Latest / The Restaurant Guys / Southern Smoke Festival 2026 | Vol. 2: French Brasseries, Caviar Camp & Great Brisket

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Southern Smoke Festival 2026 | Vol. 2: French Brasseries, Caviar Camp & Great Brisket · The Restaurant Guys

• 0:42
  Hello everybody, and welcome.
• 0:43
  You are listening to The Restaurant Guys.
• 0:45
  I'm Mark Pascal, and I'm here with Francis Schott.
• 0:47
  Together we own Stage Left and Cath Labardi Restaurants in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
• 0:51
  We're here to bring you the inside track on food, wine, and the finer things in life.
• 0:55
  And we are once again gonna bring you a show from the Southern Smoke Foundation Festival down in Houston, Texas.
• 1:01
  Yeah.
• 1:02
  This one, this one's gonna be really fun.
• 1:03
  Two of the three chefs we're interviewing today, we stopped at their restaurants and ate meals at their restaurants before we interviewed them.
• 1:10
  Not only that, Leonard Botello's restaurant, Truth BBQ, we were so excited.
• 1:13
  We love great barbecue, and I like a good barbecue, but- Mm-hmm...we love great barbecue.
• 1:18
  So we landed in Houston, me, Mark, Jennifer, Mark's wife and our producer, and Julie, our director of operations, and we, with our luggage, took an Uber directly to Truth BBQ.
• 1:31
  Great people.
• 1:32
  They got a bar inside.
• 1:33
  The food's terrific.
• 1:34
  Anyway, they're gonna be on the show later on today.
• 1:36
  We had a great time overall.
• 1:38
  Houston was terrific.
• 1:39
  So- It really was.
• 1:39
  And we also have Jason Rizek that's gonna be on the show.
• 1:42
  We visited him at Little's Oyster Bar before the show, and we just had a great time there, and it's a great show.
• 1:49
  I think you're really gonna enjoy today.
• 1:50
  And you get to learn all about Caviar Camp.
• 1:52
  Mm.
• 1:52
  So let's go to Houston, shall we?
• 1:54
  And we'll start our show right now with Kyle Naul from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
• 1:58
  KK F: our next victim at Southern Smoke is Kyle Nall.
• 2:01
  KK F: He is our first repeat customer here.
• 2:04
  KK F: We were, so you were here last year, uh, at the Southern Smoke Festival, and we had a great time, and we wanted to have you back because number one, because it was fun, but also because in the interim you have opened another restaurant.
• 2:15
  KK F: You are in- own Birch Restaurant, and you have recently opened Cassis Restaurant, both in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
• 2:21
  KK M: Right.
• 2:21
  KK M: Kyle, welcome to the show.
• 2:22
  KK M: Thanks.
• 2:22
  KK M: Welcome back.
• 2:22
  KK M: Good to see you, man.
• 2:23
  KK K: to see you all.
• 2:24
  KK K: It was a pleasure last year, and uh, better view this year.
• 2:28
  KK K: Yes.
• 2:28
  KK F: Yeah, we moved.
• 2:29
  KK F: We moved.
• 2:29
  KK F: We moved to a better location.
• 2:31
  KK F: I think we did well, so they moved
• 2:32
  KK K: to the right- Yeah.
• 2:33
  KK K: Awesome.
• 2:34
  KK K: Yeah.
• 2:34
  KK K: That's right.
• 2:34
  KK K: Yeah, I love it.
• 2:35
  KK M: right, we were in the testing ground last year.
• 2:36
  KK M: We're in
• 2:36
  KK F: Yeah, we got the banner out there.
• 2:38
  KK F: People are walking by saying,"Oh, look, The Restaurant Guys." Yeah.
• 2:41
  KK F: we wanna start with something that, all the other legions who interview may, may not start with, is you have inherited a friend of ours, or a friend of ours has inherited you.
• 2:50
  KK F: Robert Simonson, the great drinks writer, has moved from New York City to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and he thinks you're great
• 2:57
  KK K: Well, he, both of them are great.
• 2:59
  KK M: Yes, Mary Kate's awesome.
• 3:00
  KK M: Mary
• 3:00
  KK F: Mary Kate is amazing
• 3:01
  KK M: terrific.
• 3:02
  KK M: I
• 3:02
  KK K: truly it's like, when my wife Megan and I moved to Milwaukee, we loved the idea of bringing New York there.
• 3:08
  KK K: And now that they're there, I feel like Milwaukee just went up a notch.
• 3:12
  KK M: you guys gotta step up your cocktail game now, for sure.
• 3:15
  KK K: yeah.
• 3:15
  KK K: There's no- No doubt.
• 3:16
  KK K: And you know-
• 3:17
  KK M: around with Mary Kate and Robert
• 3:18
  KK K: Mary Kate probably I would be curious how many cocktails they drink a week in their house and in restaurants.
• 3:23
  KK F: I think it slows them down because they write about them all.
• 3:25
  KK F: You know, I think that may be an issue.
• 3:27
  KK F: But Roberts is a published author.
• 3:28
  KK F: He's one of the, he's one of the most important writers on cocktails and the cocktail movement, period
• 3:32
  KK M: gonna be doing one of Robert's book signings during Robert and Mary Kate's book
• 3:36
  KK F: And so are we.
• 3:37
  KK K: Wow.
• 3:38
  KK K: Look at that.
• 3:38
  KK F: gonna
• 3:39
  KK M: what's the date of your event, Kyle?
• 3:40
  KK K: it's in December.
• 3:41
  KK K: Okay.
• 3:42
  KK M: So we'll put that up
• 3:43
  KK F: And we're gonna be on the 27th of October.
• 3:46
  KK F: So you can find out about ours at stageleft.com/events, and you can find out about Kyle's either at his website or we'll put it up on our show notes as well.
• 3:55
  KK F: So if you're around,
• 3:56
  KK M: If you happen to be in Milwaukee in December
• 3:58
  KK F: yeah.
• 3:59
  KK F: that's Robert's new hometown signing, so
• 4:01
  KK K: it's funny'cause, you know, Milwaukee is has this classic amazing cocktail culture, it's like the king came home.
• 4:08
  KK K: Mm.
• 4:09
  KK K: And I just think it's like, it's, it's so cool to see.
• 4:12
  KK F: Talk to us about Milwaukee's culture, and then talk to us about Cassis, your new place
• 4:16
  KK K: look, the, the culture in Milwaukee is like, it's, blue collar, you know, all the breweries there.
• 4:22
  KK K: Funny enough, my dad delivered Miller beer for 22 years in Birmingham, Alabama,
• 4:28
  KK F: Amazing.
• 4:28
  KK F: My dad delivered Rheingold in
• 4:30
  KK K: yeah?
• 4:30
  KK F: Jersey.
• 4:31
  KK F: So there you go
• 4:32
  KK K: years.
• 4:33
  KK M: My dad did not deliver beer anywhere.
• 4:35
  KK M: Yeah
• 4:35
  KK K: I'm sorry.
• 4:35
  KK K: And then he delivered Cisco.
• 4:36
  KK K: So everybody gives, like Cisco, they're like,"Oh, really?
• 4:38
  KK K: Cisco?
• 4:39
  KK K: Has a bad rap." I'm like,"No, not at all." I got a, shirt this week and it has a Cisco patch, and it looks like my dad's uniform, and I,
• 4:45
  KK M: Oh, that's gotta feel good
• 4:46
  KK K: so good.
• 4:47
  KK K: So, so good.
• 4:48
  KK K: but Milwaukee's great.
• 4:49
  KK K: You know, the people are amazing.
• 4:50
  KK K: Great culture, well traveled, big supporters of each other.
• 4:54
  KK F: Is the food scene ascendant there in Milwaukee, or has it always been great?
• 4:58
  KK F: Or is there something new going
• 5:00
  KK K: I think it's a mix of both, uh, and I think that's what's special about a city.
• 5:03
  KK K: Like, you wanna have those roots of like this kinda Polish and German, food.
• 5:08
  KK K: But then like there's obviously chefs like me that are bringing something newer to the city.
• 5:12
  KK M: So you opened Birch- Yeah...okay, a few years back.
• 5:15
  KK M: Now you decide you need to open Cassis.
• 5:18
  KK M: why did you feel the need to open that second place?
• 5:20
  KK M: what's new and informative about Cassis?
• 5:22
  KK K: before we moved, so I was a chef for Stephen Starr before we left, and I remember calling my father-in-law in Milwaukee, and I said,"You know, this is an amazing job." I don't know if we wanna leave.
• 5:32
  KK K: I love it, but it'd be so nice to be in a community where we could do more, and like for the city, for charity, to purchase more from local farmers, all that.
• 5:41
  KK K: But for us, it was like, we just wanna have fun and like build different things.
• 5:45
  KK K: And that's a fun thing, you know?
• 5:47
  KK K: And so, the area where Cassis is, it's the Third Ward, it's kinda like the central hub of the whole state.
• 5:52
  KK K: this building was being built, and I called Megan, I said,"We gotta build a brasserie to go right there." it's a place where people can come all day long.
• 6:00
  KK K: I always say, like, New York is amazing'cause you can land in the city, and you can get in a car and go eat a great meal any time of day.
• 6:07
  KK K: Literally any time of day.
• 6:08
  KK K: Yeah.
• 6:08
  KK K: And that's what we wanted for Cassis, and, uh, it's really worked out well.
• 6:11
  KK K: And so it's this big 190-seat brasserie, uh, in this very modern new building, but it looks like it's in an old French train station.
• 6:19
  KK F: And what are the hours?
• 6:20
  KK F: how early and how late do you go
• 6:21
  KK K: Open at 11:00, and open all day, uh, up until midnight
• 6:26
  KK F: we talked to so many chefs who went back to Milwaukee or who went back to Pittsburgh or who went back to different small cities Or, um, Charleston.
• 6:34
  KK F: We talked to a bunch of chefs in Charleston.
• 6:35
  KK F: They're like,"Yeah, we, we loved New York, But it's more possible to have a life out here, and it's more stable, and you are more likely to make it to year 10 or year 20 out there." And is that, is that the case?
• 6:47
  KK F: And why is that the case,
• 6:49
  KK K: It is the case, for sure, and I...
• 6:51
  KK K: I'll circle back to that.
• 6:52
  KK K: The coolest thing,
• 6:53
  KK M: like
• 6:54
  KK K: my restaurant Maysville that opened in New York, we had a tasting menu and it...
• 6:58
  KK K: we wouldn't sell a ton of them.
• 6:59
  KK K: We have it at Birch, and we sell, like, 60 on a Friday, 60 on a Saturday.
• 7:04
  KK K: When we do these pop-ups where chefs come to town, we have the support of the community more than we did in New York, and I think that is, like, the biggest thing.
• 7:13
  KK K: And, um, people
• 7:15
  KK M: are part of the community.
• 7:16
  KK M: Yeah.
• 7:16
  KK M: Whereas in New York City, you know, and we're in, in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and we're part of the c- we do have tourism and things like that, but we are part of the community.
• 7:25
  KK M: You- you're gonna be in Milwaukee, Wis- Wisconsin, you better be part of the community, right?
• 7:29
  KK K: kinda like the sports.
• 7:30
  KK K: Like, when, when the, the year we moved was when the Bucks won the championship, and it was like a movie seeing all all the fans gathering downtown, herding to go see the Bucks play.
• 7:41
  KK K: It's just like there's so much pride in everything that anyone does.
• 7:44
  KK K: Yeah.
• 7:45
  KK K: It's, it's insane to see it in the restaurants.
• 7:47
  KK K: Like, we see regulars three times a week sometime if we're doing like an, a pop-up, a new tasting menu, or the burger in our bar or something like that.
• 7:55
  KK F: having been in the same place for 35 years, you know, Mark and I have...
• 7:58
  KK F: I think one of the things we really enjoy is the, first of all, we have so many employees who've worked for us for a long time and, and so are part of our, you know, our lives and we're part of their lives.
• 8:08
  KK F: And we trust each other, and it's a trust built up over all this time.
• 8:11
  KK F: But also with our guests and our neighbors.
• 8:13
  KK F: And what's really interesting about the restaurant is we've had people who've moved away, but when they come back to visit they always come and see us'cause we're there.
• 8:20
  KK F: And you could be the best restaurant in New York, and you could have been the best restaurant in New York for six years, but if your lease is up in year seven and you close, they've forgotten about you in 18 months.
• 8:30
  KK F: You're gone.
• 8:30
  KK M: They're gone four days later.
• 8:31
  KK M: They, they don't even remember the, what restaurant was in that space.
• 8:35
  KK F: not part of anybody's life, I th- or it's very hard
• 8:39
  KK M: hard.
• 8:39
  KK M: I, there are places that are, that are like that, that are still parts of sewn into the fabric, but it's rare
• 8:45
  KK F: you can do that in Brooklyn more than you can do that in Manhattan, but I think it's easier to establish that in New Jersey and even easier, I think, in Milwaukee, right?
• 8:52
  KK K: like, kinda like when people would come to the city in New York, and you'd be excited that, like, my mentor, Frank Stitt, would be in town.
• 8:58
  KK K: People eat and go out so much when they visit New York.
• 9:01
  KK K: They come into your restaurant, and it's like,"We're kinda full.
• 9:04
  KK K: We just wanna, like, see it and have a bite," where they come in to eat at Birch, and they're like,"We're throwing down." Yeah.
• 9:09
  KK K: And we get to experience what you're doing, and to me, it's like, it's, it's such a, like, a fresh relief to be like,"We're gonna take care of you tonight," and, and you
• 9:17
  KK M: This is your night.
• 9:17
  KK M: We
• 9:17
  KK K: night we do.
• 9:18
  KK K: Yeah.
• 9:18
  KK M: what you're doing tonight.
• 9:19
  KK K: This is what you're doing tonight.
• 9:19
  KK K: And it's our team, you know?
• 9:20
  KK K: It's like, it's just so great to see our team crush it, and yeah.
• 9:24
  KK F: I think b- you know, being in that B market, I wouldn't wanna be in
• 9:27
  KK M: funny you say being in a B market like it's less good than being in an A
• 9:32
  KK F: I just mean less-
• 9:33
  KK M: it just means-'Cause when I get a grade- Yeah I wanna get an A.
• 9:35
  KK M: Yeah.
• 9:36
  KK M: But when I'm in a market, I wanna be in a market where I'm important.
• 9:39
  KK M: Yeah.
• 9:39
  KK M: So it's, for, if you live in New Brunswick, I am an A
• 9:43
  KK F: Oh, yeah.
• 9:43
  KK F: Well, we're the...
• 9:44
  KK F: What
• 9:44
  KK M: in Milwaukee, you're an A market.
• 9:46
  KK F: But I, you know what I mean by a
• 9:47
  KK M: do know what you mean.
• 9:48
  KK M: Well- I just, I want our listeners to-
• 9:49
  KK K: we had a writer from,
• 9:51
  KK M: that means
• 9:53
  KK K: a big national publication a few weeks ago, and I, I went out for drinks and hung out with him afterwards.
• 9:58
  KK K: And the, the comment came up of Second City or whatnot, and I was like,"Yeah, just it sucks sometime to hear that." And the article came out that that person wrote, and actually it was like a...
• 10:08
  KK K: It...
• 10:08
  KK K: The title was like something like,"Fine dining without the coastal surcharges."
• 10:16
  KK M: Ah.
• 10:17
  KK M: Whoa.
• 10:17
  KK K: And it was such an amazing title.
• 10:18
  KK K: I was like- Nice"That's so
• 10:20
  KK M: got one, yay.
• 10:21
  KK F: That's
• 10:21
  KK K: Yeah.
• 11:48
  KK F: No, that's great.
• 11:49
  KK M: That's fantastic.
• 11:50
  KK F: Yeah.
• 11:51
  KK F: Well, it's really terrific, and it's great to have you back to talk about your second place.
• 11:54
  KK F: If, uh, you wanna find out more about Kyle and his places, we're gonna post them on the show notes, of course, at restaurantguyspodcast.com.
• 12:00
  KK F: And w- I- we gotta go to Milwaukee, visit Robert, visit you, have some drinks
• 12:04
  KK M: a pleasure.
• 12:04
  KK M: Yeah,
• 12:05
  KK K: Thanks so much.
• 12:05
  KK M: Thank you for joining
• 12:06
  KK F: thanks for coming on
• 12:07
  KK K: Look forward to next time.
• 12:08
  KK F: Yeah, likewise.
• 12:10
  KK M: We'll see you there or we'll see you
• 12:11
  KK K: Yeah.
• 12:12
  KK K: Would love to have y'all there, for sure.
• 12:14
  KK K: I'll get Robert to hook y'all in, you know.
• 12:15
  KK F: I love it.
• 12:16
  KK F: Brother, thanks.
• 12:17
  KK F: Thanks a bunch.
• 12:18
  KK F: It was great
• 12:19
  JRes F: As the fairgrounds continue to get more crowded at the Southern Smoke Festival, we are now here with Jason Rizek.
• 12:25
  JRes F: He is the chef at Little's Oyster Bar, where we had oysters and caviar last night, and they were amazing.
• 12:31
  JRes F: He is using a kind of a West Coast seafood sensibility on Gulf Coast seafood and taking caviar unusually seriously.
• 12:40
  JRes F: Anybody who does that is, uh, okay in our book, and welcome on the Restaurant Guys Show.
• 12:44
  JRes M: Jason, welcome to the
• 12:45
  JRes J: Hey, thanks for having me.
• 12:46
  JRes F: Dude, Caviar last night was amazing.
• 12:49
  JRes F: The oysters were amazing.
• 12:50
  JRes F: Just talking to you tableside, thanks for coming out to talk to us tableside last night.
• 12:54
  JRes F: Learned a bunch, and we want to educate everybody in the audience today with all the shit we learned.
• 12:59
  JRes F: Yeah
• 12:59
  JRes M: So talk to us a little bit about Caviar Camp.
• 13:02
  JRes M: So you go to Caviar Camp now every year.
• 13:04
  JRes J: Yes.
• 13:05
  JRes J: Um, so Caviar Camp started, over 10 years ago.
• 13:09
  JRes J: of the chefs came out before me and, uh, was visiting and, said,"Hey, Deb, I don't need to stay anywhere.
• 13:14
  JRes J: I'll just camp on the farm."
• 13:16
  JRes M: talking about Deborah Keen from California
• 13:18
  JRes J: Yes.
• 13:18
  JRes J: Thank you.
• 13:19
  JRes J: who's, um, my caviar mentor, I would say.
• 13:22
  JRes J: Uh, she kinda plucked me out while I was, uh, the executive chef at Fair Lawn.
• 13:25
  JRes J: Young, asked me to, um, try her caviar, Ask me to make caviar.
• 13:30
  JRes J: I got there and, um, got lucky with my first round.
• 13:33
  JRes J: It came out pretty good as they were teaching me how to do it.
• 13:35
  JRes J: and then, we went out to the farm that she, uh, has, and year one was our, I think 14 of us.
• 13:40
  JRes J: We did a little potluck wood fire dinner, drank a little too much as we do in California.
• 13:45
  JRes M: so got up the next morning- Uh, just you know, I know we do that in Houston.
• 13:47
  JRes M: I also know we do that
• 13:48
  JRes J: it everywhere.
• 13:50
  JRes M: Uh, I can, uh, testify for Chicago.
• 13:53
  JRes M: Yes.
• 13:53
  JRes M: I can testify for a lot of cities across this country.
• 13:55
  JRes M: That's- it's
• 13:56
  JRes J: how we like to do it in food and beverage, right?
• 13:58
  JRes J: So, um, we got up the next morning, ourselves off, got in the tanks with some big old fish, and did some biopsies.
• 14:04
  JRes F: All right, let's talk to us
• 14:05
  JRes M: Yeah.
• 14:05
  JRes M: You gotta, you gotta describe exactly what that is
• 14:07
  JRes F: how big a tank is this?
• 14:09
  JRes J: So the tank, I wanna say, guessing, is probably about 20 meters diameter.
• 14:15
  JRes J: Okay.
• 14:16
  JRes J: And that's just rough estimate
• 14:18
  JRes F: And so you're,
• 14:18
  JRes J: And you- than a lap swim-
• 14:19
  JRes F: and so you're into your, and you're into your chess with some big fish
• 14:23
  JRes M: and they really like it when you get in there
• 14:25
  JRes J: They hate it.
• 14:25
  JRes J: So they're about six to eight feet long, uh, minimum five years to get to where they're capable of producing caviar so that we can biopsy them.
• 14:32
  JRes J: Um, and so as I showed you yesterday, I take the stance covering my importance as they all swim around us very quickly'cause they're not happy we got in.
• 14:40
  JRes J: This is also for those of us who are a little more seasoned.
• 14:42
  JRes J: The other chefs, as they're newer, we don't let it just in, but they kind of bump us a lot, and the sturgeon do that.
• 14:48
  JRes J: They're, they're not really aggressive.
• 14:50
  JRes J: They just bump you'cause they don't really notice or know.
• 14:52
  JRes J: Um, then as, uh, myself and some of the farmers wrangle them into the nets, it gets a little safer to let chefs in'cause they're controlled.
• 14:59
  JRes J: And then, um, the next stage is, uh, getting to the biopsy.
• 15:02
  JRes J: So when you're the one who's going to do the biopsy, you're trained in the biopsy.
• 15:06
  JRes J: You have a plastic hose around your neck.
• 15:08
  JRes J: You have a little, like, foam, uh, covered scalpel that only gives you about an inch of a blade also around your neck.
• 15:15
  JRes J: One of us, and this is generally a position I take when I'm training, will get a sturgeon by the fins, flip it over head towards us so that its belly is up,
• 15:24
  JRes M: And again, they really like
• 15:25
  JRes J: that, right?
• 15:26
  JRes J: Yeah.
• 15:26
  JRes J: Uh, if you do it s- uh, gently enough, they don't really mind.
• 15:30
  JRes J: As soon as you get their nose to, to hold into your belly where all their nerves are, they completely calm down.
• 15:35
  JRes M: That's awesome.
• 15:36
  JRes M: And
• 15:36
  JRes J: so then I hold.
• 15:37
  JRes J: So I hold both fins upside down, keep their nose in my belly.
• 15:40
  JRes J: I kind of back and forth, just wading with them so they'll kind of slowly move.
• 15:44
  JRes J: And as you get that control and let them know they've still got, uh, some room, they kind of soften.
• 15:49
  JRes J: And then you find the spot on their belly where their roe will be.
• 15:51
  JRes J: Now, they're swimming on the bottom, so a lot of their nerves are dead'cause they're scraping.
• 15:55
  JRes J: we give it a quick pop, if you can hear that in the mic.
• 15:58
  JRes J: Get that, scalpel in an inch as quickly, as possible.
• 16:01
  JRes J: It's not that gentle, but it's just enough to get it in.
• 16:03
  JRes J: If you go slow, it's way worse for the fish.
• 16:05
  JRes J: And then once it's in, out h- uh, the little plastic hose goes in.
• 16:08
  JRes J: We suck the roe out, only a little bit.
• 16:11
  JRes J: Beginners always suck in a bunch of roe and then choke on it like a Pixy Stick.
• 16:15
  JRes J: But you get it to where you just get enough.
• 16:16
  JRes J: You put it in your hand.
• 16:17
  JRes J: You look at it for color, size.
• 16:19
  JRes J: Pinch it.
• 16:20
  JRes J: See how the dimples leave a mark in your fingers?
• 16:22
  JRes J: Feel it.
• 16:23
  JRes J: Taste it.
• 16:24
  JRes J: Get a sense of it.
• 16:24
  JRes J: There's a few things that I look for.
• 16:26
  JRes J: Uh, one thing, uh, we talk about is, like, potato starch.
• 16:29
  JRes J: It's kind of powdery, and that way it, it, it'll transform when you make your caviar.
• 16:33
  JRes J: And then because I get first dibs, I generally get to tag the fish I want.
• 16:36
  JRes J: Those I don't, I let the rest of the three Michelin star chefs from San Francisco pick second.
• 16:40
  JRes J: It's a little thing I've always enjoyed.
• 16:42
  JRes M: Listen, everybody wants to be firsties,
• 16:44
  JRes J: I know, right?
• 16:46
  JRes J: And, uh, and there are, uh, some incredible chefs that, that come out there to the event, and their teams.
• 16:51
  JRes F: Well, so wait.
• 16:51
  JRes F: You gotta take me through.
• 16:52
  JRes F: So you tag the fish if the roe is ready.
• 16:54
  JRes F: Does it ever like, oh, this fish isn't ready, and you, and they go back?
• 16:57
  JRes F: Or, or how's that work?
• 16:59
  JRes F: Or you're just
• 16:59
  JRes J: a lot of times I really know what I'm looking for to know that what I do with my process, it's gonna come out to be reminiscent of the Sacramento Delta and the Pacific Ocean.
• 17:10
  JRes J: Okay.
• 17:10
  JRes J: Because these are in fresh water, but they're brackish fish, so they can be in a little more salinity, a little more, uh, sweet.
• 17:17
  JRes J: Um, ours are farmed with sweet water.
• 17:19
  JRes J: Um, and so, uh, so with that, knowing that transformation, how can I get it to show what it's like here?
• 17:26
  JRes J: It's kind of like embodying where an oyster's from and how that represents where it is, uh, c- coming from, or grapes for wine.
• 17:33
  JRes J: Um, so that's what we're trying to do with the, the
• 17:35
  JRes F: We are all focused on the food, but I know that a lot of our audience are like,"What happened to the sturgeon?
• 17:40
  JRes F: What happened to the sturgeon?" You, so what happens at, at...
• 17:43
  JRes F: What's the next step after you've tagged a sturgeon?
• 17:45
  JRes J: tag the sturgeon?
• 17:45
  JRes J: So once we tag them, we put them into a purging, uh, tank, and let them go towards attrition, which is basically as their eggs are becoming ready and, uh, the purging cleans up the fish.
• 17:54
  JRes J: The fish are putting everything positive protein-wise and fat-wise they have into their eggs, their roe, um, which is a very common, part of what sturgeon do, fish in general.
• 18:03
  JRes J: and right before attrition where they would reabsorb their eggs and then you couldn't do anything for the next year, you have the best, texture, cell structure, most delicate part of the egg.
• 18:12
  JRes J: That's when we'll do the extraction.
• 18:13
  JRes J: Now, sturgeon, the...
• 18:15
  JRes J: To do this, you have to sacrifice the fish.
• 18:18
  JRes J: We extract the roe.
• 18:20
  JRes J: I have made a practice of using as much of the fish as possible.
• 18:23
  JRes J: I
• 18:23
  JRes F: the sturgeon
• 18:24
  JRes J: post caviar production sturgeon is one of the most beautiful fish you can serve in the world.
• 18:28
  JRes J: Sturgeon itself can be a little tight, a little muddy.
• 18:31
  JRes J: I've attributed the texture of a sturgeon loin to pork, tenderloin, strip loin.
• 18:36
  JRes J: It has that kind of meaty texture.
• 18:37
  JRes M: I love sturgeon.
• 18:38
  JRes M: It really
• 18:39
  JRes J: works very well.
• 18:40
  JRes J: But how clean post caviar production sturgeon is, is amazing.
• 18:43
  JRes J: What I've been doing for a few years, and I serve when I can, and I do try to do it to where I line up the fish with the caviar by having the roe
• 18:51
  JRes M: Oh, how cool is that?
• 18:53
  JRes J: my God.
• 18:53
  JRes J: Sturgeon skin cracklings.
• 18:54
  JRes J: Oh.
• 18:55
  JRes J: How much m- more southern does it get than that?
• 18:56
  JRes J: And
• 18:56
  JRes F: I've never heard of that.
• 18:57
  JRes F: That's great
• 18:58
  JRes J: I don't know any, of anybody who did it before me.
• 19:00
  JRes J: I've been forthcoming with my friends on how we do it.
• 19:02
  JRes J: We pretty much take the teacha skin like pork, a pig skin.
• 19:05
  JRes J: Yeah.
• 19:06
  JRes J: And when you fry it up, I mean, it doesn't taste fishy.
• 19:09
  JRes J: It is like eating a crackling.
• 19:10
  JRes F: Oh, that's amazing So
• 19:11
  JRes J: lot of times what I do is I leave the skin from the fish, match with the numbers of the caviar in the tins that we hold at, so I can say,"This is from the same fish," and you can eat it that way.
• 19:21
  JRes M: So Deborah talked to us when she was on the show last about no-kill caviar.
• 19:27
  JRes M: Yes And that she's working towards that, and you were telling us- Correct their next stage of that is happening now.
• 19:32
  JRes J: So that was where I wanted to go next with this, uh, uh, which is perfect, is Deborah has the patent, and has for quite a while now, to be the only one to do induced labor no-kill caviar.
• 19:41
  JRes J: Now, year after year, a sturgeon produces a better roe, better quality roe.
• 19:47
  JRes J: When you're in the business of farming sturgeon, the sooner you can extract the roe and make caviar out of it, the better.
• 19:51
  JRes J: But to have no kill, it, it gets, you know, how much more sustainable can you get?
• 19:56
  JRes J: And year after year, your fish is producing a better caviar.
• 20:00
  JRes M: now you're gonna get an eight-year caviar, a nine-year caviar- Yeah, from the same fish a 10-year caviar from the same fish.
• 20:03
  JRes M: That's amazing.
• 20:04
  JRes M: And even
• 20:04
  JRes J: You don't get one run.
• 20:05
  JRes J: You get golden from an incredible fish that's extremely rare, which is what she's been playing with, uh, lately.
• 20:11
  JRes J: And, uh, fortunately I got to try some of that a few weeks ago, which was out of this world.
• 20:14
  JRes J: Texturally, for me, it can be a little firm.
• 20:16
  JRes J: They're working on that.
• 20:17
  JRes J: But she's gotten the best and closest, as of recent, from all these years I've tried it, to getting it where she wants it to be, and it is unreal that she's able to do this, and will be able to do this again, and again, and again from the same
• 20:28
  JRes M: and again, every year it'll be better than the year before.
• 20:31
  JRes M: Yeah.
• 20:31
  JRes M: So you're not just extracting that one year.
• 20:33
  JRes M: Yeah.
• 20:33
  JRes M: You're saying,"Get ready for this.
• 20:34
  JRes M: This is, you got this now?
• 20:36
  JRes M: And wait for next year when it's even
• 20:37
  JRes F: Well, and now we have to take it to the table,'cause we went to your restaurant last night, one of our two dinners.
• 20:41
  JRes F: 'Cause, you know, with the...
• 20:42
  JRes F: hanging out with the restaurant guys, couple of dinners a night,
• 20:44
  JRes M: dinners
• 20:44
  JRes F: of lunches in the afternoon.
• 20:46
  JRes F: But we had to hit your place, because I think what you're doing is so exciting, and we were gonna get to talk to you today.
• 20:51
  JRes F: but let's look at the table now.
• 20:53
  JRes F: We're out of the tank, we're on the airplane, we've arrived in your restaurant, your beautiful restaurant.
• 20:57
  JRes F: Your caviar service is gorgeous.
• 21:00
  JRes M: really was a
• 21:00
  JRes F: gorgeous.
• 21:01
  JRes F: Tell us about the caviar on the table in the dining room
• 21:04
  JRes J: So my goal always with caviar, whether it's a tasting menu or service, is not to use the traditional accoutrements Traditional accoutrements are made to hide the flavor of caviar that's bad.
• 21:15
  JRes J: And that was, like, the tavern-esque, caviar was abundant, it wasn't a high-end item.
• 21:19
  JRes J: Like, that was
• 21:20
  JRes M: Let's put some cocktail sauce or something- Let's put- crazy on here.
• 21:23
  JRes J: and make it better eggs, capers, raw onions, chives, you know.
• 21:27
  JRes M: And
• 21:28
  JRes J: there's a place for some of it, but what I like to do through and through is remove the sulfur, lighten the accoutrements, have some fun with it, and make it playful so that if somebody got caviar, and maybe somebody at the table doesn't want it, well, they can just eat the accoutrements and it's still
• 21:41
  JRes M: What I loved, and this happened at our table last night, so I loved it with the hush puppies.
• 21:46
  JRes M: That's something I never would have put together with it.
• 21:49
  JRes M: And our director of operations was like,"No, the- Potato potato, the potato dumplings where, is where it's at." I was like,"Well, you eat the potato.
• 21:57
  JRes M: I'm gonna eat- the cornmeal, and we can agree to disagree." And that was fantastic.
• 22:01
  JRes F: I just ate the caviar.
• 22:03
  JRes F: That was
• 22:03
  JRes J: hey, that's...
• 22:04
  JRes J: There's nothing wrong with that.
• 22:05
  JRes J: So the idea with that was something Southern, and that's where the accoutrements came from.
• 22:11
  JRes J: but, uh, that- that's how we've done our caviar service, the radish butter, the onion jam- Oh, well-
• 22:15
  JRes F: so you have to come...
• 22:16
  JRes F: If you're in Houston, you have to go have caviar with Hugh.
• 22:18
  JRes F: But while we have a few minutes left, I wanna talk about Gulf Fish, because you are, very much involved in the sustainable seafood movement and, and cooking what's local as well.
• 22:27
  JRes F: Yes.
• 22:27
  JRes F: And we learned something last night that we didn't know.
• 22:30
  JRes F: You educated the restaurant guys.
• 22:31
  JRes F: Yes.
• 22:32
  JRes F: you can't bring in all species of oysters.
• 22:35
  JRes F: They're regulated here in Texas.
• 22:36
  JRes F: So
• 22:37
  JRes M: You can't even serve them.
• 22:38
  JRes F: sir.
• 22:38
  JRes F: Right.
• 22:39
  JRes F: So you're very-
• 22:40
  JRes M: them, so forget about Yeah putting them in the, in the Gulf.
• 22:42
  JRes M: Right.
• 22:42
  JRes M: You can't have them on your
• 22:44
  JRes F: So you're very strict on the pot thing here, you're very strict on the oyster thing here.
• 22:47
  JRes F: Tell us what the restrictions are and why.
• 22:50
  JRes J: So, only the virginica species, a delicate species, and, that's because they don't want oysters that could potentially be invasive and outgrow the native species, which, you know, some people,"Oh, it's political.
• 23:01
  JRes J: It's this or that." Regardless of, I always like to look at the positive intentions of something, rather than, you know, let the negative ones filter through.
• 23:09
  JRes J: And coming from the, the West Coast where our native species, the Olympia, is a slow-growing oyster, the Japanese, species came in and- Kumamotos, yeah and Miyagis, the, the, the...
• 23:19
  JRes J: From the Miyagi prefecture, which, I visited l- a year and a half ago.
• 23:22
  JRes J: It was unreal.
• 23:23
  JRes J: Amazing oysters through and through, and they are good, but they grow fast.
• 23:27
  JRes J: So, um, I understand where the idea is to not allow oysters that could potentially, take over what we have as this native species.
• 23:34
  JRes J: And Texas recently has been very good in these last few years at, getting more farms going along the coast, which, along these brackish, uh, coastlines, it's just gonna clean up the Gulf water,
• 23:44
  JRes M: it is.
• 23:44
  JRes M: People don't- If we can
• 23:45
  JRes J: Gulf, uh, for any of us, it will be helpful to clean up these waters with an oyster.
• 23:49
  JRes J: The
• 23:49
  JRes M: East River, they're putting oysters in there to, to clean it up, and it's working.
• 23:52
  JRes F: Yeah, yeah.
• 23:53
  JRes M: It's working.
• 23:54
  JRes M: Yeah.
• 23:54
  JRes J: In San Francisco, they put the Olympia in the bay and they said,"These won't be edible for 100 years." When...
• 23:59
  JRes J: This was, you know, 12 years ago when I remember them doing this.
• 24:01
  JRes J: Yeah.
• 24:01
  JRes J: Bubbles and bivalves are when we were t- talking about this, and, um, and that's what they're doing.
• 24:05
  JRes J: It's cleaning up the waters in a very natural way, and it's also allowing us to cultivate the native species all over.
• 24:10
  JRes M: And one of the things that people don't realize is there's really only a couple species of oysters, and the different oysters you get are based on where they're from.
• 24:20
  JRes F: Yeah, a lot of the
• 24:21
  JRes M: They're based on the temperature of the water and how fast it's moving and, you know, those ty- and the, and the brackishness or, or salinia- salinity of the water.
• 24:29
  JRes M: That's, that's what makes the difference in your oysters.
• 24:31
  JRes J: Yes.
• 24:32
  JRes J: It's really a great way to taste, um, a little bit of where you're fr- uh, y- your oyster's from.
• 24:37
  JRes J: And I tell people, like, if you were vacationing in New England on a specific beach near an estuary or brackish, and you go out in the morning, and you have that kind of like aroma of, uh, the, the, your, your surroundings, the, the ocean, the vegetal notes, the breeze.
• 24:53
  JRes J: Maybe it's a little low.
• 24:54
  JRes J: It's a little tidal.
• 24:55
  JRes J: It's got a f- little funk to it, but that's okay.
• 24:57
  JRes J: It's got that nuance of it, and then you have the oyster.
• 25:00
  JRes J: And when the oyster's at its cleanest way to present that, it takes you to a morning walk on a beautiful beach in the Conne- in Connecticut- Yeah or Massachusetts- Yes or New York.
• 25:07
  JRes J: You know?
• 25:07
  JRes J: And, and that's what's so incredible about an oyster is it can do that if you allow it.
• 25:12
  JRes F: I think that oysters and caviar are the most purely seafood...
• 25:17
  JRes F: I mean, it is, that is the most pure expression of seafood I can imagine.
• 25:21
  JRes F: All right, so I wanna cl- clarify just'cause I'm a bit of a geek.
• 25:23
  JRes F: So if you're in Texas, uh, you can, you can order in and serve in your restaurant East Coast
• 25:29
  JRes J: Yes, the Virginica species.
• 25:30
  JRes J: So there's five species.
• 25:32
  JRes J: Virginica's the one we're allowed.
• 25:33
  JRes J: The only other East Coast growing species is a Belon.
• 25:36
  JRes J: The, uh, flats that are in the Demarascota River, and that is a whole history lesson that I'll leave for another time.
• 25:42
  JRes J: The other three species that, come from the West Coast are not allowed, but I will say this is one cool thing that I get in very rarely.
• 25:49
  JRes J: Taylor Shellfish helped with a farm.
• 25:51
  JRes J: A couple of, like, oyster nerds, I think they did this right out of high school, grow a Virginica from Totten Inlet.
• 25:56
  JRes J: It is the only West Coast oyster I can have.
• 25:58
  JRes J: And just to show that I will put as much range for Littles as I can for our oyster program so the rest of the, not just Houston and the, uh, state knows, but the country, you wanna come down somewhere and find something cool?
• 26:09
  JRes J: I will bring in something that is that special and that rare from my coastline to, to Texas that still is allowed
• 26:16
  JRes M: That's amazing.
• 26:17
  JRes M: Jason- you need to know If we do not get invited to Caviar Camp next year- Yeah at this festival next year, we will be hazing you at your restaurant.
• 26:26
  JRes J: Well, I'll talk to Deborah about
• 26:28
  JRes M: it
• 26:28
  JRes J: tomorrow night.
• 26:29
  JRes J: If you guys are up for it, the turnaround is I fly out tomorrow at noon.
• 26:32
  JRes J: Amazing.
• 26:33
  JRes J: And you guys will be invited next
• 26:34
  JRes M: That's amazing.
• 26:35
  JRes F: Hey man, this was great.
• 26:36
  JRes F: We had a great time at your restaurant.
• 26:38
  JRes F: We- we're thrilled to be here in your city, in Houston, for Southern Smoke, and thanks for teaching us something.
• 26:42
  JRes F: It was great.
• 26:43
  JRes F: Yeah.
• 26:43
  JRes F: It
• 26:43
  JRes J: Thank you so much for bringing me on.
• 26:44
  JRes J: I really appreciate the time.
• 26:45
  JRes M: thanks so much, man.
• 26:46
  JRes F: Hou- Thank you so much,
• 26:46
  JRes J: such a pleasure.
• 26:47
  JRes F: Thank you, sir.
• 26:49
  JRes F: Talk to you soon.
• 26:49
  JRes F: Ciao.
• 26:49
  JRes F: If you're in Houston, you gotta go to Little's Oyster Bar.
• 26:52
  JRes F: Chef Jason Rizek will be making you stuff.
• 26:53
  JRes F: Order the caviar, have the oysters.
• 26:55
  JRes F: We'll be back in just a minute.
• 26:56
  LB F: Okay, we're here in Houston at Southern Smoke, as you know.
• 26:59
  LB F: And of course, being here in Houston at Southern Smoke, we haven't talked about barbecue yet.
• 27:04
  LB F: And so we're gonna do that with Leonard Botello.
• 27:07
  LB F: Our next guest got a biology degree from Texas A&M, bought a used smoker on Craigslist, and then decided that brisket was gonna be a lifelong science experiment.
• 27:17
  LB F: Leonard
• 27:18
  Mark: Leonard, welcome to the show.
• 27:19
  LB L: Thank you.
• 27:19
  LB L: Where'd you get all that
• 27:20
  LB F: I, uh, I read
• 27:22
  LB L: like I'm on Nardwuar,
• 27:23
  LB F: are one.
• 27:23
  LB F: I
• 27:23
  Mark: there you go.
• 27:24
  LB F: they don't know the stuff that I left out.
• 27:26
  LB F: All right, so it is great to talk to you.
• 27:29
  LB F: We landed in Houston, we put our luggage into an Uber, and we showed up at your place
• 27:35
  Mark: and what I love about that, we were greeted at the door like,"Yeah, we take people's luggage all the
• 27:42
  LB F: Yeah.
• 27:42
  Mark: Yeah.
• 27:43
  Mark: And I, Dave Mays, your, your manager, greeted us at the door, had no idea who we were, and said,"Oh- luggage uh, let me take, let me check your luggage for you." Now, we're in a barbecue place in Houston, Texas.
• 27:54
  Mark: I'm like, Okay.
• 27:56
  Mark: Do you work here?"
• 27:58
  LB L: That's so funny.
• 27:59
  LB L: We, um, our biggest thing about moving to Houston, we were originally talking about between Houston and Austin because we were in Brenham, and it was like Houston, there was already plenty of barbecue in Austin, and Houston we're like, man, it's a major international hub.
• 28:14
  LB L: It'd be like, we just want'em to come straight from the airport, and we joked about that for so long, and now we just stash suitcases behind the, the POS station.
• 28:23
  Mark: What's remarkable about that is then when it was time to leave, I almost took somebody else's suitcase,'cause there was another suitcase there as well.
• 28:31
  Mark: Wasn't just our suitcases that were there.
• 28:33
  Mark: Somebody else also had come
• 28:35
  LB L: from the airport.
• 28:35
  LB L: Yeah, we need a, we need a, a closet to check jackets and bags.
• 28:38
  LB L: Yeah.
• 28:39
  LB F: So your place is Truth Barbecue, and you walk in and there's a line, and you stand in line, you order stuff at the counter.
• 28:46
  LB F: you've got Big Red soda right there on ice waiting for you.
• 28:49
  LB F: You got a beer you can grab while you're waiting on line.
• 28:51
  LB F: and then the, the guys are making the sandwiches, making the br- And it's everything you would want from a standard barbecue plus some really cool sandwiches.
• 28:59
  LB F: There was a banh mi.
• 29:00
  LB F: I haven't seen much banh mi in my barbecue joints before.
• 29:03
  LB F: and everything was fricking fantastic
• 29:05
  Mark: so first thing we're standing on line, we're like,"Okay, it's 11:30 in the morning and we're on line.
• 29:09
  Mark: That's probably a good sign." Then you had little, I guess they were burnt
• 29:13
  LB L: ends Oh, yeah, yeah
• 29:14
  Mark: Oh, yeah, yeah on the, on the counter-
• 29:16
  LB F: Handing them out like little treats
• 29:17
  Mark: I was like,"Oh, this is gonna be good, guys." Yeah.
• 29:20
  Mark: Get
• 29:21
  LB L: we put them out and they just, like, look at them like,"Come on, come on, come on."
• 29:24
  LB F: So all right,
• 29:25
  Mark: They all looked at it.
• 29:26
  Mark: All, everybody I was traveling with just looked at them.
• 29:28
  Mark: I was like,"You guys are
• 29:29
  LB F: so what would you say makes Truth BBQ distinct from other barbecues that have come before it?
• 29:36
  LB L: Distinct,
• 29:37
  LB F: Like the banh mi,
• 29:38
  LB L: banh mi, for example, at Mission um, that was just Beef prices going up.
• 29:42
  LB L: We got extra trim.
• 29:44
  LB L: We got a sausage demand that pretty much stays in the same lane all the time.
• 29:47
  LB L: Right.
• 29:48
  LB L: If you have an excess based off of where the cattle is during the summertime, during the winter, if they're getting heavy, if they're getting lighter, if the farmers are fighting with the packers, which they do very often.
• 29:59
  LB L: Um, and you gotta figure out a place to repurpose some of this stuff, but also wanna stay true to yourself and have fun with it.
• 30:07
  LB L: So it was all, like, very simple, simple stuff
• 30:11
  Mark: I think that is one of the beauties of the restaurant business, right?
• 30:14
  Mark: Where if you really want to be a sustainable restaurant, a restaurant that continues to exist for a long period of time, you really do need to figure out how to use parts that maybe in first thought, aren't going to be the easiest or best parts to use.
• 30:31
  Mark: And you need to find a way to use them, but not just use them, to make it so that this is in line with our mission.
• 30:38
  Mark: This is in line with what, how we do it.
• 30:40
  LB L: Which is very difficult sometimes to do because you're, like, looking at it, the same thing all the time, and then you have to re-re-envision it as something completely different that also meets the same standard.
• 30:52
  LB L: but it's good.
• 30:52
  LB L: I mean, you know how it is.
• 30:53
  LB L: Like, to stay relevant, to stay open with so many restaurants, you have to evolve somehow or another.
• 30:59
  Mark: But stuff like that is going to become-- People are going to see the gauntlet thrown down of a bone-me, you know, brisket sandwich and be like,"Well, I got to try that." Right?
• 31:08
  Mark: so now you've almost steered people towards it- Yeah and it, it better be good.
• 31:13
  Mark: Right?
• 31:13
  Mark: If it's not, then you've lost your whole reputation just to, to use this product.
• 31:18
  Mark: That's not worth it.
• 31:18
  LB L: Yeah, and it's very difficult because everybody, I would say brisket is like our gift and our curse.
• 31:23
  LB L: As much as I love brisket, it takes 14, 16 hours to cook.
• 31:26
  LB L: That's labor, that's fuel, wood, all the things, and everybody comes in.
• 31:32
  LB L: When I go to somewhere that I know, let's say every time that I go to Minetta Tavern, I get everything else, but I always get the burger.
• 31:39
  LB L: Right, right.
• 31:39
  LB L: I get the burger.
• 31:40
  Mark: Until you come to Stage Left, and
• 31:42
  LB F: our burger's better
• 31:42
  Mark: The burger's better we will supplant
• 31:44
  LB L: need to go by there.
• 31:45
  LB L: and the same thing with us at Truth.
• 31:46
  LB L: Brisket, ribs, and sausage.
• 31:48
  LB L: So if they come in, and the brisket's always where it is, and they're like,"Ooh, I just saw the banh mi," and it just changes their mind a little bit- Yeah it kind of skews everything.
• 31:58
  LB L: So,
• 31:58
  LB F: so let's give our listeners,'cause we do have a national and an international, thank heaven, audience.
• 32:02
  LB F: Hello, Australia.
• 32:04
  LB F: we're in Texas.
• 32:05
  LB F: Now, there's different regional styles of barbecue.
• 32:09
  LB F: What makes Texas...
• 32:10
  LB F: I, I mean, I know the answer, I think.
• 32:11
  LB F: Let's tell our listeners what makes Texas barbecue Texas barbecue?
• 32:16
  LB L: If I'm being completely honest, there's like a, formula for Texas barbecue.
• 32:20
  LB L: It's post oak wood, it's, Black Angus prime brisket.
• 32:23
  LB L: It is salt-
• 32:24
  LB F: beef, not pig
• 32:25
  LB L: Yeah.
• 32:25
  LB L: Yeah.
• 32:26
  LB L: Beef.
• 32:26
  LB L: but the funny thing is, like, if we go a little bit deeper, if I take my pit, my wood, my briskets, all the seasoning, everything, and I schlep it up to California, if I schlep it up to New York or wherever, it's great.
• 32:42
  LB L: It's really good.
• 32:43
  LB L: But The elevation and the barometric pressure in Texas being so close to the coast is...
• 32:52
  LB L: I always tell people it's the equivalent of, like, the soil in Napa.
• 32:56
  LB L: the environment plays a huge factor into it, and that's why there is an overabundance of great barbecue in Texas.
• 33:03
  LB L: I don't think a lot of people realize that, but it does not come out the same if you drop it in X.
• 33:09
  Mark: and it shouldn't come out the same.
• 33:11
  Mark: It's one of the reasons you can't get a great meal on an airplane, right?
• 33:14
  Mark: Yeah.
• 33:14
  Mark: Because the pressure is completely different on an airplane.
• 33:17
  Mark: It's harder to boil water.
• 33:18
  Mark: There's l- all these different circumstances on an airplane.
• 33:21
  Mark: It's not just that they don't have the oven that you necessarily need.
• 33:26
  Mark: it's always gonna be different on an airplane.
• 33:28
  Mark: It's always gonna be different when you have it in Texas.
• 33:30
  Mark: It's always gonna be different when you have it in New York with New York water and New York humidity, and all those things are part of the formula.
• 33:37
  Mark: And to not recognize that, I think you're not really appreciating what food is and how we process.
• 33:43
  LB L: Yeah, just like the water in Brooklyn and New York for the pizza, there's some, something special about
• 33:48
  LB F: you speak about some interesting things that we talk about.
• 33:50
  LB F: Like, you talk about wine, like the soil having a certain sense of terroir.
• 33:54
  LB F: You talk about aging whiskey or aging wine, and you're like,"Well, you know, wine ages in an oak barrel very differently on a Caribbean island than it does in the Northern Hebrides of Scotland, where it's cold." So, I mentioned your degree in biology because when you talk about barbecue, which is a long, slow cooking process, it, it reminds me a lot of barrel aging, and especially barrel aging whiskeys, where guys like you know a lot about what's going on.
• 34:21
  LB F: But what makes it really interesting is people are still figuring out stuff that's going on in the barrel chemically.
• 34:27
  LB F: We don't know everything, and is barbecue the same?
• 34:29
  LB L: Yeah.
• 34:30
  LB L: I, it's like a living organism.
• 34:31
  LB L: It changes daily.
• 34:33
  LB L: Yeah.
• 34:33
  LB L: It's, it's mind-blowing.
• 34:34
  LB L: And I'll look back at some pictures from years ago where I was like,"This is it," and I'll be like, now I'll look back at them and be like,"What was, what is that?
• 34:42
  LB L: I didn't- did I even cook that?" Like, and it's part of the evolution and, like, you notice all these nuances.
• 34:47
  LB L: And I always like to cook when it's quiet, like dead quiet, and I really like doing the overnight shift because I would not play music and it would just be me.
• 34:55
  LB L: I have crippling social anxiety, so it was just me being left alone-
• 35:00
  LB F: And a dead
• 35:00
  LB L: with my toys, and nobody was around from 1:00 to 7:00 in the morning.
• 35:06
  LB L: When the, it's dead silent, I never noticed this until a couple years ago, all the nuances and everything that are variables that play a factor in the cook.
• 35:15
  LB L: You can actually hear the metal in the water pan when it dries out.
• 35:19
  LB L: The metal expands and it contracts and it pops, and you can hear it- It pops slightly.
• 35:23
  LB L: And you know that the humidity is running low in the pit.
• 35:26
  LB L: You know when you put fresh wood on, you can hear it crackle a certain way.
• 35:29
  LB L: You know when the logs start to break in the middle that you need to reload.
• 35:33
  LB L: So you are, you, you really get really tuned into all the things that you don't think are important.
• 35:38
  Mark: know, it's funny you say that.
• 35:39
  Mark: So we have a wood-burning grill.
• 35:41
  Mark: Mm-hmm.
• 35:41
  Mark: Okay?
• 35:41
  Mark: So it's just a big old fire pit in the middle of our
• 35:43
  LB F: Yeah, not even gas assisted, just a
• 35:45
  Mark: 1992.
• 35:46
  Mark: And people have no idea that, well, this wood's a little wet.
• 35:51
  Mark: This wood's got a, is a little bigger logs.
• 35:54
  Mark: This wood is been dried for two years.
• 35:56
  Mark: Every log we put on that fire- It
• 35:58
  LB L: tells a new story
• 35:59
  Mark: affects what we're cooking every day a little bit.
• 36:04
  Mark: And hopefully, the, the guys who work in my kitchen, and Fernando's been there cooking on that grill for 30 years, so he's got his own little adjustments.
• 36:13
  Mark: But some days, that grill's gonna be 800 degrees'cause he's got a, a really dry, hot log, and some days it's gonna be 650.
• 36:20
  LB F: Or he's gonna move things around, you know?
• 36:22
  LB L: he's, he's probably still learning to this day.
• 36:25
  Mark: I'm still learning.
• 36:26
  Mark: I'm not sure he's still
• 36:27
  LB F: Yeah, he may know everything.
• 36:28
  Mark: got it
• 36:29
  LB F: The first time I encountered a bunch of pit masters,'cause I, when I realized I don't know anything, was when Danny Meyer had the, uh, New Y- first New York
• 36:38
  Mark: Big Apple
• 36:39
  LB L: Apple.
• 36:39
  LB F: the Big Apple Barbecue, and Mark and I went, and we got press passes so we didn't have to stand on line.
• 36:43
  LB F: Way cool.
• 36:44
  LB F: But we also got to talk to all the pit masters, and these guys brought their different pits up on trucks.
• 36:51
  LB F: My favorite was a guy, and w- well, I, well, the one guy had, I forget his name, the pits themselves had wheels, and they were made into a trailer, and I'm like,"What is that?" He's like,"They're oil tanks." So he had dug up the oil tanks and just cut them in half.
• 37:03
  LB F: but to talk to them about the nuance and subtlety and differences, that was when I realized this was an area I didn't know anything
• 37:10
  Mark: And each of them had a different- Yeah nuance of this is how I do it.
• 37:14
  Mark: This is how I wanna do it.
• 37:15
  Mark: This is how it, it works out.
• 37:17
  LB F: is how I do it.
• 37:17
  LB F: But, but this is leading me to ask you, do you, when you're b- doing your barbecue, like,"You know what?
• 37:21
  LB F: It's humid today.
• 37:22
  LB F: We're gonna change this.
• 37:23
  LB F: It's, it's sunny out today.
• 37:25
  LB F: We're gonna change
• 37:26
  LB L: it's, like, the hardest thing to teach and coach.
• 37:28
  LB L: And I did a podcast with a, a guy.
• 37:31
  LB L: He, it was a chef.
• 37:32
  LB L: He did a lot of, and he, we were talking about the same thing, and he was like,"Man, it's like I know when the sauce is going to break, and my, my brain triggers before the sauce breaks because I, I can smell
• 37:41
  LB F: you've done it one million
• 37:42
  LB L: Yeah.
• 37:43
  LB L: Because, but you already know it, and you go to the stove, and you, the sauce hasn't broken yet, but it's about to.
• 37:47
  LB L: And you can't really teach that without failing and failing and failing and failing and
• 37:51
  Mark: Failure.
• 37:51
  Mark: We talked, we talked a little bit today- Yeah, yeah with, with Brian Caswell about failing.
• 37:55
  Mark: Yeah.
• 37:55
  Mark: It's a really important part of what we do.
• 37:57
  LB L: Yeah.
• 37:58
  LB F: you know, you, you brought up listening and I thought it listed the quiet of the night and listening to the barbecue.
• 38:02
  LB F: It's funny, and I think this applies in a lot of life.
• 38:06
  LB F: We, when we teach a manager or bartender how to close the restaurant, I'm like,"Okay, you walk in the kitchen, you put your arm under the heat lamp, you t- you touch the stove to make sure everything's off." But I always say,"Listen.
• 38:17
  LB F: Listen.
• 38:18
  LB F: Is there a fan on somewhere?
• 38:19
  LB F: Is a motor on somewhere?
• 38:20
  LB F: Is something squeaking somewhere?" And if you listen, at the end of the night when everyone's gone and you're closing up, we'll hear it.
• 38:26
  LB F: we're training a new bartender, and I'm walking by the bar, I'm like,"There's not enough ice in the shaker." You know?
• 38:30
  LB F: A- and they're like,"How do you know that?" I'm like,"'Cause I can hear it.
• 38:33
  LB F: There's not enough ice in the shaker." And I, I'll put one final example that I just learned about recently.
• 38:38
  LB F: there was a Japanese guy who made the Japanese trains run on time for the first time.
• 38:43
  LB F: They were notoriously, uh, late and awful.
• 38:46
  LB F: This is before the modern, locomotives where the average Japanese train is within two seconds of when it's supposed to be there.
• 38:52
  LB F: But the guy who originally
• 38:53
  Mark: better at that than we
• 38:54
  LB F: bad.
• 38:54
  LB F: Yeah.
• 38:55
  LB F: But the guy who took them from a mess to being within five minutes of on time nationally, it was when they had steam engines.
• 39:01
  LB F: And you know what he said all the time?
• 39:03
  LB F: They didn't have speedometers on the trains.
• 39:04
  LB F: He's like,"You listen.
• 39:06
  LB F: You listen to the engine, you listen to the steel on the tracks, and that's how you know how fast you're going." And it's, uh, it's
• 39:12
  LB L: Yeah, that's crazy
• 39:13
  LB F: nice.
• 39:13
  LB F: It's really fascinating.
• 39:14
  LB F: So what do you look for in your brisket?
• 39:17
  LB F: What makes barbecue...
• 39:18
  LB F: 'Cause w- we've had a lot of bad barbecue in the northeast and we're like,"That's not done enough.
• 39:22
  LB F: That's mushy.
• 39:23
  LB F: That's too sweet." What makes great barbecue great barbecue from your Texas perspective?
• 39:30
  LB L: I always start from the very, very beginning.
• 39:33
  LB L: I visited a lot of farms, and a lot of people don't pay enough attention and, and give enough appreciation to the farmers.
• 39:40
  LB L: I mean, some of these guys are out there daily with ultrasounds checking the marbling on the cows making sure, down to the, the day, the hour of when they start fini- finishing them on corn.
• 39:51
  LB L: I mean, you guys know it.
• 39:51
  LB L: It takes a good core product.
• 39:53
  LB L: Like, you can't just turn something...
• 39:55
  LB L: Barbecue, you can slowly braise something and break it down, obviously, but it does help when you have a very good core
• 40:01
  Mark: have a m- you have a centerpiece ingredient.
• 40:04
  Mark: Mm-hmm.
• 40:04
  Mark: If your centerpiece ingredient is inferior, your final product will be inferior, period, end of story.
• 40:11
  Mark: I don't care about your technique.
• 40:12
  Mark: I don't care about- how you do it.
• 40:14
  Mark: you cannot start inferior.
• 40:16
  LB F: you buy from local
• 40:17
  LB L: M- uh, I always buy from smaller farms.
• 40:19
  LB L: usually Midwest, usually down south it gets a little dry, it gets a little drier so the cows can't put on as much weight, cause they can't access nicer pastures,
• 40:29
  LB F: Okay, um, there's a diner and he's listening to this podcast, and he's had a bunch of barbecue around New Jersey, and he's like,"I don't know what's good." What, what is he looking for when he goes in for a piece of brisket?
• 40:39
  LB F: when it's on the plate, what makes great barbecue great barbecue?
• 40:43
  LB L: It has a sheen over the top of it.
• 40:47
  LB L: Because when we rest them down, a lot of people don't realize that the, pretty much the, one of the most important parts of the cooking process is the resting process.
• 40:56
  LB L: You don't cut into it too soon.
• 40:57
  LB L: You don't cut into it too late.
• 40:58
  LB L: There's a sweet spot when it's finishing breaking down in the, Alto-Shaams, or the warming cabinets, to where it just, it breaks just a little bit more, and those fats reabsorb.
• 41:06
  LB L: It's the same way as resting a steak.
• 41:08
  LB L: But, and I always reference brisket as the same way I did steak.
• 41:11
  LB L: You can't just cut right into it.
• 41:13
  LB L: Right.
• 41:13
  LB L: And you s- you see videos all the time on YouTube and Instagram.
• 41:16
  LB L: Right.
• 41:16
  Mark: the, where they're pushing it down and all
• 41:17
  LB L: "All the juices." They never show you what that brisket looks like 30 seconds later because it's oxidized.
• 41:22
  LB L: Right.
• 41:22
  LB L: It's gray.
• 41:22
  LB L: Right.
• 41:23
  LB L: Um, what you want is, you wanna see a little bit, I like a little bit of intermuscular fat that you can still see, but it's, like, very buttery.
• 41:31
  LB L: Mm.
• 41:31
  LB L: But you can still see the connection and everything in there, and then you see a nice sheen over the
• 41:35
  Mark: I'm gonna I rarely order brisket, and one of the reasons I rarely order brisket is because so often I have brisket and I'm disappointed'cause it comes out dry.
• 41:46
  Mark: And I'm like,"How did you take this and make it come out dry?" But you know that either they cut it too soon or they cooked it too fast you know what those, foibles are.
• 41:57
  Mark: And your brisket was amazing, by the way.
• 42:00
  Mark: It was amazing.
• 42:01
  LB L: you.
• 42:01
  LB L: everybody thinks that it's temperatures and it's formulas and ev- like, but if you're cooking, let's say one pit fills up, you can get 24 briskets, a really good cook.
• 42:12
  LB L: They're all different sizes.
• 42:13
  LB L: We try to get them all down to the same shape.
• 42:15
  LB L: They're not all the same cows, not the same genetics.
• 42:17
  LB L: There's nothing.
• 42:17
  LB L: So, if you got 24 on there and you're cooking at a certain temperature, you're keep cooking each individually brisket separately.
• 42:25
  LB L: Our goal is to create the most perfect environment to cook them all as one- versus fighting each individual brisket.
• 42:34
  LB L: So we're basically, I always tell the guys,"The first fire that you start before the briskets go on, that is what sets the pace for the entire cook.
• 42:42
  LB L: And if you don't stay at that pace, you stay behind the entire thing, and you'll run yourself ragged."
• 42:46
  LB F: And how long does it take to get a brisket from going in the cooker to it's done?
• 42:50
  LB L: I mean, if you're tight, tight on your fires and, like, that's staying temperatures, no fluctuations, the longer the cook is due to the fluctuations in temperature because the muscles don't know whether to seize up, relax, seize up, relax.
• 43:04
  LB L: So it's fighting against you the whole time.
• 43:06
  LB L: you all the time.
• 43:07
  LB L: Yeah, it just wants to break.
• 43:08
  LB L: And and you can crank it out in nine hours.
• 43:13
  LB F: But how
• 43:13
  Mark: long- Crank it out in nine hours.
• 43:15
  Mark: That's funny.
• 43:16
  LB L: the goal is, kind of as long and as short as it's needed.
• 43:19
  LB L: But there is a, too fast and a, a too long.
• 43:22
  LB F: on a, what's, for an, what's an average cook time for
• 43:23
  LB L: I would say about, about 10 and a half is the, probably the sweet
• 43:27
  LB F: some- and someone's tending it out the whole time overnight,
• 43:29
  Mark: but what are you hearing from Leonard right now?
• 43:31
  Mark: Well- The meat's going to tell me.
• 43:33
  Mark: Yeah.
• 43:33
  Mark: Yeah, yeah.
• 43:33
  Mark: Right?
• 43:34
  Mark: You're, the, the, your watch isn't going to tell me the
• 43:36
  LB L: wife is always like, if I'm pulling briskets, she's like,"What time are you gonna get home?" And I would always tell her a time, and then I started saying 3:00 o'clock in the morning.
• 43:43
  LB L: 'Cause if I showed up at 10:00, she'd be like,"Oh my God, I thought you were gonna be here at 3:00." So yeah.
• 43:48
  Mark: yeah.
• 43:48
  Mark: Well, in the restaurant business, I, I, and I've said this on the show before, but, one of the things I changed in my life when I was getting home to Jennifer and I was talking to her, when I said,"I'm on my way out," she would say,"What phone are you on?" Because that would determine how many people and how many customers and how much dining room- Stop I had to get through before I walked
• 44:06
  LB F: Right.
• 44:06
  LB F: Are you at the phone at the door or are you at the phone all the way down in your office?
• 44:09
  LB F: 'Cause you're not getting
• 44:10
  LB L: if you're in the office, it's gonna be another two hours before you get out of
• 44:13
  Mark: be two, it could be four hours.
• 44:15
  LB F: I wanna, talk about your restaurant,'cause people should go to Tooth BBQ
• 44:19
  Mark: It was really special.
• 44:20
  Mark: The vibe in the place was fantastic and perfect for the food you were serving.
• 44:26
  Mark: everybody I talked to was engaged and was part of it and was, you know, the, the guy who cleared the table was one of the most hospitable guys that, I've spoken to since I've been here.
• 44:37
  LB F: I don't think I, I have to hide this, but, Mark's inner Italian guy came out and he palmed the guy a 20.
• 44:42
  Mark: security handshake in this
• 44:44
  LB F: handshake." It was a, he's a super nice guy.
• 44:46
  LB F: He was awesome, by the way.
• 44:47
  LB F: We loved it.
• 44:48
  LB F: it's, and I, I like that you had to explain it.
• 44:50
  Mark: I taught him the Jersey handshake.
• 44:51
  LB L: "This is what we call a Jersey handshake." I mean, I mean, we've all had it, and you've done it at your restaurant.
• 44:55
  LB L: It makes, that small- Yeah it might be a 20-second, 15-second interaction Okay it makes the food so much better.
• 45:02
  LB L: Love it.
• 45:02
  LB L: It makes the experience so much better.
• 45:03
  LB F: I just want to point out another thing.
• 45:04
  LB F: So you go to a lot of barbecue joints and, and you have a full bar there.
• 45:08
  LB F: And so we were thrilled to have a beer with our, our barbecue, and an old fashioned with that banana, dessert
• 45:14
  Mark: Oh, the banana cake was so
• 45:15
  LB L: Oh, that's a nice pair.
• 45:16
  LB L: I'd never even thought
• 45:17
  LB F: Oh, it's a goodie.
• 45:18
  LB F: It's...
• 45:18
  LB F: That's what I do.
• 45:19
  LB F: I do, I'm a, kind of a cocktail pairing guy.
• 45:21
  LB F: And it was our first, we got there late morning, and so I thought,"You know what?
• 45:25
  LB F: I'm gonna get an old fashioned," thinking these guy- guys wouldn't join me.
• 45:28
  LB F: Four, four of us got
• 45:30
  LB L: when I passed through, there was, there was a couple martinis and, and old fashioneds on the,
• 45:33
  LB F: Yeah, we're doing all right.
• 45:34
  LB F: We're doing all
• 45:35
  LB L: We were doing our thing.
• 45:35
  LB L: But you traveled all morning, so you deserve it.
• 45:36
  LB L: Yeah,
• 45:37
  Mark: We were, we, we were already up eight hours.
• 45:39
  Mark: Yeah.
• 45:39
  Mark: So it could've been 8:00 at
• 45:41
  LB F: Yeah.
• 45:42
  LB F: But to have that whole bar, and you can make a cocktail there, and to have great, uh, whiskeys available really enhances the whole thing.
• 45:48
  LB F: Can't recommend it highly enough.
• 45:49
  LB F: We're thrilled you took the time to talk to us on the show today, and it's been great to have you.
• 45:52
  LB L: Thank you for having me.
• 45:54
  LB L: Thanks so much.
• 45:54
  LB L: It was great chatting with
• 45:55
  Mark: you guys.
• 45:55
  Mark: Our pleasure.
• 45:55
  Mark: Thank
• 45:55
  LB L: you.
• 45:57
  There's nothing I like better than having a good time for a good cause.
• 46:00
  Yeah.
• 46:00
  Don't you think?
• 46:01
  I love Southern Smoke.
• 46:02
  I love this organization.
• 46:03
  I love what they do.
• 46:04
  I love the people behind it.
• 46:05
  Chris Shepherd, I, I have never heard anybody say a cross word about Chris Shepherd, period.
• 46:12
  Everybody loves the guy.
• 46:12
  Yeah, he's the founder of Southern Smoke- Yeah and he's amazing.
• 46:14
  And his wife Lindsay Brown is amazing as well.
• 46:16
  If you would like to help out and maybe donate to the Southern Smoke Foundation, let's do a little plug for them.
• 46:21
  We're gonna donate, by the way.
• 46:23
  So it's southernsmoke.org.
• 46:25
  You can go and find out what they do, and that is also, quite conveniently, the place where you can go to be notified of the Southern Smoke Foundation Festival next year, where you should go I really recom- and meet us.
• 46:36
  I really recommend it.
• 46:37
  The restaurants in Houston we went to this time- Oh, yeah just absolutely a wonderful time.
• 46:44
  Marigold, Nancy's Hustle, Truth BBQ, Little's Oyster Bar.
• 46:50
  We just went from one place to the next, and one place was better than the next.
• 46:53
  We j- just had a really outstanding time.
• 46:55
  Great food.
• 46:56
  Well, we went down for the festival.
• 46:57
  We came a day early and we stayed a day later- Mm-hmm so we could stay and visit some of the restaurants in Houston.
• 47:01
  The restaurant scene in Houston is, and the cocktail scene's on fire.
• 47:05
  Yeah.
• 47:05
  The whole thing is absolutely- Anvil had great cocktails.
• 47:07
  Yeah.
• 47:08
  And you went to a place called Permission- And they d- without mine, just so you know.
• 47:11
  I was gonna say, I was gonna say, I didn't even ask.
• 47:13
  No, great cocktails at Permission.
• 47:15
  Anyway, it's a great time.
• 47:17
  You should go.
• 47:18
  Hope you enjoyed the show.
• 47:19
  Uh, we'll see you hopefully in Houston next year.
• 47:21
  We'll be back next week.
• 47:23
  Don't go anywhere.
• 47:24
  I'm Francis Schatt.
• 47:24
  And I'm Mark Pascal.
• 47:25
  We are the Restaurant Guys.
• 47:27
  You can find out more about us at restaurantguyspodcast.com, or just meet us next year at the Southern Smoke Foundation Festival.