251: Dale Talde

0:28This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. People don't understand that in these cooking shows, when they're eating this many plates of food or bites of food, when you get to the end, the nuances, the subtle nuances get picked up, but in the beginning, like to get to halfway through, your food better be impactful. It better be crunchy, sweet, sour, salty, bitter, have umami. This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodbard.

0:59The proud son of Filipino immigrants, Dale Tallday grew up immersed in his family's cultural heritage while also enjoying the life of a typical American kid. Dale is the chef and owner of Goose Feather, a signature restaurant located in Tarrytown, just outside New York City. He's also the show of Tastemades All Up in My Grill, and he appeared as a three-time chef-testin and judge on Bravo's Emmy Award-winning show Top Chef. On this episode, we talk to Dale about his life in and out of the kitchen, his Chicago upbringing, and what makes a great food TV competitor, which Dale certainly is. Dale is an absolute favorite of mine, and I hope you enjoy our conversation.

1:50Dale Tallday, welcome to This Is Taste. Thank you, man. I've known you for a while. I feel like 15 years. I mean, around the time you were on Top Chef, I feel like I might have talked to you then. But then I went to Tallday in Park Slope. Man, that restaurant was great. Thank you. Yeah, we've known you for a long time. I mean, Tallday was, I talk about Tallday like it was this real moment in, I think, the neighborhood's time, but also with Brooklyn. Yeah. I mean, it was this period of Brooklyn where it was so red hot. Brooklyn was like on fire. It was like late aughts, like 09. Yeah. Around that, yeah.

2:27Yeah. I mean, we opened all day in 2012, but it already, you know, Brooklyn had already been happening by then, right? Roberta's had already been up and running. Yeah. But when we got open in that part of the slope in Brooklyn, it was just like this weird moment in time where like everyone, I feel like it gave. And listen, there was already people who had been doing things there and good restaurants. but um oh definitely i mean aldi law you aldi law places like that i mean these legendary places but yeah it would be it went from a sleepy kind of um brownstone yeah strollerville strollerville to like actually cool yeah and and you know i think it branched out to places like guanis and i i look at guanis and i i like there were some really cutting-edge restaurants that were there that would never have been tried to open any other time except for that period in oh yeah the pines the little neck yeah i mean there was these tiny little holes in the runner and stone doing great baking like ahead of time exactly and every these people were just doing their thing and taking chances and saying hey um we know we barely have air conditioning we have 45 seats every seat is different from a thrift store yeah and we have you know we have a small hood from a deli because this used to be a deli let's see what we can do yeah it's like so to think about South Brooklyn and the boom, and now it's like you can't even live there anymore.

3:49We both have moved out of Brooklyn. Yeah, absolutely. That's a whole different show. But I want to go back to Top Chef because you were in season four originally. Take us back to that audition because, like, did you know that you were down to play, down to win? Because you've done subsequent competition shows. You clearly are a winner. You know what the fuck you're doing. You know, I got into it purely by chance. I do believe if at the time, if Kraft Steak, Tom's Restaurant wasn't on 10th Avenue in between 14th and 15th Street, I would have never made that. I was late. First of all, I was late for audition.

4:28The casting team was a completely different casting team at the time. I was like rolling into work. I passed by Budokan. I was at Budokan right down the street. I was like, hey, I'm going to be like 10 minutes late. I remember you were the guy at Budokan. I remember that. It was before you were on TV. Yeah, yeah, I remember that. You know, I was part of that team who were awesome dudes. Awesome. Yang Wong, Brian Ray, Daniel Skirnik. Shout out to all those dudes who are still doing their thing. And we also had a special moment there too, but I rolled into this casting and it was an audition. I mean, it was a cold call, right?

4:59Yeah. Like I can assume like how any other actor goes into something. I sat down with two people. They were already walking out. I forget the team, but they're a different casting crew than there are now. I think the casting is in-house, but they outsource casting back then. So they were like, sure, we'll take one more person. I sat down. I basically told him, like, you know, Padma's never going to tell me my food sucks. And, like, who are these people that, you know, like, whatever. I know what I'm doing. I'm working in one of New York's busiest restaurants. The whole ego-driven, like, whatever.

5:29So you went with that character in mind. I did. Because you're not, like, that egocentric guy at all. That's, like, not your vibe. But you clearly knew you needed to be big for the casting. Yeah. And I was like, you know, I'm just five foot six Filipino kid. Like, how am I going to stand out? And I was like, all right, you know, rapper persona comes on and like hip hop, you know, ego comes on. And that's how I rolled with that. And they're like, this is great. Show up tomorrow at this random. This was so odd. You showed up at a random hotel room. That was a hotel room, not like a conference room.

6:00It was literally someone's hotel room. And then you walked in and there's cameras everywhere, mics set up, and they're like, now we're going to really interview. Oh, so they were replicating the interview portion of TV when they're the confessional side. I think kind of, but it was more of a let's get to know you. We got a touch of what you're like. Let's really get to know you. And before, back in the day, you didn't cook for Top Chef. I think season four or five were the last ones where you didn't cook. It was really kind of personality based. Okay, backing up. You mean you – but you had to cook on the show, obviously, but you weren't cast by cooking.

6:38You were cast because of personality. 100%. You were cast by your personality and your resume. Yeah, so they were going after like mostly like New York, L.A., like big city chefs, and they were like really – they knew like if you were at Budokan for four years, you could actually do something. They checked all those references. Like my – the executive chef at the time, his name is Brian Ray. He was like, yeah, dude, this guy called you. This guy called me and asked me all about you. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, I hope you said good things. No, I said you're the worst cook in the world. Just kidding.

7:05But that's how it was. It was personality driven. And now it's become more about the food. And you can tell because my season four, there was like line cooks on it. Yeah. And like I'm a sous chef. I was a sous chef. Yeah. So who was on season four? Remind me. I actually stopped around season four, I think. Stephanie Izzard, one. Richard Blaze. Heard of her. Heard of him. Richard Blade first time Antonio Lofaso Spike Mendelsohn myself I mean these are guys yourself included who've done incredibly well in the career opening franchises doing media Richard is now one of the top TV personalities you have TV shows that are really great yeah yeah I mean it really helped launch our careers I mean we all were you know look at the resume you know we had worked at great places.

7:55Like if you look at Antonia, Antonia had worked for like, you know, Wolfgang and his crew. She was kind of that crew, right? Stephanie had worked with, I had worked with Stephanie Izzard in a bunch of different restaurants. Blaze had worked with Danielle. We all had worked at reputable places. So it really gave us some shine to kind of get our brand and get, and I hate using that word, but it's true, like getting our brand and getting kind of our personality out there. So when you start the filming, the taping, the competition, what are those first early days like? Because back then it seemed like there was a little more mystery going in because there wasn't really social media covering it as much.

8:32So you didn't really know what the hell was going on. What was it like? Man, it was, I mean, it was a little like Animal House-ish. You know, when season four was definitely Animal House-ish. Oh, DeBosh, for sure. There was like, hey, here's two. We were in this man, this man, a giant house in Chicago. and there's two fridges, three. One's liquor and alcohol. Not liquor. It's wine and beer and the other's food. And then when we got done with a shooting for the day, we would come home and we would crush everything in there. And the next day, magically, completely fully. To be like stocked to the brim of everything we just had.

9:12And then I remember a very vivid part of season four when we came home. And like, you know, Top Chef is broken up into two, from a competitor standpoint, two people, right? Once you get past the midway point, those people that make it past the midway point really understand the show. But up until then, you're just trying to find your footing. You don't really, every day is kind of like this adventure. Super nervous, right? Crazy nervous. The anxiety. I mean, because you don't want to be booted early. That's like nothing worse than that on a reality show. But as soon as you get past the midway point, you start to get into a rhythm and understand, like, okay, the shoot schedule, what they want of us, all these things.

9:49So that's how I define it. Like, you know, but we would just, like, we didn't know at the time, okay, listen, dude, you're getting up at, like, 5 a.m. And you're not shooting until 9. The hurry up and wait part of, like, Hollywood and production. And we would just stay up drinking until, like, 2 in the morning. So you were, like, kind of tipsy still going into the filming. Hungover. Everyone's just like, yeah, and then, you know, that season you do your thing. And then when we got back on All Stars, we all were like, can't do that. Take this seriously. Like, take it serious. Understand that, like, millions of people are watching this.

10:22I mean, as you continue to participate, I mean, the audience has only grown, which is amazing for a show because that never happens. It's always the inverse with TV shows. Usually the audience wanes up at Top Chef. Bigger than ever in season 20 right now. And it's always, you know, I think they've separated themselves from the pack, right? They're not the cook with one leg standing up and, you know, tie your arm behind the back and close one eye. It's like, hey, bring your best food. We're going to throw a lot of crazy things at you, but we want the best plate of food. We don't want the side drama.

10:58We don't need everyone to get yelled at or become, you know, be called a dummy in front of a bunch of people. Just cook good food. How do you do? Season four. How'd you do? What was your - Sixth. Came in sixth. Out of 18. Who was number five? Do you remember? Do you remember the person who just beat you? Or do you not think about it that way? You think of it more like the net positive that came out of it. It was Spike. Spike was five. Okay. Spike was five. And Steph won? Steph won. Yeah, yeah. Spike was five. Steph was, yeah. She was dope. I mean, you clearly, it doesn't matter where you ended up because you have remained in In the vocabulary of all Top Chef fans.

11:36Thank you, thank you. Yeah, buddy. I mean, it's fun to watch you on TV. I wanted to talk about Chicago. You grew up there. Are you sox or cubs? I don't know. Cubs, man, all the way. I'm on Northside. Like my house, the house that I first lived in, in Andersonville, is literally two blocks up, take the Clark Street bus all the way to Wrigley, and we could be 15 minutes away. so growing up what's food like in your household are you doing like tavern style pizza and beef are you doing more Filipino food what's it like in the house all Filipino food I'm the first generation American my parents are immigrants it is 100 % Filipino food synagogue which is a tamarind based soup of either pork and shellfish a lot of pork a lot sisig sisig not at home but like just like pork adobo yeah um a thing a chariado there's these dishes that were very traditionally Filipino and a lot of fish my parents ate a lot of fish so we a lot of whole fish so like for me like whole fish you know the funkiness of like dried fermented fish like that is like that doesn't even phase me when I get cooked I mean it's your comfort food it to me it is like when I go home and I see like there's that and like some two fried eggs and like some vinegar and some a pot of rice.

13:02It's like, all right. What about quini lao? You know, it's something that my dad ate. Yeah. My mom, it's – It's like raw, right? Yeah, it's a raw marinated like vinegar. So it's very kind of ceviche-ish. Very much so. I love it. I think it's great. My dad really loves it. Yeah. My dad's – he was a merchant marine. He was also a chief engineer in a boat. So a lot of that stuff comes from like that type of kind of that world, right? I remember Bad Saint used to do a Kenny Lau. That was so good. Remember that restaurant? Yeah, man. I mean, shout out to those guys. They helped put a lot of this on the map, right?

13:34I love those guys in D.C. I wish they did not open anymore, right? No, no, no. He left. The chef left. That's right. They kind of like went their own ways. Speaking of restaurants, Goose Feather in Tarrytown, New York. Just outside New York, you can get there on Metro North. You can drive up there. I mean, sneaky, sneaky, dude. Like my favorite restaurant in the area. I love Tall Day, but I live about an hour away. I drive. It's dope. Love it. Thank you, man. And, you know, we're really blessed. We have, you know, the staff, the team, the everything just kind of worked, clicked, you know. And, you know, I do believe that while some people need partnerships, I do believe that the clearest vision and sense of authorship and voice happens when no one else is in the room.

14:20Yeah. And I think there's something to be said about collaborations, but when there's one person, one voice, one person's kind of like direction for especially something like a restaurant, I think it's really important because I think that's where some of my other restaurant ventures kind of went awry is that there's too many voices. Yeah. Too many – shout out, you know, really kudos to my partners who kind of let – who also own the hotel. But they let me do my thing. They're like, hey, we like the direction that this is going. Just keep going there. So, I mean, it is in what 19th century mansion up on a hill in Tarrytown.

14:56It's most unique space. But then you're doing this modern, you know, there's there's lots of Thai. There's lots of Filipino. There's there's Korean flavors. I want to get a sense of for our audience. What's your style? How do you define it? Because to me, it's just everything is so near to use a corny term, but everything is so on point and so right. Thank you. I appreciate it, man. When we first opened that restaurant, we were like, hey, we're a modern Cantonese restaurant. We wanted to call it. Right. Because I think for a lot of people who want to decide where they're going to go eat, you know, you have to kind of label it in those terms for someone to say, I can get my head around eating noodles and dim sum and stuff like that.

15:34But, you know, after the pandemic, you know, after like the kind of like the heart of the pandemic, we really started cooking food that we wanted to cook and taste and eat. And so we just, you know, if you're going to classify the food, we want it to be fun and craveable. And I think those are the two key things when we make dishes at the restaurant. Is this fun and is it craveable? I think there has to be this, you know, I think great restaurants have a craveability to them, right? Like something that when you eat and you're like, I could really eat that right now. That's big for me. You got a pea salad.

16:13my mom like not like not local but was like yo i'd come back to this she's my mom but she said like basically a pea salad is the best pea salad i've ever had and i'm the same and that's just one of these craveable recipes or pot stickers with with like a dry aged beef in it from back from tall day with with hot mustard it's another one you just think about the food well said dale because i agree it's a very craveable food yeah you know the pea salad is kind of a really it's a sleeper. And I think there's something, and also I think there's something to be said about things that like read on a menu, like under-promising and over-delivering.

16:48Yeah. Like when you read, you know, the snow pea salad, you're like, it's a snow pea salad. It's a salad. More important, it's a salad and who's like ooze and ahs over salad. But we were like, if we're going to have a salad, especially like in this style of cuisine where salads, they're not mentioned in those terms. Like Vietnamese are big on like leafy greens and like eating that with a bite here and a bite there. And so our Koreans, they do the banchan and, you know, you kind of pair different contrasting textures with things. We wanted a salad that really spoke one of seasonality. So like whatever fruit is in season gets paired with the peas.

17:26We know snow peas aren't always in season, but that's the base. And then, you know, watermelon, cherries, stone fruit, Asian pear in the fall and winter, you know, honeycomb apples too. So, like, for us, that is where we add that type of seasonality. And then there's highs and lows to it, right? There's a sweet, sour, bitter, salty umami to it. And that's the balance of your food because you definitely want to order, like, everything, and it is craveable. But it doesn't feel like it's overbearing. It doesn't feel like it's going, like, extremely sour or you're not going extremely spicy like a northern Thai spice.

18:00It feels like Tarrytown is a place that has a lot of city folks but, like, people who are not from the city so you can't go too crazy. That must be interesting to kind of mix through the mix. We are because there is definitely an older, like, there is a, we call them like the penne vodka crop. Yes. And we love them, right? And they're the ones who are there and they're the ones who are, they're the residents of these communities that for a special night out, they're like, hey, let's try this. So we can't be so over the top with trying to make these flavors that are so unexpected or kind of like polarizing, right?

18:33Not too super spicy. you know even like Szechuan like I love Szechuan food but like it can be much like two courses of Szechuan food with that numbing and spice for a lot of people's palates and unless you eat it every day it's a little heavy so we're just trying to give them like something to that's like I said fun and craveable yeah hopefully these fit in goose feather lots of fun cool bar what's a Dale Tall Day fried rice all about I always feel like you always have a sneaky combination on there and it's just cool. I mean, fried rice to me was always a meal that my mom made when like there was a hodgepodge of things happening.

19:07So I wanted to kind of still stay in that hodgepodge mode when we know our supreme rice. So that's like, you know, land, air and sea collabo. So there's always like something from the land, sea and air. And this time around, I think there's like pickled pineapple, there's pickled charred pineapple, there's shrimp. You know, we're cooking in duck fat. So it's not so over the top like, okay, that's the land is a piece of meat. No, it could be we're cooking everything. We're cooking it in clarified duck fat. And for us, that gives it a beautiful deep richness to the dish. But with the crab fried rice, I like modeling some rices also after delicious pastas that I've had.

19:50So the crab fried rice for me, I saw Mark Ladner when he was a chef at Del Posto make this. spaghetti dish that was dungeness crab all kind of like the you know the mustard and all like the kind of like the head fat he made a sauce with that and then he did jalapenos and a sofrito was like you know the when he made his sauce was like celery and and shallots and garlic and i was like that's such a cool idea why i want to make that into a fried rice so that's kind of direct we we use that as like the the the brains and the offal from the crab like all that great shit in there all that stuff but we use that as like the that was inspiration yeah and then let's make it fried rice so then we went through to like you know egg and crab the the funk came from an aioli because you know we we did the head crab thing and we're like is this too much so let's pare it a little down so instead of that kind of funky mix we were like we want a creaminess to this.

20:53So we added this jalapeno aioli that's really pounded with a lot of fish sauce. So aioli in a fried rice, interesting. So there's eggs and it has that egginess, that European structure to it. Yeah, almost like, you know, like a paella-ish thing where you get like a rouille or you get like an aioli on top of like a - Oh yeah, or like bouillabaisse. Exactly. Has that like little scoop on top of it too. Yeah, just to add richness to it. And I thought that I love fried rice. I just love it. But I thought that really brought it over the top. It's really cool. I have a couple, like, rapid questions.

21:24Are you going to open in New York, like Brooklyn, Manhattan? I'd hope so. I mean, I'm always looking. I'm never going to say never. We really love where we are now, but, you know, there's opportunities. We have some pokers in the fire about some places, and, yeah, we're excited. We, you know, I wanted to kind of get over year one of your 1.1 and a half of a kid, get over the top, so he's not so hard. So now we're really kind of searching out options. You're thinking about options. I know you live in New Jersey now, and your wife's Korean of mentors. She's great. And we've talked, we've hung out and had some food.

21:55Are you going to open a Korean restaurant? I'd love to. I'd love, I mean. I would love to see that. So I have a concept for one that is like. Let's go. Come on. What is it? So my sister-in-law used to call me, the brother-in-law is Hyung-boo. So I thought she was calling me Young-boo. And I thought I was like, that's a cool rapper name. Misheard, yeah. Young-boo. But that would be the name of the barbecue, this Korean inspired, but also like. You know, Southeast Asia has amazing – their style of barbecue isn't low and slow. It's, like, fast and hot. Yeah. And it's just, like, cooking on a grill like that.

22:31So I want to use Southeast Asia as the inspiration of where the flavors come from because I love lemongrass, like, lemongrass pork and beef and – but tabletop cooking. But have some structure that's similar to, like, with the panchan. Yeah, but it's a tabletop. But it's on a tabletop and all the panchan and all, like, you know – I love it because it's, like – Israel also has that. Definitely. Like with the Salatim. Yeah. Like there is that feel of like when dishes just come to the table and you don't know what they are and they have to like you pick your own adventure. Oh, yeah. That's so cool to me.

23:05Like I think that's what excites people about Korean food as well. It's like I don't know what any of this stuff is, but I know it looks all delicious. I'm going to try it. And I get a really nice sampling of flavors and structures and cool ingredients. And I definitely think what Mike Solomonov is doing with Laser Wolf and the Salatim is cool. It's dope. I think there's a percentage of the world that eats that way that I think like American culture still has to get behind. And you're getting there in the major cities. They get it. But like they don't understand when you drop five little dishes on a table and they're like, what is this?

23:36Well, this is your meal. Like this is the start of your meal. And don't take it away when you're done. Like just add to it because it's going to make whatever you're eating in your second course even better. But your food always has twists too. And that's the cool thing. I think maybe in lesser hands saying there was going to be a Southeast Asian influence, but there's going to be a structure of Korean. It might not be handled as well, but I have full confidence that it'll be so cool to see you do a grill restaurant. One of the things that I've always told my chefs and people that I collaborate food with is that don't mix like China and Vietnam are two different places.

24:09Japan and Vietnam are two different places. Don't mix those two together. Like where would there be this mix? Japan and, you know, Japan and Seattle. There's a ton of Japanese in Seattle. So that food makes sense because there's a lot of Japanese people there. Oh, yeah. Right? Vietnamese and Texas and Louisiana. Yeah, Houston. Houston. Great, great, great. All that food, there is a – that's a birthplace of that Viet Cajun thing. That food goes well together because those communities have combined. So when I tell them how to kind of like mix those cultures together, that's how you mix those cultures together.

24:45Nikkei cuisine, perfect example. Like Japan has been in Peru forever. So that food tastes good now because like they've created these dishes that, you know, were never made before. And the Philippines is like a major example of how Spain has, you know, used, you know, ugly colonial movements and colonization. But, you know, ultimately, Spain and an island nation have come together and made food that, you know, is listen to. And this is the crazy part about kind of like colonization. The Philippines is one of those countries that only that I honestly believe like a lot of traditional Filipinos don't think of it as a negative thing.

25:27A lot of Filipinos are like, especially older Filipinos are like they're proud that like, oh, I have Spanish blood in me. And where it's like, you know, that was like under such really bad terms. But through that, food came about, you know? Yeah, I mean, I sense nothing but pride from Filipino Americans and Filipinos about the cuisine and how it's so unique in Asian food. Like, it's just like a unique—it's an island. It's out there in an island. Yeah, I mean, if you think about it, like, spice isn't like—even though we're that close to the equator, spice isn't the heavy— No. there is a bread culture and a baking culture there, which is kind of unique, you know, because we get that from the European side.

26:11But it is a rice culture, right? So it's like you have all these really fun things to play with. And, you know, like what is adobo in the Philippines? Is it adobo in Mexico? And is it adobo in other Latin? I mean, you look at also like Kerala and Vindaloo. It's a similar story too. you know it's it's this colonization and this ugly chapter but of course carolyn cuisine is is extremely original and i'm prideful people are prideful about it and filipinos are i mean you know i think and especially now there's a lot of these filipinos who are um like tim flores and and his wife who are who are doing filipino food uh and making it and not being unapologetic and charging $250 for a tasting menu of Filipino food.