Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal on barbecue and borscht.

Live from WSA, this is Expense Account. Joe Weisenthal is the host of Bloomberg's "Obtlots" podcast. He understands markets, but he also understands market salads. And we really got into it about his favorite lunch orders. He's a neat man, and we talked Texas barbecue and eating pastrami at 8 a.m. This was a fun episode, and it was great getting to know Joe. I hope you enjoy. Cheers. Joe, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me. It's real to be here. I was just telling everybody that I got married this weekend, and I am brain dead today. Joe I get it. Congratulations. Joe Thank you. Joe Shouldn't you be traveling somewhere or something like that? Joe We still have all of our Australian family in town. We'll do that in a few weeks. Joe I did my honeymoon two years after I got really used to go to Malaysia. Joe Oh, it was good. It was great. Joe That's on our list. Joe Since we're talking about food, the best food country in the world. Joe I know it's the best. Joe By on the way to Australia. Joe Yeah, it's the best in the world. Joe Did you do beach stuff and city stuff? Joe Did beach stuff and city stuff. Joe It was great. Joe This was 20 years ago. Joe Yeah, that was 2008. Joe Yeah, so like 17. Joe Yeah, it was a while ago. Joe I think it's still great. I think like people go to Asia or they go to Southeast Asia. You know, a lot of people talk about Indonesia or they go to Thailand or Singapore, etc. Joe But I still, my gut is that still people skip over Malaysia and they should. Joe Yeah. Joe I guess it doesn't have like the. Joe Who cats or the. Joe That's right. Joe Doesn't have like the. Joe No, it's not really like a party. Joe Yeah, I guess that's why. Joe Just like that's part of it. Joe And they're Muslim. Joe Right. Joe So I think people perceive that it's going to be sort of a liberal in some way. But it's really it's my place to visit. Joe Nice. That will be moved here on my list. Joe Again. Joe From a food perspective. Joe Best in the world. Joe Nice. So I was doing my due diligence. Joe Yeah. Joe I was lazy due diligence, but I was looking you up and you have the coolest Wikipedia photo. Joe Did you did you set that? Joe Oh, no. Joe I don't know who made that. I hate it. Joe The thing is that I hate every photo that exists. Joe It's really cool. Joe I was like, what do I have? Joe I think I have some glasses on there. Joe Your sunglasses. Joe I was like, I didn't know there was a lot to wear sunglasses and Wikipedia photo. Joe I didn't make that pair. Joe For years. Joe I didn't have one. Joe He says that he does not understand Hebrew. Joe It's true. Joe I don't. Joe I had a born mitzvah. Joe I read Hebrew. Joe Yeah. Joe I read the script. Joe I read Hebrew. Joe Well, I did when I was 13. Joe Yeah. Joe But I couldn't do it these days. Joe And I don't know what I was saying. Joe But I went through. Joe Yeah. Joe I could. Joe You know you said eight percent. Joe I don't need more. Joe I don't know how long that sticks with you. Joe I think for me it probably took about a week. Joe Uh huh. Joe But you're from Detroit. Joe I was born in Detroit. Joe I lived in Illinois for a long time. Joe I really have South of Chicago like 45 miles. Joe I know. Joe I know. Joe I know. Joe I know. Joe I know from Chicago. Joe Oh nice. Joe I love Chicago. Joe We can talk about Chicago a few weeks ago. Joe I lived in Vermont for a while. Joe Oh cool. Joe I went to college in Austin in University of Texas. Joe I had a few other little stops along the way. Joe I was in the context of food. Joe It's such an eclectic mix of locales. Joe It is a eclectic from a food perspective. Joe Texas is great for food. Joe I have not been in like 15, 20 years since I was a kid. Joe Yeah. Joe You're an expert in barbecue. Joe I like barbecue. Joe Oh yeah. Joe So yeah. Joe I bought a big green egg to try to like get into smoking. Joe I was just too terrible. Joe I was just very lazy about it. Joe It's just requires like so much time and patience. Joe Yeah. Joe Some friends and I we cooked like a big brisket one night and it was a good 20 hour smoke. Joe And so we set alarm clocks through the night so that we would check the temperature. Joe You know what I made sure I didn't deviate so they would wake up in the middle. Joe And it was like it wasn't worth it. Joe It was. Joe Do you have like a mop with the sauce? Joe No, it just like I just did a rug and everything. Joe It was good but then I was just like I do not have the patience or the discipline for this. Joe I love eating it. Joe Yeah. Joe I love I have opinions about Texas barbecue. Joe I feel like the best food you shouldn't have to really make at home. Joe Even with the red equipment or you shouldn't want to. Joe That's kind of my impulse. Joe I don't. Joe I thought I was going to be excited about the ability to make it not so much. Joe But where's your spot in Texas? Joe What's the best spot in Austin? Joe In your opinion. Joe Oh, that's a really good question. Joe What is it? Joe Oh, I'll tell you the spot. Joe Okay, so here's where I really like because there's a lot of great barbecue in Austin. Joe But a lot of it is lines. Joe You know like and people and I'm not going there in the morning. Joe Yeah. Joe So you know Franklin's for example is really famous. Joe Yeah, but there's a really long line and even some of the other ones especially because there's all this tourism detects this and people want the barbecue experience. Joe The last few times I've been to Austin. Joe Fantastic barbecue zero lines at all. Joe The HB grocery store, which is very famous. Joe They have like a little barbecue in a few of their locations. Joe They have a little barbecue restaurant at them. Joe Like they have like a sushi spot and they have like a barbecue and stuff like that in the grocery store. Joe I forget what they call it. Joe It's called like true Texas barbecue. Joe Some very generic sounding name. Joe It's excellent. Joe There's never a line. Joe It's like it sort of feels like you know like a mall restaurant because you're in this giant shopping center type thing. Joe But it's 100% legit. Joe I think if you put it in front of someone and you said, I got you this barbecue from Franklin's. Joe They're like, oh, this is really good. Joe I could see why this is the best of the world. Joe But it's just the grocery store barbecue. Joe But it's like it's really excellent. Joe And so that has just become my new go to barbecue when I'm in Austin. Joe That's a great thing to plug because you can't even blow it up really. Joe You can't blow it up a grocery store. Joe You can't blow up a grocery store right now. Joe I'm not worried about there. Joe And there's multiple ones and multiple of the grocery stores. Joe There's no, you know, it's not very Instagramable. Joe You know, so people aren't going to go there. Joe It's not a place to be seen. Joe It's not a place. Joe But if you just want really well executed smoke to me, it's delicious. Joe I think I genuinely think you put it down next to any and put it in front of anyone and tell them it's from some of the great barbecue places they would totally believe you. Joe So what is your criteria, would you say? Joe I'm embarrassed to say that I'm not super well versed in authentic Texas barbecue. Joe I wonder how much better is that than Franklin's than something like a hometown barbecue or something? Joe What percentage better would you say this? Joe It's a really good question. Joe You know, the thing with barbecue, I believe, is that it's not really a bar, like you sort of judge a place in my opinion. Joe Not necessarily because it's per se better. Joe It's the consistency of it. Joe I think there are some types of foods where the name of the game is that every time you do it, it's just identical to every other time. Joe It's like some sort of meals. Joe It's like a good steak. Joe It's sort of the same thing. Joe It's like there's sort of a cap on a steak because it's just a cut of meat. Joe But do you do it the exact same way every time you cook it? Joe I don't. Joe It's like when I cook steak at home, sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not as good. Joe I think the test of a really good barbecue establishment is at the same every time. Joe I'm not going to name any names because I don't want to like whatever the reverse is going to be fun. Joe But there have been like, there are a few spots again and also this. Joe It's like how you got to go here and it's like a barbecue food truck, for example. Joe They're doing the best stuff and they've been there on an off day. Joe Yeah. Joe It's dry and it's just and so I think the test is not really that it's so good per se, but just that it's the exact same every time you go. Joe So that's even harder to know. Joe You have to go there and go over again. Joe You have to go there and over again. Joe I think the New York City sort of central Texas barbecue places in New York City. Joe They're fine. Joe It's places like. Joe So the whole country is totally solid. Joe Yeah. Joe What's the one? Joe It's in Williamsburg. Joe It's actually beautiful. Joe It's out. Joe It's out. Joe It's good. Joe It's really solid. Joe Yeah. Joe I was actually there this summer for the first time. Joe I was there for the first time. - Wow, there's all these secret clubs that no one tells me about. - That's right, well, if you grow a mustache and you're like, "I think one then suddenly all the mustache guys are going to talk "and it's like, they'll tell you their story." Whatever, I don't know. - What's the story? - Who knows? - It's just like, they just want to talk about it. Just guys want to talk about their-- Sorry, I'm not-- - I mean, we're on, it's November Eve right now. - Oh, it is, we're about to-- - I forgot about November. - Maybe I'll try it for the first time. - I don't think it always gets to a length that it's like, it just looks ugly, and then it stops growing. - You have to commit. - Yeah, and it's like, I have to look semi-presentable. I mean, maybe I'll go up the woods for like three weeks and you come back with a mustache and everyone would be like, "You just went to the woods and grew a mustache." - That's the thing, you really do need some period of time where you don't have any sort of public facing obligations, 'cause I used to be a TV host of it. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - So I couldn't do, so it was basically, after I stopped doing TV and just focused on the podcast. - Yeah, all right, time, I had now a freedom of marketing. - That must've been nice. - Yeah, from a facial hair perspective. I really enjoyed it, but certainly from a sort of presentation obligation perspective. - What's your wife think? - She liked the mustache. - I think she might like the mustache more than the beard, but it's just talk about it, oh my God. - Yeah, yeah. (laughing) - Well, we were talking about lines and meat. - Yeah. - 'Cause we've been to cats lately. - Yeah, I have been, and I'll say, here's my avahate. - Oh, that's yeah. - It is, I think like, really good New York City of Pistrami, like straight, or I guess I have. - I hear where it's, I see where you're going. - Straight out of the smoker is actually on par with like Texas barbecue. In terms of, yeah, like when I eat, 'cause I just go there, and I like get a pound of Pistrami, and I just like sit there for a while, especially if you go in the morning or in out of time, there's no line, you just like sit there and like scroll my phone and like shovel Pistrami, to my face, we just how I like to eat it. I don't even bother with the sandwich. - Yeah. - Like if it's really hot and it's sort of steaming and everything, I like, in this moment, it's like nice and fatty, and stuff. In this moment, it is as good as any of the Texas smoke mates. - I truly believe that. - I love that. - Yeah. - I'm not sure, I mean, I can't speak to the Texas smoke mates, so, now I need to do both. - And I say this as a true Texas smoke meets respecter, that when I eat really good Pistrami, specifically from Katz's, in that moment, I say, you know what, this is as good of a culinary experience as I would get it, add a Franklin to whatever. - Oh, yeah. - Wow. - I really, yeah. - Yeah, I love it. - I love it. - I'll always get the Pistrami, yeah. - I've always been a corn beef guy, I don't know why. - Corn beef guy, interesting. - Yeah. - But yeah, the thing is, so I discovered, 'cause my son's school is not far from Katz's. - Oh. - And Katz's is between, depending on how I get to work after I drop him off, it's between his school and the subway. And they're open for breakfast, and there's no line in the morning, and there's no crime, it's no crime to eat meat for breakfast. - Yeah. - Like, it's protein. - It's protein. It's actually prone to the healthiest breakfast you could eat, and there's no law against it, as far as I know. So when I drop him off, and sometimes I don't do it very often, but I'm like, you know what, there it is. I don't have to get it into the office. I don't have any like morning recordings, or morning meetings or anything. Why not just like sit there and have, it's a great treat. - What's this? - I think they open it, eh? - You're there at 8 a.m.? - Yeah, I think so. - Just like, just meat, no bread, no. - I know, it's a little bit. It's a little bit. - I mean it's a little bit wrong. - Mr. indulgent, like, I know it's in my judges. - No, I judge. I judge myself a little bit. I like wouldn't want to, like, you know, I guess I'm talking about him here. (laughing) - I know, it's probably not. - I like the phone, et cetera. But I love, you know, I love Katz's. I don't love lions. - And so there are times where you could go there and not even-- - The lion's got an ridiculous, it's an odd tradition. - It wasn't always, I guess I'm still thinking like 10, I think the TikTok made it like a lot more popular. - For, yeah. - I think there's a lot more. - There used to be like a short line, now there's like a line around the block. - No, it goes around the block, and then it's, what's you get in? It's really long, too. - Yeah. - So just, okay, you get into the store and then there's, I don't know, 10 carvers or whatever they're called. - Yeah. - And then those lions are really long and it's a, you know, it's a great experience being in there and everything like that. But lions aren't for locals, you know what I'm saying? So, yeah, I like to go there at the off hours, but it's great. - Yeah, like half a pound of beef is your normal breakfast. - I think, no, not as weird everyday. - No, I don't. - I think that might be healthier if I ate that everyday, just because I don't, after I eat that, I don't have any like impulses snack. - I mean, we gotta get into this manosphere, like-- - No, I know, it's dangerous territory, I get, believe me, I get it, and I'm not-- - There are mustaches. - There are mustaches and our carnivore diet. So I'm like, no, it's very, don't get me wrong, it's dangerous territory, like go too far down that line. I strongly believe that, I don't wanna do that. So, and, but the thing is, you eat that for breakfast and you're just like satisfied. - Yeah. - After that, whereas if I don't, then I'm like, oh, maybe I'll grab a snack or whatever that I'm full of. - What are you doing for breakfast most days? - I usually don't, I usually don't eat breakfast. I usually the first meal I have is for lunch and I genuinely like a sort of a midtown challenge. - Oh, I want to talk to you about this. - Yeah, what's the best, what's the, what's the-- - So I always evangelize the Oxford Cafe. - Oxford Cafe. - Yeah, which is at, right around, I think, 60th in Lexington. Look, there's many delis. There's probably hundreds of delis in Midtown that will just chop you up a bunch of veggies and meat, right? So what distinguishes one from the other? Here's what I like about the Oxford Cafe. One is, it's just logistically a very nice system. You actually like pick out your bowl of lettuce from this nice little refrigerator that they have and then you bring it up there. And then the person who's putting in the ingredients works very fast. And the counter is very low. This is a design observation that I've had. It's just that many Midtown delis, the counter is like very high. So you can't actually get a great line of sight on some of the items in the thing. So they keep it really low. So you can actually see how much they're putting in. Very easily, it's just great visual. Some of them, it's sort of blocked. They'll have serial boxes or various other things. Or there's glass that's sort of hazy or something like that. And so you can't really see what they're putting in. - Did they just kind of rip you off? - Or you just don't know the proportions. - Yeah, that's the most important part. - Or like how do these onions really look right now or something? So I think it's just a very logistically sound operation and from the point of view of the customer, you sort of know what you're getting. And you're in and out very fast. So again, the Midtown worker in Manhattan is blessed with, of course, hundreds of various delis to choose from for their bowl of chopped salad that you can eat with a spoon. - Are you going up there and you're free-selling or you got an order that you do every time? - I pretty much have the same order. - But it depends on what you see. Their ingredients are always just very fresh. - That's good to know. - It depends somewhat on how hungry I am. Do I want to add bacon to it someday? Maybe yes, maybe no. So I mix it up a little bit, but I'm pretty consistent and they know me. So I can just say I give you the usual dressing. - What's the usual? - Oil and red wine vinegar and salt and pepper. - Very good ingredients. - Oh, the usual, okay, so a grilled chicken, hard-boiled egg, mozzarella, purple onion, black olives, sundried tomatoes, and cucumber. - Wow, that's fun. - So once it's kind of like an Italian sandwich in a salad form, just like that. - It's a fun thing. - It's just in salad form. And then I like a chop, 'cause then I can just eat there at my desk and eat it with a spoon. And that's the other thing. I say, "Give me a spoon." They're like, "Do you mean a fork?" - No, I mean a spoon, and then I just like scroll Twitter and mindlessly consume Slop on the internet while I consume. - Yeah, I have, you know, I don't want to call it a Slop, but it is a bowl, it is a bowl on. - There's no shameless Slop. - We love Slop. - No, I know. So I'm just like, and then I have my headphones on, so I'm like listening to an endless stream of music, and that's Slop, et cetera, so I'm sort of like dazzled by all my senses at once. - So you never do the sweet greener and any of those kinds of things? - I don't love a sweet green. I don't, I've been to one a few times. - Yeah. - I don't totally get the hype. - I never feel great after that. - I never feel like-- - I don't know what it is. - I don't know if it's like insufficiently substantial. - You've got the best tellings in the world by you. - That's right. - Well, yeah, so I live in the East Village and on the Upper East Side. So there's plenty of, there's plenty of obstacles. - There's plenty of obstacles. I don't know, like, intuitively, you know which one I kind of liked of the chains was on Chopped? - Oh yeah, because you love a Chopped. - That is a Chopped. - Yeah, I feel like I don't see those as much anymore. - Yeah. - I don't know what's going on with that. - I feel like-- - It was sort of early. - Yeah, that's true. - In the bowl race, right? - I wonder, that's a good point. - Where did the Chopped go? - Yeah, I'm not totally sure. I think that's still a few. - Yeah. - Sweet green really, I don't know, they went full force. - Sweet green seemed to just like really capture the aesthetic of the moment. And I think that probably counts for a lot. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Chopped is kind of, it's slow. - Yeah, that's what I think, the midtown lunch should be. It should just serve a purpose. - You're always doing salad, never sandwich. - Yeah, you know what the thing is, I actually had a, so, bread doesn't make me feel very good. - Like that's the thing, it's not like a carbs thing. I'm not, I've gone through those phases. or I'm like, "I'm gonna try to avoid carbs." That's not what it is. It's not a carbs thing. Just like bread does not make me feel good in the middle of the day. Makes me feel heavy. It's sort of like if I eat a big, I love bread. Don't give me wrong. I love bread. But if I'm at work, it does not make me feel good. And the second half of my day after eating your sandwich will not be as feel as good as the time before. - Fair enough. - Yeah. - You ever eat it those like, I'm so jealous. I need to invest some time in exploring them, but there's all those little carts. Like not the whole all ones, but the mid-town lunch, classic carts. - I know exactly where you're talking about. I haven't explored them. - I do. - Some are good. I'm sure some are good. - Yeah. I do a whole chicken cart a lot. - Yeah. - And I've gone an hour route many times. - For lunch. - Yeah, definitely. - I love it, but I think I'm too old to. - You think so? - I mean, what do you mean you think you're too old? - I get indigestion now. - Oh really? - I never got it before. - Really? - No, I live in fear of it. - Yeah. - It sucks. - I sort of have this. I think these things just don't affect me. - Oh, so lucky. - I know. - Yeah, I got the good one. - I mean, I have my own issue. Like I said, if I had two slices of pizza for lunch, I would not feel good. - Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. - So I have my own stomach issues, but I don't like worry about any meat from a cart. Bring a bunch of chop chicken over lettuce or rice. - I love it, yeah. - It's funny. - There's plenty of options. - The whole cart thing is such a funny. It's like a huge trend in London now. - Oh right. - Yeah, it's like a. They have like real ho-all food there. - This is a fantastic New York version. Like they love the white sauce. - Oh yeah. Oh, so it's like New York style, ho-all, ho-all. And a long time. - Oh, that's cool. - Yeah, yeah, it's like a big expert from us. - I was in London in April. - I'll have to. Next time I go there, I'm gonna have to. - I'm gonna go get a little girl, guys. - I'm gonna. I'm gonna go all the way to London to try a whole whole chicken. - The expense account podcast is built in partnership with Substack. I've been spending a lot more time on the Substack app. It's become my favorite escape to scroll productively and it's also where I've built my business. Substack is where I read Lincoln Bio by Rachel Carton to learn what brands are actually doing right on social media and where writers like Jalille Johnson are reinventing real-time fashion reporting. A few weeks ago, I went live with Derek Thompson and it felt like thousands of us were hanging out and talking about the state of parties. Everything for Feed Me lives there too. My daily newsletter, chats about New York City, live videos with pop stars like Audrey Hobart, and of course, there's always debates in the comments section. In fact, while I'm here reading this ad to all of you, my readers are talking to each other about where guys on Wall Street have been taking their lunch meetings. Go to substack.com/emily to get a free month of Feed Me in the Substack app. - Today, I was reading about tipping. There was a New York magazine piece that just came out that was about, I guess, on the screens, when a lot of people love to avoid the tipping screen, so they just leave. - Okay. - I guess there's been conversation about people and they're called tipping Robinhoods that they come after you and they just put 20% on your card. - Really? - Yeah. - How do you feel about that? - Well, I don't love the whole-- I mean, I sort of pride myself. I consider myself a generous tour. - Yeah. - You know? - Yeah. - Something about the screen and it's like, I still do it. - Yeah. - I don't love it the same way. - Yeah. - Things a little. But, you know what I noticed about the screens though, I feel as though the sequence of the options that they give you on the screen, they rotate them so that you automatically hit the higher one. I don't know what it is. So I think like in my mind, like I feel like it should go cheapest or lowest 15, 20, 25. - This is left to right. - Left to right. And I think I've noticed that they're switching it up so that it'll put 25 or 30% on the left. And then, I'm not 100% sure, but I believe-- - You're a game of five. - Yeah. - I think they're game of five. I'm not totally sure about this. - Oh man. - Did you sort of intuitively hit the highest one on the left? I don't really ever hit the, I don't, and then I don't know. I'm sort of a middle guy. - Yeah. - I need screens. - I tip well. - I still think the tipping is, I think that we could have better system. - I think the tipping is something much more equitable. - You'd think so, but it's weird. I mean, like even when you travel and when I go to countries where there's not a tipping culture, it's weird not to tip. - Yeah. - I want to give it a little something. - Like getting me something extra, right? And so it's really hard, 'cause there are, I know there have been various experiments in New York City restaurants like we're gonna get rid of tips. And they never seem to work, right? - Yeah, I remember going to Romans when I was going on and it was like, all this stuff was like furious. Like they were like, you could feel it. - Intuitively, most people could probably say why the whole tipping system is a little broken or doesn't make sense economically. And I think economists have tried to sort of reverse engineer why tipping exists, etc. But it feels weird not to tip. - I mean, from what I've heard, like it has a lot to do with healthcare. - Oh, yeah. - And it like that employers pay them less than they could afford to pay for healthcare. - Sure, yeah, yeah. - I guess, I don't really understand. - Well you still think, okay, there are some all-in price that the customer pays to give me all of the food. - Just charge me. - Like, just like, that goes with the cost. - And yet, but I do sort of like, I was at a place recently. I forgot where I was. But I think they just had a 20% service fee built in and it was kind of nice. - Yeah, yeah. - So it's like still, so at the end they're like, oh, the 20% service fee is just there. - Yeah, great. I'm happy. - I'm totally happy. - I don't want like a, - That's fine. - Some of your psychological games, - Yeah. - They're like, they're experiments on me. - Yeah, I know. So it's fine, but. - It's like switching the, I don't think, I don't think it's ever going to change. - You don't think ever? - I doubt, I don't know. - Huh, I really, I wonder. - You're more optimistic. - I guess it just, I mean, especially in New York, like, you can make a lot of money. - Yeah. - I think that when that was happening, they're like, people who are making like $100,000 a year, like, and they went to the service. - Yeah, yeah. - Yeah. - They're like, "Why would we ever want to not. - No, listen to that. - I don't think it's gonna go, I think it'll probably just be the status quo. - Yeah. - I wonder if it's that way in other places besides New York. - I don't know. - Yeah, I really don't know. Maybe elsewhere, they can, they can, maybe one of these post-tip experiments will succeed in an economy where being a server isn't quite so lucrative and they have more flexibility. I don't know. - Where's your family look? - All over. - Okay. - I have a completely disjointed family. My mother, she lives in Guatemala. - Whoa. - Yeah, it's really cool. - That's cool. - She retired like 10 years ago and I think, and she speaks Spanish. And she visited a friend in Guatemala. She really liked it and she decided to stay. - Yeah. - Do you go there? - I visited her for the first time. It was, it's very difficult, she lives in this town that's fairly distant from Guatemala City. So you have to fly to Guatemala City and then take a bus. And then for a while, she lived on the opposite side of, like, I'll tell you a lot. So then you had to take a boat and had young kids. So that sort of, too much and then the pandemic, et cetera. But I finally got there. Well, you're in our early last year. - Oh, cool. - And it was a blast. Yeah, I loved it down there. - So your mom lives in Guatemala. - My dad lives like two hours north of the city and you're in Kingston, New York, yeah. - Oh, Kingston. - Have a sister in Chicago. - Oh, cool. - And I live here. So I feel like. - Where do you think that's the best food in Guatemala? Kingston or Chicago? - Chicago, of course. - It's not really fair. - It's, you know, one of the questions is, and I don't really know anything about this. So, like, and I certainly don't want to offend anyone. But it's not obvious to me why Guatemalan food is so much of a step down from Mexican food. Because Mexican food's incredible. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - And whether you, whether you, a lot of Mexican food in the U.S. is good, but Mexican food in Mexico is obviously incredible. Guatemala, it's like a lot of, like, sort of, you know, chicken and beans and tortillas, which is fine a few times. But it's a little bit, I don't know. Like someone who actually knows this stuff could probably give me a very clear answer. Chicago is there recently for work. And that's a great food city. Everyone knows that. - I went to that restaurant, goat and the girl. - Oh, girl, go. - Girl and the girl. - Another place from 10 years ago. - Yeah. - For 15 years ago. - That's exactly right. Yeah, when I was, it's really good, though. That was a place that really lived up to the height. - Yeah, what's your name from Top Chef? - It was great. And it's definitely, normally, I don't, it was one of those restaurants where they just sort of encourage you, you sort of have to go with a big party because they encourage you to basically order one of everything on the entire menu. Normally, I don't really like eating that stuff. I just want to plate that stuff. - Really? You just want to plate that stuff for myself. I was like, this is what I want when I eat it. So I don't really have these sort of chorus after chorus. But it was really good. I said, okay, maybe I should be more open-minded towards this style of dining. And I went with several colleagues. I think there were eight of us around the table. We did order basically one of everything on the menu. And it was great. - Yeah. - So what do you do when you go to Chinese? You get to plate to yourself? - Oh, well, Chinese, that's a good question. That's a lot different. - Yeah. - Yeah, like I have like a group of friends and we often like take Chinatown excursions and find some new. - No, they're just, but I think like when you're, when you got to eat Chinese with friends, the move is just have one person who knows the menu really well and outsource the entire order. - Yeah, you got it. One person has to work every day. - I want this. - No, yeah, you just like let one person order and they just go down the list and it's like, here's the fish we want to get. I want to get, and then here are the vegetables. And then, no, for there, And then you just all share it and stuff like that. China town. That is a really good question and now I'm suddenly I feel like I'm like blanking. I know I'm like that. Is it got to be in China town? What's the place you like in general? Well, so one place that I really like it's not really one of the China town locations because some four sites been in the street and it's got to it's been written about if you've been to spicy village. Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah, you know, it's not that's not one that's not like court China town. It's close enough. Yeah, that place is really no white shirts. No, no, no. It's not a place to go and to go wear a white shirt unless it's just like a t-shirt. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. It's okay to have a t-shirt that it sustains on. How do you do it? Because you do you wear like a nice button up like every day. I don't wear a nice button up every day, but if I go out, you know, I'm just like put on t-shirt or do you off or put it in my bag. What about your beard or something like that? The beard that sucks. Yeah, I feel like clean your beard afterwards. He is gross. I mean, I do actually just need to trim it right now, but it is annoying from a food perspective, right? It feels gross. I go to the bathroom afterwards and wash my face. But the East Village has a bunch of good places right now. There's this one. You know what I really love, which is the influx of Chinese students to NYU. Oh, it's just an incredible amount of good Chinese food. Yeah, it's so good. Actually, I sort of think, you know, for years, if you talked about Chinese food in New York City, someone would say, "Oh, you know, you really got to go to Queens for the good stuff." And that was just like this thing that people repeated. But now I think if someone says that in 2025, they're just repeating something they heard someone else say because it's just this cliche that's been repeated. I sort of think you should just go to the East Village. There's this place, YGF Molotong, which is-- Was it YGF Molotong? Yeah, it's sort of individual hotpot. So they have all of these vegetables and meat, and you get a bowl, and you just sort of put them in the bowl, and then you go up to the counter, and then they have a few different broth options, and they weigh the bowl, and then they bring you out this big-- You do spicy? Yeah, I always get the spicy. You get super spicy? I don't get super spicy. Yeah. My wife gets the super spicy. Yeah, there's no amount of spicy. My girlfriend is addicted to the mala. Yeah, I like-- My wife. My wife? Yeah. My first time saying the wife. You have a great period, right? You get to say that. That's the cause of keep calling my girlfriend. Yeah, the mala project is right around the corner, which every time my wife and I leave the city and then come back, they're almost the first thing she invariably orders when she gets there and gets the absolute max spicy, version with all the numbing peppers and everything. That's the food that you can only be able to get in Queens. Yeah, and then the mala project opens, and then now you can get it anywhere. There's a restaurant called-- I want to say it's called like 886 or 886. 886. 886. Taiwanese place. Yeah, and I'm really into their beef noodle soup these days. I keep going there. It's season. It is soup season. And it's beef noodle soup season, in particular, I think. It's really good. There's another place that just opened up on first avenue, and I want to say 13th Street. It's called like Bowen Bowl or something. That's right. But they have a really good beef noodle soup. That's like really excellent. Yeah, I feel like we're in-- Taiwan needs beef noodle soup. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really good right now. Yeah, you ever go to Taiwan? I've never been to Taiwan. I want to go. I hear Taipei, like I had a friend who just went to Tokyo Antipay, and they're like, "Wokey, the food was maybe better in Taipei." I believe it. You know, I have this story when I was in college. I didn't-- it was part of having a cell phone. And so I lived in this house. I know it's long time ago. But I lived in this house and we shared a phone. And I saw this flyer on the campus, and I said, "Be an English teacher." Where was this? This was the University of Texas. And I saw this flyer on campus and said, "Be an English teacher in Taiwan." So I got home and I called the number and no one answered, so I left a message. And then I forgot about it. I didn't hear back. And then apparently that person called back the number and a different person who lived in my house answered it. And then he ended up getting this job teaching English in Taiwan. And I always think about like, what would have happened if I had actually been home and answered, would I have spent the next two? Maybe I would have been one of those people that like spent the next 20-something years of my life, you know, living and working and making a fortune. I lost track of that person. But I always think about that version of my life that if I had answered, because I was the one that made the call, and then he ended up getting the job. Sorry, my life worked out fine. But I was like, what is this alternate version of my life? Well, I went home when the call happened. Where am I? What am I doing today? It would have been totally different. Who knows? But I think about that a lot. And I would have at least tried food and Taipei. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's like the meme that it's like, oh, it's great. I just didn't think it was going to be Chinese. It's like about heaven. Yeah, you would just be Chinese, like me. Yeah, not really. My Instagram reels, like it's just the algorithm thinks that I just want an endless stream of Chinese propaganda. I want it. How do you get on with it? Yeah, I know. I'll show you what I got. I can maybe say, I can forward them to you. You can like a few of them. Yeah, yeah. But like when I, like when I'm usually by accident, open the Reels tab, but it's just this endless stream of like CCP. Frankly, yeah. I really, I really, I'll forward a few. I think there's stuff going on. You don't even. There's so much going on. I don't even know. I know it's never been in Hong Kong. Yeah, I love Hong Kong. I love Hong Kong. My, my, my family's from Hong Kong. Oh, no, I don't really have like that much of like a family connection. But it's like, I guess my ancestral homeland. And yeah, it's like the, my favorite. It's the best. It's like the best set. It's a great set. A Guantansi was my favorite. It's so good. And the food is so good. It's so good. It's so good. It's just like, so the great dim sum and it's like, it's abundant and it's cheap and just a great setting to eat it and it's great. Yeah. So do you get it? Do you travel for work, bunch? I have more. I didn't use to, but I have been traveling a bit more. You know, I was out in Los Angeles in September. I love it out there. I love any excuse to go to California. I was in Alaska, which is, how's Alaska? Alaska is really interesting. I'm really glad I went to Alaska. I want to go. You should. There's, so kind of a place you only need to go once. Yeah. It's very, it's a strange place. You see a, you know, what, see a polar bear? I didn't see a, I saw a whale. Oh, that's better. That was cool. That was really cool. Nice. I read and will be dick over the summer. So when I went there, I was like, you know, what I really wanted to go on a whaling boat and like see. Oh, you went on the whaling trip. I went on one of these like six hour tours of the fjords off of Anchorage and it was pretty cool. It was really cool. And it saw a glacier, which was also amazing. Alaska is a very strange place. You literally feel like you're going to fall off the edge of the world there. Like you just feel like you're at the end of the world in a way that is hard to describe because I've been to islands. I've been to rural places. I've been to beaches. It's just feels viscerally distant. Like you are at the far. It feels empty. It feels empty. It feels anarchistic. You don't. Apparently in like a for example, so there's Anchorage itself. There's sort of a lot of vagrants. It's very frankly alcohol heavy. Every three stores in downtown Anchorage is a bar and not a particularly nice start. Bar like a grimy dive bar. It's like adventure isn't vagrants and what, you know, in a different era, they would call it west town or something. Hobos. Yeah. That's what they would have referred. Yeah. Sort of people like drifting through. Drifting through a lot of drifter. It's like a drifter town and it's a, you don't really, apparently there's a widespread phenomenon in Alaska of unlicensed pilots. So a lot of people, because there's only way to get from one city to another city in many cases is by plan. So a lot of people own plan. A lot of people don't bother getting their pilots' license. And also, apparently a lot of people don't care that they don't get their pilots license. Did you do it? No, I didn't. I did not. That sounds like the scary part. I did not get in. I did not get in the plan. There's actually a fairly long history. A lot of like Alaska politicians have died and playing crashes. Yeah. I mean, the weather and then you have to fly everywhere. You have to fly everywhere. You're in the tiny little plane where there's awful. Yeah, it's not totally my thing. But it's just part of the culture, which I totally respect. Yeah. But it's just a very anarchistic libertarian culture, which is fine. But I think, and then the light is crazy. So it's a light, you know, it's only three hours of darkness a day. So you just see between the extreme cold and extreme light and everything and just sort of, I think I'm trying to think of a nice way to put it. You have to be neurologically a little different to stick it out there. Yeah. What were you doing there? It was really fun. So Mary Daly is the president of the San Francisco branch of the Federal Reserve. And Alaska is part of her district. Because there's like seven western states. And she does, she goes up there like once a quarter to talk to local businesses and business leaders. But what they're saying, the ground so that she can help set monetary policy in some way. And she invited us on the podcast to come along and we interviewed some local businesses and we interviewed a guy who runs a trucking company in Alaska and this sort of goes between anchorage. Exactly them. Yeah. Goes between Anchorage and the oil fields up north. We interviewed someone who owns the biggest furniture chain in Alaska and talked to people at the port of Anchorage. So I guess you should go to Alaska. Okay, but you know, you You should go there once. - Where'd you eat there? - I had some nice spam sushi. - Oh yeah. - Even I'm talking about, like, good to lie. - Yeah, exactly. It actually feels like cold Hawaii. Alaska is like cold Hawaii. Yeah, it's very, 'cause it also has sort of an Asian vibe. And it's very, you know, it's sort of US military, heavy, etc., kind of like Hawaii, etc., so it just feels like cold Hawaii. The food is kind of similar, it's from a starchy, it's not that weird. - I mean, every time I'm like, how is the smokaloko, how would you invent like a beef patty with gravy and egg here on the beach? - I love it. I love a mokal. - Yeah, yeah, it's crazy that that's what they're eating on the beach. - Yeah, you don't think that, like, right? - It seems like a beef from Alaska. - Yes, like if you're in Hawaii, you think I'm just gonna eat all this fresh food and stuff like that, because that's how your mind sort of intuitively feels when you're in a tropical location. So they sort of light, etc., instead you just get this absolute protein fat and carbohydrates, 2000 calories, and I love that stuff. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - I'm gonna go to Alaska a couple of times. - A couple of times. - Yeah. And it's like, oh, I'm gonna eat as much mokaloko as I can. I love it. - Yeah. - Have you been L&L barbecue? - Yeah, yeah. - I love that, but it's-- - And then like, oh, and then the macaroni salad. - Oh yeah, I love the macaroni salad. But talk about, you know, you'll that wall, way you down. - Did you do the spa? - Did I do the spa? - I don't know, I feel like, I heard that you like a spa. - Oh, I love the, yeah. - I would think that in Alaska, they do, like that would be like a spa place. - Oh, it's a good question. I didn't do it. You'd think that they're working too. - I didn't get a chance, I don't know if they have a good sort of, they should have a sauna culture. - Yeah. - In Alaska. - 'Cause they're like, so close to Russia. - Yeah, yeah, I thought that was the bonnet, the whole thing. - They probably do. - Yeah. - They have in place that cold, I think, has to. - Yeah. - But I am a big fan of the baths, the Russian Turkish baths. - 'Cause you live in these buildings. - Yeah. - And they actually have very good food. They have great food. They have a really good sort of like, you know, beef stew and I forget over some sort of grain or something. It's really good. - Bourced. - Yeah, I love borscht. We could talk about borscht. - What's the sound about borscht? - So a cold beat borscht. - You do cold over hot. - I do the cold beat. I do the cold borscht. - Nice. - And a spa, you got to kind of. - Spa, I don't know, it just feels like a sort of, and you know, any soup, there's plenty of warm soups out there to be in. - Yeah, yeah. - I just feel like if you're gonna eat, if you're gonna need a warm soup, there's plenty of options. - I think I prefer warm soup in general. I don't think I do. - I don't think I ever need a cold soup. - I agree, generally. - Yeah, yeah. - Borscht is special. - I get it, yeah. - Then I'm gonna have the cold one, because it's one of the ones that works cold. Be an aged kosher. Have you been there? - Yeah, of course. - I love that spot. - Yeah, yeah. - They have a great cold borscht. - What's the name of the place that was across the street? There was exactly the same as being aged, but. - Oh, how is that place called? - I know what place you're talking about. - Oh, that stands, was the stage stage the. - Yeah. - I'm flanking that. - I feel like I know what you're talking about. - Why not? - Because being aged is vegetarian. - Yeah, it isn't vegetarian. - And the place across the street was exactly the same, but now vegetarian. - Oh, really? - Yeah. - It's not exactly the same, but it looked really similar and same size in the way. - Oh, interesting. - Oh. - What's the, the one on the boardwalk there in Brighton Beach that I love the Borscht. - Tatiana, yeah, that's really good. - Perfect. - I love Tatiana in general. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good wedding spot. - Yeah. - Someone please invite me to a wedding at Tatiana. - I've never been to a wedding. - I've never been to a wedding at Tatiana. - I guess in the 10 years, maybe 700 times in the 10 plus years that I've worked at Bloomberg because it's right there and I go there for lunch. It's a great place. There's always a table. So I'll just say that place is really excellent. - That's a good answer. - Is it the place that you go to the most should be your favorite restaurant? - Keens. - That's probably my favorite of the New York City steak houses. I feel like if I'm going to pick a top three, one of them has to be a steak house. What would be my third restaurant right now? - Isn't it your favorite to be one that you just discovered that you really love or? - So I mentioned earlier, I go to that place YGF Malatana a lot. - YG, I can't wait to go there. - Yeah, you'll love it. So yes, I will make that my third. This is so unfair. - No, that's a good one. - But I should have prepped an answer anticipating this exact question. And I think that would be like, I go there so much to become such a staple of my eating that I'm comfortable saying putting that in my top three right now. - Nice. - Yeah. - I guess on that note, at the end we do this thing where we do like shout outs. - Okay. - So we shut up three place people, places things, ideas. - I'll start. - It just starts. I'll do my first one in a minute. - Okay, it's easy. This is easy. - Okay, okay. Everyone just does their wife. - Okay. - Okay. - So my first one is going to be Wu's wonton king. I went there last night with my girlfriend's family. - Uh huh. - It's prime time square. It's the best place for a big group. It's kind of gotten out of hand with how good it is for big groups. Because now you can't even get a table for four. It's only like tables for 10 now. - Oh, it's interesting. - But they do, they're the wonton king and they do have an amazing wonton soup. And I don't know, it's just such a great place for a big group of people. And it's BYOB. - Yeah. - All those drawings loved it. - They'd never had the like mayonnaise walnut shrimp and they would go crazy over it. Yeah, the appendix breast classic. - Yeah. - Very Chinese American. - Wait, did I say that sounds good? I'm allergic to walnuts. But I believe you, that is good. - You don't really need the walnuts. - Yeah, yeah, just the walnuts. - The walnuts sound good. - But they were, yeah, they were very excited by that. - The mayonnaise. - Huh, sounds interesting. - Yeah, it's, it's, I don't really know how they make it. I don't really know where, it's a mayor. I thought that it was just like a Chinese dish but I guess it must be American 'cause they don't have it in China or in Australia. - You know what I like down there in the out, I'll shout out a place near Diamond Square is North Dumplings. - Oh, yeah, of course. - Like it's, and also it's very inexpensive. - Yeah. - Like shockingly. So like you can get a dozen dumplings. I think they're still like $4. And they're really good. - That's a good one. - Yes, I will shout out North Dumplings. All right, nice. Yeah, inexpensive. I own one of their two things. I'm gonna shout out Eating and Bed. 'Cause after the wedding, we got a hotel room. - Yeah. - And we just ordered a room service and delivery. And we made like a mess of the bed. But it's so, I don't know, it's a treat to eat and bed. Especially if it's not your bed. Especially if you don't have to worry about getting stains on the sheets and stuff, sitting in front of TV and just like not leaving bed for 48 hours and just being a fucking slob is so fun. - All right, I will shout out Eating Frozen Bananas. In frozen grapes. So I think like bananas are generally a pretty boring fruit. - Yeah. - I'm never gonna just eat a banana. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - But a frozen banana is really nice. It's like eating ice cream or something like that. - The chocolate or just like-- - No, just like you just freeze the banana. - 'Cause my wife like-- - Smoothie. - She makes smoothies for kids and stuff like that. So she, so she, we often, I'll like open the freezer and there's a bunch of frozen bananas there. So I just like grabbed one and I sort of ate it. - Oh, this is really nice 'cause I would never just eat a normal banana. But a frozen banana, that's really nice. In grapes are sort of, I like grapes a lot. - Yeah. - A frozen grape, that's a really nice. So yes, frozen foods, I'll shout out. - Now they have this new snack. I can't remember what it's called. So Emily was posting about it. - Is this like the sugar fruit? - It's like covered in the-- - Yeah. - You guys are candy stuff. What is it called? - Fruit rice. - Fruit rice. - Fruit rice. - I've seen this, I haven't tried it. - I've never tried it. - I've seen it out in the wild. - Everyone says it's the best thing ever. - Yeah, I gotta try it. - I haven't tried it yet. - It's a frozen grape covered in sour, like sour patched kids stuff. - It's gotta be really tasty. - Yeah, I would love to send us some please. My last one is kind of a cop out. It is similar to my wife. I'm shout out love. - Oh, this is great. - 'Cause it actually, I don't know. So getting married thing is such a funny thing. But it actually is just so special to like proclaim your love in front of everybody and to everyone in the room is just so in love and so happy and it's, I don't know. - That's wonderful. - It's very nice. - Well, I'll shout out a book that I read. - Oh, good. - It's sort of on. So I mentioned I read Moby Dick over the summer and then I get really into that and then I got really into Wales and I got really into the story of Jonah and the whale and I read this book by a French theologian named Jacques Leu, who wrote a book about Jonah and the whale called The Judgment of Jonah. But there was this, he sort of talks about love in this and the idea is one of the things he talks about sort of love is this very freeing force because when you're in love or when you're experiencing love, the day-to-day obligations of the rest of the world for you feel very small and irrelevant. You know, like when you're like really in love or something like that, random, what people are talking about online, it just like doesn't feel like it matters. And so there's actually one of the sub-themes of Jonah and the whale experienced the experienced God and the love of God and then suddenly he felt very free to then as God commanded him to preach to the people of Nineveh, once he sort of came around to that view. So it's a good book and it's sort of, you're just going to have Jonah. Yeah. I'll check it out. Yeah, check it out. Awesome. Well, thanks, Joe. This was a lot of fun. This was great. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Expense account is the production of Feed Me and partnership with Public Sound and Substack. Our executive producers are Emily Semberg, Jason Gondliffe and Ryan Woodhall. Our associate producer is Camille Fattay. Our audio engineer is Luke Moldoff, our video editor is Issy Cross and our graphic designer is Justin Sloan. Expense account is recorded at WSA NYC. For more episodes visit us at feedme.substack.com. See you next week.