Strung Out Episode 153. MALORT AND MANCHURIAN MEATBALLS

Martin and Sandeep talk about this hideous "Chicago" drink called Malort.  And the talk careens into Indian food, Indian takes on other cultures food and ultimately, our heroes figure out that the market is ready for an Indian American Chicago Deep Dish Pizza.   

Transcript

[00:00:00] Martin McCormack: Hey, great to have you with us, and I have with me in the studio Sandeep Gopal. , you know him. You love him. He's been part of the STRUNG OUT team. My wingman, my right hand man when it comes to coming up with insightful and thoughtful ideas. And I have to say, I was over at Sandeep's house the other night and he produced a bottle of this liquor that's called Malort, and we're gonna talk about the world's worst drink ever created. And we're gonna start, first of all with this Malort. And it's spelled m a l o r t, right? 

[00:00:45] Sandeep Gopal: Correct. Yes. 

[00:00:46] Martin McCormack: All right. Can you please give me, A brief summation of what Malort is. 

[00:00:55] Sandeep Gopal: So I'm looking up Wikipedia. Let, so I, I heard about Malort from, I've heard about it a couple of times from a, few folks and they say my father likes to ask folks, what's the local brew here?

[00:01:10] Sandeep Gopal: What's good? That's from here. And a couple of folks have mentioned, Malort, And so for his birthday, he expressed this desire to try this, drink. It is, I'm looking at Wikipedia. It is a drink that was made by Carl Jepson, a Swedish immigrant in the 1930s. It's just, let's see. It's, made from the bark of the wormwood tree, and according to Google it.

[00:01:43] Sandeep Gopal: Malort is famously challenging to drink with a flavor that includes notes of gasoline, grapefruit, sweat, wax, fire, mineral oil and bitterness. And I, would agree with that cuz we, we tried a little bit of Malort and yeah. Oh yeah. So that, is Malort. It is a drink that is famously a Chicago drink made by a Swedish immigrant and it is just, Extremely bitter with a bitter aftertaste, it lingers on. It's not for the faint of heart and some people take great pride in being able to drink it and consume it and enjoy it, and 

[00:02:27] Martin McCormack: yeah, this is one drink folks that you probably should never even taste. 

[00:02:34] Sandeep Gopal: I'm sure a bunch of our listeners have at least tried it once.

[00:02:36] Martin McCormack: I don't know. I it, would be, very interesting to get the response because the, just that that whole description of gasoline, sweat, and grapefruit and mineral oil and mineral oil. They should throw turpentine and paint thinner. As well as, I don't know I, really. I, tried it and I thought, this is the kind of drink that you take, the bottle, you stuff a rag in the top of it and you've got a great Molotov cocktail because it has the volatility of something that's going to explode.

[00:03:18] Sandeep Gopal: Yeah. If you wanna riot or start a revolution. 

[00:03:21] Martin McCormack: Malort is the way to go. And the bottle itself has the Chicago flag or like a shield, but it's, even that is a little weird because it only has three stars on the the Chicago Shield, if you look at the bottle. 

[00:03:36] Sandeep Gopal: Yeah. 

[00:03:36] Martin McCormack: The, fourth star is missing. And I don't even know if that's because maybe the fourth star came in later. 

[00:03:42] Sandeep Gopal: I, think so. Maybe that's, a little bit of history that we have to investigate is maybe the fourth star. It's such an old drink that. At the time there were only three stars. 

[00:03:53] Martin McCormack: And for those of you who are wondering, what are they talking about?

[00:03:56] Martin McCormack: The Chicago flag, if you look at it it has it's a white flag with two blue bars that run length wise and then sandwiched between these two bars on a field of white. Of course, you have four stars. One of the stars represents the Fort Dearborn massacre. The other is the Great Chicago fire.

[00:04:21] Martin McCormack: Yeah, and the third star represents the Columbian Exposition. Okay. And then the fourth star, I believe, represents the World's Fair, which would've taken place in the 1930s. Okay, so Malort predates, yeah. That fourth star, hence the shield of the, bottle that you look at. It has the, these three stars.

[00:04:48] Martin McCormack: Yeah. And I would probably give it two stars if it was

[00:04:55] Martin McCormack: mainly because it, is just God awful. And wormwood, of course, is used in Absinthe. Yep. And absent of is always that has licorice in it. And so that gives it a little more of a, flavor that's decent. But but again, that's not a a, drink I would recommend either. 

[00:05:22] Sandeep Gopal: Let me stop you there. So it was the, history of Malort was that it was made from wormwood and it was grown around homesteads and consumed as a medicinal alcohol. It was traditionally made with a potato base, and it was used for stomach maladies to cure indigestion, hangovers, and nausea. I presume it does that by knocking you out for a couple of days.

[00:05:46] Sandeep Gopal: So you don't have, you can't eat anything too. 

[00:05:48] Martin McCormack: Maybe it's an emetic and you just, throw up Yeah. Whatever. It's the full, you throw up a lung. 

[00:05:54] Sandeep Gopal: Yeah, just full body cleanse right there. 

[00:05:56] Martin McCormack: Full body. It's yeah. Coming out all ends. And I kid you not folks this, is, I've had Bitters up on Washington Island in Wisconsin, also made by Swedes, and was a drink that was touted as medicinal because it was Prohibition.

[00:06:19] Martin McCormack: Yeah. And so they, had to get their jollies and so they drank what was called bitters. And Malort is in a class by itself. I think that it's just a horrible, tasting drink. And my question to you is this, how long is that bottle gonna hang around your house, do you think? Is it gonna be one of those things that when you're.

[00:06:48] Sandeep Gopal: Yeah. Is it just going to age in that bottle for a few more years? I don't know. My, my father he liked it, not enough to buy it again. But he, is not against consuming that all the contents of that bottle really. Yeah. So he's, looking upon it. Not that he didn't, he, it's not something he would enjoy again and again, but I think he would. Have it just to break the monotony. So he, loves his whiskey. He'll have vodka rum and maybe this is just one of those things he'll switch to after he's grown tired of the other few. But to make that j just mention this, Marty could not, you couldn't finish your glass. I couldn't get serve you.

[00:07:34] Sandeep Gopal: Yeah. 

[00:07:34] Martin McCormack: Yeah. I couldn't get past maybe two sips. Yeah. I did the first sip and I was like, what the hell is this? 

[00:07:41] Sandeep Gopal: Yeah. And, my father drank his share and then finished your Did mine. Yeah. Which I, because I was surprised that he did that.

[00:07:49] Martin McCormack: I was doubting, my palette. Yeah. I thought, surely this can't be as awful as I Yeah. And then I tried it again. Yeah. And I was like, this is awful. 

[00:08:00] Sandeep Gopal: Yes. But yeah he, drank both of those those two pegs from Malort. And so yeah, maybe he's It's a Chicago thing. Maybe he gets on already the, keys to the city. Once he can consume two glasses of it, I can 

[00:08:16] Martin McCormack: I'll tell you what, that would certainly be interesting as far as people running for political office if they had to, 

[00:08:23] Sandeep Gopal: he becomes alderman by default. If you can finish a bottle of Malort 

[00:08:27] Martin McCormack: every aldermanic session, you had to start with a big slug on Malort, then you know, you'd probably thin out the crowd of people wanting to go for office just because of that drink. Yeah. I try to think of other drinks in the world that I can't stand.

[00:08:45] Martin McCormack: And one of the drinks that I cannot stand is Jagermeister. 

[00:08:52] Sandeep Gopal: Yes, the crouch of every. Good drinker, mature drinker is jaegermeister. It just feels very, it feels like it shouldn't exist. 

[00:09:02] Martin McCormack: Yeah. 

[00:09:03] Sandeep Gopal: Yet it is popular.

[00:09:04] Martin McCormack: And I don't I, truly don't get why Jaegermeister has a following. I, and part of the whole thing is, oh if you freeze the bottle, if you get it really, cold, it's supposed to taste great, but Jaegermeister is just NyQuil with a little more alcohol .

[00:09:28] Sandeep Gopal: That's allowed to ferment.

[00:09:29] Martin McCormack: Isn't it? Pretty much what it is. 

[00:09:31] Sandeep Gopal: It is. Yeah. I I first tasted it with a Jaeger bomb where they dropped that in Into what? Beer? A beer, something like that. Yeah. Oh my God. It was just noxious. I, yeah. I would I, tried that once and I said never again.

[00:09:48] Sandeep Gopal: I, when I see that in someone's home Bar, I immediately judge them to be people with poor taste.

[00:10:01] Sandeep Gopal: If I see that in your shelf of alcohol, I'm not friends with you anymore. 

[00:10:07] Martin McCormack: People you've been warned. Sandeep comes to your house and die. Walk away the Yager. 

[00:10:15] Martin McCormack: By the way, you got Jagermeister. I'm gonna talk about it in the next podcast. 

[00:10:19] Martin McCormack: Yeah. Yeah. You, he's going to give your street address and everything.

[00:10:22] Martin McCormack: Yeah. I, my feeling is it's probably one of those bottles that's like Malort is going to be there for generations. Yeah. You, never, it's the bottle you never finish. And and I, there are in my liquor cabinet, there are bottles like that I Look at, and I'm like, why the hell do I have these bottles here?

[00:10:47] Martin McCormack: Yeah. I'm gonna bring up another one that I, just think is like a, god awful creation and that is Red Stag, which is a cinnamon. Infused Whiskey Uhhuh, and I think Jim Beam makes it, and it's, just a, it's one of those kind of things that you're like, why did they do it?

[00:11:14] Martin McCormack: Why, did they do this for people? 

[00:11:16] Sandeep Gopal: I, maybe you remember this, but I once served you a maple infused whiskey. And you had a couple of sips of it and he said, I just need to cleanse my pallet with something else. But 

[00:11:26] Martin McCormack: What, was that? Something that was a company made Yeah. 

[00:11:30] Sandeep Gopal: It was one of the popular whiskeys and I think it was bourbon or one, the famous ones, and then well, maple infused. Yeah. And it was sweet. And I think my mom liked it cuz she can't handle the taste of just whiskey. But I served you a peg or a glass and you Yeah. You just outright rejected it. Yeah.

[00:11:48] Martin McCormack: I, have still a, bottle of of this red stag that I don't know what I'm gonna do with it. I'll probably, I should probably just throw it away and make room for something in the liquor cabinet for something.

[00:12:02] Sandeep Gopal: Apple infused whiskey.

[00:12:03] Martin McCormack: Whiskey. That sounds, and it's usually like bourbon, yeah. Like Jack Daniels or something like that, where they'll have these apple infused where they're trying to throw a heavy. Cloying super sweet thing to mask a perfectly good whiskey. Yeah. I don't know.

[00:12:25] Sandeep Gopal: Somebody passed, somebody said approved that Apple infused whiskey and said, yep this is it. Which I find shocking. 

[00:12:34] Martin McCormack: This is different from what Jameson's tried to do with cask mates where they will take a whiskey and they'll say, okay, we're gonna put it in this sherry cask. Okay, we're going to put it in this Guinness cask or whatever. Now I've, seen those. Will I drink them? No. No. Because I, already feel pre-warned that basically if they have to go through that trouble to try to create a couple more little avenues in which people are going to try to drink something.

[00:13:11] Martin McCormack: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Stand by your product. 

[00:13:14] Sandeep Gopal: Yeah. Speaking of liquor, there are some drinks that may be awful, but they taste better. In a certain context like maybe in a certain geography, like any, if you drink scotch in Scotland or rum in, in the Caribbean, it somehow tastes better when you're there at the beach drinking some daquiry or rum or something like that, where, but it tastes horrible everywhere else except in that one place.

[00:13:45] Martin McCormack: I think that's true. And each country has its own kind of what, would you call it? Signature. Yeah. Signature alcohol brew. 

[00:13:55] Sandeep Gopal: That repels everybody most of the time. But there are some true believers who think, and you drink it there and you think, yeah, maybe there's something to it.

[00:14:02] Sandeep Gopal: And then you get home a bottle and you realize this is a big mistake. Yeah. 

[00:14:07] Martin McCormack: At that, I think to some degree where you get into more of the tropical like rums and things. Yeah. Yeah. Where if you're down in like Costa Rica or somewhere in the Caribbean, Yeah. Ru from Rum. Go ahead. Yeah. It, just, it's like the drink to have yeah, Now would I necessarily say oh, I'm gonna have a rum. Oh, rum and coke, or or just straight rum? No. Yeah. It just doesn't strike me as that, that good of a drink, really, at the end of the day. What about you? 

[00:14:44] Sandeep Gopal: I the first time I tried Guinness in an English pub, I thought, oh, this is nice. I could get used to it. It was very thick and just, A hard drink and then I tried it outside of an English pub and I was just like, this is not, they somehow drinking it there when they slice off the, excess foam and they put it to you and you're, 

[00:15:05] Martin McCormack: your first mistake is drinking in an English pub. 

[00:15:07] Sandeep Gopal: Yeah, I know. It's an Irish drink. Oh, an Irish pub rather, not an english pub. Sorry. 

[00:15:13] Martin McCormack: Oh, thank God. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, what the hell are you doing? 

[00:15:15] Sandeep Gopal: My apologies. I confused the two countries. 

[00:15:17] Martin McCormack: Guinness. Guinness is a, drink that historically They admit doesn't travel well. I see. That's probably it. And so to have the best Guinness, I don't drink Guinness in the States because what's the point? It's, it just, it, it doesn't travel. And they, have the, that kind of Guinness where they put in what a little widget they call it, which I, believe is Carbon dioxide or whatever. Okay. And so you open the can and it fizzes it and it's supposed to put that I see that kind of head that you get in Ireland. That's interesting you're bringing that up because there's going to be a Guinness Tasting room in Chicago, and we're gonna have to probably do a field trip to check that out because the question is how are they going to preserve that sort of taste that you get Yeah. When you are in Ireland because it's locality and it's also how clean they keep the lines in a pub for Guinness. It's a drink that takes a little bit of servicing to have a proper pour as they say. That being said, drinking Guinness, even if it is been shipped over here to the States

[00:16:40] Martin McCormack: I would drink that in a heartbeat compared to something like malort where it's deliberately created to insult your palate. Another drink that I before we take a break, another drink I rail against is and I don't know if you've ever had. Southern Comfort or any of those kind of drinks. Have you were you a Southern, have you ever done stuff like Southern Comfort?

[00:17:07] Sandeep Gopal: I might have tried it in passing it. It's whiskey, it's bourbon. Is it? 

[00:17:11] Martin McCormack: It's, again another like infused Okay. Cloyingly Sweet. Made for people who don't really want to drink whiskey. And somebody said, oh, what have you tried this?

[00:17:23] Martin McCormack: You're gonna love this. And there's not a lot to love, I think. Yeah. Yeah. It's just it's, a kind of drink that again, a drink that shouldn't have been made, but they, have it out there. Yeah. And I remember drinking it in college once. And I was like, once this enough I, just didn't like it.

[00:17:45] Martin McCormack: It's the kind of thing that people will say, oh if you're out know, snow skiing or whatever. A good shot of Southern Comfort is great. I disagree. I think really with with your alcohol, you should try to keep it as pure as possible. Yeah, 

[00:18:04] Sandeep Gopal: I think the market for people who want to drink whiskey but don't like the taste of whiskey is small.

[00:18:11] Sandeep Gopal: And just a lot of people, I think a lot of companies think, Hey, maybe if we just tweak this flavor a little bit, we'll get a whole bunch more customers. Maybe that's true, who knows? But I think a true connoisseur here would not appreciate those, 

[00:18:26] Martin McCormack: Something that has happened within the last five to 10 years maybe in the the whiskey market in alcohol in general. They basically have, they feel like they have to come up with these kind of signature brands, these these little spinoffs. Yeah. Yeah. To, capture an audience and I don't know if it's working for them or not.

[00:18:54] Martin McCormack: Apparently it must be if, they still have 'em. In on the shelfs there at the liquor store. But let's take a little break and when we come back, we're gonna shift gears. We're gonna move away from Malort and be and talk about something else. So we're listening to, you are listening to STRUNG OUT.

[00:19:16] Martin McCormack: Okay, we're back. And as I said, we're gonna shift gears because there's nothing half silly as talking about alcohol without having any alcohol in your hand. But let's shift over to something here in our neighborhood, which we are a stones throw from a substantially large Indian and Pakistani community along Devon Avenue.

[00:19:48] Martin McCormack: And we were talking about. Authentic Indian food. And I was surprised to find out that like Mexican food, there's a lot of food that Americans think is traditional Indian food. And they're just getting a bunch of something put together to satisfy Western taste?

[00:20:16] Sandeep Gopal: Like in Chinese cuisine, there's no General Cho's chicken or Kun Pao chicken, this is all, it's American Chinese. And some, there's also a lot of Indian Chinese, which I think is better than Chinese food. 

[00:20:30] Martin McCormack: Wait, What is Indian Chinese food? 

[00:20:33] Sandeep Gopal: It's, Chinese, but with a lot of the Indian spices. So you get the best of both worlds. Like you buy, there's something called a, do you know what a Manchurian ball is like?

[00:20:41] Martin McCormack: You get a Manchurian ball. Yeah. Yeah. That sounds like a torture device. 

[00:20:45] Sandeep Gopal: But no, it's amazing. It's this greasy chewy meatball that has Chinese garlic and ginger. It's packed with that, but it also has some Indian flavors in them. It is just the best hangover cure. You have that with some really hot chicken fried rice. Again, tweaked a little bit to Indian with Indian spices. 

[00:21:09] Martin McCormack: Is this something that people eat in India? 

[00:21:13] Sandeep Gopal: Yeah. Yeah. A lot of Chinese in India is Indian Chinese, so if you have people coming from China, they're like, this is not Chinese cuisine. We're like, no, it's better. Really Chinese. And they just, there's no way we're eating that.

[00:21:25] Martin McCormack: Are you able to get a Manchurian ball and I think so, yeah. along Devon 

[00:21:29] Martin McCormack: Avenue?

[00:21:30] Sandeep Gopal: I don't know about Devon Avenue, but there are some Indian Chinese restaurants opening up with their own distinct take on Indian in New Jersey where there are a lot of Indians, you have more Indian, Chinese restaurants than Chinese restaurants.

[00:21:42] Sandeep Gopal: So you go to Jersey City. Delicious food. 

[00:21:46] Martin McCormack: That is a new one on me, and I hearing you describe it, I'm tempted to taste it. Yeah. And try it. And One of, one of the dishes and call me a ignorant white guy was butter chicken isn't Indian? 

[00:22:05] Sandeep Gopal: It's, Indian, but it's not something that traditional or most households cook. It's more a restaurant dish that's most Indian dishes. You gotta chop the onions and fry and wait for them 30 minutes to slowly brown. No one has time for that in a restaurant, so they pulp the onions and pulp a bunch of other spices to a paste and give it some food coloring, make it spicy, and that's buttered chicken. It's a, so it's not a grease, it's a lot of flavor, but it's one of those dishes that's made for fast turnover. 

[00:22:39] Martin McCormack: So what would butter chicken look like then in a typical Indian household? If they're gonna make it?

[00:22:47] Sandeep Gopal: Most Indian households don't make butter chicken at all. Yeah. It's not a thing that most people make.

[00:22:52] Martin McCormack: They would look down their nose at it and just say, listen, this is 

[00:22:55] Sandeep Gopal: butter chicken has, like I said, it's got some food coloring to it. So there's like the orange look to it. Yeah. Yeah. That weird reddish, look, 

[00:23:03] Sandeep Gopal: which doesn't come from an ingredient. It's more coloring. Most you don't, you and I don't put food coloring in our food.

[00:23:11] Sandeep Gopal: So we there are chicken curries and gras and roast chicken and all sorts of things that we do. We just don't do buttered chicken. So you, can't go to a traditional house and say, can I have some buttered chicken? It won't happen.

[00:23:24] Martin McCormack: So your mom is never going to make me buttered chicken.

[00:23:27] Sandeep Gopal: Yeah. It's not gonna happen. Yeah. With, red food coloring, 

[00:23:30] Martin McCormack: you wouldn't have the red food coloring in it. So what's the closest dish? 

[00:23:35] Sandeep Gopal: Just a chicken curry. Every house has a recipe for chicken curry and curry is nothing but. You fry some onions, let them brown, throw in some tomatoes, let that melt away and throw in your own version of spices. Anything that you get in the pantry, dial up the spice to what you want. 

[00:23:52] Martin McCormack: What about butter and cream? Do you 

[00:23:54] Sandeep Gopal: Yeah you can top it off with some cream. The cream is usually used to to tone down the spice a little bit. Okay, so that's what you use cream for, but. All right. It is a completely fabricated restaurant, fabricated dish.

[00:24:07] Martin McCormack: What's another westernized Indian dish that really Indians they look at and they say, no, that's.

[00:24:16] Sandeep Gopal: Like chicken tikka masala yeah. Yeah. Again. And chicken tikka masala is apparently the national dish of, the UK. Everyone gets it. It's more popular than whatever. Strawberries and cream, who knows really something that most restaurants make.

[00:24:31] Sandeep Gopal: No one makes it at home. And what goes into it? The, it's the same you, it's butter chicken. Yeah it's, butter chicken. But you still called by another name. It's, that's basically it. You get those at the. Restaurant down the street where if you didn't want to cook it, you needed something greasy to go with your, with whiskey or your you're, hungry, you're starving.

[00:24:56] Sandeep Gopal: You need something to hit all the senses. You get something from a greasy spoon like a diner, but not .

[00:25:02] Martin McCormack: Let me throw this at you then. So you're going to an Indian restaurant here in Chicago, Uhhuh along Devon and you. Are going to order a dish that is very much like home. Yeah. What do you recommend to people To order to get a really good dish that's authentic and It's not gonna be chock full of red food coloring and, a bunch of stuff.

[00:25:32] Martin McCormack: Yeah. 

[00:25:32] Sandeep Gopal: You were over at my place not too long ago and we served Biriyani.. Biriyani is the traditional festive Indian, quintessential Indian dish. It's got layers of rice and meat, and like I said, different regions have different. Styles of Biriyani. You have some places from the state of Haba, which has the spiciest chilies, and so that is really spicy.

[00:25:58] Sandeep Gopal: You have Lucknow, which is in the north of India, and that has a different variation to it. But it's the one dish that it's, got, it takes a long time to cook. It takes, it's one of those dishes that takes a long time to cook, just all the flavors, seat through the meat and the rice and all of that.

[00:26:18] Sandeep Gopal: And it's just one of those quintessential dishes that you would have at a wedding or you're celebrating something. It's, it, you need to have a bi. So it's like this rice pilaf dish with and to, get the best Biriyani that I've tasted for a budget. In Chicago is the Hyderabad house on Devon Avenue.

[00:26:39] Sandeep Gopal: It's the strip mall. Very basic looking place, but all the looks, and it's right next to a mosque. So you have the the faithful who go there for prayers, Friday prayers, and then come back. Oh. Biriyani had, has a lot of us origins in, Islam. Wow. So you have people who pray and then come back hungry to the restaurant and devour some Biriyani.

[00:27:01] Martin McCormack: So, what came first? The the mosque or the, bar restaurant? 

[00:27:05] Sandeep Gopal: I think the bar and the mosque just followed. 

[00:27:10] Martin McCormack: That's one smart imam. He's yeah. Hey, if we put a mosque right there. Yeah, right there. We're gonna have our faithful All right let's take a little break. We're gonna come back. We are talking about alcohol we wouldn't touch .Indian food we want to touch, and I don't know what this final segment's gonna be about, but you are listening to STRUNG OUT.

[00:27:34] Martin McCormack: All right, so we're back. And I think one thing you talked about that I, have to agree with is if you're going out to get authentic food of any kind of food, the first indicator is it has to look like it's in a strip mall and it the restaurant, if you find a strip mall restaurant of Indian or I don't care if it's a Pakistani or Pakistani, something like that. First of all, you, that's a great indicator that, this is some sort of establishment that doesn't have to put on airs.

[00:28:11] Martin McCormack: Do you agree or disagree?

[00:28:12] Sandeep Gopal: I agree. Yeah. Yeah And of course the, main thing is do you see other locals eat there? Do you see other Indians in Pakistanis or Bangladeshi South Asians eat there? And that's any cuisine, right? If you go to, we were in LA many years ago, about four years ago, and we went to Koreatown looking for some good Korean food, and we found this one restaurant.

[00:28:32] Sandeep Gopal: Where a bunch of older women had just gone shopping at two in the afternoon and they were there for their afternoon lunch, and we said, this looks like a spot where it might be authentic. And we were pleasantly surprised. So yeah, always look for other .

[00:28:47] Martin McCormack: Did you ask for a Manchurian meatball?? 

[00:28:49] Sandeep Gopal: No. That is Indian, Chinese, and this is Korea.

[00:28:51] Martin McCormack: Is there such a thing as Indian Korean?. 

[00:28:55] Sandeep Gopal: Indian? No, not yet. I think Indian Chinese Indians or sushis are indianized a little bit.

[00:29:02] Martin McCormack: Indian Sushi. 

[00:29:03] Sandeep Gopal: Think about that. 

[00:29:04] Martin McCormack: What is that? 

[00:29:05] Sandeep Gopal: You have to come to India for that now.

[00:29:06] Martin McCormack: Really? 

[00:29:07] Sandeep Gopal: Yeah. 

[00:29:07] Martin McCormack: So it's, not duplicated over 

[00:29:09] Sandeep Gopal: it's yeah. I, don't think you'll find it here, but it's every country has some tweaking going on.

[00:29:15] Martin McCormack: Have you tried. To put Indian flavors into Mexican food yet in your household? 

[00:29:27] Sandeep Gopal: Yes. We've tried some Indian indianized Mexican beans until my wife just said no. This is where I draw the line. We've, indianized pasta where we put, throw in some nice masalas and spices. 

[00:29:39] Martin McCormack: I could see pasta working great with Indian food.

[00:29:42] Sandeep Gopal: Indian pasta is definitely better than Italian. 

[00:29:44] Martin McCormack: Refried beans or with some spices. 

[00:29:46] Sandeep Gopal: Mexican beans are just onions and garlic and a couple of herbs. Which we can't help but throw in some Cumin powder and coriander spices just to take it up a notch. 

[00:29:59] Martin McCormack: To go with your malort. 

[00:30:00] Sandeep Gopal: Yeah, but that's where my Mexican American wife drew the line. She said, no way.

[00:30:06] Martin McCormack: Really? 

[00:30:06] Sandeep Gopal: Yeah. She said You can't mess with that. she's standing up for Mexican food.

[00:30:11] Martin McCormack: Mexican food is one of those kinds of foods that has been bastardized. 

[00:30:16] Sandeep Gopal: Yeah. Like the burrito for example. Yeah. Does not exist in Mexico.

[00:30:19] Martin McCormack: Doesn't , but they're wonderful. 

[00:30:22] Sandeep Gopal: They're wonderful. Yeah. We love them. Yeah. 

[00:30:24] Martin McCormack: And tacos. 

[00:30:27] Sandeep Gopal: Tacos are everywhere. But the, supersized taco shells that you see here, completely American invention.

[00:30:33] Martin McCormack: Have. In, India, you go to a Mexican restaurant. Yeah they have to have them in Mumbai, right? 

[00:30:40] Sandeep Gopal: They do now, yeah. 

[00:30:41] Martin McCormack: Yeah. What are they like? 

[00:30:45] Sandeep Gopal: I haven't been, I wouldn't.

[00:30:49] Martin McCormack: I know you folks listening we're like, oh my God, I can't wait to hear what, is gonna be, but no, Sandeep wasn't there.

[00:30:56] Sandeep Gopal: No, I wasn't there. But I'll tell you we've, bastardized pizza. The first pizza chain in India is this place called Smokin' Joe's, and they would do chicken tikka pizza. Butter chicken pizza. So it's like chicken toppings, but with like Indian spices. Delicious. And then Domino's launched in India and I said, oh, this is the real deal.

[00:31:17] Sandeep Gopal: We have to taste it. And I bought a Domino's pizza and thought, this is horrendous. I'm going back to my. I Indian Pizza.

[00:31:25] Martin McCormack: And is there besides Domino's, which yeah, basically ruins pizza across the board. Yeah. When you think about it, is there any kind of franchise that's out there or is there a local establishment, at least for the Chicago listeners that dishes up Indian pizza ? That sounds actually, Like it really would fly, right? Yeah. Would you use more of a paneer? 

[00:31:51] Sandeep Gopal: Yeah. You could do paneer, like just for the toppings? Yeah. For the cheese. 

[00:31:57] Martin McCormack: What about also for the base? Can you create like a naan sort of crust? Would that be something that exists with Indian pizza or is it 

[00:32:09] Sandeep Gopal: Yeah, I'm sure you could do a non as a crust, but you really need to bake it. So pizza is pretty versatile. You get the pizza base, so I know Pizza Hut when launched in India, pizza Hut in the United States is a sad story. But Pizza Hut in India, it's delicious.

[00:32:22] Sandeep Gopal: It's like a sit down place. It's families. The pizzas completely different. Unrecognizable from the American Pizza. 

[00:32:28] Martin McCormack: Okay. Pizza Hut.

[00:32:29] Sandeep Gopal: They should get that back here. They should scrap their existing menu, just get the Indian menu or the Chinese Pizza Hut pizzas here. 

[00:32:37] Martin McCormack: It sounds like, those would be huge winners.

[00:32:39] Sandeep Gopal: They would, yeah.

[00:32:40] Martin McCormack: I think most people like spicy. 

[00:32:43] Sandeep Gopal: Yeah, they lean towards spicy. 

[00:32:44] Martin McCormack: The problem with pizza, the way I look at it is you've gotta find that right crust. If you don't have the right crust, so the idea of an Italian crust with an Indian topping.

[00:32:55] Sandeep Gopal: That would be amazing. Just globalization at its best. You, think it would, you'd like that, huh? Yeah, of course. Wow. It would be, it's, I've tasted it, so it's Can we, doesn't have to be Italian thin crust, but any good pizza that's made with some good basil sauce, but throw in some Indian toppings. 

[00:33:11] Martin McCormack: I am like, all for this idea. Yeah. I think what we're going to do here, folks is, we're going to have our special Indian cooking session where we are going to take a westernized piece of food. Yes. Like pizza. And here's the challenge, I think to Sandeep, whose mom, by the way, is probably one of the most amazing cooks in the world. She can she can cook amazing Indian dishes. How about Chicago? Deep. Dish who? Indian style pizza. What would that look like in your eyes? 

[00:33:52] Sandeep Gopal: Man, you've really thrown the gauntlet. 

[00:33:55] Martin McCormack: I think it sounds great. I'm getting hungry thinking about, 

[00:33:58] Sandeep Gopal: but the dish pizza mean there's so much we could do with that, right? It's like it's got cheese, it's got carbs, throw in some slow cooked chicken or meat or lamb with some. curry. All right. That, that they could take the world by storm.

[00:34:13] Martin McCormack: The challenge is out there. What we're going to do is, we're going to create a the very first Chicago, indian American pizza.

[00:34:24] Martin McCormack: Indian American Pizza. It's gonna be a, and deep dish isn't really a Chicago. It's like malort. Yeah. People say, oh yeah, that's so Chicago but it's, really not. But I actually think in the case of having an Indian deep dish, now you're gonna have that almost like the kind of thing on top of it. I, can just see that really flying. Alright. 

[00:34:55] Sandeep Gopal: Yeah. Great business idea. Next thing you know, 

[00:34:56] Sandeep Gopal: we're. 

[00:34:57] Martin McCormack: Multi millionaires because of bastardized pizza from the Bastardized Pizza Company. That's what we're gonna call it. And the first one is going to be this Indian American Pizza.

[00:35:11] Martin McCormack: We're gonna give it a go and we will report back to when we actually do it. As always, I want to thank Sandeep Gopal, my wingman, my source of inspiration and deep intellect for being on this show that somehow we managed to pull together. That's it. We'll see you guys when we see ya.

[00:35:37] Sandeep Gopal: Thank you. It's great to be here, as always. All right. 

[00:35:40] Sandeep Gopal: Bye-bye.