Rahul Khopkar Trail Map

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Matt Gregory: [00:01:00] Hey Pat, how you doing?

Patrick Wolf: Hi Matt.

Matt Gregory: How are things?

Patrick Wolf: Great, how are you?

Matt Gregory: doing well. We had a little bit of a COVID encounter in the last week, but everybody's feeling better and, yeah. Happy to be here with you.

Patrick Wolf: I'm very happy to be here with you. Sorry about that, COVID.

Matt Gregory: Yeah, COVID is back. It never left.

Patrick Wolf: Yeah, it's true.

Matt Gregory: what have you been up to these last few days?

Patrick Wolf: I've been, been working on our album, doing some recording preparing for Mary's 40th birthday. This weekend.

Matt Gregory: Huge, huge,

Patrick Wolf: big stuff.

Matt Gregory: What are you gonna do?

Patrick Wolf: We're having a little staycation in

Matt Gregory: nice

Patrick Wolf: New York City.

Matt Gregory: Nice.

Patrick Wolf: Which is a [00:02:00] city near where we live.

Matt Gregory: Heard of it.

Patrick Wolf: And we're lucky to have the grandparents here.

Matt Gregory: Yeah. That's great. That'll be fun

Patrick Wolf: with the dog.

Matt Gregory: I was just in New York actually. That's where. Um, well, it's not where the COVID came from, but it's where we all got the COVID.

Matt Gregory: Oh. And, had a great visit in New York and then ended up having to head back home to recover. And, we were celebrating my father-in-law's 90th birthday.

Patrick Wolf: Wow.

Matt Gregory: and just had a, you know, we ended up having like over a week here with him which was a real gift.

Patrick Wolf: Nice.

Matt Gregory: He's 90 years at this point.

Matt Gregory: He's lived through a lot.

Patrick Wolf: And just think of it,

Matt Gregory: hearing his stories of the Korean War and stuff was just unbelievable.

Patrick Wolf: Yeah. yeah. I saw you, you sent me some pictures. Looked like you guys had an awesome time. That's what you, for having an awesome time. You get COVID.

Matt Gregory: Yeah.

Matt Gregory: When you've got COVID and no one wants to see you, you get to spend a lot of time. If you're lucky enough to have it with some people you love, get to spend a [00:03:00] lot of quality time with those people.

Patrick Wolf: That's the trick.

Patrick Wolf: That's the trick.

Matt Gregory: We did a lot of cooking.I'm really loving cooking right now.

Matt Gregory: it's just such a fun, creative outlet. the dishes part sucks. Heejin and I think often about your and Mary's "You Cook and You Clean" song.

Patrick Wolf: Should I do a verse?

Matt Gregory: Yeah, let's hear it.

Patrick Wolf: It's, well, we have two versions of it, but the original version was.

Patrick Wolf: It's like you cook and then you clean, and then you cook, and then you clean, and then you cook, and then you clean, and then you sleep, and then you wake, and then you cook, and then you clean. a counterpoint to that, my attitude that I always try to return to now about dishes is that it's a, can be a very mindful practice because you know exactly what needs to be done and there's a satisfaction in that.

Patrick Wolf: Sometimes it's unclear what needs to be done.

Patrick Wolf: And that's a whole other animal,

Matt Gregory: you mean in life generally, or with dishes? Yeah,

Patrick Wolf: yeah. In all sorts of other situations, but dishes, folding laundry, just yeah. Trying to take pleasure in those things. 'cause you know, it's [00:04:00] very, it's like walking purposefully, you know?

Matt Gregory: Today I feel like without, Intending to go there. Found ourselves in the kitchen here in this conversation. And today we've got a conversation with a chef, Rahul Khopkar.

Patrick Wolf: Yes.

Matt Gregory: who will let him introduce himself as we do.

Matt Gregory: But I'm curious about his relationship with doing dishes.

Patrick Wolf: Mm. Do you think he even has to do them anymore?

Matt Gregory: I don't think so. I think that's maybe one of the things that you achieve with a certain amount of culinary fame. Anyw who? yeah, so I guess let's move on with the episode. Huh?

Patrick Wolf: It's time.

Matt Gregory: It's time.

Introducing Rahul Khopkar

Matt Gregory: All right. we are very excited to have Rahul Khopkar here today. Calling in from LA. Great to have you here, man. I've known Rahul for a while. Met through a, a high school friend. so it's, yeah, it's great to have you.

Rahul Khopkar: Yeah, it's great to be here. This is gonna be fun.

Matt Gregory: well, I guess to, to start things off, would you mind doing a little introduction of yourself?

Matt Gregory: My [00:05:00] name's Rahul Khopkar. I was born in Manhattan. I grew up just outside of Boston in Wellesley, Massachusetts. My mom is Korean, my dad's Indian. I took a somewhat circuitous route to end up cooking.

Rahul Khopkar: It's been about 20 years now. Started cooking in Wellesley. Moved to Los Angeles, cooked out here for a little while. Went to culinary school up in Napa Valley came back to LA and cooked a little bit, then cooked back up in Napa Valley for a little while. And then I went over to Europe and I worked in Denmark for a little bit and then came back here and in 2015 opened Ramen Hood.

Rahul Khopkar: And I've been doing that for the last 10 years.

Matt Gregory: what is Ramen Hood for those that don't have Ramen Hood?

Rahul Khopkar: it's vegan ramen shop here in downtown Los Angeles. I'm not vegan but my business partner and I kind of felt like we could make vegan food better than vegan people could, and I would say so far we have.

Rahul Khopkar: But yeah, that is, that is [00:06:00] Ramen Hood in a nutshell.

Matt Gregory: Yeah, I, and having gone to Ramen Hood, I can attest that it's. Probably the best ramen I've ever had, and I didn't miss the meat. Or the egg.

Patrick Wolf: Matt, I would just like to interject here and say, how dare you not have told me about Ramen Hood prior to my trip to Los Angeles in June?

Rahul Khopkar: You were out here in June?

Patrick Wolf: Yes. I'd never been to Union Station. It's beautiful. And,it was right when there was the Pride Parade and they were sending the National Guard But if you, if I had known your restaurant was right there, I would've gone there for lunch that day. I'm sure I will when I go back

Matt Gregory: next time. Well, Rahul, it's awesome to have you on the show. Can you take us back to your earliest food memory? It sounds like it was in Wellesley.

Rahul Khopkar: there's all these like, funny stories my mom has about me being a kid where she was always kind of like making a point of exposing me to a [00:07:00] wide variety of foods. And it, there were times where it was like problematic for a while.

Rahul Khopkar: Like when she and my dad were working for UNICEF, UNICEF would pay for you to fly to your second home. So our second home was in India, and you know, you could book business trip tickets and everything. And I think one of the first times I flew in, like coach or economy like the food came and my, and I was like standing on the seat next to my mom and I was just like, where's the smoked salmon?

Rahul Khopkar: Like, so there's all these stories floating around like that. Like, I think we were in Corsica and I ordered spaghetti and I was just like, why does this pasta sauce taste like ketchup? There's all sorts of, or maybe like somewhere in Italy, maybe. Maybe near Pisa. I, I don't remember, but there's all these stories like that floating around.

Rahul Khopkar: I think like one of my earliest food memories though, and it's like very apropos for what I'm doing now, [00:08:00] is I used to come home from school and, our grandmother was living with us at the time and she and I would sit down and have a bowl of ramen together after school. And so I definitely remember that growing up.

Rahul Khopkar: But food was always like an important thing in our family. Like we would sit down together and eat dinner as a family for as long as I remember. And I know, especially in high school, that was kind of, not the norm for a lot of kids. I had friends whose families were kind of like everybody was on a different eating schedule, especially for dinner.

Rahul Khopkar: And there was no sense of, getting together and doing that. And so, I definitely, you know, have strong memories, surrounding food because of that. And, definitely understand like the convivial nature of eating. And,for me that's, that's like a really big thing. I do really enjoy sitting down with other people and eating.

Rahul Khopkar: Like, if, if we're gonna hang out and do something, my first thought's always like, oh, we should go eat something. Yeah. [00:09:00] So

Matt Gregory: totally, I totally relate to that. And, I think food has an amazing power to just disarm everybody and, put everybody on the same page.

Matt Gregory: Like you're just, you're having the same experience. Pat, did you have family dinners growing up too?

Patrick Wolf: Yeah, we did. it is one of those things that it's sort of like, if there was something that I wanted people to get back to that would be one, eating together is one that I think is, such a micro community building tradition.

Patrick Wolf: I know that it still is a thing in other countries and other cultures now. I think it's just become so easy to eat something that's quick that you can just pull outta the freezer or you can just get something to go.

Patrick Wolf: Yeah.

Matt Gregory: Totally agree. I was in, San Sebastian in Spain. probably 2015 or something. And there was a research project going on by IDEO the design firm. And they were studying, Spanish food culture and specifically in the Basque region.

Matt Gregory: [00:10:00] People of all generations get together once a week and they cook, and then they kind of experience the meals together. I think that's such a powerful practice. it sort of forces you away from your phone or away from whatever you might be, looking at otherwise.

Matt Gregory: Rahul what is, so what is your first memory of early memories around starting to cook yourself?

Rahul Khopkar: Not my memory, but when I was very little, I was apparently, like I was always very fascinated with it. And when we were living in India, like everybody has help, which is kind of how the place works.

Rahul Khopkar: And so we had a cook and I was always interested in like what they were doing and I was trying to help them make some chapatis and I fell off this stool. And the cook grabbed my arm and it actually broke my arm. He was trying to like catch me and broke my arm. And I was a baby at the time.

Rahul Khopkar: I was just like, getting to a point where I was [00:11:00] standing. I think I must have been, I don't know, like one or something like that. But I had so much baby fat that like my parents didn't know the arm was broken for a couple days. I was just stuck. That was a whole thing.

Rahul Khopkar: 'cause you know, you're in India, it's like not necessarily the best care. So my arm was set crooked and then had to be rebroken. So I spent like nine months in the cast at one point. But I don't know earliest, earliest memories of cooking. I was always kind of curious about it.

Rahul Khopkar: and I always worked, I've always worked in and around food. I worked for Whole Foods for about a decade. And so, there was always some food knowledge happening, with that. And I think probably at Whole Foods where I saw especially when I was living, working up in Portland, Maine, that store had, an open kitchen where people could come up and order food that was, cooked all in menu.

Rahul Khopkar: And that's kind of where I was like, oh, that could be kind of a cool different job to, to do. when I moved back to Wellesley, that was where I kind of decided I [00:12:00] wanted to try to get a job doing that and yeah, transition into something else.

Matt Gregory: You already sort of alluded to it, but being from like a mixed race family and like your, your mom's Korean roots, your dad's Indian roots, like, how do you think about your sort of cultural, background and heritage in terms of like, in terms of food?

Matt Gregory: Like, does that play a role in the way that you think about food or the way you think about flavor?

Rahul Khopkar: When cooking, I definitely lean towards Korean flavors a lot. I think they're I think there're a lot more. Approachable for people. There's like kind of a better understanding, I guess, about it.

Rahul Khopkar: and then with, with the Indian food, I love Indian food. I'm pretty particular about it.

Rahul Khopkar: I think that there's a lot of Indian food in this world that is, whitewashed Indian Food's one of those weird things where if you really dive into it, you look at what the British [00:13:00] did to the food and then you look at things where vindaloo is actually a Portuguese influenced dish. within India, India's regionality is so insane and intense that the food differs within the country greatly.

Rahul Khopkar: and, I don't pull from Indian food that often. We have a dish at the restaurant now that uses panipuri as like a vehicle, and I think that's a great vehicle. And we've been doing that for, about seven or eight years now. But I don't know. I think personally I don't pull from Indian food that much because it's a little bit hard to incorporate some of the flavors, depending on what I'm doing.

Rahul Khopkar: there are certain techniques. That are really useful, like, frying aromatics and oil before you put the rest of your ingredients in. But yeah, I also feel less comfortable cooking Indian food. I just don't have as much experience doing it. if I'm making something I want it to, be a close facsimile in terms of flavor and I don't necessarily trust myself to get it [00:14:00] there. A large part of it is how you respect like the food that you are making and the culture that it's coming from, and then what you're outputting and, there's some places out here that do fusion Indian food for instance, where I'm just like, fuck you guys.

Rahul Khopkar: Like, you don't, you're not respecting where you came from and the food you're making isn't very good. Like, you've completely gone down a rabbit hole of like being trendy and making food for one type of person, right? Mm-hmm. so I don't know. there's a lot of different ways to look at that.

Patrick Wolf: I'm curious how did you decide to make your restaurant vegan if you, you're not vegan, right?

Rahul Khopkar: I'm not vegan. So my friend and business partner, Ilan, I was working in Copenhagen at the time, and he called me and he was, he had a very meat centric restaurant and was getting a lot of flack on Twitter from vegans about that.

Rahul Khopkar: And he'd [00:15:00] already kind of had this idea to do a vegan concept. And, I was already kind of in this mind frame of doing a lot of vegetable forward stuff because of where I was working. And, he asked me if I was planning to come back to LA and I was and so we started talking about, what, what we could do,

Rahul Khopkar: We originally wanted to do a vegan version of this concept called Noodle World that exists out here. Which Noodle World is exactly what you think it would be. It's noodles from all over the world. It's organized by country.

Rahul Khopkar: Like, it's we kind of wanted to do a vegan version of that, and as we were talking about it, it became a little more tricky, based on the amount of space we had to work with. and so we kind of dialed it down to just ramen.

Rahul Khopkar: And so, I think, not being vegan doing it is a, is an advantage in a lot of ways because, just like with memories, you start to [00:16:00] forget the way things taste over time. And the number of vegan products I eat where people are like, it tastes exactly like the real thing.

Patrick Wolf: Like, nah, dude,

Rahul Khopkar: it's been a very long time since you've had the real thing because this does not taste anything like it.

Patrick Wolf: I have you have, you come across the concept of like, you find a vegan restaurant. You know, this might not be the case in places like LA but like, I travel around a lot. You see a vegetarian or a vegan restaurant and it's like 4.8 on Google or whatever, and you go and it's like, that's because it's the vegan restaurant.

Rahul Khopkar: Yeah.

Patrick Wolf: And people are so grateful that it exists at all.

Rahul Khopkar: Yeah.

Patrick Wolf: And it's not really about like, is this food really good?

Rahul Khopkar: Yeah, I, that does happen. And I mean, you know, I give the vegan community a lot of credit. They are very supportive

Rahul Khopkar: but yeah, I've definitely, experienced that. I had a bowl of ramen at a new spot in little Tokyo out here and tried the vegan ramen, and that was terrible. But it's

Patrick Wolf: usually an afterthought in my experience. I'm a pescatarian, I eat fish, but sometimes it hits and I [00:17:00] really appreciate it, but it's almost always, an afterthought if they do a vegetarian or vegan ramen,

Matt Gregory: there's real science involved too. 'cause like, I mean, if you go to ramen hood, like there is an egg in your ramen, just, it's just a vegan egg, right? Rahul? So can you talk about that a little bit

Rahul Khopkar: Yeah.

Rahul Khopkar: So the vegan egg is kind of a funny story. we felt like we had to have something to mimic the egg. And so when we first started, it didn't take us that many iterations to get what we wanted out of it, but, when we first opened, we were making the vegan egg out of a locally produced soy milk.

Rahul Khopkar: And, it's actually surprising how hard it is to find unsweetened soy milk that doesn't have some sort of other flavor additive to it. but, we were making it outta soy milk and we were spherifying the yolk. And,

Patrick Wolf: like you do,

Rahul Khopkar: yeah, it was like we, it was this whole thing. we were buying like this yolk mixture from this guy who the yolk mixture already had. I'm actually forget the [00:18:00] two components. It's been so long since we, you'll understand why, but. So we were spherifying this yolk and the whole thing.

Rahul Khopkar: And it was cool because the yolk would pop, but like we'd have to keep the yolks frozen and then you have to put 'em in, in this bath with a, I don't know, like sodium citrate or something like that and wash it around and the whole thing. And people really liked it, but like the yolk lacked this like fatty, the fattiness that a true yoke would have.

Rahul Khopkar: And so, I think I was actually back home a couple years, it was like two years after we opened and there was a Wagamama there and I was kind of surprised that Wagamama had opened up there. And I noticed that these fuckers had ripped us off and stole our vegan egg and were making like the vegan egg.

Rahul Khopkar: And I was like, you know, Ilan and I are talking. I'm like, what the fuck? And I looked at this thing and I was kind of just like, oh, their yolk is a vegan mayonnaise base. And I thought about [00:19:00] it and I'm like that gets you like the fatty nature of what you kind of want out of the yolk, but you don't have this popping yolk.

Rahul Khopkar: And so then we ripped them off backwards. I was gonna say, you stole it back. That's good. Yeah. We switched to a vegan yolk, which simplified our lives in a lot of way. In a lot.

Patrick Wolf: I mean, the egg,

Patrick Wolf: the egg is such a crucial part of the ramen. It's you gotta, you gotta know. Yeah.

Rahul Khopkar: And I mean, you put black salt in and the yolk mixture tastes like yolk,

Rahul Khopkar: I feel like there's a lot of things in food where it's about can you trick somebody's brain into thinking a certain way about something as opposed to like it necessarily being identically the same thing.

Matt Gregory: has cooking vegan for this many years influenced your own diet?

Rahul Khopkar: not really. I would say though, I eat less red meat than I ever have before. I don't do that much dairy. I mean, I had a burnt grilled cheese the other night, but it was like, I don't do that much dairy anymore. But no, I still am kind of in this boat of you have to maintain flavor [00:20:00] profiles and it's hard to do that if you start eliminating things.

Rahul Khopkar: Ilan, my business partner has definitely, gone vegan at times.

Matt Gregory: I know that Ilan is Ilan Hall, and he, he was, Top Chef winner in the, I think early days of, of Top Chef.

Rahul Khopkar: Yeah. Season two.

Matt Gregory: Which is pretty, pretty rad that you've built this relationship with somebody like him. And I know you talk about your time work working in, in Copenhagen you know, I know that was at Noma, which is one of the top restaurants in the world, I think has three Michelin stars.

Matt Gregory: So you've had some like real brushes with fame in the food space. How do you think about that? I mean, are these just people that you're collaborating with or, is the fame they've achieved on your radar at all?

Rahul Khopkar: Ilan and I joke about his fame all the time. 'Cause it's not really like that's, I mean, he is famous and it's, it is it, the way his fame manifests itself is [00:21:00] very funny and like entertaining and like he has fun with it.

Rahul Khopkar: So it's a really positive thing. And there's all these funny stories about like every time his season of Top Chef gets released in another country, he gets like, hit with all these dms of people being like, "you were a bully." Like all this stuff. But no, you know, it's. Opportunity to do anything, I think with anybody who has any form of profile that's pretty substantial in the culinary world is important. I mean, it, you know, like most things, it's what you make outta your experience, right?

Rahul Khopkar: And what your mindset is like, if you go into things thinking that you know, everything, like it's never a good, I think in every industry, it's never a good way to operate. But especially in creative industries. And, I had a chef instructor in culinary school tell me that cooking was like climbing a mountain where you never reached the top

Rahul Khopkar: there's always something to be learned and I think that, it's the opportunities, the biggest thing, and then what you make of it from [00:22:00] there is your choice. Sometimes it's just being in the same room as somebody and hearing them talk about something

Rahul Khopkar: Is like a big enough thing. Versus actually having an opportunity to like cook alongside them is a different thing, you know?

Patrick Wolf: You, I mean, we've mentioned you being in Copenhagen, Noma a couple times, and you, I think you said you, you were in wine country in California at some point in your career as a lay person.

Patrick Wolf: My mind from those things go to and tell you, tell me how annoying this question is. Have you seen the Bear?

Matt Gregory: Yeah. Yeah. I haven't, I have not watched the fourth season.

Patrick Wolf: Okay.

Matt Gregory: I, I mostly. Oh, well here, ask your question and then I'll give you my, my shake. Well, that,

Patrick Wolf: that question at all, just bringing up the Bear, does that annoy you or are you, can we go further?

Rahul Khopkar: we can go further.

Patrick Wolf: you know, my friend who had worked in some kitchens in various capacities was surprised that I really loved the show. And I was like, [00:23:00] what do you mean? it's a very interesting show about human relationships.

Patrick Wolf: It happens to take place in the kitchen and also kind of gives you a window on how maybe the dynamics work. And I'm curious if you feel like it, it gives any kind of a realistic window onto like how different kinds of, actual cooking environments or relationships are, or if it's sort of just like Hollywood in an annoying distraction to you or where somewhere along that spectrum maybe.

Rahul Khopkar: So, I will say this like everything it is entertainment.

Patrick Wolf: Sure.

Rahul Khopkar: So it's, it's realism is capped by a necessity of, of that. much like how, I don't know if either of you watch the show, The Offer about the making of the Godfather. It, oh yeah, it's great. But like all my friends out here who are producers are like, it's entertainment.

Rahul Khopkar: The reality of that [00:24:00] show is not the real reality of things. As far as the bear goes, that show lost me in seventh episode of season one, where it's like that one giant cut and like Carmen gets locked in the walk-in. Like I've never been in a walk-in that hasn't had some way of releasing the door, whether it's like a physical mechanic or like an ax on the wall, so you can cut your way out of it.

Rahul Khopkar: But and then I have problems with some of the characters and their most notably Ayo Edebiri character, I think is just like, really poorly written. I would've hired her and fired her the same day. And just really poorly written and, and in terms of like, like a character, like people like that in, I mean, maybe today because things have shifted, but like people like that wouldn't survive where I've worked like at all.

Rahul Khopkar: Just they're not like. [00:25:00] They're not exuding the mental fortitude required to to

Patrick Wolf: you don't think she, she had mental fortitude?

Rahul Khopkar: No. I, she's, no I don't like all the whining, like thinking about quitting. It's like, no. Like when you're in the shit, you dig in and you push back, you don't complain. Like it's, that is a lot of what I get out of her character in a lot of situations. A lot of people feel the way you feel about that character. They really like her. I'll tell you who I really like.

Rahul Khopkar: There's two interesting things. One, I forget the guy who plays the pastry chef, but he's based on somebody that I used to work with, at Noma actually. So it was kind of cool to see Malcolm's story told, like a different way. you know whose arc in that show is actually dead on and really well done Cousin Richie's.

Rahul Khopkar: Yes. Because there are tons of people who, go through this transformation from one experience where, you know, before they were [00:26:00] doing fuck all and whatever, and then they have this opportunity and it, it truly transforms 'em. 'cause they've bought into, they've drank the Kool-Aid, they bought into the system, whatever it was.

Rahul Khopkar: And they come out the other side. And the most impressive thing to me is the way they nailed the irrational sense of confidence that can be built from working at like really high end places where it's like, I don't necessarily know exactly what I'm supposed to be doing, but I'm not scared and I'll go do it and it's gonna be okay, or I'll figure it out as I'm doing it, or like I'll push back and I'll get it done a thing.

Rahul Khopkar: It's like if you look at the contrast between his character and what his character is capable of and that arc versus her character and what she's doing. And granted, I haven't seen season four. They are light years apart and like one of 'em gets it. And the other one is, it's like a character that's there because it, it's truly a foil character and not necessarily like an accurate [00:27:00] representation.

Rahul Khopkar: I feel like.

Patrick Wolf: Okay. Well when I, when I come back to Los Angeles and I do come to the restaurant, we can, drink a beer and we can get really into the weeds about this even more. So

Rahul Khopkar: I would, I would love to, I'll watch season four by then so we can talk about it. 'cause that's the, I only watch a show because people want to talk about it.

Rahul Khopkar: I'm like,

Patrick Wolf: Yeah. So is it annoying to you just its, its existence kind of?

Rahul Khopkar: No, I like, it doesn't bother me that it exists. Yeah. You know, it's, I think that it was an inevitable like outcome of the way food media has gone over all these years that there would be. Something like this eventually.

Rahul Khopkar: But I just don't, it doesn't service me in any way, I guess is the way to put it.

Patrick Wolf: Okay.

Matt Gregory: Well, it's your life. So I guess there's a interesting tension here, right? Where like, so we were just talking about, these chefs who have achieved some level of fame that you're working with, you've achieved some level of, fame and notoriety through your own work.

Matt Gregory: I think it's an interesting juxtaposition between [00:28:00] the, from what I understand though, like the work in a kitchen is like, it's hard work. It's like hard, long hours. Yeah. Grunt work, like you've been doing this for many years. You know, it's tiring. And then there's also like this, small percentage of chefs that have gotten famous.

Matt Gregory: For that sort of grunt work. And so I guessthere's a lot of romance. and maybe it started with like Anthony Bourdain or somebody, in the food industry who made it cool to be a chef. I guess, any thoughts on that?

Rahul Khopkar: It was probably like 20 years ago where it started to get glamorized because of things like Top Chef and media.

Patrick Wolf: Well, Anthony Bourdain's book too, right?

Rahul Khopkar: Yeah. I mean, yeah, he definitely, but, why am I blanking on the name of his

Matt Gregory: Kitchen Confidential.

Rahul Khopkar: Yeah, but Kitchen Confidential came out in like the nineties didn't it?

Patrick Wolf: Something like, yeah, late nineties.

Rahul Khopkar: Anthony Bourdain's an incredible storyteller. And he definitely played a [00:29:00] large role in making it feel accessible and did a good job of showing, both sides of the industry

Matt Gregory: I've never worked in a restaurant. I have, I actually started a business that was based in the back of a restaurant. And so we wereworking side by side with the restaurant staff.

Matt Gregory: and there's like a spirit to the restaurant space that I, love. there's a resilience, creativity just like, you know, a figure shit out type mentality. That is, inspiring. And there are a lot of good people that care about giving good, food experiences to customers.

Matt Gregory: And so whether or not it's captured by media, I think that's worth calling out. and I know it's hard, there's a major talk track around like teachers not getting paid enough. I think the same is true of restaurant workers.

Patrick Wolf: Like they don't, they work really, really hard to feed people and they don't get paid enough. You did mention Cousin Richie from the Bear. I feel like he has an epiphany in the show that like his role in all of it is to be the bringer together [00:30:00] of people.

Matt Gregory: Yeah.

Patrick Wolf: And so like, he like providing experience and that was always kind of the role he played from the beef stand in the beginning or whatever. But like that's, that goes back to what we all said at the top sitting down and having family dinner. Like it's the thing, it's a human thing and it always has been.

Patrick Wolf: And now, that's a role that restaurants and

Matt Gregory: Yeah.

Patrick Wolf: You know, whatever concentric circle of the food industry you want to include in it. But that's a role that it can still play.

Rahul Khopkar: Yeah. that part of his character's mentality is definitely like a very high end restaurant thing.

Rahul Khopkar: It's, I have a story about going to 11 Madison Park that kind of has one of those moments to it. I was with my mom and she wanted, they served a mini eggs benedict course, quail eggs and this whole thing. And as they're clearing the table my mom kind of leaned over to me and very quietly was like, oh, I wish we could have that again.

Rahul Khopkar: And it was, there was a lot of setup that took like three people to drop everything for one person. and they do coordinated drops for all the plating. And, a few minutes passes and we're talking and. [00:31:00] The captain comes back over and is just like, this is one of those moments of, be careful what you wish for and then just drop the course again, because my mom had made this like, very quiet comment to me about it.

Matt Gregory: Yeah, in terms of your own motivation, does the hospitality piece of restaurants motivate you?

Matt Gregory: Or is your focus more really more on the food or , do you see a disconnect between those two pieces at all?

Rahul Khopkar: in a lot of ways that's kind of like the whole front of the house, back of the house thing.

Matt Gregory: Yeah.

Rahul Khopkar: I'm I'm very much about the food. I like if. Yeah, we're kind of like notoriously rude at Ramen hood.

Rahul Khopkar: Not like in, it's just like a,

Patrick Wolf: like the hot dog fan in Chicago where they yell at you or

Rahul Khopkar: It's not on that level. I think that if Ramen hood was not where it is locatedI would put more effort into the hospitality side of things. But for me, cooking has always been, the return has always been like somebody eating the food and liking it. it's like anybody can go anywhere, no matter how nice it is and decide to have a bad [00:32:00] experience if they want.

Rahul Khopkar: So there's only so much you can control in the end.

Matt Gregory: I've thought about that just like the busy space that you're in, in Grand Central Market and, the challenge of, you can't really control the experience. And I guess that's probably true, that you can't control it, even at a fancy restaurant.

Matt Gregory: If somebody comes in, in a bad mood, they're gonna be a bad mood. And that's a hard thing to change.

Rahul Khopkar: You know, if I've learned anything from being in that market, it's that you can't control everything. I had been cooking back home and then I came out here and I was cooking on the side, just make money.

Rahul Khopkar: And I found that I was like pretty inherently talented at it and there was real gratification. And especially like when I worked for Ilan at his restaurant, the Gorbals you know, we had this chef counter There was real gratification in making something and then putting it down in front of somebody and them trying it and seeing their reaction and enjoying it.

Patrick Wolf: There is a direct pipeline in cooking.

Patrick Wolf: It's just like, I made this thing right over here, and here you go, and here it is, and you're putting it right into your body right now, which yeah.

Matt Gregory: [00:33:00] But that feedback,

Patrick Wolf: yeah, the feedback and

Rahul Khopkar: no, I agree. You know, the return on what you're doing is almost immediate, which is nice. I was gonna comment on what you said about that notion of like, hitting it big as a chef. I think the industry's a little interesting because the physicality of it makes it so that, you have to think of an exit strategy 'cause it's not something you can do forever, right?

Rahul Khopkar: Right. Like, if you have an office job, you'll have your own problem sitting in a chair for like 40 years. But you can sit in a chair for 40 years, it's not that demanding on your body. in this game, it's like you have to have an exit strategy. the only way out really is to go in deeper.

Rahul Khopkar: having one restaurant's never really gonna get you out. you have to have more than one restaurant. it has to be more. more headache, more like you have to keep adding and then eventually maybe you get to a point where you have enough people to run it for you

Matt Gregory: and I mean, doesn't that necessarily pull you away [00:34:00] from the singular task of cooking?

Matt Gregory: If you're having to manage like five, ten restaurants, like you're not

Rahul Khopkar: Absolutely. Even, even with my one place, like my job is not really is not cooking anymore. It's mostly psychology and teaching, right? Because you, like I can make a addition, whatever, and everything I make is designed to be very easy for my guys to do because that's just what it has to be.

Rahul Khopkar: But like teaching them how to do it is one aspect of it. But then having people who work for you, like teaching, critical thinking is very difficult, I've learned. And also just kind of getting people to kind of think about things in a similar way as you, it can be very tricky

Patrick Wolf: in any field.

Rahul Khopkar: No, this is like those, these are universal

Patrick Wolf: Yeah.

Rahul Khopkar: but, you know, a lot of management over time is really comes down to teaching and psychology. It's not so much about doing what you initially wanted to be doing.

Patrick Wolf: another [00:35:00] dimension of it is, you hear the stats about like, 50% of restaurants fail in their first year or their first two year.

Patrick Wolf: I don't know what the actual number is, but you guys are 10 years deep here. Like you must be doing something right.

Rahul Khopkar: we're 10 years deep, but this is not a great place to own a small business.

Rahul Khopkar: LA does not care about small business.

Patrick Wolf: How, so?

Rahul Khopkar: I was in Japan in 2020 to go to an F1 race, and we were at just some like little bar sitting there talking to the guy who owned it, and he was just like, oh yeah. Like one of the first things the Japanese government did was they subsidized all small businesses.

Rahul Khopkar: Like immediately it was like no questions asked. LA is one of these cities where it's like you have an alphabet soup of agencies that all want money from you for different things that like, are redundant, unnecessary you know, labor here is very expensive. You get taxed on pretty much everything. The way people eat out here, they're more interested in going to places that are like part of a large [00:36:00] restaurant group that are big and flashy than like supporting mom and pop stuff.

Patrick Wolf: but so you guys are, despite that you're still doing it?

Rahul Khopkar: we're still doing it. We only have a couple years left on our lease. our lease is up in 27 you know, we will reevaluate as we get closer to that. But, yeah. I mean, rent's high.

Matt Gregory: It's grind.

Rahul Khopkar: It's a grind. Yeah.

Matt Gregory: I know we're coming up on time here and, Rahul, I just wanna say thank you so much for joining us, and chatting a bit. It's obvious that the restaurant business is a tough one. It's a lot of hard work. but I also know that, the product that you guys have put out there for 10 years is a really good one. That's, given a lot of people, a lot of joy. So, it's a grind, but I know your work is appreciated.

Rahul Khopkar: Thank you. it's been a pleasure to be here. It's always fun talking with you guys.

Matt Gregory: Thank you so much and, Good luck we'll be watching what you do next and, good luck with everything.

Patrick Wolf: i'll holler at you next time

Rahul Khopkar: Lemme know next time you're in LA We can, we can go eat. It'll be [00:37:00] great. That'd be awesome.

Patrick Wolf: Okay, cool. All right.

Rahul Khopkar: See you guys.

Conclusion

Rahul Khopkar: it was cool to chat with Rahul Khopkar about his journey I felt like we had a whole, maybe offshoot podcast opportunity to do like episode by episode reviews of The Bear.

Patrick Wolf: Oh my God. I'm gonna

Patrick Wolf: start that podcast if you don't mind.

Patrick Wolf: it was interesting to me that he really didn't like the one shot episode, which was one of my favorite episodes.

Matt Gregory: I enjoyed that episode also. I would describe the feeling afterwards. I think I was a bit stressed out by the end of it,

Patrick Wolf: for sure.

Patrick Wolf: Yeah.

Matt Gregory: Nonstop. I mean,

Patrick Wolf: you know, I, I was just asking him about it to see, I fully expected him to be like, that show sucks. Or like, I don't know. So it's just interesting to hear what he had to say.

Matt Gregory: It was cool to have him on. it just, strikes me, and, this is not a new thought, but like, the restaurant business is really hard. and it's glorified but it's hard.

Patrick Wolf: Right. I think there's a lot of, the visible [00:38:00] part of the iceberg. It's easy to be like, wow, that's cool. And I think that's true for a lot of different industries, certainly including the restaurant and hospitality industry. And it's, I mean, that's what was interesting to me about the show.

Patrick Wolf: We can stop talking about the show, but just, you know, to me it was like, it's very impressive that they've had this restaurant in downtown LA for 10 years.

Patrick Wolf: And, Like, there's so much hard work and just like, yeah. that would be hard to even convey How much work they've done.

Matt Gregory: Yeah. Well, I think about the visible part of the iceberg for, for us, and it's like. Making dinner at home.

Patrick Wolf: Right.

Matt Gregory: And even making dinner at home. God, the dishes, the, like, shopping,

Patrick Wolf: we, we forgot to ask him about the, if he does dishes anymore, we forgot to ask

Matt Gregory: him. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, it's a lot, it's so much work.

Matt Gregory: And then just thinking about making the same stuff for, I mean, it's just I don't know. Like I was alluding to, I did some work in the back of a [00:39:00] restaurant at one point in my career and like. I think the people who have worked in hospitality are like just an incredible, it's an incredible group of people that really care deeply about the experience of, of customers have a great deal of patience.

Matt Gregory: and so Rahul was talking about, the sort of. The way he gives it back to customers a little bit, and I'm like, dude, you're making the same food for people every day. Like you can, that's your right.

Patrick Wolf: Yeah. I feel like if you can hone that vibe like a little bit, Hey, yo. Yeah. People appreciate that.

Matt Gregory: Yeah. But, you know, we didn't talk about this, but like the reviews for restaurants it's really problematic. Like, I don't know if you've seen Ratatouille, but like it used to be that,

Patrick Wolf: watched it recently.

Matt Gregory: Yeah. It used to be that like, restaurants would worry about the incognito New York Times [00:40:00] restaurant reviewer coming in and like having a bad meal and now it's like.

Matt Gregory: Every single customer who has the power to like post a review of you. It's

Patrick Wolf: basically black mirror, like everybody's just filming everything.

Matt Gregory: Yeah. Yeah. Which is, that's tough. That's a, that's a grind, but

Patrick Wolf: yeah.

Matt Gregory: so

Patrick Wolf: you've been to the his restaurant and to, I, one thing I meant to ask him about, which we really didn't talk about that much, was the vegan egg.

Patrick Wolf: Did you have that?

Matt Gregory: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Patrick Wolf: How is it? I mean, it looks

Matt Gregory: exactly like an egg. Wow. It looked, well, it looks like half an egg, yeah. Like it's cut in half sliced egg, sliced. Yeah. And it was, yeah, I'm very equivalent. Experience to like eating a, eating an egg.

Matt Gregory: I just,

Patrick Wolf: just, the whole concept really excites me because I've, having been a vegetarian

Matt Gregory: Yeah.

Patrick Wolf: Or a pescatarian for 10 years. So much vegetarian or vegan food is like an afterthought and there are, I mean, it's been growing in that time.

Matt Gregory: [00:41:00] Yeah.

Patrick Wolf: I think it's been getting much easier to eat like legit food.

Matt Gregory: have you had vegan eggs?

Patrick Wolf: Yeah, but I think I had them like early on and I was like, eh, and even, you know, like the texture of, and the flavoring of everything has gotten better in the last 10 years. I think it has.

Matt Gregory: Yeah. Yeah. I think it's definitely worth trying to get out there to, to try it at some point if you're, if you're out there for music or whatever.

Patrick Wolf: Next time in LA

Matt Gregory: Yeah. And it's right in Grand Central Market which is, you know, it's, it's a busy food market.

Patrick Wolf: yeah.

Matt Gregory: And, yeah, it's a fun, fun experience. And, you know, they've been doing it for a long time and they're really good at it. And it's Ramen delicious.

Matt Gregory: Good time of year for ramen.

Patrick Wolf: Yeah. Although, I'll, I'll have soup anytime.

Patrick Wolf: We have a good place near us here now that we go, whenever Mary and I have a lunch opportunity, we're like, now let's just go there.

Matt Gregory: Yeah. [00:42:00] No, actually we had pho we, well, we had pho and ramen last night at my house.

Matt Gregory: We ordered takeout from a local place here that we love.

Patrick Wolf: Nice.

Matt Gregory: So,

Patrick Wolf: I love a, I love a bustling downtown market too. Have you ever been to the one in Philadelphia? I forget what it's called right now. I don't think so. No. Just like indoor, lots of little stalls. Is that what Grand Central Market in LA is like?

Matt Gregory: Yeah.

Patrick Wolf: What about the ferry building in San Francisco? Where would you put that? Yeah, it's like

Matt Gregory: Ferry building in San Francisco. is Chelsea market like that in New York? Chelsea Market?

Patrick Wolf: Yeah.

Matt Gregory: Yep.

Patrick Wolf: I mean, this one in Philadelphia that I'm thinking about is a little more crowded and bustling. It's like, yeah, like Chelsea Markets, like "we are in a market. I, we just went shopping."

Matt Gregory: Posh. Yeah. Yeah. Posh.

Matt Gregory: What are you cooking at home right now?

Patrick Wolf: Actually Eamon, My 9-year-old son just learned to make. Ramen Mary gave him a book, called. How To Be a Person, which we kind of want to give to everyone we know, but it's got, all manner of just like basic life skills. And one of the things was how to make ramen from a packet of [00:43:00] dry noodles

Patrick Wolf: He put in all sorts of mushrooms and vegetables And made it for the family for dinner.

Matt Gregory: And

Patrick Wolf: he was so proud and it was so great.

Patrick Wolf: how to be a person.

Patrick Wolf: And then he made it a second time and it kind of sat for a while, so the noodles got a little soggy.

Patrick Wolf: Yeah. And so that was like kind of sad and disappointing, but now we gotta, we gotta psych him back up again.

Matt Gregory: Yeah.

Patrick Wolf: And that's just, it's never, you know, it won't be the same every time. That's the other thing about the restaurant business is like you're trying to make it basically.

Patrick Wolf: Yeah, it's you, you're trying to bring together the specialness of like, but most people don't go here all the time. It's like a special thing, right? But like, you're trying to do the same thing over and over again.

Matt Gregory: Totally.

Matt Gregory: Well, it was fantastic. Pat, thank you again for joining the episode and, it was great to chat with Rahul and looking forward to the next conversation.

Patrick Wolf: Matt is always a pleasure, and when I go and eat the vegan egg, we can compare the notes.

Matt Gregory: Yeah, that'd be cool. if we're ever in LA together, we could do a live episode with, with Rahul.

Patrick Wolf: That'd be great. [00:44:00]

Matt Gregory: All right, cool. Have a good one

Patrick Wolf: later.

Matt Gregory: See ya.