My next guest is the chef and owner of the legendary

Shopsin's restaurant in the Essex Street Market

right here in New York City.

His new book is called

"Eat Me: The Food and Philosophy of Kenny Shopsin".

Please welcome Kenny Shopsin.

(audience cheering)

How are you, Kenny?

Nice.

Nice to meet you. Good to see you.

Now, Kenny, what are we making today?

Pancakes.

Pancakes, all right.

And your pancakes are a little unusual.

They're not like pancakes that people would normally find.

How are they unusual?

I put a lot of different stuff in.

Okay.

Lets go ahead and do it.

Lets go ahead. It's alright.

(laughs) Okay. That's it.

All right, just bat me around as much as you like.

Sure.

So, and your pancakes, you add things, huh?

Now this.

Oh, okay.

All right. A little bit, not too much.

Maybe I should stop talking. (laughs)

(audience laughing)

Alright, spread the butter around

like this? Yeah, it doesn't matter.

Oh, okay.

Put a little bit, right there.

All right, don't touch the...

Ouch, its hot. Right here?

Yeah, okay. Right, like that?

That's perfect, its enough.

Alright well, I like laying a little bigger.

There you go.

So you say.

So, (laughs)

(audience laughs)

I think you and I have a magical chemistry here.

(audience laughs)

Put some of this in. What are you putting

on here?

Macaroni. You have your own macaroni, use your...

You put macaroni on a pancake?

Yeah.

Okay, most people would not put macaroni

on a pancake Kenny.

Why macaroni?

There was a kid that used to come in my place.

Put a little cheese.

Okay.

(audience laughing)

Peter, and every day he would have macaroni and cheese

or he'd have pancakes.

And one day, he left it up to me.

Right?

And I said, yeah. I'll do him both, what the heck.

So I just put 'em together.

And that was it.

(audience laughing)

So the kid couldn't decide

between macaroni and cheese and pancakes.

And you said, you jammed them together

and it became a sensation.

It was, yeah. It worked out really well.

And he had that every day after that forever.

Okay.

This is something I was gonna do for you, a Conan burger.

A Conan burger.

Tell us what's on the Conan burger.

It's a cheeseburger.

Little bit of sex appeal and some genius? (laughs)

(audience laughing)

I don't think I got that.

That's okay.

You wanna it turn over?

Turn it over?

You tell me you're the maestro right here.

Okay, watch that. ♪ Summer high ♪

Press it down a little bit.

Press it down?

You're allowed to press down.

Okay, Preston,

what does pressing do, does it released the natural oils?

Well, actually, what happens is the cheddar cheese

that's on the bottom,

Yeah. Crusts over,

like that burnt cheese on a grilled cheese.

Oh, good yeah.

And then the macaroni and the goo and the pancake

kind of get like nice and macaroni cheesy.

I like your technical terms.

(audience laughing) Usually I use

a different term, but they told me not to.

Okay, (laughs)

Well, I'm glad that someone talked to you beforehand.

What am I doing? Why is a hamburger on this plate?

What am I gonna do? That's something

I made for you, the Conan burger.

The Conan burger, okay.

Oh, you're doing great, look at that.

Sometimes when it won't come up you turn it the other way.

Yeah, okay. All right, yours... (laughs)

Do you want a chisel for that there?

Are you gonna be okay?

There it is.

Okay.

Take some more butter.

We gotta keep going there.

Oh, sure, more butter.

All right. Why not just die today.

(audience laughs)

Right there. You better get this off

or it's gonna mess.

Okay, get this off right here.

Alright is this... Turn it over

and put it over there

Well over here.

Yeah. And you turn it over.

Oh, look at that. That looks actually...

Actually better than mine.

Wow, well there you go. Beginner's luck.

You think so? So put down three more pancakes.

Three more, okay.

What other kinds- I would say,

about the same size because... Are we gonna make?

I don't know.

Okay, mine are those were little messy though.

That's it, no they're really nice.

Okay, and what do I do with this burger here?

Does that burger go on it ?

Just use your hands- Turn it over.

If you want.

You're not really gonna eat it, are you?

Yeah, I was gonna eat it. I don't waste food.

Oh, really. You put a hamburger

in front of me, I eat it yeah.

I washed my hands. Turn it over.

Okay.

Little salt and pepper.

All right. Okay, then what?

And put it in the pancake.

Oh, okay.

(audience laughing)

Can't you make it at least seem a little harder than this?

You make the pancake, you put it on top, you're all done.

It's really not that tough.

Put a few chocolate chips on one of your,

Chocolate chips with a hamburger

No, on two of your other ones.

Oh, okay, all right.

I thought you're gonna make- Although it's not-

Something crazy. A bad idea,

Toll House burger.

Alright, and what about the marshmallow?

Would you put the marshmallow on here?

We're gonna use that, were gonna use that.

But first put some graham cracker crumbs on the two

with the chocolate chips.

These aren't pancakes you're making.

These are gonna be s'mores.

These are candies you're making

S'mores! You're absolutely right.

So this is, you put the graham cracker

on top of the chocolate chips in the pancake.

Yeah.

All right, can I put--

In the meantime, you got to remember now to put the cheese

on your, on your Conan burger.

Okay. All right.

Okay, you really gonna serve this as the Conan burger

in your restaurant?

You know, I have, my daughter bought me a printer

for my birthday.