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

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Speaker 1 On today's part in my take, we have Chef Tom Calicchio in studio. We're going to break down some March madness.
Tyreek Hill to the Dolphins. The NFL free agency just won't stop.

Speaker 1 They basically have hijacked the entire month of March. NFL is king.
NFL is king. We've got a great Friday show for you.

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Speaker 7 Now in the street, there is violence.

Speaker 7 And then a lot of work to be done.

Speaker 7 No place to hang out or washing,

Speaker 7 and then I can't blame all of the sun. Oh, no, we're gonna rock it down to Elaine Trick Iven.

Speaker 7 And then we'll take it higher.

Speaker 7 Oh, we're gonna rock it down to Elan Trake Avenue.

Speaker 2 It's part of my take isn't about Marshal Sports.

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Use hashtag PMT and you can win up to $500 for free with Venmo.

Speaker 1 Today is Friday, March 25th, and the Arkansas Razorbacks are going to the Elite Eight. Woo! Big Sue! Who are they playing? Big Sue.
And then Houston Cougars, too.

Speaker 2 Absolutely. John Daly is fucking hammereder than usual tonight, celebrating Arkansas.
Big news.

Speaker 2 And then there was, of course, we should probably bring up, like, yeah, there was a gigantic loss tonight for us as a podcast. Yeah.
Billy Football could not finish the cheeseburger bet.

Speaker 2 He got bodied by food yet again. You got down like eight and a quarter cheeseburgers, Billy.

Speaker 1 From McDonald's.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 1 You can't. No, you can't retire.
The tweet said.

Speaker 1 You can't retire. I said I'm retiring.
No, Billy Football.

Speaker 1 Billy football. Billy football

Speaker 1 challenges is my favorite rivalry. It's the Harlem County Trotters in Washington General.

Speaker 8 My body simply cannot do this.

Speaker 1 No, you do.

Speaker 2 Billy, now part of your job description is you doing as many competitive eating challenges.

Speaker 1 Just losing all of them.

Speaker 8 Here's the official statement from my agency.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 8 I retire from competitive eating. After these past three L's, I just want to eat regular sized portions.
Please respect my decision.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's kind of a wimp move, Billy.

Speaker 2 No, no, you got to get back on that horse.

Speaker 1 I've literally seen my body.

Speaker 2 No, no, it's gotten banged up by the food.

Speaker 1 Billy, no.

Speaker 1 Please, I will not permit you to do that. The answer is no.

Speaker 1 So you cannot.

Speaker 1 The people demand more food challenges. Until you complete one, an official one, that is your freedom.

Speaker 2 I got a text from Erica while you were doing the challenge. She was not impressed with your behavior and your ability.
She said that she will not be renewing your contract until you can complete

Speaker 1 the 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,

Speaker 1 and then he said, P.S., all the money that we could get out of it will go directly to Billy Football. Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Both those things just happened to happen.

Speaker 8 I'm going to go talk to my family. You know, they're the number one on my list when I make decisions.

Speaker 8 My dog feels very strongly about the time. You're not retiring.

Speaker 1 You're not allowed to retire. Whitey would kick your ass in a food truck.
You're not allowed to retire. By the way.

Speaker 9 Man, I'll tell you what. When you're hungry out there, you start acting like a rookie quarterback in his first game, making bad decisions, messing up the basics, being all out of sorts.

Speaker 9 That's where Snickers comes in, man. That thing is packed.
Roasted peanuts, nugget, caramel, milk chocolate. It's like the MVP of candy bars.

Speaker 9 And when you bite into it, boom, it sorts you out, gets your head back in the game of life, satisfying your hunger. Remember this.
Snickers handles your hunger so you can handle everything else.

Speaker 9 Snickers satisfies, man. That's a winning play.

Speaker 1 So Villanova, who played great tonight and they were amazing, they should get some, we should definitely pat them on the back.

Speaker 2 Colin Galaspio, when you need him, he comes up big.

Speaker 1 Of all John Rosteen's sayings,

Speaker 1 J-Wright being a Fortune 500 company fits the most.

Speaker 2 It does, but I also, 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.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 2 Run by all the shareholders, like the Green Bay Packers.

Speaker 1 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 going to hit shots.

Speaker 1 They're going to make free throws. They got a big test against Houston.
Elite Eight's going to be quite something, but I'm excited for our Razorbacks. We've always been Razorbacks.
And

Speaker 1 NFL News. News.

Speaker 2 Well, big choke job.

Speaker 2 There was a heartbreak in the tournament tonight. Gonzaga losing.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 They're never going to get to a final fight.

Speaker 2 That's tough. Mark Few, at least he doesn't have to have podcast hosts bring up his DUI with his giant German Shepherds.

Speaker 1 Yes, facts. And Muss, great game planned by Muss.
Stopped him in transition, attacked the rim. Poor Chet Holmgren didn't know what to do.
Is there anything we missed?

Speaker 10 Game of the year?

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. The lads got a result on the road.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 2 Nil-nil in Mexico.

Speaker 2 So, and then there was another tie out there, or draw, excuse me, tonight in our, in our CONCACAF table. Yeah.
So we're in the catbird seat right now.

Speaker 2 It looks like the boys are going dancing in Qatar.

Speaker 1 Go ahead, Hank. Go ahead.
Wait, wait, the spreadsheet. Oh, yes.

Speaker 1 The spreadsheet did an amazing job. He's lighting for the spreadsheet.

Speaker 2 There we go.

Speaker 8 Gonzaga went down. That was a big L.

Speaker 8 Tex.

Speaker 1 Freaking

Speaker 1 Arizona.

Speaker 8 Arizona went down, another big L. Houston's.

Speaker 1 We're about to make money. I'm going to need that money, by the way.

Speaker 2 Yes. We're going to flip it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm going to need that.

Speaker 2 So was Texas Tech losing to, I forget who they played, but was their loss, is that good for the spreadsheet?

Speaker 8 Texas Tech would have been a huge L

Speaker 8 comparatively.

Speaker 1 That's good. Duke's winning is good.

Speaker 8 Well, Duke is also a big L. Oh, okay.

Speaker 8 So it doesn't matter. That's an L that's going to be eliminated by Arkansas, which is a W.

Speaker 2 Big W.

Speaker 1 Got it.

Speaker 2 I got a future in Arkansas.

Speaker 2 I would make my money back if they won it all.

Speaker 1 I got a huge. Yeah.

Speaker 11 Tonight was one of the most contentious nights on the podcast. I was on big, on Duke.
YouTuber. Huge, huge on Texas Tech.

Speaker 1 Go ahead. Have your moment.

Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 1 I was happy that you showed up to work today. And now I'm sick.

Speaker 11 Yeah, I'm sick. I came for the show.

Speaker 1 I came to perform. Listen, I and I performed.

Speaker 10 Here's

Speaker 11 me and my alums.

Speaker 1 Here's

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 It was thrilling to take a big shot, to tweet all those tweets today.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And yeah, that's gambling, baby. That's life.

Speaker 1 I put my nuts on the table and I got them smashed like a fucking Gallagher watermelon.

Speaker 2 I think the two things are Mike McCarthy watermelon.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Updated for the first time.
Well, no.

Speaker 1 If I had smashed a watermelon, we probably would have won.

Speaker 2 That's true. Yeah, so there are a couple of things that stand out to me in this game.
Big Cat's not going to complain about the refs.

Speaker 1 I will. Thank you.
Coach K,

Speaker 2 we were actually dumb for thinking that they were going to let him lose on his 99th career victory in the NCAA tournament. No, Brett, of course he's going to get to 100.

Speaker 2 He's probably going to lose in 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.

Speaker 2 Everyone's going to remember that for all time. We'll 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 That inbound play at the end where they trapped him

Speaker 2 90 feet from the basket and they called the foul on what was a clear turnup. That was the game right there.

Speaker 2 The kids fought 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

Speaker 2 like a coward. He told his boys to play zone like

Speaker 2 a bunch of scaredy cats.

Speaker 11 Called in the rain.

Speaker 2 And he called in the rain.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 the zone cheated.

Speaker 2 Jim Boheim got on the phone with me. He's like, I know exactly what you got to do here tonight, coach.
You got to go to the zone.

Speaker 1 And he did it, and it worked.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 That also,

Speaker 1 that was a pivot point in the entire game.

Speaker 2 Okay, can I give you just a little bit of caution on that one, though? Because

Speaker 2 here's what Billy's hearing right now. Yeah, I know.

Speaker 1 I know.

Speaker 2 I'm doing my job. I better.
I have a built-in excuse for it from now on.

Speaker 1 When we say in two months, when we're like, Billy, the TikTok hasn't grown, he's going to be like, remember that time? Yep. The Texas

Speaker 1 Duke game? And I tried to do it and

Speaker 1 you didn't like it? He's filing that away for later.

Speaker 1 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 should have won. But Duke made every shot.

Speaker 1 There's nothing I can do.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 PFT,

Speaker 1 Bubba, Billy.

Speaker 2 Hank's fired.

Speaker 1 I'm legitimately nervous that Duke might win the national championship.

Speaker 2 All right, so it does make sense with the storyline.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 I'm counting on Coach K to blow it for him. 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.

Speaker 2 That's all that we have left right now.

Speaker 1 I can't, this was the first time that I was legitimately like, okay, this might happen.

Speaker 1 And like,

Speaker 1 Muss is going to have the best game plan possible. I believe in the Razorbacks.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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 going to win and that would be a game of the year and I might even still make it a game of the year.

Speaker 1 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,

Speaker 1 this is like my nightmare.

Speaker 1 It's this,

Speaker 1 it's Coach K winning a national title on the way out and Aaron Rodgers winning another Super Bowl with the the Packers.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 I might have to say, no more sports. It's not worth it.
You live your life. Go

Speaker 1 move to Montana. Raise your.
No, 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.

Speaker 1 All this shit, it's not worth it if this is going going to be ended in such gut-wrenching pain.

Speaker 1 And I know there's a bunch of dupe perverts right now who are listening to this, and they're smiling ear to ear. And

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Billy, make me feel better.

Speaker 8 I have good news and bad news.

Speaker 1 This feels like it's going to be bad news and bad news.

Speaker 2 The bad news is

Speaker 8 that there's a possibility that they play UNC in the Final Four. Right.
Which goes right with the narrative.

Speaker 2 No, that would be great if they lost to UNC. Right.

Speaker 8 The bad news was the narrative goes to the final four. The good news is that they could lose that to UNC.

Speaker 1 Listen, if you told me that Duke went to the final four and they 100% lost, I would take that.

Speaker 1 No, no, no. Stay out.
And they lost.

Speaker 1 I would 100% take that because then, like, 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 I'm also thinking that I'm playing it's I'm like a Walenda just on a fucking like line walking over you know 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 at exactly a hundred wins right now that to me it makes all the sense in the world if you see coach K with 100 next to his name,

Speaker 2 that's the ticket right there. That's what they want.
That's what the storyline is going to be. I know.

Speaker 2 Coach K walks out with 100 wins in the NCAA tournament, and everybody remembers, oh, yeah, the big 100.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 That's how this story is going to end.

Speaker 1 I'm terrified.

Speaker 1 I'm terrified.

Speaker 1 Honestly, I want you to hold me. I want you to hold me right now.

Speaker 2 Listen, you will never see a podcast in the entire country root as hard as we will root for the rest of the season.

Speaker 2 And you'll never see someone push the rest of the teams as hard as we will push all the teams for the rest of the season. You'll never see a podcast play harder than we will the rest of the season.

Speaker 2 God bless you.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's T-Bos. I like that.

Speaker 1 That felt a little bit better, but I'm just, 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 legitimately was like, oh my God,

Speaker 1 it might happen and I might have to quit sports.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 And I'm like, I don't watch sports.

Speaker 1 I don't watch sports.

Speaker 2 This is like you're a highly tatted football player getting into the league. and you've got all the expectations the world.
Everyone's like, oh yeah, this, this guy's going to be a star.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 They're going to be like, that guy, Big Cat, right there. Yeah.
He used to watch so many sports.

Speaker 1 He used to be a great sports podcaster. And then what happened? Coach K won it all.

Speaker 1 And he just quit.

Speaker 2 And I do have a, I have a confession, though, about how the rest of the season is going to play out for Coach K.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 If they do get to the finals,

Speaker 2 I'm going to be rooting for Duke because of the future that I put in him.

Speaker 1 I'll pay for it. Back into September.
I'll pay for it. It's going to pay for it.
I'll personally pay for it.

Speaker 2 If they win it all, that pays for my game of the year loss.

Speaker 1 I will personally pay for your future before they even win at all.

Speaker 2 I'm just saying.

Speaker 1 I will do that.

Speaker 1 I want Musk to do that.

Speaker 2 If Arkansas wins, then I make way more money.

Speaker 1 I know, but I'm willing to do that. No,

Speaker 1 I'm willing to pay for the future because

Speaker 1 I can't have you doing that. I can't.

Speaker 1 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 that he didn't have to come in and face the fire because the office was high tension all day.

Speaker 1 He got to just stroll in at nine o'clock and sit in the chair and be like, oh, ball game on. Well, because it was bullshit what he did.

Speaker 2 Corporate Hank sits upstairs, selects his paycheck, takes his sick days. Yeah.
That's kind of, you've seen a notable shift in Hank recently.

Speaker 1 If you've watched Entourage, fuck the suits. That's Hank.

Speaker 1 We're still the fucking independent guys just trying to say fuck you to the system. Hank is literally, he's corporate Kane.

Speaker 2 You know what he is? He's pig vomit from private parts.

Speaker 1 WNBC. Yep, yep, yep.

Speaker 1 Here's who he is.

Speaker 2 Here's how Imas says it, guys.

Speaker 1 Yep. So,

Speaker 1 but yeah, I am, for the first time this year, because they've had so many, they've had like different moments where I'm like, oh, they're flawed. Oh, they're defense.

Speaker 1 You know, Virginia Tech beats them in the ACC tournament. UNC beats him last game.
This is now, this is now.

Speaker 1 Threat level midnight at my house.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 1 Muss is going to coach the fuck out of this game on Saturday. All right, Hank, you come back.

Speaker 1 Hank.

Speaker 1 Hank went home.

Speaker 2 He probably did. He got the car service.

Speaker 1 He probably's laying down like, oh, I'm so sick.

Speaker 2 Hank's in the towel.

Speaker 1 Hey, there he is. All right.
Hank.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Stop recording.
Hank, hello. Welcome back.
How you doing?

Speaker 1 I'm great. Yeah.
I'm feeling much better. I know, I know.

Speaker 2 You have the floor, Hank.

Speaker 1 Yeah, go ahead and talk. You can say whatever you want.
I just spilled a lot of people.

Speaker 1 You're not allowed to listen to that podcast. I feel really lucky.
You're not allowed to listen to that.

Speaker 11 Every day, I thank God that I'm able to work with such great guys.

Speaker 11 You guys are amazing people to work with.

Speaker 1 You don't look at Billy when you're saying that because then we know you're lying.

Speaker 10 No, I love Billy.

Speaker 1 I think Billy's a great, great guy.

Speaker 11 Funny, smart.

Speaker 1 Hank's winking, right?

Speaker 10 Good at eating.

Speaker 12 Strong.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 11 I just try and bring light. I would try to bring it to the lights.

Speaker 10 Billy's trying to be a shining beacon of light.

Speaker 2 Bro, I'm Switz as fuck.

Speaker 1 No. You're Swiss.
Oh, what are you 65% Swiss?

Speaker 1 Yeah, give it to me. Although, Billy does know how to stay out of fights.

Speaker 2 He does. True.

Speaker 11 We're just one big happy family.

Speaker 2 I feel really lucky to be a part of it.

Speaker 1 All right, you're not allowed to listen to what I said. I won't.
Okay.

Speaker 2 Cool. So, Hank, you're rooting against our friend naturally.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Yeah.
I mean, Elite Date's great. That's good for him.

Speaker 11 He beat Gonzaga, number one seed, winning season, great for recruiting.

Speaker 1 Gonzaga is like, does I don't, they'll be back. I'm sure they have great recruits and everything, but damn, that's a.

Speaker 2 I'm going to say it right now. Drew Timmy doesn't have the killer instinct.

Speaker 1 He's going to be an awesome, awesome player in Latvia. And that's an, I'm not saying that as a mean thing.

Speaker 12 Those guys make good money.

Speaker 1 He does have like sick Euro moves. It's just, you know what? There were 50-50 balls where it was like Arkansas's like, nope, that's ours.

Speaker 2 He's got the drop step. He's got a a really good drop step on it.
And I love that move. But yeah,

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 1 But he's a young kid. Also, we won Houston, too.

Speaker 11 So I had a double big night. That was thanks to you, Big Cat.
So thank you.

Speaker 12 Yeah, that's true. I did.

Speaker 1 Texted me.

Speaker 1 I should have made that my game of the year.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Game of the Year is going to be retired for a while, though Miami would have been.

Speaker 11 Do you at any point regret betting with your heart and not with your heart?

Speaker 1 No, you can't say that.

Speaker 1 You pushed me.

Speaker 1 You used your suit. You used your suit.
You came.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 11 No,

Speaker 2 I said what I said on the podcast.

Speaker 11 I said, do it, do it, do it.

Speaker 2 But didn't you also bet with your heart?

Speaker 10 No, I bet with my head. Oh, no.

Speaker 11 And that's if Big Cat makes it a big bet, bet against it.

Speaker 1 Oh, really? So you bet against all my, so you're one and three against my big bets. No.

Speaker 11 But eventually, if you're 3-0, it's like, it's got to happen eventually.

Speaker 2 I do feel...

Speaker 1 It's very rude of what you did. You've already taken...
Like, you already won. You don't have to do that.

Speaker 11 You don't have to do that.

Speaker 11 I'm trying to post late if what you just said about me.

Speaker 11 Figure out if it was good or not.

Speaker 11 I can't tell if that's an appropriate level comment. What? I feel like it is.

Speaker 1 Saying what?

Speaker 2 What I just said.

Speaker 1 No, that was very mean. That was very troll.
It was Frannie Lydon came out.

Speaker 11 I feel like Frannie Frannie Lydon just came out when I left the room.

Speaker 10 But maybe I'm wrong. I'll never know.
What?

Speaker 2 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.
You took a shot.

Speaker 2 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. 100% of them.
I can't recall a single time.

Speaker 1 One of us has to be the best gambler on the podcast.

Speaker 1 If it was one of you guys, I would be happy to be happy. I gave you Houston.

Speaker 1 I gave you Houston. You were the best gambler on the podcast.

Speaker 1 I would be happy for you to be a bad guy. I gave you Houston.

Speaker 2 I love being the second best gambler on the podcast. That's why I got the road trip.

Speaker 1 I gave you Houston. How did Chattanooga do?

Speaker 11 You did give me Houston.

Speaker 1 You should have taken the points to Chattanooga. I should have.
That's mean, Big Cat. Well, he hurt me.

Speaker 1 I also lost him. You basically did the collecting.

Speaker 1 Like, I fade every pick of yours, which is not true.

Speaker 2 Now, Bubba is my only friend.

Speaker 1 He gave you one and three. It's true.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Friendship ended with Hank and Big Cat.
Now Bubba, new best friend.

Speaker 1 Miami's a 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 11 I'm in. Fuck it.
I might just flip my winnings from tonight.

Speaker 1 Responsibly, 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.

Speaker 1 Making another game of the year. Fuck that.
That's exciting.

Speaker 1 That was my original game of the year.

Speaker 2 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

Speaker 1 home of the peacocks right now no thanks

Speaker 11 did you see the send-off the city of jersey city gave the peacocks it was incredible yeah it's basically like mardi gras

Speaker 2 should we talk about nfl yeah real quick tyree kill to the dolphins crazy my big takeaway is just how awesome he's gonna look catching deep balls in that teal uniform yeah and

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 1 Fastest two wide receivers. Yes, Alan Waddell and Tyreek Hill.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Kind of like what Aaron Rodgers does. You know what I mean? Yes, it makes sense.

Speaker 2 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?

Speaker 2 And then actually, Arian 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, know, if you rely only on your speed, that's something that's going to diminish as the years go by.

Speaker 2 And so, yeah, they're selling high. He's probably at the peak of his abilities right now.
Correct.

Speaker 1 He's going to be awesome for a couple more years.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 1 And I really do think the Chiefs can get guys in the draft and maybe like they already got Juju.

Speaker 1 And I feel like Patrick Mahomes is good enough that he will make, like, keep investing in the offensive line, put some more money into the defense.

Speaker 2 And now Valdez Scaling has an actual quarterback that will practice with him and throw himself.

Speaker 1 Exactly. So it made sense to me both 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...

Speaker 1 It would have been awesome to see the Jets get him, though.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And then after he signed with the Dolphins, he said, Yeah, I was never going to sign with the Jets.

Speaker 2 That was never a serious consideration.

Speaker 8 Who's Tyreek? Why do we care about Tyreek Hill?

Speaker 1 Who's Tyreek Hill? You should just be like, bad guys. Bad guys.
You have the character guys on the Jets.

Speaker 2 Billy's going to stop rooting for the Jets, actually, if they got Tyreek Hill.

Speaker 1 Exactly.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 1 I disagree with Mahomes. He was throwing the ball downhill.

Speaker 8 Well, think about how many times Tyreek Hill bailed out a bad pass by Patrick Mahomes.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 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 apart, it's basically because it was like backyard football.

Speaker 1 More structure will probably help Patrick Mahomes. Where they like actually try to get, you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Like, I actually think this will be better for Patrick Mahomes. I know that's

Speaker 1 kind of

Speaker 1 yeah, right.

Speaker 2 And they'll have guys in more specific roles.

Speaker 1 They still have a speed guy. Don't they still have Mikole Hardman? They do.

Speaker 2 And actually, you could 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.

Speaker 1 That's true. I mean, obviously, it's not.
He's not on Tyreek Hill. No, he's clearly a game changer.

Speaker 2 I'm going to say right now, Tyreek Hill is not a good short-yardage wide receiver.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I just think that

Speaker 1 the Chiefs will

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it'll be fun to watch. Jake, we just did most everything,

Speaker 1 but do you want to give us any recaps from your point of view?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, it was a pretty solid slate.

Speaker 13 I'm sorry about the game of the year.

Speaker 2 Sorry,

Speaker 1 we kicked Hank out for a while and we kind of hashed everything on him. I feel a lot better.

Speaker 1 Oh, also, I made Miami the game of the year. Okay.
Tomorrow night. So we'll do it.

Speaker 2 How about that wedgie tonight, huh?

Speaker 1 Free throw wedgie was crazy. Like the physics of that?

Speaker 2 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, Jake, shut up.
Shut up. But

Speaker 1 we love the passenger.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 13 Did you guys talk about it?

Speaker 1 I'll bring it up.

Speaker 13 My redemption bracket.

Speaker 2 We have not brought it up.

Speaker 1 Started the show. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Jake issued. Started the show.
Oh, really?

Speaker 2 Issued a redemption bracket. Just basically said, okay, now

Speaker 2 let's pretend I got everything correct thus far.

Speaker 1 And I can zago in the game. I'm pretty well, right? Oh, no.
Yeah. Oh, that's tough.

Speaker 14 But, like, it's fine.

Speaker 13 I've never wanted a team to win a game more than Arkansas over Duke on Saturday.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 I really, really need the must-boss.

Speaker 11 All these guys playing with their hearts, not with their heads. You're supposed to be a college basketball analyst.

Speaker 1 Not an analyst. I don't break down the X's and O's.

Speaker 1 Still.

Speaker 11 Think with your mind, not with your heart.

Speaker 15 Oh, I mean, on paper, Duke's the better team, but I want Arkansas to win.

Speaker 1 Hank's wearing Duke underwear right now.

Speaker 14 My redemption bracket. I thought Gonzaga was better, but I still wanted the Must Buffs, so I'm happy for him.

Speaker 2 So, who do you have in the finals of your redemption bracket?

Speaker 2 Is it Arizona Gonzaga?

Speaker 14 Oh, no, it was Villanova.

Speaker 1 Okay, all right.

Speaker 2 So, you should that you should do another redemption bracket every round next round, yes, every day, yep, and until the championship game, and you'll have like one opportunity to be like, Yep, I had the natty, yep, uh, volume 7.0, but yeah, no, it was it was a

Speaker 13 good day.

Speaker 1 I want

Speaker 14 Providence to beat Kansas.

Speaker 13 I want the Musk Bus to win. I want St.
Peter's because why not?

Speaker 2 I don't know how realistic it is. I do want St.
Peters, so I should be a lot. I bet the money line before I left Illinois, and so that's a dumb thing.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 14 I still have one last Hail Mary chance for it to be really bad for Duke.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we do.

Speaker 13 Yeah, UNC.

Speaker 2 Yep, we talked about that. Yeah, we talked about that.
It would be perfect if Coach K. Miss's two most memorable last losses were both.

Speaker 14 Would Would that make this game of the year loss worth it?

Speaker 1 If UNCBA was a good thing, no, no, listen, Jake,

Speaker 1 you missed some of the show, but I'm not even worried about Duke winning at all. Like, I'm not, it hasn't even come in my mind.
It hasn't even you appear.

Speaker 2 Pick out was saying, like, this is not, yeah. Some people are saying it's like a team of destiny thing,

Speaker 2 but this team is so flawed. I'm fine.
Fine with coaching and on the floor that it's just not realistic to think that Duke's going to win this.

Speaker 1 I 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.

Speaker 15 Okay, guys. Yeah, they're only halfway.
They still

Speaker 1 have to be a good point. Like, it's not even, dude.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 If this was a marathon, they'd be at like the 12 mile pole.

Speaker 1 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 under 80 second half.
Yeah, like second half, right?

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 13 I'll tell you who I actually like to win it all.

Speaker 1 And this could be a Jinx.

Speaker 14 I think Villanova's been really impressive.

Speaker 1 yeah well houston and houston is they both that's gonna be 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 if villanova makes the championship game that jay wright's gonna put on a suit he has to right he's got to he has to respect the tournament yeah respect the bracket but no it's it's crazy that arkansas beat gonzaga it's an awesome game if 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 overall and number one uh recruit and chat they don't and jalen soggs the year before the spn 100 they don't have a top 100 guy next year yeah it is gonna be it does feel like this was their moment like these this four or five year run that they had was gonna be like their over-the-top moment and

Speaker 2 maybe they'll thrive under pressure maybe it'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 chance window closed i'm officially announcing yeah that until they move to a real conference

Speaker 2 gonzaga's window has officially closed. Yes.
Tough break. So, Jake, how do you feel about rooting for Tyreek Hill now?

Speaker 1 Tyreek Hill, the football player. Yeah.
It's great. It is? Tyreek Hill, the football player.

Speaker 2 In between the lines. In between the lines.
When he's on the field. Yes.
Got it. Okay.

Speaker 2 Just making sure you're okay with that conscience-wise.

Speaker 1 All right. It's one in the morning.
Let's get to Chef Tom Calicchio, and then we have Fire Fest on the other side. Tom.

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Speaker 2 20 bucks off your first purchase. And now here's Tom Calicchio.

Speaker 1 Okay, we now welcome on a very special guest.

Speaker 2 It is chef Tom Calicchio.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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? Do you like that? No, I have a name, Tom.

Speaker 1 Tom's good. You don't like that? No, I don't.
I don't. Really?

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 1 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.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And it's like, wait a minute, hey boss it's not you know i do like it when they wait in top chef when they're like yes chef sure chef yeah yeah i love it 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 testing that's a good one did you come up with that no i did not

Speaker 1 so so you're going to the metaverse we are we're there we we we launched um uh a couple minutes ago actually about a half an hour ago yeah our our slice list which is what we call our whitelist okay went live about at 2 o'clock.

Speaker 1 Explain it to two idiots how this works, because we really do not know. Oh, okay.

Speaker 1 Which part don't you know?

Speaker 2 So everything. So

Speaker 2 how do I get a

Speaker 2 NFT slice of pizza?

Speaker 1 You don't. Okay.

Speaker 1 It's a virtual pizza. No, what we're doing, so Spike Mendelson and I, Spike, who was contestant on Top Chef and a buddy of mine, now he is, he wasn't then.

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 I'll go back to how I got involved.

Speaker 1 So during the pandemic, I had some free time. Restaurants were closed and I'm a bit of a news junkie and

Speaker 1 started spending a little more time looking at financial news and

Speaker 1 NFTs became popular

Speaker 1 and I started messing around with crypto a little bit.

Speaker 1 When I first started buying NFTs, partly is because if you have crypto,

Speaker 1 it just sits 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And so Spike reached out to me and he had been working on something.

Speaker 1 I had, you know, just 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.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 obviously, you know, when Beeple sold, you know, an art project for $69 million, whatever it was, I mean, that caught everybody's attention.

Speaker 1 Big time.

Speaker 1 But since then,

Speaker 1 the NFT sort of

Speaker 1 universe has really shifted away from those art projects. And there are some of those, but it's shifted away to

Speaker 1 in-real life utility. So if you own this NFT, what do you get? It's not the piece of art.

Speaker 1 It's like a pass. What do you get with with that? And so for us,

Speaker 1 we dropped it. We did a pizza project because pizza is so universally loved.
We figure, you know, that's a good way to get in there. And we were kind of having fun with it.

Speaker 1 And again, originally when we've been working on this for nine months, and originally it was going to be just a piece of art and that was it.

Speaker 1 And then we realized that we've got to add utility to this. So

Speaker 1 Spike and I will do like virtual cooking classes and things like that. So if you if you hold an NFT, you can get into these classes.
We're actually doing our first in-real life event,

Speaker 1 DC Central Kitchen, which is an organization that Jose Andres

Speaker 1 works with.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 it's just a pass that gets you really cool stuff.

Speaker 1 And that's really it.

Speaker 1 It should get you one slice of pizza every day for the rest of your life. It could.
It could, but no, it wouldn't. It wouldn't.
This is only

Speaker 1 our project's going out. It's only like $200 for

Speaker 1 our kind of membership. Okay, I like that because

Speaker 1 it's when the NFTs come out and it's like $25,000 for this

Speaker 1 JPEG, and you're like, okay, this doesn't feel. See, it's not just a JPEG, though.
You got to understand what you're saying.

Speaker 3 I know that's something you say, and people get very upset about it.

Speaker 1 Well, what I love is like, oh, I have one too. It's like, yeah, try to sell it.
Right. It's not on the blockchain.
It's got to be on the blockchain.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 I had a guy just stop me in the street and he knew our podcast. He was like, you got to buy an ape.
And I was like, what?

Speaker 1 What language are we talking right now?

Speaker 2 I like that guy that was like, all my ape's gone. Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's like it's a membership into a club.

Speaker 1 It's kind of. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. So you actually get a real life experience if you are a holder.
That's the idea.

Speaker 1 Now,

Speaker 1 you throw around metaverse. Metaverse is, it's not a thing yet.

Speaker 1 We're, you know, Web 3.0 is not a thing yet. We're like web maybe 2.2, 2.3.
But Web3.0,

Speaker 1 just on a basic level, I mean, think about this. 20 years ago, you opened a business, maybe you had a website, probably not.
Now you have to have one, right?

Speaker 1 Well, what's the 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're going to be able to walk through it.
So I have a restaurant.

Speaker 1 You'll be able to walk through it. I mean, think about the music application to Web3.0.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 So there's there's a lot of cool things that are going to happen.

Speaker 1 I mean, I'll take it a step further and kind of extreme. So during the pandemic, we were shipping boxes around the country.
Food, you know,

Speaker 1 partially cooked,

Speaker 1 everything from a six-pound prime rib to tacos for the Super Bowl.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And then maybe if you have my NFT, right, you're going to be able to go and

Speaker 1 see a video of me actually preparing that dish.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Right. So, but, you know, again, I equate this to, you know, you remember the first cell phone, what it looked like? Right.

Speaker 1 You guys walked out through that part of the world.

Speaker 1 Right around that. It looked like a brick, right? Yeah.
And it was next to worthless. Now look at it.
Our smartphones have more computing power than the computers that sent the first man of the moon.

Speaker 1 Right. And so anybody envision that?

Speaker 1 I mean, when Bill Gates sat down with,

Speaker 1 I forget what nighttime host and talked about the internet, he was laughed at. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I remember I love going back and watching those videos and those interviews where they say exactly what's about to happen.

Speaker 2 And everyone's like, oh, well, so you're going to sit on your computer and order a pizza and it'll get it delivered.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Oh, it's going to come right through the terminal.

Speaker 2 Did you ever see that movie, The Net with Sandra Bullock?

Speaker 2 Way back in the day? There was like the start of the start of the movie was her in her house.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And it was like we're supposed to laugh at her because she lacks all sorts of social interaction capabilities. And it's exactly what ended up happening.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 1 So I'm a little bit familiar with your work, but

Speaker 2 we're pretty much simple food guys, the two of us.

Speaker 2 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?

Speaker 1 I have no idea.

Speaker 2 You're not a chicken wing guy?

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 1 I don't go out for chicken wings.

Speaker 1 I have no idea. I don't go out that often for

Speaker 1 restaurants.

Speaker 2 Cook yourself.

Speaker 1 Well, especially the last two years. I mean, I've been home cooking pretty much breakfast, lunch, and dinner for me.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 So what would be like your last meal then? Let's just say

Speaker 2 you were 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.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 So the night before, what do you order?

Speaker 1 Sunday gravy at home. I don't order, man.

Speaker 1 I grew up Italian American in New Jersey, and Sunday was Sunday gravy. Sunday gravy was red, you know, it was red sausage, meatballs, sausage, brajole, and all that.
Do you still do it? I still do it.

Speaker 1 Not every Sunday, but I still do it. Yeah.
I love those type of traditions with food. Yeah.
And it's funny because, like PFT said, you know, we've been fans since the beginning of Top Chef.

Speaker 1 It feels like that was kind of the big wave. You were at the start of it of food television.

Speaker 1 Have you looked around the landscape now and been like, like I saw last night I was on Netflix looking, just scrolling around. There's a show now on Netflix called Is It Cake?

Speaker 1 And it literally is they're cooking, like they'll cook a shoe that looks like cake, and then they'll have the shoe, and then the celebrity panelists have to decide whether 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 that's just and netflix spent money on that yeah and you know what people are gonna watch it you should get the credit yeah

Speaker 1 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 um why is that just because you do it or do you know how it works i don't find it that interesting really

Speaker 1 but partly because like you know it you know the world but i don't find i don't i don't a lot of the stuff I just don't see that it's not that appealing to me. Yeah, but also I I'm in the food world.

Speaker 1 It's I guess you know

Speaker 1 a lot of people who are in the business watch it obviously but I I don't know I just don't spend a whole lot of time watching food TV. Yeah.
It has become quite a boost. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean but I'm going back to you know Food Network really was this started but

Speaker 1 you know they predated predated Top Chef and Top Chef was

Speaker 1 it was interesting because there was

Speaker 1 a reality show, and I always tell the chef, who's a friend of mine, that I won't mention his name in association with this, but there was a restaurant reality show that was pretty,

Speaker 1 it wasn't great for the chef and for his restaurant. And so I was like, I'll never do that.

Speaker 1 And I got a phone call from a producer just out of the blue saying, we're doing this show, this competition reality show, and we think you'd be great as a judge. I was like, no.

Speaker 1 And they called back again. They said, can we

Speaker 1 come and

Speaker 1 at least get you on camera? And I was like, yeah, fine. So, you know, this woman shows up with a little camcorder and records me.
They call back and they said, can you come to L.A. for a screen test?

Speaker 1 I was like, no.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 But there was a documentary done on the opening of crafts when we opened the restaurant 21 years ago. And

Speaker 1 so I sent them the documentary. And they were like, we want to make you an offer.
I was like, make me an offer. Like, I really don't want to do this.
Right.

Speaker 1 But then I decided, well, let me take a look at it. And I knew they did Project Runway and Project Greenlight.
And I knew those, and they sent me Runway. I actually watched Greenlight.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And number two, like, I'm not going to sit there and just play monkey to

Speaker 1 the networks making decisions on who stays and who goes. Right.
Because some of these reality shows,

Speaker 1 before they start shooting, they know who's winning. Right, right.
I'm like, we're not doing that. It's going to be real.
And they were like, absolutely. And I think that speaks to it.

Speaker 1 I mean, you go through the list of winners, and some incredible chefs have come out of the show.

Speaker 1 Well, that's what we're most proud of, the amount of chefs that have come out of our show and are doing multiple restaurants, earning awards, and things like that.

Speaker 1 But that's partly because we cast chefs. We don't cast a bunch of wannabes who are

Speaker 1 kind of has-been actors and wannabe cooks. Right.
Like that.

Speaker 2 What's the best meal that you've been served on that show?

Speaker 1 I would say Melissa King's finale meal in Italy was as good as it got. It was absolutely fantastic.

Speaker 1 She

Speaker 1 grew up Chinese American. She's just a really, really good cook, but she has a really great sensibility.

Speaker 1 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...

Speaker 1 that makes a great chef a great chef? Like, is there a certain skill they have that's unlike anyone else?

Speaker 1 You know, yes, and it's not what you'd expect.

Speaker 1 You know, when you think about what a chef does, and this is how I'll explain it. So

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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, right, a symphony, who gets top billing?

Speaker 1 The conductor, right? Now, not the person who wrote the music who's probably dead, you know, for 300 years.

Speaker 1 And when you're watching that conductor, like, you don't expect that conductor to jump in the pit and, you know, pick up a cello.

Speaker 1 They probably can, but all hell will break loose, right? So as a chef in the kitchen, your job during service is to coordinate.

Speaker 1 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, you know, if you, our restaurants,

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 That's the challenge. Not the dish.
Everybody thinks it's the dish.

Speaker 1 That's, you know, certain chefs are better than others. Certain chefs

Speaker 1 just may have better technique and things like that, but you can learn that. The skill of actually learning how to manage a team and replicate it,

Speaker 2 counterpoint, I'm not going to pay $1,000 at Salt Bay's restaurant to have a random person come out and with like the gold-plated sirloin and then do this thing. I'm paying for this thing at Salt Bay.

Speaker 1 I don't know why you'd pay for that.

Speaker 1 I mean, the guy's just a ridiculous guy. I watched him early on because it was like, you got to watch this video.
And it's pretty hysterical.

Speaker 2 Yeah, he just dumps just like a shitload of kosher salt on it. That's it.

Speaker 1 And then that's boom. Okay, 700 bucks off.
But apparently he's a real butcher. Yeah.
Apparently, he actually is like a real guy. He has restaurants.

Speaker 1 I think he's Turkish or 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.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 2 And he shows, he like parachutes in once a year. Yeah.
It's good because it's a salt bay nice. He's got a good gig.
He's actually like, I think he's sexually attracted to meat. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Are you like in love with food?

Speaker 1 No. You're not.

Speaker 1 I enjoy food.

Speaker 1 But when you say, you know, I'm not going to replicate,

Speaker 1 what was the scene in

Speaker 1 America? American Pot.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we're not going there.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 1 This is usually when a guy goes, oh, I'm not a real shepherd. I have a wok.
Yeah. No, I'm not.

Speaker 2 Well, I did air frying Uncrustable earlier. That's, by the way, Uncrustables,

Speaker 2 I don't think you can find a better food in America than Uncrustables.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 1 Alcoholic soup.

Speaker 2 I love soup. I love alcohol.
Sometimes I just want to have it all in one.

Speaker 1 Well, you know,

Speaker 1 there are some soups like

Speaker 1 the old turtle soup. It was a shot of sherry in that.
Okay. And not cooked out, a shot of raw sherry in that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it would be like something that's added in at the end.

Speaker 1 Obviously, you can't cook it with the alcohol in there. So if you go and get like a, you know, you could experiment yourself.
Go to a good Mexican restaurant, get a pasole, right?

Speaker 1 You know, pasole, a soup, and get a shot of tequila and put it in there and, you know,

Speaker 2 see how it goes. I tried doing a cheddar potato rice soup with old bay and then like five shots of vodka in it.

Speaker 1 I may have been heavy handy. It's been excessive.
Yeah, excessively. Heavy handy.
Yeah, a little bit. You got to find balance there.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think that it's got some legs to it, though.

Speaker 1 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 old Italian-American thing.

Speaker 1 I don't think they do this in Italy, but the vodka sauce, tomato sauce, vodka sauce, which I never understood, but anyway.

Speaker 1 But no, I would find something that has a little more flavor, like rum or something that's a little, you know, can add a little punch.

Speaker 2 Okay, I'll put some notes in my vodka.

Speaker 1 But I've seen things like marinated and gin and juniper berry, like venison especially, venison, lamb, marinated and a little gin and juniper.

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Speaker 1 You mentioned with your NFTs Pizzas Universal, what's your favorite pizza place?

Speaker 1 Well, not here in Phoenix, Crispianco. Okay.
He's like awesome. What about here?

Speaker 1 Here, I like Bodorino. Okay.

Speaker 1 I like Una Pizza Ria da Pilitano.

Speaker 1 I like Neapolitan-style pizza. Got it.
Got it.

Speaker 1 This is going to be a very dumb question, but how does the Michelin stuff work? I don't know.

Speaker 1 Are you saying that because you don't have any? Is that like an could someone

Speaker 1 like walk away and be like, hey, I love Chef Tom, but no Michelin stuff. Yeah, I had one until.
Oh, you did? I did. Did they take it away?

Speaker 1 Well, I gave an interview the day of, and this is a true story. So I did one star when I was at

Speaker 1 I'm trying to think, was I still the grammar sayer? Was Kraft? No, Kraft, I think, I don't remember.

Speaker 1 Anyway, I got a star and go to the event, and there was a journalist who stuck a microphone, and they said, you know, what do you think about Michelin stars? And I said, this is great,

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And so if they stay here for 10 or 20 years, then it might, you know, mean as much. Next year, done.
No way.

Speaker 1 So so they give it to chefs and restaurants or as well just restaurant okay restaurant that's crazy yeah but but so that was it and you know been blacklisted from isolate who knows but here's what i here's what i love so how many how many restaurants we have in 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

Speaker 1 reviewers how do they do that yeah doesn't make a lot of eating it doesn't add up no yeah no and then some of the stuff like when i was at when we had colloquio and sons for like 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 you know we don't we don't make it every year it's like okay okay you answered the question

Speaker 1 right exactly all right so i'm i am no longer going to respect the michelin star ratings you can no i refuse all right

Speaker 1 it's french anyway right what's it it's a tire company yeah right you know that's you gotta take that 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 no it is it is Well, originally when it started, the tire company, what they were doing, they were reviewing restaurants out of Paris.

Speaker 1 So it was like this idea where you'd get in your car on your Michelin tires

Speaker 1 and you would go for this ride and go find a great meal.

Speaker 2 That's really just.

Speaker 2 It's great marketing on their part to be able to tie that in and to have everybody think about how prestigious this award is.

Speaker 1 What did they do? I'll stick to Pirellis nowadays.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 2 what did they do to make people think like this is, we should respect this award?

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 It's not even about food. Well, all of the, it still was about food, but you had to have all those other trappings, especially in France.
And, you know, a lot of chefs are,

Speaker 1 French chefs are giving their stars back because

Speaker 1 they can't continue to. I mean, there was the one chef, Bernard Oiseau, who killed himself because he thought he was going to lose a star.
Damn. And so, yeah, it's just like real.

Speaker 1 you know, real serious shows. 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.

Speaker 1 Six, seven, five, seven, seven, no flex.

Speaker 1 No flex.

Speaker 2 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 everything else.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And it really leads probably a lot of chefs to getting away from what made the restaurant good in the first place.

Speaker 1 Well, I don't know. I mean, I'm not sure about that, but what it does is it makes you spend a lot of money.
And that just adds so much pressure on what you're trying to do.

Speaker 1 But,

Speaker 1 you know, it's, it's

Speaker 1 quite frankly, I would rather not see stars anymore at all. And part of the reasons, so, you know, Michelin, you think about it.
When Michelin first started, they were reviewing French restaurants.

Speaker 1 So there was a baseline. I understood what that was.

Speaker 1 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, great restaurants.

Speaker 1 That was it. They didn't review pizzerias.
They didn't review like the local Thai joint. And so there was a baseline for understanding what those reviews are about.

Speaker 1 Nowadays, it just, how do you compare,

Speaker 1 there's a pizzeria in Jersey City that is great, but it got three stars. How do you compare that with three stars that, you know, Jean-Georges got or something? Right.

Speaker 1 So 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.

Speaker 1 And if you get a write-up, listen, New York Times, they do 52 a year. That's it.

Speaker 1 So if you're in there, it should be because this is something that they realize that the readers should know about, and they should write about it. Forget about the stars.

Speaker 1 We go here by the balls metrics. So we have a guy named Glenny Balls.
Glenn Ball. He reviews every burger place out of a five-ball scale.

Speaker 1 He gave your burger place 4.2 balls. That's pretty good.
That's pretty good. What burger do you have?

Speaker 1 Hold on,

Speaker 1 it was the craft burger, but where was it, probably?

Speaker 1 I'm going to pull up the review right now.

Speaker 1 4.2 is a pretty good score. You should actually.

Speaker 1 I like that. That's probably more prestigious than

Speaker 1 I like this guy. I'm not going to to bad mouth because I'll lose some balls next year.
Yo, you don't want to lose balls.

Speaker 1 Lose balls. It's over.
People will be

Speaker 1 cocks on your house.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 He doesn't diagnose anything about the food. He's just like, this burger makes me feel good.

Speaker 1 That's interesting. See, to me, that's what food, that's how you should review food.
Yeah, he's on to something.

Speaker 1 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, yeah.

Speaker 1 That's legit.

Speaker 2 So, in your opinion, just going based off feel,

Speaker 2 what is the best food city in America?

Speaker 1 I think New York is, but I just spent some time in Chicago. I gotta say, Chicago is really great.
There's some really cool stuff happening there.

Speaker 1 So, I mean, for me, New York is home, and New York has great food, and especially like people think New York and they think of Manhattan.

Speaker 1 You go to Flushing Queens, you walk down the street, you can get like a hundred different things.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 It looks like he did the review in a parking lot. Is that near one of your restaurants? And I have no idea.
Okay.

Speaker 1 I have no idea where that came. Yeah, he's literally doing it.
It's probably most likely in Garden City, Long Island. I think that's he's he's a Long Island guy.
Yeah, it's Garden City.

Speaker 1 So we have to on the hood of his car. Right.
I like it. So we have we have a restaurant

Speaker 1 in Garden City

Speaker 1 called Small Batch. So that's what he, that's what he's, he's.

Speaker 1 I love it. Yeah, that's

Speaker 1 a 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've got a lot of stuff.

Speaker 2 He'll definitely remember.

Speaker 1 If it's in a parking lot, that's the only restaurant we have that has a parking lot attached to it. So it's kind of easy to do.

Speaker 2 That's actually a perfect thing.

Speaker 2 Put up a plaque inside. Cliny Balls gave us 4.2 balls.

Speaker 1 Yes. Yes.
I mean, that's people would be flocking to it. So I got a question for you.
Okay. A sports question.

Speaker 1 I don't watch a whole lot of sports. College basketball.
I'm a Carolina fan. How bad was that call? Which one?

Speaker 1 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. We're like targeting rules.

Speaker 1 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 that, so it's like one of those things that it's the system not exactly.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 But to me, see, to me that was that was a a basketball move yeah and so he went to box out it was high it's 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 to targeting in college football where if a guy moves at the last second and you hit him with your helmet and it's like there was no intention of it right but by the letter of the law elbow to head yeah i see flagrant one yeah i see flagrant two i agree with you and it almost cost them but they're they're they survived so they did that's one of those ones that like thank god that UNC ended up winning because otherwise it would have been a shitstorm.

Speaker 2 That would have been what we talked about. Yeah,

Speaker 2 we actually have Glenny Balls in the

Speaker 2 middle.

Speaker 1 How you doing, bro? Do you know Chef? Chef Tom Coluccio? Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 We were talking about

Speaker 1 your score of his burgers at Roosevelt Field. Roosevelt Field, yeah.

Speaker 1 That was great. Small batch.
So you give it a 4.2. You think maybe we could go maybe get it up a little? Well,

Speaker 1 sure.

Speaker 2 I mean, there's always ways to improve. I mean,

Speaker 2 I like classically smashed burgers like Big Macs or whatnot.

Speaker 12 I like elevated Big Macs. That's what I always say.

Speaker 1 It's my favorite burger. Like an elevated Big Mac.
So maybe not, that's not you.

Speaker 2 Small Batch is a very nice place.

Speaker 2 It's no McDonald's, but it's pretty good. It's pretty good.

Speaker 1 We don't have the golden arches, but

Speaker 1 has anyone gotten a five balls?

Speaker 2 The highest I go was like 4-8, I think.

Speaker 1 So 4-2 is not bad. No, no, no.

Speaker 1 It was very good from what I remember. That was probably 100%.

Speaker 1 What got a 4-8?

Speaker 1 Around here, Pizza Loves Emily. Have you ever heard of that? No, I haven't.

Speaker 12 So Pizza Loves Emily is probably a top top-five burger in the city.

Speaker 1 Everyone loves it.

Speaker 2 But they also have their sister restaurant in Brooklyn. It's called Emmy Squared.

Speaker 1 And they have on the menu.

Speaker 1 It's called that Burger Matt. It's called Lay Big Matt.
And it's like their elevated Big Mac. It's got a $26 burger.
It's awesome. So that's probably one of my favorites.

Speaker 2 What could Chef do to elevate his burger? Yeah, maybe like 4, 3, 4, 5, 3.

Speaker 1 Just tell Top Cookio how to make a burger in the middle of the day.

Speaker 1 I'm well aware of who Top Cookio is. I should be telling Top Cookio to make a burger.
Maybe put some special sauce.

Speaker 2 If I were to make my dream burger, it would be a nice sesame seed bun, two smashed patties, American cheese, shredded lettuce,

Speaker 2 some sort of special sauce.

Speaker 1 What's your special sauce?

Speaker 12 My special sauce, I would do like some yellow mustard.

Speaker 1 What's like fast power? Or mayo, yellow mustard, relish.

Speaker 1 What's your special sauce? Mayo, yellow mustard, relish.

Speaker 1 That's what I'm saying. Elevated Big Macs.
Okay.

Speaker 2 No, what you just described was just a Big Mac.

Speaker 1 Yeah, a Big Mac. Thank you, Paul.
A Big Mac with better ingredients. Yes.
Appreciate it, Paul. Nice guy.
Take care.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's our food reviewer right there. Well,

Speaker 1 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 advertiser.

Speaker 1 What are your thoughts?

Speaker 1 I hate Calamari. How can we be telling him? 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.

Speaker 1 Did he grow up fishing?

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 1 Well, there's nothing you can do for him.

Speaker 2 So that's on him. He's done.

Speaker 1 Okay. That's just more for us.
That's all. Yeah.
All right. Actually, we order it every time.
I like squid. Yeah.
Fried fine, but there's a lot you can do with it. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I like squid a lot. Yeah.
It's good.

Speaker 1 I like it for bait, too. Yeah.
Yeah. You fish this? I do.
Yeah. What do you like to catch, tuna? And you fly fish? I like offshore.
I do. I do.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And then the other hard part is, and I'll try to do 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, right?

Speaker 1 So they're eating mayflies or catislies.

Speaker 1 usually off the surface if you see them. So these are bugs that are hatching from

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And a trout's not going to move, right? Because they kind of know how much nutrition they're taking in, and they're not going to expend that much nutrition

Speaker 1 if they have to swim after something like a fly. So, they'll just sit there, and the river's a conveyor belt, and it's just bringing food to them, and they sit there and eat.

Speaker 1 So, now in that river, there can be a couple rocks or different, different

Speaker 1 just the way the water is coming down the stream, it can create pockets and things like that, either behind rocks or trees and boulders and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 So when you put that fly, and now you're gonna, you're gonna,

Speaker 1 if you see them taking flies off the surface, you're gonna know what fly that is. You're gonna have the right size fly in your fly box, the right color.

Speaker 1 Now the hard part is, if it looks like it's attached to anything or dragging across the surface, the trout won't eat it.

Speaker 1 A wild trout, it It won't eat it.

Speaker 1 So you have to now figure out a way to manipulate your line once it's out of the water to throw slack in it so those different currents aren't going to drag your line. Right.
That's the hard part.

Speaker 1 This part is easy.

Speaker 1 I'm moving my arm back and forth. That's the easy part.
You learn that in

Speaker 2 a couple hours. It becomes like an art, like you become one with the water.

Speaker 1 Well, you have to

Speaker 2 be water. Not really.

Speaker 1 No, what you have to do is 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. Thank you.

Speaker 1 You need to know what they're eating, what cycle they're eating, too, because that

Speaker 1 little nymph that's coming off the bottom,

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 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's what's fascinating.
What's the best fish to eat? Your favorite?

Speaker 1 On the East Coast, I would say

Speaker 1 a smaller finfish, black sea bass is, I think, as good as it gets.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 fluke, I like fluke a lot as well, but black sea bass.

Speaker 1 I do like swordfish, especially the belly part. It's like really fatty and really good.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I've got a very important question here.

Speaker 2 We've been having this debate on this podcast for probably five years, maybe six years now. Well, I'm not going to say any

Speaker 2 indication as to who is on what side of this.

Speaker 2 But if you go to a nice steakhouse, maybe to your steakhouse,

Speaker 2 medium rare plus,

Speaker 2 is that an actual temperature that you can order a steak cooked? And if so, is the medium rare plus honored by the kitchen?

Speaker 1 You know, I've waded into this debate on social media because there are some people think there's no such. I think you can.
Thank you. Like, I think there is something between rare.
Thank you.

Speaker 1 But again, knowing.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 No, no, you go, that doesn't exist.

Speaker 1 What do you consider rare?

Speaker 2 Like, fully red. But there's more to it than that.

Speaker 1 Seared on the, like, really rare, the center's cool. The center is not hot.
Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 1 So.

Speaker 1 For the center to be cool, it's got to be about

Speaker 1 94 degrees.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 So if you want to have something that is pretty rare, if you rare, medium, rare, plus, where it's between medium, rare, and rare,

Speaker 1 I think you can do that.

Speaker 2 So you can order it, but will it be honored by the kitchen?

Speaker 1 It depends on the kitchen. It's asking.
It depends on the kitchen. I'm not asking.
And the answer is. No, no, no.
He's saying depends on the kitchen.

Speaker 1 I would exist. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I would take that consideration. So,

Speaker 1 are you good with this now?

Speaker 1 I accept the fact that

Speaker 2 I'm telling you, I accept the fact that there is a degree between medium rare and medium rare plus.

Speaker 2 I just, 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.

Speaker 1 Two of them,

Speaker 1 every time I've ordered it, they've honored it.

Speaker 1 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, you know, like it's maybe they're cooking the steaks really quickly.

Speaker 1 When I go to a nice steakhouse, I don't like the, I always assumed 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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 exist.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 We're talking to the chef right now. You still won't take my word for it.
No, no, no.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 He may say, yeah, we do that. Or you may say, yeah, whatever.
I mean, we're going to probably just search for one chef who says it's bullshit. And then

Speaker 1 you'll find one.

Speaker 1 You'll find one.

Speaker 2 I just personally wouldn't order it because I've worked in kitchens before, and I know how things go in a kitchen where it's like in the middle of of a rush then people are like the chef's gonna be like medium rare plus yeah okay where did you work I worked in a bunch of kit like back in uh 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 like one of those calabash restaurants no no I it's a calabash restaurant I think maybe that's further like South Carolina there's like buffets these big buffet things like shonies I guess they call it a calabash style I guess oh yeah there was one of those down there and uh I was I started out actually um working as a server yes they would put me on the breakfast buffet.

Speaker 1 When you put the steak on the steam table, there's no medium rare plus. Yeah.
No, it's a decent place.

Speaker 1 I'm not saying places that aren't nice steakhouses, I don't order it. I don't say it if I'm going to not to, like an outback.
I'm not like medium rare plus. I don't say it there.

Speaker 1 I say it when I'm going to a nice $70 plus steakhouse. And I'm like, yeah.
Have you been to a steakhouse lately?

Speaker 1 More than that? Prices are crazy right now. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Meat and fish are through the roof.

Speaker 1 I appreciate you having my back, though, because this will never end.

Speaker 1 He'll say this.

Speaker 1 I'm now an asshole for ordering it either way.

Speaker 2 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 Air Plus, I'm just like, oh, okay.

Speaker 1 I'll tell you, one of the best moves I've ever seen is

Speaker 1 real. It's a real thing.
We've confirmed it a thousand times. No, it's real.
It's real.

Speaker 1 I was in the steakhouse in Miami. What's that one famous one down there? I'm forgetting what it was.

Speaker 1 Anyway,

Speaker 1 it was like during the Food and Wine Festival. I'm with my publicist.
We're having this order steak. It was like like a porterhouse.
And

Speaker 1 place was mobbed. It took a long time for the steak to come out.
I'm fine. We're drinking wine, whatever.
And the steak comes out. It's medium well.
I ordered medium rare.

Speaker 1 I'm like, I can't be that guy. I can't be that dick to send it back.
Like,

Speaker 1 he knows I'm in the restaurant. So I don't say anything.
Waiter comes by. He looks down.
He goes.

Speaker 1 He just looked at. He 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, I know.
He goes, let me take it back.

Speaker 1 I'm like, no. He goes, and he just took it.
That's great service. Yeah, it was great great service.
Yeah. But I didn't have to be that guy.
Right. And yeah,

Speaker 2 that was great. I would imagine that when you go to a restaurant, you usually get 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.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I usually, you know, get taken care of. That's nice.

Speaker 1 How weird are chefs in general in terms of people? Because I feel like I know a couple of chefs. I have friends.

Speaker 1 They live on like a different world because, you know, 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?

Speaker 1 I think if you actually

Speaker 1 really did a study, you'd find that

Speaker 1 probably a greater percentage than the regular population has ADHD. Really? Yeah.

Speaker 2 I would think so. And is that almost an asset when you're a chef?

Speaker 1 I think it is when you're, because the part of ADHD is being hyper-focused, too. Right.

Speaker 1 And so I think at some times with that hyper, you know, when you're hyper-focused, that actually can be an advantage.

Speaker 1 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 especially during service yeah i mean i could you know when i was coming up you know as a cook 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 my children have all been clinically diagnosed and I see a lot of what you know they do and yeah it's a rush that I had when you get when you get when you're in that when you're in a groove zone where it's like a a two-hour rush for dinner everything's happening at once it's almost like you don't even feel the time passing by.

Speaker 1 No, and when it's a good service, it's a good service. If it's a bad service, you know it.
It happens. And when that happens, like a bad service,

Speaker 1 is it a very deflating feeling? Or is there like something afterwards where you get together with everyone, like, hey, we've we fucked this up?

Speaker 1 Usually it's one person on the team that's just, they're not ready, they're not prepped up, and things just go bad. Or

Speaker 1 sometimes what happens is, again, if you if kitchen's set up the way my kitchen's set up where there's a meat side and a fish side, and one night just meat, like 90% of the orders are meat orders.

Speaker 1 Right. Things get bad.
Yeah, it gets off balance.

Speaker 1 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.
Yeah. You have to.

Speaker 1 Stop selling meat. That's interesting.
So if you ask, yeah, like what do you recommend?

Speaker 1 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, the waiters have to be.
It's expensive.

Speaker 1 I always assume that.

Speaker 1 No, it's not that. No.
Waiters will recommend what they like. You know, because

Speaker 1 our waiters taste our food. In fact, we have a program where our staff staff can come in.

Speaker 1 We give vouchers, so it's highly discounted. They can come in, but they have to write a review.
And so they eat our food. They know what they like.

Speaker 2 What about if the halibut is just

Speaker 2 a day away from being no longer usable? Do you tell people, hey, push the halibut tonight?

Speaker 1 Let's get rid of it. No, I mean, we

Speaker 1 are

Speaker 1 the way we purchase food is so tight that we are typically not in that position.

Speaker 2 I've always heard don't eat seafood on Mondays.

Speaker 1 Is that no longer longer true?

Speaker 2 No,

Speaker 1 that was never true. That was a whole Bourdain thing that was in his book.

Speaker 2 Oh, was that where it started?

Speaker 1 That's where it started. Okay.
And,

Speaker 1 you know, I love Anthony to death, but the restaurant that he worked in wasn't the,

Speaker 1 you know, and he admitted that. I mean, when he was living, he would admit to that.
Like, this is what I did.

Speaker 1 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, okay.

Speaker 2 But that's not a universal thing.

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 1 it's busted. It depends on the restaurant.
Yes, there are plenty of restaurants that do that. Yeah.
I mean, that's a special.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yep. Where, you know, but, you know, we, number one, the stuff that we're buying is typically more expensive than it, than, because you could buy tuna for $4 a pound or tuna for $20 a pound.

Speaker 1 You know, I'll buy the stuff for $20 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. But that's why.

Speaker 1 Food in one restaurant is more expensive than another restaurant. They're just buying higher quality ingredients.
Yeah. What about the hats? They're weird, right? Yeah, we don't do.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, the Board of Health makes you wear a hat. Really? But you can wear baseball caps.
So

Speaker 1 was there ever a time where you wore the traditional chef hat? No. Okay.
No. Because that always seemed a little weird to me.
Well, again, it was a way to keep...

Speaker 1 Originally, what it was in Scaffier, when he

Speaker 1 created the brigade system, the taller the hat, the better position you had.

Speaker 1 There was a reason for it. I like that.
Okay, so maybe I'm down with the hats coming back.

Speaker 1 I can change that quickly. Yeah, we don't like that.

Speaker 1 Especially like, they were like paper. They were horrible.

Speaker 2 You've got a nice assortment of vacation hats, though. Whenever you show up somewhere remotely on Top Chef, I notice you always have a fun hat on.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I don't get them, though.

Speaker 1 I think I have one.

Speaker 2 Oh, really? So you don't buy those yourself? They're just like, we're in Italy. We're going to put this hat on.

Speaker 1 No, production. Oh,

Speaker 1 those hats. Yeah, yeah.
No, no,

Speaker 1 those. No, those are mine.
Well, those are mine now.

Speaker 1 I have a stylist on the show, and she does great, great work.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I just always laugh laugh at that because I'm kind of the same way. If I go on a vacation, I'm like, you know what?

Speaker 1 I'm going to buy a fun hat.

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Speaker 1 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 go www.ch-f-ty-ypizas.com.
So do that and check it out.

Speaker 1 Sounds like a very cool project. Or you can go to Open Seas.
Open Seas. Open South Open Seas and just

Speaker 1 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, you know, make you spend thousands and thousands of dollars.

Speaker 1 My last question is, what is the best, in your opinion, the best leftover food?

Speaker 1 Oh, God. Either like, you know, Thai Chinese, like cold in front of the refrigerator in the morning, like, it doesn't get any better than that, right? Yeah.
Or cold pizza? Yeah.

Speaker 1 I guess a lot of these questions are like, do you know stuff we don't know? But that is a very like

Speaker 1 everyone knows.

Speaker 1 I could see you doing that. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, right, right.
Okay. All right.
No, that's it. I'm a chef.
That's it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 No, I, I, I, um,

Speaker 1 yeah.

Speaker 1 Thai in Chinese is the correct answer, I think. Yeah.
Thai Chinese cold. You know, don't heat it up either.
Yeah, yeah. Agreed.

Speaker 2 What about the Thanksgiving sandwich the day after?

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 So I like taking my stuffing, leftover stuffing, and putting it into a waffle machine. Oh, yeah.
No batter, just straight stuffing, press it in your waffle, and then the turkey over the top of that.

Speaker 1 Holy shit. And then the gravy on top of that.
Now we're talking about it. Well, there it is.
That's the

Speaker 1 game changer. That's it.

Speaker 2 We both love stuffing here, and it's something that should be eaten, I think, more frequently than just on Thanksgiving.

Speaker 1 absolutely i agree with that yeah i i

Speaker 1 i should i look up my stuffing recipe and use that okay it's a good one the stuffing waffle

Speaker 1 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 i mean that sounds a good press

Speaker 1 i think you just changed my life it heats it up and and it's also great like that and you know a fried egg over the top for breakfast

Speaker 1 there it is that's pretty good stuff uh that's good leftover we appreciate you coming by we are big fans and um we'll try to get glenny to come back out maybe up that balls

Speaker 1 I don't know. It sounds like, you know, it sounds like we're balling there.
4-2, 4-2. Sounds like it's good.
4-2 is good. Let me see more at a 4-5.

Speaker 2 Maybe just ditch the fancy cheese and just put a slice of craft on there. I think that's what it sounds like.

Speaker 1 We should actually just.

Speaker 1 We should get you there when he's going, and you can just serve him literally a Big Mac. And he will be blown away.

Speaker 1 We can recreate it. Down to the sesame seed bun.
Is that a Big Mac? Yeah, he described exactly a Big Mac.

Speaker 1 Thanks so much, Chef. Cool.
Thanks.

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Speaker 1 All right, let's wrap up. We got Firefest.

Speaker 1 We are taping this in the afternoon. So whatever you heard at the beginning of the show, we don't know.

Speaker 1 We don't know the future as of right now.

Speaker 1 But Hank, what is your Fire Fest as of 3 o'clock on Thursday afternoon?

Speaker 19 Well, I was going to say my Fire Fest is Big Big Cat hates me because he lost the game of the year, but

Speaker 1 my fire fest is you quit your job because I embarrassed you sooner.

Speaker 1 Coach K

Speaker 1 fucked you in the face, you suit.

Speaker 2 My fire fest is that I'm the only one in the studio right now because Hank and Big Cat have killed each other.

Speaker 19 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 HelloFresh, I'm a big fan.
I use them all the time, cook up great meals.

Speaker 19 They do great stuff.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 19 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

Speaker 19 that's that's my firepass.

Speaker 1 The spoiled food. Yeah, the spoiled food smell.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 But when I got back, it was just like a box of meat next to my off my desk that smelled so bad. So, yeah, that's that's a terrible fire fest.

Speaker 2 There's nothing grosser than picking up just a spoiled thing of meat and feeling how like room temperature the meat feels.

Speaker 1 Ugh,

Speaker 19 chicken. Chicken, chicken is the best food, but it smells so bad.
It was gross.

Speaker 1 It was like raw.

Speaker 2 Yeah. What did you have in your fridge? No, 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.

Speaker 1 Maybe some little

Speaker 1 cocktail wieners.

Speaker 19 My fridge is literally like Coors Light and then like six HelloFresh. Like I just make HelloFresh meals and eggs and milk.

Speaker 1 Love it. No hot sauce.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 1 It's to mask the flavor.

Speaker 2 Hank's growing up. His little taste buds are rejuvenating.
All right, PFT, your Fire Fest.

Speaker 1 Hank, what were you thinking?

Speaker 19 I don't know why my camera was not focusing.

Speaker 1 It's pissed me off. It's focused.
Your face is just really blurry.

Speaker 2 Naturally. Because you've been crying so much after Duke lost.

Speaker 1 It is a little weird that Hank just didn't show up to the office on Coach K retirement day. I texted you.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you did.

Speaker 19 And I'll be at the office.

Speaker 19 I will be there for the beginning of the show.

Speaker 19 I don't feel good. I didn't want to be there for 12 hours because the game starts at 9.45.

Speaker 2 Hank, what were you saying that my Fire Fest was going to be?

Speaker 19 Well, what is your Fire Fest?

Speaker 2 I mean, you were so sure.

Speaker 1 I would assume it's the Empire State Building.

Speaker 2 Is it the Empire State Building? Yeah, that's my Fire Fest.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 I feel like I know everything about you guys. Yes.

Speaker 2 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

Speaker 2 on a windy day.

Speaker 1 It was tiny. It was like

Speaker 1 20, 30. No,

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And I'm sweating, thinking about it right now, and I'm panicking. You can notice that the pace of my talking speeds up.

Speaker 2 I honestly panic when I am in a high place out in the open, and that was terrifying for me.

Speaker 1 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 i was truly shocked i just didn't know like yeah i thought you were joking and doing a bit and i was just shocked i look i mean i know it's obviously a real thing there's a lot of people who are scared of heights i just i couldn't believe it and then um i mean i love i love standing like on a high building i think i said in the camera like i am not suicidal not to not to do the the jussy smullet i'm not suicidal uh 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 like such a rush to feel I follow all those Instagrams of like Russian dudes hanging off cranes I love that some sometimes I do watch those videos just to make myself like uncomfortable

Speaker 2 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 I whenever I get up there my body I get dizzy my body starts to shut down and then when I look up at the top of the antenna even when I look up at that height I i start to get dizzy and then that makes me panic more because i'm like oh my god i'm gonna fall over the edge what's going on and it just it fucks me up heights fuck me up hand up everyone everyone has yeah everyone's got these little things about him that happens to be mine um so let's just let's just stay like a ground podcast from now on yeah the official podcast of earth

Speaker 2 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're like wait we're gonna be on we're at the empire like i thought i thought we were all very well aware of her up yeah i thought that we were gonna 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 1 I was just shocked, but I didn't know that

Speaker 1 people are.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 2 Yeah, no.

Speaker 19 It was a little bit. We had to climb up like a construction ladder and we're like on like a grate, basically.

Speaker 1 Shout out Tyler O'Day for hooking it up.

Speaker 1 But yeah, I mean, look, I'm not, I know it's a normal thing. There's a lot of people who are scared of heights.
I just didn't, I was shocked.

Speaker 1 that you were because i never because it sounded like such an alpha right and then usually you know you're doing bits, so I was like, is he doing a bit here where he's like faking it?

Speaker 1 I don't understand.

Speaker 2 Well, I'm five foot nine. I'm not used to any sort of tall arrangement.

Speaker 1 Billy.

Speaker 8 You guys are on a higher spot than the regular place with the huge fence?

Speaker 1 Yes. Oh, my God.
But if you, but it wasn't, if you had fallen off where we were, you would have fallen like five feet to like a ledge that was just sitting there.

Speaker 2 I don't think that's true.

Speaker 1 I looked. I couldn't.
Well, what if you get a strong wind? Yeah, strong.

Speaker 2 Exactly, Billy. No, oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 If there was a strong wind, then another five feet down was actually the entire observations deck with the high fence. Was there

Speaker 1 no die? No, I don't know.

Speaker 1 It was impossible for you to die from where we were standing.

Speaker 1 You couldn't jump

Speaker 1 far enough out to get out there.

Speaker 2 I'm a pretty good leaper.

Speaker 1 Jesus.

Speaker 1 It was not that.

Speaker 1 I looked right over. It was like there was a bunch of ledges below.

Speaker 1 I just tumbled into it.

Speaker 2 My hands are fucking sweaty. 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

Speaker 2 I guess I'm on Team Portnoy and fuck the Empire State Building. I hate that place.

Speaker 1 All tall buildings.

Speaker 19 Great video. Also,

Speaker 19 it's a great sweepstakes. You missed the ad.

Speaker 11 It's a great sweepstakes. It's a great sweepstakes.

Speaker 1 Yeah, why don't you say it real quick, Hank?

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 19 four tickets, hotel, airfare for the final four. That's cool.
So

Speaker 19 you get to bring three friends, all expense paid.

Speaker 1 New Orleans, awesome, awesome deal.

Speaker 2 The lowest city. That's the place for me.
Yes.

Speaker 1 My Fire Fest is my co-host has been trying to gaslight me for six years about how I order my steak, and now he's switched up his argument to he always knew it existed, but I'm just an asshole for it.

Speaker 1 So I'm just going to 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 At this point, I don't know what to say.

Speaker 1 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 still, you asked a chef,

Speaker 1 a Michelin star chef,

Speaker 1 former Michelin star, and you still don't accept this fact. It's a wild thing.
I think your plan is to just like wait me out and gaslight me to the point where I think it's not a thing.

Speaker 1 and it's kind of working because at this point I can't I don't understand how someone could be wrong and refuse to admit that they're wrong for this long.

Speaker 2 Okay, here's where I am.

Speaker 1 Here's where I am on it right now.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 I officially accept that medium rare plus is a thing. Okay.
At the same time, it's kind of a Karen move to order.

Speaker 1 That's not

Speaker 1 how it's a real thing. Everyone we've talked to has said it's a real thing.
It's kind of Karen cat.

Speaker 1 How is that a Karen? It's kind of a Karen. Explain how it's a Karen.
You know what you sound like?

Speaker 2 Who do I sound like?

Speaker 1 I mean, who moves to goalposts? Yeah. And calls people Karens.
Who's that? Oh,

Speaker 1 nice. Yeah.
I like that. You are.
Okay, I am. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I guess I'm Seal Team Clay right now.

Speaker 1 Yes, you are.

Speaker 1 I'm Veal Team Clay when it comes

Speaker 1 so many times.

Speaker 1 It's insanity. Okay, honestly, it is a thing.

Speaker 2 It's just not so. I like medium rare.

Speaker 1 How about right? That's fine. That's totally fine.
There we go. There we go.
I like medium rare plus. You just spent six years.
I'm not allowing me to do it.

Speaker 2 I'm not trying to yuck your yum.

Speaker 1 Oh, you have been for a very long time. But I'm not sure.
Hank, you missed it. He, like, during the Tom Clickio interview, PFT tried to, like, claim that he never said it wasn't a real thing.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 19 We talked about it at St. Elmo's the other day.

Speaker 1 We talked about it at every steakhouse we've ever gone to. And every waiter and waitress says, yes, it's a real thing.

Speaker 2 And he just won't accept it.

Speaker 1 I do.

Speaker 2 Now you're gaslighting me.

Speaker 2 Now you're 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.

Speaker 1 I no, 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.

Speaker 1 I don't sometimes medium rare gets a little too rare for my liking. And yeah, let me live, man.
Let me live. You can order it.

Speaker 19 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,

Speaker 19 so many people have said it.

Speaker 19 I've acknowledged its existence.

Speaker 1 We've pulled every steakhouse we've ever been to. I acknowledge it.
I've affirmatively said yes.

Speaker 2 I acknowledge its existence as well.

Speaker 2 I personally prefer medium-rich steaks.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 2 Rare plus. Now, does it go like rare plus?

Speaker 1 See, here he does. No, no, no.
I don't believe it. No, I do note it.
I know. I'm just curious.

Speaker 1 I'm curious to know. I know the question.
You're like, does it go minus?

Speaker 2 No, no, I'm not saying that.

Speaker 2 Is there a medium plus? Is there a medium well plus?

Speaker 1 Sure. I don't care how anyone orders their steak.

Speaker 2 Yeah. It's a spectrum.

Speaker 1 It's totally fine by me. Okay.
Well, then we're all in agreement.

Speaker 2 You can order your steak.

Speaker 1 But you still think I'm a Karen, so no.

Speaker 2 You can order it however you like it. I'm not going to yuck anyone's yum.
Oh, man.

Speaker 1 I can't wait till we go to the next place.

Speaker 1 Hey, just as an aside, is it really a thing?

Speaker 1 You know what I'm going to do? It is.

Speaker 1 Okay, well, this place, I can't trust them.

Speaker 2 I'm going to bribe the waiter before we sit down.

Speaker 1 Tom Falicchio is saying, yes, it's a real thing. And PFT is still being like, well,

Speaker 1 like, a guy spent his whole life in a kitchen.

Speaker 2 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, you're like, see, we didn't let him get his butt out.

Speaker 1 I never, I never, I never do it at bad steak restaurants. And I will, I'll say that till the, I've said that from the first time.

Speaker 1 If you go to a shitty steak place, I don't order it that way because they probably won't order it that way. They won't acknowledge it.
A nice steak restaurant always acknowledges that.

Speaker 2 Okay, you can order yours medium rare plus. I'll get mine medium rare and we'll both be happy.

Speaker 1 I think I'll be happier than you. No, I'm no, I'm happier than you're.
I'm happy you're happy. You'll be upset about it because

Speaker 2 in the back of your head

Speaker 2 when Big Cat says medium rare plus, he's going to be thinking that I'm angry at him. No.

Speaker 1 And you're going to get pre-mad before I say that.

Speaker 2 You're already pre-mad about me not saying that.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 2 You're not judging,

Speaker 2 but you're already pre-mad about it. No, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 Again, you're pre-mad. 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.

Speaker 2 I'm fine with it now.

Speaker 1 We talked to Tom Columbia. Of course you are.

Speaker 2 We talked to Chef. Chef said everything.

Speaker 1 Of course you are fine. You're definitely fine with it.

Speaker 2 I am fine with it.

Speaker 1 Billy, go ahead.

Speaker 2 You don't sound like you're fine.

Speaker 1 I'm going to keep ordering it the same way forever. You have been literally

Speaker 1 six years. Who are you arguing with?

Speaker 2 I'm saying that's the same thing.

Speaker 1 I'm going to order it the same way. I've been ordering it my entire life.
Good.

Speaker 2 I hope you order it that way for the rest of your life.

Speaker 1 Everyone needs a stay. I literally will.

Speaker 2 And I will. I literally will.
And I will say, nice order, big cat. Yep.

Speaker 1 And you'll be upset. It's going to be great.

Speaker 2 Not upset. Yes.
Good order.

Speaker 1 Go ahead, Billy.

Speaker 8 The only last thing on that thing, the real question is 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

Speaker 1 if you go to a good place they're gonna make

Speaker 2 they're gonna make a choice because believe me if you go to like you know uh like like outback 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 you know 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 saint elmo's or ruth's chris order it 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

Speaker 1 that was a mock that you were eating 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 Meteor Plus.

Speaker 1 There it is. Wow.
We did it.

Speaker 2 I've said that

Speaker 2 five minutes ago. We did it.

Speaker 1 Billy, go ahead.

Speaker 8 I lost my whole keychain. It's really a terrible predicament.
There's so many parts of your life where you need your whole keychain.

Speaker 8 I'm pretty sure it's in my buddy's couch, but he wouldn't let me cut open the couch to get the keys. Well, why would it be like, you know, when it gets in the couch?

Speaker 1 David Blaine? Wait, what? It already get in there.

Speaker 8 Sometimes if.

Speaker 1 If it gets in there, it has to be able to get.

Speaker 8 Like, it slips in, and then it gets into the body of the couch.

Speaker 8 Like the cushion.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 8 Just, trust me, there's a lot of couches. It just gets lost, and unless you cut it open, you can't find it.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 2 Can't you just take the cushions off the couch?

Speaker 8 Right, but there's like a like... When you take the cushions off the couch, sometimes there's like parts in the couch, like underneath the...

Speaker 8 Trust me, there's people out there who know what I'm talking about.

Speaker 1 I think you just want to get a lot of money. How many keys do you have on a keychain, Billy?

Speaker 8 A good amount.

Speaker 1 It's like a key.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 Anyway, if you find a blue raging mammoth with an F-word car key, you have on it.

Speaker 1 Do you have a gay slur on it? A slur?

Speaker 8 F F word.

Speaker 2 I don't know if you're ever going to be putting that headset on again, Billy.

Speaker 1 Whoa.

Speaker 8 F-word car.

Speaker 1 Oh.

Speaker 8 Please help me. Anyway, so I got locked out in my apartment.

Speaker 8 Shout out Ben to Giulio.

Speaker 2 I called him. Piquette, you know what he's talking about? I don't.

Speaker 1 I do know that. I do.
Yes, I do know that. That one makes sense.
Yeah. Oh, I had another firefight I totally forgot about.

Speaker 1 A friend of the program, Duncan Robinson, when the Miami Heat were like all fighting each other, he like backed off and didn't do anything, kind of like a little bit of a pussy.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 2 No, that's the podcast.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 1 Just finish it get happening. That's right.
Exactly.

Speaker 2 Live to see another day.

Speaker 8 Anyway, shout out Ben to Julio. I had to break into my apartment, and it totally looked like I was climbing up the

Speaker 8 fire escape and like breaking into a window. And I didn't get arrested.
So shout out Ben to Julio for watching.

Speaker 1 Wait, why would you?

Speaker 1 Because you're breaking into another house?

Speaker 8 To my house.

Speaker 1 Got it.

Speaker 8 But if you see someone like opening up a window, climbing up the fire escape, that's not a good look.

Speaker 2 Is that some of your privilege showing that you were able to do that?

Speaker 8 Well, no, I called Ben to Julio to just stand outside to explain the situation.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 Okay, Jake, your Fire Fest.

Speaker 20 Yeah, so Thursday night, I went over to Jersey City to the St. Peter's send-off party, the bus to Philadelphia.

Speaker 20 And I was filming the team, walking to the bus, and I got Doug, Doug Eddert, mustache, merch available, Barcelona's.

Speaker 1 Doug Eddert.

Speaker 13 Yeah, and I was like, good luck, Doug.

Speaker 20 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,

Speaker 20 I'm very humble. Like, I had headphones on.
I'm sorry.

Speaker 13 I feel bad that he feels bad.

Speaker 1 Got it. Yeah.
You put him in a bad spot.

Speaker 20 I put him in a bad spot unintentionally. Yeah.
When this is the biggest moment of his life so far.

Speaker 13 So he says,

Speaker 1 he's wearing a hoodie. Do you think he did?

Speaker 20 I believe him. I'll take him for his word.

Speaker 2 Do you think that it was inappropriate from a journalistic integrity standpoint to wish a player good luck like you're rooting for them?

Speaker 13 Like I said,

Speaker 20 I self-suspended myself until 7 p.m. tonight.

Speaker 2 Okay, because there was a big brew haha down in Baton Rouge earlier this week. Did you see that?

Speaker 1 I did see that with the Big J

Speaker 2 telling students that it's inappropriate to say thank you for a fun season to the players after they lose.

Speaker 2 That to me, it made me nauseous seeing you wish a team good luck.

Speaker 13 I'm sorry to let you down.

Speaker 2 You got to be impartial, Jake.

Speaker 13 I can wish both teams good luck.

Speaker 15 Well, if I saw Zach Edie,

Speaker 13 if I saw Zach Edie, I'd say good luck.

Speaker 2 Okay, right now, tell Zach Edie good luck.

Speaker 1 Good luck, Zach. Okay.
Okay. All right, now we're even.

Speaker 20 Not the walk-on, though, that you got.

Speaker 1 No, fuck that kid.

Speaker 20 Yeah, war with on

Speaker 20 Wisconsin. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, fuck that kid. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Bubble, you got anything?

Speaker 1 No. Okay, memes.

Speaker 1 You good? Meme's just happy. Make your free throws.
All right.

Speaker 1 Numbers?

Speaker 1 100.

Speaker 1 Hank, 57. Coach K's done.

Speaker 19 100. No, that's

Speaker 19 a.

Speaker 2 Why don't you go 99 for

Speaker 1 Wednesday and CD? I'll go 99. Yeah.

Speaker 1 This could be an all-time backfire in my face.

Speaker 2 57.

Speaker 2 Meme says three.

Speaker 10 Is 100 even a number?

Speaker 1 72.

Speaker 1 Is that how old he is?

Speaker 1 It actually might be.

Speaker 20 Fourth time.

Speaker 20 Also, it's a good sign for the dolphins.

Speaker 1 Tyree Kill.

Speaker 13 Yep. 72 undefeated.

Speaker 2 If you can live with yourself rooting for Tyree. 75.
Oh. Shit.
That'll fart.

Speaker 1 We'll find some sign.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 2 So are you going to get one?

Speaker 2 Thinking about it. Nice.

Speaker 1 Love you guys. Burke Kreischer, Monday.

Speaker 2 Love you guys.

Speaker 2 Talking away.

Speaker 2 I don't know what I'm to say. I'd say anyway.

Speaker 1 Today's another day to find you. Shy it away.

Speaker 1 Oh, I've been coming for your love of pay.

Speaker 1 Shy it away.

Speaker 1 Oh, I've been coming for your love of praise. Take

Speaker 1 on

Speaker 1 me.

Speaker 1 Take

Speaker 1 me

Speaker 1 on.

Speaker 1 I'll be

Speaker 1 gone

Speaker 1 too.

Speaker 1 Needless to say,

Speaker 1 I've said it, but I'll be stole it away.

Speaker 1 Slowly learning life is okay.

Speaker 1 Say after me.

Speaker 1 It's the better to be saved than sorry.

Speaker 1 Say after me.

Speaker 1 It's the better to be saved than sorry.

Speaker 1 Say

Speaker 1 on

Speaker 1 me.

Speaker 1 Take

Speaker 1 me

Speaker 1 on.

Speaker 1 I'll be

Speaker 1 gone

Speaker 1 in a day or two.

Speaker 1 Hard things that you say,

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 1 just to play my worries away.

Speaker 1 You're all things I've got to remember. You shine away.

Speaker 1 I'll be coming for you anyway.

Speaker 1 You shine away.

Speaker 1 I'll be coming for you anyway.

Speaker 1 Take

Speaker 1 on

Speaker 1 me.

Speaker 1 Take

Speaker 1 me

Speaker 1 on.

Speaker 1 I'll be

Speaker 1 gone

Speaker 1 in a day.

Speaker 1 I'll be

Speaker 1 gone

Speaker 1 in a day.

Speaker 1 You don't want me to wait for myself.