You're listening to Heritage Radio Network. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Pot Luck Food Talks. I'm here with my colleague, Phil Walther. Hey, what's up? And we don't have a topic today. We're going
to just talk about whatever. Have you had any recent... nice meals that you would highlight the last few weeks what do you mean we don't have a topic we just don't have a topic or no topic at all i mean like the topic is i do random questions and we bring it on from there somehow okay okay cool all right um have i had any recent nice recent meals i i went to a pretty nice taco place yesterday um it's the first half decent taco place that i tried in in berlin or like
outside of mexico it's called tacos el rey and they make their own masa and they do this super small menu it's it's not like the tacos are a little bit larger than what you would get in mexico but it makes sense for the the concept they had like a taco de bistec which they make out of like ribeye and so it's like seared and like lightly pink with like shoestring fries
on top which was pretty nice. They have chorizo verde, they've got birria with consomme, they've got choriqueso, rajas con hongos, that sort of stuff. So the tortillas were pretty nice and everything was really tasty. And they had really, really delicious frozen margaritas. Some of the best frozen margaritas I've ever tried. So that was pretty nice. Where is this? Which neighborhood? It's in Grefestraße in Kreuzberg. Okay. I think I went to this place. I think I did. Yeah, yeah,
yeah. Yeah, nice. Yeah, it was really nice. Yeah, and it's so rare that you find a place that's not in Latin America or like the States that does like good Mexican food. And I mean, you know, tacos, Mexican food is like, it's such a small part of Mexican food, right? But obviously it's... The first thing that people think of, like a lot of people think of sushi or ramen
when they think of Japanese food. The way that they did it was really good because they concentrated on like nice, freshly made tortillas, simple, authentic toppings, but they didn't feel like, like it was super simple, but like minimalist simple. And like you didn't need anything else. The salsas were like pretty good. They had a very nice salsa matcha. The other salsas, they were a little bit too gringo, you know, like
not quite spicy enough. And like after you've like after you've been to Mexico City or like anywhere in Mexico, I feel like the salsas there, they're just amazing because of this little trick that they use where they season it with chicken stock powder as if they were seasoning it with salt. I'm pretty sure I've talked about this before. And then afterwards, when you eat like a normal salsa without like the mind altering chemicals that make it tasty, then you're kind
of like, ah, it's like lacking something. Which is the fucking MSG, the crack cocaine of the cooking world. I love MSG, I have to be honest with you. Yeah, I think I'm actually going to incorporate it into cooking in the kitchen a little bit more. I also had good tacos recently. I went to this place called R, like the letter. It has been open for quite a while, but it was my first visit. And they don't do tacos anymore.
They did at the beginning, but it was a birthday party, so they did tacos for the birthday thing. For sure the best tortilla I've tried ever in general. It was like a super, super good tortilla. Especially the tortilla. The filling was very good, but not something that blew my mind, like the tortillas themselves. Yeah, this guy, he's a Mexican chef, and he took over this place around, I would say maximum two years. It's not Mexican. It's like, imagine a place like Arenales or Gerald's,
but by a Mexican chef. So like this, this style of San Sebastian bistro, you know what I mean? So they will serve a chuleta, but for, well, for example, with the chuleta, they serve it with tortillas. So you take your little slice of, you see like very Basque, but with the, this little. That's pretty cool. Mexican accent. You know? Yeah. I would love to eat a chuleta in a tortilla with a little bit of salsa on top. I'd go there all the time. Yeah, exactly. Nice.
So many people are fuming right now, Basque people and Mexican people alike. And today I went to Pasaya. I took this three -hour hike onto the port. I knew there was like this bar that is in the Michelin Guide and has been for like, I don't know, six years or something, but I didn't know about it. I never visited it and I was hungry. So I went there and I had like five different pinchos. I tried a little bit of everything. And especially all the seafood is really outstanding.
I had like just a prawn skewer. It was just perfectly grilled, you know, and the fish soup. I would go back only for the fish soup. It was incredible. The name of the place is Quiña, and it's this style of Basque fisherman's soup that, you know, it's dark brown, it's thick, it's made with many different fishes, it's ultra strong. Just yesterday, I saw an article in El Pais, you know, the Spanish newspaper, about El Pais Gastronomica, the gastronomic issue they have. And it was about a restaurant
here in the Basque Country. They also did this fisherman soup. And suddenly... He started having an influx, a crazy influx of Japanese food tourists. They would come with a guide and show the picture of the soup and say, I want to try the soup. And it became a cult thing among Japanese up to the point that the guy now is making jars of the soup and exporting them. That's so cool. Yeah, and he's doing it in a collaboration with
the Fisherman Guild. Here from, I think it's the one from Pasaya or Ondarribia, I'm not sure. Yeah, and I thought, like, that's pretty cool. That also brings me to something I also had recently. I went to Boston. By the way, the guys from Heritage Radio Network recommended a place near the docks. It's called Sayloft. And they said the clam chowder was pretty good. So I went there just to try the clam chowder. Besides that, it was like super nice fries, everything fried, fried with fries
and more fried things. And the lobster roll would come with, did we talk about this on the fat episode? It would come with melted butter just to put it on top of the... That sounds super delicious. But yeah, that clam chowder, they also jar it and sell it nationwide in the States. So I was like, okay, this is like an interesting business, you know, like making a soup legendary and then starting to sell it worldwide in cans or jars. Yeah, I honestly, I really love that.
It's like, it's when food and especially simple
food transcends. countries and cultures and something like a soup in the right setting can have something so much of an impact on you that it's just perfect you know I think like a lot of people that you talk to that have these like very very strong memories of certain things that they ate is often super simple things in the right setting in a certain moment that they carry with them their entire life you know and like for me a nicely made fish soup that's something that you don't
find a lot these days you know like it used to be and it's also something that i very very rarely would order like if i'm here in berlin for example and i see a fish soup on a menu i'm like yeah i'm not gonna order that you know i'll order something else but if you know you're in the best country at the coast or whatever el cano dude like the the fish soup from el cano is a must uh roasted fish uh soup you know it's like a dark brown soup it's incredible yeah and i
love that you know because it's like it's it's the simplest sort of like humblest thing done really really well and that's always that's always going to be super magical for me like going to piermont and eating you know just extremely almost reality bending delicate and satisfying ravioli you know And you're like, oh my god, why is this so good? I don't get it. I love these moments where you're kind of like, why the fuck is this so tasty? Yeah, I had exactly that in Lucca.
This is in Tuscany in Italy. Like a super old city from the... the Etruscans, you know, these were not Romans, these were Etrusc. I don't know how you say it in English. Anyways, there was this place where they would sell, I had a local friend and she brought me there and it was like, here, pick whatever, everything is good here. And I had like a tuna sandwich, it looked pretty good. And it was just like normal bread and just like a mayo tuna kind of thing. And dude, it
was incredible. It was just biting it and saying, why is this so good? What's the secret ingredient? Why this? yeah it's the things i think also the the whole setting and environment and moment and company and where you are and when also plays a role for sure yeah for sure absolutely but then there's this like almost like this god particle this like je ne sais quoi kind of element that to me remains a bit of a mystery Like, you know,
I've had that. We've talked a lot on the show about tortilla española, you know, like that is something where I'm kind of like, what the fuck? Why is this so tasty? You know, and it's, and it's just potatoes, eggs, and sometimes onions. And that's it. You had the one in the cheesecake bakery. You had that tortilla? Oh, I think we did. Yeah. That's the sabaleta tortilla. That's one of the best in the city. That's a killer one. It was very, very good. Yeah. And, you know,
I had that moment also. I'm not sure whether I spoke about it before in La Tascita in Madrid. Yeah. La Tascita de Frente. Especially, oh, the whole meal was good, but especially the albondiga, the meatball, with like very traditional, like a sort of onion -based sauce, like you often find it, and with crispy potatoes on top. Super classic, really. And I couldn't really believe it. I saw a photo the other day on Instagram
of it. from back when i ate um and i was like i remember sitting there and being like it's a meatball in an onion sauce with some crispy fried potatoes there's no there's no weird conceptual shit going on but yet i'm sitting there with my i don't know how many years of experience and i don't really know how they came to make this yeah yeah or the mushrooms are tambourine you know these are just normal mushrooms cooked in white wine with garlic and parsley and that's
it yeah like when somebody when somebody told me about that the first time i was like honestly that sounds awful like that sounds terrible it's like and you see it and it's like my cooked mushrooms like with no color right and i'm not the biggest mushroom fan like i'm always Certain things I'm like, oh yeah, fuck yeah, I love that. And certain other things like champignons, I'm kind of like, sometimes yeah, sometimes I'm like, man, I could
do without. Like champignons on a pizza, for example, for me, I'm kind of like, nah, man, I don't ever need that. But these mushrooms, like poached, no color, on a stick with a soggy piece of bread underneath. That's a very common thing, like that, having like mushrooms. Just on top of it with a skewer. This is something you will find all over Spain. Like tapas bars and bars and tascas and pincho bars. And it's one of these things. Everybody has their own
style of doing it. Either like that or chopped and also in a garlic parsley kind of sauce. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But see, that I get, the garlic parsley sauce. But you get these pale mushrooms. In a pale mushroom broth. It's like super simple. With a soggy, untoasted piece of bread underneath. It's like the palest, whitest shit ever, you know? And the first time that I got taken there, I was like, yeah, we have to get the mushrooms.
I'm like, hey, okay. You know, you do you. And then I tried it and I was like, what the fuck? I want to order five more. It's so delicious. Dude, also something I wanted to talk about with you is... We were recently at Echeverry, as you know. Xander and I, we recorded an Echeverry episode. I don't know if this will be published before or after that one. In any case, the gambas. The gambas were one of the best things I've ever had. The prawns. The carabineros or what? Yeah,
correct. The red prawns. Yeah. And I was with my friend Jose, and he was like, don't you do this and he started like like they can not even like and he ate everything everything he just left like the outer shell of the head and legs the you know the shell everything everything you know like i yeah what a bizarre what a bizarre moment to be in No, exactly. I wanted to also take apart it. I mean, I sucked all the legs and everything. But I think I could have done
it also. But I don't know. I didn't feel like doing it. There was the other guy that was with us, Stefan. He also did the same. He also... I don't know if I learned it. I'm not sure. In any case. What are your thoughts about this? About that in particular? I don't know. It sounds pretty rough. It sounds pretty hectic, honestly. I mean, there's levels to it, right? I mean, at Echabari, as far as I know, they grill them pretty gently, right? So it's not like brown,
crispy. etc like i'm a big fan of eating prawns whole like the the shell gets super crispy when it's grilled um and i love sucking out the head juices absolutely love that that's something we all did yeah yeah yeah but to eat but to eat the whole shell i've not quite reached that level of prawn savagery yet yeah i i recently introduced my mom to it like i i went to visit her and we went to a fish market in tenerife And they do really filthy seafood, like covered in garlic
oil and like usually grilled. It's very, very tasty. It's very heavy, like scallops in the shell with like garlic and parsley, you know, just like a fuck ton of garlic. And they had a special one. They had carabineros. And they weren't like the big ones. Obviously, they weren't the premium ones like you will have had at Echibari. They were like kind of smaller, but they still looked very nice. And I was like, okay, cool, let's get them. And my mom had never had them.
And so I like showed her, she was kind of like, oh, they're very pricey. I don't know. Like we could just get something else. And I showed her, I peel it, eat it and like suck the juice out of the head. And she was very suspicious. She was very unsure. She was like, what is that? And I was like, no, just, just give it a try. And she did it. Then at first she was like, oh, I'm not sure I like that. And I'm like, it's okay. You know, like you tried it and she gave
it a second try. She was like, if you think about it, it's kind of like very intense fish soup. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, exactly. And then she continued it. She looked at it and she was like, I think we should order some more. And then she just started completely crushing into it. I think I just perfection. I did like an upgrade on my technique of doing this. Like when I cut the head, I leave a little piece of the meat as well. Yes, I always do that. That's really good. It's
like a little cork. Correct, exactly. And it works much better. You don't get all dirty. I think I saw somebody doing that ages ago, like 10 years ago. And since then, I've always done that. It's been working really well. I mean, one of the other like standout things that I ate like very, very recently, which I haven't talked about actually in a Japan episode, but obviously in Japan, there were a lot of standout
moments. But for example, before we went to this like very high end sushi place, I asked my mom like, hey, is there something that you really are not going to eat? Like, because if there
is. it's better to say at the beginning because they're just going to send out we don't really know what they're going to bring whether it's going to be crab brains or this or that or shirako the sperm of the fish like i didn't tell her any of that but yeah and she was like i i don't really like sea urchin that much and i was like okay i get you but um we're gonna eat sea urchin 100 for sure there's gonna be sea urchin and i think you should try it and um it reminded
me also because i'm also not the biggest fan of sea urchin like i really i'm crazy about that shit yeah yeah but the thing is that like sea urchin isn't sea urchin right and so in in general if somebody is like hey i've got a sea urchin like you want to crack it open and slurp it out i'm kind of like i'm good you know but there you know it was the simplest dish a little cup of warm sushi rice with a healthy portion of sea urchin just straight from the box and ikura
the salmon roe the marinated salmon roe just that's it and it was so good it was so fucking tasty it was one of the best items of the meal and it really reminded me it's been years since i've had sea urchin that good it really reminded me what is this big sea urchin craze you know hokkaido hokkaido sea urchins like you just can't beat it i feel like Yeah, and Hokkaido scallops also. Incredible. Yeah, very good. They're very, very good. There was another thing at that dinner,
which was really, really exceptional. It was the very first dish. It was bonito that was cut with certain condiments and a sauce that they described as, they introduced as the sake brewer sauce because it is meant to make you want to drink more sake. As she explained to me what the sauce was, it became more and more interesting to me. So they take all the guts from the bonito and ferment it for a really long time with salt.
And then that's the sauce. It's basically like a bonito entrail fish sauce kind of garum situation. But it was really creamy because I think they blend it also. And it was really mellow and sweet.
like umami rich and um and that was the kind of thing where she kind of explained to me i was like oh that's so interesting and my mom was like oh what what sauce is this and i'm like it's a it's a it's a sauce made from the tuna like salted tuna yeah tuna it's okay dude from my last trip to japan i brought some um shelf stable koji like dried koji and i don't know what to do with it i was thinking about doing a garum or some sort of fermented fish sauce
or something more crazy like squid or i don't know but yeah i have a fishmonger just downstairs you know like i and a very good one i should think about that yeah maybe anchovies like an anchovy garum that could be good it's so good it's so tasty um Like a really nice thing that I've had in the recent years was also meat garum, which was super versatile, super tasty, like
from all like the offcuts from the meat. And especially to use that to marinate meat before you cook it, as in like it worked especially well with lean meat, like venison, venison loins. Just a little bit of meat garum, let them in there. And it was like a light barley soy sauce, you know. Let them in there for like a couple
of hours. tap it off with a paper and then grill it and it's just like oh man that sounds incredible and people probably people probably don't know what it is right no no because it's so subtle it just kind of like blends into the meat you know and it's really really smart but then you eat it it's made with meat it's super powered yeah yeah it's like it's like bam and you eat it you're like man where did you get this meat from you're kind of like well there's a little
bit more to it and I really like these sort of like underhand, sleight of hand tricks in cooking, you know? That's very elegant. I like that. I never heard about doing that, like marinating meat in meat garum. Pretty cool. You could patent that. Ah, no, we're publishing this episode. God damn it. Also stole the idea, but it's okay. What about the bouillabaisse, man? Have you had like a proper good bouillabaisse with the... 37 fishes, rockfishes that it should have to
be legally a bouillabaisse. I've definitely had very, very good bouillabaisse. Bouillabaisse is the sort of thing, again, if I see it on the menu, I'm probably not going to order it because it's this really bastardized name of a fish soup. Ah, yeah, absolutely. Unless you're in Marseille, which I have been. But that's on my bucket list, for sure, before I die. Go to Marseille and get like a fucking expensive bouillabaisse because I've heard they're super expensive if you get
a really good one. Yeah, they're super. I heard the same thing. It's like 160 euros for like one person to like pre -order kind of situation. And people are queuing. People are queuing to get the fucking soup, you know. And the locals are like, you know, just like laughing to themselves, counting the money. But yeah, this is the sort of thing I think. Cooking something like that, like a bouillabaisse or also like a burrit, I
think it's a sensitive thing. It takes real skill and it's something that you don't see very often. And that's why when you get across one that's really good, I'm like really appreciative. And I think this is a really nice thing to do at home also, like cooking a nice bouillabaisse, taking your time, you know, going to the fish market, choosing a fish and really taking your time to get it right. It's one of those perfect
meals, you know. You have that, you have a little bit of rui, you have some toasted bread or whatever, a salad next to it, and it's fucking... That's it, yeah. You don't need anything else. It's been a long time since I had a good one. Have you tried suquet de peixe, which is kind of like the Catalan kind of bouillabaisse? I have not. Not as elevated and complex, but it's like a fisherman's soup as well. Completely different
from the ones we have here. I think that would be a really cool concept for, I don't know, a cookbook or a documentary or whatever. Fisherman's soups from around the world. I like that. I mean,
only in Europe. what you see in the let's say in the uk or in portugal or in italy or in greece are completely completely different things you know that's a really cool idea actually but then like you could make it worldwide because like you know we were talking about clam chowder earlier or you know like i saw the other day this video of a japanese fisherman making himself a lunch of like the stuff that he was catching and it was super nice uh just really rustic and simple
but just super tasty and part of it was a soup this like very deeply nourishing food with local ingredients i mean that's amazing i love that sort of stuff um have you tried moqueca what's that it's a brazilian fish soup also like a strong fish soup with like with palm oil and coconut and coriander and lime and fish and prawns yeah That sounds fucking great. You drink it and you
start dancing samba suddenly. I feel like that's the sort of thing, like if you drink a cup of that a day, you will never die and you'll never get sick. You won't age. You'll be dancing all day like Brazilian music, you know? Yes. Oh man, now I really feel like a soup. Yeah, my kick is like a super nice one. Yeah, like That's also something I never had like this dart soups here But I think I'll, because it's a thing. It's
really a thing. You know, like you go to different like stores, like this gourmet shops where you get like high quality ingredients or markets or whatever. And there are always jarred fish soups and from different houses with different names. So it is a thing. And it's always this dark brown soup. So, and a day like today, which is like super rainy around here. This is, you
know, like the. that thing that can happen to you like a warm bowl of fish soup absolutely i think soup is really underrated anyway um soup is like soup is the perfect meal you know anything broth related is it's just absolutely fantastic yeah i've really i really want to talk about fish soup now um after my recent trip to japan i feel like i've kind of lost um side of what real dashi tastes like and it like really i told i mentioned this visit to this one ramen place
where everything smelled like dashi and inoichi uh i think it was called in kyoto very highly recommended it's it's again it's such a it's such a skillful thing to like get soups right because anybody can make a soup soup is the most simple thing ever but to get it really really right and to have this really deep broth is um it's not easy i used to make this thing it's like one of the my favorite soups and like soup bases that i ever made something that i called
quail dashi i called it dashi because it was like very lightly infused but used to debone quails and have a lot of quail bones and then super simple right you put them in a pot you cover them just with enough water you add a small slice of ginger some spring onions the green and the white some peppercorns a little bit of garlic and then you just bring that up one time get rid of all the impurities and then just infuse it like a tea for an hour or so an hour two hours
and then you strain it and you season it with a little bit of light soy and it's like the clearest fucking most perfect it's almost like a chicken soup on steroids right because it's just like so intensified it has this really full umami flavor of all the gaminess from the quails which is not too overpowering to be really gaminess you know but um i'm sure you can imagine what i mean dude today i saw this and i thought like we have to go to baga that's really like a so
i saw this dish okay So this is the swimming bladder of the codfish, which is like, it's the organ that makes the fish swim, go up or low. And I know you know exactly what it is, but to describe it, it's like a, I would describe it like, I don't know, like a leather thick kind of thing, very sticky. And you have like this fish slimy thing with a pistachio praline, quail and beef. That's the dish. Oh my God, that sounds
amazing. That sounds so good. This guy, whatever he does, it's always so mind -blowing just to read the concept and see, like, how the fuck did you come up with that, you know? Where is this? This is Paga, Pedrito Sanchez. This is in Jaén. Yeah, we've talked about him before, you know? It's the guy with the lettuce dessert, right? Exactly. The favorite chef of your favorite chef. My favorite chef. No, the favorite chef of your favorite chef. But who's my favorite
chef? I don't know, but Pedrita Sanchez is his favorite chef. Ah, okay, okay. I thought you were going to make a Tim Rauer joke. That's it for this week's episode of Potluck Food Talks. If you like what we're doing, make sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. You can also find us on Instagram and TikTok. As potluck food talks. The show airs every Monday.