the grub street diet

Comedians Rajat Suresh and Jeremy Levick Eat Breakfast Whenever They Want

“I can set all of my own rules.”

Comedian Jeremy Levick and Rajat Suresh with their beverages of choice, black coffee and beer. Illustration: Eliana Rodgers
Comedian Jeremy Levick and Rajat Suresh with their beverages of choice, black coffee and beer. Illustration: Eliana Rodgers

Jeremy Levick and Rajat Suresh produce absurd comedy videos that capture the ridiculousness of life right now. Our friends at Vulture described the comedic duo as “masters at satirizing the super-specific internet stories,” calling them comedians you need to know. “We like for it to feel like you’re coming across something real but it just feels insane,” says Levick. What you don’t know about the comedy duo is that they also take food very seriously. “We support each other, but sometimes I can tell Rajat doesn’t know a food, and I’ve got to jump in,” Levick explains. Suresh counters, “It pisses me off sometimes when Jeremy doesn’t know a food.” 

Tuesday, January 19
Rajat Suresh: Sausage egg and cheese from Sunrise/Sunset plus a coffee. They put it on a bun. I don’t usually have sausage, egg, and cheeses on buns, so that’s kind of nice. A lot of people are asking me about this. I go there every now and then, it’s a little far.

You know, the Trump administration was so crazy and so unprecedented. I mean, the way he was just so rude. I needed something to center myself at the beginning of the day, and get ready for the return to normalcy, the return to unity. You can say that a sausage, egg, and cheese is kind of the most united sandwich you could get. Because it unites the sausage and the egg and the cheese together, like the Republicans and the Democrats. That’s what I was going for. I prefer not to eat bacon, I think. That also falls under unity.

Jeremy Levick: Morning coffee, black. Late breakfast — 3 p.m. — of egg whites with roasted tomatoes, toast with peanut butter, and cantaloupe and honeydew. This would be the last balanced meal I will have this week, and I was so proud of myself.

I do like that I can have breakfast whenever. My rules. I don’t live with mommy anymore, so I can set all of my own rules. Same with Rajat.

RS: I can basically do whatever I want. But I would also like to add that it’s very authoritarian of Jeremy to just decide whenever breakfast is.

JL: It’s so ironic that I’ve now become mommy. I’ve become the tyrannical mommy that I’ve escaped, and now I set all these rules for myself. You’ll find out from my food log that I have a very loose eating schedule. That’s a decision, and it’s not just that I’m out of control with my life.

RS: Chicken biscuits and cheese bread from Sol Sips, plus beers. You don’t want to be a lightweight. I care about that a lot. I’m always telling Jeremy you’ve gotta get your drinking up, because when you go to the frat after that they’re just going to make fun of you.

I would probably say I’m a 5 on the vegan scale. I was raised a vegetarian, and then my parents taught me to eat meat because it would be easier, so I feel like I have a good mix. I do like the fake meats a lot. Fake meats are good.

JL: I had a late dinner. A “Field Burger,” which is a vegan burger made out of mushrooms and lentils or something, and a few vegetables. Broccoli and some other stuff. I’ve tried many of the veggie burgers and most of them are bad. I’ve been recently trying to find patties that are soy-free so that MAGA people don’t call me a soy boy.

I basically do not want to even go into this, but I had a late-night snacking session and it’s a bunch of insane foods that should not be eaten together. I’d call it embarrassing, but my normal meals are just as embarrassing, if not more so. I’m usually hunched over my kitchen counter having a bowl of a broccoli that I just put in the microwave and half of it is still frozen, and my roommate will frequently shake his head at me. I tried to tell him that he was being classist against me, but he pointed out it’s not a problem of affording nicer foods; it’s that I am stupid.

Wednesday, January 20
RS: Banana and coffee. I think Andrew Yang called it the breakfast of champions in that video.  I mean, who isn’t inspired by that guy? Just picking up a whole bushel of bananas, I was like, “I have to do it for our new mayor hopefully.”

JL: I had my morning coffee (with turmeric) and a frozen Amy’s breakfast burrito. The burrito was no longer frozen by the time I ate it.

RS: I would like to add, sometimes I’ve seen Jeremy take the burrito right out of the freezer, and then he just sucks on it until it is thawed.

JL: It’s so exhausting to do that. I need to take a break before I can move my mouth again. So I have to prepare, basically. When am I gonna be hungry? And if I know I’m going to be hungry later, I take it out and suck it and then eat it six hours later.

RS: Jeremy’s mouth is really hot. So it usually warms it up pretty well.

For a late lunch, I had one slice of pizza. I was walking around listening to a podcast and then I got a little hungry. But it was a little bit before dinner, so I got a slice, and chomped it down outside while everyone laughed at me on the street and then I kind of just walked home.

The podcast is called Pizza Time, and they said now is the time you go eat a slice and it’s silent for 30 minutes. We’re big Pizza Time guys.

JL: Yeah, The New Republic puts it out, it’s really interesting. Anyway. I had an apple with peanut butter for lunch.

RS: I got a quesadilla and chips from Taqueria Santa Fe. Inauguration mode. Also, more beers.

JL: Rajat’s food pyramid looks really insane, and it’s not even a pyramid. I don’t know.

RS: Yeah, it’s a new shape. The closest thing is a square, but it’s not a square. A lot of people see it and call it Rajat’s Square but it’s not. That’s not it.

JL: Late dinner. Edamame, sweet-and-sour vegan chicken, and a slice of carrot cake from Zen. First, people would call avocado a superfood, then kale became a superfood, and this year it’s vegan carrot cake. The frosting is in the shape of a carrot.

RS: While we’re talking about the food pyramid, the little picture of the carrot, how do we know that’s not frosting?

JL: If you look at a food pyramid you see greens and vegetables and all this stuff. You don’t realize that it’s all frosting in the shape of food.

I went crazy on this round of late-night snacking. Way worse than the previous night. A whole bowl of cereal, peanut-butter sandwich, a bunch of vegan deli meats, banana, more. It was humiliating this time, too, because I knew I had to log it. Felt like I was doing it in front of all the readers.

Thursday, January 21
JL: Morning coffee, black. If you noticed I never put milk in my coffee, you have a keen eye. It’s because, whereas a lot of new mothers produce milk, mine produced black coffee.

RS: Oatmeal and coffee. I famously like to eat just a bland thing in the morning. You can see the following I have on Twitter. I think that’s mainly from eating bland foods in the morning. Most of my followers follow me to see if I’m going to talk about bland food. I used to get the Trader Joe’s Os that are $2 and taste like nothing. They taste like cardboard. This oatmeal had a lot of seeds in it.

JL: Rajat gets the black watermelon seeds in his oatmeal, the ones that you’re not supposed to eat.

RS: In my oatmeal, I once had an entire apricot or peach pit, and I just swallowed it.

JL: Yeah, like a pill. Sometimes I hide the apricot pit in peanut butter and spoon feed it to Rajat. Rajat and I are convinced you’re supposed to eat the pit. We don’t trust what everyone says.

RS: We think the pit gets a bad wrap in the news. From the mainstream media. So we eat the pit.

JL: No one would think to eat the pit, so how would you know it’s not good for you?

RS: For lunch, I had fake-meat chicken tenders and waffle fries from Hartbreakers. I think “waffle” is the best shape for fries. That’s what I’ve always said. I’m very militant about it. I get very mad if someone brings up a curly or a shoestring. If you’re around me, you don’t bring up that kind of divisive talk. It’s just uncivil.

I also ate some frozen M&Ms. Why do I eat them this way? Uh, they taste better. That’s an easy one. My girlfriend does this and I stole the idea from her. I just want to give credit where credit’s due.

JL: Everyone, I just want to say, do your due diligence and look up whether Rajat’s girlfriend is real.

RS: For sure, do it. She has a website, and you can check it out. It’s www.rajatsuresh.com/girlfriend. Go for it, check it out, and make your own decision.

JL: First meal of the day at 7 p.m. (???). I was busy doing really nice things (charitable donations and running a 5K to support one of the nicest charities in the world) so it’s not weird how late my first meal was. I had General Tso’s tofu and vegetable rolls from Good Taste. This is the Chinese takeout a block away from me in Crown Heights, I go here all the time and this is my usual order. I love it. There was a shot of Good Taste’s awning in How to With John Wilson and I was eating Good Taste as I watched the episode. It was awesome. It was takeout Inception. It actually kind of messed me up. I was sort of in a weird paralysis, I didn’t speak for three days after that.

RS: You had wires connected to you, if I remember correctly, like in Inception.

JL: In that sense, it really was an Inception situation because it literally was Inception. I had the wires set up and I was going into Rajat’s dreams. I got stuck there for like ten years but only three seconds passed.

RS: Chips and salsa. Snacktime at around midnight — I’ve heard this is actually really healthy. Everything I’ve discussed so far is a strict diet that I am following. It might seem like, “Oh, he’s having a banana now, and that seems random.” But no, it’s very strict, and it’s based off of my food shape. I’m a big dietician and I try to keep myself healthy and I’ve been doing intermittent fasting as you can tell.

JL: That’s what Rajat calls running as fast as he can while eating. Rajat will say, “I’ve gotta go fast over to that piece of food.”

RS: I mean, what else could that mean? I get so excited when I see something healthy, I start doing it.

Friday, January 22
RJ: Everything bagel with jalapeño cream cheese from Knickerbocker Bagel. Also a coffee. I threw a bagel in the mix here so people know I’m a New Yorker.

JL: That’s code for Jewish.

RS: I hope this is clear that I’m the Jewish one, and Jeremy is the Indian one.

JL: I got an egg-and-cheese on a sesame bagel from a bodega. (Also had a banana and some orange juice.) We both had bagels because we had a bagel competition. The competition is who can eat a bagel. We both won!

RS: Also, Jeremy used to live in Bushwick and we would go to Knickerbocker together.

JL: Fond memories. I do miss that experience. I haven’t seen Rajat since then.

RS: Later, I got half a chicken burrito and half a tofu torta, plus chips and guac, from Ojalá Mexican. I’ve never gone to this place before. But they have the tofu torta, which is just something I had to try. Again, it’s unifying the torta and the burrito. I was also eating with my girlfriend, who you can see at www.rajetsuresh.com/girlfriend again. Everyone should check out that site if they think I’m lying. We got both and split it.

JL: Field Burger again. I don’t drink much anymore, but I drank a ton of whiskey in my friend’s backyard (to show off for Rajat). I took it too far in that it hurt my body on Saturday, but I texted Rajat and said, “Guess how much I drank?”

RS: Again, it’s about not being a lightweight at the end of the day.

Saturday, January 23
RS: Turkey-and-seitan sandwich from a cafe called Chez Alex in Bed-Stuy. I like a good turkey sandwich. This is the first time I’ve had turkey and seitan. It had some chipotle mayo on it, which was also good.

It was also more unity, between the meats and non-meats. You’ve gotta listen to the other side.  So that both sides can come together and experience love, because that’s where it is, in the center, and it’s just so beautiful I think.

JL: My friend Sarah made us avocado toast. I know this is the hipster millennial food but it’s good. Recently, I got into being a hipster. I just learned about it a few nights ago. Someone sent me an Urban Dictionary link to hipsters, and I can’t stop talking about it. Apparently everyone knew what this was ten years ago and are done talking about it.

RS: I’m getting back into it now that Jeremy is learning about it. It’s so cool to go through the Whole Foods thing again.

My girlfriend made me chicken, broccoli, and tortellini. I like a pasta every now and then. I usually don’t go for tortellini, and this was special. Again, just check out her website. She made pasta and broccoli and chicken for me, because she’s a good girlfriend and real. As you can read on my website, and I just want to say to the Deadspin guys, given the Manti Te’o story they broke, if they can stay away from this, that’d be great.

Also ate a grocery store Oreo cake. It’s a classic grocery store item.

JL: Rajat tries to dunk the whole Oreo cake in milk.

RS: That’s how you’re supposed to eat it. I pick it up with one hand, and just kind of let it soak. I ate a very good amount of it. But I was with my girlfriend, and I was eating it with her.

JL: I went crawling back to Good Taste for lo mein and some broccoli. This is my second home, and they don’t mind. It’ll seem like they’re trying to kick me out, but that is not what’s happening. It is also my personal living room. They don’t call it that, necessarily, but I did set up a couch in there. It’s a small space so it takes up most of the room. I invite people over and it’s fun.

RS: It’s good there are the COVID restrictions, because you can just sit on your couch.

JL: Yeah, and when customers try to enter I go, “Six feet, buddy.” I think the owners like that.

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