← Bobby on the Beat
Bobby on the Beat
Mario Carbone on Building Carbone Restaurant Empire & Famous Pasta Sauces, SoBeWFF Table of 10, Bobby’s Prawn Tacos
00:29:53
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- [00:00]
A
Bobby on the Beat, everybody. Welcome to the next Bobby on the Beat. Make sure that you hit, like, and subscribe. We like seeing those subscriptions go up, up, up. So we can keep doing this. Thank you so much for all the support. Fantastic episode happening today. My good friend, Chef Mario Carbone. He's synonymous with, you know, spicy mezzo rigatoni. I mean, he basically reinvented the dish, but he's got so many other things going on. Dozens and dozens and dozens of high end restaurants all over the world. He's got, you know, tons of new sauces as well that he's selling. Mario, what's up, man? Ch.
- [00:33]
B
Thank you for having me.
- [00:34]
A
I'm very glad to have you here. I really enjoyed getting to know you over the years. You're a great guy, and you're a hard worker, and you do amazing work. I always often say you guys are, I think, the best at what you do.
- [00:47]
B
Like, coming from you, that's. That's high priest.
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A
Well, I want to be clear about what I'm saying, which is that you do things at a very, very high end in the restaurant business, and it's a very, very hard thing to do. I'm not really sure how you guys do this. I mean, seriously, I talk about it all the time. I've been at this for a really long time. And, you know, when I had, you know, you know, three restaurants or something going in New York and then a handful in Vegas, and then, you know, one in Atlantic City and one in the Bahamas, you know, at one point we had like seven or eight restaurants, like, high on the high end side. And then we have, like, this burger business. And, you know, there's a slew of those as well. But watching you guys go from Carbone and theresi, and then there's the Grill, and then there's lobster club and then there, you know, and all these places just. Just so everybody understands. I don't know this from reading about it. I'm one of your, like, biggest diners. Like, I go to your places all the time. I don't understand how you do it, because it's always great. The service is always terrific. The food's amazing. The energy is exactly the right level of what that restaurant should be. I mean, you guys are very thoughtful about what you do. So. So first of all, how do you find all these people to work there? Because as we know, we're in a time that arguably is one of the hardest times in the restaurant business in the United States, especially in a place like New York.
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B
City.
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A
It's hard to find people that want to do this job and this work. I feel like you've monopolized all the good people. Like, how does it happen?
- [02:15]
B
First of all, that's incredibly humbling and beautiful for you to say that. For those that don't know, Rich and I have considered Bobby, considered you a mentor without really ever knowing you personally until the last few years. You know, someone that we very much looked up to for, you know, someone who was a born and raised New Yorker. You, you were part of that first wave of like entrepreneurial chef who was like, not just working for the restaurateur. You were, you were amongst the first class. Not only did we watch, you know, your, your ascension to what you, you know, the empire that you were building, but also, like in a very funny way, at the end of a long night, you know, Rich and I were roommates. The only thing we really want, we wound up watching was, was beat Bobby Flay. Like, that was our, that wind down tv. And your name is an adjective in my company. To Bobby, something is, is just shorthand for using a, you know, a zigzag squeeze bottle. Staffing and keeping consistency of the product, right, Those are the two battles you fight all day long. How do you keep consistency across all the restaurants and how do you staff these places? I always say that staffing starts with retention. Like, you can't lose anyone. Hiring a new position for something that you're building is a good problem. Rehiring is a bad problem. And it costs a lot of money and it takes a lot of time. It hurts momentum, it hurts camaraderie. When someone, you know, no one really talks about the teams. These are families that work in these restaurants. They don't work in multiple locations. They go to one place every day. They built up a real, you know, family spirit there. And if one key member is lost, it really hurts. It hurts the team. So the first step of hiring is, is not losing anybody. That's something that we talk about a lot. And I think as we grow and when we're building something new, especially if we're doing it in a new city, I think that people want to work for us. I think looking at the finances of this business, which is really important, I think, you know, knowing that our waiters make really good money, that's really important. Something that we talk about, making sure that the captains and trickle down are making good money. We try to imbue a certain philosophy of how we want to run this company, get people to buy in the managers that are running these restaurants are hopefully managers that have been really close to us for many years. Promote from within. Of course, that's. That's essential.
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A
That's key.
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B
Essential. You know, for someone to see that their manager was once in their position is critical. I can get to that position and then eventually get to. You know, we've got partners in the company who have been with us since they were cooks and sous chefs, and now they're part of the ownership of the company. So I think that that's a really important thing, an aspirational thing for everyone in the company to see that the sky's the limit, the very top. It's an equation of all those little bits and pieces. You know, when we go to a new city, we're able to kind of garner the. The interest of that city and. And pull from, you know, unfortunately, pull from other restaurants, but that we're hiring major food groups here or Carbones here, Waiters are going to make it money. This company is really well run. We care about the product we're putting out.
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A
And I think that you guys use the heat of your company and the heat of your restaurants to your advantage. Because I've eaten in so many of your restaurants and lots of different places. I mean, I. I feel like I see you all over the world. I mean, I ran into. When you were opening London.
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B
Yeah.
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A
I was in your restaurant three times that week, you know, either having a drink or having dinner or whatever it was. When did you guys open?
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B
A new 2013.
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A
Okay, so it's been 13 years. Right. Does it feel longer or shorter?
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B
It feels longer.
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A
Yeah.
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B
It feels like a different person opened that restaurant than. Than the person that I am now.
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A
Yeah, I had a lot of long standing. I mean, Mesa Grill was open for 25 years. Yeah. And, you know, then Bolo was 15 and bar American 15. And I mean, like, those kinds of restaurants, I mean, they become your legacy, you know, and obviously Carbone is your legacy. But anyway, so when I. When I see you in London, or like, I just might. I just took my team here. We were in Miami, and they all wanted to go to Carbone. I was like, I'll go to Carbon anytime.
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B
Like, let's go.
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A
As long as we can get a table. Not easy. Good for you. But we had an amazing meal there and just loved everything. And there is something about the Carbone experience that you guys have created. And you guys look at restaurants very, very differently than, I think a lot of people. I mean, first of all, like, the captains of Carbone are almost their own characters. You know, it's almost like they came out of, like, Tony and Tina's Wedding, except they're really sophisticated, and they really know their jobs very well, but they have that kind of sensibility, you know, And I love that because, I mean, there is some show to what we do.
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B
It's theater.
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A
It's theater. It's theater in a way. But you guys deliver on to me the most important things, which is the food and the service, and then you give us a little. Little show here and there, as, you know, as we're eating. And so that's really nice. One of the things I really wanted to ask you, just as somebody who does this for a living, is so. So you and Rich, someone who does
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B
this for a living? Well, hall of famer.
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A
Okay, my first ballot. Thank you. But. But you and Rich have been best friends or good friends for a really long time. We're, you know, we're all New Yorkers. You're from Queens, right? Yeah. People always think I'm from Queens or from Brooklyn. I'm from Manhattan. And it's only the only reason why people think that is because if you're originally from New York, you're probably from Queens or Brooklyn.
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B
It's very rare to meet someone born and raised in Manhattan.
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A
Exactly, Exactly. Right. And so you guys both have your own namesake restaurants within the company.
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B
Right?
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A
So there's Teresi, and, of course, there's Carbone and all the Carbones everywhere. When you open a Carbone in London, does Rich help you open the restaurant? Or is that yours? Or do you go to Theresi and help him? Like, opening a restaurant, if you've never done it before, you can never understand how hard it is. Every day is like the first day of your life. Even if you've done it many, many.
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B
Doesn't matter how many times you've done it.
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A
Doesn't matter because we don't even know where the salt is for the five days. Like, where is it? It's the things that you take for granted six months down the line that become second nature that you can't actually put in play on day one or day 10 or whatever it is. How do you guys do this?
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B
In the very beginning, it was really just me, Rich, and a couple of people starting the company. So we did, you know, we did everything together. And, you know, I was in Teresi from day one. As we continued to grow, you know, Rich was right there with me at Carbone, the same way I was right there with him at Teresi. And then as we continue to grow and certainly to today, I sort of lead the travel team. A lot of the expansion is Carbone. Rich wants to resi to be a restaurant where you can pretty much guarantee that he's going to be in the kitchen every night, right? In New York, he wants that kind of like, atelier Cathedral restaurant where you go to Chorizzi. Good chance Rich trees he's there. While Carbone is this sort of global brand that we can continue to expand, he's really content kind of staying in New York City and running that. Running that restaurant and running the new. Basically the New York portfolio. And I'm out there sort of globally expanding Carbone or whatever the next thing is, and being part of that what we call the travel team that. That's constantly on a plane going to the next location. Carbone, the person in Carbone, the brand. It's helpful that those things kind of come together for press, for whatever. Similarly, for Rich, you know, he wants to be behind the stove. He wants you to know that if you're going, I'm cooking for you, and
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A
getting back to you. Guys do things differently, in my opinion. You know, when you guys open a restaurant, when people open a restaurant, what do they do? They put out a press release. They do some social media. You guys make films. I mean, seriously, you guys go out and make films and. Beautiful.
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B
I always wanted to make that. Ocean's Eleven.
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A
I mean, obviously, listen, I know you're living the movie of your life. I get it. I read somewhere in one of your press releases that you're. You're. You're like the creative director of the company because you want to decide what people are wearing and what it looks like and what it feels like. You're not just, like, going through a lot of tomato paste every night. Like, you're doing a lot of other things as well.
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B
I think those details are really important. Even though. Even though the customer may not be able to pick each one out, they're surrounded in it. My little universe, my little world, right? It's. It's a movie, it's a play. I think theater is the closest thing to restaurants. You know, we at the exact same time every day, do the exact same thing. We are in costume, the curtains open at 5. It's a different audience every night, but we're the same. We're going to go through the same drills. We're going to make the same dishes. He's going to tell the same joke and the same flambe with The. So like it's theater for us and you have to, you have to love that sort of every day of it all. And I want to tell a really believable story. Play movie. I want, I want it to feel cinematic. I want it to be your night out. I want it to be entertaining. So these are sort of period pieces for me. And it all started with Carbone really wanting to put out a really authentic kind of first generation Italian American story. That, that mid century idea that I thought these restaurants that I grew up going to. You grew up going to. That were sort of starting to fall out of vogue and close. Just like the one we took over fell out of vogue and closed. It was Rocco.
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A
Right.
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B
So it was important to me that these places, you know, we, we put something back that was really period appropriate and respectful to it. So when you start doing that, you start becoming the director and you're just like, okay, well, would that have existed in 1958? Would it have been like that? Would it have been like that? And all of a sudden you're James Cameron making Titanic.
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A
Right. I think people are surprised when they go to Carbon in New York for the first time that it's not a very big restaurant. No, I mean, it has such a big personality.
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B
It was huge when we opened it. We had the Yankee Stadium when we opened it because we were coming from theresi. That was 20 seats.
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A
Right. So it was huge to you guys. But how many seats is it?
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B
It's 85 seats.
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A
Yeah, right. I mean, you know, for New York, that's a moderate sized restaurant. All right, so now I'm going to ask you the hardest question I'm going to ask you. I want to see if you can answer.
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B
Yep.
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A
How many restaurants do you have?
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B
I have.
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A
See, there's a hesitation.
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B
I have something close to 60 restaurants.
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A
Something close to 60 restaurants. Like, take me through, like the brands. So obviously there's Carbone to Reese. There's one.
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B
There's one.
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A
Okay, and then what else do you have?
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B
So we have Sedell's. There's six or seven Sedals in the world. Right.
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A
Which is sort of like your.
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B
That's my, like morning, afternoon, like the ultimate brunch. Yeah, brunch. We call it appetizing in New York. Right. For the Jewish community. Bagels, smoked salmon, that kind of thing. Caviar, dirty French. Is our French restaurant, the Grill, which is, you know, an idea that we're expanding as we speak right now.
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A
Expanding.
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B
Well, well, Grill, as you know, it will not be duplicated, but Us doing sort of that grill, chop house thing we're doing this year. So we have that opening in a couple places. It's not the same branding. It's not exactly the same restaurant. That one can't really be duplicated. I mean, it can't be duplicated.
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A
Landmark.
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B
The landmark. And even the food we serve there is really specific to that room. I mean, to me, it's. It's very specific to that room.
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A
I always say it's the quintessential New York City restaurant.
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B
Oh, that's a huge compliment.
- [12:41]
A
No, it really is, actually, for my last book, which was, in my opinion, my best book, because it was the first coffee table book that I did. I've written 18 cookbooks, and this was the one that was, like, the very pretty book, you know, and you guys were nice enough to let me shoot at the Grill. And so one of the. I have, like, three pictures of myself in the book, period. And one of them is I'm sitting at the bar with a martini in a suit at the Grill. And it's just like everybody says to me, like, where is that? It's magical. I'm like, that's the Grill. I mean, you know, it was the original Four Seasons restaurant. I know. The dining room is, like, landmarked, isn't it?
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B
It's the only interior landmarked restaurant in the country.
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A
Right. So you can't really do a lot.
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B
You can't do a lot. Nor should you. I think that's a. It's appropriately done.
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A
It's like respecting Rocco. Yeah. With Carbone.
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B
Yeah.
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A
You could do more there, but same thing.
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B
We're stewards of the space. Like, I don't think I own it. I think it's something for the city. I think it's my job to leave it better than I found it. Like, however long I run it, you know, it was Philip Johnson, Mies van der Rohe forever, of Four Seasons. We take it over. Hopefully we have a long run as it. And then. And then someone else should run it. And I think it's. It's. It's a really important restaurant for the. For New York. And I hope whoever takes it over after us someday does a great job with it.
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A
You think I should open a restaurant in New York again?
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B
Hell, yeah. Hell, yeah. I want Mesa Grill 2.0. You know, I want. I've been asking you.
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A
No, I know. I know. Maybe we'll do it together with some point.
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B
Whenever I close my eyes Funny enough, I think about this a disproportionate amount. When I think about Mesa 2.0. You know, the place in. In Tulum. Heartwood.
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A
Yeah.
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B
I think about it almost in that manner. Like, if you. If you. If you cut it out of the context of New York City, its original home, and you dropped it into a completely different environment with the same sort of philosophical approach, and you took, like, all things wood burning in that sort of way, and, like, just about the ingredients. Something that. It's like Heartwood meets Echo Bari kind of idea.
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A
And those flavors.
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B
Yeah, with your. With your flavors. Like, that's what I think about from Mason 2.0. That's my. That's my pitch.
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A
All right, let's go. Actually, I want to show you something. So I did a. I did a dinner in south beach at the Food and Wine Festival. So I just want you to check.
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B
What do we got here?
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A
Bobby on the beat. All right, we're at the Gaggenau showroom here in Miami, and we're doing a very special dinner tonight. It's a table for 10. 10 courses of elevated tacos, tostadas, mezcal, and tequila. Tequila cocktails. You get the gist. So lots of Southwestern influence. This is sort of like the beginning of Mesa Grill 2.0. Let's see where it takes us. Actually, I'm gonna show you where it takes us. 10 people, 10 courses. Let's go. This is the. The very first bite. This is the miniature taco with some sticky rice that had some Kashmiri chili on it and avocado crema and then beautiful caviar. Hi, everybody. Oh, my God. The second course here, Yellowtail tostada with a charred pineapple and tomatillo salsa. And then it has a hot sauce made with some Fresno chilies. This is yellowtail, which is really one of my favorite fish. It's so fabulous. These are scrambled eggs, tostada. This is the best eggs you've ever had. Inside the eggs, there's two things. Boucheron, goat cheese, which is the French goat cheese, and then something called romesco sauce, which is one of Spain's most important sauces. It's almost like a red pesto. So chives, romesco, and boucheron are running through the sauce. Scrambled eggs, it's on top of flourished tossada. And then there's some tomato oil made with cherry tomatoes and olive oil on the plate. Okay, this, of course, this is a spice crusted shrimp taco. We made these blue corn tortillas this morning. This has a couple different chilies in it. The sauce on the bottom is a yellow sauce made with aji amarillo, which is a yellow Peruvian chili. But you'll taste it. It's got a kind of a fruity, a little bit spicy flavor to it. It's really fabulous. And the shrimp is spice crusted, a couple different spices in it. And then on top there's a crunch that I made out of some toasted cashews and scallions. Contrast of texture is very important to me. So it's not just flavor. So then it's the red corn puffy taco. You'll see how light and crispy they are. Duck confit on top. This is a sauce made with tangerine and habanero chilies. We have some crispy duck skin texture
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B
that I was talking about.
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A
So you have the crispiness of the red corn taco, and then you have the crispiness of the duck fat. Some pomegranate relish. You guys getting full?
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B
No. Good, good.
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A
I'm glad. The next course is a lobster sope. So a sope would be like a little bit of a masa cake. Tonight's a special night, so I made one with lobster. A lobster sope. The sauce on the bottom is something called salsa verde. Now, salsa verde in southwestern and Mexican cuisine is roasted tomatillos, garlic, onions, green chilies. They're all roasted together and blend it and then turn into a green sauce. So on the bottom there's a green sauce. We warm the lobster up with just a little bit of butter. On top is gonna be a little bit of some saffron mayonnaise. We're gonna go find Jen. So Jen is our mixologist specialist. You know her from Triple Threat, the bartender. But even more importantly, she's an amazing, one of the best mixologists in New York, probably the country. Tell us what we're drinking tonight. Tonight we have a bunch of tequila based cocktails and mezcal based cocktails.
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B
And so we're going to have a lot of fun.
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A
It's a flour tortilla and inside it's eggplant and manchego cheese. I used to do a dish at my restaurant, Gato, which was layers of baby Italian eggplant, manchego cheese, and oregano. In this case, I'm doing the same thing, except I'm putting it inside a flauta and there's some balsamic vinegar glaze with some pomegranate in there as well. And then we're gonna add a little bit of micro cilantro, as I like to call it. This is a handmade blue taco. The Octopus. The octopus is in a sauce made out of sour orange. So very Miami. On the bottom is an avocado and shishito relish. And then there's some bacon in there as well. This is the last savory course. This is wagyu beef taco. We made the tortilla this morning with white corn and smoked paprika in the masa, so you might get a little bit of that smokiness. I just seared the wagyu in some spices. And then there's a chimichurri on the bottom of the taco. On top, there's a salsa matcha. It's made with red chilies, sesame seeds, peanuts, and some garlic. On top is some pickled shallots. I can't believe this is the 10th course. It's crazy. This is a tamale made with fresh corn. Usually, tamales are made with dried corn or masa, and I always find them to be incredibly just kind of dense. But this is just fresh corn, and it has cinnamon and some ancho chilies in the chocolate sauce with toasted marcana almonds. And then this is a toasted coconut sauce. The tamale is steamed inside the corn husk. I just cut it just now when they finish steaming, and so it just kind of exposes the tamale inside. Thank you, everybody.
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B
Thank you.
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A
Bobby on the beat. Actually, it brings me to ask you about Shot so zz Because I didn't go this year, but I went last year. Brooke and I went, and we were blown away by the food. And I'm like, okay, these guys are cooking Mexican food now, and at this level, like, how does that happen?
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B
I had a love for it.
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A
Okay.
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B
I spent a bunch of time in Mexico, particularly Mexico City. I have a love for the food. I'm fascinated by the cuisine. I think it's easily one of the most complex cuisines out there.
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A
Mole sauce is one of the most incredible things in the world.
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B
Like, given. Like, given all the regional. I mean, I just don't think it gets the same amount of regional attention is Italian food, right? But, like, the regional cuisine cuisines. Then you have sort of the global Mexican that Mexico City is. Then you have start layering in the Spanish, the Aztecs. Like, I mean, there's so. And then their sauces are so complex. There's so many ingredients. Like, it's really one of the most interesting cuisines and flavorful, obviously. So I had a love for it. I always wanted to kind of do something sort of set to the cadence of carbone, like, do this Sort of three course Mexican, refined Mexican meal contramar was definitely an instrument inspiration in Mexico City.
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A
Tostada central.
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B
Tostada central. The green and red fish. A certain level of elegance to that restaurant, it being pulling from all the regions.
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A
Yeah. The service is very high end.
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B
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
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A
Beautiful place.
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B
That was definitely a place that we looked at and we're like, okay, how do we take that with the cadence of carbone and, and. And some of the flair of how we serve some things in the, in the company. I didn't want to have taco on the menu anywhere. So the way that I battled that was any entree you order, no matter what you get, whether it's a whole fried fish or whatever, all comes out the same way. You choose your tortilla, your type of tortilla, and then you get a. You get a big, you know, kind of cake stand of sauces and condiments, and you can choose to have fun with it. You can eat the entree the way you want, or you can make your own kind of tortilla out of it. That's how I got around the word tacos, to keep the whole kind of check average, high and keep the whole thing elevated.
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A
But that, but you did that menu.
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B
I came up with the construct of the menu and then I put it to. We have two test kitchens now. We have one in Miami, one in New York. And I gave it to the guys to start to R and D. My, like, corporate chef who's been with me the longest is Mexican American. He really took the reins with it. What I added to it was the way the meal would go. One of the only things I'll take credit for on that menu is what I don't like about a tostada is what I call the Cookie Monster effect. When you take a bite out of it, it just. It just shatters. Right, Right. As a kid, I was like, I can't understand why this guy likes cookies so much. He's so messy.
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A
So Cookie Monster is really one of your mentors.
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B
Cookie Monster was. So by adding a little bit of gluten to the dough, you can bite it and hold on to it, which was important. We make these really kind of sexy tostadas. And that was it. That was kind of how we went about it. And I let. I let the team take the lead on the R D. It was important that I worked with the captains and we, we got a longer experience out of it. That three course experience. You're going to be here for a while, so that you can have enough time to start with a tequila cocktail and then go into a beautiful bottle of wine. You're still here. You're still with us.
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A
Yeah. Speaking of sauces, I mean, I always say, like a mole sauce, there's never been two that have been the same in the world. If that was your business, you'd have a hard time maintaining consistency because people expect certain things from an Italian restaurant, let's just say, and especially an Italian restaurant like Carbone, because there's. There are signature dishes there that just have to taste the same over and over. And now you're in the sauce business. Right, where consistency is an incredibly important thing. How's the sauce business going?
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B
It's going incredibly well. It's wildly successful. I think we're the fifth largest tomato sauce in the country now. Great Rao's is number one by quite a margin.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And then you've got the kind of. The ones from our childhood that are still holding on there. Raggedy luprego. And then we're somewhere around number five.
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A
That's amazing.
- [22:59]
B
It's amazing. Yeah, it's amazing. And we're four years old, and it's really been a wild ride. I'm so super, super, super thankful. It's definitely a different exercise, you know, how to make en masse this way. Going to visit the kind of C.O. packers, going to visit the fields in Italy and watch the harvest and talk to them. Trying to stay really close to the process as it continues to grow. It was intentional to be a competitor to Rao's. We recognized that there really didn't have any competition. There wasn't anything in that sort of premium category that was giving them any run for their money. I think their product is excellent, and it had to start with an equally delicious product. We were actually cooking at this factory, this co packer, and Rich was with me, and Rich was trying to convince them to pick fresh oregano in mass, and they looked at him, they were like, you're crazy.
- [23:48]
A
And also, like, when you jar a sauce, I mean, a lot of people don't understand this. You can't do exactly what you want to do as if you were serving it in the next 10 minutes of your house. I mean, it does have to have some shelf stability, right?
- [23:59]
B
Yeah. I mean, the heating of it, the cooling of it. Yeah, exactly. The ph, the bricks, you know, all the. All the science behind it. So how do you give them something that you're happy with that represents the restaurant? This thing's going to go on a shelf. It's Got the restaurant brand on it. If it's not good enough, it's really going to harm us on the street. Right. It's going to hurt the global expansion of the brand. So to give somebody something at $10 that. That's just as good or a little. A little taste of what happens at the restaurants was definitely worrisome and kept us on our toes when we first started doing it. But I'm super thankful and really happy with the way it's going.
- [24:38]
A
So how many products do you have now?
- [24:40]
B
We have 22 SKUs of tomato sauce. Tomato and white.
- [24:44]
A
Okay.
- [24:44]
B
We have some white sauces also. And we're coming out with a chili crisp now. Green and a red that I'm excited about.
- [24:50]
A
That come out like an Italian version of.
- [24:52]
B
Yeah. I love this process because when I first learned about it, kind of Szechuan style, I was like, that reminds me exactly of Southern Italian. I mean, that's. Those are Southern Italian ingredients, right? Dried chili, sesame, garlic, onion. So basically, you know, for those who don't know how to make it, basically, you take all your dry ingredients.
- [25:09]
A
It's like the Italian salsa matcha.
- [25:10]
B
Yeah, exactly. You bring a very light oil to smoke and pour it over so that it fries all the ingredients, but also it perfumes the oil, and you get this crispy garlic and chili and sesame. I love the sesame in it. So I loved that. And I was like, I could definitely do that as a southern Italian sort of idea. So green and red chili crunch. Cup of chili crisp coming out.
- [25:32]
A
What are you going to tell people to use that for?
- [25:34]
B
The first two things that come to mind is pizza and eggs.
- [25:36]
A
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
- [25:36]
B
Those are the first two things that I think of for that oil. That would also be awesome.
- [25:40]
A
So what are the newest sauces that you have out now?
- [25:43]
B
The newest thing we did is called simmer sauces. So you're making it even easier for people. Make it even easier, Right. So for any of those kind of long rest, long cook recipes, Bolognese is a great example of it. Right. Where you want to sweat your sofrito and let the whole thing start. Stew for an hour, two hours. We've taken that entire thing and put it into the jar. We've done all that work. All you have to do is buy your ground meat, you know, kind of brown that up.
- [26:09]
A
The meat's not in the sauce.
- [26:10]
B
The meat's not in the sauce? No. So we're gonna sell it in the refrigerator section near the proteins. So you'll get fra diavolo sauce. And it'll live next to the shrimp. You'll get Bolognese sauce. It'll live next to the ground meat sort of idea. Cacciatore sauce will be the chicken. All you have to do is quick cook your protein, and you've got. You've got a longer stewed idea on your hands, and you just need to add protein.
- [26:31]
A
So the sauce itself has also been cooked for a while. Yeah, it sounds great. It's really interesting. I think the easier you make it for people to use products, the more that they use.
- [26:39]
B
I mean, even for you and I. I mean, how often are you spending, like, a lot of time making dinner at home?
- [26:43]
A
No, I mean, not very often. I like to cook at home, but I also, honestly, I like to use your sauce all the time.
- [26:48]
B
Thank you. Because you made that great video.
- [26:52]
A
And we'll make more. I mean. Yeah, that was when you guys, like, first launched. I mean, if you have, like, like a little bit of parmigiano in the refrigerator and like, some fresh basil, like, you're done. So what do you do to enjoy yourself besides put your chef coat on and open restaurants all over the world?
- [27:09]
B
Travel? I try to stay active.
- [27:11]
A
Did you play sports when you were a kid?
- [27:13]
B
No. I mean, I did, but I sucked.
- [27:15]
A
Really?
- [27:15]
B
Yeah. I wasn't good at sports. I mean, I love sports. As a kid, I was a super New York sport fanatic.
- [27:21]
A
Like, who do you follow?
- [27:22]
B
In the 90s, I was nuts about the Knicks and the Rangers and the Giants, and the team that I'm closest to still today is the Mets. I grew up right there. I still love my Mets.
- [27:31]
A
It's been really great talking to you.
- [27:33]
B
Thank you for lunch. That was delicious.
- [27:34]
A
I'm glad you liked it. Let me show you how it's made. Bobby on the beat. All right, we're going to make a fancy shrimp taco. All right, Little blue corn. First we're going to make some crunch stuff. Cashews, scallions, cilantro, a little bit of oil, some cumin, brown sugar, salt and pepper. Put it in the bowl, put it to the side. Now we're going to make an amarillo mayonnaise for the bottom of the taco. Amarillo, chili, mayo, lime, a little salt and pepper. And now we're going to make our own blue corn tortillas. Blue corn masa, some water. Make the masa. Let it sit. Let it rest for a few minutes. Cover it so it doesn't dry out. Make little balls. We're going to put them in a tortilla. Press stamp out some tortillas. Nice and thinly. Go to the stove. No oil in the pan. Just cook up the tortillas. And we're going to make a hot sauce. You can open your jar if you want, but I'm going to make my own, of course. Some piquillos, some Fresno chilies, some red wine vinegar, a little bit of honey, some avocado oil, salt and pepper. Blend it all up. Hot sauce. There you go. Now we're going to make a spice rub for the shrimp. Paprika, a little bit of cashmere chili, coriander, cumin. We'll get to that in a second. And then we're gonna make some crispy heads of shrimp because we have them. A little rice flour. Batter this one up. We'll get to those in a second as well. Now we're gonna cook the shrimp. Back to the spice rub. Cook them in a saute pan. Get them nice and crusty. Look at that crust on the shrimp. Don't overcook them. Take them out. Now we can assemble the taco, blue corn tortilla, the aji amarillo, some shrimp. The crispy shrimp heads for that crunch. Speaking of crunch, some cashew crunch with a little bit of green onions and some cilantro, some of that hot sauce, and give it a bite. Bobby on the beat. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you like this episode, please hit subscribe. And like, of course we want to see those numbers keep going up. Really having fun doing this. Next week's episode is another good, good friend of mine, Chef Alex Guana. Shelli, you know Alex from Chopped. You know her from Alex versus America. She's got so many different shows going on, and she's just a wonderful chef and probably the best vocabulary in the food business. I mean, she can talk about food like nobody's business, and so we're looking forward to that. Bobby on the be.