Nel podcast quotidiano di oggi, tutto locale, dedicato a Metro Detroit, le statistiche mostrano che il crimine è notevolmente diminuito a Detroit.
Inoltre, l’ingegnere Randy Walker si unisce a Norris Howard e Jer per parlare di come ha provato lo Shaq’s Big Chicken a Livonia, di un nuovo locale per il brunch in città chiamato BLVD e di come Norris ha parlato della sua eccellente cena da Leila, citata dal New York Times.
Photos are courtesy of Randy Walker.
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Listen in the player below, and scroll down for a complete transcript.
Norris Howard: I’ve returned in a new year, 2025, the year where I thought the future officially started, and we are not there. So –
Jer: Are you disappointed in the future?
Norris Howard: So disappointed. We don’t have flying cars. We don’t have robot maids. We don’t have anything.
Randy Walker: We didn’t get the Irish unification of 2024 that Star Trek promised.
Norris Howard: So we got a lot of stuff that’s really not great right now, and I blame science fiction totally.
Randy Walker: In other Star Trek news, we also didn’t get The Bell Riots, so there are some pros and some cons.
Jer: And with your Gene Roddenberry fix, we have none other than Engineer Randy Walker. It is good to see you in person.
Randy Walker: I’m glad to be back at this table. I know it’s been a minute. I think it was maybe April or even longer since I was here last, but I’ve had some stuff happening in my life. I moved to a new place in town, and I had a kidney stone or two. So I’ve been away from the table.
I haven’t been on the microphone, but I’ve been hanging out in the Discord. So I haven’t been far from Daily Detroit.
Jer: So what I’m hearing is that you need to be a member at patreon.com/dailydetroit to get your fix of Randy Walker lately.
Randy Walker: all the Randy you can take and then some.
Jer: And you’re within walking distance now. How do you like the new place?
Randy Walker: I love the new place. I’ve been in Midtown since the beginning of August, and I’m within walking distance of everything. It’s great. I love it.
Jer: Alright, yeah, because you were over in West Village before.
Randy Walker: I was. It was a nice little quiet neighborhood, but there’s so much more stuff to do in Midtown compared to West Village.
Jer: Was it too quiet for you?
Randy Walker: It wasn’t too quiet. It was just a little far from everything
Jer: Okay. Okay. Well, how was your New Year’s, guys?
Norris Howard: Man, let me tell you. This is the first New Year’s I’ve spent in almost like a decade as a single man.
Jer: Detroit’s most eligible bachelor!
Norris Howard: If that’s what you want to call it, sure, but I just went bar hopping with the homies; my brother and two of my best friends came by, and we just bar hopped around Downtown.
We went to Queens, which is like, you know, a straight up normal spot. You got to go to Queens, went to Eatori, which I always forget has a restaurant in the bar inside of it until I go and have great meals. They had a whole menu and a whole New Year’s thing. We actually did our little champagne toast at Eatori, which was great. And then we just kind of bounced around other places Downtown. It was great!
Jer: Yeah, recently we covered the expansion of Eatori into having more grocery space. They took over another storefront. So it’s side by side now. The menu, I mean … so [did] you really like it?
Norris Howard: Yeah, it’s always a great place, and the people there are always super nice. The menu is comprehensive enough. And that is what I like about it.
It’s kind of very not complicated, which I dig. The drinks were slapping. They had a DJ in there. It was pretty cool. It was just really nice time, nice vibes.
Jer: I have not been in Downtown for New Years since back in the day when they had the D drop. Do you remember when we actually used to have like a gathering? And that just, it has not happened. That died even before the pandemic.
Norris Howard: It did. And I think it’s because one of the issues was with the D itself. It was like it got messed up or something. I can’t remember, but…
Randy Walker: Ooh, gotta hate a messed up D.
Norris Howard: Yeah. Okay, Randy. [stifles a giggle]
But anyway, I kind of missed that too, but that in general wasn’t as busy as I thought it would be on New Year’s. I found out a lot of people, from talking to other friends, that they were at the crib on New Year’s.
Jer: Do we need to bring back a regional event now that you know we’ve had so much success with the [NFL] Draft and everything else? I mean, obviously we’d have to put in all the like accoutrement now. Right in these days where you’d have to have like the protection and have an area, but it would be great to see something. I mean there’s the tree lighting. I guess. Maybe that’s kind of it. But like I feel like if we’re going to keep doing stuff for New Year’s, we got to have something to bring people down. You know?
Norris Howard: You know what I would prefer? I would prefer if all the bars and restaurants got together and were like, “here’s just a big New Year’s thing that we can do collectively” and almost create like an official bar crawl because that was really fun.
Randy Walker: but kind of like restaurant week but for new year’s and better yeah um
Jer: But for all intents and purposes, restaurant week in Detroit is no more.
Norris Howard: Yeah exactly! Kind of similar to that because I honestly think a lot of people are kind of spooked out about like big large gatherings of like thousands of people for many reasons. Yeah but for many reasons. And so I could see why you want to walk that back a little bit, but I think just creating something more official that like the uninitiated could do, I think would be fun.
Jer: Well, let’s get into a little bit of the news before we talk about where we’ve been, because we’ve checked out some really good spots around town. But I don’t want to pass on the fact that in 2024, the city of Detroit recorded its lowest number of homicides since 1965, alongside the lowest number of carjackings in 2024. The city of Detroit recorded its lowest number of homicides since 1965, alongside the lowest number of carjackings since records began. This is according to the Detroit News, which got some information ahead of a general press conference that will be happening Friday after our regular podcast post time.
That’s why I’m referring to this. This is some information that’s going to be public, but apparently they got it first. Here’s what you need to know. Violent crime dropped 7% from 2023 with total violent crimes at their lowest since the sixties. Non-fatal shootings fell for the fifth consecutive year with a 48% decrease from 2020. Carjackings dropped to just 140 incidents, nearly 17% down from 2023’s low. Property crime also dropped 5% from the previous year. Vehicle thefts dropped just over 9% and a 4% drop in larcenies over the last year, according to Detroit police data. Burglaries were basically flat, so some big progress in some areas, holding the line in others. Generally, I think for a city that for years was maligned with very bad news, great progress. As somebody who worked a number of Angels’ Nights as a volunteer since like the early 2000s, this is huge, and I think [it is] great news for the city.
Norris Howard: Yeah, I think it’s incredible. And I think one of the main things that I want to focus on is that obviously, I think a lot of people are going to look specifically at like Downtown and the improvements there. But the vast majority of crime in the city never took place downtown. That is something that, you know, I think we need to kind of get out of our minds.
This is progress happening in the neighborhoods. And that’s something, before we talk about anything else, I want to specifically hit on.
Jer: For sure. There were some high profile events that I think were in the news that caught people’s attention, but that definitely was not the overall story, right?
I feel like some people felt, you know, whether it was Greektown, or some others, that there was some stuff that was not great that made the news and definitely needs to be addressed. There was also some stuff with block parties. We addressed that on the show, but overall the progress has been very good.
Norris Howard: Yeah, it has. And there’s been, you know, the community policing efforts, and there’s been funds that have been given to various groups across the city in order to execute on those community policing and community impact groups in order to curb, particularly, gun violence. And I think it’s kind of had a ripple effect because, also, I feel like when you got the vibe and the energy around the city that feels good, I think that tends to permeate throughout the city. And obviously this is not scientific, but when you got people that feel good about where they live or at least better than they felt years ago.
I think you tend to not want to do certain things. And on top of that, I just think low-key. I hate to say this, but you know what I’m saying? They own a video game, man, because the kids is in the house, man. They’re not standing outside like that. I think it’s a different era.
We’re talking about a different type of person. And I just think the combination of the community policing efforts, the changes in attitudes towards crime and towards violence, I mean, these are also most of these crimes were committed by younger people. And a lot of those young people have grown up with like school shooter drills, man. A lot of these kids don’t want to go through this stuff, man. I think we need to also look at some of the fringe impacts as well.
Jer: All right, let’s get into some fun stuff. Randy, you’ve even found the biggest chicken possible.
Randy Walker: I’m going to describe a location. Then you see if you can tell me why it sounds so familiar. So it’s on Plymouth Road, near Middlebelt, across the street from Walmart, in front of Dunham’s Sports, next to Haraz Coffee.
Jer: I believe … wait a second …. didn’t we go there?
Randy Walker: We went to this exact physical location. Do we even do what happens? We did an episode
Jer: We did an episode. Okay … okay wait a second. The Guy Fieri’s Chicken [Guy!] didn’t make it, right? That is there already. [The] location of Chicken Guy!, so we’ve now been reaching …
Randy Walker: We have been re-chickened. I don’t know why they decided to open the same concept in the same space. I don’t know, maybe Chicken Guy! was not doing well.
But Shaq has decided to throw his chicken tenders into the ring and has opened a Big Chicken. And his location is now in the former Chicken Guy! spot.
Jer: I didn’t realize at first. I knew you were going to it. I had an idea that you’re going to talk about this. You know … give the rundown of said Big Chicken. I did not realize that the chicken has been re-chickened and that like is there a chicken equilibrium and agri-librium.
Is that a thing that like one chicken place must die for another one to open?
Norris Howard: Yes, a this point we have reached critical mass on chicken and the proliferation of Chick-fil-A must be curbed and so
Jer: Okay, I’ll be honest. I want to hear your review. I’m very interested in your review, but my gut feeling is like unless that you have a chicken recipe from Moses, himself, that was written on the tablets – the 11th commandment.
It’s your chicken recipe. I’m not sure we need more chicken joints in Metro Detroit.
Randy Walker: I would tend to agree. Yeah, if you want to open a chicken joint, I guess you have to force another one to close so you can assume their spot in the pantheon or like Highlander, there can be only one. And they’re all fighting to the death.
Norris Howard: Nah, it’s Yu-Gi-Oh. You have Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments with everybody in there.
You can end, but nah. You can have magic. …
Jer: the clucken-ing!
Norris Howard: God, that’s so bad, Jer. It’s so bad. But yeah, one has got to die in order for a new one to rise.
Randy Walker: It was good. I liked it. If I was in the mood for chicken, and I happened to be in Livonia for some reason.
Jer: Net positive or net like … so Chicken Guy! We lost Chicken Guy! Yeah, we both tried it. Was it better than “Chicken Guy!”?
Randy Walker: Oh, I think it was slightly better than Chicken Guy! “Chicken Guy!” was solid, but it had a few misses. There were no misses in this Big Chicken.
Jer: Well, you know, there’s a lot of people who live in Livonia, too. There are, for some reason a ton of people nearby. Yeah … I have listeners …
Norris Howard: They got buses too, so now you can … now you’re gonna get busses soon. You’re gonna be able to take the bus to Big Chicken.
Randy Walker: But I was over in Redford picking up some Christmastime treats from Aykroyd’s Scottish Bakery, and so I figured I would go to the Costco over in Livonia to do some Christmas shopping. And along the way, I saw that Big Chicken was there and decided to stop in.
Norris Howard: Do you know what? That whole area, that little intersection right there at the Costco with the Meijer and all that, that got to do better right there. Because that’s a very busy crowd. That’s a nightmare.
A high traffic intersection. Oh, I’ve driven past there before. It’s awful. And you got the Menard’s on the other side and the Dick’s. It’s just too much commerce right there. They got to spread it out. It’s too much. I can’t get that.
Jer: Or maybe, I don’t know, redesign the area so it makes some sense, like the roads or something. Because I feel like I’m playing Frogger while driving.
Usually it’s Frogger as a pedestrian because I would never want to cross that as a pedestrian. But while driving, it’s like stress inducing for me.
Norris Howard: Well it’s because it’s like all industrial zoning still.
Randy Walker: If you want to go south, you have to be strategic about where you turn. You have to try and get yourself to a light to make that turn south.
Norris Howard: You just got to risk your life.
Randy Walker: Yeah, just got it.
Jer: What were the standouts?
Randy Walker: Oh, boy. I really liked the chicken tenders.
I tried the sandwich and I got a tender just on the side to try. It was nice and crispy on the outside. It wasn’t like a hard, firm breading. It was nice and crispy, and you could actually bite through it.
Norris Howard: I got to ask a question because it’s real. I feel like it’s hard to mess up a chicken tend-ie. I feel like it’s hard to do that.
Randy Walker: to get the breading right, you’ve got to cook it enough so that it’s done, but not that it’s overcooked because nobody wants undercooked chicken, but also overcooked chicken is just sawdust.
One will kill you. Another one, yeah. One will kill you, and one is bad. I had the sandwich. It was also quite good.
Jer: I have to ask you about the fries.
Randy Walker: So … they’re crinkle fries, which are not my favorite.
Jer: So listeners know, Randy is very particular about his fries.
Randy Walker: I am. At least they were crispy on the outside, which is good. I like crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, but I think crinkle fries are too much fry in one bite. There’s too much surface area for the crunch, and then there’s too much filling. It’s not a good bite potato.
I like the shoe-string. It’s just skinny, crispy on the outside, just a little bit of fluff in the middle.
Norris Howard: We’re having a moment over here. That is so disappointing. Crinkle fries are peak. I haven’t had the big chicken crinkle fries, but I’m a big fan of a crinkle fry.
Jer: I’m a waffle fry guy. Waffle fries and tater tots.
Norris Howard: I’m a curly-fry, guy, low-key.
Randy Walker: Curly fries are probably my second, waffle fries third, crinkle fries after that, and then wedges or steak fries are just too much fluffy.
Jer: I am a tater tot [guy]. [It] beats all of it. And you know what? I miss the most the Arby’s potato edge.
Norris Howard: Oh, negative. Negative. Curly-fry every time. Chicken cordon bleu and a curly-fry doggy.
Jer: Let us know dailydetroit@gmail.com.
Who is your fighter? Who is your chosen one in the fry game? And thank you for telling me about Big Chicken. If I end up that way, which I’m sure I will at some point, I’m definitely going to stop by.
Randy Walker: And there’s a Chick-fil-A right on the corner there so just go an extra 500 feet and go into the Big Chicken instead of Chick-fil-A.
Norris Howard: So I’ve also went in eight places, not a chicken place, but over the holiday season, I was able to go back to Leila, one of my favorite places, but I was trying more things this time, specifically because I knew we’re going to be talking about stuff like this when we came back for the new year. I love Leila. They just recently got named to the New York Times, one of the top dishes ever in the whole country of 2024.
Jer: The official title is “the 26 best dishes we ate across the U.S. in 2024.” Detroit had two of them, in fact, not only Leila for their Lebanese[-style] sundae, which was ashta ice cream, with pistachio and … fairy floss?
I have no idea. … Okay. Okay. That’s the hipster word for cotton candy. Yeah, all right. And then Mike’s Famous Ham Place was also mentioned, which you know, you got your high end and then your diner goodness. But that’s … I think
Norris Howard: I love that. I love the sort of stratification there where it’s just like, you know, like for me, sometimes I still crave a corn beef egg roll. And it’s like …
Randy Walker: O yeah, I like that this list shows the range of options available in Detroit. Yeah.
Jer: So if people don’t know we can’t assume where is Leila where you’re gonna find
Norris Howard: Yeah, so Leila is over on Griswold in Capitol Park, right across the actual park part. It’s not far from Eatori like right next door to Eatori in the Farwell Building.
Jer: They’re connected to like the Phoenician [the Phoenicia Restaurant] right? Same family?
Norris Howard: Yes, the same family owns Phoenician. So if you have been up to Phoenicia [Restaurant] in Birmingham, this is the same family, same restaurant group. So you will enjoy it. The lamb … incredible!
Jer: I tried a new edition that really didn’t get a lot of press, but I was glad to see it. The Boulevard, BLVD. We don’t use full words here.
At least they didn’t use- But which Boulevard? BLVD. But which one?
Randy Walker: There are multiple of those, even.
Jer: Didn’t know that this one is in New Center. So this one is right over where the old city wings was?
Norris Howard: Oh yeah! Yeah. Yeah.
Jer: Yeah, they still have the same like big wall there the Ikea style like blonde wood wall bank at that’s still there By the way, if in case you’re curious But it’s in that storefront there right over by the Fisher Building on West Grand Boulevard There’s parking in the back and parking in the street did an afternoon brunch I was quite happy with it actually so did the berry French toast the grandmother’s breakfast, and I tried the peaches and cream pancakes and the meta training omelet. So I sampled a few different things the total bill just under 50 bucks. Just so you know It’s not bad for brunch, not bad at all. The standout for me was the berry French toast. Okay, I very much liked it and also the Mediterranean omelet with the feta cheese.
Would you?
Norris Howard: stand it up next to like Hudson Cafe or Dime Store French Toast.
Jer: Mmm same as the same genre same vibe
Norris Howard
That’s what’s up. same vibe. same vibe. Okay. Okay, cuz when I think of like French toast like in the city.
Jer: Like that’s where I go. You know what it made me think of? And they I didn’t see it on the menu. But do you remember when it was New Center Eatery right near there? Do you remember that place? It was there for a million years at a giant photo of Coleman Young. Yes, I remember. That place was an institution. The chicken and waffles was among the best. R.I.P. It’s been gone for a long time.
Yeah. What a throwback that was. Oh, man, I have many good memories there. Yeah. Over the years. But I’m glad to have a brunch place. And they serve it late, too. You can get it at like four o’clock, which is huge and clutch, I think, especially for an Engineer Randy.
Randy Walker: Uh, yeah, if I do brunch, it’s got to be at 11, maybe 11:30 at the earliest. I figured you like breakfast at any time because you serve our night owl.
I am. Yeah. So, uh, having brunch options that late is pretty good.
Jer: I’ve seen a ton of coverage on it so I figured I’d give it a shout out because I enjoyed it. We had a great time. I know we were near the end of the shift, but they still pulled it through for us. It was one of those things like do we feel like breakfast for almost dinner. Yes. Yes, and they came through by the way home fries was their style of potato
Norris Howard: Also at the bottom for me. I’m a hash browns guy. Hash browns baby.
Jer: Well, with that, we are done for today and the week on your daily Detroit. I appreciate you so much for listening. I appreciate our members, patreon.com/dailydetroit. Norris Howard, as always, I appreciate you.
Norris Howard: I always love to be here.
Jer: Randy Walker, don’t be a stranger, come by more often, my friend.
Randy Walker: Now that things have calmed down a little bit in my life, I think that’s possible.
Jer: Until next time, thank you so much for listening! Remember to share the show with a friend, and we’ll see you around Detroit.
