David Chang

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert.

[1] I'm Dak Shepard.

[2] I'm joined by Monaster Mouse.

[3] Oh, Monsta Mouse.

[4] Ooh, Monster Mouse.

[5] How you doing, Monster Mouse?

[6] Good.

[7] We're in my apartment again.

[8] Love it here.

[9] Yep.

[10] When I arrived and the door was cracked to grant me entry.

[11] Entry.

[12] There was a smell hofting out into the foyer.

[13] Oh, boy.

[14] And it was the most delightful, inviting smell.

[15] You burn a lot of nice candles in here.

[16] Thank you.

[17] I mean, that could have gone either way.

[18] Oh, it could have been a do -do smell.

[19] Well, or just spoiled food.

[20] Oh, sure, sure.

[21] Lots of things.

[22] I'm glad it was the candle.

[23] Is there a specific scent, River's Edge?

[24] It's kind of a woodsy.

[25] Earthy oak.

[26] It actually was hechnically a holiday winter candle.

[27] Oh, okay.

[28] Well, you would never know.

[29] You'd never know.

[30] Well, today we have a really fun guest.

[31] David Chang.

[32] David Chang is an American restaurateur, an author, and television personality.

[33] He is the founder of the Momofuku Restaurant Group.

[34] Restaurants in New York, Washington, D .C., Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Sydney, and Toronto.

[35] We have eaten at several of these and have always been delighted.

[36] So good.

[37] He also has the TV show on Netflix, Ugly Delicious, Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner, and the mind of a chef.

[38] Very much enjoyed talking to David, and I really, really appreciated his honesty.

[39] And, you know, he's in an industry that's being hit the hardest right now.

[40] So I appreciate his time.

[41] Side note, you may hear a few audio issues at the beginning of this, but we sorted it out pretty early into the interview, so hopefully that'll clear up quickly.

[42] There was some mechanical technology difficulties.

[43] This is the time we're living in, and we're learning and growing.

[44] So if you think the audio is a little dicey at first, hang in there.

[45] It gets fantastic.

[46] And I hope you enjoy David Chang.

[47] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad -free right now.

[48] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[49] Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.

[50] Hi, guys.

[51] Hi, David.

[52] How are you?

[53] I'm good, hanging in there.

[54] Are you held up in New York?

[55] No, we're staying right outside at a friend's house because in Korean culture, the one -year birthday is like a really big thing.

[56] In March 1st, I had a lot of family in town from all over the place, and they're all stuck.

[57] So I couldn't keep them all at my apartment.

[58] and I asked one of my friends who has several rooms in a house that lives by himself.

[59] I was like, I need a crash at your place for those foreseeable futures.

[60] There's a ton of people right now.

[61] It's been a traumatic three weeks or four weeks.

[62] I don't even know how long it's been anymore.

[63] I would imagine for you, it's got to be 20 times more stressful because of all the different industries that are getting hit the hardest, the restaurant industry, is just in a shambles, yeah?

[64] Yes.

[65] It's one of the most exposed businesses right now.

[66] And I'm trying to be optimistic, but I want to know what the floor is.

[67] And I don't know anyone that hasn't laid off a ton of employees in my industry.

[68] And that's, you know, honestly, like, I don't care about restaurants right now.

[69] You know, people are going to find a way to feed themselves in a variety of ways.

[70] And thank God, there are still restaurants that are open to intake or delivery.

[71] The biggest concern I have is for all the employees that were undocumented or documented, they don't have a job right now.

[72] So that's not nice to think about.

[73] Well, and especially you're set up primarily in New York, right?

[74] So the majority of your employees are all living in a city that is, let's just say it's not too cheap to live there.

[75] You can't really just kind of float along for a while.

[76] No, and that's sort of the discrepancy in the recently passed stimulus bill is, you know, living expenses in New York are very different than for employees in, say, Las Vegas, Toronto, or California.

[77] And it's been a whirlwind.

[78] really good team, and we're trying our best.

[79] And that's the hardest thing is I know that we have people on our teams that are like, hey, you need to do a better job.

[80] And I don't disagree, but we're doing our best in a situation where no one could have been prepared for.

[81] I can't imagine they taught this class at culinary school.

[82] So it's like when you have to weather a three -month shutdown due to a pandemic, make sure you do X, Y, and Z. Yeah, I think it's going to be maybe a little bit longer than three months, too.

[83] And that's what my friends and I and the industry peers are trying to sort out is what does it look like when you do reopen up so it's very murky now is your wife korean she is or she like similarly first generation like you yeah she's first jane her parents were born in korea and they're with us right now and i am one of the few people i feel like that absolutely adores the in -laws and how old your baby if you hear him yelling downstairs he's he's just turned 13 months.

[84] It's been amazing to be able to, like, give him a bath every night.

[85] And I try my best even before this all happened to make his food, you know, breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

[86] But, you know, that's really the only good thing that's happening.

[87] Yeah.

[88] Uh -huh.

[89] Like, spending time with him and getting to see him almost walk.

[90] That's where he's at right now.

[91] And I would say there's, like, another week before he's going to really take his first steps.

[92] That's, like, the best thing.

[93] And if I was working, I'd definitely be missing it or I'd be watching it on video or FaceTime.

[94] So I wouldn't change that for anything because it's been a total joy to see him develop and perform my eyes.

[95] Yeah, and I don't know a ton about you, but I have to imagine you've been sprinting now for, I don't know, 10, 12 years, yeah?

[96] Yeah, no, actually, I opened up Momofuku in August of 2004.

[97] And that was just me, you know, at the time.

[98] Like, no one really wanted to work with me. and now we have over 1 ,500 employees, and we used to have over 1 ,500 employees.

[99] Wow.

[100] Yeah, so I have to imagine just every step along the way has been really time consuming and energy consuming.

[101] It has been nonstop, and honestly, I didn't know what to do until, like, you know, like maybe a month before our son was born, I was just freaking out because I didn't know how to stop.

[102] Like, I work my ass off.

[103] I am an addict to work.

[104] You know, I have an addictive personality to begin with.

[105] And work is the only sort of socially acceptable addiction.

[106] Yeah.

[107] And I'm a big time addict to work.

[108] Yeah.

[109] First and foremost, mom and dad are from Korea.

[110] And dad's from North Korea.

[111] Yeah, and mom's from South Korea.

[112] Both my parents were born in what is now in North Korea.

[113] My mom came from a very well -to -do family where a lot of, like, I would say, intellectuals lived.

[114] And my grandfather, he worked in the government, I guess in effect, he was sort of like an attorney general at the time.

[115] And my dad's side basically came from nothing.

[116] And he was born on what is now the border of China and Korea.

[117] And they lived through the war.

[118] They lost everything.

[119] And it's a whole horrible story in it of itself.

[120] Yeah.

[121] So how did they meet?

[122] This is like literally the story that I've been told.

[123] They were at a picnic with some friends from my dad's older sister.

[124] And my dad saw my mom peeling an apple.

[125] with a knife.

[126] And he's like, wow, she peels it so well.

[127] I have to marry her.

[128] Oh, wow.

[129] Wow.

[130] It's that easy.

[131] Wow.

[132] I wish that had been my only criteria.

[133] I don't know how much I believe of that, but that's where he's told us.

[134] That's what, and when Harry met Sally or Sleepless in Seattle, I forget which one.

[135] Sleepless in Seattle, there's an apple peeling with a knife scene.

[136] And does someone fall in love as a result of it?

[137] I think it has to do with the love.

[138] I mean, I, of course, now I'm dying to watch your mom peel an apple.

[139] I know.

[140] I have to imagine it's borderline erotic.

[141] She's really good at it.

[142] So what age were they when they came to the U .S.?

[143] So my dad came to America in 1963, and he moved to New York.

[144] I think it was pretty traumatic for him because he wound up washing dishes and, you know, living what you believe is a real immigrant experience and just getting any kind of hourly job and making your way through that.

[145] I think he was here for like three, four years, and then he came back to Korea, and that's when he met my mom.

[146] And then they came back, I think, it was 68 or 69, and my dad was working in restaurants on more of a front -of -house level.

[147] And then my sister was born, I think, 70, 1970, yeah.

[148] Uh -huh.

[149] But at some point, they end up owning restaurants and even a golf store.

[150] Is this accurate?

[151] Yeah, my dad basically is a hustler.

[152] I there's giant sections of my dad's history that will never be known.

[153] That's exciting.

[154] Yeah.

[155] Yeah, I have no idea.

[156] Like, how do he wind up in New York and then I guess he worked in restaurants going all the way down to the Midlantic wound up in Washington, D .C. How he wound up owning a restaurant is, it's crazy to me. And there's like crazier stories.

[157] Like somehow, I think for a year or two, he lived in some small town in Kentucky.

[158] And again, like, having a Korean dad is not always easy to get any information out of.

[159] Okay.

[160] Well, you know, historically in L .A., there is a path for Korean immigrants, which is that, you know, there's a huge Korean community.

[161] They often, on a community level, raise money and loan money to new immigrants to start small businesses.

[162] Was any of that happening for him out there?

[163] Yeah, that's how he actually got into the Gulf business.

[164] And he wound up getting out of the restaurant business.

[165] And I don't know how, but he had some foresight into golf.

[166] And, you know, that's basically what I did from age five to like 14 or so, just playing every day.

[167] But around that time, he got in the golf business.

[168] And there were probably like, I'm going to say 12 to 14 Korean men that divided up the Washington, D .C. area.

[169] Oh, no shit.

[170] Maryland, D .C. and Northern Virginia, and at the time, they divided it all up, but I think they pulled their money, and the people that had the most money obviously took the best locations in that area, the wealthiest locations.

[171] My dad, being the poorest at the time, was given Route 7 in Leesburg, Virginia, near Tyson's Corner, and that's before Tyson's Corner became one of, like, the biggest shopping malls in America.

[172] So he was, like, given the worst, worst location, and it wound up being the best location.

[173] Oh, no shit.

[174] Yeah, yeah.

[175] It was called Tyson's Washington Golf Center.

[176] And it was in a dilapidated warehouse.

[177] Yeah, but you can't call something center if you've only got like 400 square feet.

[178] Right.

[179] It was, it was big.

[180] And it's sort of like, you know, it was such a long time ago.

[181] I have recollections of it basically looking like Costco, just like golf clubs and balls everywhere just stacked on the floor.

[182] And, you know, my dad's whole thing was spend no money on how things look.

[183] Oh, sure, sure.

[184] Did you.

[185] you work there as a kid?

[186] Yes, I did.

[187] So I have a lot of class warfare stuff, and I'm going to get into that with you when it comes to fine dining.

[188] I was a real reluctant adopter to fine dining because it just screams rich people, and I feel less than and judged when I'm in a fine dining place.

[189] So I want to get into all that later, but then, you know, golf also kind of does that to me. So if I had to pick the last group of people I'd want to be interfacing with on a regular, it'd be like rich dudes looking to golf on the weekend.

[190] I was too young, but I don't remember to where we were at to, there wasn't like old money coming to us.

[191] Okay.

[192] It was just so bare bones that I feel like people that went to buy something there were going there because it was like discount.

[193] Oh, okay, right, right, right.

[194] It wasn't like Caddy Shaq.

[195] Not like not at all.

[196] But like if my dad had any similarities, it's a little bit like Rodney Dangerfield.

[197] But yeah, it was me working the cash register, me breaking down boxes.

[198] And then when I got old enough, I learned how to re -grip and repair golf clubs.

[199] And I did that when I wasn't practicing playing golf.

[200] Like my dad was pretty ahead of his time in regards to, like, now it's like a joke if you're Korean -American that, you know, you want your son or daughter to be like golf.

[201] Tiger Woods.

[202] Yeah.

[203] And when I was playing golf, there were no other Asian people on the golf course.

[204] Well, yeah, I was thinking because I'm four years older than you.

[205] And I was thinking like, oh, his dad was following the Tiger Woods playbook.

[206] But no, there is no Tiger Woods playbook.

[207] at that point, right?

[208] I mean, I actually knew about Tiger pretty early on just from, like, playing competitive golf.

[209] You know, that was a sobering thing when you, when you're, like, 11, 12 years old and you think you're really good and you learn you're never going to beat this person.

[210] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think, well, most of the people on the tour felt that way for about a decade.

[211] Yeah.

[212] And what kind of, like, what are we looking at handicap for you at your peak?

[213] I don't know, depending on.

[214] Don't bullshit me, David.

[215] Probably around a scratch, yeah.

[216] Oh, my good.

[217] Monica, does that mean anything to you?

[218] Oh, that is, you just spoke a completely different language.

[219] I have no idea what any of that means.

[220] So Scratch means, on average, you're hitting par on every hole.

[221] Like, let's say it's a, you know, first holes of par three, then a par four, then a part three, then a par five.

[222] You're getting it at the end of the round, you're not above or below.

[223] Wow.

[224] That's very, very rare, rare, rare, rare.

[225] Wow.

[226] But I didn't know what was going on because I was so young when I was playing.

[227] And, you know, my whole world was.

[228] surrounded and center around golf or religion.

[229] Uh -huh.

[230] What religion?

[231] Presbyterianism.

[232] And, you know, I basically burned out once I just didn't have that mental game to play competitive golf.

[233] So that was pretty hard.

[234] Yeah.

[235] Also, did you experience all that, like, very stereotypical first generation Asian parents type of pressure?

[236] Oh, yeah.

[237] It would be seen as abusive parenting today, for sure.

[238] But, um, walk me through a day in the life of a teenage.

[239] first generation Korean.

[240] I just always remember some kind of punishment, right?

[241] And it wasn't always like physical.

[242] I don't know.

[243] You know what?

[244] Like I talked to my brothers about it.

[245] We're always in a state of fear.

[246] Right?

[247] That we're not doing a good enough job.

[248] We need to work harder.

[249] And I just remember my dad always saying like hustle.

[250] You have to hustle.

[251] You have to hustle.

[252] And a lot of that was manifested in the golf course.

[253] When I say about playing golf, like most of my memories are on a golf course because I would say 350 days a year for 10 years was playing golf because I was I won a bunch of tournaments when I was younger.

[254] So the expectations for me were maybe a little bit higher.

[255] And I mean, I saw pretty early on there was a different standard of how, you know, the kids I was friends with that were all like white kids from, you know, I would say upper middle class families were being treated.

[256] And golf wasn't the center of their life.

[257] You know, they had other hobbies, whatever they wore.

[258] I just, I didn't have that option.

[259] did your parents care about academics or were they just pushing the golf thing 100 %?

[260] It was definitely the golf thing, but the weird thing, how Korean immigration happened, I think is similar to a lot of immigrants that came here.

[261] There are sort of two classes.

[262] For Koreans, you know, a lot of the people that, again, if it wasn't golf, it was in church, and a lot of the people at church that were considered, like, I wouldn't say the well to do.

[263] They were on visas because they were doctors or engineers or academics.

[264] And then you have everyone else that was a bodega owner or a dry cleaner or owned a 7 -Eleven or something like that.

[265] So it was a very, like, weird to cast system in some ways.

[266] Super similar to the Indian migration story, yeah.

[267] Yeah.

[268] And so my dad was like always do better in school.

[269] But I think he saw pretty early on that I had no aptitude.

[270] So my sister was the real book where I'm a straight -student.

[271] it didn't mean that he wasn't demanding of like getting the best grades but I you know I talked about in the book that it got pushed back and publishing because of this COVID -19 thing like it took a long time for me to process it but I was so scared of my dad that I couldn't really achieve in academics because I was so scared of the punishment yeah fear of failure just running rampant I just psyched myself out and I never did well in school ever you grew up in what would be a D .C. suburb, basically, yeah, of Virginia?

[272] It's weird, though, because, like, I spent a lot of time in Virginia, like, proper.

[273] Because I think the South doesn't really start until you get to Richmond.

[274] Right, yeah, yeah.

[275] And my dad had a business there, and I played a lot of tournaments down there.

[276] So I would probably go to Richmond every weekend.

[277] That, honestly, was, like, instrumental in my life because I got to see what American food actually really was.

[278] Now, how much is being Asian, I can't imagine you're one of a thousand in your town.

[279] Actually, Northern Virginia wound up having a lot of Koreans, and that's why the church is so important in so many Korean American immigrants, because there's a huge population in Chicago, Atlanta has one.

[280] Obviously, California, as you mentioned, but the Korean population in the D .C., northern Virginia area is pretty huge.

[281] Oh, okay.

[282] But I, like, I just never fit in with Korean people that well either, and I didn't fit in too well with, like, traditional white people.

[283] You and Monica could have a real long time.

[284] Exactly.

[285] Did you want to be white?

[286] Monica wanted to be white.

[287] Oh, 100%.

[288] I mean, I was talking with my brother.

[289] My older brother all the time.

[290] It's like, my older brother's name is young.

[291] And he's like, mom and dad gave you David.

[292] You should feel lucky.

[293] And just the whole thing from how my brother doesn't eat a lot of cream food because a lot of the scarring just being made fun of.

[294] That's unfortunately a brutal way to grow up.

[295] Oh, yeah.

[296] I resented everything.

[297] being Korean.

[298] And, you know, the funny thing is by being honest about this now, Monica, I wonder if you feel the same way, by saying how much I didn't want to be Korean back then.

[299] Yeah.

[300] Today in 2020, there will be Asians that would be like, fuck you, Dave Chang.

[301] How can you say that?

[302] I was like, I'm not saying that now.

[303] I'm saying back then, I felt like I didn't want to be Korean.

[304] Yes.

[305] You have to empathize that.

[306] But people aren't listening to that.

[307] I totally agree.

[308] And we talk about it all the time on this podcast.

[309] and we have another podcast.

[310] It's a relationship one that I talk so much about these early experiences and trying to distance myself from my ethnicity so much.

[311] And yeah, there's a lot of backlash, it seems, that comes back.

[312] But I almost think it's fear -based, I think, when I hear people responding, like, because how can you argue with someone's emotional ride?

[313] You know, like, you can't.

[314] And it was different then, and definitely way different for you.

[315] I mean, it's slowly gotten better for people of different ethnicities, I think.

[316] But it's just hard.

[317] It's just hard to be different.

[318] Yeah.

[319] It made it feel like whatever I didn't fit in was like magnified, like 10x.

[320] What I ate to, you know, the customs that we had and the names.

[321] And the whole nine, it was just like, oh, how am I ever going to fit in here?

[322] Because it's not even all these other secondary tertiary things.

[323] It's how I look is why I'm never going to fit in.

[324] I'll add as well, even the black community, you couldn't be more marginalized, but at least in the black community, you have all kinds of different celebrities you could point to for aspirational people who have achieved success in comedy, you know, dramatic actors, stars of TV shows, sports heroes.

[325] For both of you, there's really no one in the popular zeitgeist that is crushing as a Korean or an Indian that you go like, well, it could be.

[326] be fine.

[327] I could turn out to be Eddie Murphy, you know.

[328] Yeah, you just have white people to point to.

[329] So you think you have to be as close to that as you can get in order to have any sort of success.

[330] That's why, like, you know, parasite winning, the sweeping at the Oscars was such a monumental moment for Korean people, at least in America, because they're like, holy shit.

[331] We have someone that we can root for that's actually Korean.

[332] Yeah.

[333] Yeah.

[334] So your brother didn't like Korean food, which I get.

[335] You were not in that same position as him.

[336] You liked the food?

[337] You know, it was interesting because I ate really well, like my grandfather's side, on my mom's side, they were well to do.

[338] And he was basically Japanese.

[339] In the early 1900s, Japan had colonized Korea.

[340] You know, there's a lot of old wounds that maybe never will be healed from Korea's perspective.

[341] And Korea's basically been the doorstop for Asia, for China and Japan.

[342] Anyway, like, he was raised.

[343] So they took a lot of the way.

[344] well -to -do and smart Korean men and women and basically taught them in Japan.

[345] So they basically brainwashed them.

[346] Uh -huh.

[347] To be their proxies in Korea.

[348] Yeah, and to slowly like assimilate Japanese culture back into Korea.

[349] And he didn't like Korean food.

[350] My grandfather hated Korean food.

[351] He only ate Japanese foods.

[352] So when I get to Japan, when I land, when I smell the food there, it feels more like home to me than when I land in Seoul.

[353] Oh, wow.

[354] Interesting.

[355] I'm a weird, I got all sorts of weird shit going on.

[356] But like, yeah.

[357] And like, Korean food was something that my mom's an amazing cook.

[358] My mother's mom is an amazing cook.

[359] My dad's side were all horrible cooks.

[360] And I've always jokes the tale of two grandmas.

[361] You know, a lot of what Korean food is, is I always say from a Western perspective, pretty gnarly.

[362] Like, kimchi smells, like, very pungent.

[363] And the fact that it's popular now is crazy to me because it was the same thing.

[364] foods that I was vilified for.

[365] So my brother, who I emulated growing up, was like, I don't want anything to do with this food.

[366] I'm never eating it.

[367] And I wanted to follow that.

[368] And I was like, oh, I also won't eat this food.

[369] And I think there was probably a three or four year stretch where I was like, I'm not eating cream food either.

[370] This is crap.

[371] Yeah.

[372] When I ate Korean food, it was always at my house.

[373] I never would ever bring Korean food to school.

[374] But I do remember when kids would maybe come over and how much the next day or if they came over on a Friday, Monday, everyone would say, oh, Dave's house smells like poo.

[375] Oh, that was the flavor.

[376] Okay.

[377] That's not what I would link kimchi to.

[378] I mean, you can't argue that it doesn't have a specific smell, but certainly not.

[379] I don't think the bullies are really interested in getting specific.

[380] In capturing the right adjective.

[381] Well, they shit the bet on that one.

[382] So food, I think, had unfortunately, a traumatic experience for me, particularly Korean food as I was a younger kid.

[383] Well, what you did quite often what can be empowering for people who have been the victim of abuses to at some point confront their abuser when they feel strong enough to do so.

[384] And the fact that you rejected it so much and then ultimately embrace it in such a profound and public way, I have to imagine it's cathartic on some level.

[385] 100%.

[386] You know, it's like I'm working this out with my therapist in front of to everybody.

[387] Yeah.

[388] Yeah.

[389] So, so I guess now it kind of makes sense because what was curious to me is you, you went to college, you went to Trinity, you studied religion.

[390] Again, God bless you.

[391] But when you got out, you end up in Japan.

[392] What was your gateway to Japan other than granddad?

[393] I was a horrible student again.

[394] And though, like, I couldn't get a job like everyone else.

[395] This is like the dot -com.

[396] So I graduated 99.

[397] And I didn't want to answer what the fuck I was going to have to do.

[398] So I literally went to the career fair.

[399] I made a right and it was a teaching English and Japan corporation.

[400] And I said, I want a job here.

[401] And they gave it to me. And I didn't think really anything about it.

[402] So did you speak any Japanese at that point?

[403] I don't know anyone.

[404] I didn't and I didn't even have any care.

[405] I just needed to tell someone.

[406] What are you doing for you like so I could tell them.

[407] Yeah.

[408] And I didn't really think I was going to go.

[409] You know what I mean?

[410] Like I was just like, this is just something I'm going to tell people I'm doing.

[411] It'll never come.

[412] Yeah.

[413] Yeah.

[414] And then it came, and then I went, and it was pretty hard.

[415] It's very hard.

[416] The actual teaching of the English or just being in Japan?

[417] All of that.

[418] It was Jacksonville, Florida, but hotter and not nearly as nice, if you can say such a thing about Jackson.

[419] Oh, my goodness.

[420] Well, well, well, that really frames it.

[421] My entire list of where I wanted to go was, like, Sapporo, you know, Tokyo, Kyoto, and they gave me, like, a place I would never have chosen.

[422] which is a small village called Izumi Tatori, and my backyard was a rice patty.

[423] Wow.

[424] Well, again, probably awesome for five or six days.

[425] No, not even awesome.

[426] And I just, I struggled, and I think that was the onset of me. I've seen a psychiatrist since 2003.

[427] That was like, we can count, like, pretty much pinpoint.

[428] That was the first real manic episode I had where I was, I was like on Coca -Cola.

[429] K, like 24 -7.

[430] Uh -huh, with mania.

[431] Yeah.

[432] Okay.

[433] I lasted about four months.

[434] And in that time frame, though, there was one ramen shop there.

[435] I was too nervous to go there because that's where all the local villagers would eat and congregate.

[436] And I wasn't going to go in there.

[437] And sure enough, when I said, I couldn't take it anymore and I wanted to leave, but I couldn't get a transfer.

[438] I'm just going to go in there.

[439] And I've eaten ramen my entire life, but never an actual ramen shop.

[440] And I walked in and I saw all these hard -boiled eggs and bowls.

[441] And it was just like a great place because you can just eat a hard -boiled egg, put some salt on it and, like, drink a beer and wait for your ramen.

[442] And it was like, it was almost like a pup.

[443] Yeah.

[444] I ordered a bowl of ramen.

[445] I only ate there once because I was so scared of going in there.

[446] And it was like one of those, you know, ratatouly moments where I tasted at this.

[447] I was like, holy shit, this is so good.

[448] And growing up loving instant ramen, I didn't know that.

[449] It was like a real thing.

[450] Yeah.

[451] How does it, I mean, this will sound like such a dumb -ass question, but yeah.

[452] Or what's the most profound differences between what I've eaten and then what you had there?

[453] The best way I could describe was having really bad frozen concentrate orange juice, right?

[454] And thinking that's orange juice your entire life.

[455] And then you get beautiful, perfect, fresh squeezed.

[456] And you're like, oh, shit, this is what orange juice is.

[457] Yeah.

[458] And I couldn't look back at it the same way.

[459] And they're making the noodles there, I assume, right?

[460] the restaurant or and the broth was a milky tonkotsu broth so it was like emulsified porky goodness and it was awesome it's funny it's like you can only connect the dots later in life yeah yeah in college sophomore year i wanted to drop out to go to cooking school but my dad basically convinced me otherwise and um i was never going to fit in the corporate world no matter how hard i tried so like cooking was something that i wanted to do but my dad worked his entire life effectively so i would never work in restaurants because he knew how hard that life was.

[461] So even though I had an inkling to do it, it's not something I ever thought I was going to actually do.

[462] So even at that time, you know, I was 22, I wasn't thinking that I'm going to make a profession at a cooking.

[463] That was like not it.

[464] I was going to come back and I was going to get a job in finance and working in food was the furthest thing from my mind when I got back to New York City.

[465] But you end up at the French Culinary Institute.

[466] So how did you end up there?

[467] I got a job for about a few months, basically being a corporate desk over.

[468] I think I was pretty influenced by office space in the movie.

[469] I really was.

[470] And I had an existential dilemma in crisis at the age of like 22.

[471] I was like, this is what people do.

[472] Like, every day you type on a keyboard, you do some stupid shit, and you make some phone calls, you get yelled at, and you eat dinner at your desk, and you go home, you're so tired, and you pray to God, you don't have to go to work the next day.

[473] I was like, this is a horrible existence.

[474] Like, I cannot do this.

[475] In college, I learned about this thing called Via Negativa, which is what the early Catholic theologians would think about and meditate on to get closer to what God is.

[476] Because you can't know what God is because he's ineffable and he's omniscient.

[477] But if you say, God's not this microphone, God's not this computer.

[478] God's not this cup of water.

[479] If you did that all the time, you would, in theory, get a little bit closer.

[480] And I was like, oh, that's a pretty easy logic that I'm going to apply to my life.

[481] So I'm going to start to do all these things that I'm not supposed to do, almost like George Costanza, and it's going to get me a little bit closer to maybe what I want to do.

[482] And I, for a year or so, I did all kinds of weird job.

[483] Everything that I thought I could try to do, I would do for like two or three days, and then I would quit.

[484] And I was like, you know what?

[485] I think cooking is for me, but I don't know.

[486] I know that working in this desk is not for me applied to French Culinary Institute.

[487] And were you immediately great in cooking school?

[488] Like, are there prodigies?

[489] There are people that are more gifted at cooking than other.

[490] like any other field.

[491] I would say I've met a couple people that are real geniuses in cooking, right?

[492] But they didn't go to cooking school.

[493] But for the most part, you have to become great.

[494] And some people, again, have higher aptitude to being great.

[495] And that might be how you move in a kitchen.

[496] You're nice skills, your precision and all of these things.

[497] But for the most part, when I started cooking, I was one of the worst students anyone's ever seen.

[498] Okay.

[499] I'm a fucking spas.

[500] I only know one way of getting anything done and that's throwing everything I have into a problem.

[501] And that doesn't always work so well with a partner, right?

[502] And truth be told, my first partner, level one, so there's six levels in cooking school.

[503] She refused to be my partner on level two.

[504] So she told the chefs, if I have to be David's partner, I'm going to quit school.

[505] And they said, well, you have to be David's partner.

[506] So she quit school rather than to be my partner.

[507] Oh, wow.

[508] That's a strong.

[509] vote of just to give you an idea of what a mess I was as a human like I really was just a fucking mess and so what was the turning point you went to work for craft at some point in the middle of this yeah I mean that's another thing I just started I worked for Jean George I was going at cooking school and I just started pouring myself into the profession and I was like I'm just going to do everything I'm going to do everything I never used to do I'm going to pour myself into this I'm going to study and I just became like infatuated with it all aspects of cooking.

[510] And like a year later, I literally didn't take a day off because I was answering phones at Kraft before it had opened up on my two days off from working at Mercer Kitchen.

[511] I was like, this is the restaurant that I want to be at.

[512] And I was like, maybe I like, it's not that I love it.

[513] It's just that like I can't imagine doing anything else right now.

[514] And I just poured myself into it and Kraft was like winning the lotto for me because the team there was that Tom Colicchio assembled was like world class.

[515] And they wouldn't even accept me as free labor.

[516] They were like, you know what?

[517] We don't need you.

[518] Thank you very much.

[519] You suck.

[520] And, you know, we need a reservation.

[521] So I was like, you know what?

[522] I just sensed the greatness there.

[523] So I would do whatever I needed to do to get my feet in the door.

[524] If I have to answer phones, I'll do that.

[525] I did that for a few months while still finishing up cooking school until I could actually work for free.

[526] Yeah, that's how it all happened.

[527] And So many people took me under their wings, and I learned so much there.

[528] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[529] What's up, guys?

[530] It's your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season.

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[548] When you're at Kraft and then you graduate cooking school and they start letting you cook in that kitchen, is there anything that you recognize?

[549] Oh, I do have a niche here.

[550] No, it's not a niche.

[551] It is very much a rigid caste system.

[552] You're the lowest person there and you have to work your way up till you get to the top.

[553] And I saw very early on, my role was I got to do whatever they tell me to do.

[554] Right.

[555] And what I learned, though, it wasn't an aptitude, like I wasn't naturally gifted at it, but what I saw about cooking that was very appealing to me was, man, if I do this every day, I get better at it.

[556] Right.

[557] Well, the golfing was probably great training for this in a way because...

[558] Very much.

[559] Yeah, golf is such a baby step, baby, just micro -improvements over years.

[560] It taught me a lot because I'm a pretty lazy person by nature, but I get competitive as a motherfucker on...

[561] Oh, that's...

[562] Yeah, that's helpful.

[563] And golf turned me, unfortunately, into a total lunatic in terms of my competitiveness.

[564] And that's how I viewed it was, oh, for me to get to this person's position, I need to be better than this person.

[565] How am I going to get there?

[566] When I opened up Momofuku in 2004, no one wanted to work with me, not one person.

[567] It gives you an insight to how bad I was.

[568] And what do you think the people would have, if you would have invited someone to be a part of it and they say, I won't work with David for X, Y, and Z?

[569] I can tell you, because I've asked them.

[570] They're all my friends, too.

[571] Yeah.

[572] You're not that good.

[573] You are never been a sous chef.

[574] You want to make ramen?

[575] What the fuck are you talking about?

[576] Because, you know, after I cooked for craft, like, I came back and I went to Japan because I felt like there was unfinished business and I wanted to work there.

[577] And I learned a lot in Japan cooking.

[578] Living in Japan was like a life -changing experience because I learned a lot about myself because Japan's such an expensive country, particularly food.

[579] And I had, like, I wouldn't say an epiphany, but I came to the realization that I could eat really well there cheaply.

[580] And that was like a weird thing because back in America in 2003, if you said you wanted to like go to a nice restaurant or you feel like food, people would think you're like a snob, right?

[581] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[582] I would have been one of those people calling someone a snob.

[583] Yeah, because you weren't wrong because you couldn't eat well.

[584] The whole idea of eating well was you had fast food and then to eat it a nice.

[585] nice meal meant like some fancy French restaurant that was just exclusive to anyone else other than rich white people.

[586] It was really elitist.

[587] It wasn't democratized at all yet.

[588] No, not at all.

[589] So this was the weird thing that I had the realization when I was cooking in Japan.

[590] I was like, wait, everyone's actually eating well.

[591] I ate most of my meals at convenience stores, like the 7 -Eleven's there, the equivalent.

[592] Like some of the best food I had weren't like convenience stores, like sandwiches and noodles.

[593] I have the stereotype of Japan and the Japanese work ethic.

[594] And I guess also through their engineering and vehicle manufacturing, which is the only field I know a lot about, there's a meticulousness to their work ethos that is evident in their products.

[595] So is that what's happening with the food?

[596] Is there like an attention to detail and meticulousness?

[597] Or is it they're using real ingredients that aren't processed like we're using here?

[598] What was the distinguishing factor that made it all so good?

[599] They just care more.

[600] Like, have you been to Japan before?

[601] No, I'm dying to go.

[602] It's one of the, yeah, it's one of the only places I haven't been that I love.

[603] I haven't.

[604] I want to.

[605] It's the greatest food culture in the world, in my opinion.

[606] And everything's good.

[607] And everyone knows more about food than anyone else.

[608] And their food culture is just, it goes back like a thousand plus years.

[609] There are restaurants that are like 400, 500 years old in Kyoto, right?

[610] Wow.

[611] But like that all trickles down to everything in Japan is just a little bit better because they care more.

[612] They just simply care more.

[613] And like an egg salad sandwich, would you ever buy an egg salad sandwich at an American 7 -Eleven?

[614] I'd be terrified.

[615] No. Yeah.

[616] I would imagine it had been made a week before.

[617] Minimally.

[618] Yeah.

[619] Well, the logistics there, you know, in Japan is like they're constantly being made somewhere and being shipped to these places.

[620] So it's very fresh and it's made with delicious ingredients.

[621] And it's amazing.

[622] Like the egg salad sandwich at a Lawson's convenience store is one of my top five things I will ever eat.

[623] I want it all the time.

[624] Oh, see, now you're talking our language because we like to eat at convenience stores.

[625] And if it was delicious, yeah.

[626] I could walk down the street and I could just buy like a Nukuman, which is like a steam, you know, stuffed dumpling of sorts.

[627] And it's like 50 cents.

[628] And it's delicious.

[629] And I was like, wait, food's amazing here.

[630] And it's the cheap food that's just as good as even the McDonald's is fucking unbelievable in Tokyo.

[631] Wow.

[632] Oh, we need a rectangle sandwich from.

[633] We need the Burger King chicken sandwich.

[634] They got Burger King over there?

[635] You know what?

[636] If I go to Tokyo, I'm eating at McDonald's because it's so fucking good.

[637] I'm telling you.

[638] Like, they say they still fry their fries and beef fat, the tallow.

[639] And they pronounce them macudanados.

[640] Macudanudos.

[641] McDonald's.

[642] McDonnells.

[643] Oh, I like that.

[644] Wonderful.

[645] Now, really quick.

[646] So I read Kitchen Confidential.

[647] When did that book come out around 2000 -ish?

[648] 2001, yeah.

[649] Okay, so I read that book and I was like, oh, wow, if I had not gone into comedy, that would have been my life.

[650] The kitchen life is a bunch of party animals, sex craze, drug -laden, terrible hours, everyone's fucking each other.

[651] I'm like, I'm in.

[652] That's my kind of culture.

[653] Were you experiencing that at Kraft?

[654] Did you like that, especially given the kind of crush your T's dot your eyes childhood?

[655] Was that chaos appealing?

[656] So when I first got to craft.

[657] What I love most was how serious everybody was.

[658] It was like you entered like a surgeon's room.

[659] But the moment service ended, it was like going to a party.

[660] Right, right.

[661] It was work, hard, play hard.

[662] And also during service, and this is why I've always deemed as a, like, a healthy kitchen is when people are making fun of each other.

[663] I was like, oh, this is like perfect for me. It's like, who could hurt someone's feelings the most?

[664] It's like, this is exactly where I need to be.

[665] And you're making really delicious food.

[666] But like, there's different kinds of kitchens and i was close with tony and he wrote about kitchen culture that was very real at that time but it didn't exist at certain levels in my opinion like the restaurant like craft was only about food i could have been naive but i never really saw anything because i was always just working on the food everyone was so fucking busy cooking yeah that you couldn't do anything else and it was pretty hardcore there are a lot of crazy stories i've seen a lot of crazy shit because uh kitchen culture thankfully has been updated.

[667] Yeah, yeah.

[668] Okay, so where do you get the balls to start, Momofuco?

[669] I'm probably saying that wrong as well.

[670] No, no, no. Momofuku, so again, like, following the footsteps of my brother, my brother loved the almond brothers, so I love the almond brothers.

[671] Uh -huh.

[672] You know, Eat a Peach became like one of my favorite albums.

[673] And when I was studying everything before I left for Japan, like anything, you know, anything ramen became my hobby after the first trip to Japan.

[674] And I learned that the guy that created a cup of noodles, was named Momofuku Ando, and I curse all the time.

[675] And I was like, this sounds like motherfucker.

[676] That's a great name.

[677] And I'll use it.

[678] If I ever have a restaurant, it'll be called Momofuku and I have the peach as a logo.

[679] After Japan, I work for Danielle Ballude and Andrew Kermalini at an Upper East Side Institution called Cafe Ballude.

[680] And, you know, at this time, I was getting better, but I didn't know what I wanted to do because at the time then, if you wanted to have your own restaurant, you had to get tapped by the chef.

[681] So, for example, if I spent enough time with Danielle Ballude, and one of his patrons decided, hey, I want to open a restaurant in Boston.

[682] Do you have someone that I could hire?

[683] And that's how you get a job.

[684] Oh, no shit.

[685] Yeah.

[686] And I was working at Cafe Blute.

[687] And I was like probably, if there was like 16 cooks in my ranking, I was like 15.

[688] You know?

[689] And I was like, I'm never going to be better than everyone else.

[690] Around that time, I had my first manic experience on the depressive side.

[691] Okay.

[692] Yeah.

[693] And things were going, of my family as well.

[694] And then all in, I was also working like 14.

[695] I don't know what 14, 16 hours times six days a week is, but it was like a crazy amount of work.

[696] And I just was like losing my mind.

[697] And my mom's been in cancer for 24 years.

[698] My brother was in the midst of suing my dad.

[699] And all this crazy shit was going on.

[700] And my reality was like melting away.

[701] and I was not in a good place.

[702] So that was another reason why I had to leave.

[703] And one of the reasons I started Momofuku was I reached a point.

[704] I was like, fuck it.

[705] Who cares?

[706] You know what I mean?

[707] Like using that sort of that equation of like, what's the worst thing that can happen?

[708] Yeah.

[709] Right?

[710] Like I might just chill myself anyway.

[711] So who cares?

[712] If I fuck this up, who cares?

[713] Well, can I ask, what were the depths of that period?

[714] And did you end up having to quit the job?

[715] Were you unable to work?

[716] how destructive did that spell get you know it's funny it's like throughout my life i feel like i've wanted to ask for help and even times i think i've asked it in college or even high school and high school was pretty traumatic for me too like that was a whole other like uh i went to the private school that produced the last two supreme court justices oh yeah yeah you went to um georgetown prept yeah i got to imagine some of your yeah some of your classmates parents were like senators and shit so it wasn't a it wasn't a fun time for me so i i didn't really fit in and i remember in high school asking for help and people are like you're fine and then i never never asked my parents like hey i think i need to see a therapist or a psychiatrist like that doesn't exist in an asian -american household right you just don't do it you know what the the remedy is is stop crying yeah suck it up yeah yeah tough enough yeah yeah yeah to need help is his weakness right exactly yeah and the whole idea that you you need someone to talk to or get medication on that was just so foreign that was never going to happen so you know when i was like 26 that's where i reached a point where i was like fuck it and did you self medicate oh my god yeah there we go i mean like man i was really good at it yeah yeah yeah well when your baseline is feeling like a negative six and a drug even in its worst condition can take you to it too you're going to pick that option in my experience Yeah, and because my industry also was like, I mean, even after college, like, you go out every night.

[717] Like, I mean, every night I'm going to bed at four in the morning, five in the morning, sometimes sleeping in the locker room just to go to work in the morning.

[718] It's insane.

[719] I try to block a lot of that out because it wasn't like that fun, but a lot of drinking.

[720] And I don't like to say that I had a drinking problem.

[721] But, yeah, I definitely had a drinking problem.

[722] Sure, sure.

[723] Well, you're talking to someone with a drinking problem, so it's okay.

[724] you're in good company it's bad medicine for depression unfortunately ultimately you find out really bad medicine and also smoking a lot of marijuana is really bad medicine at that time too yeah i knew things were not right just because of thoughts that were going in my head i was just in a really bad place it was just sad you know i just was fucking sad and i had no explanation for it so i knew i needed help and i remember at new york magazine at the time would always have these best of lists and I was like you know what fuck it I I I'm just going to call these people and try to find someone to help me out and I think I saw one or two and uh they weren't right for me and then finally I found someone online I started to see him and it was so expensive and the health I mean I think at that time it only covered like three sessions per like every two months so it was really hard but that was the beginning that my life started to change yeah and that was 26.

[725] And I've seen him since.

[726] Oh, no shit.

[727] That's pretty profound.

[728] One of the things that he specialized in was childhood trauma.

[729] Uh -huh.

[730] And I think that's like what we've been like working on all these years.

[731] So there was therapy.

[732] There was the medication that I eventually got on.

[733] And opening up that restaurant was not something I thought about actually operating.

[734] It was the goal of I just have to physically do something to get me out of this this hell that I'm in.

[735] To have a purpose?

[736] Yeah.

[737] The day we opened up, I was like, oh, I actually have to figure this shit out.

[738] Everything's against us.

[739] We're the underdog of underdogs, and we're going to just, through sheer grit and determination, we're going to win.

[740] It gave me purpose to get out of bed.

[741] Isn't the irony of asking for help being a form of weakness when you tally up the results of it, which are it empowered you to be effective and productive and creative?

[742] and not asking for help would have actually defeated all those things in you.

[743] The real weakness would have been to not explore this.

[744] It's so ironic.

[745] And I wonder if, like, my son will feel the same way, should he ever have the need to ask for help?

[746] You know, but, like, the way we grew up, what form of media told you that strength was asking for help?

[747] Yeah, vulnerability is a superpower.

[748] Those first year, there would be sessions literally where I wouldn't say a word because I was so embarrassed.

[749] And I remember having to come to terms with like, I can't tell anyone that I'm seeing a psychiatrist.

[750] I can't tell anyone that I'm on medication and this is so embarrassing that I don't know what to do with myself.

[751] And now here I am telling the world that this is what I did.

[752] So it's funny how it all plays out.

[753] That's the most money I've ever spent in my life is still on my psychiatrist for sure.

[754] Which is by the way the most valuable thing to invest in is your mental health.

[755] This kind of dovetails into, I mentioned the elite thing, which I have an issue with.

[756] But then secondly, I grew up in a blue -collar area of outside of Detroit, and you saved money, you bought a possession, then you maintained the shit out of it, you treated it well, and that's what you did.

[757] And you bought a house and maybe you got a boat at some point.

[758] Like these are, and the notion of pain for experiences was a really foreign notion where I grew up.

[759] So you saved for objects and possessions that were assets and you could pass on and I dated a girl for nine years who worked in a restaurant and she spent every time she made at that restaurant at other restaurants and I was always like everyone there did the same thing I was like all you guys are making pretty good money all things considered versus what I was making and they were just blow I never saw people spend money like this on wine on food and as I've gotten older and actually read some books about happiness experiences are a better thing to invest in.

[760] Ultimately, if you're just measuring it by what impact it has on your happiness and that ultimately possessions don't really give you much happiness.

[761] So I've come around to it for sure.

[762] But that had traditionally been my other reservation as like, oh, you're just blowing this money.

[763] What's your relationship with that as far as just making that something that you're going to invest in and indulge on?

[764] And do you have to convince other people that that's a worthwhile endeavor?

[765] in the industry hey I have a reservation at this restaurant let's go and even if you don't have the money you're gonna find a way because like we're addicts we're pleasure addicts yeah we want that dopamine hit somehow some way yeah and even if you don't have the money like I've been that situation so many times like fuck it like hey I remember like let's go to France and you know let's go to this restaurant this or it's like no one has the means to do it but we all find a way to make it happen yeah um whether it's maxing out your credit cards or whatever, and you're just constantly in the state of paying debt off because you're pleasuring yourself at restaurants.

[766] And it doesn't have to be the fancies of the fancy, but it's like all your money goes back to eating and drinking.

[767] Yeah, yeah.

[768] It actually makes no sense whatsoever when you think about it too.

[769] It appears that younger generations have a much different relationship with it than I did.

[770] They didn't have to fight it.

[771] They seem, you know, there's all these articles being critical of them that they want avocado toast instead of a house.

[772] And I think there's truth to it, but I don't know that they necessarily are wrong for prioritizing that.

[773] But I would say Momofuco is part of this revolution, right?

[774] But you kind of got disillusioned with the reservation fancy restaurant, right?

[775] Yeah, 100%.

[776] Which kind of led to you doing Mamafuko.

[777] But then, ultimately, you then did create another Momofuco, is it Co?

[778] And that is a make a reservation.

[779] online 10 days in advance it only seats 12 people so how how did you go from you know this thing's broken so i'm going to do it this way to oh maybe there's a version of this i want to do right you know talking about japan and eating well and not just eating well in japan when i was able to travel throughout asia i'm eating an amazing meal for like 50 cents you know and i was like shit like this is something that everyone wants to experience and then that was the next epiphany i was like oh fuck everybody wants to eat well it's just not accessible or it's too expensive but it's not the case the only place where that's not the case is America and I was like it doesn't have to be that way and that's what Momofuku was was there's got to be different ways to eat food than eating at a fancy place on the upper side as much as I love the food there in the restaurant and I was like you know what there's got to be something else and I thought that there's this underground movement that had not been tapped into with food.

[780] Let's do noodles and let's try to apply the same sort of discipline and technical rigor that I've learned working at some of the best restaurants and apply it to a $12 to $15 bowl of soup.

[781] So could you leave having one of the best meals of your life affordably?

[782] And that was really important to me. And then now how did the reservation version?

[783] So like we really ran Momo like almost going out of business, a variety of different ways.

[784] So we did noodle bar and then we did sambar, which was starting off as a burrito shop.

[785] Korean burrito shop.

[786] Nothing we had ever planned on actually worked the way it was intended to.

[787] So I was so levered on banks and loans that I couldn't have this original restaurant that was noodle bar that we eventually moved up the street closed.

[788] And we didn't have enough hot water there.

[789] So the main reason why we did fine dining was we didn't have enough hot water.

[790] No shit.

[791] Yeah, I didn't give a shit about making fancy food.

[792] That was the furthest thing at my mind.

[793] So we had a situation here that if this restaurant closed by the, the health department, we were going to lose everything.

[794] We were out of 27 seats, a 600 square feet, we were doing like 250 people a day.

[795] It was like a real phenomenon.

[796] We literally did the math, reverse engineering.

[797] I was like, so how many people can we serve with a water heater that we have?

[798] And it turned out to be 24 people.

[799] So I don't want to do fine dining.

[800] But like, okay, what can we serve that will justify the same numbers that we were doing for 250 people for 24?

[801] yeah for 24 people so we had to come up with fine dining menu and that's how we did it wow and we didn't we didn't do it we the whole goal was stripping away the bullshit all the things you hate about fine dining dachs i hate too but people still should go out and celebrate and feel good and like my my metric was always if you have a teacher from delaware that makes 45 ,000 dollars a year and they happen to be a fan and they've been saving their money i want them to come here feeling like they left and dropped 150 bucks feeling like it was one of the best things they've ever spent money on.

[802] Yeah.

[803] And it wasn't about trying to set a benchmark for people that could afford it.

[804] It was like, how could we set an experience for people that had to save up money that was worth it for them to save up?

[805] Yes.

[806] Yeah.

[807] Now, you're huge now, and I see you on TV.

[808] You have restaurants in Toronto, in Sydney, Australia, as you just said, Vegas, Los Angeles.

[809] at some point you start transitioning into one of these Thomas Keller type people.

[810] I know so little about this world, but I'm aware of you as like a food icon at a certain point.

[811] And obviously it's gotten so big.

[812] You must have brought in genius people to help with this growth.

[813] Isn't that an incredibly hard thing to navigate growth like that?

[814] You know, now we're blessed to have like some of the best and brightest people.

[815] Like I don't know.

[816] I look at my office now, and it's like, everyone went to like an Ivy League school and they want to work here.

[817] Like, what the fuck is going on?

[818] Yeah.

[819] And all these cooks are so good.

[820] And they're just better than I am.

[821] And that's what I always, I've just learned.

[822] I was like, wait, you're better than this than I am.

[823] So you should do it.

[824] Yeah, for sure.

[825] I've just found that's been my sort of management style is hire people that are smarter than me and just put them in positions to succeed.

[826] Yeah.

[827] But your genius obviously is the creativity, no?

[828] The funny thing is, I think my upbringing has done such a good job of me being sort of self -denunciation of anything I'm good at.

[829] Yeah.

[830] And I swear to God, this is exactly some of the times and hours I spend with my shrink.

[831] It's like, I have a hard time figuring out what the fuck I'm actually good at.

[832] Uh -huh.

[833] Well, especially because the people we talk to in interview regularly, a pretty common thread through all of us is like this sense of being fraudulent.

[834] Oh, yeah, 100%.

[835] I think we all feel like, well, wait, I'm not Anthony Bore.

[836] ordained.

[837] I'm not so -and -so.

[838] So somehow I'm a fraud because I'm not those guys.

[839] But somebody wants to be David Chang and feels fraudulent about trying to be used.

[840] It's been really weird and I've been a bad boss in so many ways and I just tried so hard to like be better.

[841] A lot of that's been through therapy and I've had a historically bad temper and I swear to God, I would say 90 % of my time with my shrink is like why am I so fucking angry?

[842] And I can actually tell everyone exactly why certain things happen now.

[843] And it's crazy to me. I can unfold.

[844] This is how my emotion is at this point.

[845] This is how I reacted to that because I've done so much analysis.

[846] But for the most part, when I think about whatever has happened at Momofuku, I feel lucky as fuck.

[847] And two, if it is something I tend to think that I may be good at, I live in a world of sports analogies.

[848] It's like I'm that player that can't shoot or rebound or whatever, but their plus and minus rating is always very high.

[849] and the team wins.

[850] And somehow that's sort of how it plays out with me. Are you technically bipolar?

[851] Yeah.

[852] Okay.

[853] So I would have to imagine, as the thing is spinning up and it's getting hugely successful, I have to imagine that's a very dicey area for someone like you.

[854] Was that, did you have fits of highs during all that expansion?

[855] Well, you know, the interesting thing was, you know, being medicated, and seeing my shrink on a regular basis, I think my highs were, like, not as high, and my low is worn as low.

[856] The self -medication is really what fucked me up the most.

[857] Right, right, right, yeah.

[858] It wasn't just fraudulent or feeling like imposter syndrome.

[859] I felt like it was survivor's guilt.

[860] That, like, it shouldn't happen to me. It should be happening to this person over here because there's so much better than me. Like, why the fuck is this happening to me?

[861] Yeah.

[862] And in order to have that relationship, least I would just drink my face off at night.

[863] Yeah.

[864] So you have ugly delicious, right?

[865] I see that every time I open up Netflix.

[866] You also had breakfast, lunch and dinner, which I saw Seth Rogen was on and Kate McKinnon.

[867] You have to be a friend with Aziz, right?

[868] He's like the ultimate resident foodie in New York.

[869] By the way, I think he's great for your industry in that I watch Master of Nunn and I'm like, oh yeah, it's cool to be super into what taco you're going to eat in the middle of the afternoon.

[870] Like to have that as like a mission of like, no, every single time I eat, I want to try to make it the single best thing I could consume in this moment and where I'm at geographically is I like it.

[871] I think it's cool.

[872] You know, it's funny.

[873] Like, weirdly I got to know pretty deeply the world of New York City comedy.

[874] I think it started when we opened up the first restaurant.

[875] John Mullaney and Nick Kroll would go do their sort of routine at Rafi Feefees.

[876] I think that was the name.

[877] So they were just starting out.

[878] I was just starting out.

[879] And I knew Kroll from mutual friends, and they would come over and we just lament how bad our careers were.

[880] And from there, like, comedians just kept on coming in.

[881] And Kroll introduced me to Aziz when Aziz was still at NYU.

[882] Oh, no shit.

[883] Yeah, in, like, 2006.

[884] So I got to know these people before anyone knew any of them.

[885] Right.

[886] Really weird.

[887] It's been fun to, like, grow up together in so many different ways, right?

[888] Yeah.

[889] Stay tuned for more armed.

[890] chair, expert, if you dare.

[891] Now, Ugly Delicious, what season are you in?

[892] We're on two.

[893] We filmed breakfast, lunch, and dinner as sort of like B -side to Ugly Delicious Season 2, because filming Ugly Delicious is so fucking hard.

[894] Because of the travel and stuff?

[895] Oh, my God.

[896] I think it was 68 days of travel for me. Oh, my gosh.

[897] And not just for that, just like trying to assemble these massive topics into some, you know, cohesive 50 -minute.

[898] docu -series thing was tough and uh we wanted to do something fun and also a little bit quicker so that's why netflix and morgan neville who won an oscar for 20 feet from stardom and did the mr rogers doc my partner in ugly delicious was like let's just try to do like a one -day shoot and uh yeah and it actually proved to be way fucking harder than anyone thought to it's so hard sure sure yeah because I found out like a lot of these actors are like they're not acting 20 like 12 hours a day they you do your thing for like an hour and then you go back to your trailer and right oh yeah if I'm on set for 12 hours I'm acting for maybe 42 minutes of that 12 hours like saying lines in front of a camera yeah and they're eating and it's just a lot it's it's a pretty taxing thing I will say the easiest one for sure was the one with rogan where we're just so I was so high It was insane.

[899] That helps.

[900] So he would only do it if I smoke to join every hour.

[901] One puff.

[902] But that was the second season, and we're working on this show with Hulu.

[903] So I'm doing a bunch of shows for Hulu right now.

[904] And we were filming with Chrissy Tegan, a TV show that had to stop production because of this epidemic.

[905] So that was like a crazy thing.

[906] Yeah.

[907] Yeah.

[908] Could you say which side of all this you like the most or you like it all or you hate it all?

[909] I don't know.

[910] I don't think when I do media, it feels like work.

[911] I mean, it does, but it's not working in kitchens.

[912] That's to me what work is.

[913] And it's so fucking hard.

[914] And managing the restaurants is so hard.

[915] But somehow I always, again, I always liken it to an addiction.

[916] 99 % of it, I think, sucks in restaurants.

[917] But man, that 1 %, whew.

[918] That's what you're chasing after all the time.

[919] It'll keep you coming back.

[920] Yeah.

[921] And the media, and I don't feel the highs so much.

[922] It just feels like a pretty steady thing.

[923] And I like it because it's been able to, like, give me a bigger platform.

[924] And I want to be able to be responsible with that platform.

[925] But I feel guilty, weirdly, to say that I like it.

[926] You know?

[927] I mean, because it's not something I know a lot of other chefs have that opportunity, and I feel like a wimp in some ways.

[928] But I also like it because it's, that allows me to keep my brain engaged in other ways and continue to grow.

[929] But I will say, you know, as someone who really enjoys you and I think you're great at it, I think you're great at the media side, I think people were so confused by Anthony Bourdain because it appeared that he had the exact life we all fantasize about, which is like perpetually on vacation, going out and having great food, drinking with people and having fun.

[930] And I think, obviously from his book, at least we know he had addiction.

[931] I never met the guy personally, but clearly some significant depression issues.

[932] And I think it's relevant for someone like you, for someone like me to go, okay, yeah, the grass looks green over there.

[933] I'm doing this.

[934] This is good.

[935] But, man, always having scheduled self -healing time, self -checking time, all that being accountable to people.

[936] I sure hope that's a part of your program and plan.

[937] You know, I'm trying.

[938] I'm trying really hard.

[939] And I know it's a problem when people, like the first thing people say is, hey, Dave, are you taking care of yourself?

[940] When like, 10 people tell me that in like a month, I'm like, oh, shit.

[941] I think I'm really in it right now.

[942] And, you know, Tony passing was brutal for me because in so many ways he was a mentor and like an older brother figure to me. And when he died, I think what was so hard for me was, I was like, that shit was supposed to happen to me, not to Tony.

[943] Right.

[944] And he's the Mick Jagger of your world.

[945] That guy's supposed to be impervious to something like that.

[946] Yeah, and we started talking about it, asking for help, you know, and that being a sign of strength.

[947] And for a good period of time, I was really mad at myself because I felt selfish.

[948] And whenever I would see Tony, I think, you know, when I first got to know Tony really well, we were just hanging and eat and drink and have an amazing time.

[949] And then I think it got a little bit less of a hang because he realized like, oh, Chang's fucked up.

[950] Like, I got to be like a, I got to be like a respectable adult for him and help him out.

[951] I think that where I felt bad was he had to be so strong for everyone else.

[952] Yeah.

[953] That I don't know if anyone gave in return to him.

[954] And I felt really guilty because I wish I had said, hey, Tony.

[955] like you're always helping me what can i do for you yeah and i don't know if that would have made a difference but i know a lot of people felt the same way because he was constantly giving to people yeah i think that these kind of alphas it's really hard to imagine that they need someone to take care of them as well yeah there's so many occasions where i could have just had that simple conversation but as you know someone who's wrestled with all of it there's no real magic words right it's got to be the person asking for help and becoming open to all suggestions and yeah and i think i was intoxicated just like everyone else's is like tony's got like even though you know there might have been signs or things and you're just like he's gone through all this he's got it he's got it you know you know my good friend dave chow said it the best and they had a very different relationship than anyone else because chose an addict in a variety of different ways he was like tony just jumped from heroin to work Right, right, right.

[956] He never went to rehab.

[957] He just cold turkeyed heroin.

[958] Yeah.

[959] And Tony had a severe addictive personality that was tempered over the years, but it's scary for me, for myself, or to people that I care about that also have addictive personalities.

[960] And it's something that I never thought I'd talk about as much as I do.

[961] I'm so glad you do because, again, you're somebody's Tony.

[962] It is incumbent upon you.

[963] you own all of the vulnerabilities and the you know the struggles and it helps people not feel alone in theirs and that's seeing someone successful who's still actively vulnerable and actively asking for help helps erode this notion that you can succeed your way into feeling good but you you can't do it absolutely and i i don't know if i would ever be this open about it if he didn't pass uh -huh because i really wrestle is like well if there's any anything can be learned it means that like it's stupid to bottle it all up and not tell anybody and I can hate myself in a variety of ways and I will always hate myself in a variety of ways but if there's one thing that I can feel good about if I just have one person then then it's worth it right is it easy when you talk about all this stuff because you well I've been in AA for 15 years so it's gotten easy you know I go share my shit in front of strangers in whatever city I'm working in And so I, it certainly, I got used to it, you know.

[964] How hard was it for you when you first started?

[965] Oh, my God.

[966] Well, dude, the first time I said I was molested, I had been sitting on that for 14 years.

[967] And I don't think I told someone again for another five.

[968] And then I told someone again in a year.

[969] And now we'll tell anyone it really doesn't have the weight it used to.

[970] But I'll tell you that if I'm being dead honest, it's a lot easier for me to talk about the things I've gone through as opposed to things I'm currently going through.

[971] That's still very challenging for me to go like, oh, no, I'm.

[972] still fight being a scumbag hourly.

[973] That's like in my DNA.

[974] It's gotten easier, but I still, yeah, dude, there's potholes all over.

[975] Just walk out your front door.

[976] Yeah.

[977] So, you know, that's something I could get better at.

[978] I aspire to be better at that.

[979] The real time vulnerability, the real time struggle.

[980] You know something that's crazy that I did recently two months ago?

[981] Because I've been trying to like get the right medication for me. Yeah.

[982] There was a couple of years where I decided to go off medication, and I can look back and be like, holy fucking shit.

[983] Like, I was so fucking out of my mind.

[984] And thankfully, I got back on it.

[985] And it's always been hard to sort of get me to a place where everything's working, right?

[986] Yeah.

[987] I feel so sympathetic to everyone that deals with what you do.

[988] Because even if you find that magic recipe, right, your body then evolves.

[989] It's ongoing, right?

[990] There's never a magic combination.

[991] And, like, the way I've always described it, it feels like I can just get enough oxygen if I'm in the water, right?

[992] Like, I'm not drowning per se, but it feels like I could at any moment.

[993] You know, after years of seeing my doctor, like, only recently did I find out, like, I'm bipolar.

[994] When I said, like, three, four years ago, because I'd ask him, like, what am I?

[995] He's like, why would you want to know this, David?

[996] I'm like, fuck, just tell me what I want to fucking know.

[997] Yeah.

[998] And weirdly, like, two, three months ago, because we've been trying to tweak my medication to get it better.

[999] And he's like, hey, there's this DNA sequencing test that's offered right now.

[1000] And it just does your 22 chromosomes that is most widely associated with your mental health and does a couple that sequences your liver to see how you process medicine.

[1001] And this is specifically just to get you on the best medicine for yourself.

[1002] Yeah.

[1003] And I sat on that for a long time.

[1004] But I just wasn't ready to do it because I felt like this was Gattaca shit.

[1005] And I was like, I don't know.

[1006] These are moral dilemmas.

[1007] And once you open up this Pandora's box, I was like, fuck, I don't know.

[1008] Film in the show last year was hard.

[1009] When I say I lost my mind, I lost my fucking mind.

[1010] In Cambodia, it was just a bad fucking place.

[1011] Great place to lose it.

[1012] Because in so many ways, I felt bad.

[1013] I was like, you know what?

[1014] This is what Tony should be doing?

[1015] What the fuck am I doing?

[1016] And I was just getting ready to have our first son, and I was just in a weird place.

[1017] And I was like, shit, like, I needed to make sure that don't go down this road.

[1018] So we were, like, really trying to figure out the best medication for me. And I changed a bunch of things, and it just didn't work out.

[1019] I was like, fuck it.

[1020] I'm just going to say, yes, I'm going to do this.

[1021] And I got the results back, and it blew my fucking mind.

[1022] Really?

[1023] Yeah.

[1024] I was like, oh, it explained so much.

[1025] It was like a weird thing to be able to connect the dots.

[1026] And, you know, what was most interesting to me was like, it almost immediately, I was like, oh, if this becomes popular, this is going to destigmatize mental illness immediately.

[1027] Because he was saying I'm a candidate for ketamine.

[1028] There's like something in my DNA that says I'm a ketamine responder And I haven't called the doctor yet Because like I'm going to be legally allowed to get ketamine dripped into me And I'm just like part of me is like yes This is fucking amazing And the other part is like oh this is scary But he was saying they have a spray where if you're feeling bad Or you know you're going to go down a manic episode You can actually inhale it in your nose And you're immediately going to feel better And I was like this is fucking crazy So effectively it's like an epipen for your emotion I was like, wait, if you were a diabetic, you know, no one's going to make fun of you because you don't produce insulin because we've accepted that as a society, you know?

[1029] It's like, hey, you need to take medicine.

[1030] We get that.

[1031] And I think that this is maybe a game changer in how people can accept the fact that people's brain functions.

[1032] Oh, yeah, and they're also, they're starting to isolate some gut bacteria that is really common in different forms of depression.

[1033] I mean, yeah, it's all opening up.

[1034] I think we're going to have such better options as we go forward.

[1035] And it's an exciting time, actually.

[1036] I mean, you just got to imagine yourself in the 1800s dealing with all this stuff.

[1037] I'm pretty sure I would not be alive without help.

[1038] Yeah, yeah.

[1039] I don't think I would have made it either.

[1040] Well, David, I hope everyone checks out.

[1041] You have a podcast, too.

[1042] Can you tell me the name of your podcast?

[1043] Yeah, it's the Dave Chang Show.

[1044] It's on the Ringer podcast network with Bill Simmons.

[1045] And, you know, now that I have time, I'm increasing, frequency because I think we have the ability to tell stories for chefs that are going through this real tragedy right now.

[1046] Yeah.

[1047] The whole idea of like too small to fail as sort of this hashtag is real because if the economy almost collapsed in 2008 because of these giant institutions, it's going to be the same thing if we don't help independent businesses.

[1048] It's been a brutal three weeks or so talking to my friends that have basically lost everything potentially.

[1049] Yeah.

[1050] I've been weirdly really busy.

[1051] talking to people from the government side, actually trying to give them some insight as to what might need to happen to help out everybody.

[1052] Yeah.

[1053] Oh, well, that's great, man. I'm glad that you're involved with all that.

[1054] So check out your podcast, ugly, delicious, and then treat yourself.

[1055] If you see the Mamafuko sign anywhere, well, good luck getting a table.

[1056] But if you see it when this is all over, please go inside.

[1057] We've had a dozen amazing meals around the country at your restaurant.

[1058] So So thanks so much for doing this with us.

[1059] Thanks, thanks.

[1060] Yeah.

[1061] Be safe.

[1062] Thanks, Monica.

[1063] We want to come eat with you and we're in New York sometime.

[1064] I will really love that.

[1065] That would be great.

[1066] Well, thanks a ton, man. Thanks, guys.

[1067] Bye.

[1068] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman.

[1069] We don't have our normal setup.

[1070] Let's just say that, right?

[1071] In this quarantine life of ours, we don't have our normal setup.

[1072] at the attic where we can really fine -tune everyone's levels in their headphones.

[1073] That's true.

[1074] And now it's just kind of one -size -fits -all, right?

[1075] Sure.

[1076] You got to hear whatever volume I'm hearing it.

[1077] Although what's curious is we also are using a headphone splitter, so it is conceivable that you're getting more output than I am.

[1078] Oh, do you want to switch?

[1079] Let's just see if it sounds the same to us.

[1080] Okay.

[1081] Yeah, it sounds the same to me. Sounds the same.

[1082] Okay.

[1083] Bader -Mine -hoff, who knows.

[1084] I've had a lot of Bader -Rae, Mindhoff experiences lately.

[1085] You have?

[1086] Yeah, I forget what they are, but I've said it a lot.

[1087] I've noticed you've said it like three times in the last four days.

[1088] And it always makes me smile every single time you say.

[1089] I love it.

[1090] It's really the only thing I've retained from these fact checks.

[1091] Uh -huh, is Bader Mindhawk.

[1092] It's the only fact I've remembered is the definition of Bader Mindhoff, which is frequency illusion, which is if you hear something or see something, then you start seeing or The classic example is you get a red BMW 3 series and you don't feel like you see those at all.

[1093] But the second you buy that car, everywhere you go, you notice there's millions of them.

[1094] You're not unique at all.

[1095] They're everywhere.

[1096] Everyone has a red 3 series.

[1097] I don't know that I'd say that's the classic example, but sure.

[1098] It is an example.

[1099] Can relate to buying a car and then noticing that car now everywhere.

[1100] Yes.

[1101] But before it was invisible to you.

[1102] That's true.

[1103] The one I remembered was.

[1104] attribution error.

[1105] I love that one.

[1106] That one summed me up so much.

[1107] Remember that one?

[1108] We learned that from here.

[1109] Yeah.

[1110] What was that one?

[1111] That is when someone cut you off in traffic and you attribute their behavior, attribution, to a characteristic of them or a character flaw, right?

[1112] So that person's selfish.

[1113] That person's impatient.

[1114] As opposed to making a summation of them contextually, that there was some situation that caused their behavior.

[1115] Either they had to swerve to miss a dog or they were rushing to get a kidney to the hospital.

[1116] Yeah.

[1117] Right?

[1118] You don't know which it is.

[1119] I'm really prone to just say people are pieces of shit and make a real big character assessment.

[1120] I don't think I do that very much.

[1121] Yeah.

[1122] You seem to be in the middle.

[1123] Meet me in the middle.

[1124] Well, it's not that I mean, yeah, maybe I'm in the middle.

[1125] Truth be told, I'm just not thinking about that person very much.

[1126] So it's not like I'm even, like I just get annoyed for three, for one second.

[1127] Three and one half seconds.

[1128] Yeah.

[1129] And then I don't think like, well, maybe they're going to the, like, I don't have to talk myself out of it.

[1130] You're just like a duck off a water's asshole.

[1131] You just let it roll right off, right?

[1132] Classic analogy.

[1133] And I, um, that's the, I think the goal.

[1134] Forget trying to figure out.

[1135] Where they're going.

[1136] Who cares?

[1137] Yes.

[1138] Yes.

[1139] That's the dream.

[1140] I just don't need to be worried about what that person's doing.

[1141] I can just be annoyed for one second and then move on.

[1142] That's the dream.

[1143] That's the dream.

[1144] What is interesting is sometimes people are, you know, there's some extenuating circumstance that's caused their behavior.

[1145] Yes.

[1146] But I'd say more often than not, I'm right.

[1147] Someone's just an impatient prick.

[1148] I don't think.

[1149] So Kristen would always think it's somebody's going to save a life.

[1150] Like they're en route to a burning building.

[1151] That's extreme.

[1152] Yeah.

[1153] And I'm like, everyone's a monster.

[1154] But I think percentage -wise, I'm more often right.

[1155] Okay.

[1156] I think in some ways you're right.

[1157] I think people are acting like assholes.

[1158] Like, I don't think they're on their way to whatever.

[1159] But it's probably because they had a bad day or something's happening with them that is causing this.

[1160] It's not just that they're a bad person.

[1161] Right, right.

[1162] Yeah, yeah, that's true.

[1163] That's true.

[1164] I'm both things.

[1165] So, so quite often having two children makes it, like, semi -impossible to get out of the house.

[1166] So I'm often late or I'm trying to make up time.

[1167] Now you could go, well, then just keep backing up when you start the process, which is great.

[1168] That's legit.

[1169] But boy, you know, you got to feed them and this and that and the packing and then the tantrums and the meltdowns and the wardrobe changes.

[1170] You know, all of it leaves me probably, but on the highway going somewhere later than we should have.

[1171] Yeah.

[1172] And I'm an entitled prick.

[1173] So both things are happening.

[1174] Like, if I cut you off in traffic, both people are going to be right.

[1175] It was situational and it was that I'm an entitled prick.

[1176] But just because you had a hard time getting out the door and you're late doesn't mean you have to cut people off.

[1177] You can still just say sorry when you get to the place you got and not make more carnage on your way there.

[1178] Well, yes.

[1179] So here's another thing I think of quite often is because I both do it and I'm the victim or recipient of it, which is I drive fast.

[1180] I like to fucking drive fast.

[1181] I enjoy it.

[1182] Yes, you do.

[1183] It's fun for me. like it.

[1184] And I never understand why anyone's getting mad because I'm not inconveniencing them.

[1185] If I'm in the left lane, I go by you, going 10 miles an hour faster and you're going, no sweat off your back.

[1186] There's nothing happening to you.

[1187] Yet, occasionally people will flip me off or they'll honk or they do whatever they do.

[1188] And I'm like, I'm just happily with a smile on my face driving to work.

[1189] Quickly, there's no aggression on my end.

[1190] There's no anger.

[1191] There's no malice.

[1192] Yet I'll be on the highway.

[1193] And for whatever reason, reason I'm not in the mood to go fast.

[1194] I'm just listening to a podcast and I'm fluent.

[1195] And someone will blow by me. And my first thought, my Brussels is like, God, that guy's aggressive.

[1196] He might be there smiling, listen to Christopher Cross sailing.

[1197] You know, there might be no aggression to it.

[1198] But it's funny because it's the exact same behavior.

[1199] But when I do it, it's peaceful and loving and you just like to drive fast.

[1200] But when someone else, they're aggressive and impatient and all these things.

[1201] Yeah, but it's also that people driving insanely fast, it makes other people.

[1202] scared.

[1203] Yeah.

[1204] Mm -hmm.

[1205] So it's, it's fair to be like, ah, this person is driving too fast.

[1206] Because if, even if you were driving next to me and you were driving super fast and I got in an accident with you, and if it was my fault even, like the chances that one of us are dead is way higher.

[1207] Well, I don't think so, to be honest with you.

[1208] I don't think the difference between crashing at 65 and 80 is a big difference, just percentage wise.

[1209] I think it is.

[1210] If you hit a, let's say this, if you hit a wall, anything over 45 your debts or 55 or something.

[1211] There's a point where it's just the damage is the damage.

[1212] Now it's going to accordion quicker or something.

[1213] But I don't think there's a big difference between crashing into a wall at 85 and crashing into Walt 65.

[1214] I think you're a goner.

[1215] Maybe.

[1216] I don't know.

[1217] I really don't know.

[1218] I'm going to do some experiments.

[1219] I'm going to crash into a Walt 65.

[1220] I'll tell you how I feel.

[1221] Okay.

[1222] And then I'm going to crash into all 85.

[1223] Yuck.

[1224] This is an episode that is very mental health heavy.

[1225] We talk a lot about mental health, which I love.

[1226] Mm -hmm.

[1227] And who's so open and vulnerable about his struggles.

[1228] Yeah.

[1229] It's hard.

[1230] It's hard to be happy.

[1231] It is.

[1232] And it always begs the question why.

[1233] Why is mental health pandemic level?

[1234] That's what was the first question when the DSM was created.

[1235] and they started being able to administer a standardized test to millions of Americans.

[1236] The conclusion was either this test is too sensitive and it's labeling too many people with mental health issues.

[1237] Or there's a pandemic of mental health.

[1238] I'm inclined to think it's the latter.

[1239] Negative mental health, you mean?

[1240] Yeah, yeah.

[1241] Yeah.

[1242] And I'm inclined to think it's the latter, that there is pandemic levels of depression and different issues.

[1243] Yeah.

[1244] I think it's very, very common.

[1245] So common.

[1246] It definitely is.

[1247] You have to ask yourself, why?

[1248] Was this the mental state of human beings 100 ,000 years ago?

[1249] I can't imagine.

[1250] I was thinking about this the other day watching an animal show.

[1251] And I was thinking, there's no way an animal is designed and has evolved to live in mental anguish.

[1252] There's just, there's no upside to it.

[1253] And then I just started thinking it has to be a result of like this weird life we have that we're not designed to have.

[1254] Yeah, I think it's a result of life getting too big.

[1255] Mm -hmm.

[1256] Which also leads to higher levels of thinking, which is great and has a ton of positives, but also comes with some lows.

[1257] Yeah.

[1258] So I think it's one of those like you can't have the good without the bad.

[1259] Yeah, it's almost, it's like one of the issues has to simply just be the amount of information you have access to.

[1260] So 50 ,000 years ago, you're being a tribe and you'd probably be aware of one or two other neighbors.

[1261] burying tribes, and that'd be your full extent of the knowledge of the world.

[1262] So you'd be finding out that there's some earthquake in Haiti and then a pandemic in China and then the stock market crash in Germany, like just all these epic problems that span the globe that are all in your head.

[1263] None of that stuff would have been in your head.

[1264] Also, like probably a sense of powerlessness we have and anxiety because when you were that group of a hundred members of a group, you could actually enact a change.

[1265] You could control your whole world.

[1266] Yeah.

[1267] And then the mix of crazy fast pace mixed with totally sedentary lifestyle as far as not being physically active.

[1268] Sitting and everywhere, you go.

[1269] There's a lot.

[1270] And what's interesting is there's no going back, clearly.

[1271] We're not going back to the Stone Age.

[1272] So then you just have to be pragmatic about, okay, well, then we're going to have to get these medicines better and better and better so that they can augment, whatever things being displaced in our heads, something must correct for that.

[1273] Balance it out, yeah.

[1274] And is that the future where we're going to have to be medicated in a way that makes our environment jive with our reptilian wiring?

[1275] Well, and just more awareness, probably more research about the brain and the chemicals and what releases dopamine.

[1276] I bet there's going to, I mean, there already is so much research, but I'm sure that's going to continue.

[1277] And maybe there are things we don't know that can unlock some of that stuff naturally.

[1278] Just like exercise.

[1279] Now we know.

[1280] you know, there might be other things we just don't know yet.

[1281] I'm just a little pessimistic when the solution is like a behavioral adjustment when applied to the 7 billion people.

[1282] Like everyone can take a pill in the morning.

[1283] Look at it in terms of like surgeries are generally.

[1284] I mean, they vary, right, all over the body.

[1285] But like back surgeries, they're like 50 % successful on average.

[1286] It's such a low percentage, yet people refuse to do physical therapy.

[1287] And they know physical therapy like 90 plus percent of the time, fixes a problem, whereas the surgery only half the time fixes it in that particular case.

[1288] And so I'm just always so pessimistic about if there's a behavioral solution to all of it, will people adapt it?

[1289] It's kind of interesting that you're pessimistic about it because you are a part of a group that has made a lot of behavioral change.

[1290] Yeah.

[1291] And unfortunately, the success rate of that program is at its best estimation, like 30%.

[1292] Yeah.

[1293] So, you know, way more people try it and don't achieve sobriety than try it and achieve sobriety.

[1294] But alas, there's no better solution.

[1295] So even the lower percentage one is still the best solution.

[1296] That's true.

[1297] I don't know.

[1298] Well, it depends.

[1299] I guess it depends on the person.

[1300] But also more knowledge, just like this, like just like this podcast and talking about these things makes people feel not alone.

[1301] And that helps.

[1302] And so when we have people on who talk about this is what I'm doing and this helps me, then I think it encourages other people to make those changes too.

[1303] I also think like, kind of like you say that in order to make a change, your hair has to be on fire.

[1304] Like you really have to be in trouble.

[1305] I do think that's true.

[1306] I think a lot of people, once they hit like a real low, low, they do start thinking, okay, what I hope they do?

[1307] They start thinking, what can I do to alleviate this a bit?

[1308] I mean, even me, I've been on the lower end of the happiness scale.

[1309] The happy spectrum?

[1310] Yeah.

[1311] Uh -huh.

[1312] For a little bit.

[1313] And a few days ago, I was like, I got to figure this out.

[1314] And I remembered years ago when I had a ton of anxiety and panic.

[1315] I was doing stuff to get out of it.

[1316] Like I was meditating and I was really good about exercising and I was seeing my therapist regularly.

[1317] And then I climbed out of it.

[1318] And I didn't need to do those things as stringently as I was.

[1319] And now I feel like, okay, I got to get back in those routines because those helped.

[1320] Uh -huh.

[1321] I think it's like once you feel the benefits, you can tap back in a little easier.

[1322] Sure.

[1323] I totally agree.

[1324] But I will just also point out, though, you're also someone who, you're also someone who, is not a procrastinator by nature.

[1325] So, like, think for you, it took, like, three days of misery before you're like, okay, I got to do something.

[1326] And you're someone that doesn't put shit off.

[1327] Now you just, like, extend that to someone who is a huge procrastinator and didn't do their homework, which is a big section of the world.

[1328] And I just get a little pessimistic.

[1329] Yeah.

[1330] I mean, I do think I should have been more proactive a month ago.

[1331] Uh -huh.

[1332] So it wasn't like it was three days.

[1333] It was a buildup of three days of really low to get there.

[1334] But I see what you mean.

[1335] But I don't know.

[1336] I believe that people can help themselves.

[1337] Yeah.

[1338] I believe a lot of people can help themselves.

[1339] Also, hopefully all of this thought and conversation and research continues to go further upstream.

[1340] I mean, you like to hope that a good percentage of this is childhood related.

[1341] And I feel like we could improve the childhoods.

[1342] Yeah, that's a lot of pressure on parents.

[1343] Oh, it is.

[1344] That's why I don't think parents, I think there needs to be more systems in place to help children.

[1345] Yeah.

[1346] You know?

[1347] I think like child care became something that we subsidize or offered and then it had to have a lot of like emotional components to the training.

[1348] Like, you know, if we actually invested and put some effort into giving little kids tools and you like to think it would be a lot easier down, down river.

[1349] Yeah, I agree.

[1350] Okay, a couple things.

[1351] He said Japan colonized Korea in the early 1900s.

[1352] 1910, Korea was annexed by the Empire of Japan after years of war, intimidation and political machinations.

[1353] The country would be considered a part of Japan until 1945 in order to establish control over its new protectorate.

[1354] The Empire of Japan waged an all -out war on Korean culture, which is what he was saying, why his grandfather is, like, basically Japanese.

[1355] Right.

[1356] Yeah.

[1357] Talk about, like, generational trauma.

[1358] Like, that gets passed down.

[1359] This idea that what you are is not good enough and they're trying to be something else.

[1360] Uh -huh.

[1361] Like, that really.

[1362] Yeah, it's sticky.

[1363] Yeah.

[1364] Okay, so I just wanted to be clear because you guys, you guys were talking about craft a lot.

[1365] I just don't know if people know that you're talking about craft of the restaurant.

[1366] Kraft C -R -A -F -T.

[1367] That's Tom Colicchio's restaurant.

[1368] He's a big chef.

[1369] He's on top chef.

[1370] Oh.

[1371] And it's a huge, fancy, big restaurant.

[1372] But because it's food -related, I didn't know people were going to think it was Kraft Mac and cheese.

[1373] K -R -A -F -T.

[1374] Correct.

[1375] That my grandma Yolas worked at.

[1376] Yeah.

[1377] Yeah.

[1378] What a great company.

[1379] It is.

[1380] Delicious cheese is.

[1381] Oh, my God, the best cheese.

[1382] Best Macaroning cheese in the biz.

[1383] 100 years running, however long that's been in.

[1384] And I think the fact that my grandma had worked there, it gave me like an extra amount of pride in the product and it tasted even better.

[1385] Imagine that.

[1386] There's no way that it tasted better.

[1387] It tastes so good.

[1388] I mean, what a product.

[1389] We really believed in it, like General Motors.

[1390] Oh, it's a yummy one.

[1391] But anyway, that's not the crap that was alluded to in this episode.

[1392] Yes.

[1393] And really, those were the only facts because it was more stories and emotions.

[1394] Emotional exploration.

[1395] Yeah, which is so lovely.

[1396] Rare on an experts episode.

[1397] Yeah, that's very, that's true.

[1398] Should we talk a little bit about too hot to handle?

[1399] Sure.

[1400] You got into it last night.

[1401] Yeah, well, yes, we watched one together, me and you, and then we separated, and then you have been watching, and then I was watching.

[1402] And it's a good, bad show.

[1403] It is a great show.

[1404] Let me just say why I think it's a good show.

[1405] Okay.

[1406] Well, tell the premise.

[1407] Tell the premise.

[1408] I guess it's 10, five hot chicks and five hot guys go to an island, presumably, but it turns out it was Mexico, I looked it up.

[1409] But at any rate, they're on a beach, and they're in a house, and they kind of think the premise is your everyday reality show where they're all going to date and hook up and stuff.

[1410] And then they find that they can't kiss or fuck or do any of this stuff.

[1411] Or masturbate.

[1412] Yeah.

[1413] Which I don't know how they're, whatever.

[1414] Monitoring that.

[1415] Yeah.

[1416] So it gives you everything you want.

[1417] You want to gawk, right?

[1418] You want to be judgmental and dislike some people and like some people.

[1419] And that all happens.

[1420] You get that.

[1421] You get a big tasty serving of that.

[1422] Yeah.

[1423] But then slowly you start seeing like these younger males, I hope that this is just a signal of what younger people are like now.

[1424] I hope it's indicative of young people at large because these boys on this show were or are so supportive of each other.

[1425] They're such good communicators.

[1426] They hug each other.

[1427] They, like, challenge each other to be vulnerable.

[1428] And I was just like, oh, my God, I'm so encouraged by this show.

[1429] I mean, I'm only five in.

[1430] I have no spoilers because everyone's watching it, I think.

[1431] It's top -rated on Netflix.

[1432] I believe that there's this crazy gender reversal thing happening in this show where, like, the guys are having all these deep talks with one another.

[1433] And they're also approaching the girls and, like, talking about their feelings.

[1434] and it's so the opposite of what you're used to seeing.

[1435] You're used to seeing the girls, like, being, like, quote, needy and talking about their feelings and competitive with each other.

[1436] But that's sort of happening with the guys.

[1437] Like, there's two guys that were, one guy was mad at another guy because he was creeping on his girl.

[1438] Sure.

[1439] But it wasn't like he was fighting him.

[1440] He was hurt.

[1441] He was hurt and he was just being kind of quiet.

[1442] and aloof and then the other guy came up and was like what's going on to me i was like oh my god that is so what we're used to seeing women do yeah so it is like a shock to watch it in this gender reverse way i love it i mean i love it well and you know what's interesting is i i hadn't thought of this while i was watching it but i'm thinking of it while you're explaining it which is this is not a this is one of the worst aspects of men is that they often establish their status rank based on their physical prowess.

[1443] So Kells is enormous.

[1444] He's just so much bigger than everybody.

[1445] Yeah.

[1446] There's something to that.

[1447] There's something about the harmony of the men in the show because the strata is so clear physically.

[1448] And that is one tiny little advantage we do have men sometimes.

[1449] It's so cancerous.

[1450] But I think in this specific case, you're not seeing a ton of jockeying for who Alpha is.

[1451] it's kind of just very plainly obvious to the eyes.

[1452] I think the girls are more curious or there's more anxiety about who's who's alpha, who's beta, who's gamma.

[1453] I think they're scrambling more for the ranking whereas with the guys it seems to have already been sorted out.

[1454] Like one's a goofball, one's the big toughest motherfucker.

[1455] But they're all attractive so I think that's part of it is like they're all baseline very attractive.

[1456] That's like the point of the show.

[1457] So they're sex.

[1458] addicts, too.

[1459] I mean, I'm calling it that, but they all do nothing but have sex and are used to that.

[1460] The alphanus, you're right.

[1461] It's like how big you are, but it's also about how many women you can get.

[1462] And everyone there is sort of on the same playing field with that.

[1463] Yeah.

[1464] I'm just saying there's a harmony in this house.

[1465] And I think part of it is to do with the alpha, quote, alpha is so clear.

[1466] There's one guy that's so much bigger and stronger than everyone.

[1467] because he's bigger and stronger, I would never label him as the alpha, like seeing this whole thing play out.

[1468] Like the leader of the group, you mean?

[1469] He does not seem like the leader.

[1470] I agree that he doesn't seem like the leader of the group.

[1471] Yeah.

[1472] I think I'm talking about something that if you haven't felt it, you can't understand it maybe.

[1473] Okay.

[1474] Like, that guy can kick everyone's ass.

[1475] And there's something about that being very clear that can add harmony really quickly to a group of guys.

[1476] But when there's four guys that think they're that guy, I think there's just a lot of trouble coming.

[1477] Maybe.

[1478] Yeah, I don't, I can't relate to any of that.

[1479] So I don't know.

[1480] It's really stupid.

[1481] It's pretty stupid.

[1482] I'm not making a case that it's the right way to be.

[1483] Yeah.

[1484] It's just an observation of mine.

[1485] Anyway, it's a good show.

[1486] It's worth watching.

[1487] It's good.

[1488] It's really good.

[1489] Watch it.

[1490] All right.

[1491] Love you.

[1492] Love you.

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