Pete Wells

Live from WSA, this is Expense Account. We have a special guest today, Pete Wells. Somebody that I really look up to, one of my favorite writers. He was the New York Times food critic from 2012 to 2024. And in that time, so much has changed. We talked about how restaurants have changed food in media large. We also talked a lot about matcha and she on famous foods. This was a really fun episode for me because it's just so special to talk to somebody that's just incredibly passionate and knowledgeable about food. I really hope you guys enjoy. Cheers. Hi, Pete. Welcome to the podcast. Hello. Thanks so much for coming. This is amazing. This is a dream come true. Honestly, you were one of the people that I haven't even done anything yet. I know, but you were one of the people that I like when we were starting the podcast that I really wanted to have on. But I was nervous to ask you, but I'm so glad that you've accepted my invitation. It's great. I'm happy to talk about whatever, whatever. I'm actually excited that I have no idea what you're going to ask me. I guess let's get into it. How is it being a civilian? Well, it's great, like kind of great personally. Like I have like much more calm and relaxed. I'm like focused and like kind of like I was always I don't know. I think all I was always like either getting ready to eat or eating or like digesting or being hung over and then getting ready to eat again. And now it's like there are like large parts of the day when I don't really think about food that much. Wow, you know, I know it's weird. It's really. I'm dealing with that. Yeah, I feel like my entire like all of my schedule is always not even in that like at the same level as that. But just that also for my enjoyment. Well, I mean, are you able to enjoy restaurants? Well, you get to a point where like it's like am I working? Am I not working? I mean, I didn't have to eat out as much as you did. I eat out when I want to eat out. I only write like I don't write as much as you and I like I get to pick and choose what I write about the most part. Yeah, so when I go out it's like it's fun and it's like sometimes like I get to expensive and like I get to eat at home a lot too. And I feel like it's very grounding for me to cook. Do you have you been cooking more since? Yeah, almost entirely. Like that's about all I do. Like I rarely go out. I've gone out a little bit, you know, because it's like December and you want to see people when you end up in a restaurant. But mostly I stay at home. Wow. What have you been cooking? Well, I made a ham for Christmas. And then I've just been eating it every day. Sounds like basically every meal. Sounds just like a little bit of the ham comes off to go on a soup or a little bit, you know, like a bigger piece comes off to like be like dinner. And I don't really eat like a lot of meat. I don't say red meat, but it's like, ham is like pink, but like I've just rarely find myself in a situation where I have like a pound or two of cooked meat and refrigerator. So I'm loving it. I'm just like this is so great. Like all you should always have a big chunk of meat. I don't do family things give our family Christmas this year. So we didn't get to have the ham, but usually we go to Australia where my wife is from and they do a big ham. And they also do crayfish, which are like they're like lots, they're not like little crayfish like in America. They're basically lobsters without claws. Oh, yeah. So like they dive and they get them for free. No. So we have millions of like all you can eat crayfish and we steam them and then we eat them all week. Sometimes we make a ham and crayfish sandwich at the same time. It's it's really quite the treat and I'm so sad that we didn't get to do that this year, but next year. I was talking to Cherry and he was saying that you visited Asheville pretty soon after you stopped being a critic and that it was like so fun for you because you got to hang out with people and get to know like the people with restaurants. Well, it really was like kind of the first time when I did like a story about restaurants where I wasn't. Like going to just be the running critique or you know where it's a completely different thing where if it's going to be a review, I try not to talk to people. So they usually wouldn't know why I was there, but I would just you know trying to keep the that avail. And this was like, you know, so I just total immersion because you know people in Asheville had gone through the storm and being closed for like a really long time. A lot longer than I thought and having like just huge issues about like the water under the water supply was was a major thing. And then like the town just emptied out like all the tourists were told to stay away and they did. So you're there when it was I was there when it was it was pretty empty was like last January. Quite a time here anyway, but like in this case like you know tourism business had just been flushed away and hadn't been rebuilt yet. And so I was talking to you know people like cherry and some other chefs and about like what they've been through and they've been through a lot. Right. So it's like for me this like sudden immersion and like the you know emotional lives of people I didn't really get to talk to very much for a long time. And getting to talk to them about like what it's like for them running the restaurant having to close the restaurant trying to reopen a restaurant worrying about people if people are going to come to the restaurant and like. You know in in many cases it's like it's their livelihood is their life it's often you know their life savings everything they own in the world is in that restaurant. So it's intense and like that's a side of the business that like you know was kind of closed off to me for a long time just didn't have those conversations. The expense account podcast is built in partnership with sub-stack. I've been spending a lot more time on the sub-stack app. It's become my favorite escape to scroll productively and it's also where I've built my business. Sub-stack 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'm in 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. 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You took the one-the-and-animity thing very seriously and so you kept your life very separate. How is someone that is like a food lover? It seems so hard to me to keep your life separate from people who work at restaurants. Did you friends with people who work at restaurants? I don't have any friends. That's really easy. Thank you for being my friend. I did not have friends in the business and I didn't really find that difficult. Sometimes I have to say no to going to a party where I knew a bunch of chefs would be. It really wasn't that hard. There are chefs that I was friendly with. In media, if you're writing about food, I have chefs who want to be your friend. It's important to keep some perspective on what the reality of that relationship is. Sometimes you do become real friends with these people. But a lot of times there's just an element of like, hey, this is good for you. It's good for me. If you could hang out with anybody in the world on a Friday night, I'm not sure that would be the person. They have to share your passion for food. There's only so many people in the world that share something that intensely with you. I love that. One of the reasons I really like food people, not just chefs, but people. people who make stuff, who make products with wine makers and ham makers, all of us, they love to talk about the thing that they make, they're in it. The good ones are in it because they're a little demented and they're obsessed with this thing. Those are great conversations with people who are just so passionate about the thing they do, the thing they make, the food that they put out there. I love having those conversations, you know? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, just Cheri was telling me you guys were having the best time in Asheville. I didn't hear that. Did you get to eat an eggs? Yeah, I did. I talk about it all the time, but it's an amazing place. It's a really special place. Everything's locked through, everything's done on purpose. And yet, it's not like off-pulling at all. It's not right. It's really hard to get that right, and I think it's especially rare to find it. It's the only place that I know of in that city that's kind of doing that stuff, service and that stuff, cuisine and then when I went in there, I was just like, wow, this is something really special that these people created just because they wanted it to exist. Do you get to travel much because I feel like I have hard time having so much perspective about the American restaurant scene outside of New York. I go to Chicago because I'm from Chicago, but I wonder, like, I mean, a place like Nangs feels very special to me, but I wonder how many places like these are happening everywhere? I mean, Nangs is very special stuff. Yeah, I mean, they're probably fewer than five people in the country who could have this conversation with you. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if I'm one of them. Yeah, they're casual. Yeah, right. She travels a lot. It's supposed to travel, but, you know, the pole of the New York restaurant system is going to be real strong. There's too many. I mean, there's too many. Yeah. There's too many to keep up with. There's too many to even sift through the mall and decide, like, well, this is interesting. This might be interesting later. This is not interesting at all. People are talking about this, but it's bullshit, you know, like, that's like just sifting through all that stuff that you can take you forever. And you never get on the road. That's sort of like where I was from most of the time. And I was reviewing, like, I was interested in what was happening outside of the city, but like, I just couldn't get away. I was like, oh, my god, look at all these restaurants. I have to get in the way. It's just you at the time too. Right. Like crazy. If I don't go, no one's going to go. Have you been to Barker? No. Oh, no. I know. I walk by. I like it. It's very cute. Every day. Yeah. One of these days, I will. It's a nice place for lunch. It's like, in the beginning, first week, two weeks, there was crazy lines. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously not going to go there, but now it's getting a little reasonable. Yeah. What do you like, Chiefs? The sandwiches are great. They do have a lot of Focaccia that it's funny because I feel like it doesn't look like. So like Instagram me, Focaccia, like you always want Focaccia to be like, like in the photos, it's like big and billowy, but I don't think that makes the best thing for sandwich most of the time. They do like a thinner, darker Focaccia. It kind of looks a little ugly or honestly, but it's more structurally sound for a sandwich. They do a roast beef sandwich. It's very good on it. Yeah. I'm very sensitive to the overly tall sandwich. I shouldn't have to twist it at an angle to get it in my mouth. Yeah. The form in the function of the sandwich. That's a sandwich is the function or the form. It's both together. You're supposed to be able to hold it in one hand. Right. Yeah. Right. And get it in your mouth. I mean, that's important. That's very important that you'd be able to bite it. What was it to people with bigger mouths than me? Some people do maybe, but like, you know, I don't think you're not making these things. What's the sandwich you really like? A sandwich I really like. Well, I was just talking about that. Speaking of Focaccia, the colored green sandwich had that superiority burger, right? It's amazing. I mean, that's barely it's kind of almost not a sandwich. I mean, it's hard to pick up in you. It doesn't hold the other necessarily. But it's it's amazing. Sort of okay with that. I mean, you can eat it half. Like I wish you were some of all these leavings that you have. Yeah. I don't know. That's like the the most recent really good thing I've had. It's amazing. It's so good. Do you miss being a critic at all? No. Like, you don't go to like a restaurant and you're like, you never like feeling like the tinge of inspiration or something. And you go to a restaurant and you're like, I just want to get home. Sometimes I eat at a restaurant and I'm like, so excited. It's just like, well, I pounded it out on my phone while I was eating, you know, like, just I don't know. It's just so excited to write about it. I would feel that way about like places that nobody had done. Yeah. Yeah. Because those are the ones where like, like, you know, there's certain restaurants in New York City. Everybody who writes about food is going to weigh it on. Usually like in the first month, you know. And some of them were interesting and I would look forward to writing about the interesting ones. But like, there's really nothing like finding a place that hasn't been written about that much yet. I'm thinking like, oh, this is really good. People need to know about this, you know. Yeah. That was like, that was really exciting. I would not sit in right there while I was eating. But like, you know, those are the ones that sort of kept me going. Yeah. Yeah. Your last review was the Yemeni places. Yeah. Yemeni. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So good. Isn't it? It's amazing. And that's so cool that that was like yourself. And that was just like, you know, I went out there to check it out. I had, you know, a couple of people who were just somehow just driving across Brooklyn on their way to Washington, met me there by the end of the middle. I was like, this is actually something. Yeah. Yeah. The bread is like some of the best bread I've ever had. Yeah. Right. And I mean, I'm not going to say nobody else wrote about it, but it was not getting like, you know, it was not getting overcovered. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it was not like saturation level coverage, which is like, you know, now they have a Michelin star bib gourmet at these. I think a bib. Yeah. Yeah. Which awesome. Yeah. It's crazy. I mean, it deserves it. It's amazing. Yeah. It's really, really good. And those were the places because very often you're in a place that's that good. And it hasn't been reviewed. There's a reason for that. Like they're like, they're outside of the network. They're outside of the system. They don't work in the industry. They don't have friends who, you know, I don't have friends who are connected and can tell you how to get in touch with, you know, the influence, how to get in touch with, you know, who do I talk to a leader? And very often, that's just not part of their business plan. It's like, like, we need to reach like the two or three hundred people in a like five-block radius, who are going to be our core, our base customers, right? And then after that, we can worry about like, spreading out, but like, well, we really, really need to do a sort of this neighborhood first. And they don't care if I come in. I mean, they do. When they find out that I've been in, then they care. But they're not like sitting there like, boy, I wonder when people else is going to walk in. Did you ever worry about blowing up a spot that maybe didn't have the capacity to be blown up? I mean, I'm sure I did. I'm sure there were like, you know, little places that I would try to, I would try to warn them, you know, like, you're crazy. You know, I mean, a lot of people read the snooze paper. It's kind of silly thing to worry about, because well, like places, places get blown up all the time for all kinds of reasons good and bad. And in between them, like places that have no business being, you know, completely crowded, get completely crowded. And then it blows over in a couple weeks. And it's like, like, I'm sure there are places that I wrote about that changed. You always hope they change for the better. Sometimes sometimes because they change for a worse a little bit, they kind of get a little start. You don't know, you just know what's going to happen. You don't know which way they're going to, they're going to roll with it. Like, you hope that you hope that, like, give a place in a really good review. And the crowds come in, you hope they step into it. And they're like, okay, this is what we've been waiting for. We've got a full house. That's, let's just, like, crush it, right? But not everybody is ready for that. And not everybody knows how to do that. Yeah. I mean, something I think, I think about Shion all the time about that success story, like, birthday and going there. And then it going from being in the basement of the mall and flushing to now some locations. Right. Right. I don't know. They stepped up to the plate in a way that it's like very moving to me that they, I don't know, they deserve it to see them have a success and be able to scale. And I don't know. It's a pretty cool thing. Yeah. Right. And it was definitely not a foregone conclusion. Yeah. A little bit of a little place during Lamb face and the basement of, of like, really, like, one of the, one of the, like, well, he's the word dirty. What's the word that I can use? Just kind of the one of the least glitzes. the food courts you would ever imagine, right? I mean, negative frills, right? So like the fact that, you know, a bunch of people piled in there for Portaim, featured it sharp, of course. The fact that they could take it to another level of like, you know, serving all kinds of people who were never gonna get out to the food court and go into that is the really unusual, amazing part of that story. Who you remember and what your first review was? - My first review was, as, as, like, the credit was, was a place that's not there anymore, called Wong on Cornelia Street. - Wong. - Simpson Wong is the chef and he was doing this kind of interesting. I think I called it, like, you know, Chinese fusion sort of apologetically, 'cause at the time, like fusion was like-- - No one said that word, yeah. - But, you know, as one of those sort of creative Chinese inspired cooking, it was a few really 12. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that place. And that was the whole reason I chose it for the first review was 'cause, like, nobody had reviewed it yet. - Yeah. - You know, it was just kind of sitting there and I walked in there and I was like, well, this place actually deserves some attention. And nobody had done it. And that was like my dream was like, like, instead of like, being the 20th person to weigh in on the hot restaurant or the fall to be like the first person to say like, hey, over here guys. - I mean, that's the cool thing about the power or the reach of something like the times is that you can really, like, turn people on to something that they otherwise say. I don't know, everyone's gonna write about Borgo or whatever you know. Everyone's gonna know it, like, about Bobo. - It's gonna happen. - Yeah. - Right? No, I mean, that was what was interesting to me about the reach of that platform and the size of the audience was that you could like turn the conversation toward something that wasn't in the conversation, you know. And suddenly people were talking about it. - Yeah. - You know, I mean, someone like Jonathan Gold like kind of changed the way that everyone in America eats based on like, from his column, you know. - Did that all the time? - It was sort of like, you know. These are the restaurants that matter. - Yeah. - Here, you know, these are the restaurants in this city that matter, these are the, these are the, the cuisines that make up the fabric of Los Angeles, you know. It's not just like, you know, 200 Italian restaurants on the west side, right? It's like, it's much, much deeper and richer than that. And, you know, I think he spent a lot of time and ate an unbelievable amount of food just finding the, you know, the places that he could, he could sing out 'cause that's like, that's a lot of work. Like just, if you just write about the place that everybody's already talking about, that's fine, you go in, you go in twice, maybe three times, you're done. If you're right about a place that nobody's written about yet, that you're going to like a lot of restaurants and you need a lot of food and a lot of it's gonna be bad or just completely, okay, yeah, it's fine. This is not worth like, I can't with a straight face, say like, this is an important one. This is an interesting one. This is a different restaurant. Like, no, this is just another restaurant. - Yeah. Did you feel like that kind of like urge for exploration? Like were you going to a million places and eating bad food? - Yeah, a fair amount, yeah. And what are you doing? You get sort of food that you don't like? - Well, I almost never had to walk out. I think there was like, we had a couple of places where like I would bring up a bunch of people, who were a bunch of people, and we would try the appetizer and we were like, this isn't gonna get better. - Yeah. - Let's just call it. And we would just, you know, if we, especially if we had an order the next round, yeah, we would just thank them, pay, go across the street. (laughing) And then there were sometimes where we were like, that was the whole game plan. I'd be like, well, there's five restaurants here in a little two-block radius. And we'll just go in and eat a couple of things at the first one. And if they're good, maybe we'll get a couple more things. But if not, we move on to the second place. And that was like a separate way of dealing, 'cause like, you had to do some research to be able to do that. Like, you had to kind of have a little map in your head. And generally, that would be like a little bit. That was like a night in Elmer, or something. - Yeah, right. - Where you're like a little bit farther away, hard to do that in Manhattan. Like, oh, here's five. (laughing) - Yeah, it's like, I mean, five different no keys in a cup or whatever. - Right, right. - Did you ever try food that you've felt that you'd never had before? Or like, what's something that you felt that you discovered when you were out and about? - I don't even know if I can remember. - There were so many-- - There were so much. There were so many dishes that were totally new to me. And like, you know, luckily, you know, by the time I was doing it, you can find almost anything online, like, you know-- - Oh yeah, yeah. - That's been so much harder before they entered. - Well, that's right. I mean, this is like, you know, Jonathan and Golden Man, and you know, other, maybe Sheridan had like hundreds and hundreds of cookbooks. Jonathan had like the massive cookbook collection because if he was writing about the Albanian restaurant, he couldn't go online and say Albanian cuisine, famous dishes, you know, he would have to like, get down his Albanian cookbooks and sort through them and figure out like which cookbook had what seemed like the most reliable version of the dish that he'd had at the restaurant. It was like, you know, but still, you know, whether you're doing it online or in a cookbook, it's still there's like research to be done. Like sometimes before you go to the restaurant, a lot of times afterwards, like, what did I just eat? - Yeah. - Was that like, do I consider that a classic version of the dish? Is that an interpretive version of the dish? Is it just a bad version of the dish? Like, what did I just see there? - That's something that I'm always feeling like is one of the hard parts is like, feeling you have a sense of authority, especially over something that is like a novel food to you, something that you don't have that much experience with and then you have to like say, if it's good or bad and it's hard to even, or it's authentic, or it's hard to even know, or hard to say or-- - I know, I know. I mean, really a lot of times I was just limited to like, what I'd eat in New York City. - Yeah, yeah. - I have not been to Kenya. - Right, but I know this from New York City. I've had like, you know, wontons in four New York neighborhoods and I can sort of tell you what the wonton universe is, you know? But then, you know, something like, shion famous foods comes along. - Yeah, yeah. - Just this, at that time, that part of China was like kind of Tara and Cognita in the city, you know? - I mean, also something. - I love that name, like shion famous foods, like famous in shion, it'd be like, no. - It's funny 'cause I feel like now every city has a copy of it. - Yeah, I know what you mean. - Like Chicago has like, it's called shion foods. Like there's so many that are, it's a global phenomenon, shion famous foods basically. - Yeah. - I mean, it is shion famous foods, they called it. - It became that, yeah. - Yeah. In the 12 years that you were the critic, like you saw the New York restaurants scene change so much. What are some of the biggest ways that you feel like it's, like was different when you finished in 2024 when you started? - I mean, a few things happened. The sort of in that time, you know, you could see social media, like visibly changing restaurants, like changing, you know, design, architecture, the lighting, the plating, you know, how things were served. And then they got to a second level after that where it was like influencing the menus that were like, you know, Instagram dishes. - Yeah. - Or like things that were clearly like, came out of the Tuscanchen with the idea that they would be a viral phenomenon. - Yeah. - And that was not happening in like 2012. It's like, you know, you might want to have a really popular dish. - Yeah. - But the idea that you were gonna like create something that would be visually irresistible to TikTok or Instagram, that hadn't happened yet, you know. - Yeah. - And so that's really changed, that's really changed things. And I think there's like, it's now like kind of possible to open a restaurant that has like one dish that everybody gets and there's like, oh, there's stuff on the menu, but nobody gets it. You know, it's like, the internet can just drive the menu to such an extent that there's just one idea. - Yeah. It's nice to have some people focus on one thing. And if they're doing a really good job, like you go to a pan or whatever and they're like, just making udon like one burger. - Oh no, I love that. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - But then I guess it's different if it's like a rainbow like croissant or whatever, yeah. - A novelty item is the thing that they do. It's just different from a traditional restaurant because once you've had that thing, do you go back and get it together? I don't know. Do you have another evening of your life devoted to. - I guess it's almost like a restaurant. - They just, I don't know what they are. - They sell food. - They write. - Kind of like, I don't know. To me, I don't know. I'm always trying to think of what is a restaurant. - Right, I mean, there's some, there's like, so kind of kind of a restaurant that's where the whole idea is to kind of like get the spotlight. And then sometimes if they're really clever, they can like keep morphing, you know, kind of keep changing. So that they, well, we were not doing that anymore. I've got a totally new thing that's gonna be even more viral. But I mean, that's like a whole, it's a hamster world. - That's right, right. Whereas like, the first restaurant that I reviewed that we were talking about long, that was like a chef's place where the idea was like, he was gonna go in and sort of give his take on, you know, the food that he brought up with. And it was sort of farmer's market driven. A lot of things he don't just don't see that much anymore. But the idea was like, it's gonna be a place where the chef lived and kind of articulated his vision and his ideas like night after night after night. And it would unfold over time. And it did do that, you know, it didn't last forever, but it did do that. But like, I think it's very hard right now to, if you're a chef to kind of open up a place and say, like, yeah, I'm just kind of kind of what I feel like and we'll see how it goes. - Yeah, I mean, it's also just so expensive. - Yeah, right. - So you need to have a. - Right now, pressure, the economic pressures are in town. - I guess I don't have very good perspective on it, but was it always like that? - Ha, I don't know. - Well, New York's always been like. - It's always been expensive. I've been living here, but like, you know, I got here in the '80s and at the time you could find a spot in, you could find a neighborhood in Manhattan. In Manhattan, that was kind of overlooked. - Yeah. - And then the struggle was like, well, can we get people down to like. - It's worth a dime. - North, little, little, little, right. Can we get people right to this weird end of Canal Street, you know? And, you know, I mean, maybe still happened, but it's not, it's just not what it was. And now you see that kind of like prospecting and looking for new frontiers just happening outside of Manhattan. But that's, you know, it's different. 'Cause like, like all the subways converge on Manhattan except the G train and everything comes to Manhattan. So if you find a spot in Manhattan that works, you can get people from all over the city. If you find, you know, a spot in, you know, in bedside at works, you've got the sea train and the G train. And that's it, right? - Yeah. Do you feel like, do you have any like hope for social media and the food landscape? Like, do you think that it's done any kind of good, would you, would you, or I said, if you could? Do you think it's done any good for restaurants? - That's such an interesting question. I don't really thought about it that way. I don't really thought about that way. I mean, be curious. I mean, one thing that I think is unquestionably good is that restaurants can put themselves out there now. - Yeah, by themselves without needing you. - They don't need, yeah, they don't need the New York Times. They don't need anybody. They can just, anybody who has a phone can get their message out there. You know, it's like, I don't think anybody ever did this about a review of mine. But before I was the critic, there were reviews where the respirator, the owner got so mad that they would take on a full-page ad in the New York Times. So for whatever that caught on cheaper, whatever that cost of the time. And, but that was how they had to get their message 'cause they could not go online and rant. They didn't have the, his options that, you know, places have no way, and I think is great. I think it's actually really healthy. If you get a bad review and you want to rant about it, then you're, oh, that's not saying rant. - I'm loaded with it. - But you want to consider a response to this bad review and you want to do that in the form of a video where you talk to the camera, or you write it along caption on Instagram, or like whatever you want to do. You can do that. It's free to you. And like, you should be able to get the word out, you know, it's like, that was the problem with the sort of the monop, when the monop was not the right word, but the problem with, you know, they're being so few outlets for getting the word out. It was like, it was very one-sided. And so it's great. It's great that it's now like kind of a free-for-all. Like it's like-- - And for food journalists as well. - And for food journalists too, yeah, I mean, I'm not sure-- - Everyone can be a food journalist. - I'm not sure that they've, right. I mean, certainly has like brought a lot more people into the game, and-- - Yeah, it's funny. If you like to have more critics than ever now, right? Wouldn't you say, not just at the time? - It's really hard to say, well, definitely more critics at the time. So I'm gonna create some-- - I'm gonna be, yeah, but once you leave the times, it's kind of hard to say who's a critic and like-- - Maybe not everyone would identify as a critic, but I think that there's lots of people that are on TikTok. I don't even open that door really, but there's so many people that are trigger views of, I don't know, really up, like every single day. - Right. - I think they would, I don't know if they call themselves a critic, but they're doing something. I don't know what it means. - I think that's entertainment. - Yeah. - I mean, I really, I mean, I don't even mean that just entertainment's important. - Right, right, but I think it's, you're kind of looking at it from a wrong angle, if you think, like, oh, that's not, that's not, you know, they, obviously, like, it was the restaurant knew that they were there and they haven't said anything negative. So they say if they were, if they were calm, turn around, like all of that is kind of beside the point, like it is just, it's just content that is meant to entertain and to keep you kind of, like, paying attention for the, whatever, the 30 seconds or two minutes that it lasts, and that's its whole culture. - And it's also like, a lot of, I guess this is more of a recent thing too, is that a lot of the people that are watching these videos, or a lot of the people that are reading the times now, they're not in New York, they're never gonna go to the restaurant. They are reading it for entertainment. It is like, they want to, they want to watch Sex in the City, you know, they want to like, read about the, like, cool room that's in New York City, that's, you're drinking martinis and which is something. - Right, no, no, I understand, there's like an armchair travel element. - It's nice, I don't know, I feel like that's how I experienced the world, like, like in Chicago as a kid or like, I don't know, that's a lot of people get to experience things that they would otherwise get to. I don't know, it's just like, boarding, and I don't know, reading about travel, things, I don't know, I think it's pretty cool sometimes. - Yeah, I mean, the power of the image is it's like easy to overlook, it's like, sometimes these, honestly, like the words that are being spoken are vapid and at best, but the image, like, oh, we're in this, we're in this cool bar on the second floor that you have to, like, kind of know where the door is. And now I'm inside, it's cool, you know? And that is something that's like, I think even the best writer can't really reproduce, like the feeling that you can get from like a quick 10-second clip of like being in some really, really special place, you know, we have words, we have our words, right, the love, the love thing, you know? But at best, we're just sort of like, trying to come up with some kind of approximation of the feeling, you know? We're not gonna bring you inside there the way a camera can. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess related to this is, I've been trying to remember, just from my memory of living in New York, if restaurants were always so designed. Like, and now I go to a place like Bridges or something, and I'm like, this is beautiful. I don't know, like, this restaurants look better now, or they look more like they're supposed to look a certain way or something, or didn't you? - It's interesting. Well, I think it kind of goes back to what we were saying about the influence of social media because every place now that has a budget is, it even more. - They have a PR team. - They're thinking, like how's this gonna look? How's this gonna look when somebody comes in with their camera, like, you know, this? That's also why it's way more expensive to open a restaurant now. - Yeah, although, you know, at the cheap end, you just get sort of fake neon and pink on the wall. That says, like, you know, make everyday matcha. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, like, like, it's, you know, it's croissant o'clock, somewhere here. And you die on how much you have cost, but like, so many places haven't. It can't be that much money, right? There's a look, a lot of ways to make something It's kind of good enough to go on camera and it doesn't cost one of us. money. And then there were places that spent a ton of money. I think like a place like bridges, I'm not even sure that's really, um, social media is like a major. It's dark in there. It's hard to take videos in there. Right. It's dark and, uh, and, and sort of, you know, the space kind of snakes around and like it's, it's, uh, it's for writing about. They're trying to create like just an atmosphere where you want to feel it. Yeah. So that you go in there and you feel good and you feel like you were really smart to bring your date there and like, like, all of that stuff that hasn't gone away. That sort of has fueled, you know, the restaurant business for, for decades and decades. That's sort of like, like just creating a mood that people want to live in for two hours. What was your favorite mood that you wanted to live in, in New York, the, maybe a place that closed? Well, I always think about foreign and the meatpacking district, but it wasn't a sort of an atmospheric thing like we're talking about. It was like a whole society. It was a whole culture in there. It was like this sort of like meatpacking before the frontier was closed and, and, um, when, uh, it could still feel really bohemian, you know, and like just like a mix of people, but it was like a, of like very clearly like a gay restaurant, you know, and you entered into that and that was just part of the experience that you were going to have, but that wasn't the only thing that was going on. It just had its own society in a way that I think is hard for restaurants now to do. It was partly because of the geographic isolation and the, of course, the era, the time, um, uh, and the culture, I don't know. I can't think of anything. It was somewhat of that now. Mm-hmm. Um, funny question. I was thinking about, I was reading, you wrote a piece about Macha. Do you think that people like Macha? Do you think people actually like Macha? That's really funny. Um, because it's so tied into like trends like for, for formative male or like it's, so it's green. It's beautiful. You have the big things as Macha. It's, it's psychoactive. Yeah. So it does like kind of wake you up and I do, and I do believe that it's a quality of, of buzz that like reminds itself to concentration. Yeah. We actually get some work on, which is, it's hard on your fifth espresso to, you know, to actually focus. Um, but I do think people, like it. I mean, it's, well, it's kind of, it's wonderful. The good, the good stuff has a wonderful freshness to it where you're drinking the leaf like because it's been powdered. The leaf has been ground into powder. You were like drinking the plant. Yeah. So it's vibrant in a way that like something that's steeped is a sort of room, is one step removed from actually, like, you know, eating the plant. Yeah. Um, you know, that said, there's a lot of bad Macha. Yeah. There's a lot of, Macha that wasn't meant to be maybe drunk straight up that is being drunk straight up. And then there's a lot of Macha that's being mixed with caramel syrup and a, a, a gauve. Yeah, that's, I was gonna say, I see everyone drinking it with like, ube or like, it's like, so by the time you've poured in like whatever sweetener you need. Yeah. To, to make it palatable. Like, whether you like it is irrelevant, it's not the question anymore. Like, you've turned it into something different. Yeah. That's, I guess that's what I was, I've been trying to figure out that people actually like to eat the food that they're taking photos of. I mean, in some ways, it's, it's like, it is like a espresso where like, you know, 99 espresso's out of 100 are going to be sour, bitter, gritty. Yeah. Um, and then you get the hundredth espresso, and it's just like the skies open up and the angels come out. No, it's like, I mean, I like everything. This is everything at once. And, and Macha can do that too. There's, there's like, you get really carefully made from really high quality tea. And you're like, oh, this is just beautiful. And then there's like so much stuff that is just like, you know, kind of delivered by a tanker truck, you know. So now that food like isn't dominating your whole life and existence, what do you, what do you do with your time? I'm a little confused about it. I'm trying to write. I try to stay home at night, which is nice for a change because I went out like every night for 12 years. I try to, like, stay home or try to read books and try to sort of, I think there's like, there's a level which I'm still in recovery, you know, I'm still kind of like, like, just allowing my, allowing my, like, brain and body to kind of like, seek whatever its normal level is, you know. But I'm actually surprised by how long I've, I've been going just like in this recovery mode where I'm like, yeah, so it's, it's good to stay home for the 12th night in a while. Yeah, it's good. Not too much, not too much, but there's all look like bigger changes too. Like I don't drink nearly as much as I used to. So like, when you don't drink as much, it's a little harder to figure out what you're going to do if you actually leave the house. At night time, what do you do? It's 10 o'clock. Yeah. But I'd like to go out, but we're like a match of bar or something. Yeah, right. So at the end of the podcast, we do a thing where we do shout outs. So I'll do one shout out and then you do one and then I'll do one and then you do one. Just stuff like you beat anything that we like. So I'm going to go first and my first shout out this week is this place called 80s. Have you been there? It's like a perfume store. It used to be in the West Village. And now it's in the Lower East Side, like Times Square-ish. I think it's on an orchard street. It's like a really small perfume store, but they have like a million independent perfumes in this little store. And it's such a nice place to buy a gift. Like last year, I bought my wife a perfume and I kind of, I knew what I wanted. I knew the bass notes that she likes and I picked something based on that. But this year I went and I got one from my one of my best friends and I kind of just described her to the guy working at the store and then he gave me like three cents. He was like, okay, this is the one where this is the party girl one. This is the one where she wants to be more of like an elegant like grown-up type of person. And this is like the like spooky one. And I was like, oh, elegant one. It was perfect. He nailed it. And then I got it where she was like, this is perfect. It's the best kind of gift to get someone in a set, getting it sent for someone is so very fun thing. Because that's a conversation that I'm usually having in that conversation about wine. I like shardonnay but I don't really like reason. Did you like shardonnay and you don't like reason? No, that's actually reverse. I would have taken you for a reason guy. Completely reversed. I like reason and shardonnay I could take it or leave it. That I'm always impressed by the very very rare people like genetic freaks who are able to like not just understand and appreciate and identify all of the flavors in wine and all the aromas and the perfume but then can translate it to the rest of us idiots. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's an incredible skill to me, to understand what's going on in this bottle and then to like put it in terms that are complete more on. It's so abstract. It's amazing. It's like so full of all the pristine, like gratitude moments where it's like this little base note or this top note, this is supposed to relate to this memory or this reference and really it's really like a cerebral. My sister writes really good perfume reviews just for fun but they're amazing. I'm very impressed with her. It's so much because perfume is just so pure. Yeah. It's just so pure. It's like created to do this one thing. You'd be great at it. Do you wear a perfume? No, no, no. I have a bottle of a cologne that I think I got from the giveaway shelf when I worked at a men's magazine and I think I wore it once. But I look at it every day. Okay. It's your turn. Oh, yeah. So, well, let's say, I want to thank my son who I've got two, but one of them on Christmas went out and like solved, I think he solved. I haven't tested it yet, so we've yet to see. But I think he solved one of the major problems I have in the kitchen, which is like how do I store the herbs, right? I was like, you know, I'm always buying herbs. Yeah. And like I've gone through everything. I like wrap them in paper towel and put them in the crisper drawer. I put them in a coffee cup with full of water on the refrigerator shelf. I put them in a coffee cup full of water on the counter. I like mist them. I like just just throw them in a plastic bag with no paper and like just - Everything I think of, and sometimes it works. Sometimes what work last week doesn't work this week. And I end up we like, you know, I'm ready to cook. And I'm like, what happened to my son? Or who is sad on my son? This is not acceptable, right? So he got me this sort of herb storage bin with like watering out on the bottom. And I have to test it. I mean, I may have to take this all back if it doesn't work. But I was like so impressed that he like, like, that insight that I'm being driven crazy by herbs every single day, you know? And like, just trying to solve that problem for me. - That's such a nice gift I go by that. I always think that herbs should just be served like salt and smaller like quantities. - Well, ideally, right? You like either live across the street from a place that has them or you have a, you know, window box or a garden and you live in a climate that where it doesn't freeze in the winter and then like, but in the real world where that's the key food on the corner, you know? - I mean, the Indian market, like a live herbal market and shout out a lot really long. It's the best store in the city. - It's my favorite store in the city. - I just moved from right there and right on my corner, every time I'd want anything like, I'm like, too much fresh, too much, or like birds eye chilies, like I just, I'm like, I just go to my corner and it's so nice. - Oh, it's unbelievable. Like lime leaves and I have like curry leaves. - Yeah, the curry leaves are cool. I never cooked the curry leaves till I got it from there. - It's amazing, really nice. - Yeah, so fun. I never used them before. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then like in like spraying the quality of the mangoes and the price that they sell them for is incredible. - And they're so nice in there. - Yeah, they're great. - So my next shout out this kind of lane, but just buses, 'cause I just moved to the city from a live herbal market to now these village. And I've been taking buses and it's like a bus that goes right from my house to, I guess, Times Square. It was very convenient yesterday to go to Chinatown about some groceries, like 10 minutes. They're so fast that you can charge your phone. I don't know, I've always, I was so scared to live far east and like, I used to live right by the A train, it was convenient. And I was like, oh, how am I gonna get around? I'm gonna have to ride a bike. I'm scared of riding a bike. And then I, yeah, no, I'm just taking the bus everywhere. It's so fun. And I get to, you get to look out the window. I don't know. That's a great thing. - That's a great thing. But you can't do on the subway. - Yeah. - Your turn. - Well, I am just gonna give a little praise to Macy's on Harold Square, where I went for, to buy a Christmas present. And I thought like, oh, this is gonna be a nightmare, 'cause I always wait til the last minute. And it's gonna be full of people, but I'm not gonna be able to move. But of course, Macy's, Harold Square is enormous. You could put the entire state of Connecticut in there and lose them, you know? So like, like, it was not a nightmare at all. You get to ride these elevators and just go up and up, 'cause that was what I wanted. It was like on the 6th or 7th or the 8th floor. And I just ride these elevators endlessly, up, up, higher and higher. And then, you know, you can come to, depending on where you're shopping, you can come to a department where like, there's no one there except for the like, the nice cars who like wanna help you. Can I help you? What are you looking for? Can you give it to me when you wanna try that on? And then like, successfully completed my mission, got the present that I wanted. And then turned around and I was like, there was a little cafe and I was like, oh, I can get coffee now. Wow. What an amazing invention this is. Like, that's so nice. I never think about going there. No, you wouldn't think about it unless you were like, right in your ass, but like, and then definitely, I've been in there when it's crazy and you have to go through that. The first floor with all the sort of the opposite of the perfume situation you were describing. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty terrible down there. Yeah, that's why I think that's why I don't go in department stores 'cause you have to walk through like the worst smelling place in the world. Just to the, every fragrance ever invented just clashing and colliding in the middle of it. Yeah, it's like, it's like nauseating. That's such a good one. One last thing is, what are you cooking this week? Well, I haven't really figured it out yet. I've still got my ham. So I've got my many, many ham-based meals can still come out of that. I haven't made a quiche yet. I haven't made a soup yet. And I have like, there's a lot of ham in my future. But then after that, I don't know, usually like around New Year's Eve, New Year's Day. I got the urge to like eat a bunch of smoked fish. Oh, yeah. You're on like, sometimes on waffles. And a waffle. Yeah. Oh, wow. Oh, you feel like the thing that is fun is like, make a buckwheat waffle, right? So like, a little bit of a buckwheat flour in there. And like, you know, butter or crumb fresh, or whatever. And then like, pile it up with your smoked salmon. Yeah. That is a meal I really enjoy around this time of year. Nice. But one way or another, I'll make some kind of waffle. And not January 1st, but January 2nd, I will do that. Thanks, Pete. This was so much fun. Oh, yeah, I had a great time too. Thanks, bye guys. Expense account is the production of Feed Me, in partnership with Public Sound and Substack. Our executive producers are Emily Semberg, Jason Gauntlet, 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.