It's good to know that there are 340,000 people out there with some sense of taste. As reported in Eater today, the Slanted Door—wedged in there with a lot of steakhouses and crab places and Las Vegas nightmares—is number 27 out of 100 of the top grossing independent restaurants in the United States, coming in at $15,495,332, serving up 340,000 meals at a $44 check average. (On a sidenote about people's bad taste, Harris Ranch—yes, the one along I-5, within wafting range of the horribly smelly and upsetting cattle ranch just down the way that makes me want to give up steak forever—is number 74, coming in over $11 million.)

A man that can make a restaurant serving daikon rice cakes and caramelized catfish claypots into a multimillion dollar venture should be applauded.

And we thought Charles just sat around slurping noodles.