When the Ticket Machine Won’t Stop | How Chefs Stay Calm in Chaos
🎙️ EP156 – 700 covers. Tickets spilling to the floor. Grill in freefall. This episode is about the nights everything falls apart, and why that’s where real cooks are made.🎧 Topics Covered in This Episode:🔥 Friday-Night Meltdown — When the pass loses the plot and how to reset🧾 Ticket Tsunami — Reading, batching, and staying ahead of the board🥩 Grill Triage — “Fire everything” vs. perfect sear and rest🧠 Prioritize & Execute — Jocko’s playbook for the line🧘 Detach to Survive — Mind control under pressure🧮 Mental Mapping — Keeping six tables in your head without dying📣 Expo Done Right — FOH-led pass calls and flow🐻 The Bear IRL — What the show nails🍜 Din Tai Fung — Systems, speed, and consistency at scale🔥 Wok Logic — A la minute skill from Chinese & Japanese kitchens🇵🇪 Chifa Legends — Javier Wong, ceviche + wok, and doing two things perfectly📋 Small Menus, Big Impact — Why fewer dishes hit harder🏗️ Kitchen as System — Leadership, stress management, and getting your grip back📩 Follow & Support Us:🍽️ Everything in one place: linkin.bio/potluckfoodtalks/📸 Instagram: @potluckfoodtalks▶️ YouTube: youtube.com/@potluckfoodtalks📢 Want to advertise with us? potluckfoodtalks.com/advertise-on-the-podcast🔥 Enjoy!
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The Line Part 9: Difficult Guests & the Sacred Art of Saying “No Soup for You”
🎙️ EP155 – Phil & Eric are back on The Line: the guests who test your patience, the ones who treat the menu like a suggestion, and the quiet power of saying NO when everyone expects you to bend.🎧 Topics Covered in This Episode:👨🍳 Back belly, underbelly, and serving up “The Line Pt. 9”👀 Open Kitchen Reality – Early signs of trouble before the first ticket drops🔄 Annoying Guests – The one that rearranged the whole dining room🧾 Off-Menu Madness – When “Can I have this without that?” breaks the system💸 Partial Refunds, Full Integrity – When keeping your rep means eating the cost💬 Review Warfare – Turning a 4★ into a 5★ without selling your soul🧘 Boundaries as Brand – “No soup for you” and other small victories🥣 The Soup Suitcase – VIPs and their crazy requests 19:16🧪 Dietary Minefields – Gluten-free, vegan, and the high price of “special”🚫 Entitlement Kills Experience – How one guest can ruin service for twenty🗾 Japan’s No-Sub Culture – Why respect tastes better than entitlement👨🍳 When We Do Bend – Freestyling dishes vs tanking quality📋 Menu on the Fly – The Dos Palillos discipline of rewriting in real time🗣️ Hospitality Backbone – Saying NO clearly, kindly, and once📩 Follow & Support Us:🍽️ Everything in one place: https://linkin.bio/potluckfoodtalks/📸 Instagram: http://instagram.com/potluckfoodtalks▶️ YouTube: http://youtube.com/@potluckfoodtalks📢 Advertise with us: http://potluckfoodtalks.com/advertise-on-the-podcast🔥 Enjoy!
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Becoming A Chef: How Pop-Ups Shaped Iñaki Bolumburu’s Career
🎙️ EP154 — Basque fire, Bangkok chaos: From Mugaritz to Noma and now the streets of Thailand, Chef Iñaki Bolumburu turns a 35-seat speakeasy into a traveling txoko where the market writes the menu, charcoal does the talking, and “waste” gets a second life.🎧 Topics Covered in This Episode:🏡 Basque Roots – Farmhouse life, family kitchens, and early sparks🎓 Bilbao School Days – Bad student, good instincts🔥 Mugaritz Breakthrough – “Everything is possible”🌍 Learning English in the Kitchen – Cooking abroad without words👨🍳 Noma & Azurmendi – Creativity and foraging on another level🏛️ Nerua Lessons – Mentorship, travel, and purpose✈️ First Pop-Up – Grief turned into motion❄️ Force Creativity – From waste to byproduct to dish🌪️ Pop-Up Snowball – 40 countries, countless ideas🇵🇹 Portugal Collab – Cooking with Vasco Coelho Santos🇹🇭 Bangkok Chaos – The accidental Amalur🔥 Fire Language – 80% of the menu on charcoal💡 Txoko Philosophy – Basque hospitality abroad🥩 Product Over Prestige – Local fish, honest salt🥢 Basque vs Thai – Minimal meets maximal🧪 Locavore Lessons – Sustainability done right🎒 Nomad Tour – Europe, foraging, and family🏠 Inside Amalur – 35 seats, one chef, full heart🍷 Natural Wine & Firewater – No frills, just flavor🧁 Simple Desserts – Olive oil cakes and pickled fruit🧘♂️ Health Reset – Quitting tobacco, finding balance📩 Follow & Support Us: 🍽️ Everything in one place: linkin.bio/potluckfoodtalks 📸 Instagram: @potluckfoodtalks ▶️ YouTube: youtube.com/@potluckfoodtalks 📢 Want to advertise with us? potluckfoodtalks.com/advertise-on-the-podcast🔥 Enjoy!
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Chef Q&A: Cooking Myths, Kitchen Rules, and Why Wrong Can Taste Right
🎙️ EP153 – More audience questions. More proof that breaking rules and ignoring common sense sometimes makes food more delicious. From soggy chicken skin to overcooked pasta, sometimes wrong tastes right.🎧 Topics Covered in This Episode🍗 Soggy Chicken Skin — Hainanese chicken, hot-water trick, poached bounce🌿 Ugly Greens — Army-green spinach🥧 Recipes That Shouldn’t Work — Boiled-butter citrus curd, silky and perfect🍝 Overcooked Pasta? — 25-minute spaghetti, risotto-style al dente🥬 Wok-Fried Salad — Tossing mixed greens hot and fast🎭 Trends We’d Kill (and Keep) — Gimmicks out, bistro classics forever😭 When Food Hits Emotion — Gratitude bites in Japan, a son’s first omelet🧪 Cooking Myths Torched — Searing “locks juices,” & more🤖 AI Recipes — They're mostly robot hallucinations.📩 Follow & Support Us:🍽️ Everything in one place: linktr.ee/potluckfoodtalks📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/potluckfoodtalks▶️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@potluckfoodtalks📢 Want to advertise with us? https://potluckfoodtalks.com/advertise-on-the-podcast🔥 Enjoy!
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25:39
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Make the Burger Only You Can Make Ft. Food Entrepreneur Sachin Obaid
🎙️ EP152 – From Wall Street to Berlin Burger Joint: Sachin Obaid eats more fine dining than anyone we know. But his true masterpiece? A burger that tells his life story.🎧 Topics Covered in This Episode:📈 From Finance to Fryers – line-level pressure on Wall Street and on the pass🥒 Gilda Memories – a dirty martini that tasted like San Sebastián🌍 Third-Culture Cooking – India meets the U.S. inside a bun🧪 Pandemic Pop-Up Playbook – Shopify menus, zero-waste pantries, perfect sell-outs🧂 Real Spices, Real Problems – potency, ports, and why your cardamom is dead'🔥 Kerala Fried Chicken – Southern technique, South Indian soul🍔 Gully Burger – masala patties, chutneys, and a sesame-seed grin⭐ Hype vs Taste – why star systems don’t guarantee goosebumps🥩 Etxebarri Truth – the steak that resets your compass🍷 Hidden Spain – off-map temples (hello, Galicia)📩 Follow & Support Us:🍽️ Everything in one place: linkin.bio/potluckfoodtalks📸 Instagram: @potluckfoodtalks▶️ YouTube: youtube.com/@potluckfoodtalks💙 Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/potluckfoodtalks📢 Want to advertise with us? potluckfoodtalks.com/advertise-on-the-podcast🔥 Enjoy!
About Pot Luck Food Talks: Kitchen Stories From Behind the Pass
Two decades on the line leave scars, stories, and a way of seeing the world that doesn’t wash off with the apron.Pot Luck Food Talks is where the chef lifestyle gets laid bare—raw chef talk, the kind you don’t hear in PR interviews.Phil & Eric aren’t here to romanticize. They’re here to trade food stories that smell of sweat, butter, and burned fingers. Stories about the beauty and brutality of restaurant culture, the quiet rules, and the loud disasters.It’s the truth about Michelin Star kitchens, the whispered restaurant secrets, the victories no one tastes but the cooks, and the mistakes that teach more than any school.If you want sanitized food media, go elsewhere. If you want chef conversations about life, gastronomy, and why flavor is the only compass worth following—pull up a chair.
South Africa