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He's a really interesting guy who specializes in dry aging meat, and he has a fantastic steakhouse called APL. And I am hoping that they make it through this. And this is a very, very tough time for restaurants and small businesses.

So I wanted him to come on and talk about the struggle and what's going on and what they're doing to combat. He's doing a bunch of amazing work, too. They're making meals for hospital workers and first responders. And he's just a great guy and I love him.

Please give it up for Adam Perry Lang, government podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience Train My Day Job.

Paul Gas my night all day. Brother, how are you? Good to be here. Good to have you. I have enjoyed your restaurant many times.

My favorite steak restaurant in all of Los Angeles. Thank you. It's one of the reasons why I wanted to bring you in here, because this is a really crazy time for restaurants.

And I mean, that's basically that's the gist of it. This is a crazy time.

It's it's bananas. It's absolutely crazy trying to just get a handle on it. It's just overwhelming.

So for me, it's just head down and cook, try to help people, you know, that are in need and then we'll figure it out later.

Well, I know you've been doing a lot of cooking for first responders and for hospitals and like, what have you been doing with your time now that this is.

Well, it really first started where basically everything just everybody was just staring at each other and saying, what what is going on? What's happening?

And I had I didn't layoff any of my employees. And it's all happening. Everybody else is closing up shop. And, you know, I'm just overwhelmed as a business owner, what am I going to do? And I actually had my GM come up to me and, you know, because I'm trying to figure it out, everybody says, what's going to happen?

My GM came up to me and says, hey, listen, you know, we're with you. We know you didn't create the coronavirus. You know, you do it. You have to do.

And we know your heart's in the right place. And I was just like I just like kind of just let out a breath.

And I'm like, OK, well, I appreciate you saying that. And then I was just head down, get down to business with it. And we had to cut back 90 percent of the staff. And we were just like, just cook didn't know who were, you know, who's going to buy it or anything. It's just crazy.

So would you just tell it? But it's the steakhouse called APL and it's in L.A. in what is that like the theater district? What is that called?

Yeah, it's in the heart of Hollywood, Hollywood and Vine. Yeah. And it's right next to the Pantages Theater, which we and what's ironic was it was literally when they closed down all the restaurants was the going to be the night of Hamilton premiere, which is a big deal for us as a business. And, you know, all of a sudden it's like it stops.

Yeah, we I went to your place right after we saw something was.

Oh, it was frozen. Yeah. OK, I have daughters, right? Yeah, we went to see Frozen and that was the last time I was at your place.

It's. It's got to be a very strange thing. This has never happened before, and one of the things that we've talked about a lot on this podcast is what's so devastating about this is there's a lot of people that have lost businesses in the past because markets changed and because maybe they didn't do what they could have done or work as hard as they could have worked. But for so many small businesses and restaurants and bars, they've been doing the best work they've ever been able to do.

They're putting in the hours, they're showing up. They're putting out these amazing meals. And then because of nothing, that's their fault. It just gets shut off.

As this gets shut off, it's crazy and without any real understanding of how long it's going to take or when when you're going to. I mean, we just had a conversation. I was saying we should just talk about this on air because we were just talking in the green room like there's no clear indication of when you'll be able to go back to work and serve food to the general public and what that's going to look like.

I know it's it's it's the unknown, but how I'm investing my time, how a lot of other chef restaurant tours are investing their time, is trying to serve takeout to the public, but also doing charitable and things to provide for first line, you know, front line. You know, the and one of the things is, is, you know, Jimmy Kimmel and I teamed up to for every meal that we prepare, we donate a meal to St.

Joseph Center. So that was the first thing was for our our attitude was is like we want to help people and let them know that they're cared about. And then the other thing is to really just keep even just the five people working because we didn't even know if people are going to order. So we jumped into it like that. And then these services, such as Front Line L.A., which comes in and brings it's like the glue between us in the hospitals.

And we we prepare meals for 150 meals at a time for the hospital workers.

And do you guys package them up and then have them delivered to the hospital?

Yeah, exactly. I mean, so we'll just sit there, they'll say, hey, we have a need for this particular hospital. You know, Hollywood Presbyterian. OK, great. 150 people. We package up the meals.

How do you do that? Do they order off a menu or do you just prepare? No.

One of the things that don't, Joy, we prepare healthy things, things that they would appreciate. And then also sometimes I would just serve comfort items. So sometimes I'll do meatloaf, gravy and mashed potatoes because, you know, if they're just all healthy, sometimes they just need a little bit more of, like, you know, warmth and like these kind of like pull in.

That's a weird, weird comfort food, you know? It is. But that's what's happening.

That makes but it works like the comfort. Like when you say macaroni and cheese, comfort food.

Yeah, it is. That's what people are gravitating towards. That's where my menu is right now. It's all comfort food and barbecue. Really. Yeah.

So do you. Is that because that's what people are asking for. Well, that's my cook steaks, right.

That's my read on the market. You know, I had experienced a similar thing where things shut down and people needed help. And that was around, you know, during 9/11.

And, you know, our attitude was is like, how can we help people? Those, you know, those in need and and really comfort food really kind of just blossomed out of that.

So when you're doing right, so you're doing takeout as well. And how does that work? Do they order online or do they call up like how does that work?

Like, we prefer curbside as opposed to just doing post Matsen GrubHub. You know, people can do that. And so we'll get people to come deliver.

Yeah, let's get to that because how does that work? Postmus and GrubHub, is that good for your business? Is that is it less good than people ordering directly from you? It doesn't work.

Well, it's great for a business because it gives us a greater range and we really can't deliver. So it gives us an opportunity. So it's a whole nother market. But, you know, they charge a backend fee on it. So we have to charge it a bit. And, you know, for us, we'd prefer just to kind of sell directly to the customer curbside, which would do a good clip up to it's probably about half and half.

So, like, what if you had to guess, like, what's the capacity is as far as like for your business is like full on, wide open where people can come and sit down versus now how much is it deteriorated?

It's it's maybe ten, fifteen percent of the business go down to. Yeah. And that's why I'm just focusing on like I just got to keep moving. That's how I'm emotionally getting through this thing and also keeping the business going. This is basically just cook for people that are in need, you know, focus on the hospitals and then and the neighborhood just right around us. So. It's a tough spot, and you have obviously you have a lot of friends that are in the restaurant business and so what is talk all the time?

What's the general feeling like? What is what's the temperature like? How is everybody dealing with this?

You know, first of all, knowing that a good number of us are not going to be around because just even figuring out all the rules and the laws that are going to happen around this thing or unfolding, they're just very hard to read and get a clear understanding of what's happening. So a lot of people just don't know the unknown. You know, landlords, you know, we're deferring rent. But at the same time, you know, they're not accepting of that.

So we're like on the hook and we don't even really know where we're going to end up with it. Even just that cheap loans.

What is PPY? It's that paycheck protection program, and that's really a government funded assistance to supply restaurants and all businesses. I think of all the loans given out, I think only five percent of all the loans given out were actually to restaurants. So they they give you a chunk of money, essentially, that covers eight weeks of payroll and also a portion of that for 2010, that 75 percent has to be spent on payroll covers for eight weeks. And then the other 25 percent is for rent and utilities.

So it's like an eight week lifeline.

So and so far, how long has it been? Now we're looking at like six weeks of lockdown so far or something like that.

Feels like longer. It's got to be a little bit longer. Like for me, it feels it probably is that I don't even have a concept of time.

I'm working so hard. It's just me and four other people and two are in the front and two with me in the kitchen. We're doing dishes, we're cooking, we're cleaning, we're doing everything.

I mean, it's a great sense of, you know, what, you know, accomplishment. I got an email from a nurse thanking us for the healthy meal that we prepared for them, and that makes it worth it. But, you know, like for me, I'm actually, like, inspired and just kicking it into high gear. I'm not going to like just while you're at it, I'm just going to keep working, head down, do what I do, and just hope at the end of the day, at the end that people have to eat.

So the world's going to be different, you know, probably not going to be the same at all in terms of my business. But what choice do I have?

Right. Well, one of these men. So, yes, sure. Cutcliffe CBD drink delicious. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry for people. Listen to me slurp.

I like that. So. When you're operating at 10 percent capacity, obviously this is not sustainable. Ten percent of your business is not sustainable. That's right. Just because operating costs and all the above. And then you're obviously in a very high profile area, which must be extraordinary.

Yeah, we're just not paying the rent, you know, we're just pushing it off. We can't we don't have the money for it, so we'll have to work it out.

You look very stressed out. I don't I've never seen you like this. Every time I've seen you, you right there with a big smile. Whenever I see you at your restaurant, it's always smiling. I found out about your restaurant on the answers.

You know, it's just it's crazy.

I found out about your restaurant online. I was just Googling new places to go for dinner. And I don't know, like maybe a couple of years ago and I was Googling steakhouses. And then I saw that you specialize in dry aged steaks. And I had a steak that you cooked once that was more than a year.

Dry aged was just so yeah, it was delicious, but it was really weird.

I mean, weird. It's different. Anything like a regular steak. It tastes like, boy, it's like a different animal.

It's like you're eating something, you know, some exotic animal.

And that's what I like to do. I mean, you know, marriage doesn't necessarily mean better, but, you know, it's just different.

And that's, you know, for me as a chef, you know, I call my daydream and environmental chamber, I think.

Yeah, there's a picture on Instagram of me and Adam in the basement, that fucking meat locker room that you've got. And it's for people that have never been to a dry ageing room.

It's very odd. There's fans blown around. Everything is a very specific temperature. You've got all these different things labeled as far as like what date it was put in there.

And for no one, for people who haven't seen dry ageing, it's very odd, too, because you like, hey, what is wrong with that meat? Yeah, exactly. The outside crust of it.

Yet here's a photo of it, folks. You can see it in the background of the.

It's not working. We got to tell. There it is, so for folks who could see it in the background, the meat has like a black crust to it and then you slice that crust off.

What do you do with the crust? Get rid of it.

But is it edible and it's not enjoyable? And what about for dogs? I want to give something a dog I won't eat myself. Wow, you really dog food to eat dog food? No, you feed your dog dog food. I don't have a dog. I wish I could be honest with you. I have a dog and he eats dog food. Yeah, I'd love them to death, but he eats. He actually ground elk but mixed in with regular dog food even that.

I mean it gets a white ash which is almost like I call it a there's a friendly oxidation.

I referred to it and the whole process, OK, is that white ash like the same as you get on outside of salami? It's like that.

It's part of it. It's a mold. And the whole concept behind dry ageing, it's based on three things.

It's air velocity, temperature and humidity. Air velocity.

Yes. And it's really important. I like to you know, when I teach people about triaging, it's like if you're on a beach in Jamaica and there was no wind and you just start getting sweat and you're just uncomfortable. But then if Tradewinds went through, it would have at the same temperature to evaporate the water off your skin.

So what we're trying to do is we're trying to get the right ratio, evaporate the water off the surface so it doesn't get like a smelly, stinky, bad mold and dehydrate it slowly.

What it does is it concentrates the flavor. It transforms the amino acids into a whole different compound and changes the flavor altogether. And then also enzymes within the meat through the process of rigor mortis. It breaks down so it becomes more tender. So you get flavor enhancement, you get terrorization and it just it just blows it away.

So what does it do to the amino acids?

It transforms into a whole nother compound. It's like a flavor. It's it's like when we talk. Have you ever heard of the concept of, like, my reaction? Yes.

But I don't know what it means anymore. I've heard the expression, but I forgot what I mean.

Yeah, the Maya reaction is basically like when you're cooking something went into the past, it kind of the worst.

Is it my Lano? No. MAIG LHD, right, my lord.

Oh my Lord. OK, I said my arm. OK, that's what I know as so you know, when you're over you're browning. Are you doing different things at different rates. Amino acids transform into different things and you get different flavor compounds and that's really what happens, you know, with meat, you know. So if I dry age, you have to handle dry age meat a lot differently. You can't go on saying, OK, I'm going to slow cooked.

This once is triage, because then it just it develops a really nasty, kind of like funky flavor.

But if you cook it under high heat, like really aggressive, like that's why you have steak house broilers. There's something about that browning of that triage meat that transforms that just like awakens your senses. That's interesting.

So you don't slow cooked. Dragged me.

No, I don't. It gets delivery. It's almost like a delivery. So feeling. Yeah. I don't even if anybody wants drayage above Med..

I try to talk him out, I'll cook it any way you want, but if you start cooking pece medium it's almost like you know.

Seeing someone like Transform like it, just ages, like when you cook it a long time, it just ages and just turns into something else.

It's just it's those people who want well done. Steak are offensive. You should go and eat Burger King, you monsters. What's wrong with you? When I when I go to dinner with someone, they order welldone steak. I just cringe. Like, who am I eating?

Yes, it's a cultural thing. I noticed with some people, like they just want to cook. But if they want a well done steak, then I recommend the wedding steak to do well done because, you know, at least, you know, you have a fighting chance for some type of flavor.

But it's weird, like, why are you eating steak? Yeah. You know, you know, it's true.

Like, Joe, it's just that's for me, you know, for everybody. It's a criminal. It's a criminal act. You're wasting a piece of me, Drew. I kind of like I kind of look the other way. I mean, what do you want to catch up with that? Yeah, it's painful for me. Yeah, it's painful.

I mean, some people grew up eating well done steak and that's how they like it. Joey Diaz eats medium well. Medium well.

What are you doing. Why? It just doesn't taste as good and it's also there's an art to the perfect temperature, right? What's the perfect internal temperature of a medium rare steak, which to be like 135 or something?

No, no, it's a bit less, but it's not necessarily the temperature, it's kind of like how you get there.

OK, let me explain that to you. So, OK, I have this method where particularly for thicker stakes, where I'll cook it, I start the cooking and then I get it to about 105 degrees, and then I allow it to rest at 105. And when it's happening, as I call the method, just like tempering of the meat and it basically it starts transmitting that temperature in towards the center. And then I put it back in again and then it'll it'll it'll heat up the temperature, if you like, take it, I would say from medium rare, even though like on many logs will say, OK, 120, 125 is rare, but it's not.

You know, for me, if you're going to do that method, a solid medium rare will be about 120. Really.

Yeah. So why do they think 120 is rare? I don't really understand that exactly. You know, they'll get there. I think they're overshooting it, particularly for me. It's not rare. Like rare is is is one can using the method that I use now, different people have different methods, which is really what's fascinating about cooking meat.

I ate it a couple times. I've eaten at bizarre meats in Vegas, which is a fantastic recipe.

That's fantastic. I made my chef. Sandra's amazing.

It's an amazing place to watch you walk in there. Just visually. It's really interesting because they have these grills with live logs.

I mean, they take not live, obviously, but they take cooking all over fire and they have these grates, these grill grates that rise and lower. And, you know, you could see how they're doing it. When you walk in the door, as you walk into your table, you're passing by. Yeah. And this method of this idea of cooking over logs like cooking over fire, some people prefer that and then some people like those crazy broilers where they're gas.

But the broiler, it's on top of Daikin and it's lowering down. Exactly what is that?

Is there a difference and why it really comes down to what your taste preferences? OK, for me, like where I'm at right now, drayage without any type of smoke or wood is more preferable because I really want to taste the dry age. When you start getting into the wood fire cooking and your burning logs that aren't burnt out. I like to cook basically my wood down to charcoal, like to ash so that it's cleaner. OK, so then you really taste the meat when you start, you know, burning on unburnt fuel.

You know, the logs themselves, it has like these creosote and different flavor compounds that will get on the meat. And it's just kind of just like coats your palate. So I like that from a wet beef. OK, but for the dry age, I really like cleaner.

I like the steak house broiler. I like using a planche, you know, and that's just like a heated piece of steel.

It's like you can do that in your home with the cast iron. It's called the plunger planche.

You know, it's just kind of like this flat sheet of steel and it's all about crust development and surface contact. So, like, I like to cut the steaks on a saw. So it's a perfect line and it's all about contact direct with the surface. It's about the browning of the meat.

You know, if you're going to get in there and you're going to cook over live would like that. He's doing it, obviously, right. Because he's amazing.

But, you know, when you raise and lower the shelf, like I was saying, how I arrest it, like you can start on the higher, higher level of the heat and then you bring it up higher, the actual grill higher. And it's actually resting while still getting like the tickle of of heat up there.

The tickle of heat. Yeah.

So I imagine like so the flames won't actually touch the meat. It kind of tickles it. So it's kind of like it kind of wisps at the bottom of the meat.

And so the way he's doing it is bizarre meats. He's using weddady sticks because that's how you would cook over over that kind of I don't know if he's doing it.

That's my personal preference. I mean, I just do some aging. It does do some aging, I believe, over there.

So but it's it's just I've watched YouTube videos and how to cook the perfect steak. You can watch three different videos and three different chefs and there's three different methods you like.

Well, thinking about dry aging, though, I mean, all aging is not created equal. I call an environmental chamber. So think about it like making cheese in France. You say, hey, I got a goat cheese and you think you'd get one type of goat cheese across the line. I'm creating an environment just like a cheese maker, OK? That's unique to my own. I actually have the culture from fifteen, sixteen years ago that I've traveled with, you know, put a hold on.

You put culture.

So, yeah, I have like a method.

I basically take meat that has been aged and I bring those spores, if you will, from that aging meat because, you know, there's a mold on it.

It's a friendly mold and it's a friendly mold.

Yeah, I like it. I don't really I don't want to like, you know, turn people off to it because this is bad. I didn't know that you brought your own mold. Yeah. So I just figured you just let it dry age.

It's not as it's not as simple as that for me. Like it's each environment again. So I get away from like some can turn around and say, like my dry age is incredibly clean at 100, 100 days, 120 days because I get there slowly, my temperature's very low. I like to try to 32 to 35 degrees like a high humidity. So I don't dehydrate the meat too soon. I like eighty five percent, sometimes a little bit lower if I want to pull.

It's really depends, you know.

So when you have fans, so when you say the like, how are you bringing this culture in and how do you get it to interact with the ME?

I basically take I take pieces from the previous, you know, dry ajram and I bring it to that. And so I put it up by the fan and it will circulate spores.

You put it by the fan. Like, how do you do that when there's a fan and in a cooler and it's blowing around, it's like blowing. So blow the the spores around the room.

So my drayage has a unique flavor in my tray. You know, some great guys who like massive rivers in the Bronx, such as these guys like my heroes, you know, they taught me practically dry ageing. They have their own flavor. So their dry tastes different. You know, Pat, the Frida's another New York guy does amazing dry age beef as well. You know, his has a different flavor. So, you know, for me, that's why I take a lot of pride, even though it's not the most cost effective thing to carry, you know, hundred thousand dollars in inventory.

But it gives me unique flavor profile. That is my unique selling point for my restaurant.

So you have these pieces. So like those steaks that we saw in that photograph you take.

One of those dried steaks, when it's ready and then you would trim the pieces off, then you use those pieces, those darkened pieces, which has the spores on it, and that would how do you know how much to put in there?

I put as much as I can. You know, I'm really I don't want it to, like, clean, clean in there. I want it to be an environment. So it's like a cave. And, you know, I put a couple of trays and then I I'm very tactile. So I'll touch the meat and I'll feel it and, you know, I'll taste it. I'll see where we're at. I'm always cutting into a steak.

It's like a lot like easy. Taste it. You cook it. Yeah.

Like I'll cut off a piece like how are we looking at 30 days? How are we looking at 50 days? So each room is different because, you know, I had a dream in Vegas and we had, you know, ceilings that were 30, 35 feet, lot of circulating air. It was just it was just like had a different flavor profile.

We're able to age 150 days. And that was like our sweet spot. OK, and then here in Hollywood, it's a lot less of a lower ceiling.

It circulates differently. It's just you have to really kind of taste it's not just like, hey, I've dry age or you go to the supermarket. It's like, oh, you sell drayage. OK, great, I'll take it. And if you think that's what it tastes like, it's a good indicator of what it is.

But if you really want to get, you know, like down to it, you know, each try age can tastes a lot different that.

So that's really weird. So it's. It's very experimental in a lot of ways, it's constantly moving. I wanted to take you to dial it in.

Well, when I first started, it was really by mistake, particularly the extended age, because you just weren't selling the meat. So I had a couple of a lot of pieces like like left, you know, back for a long time. And, you know, I was like, take the cut into it. I taste this like, whoa. I mean, this is incredible. And I was talking to the old school guys who drayage like, oh, you're wasting your money.

Nobody wants to take over 42 days. You know, it's just dehydrating. What I think now, I think one month is something, you know, there's there's a big difference here in the flavor. And as you know, we would see like a huge difference, a jump in flavor and like, good quality, not like the funky stuff, like the the full year that like that's another level. That's very good, though.

You say funky. And I want to say I just want to clarify to people. It is delicious. It is delicious, but it's unusual.

It's like you're eating something from Africa, some unusual koutou meat or some strange game.

Yet it's got you only want to you don't want to eat too much like people want like a whole steak. I'm like, no, you just want two slices of it. Savor it like a fine wine. Understand that. Get to know it but don't like hunkered down on it.

How come you don't want people to hunker down on it. Because sometimes too much of a good thing is not good. OK, and I say the same thing also for the Japanese Wagh you like. Oh you see all that fat, the mobilization. It's incredibly rich and if you eat it like a Westerner, it's not right.

It's just it's too much. So certain steaks, certain types of beef, you should be eating only a small amount and appreciating anything more like you just it's just.

I don't know, it gets me it's too much for me. When did people start dry ageing? A year. Like when when did this really? Because this is not something I mean, obviously, I know nothing about restaurants other than they're great.

But but when I had heard about dry aging out here, 30 days dry aged, 60 days dry aged, I never heard of a year like this is a new thing.

You know, they were doing it in Spain for some time, particularly with the older animals, like the oxen, you know, animals that are five years, eight years, ten years old. And they would have these for long periods of time. I was not aware of this when I started doing it, but they were the first people that I heard about. It was doing it while I was doing it. There was amazing food writer Jeffrey Steingarten who just like dialed in to me.

And we did a tasting with one of my culinary heroes, Harold McGee, who wrote an incredible book on food and cooking, which is a scientific manual to all chefs around this amazing guy.

And he had put in his book that there's really no difference in flavor when you get to that that point and so that later stage. So we cook three steaks and we cut a cube out of the center of it. And at that point, you know, he says, wait, maybe there is something different. I'm not sure.

I mean, nowadays you hear more about it because we're chefs.

We like to play with things. We like to push the limits on things. But not many people want to make the commitment because it's so costly to carry the inventory and they're scared to actually do it, because if you screw it up, you know, you lose all the money.

So I see more of it now.

But back when I was doing it, there really wasn't anybody else pushing the limits. Maybe a few people I don't want to say like I was the only one, but, you know, possibly could have been a few people. But, you know.

So it's what's interesting to me about just cuisine and cooking in general is that I didn't think of it until I watched Bourdain original show No Reservations.

I didn't think of it as an art form. And then when I watched the show, I was like, well, into cooking.

This guy is that's one of the things about people being really passionate about something.

It's it's incredibly contagious. And his passion for cooking and his fascination with different methods of these masters would use and the way he would just just you could see it like he was he was so focused on it and so enthralled by these flavors and these creations of these chefs would make that I realized, like, oh, this is an art form.

It's just an art form that you eat.

But I never thought of it that way. I just thought, oh, that place has delicious food, this place tastes good.

And then you go to a really fine restaurant or a fine steakhouse like your place and you go, oh, these people are they're artists.

They're artists. It bounces between art and craft. You know, it's like there's there's a moment in time when as chefs, we explore it as art, you know, because, you know, you're not going in with any boundaries and you're not going any preconceived notions of what it should be. And that's when cooking is a true art.

Most of the time where we're doing that, the craft part where we figured it out, and then there's a regiment of like lining it up to make sure it's consistent and we pride ourselves and basically that consistency and team gathering around and doing something universal together. But the art form for me is and maintaining just being curious and inquisitive has just been my bug from the day I decided to be a chef. And for many people like Bourdain and every other chef that I know of, that's that's the key that you know, that you'll never learn everything, you know.

But, you know, you keep trying. And there's just like a sea of information that, you know, that's out there to explore. Yeah.

He would take you on these journeys to these like very strange restaurants in France where, you know, they're on the side of a lake and there's like 10 customers and 100 chefs working. And they're creating these things like with filet knives and a grape and like two, two or three caviar eggs. And they give it to these people. They're in ecstasy. I'm like, what? This is so different.

I almost felt embarrassed when I first started talking to him about this.

Like like I it's is it you know, it's like it's like for me, like I've been a lifelong martial artist and I when some people believe ridiculous things about martial arts and then you have to kind of well, that's not really how it works. You have to kind of explain to them. And then they see it from my perspective, like, oh, you've been doing this your whole life. This is something you're deeply invested in and you're very passionate about.

And you care very deeply about the true nature of what martial arts are. Well, that's how cooking is to chefs. It's they're all very similar.

I know people don't like to think of martial arts as it's a great analogy, but they don't like to think of it as an art form because it hurts people, because it's violent and violence is bad.

But it is an art form. It's just a strange one that it's beautiful to the people that appreciate it, that understand how difficult it is to pull something off and how what this incredible dance between these people is.

But on the outside, like an ignorant person or a person with a very narrow minded perspective would say, oh, that's not an art, that's violence. That's terrible. Was it Meryl Streep that said that? Wasn't it during? Yeah, it was it was like martial arts or not the arts, like, OK, lady, you sound out.

It's people have their preconceived notions and I had an embarrassing preconceived notion about food. And I say embarrassing. Great analogy, by the way.

It is in many ways and in comedy is similar in that sense as well, because people look at comedy like, oh, they're just telling jokes.

So yes, yes, they are telling jokes, but the process is so labor intensive.

There's so much going on. And it's I think it's like everything, so many things.

You look at them from the outside, whether it's carpentry or sculpture, you look at it from the outside. And if you have no experience in it, people can dismiss it and they don't think of it as this passionate art form. But now I have a completely different I mean, I became good friends with Bourdain and, you know, I did a show and hung out with him a bunch times and. I got it then I'm like, OK, this is a different thing than I had this this idea, this narrow-Minded idea of what food is and then you get to meet other chefs and you meet all these people and you're like these are these like sort of underappreciated artists that are also feeding people.

He had that ability. He had the ability to bridge the gap and to help people understand. He schooled me once and try to understand Japanese cuisine.

Yeah, you were telling me about that. Yeah. Tell me about what was that like? Well, I was just I was sitting there around the table. I was there. Him and Amorello was it was it was after an event down in South Beach, food and wine. And we're all, as cooks do all at the end of an event.

You know, we're sitting around and we just kind of reminiscing and things happening.

And he was there sitting next to him and someone brought up the concept of, you know, Japanese cuisine. And I just said, yeah, you know, it's it's so simple. And he just said, yes, but it's so complex. And then I just took a step back and he just began to really school me on it. And he just had the ability just to really communicate food and connection to community and culture. And and that for me was was a big moment.

Like I just got to really see him as that person directly.

I didn't think that sushi was very complex at all. The Japanese food until I was Jiro Dreams of sushi.

That's it. You watch that and you go, wow, my gosh.

I mean, you just look at the fish and it just starts to curl, you know, it's so fresh or they slap the clam and it just like curls up like, whoa, that's fresh. And the pride and the seasonality. And I mean, like what blew me away. I've been to Japan a couple of times. This amazing guy name the Tokyo fixer, Shinji Nohara. All the chefs know him. If you go to Japan. Tokyo fixer.

Yeah, he's known as a Tokyo fixer.

Was he a fixer because he knows all the places on the in the books, off the books, if you wanted to, let's say just, you know, know who like produces the best tuna. He'll get you to the tuna boat and he'll introduce you to the guy, the main guy.

But I mean, these guys who buy the tuna by the tuna, for example, like you're seeing them at the market touching, feeling it. But the best sushi chefs know the actual captains and they know how they're handling the fish. And they have a relationship that far before it actually hits the auction. I mean, they're in it. They're they're so committed. I asked him one day, you know, he was talking about this big tuna auction that they do every year.

And I said, why would someone pay a million dollars for tuna, like, you know, Western like, how do you make your money back?

It's like, no, you know, Japanese, it's it's it's considered a, you know, an obligation if you can afford it, to actually be able to even at a loss to your customers, because it's almost a duty to do so. And that for me is profound in this way. Japanese chefs, I went there and I was just like that.

The million dollar tuna thing was explained to me by another chef as a dick waving contest. He said, it's essentially you're looking for it's a prestige thing.

It's prestige. Yeah. Like that. They'll show that they're spending so much money on this tuna.

Not because it's worth that. Oh, it's definitely not. Yeah, because that's why it's confusing to people. Because people like tuna worth a million dollars. Well it's not.

But like culturally deep down inside of them, it's like it's almost their duty to do it. It's not as if I mean, it's it's definitely like you could look at as a show off thing. But I mean, if you really understand from like Western culture, but in reality there it's almost like it's a pride thing. It's not like, hey, look at me. It's really more like, you know, I'm able to provide this for my customers.

So it's it to me, it's like it's a little bit more beautiful to look at it that way. Right. You know, and and profound and like even like why I got into making knives for me, it's like it's everything to do with my trips to Japan was because I wanted to, as a chef, to do everything that I can within the cycle of serving the steak on the plate, like up to the point where they cut the meat to.

To, you know, to have that control on it and then ultimately, whether they like it or not, that's their business.

But at least I did everything that I could, you know, to control it, because even just how you cut the meat is has a different impact on how you would taste it.

Yeah, that's one of the interesting things about your place. Like you make the steak knives. So like when they serve you and they put the forks of the knife down, they tell you, you know, Adam Perry Lang made the steak knife you like.

Oh.

And I priced it at nine hundred fifty dollars and one cent everybody like why so much I say. It's price to be a deterrent, you know, it's one cent over the felony threshold and the felony threshold. It's like if you steal something and the value is over nine hundred fifty dollars, it's a felony.

So, yeah.

So in the state of California. So from my perspective, like, I don't want to sit there, you know, like, you know, people are idiots sometimes, you know, but going to the restaurant and they'll just take stuff and they don't realize what goes into it. And it's like, listen, you know, I know I'm going to have a couple of bad apples in there, but the majority of people really are good people and they're not going to steal things.

But a good majority will take pepper mills and things, I mean, which infuriates us as restaurateurs.

So that's so gross. Never thought of that. Oh, it's terrible. It's terrible. Like what they'll take, you know, meaningful stuff because, you know, you really want to, like, do nice things for your customers.

You catch people taking pepper mills. No, I don't put this on the table.

I won't even expose myself to it. But for the knife, though, we have quite like I have one story. You know, only a few people have attempted. And I basically got to the point of like. Pressing charges to get the guy, but instead I said I found them on, you know, Twitter and I message him, I'm like, listen, I don't know, how do you know who took your knife?

You know, we know everything and have cameras and we have, you know, who the reservation is under. So we had cameras all over the restaurant. So when we put the knife down, we have a whole system of like knife in, knife out. And this guy had slipped. And I'm not going to mention his name because they he did the right thing. But he had slipped the knife into the baby carriage, into his baby's carriage.

Oh, thank you, mother.

I so I so I called them very calmly and I said, listen, I don't think you realize what went into those knives.

I make them no response, no response. And then I it's like it's a felony. And I'm going to give you until six o'clock today to return the knife. And then he realized we were serious. He returned the knife and then. You know, now he returned to personally, yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, well, awkward if I had another guy and he returned it and he just, like, pissed off, he handed it back and he walked out the door.

I was mad at you because he stole some of that cigarette.

It's dealing with the general public. I mean, in the sense this is a lot like comedy clubs like most people are amazed. Yes.

And then you get a few knuckleheads yell out things and interrupt the show and you just try not to allow it to to penetrate you, to start causing you to not make nice things to your customers. And so you try to block that out. You just try to give, like, a good experience to the best that you can.

Yeah, that's the same thing with comedy. You know, you want to make sure that you never have a negative feeling about the audience, but some people do developed that don't understand you.

It's it's almost like if you read every comment on Twitter, you know, most people are nice.

Yeah. But it only takes one percent. Like I was explaining to my friend Jack, who was on the other day, author Jack Carr, and he read some comments.

He goes, Now I know why you don't read the comments.

I'm like, I told you, I go, listen, you just have to think if one percent of the people who are on my Instagram page are assholes, just one percent, that's 92000 assholes.

It's insane. You have to think of it that way. Like, why would you risk your mental well-being and put it in the hand of two thousand miles? And that's generous. One out of a hundred people. If you went into a room and there's 100 people in there, what are the odds that one of those people is going to be a fucking idiot? It's pretty high. Yeah, right.

Well, you've got to think that way times three or four online because of anonymity, because the fact that people are you know, they don't think they're hurting a person when they say something mean and they look at a restaurant like all these fucking guys, they don't need this knife or this will look cool and like it's almost like this is an entitlement, you know.

Yes. And all this meal was so expensive. Still a knife. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they feel like you are doing great. You've got this really nice restaurant on Vine in Hollywood. You must be a baller. Yeah. They don't get it.

No. Well hopefully they'll get it if they hear this. Maybe they probably won't. Listening that they actually stole the knife right now it's like motherfucker.

Yeah well we got me. Yeah we've got them back. We've got to make the majority of them so.

Oh so there's a few out there out in the wild, few out there and you could buy them to write you. Well you know what, like I have sold it, but again I price it to deter. Right.

So because I only have a certain number, you know, I made I think I made like three hundred and twenty on the first run and then I just made another 500 with my partner. He's a master Blade Smith, this guy, Casey London, he's just you know, him and I like we're head down and we can literally spend 12 to 14 hours just stamping Nick's insignia into the blade. And, you know, days upon days, like thousands of hours of work go into these things.

And who else does that?

Is there any other chefs that make their own knives? Not that I really know. You got that market cornered.

I guess so. I guess so. You know, how did you get involved in that? Like it was that something you thought like, hey, this would be a great additional touch or were you always fascinated with knife making?

Well, I was I've always been fascinated by knives because in knives to a chef or an extension of themselves. So you can judge like a chef just based on how sharp that and how they maintain their knives in terms of what type of quality of output they're actually going to do. It's essential. Pride's like. So if you're just a home, someone who has a garden and grows a tomato, you know, you're going to take that first tomato. You think you're just going to grab any knife from the drawer, you're going to get your sharpest knife and you're going to slice into it.

So like everything we do, it's like if you're seriously committed to the craft, it's like you want to make sure your tools are top notch.

And for me, I've always, you know, always had a knife in my hand. But when I saw my business in London, you know, I wanted it just takes some time. And I got into this concept of wanting just to go that next step, next level. And I was fascinated with steel. So I went to the New England School of Metal Work and I started first we learned how to make steel from from iron and then went through the whole process.

I think they have these great courses, you know, week, two weeks, three weeks at a pop. So, you know, it's about a year flying back and forth to Maine to to attend the school. And then that community is is like I remember a restaurant community before Food Network got involved.

And, you know, it's all about craft and and sharing information. So you can go to these things called Hammerman's, where around the country they'll be an ensemble of maybe like. Nine to 10, you know, master Smiths who will show like AK handle making or, you know, making a dagger or tempering steel, you know, in a certain way.

And, you know, you learn and. I just became fascinated with it just to actually just use a power hammer with a 5000 pound anvil and like thin out steel and it's just like it's it just puts adrenaline through you. It's like physical, like making something and then knowing that you're making something that will last generations if it's maintained. I mean, that's powerful stuff.

You want to see some cool on the other table. That's a samurai sword from the 1400's where I where. Well, yeah. Hold on a second.

You need to see that. I do need to see this.

I'm into this. Oh, my gosh, can I take a look? Yeah, pull it out. Don't cut anybody. That's a legit samurai sword. Wow, papers and everything with a stingray. Yeah, I don't I don't know whether the scabbard is original, but the steel the actual steel's original, I'm sure it's been working out.

Imagine that. Now, look at this steel. I mean, the steel is like. It's 500 years old. That's what's crazy and that's the profound thing. I mean, there's something about making something that would last like that.

I mean, yeah, my God, no, it's amazing. It's an amazing thing to just to have around. And when you pick it up and hold it, it's got weight to it.

But it's it's it's delicate in the sense that it's it's been an elegant but yet and you see the arm in the blade like that.

And you know what's amazing about this is that when they do the quench in other words, when they're actually putting the soul of the blade into it, was that the heat treatment? So, you know, anybody can, like, pound out and make a shape? Well, not anybody, but pretty much anybody who's handy with, you know, making things can make what looks like a blade.

But the true soul of the blade comes through the thermal cycle, the heat treatment. That's why, you know, people like, oh, Japanese Steel Sebesta, German Steel Sebesta, because there's this whole process that is about aligning the molecular structure and the right type of stack and the type of steel that you do and then hardening it or or softening it. So if you want a softer blade or, you know, that might be more utility and or you want harder braid, that might be more brittle but can get really razor sharp, that's what determines what the blade is and what it will be.

And it's that sole the blade that like something like this. This curve, it's actually produced by the Quench. So after you go through this process, you heat it up and you put it into the the water.

It actually it just blows up and actually creates it's curve and evenly, too, which is incredible. That's why these guys are to me, the epitome of like masters, these craftsmen that make knives and blades.

Well, there's always the dopa scenes in movies where someone's making a samurai sword when they're about to go out and kill somebody with it. This is the thing is the guy goes to the knife master, the sword master, and he's pounding on it and the red hot steel don't get into the fire they want.

You know, I went, I want to get a blade made for me in Japan. And I went to this amazing place called Trading in New York. And the owner, she came to me and she says, well, the knife maker would like to have a picture of you while they're making the blade. And at that time, I was like, whoa, this is this. Before I make me want to look at you again. Yeah. For some reason I said, wow, that's pretty profound.

You know, it's like, OK, you know, puts your soul, your character into the blade.

So so he wants to think of you as he's making this. So that's cool for me. It was pretty incredible. This is amazing. Yeah. Let me get it out of here before something spills on. Yeah.

Yeah. Always people take pictures with this and I'll have you take a picture with it.

Yeah.

At the end of the world, that's why. So you get so much cool stuff around too much, this fucking desk is a mess, I'm cleaning it up today. After this podcast, I've decided I've got to take Donnell Rawlings, black ash candle off. I love you, Danielle, but I'm not the smell every day, but I want to get back to something you said earlier. You said the way restaurants were before the Food Network. Yeah.

Like what happened, you know. I think Food Network and food shows in general are a great thing, you know, it empowers people to cook and there's all different levels. And I think it's the greatest thing. And also it's given us a chef's a platform to do some incredible things, too. But there was a different type of motivation between between the cooks in the kitchen and a good number of the cooks today. So before, you know, there wasn't a celebrity involved.

So you were there for the reason for the love, the art of it, where as nowadays, I'm not going to say everybody because I cook with and I know there's plenty of people that are very serious about it.

It's about about the craft of putting in the hours the repetition that doesn't make sense until all of a sudden you're doing something without thinking about it. And that's what it was like really before. We were just everybody was in the kitchen, was there because. They loved cooking, not not for any reason of celebrity or or. Whatever it is, so it really it did change good, you know, patients like so people like the progression would be like, oh, you work as a line cook for three to four years.

And then, you know, then you're a sous chef for a number of years and then you're a chef. And, you know, there was a progression. And then when the whole thing came along and then it was everybody was like. From culinary school to chef, you know, they wanted to jump right into it and ah, do you think there's a significant number of people that are actually getting into cooking to become famous?

There's something about it, yeah, there's an allure. I mean, that it has it has a thing I don't know, not the term famous is a little bit different, I'd say like notoriety.

In other words, like ready to show, like, hey, I can do this.

But with cooking, there's a certain number of hours you just you cannot avoid. You have to put this in. You have to have the knife in the in your hand for thousands and thousands of hours before you really are starting to cook, because it's easy to do a dish, but it's difficult to do a dish and to cook, you know, consistently with all the different things getting thrown at you, like this coronavirus thing, like, OK, how do you adapt?

How are you resilient? You know, how can you bounce back? How do you understand? Like, no matter what, I'm going to get this dish up at nine o'clock if that customer wants it at nine o'clock, not anything else. I mean, there's so the more that you can get in terms of your toolbox, in terms of the use of the knife, I mean, cooking, I don't think about cooking when I'm doing it. It's just only when I step back and reflect and I want to teach somebody, I say, oh yeah, I do that.

Oh, I didn't notice that. But because all of a sudden your hands start moving and because all about heat. So you're like, oh, I've heat on the side of the grill. I know it's not on the grill grates, but I'm going to use it to cook the side of the steak. I'm going to push it up against there. How often do you teach people?

Any time that somebody asks. I love teaching it. I mean, for me, I love to share my knowledge. And I mean, I'm at a stage where, you know, it's like martial arts. Well, I. I did Akito for a while. And what was amazing to me was the learning process for the black belt. So your white belt basically and take your black belt pretty much into this belt in there is. But, you know, when you're training, you know, by teaching and explaining and slowing down, you get to reinvent and not reinvent.

You get to reacquaint yourself with something that is so familiar.

So that movement might be functional, but now you're you're seeing someone else doing it. It, like caused you to rethink it. So when I'm teaching somebody, I'm actually learning.

Yeah, that happens. That's a big part of this process that happens in jujitsu when people start teaching. And I've seen I've never taught jujitsu, but I've seen it from a lot of my friends that have become teachers also. And their level jumps way up. And there's the only thing that could be attributed to is that they're teaching people. So because they're teaching people, they're going over the fine details that you would ordinarily you just kind of have it in your head.

Like, you know, when you pass the GA, you put your knee here, you put your foot there, it's normal. You do it all the time. But then when you teach in someone, it's solidifies the important points. And almost all the great jujitsu practitioners are also great teachers that it's okay.

Yeah, I totally relate to that correlation.

You know, for me, you know, it gets you to really, like dial in on the minutia of details and perfect yourself. Well, not perfect you, but strive towards perfect the craft of cooking. Yeah.

After cooking and again, there's probably a dozen or more different styles. Right. Like everyone's got their own way to sort of prepare things and do things is definitely a core.

Like you'll have different schools of how you approach things. Like you say, hey, one guy does it this way, one guy does it that way. But I think the best thing that you can say is that, you know you know, I like I think about is like, hey, you have a golf bag and you have all these different irons and woods and all these different things in there.

It's like what you know, the circumstance, the environment, it's going to dictate how you cook, not say, hey, I'm going to cook that steak and I'm going to use a cast iron pans like, well, I don't have a cast iron pan. So what you can do is like, well, I'm going to cook and I grill is like, you don't have a grill sick, OK?

What do I have, it's like you have this, this and this that's, you know, so I only have this shitty, you know, steel pan here and doing like this. And, you know, you take a look at it and, you know, like you adapt, you know, I guess this is a steel pan.

No, no, it's great.

OK, it's that like I'm just saying, like, the steel plants are great blue steel.

You know, I use that all the time in the kitchen. You know, I like cast iron just in terms of the the heat recovery that it has.

What does that mean when you have a cast iron pan?

So you you it's like it's slow to heat up.

But then once it gets to that level, if I was to put like a cold steak in it, the cold steak on a different type of pan would bring the temperature of the steel down and then it has to heat back up. And then by that time, water can start to develop like underneath the steak and then it starts boiling or steaming. And that's why you can't get a crust when you put in a steak into a cast iron pan, for example, and you do a plant or whatever, the rate, the rate at which water is repelled.

Is it basically it steams or it goes away from the meat? It's actually and so as a result, it then starts the browning, OK, and transforming the flavor rather than at boiling. Because if you tasted boiled piece of meat versus a piece of meat with the crust, you'd say the piece of meat with the crust is a lot better, you know, so there is just something about it. So the cast iron pan is basically when you put the steak in the temperatures, it's not even going to be moved because it's like a freight train.

It's just moving. You know, it's going to keep going. But something like a thinner steel pan, if you put something big and cold into it, it's going to drop the temperature of the steel and then it has to recover not only with the steel, but the mass of, let's say, a thick steak. So it's got to compensate.

And that's really what now I have a carbon steel pan that I sear steaks on all the time. Most of the time. The way I cook is I use a trigger grill and I cook it very slow. So I'll do it at 225 degrees and I do it until I hit an internal temperature about 125 and then I sear the outside. That's been the method that I use.

Well, I'm going to just share my knowledge with you. So I, you know, with cooking steaks, the term sear doesn't really it's it's a misnomer. It's there's only Browning because, like, searing really only can happen when, you know, you have live flesh, so to speak. So it doesn't actually happen like where it Sears or seals in juices. What about like ahi tuna when they see that.

Well, it's, it's more like Browning. I mean I'm just it's just like it's a terminology, the terminology.

It's like keep searing. I'm not not telling you not to think, oh, I understand what you're saying. The concept is it's browning. It's not searing.

So bring it back on track. Low temperature.

OK, so for example, what I would tweak with you is like I would say, go to 265. You can have the same results in a quicker period of time with the same tenderness. That ratio of speed is not going to impact your product. So at the end of the day, 225, everybody says slow and low. But I'd say a lot of times, like a bit hotter and a bit quicker is actually better for the crust development and also for the meat, because for the tenderness of the meat, let's say you have a thick like like a brisket and it's got all these all this collagen in it, which is tightly wound protein.

I think about it as like a sponge that's dehydrated. When you throw it on top of the water, it kind of floats and then all of a sudden it catches and then soaks up the juice. So when you're putting it in at that lower temperature, you're heating it up. You're causing the protein to squeeze out the liquid. And then if you're doing at the rate ratio, it's drinking the liquid into the collagen to turn into gelatin, which is that unctuous, beautiful mouthfeel that you'll get from a long cooked piece of meat.

OK, now, if you get a long cooked piece of meat, like a really well done brisket, what temperature are you cooking on it?

Depending on the cooker that I'm using. But 265 is my is my typical Dylon.

So 265, you don't ever go lower than that for anything.

I can if I want to get sleep, it's depending on my schedule. In other words, like I'm going to get relatively the same results, but less crust development from 225 depending on how I handle it.

Again, there's like a lots of little variables, but by two, six, five, I found that for brisket, for example, it's the right ratio of that college and tricking it up to get the gelatin and also the right crust development.

The a lot of what I cook is wild game, but most of it.

So which is a lot leaner. And and so that's why I would go a little bit hotter, try it the next time we got to sixty five, go to 65.

OK, and then how do you feel about that method of cooking it slowly then browning the outside later.

I don't, I'm not a big fan of it because you know, there's all these different compounds that are you know, it's not like I mean, they call it like a. Reverse gear, yeah, it's like the terminology, right, for me, there's nothing like a crust that is created because what ends up happening is it's like, you know, if you're cooking it slow, all these juices start, get pulled out, OK?

And they disappear like the juice on the bag, make it into a sauce or it gets evaporated into the air. The thing about doing that is it's like if you're putting it directly in the pan while it's wet, all those juices are bouncing back and then re adhering to the meat.

OK, that's flavor. That's flavor. You you would lose normally the sacrifices like sure.

You'll get a cooked from end to end. Perfect. OK, so be pink to pink. OK, it's great. Right. But if you go back and you know sear it or brown it after you miss out on all these compounds and it's not the same crust I, I bet you if I gave you a blind taste test using the both methods, you would appreciate the other crust over the reverse here.

And this is even with wild game, even with a very lean meat. That's a different story. That's what I cook though. OK, that's a different story. So with the lean meat.

I would probably say to Brown at first and then go slow the reverse, because there is a gentle there is a gentle way of of like it's so lean you want to kind of like slide into home. I kind of say it's like you develop a certain amount of momentum and for the leaner meats, it's about the rest.

So you're cooking it and then you're taking it out and then you're allowing that heat momentum to kind of carry over.

Now, I gave you a bunch of elk meat.

How did you get a lot of it? Just like hot and fast, so I can really taste it. You know, I don't mind a bit of a chill. Most people are different. You know, for me, I want to taste the meat. I want to savor, like, the juices of what that is and else my favorite. Thank you for that. I mean, I'm still I still have some of it. It's fantastic. I got more.

If you want more, I'll I'll take it. All right. No, that's the best.

Well, I want to try some of the way you cook it. I want I want to have you cook some of that elk. I'd love to. We've got it. Yeah. We're going to make that happen Wednesdays. I'd love to see your method and what the difference is. I learned how to do it from Chad Ward. He's a world champion barbecue guy. Wisky bent barbecue on Instagram Wisky. Is it barbecue? Whiskey, barbecue? I think Chad's a great guy and I've been with him in camp on several hunting trips where he's cooked for Trager like Trager.

We'll hire him to come and cook for us. And it's incredible. And this that's the message that I learned from him, is that that reverse your method.

And it's incredible. I mean, you can go to all different chefs and they'll get to the same place taking different paths and they'll get there. For me, it's like fishing, you know, it's like which fly like, you know, which fly do you choose? Like, fine, you know, whatever the hatches. But it's oftentimes it's the fly that you believe in most that is going to catch the fish. I mean, OK, I'm trying a terrible analogy here.

I know what you're saying, but confidence because you have an increased confidence, you're going to fish it hard.

Are you going to believe in it? And, you know, you embrace it. And a lot of that has to do with success in cooking. You know, you have to believe in what you're doing. There's some obviously there's some metrics involved. But a master like that guy, for example, I can't refute. At the end of the day, it's fantastic. I get there a different way. You know, maybe there's subtle differences. Maybe it's better.

Maybe it's not.

I don't even think better is the way. That's right. Exactly. They're different. And what what do you prefer now? What how do you feel about Suvi?

I think it has its place, but it's not the answer. You know, for me, you know, certain types of proteins like shellfish, it's it's a godsend. Shellfish.

Yes. Watch their tails or shrimp or anything like that, because the protein, they're it's so delicate. And if you can go slow, like Thomas Keller, it's a fantastic recipe. Butter poaching, lobster tails in survived and it just cooks it so that it's super tender and it's not tough.

And then also with a vacuum, seal it with the butter, the butter and some aromatics.

I want to cook that. That sounds they take it out.

You can kind of like toasted on the grill lightly and it's something else. Yeah.

My friend Forest go for Escalante. He's a biologist and he goes off of Santa Barbara and goes out there and and catches him and he gave me.

So you've never done it with the butter and. No, no.

Never done it. So I'm going it's going to change. Yeah. I've only done it on a grill.

I've only done it when it was delicious. I cooked. He gave me four lobster tail that he captured himself. Yeah, they were delicious but I cooked them on a grill. I just followed a recipe that I found and with butter and paprika and a couple of different things.

Yeah. Next time put that in the bag, seal it and follow the time sequence, take it out and then kiss it on the grill. You're going to see.

So what other shellfish is good scallops. Good scallops. Good. Good with, with Suvi. But you know, for me scallops I mean particularly if they're fresh, I mean I'd rather kind of just cook them in a pan. Um, there's something about that particular the cell structure and the scallop that I want just, you know, charred in a pan and still just like almost like a bit raw. There's a sweet spot. Wasco Yeah, it's such a sweet spot.

And once you cross the line. Yeah.

They get tough and you kind of ruin it. Yeah, it's terrible. How do you know when they're ready. Well, for me it's a feel and you know, you want to kind of feel it so that, you know, when you touch it, it doesn't feel raw, but it starts to give it a slight spring and then you pull it.

And then like I said earlier, it's like you kind of like slide into home. You let that residual heat in that temperature kind of slowed down a lot of times. If you're going a bit fast, you take it and they have like some cold, melted butter, not too cold, still a little bit like wood. And you cook it and then you just don't get right into the butter and it just arrests the cooking. And then you have it there and then the guests come.

And then all you have to do is just like heat it up a little bit and then it goes, oh, it's so complicated.

It's not so sure. But I mean, it's like you got to dial it in. You know, it's it depends on what you want, you know, the end result. So, like, you know, you have guests coming over. You want to enjoy your time with them. You know, you figure out little tricks, what you can get away with and what you can do.

So, my friend Tom Poppo, you met earlier who was getting tested for covid along with you when he has been in here before. He brings this homemade sour dough bread. That's just sensational. I'm not a bread guy. I don't eat a lot of bread, eat very little of it, in fact, especially now. But when I eat his like, my God, it's so good. And he's he keeps saying, I'm getting better every time I do it, I'm like, it's fucking bread now.

Are you getting better? No, he's getting better. I get it's crazy. I'm just being an ass. I know, but he's my friend. I'm just fucking around.

But he's it's similar in a lot of ways to your dry ageing, too, because he has this starter, which is a living thing. Yeah. It's in, you know, his starters.

I don't know how many years old, old as fuck, though, but he's been using this same star that he got from somebody else and. Just it bring soul to it brings soul to the food, yeah, for me and and that connection that you have to the food, it's going to also, you know, make you care about it more while you cook it. And, you know, it's not just a commodity where like, OK, what are Mistick steaks in a box, you know, and bring it in.

I mean, you can push out food like that. There's a place like there's a place for that in this world.

Well, what I'm really hoping, really hoping is that some sort of a rapid test for covid, not even like the 15 minute one that we came because I heard something about some saliva tests that they're trying to develop that's extremely rapid.

That would be amazing if you could just test people right before they come into your restaurant. No one has to worry about shit. Yeah. You know, gearing up for what?

It's what the new world is going to be. Yeah. Temperature, you know, everybody gets their temperature taken, you know, but that's not good enough.

See, the temperature thing is not good enough because if you're asymptomatic but you're still spreading it, like, why are we pretending like that's avoiding science? We need to find out whether or not people actually have it. This temperature thing is just whether or not you're sick. I know it doesn't mean you don't have it.

If you're if your temperature is low, it's it's real weird.

And that's what's being that's what's going to be mandated on us. I mean, there's a certain series of things that we have to do, and it's, you know, nobody knows for sure or whatnot. But, you know, who knows?

Well, at a certain point in time, I think we really need to make a decision as to whether or not we're just going to allow this to take over our world or whether we're going to do what we can do to protect the sick.

You know, if you're in contact with people that have. A weakened immune system. You're going to have to have a different life than someone who doesn't if you're a person with a weakened immune system. You're going to have a different life. If you're an older person, you're going to have to have a different life. But for the vast majority of us, this this we're going to have to give people the freedom to make choices and to to do what they want to do with their own life and their own health.

If you're giving people the freedom to eat terrible food like heart attacks or killing people as quickly as anything, right. Cancer is killing people as quick as anything. Cigarettes kill half a million people a year. There's no government mandate that's trying to get people to stop smoking cigarettes. In fact, there's not a single word ever spoken about it in presidential campaigns and governor, governor campaigns, congressional campaigns, no one's out there trying to get people to stop smoking cigarettes, but yet it's killing.

A half a million people every year in this country alone were so strange in and I understand cigarettes is a choice and infectious diseases are not worried about protecting people who have these compromised immune systems.

But it's not most people, you know, the vast majority of people that are going to get this are not it's not going to be fatal. We have to figure out how to protect the people that are high risk. But to quarantine the whole country, it just seems like maybe it was a good move to do initially, but we can't sustain that. So now we have to figure out how to move forward. And there's all these protests all over California now.

I'm sure you've seen it in the Orange County in Huntington Beach. And there's counties in northern California that are like, we're opening up everything.

We're going to open up restaurants, we're opening up bars, we're going back to business. Texas is basically back to business. Montana is doing the same. And, you know, they have a modified approach to dealing this. And we're going to have to figure it out on the long way. But I just don't want us to lose. I don't want to lose any people. But I certainly don't want us to lose restaurants either. I don't want us to lose bars and I want us to lose comedy clubs.

I don't want us to lose small businesses that it's going to look like.

I mean, here we are like, you know, talk about a comedy club, like how do you even like six feet apart? And then it doesn't make sense. There's a certain energy in the room, like what type of world do we have, you know, in front of us the way it's slated right now. Right.

I don't know what kind of government overreach are we going to have where people are going to come in and police this? You know what I mean? There's no real science to that either. By the way. You know, they have a bunch of people jammed into a room with they're six feet apart or not. You're touching things. You're breathing on each other.

I mean, I don't I don't know. I think you should allow people to do what they want to do. You know, if it gets to a certain point where we have some sort of a viable cure or a treatment like there's this what is that stuff called, again, this antiviral medication that Dr. Fauci has been REM's severe. Yeah. Remedies of has a mean boy. We're hoping for that. Right. We're hoping that there's some sort of a treatment where it's not a death sentence for people even with immune compromised systems.

So, I mean, I just I feel so bad for people like you and for all the people out there that own these amazing restaurants, that it's one of my favorite things to do is to go to a nice restaurant.

And it would be for me to go to work. Yes.

Be such a shame if because of this this pandemic, all that goes away. I mean, and what kind of a buildup are we looking at to try to bring those places back?

I you know, I don't have the answers, you know, for me, what can be done if you had a magic wand, what would you do? If someone said, Adam, fix this. It's difficult for me because, you know, I hear your point, but I have just such great empathy for, you know, people that would get sick just by someone else's negligence. And and for me, so it's a bit of a tussle here because, you know, I want to just you know, on one hand you have like an economy that is just tanking and businesses that are going to go out to, you know, business.

But then on the other hand, you know, you have people that are defenseless, some people that look healthy. Fantastic. You know, like a friend, like 45 years old goes in and they're on a ventilator. And it's just like you can't give the answers. Right. I don't know if I'm even prepared to give you a summary on it. I haven't formulated in my brain the way that I've just been coping. And that's all. I'm just trying to hold on.

And, you know, for me, I'm just trying to put faith in the fact that people have to eat and people like you really want to have restaurants around. And in the end, we're going to find our way. And the only way I know to get through this is just to head down and work and be really helpful to people that are in need and be there for the community and feed them. But outside of that, you know, I.

I don't know, God, like, if I had the I don't know how to answer you, yeah, nobody knows. That's what's I said.

If I was in control, I mean, you know, because I I don't want people to die unnecessarily by people's negligence. But on the other hand. I just don't know. Well, it's such an incredibly messy situation with no clear cut answer because of the fact that you do have these people that are seemingly healthy, 35 year old people that are getting in and dying. And it doesn't make sense. And then you have you know, you hear all guy, World War Two, veteran, 102 years old, beats covid, you know, like you see that, too.

So it's like, how do I think about this? Do I think about it like the common cold? Do I think about it like the flu?

Do I think about it like some new thing that we I mean, everyone is unsure and that's what makes it hard for us to get the vaccine, you know, a vaccine as quick as possible, you know, so that we can get it, you know, at least have some type of defense for this because and I don't know how long that's going to take. People like are talking a ridiculous amount of time, but, well, it takes a long time to develop a vaccine correctly.

I mean, they're going through a bunch of trials right now. We've talked about it before. There's several ongoing, including ones with human beings that they're testing the vaccine on. There was a woman in Seattle. She was the first ever person to receive this coronavirus vaccine there. He did a story on her in the monitoring her, you know, because that's the only way for us to be sure.

Yeah. I mean, because responsibly, I mean, even just people coming into the restaurant, like, don't get me wrong, I want the business and I want to have a bar that's bustling. I want to have a vibe. I want people to be happy, well-fed, enjoy themselves, but. You know, not be nervous, be nervous, someone coughs and everybody freaks out. Yeah, the servers have the mask on. So now all of a sudden we cannot music because people can't hear the server and there's, you know.

Yeah, yeah.

Nobody used to give a shit. They would shake hands. It's weird. You see, people shake hands on a movie now and you're like, oh, what are you doing?

I know you get just get twitchy about it. Yeah.

So it happens so quickly too. That's what's weird. Like the whole world shifted so rapidly and people like you were the ones I mean, obviously the people that get hit the hardest of the people, eh, with the disease and B that work with people with the disease. Right. The people that are that have the disease and then the the first responders and hospital workers and and all the different people that work to help those people, they're they're the most devastated by this.

But there are so many small businesses right now that are in this position that you're in, where there's so much uncertainty is the key is going to be the rent game.

I mean, at the end of the day, for a lot of these business, that's the looming factor is is being on on the hook, you know, not not only just to make rent the following month with a compromised, you know, 50 percent occupancy. You know, if you can imagine, you know, if you're paying rent for that, you know, you have a model in terms of how much income, you know, someone put out the the the possibility of like instead of, you know, forgiving the rent, taking the rent and putting it on the back end of it.

So right now, essentially the for the three months, you're not you don't need to pay the rent, but you'll be at on three months to the end of your lease. You know, that for me makes sense.

But for us to turn around and, you know, work at, you know, 10, 15 percent capacity and then all of a sudden get a bill for six figures, say, OK, you owe this. So who's going to who's going to fill my shoes?

Like, so if I can't make it at my location, who's going to come along and take on that rent anyway? Nobody's going to do it. So they're stuck. We're stuck. What are we going to do?

Right. It's almost like the deficit that gets established is insurmountable. For someone to come on and start from scratch, like how much I mean, you started that restaurant, how long ago? We have a two year anniversary and I guess it's in four days. So I must have found out about it right after you open.

Yeah. How long did it take to prepare to open up that restaurant? God, if you want to include looking for a space and trying to find the right location with a couple of years, so a couple of years of preparation, and then how long does it take to actually develop the space and set it up correctly? What was it before you guys were there?

It was an empty space. I mean, it was a project, you know, built from scratch. So, you know, going through just the permitting process in L.A. and just going through everything. It you know, you have to hire so many consultants and people in between to get things through. It's a lot different than New York. So, I mean, for us, we were delayed like every project just delayed. I mean, it took us over a year to build it out.

And, you know, you just like let's open already because each day that passes, you know, you're losing money.

And when you do something like this, like, were you working as a chef in another place while you were doing this?

No, I was just basically living off of the proceeds from the sale of my business that I had and London and other other projects. And you just kind of like as an entrepreneur, you know, you're just putting it into the restaurant, hoping it opens as quick as you can. And then, you know, you kind of then you have your cash flow and that's the fucking opening up.

A business like that must be so insanely stressful. Yeah. Because, you know, especially, you know, not inheriting an existing restaurant, like for me is like, wow, I really believe in the area of Hollywood. A Vine case gave me like a certain activity in the area, gave me like in New York vibe. I really love the energy. Yeah. So I love the historic building. It was built in 1923 was LA's first skyscraper.

You know, it's a whole story. Like as chefs and restaurateurs, we get romantic about we get connected to the story, too, to what it is. And sometimes it overrides the sensibility of, you know, building it out. But, you know, you invest in it and and you want it to work out and it works out.

It's great, but it's a lot of work and it's a long road to get there.

That whole area seemed before this like it was experiencing a resurgence, like it was like super shady just about ten years ago.

Yeah, a lot of development. You know, I think that over the course of like the past, like within five years and two years, like six billion in development of buildings and hotels. And there's a revitalization project that's taking place on Hollywood Boulevard that's going to extend the sidewalks and make it almost prominent.

Like and, you know, I think that, you know, if any place in L.A. should be that kind of place, it should be there. I mean, I saw the revitalization and Times Square, for example, you know, as a kid like don't walk down the street and don't go there. And now it's Disney. You know, it's it's a whole nother world.

So we're there now. Well, now it's a really weird. But before the pandemic, it was it's like it became a mall, became a mall.

It's crazy. And, you know, tourists dirtiest plays in all of New York.

It was horrible. I've only been there a couple of times back in the day, back in the 90s before it got cleaned up. But I remember it was not a place I wanted to stop.

Yeah, 70s and 80s. Like I remember my dad, like, sitting down is like, OK, you don't walk down the street and, you know, you always look as if, you know, you're carrying something, you know, like you always look like you walk like as if you're carrying a knife or something.

This is a 12, 13 year old kid, you know, so.

Oh, my God. What how do you walk like you carry a knife.

Really confident like that. You can handle yourself, you know, and not, you know, not look like a victim.

Remember, the thing they would do in the movies where a guy would pretend to have a knife or pretend to have a gun pocket over a scarf and nobody does that anymore, right?

To have the gun in the pocket movie that was that sort of that went away with quicksand.

Yeah. And people start talking about those things.

When you first came out here, was that the first place that you opened? You had a restaurant in L.A. before?

No, I did. I did a series of pop ups. So for me, you know, there was a huge lot by Jimmy Kimmel show. And I basically took a 5000 square foot space and I built it out. I have, you know, a whole barbecue trailer on a tractor trailer. So I have a thousand gallon propane tank that was customized in by Aaron Franklin in Austin.

It's amazing what Franklin's barbecue. Yeah, hot barbecue.

Top Top fabric's got some great YouTube videos. Oh, he's he's tremendous. And, you know, aside from, like, the videos in terms of teaching people, he's just a great down to earth guy that seems like. Yeah, he's tremendous. So I just created just kind of like a homage to to barbecue to doing it right. I had a little Airstream. I slept in the parking lot, cooking it overnight, served only lunch. You know, everybody got the same thing.

So I did that for about four years before I opened up the restaurant. How do you know, Jimmy?

I did a show back in 2008. We hit it off right away. And, you know, after the show, like, hey, you want to barbecue? So then we end up hanging out the weekend and he's into fly fishing. You know, we're into like the same into the same stuff we just became. Great friends. So you actually are into fly fishing, so you talking about it not just as an analogy? Oh, I'm obsessed with it.

Really? Oh, where do you go with it? Anywhere and anywhere but a good majority. The place the places that I love in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming.

Are you one of those catch and release guys? Absolutely.

100 percent. How weird is that, though? It's not. If you look at it as as just a system, an environment, you know you know, we talk about this process thing is like fly-fishing, like it's the one thing you can invest your time in and you can do it to a very old age like. So if you're lifting weights, you know, there's a certain point where, you know, you're just going to, you know, stop it.

Like fly-Fishing can really invest your time into.

And there's just something about all the different facets of it that are absolutely amazing. So.

Gosh, I lost my track and thinking about it. Well, I did a lot of fly fishing when I was a kid. Oh, really? Yeah. Where did you go? Boston.

I mostly did it on ponds and lakes. So, yeah, I did a lot of fishing, but a lot of five. How much better, though, is the take on a popper on a fly rod of a largemouth bass?

You know, it's fun, but I also like tap water baits, you know, with a casting rod and casting real spinning tackle. I like a lot of different fishing, but fly fishing is for people who think fishing is too easy.

Well, you know, there's you know, OK, this is what you had ask me, say the catch and release thing. So it's kind of like creating a sustainable culture, an environment that gets passed on for generations because there's so much more than just catching the fish. It's that moment in time when you completely block out, you turn your phones off or most of the time you're out of range. You with a fishing buddy and you almost like parallel playing.

And you're sitting there and you're just you're just you focus on a certain riff in the water and you start casting to it and you start figuring out what's going on.

And there's some real beauty in the whole process of it that to me it's like shoot an elk with a suction cup of the end of the snow. And he's like, I got him. He's running off like the suction cup that's going to drop off and he's going to be unharmed. It's just weird. I have done catch release before. I just just state that.

But when I think about it, when I spend time alone thinking about it, I'm like, why am I doing this? I'm putting a hook through this fucking fish's head. Why don't I just leave that poor fish alone unless I want to eat them like I like catching fish and then eating them. Yeah, that's that's my favorite thing to do. So maybe I should just stick to that.

Well maybe. I mean, you know, for me like trout, it doesn't really eat that well. There's so many other. What doesn't eat well. Trout does. How dare you. Who are you can compare. Yeah. Yeah. No it's how can you say such a thing. Don't you think there's a method to cook trout perfectly where it's delicious.

I've had trout in restaurants before and I'm not, I'm not saying it's not delicious, but I am saying that there's so many other fish out there that are better that I better and most of the fish I like to eat more rare and raw.

You know, for me, like, that's more flavor. But but the trout for me, I don't know, like at this point, it's like a sacrilege to kill a trout. I mean, I just identify with it just the whole process. But.

Well, trout taste better than largemouth bass. Oh, yeah. And I've released I've caught and released largemouth bass before.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're in the pond that it's the stagnant water. It's swampy. Yeah. Tasted them.

It is weird that you know that is a that is a factor. The swamp. What. Because smallmouth bass I've eaten it tastes much better.

Oh yeah. I like it at the same thing to my dry ajram with that, that concept is that you know, if you don't have that free flowing air in that kind of that oxygen in the room, it has an impact on flavor. If you have like a swampy, wet environment, it's got impact the beef. I think about that all the time. But here's the analogy.

The monkey wrench into the theory, catfish catfish is delicious. It's delicious.

But if you have a catfish from a pond, it's not as good as like river catfish is what you want because it's following water.

I mean, I think I've had catfish that are just absolutely phenomenal. Yeah. I've also had catfish that was muddy, you know.

Right. Right. There's different methods that people use to try to get rid of that muddy like I've seen people soak them in milk. I've heard of people even soaking them in Coca-Cola, which is really weird.

I've never heard that. I've heard no, I've heard, you know, buttermilk breaks it down a little bit, you know. But then again, if you're going to fry anything with buttermilk and crust, then, you know, kind of cardboard in there. Taste it. Oh, really? Yeah, right. That's like the spices in the process.

What you're eating more than the actual flavor of the flesh itself. Yeah. Last time I entertained fly fish, I haven't done it in years, but last time I entertained it, I was with my family. We were in Montana, we were taking a whitewater rafting trip down the Gallatin River, which is really fun.

Yeah, but as we're going there, there was all these guys that were fly fishing and they seemed like the most peaceful people in the world, just casting and and just slowly manipulating this.

And then they would catch these these trout and then just gently catching them and then releasing them. Yeah. And we have a group of guys that we do this with, we travel around this maybe about like eight to 10 of us where we'll go and we'll go on a trip together. And Jimmy Kimmel does this with you?

Oh, yeah. Oh, he is. He is obsessed with fly-Fishing. You know, we are both like this is a whole journey. We logged the trips we talk about. Let's call it you catch your do you rather tie your own flies?

I've done it, but I don't do it now. I mean, with the restaurant the way it is, you know, it's it's always just some time so time consuming and now that they make such beautiful patterns. But there is maybe the next level, like when I retire, quote unquote, you know, like delve into I have like a whole mailbox desk with all like the hackle and everything there.

But it's just sitting there, you know, you talk about how making your own knives is like another level. I would imagine that tie your own flies, it's the same.

And then catching like trout, you know, it's that whole process, the lead up to you have a pattern or it's even just like, what are they eating, seeing what's what's hatching, coming off and matching the hatch. There's the temperature of the water, the water levels, the speed. Like the first thing we check before we go on a trip is what are the water levels? What's the the the water flow like? Because, you know, if it's going too fast, like the trout are like getting like all the dirt, everything, you know, hitting them in the face, you know, but like, there's a certain, like, level where you look for where it's best for you.

So it's always like, OK, what are the conditions like? You know, you go through it. So it's like a whole process before, like the lead in that. How did you start?

Well, I've always loved, you know, fishing like any kind of deep sea, anything as a kid. Like it was my escape since I was a little kid, but. I think that I always looked at fly-Fishing as like the higher level, yeah, I always aspired there was like like I so I remember being on the Delaware River and I was at camp and there was a guy just underneath a bridge and he just kind of picked up like 20, 30 yards of life line.

He just laid it down and I was up at high level and I just saw the fish come up and bite it. And I was just like I was just like, whoa, you know, just like blew me away. And then from that point on, I always wanted to. And then I bought my first fly rod and I always remember you, you know, you always remember your first flyer. And I still have it.

And and it just started the obsession there. There's just something about the connection to the fish and the whole thing, as opposed to just kind of like going on a boat and trolling and waiting for them to strike. Like this is more like hunting.

What you're doing is it's like you're trying to find the location of the fish and then you have to place the fly and you have to, like, let it drift without any drag. And it's like this combination of skill and intuition and hunting. That's the excitement. Whereas just catching and throwing meat in the thing, OK, I mean, I've done it and I still do it. I like me on the water, but fly fishing is just like this higher level thing.

Do you do any kind of fishing with lures other than fly fishing, do you like. Not really. And I can't even like this so much social pressure, you know, amongst my group anyway, because they can on me, because all most of the guys are dry, like Jimmy is like dry fly only like even if like no wish this plane dry flies or flies the float on the surface.

It's like the epitome of like delicate presentation.

And then underneath, you know, you can basically follow like the life cycle of an insect. So the eggs go to the bottom and then the larva comes up and it kind of floats the surface and then it pops open and it flies away. Most of the fish eat all the food that subsurface. So before it even gets to the surface. So their eyes are like straight down. When the conditions are right, the trout are looking up because the hatch happens.

So that's when all the bugs are coming up. And the takes you see the fish and it's more dramatic.

Jimmy is like straight up like dry fly fisherman. Like even if an eel comes from like one of our mentors and this is Huey Lewis, like he's probably Lewis and the news.

Yes, he's one I really like. He is like one of like he's one of our group hip to be square 100 percent.

He is lives in Montana and he is like we talk about every year fishing on the Bitterroot for the squaller hatch, which is a certain kind of almost like a salmon fly. It's very large. And when these things come up and and hatch like fish are huge and they're hitting it, jumping out of the water, it's very dramatic. So. Wow. Yeah.

And does everybody catch release or does any you ever run into people that catch them and cook them? Not in our group. It's very looked down upon. Huge.

You never I mean even me like I'll make they, they tease me because if they're not biting on the flies like I'll drop a bead head which is like underneath the fly. And so it's like kind of like they call it like bobber fishing, you cheating. Cheating. So it's not like they call it down and dirty as opposed to you know on the surface.

It's so silly. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't it crazy. Sometimes I just want to see a fish at the end.

Busson there's bow hunters, you know, I bow hunt and there's bow hunters that also rifle hunt and then there's bow hunters that look at rival hunters like it's like legalized poaching.

Yeah. Like what are you doing? You using a rifle animal, same thing.

But then there's other people that have a really good ethical argument for that, like, hey, if I am at two hundred yards and I see an elk or a deer and I squeeze that trigger, that is a dead animal 100 percent of the time.

It's a huge response.

Another hundred percent.

It's not 100 percent, but it's very high 90s. Yeah. Yeah. That's a huge responsibility for the animal.

I mean, you know, you want the animal just to, you know, not suffer. Well, it's also there's something about the difficulty factor of bow hunting.

It's very effective when the arrow hits the animal, the animals die like they could die as quick, if not quicker than a rifle with a well-placed arrow because they bleed so quickly. It goes through the vitals and they're done in seconds, but. It's harder to do and it requires an immense amount of discipline and dedication, and I'm sure fly-Fishing requires somebody with bow hunting, you literally have to practice every day. I mean, you think you saw in the back?

I have a archery range in the garage back there where you see there's a 45 yard range and I shoot arrows every day.

I love it. I have a I have a bow, too. I don't have a IPSC. I have.

Yeah, it's beautiful. It's a great bow.

I went down with my friend Franklin Jonas. He took me down. He's countries like this is what you get. And I got it. And I don't get enough practice then I've never gone hunting with it, so, you know.

Yeah. It's not something I recommend when I want to though. I mean, I you know, I have friends that want to do it.

I want to go bow hunting with you might know. You know. Yeah. If you did, you'd be out there practicing every day. It's it's it's a thing that once you once you realize what's at stake, how difficult it is to do, how much respect you have to have for the art of archery and how much how much effort has to be put into the discipline.

Most people don't want to do that. Like if you really want to hunt your own meat and this is one of the things that's come up during this pandemic is people are really scared about the food supply and they're scared about not having food in their home that they can rely upon. And also before that, there was this whole thing about gathering organic meat, like people were worried about the source of the meat. They were worried about animals that weren't treated correctly in factory farming and all those all the different things that people should be concerned about.

And the ultimate solution to that is get an animal that's in the wild. Yeah, this is way. This way. This animal's been living the way they've been living for hundreds of thousands of years. And you just you you stealthily make your way through their world, get yourself into a position, and then through hard work and dedication and understanding and taking animal ethically.

Yeah, I'm with you on that. Yeah, I think it's great. I mean, and also I love that, you know, the responsibility you take for it. You know, it's it's like, you know, some people don't understand hunting. They think it's just a bunch of yahoos going out there and some maybe are. But, you know, the people that I know that take it seriously, you know, take a huge responsibility with it.

And the people that I know that do it, they take a huge responsibility. There are some of the best people I've ever met in my life and the most dedicated and the kind of hunting that I do, which is Western mountain elk hunting. Yeah. Requires physical fitness, requires incredible stamina because you're you're going gaining and losing thousands of feet of elevation in a day. You might trek fifteen, twenty miles every day. I mean, you have to be fit and you have to be ready and then you have to be able to keep your nerves.

And then a final moment.

Yeah. You know, it's it's like yeah you can hunt for ten days for one moment. So you're hunting for ten days or fifteen seconds.

It's profound like the build up. It's amazing, you know. Yeah. You got to keep your shit. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's hard and there's no catch and release, you know, catch release and bone. Yeah.

But when I sit down and I feel the same the code though if you really look at it, it's, I mean if you just focus on the catch and release or whatever, but there's a code to it. I mean you get it. You know, I, I believe in that.

Yeah. The code, the difference between bow hunting and regular hunting versus regular fishing and flying, even just regular hunting, you know, and bow hunting.

I'm just saying you're hunting with guys that that, you know, have an ethical responsibility to understand the environment, you know, and follow the rules. And I think that, you know. Yeah, it's amazing.

Well, there's also the the thing to consider is there's millions, in fact, billions of dollars every year that go into wildlife habitat. They go into preservation. All the different people that work as game wardens are all paid by this. And this is all money that's taken from hunting licenses. The Pechman Robertson Act, they take a certain percentage of I think it's ten percent of all the proceeds from ammunition sales, licenses, equipment, all that stuff goes to preservation.

And it goes it actually is the number one, the source, the number one source of for economics in terms of financial.

This like the amount of resources that go to managing these areas and keeping these animals healthy and monitoring them and monitoring their populations and even reintroducing different animals like Rocky Mountain sheep. But all these different animals that elk introduced into all these different places, all that money comes from hunting.

And it's it's crazy to think that at one point in time, most of the animals in North America that we hunt on a regular basis were on the verge of extinction, including white tailed deer, which is crazy to think if you live in a place that has white tailed deer because there's so many of them, it's insane.

But there's more white tailed deer today than they were when Columbus. It's really, really weird. Yeah, and this is an incredible system, the wildlife management system that's in place in North America, including the management of public lands and the access to public lands, is a truly special place. It's it's truly special here in North America. And that is because of the people that love hunting and love these wild areas.

Yeah, it makes sense. I mean, I love it. The sustainability factor is everything. And I think that's also why the catch and release thing. I mean, if everybody kept everything that they caught, there's just not enough.

Right, like in that environment. No, I understand.

You know, and people say that about hunting, too, that if everybody went out and hunted, you would there wouldn't be animals left, which is really true.

So but everyone's not going to do that's like saying if everybody became a marathon runner, the streets would be filled, you know, but you're not going to.

Yeah, that's not appealing to a lot of people. You know, everyone's not going to and it's very difficult. And especially the stuff that I like to do. It's just very. You can do it. Yeah. A lot of people do it, but not nearly as many as go to the supermarket.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's when you get your meat, do you have a specific rancher that you use or.

You know, it's a great question. And it's you know, everything is a process and it's part of the process of just kind of like aging the meat and then putting on the plate. But there's a whole back story to this. I've developed a relationship. One of my closest friends and my mentor in beef is this guy by the name of John Top Off. And, you know, he's a he picks out the cattle and and then it goes through the system and, you know, they audit the system.

And he I knew him before he came on board with Niman Ranch. So I knew when he had his own slaughterhouse in in Granite City, Illinois. And I met him through the guys, through master purveyors. And then he became, I guess, the VP of Beef Niman Ranch. And so I invest most of my focus with him and he's taught me. So he's picking out a lot of my cattle. And that gets it's done through family farms, all antibiotic free, steroid free, raised ethically.

Animals die with with dignity. They're not like cattle prodded and pushed along.

I mean, how do they die? Well, most of them were.

All of them. It's it's basically it's like a like a pin, you know, it's like a bowl. It's like a stun bolt.

And they're like no country for old men. That thing. Exactly. Yeah, that's exactly how it's done. But it's done in a certain system. Temple Grandin transform the entire system of of abattoirs in this country. She's you know about Temple Grandin. No. Such an interesting woman, autistic, but she actually is like the cattle whisperer.

And she can go into the environment and she can see just like a shadow of light going onto the floor. And all of a sudden the cattle will see it. They'll stop and it builds all the stress. And as a result, the stress creates, you know. Fear and worry, in the end, why are they afraid of light, it just can be something normal. I mean, if they walk clockwise as opposed to counterclockwise in the circle, it all these things have an impact.

She's written several books on it. They did a whole series on her, like a great movie, I think on HBO.

Claire Danes played her and but she'll like literally crawl through the abattoir before to understand all the angles and advise, you know, so the animals don't get super stressed. A stressed animal has an impact on the quality of the beef. And also, you know, you don't want to torture anything. Sure. You know, there's a responsibility behind, you know, eating meat. I think so. You know, for me, it starts not only with the family farms that they're raising the cattle, the feed that they're finishing the cattle on and then how they're transported, you know, and then how they go through the system in terms of the abattoir storage and then come to me.

I like to receive a majority of my beet beef and combo's, which means that never sees the inside of a cryovac bag the plastic bags. For me, dredging that way is also a preserve's a lot of the natural, good, friendly bacteria that's on the meat as opposed to like putting in a bag. And then they put steam to like, you know, almost sterilize the meat and they put it along. And so there's all these different flavors that are gathered.

But I think from like John Top Off Niman Ranch, you know, there really have been my go to nowadays, but it's like John and his sons, you know, they really have educated me on beef and and and give me a lot of pride.

And, you know, there is a genetic factor for tenderness and beef. I mean, I didn't realize this, but, you know, it's not just oh, it that one's really nicely marbled, but it's not like you have to look at the grain of the beef, like you're looking at the eye. It's not only just the fat, it's like how the fat is dispersed. And and that has a huge impact also on stress. I mean, you can look at a piece of meat and they sometimes they'll call it they'll be rejected called the dark cutter.

The meat comes almost like dark, deep, like almost like burgundy, red. And when the animals like that, the and I've tasted it, you know, just because I was curious. But the quality of the beef is just just because of stress.

The adrenaline goes through the animal and and that's what makes it darkling. That's case the meat.

But what about grass fed beef, grass fed beef? I don't you know, it's it's a great question. You know, for me, I don't look at grass fed versus grain fed. I look at nutrition. OK, so just because something's grass fed, I think sometimes the animals themselves, it's it's more stressful to eat grass that is not nutrient rich. So I believe in grass fed with responsible grass farmers that are then allowing the cattle, you know, to do grass fed.

Right. Which I've experienced over and in Ireland, Scotland and in England is it's literally it's about the nutrition. So, I mean, you go out and you say, OK, this animal is grass fed. You taste to me, it's like this meat is horrible as opposed to another grass fed like this is great. So it's not like absolute.

So for me, it's really more about the nutrition. Like, how healthy can you maintain the animal? I'm not talking about like force feeding the animal, but I think the right the right characteristics of beef that you and I love really come from grain finished beef as a mainstay.

But you can find some grass fed that's competitive with that.

But it's it's hard to find the the argument about grass fed beef is primarily a taste if you prefer it.

And I do a lot of times, but also health that it's healthier for you. The the essential fatty acids of a grass fed cow are different.

That's true. But but again, you know, it's depends on how you look at steak. You know, look, if you're an everyday Beefeater, you know, I think that that that conversation is completely valid. But if you're someone who looks at, you know, steak as an extravagance or something that is, you know, almost a celebration to enjoy. Great, you know, Grainne finished beef is it's like butter. I mean, there's no the taste itself.

It's deep, it's rich. Remember we were talking earlier about like wag you cattle or, you know, it's everything has its place. But, you know, for that steakhouse experience, I would never want a grass fed steak for like that broiler steak which is cooked like that. For me, it's like a really treat. It's a real treat. It's it's something like you can't get like I like Black Angus or Angus Hurford Cross. That's the that's the cattle that for me brings Americana on the plate.

Yeah.

Bourdain felt the same way. He was not interested in grass fed beef the same way I am. Yeah, but there's different levels of grass fed.

I mean, I've had grass fed and again, it could rival any grain fed like over in Scotland and Ireland. I mean, you look at their grass so nutrient rich over here, it's a different story, especially here, right.

Because it's dry and they're not get enough water over there. It's raining every day.

Rain. It's green. It's it's constantly. Yeah, they're growing their own. They substitute you know, they supplement barley that they grow on the estate. You know, the whole thing is just it works. So like this whole concept of like saying grass fed versus grain fed, I think that there's there's another story. And that for me is really the nutrition of the animal.

But I do agree with you there. There is the concept of, you know, health and nutrition that you'll you'll find higher, you know, heart traits of that. But I'm not a nutritionist at the end of the day.

So, you know, you're aware of the Carnivore diet? I am, yeah. Have you ever messed around with that?

Yeah. So how often do you eat meat yourself?

Well, I taste it every day, but to sit down and have a steak, it's it's a rarity. But I eat a lot of red meat like I eat quite often.

But you don't sit down and have a steak very often.

I can't, I can't, I can't do it. I because I taste it all the time. So I like to sit there and eat a whole steak.

I mean I might need to have a steak, you know, it's just I have that flavour. It's like it's a whole for a whole month.

I did it for the month of January, the World Carnivore Month. It's I eat mostly rib eyes and elk steak and eggs.

What did you do to your mind? I think I've got more aggressive and I'm kind of joking about that, maybe gave me more energy. I don't know, it's different. Something happens.

It makes sense to me that if you're a cow, you don't need to be aggressive because you're basically just eating grass and chill. And most of the time, however, there's bulls.

Bulls are very aggressive, but.

So I don't know if my analogy makes sense, but if you eat meat and only meat, I really feel like there's some kind of a shift that happens with, I mean, virtually no carbohydrates. And I might have had like a couple of pieces of chili, mango. And I think I had a few olives or something like that for the whole month. Right. And I felt great.

You would think you'd feel like shit. Yeah, I did not feel like shit at all.

I felt really good and I had incredible energy, but I got bored.

Yeah, I get bored.

I wanted to eat other things, but there's in you know, here we are, it's May and that's a few months ago. But I think sometimes like. Hmm, maybe I should get back to that. I mean it was only five months ago. Right. But it I lost a lot of weight I got down to and that's the other thing too, I wonder like whether or not how lean I would get, whether or not that would level off.

But I wound up I think I wound up losing 12 pounds or somewhere somewhere in that range yet. Is that a lot water water weight, though?

I'm imagine so, yeah.

Because in general, because you're depleting your glycogen stores, you know. So at the end of the day, you know, you're just like, yeah, thirsty for that. And you're in your cells, you know, but it didn't really fuck with my workout.

So, you know, I thought I worried about that, that it was going to mess with my workouts, but I had good energy.

But again, I only did it for a month.

I've had friends. My friend Trevor did it for I think he said he did it for six months. But after a while he felt like he was dropping off. But then I know people that have been doing it for years and they feel great.

I lean towards that. I can't do it like us. It's a strict, you know, regiment, you know.

But have you ever tried to do it as a trick when you say you can't do it as a strict regiment?

I have. You know, I have, but not one. I have the restaurant in operation because, you know, I'm sitting there and, you know, I'm tasting everything, you know, making sure everything is right and includes like a pastas. I could just be like a bite and just messes with you. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The the greatest thing in the world to me is intermittent fasting. You know, for me, it's like, you know, not eat, you know, from that period of time and, you know, start eating at like four o'clock in the afternoon.

And that for me has always been like a godsend. That just that works. Yeah.

That makes a big impact. And especially for people that are struggling with their weight. You know, it's so easy to just shove things in your face. It's so easy just to continue to eat when you're really not even hungry anymore. You're bored.

Like for me, the struggle is late at night.

You know, when I come home late at night, especially when I was coming home from the Comedy Store, I just want to fucking eat, you know, I'd want to eat chips. Yeah. Or I want to eat some bullshit. Yeah. It's always bullshit when they're tired too.

It's always the worst food. Once you get sugar out of your system, you don't crave it. But once you eat a little bit of sugar, then it's you constantly crave it. Yes. Yeah.

It's that that day that there's this there's something evil about sugar.

It's ridiculous. It's so devilish. There's something about it.

But it's also so great. It's like how can they be how can those two things coexist?

Because like an amazing like just ice cream with fudge and some whipped cream is so good sometimes.

But then the feeling that I have afterwards, like you fucking dummy, why did you do this yourself 100 percent?

But I mean, there's like a feeling like when you take a spoon of that fudge and ice cream. Oh, so good. Like it goes through your whole body.

I know your body's so happy for that brief period of time, but then it's just a trick because then you feel like you have poisoned 100 percent.

I remember one time I was eating real strict and then I decided to go off the reservation for a day and I had a cheeseburger with fries and a giant shake, a big chocolate shake and my fucking head, Whurley.

I had to lay on the couch and my kids were asking me questions I couldn't even answer. I was like, what do you I don't know why. Who am I? Where am I? It was like my head was in a vice. It was really it felt like I got drugged.

Yeah. I was like, oh, I had nothing.

Because your body is also supersensitive because, you know, because it wasn't eating like that. Yeah, yeah. That's the the dance between delicious and nutritious. Like what is that.

How do you, how do you manage that dance. How do you navigate that dance.

Um. I'm pretty disciplined, like, you know, I'll get into I mean, up into this, like for the past, I mean, I was super into working out, you know, daily. And then I got so focused on the restaurant, you know, it just was like, I don't have time. I got I've got to get back to it because I felt so good and so much energy. But in terms of, like, the dance for me.

I'm like just little snippets of tasting good food, like great food, like all day, why are you cooking while I'm cooking?

What is your day like when you get there? Like, when do you get there and when do you leave? Well, now, normally normally I'd get in at let's say. Anywhere from 10 like ten o'clock and then could leave as late, you know, typically like 10, 30, 11. So you guys have a lunch crowd? No, it's even no, lunch is just preparation dinner.

I have barbecue for lunch. And so that's good. So I would like to sleep there overnight, get it going. I have this amazing chef Marcus and leave me there. Yeah.

You sleep there because you know, you know, we're talking about the temperatures and everything. So there's a certain time when you need to wrap the beef, for example, and and put your paper. It usually happens at like four thirty five in the morning. And if you don't do it, you know, you miss the window to do it. So I don't like to hold the meat too long. So to get the better quality, you know, you have to write a lot of people that just make it earlier, put it into the warmer and it will hold.

But, you know, I think that there's a huge difference. So, you know, we'll wrap it really, really early. So that's that's usually what happens.

So you what do you sleep? Downstairs, just get a couch on the couch. Yeah, wow, yeah, and you set the alarm for for 30 minutes. Yeah. Oh, it's painful. So you want to be a chef? Yeah, well, that's it. You know, is the agony and the ecstasy. Yeah. You know, that's it. But my usual routine, particularly now, like, I'll get in by 10:00. I take a listen what's, you know, going on like for that day, pack out meals, whatever, you know, finish like ten, eight, eight, anywhere from between eight to ten.

That's a long day. It's a long day.

I'm feeling it lately. I mean, all like the muscles in my hands, like I don't even know what's going on. That's why I say I have to start training again because I'm like, my transitional movement is slow. I'm like an old man. Like, I get out of bed. I'm like, oh, I make the noise. Like, it's just been terrible, you know?

Well, also, imagine the stress is not good for you either and probably not good for your sleep.

I've been compartmentalizing a lot of what's going on right now. You know, that's the only way I'm getting through it. You know, I have to be strong for my team. I have to give really strong leadership. I need to inspire them. Just through example. That's the only way, because a lot of people, they just want to take off and they want to collect unemployment. You know, the way it's working now, it's they make more money on unemployment than working.

It's crazy. So, yeah. So I have to lead from the front. First one in, first one out and but I compartmentalize. So the stress is like there I'm just kind of focused like, OK, I got to feed the hospital workers, I got to feed Saint Joseph and how can I come up with something that the neighborhood wants, like to indulge on, whether it's meat loaf and peas, mashed potatoes or it's fried chicken or it's, you know, chicken with grains, lemon and honey, you know, something like that.

So.

Well, I can only hope that this is over soon enough and that things will bounce back. Know me too. But you got an amazing restaurant. It's really great. I love eating there and I can't wait to come back there again.

And I really hope that in the short amount of time I mean, I don't know when and how.

I don't know how it's going to work. Tough restaurant. People are tough.

You have to be just the fucking hours that you put in, man.

Do the best that we can. That's all you can do, you know. Well, thanks, brother. Thanks for being so much. Appreciate you. And hopefully next time I see you be at your restaurant.

All right. Thank you. Bye, everybody.

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