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Oops All Food Discussion! (w/Dominic Armato)
87 Plays5 hours ago
In an epic longest ever podcast, Ben & Jess are joined by food critic Dominic Armato to discuss regional food, living in an apartment with some mobster history, and some other stuff not really about food that frankly, should have been cut out (this is oops all food, not oops all food and some extraneous topics!!!!!)
Quest Quest podcast is Ben Vigeant and Jess Morrissette.
Editing by Ben Vigeant
Show art by Kevin "WilcoWeb" Wallace
Watch us on Twitch!
Ben: https://www.twitch.tv/ps_garak
Jess: https://www.twitch.tv/decafjedi
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Talk with us on Discord!
https://discord.gg/ve9fqjgPp2
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Transcript
Introduction & Guest Overview
00:00:30
Speaker
It's Quest Quest, the adventure game podcast.
00:00:36
Speaker
But today is a special day. You know, we've we've been joking around as as this podcast, ah as the amount of food content and coverage has increased week to week, we have sort of joked around. It's like, wouldn't it be great if we just did like and yeah a really food centric episode? And this could be that episode because we have the perfect guest to talk food with.
00:01:02
Speaker
Yeah, we have a food critic Dominic Armato joining us. Hi there. Dominic, thanks for joining us. Oh, pretty good. and Now, you're you're from Chicago, is that correct? I am, yes, originally, born and raised.
00:01:18
Speaker
All right. So adulthood there before I went off to other places. And so we you're you're probably familiar with this.
00:01:28
Speaker
Yeah. Having grown up here. We just were at the conclusion of our first fall spring. OK. Oh, yeah. Yes, yes. So everyone was out in shorts. Yep. Like a degree weather. Yep.
00:01:41
Speaker
And it's gorgeous. And
Phoenix Weather & Prohibition Tales
00:01:42
Speaker
it feels like summer. And then it's going to suck again for another month now. yep oh i know it well yeah yeah we i'm sorry just uh completed the first fall spring ah and the it's gonna go crashing down but i'm getting in a plane to la in a day and a half so it doesn't matter to me possibly do yeah we had some friends to visit us uh just uh just this past weekend so they came oh yeah yeah yeah out here in arizona so they got out of the cold for a little bit enjoyed that so you know yeah exactly
00:02:12
Speaker
And then for us, it's going to be 120 degrees and, and, and the sun's going to try to kill us every day. And that'll go on for nine months and I will envy you in the wintertime, which I miss. yeah I, just you know, move to a more temperate ah Appalachian climate where, where that's simple, you know, arts, jobs, family, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. I mean, yeah. if that sort of stuff's important to you, I get it. Yeah. I mean, Come on, Seattle, actually. I like that. Oh, we'll see. Could you when it's 120 degrees out?
00:02:47
Speaker
Yeah. Can like can you actually cook an egg on on the like on the asphalt? Like you can, but it's kind of exaggerated. I mean, it's not like a frying pan or anything like that. You know, it can happen slowly.
00:03:00
Speaker
Yeah, it's the it's it's a little exaggerated. not But it's not impossible. But I mean, it does get, it gets like freakishly hot inside cars. That is absolutely the case when you have a closed environment and it and it and it's ah it's it's it's dangerous. And it's dangerous to be outside at all. I mean, there's a good, the one of the great, what the one of the excuse me, one of the awful things about living in Phoenix, particularly when you have little kids, is that, you know, you get to summertime and they're home from school and that is a time of year when you desperately need to let them outside to run around and set off energy and all that kind of stuff. And it is the one time of year when it will kill them in like five minutes.
00:03:35
Speaker
it's It's just the worst.
00:03:38
Speaker
Do you have like a like ah a basement they could just run in circles around? Nobody has a basement in Phoenix. Basements don't exist here, which is which is, it would be the best place in the world for them, but no one has them.
00:03:50
Speaker
I am told it has to do with the composition of the soil and it's very expensive and I have no idea if it's that or if it's something cultural or if it's just that, you know, this was built in the middle of a desert. So it's like, why build up or down when we can build out? I don't know.
00:04:02
Speaker
um but But no, I i don't know. i don't think I know a single person who has a basement. I think I've only been in one basement. I mean, unless we're talking about some big commercial development, like an actual house with a basement. I think I've only ever been in one.
00:04:14
Speaker
Huh? Nobody has basements here. It makes no sense. It would totally make sense here. Wouldn't it? Yeah. Get underground where it's cooler. Yeah, exactly. There was one, there was a, there's a hotel here.
00:04:27
Speaker
Um, the, uh, what's it called? Um, um, So there's a hotel here. It's an old it's ah it's an old little little boutique ah um li boutique resort.
00:04:38
Speaker
And it was it's been around for, I don't know, 100 years or something like that. There's some old famous Arizona icon, Lon McGargy. I think if I'm pronouncing that correctly, hopefully someone's not going to kill me for that. um But his state they slowly converted his old home. He was a painter and they slowly converted his old home into this resort.
00:04:56
Speaker
But apparently back in the day, supposedly like prohibition era, he would throw these incredible parties and they would go down in his cellar and they would totally booze it up.
00:05:07
Speaker
And he had built, he had
Speakeasies & Mob History
00:05:09
Speaker
reportedly, he had dug these tunnels that went like out to the stables. So if the cops came to raid the place, everyone would just go running out through the tunnels, hop on their horses and go. and get away um and uh and and there is still actually a basement there and there i have no idea how much this is truth and how much is legend but um but there was a a fellow i know a really nice fellow he's a fantastic bartender um and he ran the bar there for a number of years and he started doing these sort of quiet uh what he called it he called it the arizona temperance league we would meet once a week in the summertime in the basement
00:05:44
Speaker
of uh of this resort and uh you have like you know a giant bowl of punch and you know a few little hors d'oeuvres and uh you know some prohibition era cocktails and everyone would just chill and hang out and like the only place in the city that was actually cool it was great i missed that that's that sounds ideal you know was was it your plan to move like do you exclusively live in cities with interesting prohibition era stories or no that was not part of the plan like But i'm um i' I'm good with it. I mean, I feel like that was, you know, it seems like it's an interesting era. i don't know if I want to live through it, but I was just at a bar this weekend that was doing like the we have a secret speakeasy that you have to have reservations and a password and all that sort. I didn't go to that part of the bar. I just went to the regular person part of the bar because that felt like a lot of effort. But I did see a lot of people lined up for the speakeasy gimmick and they looked like they were about to have The speakeasy gimmick kind of says everything about it right there, right?
00:06:41
Speaker
There is this one ah there. It's I think it's gone now, but there was this one bar here in Phoenix and it was like the most Phoenix speakeasy ever because you would walk up to the address that they were listed and there was a big sign on the front door that said, like all true speakeasies, you enter this one through the rear.
00:07:00
Speaker
okay then which which which should be certain it's the whole purpose but okay that's cool whatever you know it's all good let us do it here's the here's the here's the secret entrance with the giant neon arrows and you know the whole thing there's a the there's a magic theater here in chicago the chicago magic lounge in uh the andersonville neighborhood and phil They have ah like a, their front is a fake laundromat.
00:07:36
Speaker
Okay. I dig that. So you, you walk in please climb into a dryer. Please tell me you climb into a dryer to get into this thing. I wish. I wish. The the thing is, I'll give them props. There's no obvious signage. There's just like the address and then a big sign of a washer.
00:07:57
Speaker
Yeah. And there are there are posters like, but not too obvious of like like Houdini, but as if they're just kind of like faded like street posters yeah near there.
00:08:09
Speaker
yeah And you walk in and you see a bunch of ah like fake washers like spinning clothes and then you like ring a bell and then the door, like the washers open up and you walk through.
00:08:21
Speaker
Well, I like to talk about Chicago to the the Violet Hour when they first opened. I assume they still I mean, are they still around or they shut down now? I think the Violet Hour recently closed. I think that might have been a post 2020. Yeah. But like when they opened, they were they were ahead of the curve on the whole Neo speakeasy thing. Right. And they had it. They had it right. There was a mural and there was a light above the door and the door had like there and that was it.
00:08:46
Speaker
You know, like it's maybe it's not like hidden in the back of a place, but but at least, you know, it was like, you know, we're we're trying to low key this a little bit. So that was like a like the the hidden speakeasy thing was a big trend in Chicago. i would say like about 10 years ago, like, yeah, about 10 years ago, there would be like, ah oh, there's this place and you have to dress up.
00:09:10
Speaker
You have to wear a vest. Oh, okay. Interesting. so they They went big with it. Yeah, because I mean, the first one that I remember landing on my radar in that era was was the Violet Hour. That's the one I remember being. There might have been others that I missed, but i i that's the that kicked it off in Chicago.
00:09:27
Speaker
i Yeah, I would not be surprised if that's the case. so I'm not cool enough to get invited to You don't know the password. Yeah. we yeah No one tells me. No one tells me the the password, so I just sit at the regular bar like Jess. Trying to eavesdrop for the password.
00:09:46
Speaker
If you want to get off on a wild prohibition tangent, I actually have a, this is dangerous because this will take us for like ah on like a 10 or 15 minute tangent. but But in my old apartment in Chicago, I had a i had a very interesting prohibition era mob connection.
00:10:00
Speaker
to my old apartment in Chicago. Oh. It's an interesting story. We're going to have to go down this route. Like you've already given us this. Do I have to do it now? Should I try to give you the short version?
00:10:13
Speaker
Give us whatever version you want to us. Cause now so I'm going to know where this is. so or at least certain My future wife and I moved into this apartment that it was on the third floor of a building.
00:10:24
Speaker
um It was right out of, you know, ah ah the, the new Haven pizza place piece. Yep. I know. it Well, it was like, it was like one or one or two doors west of there. There used to be a French bakery on the ground floor and moved into an apartment that was on the third floor.
00:10:38
Speaker
walk up to the third floor, right? And so we got this apartment, we sort took it over, a friend had been living there and he moved and we talked to the landlord, we love the apartment, like, can we take it over? He's like, yeah, sure, no problem. And he said something about, like, we're going through checking the place out. Yeah, everything looks great, fantastic, we'll sign the lease. And he makes some sort of comment about, also, there's like some sort of mob connection to the building. don't know, there's some story, you know, you might want to look it up. I don't know all the details. We're like, okay, that's cool.
00:11:04
Speaker
So 10 goes on, but I don't think much of this. um and And then for ah Valentine's Day one year, my wife gives me what is like possibly the greatest present I've ever received in my entire life.
00:11:17
Speaker
She did the research, like pulled the microfiche of the old Chicago Tribune articles and put together this little report of precisely what the uh what the connection was and the connection was that um at the time you got uh al capone and uh uh bugs moran right moran i get moran seagull is vegas moran is chicago and bugs moran are you know in their big turf war and and capone hasn't like fully taken over the Chicago outfit yet, but he's on the rise and he's on his way, right?
00:11:47
Speaker
And there's um there's some mob killing of one of Capone's henchmen. And he is just, as the story goes, he is just convinced that had to be Moran.
00:11:57
Speaker
That's it. We're going to war. This is it. And there was this fellow who was sort of an older, an older guy acting sort of like as a mentor to Capone. He tells hey, you know, be be cool.
00:12:08
Speaker
We're not sure. Take your time. See who fills the power vacuum. We'll wait. And when it's time, we're going to make our move. Right. But just chill for now. Capone's like, all right, fine. He talks him down.
00:12:19
Speaker
So a couple of days later. This guy, Lelordo, is in his apartment and a couple of you know, a couple of big guys braced come to his door and knock and he lets them in and they go upstairs and his his wife and kid are in the back of the apartment and he's in the front and they sit down and they're having, ah they're having wine and a drink. don't what it is.
00:12:35
Speaker
And, and these two guys shoot him dead, put a pillow under his head. walk out and that's it. And then this guy, this guy, Patsy Lelordo, they hit him in his house and that puts Capone over the edges. Like, that's it. We're going to war.
00:12:49
Speaker
And in response to the Patsy Lelordo killing, Capone ah orders what would become the St. Valentine's Day massacre. Wow. To get back at Bugs Moran.
00:13:00
Speaker
So, so I'm flipping through this book with all this information, this little booklet she made with all this information. And I get to the very end and I'm looking at this photograph and there's a photograph of Patsy Lelordo, old sepia tone, dead on the floor, you know, bodies lying on the floor, pillows behind the head. Right. And I'm looking at this and it's like old timey, you know, or whatever. And then I realized,
00:13:19
Speaker
Oh my God, that's our fireplace. these like The entire place has been completely remodeled. Of course, you know, it's a beautiful modern apartment, but they left the old antique fireplace with this special tile.
00:13:30
Speaker
And it's like, holy shit, that's our fireplace. That's it. It's right there. So of course, the next time, the next when the next year came around on the anniversary of well lo the L'Alurdo hit, you know we put a chalk out light on the ground and we invited a bunch of stuff over and I played the Godfather theme on the accordion and then we made some pasta. I found the one movie I could find that had a a scene with a recreation of the L'Alurdo hit. It was the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. It had Jason Robards in it. It was an absolutely terrible, terrible film. but it did actually briefly depict the Patsy Lelordo hit. So we watched the movie and had a good night.
Becoming a Food Critic
00:14:07
Speaker
So that was cool.
00:14:08
Speaker
Yeah. I tried to get her to let me frame the photo and put it above the mantle. She wouldn't let me.
00:14:15
Speaker
but Now it's above your mantle. No. I keep the photo with me all the time. keep it in my phone. So yeah. Anyway. Wow. What a story. i didn't know...
00:14:27
Speaker
I, you know, this is, this is how little, like, I, I didn't know of that much because that would be, so you said, uh, peace pizzeria. So that would be Wicker park off the Damon blue line. We were on North, just, just East of the big corner. yeah And, ah I didn't know that there was like, I, I typically think of like, kind of like the uptown area and like the South loop is having a lot of the, the big mob stuff. I didn't know that there was too much of that. Well, I mean, this just happened to be, don't know they typically congregated and hung out. I mean, this happened to be a alert where Lelordo's home was.
00:15:04
Speaker
Sometimes murders just happen where they happen, too. They happen where they happen. You know, we don't we don't choose where where're where gangsters decide to come hit us. so Look, we'll all eventually be murdered. We just don't know when or where. Especially now we've talked about this. There could be hits out on all three of us for you divulging. could all be so lucky as to be murdered in the comfort of our own home. Wouldn't it be nice, right?
00:15:27
Speaker
at a ripe old age. Yeah. You know, but I'm i'm worried, you know, i'm worried about the resale value for for my, you know, for the other people in this condo, you know? It has made me wonder over time if that means that the landlord actually did know the story and just didn't feel like telling us the details, know, but I don't think so. I think he actually did not know. Yeah.
00:15:48
Speaker
Yeah. How many generations have to go by before you no longer have to disclose something like that? I wonder, like, because I think if there's been a very recent violent crime in a home, isn't that something that has to be disclosed during like the rental or purchase process? wow I expect so probably.
00:16:05
Speaker
yeah but ah But funny enough to bring this full circle back to food. So I wrote about this on the food blog that I was running at the time. ah And I did a little, I put up a recipe of the pasta we made. Right. And it was like, mh Patsy Patsy's pasta. Right. And I had, had you know, I told the story and I put up the recipe for the pasta and all that kind of stuff.
00:16:25
Speaker
And um it it wasn't until maybe about a year later or something like that, but somebody commented on the blog and was like, Hey, Dominic, I ran and cross your little tribute to my grandfather.
00:16:36
Speaker
I just wanted to say it was really nice. And it's like, Oh, that's right. These are actual people who have actual children who still are alive and around and can read my blog. Yeah. And then I got to, I ended up being contacted by a couple of of his dis descendants who ran across this, ah this little post that I made And it was like, oh, wow, man. It's like, no, this is not, this is not film. This actually happened.
00:16:57
Speaker
Yeah, that was a little, low that was a little, I don't want to say disturbing exactly, but it was like, oh, Okay, that's right. Yep, yep, yep. Actually happened. Real people. My only, ah my former Chicago chicago apartment has a had a Chicago piece of potential history is that someone told me that my apartment was where Jack McBriar used to live, which is, you know, the other side of, and they could have been wrong too. people were murdered there.
00:17:25
Speaker
Yeah, he was murdered. Oh, great. There you go. Why? that was It was tragic. It was in the news. Remember? We got a good story. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like, remember how he was only in a couple seasons of 30 Rock? and And it was like, and then he vanished. It was all just old, like, footage that kept, like, repurposing in those later seasons. It got more and more awkward. Yeah, no, was awful. That's a good story. Yep.
00:17:47
Speaker
Here you go But anyway, ah so that and we we've we've all been been talking, but I have a I have a ah question. i I'll throw it to you, Jess.
00:18:00
Speaker
What have you been eating? Oh, my goodness. What have I been eating? I just came back from a ah trip to New York City. I went there with my family and i ate my way ah through much of Manhattan. So kind of I ate Manhattan would be, know how the Muppets took Manhattan? um I ate Manhattan. Kind of just all the food there was there. There's actually a shortage. That's been the news also. But I think the best thing I had on my trip
00:18:35
Speaker
was we went to Bryant Park where they had set up sort of a food stall festival with a bunch of different food stalls set up around an ice skating rink.
00:18:49
Speaker
It was like 35 degrees. There was still snow on the ground. So it's a nice winter day. and there was a stand selling, um and I hope I pronounced this somewhere close to correct, Biong Biong noodles, ah which are a sort of thick, very chewy, almost like a pappardelle kind of style Asian noodle um that they were hand pulling there at the stall. So like the Biong Biong is supposed to be like, as i understand it, like,
00:19:23
Speaker
an onomatopoeia word for the sound it makes when they smack the the noodle dough onto the to the rolling uh uh station everything so they make these fresh they're pulling them they're you know dunking them in the water and everything then just served with uh a simple like chili oil and a little bit of scallion and i have to tell you eating that like standing around a park while people are ice skating around you and there's snow on the ground and it's 30 degrees out and it's warm and fresh and spicy.
00:19:58
Speaker
Just amazing. My daughter and I are initially were going to share an order of it and it was so good. I just handed her the first order and went directly back to the stall and got one for myself that so we could both enjoy it as much as possible. But yeah, Beyond Beyond Noodles, my favorite, first time trying them, and my favorite thing I've been eating lately.
00:20:23
Speaker
Dominic, I'll throw it over to you. what have you been eating? Well, i I just, last week, I just got back from Tokyo, I thought. and I've been traveling there a bunch and eating a whole ton there.
00:20:34
Speaker
and And one of the things that's kind of funny about going there if you do like a bunch of fancy fancy restaurants during any trip to Japan, you know, they're so wonderfully hyper-seasonal about everything. It is both a is well the good and handy, not a bad thing, but like You know, it's wonderful that you have this thing that is in season for this week, right? That is at its absolute peak.
00:21:00
Speaker
But if you go to like four or five fancy pants restaurants over the course of a week, they're all going to give you that thing. So you end up giving like five versions of that thing. Now, this is not not so much a problem for me. I love this. um But my son got a little education about Chiraco.
00:21:16
Speaker
I don't know if any of you are familiar with that. I'm not. It is... um It is often most often translated as cod sperm, which is perhaps not 100% accurate. and It's more it's more it's more of like this, some sort of ah reproductive organ that the fish creates you know during during the spawning season or whatever. um and and there there are a couple different kinds that are popular but one in particular uh that's very popular apparently in fine dining restaurants in tokyo is uh fugu shirako which would be the uh the the reproductive sack for fugu which is the the puffer fish that you know yeah you know slice just so or else uh or else uh it'll it'll it'll kill you so um so yeah no i ended up having that and i think like
00:22:03
Speaker
five different restaurants over the course of uh yeah and and i i love this i adore it it's like it's like it's like the size of um maybe the size of a racquetball we'll say maybe a little bit smaller than that wow and it's and it's white and it has like this the outside it it kind of under its own weight it kind of flattens a little bit like a little bean bag we're about the size of a racquetball and it has ah a thin membrane on the outside and the inside is just white and creamy and delicious and and it's and it's often it's grilled they'll skewer it and then they'll then they'll you know put it over the you know charcoal grill and kind of grill it um there was one restaurant my my favorite was there's a place called uh tanimoto
00:22:43
Speaker
um, in Tokyo. And, and that was of all the ones, the preparations I had, that was probably my favorite. So they took, they, they grilled the, uh, the fugu over the, the fugu shirako over the, the charcoal grill.
00:22:54
Speaker
Then they had a, a, uh, halved out, uh, hollowed out, uh, yuzu, you know, the, the citrus. So then they put the, he put a little, uh, uh, chopped lotus root in there, you know, texture. And then they put the, uh, the grilled,
00:23:06
Speaker
um shirako fuga shirako inside there with the lotus root then they put the whole fruit back over the fire for a little bit so it just kind of warmed up and all that citrusy essence just kind of you know got in there and then they just give you a little spoon and you go to and it's just like creamy and citrusy and light and and it's got you know those little bits of crunch from the that crispy lotus root and And it was just just dynamite.
Cooking Stories & Techniques
00:23:29
Speaker
and and and i And I got two of them cause because i all my dining companion was was like, no, draw on the line there. so That sounds amazing.
00:23:40
Speaker
it was It is really good. It's one of those things that I think i think most people would enjoy if they could get just get mentally passed. you know Don't think about what it is. Just eat it. It's delicious. so Yeah.
00:23:51
Speaker
so of course i went there i had to give you something like that i mean i like like com comp and ramen and all that kind of stuff too but uh but uh but yeah having uh having fugu shirako like five different ways was was definitely educational yeah uh so so for me uh last last weekend uh as we record was a valentine's day weekend oh yes Um, and, uh, my boyfriend and I went to a really lovely, restaurant here in Chicago called a giant, which was spectacular. oh good I was there last summer.
00:24:23
Speaker
Really? Spring, excuse me. Last spring in March. Yes. Sorry. you I interrupted you. Oh yeah. No worries. No worries. that place Um, and And everything there was excellent, especially the dessert. They had soy sauce ice cream. That was just really wonderful.
00:24:40
Speaker
But I want to talk about what ah ah what I made the day before, which was Valentine's Day. So we went on on Sunday. we we went to Giant and had this spectacular meal.
00:24:51
Speaker
And then um on Valentine's Day, i was like, I'll make dinner because I love cooking. um And I didn't actually even know what I was going to make. It was just a thing where I volunteered and also all the restaurants were were full up until Sunday. So I was like, all right, I'll figure something out.
00:25:09
Speaker
And one of the, like that week, one of the cooking magazines that I subscribed to, this was Milk Street, arrived and it had two recipes in it.
00:25:21
Speaker
that i looked at and I was like, these are both impressive, one, and eminently makeable. which is important because like often, like I love cookbooks. I have a ton of cookbooks and I like, there's like kind of a side of the shelf, which is like cookbooks that are just kind of fun to peruse and kind of look at and kind of aspiration towards and ones that I like use on a, like a regular basis.
00:25:50
Speaker
Right. And a lot of the the stuff in in the cooking magazines I got are mostly more on the aspirational side. So the the two things were this was a chicken cordon bleu, a baked chicken cordon bleu. And I looked at it was like, I could do this.
00:26:06
Speaker
Right. And it lets me do the fun thing, which is get something for my kitchen, which I try not to buy new shit for my kitchen because i have too much stuff. And it's very easy to convince me and We also live in a society that's always trying to sell us new shit all the time. Get that air fryer, Ben. You got to get that air fryer. don't have any of it. I'm not getting it.
00:26:40
Speaker
But this was get a ah meat mallet, ah which I was like, well, I'm going to. I, you know, like could, this is something that isn't, that isn't going to just like, you know, be covered with dust. This is something that I'm going to use regularly. So that was it. I got to get this big hammer. um And so I, I smashed the the chicken thin and then wrapped like a a layer of ham, then shred up some gear and then wrapped it all up and rolled it in egg flour and panko.
00:27:17
Speaker
and baked it until like then when you opened it it up, it had that lovely, like very presentational, like blah. Yeah.
00:27:29
Speaker
And then the other thing that was in there where I was like, oh, this is very makeable was this ah Spanish a lemon olive oil cake.
00:27:40
Speaker
And yeah, the only thing I needed to get from the store was a lemon. ah have olive oil. i have eggs. I have milk. I have flour.
00:27:52
Speaker
You know, like everything else. And it came out so perfectly moist. And like, it was, it was just wonderful. So that was what I've been cooking and eating was, was that a Valentine's day meal. And ah it was a good time was had by all my, my boyfriend enjoyed himself.
00:28:15
Speaker
Very nice. I dig that. Yeah. are Are you, are you much a cook or are you more of a you are? well no, big time. Yeah. No, I mean, I still, I just, say it's been busy. So a little less frequently, but I mean, most over the years, I mean, I cook four or five nights a week for the family. oh wow Yeah. No, no, I, if I, I cook dinner right before popping on oh yeah podcast here, did a little, ah it's sort of a Vietnamese inspired, you know, you kind of melt some cherry tomatoes so they get all nice and jammy and little bit of
00:28:48
Speaker
a little bit ah of fish sauce and fried shallot and garlic and a little chili and it just makes a nice you know brothy situation sort of jammy brothy stuff and some fresh herbs and a little bitt little cilantro and uh and some bread and and a big chunk of halibut good stuff That sounds fantastic. and i and i And it's one of those things where it's like, there's so many, that's one of those dishes where it's like, you make, I make this thing and people are like, oh my God, this is amazing. Like this took like 20, this is like the easiest thing in the world.
00:29:14
Speaker
You know, it took like 20 minutes. It looks, it looks, you know, like crazy sophisticated and those are the best recipes. Oh yeah. Like, yeah. Or like the one that people always freak out about is you make the ah like the the Nobu, the the miso cured black cod, you know, like, I do know this one. and So it's hilarious to me because, you know, that whole history with the Matsuhisa Nobu and opening up the Nobu restaurant, the one in, but you know, getting a start in L.A. and then opening up the one in New York, de Niro. And then now it's, you know, this massive international chain.
00:29:43
Speaker
and And, you know, he built this empire on, you know, this misoyaki black cod, you know, and and and it's like and was like, oh my God, this is this amazing fine dining dish. And you go to Japan and it's like, yeah, that's like dinner on a Tuesday night, you know, like, you go to the store, and got a bin here, and it's got a bunch of chunks of fish sitting in miso, know, get a couple, stick them in a bag, take them home, put them under the broiler, there's dinner, you know.
00:30:05
Speaker
So, and that's one of those ones that I just love. And people lose their minds. about how awesome it is. It's so good. And it takes nothing at a recipe for it now. Holy shit. This is easy. like Yeah. No, it's four things. you get Miso, uh, mirin, sake, and sugar. And you just melt them together in a pan, basically cool it.
00:30:24
Speaker
Then you stick the fish in that and let it sit for three days. And then you take it out and put it under the broiler. Done. That's the whole thing. Yeah. I yeah built an empire on that. mean, to be fair, to be fair, he did a little more than just Misoyaki Black Cod, but i like not i'm not, not, not, not Nagan Matsumisunobu, but, um but, but I just always thought that was hilarious.
00:30:46
Speaker
I, where, so I, I had my little thing about kitchen gadgets. Where are you on that? Oh, it's a problem. Ask me how many immersion circulators I have. How many immersion circulators do you have?
00:30:59
Speaker
if I have five. I have one. Yeah. i i have I have an upgrade problem. That's my problem. yes That can be a real problem. I started with the original Namiku, which was like one of the first small, it was a Kickstarter for like one of the first small stick versions of the immersion circulator.
00:31:18
Speaker
then they brought out the Namiku too. So I had to get that right. And then Namiku kind of went away and the Anova's got really good. So I got one of those. And then, you know, Chef Steps came out with the Juul and the Juul was so sexy. So I had to get that. And then, you know, I probably didn't need the extra power from the Juul Pro or whatever they call it, but I decided I needed to have the extra power from the Juul Pro anyway. So now have cabinet filled with five immersion circulators. I have an Innova. I don't know which one it is. That's the one I Honestly, that's all I need. i this is all i have Again, i have a I describe this as a problem. It's a problem.
00:31:56
Speaker
Yeah, I'm just using the jacuzzi tub in my bathroom. I don't know. like And I'm in there with it, though, so I can really monitor the temperature carefully. It's minus 30 degrees. That's close enough, right? I mean, I will say the prep I've done has not turned out well. far, I wouldn't recommend it. But you know it's very relaxing, though.
00:32:15
Speaker
That's true. and And, you know, that feeling of being connected to your food, like, you know a lot of people say it's like I harvested this or I foraged this. And, you know it's like these mushrooms because I was out, you know, like the hen of the forest picking it myself. You know i was yeah I really feel connected to the ingredients.
00:32:32
Speaker
When you bathe with them, it's really the same thing. like You know, until you've bathed with a skirt steak. you can't really appreciate what it brings to a dish hey's forming a deep, intimate connection with your food. And that is the kind of thing that all of us food geeks strive for. Right. And then, and, and Jess also, he also, uh, is in the jacuzzi with a sprig of, uh, like time and rosemary too. yeah So, yeah was on yeah and, you know, get a drink and marinate yourself while you're marinating. Yeah. I'm usually very marinated by the time I start this process. goes in the fridge for two to three days. Yeah.
00:33:08
Speaker
You do roll in me so trigger pretty regularly. So that, yeah, I'm just a few steps away from it. Like Dominic said, it's really easy when you when you break it down.
00:33:19
Speaker
It looks very sticky. Yeah. Yeah. But my wife is delicious. So wonders so my wife my wife many years ago, my wife went to a spa with her mother and she came back and I asked her how it was. And she said, it was so fantastic. We did this special treatment. And what they did is she said, they they took us and they got like, they had honey and they put like all sorts of herbs and stuff in this honey. And then they kind of smeared it all over us. And then they wrapped us in plastic and they put us under a heat lamp.
00:33:47
Speaker
i was like, so you were honey roasted. Yeah.
00:33:52
Speaker
Yeah, I guess so. It's time get up for the Nashville hot. yeah
00:34:01
Speaker
oh this This is going in a very bad direction right now. No. So how did you end up as a food critic? Tell us a little bit about your journey to, to this career. And it was, it was a dumb accident. And one of the stupidest things I've ever done in my life, if I'm being honest but about it. No, I, I just, I got like, I was traveling. I mean, I was always into food, right? I was always into food. i was always into cooking when I moved out.
00:34:26
Speaker
to LA originally when I was 18 years old and I had like no friends and I was just bored out of my mind and super lonely. And there was a stupid Vons grocery store across the street from my apartment.
00:34:38
Speaker
And, but it was like in the, in the, in the, in the mid nineties, this was like, all of a sudden my introduce image reduction to, you know, central Valley produce in California was like, oh my God, this is gorgeous. You know, I've never had produce like this.
00:34:49
Speaker
So I just, I, I, I just cook, I cook, you know, for myself all the time, which is really kind of depressing in retrospect. Um, but, uh, so I, was into that. I was into cooking, I was into food. And then for work, I was helping out my dad with his business, um, like in the late nineties and early aughts. And we were doing a lot of international travel and I,
00:35:10
Speaker
was I was going, we were going all these incredible restaurants and I started forgetting some of the details of them and it was driving me crazy. So I started keeping a journal and it was just for me, you know, I was just keeping a journal and I was dating my future wife at the time. And and at some point she says, you know, we get to like 2004, 2005, where all of a sudden, you know, blogs, blogs are a thing and everybody has to have a blog.
00:35:29
Speaker
And she says, well, you know, my parents would probably love to hear about this stuff. Why don't you put it up on a blog or something? I'm like, oh yeah, sure. So I put that up and I, I started you know posting about the places I was eating on this blog um and and really didn't, I didn't care if anybody was reading it. Nobody was reading it. I mean, you know um so I did that for a very, very long time.
00:35:49
Speaker
Got involved with like a couple of community food boards. There was and the one 20 years ago in Chicago that was just phenomenal called LTH Forum. yeah Yeah. Yeah. LTH lth was incredible.
00:36:00
Speaker
Does it was still exist or has it completely closed? I know it wasn't as active. dead now Yeah. I think it might be dead, dead now. I'm not sure it is. It's hanging on my bread. um But I mean, back in the day, it was, it was, it was, that was the place. I mean, that was, there was a collection oh yeah or group there of like, I don't know, 30, 40 people, sort of a core group who they, they knew their shit, man. I mean, I learned more.
00:36:23
Speaker
from that group in two years than I have, you know, all the rest of my life. And, and it was a great community. And, and, and they were all about, you know, at the time, you know, the, the, the mainstream press was very focused on, you know, sort of the PR places, you know, big budget, nice restaurants, you know, creative mid-range. Let us entertain you. Yeah, exactly. Or if they did cover like the little neighborhood joints, it was where you, you know, like the nice restaurants would get the stars and the neighborhood restaurants would get the forks, you know, and it was like, yeah come on, that that old bullshit. So, so, you know, our mission at LTH back in those days was like, you know, we're in this incredible city with all these incredible, you know, international enclaves of these incredible restaurants. Why are we not talking about them and covering them like crazy?
00:37:09
Speaker
So that was their mission. So i I, so I got into, I got into the LTH crowd and then I kind of tried to recreate the same thing when my family moved out to Phoenix. And, and then the dining critic of the day, the Arizona Republic here in Phoenix, he retired.
00:37:22
Speaker
And about three months later, they still hadn't gotten a replacement. And I got a, I got an email from, from the head of the features department there. And he was like, you know, we're looking for a critic. You interested in being a dining critic? like, hell no, I'm not a dining critic. I'm like, you know, community food guy. You know, I'm going to this. He said, well, can we talk about it at least? like, let's get on the phone. We'll talk about it. So we get on the phone. We talk about And he says, look, I know you can't be anonymous.
00:37:45
Speaker
um I know because people know you already. and And he said, and I know you don't want to be like, you know, the dining critic. He said, but that's not what I want. He said, what I want is I want someone to come in and like totally reinvent the role, make it a community thing, do events, ah you know, make it more educational, do all the stuff that you want to do, you know, rewrite the role in a modern way that you think makes sense for today, you know, not the classic thing.
00:38:07
Speaker
And it was like, all right, that that, that, that, that I can get into that interests me. So, so, so I said, yeah. And I, and I took it up and I did five and a half years there at the Republic. And then I ended up doing ah about another year and a half at a Phoenix new times, the alt weekly out here. And so I just kind of fell into it backwards.
00:38:25
Speaker
Um, Are there food writers that that really inspired you? Like whose whose work did you gravitate toward? Oh, this is funny. i Like people will ask me like which, you know like what dining critic was the one who inspired you? yeah The critic who inspired me the most was Roger Ebert.
00:38:40
Speaker
ah Great answer. Great answer. oh yeah good they good day i I loved him. I didn't always agree with him. I thought he was totally full of shit, particularly when it comes to video games. But, um, yeah but, but, but I, but I, love but I loved him because he was so thoughtful and he was so, you know, she one of the things that, that he was all about was that, you know, highbrow isn't better. It's just different, you know, like there's, you know, there, there, there,
00:39:03
Speaker
all sorts of films, all sorts of restaurants, they all have their place. You know, the question is, do they do the best at being what they are, you know? And so, so that was the first thing is that he, he treated, you know, dumb, dumb, silly comedies with the same type of, you know, intellectual rigor that he did, you know, very artsy fartsy Euro films. Right.
00:39:23
Speaker
um And, and the second thing that he did that was always so big to me was the way he would contextualize stuff, you know, and he wasn't, He wasn't, you know, so hung up on the academics of it. It was very much, you know, well, what ah well where does this fit in the world right now? You know, and he wasn't afraid to talk about those sorts of things. And this is all.
00:39:43
Speaker
And then that and honestly, that more than anything informed how i tried to operate as a dining critic, you know, and, you know, to take that kind of ethos and and and apply it to food and restaurants.
00:39:54
Speaker
So so so that's the answer is unquestionably was Roger Ebert. And do you do you know offhand ah what his ah his favorite restaurant was? Or at least his favorite fast food place? I don't know.
00:40:08
Speaker
I know he went to Godfather. Was it Godfather Pizza that he went to a lot? He had some sort of thing with Godfather. There was a whole shtick with pizza. Do you remember this? The donut pizza? I think it was Godfather Pizza. Maybe it was Father and Son. don't recall that. there was It was one of the it was one of the you know one of the one of the temples of Chicago Pizza He had talked about how, you know, the thing that's so frustrating about Chicago thin is that you want to eat around all the way around the outside. Right. And then you get those, those soggy ones in the middle.
00:40:35
Speaker
Yeah. so Like, so what you should do is cut, cut a hole in the middle. And then, and then you've got crust on the outside. Yeah. Crust on the inside. And every single piece has a little bit of, you know, that edge crust. it was a great idea.
00:40:46
Speaker
And he and he got one of the I want to say it was either the godfather or father and son. I can't remember which or maybe I'm totally wrong, but he got one of the one of the places to do it. And they started doing it and they couldn't sell it because everybody thought they were just getting less pizza.
00:40:58
Speaker
know no we we We adjust the size and the price, whatever. But everyone's like, but but there's pizza missing in the middle. I'm yeah i'm getting screwed. So that's where you start selling in the middle parts like donut holes. that's You make money on the back end. It's like you want pizza medals. Yeah, exactly. Here's your donut. Then here's the center for your pizza, the missing center. so ah his So this is, I'm going I'm going to read. This is Ebert in 2012.
00:41:24
Speaker
Okay. If I were on death row, my last meal would be from steak and shake. If I were to take President Obama and his family to dinner and the choice were up to me, it would be steak and shake.
00:41:39
Speaker
And they would be delighted. If the Pope were to ask where he could get a good plate of spaghetti in America, I would reply, your holiness, have you tried the chili mac or the chili three ways?
00:41:53
Speaker
Well, he was a good film critic. Yeah. I mean, yeah. My hot take on steak and shake is the checkerboard floors make me strangely dizzy and it really ruins my dying experience. Does he mention that anywhere about the the checker pattern floors? making You know, this is, this is pretty long. So here.
00:42:14
Speaker
not um um here Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's possible I've never set foot in a steak and shake. I don't know if i have. If I have, it hasn't been since I was like a little kid or something.
00:42:25
Speaker
the mean And now Steak and Shake is owned by like this psychopath. Yeah, there's some weirdness going on, isn't there? it Yeah. you can I will say, i doing that fails i got invited to eat a Steak and Shake like a month ago by a friend whose kids love it. And I hadn't been to Steak and Shake probably in 20 years. Yeah. And when you walk through the door,
00:42:48
Speaker
you will very quickly be made aware of all of its ownership's views on politics and society. That you can literally pay for your meals in Bitcoin. That's sort of a fun twist. i haven't been to a... Yes. Yeah. You can get a Bitcoin burger.
00:43:05
Speaker
You know, it's funny because like as a – as, you know, again, like the food geek in me and, you know, food geeks, there's always been sort of this little bit of over the past 20 years, like you talk about the old McDonald's French fries with beef tallow and all. They're you know, gosh, you know, beef tallow was pretty tasty. We kind of miss it. And then I was sort of like, whoa, whoa, whoa, not like that. Not like that. no. Settle down, you guys. Yeah.
00:43:26
Speaker
We were like, maybe occasionally is a really nice treat, you know, it's just probably not the cornerstone of a good diet. So, uh, yeah, so there is, so there is that, but you know, I, I, I, I'm always loathe to get into yeah yeah health stuff. like I try, try to, i try to keep my, like people would try to always drag me into like, you know,
00:43:45
Speaker
Well, you know, can you can you give us some healthy options or lists of, you know, healthy foods or whatever it is? like, I'm not, I'm not going to do that because you know what, if you ask 50 different people, what's healthy, you'll get 50 different answers. And I'm not, sure I'm not even going down that road. I'm going to tell you what is delicious and exciting. And and that's where, that's where my expertise ends. I will leave it to and leave it to the doctors to you know to discuss what I should and should not be eating.
Chicago Food Culture
00:44:11
Speaker
um I do know that what I do eat is not what I should be eating. But beyond that, um I'm staying out of it. So when we were talking about this like and and planning out like for this podcast, we were talking a little bit about like ah Chicago food. So I feel like I'd be remiss if we didn't talk about it a little bit. And...
00:44:32
Speaker
and opinion fan what's that i got a opinions man that's dangerous and you're you're a fellow cubs fan i am yeah i am i am i used to live before even get there i used to live my my previous apartment before i lived here i lived close enough to wrigley not like you know uh not super close but close enough to wrigley that on uh ah day where they're having a day game yeah i could have my window open and I could hear if there was a big like I would hear ah yeah and then I would walk over and I'd turn on the radio because there's a little bit of a delay and then I would hear
00:45:15
Speaker
pat Like, you know, say like, you know, that's great. Like, and, and that was, I, you know, there, there there were things that, especially anyone who has ever ah watched my stream knows that being on the first floor, know,
00:45:33
Speaker
of an apartment building near Wrigley Field. ah Sometimes ah there there were ah multiple instances while I was streaming a game and someone would just yell at me through my window. And where are you where are you doing?
00:45:51
Speaker
like Pee Wee's Playhouse. Just people stop by sometimes. and You know, they just want to see how it's going. It's like, listen, i understand. I love the Cubs. I love Wrigley. I would not want to live near Wrigley. No, it was. No, it was.
00:46:05
Speaker
It was. It was about 90% fine. And then like, and it was also great because I could just walk there like 10 minutes, 15 minutes. That's cool. That's cool. And, and that was really cool. But then like for, and it it was like a side street, like, you know, I wasn't living on Clark. I wasn't living on Addison or any, you know,
00:46:25
Speaker
So it it wasn't like heavy, but it was just like on Friday, Saturday nights, like yeah there was just always like kind of this, like kind of like, oh, like off, off like out, like i'd I'd be lying in bed. it could be two o'clock in the morning. And I just hear like just kind of drunken yelling.
00:46:47
Speaker
yeah i heard some interesting arguments. Yeah. you Yeah, no, I love Wrigley. Wrigleyville terrifies me. yeah I'm very'm very much of the get in, get out crowd. You know, when I visited Chicago for the first time a couple of years ago, Ben was kind enough to show me around the city. And eventually we sort of came upon ah Wrigley. And as someone who grew up in Chicago,
00:47:14
Speaker
rural Appalachia, but spent a lot of time watching WGN, which, which we got as a, as a channel, you where else was I going to watch the Bozo show and all the other, you know, content that's airing on WGN. yeah um And for me in a way that i can't ever recall really for any other like sports venue or anything,
00:47:35
Speaker
I'd seen it so often, just like as part of interstitial graphics and news reports and, you like a cartoon ends and now the game is starting. It was almost like walking onto a movie set, like being right outside of Wrigley. It's just like, oh, wow, this place really is real. It's just sitting here in the middle of the middle of the city. What do you know? ah but Yeah, it was very surreal. It's just like, this is that place from my television when I was a kid. Yeah.
00:48:02
Speaker
it is It is a really weird stadium as someone that grew up like on the East Coast. um And like, because I'd grow up and we'd go see games at Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium.
00:48:17
Speaker
Okay. And ah like that Wrigley is like just on a street corner and just across the street, like ah are just normal businesses, especially the first time I came to Chicago.
00:48:37
Speaker
uh nearly 20 years ago little little um now but yeah it's yeah it's it's it's kind of different now but even so it's still like just right up on the street exactly like the fact it was so bizarre to me especially because it's like i came to chicago to do comedy so it's like oh wait the one of the main comedy theaters is just like not even a block south of the baseball stadium. Like the IO theater is like right there next to Wrigley.
00:49:09
Speaker
It's yeah just a very, it's a very strange uh, uh, stadium like Sox park has like a ton of like parking lot and space around it. Like it is in my mind, what I think a baseball stadium looks like.
00:49:25
Speaker
Yeah. but Like Wrigley is just like right there. Yeah. You just turn a corner. and It's like, Oh, there's there's a baseball stadium. Yeah, exactly. Um, but anyway, so, i what, uh, what, what is, if what is your like canonical Chicago food? Is it the hot dog? Is it the beef? Well, I mean, it's like, it's it's the whole, it's the Holy Trinity, right? I mean, you know, you got, you got your pizza, you got your hot dogs, you got your beef, right? I mean, that's, ah that's the Trinity. You can't, you can't, like god I can't choose a favorite, you know? And then you have sort of like, you know then you have sort of like those, yeah i mean, there's a lot, you know, and then you have sort of like those tier two stuff, you know? like Oh yeah. maxwell street polish and you know and you get your uh you know you get your your bunch tamales or your your role there's you know there's either that the you know you get the gym shoe and you get into that stuff and you know and your your mother-in-law among and the mother-in-law yeah exactly um yeah things that i only know about the mother-in-law and the gym shoe i know about because of lth forum exactly yeah totally
00:50:31
Speaker
I don't know if you saw, there was ah it was a book that, I don't know if you remember David Hammond from LTH. He and, was it was it Louisa Chu? Louisa Chu, who I believe she works. oh oh No, no, no. Or it was a Monica Tribune.
00:50:47
Speaker
ah Anyway, David Hammond and and and and one of the others, they they they they teamed up and they wrote it they wrote a really a really fun book that's like all of the canonical Chicago foods.
00:50:58
Speaker
And like from the, from the ones that everybody knows down to the really obscure ones. and And they researched them as best they could. It's a really cool book. Made in Chicago stories behind 30 great hometown bites. Yes. up you get this and Who?
00:51:12
Speaker
It's ah Monica Ang. of bang Right. Okay. There we go. Yeah. David Hammond and Monica. Yeah. And, and that's a fun, that's, that's a very, that's a very cool. I mean, that, that really gets into it a lot of the obscure ones. They did a great job with that thing.
00:51:24
Speaker
Taffy grapes, steak and lemonade. i mean, there are a few in there that I had not even heard of. it was like, wow. Okay. Even after all the LTH years, there's still a few in there that I'm like, I never heard of that one. My mild sauces is one of my favorite.
00:51:37
Speaker
Oh yeah. Chicago. We have a here out here in Phoenix. That's where I go. I'm a fried chicken man. I go. There's a Harold's in Phoenix. theres One Harold's in South Phoenix. Yeah. Opened up like maybe.
00:51:48
Speaker
Seven years ago, I want to say. So just just for for context to rewind for everyone listening, including Jess. yeah Chicago is an American city in the Midwest. It sits on the Great Lakes. um Harold's is a fried chicken restaurant here here in Chicago, which also has ah the really interesting ah feature of being very loose in its franchising.
00:52:19
Speaker
i So that's fair yeah the quality of one Herald's could be very different. yeah Like, it's not like, you know, you go to any McDonald's, any McDonald's kind of tastes the same. It's more like Wendy's.
00:52:36
Speaker
i would say it's more like burger king in that respect oh no but i think way more than that the for what it's worth the one in south phoenix is is is pretty darn good but no the thing is so cool the thing i love about heralds too is i mean and you know i don't know how but um but how familiar you are with the history but the whole thing about heralds is they were really ah you know very much uh the thing about heralds was that that was during an era when uh when black owned business was just like impossible you know they couldn't get people to rent them space they couldn't get startup capital and all that. And, and, and, and Harold, what's his last name? I'm blanking now. But, um but, but it was, I mean, it's, it's just, ah it's just a cool story because, you know, it was like, well, all right, screw you guys. We're gonna do this ourselves. And, and, you know, and he created the, you know, the fried fish and chicken joint, ah you know, for the black neighborhoods where they were, none of the fast food joints would even open.
00:53:19
Speaker
Um, so I, I mean, I love, I love the legacy of that. And i love the fact that it's, act I love the fact that it's out here now, you know, it's just, it's just kind I don't know. I didn't know that story. That's, oh yeah know that's, that's, that's very much, that's very much their legacy. It was, it was, it was because none of the fast food joints would open in their neighborhoods. So it's like, all right, we're gonna this ourselves and we can't, no one will rent to us in any of the nicer neighborhoods. So we're just gonna do it ourselves.
00:53:40
Speaker
That's great. Which I think may, I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to, you know, get out in front of my ski tips or I suspect that may have something to do with, you know, how, like you say, the franchising is a little loose. I think it might partly be that is because it's, you know, yes, it's a fast food restaurant, but also at its heart, you know, it's got, it's got that history. It's, you know, it's, it's, you know, helping, he you know, helping get black owned business off the ground. So yeah that, that, that to me is, that to me is very cool for what it's worth. And i also to explain mild sauce.
00:54:08
Speaker
Yes. That's so mild sauce, barbecue sauce and ketchup. Yeah. Yeah. It's fine. You know, I, it's, I, you know, I go down there every once in a while and I get some wings and some fried shrimp and tub of mild sauce and go to town and I'm going to have to, um, pepper, lots of lemon pepper.
00:54:29
Speaker
Ooh. Lots lemon pepper. where're all right where's Where is Superdog where you get your your hot dog? Superdog is my ancestral dog. That is the Armato family dog.
00:54:42
Speaker
I am the ninety third generation of Armato to attend Superdog. I've taken my children there, making them the fourth. um But no, that was like super dog was like when my dad was a kid, that was where his dad took him to go get a hot dog late at night. You know, we, you know, that's, that's kind of the part of Chicago that I grew up in and around, you know over the years we were on the North shore a bit, we were in the city on the North side of it. So we moved around, but, but no, that's, that's my, that's my ancestral dog. And, and, and in fact, this, this created a great,
00:55:12
Speaker
I'd say a little bit of tension with my, with my family when I started becoming a really, you know, big food geek, because part of being the big food geek is I'm interested in everything, right? I'm not just interested in going back to the ancestral homeland. I want to, I want to try them all.
00:55:26
Speaker
And, and, and man, when I told them, like, there was the one night where I told my family, I was back home visiting Chicago. i told them i'm going out to get a dog. and they're like, you're going to super dog. I'm like, I'm going to go to Jean and Jude's. And they just looked at me like, what the hell is wrong with you? what g and judes which is for many there oh yeah on the goal yeah dog place but it wasn't it wasn't mine but you know as a food person i enjoy them both they are both wonderful they're both they're very very different and they're both absolutely wonderful for what they are and uh and i love them both but man that was i mean they they my family just looked at me like i stabbed them like what what why why
00:56:05
Speaker
you know I made a terrible mistake on my last visit to Chicago, which is around the city, I ate some really wonderful dogs. I had some great Chicago-style hot dog experiences. But then as my trip drew to a close, I got back to the airport, and I thought to myself, you know what would be good? Mm-hmm. is just one more Chicago style dog before i fly home. no And I'm flying out of like, you know, not the main terminal. I'm off on the wing where the little tiny planes take off. And I just like went up to the stand and got what was quite possibly the worst hot dog of my life. I flew too close to the sun on hot dog wings and I got burnt. It was. You tell me about this. No, i did well, yeah, I mean, it was it was not pleasant. I was literally having, like, that feeling because I had kind of, like, a long wait before I had get my plane, and I was just like, oh, man, I'm not sure if I'm going to be fit to fly after this poorly chosen hot dog. The outbound air power the outbound airport dog is the sad trombone of Chicago hot dogs. Oh, it really is. I mean, and it almost erased everything.
00:57:22
Speaker
That last little grasp of desperation and whatever ends well. Yeah. And almost erased all the good dogs I'd had earlier in the trip. It's just like i almost literally it's like, it almost vacated all of those dogs physically from me. um But yeah, no, it was just ah a PSA to the listeners, you know, be, be careful out there. i love hot dogs Yeah. And I want to say there's no such thing as a bad hot dog, but, but that's that. Yeah. You found one.
00:57:50
Speaker
yeah Here's the problem. And I think this is where they really messed up for an airport hot dog. the diameter was far too large to be good. Like i think it had been like a tiny little scrawny sausage, it would have been fine. But this was a like larger than average hot dog.
00:58:11
Speaker
So this is one of the difficult things out here in Phoenix with Chicago dogs, because there are a, there are a shit ton of Chicago tramplants out here. Right. I mean, just Chicagoans in Phoenix. It's like, there's some sort of industrial pipeline running from Chicago to Phoenix. They're all here.
00:58:26
Speaker
um But the thing is weird is it is, it is really hard to get a natural casing dog out here. You got to have the snap. There's only a couple places that I can go to for a natural casing dog here.
00:58:37
Speaker
and And, and, and I've, and I've, I've had this argument with a couple of the dog stands out here. And it's like, well, you like, like there was, there was one that was just spectacular. It was so good. They made a great dog. And then they switched to, um to a jumbo skinless. And I was like, well, why, And they're like, well, people were complaining that the dogs were too small and they were too tough. And it's like, you're,
00:59:00
Speaker
It's killing me. And it's like, and this is why i i tell people, like, look, I understand there's some people who are like, I want more beef on my dog. I want it to be a bigger dog. And this is where you got to, but this is why the double dog exists. This is why you get the double dog.
00:59:14
Speaker
If you you don't, if you want a bigger beef to bun ratio, don't get a larger skinless Frank, put two of the skinny natural casing ones in there. Done. yeah problem um but but The depression dog.
00:59:26
Speaker
Well, that that well that's that has to do – that's like the toppings. That's a whole other thing with the toppings. Well, that gets me too because the people get like, ah God, you give me I can roll on this forever. Oh, my God. when i start When I read online and someone's like, well, there's no celery salt on it, so it's not a real Chicago dog. I just want to jump out there and strangle people. It's like huge – well sir I have got, this is like nothing, nothing has gotten me into more online fights than people like, you know, there's no tomato on It's not a real Chicago dog. Oh my God. It's like you people, what do you think Chicago dogs were in the fifty s and say I keep telling them it's like, look, okay.
01:00:04
Speaker
Go look at Vienna marketing posters, right? Go look at old Vienna marketing posters. Look at Vienna marketing posters from the fifties and sixties. Do you see tomatoes on there? No, you don't.
01:00:14
Speaker
You see a pickle spear on there. no you don't. You see mustard, maybe relish an onion. That's it. That's what a Chicago dog was for decades. And not that I also love the new fangled, you know, drag through the garden with all the stuff on it. I love that too. That is also great.
01:00:30
Speaker
But that was, that was a product of Vienna beef marketing. You know, when they started selling condiments, all of a sudden, all their posters had all the condiments on the dog, you know? And then Royko writes his famous column in the 70s and, you know, waxes poetic about it. And then that just sort of like that gets stuck in people's head.
01:00:44
Speaker
I got in an argument with this guy once who was... i can't remember what it was. Like one of the ingredients was not on his dog. It didn't have one thing. And maybe I think it didn't have poppy seeds. It wasn't a poppy seed bun. And he was like, it's not a real Chicago dog. They're cutting corners. I was like, oh, okay. All right. Look, look, look. we're go I'm going to go...
01:01:00
Speaker
I'm going to go through this. All right. I'm going to go online right now. I'm going find every single, as many Chicago dog stands as I can within the city limits. And I'm going to catalog these and I'm going to see exactly how they make their dog. And we're going to see what percentage of hot dogs sold in Chicago actually conform to the exact standards of that, you know, the Vienna Royco thing. And it ended up being something like 17%.
01:01:27
Speaker
It was really low. It was like over 80% of the hot dog stands in Chicago, according to your definition, are not selling real Chicago dogs. It's like maybe it's time to grow the tent a little bit, you know? um Yeah, plus plus the older ones and the older ones too. you know none of the None of the old stands that have been around since the 50s, they don't have everything on them. you know They have their own little thing.
01:01:48
Speaker
Superdog is a skinless dog that has a freaking pickled tomato on it, you know? and and you you're going to sit there and look me in the face and tell me that Superdog isn't a real Chicago dog? Come on. I will, I, that is like, that is if I don't think, I don't think I have homicide in me, but if I do, it'll be somebody that's going to try tell me that some Chicago dog that is missing like two ingredients isn't a real Chicago dog. and it that It is. i think with this is, this is so funny because I think about like people get, so again, for, for context, for, for those people,
01:02:26
Speaker
listening who might not be familiar ah and, and correct me because I, I, I might miss something. What is, what, what, what this person who, who's going to nitpick over like a, like the, the epitome of a Chicago dog is he has, as mentioned, if the poppy seed bun.
01:02:47
Speaker
Yes. You have a Vienna beef dog, which has a natural casing as a snap. Yeah. You have a pickle spear. Yeah. You have a sport peppers optional, but yes. Yeah. ah You have a tomato. Yeah.
01:03:05
Speaker
Seminole relish. Uh-huh. Mustard. Yeah. Celery soul. Yep. Did I miss anything? We missed one onion. Fuck.
01:03:17
Speaker
I knew I'd miss something. And then diced up, diced up onion. Yeah. So that is the, so that is the, that canonical, you know, the drag through the garden. Yeah, exactly. But even that is not the old, I mean, you know, the, you know, the, like the older ones, the older ones tended to be just, you know, relish onion, mustard, maybe some peppers. If you want, you go back to like the old, old origins, like over a hundred years ago. And, you know, you got flukies putting stuff like lettuce and cucumbers and stuff. Byron's in the eighties was hugely popular. They put lettuce and cucumbers on theirs.
01:03:47
Speaker
you know, third I lived that place in like near Wrigley was near a Byron's, which yeah they don't. Byron's is good. I like Byron's.
01:03:57
Speaker
um ground Is it? They're all, are they all gone now? I think there are two, there are two Byron's. what there are Yeah. do think There's a Byron's. No, they, I mean, yeah maybe it's buried deep in their menu, or at least there's two Byron's that I know of. There might be more, but there's two.
01:04:14
Speaker
And one is next to the Sheridan Redline stop. And there's another one on Irving Park in like. okay The one that I always think of is why they see the one that I went to is the one on non North and Milwaukee is the one that i always. butt think that one's right Sorry, was it Milwaukee? No, not Milwaukee.
01:04:30
Speaker
Oh, crap. I don't know. Have you been to Red Hot Ranch? It was on Northern Clyburn. There used to be a... I think there used to be one on Northern Clyburn. like Okay. If I recall. Have you to Red Hot Ranch? I love Red Hot Ranch. Red Hot Ranch is great.
01:04:42
Speaker
Great dogs. love... oh yeah no Can I interject my New York dog story? i hey I'm down with it, man. Okay. So during our trip this past week to New York City, I was there with my wife and my 12-year-old daughter.
01:04:58
Speaker
And one of our our stops was going to be Katz's Delicatessen. because you gotta go yeah um and we were there at like 3 p.m which I hoped would be maybe kind of off peak hours and it was a line around the block it was about a 45 to an hour minute hour wait to get and then once we got in it's just like the mad sea of people pushing toward the counters and everything ah ah so you know that that that's its whole thing
01:05:29
Speaker
And of course my wife and I are there. We're going to get the pastrami so sandwiches because I mean, it is, you know, yeah. yeah I mean, and it's amazing. I mean, I've had it before. so yeah.
01:05:41
Speaker
It's like a completely different food than every other pastrami I've ever had. It's at ah such a different level of of quality. But you know as as a 12-year-old, my daughter isn't terribly interested in in cured meats and and that sort of thing. So we get to the front of the line, and and we order. And she asks for a hot dog with ketchup on it.
01:06:03
Speaker
And the person behind the counter literally just looks at her and says, really? like It's a little kid, man. Just make her the hot dog with ketchup. It'll be okay. She'll learn to eat pastrami in a few years. Every human being will eventually encounter and, you know, and and form their own opinion on pastrami in the fullness of time.
01:06:26
Speaker
That is a very New York answer right there. Yeah. it' Just like really? It's like, yeah, she's a kid. Come on. Yeah. We're lucky we didn't get kicked out of Katz's. Yeah. Although, I mean, in Chicago, they shooting for the ketchup is what have gotten there. Yeah, the ketchup would have been. think it was. I think that was probably more of the issue here, even than just you didn't order a sandwich. I think a it was the ketchup they they really didn't like. And I like i mean, I've been there a couple of times before, and I like to read up on these sorts of restaurants before I go in. And I mean, I'll be honest, um I think I would enjoy the pastrami sandwich more.
01:07:02
Speaker
with a little bit of lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise. But as I understand it you're hurting me now that day yeah they would very much chase me out of the restaurant for that. i wasn't going it like river yeah i'll I'll take the the mustard. Take it home and do that on your own time. that's I'm not going to embarrass myself. going to shower in the ba i should Yeah. I mean, I think the main thing, it just proved that my daughter didn't do her homework before she went to this restaurant. It's like, you didn't, you didn't read any blogs about this before you came? Because dad did. Dad studied hard for this meal.
01:07:35
Speaker
yeah i am I am, to be fair, I i am stridently anti-ketchup on hot dogs, but I also, at the end of the day, I will always say, look, you should eat what you like. that all i may Even if I think that makes you a godless heathen, you should eat what
Global Cuisine Quirks
01:07:52
Speaker
you like. You know, and that's that's just, that's how it should be. So my hot take is I just don't eat ketchup.
01:07:57
Speaker
I don't do ketchup at all. um I'm not anti-ketchup. I'm pro-ketchup. Ketchup precatum is good. Ketchup is good in a lot things. You know, you know, actually, you know, the funniest use of ketchup that that kills me that I do now. And this hurts me. do you guys know, ah you know, the dish spaghetti napolitan, the Japanese spaghetti napolitan?
01:08:13
Speaker
This was, it was basically, it was like this ah fusion-y Japanese Italian dish that was developed decades and decades ago. And, and, and they use like little curb wood pork sausages and you just, you sizzle up some onions and peppers.
01:08:26
Speaker
And the sauce is, I shit you not, it is literally Japanese ketchup. And, and, and I've started this and I love it. And like the food told when I was like 15 years old, my life's goal was if I became like Bill Gates rich was to open up a really good Italian restaurant next door to every single olive garden in the country and make it free. That was my goal. was I had like a vendetta against Olive Garden.
01:08:52
Speaker
And if you told that 15 year old me that one day i would be at home cooking a pasta for my family where the sauce was ketchup, I would have like be like, shut the fuck up. You're kidding. No, no, no.
01:09:03
Speaker
But it's delicious. i love it. It's so good. It's so good. Spaghetti Napolitan. It's great. It reminds me. I lived in. and was just I lived in Italy for a semester when I was in grad school and I was teaching over there and I was in Verona, which is a beautiful city to live in.
01:09:21
Speaker
But my favorite restaurant in Verona that we ended up spending a lot of time at. We were too broke eat most places at the time as poor college students, but there was an American Southwestern restaurant that had opened up in Verona, Italy. And you walked in, it was, it was the most amazing setting first of all, cause they had like,
01:09:41
Speaker
all wood paneling and like steer heads and horns and stuff up on. So they've like kind of tried to do the decorating of like an American Southwest steakhouse sort of vibe. right And then they had a giant projection TV that filled the entire screen. And I swear to God, the entire time I ate there, i probably was there like four hours over the course of the semester that I that i was there.
01:10:04
Speaker
All I ever saw it show were Missy Elliott videos, just like a loop of Missy Elliott videos, nothing else. Missy, Missy Elliott, just that's all we're getting. But what I loved about it most was any dish that involved salsa of any sort.
01:10:22
Speaker
they simply used marinara sauce in the place of sauce. Like even they would even bring out like the chips and complimentary salsa at the beginning of the meal, but the salsa was just marinara. And I kind of loved it. all felt like a game of telephone, like where they met someone who had been to a Southwestern American restaurant, which already is a made up fusion cuisine it's of its own right. And it's like, this is it. Yeah, I mean, it's it's its own thing with its own's right it's own thing. Yeah, it's it's already separate from the Mexican food that inspired it, you know, um and, you know, then you add to it, like filter it through the Italian lens. And it was wonderful. It was quite a bit different. But yeah, I mean, it's like, it's like ketchup on spaghetti. It was, it was good stuff. It's been a long time since I set foot in a Mexican restaurant in Europe. In my experience, there are a few things more hilarious slash horrifying than Mexican restaurants in Europe. Yeah, they they that's just – and how could they It's like I don't even – like where you even get the ingredients when you're in Europe? I don't even know.
01:11:24
Speaker
So anyway, yeah. No, it's funny you mentioned the Mexican thing because, of course, you know Arizona here, it's it's tons of Mexican cuisine too. And and man, everyone everyone's got an opinion about which Mexican food is correct, what kind, what little style, what... ah You know, it's funny too because, like, you know, i try to point out to people, you know, first of all, all these little regional all these little regional pockets that have their own little takes on it, it's like, you know, those That is that is food history that's happening right there. right That's not illegal in it. That is that is its own thing. It happens in these little pockets, you know, where they all develop their own little flavor.
01:11:59
Speaker
And the other thing that I try to remind people of, it's like, keep this in mind. I love this once I was having dinner with a woman. We we met at a restaurant. We were talking about a couple of food nerds. We talking about this place to go to try. So I met her there and we're having dinner. It's an Italian restaurant, but we're chatting and and and and and her family is, you know, she's about how family's from Mexico and blah, blah, blah, whatever.
01:12:17
Speaker
And I asked her, I said, I said, what part of your Mexico is your family from? She says, Colorado. And it's like, right, that's right, because that was Mexico. And it wasn't that long ago, you know, and there and there is. i mean, from what I understand, I haven't had a chance to visit. From what I understand, there's ah there's a there's a pocket of fantastic Mexican cuisine in Colorado, not necessarily from immigrants, but from that has persisted since that was a part of Mexico, you know. did not know that. Yeah. Yeah.
01:12:42
Speaker
yes crazy to me that's awesome so i and and this is this is the stuff that people forget it's like you know and this is and this is how food this is how food evolves you know i mean people move around in all these different little regions you know borrow little did things change there is no and this is this is my issue with the chicago hot dog right i mean to call back there is not a specific there is not a moment in the middle of the 1970s when mike royko publishes his column and makes the chicago hot dog official you know I mean, that happens sometimes. Sometimes somebody invents a dish out of thin air and here is the official way it is made. and this is But, you know, 98% of the time, that's not how it works.
01:13:21
Speaker
You know, where things evolve. And at some point, you know, something just kind of becomes common. But that doesn't mean that all the various offshoots aren aren't just as legitimate. So so i've I have a a story for you that I think kind of ties into this a little bit, which is that...
01:13:37
Speaker
So as as I was kind of like, I'm from the East Coast, I'm from Connecticut. Right. um And, you know, Connecticut, like, ah you know, has a very like New Haven pizza.
01:13:51
Speaker
Yep. That's a lot of like Pepe's and Sally's and modern all that. But also like a thing to keep in mind is that there was an enormous amount of Italian immigration to Connecticut.
01:14:05
Speaker
um And ah so it wasn't just that there was just ah like New Haven pizza, like regions of Connecticut would have like in small ones.
01:14:18
Speaker
And, and so when I was a kid, And my my dad grew up in the same hometown that that I grew up in, Stratford, Connecticut.
01:14:29
Speaker
no When my dad would walk into a ah pizzeria, he i like the the a server would come up. My dad would go, give me the skimotes.
01:14:41
Speaker
And ah the server would just go, huh And it would just be like, large cheese, please. And... uh my my siblings and i all kind of for for years were just like this is just a weird dad affectation the scam I I say to to two two dads and I'm sure that you have have so many of these frozen pizzas fizzies in my family for some reason that's because that's the thing a dad says that's what my dad says what I say and And so we were just like, this is just some weird shit that our dad does. Right.
01:15:22
Speaker
And then, like, I'm going to say maybe 10, 15 years ago, my older brother, like, ah messages us and he goes, oh, my God.
01:15:33
Speaker
a Scamotes is a type of like is, is what they call the type of pizza made in Stratford at this one pizzeria back in like the fifties and sixties.
01:15:46
Speaker
And because instead of using mozzarella, they use Scarmosa. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. there you go. And, and so my, my brother like found this newspaper article and it's like, where's the Scarmosa pizza? Where's the Scamotes? Yeah.
01:16:03
Speaker
And then, and I don't know, like i haven't been back to my hometown. My family's out of that hometown. So I haven't been back there for, for some time, but my understanding is for it, like for, for a little bit, there was a pizzeria that opened up like, uh,
01:16:22
Speaker
in like this century that brought back, like they had a big menu and one of their pizzas was the skimotes. And we were all like, Oh my God, that's a, that wasn't crazy. Yeah. He's making skimotes happen. I mean, like this is this is a this is ah this is a problem that I had a lot. I mean, when i was when i back when I was writing for the paper is, you know, I'd write about, you know, some restaurant and, you know, some mom and pop joint there and they're making, you know, this this this food from their hometown, whatever.
01:16:52
Speaker
And a lot of times I would end up getting, you know, like well let's let's say Mexico, you know, some some some family from some town Mexico and and they're making it. And i would get I would get emails from people who were angry. And they're like, you know, that's bullshit. That's not real Mexican food. I'm from Mexico. My family's from Mexico. You know, that's not that's not the way we do it. That's not real food. That's, you know, but but whatever. And it's like, well, well where are you from? It's like, well, we're from, you know, this so-and-so town. It's like, go 200 miles east. That's exactly how they make it there. You know, it's like, look it up. Talk to the people from there. It's like, you know, and and and and that's that's a hard thing to tell somebody.
01:17:27
Speaker
But, but, but it was, but it's actually it's funny. There's a couple here from Chihuahua and I, and I, they, they do incredible food. They run a few restaurants and even there, so they're both from Chihuahua even.
01:17:38
Speaker
And they were in towns, they grew up in towns that were, I don't know, like maybe an hour or two apart, not that far apart. um And, and they started when they started making their menus together, you know, they, they, I think they met in the States, they moved to the States, they met here, they get married, they open these restaurants.
01:17:52
Speaker
And, and one of them wants to put an item on their menu that he called enchiladas montadas, which was, you know, like, instead of rolling the tortillas, they're just, they're just layered like in a stack, like kind of like a stack of pancakes with stuff in between.
01:18:04
Speaker
and And his wife, who is from the same region, but you know a couple hours away, is like, what? I've never even heard it. Enchiladas montadas. Like, what are you talking about? He's like, yeah, it's a thing. It's like from where, you know, from our first enchiladas montadas. Like, this is how my's like this how my grandma always made them. you And she's like she's like, that's not enchiladas. That's just lazy enchiladas. He's
Regional U.S. Foods
01:18:21
Speaker
like, whoa. He's like, all right, my grandma does a lot of things. That's my abuela you're talking about. yeah yeah it's one of my One of my favorite quotes ever. i put I put that in a review of one of their one of their restaurants. It was one favorite quotes ever. but But it's a perfect example. You know, there you got two people who are growing up in the same region of Mexico, couple hours apart. And and and and and she's like, I've never even heard of this thing from your hometown two hours away.
01:18:45
Speaker
So, you know. It's cool. Yes, we've talked about it a little bit. what like And, you know, actually, we spent some time ah in in one of our podcasts a little while ago. But what what are what what is a a local, like, for for you, ah West Virginia?
01:19:04
Speaker
We're talking about, you know, like Arizona and Chicago. Yeah. You know, what's a local... Our official state food is the pepperoni rolls. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So Dominic, you know pepperoni rolls. i'll Yeah. that In a minute, but go ahead. Yeah. Oh no. And I mean, they're they're served like once a week in the schools as part of the school lunch program. Any,
01:19:30
Speaker
like convenience store, grocery store, anything like that that you go into, bakery certainly is going to have ah pepperoni rolls. If it's a bakery, they'll probably have fresh made ones. It's essentially just a bread dough folded over with some pepperoni and usually some cheese inside. It's not that different than like kind of a, I guess like a little stromboli kind of effect or calzone sort of thing, but in a smaller form. and And the history of them, as I understand it, was they were a product that became popular in the early 20th century to support
01:20:09
Speaker
the mining industry because these miners who are working, you know, sometimes like 12 hour shifts needed something that was kind of shelf stable that they could take down in their lunch pails that would stay good all day. um And that was easily portable and packed with protein and carbs. Basically, it was just sort of like, we need something we can take underground to fuel ah a long day of pretty backbreaking work. And like the West Virginia version of the Cornish pasty.
01:20:39
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So it it endures on today as as kind of a a you know statewide phenomenon. Yeah, yeah it's it's hard to go into any kind of like quick servicey sort of setting where you're going to be getting grab and go food without pepperoni rolls being a possibility. You'll even see them pop up.
01:21:03
Speaker
in strange places. i've I've been to one ah Southwestern style restaurant that was serving a pepperoni roll enchilada as an homage to this. And yeah, no it's it's a big one. Then we also have, I mean,
01:21:20
Speaker
Just the long history of migration to the area, lot it driven by the coal mine industry combined with foods that can be foraged like ramps are a very popular ingredient here. There's a ramp festival every year not far from here where we celebrate this sort of extra stinky onion that's delicious. It's a wonderful ingredient. There's nothing like it out there.
01:21:43
Speaker
Pawpaws that can be foraged from this region, the the the mushy kind of It looks like an avocado or a pear kind of, but tastes a little bit like a banana. I've never had a pawpaw.
01:21:56
Speaker
What's that? I've never had a pawpaw. They are unique. They're fascinating. I've never had one. It drives me crazy It's like, why don't we have, it drives me crazy. i would I'd love to try one. Yeah, no, they are they are fabulous. ah And then, you know, we we kind of have, you know, a mix to have just sort of the the cuisine that is tied to like generations of of poverty from the region as well. You know, lots of canning, preserving. One of the dishes I grew up eating that...
01:22:25
Speaker
I don't know if I've ever talked to anyone outside the region that they've really heard of. And Dominic, you maybe have a much higher chance of this than the average person. um Have you ever heard of leather britches or shuck beans?
01:22:38
Speaker
No, I've not heard of. Okay. So what you're to take is a green bean. You're going to snap it and string it. Okay. And then you're going to take um a piece of of string and...
01:22:53
Speaker
thread a needle with it you're going to run a needle through a string of these beans uh creating like a long string of broken beans okay and you're going hang them up uh in a cool dry place for several weeks okay to completely desiccate to dry out until they look like shriveled up little brown ah like brown leather britches uh brown leather pants is idea okay And then you store them ah throughout the winter once you can no longer get a hold of fresh vegetables. And when it's time to prepare them, you rehydrate them for like 24 hours.
01:23:32
Speaker
You then usually cook them for about 10 hours with like some fat back or salt pork or something like that. yeah And what comes out on the other end is this kind of chewy but still snappy texture combined with a very earthy almost mushroom-like flavor it really like dials up the umami in in these uh in these green beans in a wild way but like that's a product again of sort of like an impoverished region that needs to find a way to get vegetables into its diet during the winter when they have no alternatives for that so poverty and preservation
01:24:09
Speaker
yeah Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, i mean, it's a weird food world. And then sort of like then we have crossovers with Southern food, like, you Southern style biscuit is very much a cornerstone of of West Virginia cuisine, even though it probably has origins a little further south than here, because we're we're kind of that weird juncture of Midwest and and the south. So, yeah. Hmm.
01:24:32
Speaker
Interesting. Yeah, no, I hadn't heard of that one. Not that I could have. i did a, before I started with the Republic, I did a few i did a few freelance pieces for Phoenix Magazine here. and and And the second thing I ever did for them was the guy calls me up and he says, hey, you want to do the cover story in a couple months? Well, I got sure. Yeah, i'll I'll do that. And he said, okay, here's what I want to do.
01:24:53
Speaker
I want you to go out and pick a like signature iconic food from each of the 50 states. yeah Find a place where you can get that food in Phoenix.
01:25:04
Speaker
He's like, you think you can do that? I'm like, yeah, I can do that. I can, I bet I can do that. oh Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. He says, okay, here's the thing. I need it in like three weeks. I'm like, oh okay. All right. Yeah. Yeah. I think I can do that.
01:25:19
Speaker
So I hung up the phone with him and then I was like, oh shit, we're going to be out of town one of those weeks. And I'm like, oh shit, going have the kids home on spring break one of those weeks. So basically I ended up having to do all the research for this piece in, or all the running around trying places in 10 days.
01:25:38
Speaker
And i did 130 something restaurants in those 10 days. It was bananas. It was absolutely nuts. And, and, and, but, but, and it's like, the thing it was, it was, you know, some States were super easy, but then you get to like, then there'd be States like California where it's like Oh my God, well which one do I choose? Right. You know, there's like so many things I can go with. And then there are some States where it's like, well, where am I getting, you know, and West Virginia was one of them was like, Oh my God. And like the only thing I could come up that I thought at any shot of finding was a pepperoni roll.
01:26:08
Speaker
i was like, Oh, that is very authentic. I mean, you you picked the right food. I found one, little pop-up operation operating out of some bar, like on the far side of town. And two days a week, they made some pepperoni rolls for lunches. And it was like, Oh, thank God. Cause otherwise I have no idea what I would have gotten for West Virginia.
01:26:27
Speaker
That's fantastic. I mean, that's the right thing to give. You're going one thing from West Virginia. You chose correctly. So I feel like they were put on this earth just to help me out with that article. What is there for Alaska? What is, I think did for Alaska.
01:26:42
Speaker
yeah yeah i some crab legs Yeah, I mean, some, you know, some were they were in also I it was such a condensed timeline, like some I could do some really cool stuff with some was like, look, I need some that are just easy gimmies. And you know, I can go to a place try it. Yes, this is good. Okay, great. Fantastic. Done. What what
Food Origins & Criticism Philosophy
01:26:58
Speaker
direction did you go with New York pizza or deli?
01:27:02
Speaker
Uh, I don't remember. What did I do for New York? I, you know, honestly, I don't remember so long. Probably. no no, I would have done something. I would have done something. It was like really, like really iconically New York.
01:27:14
Speaker
You know, you know what would be funny? Actually, what would really be fun? I don't remember. I don't remember what I did. What would be funny is if I'd done the Reuben because I've since learned that apparently Nebraska has a very strong, No, no, it was it it was Nebraska. No, I up being in for Nebraska because I think i started maybe considering Rubin for, I did, I think, yeah, I did the Rubin for Nebraska because there is a, there is, there is a, very Nebraska actually has a very credible claim for the invention of the Rubin.
01:27:38
Speaker
Oh. Which freaks people out when they. Yeah, I know at least one person who would, like probably know stand up and walk out of the room. they They would lose their minds. and I will, I will say, i mean, from what I have seen, there is documentary evidence, right?
01:27:55
Speaker
And from what I have seen of the available documentary evidence, it is a strong case, right? I feel like it could still be either way. I don't feel like we can say definitively, but I think it is fair to say at the very least that it is, it is rightfully disputed whether the invention of the Rubin occurred the,
01:28:13
Speaker
New York or in Nebraska. I know it's crazy. Crazy. It was the Blackstone hotel that I think is in Omaha. I want to say yeah it's in Omaha. I'm Googling this now. Yeah, exactly. So that's, so that so I actually did. Are you guys familiar with the, with the, uh, you know, learned league,
01:28:32
Speaker
No, no. it's It's like this. It's a super geeky online community for the the joke is always, I thought I was good at trivia and then I joined Learned League. But to give you some sense, um Ken Jennings, I assume. So Ken is a is a longtime Learned Leaguer. He has won Learned League once.
01:28:51
Speaker
That would be some sense of the level of competition and learned in league. so newge So they have like their, they do, they do four seasons, four, four seasons every year where you, you know, they, they're, they're standard structure. But then in between each of the seasons, they do four or five, what they call one day quizzes that are all authored by all the members. And you can apply to, i want to author a quiz for, you know, this off season, whatever.
01:29:13
Speaker
And it's a one day thing, 12 questions. And the one that I did, I did once. And the one I did was disputed dish origins. And it was all every question was about some dish where there's a fight over who created it or how it was created or what the original version is. And, and, the you know the original version, quote unquote. So, so i don't know, it's always fascinating to me. But yeah, that one was that one was fun. The whole Ruben thing is is is cool.
01:29:35
Speaker
this I'm looking at the Learned League website right now. and this how for man very the It's So the Thousand Island Dressing region of New York is just a red herring in this story. I have no idea. i don't know. i You know, one thing that I have, there there are two things that I've,
01:29:55
Speaker
Two very definitive things that I think I've learned in doing food writing as long as I have. Now, the first one is ah is that I will ah try never ever to speak ah strongly about things that I have not very thoroughly researched.
01:30:09
Speaker
And then two, even when I have barely thoroughly researched, assume that there's a good chance that I'm probably wrong because there's because there's there there's just so much. There's so much we don't know. There's so much we don't know. Don't ever say anything definitively. I try never to say anything definitively because...
01:30:24
Speaker
you know, you think you've got the answer and then something pops up. It turns out, oh shit, they do make it this way. And they did it this way. And this came from there. And you know, guess what? It's not at all what you thought it was. Happens all the time. Well, I think, I think we can go on I have a, I, I, this could, if we'd want to, this could be the longest podcast we've ever done. Yeah. But I do have one quick question. right. Yeah. Go for it.
01:30:52
Speaker
I mean, I've been wondering this for a long time. As a food critic, how many times do you suspect that you have been ratatouille'd?
01:31:04
Speaker
Like where there was actually a rat controlling the chef that prepared your food. Like, does that happen a lot? or is I welcome our rat overlords. Okay, good, good, okay yeah good. If they can cook like that, bring it on, whatever. Whatever. When was in 6th grade, we had a rat in my science room. His name was Peanut. He was great. I loved him. I have a good relationship with rats.
01:31:26
Speaker
Well, there you The health department might feel differently, but but I say, if they can dude, if they can cook a vichyssob, bring him in.
01:31:34
Speaker
I'm not. well Rizzo the rat seems like a really good ah he's a cook. Is he quality?
01:31:45
Speaker
wow um He's not doing fine dining. He's working at a diner. Again, i they all matter. You've got your ratatouille rats and you've got your Rizzo rats. This has been... You're fine dining and you and you're... and your I prefer the French rats. they are both very valuable in their own way. Yeah, this is Banner in that shell. He's an elitist. You'll have to excuse him. um I love it all, man. That's but That's the most important thing to me is it's all, you know, it's all just, I don't care if it's expensive or cheap or if it's upscale or downscale. It's like, just make it good. You know, that's all. Make it with care. Make it taste good. You know, put some, put some effort into it. Find some good ingredients. And, you know, it doesn't, you know, it doesn't matter. doesn't matter. is fine. Finding dining isn't better.
01:32:34
Speaker
you know, mom and pop dining isn't better. Nothing is inherently superior. It's just good food is good food. It can come from anywhere. Thank you ah so much, Dominic Armato, for joining us.
01:32:48
Speaker
A sincere pleasure. As I said, yes this has been an enormous fun like just an enormous amount of fun ah to do and to talk with you about this.
01:33:00
Speaker
And I apologize on that whole Chicago hot dog thing. I kind of blacked out there. If I ran. No, no, I loved it. You didn't threaten anyone specific. Just sort of like a general hypothetical person. I mean like i lost track of time for all I know you guys. You're sitting 20 minutes like, when is he going to wrap this? No, no. Okay. No, the passion is, is amazing. No, I mean, it's been intriguing to talk to you about this stuff.
01:33:22
Speaker
i I have if ah a i have a ah plug yeah iss the end since we're the the plug segment. I have a plug, which is for any of you listening, if you are either inclined to or are a subscriber to the the comedy like the the comedy streaming app Dropout,
01:33:47
Speaker
If you're unfamiliar with it, that was ah it's the the follow-up to College Humor, Dropout, dropout.tv. i Tomorrow, when this episode comes out, my little brother has a comedy special ah coming out on Dropout called a Best Man Show.
01:34:10
Speaker
Uh, it's very funny. I'm immensely proud of him. Uh, I think you'll enjoy it if you're, if you're listening to this and you, you want to hear someone else that's loud and has a similar voice, uh, uh, do a comedy special.
01:34:26
Speaker
i think you'll enjoy it. If, uh, you're listening to this, k not when it comes out, then it's already out. So you don't even have to wait a day. Good news. Listen to it now.
01:34:37
Speaker
So listen to the rest of this and then listen to it. Yeah. Well, watch it. It's it's it's a video. You can probably listen to it from a different room, though, like Netflix style and still get the gist of it, right? I would recommend watching it. It's a very physical. Yeah. Watch it if you can. But if you can, at least listen to it.
01:34:55
Speaker
And for those of you who I know we have ah some, some of our, ah ah some listeners that that live ah in the UK, he goes to Edinburgh every year.
01:35:08
Speaker
um So if, if you're like, I don't want to sign up to a streaming platform, but I am willing to go to a fringe theater festival. And you can see my little brother there too. And he's very funny.
01:35:21
Speaker
You can go up and say, listened to your older brother's podcast. He'll look at you and go, what a interesting and interaction we're having. I didn't expect anyone to say that to me. So yeah, best man show or Edinburgh when that that comes up later this year. ah Do either of you have plugs?
01:35:43
Speaker
I mean... I say listen to Ben's brother's comedy special also. I'm an only child, so I don't have any plugs.
01:35:53
Speaker
ah All right. Well, then, if you have any emails, send us an email atquestquest podcast at at gmail.com. Rate and
Voice Acting as Guybrush Threepwood
01:36:02
Speaker
review, five stars, et cetera. ah And join us next week when we talk about the foods of Space Quest 4.
01:36:09
Speaker
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. i gotta I gotta say one thing, though, before I hit the the theme there. This has been bothering me.
01:36:20
Speaker
um You know, we've we invited you because you're, like, a food critic, and i liked like i like your posts online. um But this has been bothering me, and I didn't want to say it because we'd just been, this is oops, all food.
01:36:34
Speaker
um ah Your voice sounds so familiar to me. i but ah Did you ever do anything with my little brother or something? Like, I did like i don't know.
01:36:45
Speaker
do I know you somewhere? There was this series of games. I did this character named Guybrush Threepwood in this series called Monkey Island. I mean, you guys don't know about that, do you?
01:36:55
Speaker
Oh, fuck me.
01:37:13
Speaker
All right, so let's talk about this. ah ah Oh, man. Yeah. I was, you know, when we were discussing this episode, we were so we were so excited to get to talk food with you because Ben and I are both foodies and we talk so much food already on this podcast. And we had talked forever, like I said, about doing an Oops All Food episode forever.
01:37:36
Speaker
And getting to do it with someone who is so thoughtful about food was irresistible. But then I started thinking, it's like, oh, man, if I could go back and explain to my younger self, like, you know, the Monkey Island games that you love. And, you know, when Curse of Monkey Island came out and now Guybrush was being voiced for the first time.
01:38:00
Speaker
And all of a sudden, this performance is so iconic and definitive. You can actually magically hear this voice performing the lines from Monkey Island 1 and 2 before that voice actually eventually went back and did the voice from the special editions. Jess, someday you're going to get the chance to have a conversation with this voice actor, but you're not going to talk about Monkey Island. I think younger me would have really struggled to understand how that could be so like like the keup good about hot dogs yeah yeah no and i mean it it is the discussion i wanted to have i mean yeah i think that probably our listeners would uh would hunt us down if we didn't get a little bit of a chance to uh to talk uh monkey island and guybrush streetwood because man what a performance Just, I mean, boy, ah just talk about, again, it was like indelible. After hearing it, it became impossible to imagine Guybrush any other way. Just...
01:39:03
Speaker
I mean, talk about nailing it. That's just me gushing at this point. Ben, say something more intelligent. Well, thank you. know I appreciate it. It's always so good to hear because I was, I mean, I was terrified, obviously, because, you know, that's that's a that's a scary thing to step into.
01:39:17
Speaker
but it's like But it's like I've told people, you know, i you talk about how that was that was what I lived. I mean, I was a big fan of the first two games and I played them ton and You know, I think like a lot of people, I just kind of, I kind of inserted myself and I decided, you know, the day of the daily audition, I was going into the booth and i thought, well, it worked for me for all these years. Maybe it'll, maybe it'll work for everybody else. I'll just kind of, I'll just kind of do myself a little bit.
01:39:42
Speaker
So it seems to, it seems to have gone okay. ah Thank God. that could it's And it's a role that like, you know, like in some ways, maybe improbably question mark, like that, that you have like come back to like, so you did the, the curse of monkey Island. Then he did escape. Yeah.
01:40:02
Speaker
And then they're like, you know what, we're going to go back. Yeah. Do the other two. They come back and do a couple more projects. Yeah. And then they're like, we're doing the episodic. We're doing tails. And I might be getting the the order. Yeah, no details in the special editions at the same time. Okay. oh Another 10 year break. Yeah.
01:40:20
Speaker
So I guess, yeah, we'll see you 2032. Yeah, somewhere in that neighborhood should be and when it comes out I'm just, I'm just, I just, hopefully I'm still alive at that point. or Or hopefully I'm not, you know, hopefully I haven't aged out of the role. I think I can still pull them off. There's a new, there's a new toy story coming out.
01:40:40
Speaker
So yeah, yeah the trailer, there's no aging out of the role. Yeah. you' are fine you're good Honestly, you mean you talk about Toy Story. I mean, one of my, there are some people who will be upset to hear me say this, but one of my dreams, I mean, one of my dreams is I would love for there to be an animated Monkey Island film, but like my nightmare is that like, at some point they finally decide, all right, yeah, let's make an animated film out of this.
01:41:00
Speaker
And I'm too old to do the part. That's like, that's like big news. We got Chris Pratt. Oh God. It's not funny. that's yeah I hate that I brought that into the universe by saying that aloud. That's not good. If it ever happens, I just hope I'm still alive and I hope I get a chance to read for it. Here's, I guess, here's my my question. So you said you you played you played the games. You played one and two. Oh, yeah. They're my favorite games.
01:41:29
Speaker
I guess what... Do you think you were the, I mean, I assume that you didn't talk to the other people doing the audition. Do you think you were the only person that knew what you were auditioning for? i don't, I mean, I have no, I have no idea. First of all, I have absolutely no idea who else auditioned for it. I don't know anything else.
01:41:46
Speaker
You know, the the way, the way the auditioning would work for me at the time is I was living in LA and, uh, you know, two, three days a week, I'd, you know, truck down to my agent's office in Beverly Hills and there'd be a stack of copy sitting on the desk for me, you know, for two or three or four things I was reading for that day, whatever it was, you know, take 10 or 15 minutes, look it through, get ready, step into the booth, you know, knock them out, go back home. Right.
01:42:07
Speaker
And, and so I, so it wasn't like I'm hanging out with people, you know, maybe I'd pass somebody going in and out, but I had no idea who else was reading for it. I, they did tell me after the fact, um uh uh later on that that when it got down to the end it was apparently very close between me and one other fellow i have no idea who this guy was patrick stewart
01:42:31
Speaker
that's right that's right sir patrick stewart That's viral. often with that So they told me, no, they told me when I went in for the final, not I did the er initial one in my, my agent's office, but then for, I did a callback in a studio in Los Angeles with the voice director.
01:42:50
Speaker
And, and, and i thought, I was trying to decide this whole time I'm doing the audition and I'm thinking to myself, should I, should I say something? Should i like, is it, would it be weird?
01:43:00
Speaker
Am I going to scare them? Should I say anything? And then I finally, like we finished up and it's time to leave. And like, just, I just kind of slipped into the, i was like, you know, ah just, so you know, I know these games. I know them really well. I've played them a lot. I kind of tried to down key it a little bit. Like I'm not like some crazy super fan. I said, but, but I know these characters. I know the stories, you know, I know all this stuff for what it's worth.
01:43:21
Speaker
You know, I, it it would really be a treat to be able to, to work on this. And I, you know, and, and they told me after the fact that it was, it was really close and they were having a hard time deciding between me and this one other guy.
01:43:32
Speaker
And the director says, you know, this guy knows the games. He knows the characters. He knows the story. He knows all that stuff. That's probably going to be a real big help. And that, that was, if not, if not the deciding factor was certainly one of the, one of the, one of the big points in my favor is they were making their final decision between me and the other fellow. So, so there is that. Yeah. So, so all those years of, uh, playing video games, uh, officially paid off right there.
01:43:54
Speaker
Yeah. You know, ah it, it is I mean, I'll, I'll, I'll have my little bit of gushing here. It is, it is you know, like it is difficult you think about kind of like the stories and ah a lot of this is apocryphal uh of like kind of like silent films and then ah silent film actors went into like uh talkies and people had a different idea of what their voices sounded like oh yeah people would hear
01:44:28
Speaker
Like, you know, ah you know, people would hear a silent film actor's voice and be like, no, that's not what he sounds like. No. Yeah. And and it ended some careers. ah Yeah. I believe it.
01:44:41
Speaker
And so, like, entering for for Monkey Island, like, and this is also the case, like, there were, you know, a variety of adventure games that, like, you know, transitioned into adding sound and video and so on and so forth.
01:44:59
Speaker
like it, it had to have been very difficult for like the actors and the people putting the game, the designers and the producers and so on and so and so on, because playing monkey Island in you know, 1991, like, you know, people like people here in their head, this is what guy brush three foot sounds like.
01:45:25
Speaker
Yeah. So I, you know, playing like, ah you know, I get Curse of Monkey Island ah Christmas 1997. um and And I put the CDs in and I hear your voice and I'm like, yeah, that's what Guyvers sounds like. know it's fun Because like everyone's like, yeah, and it it worked out. like Yeah, that's exactly what he sounds like. I thought, well, he always sounded like that to me. yeah What's the big deal? Yeah.
01:45:53
Speaker
It is interesting. I think this transition in the world for me. Yeah, but I think, you know, and it doesn't even like that's the consensus. Like, I i mean, even as someone like, my god i I don't know how, but I'm thinking about that way. I was so voraciously read every gaming magazine. I get my hands on at the time. And, you know, like, well, first of all, people love Curse of Monkey Island because it's a fantastic game. all around me and kind of on every front but you know the your performance got singled out in nearly all of them as as something that you know was a was a great addition then you know as someone who was living on the internet by that point you know and and all these sort of adventure game communities the consensus around there is like yeah this is what guy brush sounds like i mean it uh your performance uh you know like
01:46:38
Speaker
I'm going to go out on a limb and say was the right casting. To be fair, was going to say, no, to be fair, that's just what I was going to say. To be fair, it's the casting. I mean, you know, the folks who did the casting, they're the ones who were listening to all these audition reels and they picked out one that was correct. And I'm glad that happened to be me, but you know, I'm sure there are other people who could have, you know, done a great job too, but I'm not going to lie. I'm glad it was me.
01:47:04
Speaker
What was, ah what what sort of voice, like, so you were, like, you had an agent and you, yeah like, you were doing auditions. What sort of, like, so voice acting, ah like, training or preparation or, like, what, what like, i you know, I'm just looking at ah your IMDb now. So I'm like, oh, I probably heard you in Unreal Monsters. Yeah, it was one episode I did with Mayim Bialik.
01:47:33
Speaker
Oh, yeah she was, we we were, we were, we were to two guests on that episode. but no So I had done what it was is I started, i started super duper young. I had always wanted to do like theater, you know, movies, TV, whatever. I was, I was, I was really into that. My folks were kind enough to humor me.
01:47:50
Speaker
Um, but I started out like, I, like i was in the children's choir lyric opera in Chicago, oh wow you know, did a little community theater. I mean when I was a little kid, like, you know, seven years old and you know, and they went around with me in the hunting and we got an agent, I got an agency that I was with and I went out for a ton of, you know, on camera commercial auditions. And I almost, I mean, I only did a couple, I almost never booked anything on camera.
01:48:09
Speaker
Um, but this, uh, but there were the agency I was with at the time had like one, one woman basically who was their voiceover department. Uh, and, uh, and, and I just, well, I, we ran into her in the office and we were just chatting and I think i was seven or eight years old, something like that.
01:48:24
Speaker
And she said, she said, you ever think about doing voiceover? And i was like, what's that? You know, of course she explains it. And a' like, okay, I'll try it. And, um, and she sent me out for an audition for a commercial for, uh, cherry Switzer, the, the, uh, the licorice, the licorice. And, and I booked the first one they sent me on. I got it and, uh, got the part and recorded that and just kind of went from there. So, so like between there and monkey Island, I was mostly in Chicago doing just a crap ton of commercial work. I did a ton of commercial work as a kid, um, which was great, you know, paid for the, I was about to say paid for college, but it paid for the amount of college that I stuck around for. uh and then it paid and then it paid for a move out to california because i i wanted to do wanted to do uh character work i wanted to do you know animation and uh and film and television that was always what i'd wanted to do and i liked approaching from the voiceover angle so um so
Gaming & Pinball Nostalgia
01:49:15
Speaker
that was what i went out there to do and uh yeah it was about a year after i moved out there i i did two years of college and i dropped out moved out to california and a year later i was doing mucky island which was
01:49:25
Speaker
no no it was weird weirder to me than anybody else so yeah yeah yeah i mean the uh when when we were talking earlier like we we we have like some like mutual acquaintances and like the people that i know who've done voice voice work here in chicago it's largely ads and also audiobooks yeah that's exactly That's what like the a lot of that is, at least when I last time I. i think it's I think it's different now post pandemic. But certainly at the time, if you wanted to do any character work, you had to move out to the coast.
01:50:02
Speaker
And in particular you had to go out to the West Coast. That was it. You had to go to L.A. So that's what I did. So, yeah, I lived out there for six years. And and that's ah basically all those credits you'll see on IMDb. That's almost all from the six years I was out in l L.A.
01:50:14
Speaker
from 95 through 2001 when I was a young sprite, late teens and early twentyies Metal Gear Solid 2, which... Yeah. Just like Randy Soldiers stuff. That was a fun session.
01:50:26
Speaker
Yeah. the That was... with who Who was in there? was Phil Lamar was in that session. Ooh. I know. Ooh. There were couple other... trying to remember who else was. were a couple other big names in that session, too. was like seven or eight guys, and it was like one of those crazy high-energy sessions, and we're all Marines and screaming and yelling, and now you're getting shot, now you're getting stabbed with a laser sword, and, you know...
01:50:48
Speaker
the whole thing. And it was, it was, it was a fun session. And I think like, I'm trying, I'm trying, it was so long ago. I'm trying to remember in my head, if this is actually true or if I've invented it after the fact, but I want to believe that sitting in the back of the studio, Kojima was there on his laptop the whole time while the session was going on I think, i think he was there. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I may have invented that.
01:51:11
Speaker
I think you can claim that. Yeah. I think the statute of limitations is up on either way. wait minute I was there, man. I worked with Kojima. Give some ideas for future games. exactly Yeah, exactly. No, you do. Have you thought about, i don't know, like, are you into package delivery? Is that interesting to you? Is that something? Oh, no, that's a terrible idea. And then like he's pulling out like a little notepad.
01:51:35
Speaker
i don't take any, i don't take any suggestions from fans. Talk to me. And then he's just. free yeah hes ch Package delivery. That's the future, man. Future package delivery.
01:51:45
Speaker
are Are you still playing games? Oh yeah. Heck yeah. I'm playing the, I'm playing the ghost of Tsushima right now. Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, I kind of, I tend, I tend to like go, i tend to alternate. I do like triple a and then I'll do a couple of Indies, you know, and then I'll back and i can do triple I kind of, that that's how I am about everything, like music and everything. Same thing with food, like all genres, all categories, you know, it's like, I like it all. I just like, you know, just, just let me, let me kind of pick and choose my favorites from, from all over the place.
01:52:12
Speaker
yeah Do you still hit up the point and click adventures match at all? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no, no. I absolutely know. I totally. And there's, and it's so cool how much of them are going on right now with some of the indie stuff. I was at, the I was at adventure X in November, London, and man, it is just so cool to see and the the variety of stuff that's coming out and like the point in-c click adventures, you know, and, and, and the, and the, and the, and the heart and the soul in these games. I think it's, it's so cool.
01:52:39
Speaker
um I mean, don't get me wrong. You know, there's like sort of that, you know, what people refer to as like the golden era of LucasArts and Sierra and all that. it's like, but you know what? I, I, I dig what's happening now, man. You know, I mean, as much as, as much as I do miss the frequency of those crazy slickly produced LucasArts games of like, you know, the nineties, um,
01:53:02
Speaker
But man, there is so much cool stuff that people are doing on, you know, for in Indies right now, point click adventure. I mean, so, so many games that so much thought and creativity are going into and, and, and the voice acting is getting better, you know? Oh yeah. so Many of them are just, just tremendous games.
01:53:18
Speaker
um So I, I mean, I think it's a really, i think it's a really exciting time to be, to be following this. those games and, and like, and like, thank God we can finally put that whole adventure games are dead thing, you know, to the bed. And it's like, and they never, they never went away. They were always there, you know?
01:53:33
Speaker
And they're arguably, I think it's arguably a stronger scene now than it's ever been. So, so there's that. What was, what was that experience like going to adventure X? Have you gone to like a that was similar conferences or?
01:53:46
Speaker
No. So, so, so the ways, I mean, I've done, I've done like, like I did packs a couple of times when, when, when, you know, when there was ah a launch for monkey Allen game, like telltale brought me out there when, when tales came out. And then I went out with, you know, I went with Ron and Dave when a return gallon came out. I'd done like a couple of, I'd done packs a couple of times. I think, I think that's it. Maybe there was a third one I did that I'm forgetting about.
01:54:10
Speaker
um So, so the way this came about is, is I, ah ah the folks at tall story games were kind enough, you know Lucy dreaming is ah another, again, perfect example. like awesome cool little at indie point and click adventure uh you know tom and emma asked me to to be in their game and and and this has happened many times over the past you know 20 years you know i get an email from someone's like hey would you be in my game and i'm like i would love to i'm seg after and i'm really i really genuinely believe in the whole i'm committed to the union and i made my promise and i'm gonna stick to it i'm make it a union gig and i'm in and and and that was always the end of it like and they're here from the end
01:54:44
Speaker
So, so Tom and Emma write me these and then they're like, Hey, you know, Tom Hardwood says we do my game. I said, I need it to be a union gig. He's like, Oh, okay. I'll look into it. And then like three months later, he writes back, okay, it's all set. We signed the paperwork. was like, really? Okay, great. Yeah. So, so I did that part in, in Lucy Dreaming where I played an American dining critic, which I thought was, that's a lot of fun. ah So, ah so, so, so Tom now is one of the, one of the organizers of adventure X and he calls me up, but calls me, texts me, whatever. And he says, you know, Hey, you want to do, ah want to be a keynote speaker at adventure X? I'm like,
01:55:16
Speaker
really? It's like, yeah, I think great. You know, people would love to see you. and I think it'd be fun. i'm yeah I'm sure, you know, you're a good speaker. be Be cool. I'm like, Oh, okay. And I'm thinking to myself, well, I mean, I'm a voice actor and I, yes, I did venture games and I did this. I'm like, but, but these are game devs. It's like, what do i have to, you know, what, what can I possibly say that's going to be of interest to them for 45 minutes or something like that? So, so I ended up doing this, this big talk about, uh, I chose imposter syndrome was the subject of my talk. which I thought was kind of meta. And I thought, I thought, you know, big room full of independent game devs who are trying to make it in a harsh business. Like, yeah, okay. Imposter syndrome. Yeah. Like that. That's, this seems like this might strike a nerve.
01:55:53
Speaker
um So it seemed to go well, but the thing that, that, that knocked me over adventure x was like i thought to myself okay so i've done like you know sort of the signing stuff for fans things at uh at pax a couple of times and thought but this is like these are the pros you know these are the guys these are developers they're all working you know this will be a much a much more chill group you know will be a little more chill oh my god it was the opposite it was 100 the opposite as soon as i stepped out they're like you know would you mind stepping over here and meet some people inside some things like yeah of course where I told me oh we'll do this we talked about it and and I was there for four hours and it was just this this line and it just kept going and going and and and so many people and I think it just never I didn't stop to think about the fact that you know these aren't just the fans these are the people who loved these games so much that it was what they decided they had to do with their lives Yeah. And, and so it was exactly the opposite of what I expected. It was 10 times more intense then ah than, than, than going to the fan conventions. And, and, and I mean, it was, it it, it shook me a little, you know, I mean, it really did because, you know, it's like that moment where after, after just, you know, after hours of that, it's like,
01:57:12
Speaker
it's like, how, how did this happen? You know, how did, how, you know, how did this mean so much to, to these people, you know, and it's not, not in a bad way, but it's just like, it's like, wow. It's like, it's lot of pressure, man. So. Well, you know, you were kind enough while you were there to record a voice memo for our podcast. Thanks to our friend, Francisco. you gave us a quick rundown of the sandwich spread at Adventure X, which we appreciate, but,
01:57:39
Speaker
The great thing about that was when he sent us that that audio file, he didn't spoil it for us in any way. And we chose to it before listen to it live on the air for the first time. That was the natural reaction. that That's what I thought. Okay, all right. yeah We had no idea you were coming on the on that clip. And I mean, if you could have seen the video, I think, if I recall, I was just like sort of mouth agape within like one second of hearing your voice. And think Ben just sat there the whole time with of his hands on his head for for like the full you a minute and a half you spoke or whatever. But yeah, I mean, it's, yeah, think for a lot of us, that was brilliant. That was a brilliant plan on his part. all that I mean, what a great, I mean, not knowing that we would later get the chance to talk your ear off for a couple of hours. It was just like, man, what an amazing gift from Francisco, you know, a voice note. like Oh yeah, we're doing that. Let's do it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Would you mind? Oh, yeah. Yeah. like Of course. Yes.
01:58:41
Speaker
your Your story reminds me of and I might have even said this story before on the podcast. I've definitely said it a couple times on my stream of ah like I'm a like I'm a pinball player. I'm a big. Oh, cool guy. And as as you might know, pinball is manufactured just outside of the city.
01:58:59
Speaker
Right. Yes. I did one once. I did a pinball game once when I was a You a pinball? Yeah, I did. Sorry. I'm not sorry. probably said. No, no, no, no, no. That's more. This is. I'm interested hearing this. I was outside of Chicago. Yeah, it was one of the very few jobs that I did as a kid. I think I was probably a teenager, maybe like 14, 15. This is best guess.
01:59:17
Speaker
And it was sort of like, it was like an F-14 fighter jet themed. F-14 Tomcat. Yeah. seen a fourteen tomcat That would have been 14 Tomcat. nice our or so either yeah team game today Table. Yeah. I've tried to look it up. I've never found it, but it's ah here. Let me have 14. You know, your, your pinball machines. Okay.
01:59:43
Speaker
don't know. It would have been later than that. Yeah. It was older than 11 years old. Oh, wait. um Oh, I have a, there's a, hold actually that was in the Chicago area. Yeah.
01:59:55
Speaker
Um, there was a, a short lived Capcom pinball, which was based here in Chicago. Um, like they, they had an office here and they had a game called airborne.
02:00:09
Speaker
Maybe possible. and And honestly, I don't even remember like what I did for it. i just remember it was fighter pilot themed and I was like being a fighter pilot. You're all, uh, so airborne is 96. So this is now getting closer. That, no, that that's possible.
02:00:29
Speaker
I would have guessed a little earlier in that, but that's possible. I moved to LA. No, I was in LA at that point. No, I moved LA in 95. It would have been before 95. All right. I'm trying to think of the first half 95. Yeah. Yeah. No, I might have derailed this whole. Oh yeah. No, no, This is exactly the kind of derailing we're into. Yeah.
02:00:51
Speaker
And they they, I mean, they might've done the record, like, you know, designing. So released in March of 96. So I would assume it's possible. I mean, if they recorded the year earlier, it's possible before I let down. Yeah, that's possible.
02:01:06
Speaker
um It's also not impossible that I recorded it after I'd moved to la like if I was coming back home, but I doubt it. I'd be surprised. I feel like it was earlier than that. I feel like it was a year or two before I left.
02:01:18
Speaker
I feel like I was maybe 15 or 16, a couple of years before I left town. I'll have to think because F-14 Tom Kent and Airborne are the two like fighter pilot pins I can think of yeah I don't know we'll solve this mystery canceled and never saw the light of day I have no idea that's also that is that is certainly possible yeah um that sucks so badly I killed I killed the project single-handedly smash the table prototype
02:01:49
Speaker
So but and we need to solve this mystery and turn it into a viral YouTube video. wow You know, we'll, you we'll, we'll figure out how to make some money off of this. Watch. So this is the imagined it was a dream and I didn't actually happen. And I'm sending you guys on the chase for something that never actually existed.
02:02:07
Speaker
So ah the, the story I like to tell is that like Chicago is a pinball town. Manufacturers are all like in the suburbs around the city. And um kind of like adventure games, ah pinball took a massive hit like towards the end of the 90s and like continued to exist, and they continued to make them, but nowhere near right the level of And it was probably in like 2011, 2012 that like barcade started to pop up and, and stuff like that. And the, like they started manufacturing a little bit more and a little bit more. And now there's a ton of pinball companies. Oh, is there? Is it? haven't, it's been so long I've checked it. They're doing well.
02:02:58
Speaker
They're doing pretty well. um But yeah, This is, I think, 2011. I'm at ah the first Chicago Barcade, this place called Emporium in Wicker Park.
02:03:13
Speaker
Not too far down the street from Peace, actually. And ah they're having a launch party for ah like their Avengers pinball machine. Might have been 2012. Around then. Anyway. right um And so I'm there at this party.
02:03:29
Speaker
And ah the the the people that worked on the game are are there. like So you have like these these arcade designers who are there and they're kind of watching people play. They're just kind of participating in the party.
02:03:45
Speaker
so I'm having this conversation with this guy that works at at the the company for a while because he's full of all sorts of crazy Chicago stories. right like really Like really great Chicago stories. He's telling me all of them.
02:03:58
Speaker
And so he's telling me all these and then he he's he's like, hey, you know, I'm sorry I don't mean to be rude, but behind you...
02:04:09
Speaker
There are people playing the Tron arcade cabinet. I worked on that game when I was 24 years old and i had no fucking clue what I was doing.
02:04:22
Speaker
And it is crazy for me. Like, and I have to get a photo of people playing Tron. And so like he, because, because he just didn't think when he was working on it 1984 question mark when, uh, like he didn't think,
02:04:40
Speaker
that it would be you know 2012 he'd be in a place and see people still playing that game yeah and so like hearing you you tell that story kind of makes me think of like that moment right that i had with that guy where it's just like oh my god yeah people are still playing tron it's weird no it's true it's true tron is nearly that's one of my games man When I was in high school, I went to a residential high school. There was three years.
02:05:07
Speaker
So my first year there, sophomore year, it was only sophomore, junior, senior. And they had like, you know, like homecoming. You've been there for a month. And they had like their homecoming games. And it was all, you know, the three grades pitted off against each other. And of course, for the sophomores, no one knows each other. So they're just grabbing people.
02:05:21
Speaker
And one of like the 15 events they had was the the two arcade cabinets in the student union. And they had Tron and Galaga. and they were both just as a Gallagher guy. I'm a Tron guy too, though. I love Tron. That breakout type game with the identity disc. So that year, the seniors won every single event except the arcade cabinets, and they were so pissed at me. Ah, there go. They're like, you're a sophomore, right? you want you want Can you do the arcade cabinets? I'm like, yeah, I can play those. yeah' think I think I know how. Yeah, I think I can handle that.
02:05:59
Speaker
That's fantastic. Yeah. so Oh, man. i'm sorry
Closing Remarks
02:06:03
Speaker
Do we do you have any any further I think we probably need to let Dominic go back to his life. i feel like we have, we have monoy this so much your time, but I have to say, i mean, this was such a pleasure. Thank you for being here with us. It was an absolute delight. Anytime.
02:06:25
Speaker
Give me a shout. I'll be around. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Also for me. Absolutely. Thank you so much. This has been a ah sincere pleasure. Thanks guys. This is cool. This is fun. I appreciate it.
02:06:36
Speaker
right. Farewell everybody.