Diet Starts Tomorrow
Diet Starts Tomorrow! is a hilarious, podcast hosted by comedian Mahesh Kotagi, where food, comedy, and bad decisions collide.
Each episode dives deep into the world of guilty pleasures, diet fails, and everything we love to eat before we start being healthy again.
Mahesh chats with guests about their favorite (and most embarrassing) food habits, diet disasters, and how they’re definitely starting their diet... tomorrow.
Diet Starts Tomorrow
Kangaroo Meat, Sushi Hacks & the best Diner Secrets! with Comedian Derek Humphrey!
🎙️ Comedian Derek Humphrey on Kangaroo Meat, Sushi Hacks & the Best Pizza in Germany!
In this hilarious and delicious new episode of Diet Starts Tomorrow, host Mahesh Kotagi sits down with comedian Derek Humphrey to talk all things food, comedy, and life on the road. Derek shares his experience trying kangaroo meat, a clever sushi life hack, and his love for adventurous eating.
We dive into his favorite food discoveries — including the best pizza in Germany (with a surprise egg on top!), his early days working at Bob Evans and other classic American diners, and of course, life and laughs in the New York City comedy scene.
Catch Derek touring in Dallas this summer, and don’t miss Combover Comedy on June 12 in NYC, where the hilarious Mark Normand headlines two killer shows.
🍕🌍🎤 Subscribe now, leave a review, and join us for another episode where comedy and cravings collide!
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Mahesh Kotagi will be on tour for 2025 so go over to IG and sign up for the email list in bio!
Hey, welcome back to Diet Stars Tomorrow with Mahesh Kotagi. I've got a very funny guest, good comedian, friend of mine. He's got a special out on YouTube right now called Late Bloomer. Please keep it going for Derek Humphrey, everybody. Hey, what up? I do the intro like we're doing an actual show here. I know, I was like, oh. am I doing a set I mean I feel you know I feel like people at home are clapping yeah good I feel like people are awesome thank you people at home thanks for doing the show buddy oh hey thanks for having me buddy I asked him immediately as he came in about the hats he's got a Raising Cane's hat there and I was like what's the story behind that this is just my Mike Albanese rebuttal what was his hat I listened no I listened to him he was talking about how he doesn't like chicken fingers oh yeah or like chicken tenders are not for oh yeah he was getting on me about I like boneless you like boneless wings I like boneless wings you know I'm... Mike and I occupy the same amount of space. And when you are this big, you can't judge other people for what they eat. That's true. That is true. Leave the judgment alone. And you know where he is today? He's not here. Yeah, I wish he was here. He's hiding. I wish he was here. We're starting an internet beef. It's the largest beef in New York comedy between two 6'4", 300-pound dudes. Actually, I'm probably way more Mike. I know I weigh more Mike. You're 6'4", also? Yeah, I'm 6'3". I used to be 6'4". I'm getting old. That's not bad. See, I feel like I want to be one of those people They get taller when they get old. Good luck, man. It's not going to happen. So are you a chicken wings guy, boneless? Do you do everything? All of it. All the chicken. I got this hat for free. I like the hat. I saw that. For being a fan. Nice. For liking dipping sauce. Oh, yeah? You did a video or something? No. Just somebody knew I was a fan and just gave me the hat. What's your dipping sauce? What do you go to? I traditionally go ranch. I do anything except, the only one I usually don't do is honey mustard. But I will eat honey mustard. I'm not discriminatory. I like a good aioli, garlic herb, that sort of thing. I agree with you on the honey mustard. I only do honey mustard from Chick-fil-A. Oh, okay. Because it's more sweeter than mustardy. I feel like other places it's more mustardy than sweet. See, I like the more mustard than sweet. Oh, you do like that. I'm the opposite. So sometimes I don't like it when it's too sweet. Yeah, but whatever. But you know what? I've opened my palate up over the years. So I started eating like when I moved to the south, I started eating chicken and waffles. Okay. And then once you get syrup, on chicken. Oh my God. You can't go away. You can't go. Yeah. It's like, you know what? The pallet's broken open. I'm open to everything. Now it's like, yeah. So wait, so you moved to the South. So where are you? You're from Ohio originally? I was raised in Ohio. Okay. I was raised in Toledo, Ohio. And part of the thing with this hat too, is like in Toledo, Ohio in the seventies and eighties, that would be one of the starter towns to see if like a fast food franchise or, yeah. Like if, if you're, if you're a restaurant, you're, we had like one of the first chilies, first Applebee's, one of the first, um, Oh, God, Arby's and all these different things. Oh, wow. They would use Toledo as a test market. Interesting. So we got all the first, when Checkers used to be called, Checkers is also called Rally's. Rally's, yeah. In some markets. Yeah. And then there's, I forget what the other name was at Fort, too, but there's like two different iterations of it. Huh. And so they would test it out in our market. So I had access to all the fast food early. Wow, that's a dream. Yeah. Yeah, it's like being into NSYNC early. You're like an early adopter. Yeah, I'm an early adopter of this very popular thing. I feel like with you, it's like when you find a band that you really like and you're into it, and then they start getting played on the radio, you're like, man, everybody knows about it now. Is that how you are with Fast Food? I was eating checkers before it was cool. Before it was cool? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, yeah, so we had all those early adopters. And then all the mid-market restaurants. I remember when Olive Garden came out. Oh, yeah. That was like a seminal moment in my life. I was like, oh my God, they give you all these breadsticks. The free breadsticks? Yeah, that's where we would go. The breadsticks and the salad. It felt... It felt very, you know, upstanding. It felt fancy. Yeah, it was fancy. I thought growing up, that was a fancy restaurant to me growing up. Right, yeah. Oh, for sure. If we went to Olive Garden on the weekend, I was like, oh, mom must have had a big paycheck. Yeah, you saw something happen. You're celebrating something. Something's going on. Yeah, my grandparents would take me and they'd be like, all right, you've been a good kid. Yeah. Or we just have tolerated you enough. We're going to let you order raviolis that that are not out of a can. Yeah, yeah. Did you do the never-ending pasta bowl? That wasn't a thing when I was young. Really? No, because Olive Garden started in the 80s. Did it? Yeah. So test markets. Yeah, test markets. So I grew up with fast food and mid-level markets and stuff like that. And then I moved to the South with the military. I originally moved to Norfolk, Virginia. Oh, okay. Yeah, and then I ended up in Charleston, South Carolina, which is a foodie town. Oh, nice. That's when I started to eat Bhut. Oh, okay. When I was in my late teens, early 20s, early 20s especially, I was trying to get worldly. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I started eating sushi. Okay. Indian. We had one Indian place. In South Carolina? In Toledo. Oh, in Toledo. It's still open, I think. Okay. How was it? I think it's called Tandora Place. I only ate there once.
SPEAKER_01:No
SPEAKER_00:good? No, it was good. It was good. I didn't eat there until I was in college. That honestly I only ate Indian food, and then I started trying different things when I was in college. Honestly, I never even tried sushi until I was in my mid-20s. Yeah, I tried sushi when I was 22. You liked it? Oh, I loved it. I eat it probably once a week still. Really? Yeah, I love sushi. What's your favorite roll? Ooh, there's this one. Oh, I like anything with roe on it, you know. A good dragon roll, Alaska roll. I love salmon.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:And then I love white tuna. Ooh, okay. Yeah, I dig that stuff. So whatever I can get. I usually get, like, the variety thing. Okay. And then, like, some specialty roll to accompany it. You do the dips? You got any sauces? I got something. I know you're a dip guy. I got something here. Oh, no, I don't. I usually just do the soy sauce. Oh, I got something for you. What you do is you get the spicy. You get a side of spicy mayo. Oh, okay, yeah. And you get the sushi rice. A side of sushi rice. Oh. And you dump the spicy mayo in the sushi rice. Oh, that sounds good. And you mix it. It'll change your life. Oh, that's awesome. It's the best thing in the world. Yeah, because I don't eat a lot of fish. So when I go, somebody told me that. And I was like, that sounds interesting. And I tried it. Yeah. I haven't looked back. It's delicious. I'm going to try that now. It's so good. I'm going to order that tonight. You should. Especially if it's a place that does the good spicy mayo. Like, some places, I mean, it depends on the place, but, like, I like that you do hibachi ever. I do. I love hibachi. I love hibachi. Yeah, I love hibachi. I used to, we also, when I was in the military, we would go out to sushi a lot. We would go out to Vietnamese places and hibachi, but we would also drink a lot of sake. Oh, okay. Yeah, I don't drink anymore. Very rarely at this point. But it's hard to turn down when the chef is squirting the The sake, yeah. The sake, thank you, in your mozzarella. It's hard to turn that down, but I do love hibachi a lot. Yeah, hibachi's great. I find they have a good spicy mayo, whatever their hot... So I do that with the... Honestly, I'll get a lot of food there, but then I only want the fried rice. I feel like the hibachi fried rice is so much better. It's so good, yeah. I don't know why. Do you eat beef now? I used to eat beef a lot. I stopped eating. It's been like 15 years since I've had beef. Really? Yeah. Because I grew up in Texas, so I used to eat it. It's religious. I'm not supposed to. But growing up in Texas, I was like, I'm here. Oh, my God. That would be such a hard thing to do to not eat beef in Texas. Yeah, it was good. Steaks. Yeah, I love steaks. I love a steak with a little blue cheese crumble on top. Oh, yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. The only food I don't really eat, and this also relates to sushi, is octopus. Oh, yeah. It's tough. It's chewy. And then also, they're smart. And it feels like, I wouldn't say, I mean, I know octopus eat other octopus.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:I don't care. It's like, it just, it just feels wrong. It
SPEAKER_01:feels
SPEAKER_00:weird. Yeah. It feels very weird. They're such a highly intelligent, like animal. And then they look like aliens. Yeah. I look, they look weird. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like the, for me, it's the, it would be the consistency of it. It just seems like weird. Like I'm eating a tentacle. It's tough. Yeah. It's like really chewy. And you're like, It's not that it's work, but it's just like this feels gross. It's like celery. It's more work than the calories you're getting out of it. This is the worst celery you've ever had. It's so disgusting. It's like spoiled, soggy celery. What is the weirdest thing you've ever eaten, then? I don't know. Animal-wise. I feel like I've eaten some kind of weird combination of goat, some kind of weird goat thing. I've never had goat before. Goat's okay. In India, we do goat a lot. I've had it in India. Lamb, I do. I've had lamb. Honestly, I'm not an adventurous eater. Okay. Yeah, I'm a little bit scared. Gotcha. Yeah, I feel like, I don't know, I don't want to get sick. So I got adventurous when I was in the military, and I had kangaroo. Kangaroo? In Malta. Where is Malta? Malta is in Europe. It's kind of, it's, God, I'm trying to think specifically where it is. Kind of like one of those little islands. Islands, okay. Yeah, near like Italy. Okay, gotcha. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. Yes, yes. Picture here. Yeah, yeah. It's a Mediterranean place. It was really good. Sorry, Malta itself is really cool. I like Malta a lot. So were you stationed out there? No, no, no, no. So in the Navy you go travel and you go to all these different countries. and stuff like that. And so France is where I first had an omelet for dinner, and now we eat omelets for dinner all the time. Not that that's that special, but it's just like, oh, I can make an excuse to eat omelets for dinner. Well, it's different. Until you had it, you're like, oh, I didn't know I could do this for dinner. Right, right, yeah, yeah. Omelet with fries and pate. Yeah, it was really good. But I had kangaroo, and it was weird. Do they have kangaroos up there? I don't know. I thought that was all, like, and maybe I'm stupid, but I thought that was only in Australia. That's just it, though, too. It's like, this animal came from Australia potentially it's like imported it's imported i was like i'm in this place once i'm gonna try this once i'm never i'll probably never get the opportunity kangaroo yeah and if i did i wouldn't how was the preparation like what was the thing was it was like it was like a hunk of meat almost like a steak almost yeah yeah and it just was really chewy and really kind of gamey and stuff you know and then like you know i mean Kangaroos are kind of cute, but they're weird and they're tough. Have you seen the fighting kangaroo videos? Yeah, you actually don't want something that kind of tough. It's hard to eat. Yeah, so that was my first and only foray. I've had shark. Oh, you've had shark? How was that? Shark was pretty good. Where was this? This was in South Carolina. Like a soup? No, like a fillet of shark. I feel like that's a little bit more I can understand that a little bit more because it's more like like a sushi kind of like a fish kind of thing like grilled up it was grilled yeah yeah it was it was pretty good I mean it's it's kind of rare to get that sort of thing now and I think I think some of them are so endangered now that yeah that you can't yeah so I try to morally stay away from like eating those if somebody was like hey we've got a you know panda I'm like I'm not eating I'm not eating I'm not eating a panda Yeah, what was the coolest place you went with the Navy? What was the coolest place you went for the food? Anything? Oh, for the food, jeez. You know what's ironic? The worst place I had pizza was, oh my God, I'm blanking so hard today on the names. The city in Italy with the gondolas, Venice. Venice. Worst pizza of my life. Really? Worst pizza I've ever had in my life. What was bad about it? I don't know. I've had Red Baron pizza that was better than... Red Baron's good. I like a frozen pizza from time to time. Fair enough. I eat a lot of Paul Newman's. Okay, Paul Newman's is good. It's healthier. It's a little bit healthier. I try to convince myself of that, that it's healthy. It's just the box design. I'm like, this is healthy. The best pizza... One of the best pizzas I've ever had in my life was in Kiel, Germany.
SPEAKER_01:Oh.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it was delicious. And the thing they do in France and in Germany is that they cook your pizza, right? And after it's done, they crack an egg in the center of it. Oh, interesting. Just a raw egg, and then the egg cooks on top of it. After the pizza's out of the oven. After the pizza's out of the oven. Oh, so it continues cooking. Yeah, so it continues cooking or whatever. And I'm like, this is delicious. I had pizza and you wouldn't think like in the middle of Germany.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. But it was, it was so good. You know what? Surprisingly enough, cause I wasn't that adventurous at the time. I'm like, I'm going to eat it. And it was, it turned out to be really good. Yeah. I was kind of surprised by that. And now like I, you know, you know, all the divots and the chef's hat. Yeah. That's for all the different ways you could cook an egg. No way. Yeah. So there's, I think, 32. Is that right? Yeah. Someone's going to fact check me on that. But there's like 32 to 36 different ways you could cook an egg. And then when you master all of that, that's when you're like a chef. Wow. Yeah, so I've been trying to work on that. Really? What are some ways? What do you got so far? So I try to do poached. I'm really good at, when I say really good, this morning I made soft-boiled eggs, not hard-boiled, because I like a little bit of like a... The runniness. Almost like a Cadbury. So what is it? You just don't cook it the full 18 minutes or something? 18 is so long. You have very hard-boiled eggs at 18 minutes. I'm just eating the shell. I'm just like cracking the entire thing breaks it up. This is how ADD I am about it now. I cook two organic eggs, five and a half minutes in boiling water, and then I turn the heat off and I let it sit in that water for another 45 to 60 seconds. Cool off to room temperature. It actually takes like an hour. That's a
SPEAKER_01:long process.
SPEAKER_00:Then crack it open with a little bit of salt and pepper. And it's awesome. I love it. Yeah, so I'm working all different ways. I'm pretty good at omelets. I make a pretty good scrambled egg. It sucks that my wife does it not really big on eggs.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:And I love eggs. I eat eggs all the time. So it's just you eating the eggs. Yeah. I will sometimes, like, make her a breakfast sandwich that she generally enjoys. But, you know. But also, I am, like, will eat the shittiest eggs. Red Baron breakfast pizzas. They have those. I'll eat a breakfast pizza. So you like an egg just in general. Oh, just an egg. Just in general, yeah. What are some other ways to, there's poached eggs, there's scrambled eggs. Sunny side up. Sunny side up. Over easy, over hard. There's country scramble. What's a country scramble? Country scramble is just where you do it in the pan. Oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Instead of whipping it up before. In a bowl or something and transferring it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. And then some people add milk to their omelets to make it a little bit fluffier. There are some places, there's a place in, so the original pancake house in Toledo. in Toledo, Ohio. That started in Toledo, Ohio? It's just called the Original Pancake House. Is that the first one? No, no, no, no. I don't think so. I hope it is. I hope it is. I mean, that would make sense if they're testing out stuff there. That's kind of cool. Best pancakes ever, but you get an omelet and they put... Last time I went, I took my wife out at Corned Beef Hash Omelet and they put pancake batter in the omelet. So you just get this giant omelet. Yeah, you can eat it for days That sounds pretty good. I've never heard of it. It was pretty good. That's cool. Have you seen those Japanese souffle pancakes? No. It's kind of similar. I don't know what they do with the pancake, but their pancakes are this thick. Oh, I think I have seen that. And they're jelly-like. Yeah, yeah. What's that place downtown in Chinatown? They have the pancakes. Clinton Street? Is it Clinton Street? It's near Chinatown? No, I think it's even further. No, it's not like in Chinatown. It's in Chinatown. Oh, I haven't seen this place. Gosh, I wish I could remember the name of it right now. They have great pancakes. If I look it up, I'll add it in. Yeah. They do like a Chinese-inspired or Asian-inspired sort of thing. These delicious buttermilk pancakes with blueberry compote. Oh, that sounds real good. Yeah. I love it. I used to work in hospitality, too. Did you? So I was around like chefs and stuff like that. Did you ever cook? I was a short order cook at Bob Evans. Oh. I was at Denny's for a minute. Okay. I worked at Chili's for a little bit, but I hated it. Yeah. Frisch's Big Boy. I don't know what that is. Big Boy is, you ever seen Austin Powers? Yeah, yeah, yeah. With the big boy. Oh, that's in California. It's all over. Oh, it's all over. It's a chain. He's got the donut or whatever. It's the guy. It's the fat boy in the checkered overalls. Oh, it's like a diner slash hamburger spot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He used to work at one of those. Oh. Yeah. And then... But I worked in a high-end hotel which had high-end restaurants in it. And those guys were like James Beard Warners and stuff like that. Those are high-end chefs. They wouldn't let me in anywhere near that shit. I would eat it all. So you got to at least see how they did things. Yeah, I picked up tips. I would ask for stuff or whatever. When I was there working at the hotel, they changed the concepts of one of the restaurants from just being like a general fair to being a steakhouse. And I kept... making a joke that they're going to add a Bloomin' Onion to the menu. Oh, man. I love a Bloomin' Onion. I love a Bloomin' Onion. So I took my dad there for his birthday, and they special made a Bloomin'
SPEAKER_01:Onion. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's pretty cool. Yeah, as a joke. That's hilarious. It wasn't that funny because I ate the whole thing. I was like, this is good. I'll eat this. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much for this free Bloomin' Onion. Did you pick up any from the diner kind of spots? Did you pick up ways to cook eggs? Because I feel like diners always have That's my favorite thing about New York. The East Coast is a good diner. You can't beat that. Yeah, no. I love the diners here. I try to eat out at them as much as I can. There are some that are pretty good. There are some that are pretty greasy spoon. Yeah. I've been going to Kellogg Diner. Kellogg Diner in Brooklyn? Yeah, Williamsburg. Well, they upped their game. Yeah? Yeah, they got bought out, they refurbished it, and they changed their menu around. Ooh. But they've got some good food there. I have to check that out. Yeah, so yeah, a little bit here and there. Sometimes people, you notice trends within restaurants when they started doing sea salt or Himalayan pink salt or whatever. You're like, this is just all the fat or whatever. Yeah, I don't know. Working at Bob Evans on a Saturday or Sunday morning, it's packed. You just learn how to cook quick for a lot of people. Yeah. And everything has to be very manufactured.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Everything has to be consistent. You couldn't really like, I, you couldn't be like, I want to add a little flair to this omelet this morning. You know what I mean? Cause they're like, no, we came here for the Western omelet. That's the Western. And this is how I like it. Every time I've had it, it's been like this. This is what I want. Yeah. So like they would have a pre-made mix. You wouldn't like crack eggs for each one. Okay. You would have like, um, egg beaters almost like an egg beater thing like a carton of it and you just and then they would have like a metal circle with a handle on it it was a flat griddle and you just pour it into the circle so it perfectly formed I always wondered about that yeah that's not how I do it now of course clearly but you know I have a non-stick pan and then I just like let it fill I make everything in the pan I do it basically kind of countryside kind of flatten it out and let it fill the pan and then flip it over or whatever. And then also, too, in there, you have to measure out the ingredients for things or whatever and then put it in with the cheese. Now I take the ingredients and I cook them in the pan and then add the egg to it.
SPEAKER_01:Oh,
SPEAKER_00:interesting. Yeah, only put the cheese inside of the middle. Oh, okay. Yeah, I
SPEAKER_01:like
SPEAKER_00:that. I never really, until we started talking this whole thing through, I've never really considered how much investment I have in food. Yeah, you do have. Yeah, you hit me up. I was like, I need to get you on here. Yeah, well, I was like, this definitely is within my wheelhouse, clearly. Because I am fat. Me too. I'm right there. You carry it better than I do. Buddy, I used to, I'm down like, I mean, at my peak, I was like 40-ish pounds more than what I am now. Yeah, was it during the pandemic? No, this was like, this was before I moved to New York. But honestly, happiest I've ever been. When you were fatter? Yeah. I mean, it's just like, I didn't, I was just like, yeah, I'm living life. Yeah. And then I'm like, I need to stop living life so much. You're worried about your health, you're worried about your knees and stuff like that. I gained a lot of weight during the pandemic. I gained some during the pandemic. Some of the weight I had lost, I gained back during the pandemic. Yeah. Now I'm trying to go backwards. Well, when I was living in Charleston, South Carolina, I was working at this hotel. I was also partying a lot. That's like the hot spot. Oh, okay. Yeah. And, like, you know, I'd be hungover, going into work. There's food around. Oh, man. And I could keep it off, like, pretty decent. Yeah. Because I'm in my 20s. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's post-military. I was working out, lifting and stuff like that, playing tennis. I wasn't, you know, married or anything. No attachments. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not that that makes you fat. That's easier when you don't have responsibility. It's easier, yeah, yeah, when you can, like, do your own thing. And then I remember when I got up to 280. and I was like this is the heaviest I'll ever be in my life I told myself that and I got back down when I moved to New York I was like 270, 260 I was wearing like suits still and stuff like that and then like it slowly as comedy became more of a thing and working out became less of a thing and just slowly and incrementally started to build up and you don't notice it you're like in a boiling pot and then you're like oh shit yeah and then during the pandemic the pandemic, I got up to 355. Oh, wow. And people couldn't tell. Yeah. It's because you're tall. It's because I'm tall. I feel like it's great. It's great to be tall. Well, sure. Well, people could start to tell. People would definitely start making some comments or whatever. Well, you're also hanging out with the comics, so somebody's going to say something. Yeah, yeah. What was your ranking of the DiGiorno guy? Is Red Bear on your top? Red Bear is on my top. I mean, well, Newman's because it's If I eat a Newman's pizza, frozen pizza, I don't feel like shit the next day. If I eat a DiGiorno, because I'll eat probably the whole thing. And if I eat a DiGiorno or a Red Baron or something like that, I do feel like garbage the next day. But DiGiorno tastes good. DiGiorno tastes great. It tastes good for being a frozen pizza. It was like growing up, it was that thing when the DiGiornos first came out or maybe when they started advertising it. I would always see it on a commercial. It's not delivery, it's DiGiorno. And you're like, I want to try that. Right, yeah, yeah. And then I It's like, oh yeah, this is good. But now it makes me sick. It actually physically makes me sick the next day. No, I can't do it. And also with the gluten and stuff like that, honestly, I like Emmy Squared a lot. I love Emmy Squared. Emmy Squared is gluten-free. Is it? No. Yeah. The deep dish, the Detroit style. The Detroit style. It's gluten-free. Is that right? Yeah. They closed the one in Williamsburg. I know. That's the one I used to get all the time. Oh, they recently closed. They recently closed. By Gertie's or something? Yeah, I think it's over by Gertie's. It was right. It's right off of Marcy Boulevard, I'm pretty sure. Like right off the highway. I think that's not Flophouse Comedy Club. I think Flophouse moved over next door, and I think so. I don't know. So then there's no Emmy Squared anymore, or it's in the city? It's just in the city. My wife likes it, too. My wife is actually the first one to turn me on to it. Emmy Squared, yeah. Yeah, and it's really pretty good. We went there. We took my niece there, and I was reading on the menu. I was like, this is gluten-free. I was like, this is great. It makes me feel less bad about myself. And the pizza tastes good. I didn't know that. It tastes good, yeah. That was our go-to during the pandemic. We'd do the one with pesto on it. on it, and then the Colony Square thing is the hot honey and the jalapenos. We should do a comics thing to the Met Stadium. Because I heard the city field food is good. It's very good. I like going to Flushing because of all the Asian options. Yeah, Flushing's got a lot of good Asian food. And Citi Field, I don't know when it's going to happen, but they're redoing. They're adding a big park. They're doing all kinds of stuff. There's the Queens Night Market there. I've been to Queens Night Market. How is that? I've been wanting to go. Oh, it's great. Sold out. I haven't been able to go at all. Oh, no. My wife and I, we went because it runs through October. We caught the last weekend of it last year, and it was great. It was a lot of fun. All the different types. of foods. I mean, you know, there's also the Japanese market that happens in Chelsea. We went to that one year as well. Too much squid. Too much octopus. But at the same time, it was really good. All these different types of foods. I mean, I love it. There's nothing that I really don't like outside of, like, you know, like I mentioned before, the octopus stuff. So, like, for me, my thing now is, like... You know Jason Joy? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I sometimes do it with him, but, like, I like to lift a lot of weights, smoke a little weed, and then go to, like, Hot Pot or, like, all-you-can-eat sushi or the Queens Night Market or whatever because it's, like, I'm rewarding myself for working out. Well, when you work out and you lift a lot and you just get hungry-ish. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyways, you're like, all right, I burned all these calories. I can eat something. I can eat 30. And he continues to burn calories. I can eat 38. up in August. Yeah. Yeah, Smorgasburg is cool, too. I like Smorgasburg a lot. Smorgasburg is cool, but I haven't lived in Brooklyn in forever, so. We would walk from Queens over there on a nice day. Really? You get, like, that three mile there and three miles back, and you just, like, you hit your steps and you get some good food and some water. That's not a bad idea. The Williamsburg part, though. The Williamsburg one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not bad. But I want to go to the Queens Night Market. And then Astoria, the carnival's coming back. I don't know if you saw that. That's coming up in the summer. No. There's, like, the Astoria Park Carnival. Yeah. Really? I want to try I've seen it a lot. I've never gone. I want to go to that. That looks cool. When does that come out? I don't know. I think it's sometime in the summer or like end of summer. Yeah. Okay, cool. That's going to be cool. We're going to South America in August. What part? We're going to Peru. Okay. Brazil, and I think Argentina. Nice. My wife planned it. I'm just doing what she tells me.
SPEAKER_01:That's
SPEAKER_00:smart. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever you say, dear. And that's why you're still married. That's why I'm still married, yeah. I'm going wherever you're telling me we're going. But I'm interested to try the food down there as well. I've only ever been to Honduras before. It's going to be the furthest south I've ever been. What do you eat in Honduras? What's the food like there? A lot of fried chicken. A lot of chicken. Okay, cool. How long are you guys going to? Three weeks. Oh, okay. Yeah. And I'm going to be in your neck. I'm going to be in Texas. Oh, Dallas? I thought you said Dallas. I'm going to be, yeah. For shows? Yeah, I'm headlining the Creek in the Cave on July 10th. Nice, in Austin. Yeah, July 10th, Creek in the Cave, check it out. And then July 17th, the Dallas Comedy Club. Ooh, is it the Dallas Comedy House or Dallas Comedy Club? Dallas Comedy Club. Oh, okay, nice. That's the newer one. It's the newer one. Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice. And when is that? That's July 17th. Okay, we'll plug the dates in here. Yeah, so I'm going to be in Austin for like a week and then going to Dallas. My wife has friends there and then I'm going to be doing a show. Nice. I'm excited. I'll give you some food recs. Please do. Please do. Austin Torchies. I don't know if you've been there yet. Or Dallas. Torchies? Torchies Tacos. The chain is so good. I haven't been to Austin since 2016. I'm happy to see Rebecca and the Creek doing well, and I'm honored to be able to do that. I must have met you back in the day, one of the Creek mics. Yeah. Yeah, that's when we first met. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a boxing gym now. It is a boxing gym, yeah. It's kind of crazy. You walk by, and I'm like, oh, yeah, this used to be totally different. Yeah, probably still the same. amount of fights. Yeah. Now it's just a sanctioned fight. Yeah. Yeah. Now they're just sanctioned. Yeah. I do miss that spot. It was a good hang too. And I was live close by. So it'd be like nice, like late at night. And when we move, when we, when we agreed to, so we put a bid in on our place in November. Oh, you bought a place. Yeah. Oh, congrats. That's awesome. Thank you. And November of 2019. And I was like, awesome. I'm going to be right near the Creek. No. And then the pandemic Creek Creek. And then there's like, there's like, There's nothing in LIC, I don't think. You guys don't even have a show anymore. No, we're doing a monthly now. Oh, you're doing a monthly now. We switched it to monthly. June 12th, Mark Norman is going to be doing two shows. Oh, whoa. Yeah, we're switching it to like headliner night. We're testing it out to see. So we had Steph Tolove did a headlining show. That's great. Yeah, so now I think that's what we're going to try and do, like a host, a feature, and then a headliner. And then we'll just rotate people out and rotate it out and then see if we can build it up to where it should be. Because you did it a few times and it was like weekly and it's hard to sustain during the winter time. Sure, sure. I like everybody that works at that barbershop. Oh, they're great. It's a fun spot. It's chill. It's a good vibe. The crowds are good. Yeah, everybody's so sweet. The crowds are great. I went there and I got the most expensive haircut of my life, but it looked great. It looked great. Yeah, yeah. Great. Those guys. Shout out Otis and Finn. Yeah, man. Were you there when The Laughing Devil was there? Do you remember The Laughing Devil? I remember The Laughing Devil. It was something else before that, right? It was called something else. It was. It was, well, no, then it was the standing room. The standing room. Because the stand owned it. The stand owned it? Oh, I didn't know that. I'm pretty sure it was the stand owned it, and then now I think it's just a bar. It's a bar. It's gone. Yeah, I remember Laughing Devil, and then I remember it was that rectangular weird room. Yeah, yeah. That was such an odd setup. And then you got the Grove over in Astoria. Yeah, and then QED's still around. And QED is still there. QED is going strong. They actually picked up. I thought they were closing. down for a while but nobody cares about this inside comedy stuff but yeah that's true but there you go yeah that was a good spot shout out to them but yeah we gotta start wrapping it up so of course let's plug your stuff special oh yeah watch Late Bloomer on YouTube please give me a follow at Hump Derek okay we'll put that in there on all the platforms except Twitter I got kicked off Twitter we'll save that story for next time thanks for listening leave us some comments what are your favorite dips What do you think of, yeah, what do you got? Any controversial questions for them, food related? Oh, man. Do you like octopus? Are you okay with octicide? Are you okay with eating an organism that knows you're about to eat it? Right, yeah. That could do math. Can they? I believe it. They've done so many studies on octopus and how intelligent they are. I feel like you watched a documentary on octopuses. I've watched a few. You know, TikTok videos and documentaries. Yeah, I went down a rabbit hole for sure. I think they're aliens. They might be. They might be. It makes sense. They look like aliens. Yeah, yeah. You never know. You never know. You never know what's down there. All right, thanks for doing the pod, buddy. Thanks a lot. Leave us a review and give us a follow. Share it with a friend. And thanks for everyone that's been listening. Check them out in Dallas, and we'll see you soon.
