Talking with Gil Camargo about Food - Episode #45

I talked with Gil Camargo about food in general, but we also touch mexican cuisine. It's really interesting that in Mexico are a lot of Japanese or European restaurants, so their food experience it's really "international", not only Mexican.

As you know, i love hamburgers so i couldn't miss the chance to ask Gil Camargo about his favorite hamburgers, where to find 'em and how a great hamburger should look or taste. For me, the perfect hamburger should have bun, meat and that's about it. 

I hope you enjoy this discussion of food and food culture in Mexico City. 

Download this episode! 

Transcript:

(0:00.0) 

Gil Camargo:

Chile Relleno Taco.

(0:02.4) 

Harry Hawk:

Hello. This is Harry Hawk and this is Talking About Everything, and I’m still in Mexico, that is Mexico City, and I’m talking to my friend, Gil, as you know, the LGBT Editor for Time Out Mexico City. I wanted to change the conversation. I have a lot of podcasts this week that I’m doing about food, I’m talking to chefs and things, but just as a guy growing up in Mexico City, so you’re exposed to a very international cuisine and I think people would be shocked that there’s lots of Japanese restaurants, lots of Korean restaurants, French restaurants, Italian restaurants. So you’re growing up, you’re coming to know food as any human does, three, four times a day we’re all eating. What are your early food memories?

(0:47.2)

Gil Camargo:

It’s my great-grandmother doing tamales from part of Mexico, there is Michoacán. They call ashes tamales because they put some, a little spark of ashes and there is not like the traditional tamales with a corn leaf, it’s with another leaf. There is like a strip, green strip, and they put the masa inside and make like a _____ (1:13.0).

(1:12.2)

Harry Hawk:

Masa.

(1:12.8)

Gil Camargo:

Masa, yeah.

(1:14.2)

Harry Hawk:

What kind of plant is it or leaf?

(1:16.8)

Gil Camargo:

It’s chorizo and it’s a green leaf.

(1:19.2)

Harry Hawk:

And you said they make it into a triangle.

(1:20.7)

Gil Camargo:

Yeah, in a triangle and you put it in the pot and boil it, and then you have a tomato sauce, kind of spicy. Put fried pork meat.

(1:31.5)

Harry Hawk:

mb,Pork chops.

(1:32.0)

Gil Camargo:

Yeah. And you have your tomato sauce, a lot of tomato sauce.

(1:37.0)

Harry Hawk:

And this is outside. This is served along with it.

(1:38.5)

Gil Camargo:

And yeah, outside, and then you put the tamales because are very small, a very small triangle, you put the tamales inside and you cover with some cream, some cheese and lemon and onion, and you eat it with like a soup.

(1:53.9)

Harry Hawk:

Okay. And this is, at that point when it’s all together the leaf has been removed?

(1:57.8)

Gil Camargo:

Yeah. The leaf is removed and you put just the masa in the triangle form.

(2:02.7)

Harry Hawk:

So obviously a family recipe, this is something that you grew up with for…is this an everyday meal or is this only on the weekends or a special holiday?

(2:10.1)

Gil Camargo:

It’s like a special holidays, but my family prepared it for example when I live in Mexico City and when I go there, my aunts always prepare it because they know that I really love that kind of tamales. Another memory is the mole. I don’t know if the people know the mole.

(2:27.6)

Harry Hawk:

Yorkers are becoming a little mole aware, but they still probably need a little education. Now, in New York most of what we would find is a mole poblano and it’s served typically fairly sweet. I’ve had a similar mole here that was a little spicier, and then of course we know in Oaxaca there’s at least 13 kinds of mole and I imagine mole from other parts of Mexico. What are your mole memories?

(2:52.7)

Gil Camargo:

We said that it’s a lot of mole as people prepare it because each person put a part of them in that sauce. So for me I like a really, really sweet mole with a lot of chocolate because it has chocolate inside.

(3:08.5)

Harry Hawk:

So this is sort of the mole poblano that we get in New York. You’d be happy with it I think.

(3:12.2)

Gil Camargo:

I love it. I love it. For me, I prefer it with more black chili to make a very dark sauce. Some people prefer very red. And I remember then my grandma was frying a chili and when you put the chili in the oil all of this smog…

(3:31.2)

Harry Hawk:

Smog would be the wrong word, but we would say steam or smoke or…

(3:34.2)

Gil Camargo:

Okay. And it started to make you cough.

(3:37.6)

Harry Hawk:

Well, this is very important. People don’t know in the kitchen, but when we would cook pounds and pounds of chili it literally will make you sick if you breathe it. And in America in the kitchen you would have to wear a gas mask to cook it properly.

(3:50.2)

Gil Camargo:

Yeah, but the traditional women don’t wear a mask, they just do it. So I remember that process when you have to fry the chilies and all this other from the chilies and you start to cough.

(4:02.4)

Harry Hawk:

Okay. So then these are early food memories, and then to be at some point in y our life that you’re starting to take meals outside the home. What kind of food would your family or friends, where would you go? What kind of food would you eat?

(4:14.2)

Gil Camargo:

Mexican families prefer to cook, but when we go outside to have dinner we usually go for tacos, but I don’t know why the American people do that kind of fried tacos. It’s the tortilla very crispy, and the real taco is not that in that way. It’s a…

(4:34.8)

Harry Hawk:

It’s more of a flatos or something like this?

(4:36.3)

Gil Camargo:

Yeah. The tortilla is not fried. It’s not a tostada.

(4:40.8)

Harry Hawk:

These very crispy ones we get commercially in New York City again or all around the country. If you’re going to a taqueria it’s going to be a soft taco, but there’s different sizes and when I go to a Mexican restaurant, a real Mexican restaurant by which I only mean because I don’t believe there’s anything in terms of authentic, but a place where Mexicans are eating and they’re serving Mexican food, there’s two tortillas. And when it’s a place that’s more for the gringos it’s one tortilla.

(5:08.0)

Gil Camargo:

Yeah. Do you know why?

(5:10.1)

Harry Hawk:

Well, I assume because it’s sustenance and we all want our starch.

(5:13.8)

Gil Camargo:

No. It’s because if you have just one tortilla, when you put the sauce the first tortilla gets soft and broken, so they put two tortillas. And as the American or foreigners don’t put a lot of sauce, just a little bit, the tortillas keep together.

(5:32.0) 

Harry Hawk:

All right, well, that’s help explain it.

(5:33.4) 

Gil Camargo:

Yeah, that’s why.

(5:35.2) 

Harry Hawk:

All right, so we know that there’s all kinds of fillings that go into tacos, but what’s your top two fillings?

(5:40.3) 

Gil Camargo:

It’s a kind of mole. Usually the mole is you boil the chicken and put the mole over.

(5:45.7) 

Harry Hawk:

So, chicken mole?

(5:47.3) 

Gil Camargo:

Yeah. But the chicken breast…

(5:47.9) 

Harry Hawk:

Shredded.

(5:49.1) 

Gil Camargo:

Yeah, and you put sauce and make like a little masa and put inside of a tortilla is amazing.

(5:56.3) 

Harry Hawk:

Okay, so that’s number one. Number two?

(5:58.0) 

Gil Camargo:

The number two is Chile Relleno Taco. It’s amazing. It’s chili, a big chili filled with cheese and cover…I don’t know how to say, but it’s eggs mix.

(6:10.8) 

Harry Hawk:

Like scrambled eggs.

(6:12.0) 

Gil Camargo:

Yeah. And you put it on and fry it and you have it in a tortilla, are amazing. And the third, the Tacos al Pastor is pork meat with marinade in red sauce. They put it like in a vertical grill.

(6:27.4) 

Harry Hawk:

You need to think, almost like a Shawarma, which you would see in New York, rather cities, and this is how they’re grilling the meat, and we rarely see this in New York. In my opinion I’ve never had a good Tacos al Pastor.

(6:37.9) 

Gil Camargo:

Yeah. And I like the traditional, there is the meat with cilantro, onion and a slice of pineapple. That’s my favorite. So that’s my three.

(6:49.3) 

Harry Hawk:

Well, that’s great. And we would do a whole episode about tacos, but I think that’s good. Then at some point, you’re no longer living at home, you’re living on your own? Can you remember maybe one of the first dishes that you might’ve cooked for yourself?

(7:03.1) 

Gil Camargo:

For me, I really like the Chile Cirjanos. I usually prepare two times per month, and I really like this pork skin. We have chicharrón in green sauce. That’s one of my favorites too.

(7:18.7) 

Harry Hawk:

Okay, give me one more.

(7:20.1) 

Gil Camargo:

It’s pork in green sauce with berolahraga, it’s a clam, delicious with black beans.

(7:28.5) 

Harry Hawk:

And now no conversation with me about food would be complete without talking about hamburgers. I won the 2008 New York City Burger Battle of the Boroughs. I’ve made and sold over a hundred thousand burgers. Do you have a relationship with the hamburger?

(7:42.4) 

Gil Camargo:

Obviously, yes. There is a restaurant called Johnny Rockets.

(7:46.8) 

Harry Hawk:

An American chain, yes. 

(7:48.3)

Gil Camargo:

Oh, my gosh, I guess they have the most beautiful hamburger in the city.

(7:53.6)

Harry Hawk:

But again I’m thinking about…we’re talking about food memories. Can you remember your first hamburger or where you would’ve seen it or…

(7:59.4)

Gil Camargo:

I remember one hamburger of Johnny Rockets with my boyfriend. I went to this place. He’s from Canada. He’s not a very like big chain restaurant so he said, oh, this is like McDonald. I said you’re going to have a really nice hamburger. So we went there and he tried it and he was like very surprised because he traveled around the world and said, oh, my gosh, I have hamburgers in New York, in England and France, but here in Mexico this restaurant is amazing, so I guess this is one of my best memories.

(8:39.2)

Harry Hawk:

Well, that’s great, and to have it with a boyfriend and all of that. Now, to speak a little Spanglish, what’s the local word for hamburger?

(8:47.1)

Gil Camargo:

Hamburguesa.

(8:48.7)

Harry Hawk:

Hamburguesa. The hamburger has not only become a universal food and it’s clearly an American food that is inspiring chefs around the world, it’s not just kitchen chefs and small chefs, chefs at some of the greatest restaurants in the world are making hamburgers and truly despite everything that one might think, I think it is one of the hardest dishes to really prepare well. Now, for myself I am very much a hamburger purest which means in the spirit Josh Ozersky, rest in peace, and my friend, George Mothes, and others who have some affection for the pure hamburger, we’re talking about a bun, the meat, maybe a little sauce or something, but that’s it. But for yourself do you like a lot of toppings or not?

(9:31.2)

Gil Camargo:

For me it’s just the bread, the meat, cheese, a lot of cheese.

(9:34.6)

Harry Hawk:

I’m against cheese.

(9:36.5)

Gil Camargo:

Never is enough for the cheese, you know?

(9:39.1)

Harry Hawk:

No, I can like some interesting cheeses, maybe a Roquefort or something like this, but I am on the record of saying the number one thing that should never be on a burger is queso, no cheese. But speaking of cheese and that you like lots of it, what’s your favorite cheese on a burger?

(9:53.9) 

Gil Camargo:

Roquefort is…

(9:54.7) 

Harry Hawk:

Roquefort?

(9:55.2) 

Gil Camargo:

Yeah.

(9:55.6) 

Harry Hawk:

Like a blue cheese?

(9:57.5) 

Gil Camargo:

No, the yellow one.

(9:58.4) 

Harry Hawk:

So it’d be like an American cheese.

(9:59.9) 

Gil Camargo:

American cheese and Oaxaca cheese, there is a kind of cheese from Oaxaca.

(10:05.6) 

Harry Hawk:

How do they say it in Spanish?

(10:06.3) 

Gil Camargo:

Queso Oaxaca.

(10:07.8)

Harry Hawk:

So literally Oaxacan cheese.

(10:09.7)

Gil Camargo:

I guess if a hamburger doesn’t have cheese it’s not a hamburger.

(10:15.3)

Harry Hawk:

If a hamburger has cheese it’s not a hamburger, it’s a cheeseburger.

(10:19.9)

Gil Camargo:

Okay.

(10:20.2)

Harry Hawk:

It has its own name. It’s called a cheeseburger.

(10:23.5)

Gil Camargo:

A little bit of lettuce and a slice of tomato and that’s all.

(10:29.2)

Harry Hawk:

Well, we can certainly agree on the tomato and we’ll have to fight over the queso, but we’ll have a link to an article that the folks over at Schweid and Sons did where they interviewed me about hamburgers, and I’m very much on the record as being against cheese. But what I think that the evolution of the hamburger in particular, speaking sort of as a chef, the early hamburgers the meat wasn’t necessarily very good and it wasn’t necessarily cooked well. 

(10:52.7) 

Harry Hawk:

And for me, the hamburger is about the meat and the high quality and the amazing taste of the meat and when that all comes together I think that works really well. But anyway, it’s great to have a little bit of controversy. Let us know what you think about hamburger and cheese and you can let us know in the comments or both of us have Twitter accounts and you can certainly go on Twitter. We’ll have all that at the end of the show. I want to bring this little episode to an end. Is there anything else that you want to mention about food and food memories that I haven’t asked you?

(11:23.8)

Gil Camargo:

I just want to say that if you want to try the real Mexican food you have to come to Mexico City.

(11:29.6)

Harry Hawk:

More than any other part of Mexico.

(11:31.1)

Gil Camargo:

Yeah, and Oaxaca too, but I don’t want to generally say. What we saw in American movies usually is not Mexican food, and I have a lot of American friends that the first time they came were like scared of the food, and when they really realized what kind of Mexican food is really, they surprised. For American people it’s easy to come to Mexico so…

(11:56.6)

Harry Hawk:

We’re talking about Mexico City. All right, so please tell everybody where they can find you online.

(12:01.9)

Gil Camargo:

Twitter, I’m Gil Camargo.

(12:05.0)

Harry Hawk:

How do you spell that?

(12:05.3)

Gil Camargo:

GilCamargo_ and on Instagram as Gil Camargo too, but it’s Gil_Camargo.

(12:23.5)

Harry Hawk:

So two underscores.

(12:24.3)

Gil Camargo:

Two underscores.

(12:25.0)

Harry Hawk:

This is Harry Hawk and this has been Talking About Everything. We’re here in Mexico…Mexico City, but we just say Mexico, and I hope everybody has a great week. Bye-bye.

(12:35.4) 

Chuck Fresh:

My name is Chuck Fresh and I’m being paid to thank you for listening to Talking About Everything with Harry Hawk. Harry wants to hear from you on Twitter at HHawk or HarryHawk@gmail.com

(12:50.3)

Chuck Fresh:

And now a word from our sponsor, Life Extension Coach and Favorite Chef.

(12:56.3)

Male Speaker:

Hawk Digital Marketing is focused on bringing brands and people together. We build communities of interest based on trust and transparency where consumers and brands can converse, learn, discuss, or solve problems together while creating a long-term connection, entanglement between you and your customers. Once connected we help you engage, communicate, sell, present, educate and inform. Evolve your communications with us, HawkSocialMarketing.com

(End)

Read more>>>

The best NYC Burgers with Sam Lynas from FoodieHub

I love burgers, I love talking about them, I've sold more than 100k of them and I even won an award for the best burger in NYC (in 2008).

I was really excited to talk with FoodieHub Channel Director Sam Lynas about their hunt to find the best burger in NYC. Sam and I spoke with two of their local experts; two guys who also happen to be friends: Joe DiStefano (Queens) and Dave Cook (The Bronx).

We talked about burger culture, the rise of the burger within the food industry and how the burger has influenced both top chefs and cooks from many cultures to start creating their own burgers and burger "like dishes." Sam noted that they have been trying burgers in NYC for months including a special burger at Gramercy Tavern, the NYC WFF's Burger Bash and during the NYC stop of Meatopita. 

We also talked about McDonalds and their new Create Your Taste "store within a store" concept that has food runners bringing fresh off the grill burgers direct to your table. It seems unlikely this burger will be part of the hunt but you have to stay tuned to fine out.

FoodieHub pays for all their own meals and uses local experts to help find the best food in the world. FoodieHub, "searches for, discovers, celebrates and shares the world's most Essential Eats" using their "network of local food experts from over 275 cities." Read more from Dave Cook at Eating In Translation and read more from Joe DiStefano at Chopsticks and Marrow. Other experts contributing to the NYC burger hunt are: Noah Arenstein (Brooklyn) and Yvo Sin (Manhattan).

Download this episode!



Transcript:

(00:00:01)
Chuck Fresh:

Conversations, interviews, rants, and discussions about society, technology, food, art, culture, games, music, education, business, community, building and marketing, communications, board games, old science, new cars, body piercing, body painting, competitive eaters, zombies and vampires, and more. You’re listening to Talking About Everything with Harry Hawk.

(00:00:28)
Harry Hawk:

Hello. This is Harry Hawk, and this is Talking About Everything and I am here with my new buddy, Sam Lynas. We’re going to be talking about hamburgers and Sam has brought in a bunch of friends, a bunch of guys that I actually know a bit, but hey, Sam, why don’t you introduce yourself and everybody else?

(00:00:45)
Sam Lynas:

Great, so yeah, hi, Harry. Thanks for having us, great to be here today. Yeah, I said I’m Sam Lynas and I’m one of the Channel Directors at FoodieHub. FoodieHub is the world’s largest global network of local food experts and we celebrate essential things to eat all over the world, 275 regions and cities all over the world. We decided we have a fantastic network of food experts who you’ll meet in a minute or some of them anyway from within New York City and we decided what we really want to do is answer one of the age-old questions, where can you find the best burgers and the best hamburgers in New York, so that’s the project that we’re very much enjoying currently working on and researching, so I’m going to introduce you, yeah, two of our food experts. First of all, we have Joe DiStefano. Joe is our food expert for Queens, so Joe, over to you. I’ll let you talk more.

(00:01:39)
Joe DiStefano:

Good morning, Sam. Good morning, Harry. I’ve never been so hungry for a hamburger at this time of day ever, but it’s an exciting project. You know, everybody in New York state kind of…if you were to ask people about pizza, they really sort of know but hamburgers, it’s been an interesting on-going project to suss out what the best hamburger is in New York City are and I’m really learning a lot about my individual tastes from this project.

(00:02:06)
Sam Lynas:

Joe, tell me about your website.

(00:02:07)
Joe DiStefano:

My website is called Chopsticks and Marrow, so chopsticksandmarrow.com as you might guess from the name there is not a lot of hamburger content on it. It’s a website that sort of focused on my, for one of the better word, ethnic dining adventures in the wonderful borough of Queens, New York City, which is one of the most diverse and delicious places on Earth.

(00:02:36)
Harry Hawk:

It’s great to have you on the show. Joe and I know each other for a long time and I know he certainly loves a good burger.

(00:02:43)
Sam Lynas:

Great, and Dave, over to you.

(00:02:46)
Dave Cook:

Good morning. I’m Dave Cook and I write a website called Eating in Translation that in spirit is quite a lot like Joe’s website. My focus is on food that generally I didn’t grow up with, so I might report on West Indian ____ (3:06) or North East Chinese ____ (3:09) or some South American ____ (3:12) but in conjunction with FoodieHub where I’m the expert for the Bronx, I’ve been looking at burgers, something I know very well from growing up and after traipsing all over the world within the confines of New York City, sometimes it’s just great to find a good ol’burger just as a, if you will, a palate cleanser.

(00:03:34)
Sam Lynas:

So Harry, do you want us to tell you a little bit, about how we’re going about this, and what the process is, and what we’ve been doing, and what the next steps are?

(00:03:41)
Harry Hawk:

All of that, Sam. I mean I’m absolutely fascinated that burgers are being covered not from the city perspective but that you’ve got guys covering sort of the zone defense of what’s best around the city. I mean that is your methodology so to speak, looking at the world obviously, but it’s great that it’s being applied sort of in vitro right in New York City.

(00:04:05)
Sam Lynas:

Sure. So obviously, you know, we couldn’t possibly and I don’t think anybody would expect us to try every single burger in New York City. I mean you could eat one probably for every single day for the rest of your life I imagine. What we’ve been doing instead is that we’ve considered kind of thousands and we spent a long time researching and we built kind of spreadsheet that we all have access to and unfortunately, he couldn’t be with us on the phone today but we have a fantastic blogger, The Feisty Foodie, Yvo Sin and Yvo covers Manhattan for us and he’s our food expert for Manhattan sharing all the essential eats the island has to offer. Obviously, Dave, we know about who looks after the Bronx for us. We have Joe focusing on Queens and then we have Noah Arenstein and he looks after Brooklyn for us, so we kind of have most of the different boroughs covered. We’re still on the hunt for a Staten Island burger expert, so if there is a Staten Island burger expert that listens to your show, we’d love to absolutely love to hear from them just so we can tie off the final area that we’re missing at the moment and so yeah, we’ve considered thousands of burgers, we’ve tasted hundreds, and now, we’re definitely pulling together kind of our top 20, and we’re really hoping that this guide to New York’s best burgers is going to be a digital guide across many different platforms, so we’re hoping to launch the first week in January.

(00:05:38)

We want to be the opposite really. Normally, everybody comes around to January and everybody’s focusing on health, and we’re like burgers are for life. They should be enjoyed every single moment as part of a healthy balanced diet. So we want to start celebrating really in January and what we’re going to be doing is we’re going to announce our list of 20 down to ten. We’re going to have a Top 20 Burgers. They’re going to go into our guide and then from one every week, we’re going to be doing a short video on our YouTube channel, FoodieHub, which is YouTube.com/FoodieHub and we’ll be releasing our ten down to one, one burger at a time, and that will take us through January, February, and into March at which point we will kind of name our number one burger in New York.

(00:06:26)

We’ve have some incredible tasting sessions. I was in New York a few weeks ago, had a fantastic time with the guys. I think during the weekends, I was in New York for about four nights, and we tried to count them up. We lost track of a few somewhere in there but it was over the week of the New York Food and Drink Festival. So obviously, we went to the Burger Bash, did fantastically well there. I think enjoy at least ten burgers and actually squeezed in and we went to some just really tasty ____ (6:57) and we also went to Meatopia, tried the burgers. We had an amazing night at Gramercy Tavern where the team there put on an incredible spread for us, which actually included the Gramercy Tavern burger, which I know is very unusual for that to be served in the dining room, if not unheard of, so that was a really amazing thing and a special request to Mr. Meyers himself who very happily came through for us.

(00:07:29)

I don’t want to talk too much about the other burgers we tried because I really want to keep everybody guessing. I don’t want to give anything away. I think by the end of this, we may not want to see a burger again for at least a few days.

(00:07:45)
Harry Hawk:

Well, Sam, this is fascinating. I know I have a little static in my voice, so I’m going to try to speak as little as possible but when we do research, we always want to consider the bias of the researcher. So I think it would be interesting to sort of go around the room so to speak and let everyone talk about what they like in a burger. I think burgers are like people, we all our attracted to different kinds, ages, shapes of people and I think we all have perhaps a bias towards particular burgers and since I have the mike at this exact moment, I will say that my own personal preference and my award-winning burger is a pure burger, a bun, a burger, a slice of tomato, and a little bit of secret sauce and that’s it. Thin, crunchy, moist, juicy, but I’m really curious what everybody else’s burger bias is.

(00:08:38)
Sam Lynas:

Joe. Do you want to kick off?

(00:08:40)
Joe DiStefano:

Sure. Yeah. You know, Dave was talking about your ____ (8:43) and I grew up with really kind of the very basic burger. Not too thin, although, I have to say thin patties I like but I prefer the double format and really don’t like a lot of greenery on my burgers. I prefer a nice char. Temperature should be ____ (9:06) medium to medium rare. Juiciness is very ____ (9:09) for me and the bun for me, it’s a mere vehicle that should only serve to contain that juiciness. I really like to keep my hands relatively clean. I really don’t want to be thinking too much about the bun. All that said, that is my bias, that is my preference, but as we’ve been going on with this project, there have been some novelty burgers that have really turned my head but the most important thing about these novelty burgers is that they all sort of paint together as a piece. The burger might have Filipino pickles or fig jam on it but none of those or combination of those, but none of those notes come from the top and kind of wind up being jarring. The burger just has to hang together.

(00:10:05)
Sam Lynas:

Cool. And Dave?

(00:10:07)
Dave Cook:

I think I’m with the two of you guys, the kind of burger I grew up with. Maybe I like a little fatter patty than you guys. I like it medium rare and drippy on the inside but nicely crusted on the outside, but very basic, maybe some ____ (10:25), some pickle, maybe lettuce and tomato. We’ve tried a lot of what we’re calling their gourmet burgers or novelty burgers or what have you in our testing and I appreciate the way a lot of those are pulled together. Those are a little less than my taste only because as I was saying I treat burgers as a return to something familiar and basic compared to a lot of the other food that I’ve tried, so I just like a good basic hamburger. I have found though just by having so many burgers over the course of this project that my tastes have changed a bit since childhood.

(00:11:07)

I used to be a strict hamburger, never a cheeseburger guy, but I’m finding that a nice slice of cheese and maybe even something a little more upscale than your basic slice of luminescent, orange American cheese, or maybe something a little nicer, a little fancier than that, adds a little extra to the burger and I never wanted my buns toasted back when I was growing up. I just wanted a plain, soft, squishy bun. Now, I’m beginning to appreciate it especially with slightly fattier, juicy burger with little drippy cheese, beginning to appreciate not only a toasted bun but a bun that actually has some body that will hold together over the course of the three to four minutes that it takes me to go through a hamburger.

(00:11:57)
Harry Hawk:

That’s awesome. Sam. What about yourself?

(00:12:01)
Sam Lynas:

I think I’m so different because I grew up…I didn’t grow up in New York. I didn’t grow up surrounded by incredible burgers, so I kind of grew up I think craving McDonalds like most kids. That was the only burger. There wasn’t a big, you know, I didn’t live in London. There wasn’t burger scene, so it was kind of like fast food places and McDonalds was the dream burger and then obviously, it was only until a few years ago when I was lucky enough to go to New York ____ (12:31) burgers that you realize there’s this whole other world out there, which is great fun ____ (12:36) things.

(00:12:37)

So mine is more really on taste and flavor as everybody else’s is but I don’t have any historic kind of notions of what a burger is, a classical, or a modern. Yeah. I’m just really does this taste good, is there meat between two slices of bread, and would I eat another one or do I want to another one after I finish the first one, but I will say is that I feel like there was a phase a few years ago, particularly in London, which I think has developed since the real kind of burger centers around the world and there was definitely a phase where people were just trying to make outrageously big burgers and I feel like a burger definitely has to be something that you can pick up and eat easily without it falling out everywhere and I also feel like a burger should be the sum of its parts. Each individual item within that should be able to be enjoyable on its own and I feel that if it’s not, you should just get rid of it and take it out. It’s not adding anything whether that’s flavor or texture, it doesn’t need to be there. A burger is good as it is without any kind of superfluous ingredients.

(00:13:48)
Harry Hawk:

All right. I have a real controversial question and it definitely relates to what you just said Sam. A quick note about, one of the things I appreciate about the fast food burger is that combination of mustard and mayonnaise that they put on there. There’s something about that together that works. I go to several fast food places for a client of mine to track them and monitor them but one of the things, one of the burgers that you can get in New York City is what McDonalds calls CYT or Create Your Taste and this is a burger you can only buy it from a kiosk then they go in the back and they cook it, it comes fresh off the grill, a runner brings it to your table, and it’s a lot more expensive. A burger, drink, and fries is going to cost you 11, 12, 13 dollars. You put guacamole, all kinds of crazy things on it. What do you guys think about that? I know you guys don’t want to reveal exactly what burgers you’re eating but is that within the realm of possibility in terms of what you’re trying.

(00:14:58)
Sam Lynas:

Yeah. I mean so let me have a go answering this one first and I’ll pass it over to the guys. So I think obviously, all burgers are great. I mean I like to be tested on this but I feel like even a really bad burger is still a burger. It’s still going to have something about it, which is kind of hopefully, enjoyable in the fact that it’s a piece of meat between two slices of bread. I think from that kind of burger place where it’s kind of create your own, obviously, anybody’s combination is going to be something that they’ve chosen and each to their own and that’s going to be something that they’ve enjoyed and whether or not I think that would be created. I mean what we would do is we would say a traditional burger for example, what we’re looking for is we’re looking to add something new to this story. We’re certainly not the first persons to create a guide to New York’s best burgers but what we feel like we’re doing is different.

(00:15:53)

We have food experts covering each area. Nobody has done what we’ve done before I think for two reasons, one because they didn’t have the network in place, and two, because we pay for every single meal that we eat. So if anybody wants, if there are any kind of, you know the restaurant that you talk about, if they’re looking to sell a burger or if anybody in New York is looking to sell a burger, get in touch with us, FoodieHub on Twitter and we’ll come and buy one and we will taste one, and I think that anybody who has done a guide, they haven’t redone it before, the main reason is really it’s expensive to do and we’re absolutely crazy to do it, but we want to, so we’re really trying to create a guide which is definitive but also completely objective in its purpose.

(00:16:36)
Harry Hawk:

Do you think you will try that, the CYT burger from McDonalds?

(00:16:42)
Sam Lynas:

If someone recommends it to us and they say I think this is the best burger in New York then absolutely, one of us will go and try it.

(00:16:51)
Harry Hawk:

I don’t know that it’s the best burger in New York. It is, without a doubt, the best fast food burger.

(00:16:57)
Dave Cook:

Harry, if I may chime in here. It is not a burger. It is like a template for many different kinds of burgers. Is there one particular CYT burger that you like, one particular formulation, one particular combination of ingredients?

(00:17:12)
Harry Hawk:

Well, again, for me, I just got it with a tomato, but it’s the fact that it’s something that most people have never had in their whole life, which is a McDonald’s burger fresh off the grill. We’ve all had them from the holding oven from the holding plate. It pales in comparison to most of all of the other burgers that are out there but if you are looking for what we would call in the industry a quick-serve restaurant, McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy’s, just in that weight class so to speak. It’s just very interesting. They’re putting 150 to 200,000 dollars worth of equipment into the restaurants to do this and I just mention it because it is a burger that many of us had as a child and it’s interesting to see as we’re talking about burgers and a ten-dollar burger is not a cheap burger.

(00:18:04)
Sam Lynas:

Harry. Can I just make a quick clarification there because I know I’ll put the phone down and everyone will say what did he say that for? That’s not what we’re doing but the CYT, is that the name of a burger or you mentioned that is a burger at McDonalds, or is it a group itself?

(00:18:19)
Harry Hawk:

It is part of McDonalds. You can think of it as a store within the store.

(00:18:24)
Sam Lynas:

Okay. Sorry. Yeah. I’ve never heard of CYT before. So what I must say and one of the, and maybe I could talk about some of the rules of what we’re looking at with the burgers is that we are looking for kind of independently owned restaurants, so a McDonald’s burger wouldn’t fit into our guide as such.

(00:18:45)
Harry Hawk:

Well that makes a lot of sense and I just thought it lent to an interesting part of this conversation but let’s move pass this and on to whatever else we might want to ask about burgers.

(00:18:58)
Joe DiStefano:

I just want to chime in one second here. Harry, as someone who eats McDonalds and I eat it about twice a year because it’s always a huge disconnect like I always think it’s going to be great and then I taste it and say well, that’s not at all like I remember it. That’s nothing like it. This is terrible. Independently, I’m curious to try it but I do think it kind of falls outside the scope of the guide.

(00:19:29)
Harry Hawk:

Well, I think that’s great to explain that part of it. McDonalds is not at all a place that I like to eat, but I have been following them. They’ve been making a lot of changes and it’s just really interesting because it is a reflection of what we’re talking about, the burger scene in New York that has grown in the last ten or fifteen years. The burger scene in London, I mean, a place that jumped the pond, Burger & Lobster, I mean a restaurant that I have not yet. My friends have.

(00:20:03)
Sam Lynas:

What do they think about the burger?

(00:20:04)
Harry Hawk:

They liked it quite a bit.

(00:20:06)
Sam Lynas:

Really. I mean that is such an interesting concept. Obviously, huge over here ______ (20:10). I’m guessing that the burger in ____ (20:14) is the same price in New York.

(00:20:16)
Harry Hawk:

Yes.

(00:20:17)
Sam Lynas:

And how much is it? Over here, it’s 20 pounds. What’s that, 30 dollars? 

(00:20:20)
Harry Hawk:

I’d have to look at the price. I don’t have it in front of me but yes, I get involved in helping folks design restaurants, the menus, the things, and I just love the simplicity of the menu, the pricing, and say here are these two things, which do you want, and let’s not talk about price really.

(00:20:39)
Sam Lynas:

Yeah. I really enjoyed during my kind of trips to New York and going on this quest. We kind of here at FoodieHub, we’ve seen that there are free burger centers in the world really who are kind of doing, you know, from speaking to our network and doing a fair amount of tasting ourselves. You have, obviously, New York. We feel like London has just gone crazy and a lot of people have tried the burgers doing our FoodieHub Global Awards. We actually named Bleeker Black from Bleeker Street Burger during our global awards this year the best burger in the world and you can check out the video to that. I’ll send it to you. It’s on our YouTube channel.

(00:21:21)

So yeah, London, New York and LA, we really feel are kind of doing it better than anybody else _____ (21:29), but what’s been really interesting is that in New York they have the kind of off-menu burger, the secret burger, and it’s from restaurants, which traditionally...you know a lot of the best burger places in London, they focus purely on a burger and I think for me, this is where New York slightly edges it is that you have a lot of the places known for their burgers, your shake shacks, for example, but a lot of places that we’ve been to and tried, again, without trying to give anything away, are kind of like the off-menu burgers or the places where they’re only a certain amount of burgers a night or you have to get there early because I feel like that all adds to the flavor. You know the q, and the hun, and the planning required. I really enjoyed that aspect to it during this trip.

(00:22:15)
Harry Hawk:

I may have had something to do with that in a sense. Back in 2006, 2007, when I was selling the most burger at Water Taxi Beach. We would only grind a certain amount of meat and when it was gone, it was gone. I’d love to hear some more from Joey and Dave and some of their thoughts about how the scene has evolved.

(00:22:36)
Dave Cook:

Well, I’ll pick it up here then. Again, without trying to identify any particular burgers, it does seem that in the last few years, there’ve been a lot of restaurants that were not then and are not now burger restaurants that have decided well, we need to add a burger to the menu because sometimes a group will come in and there’s someone at the table who just wants to have something very simple, just wants to have a burger, but at the same time, they don’t want to add a burger as what people will call a slot killer, something that’s added to the menu as an afterthought. A lot of the chefs at these restaurants have a great deal of pride in what they do and they say well, yes, you need to add a burger to the menu but it’s going to be the best damn burger we can add. It’s going to be our kind of burger. No one else will have this burger. This is the only place you’re going to be able to get it, and again, maybe they will do it in a limited number or only at the bar or only between nine and eleven p.m. on alternate Saturdays and that kind of specialization of saying we’re going to have something you cannot get anywhere else ____ (23:48) to, you know, from way of satisfying the customer who just wants a burger to an additional marketing tool for these companies.

(00:23:58)
Harry Hawk:

That’s awesome, and I agree.

(00:24:00)
Joe DiStefano:

Yeah. So I’ll jump in. Before I got involved in this project, the one thing that I noticed that changed is that all of a sudden at one point, and I don’t know if it was because of Pat Lafrieda’s black-labeled blend, but everyone started talking about what kind of beef was being used in the burgers, the fat content, how much chuck, how much this. If I’m not mistaken, there’s someone out there using neck meat in their burger and that’s sort of like a very kind of basic development and then as we went on with the project, what I noticed is that people are trying to create high-end versions of that backyard burger, almost like a bespoke version of a burger with a Martin’s potato roll. So the burger at Gramercy, he’s making his own potato rolls. Everything there is made in-house. He’s using really, really good cheddar.

(00:24:59)

At the end of the day, yeah, it’s just a cheeseburger but it’s the best cheeseburger you’re going to have in your hands at that time, in that setting and then as far as like novelty, gourmet burgers, I think a lot of people kind of like anything with food and restaurants, they jump on the bandwagon and they just say oh, more is more. If I put mac and cheese and this on the burger that makes it better and not necessarily so all the time, and from perspective, here in Queens, it’s interesting to see ethnic restaurants for one of their word, put their own spin on hamburgers whether that’s a Dominican Chimi sandwich, you know certain things that aren’t necessarily burgers but like a Chinese flatbread sandwiches like you have at Xi’an’s Famous Foods, they kind of latch on to the hamburger language, if you will.

(00:25:55)
Dave Cook:

Or at least the hamburger visual, Joe. You’ll get a bread thing on the top and bottom and some meaty thing in the middle. Even if it doesn’t look like a hamburger, you can tell what they were thinking.

(00:26:05)
Joe DiStefano:

Yes.

(00:26:05)
Harry Hawk:

Love it, and one of my favorite burgers doesn’t come on a bun, which the late __ (26:11) might not refer to it as a hamburger then but obviously, Louis’ Lunch in Connecticut but also, in Greenwich, Connecticut a place called Burger, Shake, & Fries. They go on toasted bread. Have you seen in New York City anything that’s sort of off the bun but still a burger?

(00:26:30)
Sam Lynas:

I guess it depends what you class as a bun, right. There are lots of different types of buns out there. I mean Louis’ Lunch was a winner of one of ours. We made that the best burger in the world 2013, so yeah, we know the burger very, very well and a lot of people think that’s the original burger. Yeah. We kind of work on the basis that are kind of like, Josh, that a burger has to be between bread but we still have gourmet pedigrees, classic, kind of a final one, which is either novelty or gimmicky. We haven’t quite decided on the final clarification yet but that’s certainly something that’s nontraditional. I can ____ (27:11) New York. We don’t have any burgers outside the bun.

(00:27:15)
Harry Hawk:

Anything from Dave or Joe?

(00:27:18)
Joe DiStefano:

I mean I see things like casual Japanese restaurants will offer what they call a hamburg-steak but that’s not really, you know, it’s sort of like when you go to a fancy restaurant and you used to see whatever they were calling the chopped sirloins, just essentially like a largish, irregular hamburger patty with a sweet kind of bulldog sauce like the same thing you would use on a fried pork cutlet and then I see things like there are Tibetan restaurants where they’re taking the meat from momo dumplings and forming that into a patty and putting it on a steamed Tibetan roll what you would call a tingmo and that’s pretty unique. I wouldn’t necessarily call that a bun.

(00:28:04)
Harry Hawk:

That’s interesting. I like that. ____ (28:05).

(00:28:06)
Joe DiStefano:

It’s taste…

(00:28:06)
Harry Hawk:

I’m going to have to eat one of those.

(00:28:08)
Dave Cook:

Up in the Washington Heights especially, there’s a category of sandwiches called for short patacon but patacon specifically really refers to fried, flattened plantain. Patacon, ____ (28:22) being Latin is the umbrella category. Originally, this is a Venezuelan sandwich but Dominicans have really embraced it in New York. I’ve seen a lot of different things put between two discs of refried, flattened plantain, the plantain taking the place of the bread. I’ve never seen a burger patty put between them however. There is such a thing you guys may have heard of called a Ramen burger in New York.

(00:28:49)
Joe DiStefano:

Oh, that’s right.

(00:28:50)
Harry Hawk:

Yes. _____ (28:50) is a friend and it’s certainly an interesting approach.

(00:28:55)
Dave Cook:

It’s been picked up by a few other people. It’s not terribly hard to shape a bun out of the Ramen noodles. Obviously, the original Ramen burger is still the standard there.

(00:29:08)
Harry Hawk:

Sam, is there anything else that we should cover? I kind of feel like we’ve had a really interesting conversation about burgers and like a good burger, we want to maybe leave part of it for another day, but I want to make sure that we’ve covered everything that you imagined we might talk about.

(00:29:25)
Sam Lynas:

Yeah. I mean I think it’s been great, Harry. Thanks so much for the time. There’s nothing from me other than to stay tuned, let’s finish up our guide, let us keep eating burgers, and when January 2016 comes around we’re going to be ready and we hope everyone’s excited to see what we spent six months working on.

(00:29:44)
Harry Hawk:

It’s going to be fantastic and I’d obviously like everyone to go around once again and plug their Twitter and plug their websites, just so everybody knows how to get in touch with everybody whose here today.

(00:29:56)
Sam Lynas:

Cool. Joe, after you. Joe and Dave, you go in.

(00:29:58)
Joe DiStefano:

Yes indeed. Joe DiStefano of chopsticksandmarrow.com. You can find me at your local hamburger joint or on Twitter @joedistefano. You can find me on Instagram at joedistefanoqns. Thanks for having us, Harry.

(00:30:20)
Harry Hawk:

Great, Joe and Dave?

(00:30:22)
Dave Cook:

And I’m Dave Cook and my website is Eating in Translation and you can find me under that handle on Instagram, on Flickr, online, or on Twitter @eit.

(00:30:39)
Harry Hawk:

Dave, it’s great to have had you here. We’ve exchanged emails over the years and you’ve been very helpful in the past and it’s great to actually talk to you, and Sam, I’m just going to throw it back to you and I’ll let you say good-bye at the end, but please, again, tell everybody before that moment, verify your…

(00:30:54)
Sam Lynas:

I’ve got one question for you. Just remind me where your best burger is in New York. Where would you recommend that we try?

(00:31:01)
Harry Hawk:

Well, of course, I like my own when I pop it up and do it occasionally from here or there but if I had to pick a burger, it’s so hard for me because I’m really making them myself but it’s kind of close to New York City but I really happen to really love the Burger Shakes Fry burger in Greenwich, Connecticut. I know that’s a little bit of a geographic cheat but how about that.

(00:31:29)
Sam Lynas:

Okay. I hope one day we’ll get there or I’ll get there, anyway. We do have food expert in Connecticut so I know she’d love to go down, so we’ll sort that one out. Thanks for that. And final thing sign off from me, so yeah, Sam Lynas and I’m the Channel Director for FoodieHub, very proud to be so and our Twitter account is @foodiehub. Our website where you can find the essential eats around the world is foodiehub.tv and our YouTube channel is youtube.com/foodiehub and that’s where we’ll be releasing our New York guide to best burgers from the first week in January 2016.

(00:32:09)
Harry Hawk:

Say good-bye for everyone or?

(00:32:11)
Sam Lynas:

Yeah. Thanks so much for listening and good-bye.

(00:32:13)
Harry Hawk:

Good-bye, everyone.

(00:32:14)
Dave Cook:

Bye-bye.

(00:32:14)
Joe DiStefano:

Bye.

(00:32:15)
Chuck Fresh:

My name is Chuck Fresh and I am being paid to thank you for listening to Talking About Everything with Harry Hawk. Harry wants to hear from you on Twitter @HHawk or harryhawk@gmail.com, and now, a word from our sponsor. Life Extension Coach and Favorite Chef, Hawk Digital Marketing is focused on bringing brands and people together. We build communities of interest based on trust and transparency where consumers and brands can converse, learn, discuss, or solve problems together while creating a long-term connection, entanglement, between you and your customers. Once connected, we help you engage, communicate, sell, present, educate, and inform. Evolve your communications with us, hawksocialmarketing.com.

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Rant - Smashing Burgers 001

My Love Affair with Burgers: Starting To Flip I've helped sell more than 100, 000 burgers and I've cooked them 5x at the James Beard House. I also won the 2008 Burger Battle of the Boroughs. This is my story about my love affair with the hamburger. I've decided to start to tell this story because on Jan 17th 2015 I'll be cooking a burger pop-up in Brooklyn. If you are reading this before that date, you can buy some tickets and taste my burgers --> Jan 17, 2015 Tickets. You can visit the Schnack Web Site which is still online, or check out the Blog.

I mention the Gowanus Yacht Club in this episode, learn more here.

Download the episode!

A Juicy well cooked, medium rare slider burger (a Schnackie) on a NY Handmade Breads Brioche bun.

This "Slide" ran at the local Clearview movie theater promoting Schnack burgers and meals.

A view inside of Schnack designed by James Mamary the most amazing restaurant designer I've ever met.

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