You're listening to Heritage Radio Network. Hi,
everyone. Welcome to Potluck Food Talks, the
show where we chaotically talk about food without
a single direction or purpose. My name is Eric.
I'm here with Phil Walter, straight from Dubai
City. How are you doing, man? Yeah, I'm good.
I'm tired. My back hurts. I'm burned out. But
we're still here. Yeah? What were you cooking
last night? What were you doing? I was, yeah,
I was cooking. Cooking service, Friday night
service in Dubai is a lot of fun. We did almost
700 covers yesterday. 700 covers in an a la carte
restaurant is great. Yesterday there was a moment
I haven't seen for a long time. There was a moment
where the person on the pass You know, when you
look in somebody's face and they just have this
like thousand yards stare, you know, you have
three rows of tickets, the ticket machine next
to you printing, it's like hanging on the floor,
literally, right? The ticket machine is like
over here, like above your head. And the tickets
are hanging onto the floor. You see the person
just like staring. There's food everywhere on
the pass, right? It needs to go out. And there's
sort of like... and you're like oh no oh no it's
happening no but like i get it yeah exactly yeah
but i get it you know it's fucking when you lose
it getting it back like getting your grip back
is fucking hard and the same thing happened to
the guys on the meat section three guys three
chefs working on the meat side grill and like
at some point i go over there and because they're
getting backed up and i look at it and i'm like
what the fuck is going on and it's like literally
you know and you know people watch the bear and
they're like haha yeah it's really funny but
it's like there are moments like this where i
just looked at it and i looked at it the ticket
machine keeps going and there's no more space
for the tickets to go on to the board right and
i just look at them i look at all the tickets
that i went like all the main courses that are
away i start counting the meats that is like
cooking on the grill and i just look at the guy
i'm sort of like you're completely fucking lost
aren't you have no fucking idea what's going
on anymore and he just looks at me also just
kind of like you know like he's just been through
the trenches in world war one and he's like just
shaking and i'm like fire everything just fucking
fire everything and he starts going like okay
i need he like goes to the fish section he's
like i need five minutes i'm like fuck your five
minutes just fucking give me the food just make
it happen you know and yeah and like you get
to a point where it's kind of like he start you
can't cook how you normally want to cook anymore
you can't like sear the meat rest the meat you
know like he sears the meat he puts it up i'm
sort of like what are you doing And he's like,
oh, I'm resting the meat. I'm like, how long
is it going to be? He's like, oh, it's going
to be 12 minutes. I'm like, fuck you. Fuck you.
Give me the fucking meat. And he's like, but
it's not ready. I'm like, make it happen. Just
make it happen. I don't care how you do it. Just
fucking make it happen. And you find ways to
make it happen, you know? And you have two hours
of that and then everything's fine. You have
a beer and you cry a little bit and then you
move on with your life. Yeah, I've been there.
I remember hearing the ticket machine at night.
And waking, you know, like cold sweating. It's
horrible. It used to be bad for me. And now I've
noticed these days I've become kind of numb to
it. you start getting into a headspace where
you don't let yourself get overwhelmed anymore.
Yeah, you have to detach. To understand that,
you have to just do one thing at a time and execute,
execute, this, out, this, out, and next. Exactly.
It's impossible to do it otherwise. I think that
mind control skill, it's key for a super... you
know, like difficult service to pull it off.
Have you ever listened to the podcast from Jocko
Willink? You know this person, Jocko Willink,
he's like, what would you call him? He's like
an ex -Navy SEAL. He's got like a company where
he helps businesses. I think you've talked about
this guy before. I think you mentioned that this
is a guy that if you're like, because I've thought
about that after you said it. Like if you're
like, I don't know, like scrolling down while
you're having breakfast or like doing too many
things, like first thing in the morning, like,
you know, like reading emails and scrolling down
and eating and drinking and planning the day
at the same time that this is like neurologically
super unhealthy for your brain, right? Yeah,
absolutely. That's actually a different person,
but it's similar. And that's Andrew Huberman,
also very, very cool. Jocko Willink, he wrote
a book called Extreme Ownership about leadership
and how to manage people and how to move through
difficult situations and stuff like that. And
he has a couple of things that are very, very
interesting that are really related to it. One
is prioritize and execute. It's like in any situation,
you have a difficult task ahead of you that you
don't know how to do. You prioritize and you
execute and you just like work it off. Bam, bam,
bam, bam, bam, you know? And I'm like, yeah,
that's exactly what I do in a kitchen in like
a difficult service, you know? Now I'm kind of
like, I mean, as easy as set that done also,
it gets to a point where it's really hard. The
ticket machine goes, I'm sort of like, okay,
I can't look at those tickets right now, you
know? Like I got to prioritize and I got to execute.
And that's what these guys aren't doing, you
know? And I told the guy afterwards, I had a
debrief with them after service. And I was like,
well, what happened? And he's like, yeah, you
know, there was a lot of straight fires and I
couldn't get ahead. I couldn't get myself prepped.
I couldn't get like all my meat going. I just
got lost. And I was like, yeah, it's totally
understandable. It was a lot, you know, it was
a fucking lot. But I was like, in these moments,
you don't have the luxury to be sort of like
a ticket comes in, two lamb, right? And you look
at the ticket and you're like, okay, two lamb.
You leave it there. You tell your guy like, hey,
can you get me this? You turn around, you do
this. In the meantime. Three more tickets have
come in. And you look at them, you're like, okay,
two tenderloin, one sirloin, one ribeye. Okay,
so two tenderloin, two lamb, one sirloin, one
ribeye. If you don't fucking act in that moment,
you're going to get overwhelmed. You have to
have a monkey mind. It's like the ticket comes
in, two lamb. You stop what you're doing. You
take the two lamb out of the fridge. You put
them somewhere, somewhere, right? Put them there.
Put the ticket on the pass. Then fucking organize.
The next ticket comes on. You have to stop. yeah
three ribeye take out the three ribeye at some
point you're not going to remember you got to
get it fucking going you get it searing like
in this is an example of a grill you get it out
you get it salted you get it searing and then
like once it's brown you can like rest it and
then you can play with the things but you need
to get it going the worst thing is that you forget
that you lose it and then it's fired and suddenly
you have a ticket away that's like three lamb
two tenderloin one ribeye And you don't have
it cooked. You have to start it from zero. You're
fucking dead. It's going to take 20 minutes for
that to get ready. So this table is going to
wait 20 minutes. That table is going to delay
all the other tables also. And the chances are
that if you missed one table, you missed a couple
of others. And then those are away as well. Plus
you're getting straight fires. You're fucking,
you're done. So it's a very crazy skill to have
to prepare yourself. So that when it's away,
and this is super stressful, but once it's away,
you're like, okay, fire. Just fire, fire, fire,
fire, and you just churn it out. Yeah, and also,
it depends on the restaurant and the service
and how it works, but I remember also taking,
for a second, a step back, consolidating the
whole mess that you have. Okay, here are in total
12 lamps and 14 whatever, and boom. And then
you throw the 12 lamps together, which are like
seven different tables. And you have to do it
like that, otherwise you're dead. Yeah, absolutely.
If you do one ticket by itself after another,
everything's going to get backed up. But the
funny thing is also then, if you do too much...
you're also going to get back up because then
you're actually not being productive because
you're doing too much at the same time. Everything
comes to the past. The past is like, what the
fuck do I do with 20 lamb? Yeah, the waiter is
everyone. Exactly. Nobody can run the food. So
it's like this really fine line of sort of like,
okay, being efficient. And yeah, I mean, that's
like, I really felt sorry for the guys yesterday
and also for the person at the past because,
but like, I was like, I was looking at it and
I was kind of like, I was like, hey, do you need
some help? um and she was like man i'm fucking
lost i'm so lost and i was like okay and i was
kind of like well i could either like jump in
but i don't want to do that like also to this
person because it would be a little bit of like
a you know just kind of like okay step off the
expo i was kind of like no let her work work
through it she's gonna she's gonna be fine you
know let her get her grip back and be fine and
also yeah these like two guys i felt sorry for
them but hey we've all been there we've all been
there many times yeah yeah i was there i was
there last time like i don't know like four or
five months ago i think i had a service i just
went down down now and i remember uh dude like
one of the most difficult skills i think is one
when you're in a restaurant where where all the
the tables or all the tickets are variable you
know like chef says One, this, this, this, this,
this. We chef. Blah, blah, blah, blah. We chef.
Three chickens, two risottos, two soups, one,
two. And you have to have everything in your
mind. You know, like, you know, I mean, I remember
taking notes at some point, like, you know, taking
a pen and writing down what he just said, because
you have to remember everything. Otherwise, you
have to walk to the pass where all the tickets
were back then and when we were in Margot, for
example. And if you do that too much, the chef
is going to get angry, you know? Like, if you're
walking too much to read the tickets at the front
because you're just basically saying you don't
know what's going on, you know? I mean, it's
a difference, you know? Like, I also get angry
when, like, I see people, like, coming to the
pass and just staring at the tickets and being
sort of, like, open -mouthed and like, uh, you
know? I'm like, what is happening? Are you okay?
But if they're like... You know, like going there
and being sort of like, okay, here, here, here,
here. And you can see them like, you know, calculating.
It's like, it's totally fine. Hoffman, you know,
used to be just like unnecessarily shit about
stuff that was like completely normal, you know?
But I remember in that place was where I... develop
the most that skill of you know having a mind
map of the tables that are coming in like knowing
okay like now i have like you know having six
tables in my mind and knowing okay now we have
this and that and i could put three three tables
together you know is this skills like a blind
chess player or like a taxi driver in london
like this guy said Nowadays, that's a lost skill,
you know, because you have Google Maps and this
and that. But back in the day, these taxi drivers
in London, they would know the whole city, all
the streets, everything, you know, and it was
something that I think it was even required to
get the taxi license. Yeah, that these guys would
remember all the directions. I think that those
kinds of things, yeah. definitely are getting
lost among many, many, many other mental skills.
We're losing daily more and more and more. Now
more than ever with AI and all these chats and
things. Chat GPT, yeah. Yeah, that you don't
need to think, you know? Like, yeah, you ask
chat GPT, what's on table four, you know? And
it will tell you. And if it doesn't know, it
will make it up, you know? And that's it. Yeah,
that's true. Yeah, but that's a good thing. I
mean, the good thing about Margaux is that all
the menus were the same. You either had normal
menu or vegetarian menu. And there was like no
deviation. In an a la carte restaurant, it's
fucked, you know? Yeah, that's crazy. In an a
la carte restaurant where people eat like four
or five courses, right? So they would like make
a whole tasty menu themselves, basically. There,
I think it's impossible to keep it if you're
so busy. You know, if you're a small restaurant,
you do like 100 covers a night, you know? I mean,
for me, nowadays that's small. It's even not
small. But then that's okay. But you do like
300 covers, 400 covers, forget about it. You
need a ticket. I recently found a spot I like
in a pincho bar in San Sebastián that I like
very much. And suddenly there is this spot where
you walk in and you're just in front of the pass.
And this is a restaurant where there's a small
window. So you can look. into the kitchen that
I never saw. It's like a sweet spot and you can
actually see how they're throwing steaks to the
grill and everything. And it's like, oh, nice.
And also it's the pass manager, which is from
the service side. And it's a person who is running
the service, basically calling the tickets. organizing
the tables and giving them to the waiters. It's
a restaurant where it's someone from the front
of the house that runs the pass and not someone
in the kitchen. And I was there ordering some
stuff, and at some point I said, can I have the
check, please? But I saw she was dealing with
50 things at the same time. She said, yes. And
then, OK, this goes to table four, this here,
this that, this this, this this, da da da da.
OK, and give me da da da. We're going with table
six. And then she said for a second, like, the
bill for you. OK, and turn around. You know,
like, it was in her to -do list. And she was
just check, check, check, check. And there was
something else somewhere, right? And all mental.
No notes, you know? Yeah, that was pretty cool.
That's a real good skill to have, you know. That's
a really, really good skill. Have you eaten somewhere
recently? Yeah, I don't go to eat, man. I'm just
fucking working. And then, like, I'm so destroyed
the next day that I just, like, I sleep. I sleep
in. I go to the pool. I go to the sauna. And
I just, like, I'm dead. I need a whole day to
recover. But you know where I went the other
day? And I was so surprised at how good it was?
Din Tai Fung. You know Din Tai Fung? No. So.
Din Tai Fung, originally from Taiwan, is a chain
restaurant that does soup dumplings, most famously.
But they do all sorts of other stuff also. Interestingly,
one of the most successful chain restaurants
in the United States. You know, not that I care
about the United States too much, but it's a
reference. They have some here in Dubai. And,
like, you see them everywhere. You know, you
see them in, like, Hong Kong airport. And they're
everywhere. A huge, huge franchise. and i went
about a month ago you go in it's super like organized
the front of house are like super like like a
like an asian chain restaurant would be right
super straight bam there's a system for everything
you know you get shown to your table you get
this little like you get a menu and then you
get a a little board where you have to cross
how much of which dish you want so all the dishes
are listed there it's a big fucking menu They
have obviously the dumplings is the main thing,
but they also have rice dishes. They have vegetable
stir fries. They have soups, all sorts of stuff.
We went and we ordered like soup dumplings, but
I also really felt like a soup because I was
feeling a little bit ill. So I ordered like a
beef tendon soup, Taiwanese beef tendon soup.
I ordered some Mapo tofu. I ordered some Chinese
greens, like sauteed greens. The food came in
about five minutes, five to ten minutes. Bam,
on the table, steaming hot and everything spot
on delicious. Like couldn't fault it. Super nice.
And I was like, man, I love going to restaurants
like this because not only is it cheap, not only
is it mega efficient, it's also fucking tasty,
you know, and consistent. And I'm kind of like,
man, this is this sort of thing. fascinates me
just as much as like a cocina de outdoor you
know where from like a business perspective i'm
sort of like how are they doing this this is
amazing because if you worked in a restaurant
you know how difficult it is to stay consistent
and blah and this and that you know and you can
be good like all the time you know like you can
be good most of the time you you definitely have
deviations you know and these guys they're operating
in the entire fucking world and it's just like
one thing And I think it's amazing. I've always
been a friend of little menus. It has always
impressed me. You know, these Chinese restaurants
that have... these booklets of 1 ,000 recipes,
and that's a menu. It's a menu where you have
sections, complete sections. Yeah, I want the
243 and the 434. Those two, please. And they
come right away. Have you seen this stand -up
comedian? I was just thinking about that, man.
I was just thinking about that. How was it? What
was the guy saying again? He's like, man, like
chefs used to be so badass, you know, and now
they're just like these like skinny tattooed
guys in the kitchen. They're like, yes, chef.
Yes, chef. Right away, chef. Sitting on top of
the foie gras. Yeah, and he's like, and what
are they making? Like truffle french fries, you
know, like some bullshit. Meanwhile, in a Chinese
kitchen, there's like one chef, there's 300 dishes
on the menu. It's somebody's uncle from Hong
Kong. And he just makes the dishes in under five
minutes. Is that even a chef? It's someone's
uncle. With a cigarette in his mouth. That's
so true. Have you been to, at least I remember
in Venezuela, these crappy Chinese places, which
I love, and I would go always to get these stir
-fried rices. When you look into the kitchen,
it's literally, you know, someone's on cook with
a cigarette in the mouth, you know. It's so true.
But it's also like... I think this wok cooking
is fucking amazing. I'm actually, I kind of want
to look into it a little bit more. The other
day, because it's like this a la minute cooking
and it's so swift and it's so fast and so skillful
also, you know. The other day I came across a
video. I love watching these cooking videos from
Japan, you know, where it's like no commentary.
Sometimes there's like subtitles of what's happening.
There's all sorts of stuff. Katsu restaurants,
ramen restaurants, blah, blah, blah. There was
one restaurant in some small town that I didn't
know. It was a fairly old chef, right? And apparently
it's a very famous Chinese restaurant. And he
was cooking Chinese food so uniquely and so skillfully.
You know, the way he was making fried rice. He
had like, he made his own like seasoning mixes
where he had like, he had like a shio koji liquid.
He had like a shoyu koji liquid that he would
season. He would make things like white mapo
tofu. White mapo tofu. I've never seen that before.
He would like stir, like a la minute. Stir frying
the meat, adding the tofu. He was making his
like, his slurry, his cornstarch slurry mix.
Thickening it, blah, it's like. um glazing prawns
with like a slick of cornstarch sort of like
slurry to poach them so that they're like really
shiny amazing cooking like super high level and
so swift out of like shooting from the hip and
i was watching this and i was like man what the
fuck you know like sometimes you see these things
you know the other day i was like giving somebody
shit and i told him i was sort of like you think
you can bullshit me i have almost 20 years of
experience in this fucking job and you think
you can bullshit me and i realized i was like
man fuck i've been doing this job for almost
20 years that's and like you see a video like
that and i'm like man i don't know anything about
cooking like I don't know shit about cooking.
What I know is so limited. There's so many people
out there in all the fucking corners of the world
that are doing something that I have no idea
about. And that's incredible. Have you heard
of Javier Wong? That's like an OG of Chinese
Peruvian cuisine. I think it has this... romantic
vibe because it's like a restaurant that really
feels like a tasca, you know, like a Latin American
restaurant in the city center of Lima, you know,
like with... unpretentious wood tables, you know?
And just in the corner, the kitchen is literally,
you know, like the size of a small table. And
it's a one -man show. It was only he in the kitchen,
and he had only two tools, a wok and a bowl.
And the wok, he would do woks, basically. It's
also pretty cool, his logo. His logo is like
with his golf caps, you know? And his Chinese
silhouette and a cigarette in the mouth. You
know, like that. So he would do these walks,
which are like, you know, chifa, which is like
Peruvian Chinese. So I would say it's even more
Latin American than Asian because it's like a
very, first of all, because it's in Latin America.
But yeah, it's like, I don't know, like Italian
American, you know, that at the end of the day,
it's more American than Italian. Well, it's the
same thing with Chinese Peruvian. And in the
bowl, he would do ceviches. So he would only
do woks and ceviches. And that's what you get
in that restaurant. He has a super cool book.
It's called Best Ceviche in the World. Yeah,
and he would go to, you know, the Madrid Fusion
and all these international conferences. You
know, he became really like a rock star with
his super tiny restaurant. I have this romantic
idea of running a place like that, you know,
like just going there, doing two things, but
doing them just, you know, making them hits so
that people go back just for that. I mean, it's
like Bordaberry in San Sebastian, you know, like
it's a place, a bar that has only 12 items. That's
it. But I think... Maybe there's a veggie dish,
there's usually like a veggie dish that is just
like beans and mushrooms and something like that,
which is fine. But everything, all of the others,
they're all bangers, you know, like they're all
top dishes that I go back every time to get them,
you know. I absolutely also love places like,
I love Borderberry. Javier Wong is such a fucking
legend. He doesn't give a fuck, you know, he
just like does exactly what he wants. And I think
there should be more places like that, that don't
worry too much about concept and style and anything
like that. You know, it's like everybody nowadays
is sort of like, you know, if somebody told you,
hey, I'm going to open a Chinese Peruvian place,
I'm going to make wok dishes and ceviche, you
know, if you're an unknown chef, they're probably
going to tell you that that sounds like a...
Very strange idea. Nobody's going to understand
that. Fuck that. Like, just do it. If you have
the expertise and you have a vision and you have
the skill, like, just fucking do it and make
it good and hopefully it'll work out. That's
it for this week's episode of Potluck Food Talks.
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