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5 min readEddie Huang on Loneliness, Compromise, and the Art of Staying Weird
Eddie Huang has had a year that sounds like a brag: he launched a podcast (Canal Street Dreams), released a documentary (Vice is Broke) that opened the Toronto International Film Festival, wrote a novel (Come Undone, out June 2025), and opened a restaurant inside the Flower Shop in New York. But as he tells Emily Sundberg on Expense Account, the surface-level success story misses the point. "Somehow I still found a way to overdraft my bank account," he says. "I thought that was the most impressive feat."
The Loneliness of Having "the Best Job in the World"
Huang's new novel is autofictional, and it directly confronts a period in his life that looked enviable from the outside. During his run hosting Huang's World, he was traveling constantly, eating well, meeting fascinating people, and never paying for clothes or meals. "Everyone I met, friends, family, fans, just strangers would be like, you have the best job in the world," he recalls. "And it was fantastic and I would never complain, but at a certain point I got really lonely."
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What you'll learn
- 1 (01:01) **Welcome & Catching Up** - Eddie Huang joins the pod; the two friends trade stories about being sick over the holidays and recap Eddie's whirlwind 2025.
- 2 (04:31) **The Four Projects of a Crazy Year** - Eddie lists the major creative work he produced in 2025: a podcast, a newsletter, a documentary, a novel, and opening a restaurant.
- 3 (04:51) **Inside "Vice is Broke"** - Discussion of Eddie's documentary about the rise and fall of Vice magazine, its cultural moment, and the difficult questions it raises.
- 4 (10:48) **The Creative Process & Daily Routine** - Eddie breaks down his hyper-disciplined daily schedule for writing and running a restaurant.
- 5 (14:38) **The New Novel: "Come Undone"** - Eddie describes his upcoming auto-fictional novel about a successful but deeply lonely man, exploring themes of loneliness, intimacy, and family.
- 6 (18:31) **On "Fresh Off the Boat" & Rewriting** - Eddie reflects on his first book, calling it a "fire mixtape" but admitting he sees structural flaws now that he's a more seasoned writer.
- 7 (20:50) **Insanity on "Wong's World"** - Eddie recounts the most extreme travel and production stories from his TV show, including a fight and jail time in Sicily.
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Guests on this episode
Show Notes
This week on Expense Account, J Lee spoke to chef, author, director, and writer of Canal Street Dreams on Substack, Eddie Huang. Topics discussed included:
* Getting arrested in Sicily.
* Writing his book to Sky Ferreira on repeat.
* His honest thoughts on the state of menswear in New York.
* And ChinaMaxxing.
Expense Account is a food podcast for everyone. Insiders, outsiders, your mom, your dad, New Yorkers, Angelenos and also people from Florida (we love you). Anyone who enjoys eating food. It’s even for people who hate food. Feed Me’s resident food critic, J Lee will be joined each week by interesting and noteworthy guests from various fields who will make you laugh, they might even make you cry, who knows. You’ll find us here each week. Subscribe to stay relevant.
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