two Hello food fam . This is the Walk Talk podcast where you will find the perfect blend of food fun and cooking knowledge . I'm your host , carl Fiedini . Welcome to the number one food podcast in the country . We're recording on site at Ibis Images Studios , where food photography comes alive and I get to eat it .
Here's a humble request to give us a follow on Instagram at walkintalkshow , please , and thank you . We've had a lot going on . This past week there was an event down in Miami . Thank you to hosts , chefs Janine Booth and Jeff McInnis for having us at your home to capture such an amazing gathering .
Also , a big thanks to Aussie Beef and Lamb , the Summit F&B Marketing Collaborative and Aussie Select for making that happen . The photos and video footage of the night are super . I was there . I saw them . Stay tuned for that . We also attended the Pizza Tomorrow Summit in Orlando .
We met some terrific people and the video footage is also coming and I see big things happening with that whole group . Stay tuned . We were very privileged to take part in a charity drive event at JetBlue Lodge honoring a wonderful little girl that is now in remission . I won't get too deep into that , but hey , man , we're all blessed .
Okay , there was a hiccup this week , jefferson , my bad , don't judge me . Man , all right , don't judge me . This week's guest is a very old friend , mike Malloy .
He's the complex executive sous chef at lowe's hotel , universal orlando , and this cat cooks I know because , well , I know , chef mike was with me when the first leg of the walk and talk journey began , and it's time to catch up . Oh yeah , all right , so I didn't .
What I didn't realize today when the show started is that I needed to have watermelon and aioli sauce together . In my life there was some amazing food prepared today by the one and only chef , mike Malloy , my brother .
How are you Good , baby ? How are you doing Another day in paradise , man ?
Yeah , so you you know you're like yeah , there's going to be this liquid nitrogen , there's going to be a watermelon . And I'm like I don't know , man , Is this going to be any good ? I told you I don't know how you look . I going to be any good ? I you know . I told you honestly how you look .
I don't know , as it turns out , because I know you always come through in the clutch like that ah , delicious , and it looked really pretty man it was .
It's good looking dish . Good look at this vegan tuna talk to get into it you gotta get you , gotta tell it exactly how it is . So . Vegan tuna , you know it came about . You know , when you have liquid nitrogen in the kitchen , you got guys that you just start putting stuff in there to see what happens .
And someone in the kitchen had a watermelon that was compressed for a salad . We said , well , how cool would that be if we took that and put it in liquid nitrogen . Let's see what it'll do . So we put it in a liquid nitrogen , we take it out , we cut it and we're like , oh my God , it looks like tuna . This is the start of something .
And that's kind of how the dish evolved . But it doesn't it ? It also has the tuna flavor . I mean it . Well , I mean not the tuna tuna flavor , but you know when you're having it somewhere out and you know you got the aioli and yeah , yeah , you got a seared piece of tuna .
So the watermelon it's crusted in sesame seeds , it's done with a little bit of cayenne , a little bit of paprika and a little bit of dark chili powder . That's your mix . We roll , we roll the watermelon in there , so it's a log , so it looks like a piece of tuna , and then we sear it in a liquid nitrogen , which is also very cool .
Oh yeah , it makes for a good show . Yeah , so I was taking some camera footage today and you see all the smoke billowing out of the containers where the nitrogen is .
Yeah , yeah .
But as it turns out , man , what a great combo .
Yeah , you know the sweet and the and the a little bit of heat and so you get the after you got everything seared up . You know we put a little bit of napa cabbage slaw , so I take that that's pickled in rice wine , vinegar and tamari soy sauce and let that sit overnight . Cilantro , mint , a couple little peppers and onions carrots , that's your slaw .
But then the fun part is the sriracha aioli . So we take vegan-aids and we make a sriracha aioli out of it . Wait what Vegan-aids Talk about that . It's vegan mayo . What is vegan mayo ? Vegan ?
mayo , I don't know what . What is it For everybody out there talk about ?
it . It's vegan mayo , mayo , I don't know how else to tell you . Okay , it's done with a little bit of oil , what's done ? What's the difference between that and regular mayo ? A regular mayo has eggs . Okay , so , no way . So there's no egg , all right , it's a vegan mayo .
You know , not everybody's a kitchen professional oh , this is true , thank god stay as far away as you can seriously turn around and run so yeah , so the dish is .
It's it checks all those boxes gluten-free , nut-free , dairy-free and it's vegan . So this day and age , with all the you know the allergies out there , everybody's got something .
This dish everybody can enjoy where do you find that day is that ?
that's on a menu right now no , no , it's been on some menus that I've had in the past , but currently is not on a menu , will it be ?
maybe I mean it's florida . Obviously I don't . I wouldn't . That's not something I'd push in the winter , yeah , but like every other season , that dish works oh yeah , I .
I usually whip it out for some banquet events , you know , because people are always looking for something unique and different and something fun to play with . So okay that one will come out every once in a while I can dig that , that Speaking of banquets .
So you're at Universal , yeah , yeah , how's that ?
Oh , it's good times , man . So I help oversee two hotels . So there's Royal Pacific and Sapphire Falls . It's 1,000 rooms in each hotel and there's a total of 285,000 square feet of meeting space . So the hotels are connected with the meeting space . So 285,000 square feet of meeting space , so the hotels are connected with the meeting space .
So I oversee my main focus . So there's the complex executive chef , there's me , and then there's another me . The other me oversees the restaurants . That's her main focus . My main focus is overseeing all the banquets . But in the operation I've got 60 cooks at Royal Pacific , 70 cooks at Sapphire Falls , 30 stewards at each hotel and 15 chefs .
That's a lot of people , it's a ton of people .
Yes , and have they all seen the haircut ?
Have they seen the hairdo ? They've seen the hair . All right , the hair came out ?
Has there been ribbing ? Just a little , A little bit right .
Although I get a lot of good comments on it , no more than you would think it's fitting , it works . It works for you I thought I was going to go in and people are going to go crazy and they're like no , no , no , this is not going to work , all right , all right .
So so , chef mike , he's a good daddy . He's a good father , you know , I guess . So for halloween he dressed up as ken and barbie with his daughter , little girl . Yeah , and I envy you for that . I couldn't do it . I would have to tell my daughter yeah , no , I couldn't do it . So hats off to you for that .
I try , or hats on , you might want to put the hat on .
No , I'm kidding , I'm just totally kidding , Wow .
So yeah , Universal man that's pretty cool I was in universal . You know , I reached out to you a few months back . Yeah , yeah , of course we missed each other . You were off .
Yeah , I happened to go there with some family really cool property , oh yeah , and I have to tell you , the drink , the , the , the cocktail menu , what they're doing over there is pretty high end oh yeah yeah , you come in in strong water Tavern , so that's at Sapphire Falls .
I mean , there's 110 unique rums on the menu there . We've got a rum captain and a rum steward , and they know more about rum than I even care to know . It's insane .
You're allowed to go there and have cocktails and stuff yourself right , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . Okay , but are you indulging in the rum ?
You know we do rum tastings all the time . So when we get new items in or something unique has come out , we'll get together as a management team and we'll have those tastings .
So what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to set up the atmosphere . Chef Mike and I have known each other for coming up on 10 , eight years , nine years . I don't know , it's been a while , been a long time , did a lot of work together and when this whole walk and talk thing started it was a hunch . I was like man , this might be pretty cool .
You know , I'm going to call Let me bounce this off somebody . So I called Mike and I'm like dude , what do you think he's like ? What's it called ? Like walk-in talk , like your walk-in cooler . He goes ah , bro , that's , that's really cool . Yeah , let's go . So we're right in the middle of COVID .
You know , that's that's what was going on at the time and people were still in . You know , the whole country was still locked down and Florida was kind of like iffy but you know , still people were doing things a little bit and , you know , grabbed a GoPro .
Yeah .
And we went down to Tampa , we went to the wharfside yeah and man , what did we do ? We had a blast .
It was such a good time . Do you remember the drive there ?
Yeah .
We'd have the GoPro going and we're like , hey , we should take some footage and we're going to talk in the car . And it was amazing .
Two absolute dumbasses with this . Like the both of us , because we didn't know , All we did was consume like YouTube . Yeah Right , Like we both . You know . But yeah , we did it and I , he was very natural . I felt completely ridiculous .
Yeah .
But it worked , it did and it was and it went . Really we did , I don't know , a hundred and something episodes .
We did a lot of episodes . It was every week , yeah , every week . I mean , it's the first time in my life I didn't have to go to work .
Yeah , well , I know , and that was the , that was the . Yeah , yeah , yeah , that's the part that hurt .
I know it hurts , it hurts , it kills me all the time . I'm sure I love what you're doing and how this has evolved and what it's come to it's .
It's pretty unique and for the record , cause we've both been insanely busy , but we do communicate fairly regularly . I would say every you know a couple of times a quarter or something like that , yeah . Say every you know a couple of times a quarter or something like that , yeah . And it's always like oh man , you know you should invite me on the podcast .
And I'm like , yeah , I already have . You know , you should just figure out a date and then here , we are today .
Twist the arm . I need Monday . You guys made it work . You made a Monday work for me . I know .
I , I , I . I ruined everything else this week with doing this . Yeah , we were on the road for the last 10 days . Yeah , you know , just there was three or four large events that we kind of got involved in .
Yeah .
And not , it wasn't a full team based on the calendar , but because of all of the things that were going on , I forgot to tell Jeff that there was the switch . So over the weekend I was like , hey guys , I don't forget it .
You know Monday .
And he's like oh man , I didn't even know . I was like okay , my bad , so look , I'm publicly apologizing . That's a big deal , isn't it ?
Yeah , it's , it's pretty good .
It's , oh god , was it heartfelt though ? Does it matter ? Yeah , I guess not . You know , I mean , I still am the hey , buckle your . You know , pull up your bootstraps and buckle up , yeah yeah , who cares , but I do feel bad genuinely . Yeah , because you know there'll be other times .
Look at the book .
It's an empty seat , it's . I'm gonna take a picture , actually , of the empty seat and we're going to post that . It's going to be , it's going to be fun , yeah , all right . So how do we get ? How do we get into onto property to get some footage ? I want to . I want to cook some people in the kitchen over there . Can we make it happen ?
you know I'm working on it it's it's . It's tough . You know the the way things are set up and uh , how big a conglomerate is . Universal's got a piece of it . Lowest hotels has a piece of it . You know I the way things are set up and uh , how big a conglomerate is , universal's got a piece of it . Lowest hotels has a piece of it .
You know , I wish it could be as simple as saying hey , come on in on tuesday that's typically the .
That's typically what it is . You know that , yeah yeah , hey chef , look , uh , we can come in on a tuesday , is it ? Are we good ? You're like yeah , come on in .
Yeah , no no , I'm working on it .
Believe me , I'm making my All right , I don't want to have to go to the mouse over there . Okay , god the mouse . I'm kidding , actually Be nice Be nice , no , those chefs there's some talented people over there in Disney Massive talent .
Yeah , I'm good friends with the executive chef of Magic Kingdom .
Are you ?
Me and him used to work together over at uh , windham , which one blue corey , york . Okay , yeah , yeah , you want to talk about talented . That guy's talented , that guy has got some culinary chops what's your specialty ? My specialty is his . Well , he ran deep blue , so he he was very much in the molecular gastronomy .
He was into that and and he was just so creative .
You could do that too .
I'd play a little bit dabble here and there . Yeah , you know a couple of foams , why not ? Yeah , I've seen some of that stuff . You've done it .
I feel like you did a foam . You came to the house one time and we did some really good stuff there . Yeah , we did some really good stuff there . Yeah , we did . I thought it was a foam . I don't think there was foams .
No , I think we did some risotto . We did some risotto with some chicken . We did some powders . We did bacon powder . Who doesn't love bacon powder ?
Not baking . Bacon Silence because everybody loves bacon powder . I mean I could just eat it by the spoonful . I'm saying so Again , okay . So , speaking of by the spoonful frozen aioli that you sprinkled , yeah , so basically , I guess when you get aioli and you squirt it into the liquid nitrogen , it balls up and it looks like little pebbles . Yeah , all right .
So what you did is you took that as the crunch and that was what you drizzled over the top of the dish . Yes , you took that as the crunch . Yep , and that was what you drizzled over the top of the dish . Yes , okay , but as it turns out if you get a spoonful of that and you and you put the what's that ? What was the sauce ?
There's a sweet soy , yes , okay . So that's all you really need see , because typically what I would do is I would get a tub of ice cream , sit down and just spoon the ice cream and you know , do that . But you can actually have a good sit down , fun little thing with that it's put that on some sushi . Think about that yeah , well , that too .
But I'm just thinking about how you know , like if it's a nutella and just you just eat nutella and that's that you don't . You don't need bread or anything like that , right yeah , it's good it , my goodness . So when is it ? When are we actually going to do the thing ?
There's a thing that we talked about doing one time , and it had to do with race cars .
Oh , my God Do you remember this . We'd always talk about it because I watch a lot of YouTubers in the race car world .
Yeah , A ton of them . So I have a friend who's down in South Florida that's right , mm-hmm , and I hadn't talked to him in years and he reached out that was maybe a month or so ago , yeah , and he's got some outside connections to where I think we can actually make that happen . So if we ever do it , you're going to be the chef for that .
So basically , we're going to have races and food .
Yeah , we're going to have races and food . Yeah , somehow we were going to tie those together , yeah there's going to be racing and food One way or another , because who doesn't ?
love a fast car and fast food . Yeah , I don't know man , how do we ?
do this ? I have no idea it's your connection . I'm just going to show up .
Well , if you do show up , you're going to show up with food and we're going to . We're going to . We're going to do this now , but here's what I want to do . Hold on a second , all right . So we're going through season changes right now . Yeah , yeah , you're universal . What do you guys do and like , how do you attack a menu ?
You got 60 chefs there and 30 stewards here and you got all these people . You have all these things're . You know multi-million dollar . You know annual business operation . How are you guys coming up with menu items ?
you know , the the season changes is the best time of year for a chef because the , you know , the leaves are changing , the produce is changing , availability of things that you're able to get in the summer , you're not going to be able to get into the fall .
So you know , you're going to get the culinary wheels turning , and I mean , with so many culinarians that we have , we start out first with tasking our team to say , hey , what would you guys like to do ? Because it's for me . It's not about the chef , it's about the team , because I can't cook every dish . We serve thousands of people every day .
If I was cooking every dish , I wouldn't be here . So it's about being able to represent everybody , because we've got so much culture in the kitchen , there's very diverse staff and everybody's got a little bit of something different to bring .
Who's responsible for menu , but actually updating the menus .
The chef's responsible at the end of the day , but it starts with the culinarians in the kitchen to see if we can kick around some ideas . Does anybody have anything ? If not , then it becomes a big thing of research .
Is it a round table sort of a situation ?
No , it's pretty organic in the kitchen , you know . If there's some downtime and one of the team members say you know I'd like to play with something , have at it . Well , we're in the midst of a season changing season now .
Yeah where are you ?
at . We just rolled menus out . We rolled them out last week . What's new ? Uh , there's a . There's a good one . So I keep talking about vegan . But vegan is such a big thing these days . Vegan vegetarian , everybody's all over . Everybody wants plant-based , plant-based , plant-based . But if you look at what's plant-based right now , you know the availability of things .
They're not healthy for you , you know . They're so high in sodium and it's like eating a brick of salt . It's not good for your body , you know , and they're highly processed . So we partnered with a new company that's fresh to the market .
They're not in the retail world and they're only targeting high-end food service . What's the variance there ? What makes them different ?
Seven ingredients . That's the variance there . What makes them different ? Seven ?
ingredients , that's it , and I can name every one of them . Really , what kind of shelf life is ?
that Comes in frozen , so it's a plant-based steak and it's amazing . It is absolutely amazing . I could not believe it when they brought it out . I had one of the reps who came in and he says , oh , I got this plant-based , plant-based steak . I don't know , plant-based steak I wouldn't . I want , uh , you know , like angus .
But so you know , we allow them to come in was it like mushroom or something ? no , it's , it's . It's seven ingredients coconut oil , water , beet juice , iron , vitamin b12 and soy cultured protein and flavoring seasoning . That's's it , seven ingredients . You bite this thing and you feel like you're eating a steak .
It has the mouthfeel , it has the texture , the chewiness , the , the , the fat . It's absolutely amazing and it takes on any flavor you know . So right now we're doing one with a soy vinaigrette , a sizzling soy vinaigrette , and it's going with some jasmine rice , a little bit of baby bok choy . It's phenomenal .
And how do they shape it Like ? What are they putting it in the shape for ?
So it's shaped in a loaf , so it's basically fermented soy protein is what it boils down to .
Yeah , but you're putting it out there like it's in the form of a ribeye or a filet or how it looks like a filet .
Okay , it looks like a filet , you know . So they . They put it in the shape of a tenderloin , and then they slice yeah yeah , and then they cut into , you know , four ounce and six ounce medallions is it hearty it is , it'll fill you up . You eat six ounces of that and I'm telling you you're going to be full and it's something you just have to .
You have to experience it .
Yeah , I would love to . I'd actually like to see what that's . And as far as the health factor goes on that , where does that fall ?
I mean seven ingredients , right , seven ingredients , and it falls in the . It's not loaded with sodium , that's what . And plus there are ingredients you can pronounce . Go ahead and pick up a thing of Beyond Meat . Do you know what it's in there ? I have no idea , it's Beyond . Meat .
It's actually right and it ain't healthy for you , john loves when I have the little quick , little clever things . He's a clever guy , it's a clever guy , wacka , wacka , wacka . So that's actually very interesting . We do discuss plant-based here quite a lot . Sure , jeffrey does a lot of plant-based cooking . Yeah , and he's pretty good at it too .
He did these bone marrow , celery stalk , heart of palm Bad ass . I'll show you the pictures . Yeah , gorgeous , yeah , and you know the way he flavored it up .
Man like you would , it was legit gorgeous , yeah , and you know the way he flavored it up , man like you would it was . It was legit .
You know , we had group came in at a hotel and they wanted a plant-based appetizer because they just had so many people who had this allergy blah , blah , blah and they wanted to be able to do a crab cake and I said , well , okay , it's funny , you mentioned hearts of palm .
Hearts of palm , I will make you a crab cake out of hearts of palm and you will think you're eating crab .
I guess it won't .
Even it's got the good the fibrous sort of fibers to it , but it's got the bite , and then you flavor it Like you would flavor a crab cake , I mean , and it even looks like it . It's crazy .
Yeah , I want to get back to that steak , though , or you know , faux steak name was plug .
It said chunk foods what is it ? Chunk foods , chunk foods , yeah okay so you know it's crazy . An mit graduate is the one who came up with it and came up with it over in norway , so it's research in the market . He was five years into it did you meet this person ?
I did whether I'm guessing they were a foodie also ?
oh , yeah , not just yeah , he's a food scientist man , I mean it's just just because you're a scientist doesn't mean you're a foodie . No , but he saw a niche in the market . He saw what's out there and he's like wow , these things aren't healthy for you . We've got to do something about it .
Yeah , don't even get me started on walking down the grocery aisle and turning the box around to read what's it's eye-opening ? It really is it's eye opening the crazy thing is how it's not .
Other countries won't receive these products that we're receiving yeah yeah , you know we , we get the box or whatever , and it's got 7 000 ingredients , but the one that goes to europe , or can you know , has 10 ingredients .
They don't allow it .
That's what I'm trying to say . Yeah , yeah yeah , it's a funny thing . Hopefully that's going to change up here coming into this 2025 . Yeah yeah , yeah , you know what I'm saying . I hope so , I hope so , wink , wink with a nod .
Yeah , you know what I'm saying I hope so , I hope so , wink wink with a nod . Yeah . You know , no , you know , and it's funny , the plant-based world , it's not going away . Ten years ago , if you would have told me I'm going to be cooking a plant-based steak , I would have told you you're crazy . Who's going to want to eat that ? But it also comes down .
You know the it's . It's about how we did education with the servers . We brought it out to a lot of different people . I mean , it actually goes over very well in my banquet setting . I went out to an event and we did . You know there's always 10 , 20 vegan people . You know it was a group of 600 . And so I did the plant-based steak .
That was going to be the vegetarian option and it was the same plate that everybody else had , except it was a plant-based steak and not the filet . And this woman was so upset with me I had to go out and she says how dare you ? How dare you serve me a piece of beef ? I said , ma'am , this is a plant-based steak . I don't believe you .
And so I gave her the whole list of ingredients and , adamant there's no such a thing , I said okay . I said , give me five minutes . I go back to my office , I get the literature , bring it out to her . I give it to her and I said try , just try it . I promise you you're going to like it . Five minutes later I go back out .
She ate the whole thing and apologized . That's an amazing story .
That's an amazing story . That's a great testimony for Crazy For Chunk , yeah for Chunk . Chunk .
You know they're in Charlie's Steakhouse right now . It's on the menu . Are they really Believe it or not ? I got to call my boy over there . It's insane . And I mean , they're at the Four Seasons , they're down in Fountain Blue down in Miami . They're making some money yeah yeah , and you know I've asked the question .
I said your biggest problem , you know , when it came to me , is that people don't know what it is .
How am I supposed to market it if you guys Well , your situation is a little bit different because you know you're not getting , like you know , weekly repeat business .
Yeah , so you can't even like .
So like sampling doesn't really even help you so much , exactly right , exactly it's .
It's tough , but you know the the demand is there , though the demand is there because people are demanding plant-based healthy options .
Yeah , I might look to , maybe I'm going to reach out to that guy yeah he's a good guy you know . Well , I mean , at the end of the day , who you know , what other you know .
Food media platforms are in kitchens like we are I mean we're literally in kitchens I guarantee you he would be interested in coming on guarantee it .
How much have you embraced and how ? What other ways have you embraced plant-based ?
you know it's actually lion's mane . You know , lion's mane , the mushroom . You know it was something . I was just thumbing through YouTube one day and there was a guy on there and he was making steak out of lion's mane . I was like I've never seen that before . It's a funky looking mushroom . You know , tried it and I was like , hey , this is cool .
You know , I embrace it to the point where it's not going away . I may not particularly enjoy it myself as far as that's what I'm going to sit and eat when I go to a restaurant , but I'll I have to understand that's the job of the chef . Chef doesn't cook for himself , chef's cooking for you and and everyone who's coming to the restaurant .
So have you noticed ? I mean , you're , you're interacting , managing , overseeing all of these chefs from all these different properties ? Have you noticed and these are probably a lot of younger people too , right , yeah , yeah , have you noticed that there is a shift with the up-and-coming , the younger , the younger culinarians to this plant-based option ?
I think it's just . It's so woven in that they don't realize that there was a major shift , if that makes sense . You know when you , if you're just getting into this business now , it's already here . It wasn't a change for them . You know it's a change for people like you and me who've been in this business quite some time and my palate is what it is .
I mean we're , you know . I mean I want I shouldn't say that because I'm always entertaining something new yeah , but mainly that's for the , for the show . If I go somewhere I'm getting the tried and true . You know , I am gonna get the filet or the ribeye or whatever , like oh yeah , you know in terms of proteins . I'm going to do that yeah they would .
I don't know what , what world I would have to be living in for me to go out to dinner and order a plant-based plant-based thing , but if it's what you're saying , I'd be willing to . You know , I'm getting to this age where , like I gotta , you know , be careful , think about it . I gotta be careful , yeah , and I do eat .
Yeah , like I put it away I put it down .
Yeah , john's making john's making faces and he knows . He knows how many plates you eat every week .
Seriously , my wife's like how many pieces of this do you want ? You put three on there , nosh .
Don't judge me .
Everybody's a bunch of judging people .
Well , let's get back to menu changing . Yeah , so you reach out to the team and see what ideas they have kicking around , but then it turns into the chef's job to pull all those things together .
Maybe one of the cooks will come up with a cool vinaigrette , maybe one of the cooks will come up with a cool marinade , something like that , and then the chef's job is to put it all together . But it's about research . Going out to eat is we all copy each other . Every chef copies the other chef and then they twist it and they make it their own .
But everybody's forever copying as far as the base idea . So a good chef will take the base of an idea and make it their own . You know , and that's and that's how great dishes are put together .
You know , when you collaborate with other chefs , I mean , there'll be times I write a menu and I'll kick it off to another chef and say , hey , what do you think ? And no , no , no , we should , we should do this . It's missing a texture . But when you're composing a dish , you have to think of flavor components . Do they mash Textures ?
Visually , what does it look like ? You know , for my daughter's school , I went out and I did a little presentation for six classes in one of their stream labs , and so I asked the kids . I said what's the first part of your body that you eat with when something's put in front of you ? And of course all the little kids say , oh , your mouth .
No , you eat with your eyes first , first thing you eat with .
So if I put down in front of you a steak with brown looking broccoli , lumpy looking mashed potatoes , the steak's all burnt but I put it in front of me and I put it in front of you and say , carl , this is going to be the best thing you've ever eaten , and you're going to look at that and say , no , it's not right .
But if I sit there and I tell you it is going to be the best thing , are you going to eat it , even though ?
it looks awful , I will because I'm a fat ass . Yeah , I will . No , I would give you the point . I would . Yeah , I would give the benefit of the doubt . But obviously if I'm going out and I don't know who's in the kitchen preparing my food and something comes out looking like that , yeah , no , I don't want to do it .
You're going to send it back , of course , you know .
but then if you get a dish , that's beautiful , and what I did for the kids is I put a dish up . It was like looking dish and I asked all the kids would you try this ? You know , and little kids , these days I'm eating anything in a lot of yeah , I'd try it . It's like , do you know what ? It is no , okay , but why would you try it ?
Because it looks beautiful , you know . So you start there . So it's , it's all those components that you look at . And then you got to look at seasonability . You know what's out in the season . I I'm so big about what's seeing here in central florida . What do we have to offer ? There's so many different farmers , there's so many . I mean , it's just it's .
The list goes on and on . You know so to not source from local here , even where we're at at universal , with the amount of people that we serve , it's just what are you doing it's funny how there's a race .
So when you , when you , when you sell and provide services to chefs , right somewhere towards the latter half of any season , you start getting the requests for samples of products that you know in terms of like with fruits and veg , whatever's coming up into season , and what it ends up being is like nothing is ready , nothing's available , not even first harvest .
Yeah , and he gets just like , yeah , I'd like to get the , you know elephant balls of the . I know it's not , it's not really ready yet . Yeah , there's nothing here yet Well , that's not a good enough answer . I really I need it because I'm doing my menu out , you know , for night , and I'm like yeah , but you got to wait . You know , you got to wait .
Nobody saw a thing , you know , but you got to wait , yeah . And in the end you get yelled at , you make friends and when it becomes a fail , you do your thing . Yeah , yeah , how do you feel about that ?
You know , I feel great .
I almost wet myself .
You feel refreshed .
Yes , I .
You feel refreshed ?
Yes , I feel very refreshed , very refreshed . Yes , it's a good thing we didn't do the camera today .
Oh yeah , that would have been a whole lot . But see , that's your job . Your job is to educate the chef . You know how many chefs out there are so demanding they're like no , I want it , it's not ready . The peaches aren't ripe yet . Yeah , but it says I saw them in the store . Yeah , no , I get that , but what you're asking for isn't there yet .
So your job as a provider is to educate that chef . Now you've got two kinds of chefs ones who just don't care you know they're stubborn and they want it , and they want it now . Or ones who are willing to listen , to understand , and that's you know . You grow chefs just as much as I do .
I'm sure , in a certain aspect yeah , I mean yes , from a certain aspect , I mean depending upon the organization . So it always comes from up top . Sure , okay , if you're a chef owner and you and I are having a conversation and I explain how product a is available the stretch of the year , sure you , as a reasonable person , are going to accept that ?
Right , you might go behind my back and dig up and look at stuff which I implore you to do . Yeah , but at the end of the day , you're , you know , gentlemanly speaking , it's you know , we find something else and move on . Yeah , when you have , we find something else and move on .
Yeah , when you have specific types of corporate chains not all of them specific types it starts up top and these people are crushed . You know , you talk to a chef and you know when they're being crushed , yeah , they don't have , they don't have the ability to be creative . It's you know , basically everything is funneled down from up top . Sure , right .
And when up top says , well , we want to , we want to beat everybody to the punch on product a , yeah , well , product is unavailable , it doesn't matter you , you lay into your purveyors , yeah , and that happens . And that happens .
You had chefs tell me like hey , I get what you're saying , but like I gotta go back to my corporate , I gotta tell them something like well , tell them it ain't around , yeah , yeah , but then I'm gonna . Well , then then you're gonna have to fire me . Like what I mean , you know , use somebody else .
Then if you can get it from the other guy , I'll pay for it .
Like go ahead yeah , yeah , yeah you know what I mean .
Like you can find it , I'll cover it . How about that ? Yeah , you know . And of course it doesn't . But like the , that kind of culture is . You know , I don't want to , it's toxic .
But it is , it's toxic . That's why , you see , you know , chefs bounce sometimes .
Especially now post you know Post-COVID , Post-COVID and you know working from home , and you know everybody was off for a couple of years there . Yeah , yeah , yeah . Now there's you , which is , you know , for the best . I think that was one of the positive things that came out of that is , you have to treat people with a little bit more respect .
Yeah , absolutely .
Right , which was a wonderful thing to come out of that whole mess .
Yeah , well , I think two things came out of the whole mess . Two things One , the people who were in the business to get a paycheck just to get a check because they didn't know what else to do . Those people never came back . Just to get a check , because they didn't know what else to do , those people never came back .
Thank god , you know as much as we need people like that at the same time .
Who else is going to hold ? Who else is going to hold the wall up ?
yeah , but I I think that was a positive piece that that came out of it and the second thing is walk and talk media yeah , exactly right , exactly Right .
I mean I'm just saying , float that out there .
So what's next on the agenda for you ? I don't know . I haven't figured it out yet . You know I do a little soul search and figure out where I want to go . I'm happy where I'm at , you know . I think Finally , no , I mean I've opened four hotels .
I've been up and down the East Coast , I've worked for so many different hotel corporations and you know I found one that I believe in their vision , I believe in what they stand for and , given the ability to be able to run things the way I feel they should be run , because I give good results .
I have a team around me that you know , they respect me and they want to work for me , you know , and I'm given the freedom , you know , from the standpoint of creativity , putting those things together . And then they have trusted me . It's hard to find all those things .
I mean , that's a mic drop moment right there . Yeah , true story . In spite of the fact that you look like Ken , they still respect you . Sometimes yeah , no , somebody's going to do it . Man , yeah , yeah , I'm going to get out there again , probably . Actually , I was talking to my wife about it . Come on by man .
Yeah , she's like we got to do something with these kids . Come on by man . Yeah , she's like we gotta do something With these kids . Come on by these kids . We don't take them anywhere . My wife doesn't listen To the show , so I can say Whatever I want . Oh , that's good .
Yeah , I got you . You come out , I'll take care of you . Get you in the parks the whole nine yards . Stop it .
Love it Only if it's , only if there's a food thing .
We'll find food . Can we make it a food thing ? We can absolutely make it a food thing . All right , that's kind of what I do .
And maybe what I'll do is I'll bring some gear . It's blunt force trauma . I'm going to make it happen through blunt force . You see what I'm doing here . I'm laying the groundwork for it . Yeah , we'll figure it out , we'll figure it out , we'll figure it out . My goodness , I did want to talk to you about . Did you see what happened with that ?
So when Mike and I met and this is something we didn't even get to talk about he was working . He was the executive chef over at the Don Cesar Hotel . Yeah , Beautiful property , it's right on the water in St Pete Beach , whatever . And did you see what happened to that ? Oh , it's awful .
Yeah , I've only seen one TikTok . I spoke with Alex . Chef Alex , he's the yeah he's the executive chef there now . I spoke with him after the first storm came through and he said oh , you know , the first floor was kind of flooded and not so good . They had projections of being open in a couple of weeks and the second one came through .
I haven't spoken with them . I can't find any anything on social media . I can't find anything . Online photos nothing . But if you go to their website to try to book , you're not booking until next year .
it's crazy I don't know where I saw it , but the the one video I saw on tiktok . Maybe it was yes , where the water was surrounded , the ocean has engulfed the property . That was insane . Big , massive property .
It's a shame they just put so much money into it , so much money . God only knows what it's going to cost them to dig out .
Well , hopefully insurance doesn't cover that , huh .
I have no idea who knows I . I would assume , yes , you're a hotel on the beach . You would assume you have flood insurance yeah , we have a .
I have a friend that that has a , a property on the beach over there in longboat , and the pool it's on the beach side , yeah , and the pool literally overflowed with sand like they're swimming pool . It's on the beach side , yeah , and the pool literally overflowed with sand Like they're a swimming pool , like it's a giant swimming pool .
Yeah , the whole thing was like leveled with sand . So they had to , like go in and yeah , it was a mess . I had to dig all the sand out of the pool , sure , but like I mean , can you ? I mean I mean the water is bad man . Oh yeah , storm surge is no joke . No man , I would never .
I probably lived on the water in my life for a total of about five years .
Yeah .
Whether it was intracostal or Sure . I don't know that I would ever do that again . I need to be .
Far enough away .
Yeah , I don't even think .
I'm like 15 miles now , plus or minus , and I'm not I don't think it's far enough .
It's crazy .
Well , the first year I was there , the big hurricane I can't remember what hurricane was a couple years ago on 2017 , was it that one ? Yeah , and we had . I had just gotten there and davidson had just taken over . It used to be a lewis hotel davidson purchased there .
They wound up cleaning house and I was the first executive chef in under davidson and they were going through gm changes and you know the whole nine yards , and I think I was there a couple of weeks and the storm came . I think I started in october and the storm came through towards the end of october .
It's only been a couple of weeks and I mean it was one . They were saying it's going to be 20 , 20 foot storms , storm surge , the whole nine yards . And so me , the acting GM , the director engineer and maybe one or two other people Davidson wanted us in the hotel to stay . My wife wasn't here yet .
They were like , you know , because they closed down St Pete , that whole Island gets closed down . We had special passes , you know , from the police department , to be able to be on the Island and watching that , the , the storm surge , how it , how it sucks all the water out . I mean you could walk out on the beach where the water normally would be .
You probably got 300 yards problem . I mean it was just insane . And then , watching it come back , I mean we all stood there like oh my god , this is going to take out the entire hotel this was a bad idea . This was not a good call and I mean we , we just set that there was nothing we could do .
I mean we ran around , put sandbags everywhere and did what we thought we'd be able to do , but but thankfully the storm surge it never reached what it did , you know , this past October , and thank God .
Yeah , I've seen that before . There was a . I lived at a hotel , condo , on Miami Beach for a little while and there was a hurricane coming through and it was like skirting us . Yeah , you know , I mean , I put my , my Florida finger and I was likeirting us . Yeah , you know , I mean , I put my Florida finger and I was like all right is this thing ?
going to hit us or not .
This was like 20-something years ago . Let's go to the Florida finger .
Yeah .
And I decided to ride it out .
Yeah , and you know , bad , even though it didn't hit us like it skirted us , but the way that it angled off or whatever , we get a lot of storm search and and I saw the ocean , because I could see the ocean from my balcony and I did I saw the ocean coming up and lapping the actual hotel , like lapping up against the hotel , and I'm just like man , there's
no joke . No , man , because you never know . You know , you don't know how these foundations really are . No , you don't get bridges falling down and buildings .
You got building . You got hotels in miami that are 100 and some odd years old . Not only knows structurally if they're any good yeah get the hell out . Yeah , it's crazy legit get out .
Yeah , yeah , speaking of that , I think it's on the 15th . Folks , if you're still listening , the Helm was doing their event on November 15th . Go to thehelmcom and see if you can go and check that out . They're doing a benefit . You know the Helm ? I don't . They're out there on St Pete Beach and we had them on a few weeks ago .
Yeah , strangely , their power a few weeks ago , yeah , they're , strangely their power didn't go out and they had , I don't know . Yeah , I don't , don't ask me , but they had a their camera at their dining room camera . Yeah , captured the whole thing . Oh , wow , yeah , I'll show it to you . But so the the , so the water rose .
They had a time lapse to where the water rose over the bar . Crazy , that's crazy , so crazy . Anyway , so them , along with countless other restaurants and hotels and whatnot , they're putting a benefit on . Oh , that's great , yeah , it's November 15th , but anyway , that sucks , man , the whole thing sucks . This season is going to be a funky , funky season .
Oh yeah , it sucks , man , the whole thing sucks . Yeah , this season is going to be a funky funky season . Oh yeah , obviously , the people who are still , you know , around and in business are going to , you know , thankfully , prosper , yeah , but everybody else , man , it's going to be a bath . What do you think ? Two years to fix ?
this oh , minimum , that's if you don't get another storm .
Next year .
That's what I'm saying . I mean thankfully , I think we're done .
I think so too , man , I think the last time that this kind of thing happened was back in 2004 or 2005 , when there was four hurricanes in five weeks or something like that .
They all came through Central Florida . It was crazy .
Yeah , well , they came through where I was in South Florida too .
Yeah , yeah , yeah , there was ones that came up the coast , ones that came , I mean . I had a four-light traffic light in my pool . It flew right through the pool cage , didn't take the cage out and just right in the pool . It was insane . That's crazy . It was crazy .
Yeah , I was out of power for almost three and a half weeks Out of power . Yeah , it was like you were living in the Walking Dead , you know , because there was no fuel . Yeah , there was no power . Yep , and there were definitely the zombies outside , oh , I'm sure . Yeah , I , at that time I was living by the , uh , the hard rock hotel down in hollywood .
Okay , yeah , yeah and uh , you know the the neighborhood was a little iffy , yeah and yeah , and you had to sleep with the windows open well , you had to have yeah , but you're gonna die . You , you'll sweat to death yeah , 100 , I don't yeah man , I don't , uh , what is with these storm ? Enough already with the another 20 years .
Yeah , exactly , oh , my god . All right , so what , uh ? What are we gonna do with you , mike ? I don't know . We gotta find something . So I was happy with what you made today . Well , I appreciate that . Thank you On flavor , but also aesthetically . Yeah , like I know that the photos that John did today are going to be stupid .
Oh , I know , I can't wait to see the final product .
They're going to be beautiful . Yeah , I would like to get some more of More of that .
Yeah .
Yeah , okay .
If you're down for it . Yeah , I'm down for it . I got to find the time . I got to screw your week up again and come on Monday Maybe I put together a few more dishes . You know , this one I kind of pulled together .
You see this guy Very demanding . I tell you what with a haircut like that , with a hair like that , you have to be . I love you , man . I'm glad we finally got to connect man yeah absolutely , it's really been a long time . Yeah , it's good times . Okay , so maybe there's some more things we can conjure up . I think we can figure something out .
All right , all right , man , all right , jefferson , again , man , you know , I guess we'll catch you next week , hopefully , john , as always , you Foodie patooties out there and the world food championship representing the walk and talk . Check that out and we are out .