by Guy Fieri
SILENT BOB, CHICO, BUNNY, AND BOY BAND: Here’s the story of one of the few times that Guy got got. On one of our DDD adventures, Guido threw out the line, “Ya know, I always seem to be pullin’ the pranks, but they don’t get thrown on me very often.” That happens to be true, but shortly after he mentioned this we had the chance to turn the tables on him. You see, Prankology 101 teaches you two things: Never, ever call yourself out, and always expect that what comes around goes around.
We’re shooting at a great Italian joint in New York, and the owner/chef, Joe, says to us in a perfect New York accent, “Eh, does Guy got a good sense of hum-ah?” We said, “Well, what do you have in mind?” Joe goes on, “Well, we do dis ting to our purveyors—we get one of our line cooks, da little guy, Mario, to go sit in dat fridge ovah dere, and den we have da purveyor open it up, and den Mario goes and yells, ‘Surprise!’ Usually gets ’em good, real good.” All of us on the crew look at each other, and we collectively say, “Done!”
So as Guy is getting ready to shoot, we send Mario into the fridge. We’re not talking about a walk-in, just a regular-size restaurant fridge. We started shooting, and Joe was showing Guy how he makes his fresh mozzarella, working the cheese with his hands, and he said, “Eh, Guy, couldya go in dat fridge and grab da heavy cream in dere?” (It had been twenty minutes, and Mario was in shorts.) Guy walked over and opened the door, and it was quiet just long enough to make us think it didn’t work…then he let out a loud “Whoaaaaa!” leaping right out of his flip-flops, about as high as Jordan’s dunk in the ’88 All-Star Game. He just started laughing. What really got him was when Mario handed him the cream from inside the fridge and said, “Here ya go, Guy.” Guido then looked at me, Boy Band, Bunny, and Silent Bob and pointed at each of us (while still laughing hysterically) and said, “You’re dead, you’re dead, you’re dead, and you’re dead.” And that’s okay, ’cause as you learn in Prankology 101, that’s the name of the game…and game on.
WHERE’S MY NOSE AND MOUTH? DO I HAVE TO PAY EXTRAWHERE’S EXTRA?
“THE HUNCH” IN FOUR EASY STEPS
Honestly, the Hunch came to be out of sheer necessity. The first time I assumed the position I was in Philly eating cheesesteaks, and I noticed the guys were positioning themselves like prisoners guarding their food. You see, otherwise grease could go down your hand onto your shirt—so you’ve gotta keep your arms up. It’s all about natural gravity flow. Which takes me to my wardrobe on set: I wear these bowling shirts, and I’ve just got one per show lined up. If I trash one, we’ve got to shoot the whole thing over. When I started to show restaurant owners my technique, they’d say, “No, you’re not doing it right; let me show you.” So “the form” has been refined by experts all across the country; I can’t, in good conscience, take all the credit.
Bottom line, the Hunch plays Triple Duty: 1) protects the shirt; 2) positions the food nicely, showing it off for the camera; and 3) prevents me from needing to shower six times a day.
PROFESSIONAL HUNCHING WILL BECOME A SPORT—JUST YOU WAIT AND SEE!
FOOD RIFFS
Pizza GOTTA HAVE HEART One thing I do love is pizza. I mean, I love cheese steaks, tacos, and fried chicken, but to me pizza has life to it, and when people make pizza that way, it’s the mom-and-pop difference. Even if they’re just using so-so pepperoni and cheese, if it’s made with HEART it’s gonna taste good. Like Vito and Nick’s in Chicago—my God, that’s one of the best—or Pizza Palace in Tennessee, or Pizzeria Luigi in San Diego, which is like being in Napoli; these people really believe in their pizza.
My ideal pizza: thin crust, light on the cheese, heavy on the zesty sauce, real quality ingredients (I don’t care if it’s salami or pepperoni, but not with so much processed fat that it melts all over in a greasy mess), maybe some artichokes or olives—but always cooked crispy at a high, high heat.
BARBeCUe ALL ABOUT SOUL Full disclosure: I own two barbecue restaurants, Tex Wasabi’s Rock-n-Roll Sushi-Que, and I’m on a professional barbecue team called the Motley Q with my brothers in ’cue, Mike Zemenick (“Mikey Z”), Ron Walker (“UnYawn”), Robert Riley (“Pit Boss”), and Matt Sprouls (“Mustard”), and we compete in a bunch of contests, especially the American Royal in Kansas City. I’ve been barbecuing and smoking stuff intensely for the last ten years, six of them with this team. So when I go to a barbecue restaurant, I walk in there with a little bit of an opinion. The rule is—with all food, granted, but with barbecue joints in particular—someone there has got to be in love with the barbecue. I dig all of it: Carolina barbecue, with that vinegar that bites the back of your jowls; Kansas City; or Texan—I’d eat all three every time, pork or beef. But barbecue has got to have SOUL, the same way pizza has got to have heart. The key question is: How much of this is your job, and how much of this is your hobby?
So check out Wilson’s Barbeque in Connecticut, BBQ Shack in Kansas, or Smoque in Chicago, where they’re knocking out the whole hog on a smoker outside, or Barbecue King Drive-in in North Carolina, where they serve it drive-in style. These guys have got the right ’tude with the ’cue.
DINeRS A FAMILY AFFAIR To fit the category, a diner does not have to be in a stainless-steel car. Diners have to be a home away from home, a place where people feel really comfortable, where the food is memorable. This is why we go, to feel part of the FAMILY.
BURGeRS QUALITY COUNTS Quintessential QUALITY makes all the difference in a burger. I don’t care if you grill it on a flattop, sauté it in a pan, or grill it over wood or charcoal; no matter how you cook it, and no matter how you stuff it or top it, quality is the key, and less is more. With good meat that’s seasoned well and served hot and juicy, and a quality bun, you’ve got it made. White Manna in New Jersey makes a simple pressed burger with onions; at Hodad’s in San Diego the burgers are so legit, especially the bacon patty. Cooked correctly and garnished correctly, that is it.
BReAKFAST CHEAP AND EASY This is going to sound wrong, but very simply, breakfast needs to be CHEAP and EASY. I want to apologize to everybody out there. You’ve anointed me the Culinary Captain of the USS Flavortown, and I have got to explain to you that the ship does not visit many breakfast ports because the Captain doesn’t dig eggs. Don’t like them scrambled, poached, over easy, over hard, in a fox, on a boat, on a moat, in a car, with a candy bar—I don’t care. I don’t care if it was laid by a golden goose, I am not eating it. So I’m sorry, I really am. When I had calves’ brains and eggs recently, I could eat the brain part…Now, we would never not feature a place on the show because I don’t like eggs, but if they have something like blue corn waffles on the menu, all the better.
LATINO FOOD ALIVE WITH FLAVOR Latino food is fresh. You may deep-fry it, braise it, barbecue it, or skewer it a million different ways, but its flavor is ALIVE. Now, I’m not talking about heat; Latino food can be misinterpreted. I mean that you want to get up and have a fiesta when you eat it. Allow it to be itself. Don’t mess with it; don’t try to take it to other realms.
I mean, the picadillo at Victor’s Café 1959 in Minneapolis—though cooked down, it’s still ALIVE with flavor. Pupas are fantastic; the carne adovada tacos at Lone Star in Salt Lake City—oh my God!—talk about fresh Mexican food heating all your senses, tasting all the ingredients individually. It creates this Mariachi band of flavor in your mouth.
SeAFOOD FRESH Less is more, FRESH is best, and don’t rob nature of its beautiful flavor; leave it alone. Serve an oyster simply done—that’s treating it with respect, as at Casamento’s in New Orleans. Or at Kelly’s Diner in Massachusetts, the one-claw lobster served on the most nondescript lobster roll and mixed with celery salt, just a touch of mayo, and a sprinkle of lemon—that’s seafood done right.
NORTHEAST AND MID-ATLANTIC
SUPER DUPER WEENIE
EST. 1992 FOR THE LOVE OF RIGHTEOUS RELISH AND SNAPPY DOGS
Now, I’d heard a lot about a place called Super Duper Weenie in Connecticut. My friends Alex and Steve live there, and they invited me over to their h
ouse for dinner. What comes rolling down the driveway for dinner but this Super Duper Weenie wagon. I’m telling you I did some great field testing, which brought us here to Fairfield and the Super Duper Weenie world headquarters.
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TRACK IT DOWN
306 Black Rock Turnpike
P.O. Box 320487
Fairfield, Connecticut 06825
203-334-3647
www.superduperweenie.com
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Gary Zemola is the big weenie wizard who is serious about his dogs. He’s a culinary school grad who fell in love with an old hot dog truck that he saw a painting of in a 1977 edition of a book by John Baeder titled Diners. He found the truck in 1991, gutted it, redid it (restoring the look by referencing the painting), and started doing hot dogs his way. He slices the dogs lengthwise, grills them till browned and crispy, and scratch-makes all the toppings, from sweet relish to hot relish to chili for all kinds of combos. The Dixie dog has the chili and coleslaw, the Chicago has dill pickle and hot relish. Folks just couldn’t get enough of them; the truck got to be overwhelming, says Gary, and he couldn’t keep up. So with his neighbors John and Lorin Pellegrino and the help of their parents, he opened the world headquarters, where they’re now turning out two thousand dogs a week.
The number-one top-selling dog is the New Englander, with sauerkraut, bacon, spicy brown mustard, chopped onion, and sweet cucumber relish (see recipe on Sweet Relish). That’s bananas, that’s relish. The hidden surprise is the bacon, and the sweetness of the relish is the amalgamator. Where has that been all my life? He’s also got a hot relish he uses on three of the dogs. He starts with red and green bell peppers that have been salted and drained, then adds chopped onion, water, red wine vinegar, garlic cloves, fennel seed, and sugar. He covers the pot and gives it a quick simmer, then shuts it off so it doesn’t become mush and lets it steep. Then he adds pickled cherry peppers and red pepper flakes. He blends it and puts the finished hot relish on the New Yorker hot dog, which also has kraut (fortified with chopped bacon and caraway), red onion sauce, and mustard. Makes a nice balance of salt to sweet to heat—and has great crunchy crust from the split dog.
They do everything well here, from fresh-cut fries to soup to chicken fingers, and don’t forget you can rent the old truck for church socials or birthday parties. Go ahead and build your own: I did a dog with red sauce onions, bacon, and fistfuls of two types of cheese (taking a page from our boys at the Squeeze Inn in Sacramento); melted it under a pan; then topped it with chili, slaw, onions, and both sweet and hot relish. I called it Frankenstein. It was dy-no-mite.
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[GUY ASIDE]
Some good friends of mine, Alex and Steve, live in Greenwich, Connecticut. We had gone on a tour together to see some of my favorite diners for one of their birthdays—Penguin, Mike’s City Diner, Chaps Pit Beef, Kelly’s Diner. So I was in town shooting Guy’s Big Bite and went to visit them in Greenwich, and they in turn had a party and said, “You’re going to love the food—we’re bringing in this ice cream–looking truck called the Super Duper Weenie.” They were bringing in a hot dog cart, what? But it blew my mind. It’s the quality of the hot dog, the way you cook it, and the condiments. These guys have righteous relish. I must have had half of everything. I called our executive producer, David Page, and for some reason the restaurant was on file but hadn’t gotten past research; so I pulled it out of the fire and we shot them. These guys are passionate. Sure, you can’t eat hot dogs every day of your life, but when you do, keep it about quality, not quantity. Go for the knockouts.
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THE WIZARD OF WEENIES—THE KING OF CONDIMENTS—HAS NOTHING ON UNDER THE APRON.
Sweet Relish
ADAPTED FROM A RECIPE COURTESY OF GARY ZEMOLA OF SUPER DUPER WEENIE
This relish would be good on a flip-flop.
MAKES 2 QUARTS
6 cucumbers, peeled and sliced ½ inch thick
2 Spanish onions, roughly chopped
1 green bell pepper, roughly chopped
1 red bell pepper, roughly chopped
¼ cup kosher salt
1 cup cider vinegar
¾ cup sugar
1 tablespoon celery seeds
1 tablespoon yellow mustard seeds
1. Toss the cucumbers, onions, and peppers with the salt. Put the mixture in a colander over a bowl and refrigerate overnight.
2. The next day, rinse the vegetables under cold water and place them in a pot. Add the vinegar, sugar, celery seeds, and mustard seeds. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat. Remove from the heat, cover, and let sit for 20 minutes.
3. Transfer the mixture to a food processor, in batches if necessary, and pulse to desired consistency.
ANUDDA TAG BY GUIDO AND KREW.
Photograph by Cassie Jones
I ALWAYS WONDERED WHERE THE DOUBLEMINT TWINS ENDED UP.
Photograph by Cassie Jones
ONE WEENIE HITS DA FLOOR, AND EVERYONE SCATTERS.
Photograph by Tobias Baharian
THE GHOSTBUSTERS RIG DOESN’T HOLD A CANDLE TO THE SUPER DUPER WEENIE WAGON.
Photograph by Cassie Jones
WHAT’S A GIRL LIKE YOU DOIN’ IN A WEENIE JOINT LIKE THIS?
Photograph by Tobias Baharian
OWNER’S NOTE: The number one question asked by visitors about the show? “Is Guy really like that?” The answer is yes, he’s as fun and entertaining when he’s not on camera—the kind of guy you want to hang out with, smoking cigars, playing pool, and having a good time. When we were taping the show, he was pretending to cut my hair with an immersion blender.
Recently I was at a taping of Guy’s Big Bite for an episode called “Gridiron Grub.” I made a green tomato and apple relish, and Guy made these incredible brined roasted turkey legs—they practically tasted like ham—and cheddar-stuffed pretzels. Great time.—Gary Zemola
NORTHEAST AND MID-ATLANTIC
VALENCIA LUNCHERIA
EST. 2003 COME AND GET YOUR…VENEZUELAN BEACH FOOD?!
You know what kinda joints we look for on Triple D, right? Crazy places, like this one here in Connecticut, a Venezuelan restaurant. Now, here’s the kicker: when one of the dudes who owns it wanted to learn more about Venezuelan cooking, he bounced out of the United States, cruised down to Venezuela, started as a dishwasher in a restaurant, learned a bunch of stuff, came back to the States, and opened Valencia Luncheria with his partner, Luís Chavez.
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TRACK IT DOWN
172 Main Street
Norwalk, Connecticut 06851
203-846-8009
www.valencialuncheria.com
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Chef Michael Young, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, had his first arepa in Manhattan and was like, wait, there’s gotta be more of this, I’ve gotta have it. An arepa is a kind of Venezuelan sandwich made with a corn cake and filled with just about anything: coconut and shrimp, Brie and mango, fresh mozzarella and chorizo. The taste is out of this world. Michael learned from the source in Venezuela and introduced something new to Norwalk.
For his arepa stuffed with pernil—that’s pork butt—the pork’s almost pickled, it’s brined so long in water, vinegar, sugar, salt, bay leaves, rosemary (that’s not Venezuelan, that’s Michael’s influence), and chipotle sauce; the pork soaks up that brine for seventy-two hours. Then it’s generously sprinkled with cumin, onion, garlic powder, adobo, black pepper, white pepper, and a pureed cold vegetable sauce. A little water in the pan and he cooks it for three hours covered, three hours not, so it gets a nice crust. It’s pulled and stuffed into a fresh arepa. Where has this been all my life? So tender and moist—the arepa has such great texture, that’s capital-T tasty right there.
Michael and Luis do roast chicken with garlic and jalapeño, and empanadas with a choice of fourteen different fillings, including spinach and cheese, black beans and cheese, Nutella and cream cheese, and chicken machada (shredded chicken). There’s no fooling around with t
his flaky, crusty empanada and tender chicken: ting, tang, waddabaddabingbang, it’s awesome.
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[GUY ASIDE]
When somebody wants to do something and immerses him- or herself into the culture, I’m a fan. Michael went above and beyond the call of duty to make this restaurant happen. When we say funky we don’t mean tchotchkes on the wall; we mean out of the ordinary. Venezuelan beach food? Why not just do Puerto Rican or Mexican? If you’re going to put yourself out like that you want to back it up, and this cat backs it up. I just want to go back, can’t get enough of it. Right on. It’s a cultural experience that’s about more than just eating—food made right in front of you, loud, every bit like a luncheria, making the dough from scratch. A CIA grad busting out and doing this—it’s just what you love to hear.
