the-restaurant-guys_1_01-17-2026_142318: 0:11

hello everybody and welcome. You are listening to the Restaurant Guys. I'm Mark Pascal and I'm here with Francis Shot. Together we own Stage left and Capital Lombardi. Restaurants in New Brunswick, New Jersey. We're here to bring you the inside track on food, wine, and the finer things in life. Well, hello Mark. Hey Francis. I'm glad to be back from a little two week vacation. Yeah, you took a little, little hiatus and more. Two weeks is a long time for us. It's a long time. Yeah. It's uh, I also went away during this time period. Yeah, three days. First week of January is a little slow. It's time when Mark and Francis take a little time. You get away from the restaurants

Mark: 0:44

so we're gonna spend most of this show talking about Francis' wonderful experiences in Austria and in Ireland, and some of the cool things he did and really interesting places he went to. But I've got a story for you at the end of the show that you'll want to hear..

the-restaurant-guys_1_01-17-2026_142318: 0:59

So I went to Ireland to visit family. Also to catch up with small, some old friends. I spent a little time in Belfast and a little bit, I'm sorry. I spent several days in Belfast and I spent several days in Dublin with nothing in particular on the agenda. It was tremendous. And then I went over to Vienna to visit some mutual friends, uh, Peter Schlemer and Guillermo Nani, and hung out in Vienna and mostly went out to dinner and did cool stuff. It's like a perfect Francis vacation. Oh, it is Francis, after about three days. Francis just gets tired of you. Yeah. Okay. So, so you got to move on to the next group of people, you know, three days, move on to the next group of people, maybe a couple of quiet days in the middle. That is somewhat unfair. I'm sorry. After three days Francis gets tired of me. Yeah, that I'm sure. No, no, but I, I, I often need a reset, you know, as we've traveled together many times, I'm like, listen. Um, yeah, it's, I know it's not me. You, I've seen you do it with everybody we've ever traveled with. Well, just, you know, if I buy you tickets to the movies or something that's, and you're like, he's, he's not. I, yeah, it's, uh, I need a little alone time. Just a little time. Not even alone, just time by myself. I can't have that much. I remember going, we spent a summer down the shore, a whole bunch of the Nutley guys, Uhhuh, and we spent a summer down the shore, or not a summer, and me a couple of weeks and me a couple of weeks down, down at the beach. And uh, there's this one guy who came along, cousin of, of one of my friends, Uhhuh, and he didn't have any cash, but he loved to play miniature golf. So we would give him a dollar to go play match golf.'cause we knew that would be like 70 minutes. Get rid of him, of peace and quiet. That's very funny. That's very, I didn't, I didn't know that story a long time. A true story. I didn't remember that story. It is a true story. And when and when we're off air, you're gonna tell me who that is? Oh sure, yeah. Okay, good. Sure. Um, so, uh. Yeah. So I went, uh, and I had a great time with everybody that I saw, and I, I was very nice to have nothing much to do. Mm-hmm. Actually went to church on Sunday. Went to church. Yeah. The whole, it was a big kind of a family reunion thing going on. Yeah. Yeah. So everybody's at church and then the lunch afterwards it was, that was great. Did it rain in the church? No, no lightning bolts. Nothing thunder, nothing thunder, nothing. Nothing happened. The curtain was not torn as under while I walked. And it was all, it was all, it was all good. Did you have a circle of prayer ladies around you? No. As you entered No, but my, my, my sisters and nephews and nieces did watch Yeah. When went into it again. Okay. So, no, it was great. So a, a number of the American family went. My sister, my nephew and niece came we did the, the family thing. Mm-hmm. had some lovely pub experiences in Dublin, I gotta tell you. So, there's a pub called Mrs. O's. Mm-hmm. On Screen Hill. It's been there for like 275 years. In what town? Uh, it's in county Me. Okay. And screen is a hill and it's on the top of Screen Hill. Okay. So, so you'll be able to find it when you go? Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Just ask Phil's directions when you go. Excuse me. And they'll, uh. So it is this pub that's been there before there was electricity. Mm-hmm. Before there was electric lights before, and it's still, they heat the place with a, a fireplace. Two fireplaces, actually too little. and it's a combination of, uh, coal and wood and there is nothing better. And it's like, it's a rundown all place, it's been in Guinness commercials. Mrs. O'Connell's, yeah, pubs and, uh, it's just, it's great. Can I just say You're not where you, not your happy place. I lay in Chateau. Thanks very much. I like, and Chateau, like, I know that people think you're the fancy one and I'm the like yeah. The, the down and dirty guy, but. I, I don't want two fireplaces being the only warmth space. Yeah. It was very warm in the pub and all the people. Okay. I think that you would enjoy this pub, all right. For nine or 10 minutes. You would enjoy, enjoy this pub a great deal all the way through my second gifts. I, I could tell you a funny story though. I went there a couple times and I went there with, I went there on a weekend night with my whole family and it was, it crowded and convivial and the whole thing. And I went there on a, on a Monday night with my cousin, uh, Al and uh, and my cousin Ronan. And we were in the place and we were chatting and they said, um. I said, you know, Francis, you know you gotta, you gotta find you an Irish wife, you gotta find you an Irish Colleen. And I said. And I looked at the pub and I leaned back and there were no women in the pub. And I said, I don't, I don't think you can do that here, gentlemen. Do you know why? Why? Because it was cold. Because cold in your little pub. It was not cold in the pub. It was warm and wonderful in the pub, but I went to, um, I went someplace else in Dublin when I was there though. Okay. That's good. I'm glad you didn't only go there hawks more Dublin. Oh great. Yeah, really good. Really good. We did it better than Mrs O's. Yeah, it was great. Sounds like more my speed. Well done. Yeah, no, really. Terrific. I went with, uh, there were four of us that went in. They took great care of us. Uh, the restaurant guys reputation preceded us to Oh, that's nice. That's nice. Yeah. I'll be honest, I'm a little vain. I like to check next to my name in the reservation book. I I, I have changed and you know, I don't know if I've talked about this on the show before, but Francis and I, in our early Restauranting days, we really, really loved to go to a place incognito. I would say the first 15 years we were, were around, uh, incognito. Go in, see all the warts, see what goes wrong. See what go they do. Right. Just watch every little piece of what's happening in a restaurant. Yeah, I hate that. Now, please just bring me the best of what you have. Bring me your best waiter. Bring me the wine list. Bring me. And do everything that you do. I, I wanna see the best of what you have. I no longer, I, I see all the warts. I've seen all the, the, so mark's not afraid, bad things that happen. Restaurant, if we know the owner, mark's not afraid to call the owner. We're like, Hey, come And by next Tuesday, yeah. We all do that a little bit too. It's, it's a, i i, it's just I've, I've really changed as. As I've gotten older. That's great. I I've seen that. I don't have to do that. Well, I think also, and I think, think, you know, you go to a lot of places where, where nobody knows who you are. Mm-hmm. And so you have a secret chopper element to see what's going on. Yeah. Because you do like to see what's going on in other places, either. Both for the good things and for the, for the bad things. And you know what's funny? Sometimes you look at the bad things and you think, oh, look at what they, we never do that. And sometimes you look at the bad things and say, oh, we, we do that. Oh yeah. You know what I realized though? I go to restaurants, Uhhuh, and I go to restaurants for a good time. Yeah. And the more things I see going wrong mm-hmm. The more angst I have. Hmm. It's like watching that Christmas Eve episode of The Bear. Right. That brought me angst that that episode brought me no pleasure. And I hear people talk all the time about how it was such this great episode and important, uh, cinema and all that stuff. I was like, I got, I got no space for that episode in my life. I would rather have not seen it. I, I have it, it literally, that's how I feel. I would rather have not seen it. Because it brought me angst. Well, I have to say that, um, the, i, the, the bear, I stopped watching. Mm-hmm. Not'cause it's not great. Yep. Just like you said, it's, I think a lot of restaurant people that I don't need that I, I dunno that in my real life. But let's talk about happy things, uh, in Dublin. First of all, Dublin. I, we, um, I was very happy. We had a day in Dublin with my nephew and niece and, uh, my sister and I was surprised that my nephew and niece started in their late twenties, early thirties. And I was surprised that, or happy that my nephew and niece wanted to, I was like, we can go to the Guinness factory, we can go to these, the, um, all these different places. And they wanted to do the historical thing. They wanted to learn about the history. And I, I'm thrilled at this'cause that. I mean, they're always, they're smart people. Have you done that before in, in Dublin? Have you gone and done the history? Oh, I think I've done all the different things like that in Dublin over the years. Mm-hmm. That's what I mean. Um, and, and they are sort of mildly interested, but, um, my niece and nephew were very much, okay, I wanna know the whole story. Let's go get, and so we did. And if you're gonna want to go to Dublin, you wanna do the History day in Dublin and get everything in one day. Um, the Irish independence, the battle that started, that was at the general post office, the GPO, they just opened a museum of the GPO. So go to the GPO Museum. It gives you the basic, you know, understanding of what happened and the timeframe and who's who. Then not too far from there, there's a ship, this is a very cool thing on the, it's called the Genie Johnston, and it's a replica of what was a coffin ship. It was actually, would've been a larger than most coffin ships. And the coffin ships were the ships that carried. Uh, the Irish immigrants to America. Um, and they were not pleasant boats to be in, right? Yeah. Yeah. But you can walk, they take you in the ship through the cabin, the whole thing tell you the history. That's great. And then Kum Jail is, uh, another historical place that's, uh, just one of the, has always been one of the best history tours in Ireland. Those three things that we, three things all in the row. Then we went and had drinks. That's neat. You know, actually I, it's ironic you don't know this, but I did something very similar on my vacation. Whoa. Where's the joke? Go ahead. So we took, uh, my, we were in West Palm Beach. My uncle is down in West Palm Beach, Uhhuh, and he took us on one of those, you know, boat tours. You know, in and around the, there, where's the jail come in? And, uh, so we did a, a lot of very similar things. So as we were going down the, intercoastal there, we saw Bon Jovi's house and, and we saw a bunch of other people's houses and some, you know, some people who started cinematography, the guy who started, uh, home Depot. We saw his house, we saw the boat, the Savannah from some Kira Knightly movie on Netflix, you know, so I'm sure I should know what it is. Jennifer's looking at me, at me like I should know what it is. Jennifer, what was it? The woman in Cabin 10. The woman in cabin 10. There it is. Now we know. Oh yeah, now we know. well, what we know now is you did nothing like my educational tour. you didn't pay attention when you were on the one you were on. Okay. That's what we know now. I did pay attention. It was a big, I saw Belong to Somebody. Show is being filmed on. Okay. If it makes you feel better, I wouldn't have paid any attention on that tour either. That was great. So do you wanna hear about the second part of my Irish adventure? I guess I do, yeah. Well, you know, we got time to fill here on the restaurant guys. These people are expecting a podcast. Mark, we gotta fill it out. Let's go. So I went up to Belfast. And I spent some time in Belfast and I stayed at a great hotel and I had this hotel I hadn't stayed in before. It's the AC hotel right on uh, the login, which is the river that runs through Belfast. I was pleasantly surprised. Usually I'll try and say at the merchant. Mm-hmm. The merchant was a little rich for my blood this time around. Understood. It's a beautiful hotel, but I just understood, didn't need to splurge on the accommodations. Mm-hmm. Um, but I say that was a C hotel was great. went to the Lyric Theater, which if you wanna do something that most tours don't do, it's a regional theater. Kinda like the George Tree Playhouse. Yeah. Uh, it's in Belfast. Uh, their patron is Liam Neeson and they built this amazing theater in town. we met them. Remember they came here? Yeah. And, and visited New Brunwick. Mm-hmm. we had a wonderful time with them showing them the, around in Brunswick. I hope They accommodated you the same way? Yeah, no, actually, so it's funny, I kind of showed up in incognito, I went to see a Christmas Carol. Oh great. Yeah, it was great. They do. And they had like rewritten the Christmas Carol to be in Belfast. Oh, that's funny.'cause you know that. That New Brunswick George Free Playhouse just did a rewritten version of Christmas Carol to take place in Jersey. Yeah, I did know that. It's, uh, maybe it's a thing, but I didn't get to see, we were so busy. I, I really wanted to see the one here December. Sorry, I never see the December show here in New Brunswick, so they, so anyway, it was a fantastic show. Mm-hmm. Wonderful, but it's a wonderful theater. I really recommend it. Lyric Theater, I would definitely recommend going to see. But you know, I, we also ate at home some, and I went to visit my friends, Lawrence and Anne-Marie. Mm-hmm. And, um, I got into a discussion with Anne-Marie about potatoes. Okay. And went in Ireland, I guess, you know, that's exactly the sentiment that we're talking about. And we started talking and I said, okay, hold up Emery, let me turn on the recorder and we have to get this and I want to put it on the show. So, um, what, what Jennifer said when I sent the, the tape to her is she said, you're like the Inuits with 27 words for Snowflake. So I would like to play a little snippet of of my time in Anne-Marie Polo's kitchen talking about potatoes. That was awesome. And what I really enjoyed about it is, yeah, after talking about 10 different potatoes and 10 different ways to prepare them, she said, yeah, you know, I don't really know anything about potatoes, by the way, by Irish Sanders, she's in the middle. She's a b plus. So thank you Anne-Marie for your guest appearance on the Restaurant Guys. Uh, show, um, back to Four Star Status. Nice. Uh, I did go to the Merchant Hotel. Great. Well, I knew that there was no chance that you were gonna be in Belfast. And not go to the merchant. So I had co, I had lunch with the merchant, uh, and I also went back another night for cocktails of the merchant. But you know what's, what Mrs. O's and the merchant have in common? They both have a coal fire going, or, or a wood fire and a coal fire. Okay. You know what they don't have in common? What? There's a whole big heating and air conditioning system in the merchant. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That isn't in Mrs. O's. Yeah. But, but Mrs. O's isn't cold. It's just, it's just, it's, you know, there's nothing cold about it. It's just small and heated by a little fire. But did your coat on? No, no scarf. No, it's a fire mark. Little hat, little hat. Cover your head mark. It's a fire. There's plenty warm in there. It's a little too hot. Sometimes they open the door. It, it actually works to heat the place. Um, but it's the charm that you get, you know, it's the charm of it all. So that may not be the primary heating source at, the merchant. But, same Mrs. Oza and the merchant. If you wanna do Ireland from top to bottom or from bottom to top, do Mrs. O's and then the merchant, and then you'll have done. South to North bottom, stop. And that's my little bit of advice. All right. Have we talked enough about this trip to Ireland? No. Um, all right. Sure. What do you wanna talk about? Did you go, uh, I'd like to take a little break and then I wanna come back and, um, talk about Austria because folks don't know about Vienna and Austria. Uh, Vienna, I will tell you, and I went, I was 14 years old. Uhhuh still probably my favorite city. When you combine the people, the food, the, the, everything about it. That I've ever been to in my life's. Funny. I mean, it was, it was just, I, I can't tell you how wonderful the people were. Yeah. I, I was a 14-year-old boy. They, they, you know, in, in a lot of cities in the world that you're not paying attention to you Irrelevant. Yeah. 14-year-old. Right. Yeah. You're just not, you're not old enough for us to carry yet. Right, right, right. And Vienna was spectacular. It was really wonderful. The Austrians were amazing. Well, let's take a quick break and on the other side, ladies and gentlemen, Vienna waits for you. Welcome back Francis. You, you went to Austria? I did. You need to tell us all about that? I did little, I did endeavor. Alright. So we won't spend too much time on Austria overall, but I love the country as you do. Mm-hmm. I, first time I went there was on a a a, a wine junket in the nineties, in the mid nineties where I met Peter Schlemer, who was a guest on our show who was still active in the wine business in Austria. What's Peter doing these days? Um, he's still at RIA Magazine. He's editor in chief at RIA Magazine. Uh, still the most important Austrian Wine magazine to my mind. Um, hard to read'cause it's in German for me. I was just say, you know, a lot of Austrian wine magazines for you. No, I just up on that. Yep. On the Austrian Wine Magazine world. Uh, had a great time with him. So when we first met years ago, we, we wound up being friends and then, um, he took me on a little motorcycle tour of Austria and we became motorcycle buddies and hadn't seen him in a while. It was great to visit with him and our buddy Guillermo. Uh, but Austrians like to do a lot of things outside. Did you know that? Yes, I did know that. They're very cold, hearty people. Those Austrians. Well, the first thing I like to do is ski and snowboard. Yeah. But even in Vienna. Even in Vienna. So, so, um, well, you're just not that far away. No. It's kinda like being in Colorado. You're never that far away from a mountain. Well, if you're in Austria and if you're in Vienna, I mean, you're at the base of the Alps. Yeah. I mean, the first foothills of the Alps start right outside the city. Um, but Vienna is an amazing city. And it snowed when I was there. Mm-hmm. Um, which it hasn't snowed around Christmas time there in a long time. So everybody was thrilled and it snowed and I stayed, uh, right near St. Stephen's Plots, which is where the St. Stephen's Cathedral is at the very center of, of Vienna. And I recommend if you're going to go to Austria to stay in that neighborhood and go in the snow. Yeah. Well if you can be so lucky. But even if not in the snow, uh, it's just, if that's very centrally located, the metro there is very friendly. Uh, the people are very friendly. I always remember I was walking. I don't know, 10 years ago, 20 years ago through, since even plots with Peter at, at the mm-hmm. Like two o'clock in the morning. And, and uh, he said to me, he said, do you know that, um, vi, I don't know if this is still true, but he said, you know, that Vienna, whatever year it was, uh, was rated both the cleanest and the safest city in Europe. And I said, oh, really? Peter? To what do you attribute that he said? The Viennese and I said, I thought, okay, that, that makes a lot of sense. So it's something you don't know. You're not a huge skier. Right. But the skiing in Austria was like, to me, no other place in the world. Yeah. Yeah. Why it. Well, just the, the compo, uh, this is a weird thing to say, right? The composition of the snow, even out west in Colorado and, and in Aspen and places like that, where it's wonderful. Mm-hmm. And different than east coast snowing. Mm-hmm. And if you're an east, if you're an East coast skier, hopefully you've, you've gotten a chance to go out west and see the difference. It's like next level to go to Austria. The, the, the snow is high. Thick and puffy and it, it's just got a whole different texture to it. Yep. And you ski differently Yeah. Yeah. Than you ski in, in, in the us you know, you, you know, you might see, you know, especially east coast, you might see sparks coming from your skis. Right, right. As you go over the rocks and, you know, the, the nonsense, uh, just, it, it's fun to fall in in fresh Austrian snow. Interesting. You just poof and, you know. Interesting. It was wonderful. And the. Craziest thing though. Yeah. The Austrians learn to ski when they're like. Three and a half years old. Yeah, I'd assume so. They just go zooming down the, and snowboard and they just go zooming down the hill and, and then make you feel foolish and me feel foolish. Yeah. You're immediately when a 5-year-old is way better than you, you know, it's, it's funny. So I, I am not the sportsman that you are and I certainly never have, uh, skied in Austria, but You fell into the Austrian snow. I fell into an Austrian bar stool and it was wonderful. It was super comfortable. Poof. Just like you said, it was great. No, and then they bring you drinks. So, no, actually bars in Austria aren't, you don't see a lot of bars, like bars with the bar stools that are open for anyone to come in and sit and talk to another person next to you. Mm-hmm. That's not an Austrian thing. It's not a part of Austrian culture. You, if there's a bar, it's set and you have a reservation and you sit, but it's usually the, so you, you make reservations for the bar stools. Yeah. But usually there's, the bars don't have stools. I was in all the restaurants in that area anyway, and I was talking to some friends about it. This, it's not a, the bar, the American bar culture is not. A restaurant culture. Yes. Bar culture. Not, not the same, uh, not the Irish bar culture where you pop in and sit down and start talking to the guy next to you. That's, that's not an Austrian thing. Everybody's very nice. Mm-hmm. Everybody's very, very nice. But they, and they'll be nice to you if anything happens, if you drop something, they'll pick it up and they'll say, how you doing? But they're not inviting you over their house for dinner. That's not, that's not what, there's not the German side. Yeah, but they're, but they're, they're warm. It's, uh, no offense to my German friends, but they're, it's, they're warmer than Germans. And you can feel the difference. Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure. Uh, with the Germans, but, um, when I say they're an outdoor people, so, uh, the, so the hotel recommendation, Topaz LaMi Hotel, a relatively new hotel in St. Stevens Plots. Mm-hmm. Or around since Stevens Plots Wonderful hotel cost. I think it was like 140 euro a night, which is crazy. Um, for right in the middle of downtown Vienna. Right. And the rooms were stylish and beautiful, and the people were nice. And, um, so it's the Topaz Lemi, and the Topaz is on one side of the street. Diagonally across the street is the Lemi, and Lemi has a rooftop bar. And so when I checked in, they gave me a, a, a, a ticket for a rooftop bar. And now this, it's snowing in Indiana. I want everyone to know Yep. That Francis would prefer a rooftop bar to actually being in the penthouse to his room being the penthouse. He would prefer that there be a rooftop there. Well, this one came with a twist though, mark. Okay. This one came with a. So I, I go to, oh, I know what the twist is. I go, you do, I've been to, I know exactly what the twist is. So I go to the rooftop bar, it's snowing outside. It's nighttime, and I'm like, I got this drink ticket. I'm gonna go have a drink. And I walk outside and it's outside, and you are on the rooftop. It's the rooftop bar and the wind is blowing, and the snow's coming down, and all these people are sitting in the chairs. And I'm like, what the hell's wrong with you people? So I sat my ass down. I had my one drink, I had a warm wine. Got the hell out of there. I'm sorry. I'm just not, I'm not built like that. And you know, they, they all have lamb wool or is, uh, lamb skin on all the chairs. Mm-hmm. Very warm. It's beautiful. But the waiters are wearing winter coats and bringing you, I'm like, this is apre ski, but I'm, I wasn't skiing, you know, so, and then I went down and I walked around. That's kinda of how you'd imagine. A bar in the Gulag. Yeah. This is, you guys drink outside. I don't, I I, I, I'm pretty good student of history. Mark. They didn't really have bars in the Gulag. No, that's, that was the whole thing about that. No, I saw Hogans heres, they definitely do. That's, that's, that's the stog and that's a whole different place. Um, anyway, uh, but, but, uh, um, so I, I went down and walking around on the streets. It's snowing. All the sidewalk cafes. Full of people. Oh yeah. Out there in the snow with little knit caps on having a glass. Yeah. 17 degrees Fahrenheit. It was. It was just under freezing. It was just like 30 degrees. I'm like, this is crazy. So if we could get Austrians to live here, we could have our outdoor cafe open year round be a Love it. Big revenue booster. I love it. I'm in. So another happy thing that happened to me, by the way, the, the view from the lemi was beautiful. You looked at St. Steven's Cathedral, uh, and it was great. It was on there. Fred put a, a picture up on our, uh oh yeah, on our website. Yeah. I put a picture up there called Jack Earl. Actually do it. Francis will took the picture. Exactly. We also did, I did another outdoor thing with my buddy Guillermo. He took me up to, um, Colberg Hill. For the fans of history out there, that's where King Sobieski of Poland arrived with the Winged Hussars to save Vienna and all of Christendom in September of 1683. You know, I couldn't remember if it was September or October. It's actually a very, very important battle. It was the, it was the edge of Christendom at the, it's funny how time the large, I'm pulling up the largest. Caval recharge in history to that point. We are so American-centric. Why? Because I never heard of that battle. It's, it's a very important battle in western culture. I understand. I understand. I'm sorry that I'm dumb. Well, I went up there, so we were at the hill from which he came down and we looked over that. I got a big kick outta that again, cold five minute view for me. Lovely, let's go and then off to the bar. But I'm glad I went right. everything around St. Stephen's, the cathedral is amazingly beautiful, then I have a recommendation if you are there. the vino text in Steven, uh, is owned by a guy named Ludwig Kler. he's great. And I know this is a little bit. I don't know egocentric on our part, but I walked in and the shortest story is obviously one of the best in Vienna, and I looked at his Italian section and it was, so many of our producers, there's so much crossover for what we carry. I thought, I like this guy. Before I met him, I thought, I like this guy, but he had my tasted wine. He must be a genius. He had palone, Soria, all the guys that we have always carried, and he carried and we had a great conversation. And then of course he had a bunch of like. Old Gruner, leaner and you know, one of the things that we have always known about. Mm-hmm. But the wine culture in Austria is amazing. The amazing and ancient And, yeah. And, and the. Austrian wines, like they have a great wine culture overall. Mm-hmm. But Austrian wines, if you find places like, so if you go in to this place, he has all the current vintages out. And I said, listen, do you have any older vintages? He said, yeah, we don't keep them on display, but if you'd like, we can sell you some older vintages. Yeah. I'm not a big one for wine and the luggage. I always break it and smashes into all my clothes, but, uh, if I, if I had more time there, I would've stayed with him. And then, and then two restaurants I wanna talk about, if, if you go, uh, one is, it's, it's, forgive my pronunciation, but it's ish and urban. Which is kind of an urban restaurant in Vienna. Ha. Yeah, I know. Urban. E-R-B-E-R-B-E-N, not U-R-B-A-N. Look at you playing with Homophones. I know, I know. Well, I'm not homophobic. I can't be accused of that. No. Can I, um, anyway. Anyway, It wasn't crazy. They had a set menu, uh, four courses, 65 euros. I found that in Austria, the, the wine and the food was reasonable. And that's known as an expensive city. An expensive country, right? It's expensive country to live. Yeah, but not as expensive as some, but yeah, anyway. More expensive than, but anyway, it was great. A lot of fresh water, fish, uh, a lot of great cheeses. Um, a lot of, lot of, I did have a schnitzel while I was there. Oh, you gotta have schnitzel. I had a schnitzel. How do you not, how do you go to, to Vienna and not have schnitzel people who haven't been to Austria? Or hungry. Don't understand that if you've had a schnitzel in America, you haven't had a schnitt. If you can get schnitzel, that's not a schnitzel. It's light and pretty and it's butchered differently. I gotta remember the first time I went there, I was 14 years old. I bet IH schnitzel 10 times. Dude, dude, I bet I different schnitzels 10 times. It's fantastic. Yeah. Anyway, ish, UN urban is really terrific. I recommend them. They've got a deep wine cellar. Uh, and then there's another place just outside of Vienna, um, called, uh, fart, and it is owned by the people. Spell that P Alright, I'll spell it. And you try and do better. Let's do that little contest here. P-F-A-R-R-W-I-R-T. Ah, that's forward. Exactly. So that doesn't mean I'm right. That means that you are no more right than I am if I'm wrong. Mozart was a regular customer there. Nice to start. I remember the first time I was, uh, in, in a, a very old church in Austria years ago. And, um, I was at close to Norberg, which is in Vienna. I wasn't there this time. And the lady was showing us around. We, we, um, she spoke English and she said, uh, uh, this piece of stained glass. He's older than your country. I was, I was like, oh, well, I, I trying to make me feel bad. That's, we are so American-centric, right? Yeah. So, so North American-centric here, the thought of something being a thousand years old, being 1500 years old. Yeah. It's, I mean, it's everywhere you go to, you go to Europe and, and every major city has things that are 1500 years old. Right, right, right, right. Every single major city. Right. And not just the building, sometimes you're walking on a street that's 1500, 2000 years old, but when it's something as fragile as glass mm-hmm. You know, that, that, that's been around for that long. It's crazy. It has historical significance. the other thing that I, I really wanna, I wanna encourage people to visit, Austria and there's so much in Europe now that people are, you know, maybe have had enough of American tourists'cause we're overcrowding a little bit. Mm-hmm. I don't think Vienna is one of those places. the thing about Vienna is people so nice and everybody speaks English. Yeah. Everybody was very gracious to you say, I'm sorry. It's, it's good by German, not so good. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Not so good. But yeah, no, and people were able to, to, to everybody. Um, just easily switches to English and they're not, you know, it's not a thing, you know? Right. It's, and I went to restaurants that my friends took me to, and my one friend said, you know, they're not gonna have an English menu here, so I'll translate for you. And the waiter said, no, no. We have an English menu. Yeah. A place that like no tourists go to. Um, in case. And to be fair of other cities, and, you know, Paris, you know, is the one I'm most familiar with in Paris. You can speak English almost everywhere. The only place that you'll get really a hard time for not speaking French are the touristy places, which is kind of weird, right? Yeah, it is. It's right, because that's. I think that's where most of the Americans who, who don't speak French, go. I think when you get your share of, uh, we have both seen American tourists behaving badly courses. Yes, of course. And so I, I can sort of see how you could be a little fatigued by it. Mm-hmm. But, uh, so far we, it's owned by mayor. Do you remember we carried Mayor Wines? Oh. Oh. Ly. Yeah, so there, so, uh, wines are great. Dena is one of the few, uh, capitals in Europe that is actually the wine region is in the capital in the city. They grow wine really inside the city. Yeah. Yeah. And mayor is one of those wines. Uh, and those wines are great. We buy, we buy them. If you find them out there in the wild, they're great. Buy them young, but don't drink'em for like four years. They really need to come around anyway. So since Mayor owns those. The restaurant, they had all sorts of great wines, in a very deep cellar. It was terrific, but I had chestnut soup, which was tremendous. Hard to get good chestnut soup in America. Yeah, I used to make it all the time, but now the only chestnuts you can buy if you're looking to make chestnut soup, if anybody's got a place to get good. Peeled uncooked chestnuts. Let me know the guys@restaurantguyspodcast.com, because that's what I used to buy. Mm-hmm. Peeling chestnuts is too much of a pain in the ass for me. Yes. And the only chestnuts you can get now are irradiated cooked chestnut, and if they're already cooked, you can't make'em in soup. I would love that. But. Since I don't have that, I had duck and I had, uh, a Blau Frankish, which is an Austrian red wine. Mm-hmm. I had a Heinrich, which they also own Heinrich, from 2009. You know, 16-year-old Lau frankish is not something you get. And I'm gonna say most people don't get 4-year-old bla lau frankish Francis. And you, you're at the site in the restaurant owned by the winery, so you know, it's been stored there from the beginning and it was absolutely stunning. And what's funny is if you, I. I find this in many wine regions, but especially in Australia. You go there and you're American and you say, what do we have that's Austria, and let me look at your list and mm-hmm. Let me order something unusual. That's particularly Austrian sommelier was my best friend. Absolutely. In that moment on when, you know that's true almost anywhere in the world. You go when you delve in and say, what's special about here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whether it's the food, the wine, the spirits, the cocktails. What, what's special about this place?

Mark: 32:33

that gets people excited. Yeah, sure. if it's a wine place and you wanna know about wines and they have wines of the region, I mean, in this place, obviously owned by a winery. But doing a little research to know the context of the place you're going into. Mm-hmm. Because for instance, if you go in as a tourist and you find this place, which you're probably not gonna, but if you find this place, oh, this is a nice restaurant and you don't know that it's owned by the people who own these wineries, you're gonna miss it. You know? You're gonna miss the opportunity to say to sommelier, Hey, I know this place owned by the wine. What's special, what's interesting? Or even to say, I don't know much about Austrian wine. I know you have gr leaner, but. What should I have? That's what I was gonna say. Even if you haven't done your research just to say, Hey, I'm, I'm new here. Yeah. What, what do you have for me? What, what's special here? What, what can I learn? I think that, I think that. It's a lesson for life, but it's really a lesson for tourists is lead with a question, you know? And there are places that will get you in trouble, that will never get you into trouble In Austria, I'll tell you one thing that we ended our meal with and that will end our, Austrian adventure is, uh, mayor makes, uh, uh, a marrow. And so we ended the meal and I have this big three litter bottle of a marrow on the counter as you walk in. And, you know, for restaurant restaurateurs around the world, we put some big bottles up. Sometimes there's no way I'm leaving that restaurant without getting a glass of that. I mean, a little before we ordered our appetizers, I knew how I was ending the meal. Mm-hmm. And then we wound up getting two of them and it was super reasonable. So we'll put all these, uh, restaurant and, and um, site. Recommendations up on the, in the show notes. Uh, or you can, of course you, if you guys want to email us, the guys@restaurantguyspodcast.com and you're gonna be going to Vienna or Dublin or Belfast. I'll be happy to make some recommendations. And when we come back, I'm gonna tell you about a restaurant experience I had down in West Palm extraordinary. We'll go back in just a moment. You can always find out more about us@restaurantguyspodcast.com. Hey everybody. Welcome back. Uh, I promised you some, a story about a restaurant in West Palm. Please, daddy read us a story. So, so while we were down there, we went to two different marina restaurants. Uhhuh. Okay. My uncle loves to eat on the water. It's beautiful. Look at the boats coming in and out. I love that aesthetic. So, so it runs in the family. Your uncle likes to eat on the water and you like to spill things on yourself. I like the water on me. Exactly, exactly. Sorry, go ahead. Anyway, so we go to the first restaurant and it's wonderful. I'll tell you what the name of the place is. It's called the Sailfish. It's in the marina, right there in West Palm and it's just lovely. It's lovely and, we sit close to the water. We can see the, the water and the boats coming in and docking and wonderful. And we get a couple of different dishes and there's fish and chips and some really fresh fish, and it's delicious and it just feels good to be in the place. Yeah, okay. Right. And I love restaurants like that you know, was it a fancy schmancy place? It was not a fancy schmancy place, but everything we had was well done. Everything we had was delicious. The service was nice. Wonderful, wonderful way to spend an afternoon. Yes. The next night, okay, we go to another marina restaurant. Okay? Okay. We're sitting indoors, but you can see outside, but it's difficult to see outside. Why? Okay. Because the entire restaurant is illuminated with bright white fluorescent lights from inside or from outside. So, so inside, but, but it's so white and bright that you really can't see outside what you, what's happening outside. You, you've been with me when I've entered restaurants like that. Right? Oh, you, let me tell you, I turn right the fuck around. I walked out right the fuck around and out the door. I walked into this restaurant and I, and I just went, Ooh, if Francis were here, he'd leave. Yeah. And so, and literally my uncle said. Do you wanna leave? Oh, that's so you knew. Okay. Yeah. So we walked in, we, ah, you know, it's okay. We sat down. Yeah. And then it started all of the stuff. Yeah. When you go to a restaurant that started. Yeah. Yeah. First, first, first two minutes. I'm there. Okay. The, I don't want to call him a mare. D we're gonna call him a manager. A ma. Don't. Okay. It's an open kitchen. I made your don't, you didn't laugh at a, made your don't That's a good one. It's an old joke. Alright. It's an old one. Uh, the manager is yelling stuff across the dining room to the open kitchen guys. Like what? Like, Hey, you got a clear table. 2121 needs to be cleared. I love that. Whatcha you doing? Yeah, I love that. Okay. I'd have gone over and cleared 21 and so, and just all sorts of aesthetic things that would've made you crazy. Yeah. Yeah. They brought out a rack of clean glasses, uhhuh, and they put it on the front bar of the open kitchen. Okay. Yeah, where it sat for about 20 minutes of our meal. I love looking at a plastic rack of glasses, not, not six feet away from us. Yeah, I love that. And that's what, and literally that's what I looked at and it's got these bright fluorescence and these hard surfaces and there's nothing to, Make this sound softer. Yeah. And the light is just giving me a headache. Yeah. And, and so we're talking to the waitress for, for a couple of minutes and she's like, oh, and our chef was on this television show and he won, week nine of whatever the show was. Right. I'm not gonna say the show,'cause then you're gonna be able to figure out what restaurant it is. Right. Okay. Uh, if you're from that area, you probably have already figured out what restaurant it is, and I was like, oh, great. so the chef's back there cooking and you can see everything that's happening and I, I order some fish and my fish comes out and it is cooked. 10 minutes too long. Okay. 10 minutes is too long. Now I get my mahi and you know, it's nice, thick piece of fish, but it is dry as you know. Yesterday's toast. Yeah. And I thought you got all these accolades, you got this open kitchen. You, you're trying to do all this stuff. Open kitchen means. Let me show you what we're doing. Yeah, let me, it's so cool what we're doing. Let me show you not, we're gonna yell at each other and you're gonna hear it not here's the glass rack, not here's the fountain soda machine. Yeah. So you can look at me getting you a fountain soda. Uh, there's so much, and, and again, we talk sometimes about, you know, how could I fix your restaurant? Tear it down. And there you have it. Ladies and gentlemen. Start over. Start over. Sorry bro. Uh, it's, it's really fascinating to me when people sort of, it's like they read the headline but they didn't read the article mm-hmm. About what to do. And you know, the open kitchen thing is exactly right. So when I see an open kitchen and it's done well, I'm like, well, you've incorporated the kitchen, first of all. You run your kitchen entirely differently. Mm-hmm. You run much cleaner. You know, you run much, much more. Um, caring about the aesthetics of what's going on in the kitchen, whereas we care somewhat about the aesthetics of the kitchen, but not really. Mm-hmm. I care about the functionality of the kitchen and I care about what's gonna come to you. What are you getting? Yeah. Yeah. So, but if you open the, if I open those windows, we would have to, like you, you need different equipment. You need equipment that looks good. You need to keep it in such a way and facing in such a way that it looks good to the guests. Like, so a lot of our equipment, if you see the back of our equipment, you can see the compressor and you can see the. I'm not showing that to you in the dining room, so I have to work around how to, A, it's not part of the dining room aesthetic. You're coming there to escape the world. You don't need to see my compressor. Yeah, exactly. So I don't know it it or my soda gun. I, I, I agree. And that's why I have a lot of respect for people who run open kitchens really well. Mm-hmm. Um, it's funny'cause I remember the first time open kitchens and chef's tables in the kitchen. Chef's tables seem to be going away. Thank heaven. Uh, I mean, I, I didn't say thank heaven. A lot of people really like the chef's table in the kitchen, which is the. Ultimate open kitchen, but I, I, I never liked him. And I remember when our partner, Lou took us down to a place in Washington. He's like, oh my god. Us a chef's table in the kitchen. This was 30 years ago, 25 years ago. Oh's a time 25 years ago. And when chef's tables in the kitchen were just starting, and Mark and I walked through this beautiful dining room, we're like, okay, we save in the dining. I don't wanna go to academy in the kitchen all the time. It's like 83 degrees in the kitchen. Yeah. But it was nice. It was a great kitchen experience, but I don't need that. I, I, you know, the dining room is the dining room for a reason, you know? Yeah. I wanna be the Lord of the man or when I'm not working, you know what I mean? Yeah. Well, what we know from that is the restaurant business is really hard. I got a lot, you know, if that's an independently operated place, that guy's working his ass off. And I wish him well and I hope he changes those fluorescent lights.'cause I, he's, there's just gotta change, change the aesthetic of the inside of his restaurant so that people are comfortable, like. They don't, they don't walk in and just go, Ooh. Yeah, like I did. I agree. I mean, there's a lot of mistakes that you can make in a restaurant. it's a hard business, man. Yeah, no, it is hard. And, and I'll tell you the, the one thing that we, I always really appreciate,'cause we make mistakes a lot too. We knew this for 30 years, so we we're, I'm 30 years always learning. Yeah, always learning. You, you, you better always be learning. But 30 years in these two places, we know our balance of mistakes and not mistakes has been enough to keep us around for this long. Um, but one of the things that I always encourage people to do is if you have a restaurant that you like and you're like, ah, they got something wrong, including my own. If you wanna send it anonymously, send it anonymously, but don't post your criticism online. Um, give a restaurant, give the restaurant a chance. Go direct and let them say, Hey, listen, I was in there and. Like your food, but those fluorescent lights are driving me crazy. Maybe it's not the restaurant for me, but I just want you to know mm-hmm. That, you know, maybe you could switch that to something else. And I, I just think it is about, criticism is always fair if you wanna make it. Um, but why, why you gotta make it in public. You know what I mean? That's just my thing. That's the new world. Let's, b let's, let's. buck that trend. Yeah, indeed. So, uh, if you guys wanna come to a restaurant that has, uh, not fluorescent lighting and feel really comfortable, uh, while we bring you great food, you can come down to New Brunswick to stage left in Catherine Lombardi. Or you can just let us keep you company with our podcast anytime. I'm Francis Shot. And I'm Mark Pascal. We are the restaurant guys. You can always find out more about us@restaurantguyspodcast.com.