Today on our food tour we've arranged to meet Mythical chef, Josh.
Director of Culinary Content for Mythical entertainment.
Oh, that's sweet Josh.
Wow.
From a 450 dollar McRib to BBQ flavoured Oreos.
Josh is basically the Tony Stark of food.
Even though the address he sent us to felt a lot like the start of a GTA mission,
we were sure his recommendation would be top-notch.
Where the hell are we? Ducky looks suspicious.
It says, "Tacos and burgers."
Yeah, but surely they can't do both well.
It has good reviews.
It does? You checked? Okay.
Well, this guy, he knows food. I'm willing to trust him.
- The suspense is building the longer we wait though. - Yeah, it really is.
- We arrived early, it's the first time… - I know.
Ever.
Probably.
- I see someone. - There he is.
Lovely to meet you, man.
Alright, Josh.
We are here at Korean BBQ, Tacos & Burgers.
This is L.A. in a nutshell.
Roy Choi started the whole Korean taco movement.
And we got a bunch of people after him that were 2nd, 3rd generation.
That's how you end up with Korean BBQ tacos and burgers.
That's an awful lot on one sign for one restaurant to do.
That's like a signature of L.A.
We want to go to one place where we can get absolutely everything.
This is like the Costco of food.
Okay, fantastic.
Let's do it.
Do you have any recommendations when we're coming here?
Chimichangas, that's American decadence at its finest.
A deep-fried burrito.
Oh, that's what that is.
I didn't know that.
I'm gonna need to mentally digest that.
I once started an ill-fated chimichanga pop-up called, "Stoney Baloney Artisanal Chimichangas".
Lost a lot of money on that.
It was pretty cool though.
What is a Hawaiian bread slider?
Oh, we gotta get that if you've never had a Hawaiian bread.
Hawaiian bread is the sweetest version of a cakey bread.
And it's a local L.A. company called Kings Hawaiian that is nationwide.
I'm so glad we have you here to guide us.
I would have thought that was all pineapple in the Hawaiian section.
There's probably pineapple on at least one of those.
Can we do the spicy pork chimichanga?
Lets's do the steak Hawaiian bread slider.
Jalapeño bombers, chicken taco, and let's go tofu taco.
Be a little healthy.
I've only eaten content today, which, I imagine, you guys know a fair amount about.
I guess this is more content, but this is like my relaxing sit-down content.
Oh my gosh, food has arrived.
We just get to lap it.
Yes!
So you have brought us to here to try Korean Mexican fusion.
Very unique to L.A. Very obscenely delicious.
First up, we have.
Don't know what these are, I'm not gonna lie,
I got it on the menu 'cause they're called Jalapeño Bombers.
Oh, these are the Jalapeño Bombers.
Is this like a battered Jalapeño?
Is that imitation crab in the middle?
Imitation crab?
Okay, so a lot of sushi restaurants are owned Korean people in L.A.
And this is a unique Korean Los Angeles sushi invention.
They normally call it a "Heart Attack" in sushi restaurants.
I'm dead serious.
- A heart attack? - Yeah.
It is a battered Jalapeño stuffed with cream cheese and crab meat, topped with eel sauce and spicy mayo.
There's so many words.
Bienvenidos a Los Angeles.
What was that?
Welcome to L.A in Spanish.
Picked up the language while I'm here.
What a treat.
Oh my gosh, that is delicious.
Can we just point out that Josh took one bite
and then knew
everything that was in there?
You're like the culinary Sherlock Holmes.
You've gotta trace the roots, right?
I've been living in the city for a decade.
So to me, I can look at something like this, a restaurant like this,
and be like, I bet I know where you grew up, where your parents are from.
That's the whole thing about LA, it's this weird terroir
where you can get a deep-fried jalapeño stuffed with crab meat
And know the history behind that, that's really cool.
- That is fantastic. - Amazing.
- You have this literally all over your face. - I'm sorry.
- I feel like you're like a child but there you go. - Thanks, babe.
Living in L.A. I guess you have quite a bit of exposure to Korean food and Mexican food.
When did you first try them together?
I probably had Korean-Mexican fusion before I had proper Korean food.
Which is really interesting.
In 2008, I believe, is when Roy Choi started the Kogi trucks.
Which not only introduced L.A. to Korean Mexican fusion,
but also kicked off this huge food truck boom across all of America, maybe the world.
So I remember going to the Kogi truck when I was 16 in 2008
and being mindblown by the Kalbi tacos.
It was just incredible so, for me, it's always been like, I can't believe that people haven't had this.
Shout out to Roy Choi.
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Thanks guys. Now, back to the video.
Next course, we have here...
These will be the Hawaiian bread sliders.
That's a slider?
So I grew up eating these rolls,
you go to a grocery store and you get a rotisserie chicken meal
and they would give you these rolls as a side.
So this is spicy pork.
Wow. Wow.
That is sweet bread.
It is very sweet. This is a cake, this is a yeast cake.
It's delicious, though.
I've never had anything like that in my life.
So do these originate from Hawaii?
I don't know, man.
They might be derivative of a Filipino pandesal.
But to me, as far as I know, it's a native L.A. company that was kind of just inspired by it.
I feel like we're sitting next to a food savant.
This is amazing.
It's all I think about.
It's like you've got an audio tour in a museum
and as you bite you just got Josh's voice in my ear being like,
"Oh, by the way, here's the history."
Am I right in saying, you didn't train professionally as a cook or a chef?
- Nope. - Wow.
You studied Political Science and Government.
Correct, yeah.
I thought I was going to work for the CIA. That was the original plan.
Maybe you do.
This is the perfect cover.
My podcast co-host actually thinks I'm a spy.
She's kept that up, she's like, "I still think that you're just here to watch me."
I'm like, "Okay, high self-esteem much. You're like..."
You've worked as a journalist, you're now Head of culinary production. at Mythical.
Where did it come from?
From wanting to join the CIA.
The shortest answer is food is the only thing I cared about since I can remember.
Since I was six years old food just dominated my thoughts.
So I would come home from school, I'd watch Food Network for five hours.
We used to have like a book of menus of local restaurants next to the toilet when I was a kid
and I would just memorise these menus.
That is next level. I love that.
Yeah, I can still tell you about like, the Chicken Korma at Shekarchi Grill in Anaheim costs like 12.95.
Like I have these weird... I don't know what to tell you, man.
- This one's heavy. - These are the tacos.
- I know what a taco is. - Look at that one.
We have a chicken, a tofu, and then one called "El Jefe".
- That's a chunky boy. - That is a chunky boy.
- Look at her go. - Oh my gosh.
Some fell out. I'm just going to eat that.
- I'm just gonna... - Yeah, please, get involved.
I absolutely love this.
There's this leaking, there's this delicious, sweet soy, you know, the sesame on there.
Next up, go.
Wow.
Watching you eat, genuinely,
you know when you see someone just do something they're really passionate about, like they're so passionate about it makes you passionate about it.
Yeah, there's a passion scale here because Josh cares about food about ten times more than I care about food.
I think you care about food about ten times more than Josh cares about food.
- This is like a logarithmic scale. - I'm in the presence of greatness here.
I feel like I don't care enough about Korean food.
I'm so used to caring about Korean food so much more than anyone around me
that I've never felt like I need to care about it more but now I do.
You somehow found like the perfect job for this, right?
Like your job is literally to experiment with food, try a whole bunch of different foods,
preside over a debate podcast about food.
You live and breathe, and eat, food.
Truly, yeah. It's like I've created my own little Disneyland for my career which is like, it's a great feeling, honestly.
Did you ever see this happening?
This probably didn't exist as a dream, right?
Like if you flashback to 2013 where it was like, "I'm gonna be on YouTube, have a TikTok, get on Instagram."
It's like, what the hell is that?
And so I thought I had my dream career when I was a journalist
but I was miserable doing the work every single day
because sitting down to write, it's nerve-wracking, it's frightening.
And now instead of writing, I get to just...
Word vomit into a camera and somehow get paid more for it.
It's like, this is so much easier than what I used to do.
I used to craft each paragraph, by hand.
Now it's like whatever comes out first is what goes on.
Yeah, let the editors worry about it.
Taco number three. Tofu taco.
Tofu taco might be the best thing, man.
- Wait, what? - It's really good.
Tofu is never the best thing, Josh.
No, no. I disagree.
- Soondubu. Fantastic. - Soondubu jjigae.
We had Mapo Tofu Tater Tots.
- Oh, at Bopo... - At Bopomofo.
Yeah, Bopomofo.
Of course he knows.
This is like sitting next to the Rain Man of food.
Take me to Vegas. Let's try it out.
Put me on the roulette wheel.
If I've learned anything from this trip to LA, you just never know what to expect when it comes to food.
When we popped up in this neighbourhood, I was like, "Where are we going?"
I thought we were walking into the third act of a Tarantino movie.
It was feeling a bit dangerous.
I'm those people that'll drive an hour across the city just because I heard rumours of some dish at someplace.
That is fantastic.
It's like a LA Indiana Jones, culinary Indiana Jones. Yeah.
- Okay. - Chimichanga.
Oh, yes, sir.
Oh. My. Goodness.
So what they've done, they appeared to have deep-fried a burrito.
They appeared to have?
Battered the whole burrito. Holy (bleep), I've never seen that done.
Battered, deep fried burrito?
Covering it, yeah what do we got?
We got... Is that rice in there?
Yeah, there's rice in there.
Rice, some sort of meat. Is this a spicy pork?
And then you hit it with the black sesame, the mayonnaise and sriracha.
This is a treat.
"This is a treat" is an understatement.
I had literally no idea food like this existed in the world.
Wow. Wow. Oh, my.
I mean it's so wrong but it's so right.
You literally couldn't be more right.
That is incredible.
That is such a guilty pleasure.
It's so much of everything, all the time. You know what I mean?
Okay, you do a lot of talking about food debates or things like that.
Little bone to pick though.
The title of your podcast is "A Hotdog Is a Sandwich".
In the UK, right? I believe, if I'm not wrong.
- The sandwich was invented... - Yes.
By Lord Sandwich.
Oh, I think it was Earl of Sandwich.
Well, I'm nervous because that is the limit of my knowledge.
And I know that Josh is going to come in...
I'd debate that.
It was around 1782? It was around then.
Shut up! You don't know that.
Someone Google that. I think it's around that.
Anyway, I feel I can speak on behalf of the UK saying,
a sandwich is like two flat bits of sliced bread
- Yeah. - and anything in between.
So when we did a video with the Watcher, there were like hot chicken sandwiches.
- It's a chicken burger. - I thought that was a chicken burger.
A chicken burger is if you were to grind the chicken meat into a disk
and then cook that and then put that on there.
Oh, so ground... Okay.
But no that's a good point.
Whenever we talk about something, it's going to be culturally specific.
Okay, when I say, "English muffin", I don't mean like a muffin in the style of England, right?
I mean, I used to buy something called Thomas's brand English muffins that I grew up eating.
To me that's an English muffin, to y'all that's completely something different.
And so like any time you're talking about a hot dog or a sandwich or whatever,
you have to somehow bring that into your own cultural framework
and then try and expand outward to see if there's any universality you can get to.
I will say, even the term "hot dog" is really weird.
Do you ever know where it comes from?
- No. - Do we want to?
Do we want to know?
"Do we want to?"
Please tell me it doesn't involve actual dogs.
Well, it involves a stereotype about a certain group of people that they thought ate dog, which were Germans at the time.
Wow.
At least it's one of the prevailing theories,
they think that it was pre-World War I, a bunch of German immigrants coming to the Eastern seaboard in the US
and they would start hot dog carts.
And then people would joke like, "Hey, you want to go get a 'hot dog'?"i
"Like some of that gross street meat out there."
- What? - Yeah.
- We are having a good time. - Literally been here eating so long.
He's shut down the shack.
I think we're literally getting kicked out.
We were having so much fun. I don't want this to end.
The other question I had, you've made a lot of like gourmet fast food.
Out of all the things you've made, what's like the weirdest thing you've had to make?
What's the best thing you had to make?
What's the worst?
Worst thing I had to make is pretty easy.
We made a beef bile cheesecake.
So I took beef bile, which is... it's...
It's in this Filipino dish called Papaitan.
All i know is I reduced it down into a syrup
and then turned it into a beef bile caramel and then mixed that into a cheesecake
Just to see if i could.
It's amazing this still tastes good while you're talking about that.
The best thing I've ever made, it was the fancy version of Burger King's croissant breakfast sandwich.
We made a savoury Cronut
and Trevor, my co-host, for that episode, he worked for the guy who invented the Cronut, the croissant doughnut hybrid.
Yeah! Fun fact.
Seriously.
We made a saffron cronut and then we did like a tamagoyaki grilled egg,
we made a macadamia nut crepinette sausage that we poached in butter,
with sous-vide bacon and Islay Scotch,
and then we did black truffle infused homemade American cheese.
That was pretty cool. And sometimes you combine all these things, you're like,
"I don't know how it's gonna taste in my mouth."
And then this hit and it was like seeing in colour for the first time. It was just illuminated.
- Genuinely, mate. - That was such a treat.
One of the best things we've ever had.
- Thank you so much. - Of course.
It's awesome to have anybody new in the city to kind of, you know, show things.
So many people who are especially in the food community, here, it's like everyone just blowing smoke up each other's ass.
Constantly. And trying to like one-up each other, you know what I mean?
The genuine amazement and love of food.
I mean, it's unlike anything I've ever had before. Like ever.
Genuinely, if you guys haven't followed the Mythical Kitchen channel, you need to go check what they're doing out there.
Some of the most interesting, fascinating food content, I think on YouTube right now,
- Appreciate it, man. - Keep it up, man.
- Keep it up. - And I really hope we can do a proper food tour of the UK
or Korea, I'd probably be a little bit more excited about Korea, not going to lie.
But we could do either, we'll make it work.
- I'd really love that, we can. - Fantastic.
Awesome.
Well, in the meantime.
We'll see you JOLLY soon.
See you later, guys.