The Restaurant Guys

Andrew Zimmern on The Restaurant Guys LIVE! Pt 2 of 2

• The Restaurant Guys • Episode 117

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This is part 2 of a 2 part episode

The Conversation

The Restaurant Guys are thrilled to sit down with Andrew Zimmern to talk about food television, globe-trotting and some surprisingly delicious foods. Hear the tale about the BEST family feud Andrew, or anyone, has ever experienced!

The Inside Track

The Guys have had Andrew on their podcast several times years ago. They all agree that humans are designed to care for each other and break all kinds of bread together.

 “With food, you can be very indiscriminate. One night I'm going out for sushi, and the next night I'm cooking at home, and then I'm gonna go over to this person's house and they're gonna make me something.

There is a level of sharing with that intimacy that crosses more boundaries than if Gael [Greene] was here, I would say, than sex does. So there's an argument that it is the most universal of intimate acts,” Andrew Zimmern on The Restaurant Guys Podcast 2025

Bio

Andrew Zimmern is an Emmy-winning and four-time James Beard Award-winning TV personality, chef, writer and passionate global citizen. As the creator, executive producer and host of the Bizarre Foods franchise, Andrew Zimmern’s Driven by Food, MSNBC’s What’s Eating America, the Emmy-nominated Family Dinner, Outdoor Channel’s Wild Game Kitchen and Field to Fire, and the Emmy-winning The Zimmern List, he has devoted his life to exploring and promoting cultural acceptance, tolerance and understanding through food.

Info

Andrew’s site

https://andrewzimmern.com/


Andrew’s 2008 appearance on The Restaurant Guys Podcast

https://www.restaurantguyspodcast.com/episode-98-andrew-zimmern


Andrew’s new book (out in October 2025)

The Blue Food Cookbook: Delicious Seafood Recipes for a Sustainable Future (A Comprehensive Guide, from Bu

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Francis:

So can we talk about,'cause we have spent a little time, like the one question we're not gonna ask you, at least not un adored, is, I'm sure that everyone's like, what's the most unusual food you had? But there are some things you've talked about in your past that I, I'm hoping you'll relate.'cause I don't know that everyone knows you quite as well as we do, but you had a, you had a close encounter with, with, uh, human foreskin as in, as I recall. well, I held it in my hand and I was ready to eat it. Um, can you give a little backstory as how you got there? Was this,

Andrew:

I mean, that's not, you can't start this story there. You can't start

Mark:

as No, no, you can't

Andrew:

start as the mole. Okay. You can't, it Well, it was a Tuesday night. I was at my house. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, I am with the, so Lava tribes, people in Madagascar, and they circumcised men at age five. one of the most trauma, I mean, honest to God, like, I can still, if I, if I got quiet and dipped into the feelings, I can, I can relive the trauma of that day where you spend three days partying and eating and celebrating and they keep the five-year-old hidden away with his family while the whole tribe is celebrating hundreds and hundreds of people. and they kill. a zebo, which is this weird ox that tastes really gamey. It's, it's, it's not great meat. It's, it smells and they boil it with its hair. Oh, excellent. You know, it's the hide. Um, so the, the aroma of cow hide, which is not great when they're living, um, permeates the meat and they don't cook it very long, so it's really chewy. Uh, it's just a whole different way of eating. They love it. So we're celebrating for three days and we, and all I hear is screaming and crying and it's mom and dad with the five-year-old, and he knows what's gonna happen at five. You're old enough to know what's gonna happen. Yeah. And by the way, for those that that don't know, as someone who has been to he Smo, which is the man who performs ritual circumcision in the, Jewish communities, having been to a lot of these circumcision ceremonies, um, you know, the, the baby's like 10 days old and there's a little, uh, numby thing on a, uh, uh, cotton, cotton swab, swab, and, they

Francis:

take a little snip and it's done here. Wait. I also wanna say for that baby. It, it's not the most traumatic thing to happen in the last 12 days. Know what I mean? Like a lot's going on, on in that baby life. A lot has happened. Yeah.

Andrew:

5-year-old walks in and I'm talking about like a scissor and a hand and a yanking. Mm-hmm. And I'm just sitting there watching this. By the way, that joke that Tony and I made countless times, We both did it countless times. Nothing worse than being the special guest. Oh, in certain situations. Yeah. Okay. Like, you gotta sit there in, in, you know, you're with Japanese businessmen and they've just closed a really big deal. It's 12 hours of eating and drinking. there is no, I have to go back to the hotel. I mean, you could not be ruder. Yeah. I mean, you have to be the last person standing. So I had already, I'd done my research and I knew that they were gonna make me eat the foreskin of the baby. Which by the way. It is just a big piece of this young man's foreskin. The blood, the whole, I mean, every, everybody's

Mark:

salivating right now. Anybody,

Andrew:

I think to many people just left, get some meatballs later. And I'm sitting there, by the way, by the way, I tried. We put her in the show. My ex-wife is in that show, Uhhuh. And I just remember seeing her behind someone just like horrified thinking that for the two weeks beforehand where I said, we're gonna the circumcision ceremony, and as the special guest, they may give this to probably will to me to eat. And she's like, no, you know, and she's just Harvard and the cameramen are just sitting like, camera guys are shaking and trying to hold the camera. And the, the tribal elder who did the snipping puts this into my hand and I know. All I'm thinking is just do your job. Do your job. Because at the end of the day, my job is not to be the guy making jokes. My job is not to be the ugly American. My job. And by the way, there's a lot of funny stuff that came to my mind while this is in my hand and, uh, but my show, and I think important, so maybe even some of you may not have realized this. We should have said this at the beginning. Bizarre Foods aired in 163 countries around the world from day one because of the Discovery Networks carriage. So people all over the world are watching this. So I know that like maybe this isn't so foreign to people in certain communities, in other places. Sure. To, but I'm, you can't help but think about like the people in your hometown, your neighbors and friends. Yeah. I live in Minnesota. It's the Midwest, right? I mean, oh my God, right. Horrified. Right. And I'm holding this, but my job is to talk to the whole world.

Francis:

Yeah.

Andrew:

And my job is not to be the the joking idiot. That's our job. My job is to be the avatar for you and think about what you wanna know. Right. I'm

Francis:

dying to find out what happened to the damn foreskin.

Andrew:

So I'm sitting there, and I'm holding this, and I look into the, down the pipe of the camera and I just am telling, you know. The force condition table. I now have it in, in my hand. I'm the, uh, guest honor, honored guest of honor. they feel it's a privilege to have me visiting from another country and documenting one of their most sacred rituals. This is a point of pride for them. And I would rather be a better guest. Yeah. Than to be rude and say, Ew. Right. So I have to keep a straight face and I have to eat this thing. And I know nobody in the room can tell what I'm speaking because there's a lot of tribes people, none of them speak English. Right. And as I'm sitting there, I hear a fight going on and shouting the maternal grandfather and the paternal grandfather, maternal and paternal grandfathers are fighting the maternal grandfather. Wants to eat the foreskin because in their tradition, he's been looking forward to this for his whole life. Right? This is his, we all gotta have goals. The paternal, the paternal grandfather is like, it's more important to let the honored guest have it. And they're fighting and they're fighting and I'm holding onto this. And I, you, the, the director is giving me one of these, like, keep going. And I'm like, the, the two grandfathers here are fighting and I don't know what they're fighting about. And then the translator is telling me, and then I can tell the audience, like, apparently one of them wants to eat the foreskin, the other one wants to have me eat the foreskin. And I, I said something cute, like, I wonder how this is gonna turn out. I mean,'cause I really, that's how I felt. But that, that's actually what you're thinking too, right? True. So I'm the avatar for the audience. So if you're a good TV guy in my position, you really. Just the, the play by play is important. And out of nowhere, he lunges at me. Best lunge that ever happened in your life. Ever. Ever. Yeah. Yeah. Ever. And grabs it and, and pops it in his mouth. And I'm like, and just like

Mark:

that cannibalism is back on your bucket list.

Andrew:

Well, I, I have done cannibalism, but that's a different, but not the way you intended. And I would like to, but, we can talk about that in a second. The, um, do we have to Yeah, I was

Mark:

gonna say, maybe we could talk about something else. I like to,

Andrew:

I I think it's, I think there's one, it's a very quick reason, but I, I don't, I I don't wanna digress. The, the, the, the thing is, I, I felt at that moment, like. There was divine intervention. Yeah.'cause I was willing to mm-hmm. I got let off the hook. Yeah. You didn't have to kill your son on the, do what I mean? So it's like a spiritual axio, like a Yeah. You know, go forth unafraid uhhuh. If, if the, whatever you believe in, uh, most that's bigger than you see that you're willing to do it. He, she, they, whatever we call that, whatever you believe in, uh, says, hey, you know something, the kid was looking at him, he was gonna do it. You don't have to,

Mark:

we don't need to make him a pillar

Francis:

or, so you know what's funny? In the beginning of that story, I was really, really concerned about that poor kid. And I was thinking all about the kid and then you were my avatar and I was thinking, and I, if I had it, I'd be like, I don't give a shit about that kid. Can somebody get rid of this horse, kid? Do you know what? So I don't have to eat this horse kid. Do you know what's

Andrew:

funny? The minute the kid got snipped? Yeah. It's over. There's no pain. Oh, okay. There's no pain. Because he's

Mark:

unconscious.

Andrew:

No, no. And you wanna know how ridiculous, like when, these are so sako lava tribes. People live in an isolated part of southern Madagascar, a lawless country that before we got there, they shot and killed a local DJ who had been president. There's no police, there's no taxes. It's lawless. Lawless. We had to go around with more security in southern Madagascar than anywhere I've ever traveled in my life. And I was in Syria a month before Assad started bombing his own people as a Jewish entertainer from America. So just think about that for a second. That's pretty good creds. You know, I, I got that's, just think about that. And I mean, it was so far away from my reality, and yet the minute he snipped and everything and the kid is like, in his head. Like, oh, that wasn't so bad. All of a sudden, all the women come out and out come, like the Legos and the little toys from the supermarket that they bought 200 miles away, whatever the nearest market is. And so all of a sudden he is like toys. He's playing with his friends. I can see through the door while grand, literally, while grandpas are fighting, he is playing with his toy trucks out there. He's having a blast with his friends.

Francis:

I, I appreciate the cultural difference. However, I'm happy I did not go through such a thing. Hmm. I was, I'm, I'm cool without it. Do you have grandchildren? No, I don't have any kids. Oh, okay. Mark had too many. I, I couldn't have any kids. You

Andrew:

have grandchildren?

Mark:

No. Is there a reason I don't have grandchildren? Yes. My, my oldest just got married in

Andrew:

September. Okay. So you will have the opportunity, you know, could say, let's play. So lava tribes person, that's

Francis:

a game. That's a game You do not wanna play. I'm trained to

Mark:

not have that opportunity. All right. Lemme

Francis:

take this a little more general. Yeah. So you've eaten all kinds of weird foods. Yeah. can you give us one or two foods that were like. Your average person to be revolted by, right? That were delicious. That they're like, you know what? You should really try this. If you're this amazing. Those, the list is so long. Gimme a top

Andrew:

three. Just gimme like, or chop one or two. First couple that pop into my mind. Why don't we eat donkey? In this country there's a, a, a breed of donkey that's actually fairly small. There's an entire city dedicated to eating donkey in China. In Italy, it's eaten. It tastes like veal. It raises quickly. It's beautifully marbled. It is some of the most delicious meat I've ever eaten in my life. giraffe beetles only. And it's only because I was thinking about Madagascar only grow or live on the island of Madagascar. They live in a plant that makes a stingy nettle. Seam tame by comparison. Oh yeah. You get, it's like walking into a bush made of razor wire. And there are people who sacrifice themselves and stand there and hand them. There's millions in there, and they just keep handing them all day long for eight hours handfuls of these giraffe beetles in season. Because when you, cook them in butter in a pan or pot or on a stone over open fire or animal fat, if you don't have butter and they taste like shrimp, they're delicious. Kazakhs are horse people and Kazakhstan literally means the place of the horse people, uhhuh in Kazakh and the language. And we went into the city market in Almadi that's been there for like. 700 Ever since Almadi was founded, they've had this market on this place. It's grown pretty sizably, but they eat a lot of horse. And I went to the back with my guy, he said, you have to see something. And we use a lot of intestine to make sausages. Yeah. But it's intestine from up here. Right. And you have 20 feet of it in your body. Right, right. So a horse has like 40 feet of it. Well what if you took the last five feet? Oh, that's not my least favorite five feet. I gotta be honest with you. It's my least favorite five feet. Yeah. Until you stuff it with all the chopped oval, the lung, the heart, the liver, the kidneys, the spleen. Chop it up. And when I say chop it up pretty coarsely loosely. Chop it up, chop and uh, you know, maybe you barely season it. So, little salt, little garlic. And then they, they smoke it over, fire, why wouldn't you? then they dry it for a month and then they slice it. Sadly, they like it sliced thick for our, and I was like, oh, please Lord, let the electricity go out. Or some sort of, I was like, looking at this, like, you've gotta be kidding me. Yeah. Uh, because the, in the, the casing up top very thin. Yeah. Down low. Really thickened. Fibrous. Yeah. Because of its job. Yeah. that's what's

Francis:

disturbing me. It's job.

Andrew:

Yeah. It's job and I took it and I ate it and I went back and got like, pound and, and we just kept eating it all the time. It was delicious. That's amazing. Oh, my favorite. And I, oh, okay. I do pursue this at home, so it's poultry. but in rural Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, you're not gonna say duck. Indonesia all the baby, baby ducklings and baby. Oh, chicks duck, in the

Francis:

egg.

Andrew:

No, no, no. Balut is balut. Iss delicious. Yeah. That mean everyone knows balut is delicious. the, uh, fertilized duck embryo that you eat with a little kalei juice and salt, but like a five day old chick, six day, seven day old chick, um, a quick dip in boiling water and the soft hair comes off. Then they marinate it in like fish sauce, sugar, lime juice. Yeah. Then they deep fry it and it caramelizes and it cooks in about 90 seconds. And then you eat like six or seven of them. in on Viet rural Vietnam. You nip dip it in a, a ncha, a fish sauce. you just hold onto the beak and you eat the whole thing. And it is so insanely d good. It tastes like the best bite of duck or chicken you've ever eaten.'cause it does taste like its thing. And so some people like to let animals grow up. Some people like to eat them very young baby goats that are a week old that have only eaten mother's milk, never eaten grass. You can eat every part of everything. So I mean, it is really beautiful. And the ethnocentric problem that I have with people who hate on that is that if you tell them they're gonna spend$2,000 for a meal cooked by, yano in the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles mm-hmm. In celebration of. Some big holiday in France and you've got a ticket and you're gonna sit next to some fabulous movie star. And by the way, no cameras please.'cause they're gonna serve LANs one of the greatest delicacies in the world. Right. Everyone's in. Right, right. Everyone's in. Yeah. Guys know

Mark:

LANs, So you can't eat an orlon. It's a, it's a endangered bird. So the French, and we shouldn't, I'm not arguing for eating endangered anything, but, but so the French, in order to eat orlon, because they like orlon, they get it blindfold and they cover their eyes when they serve the, well, it's the al lawn. Well, it's,

Andrew:

let, let me, let me just go back a step. Having eaten them before they were illegal to eat. they take the birds, they dip them in boiling waters. They're a little bigger than a hummingbird. So you hold this long beak. They are drowned, in Saturn dessert wine,

Francis:

by the way. That's how I want to go. They are,

Andrew:

they are very delicately. The, the guts are taken out and they put fo gra in it. Mm. And then they're just hot, seared in a pan for like 40, 50 seconds and sprinkled with a little bit of salt. And you cover your head with a napkin, so God doesn't get jealous. That's how delicious this bird is. And I'll tell you something. I ate one and the course was one, and I was like, I need like 20 more of like, like ASAP. They're deli. Little birds just in general are my favorite. Like really crazy goofy food's. Goofy big birds out. Goofy food, bird. Yeah. Big bird's out. Yeah, he's

Mark:

totally out. So somewhere you fell in love with food as a young person. Somewhere Like right away. Right. so talk to us about some of the foods that you fell in love with as a young person. What were the special foods of your family?

Andrew:

My mother always had a garden, so my earliest memories are of her teach me how to pick tomatoes, eggplants, zucchini, yellow, squash, some herbs, and going back. And she would make rati way too often. I got sick of it. I, I now make it her way. And my kid just like a week ago is like, why do you make so much rati? And I have to have it with everything every night? And I'm like, that's a very valid point. I felt the same way when I was your age. And he's like, well, are you gonna change that? And I'm like, no.

Francis:

Yeah. Yeah. That's your

Andrew:

generation. Sins of the father. Yeah. You ch Gazpacho, same thing from the garden. My father would hold me by my ankles and lower me into these giant rock jetties, uh, that they built on Long Island to prevent shore erosion. Anyway, my dad would lower me down to pull up ropes of mussels that we would cook oh, winters or fall, winter, spring. My grandmother's house, Jewish holidays roast. I'll tell you something about my grandmother. My grandmother was 6 4, 800 pounds. Truly

Mark:

Jesus. And so my grandmother was 5 1 600 pounds.

Andrew:

I don't know, I don't know how my grandmother fit into this tiny little kitchen. Uh, I mean the size of this coffee table in her apartment on the upper west side of Manhattan. And she would somehow turn out food for 25 people every time the whole family descended on her house. And we, we were not allowed to eat anywhere else for holidays. And she would cook seven days a week. And she, she only had one or two dish towels, but she never used them because they were like a decorative item. So she wiped her hands on her apron. So my, my memory of my grandmother cooking is this beautiful apron and this giant woman and this circle of brown cooked chicken fat in the middle of her stomach. And when you're this big and grandma leans over to hug, you, come hug me. And my face is in this stuff and I'm just like, oh my God. And now the, the fond, when you roasted chicken, the sticky brown bits the bottom, that's what my grandmother smelled like. So when I smell that. Not only am I transported back to my grandmother's apartment of my youth, but I, I, I smell my grandmother. That's awesome. That's what she smelled like. So those were the things that I grew up eating and loving.

Francis:

Yeah. That's awesome. Well, you had in, covered in, in your books and a lot of, videos you see online, you have your aunt's, nut bars, the can bars. Yeah, the can bars, yes. was that a particularly, notable part of your, uh, childhood growing up?

Andrew:

No.

Francis:

No. Uh, so you lied in your book? Of course not. Alright.

Andrew:

Of course not. I never, I never said that Aunt Suzanne was my aunt by birth.

Francis:

Oh.

Andrew:

Aunt Suzanne, is one of the most sainted people that I know. She has devoted her life. She won Minnesota, Teacher of the Year, Uhhuh. And then one like school administrator of the year, I think the only Minnesotan ever to do that. She's one of those women, one of those teachers that everyone fought to have Aunt Suzanne And uh, my first wife, it's her aunt Suzanne. It's her dad's sister. the very first time I met the whole family was Christmas Eve of the first year that we were dating. she said, I don't you to come to Christmas Eve at my house and meet my family. Which for New York City, Jew. Yeah. Was hysterical because they are, very serious, born again Lutherans. Oh. at this point, I'm not on tv, but I have restaurants in Minneapolis. Um, I had a very serious, very serious food career. Michelin starred restaurants in Europe, best restaurants in New York. I'm a culinarian and I know how to cook food the people cooking the holiday meal in my ex-wife's family went by the rule. If the cookbook says the roast crown of pork takes two hours to cook, ah, it would be even better if we cooked it for six. Yes. Yeah. I am, I am, I am all too familiar with that in-law mentality. So this is my first go round and I'm just like, and I really like this woman. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'm in love with her already. Right, right. And, uh, I meet her family for the first time, so I'm like, this is delicious. And I'm just drinking water just to rinse down. Yeah. What I'm trying to chew. Yeah. Um, and I'm trying to think to myself when they say, everyone's like, isn't this asparagus wonderful? And it's like, it's, I'm thinking it's December. Why are we even eating asparagus? Right, right. That's spring. Like, I'm so Not other centered at that point in my life. Right. I'm a, I'm a selfish, I'm still a user of people and taker of things. The way I crawled in sobriety. I was, you know, 5, 6, 7 years clean or something. And, uh, all I'm thinking to myself, this is the greatest I would rather have. Can asparagus? Yeah. I would rather have, can asparagus than eat whatever they, they're serving here. Well, were the

Francis:

pecan bars a bright spot at the end of the

Andrew:

meal. It, it, in walks. I'm starving. Uhhuh. I, I've pushed everything food wise that you can do. I've spread it out into a mosaic to make it look like I've eaten everything. I've placed my napkin. I'm clearing plates first to be helpful. To cover your own, to show us like, oh, let me take your plate. Mine's off. I'm like, yes. You know, and you know, my future mother-in-law's like, are you, did you get enough to eat? I'm like, absolutely. This is fantastic income, these pecan bars. And I'm like, what? Culinary wizardry. Has created this. Oh yeah. Now in the Midwest it is bar culture. Yeah. You, you cookies, uh, you know, cakes Pie. Sure. Bars and Out came all these other bars, but none were as good as Aunt Suzanne's caramel pecan bars. And I had to be married. I had, we had to have grandchildren and great, whatever you call the, if she's an aunt, we had to have children before I was even allowed to see how she made them, let alone intuit the recipe, on my website@inzimmer.com. But it is, it is the, not only the easiest, dough to make, to put in the bottom. You literally mix it by hand and press it into it has to be made in a super cheap supermarket. you know, quick release, brownie pan. And, uh, then you boil the, this caramel to a certain point. You, you pour it in, dump the nuts in. Everyone likes itch smeared or drop with chocolate drops. I'm not big on chocolate and nuts. That's just a personal thing. But if you do like them, we do it both ways in the, in the recipe. And it is my favorite thing in the whole world, it's just culinary genius and Andrew.

Mark:

So I'm really, really glad this story went where that went, because sitting in the front row is my pastry chef Who made those pecan bars for you tonight, guys? Maria. Hi Maria. She's a graduate of the

Francis:

Promise Academy

Mark:

and we have a surprise for you. Get at it down. No. So if you're coming to the VIP party, you'll have to, tonight they're gonna be Maria's, pecan bars. But Maria, oh God, is a wonderful award-winning now pastry chef who graduated from the Elijah's Promise, promise Culinary, uh, promise Academy. Uh, she had no idea we were gonna talk about her or show off her pecan bars here. So she's sitting in the, in the front row right now. I just want to

Francis:

tout her praise a little more. She came to us as an extern from The Promise Academy, uh, who was partially the beneficiary of this. Tonight, she's now the pastry chef of Stage left and Catholic Lombardi restaurant. And for the last three years, kale Lombardi has won best desserts in Central Jersey by New Jersey Monthly Magazine. So did we

Andrew:

get, did you get it right? Oh, nailed it. Nice. Nailed it. But the, I'm just reminded when you take a bite and look at it, that the crust is. Twice as thick as what it appears to be. There's this transitional element where the, flour mixture that you press into the bottom of the pan absorbs the liquid caramel and it's that transition area dynamics,

Francis:

textural dynamics. Oh my gosh. Alright, well so we only have a few minutes left, but we'd like to take at least a couple of questions from the audience. So do we have the ability to do that as someone out there with micro? Can we bring that house lights halfway up? Whatever we do here. We're restaurant guys, not theater guys. We're gonna do a

Speaker 21:

hybrid. A hybrid. I have some. So Julie's gonna ask you some questions first. Okay. That for can story really through off some of my questions though, so I'm gonna wing it.

Speaker 11:

Thank you sir. Last one for you.

Speaker 21:

Um, so we've had some other celebrity chefs on stage here. Excuse me. I know you are busy

Andrew:

It's okay. They were friends of mine.

Speaker 21:

if you were on a cooking show, who is the celebrity chef that you would want to beat?

Mark:

So now he's gotta decide whether to be nice or say what he really thinks

Andrew:

well. Here's

Francis:

the, here's the thing. He put down the bar. Everyone, he put

Andrew:

down

Francis:

the, this is serious.

Andrew:

Now. I, so why did we have to talk about all that other crap? Couldn't we just get right down to the, the ego-based knives out kind of thing? Yeah. Um, I am extremely competitive. I have, I am never asked to cook on competition shows. Whenever I'm asked, I say yes. Mm-hmm. Whenever I'm asked. Um, and I am very calm and collected and I believe that everything that I cook is, is great. And if the judge doesn't like it, I'm like, what the hell's wrong with them? Clearly they're wrong. However, I am asked to be, because I have a reputation for having eaten everything and having achieved a lot in my chef years. For anyone. I mean, this is pre tv, pre-social media, but I was the chef in some pretty famous. Places and achieved a lot on the food side before I went into the TV side. But, you know, paint a thousand pictures, no one calls you an artist, but the minute you do one TV show, they forget about everything else. So no one guy, you're a murderer. I'm very confident in, in that stuff. And when I lose I get really pissed off, but I judge like everything. Yeah, right. I mean, I was the head, literally everything we were talking about, you know, iron Chef, the Netflix, when I was the head judge on that show, I judged 50 episodes of the old Iron Chef. you know, terminal champions on and on and on and I like that, you know, and I think I'm pretty fair and I can't be right in both places, can I? Mm-hmm. It's impossible, right? Yeah. So I bring this huge ego about my food into it. Um, and I would like to face off against whoever the most acclaimed. Person is that you could find, because I'm one of those people who's like, if you want to be the champ, you gotta beat the champ. So, so who's the

Francis:

champ in your view though, in the world right now? Who's the number one? Who, who, who gotta knock off to in the food competition world?

Andrew:

Yes. God, I don't know. There, there's a lot of them. I mean, obviously you want me to say my, my friend Antonia? No, I have no who, who, no, you do.'cause Backstage. Backstage. These guys told me that. She said some really sweet things about me when she was on their podcast. She actually is a very close friend of mine, and I love and adore her. So I know this. That's Antonio

Francis:

Lofaso for, I know that

Andrew:

she just won Tournament of Champions finally. I know we get back to her, but for Antonia, um, you know, it, the people who've won that show are probably the ones,'cause I think that and Top Chef are the two hardest ones to win. So give me anyone who's won Tournament of Champions or anyone who's won Top Chef because. I cook my food and I think the judges will like my food. You ready for this?'cause everyone, if you get into TV and some of you are going to always be ready to whip out. That shameless plug this season on, uh, uh, I, I did another cooking show. I, I should have won. Wild Card. Wild Card Kitchen. Rocco beat Alex and I last year. It's already aired on Wild Card Kitchen and Jet Teer was the judge and I was just, and I've judged him a hundred times and things and I was just like, oh, and the next hundred aren't

Mark:

gonna go well.

Andrew:

Oh, son of a gun. No.'cause most good competition shows are blind. It should be blind. Mm-hmm. Right. I don't wanna know who. Absolutely. Although, on tournament champions, I can always tell Jets food or Manites food'cause they cook their thing. So I would want to, I would. Coming up this year, I'm in a couple other cooking competition things you can see for yourself. But I'd want to, I'd want to take on whoever's

Francis:

really good.

Andrew:

You're

Francis:

as loquacious as we are, so we really don't have time for one more question. No, we can, we can, we can take more time. I, we gotta check with the union. I gotta be honest, A concept time is a concept that's fleeting. Did you say time is a contract with the union? Yes. Uh, yes. It's so, uh, Alright. So a local plug though, because we have to appreciate what we've got. I, I read somewhere, and I don't know if this is still true'cause I don't know how old the information was mm-hmm. That when you rated the top three food destination cities, top five, top five, that New York City came out on top. Is it still. Now that's incorrect. Okay. I

Andrew:

said, God damn Internet queens. I said Queens alone. New York City is such a great food town. If Queens alone was its own city, it would be the number one food destination in the world for depth and breadth. And I stand by that. New York is so diverse and, and statistically so diverse in terms of cultural populations of 5,000 or more. There is only one place out of where burka used to be. It's not even a country anymore where Burran Bread is baked. And that's in Regal Park. Queens the only place in the world. There's not even cities in Central Asia where Burkas, who were persecuted were so the only place and, and they make marks on the bread when it's park cooked with 500 year old wooden molds. these pastries that come out of these wood-burning ovens on Saturday mornings. I mean, it, it is, Queens is to me, the greatest concentration of the best food on planet Earth. And that's just one part of New York. So I, I have to give it to'em. I thought you were gonna talk about the Hungarian food here.

Francis:

The Hungarian food in New Brunswick. That was, that was in, I mean, that was in my jersey show. I, I, I can't believe I left that out. My Hungarian friends are gonna kill me.

Andrew:

Well,

Francis:

I

Andrew:

mean, for that many other reasons.

Francis:

Uh, yeah. Yeah, exactly. What's your favorite, what do you, what is your favorite impression of the Hungarian food in New Brunswick? Sadly, there's not as much Hungarian food as there used to to be. It's getting

Mark:

that, that, unfortunately that cuisine is getting smaller in here, in New Brunswick here. Well, this is actually

Andrew:

a great way to close, this is a great way to close. Um, I went to Milwaukee 20 years ago. Milwaukee had the largest concentration of restaurants in North America. That we're a operating continuously for a hundred years or more. Now that's saying something.'cause there are some Canadian cities that are quite amazing and now I think there's like three left. There used to be like nine. Um, we've lost so many of these older restaurants'cause they were family owned and the what made them magical disappeared. And I'm one of those people, other people are like, we have to figure out a way to prevent this from happening. And I'm like, you can't the appreciate it while it's there. The, the, the horse and buggy was, was the way to go 150 years ago. And the, the Model T came along and then a year later, Henry Ford figured out a way to make it cheaper on an assembly line. And we've never looked back. And as much as we might think that the car. Did so many things that we would rather not have. It's what happened. You can't take it back. We have to figure out a way to fix the problems. But we were able to truck food around the world. It changed so many cultural totems around the world for the better. I think the important thing to take from anything is, you know, uh, what did Joni Mitchell say? Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone. And I think we need to live our lives appreciating what's happening in the moment, where we're eating, what we're eating, who we're eating with. To your point, um, keeping it where you want it to be for you and your point. Mm-hmm. I don't wanna own 30 restaurants. I wanna own two in the place I love.'cause that makes me happier. Yep. Which is basically what you said, and I think. We need to understand that in the 1970s before you all were born, there were no sushi bars in New York. Yep. They didn't exist. That's new in the last 50 years. First one that opened was 1974. Right. Wow. So things change. And would you, would you ever want, would you ever think that there was no Japanese food in New York City? I mean, this is mind boggling, right? But culture is cyclical. Food is cyclical and there were no popups then or food halls or food trucks or all these other things. That's magical. I think we have to preserve what they did, which is why I love cooking recipes from dead restaurants. I do that in demos a lot. Um, I hunt things down and find people who work there and vet stuff. we have to enjoy the moment and live in today. Look down when your feet are, that's where it is. If you got one foot in yesterday and one foot in tomorrow, you're pissing all over today and today is a gift, which is why they call it the present.

Francis:

Well, and that's beautiful. That that's so, so I know, mark, that you and I feel the same. And just to put a little spin on it, we're saying embrace the new restaurants, embrace the future, embrace the great things that are coming, embrace it all, while being very careful to appreciate what you've got and if there's been a restaurant. Let's say been around for a long time, like 33 years or so was near, and we're not talking any place specifically near here. It was near here is good and near house. You wanna

Andrew:

preserve that and treasure that. You do wanna preserve it and treasure it, and all can aside, uh,'cause I see where you're going with that. The um, this is why I tell people all the time who are like, oh, I can't believe we're having so many closings these days. Well, you know, something, get out and go to restaurants. Yeah. Yeah. More, it doesn't have to be fancy or expensive.

Mark:

Right.

Francis:

It's better if it is. Yeah. It's better. Well, I, we make a deal. I say to people all the time, like, we love this restaurant. We come here all the time. I'm like, here's the deal. You keep coming. I'll keep being here. Yes. That's how, that's how that frigging works. but I do wanna close with something that you wrote It spoke to me, so I'll read you your own words back. you wrote, a testimonial to about your friend Anthony Bourdain, a couple of days after he passed away. And last bit of it you wrote, then there was a night over dinner when he talked for an hour about the joy he felt he could squeeze from maybe writing, or teaching literature, followed by a call months later when he rightly asserted that, you know what? Guys like us will never stop doing what we really love. And Andrew, we know that like Mark and I guys like us. We'll never stop doing what we really love. So thanks for coming on the show tonight. That was really great to have you. Andrew Zimmer. Is this where we stayed? Here we go. We stand up. We stand up. Didn't tell me that in rehearsal.

Andrew:

Thanks. Thank you. Thank you guys. Fantastic. Thank you very much.

Francis:

Thank

Mark:

you. Maybe we'll see you

Francis:

next year. We'll do this again. Yeah. Rock. Yeah. Can you take that? Oh,

Mark:

bald guy. Thank you guys.

Speaker 11:

Hello?