Herrine reviews the best food she's ever tried from videos on Food Insider
- Herrine Ro is a senior video producer for Food Insider.
- Her friend and editor, Emily Christian, made a compilation of six of the best videos Herrine produced.
- Herrine reviews Emily's compilation video and shares behind-the-scenes stories and commentary that never made it into the published stories.
Following is a transcription of the video:
Herrine Ro: Carl!
Carl: What?
Herrine: Can you close the door? I can hear you peeing. When this quarantine is over, I am preemptively filing for divorce. Hi, guys, I'm Herrine, and it has been about four years now since I've been a video producer at Insider. A lot of you may know me as just the girl who eats, but I promise you I'm a lot more than that. I have eaten giant foods, viral foods, sometimes strange foods, and legendary foods, but not all of the things that I've eaten were what you would expect. Like, not all of them were, like, delicious. My editor, Emily, is surprising me with a compilation of some of my most memorable moments as a producer here.
Emily Christian: Shall we begin?
Herrine: We shall begin. I immediately recognize the first clip, and I'm not surprised. I get asked all the time if this tasted good. I mean, it didn't taste bad. I still don't know what it tastes like. I still wouldn't be able to explain it to you. Oh, and the chef, Will, this has haunted him. Like, the watermelon ham truly follows him wherever he goes. [laughs] If somebody gave me a plate of this and I had no idea what it was, I would assume that it's just very, very raw prime rib. Doesn't look like raw prime rib. [laughs] Good try, Herrine. Good try. It didn't taste like a watermelon, but it had the texture of one, and it definitely didn't taste like a ham. I don't know. So, Emily, would you try it?
Emily: No. I'm sorry. Absolutely not. How much did it cost?
Herrine: It cost, like, $60 for a watermelon.
Emily: No.
Herrine: And there was, like, a list. There was, like, a waiting list for it, if I remember correctly. After the video went viral, I mean, granted, like, the amount of work that went into making the watermelon ham, like, obviously you're gonna wanna upcharge.
Emily: It's really, like, the novelty of it, you know? I think. If you're ready, Herrine, OK, I just wanna preface the next one. It's important to me that I say a few words before we begin. This was a shoot we did together. It was one of my favorite trips we've ever taken, our trip to Seattle, OK?
Herrine: Yes!
Emily: And I just wanna say sometimes I sit at home and I think to myself about the fact that this video exists on the internet. You should just roll the clip. You should really roll the clip.
Herrine: I mean, if that doesn't catch your attention, I don't know what does. Oh, my God, that looks like a [whistle] I can't - sorry.
Clip: I just wanna touch some geoducks!
Herrine: Oh, she just wants to touch it. This is like one of those things where, like, no matter how many times you're exposed to it, you just, like, you're still very....
Emily: It never...it never gets better. I think something that people might now know about you when they watch your videos is, like, you're very honest. Like, you have a hard time masking your emotions. If you feel a certain way about something, you're not, like, you know, I love you, but you're not very good at hiding it.
Herrine: I did not like the taste of it at all. OK. It kinda tasted like abalone in the sense where it was, like, kinda crunchy.
Emily: Yeah, it had that, like, almost like a cartilage-y kind of consistency.
Herrine: Yeah. But it was extremely briny and, like, had a distinct smell that, like, just I feel like is an acquired taste. Like, it really truly was.
Herrine: I just hate that you, like, used the word fleshy for it.
Emily: Yeah, but, like, I couldn't think of another way. Like, once I was eating it, I was like, "This is fleshy." This video just goes to show that we will really do just about anything for this job. We're locked into this career now.
Herrine: All right, next one. How could I forget? One of my favorite videos of all time. I miss my silver hair, though.
Emily: Yeah. This was truly a journey for your hairstyles.
Herrine: Every afternoon at 5:00 p.m., hopeful diners wait in line anywhere from two to four hours to put their names down on the list for the night. When I went in, I was honestly more excited about trying the pizza, because I knew it was so difficult to, like, get in.
Mark Iacono: We start taking names at 5.
Herrine: I still remember when I saw Mark for the first time. I was so starstruck. [orchestral music]
Emily: I remember you telling me about it too. You were, like, in love with this story, and then I started to feel jealous.
Herrine: To get a better idea of what makes Lucali pizza so great, I had to step into the kitchen and learn how Mark makes his pizza. He kind of, like, sprung it on me, where he was like, "Do you wanna learn how to do it?" And I was kinda like, "Uh, OK." I'll do whatever you want me to do. And then it became, like, this video that, you know, exceeded my expectations, to say the least. I have the upper-arm strength of a child.
Mark: Put some muscle into it.
Herrine: I have more muscle now. I've been working out. Dollop it everywhere?
Mark: Well, you don't gotta slam-dunk it, basketball.
Herrine: The subtle shade. So gingerly place it down?
Mark: Yes, just throw it on.
Herrine: After that, the pizza goes into the oven and is topped with Parmigiano-Reggiano and fresh basil. I never thought - Oh, this moment, when I was filming here, the restaurant is always so, so packed and, like, constantly is just, like, an influx of people coming in and out, so in order to film this, because the restaurant is so dark, we had to be right next to the window, and it's like a family-style window, so we were occupying, like, a table of five, and all I saw was people staring into the window, cold 'cause it was winter, looking at me, charging a whole table of five, and, like, eating this pizza being like, "Oh, it's so good." I have tried coming into Lucali's so many times. Oh. I did cry eating this pizza. It wasn't for show. [piano music] So I feel like that's the reason why this video did really well, is because he was there at each part, and then he, like, sat down to eat with me, which, again, the family table is just.
Mark: I don't eat a lot of Korean food. I don't know where to go.
Herrine: OK, that I can share with you.
Mark: OK, you gonna take me out for Korean?
Herrine: Yes, I can do that. Mark: I may have to name the pie after you.
Herrine: He did make that pizza dedicated to me, but he didn't put it on his menu.
Emily: Did you actually end up taking Mark to Korean food?
Herrine: I did. [laughs]
Mark: No, I'm really good with chopsticks, except metal ones. I gotta get some, like, grips or something. [Herrine laughs]
Emily: Well, Herrine, I will say the chemistry in that video is, like, it's astounding to watch.
Herrine: The comment section was straight wild. The disrespect in some of you. Ah, mustard pizza. You know, this one actually tasted, like, pretty good.
Emily: It looks good to me.
Herrine: And, like, those little, like, charred cheese bits were delish.
Clip: Let's go find out!
Herrine: These guys were such characters, oh, my God.
Francis Garcia: Who doesn't like a cheese sandwich with mustard?
Herrine: I think they're, like, brothers. They're related, if I remember correctly. Wow, OK I have a lot of thoughts.
Herrine: She always has a lot of thoughts.
Clip: It is growing on me. If you ask me, this deserves a little bit more.
Herrine: The amount of cheese that goes onto that pizza, I mean, granted, it is a Detroit-style pizza, alarmed me. And for the video we really wanted to show that it had mustard in it, so we asked them when we were filming to, like, put more mustard on, so when I got the pizza, it had more mustard than, like, the original one on their menu, so it was, like, very sour. I'm gonna have so much heartburn after this. The owners were so funny.
Emily: When you guys came back to the office from this shoot, you were like, "You have to see these guys. They were incredible on camera and we have to show this bonus clip that we have." And I think, like, I have the bonus clip if you want, if you want to reveal it.
Herrine: Oh, my God, play it.
Emily: OK, OK, I have the bonus clip, I have it right here.
Francis: Welcome to Lions & Tigers & Squares. We sell Detroit pizza with a New York accent right here in New York City. Detroit pizza, New York accent, Hawaiian - [horn blowing] F---! [beeping] [beeping]
Salvatore Basil: We gotta do that s--- again!
Francis: [beep] that was you, you [beep]! Look at the Statue of Liberty. Control the crowd. All right, all right. Look at the dogs, the dogs are great!
Herrine: Next video now. Benny Tudino's! Why did I do that? Why did I just look surprised or, like, scared in, like, every video in the beginning?
Emily: That was an old Insider thing, where you would just be like [gasps]. [intense music]
Herrine: Oh! Oh, my God!
Emily: 'Cause we didn't used to talk in our videos. This was before we ever spoke.
Herrine: Yeah, this is actually when we didn't speak at all in our videos. We have some great moments. All of you are just so astounded about our very stark height difference. I mean, you're 6 feet? Emily: I'm 6 feet, yeah. So we're on either end of the spectrum, truly.
Herrine: I mean, I keep her around because she gets me from, like, a high angle so I look skinny. This was honestly one of the best pizza slices I've had. Oh, Carl! Wow, Carl looks so different.
Emily: You guys both look like babies, absolute babies.
Herrine: So, the guy who's in the video eating the pizza is my now boyfriend. He was the camera person for this shoot. He no longer works at Insider. Ooh! This video made cannoli one of my favorite desserts. We just arrived in Boston.
Emily: It's cold.
Herrine: It's so cold! Oh! This lady, she was like, this lady, she was like, "Do you want me to do it in a thick Boston accent?" And we were like, "Yeah." And then she just went for it.
Kim Ring: Oh, my God, Mike's Pastry. It's the North End, you really can't go wrong. It's homemade, it's rich, it's creamy, it's sweet. Like I said, you know, the character alone is worth it. You just gotta deal with the calories.
Herrine: Mike's Pastry was good. They were big and, like, delicate. And then Modern Pastry was just, like, very sweet. I still remember that yellow vanilla custard was just, like, extremely sweet. The underdog was Bova's Bakery, which is my favorite place in Boston now. The Florentine is my favorite dessert I've ever had. I think it was one of the best things I've ever eaten in my four years as a producer at Insider. This is very overwhelming. Oh, this was the part where that girl came over to you and just ate your cannoli. [laughs] You didn't even know her.
Emily: It's good, right?
Girl: It's so good.
Emily: Do you want the rest of it? Herrine, I had no idea how to handle that situation.
Herrine: I don't know what a Florentine shell is. I assume that it's from Florence. Maybe. It's French. It's from France. You and I both didn't know what a Florentine cannoli was going in, but they just kind of offered it us, like, kind of toward the end, where they were like, "Oh, you should try this too." And oh, my God. So, basically, like, the shell, instead of, like, those cannoli shells that are, like, fried dough, the Florentine cannoli has, like, a sweet almond brittle. Right? That's the shell?
Emily: Yes, I think it's, like, caramel is the binding on that.
Herrine: If the people that I know are working there, they will pack me the shells of the Florentine separately and give me, like, one of those piping bags of the cream so that, like, they won't get soggy. I ate too much filling. I'm just, I'm really glad, though, that we ended up featuring Bova's and, like, everything worked out the way that it did. It is now, like, my favorite place in Boston. Oh, is that it?
Emily: Yeah, that's the last one. Yeah.
Herrine: Oh, that was so much fun. Emily and I, we don't really know how to end conversations, 'cause we're, like, very awkward. So, how do you wanna do this?
Emily: I don't know. Um, bye!
Herrine: Bye!
Emily: Bye!