didn't have an answer for the zone then when they switched back to man to man it was like they realized how to play basketball again so the rain we're in new york we have direct tv because we have the nfl package the rain hit. Duke went.
We lost all service. We couldn't watch the game.
Duke went on a 9-1 run. I freaked out after.
I stood up from my seat. I went in the hallway.
I was losing my mind watching the game. All of a sudden, I hear fucking robot noises behind me.
Billy's trying to do a TikTok. That also, that was a pivot point in the entire game.
Okay, can you just a just a little bit of caution on that one though because here's what billy's hearing right now yeah i know that gets mad i know i'm doing my job i better i have a built-in excuse for it from now on when we say in two months when i'm like when we're like billy the tick tock hasn't grown he's gonna be like remember that time yep the texas duke game and i tried to do it and you didn't and you? He's filing that away for later. Billy, I don't blame you.
Duke made every shot down the stretch. Like, I really would love to blame the refs.
And I would really love to say that Texas Tech, like, should have won. But Duke made every shot.
There's nothing I can do. Like I said, that's gambling.
The thrill of putting your nuts on the line is the best and when it doesn't happen it's the worst and that's just life and guess what this is actually for Hank you can't listen to this part you can't go out of the room leave the room leave the room leave the room Hank's leaving the room I'm making him leave the room. BFT, Bubba, Billy.
Hank's fired. I'm legitimately nervous that Duke might win the national championship.
All right, so it does make sense with the storyline. I'm so nervous.
If you're in tune with the narrative right now. I mean, I've been saying all year that they have the most talent in NCAA basketball right now.
They have a great, great team.

I'm counting on Coach K to blow it for them.

And so next year, Shire takes over, and then Shire wins a championship with Coach K's players.

That's the narrative that I want to build.

That's all that we have left right now.

I can't.

This was the first time that I was legitimately like, okay, this might happen.

And, like, Mus is going to have the best best game plan possible I believe in the Razorbacks I'm basically just going to every single game for the rest of the tournament is going to be a personal game of the year I won't release it as a game of the year because I have to take a break even though I love love love Miami on Friday night and I think they're gonna win and that would a game of the year, and I might even still make it a game of the year. But every game now till the end against Duke will be full effort, full hate, because I can't, I don't know what I, this is like my nightmare.
This, it's this, it's Coach K winning a national title on the way out

and Aaron Rodgers winning another Super Bowl with the Packers.

Those are the two moments in my life that I have contemplated being like,

I might have to quit sports.

I might have to just walk away from everything.

I might have to say, no more sports.

It's not worth it.

You live your life.

Go move to Montana.

No, Hank. Raise your kids.
have a beautiful life read a book hike like i don't know kill a fucking deer once a year i don't know all this shit it's not worth it if this is going to be ending in such gut-wrenching pain and i know there's a bunch of duke perverts right now who are listening to this and they're smiling ear to ear and I don't know if I can stop them I'm going to do everything I can PFT but I'm only one man I don't know if I can stop what's going to happen and what's going to be an absolute nightmare for me Billy make me feel better I have good news and bad news. This feels like it's going to be bad news and bad news.

The bad news is that there's a possibility that they play UNC in the Final Four,

which goes right with the narrative.

No, that would be great if they lost to UNC in the Final Four.

The bad news was the narrative goes to the Final Four.

The good news is that they could lose that to UNC.

Listen, if you told me that Duke went to the Final Four and they 100 lost I would take that no no no stay out and they lost I would 100 take that because then like it it's very much similar to when you guys root for Wisconsin to get deep into a tournament just so that it gets even worse like a Duke loss in the final four would be so delicious we would be there but. But I'm also thinking that I'm playing.
I'm like a Walenda just on a fucking line walking over these buildings. And it's like, if we get to the Final Four, they're two games away.
They're 80 minutes away. And then I'm dead.
I'm telling you, Big Cat, the fact that he's had exactly 100 wins right now, that, to me all the sense in the world if you see coach k with 100 next to his name that's that's the ticket right there that's what they want that's what the storyline is going to be i know coach k walks out with 100 wins in the ncaa tournament and everybody remembers oh yeah the big 100 they hang another banner up at coach k court at coach k stadium right next to all the other banners that aren't about individual accomplishments that says coach k personally won 100 games that's what that's how this story is going to end i'm terrified i i'm terrified i want like honestly i want you to hold me i want you to hold me right now listen you will never see a podcast in the entire country root as hard as we will root for the rest of the season and you'll never see someone push the rest of the teams as hard as we will push all the teams the rest of the season you'll never see a podcast play harder than we will the rest of the season god bless yeah that's yeah i like that that felt that felt a little bit better but i'm just i i'm in the trust tree right now no duke fans are allowed to listen to this part this was the first time that i was i legitimately was like oh my god it might happen and i i might have to quit sports i might have to just be a guy who when you see me at the bar or like you see me like we're in an elevator together you see me on the street and they're like what do you think about the game last night i'm like i don't watch sports you know I don't watch sports this is like you're a highly tatted football player getting to the league and you've got all the expectations the world everyone's like oh yeah this this guy's gonna be a star and then you blow out your knee in like your first game and then for the rest of your life they're like that guy used to be a hell of a football player back in the day they're gonna be like that guy big cat right there yeah he used to watch so many sports he used to be a great sports podcaster. And then what happened? Coach K won it all.
And he just quit. I have a confession, though, about how the rest of the season is going to play out for Coach K.
Okay. If they do get to the finals, I'm going to be rooting for Duke because of the future that I put in him.
I'll pay for it. Back in December.
I'll pay for it. I'll personally pay for it.
If they win it all,

that pays for my game of the year

loss tonight. I will personally pay for your future

before they

even win it all. I'm just saying.

I'm saying I will do that. I'm willing to

do that. If Arkansas

wins, then I make way more money. I know,

but I'm willing to do that. No, I'm willing to

pay for the future because I can't

have you doing that.

I can't. We already have to deal

with Hank, who, by the way, for the

Thank you. But I'm willing to do that.
No, I'm willing to pay for the future because I can't have you doing that. I can't.
We already have to deal with Hank, who, by the way, for the listeners at home, Hank pretended that he was sick all day so they didn't have to come in and face the fire because the office was high tension all day. He got to just stroll in at 9 o'clock and sit in the chair and be like, oh, ball game on.
It was bullshit what he did. Corporate Hank sits upstairs, flex his paycheck, takes his sick days.
Yeah. You've seen a notable shift in Hank recently.
If you've watched Entourage, fuck the suits. That's Hank.
We're still the fucking independent guys just trying to say fuck you to the system. Hank, he's corporate Kane.
You know what he is? He's pig vomit from private parts. WNBC.
Yep, yep, yep. That's who he is.
Here's how I miss says it, guys. Yep.
But yeah, I am, for the first time this year, because they've had so many, they've had different moments where I'm like, oh, they're flawed, oh, they're defense, oh, Virginia Tech beats him in the ACC tournament, UNC beats him in game. This is now threat-level midnight at my house.

Well, reality check is that Duke has the most talent of any team that's left.

So if they do lose, then it's all in Coach K.

Mus is going to coach the fuck out of this game on Saturday.

All right, Hank, you can come back.

Hank.

Hank went home.

He probably did.

He got the car service. He probably was laying down like, oh, I'm so sick.
Hank's in the town. Hey, there he is.
All right. Hank.
Oh yeah. Stop recording.
Hank. Hello.
Welcome back. How you doing? I'm great.
Yeah, I feel much better. I know.
I know. You have the floor, Hank.
Yeah, go ahead. Let you talk.
You can say whatever you want. I just spill my guts.
I'm just so happy.

You're not allowed to listen to that, by the way.

I feel really lucky and blessed.

You're not allowed to listen to that.

Every day, I thank God that I'm able to work with such great guys.

You guys are amazing people to work with, and I just feel really lucky.

Don't look at Billy when you're saying that, because then we know you're lying.

No, I love Billy.

I think Billy's a great, great guy.

Funny, smart.

Hank's winking right now. Good at eating.
Strong. Billy, we got, great guy.
Funny, smart. Hank's winking right now.

Good at eating.

Strong.

Billy, we got to stick together.

We can't.

He's evil.

He's an evil, evil person in our show.

He's a suit.

I don't want to be involved in this.

No, you are.

Oh, Billy.

I just try to bring light.

I just try to bring a shining beacon of light.

Bro, I'm Swiss as fuck. No.
You're Swiss as fuck. Oh, what are you, 65% Swiss? Yeah, give it to me.
Although Billy does know how to stay out of fights. He does.
True. We're just one big happy family, and I feel really lucky to be a part of it.
All right, you're not allowed to listen to what I said. I won't.
Okay, cool. So, Hank, you're rooting against our friend, naturally.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
I mean, Elite Eight's a great run. That's kind of what you do.
Good for him. He beat Gonzaga, number one seed, winning season, great for recruiting.
Gonzaga is. They'll be back.
I'm sure they have great recruits and everything. But, damn.
That's a. I'm going to say it right now.
Drew Timmy doesn't have the killer instinct. He's going to be an awesome, awesome player in Latvia.
And I'm not saying that as a mean thing. Those guys make good money.
He does have, like, sick Euro moves. It's just there were 50-50 balls where it was like Arkansas was like, nope, that's ours.
He's got the drop step. He's got a really good drop step on it.
And I love that move. But, yeah.
And I like Chet. I'm still mad.
I like Chet, too. I think that Chet's a fine player.
He got in foul trouble, and they kept just going right at him. Didn't really know what to do with himself at that point.
But he's a young kid. Also, we won Houston, too.
So, I had a double big night. That was thanks to you, Big Cat.
So, thank you. Yeah, that's true.
I did. You texted me.
I should have made that my game of the year. Yeah, game of the year is going to be retired for a while, though Miami would have been.
Do you at any point regret betting with your heart and not with your head?

No, I mean, you can't say that.

You pushed me.

I just asked.

You used your suit.

You used your suit.

You came.

Dude, you're going to pretend like you didn't come to my desk with a spreadsheet, and you're

like, we crunched the numbers upstairs on the third floor, and it'd be great if you

did game of the year for the eyeballs.

No.

I said what I said on the podcast. I said, do it, do it, do it.
But didn't you also bet with your heart? No, I bet with my head. Oh.
And that's if Big Cat makes it a big bet, bet against it. Oh, really? So you bet against all my – so you're one and three against my big bets.
No. But eventually, if you're three and O, it's like it's going to happen eventually.
I do feel – It's very rude of what you did. You've rude of what you did You already won You don't have to do that You don't have to do that I'm trying to post late What you just said about me Figure out if it was good or not I can't tell if that's an appropriate level comment What? I feel like it is Saying what? What I just said No that was very mean That was very troll That was Fr Lydon came out.
I feel like Franny Lydon just came out when I left the room. But maybe I'm wrong.
I'll never know. What? I feel like I share some of the responsibility in this because I did join the Game of the Year phenomenon.
So it was me and Big Cat against Hank. We took a shot.
I believe, though, that every time that the two of us are rooting on an opposite side to Hank,

Hank wins 100% of those bets.

Yeah.

100% of them.

I can't recall a single time.

One of us has to be the best gambler on the podcast.

If it was one of you guys, I would be happy.

I gave you Houston.

I gave you Houston.

If you were the best gambler on the podcast, I would be happy for you guys.

I gave you Houston.

I love being the second best gambler on the podcast.

That's why I got the road trip. I gave you Houston.
I love being the second best gambler on the podcast. That's why I got the road trip.

I gave you Houston.

How did Chattanooga do?

You did give me Houston.

You should have taken the points to Chattanooga.

I should have.

That's mean, Big Cat.

Well, he hurt me.

I also lost that.

Now I'm collecting ricochets.

He did the, like, I fade every pick of yours, which is not true.

Now Bubba's my only friend.

He's maybe one in three.

It's true.

Yeah. Friendship ended with Hank and Big Cat.
Now Bub now Bubba new best friend Miami's the game of the year Miami's another game of the year Miami is another game of the year I'm in I'm in minus two I'm in minus two make sure it's minus two Miami if you have to buy I think it's minus 118 Miami's the game of the year fuck it I'm in fuck I might just flip my winnings from tonight Miami's the game of the year. I'm going to be going, just like I did this morning, going to a gas station in New Jersey, eating hot fries at 10 a.m., making another game of the year.
Fuck it. That's exciting.
That was my original game of the year. You know what's really exciting to do is you take the train over to New Jersey, and then you try to get the bed in before the train leaves the station to come back to New York.
Or you could just live in Jersey.

Miami's a game. Home of the Peacocks.

No thanks.

Did you see the send-off the city of Jersey City gave the Peacocks?

It was incredible, yeah.

It's basically like Mardi Gras.

Should we talk about NFL?

Yeah.

Real quick, Tyreek Hill to the Dolphins.

Crazy.

My big takeaway is just how awesome he's going to look catching deep balls in that teal uniform. Yeah.
And now the thing is, yeah, like Tua doesn't have any more excuses. I'm sure that we'll think of some.
But for right now, he doesn't have any more excuses. Fastest two wide receivers.
Yes, absolutely. Jalen Waddell and Tyreek Hill.
And I also, this is one of those trades that I actually agree with what the Chiefs are doing. Because you have the young quarterback you have to pay a ton of money to, and they're basically making a bet that Patrick Mahomes is so good that if you have – Tyreek Hill is obviously an incredible, incredible wide receiver.
I mean, it's probably Devontae Adams and Tyreek Hill is like the fact that both of them got traded within two weeks of each other. But they're making the bet that with like a B or B-plus wide receiver, Patrick Mahomes can make him an A.
Yeah. Kind of like what Aaron Rodgers does.
You know what I mean? Yes. It makes sense.
When I first saw this trade, I was like, why are they getting rid of maybe the best receiver in the NFL and a guy that teams up perfectly with Patrick Mahomes' big arm? And then actually, Aaron Foster told me yesterday, he was like, well, the thing is, like, Tyreek Hill's got great speed, but as you get older, that's like, you know, if you rely only on your speed, that's something that's going to diminish as the years go by. And so, yeah, they're selling high.
He's probably at the peak of his abilities right now. Correct.
He's going to be awesome for a couple more years. Yes, he's going to be awesome for a couple more years, but if you're going to give him like a five- or six-year contract or whatever, if you're going to give him a big extension if you're the Chiefs it probably doesn't make as much sense and I really do think the Chiefs can get guys in the draft and maybe like they already got Juju and I feel like Patrick Holmes is good enough that he will make like keep investing in the offensive line put some more money into the defense and now Valdez scaling has an actual quarterback yeah that will practice with him exactly so I it made sense to me both sides sides.
The Dolphins are going to be a very, very fun team to watch now because that is such crazy speed that they have. And they also got – it would have been awesome to see the Jets get him, though.
Billy, were you – That was the funniest part was Tyreek Hill – the word leaked out there that he was going back and forth between the Dolphins and the Jets as his two options. And then after he signed with the Dolphins, he said, yeah, I was never going to sign with the Jets.
That was never a serious consideration. Who's Tyreek? Why do we care about Tyreek Hill? That's true.
Who's Tyreek Hill? You should just be like bad guy. Bad guy.
You have good character guys on the Jets. Billy was going to stop rooting for the Jets, actually, if they got Tyreek Hill.
Exactly. No, I honestly think Patrick Mahomes' productivity

is going to go way down without Tyreek Hill,

and Tyreek Hill would have done way better with Zach Wilson.

I disagree with the first part.

Patrick Mahomes doesn't throw the ball downhill.

Well, think about how many times Tyreek Hill bailed out a bad pass

by Patrick Mahomes.

So I would take the alternate approach on that,

that that's actually going to help the Chiefs

because the Chiefs' offense, when they would fall fall apart it's basically because it was like backyard football more structure will probably help Patrick Mahomes where they like actually try to get you know what I mean they stop doing these fucking special things and like what happened in that Bengals game where they're doing weird RPOs that don't work that aren't real RPOs like I actually think this will be better for Patrick Mahomes I know that's true like structure yeah right now he's mature guys in more specific roles they still have a speed guy don't they still have me Cole Hartman they do and actually you can make the argument too that if Tyreek Hill was a bigger receiver he doesn't get tackled on the one yard line at halftime against the Bengals that's true I mean obviously it's not he's not on Tyree kill he's clearly a game changer I'll say it right now Tyree kills not a good short yardage wide receiver yeah I just think that they're like the Chiefs will like they'll basically pivot off of what they've been which isn't the worst thing when it comes to the NFL and how teams guard them and everything so I don't know we'll see yeah it'll be fun to watch uh jake we just did most everything uh but do you want to give us any recaps from your point of view yeah i mean it was a pretty solid slate i'm sorry about the game of the year it's all right we've we've we kicked hank out for a while and we we kind of we hashed everything out i feel a lot better. Oh, also, I made Miami the game of the year tomorrow night.
How about that wedgie tonight, huh? Free throw wedgie was crazy. The physics of that, how does that happen? I don't know.
Jake got so excited when the free throw hit the wedgie, and everybody else in the room was like, shut up. Shut up.
It was cool. We love the passion, Jake.
Yeah. Did you guys talk about, I'll bring it up, my redemption bracket?

We have not brought it up yet.

She started the show.

Yeah.

Jake.

What?

She started the show.

Oh, really?

She issued a redemption bracket.

She just basically said, okay, now let's pretend I got everything correct thus far.

And I did pretty well, right?

Oh, no.

Yeah.

Oh, that's tough.

But, like, it's fine.

I've never wanted a team to win a game more than Arkansas over Duke on Saturday. Wow.
I really, really need the must-fust to come for it. All these guys playing with their hearts, not with their heads.
You're supposed to be a college basketball analyst. Not an analyst.
I don't break down the X's and O's. Still, think with your mind, not with your heart.
Oh, I mean, on paper, Duke's the better team, but I want Arkansas to win. Hank's wearing Duke underwear right now.
My redemption bracket. I thought Gonzaga was better, but I still wanted the must-boss.
I'm happy for him. So who do you have in the finals of your redemption bracket? Who should I say? Is it Arizona, Gonzaga? Oh, no, it was Villanova.
Okay, all right. So you should do another redemption bracket next round.
Just every day. yeah.
Just every day. Yep, until the championship game, and you'll have, like, one opportunity to be like, yep, I had the Natty.
Yep. Volume 7.0.
But, yeah, no. It was a good day.
I want Providence to beat Kansas. I want the Muscle Bus to win.
I want St. Peter's, because why not? I don't know how realistic that is.
I do want St. Peter's.
St. Peter's would be a loser.
I bet the money bus to win I want St. Peter's because why not I don't know how realistic that is I do want St.
Peter's St. Peter's would be electric I bet the money line before I left Illinois and so that's a dumb thing You know what but it's something that I'm happy with You still have one last Hail Mary chance for it to be really bad for Duke Yeah we do What? Yeah UNC Yeah we talked about that Yeah we talked it.
It would be perfect if Coach K's two most memorable last losses.

Listen.

Would that make this game of the year loss worth it if UNC beat them?

No, no, listen, Jake.

You missed some of the show, but I'm not even worried about Duke winning at all.

Okay.

Like, I'm not.

It hasn't even come in my mind.

It hasn't even.

Big Cat was saying, like, this is not.

Some people are saying it's like a team of destiny thing. But this team is so flawed.
I'm fine. Coaching and on the floor.
No, that it's just not realistic to think that Duke's going to win this. It's, I like, haven't even thought, like, I'll tell you when I think about it and I'm worried it's not even close right now.
Okay. That's yeah.
They're only halfway. They still, they're halfway there.
They're not that good. Good point.
Like it's not it's not even dude yeah if this was a marathon they'd be at like the 12 mile pole yeah it's like i'll let you know when i'm worried it's a long way it's probably going to be like if they're in the national title yeah like second half right like then i'd be like oh maybe they're going to win it all but probably not that would be when i would freak out i'll tell who i actually like to win it all and this could be a jinx i think villanova's been really impressive yeah well houston and houston that's going to be in i kind of think they i think they've been the two most impressive teams so far and they have to play each other incredible matchup you think if villanova makes the championship game that jay wright's going to put on a suit he has to right he's got he has to respect the tournament yeah respect the bracket but no it's it's crazy arkansas I'll beat Gonzaga. It's an awesome game.
If it wasn't this year or last year for Gonzaga, I truly don't know when now. Back-to-back years.
And the number one recruit in chat. And Jalen Suggs the year before.
I was looking at the ESPN 100. They don't have a top 100 guy next year.
It does feel like this was their moment feel like this was their moment. Like this four or five year run that they had was going to be like their over the top moment.
And who? But maybe they'll thrive under pressure. Maybe we'll be the four or five seed next year and go to the final four.
I don't know. No, I don't think so.
Yeah. I think it's this year.
This year was a window closed. I'm officially announcing that until they move to a real conference, Gonzaga's window has officially closed.
Tough break. So, Jake, how do you feel about rooting for Tyreek Hill now? Tyreek Hill, the football player.
Yeah. It's great.
It is? Tyreek Hill, the football player. In between the lines.
In between the lines. When he's on the field.
Yes. Got it.
Okay. Just making sure you're okay with that, conscious-wise.
it's one in the morning let's get to uh chef tom colicchio and then we have fire fest on the other side tom colicchio is brought to you by our new sponsor new sponsor alert hank game time that's right it's game time we actually i love the sponsor they're awesome they a great ticket app. And they're hooking part of my take listeners up.
Download the game time app. Send us a picture, a screenshot of who you think is winning the tournament with hashtag PMT game time sweeps for a chance to win tickets and a trip to the games in NOLA.
That's right. We're talking a trip to the game.
We're talking airfare, hotel, and tickets. This is a big-time, big-time giveaway that they're doing for the AWLs out there.
We want to see you down in NOLA. Game Time Tickets is the new exclusive ticketing partner of Barstool Sports.
It's created by fans and for fans. They crack the code on how to score deals on last-minute tickets to sports concerts and everything in between.
All your dream tickets are within reach with the GameTime app. And if one of your bucket list items is going to be going to the final rounds of the college basketball tournament, GameTime is giving away four tickets plus airfare plus hotel for you to go to New Orleans this month to enter download the game time app tweet at us with a photo of the team that you think is going to win and use hashtag PMT game time sweeps use promo code PMT you're going to get 20 bucks off your first purchase that's right game time is the new ticket partner of Barstool Sports go watch on Twitter on on Instagram go check out the video that we did we went up to the top of the Empire State Building Big Cat did a great job doing the ad read I freaked out, I couldn't be out on the ledge I hope I never have to be out there again but I did it because Game Time is that good of a partner to us there'll be a great ticket provided for you guys too so download that Game Time app send us a picture of who you think is winning the tournament with hashtag PMTGameTimeSweeps for your chance to win tickets and a trip to the game's NOLA and also use promo code PMT, get 20 bucks off your first purchase.
Now here's Tom Colicchio. Okay, we now welcome on a very special guest.
It is Chef Tom Colicchio. You know him from Top Chef.
You know him from being in the, you know, basically one of the most famous chefs in the last two decades. I do want to start, I want to talk about your NFT project, but we have a lot of football coaches on.
We always call them Coach. Yeah, sure.
should we always call you chef no you like that

no i have a name tom tom's good you don't like that no i don't i don't really if it's another chef what's that if another chef calls you chef do you appreciate that or you're like no i'm tom i i i don't i you know i don't typically correct them but in my restaurant i don't allow my cooks to call me chef really yeah they call me tom now i want to call you chef chef just means boss and it's like hey boss

not you know

I do like it when they in Top Chef

when they in top chef when they're like yes chef sure chef yeah yeah yeah yeah it feels like an army rank yeah that producers kind of make make that happen i like i just like the term chef testing chef that's a good one did you come up with that no i did not so so you're going to the metaverse we are we're there we we we launched um uh a couple minutes ago actually uh about a half an hour ago yeah our our slice list which is what we call our white list okay i went live about at two o'clock so explain it to two idiots how this works because we really do not know oh okay which part which parts don't you know so everything so how do i get how do i get a uh nft slice of pizza you don't okay it's it's a it's a virtual pizza no what we're what we're doing so so spike mendelson and i um spike who was a contestant on top chef and a buddy of mine now he is he wasn't then um you know i i i go back to where how i got involved. So during the pandemic, I had some free time.
Restaurants were closed, and I'm a bit of a news junkie. And I started spending a little more time looking at financial news, and NFTs became popular.
And I started messing around with crypto a little you know, the original, when I first started buying NFTs, partly it's because if you have crypto, right, it's just it's there and it can go up and down. Well, you can actually hedge that as well by buying some NFTs and you can flip them or you can keep them, whatever it is.
But I also wanted to get more involved with the NFT community before I dropped a project.

And at this point, I didn't know what I was going to do at all.

And so Spike reached out to me, and he had been working on something. I was kind of lurking around in some of those Twitter spaces and things like that just to try to understand what was really happening with NFTs, what they were all about.
and obviously when Beeple sold

an art project for 69 million

dollars or whatever it was

that was a lot of with NFTs, what they were all about. And obviously, you know, when Beeple sold, you know, an art project for $69 million or whatever it was, I mean, that caught everybody's attention.
Yes, big time. But since then, the NFT sort of universe has really shifted away from those art projects.
And there are some of those, but it's shifted away to, you know, in real life utility. So if you own this NFT, what do you get? You know, it's not the piece of art.
It's like a pass. What do you get with that? And so for us, we dropped it.
We did a pizza project because pizza is so universally loved. We figured, you know, that's a good way to get in there.
And we were kind of having fun with it. And, again, originally when we've been, you know, working on this for nine months.

And originally it was going to be just a piece of art and that was it.

And then we realized that we've got to add utility to this.

So Spike and I will do virtual cooking classes and things like that.

So if you hold an NFT, you can get into these classes.

We're actually doing our first in real life event, DC Central central kitchen which is a organization that jose andreas is uh works with um we're doing a fundraiser the after party if you're an nft holder you can come to the after party so there's things like that so right it's it's just a pass that gets you really cool stuff yeah and and that's really it um it should get you one slice of pizza every day for the rest of your life it could it could but, it wouldn't. It wouldn't.
That's the next level. Our project's going out.
It's only like $200 for our kind of membership. Okay.
I like that. Because it's when the NFTs come out and it's like $25,000 for this JPEG.
And you're like, okay, this doesn't deal. See, it's not just the JPEG, though.
though you gotta understand i know that that's something you say and people get very upset about well it's what i love is like oh i have one too it's like yeah try to sell it right like it's not on the blockchain it's got to be on the blockchain but also a lot of these things have turned out to be pretty good investments i mean if you got into board ape you know yacht club early on you made a ton of money yeah a ton yeah i had a guy just stopped me in the street street and he knew our podcast he was like you got to buy an ape and i was like what what language are we talking right now i like that guy that was like all my apes gone yeah yeah that's good it's like uh it's a membership into a club it's kind of yeah yeah yeah yeah so you actually get a real life experience if you are a holder that That's the idea. Now, you throw around metaverse.
Metaverse, it's not a thing yet. Web 3.0 is not a thing yet.
We're like web maybe 2.2, 2.3. But Web 3.0, just on a basic level, when you think about this, 20 years ago, you opened a business.
Maybe you had a website. Probably not.
Now you have to have one, right? Well, what's a website going to look like in 3.0 it's going to be three-dimensional you're going to put on vr glasses and you'll be able to walk through so i have a restaurant you'll be able to walk through it i mean think about the music application to web 3.0 uh you're a jay-z you decide to mint an nft project that nft project gets you into the concert every seat's first row right right yeah so there's a lot of cool things that are going to happen. I mean, I'll take it a step further in kind of extreme.
So during the pandemic, we were shipping boxes around the country, food, you know, partially cooked, everything from a six pound prime rib to tacos for the soup bowl. Right.
Now, there's going to come a time when I'm going to ship you a box of food, and you're going to get it in your restaurant. I mean, you're going to get it at home.
And then maybe if you have my NFT, right, you're going to be able to go and see a video of me actually preparing that dish. When you're eating it, if I have a restaurant on the metaverse, you can put on some VR glasses, and you'll be sitting in that restaurant eating my food at your home but you'll be in the restaurant right so but you know again i equate this to you know you remember the first cell phone what it looked like right you guys look like a brick right yeah and it was next to worthless now look at it our our smartphones have more computing power than the computers that sent the first man to the moon right and so anybody envision that i mean when bill gates sat down with with uh i forget what nighttime host and talked about the internet he was laughed at yeah yeah i remember i i love going back and watching those videos and those interviews where they say exactly what's about to happen and everyone's like oh well so you're going to sit on a computer and order a pizza and it'll get delivered, huh? You're going to talk to me.
Sure. Oh, it's going to come right through the terminal.
Did you ever see that movie The Net with Sandra Bullock way back in the day? The start of the movie was her in her house. It was trying to portray what a loser she was because she sat in her home and she was obsessed with technology and she was ordering pizza on the internet that would get delivered to her home.

And it was like, we're supposed to laugh at her because she lacks all sorts of social

interacting capabilities.

And it's exactly what ended up happening.

But yeah, yeah.

We're excited to have you here.

I'm a big fan of you from Top Chef.

I've watched just about every single episode of the show since probably 2006, 2007 is when I got into it. So I'm a little bit familiar with your work, but we're pretty much simple food guys, the two of us.
We love chicken wings. Actually, that's a good place to start.
We're looking for a great chicken wing place. What's your favorite chicken wing? I have no idea.
You're not a chicken wing guy? No, I don't go out for chicken wings. I have no idea idea i don't go out that often for a lot of restaurants cook yourself well especially the last two years i mean i've been home cooking pretty much breakfast lunch and dinner for my family yeah so what would be like your your last meal then let's just say i was i was arrested for murder you didn't actually do it but you got arrested for murder you're in jail you're about to be electrocuted yeah the night before fall yeah uh so the night before what do you order sunday gravy at home i don't order man yeah i grew up italian american in new jersey and sunday was sunday gravy sunday gravy was red you know red sauce meatballs sausage brujol and all that and do you still do it um i still do it not every sunday but i still do it yeah i love those type of traditions with food yeah Yeah.
And it's funny because like PFT said, we've been fans since the beginning of Top Chef. It feels like that was kind of the big wave.
You were at the start of it of food television. Have you looked around the landscape now and been like, what? Like I saw last night, I was on Netflix looking, just scrolling around.
There's a show now on Netflix called Is It Cake? And it literally is, they're cooking, like they'll cook a shoe that looks like cake. Right.
And they'll have the shoe, and then the celebrity panelists have to decide whether it's the shoe or the cake. By looking at it.
That's it. That's the whole show.
That's the whole show. Yeah.
And Netflix spent money on that. Yeah, and you know what? People are going to watch it.
You should get a cut of that. Yeah.
Have you seen those things? You're like, wow, this is crazy. I don't watch a whole lot of food TV.
Okay. I really don't.
And I watch a lot of TV. I don't watch food TV.
Why is that? Just because you do it or you know how it works? I don't find it that interesting. Really? But probably because like- You know it.
You know the world. But I don't find- I don't.
A lot of the stuff I just don't see. It's not that appealing to me.
Yeah. But also, I'm in the food world.
I guess, you know, a lot of people who are in the business watch it, obviously. But I don't know.
I just don't spend a whole lot of time watching food TV. Yeah.
It has become quite a boom. Oh, yeah, yeah.
I mean, but going back to, you know, Food Network really was the start of it, but, you know, they predated Top Chef. And Top Chef was, it was interesting because there was a reality show, and I always tell the chef who's a friend of mine that I won't mention his name and association with this, but there was a restaurant reality show that was pretty, it wasn't great for the chef and for his restaurant his restaurant and so i was like i'll never do that and and i got a phone call from a producer just out of the blue saying we're doing this this show this competition reality show and we think it'd be great as a judge i was like no and they called back again they said can we can we you know come and you know I was like, yeah, fine.
So, you know, this woman shows up at a little camcorder and records me. They call back and they said, can you come to L.A.
for a screen test? I was like, no. And they said, well, we think you'd be great.
We really, but you got to come to a screen test. I said, well, I'm not flying out to L.A.
and I really don't want to do this. But there was a documentary done on the opening of Kraft when we opened the restaurant and 21 years ago and uh um so i sent them the documentary and uh they were like we want to make you an offer i was like an offer like i really don't want to do this right but then i decided well let me take a look at it and i knew they did project runway and project green light and i knew those and they sent me runway i actually watched green light and they sent me runway and i was like all right and then there was just i just had you know two requests one was this isn't about me and number two like i'm not going to sit there and just play monkey to to you know the networks making decisions on who stays and who goes right some of these reality shows before they start shooting they know who's winning right right i'm like we're not doing that it's gonna be real and they were like absolutely and I think that speaks to I mean you you go through the list of winners and some incredible chefs have come out of the show well that's what we're most proud of the amount of chefs that come out of our show and are doing multiple restaurants earning awards and things like that but that's partly because we we cast chefs we don't cast a bunch of like wannabes who who are kind of has-been actors and want to be cooks.
Right. Like that.
But that's partly because we cast chefs. We don't cast a bunch of wannabes who are kind of has-been actors and wannabe cooks.
Right. Like that.
What's the best meal that you've been served on that show? I would say Melissa King's finale meal in Italy was as good as it got. It was absolutely fantastic.
She grew up Chinese-American. She's just a really, really good cook, but she has a really good sensibility and she did a great job of just taking, fusing Italian food and we were in Italy and then working that with Chinese food.
And it was just really spectacular. What's the one thing, uh, that makes a great chef, a great chef? Like, is there a certain skill they have that's unlike anyone else? You know, yes.
And it's not what you'd expect. You know, when you think about what a chef does, and this is how I'll explain it.
So during the, you know, if you're a chef, it's your recipes, it's your menu, you set up the kitchen, it's your, you manage the kitchen a certain way. But during service, you know, think about a chef like a conductor, right? If you're going to go watch a piece of classical music, a symphony, who gets top billing? The conductor.
Not the person who wrote the music who's probably dead for 300 years. And when you're watching that conductor, you don't expect that conductor to jump in the pit and pick up a cello.
They probably can, but hell will break loose, right? So as a chef in the kitchen, your job doing service is to coordinate. You're conducting.
You're making sure that, depending on how your kitchen's set up, your hot food's going out with cold food for appetizers, making sure that if you, our restaurants, we separate the fish and meat, making sure the fish and meat dishes are coming up at the same time, and creating a system by which you can actually produce your food. So like, you know, anyone that's, you know, somewhat talented could pick up, you know, French laundry cookbook and master some of those dishes.
Good luck putting that into a restaurant environment where you can produce that consistently every night for like three, you know, 200 people. Yeah.
That's the hard part. That's, that's, that's the challenge, not the dish.
Everybody thinks it's the dish. If that's, that's, you know, certain chefs are better than others.
Certain chefs just may have better technique and things like that, but you can learn that. The skill of actually learning how to manage a team, that's the hard part.
Counterpoint, I'm not going to pay $1,000 at Salt Bay's restaurant to have a random person come out with the gold-plated sirloin

and then do this thing.

I'm paying for this thing at Salt Bay.

Have you watched his videos?

I don't know why you'd pay for that.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, the guy's just a ridiculous human being.

I watched this early on

because it was like,

you gotta watch this video,

and it's pretty hysterical.

Yeah, he just dumps

just like a shitload of kosher salt on top.

Yeah, yeah.

And then that's boom.

Okay, 700 bucks off the top.

But apparently he's a real butcher.

Yeah.

Apparently he actually is like a real guy.

He has restaurants,

I think he's Turkish or,

but he has like the butcher shop

Thank you. shitload of kosher salt on top.
Yeah, yeah. And that's it.
And that's boom. Okay, 700 bucks off the top.
But apparently he's a real butcher. Yeah.
Apparently he actually is like a real guy. He has restaurants.
I think he's Turkish or- Yep. But he has like the butcher shop and he's like a real- But it became like this internet thing.
And all the restaurants I think that you see here are just licensed from him. Right.
They are. And he like parachutes in once a year.
Yeah. Like this is Salt Bay Night.
He's got a good gig. He's actually like- I think he's sexually attracted to meat.
Yeah. Are you like in love with food? No.
You're not? I enjoy food. But when you say, you know, I'm not going to replicate, what was the scene in? American Pie.
Yeah, we're not going there. I was just going to say, I've had a recipe I've been working on recently, or just really a concept.
Guy Fieri shot it down. This is usually when a guy goes, I'm not a real chef, but I have a wok.
Yeah. No, no, no.
Oh, boy. Well, I did air fry an Uncrustable earlier.
That's, by the way, Uncrustables. Uncrustables.
I don't think you can find a better food in America than Uncrustables. All right.
It checks all the boxes. But I'm dumb.
I'm not a good cook. I'm more of an ideas guy.
I'm just going to toss this out here. Alcoholic soup.
I love soup. I love alcohol.
Sometimes I just want to have it all in one. Well, you know, there are some soups like the old turtle soup.
It was a shot of sherry in that. Okay.
And not cooked out. It was a shot of raw sherry in that.
Yeah yeah it would be like something that's added in at the end obviously you can't cook it yeah the alcohol in there so if you go and get like a you know you can experiment yourself go to a good Mexican restaurant get a pasole and you know pasole a soup and get a shot of tequila and put it in there and you know see how it goes I tried doing a cheddar potato rice soup with Old Bay and then like five shots of vodka in it. I may have been a bit heavy-handed.
Five made it excessive. Yeah, I was a little heavy-handed with it.
Yeah, a little bit. You got to find balance there.
Yeah, I think that it's got some legs to it though. And then I don't know if I'd go with vodka because vodka really doesn't have much of a flavor.
I mean, there's all that Italian-American thing. I don't think they do this in Italy, but the vodka sauce, tomato sauce, vodka sauce, I never understood, but anyway.
But no, I would find something that has a little more flavor, like rum or something that can add a little punch. Okay, I'll put some notes in my cup.
Vodka. But I've seen things like marinated in gin and juniper berry, like venison especially.
Venison, lamb, marinated in a little gin and juniper. We're going to get back to Tom Colicchio in a second but before we do body armor is back that's right you can find body armor edge at 7-eleven or you can order it on amazon the big tournaments here we're staying hydrated and energized with body armor edge it's from the makers of our favorite sports drink body armor body armor edge has a hundred milligrams of caffeine and a thousand milligrams of electroly, so it keeps you caffeinated, it keeps you up, and it also keeps you hydrated.
Plus, it's got antioxidants, B vitamins, and no artificial sweeteners, flavors, or dyes. It tastes delicious.
It's more than just a sports drink. It's Body Armor Edge.
They just came out with two new flavors, Strawberry Slam, which I love. I was drinking Strawberry Slams all weekend in Philly and Chicago.

They've also got Watermelon Wave.

That's delicious, too.

Pushed through the highs and the lows of the tournament with their favorite sports drink and caffeine, Body Armor Edge.

Find Body Armor Edge at 7-Eleven, or you can order it on Amazon.

Now, more Chef Tom Colicchio.

You mentioned with your NFTs, pizza is universal. What's your favorite pizza place? Well, not here in Phoenix, Chris Bianco.
Okay. He's awesome.
What about here? Here, I like Bodorino. Okay.
I like Una Pizzeria Napolitano. I like Neapolitan-style pizza.
pizza. Got it.
Got it. This is going to be a very dumb question, but how does the Michelin stuff work? I don't know.
Are you saying that because you don't have any? Is that like a... Could someone walk away and be like, hey, I love Chef Tom, but no Michelin stars.
Yeah, but I had one until... Oh, you did? I did.
Did they take it away? Well, I gave an interview the day of, and this is a true story. So I did one star when I was at...
I'm trying to think, was it still the Gramercy or was it Kraft? No, Kraft, I think, I don't remember. Anyway, I got a star and go to the event, and there was a journalist who stuck her microphone, and they said, you know, what do you think about Michelin stars? And I said, this is great, but as an American chef, I dreamed of New York Times stars.
You know, that's what I grew up in. So I said, and if Michelin stays here, this is their first year.
And so if they stay here for 10 or 20 years, then it might, you know, mean as much. Next year, done.
No way. Sweet.
So they give it to chefs and restaurants? Or is it just restaurants? Restaurant, yeah. Okay, restaurant.
That's crazy. Yeah, but so that was it.
And you've been blacklisted for Michelin. Who knows? But here's what I love.
So how many restaurants we have in New York? And let's just say there's a couple thousand that are going to get reviewed, and apparently there's only like one or two reviewers. How do they do that? Yeah.
It doesn't make a lot of sense. It's a lot of eating.
It doesn't add up. No.
No. And then some of the stuff, like when we had Coluccio and Sons, three years in a row was the same exact write-up.
They were writing about food that we didn't have on the menu anymore. And when I questioned it, I got a, oh, well, we don't make it every year it's like okay okay you answered the question right exactly all right so i'm i am no longer going to respect the michelin star ratings you can no i refuse it's french anyway right what's it's tire company yeah right you know you got a tire company reviewing restaurants i know that is the best part because everyone thinks like that can't be the tire company no it is it is yeah well originally when it started the tire company what they were doing they were reviewing restaurants out of paris so it was like this idea where you'd get in your car right on your michelin tires smart and you would go for this ride and go find a great meal that's really just how it started it's great marketing on their part to be able to tie that in and to have everybody think about how prestigious this this is.
What did they do? I'll stick to Pirelli's nowadays. Yeah.
What did they do to make people think like this is, we should respect this award? Because back again, when it was only in France, the best restaurants got Michelin stars. And again, back then it was a little more regimented.
You had to open a restaurant and before you got three, you had to get one. You couldn't just open and get three or two.
You got one star when you opened and then the next year if they saw progress, you may get a second and then the difference between two and three, usually you'd have to spend a ton of money in your restaurant, meaning you'd have to up the art program, the tabletops, you know, all this stuff. It's not even about food.
Well, all of the, it still was about food but but you had to have all those other trappings. Right.
Especially in France. And, you know, a lot of chefs are...
French chefs are giving their stars back because they can't continue to... I mean, there was the one chef Bernard Wazot who killed himself because he thought he was going to lose a star.
Damn. And so, yeah, it's just like real serious shit.
Yes, we're New York Times stars, guys. I like New York Times stars.
Yeah, and you have a James Beard Award. Five of them.
More than six, seven, eight. Seven, no flex.
No flex, just a little. It sounds like they're almost challenging restaurateurs to make their restaurants worse almost because if you get one and you get two and then you obviously have a good high-quality restaurant, they're like, well, if you want to get that third, you really have to overhaul overhaul everything else yeah and it really leads probably a lot of chefs to getting away from what made the restaurant good in the first well i i don't know i mean i'm not sure about that but what it does it makes you spend a lot of money and that just adds so much pressure on what you're trying to do um but uh you know it's it's quite frankly i, I would rather not see stars anymore at all.
And part of the reasons, so, you know, Michelin, think about it. When Michelin first started, they were reviewing French restaurants.
So there was a baseline. I understood what that was.
And going back 40 years ago, New York Times only reviewed French restaurants, maybe Italian restaurants and new American restaurants that were aspiring to be, you know be great restaurants. That was it.
They didn't review pizzerias. They didn't review the local Thai joint.
And so there was a baseline for understanding what those reviews are about. Nowadays, how do you compare? There's a pizzeria in Jersey City that is great, but it got three stars.
How do you compare that with three stars that John George got or something? Right, right. There's no baseline for understanding what that review even means anymore.
That's why I think they should just get rid of the stars. And if you get a write-up, listen, New York Times, they do 52 a year.
That's it, right? So if you're in there, it should be because this is something that they've realized that the readers should know about, right should write about it forget about the stars we go here by the balls uh metrics so we have a guy named glennie balls he reviews every burger place right out of a five ball scale okay he gave your burger place 4.2 balls that's pretty good that's pretty good what burger do you have um was it was the craft burger but where was it probably i'm gonna pull up the review right now 4.2 is's pretty good. That's pretty good.
What burger do you have? Was it the Kraft burger, but where was it, probably? I'm going to pull up the review right now. 4.2 is a pretty good score.
You should actually... I like that.
That's probably more prestigious than... I like this guy.
I'm not going to badmouth because I'll lose some balls next... You don't want to lose balls.
You don't want to lose balls. It's over.
People will be pox on your house. What he does is he sits down, he drinks a beer, and then he eats a burger, and then he just kind of rates how he feels while he's doing it.
It's an experience. He doesn't diagnose anything about the food.
He's just like, this burger makes me feel good. But that's interesting.
See, to me, that's how you should review food. Yeah, he's on to something.
There's a technical side of it and all that stuff to make sure things are cooked perfectly, blah, blah, blah. But how does it make you feel? Yeah.
Yeah. That's legit.
Yeah. So in your opinion, just going based off feel, what is the best food city in America? I think New York is, but I just spent some time in Chicago.
I got to say, Chicago is really great. There's some really cool stuff happening there.
So, I mean, for me, New York is home and New York has great food. And especially, like, people think New York and they're thinking Manhattan.
You go to Flushing Queens, you walk down the street and you can get like a hundred different things. Um, so yeah, New York, New York is it.
Yeah. I don't think, I don't think too many cities go as deep as we go, you know, from the high end to the low end.
Right. I'm looking, do you recognize it? It looks like he did the review in a parking lot.
Is that near one of your restaurants? And I have no idea. Okay.
I have no idea where that came. Yeah, he's literally doing it.
That's probably most likely in Garden City, Long Island. I think he's a Long Island guy.
Yeah, it's Garden City. And he's doing it on the hood of his car.
Right. I like it.
So we have a restaurant in Garden City called Small Batch. Okay.
So that's what he's- I love it. Yeah, that's the ball system.
It comes off a wood-burning grill, so it's got some smoky flavor to it. I'm looking at it right now.
I'm going to try to get him in here and see if we can confirm it. He'll definitely remember.
If it's in a parking lot, that's the only restaurant we have that has a parking lot attached to it. He loves new reviews in the parking lot.
That's actually a perfect thing. Put up a plaque inside.

Glenny Balls gave us 4.2 balls.

Yes, yes.

People would be flocking to it.

I got a question for you.

It's a sports question.

I don't watch a whole lot of sports.

College basketball.

I'm a Carolina fan.

How bad was that call?

Which one?

Manic?

Yeah.

How bad was that call?

It was and it wasn't.

Here's the problem with college basketball is they make the rules.

It's very similar to college football

where targeting rules

Thank you. Matt Matic? Yeah.
How bad was that call? It was and it wasn't. Here's the problem with college basketball is they make the rules.
It's very similar to college football. We're like targeting rules.
Right. By the letter of the law, if you go elbow to face, they're going to have to review it no matter what.
Okay. So it's like one of those things that it's the system not exactly.
The refs on the court are making that call, and I don't think it's. But then they're reviewing the call.
Yeah, they're reviewing the call. But to me, see, to me, that was a basketball move.
Yeah. And so he went to box out.
Right. It was high.
But also, look at his reaction when he turned around and saw the guy on the ground. Right.
He went there. He was shocked that he hit him.
It's very similar to targeting in college football, where if a guy moves at the last second and you hit him with your helmet, it's like there was no intention of it. Right.
But by the letter of the law, elbow to head, that's what it is. I see flagrant one.
I don't see flagrant two there. I agree with you.
It almost cost them, but they survived. They did.
That's one of those ones that thank God that UNC ended up winning because otherwise it would have been a shitstorm. That would have been what we talk about, yeah.
We actually have Glenny Balls in the flesh right now. How you doing, bro? You know Chef? Chef Tom Colicchio? Oh, yeah.
Yes. Yeah, yeah.
We were talking about your score of his burger joint. Roosevelt Field.
Roosevelt Field, yeah. That was great.
Small batch. So you give it a 4.2.
You think maybe we could go maybe get it up a little? Sure. I mean, there's always ways to improve.
I mean, I like frigging, I like classically smashed burgers like Big Macs or whatnot. I like elevated Big Macs.
That's what I always say. It's my favorite burger.
Elevated Big Mac. So maybe that's not you.
Small Batch is a very nice place. But it's no McDonald's, but it's pretty good.
It's pretty good. We don't have the Golden Arches, but you know.
Has anyone gotten a five balls? The highest I go is like 4.8, I think. Okay, so 4.2 is not bad.
No, 4.2 is good. It was very good from what I remember.
That was probably two years ago. What got a 4.8? Around here, Pizza Loves Emily.
Have you ever heard of that? No, I haven't. So Pizza Loves Emily is probably a top five burger in the city.
Everyone loves it, but they also have their sister restaurant in Brooklyn. It's called Emmy Squared.
That's a pizza place. I know that place.
It's called Lay Big Matt, and it's like their elevated Big Mac. It's a26 burger it's awesome that's probably one of my favorites what could Chef do to elevate his burger to maybe like 4-3-4-5 you guys are looking to tell Top Cluckio how to make a burger right now you're the critic by Glennie Balls I'm well aware of who Top Cluckio is I should be telling Top Cluckio how to make a burger maybe put some special sauce if I were to make my dream burger, it would be a little, a nice sesame seed bun, two smash patties, American cheese, shredded lettuce, some sort of special sauce.
What's your special sauce? My special sauce, I would do like some yellow mustard. A little mayo yellow mustard relish.
What's your special sauce? Mayo, yellow mustard relish. That's what I'm saying.
Like Macs. Okay.
You don't know what you just described was just a Big Mac. Yeah, Big Mac.
Thank you, Balls. A Big Mac with better ingredients.
Yes. Appreciate it, Balls.
Awesome. Thank you, Balls.
Take care. Yes.
That's our food reviewer right there. Well, why not? Yeah.
Why not? Five ball system. It's the only way to go.
We have a producer who now has become corporate and he goes upstairs and does meetings all day. He hates calamari as an appetizer.

What are your thoughts?

He hates calamari.

Yeah.

How can you hate calamari?

We've been telling him he's stupid.

I mean, did he have a bad experience with calamari?

It clearly made him feel really bad.

Yeah.

He grew up on the ocean, too.

That's the craziest part.

Did he grow up fishing?

I don't know.

I would guess no.

Yeah.

I think he just doesn't like the fact that it's squid.

Yeah.

That kind of like ... He has an ick from the squid.
Well, there's nothing you can do for him. So that's on him.
Then would guess no. Yeah.
I think he just doesn't like the fact that it's squid. Yeah.
That kind of like, he has an ick from the squid.

Well, there's nothing you can do for him.

So that's on him.

Then he's done.

Okay.

There's just more for us.

That's all.

Yeah.

All right.

Actually, I order it every time we go out.

I like squid.

Yeah.

Fried, fine.

But there's a lot you can do with it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I like squid a lot.

Yeah.

It's good.

I like it for bait, too.

Yes.

You fish it?

Yes.

I do.

Yeah.

What do you like to catch?

Tuna.

And you fly fish, too.

I like offshore.

I do.

I do.

So, how... but it's good.
I like it for bait too. Yes.
You fish it? Yes. I do, yeah.
What do you like to catch? Tuna. And you fly fish too.
I like offshore. I do, I do.
I mean, I've always wanted to fly fish. It seems like the most peaceful thing in the world, but it does seem also very difficult.
Is that fair? Again, most people would look at fly fishing and think that the motion of doing that is a difficult part. That's the easy part.
The hard part is reading the water. And then the other hard part is, and I'll try this quickly.
If you're in a stream, right, and you see a fish rising, so a fish is feeding, you actually will see them feed. All right.
So they're eating mayflies or caddisflies usually off the surface if you see them. All right.
So these are bugs that are hatching from under the water. They're coming up.
They get to the surface, and before they fly away, there's a moment of time where they sit there, drying their wings off, and the trout will sip them. And a trout's not going to move, because they kind of know how much nutrition they're taking in, and they're not going to expend that much nutrition if they have to swim after something like a fly.
So they'll just sit there and the river's a conveyor belt and just bring food to them and they sit there and eat, right? So now in that river, there could be a couple rocks are different, just the way the water is just coming down the stream. It can create pockets and things like that, either behind rocks or trees and boulders stuff like that so when you put that fly now you're going to you're going to if you see them taking flies off the surface you're going to know what fly that is you're going to have the right size fly in your fly box the right color right now the hard part is if it looks like it's attached to anything or dragging across the surface trout won't eat it.
A wild trout, they won't eat it.

So you have to now figure a way to manipulate your line once it's on the water to throw slack in it

so those different currents aren't going to drag your line.

Right.

That's the hard part.

Right.

This part-

It's easy.

I'm moving my arm back and forth.

That's the easy part.

You learn that in a couple hours.

It becomes like an art, like you become one with the water.

Well, you have to be water. Not really.
But no, what you have to do is it's you're in an environment and now you're in the fish's environment and you've got to understand that environment. If you want to catch that fish, you need, you need to know what they're eating, what cycle they're eating too, because that little nymph that's coming off the bottom, there's a period of time before the wings come out

where it's called an emerger, and they may be keying onto that one.

So you have to have a fly that makes that.

And you have to just understand what the fish are doing to catch the fish.

So that's what's neat about it.

It's a puzzle that you're constantly trying to solve.

That sounds fascinating.

What's the best fish to eat?

Your favorite.

on the east coast I would say

Thank you. so that's what's neat about it.
It's a puzzle that you're constantly trying to solve. That sounds fascinating.
What's the best fish to eat? Your favorite. On the East Coast, I would say a smaller fin fish, black sea bass, I think is as good as it gets.
Yeah. Fluke, I like fluke a lot as well, but black sea bass.
I do like swordfish, especially the belly part. It's really fatty and really good.
I've got a very important question here. We've been having this debate on this podcast for probably five years, maybe six years now.
It's not a debate. It's a fact.
Well, I'm not going to say any indication as to who is on what side of this. Okay.
But if you go to a nice steakhouse, maybe to your steakhouse,

medium rare plus,

is that an actual temperature that you can order a steak cooked?

And if so,

is the medium rare plus

honored by the kitchen?

You know,

I've waded into this debate

on social media

because there are some people

who think there's no such.

I think you can.

Thank you.

I think there is something

between rare.

Thank you.

But again,

knowing...

By the way,

your answer,

he's still not going to listen.

No.

We've been having can. Thank you.
I think there is something between rare. Thank you.
But again, knowing... By the way, your answer, he's still not going to listen.
No. We've been having this debate for five years.
Every time we go to a steakhouse, I say medium rare plus, and they say, okay, great. But no, that doesn't exist.
I have a question for you. What do you consider rare? Like, fully red.
But there's more to it than that. Seared on the...
Really rare, The center is cool. The center is not hot.
Yeah. Okay.
So for the center to be cool, it's got to be about 94 degrees. Anything, anything body temperature is going to register as warm, right? So it's got to be right below body temperature.
It's got to be cool. So if you want to have something that is pretty rare, if you, rare, medium rare plus where it's between medium between medium rare and rare, I think you can do that.
So you can order it, but will it be honored by the kitchen? It depends on the kitchen. It depends on the kitchen.
You keep asking and the answer is yes. No, no, no.
He's saying depending on the kitchen. Okay, but it exists.
It exists. Yeah.
I would take into consideration. Are you good with this now? I would.
He still won't accept it. No, I'm telling you, I accept the fact that there is a degree between medium rare and medium rare plus.
I think that 90% of the time, if you go to a steakhouse and you order it, the chef is not going to pay close enough attention to each cut of meat. It depends on the restaurant.
Every time I've ordered it, they've honored it. I do it at nice restaurants because to me, it's like if I go to a steakhouse that's maybe not a great steakhouse, I know that it's not – maybe they're cooking the steaks really quickly.
When I go to a nice steakhouse, I don't like the – I always assume that a really nice steakhouse, they always err on the side of – like if you ask for medium rare, it's going to be closer to rare because they don't want to come out and be like, oh, this is overcooked. So I like it like a little bit more than medium rare.
And every time I've asked, they've been like, no problem. Never said anything.
Usually comes out perfect. He has not acknowledged this for five years.
We've ordered many steaks together. And I'll say it.
They'll acknowledge it. Bring it out.
Perfectly cooked steak. And he still doesn't acknowledge it.
So next time you're in a steakhouse together and he does that, ask if you can go in the kitchen and talk to the chef. Okay.
We're talking to the chef right now. You still won't take it.
No, no, no. Don't take my word for it, but just go in the kitchen and just say, hey, my buddy just ordered medium rare plus.
What does that mean to you? And see what he says. He may throw you out.
He may say, yeah, we'd do that. Or he may say, yeah, whatever.
I mean, we're going to probably just search for one chef who says it's bullshit. And then PFT will say he won.
You'll find one. Yeah.
I just personally wouldn't order it because I've worked in kitchens before. And I know how things go in the kitchen where it's like in the middle of a rush.
Then people are like, the chef's going to be like, B&R Plus? Yeah, okay, sure. Where did you work? I worked in a bunch of kitchens, like back in North Carolina, I worked at the Outer Banks in a few places.

So I've been around a grill before.

So wait, the argument now is I'm an asshole for one of you? Was it like one of those Calabash restaurants?

What?

No, no.

It was a Calabash restaurant.

Maybe that's further like South Carolina.

There's like buffets, these big buffet things, like Shoney's, I guess.

I call it a Calabash style, I guess.

Oh, yeah.

There was one of those down there, and I started out actually working as a server.

And they put me on the breakfast buffet. Yeah, when you put the steak on the steam table, there's no medium rare plus.
Yeah. No, it's a decent place.
Right, I'm not saying, like places that aren't nice steak houses, I don't order it. I don't say it if I'm going to, like an Outback, I'm not like medium rare plus.
I don't say it there. I say it when I go into a nice $70 plus steakhouse 70 plus steakhouse i'm like yeah have you been to a steakhouse lately right more than that prices are crazy right now yeah yeah meat and fish are through the roof yeah i appreciate you having my back though because this will never end he'll he'll say this i'm not an asshole for ordering it that way that that may have been like in the back of my head like ordering it to a server having worked in a restaurant on both sides.
If I hear Meteor and Plus, I'm just like, oh, okay. I tell you, one of the best movies I've ever seen in a steakhouse.
It's real. It's a real thing.
We've confirmed it a thousand times. No, it's real.
It's real. I was in a steakhouse in Miami.
What's that one famous one down there? I'm forgetting what it was. Anyway, it was during the Food and Wine Festival.
I'm with my publicist.'re having this i ordered a steak it was like a porterhouse and place was mobbed it took a long time for the steak to come out i'm fine we're you know drinking wine whatever and the steak comes out it's medium well i ordered medium rare i'm like i can't be that guy i can't be that dick to send it back like he knows like i'm in the restaurant so i don't say anything. Waiter comes by.
He looks down.

He goes, he just looked at it.

He just took a step back, came back in and goes, you ordered this medium rare.

I said, yeah.

He goes, it's like medium well.

I'm like, yeah, no.

He goes, let me take it back.

I'm like, no.

He goes, and he just took it.

That's great service.

Yeah, it was great service.

Yeah.

Because I didn't have to be that guy.

Right.

And yeah, that was great.

I would imagine that when you go to a restaurant, you usually get like the red carpet rolled out for you.

If they notice you in there, they're like, we can't serve this guy a bad dish. Yeah, you're just taken care of.
That's nice. How weird are chefs in general in terms of people? Because I feel like I know a couple of chefs.
I have friends. They live on a different world because they're working nights, they're working weekends, holidays, all those things.
Do you think you have to be wired differently to be a chef um i think if you actually to really really do study you'd find that a a probably a greater percentage than the regular population has adhd really yeah i would think so and is that is that almost an asset when you're a chef or is that i think it is when you're because the part of ADHD is being hyper-focused, too.

Right.

And so I think sometimes when you're hyper-focused, that actually can be an advantage.

But also, if you need to be in a situation where there's constant stuff coming at you and you need that stimulus, working in a kitchen is that.

Yeah.

Especially during service.

Yeah, I mean, when I was coming up as a cook, I could cook 20 I could, you know, cook 20 things at a time because it just felt right.

I mean, it just, like, felt comfortable.

I was in my zone.

That was it.

And I wasn't diagnosed back then, but my children have all been clinically diagnosed, and I see a lot of what, you know, they do.

Yeah.

It's a rush.

That I had.

When you get, when you're in that zone where it's like a two-hour rush for dinner, everything's happening at once.

It's almost like you don't even feel the time passing by no and and when it's a good service it's a good service

if it's a bad service but you know it and it happens and and when that happens like a a bad

service is it is it very deflating feeling or is there like something afterwards where you get

together with everyone like hey we we fucked this up usually it's one person on the team that just

they're not ready they're not prepped up and things just go bad or sometimes what happens is

Again, the video is going Yeah, it gets off balance. But that's where you need a good wait staff when you start to see that happen.
So you got to start selling some fish. You have to.
stop selling meat that's interesting so when you ask yeah like what do you recommend it's yeah if you're at a really nice restaurant it's probably because they want to even it out well no a lot of times it's what the waiters like yeah i mean waiters expensive i always assume that waiters no it's not that no waiters will recommend what they like what you know because we you know our waiters taste our food in fact we have a program where our staff can come in. We give vouchers, so it's highly discounted.
They can come in, but they have to write a review. And so they eat food.
They know what they like. What about if the halibut is just a day away from being no longer usable? Do you tell people, hey, push the halibut tonight? Let's get rid of it.
No i mean we are the way we purchase food is so tight that we are typically not in that position i've always heard don't eat seafood on mondays is that no longer true no that that's what that was never true that was a whole bourdain thing that was in his book oh it was that's where it started that's where it started okay and, I love Anthony to death, but, you know, the restaurant that he worked in wasn't the, you know, and he admitted.

I mean, when he was living, he would admit to that.

Yeah.

This is what I did.

And in fact, in that book at the very end, he said, these are the chefs that are getting

it right, that aren't doing these things that he was talking about in the book, and I was

one of them.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

But that's not a universal thing.

No.

Myth busted.

It depends on the restaurant. Yes, there are plenty of restaurants that do that yeah i mean that's a special yeah yeah right yep where you know but you know we we number one the stuff the stuff that we're buying is typically more expensive than it than because it isn't you could buy tuna for four dollars a pound or tuna for twenty dollars a pound you know i'll buy the stuff for twenty dollars a pound and it's not because I don't know the difference.
I know the difference. That's why I'm spending more for it.
Right. But that's why food in one restaurant is more expensive than in another restaurant.
They're just buying higher quality ingredients. Yeah.
What about the hats? They're weird, right? Yeah, we don't do it. Yeah.
Well, Board of Health makes you wear a hat. Really? But you can wear baseball caps.
So was there ever a time where you wore the traditional chef hat no okay no because that that always seemed a little weird to me well again it was a way to keep what originally what it was in scoffier when he um you know created the brigade system the taller the hat the better position you had there was a reason for it yeah i like that yeah okay so maybe i'm down with the hats coming back i could change that quickly yeah we don't like that especially like they were like paper they're horrible yeah you've got a nice assortment of vacation hats though whenever you show up somewhere remotely on top chef i notice you always have like a fun hat yeah i don't get them though i don't i don't i think i have one oh really so you don't buy those yourself they're just like we're in italy we're gonna put this production. Oh, those hats.
Yeah, yeah. No, no.
Oh, those. No, those are mine now.
I have a stylist on the show, and she does great work. Yeah.
I just always laugh at that because I'm kind of the same way. If I go on a vacation, I'm like, you know what? I'm going to buy a fun hat.
Yeah. Yeah.
All right. So I had one last question.
It's the Roback question. Go to Roback.com.
Use code TAKE. You get 20% off.
We have some Roback gear for you. If you'd like it, R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com.
And a reminder, Chef's – I'm going to say Chef, sorry. Chef's NFT project is out now.
So by the time this comes out, it will be out. It is – you you go www chftypizzas.com so do that and uh check it out right sounds like a very cool or you can go to open seas open seas and just you know go right to open seas yeah so that's perfect so people should check that out seems like a very very cool project that's not trying to uh you know make you spend thousands and thousands of last question is, what is the best, in your opinion, the best leftover food? Oh, God.
Either Thai, Chinese, cold in front of the refrigerator in the morning. It doesn't get any better than that, right? Yeah.
Our cold pizza. Yeah.
I guess a lot of these questions are like, do you know stuff we don't know? But that is a like yeah everyone knows i could see i could see you doing that yeah yeah right right okay all right so that's it i'm a chef that's it you're yeah no i i i um yeah thai and chinese is the correct answer yeah thai chinese cold you know don't heat it up either yeah yeah i agree about the day after. Oh, that's great.
It's a great thing. But why wait till the day after? It's usually nighttime.
Yeah, you can do it. So I like taking my stuffing, leftover stuffing, and putting it into a waffle machine.
No batter, just straight stuffing. Press it in a waffle, and then the turkey over the top of that.
Holy shit. And then the gravy on top of that.
Now we're talking. Well, there it is.
That is the game changer. That's it.
We both love stuffing here and it's something that should be eaten, I think, more frequently than just on Thanksgiving. Absolutely.
I agree with that. Yeah.
I should look up my stuffing recipe and use that. Okay.
It's a good one. The stuffing waffle.
It's a good one. Done.
The stuffing waffle, you make the stuffing first and the stuffing waffle, you take the stuffing and just put it in the waffle maker and just give it a good press. I love it.
I think you just changed my life. It heats it up.
And it's also great like that and a fried egg over the top for breakfast. There it is.
It's pretty good stuff. That's good leftover.
We appreciate you coming by. We are big fans.
And we'll try to get Glennie to come back out, maybe up that balls. I don't know.
It sounds like we're balling there.

4-2 sounds like it's good.

4-2 is good.

Let's see more at a 4-5.

Maybe just ditch the fancy cheese and just put a slice of Kraft on there.

I think that's what it sounds like. We should actually just get you there when he's going,

and you can just serve him literally a Big Mac,

and he will be like five balls.

Easy.

We can recreate it down to the sesame seed bun. Is that a Big Mac? Yeah, he described exactly a Big Mac.
Yeah. But thanks so much, Chef.
Cool, thanks. Chef Tom Kalicki was brought to you by HelloFresh.
HelloFresh delivers pre-portioned ingredients to your door so you get convenience without skimping on quality. Skip the trip to the grocery store and don't waste money on excess food.
You can try their limited time recipes. They've got beef tenderloin and cheese fondue, or they have miso sesame shrimp and bacon ramen.
That sounds delicious. I'll be looking for those HelloFresh meals at my doorstep.
HelloFresh offers the flexibility you need to easily customize your order online or in the app. You can easily change your delivery day, your food preference, and plan size, or you can skip a week whenever you need to.
Customize your favorite dishes with their new Hello Custom offerings by swapping out one protein or side for another, upgrading for a more deluxe experience, or even adding protein to a veggie meal. HelloFresh cuts back on time spent in the kitchen with your meals ready in around 30 minutes or less.
Plus, it's just great to be able to cook at the end of the day. It's a nice stress reliever sometimes, but you don't want to spend all your time in the kitchen preparing the food or cleaning up.
We love HelloFresh. They sent me a nice little pork tenderloin.
Made that up in about 25 minutes. Felt like it was a gourmet dish.
It was delicious. HelloFresh has fresh ingredients.
They've got delicious recipes. The best recipes in the business.
Plus, you get the satisfaction of eating a home-cooked meal. And it saves you time.
Saves you money. This is a great, great plan that they have.

You can go to HelloFresh.com slash PMT16, use promo code PMT16 for up to 16 free meals and three free gifts. Yeah, yeah, you heard me right.
16 free meals and three free gifts. Go to HelloFresh.com slash pmt16 and use promo code pmt16 all right let's wrap up we got fire fest we are taping this in the afternoon so whatever you heard at the beginning of the show we don't know we we we don't know the future as of right now um but hank what is your fire fest as of three o'clock on Thursday afternoon? Well, I was going to say my fire fest is Big Cat hates me because he lost the game of the year.
Oh, well, my fire fest is you quit your job because I embarrassed you. Coach K fucked you in the face, you suit.
My fire fest is that I'm the only one in the studio right now because Hank and Big Cat have killed each other. I think we all know what your fire fest is, PFT.
But my real fire fest is that i'm the only one in the studio right now because hank and big cat have killed each other i think we i think we all know what your fire fest is pft but my real fire fest is that i left my fucking fridge speaking of hello fresh i'm a big fan i use them all the time cook up great meals they do great stuff um i left my fridge a crack open when i left for chicago so i came home and my apartment smelled like shit and all the food that was in there was ruined and i had to start from fresh didn't get anything else yet like i haven't gone grocery shopping and i'm like sick today and i just have like no food so that that's my fire the spoiled food yeah the spoiled food smell i when we went to la for the super bowl like someone sent me some stuff to the office and i don't know why no one on the box read like perishable must refrigerate but when i got back it was just like a box of meat next to my off my my desk this smelled so bad so yeah that's that's a terrible fire fest there's nothing grosser than picking up just a spoiled thing of meat and feeling how, like, room temperature the meat feels.

It's like chicken.

Chicken is the best food, but it smells so bad when it's raw.

What did you have in your fridge?

No offense, but if I were to, like, picture Hank's fridge,

it would be, like, baking powder, ketchup,

and you probably keep, like, peanut butter in the fridge.

Maybe some little cocktail wieners.

Mike Fridge is literally like

Thank you. ketchup and you probably keep like peanut butter in the fridge maybe some little little little cocktail wieners it's it's my fridge is literally like coors light uh and then like six hello fresh like i just make hello fresh meals and eggs and milk love it no hot sauce no i actually i use hot sauce for eggs because i don't really like eating eggs i don't like eating eggs but it masks the flavor, which is the only time you should use hot sauce.
It's to mask the flavor. Got it.
Hank's growing up. Yeah.
His little taste buds are rejuvenating. All right, PFT, your fire fest.
Hank, what were you thinking? I don't know why my camera was not focusing. It's pissing me off.
It's focused. Yeah, you look great, Hank.
Your face is just really blurry. Naturally.
Because you've been crying so much after Duke lost.

It is a little weird that Hank just didn't show up to the office on Coach K Retirement Day.

I texted you.

Yeah, you did.

And I'll be at the office.

I will be there for the beginning of the show.

I don't feel good.

I didn't want to be there for 12 hours because the game starts at 945.

Hank, what were you saying that my Fyre Fest was going to be? What is your Fyre Fest? I mean, you were so sure. I would assume it's the Empire State Building.
Is it the Empire State Building? Yeah, that's my Fyre Fest. So as Hank put it in the group chat right after we went to the Empire State Building to film our brand new ad read, unveiling our partnership with Game Time.

There are very few things that we don't know about each other after working together for six years on this podcast. I feel like I know everything about you guys.
Yes. And I have managed to keep a very big part of my life secret from you all.
And that is that I'm deathly afraid of heights when I'm either on like a tall roller coaster or when I'm outdoors or if I'm in a situation where I happen to find myself on a tiny fucking platform on the top of the Empire State Building on a windy day. It was tiny.
It was like the size of a half court basketball court. And it was swaying in the wind on a blustery day.
March was coming in like a lion, and it was fucking me over, and I'm sweating thinking about it right now, and I'm panicking. You can notice that the pace of my talking speeds up.
I honestly panic when I am in a high place out in the open, and that was terrifying for me. And I hope that we never have to do anything like that again

because there's certain things that just get under your skin.

Heights, for me, it literally makes me panic.

I was truly shocked.

I just didn't know.

I thought you were joking and doing a bit, and I was just shocked.

I mean, I know it's obviously a real thing.

There's a lot of people who are scared of heights.

I just couldn't believe it.

And then, I mean, I love standing on a high building.

I think I said in the camera, I am not suicidal, not to do the Jussie Smollett. I'm not suicidal.
But sometimes when you stand in a building that tall, you're just like, what if I just jumped? That'd be so fucking sick. Just because it's such a rush to feel.
I follow all those Instagrams of like Russian dudes hanging off cranes. I love that.
Sometimes I do watch those videos just to make myself like uncomfortable. Oh, it's the best.
The Russian bridge walking and they love climbing up like cell phone towers and shit. And they're 16 years old and they're insane.
But no, whenever I get up there, my body, I get dizzy. My body starts to shut down.
And then when I looked up at the top of the antenna, even when I look up at that height,

I start to get dizzy.

And then that makes me panic more because I'm like, oh, my God, I'm going to fall over

the edge.

What's going on?

And it just it fucks me up.

Heights fuck me up.

I end up.

Everyone.

Everyone has.

Yeah.

Everyone's got these little things about them.

That happens to be mine.

So let's just let's just stay like a ground podcast From now on The official podcast of Earth I'll just get to snakes He also definitely tried to keep it a secret Because you didn't say anything Until like the second we walked outside And then you were like what the fuck You were like wait we're gonna be on We're at the Empire State Building I thought we we were all very well aware up yeah i thought that we were going to be indoors in like the the top floor observation area because i've gone to the willis tower before in chicago and i've looked out over and that's like a little scary to me but i'm fine if we're indoors i walked out on that plexiglass ledge that they had i put like one foot on it and i kept my hands on the other side like pulling myself back meanwhile there are four-year-olds like dancing on it all around me making me look like a chump because i was so afraid of it i was just shocked but i didn't know we're gonna be outside people it was kind of a sketchy it was like it was it wasn't like a normal like a regular person couldn't get to that part of the empire state yeah no it was a little bit we had to climb up like a construction ladder and we were like on like a grate basically shout out tyler o'day for hooking it up um but yeah i mean look i'm not i know it's a normal thing there's a lot of people are scared of heights i just didn't i was shocked that you were because i'd never because i seem like such an alpha right yeah and usually you know you're doing bits so i was like is he doing a bit here where he's like faking it i don't understand well i'm i'm five foot nine i'm not used to any sort of yeah tall arrangement billy you guys are on a higher spot than the regular place with the huge fence yes oh my god but but if you but it wasn't if you had fallen off where we were you would have fallen like five feet i don't like a ledge that was just sitting there i don't think that's true i looked i got a wind? Yeah, exactly, Billy. Oh, yeah, if there was a strong wind, then another five feet down was actually the entire observations deck with the high fence.
Was there a fence? So there was literally no way. No, it was impossible for you to die from where we were standing.
You couldn't jump far enough out to get out there. I'm a pretty good leaper.
Jesus. It was not that.
I looked right over. It was like there was a bunch of ledges below.
My hands are fucking sweating. It's a swamp right now just thinking about it.
So, yeah, that sucked. That was a bad time for me, but I was willing to do it for the team.
But I guess I'm on Team Portnoy and fuck the Empire State Building. I hate that place.
Yeah, all tall Great video. Also, great sweepstakes.
Yeah. I missed the ad.
Great sweepstakes. It's a great sweepstakes.
Yeah, why don't you say it real quick, Hank? Download the app. All you have to do is tweet us a screenshot in the app showing us who you think is going to win the championship, and then Game Time is going to pick one winner who will win four tickets, hotelfare for the final four that's so you get to bring you get to bring three friends all expensive paid new orleans awesome awesome deal the lowest city that's that's a place for me yes uh my fire fest is uh my co-host uh has been trying to gaslight me for six years about how i order my steak and now he's switched up his argument to uh he always knew it existed but I'm just an asshole for it so I'm just gonna have to deal with this for the rest of my life I've never had a situation where someone just refuses to say that they might be wrong uh but you heard it in the Tom Colicchio episode so yeah that's my fire fest are you talking about Hank yeah no I'm talking about you we're it's I I you.
At this point, I don't know what to say.

You will ask every waitress and waiter for the rest of our lives whether medium rare plus is a thing.

And all of them have said yes.

And you asked a chef, a Michelin star chef.

He said yes.

Former Michelin star chef.

And you still don't accept this fact.

It's a wild thing.

I think your plan is to just wait me out and gaslight me to the point where I think it's not a thing. And it's kind of working because at this point I don't understand how someone could be wrong and refuse to admit that they're wrong for this long.
Okay. Here's where I am.
Here's where I am on it right now. Okay.
I officially accept that medium rare plus is a thing. Okay.
At the same time, it's kind of a Karen move to order medium rare plus. How? It's a real.
Everyone we've talked to has said it's a real thing. Kind of Karen cat.
How is that a Karen? It's kind of a Karen. Explain how it's a Karen.
You know who you sound like? Who do I sound like? I mean, who moves the goalposts. Yeah.
And. Who's that? Oh.
Nice. I like that.
You are. Okay, I am.
Yeah. I guess I'm seal team clay right now.
Yes, you are. I'm veal team clay when it comes to ordering things.
You've moved the goalposts so many times. It's insanity.
Okay, honestly, it is a thing. It's just not so.
I like rare. How about that? Right, that's fine.
That's totally fine.

All right, here we go.

There we go.

I like medium rare plus.

You just spent six years not allowing me.

I'm not trying to yuck your yum.

Oh, you have been for a very long time.

But I'm not anymore.

The best was, Hank, you missed it.

He, like, during the Tom Colicchio interview,

PFT tried to, like, claim that he never said it wasn't a real thing.

Liam caught him when he walked into the studio.

PFT was Googling, is medium rare plus a real thing? And being like, see, the first result says it's not. Well, Google says that it's not.
We talked about it at St. Elmo's.
We talked about it at every steakhouse we've ever gone to. And every waiter and waitress says, yes, it's a real thing.
And he just won't accept it. Now you're gaslighting me.
Now you've turned the tables on me where now I get to play the victim

because I just a second ago said it is a real thing.

But you tried to then flip it to a Karen.

I like to order it that way.

I will keep ordering it that way.

Hank has even ordered it that way.

It's a very nice way to order steak.

Sometimes medium rare gets a little too rare for my liking.

Yeah, let me live, man.

Let me live.

You can order it however you like.

I will say I was on PFTs.

I was kind of with them for a while.

Like it's a ridiculous order.

But over the course of time, so many people have said it.

I've acknowledged its existence.

We've pulled every steakhouse we've ever been to.

I acknowledge its existence as well.

I personally prefer medium rare steak.

That's totally fine.

I have never you should order your steak however you want to order it i'll order it how i want to order it rare plus now does it go like rare plus here he doesn't actually believe no i do believe it i know i'm just curious i know i'm. You're like, does it go minus? No, no.
I'm not saying that.

Is there a medium plus?

Is there a medium well plus?

Sure.

I don't care how anyone orders their steak.

Yeah.

It's a spectrum.

It's totally fine by me.

Okay.

Well, then we're all in agreement.

You can order your steak however. But you still take them a Karen, so no.

You can order it however you like it.

I'm not going to yuck anyone's yum. Oh, man.
I can't wait until we go to the next place and be like, hey, just as an aside, is it really a thing? You know what I'm going to do? Yes, it is. Okay, well, this place, I can't trust them.
I'm going to bribe the waiter before we sit down. Tom Colicchio saying, yes, it's a real thing.
And BFT is still being like, well, the guy spent his whole life in a kitchen. Well, he did say, if you notice how he answered, he goes, yes, it is.
But he had like a, and then you jumped on it. You're like, see? Yeah.
We didn't let him get his butt out. I never do it at bad steak restaurants.
And I'll say that. I've said that from the first time.
If you go to a shitty steak place, I don't order it that way because they probably won't order it that they won't acknowledge it a nice steak restaurant always acknowledges that you okay you can order yours medium rare plus i'll get mine read medium rare and we'll both be happy i think i'll be happier than you no i'm no i'm happier than you i'm happy you'll be upset about it because i was right because in the back of your head six years when big cat says medium rare, he's going to be thinking that I'm angry at him. No.
And you're going to get pre-mad before I say it. I've known you.
Yeah, you're already pre-mad about me not saying anything. I've known you've judged me every time, and what have I done? I've ordered it the same way every time.
I've enjoyed it every time. Not judging, but you're already pre-mad about it.
No, no, no, no. Again, I've been ordering it the same way for six years, and every time you get upset about it, and I keep ordering it that way, so it's clearly one-sided who's happy, who's not.
I'm fine with it now. We talked to Tom Colicchio.
Of course you are. We talked to Chef.
Chef said everything was fine. You're definitely fine with it.
I am fine with it. Billy, go ahead.
You don't sound like you're fine. I'm going to keep ordering it the same way forever.
You have been literally not been able to say you've been wrong for six years. Who are you arguing with? I'm saying that's fine.
I'm going to order it the same way I've been ordering it my entire life. Good.
I hope you order it that way for the rest of your life. I literally will.
I will say, nice order, Big Cat. Yep, and you'll be upset.
It's going to be great. I'm not upset.
Okay. Good order.
Go ahead, Billy. The only last thing on that thing, the real question is, does the chef in his brain make a conscious difference between medium rare plus and medium rare when he's cooking the steak? Good question, Billy.
At a nice steakhouse, they will. If you go to a good place, they're going to make a choice.
He doesn't believe what he's or something like that and you order a ribeye medium rare plus, the cook's probably not trained to be able to handle all those steaks and to take the 30 to 45 seconds necessary to make sure this one's medium rare plus. but at a nice steakhouse like a prime 47 or if you go to st elmo's or ruth's chris

order at medium rare plus because they're going to be able to cook it perfectly for you

just the way that you like it pft is so not mad he just spent that last minute mocking me i'm that was a lot that you yeah i said exactly what chef said yes he's so not mad he's mocking it i'm not mad just all you had to do is admit you were wrong the hundred times that we've asked someone and they've affirmed my side i admit that there is a thing as medium rare plus there it is wow we did it i said that we did five minutes we did it billy go ahead i lost my whole key chain it's really a terrible predicament there's so many parts of your life where you need your whole key chain uh i'm pretty sure it's my buddy's couch but he wouldn't let me cut open the couch to get the keys why would it be like you know when it gets in the couch david blaine wait what sometimes if it gets in there it has to be able to get like it slips in and then it gets into the body of the couch like a like the cushion but you should be able to get the keys out without cutting it if you didn't cut the couch to put your keys in. Just trust me, there's a lot of couches.
It just gets lost, and unless you cut it open, you can't find it. If you have an old couch and you want to find some treasure, cut open the bottom of an old couch.
You'll find change. You'll find all sorts of stuff.
Can't you just take the cushions off the couch? Right, but there's like a – when you take the cushions off the couch, sometimes there's like a like when you take the cushions off the couch sometimes there's like parts in the couch like underneath the trust me there's people out there you know i'm talking about i think you just want to how many keys do you have on a key chain billy a good amount it's like a janitor yeah i've i hoard keys so if i ever get a key to a place i keep it just in case I need to go back to that place anyway if you find blue raging mammoth with an F word car key on it a slur? I don't know if you're ever going to put that headset on again Billy F word car please help me anyway so I got locked down my apartment uh shout out ben de julio i called him because you know what he's talking about i don't f-word i do i do i do know that yes i do know that that one makes sense yeah oh i had another firefest i totally forgot about a friend of the program duncan robinson when the miami heat were all fighting each other, he like backed off and didn't do anything.

Kind of like a little bit of a pussy.

I don't know if that's maybe like his schooling or what, but I think like when there's a fight

going on, you should probably get involved in some way.

No, that's the podcast.

If you're a podcaster, you're taught at a young age.

Yeah, right.

If there's a fight nearby, just kind of stand back and then look away from the fight as

it's happening. Yeah, just finish your Guinness.
Right. Exactly.
Live to see another day. Anyway, shout out Ben to Julio.
I had to break into my apartment, and it totally looked like I was climbing up the fire escape and breaking into a window. And I didn't get arrested, so shout out Ben to Julio for watching out.
Wait, why would you? Because you're breaking into another house? To my house. Got it.
But if you see someone, like, opening up a window, climbing up the fire escape, that's not a good look. Is that some of your privilege showing that you were able to do that? Well, no, I called Ben DiGiulio to just stand outside to explain the situation.
Is that why you called me? Yes. Oh, my God.
Okay. Jake, you're FireFest.
Yeah. So Thursday night, I went over to jersey city to the saint peter's uh send-off party bus to uh philadelphia and uh i was filming the team walking to the bus and i got doug doug eddert mustache yep merch available barstool store dirt yeah and i was like good luck doug and he just ignored me i tweeted out the video because I thought he truly ignored me.
And it turned out he had headphones on. And then he responded saying, I'm very humble.
Like I had headphones on. I'm sorry.
So I feel bad that he feels bad. Got it.
Yeah. You put him in a bad spot.
I put him in a bad spot unintentionally. Yeah.
When this is the biggest moment of his life so far. That's what he says.
Yeah. He was wearing a hoodie.
Do you think he did? I believe him. I'll take him for his word.
Do you think that it was inappropriate from a journalistic integrity standpoint to wish a player good luck like you're rooting for them? Like I said, I self-suspended myself until 7 p.m. tonight.
Okay. Because there was a big brouhaha down in Baton Rouge earlier this week.

Did you see that?

Yes, I did see that. With the big J telling students that it's inappropriate to say thank you for a fun season to the players after they lose.

That, to me, it made me nauseous seeing you wish a team good luck.

I'm sorry to let you down.

You've got to be impartial, Jake.

I can wish both teams good luck.

If I saw Zach Eadie, I'd say good luck. Okay, right now, tell Zach Eadie good luck well if I saw Zach Edie luck if I saw Zach Edie I'd say good luck okay right now tell Zach Edie good luck good luck Zach okay okay all right now we're even not the walk-on though that you got no fuck that kid yeah war with on uh yeah yeah Wisconsin yeah yeah fuck that kid yeah um probably you got anything no okay memes you good I'm all good.
You good? Meme's just happy.

Make your free throws.

All right.

Numbers?

100.

I can't.

Hank, 57.

Coach K's done.

100.

No, that's a –

Why don't you go 99 for 25?

This career wins in the NCAA tournament.

Yeah, I'll go 99.

Yeah.

This could be an all-time backfire in my face.

57.

Meme says three. Is 100 even a number? 72.
Is that how old he is? It actually might be. Fourth time.
Also, it's a good sign for the Dolphins. Tyreek Hill, 72 undefeated.
If you can live with yourself rooting for Tyreek Hill. 75.
Oh, shit. That old fart.
We'll find some sign. You can buy a fertilized ostrich egg online for $110, including shipping.
And in most states, they count as livestock,

so you don't have to get a permit for it.

So are you going to get one?

Thinking about it.

Nice.

Love you guys.

Burt Kreischer, Monday.

Love you guys.

You know what?

You know what?

You know what?