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It's an indication of how much I wanted you to be on this episode, Rachel, that I agreed to an 11 a.m. taping.
This is my least favorite time of day.
Is that right?
Tell me more about that.
Why?
Well, it cuts into my lunch.
All right.
You're right.
We are taping this in the middle of every mainstream opportunity for lunching.
That's right.
Because we're going to at least go to 1230.
Right.
And that's apparently too late for you.
Well, I get hungry.
I don't know.
I'm not a big breakfast eater.
So usually the first meal I eat of the day is around noon.
Right.
I got to have a snack before the taping and then I can't really eat till at least one.
And then your whole day's off.
Let me tell you something.
Because then, like, maybe you've eaten lunch too late, and now you've got to have a really late dinner, and then you're not going to sleep well.
Yes.
Only for you, Rachel.
Sorry, man.
And maybe, like, Michelle Obama.
We're the same.
We're definitely the same.
You two are on the same level.
Yeah, totally.
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.
And if it's summertime on The Sporkful, that means it's time to play our annual game show, Two Chefs and a Lie.
Now let's go ahead and meet our contestants.
We've been friends for nearly 20 years, ever since we worked together at NPR way back when.
You've heard her hosting All Things Considered and Morning Edition.
Now she's the host of the excellent podcast Wildcard.
Please welcome Rachel Martin.
I mean, does it matter that I never hosted All Things Considered?
You hosted Weekend, all things considered.
No.
What was the thing that I was on with you?
Weekend Edition Sunday.
What was the thing that I was on with you?
Weekend Edition Sunday.
You never once hosted ATC?
I mean, I filled in.
All right, fine then.
I'm not redoing the intro.
Let's count it.
All right, all right.
We're counting it.
I'm giving you credit for it.
I love it.
So we go way back, Rachel.
We became friends and we worked together at NPR.
You are now hosting this podcast, Wild Card, which is described as part interview, part existential game show.
I love it so much.
For folks who haven't heard it, though, what's your elevator pitch?
How would you describe it to people beyond that log line?
Let's be honest, it's a celebrity interview show, but we just tried to rip up the script for how those things usually go.
But it usually goes into a lot more depth, right?
Than the typical celebrity interview show.
Yes, your show does.
By design.
Because we decided that we were just going to ask the questions we most wanted to ask.
And the best way to do that was to put them on cards.
Like really deep questions that force people who have been interviewed a whole lot in their careers to get off their talking points and to stop deploying the same anecdotes that they always deploy.
And so they're really deep existential questions about how much fear is in your life and what have you learned about love over time and what do you think happens when we die?
So it's big stuff.
Yeah.
And the game show component is that you tell people pick a card, one, two or three, and whatever card they pick, that's the question.
The cards control the conversation.
I mean, I sort of do.
But the cards, it's like a choose-your-own-adventure kind of thing.
And each one really is different.
So it's really surprising, which is also what I just selfishly wanted in my own life, like to be surprised by conversations.
And these go all over the place.
They do, and that's the beauty of it.
That's the beauty of it, and I think you shine in it as the host, so I hope everyone will check out Wildcard.
Thanks, man.
Now, Rachel, we picked you for this partly because you host what is effectively a game show.
And this is a game show episode that's pork full.
You have been interviewing people for many decades, including what you I'm sure you've interviewed sitting members of Congress, cabinet members.
Have you interviewed a president?
I interviewed Hamid Karzai, who was the president of Afghanistan at the time.
I'll count it.
I'll count it.
OK. And Joe Biden, but he was a candidate at the time.
OK, so you interviewed some big, important people.
And so you have interviewing skills.
You are experienced at pulling details out of people.
And those we're going to call upon those skills today.
OK.
You have this look on your face like, what have I gotten myself into?
I don't even know.
Here's how this game works.
It's like two truths and a lie, but it's two chefs and a lie.
We're going to have three people on Zoom.
They're all coming to us today from Austin.
You're going to meet one at a time.
They're each going to share a brief intro about themselves.
And then you're going to get to ask each of them five questions.
Only five.
Okay.
Then you have to guess which one is not the real chef, which one is the liar.
I love it.
Now, while you are our on-air contestant, I want to remind our listeners, you're all encouraged to play at home, see if you can spot the liar.
A couple more quick details I want to cover.
The guests we're going to talk to are joining us by Zoom, but their cameras are off.
You will not be getting any more information than our listeners are getting.
Of course, no Google, no AI, no performance-enhancing use of technology.
And finally, I do want to note that while I am the emcee of this game, I do not know who the liar is.
Okay.
So that's what we're doing here, Rachel.
Before we get to our first chef, what are your thoughts?
What's the strat, as the kids would say?
Well, I'm going to tell you that I fancy myself...
Someone who is pretty good at understanding human nature.
Does that feel braggy?
Maybe it is.
I don't know.
I've spent a lot of time talking with people.
Right.
Decades.
And you start to learn about people.
And I've talked to a lot of politicians in my time.
And so I can sort of tell when someone's fudging the truth.
Yeah.
I'm just saying I'm going to listen very, very carefully.
I'm very hardcore.
All right, Rachel, you've heard the rules.
You've laid out your strat.
It's time to play Two Chefs and a Lie.
Let's meet our first chef in Austin.
It's Vera.
Hello, Vera.
Oh, hello.
So, Vera, tell us a little bit about yourself.
So I am a chef based in the north part of Austin in Georgetown.
I own and operate a couple of restaurants, actually four now.
And this has been a passion project that has turned into a good...
You know, supporting my life, you know, with it.
And along the way, I'm having fun.
I'm studying wine.
I just passed my certified Psalm test.
So I'm just enjoying the ride here, man, and making a living out of it.
Psalm is a sommelier, Rachel.
Oh, she just made up a crazy word that I don't think is real.
Turns out it is.
All right, so you've heard Vera's intro, Rachel.
You now get five questions.
I get five questions.
Okay, Vera, tell me about...
The difficulty of opening your first restaurant.
What was the biggest challenge?
The biggest challenge.
You know, I went in with not knowing what the restaurant world is.
It was at the time.
I don't come from a restaurant background.
I actually come from...
A finance and engineering background, I went in thinking this is this is something I really love and I'm really passionate about it.
So I came from a very different attitude that it's like not knowing what could go wrong kind of saved me because I wasn't
I wasn't trained or I didn't work in a restaurant so far.
Like my naiveness actually helped me open a restaurant.
But then later on in two years gone and I was like, oh.
I didn't know about that.
So it's almost like I learned like on the job.
And that probably was my biggest challenge.
And can you describe the most obscure menu item on, let's say, your second restaurant?
I mean, I don't go out trying to find obscured menu items to put in my restaurant.
Because, you know, restaurant has to have a theme.
So I wouldn't say like I'm going to put something like I would see on bizarre food.
Okay, let's change it.
Let's change the question to your favorite.
Your favorite menu item from your second restaurant.
I'll allow this change in the question.
Oh, thank you.
We'll call this question 2B.
Thank you.
And you said, what's your favorite?
Is that what you asked me?
Yeah, favorite menu item.
Second restaurant.
Second restaurant, favorite menu item.
You know, it has to be scallops.
Hokkaido scallops from Japan, fresh scallops with a little bit of a romesco sauce and, you know, cauliflower with salsa matcha.
I think that's my favorite because it combines two, three different culture into one dish and it ends up really delicious.
What differentiates a Hokkaido scallop from other scallops besides its origin?
This is question three.
The taste, the size, you know, the texture, it's a lot creamier, sweeter.
It's medium size.
You know, it could be bigger if it's U10, but they're not the small scallops.
Okay.
I want you to tell me the life story as you know it of the manager of your newest restaurant.
Oh.
Life story.
Oh, perfect.
Very young girl.
She is for the restaurant industry.
I think she's 26, 27, born in Puerto Rico.
Her father is an actual, actually, they own an art gallery in Puerto Rico.
And she comes from a very artistic background.
And I think she brings that into the job where everything is, you know, she makes sure that everything is nice and
Pretty.
So I can see that artistic side in her, not so much of a restaurant management background, a traditional way.
And I think that brings a really great dynamic, you know, so I love working with her.
She's always giving me a different perspective.
And it's almost like I'm also learning from her, you know, her
Her background in operating or helping her dad at an art gallery.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Okay.
Last question.
That was question four.
You have one more question, Rachel.
Okay.
Tell me about your biggest failure.
In the restaurant industry?
Yeah.
Okay.
In the restaurant industry.
Well, give me a minute.
Let me just think through that.
Biggest failure.
Failure.
Hmm.
Yes, I will tell you that.
I own a wine bar in small town Belton, Texas.
I didn't get along with the landlord and I did not read all the details in my lease.
So when it came to end, I was supposed to give him, I don't remember, 90 day written notice, which I did, but I'd never send it as certified mail.
And that kind of backfired me because we had an agreement that my rent could not go up.
You know, whatever.
I don't remember the exact detail at the time.
But me not paying attention to those little, well, it wasn't a little detail.
You know, I ended up shutting down my very first wine bar because of the lease issue.
That was big.
That was very big because since then I've opened multiple concepts.
I've sold two concepts, but I've not actually closed any of my restaurant.
And that was a very big setback for me because, you know, I felt that I failed.
I should have done better.
You know, something different.
So, yeah.
Very interesting, Vera.
All right, Vera.
Thank you so much, Vera.
We're going to keep you on hold.
Now, Rachel, before we move on, let's just like take a step back, take stock.
There was a good amount of restaurant lingo in there.
Yeah.
She called us sommelier assam.
She referred to scallops as U10, which I believe is like...
That there's 10 scallops per pound, which means that they're a big scallop.
Oh, interesting.
That just washed right over me.
Right.
I made a note of that.
But those are also the kinds of things that a person could like Google ahead of time and be like, I'm going to drop some of this lingo to make it seem like I'm a real chef.
Totally.
The psalm reference, I immediately put it in that bucket of like, oh, this is a thing she looked up to make her sound credible as part of her intro.
Right.
There were other ways that she told her story differently.
That I found to be revealing.
Okay.
But we're not going to say yet what you think they revealed.
Because like our chefs, Rachel, you are playing your cards close to the vest.
That's right.
You are not divulging your strategy at this time.
So we're going to take a quick break.
When we come back, we'll meet our next two chefs.
Then, Rachel, you and our listeners at home have to decide who are the chefs.
Who is the liar?
Stick around.
Welcome back to The Sporkful.
I'm Dan Pashman, and I have an exciting update on an episode that we did a couple months ago in Boston.
Now, you may recall that one of my guests there was Matt Shearer, a.k.a.
Reporter Matt, and he specializes in telling stories about Massachusetts that are quirky but also with a lot of heart.
And at that live show, I gave Reporter Matt an assignment.
So I went to school at Tufts, just outside Boston.
That's where I first started drinking coffee, at the Dunkin' on Boston Ave in Medford.
Amazing.
And for a long time, there was a guy who worked there whose name tag read Mr. Fresh.
Oh.
Okay.
So my initial assignment to you was find Mr. Fresh.
I think I can.
I want to know where he is.
I want to know if he's okay.
I think I know the GM of that, Duncan, you're talking about.
This was the late 90s.
This GM I'm talking has been there for 40 years.
Oh, my God.
This is phenomenal.
I think I may have a connection.
Now I am pleased to tell you that reporter Matt found Mr. Fresh.
He found Mr. Fresh.
He made a video about it on Instagram.
I'm in the video too.
It's on my Instagram grid.
Check it out and make sure you're following me on Instagram at the Sporkful.
All right, let's return to our game show, Two Chefs and a Lie.
My guest once again is Rachel Martin, host of the NPR podcast, Wild Card.
Rachel, are you ready for chef number two?
I'm ready for chef number two.
I'm still trying to figure out where that voice comes from in your body.
Like is it from your stomach?
Is it coming out of your nose?
I don't know.
It's like otherworldly.
It's very diaphragm.
It's like, yeah.
Very diaphragm forward.
But then there's also like my face has to contort itself.
I think probably something's happening in my throat and mouth that is like reverberating sound in weird ways.
Who knows?
I think it should count as exercise.
I think you've done your workout.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
I'm ready.
Once again, all of our chefs are joining us from Austin, Texas.
And right now we have chef number two.
It is Chris.
Hello, Chris.
Hey, how's it going?
It's going well.
Say hello to my friend, Rachel.
Hi, Rachel.
Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you too.
All right, Chris, give us your intro.
So I have a ramen shop here in Austin, Texas that does a Japanese-Mexican fusion project.
I already have so many questions.
That's it?
That's the total of the intro?
Sure, why not?
Let's go from there.
Okay.
All right.
All right.
That's not a whole lot to go on.
Rachel, you have five questions.
Oh, yes.
Okay.
So the first one is, why Japanese-Mexican?
So I had the inverse immigrant experience of many people here.
I actually moved to Mexico when I was very young, and I learned English at home and Spanish at school.
When I moved back to the States around 18, I ended up landing in Japanese kitchens.
So it's kind of the marriage of the culture that I grew up with and then the professional discipline that I've just carried with me.
Oh, this is very challenging because I have follow-up questions, Dan, and I can't ask them, can I?
No, I don't think so.
No.
I mean, look, you can— Unless I count it as another question.
You can, but those will count.
I mean, when you start talking about multi-part questions, those are a gray area in this game.
Chris has his own strategy, though, it's clear.
Like, he's not—
He's not overly talkative, Chris.
Well, maybe a lot of people already know me, so I have to play it close to the vest.
Interesting.
Okay, that was not a question, by the way.
I said a thing and he responded.
That was a statement.
Not a question, not a question.
But all right, Rachel, question number two.
Question number two.
How'd you learn to cook?
I grew up in the industry.
My father is a chef.
He's been so for far longer than I was ever alive.
He originally had a bed and breakfast up in Maine near Acadia National Park.
And then eventually he opened a restaurant down in Mexico as well.
So I've just grown up on kitchen counters my whole life.
I was bussing tables and then cutting vegetables and eventually just got into it as a full career, and I actually went to ACC Culinary here in Austin.
So I lived in Japan for a couple of years, and I had a favorite ramen shop.
What are the ingredients of the classic Japanese ramen?
Well, that's a pretty wide question because there are a bunch of different styles of ramen.
So let's go off of the one that most people here in America know, which is tonkotsu, and that's like a creamy pork-based broth.
You have the broth itself, which is pork bone-based.
You then have a tare, which translates to seasoning.
That could be soy, miso, or salt.
You then have an aromatic oil, and that would be like...
Sesame oil or pork fat infused with green onions and ginger.
Those are the three liquid components.
From there, you have a noodle, you have your chashu, your protein, and all of your different allium or vegetable toppings and such.
Okay.
That's three questions down, Rachel.
Two to go.
Oh, is that three?
Dang it.
Okay.
I feel a lot of pressure because there's so many other questions I have.
All right.
I'm just going to say, I'm just going to ask the questions that come into my mind.
You said you ended up in a Japanese restaurant in America.
Mm-hmm.
Who hired you and what's that person's story?
So my very first kitchen job was actually at the Chipotle on Riverside here in Austin.
And that obviously was a college starter job.
And when I felt like I had outgrown it, I started applying to all sorts of kitchens, not necessarily Japanese, but Japanese.
The first one to accept me was a Japanese kitchen called Kome over on Airport Boulevard.
And the chef de cuisine, the CDC at the time, was a man named Vince Guerra.
And he actually became my professional mentor for the last three or four years leading up to my own professional endeavors of owning my own business.
But
He taught me about discipline, structure.
He's very much a general in the kitchen, and he taught me so much about how to lead others firmly but with respect.
He's also an incredibly talented chef who's bounced around almost every Japanese restaurant I can think of in this town.
All right, Rachel, last question.
Last question.
A lot of pressure on this choice.
Oh, my God.
Okay, my last question is, explain how cooking and owning a restaurant makes your life meaningful.
Well, having grown up around food my entire life, it's always been a love language.
And growing up specifically in a mom-and-pop shop type situation was at times very stressful.
But food was always the one thing that kind of brought us together around the table.
And...
And now in my adult life, food is still something that brings me joy.
And I'm really thankful and blessed to say that when you love what you do, you don't really feel like you work a day in your life.
And as tolling and taxing as owning a business can be.
I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.
I have so much fun sharing food and knowledge of food with the people around me and learning from those around me as well.
And it's truly the thing that brings me the most joy in life.
It is a huge, huge part of who I am.
Hmm.
Thanks, Chris.
Absolutely.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Chris.
Rachel, we've got one more to go.
We don't need to divulge your whole strategy here, but give me one or two things that stand out from that conversation with Chris that might be pushing you in one direction or another.
My sister worked in restaurants for many, many years.
I have other friends who own restaurants.
It is really hard work, even when you love it.
It's really hard.
And he said something sort of counter to that, and so I am thinking about it.
Interesting.
All right.
As you noted, he kept his answers short.
He did.
On one hand, maybe it's because he's afraid if he talks too much, he'll get caught in a lie.
That's right.
On the other hand, maybe he just came in with a strategy of like, I'm going to.
Trick rachel i'm gonna i'm gonna act like i have something to hide and then oh well now you're blowing my mind dan pashman
Yeah look i mean you could
You could read it either way
Do these people get prizes
Is there like an incentive like i need to know how invested they are in winning
I think they're usually pretty invested
They might even be conspiring with each other
Oh my god that would be dirty
What if I get it wrong?
I'm going to be so embarrassed.
You might.
In the early days of this game, I was the contestant, and I would guess.
And I got it wrong the first two or three years in a row.
I got it wrong.
Really?
Yeah.
Yeah, and then I finally got it once or twice, and then we said, oh, let's mix it up.
We'll have other people come in here.
And last year, Rachel, we had Rachel Hampton host of Normal Gossip on, and she also did not get it.
Oh, good.
Well, I'm in good company.
And her name's Rachel.
Yeah.
That's absolutely right.
OK, time to meet our last chef in Austin.
Let's bring on Yuki.
Hi.
Hi, how are you?
Doing well.
How are you doing today?
Good.
Say hi to my friend, Rachel.
Hi, Rachel.
How are you doing?
Hi, Yuki.
I'm doing well.
So nice to meet you.
All right.
Nice to meet you, too.
All right, Yuki, let's hear your intro.
All right.
My name's Yuki.
I'm the owner of Emi, a Japanese restaurant located here in Austin.
Another Japanese reference.
Okay.
Interesting.
All right, Rachel.
You have five questions.
Yuki.
Yes.
What is natto?
Natto is fermented soybean that has a very specific germ bacteria that was actually discovered on accident.
If you want more details, there's a farmer who was storing his soybeans somewhere, you know, on site in his farm.
And he noticed that they took on a strange stickiness and strange smell and he tried it and it was good and it didn't kill him.
And so we continue to make more natto and all natto that exists in the world today comes from that original strain of that germ of natto that has not been replicated or found anywhere else.
That's fascinating, if it's true.
If it's true.
I liked your use of the classic interviewing technique, Rachel, of just not saying anything when the guest pauses awkwardly to get them to keep talking.
Because I'm so afraid that you're going to tell me that whatever I say is the equivalent of another question.
I understand.
So, Yuki, I was—
I meant to agree, like say more, and you just did it for me, which is great.
Okay, so that's one question down.
Right.
Okay, so second question.
Can you tell me the story of your biggest restaurant failure or your biggest professional failure?
My biggest professional failure?
Let's see.
Okay.
When I first started training to become a chef, it was under Koyama Sensei, who was the executive chef at Minato, a sushi restaurant here in Austin.
And I've known Koyama Sensei for quite a long time, but...
I was relatively new to his kitchen, and there was a particularly cold morning.
He wasn't working in the kitchen, and we weren't really doing a whole lot of open flame stuff yet.
So it was freezing, and I was all bundled up.
And I just could not, I only had half a brain to think about what I was doing because the other half was just frozen.
And I made so many mistakes in front of him.
Like I left a rice kama open, left drawers out, left out a cutting board, didn't clean a knife.
And he sent me home.
Like within about two hours.
So that was pretty embarrassing.
Things were fine after that, but it was, yeah, very embarrassing.
And that kind of stuck with me for a while.
And you haven't left a drawer open since?
No.
All right.
That's two down.
Is that right?
Am I keeping track?
Yeah, that's two down.
Okay.
Okay.
My next one, Yuki, you said, so you worked in the sushi restaurant.
There is one piece of sushi that sushi chefs consider, like, that's how they get judged, is by how you make this one piece of sushi.
What is it?
Um...
Well, I don't head the sushi operations at EMI, so I'm so sorry to my chef Ken if I get this wrong.
But if I had to, oh boy.
I would say otoro, which is a fatty bluefin tuna.
I'd say that's probably one of the more pricey, more quality items.
And if you don't get that right, then your best item is not really worth much.
I gotta say, your Japanese accent is on point.
Thank you.
I am fluent.
Oh.
As is necessary.
すごい。 ありがとう。 上手ですね。 そちらこそ。
Oh, God, he really can't speak Japanese.
That's the extent of mine.
Rachel's out of material.
That's it.
The end.
Yeah.
Okay.
Number four.
Were your parents supportive of your restaurant pursuit?
Yeah.
Yeah, I think so.
Definitely my mother.
She's one who taught me to cook at a very young age.
And then I've been working in food service for pretty much my whole life.
I did have a brief stint as an accountant and I was working at a public accounting firm in Atlanta and then
An internal auditor when I moved back here to Austin.
And I think they probably hoped I'd keep in the corporate accounting world just because that's more stable, pays better, you know, less stressful in general.
Uh-huh.
But because I wanted to specifically get into making Japanese food, I think my mom found some comfort in me carrying on the culture and legacy there.
Okay, my last question.
I know you're not going to be able to tick all of them off, but usually I think in a restaurant, the back of the house has like a checklist of things to do before you shut down.
What's on your checklist?
Well, prep work for the next day, if we're including that on the checklist, restocking everything, all our
You know, little, what do you call it?
Yeah, just prep vegetables, sauce, ramekins.
We call it kowake.
It's when we just take things that come in bulk and then separate into smaller, more manageable things that we can store individually.
Uh-huh.
Of course, cleaning, cleaning the kamas that we use to cook the rice, very important, wiping them dry.
Yeah, wiping all surfaces down, including the sink, completely dry.
Make sure everything's hung up and put away in its right place so that when we come in, we can just get right to it.
Okay, Yuki.
All right.
Yuki.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Rachel.
Thank you, Dan.
Thank you, Yuki.
Please return to our virtual waiting room.
And Rachel, Yuki, you know, you complimented his accent.
Obviously, he speaks Japanese, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he runs a Japanese restaurant.
He may just be Japanese American and he grew up speaking Japanese.
He may even have spent time in Japan.
Maybe he has family or friends there.
The Natto story was very good.
That was very convincing.
That was very convincing.
But then the last one, he kind of hesitated when it came to the checklist of the...
I just feel like those things are more specific.
Yeah.
Well, listen, I think I think that, you know, has the time come?
There are strong cases to be made in either direction.
We're going to take one more quick break.
When we come back, Rachel will make her choice and the liar will be revealed.
Stick around.
Ooh, advertisements.
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We're just about to get back to the show, but I want to let you know real quick that one spot just opened up in my Italy trip this October.
We had a last-minute cancellation.
We always have solo travelers on these trips.
It's a very friendly group.
They always have a blast.
So come eat pasta in Rome and Puglia.
If you want to scoop up that last spot, go to culinarybackstreets.com.
All right.
Welcome back to the Sporkful's annual game show, Two Chefs and Alive.
Rachel Martin.
For just about at that time, we had three chefs who joined us.
First, we had Vera.
Who claims to have four restaurants.
She used some terminology like U10 scallops and Somme for sommelier, and she referenced Romesco, which sounds impressive to me.
Very fancy.
She also had a long pause when asked to talk about her biggest failure.
Hmm.
She had to think about that one.
Then there was Chris, who has a Japanese Mexican ramen place.
His answers were kind of short, which could mean that he's lying or it could mean that he's trying to throw you off.
And then finally, Rachel, we had Yuki, who has a Japanese restaurant, knew a whole lot about the history of natto, but also hesitated a bit when asked to talk about the details of running a kitchen and what's on the list at the end of a night.
So now that you've heard from them all, unpack your strategy for me.
I think...
Specificity equals truth most of the time and like obscure specifics.
And of course, you can prepare all this in advance.
But like Vera's story, yeah, she had a pause before her biggest failure.
Like it took her a second to conjure that.
But then the story included a reference to certified male.
That is so random.
That is so weird.
Like if I'm trying to like make up a story on the spot of my biggest failure, I just don't know if I could conjure the detail certified male.
I just felt that I was like, that is interesting.
Okay.
So in general, you were looking for specifics, but you said specifics, you know, specificity, it tells you a lot, but it doesn't necessarily tell you everything.
A lot of what I do...
In interviewing people is also listen to the performance of their storytelling.
Just how true does it feel?
Do you feel like they're really inhabiting their words?
Are the specifics that they're sharing, do they feel like something that they've memorized?
And a pause is a normal thing.
And we take pauses all the time.
Like I just took one just now.
And so if you're overly prepared and you're prepared with all these specifics, then that might happen.
That might signal something false.
So almost if the specifics are coming too fast, too easily, it almost seems like it's scripted.
Yes.
Yes.
Interesting.
Another part of your strategy that stood out from prior years when we played this game is that you also asked some kind of big, sweeping, deep questions, right?
I love the question about, like, tell me your manager at your fourth restaurant's life story.
Like, that was good.
Thanks, Dan.
I'm not sure if it unlocked the truth about this game.
I don't either.
I don't know how generative it was because you could just like superimpose the identity of a friend onto that answer.
You ask some sort of like deep existential, as you would as the host of Wild Card, you ask some deep existential questions.
So don't tell me yet, Rachel, but have you made your choice?
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
Okay, we're now going to have a brief musical interlude to allow our listeners to make their final decisions.
All right.
Time is up.
The choices have been made.
Rachel, who do you think the liar is?
I think the liar is Yuki.
Ooh.
That's not what I was.
That was not what I was.
So go on.
Explain your logic.
Well.
I could be totally wrong on this.
I really will be embarrassed.
But I think that sushi chefs measure themselves by the tamago, which is the sweetened egg that is placed on the little thing of rice.
Like that is and it's counterintuitive because it's not fish.
But for some reason, this was like drilled into my brain when I lived in Japan.
And I'm not a connoisseur of Japanese cuisine or a chef.
But I feel like that would be a basic thing that you would know.
I will be highly embarrassed if that's totally not true.
And I made this decision based on that.
But there were other tells.
There were other tells.
Other tells, yes.
Um...
I thought his Natto story came too quickly.
Like that's an example of it was just I don't know.
And he just like knew the history of it in a way that I honestly don't know that that a chef would necessarily know.
It's it's someone who maybe looked it up.
I don't know.
What else?
What else did I write down here?
Rachel's consulting her reporter's notebook.
I'm consulting my reporter's
Oh, I wrote down that his failure was unconvincing in a whole professional career as a restaurant owner.
Like, again, I just know the failures are fiery and dramatic and you have a lot.
There's so much failure.
It's not like, oh, I left my cutting board out.
No, it's not.
I was in front of this very famous chef and I can get that might be embarrassing.
It didn't feel like a big enough failure in an industry where there's no matter how great you are, there's a lot of failure.
Yeah.
And chefs are usually very forthcoming about those big stories, you know, because they are part of their whole thing.
If they're being they want people to know that how hard it was to get where they are.
Right.
And so I feel like that wasn't very convincing.
Okay.
All right.
Well, so Rachel picks Yuki.
All right.
The Zoom camera is on.
We can now see our three quote unquote chefs in Austin.
Would the liar please reveal yourself?
Hi, my name's Yuki DeSouza.
I'm a comedian.
Oh, Rachel got it.
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
Good, because I was going to feel so bad for calling you a liar if you weren't actually a liar.
I'm not a very good liar.
You got me.
You were good.
I actually, you know, I was going to, my money was on Chris.
You know what?
I was like, Chris, what up?
You're not even talking.
And then you're the one who said, what if that was the strat to not talk?
And then that kind of got in my head.
OK, but I just felt, you know, you know why I was leaning Chris.
I wrote down in my notes, first of all, he talked about food as a love language, which is a cliche.
And he also said, when you love what you do, you don't work a day in your life, which is another cliche.
Two cliches from Chris, which look, maybe true.
But it's true.
That is true.
A lot of cliches are true, but still, like, you know, it felt a little bit, like, on the nose.
Also, I just, as I said earlier, it's just so hard that the idea that it never feels like work, I was just like, Chris.
Oh, I'm physically exhausted 24-7.
I just still like it.
Okay, all right, all right, all right.
Fair enough.
Right.
I think we were easily convinced by Vera, but the other two were on the fence.
Interesting.
So let's hear briefly from all three of our guests.
So, Yuki, you're a comedian.
Do you do improv as well?
Yes, I do improv.
There's a small wrinkle.
I do my day job.
I work part time in a Japanese grocery store.
So I know my Japanese groceries.
All right.
That's fair, though.
I think you're still eligible to be our liar.
Knowing about the history of not.
Oh, that's how you know.
Oh, God.
Very good.
That's great.
That was very detailed and specific.
Yuki, where can people see you perform?
They can see me perform at Fallout Theater.
They can find my Instagram at the underscore ukester.
That's Y-O-O-K-S-T-E-R. All right.
And Vero, what are the names of your four restaurants?
So I own Le Rêve, Woodfire Kitchen.
I have two locations.
I own Sauvignon.
It's a French-inspired steakhouse.
And I also own Three West Ale House and Grill.
So I do a little bit of all kinds of cuisine.
And all those are in the Austin area.
Yes, they're north of Austin, two of them in Georgetown and two in Temple, Texas.
Awesome.
Okay.
And Chris, what's the name and location of your restaurant?
So I own Ramen del Barrio, and that is in north Austin near the Q2 Stadium.
It sounds like North Austin is the place to be.
The place to eat.
That's where all the good food is.
Much cheaper rent than downtown.
Okay.
All right.
Less crowded.
All right.
Vera, Chris, and Yuki, thank you all so much for joining us for this edition of Two Chefs Set Alive.
So, Rachel, first time out of the gate and you nailed it.
How do you feel?
I feel very proud of myself.
I'm not going to lie.
I will not lie.
Considering that when we started this game, you looked at me and said, I have no idea what this is.
I have no idea what's going on.
I have no idea.
But I also set the expectations high.
I was like, I'm really good at human nature.
And I can deduce when someone's pulling my leg.
And you did.
And you did.
All right.
Well, Rachel Martin hosts the excellent podcast Wildcard from NPR.
It's one of my very favorite podcasts.
Please listen to it if you don't listen already.
If you listen already, keep listening to it.
Rachel Martin, always a blast.
Thanks so much.
Oh, my God.
This was so, so fun.
Thank you for having me.
Next week on the show, perfect for summer, we've got an ice cream truck extravaganza.
We'll tell the story of the ice cream truck kingpins of post-war Southern California.
And I'll hang out with a guy who drives a local ice cream truck where I live.
Plus, I'll pitch him on some Sunday ideas of my own.
That's next week.
While you wait for that one, check out last week's episode with food writer Jason Diamond, in which we ask, is it possible to go on GLP-1s and still love food?
That one's up now.
Check it out.
And hey, did you know you can listen to The Sporkful on the SiriusXM app?
Yes, the SiriusXM app.
It has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage.
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And there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more.
It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app all rolled into one.
And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to SiriusXM.com slash Sporkful.
This episode was produced by me, along with managing producer Emma Morgenstern and senior producer Andres O'Hara.
It was edited by Camille Stanley.
Our technical director is Jared O'Connell.
Music help from Black Label Music.
The Sporkful is a production of Sirius XM Podcast.
Our executive producer is Camille Stanley.
Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.
And I'm Jason Griselle from Houston, Texas, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.
