A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich - Has Fusion Food Gone Too Far?

Episode Date: October 14, 2020

Does the rise of Instagram sensations like the sushi burrito, the waffle taco, and the kimchi pizza burger epic sundae supreme mean the movement has gone too far? To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is Mythical. The fusion food movement started as a well-intended vehicle to combine flavors from different cultures. But does the rise of Instagram sensations like the sushi burrito, the waffle taco, and the kimchi pizza burger epic sundae supreme mean the movement has gone too far? This is A Hot Dog is a Sandwich. Ketchup is a smoothie.

Yeah, I put ice in my cereal, so what? That makes no sense. A hot dog is a sandwich. A hot dog is a sandwich. Ketchup is a smoothie. Yeah, I put ice in my cereal, so what? That makes no sense. A hot dog is a sandwich. A hot dog is a sandwich. What? Welcome to our podcast, A Hot Dog is a Sandwich, the show where we break down the world's biggest

food debates. I'm your host, Josh Scherer. And I'm your host, Nicole Handizadeh. And today, we are talking about the truth of fusion food. So this came up- Dun, dun, dun. Bam, bam, bam. Sunday, Sunday, Sunday.

This came up pretty organically. I guess like most of the topics that we do, we always talk about how we started this podcast because we would all have... We always talk about how we'd start the... What? My mouth don't work good. Your brain is working faster than your mouth is.

No, I think both are just working slower than they need to be. As I was saying, we started this podcast because we would just have these sort of food debates and discussions in the kitchen. And this started pretty organically where we were talking about the sushi burrito. Yeah. And now I think we're both pretty ethically against the sushi burrito. It's whack. It's whack, right?

It's whack. So for people that don't know a sushi burrito, when I first heard the term, I thought it was an actual flour tortilla with sushi ingredients inside it. You did. Yeah, because I mean, this is a while ago. This is a shout out to Sushi Burrito OG's Kim Bob Rex and Jogasaki Sushi Burrito in Los Angeles. Jogasaki, yeah. Yeah, they used to come to First Fridays in Venice all the time. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And that was back when like the idea of a sushi burrito was so exciting. Yeah. And then I went to actually eat one and found out what it was, which is a large uncut sushi roll that had, you know, kind of lower grade fish. And I am a man who will eat the lowest grade fish possible. I am also a woman who will eat low grade fish. Yeah. You grow up in L.A. like you're going to a lot of sus sushi spots. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

I love a good sus spot. A good sus sushi. Like I'll even I ate a lot of sushi from 7-Eleven in high school for lunch. Do you know what my ideal dinner is? I'd like to hear about it. Pavilion sushi. Yeah. I love pavilion sushi.

Dude, pavilion sushi. They struck gold with whatever company they're contracting to make their sushi in pavilions. I fully agree. I love that stuff. I'm down with the whole food sushi. A couple Albertsons. Ralph started biting on that train. I can't do Trader Joe's, though.

No, because Trader Joe's is old. They don't have anyone fresh making it in store. Gives me the tummy gurgles. I get the tummy g train. I can't do Trader Joe's, though. No, because Trader Joe's is old. They don't have anyone fresh making it in store. Gives me the tummy gurgles. I get the tummy gurgles from a lot from Trader Joe's. But anyways, we decided we would save our discussion about the sushi burritos for the podcast. It's funny because we have nothing to talk about in the kitchen anymore. But we kind of boiled it down to the fact that this is fusion food that has gone too far afield. I just think they're using the word burrito when they shouldn't

be using the word burrito. You should just call it what it is, which is a sushi log. Yeah. Sushi log. Yeah. This is kind of a semantics issue, right? Yes. I think this is where like with fusion food semantics is like really, really important to like define what things are. A hundred percent. And that's also really important to this podcast and like the stuff that we talk about. Right. And so, so many people, when we're talking about, I mean, a hot dog being a sandwich, so many people come back with the whole hot dog is a taco thing. And for me, the very base level of what a taco needs, ergo burrito, because I also believe a burrito is a kind of taco, but that should probably, Nicole is shooketh by that.

No, no, no. I have heard this from many taco scholars. A burrito is simply a regional term for a taco. Alton Brown said that a burrito must be closed at both ends. But if you go to Juarez, Mexico, there are a lot of restaurants that do not close their burritos. That might be the birthplace of the burrito. But I digress. I'm saying a burrito needs to have a tortilla.

That is essential to burrito-hood. Like a log-shaped food cannot simply be called a burrito. If you make a log-shaped meatloaf, what is that? Just an all-meat burrito? Logloaf. It's a logloaf. It's a logloaf. It's a Yule logloaf.

Oh, Yule. And so there's this whole kind of generation of foods that are taking these names that is maybe something that might be more familiar to someone and kind of doing it under the guise of fusion food to try and cash in. Yeah. Have you ever had a, what is it, crazy fish sushi? It is the most Americanized sushi you will ever see in your world. And we both grew up on Americanized sushi. Oh, my gosh.

I'm not kidding. A piece of sushi is almost the size of my palm. That's how big it is. I love that. It's huge. It's fried. It has maybe like 14 sauces on it. The fish, who knows where it's from.

But that is like the epitome of like California style sushi to me. Just big American. That's the noise you make when you eat it. Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah, it takes more than one bite to get through a piece of the bowl. Yeah, exactly. But I don't know.

Sushi burritos, it's just, none of it makes sense to me. It's just co-opping a word. That's what it is. There is something sort of different about, because you could throw an american style sushi as part of that sort of fusion food complex right but to me there's something uniquely different and worse about the sushi burrito you know that makes it different than that because it's like the utility and the way that you actually eat the food is not well thought out yeah like like like omosubi, that is a derivative of a sushi... That's a sushi

meatball. Yeah, see like that's okay. Like you can eat that on the go, like comfortably. Like I ate it in my car the other day. Yeah, so omosubi is right, like a rice ball that then has a piece of toasted nori or seaweed wrapped around it. Yes. Very easy to eat. Awesome to eat. Awesome to eat. Great car food.

I literally had a spicy salmon miso one two days ago. Dude, I get the umeboshi one when I go to Mitsuo Market. Oh, Mitsuo Market. Oh, yeah, Sunny Blue. Yeah, yeah, that's what you're talking about. Yeah, I think, I think Americans should recognize that more so than a quote unquote sushi burrito. Yeah, but at the same time, I got to respect these small business owners. Like, honestly, like Kim Bob Rex, Jogasaki, like I respect these people who are like, you know kim bob rex jogasaki like i respect these

people who are like you know i have this idea people ain't buying my sushi normally uh we got to try and hit a pivot what do people in california love to buy from trucks they love burritos so let's just do it but like the actual utility of eating the food to me is so bad like you're biting into this tough cold seaweed and then there's just like sushi ingredients spilling out of the butthole end of this thing. I am on the same page as you. And it's like, I would buy sushi from a truck. If you just cut this, if you just cut your sushi burrito, it would be a sushi roll.

It would be a maki roll, Japanese. And I would love to buy that. But like, I understand the economics of you not being able to do that. And it bums me out. We need omosubi trucks. We need omosubi trucks. Okay, what about

korean barbecue tacos okay so i mean that's a good point that's where fusion food goes incredibly right not that either you or i are like the arbiters of when this thing is good or bad i love that stuff yeah yeah but i mean that can you know be credited pretty directly to roy choi founder of kogi a huge fan of his to me, his food defines LA more than any other single chef's food, I think. Started Kogi in 2008. You know, he grew up in a huge Latino neighborhood in LA and Korean food, just like people won't buy sushi from a trucks back in the day, despite LA having a huge Korean population, you know, no one viewed, well, I'm not going to say no one, but you know, a small, a small amount. Yeah. Korean food is pretty insular. It served the community. There

weren't a ton of people from outside the Korean community who would go seek Korean food. And a lot of that is because a lot of the dishes are, you know, they're, they're very homey and they also take a lot of labor to make. So it's not something you can slang out of a truck because you got all the banchan, there's a lot of long cooked stews. And so Roy Choi is the one who, you know, made it very sort of accessible to this large mainstream audience and he went like super social media savvy on it documenting where the trucks were on twitter but then even that it spawned so many imposters so oh my gosh so many so many i mean there's so many different korean taco trucks that

are just slinging teriyaki sauce on steak tacos and you know you know from roy choi's perspective this is coming from a very, very authentic place. And I know the A word is something that's like pretty troublesome to ever use because what does authentic even mean? I thought you were thinking of the other A word. I'm like, what? What other A word? There's bad words that start with A.

What words? I don't know these words. I can't say it on the podcast. I'll get in trouble. Just bleep it. Maggie will bleep it. Yeah, Maggie, bleep it. Nicole, say it.

Oh, my. It's coming from a very place i think we can even say we're gonna lose tushy tushy literally makes products for your i don't know when someone says a word i just think i'm sorry so i guess from that perspective like those are sort of the same two stories they're the same side of the coin right it's just someone who they have a food they like to make that people ain't buying enough of they gotta hit the old rebrand on it but why do like i look at a sushi burrito and you just hate it i just hate it for some existential reason but then i don't know roy choy like he literally i went to kogi takaria the other day. The actual store? It's not there anymore.

When I said the other day, dude, this is, we're talking February. Yeah, that was like almost a year ago. Because I haven't been inside of a restaurant since February. The other day was like nine months ago. Anyways, I was there. Yeah, he closed the actual store down. But I love the brick and mortar in Palms so much. Grew up spending a lot of time in Palms.

And he literally made a special that was grilled cheese with jalapeno bananas and kimchi in it what i imagine he was under the influence it's something that i would also want to be under the influence of when he made that special dude it was so good oh my gosh and so i don't know if i'm just under the spell of roy choy or if that is truly a great combination of foods but like it's not like i'm you know this weird puritan like oh the korean taco is from a somewhat authentic place because of his lived experience but the sushi bro no this dude put bananas in a grilled cheese and i was diggity down with it yeah i loved his kimchi french fries oh yeah smothered french fries like that's another perfect example of fusion food going right

oh habashe a taqueria have you heard of this place? I have heard of it. So this is kind of a similar story to Roy Choy, right? It's Ethiopian tacos. Yeah. I love that idea. So much dorawa in a taco. Yeah. I mean, it's so funny though. If you look at Ethiopian cuisine, I mean, everything is served with injera, right? I am the biggest injera stan of all time. Why don't you ever make me injera? Because I don't know how to make it. Are you kidding me? That is an art form. Injera cooking, it's teff, which is a very common grain used in Persian cooking too. But we use it more as like a diuretic kind of, but they use it and they like ferment it like sourdough. Wait, what do you mean is a diuretic?

It helps you poop. Oh, it does help you poop. Yeah. So there's a crazy story about teff. Have we talked about this with Gwyneth Paltrow and teff no oh my god so this is my single favorite story of obviously cultural appropriation comes into play during all the fusion things who has the license to do what i'm certainly no expert on it but the ultimate revenge of cultural appropriation is gwyneth paltrow teff and a bunch of rich white ladies pooping their pants so it happens so it happens um teff right it's

a super drought resistant grain that grows in et, used in their staple bread, injera. But due to thousands of years of just, like, you know, passed down wisdom, everyone knows that you use Teff to make bread, which means it's fermented. Yes. So when you ferment things, certain, you know, probiotics develop in it, and, you know, it can prevent people from getting sick from certain things. Similar to cooking methods, like, if you eat raw taro, right, it's it's poisonous yes cassava cassava same thing so that's why you know you boil it you pound it all that so anyways teff is always fermented into injera uh gwyneth paltrow via goop was trying to find quote unquote the next quinoa which has already like decimated a lot of bolivian farming communities yeah and so they marketed teff as this new superfood. It's got all these nutrients and antioxidants.

Like a grain to eat like amaranth? Just like to eat like amaranth or rice or barley. Just eat amaranth! Yeah. And so you get a bunch of, you know, rich white ladies buying Teff as a new superfood, boiling it into a grain, eating it with unseasoned chicken breast. And then the poop starts flowing. I did not know this!

Yeah. I remember I was writing a story about Teff a long time ago. Because Teff is this amazing crop that like uh when the um military i believe it's called the derg was in power in ethiopia and there was a famine teff is what like raised them out of it so resistant of a crop and now it's just a bunch of guinevere palatro acolytes pooping their pants oh my gosh to me you know cultural appropriation uh if it is real karma i believe has a way of exacting itself on that. That's so funny. But I do. But the idea of Ethiopian tacos, like, you know, if you were to make, I don't know, injera tortillas. I think there, I really want to try this because this is brilliant.

This whole concept is brilliant. Yeah. When you think about it, I just putting something in a taco. Do you think you can put anything inside of a taco or is there a limit? Well, it's, God, it's a boy's food semantics coming to play again. What's a taco? Because if you're considering, so there's a place, they're also a friend of the show. Shout out to Bombay Frankie Company.

I went in there and the chef was like. I went there one time. Wow. So good. Oh, it's so good. And so a Frankie is, I believe it's maybe a New Delhi street food item that is like essentially. Like actually Frankie is a thing.

Yeah. They call them Frankies. Oh, okay. I thought it was a guy's name. No, no, no no i guess it must be mumbai because they call bombay frankie but anyways um it's essentially like a paratha i believe or a chapati um that's like you know super thin which for all intents and purposes it's a flour tortilla like lavash tortilla chapati all this stuff it's basically just rolled green mixed with water and possibly fat yeah right so that's pretty much a tortilla and so you, you know, they're taking these like,

you know, large Indian flatbreads, filling it with delicious, you know, chana masala, which essentially, you know, frijoles refritos. Same, same, same, but different. Yeah. And so, you know, it's weird that you have to kind of reframe it as, you know, a burrito instead of just like a Frankie, because people don't know what that is. But like every culture has a sort of burrito-like thing to it or a taco-like thing to it. Every time you take a piece of injera, an Ethiopian food, and dip it in the chicken tibs, the dorawat,

you're making little hand tacos. You're making little lokmes. You're making little lokmes, yeah. Little lokmes. For people that don't know what a lokme is, lokme means little bite in Farsi. And like it's just bread plus every single thing on your plate and you make a little bite and then you eat it or you give it to someone you love. Yeah, but it's, do you just like make little bites and give it to someone you love?

Yeah, like for the little kids at the table, you make them little lokmes. Aw. Yay, go book. That is such an awesome like act of love. Like I know what's going to create the best flavor combination. I want you to have this in your mouth. Yeah, yeah, always. That's beautiful.

And I love any food that you can eat with that idea of logme in mind of like there's here's like a pickle here's a condiment here's the thing and you just combine it all together to create the perfect thing also i'm on a search for the you should know this for the best uh kashkibadam john uh which is my my single favorite dish really have i had your mom's kashkibadam john do you just want my mom to make dinner one time? Yes, that's all I want is your mom to cook for me. Maggie's literally nodding from the sound booth

because she wants to. Okay, I'm going to make Mary. It's the best thing. It's like, Mary. That's how my mom would say her name. Mary, you want Kashka Badam, June? She's Jewish.

She's Jewish. Good. But like, what about, you know, like tostadas is something that's really really popular in like latin cuisine how do you feel about people making like pokey tacos and like taco sumaje which is a place in westwood they do they do like a tostada slash taco that has pokey in it how do you feel about that okay so poke i i did this whole kind of food tour across hawaii for a week that was sponsored by a company that was doing this whole thing and it was all about like restoring native agriculture and aquaculture to hawaii how cool it was so cool um

but so poke literally means to like dice or cut into cubes right yeah and so that is what most poke is and a lot of it we think of as ahi tuna salmon salmon has its own story where it was some salmon was never even eaten as sushi in japan until this norwegian marketing exec was trying to yeah was basically just like trying to move the salmon he was like yo i'm gonna walk into you know these like fish auctions and start slurping raw salmon and convince people you can do it wow so before that it wasn't even a thing so it's weird that salmon is now in poke but even ahi tuna being in poke was really interesting because that didn't come around until you know japanese deep sea fishermen off the coast of hawaii started moving there and fishing but if you go to the roots of poke um it's you know native hawaiians catching

reef fish and then they need something to eat on the boat and so they would just take off the raw meat on the reef fish and they would mix it with salt which is you know preservative and also like ogre which is a type of seaweed and kukui nut. And, you know, they would just eat that. And so there wasn't even fish big enough necessarily to make these large cubes of fish. And it was like strictly marinated to try and kill the bacteria. So there's this really awesome native dish called lomi oio. Doesn't lomi lomi mean massage?

Yeah. And so instead of poke, which is to cut, lomi, they would just pound it. And so that's like the origin of poke. But then you have these Japanese influences. So that's already a fusion cuisine coming in with the addition of soy sauce instead of just, you know, the native Hawaiian salt and all that. But now poke, for some reason, has become so popular that in the U.S., every poke restaurant is like a Chipotle. It is. Yeah.

It's raw fish Chipotle. It's just raw fish Chipotle, which chipotle already had food outbreaks. I don't know how these places aren't. But you get a steaming hot bowl of rice, which you typically not in Hawaii, typically not eating poke on rice. You don't even eat it with rice. Yeah. No, it's just like a thing. And so you're getting on a steaming hot bowl of rice and then the fish isn't marinated.

So it's not killing that bacteria. There's a squeeze and spicy mayonnaise on top of it, which is like pretty common in Hawaii, too. And I really dig it. they're just squeezing spicy mayonnaise on top of it which is like pretty common in hawaii too and i really dig it um but yeah so it's poke is already a fusion food on top of a fusion food that is now being kind of co-opted and spread to the masses and now people are taking that and they're putting it in tacos which is already just like a ceviche tostada it's also see it's cyclical it's also cyclical like food is just it like goes through so many different hands and so many different channels that at the end of the day it turns into what it was trying to not be.

Isn't that weird? It is. It's so weird. There's like no stopping the hands of time for moving around the clock when it comes to food. And so why even bother? Why even talk about it? But for me, like I love sort of documenting the rise and fall of these things. And another thing with regards to, you know, sushi burritos and poke, people just want that flavor of Americanized sushi. Who does? I love Americanized. I used to be

so anti. Like I would just pick, I don't want to go to these like small little crappy places in Studio City or like Woodland Hills. But now, oh my gosh, it's like I'm passionate about going to these little strip malls and getting the sushi that I know I deserve. Agreed. It's the same way I feel about Korean tacos. And especially, you know, being from Southern California, living in L.A. for the last like 10 years or whatever, you know, I feel very like impassioned about that sort of representing the city. Yeah. And how awesome it is.

Like it was meant to like bring food to the masses, marry cultures together, inform people about a certain culture. That's the way I feel about what we would maybe call Americanized sushi, which... California roll? California roll? Philadelphia roll? Is there a Miami roll? There are deep... I've seen some Miami rolls.

They got like mango and like olive oil on it. I don't know. But the funny thing is a lot of this Americanized sushi has a lot of Korean roots to it because there were a lot of Korean restaurateurs who started sushi bars in LA. And so you get all these like dishes that you see pop up across sushi menus that have nothing to do with Japanese food. Like, do you know what a monkey brain is? Never seen that before.

Is it like baked salmon? What about like a heart attack? Have you seen a heart attack one? I've seen dynamite. Dynamite is a great example. Yeah. I don't know about all that stuff. It's just like a baked scallop roll, right?

Yeah. So it's like a California roll with scallops and mayonnaise bruleed on top. Oh my gosh. It's just like a baked scallop roll, right? Yeah, so it's like a California roll with scallops and mayonnaise bruleed on top. Oh my gosh. It's the best thing in the world. Oh my gosh. And then, but a monkey brain is basically like spicy tuna stuffed inside of a mushroom cap and then baked.

No, but I have seen a jalapeno pie. Okay. That's called a heart attack. Is that a heart attack? That's a heart attack. Okay, so you scoop out the jalapeno and then you just like shove, you take a piping bag full of spicy tuna and you just shove it in there to the brim.

And then you also put a little bit of cream cheese and then you deep fry it. Yeah. That's a heart attack? That's called it. I've seen it listed as a heart attack. Some places might have it as different things. I'm on the record saying I love heart attacks. I love heart attacks.

We're pro heart attack here. I love heart attacks. But that's literally this like Korean, American, Japanese fusion. I didn't know that. Yeah. That's so interesting. Dude, next time you're at a sushi restaurant in LA, like flip to the back where you have like, you know, extra side of wasabi, extra side of rice.

See if they have a side of kimchi. Because I've seen a lot of restaurants that'll just be like 75 cents kimchi. And like, you know, it's someone's grandma making it in back. No way. Yeah. I've never seen. There's a couple spots in Burbank that you can get. No way.

That's so interesting. Kopan Ramen. Oh, Kopan Ramen. You can get a side of kimchi. Kopan Ramen is the dankness. Yeah. To me, that's always like the Korean restaurateurs being like, this is the bat signal. Like that we're going to let people know like, yo, like this is Korean food right here.

Like we're making ramen because people, you know, weren't buying a kalguksu, which is like a Korean noodle soup. No. But yo, here the kimchi is at the side. Something called Tony Bologna's pizza. Oh, yeah. We can't talk about fusion food without talking about Tony Bologna's. I don't know what Tony Bologna's is. And I'm sorry.

Tell me about it. I got to educate you. Educate me. Are you familiar with Food Insider? Insider Food? Yeah, sure. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They have created so many of these viral videos on YouTube and Instagram and Facebook. And they will go and just find the craziest restaurant dishes. And it's these large cheese poles of a sandwich. It has 90 mozzarella sticks stuffed in it. Tony Bologna is to me is the first place that I saw doing these very consistently. One of the things they did was they had a pizza that they just arranged like 90 tacos around, which like sounds like a great idea. I love to eat tacos. I love to eat pizza. I don't know if they necessarily need to be on top of each other,

but they don't really slap tacos on top of pizza and then put like a giant pile of guac in the middle of this pizza. And they're like, it's a taco pizza now. And so Insider Food goes there and like, Tony Bologna's created the craziest, wackiest thing. But they're like shotgun methoding this fusion food thing. Now they made something recently. Where are they?

They're in New Jersey, which when we were mentioning this, shout out to Amy Stifel, who is a mythical crew member, who just said, oh my God, they would be in Jersey. I assume Amy is from Jersey. I have nothing against Jersey. I do enjoy Bruce Springsteen. So Jersey people don't come at me. But yeah, they recently made a thing that they called a

pizza burrito something. And I thought they were going to, again, like the sushi burrito, put pizza ingredients inside of a burrito. Okay. They took a whole pizza and they shoved a bunch of pasta and chicken parm. No! And then they just, you see this man's

hands, this artisan who lovingly created this pizza at his restaurant, the Tony Bologna himself, and he just crushes the pizza to roll it up like a burrito. That's like the Taco Town sketch in SNL. Yeah, 100%. We put a chalupa inside of a taco, inside of a blueberry pancake, inside of a crepe, inside of a pizza. That's gross. I'm sorry.

Tony Bologna, that's gross. I mean, like, all the flavors would make sense, but there's so many questions. All of these need to be in the same food. Is it a burrito by any stretch of the imagination? No! Or are you just capitalizing on this fusion food trend? Why not make a freaking calzone? Let's call it

a calzone. But you could have easily just folded the dough raw and baked it and it would have tasted better and that's an established dish called a calzone. This is so silly. It is absolutely crazy to me. Let me read some of these other things that Tony Bologna's has made. Yeah, I'm mad. Okay, K-pop mic drop.

Black sesame crust, off to a great start. Great start. Gochujang, bulldog, fire, cheesy, fried chicken or fried cauliflower, thin sliced scallion. That sounds good. I would probably really enjoy my time at Tony Bologna's. That sounds good. That sounds good. I would probably really enjoy my time at Tony Bologna's. That sounds good.

Bangkok Boardwalk, Pad Thai, fried chicken or cauliflower, fresh jalapeno, cilantro, roasted peanuts, and toasted sesame seeds. We get the Thai pizza from CPK all of the time. I love CPK. That's all we do. But why does Tony Bologna's instigate some sort of rage inside me? Wait, wait, wait. One more, one more. Jewish cowboy, trademarked.

Is Tony Bologna Jewish? Is Bologna Bologna-vitz? Bologna Stein. This is funny. Jewish cowboy, eight hours smoked brisket seitan, Passover sauce. What is that? What's Passover sauce? You have Josh, Nicole, and Maggie, three Jews are just like, huh?

Beet, horseradish, Havarti, and parsley. I'm still so stuck on Passover sauce. What is Passover sauce? The blood of the firstborn. Just the saltwater tears that you dip in parsley and you splash it on the pizza a little bit. But no,

fusion pizza is another one of those things like these fusion tacos that is trying to take, you know, ingredients that people may not be familiar with and then put them on a pizza. One of the most fascinating restaurants that I ever went to, I wish I could remember the exact name, but it was in a two-story Korean strip mall.

I stumbled upon it on Instagram and I wrote a story about it for a magazine. But it's in a two-story Korean strip mall just surrounded exclusively by cosmetic stores. Okay, that's how I know it's good. Yeah, you can picture the exact place that I was in in K-Town. Oh, big time. And this place was probably a 100-seat restaurant serving waffle pizzas. Oh, that's a big thing, isn't it? I don't know.

I was trying to interview the owner, and there was a bit of a language barrier. But he was like this 20-year-old guy that moved straight from Seoul to LA because he had this awesome idea to make waffle pizzas. I remember this place. I saw it on Food Insider probably. I think it was called Seoul Waffle Pizza. Yes, I think I remember it exactly. I wrote wrote about it first i was friends with the owner first but nobody read the stuff that i wrote i'm sorry um shout out for working for a traditional print magazine that that's an industry on the rise uh anyways the point is i was i was interviewing

this guy i was like is this a traditional korean street food is this something that you've seen in seoul and he was just like no and i was like oh i was like oh well you know i know i've seen like bubble waffles and stuff for each korea is influenced by that and you're just like nah man i kind of just made it up and i was like whoa well like what was the thought process and he goes like well i was trying to think of a way to make pizza healthier and i was like doug you are making like bulgogi cheese corn mayonnaise waffle pizza and your impetus was to make it healthier and he was like yeah waffles are light and i was like what is going on here but it was this kind of just very candid authentic moment of like this person didn't have a trending algorithm

on his radar of i want to get food insider here i want to get on instagram he also wasn't trying to make some authentic dish like yeah i know i can introduce bulgogi not that ellie needs to be introduced to bulgogi but you know there was like almost no sort of thought process behind it was just like time passes people make new things yeah this dude made waffle pizza because healthy serendipity i guess serendipity yeah that's awesome yeah well i think what we learned today is uh fusion food hit or miss hit or miss yeah some people are going to do a really good job and you're going to capture the hearts of millions. And then other times you're going to have two bitter, angry podcasters being upset at the fact that you put raw fish and called it a burrito. That's true.

I leave this whole thing with, so, Nicole. Yes. Time, no matter what, it just, it passes linearly. That's what I believe. Sure does. Yes. Time, no matter what, it just, it passes linearly. That's what I believe. Sure does. Right? But as the population grows larger and larger, we simply see more outliers. Okay.

This is honestly where my mind goes after that whole discussion. One, I want some poke bowls and put that in a burrito. But two, like- Sound like an astronaut. As time passes, the population grows. We see more and more outliers. We're going to see more and more weird things. Yeah.

And the internet amplifies those things. And then our podcast amplifies our rage about said things but when it comes down to it it's just it's just like small businesses trying to make money and trying to make new things and you know some of it's good some of it's bad some i think comes from a genuine place some doesn't but you know if it tastes good in your mouth uh keep keep eating it eat it eat it you dummy. Eat it. All right, Nicole, we've heard what you and I have to say. Now it's time to find out what other wacky ideas are rattling around there in the Twitterverse. It's time for a segment we call...

Opinions are like casseroles. And I am your father. He does not say, Luke, I am your father. He says, no, I am your father. It does not say, Luke, I am your father. He says, no, I am your father. It's an often misquoted line. I'm Bane. Okay. You merely adopted the casserole.

I was born into it. Molded by it. He's so hot. Have you seen that movie where he plays the like very legendary Tom Hardy? Oh, yeah. He's Bane? Yeah. What? I'm going to seen that movie where he plays the like very legendary tom hardy oh yeah he's bane yeah i'm gonna watch that movie it's like very famously bane i don't know he he played he was in this movie it's on netflix uh one of those were like you know you get all drunk in college and you watch all your friends replay this legendary british criminal there's a scene in it oh yeah i know the guy yeah he's famous. He's super famous. He married a lady recently.

Really? Yeah. Oh. He has suitors. There's a scene where he just gets naked and rubs himself down in butter. This is a food angle, Maggie. Don't worry. He's a boxer.

Yeah, yeah. That's right. He was a boxer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know all about him. Yeah, but I'll never forget the scene where Tom Hardy's naked rubbing himself down in butter. And he's like, all right, come on, boys.

And then he starts fighting a bunch of police. Anyways, we should probably get into some food. up we got at the kevin kevin fish sticks are seafood boneless wings yeah well hold on hold on hold on are there seafood bone full wings are there seafood wings that are full of bones yeah it's called a freaking whole fish just a fried whole fish is the standard boneful seafood wing you don't call a chicken boneful chicken no but i'm saying like uh fish sticks are to chicken nuggets as no hold on no no i'm getting somewhere fish sticks are to chicken nuggets as like fish and chips fried fish is to a chicken tender no there is no equivalent there is no boneless wing of fish because we don't typically eat a fried,

you know, boneful fish. Unless you're talking about like a whole yellowtail collar. You ever had a branzino butterflied? Yeah, but like, do you eat that with your hands?

Uh, am I not supposed to? Wait, no, I guess I do too. I pick at it. Yeah, I guess fish sticks are boneless wings.

Dachini Japanda says, breakfast burritos need more love. They are amazing in New Mexico and Canada and California. Yeah, those Canadian poutine breakfast burritos. Those mediocre everywhere else. Yeah, man. People need to understand the beauty

of a breakfast burrito because I love breakfast. I like breakfast tacos more than burritos because I like to pick it up and shove, pick and shove, pick and shove. I, breakfast tacos, it's something that I should love. But to me, a breakfast and shove, pick and shove. I breakfast tacos. It's something that I should love. But to me, a breakfast burrito is so much better.

It holds its heat better. It's more of an adventure. This is where we differ. Yeah. But yeah, I think like people from New York, they have the bacon, egg and cheese. Yeah, we don't have that. We don't have that.

And so it's kind of just like a regional thing where I think in California, you got your breakfast burrito. In New York, you got your bacon, egg and cheese. And I think they're fine without having it. You can have, people can have their own things. At Turner Bryson, your bacon, egg, and cheese. And, you know, I think they're fine without having it. People can have their own things. At Turner Bryson, I think KFC is overrated. It's way too greasy and just, ugh, you know?

Say that to my dad. He loves KFC, and he gets it, like, once a month. And he would be mad that you said that. Don't make Nicole's dad angry. You won't like him when he's angry. He's the best. Yeah, KFC isn't that good. I mean, go to a local fried chicken joint.

Yeah. Please. Yeah, even like a local chain, like Louisiana Fried Chicken in LA. I've never had Louisiana Fried Chicken. It's all across like South LA. I've had Church's. Church's is great.

I like Church's chicken. I think all this comes down to consistency. Like if you took the best piece of KFC versus the best piece of something else, KFC does have a really unique seasoning blend that just creates a very unique taste and they pressure fry it and it's good. But like there's so many times where I've gone to KFC versus the best piece of something else. KFC does have a really unique seasoning blend that just creates a very unique taste and they pressure fry it and it's good. But like, there's so many times where I've gone to KFC and I've gotten just this like wet, greasy dough ball. And so, yeah, I mean, people, restaurants expand very quickly and you lose quality. Popeyes,

I mean, I've always been a Popeye's fan before the chicken sandwich. I don't want to be that, like, I like Popeyes before it was cool, cool but i did i like never like sought out fried chicken like that i like gus's and i like honey kettle i like the el pollo loco i know it ain't fried i love josh you know i love el pollo loco and if i could eat fast food i would eat el pollo loco yeah every every day if there's a fast food restaurant every day yeah oh there's a great el pollo loco on british why don't we ever get el pollo loco we should okay next time margot what says sollo Loco. Margo What says, Sriracha and soy sauce are the best way to marinate a steak. I don't marinate my steaks.

I just season them with salt and pepper and I give them a good sear. Yeah, I love a good... I'm not one of those people who's like, you only want to taste the quality of the beef. Because no, I love flavor on steaks. But I will almost never marinate them because they change the cooking process. Like Sriracha has garlic and sugar, which is going to scorch in a pan. So you can't get as high of a heat.

Like if I'm doing Korean barbecue, like I love me some bulgogi or whatever. But no, I almost never marinate a steak, especially if you do a salty marinade on a steak, it kind of cures the beef and changes the texture. Yeah. I don't like that either. I like to just do rock salt. Yeah. I put some, yo, you know, it's pretty good.

Trader Joe's schoog. Oh yeah. Yeah. They got pre yolk. You know what's pretty good? Trader Joe's schoog. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they got pre-made schoog, and it's not like anything like fresh schoog. For anyone, schoog is, I believe, a Yemeni hot sauce made with just a lot of pulverized herbs, spices, and chilies. Yeah. But yeah, I've been putting that on my steak recently.

At Pragmatist987, hate mayo, love quote, some mayo-based sauces, e.g. yum-yum sauce. When people talk about yum-yum sauce. What's yum-y's yum yum sauce okay so i've been trying to figure this out some people have said it is similar to a fry sauce that is mayonnaise ketchup and sriracha but more people have been saying that it is from some benihana like chain or maybe it's just a regional thing at these like japanese teppanyaki steakhouses okay that they give you this like creamy white sauce to put on your stuff

or to dip your stuff in and they call it yummy myself. So I've never had it. I don't really know what y'all are talking about. Yeah. I'm just upset that your name is pragmatist and you use the word hate. Yeah.

You're supposed to be pragmatic. I ain't very pragmatic. I use the word hate. Mm-mm. Mm-mm. Mm-mm. Friend of Dorothy Bornack says, savory versions of traditional sweet foods

are an abomination. Savory waffles, ice cream, etc. Uh, uh, no, that's okay. There's, I see what they're getting at. I think a lot of times people use salty sweet as too much of a blanket term to be like, this works because it's salty and sweet. And it's like, well, have fun with your ham wrapped banana. Banana candle. Banana candle. be like this works good salty and sweet yeah and she's like well have fun with your ham wrapped banana banana candle banana candle uh but that said like you look at something like ice cream which we deal with this all the time and working on gmm because people ask like hey is this thing

possible to make savory and you're like well no because 90 of caramel has to be sugar for it to possibly be caramel like molecularly ice cream is kind of the same thing yeah you know you need that sugar to sort of drop that melting point and And so no matter what savory you add to it, it's going to be hella sweet. Waffles on the other hand. I love savory waffles. Girl, you can put anything in a waffle. I can put anything in a waffle. I will put anything in a waffle. Cheddar, chives, sour cream, waffle. Yeah. Yeah. All right. At IamPhantom442, dipping a peanut butter sandwich in SpaghettiOs, something my grandfather and I enjoyed as a kid. dipping a peanut butter sandwich in SpaghettiOs,

something my grandfather and I enjoyed as a kid. Aw, you guys are gross. I'm happy. Your grandpa's disgusting. No, this sounds good to me. Not good, not good, not good. Okay, so I don't like SpaghettiOs. I like the idea of SpaghettiOs are literally just overcooked pasta floating in sugary tomato soup, right?

Like if you taste SpaghettiO juice, if you eat boneless SpaghettiOs with just the juice, it is the same thing as Campbell's tomato soup right like if you taste spaghettio juice if you if you eat boneless spaghettios with just the juice it is the same thing as campbell's tomato soup with maybe a little bit of extra corn syrup in it so you dip sandwich in tomato soup dip in a grilled cheese in there to me american cheese i've already told you about this weird formative food experience i had when i was seven years old i was out of babysitters and they were watching nine hours of buffy the vampire slayer and i ate a sandwich and i couldn't tell if it was american cheese or peanut butter yeah and i kind of stand by that and I couldn't tell if it was American cheese or peanut butter. Yeah. And I kind of stand by that.

Sometimes you can't tell if it's in the dark. No, I can tell. Maybe I was seven and stupid. Yeah. But that's always held in my mind. And so I would dip a peanut butter sandwich in spaghetti. I was like, Grandpa, ain't that gross? D. Eniati says, What is something you can eat daily for life that is grown from the ground?

This is not an opinion. Correct, babe. This is not an opinion. Something that is grown from the ground this is not an opinion correct babe this is not an opinion uh something that's grown from the ground uh carrot because but my skin would turn orange what is that so maybe onion what is this asking david is asking what is something you can eat daily for life that is grown from the ground every day for your life that is grown from the ground potato potato day of your life that is grown from the ground. Potato, potato, potato. Potato, potato, rice, tobacco, some boiled tobacco leaves. I don't know. Sugar cane.

Tomatoes, like if you're talking about your favorite plant to eat, tomatoes for me are just Trevor. Trevor came back from the Whole Foods with a box of cherry tomatoes and I just had a lovely time. They're grown from the ground, right? They're grown on vines, so that comes from the ground. No, no. Ground beef.

He's talking about tubers. Beef grown from the ground. He's talking're grown on vines, so that comes from the ground. No, that, no. Ground beef. He's talking about tubers. Beef grown from the ground. He's talking about tubers exclusively? Taro, poi. No, no, no, he's talking about... I know because I know this person very well. About things that grow from the ground, not like things that like exist in the ground that you pull out. Oh, yeah.

Beets. Beets. Ramps. this in the ground that you pull out oh yeah not a beats uh ramps uh cassava jicama i eat all those things daily this is the best thing ever what a great question d any thank you all right at etfp cumin is a high tier S rank spice. What is S rank? I don't know. Is that a video game reference or something? Probably.

I don't know, but this is also my friend, Eric. We have now gotten to the Nicole's friend section of the program. This is my friend. Like this whole next section is all people I associate with. Well, we're doing it. What is S rank? Hold on. S rank.

A ranking originating from academic grading in japan used to describe a level superlative to grades such as abc uh thank you for that obscure reference to japanese academia i don't know okay so that means it's good cumin in its best application is maybe my favorite spice uh cumin lamb it's a lot of uygar cuisine a lot of Uyghur cuisine, a lot of Xinjiang type stuff. Like cumin lamb. Wow. Holy crap. That's fresh toasted, fresh pounded cumin. But the dusty cumin in a jar that a lot of people just sprinkle in chili to me is like,

boy, what an overpowering flavor that, you know, can go really wrong sometimes. So in its best application, I agree. I'm a big fan of cumin. Lots of cumin in Persian cooking. Lots of cumin in any sort of Middle Eastern. Lots of Indian. I love it. Cumin is wonderful.

And I think it's underrated. I don't know if that means Esti or not, but. I get down on caraway. Shout out to caraway. People don't love caraway as much as they should. Dude, caraway, great. Caraway, a lot bigger in Middle Eastern cooking than a lot of. I like caraway a lot.

Yeah. All right. At Lolo Ryda. Is this your friend? Yeah. Hey, Lolo. As I hope to meet you in person one day when this all calms down i like to pickle extra sharp cheddar cheese i'm equal parts proud and ashamed what are you doing no that's smart dude pickling cheese what do you think feta is how do you oh oh let's see when you when spit it

like that boss like the turns of table huh listen boss when you spit it like that, boss. Looks like the turns have tabled, huh? Listen, boss, when you spit it like that, yeah, it makes a lot of sense, you know? I need to try this. You're making American feta. I think I need to try this. That's just smart. Because the way that you're explaining it makes a lot of sense. Like the way Josh broke it down. At first I was like, ugh.

But the way Josh explained it, that actually sounds really good. Yeah. You know my address. Ship it. MHR79998 says a boiled hot dog should be a sin Uh, no, boiled hot dogs are good I mean, my favorite way of cooking a hot dog Is splitting it down the center

Like four times Shut up, I'm not done And then you take a squirt of canola oil And then you make the pan super super super hot And then you throw it on And then you make sure it gets almost burnt On one side And and then you flip it over, and then you lightly sear that side. And that's my favorite way to eat a hot dog.

I like mine crispy. To me, the beauty of a hot dog is that it is in its intact tube shape. But mine is tube, but you make little slits. Oh, you score it that way. I thought you meant butterfly. Sorry, sorry, sorry. No, I don't butterfly. I score it.

So it doesn't split. I score the centers four times, because you can put their sides to hot dogs, I guess. Yeah, yeah, okay. I thought you meant butterfly. Sorry, sorry, sorry. No, I don't butterfly it. I score it. So it doesn't split. I score the centers four times because you move their sides to hot dog sides. Yeah, yeah, okay. I get down with that. Yeah, I know about hot dog sides. No, I drop mine in lukewarm water, let it sit for half an hour. Don't even boil it. Just kind of lightly poach it.

And then I stuff it in a bun and then I wrap that in foil. And then you got to keep the hot dog a little bit wet. Then you put that in the oven for five minutes. Then you take it out, let it rest for five minutes. There's so much going on. This is an excellent idea. What I'm saying is I love a steamed hot dog. You know, I think that's what makes hot dog cart hot dogs so good is the bun is steamed. The hot dog, the water from the hot dog, like literally steams the bun from the inside out. And to me, that's my favorite hot dog. The bread gets a little bit wet from the mustard and the relish juice. Yeah. Yeah. I love me a good steamed hot dog. It's like a French dip with hot dog water.

I'm going to get you some hot dog water in a perfume bottle so you can spritz it. You know me. At Virginia Anzen Gruber, I love black olives in all caps. Everyone seems to hate them, but I stand a misunderstood star. They have been maligned. Recently black olives, because other olives are seen as cooler when i was a kid i thought that like green olives were fancy they are and now everyone's on like oh i love uh castelvatronos or the sexy olive in town it is a sexy olive no black olives to me are better

like less acid more fruitiness i love all olives i'm a mix if you if i if you see me at the olive bar i am knuckles deep in the mixed olives. I don't like that. I don't like that imagery of Nicole knuckles deep in anything. I love olives of all shapes, of all sizes, of all brines. You know what I love? Those old wrinkle booty black olives that are, I think they're oil cured. They're cured, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, wow. Those are dang. I had a bunch of those when I was in Israel. Those are too potent for me. I love a nice meaty serraniola. Mmm, serraniolas are very good. The fat boys. You can eat it like a plum.

Plum. I just eat the olive like a plum. No, I dig it. One of the biggest scams on menus, but also I order it a lot because I do enjoy them, is the $9 marinated olive plate. Oh, I never do that. We're like, yeah, we put a little bit of orange zest directly from the cocktail bar on the olives. Now you owe me $13 plus tax and tip.

I never do that. No, no, no. I do it when I'm feeling like mmm, I'm on the town. The best way, what we do at a lot of our parties, our Persian parties, is there's just a platter of like pickles and olives. So you take your whiskey, and then you like just take a handful of olives and just go Yeah. Yeah. Azul360,

dunking brownies with barbecue sauce is delicious and I stand by it. Don't stand by that. That's weird. I know I'm always the one who's like, I can see it. But I can kind of see that. I don't know. Barbecue sauce is so sugary as it is. Yeah, I can't wrap my head around it.

It's that sensation of throw up. Oh, yeah. That would be very throw up- it's that sensation of throw up oh yeah that would be very throw up that tastes like throw up but you have also been on the record as saying throw up tastes kind of good like not eating your own throw up but that throw up taste is somewhat enticing yeah i've said that before i was watching oh my god are you watching emily in paris no but i saw a little snippet of it she seems so annoying in the oh my god she is the best i love her so much i love this show everyone is hate watching it right now and i and i am just full love watching it polyvu francais un petit

yeah yeah it's all that and like she's supposed to be an influencer but she got like 46 followers and doesn't really make a ton of sense but boy do i love it everyone's so sexy in the show all of them oh anyways i was saying this there's a scene where there's a perfume noser or whatever and they're like the perfume must smell like booty hole because that is what give it the allure. Yeah, ambergris. Actually, ambergris is will throw up. That's right. Yeah.

Yeah. So that's like a big thing. Like sometimes, you know, you got to eat the barbecue sauce with the brownie. It tastes like throw up because it makes you a little horny or something. That's what I got from this show, Emily in Paris. Can we say horny maggie i don't know we'll see well horny's up in the air but horny's such a fun teen term these days i'm not talking about horny teens i'm saying like they they use it as like they use it like

metaphorically like i'm horny for biden doesn't mean people want to like have sex with joe biden it means that you know like i uh want liberal policies to be enacted. I'm horny for fun. Maggie, that stays in the edit. I'm horny for gay rights. That's funny. I'm horny for DiGiorno. Speaking of DiGiorno, AddSumosa says DiGiorno is not the best frozen pizza. Then what is, Sumosa?

Then what is? What is it? Don't tell me what it's not. I know what it is. It's Celeste. No, it's DiGiorno. It's Celeste. Oh, Mama Celeste.

Yeah, she's OG. I'm horny for Mama Celeste. On. No, it's DiGiorno. It's Celeste. Oh, Mama Celeste. Yeah, she's OG. I'm horny for Mama Celeste. On that note, thank you for listening to A Hot Dog is a Sandwich. We got new episodes for you every Wednesday. If you want to be featured

on Opinions or Like Casseroles, you can hit us up on Twitter at MythicalChef or nhandizadeh with the hashtag OpinionCasserole. For more Mythical Kitchen, check us out on YouTube

where we launch new videos every week. Nicole, compose yourself. And of course, if you want to share your picks of your dishes, hit us up on Instagram at Mythical Kitchen. We'll see you next time. Keep being horny for politics, kids.