Eddie Huang

Live from WSA this is Expense account, today you can see that I am off of my couch and I'm sitting at my desk in the Phoebe office. It's a nice change of pace. Our guest today is Eddie Wong, a true multi-hyphenant. You probably know him from TV but I am proud to call him my real-life friend. He is the host of the Canal Street Dreams podcast which was the second podcast that I was ever on in the first one where I ever showed my face. You guys should check out his documentary about the rise in Fall of Vice magazine called "Vice is Broke" and his new book "Come on Down Comes Out in June." He's also a husband and a dad. Eddie is one of my favorite food adjacent people that I've met in my short time in the food media and he's always a blast to talk to you. I hope you guys enjoy. Cheers. So today we have Eddie Wong. Welcome to the pod. Eddie. What up? Eddie had me on his pod. It was my second podcast, but my first podcast on film. You kind of are the person that docks me. We unmasked you. You unmasked me. I didn't really even get to have my like unmasking. I'm taking the mask off. I mean, it's only been like four months. Yeah. Unfortunately, you only had like three fans. Yeah, I had three fans and three months. I didn't get to have my big, big review unfortunately. Now you have a lot of fans. I have like a few and they're all names made. My only request is that you start this episode with the serious Chicago Bulls. Stargab line-up song because we do we should let the viewers know we both. This is the flu game. Oh yeah. We both got the New York 2025. It got us. I never get sick. I never get sick. I always get it. I never really work really hard. Yeah, whatever flu or COVID is out there, I always cop. I'm sleeping like nine hours a night. I never get sick. And this is I don't know what happened to me, but I knocked me out for Christmas. I didn't get to see Marty Supreme and now I feel like I might not see it because everyone's already seen it. It's all right. You could read like the 75 newsletters. I will have it, you know, did you see it? No, I haven't seen it, but I just keep having to delete newsletters because everyone's like, I love the ending. I don't like the ending. Like, you know, everyone stopped sending me Marty Supreme newsletters. Yeah, I think I got it spoiled. So yeah, but you had a huge 2025. I think I was today. I was doing research. I was like thinking about what I wanted to talk to you about on the bottom. I was like, you did a lot of shit this year. It was a busy year. Yeah, it was a very busy year. And it started off crazy because I think it was like Chan fifth the day everybody went back to work this year was a day the fire started in LA. So you were living in LA at the beginning of the year. Yeah. And then we were just instantly on the run. And by like February 1st, I was in New York. Whoa, it was crazy. Like life just changed on a dime. And you know, then we just had to get to work and kind of like set up my new life here. And it just made sense to dive right back into food and writing, which I love. So you had a place here already? No, no, no, no, actually this dude Ben, Ben Levin found me my apartment online. Oh wow. His family is in apartments. I guess they're called landlords. Oh, yeah. They call landlords. Some of them are nice. Some developers are randomly who is like, so yeah, I was at Lucia just chilling with Sal at Lucia. And then there's this dude just holding down like the table on the front, very like animated, reminded me of, you know, the mastermind of Ocean's 11, you know, the very gregarious mastermind. And I just hung out with him. God has number. He started FaceTiming me randomly all the time. And he Face Times me when I'm on the run. And we don't have a crib in New York. And he literally found me my apartment. So like shadow Ben Levin, Levine. Yeah. Did you start Canastery James this in 2025? Yeah. And again, we started it with Sal at Lucia. Okay. So it was funny enough. We just randomly, we were having fun hanging out there. We started the podcast. So podcast, newsletter, we made a movie. Yeah. Yeah. And you wrote a book. Yes. Yes. So novelism is big. Yeah. And we open a restaurant and you open a restaurant. Crazy. Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. One ear sick. Somehow I still found a way to overdraft my bank account. So I thought that was the most impressive feat. It happens. You know, this movie, what is the name of the movie? Vices broke. Vices broke. It's great movie. Thank you, bro. I don't know. I was like kind of moved by it. I don't know. It's so cool to see. I don't know. That was a time I was young in New York. Everyone had their vice like, I don't know. It's a cultural moment, especially here in New York. And just this, I don't know, to see the inside. And for you, we're so vulnerable in the movie. Yeah. And not to be corny like becoming friends who use like a thing I remember of this year. I was me too. Yeah. Yeah. No, like I'm always real with people with like, I feel a connection and there's a friendship. I'm like, that's like a highlight of the year. You know, like coming back to New York and like, I really enjoyed reading your writing about places like this is bull. Oh, yeah. And ops and noodle pudding. Like those are those are places like I hadn't been to. And I was reading. I was like, the way Homi talks about this shit. Thank you. And we became friends. And you know, it made sense to me that when you watch the doc, you liked it. Because I think through your writing, it's very clear that you are like on the side of the art. So to speak. Yeah. There's a lot of people, I think in the last eight to nine years where like the business of food is scaling, the business of everything, scale, scale, scale, scale, scale, scale, like how wide can your audience get? How big can it get? You're writing always seems to take the side of the art. And I appreciated that. And that to me is what the film vice is broke is about. Yeah. I mean, it's hard. I mean, you do it like in a way that's so extreme. Like you won't sell out. Yeah. I would sell out. I don't know. I'm maybe I don't know. I mean, I was the thing that struck me in the movie was like all the Gavin stuff. Like you such a good writer. Yeah. I was like, Oh, damn, I totally forgot that he's just like, what I mean, that whole magazine is the Gavin's voice. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's a very easy thing to just dismiss Gavin. Yeah. And be like, he started the proud boys and he has radical views and he's a hateful man. But those things could all be very true. Yeah. I think also then it's just impossible to separate him from the art that was that magazine. And I think those are the difficult things that like people should grapple with, right? Yeah. And that's what the films about is like not easily dismissing things, not easily embracing things like private equity. And like really accepting that everything is very Yin and Yang. Yeah. I mean, it's just so crazy and scary to think like just like this path from hipster to toward like fascism and like, how do we not recreate that? Or I don't know. It's a cautionary tale. Yeah. And then the craziest part was making the film opening the documentary section of the Toronto International Film Festival with the film. Very well received, you know, critics liked it, got great reviews. And then movie before they released it, took the investment from Sequoia. And then I had to personally, I chose to sit out the promotion of the film. So, you know, I think people are still finding the film though, which is. Yeah. I mean, like, I mean, the subject matter is so ripe. Did anyone from Vice Lake talk to you about any of that, like, head up higher up people? Lots of people reposted. Were they mad? I mean, Shane and I like have argued over text for a couple of years now. And it's just, it's died off by like 2024. We stopped texting each other. Yeah. And it is what it is. I've said what I've said. He said what he said. And no, but I felt like a lot of vice employees appreciated the film a lot. There was a lot of people talking about it, reposting it. And it was, it was cool. Like, I think that for the early vice people and the like, vice people before Kent Street, the film was for like all of us, you know, like, if you some, some people, I think were like the later Kent Street ones came and they're like, why didn't you talk more about the private equity? Why didn't you talk more about the deals? And I was like, that's not interesting to me. Like, that was boring. It was, it was already cooked by the time you guys worked there. Did it feel like therapy? Like, was, did you feel like a way it was lifted when she, like, came out the movie? Yeah. I mean, I think all of us that were early vice just felt away about how things went. We felt robbed of a lot of our work. We felt robbed of a lot of our ideas and like youth. Yeah, yeah. But for me personally, once we made it and once it premiered at TIFF, I really never thought about it again. And it was just, I was good. That's kind of a cool way to create something. And then you just like put it out into the world and then you move on and you do things. Yeah. And then it was like, you know, marketing and the distribution, they'll call you to tap in and you give them your thoughts. But I had mentally checked out from the things in that film after it premiered because you have to. Yeah. To create the next work, you have to unplug. from that. You can't just like rest on your laurels and stuff like that. This episode of expense account is brought to you by silver oak. Demsum Palace has some of the best Demsum and men had in my humble opinion. They're shoe my our top notch and they stay open until 3 a.m. You know what goes great with some late night dumplings? A Cabernet Sauvignon. And you know who makes the best Cabernet Sauvignon? Silver Oak. For more than 50 years, Silver Oak has been singularly focused on making the best cabsauve that is humanly possible. Demsum and Silver Oak, a match made in heaven. Silver Oak, the official line of expense account. Are you working on a million projects at one time like at any given time? Like the book and the movie and then cooking. It's all overlapping. Yes. Yeah, all overlapping. I really, the thing is that that there's there's a scene in the novel that explains like my process. I literally the character in the novel lays out the day. Is it the new novel? The new novel, come on done. Come on done. When is that come out? June 15th or 16th. I can't remember next year. Next year. Yeah, it's in June sometime, but yeah, the character of the novel lays out his routine one day. And it's just I wake up every day at seven. You know, I make coffee for myself and my wife Natasha. Say what's up to the kid. And I go upstairs to just write. And I write for three to five hours. Wow. Yeah. Uninterrupted. Uninterrupted. Wow. One song on a loop. So this starts, run me through the timeline of your day. What time is you're you starting writing? I start writing by like eight thirty. I'm in the chair. Okay. So eight thirty till like mid-afternoon like two thirty. Yeah. Yeah. Eight thirty till around like let's say one o'clock. Yeah. And if I can find a stopping point, I go put the baby to nap. And then once the baby goes to nap, I go into the restaurant. So that's crazy. That's the schedule. And then I work at the restaurant from like basically two o'clock to nine o'clock. That's my day. That's crazy. Yeah. Every day. I'm trying to find time to write. And I'm like being bad at organizing my time. I need to write more in the morning. Yeah. I think it's just scheduling. Not a morning person. Yeah. I was never a morning. I used to when I was partying. Whatever. Yeah. If I was going to go to a party at like midnight one o'clock, I would write when everyone was going to eat dinner. Because then people would stop texting me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Ford, like 11 I'd write. Yeah. And then I go party. And I was actually quite regimented about that. That's cool. Yeah. I would work out. I would hang during the day. I have lunch with someone then four o'clock till like midnight I'd write. And now I don't go out. Yeah. I gotta work at night. So the morning is when I write. You just have to make yourself do it and create the rhythm. But you know, what helps me is finding one song that locks me in. What's your song? It all is different every day. But there were random weird songs. But I know you're a sky for air of fan. Yeah. For multiple chapters of the book, I just listen to like everything is embedded. It's the best song of all time. It might be. It's actually might be. Sky last week, sky was wearing my girlfriend's fashion line. Oh, where? Yeah. That's what so. Yeah. I hope she's doing well. I used to be in a BBM group with her so long ago. I didn't really know her well, but I was in a BBM group with her. Yeah. I just like her art. I never met her. I know her. But I don't really know her. I really, I really fuck with her music. And then I'll find a song like that and just wear it the fuck out. And then same with Durand Durand wedding album. I just wore that album out writing the book. And then that song come undone became a seminal song in the novel. And it became the title. You know, I listen to I listen to Shade Cherry Pie all the time. That's always in my top five. I listen to gazebo masterpiece. I will I this is this is the worst worst confetti. I will listen to Lana Del Rey cinnamon girl like all for like 16 hours. And I used to write to rap music, but I can't write to a lot of rap music now like randomly. I'll listen to like rock him Eric B. Mahogany. I can listen to that for multiple hours and right. But it's certain songs. I write to see any classical music. Oh, I can't hear words and make words at the same time. Oh, work. Yeah, I need I need to be classical. I mean, whatever works. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't really work obviously. But this new book. You know, the book is the book is cool. And I read the description. I have a pulled up. It's really sure. Yeah. It's just from bestselling author fresh off the boat comes with subversively funny and surprisingly moving romcom about a haunted man child's twisted search for love. Is this you the haunted man? It's definitely I would say it would be accurate to call it auto fictional. Right. And it's like basically exploring how a man can like you can be successful. You got all these things like at one point in my life, I was hosting Wong's world. Yeah, yeah. And everyone I met friends, family, fans, just strangers would be like, you have the best job in the world. It's like you and Tony Bourdain got the best job in the world. You just travel. You eat. You will exaggerate. It's fantastic. And it was fantastic. And I would never complain. But at a certain point, I got really lonely. And Tom got really lonely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like and you know, what happened, what happened happened. And I started to look at my own life. And I was just like, I don't feel good. Something's really missing in my life. And you know, everyone looks at it from the outside and it's just you have everything. Yeah. You know, I didn't pay for clothes. I didn't pay for a meal. I was living it up. But like, you have to have balance in your life. Yeah. You have to have a center. And like it is impossible to have a balance and have a center. Traveling and doing that show at the pace I was doing it. Hmm. I would love to do the show again. Now that I have a wife and kid, I would bring my wife and kids. They should have a family travel show. Yeah. That'll be fun. You know, I would bring them for parts of it. But then also just like, I would do it in a different way because we were back to back on the road for like 20 to 30 days at a time. And it just gets very lonely. And of course, the character, we'll talk about the character in the novel. Yeah. Yeah. He just has a lot of frivolous transactional surface sex that I would say is autofiction. And you know, like I was doing all the things that are supposed to make you happy. Yeah. You're making money. You're eating well. You're doing culture. You're having sex. You're meeting great people. I should be happy. I was really, really unhappy. And so that's where the kind of idea for this novel came from. And then, you know, I don't want to give away what happens. Of course, like, you know, I explore the ideas of loneliness and intimacy and family. Like everything for me always goes back to family. Yeah. So, you know, it's, yeah, I'm excited for people to read the novel. I'm excited for it. Yeah. It's my favorite thing I've done. Well, hands down like that novel. That's amazing to feel that way. Yeah. That's so cool. Because I think in my career, I've really struggled with like authority. Yeah. Which would be an understatement and like people meddling in what I'm creating. Yeah. I can sense that. Yeah. I think the things that I got to create without any supervision was Bauhaus in this novel. And I would say that Wong's world and the Weistock, those two also, I had collaborators that let me like fly my free flag. So I would, I would big up, you know, QC productions on devices broke and then, you know, golden era of ice. Yeah. They, they just let me do my thing. But those are the four projects I feel that are like not mutated and unadulterated. Just because you had less oversight, it felt the most you. Yeah, it felt the most me. And then obviously, fresh off the boat, but fresh off the boat, I just did not, I got to be honest, it's probably the biggest thing. Yeah. I didn't know what I was doing as a writer. Like it's a good book and people love it and that makes me very happy. Yeah. I have trouble reading the book because I go back and I'm like, what are you doing? You think it's sloppy? Yes. It's like, it would be for like, I love Cameron. The purple haze mixtape. I personally love that. Yeah. But I bet if you ask Cameron what he likes, the purple haze, the studio album or the mixtape, he's like, bro, probably the studio album. Fresh off the boat is a fire mixtape. But I go back and I look at it after becoming a more professional writer since 2012. I mean, it's been 13 years. I look at it and I'm just like, bro, the rhythm of this sentence, the structure and spine of this chapter. I can't help but see the flaws. But I do, I'm happy that people love that. Does anyone ever go back and rewrite their book? Yeah. I was at a, I was hanging out with Jen Beagin who wrote like Big Swiss. And she says her first two novels, she wrote the same book twice. You know, I think writers many times, you know, you could say, would you know DS like the drown and to Oscar Wow to, this is how you lose her. In many ways, he's writing a similar book. It's probably the greatest time, you know, he was always he was It was my favorite writer coming up, you know. - Would you ever rewrite a fresh off the boat? - When you see this boat, you'll see that a lot of the parental family things, it is intentionally re-addressing. This book intentionally re-addresses like growing up Asian and America and the violence in the family. Like that is a huge threat of the novel. - Is the character that they have a TV show? - No, you don't need to ruin it. - The character and their family are notable for a reason representing Asians and America. So like that is, you'll see, it's like a lot of fictional and repurposed, but yeah, those elements are there. - I mean, I'm just so curious about what your life is like when you're working on Banks World. - Complete insanity. - What's the craziest travel itinerary that you're doing? - The craziest one had to be that pops in my head is either in the Amazon and Peru or in Turkey, the Turkey episode. We flew into rural Turkey and then that day woke up at like four or five a.m. Got on the hot air balloons and then drove west towards Istanbul, stopped and had iftar like breaking fast. With a family in between Istanbul and like rural Turkey. I think we got back in the car, drove to Istanbul, got to the hotel, woke up the next day and shot again at 8 a.m. all the way through. And I think that next day we ended up participating in a gay pride march and we got tear gas. - That's insane. - That was insane. There was another one with the Amazon. Like we landed in Lima and then we, I think flew to Iquitos and then took a boat to a location on the Amazon all in one morning. We get on the Amazon and someone accidentally sprays deep into my eye and my eyes got crazy swollen and I had to wash it out with Amazon river water and then shoot the scene. - Got a parasite. - The show was insanity, that was a terrible moment but there was just crazy things like that always happening. Like someone tried to break into my hotel room in Moscow. We got shook down by police. I mean we got chased around Sicily by white supremacists I got in a fight with. We ended up in jail in Sicily because of that. - Really? - Yeah. The white supremacists we argued with having breakfast because they wouldn't acknowledge certain ingredients were from Northern Africa. - You got into this fight at breakfast? - Yeah breakfast over like some pistachios and Aron Cheney and these dudes got mad called playing closed cops through us in a jail on the 4th of July. And I was in jail and the funniest part was one of the cops goes, "Hey, you famous chef, right?" "Yeah, famous chef." Yeah, he goes, "How would you make hamburguesa?" And I like, he let me out and to draw a diagram of how to make a hamburger. - Wow. - Yeah, I guess. - That's cool. - It was cool. - How do you make a hamburger? - You know, he would draw a hamburger. - I'm asking if there should be like lettuce tomato on it. I was like, "No, no, no, that's some like backyard boogie." I was like, "Look man, good bread. You guys got plenty of good bread here." You know, griddle the bread with butter. You guys have great butter here as well. Then, you know, I'm an eight ounce patty guy. Nice eight ounce patty, griddle, you know, gently create a crust. I don't like to press the burger. Flip it, medium rare. And then, if you have a broiler or a salamander, a nice piece of cheese, your choice, you know, white cheese. - It's like mozzarella. - Mozzarella, I was like, whatever good cheese you got there, that you like on a hamburger, put it on top. And then, you know, perhaps, perhaps a thin onion underneath the patty, or in between the burger patty and the cheese tuck a slice of onion in there. - You need a little onion. - You need a little bite. - I think a little very thin on the mandolin onion. Hide it between the patty and the cheese, salamander, or broiler, we'll cook it a little bit gently. That, I think, is a perfect burger. - I mean, this is a good segue to, I read your piece, The Watch Piece. - Oh, yeah. - About, there was also about burgers. - Yeah. - Yeah. Where you were having, it's so cool to see you, right? Like, candidly about, like, what it's like to actually be a chef at a restaurant that has to, like, compromise and work with, work with other people. - Yeah. - Like, working with, it's not like some, like, always such a heroic thing. You're having to, like, appease investors and owner, and they want a burger on the menu. - Yeah. - Why does chefs hate burgers so much on menus? You know, I think because when you put a burger on the menu, everybody wants it. Most people have pretty basic tastes in things. And if you offer a hamburger, that is what they're going to get. And to be honest, any good chef knows how to make a hamburger. And there's kind of, like, to me, and in my opinion, there's a platonic ideal. - Yeah. - It is the good bread, the good eight ounce patty, grittle gently, cheese, onion. That's, like, really it, salt, right? Everyone knows what the best burger is. And then, so you gotta get, you know, you, if you're gonna put one on, you want it to have your voice and your flavor and your flair. I think, like, chef Nick and Aaron at Yeobar do a great job doing it, where it's, like, technically, a fantastic burger. But the language of their menu is, like, seafood, brine briney seafood. And I believe they put thin slice fennel or onion on it with the anchovies. That's like, that's their burger. That's their voice. - The lamb patty, too, right? Or is-- - Yeah. - It's servos, they do the lamb patty. - The servos, they do the lamb at Yeobar. I believe it's beef. - Oh, yeah. - You know, they can correct me. - Yeah. - You know, at lords, I think it's quite cool. I believe it's a Welsh rare bit. - Oh, yeah. - Burger. - That makes sense, burger. - And it makes sense. Like, you know, I was even, after going to London, I was making that on our YouTube show, separate bedrooms. It's just like, if you're a British chef in New York, that's your voice. That makes sense. Like, that is a cool burger to do. But I'm sure if you ask these chefs, it's like, do I could do this in my sleep? I could make this dish blindfolded. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - And so you have people lining up at lords before service even starts. I'm sure they're very proud of it. But like, if you ask them what dish they want you to have on the menu, it's like, probably not the burger. - I mean, you gotta make the burger that is the perfect burger and then just charge $100 for it. And then it's like, if you really want the burger, you gotta pay $100 for it. - Yeah, yeah. And for us at the flower shop, it's just, again, we use the best bread you can get. - So you wound up putting the burger on the menu? - I wound up putting the burger on the menu. And I was like, what would be in my voice? And in my like, Patoa, so to speak. - Yeah. - And it's, you know, get the Pondi Avignon sesame seed bun. Very nice. I like it. It has almost like a quality like an English muffin. - I like an English muffin burger. - I love English muffin burger. - Yeah. - But some people, like, it's a little freaky deaky for the flower shop bar audience. And that's what's been interesting coming in. And I will always speak candidly about it. I think my partners don't get that like, there's never a perfect situation. So when I talk, I think sometimes they tighten up. They don't love it. But I'm always gonna speak candidly about like, the triumphs and difficulties. - Yeah. - And I love doing my pop up there. We were doing gazebo. And they offered me the exact chef job as I was looking for locations for gazebo. And I was just like, you know what? I've always wanted to own a bar and make bar food. - Yeah. - This could be really cool. But the way I see a bar or tavern is like, I think St. John is a tavern. - Yeah. - Right? - Yeah. - Red hook tavern is a tavern. - Yeah, gastropub. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like, when I said bar tavern, that's what I was thinking. I told them, you know, if you want to maintain your Australian identity. - I never realized those Australian. - Yeah, they're Australian. I was like, I would look to St. John. St. John is the restaurant that I think of with like Australian culture, British culture, you know, doing that kind of food. - Yeah. - And we started doing those roasts. And, you know, they were like, this is delicious, but like we don't think our diner is gonna want this. - Yeah. - And they just didn't believe that their customer was gonna want like chef-driven food. And I was like, then what's the point of me being here? - Yeah. - And I tried to quit multiple times, 'cause I was just like, I don't need, I don't want to convince someone to believe in the customer. - Yeah, and to believe in your vision or. - For me, yeah. I'm like, either you want it and we do it, or you don't believe and go do whatever you've been doing. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Right. They saw how the business was going well with Casibo. - Yeah. - So they like, no, stay. And we just kind of like made a compromise. - Yeah, I mean, that's what's so cool about seeing your journey with the restaurant. Like just to actually see someone, like two parties like compromise. Like, I don't know for people like us, sometimes hard to do that. Like creative people is hard to compromise. - It's hard, man. It has, I have never. been one to compromise and it's like quite well documented and I have to give credit to my partner Dylan and Dave Turner and Ronnie at the flower shop because like I have a personal relationship with Dylan and Ronnie and buddies and like Dave Turner is extremely fair. I trusted them and I was like I will compromise all right. We're going to do some slutty things that I wouldn't do with my we're going to have coconut shrimp. We're going to have calamari and we're going to have general toast fish. We're going to have three fried fish ice and I remember when we put it out, you DM me that is so slutty. Yeah, I was like, that's crazy. They've coconut shrimp and calamari and general toast fish. I mean, those are all like three of my favorite foods. So make sense, but it's just like, well, all on the same menu, which is the most popular? Yo, this so this is what's crazy. I love this question. Yeah. Similarly, a chef in a restaurant tour would just say, let's pick one, let's have one fried fish item as fried seafood item and that's going to be it. We put all three on and all three sell equally literally. It's split down the line, 33% and some nights, it'll be like 15 orders calamari, five orders shrimp, three general toast fish. On another day, it'll be 15 general toast fish, three calamari, five. It's alternating, but all three of them sell. And now that they're seeing the numbers and they've been seeing people come in and people are actually ordering the more challenging dishes, the Iburoco spare ribs, the like wagyu New England steak tips. Now I'm getting to bring things on like second week of January around Jan six, we're going to celebrate jam six with the menu. But no, January six, we will have a new menu. I'm going to do like Ibarico pork belly steaks. I'm going to have like my version of a Spanish tortilla, but it's flavored like a like a Cantonese dumpling with like garlic, yeah, sesame oil, things like that. We have a duck cone feet freets. Oh, yeah, I saw that photo. Yeah, but I'm going to marinate the duck the way we would marinate fried chicken at like suling night market and Taiwan and then confeted after that brine. So now we're really pushing it because they saw like the food sales go up and they trust it. And oh, they've taught me to compromise like I'm excited to make my next film or TV show because I have learned to compromise with my partners at the flower shop. Yeah. And it's important like, especially I think in the beginning I learned the compromise isn't forever. Compromise, let them have the burgers and a few fried items, put the freaky deaky things on entrees and over time, let them see the p mix and they'll understand. And now they get it and there's no pushback when I do some new freaky deaky stuff. That's sick. Yeah. Wow. It's an inspiration. Yeah. What's your favorite item on the menu? Funny enough, I like the exo grill chicken Caesar sandwich. Oh, wow. Yeah. It's really fun. It's like a Caesar salad sandwich, but we use dried scallops and processed dried shrimp. We make a Caesar dressing using those items, put it with the slaw, I brine the chicken in lemon juice and seasonings, grill it and it's just, it feels like a freaky Cantonese key west. Chuck, I was going to say, yeah, it's very, many is very like pub, but the Florida and Cantonese of course. Yeah. Yeah. What is Florida cuisine? You know, Florida and cuisine I think is very much a combination of like Cuban cooking, Puerto Rican cooking, Jamaican cooking and then Southern American cooking, which obviously comes from Africa. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a combination of those things, but watered down for like swimsuits and flip flops and Jimmy Buffett. Yeah. Like, that's how I see it. I see Florida and cuisine is very much Florida being. What would you say is the quintessential life, Florida and dish, like if there's like one dish that's the Florida dish? Oh, fried, fried fish sandwich, mahi or grouper fried fish sandwich. Some would say cheeseburger and paradise. You know, there's something about like that crappy eight ounce sesame seed, bun, cheeseburger in Key West in Miami that that feels like Florida. I mean, they always put a lettuce and tomato in it. That's so ass. I'm going next week. Gator tail. I think gator tail is a big thing. Like an actual gator. Yeah. That's like, how do you cook a gator? Uh, well, you want to use a tail. You can make ribs. You can use gator ribs as well. I've, I've cooked gator ribs. This is where you're going to really push them up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just gator tail on there. Yeah. Yeah. But gator tail, you know, you have to tenderize it. You use a meat tenderizer and then I mean, you fry it up and it's just meant to be chewy. It's like conch, right? You could boil conch or you can boil skongi li so that it becomes softer. But ultimately, there's still like chewy proteins. Yeah. Gator tail is always going to be chewy. You can use acid in the marinade to break it down, which a lot of people do. But really, it's going to come out chewy, rubbery, delicious and it's an acquired taste. I feel like I've only had the jerky. Yeah. Don't get fried gator tail bites next time you're on Florida. I'm going next week. Yeah. Where's Miami? Where's Laida? Miami. Well, I mean, I always like La Cicita for Cuban food. I like La Cicita Versailles, they're like, you know, for a vibe, yeah, you got to go hang there. Boy a day. Boy a day. Boy a day is good. What is that? Boy a day is a chef-driven restaurant. I don't know the exact location because my homey just picks me up when we go. Yeah. But boy a day is like probably the most impressive chef-driven restaurant there. Very cool. You would like for you, you would you would love this restaurant. They also have another one called like Walrus rodeo, I think. Oh, yeah. I think that I someone told me it's a piece of place. Yeah. Yeah. Walrus rodeo. Funny enough, an autofictional version of that restaurant is in the novel as well. Yeah. The expense account podcast is built in partnership with Substock. I've been spending a lot more time on the Substock app. It's become my favorite escape to scroll productively and it's also where I've built my business. Substock 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. Time for feed me lives there too. My daily newsletter chaps about New York City, live videos with pop stars like Audrey Hobart and of course there's always debates in the comment 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 substock.com/emily to get a free month of feed me in the Substock app. You know, the Chinese meme thing, you know, the thing- Yeah, well, China Max, everyone's Chinese now. I keep mentioning to this to people and they're like, "What are you talking about?" I'm like, you know, the thing where all your whole Instagram feed is just memes about people becoming Chinese. They're like, "What are you talking about?" And I'm like, "What part of the internet am I on?" And then I see you posting it. You're the only person that I'm seeing posting these China Max. Oh, I love the China Max, because my wife is really into it. Because obviously like we have a half Greek, half Chinese, baby. So she started to look into like Chinese stuff. Yeah. Is she China Maxing? She's fully China Maxing because she gets it all and she put me on to it. And then I started China Maxing. And then like- How are you China Maxing? Well, I just participated in the internet of being Chinese now, you know, and- Let's admit, you're like swadding, like smoking lake. No, no, no. I mean, I've been Chinese. I've always been so Chinese. Performing Chinese. That's true. But you got the gold. You know, all the day I met the despot, who's also been Chinese for a really long time. He's Chinese. He's definitely Chinese. I need him on the pod. I saw him pass the other day. I was like, "You got to get come on the pod." Yeah, he probably won't do it. No, he said he would. Oh, really? Yeah. I met a fuck despot. Well, he said we know. You know, I asked him what he said. But that was after we had, we had a crash out night. Okay. But he's China Maxing too. Yeah. He's China Maxing. I'm aware. He'd been Chinese. Yeah. He's kind of China-town at this point. Yeah. He's from Queens. Yeah, yeah. That's about Chinese. I've been working on a piece about menswear, like thinking about menswear, and I've been trying to figure out what it means now, like, what, you have all these menswear guys on your podcast all the time. Yeah. It's like, I don't know. It used to mean, like, you wore cool clothes and that meant you were a creative person that, like, you could look at someone and be like, "Oh, this is like a creative person. You're in creative clothes." And like, now there's like all these like, normy guys that are into, like, yeah, I don't know. Yeah. No. Men'swear has become micro-brews. Yeah. You know, like, those dudes that are in the, like, micro-brews and IPAs, like, menswear has just become that and it's fine because they're going to do, they're going to wear pumpkin IPAs. I'm not. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just, I'm aware what I'm wearing and I'll rock. Yeah. I think that's why, you know, some homies, like, myself, sit out fashion now. You don't sit out fashion. Well, I don't, I thought I was. I used to be, I used to be a much bigger participant. - No, you just watched, guy. - I like watches, I like watches. I don't participate as much in shoes. - Are you, you wear nice clothes? - Yeah, yeah, no, I wear, no. What I was gonna say is that I don't participate in like the hype shit, they're getting in line. - Yeah. - But I kind of dress uniform. - Me too. - Yeah, I like to dress uniform. I have certain silhouettes in multiple colors. And I just uniform it up. I dress nice, I do eye wear, and I do watches, and I do certain sneakers. Like I like to wear salamons, and I do like a luxurious hug. - I was, we were just saying that I got some hugs for Christmas. - Yeah. - I mean, we work in WSA, and this is a very cool building. Lots of like young creators in here, and like no men are wearing, not a single guy is wearing sneakers. Oh, it's crazy. Everyone's wearing loafers. It's like, don't you? - Oh, yeah, no, I'm good on that. - Yeah, it's like your feet stinkin', they hurt. - And also when the homies are wearing the loafers with the Bobby sock, you know, I'm just like, - With the Bobby sock, sock is a little guy. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like the like, short sock. - Don't wear a little sock. - Yeah, yeah, man. - Yeah, I don't, we don't want to see your ankle. - That's funny, man, that's funny stuff. - Yeah, I don't know, I don't get the, I'm like, don't sneakers look cool in their comfortable? - Yeah. - You get all of it, I don't know. That's making me feel like, yeah, like younger people are like, no more sneakers. It's done, I guess. - Why? - I'm trying to figure it out. - I do enjoy talking to the men's wear homies. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - And they're always fun on the podcast. - I like watching them just go crazy and men's wear max out, you know? - I guess I wish that I had a hobby like that. Maybe I'll get into it now, do it. - Yeah. - I just tend to get along more with the like, people who max out with music and max out with like, fashion. I just, and writers, right? With food is interesting. You're like, when people when food is your number one thing, like, I feel like that's why I like your writings, 'cause you know food and you like food, and people come to you for food writing, but you're like a painter by train. - Yeah, yeah, like I have other interests. I mean, being really into food is, I am very into, you're very into food, but it's so funny to have food be your whole personality. I'm just getting worried that it's becoming my whole personality. Like, that's not like anyone ever wants to talk to you about it. I'm worried for you, 'cause the writing's good because it's interdisciplinary. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I still have all my other interests, but anyone, all anyone wants to talk to me about it's food. - Yeah, I think when you become known for an interest in one thing, and then that starts to take up all of your time, then you become boring, right? And I think I'm lucky, 'cause the one thing I'm the most interested in that will never be displaced is the New York Knicks. The New York Knicks will always occupy like 50% of my time. And then, you know, the rest is divided between my other hobbies and family. Not kidding, like I'm so kidding. (laughing) No, my wife Natasha is my number one interest. - That's gonna be honest. - Yeah, let me tell you what, life goes. - She's the best, she's the best. Life is the best, yeah. - Trying to get Josh Hart on here. - Oh, yeah? - I don't know, we've been trying, hasn't happened, putting it out there again. - A breast milk brother in. - You met him? - Not, but he drinks breast milk. - Oh, does he? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Oh, that's your thing. - That's what I was on. - Yeah, nice. - When my wife had like just like copious amounts of breast milk. - What, you gave it to him? - No, no, but he was drinking his wife's breast milk too. - Oh, wow, weren't you here? - I would just tweet at him about it. - Really? - It's on, it's on there. If you googled Josh Hart breast milk. - Yeah, I'm tweeting at him about wine. - No, you need to be tweeting at him about breast milk. - Hmm, you know. - She's a silver oak fan. He's part of the silver oak fan. - Yeah, yeah. - I believe he's a big fan of his wife's 2023 breast milk. - That was a good vintage, that was a very nice. - He also a commander's fan too. I fuck with Josh Hart. - Oh, yeah. - Is he from Washington? - Yeah, he from the DC area. - Who's your favorite Nick? - My favorite Nick? - Currently on the scene now. - I mean, for me, he's got a Mitchell Robinson. - Oh, oh, he has the coolest cars. - I love Mitchell Robinson. - And he's a vibe. Every time I see him, he just looks so like, he's like at the free throw line missing both of his free throws. And he just looks so like bored. - Yeah, I just like the bully on the team. Like the big boy who, whenever we get down, Mitch will get offensive rebounds. He'll make a big defensive play. He sparks the team. And then he's like, I am out, I'm sitting on a bench. Like, he feels like the Omar of the Nick's to me. Like Omar from the way. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Mitch is Omar. He come in and just snuff somebody and so about. - You think that I don't want to jinx it. You think they can do it. You think they can go all the way. - Oh, I don't believe in it. Yo, we doing it. - You're doing it. - We winning in this year. - I mean, you guys are winning. - What's it called, the Emirates Cup? Is that what it's called? - Yeah, yeah, yeah, we are fake cup champions. We won the Emirati Cup. - Nice. - Yeah. - I mean, that was cool. - We got the bootleg before the real thing. Like, that's hard. - Yeah. - That's kind of hard. - No banner though. - No banner. - Come on. - No banner. You know what the, no, I would say this, I thought it would be funny if we put up the banner. - Yeah. You got to do a banner. - I would love the banner. I think if we win the championship this year, then I think we should retroactively put up the Emirati Cup. - Okay. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess it's just embarrassing. Like, you look at the who won the Bucks one, the, who else won the Lakers? - The Bucks and Lakers won. - Maybe it wasn't the Lakers. - Wait, no. This was the second. I think the Pacers won. - The Pacers won last year. - Yeah. - The Bucks one, the first one, I think. - Okay. - Yeah. - So there have been three Emirati cups. I thought it was still-- - I think one of them was called the commissioners cup. - Yeah, yeah. Cause I think it's only the Pacers and the Knicks have won the Emirati, you know, the Sheik's cup. - You like, you like Haliburton? - Haliburton? - No. - You hate him. - You hate more Haliburton or Trayon? - Oh, Trayon. - Really? - Trayon. - I mean, it's so funny these guys, fake villains. - Yeah. - Trayon outright goes out of his way to disrespect the Knicks. - But it's fun though. It's all in good-- - It is fun. It is a show, man. - It's so cool. - I love when he's stomping on the logo and all that. - Well, you need a villain. You need a villain. - Yeah. - So now, I guess at the podcast, we do this thing shout outs, kind of ruin my first shout out. My first shout out was going to be Uggs. - Oh. - Finally. - We still have too many common interests. - I know. I got them for Christmas listeners of the podcast know that I've been asking for Uggs every year, very publicly from my girlfriend now wife. I asked very publicly last year, I made like a Christmas wish list that was published on Caitlin Phillips gift guide and I said, every man wants Uggs this year, I put it out on the podcast. She finally got them for me and I've like not taken them off basically since I got them. They're so comfortable. I don't know. They're really, we're closing maxing this January. I'm like nervous about going to Miami because I'm like, I want to be wearing my Uggs. I don't want to take them off. - Oh, you could wear them to Miami. I was a big flip flops and socks guy when I was out there. - Maybe I'm going to do shorts and Uggs. - Oh. - Oh. - Oh. I kind of like that, bro. I kind of like that for you. - How much? - You actually, that is a cozy boy fit. - I know. - So I'm like, Terry. - That's a very great place. - Terry Fluffie shorts. - That's a very great place in Blasian Teddy Bear. - I have like the Tecla, Stucey. - Wow. - They're like, they made up like towel material, Terry Fluffed shorts and some Uggs. - Oh. - Real cozy boy. - They're going to be showing a lot of dick and Terry Fluffed shorts. - They're long. - They're long. - Wow. - Oh man. - Oh man. It's going to be serving in this fit. - Yeah. - We're planning your VK fits, man. - But Uggs are from Australia. - They are. - They're surfers shoes. So like. - I mean, I came back to New York and I was rocking my Botega Uggs. Botega makes like a Ugg knock off. - Okay. - Oh my god. - Oh, what are you doing? Where are those? There's a women's shoe. And it actually was a women's shoe. I got it in just like a big woman's size. - We don't do gender. - Yeah. I was like, I liked it. This is a gentler cheese Tim and they were like sacrilege, sacrilege, but I love Uggs. They're just, it's what I want to step out and just give a gentler look to Ugg. - So you're trying to shout out something. - All right. I'm going to shout out a specific person. - Yeah. - You know, I can be effusive with praise on text or in person and I think certain people don't really understand like I actually really appreciate it. And over time, like, Oh no, Eddie really appreciate it. I preface that by saying, the person I want to shout out is this guy, Zach Greenspon, who is the director of sales for a bakery called Bienque. - Oh, yeah. And we love their baguettes. - Fantastic baguettes. - They won best in the city, didn't they? Okay. Maybe a couple years ago. - I think I'm not sure if they won best. They're on a lot of lists. But I will say that this guy's service and like collaboration representing the bakery is something I wish every purveyor had a person like Zach Greenspon. Like we started off using his brioche buns for our burger. As it evolved, I just wanted the more squishy, English, muffiny texture. So we do the bun with pond, the oven, but I like Zach so much that I was like, yo, I want to keep the door open. Let's keep brainstorming new dishes. And he kept bringing me bread, believed that I would have come up with something. - So cool. - Yeah. And over the course of like. - In a way that wasn't annoying, because sometimes you get these people trying to sell you stuff and it's like they're dropping tons of stuff off and you're like, I don't want that. - Okay. Zach can be annoying and that he will hit me 12 hours after drop off and how to go. Do you like it? I need like five more hours. But no, I love how on it is. He was extremely clueless. And I just feel like if every brand or every purveyor every butcher had somebody like that food would be better in the city. Well, that's that's a great one. Yeah. Well, this was a really fun podcast. Thanks for coming, Eddie. Thank you for having me. Yes, thanks. Expense account is the production of Feed Me and partnership with Public Sound and Substack. Our executive producers are Emily Sumberg, Jason Gondliffe, and Ryan Woodhall. Our associate producer is Cammy Fatte. Our audio engineer is Luke Moldoff. Our video editor is Izzy 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. [Music]