DYLAN DODD: Have a good night, guys.
JOSH GOLDSTEIN: Here, here.
DYLAN DODD: Cheers, all.
DANNY MINCH: I'm a pretty quiet person at certain times.
But the minute I kind of get going, and you throw me in an
environment where there's noise and people, it's--
I'm like a pinball machine.
Alex, you got my mom's email, right?
I want you guys to become email friends.
My mom doesn't like Jewish people, which is strange
because she's Jewish.
But she thinks she's Puerto Rican.
-I ate it too fast to know it was anti-Semitic.
DANNY MINCH: Josh is single.
He'll date anybody between the ages of 11 and 63.
I know you need therapy.
I need therapy.
You definitely need it.
I always say things that make people uncomfortable.
I pull back when necessary.
He has offered to circumcise me for my bar mitzvah, but I'm
already circumcised, so.
Why did my mic get taken away?
-Mmm.
DANNY MINCH: My name is Danny Minch.
My partner is Dylan Dodd.
DYLAN DODD: We own together Walter Foods in Williamsburg,
and Walter's in Fort Greene.
DANNY MINCH: Dylan and I would come back late night after
being out in Manhattan, and kind of had nowhere to go to
get proper service and a real drink and real
food and good vibe.
Our burger, I think, is one of the best in the city, and I
feel confident saying that.
Our fried chicken and French dip are really popular.
DYLAN DODD: We were at Houston's one day, having
lunch, talking about the business.
And we were like, you know, we could do a really amazing
French dip if we do it with filet mignon on a fresh
baguette with a horseradish sauce.
And that's been one of our most popular dishes.
DANNY MINCH: It's food that your grandmother made for you
when you were at [INAUDIBLE] or special occasions that
bring back memories and nostalgia, things you want to
come back for.
JOSH GOLDSTEIN: We love the classics.
I sell so much fried chicken, so many
burgers, blackened catfish--
which is great.
It's all very tasty, and I don't--
there's no shortcuts to it.
DYLAN DODD: Our executive chef is Josh Goldstein.
I lived in San Francisco for seven years.
He comes from the Bay Area as well.
And that always stuck in my head that I want to do a real
fisherman's stew or stew, or cioppino.
JOSH GOLDSTEIN: It being such a fisherman's city, when the
Portuguese and Italian immigrants came, they settled
in North Beach.
And it was something that they would really just do with
their catch of the day.
They would throw into a pretty heavy tomato-based sauce.
A lot of the time, they would cook it on the boat before
they came back in.
Ours has shrimp, mussels, and crab meat, and we call it a
spicy fisherman's stew.
DANNY MINCH: We always wanted to be the kind of place where
people got out of work and the first place they wanted to go.
We were both from bar backgrounds.
And so we wanted to bring a bar atmosphere to the whole
restaurant.
You can have a martini or you have a bottle of wine and
you're eating a steak, but you can still curse if you want,
or you can make out at a table if you want.
Being out and eating and drinking is the time where you
should be acting silly.
DYLAN DODD: The night that we went out and Danny's mother
happened to be at Walter's with her ex boyfriend, which
was very entertaining.
She reminds me of a sports radio host.
And you're never going to get her to--
DANNY MINCH: You can say it.
DYLAN DODD: --to not have an opinion.
No.
I'm not going to say it.
DANNY MINCH: I feel like I need to apologize to table two
with my mom.
She looked right at them and said, what are they
doing here so long?
And she said "cunt" about six times.
Sorry about my mom.
I heard the whole thing.
That's how she is.
She might be the only person that actually can drive me to
needing a drink.
That was a good send off for going out that night.
Sorry to keep you guys waiting.
I was never bar mitzvahed.
JOSH GOLDSTEIN: Really?
DANNY MINCH: Never.
I said, I don't want to do it.
Can I still have a party?
My parents said yes.
I said, I'll have a 13th birthday party, and that's
what I did.
Annelle Waters, still remember her name, let me go to third
base that night.
Third base was--
JOSH GOLDSTEIN: Going down?
DANNY MINCH: --going down.
JOSH GOLDSTEIN: OK.
California, that's first base.
DANNY MINCH: We went to Hillside in Vinegar Hill.
It's owned by a friend of ours, Jean Adamson.
Cheers to Jean.
JOSH GOLDSTEIN: Cheers to Jean.
DANNY MINCH: We thought it would be nice to stop there
and have a couple drinks, and some snacks.
So the beauty of this restaurant is that it's in a
neighborhood where they are very few places to go and get
a proper meal and a drink.
What are we having here again?
It's the anchovy toast?
DYLAN DODD: Tostino.
I love anchovies.
DANNY MINCH: This is the girl that Josh has a crush on.
Josh is very shy, by the way.
We're trying to get him out of his shell.
Josh and I will be going to therapy together next Friday,
as part of our contract that we signed.
I guarantee you every single chef or restaurant owner would
benefit from therapy.
DYLAN DODD: The reality is is that every time you go there,
you want someone else to be there because you're
a little bit bored.
DANNY MINCH: But why--
No.
I don't get bored.
DYLAN DODD: You invited me there like five times.
DANNY MINCH: Not because I'm bored.
I thought it would be helpful.
DYLAN DODD: By the way, the proper way to eat oysters,
after you halve the oyster, you turn it down.
[INAUDIBLE].
It helps the server know when they can clear the plate.
All right, same spots?
We're going to a place called--
it's very hard to say.
I think it's called Locanda Vini e Olii.
DANNY MINCH: Sounds like a skin commercial.
DYLAN DODD: It's a classic Tuscan Italian place.
It's been in Clinton Hill since way before
Clinton Hill was cool.
My friend Mike Schall, one of the owners, he was at
Walter's, having an early dinner.
And so we realized, hey, we should stop by.
You're going to tell these guys, the camera, that that's
the restaurant's name, because I butchered it three times.
MICHAEL SCHALL: Locanda Vini e Olii.
Locanda means a hostel, like a roadside inn in Italy.
So it's a roadside inn of wine and oil.
Reuben, who's our general manager, he met us over at
Locanda Vini e Olii.
DANNY MINCH: Also moonlights at No Name Bar.
Shout out to No Name Bar in Greenpoint, on Sunday nights.
If you ever have anyone who wants to go there and get
completely wasted, Reuben's your guy.
MICHAEL SCHALL: Hope you guys are cool on tripe.
DANNY MINCH: Yeah, we had some tripe, and the
ribollita was amazing.
The tripe was also fantastic, but the ribollita I remember
just being, like, it was really phenomenal.
This ribollita is fucking really good.
You really don't feel like you're in New York
at all, in any way.
DANNY MINCH: Yeah, you're right.
It doesn't feel like Italy either.
Thanks, Mike.
Thank you very much.
Come out tonight, if you can.
We go out like once a year, so hopefully
we make it out tonight.
DYLAN DODD: After Laconda, we were going to 1 or 8, my
favorite sushi place in the city.
DANNY MINCH: What's going on?
How are you, sir?
It's his fault we're late.
Every time I've been in there, he looks upset at me.
So I don't know.
He might be the one person that I don't
think I can win over.
DYLAN DODD: He's always been very nice.
And he has great recommendations for sake.
DANNY MINCH: Let's make a toast to something that
everybody at this table knows, that we can't say out loud.
Cheers.
-Here's to you, Danny.
DANNY MINCH: Cheers.
Yes.
And Andrea, our general manager from Walter foods,
came and joined us.
I feel great.
All right.
Let's do this shit.
DANNY MINCH: That looks amazing.
-You still hungry, right?
-I see octopus, yeah.
DYLAN DODD: You know, when you go there and he's very
specific about the way you eat things, and not overdoing it
with soy sauce, and all the habits that we get over here.
DANNY MINCH: Let's pound this for real.
KAZUO YOSHIDA: Japanese people, we
don't eat so much sushi.
It's not so often.
We just need once a month, twice a month.
But these people is eating sushi for--
some people, every week, two times a week.
They come here a lot.
DANNY MINCH: What is this right here?
Be honest.
-It's yours.
DANNY MINCH: Nobody lie.
I'm a grower, not a shower.
I think I may have been pretty drunk at that point.
So my recollection of the events from that point on
might not be--
might not be what they should be.
DYLAN DODD: At that point, I'd actually forgotten we still
had one more stop.
DANNY MINCH: Guys, it's already 12 now.
We gotta--
I can't believe this shit's falling behind.
I'm headed over to The Richardson, which is a bar
that's owned by Joel Lee Kulp, along with Clem.
Joel's a funny guy.
He looks like he's straight out of The Clash, circa 2013.
It's all a little bit of a blur, but I think Joel brought
out some bourbon shots, maybe.
And then we asked for tequila drinks.
DYLAN DODD: I faked drinking that, way before the tequila,
because after tequila and beer and sake, I was not going to
bring bourbon the mix.
DANNY MINCH: I think there was a lot of prosciutto, some
cheeses, a bunch of different meats.
I think we just saw--
I just was--
I even think on the way out, I think I grabbed some and maybe
even put some in my pocket, like just to
save some for later.
JOSH GOLDSTEIN: We've just left The Richardson.
We picked up Joel with us.
We got him in the van, and we're heading to Walter Foods
for a little late night snack and some more drinks.
DANNY MINCH: Why did my mic get taking away?
What did I do wrong?
Phil, I was just feeling comfortable with my mic.
JOSH GOLDSTEIN: You don't need to talk
about your mother anymore.
[CHEERING]
DANNY MINCH: We headed over to our restaurant in
Williamsburg, Walter Foods.
And it felt like a big party.
Dylan and I went straight to the bar.
And Josh went back in the kitchen with Moustafa
downstairs and worked on these great meatball subs that
aren't on our menu, but that probably should find their way
on our menu at both restaurants, because it was a
great late night sandwich.
JOSH GOLDSTEIN: Mous, the last time we were on the line
together, I was on Molly.
That's a true story.
MOUSTAFA IBRAHIM: You never told me.
JOSH GOLDSTEIN: What do you mean?
You were right there next to me with the same
drugs in your nose.
MOUSTAFA IBRAHIM: Fuck no.
DANNY MINCH: We serve meatballs over at Walter's, as
an appetizer.
And I think he took that recipe and incorporated it
into a nice meatball hero.
Served on a baguette, from what I remember.
DYLAN DODD: Truth is, neither of us really remember that
part, but I heard they were very good.
DANNY MINCH: Walter Foods is, you know, obviously our first
restaurant together.
And so it will always have a place in our
heart of coming home.
It's like seeing an old uncle, like your favorite uncle to
hang out with at a barbecue, who makes great grilled food
and likes to drink a lot.
DYLAN DODD: I never heard the uncle refer--
usually it's an old girlfriend.
DANNY MINCH: I can't--
I don't reference girlfriends anymore.
I'm a--
beautiful wife that I'm madly in love with.
DYLAN DODD: You don't usually speak well about them.
You usually just make a joke.
DANNY MINCH: Oh, my uncle?
DYLAN DODD: In reference to your old girlfriends.
DANNY MINCH: My unc-- oh, OK.
Well, maybe my Uncle Martin.
My Uncle Martin's a good reference point.