A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich - Ramen vs. Pho ft. Courtney Miller

Episode Date: August 2, 2023

Today, Josh and Nicole are joined by Smosh's very own Courtney Miller to debate iconic which iconic ramen dish is better. Leave us a voicemail at (833) DOG-POD1 Check out the video version of this podcast: http://youtube.com/@mythicalkitchen 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, this is mythical. Hey, check out these nudes. Oh my God, yeah, those nudes are super hot. What the heck, that's disgusting, guys. It's ramen, Courtney. 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. What? Welcome to our podcast, A Hot Dog is a Sandwich, the show we take on the world's biggest internet debates. I'm your host, Josh Scher. And I'm your host, Nicole Anaidi.

And today we are joined by Smosh cast member, but that doesn't define her entirely. No, she's defined by her love of ramen. We are joined by a friend of the show, Courtney Freakin' Miller. Welcome. Hello. Studio audience, clap. Everybody clap. Everybody in the studio audience, clap freaking Miller. Welcome. Hello. Studio audience clap.

Everybody clap. Everybody in the studio audience clap. That's right Maggie. Very good. Thanks so much. I'm so happy to be here. I'm so happy to talk about my favorite thing. Of course, but first we have to talk about something that's been bothering me. What's bothering you? And nobody seems brave enough to answer this question, but what is a smosh? I've been meaning to ask for so long and I have no idea. What is a smosh? What the hell is sm for so long and i have no idea what is a smosh what the hell is smosh i can tell you it yeah i don't know the story behind the name yeah tell us uh it was ian and anthony and their friends were talking about at a concert there was a mosh pit but their friend didn't like he messed it up and kept calling it a smosh pit and

ian and anthony thought it was so funny it was was like their inside joke. They go, Smosh Pit, Smosh, Smosh. And then they decided to name their website Smosh because of a little oopsie-doopsie joke. That's so interesting. I could have guessed a million different things. I would have never guessed Mosh Pit being pronounced incorrectly. I feel like so many companies spend so many millions of dollars

on marketing R&D research to come up with names and logos and all that. And then you hear the actual stories behind things and it's like a stupid inside joke. Like Phil Knight didn't want to call Nike, Nike. He wanted to call it dimension six. And everybody was like,

that's the dumbest name ever. And he's like, no dimension six is the name. And then they had a filing deadline coming up and he was like, uh, screw it. And then he got Nike and he paid an art student $2 an hour from Portland state to just like draw something that conveyed motion.

And it was a swoosh. And he was like, that's dumb, whatever, put it out to market and now they exploit uh billions of um child workers oh with a b with a b speaking of which courtney we're talking that's right everybody we're talking about ramen versus pho now this is a controversial topic we didn't want to do this for a long time that's true because there's no point in pitting two noodle queens against each other, right? Exactly, yeah. However, we do live in a society, Nicole.

And this Nicole is, Nicole, like, up until the last minute, we shouldn't do this. I live in a society? We live in a society, and I'm saying. Oh, society. I'm saying, okay, this is a common choice that I personally am often forced to make when I want a bowl of hearty delicious noodle soup ramen and pho being two of the most popular and most delicious so I'm saying this is a real problem rooted in practicality Courtney what's your answer uh I agree no I mean I think they're both great

sure yeah I I think but they have I personally sorry can you rephrase the question that was like a lot of words do you like ramen or pho more oh like you're in a court deposition right now uh no i i'm i will say i do i love ramen more but i have my personal reasons i can't say one culture of food is better than the other yeah uh you are the pho queen i love pho so much and i want to say fa king uh because it sounds like a swear word um but uh like i understand why it's great but i love ramen so much more and i make it for myself i tried making ramen broth for the first time no way wait what kind of ramen broth so i literally just used whatever was in the fridge we had

a carton of like what was left of some chicken bone broth. Hell yeah. Put in a little bit of water, boiled that, put the chicken bone broth in, put in soy sauce, gochujang, Korean chili flakes, onion powder, garlic salt, and then just like kept stirring it and then butter. And then I didn't have any vegetables. So it was literally that and noodles. And then had some like ground korean turkey that we made so i like just threw all that together so it's kind of like a very traditional recipe very cursed because i know in ramen they

don't typically even do chicken broth and traditional ramen right well so actually ramen is like a huge wide breadth of foods so a lot of the ramen that we probably think of in america is like tonkotsu ramen right so you're thinking of like the really like thick rich pork broth made from simmered pork bones for like hours and hours but if you actually go to japan and also a lot of restaurants in la we have a huge japanese population in torrance and i know that because of watching have you ever watched terrace house uh no i don't think i do you know about it josh i think i've heard it's the greatest show of all time it's like the real world but the japanese Because of watching. Have you ever watched Terrace House? No, I don't think I have. Do you know about it? Josh loves Terrace House. It's the greatest show of all time.

It's like the real world, but the Japanese version. And so in very like kind of Japanese entertainment fashion, they have like very slow brewing romances. And there's not a lot of drama. Like people, I mean, they've had their incidents. There was the Wagyu beef stealing incident. Oh my God, crazy. But there was like, there was this one romance

that was brewing over the course of like 36 episodes they finally held hands they finally held they finally held hands and i was like yes shion shion you did it you held her hand um yeah but uh point is in one episode they're all like have you been to america and they're like yes they're like we're in america and they're all just like torrence they were like, we're in America. And they were all just like Torrance. They're like, oh, I've been to Torrance. I've been to Torrance. So you go to like Torrance is the biggest Japanese population in Los Angeles, you know, not Sawtelle, Japan town or little Tokyo. So you go there and you can find all the different styles of ramen. And so like my favorite ramen is actually a chicken based ramen. Tori Paitan. Tori Paitan ramen. Wow. Yeah. Wow. That's wild. Yeah. my first, so I, most of my like teen years,

all the way until my early 20s, I only knew of like cup noodles. Sure. Yeah, yeah. That's most of it, I'm sure. Same. And then some people from Smosh Games one day took me to Jinya, which is like a ramen chain. I love Jinya.

I think it's a great like lily pad into like ramen culture and like ramen cuisine. So yeah, I had spicy chicken ramen for the first time and it blew my mind. Jinya does really good work. Jinya is, are they owned by like one of the bigger Japanese restaurant groups? I don't know, but I know Roboto Jinya is like the sushi version of Jinya Ramen Bar. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's really good.

It is really good. But they'll do a bunch of like fun, weird, inventive stuff. Like they'll do like, they have a truffle ramen they have a lobster yeah really like a cilantro lime ramen now yeah it's crazy so good i know it's like they're teetering onto the pho world at that point too yeah one of the interesting things about this is we we tend to think of a lot of non-american foods as having these like hundreds year old traditions, right? Yeah. We think when you say like ramen is not traditionally prepared with X, what is traditional in ramen is constantly changing because the dish like isn't even 100 years old. Like there's kind of this idea.

It is wild, right? So like noodles have been around in Japan for over a thousand years, right? They estimate roughly since like 800 AD. There were a lot of Chinese dynasties that were sort of like ruling over all these things that we think of as sovereign nations today. So like Vietnam, which we'll talk about later,

was also ruled by Chinese dynasties for a long time. So a lot of the noodle making technology was sort of exported there. And then for a long time, the two most popular noodles in Japan were udon and soba, which if we're talking about

favorite noodles in the world, zaru soba, chilled soba with the dipping sauce is maybe my favorite. Okay, okay. Chewy buckwheat noodles, but neither here nor there. So ramen, they think, came back. So men literally comes from the Chinese mian,

which means noodle, or like wheat-based noodle. And so ramen is a wheat-based noodle that came, people think, from like the second Sino-Japanese War. So basically soldiers from Japan were in China, were eating a bunch of wheat-based noodle soups, and then they brought that back to Japan. And then the first sort of iterations of ramen were created. And then it wasn't really made like popular, popular

until post-World War II, which oh, Josh talking about World War II again. Welcome to the podcast. But also part of it came from instant noodles because there were a bunch of food shortages because World War II was just brutal to the entire. But also part of it came from instant noodles because there were a bunch of food shortages because World War II was just brutal to the entire world and especially Japan. And so the Japanese government was trying to get people to eat American wheat bread. And Momofuku Ando, who is generally credited for inventing instant ramen, was like, well,

why not try and feed the Japanese population on noodles because we're a lot more familiar with that than bread. And the government was like, we don't have the and feed the Japanese population on noodles because we're a lot more familiar with that than bread. And the government was like, we don't have the capability to produce that many noodles. And he was like, let me figure it out. And so that's when he invented the flash frying and cooking and dehydrating process to create instant ramen. Which is like the coolest thing ever.

It is the coolest thing. Incredible, yeah. And it's still my favorite form of noodle. It's like the fried noodle. There are some grocery stores that I've found will have like like because i like making my own ramen all the time and i don't like having to like waste a pack or like all the plastic that comes with like a full-on package so getting a container of like a bunch of noodles and it's hard to find just like the fried like brick of noodles but i love it yeah yeah no some places will do like the fresh ramen noodles I love fresh

ramen noodles I do too they are good I prefer them to the flash fried ones it's healthier too I do

aside from I just think they taste so much better and they make for a better ramen experience yeah ramen noodles do

have like ramen I absolutely love ramen my official answer here is pho because I wow and again

this is purely based on personal tastes it is it is based purely on personal and pho. Wow! And again, this is purely based on personal tastes. It is. It is based purely on personal tastes. And pho is another dish that a lot of the influences

have come from Vietnamese Americans and then passed back to Vietnam. That's so cool. So jalapenos are a really interesting thing in pho, right?

I'm getting derailed. I want to talk about ramen. I want to talk about ramen. Yeah, talk about ramen, Josh. Give back to all this. Nerd out about ramen. I love ramen like everybody else. I grew up talk about ramen. Yeah, talk about ramen, Josh. Give back to all things. Nerd out about ramen. I love ramen like everybody else. I grew up eating instant ramen

because it literally cost 10 cents a pack when it was on sale at the grocery store. It was literally 10 for a dollar. And so I grew up eating that and like the weird flavors that you can only find in the 99 cents. Chili lime. Not even that.

Like creamy Alfredo, jalapeno cheddar ramen that they had. Yeah. Tapatio makes ramen now. Yes. Freaking weird. Well, ramen has literally traveled the world because of instant noodles. You know what I mean? jalapeno cheddar ramen that they had it's free tapatio makes ramen now yes yes weird well ramen has literally traveled the world because of instant noodles you know what i mean um but the first time i had a bowl of like proper japanese ramen i think when i was probably in my teens and i went with you know a friend's family who was japanese up to la that was like a really

life-changing experience where i was like holy crap this is what that dish can actually be like it was a bowl of tonkotsu ramen with chashu pork and just like the fattiness the richness of that broth all the pork bones cooked down for hours and hours and hours the scallions you know the the fish cake the seaweed on it like flavors that i never experienced before that was like a really eye-opening moment sure and like the production of ramen like um making like a tare right yeah which is like you make like a is that the essence oil yeah you basically make like an essence oil or like a really like concentrated concentrated like you know sauce base and you add the broth to that in the bowl like that's really freaking fantastic but i think for me i ramen myself out wow i ramen myself out because there's so many places,

there's so many places in LA, especially popping up, that were all serving sort of the same bowl of tonkotsu ramen. Yeah, fair. And they were just like, how thick and fatty and porky can we make this broth? You know what I mean? Yeah. It was like this arms race. I think the thickest, fattiest, porkiest one I've had is Sujita Annex.

Sujita Annex, yeah. Have you been to Sujita? No. Oh my god. We need to go after this. Please take me. Wine and dine me please. Yo. We're going to drink buzz balls in the alley behind it so the wining won't be

the most elegant but we can dine you for sure. The dining will be the wine not so much. We made a list of 100 best foods you need to try before you die. And one of the items on my half of the list was this ramen. It's just, it's so porky and delicious. It's almost like you're drinking Parmesan cheese broth. That's how intense it is.

And then it has this beautiful pile of bean sprouts, which I normally don't get. I don't like bean sprouts. But they like blanch the bean sprouts. And then they put a bunch of green onions and then this beautiful pork. And then an egg. And then your eyes just close. drink the soup and it's the most also i'm team fun do you hear i'm talking about ramen it's one of the most delicious food like that is that is like top tier ramen in my mind when i think of ramen that's what i think of and i think it's brilliantly done over there okay sorry guys please ramen had to. Ramen, like, not to be the creepy guy,

but like, ramen's a very, it's a very sensual food. It's a jiggly egg, the fatty pork. The sounds you make when you're eating it. I think it's sexiest

whenever you have the sukumen, which is the dipping ramen, right? Is that sukumen? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's really being entangled

with your food in a very unique, specific way. Because when do you ever pick up noodles, put them in a sauce, take everything, put it on there, and then just slurp it up and then do it again and again and again until you're insane? I feel like that's kind of like Korean cuisine, though. There's all the little things, the fixings that you grab and put together and you eat

it the way you want it. Korean ramen. Korean ramen. Yeah, yeah, ramen. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. There's this place in i think long beach called surah okay which is a korean restaurant that has a like they call it the

hangover ramen yeah it's like legit broth and everything but it's using like a packet of the brick fried noodles it's so funny yes um but yeah korean ramen slaps it's funny ramen has for a long time and there's been one specific ramen shop it's called santuka and it's in the mitsuba market in west la oh that's some good status so you get the spicy miso ramen cash cash only baby do not show up there without cash and sometimes there's just a line to get into a grocery store on the weekend wow yeah which is fun but that's been my like long time hangover cure which is interesting because when i get sick i had strep throat recently and i was begging for pho i was sick on saturday you guys i literally had the worst tummy ache i was like crawling to the bathroom that's how sick i

was and the only thing that made me feel even remotely alive pho pho pho pho is life bringing only thing on planet earth that made me go from a fetal position into sitting in a chair normally. That is, that's what I will say too, because I love ramen because I love being attacked with flavor and texture and all the things that I put in it. But if I'm not feeling like, well, pho is what I get because it is like, I feel like it's a more pure and like healthier like but the same thing

of like the noodles the meats the broth but it like I'm like oh no this is like when my mom would make me Campbell's chicken noodle soup

to feel better like pho is like the better version of that sure wait I think we found like a little dichotomy here like ramen you're being attacked

which is something that I generally love in food but I think as this is not a dig to Courtney I'm not even gonna look look her in the eye but like I think here like ramen you're being attacked which is something that i generally love in food but i think as this is not a dig to courtney i'm not even looking around the eye but like i think as you're as you as you mature as your palate matures yeah you start to appreciate subtlety and food more and courtney courtney is just like a troglodyte idiot over here you're like give me flavor no no no no i think i think ramen attacks. I think pho coddles you and nurtures you. Correct.

Pho dances with you. I love pho. It's so herbaceous. You know, it's pure. It's fresh herbs that, you know, ripped by hand. You slap the Thai basil. You throw it in there. You throw in some jalapeno coins.

You taste the broth and you're like, okay, everything is fine. There's something really calming about crushing a bowl of pho but whenever you finish a bowl of ramen you just want to kind of put your shirt over your head be like okay i'm done you know what i mean like when david chang used to crush bowls of i don't know if you saw like on my i think it was on mind of a chef yeah he would just go through and eat bowls of ramen like his life depended on it and after he would just be like hanging on the side like this that doesn't happen whenever you have pho. When you finish pho, you're like, okay, I can like complete anything I set my mind to.

With ramen, day's done. Pho is restorative. Yes. It's enlivening. Pho is, it's like matzo ball soup. Also, pho is traditionally a breakfast food. That makes sense. And also on hot days, people eat pho for breakfast because it actually cools you down

interesting and also since it's not so fatty so pho is like have you made pho from scratch before I've never tried to make pho before

me either you've never made it from scratch before no I don't need to I feel like it's we're so blessed to live in LA that the way that

these broths are created and manipulated into such beautiful flavors I want to learn. And I'm sure I will in a few years whenever I feel like it.

But it's done so well. I'm like, let the experts handle it, man. They got it on lock. Dude, I have made ramen broth from scratch before. I did a Tori Paitan ramen. So Tori Paitan is where you take bird bones. Tori means bird. Or like yakitori, chicken, et cetera.

And so you take bird bones chicken namely and you like simmer them for 24 hours sometimes and then you'll actually blend the bones to extract all the marrow and then you just strain it through a fine mesh sieve and so it's just like this milky incredible rich chicken broth which is a labor in its own effort making pho broth is so freaking difficult because it requires meticulous skimming so basically like pho is another one of those things that post-World War II developed all these different, because Vietnam was going through its partition after World War II, right? Communist North, Capitalist South.

We all roughly know the history. And so there's a partition in I think like 1954. And so pho was mainly something that was made in Hanoi. And it started in like roughly the late 19th century had a lot to do hanoi's the north uh saigon or ho chi minh city is like the south is the two sort of cultural nexuses and the biggest cities in vietnam and then you have like huawei which is the royal province where the soup bun bo hua comes from which is bomb man bbh you got a bbh bbls are out bbh we gotta take you to get some BVH too. What is BVH?

Bon bon huet. It's delicious. You can talk about it. Bon bon. So, okay. Well, let's go back to pho. Sorry. I'll follow this man real quick.

Sorry. So, pho, beef was never really big in Vietnam until the French occupation. So, there was a lot of just, you know, they were eating a lot of like water buffalo and stuff like that. And a lot of people think that pho actually comes from no this can't be true french influence well it they think the beef at least came from french influence some people you know the french dish uh poto pho never heard of it p-o-t-a-u-f-e-u oh yeah okay they think pho may come from that i read that one place that doesn't actually make any damn sense to me okay um but

anyways uh so josh just fact-checked himself in real time. Welcome to the ADHD brain, baby. It doesn't shut off. It's like a NASCAR track up there. Self-preservation. And so there was a lot more beef. And so then they sort of created these like really rich beef stocks with all the bones that were left over. And so pho is made almost exclusively with like bones as opposed to meat, right? Which a lot of.

Which I love. Brats are the same. It's healthier, I'm sure. But there were so many different spices and herbs in Vietnamese cuisine. And a lot of that really came into pho after partition when they went from Hanoi in the north where pho was more popular. And if you, to this day, if you go to a northern Vietnamese restaurant, which there's a lot in like Alhambra, Arcadia area.

Thicker noodles, right? Well, so they'll use thicker noodles and it'll be more sparse toppings and it'll be like a plainer flavored broth. Because it wasn't until I got to the South, which was more of like a trading port, right? Interesting. And it was open to more of the world. Sure. That they started adding hoisin to it, which is Chinese, right? Started adding a bunch of different chili sauces to it, all this.

And so for me, like fuzz is incredible just dance of all the air max you have to char your ginger your onions to get that sort of flavor you have to meticulously skim it there's there's rock sugar yeah there's rock sugar in it you know to add like that little bit of sweetness to the broth and then there's all these spices in it that you don't taste unless you have like a really good pho broth if you go to some places that are just trying to spit out gallons and gallons of pho and make their money, a lot of their food just sort of tastes like,

you know, they'll use MSG, which again is perfectly safe and fine. But sometimes you'll be like, I know y'all did this to stretch out the bones, right? Like I want more actual beef flavor. But like the cardamom, the star anise. Star anise is like the big one that you taste. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Boom, boom, boom. Wow, that's crazy. I'm like absolutely mind blown. I didn't realize, because like the way pho comes across to me, it feels just so simple and fresh and just like three ingredients almost. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Which makes sense because it's like a very clear broth that makes you just kind of think of like if you grew up eating something like a Campbell's beef you know soup something like that but that's why I'm saying like pho once you really dive in and you understand the intricacies of it once your like palate has been trained and you don't have to be like a huge foodie a-hole

like Nicole and I did but next time you take a sip of pho broth like before you put stuff in it before you put stuff in it this is a big thing before you put anything in your pho broth taste it notice it and then add stuff don't just Before you put anything in your pho broth, taste it, notice it, and then add stuff.

Don't just go willingly, because each shop's pho broth is going to be dramatically different from the next. Wow. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. But really inhabit your own mouth. Put all of your consciousness into your palate.

Or in your own mouth. Try and think of the spices. Try and think of the burn on that onion. Try and think of the... That's why I freaking love pho so much i'm a texture girly when it comes to food so and i when it comes to sandwiches and and a lot of other foods i love it when it's crisp and like fresh. So I do appreciate pho when it's like the, um, what's it called? The little tendon? No, like the, the, they're like, they put it in ramen, the bean sprouts. Why did I lose that in my head? It's like the bean sprouts

and the chicken and like the, the, the Thai basil, like the crunch of it all is like so satisfying. So I can totally appreciate that. But what I love about ramen is like a satisfying so satisfying so i can totally appreciate that but what i love about ramen is like a lot of restaurants offer like such a crazy array of like toppings to like corn corn is my favorite thing to put in ramen and fresh garlic i love people would do like the the black garlic oil or the things i i personally i'm like nothing hits like fresh minced garlic you're so right plopped in there but yeah I would say I think texture wise

and stuff like pho makes me way more satisfied and now knowing the work that goes into it I'm like holy crap wow 100%

what's your pho order? like what's your favorite pho to get? I just love a classic chicken your chicken? yeah I love chicken

pho ga I always steal people's extra Thai basil i'm obsessed with thai basil same same brilliant lots of lime um i never really used the um the plum sauce really yeah the hoisin sauce i would just do this like i like spicy i'm not a sriracha fan but i'll deal with it but that's that's my wanting to be attacked with flavor aside no fair fair and i think fugg gives you that opportunity to be attacked if you want to be attacked because they'll give you the jalapenos on the side they'll give you all the herbs um my favorite thing is if you go to a vietnamese

restaurant and they give you an herb that you have never heard of and then you've never seen you're just like what the hell is this like there's one like a rao ram is what it's called i have a guide to vietnamese or i have a hand fainted guide to Vietnamese service in my kitchen because I'm that guy. But the, the single best bowl of my, my favorite bowl of Vietnamese soup I've ever had. Damn it. I'm not gonna be able to remember the name of the restaurant.

It is in, it is in Oklahoma city. And there is a, I know. Well, it's, it's an old long John Silver's that you could tell was dilapidated in the eighties.

But they had all these herbs that I had never seen of. They're called like fish mint is one. And there's not a lot of English translations for some of them. But it turns out his parents just started growing them in their garden out back because they were like, we can't find them here, you know. And so we got a bowl of

Bunryu, which is like a crab soup. And we got a bowl of Bunbahue, which is like Bunbahue and we got a bowl of bun bah huay which is like bun bah huay is like pho except it is incredibly spicy and uh the noodles are a little bit thinner and there's cubes of pork blood generally and like whole like uh beef like bones it's great and it is absolutely fantastic it is restorative um but like there's a lot of my point is when ramen in America, there are so many enterprising chefs. David Chang is a person who really did help popularize ramen in fancy establishments and make it very sort of customizable. Another one is Jewish guy.

Jewish guy. Come on. I don't know all the Jews. Jewish guy. I feel like you talked about that guy. Ivan Orkin. He was like he he was like was not ever going to be a ramen person. He was a chef and then just decided to pursue ramen and actually change the ramen game.

Yeah, and he did it a lot as a white dude in Japan. Who are you talking about? Ivan Orkin of Ivan Ramen. I know this guy. I know this guy. He did a Chef's Table episode. Oh, that is. And then plenty of enterprising Japanese chefs in America

who have made it possible to do corn and ramen. I remember the first time I had that was actually in Austin, Texas. That's Steve Martin. Just kidding. What a cutie. Yeah, was it his wife who was like, just do it? Yeah, I think he, God, did somebody pass away?

I don't remember Ivan's story that much, which is sad. But like, there are a lot of people who have very deliberately changed the ramen game and made it very inventive and made it very fun. Yeah. You can get all the black garlic oils on it. Yeah. In a way that I think it's because Americans for a long time. And this is going to get deep and annoying. But the the model minority myth.

Right. We went through this period of like Japanophilia in America. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Where we were like and still now with anime and all that stuff but in i think the 1980s especially it was like the japanese are so good at doing business and manufacturing and their cars and their electronics or you know that was i was obsessed with robots because of japan yeah stuff

like yeah and so i think like sushi the reason amer Americans will pay so much for sushi is because of that sort of myth, right? The reason that the reason that one big weeb for a while. No, actually. Yeah. And the reason that Korean people had to open sushi restaurants in Los Angeles because people weren't eating Korean food, I think, was trying to pass off this like, you know, sort of myth of Japanese food is being like oh it's so noble and pure and so i think people being able to sell more expensive bowls of ramen because now you can people pay 19 20 bucks for a bowl of ramen no problem i paid 20 for pho the other day where uh forage forage is one of the few new school fuss spots but it's so good i don't care so chef perry chung so this is

my single favorite bowl of fun la he makes an oxtail broth pho. That was my favorite from forage is the oxtail pho, but everywhere else I always get the beef special because I don't know what the heck they're going to put in there, but I'm going to eat it. No, 100%. Dak biet. Anytime you see dak biet on a menu, it means like how special.

Always order it. There'll be tendon, tripe, meatballs. Forage's oxtail pho is unlike any other bowl of pho I've ever had, and I love it so much. Same. It's like my favorite bowl of pho in Los Angeles, but he's sort of one of the few people. I mean, not that he uses Mary's chicken.

He names the farm on his beef, stuff like that. Yes, he does. And so he's one of the few people that is really charging that much money for a bowl of pho, and to me it is absolutely worth it it is so dang worth it wow no yeah if it brings when food brings you joy like that doesn't matter any price yeah doesn't matter worth it to me yeah i spend i think when i really got my relationship closer with ramen was in the pandemic when i sound like a church testimonial right now when i found ramen uh i literally bought a bulk of the korean fiery ramen like the the one that like all these bulldog yeah bulldog sauce

yeah and like all these all those youtubers who would make an entire giant pot and just down it like the sexual tension between me dropping comedy and just doing that for a living. Workout. Ramen mukbang. Sleep. That would be my life. But I would eat that all the time. And my spice tolerance got like it was used to be really bad where I'd wake up at 4 a.m. and have the time.

The experience. The bathroom trip. But then I got to the point where I kept making it and adding things and making it my own. You saw my TikTok and you said my noodles were overcooked. It's fine. What a bully. I just said that to you? Yeah.

Well, you were like, it was great. It was great. I was like, you can be honest. You were like, yeah, no, no. Your noodles were overcooked. Okay. If somebody asks for the consert your criticism. I'm not going to ask Josh's food opinion and want the fake answer.

That's right. I just want to make sure that I didn't come off immediately abrasive because I do that sometimes. No, that's all right. Now it's me. And I got to the sure that I didn't come off immediately abrasive because I do that sometimes. No, it's all right. Now it's me. And I got to the point where I didn't even have the tummy rumblies.

I was a strong ramen woman. I love it. Your body adapted. But that fiery, nothing compares to the bulldog sauce. Bulldog? Bulldog?

It's killer. Bulldog ramen? I think it's bulldog ramen, yeah. Oh, it's so good. Like Shin Ramyeon Black was the one that I grew up. That was the premium, the premium instant ramen experience that I grew up with i want to feel i just like want to feel something i grew up with a kosher cup of noodles with the peas there was like three peas in it

maybe three maybe three that was my that was my stuff right there what are what are other other asian noodle soups that that have your attention like i'm thinking one for courtney that is one of my favorite things of all time is called ten tan men have you been to it's a spot called killer noodles so uh dan dan dan dan man dan dan noodles yeah tan tan man is a japanese i i've tried dan dan and i can't get super into it but you know what i have is a newer discovery that i am absolutely obsessed with is shabu shabu yes that is so good that's where it hits try sukiyaki which is shabu. Shabu. Oh, shabu-shabu. Yes. That is so good. That's where it hits. Try sukiyaki, which is shabu-shabu,

but with like a really intensely flavored broth. It'll change the game for you. Perfect. Attack me. Yeah. That's really good stuff. I don't know.

I just love Heidi Lau, like Chinese hot pot. They're from Sichuan. Fair. I think they're from Sichuan or they're from Shanghai. I can't remember. But I love Chinese hot pot.

But like other noodle soups. One that I make at home a lot. I make a beef udon soup because I take I cook a lot of beef and then I section off the beef into plastic, you know, little containers. And then I heat up the beef and then I cook my noodles and then I put in broth and it's so damn good. My udon, my beef udon soup is quite delicious. my udon my beef udon soup is quite delicious i udon noodles are just they've always been too too big too chewy like a little bit for my for my personal taste i love it um i love how thick it is yeah zarusoba is probably my favorite noodle of all time but uh another one a korean soup uh karguksu oh my gosh so they're like the broth is like milky and it's it's a clam based broth

oh my god so it's like a clam and pork-based broth. And clams are like my favorite animal to eat. I just love clams. I'm a big clam guy. I don't know how to explain it. But it's a clam broth and these like thick knife-cut noodles. And it's just one of my favorite things of all time. Well, what did we learn today?

Yeah, do we have to come to a consensus? Do we have to? Yeah, pho wins, right? No, no, there's no consensus on the podcast ever. We just use this as an excuse to talk about the things we love. And it's kind of beautiful. I personally will gravitate towards pho. Gravitate towards pho.

I love pho the most. But I will eat ramen as much as I can. Yeah. But to that point, I feel guilty after eating too much ramen. My body doesn't like it. Yeah. But I feel like when I eat a bunch, like the physical feeling, yes,

but also emotionally, if I'm eating a bunch of pho, I'm like, this is good for me. I feel like I'm healing my body every time I have some. So I can recede my ramen passion and agree that pho is probably the superior soup. Cambodian Hutu is the greatest noodle soup.

No, actually it's really good. But no, there's just such a wide variety of noodle soups that come from East Asia that people should be trying to enjoy as much as possible. We didn't even talk about Thai duck noodle soup. Shame on us. For shame.

Talk about banh canh, cow soy. There's just so many different noodle soups out there. Taiwanese beef noodle soup with the pickled mustard greens. I only know about the history of the noodle because one time at a mythical work event, someone on the mythical team was like, hey, go ask Josh if noodles are Italian. And I was like, what? Oh my God. Okay.

And they all gathered and watched me go up to you and get stuck in a half an hour half an hour lecture but good lecture like college lecture on the history of the noodle and i was like whoa i was like oh my god okay i see why they don't wait and now i think i've told people to go and ask you before but that's me once a week wait i think i think i remember that that was like early days years ago i think it was 2019. And you didn't run and you're here now. No, I love it. I love food.

It gives me so much joy and I've felt a lot of joy being here today. Thanks for coming. All right, Nicole and Courtney. I've heard what you and I have to say. Now it's time to find out what other wacky ideas are rattling out there

in the universe. It's time for a segment we call Opinions on Like Casseroles! God, Nicole's all jacked up today. All right, let's listen to the first one. Wait, do we have any fact corrections? Dude, no. What about all my things about the Meiji Restoration? Maggie, we have any fact corrections? Dude, no. What about all my things about the Meiji Restoration?

Maggie, we got nothing on that? Oh, my God. The Meiji Restoration. It's one of the most fascinating times in history. We don't have to get into it. Get over it. Later. Nerd.

Sorry, I had to say at least once. Hey, guys. My name's Adam. And controversial take, but the best breakfast gravy is chocolate gravy. Yes. It's something I grew up eating. Yes, yes,

yes. Breakfast gravy. It's just a simple butter roux mixed up with a little bit of milk, some flour, Dutch processed cocoa, special dark if you feel like bougie. And yeah, a little bit of sugar just to bring out the sweetness maybe a pinch of salt yes sir that

on top of some butter biscuits yes sir that's uh that's a good time uh also salmon gravy but that's a different story it's a divisive thing but salmon chocolate gravy is fantastic uh if you've never had it please try it i strongly recommend it thanks guys great podcast uh you guys uh take care goodbye breakfast gravy i have never heard of this you're not eating gravy for breakfast did they say mother rue what butter rue butter rue i wasn't mother rue um chocolate gravy chocolate gravy is a very unique southern food that inspired a recipe in the very early days of mythical kitchen that's right we made oreo biscuits and gravy which is one of the coolest recipes we've done we made like a chocolate biscuit with the special dark

processed cocoa and then we made like this like white chocolate ganache disc in the middle and then we made like a cookies and cream white chocolate gravy to go on top yeah chocolate gravy is the thing that more people need to realize. You take the combination of like a roux and milk and then you can add whatever you want to it. It can be sweet, it can be savory, all that. Courtney, what are your top three breakfast gravies? Oatmeal.

What's a breakfast gravy? Oatmeal's a breakfast gravy. Is it gravy? Depends how thick and thin you like it, yeah. Yeah, I don't, I've never done a breakfast gravy in my life. I recently went to London and had like a, the, the full English breakfast.

How was it? Uh, I love it. I'm obsessed. I like now keep beans, baked beans in my kitchen because I'm like, this is exactly what I need with a breakfast when I want savory, but I just want a little bit of sweetness too.

The beans on toast slaps. Beans on toast is good. People rip on the British for beans on toast all the time. I love it. It's amazing. I like beans on toast too. I love it. Also, the beans are like well-seasoned.

They're like sweet. They're a little bit spiced. I like the tomatoes that are always on the plate. Yes. The tomatoes are the star in my opinion. Those also have that sweetness. They very much remind me of like the tomatoes that you get with cow bob.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, where they're like not quite roasted down like enough enough but they're just like hot and burnt and a little bit raw yeah there's this place in edinburgh called the larder that has a full english breakfast that is incredible like if you've never had haggis or the the the black pudding oh yeah like you go there and it's so good hell yeah dude also mentioned gravy, which is the thing I've never heard of, but I just looked it up. Random, random. Somebody mentioned, yeah,

it's just a white cream gravy with canned salmon in it. I don't think I would like that. I feel like if you did smoked salmon in that, like lox, you chopped up lox, you kind of let it cook, you get that smokiness infused in there. It's like a fishy bacon gravy with the smoke. Wow.

Maybe. Common. I am not the biggest like fishy person no i love sushi and i love fish and chips but i can't do fish like a fishy fish like like anchovy sardine mackerel like that's my stuff right there i love smoked black cod that was incredible but i can't get really hard into like the fishy energy that's okay fishy what's our next opinion maggie hey josh and nicole my name is brian from ohio and i don't have an opinion but i was actually a little bit of a plea for help so my husband is allergic to onions are

you okay so we've been dealing with that And suddenly my body last year decided that corn is now an enemy. No. Now, I am slightly allergic to corn and all corn products. So my question is, what do we eat? Love the podcast. Thanks. Wow. So my ramen recipe is out the window.

I have an answer for the onions. What? So asafoetida is a wonderful tree resin used a lot in Indian cooking that is similar to garlic and onion and allium-y flavors. So if you want to add a little bit of onion-y flavor without any of those allergens, buy a bottle of asafoetida, and it will give you the same like bacterial yummy alchemy taste that

onions will give you that's i don't know about corn though y'all corn and corn products too so that means like corn syrup uh corn starch that's in a lot of stuff shoot that's tough we've made so many strides in technology though in terms like uh anything like rice based right like for for people who are gluten free and they're like, I can't eat all these things. It's like, there are so many cultures that went thousands of years without wheat, right? Without gluten, like just, just get really into rice, get, eat a bunch of rice noodles. You know, the world of rice is vast and rice is the food that feeds more people in the world than anything. Yeah. But America,

so much corn is in everything. Corn is in everything. That's really bad. Which is really hard. So just like be very vigilant about reading labels. Yeah, because America's corny as hell. But like there's, okay, what corn, not withstanding the like corn syrup stuff, but like what corn-based products?

Corn flakes. You not eat. Corn flakes, but there's like literally Chex makes like five different varieties. They make wheat Chex, They make rice Chex. They make all that. You know what I mean? Popsicles.

Corn tortilla slurry. Yeah. You just got to get like all cane sugar stuff. Yeah. For the onion thing, I had this. Onions in a lot of recipes, they're kind of just used to absorb flavor. Right? Like they become little flavor pockets.

You cook down onions. Okay. And if you think about it, it's sort of like in like a curry right on it it kind of adds like a twang to all the flavors i don't think it absorbs i think it gives flavors it gives flavor too but like if you think about like making like a curry or something right a curry paste right you blend the onions because the onions give it like body body even like hot sauce salsa giving flavor, certainly. But there's other stuff. But if you look at other cultures, like in Peru, right? Aji verde. Okay.

That sauce is literally thickened with lettuce. Because they just need something to give it body. So they literally just blend lettuce. And that's a very common thing that we typically wouldn't think of. Sure. Right outside that context. I've just been using cabbage a lot. I will just dice cabbage super fine and like use that in the base

of some sort of flavorful stew or whatever that sounds good and that just absorbs it gives a different flavor you're gonna get more of that fartiness but I enjoy a good farty food you know I'm a freak like that seven days a week and so dice up cabbage

like you can use a lot of different vegetables for that but I don't know yeah flour alternatives to corn sounds like and just really pay attention to those labels that sucks i'm sorry but food is awesome and there are so many different foods out there that will fill that void hey josh hey nicole uh hey maggie it is only five words and those five words are so divisive that apparently I actually one time posted them on Facebook. And for some reason, Facebook took the post down for violating community violence standards. What?

I don't understand why. What's about to come out of its mouth? But those five words are baking cookies makes them worse. There is no situation in which I'd rather have a cookie that has been baked and cooked through. I always want that raw cookie dough. Anyway, thanks so much for the pod. I love it and love the show. This is Kevin from Virginia.

And yeah, thanks. Bye. Kevin from Virginia. Let Kevin cook and let the cookies not cook. Cook or lack thereof. This guy is chaotic evil. Yeah, and it's probably because Facebook was like, nope, that's a health violation. Don't talk about it. That's true. Bye. Salmonella is chaotic evil. Yeah, and it's probably because Facebook was like, nope, that's a health violation.

Oh, yeah. Don't talk about it. That's true. Salmonella is a myth. No, salmonella is actually the biggest foodborne disease in America, and I got in trouble for talking about it. Bad Josh. Fe.

Fe. But also, speaking of technology and modern foods, there's so many safe cookie dough treats you can get. You can get pasteurized eggs if you want to still make it yourself. I love cookie dough safe to eat cookie dough sure you can get pasteurized eggs if you want to still make it yourself I love cookie dough I prefer cookie dough to regular cookie

okay let's all come down let's all come down alright we're all on this like big high talking about raw cookie dough I want to eat it all day but if there were no you can only appreciate

raw cookie dough for the fact that cooked cookies exist right it's a fun aberration from the vanilla lifestyle that you've been living by eating all that cooked cookies exist, right? It's a fun aberration from the vanilla lifestyle that you've been living by eating all these cooked cookies, right? If raw cookie dough was the norm, right?

If everybody was out there, they're selling raw cookie dough in little balls at the 7-Eleven by the cash register, Subway was giving out little raw cookie dough balls. Kevin from Virginia would be calling going, hey guys, this is a crazy opinion that I have. I think that raw dough that we've been eating is better cooked right we only love it as an aberration to we are not in that universe in in the multiverse that is not what he's proposing right now the radicalism that he is proposing this isn't everything everywhere all

at once and this universe where you have balls of cookie dough at the register doesn't exist he's making this up in your head he introduced a hypothetical that is always better not cooked no it is only better not cooked

because they are generally cooked okay he didn't have space to write all that he said five words he's creating false sensuality

and they are false Facebook was right to censor him my hot take is I think as a texture girly I prefer cookies rather than cookie dough yeah yeah

I think but I just when I hold cookie dough i just want to like rub it in my face out on my hands and just and be a little baby are you like a person that's like squishing things through your hands i'm a texture girly same is that something like uh wrong with our brains yeah did you i saw this tiktok the other day this guy dyed his Rice Krispie treats gray so that he could pretend he was eating concrete. I'm into that. And it looked awesome. He showed it.

I was like, yeah, you did it. I want a sandwich raw cookie dough between two cookies. You know what we used to do at my old chocolate store? We used to take brownies and then we would wrap a brownie cube in raw cookie dough and eat it. You wouldn't sell it. That was just for you. That was just for me and Yvonne. Hi, Yvonne. I hope you're listening.

That's cake. My family is really weird. Me and my grandma enjoy Cheerios and butter. We just take a stick of butter and some Cheerios. We take a butter knife and smother some butter on Cheerios.

I think it's good. But that's my family doesn't. Me and my grandma think it's really good. See what you guys think. Who gave this child access to a phone all happy families are like all unhappy families are unhappy in their own unique ways tolstoy said that did tolstoy right again did tolstoy write the seagull what did tolstoy write the seagull i don't think so oh well then this conversation is pointless dude i cannot fathom

butter on cheerios that's so wild well they just need a vessel because they're out there trying to eat crunchy butter and i respect that see i can't get i mean maybe salted butter but i can't get behind butter you're right salted butter and cheerios makes total sense unsalted get out of here well yeah because people do like they'll put butter on crackers yeah you know you're right so it's not that weird what is cheerios but tiny little ring crackers yeah um i'm not as much of a butter guy as people would maybe think i'm a mayonnaise guy i'm trying to figure out more innovative ways to eat crunchy mayonnaise than I am crunchy butter. And so I could see myself in the same vein,

hear me out, this is going to be gross, tossing Cheerios with mayonnaise and eating it with this one. Arrest this man. That's cursed, but I see it. Right? Thank you. Arrest this man. Courtney is supportive. But I just want to say I love that kid

and their grandma's relationship. That sounds lovely. Very cute. And stick together. Because you guys are the world with your, yeah, with Cheerios and butter. Should we do one more? Do we have time?

Maggie, come on. One more. Maggie, please. Maggie, please. Please, mom. Maggie, please. Maggie, please. Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, Maggie.

Come on, Maggie. Let her cook. There we go. I just wanted to call to tell you guys about a meal that my dad would make when my mom wasn't home. Yes, he's the best.

It was called sausage fondue. and this was uh literally just tomato sauce heated up in a pan that we would dip sausage into um and this this very very much aggravated my mom who would cook us like exquisite meals and my brother and i would shout about how we wanted um oh that's so sweet i love that that's so funny i love when it's like parents will go above and beyond to make these meals but like sometimes there's just it's the beauty and simplicity yeah i love that there's a lot of gender dynamics at play here that i don't feel qualified enough to speak on you know mom like working so hard to make healthy balanced delicious meals and dad tomato meat dad doesn't want to dirty more dishes so he has the kids just dip sausages into a pot this was like a um you know

how like that's so rave and you stuff like she could see the future yeah this is like my future oh i love it david is gonna be a sausage fondue dad and i'm gonna be exquisite meal mom well that's fine i think it's great i'm gonna be both is the thing yeah because like it's funny because julia i cook dinner for julia almost every night and she's also like out of town for work a lot and so when she's out of town, I'm eating like whatever. There was a point where I just made a Philly roast pork sandwich from scratch like six nights in a row. Because I want to try and perfect the Philly roast pork sandwich. And I bought like eight pounds of pork.

So I just kept doing that. But Julia is very much like every meal should be balanced. Like there should be a green vegetable. There should be a non-green vegetable. There should be a starch. There should be a protein. You know, and she's not like crazy about it. but like that's how she prefers to eat and i like to be the one to sort of like nurture her for that so i'm gonna be the person where we're gonna have

kids we're gonna cook really healthy delicious balanced meals and then she goes out of town and then i'm gonna flip to like the dr jekyll you know mr hide of it all and it's gonna be sausage fondue oh my god she's coming over to uncle josh's house i love it i want to be sausage fondue. Oh my goodness. Mike is coming over to Uncle Josh's house. I love it. I want to make sausage and peppers now. I know. It sounds so good, actually. But speaking of pork, I really, really miss that ramen sloppy joe you made for me.

Yeah. That one time. Can you? I want another one. I'll do it again. Okay. We'll do it for your vlog. Thanks.

Everyone follow Courtney. Where can people find you? Oh my gosh. I'm at co underscore mill everywhere and I have a youtube channel and also you can catch me on smosh we make lots of fun stuff on smosh pit and very silly games and live streams on smosh games thank you for that even though nobody knows what smosh is or how they got the name Courtney that's really beautiful and no this is super fun thank you so much for coming by thanks for having me guys of course

Nicole you have any closing words? And on that note, thank you for listening to A Hot Dog is a Sandwich. We got new audio-only episodes every Wednesday and a video version here on YouTube every Sunday. And if you want to be featured on Opinions or Like Casseroles, give us a ring and leave a quick message at 1-833-DOG-POD1. Have you ever called the number? No, I'm going to now. Yeah, leave an opinion. Leave an opinion.

Okay, cool. We're proud of our voice now. That's probably it. That's probably it. See you next time. That's probably all we have to say about that. Thanks for coming. All right.

Yee yee. Keep on eating.