“A lot of people hate canned tuna,” says chef Mark Hellyar of Momotaro. “It gets a bad rap.” He himself hated it growing up, he says, “because tuna casserole, that’s disgusting.” He thinks that Jimmy Papadopolous, chef at Bellemore, was trying to trip him up by challenging him to create a dish with canned tuna. “Little does he know that I eat canned tuna a lot—had some yesterday.”
“It’s pretty dead-on,” he said after trying it. “That actually tastes like a hoagie, I swear.”
