Dan Pashman: Check, check … Hi! If my voice sounds different, it's because I'm recording on my cell phone right now. I don't have my recording gear with me because I'm about to go out into a restaurant. And you know, if you walk into a restaurant with a bunch of microphones, you're kind of conspicuous, and I am on a secret mission. Where am I? At an undisclosed location somewhere in New York City. Well, it's disclosed  to me, but I can't tell you. Where am I going to eat? Again, sorry, top secret. But I can tell you who I'm going with. New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells. He has been called the most read and most feared food writer in America. He can make or break a restaurant with the power of one of his reviews.

Dan Pashman: And he doesn't want restaurants to know he's coming, because he doesn't want special treatment, so he makes reservations under fake names. Even once he’s inside, he tries not be recognized. That’s why there’s only, like, one picture of him online and I think it's from a long time ago. So, I'm out here on a street corner trying to find this guy and I’m not even exactly sure what he looks like. Where is Pete? Oh, I think that might be him coming down the street?

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: Yes, I waved to him and he waved back. Pete, it's you. 

Pete Wells: Yes. How do you know?

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] Well, you don't look so different in that one picture out there.  

Pete Wells: I definitely look older and rounder.  

Dan Pashman: No, you look just as good as you did in that picture. 

Pete Wells: Thank you. 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: When Pete goes out, he doesn’t wear full on disguises, but he does change up his look. The night we met, it seemed he had gone with “college professor”. Another thing I read is that in the restaurant, I shouldn’t refer to him as Pete — that could tip off the servers.

Dan Pashman: So, if I'm not going to call you Pete, what should I call you?

Pete Wells: Oh, I don't — oh boy, that's a really good question. You can — well, why don't you call me — I'm so bad at this.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

MUSIC 

Dan Pashman: This is The Sporkful, it’s not for foodies, it’s for eaters. I’m Dan Pashman. Each week on our show we obsess about food to learn more about people. Before we get into it, we're getting ready to another call in episode of The Sporkful, which means I want to hear from you. I want to hear your food disputes! Are you having a food fight with a friend or family member? Do you need my expert advice on how to settle it? Do you have a hot take you want to share? Send me an email at hello@sporkful.com and let me know what culinary conundrum is on your mind. Again, send me a note at hello@sporkful.com. You might hear yourself on a future episode of the show! Thanks.

Dan Pashman: Okay, now to Pete Wells. Pete’s been The New York Times restaurant critic since 2011. It’s a position that comes with some occupational hazards.

Dan Pashman: Have you ever burnt your tongue on, like, the first bite of food?

Pete Wells: Oh gosh. Yeah, yeah. 

[LAUGHING] 

Pete Wells: Yeah. 

Dan Pashman: And then what? You just get up? You're like, all right, this night's ruined. I'll come back tomorrow.  

Pete Wells: [LAUGHS] I do. I do that. 

Dan Pashman: Pete covers a lot of ground from places where dinner for 4 costs $3,000, to mom and pop shops where you can get a feast for 10 bucks. When he finds a place he really loves, you can feel his excitement in his column. When he ate wontons at one restaurant he reviewed, he wrote of the shrimp inside, "You can see their bodies glowing pink through the thin skins of the wrappers, whose loose ends trail behind the plump, round wontons like comets’ tails."

Dan Pashman: That's how it sounds when Pete likes something. But when he doesn't like something, he’s not shy. He’s probably best known for his 2012 takedown of Guy Fieri’s Times Square restaurant. The piece ignited such a firestorm that Guy himself took a red eye from California that night to do a live interview on the Today Show, from the restaurant, the next morning. 

Dan Pashman: More recently, Pete made waves when he slammed Per Se, one of the fanciest places in America. He compared the broth in one dish to “bong water.” So I was feeling just a little bit intimidated to go out to dinner with him ...

[RESTAURANT AMBIANCE] 

Server: All right, guys.

Pete Wells: Hey, how are you?

Dan Pashman: How are you?

Server: I'm good. Two?

Pete Wells: Yeah.

Dan Pashman: Yeah.

Dan Pashman: I didn’t really tape in the restaurant for all the aforementioned reasons. There was no way I was gonna blow The New York Times restaurant critic’s cover — but I did sneak in a bit of recording at the restaurant, using my phone. 

Dan Pashman: Did you say rotisserie chicken? I mean, isn't that something that they're famous for here?

Pete Wells: Yeah, yeah. 

Dan Pashman: I mean, I actually kind of have a rule.

Pete Wells: Yeah.

Dan Pashman: I have a rule that I don't ever order chicken in restaurants cause it's kind of like the blah thing, except if it's, like, a specialty. Pete Wells: Oh, okay.

Dan Pashman: Like if it's a fried chicken joint or a rotisserie chicken joint, otherwise no. So, I can go either way on rotisserie chicken. Maybe I would maybe I would say pernil?

Pete Wells: Right. Okay. Well, we can east the ...

Dan Pashman: Or octopus? I love octopus. 

Pete Wells: You can get the mofungo with a side of pernil. 

Dan Pashman: Perfect.

Pete Wells: And half a ... 

Dan Pashman: No, i'm good. I'm good. I'm .... I love octopus. 

Pete Wells: Okay, and then we'll get some .. 

Dan Pashman: So I think that'll do the trick.  

Pete Wells: Right. Yeah.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS]

Dan Pashman: All in all, I ordered pernil, which is slow-roasted pork shoulder, chicharrones, rotisserie chicken, and octopus. Later in the show, I’ll tell you how it all tasted, and what Pete thought of it. 

Dan Pashman: But let’s turn now to our conversation in studio, the morning after the dinner, when we debriefed. I loved watching Pete’s intense focus as he tasted each item, and there was a lot to taste. One of the other rules when you go out with is Pete is no duplicate orders, because he has to sample as many different items as possible. 

Dan Pashman: He only had a couple bites of each dish, which despite what you may think, usually means he likes it. He says when a dish is bad, he doesn’t send it back.

Pete Wells: I actually want the bad dish on the table so I can keep tasting it until I've figured out what's wrong with it. You know? So, like, if it's not a matter of, like, you know, it's not cooked right .... If there's something actually, like, just this just tastes wrong, I'll keep eating it and eating it until I think I know what happened to it. You know? And then it becomes like an interesting, like, science project for me. You know? Like, just like the forensic eating. You know? How did this happen? How did the poor soup go so wrong?

Dan Pashman: That's funny. It's funny that you compar it to a forensic process, because that's ... Like, when I was watching you eat at our dinner last night and sort of your ... What happens to you when you take a bite of food, you kind of like ... You hunch over, you have the food in your mouth. You're looking down at the table, and as you're chewing and processing, your head starts turning slowly to one side, almost like the needle on a meter that's kind of like registering — tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. It's like it's registering input and it keeps registering and registering till all of sudden there's sort of a ding! And your head pops up and your eyes open and it's like as if like, okay, input complete. You know? [LAUGHS]

Pete Wells: I've never ... I've never seen this. 

[LAUGHING]

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] I should have video — I should have surreptitiously videotaped you doing it, so I could show it back to you.

Pete Wells: I've never it. I've seen it in other people that usually food professionals have this very, very attentive style of eating, where it's almost like, you know, everybody be quiet. I have to listen for the, you know, the oboes. 

Dan Pashman: Pete usually practices his own very attentive style of eating five nights a week. He’s always checking out possible places to review. I wondered how going out that often affects your relationship with food.

Pete Wells: Well, I'll tell you if you, like, regularly consume six or seven thousand calories at a single meal, like I do, you'll find that the next day, your appetite is kind of moderate. You know? I mean, there — even, you know, last night when we went out, I wasn't very hungry. And remember, I said, "I can't remember what I had for lunch. I must have had a big lunch." I had a sardine. I realized later, I had a sardine on a piece of toast. and that was my huge lunch. So I'm very often not hungry at all until I sit down, and even then, I'm not really hungry.

Dan Pashman: That feels a little sad, Pete, I have to say . 

Pete Wells: That's all right.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS]

Pete Wells: There are worse things. I mean, I still enjoy it now.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] I mean, I don't feel so sorry for you. 

Pete Wells: Yeah.

Dan Pashman: It seems like you're doing all right. But I just mean like, you know, when I first set out on this career, I was worried that if food became my job that I would not get as much pleasure out of it. And for me at least, that hasn't happened. Partly, because really I think of myself as more of an audio podcast professional, who happens to do food. My job doesn't actually involve any more eating than an average person does. 

Pete Wells: Right. 

Dan Pashman: Unlike your job. But do you worry that you're losing your love of food? 

Pete Wells: No! No, that's never happened. That's never happened.

Dan Pashman: But you're never hungry. You sit down and you eat and you're not hungry. 

Pete Wells: I know, but you don't need to be hungry. I mean, you do. I mean, I'm hungry enough. I'm hungry enough that I can like take in the next 6000 calories. 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

Pete Wells: Like that's ... That's not a problem. 

Dan Pashman: Way to power through, Pete. 

[LAUGHING] 

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: I want to pause this part of a conversation kind of go back a little bit. You grew up outside Providence Rhode Island. Was food a big deal in our house growing up?

Pete Wells: Yes and no. I mean, we ... We always had dinner together. My mother, father, sister and I had dinner together every night while the evening news was on, and sit around the table and talk to each other. And you know all that sort of stuff that that people say is kind of disappearing now, but like that was part of my life. However, we didn't really sit and talk about the food. That wasn't so much a thing. You know, like I think my parents had a perfect marriage from one point of view, which was that my mother didn't care a whole lot about food and wasn't like the most attentive cook and my father just appreciated all food, because I think — because it was food. He just looked like – oh, there's food. This is amazing. Or like, and I don't think she ever told herself that she was a great cook. But my father was just the perfect audience for her.  

Dan Pashman: Do you remember when you started to realize that you had strong opinions about food?

Pete Wells: I mean I don't think I ever thought of it that way but I did. I did. I mean, I had opinions about my mother's cooking that I didn't express. But ... 

Dan Pashman: You weren't like, "No stars, Mom! I'm outta here."

Pete Wells: No. No, I mean, you just couldn't. You just ... You couldn't. I mean, it was — my dad was sitting there saying, "This is the best thing ever." So you couldn't say, I know you're trying to make a pot pie, Mom, but it's it's actually just kind of uncooked pastry dough with chicken in it.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS]

Pete Wells: Like, you just can't, right? But then it did get me interested in cooking, which I think a lot of people who cook end up doing it almost for like self preservation or self-defense or just because you like something and you don't want to tear out a page of a cookbook and hand it to your mother and say, "Let's have this."

Dan Pashman: Right. 

[LAUGHS]

Pete Wells: Like, look ... 

Dan Pashman: Were you opinionated when you were a kid?

Pete Wells: Probably.  

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

Pete Wells: I mean, yeah, chances are. 

Dan Pashman: So you were always opinionated. Were you a person that felt comfortable with a certain amount of power?

Pete Wells: Oh, I don't know about that.

Dan Pashman: I mean, like did you like to be ...  

Pete Wells: I mean, I'm still very — I mean, I still have a very kind of ... [SIGHS] uncomfortable relationship with like the .... you know, the power that The Times confers and it's not —  and I don't mistake it for my own power.

Dan Pashman: But that power, at least as long as you have the job, you're connected to it. I wonder if having that kind of power for a number of years changes a person.   

Pete Wells: I mean, I've changed in a lot of ways in this job and I don't know how many of them have to do with power. I mean, I think about ... I think about things more carefully. And I think about how to use the power, I suppose. Like I think when I first started the job, I had the feeling that in a sense it was a consumer service that The Times was willing to spend this money on these really expensive restaurants to tell people what's worth it. And that that was a good use of money. And I don't think that's quite so important anymore. And I'm more interested in kind of where I sort of shine the spotlight of The Times than I am and where I spend the money of The Times. So I'm more interested in getting some attention to places that can't afford to buy attention. For example, you know, last night, we went to a Puerto Rican restaurant. I want to be able to tell people Puerto Rican food actually matters in New York City. We have a big Puerto Rican community and some delicious, delicious Puerto Rican restaurants. And it's been a long time since I've heard anybody talk about one of them, and I'm excited to be able to do that. That's the kind of power I find myself more interested in now than just, you know, can I can I make Thomas Keller stay up at night.  

Dan Pashman: Do you know what changed to cause you to move your focus after the first couple years on the job?

Pete Wells: A little bit of it, honestly, was, you know, when this really noxious anti-immigrant sentiment started entering the mainstream of American conversation. And I just thought, well, you know those of us who write about restaurants, especially, we're, like, right at one of the intersection of like the immigrant experience and the non-immigrant experience. And we're — you know, we can direct people to places where they might come to understand and appreciate immigrant culture and immigrant contributions. And I think I maybe got a little bit more serious about wanting to do that with some regularity and not allow the job to be completely overtaken by money.   

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: Coming up, we report back on the previous night’s dinner. And Pete tells me how many stars he would give the Oreo cookie. Stick around.

MUSIC

 

+++BREAK+++

 

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: Welcome back to The Sporkful, I'm Dan Pashman. Before we get back to the show, my first cookbook, Anything’s Pastable, is coming out next month! Now, I knew I wouldn't be able to write this book alone. So I hired a team of recipe developers, culinary pros who would help me turn a bunch of half boiled ideas into finished recipes. 

Dan Pashman: And in each episode of The Sporkful this month, we're gonna take a few minutes to feature one of those developers, so you can hear their stories, and learn more about their contributions to my book. This week, I'm talking with Darnell Reed.

Dan Pashman: I met Darnell before I even started on the cookbook. After my pasta shape, cascatelli, went viral, I was reaching out to a bunch of restaurants to see if they'd feature it on their menus. And a friend connected me with Darnell, who's a James Beard Award semi-finalist. He’s the chef and owner of Luella’s Southern Kitchen in Chicago. 

[KITCHEN AMBIANCE] 

Dan Pashman: I went to see him there, so we could work on some recipes for the cookbook together.

Dan Pashman: So we got the crawfish, the guanciale, the shallot and garlic, you said, in there?

Darnell Reed: Yeah, and I'm gonna take a little bit of the hot water to ...

Dan Pashman: A little pasta water/

Darnell Reed: Yeah, we'll need ...

Dan Pashman: Darnell spent many years in hotel restaurants around the city, working his way up from dishwasher to executive chef. They made all kinds of food at the restaurant, from French and Italian to Peruvian. Once Darnell was running the place, he also made a lot of Southern food, an homage to his roots, and it was a hit.

Darnell Reed: People were like, whoa, that chicken and waffle. Oh, that, that, that shrimp and grit. You know, like those were the items that they were gravitating towards.

Dan Pashman: One summer, Darnell was asked to create a special summer menu for the hotel where he was executive chef. So he decided to go all Southern, a menu that included gumbo, chicken and waffles, she-crab soup, and much more.

Dan Pashman: But then he got worried that the hotel chain’s corporate office had some doubts about this menu. Darnell says they were concerned it might not be upscale enough, or that it wouldn't appeal to their customers. So they sent the chain’s head chef, and food and beverage director, to sample the menu themselves.

Darnell Reed: Honestly, I was a little bit, like, offended, I will say. Because I was like, you didn't do this to me when I — when we were making Peruvian, you didn't do this. But now that I'm making Southern, it’s like …

Dan Pashman: With this, Darnell raises an eyebrow. But he had to do what was asked of him, so he made the dishes for these guys from corporate.

MUSIC

Darnell Reed: They tried the food, they loved it. They said, "Who was your inspiration?" And I'm like, "I never thought about that I never thought about who my inspiration was, but I would have to say that it's my great-grandmother because she's the one who used to cook all of this food that I cooked for you guys."

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: Corporate agreed that Darnell could go ahead with his special southern menu. They even wanted him to name it after his great-grandmother. But right when it was about to launch, the hotel brought in a new general manager, who outright refused to serve a Southern menu. The implication was that this food didn’t belong at a fancy downtown Chicago hotel — Darnell wasn’t happy.

Darnell Reed: I kinda got exhausted with the idea that I have to continue to fight you guys to put these items on the menu.

Dan Pashman: After eighteen years with the company, Darnell left. In late 2014, he opened Luella’s Southern Kitchen, a restaurant named for his great-grandmother who inspired him.

Dan Pashman: Fast-forward to today and Luella’s is a Chicagoland destination, with a second location at Soldier Field, home of the Chicago Bears. Darnell is a two-time James Beard Award semi-finalist, and he’s launched Luella’s Southern Popcorn. Order online — they ship!

Dan Pashman: And yes, Darnell did end up serving cascatelli. In fact, Luella’s was the very first restaurant in America to serve it. Darnell made cajun crawfish carbonara with cascatelli, and it may be the most luscious carbonara I’ve ever had. 

Dan Pashman: That is perfection. 

Darnell Reed: Thank you. And the crawfish adds color too, which honestly, that wasn't part of my thinking process, but it does. [LAUGHS] 

Dan Pashman: Mmm. 

Dan Pashman: Darnell and I adapted his recipe for home cooks and put that into my cookbook. We also teamed up on recipes for a shrimp and andouille mac and cheese, and dirty orzo — a vegan play on dirty rice that Janie and I could not stop eating.  

Dan Pashman: So if you’re in Chicago, go to Luella’s! And if you want to meet Darnell, check this out. He's gonna be joining me onstage at our live Sporkful taping and book signing in Chicago on March 21st. We'll be in conversation with Joan Molinaro, a.k.a “The Korean Vegan". That's March 21st in Chicago. Tickets for that event and all the rest of my book tour events are on sale now at Sporkful.com/tour.  

Dan Pashman: And remember, Anything’s Pastable is available for pre-order right now! If you preorder it by March 18th, you're gonna get an invite to a special Zoom cooking class I’ll be hosting just for people who pre-ordered. We’ll hang out, we’ll chat, we’ll cook, we’ll eat, it's gonna be fun. All pre-orders are eligible, including preorders for signed copies. To place your order and get your invite to the class go to Sporkful.com/book.

[RESTAURANT AMBIANCE] 

Dan Pashman: We’ll return to my studio conversation with Pete Wells in a minute. But first, back to the previous night’s dinner. Pete did give away that it was a Puerto Rican restaurant. Everything was really good. Yes, really good. I’m pulling out all my best adjectives for our show with The New York Times restaurant critic. The rotisserie chicken was juicy, chicharrones crispy. We had mofongo, which is mashed plantains mixed with pork and spices. That was served with a pork broth that was —  I was just drinking with my spoon. It was so amazing. 

Dan Pashman: Pete seemed especially interested in the alcapurrias, which are like fritters, made with plantains and meat. To my taste, they were a bit more sweet than I like with my meat, and maybe a little heavy. Pete was pleased with my addition of the octopus. We agreed that it provided a nice counterpoint to all the meats and fried foods. 

Dan Pashman: So there you go. That’s my review. I don’t think Pete’s job is in danger. Outside in the street afterwards, doggie bag in hand, Pete told me even if he didn’t end up reviewing this place, the meal was still crucial research. It would help him evaluate other Puerto Rican restaurants, by giving him a point of comparison. And the night had personal significance for him. He used to live in this neighborhood, and came to this restaurant all the time.

Pete Wells: I'm relieved that it's still good. You know, I haven't been here in maybe 20 years and I've changed and maybe, you know, my — I'm not as easily satisfied. So it would have been a little depressing to come back and said, "Oh, this food is exactly the same and I don't like it now," you know? [LAUGHS] But it seems, at least as good, maybe better or I don't know it was very, very good — not everything. You know, some things are better than others, which is, I think was always true. But I said, it's a good restaurant. 

Dan Pashman: Another thing that hasn’t changed for Pete over the years, is his code of conduct as a reviewer. Some of his rules have been pretty standard for The Times over the years. When a new place opens, he waits at least two months before reviewing it, to give it a chance to work out the initial kinks. And he must eat at a place at least three times before writing a review. Pete also has rules about which bad meals warrant bad reviews.

Pete Wells: You don't attack a restaurant that nobody's heard of. There has to be some kind of pre-existing interest in the dining public about a place, if you're really, really going to take it down. 

Dan Pashman: So if you went out, let's say you got a tip that there was a mom and pop shop .. 

Pete Wells: Yeah. 

Dan Pashman: And you go out there and you're a person that heard something that is not great ... 

Pete Wells: Yeah. 

Dan Pashman: You would just not review that place. 

Pete Wells: I would. There's plenty of places like that that I just don't — I don't review. When I've done negative reviews, they tend to be places where there's been a lot of advance publicity with it, which costs money and where there's are reputations have been brought to bear — like this chef is sort of leveraging all the work he or she has done before. 

Dan Pashman: So basically, like people who are already in a position of power.

Pete Wells: Yeah. I think power is one way to put it. Yeah. I mean, the power — either the power to fund a restaurant or the power to sort of, you know, buy publicity or to just generate publicity because of who you are.

Dan Pashman: But is there a part of you that feels bad when you write a negative review?

Pete Wells: Oh, yeah. Yeah. [SIGHS] I have felt bad kind of in retrospect about things where I thought I kind of lost control of the balance in a review, where like, you know, a place that had some good things and bad things, I kind of let the bad run away with it. And I try to watch that now. You know, because you can usually find something to praise. And if you can't, the mathematical probability is so unlikely, right? 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

Pete Wells: That would be kind of interesting. Like, how did they get everything wrong?

Dan Pashman: Right. 

Pete Wells: You know? 

Dan Pashman: One restaurant that Pete says came pretty close to getting everything wrong — Guy Fieri’s American Kitchen and Bar. It’s now closed, but it opened in 2012 in Times Square, which as you may know is basically the tourist epicenter of New York City. Pete’s review began, “Guy Fieri, have you eaten at your new restaurant in Times Square?” Some of the choice lines, as he continues addressing Guy: "Why is one of the few things on your menu that can be eaten without fear or regret called a 'Roasted Pork Bahn Mi', when it resembles that item about as much as you resemble Emily Dickinson? Why did the toasted marshmallow taste like fish? Oh, and we never got our Vegas fries; would you mind telling the kitchen that we don’t need them? Thanks"

Dan Pashman: The piece blew up. It became a new front in the country’s ongoing culture wars. Some said it was elitist — The New York Times looking down its nose at an idol of middle America. Others saw it as a well deserved takedown of a TV chef as phony as his food.

Dan Pashman: Hey, I reread that review getting ready to speak with you. And the thing that stuck out  — I mean I haven't eaten there. I'll take your word for it that it's, [LAUGHS] as bad as the review says it is, or was when you went at least. The thing that struck me though was that it felt personal in a way that some of your other negative reviews didn't feel don't feel personal. Maybe it's because it was written sort of addressed to Guy Fieri. And so it read to me more as a referendum on Guy Fieri, as opposed his referendum on his restaurant. But I'm curious, what your thought process was.

Pete Wells: Well, what do you think I was saying about Guy Fieri, the person?

Dan Pashman: Well, I ... I mean, I took it as he's one of these people who sort of like is indistinguishable from his brand. Perhaps you didn't mean it at all to be about him as a human being. It was more about him as — I mean, like his face is sort of plastered all over this restaurant ...

Pete Wells: Yes.

Dan Pashman: And yet ...

Pete Wells: Yeah.

Dan Pashman: It's so bad.  

Pete Wells: Well, I mean it started from the idea that he was selling himself. But what was supposed to get you in that restaurant was his name. And then the question for me became you know all of these people who think you're so great because of your TV show are coming in and forking you over their money and how well are you treating them. I don't know. I — certainly, was read by some people the way you're reading it as — and some people thought it was ad hominem. I don't think it was at all. At all. There was nothing in it about Guy Fieri, the guy. You know, the thing that animated that review was I thought he wasn't respecting this cuisine that he'd kind of made his fame and fortune off of, you know? Wings and nachos and all that stuff made him ... made him rich. Right? And then he just treats it without the, I think, the love it deserves. 

Dan Pashman: You're saying wings and nachos deserve more respect. 

Pete Wells: Yeah!  

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: As much as that Guy Fieri piece got a ton of attention, Pete wrote another negative review that I actually liked more. It was for a place called Kappo Masa, a spinoff of Masa, which is probably the most expensive sushi restaurant in the country. I’ve never been to any of the Masa restaurants. 

Dan Pashman: Much of the review for Kappo Masa was written like one of those Mastercard ads. You know, tickets to the game, two hundred dollars, time with your kid, priceless? Here’s Pete reading from the piece:

Pete Wells: Price of a maki roll of chopped fatty tuna wrapped in rice with caviar piled on each of the eight pieces — $240. I could never bring myself to order it or two dishes filigreed with white truffles. The fried rice with mushrooms — $120 dollars — or the omi beef tataki — $150. So I can't tell you how any of them taste, but I can tell you that by the time I spotted something for less than $80, it struck me as a steal.  

Dan Pashman: So how do you factor in the role of cost, the price.? How does that determine the direction the review takes?

Pete Wells: Well, I think — I mean, I don't know. Maybe this is delusional but I'd like to tell myself that there are people who maybe it's not easy for them to go to places I've recommended but it's a — you know, it's a splurge that they're willing to go for if it's rewarded. Mediocre expensive food is something that only the rich can afford. 

Dan Pashman: I almost feel like, with — if you go to a place that's charging $240 for eight pieces of sushi ...

Pete Wells: Yeah.

Dan Pashman: It doesn't matter what it costs. 

Pete Wells: It's probably — you're right. Right. 

Dan Pashman: I mean, like they are targeting people who don't care how much it costs, who only want to be able to say they went to that restaurant. It's a status symbol to be able to afford to eat there.

Pete Wells: I think that's fair and I think that's part of what, Masa the — what, Masa the chef became Massa the brand that exorbitant pricing became part of the brand. 

Dan Pashman: What I like about the Kapo Massa review, is that I perceive it as a repudiation of the people who would go there and spend that much money and tell me how great it is. No one ever says they had a bad meal at a place like that because it's like the emperor has no clothes. If you go and blow a thousand dollars of sushi, you're not gonna walk out of there and say it wasn't worth it, cause then you're admitting you're an idiot.

Pete Wells: Oh gosh. Yeah, I don't think I review the people. I mean, I .. [LAUGHS] I actually try really hard not to, you know?

Dan Pashman: Well, you're right and I'm not suggesting that you did. That wasn't the way the piece was written. I'm just saying that was one of the things that I liked about it, because what I took — what I chose to take from it — maybe this is more a statement, comment on me — but it was more like, yeah, that's right. There's no way that eight pieces of sushi could ever be worth $240.

Pete Wells: That's right. And whatever it was that you chose to spend your money on that night, you had a better meal [Dan Pashman: Right. ] than what these rich idiots had. Right.

Dan Pashman: Right.  

Pete Wells: Right.

Dan Pashman: And so, I took it as personal validation of my own choices.

Pete Wells: Exactly. Yeah. 

Dan Pashman: Okay.  

Pete Wells: Yeah. That was not my intention.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

Pete Wells: But I'll endorse that. 

Dan Pashman: Okay. 

[LAUGHING] 

Dan Pashman: As I said, I loved Pete’s piece on Kappo Masa. But the restaurant itself was not a surprising choice for his column. Masa is a big name in the fancy food world. It would have been more shocking if Pete hadn't reviewed it. 

Dan Pashman: But another review he wrote that I loved, was a very surprising choice — Señor Frog’s in Times Square. Now in case you’re unfamiliar, Señor Frog’s is a chain of theme restaurants that aims to bring the most touristy, spring break-ish beach vacation experience to you. I had to ask Pete to read from his review: 

Pete Wells: This is hard to read because I think there should be kind of like music in the background or something.

Dan Pashman: [SINGS] Everybody dance now. 

Pete Wells: Yeah, it's more, like ...

Dan Pashman: Right.

Pete Wells: Exactly.

Dan Pashman: W'ell add that after the fact.

Pete Wells: Exactly.

Dan Pashman: All right, get ourselves in the mindset. You're at Señor Frog’s in Times Square. The music hits ...

[CLIP "GONNA MAKE YOU SWEAT"]

Dan Pashman: People are dancing on speakers. I imagine confetti falling from the ceiling continuously. I don't know if that's true, but that's I imagine it. There's probably a disco ball somewhere. Go.

Pete Wells: Señor Frog’s is not a good restaurant by most conventional measures including the fairly basic one of serving food. One night, I got just two of the half dozen appetizers I had asked for. Another time, the starter showed up on schedule, but after nearly two hours the main courses still had not appeared. "What happened to our food?", we finally asked. "That's what I'm wondering," our server said brightly.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS]

Pete Wells: "Like, where is it?" Getting just half of what you order at Senor Frogs can be a blessing, if it's the right half.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHING]

Pete Wells: But here, hold my "frogasm", I need to stand on the speakers and dance. Because because I had more fun it said more frogs than at almost any other restaurant that has opened in the last few years. True, it's a particular kind of fun — compulsory, hilarity, scheduled spontaneity, a scripted theater of the inane with random outbreaks of mediocre textbacks. Señor Frog’s brand of fun is some mindless that it's embarrassing to give into at first, but eventually everybody I brought there did give in. Maybe because we're also desperate to let go a little bit. 

[CLIP "GONNA MAKE YOU SWEAT" ENDING]

Dan Pashman: So where did Señor Frog’s succeed where Guy Fieri's place failed?

Pete Wells: [LAUGHS] I can never talk about it without laughing. Señor Frog’s has, you know, a whole kind of entertainment department, like a cruise ship, that's all kind of focused on like getting everybody to have a good time. And it sounds totally annoying and yet, you know, it's sort of stupid to resist it. You know, you can't just say, "Oh, I'm here for the food." Like are you kidding?

[LAUGHING] 

Dan Pashman: Are you kidding me? You came to Señor Frog’s for the food? Get in the conga line, you moron. You know? And I never felt when I was a Guy's restaurant, I never felt that there was anybody in that restaurant who cared if I had a good time or if anybody had a good time.

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: So those are some of Pete’s Greatest Hits. But I wasn’t gonna let him leave the studio without scoring a Sporkful exclusive Pete Wells review.

Dan Pashman: Pete I hear you're a big fan of Oreos.

Pete Wells: It is a good cookie.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

Pete Wells: Yes. 

Dan Pashman: Well, how many stars do you give an Oreo? 

Pete Wells: Well, it's kind of like — I mean, like it's like a 4-star conception. At least, it's like a four star idea, like this like black, chocolate, really crisp, and bitter — like surprisingly bitter for an American made products that you give to children.

Dan Pashman: But what do you think, Pete, to me, it's too hard. I don't love a very hard cookie. Like, I don't like those tate's — those really flat parts one? 

Pete Wells: Oh. Uh-huh. 

Dan Pashman: I don't like a cookie that's pure crunch. I want to cookie to be more like crispy and chewy. 

Pete Wells: That's interesting. That's definitely a divide, I think. 

Dan Pashman: Okay. 

Pete Wells: That's — you know, some of us, like me, like more crunch in a cookie.

Dan Pashman: If I'm going to have a store about cookies, I would rather have the artificially chewy ones that I don't care what they put in there.

Pete Wells: Mm-hmm.

Dan Pashman: Like give me Entenmann ones.

Pete Wells: Right, right, right.

Dan Pashman: Or like, 400 calories for a silver dollar chocolate chip cookie. 

Pete Wells: Those are amazing. 

Dan Pashman: Yes. 

Pete Wells: They're amazing like almost like, "Wow, how do you do that?" 

Dan Pashman: Right. But like I would take those over to the classic Oreo.

Pete Wells: Yeah.

Dan Pashman: Because the Oreos too much — too focused on crunch.

Pete Wells: Well, I understand that opinion.

[LAUGHING] 

Pete Wells: But I don't — I mean, I think that the — yeah. 

Dan Pashman: But see, this is the issue, Pete, is this is where your taste dictates, and so ...

Pete Wells: They don't really.

Dan Pashman: If you were going to write a New York Times review of an Oreo versus of a Chewy Chips Ahoy or an Entemann's Soft Chocolate Cookie, you would write a review saying the Oreo was so great and I would then go out eat Oreos because Pete Wells told me it was good and I'd be like, "No, too crunchy."

Pete Wells: Yeah. But wouldn't you be able to see where I was coming from at least?

Dan Pashman: I would probably say Pete and I have different takes. 

Pete Wells: Yeah, maybe. 

Dan Pashman: And in the future, this will inform my opinion of his opinion of cookies. 

Pete Wells: Right, maybe you would. I mean that's certainly a thing where I think that, like, sometimes the chef and I have different tastes. You know? Like there you have it.

Dan Pashman: Because I feel like I have strong opinions about food for sure, you know? But like I — like when I go to a restaurant, I might be like,"Oh, I don't think that this works," or I don't — but I would like but maybe I just don't understand it.

Pete Wells: Yeah.

Dan Pashman: Like I would just think like, "Oh, maybe this chef is operating on another level and I'm just the one — I'm the dummy." 

Pete Wells: As a civilian, I would say, right, you're entitled to that like it. But as a professional, I would say, your job is to eat that thing over and over until you think you do understand it. 

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: That’s Pete Wells, restaurant critic for The New York Times.

And hey, it's a big week for us! We’re dropping another episode on Thursday. Later this week, we're dropping the third episode of Deep Dish with Sohla and Ham! They gonna look at the surprising origins of the iconic Mexico City dish tacos al pastor. Tacos al pastor are made on a Trompo. It's a giant tower of meat that spins as it cooks. And the inspiration for the Trompo comes from thousands of miles away from Mexico — that’s next week.

Dan Pashman: Meanwhile, don’t forget to send us your food disputes! Are you having a food fight with a friend or family member? Do you have a hot take you want to share? I want to hear from you. Send me an email at hello@sporkful.com.