What does a tire company know about food?

may have accidentally done it. Uh, yeah, it's possible. Um, there's there's a decent there's enough one star restaurants out there that that is entirely possible. You've been to one one star? Um? Actually, I've been to a three three starred restaurant once. Yes. Well it was for a very

special occasions in my engagement. UM. I contacted our friend Hodgeman, who was kind enough to contact his friend Adam Sacks, who was a restaurant critic, UM, who pulled some strings to get me reservations at Danielle in New York City. And it was a three star restaurant. It was amazing. It was just totally amazing. Yeah, I think, I mean, I went to Atlanta's not on and you'll you know, we'll go over all this in this episode, but Atlanta is not covered under the Michelin Guide, but plains why

back Inalia doesn't have a star. Yeah, back Inalia or Staple House, I could see having a star. I haven't been there. Staple Houses the best meal I've ever had in my life. What kind of food. It's a tasting menu. Um, just like wings, mostly wings, ribs, other things you can taste. This sounds pretty good. Uh, it's very renowned Uh in Atlanta and around the world, Like people fly to Atlanta to go to Stable House. It's that good, and it's it's really something else. It's the best meal I've ever had.

And from the food to the service and the ambiance, it was just It's a five star night, regardless of what Michelin says. That's what my Yelp review is. But doesn't that say everything about Michelin That the highest honor you can get his three stars. It's like everybody else is going with four or five. Michelin's like three tops, you know. Yeah, But as as you'll see, this was their star rating came out long before the Internet existed exactly. Um and so you you might be like, Michelin, I've

never heard of that guy. But there's a tire company called Michelan out there, and we are here to tell you that they are one and the same company. That the tire manufacturer is also the publisher of the world's most renowned restaurant guide of all time. Yeah, and and once we explain it, it's like it's one of those things that at the same time you say, oh, well, now I guess it makes sense, but also still very weird. It is, but it is part of this guid Yeah,

there's tire cartoon, tire man. If you're like, oh, you know, this is pretty haughty stuff. No, one of their symbols is the Michelin man licking his lips and making the okay symbol. So let's all maintain a little bit of perspective here, Okay. Yeah, absolutely so. Um So with the with the the connection to the tired company, I think

it's a pretty satisfying explanation. But all the way back in what was it the nineteenth century, for sure, I believe eight nine, um Andre and Eduard Michelin started making tires and this is you know, they're making bicycle time tis I believe at first, Um, but they ended up making tires for just about everything, including trains. I did not know that there were tires for trains, but rubber tires for trains. UM just had no idea that that

ever existed. Maybe it's one of those things where they tried it and it failed spectacularly, but it's still worth remarking. I don't know if they're still around or not, but these guys started making tires at a really good time because UM, around that time, Uh, in addition to bikes, you also started to need tires for your car, and the Michelin brothers were there for it. Apparently France was like one of the early hot spots of um, the

auto manufacturing world around the turn of the last century. Yeah, they built more cars than anyone else between eighteen ninety and sort of the mid to late nineteen forties, and they sold a ton of tires, and um, the Michelin man himself debuted in eight which is pretty remar parkable, and there was I think, uh, I think it was Dave Ru's right, Yeah, I believe so. Yeah, Dave can point you and if you're in a place where you

can look this up on the internet. Um, just type in bibendum b I b E N d U M, which was the original name of the Michelin Man, which comes from a Latin toast attributed to Horace uh Nun's sbendum. Now is the time to drink and just look up the poster. Type in bibendum poster and you'll see what is exactly a very creepy poster of an early Michelin entire man. It's um it is very creepy and sort of it is it's like, what is wrong with all

the people at the table. There's something terribly wrong with everybody. But apparently be Bendam is still his name in Europe, or Bibbs affectionately. But um so the be bendum debuted a little actually before the time of the guide. The

guide for made its appearance in nineteen hundred. And the reason why the guide ever existed as far as the Michelin Company's concerns, because they're the Michelin brothers were looking for a way to um sell more tires by getting people to drive more, and they figured, well, if we make a guide book saying hey, you gotta check out this place in Leone or Burgundy or Champagne Um or sparkling Wine, like all these different places in France. Um. Then they'll actually go out and take road trips to

these places. And that was the origin of the Michelin Guide, was to tell people about all these different spots and to make you know, to let you know about them, and maybe you should go check this out. Yeah. So um it was first given away for free when it debuted. Um, they, like he said, we're just sort of listing restaurants where

you could go. But eventually in ninety six they started recommending restaurants and uh, in nineteen thirty one is where the star system was finally debuted, which is one star a very good restaurant in its category, two stars excellent cooking worth a detour, or three stars exceptional cuisine worth a special journey. And uh, I really think they missed a big opportunity by not rating these one to four tires. Uh.

Instead they did one to three stars. But as Day points out, if you'll notice, what they're saying is, hey, this restaurant, you should really drive to your Michelin tires a lot, right, Yeah, maybe lay some rubber and do some donuts on the way totally. So that language is

still in use today. Like those are the current explanation for stars as well, even though the point isn't to get you to use up your tires, Uma, but they do still signify the same thing, where like a three star restaurant to the to the Michelin the editors of the Michelin Guide is it's with a trip in and of itself, like it's worth getting in a plane and flying to a different country to eat this meal at this restaurant and then getting on a plane and flying back.

That's basically what a three star Michelin rating means. That's right. Um. The first one outside of France was in Belgium in nineteen o four. Uh, and then it kind of spread through Europe with other guides North Africa. Um. They did publish an English language version in nineteen o nine, but

it was just for France. Still. Um, America didn't get its first guide and this is very surprising to me until two thousand five when they started their guide to New York City, because you know, they were like the only good food in Americas in New York. Yeah, yeah, and not only that, only good French restaurants are in are what is in New York, in New York and in America. You know, they took a lot of flak

for that first one. UM. In its defense, they didn't they hadn't put together a team of American inspect or. They had they had used some of their existing European inspectors to go over and they have no idea what they're doing aside from French cuisine apparently, so they did just basically put an American guide book out to the best fresh French restaurants in New York. That was the first American guide. But they have since as we'll see, like really kind of um kept pace a lot more

since then. Yeah, they've tried to. Uh. The modern guide has more than forty restaurants in thirty four countries here in the States. You have New York. Uh, they cover the state of California, and then the cities of Chicago and Washington, d C. And that's all as far as the US goes so far. Uh. And they sell these things now they sold um they've sold thirty million of them over the last hundred years. Uh. And then next

year they are going to hit in Moscow. Um. They have them for Tokyo, Hong Kong, uh, sort of other places all over the world. Now, like you said, because they're trying to I think shed and we'll talk more about this, but shed a little bit more of that stag snooty only French kind of thing, right, which is why they're releasing a guide book on Topeka next year as well. So, um, if you uh, if you open up one of these Michelin guides or go online, that's

all online as well too. Um. When you when you hear about three stars, like that must be you know, a tremendous amount of detail explaining why and all that. That is not how a Michelin guides work. There's a tremendous amount of work and effort and thought that's put into um, the kind of rating or symbol that a restaurant gets in the Michelin guide. But the guide itself is basically like just trust us. Here's one star or

two stars or three stars or no stars. Here's a little right up about the restaurant, what you can expect, um, the chef and what the chef's known for. And in a couple of paragraphs they they make or break a restaurant around the world old. Yeah, and they have UM very I mean, if you don't know anything about it and you just pop it open, like you said that, you could get confused by all the weird symbols that it uses to convey their qualities. UM. We'll get into

some of those in a minute. But UM, the star is, you know, obviously the highest honor you can get. UM. The criteria, there are five criteria to judge um these restaurants for stars. It's not it's only about the food. It's not the decord, it's not the service or the ambiance or where it is. It's literally just the food

on the plate. Uh. And these five criteria, which are quality of the ingredients, mastery of flavor and the cooking techniques, UH, personality of the chef, UM, the harmony of flavors, and then the consistency between the visits. UM. I also saw value for money? Is that not one? I didn't see that anywhere except in this thing that we were given. Did you see that elsewhere? Now? I saw that that would make much more sense for the bib rmand, which we'll talk about. Yeah. I mean this was taken Uh.

I got mine from an interview within actual New Yorker. Okay, yeah, I missed that part. So um, when you put all those criteria together, and again, like you said, it's just

they're just talking about the food. But they're talking about the food too, the point where a three star rating means that that restaurant puts out consistently, over time, technically scientifically perfect food no matter what you order, and no matter what time of day, no matter what day of the year, no matter who you are, you're going to go in and get a perfect meal every time. That's

what a three star rating is. And there's a lot of criticism of those criteria, as we'll see, but it really is a remarkable, a remarkable thing that they're they're basically saying, like, this is a perfect meal no matter what you order. That's that's kind of hard to find in other industries. You're not just like well like, um, you know this is a this is a perfect shoe that I'm wearing. You know, if it fits this This

is weird. You know, five boxes of criteria that are being checked off no matter what what shoe model, shoe, the shoe is going to be perfect, no matter what that's You don't find that everywhere else. You know that I really love that symbol or that analogy. Thank you. Uh So, there are only a hundred three stars worldwide. There are four hundred and fifty nine two stars and two thousand, four d and eighty six one star restaurants. A man, very famous man um chef name Elaine Dukasa.

How do you pronounce that? I think it's Ellen. I think there's so much French in here that I'm gonna murder. But um, he has the He has thirty six restaurants in between them, twenty Michelin stars, including three three star restaurants, which is quite an accomplishment. Um And I think we should take a break maybe, and then we'll talk about some of those more weird symbols in the guide. Does

that sound good? Lallah learn it's too with Joshua John. So, the Michelin Guide is most well known for the stars that it gives, right, um and, we should say, even being mentioned in the Michelin Guide, it's not like a comprehensive listing of restaurants in It's like, these are the most noteworthy restaurants in New York and then the starred

ones are the best of the most noteworthy. Um So, just being in there is is an honor um, but they I guess it's kind of like recognition that there are some restaurants out there there are still really good and that you should still go check out. They just don't necessarily check the boxes of the five criteria of the perfect meal every single time, but it's still definitely worth checking out. They came up with other criteria and

they found um. The first one, I believe, which it came out in nineteen, was the Bib Gourmond that we we mentioned a minute ago. Um and Bib being again Bi Bendam or the Michelin Man. Yeah, this is like his faves totally, as evidenced by him licking his lips. Give me the okay symbol? Yeah, so um, you're right. It started in the fifties as uh. The original symbol is a little red are which stood for our E

p a s French for meal. I'm not going to pronounce it, but it's basically Gorman means good little restaurant, and it actually comes out it's it's in, it's the regular guy, but it also comes out as its own separate guide, Um, the Bib Gourman Guide after the Michelin Guide, is published, and these are good quality, good value cooking. And the idea is that you can go to a bib Gourman restaurant and you can get what they say

is a three course meal. I also saw one of the inspectors say like a main course, a dessert, and a glass of wine, but like kind of like three things for about forty dollars per person, which they consider a good value. And that is if you're talking like really really good stuff. Um and three thousand three six restaurants right now are listed as bib Gourmand's. Yeah, so it's a kind of like anybody can pick that up and be like, let's see where we're gonna go to

dinner tonight. Basically, you know, um, forty dollars. You could you can drop forty dollars a person at like um out back pretty easily. So that that is pretty that is pretty remarkable that they I guarantee it's eleven or twelve bucks. You think, sure, let's look right now you talk. I'm gonna look up how much a bloomen onion is. I gotta say, I haven't been to an outback steakhouse since, uh, I don't know, probably two decades but um, that bloomin

onion is bloom and delicious. Uh yeah, yeah, for sure and delicious. You made a joke while we were on UM on the road the other day about how we should go to out Back and I was like, yeah, blue an onion would be pretty good. But it turns out it was just a joke and we didn't end up there. Mm hmm. How's that for an anecdote? It's good until the part where you didn't go and get one of those bluemen onions on your road trip, right, so you can get yourself bluemn onion for eight dollars

and nine cents I stay corrected, all right? That sounds about right with tax though you're approaching ten. Yeah, and if you want a regular size cheese fries it's eleven bucks. So but you gotta get some extra sauce with that bluemen onion, so that probably pushes it over ten unless that's a freebe I don't know how they were gallon size? Uh were you? Were you thinking the bluemen onion was going to make an appearance in this episode on Michelin

Stars and did not? Um? I give that four tires though? All right? So another symbol they have is the plate to Michelin. How are you gonna pronounce that in French? Uh? Las yet? Yeah? Las yet? That sounds about right. Uh. This is a symbol of a dinner plate flanked by a knife and a fork. This debuted in and this is just good cooking. Uh it is not. It means it doesn't have a star. It's not a bib gourmon.

But they call it quote simply good food. I'm not entirely sure what the distinction is between the plate in the bib gourmand rating it. I think it's money. Okay, so this could still be expensive or is it cheaper than the bib gourmand. No, no, I think the bib gorman is specifically cheap, and the plate to Michelin can be pricey but just not good enough for a star, just not good enough. It's like a substar rating. I guess substar, but more expensive than forty bucks a person. Okay,

otherwise it would be a big gormant. They also one other way to kind of understand the bib gourmand is um. We'll talk about the inspectors a little bit um in a in a minute, but um, apparently the ratings are they used a hive mind kind of thing where they'll have different inspectors go to see what they think about an inspector's rating of a restaurant, and then they kind of pull them all together and the average is what

the what the restaurant gets. Um, that was one explanation I saw, and by proxy, the bib Gourmand is say, like one inspectors like, if you happen to be talking to a Michelin inspectrum and said, what's your what's your real favorite restaurant in this town, they'd probably give you a big Gourmand recommendation. Not necessarily everyone in the Michelin organization would would agree that it deserves a star three stars, But this one inspectors like, this is really honestly the

best restaurant in town. Right, And then they would take you into an alley and strangle you to death because you're not supposed to know who I am write exactly. You am so sorry, but you know too much like the talent to Mr Ripley at the end, Oh spoiler? Uh was it? No? It doesn't matter? Okay? Uh. You have the Green Star, which debut just last year that has restaurants and chefs who are practicing sustainable gastronomy UM, sourcing locally, reducing waste, renewable energy in the restaurants. Uh.

Then you have the covert or covers uh. And that is based I think. I mean, the food's got to be good too, but it's really has to do with ambiance. You can get one to five covers um, which means like if you really want to go to a like a special, like a romantic dinner or something, you might want to look under the cover section. Yeah. And and to make it even more arcane and obscure that you can have five covers, but if it's in black ink, it's not as good as a few covers in red ink. Yeah,

a little confusing. So if you have if there's a place that has five covers in red ink, it's their most charming, splendid um atmosphere of any restaurant they've ever encountered. Um. But yet it does surely it has to do. It takes the food into account to they're not going to send you like a slop bucket that's really charming, but they the whereas the stars are just the food. This kind of takes into account the ambiance more. Yeah, and

then they started. You can see symbols for different specialties in different regions, Like in Spain they'll have a little toothpick and wine symbol for tapas like the best tapas places, and the UK and Ireland they'll have beer mugs for the best pubs. If you see little grape symbols, that means someone might have a really good wine list, or a cocktail glass obviously for good cocktails, or a sake bottle,

stuff like that. So if you see all these little symbols, obviously, I'm sure there's a uh, what do you call it? A legend? Yeah, legend It explains all this stuff. But we're here to do that for you. Yeah, from what I can tell, you have to be basically a trained Michelin inspector to decipher some of this stuff once it

gets real deep. You know. Well, we've been seeing this word inspector without explaining that, and people are probably going, why do they keep talking about detectives, But we're not talking about detectives. We're talking about inspectors, which is their word for reviews. Yeah. Actually I don't even think they call them that. They call them um anonymous restaurant. Oh no, they do call them inspectors. I'm sorry I misread um

so well. And that makes a lot of sense too, because there is this definite haughtiness to this whole thing. But at the same time, from what Michelin has finally started to choose to reveal about its inspectors, UM, they do seem to actually be worthy of such a kind of haughty title. UM. They are typically trained in and having like real life experience in the hospitality industry, the

restaurant industry, UM, hotel industry, UM. And they will train uh and actually go through this kind of um vetting process for about a year basically that also includes an apprenticeship because this is not the kind of thing where you can be like, oh, these are the five criteria. I totally understand this. It's a lot more nerve racking than that. And also, if you ask me, the best way to lose love of food would be to become a Michelin restaurant inspector because it sounds like a lot

of not fun work. Yes, I would much rather just go, uh, you know, enjoy a meal at a restaurant than have to review it any day of the week. Yeah, there's a cool article I read from Forbes from twenty nineteen by Carla Allen Do called the Secret Life of an Anonymous Michelin Restaurant Inspector, where they talked to this woman who was an inspector and they remain anonymous even when they're interviewed, which um, as we'll talk about in a bit, is happening a little bit more over the past, like

ten to twenty years. But um, you know, she talks about the rigors of the process, and you know how you know, some of them are trained Somalia. Some of them were chefs, but they were They're all all in the restaurant industry at some point. Uh. And they get there obviously their travel and hotel and their food all covered. I was trying to find the pay. I saw some guesses that it was maybe close to a hundred thousand dollars a year. Uh to eat about three hundred meals

a year in these restaurants. UH. To not be allowed to eat with your at least if you're reviewing the restaurant, um too with a spouse or any other friend, like you're supposed to be in there alone. Um, you gotta take these pictures, which um, you know people do that a lot now any day, so that's not gonna make

you stand out. But uh, the thing that I saw was that the hardest part, at least from the point of view of this one inspector, was maintaining your anonymity, because I think they said you're allowed to tell your closest family members, but really no one else. And in this day of social media, it's I don't know how much of a social media presence you can even have. It would be a giveaway if you were, like, you know,

in in New York. Again, these ten meals out this week, right, Uh, you know, I'm in Paris, now, I'm in Los Angeles, now, I'm in Chicago, I'm in Tokyo. Like people would kind of catch on. I think, yeah, you just yeah, I think you're supposed to just be a lot more kind of playing Jane or playing James. I guess I've never heard of put that way, but I think I just came upon something to where you're just kind of unremarkable

and not really noticeable. Um, but at the same time, you're not sticking out because you're so unnoticeable, and you just kind of have to live a life of anonimity, anonymity, not just at work, but in general, like you're saying, like it's a good grind, it sounds like a big grind, like ten meals a day or ten meals a week, UM very frequently you know, launch and dinner and we're talking like, like you said, tasting menus or you know,

prefixed menus where they're eating like multiple course meals. UM. I saw that that new worker interview with UM maxim or m is what they nicknamed her UM the Michelin Inspector, And I guess they order as many courses as the restaurant offers, so if they have you know, soup, salad, appetizer, main, pasta, dessert, like you would be expected to order a dish off of each of those courses for lunch and then go do the same thing for dinner five days a week,

three weeks out of the month, all year long. It does sound like a grind for sure. Yeah, for by yourself, eating by yourself, it's it can be kind of liberating in fun, but after a while that is one of the loneliest things you can possibly do. And the other thing too is if it's if it's frowned upon for you to bring a friend or a family member. Um, I guarantee it's frowned upon for you to just be

sitting at your phone. So you're just sitting there like a total weirdo by yourself at dinner, paying a tench to the salt shaker. Basically is what you're what you're doing, m Yeah, enjoying your world class meal. It does not sound fun to me at all. I just rather it's just one of those things I'd just rather be at everyday person and just enjoyed on that level. Like I feel bad for people who are so into making movies

that they can't enjoy a movie anymore. It's the same exact thing You're like, I just want to be a regular guy at a three star restaurants sitting there looking at my phone. Right. I want to be able to be on Twitter the whole time. All Right, I think we should take another break and then we'll talk about this. All sounds rosy, but we'll talk about some of the criticisms right after this with Joshua. All Right, So we've talked about the um kind of sun the prey, Well

did we sing praises? Well though they are definitely well trained and all that. But but the thing is with their inspectors, Michelin has always been the term is they're famously anonymous, like they really, like you were saying, go to great links to hide their their people, um and their their identities. And a lot of people are like, well, who are these people? Are they actually qualified? And that's

kind of caused a lot of controversy in itself. Yeah, and I kind of more meant singing the praises of the guide itself. But um, it's all become sort of controversial over the years, and there's been a lot of criticism levied. Um, like you mentioned first of all of the inspectors. Uh, there have been some things that have come out over the years. Uh. There was a book written by an inspect yere Um after they left the job, called The Inspector Sits Down at the Table by Pascal Remy,

where Pascal said, they're not nearly enough of us. They're a way fewer. Um, we're not going to these restaurants as much as we should. There have been restaurants that said, hey, I was knocked down a star, and I know for a fact that no one even came into the restaurant this past year. Uh, no inspector came into our restaurant, So how do we get not back a star? Uh?

And there's kind of a general I think within the industry, there's a general feeling of this thing has too much importance over and too much hold over us as chefs and as restaurateurs, and we're kind of beholden to this book to the point where people, Uh, I mean, there was there was one chef who took his own life, Bernard French chef Bernard Lusseau, who lost a star. He had famously said, if I ever lose my stars, will kill myself and uh, in two thousand three that happened

and he he shot himself in the head with a shotgun. Uh. He very much was suffering from depression. So we're not saying, you know, this is all at the hands of the Michelin Guide, but it just sort of hammers home the

stress of trying to achieve and then maintain these stars. Yeah, it's it goes both ways, right, Like, if you don't have the stars yet and you're just starting out, you want to get them or else people are gonna be like, well, I thought you were like an up and coming superstar where your Michelin stars, but then once you get them, it's like it's just this albatross around your neck trying to keep them. Um. And the guy who's restaurant you me and I went to for our engagement, Danielle um Boullard.

I believe um he actually took uh or sorry ballued Um. He took a kind of a cool attitude to the whole thing. He had three stars and he got knocked down to two after I had been there. Um. But he he was basically like, look, you know, I mean, we make a lot of changes to our menu, and sometimes it's stuff that we want to lock in and put on the menu. Anytimes it's us just messing around,

but our customers seem to really like it. Um. And so if if that means that we're not putting out perfect food every single time, but we're being more creative and spontaneous, I'm okay with that. That was a very very rare attitude from what I saw. More likely, if you lose a star, you openly weep, like Gordon Ramsey did when one of his restaurants, The London in New York City. Um lost two stars. It had two stars and it lost them both from one guy to the

next and he wept. Apparently he won't talk about it if you ask him about it. Um. That is much more the reaction to Michelin Stars than than Danielle's response, which is kind of like, you know, I'll take it or leave it. It just kind of ruined your life one way or the other. And I think a lot of people in the restaurant industry really resent that this anonymous group of people whose qualifications they're not even sure of, hold that kind of sway over their lives, over their

entire careers. You know. Yeah, Actually, now that I think of it, Emily and I stayed at the London one time, and I think we ate breakfast there. There you go two stars. Yeah, I'm not sure when it was as far as his stars coming and going, but uh yeah, so we ate there. Another sort of rarity was when French chef Sebastian bra said, Hey, Michelin, guide, can you remove my stars and and take them out of there?

And and there's a couple of interesting quotes. He said, after twenty years under the banner of three stars, I wanted to find serenity, freedom and independence, but three Stars represented a form of permanent and growing tension for me and today I only want to be accountable to my customers, so too much stress. And he was like, I want to I want to experiment, and I want to try different things, and I don't want to necessarily live my or spend the rest of my career just trying to

maintain these stars. And by all accounts, it was a pretty liberating experience for him. Yeah yeah, yeah, so um that again, that also is very rare. For the most part, it's like your your career is about trying to get and then trying to keep those stars. Um, and just the kind of the frustration that goes along with it has has made a lot of people level accusations toward the Michelin Guide, um, including that you know, they hand

out like that. One guy's expose said that they hand out stars or maintain stars amongst some of their friends, like very friendous French chefs. That is absolutely not fair.

But and there are definitely plenty of people out there, um who just go to these restaurants so that they can brag about having gone to this restaurant, and that probably makes up a substantial part of the chef's clientell or the restaurant's clientele, and I would guess if you're a chef in this area, you probably hate people like that, even though you know they're coming to your restaurant. They're just being d bags. That's why they're there, is just show off what a d bag they are. Can we

say that? Yeah? And I bet you half of those people say like, oh my god, what one of the best meals in half of them say I don't know why this thing is three stars right? Exactly exactly. Yeah. So there is that too it where people are like, there's too much sway, are these people even like being fair about this? And then the star system attracts people who are just just there to say that they ate at a restaurant and aren't actually enjoying the food. All

that exists. But it really seems over the last century that the Michelin Guide has like it is legit Like if you go to a three starred restaurant, you're probably going to have the best meal that you've ever had in your entire life. Like that's probably true, and that in and of itself legitimizes it, or at least, you know, lends credence to the idea that generally it's a legitimate if not crushing um rating system. Yeah. Um, there's been

some other controversies over the years. In twenty nineteen, that was a lawsuit filed by French chef Mark Verrat, who said, my restaurant and Maison de how do you pronounce that last part? Not boise Idaho, but I think boise boise, Maison de boise. Yes, all right, let's go with that. Uh. He was downgraded from three to two stars. He said, quote, it's worse than the loss of my parents, which I'm

sure his parents were like Marcy for that. Uh. And apparently the word on the street was the inspector accused the kitchen of using just a very common English cheddar cheese in a souffle dish that he says he was sacar blue. He was really mad. He said, I demand to see that report. Michelin says, I don't know who you think you are, but you better watch it. You can lose all your stars, buddy, but you you can't

see our reports. He filed the lawsuit. It became known as cheddar Gate, and then the case is thrown out when they couldn't produce evidence that actually hurt his business. It actually helped his business. Because all the publicity, so that report thing actually struck me as surprising. I saw

that they will share their reports. I mean, you know, really yeah, they won't They obviously it won't say what inspector came from or anything like that, but they that restaurants who want to improve or get a starback or whatever and want to know what happened, they will share the reports. So I didn't understand that maybe what I read was was wrong. But the Michelin Guide has responded to this kind of like criticism and bad publicity. Um

you know, the suicide of um what was his last name? Yeah, uh in two thousand three was really a dark cloud that hung over the Michelin Guide. Um you know, the criticism for basically raiding the best French restaurants in New York and their first American guide, all this stuff really amounted some bad press for the Michelin Guide and it kind of evolved in the twenty one century to become a lot more um worldly, a lot less franco centric,

a lot less stuffy, and to expand. And today actually the country for the city with the largest number of Stars among its restaurants is in Paris. It's tokyo. How about that right to say tokyo. I've been saying it wrong. Um, he says tokyo. Yeah, I've been saying it wrong for almost fifty years. Yeah, I'm catching up to you. Forty four for me because that was my first word. Actually, yeah, I've been saying tokyo since I was in the womb. So yeah, it's it's opened up to Asia. Um, it's

expanded in the US market. Like we mentioned before, they they awarded their first ever start to a hawker stall, which is uh Singapore street food, which is really cool. Um. It was Hong Kong soya sauce, chicken, rice and noodle, which Man, that thing got a star and I just want to go there right now and eat it. The other thing I want to eat is in edition um to Taipei, they had a take out only street stall that has one thing on the menu, which is a

steam pork bun with ground peanuts and cilantro. They've been serving this for sixty years and they gave that a bib gourman um whatever metal or the licking lips and okay, licking lips. Guy, I want to eat that pork bun more than anything. I can think of. The thing is chuck. Is the thing that I hate almost as much as waiting at a red light when there's no cars coming from the other direction, is standing in line for food.

I hate that. I feel like such a chump, such a sucker, and after X number of minutes, it is not worth it. It doesn't matter how good the food is, it's not worth it. Because I also usually don't like the people I'm standing in line with, you know, like a certain kind of like food fan or kinds that will stand in line for an hour and a half. They're They're also probably the ones that brag about the number of stars or whatever. Um. So there's a lot I don't like about that. And it turns out Michelin

has has heard my concerns. And Jiro Sushi um, the the the sushi place that that they did the documentary about. After that documentary, you could not still to this day, I think that documentary is from like two thousand nine or ten. To this day, you cannot get into Juro's. It's a ten seat sushi bar that's probably the best sushi in the world, um, and you just can't get in. It's sorry, t s. You have to basically be ahead

of state or a celebrity these days. And it was a ten seat, three star, three Michelin star sushi restaurant in a train station in Tokyo um and Michelin took its stars back because they say, the guide is meant for, you know, any person to be able to go to these restaurants, the restaurants they recommend anybody should be able to get into. Like, yes, some people are going to spend a much more substantial portion of their annual salary than other people, but you should be able to get

into this place one way or another. And with Jero's you just can't do that anymore. So they actually took their stars back. They said, Jero, we wish you the best of luck, not that you need it, but you don't need these stars and you can't really have them because you can't the average person can't get a seat in your place anymore. Yeah, you know what this episode

has really made me want to do eat eating a restaurant. Yes, dude, yes, this is very cruel to to put this one out right now in retrospect, because all I want to do is eat in a restaurant. Man, so bad. Just a good multi course meal, starting out with like Martinier drink, Yes, a bluemen onion in there somewhere, maybe a side of ranch. I mean, like, yes, I cannot wait. It will happen

again one day, man, I know for sure. Okay okay, uh, Well, since Chuck said for sure, that means, of course, everybody, it's time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this. And we've gotten a few of these lately, but this one I tagged about a month ago from people who have who finished their stuff. You should know Journey and listen

to all the episodes. Hey, everybody, I've done it. It took me two years of listening anytime I was driving, and I have to drive a lot for work, but I finally gotten through the entire back catalog, going all the way back to how Grassoline works. Those first episodes were so not very good. I don't know what I'll do in between new episodes now, but I wanted to say thanks for the many, many hours of learning and laughing and what has to be hundreds of Simpson's references.

At least my favorite episode was either nuclear Semiotics or the uh the at Loft Pass mystery. But but I need to thank Josh for introducing me to Teddy the Beaver. Oh yeah, Teddy the baby beaver. He's the one that built like the damn at that in the doorway of the bedroom. Right. Oh was that? I think? So? He was so cute, so cute. The greatest moment in the show, however, was during what I recall uh to be the Beagle Brigade episode, when Josh predicted COVID nineteen by talking about

someone's getting a disease by eating a bat. Yeah. A lot of people say I predicted that. I called out a magazine article that I read that predicted it. I don't know if I particularly predicted it, but thank you for that. And I don't even know if that's the origin of COVID. Now, isn't that sort of a dispute? I don't know. The last thing I heard was that it was either a pangolin or a bat. I've heard

bat more than anything. You know what I'm saying, Well, you're going to the wrong websites, buddy, so you need to find the truth. That's right. Oh God, cartoon sweat, He says. Also, sorry, Chuck, but shark Nato can suck it. I wish you know, for sure, but my mind was blown away when Josh said it. Thanks again for all the hard work and I look forward to twelve more years worth of episodes. And that is from Kyle in Phoenix, Arizona,

who I guess went to our live show there. He's a great live show on Kellogg by the way, arm of that Phoenix show. That was a good one. That was a good show. I think that's the one where we got Lasso's. Oh it absolutely was. I still got that thing, Kathy with a K. That's right, I love that lasso. H. Well, if you want to get in touch with us, you can send us a email to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should

Know is a production of I Heeart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H