You're listening to Heritage Radio Network. Hi
everyone, welcome to Potluck Food Talks. Today
I'm with Sachin Obaid. He's an entrepreneur and
restaurateur. He has an Indian burger concept
in Berlin, among many other things. He's one
of the most prolific restaurant visitors I know.
Every week he's posting content on a different
restaurant, mainly in Spain and Europe. How are
you doing, man? Good, buddy. Good to be here.
Always good hanging out and chatting. Yeah, I
like to eat. That's for sure. Well, I met Sachin
on a food tour here in San Sebastian and you
came with Pear Merlin from Berlin Food Stories.
I remember that that was a special one. I remember
we had this Gilda cocktail that does not exist
anymore. The next time I tried to get it, the
place closed. But yeah, it was a dirty martini
with the flavors of a Gilda that were like just
pure magic. It's sad, but I really like that
place, actually. I wanted to talk with you about
food identity. I guess there are some complexities
about being an Indian in Europe and opening a
burger place with an Indian twist. What can you
say about that? How was the idea originated?
What can you share about that experience? It's
a good point. Already itself, Indian food is
quite... Not well known. You know, people see
Indian food in a very particular lens. And generally
speaking, tends to be from one particular part
of India. You know, it tends to be from the north,
from Punjab. The things that you see, things
like butter chicken, palak paneer, black dal.
You know, it's a lot of things that you would
see typically in a menu. And then obviously mix
the stuff that come from the UK, which is chicken
tikka masala. Rogan Josh, which is technically
it's done really, really well. It's, you know,
it's not what we get in India, you know, from
Kashmir, you know, child crazy stuff like that.
Like, you know, it's all kind of UK influence.
And I guess it's a mishmash of the two that you
see in Europe. To be honest, I think because
of my background, I, you know, if I start from
the beginning, you know, my parents are from
India. You know, I'm from India as well. I still
have my Indian passport, but I. Grown up in different
places. You know, being from Kerala, which is
a state my parents are from, the south, and then
living in Saudi Arabia, where my dad worked in
oil, and that's the reason I grew up there. And
I went to high school in the U .S. when I was
14, up in the northeast in Connecticut. Went
to college down in Ohio, and then came back up
in New York and worked for a while there. You
know, I was there. I was in New York for about
eight. eight -ish odd years my background back
then was in finance um like any any good immigrant
that has to do is to stay in the u .s you know
you have to kind of take on these jobs that are
like you know very much like the things uh are
a little bit more complicated right that you
can't just get a a marketing job or an advertising
job or like or being very difficult to actually
go work at a kitchen right yeah it takes a lot
of effort honestly the the finance lawyer route
was easier to actually stay, as weird as it sounds.
You had to study a certain thing. You kind of
pass the stuff. It felt like an easier route
at that point. And to be honest, also, I didn't
know the other route was possible. Maybe if I
knew advertising or maybe marketing was a route,
I would have maybe gone that different direction.
But then finance was the case. And to be honest,
I learned a lot during those years. It was very
business -oriented. There's a lot of ups and
downs in that environment, being on a trading...
framework desk you learn a lot about about kind
of how to interact with people in very stressful
situations now i don't think it's very far away
from being in a very much on the line in the
kitchen to be honest you know um it's just that
you know you're dealing with you're dealing with
uh you know saucepans etc other times you're
dealing with like a bloomberg keyboard right
the same shit to be honest you know it's like
it's the same pressure to be honest uh especially
when you see it in the perspective right well
wolf of wall street the movie comes to my mind
when you're saying all of this Yeah, to be honest,
in a weird way, Wolf of Wall Street, I was in
the 80s. During my time, obviously like two decades
later, things did change, but a lot of things
didn't change. No quaaludes for sure, but there's
other things that were happening. But basically,
by my late 20s, I... I was basically kind of
jaded by the whole thing. I just said, okay,
I need to do something else. Luckily, my wife
was finishing her master's in London and it was
kind of a decision. Okay, do we move from London
or do I move to London? Does she move to New
York? And I just said, okay, listen, I've been
here for 14, 15 years. I think it's time I see
the world a bit more because it's been a very
much an American lens. You know, I sound like
this because I was going to American school growing
up as well. It was very much in that world, a
bubble. And I said, okay, let me just take a
leap. And then that's how I ended up easier in
London to start with. Spent five years there,
did some entrepreneur things, did some startup
work, involved with some XR stuff at Dead Ears
of Cambridge, which was kind of fun. Google was
just starting up. So then, again, nothing to
do with food whatsoever. But I think, to be honest,
it all changed to me when I went to San Sebastian
for the first time. It was in 2015. Yeah, really.
Okay, wow. Yeah. And I went straight in. I think,
you know, obviously did the Pinterest crawl,
which is really cool. Did some research, but
not as research as I am now. But it was kind
of my starting point, right? I had to look places
up and where's all the places to go? You know,
you go to Boilerberry, Atari, all the places
that, you know, all the places are still there
today, right? All the famous places are all there
from back then. Most of them, you know? So I
went to a lot of places then. Got to eat at Arzak.
That was interesting, you know, my first kind
of three -star experience ever, and then understanding
what the background is. What did it trigger,
like being in a three -star restaurant and having
that experience, or even the pincho bar crawling?
You said that changed something. What was triggered
inside you in that experience? I mean, to be
honest, it's just the produce, right? I mean,
even living in London, London doesn't have amazing
produce, right? And the U .S. definitely has.
zero good priorities, even though it's improved,
right? There's a lot of farmer market stuff that's
opened up right now, but it's a lot of processed
food. And it's like things that you get access
to, it's not the same thing. And I think that
the idea of being in a place that has access
to certain ingredients and then utilize the ingredients
to the best possible way and cook it in a very
traditional way with a little bit of a modern
element to it, right? There's cooking techniques
that you haven't seen before. So that's what
I found interesting. And especially if you're
eating hildas in Basque country, there's no place
like it because obviously every component of
it is local or it's been preserved locally and
it's fresh as possible. And I think that's the
trigger. How do you see that? I think what also
triggered with me is also going back home. Because
back home, which is what I started appreciating
much more after that trip, it's like, wait, we
do this all back home in India. Everything's
farm to table. My grandparents lived basically
on a farm. They had rice paddy fields, they had
a couple cows, all kind of like the usual chickens
running around, the fruit trees were there. The
vegetables are grown seasonally. You know, we
have the fishermen coming in every day by cycle,
literally, and dropping things off in my grandmother's
home. You know, I vividly remember things like,
you know, crabs we get dropped off and fresh
crabs, you know, live crabs, I should say rather,
right? And it's just crawling across the kitchen
floor. You know, those are interesting memories,
right? Of course. Yeah, yeah. You know, and then
back then as well, you know, people used to have
two kitchens, you know, they used to have the
wood fire. kind of thing with the coconut palm
trees. And then they used to have a modern kitchen
with like a gas stove, right? And people were
used to cooking things differently based on what
they were putting on the table. I think that's
where the connection really happened. You know,
obviously having that experience in San Sebastian,
going back, thinking about it, then connecting
with memories from back home and then trying
to figure out what that meant, right? And then
slowly I started traveling a bit more, you know,
going to different places in Europe from there.
And then once I moved to Berlin, I started like
meeting chefs, writing about them, doing a little
blog. That's where the posting started happening.
And really kind of understanding what's behind
the curtains, you know, or behind the kitchen
door. Because that's always the mystery, right?
When you're a diner, you don't really know. It's
a crazy world, yeah. And it's like really interesting
when, yeah, when you're... walk across the curtains.
I remember once I was watching The Matrix, the
second movie, with my friend Adolfo Colmer, who
is a filmmaker in Berlin, like a well -established
filmmaker. And he tells me, why do always like
in these mafia movies, are people like talking
in the kitchen or walking through the kitchen
or this kind of things? And I was like, well,
probably because it's a symbol of a hidden mechanism,
you know, like, which is what happens in mafias
or this kind of things. And yeah, like for me,
that was also a crazy contrast when I first started
working in kitchens. This contrast of super fine
dining, elegant, settled, white tablecloth and
formal service and everything. And in the back
of the kitchen is a pirate ship, you know? And
that dichotomy felt crazy for me, you know? Yeah,
it's a contrast, right? And I think through kind
of meeting chefs and meeting restaurateurs and
learning a bit more and spending a bit more time,
I did a couple of pop -ups first initially because
I was just interested in like how it worked.
And then we did a couple of Indian pop -ups because
I have a creative agency as well. But I think
this is really where the shift happened, right?
I think, you know, but I left fine as I said,
okay, I'm not going back again. I need to do
something creative. And then creative agency
is happening, you know, but then we're learning
like and do branding and marketing. We're like,
okay, let's create. couple pop -up concepts which
we did that in berlin um got to meet the gastric
community through that in berlin berlin's got
a very very small gastric community very similar
to san sebastian in that way right people do
good stuff know each other and then obviously
support each other and go to each other's places
so that was very cool also being in berlin you
know in kind of mid 2000s also very i mean berlin's
not berlin anymore obviously and i think back
then also people said berlin's got definitely
berlin from 10 years ago but that's just the
evolution of the city right so i lived in berlin
from 20 to 2015 and it was the same speech back
then people would say no in the 2000s was better
or in the 90s was better every i heard a lot
of people saying if i could do anything in my
ever like if i would have only one wish granted
i would go back to berlin in 95 to 2005 that
those were like the golden times you know like
yeah but then you'll be eating really shit food
true true true true The donor would be like a
Euro, but I guess it's plus and minuses, right?
Yeah, absolutely. No, I also saw the food scene
evolving. And for example, personas like Pierre
from Berlin Food Stories. When I left Berlin
in 2015, he wasn't the thing. He became like
when I got back like three years later, so four
years later, or just a few years later, I told
him that my friends in Berlin were saying, yeah,
you see this. Places that became more hype, this
is because of these lousy writers like Berlín.
And he loved it when I told him that. Yeah, man,
it's funny because the power he has, he's got
power to break reservation systems. I've heard
it from one or two restaurant friends, literally,
dude, this guy posts, and all of a sudden my
reservation system crashed. But that's just the
nature of the new world now, right? Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, and he really understood the game and knew
how to play it. Absolutely. And then, yeah, that
happened in a couple of pop -ups, learned from
that. pandemic hit and i said okay i was bored
at home and then this randomly came up with the
idea of like okay you know i'm missing home food
is there something we can do about it uh started
a an indian food delivery concept uh did all
our deliveries ourselves uh cooked everything
fresh you know we had a lot of people interested
at the beginning a lot of expats at the first
and then And then obviously Pair posted about
a few other like influential people post about
it. And one day Tim Rao came in and ordered,
which is really cool. You know, having like a,
you know, probably one of the most famous chefs
in Germany come and, you know, a two -star chef
on top of that come in to take away. And he came
in track pants and like said, hey, you know,
like my wife loves Indian food. I'm just here
to pick it up. And then later on I asked him
how it was and he said it was like a roller coaster.
I used that as a quotation on the website. I
think a lot of the... uh newspapers picked it
up and then that was it i just blew up um you
know just yeah crazy i love these stories when
uh yeah like a character or a food critic or
someone changed the whole thing of a of an establishment
that's crazy yeah and it was the first time anyone's
actually tasted real indian food in berlin uh
that was really interesting for me because we
want to do it the proper way no no shortcuts
cook it properly all the prep done very very
well um everything fresh I try to use seasonal
ingredients as much as we can, good spices. And
then people really noticed it. Obviously, you
know, getting some accolades from the local gastronomy
community and people like Tim Rao and Per and
et cetera helped. And yeah, it was a very interesting
ride because that was my first kind of gastro
learning experience. No, it's not a restaurant,
but still you're doing all the kind of logistics
of kind of cooking, delivering, customer service.
Everything was online. You know, I spent... like
a month and a half on Shopify building this thing.
I had no idea if we could do it. We put all the
different things together and we created our
own delivery platform that we did everything
ourselves. Super cool. Yeah, it was cool. But
honestly, this could have only existed during
the pandemic because everyone's at home, right?
Oh, yeah. There were many delivery concepts that
existed only while the pandemic and then it had
no sense anymore. I mean, even like crazy. digital
experience concepts. There were even like bars
that would send you the ingredients to build
your cocktail and to have a video call with the
bartender and have a talk, hey, how's your day?
Like having the bar talk experience online, you
know, like from home. But yeah, that doesn't
make any sense anymore. Nobody would do that
nowadays. It was very interesting. And, you know,
it reached a certain point where, like, at the
height, you know, we'd drop a menu out on, like,
a Sunday. I'd do it on a Sunday night because
I didn't want to get up on Monday morning and
do it. So I'd say it dropped on Monday. So before
I go to bed, I'll just drop the menu. And we'd
change one or two dishes a week, basically. It's
a small menu. We'd have, like, five, six mains,
a couple sides, you know, and then dessert. There's
something. You mentioned good spices. What can
you say about that? Which spices and where do
you get them from? Okay, so the thing with good
spices is that it's... Most of the things that
you get at a supermarket are not good, unfortunately,
that we see in Europe, because the problem is
the supply chain issue. A lot of times when you
get things sent from India, they usually land
up in some ports. A lot of the big ports for,
say, the Netherlands now is the case, especially
post -Brexit as well, because before it used
to come from the UK. Now it's like a majority
of the lands in the Netherlands, maybe in Eastern
Europe, via Berlin on the northern side, because
it goes from Berlin to the Scandinavian countries,
and the east is maybe Prague or something like
that. There's a few major ports of entry. A lot
of times the problem is when the spice gets made,
we're dealing with a lot of commercial suppliers
as well, so they are sitting in warehouses in
India. Then they move into containers. Then they're
sitting in a ship. Then they sit in containers
again. And does this last, like, for a year,
the whole process, something like that, or a
month? I mean, you don't know. Sometimes it could
take a couple of years because these things don't,
like, they're not perishable goods, right? They
can last for years, right? The only problem is
the potency of the spices will reduce over time,
obviously, right? Yeah, it doesn't get any better
after three years. And then the reality is it's
a very simple check at home, right? If you open
a bag of spices, if you're not getting that hit
in your face, you already know it's, like, gone.
Because, you know, what would take, say, in a
recipe, three cardamom pods to do, it might take
you now six or seven, in this case, to do. So
then you're using more on top of that. So you
have to really work with suppliers to kind of
say, okay, when do you get it in? Is it sitting
in the supply? Do they know the supply chain
really correctly? And we try our best to get
the best spices possible. For certain things
where you don't need too much, we obviously get
it from India. to make sure that we can get it
like cardamom pods you don't need too much of
it right you can do if you have really good cardamom
like green cardamom for instance you need like
two pods you know in a recipe no i know sometimes
there are spices that like you said like the
whole room smells it's like if you open a bag
of weed you know like the neighbors will know
yeah exactly no peppers pepper is a prime example
you know most people have not never smelled really
really good fresh pepper When you have it, and
especially where I'm from, pepper is originally
from Kerala. You know, it's the black gold from
back in the day before it got traded into Europe.
You know, when I go into the markets, my local
markets, I pick up pepper and smell it and, you
know, freshly grind it. It's a whole different
experience. It's crazy. I was in this restaurant,
The Wakan, in Kuala Lumpur. And they say it's
like the Noma of Southeast Asia. And Darren,
the chef, he trained at Noma. And so the experience
when you walk in, they will walk you through
the different ingredients and explain to you,
like, this is a... a rice that only indigenous
people produce because rice is regulated in Malaysia
and it's not like everyone can produce it but
this is a protected area where they can produce
this specific rice or this and you smell and
you touch and you understand and it's super interesting
and something really interesting that every time
I think about it I think it's so crazy that there
were no chilies anywhere in the world before
the discovery of America so there were no chilies
in Asia or in Africa or anywhere else, which
is crazy. So there were other spicy spices, other
peppers and stuff that got displaced because
chili was just cheaper to produce. And so that's
how the world works. And we got to try this very
specific types of peppers. And that was mind
blowing for me. Yeah, exactly. And in India,
back in the day, spice was from pepper. And like
you said, it's more expensive to process, right?
Because you have to take it, dry it. process
it you know peppers chili peppers are easy you
know all you have to take pluck it out put it
in the front of the sun done that's it you know
and then it's preserved for for life you know
almost you know so yeah do you have like uh well
uh that's that whole concept you're talking about
is that girly burger or girly burger evolved
out of that no that was tiffin and um and then
you know obviously the the craziness prototype
the the first try attempt First try attempt,
and obviously very complicated prototyping. But
then, you know, it worked very well. You know,
we had some crazy people sending emails saying,
you know, you changed my life. I mean, it's a
pandemic. Everyone's very emotional, right? So
it's like, you know, it's one thing. But when
the pandemic had ended, we decided to close it
because it was virtually impossible to maintain
the quality that we set and the standard we set.
Because we set a business model in the case,
imagine having a menu drop on Monday and it sold
out within a day. And we would deliver a few
thousand deliveries between, say, Thursday to
Sunday, basically. We'd have at least 300 to
500 deliveries a day, basically, across Berlin,
and have multiple drivers, etc., with the logistics.
By Sunday evening, our pantry was empty. And
you were dropping the next menu. And we're dropping
the next menu, right? And then we would only
shop based on what we had for orders. Obviously,
we'd sell out. But still, regardless, we would
shop exactly. We got the signs down the T, where
the pantry literally was empty. I took a picture
once, like a few times, actually, on a Sunday
evening. When all the deliveries were out, all
the cooking was, the guys were just cleaning
up the stuff. And I looked at the pantry. It
was literally zero, right? And that was amazing.
So you can imagine the gross profit margins in
that case, right? So it was a very successful
business from that perspective. That sounds like
a very successful planning, for sure. Like, yeah,
that's something. It's how it should be. Absolutely.
Cool. But then obviously the pandemic ended and
we said, okay, fine. We tried different things
and then we're like, this is not working out.
And we just didn't want to continue. We could
have totally made money keeping it alive, selling
it. We still had the name. People trusted it.
But then I didn't feel comfortable keeping it
open because... If we had to do it, we had to
do it the right way. If we had to do it the right
way, that means we had to raise prices. Things
get complicated, especially with Berlin. If you
start charging 28 euros for a main for delivery,
it gets difficult. The number of people willing
to pay for that also gets quite low. Okay. And
so how was Gulliburger born after that? I call
myself a third culture kid, which is this terminology
people have been using quite a bit, where the
idea of you grow up in a different place, away
from where your parents are from, but you're
very much related to your parents' culture, but
then you bring on a new culture in terms of your
lifestyle, your food eating habits, etc. I'm
similar. My parents are German -Spanish. I grew
up in Venezuela. I would say I'm mostly Venezuelan,
but also not 100%. So I have this mixture. So
then, you know, for me, the two biggest portions
of my life is being Indian, not living in India
per se, but then obviously having very strong
Indian roots, and then being living in the U
.S., right? So I think those two things are very
strong in terms of my background. Burger and
Indian. Okay, now I get it. Burger and Indian.
That's it, right? And I thought, okay, what's
good ways to kind of look at it? You know, we
started with a fried chicken sandwich first,
which we call the Kerala fried chicken. So we
used, you know, spices from back home. We made
a curry leaf kind of coleslaw to kind of give
homage to our curry leaf. And, you know, curry
leaves are used very typically from my part of
the world. A lot of the gravies and curries that
we have, have it in spicing. And even with like
when we kind of saute and, you know, kind of
pan fry, you know, like. seafood etc curries
is very much prominent in everything you know
my my mom has a plant literally in her in her
little like mini garden you know right outside
her kitchen you know uh where she just picks
it up fresh to go and then and it's it's it's
in it's in the kind of the recipes that she uses
so basically we constructed things like that
so like having the caroline spices but then we
used american kind of southern american fried
chicken techniques you know uh using buttermilk
uh brining uh the panko that's there, and then
use kind of like the spices to kind of give that
Indian touch. The condiments obviously have the
curry leaf into the mayo and the coleslaw, very
much reticent of what that sandwich would look
like. If anyone sees it, it'll just look like
an American fried chicken sandwich. And the moment
they bite into it, they're like, okay, this is
very different, right? Okay. And then we did
that same thing with all our burgers. So we,
you know, we have something called the Maharaja
on right now. It's a spice patty. We take chapli
kabab, which is kind of this rustic spice. That's
originally from kind of like this on the border
of Pakistan and Afghanistan, basically. And Peshawar,
that's where originally that's from. I thought
it would work really, really well with like a
beef patty. And we basically said, I'm going
to spice it, do it like a semi -smashed burger.
And what we do is, you know, we kind of semi
-smash it with like one with onions, the other
patty with like green peppers. We have masala
ketchup on there, some pickles, dill pickles
that we have that adds a little bit of freshness
to it. The sesame bun, because I love sesame
buns, because it's, you know, double sesame on
the thing. And American cheese on both sides.
It's just a tasty burger, you know, with spices,
nothing, nothing going to blow your face off.
It's not the heat, it's just the flavor, right?
And then we have a mushroom burger that we put
on as well, which is kind of fun. It's a riffed
on a shake shack, kind of like a shroom stack
as well. But the difference now is that we actually
inject some South Indian curry into the, the
pods with cheese so it's a little bit of a surprise
when you bite into it so and you know we had
some tamarind and we had some green chutney in
it very much tastes Indian when you bite into
it it's very it's a chef favorite But that's
the idea. You know, our fries are very much has
some seasoning that reminds of Indian street
food. We have onion pakoras on, that's very much
OG style, you know, having some onion fritters
on there. And that's the menu right now, you
know, like keeping it tiny and small, but, you
know, very much keeping core to the Indian ingredients.
Super, super cool. I'll definitely visit you
next time I'm in Berlin. There's a thing that
I think you exemplify very well, and it's something
I've talked a lot about in the show. For me,
be it a restaurateur or a chef or... any kind
of creative person for that matter, you should
tell your story because that's what's interesting.
Like if you somehow put what you are into a dish
or a piece of writing or of music or a painting
or whatever, that's going to be interesting.
Like just two days ago, I was in Sigges, which
is a coastal village near Barcelona. And there
was this place just next to the beach that I
was like, oh my God, Asian American Mediterranean
fusion sports bar. And I was like, oh my God,
like, I mean, because you definitely can do that.
But if you somehow package it differently, it
will sound way less stupid. And I'm pretty sure
there is nobody from a third culture there. You
know, like, I mean, like, and there's no story
behind that. You know, like, and here it's a
completely coherent story that makes sense. Or
it also comes to my mind, this guy from Kai Sushi,
who is a Chilean making sushi in San Sebastian.
So he has a maki with the asawa cheese. And every
time I bring Japanese there, they... go crazy.
They're like, wow, this is amazing. And this
is something that Japanese do a lot when they
travel. They go to Japanese places to see the
local variations in different cities. And yeah,
for me, I mean, you explain it perfectly. That
makes completely sense. Super cool. I want to
try that. So something else I wanted to talk
about with you, because I think this is very
interesting. Like I said, you're one of the persons
I know that... goes to more more restaurants
in a year and good restaurants how many times
have you been to noma for example okay i'm gonna
be very embarrassed saying this but uh three
times no i mean like you're not the only person
i know that has been three times uh yeah whatever
yeah you had to do the three seasons right but
i'm done for a while for sure Yeah, I did the
vegetable season. Amazing. Super, super amazing.
But not only the food, also, well, we did a whole
episode on reviewing. Like, just the next day,
completely hungover, going dish through dish.
So it was quite an experience. I'm really happy
I made it because they were doing this marketing
stunt that they were going to close this year.
They didn't. But at least I had the chance to
visit. So I wanted to ask, like, which... Do
you have any dishes that stand out in your visits
to restaurants in the last year or two years
that you would say, wow, this really blew my
mind? To be honest, I think our experience at
Echavarri was very, very good. I think that's
definitely been a big highlight for me. I think
anytime you go and visit Big Tour and... The
wine selection to, you know, starting from the
wine selection when you start, and then you sit
down and the first courses come out, till the
chuletón at the end, you know, it's just, it's
perfect. For example, at Noma, you have dishes
that are impactful, but you have no reference.
You know, you're trying and you go like, I never
had something like this in my life. While at
Echavarri, you're having a steak and you say,
this is the best steak I've had ever. And that's,
you know, like, that's like a big, big thing,
you know. Yeah, in weird ways, you know, like
Noma is special because there's no restaurant
like it in the world. I mean, at least I don't
know of, you know, I haven't traveled extensively
in Japan and other places like that. Maybe there's
other people that are doing some crazy stuff
that I've not seen. But I think with Noma, just
it's a sheer scale of the operation, right? When
you have like this hundred plus chefs, all mission
driven to do these things, what they do, you
know, like the amount of effort that goes into
making each plate is insane, right? like there
was a last time I was there they had this like
kind of seafood consomme in like in this kind
of like this crab shell you know and someone
had to like take the crab shell apart piece by
piece glue it back together you know one by one
and then like put the consomme in you know like
it's it's a lot of work you know as like a normal
diner, maybe it might be hard to understand that.
But then when you understand how much work that
goes into the prep side of it, you know, constructing
each thing, the fact that they change the menu
so often, which is insane, right? Like you go
to the vegetable season next year, you won't
see like, you know, 80 % of the stuff, you know,
it'll be totally different, which is crazy. I
also felt that this kind of... absurd effort
they put like puts you on a completely different
level of appreciation that there's like this
magic to it like the impact like just a little
bite has you're like okay well there was somebody
for example the vegetable dish you know this
dish with the slices of different vegetables
they make this competition who makes it faster
and the faster who did it was 20 minutes one
chef 20 minutes just on one dish you know that
it's just crazy it's crazy yeah uh but to be
honest i think outside the the fine dining places
i think where i get really excited is when i
find these like smaller interesting places off
off to be in track a bit more now because um
in spain for instance galicia is amazing you
know like if you if you're traveling there now
i think there's a lot of restaurants that people
just don't speak about like like for instance
like in padron there's a place called opaso uh
it's like a It's a steakhouse. They have the
chuletón. They do it exactly like how Echabarri
does it. They trim the fat. They cook it pretty
much the exact same way. And I would say it was
at par, maybe even slightly better. It was kind
of a bold statement to put out, but it's their
thing. And they've really perfected it. And they
have a few dishes on the menu. As a start, no
one really talks about it. A lot of people outside
Spain have no idea that place exists. Yeah, of
course. you know and you know it right like it's
like there's a lot of chefs in in bass country
people won't speak about you know if you can
go slightly outside the the the circle right
i think i've reached that point in my kind of
like my eating expedition now where i'm not wasting
too much time on going to these these star places
or like you know like maybe it's not spending
as much time in all the world 50 places you know
there are some great places in there but then
some places like okay it's amazing service the
food's solid but you're not seeing something
new you know or it's not speaking to you yeah
absolutely like for me for example like a star
two stars doesn't say anything because i've been
to to start places where i was like well what
or even like listed in the michelin guide there
are some places here in san sebastian that are
pink show bars that are i'm thinking about one
specific that is listed in the mission guide
and i go there and i'm like for me this is whatever
you know like i don't see I don't see the magic
anywhere. While there are others that are not,
and you feel the magic, you know? And for me,
that's an important thing. Or even if you go
to a small place, you know, like on the countryside,
and there's like an old lady cooking, and there
is just magic to that, you know? And that's also
what I'm looking for, absolutely. Yeah, but I
think that's the progression for any sort of
thing. You see someone like a Rene and stuff
like that. No big chef is going out and eating
at three -star places, you know? You know, unless
it's their friend or something, one -off situation,
they'll go and like support. Exactly. They're
friends and they eat for free. You know, they
get invited. And then they have the office, you
know? Yeah, exactly. But yeah, that's the thing.
I think it's fun. I think food, eating food should
be about exploration in a way. But at the end
of the day, the food needs to taste good. That's
as simple as that, right? Everything else is
like, you know, it's part of the experience.
It needs to be fun. You share it with the friends
and friends and family, you know? That's what
eating should be about at the end. That's it
for this week's episode of Potluck Food Talks.
If you like what we're doing, make sure to subscribe
to the podcast so you never miss an episode.
You can also find us on Instagram and TikTok
as Potluck Food Talks. The show airs every Monday.