Hi, everyone. Welcome to Pot Luck Food Talks,
the show where we talk food and kitchens from
a cook's point of view. We're recording live
from a place where bottles are open, the rules
are flexible, and someone probably built a bar
five minutes before service. My name is Erich
von Stroheim, and I'm here with Philip Glass.
Neither of us is qualified to be here. Today,
we're talking about food that travels, pop -ups,
borrowed kitchens, late -night tacos, and the
cooks and mentors who pass things along quietly,
one bottle, one service, one piece of advice
at a time. But first... How's it going, man?
Yeah, good, still alive. Yeah, how's life under
missile attacks in Dubai? Yeah, crazy, man. A
little bit crazy, but it seems like everything
is fairly under control. A bit fucking surreal
to see missiles being intercepted in the sky,
but, you know, all things considering, everything's
okay. Yeah, I guess you're used to work under
pressure. It's just like one more layer to it.
Yeah, one more layer, exactly. Just getting the
fucking, you know, the like alarm on your phone,
you know, like missile incoming just means you're
going to send a fucking starter quicker, you
know? Fuck, man. I know there are no wine cellars,
probably. No, no, no. So how are you? What's
going on? Good, man. Good. Like I did a short
trip to Madrid. I went to some really nice traditional
task. I think the thing about Madrid is not going
to... Modern, casual restaurants is more about
going to this all -routed places that have been
open for decades or even centuries. There are
some that have been open for centuries. And go
there and have just down -to -earth, ultra -traditional
Spanish food. That's the deal in Madrid for me.
Yeah, in Madrid, you can, like, I think in Madrid,
you could find that really well, no? Stuff like
gallos and super nice. We went to La Bola. La
Bola, which is the Cayos temple. And that's exactly
what I'm talking about. You enter this place,
you know, like the Cayos are tribe, for those
who don't know. This was not Cayos. This was
cocido madrileño, which is this traditional chickpea
stew with different meats, like ultra intense
broth, almost like a ramen that is cooked in
a clay pot. So like each pot is one portion.
I would definitely go, which is what I did. I
went with a friend and we shared one for both.
And then we ordered something else. It's not
what people usually do, but it's what I recommend.
I once recommended this to a friend who went
on a date and they had one each. And, you know,
like after that, you know, they went to sleep.
Hey, but cocido madrileño ramen sounds like the
perfect kind of fucking fusion food. Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Like using the cocido broth
and making a noodle soup out of it. Genius. There's
nothing that could go wrong with that. Absolutely.
That sounds like a lot of fun. So, dude, I wanted
to ask you about, because I don't have the context,
but I saw. Like this Instagram post that you
were sharing and also, Mishael, about this Tres
thing in Dubai that I don't know if it's a restaurant,
a pop -up, an event that you guys organized,
but it looked really cool. It looked like a collaboration.
It looked like you were doing some Mexican food.
What happened there? What can you elaborate on
that? Yeah, so it was really, really fun. It
was really cool. It was in February. And so basically,
Tres is a restaurant that relatively recently
opened up here in Dubai, end of last year. And
the concept is by my friend Brandon, who I know
from my time in working in Mexico City. So the
Instagram account is Cocina Underline Tres. T
-R -E -S. And yeah, you can see it there. That's
it. And, you know, like he's an amazing chef.
Like I've known him for over 10 years and he
worked in amazing places. He worked in Pujol.
He worked in Maximo Bistro for a really, really
long time. He worked in Japan for a long time.
He's really into Japanese food, like like capo
style omakase food. And he's really into tea.
And so the guys who opened this restaurant, they
have a restaurant here in Dubai called Honeycomb.
And Honeycomb, the food concept of it is made
by Matt Abergale from Yardbird in Hong Kong.
So he made the whole food concept, right? And
so when they wanted to open a new place and they
were sort of thinking, oh, let's maybe make Mexican
food. Matt, because he's good friends with Brandon,
he recommended Brandon to do the food concept.
Did an absolutely amazing job. It's so rare,
you know, like for people who've been to Mexico
and have experienced real Mexican food. It's
very, very rare to find that, like the authentic
flavor. It doesn't have to be traditional dishes
per se, but the flavor profile and like the ingredients
to really find that outside. It's always like
text mixed or whatever. You know, Brandon did
a fucking amazing job. Like the food is absolutely
delicious. It's exactly what Dubai needs, you
know, apart from needing not to be bombed anymore.
They need these like casual restaurants where
you could just go grab a bite, have a drink.
It's really fun. I think one of the, for me at
least, like I haven't been to Mexico and my authentic
Mexican food experiences are limited. But something
that for me really tells the difference is the
punchiness. You know, you need to have that clack,
like that. sour kick or the you know like that
deep uh deep aromas and the spiciness not just
spicy but but those floral things that go on
the underneath i think that those are like like
the things i look for most yeah absolutely and
it's like like the the techniques and the flavor
profile of mexican food they're so like ancient
and so deep like they're so beautiful you know
i mean like from From things that are, like,
well -known, like, you know, the different types
of salsas, you know, which can be, like, you
know, I mean, the chili culture, you know, is
amazing. You go to a market in Mexico and, like,
from fresh to dry to smoked to preserved to,
like, in adobo, like... They invented it, basically.
Incredible. Chili culture, you know, like...
Absolutely, yeah. But then also, like, ancient,
like, things like mole, you know, we all kind
of, like, nowadays, like, people who are into
food, they know mole, but they know mole as this,
like... very dark sauce with like chocolate and
dried fruit and stuff like that but there's different
types of moles you know there's there's green
mole there's um mole -esque sauces like pipian
which is made out of um pumpkin seeds and like
the first time like i tried these sauces in in
mexico like i was mind blown because it's kind
of like satay sauce but like it from a different
world Super, super cool. Really unique. Yeah,
so Brandon made a food concept like using real
Mexican roots in a very, very fun and casual
way. It's really, really good. And so when I
saw him, like we reconnected after 10 years of
not having seen each other, you know, he's trying
to open his restaurant concept in Mexico City
called NACAR. So people want to follow Brandon,
just Google, search on Instagram NACAR Mexico.
That's his concept. He basically does Mexican
food with a very Japanese influence in a sort
of like omakase way. It's very, very cool. And
after meeting up for a couple of times, we said,
hey, why don't you come to the club and we do
a collaboration together. We'll collaborate on
a menu. We'll do like one big table of like 50
people. We'll do one tasting menu. So it was
a one -day event, what you guys did. Well, we
did, yeah. Tres is an individual restaurant,
but we did like a one -day event in the club.
Okay, because I wasn't completely understanding
what was going on. Okay, that's pretty cool.
Okay, okay, okay. Yeah, it was super fun. It
was super fun because like, you know, he's a
really, really good chef and he's also just a
fucking professional. You know, we've done in
the arts club, we've done a couple of collaborations
with people. And since I rejoined, we've done
three plus the Brandon one. And every single
time, these collaborations were an absolute shitshow.
It's incredible. People who have a big name in
the industry, they've got their own restaurants,
they're on TV, they're in magazines. And you
ask them to collaborate on something, they have
no fucking idea what's going on. You would be
surprised that these people, 80 % of the time,
don't do any prep. anything they just show up
an hour before the event actually happens and
it's like all right what are we doing and then
they just go around the tables hey hello hey
hey how's it going then afterwards they let's
they take photos with the people you know and
then they say all right all right guys bye have
fun cleaning up see you later and with brandon
it's not like it wasn't like that you know he's
a real professional it's just super cool to talk
about dishes, think about dishes together. We
did some really cool stuff. How is it to adapt
Mexican cuisine to an Arab audience? Because,
of course, there's no pork. I don't know how
much is alcohol present in actually cooking in
Mexican cuisine. I think not that much, but probably
somewhere. But yeah, besides that, is it an easy
to adapt cuisine to that audience? You know,
you would think not. But after you spend some
time here in the Emirates, it gets easier and
easier. Also because we have access to some really,
really good produce at this point in time. For
example, Mexican food uses a lot of manteca,
a lot of pork fat, and a lot of pork in itself.
So obviously there's no pork. But manteca, you
can also use really good, high -quality Wagyu
beef fat. This is very delicious. Like, you know,
and we have a lot of that. Wow, that's, yeah,
that's super interesting, that adaptation. It
reminds me when I was in Mass in Tokyo with Santiago
Fernandez, he had like a dish where the original
dish at Central in Lima, Peru. was made with
alpaca, which is, you know, basically this llama,
not llama, but like a similar animal from the
Andes, which that meat has a specific toxin that
makes it banned in Japan. So he did an adaptation,
like same, you know, same composition, same flavors
and everything, but he used Wagyu beef tongue.
instead of, you know, like at the end of the
day, you know, like that's what adapting is about.
I think that's something basically that every
chef should know, you know? Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely. It's, you know, often it's good to
have limitations. It kind of pushes you to rethink
certain things when everything's possible and
everything's available. It sometimes almost limits,
it like stops you, you know, when you have limitations,
it forces you to think in a certain way and in
a certain direction. And often you find things
that you end up really, really liking, you know,
like. For example, Brandon at Tres, he made this
very simple starter of queso fundido. So he has
this little cast iron skillet and he makes chorizo
from fish. So he just dices up fish and cures
it like a chorizo, like a fresh chorizo. And
then lets that out in the pan and puts queso
Oaxaca on top and gratins it and serves that
with fresh tortillas. And you basically scoop
this. melted cheese with the fish chorizo out
onto the tortilla and eat it and it's fucking
delicious you just kind of you're kind of like
well i can't make normal chorizo so what do i
do and then you come up with a new technique
that's fucking cool i also had like a nice mexican
experience recently dude like something really
crazy happened out of nowhere because i forgot
my cousin walter from from omagase by walt and
ibiza I knew, but I forgot that he was coming
to San Sebastian, and suddenly he calls like,
hey, cousin, I'm coming tonight. And I was like,
oh, fuck. And then suddenly, out of nowhere,
also my friend Diego Prado, who was organizing
like a course for the fermentation master, and
he invited Douglas McMaster, and he calls me
like, hey, Douglas McMaster, can you take him
out tonight to have some pinchos in town? And
suddenly I was like, oh, okay, like I'm taking
these two guys out for a crazy dinner, you know,
like out of nowhere. That's so cool, man. Yeah,
like we had a great time. It was really fun.
But so after that, I spent like four nights going
out with Walter to different places. There's
a new place that I really want to go here in
San Sebastian that is called Echemaite. This
guy is like a Elcano veteran, so it's like a
very, you know, straightforward Basque produce
-driven cuisine. So I really wanted to try that,
but for some reason the hours didn't match, and
I ended up going to another one that was also
on my bucket list and I couldn't go before, which
is Erre. This is led by a couple, O 'Brien and
Anelore. They're both chefs. She's Basque, he's
Mexican. And, you know, there has been this strong
tandem and exchange of cultures between Mexico
and the Basque country. There are Basque chefs
that have restaurants in Mexico, Mexican chefs
that have restaurants here. The chocolate was
very important even centuries ago with the trades
from the Americas. So there's a lot of cultural
connection. Also, they're very focused on natural
wines and they have like a nice wine selection
and everything. But the focus was pretty much
in the food, at least. Very Mexican. There were
things that felt more like Basque or European.
We had just a la carte. Dude, that's also something
I wanted to comment with you. a la carte is a
thing you know like why why having you know like
a 150 course menu where each component has 700
ingredients and 300 elaborations and where you
need 1500 chefs to execute it when you can do
so nice things with just so little and make something
amazing and memorable you know like and it's
it's enough and it's nice We always compare cooking
with music. And I don't know, if you think about,
for example, Seven Nation Armies from the White
Stripes, you know, that's the easiest song to
play and it's impactful and memorable and it
generates sensations and everything. While you
compare it to something really complex with hundreds
of musicians doing a hundred of things at the
same time. And you know, like one is not better
than the other. It's just like one is more resourceful
than the other, you know? But in any case, we
had like an aguachile as a starter. He did something
really cool with the marinade. He used kiwi,
which I never saw before, but it was really punchy.
So the kiwi gave like this texture to the aguachile.
cleanly strained, so you won't see any seeds
or anything. You will just see like a clean,
green sauce. Lots of fruits in there. Super nice.
Then he did a squab, like pigeon, from Aranjuez.
Super beautifully executed. And we also had some...
vegetables in between. And for me, the main thing
is something I wanted to try because I heard
about that before, that he serves the steak,
the chuleta, the bone -in sirloin that you find
here in the Basque country, with tortillas. You
know, which is for me, for me, actually, tortillas
is the DNA of Mexican food. You know, like Mexican
food without tortillas is not Mexican food. You
know, it's like bread for European or rice for
Asians. And yeah, having these tortillas with
the chuleta and it also had some salsa so that
you could play around. Each bite would be different
and everything. I mean, I love the way that the
Basque do their grill. That is just salt. You
know, like a bus cuisine is radically minimalistic
and that's also beautiful. But this playfulness
and changing around, you know, like for a change,
it's also super fun. And I really enjoyed that
place. But the highlight for me was actually
at the end, I wanted to go home. I was already,
I had to work the next day, but my cousin, he
was on, so to say, holidays. He was traveling.
He was in San Sebastian. He was like, hey. Let's
ask the chef. He probably has some nice mezcals.
And I was like, of course he has. Of course.
There's no question that he has. So, but this
was like a really insightful experience for me
because there is a broader family of traditional
agave and dessert distillates that are often
grouped with mezcal. for their artisanal methods
and terroir -driven character, but they're not
mezcal. So one that we have is called Sotol,
which is distilled from the plant Dacirulion
or something like that. And the other is Raisilla,
original agave distillate from Jalisco, which
has its own DOP, its own protected denomination
and distinct tradition. So the one that we have
first is Sotol. Dude, like super nice. Like it
had this, um, aromas of crushed herbs, raisins,
stone, you know, like smoke in the, in the, in
the background. Uh, very green, very botanical,
beautiful. And the other one that was the absolute
highlight. It's, uh, uh, Raisilla Japo is the
name from Mesonte. So Raisilla Japo. was made
by a guy called Happo. That was his nickname,
who unfortunately passed away recently. So it's
a Finnish thing. Its maker is gone, and the bottles
that exist are the ones that exist. This was
really mind -blowing. I remember O 'Brien, the
chef, saying, give them little kisses while you
drink. I was having just like a micro finger
because I didn't want to drink. I had to work
next day. But I would give them. And there was
a lot of things going on there, you know, like
the fermented agaves, soft lactic notes, herbs,
just some smoke. It was really alive. It would
really transport you to somewhere else. You know,
it reminded me of some, I remember in New York
having some really nice mezcals that this underground
things that come in a plastic bottle, like in
a Coca -Cola bottle full of booze, you know,
like, like it feels like clandestine. It reminds
me of that. Incredible. Like if you can find
that, get a bottle while they still exist. That
sounds amazing. I think mezcal as like the umbrella
term for distilled agave drinks that are not
tequila, right? It's super underrated and there's
so much going on. It's really beautiful. They're
really, really beautiful, beautiful drinks. Like
if you think of tequila and you think of this
like very strong, very pungent kind of thing,
mezcal. Mezcal is very varied. Like, you can't
generalize what mezcal tastes like. You have,
like, very sharp, very strong. They say herbal.
You have smoky. You have sweet. You have so much
going on. It's very, very complex. And I love
what you say, like, with the chuleta and the
tortillas. That's exactly what we did in the
pop -up also as a main course. We had this, like,
bone -in wagyu ribeye steak. I saw the videos.
Was it Brandon, the guy cutting the chuletas?
Yes, the Shaolin monk Brandon. Yeah, absolutely.
With laser sharp focus. You could tell that guy
is a machine just from seeing him work. And yeah,
it was so fun, you know. I mean, tortillas in
itself, right? Good quality tortillas. It's like,
I like that you compared it to rice in Asian
cooking because I remember when I was living
in Japan. And you have this, like you get this
appreciation for good rice. Even now today, when
I smell freshly made steamed white rice, like
I start like, like I start getting hungry. Like
my mouth starts to salivate. I'm like, I'm like
wires to, to want that, you know? And it's the
same with tortillas. When I went to Interest,
they, they nixtamalized the corn themselves.
You know, they brought Molino from Mexico. They
import the dried corn. They do the nixtamalization
there. They make the tortillas fresh every day.
And so you walk in and you smell the nixtamal.
It's so beautiful. It's such a unique aroma.
Like you cannot, I don't think you can compare
it to anything. So for those who don't know,
nixtamal is basically maize corn that has been
soaked in and cooked in an alkaline solution,
traditionally water with lime. So calcium hydroxide,
which loosens the whole, improves nutrition and
allows it to be ground into masa for tortillas
and other dishes. And it's something that...
It's traditional in Mexico, but you will see
that also in other cultures all over Latin America.
And it's so wonderful. You have freshly made,
good quality tortillas. A good piece of meat.
And then you have a couple of condiments. You
know, we did like a, I think we did like a shiso
jalapeño salsa verde. And we did a mole seco
with like lots of spices and like an onion salad.
So onions like quickly sauteed, but sort of still
crunchy. De -glazed with a little bit of maggi.
and then like molle secco and then you just take
like a slice of beef a little bit of salsa a
little bit of this like onion it's absolutely
amazing another thing that we did as we were
talking about molle earlier which was one of
my favorite dishes of the night we really wanted
to do like a lobster dish and so we took the
lobster we blanched it but keeping it raw we
took it out and then we just like popped it into
melted wagyu beef fat and just poached it in
the beef fat And then afterwards, where it was
just like super glazy, we took it out, we put
it on the grill under like a little bit of like
smoking wood. So just like smoked it on the wood
a little bit, finished it on the grill. And then
we served that with a mole made from peanuts,
peanut mole, like a really thick paste, you know.
And we did a little salad of like persimmon with
like ginger, spring onions, shiso. They're very
fresh. just like a dressing made from like confit
spring onions ginger and shio kombu which is
salted kelp and like this like confit meaty smoky
lobster with the peanut mole and like the fresh
salad and like it didn't really make sense like
is it mexican is it asian like what is it you
know but it is fucking amazing it's so delicious
i love it when people can cook freely like this
you know Yeah, lime, not the citrus fruit. Lime,
like, you know, like often you... The one that
burns your skin if you touch it. Exactly, the
alkaline thing. Like often the old, like ashes
were used and stuff like that. Traditionally,
as far as I know. Before, we were talking about
adapting cuisine to other audiences. And this
was also funny because I was talking with Walter.
By the way, go check his Instagram, omakase,
by Walt. He has a Michelin star in Ibiza, and
he does, like, super traditional sushi. We have
an episode with him. You can check it out as
well. So I asked him because I got, after the
enzyme episode, you know, like, I got really
curious about it, and I bought some enzymes powdered.
You know, like, I got some proteases and other
things. And just like back in the days, you know,
when you would have like these powders of agar
or whatever that, you know, they would have like
this standard recipes in the, you know, in the
package that would say, yeah, you can do vegan
gelatin or whatever. And here's a recipe for
orange vegan gelatin or, you know, like this
kind of thing. The same thing is now with this,
like more innovative products to use today. And
the example they would give you is to do a liquid
Gilda, like the Gilda, you know, the anchovy,
piparra, olive skewer. Basically to blend it,
add some protease and accelerate the process
that turns everything into liquid. And then you
would have like this, they call it Gilda garum.
So I was thinking like, wow, this is really cool.
Like you can do that, like basically like a...
An accelerated garum, you know, like you get
anchovies, you blend them, you add some of this
powder, you wait a couple of hours and suddenly
everything is liquid and you have this intense
anchovy sauce liquid, you know, like this quick
garum, so to say. That's pretty cool. I haven't
done that yet. I haven't had the time, but I
definitely want to do that. I love cooking with
Garum. I just add drops of Garum to whatever
you're doing and being able to do it like this.
I think it's quite interesting. I wouldn't say
it's a fake Garum. I would say it's an accelerated
Garum. It's just like a different way to do it.
So I was talking about this with Walter and he
was like, no, no, no, no, no. I'm super... traditional
japanese you know like i never go out of the
frame of and i was like but no can't you just
do that and you know like with a brush put it
on top of a specific no no no japanese don't
do that no no no i would do that i respect that
you know i love his ultra respectful approach
just you know like keeping the frame inside the
frame I like that as well, you know, like I'm
quite the opposite. I like to go out of the frame
every time I can. 100%. But yeah, I also think
that's super interesting. You know, like I've
been discussing recently because, well, this
year I will be dynamizing the Chef's Innovation.
community at Basque Culinary Center. So we'll
be organizing some content and some events and
some things. And one of the things that we were
discussing is what tensions are there in innovation.
You know, like, because this makes it like an
interesting ground for discussion. Like a very
obvious tension is innovation versus tradition,
which is what we're just talking about right
now. You know, like... And putting, for example,
someone like Walter to discuss with someone like
Morimoto, right? Masaharu Morimoto. Yes. You
know, which is quite the opposite. It's quite
the disruptive sushi, right? And having that
discussion and at the end of the day, I think
even the super traditional chef, they also like
the super innovative stuff. But just defending
one position versus the other just generates
new questions and new interesting ways on how
to find new breaches and new paths to find new
ways to innovate, to create new things. Or another
example could be being territory -driven. grounded
and anchored versus like a more global approach
and you know like using whatever combo in dubai
for example you know like our things are that
don't grow there but that are still super interesting
and why not you know like but i think that are
different approaches and they feed each other
and they can nourish each other but the the discussion
itself is super interesting yeah absolutely absolutely
it's like i think it's kind of depending on I
think it's important to appreciate both sides,
you know. I definitely always appreciate, unlike
you, I... go out of the frame more often than
not but i've always really appreciated people
like admired people also who are like very they
have their thing and they get really deep into
it you know and also like if they if they stick
to like their world what they've chosen for themselves
like they will delve much deeper into it than
i ever will i don't know with whether i'm just
a little bit too autistic to do that like i am
like all over the place i remember in japan like
you know like it's very common that For example,
here you go to Segovia or whatever, where they're
cooking like charcoal ovens, where they do like
a whole piece of meat and they come outside and
they show you like the piece of whatever, of
a lamb or a suckling pig. And everybody's like,
whoa. And you would see the same thing in Japan,
but they come with a pot and they open it and
there is rice. And everybody's like, oh. And
I feel so extremely ignorant. being there and
not getting it, you know, like, because I do
appreciate rice, you know, like, and I do see
that's beautiful and everything, but I'm not
striped by it. And there genuinely are. And that's,
that's one of those things I, as you were saying,
like being someone who sticks into a tradition
and goes all the way through. If you're doing
sushi rice every day for the last 30 years, you
get a. a depth and an understanding uh there
that that we will never understand as as normal
mortals like both has its like its ups and downs
you know but i think appreciating both sides
and having an um open discussion for like about
it you know and just looking at everything from
a neutral perspective and not condemning either
one just being like oh this is the way no this
is the way you know it gives you a lot of insight.
It's what we talked about the other day. It's
kind of like if you just don't take it so seriously
and you listen to somebody with a different perspective
than your own open -mindedly, you will always,
pretty much always take something away from it.