WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1272 - David Chang

Episode Date: October 21, 2021

David Chang wouldn't have opened his first restaurant if he wasn't depressed. Now, with his Momofuku empire that brings joy to foodies everywhere, David still finds himself struggling to find joy. Marc talks with David about their shared demons and what steps they each take to overcome them, in particular creating boundaries, being less angry, and working to correct past mistakes. They also talk about David's new show The Next Thing You Eat, his friendship with Anthony Bourdain, and his life as a new dad. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global bestselling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series, streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply.

Lock the gates! all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks how's it going i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf welcome how's it how are you nice to meet you are you new here, you can just say there's some open seats. Sit wherever you want. It's general admission. Sure. You can sit in your car. Of course you can sit at your desk at the office. Yes, there's no problem. You could sit on that bench press. Be careful though. Pay attention to what you're doing. Get a spot if you need a spot. I can't talk you through that. I don't want to be the guy saying this in your ear while your chest is being crushed by weights. What do you?

Yeah, you can certainly sit in your own kitchen or stand there and do your dishes, your laundry. You can do your laundry. You can cook. You can paint. You can throw a pot. This episode is dedicated to the throwers of pots, to the throwers of cups and mugs, to all the clay throwers. Am I not saying that right? Potters. It's your episode today. This is for the potters. I do want to tell you that today on the show, I have David Chang, the chef and founder of the Momofuku restaurants,

which are around the world, all over the world. You might also know him from his Netflix show, Ugly Delicious, or his podcast, The Dave Chang Show. He's got a new show on Hulu. It's called The Next Big Thing You Eat. It's premiering today. Also got a cookbook out this month called Cooking at Home. He's also a kindred spirit, a kind of a guy trying to figure out how to enjoy life guy but uh incredibly talented dude he brought me over some uh some chili sauce david chang bought me um a grateful dead record and this momofuku hot sauce i'm looking for a picture of it so i can tell you what it is because it was fucking amazing it was like you could put it on anything i think i think you could even put it on ice cream if you wanted to momofuku chili crunch

damn i like a whole thing of it in like two days and this isn't even a promo it's not paid advertising i like when people bring me presents it's very nice and it's a good conversation so anyway people last night i uh played a gig at largo and uh it went well. It was great. My band is very good. Can I call my band? That's the weird thing. I've wanted to do this all my life. And I still wrestle with the idea of like, do I deserve to do it? Do I deserve to do it in front of people? Aren't there people that deserve this more? I've been playing guitar my entire fucking life. And when I was younger, I did not have the confidence to play in a band. I did not have the discipline to learn songs.

I'm still not that much different, but I'm a much better guitar player. But given this opportunity, I'm taking it. But I still enter it thinking, like, do people really want to hear me, Mark Maron, play guitar and sing my songs? But I'll tell you something. I fucking love it. And I feel like I've been waiting my whole life to do it. songs but I'll tell you something I fucking love it and I feel like I've been waiting my whole life to do it and there's something electrifying about the fear of taking the stage which I don't have as much anymore with stand-up but just I've always felt that when you sing and play guitar there's a

vulnerability there for me anyways that I can't hide and it's it's very interesting to do it in front of people and then come out of it and do a little stand-up because I'm basically raw and open and needing of a certain amount of approval that I have to give myself in that moment because I know when I play okay. But, you know, I definitely have dropped into the pocket a little more. I'm a little more relaxed.

You know, it's exciting to play with Jimmy. You know, I can hold my own a bit, but I got to stop comparing myself to people that have been doing this for a life or a living or their jobs or everything. I play earnestly with a certain amount of feeling and I'm capable and I can sing all right. And that's that. There's a couple of stops and starts last night, but, uh, but like, I think it went pretty good. I think, I think, uh, I think it went pretty good and it was a good time and, you know, going into it, I just was, you know, I'm, I'm not terrified, but I really have to push back a certain amount of fear. And I really feel like that electronically that my amplifier picks up

my insecurity and I don't have any understanding of what it's like to play in different size rooms or why it sounds the way it does because I play in this garage or I play in my office room and it's just me and a guitar and it sounds great but when you get into the real world with this stuff it's like there's a lot of uh uh you know random stuff going on and uh and i i somehow like by the middle of the show i'm like do i even want to finish i mean jesus haven't i done enough i'm i'm relieved i was exhausted by the end of it we did uh i think i really did a good version of uh oh sweet nothing by the velvet underground everything went pretty good the groove on mystery man by tom petty was a little a little hard for me i've got to practice singing and playing at the same time but i've got this thing in my head where it's like i'm not like some big star where my playing is

automatically or me wanting to play in a band is automatically going to disappoint people it's like who the fuck does he think he is but you know I'm a mid-level celebrity that does a lot of different things. And now guitar is another one of those things. And I do it okay. And it's pretty entertaining. I accept me. I accept me. You hear that, Potters?

Put that in your head while you're squishing the clay. You clay squishers across the world. Sammy's got a new nickname, Smushy. That's how you know, like, how much you talk to your cats is revealed and how many nicknames you have for them. Buster is Booster, Busty. That's about it. Booster and Busty.

Hey, Booster. Hey, Busty. What's up, Busty. That's about it. Booster and Busty. Hey, Booster. Hey, Busty. What's up, Busty? Sammy is Sammy. Sammy Red. Schmooly. Smushy. Samster.

Sam. Sammy. Smushy. The smusher. So I'm a man who talks to his cats a lot clearly just ask smushy or schmooly or sammy red or the sam man i never called him that i do like smushy though i do like smushy oh my god i ate about 19 000 calories and nuts night. That's how I party after a gig. So, David Chang, we got right into it.

We got right into it. No fucking around. We have some common friends. And now I can tell you that I enjoyed the hot sauce. And I like watching him cook on TV. And this was nice talking to him. The Next Thing You Eat is now streaming on Hulu. His cookbook, Cooking at Home,

comes out next Tuesday, October 26th. I would like a copy of that. Could someone arrange that? Thank you. Yes, please. I want that. At the very least. But he already gave me sauce.

And he already gave me a Grateful Dead box set. But what would it cost? Anyway, you know what? This is for another time. I'll deal with it off the mic. This is me talking to David. and provides peace of mind. A lot can go wrong. A fire, cyber attack, stolen equipment, or an unhappy customer suing you. That's why you need insurance. Don't let the, I'm too small for this mindset,

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An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun. A new original series streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply.

Chang. You know, I like food, but I'm afraid of fat. You really like food, and I think it looks like you're a really good cook. And I know you watch a lot of cooking shows. Well, I used to. And I have a sense I do get better. I do cook, but I'm limited. And I'm afraid of cream.

I'm afraid of milk. And I'm afraid of cheeses. So, like, it's all pretty straight ahead. But, like, I can cook a pretty good steak i do fish all right fish is tricky but like i never do asian right because it looks relatively doable if you have the supplies but i just don't do it well i think that's just a it's not preference it's just it can be daunting if you're not familiar growing up with it. Right, because there's a million things that you got to kind of have. But at the base level, I think you just need like soy sauce and sesame oil.

Yeah, got that. And that's- That's it? Pretty much. Scallions. Scallions, lots. I use a lot of scallions. And that chili crunch is good on everything.

But I love that episode. How's your kid, by the way? I mean, I saw you have the kid. Yeah, my wife had another baby two weeks ago. Really? And he's great, yeah. So now you have two. How old's the oldest one?

Pretty fresh still, right? Two and a half years, yeah. Yeah. And you're adjusting all right? You know what? I have it easy., yeah. Yeah? Yeah. And you're adjusting all right? You know what? I have it easy. My wife, God bless her, she's not sleeping so much, but I'm doing okay. Yeah?

You don't get up and do the thing? I help take the breast milk bottles, and she pumps like every couple hours. I bring that down every two, three hours. And did the mission to create baby food you know do you are you doing that or oh no no i mean i think that would be very difficult to do um but i thought that episode of that show of uh what is ugly delicious yeah where you talk to these other people and how they handle childhood uh child rearing or feeding children and you know the the way you're going to live the life of a chef and still have the kid.

I mean, I thought that was all pretty, you know, broad and expansive in terms of the different types of people that are in your business that had kids. And the choices that people make to have kids. But you're not going to, you going to open a restaurant in your house. I think it's difficult for any parent to have, or anybody to have a kid, but particularly difficult for people that work in the restaurant industry. Because of the hours, and it's just unrelenting in the service of others. Why are restaurant people so fucking crazy? Because I worked in restaurants when I was a kid, right? And I've known a lot of chefs.

But, like, when I was in Boston, you know, working at it, like, just being a counter cook, like, I knew chefs. And there was more blow, more booze, more insanity, you know, in the world of restaurants. restaurants and i don't and i guess it's all about you know the immediate gratification of delivering serving creating that uh that just becomes addictive right yes there are i feel like maybe there's like three professions where something happened to you in your childhood and you become this profession like porn stars comedians and chefs um but but there's also the the inherited uh businesses which is not based in trauma like you know my dad was a plumber it's not traumatic i just took the business over right you know it's a lot of it is again inherited because it was built on the the the the french military Like, the military's fucked up.

Yeah. What, you mean the modern kitchen? Modern kitchen is based on Escoffier, this old French guy that codified French cooking, built it on the brigade system in the military, which is why it's very strictly a hierarchy. And if you see how unfortunately the military operates yeah in the training of things yeah it's not a surprise that it would be adopted by you know and the chef

and the chef is the general and now is this is the sous chef uh is is what it that seems like a pretty nice name for the prep guy well there's there's a lot of fancy names. So the chef technically means boss. Yeah. Sous in French means under. Yeah. So it's like the second. Okay. But there are all these stratifications of the word chef.

Yeah. Executive chef. Right. Chef de cuisine. Yeah. A lot of my peers don't like being called chef. Chef is almost like a derogatory term. What do they like being called?

Just your name. Oh. And you can like, what's up,'s up chef like you do that as like a difference between a chef and a cook right big difference big difference but you know today in 2021 like titles who the hell knows yeah who cares right yeah i mean if you're a good cook like you know for instance like on some level and i'm just because it's fresh in my head the the old pizza episodes you did, you know, that guy is kind of a cook. Absolutely. The guy who has that place.

Yeah. I mean, almost all of the pizza guys that wind up being pizza guys, you know, they almost taught themselves. Right. Yeah. And this is a big debate. Really? I love these big debates that only certain people know about.

Exactly. That's why I'm like, no one cares. No, they do care. What is the big debate? There are like two schools of thought. The really great chefs oftentimes were self-taught. Oh, really? Yeah.

Because they didn't know what rules to break. Uh-huh. And people don't really? Yeah. Because they didn't know what rules to break. Uh-huh. And people don't really know that. Like, there's a chef, like, Heston Blumenthal in England. Yeah. I mean, he's not, like, working chef anymore because he's so successful. Right. He was a repo man before he became a chef.

Huh. You know? Yeah. And he didn't go to culinary school. No. Well, that's what I realized about cooking. I got a professor in college that was sort of a gourmet chef, but he just learned himself. And he didn't go to culinary school. Well, that's what I realized about cooking. I got a professor in college that was sort of a gourmet chef, but he just learned himself.

And his kitchen was set up properly. And that had a profound effect on me when I realized, like, if you have a knack for this shit and you understand it, you know, you can do it. But that, I think, is the difference in cooking is not everyone has a knack for it, but you can still be really good at it. Is that true? Yeah. Because of repetition. Okay. But, like, I mean, in a sense, like, and I've said this before only that, like, in order to make a recipe, you have to be able to see it in your head and understand how it fits together. I think the reason why people fuck up recipes is they're just, they're seeing, you know, dumping the thing in two tablespoons.

They don't, they can't picture what they're making and if you can't picture what you're making it's how you're gonna fucking make it right well you know i got a cookbook coming out that talks about this the the intuition and there's only i have this like theory brewing in my head that maybe all the recipes that we follow is the reason why people are so bad at cooking right because it would be like Following instructions to have sex right nobody does that that's ridiculous. You need to know the basics Yeah, you need to know the basics and then you move on this goes in there Yeah, there's a lot of people that still follow the recipe like they're still following right for sex. Oh, yeah, and and I think You know I have a lot of comedian friends, and I toy around with this idea of is there this general pattern of how you do things in life, whatever it is, these schools of thought.

Yeah. And I think that it's incredibly difficult to be a great improvisational comedian. People think you can just do it. Yeah. But you've got to work at it to be good at it. Well, yeah, I mean, I do a lot of improvising on stage, and I'm doing it now and I realize there are guys that can't do that

but there are also guys that are afraid to do that and they don't want to give up power. They don't want to give up control of the room because when you step out there, I mean there are guys who work in improv and that's their thing but as a stand-up as soon as you go like, what's up with you? Then you're like, you're gambling.

And you've got to be into that moment to sort of counter that. And there's a lot of chefs. I'm more of the improvisational. I can never do the same thing twice, even though I'm supposed to. But your craft is in place. The craft is in place. But there are great, great chefs that look at anybody that does anything off the cuff yeah as imbeciles right and there are people that are on the more improvisational end that look at the rigid

structure of like someone that never deviates from their set yeah as assholes right or you know or just sort of um it always strikes me as as it's hard to defend because it looks like fear and it looks like um conservatism in a way yes exactly laziness on some level like you know with comedy you know you can't go back to the same crowd with the same act too often before they're like i'm tired of this right and i think it's the same it must be the same with food and that's the weird thing about all these conversations or these arguments that you're talking about nobody eating the food is going like this this tastes like that guy uh yeah well that but that's not true i can taste when a restaurant's gone bad because there's no love in the kitchen that's that's the funny thing it is as cliche as it sounds so much of the success

of somebody in restaurants i'm sure any field is how much do they care how much they love it and yeah you know i've spent years thinking about these stupid, not stupid topics, but I think about these things and I've just come at the age of 44 now. I'm like, all that matters is did someone like it? Right. Right. Who cares? In the making of it or the-

The whole top. I'm just so tired of the talk of it because it's not meaningful. It's not useful for people. Right. And I can't force anybody to go down these rabbit holes. So, you know, it's like I'm in a state of flux of trying to reevaluate what food is to me and to like everything. Right.

But when you say food, it's like your medium of expression. So it's a big deal. Yes. And also like I thought I fed a lot of expression. So it's a big deal. Yes, and also, like, I thought I fed a lot of people. Yeah. But the reality is I haven't fed that many people. Is that really the agenda as to how many people you feed

or how amazing the food is? Well, it could be both, right? Oh, yeah. That's to me... But numbers, I mean, you know, McDonald's feeds a lot of people. Yes, and I've spent my lifetime hating them, but now I'm like, numbers, I mean, you know, McDonald's feeds a lot of people. Yes. And I've spent my lifetime hating them. But now I'm like, well, not that I want to be McDonald's, but it's like, yeah, it's amazing

that you can go to any McDonald's for the most part. And it's the same. But that's, but that's a consistency. It's almost an industrial consistency, right? You're not eating a burger from McDonald's saying like the guy who made this i yeah i can feel him in this you know what i mean but what if you could yeah right what if you are yeah and that's to me what i'm after like you know when you do stand-up could you is the balance potentially doing 100 committed to improvising and 100 committed to a rigid setup well no i just like

for me i i guess and this is what we were kind of talking about at the beginning. For me, it's about discovery, right? And then once you discover something, you want to share it as many times as possible until you get tired of it. And then you shelve the discovery and you hopefully discover more. Absolutely. I mean, that's the point of expressing for me.

It's just sort of me understanding something differently or or seeing something differently or or or help helping other people see something differently right and that evolves so it's never a strict balance i improvise to to create and then eventually you know things stick and then i run them you know to the ground this may seem too esoteric and meta but yeah i feel maybe similar when you're talking about discovery, and I listen to you a lot, and so it seems like that's something that you're always trying to do. Do you feel that there might have been irritation or agitation along the way of this discovery because you were trying to tell your audience

to discover the same thing? Sure, because like, and I imagine it's the same with cooking in that, you know, like you know when something's not landing or you know when something doesn't taste right. You know, it tastes tastes okay but it's still a little weird or it's not quite right i mean i know that so then it's like i've got to sit there going and i'm doing that now like how do i fine tune this thing so it's it lands the way i want it to land right you know and and that's exciting that's an exciting process when you but as it turns out and i imagine with you as well like you know right when you get it perfect,

you're like, I'm done. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it happens every day when I cook for my family. It's like, I don't want to eat this. I hate eating it. But did you like making it? I don't even know if I like making it. I want them to be happy.

Right. But I don't know. I'm such a neurotic mess, man, with everything. Oh, God. Yeah. Well, so what is it about then? Like, you know, this observation I had at the beginning, you know, like that, you know, comics, porn stars, and chefs, you know, have this, you know, this thing.

Because I, you know, as I get older, and I'm 58, I just turned 58, you know, I still learn new things about, you know, my brain and about my insecurity and about like my like like lately i'm battling with like this wave of self-loathing that i can't like i it just it's it's daunting because you get to a certain age you're like maybe i'm done with that right and then all of a sudden it's like no no i'm not i guess i'm not so what is it about your childhood that you identify as one of the prime movers of your need to do what you do? I mean, I spent like 15 years in psychiatric therapy to only tackle these subjects now, really, with my dad. Oh, yeah. And it's just a lot of it's I think trauma inherited and trauma that's potentially genetic and trauma that is from your culture and your surroundings. And, you know, I go through waves of being angry about it. But then also I'm like, you know, my father passed last summer and. last summer and I,

in some ways I'm more angry at him than I ever was. Really? Yeah. And in other ways, I'm much more understanding of how he became the way he was because, you know, it's just like, how did he become that way? I mean,

he grew up in war in Korea with nothing. And he comes to this country in 1963, which side of Korea he was born in North Korea. What was with nothing. Yeah. And he comes to this country in 1963. Which side of Korea? He was born in North Korea. What was North Korea? Yeah. And just by happenchance of a lot of random things, gets to this country.

And, you know, you're a product of all of these things. It's almost like that Coen Brothers movie with the singer. Yeah. Inside Llewyn Davis. It's like all of these things that happen turn into this person that you are. And I look at the series of events that happened to my father, and I can understand why he is the way he was. And I can accept that, but simultaneously I can be angry at him for not being loving.

Right. But then I'm like, well,orean culture is not about being loving it's about right surviving right it's ongoing it's ongoing dialogue within you and it's also about like there is like when i've noticed with uh korean culture a lot of asian cultures is that there's you know especially children of immigrants there's this pressure that's unrelenting unrelenting and and it's like it it devastates the ability to have a sense of self other than ambition you know i was watching that tiger woods doc yeah and i was like wow that is fucked up yeah and i was like i was like wow my dad was very similar i was like oh i can, I couldn't watch the second half cause it just touched your nerve too much.

And yeah, I'm, I was never going to be the competitive golfer that Tiger Woods was, but I can relate. So you, but you were a golfer, huh? That's all my dad wanted me to be.

Is a golfer. Yeah. It's crazy shit. But was he a golfer? I don't even know how that happened. You know, he was like, to his credit, a Korean guy in Virginia was a trailblazer. Because now if you go to a golf tournament, a junior golf tournament, you're going to see a lot of Asian parents yelling at their kids. Yeah, right.

My dad was the first that I ever saw. But you don't know what made him take to golf? No idea. You know what? It was in Virginia you grew up? I never asked them. Like, did you ever ask your parents about things that they did? Yeah.

Or why they did it? Sure. I don't have the, I never had the courage. Really? Or even if I did, I would never get a response. Yeah, well, sadly, a lot of times the response is like, I don't know. That's exactly it. Or my dad literally would just hear you and then turn away and do something else.

Wow. Really detached. Like, I deal with the repercussions of having, you know, selfish parents. You know, like, you know, that where the love is not, it's not, it doesn't land as love. You know, whatever they think they're doing. And I still do that joke in my act. I say, you know, don't believe them. They didn't do the best they could.

But it's true. They say they did, but they didn't. They winged it. They had no idea. And now we're all fucked up. And I'm not like, I'm not mad and I'm not, you know, whatever. You dealt the cards you want. But I do wish I was a little more emotionally stable and capable.

Because, right, so if you deal with these parents that were incapable of selfless love then you don't know what to you know you've got to pretend like you know how to love people and I think I'd be I'd have nothing to say yeah I'd be I don't know I but but clearly that's sort of what I long for is to be normal well it seems like you know you you whatever your mental is, there's a sensitivity to it. You feel things, and whether you have control of your vulnerability or not, you can't help it. I got my DNA tested for the chromosomes that deal with mental illness. Really?

Yeah. From this terrible sounding company called geno mind really yeah based on yeah in my psychiatry i've been seeing my shrink the longest relationship i've ever had in my life really since 2003 mine's were with cats and like i've been i've been on all kinds of um medicines i'm a big believer in that with therapy. And we've been tailoring and tinkering things that would be beneficial for me and my chemistry. And it got to the point where he's like, hey, there's this new thing out. I think you should try it. And I got swabbed. It was like the whole thing. And I got a card and like a giant notebook of information about why my brain is the way it is.

Really? It was pretty, it was very hard. I actually didn't talk about it for like two weeks until I was ready to talk about it with him. Huh. So that's, it's so weird because I'm doing this joke right now about how, because I don't have kids. And I say the joke is really about like how, look, if you have love in your heart, you know, and you want to have kids't have kids and I say the joke is really about like how look if you have love in your heart you know you want to have kids have kids if you have a void where your heart should be and you think a kid will fill it you know don't do it because that void will just continue for

generations you're you're carrying it and it's generations old and then they do the punchline which is like they now have this uh function on 23andme where you can track your void but that's like sort of like metaphysically like true yeah well yeah i said mine goes back to 1800s uh belarus and russia it was a taylor's wife had the original void that started my family yeah i and i got the 23 of me did you get that all tested out did you do you know everything well yeah i mean i'm 99.9 ash Ashkenazi Jew. Like 15 generations ago, I have some Ashkenazi Jew. Well, how'd that happen? I don't know.

I know. I was so excited to read that. I was like, that's amazing. That's why you like comedians. I was like, that's got to be a mistake. But if it was, I don't care. I believe it to be true. I was hoping for some Viking blood, and that didn't happen.

Yeah, I know. So Ashkenaz from Korea. I don't know what happened, but it's there. It is. How do you know it was 15 generations? They said it was like 15 generations ago or something like that. Yeah. So who knows?

That's a long time ago. It's a long time ago. Who the hell knows? Someone got lost. Yeah. I mean, again, who knows how accurate it is, but all I know is- What is this other thing? The mental thing.

The mental thing is it tells me how my body processes certain medications so it has helped me better um be prescribed things right that work well what's the diagnosis i'm bipolar yeah um bipolar one bipolar two super bipolar can be mixture between one and two really um And you didn't know that until recently? I never wanted to know. I'm so neurotic that I never wanted my shrink to tell me. I was like, these are like agreements. But is it because, because my dad's bipolar,

and is it because you enjoyed the mania too much? No, I hated the mania. I just didn't want to know if i was i didn't want the explanation right to like mess up with who i was right you wanted to be purely you but i knew i knew i was less worried about bipolar but clearly i knew it because it's i have a hard time explaining this because i'm still processing like how to talk about it i knew i was wildly depressed. I have like massive depressive disorder.

Really? Yeah. For how long? Like always or it comes and goes? Yeah, pretty much always. Really? Yeah. So you're, yeah, cause I don't, like with me, I don't even know anymore. Like, cause I have a high tolerance for it, you know?

Cause I grew up with it and you don't wanna, you just kind of always fighting against it. Like I have no sense of really, I have no kind of always fighting against it like i have no sense of uh really i've no kind of muscle memory for joy i am the same way you know again i feel like we have some mutual friends they're they're always like you have a similar sensibility to this very guy really yeah and when i listen i'm like oh man like yeah i really feel what he's talking about well i know i'm watching you two get all choked up during your wife's pregnancy, the first pregnancy.

And I've never experienced that, but I do have this free-flowing kind of emotional, that I can't define, but it's not bad. You're kind of crying, but it's a good thing. But I usually do it alone or at weird times. I don't know i've just been thinking about it recently that that if you if you grew up feeling awkward for whatever reason that literally you have no good memories and i don't right and that's disturbing

right because like you're like you know what about your childhood memories like always uncomfortable never you know it's all my childhood memories are like, oh, why'd I fucking, that was terrible, you know. And I feel worse when people talk glowingly about their childhood. I'm like, man. Yeah.

Like, what would I be like? You're friends with Nick Kroll, right? Yes. Very good friends. You're very good friends with him. Yeah. I had to stop following him

on Instagram because his fucking family looked too healthy. Like, I literally, all the pictures of him as a kid with everyone, we love him, he's such a wonderful, I'm like, I can't do it anymore. I can't look at his happy camp pictures anymore.

And I love the guy. I think he's hilarious. And I like him, but I'm just sort of like, I can't, I can't. Too well adjusted. Not for me. But I love him. And he seems to have a nice new baby. Yeah, he's totally in love being a father. And he's to have a nice new baby. Yeah. He's,

he's, he's, he's totally in love being a father and he's got a great, great partner. So I love them to death and I've known him a long time. So, but how does it like, you know,

how does he handle a guy like you? I think people know, I feel like they know that I'm, I'm more balanced these days. I'm less angry. And I always wonder. It's like I'm the Eeyore of the group oftentimes. I felt like that.

Right. And you know what? Because I was. Yeah, yeah. Right. You know? So like with me, like, you know, it's harder on our partners, you know, ultimately. Because it's going to come out somewhere.

And I guess for you, when you started opening restaurants, it must have like, you know, you must have been a nightmare. 100%. Well, when I, my biggest bout of depression led to opening up the restaurants, because without being depressed, I never would have been me. What was the first restaurant? Noodle Bar in 2004. In New York?

Yeah. What was the one out here? Major Domo. Okay, okay. And that's still here? Yeah, it's here. It's doing great. We had a great team there.

Oh, good. How many you got restaurants? We have over 10, but the number fluctuates because there's more than one of each sometimes. What happened to Bong Bar? Bong Bar, it's still in Time Warner, and we opened one up in the Cosmopolitan. It still got the spit? Yeah. Oh, so that stuck.

It's so good. That was such a great, that whole history of the spit, I enjoyed that episode. I'm glad you did, and I'm glad people- That seemed to be a revelatory episode. Getting to go to Istanbul was like, holy shit. Yes. Yeah.

I mean, like, it made me realize what a boring fucking country this is. Absolutely. 100%. Where I mean, like, it made me realize what a boring fucking country this is. Absolutely. 100%. Where it's just like you're just walking down a street where people buy vegetables and there's a million different... And you're sitting right over here. I used to eat at Carousel all the time.

You're living in the land of kebabs. Yeah. No, I know. I don't eat enough of them. Oh, man. You got mini kebab here. You got Hamlet's Kitchen. This is the best.

Yeah, my... Frank loves mini kebabs. That's a good one. Oh, Lord. Carousel's okay. A little greasy sometimes, but okay. Car mini kebab here. You got Hamlet's Kitchen. This is the best. Yeah, my Frank loves mini kebab. That's a good one. Oh, Lord. Carousel's okay. A little greasy sometimes, but okay. Carousel's good, but this area is Armenian heaven. I know.

I love it. I come here all the time just to buy food. Really? Yeah. Where do you go? Mini kebab? Mini kebab. Yeah.

It was just written up in the New York Times today. Hamlet's Kitchen, I love because they're trying not to be busy. I love those kinds of restaurants. Mini Kebab just got written up? Yeah. So now it can't get in there? It's already been that way. But there's so many spots here.

Hamlet's Kitchen, I think you will like a lot. You keep saying that. Where's that? It's only like five minutes away from here. Everything's five minutes from here. It's in the back end of a warehouse where you feel like the setup is because of the COVID world. But no, it's always been this way. They're trying to repel people from ever ordering food.

It's just a kebab joint? Yeah. It's good. It's so damn good. But also, yeah, Istanbul and just the history. In talking about... I'll come back to the depression driving you but but like in talking about the new show which seems to be like i had a misconception it was funny i

used to do this joke about china like i was it was it was conceived in vancouver i was going through chinatown i was looking at chinese markets which i always love to do because you don't know what's in these boxes you're just sort of like like, is that a fish? Is it a clam? Is it a bug? Is it a rock? Is that a plant? Is it a plant? And there's this moment where you realize like, well, if you're a civilization, as long

as the Chinese have been, you're going to get around to eating everything. Correct. So I said, you know, and clearly the future is Chinese because if global warming continues at its current pace, all that will be left in the ocean is prehistoric toxic algae and mutant jellyfish. And the Chinese are the only culture that really knows how to prepare that stuff properly. That is not a joke because it's true. Like most of Asia, like my people like eating jelly. I don't like eating jellyfish.

Yeah. And algae is, you know, seaweed. I grew up eating it. It can be delicious. Yeah. But that's just sort of like, that's going to be an easier adjustment. Yeah.

But it's not really happening because they're inventing ways to make meat and stuff. Well, we're still going to have to embrace all of these things, though. We are. But let's go back to depression driving you. See, this is the thing that people like us get hooked to, and it's because despite our vulnerability that we have no control over because we have mental problems, is that our ego is deeply in place.

Oh, yeah. So you justify your behavior because it led to whatever it is you are. And if that's a good thing, becomes hard to uh self-analyze yeah or i call like unfucking yourself you know like yeah exactly yeah what i realized recently the past two three years is just because i was depressed and just because i was trying to get better and address it i never realized how insane my fucking ego was and how narcissistic i was because it was like i always felt it was just not there i was like i didn't have any like you were selfless you were just in it yeah yeah and now i'm like oh man dude come on really like so

how did depression do you think define or or or or make you open the first restaurant? Like how was that the driver of your ambition? You know, I've talked about it a lot more and honestly after Tony passed, I feel a lot more open to talking about this stuff because it's never fun. For Dan? Yeah, it's never fun to talk about.

But like, you know, what I've realized is a lot of people need to hear stuff like this. So for me, without it seeming so dramatic i thought i was going to end things but before i ended things let's try something out oh you're gonna kill yourself oh yeah yeah yeah you were that depressed yeah i mean yeah but it wasn't going to be something that was like a it was was going to be, look like I was in an accident riding a bike in New York City. Oh, you had a plan. Yeah.

That's, that's bad when you have a plan. Yeah. But like, I have these tendencies. I still do, you know, and, and, you know, there's that scene and people, but they're, but they're like, I've had those tendencies too, but like mostly because my depression, like, I don't know, I, I, you know, through recovery and other things, you know, I don't stay in it too long. And I don't even know if I'm, you know, clinically depressed. But it's beyond self-pity.

Because a lot of times suicidal ideation, I used to do a joke about that, too. I said, like, you know, I think about killing myself a lot. And it's not because I want to kill myself. I just feel better knowing I can if I have to. That's more of a betrayal than funny. Right? Because like,

there's a relief to it. If you have no real faith in place, if you're sitting there going, like, oh, my life is terrible. I could always kill myself. Oh, okay. I feel better. Let me go to work, right?

Right. But you felt like you were really going to do it. Yeah, I think it was a confluence of a lot of things. Like September 11th, you know. Oh, God, yeah. I still think people underestimate how fucking insane it was if you're in New York City.

Oh, man, I was there. Yeah, the trauma of it. Like, I think we're completely fucked now. The trauma of the last year and a half. I mean, people. Unresolved. Yeah. And we're still in it.

Yeah. And we're not, you know. But, yeah, okay. And I had three friends in a year pass. One of them overdosed, one died in a tragic car accident. And another friend of mine, a friend of Kroll's in our mind, committed suicide. A comedian? No, no, no. A childhood friend.

Oh, you knew Kroll in childhood? We had, through college, I got to know Kroll's friends growing up. Oh. We had through college. I got to know Kroll's friends growing up and And I was just going through my own I felt this is 2011 12. No, no 2003. Oh, okay. Yeah, I was just like In it and I couldn't get out of my own way

Yeah And one way that I had alleviated depression was traveling and running away from wherever i was right and i it got to a point where i could no longer run away from my own issues and my own problems right i was also drinking i should have been in an aa yeah yeah you know sure for sure yeah um you have an incredibly addictive personality right so i just got to a place where i was like things were not worth living for a variety of reasons yes and um i you know i think in some way a lot of you know what the funny thing is i think it's still difficult now there's a lot of places you can get help there's even apps and stuff sure but back then how the hell were you supposed to find help i didn't grow up in a household

where if i told my parents hey i need help they'd be like go to church what were they what kind of hardcore christians that's another thing christian yeah presbyterian i have grew up in an extremely religious household yeah and i guess culturally it's not a culture like it's same with the black community it's just not part of the language of like go see somebody no they i would get in trouble i would have gotten in trouble if i said that yeah go to jesus yeah or you know something else i don't know suck it up suck it up um so the golf thing that was like torture. I never liked it. Right. I never liked it.

But you were good at it? You know, I think I was really good at it. I don't think I would have been good enough to make it as far as my father would have because I didn't have the mental game. Would want you to, you mean? Yeah. And I got recruited in high school to play a lot of golf. And you had natural talent?

Well, I played every day. But still, a lot of golf. And I traveled. Natural talent? I played every day. But still, my brother did that with tennis too. But unless you have the natural talent, you can't go the full run. I think I was pretty good. Yeah. I mean, I've been playing golf. I didn't touch a club for like 20 years.

Yeah. It's still there a little bit. Oh, yeah? You can do it. But this is where the dark side comes in. Yeah. My compulsion to be like, I'm going i'm gonna fucking do this every day i'm gonna fuck i'm gonna just when you picked it up lately yeah and it's not fun i don't even enjoy playing it now but what i enjoy is beating myself right like if i can conquer myself yeah then that's the victory yeah you know i was like maybe i'll just practice every day enjoying the senior tour and i'm 50. I'm like, what am I doing?

That's not fun. 10 restaurants, a family, and you're making crunchy hot sauce. Yeah. So, you know, it's- You're going to make time for the- I want to start to do things I actually enjoy. Well, good luck with finding those. So, yeah, you know, I don't know.

The golf thing messed me up big time it's a curse the thing is like if you do something like even with guitar like i enjoy doing it but i'm like i'm not as good i'm not very good at this like i'm not i i hear you say that all the time but then i hear you play i'm like you're pretty good okay but like i i'm not fast and you know like i'm always judging myself against you know everything online and every you know but but then i'm with the argument is like but you feel man you can you know you move your feelings to it and you you know you have your own you know whatever but isn't that driving you to be better though yeah i know but is that is that what you want out of that's not that's not fucking hell i know that's what i'm

saying it's like how do you find something you enjoy if you have that part of your brain that's sort of like yeah but there are people better than you at this. So this is where I'm at. And it's sort of a metaphor for my life and where I want to be. Okay. Is like, for example, if I was playing guitar and I was competitive with myself. Yeah. The competition is to not become competitive. To actually get to the place where I've just accepted it. Sure.

And I can now sort of be one with it and not fight it. Yes. My goal is to do nothing. like to do less, to actually- Me too. Go in there and create. Garden. Do you garden? I think about it because when I do it, I want to do it.

I want to have the greenest fucking thumb anyone's ever seen. You got a sense for it? You got a knack? No, I don't think so, but here's the problem. I will force myself to learn how to do it. anyone's ever seen you got a sense for it you got no i don't think so but here's the problem i will force myself to learn how to do it and like they'll be competing with tomatoes and cabbage but i'm okay because at least i'm competing against with like mother nature you know it's like random right yeah people seem to like it like i thought about putting vegetable beds out here

but then i thought like then i gotta i don't know worry about. So, all right. So the depression, though, you're saying that you opened the restaurant because it was a way of getting out of it. And also discovering myself. You know, I talked to my good friend, the artist Dave Cho. He said, you know, for you to grow, you sort of have to kill yourself. So you quit the golf and your dad was like, what are you doing? Well, yeah, I was a mess. You know, I was just a hot mess.

Yeah. I still am, but when I was a teenager, when I got to college, I just, I was, that felt like there was a hole in my brain that was not filled in yet. Right, so that's where all the golf went away. Yeah, and I started just partying hard. What did you study?

Religion. You really need some answers, huh? Yeah. Well, I wanted to study the philosophy. I want to know why people were religious. Did you figure it out? I kind of know. People need to feel like they're part of something bigger than themselves so they have reason to live.

Yeah. It's faith, ultimately. And I studied a lot of Eastern religions. I think that calmed my, calmed me down a little bit. But, and philosophy in general was something for me to really gnaw at and to get a better understanding of thought. Did it work? It made me, I think, be a better critical thinker, but also made me way more neurotic

too. More darker. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There darker. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, there is no point. Schopenhauer is not the funnest thing to read,

but if you're reading them for like fun, that's a problem. But that's the thing when you're going into it. And I go, I went into things like that too. Cause I guess we are somewhere in that. You feel like you have something missing. So you think your,

your natural gravitation towards anything. Like I used to do a bit about that too. It's like I, any book that I read is a self-help book even though they're not self-help books i'm looking for answers yeah so when you go to schopenhauer for answers that's not practical philosophy so you're just going to break your brain and it's going to be it's going to be reductive and it's ultimately all you're going to do after that is prove to yourself that you're right and everything is shit right yeah i mean you come out the other side yeah right like i spent so much time trying to unravel the myth of sisyphus by

camus yeah well now i'm like i think he's wrong i don't imagine him happy going down the hill after pushing the boulder up i think he's fucking pissed sure i you know he's like fuck i gotta do this fucking thing again yeah yeah because i can't stop myself yeah because i'm compulsive but tomorrow tomorrow i think when he's pushing the boulder up that he's in the act of doing work yeah that's his happiness because he's like you motherfuckers can't tell me anything you can't control me. I'm actually going to enjoy this Yeah, this is not hell. This is my this is my happy spot. Yeah And I thought about that as you know fucked up I have to be to think about it so much to get to that point. Yeah, I was like, oh my god, Dave

Yeah, time to start cooking Doing anything else. Yeah, so what did lead to the cooking? Like because you cooked at some pretty fancy place yeah you know the funny thing is my dad uh got out of the restaurant business and he worked his entire life to make sure i would never work in restaurants really what did he do he came to new york city 1963 and worked as a bus boy dishwasher several years and just worked his way up until he um he was just a fucking hustler and wound up owning a restaurant in the washington dc area and sold that and got

into the golf oh my god this is like eddie's story yeah very similar yeah yeah huh yeah he got into the golf business yeah so that oh so but he wasn't a golfer i again i don't know how the hell my dad got it thought golf was a thing that he wanted to get into. But what did he do in the golf business? He sold golf clubs and stuff. Oh, okay. He literally was like a retailer in timing. He chose Tyson's Corner, Virginia.

When I grew up there, it was farmland. I mean, people will never believe that. There were cows in my backyard. And it's what? It's a big golf place now? No, it's one of the biggest shopping centers and suburban sprawls anyone's ever seen and and there was a lot of um offices and it's now just a giant office mega complex with buildings and the area did really well a lot of people made a lot of money a A lot of people played golf. So I grew up in, you know, upper middle class upbringing from like age 13.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So what led to cooking? I was terrible at everything else. I mean, I mean, there's no romantic. Yeah.

There's no nothing romantic. A lot of people in the 70s, 80s and 90s got into cooking because they couldn't do anything else. So they got out of jail or, you know, whatever. I couldn't do anything else so they got out of jail or sure you know whatever i couldn't get a job i had a c plus average in a religion degree yeah who's hiring who's hiring right um and i i had a lot of desk jobs i did a lot of different jobs i've done just about everything yeah um. Really, so many fucking jobs. I moved from Japan.

I was teaching English there. I was 21, 22. Oh, you did that? You did the teach English abroad thing? Yeah, just to get the hell out. But I was basically in the equivalent of Jacksonville, Florida of Japan. It was miserable. And I had to get out.

It was like 1999 and and anyway i got a desk job and i i just told myself i'm going even if i'm good at this i'm gonna be mediocre this is terrible i don't want to fucking do this yeah so i burned all my bridges i literally told my bosses at a christmas party how much i hated them yeah and all bosses everywhere yeah fuck you all fuck you all and and it was almost i was was basically inspired by Office Space, the movie. I was like, oh, fuck it. I'll just try something like this. Yeah.

More or less, that's what I did. Yeah. I didn't, I was like, for me to never come back to the corporate world, I have to make it impossible for me to ever be employed here ever again. Not that I could with my grades. What was the corporate world you were in? I was helping a company's market American depository receipts on the New York Stock Exchange. I don't even know what the fuck that is either, but I didn't do anything.

Yeah. So I spent all day trying to do nothing. Yeah. Anyway, that's when I was like, I always wanted to sort of be in the culinary world. My dad really actively tried to prevent that from happening. And if my son tried to do the same thing, I would do the same thing my dad did. It's too fucking hard. But I just got to a point where

I don't know what the fuck I want to do. That's good. And also had all the good fuck you in it. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Everyone thought it was social suicide. Yeah.

The advantages that I had growing up, like I fucking hated high school. Like I went to the high school that produced uh kavanaugh and gorsuch and i now i understand of course i should have hated high school look yeah yeah right you know right but were you treated badly it was not fun for me yeah um i just was hard it was really hard for me to fit in and i just was was also a mess. If I was someone else, I'd probably treat me poorly too. You know? Yeah. Did your, was your mom helpful?

No. I mean, she tried to love me from afar. Yeah. But they were together, weren't they? Yeah. But they, you know, Korean parents, Korean parents. Right. And they wound up having a solid relationship after the fact.

But I just, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I had no idea. Life didn't have meaning to me. So I was like, fuck it. Let's just do what I'm not supposed to do. And cooking. It was either that or like, honestly, I was like, I'll just work at a leper colony.

Yeah. I remember thinking that to myself. I was like, fuck it. Yeah, why not? Why not? Who gives a shit? Roll the dice. Yeah.

So did you go to culinary school I did I went to French Culinary Institute And I was working At the Mercer Kitchen And I was also working At my dad's friend's

Golf store New York Golf Center On the weekends Just trying to help Make ends meet Yeah Living at my sister's Just doing a lot

Of different things But you like When you got to culinary school Were you like fuck yeah I was so bad at it Oh you were but you were excited the reason why i didn't quit yeah i told everybody i was going to become a cook so yeah it wasn't out of overriding love of like i'm gonna be so good at cooking yeah i'm so good i'm gonna be awesome it was out of the embarrassment that i can't quit you were terrible yeah i was terrible at it and it was also the

embarrassment i couldn't let anyone else down. Yeah. Including myself. A lot of pressure. Oh, coming at you all sides. I mean, I was so bad at cooking. My first level partner decided to quit rather than continue to be my partner because she asked the instructors, if I have to continue being Dave Chang's partner, like I'll quit. And they wouldn't change partners. She was stuck with me. So she quit. Quit the school? Yeah.

Wow. That's how bad I was. Have you been in touch with her? I work my, so I'm a vengeful. Yeah. I carry a lot of chips on my shoulder. And I am, I work so hard to prove people wrong. Yeah.

And it's become just like a problem. Yeah. That's a real problem for me. That's the ego thing too, like a problem. Yeah. That's a real problem for me. That's the ego thing too, huh? Yeah. Yeah. So what's that got to do with her? Nothing.

Oh. I probably would have hated me too, again. But I worked hard to make sure that I would be- But you don't know who that person is? I do know. And she's a restaurateur in New York City. Oh, okay. She was.

And I was like, I'm going fucking, I'm gonna just smoke you. I don't know how. You're much better than me, but I'm gonna find a way. Did you win? Yes, I think I won. Well, thank God. It's a little victory.

But they get like, what's the purpose, you know? Because like when you're missing that piece, whether it's, you know, from, you know, bipolar or borderline or whatever, everything feels like a very personal attack. And it needs to be the retribution needs to be satisfying. It's almost like regaining part of yourself. I totally agree. And added on, I just whether it was real, but I think it was real. You know, one of my college buddies said,

nobody expected any of this from you, Dave. Yeah. You know, it's like, you're the total surprise of anybody I've ever met. Oh,

that's nice. And it's weird. You know, it's like, I'm a statistical anomaly and I really believe that. When I tell people, I shouldn't be here,

they're like, no, whatever, Dave, that's self-modesty. I was like, no, I'm only here because

I worked my ass off. A lot of lucky breaks happen i i think about that movie inside lewin davis a lot if i just made a right turn instead of a left turn and any number of decisions yeah i wouldn't be here well i you know but i also identify with spite being a motivator i mean you know like so much of my ambition was driven by, you know, fuck that guy. Why can't I? You know what I mean? I can do that. But like, I don't.

You have an empire. You know, I have a garage. But nonetheless, like I've what I've grown to realize, if you don't have traction and you have spite, you're not going to be pushed out. Yeah. I was going to be pushed out. Yeah. I mean, I was going to be pushed out. I was a wallflower my entire life, you know? But like, so you opened the noodle place. Yeah.

And it's huge. No, we were going out of business. That was terrible. It was, that's what I mean. It was like everything sort of happened as like a cosmic joke, right? Yeah. You know, nobody even cared about ramen. And again, like one reason why I wanted to do it and open up this ramen shop is I finally had an idea that I wanted it to express.

Right. And I was like, nobody's ever given me the opportunity to actually follow through on anything. You were a little early on the ramen thing? Yeah, because I saw it in Japan and I grew up eating and it's not just ramen. It was like Asian food in general. I grew up eating and it's not just ramen. It was like Asian food in general. Yeah.

Um, and again, having been able to see the world a little bit, I was like, wait, the food in America is so stale. Yeah. But it's,

it's not this way everywhere else. When I was in China, uh, pre Olympics, uh, this is 99. I think I had the best, some of the best food I've ever had. It was like 25 cents a meal.

Yeah. People forget in 2021, because food is not even a privilege, it's just a given that you should be eating well all the time. Yeah. Back in New York City in the late 90s, you couldn't eat well affordably. It didn't exist.

Yeah. I mean, other than a dirty water hot dog and stuff like that, you get a hamburger, but there was nothing high end. It didn't exist. Yeah. I mean, other than a dirty water hot dog and stuff like that. Right. You get a hamburger. Right. But there was nothing high end. Like high end was only for the high end. And if you told somebody, the word foodie didn't even exist. Yeah.

If you told somebody you wanted to eat well, they thought you were a snob. It was an elitist thing. Right. And yes, actually, it is elitist. Yeah. But now it's become more democratized. Uh-huh. And that was a feeling.

And I loved following patterns and other i love music i love literature i love ideas and i i would just see these things percolate and move and i was like man nothing's ever happened here in american food there's been no real yeah change i was like why don't i just try to do something i was telling this the only person i could tell this shit to was my shrink. Yeah. And I felt like it was just like solipsism. And he thought like,

well, this is narcissistic. This guy thinks he's going to change America. Yeah, it's like borderline. With noodles. Yeah. I'm thinking the same thing. I was like, this is really problematic. Yeah. So what happened?

So the noodle thing didn't change the world? No, we were going out of business. We had like 60 days left of money. It was just mostly- We were bad, too. No wonder we want to work with them. I literally couldn't get anybody to work with me. Why?

Because I was terrible. Because you're a monster or just a bad cook? No, I was a bad cook and I was terrible. Wow. Chaos? Yeah, we just didn't know what I was doing. Yeah. I mean, I had been cooking professionally for years but this is after you work with daniel yeah danielle john george tom calicchio um calicchio's a good guy right he's a good dude and he had again like i was lucky to

work at the opening team craft i answered phones i wanted so badly to be part of the team i answered phones for like but did but so you but you had some sense of how a restaurant worked. I did, but not really. You have no idea. You have no idea. But I worked with some of the very best cooks. And all of those figures were like big brothers to me. And I just, they, you know, my friend,

Oktar Nawab said, like, I knew you were going to be maybe something, maybe something when Marco Canor was like, hey, bring me some gremolata, Dave. And I was like, make me like a quarter gremolata. And I was like, yes, chef. And I come back sheepishly five minutes later, chef, I don't know what gremolata is. But like, just that, like, I'm going to do it approach. And that was it. And honestly, I look back on it,

it was totally insane what happened. That beginning year. Yeah. And honestly, we only became successful when we started to throw the rule book out and we started to do everything. With the new restaurant. No, the original restaurant.

We started to be the most obnoxious pricks anybody's ever seen. Yeah. We kicked people out. We played Wu-Tang, Enter 36 Chambers, Metallica, whatever. We were playing obnoxious music. We were finally, we freed ourselves from the shackle of what a restaurant or noodle bar should be. We just started to fuck around.

Because I literally viewed us as a terminal cancer patient. Yeah. And at that point, because I've had a lot of cancer in my family, it's like you start to do whatever the fuck who cares yeah you start living yeah and that's what happened with us in both as a restaurant and for myself yeah like i started to become someone else and it started to work and it was crazy yeah it was the craziest time so it caught on it worked i still don't know how the hell it worked. And it was the right place, right time. And I don't think it was because of me or anyone else.

It could have been easily somebody else. And then you just started opening restaurants. Because we had to take, I wanted to take care of everybody. The reason we opened a second restaurant is we needed to get more money to pay for healthcare. What was the second restaurant? Sambar, which we almost went out of business again. Yeah. Because I decided to do Asian burritos.

Yeah. But it caught on? No, it was a total failure. It was a total fucking dud. I mean, it was all this hype. Yeah. And everyone's like, just open another bigger noodle bar, because the first one was tiny, 600 square feet, the size of this garage.

Yeah. And I took this thing out of receivership, got a giant loan, million dollar loan. I would have lost everything. My dad put his golf store for collateral. So eventually your dad was on board. Yeah. That was when he knew I was on board when I moved next door to the first restaurant in this cockroach infested little apartment.

And he was like, you're crazy. Yeah. But you mean it. You mean it now. This isn't a hobby. You're fucking my son is nuts yeah um and that restaurant was so i think honestly ahead of its time unfortunately but we were going out of business we our accountant said like you have three weeks left of money and if that happened everything defaulted yeah so i was like fuck like i literally thought myself maybe you have to sell drugs

yeah some marijuana or something like these are the crazy things you start thinking about when you have to make things work yeah well before i do something stupid like that why don't i just open up 24 7 right yeah because what else can i do yeah well i don't want to i don't want to give up on these burritos, so I'll be open from 12 to 4 in the morning. I just won't sleep. I won't sleep. People just didn't want the burritos.

No. And I was like, I'll just fucking work. I worked my ass off. Everybody did. We had the sickest team. God bless them. Did you use regular tortillas? Yeah.

A flour. It was like mushy pork. No, I get it. I get it. But because it seems like you've evolved the bread concept. Like it still seems that there's some element of the Asian burrito that you hang on to. Oh, 100%. I'm not, it is like my Ishtar. You know, I can't, and I still believe it works, but from 12 to four in the morning,

we decided, well, who gives a fuck? We're just going to start cooking whatever the fuck we want to cook. We had Tin Ho, we had Kino Baca, Peter Serpico. We had all of these great, great chefs and cooks. Corey Lane, a great team. And next thing you know, people are coming in from, we're jam-packed from 12 to 4 in the morning, every night of the week. And it took me six more months to give up my ego-driven idea of a burrito be like maybe we should just do this all day yeah right yeah and that's how we survive and then when what was that what

was the restaurant the first restaurant you're like this really you know worked was it after that after the Asian burrito place we did co 12-seat restaurant we I never wanted to do fine dining the only reason long story we got into fine dining is i needed to we're doing so much business at a one restaurant that we got shut down by the health department because we didn't have enough hot water and this is this all pre-truck yeah like because like food trucks are a different thing roy choice started to get huge right around this time, 2009, 2010. Okay, yeah. And so we needed to make ends meet because we had a loan out for that first restaurant

that supported Sambar. So by the time Sambar started to make money and pay the loans back, I still would have lost everything because I need a noodle bar to still make money. But that wasn't. Well, we got shut down by the health department. Right, because of the water. So like, oh, fuck, what are we going to do? So we just reverse engineered.

Like, how much money do we need to make? And how many people can we cook for per day and have enough hot water for those people? So that was 24 people. Yeah. So then we opened a restaurant for 24 fucking people. Yeah. And I didn't want to do fine dining. Which restaurant was that?

It was Coe. And that worked out good? That worked. It was crazy because we were the first restaurant that did a reservation system that was totally democratic. There was no way

I could rig it for my friends. It was 12 seats. I don't need a reservationist and I didn't want to bother the team with answering the phone. It was like, let's just build a system where people can go online.

This is the first of its kind, sort of. And just do it from themselves. It's totally transparent. You see every day, seven days out, if you got the reservation or you didn't. Yeah. And it was like fucking crazy. Yeah. That's when things got super insane in my life and everything.

Yeah. Yeah. Because of the profile of that restaurant. Yeah. And then your whole life. And in living in New York City, it just became like, it was crazy.

Yeah. Yeah. It was totally fucking nuts. And you liked it? I was so caught up in it and I felt, now in retrospect, I can see that I let my ego get in the way

and I wanted a lot of things to happen to survive. But part of it was survival. I think that clearly I mistreated a lot of people with my temper. Now are you a guy that apologizes? I want to just make things right with everybody I possibly can.

I haven't apologized to everybody and I'm still working through a lot of things. Have there been some that are just like, no you there are some people that yeah hate my guts you know and yeah and the way I can reconcile that is by passing on my father it's like I was so angry at him for so long and that's the fucking crazy thing I just wound up being the father figure same father figure to my own employees in a lot of ways yeah and that's the fucking crazy thing i just wound up being the father figure same father figure to my own employees in a lot of ways yeah and that messed me up like your dad you acted like him 100 but it seems like you have people that have been with you for years now yeah and you

know you but and also like obviously early on you cared about health care and you took care of your people but you were just uh one of those people. I was a total fucking prick. I was trying to be diplomatic. You know, I've done a lot of therapy as to why. One of the reasons I spent so much time besides depression was understanding, why do I get angry? I never, this didn't exist in me. And I learned it was called effective dysregulation of my emotions

What is that? Maybe I have it. Um, I've shut down though lately. Yeah. Yeah, my rage is gone In terms of dumping it on people. I know enough about how bad that is I think with a lot of behavioral therapy for being I mean, this is years of me doing this medicine I'm I'm like it's harder for that to come out like the hulk you know yeah yeah right but for me if i see something happen like if somebody does something ridiculously stupid and um not stupid but stupid in the sense that it's not important they don't condense something properly into another container.

Right, right. I might freak the fuck out. Yeah. And I couldn't understand it. And one of which is like, I've learned that doing that right gave me meaning, saved my life. Right.

And in a world where everyone has- It's a control thing. Yeah. And everything had let me down in my life yeah with exception of like books yeah and ideas yeah and cooking saved my life yeah taught me order yeah that if you didn't care about it as much as i did you were attacking me right right yes that's that thing where it's personal it's personal yeah and it's taking me a long time i'm still working at it to know that it's not personal.

Yeah. Why should anybody else care about it as much as I do? Right. And- And they got their own problems. Yeah. Right. And I was just like, I'm so, you talk about this a lot in your pod, like I'm so embarrassed

by my inability to have been better in the past. Yeah. And I'm trying my best to be better moving forward. But that's all I can do it is yeah how but so the evolution of restaurants though you've got how many open still 10 plus okay and i say that because there's multiples of certain things yeah and do you are you active in engaged no i i i we have a ceo we have a culinary team I'm there as support

and to answer things but the day to day operations I've been out of for a few like three four years you don't make menus no no

see that's and that doesn't bother your control issues it's a lot of therapy Mark yeah to get to that point because I would think

that would be crazy you open multiple restaurants and you delegate. Yeah. It seems to me horrifying. Delegating is extremely difficult to do because a lot of people do it, but being good at it is another thing, right? Yeah. And I learned that you can get people to do a lot of different things.

You can yell at them. You can scare them. You can basically force people to do what you want them to do but when your back is turned will they do it willingly on their own volition or will they spite you yeah and i think the the only way to do that is through uh being kind being communicative being open being transparent being vulnerable being all these things that i think are extremely hard for anybody to do and it's ultimately like being a good parent and teaching them the ways

and encouraging them to make mistakes and have ownership in it and to make decisions under duress as best they can. And they're not robots. So it's hard. But it's still a work in progress. And there was a long time where I'd see something not right

and I'd be like, you know. And again, I'm embarrassed. Yeah, yeah. Like, fuck. But how would I have known better? I know, but sometimes embarrassment, like the shame element of what we're talking about here, sometimes if you're not careful with that,

you're just going to use it as a bat to beat yourself up with. And I beat myself up. I'm like, I'm so sorry to so many people that i fucking pissed off and i hurt and yeah you know like when i hear you talk about it it moves me when i'm in my car driving i'm like fuck man like i know that feeling yeah yeah you know it's like you don't want i don't want to hurt anybody that's really just who i am but like fuck yeah it's the worst feeling I know I know Yeah, and it's because of this emotional liability and mental thing

But you seem vigilant and that's the all you can do is is you know think for you know, take a breath You're like I've been a little badly with it like in the quick emails like fuck you Are you doing better though though, you think? In general? Yeah. In life? I mean, you've had a hard year. Oh, yeah.

Well, I mean, I think the grief thing is what it is, and that's moving along, but sort of like, you know, I'm not sure that some of the anger that's coming is not relative to that. Like, you know, that you have to – there's a certain amount of acceptance around tragedy that has to happen because it is what it is and it happens. It happens to people. But, like, I don't really know why outside of the world ending, you know, which I can displace it onto that. But, like, I am feeling a little more angry than usual and angry than usual, and the solutions that usually kind of work for me are not quite working.

I'm a little detached. How about you? I feel guilty because I think I put my head in the sand for a good few months. You did? Yeah. I think part of it was just nesting, getting ready for a new child.

Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I've been also asking myself these fucking questions fucking questions like what am i doing right you know like one reason i was so hesitant to have children or just get my own fucking genetic makeup yeah if you're you don't want to you you want to spare them yeah right but your wife's sort of like uh yeah and and i'm and i think being a father has been um um, I never thought I could love something other than myself as much as I do now. And I think it's been everything. And you barely love yourself. Yeah. Right. You mean you never thought you could love something period. Yeah. Really? Truly selflessly. I think love is something I've never really experienced up until like,

you know, my wife. And now I just feel like I'm in a different phase of my life. And I'm trying my best to surrender to the need for control. Yeah. And I think that is why I'm not so angry at the absurdity that you read about every day. Well, yeah, I think children do that. every day. Sure. Well, yeah, I think children do that. And it seems to me that like, whether it's food or whether it's, you know, depression, that, you know, acting as if or, you know, being vigilant around behavior for yourself, like,

you can change the way you are if through repetition. And you've said it a million times, like golf, it's like anything else. And you have the capacity to do that now you just have to apply it to you know behavior right but this is another thing i've been working on a lot yeah just because you know it and you think it all the time doesn't mean you fucking do it right no i i get that but but but it's sort of like like you know i haven't drank 20 or do drugs over 20 years. How'd that happen? I don't know. But now I don't even think about it. You know, like also with anger.

Like, you know, I don't have anyone around that I'm going to unload on. But like, you know, I've been a rageful asshole. And like I don't really feel the need to do it because I can – I feel it coming. Right? So you make choices to do things differently. I mean intellectually, yeah. Intellectually knowing something. Like I know what's wrong with to do things differently. I mean, intellectually, yeah. Intellectually knowing something, like I know what's wrong with me. I know this, this, this, this.

But you're in an active environment with a family. So I imagine whatever shortcomings you have, there's plenty of days where you choose the right thing. And I still beat myself up when I get angry or I do something. I hold myself to a standard that is just not achievable right yeah yeah well you just you know uh yeah you just got to tighten up uh it's like i used to do a joke about that too where it's sort of like you got to you'll get the the distance in between fuck you and i'm sorry you gotta keep tightening that up to where the fuck you doesn't happen. Right. Very true. Right?

So your relationship with Tony, now, like, what, did you guys both were depressives? Did you know each other, in each other? I think those that know Tony, and Tony had a lot of, like like siloed off relationships with a lot of people. I think initially Tony sort of knew that I was, I was going to be highly combustible. Yeah. I think that was intriguing for him. And if you spend enough time with Tony, if you watch even his shows,

he talks about it all the time. Yeah. It's just there. Right. So he just he just white knuckled heroin yeah and i think for him he thought he could white knuckle anything because if you can do that to heroin you can do that to anything right just you couldn't yeah you can't you can't run away from your addiction yeah so um this is just a lot there's so much to fucking this tony story um i think ultimately

were you guys really close he was like a bigger brother to me yeah um but in touch and actively yeah a little bit a little bit less so the last two three years um because i didn't want to bother him yeah you know what i mean like um he was always there. And whenever I needed anything, he was there. And I just didn't want to bother him because everybody wanted something from him. And I didn't want to be that person. Yeah. So. When it happened, were you surprised?

I mean, obviously, it's surprising because it's tragic. Yeah. But were you like, well, I could. I think for a lot of people, everyone thought it might've been like, I was, part of me was hoping it would just be old age. Right. Yeah. Part of me thought, if anything, it might be heroin again.

Right. Right. I didn't see it coming this way. Yeah. And it was total surprise to me. Yeah. And you found out pretty quickly when it coming this way. Yeah. And it was a total surprise to me. Yeah. And you found out pretty quickly when it happened, right? Yeah.

It totally was a fucking, I still, it's hard to think about. Yeah. Yeah. It's terrible. Yeah. Yeah. That isolated. But it was right around when you were finding out you're going to have a baby.

Well, that was hard. Because right around when you were finding out you're going to have a baby. Well, that was hard. Yeah. You know, one of my last real meaningful conversations I had with him, we had dinner. And we talked about Lori Woolover. His assistant has a book out about Tony. It's like a compilation of a bunch of stories. And the doc was out and in it.

And I don't even know why the fuck I said it to begin with because I was so angry at him. He was projecting. He was like, you're going to be a fucking terrible father, Dave. Yeah. Before I even had a kid. Because he was like, because I am. Yeah.

And you are as well. Right. And that fucked me up. Right. And that fucked me up. Right. And, you know, I'm not a believer in fate or shit like that at all. But I think about it a lot. Yeah. And I think about Tony every day when I see my son because we had been trying to get, my wife had been trying to get pregnant for a couple years and there was a lot of obstacles

in the way. And it got to the point where it's like oh probably will never happen yeah and that day was scheduled to go to the fertility clinic yeah so you're just like yeah kill themselves yeah so you're like there's this window to you you know i was just not in a fucking place. You know, it's like the last fucking thing I wanted to do was that. Oh, my God. Donate some sperm.

Oh, my God. But he did it. And that was the one? That was the one. Well, you'll think about him every day then. Fuck. I mean, I really do. It's such a fucking mind fuck.

But it's positive in a way. Here's the craziest thing. Yeah. For number two. The new kid. I got a call from his agent, Kim, who wanted to talk about Tony. Yeah. The fucking moment I'm going to the elevator to the fertility clinic.

Oh, get out of here. And I was like, what the fuck is happening? Did you name him Tony? No. Anyway, I have never told really anybody that. Yeah. But. Well, I mean, it's an active presence, but I don't know that it's negative to you.

Seems positive to me. I think part of me is it's just randomness. Sure. And you're attaching meaning to it. And I'm trying to tell myself, don't do that. Okay. But I mean, the meaning's not terrible. No, it's not.

I think it's a positive. And I want people to think about Tony in a positive way. He impacted so many people in positive ways. And I wouldn't have a career that I have right now without Tony. As a role model. Yeah. Yeah. He was the fucking best.

Yeah, yeah. He was the fucking best, yeah. Yeah, I was, you know, when I first talked to him, it was great. The second time, he was mad at me. And, you know, that was the last time I saw him. But Tony got mad at a lot of people at the end, you know? Yeah, it was about that stuff, too. You know, he came on the show again to promote something but he had a beef you know and you know and i got it but yeah that

and we weren't friends but that was the last encounter i had with him right he was mad i think that wasn't one reason why and if anybody's listening like if i have a conversation with a friend or somebody that you know that might could be the last conversation you have with them that's what I regret about a lot is like I think there were a lot of moments where I should have had that fucking conversation yeah but I was afraid of being cut out of his life right it's a hard thing for people to which conversation oh the one where you just worry like yeah you're worried or anything you know it's like yeah what are you doing but What are you doing, buddy?

What are you doing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the risk is, fuck you. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Well, congratulations on the new kid, and you seem to be doing well. But the new show seems like a reaction, sort of like, how can I help?

Yeah, well, it started out with the beginning of the pandemic. reaction sort of like how can i help yeah well you know it started out with the beginning of the pandemic and and and uh what was and you talked about people trying to process what the fuck happened in the past 18 months and i think it's going to take a generation to understand if we last that long if we last that long is under you know what really felt like the end of the world march 2020 yeah um and we were just talking to people in my industry and next thing you know it was like how do we do this and we have this thing with deal with Hulu and and I didn't I was apprehensive because I didn't want it to be a depressing show what's it called again next thing you eat okay and part of it was looking at the entrepreneurs the technology the the people that are gonna

give us hope potentially. Yeah. And- In the food world. In the food world, in the restaurants and how we consume things. It's not a prescriptive show. It's not, this is what's going to happen. I think what I wanted with Morgan and the team was, how do we start having conversations, right? About the meaning of something.

Yeah. For example, if we do have cultivated meats which i think we 100 will whether you like it or not we're going to fucking have it like uh man-made meat man-made meat yeah it's one it is i bet my fucking life on it yeah because by 2050 we're not going to have enough protein to feed the people on this planet yeah so protein units is what people in the industry college you're going to need find need to find ways in 20 what 2050 okay which is not that far away right people are not going to stop eating meat or the desire to eat meat that's just genetically coded in our dna and there are a lot of people that are pumping ungodly amount of money to recreate meat from cells and i tasted

it and it's fucking amazing yeah i was like holy shit really and that's when i was like to me the equivalent was for food yeah it was like the equivalent of teleportation right right yeah oh my god we can do this we could what so you just got to shift our perception to accept it. But then like you should conversation. Like, what does it mean? Yeah. You know, it's like if you're a practicing Muslim or kosher. Yeah.

Is it pork? Yeah. Can you eat pork now? Yeah. Well, those are, you know, those are fun questions. But the bigger question is, will it work to provide a reasonable protein source for people who need it when it's diminishing? Yeah, and it will be cheap.

And people think, oh, only rich people eat that. No, actually, I think only poor to lower income people will eat it. And rich people will eat the real shit. And you deal with technology's effect on the food business. But that's obviously technology, but it looks like in the production. Yeah, the robotics of it all. That, to me, is what we got to figure out. And I grew up thinking that you're going to have the Jetsons or something you see on Star Trek.

Yeah. But the future is going to look a lot like what we're eating right now. Yeah. But does it mean that those amazing markets in Turkey go away? Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe.

Maybe. I mean, COVID, again, accelerated everything in life. But I think the change moving from here on out with food is going to happen more gradually where you're not going to know. We're the frog in the hot bath and we're not knowing that the temperature is being increased ever so slightly. Yeah, but I mean, but that's not the outcome we want, is it? No, but the outcome I believe is positive because it's going to shift because the people

that work in this business are too gritty. And positive because it's going to shift because the people that work in this business are too gritty. And I think it's going to shift. I think we're going to be eating. Clearly, we're eating a lot more at home. But I feel very confident that what is consumed at home is going to be a growing business and people are going to be expressed themselves. Maybe they won't open a restaurant right off the bat. Maybe they'll open a restaurant in their home first, see if it works, and then open a restaurant. Interesting.

I am actually hopeful and I have optimism that it's not going to be just like, again, like Demolition Man and Taco Bell of the future. Oh, good. Well, that's exciting. And you got a new cookbook? Yep. And that's- It's coming out October 21st.

What's that called? Cooking at Home. All right. So it's sort of similar themed? Yeah. It's basically don't use recipes. I mean, there's recipes, but it's trying to teach you intuition. Do you like that cookbook, The Fire of Salt?

Oh, Samin, she's fucking, you know, she's next level. That book is stupid good. I love it. Yeah. I got it. Yeah. She's amazing. And that TV show she good. I love it. Yeah. I got it. Yeah, she's amazing. And that TV show she has on Netflix is fantastic. I haven't watched it.

It's good. Yeah, it's really, really good. All right, man. Well, thank you for talking to me. Thank you for having me, Mark. And thanks for the Grateful Dead record and the chili stuff. And you guys are going to send me more food stuff? Yeah.

Really? Yeah. Thanks, man. At least we could do, man. Good to see you. Thank you for having me. That's it. That was good.

That was deep. We got some work done. The Next Thing You Eat is now streaming on Hulu. The cookbook, Cooking at Home, comes out next Tuesday. Did I mention I want one? October 26th. I'd like to get one in the mail. Thank you. Thank you. Should I do this on the phone? Should I want one? October 26th. I'd like to get one in the mail. Thank you. Thank you.

Should I do this on the phone? Should I do it through a DM? Should I text? I'd like a book. Can I? Wait till you hear the crunch on this little Fender Champ. Austin Hooks hot-rodded it out in Texas, sent it back to me. Now I'm going to crunch it. electric guitar solo Thank you. Boom or lives. Boomer lives!

Monkey and La Fonda and cat angels everywhere. I don't even know if I like that one. I don't even know if I like that one. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category,

and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m.

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