The Ringer NBA Show - Bill Simmons on the Best NBA-Finals Food Cities | House of Carbs (Ep. 40)

Episode Date: April 11, 2018

The Ringer's Joe House is joined for the second pod in a row by his longtime buddy Bill Simmons to rank each of the potential NBA Finals cities based on their food scene. We're sorry in advance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On the ringer.com. Check out the Portland Food Diary by our very own hungry homie, Danny Chow. He is our roving, eating man on the ground. He has outstanding food and drink suggestions. Always keep an eye on his Instagram at Danny King Chow. Right now on the Ringer podcast network, the podfather Bill Simmons has Jason Hare on to talk about the Andre the giant documentary that premieres this week and has been getting nothing but rave reviews. You also can check out recapables this week for this week's episode of Billions. That's Bill Simmons and Mallory Rubin talking about this week's episode of billions. And don't you forget, it's time to start reping the ringer with hoodies, teas, and hats.

Theringer.com slash shop has lots of offerings. Now, you have to get in there quickly because there's a limited supply. But some fresh hoodies, some fresh teas, some fresh hats. I modeled one of the Gusin National in that last week. Check them all out. My hungry homies, my taste buds, my culinary comrades, here we are. Another edition of House of Caw. Food Podcast for the hungry people, by the hungry people.

I am your hungry host, Joe House. This is a special crossover edition. We are missing and mashing with the Ringer NBA show. There is only one man in the Ringer universe qualified to have an opinion about all 16 of the NBA teams and cities that are in this year's 2018 NBA playoffs. That is the podfather himself, Bill Simmons. He is coming on. We are ranking from 16 to 1, the very best food experiences among all. of the playoff teams in this year's NBA playoffs.

Let's get in that belly with the podfather, Bill Simmons. All right, my taste buds by hungry homies, my culinary comrades. I'm humbled. I'm honored. And always a little bit hungry. Another week with the podfather himself, Bill Simmons is on House of Carbs today. And the reason that Bill is joining is because we are, to me,

in the midst of the best sports month on the calendar. Oh, yeah. I know there's our argument between April and October, right, BS? I'm prone to April. I don't think there's anything better than that first round when you have the Masters, WrestleMania, Final Four, and then it goes right into baseball starting. Everybody's still feeling good about their baseball team.

And then it creeps right into the NBA-N-HL playoff combo. There's like an eight-day stretch there. in round one when it's just, there's just sports on constantly every single day. And my wife hates me and it's the best. I agree. It is the best. I'm also partial to April because it's a glorious time of year. Yes.

It portends that we have like six or seven months of good weather and shorts and comfortable clothes. And honestly, as it relates to the house of carbs, some great eating in front of us. You bet. That's a key point house. because it's been so long since I lived on the East Coast. April, you know, for three straight decades, represented hope. And just waiting out of this six-month terrible winter, or five months, however long it would be,

where all of a sudden now the sun was shining. We used to have haltertop day. It was a big day. Big day in New York City. Yeah. And just like all of a sudden, people were just so excited. It was going to get warm again. And there was a real energy.

and the sports and the playoffs always tied into that. But that's not what we're here to talk about today. We're here to talk about food. This is going to be a really interesting discussion. We are ranking. I'm glad you think so. We're ranking the NBA playoff cities in terms of who we hope makes the finals because that's where we would want to have the best meal.

Yeah. So you will be at the NBA finals this year, no matter which two cities end up. Yeah, you're going to everyone. And we're going to look at this. We're going to consider the possibilities through the prism of which two cities would be the best for our bellies. Yes. And also, like, the finals matchup gets settled.

And I text you and I say, oh, blank's in there. Oh, we got to go. And there's just a tangible excitement that's completely food related as nothing to do with basketball. So when I told you I want to do this, I told you I was going to give you a top six. I went a little further. Good. We're going from 16 to one because I think we should shit on some cities too. That's so rude. Yeah. Let's do some shitting. 16th. Coming in at number 16. No offense, by the way, no offense to any of these cities. It's not the fault of the people who live there. Not every city gets to have a David Chang just pop up

and, you know, start a culinary revolution. Not every city has a history of barbecue or Chinese food or whatever's going on. Some cities are just kind of in America and getting by and it's not their fault. With that said, my number 16 city, Cleveland, Ohio. Wow. Yeah, you know, as I looked at this list, let me hear your explanation for why Cleveland comes in at 16 for you. My explanation is we went there for the collector's convention years ago, their friend Hershey.

And when we tried to figure out where to eat, we settled on a Morton's, which I can get in any city. There wasn't any. So I'm sure there's a couple, oh, you should have known about this place or that place. But Cleveland is like that. OKC, I have at number 15. Yeah. And it's basically Cleveland, but with a little more of a southwestern, you know, there's some,

there's a meat scene going. I was stuck in OKC a couple times. let's just say this. KD opened a restaurant called KDs, which I think was ranked fourth at one point, and the best restaurants at OKC. Anytime a restaurant named after an athlete is in your top five, probably not a great food scene.

So for me, it's 16 and 15. You agree with that? That's a good rule of thumb. If one of the top five restaurants in your city has been opened by a sports figure, not a great food look for your city. I agree with both of those selections. also want to add the, you know, the observation.

We're going to get a lot of input from people that claim, oh, you guys are idiots, you're whitewashing this whole thing. You're using too broad a brush in considering this. And so we just sort of, I'm going to admit it up front. We are making gross generalizations here about the food season in many of these cities. We haven't been to every one of these cities, although we've been to quite a few. Been to most of them. Yeah.

Been to most of them. So we have a perspective. It's not going to, we're not authorities on the food in these cities, but, you know, I can't argue with either one of Cleveland or OKC in the bottom quadrant there because they're both just meat cities. Okay. When I was there in 2010, the quote-unquote best restaurant to go to after the game was called Mickey Mantles. Yet another sports figure. So I just want to point that out. Also, if anyone's offended by this or upset, you just need to reevaluate things.

House and I have known each other for 30 plus years. This is the kind of shit we talk about. We decided to do a podcast. There's going to be gross generalizations. We're going to be unfair. We didn't do a lot of research for it. And if you're offended, I'm sorry. This is just my gut reactions listing all the cities.

We did not do like a two and a half hour deep dive into, oh, has anything changed in the OKC food scene in the last two years? I don't care. These are just my opinions. If you don't want to listen, turn us off. Oh, it's not just that part, but this is your belly. Like you are going to have to physically go and eat. So what are you excited about?

This is the ranking. This is my belly and your belly and the telepathic connection those two bellies have had over the years. They've had some connections. We tried to figure out. Yeah. Yeah, we connected in Augusta, Georgia last week. Yeah, and guess what? We ate stuff there.

And it was delicious. Good stuff. We had some good stuff. All right. Number 14. A city very near and dear to my heart. I spent a great Super Bowl week there once. I think you were there too, Indiana.

Yeah, I liked Indiana. We had a good time at St. Elmo's. Yeah, and listen, St. Elmore is a fine restaurant. The shrimp cocktail sauce was great to put hair in my chest. Lord knows I needed more hair in my chest. But I'm always skeptical of cities that when you go, people only mention one restaurant. Like if you went to basically any city,

if you went to San Francisco, nobody would be like, hey, you got to eat at Jackie's. Like, San Francisco's 100 restaurants. Yeah. But you go to Indiana and like, do you go to St. Elmo's? And St. Elmo's is good. It's, it's fun. It's a giant steakhouse.

The Bloody Mary's are great. I like the shrimp cocktail. Had a good steak. It wasn't like life altering or anything. I mean, to be honest, the best meal that we had together when we went to Indianapolis for the Super Bowl was when we went and visited the bar. The Conrad. By, well, no, no, the Conrad was fine. That was just drinks and charcutory.

But I'm talking about, we went to Jason Whitlock's family. His parents owned and operated a bar. And we got like home-cooked, home-style food that they serve at the bar. We were eating ribs. And I couldn't stop. I mean, you had to roll me out of there. So I did think of that. And I think that should be mentioned.

By the way, none of these cities are losers. The next 14 cities we're going to name, they're not losers. This is just a meritocracy and a ranking. OKC and Cleveland, sorry, you guys actually are losers from a food scene. And I don't know what else to tell you. You just drew the short end of the straw. The good news is, OKC got to watch three MVPs and Cleveland's got to watch LeBron. That's great.

They won the title. Like food is not, sometimes it's not your thing. Indiana, that was a great experience. I think there's a whole soul food scene there that is kind of underrated. Worth mentioning. Yeah. And unfortunately, when I was there, I'd spend a lot of time at the Aubon Pan, which I don't think is a great sign. Number 13.

Another city I've been to a bunch of times, Milwaukee, which is basically in that OKC Cleveland range, except there's like a whole sausage, bratwurst, like, old school kind of things you're not supposed to eat anymore. Sourcrow. Cheese curds. Yeah. All stuff that is just incredibly and unfathomably. healthy. And yet, I've had a good time eating there. The food's good. I don't know if there's the high-end restaurant scene maybe that we're looking for, but if you're just looking to gain seven pounds in four days, like I recommend Milwaukee. I think it's great. I've never set foot in Milwaukee,

so I'm looking forward to that experience. I want to do that one time. I went to Lambo, and it was the only time I've ever seen triple XL and quadruple XL football jerseys for sale. So we'll leave it at that. Number 12, a city that I have spent way too much time in and hope to never go to again. No offense there, but I just feel like, I don't know, I'm going to be dead by the time I'm 80, 85. Like, I only have so many months left. And I feel like I did my tour of duty here, San Antonio. Yeah, so go ahead.

I'm interested in your take on it. Good Mexican? Yeah. I think the thing with Mexican is Mexican has a ceiling, right? Mexican is an innings eater and it can be really good. But the concept of great, like unfathomably awesome Mexican, I've had very good Mexican a huge bunch of times in my life. You rarely have like the overwhelming Mexican food experience,

which is very good. It's solid. It serves purpose. You get to dip stuff and put different sauces on things. I spent a lot of time there. There was actually a fish place that I really like that I found. The Riverwalk throw that out. I mean, the riverwalk is a tourist trap.

The water is green. If you touch the water, your finger just disintegrates. Incredibly overrated. But there is a very good Mexican scene. And I think it should be commended. That's where San Antonio deserves the place that it has on this ranking where you're putting it. Because it's basically just a one-note food town in my experience as well. Yes.

The takareas, you know, you can get very. very, very authentic in San Antonio. And that commends it. But it's not a top 10 food. Yeah. And again, there are no losers anymore. Everybody wins with the rest of this list. The only people that lost were the first two cities we mentioned.

I have Utah at number 11. So I have only eaten there once and it was a great meal. But the thing that stuck with me was Steve Kerr said once that somewhere, in Utah, whether Salt Lake or something, has the best restaurant he's ever been to, and that's stuck in the back of my head. I think atmosphere matters. I like the high altitude. You get a little groggy.

You get a couple drinks, a couple of food. It's just like a fun experience. The setting's great. And it's just a little more exciting to eat there. I might be wrong with all of that, but that was my case. I've never been to Salt Lake City, so I've never eaten. I passed through it. I flew into it and then got into a car and drove.

I've never actually sat foot in the city. I've flown into the airport. And I've eaten in Park City, Utah, and the food there is, you know, ski bum, ski town, delicious. Yeah. I don't know anything about the food scene in Salt Lake City. Let's just ask the hungry homies to hit us with suggestions. I mean, you know, let's belly source a little bit from Salt Lake. I'm interested in what the food scene's all about in Salt Lake City.

Yeah. To me, this is word of mouth. I have, again, we've done no research whatsoever. And this is just my belly talking. I feel like I've heard enough times over the years that the food in Utah is kind of a thing that my belly drifted toward them for the 11th spot. Number 10, I cheated.

You're not going to be happy. I hit up David Chang for advice on some of these cities because I hadn't been a couple. That's fine. And he's very bullish on Minneapolis. Oh, interesting. Which I did not expect. is, and I'm going to, let me guess something about that.

I have no details. He just told me where they should be on the list. I didn't follow his list completely, but the fact that he was bullish on Minneapolis, raised some eyebrows on this end. I only have two eyebrows, but both of them were raised. Well, I'll tell you, I got a lot of input from folks in Minnesota who thought that we might be getting together at the Super Bowl, that we might physically attend. And so people started hitting us on the Instagram at the,

House of Carbs and on the Twitter as well, with suggestions of places to go, it fell in kind of two categories. It seemed like a lot of gastropub kind of focused stuff, like maybe innovations in terms of that, that kind of idea. And you know they're going to do beer correctly in Minneapolis. The other thing that I'm interested in that I would want to explore if we had the time is there's Ethiopian food in Minneapolis because of a big concentration of Ethiopian folks. I think Washington, D.C. in Minneapolis have the greatest.

concentration, I might be wrong about that, of Ethiopians. But I know they have a big congregation there, and I'm interested in that food scene. That's the biggest whole in my food resume right now in terms of food that I actually like that I don't know enough about as Ethiopian. Oh, we're going to fill that. D.C. is insane. We got to get you out here. I know D.C. does. L.A. has Little Ethiopia, and it's literally a block. They're not kidding when they call it Little Ethiopia. It's literally little. But I like, there's some creativity with the Ethiopian food that I didn't realize that

was this big of a Minnesota scene. I also think they have, there's a lot of like a lot of meat, right? There's good, good weird hunting scene in the Ethiopian cuisine for sure. No, no I'm saying in Minnesota. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a shortage. Yeah, they can go out and kill like a bison. If you're into game, I think you can do game there.

Yes, I believe that's true. Well, I'm into game because I'm a fucking man. to eat meat. Sorry. Number nine, I didn't want to be a homer. It would personally rank higher for me because I lived there forever. My dad lives there now. I know all the restaurants. I know all the places to go. So if my personal rankings, if I was just being a complete homer, it would be top five. But I think to be fair, for the accuracy of this list, Boston has to be ninth. Wow. Yeah. I'm kind of Now, I'm looking at the list that I'm trying to come up with what cities Boston would jump ahead of.

Listen, my belly chose this list. My belly spent more time in Boston than every other city I've been in combined. And I'm just listening to my belly here. Boston 9. If I'm in, if the Southwicks are in the finals, obviously, that's incredible for a million different reasons. And the food would be great. And I would love it. But it would feel familiar.

It wouldn't be like, oh. Give me a reason. Give me a reason to ever leave North End. Why would I leave North End if I'm going to go eat in Boston? I'm trying to think. What am I missing? What restaurant am I going to miss if I just stick to the, if I go eat every single night in the North End?

So, you know, Boston like any other place has pockets. D.C. is like that. I think every good major city has pockets of different food. The North End is one of the most satisfying pockets I've ever seen in any city where it's, it's just a finite amount of space and blocks, you know, exactly how big it is. You know where all the places are. There's some variety. There's an oyster house place that's like the number one place there. That's a three-hour, a three-hour line.

My cousin Kristen works there sometimes. Shout out to her. But that's probably the number one place, but they have a bunch of stuff down there. And back to your point, you just, you go down there 5 o'clock and you just figure it out. And it's going to go well because you're in the north end. You know, it's just going to go well. You could just have six Italian meals and cover all of the regions of Italy, all the regional cuisines of Italy. You can do high-end pizza.

You can do high-end pizza. You can do meat focus. You can do pasta focus. And I'm just talking about Italy. This is why I always enjoy losing myself in the North End when I visit Boston. And you left out the bakeries. Like the old school, we don't give a fuck about what the stories are coming out about baked goods and flour. Like you're going to eat this the way we made it in 1930.

Here it is. Yeah. There's a lot of gluten. They're not afraid of gluten. If you ask for like a gluten-free anything in the North End, they would just beat the living shit out of you and leave you for dead in the alley. That's what happens. I've seen it. I know for a fact.

Number eight, I really struggled. Once we get to the top eight, this became very hard. And I got to be honest, it became very serious. And I developed my own playoff intensity, really putting a lot of thought into how this would go and what I wanted and what my belly wanted. And the reactions you would have on the phone as we planned our thing. Number eight for me is Philly. Oh, wow. And I didn't make the decision lightly.

Lord knows the Philly fans are fucking sensitive. So I don't know what to tell you. I hope they don't get mad at me. But we did bet on them. Well, we did. We did bet on them. And I think there's a real possibility to make the finals. And we're going to have to take this, this could be a real conversation that we're having six weeks from now.

I think the cheesecake thing, you know, your head goes there right away and just like, oh, cheese steaks, that'll be great. but after two days, you're ready for other stuff. You know the Philly scene better than I do. What kind of options are we going to have if I'm there for a week? How good am I looking? So you're looking extraordinarily good. The ringer's own Chris Ryan, native son of Philadelphia.

I remember. Yeah. He and I got together for a Philly food takeover in December. Yeah. And it was a real revelation to me how diverse the food scene. is in Philly, I like you, has sort of organized in my head. And I've done eating in Philly because D.C. and Philly are close to each other. You can get some great Asian food.

You can just get some great Italian food. There's a strong Italian tradition in Philly, duh. And, you know, the cheese steak thing and then the roast pork, kind of the whole sandwich game, you know that that is going to be on point. Chris Ryan and I went and ate a variety of Mediterranean and really Israeli-focused food. That was just unbelievable. And if you wanted to sort of go light for the week, if you are not in a frame of mind where you wanted to do a cheese steak, you know, every single night and wake up heavy every morning, you can go have a terrific falafel. You can go have hummus four different ways.

You can go the best restaurant in Philly by reputation and accolade is this restaurant by a chef named Michael Salamanov. He and his partner, Stephen Cook, have this restaurant Zahav, which is an Israeli restaurant. And it is, you know, kind of served in that Mediterranean style of a whole number of small dishes, you know, that Spanish tapas idea. But, you know, with the flavors of Israel, we had, you know, mostly vegetable focused. But, of course, he brought the, this beautiful lamb. this lamb shoulder that was like melting in the mouth delicious. The other thing that was shocking was duck hearts. The unbelievable duck hearts that melt in your mouth.

It just tastes like duck. But, you know, the diversity of cuisine in Philly at this moment cannot be underestimated. I think you would have a terrific eating week there. The problem is we bet on them so they're not going to be in the finals this year. I do feel like, don't you feel like the cheese steak? in Philly is a little like the clam chatter in Boston. The clam chatter in Boston has this reputation that so far exceeds the actual quality of the clam chatter. First of all, you can get clam chatter basically anywhere that has clams.

It's not like the Boston clam chowder is better than anyone else's clam chatter. I think it's kind of a thing. But it certainly isn't like when I go back to Boston, my man, I can't wait to go balls deep in a clam chatter. Like, I just, it's not that good. It's fine. I think about like, oh, I can't wait to go to the red hat and have boneless buffalo chicken wings. And they're going to be incredible. I'm going to take issue with comparing the clam chatter to the cheesesticks.

Because the cheese steaks in Philly really are genuinely and uniquely unbelievable. And you really do have to eat them in Philly or the Philly surrounds. You can't get a Philly steak, a private chili cheese. So it's not reputation. It actually delivers on the goods. Because I remember having them once. Maybe I had a bad experience, but the first time I had one in Philly

at one of my book tours, I just basically expected to pass out from joy. And it was really good. It wasn't overwhelming. And I don't know how far you can take the cheese steak. But guess what? I'd love to find out if Philly made the finals. I want to know how far I can take the cheese steak.

Well, I think you could do it just once and then go do. you know, a Philly food tour that covers a whole lot of unexpected varieties, unbelievable Vietnamese and Thai places. We, the guys behind federal donuts, which is a donut and fried chicken place. Yeah.

So that's one of the things. Healthy. Our boy Tom Henneman pointed out this joint called Stock, which is just unbelievable. You sent us a picture afterwards of like that Vietnamese thaw style, that's soup, you know, with the beautiful vegetables and beef broth and that kind of thing.

So that's basically the vibe. The important thing to note is that the 11th best cheese steak place in Philly is better than anything I could have in Cleveland. That's true. Yes, I just wanted to mention that one more time. Number seven, I almost had Philly ahead of this city and then I flipped it because I put Washington, D.C. seventh because for me and my belly, I have the ultimate tour guide in one Joe House because you have eaten it all the relevant places. And I know, like, if Washington's in the finals, which I think the only way that could happen is if the other seven teams in the East came down with some sort of virus that knocked everybody out. And it was just like the only team that was still healthy was Washington. I don't see any other way that they can make it considering the John Wall versus the teammates thing is the secret storyline that's going on in the NBA right now.

And you know it and you don't want to talk about it. Washington's not going to make the finals. But if they did, I would love to go to Momofuku one day. I would love to go to that place we went with Uncle Tony that time. You would take me to that Italian place that you love and that one steak place you love. And I would basically get the greatest hits house tour. And I'd be very happy. Yeah.

So obviously, I have a few issues with what you just said. I thought it was rude that you would suggest that the Wiz can't make the finals unless all of the East comes down with a I will also observe that the Wiz have in the past had this sort of galvanizing moment as the playoffs arrive. All of the sort of drama of the regular season seems to fall away. In the Wall-Beal era, they are undefeated in the first round of the playoffs, which I think for you and your Boston Celtics should be concerning because there's a distinct possibility the Wizards and the Celtics play in the first. round. But, you know, this Wizards team, I've been saying it all for many months now, they don't fear anybody in the East. There isn't anybody in the East they look at and say we can't beat. Now, LeBron did turn it on a little bit here in the last eight weeks or so.

And if LeBron's playing like that, then nobody's going to beat Cleveland, including Philadelphia. But your point... House, nobody wants to hear your pathetic justifications of this terrible wizard season. us having a wonderful eating experience in D.C. is well taken. Plus, I get Uncle Tony. The last time I was there, we basically, like, Uncle Tony cheated on his entire family with us. He rented a hotel room. It was like right home was saying it was like he had an affair.

Like he was Don Draper in the 50s. Only affair was with me and you taking about the restaurants. It was the best. That he hadn't heard of and they wouldn't go to in the ordinary course. And that's the thing that I like in particular with, Uncle Tony is being the tour guide on a new adventure. Yeah, that made that number seven. Uncle Tony, one of my five favorite human beings.

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Visit office.com slash teams to learn more. All right, now we're getting to the top six. And this is where it gets serious. This is where it gets really good. And I really started agonizing over my list. Number six, Portland, Oregon. Okay. A dark horse to actually make the finals.

If Curry doesn't come back and, you know, Chris Paul and James Hardin just combined to take all of their past playoff choke jobs and just combine them into one giant heimlich. There's a roadback. I don't think it'll happen, but there's a roadback for Portland to sneak in. Portland has a really kind of eclectic scene. Like there's a lot of microbrews and weird restaurants. And it's a cool city. I like it there. I like the different kind of options.

One of the fun things about it is it's not a place where you have to go and have this hugely expensive dinner to have an awesome time. You can go to a really nice state-of-the-art, you know, micro pub slash whatever, and have a great time and try some beers and have a good cheeseburger. It's just one of those places. I'm a huge fan. I think there's just a lot of ways to go. Incredible coffee scene. I know we didn't really mention coffee as much, but I just like it.

That adds to it. So I like that you use the word eclectic, because I think that's the perfect word for Portland. Shout out to Portland and its food scene. They have been at the forefront of a number of different movements. You mentioned coffee. They were sort of early first-movers. Super early. You know, sort of the elegant coffee vibe.

Not expensive, but elegant, like taking the time to pay attention. Yeah, and if I could interrupt you for a second. Please. Also the first in moody Internet writers sitting in a coffee shop for long periods of time having a $7 coffee. I think Portland pioneered that, and then Brooklyn took it and grabbed it. See, I don't think Portland was charging seven bucks, though. I think Portland was charging three bucks for that cup of coffee. Maybe three for the cigarettes, too.

I also just want to give Portland a pat on the back, really at the forefront of the food truck scene, like as far back as, you know, early 2000s to mid-2000s. They were really first on the, like, farm to table, this way of describing super fresh, local, regional ingredients and getting those ingredients into their meals. And I like this thing that's going on. I'm having Danny Chow on, who has been to a couple of these cities that we're going to talk about, including Portland. They're doing this thing right now where restaurateurs are creating menus related to drinking food.

And we're talking about ethnicity. So, like, there's a place that's serving Russian drinking food. And I had a chef on the House of Carbs about a month ago, Andy Ricker, of Pock, which a northern region Thai cuisine. He's doing, he has a cookbook on Thai drinking food, like the food that you eat while you're drinking. So, you know, and more shoutouts to Portland, that's all. Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention one of the reasons I love the Portland food scene.

We went there once, and I think we've told the story in House of Carbs with our friend Hershey and a bunch of other people. We went to a, what's that crab place? What was it called? No, it was like a Louisiana focus. And you started out the dinner, you had a bloody Mary for some reason, even though it was like 10 o'clock at night. And then like a vodka something. It seems like a great drink. It was flavorful.

And you had like the et tufe and you had all these different things that just don't belong together in the same stomach. And then you had crab and then you had a steak. And it was honestly like watching what would happen if my dog Willie, if we just left the fridge open. could pull anything out he want and just gorged himself to death is what you were doing at this restaurant. And at one point, you didn't feel that well. And you went up and you disappeared. And we didn't know where you went. And 10 minutes passed and 15 minutes passed. And I went to find you and you were sitting in a phone booth that didn't have a phone in it. And the door was closed. And you were just sitting in this phone booth doing, I don't know what, like trying not to die,

I guess. And that's what we brought you back to the table. And you brought you back to the table. And left and that was the night that you told us the next day that you went back to your hotel room, took off all your clothes and laid out on the bathroom floor, which I think is how Elvis died. Well, I'm glad that I didn't die. The cold tile is very soothing. I highly recommend it. Okay. And I just had this experience of a real surge in spices.

The combination of what was going on with the et tufei and the Bloody Mary nearly took my lid off. And it wasn't like spicy hot, like, oh, my God, this is numbing my tongue. It was a spice that took my body temperature from 98.6. And I think it hit 104 or 105 in about the first 20 minutes there. So I just needed a breath of fresh air. And, you know, God bless them. They had a booth. I could go sit in the booth.

I got up, walked around, splash some water in my face. And then just sat in the booth. I could sit upright. And I was glad there was no phone there. Nobody interrupted me. But it was nice of you to come find me. And also people thought you were crazy. Nephew Kyle, what was crazier?

A house sitting in a phone booth by himself for 20 minutes that had no phone in it, in a public restaurant with people walking by him, or a house willingly telling us the next morning that he lay on his hotel bathroom floor completely naked because the cooling bathroom tiles helped cool his body down. If you had to pick. Easily auctionate. I understand optioned. Nephew Kyle.

He's our house of carms producer. So anyway, shout out to Paul. That's a great city. Before we get to the top five, I want to pour out a little something for the city of Seattle, which should have a basketball team, which got molested by David Stern and Clay Bennett and a whole bunch of people. And they stole their team 10 years ago, actually, this summer. I seem to be the only person outside of Seattle who ever remembers this or cares,

but it's a fucking joke. And we could have had Seattle in the NBA finals with this, OK, C, T, team at least once. And in general, Seattle should just be an option for the finals every year. I love Seattle. It's such a fun place to go, such a fun place to eat. They had that crazy market that's all-time, all-time great, unbelievable seafood scene, great restaurants. And it's shame on you, MBA. Shame on you. Shame on you. Shame on you, Adam Silver. Shame on you. I love you, Adam Silver, but shame on you. You should have fixed this by now. He's only, he's only been at it for a year. No, he's been at it for five years. He should have fixed this by now. Either get an

expansion team or move one of your franchises that aren't working in Seattle. These people should have a team and he should be ashamed. I just want to go eat there again. It's such a great eating town. The sushi in Seattle, I'm dying for it. Well, I'll tell you this. The tradeoff from a food standpoint from Seattle to OKC was half as bad as the James Harden trade. So anyway, let's get to the top five. Number five, Miami. I've been fortunate enough. I've led a very blessed life. For two years, we did the NBA, me and Jailen Rose,

we did the NBA show, and Miami was in it for three out of the four series we did. And we went to Prime 112 a bunch of times. I got to watch Jalen eat lobster over and over again. That restaurant alone and the restaurant right across the street, which is their pasta place, those two alone, then you get Joe's Crab Shack, but then you have this whole Miami food scene and they really have a little bit of everything,

but more importantly, we talk about these little pockets. Now you're talking about the Cuban pocket. Yeah, it's true. That's before we get to fish, we get to like the fancy restaurants, we get to the glitzy ones, the expensive dinners, but then you have this whole Cuban side.

And I am 100% all the way in on the Cuban scene for food. I love it. You and me both. I wanted to quibble with Miami. I wanted to brink Miami lower. than the top five. But as I was refreshing my recollection about what that food scene is like, you can have so many great meals from so many different.

And this is common of all of the cities in this top five, the eclecticism and the quality, like the very clean seafood, right? Like very fresh, bright seafood tastes. The greatest. You can have, you know, very authentic, you know, Cuban street food. I've had some of the best Italian food I've ever had in my whole life in Miami. Great coffee.

And I'll tell you this, I wouldn't want to live in Miami. But if I could spend a week with perfect weather in any city in America, I'd pick Miami. I think there's the most stuff to do when you go out at night. It's just a scene. It's like electric.

The food's great. Everything about it is cool and different. It almost feels like you're not in America in some way. ways. Like it, like it feels like you're away. Feels European. Yeah. And I think there's some other cities like this too where, like you go to Montreal. I haven't been to Toronto, but apparently it's like this where you don't even feel like

you're in Canada, I feel like you're in Europe. Miami, you don't feel like you're in America. You feel like you're in this city that has transcended America and become something else. But just an awesome place. And I think the food's really good there too. and it would be nice if they snuck into the finals. Put it that way. Number four, Toronto, a city I've never been to. David Chang, I am deferring to him on this because he sent me his list. He said this was the number one choice in the east.

Most options, most ways to go. I don't really have anything to add. I don't know if you know anything. Well, Juliet Lippman and I, for whatever reason, Toronto keeps showing up in our food news. And so we were telling these stories and then we say to each other, we have to go to Toronto and see a basketball game and then go do some eating. Yeah. Now, funny you mentioned Chang. Chang included a restaurant called a Fishman Clubhouse on his last meal on earth.

His last meal on earth has him going from Franklin Barbecue down in the Austin, Texas area, directly on a direct flight up to Toronto. So he could go go conquer the salt and pepper king crab or the lobster mountain, whatever your idea. idea is, and you might remember this from the video last year, this is a place with an enormous mound of lobster. You can order lobster mound. It literally looks like it's four feet high. But the thing that commends Toronto, based on these stories that Juliet and I have been reading, incredible diversity in terms of sort of, I'll call micro-quizines.

A lot of folks who have been displaced by the Civil War in Syria have relocated over the last decade in Toronto. And there's there's a Syrian food scene in Toronto. I'm into that. I want to try that. I want to see what that's all about. And I like, you know, sort of the human aspect of it as well. From a diversity standpoint, it seems like it has the most to offer, but maybe of all the cities we're going to list in this podcast. Just every possibility. But it definitely has that that sort of international vibe that covers so much different territory. Arabic, Indian, you know, the Syrian thing, a huge Asian thing, great sushi there. And we haven't touched any of the sort of things you would expect as native Canadian.

So shout out Toronto. I think you have an exactly the right spot. And then on top of it, let's just say Jalen, who made a career champagne in campaigning once upon a time. I spent a lot of time with Jalen. Yeah. I asked them a lot of questions. especially after he's had drinks, about best NBA cities,

best place to go, best place to party, best place for women, all that stuff. He revered Toronto. For all the reasons, you might think single rich basketball player,

Jalen Rose, when he played there, probably would have revered it. I'll leave it at that. We'll just leave it at that. Number three, San Francisco. Now,

I think that the Chinese food scene in San Francisco is a little overrated. But most options out of, I think, all the big cities, most ways to go with food. But one of the things I like about it is you also have the pockets outside. Like you have Berkeley and you have Oakland and you have other. You can get adventurous almost like when you're in Texas and you're in Dallas and be like, oh, let's drive 45 minutes to that barbecue place. San Francisco has a lot of that. I've been there a lot, so I almost feel like I take it for granted,

but just an incredible amount of things to do and eat in San Francisco. So it has to be third. That's a city that has a genuine shot at hosting an NBA finals game. Yeah, it sure does. Now that we have confirmation that you are going to every finals game this year, I'm pretty sure I'm going to be inviting myself out. I think it's been a decade, perhaps longer than a decade, since I was last in San Francisco and did some eating. It's always had a reputation as being like ingredient obsessed and hyper seasonal.

And, you know, really taking that sort of farm to table concept and elevating it. And another place with a huge diversity you just touched on it of options. and, you know, it's a place where it's a no-b-sity in terms of food, which is to say if you aren't producing top-notch, you know, highly well-executed meals and whatever the cuisine is that you've chosen. You're GTFO. Yeah, you lose. San Francisco is the GTFO. That's exactly right.

You lose your restaurant. We're putting another one in there tomorrow. Bye. That's right. That's, yeah. I mean, I'm psyched this. One of our guests on House of Carbs, Kenji Lopez out, just opened a German-Austrian-style beer hall

featuring Verst, the Brat Vers, the sausages, and all of it, 10 minutes from the airport. That would be my first stop. I'm getting into the airport. I'm getting into the Uber, and we're going straight to Worst Hall. We're going straight to worst hall. I think a great argument for this podcast

would have been L.A. versus San Francisco, and I would have advocated for L.A. unfortunately LAS two basketball teams and neither of them made the playoffs. Sorry. The Lakers. There's nothing to talk about. We talk about trust the process with the Sixers.

The Lakers process has lasted just as long and they still can't make the playoffs. And then the Clippers had this moment there where they had two of the best like seven guys in the league and now they have nobody left and they can't even make the playoffs and they're pointing to stuff like, we have the 12th and 13th pick and the draft

and Lou Williams on a good deal. It's like, congratulations. You're not going to be in the place for a while. The clippers clipped. That's what happened. The clippers clipped. They do what they do. Two versus one is the bird versus magic.

The wire versus the sopranos. The Biggie versus Tupac. The Joe House's belly versus David Chang's belly. It's on par with all of those great arguments. Houston or New Orleans. Houston does not get enough credit. A, for being a great food city. be for the unbelievable barbecue scene.

Unbelievable. To the point that Darrell Mori was telling me for years and years that they always had an advantage with free agents, partly because of the size of the house you'd be able to get and the food and maybe a couple other things too. But the food, and I was like, the food really, really? They love the food, but the NBA players love the food

and with reason it's really good. The barbecue options are adequate. control and Houston is gigantic. It's, it is this sprawling massive city and there's just food everywhere. And if they make the finals and they host games one, two, six and seven conceivably, it probably won't get that far. But I'm really excited to just deep dive. Let's go.

Let's go, Houston. Make the finals. I want to try out some of your restaurants. So on the one hand, it's absolutely great. It shouldn't come as a surprise that New Orleans and Houston, where they sit geographically, they're very close to each other. There's always been a rivalry between the two, although Houston did take on a bunch of New Orleans residents after Katrina,

so I think some of that rivalry has been solved. But the two places are known for the diversity of their cuisine. And Houston, you mentioned it, like folks have been saying for a few years now, including our paladab David Chang, whose Instagram today shows a gentleman. A giant pot filled with crawfish, and they look to be beautifully spiced. You mentioned barbecue. The Houston food scene features this thing.

We had a couple chefs on after Harvey, Chris Shepard and Justin Yu, talking about Viet Cajun. Now, in the first place, Houston is supposed to be one of the great places, other than Vietnam, to have Vietnamese food. Who knew? Who knew? It's the best Vietnamese food he's had anywhere. Yeah, who knew? Yeah, who knew. So that's one thing, but they have done this mashup over, and I think it has a long history,

a long tradition in Houston, of taking that Vietnamese style of cooking and, you know, merging it with that New Orleans sort of, you know, crawfish-focused, you know, creole kind of vibe and produce this, this, uh, Viet Cajun thing. And it has a season. It starts in February and goes through June. And they have these, and I think, uh, an episode of Ugly Delicious. I mean, I know we're pimping out Dave Chang, a buttload here, but I think his up, mutton, next ugly, delicious episode is on the Houston food scene.

And in particular, these crawfish. I don't mind pimping him because I'm going to his restaurant for an eighth time this weekend. And every time I, I, I walk in, they, everybody shakes my hand and they give me a table and they name the fries after me. So I'll pimp him as much as I want. And I don't care what the people of OKC and Cleveland think yet again. I don't care what anyone in either city thinks about that. I think it's funny about the stereotypes of cities and food.

I mentioned the Boston Clamp Chowder thing a little earlier. Houston, I've always thought like, oh, yeah, great barbecue in Houston. It's actually greater than just great barbecue, but then on top of it, as you said, there's a diversity in the underbelly of it that I just don't even think people realize or appreciate. And I'll tell you, I would love to exploit that. But with that said, it still doesn't top the number one on this list. The number one on any list, really,

a city that I do not allow myself to go anymore because it has every vice that I have basically in life. And the last time I was there, it took me three and a half weeks to recover. New Orleans. New Orleans food, the problem with, New Orleans food is it's so rich and it's so good and it's so heavy and it's so decadent that you just get in the rhythm of eating it. And after like day three, you kind of become an

addict. It's almost hard to go back to normal food. Like it's like, oh, yeah, we finished dinner. I think I'll have a bread pudding with bourbon sauce on it. Like you don't even think about it after a while. You don't appreciate it. You just become, you just kind of lose your mind. And the food's amazing. There's a bunch of different ways to go, but it's also distinct. It really always feels like New Orleans. And on top of everything else, you know how much I love gumbo. We talked about it last week. I love gumbo. I just get excited when gumbo is the special and you throw in the fish and everything. And we didn't even talk about the binaise, which I'm not allowed to eat anymore. But New Orleans is the number one. I don't see how, I think. I think

it's an unassailable choice. What do you think, House? I have not eaten in Houston. So I want to give Houston a fair shake. I have eaten in New Orleans several, several, several times. Yeah. And the problem I have with New Orleans is. Cousin Sal almost threw up on you in New Orleans. I mean, that's seen a house eats three. You mentioned that you may not be allowed back in New Orleans for health reasons. I think I'm literally banned from New Orleans. I know I'm banned from the Acme oyster house after the shape that we, the cousin salad particular left, left that place. Just horrible. We did leave a big tip, though.

We left them a great big tip. We also left our dignity. Well, the problem is the list of classics in New Orleans. It's like 40 deep. So each time you go, you feel like you have to go eat at four or five places just to sort of make sure that you're keeping up, that you're exploring the city in a way that. that's respectful of what it's all about. And you can't do that in a lightweight way.

Because the only proper way to enjoy those New Orleans classics is to eat the food, the way that it's the chef intended it, the way that that tradition intends for you to enjoy it. There's no sauce on the side bullshit. Exactly. There's no, can I get that, but can you let us wrap that? Like, just don't go to New Orleans then. It's insulting.

You know me. I'll go gluten-free with stuff. I'll get a little, you know, embarrassingly direct with some of my orders. I would never do that in New Orleans. You're in New Orleans. You're there, man. You're playing the game. You're having po-boys five different ways.

Yeah, you're having a bignet. You just have a one. Yeah, you're having jambalaya. You're having the gumbull. I forgot about jambalaya. Oh, I love jambalaya. There's no forgetting it, right? Jambalaya is so good.

Yeah. We're having oysters Rockefeller. You're having bananas foster. It's at the end of every meal. I'm glad you brought that up. I would say the dessert scene in New Orleans trumps everybody else. It's the first place that I ever had to bake Alaska where he put the thing on fire, which was a glorious experience. Yeah, they put their desserts on fire in New Orleans.

They make big ass soufflays. They make just bread pudding that's actually really good bread pudding. bread pudding is like the veal chop it can go wrong 90% of the time but the 10% when it goes right is is uh magnificent um they'll they're just ready for everything they have soups it's it's one of those play i remember the last time i went between um the meals we had um all the casino nights with with jacobi and um you know went into the wee-wee-hours the cigarettes I really felt like I was going to die in the way home. And Jacoby, I actually thought was going to die.

I was like really thinking about what happens if he like, his eyeballs were all in the back of his head and he's just, that's it. What do we do? Do they land the plane? Do they ride it out? It's not a place you can be for more than three days. Can't do it.

That's right. And fortunately, for this year's NBA playoffs, it's a place that we don't have to be for any days. There's no days we have to be there. Or we never thought they were going to make the playoffs. Maybe Anthony Davis just. takes no prisoners. And all of a sudden, we're eating jambalaya in seven weeks.

I'm not ruling it out. Never say never. You're absolutely right about that. Because they're going to be a seven-seed or an eight-seed, but if they play Golden State without Curry, I mean, I don't think they can win even a first-round series. But what Davis did these last three months, I thought it was extraordinary. He averaged, since the all-star break, he averaged a 30 and 12. I mean, those are like shack numbers.

And on top of it, like three and a half blocks a game and five or six, holy shit. plays a game and he's completely unstoppable. It wasn't an all-time performance. He really was. He put together like, you know, a 50-game season that would make him the MVP if you could stretch it out across 80 games. In any season, his 50-game stretch was as good as anything you could, you can muster amongst anybody that's won the MVP of the last decade.

Because he never wanted to play center and boogie goes out and he basically has to log a huge chunk of time at center. And the reality is with the way basketball is played in 2018, he's the best possible version of a five that we're going to have in the league. And if you're going all time, he's in the discussion for, I would say, like, 1986 McHale, 2001, 2002 Duncan, like guys who weren't really centers but moved like sleek forwards and just gave you all kinds of options and could shoot. from the outside a little bit.

And he's just the guy you would want out of all the guys we have right now. And he embraced it. And it's just a bizarre story that somehow cost us lots of money that I don't want to talk about. Well, fortunately, New Orleans is not getting any more of our money because they're not going to make it to the NBA finals. So of the likely matchups, it seems like, as we sit here today on April the 10th, the finals are going to feature Golden State or Houston. in the West, it seems like. So two outstanding eating towns, two of our top five. And then in the East, I mean, what are we doing?

What are we talking about? Well, Philly would be the ideal. Philly ahead of Toronto. Toronto's in our top five. I'm just saying for the most fun series that has the most storylines and just is the weirdest and most, oh my God, I can't believe this happened. I think from an eating standpoint, Houston versus Toronto is kind of the holy grail. And one of those things where you just tell the tailor to let out five pounds in your slacks before you even go.

Just do it preemptively. I'm rooting for it. I'm going to gamble on it just to have that rooting interest. Although if I gamble on it, it won't happen. So maybe I should leave it alone. Yeah, about 10 days in, maybe you unbuckle your pants at the table as you're still eating. But you had a few too many drinks and you stood up and your pants fell down. It's one of those series.

Houston Toronto. Wouldn't that be the first time? It's up my pants around my ankle series. On that note. But yeah, so you could say Houston number one, New Orleans number one. I don't really care what the order is. I just want to make sure that OKC and Cleveland are 15 and 16 in some order. And we might end up in Cleveland and we might take shit, but I don't know what to tell you.

It's not an insult, Cleveland. Like, you don't have a good food scene. You just don't. Maybe they do. Maybe they do. We're thrown down the gauntlet. If there's good food in Cleveland that we haven't detected that hasn't been brought up over our travels. Tell us.

Tell us. Tell House. House has an Instagram. He's got a House of Carbs Instagram. You can send him pictures of awesome dishes from Cleveland. You can tweet at him. Belly source that shit. Yeah.

Tell him. If we're wrong, we're not, we're not being mean about it. We just don't know any better. I just know from my experiences eating in OKC in Cleveland that the options were scarce. I might have had terrible information. We're hungry. Yeah, we're not angry. We're hungry.

So send us some recommendations. And we should mention, because I think I bumped Danny Chow because I went too long. But next week, Danny Chow should come in and review our list and give us his take on a couple of these, right? That should be the sequel, almost like the critic, the critic for. Danny is our man on the ground. He's touring these cities and eating in them. He's most recently been to Portland and New Orleans in the last six months. So we're going to get some great names and some great tastes out of Danny's mouth.

And if you want to preview before we get to Danny next week, get on his Instagram. You have to follow him on the Instagram. Danny King Chow. At Danny King Chow on Instagram. Get on the man's Instagram and get a preview of what we're going to be talking about because it's mother effing delicious. And again, if you took offense to any of the ranking, if you live in one of these cities

and you're offended by how we rank them or lack of information, instead of complaining about it, instead of calling us angry words and bitching about it and being shitty, help us, educate us. Belly source. Send us, do some belly sourcing

and send us some Instagrams and change our minds. Turn this into a positive. It's not a negative. It's a positive. My impression of OKC is I've been there a couple times and two of the best five restaurants in the entire city were named after athletes. I don't know. That's a red flag in my mind.

But if we're wrong, prove it to us. Tell us why we're wrong. I anticipate some outstanding belly source in Bateslimbins. Bring it on. Thanks for having me on, House. This is fun. Thanks for coming on to House of Carps, buddy. All right.

Talk to you soon. All right, ringer NBA show, homies. There we go. Your MishMash, Ringer NBA, and House of Carb show in the books. Friends, be sure to check out the ringer.com slash shop where you can get outstanding ringer hats, ringer hoodies, ringer teas, supplies are limited.

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