A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich - Pro Chefs Rank Southeast Asian Desserts

Episode Date: January 28, 2026

Today, Josh is joined by Mythical Kitcheneer Lily Burrola and Mythical Intern Samara Chaplain to talk and taste some favorite Southeast Asian desserts. Leave us a voicemail at (833) DOG-POD1 Check out the video version of this podcast: youtube.com/@ahotdogisasandwich 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, this, this is biblical. Why is it always, let's go for some ice cream. Yeah, it's never like, let's go for some Berber Chacha. Sometimes it is. This is a hot dog as a sandwich. Cetchup 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 we break down the world's biggest food debates. I'm your host, Josh Cher. And I'm your bono. host, Lily Borola. And we are joined by a very special guest today,

Mythical Kitchen's very own intern Samara Chaplin. Bown-Bampum. Hello. Welcome. I want you to know that, here, I wrote a little script and I even wrote, bam, bown. Oh my gosh, that's so special.

I was kind of worried you were going to introduce me as like Nicole's Unborn Child. Oh, such a right. Yeah, you kind of are a physical manifestation of Nicole's baby. I know. Right. You grew so fast. They always do. Interns really are our children, and it takes a village.

Speaking of which, so why you've been, we're so good at segue's here. You've been interning here for the last, what? Seven months. And it's passed so quickly. But we asked you to pitch a podcast concept, and you were really passionate about the idea of Southeast Asian dessert. So right now, we are going to eat several Southeast Asian desserts. desserts that you grew up eating, I believe. Yeah, so I'm half Singaporean, and I would visit my family in Singapore, like, once or twice a year,

especially during Chinese New Year, where, like, a lot of these things are eaten. And I will say, this podcast idea was inspired by my cousins and I watching Uncle Roger's last meal. And kind of, like, collectively cringing a little bit. So hopefully I did... This is you giving Southeast Asian redemption to this. the mythical kitchen brand. Yes. That's your final act as an intern.

You are gifting us 400 million fans in Indonesia, roughly. Yeah, hopefully, like across Southeast Asia, too. How many people are in Singapore? A lot. There's a lot. Small. Actually, not that many. I was going to say comparatively.

I only mentioned Indonesia because it's the fourth largest country on earth, and I feel like not a lot of people give it credit as such. A lot of Malaysian fans out there, too. Shout to my homies in K. Sorry, I just learned they call Kuala Lumpur K. K. Yes. I didn't see I didn't know that.

I'm a fake fan out here. Let's jump into it, though. Why do these desserts inspire you? And why do you think they are, I'd say, underrepresented in America? But I think also a lot of Southeast Asian culture is underrepresented in America. Yeah. You would be surprised at like just even in L.A., which is such a multicultural city, you can count on like your hands how many Malaysian, Singapore and Indonesian restaurants there are.

Shout out to Simpong Asia. Shout out to Simpong Asia. Shout out to Ipo Copitian. Yeah, that one. That one too. But yeah, in terms of like these specific desserts, they're all ones I have like personal connections to. Like, for example, the Kuala piece over there, that is like just one of my childhood staples. It's something that you usually will bring home after visiting Singapore.

because, like, they have this really famous bakery, Van Gogh Solo. This is, like, a chain of bakeries in Singapore? Yeah, and they have multiple stores in the airport. And, yeah, it's just something you bring back for your family. Yeah, yeah. Let's jump into the Kuala piece then. I'll tell you made everything on the table, right?

I did. I would never make Kuala piece, like, on a day-to-day basis. It's just, it's so labor-intensive. Yeah, so the Kuala piece, it's, I mean, it almost looks to me, like a little bit like a Russian honey cake, but it's a lot, it's a lot like denser. It's got like 15 layers in it. Is this like a kind of like almost like a dense sponge cake situation? Yeah.

Guess how many eggs are in this? 100. 1,000. 30. Really? Yeah. I actually knew exactly how many eggs are in it because Samaria hits me up and goes, Hey, do you want 30 egg whites?

And I said, yeah. And then I ate 12 egg whites for second lunch one day and I felt really sick. Is that when Colby made you? the egg white. Yeah. Well, I started making it but then I had to run

to a meeting and then Colby delivered. Make me a sandwich. He delivered it to your meeting. He wanted to. He wanted to. But this is like really beautiful and it,

it smells like super caramelized. Like you can smell that myard reaction in it. Yes. So each layer is baked individually. You use like the broil setting on your oven so that the entire thing doesn't like overcook.

But also the way... Is that traditionally how it would be made like with a broiler? Is it like made on... Just like any oven that has, that would emit heat only from the ball. But yeah, it's a spiced rum cake. And like the way my sister and I would eat it is like you like separate it into layers. Oh yeah, that's fine.

You pull it apart like a Kit Kat. Yeah, like Courtney Kardashian. That how Courtney Kardashian eats a Kit Kat? Yeah, she went viral for that. You both are introducing me to so many new facets of culture from Kuala Peace to Courtney Kardashian's Kit Kat eating strategy. And whichever is, which I don't know which is more. important to culture.

But, um, so, this is called Kui Lapis or Lopis Ligit. Um, Kui refers to like any bite-sized dessert food or like snack in like many Southeast Asian countries. And then Lapis means layers in Malay and also like Baha'asa, Indonesian. And then, um, the Indonesian name for it is Lapis legit and legate means dense.

It means dense. Yeah. Oh, that's funny. I love dense little treats. I've always been fascinated by the idea of dessert because, like, the origins of the word dessert. I don't know if you guys know if you guys know the origins about the word dessert. But it literally comes from something in the French aristocracy during the time of, like, Louis XIV. And it came from what they called Servis Rus or, like, Russian-style dinner service.

And so they would start with all the courses of, like, the soup, the roast, the entree, all that stuff. And then deservier in French literally means to, like, to clear the table, to deserve. And so as they were clearing the table, they'd, like, give you a little bite of something sweet. So that's where, like, the origin of dessert literally comes from. So it was always at the end of a meal. And I know at least, like, growing up in America for me, dessert was just anything sweet, typically eaten at the end of a meal. Right.

But, like, that doesn't tend to be the case in a lot of different cultures. As in, like, this is an end of meal thing. Because a lot of different cultures, they especially have, like, little treat time during tea and things like that. When are these, like, most commonly eaten? at least like from your experience. Quela piece, I would say, is just kind of a snack. Like, my sister and I would even eat it for breakfast, like the ones of prunes in it. Hell yes.

Crazy diarrhea. The amount of butter in here also. But yeah, like, in terms of everything here, all of it is kind of different. Like, Cayatose especially isn't a dessert. Like, I just included it because it's sweet. Yeah, and also to make up for us messing up Uncle Roger's Kayetto. It's about to. Yeah, Greg's like a lot better than ours did.

Yeah, that's some good eggs. I was struggling with that for that last meal. It's hard. And there's a really specific method. Mm-hmm. You have to teach me after, before you leave. This quaila piece is, like, it's really delicious. And it is dense and it's buttery, but it doesn't, like, it doesn't feel super oily when you're eating it.

I think because it is so dense, it, like, combats that butter. Mm-hmm. That's, like, really, really fun. I, so, like, in Japan, for instance, there's the terms, like, Yoshoku and Washoku, which one means like sort of westernized cuisine and one is traditional Japanese cuisine. I'm curious like how much of that sort of exists because this is obviously like a Western influence dessert, right? Yes.

Dutch. Dutch that makes sense. Yeah. It comes from like the Dutch colonization of Indonesia. But yeah, throughout like any country really that's been colonized that exists. Yeah, yeah. Like Kaya toast. Well, Kaya itself, it's very debated like where.

where the roots of that are, but Kaya is the coconut jam, right? Kaya is the coconut jam, yes. We call it like coconut jam, but it's, would you call it a jam? It seems almost have the texture of more like a condensed milk situation, right? I would say it's like a hybrid. Yeah, yeah. But it comes like from the tradition of just mixing eggs with sugar, like egg yolks and sugar. Oh, interesting.

And if that, if you consider that to be a sort of jam. Wait, so is it just like coconut sugar and egg yolk? Is that what's in Kaya? It depends on the type of kaya. I've also seen a lot of green kaya. Kaya is the colloquial term for serikaya. So kaya itself isn't even like the full name. And the green type that you're talking about is Njanya style or Puranakan style, which is green because it has pandan in it.

Whereas Hainanese style kaya has that like brown tint to it because of a caramelized sugar. Should we eat the kaias toast next? Yeah. We're talking about it. We're talking about it. I didn't mean to catch you up. No, I was just going to say that Kaya toast

is really popular, or like the most popular dish in Kopitiams in Singapore and Malaysia, which is just the Hawkeyan word for a coffee shop. Tell people about Hawkeyan. Because Hawkeyeen, you're not, you don't have to be the expert on it, but I've mentioned Hawkeyeen before because

I've been fascinated by the word ketchup. Because like, this first came to my attention because I was talking about like ketchup manis, which is like sweet soy. My favorite condiment. It's such a good condiment. But I was like, it's spelled K-E-C-A-P, at least when you like write it out in English

characters. But it's just kind of pronounced ketchup. And I was like, surely this has a root with Heinz ketchup. And it is. Like Heinz ketchup comes from a Hockean word. And Hockeen is, in your best estimation, what is Hockeen as a language? It's a dialect commonly spoken in Singapore and Malaysia, I believe. I think it's a dialect of Chinese. My mom speaks it. And my grandma, like, raised my mom and all of her siblings, like, in Hokkien. It was my mom's first language. But, yeah, it's kind of a dying language. Like, a lot of Singaporeans now will, like, speak in Singlish, which is just, like, kind of, like, a mix of, like, a bunch of different languages in English. But one of those languages is Hokkien.

They call it Singlish, though? Yeah. That's great. Could you, do you have a Singlish, like, phrase in your back pocket? Yes, this is, I wouldn't even say this is singlish really. It's more of like a way that Singaporean people express themselves. But like just adding the word like la to the end of your sentence, like if you were like, can you make me Kayotos? I'd be like can la. Really?

Yeah. Where does that come from? Like it's like, I don't know. I'm not a linguistic expert. This is good la. Really? Okay, another thing you can say is shok. Shok.

Which means like, this is like delicious. Shok. Shok. Shook. Shook. Shook. Shook. Shok. Shok. Like, S-E-O-K.

S-H-I-O-K. Shok. Yes. Like this is delicious. But like that means like this is really good. This is really yummy. I got it in the bag. It's for food specifically.

Okay. This Kaya toast. Is this a special kind of bread? Is this like a... It's just white bread. Usually, Kopitiams will just use, like, whatever they have. Yeah, yeah. Any bread.

And I, yeah, I grilled it so that you could see these, like, grill marks. Because that's traditionally how Kopitiams will, like, grill the bread. So there's Kaya and then thick slabs of butter. I noticed the thick as slabs of butter here. Very thick slaps of butter. Thin bread, just thick, gooey, yellow jammy. This seems like a very egg-yokey coconut jam. Yes.

This is definitely a Hainanese style one. And the way I made this was inspired by like just me watching an uncle at a Hucker Center make it. So these slabs of butter, I put them in the freezer. Like I cut them and put them in the freezer and then put them on so that they'd still be cold. And that's exactly what I like witnessed someone do. You want to serve them cold. Yeah, like you want the butter a little bit. Yeah, like it isn't really warm anymore, but you want that contrast between like the crunchy, like warm bread and then cold butter.

It's so good. And then we have some like barely cooked eggs right here. Yes. So you barely cook them in the shell so that the white is like a little bit set and the yolk is still very, very runy. And then you float the dark soy in there? Dark soy and white pepper. And white pepper. Oh, God, this is going to be so good.

Please, go ahead. You just dip it in, break the yolk. Give it a little stir. Hell yeah. Yeah. As Uncle Roger, I think he said on his last meal, the eggs should be opaque. Yeah, so how do you do the eggs? Okay, so how do it?

Shout out to Ian Ng. who is basically my cousin and told me how to do this while we were watching it. Hmm. It's a good. Shook. Shook. Shook. Shook.

Shuck. Is that, like, pretty faithful to, like, what a, like a hawker center? At a kopitiam, yeah. Or a copi chy jam. But you can get kai-tas kind of anywhere these days. Dude, it's so intensely sweet. Because the kaya itself is, like, obviously so, so concentrated and sweet. But then when you get, like, that savouriness in the dark soy.

Because dark soy, for people who don't know about dark soy soy, it's not just like a slightly darker version of soy sauce. It is like soy times five. It is like, but it's not as salty. It just has that heavy, heavy soy deeply caramel flavor. And it's like not particularly sweet either. So you get all this like depth from that dark soy. And then the fattiness of the yolk and the butter. Damn, there's also almost, I use this term and it's annoying to people.

it's almost like this bacterial flavor that I really like. So if you think about the taste of something like cabbage or Nebraska, there's just kind of like bacterial vegetable quality to it or even some tropical fruits have it like papaya. Yeah. So it's what like kind of eggs have. It's like not umami, but it's almost this kind of funky like bacterial flavor that I love that adds a lot of like depth to foods. Yeah, it's really nice.

And I feel like the big compliment for Asian desserts is it's not too sweet. And this is like by itself it's sweet but dipped into it. It's like perfectly balanced. Yes, I completely agree. So the way you make the eggs is, or the way my cousin told me to make it, is you boil water, put the eggs like in a separate like bowl or container and then put the boiling water on top of it and cover it. Oh. So you don't actually boil, like actively boil the eggs. You're using like the residual heat.

Yep. And then, yeah, you just crack into a bowl and it should look like that. Yeah, I was adding the egg straight to the pot. It wasn't working. Exactly. Make an ex-Bedict. Not exactly. Yeah, and that's how my grandma did it, too.

For everyone that thinks only Americans eat dessert for breakfast. No, no, no. No, no, no. That's such a good point. Thank you. Yeah. No, this is like, this is so superbly balanced and also just like a bunch of fun flavors in there. Damn.

Yeah. We need to move on, but I have so many questions about Singaporean food culture specifically. But let's eat another one and then I'll yap at you. Okay. Are there any here that are calling your name? soup. What's one? Soup.

I'm ready for my soup dessert course. Soup. And I do abdicate for dessert soups. And I've been on record several times. I grew up eating a lot of Che Thai, the Vietnamese. You've had it? Yes. Hell yeah, dude.

Technically, it's Thai, but it's not actually Thai. It's just a Vietnamese. Which is interesting? Yeah, I don't know. It's like, Jai. You know my background. That's the thing for me, though, is like, I didn't grow up being like a sweet person because all the desserts I grew up with were like American just so sweet, just heavy sugar, and it was very overwhelming.

And then I moved to Los Angeles and experienced like Asian desserts. And I'm like, oh, this is what it should be, honestly, my whole life. Wow. Just cry. Really, this is your birth to sleep every night. Yeah, this is my home. I feel like I sort of experienced a similar thing where, like, growing up, I would just like watch Food Network and like baking YouTube. and I was just like obsessed with American desserts and like baking American desserts.

And even though like I would eat, I would eat Kuala Piz after coming back from Singapore, I would eat on day, on day. I would just never appreciate it as much as like a cake or a pie for some reason, even though like they weren't showing it on the food network how to do it. No, they weren't. And later I started to like make fusion desserts. Like I made like a chendel cake for my mom's birthday. I also had a broken foe while I was making that.

Oh my. I was like 11. Yikes. But yeah, like I experienced a similar thing. Like, I've only relatively recently started to really appreciate these flavors and like techniques. Yeah, it's really special. That's so cool. Tell us about this.

This is the Berber Chacha. Yeah. From the intro. Yes. And Uncle Roger's last meal. Yes. Famously. So Berber means porridge in Bahasa and Malay.

And Chacha just like sounds. similar to the hawkian word chethe, which means abundance. Oh, interesting. This dessert is usually served during special occasions. Like, sometimes Chinese new here, but yeah, this is just like a humble dessert that I grew up eating. My mom grew up eating this too. It's coconut and pandan soup with sago, which is tapioca pearls, and taro, yam, and sweet potato chunks. This is really reminiscent of, so, it's.

In, like, Vietnamese food, they have, it's just called, like, J-H-E. It's like the J-A-Tai. But, like, it's just this kind of classification of, like, dessert kind of porges. So they'll do, like, taro. My favorite is called J-Bap, which is just corn, which is delicious sweet corn custard with salted, condensed milk on it. But a lot of them have, like, root vegetables like this, which is really delicious. What are the root vegetables in here?

Tarot, yam, and sweet potato. Oh, hell, yeah. Yeah. The Sago is really interesting, because, like, I think when you say the word yam, right? The word yam means so many different things for different cultures. Yes. We don't exactly even know what yam is because we just also call it sweet potato,

even though it's not a potato at all. And if I believe if you're in Africa, if you're in Nigeria and you say like pounded yam, you're talking about cassava. So tapioca a lot of the times can refer to the finest ground starch of cassava. But sago, I did not realize this. Sago is from the heart of the sago palm. So it's like literally the inside of a palm. Ray? Is that a thing?

People know that? I didn't know that either. Yes. Watch Sago palm harvesting videos. That's what I'm on. When all the other white guys are getting radicalized on YouTube politically, nope, I'm watching Sago palm harvesting videos. That's my anti-drug.

That's crazy. That's a solution. Thank you so much. I think it is a large-scale solution. That took a turn. I didn't expect it to take that turn. Whoa. Is this always eaten for dessert or is it like a breakfast item as well?

It can also be eaten for breakfast or just like a snack. I was going to say it's like nutrient with all of the potatoes. Yeah, it's pretty filling. More vegetable-based desserts. Yeah. Yes. That's what I think we need to campaign for. You know what I mean?

Weren't you going to make like a potato pie? I have always wanted to make, if you can make a sweet potato pie, why not a white potato pie? A white potato, yeah. And not like white sweet potatoes, just like, rush it. Probably an Irish red. Irish red because they kind of had like a silkyer, you know, a less like, what do they call it? It's a waxier rather than a starchier potato-based potato. Right.

So I probably won't use that and make like a potato-based custard. I think I found out they actually do that in Maryland. Oh. I think it's like one of those obscure Maryland-based dishes. I was hoping you invented it, but. I didn't really invent it anything. Yeah. I think I was the first person, Al Roker said I was the first person he ever saw put raw meat into a waffle iron.

Oh. Congrats. I make eye contact with every single person in the room. for validation. He's waiting for applause. No, stop. You applaud yourselves. I'm curious you mentioned the hawker markets in Singapore.

I've like heard that in Singapore it's a lot cheaper to eat out typically than it is to cook. And so you don't have as many people like cooking in the home as you generally would eating out. Or is that just like a large sweeping kind of generalization? I don't know if that's actually true, but from my personal experience, and I don't know if that's just because I was visiting my family every single time. We would eat out a lot. But yeah, eating at a hawker center is very cheap and often very, very, very good. Like, there are so many hawkers stalls that have like a Michelin star. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it's super cool. There's a really great Singaporean restaurant called Hawker Fair in San Francisco. in San Francisco. James Sia But, I think, is the name of the chef. But, yeah, they have really incredible food. Also, is Anthony Bourdain's dying wish to create a hawker center in New York City. And it never got done. Are the stalls, like, they specialize in one thing?

Or is it, like, it's kind of scattered and they have a full menu? It depends. There are some stalls that are, like, they only make one thing, and they're well known for it. But there are others that are more just like, it's like this cuisine. Yeah. And you can get whatever you want. There also, interestingly, there are... Josh is just licking his fingers.

Trying not in silence. I'm so sorry. I didn't think anyone was looking at me. I was listening to you. I was not being disrespectful. I was looking at you. Well, okay. As I was saying, yeah, please continue. Like, berating noise.

There are drink stalls in Hawker centers. where the only thing they make is our drinks. With the alcohol? Just, no. Well, you can buy beer, I think. But it's just like a variety of sweet drinks, and there usually just be one per Hawker Center. Okay.

And speaking of drinks. Great segment. That's, give it up. Give it up. Is this your first time on a podcast? Yeah. I crush it. This is great.

Also, I literally cannot stop eating the Kayatose. You don't have to stop. Every single, I don't know. I feel like at some point I should for my own safety and well-being. And I got to eat dinner later, man. Eat it all. I already ate a whole half of sandwich over here. But, like, there's something about the very specific combination of all the ingredients of that kai toast.

Even the texture of just the chewy bread that, like, delivers all the flavors. That is just speaking to me. And no offense, like, this is so much better than what we made for Uncle Roger. I'm sorry. Yes, I agree. No, no, I agree. That was, like, probably one of the hardest meals because we had never eaten any of the food. And like you said, there's two restaurants.

So we ordered the food from there. And we actually ordered it from some of those places. But it's just like we didn't have a lot of knowledge to go off of. Especially when you don't have like the intrinsic cultural knowledge, right? Of like having eaten this all the time. I didn't have no grandma showing me how to make this food. All right. What are we trying?

So this is called a Milo dinosaur. A Milo dinosaur. Yeah, I would like give it a little stir. On the top. Okay, so if you've never had Milo before, it's a malted, like a chocolate malt powder that you mix into water or milk. Asimor.

You were just licking your fingers, staring into Maggie's eyes, so don't judge me. I find ASR extremely creepy. What is it? ASMR. I found ASMR incredibly creepy. I don't know. That's right.

It reminds me. Yeah, ASMR. has the same energy of like Tarantino foot shots in movies. I'm just like, I know it's like your thing. I just, I'm not here for it per se. I think it's you that's making it. I don't think I'm making it weird. Anyway.

Okay, we're done to Venus Mar. I'm out. I'm out. So this is a big ass cup of chocolate milk. Basically, yeah. I also actually studied a video of an uncle at a drink stall in a Hawker Center making this to make this for you guys. So basically, it's regular Milo in the bottom and then on top

is just a heap of undissolved Milo powder, and that's what makes this a Milo dinosaur. It is an exceptional presentation that I've never seen before. Oh, really? The giant heap of powder, but you're supposed to, like, stir it in so it gets... No. No, you leave it. Do you drink it through the powder? But you can just straight up eat the powder.

You want it to, like, sludge in a little bit, so you don't do like a cinnamon challenge. Do you see that on your straw where it's like, it's like thick, a thick paste that it's just so yummy? So you get to kind of like, as the drink progresses, you're sort of like eating some powder off the top. You're sort of getting some like sludgy custard like thickness from it with the milk on the straw. Yeah. So it's like a dry powder too. Yes, exactly. Where does the dinosaur come in?

That's a good question. So, okay. Regular Milo would just be the liquid. Milo dinosaur has the heap of milo powder on top. Milo Godzilla. Oh. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Milo Godzilla has a scoop of ice cream Okay And then there's one more What is it? Milo Mecca Godzilla Milo King Godora Close

Milo Mothra No Wait is it Milo King Kong Oh Wait, King Kong's past Godzilla I know it doesn't really make sense But King Kong just means two scoops of ice cream

Wait because Mecca Godzilla And King Godora If we're going into the Godzilla Cinematic Universe here I know you all agree with me out there I think Mecca Godzilla and King Godora the only thing is I could be bigger than Godzilla. King Kong was simply an ape.

Well, wasn't there King Kong versus Godzilla? Yeah, I disagreed with that movie. I didn't fend. Did anybody here watch that movie? Did King Kong win? See, so they both. Because Mecca Godzilla is a bigger threat than Godzilla.

If you could write to the sovereign nation who's here for and say, hey. Well, it's funny because like the origins of this name, the names of these drinks is from... So these drinks were supposedly invented in Singapore from Indian Muslim hawker stalls in the mid-90s.

And it's like thought that because it was the mid-90s, that's why these names are the ways they are because of Jurassic Park. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's so funny. Yeah, the Matthew Broderick Godzilla

would have just been coming out with an original song by P. Diddy on it. This is a big cultural moment. Times are very different now. Very different. Matthew Broderick's still great. Anyways This is delicious

I grew up Malt powder is one of my favorite ingredients in the world Especially with chocolate And so I grew up on Ovalteen Oval Tene and Horlicks Are also Horlicks? I don't even know about Horlicks

I don't know what that is Horlix So it's basically this But without the chocolate So it's just white It's a vanilla or it's just white It's kind of vanilla-y But it's just

The main flavor is malt I had breakfast essentials too All right. What do we try next? I think you guys should try the Ondi-Onde. I want to try the Ondi-Ondi. You've been talking of the Ondi-Ondi. I saw you making the Ondi-Ondi in the kitchen, and I reached for one, and you slapped my hand away. I did. And you said that I wasn't allowed to eat it until the podcast, which I want you to know, as a producer, sometimes you're going to work with unruly talent.

You're an intern. You're here to learn. And you need to learn when to lay down the line of talent. And I'm grateful that I could give you that teaching moment. Yeah, I really – I had to put you in your place. But yeah, Onde-Onde-on-de just means. like round slash like spherical like you would describe a fish ball as one day one day she's so squishy what's the squish so the squish the it's a ball and the ball is made out of rice flour pondon mixture which sounds like a kind of chewy almost like a mochi yeah when you boil it and

it's filled with gula milaka which is um a palm sugar gulla mean sugar malacca is a city in malaysia sugar of malacca And then it's coated in coconut. Oh, man. I like this a lot. Yeah, the sugar inside of it is... Gusher. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it is like a gusher. Truly, I love mochi, and I have a weird vendetta against mochi ice cream just because I think the temperature of mochi is best, or the texture of mochi is best in room temp. Yep. I'm very proud of mochi ice cream because it was invented in Los Angeles and I was just like rooting for the home team, you know what I mean? So I still buy and eat it, and I still enjoy it. But this, like, mochi filled with... We said this is palm sugar. I love a brown, unrefined sugar, man.

It's just so much more character, so much more flavor. Yeah, it's caramelized, but it's also kind of like a creamy texture from the sugar inside. It's really nice. And again, not too sweet. Not too sweet. Shuck. This Andi-O-Di, that's like a really special dessert. That's so fun.

I agree. It's known to just like explode everywhere. It happened to be on a plane. Okay, we got one more dessert on the table. Yes. Or do we have two more desserts? There's two bowls. Yeah, there are two bowls.

But this is Gula Milaka syrup. Oh, and do you pour that? Yeah, into the chendal. So that's Gula Milaka. That's just like been boiled with panned on leaves. That's what was in there. I saw that. I don't know that I've ever seen fresh pondon leaf or ever seen it like boiled in a syrup like that.

Yeah, pondon leaves are the leaves of screw pine, if you know what that looks like. It looks like a crazy pineapple. Does it have a fruit that you can eat? Screw pine? You can eat screw pine. I've never had it, though. Because it's kind of hard to harvest. Oh.

That's interesting. Pondon, to me, has almost like a coconut-y, roasty vanilla flavor into it, which I really love. I grew up eating a lot of, talking about a lot of, like, Southeast Asian desserts coming from, like, colonization. In Vietnam, they have these, like, pondon waffles. Obviously, like French colonization, waffles became a big thing, but you go to, like, Lee sandwiches, which is a big bun-mead chain from Vietnam, and they have just these green waffles that they're constantly just churning out and making fresh. And you walk in there and you just get hit with this like burst of pondon scent. And it's so, so, so good. And it like reminds me of a shout out, Fountain Valley, Westminster Garden Grove, Little Saigon.

What is that dessert that I made that one time? Oh, the... It was like a spousetown. sponge cake. It was Vietnamese. Yeah, it was like a pondon rice cake. Also in a lot of like Bonnese shops, I feel like I see it, like wrapped in the... They have it wrapped in the little styrofoam with the plastic on it. Yeah, yeah. So, good. Let's try the gendal.

So we eat this, we pour this on here? Yeah, the syrup, okay, the syrup is kind of hardened. Stay there, I'm throwing it in the microwave. I got syrup. You microwaved it? Yeah, just a little bit, just loosen it up. Nice. What do we do with it?

Just pour it on top. I don't know how to be you guys. Okay. That's good. That's, yeah. Hello. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Growing up with an American pal.

Give you all the sugar. Put that down. Did we mix it? Yeah, mix it up. So it's coconut milk. Chendall is the name of the dish. And then, okay, the sugar is hardening it a little bit. But the chendel is the name of the dish and the green jellies.

inside. It's like coconut green jellies. Shuk. Oishi. I think this is one of my favorite ones. Dude. I actually like that the sugar kind of crystallized it. I don't know if that's supposed to happen. But it's like nice little crunchy bits. It is nice. So it almost has the

weird deep pull here. It has a texture of like shpatsla. Right? I was going to say that. Were you actually or were you making fun of me? No, because we cooked it on GMM and you like grade it through the holes. Yeah, wait, is that how you make this? Yeah. Oh, interesting.

What's the dough made out of? The dough is made out of pundon juice, coconut milk, um, mung bean starch. Mung bean starch. Yes. And so you thicken that on a store. Is the mung bean starch green? No.

It's the pondon. Oh, it's the actual, the actual starch is like, so it almost just looks like cornstarch. Yeah, it just looks like corn starch. It looks and feels like corn starch. Interesting. You can't stop me. You can't stop me from adding extra sugar to it. I'm sorry.

It's okay. You don't apologize for who you are. That's too much. That's too much sugar. I'm not going to be as you. But, yeah, so you thicken the batter slash dough in a pan over heat, and then you push it through a strainer. Yeah. Yeah.

Spatzel. Spatsel. Spatsel. Do you also do it into ice water? You go straight into boiling water. Oh, this is straight into. to ice water. Oh, so you don't need to... You cook it first and then you...

Oh, fascinating. Wow. Wow. And it's that coconut milk base? Yes. Coconut milk. Damn, damn, damn. That is really fun. Listen, food doesn't have to be ranked. This is all merely a cultural experience. And, like, truly, thank you for putting in all this effort, Samara. And thank you, Lily. I know you helped out in the kitchen as well.

Well, we asked you to help Samara, and apparently you did nothing. So that's totally cool. But no, truly, like, this is a really special experience for me. I love learning about, one, the history of things, then two, just like different modalities of taste and the ways in which different people from around the world eat. And, like, all of these, I think, have an incredible story to tell. But we said we're ranking the damn desserts. Oh, we're ranking them. We're ranking them.

Well, just, what are your favorites? I like this one. What is it called again? Chendell. Chendell. Yeah. Shook. The Kayatos.

And then the third one for me is the ball. The Ande, Onde, Onde. Yeah, I feel like my favorite bite of the whole day, as you saw me sucking it off my fingers, the Kayat toast. We all saw it. Yeah, I didn't have it. We unheard it. The Kaya toast is incredible. But the Onde Onde is like, that's my favorite.

Just that texture, the flavors just really speak to me. Then I'd throw the chendal in there. Like the texture of that mung bean starch, it looks like it's going to be chewy. but then it actually is just kind of like slippery, almost jelly-like. Yeah. But like, God, that's so good. And then, yeah, no, I'm putting the coyotes in there. It's got to be, got to be the coyotes.

What are your faves? All of them? Because you've made them? Probably. I told me to pick your favorites. Isn't one of these that, like, stands out to you above the rest as, like, one that speaks to your soul? One that speaks. Okay, from a nostalgia standpoint, and this isn't even counted, like, in the desserts, but Milo

dinosaurs are so special to me. me just like memories of drinking them with my cousins and my sister. It's just like so glutinous. Like honestly, the amount of condensed milk and Milo in there is so delicious to me. But desserts, I love Ande Ondi. It's just, it's my favorite. Hey, the last one's yours unless you want to gift it to read, Maggie. The NFL playoffs are here.

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Ah, I like that. Follow and listen to Head the Call, wherever you get your podcasts. All right, Lily and Samara, we've heard what you and I have to say. Now it's time to find out what other wacky opinions are rattling out there in the universe. Time for a little segment we call. This is the full version song. opinions are like casseroles everyone's got one and they smell like onions

God we're good All right let's get to that first opinion Hey Nicole Josh My opinion is anytime a recipe calls for water Use any other liquid Any recipe, any other liquid Water is just compulsory non-flavor I like this

I like compulsory. Is he saying that he does do that? I think he's saying if you're making clam chowder instead of like adding some water to it, add orange juice. No. I think that's what he's saying. Yeah, I don't think that checks out. No, but like what, even if you're, say, boiling pasta, if you boil that in chicken stock,

it would have more flavor. That's chicken water. It's a flavor of water. But I think he's arguing that unflavored water is the problem here. Yes. But like, it's interesting because if you were to use that chicken stock analogy, what I do a lot, I've stopped, I'm too lazy to actually make stock and keep it in my freezer. And my freezer. You don't save your scraps and make soft.

You shut your mouth. You've been lying to all the fans. You always say. I always say every celery leaf, every onion skin is saved for stock. No, I don't do that. Because my freezer is full of trader's appetizers that Julia bought three years ago and doesn't eat. And I'm like, why? There's so many hot dogs in a blanket.

Mini Keish's. One day, Julia's going to be in the mood for Spanacopatatat. Yeah. So freezing-burt. Like she was three years ago when she bought it. And she's never going to eat. So there's no room to do the little stock ice cubes thing or the demigloss ice cubes. So what I does is I take better than bullion, which is a great thing.

And I add water to, say, a soup and then put a teaspoon of better than bullion in there, which is the same as adding stock. Well, not like good stock, but it's effectively store-bought stock. You guys ever had Heinzsche-N-N-E's chicken rice? Hell yes. I love it. Hell yes. That's why the rice is so good.

It's chicken stock. That is true. Chicken oil. But that said, like, this is all context-dependent, right? One, Hainanese chicken rice is the chief stray bullet attractor of the seasoning police. Do you get these people on, like, TikTok? We was talking about this early in the kitchen. People on TikTok who will just be like, where's the seasoning?

if you don't cover everything in like paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, which are like great spices and I use them all the time. But like Hainanese chicken rice is one of those dishes that if you were to look at it on a TikTok video, it looks incredibly bland. The skin on the chicken's not crispy. It's just like boil it.

I mean, it's poached. But it is one of the most beautifully flavorful dishes in the world. It's the most like chickeny dish. It tastes like chicken. There's no... And all the sauces, too, dipped into it. Oh, I know. But it's just all it's just ginger, scalyam garlic.

Like just going hard in time. So you have a point, but I think there's room for things like white rice steamed in water. Yes. Right? If you're eating like Mapo tofu or something, right, it's so heavily spiced in aromatic and you're going and the mala setting it on your tongue. And then you get just this bite of just chewy steamed white rice in water, no salt added to it. That's like a perfect foil to it. If that rice was cooked in chicken stock or something.

Maybe too much. It might be too much. So everything's context-dependent. But I do like where your head's at, trying to push the limits on everything. Some things need to be neutral. Yeah. I don't know, dude. Boil your pasta and chocolate milk.

See what happens. Poor cana, you pour some yu-hoo in there. That's water. Hey, Josh, Nicole, guest, possibly, and Maggie. Hope you all are doing well today. Yeah, I kind of know that. This is from Colorado. And out here in the American Southwest,

it can be somewhat hotly debated. Who has the best kind of American, Mexican fusion food. And I'm wondering if you all have any strong opinions about or we'll be willing to rank even Tex-Mex, New Mexican, Colorado Mex, as we've started to call it out here. And Baja.

So, I mean, I'll admit, I know Josh has strong feelings, but, yeah, I'm willing to hear y'all to be. I do. Have a great thing. So I'm curious. I'm so sorry if anybody else has any strong opinions here. I am like a little biased because, and I'm still learning about it, but Alex's side of like New Mexican culture, I'm just learning that the food is amazing.

Yeah. But also just like living in California, there isn't any like good Mexican food on the East Coast. Well, there's good Mexican food, but not like on the side. It's like small pockets. Yeah, very small pockets. It's not the everyday sort of good Mexican food. Right. Yeah, yeah.

You rank. What's your strong opinion? Okay, so when he said Baja, I'm curious if he probably meant like Alta, like Alta California, which we have like Baja California, Alta California is above it. And so like Alta cuisine is like really interesting to me because that's what I grew up on and these things that I kind of always thought were de rigour across like all of Mexico. But like my favorite food in the entire world is what I would call a San Diego style, carnisade. a burrito, which is just like a big flour tortilla that's got so much lardin it that you can see through it, just steak, grilled, could even be grilled on a flat top, and then chopped up with just like pico, guac, chili d'ar bowl, salsa, probably some sort of jack or cheddar cheese thrown

in there. And to me, that's just my favorite food, because I used to skateboard over to, you know, Alberto's Tocaria in Oceanside, California, grab it. And that to me is like all to California cuisine. There's also a lot of other, you know, great dishes that come out of that, even look into, like, the tequito, or the tequito that we know and love, like, what they would call, like, a flauta typically, and tends to come from, like, Mexico City. But the first one ever made in the U.S. was that Cielito Lindo in Los Angeles, California. The one by the train station. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so they kind of, like, invented that dish. And there's a lot of stuff like that. So I love Alta California cuisine. We have our own style of, like, combo plate that, that

basically originated from, if you ever see any restaurant that ends in T.O. apostrophe S. That's Alberto's, Alertos, Albatros, Rigoberto, DaGoberto. They all come from, I think his name was Diego Robledo. Can you Google Diago Robledo? I think he's the guy that started Alberto's, and he brought his family over from, I believe, Aguas Calientes, Mexico. And then they all started their own spinoffs. Half of them, I think, like, suit him. Is it Diego Robledo?

He's got Instagram. Look up Diego Roberto Robledo, not Diego Rublero. Roberto Robledo started Roberto's tacos. And that, to me, signify at Alta, California. You get out to New Mexico, and you have a lot of awesome chilies that have been growing there for, like, a long time, like, 500 years of history of, like, growing chilies in New Mexico. And I think it's awesome. You got, like, your New Mexican style enchiladas, really incredible. You go up to Colorado.

They also have that culture where they call it, like, red chili and green chili, more known for the green chili in Colorado. And then they have a bunch of weird, very Americanized mashups in Colorado, like the Pueblo Slapper, which we made once. Yes. Do you remember when you made the juicy, loosey green chili cheese stuffed burger off camera? I sure do. It was so good. Hell yeah, it was. But the green chili cheese burger, New Mexico.

Agreed. It's got to be in the top. But then the Pueblo Slapper, you know? I just like it for the name. You know the Pueblooded. I know. So it's a whole cheeseburger, typically like bun everything. in the middle of the soup bowl,

and then you ladle, like, very porky, green chili on top of it. And you just eat it with a shrap a spoon. I can see why you would like that. Right? Yeah. And then Tex-Mex, you got fun dishes like kind of the gisada. But, like, I'm not a queso guy, and I know that that's not all Tex-Mex.

And I tend to not like the flour tortillas that have a little bit of leavening agent, the kind of thicker ones. There's some fun Tex-Mex food that's underrepresented, like, puffy tacos. Oh, I haven't heard of that. those. You take that thick Tex-Mex flour tortilla and you drop in a deep friar. So it kind of aerates a little bit. Oh, hell yeah. It's almost like, like, they call it like an Indian taco or a

frybread taco or Navajo taco, a little bit like that. But like that's really delicious. My heart's always with where I grew up, though. And so for me, like that Alta California cuisine, you know, that you get from like, you know, like an El Centro, you know, Takaria or like, you know, down by the beach in San Diego. Chula Vista, I think, is one of the greatest eating neighborhoods in the entire planet Earth. I'm a huge fan. That's all I have to say about that. Go off game.

Smarro, what's your favorite Mexican food? Oh, Mexican food or Tex-Mex? Either. Well, for this question, I was going to say I'm, like, very partial towards a California burrito. Hell yeah. I just, I love some French fries in my burrito. San Diego's finest.

Yeah. San Diego's finest. That's about a wrap. I'm breathing heavy because I ate a whole lot of desserts. Stick of butter. Yeah, we really did eat a stick of butter. Don't look so sad about it. I saw the joy in your eyes.

That's what foods for. But on that note, thank y'all for listening to a hot dog as a sandwich. And if you want to be featured on opinions are like casseroles, give us a ring and leave a quick message at 833 Dog Pod 1. And a big thank you to today's guest, Samara Chaplin. Samara, what do you have to plug? Mythical Kitchen. Hell yeah. Truly, today was awesome.

Thank you so much for putting all that effort. Thank you. I know it meant a lot to you. It meant a lot for us to be able to share in that. And I'm just, I'm sticky. I washed my hands and I still just had Kaya stuck between my fingers. Yeah, I'm going to take a nap. I'm tired.

See you all next time.