Ep 280: Robert De Niro

Transcript

Speaker 1 Oh no, it's James A Caster from the Off Menu Podcast, the podcast that you are listening to, and I have some news. I am going on tour round America, North America,

Speaker 1 from the 20th of January, starting in Toronto, and then finishing once again in Canada, in Vancouver, on the 15th of February. And in between, I'm going all over the place.

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Speaker 1 Welcome to the off-menu podcast, taking the garlic of conversation, the razor blade of friendship, and slicing it into thin slices of humor, James. What a reference.
That is Ed Gamble.

Speaker 1 My name is James Aiken. So together we own a dream restaurant every single week we're inviting a guest we asking their family just laugh just laughing already

Speaker 1 it's funny yeah it is funny and this week our guest is robert de niro it's robbing we're being slightly quieter because we're in um a room at the langham hotel in london where robert de niro is doing press for his new show zero day um out now on netflix

Speaker 1 unlimited series and yes it's not a joke actually that we have robert de niro on the podcast No, we're not joking. But just because things aren't a joke doesn't mean they're not funny.
Yes.

Speaker 1 So that's important.

Speaker 1 It's very funny that this podcast

Speaker 1 has Robert De Niro on it. Yes.
It's mind-blowing. And that's no shade to all the guests we've had in the past.
Who have all been phenomenal? It is. Yes, full shade.

Speaker 1 I hate all the guests we've had in the past. We've got Robert De Niro today.
So from now on, I only want Robert De Niro-level people, which means this is the last episode. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Because there's absolutely no one on the level of Robert De Niro. Al Pacino, maybe.
And then we're Chino. Yeah, and then we're done, aren't we? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 And then we want to get them both on like heat and to speak to each other across a table. Yeah, that's in a diner.
Yeah, yeah. Food related.
Yeah. Maybe we'll ask him about that.
Maybe, maybe.

Speaker 1 But like, I mean, we'll definitely ask him about Zero Day, which is out now on Netflix.

Speaker 1 Zero Day is a new limited series starring Robert De Niro, of course, who is on the podcast this week, playing ex-US President George Mullen.

Speaker 1 It's the first time I've done any research in advance of an interview.

Speaker 1 Often people will send links and stuff and you're like, well, I know the vibe. We'll just have a chat.
I was like, I'm going to watch this.

Speaker 1 And it's six episodes and I watch the whole thing in two days. It's fantastic.
It's proper gripping, interesting, like asks a lot of questions about unchecked power.

Speaker 1 But there's some crazy stuff going on in the show, man. It's such a good cast.
Plemons is in it as well. Jesse Plemons.
Yes. Lizzie Kaplan? Yes.
Angela Bassett. I can't believe these names.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's a big show. Dan Stevens is in it as well.
I really enjoy watching Dan Stevens and stuff. Dan Stevens is so good in this show.
So go and watch that on Netflix now.

Speaker 1 I promise you, you will like it. It sort of reminded me of the excitement I used to get when I was watching like 24 in that first time of the golden age of TV where you're like completely gripped.

Speaker 1 But now we're in the golden age of podcasts. We're in the golden age of podcasts because,

Speaker 1 well, I mean, I've... I want to say this, bumped into Rob Bryden on the way here.

Speaker 1 He was like, what are you up to? I went, I'm going to interview Robert De Niro. That guy was jealous, man.
Great. I hope he was jealous.

Speaker 1 I hope you listened to this, Bryden, and you know how much we love that you were jealous. He said, you've won the podcast wars.
The podcast wars.

Speaker 1 I didn't know there was podcast wars, but it feels great to win. Yeah.
The winners of the wars are the ones who don't know about the wars.

Speaker 1 But listen, even though we love Robert De Niro, we're very excited that Robert De Nei. Obviously, we...
Come on, mate.

Speaker 1 We can't do this for De Niro. We need to have a secret ingredient, and if he says it, he gets kicked out.
Well, we can, we're going to.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 He's not going to know what the podcast is for a start so we're not gonna be able to kick him out of something he doesn't understand what's going on in well that's i mean that's exactly look we've only ever kicked one person out this he's ripe for the kicking out if he doesn't even understand it we can get him i don't think i can kick robert de niro out man well especially as we've come to him where he's doing press the langham hotel yeah the langham hotel where you lived yes so i don't think we can kick him out i think we'd just have to leave okay which is going to be baffling

Speaker 1 that's the rule for this episode if he chooses a secret ingredient we leave.

Speaker 1 That's fair. Okay.
And today, the secret ingredient is cheese and bickle sandwich. So he's not going to pick it.
It's a cheese and pickle sandwich.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we deliberately made it something you won't pick. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Travis Bickle, obviously the character that he played in Taxi Driver.

Speaker 1 Sounds like pickle. Yeah.
And the cheese and pickle sandwich is a thing. So that's what we've done there.
Cheese and pickle sandwich. Cheese and pickle sandwich.
So like we're safe. If he does say it,

Speaker 1 that's going to be bigger news than if he did his whole menu, I think.

Speaker 1 Well, well if he does say it and then we leave baffling baffling for him but i don't think he'll care no i think he'll be like well that's me off the hook i've got i'd imagine he'll be like yeah got a bit of free time now yeah he's a busy man

Speaker 1 just just to remind you it's robert de nearber deio we've not even you know bothered to list his credentials not usually at the start of an episode we'll be like this is who this person is yeah you know obviously you all know robert de niro a you know them and b we don't have time to list all his credentials if anything i think we should probably list our credentials at the start

Speaker 1 Most people are listening are going to be like, I don't know who these two are. Host of The Traitors, Uncloaked.
Uncloaked, please. Over there.
One of the judges on Great British Menu. Yeah.

Speaker 1 A very successful stand-up comedian. Sell out tours around the world.
Did you start on you, though? That's you. Yeah, right.
Okay. That's still you.
Does the Taskmaster podcast?

Speaker 1 He won Series 9 of the Task. Off-menu podcast.
He does the Off-Menu podcast. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. I'm James Acaster.
Lars Pinfield. I'm Lars Pinfield, John the Mouse.

Speaker 1 I also do stand-up comedy. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I did hypothetical on Dave for a few series. It's going to be awkward if Robert auditioned for Lars Pinfield.
That would be so awkward.

Speaker 1 Or if he was like one of the people who nearly got John the Mouse replacement and he couldn't make it work.

Speaker 1 I bet if Robert De Niro had done it, they wouldn't have called it John the Mouse. They would have said, oh, we'll change it to Robert De Niro the Mouse.

Speaker 1 I wonder what we call him. My instinct is to go.
Sir or Mr. De Niro.
Yes. But is that the relevance of the scene people be familiar with him and call him Bob.
We mustn't do that. Okay.
That's a deal.

Speaker 1 Go and watch Zero Day on Netflix, but only after you've listened to the off-menu pod.

Speaker 1 Insane. The off-menu podcast, the off-menu menu of Robert De Niro.

Speaker 1 Welcome, Bob, to the Dream Restaurant.

Speaker 1 Welcome, Ronnie De Niro, to the Dream Restaurant. We've been expecting you for some time.
Were you impressed by the genie there? Yes.

Speaker 1 I don't know why, yet, but I was... It was pretty good.
I gave it some extra for you because

Speaker 1 I wanted you to believe I was a genie. I believe it.
And your whole career is making people believe you're other people.

Speaker 1 So I was like, if I can get this guy to believe I'm a genie, then everyone has to admit I'm the best.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, I thought maybe you'd be dressed differently, but, you know, the way we always imagine a genie with a...

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 He's

Speaker 1 quite a modern genie, like he just wears his own clothes, really. Yeah.
It's a nice modern twist, actually. It is, yeah.
But I should have gone more method and, like, dressed as the genie probably.

Speaker 1 Well, yeah, I guess. Either way, it's okay.

Speaker 1 I guess you're, this is, this is, um, on film. Oh, yeah, they're filming it as well.
So I kind of, that is an oversight on my part. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 That I'm now not going to at all look like a genie on camera. So the people who see it, actually, I don't think people have normally seen me do that bit at the beginning.

Speaker 1 Now you've pointed that out, I am mortified.

Speaker 1 Normally this is audio and people can just imagine it through the magic of audio and I make that sound effect and people always believe that it's me bursting out of a lamp.

Speaker 1 They don't think it's me doing it with my mouth. If James was auditioning to be a genie in a film, would you suggest he put on a genie outfit or do you not agree with people dressing up for auditions?

Speaker 1 Well it depends on what

Speaker 1 the character is aside from being a genie, what the story is and everything else and what's demanded. It could be a modern today story where the genie is dressed the way he is.

Speaker 1 Or he might have a little touch here and there, a little earring or something, you know, pierced dear earring, God knows a little goatee,

Speaker 1 whatever the director

Speaker 1 would suggest or work with or the wardrobe people.

Speaker 1 If it was a Scorsese genie flick, which you know might come up in the future, might come up in the future. Do you think James would get in? I don't know.
Depends.

Speaker 1 Depends on the story. Yeah, I think

Speaker 1 if I do get the audition for Scorsese Genie Flick, I am going to wear the earring and grow a goatee. And then maybe

Speaker 1 you will say to him, you know, I told him to do that. Yeah, but that's a start.

Speaker 1 It shows that you're thinking and that you're trying to, you know, that you're being proactive about trying to get the part. So that would make a difference.
Could make a difference.

Speaker 1 So what for Zero Day, this new series? What prep did you go in for that? When you think, I'm playing the president and ex-president in this. What are you thinking about him and that character?

Speaker 1 Well, I had a great team around me, Eric Newman,

Speaker 1 Noah Oppenheim, and Noah Oppenheim is the head of NBC News at one point, I think, and Michael Smith, Pulitzer Prize author writes for the New York Times. I mean, Eric and I met.

Speaker 1 I was talking to my age about what could I do in New York for five or six months without having to go, you know, go somewhere else to shoot. Maybe we should talk about a limited series.

Speaker 1 And he introduced me to Eric Newman, and we talked, and then he came up with this idea, and he wrote me what you call a treatment, which is maybe 20 or so pages, give or take, whatever. And then

Speaker 1 what the story is, it sounded good. Then he started sending me installments every few weeks and it was good.
So that was a big help.

Speaker 1 So it wasn't like I did preparation other than even seeing presidents and political figures on television and press conferences and interviews and stuff like that. You get a lot from that.

Speaker 1 Is this your first presidential role? Yeah. Well, I'm not a president.
I'm an ex-president.

Speaker 1 Ex-president, yeah, but you've you've got to still have that, I guess they will still have that presidential vibe to them, don't they? Yeah, yeah. They still get called Mr.

Speaker 1 President some of the markets.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they do. That's pretty sweet.
Yeah, that's nice.

Speaker 1 We always start with still or sparkling water. Do you have a preference for your dream meal? What was that? James is from Kettering, so a lot of people don't know.

Speaker 1 Do you know where Kettering is in Northamptonshire? No. It's in the middle of the country.
It's a small town. Used to make shoes and doesn't anymore.
One of those places.

Speaker 1 That's where I'm from. So often whenever we speak to people who aren't from the UK, I'm the issue.

Speaker 1 So there'll be a few things coming up where you'll have to double check what James has said, but I'm happy to translate. Okay, good.
Would you like still or sparkling water? Still.

Speaker 1 Have you always been a still water guy? Pretty much. Sparkling is good too, but I've sort of been more a still guy these days.

Speaker 1 I mean, especially, I guess, if you're going to step into a scene or something, you don't want to glug some sparkling water and be going in there a little gassy you know. True, true.

Speaker 1 Yeah so another reason to have still water. Have you ever been gassy during a scene to the extent you needed to stop? No but what I have had is

Speaker 1 my stomach rumbling and growling and I'm trying to stop it. And it's so annoying.
You're in the middle of a scene and it just won't stop. It has a life of its own.

Speaker 1 See that's that can be annoying surprisingly. That'd be good if like the scene was before a scene where you're eating.

Speaker 1 So if it was in Goodfellas and you're all in the car and then you decide to stop at the mum's house and then you're eating that big meal, if before you're in the car, your stomach's rumbling.

Speaker 1 In the next scene, when you're eating the meal, everyone's going to be like, well, good for him.

Speaker 1 He was hungry earlier. That's a good point.
And what could have been done, though, wasn't done, Marty could have put... like laid in a soundtrack with grumbling instead of stomach.

Speaker 1 You know, can't think of everything.

Speaker 1 Well, maybe in the future. Yeah, some people say that film's perfect, but they forget there were no stomach rumbles.
There's always something you can do better.

Speaker 1 Pop-doms or bread. Pop-doms or bread, Robert De Niro.
Pop-doms or bread. What? Yes.
Pop-adoms or bread. So this is one of these moments I knew was going to come.
Yes, I need interpretation. Yes.

Speaker 1 James shouted, Pop-adoms or bread. This is the next option within the dream meal.
What is that? Pop-adoms,

Speaker 1 crispy Indian snack that you might get before you have a curry.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 and you get those with all the Indian dips or bread. I'm assuming you're a crossbread.

Speaker 1 Eurocross bread. You know, oh, no, now we need another person to get a break.
You know what bread me?

Speaker 1 I like all kinds of bread.

Speaker 1 That's Indian bread. It's sort of a crispy chickpea-based thing.
So that would come at the start of an Indian meal.

Speaker 1 So what James is shouting is pop-doms, or are you going to go with bread at this point in the dream meal? Oh, it can be just whatever you like to have before a meal when you sit down at a restaurant.

Speaker 1 Sometimes there's prawn crackers, sometimes there's chips and dips, olives, you know. I'm easy.
I like whatever they put in front of me as long as it's good.

Speaker 1 Are you a foodie? Do you like going out to eat? Come on, this guy owns a chain of restaurants. He owns try back and grill this guy.

Speaker 1 He's a foodie. Sorry.
Sorry, Bob. I do like good food.
That was embarrassing.

Speaker 1 That was frankly embarrassing what he did just then.

Speaker 1 That's okay. Yeah, you might just be a good businessman.
Well, this guy, look, I mean, how did I actually know the Nobu story and how you came to be involved in it, but like, I think it's amazing.

Speaker 1 But how did you get involved?

Speaker 1 I was with Roland Jaffe, who's British director, and Roland took me to this restaurant called Matsuhisa. It was Nobu's last name.
And I said to him, I said, this is great.

Speaker 1 I thought this could work so well in New York. And then I just, I think it'd work well here in London.
But first, you know, in New York, it's easy to see.

Speaker 1 And so I said, if you ever want to open a restaurant, it was a long couple of years and finally opened it. Man, I had a similar thing with a juice guy,

Speaker 1 but he went quiet on me. James is trying to set up a juice business.
Yeah, it's gone bad.

Speaker 1 It's dead now. It's dead in the water.
The guy, he made these amazing juices at this restaurant in Copenhagen. And I was like, I want to start a juice business with this guy.

Speaker 1 And he was on board for a bit, but he's been ghosting me. He's not replying to my emails anymore.
I don't know. You probably didn't have that problem with Nobu, but like the guy just stopped.

Speaker 1 I suggested that we call it Juice Almighty,

Speaker 1 the thing. I think that turned him off.
Yeah, it would do, yeah. Yeah, it was a turn off.
I think it wasn't taking it seriously enough. It's not a bad name.
It's not a bad title or whatever.

Speaker 1 But you'd pick up a bottle of Juice Almighty if you saw it on the shelf. Well, the juice has to be good.
That's the bottom line.

Speaker 1 The juice is good. It all works.
It was stellar juice.

Speaker 1 It doesn't take... Yeah, that's what you say.
I have to taste it.

Speaker 1 Absolutely. And I wish I could give you some now, but the guy's gone quiet on me.
Oh, well, now you have to. it's gone fully quiet on me on the emails what can you what can you do

Speaker 1 so i imagine you don't have that i imagine no one goes quiet and chase him down yeah

Speaker 1 maybe look i'm actually going to denmark this week if you want to come with me bob i can i think it would help other things to do imagine if you were on the email chain i'll add you to the email chain i'm not sure if you've heard

Speaker 1 you're not a fan of being on an email chain no

Speaker 1 no that's not fun actually is it

Speaker 1 let's get into your dream meal proper your dream starter i don't i i don't know i just like i say i um

Speaker 1 like good food i like to go to a good restaurant that i've heard about in say london or wherever and i i can't give you that answer really i'm like if it's good and it's known to be good known to be good first step second step is to eat it see for yourself whether it's good yeah that could be anything we're gonna narrow you down bob we're we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna pluck We're going to pluck this answer out.

Speaker 1 I mean, I wish I had an answer. Like, yes, I like this pasta and that and this and all that.
Yes, and all.

Speaker 1 But I don't know why.

Speaker 1 Where do you like to eat in London when you're here?

Speaker 1 I like

Speaker 1 where I'm staying. I eat there.
I like the food there. It's simple.
But because I'm here for such a short time, it's like I just... I'm doing press all day.
I go home.

Speaker 1 I go to the hotel, eat, go to sleep, get up. So that's what I do.
So we're stopping you eating the good meals, really? No, no, the meals are good where I'm staying.

Speaker 1 Whereabouts are you staying? Chilton. Oh, okay.
Chilton Firehouse. So what do they have on the menu there? Do you have like a go-to on that menu? Just whatever they have is all good.

Speaker 1 I don't, you know, even at Nobu,

Speaker 1 I like,

Speaker 1 they bring me stuff, and anything that Nobu has is always great. That's when you know, that's when you know you've got it, isn't it? When you just walk in and they bring you stuff.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Do they let you come in through the kitchen? I go through a lot of kitchens because I sometimes go, just it's easy to to go in whatever place. Do they always go through?

Speaker 1 That's so glamorous, but you know. Every time you do it, does someone go, oh, this is like Goodfellas? And then you're like, yeah, yeah, I know.

Speaker 1 Well, I didn't think of it that way, but that's true.

Speaker 1 That's easy. When you're walking through the kitchen, do the chefs notice what's going on and sort of stop working?

Speaker 1 Maybe no, no, no. You're sneaking through.
You're just walking through quick, so you're

Speaker 1 awful. If I was a chef in that kitchen, you'd never go through that kitchen again.

Speaker 1 I'd ask me then to taste something. yeah yeah

Speaker 1 i don't want to offend you no so of course i say okay let me see what this tastes like and i'm going to say it's good even though i wouldn't be sure yeah yeah chasing you through the restaurant going try my juice bob oh yeah i'll be chasing with a glass of juice on mate yeah a captive audience well i i quite like the idea we've never had a menu before that is if it's good i'll eat it and they can bring it over and like if it's good you'll have it or whatever they like you know that means it almost puts it in our hands to just bring you good stuff.

Speaker 1 Yeah. What do we have to, are we going to do that then? Are we going to decide what we're bringing Bob in the dream restaurant? Yeah, we should do that.
Do you want to take the starter, Ed?

Speaker 1 Yeah, sure. I mean, if we're talking Nobu, obviously, famously, the dish that everyone loves there is the Miso black cod, which is fantastic.

Speaker 1 Are you a fan of that particular dish? Yeah, of course, yeah. So if we brought that over to you in the dream restaurant as your starter, how would you feel about that? That's good.

Speaker 1 You'd say you're doing your job well, guys.

Speaker 1 I'm happy.

Speaker 1 good it's all good now just full disclosure now bob the rest of the format of the podcast is me asking your dream main course your dream side dish your dream drink and your dream dessert now i think i know the answer to all of us why don't you tell me i'll tell you whether you're right or wrong yeah that's that works for us we could do that for the whole pod yeah uh also this is it's worth noting for the list that we we've not uh recorded here before in the langham hotel in London.

Speaker 1 Did you know, Bob? I lived here for a week. This was my home.
The hotel? Yeah. I was meant to go to America and my visa got messed up.

Speaker 1 And I had builders at my flat. So that like my agent put me up here for a week and this was where I lived.
So it's nice to be back in my house.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Nice home for you.
They were all very familiar with me. I don't think they are.

Speaker 1 No, it's it's a nice hot until I've stayed here over the years and I was just uh saying that I I saw that it was remodeled, renovated and I hadn't been

Speaker 1 here, I guess, in eight or ten years.

Speaker 1 I used to come here in the old days. It's my favorite place when I'm in town and I need a Wii.

Speaker 1 I just come here and I use the ones downstairs because they don't think anyone would be as bold as to go into a posh hotel like this just to go to the toilet. What do you mean?

Speaker 1 The public toilet? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 I haven't got the keys to my room still.

Speaker 1 But I go to the public one downstairs. Then how do you get into your room? I'm not even staying here when I do that.
Oh, now you mean you're not going to be able to do it?

Speaker 1 Now

Speaker 1 I'm just in town. I've misjudged it.

Speaker 1 I've had a few juices and now I've got, I'm like, I can't make it home. That's an hour on the tube.
So you live where you're from? Oh, no, I don't live in Ketwin. I live in East London.
Oh, okay.

Speaker 1 But even then,

Speaker 1 that's taking me too long to get home. I mean,

Speaker 1 I wish I had a better... control of my bladder, but I just know that I don't.
The tube,

Speaker 1 I'm panicking. Everybody's got a story and it's a valid one

Speaker 1 I think it's important though in a city to have somewhere that you know you can get to quickly to bring it up yeah I wouldn't you're right this is my place yeah I recommend it to anyone are there any hotspots in New York that we should be uh checking out to use the toilet of if we're there next

Speaker 1 well that's

Speaker 1 god I don't know a place known for its toilet yeah yeah

Speaker 1 I don't know and you guys probably know places better than I do in New York. I guess you can just walk into any kitchen and use the toilet in a restaurant, right?

Speaker 1 I suppose. I don't know.

Speaker 1 I manage.

Speaker 1 As we all, we time ourselves, so we want to make sure we

Speaker 1 find a bathroom of choice.

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Speaker 1 Your dream main course, Robert De Niro. Now, obviously, we're going to recommend something to you.
We're going to bring it over.

Speaker 1 You can tell us if we've got it right, if it's good.

Speaker 1 We've done our own dream menus on this podcast. And twice in a row, I have said that my dream main course is the Beef Wellington from Ron Gastrobar in Amsterdam.
It's perfectly cooked beef.

Speaker 1 Not too much of that mushroom sauce that you get in the Beef Wellington. Very little amount of beef.
Duxelle. Huh? Duxelle.

Speaker 1 The duxelle. That's what the chopped mushroom around the edge is called a mushroom duxel.
I just need to pick him up on it because otherwise, yeah, people will write in, you know.

Speaker 1 I mean, sometimes I don't understand him. And what he said then seemed offensive.

Speaker 1 What he said? Yeah, I didn't know. Not you.

Speaker 1 Listen, I would never say that what you're saying is offensive, but this guy. No, I'm trying.
This guy, I frankly am. I'm trying my best.

Speaker 1 Frankly, had enough of this fellow.

Speaker 1 And then the pastry is golden brown, crisp pastry, perfect. With this lovely but still quite subtle meat gravy on it.
And that twice, twice in a row has been my dream main course.

Speaker 1 Smells good. If I bought it over, would you be

Speaker 1 sounds good? You enjoy a bit of beef, Beef Wellington. Yeah.
In terms of the meats, where would you put beef? Which is your favourite meat? Can you do a little ranking for us? Well,

Speaker 1 can you make beef Wellington with

Speaker 1 Wagu?

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Yeah, surely.
I can imagine that would be good. Yeah, we're going fancy.
That's great.

Speaker 1 We'd upgrade the Beef Wellington dish to a Wagu Beef Wellington. A Wagu Wellington.
A Waguillington. A Waguallington.

Speaker 1 Yeah. It just sounds nice to say.

Speaker 1 I recommended it to a friend, the Ron Gastrobar Beef Wellington, and they went last week. And they said it was delicious, but they changed the presentation since I was there.

Speaker 1 And they sent me a photo and thought that I'd been pranking them because it did look. pretty bad what they've done to it now.
What did they do with it? They've kind of put

Speaker 1 a truffle on the top, but to the point where you can't really see the nicely cooked meat. So it just looks very dark brown.

Speaker 1 And then they've, instead of pouring the sauce or leaving it in a jug, they've just put a line of the sauce along the bottom of it.

Speaker 1 So it's like there's two eyes and a mouth, but it looks like the plate is haunted by the ghost of diarrhea.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Which is not a good ghost.

Speaker 1 It's called Ron Gastroban. And I must say the dish is absolutely delicious.
But the way that they've changed the presentation, I think, is not for the better.

Speaker 1 I'm not sure that's a quote they're going to put up in the window. No, I don't think they're going to be.
It's haunted by the ghost of diarrhea. I don't think they will put that.

Speaker 1 But I will say that he still was like, that tasted amazing. But to begin with, I thought you'd played a prank on me and sent me to somewhere that wasn't good.

Speaker 1 Is this

Speaker 1 a well-known restaurant?

Speaker 1 I think so. Yeah, yeah, it's doing well.
What's the name? Ron Gastrobar. Ron Gastrobar.

Speaker 1 This is in Denmark? Amsterdam. Oh, Amsterdam, yeah.
Yeah, in Holland, yeah. There was another restaurant in,

Speaker 1 maybe it was in Denmark. It's a with Nome or something.
Nome. No.

Speaker 1 Is that still around? Yeah, that's still going. I think they're

Speaker 1 closing. I think.
Closing and reopening and doing a Noma point 2.0. So they're getting ready to revamp it all.
Oh, I see for renovation.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and changing the way they're doing things with the dishes, I think, a little bit. I think they're doing a whole makeover.
Have you been there? I haven't, no.

Speaker 1 I was curious to go there, but I haven't been there.

Speaker 1 It's quite quite an experience.

Speaker 1 When I went there, I ended up eating duck's brain. They had duck's brain on the menu and bear.
It was bear meat. How do you feel about things like that when they're quite challenging?

Speaker 1 I don't know if it's good. Okay.
Depends if it's good and how it's prepared. Well, the duck's brain was served in the duck's skull.
Yeah, it looked insane. He sent me the photo of it.
Yeah, wow.

Speaker 1 And what did you think? Well, I mean, they couldn't get much flavoring into it because it was still in the head. But it felt weird.

Speaker 1 So they didn't take it out to cook it then put it back in i think they cooked it in the head they just cooked it like you sure about that yeah are you sure about that that's what i feel it felt like they'd like like like at the end of hannibal the ducks just sitting there glazed over talking to julianne more

Speaker 1 now now you say it like that bob it i think they might have taken it out the head i'd imagine that they took it out then prepared it then placed it back in the skull that would make more sense come on so no the duck looked pretty shocked

Speaker 1 chop the head off cook it and then serve yeah it's kind of yeah

Speaker 1 I think that could have happened I think what they do I go even further I think they get all the ducks that they're doing that with when they saw the top of the head off they take the brains out and they cook the brains and they don't even remember which brain was in which duck and then they're putting them back in all in different ways so it's like they're like freaky fridaying them in a way that got each other's memories kind of assembly line thing that that kind of takes the personal touch out of it yeah because you know they should put the brain back in the skull that it originally came from yeah that would make more sense be more respectful yeah yeah otherwise it's like sort of frankenstein stuff isn't it fully frankenstein yeah franken duck franken duck yeah so you you're happy to try things like that if they yeah i i you know i i i was in a in a restaurant in thailand about eight months ago and they showed us it was a good restaurant they had showed us pictures of the things that we had eaten you know kind of little like they do in in japan like they have the the pictures made out of wax whatever food and stuff like that and they this was something like that and they had like a big water bug on this thing and that was one of the things we ate oh inside of it or something or whatever

Speaker 1 you know i wasn't uh that excited to know that i was

Speaker 1 but at the same time it didn't taste bad but i'm glad they showed it to me after i ate it i think that's oh they brought the pictures out after you'd eat it. They brought this kind of presentation.

Speaker 1 It was like it was a live thing. It wasn't like a picture.
It was like they had little, you know, like model like models of the stuff. A couple of days ago, I ate like a shit ton of crickets.

Speaker 1 I ate so many crickets at this meal where like they were all about sustainability and like the future of food.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 it was a pilot for a TV show, so a food cooking competition, and I was a judge on it, which I'm not stepping on your turf at. Please, step on my turf.

Speaker 1 but one of the things they had to use the ingredients they had to use was crickets and I was starving and I ate so many crickets like I couldn't stop eating them do they eat crickets

Speaker 1 really I don't know big time it's like a little source of protein yeah of course and like I had it in a cofter

Speaker 1 I had a cricket cofter what's that like um kebab like a mince like a yeah like a mince kebab like like a sausage looking kebab kind of thing I had a cricket kofter I had cricket in ice cream like so cricket that was dipped in like salted caramel and then put in ice cream for a bit of crunch.

Speaker 1 That was very nice, like a rum and raisin ice cream. And I was just, if I'm honest, I was just hoofing them out of the glass.

Speaker 1 I was given a bowl of them and I was just eating those as they were because when I arrived, I had not eaten and was unaware of how long you have to wait for the food on a food cooking show.

Speaker 1 So I ate crickets for ages. I would imagine that crickets could be kind of dry roasted or something, like potato chips or something.
That would be another way

Speaker 1 to have them, or whatever they'd put in to give it a little extra flavor. I don't know what they taste like, just plain, but you're exactly right.
That's what they did to begin with.

Speaker 1 When I was having them at the bowl, they were dry roasted. So, yeah, you're spot on.
And

Speaker 1 they were great. Very moorish crickets.
We've had ants before, haven't we? We've had ants. We ate some ants once.
Sure. And this is the future of food, apparently, Bob.

Speaker 1 I could see that. Where did you have the ants? This was

Speaker 1 a test kitchen of a brilliant Mexican chef. He's got a restaurant in London.
He's called Santiago Lustre. And he turned his house into a test kitchen and invited us and gave us some ants.

Speaker 1 That was the opening snack.

Speaker 1 How big were the ants? They were pretty small.

Speaker 1 They weren't like big, scary ants. I'd say they were the sort of ants, if you saw them running around in your house, you'd be like, oh, no.

Speaker 1 So he had a bunch of dry-roasted ants. Yeah, they were sort of dry-roasted.
Yeah, little

Speaker 1 mouthfuls.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Interesting. They were small enough that you're like, how did you even go about cooking these?

Speaker 1 How did you gather them together? Yeah, right. Knock them all out at the same time or whatever you did.
And then f cook them all individually and get them to us.

Speaker 1 Like, I'm sure that's harder than for a big ant. How did they do that? Absolutely no idea how they did it.
I mean, I I personally would probably... You don't want to know, dear.
Huh?

Speaker 1 You don't want to know. Oh, I'd love to know.
I'd love to do it. Well, they must go to a place where there are a lot of ants.
Yes.

Speaker 1 Gather them all up, put them in something, and just dump them in a deep fry, I guess. You're trying to deep fry the ants.
I'm surmising. I don't know.

Speaker 1 There's sort of no humane way of doing it really, is there with ants? I guess if you're yeah for ants' rights, you know. Yeah, yeah, ants rights are quite important now actually.

Speaker 1 I would maybe just make like a build an ant hill around an oven. Another way to do it.
Trick them.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Trick them.
I reckon they're pretty easy to trick them. You know, you should just, yeah, well, okay, that's a bit wily coyote.
Yeah, that's what a wily thing.

Speaker 1 So maybe for your main course, you'd like a mixture of the duck brains, the ants, and the crickets. Okay.
Well, Well, that's with the... We're definitely doing the Wellington, I think.

Speaker 1 That's a good start. The Waggu Wellington and then

Speaker 1 the things that you get. The Waggu Wellington, yeah.
Yeah, that and the other things, the ants, the crickets, what's the other one? The duck brains. The brain.
Yeah. In the duck skull.

Speaker 1 But what we'll do, because this is a dream restaurant, we can make sure that the brain that's in the duck is its original brain.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's just a nice touch. Yeah.
Or if you like, we can put it in the head of anyone. We can take a duck brain and like a person who maybe you're not a fan of and

Speaker 1 real insult to injury is that they got duck brains. No, that's

Speaker 1 this is food. We're trying to enjoy.
It's one neutral thing we all can enjoy. That's such a good point.
Bob's not out for revenge. I don't know.

Speaker 1 Some people. You know, I was going to tell you once years ago when I was in Thailand shooting the deer hunter and we were shooting at the River Kawai and

Speaker 1 somebody said, you want to have some cobra meat? So I ate cobra. Wow.
And what was it like? It was okay. It wasn't great, but it wasn't, it was like cooked on a, they've literally over a fire.

Speaker 1 They're just like

Speaker 1 marshmallows. And I ate it.
So it had nothing on it to kind of give it a different flavor or enhance the flavor or whatever. So the whole making of that film sounds like it was

Speaker 1 pretty uphill from what I understand. It was hard to get it like, you know, made the way you want it to and then like, and it was such a huge success and now it's a classic.

Speaker 1 But it's pretty hard making it, right? It was.

Speaker 1 The toughest thing making it was the well it was it was it was hard but the the helicopter stuff we did because um it was very complicated on the river quiet to shoot the chopper coming down to pick us up and take us off the bridge because when we were on a log, which was, you just think it's a log, but the log in reality would roll.

Speaker 1 So they put a big thing below to give it ballast, like a boat, so it would stay that way.

Speaker 1 So we had to come down the river on the log, get onto the thing, but the chopper couldn't land because the bridge was too low and it was between two rock faces and it was a narrower part of the river so that the water ran faster.

Speaker 1 So we had to raise

Speaker 1 the footbridge higher so that the chopper could get down. So we couldn't, as I remember, we couldn't go get on the thing, the chopper come down, take us away,

Speaker 1 shot or whatever. So we did the first part going down, climbing up onto the footbridge, did that.
Then the next thing we would do, the chopper would come down.

Speaker 1 It was able to come down because the bridge was higher. So it came down.
And in the meantime, they have these boats called long tails.

Speaker 1 So they had them there, which is a car engine up here and a long sort of pole and then the propeller at the end. And they steer the boat.
And it had fallen down.

Speaker 1 It had sunk right on the other side of the bridge one had and it had these pointers i don't know what they were sticking up so we did the one shot where the chopper came down and chris walking got on john savage got on i sort of got on but i couldn't hold the runners because the runner was too thick to really grasp the way I should have and get my legs up.

Speaker 1 So I was just hanging from it. And the chopper went down, turned around and flew back up.
And then I just dropped into the water as we got close to the edge of the river, I fell in.

Speaker 1 Then we did it again, but this time I said, let's make the chopper back in so we're not turning around, wasting a lot of time. It backs in.
Chris gets in, John gets in.

Speaker 1 That's fine. It backed in, came back.
The chopper, for some reason, started rising before it should have. And the runners were under the cable.
So there's two walk cable.

Speaker 1 You put your arms as you're walking. It lifted the cable so we were all of a sudden hanging below the chopper, above the water.
And I said, John, let's drop, drop in the water.

Speaker 1 And we do, as I thought it was going to fall on top of us. And so we went under the water.

Speaker 1 What they do sometimes, in my experience at another movie, too, they have like in a river or something, they have like two outboards going with a rope across.

Speaker 1 They go at the speed of the river, so if you

Speaker 1 grab onto the rope, and you're okay. So that's what happened.
Downstream, we came up, soon we came up, grabbed the rope.

Speaker 1 And as we're up, I see the co-pilot of the the chopper stepping down and lifting the cable over the rudder because they realized what they had done and then they got lifted and they flew away

Speaker 1 and that's what we we said all right that's it we've done

Speaker 1 we've got it actually look at it that's all right

Speaker 1 in those days they had six cameras yeah shooting and that was it is it phenomenally dangerous i mean

Speaker 1 filmmaking must have changed quite a lot since then in terms of what the actors can and can't do i i don't know i i don't know who does what with students and stuff. Some actors are here like to do.

Speaker 1 I don't know. It depends.
So it's tough to think about food when you're in that situation.

Speaker 1 So you'll take a bit of Cobra. That's yeah.
Yeah, you'll have some Cobra.

Speaker 1 Normally now would be dream side dish, but maybe your dream side dish is the we've already kind of added the duck brains and the ants and the crickets to the wagu wellington. So are those the sides?

Speaker 1 Yeah, those are okay. But what about fries? Are you a man who enjoys fries, Bob? Sometimes, but maybe it should be something a little more exotic.

Speaker 1 It'd be good to get something exotic in this. It's a sweet potato fries, you know,

Speaker 1 even sweet potato fries. Oh, yeah.
They're good.

Speaker 1 Are they the more exotic option, do you think? Yeah. Well, in some ways.

Speaker 1 Different. You go for a raging bull when you put the weight on.
And

Speaker 1 what did you eat for that? Because I know that you ate brown rice and vegetables when you were getting in shape, but I don't know what you ate for the end of it.

Speaker 1 In those days, I didn't even know what brown rice was. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Of course, we did. But no, no, but I, no, I just ate light, didn't eat.
You know, it stayed light. But when I was getting the weight, I ate pancakes in the morning.

Speaker 1 I had to eat in the morning three full meals, which was hard to do. And then digest the food to eat lunch and then dinner.
And then I thought, well, I'm doing this food binge.

Speaker 1 You know, it's kind of fun for the first 10, 12, 15 15 pounds, then it's drudgery. I was going to go

Speaker 1 to France to have great meals,

Speaker 1 which I did. And that was good.

Speaker 1 The food in France is great at that time, but it was a little rich. So you couldn't eat as much as you thought you could.
I should have probably gone to Italy.

Speaker 1 So I ate all the time, but it was really, really. I gave myself a time limit, like two months or a month and a half before we to where I gained about 15 pounds to do an

Speaker 1 interim shot where he's out of shape, overweight. A scene in Florida that we shot in LA.

Speaker 1 Then we waited another two months or something and I gained more weight to get, or a little more than two months, I forget.

Speaker 1 I think it was about four, four or five maximum, whatever I could gain by that point would be it. So I gained 60 pounds.
Wow. From, I was 152, I went to 12.
Is that 60?

Speaker 1 Now you're asking. We're not mathematicians.
Yes. That sounds right.

Speaker 1 When you'd done that, how long did it take you to get rid of that 60 pounds? It always takes, you know, the first 40 pounds, you go right back to your old eating.

Speaker 1 You have to be careful not to eat too slowly and eat,

Speaker 1 you let yourself down easily. But then, of course, the last 15 pounds were the hardest to lose.
And then I had a doctor watching, you know,

Speaker 1 cholesterol and all that stuff. And did you have anything on the pancakes when you were eating all those pancakes? What did you put on the pancakes? Or was it just as they were? You know,

Speaker 1 sausage. Yes.
Even some

Speaker 1 sour cream or whipped cream.

Speaker 1 Syrup.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I loaded it up. And you had a lot of people telling you not to do it.
Is that right? No, nobody was saying don't do it. That's what the deal was.
We were going to do it. I was going to do it.

Speaker 1 But everybody's hoping that it'll work. Yeah.
There's people letting him hang out the bottom of a helicopter. I'm sure.
Don't put sausage on your pancakes.

Speaker 1 Don't combine the two, I'd say.

Speaker 1 Your dream drink? I like good wine,

Speaker 1 red, white, martini from time to time. We can definitely do it.
We'll do you a martini. Do you like that to start a meal or do you have it like to have it during? Beginning and then that's.

Speaker 1 Vodka martini, gin martini, what's gin? That's your preference. Dry? Dry cucumber, that's it.
No vermouth. No vermouth at all.
No. Not even the suggestion of vermouth.

Speaker 1 Straight gin. I respect it so much.
Just one and then move on. One thing actors always get asked about and debate about is how best to play drunk.
And there's loads of different answers to it.

Speaker 1 Like, I think a lot of people would look to you for the definitive answer, Bob. How would you say was the best way to go about it?

Speaker 1 Well, I think it makes more sense to

Speaker 1 not be actually drunk.

Speaker 1 You could do that too, but it's it's probably better not to. So, because there are other things that you have to be aware of and do.
That's what I would say.

Speaker 1 Don't actually get drunk is the top tip. Yeah.
I guess with multiple takes as well. If you're steadily getting drunk, that's another thing.
Yeah. You can't replicate it.

Speaker 1 Well, that's another thing too.

Speaker 1 But there are some actors who have a sniff of it first. They don't drink it, but they'll sniff it.

Speaker 1 That's interesting. Yeah, that's okay.
Or some people said the key is to try and act as sober as possible because that's what a drunk person's doing. Yeah, well, yeah, that could work.

Speaker 1 He's not going to give away your secrets. Tell us how to act drunk.
Is the secret mainly just do it well? Just act well? Well, yeah, to do it well,

Speaker 1 whatever your technique is. Do you ever find that on films now that maybe people who are in scenes with you and whatever are looking to you a lot? And are you a bit conscious of that sometimes?

Speaker 1 That like people are trying to learn from you as well as acting alongside you?

Speaker 1 Or is that not really the case no i don't i don't i mean i'm not not aware of that upset people must ask you for advice a lot though like newer actors not too much i don't mind giving advice yeah not not too much new comedians always ask you for advice yeah yeah like where's the best hotel to go for a piss yeah

Speaker 1 stuff like that we just tell them to stay off our patch and then tell them to not do it because we're the rulers of the roost really yeah we're the rulers of the roost you guys yeah okay you might not know that because you're not plugged into the UK comedy scene, Bob, but we're the rulers of the roost.

Speaker 1 Although you have, and actually, I can't believe we've not mentioned this. King of Comedy is one of my favorite films.
Same. I think it's incredible.

Speaker 1 And it's one of the few times where someone does a comedy monologue in a film and it's actually funny and works. Yeah.
Which is so rare.

Speaker 1 As a comedian, we watch a lot of like films and TV shows where people might be playing a comedian in a comedy club or doing a monologue and you're kind of like, yeah, this wouldn't really work in the room or this wouldn't land.

Speaker 1 Yours really genuinely does and the whole film hinges on it as well. I don't know, what was the secret to that? Because like, it's such a hard thing to do.
No,

Speaker 1 the person who wrote the script was a film critic, a very well-known film critic for Newsweek named Paul Zimmerman. He passed away years ago.

Speaker 1 And he gave me and Marty Scorsese the script and I thought it was great and the monologue is great.

Speaker 1 And in fact, when we shot the monologue, we did it once and I said, Marty, I think we got to do it again because it's not, I don't have it right. We got to do it again.
So we did.

Speaker 1 We shot it again, as I remember. But I thought it was a terrific script.
Yeah. And he, you know, Paul wrote it.

Speaker 1 I've seen outtakes of it where a lot of the some improvised moments are making you laugh a lot when Scorsese's mum is shouting down to you. You're in the basement and she's playing your mum.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I said to Marty, but what about your mother playing? And she's yelling down to me.

Speaker 1 And he's got all these

Speaker 1 sort of cutouts of famous people. And I took Marty to a couple of, I got to know some of these autograph seekers.

Speaker 1 And I'd say, these guys in years to come will become the paparazzi of the future for the tabloids. And some of them did, or the writers, one or two.

Speaker 1 But they were nice kids. And one kid took me down into a cellar.
And it was all, you know, it wasn't what we had was the... the cutouts and stuff, but the idea of it made sense.

Speaker 1 And so Marty's mother great

Speaker 1 so is that do you do quite a lot of research before you take on a role like meeting people who are similar to the character try to try to and i took marty to meet some of the kids i you know drag them along

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Speaker 1 Well, we arrive at your dream dessert. Before we make recommendations to you, do you have much of a sweet tooth? Do you like desserts? I do, but lately I don't have dessert.

Speaker 1 But sometimes, but I don't, you know, after the meal, that's enough. Well, we could always bring you some cheese instead of the dessert.
Cheese is okay.

Speaker 1 Well, it would be nice to have a sweet dessert, you know. James is obsessed with desserts, and

Speaker 1 I'm more of a cheese board guy. I like cheese too.
I had cheese last night.

Speaker 1 What cheese did you have last night? Oh, I forget, you know, I can't remember the usual cheese plate. Yeah.
Yeah, but that's the thing, isn't it? It's not very memorable, like cheeses and stuff.

Speaker 1 But whereas a good dessert, a nice ice cream, or like I remembered that cricket ice cream earlier, for example.

Speaker 1 Not that we're going to feed you more crickets. Yeah, you know, there's a limit.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 some restaurants are known for their great desserts. Sometimes what I do with friends is if we're a restaurant,

Speaker 1 we ask them just to pick out the three best of the and let us we'll share it. That's good.

Speaker 1 that is nice are you are you good at sharing yeah i usually eat off other people's plates because i don't want to have too much so i nibble here i nibble nibble there and plus you save one full meal that you have to buy so it's very you know it's also economical so you'll go with friends won't order anything and they'll be like i know

Speaker 1 kids are my kids are complaining to me that i pick from their web

Speaker 1 will you will you ask or will you just reach across and go for it at this point i just do it you know i'd have to ask sometimes it would be polite because the kids might be annoyed with me.

Speaker 1 That's a power plate. You could do that for your dream meal.
We could invite your kids to dessert. They all have a different dessert, and you can pick off all their plates.
Could do that.

Speaker 1 But now you're going to have to choose three desserts for Bob's kids. Yes.
Well, got to have some ice cream in there. Yeah.

Speaker 1 What flavours, though? I like pistachio.

Speaker 1 There are some, I'm forgetting what place I've been to, that great ice cream, whatever the flavours were, I can't even remember, but they were

Speaker 1 terrific. And sometimes you get, obviously, cow's milk ice cream but also like they do goat's milk ice cream sheep's milk you can milk anything with nipples

Speaker 1 right he always says that yeah

Speaker 1 that's his shtick

Speaker 1 he's the nipple guy so which nipple are you gonna pick for bob cat cat cat nipple

Speaker 1 we've gotten down to this yeah oh do it meet the parents yeah i know i know

Speaker 1 i'm doing meet the parents huge film for me huge film for me growing up also that was one of my first introductions to you because I was a certain age. I hadn't seen...
I'm 40. Okay.

Speaker 1 So like when Meet the Parents came out, it was probably teenager.

Speaker 1 I was like, this guy's one of the funniest guys ever. I was saying to my dad, like, look at this.

Speaker 1 He went, that's what,

Speaker 1 that guy ripped me head off.

Speaker 1 That guy,

Speaker 1 don't be laughing at that guy. He's a tough guy.
And I was like, I don't know what you're talking about. This is a really funny man.
And then I watched all your other films.

Speaker 1 I was like, oh, yeah, I see what my dad was talking about now. You've played a variety of characters over the years.

Speaker 1 but yeah I was first introduced to you as just like a straight up comedian but that was like the start of you doing a lot of comedic roles in a row that's over what do you mean doing comedy or oh no for like the meet the parents you

Speaker 1 did um analyze this analyze that meet the parents i think we did between analyze this and that when i watched analyze this for the first time It was probably

Speaker 1 some of the saddest circumstances I've ever watched a film. I turned up at a kid's birthday party and no one else had showed up.
Oh, boy.

Speaker 1 And it was just me and this other kid. Really? Was it your birthday party? It wasn't my birthday party.
It's a different kid.

Speaker 1 And we sat there and just watched analyze this while eating cubed up watermelon.

Speaker 1 How old was the kid? How old were you? Teenage. We were in school.
He had 14, 15. He came to his birthday, but you know,

Speaker 1 imagine if it's your birthday and no one shows up apart from this guy. Just me.
It's sad. It is sad.
Very sad. Yeah.
Me asking them

Speaker 1 stupider questions than this. Imagine, like, I'm 40 now and I'm saying this kind of stuff.
Imagine what my conversation was like when I was a teenager. I don't want to imagine.

Speaker 1 So yeah, I think some ice cream. Yeah.
Maybe a lemon tart. Yeah, it's

Speaker 1 okay. No.
No, I don't dislike lemon tart. It depends, again, if it's done a certain way.
This is a special way

Speaker 1 that it's known for. The restaurant is known for this lemon tart.
Okay. River Cafe, Lemon Tarte? The River Cafe.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Fantastic. I've never been to the River Cafe.
I don't think I've ever been. I might have.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's in Hammersmith. It's right by the river.
I wanted to say I have not been there. I don't think, maybe I was, but I don't think so.
Very, very nice. Might have been.

Speaker 1 So we've got some pistachio ice cream. Yeah, pistachio ice cream.
Lemon tart from the river cafe. And then maybe the cheese board

Speaker 1 your way as well. Yeah, yeah.
Feeling good about that?

Speaker 1 This is a good meal. And I think you should order like this in all restaurants from now on, Bob.
Just let them say things to you and then you go.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's easier. Though, in a restaurant that is well known and well known for food, it's food, whatever specialties they have, what I ask the waiter, you said, what does everybody like you?

Speaker 1 What's the best thing that you would consider that's here? And I start with that. Well, I'm going to read your menu back to you now and see how you feel about it.
You would like.

Speaker 1 It's ended up as quite a mad menu, I think. No, it's good.
Still water, you would like some bread. Starter, you would like the miso black cod from Nobu.
Main course, the Wagu Wellington.

Speaker 1 A side dish, duck brains, crickets and ants. Duck brains in the original duck skull.
In the original duck skull.

Speaker 1 Drink, a gin martini dry, nova mouf with cucumber. Dessert.
Nice wine as well.

Speaker 1 And some nice wine. We'll throw some nice wine in there.
Dessert. Pistachio ice cream, River Cafe lemon tart and a cheese board.
Sounds good. You feeling good about that? Yep.

Speaker 1 I feel pretty good about that. And like, you know, we made a lot of those suggestions and I think we did well.
I think we did really well. Thank you so much for coming to the dream restaurant, Bob.

Speaker 1 You've been fantastic. Thank you.
You guys have been good too. Thank you.
Thank God.

Speaker 1 There we go. Well, we did it.
What a nice man. A lovely man.
He let us pick for him. He let us get away with a lot of shit, man.

Speaker 1 I I think some of the fans of Dan Aykroyd's episode will appreciate elements of that episode yes I think so but also what an honor to hear some of those stories about films that I absolutely love I'm really glad you had some film questions in the back park man because you know otherwise you know I asked him where in New York he knows to go for a wee if he needs a wee that was that was appalling no i like you got it you got to take those big swings sometimes when you're when you're a broadcaster because that's where you get the that's where you get the exclusives right i asked him about being gassy for a scene he talked about having a gurgly tummy as well

Speaker 1 yeah yeah during goodfellas yeah yeah because the gurgly tummy was fine yeah but then how do we know you know

Speaker 1 you've got to ask the questions to get the gold right yeah yeah i mean personally i think i went i went a bit too far down the meet the parents corridor

Speaker 1 had to reverse out of that uh everyone heard it but uh yeah you know look Yeah, full disclosure for the listener. Was that a quote from Meet the Parents that you tried with them? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Benson says you can milk anything with nipples. Right, okay.

Speaker 1 And do you think he realised then what you know what it is because his response to that in the film and it's what I was hoping for is, I have nipples, Greg. Can you milk me?

Speaker 1 Yeah, so you were hoping for that. Yeah.
You. So we...
I mean, I still don't know how it happened, how we got Robert De Niro. Yes.

Speaker 1 But your plan for the episode with Robert De Niro was to reenact a bit of Meet the Parents with him. Well, it would have been brilliant.
And I would have been on Cloud Nine if it had happened.

Speaker 1 I wouldn't have known what had gone. And I would have thought he'd called you Greg by accident.
Yes. Well, as it was, it was the only point in the the podcast I thought he might go now.

Speaker 1 He was looking around the room for the exits. Yeah, going, This guy's quoting, Meet the Parents.
His PR passed him a small bit of paper, he read it, and then he said, Cheese and Bickle sandwich.

Speaker 1 Cheese and Bickle sandwich, please. Goodbye.
Get out of the fucking hotel. No, I thought he was delightful.
We got some amazing stories from him. The dear hunter stories.
Come on, Hunter, Raging Bull.

Speaker 1 Look, like King of Comedy, all that, amazing to hear it. All week on the off-the-menu WhatsApp group, Ed Benito and I have been just going, has Robert De Niro cancelled yet? Yeah.
Because surely...

Speaker 1 Surely someone's worked out what this is. Surely it's not going to happen.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So obviously now we're just very giddy. Yes.
Sitting in a hotel, can't believe that it actually happened. Yeah.
And I guess waiting for the PR to come back in and go, delete that. Delete it.

Speaker 1 You can't use that. I can't believe you asked him where he goes for a wee in New York.

Speaker 1 He didn't say cheese and pickle sandwich. He didn't say it.
I mean, couldn't really. We were picking them for him.

Speaker 1 It would have been be very cruel of us to just pick a cheese and pickle sandwich for him yeah and then go there you go you can have it see you later it's good and then kick him out or kick ourselves out i guess i'm knackered it's been a time and day we've been on edge um i think i'm going to go home and unwind watch zero day on netflix which is out now yes i'm not going to because i've literally watched the full series already i wasn't able to watch anything the lead up to this are you kidding me But it is, it is a fantastic show.

Speaker 1 It's very exciting. Yeah, an exciting show.
Starring Robert De Niro. who has been on the Off Menu podcast? Star of the Off-Menu podcast, Robert De Niro.
Robert De Niro has been on this

Speaker 1 just to list some past guests. Huge Davis.

Speaker 1 Maybe just leave the list there. This is the podcast that's had Huge Davis and Robert De Niro.
And that is no shade to Hugh. I have no problem doing that to Hugh.

Speaker 1 He came on and told an awful sex story about me and ruined my life for a good month. So, yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, we've got a meal booked now because Ed very wisely said, look, this obviously isn't going to happen. We're going to get to the hotel and be told it's cancelled.

Speaker 1 So I'll book us a nice meal and we'll all do that.

Speaker 1 It was actually Ben's idea to have a nice meal afterwards. As if.
And

Speaker 1 so

Speaker 1 it's my idea. Ed booked it.
I booked it. Your suggestion.
It's in keeping with Benito's dietary requirements. Oh, yeah? It's veggie.
It's veggie. Yeah.
Oh, no.

Speaker 1 No, good.

Speaker 1 That's great to hear. Well, that's good.
Yeah, so we're going to go now for a meal and probably just keep laughing about this every now and again. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Remembering bits of it. I think the moment you should listen back to it, and maybe we can get a clip of it and zoom in on our faces, is when at starter he said, I just like good food.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then from that point, you were the one brave enough to do it, was to say, just to let you know, the upcoming format.

Speaker 1 I had to.

Speaker 1 I had no choice because otherwise he'd think we're just annoying him. Yeah.
Because otherwise it's just like every time we brought it up, it would be like, you guys fuck off. I've told you.

Speaker 1 I've told you it would just be whatever i just like good food and whatever they bring so don't keep why do you keep saying courses to me i had to say to him we're locked into this format we are going to have to ask you every time we can't fully help this we have to go down this route but how about yeah we do what you like we just bring food and say it's good and then you'll have it and then that's how we got robert de niro to have duck brains and crickets on his and ants on his dream menu yeah we should plug stuck because this will probably have like loads of listeners probably not not at this point no they turned off turned off now.

Speaker 1 It's just me and you. They tuned in to hear Bob.
Yeah, yeah. I called him Bob.
You did call him Bob. Yeah.
I couldn't believe it. Then you joined in.
I had to. Yeah.
Otherwise,

Speaker 1 it seemed like I'm standing on ceremony while you're all pally with him. But yeah, we called him Bob.
We met Robert De Niro today. Yes.
And we called him Bob all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 And we talked to him about pissing and shitting like we do with Effie.

Speaker 1 We didn't go shitting, did we? Yeah, I said a plate looked like it was haunted by the ghost of Diarrhea. Yes, you did say that, actually.
That's what I said to Robert De Niro.

Speaker 1 He wasn't quite sure what to make of that i don't think no he wasn't sure i was i loved it yeah i knew you would like it

Speaker 1 and joe what the pr team liked it oh yeah they were laughing over there in the corner that was the team at the ghost

Speaker 1 once the show got going it was very clear as to how this happened if you were wondering who who's laughing in the room yeah it is the pr yeah the pr team it's like the big breakfast it was like the big breakfast and we were in a hotel we could have done it on a bed yeah i mean basically but it'll have to explain

Speaker 1 about your juice company what we what was that all about holy holy hell you just remembered that as well oh yeah i forgot i told him about juice almighty he loved that he liked the he liked the name yeah he did um he was i said would that make you pick it up off the shelf and he said no no it depends on how good the juice is yeah i was just like that's his thing i guess he has to be told it's good yeah yeah it would be brilliant but like i said the guy's gone quiet on me yeah don't forget come across very well to like food people well you came across well to robert de niro who was just on the podcast who was was just on the podcast?

Speaker 1 Who did our podcast, Robert De Niro, just on the podcast? Do we have to do the podcast? Yeah. Shout out to Huge Davis.
Shout out to Huge Davis. Thank you for coming on, Huge in the past.

Speaker 1 We appreciate when you came on. Thank you very much for listening.
We'll be back next week somehow. It's not the last one in the series.
It's not the last one in the series.

Speaker 1 We'll carry this on for a while. Yeah.
And hello, Bob. If you're listening back to this, hello.
Thanks for coming on. Cheers, Bob.
And thanks to Huge. Yeah, thank you, Hugh.

Speaker 1 Thanks so much to you for listening. Goodbye.
Goodbye.

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