The Restaurant Whisperer

I've known her for years, going back to her days as a lighting designer on some of the best and most challenging stages in New York. She's risen just as high in her newfield. Restaurants are eager for her clientele, so she keeps a low profile. We did not post a headshot for this next episode, and her name isn't even on her website eat Quest and y C. That anonymity will be familiar to anyone who knows about restaurant critics. But unlike with critics, not just Cletter's face, but her voice,

even her taste are absent. From her work too. You know, I check out a swath of restaurants for other people's taste, not my own, because my taste, honestly would be you know, I like places where waitresses have been working there for thirty five years. I'm not going to make everybody else do there. When you say you do this and you're tilting towards your clientele, what do they typically want? The most popular request and I know you'll identify with this

is quiet. It's like Pankotonia. Why do I love pankota You want to know why? There might be a little little Coltrane on the background. I'm having my eggs in my croissant with Coltrane very low, you know. And there's another place sound like I like the food, but you know they're playing that particular music and they're playing it that loud because they want to get you out of

there as fast as possible. Well, music sets the pace for a meal, and it just you know, you look at somebody like Alex Stupac, who has Empon in um Midtown, and he also has Empon al Pastore, which is tacos in the East Village at pastor. He plays the music he said as loud as humanly possible. Why because there it's dealing with people who are younger, and it's people who are also um, you know, want to have a good time, want to get off the sort of the buzz and the high of like being there with this

great music and eating tacos and all that. So that's like a rock concert. But he said that the Empyon in Midtown is like the studio album. He put in these sound panels so that people can it's convivial and fun and all of that, but you can also hear yourself. Think you have to know your audience. It doesn't bother you in some restaurants you go to with the music is playing, of course it does. A friend of well, a friend of mine was was eating in Brooklyn to a place that I sent her and she said the

music was really loud. So I said, is it possible that you could just turn it down a little bit? And the person said the waitress said, that's how it's done in Brooklyn. Oh, really right, And and that's how it's done in Brooklyn. Really, we don't have a lot on our mind, so really, what's the getting in the way of we want to have a good time. We want to have a good time. That's what I really meant. So anyway, but I think that people want to go

somewhere where they can actually have a conversation. And that comes up so often. And it's only really true in America because equals it's global, even though it's called Equest and y see um and I've got people, I got people all over the plans. You're you're, you're the equest NYC is booking people around the world. Yeah, I do Italy a lot. I do. I have my Bible you gave me, you do, It's true, I can update it nowts.

I know I go a little overboard because I get really excited and I think, oh no, wait, you have to eat here, and you have to try this. But basically, I get so many people who say, we wanted to go to dinner. We spent an hour looking at the internet. We got overwhelmed by the amount of choices. So we went to the same place we always go to, and we want to go somewhere else, So where can we go? So sometimes people come to me for a list of

ten new places new to them. They want your recommendation, meaning they don't come to you and say I want to go to pair say or whatever, and you or there was something right that who were very self determining. There's some of your self determining. But I'm really not that person. I mean, I'm happy to do that that can but what I pay you, if they pay me, I'm you know, I'll do whatever you want me to do. Um No, but it's but what's fun for me about it is that it's kind of like a dating service

for people in their food. I asked certain questions such as, uh, tell me three places you hate in three places you lot. So this is a questionnaire. They feel like everything is online. Um, everything is by email. It's not. I don't have a formal questionnaire, although I probably you know, should you're not on the phone with anybody? Not? Really, they don't get the food. They declared a sex phone sex voice. A lot of deals with that voice. But I'll tell you

I should tell them to call. It's really self robbery that you're not doing. But you do it by email. I usually do it by email, and people are welcome to call me. It's just that people seem to you know, they're busy, they don't pick up, so that wouldn't work, really think about it, and you have a standard set of questions. I have just a couple of basic ones, and then the questions are determined by who they are,

if they're you know, I did. Somebody came from London last winter over the holidays and they had children ranging an age from eighteen to six and they wanted to go places with them. That was not easy and macaroni cheese exactly. So I had to sort of come up with a whole range of things. Plus, you know, I branched out a little. They wanted some activities and all

of that. So I got very involved with the Knicks organization because they wanted to go to a basketball game and you know, I found them the right seats and all that kind of stuff. So they do some other things as well. They did and it was kind of it was fun actually, but but basically I stick to food. But it was interesting to define things that I thought would appeal to everyone. And I love the challenge. I love the challenge of somebody sort of saying like, here's

all the things I won't eat, here's what I don't like. Um, now find me something that I want, right, And I feel like, okay, they want you to read their mind. They do. I want you to tell me what I don't even know about myself. Can I tell a lighting story? Is that? Out of that you can do whatever you want. Years ago I had a client when I was doing interior lighting, and he said, and he had a couch in the middle of a big room and aloft and

no tables near nothing else. And he said, I want to read on the couch, but I don't want any walstconsins, I don't want any ceiling light, and I don't want any lamps, you know. And I thought, like, okay, a miner's hat could work out well for you. But with a torch he summoned you snap and I could record it for you could move your eyes over the page in the dark. And I'm reading here. I want to go back, and mentioned to people, said they don't lose track here. You and I met in nine when I

was when we were doing Prelude to a Kiss. We did that at eighty nine and then we went nine. You want into the film, and you were doing lighting design in the Theater of Broadway, and you were very close with Norman, the late Norman Renett, who directed the play, and you were doing that kind of work, and then you went into residential lighting, the garden lighting, mostly because garden lighting is like getting to light a set without

having to worry about the actor's faces. So you have nobody saying like make it brighter, they're not laughing, um, you know, and you get to do all the sort of evocative, mysterious How did you design in the theater over work? Um? Gosh? Uh years? I mean, you know, like for sixteen years or something when you stopped. Why did you stop? I stopped partly because all the directors I knew were either going to TV, film or dying.

Norman passed away from you, remember, so for you, just the lands, the landscape you changed, and I missed it. I missed the collaborative experience of it. But my other passion was always food, and I was always the person that people asked, you know, like where can we go?

What can we do? And you know, in the early days before the internet, Norman and I would want we had no money, and we would walk all over the city all the time just for fun, and you'd walk into neighborhoods that were not gentrified and you'd find this like fantastic little place that no one knew about because there wasn't an internet, And you know, then we drag people down there, and you know, I would drag people down there and find places, and it just it's something

that always made me really happy to do. You know, finding a restaurant, reading a menu is is sort of a calm experience for me. It's it's it's pleasure back then, wandering the streets with Norman and you had no money. Dining is expensive, and so how do you manage to go and sample? How do you know all these places? Do you just have a word? Are you always the honored guest at the table because you're such an expert? You of a lot of friend Seriously, because I know

people like this. That is partly true. If I picked the place and I tell them what we're going to do and what we're going to have and stuff, I'm at the table. Totally true. And Norman and I used to we used to go to a coffee shop around the corner from the theater company that we ran, and um and the guy the waiter there knew us and he treated us like it was twenty one and and I was a little late one day and Norman was waiting for me, and the waiter came over to him

and said, um, are you waiting for her? You can always sort of make an occasion I think out of anywhere you go and for me, I can supply you with luxury. I can also supply you with an affordable alternative, because there's so many great places to eat in New York that are not expensive and so eat. Question I see is not about, you know, you have to have a lot of money and you have to go here. It's really about you know, finding like a great dumpling in uh, you know in Queens, or finding you know

something low, you know, great eggplant, Parmersian hero. Exactly what's changed in New York in terms of dining, Oh, that's interesting. Trends, things you see, attitudes, cost I mean there's always trends, like right now, I think that vegan has become so popular, so now there are vegan restaurants popping up everywhere, and and then there's also sort of the whole let's have a lot of meat and cheese. So they're you know burgers that the Emmy burger, which is from the pizza place,

but they're burgers legendary. It's you know, like two patties, cheese, sauce, pickles, the works on a pretzel bun, and and and so partly because time is being what they are in the world, everybody really wants comfort they do. You find that's true in your work, in my work, it may not make them feel good right after, but it makes them feel good while they're doing it. And you can sort of like get a little bit of solace from today's news.

And high end Korean has taken off, and um, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a really good pizza place. There are so many people coming from Naples to have an opening here as well as in Naples. High end pizza high end pizza. But there's also slices, not ninety nine cent slices, but three dollar and fifty cent slices are making a comeback. So there are some really fantastic places where you know, you can go get a slice, and there's a cocktail bar there too, like

Scars Pizza on Orchard Streets. It's like where you would go after school to have a slice with your friends. So there's a lot of that going on too, and there are a lot of people doing you know, poly g who's who has a really great pizza restaurant in Greenpoint. But um he um, he just opened a slice place that's been long awaited and much heralded in the Slice world. Slice World, It's true. Man, there's a magazine called Slice World.

Don't don't laugh. There is, there's the website Slice Adam who ran it, and then there's Scott who does these pizza tours there. You know, there's it's a singular focus. But man, they know what they're doing. There's nothing like a good slice, a friend, it's a hot meal. Why you eat pizza. It's a hot meal, and it's filling, and it's good vegetables, dairy, protein, protein, brand all the food groups, that's right, all the old fashioned food groups. But yes, I know what was You know we were

gonna say, go ahead, go ahead, you go. Well, it's gonna just say that. I think trends, you know, they go also with the way the planet goes. I mean, now everything is becoming about sustainability. And so there's a um, a sushi restaurant. It's the only sushi restaurant in New

York that does sustainable sushi. Um And I'm forgetting what street it's on, but they do in Omaka, sees you sit at the counter and you you know they'll still present to you what you know, the chef feels is good that day and what what you know what he's going to serve? No, just a sushi master. And there are things now like you know there's crowd cow you can there's literally crowd cow funding. What does that mean.

One of the people started was a guy who started Urban Daddy, which is a restaurant site people off and go to and um. It's so that he realized that people were getting meat from farms, but not everybody can like buy a whole cow and store it and all of that. So you can participate with like fifty people and by the section of cow you want from a farmer, then you know where the meats from, you know what

you're getting. You're supporting small farms. It's right, which is so much nicer because you don't feel forced to go back there again and food waste. Someone like Dan Barber, who has Blue Hill and Stone Barns in in Terrytown. A couple of years ago, he did what he was calling garbage dinners and taking the parts of vegetables and meat that everyone chucks because it's like, that's not the pretty part. And um, you know, so we don't need the stems, so the broccoli, or we don't need the

you know. And here, oh well, I mean if you're a chef and a chef and you're chopping up the broccoli and you just take the florets and that's part that you're going to beg yes, exactly, and so now these dinners. So all these chefs came and they created dinners only out of the parts that weren't pretty rescued fruit, and it was fantastic. You know. The idea now I think for now and forever is zero waste and we

can't afford it as as a planet. In beef production is one of the two three culprits that's clappering exactly forest and they're cutting everything down to grays beef cattle. But describe your childhood and food in your childhood, your family, your home, what was it like. Um, we always had cousins and other people. Every one would come to our house,

so we had the house where people would crash. He was a businessman and um, coming from a culturally Jewish household, not a religious Jewish household, it was really about food. It's Italians, and I think Jews are very food focused, and so everyone cooked. And my sister and left when I was still young. She got out of there, she ran, but the only thing she could make when she left

were Swedish meat balls. Um. I remember my brother went away to college and he came back and he was like, I have to make my begea mill sauce for you, and um, you know, and he was so excited about it. And my mother always if you told my mother you like something, she wouldn't make it again. But if you told her, you know, you didn't, she sort of experiment further. I don't I don't don't really know why, but and

you know, I was really indulged. My mother would make me something else if I didn't like what she was making. And that's probably why I was picking too, because I got what I wanted. But she would make things like banana meat loaf. Um. It was like no, please, please, don't to do that again. But she also made something that we all called slop. It remains. It was remains essentially, and she put all together and we all loved it.

And we didn't fte friends over and say we're having sloped tonight if you want to come for dinner, that doesn't um when you get out of the house, when you leave home, and where do you go to school? In Madison, Wisconsin? Because you wanted to be a radical? I want to be radical and um. And also because there was a lighting professor who taught there who has since departed the planet, but he was really well known.

He lit all over the world, but he did things like the ballet and the opera and at the mad And you knew then that's what you wanted to do. Oh yeah, because I always sort of related to light, even as a child. I understood light and shadow. So he was teaching there and I wanted to study with him. And so you're at Wisconsin for four years. You go four years and graduate? Yeah, you graduates, says in that papacy. It's my resumecy. My parents are did I can tell

the truth? Wait wait, Elizabeth Warren ain't runing for president. You're on your own. And I know that things changed for me significantly in terms of food, But I think of these milestones. I think of these benchmarks in terms of my relationship to food and how that changes over the years. And some very significant things. And the first turn of the dial is leaving my home and going to school, where all of a sudden, you know, what

I eat is up to me. What I'm going to eat I decide because when I was back home as a child, my mother would cooked dinner. If she had six kids. My family had no money. My mother would make roasted chickens and vegetables in a salad. Everybody ate. Well, there's a lot of other things we didn't have, but everybody had clothes and food my my father's insistence. And I go to college, what I'm gonna eat is up

to me? And uh. There was a place of years ago in Washington and Georgetown on the Canal called the Foundry. It's interesting how the first thing I did was get a job as a way to where I could eat, because you get a shift meal. But I think unconsciously I put myself at these things. In these jobs, I did student activities and things where there was food being served, and I could eat things that I couldn't afford to pay for because I was on a meal plan. Fantastic, yea.

But for you, how did you eat when you were in college. I do remember the first night that I was there walking through the town at night, thinking I can go anywhere, I can do anything. We can I can go get something to eat, I mean something cheap and obviously and all that. But everyone was in the same boat, so you were together, um and it was really exciting. But being in Wisconsin, it was a lot of cheese and that wasn't good. You know. In the end,

of course, all that dairy was time well spent. If Deborah Cletter gets a client seeking the best cheese in Wisconsin, a good way for you to spend time is in the Here's the Thing archive. If all the food talk is driving you to the fridge, Dr Robert Lustig will put a damper on that. That's called addiction. We know how that works for all of these other drugs of abuse. Turns out sugar does the same same thing. It's the

same as cocaine. The difference is that for cocaine you gotta go find it, whereas for sugar we have what we call system saturation. It's everywhere, you can't escape it. The charming, if alarming Doctor Robert Lustig can be found anytime with the rest of our past interviews and Here's the Thing dot org coming up New York's foremost restaurant recommender, Deborah Cletter of e quest NYC, makes her case against

Yelp and trip Advisor. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing now more With Deborah Clutter of eat quest NYC. She caters to her clients when and crazy things, but has a clear sense of what any restaurant needs to be great. What differentiates good and bad is conviviality. If a restaurant wants you to be there, if they're happy to make you the food and they want you to have a good time, it's sublime. It's

just this wonderful experience. And you know that they're really happy for you to be eating their food, so you're really happy to be dining there. I've developed a pretty keen sense of when I'm around the person who I know they derive great pleasure from preparing food and serving food. They love to see people eat their food, and there's a kind of a glow they have. There's a kind

of an incandescence thing. And so the thing for me now is that because I'm trying so much now to manage food in my life, and I'm wondering do you factor that into your recommendations with people? Do they ever say to you, I need healthy food, are going to be very careful. You know, it's interesting that hasn't come

up as much as one would think. But I think the movement now is like the whole paleo thing, and so there are people eating like dachis and broths and consummes that the your fish is poached in and all that. But I think that there's comfort and there's health, and those two. You know, it's diametrically opposed, and there are people who leaned one way and lean the up. So most of the people that are engaging your service, they don't they don't bother with that. They're there to go

blow it out or just enjoy it. I mean, because it really doesn't have to be about something special. It just has to be about something good or comfortable for their economic bracket or you know, the kind of atmosphere they want. I mean, it starts. You know, I started doing this years ago because I would plan people's evenings for them. I just got into like I knew somebody, this intern working at some in an office that a friend of mine was running, and he wanted to propose

to his girlfriend. So another friend and I just we court. We we coordinated the whole evening. We said where you're going to go meet for drinks, where you're going to actually have dinner, where you're going to propose to her, what table you're going to sit at, how that's all going to go down. And we did the whole evening for him, and then we started doing that for other people. She ultimately moved to Italy with her family. UM, so I, you know, kind of stopped that and just kept doing

what I was doing. But it was always in the back of my mind. And when you know, the recession happened and people weren't doing so much garden lighting, and um, I wasn't really doing theater. I thought, okay, food, Um this is you know, everyone always asked me where to go, and I always like knowing where to go, and I'm always intrigued by something, and you know, I just sort of I'm like a steward of um you know, of information. I just you know, it's out there and other people

can find it too. It's just that I'm obsessed with it. Cook. Yeah, I do, do I do. I used to go really sort of high end fancy. You know, you're well, my signature dishes my shrimp risotto, but that's not really dazzling wild Argentinian shrimp, but it's it's more about how you cook it. And I will not reveal the secret, but um, I don't even tell other people that there's a few little key things in it that make it what it is. And I honestly think it's the best trimp risotto I've

ever had. I like rock shrimps. I went to a place once on vacation down there in North Carolina and I thought, oh my god, I mean this was shrimp they caught right there fresh and it was just mean a tasted like something. Yes, when when you can really taste the food, that makes such a difference. It's like carrots from the farmer's market actually taste like carrots, not a bag of what's called baby carrots but are just you know, cut up bigger carrots in a supermarket don't

taste like carrots. They might be filling, and you know, you can chew them and you can slice them and put them in things, but when you taste the carrot and you really get the carrot taste, it's remarkable and you know, and I think that's part of people want to know where their food is coming from now. They want to know what they're eating, so, you know, and that's why I think like the crowd. But you can find that at less expensive places as well as more

expensive places. It's all out there. When you go to a restaurant, what's the first thing you look for, it's the whole nison send. Are people enjoying it? I mean, do you do? You feel that sort of buzz and you smell it and it smells really good, and it's it's almost like a sixth sense that you walk in somewhere and you feel like this is where I'm supposed to be. I get it. I think this is going

to be good. When you when people are enjoying their food, there's just that buzz, there's there's your You know that you've come into a place where it's not about pretension, it's not about um. You know, the masquerade of this place is supposed to be good, so I'm supposed to like it. It's really like people are enjoying their food here. The waiters seem to be enjoying giving it to you. The cooks are happy making it for you. You're happy to be there eating it, and that really is what

it is. It really doesn't, you know, there's not it's not. I I personally love a neighborhood feel. I love you know, old world. I love a dive. But when I'm looking for clients and um, you know, and I'm when I'm going out to eat it and checking all these places out, I'm looking for things that might appeal to all kinds of people. I'm not just looking that. That's my test. So it's not just about me, it's about what that is. So people ask me favorites and I don't. I generally

don't reveal them because it's not about me. But you're going to reveal them to me, and temail um described for me. Give me a high end and a low end of just a meal. You remember a place, you remember you went there, and those all right? All perfect? Can it be out of the country, It can be

anywhere you desire. Okay. One of my most favorite places in the whole world is Palazaccio's, which is an Umbria and it's outside of Spoletto, and it's a family run restaurant, and you know, my heart just sings whenever I think about it and the you know, the idea of getting back there. And one of the most amazing things that they make is this artichoke ravioli and it's and all you know, it takes them half a day to make it.

And you know, one of the things I think people want to go out to eat for is for something that they can't make at home or they won't make it home, because it's just two times et someone's made an effort. And so when they make the artichoke ravili, not only do they have to make the fresh pasta and make the actual ravioli and all of that, but they cook the artichoke. They take each leaf off, they scrape all the little bits of what you know, the artichook meat off of each leaf, make a like make

a paste out of it exactly. And the heart of the artichoke is what goes into each violi, but the pace goes into the sauce and um. And so when you eat, it's just heaven. It's heaven. There's just there's nothing else like it that just it melts in your mouth. It's just extraordinary. And it's called palazaccios and it's on the via Flaminia outside of Swoletto and family run helicopter than that UM and then they're definitely meals in New York and a place like UM for Chinese food, the

Little Pepper Um, which is well known now. I happened to find it the first night they opened in a little basement in Flushing, because I was looking for a different restaurant that had moved, and so I was with some friends. We thought, this kind of smells good and it's just funky. Let's check it out. And it was sublime. And then I started, like, you know, getting friends to go there all the time, and I would go there always.

And now they've moved and they have a place on in College Point and they bought the building, so it's a slightly more upscale UM. But nothing in there is bad and I feel at home when I go there. I feel at home with the food. I know the dishes, I have my favorites. I order way too much and UM.

And I think of you for this because because one of my favorite things about dining with you is that you know, we can go to a restaurant and you'll say, you know, I'll have the chicken, you have the steak or you know, and also I'll steak or something like that. But then if you're if my eye wanders over anywhere in the menu, you say, what are you looking at? Let's get it. I learned that from Michael Blue, my

former agent. I remember that Blue would say, I say, I can't make up my mind the salmon or the chicken. He goes, get both. I can't make up my mind the soul or the pasta. Get both. What do we care? What do you care? It's great because you and I

would end up with a table filled with like several entrees, appetizers, sides. Um, you know, let's get the pizza, Let's also have the pasta, Let's also have this, and you know, and that's what I So that's kind of how I think sometimes, Like I don't understand when people limit me and they say things like I think we've ordered enough, Like I don't think we have no, No, you don't get it. I'm

the one that determines when we've had enough. Do you remember when we had dinner at an unnamed restaurant that's very popular. Um, you had a group of like ten people and we were all at the restaurant and the waiter came over and he was telling us about the salmon. And he said, the salmon was wrapped in Kashmir, you know, every night of its life, and it was they read a good night moon before it went to sleep. And I went to Princeton. It was caressed. They carried it

here across the country from the Pacific Northwest. And you said, I'd rather get a piece of trout from a guy named Joe driving the truck and flings it in through the door. That that that whole boutique thing with food. I mean, listen, I want Kobe beef when I first first heard about that, I mean everything about handling food. Uh. And what about the low end? What's the place you know? Well a little? I mean, you know, I hesitate to call them low, but I mean a place like Eisenberg's.

Do you know on Fifth Avenue? You know I love their tuna sandwich. I mean they do. I never thought you'd say that. I've been there. It's around the corner for my physical therapist. Oh do you get the Reuben. I go there and have an egg salad sandwich. You can get a half egg salad, half tuna, and I'm going to tuna really good. Tuna. I won't share with you the he doesn't my number one, which I call bachelor's surprise, which is my tuna salad sandwich. I make

a tuna sala said. People have wept when they have my tuna. I'm gonna need to try it. If you're not going to do I'll take off Mike and involves some very simple I love tuna fish. It's tuna fish European style. Well, I'll tell you my favorite tuna is Rio Mara, and they don't export their Rio Marian extra virgin olive oil to America. You can only get in Italy, and you can ask any friend. I have cases of it. We get we get by the one from my wife.

I get it from a Spanish grocery store. I used to eat fish every now and then I get sick of fish. But for all those concerns about age and health and everything, you always remember my brother and I getting a quart of fried rice from the local Chinese place take out and sitting on the curb in the parking lot. They didn't have any seating. It was take out. Only was a counter and we would sit down and we'd eat. It was like the perfect mix of the shrimp and the egg and the scallions in this and

we'd sit there and eat. It was like we we might as well have had a table at Lutess. It was like the it with the greatest meal I've ever had in my life, because you're so craving that, and you're so jonesing for that, and you don't feel that anymore. You don't have a craving for something that crave now is the room. Food is not my enemy. Food is something I have to wrestle with. But the common thread of food is just I don't want to get too sappy here, but like who you're with, what's the vibe?

You know? I I mean sharing food makes you part of a larger hole. And all the work that now people are doing with you know, like Jos Andreas and and doing all the world Central Kitchen and goings. Who don't know UM Chef Restaurant Tour, UM Washington, New York, l A. And he's going to every disaster and feeding people. So he was in Puerto Rico and he has fed so many people and got people cooking there and got

people hot meals and really good meals. And the photographs are remember of like Paia pants that were as big as this desk, which people can't see, but it's big and exactly and it was just extraordinary. And so he's gone and organized for every disaster, and all kinds of people are doing that. There's such a humanitarian aspect now

to food. There are a lot of refugee dinners. They're there are different groups that are either catering um, so they take people who have been displaced, and people are now like cooking and you can actually hire a caterer where people who were you know, exiled for whatever reason and are here are cooking for you, which is fantastic because it brings them a sense of home and it brings you, um, you know, some really great meal that

you didn't get to have before. But it's the idea of just sharing food and sharing somebody's heritage and culture and and I think, you know, those of us who are on you know, on the good side of humanity are trying to to connect with that and to share that. You know. I asked the driver, you guys were so nice to send me a car. And I asked the driver on the way what he looks for in a restaurant, and he said, oh, he said, I go to Queens in Brooklyn and I eat Jamaican food. And I said,

because it's home, and he said yes. The connection for people is, you know what makes them feel at home, regardless of whether that home was last year or childhood. Restaurant reviewers, how is that change has a change? Who do you trust? Now? Who do you? I do like? I like the New Yorker, I like Hannah Goldfield and UM and I like UM. I don't want to dispat or just do what I do. Would you just name the ones you like? Well? But the thing is, I like some of what some people say. Do you do

dislike Wells? What he wants? I don't dislike Wells, but I don't agree with everything that he says. But I think I do think he's a very good reviewer. And I, you know, I clearly go to the Times every Wednesday to see what um, you know, what what he has said. But I trust people that I know more than I

trust reviewers that are out there. UM And I think you know, you look at something like trip Advisor or Yelp, where so many people go to and as as a friend of mine pointed out to me, she was going to chang My in Thailand for going to live there

for a few months. And she said, well, I thought i'd look a trip Advisor and I would see, like what restaurants they were recommending, and she said the top rated number one restaurant in chang My was a text Mex place, and I thought, no, thanks, I don't need to do that so people find you know, I guess all the people who go to Yelp or trip Advisor, if you find someone you like, I suppose you know that would mean something I I don't. I don't ever

look at anything like that. I look at Yelps sometimes for addresses or do they take credit cards or you know, sort of hardcore information. But I noticed a review said the best sushi in New York, so I thought, okay, you know, I have to see I'll buy. And the person just said, this is the best sushi I've ever had. Of course I've never had sushi before, and I thought, like a ha, And to me, that sums up like that kind of local reviews. And you know, if it

works for you, great. But what I do is I try and glean what somebody wants, and I keep a personal file on them or even if it's just a one time thing. I get, you know, by a listening answers from them on on my questions, I get what it is that they're looking for. We're interesting towards my last question, which is my dear friend Ronnie Dobson. I

think you met who spent a good part of his youth. Uh, you know, studied literature at Brooklyn College and uh as a very beautiful writer and one of the great uh minds I've ever known in my life. And this is amazing guy. And took a couple of years in different times of his life to travel extensively. One an a Frica, when in Mexico, and when he's in Africa, he's and he really does talk his version I mean, I'm really

not exaggerating his version of like Woody Allen. He's he's the Jewish kid from Brooklyn and he's totally what he Alan's when you talked to him, he's like he'd be like on a hiking across Africa with a friend and they would come upon a boma and people would be cooking something and uh, and he really really ate everything. I mean, he ate anything. If if human beings are standing over a simmering pot and it could do or impala, it didn't matter. Whatever they're cooking. And there's some potatoes

and carrots looked in there. He was down. He would have a big steam and bowl of whatever and he ate everything to me. That's like, you know, I like if if you guys got any you know, rice cakes and peanut butter like. But there's those things I can't eat. There's just things I can't know the things that you can't eat. There are definitely things like I I you know,

I don't want things like brains and stuff. There's this really fantastic place um um called on al is Kebob Cafe that's been there for a long time on Steinway Street in Astoria, and Ali is this great man. There's no kitchen really, there's like a hot plate and um and he creates these incredible meals. He just comes over to you and he's like, what do you feel like today?

And you kind of tell them. But there are things like the brain and stuff like if it comes to the table, I need to put up a little wall so that I can't even look at it because the brain looks like rain. Before Frank Booney, before Pete Wells and everything. The New York Times would write a restaurant review, and maybe a handful of times a year they would go to an outer borough. Yeah, if at all Brooklyn was where you went to buy a gun. No, it's true.

They will have personal bodyguards out there. They don't need a gun. Right in that way that I'm describing, Ronnie, were you a fan of Bourdain? Oh god, yes you were. Yes, him, and and you know and Jonathan Golden from l A and um and people who who it's about people and culture and you know, and that that sort of energy and I just appreciate that so much, about what he did for the world and going off to these places and just saying like here there's this nobody a win,

there's this culture that you can devour. The cultural thing was was riveting. It was riveting. And he also makes it exciting because when you travel and you you know, my favorite thing is if you tell me something's hard to find or hard to get, um rare, I want it. And you know, I will drag somebody through a jungle in Indonesia because there's a fish place on the beach called Neoman's and everyone loves the fish there. It was effortful.

But then you get to this little stand with you know, like two tables and and it's a Neoman's fish because Neoman is one of the popular names there, and um, and the fish was incredible. It's it was just extraordinary, you know. And he's just grilling it on an open fire and it's as simple as it can be. But it's fresh and it's perfectly cooked. And you know, that's what I like about about Bourdain too, is that you just sort of feel like you hunted for something that

now I want to find. You've led me somewhere. You've led me somewhere. Exactly if you had a single serving of one thing, what would the last meal b among many, what would it be read bread that really crusty on the outside, soft on the inside, where you can you buy it in the store and it's almost gone by the time you get home. You kind of have to get to so you have the one that you need

to travel later. Exactly, you need to travel pack because you just keep breaking off another piece and if you can have butter on it, you know, fantastic or whatever your fantasy. But um, yeah, well then't end up dying anyways. Pile on that. But I would be corn in the coup, would it? I crave when we get to that August, that September Labor Day, the New Jersey Silver Queen, all those legendary late summer corn with lots of sugar corn on the cob. But I don't put butter on corn.

And I don't know because the corn is so when you get a great piece of corn, think you're just tasting my butter. When I have corn in the cup, I have about six pieces of it, and so I have every other one test butter on. I'll do old butter. It's a palate cleanser, and then I do the butter, and then I have the little sell Bay, the one with Yeah, that's perfect, That's exactly right. Thank you so much for doing this with me. Well thanks, it's fun

to talk food with a friend. Um, I I tend to I never tested well, so I'm not good on on on questions on the spot. I always have to think, like, what what are you asking me? Why are you asking me? Well? What I love about what you do? I'm never going to say that wells and people who write for the Times are compromised in anyway. But there's a lot writing

on what they do. I went with Frank Bruney. Uh, Maureen Down said you want to come with me and Frank and another person to go to de Batali's Del Posto when I had just opened up, and we went with Bruney and it was so eye opening to me, and Frank kind of took me through like the protocols and when he goes in and we were sitting there was really really really fascinating. But that's you know, he was the restaurant critic for The Times. Is a whole other thing going on. You was as much more. I'm

a conduit, you know. I'm sort of like the conduit to you and a meal that I think you might really enjoy. I'm not saying that you know that this is right for everybody. I'm not sort of declaring that this restaurant's gonna last. For this restaurant's not gonna last. I just really like to think about I love reading menus, I love thinking about food, and there are so many

good things to have. I mean, it's just something that I want to share more than it's about a criticism or an evaluation of a whole place, And I just want to share it I feel like I have this great dumpling, you have to have it too. I have this pancake, you have to have it too. And it's sublime. That was my old friend Deborah Clatter of Eat Quest NYC. She can source you a sturgeon and find you a food tour, but it's really all about that ineffable match

between human and table. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing to be f