Ep 249: Rhys Nicholson

James, huge news from the world of off-menu and indeed the world of the world.

Yes.

Ever heard of the Royal Albert Hall?

I have.

We've done live shows there.

And guess what?

We're doing more live shows there next year.

Sure, a lot of them are sold out already.

But we thought, hey, throw these guys a bone.

Let's put on one final Royal Albert Hall show in that run.

The show will be on Monday, the 16th of March.

It's going to be a tasting menu, a returning guest coming back, receiving the menu of another previous guest.

Those shows have been a lot of fun.

We cannot wait to do them live.

Who will we pull out of our little magic bag?

You'll have to come along on the 16th of March to find out.

If I'm correct in thinking, presale tickets go on pre-sale on the 10th of September.

Pre-sale tickets are 10th of September at 10 a.m.

And then the general sale is 12th of September at 10 a.m.

So if you miss out on the pre-sale, don't forget general sale is only two days later.

The day in between is for reflecting.

Get your tickets from royalalberthall.com Hall.com or offmenupodcast.co.uk.

Welcome to the Off Menu Podcast, putting the lemon of humor up the chicken's butt of the internet.

Short and sweet, that's Ed Gamble.

My name is James A.

Caster.

We own a dream restaurant, and every single week, we invite a guest in and ask them their favourite ever start and main course dessert, side dish, and drink, not in that order.

And this week, our guest is Reese Nicholson.

Reese is a wonderful comedian, television host as well.

Yeah, Drag Race Down Under.

I love that.

Reese has a fantastic comedy special on Netflix, but I can't pronounce the name of the theater.

It's live at the

Athenaeum.

Athenaeum.

Athenaeum Theatre.

It's one of my favorite comedy specials, full stop.

Athenaeum.

I only know that it's called the Athenaeum because that's where I did my shows in Australia.

Not in that room, but in the smaller room upstairs.

Congratulations.

Yes.

Live at the Athenaeum is the name of the special.

They are a wonderful comedian.

And they've also got a book now called Dish, which is a food-based book, James.

A food-based memoir.

So come on.

This is a comedian writing a food-based memoir that is right up all of your alleys.

You have no excuse not to buy it.

And we're very excited to have them here.

We've been trying for a while.

Trying for quite a while to get Reese on.

So we finally did it, Cobbers.

Yes, we did it, Cobbers.

Well done to you.

Cobbers.

Well done to all the Cobbers out there.

That's something that I went.

I don't know.

I sometimes have to do adverts on off menu just for the Australian listeners.

And we always say Cobbers all the way through.

And we get, I think, fair to say, complaints.

No,

no, I don't think we do get complaints.

I think they quite like it, actually.

Yeah, they do like it.

But some people are confused and say, why do you keep saying cobbers?

Because they don't know it's just for the Australian audience.

The great thing about James is, is he came off social media because it made him feel quite negative and he didn't enjoy the process of being on social media.

So now what he does, which is very James Acaster, is rather than being on social media, he imagines that all of the feedback is negative on social media.

Keeps me off of it.

It works.

But of course, if Rhys says a secret ingredient on which we have pre-agreed, we will have to remove them from the restaurant.

Yeah, sorry, Rhys.

This week, the secret ingredient is sesame snaps.

Sesame snaps.

Sesame snaps.

Now, this has been suggested by liv on twitter so probably quite a negative tweet that she sent us yeah but uh live no live has chosen sesame snaps i'm gonna go along with it but i love sesame snaps well you're the only person who eats them i'm currently going for a big sesame snap phase and i really get excited when i remember oh i bought there's sesame snaps in the cupboard and i can eat them they're delicious the one of the things in news agents where there's dust on top of them because no one buys them yeah yeah yeah but there's there's a nice little like, healthy green grocery type place near me.

I go there, and there's a whole bunch of stuff that I like to buy from there, vegetables and fruit, and like some really good juices, kombuchas.

And then, as I'm chilling it up, I was looking to see the sesame snaps.

I'll chuck them in as well.

And then I forget that I've got them.

And then I remember in the house, I want like a sweet treat, but I don't want anything too big and heavy.

I remember there's sesame snaps in the cupboard.

And every time I eat them, I feel,

I always forget how good these are.

These are delicious.

They're delicious.

there's a sesame the sesame flavor the snap

that does what it says on the table

yep three of them as well I always think there's two James this is not a life man I always think there's just two and then the third one's a nice little bonus surprise are you surprising yourself by buying sesame snaps and then remembering you've got them in the house and then remembering there's three in the packet yeah do you just talk to yourself while you're in the house being like oh there's three well lonely i've got cats now so i can talk to them and tell them yeah that's true i always forget the third one don't i yeah why don't you call your cats sesame and snap they're great names for cats Oh, maybe, maybe that can be their surnames.

Yeah, Terry Sesame and Rue Snap.

Perfect.

Well, hopefully, even though James loves Sesame Snaps, we hope that Rhys does not say that.

Right, let's get on with it.

This is the off-menu menu of Rhys Nicholson.

Welcome, Rhys, to the Dream Restaurant.

Welcome, Rhys Nicholson, to the Dream Restaurant.

We've been expecting you for some time.

This is very,

because I listen to this podcast, so I'm a fan of the podcast, but I'm also friends with you.

Yes.

So there's a few layers of weirdness with this.

And I've thought about, like, I've thought about my menu before.

It's like similar when you watch a game show on TV.

You're like, I'd be good at it.

I could do this.

And now I'm doing it.

And I do not feel confident.

Have you had that before with a game show that you've watched on TV and then you had to do it?

No, it's not going very well for me at home.

What are the big Australian game shows?

The news?

That feels like a game show from time to time.

Now, we have like all of the prices right and all those types of, there was a Wheel of Fortune for a while.

There was this one guy called John Burgess who was like a big, like that.

He was like the big game show host.

And he's still, I did a horrible, that sad thing where

he's not really in show business anymore, but he would come back to do like little comedy sketches for things.

And just watching a man in his 80s who was like the height of comic.

I did a weird thing with him once.

It was like the Australian version of Balls of Steel.

Oh, wow.

I was 19.

I didn't have an agent.

And he was on it and he was playing himself like a kind of crazy version of a game show host.

And we were doing a promo for it and he wouldn't sit down and he was like 80 something.

And so I'm like, sit down, John.

And he went, no, no, it'll crease the suit.

And it's like, oh, it's this era of show bits.

It's like year old.

It's old school.

How's the chase doing in Australia?

Is that still going?

Well, I remember when that launched, I was quite excited that you were getting the chase.

Yeah, people love it.

Well, because you got the UK version of the chase as well, because when I came to Australia recently, I landed, it was really jet-lagged.

And then I walked into the hotel and on the TV in the reception of the hotel was Paul Sinner doing the chase.

And it's quite, it's tragic because then

we're constantly comparing

and it's shit.

Yeah.

Like out of the shit compared to that.

I'm sorry.

Although, I think we've done a few good things.

Like we've just got Taskmaster.

Yeah.

It's like, I think it's, I think it's as good yeah like it's very good i watched the whole thing yeah yeah it's good i think and i i mean this covered that in a long time i'm i'm on the latest season and a similar thing to this actually where like i thought i could do this and then you're in it you're like

i'm losing my mind yeah that that's the one where you watch it and you think yeah i'd find all the loopholes yeah and then you turn up on the day and go oh I think I'm an idiot.

Yeah.

We did, we were doing 10 tasks a day.

Wow.

Ridiculous.

Yeah.

I talked to you guys now, and you were like, we were talking about it at dinner.

You do like five a day.

Five or six, yeah.

At the studio, at the house at 6 a.m., start the task.

Oh, my God.

Yeah, wild.

Lost my fucking mind.

It's like an actual job.

I can't believe, James, that you ever looked at Taskmaster and thought, I'm going to find all the loopholes.

I thought I could find all the loopholes.

You?

Yeah, yeah, because I'd see Richard Osman do them and go, yeah, that's what I'd do.

But Richard Osman is a very clever man.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But what you understand is I'd just seen him do the loophole, so I knew the loophole so i was like oh i would do that we should really ask you if you like food though oh yeah that's right if it's not it's podcast

um i do i do really like food i'm always nervous to call myself a foodie one because it it doesn't sound good and also i think like i also play video games and i love video games but i would never call myself a gamer to a gamer because they are scary virgins that will

but but you know i i mean there's like a kind of like i think they would be offended by how i but i do i think in another universe i would have liked to have been a chef maybe but well i like i'm not saying i have the skills of it if i think i i i've thought of this before where i think it's a similar conceit in a way comedy and being a chef because you're trying to like deliver relatability in a way you know i mean like kind of like you want people to be like oh this feels like it yeah but you want to like surprise them at the same time yeah and you want to put some of yourself into it yeah And

it would also be universal.

What come in the food?

Yes.

Is that what you mean?

Is that not what...

Oh, God.

Never come to my house for dinner.

No, or I've been told.

Come to your house for dinner.

What's the secret you're going to get to dinner?

Doesn't tell.

But yeah, I think, do you know what I mean?

Like, I think it's like a similar want of people to like you

by things that you produce, but also want to rattle them a little bit.

Yeah.

That's why when I watched season one of Chef's Table,

I was not prepared for how much I was going to cry.

And it's because I think I related far too much to every time they were talking about the actual like

creative process of making the food.

Yeah.

I just kept on crying.

I was like, man, he's just talking about a souffle.

Yeah.

I'm in tears because like it's about how much he wants it to represent himself and for people to get it and for ages people word.

And there's like an intensity about it.

Like I think I've recently, in the last kind of year or so, become friends with Ben Shuri, who's from the is he from season one?

Season one, final episode, season one.

I cried during that.

Yeah.

Talking about the pit.

Talking about digging the pit.

And he, like, he loves comedy.

And so he comes to like his comedy club at Melbourne, comedy republic.

And there's an intensity about him, but he's also very funny, but in a way that it takes you a minute.

I think comedians are the same.

If you don't have the context that someone is a comedian.

Yeah.

And they're trying to be funny.

You're like, what's wrong with this?

But, you know, and he has a similar thing where he's so intense, but very, like, I don't know.

I think you've got to have like an editorial kind of brain to be a chef.

And also shit hours.

And there's a lot lot of nutcases in the industry yep and uh you're either very cokey or not cokey at all

quite jealous that your friends have been showy well i'm jealous of my i'm almost i'm nervous now that i've said friends like we've we've been to his house a lot of times but i think now i'm just did he know that you you were there yeah nope all right okay not necessarily

sleeping

just spying on him going they do come in the field

but he does and he does this thing that i think it's what i've always dreamed of being able to do is like

he lives in this really beautiful, and I hope this isn't too private, but he lives in this really beautiful, like frozen in time mid-century house in the suburbs of Melbourne.

And he invites over, he's under, we've been to a couple of them now where he'll invite over kind of 10 or 12 people of all varying backgrounds and job descriptions.

And we have like a kind of six-hour dinner that he cooks.

And it's just, it's, you know what I mean?

Like it's like what you would want in a movie to be your life.

Like it's a proper dinner party that you feel like celebrities have.

It feels like an F.

Scott Fitzgerald novel or something

and he'll disappear to be making the food for a little while and you just see everyone quietly trying not to like just keep your shit together like it's so like the food is so good and I'm similar apart from the fact I live in a small messy house in East London and I only ever invite James and Nesh

never together

we always start with still a sparkling water

do you have a preference sparkling

like it's obvious yes whenever someone says still on this, I'm like, do you not drink feel like it?

It just, it feels like an upgrade to me.

And I know this, this is even cliche to be saying this because I've also heard it.

But like, you know, I drink a lot of water, but I know that when I got a soda stream, I drank a lot more water.

There's something, it's like fun.

I like, I like when kids call it spicy water or like they what?

But you know, when kids don't have,

I have a friend whose kid doesn't know how to describe sparkling water.

And it's like similar when people say it's crunchy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And they say like, it's, it's spicy water.

Yeah.

And it's like, yeah, that's, you're right.

This feels spicy water.

This feels spicy.

I have a distinct memory of being a kid.

And

a friend of the, like one of my dad's mates showed me a card trick and not having the words to describe how it made me feel afterwards because it was.

Oh, this is vintage James A.

Caster stuff.

And so I was like, I just just made me feel so careful.

I've never getting this.

I have a distinct memory of saying that to everyone.

Oh, God, I was felt so careful, but he was so the magic trick.

And they were like, what are you talking about?

But I get that.

I totally get it.

Careful, he's trying to trick you.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm just not sure.

Yeah.

I was a weird little, like, my mum always says I was very like wide-eyed when I was a kid.

And I would try and word things in very strange ways.

Like,

what was it?

There was one where there was a big bowl of grapes on a table at like a party.

And I looked at my mum and said, there is a man in my head.

And he's holding up a pitcher of grapes and he's holding it up very high

which is the scariest way from an eight-year-old no it must have been way younger straight to the child psychologist

so i'm trying to say like i want these grapes and he's holding it up real high so i want these grapes badly yeah they're not for me they're for the man in my head they're not for me the man in my head wants grapes and he's showing that by holding up a picture very high very high very

show give me these grapes what do we want grapes when do we want them now well so i mean for this podcast really are we finding out what you want on your menu are we finding out what the man in your head wants yeah and he's holding a picture up very high very high of sparkling water

spicy water

idiot because yeah i guess spice like i've never thought of spicy as like a but it i guess when you're a kid everything's tactile you're not really it's not about flavors yet everything is like you know i love seeing babies in videos eating ice cream for the first time because i think it's probably the colds that they lose their mind about first.

There's that one, that famous one of the baby kind of going, and then it does that.

You know, baby, when they go, like, oh, like their faces just stretch out as much as possible, and it grabs the ice cream and just starts pushing it into its face.

Like it wants it to be part of it.

Yeah.

Like it, what I don't know, I don't even know what eating is, but I just want ice cream in it.

I guess babies are like, they get milk for ages, right?

Yeah.

And then they have ice cream.

They're like, fucking fuck.

You can do this with milk.

Why haven't you been putting your tits in the freezer this whole time?

That's a woman in baby.

hat she's holding her tits in the freezer very high very high

that woman retired from me quite a year

anything in the water or use what sparks i don't mind a bit of lime in there there's something now owning a venue being able to go in and having access to a bubbly water tap and pint glasses anytime i want is maybe the richest I'll ever feel in my life.

Like being able to walk around a bar and have no one go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing?

I mean, I don't have my RSA.

I probably shouldn't go back there.

But, like,

a huge, like a really big pint glass of very cold, spicy water with some lime in it.

We should probably acknowledge that you own a venue.

You own

Comedy Republic.

I'm not saying that.

And anyway, come on, Dan.

I don't want to Dan Ackroyd it, but the, it is my crystal skull vodka.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I own a comedy club in Melbourne, co-own it with my partner Kyron and our business partner Alex.

And it's like a little 150-seater kind of thing with a nice bar in it.

And And it's nice.

It's a great club.

Thank you.

And great bar.

And it's not, it's like the whole thing of it is we wanted Luke, our hospitality manager, like our bar manager.

We want it to be like a good bar.

I think comedy clubs don't often have that.

Like you can get, it's to the point now that when I come in, one of the bartenders will usually be like, do you want a Riesling or an old-fashioned?

Like,

depending on my mood, but just the fact that I get to go in somewhere and I have an order that someone has to make me.

Yeah, I think there's probably a way of doing that other than buying and running a venue.

Oh, oh okay well what would you what would you recommend just go to a bar a few times just be niche yeah

go anywhere with nish everyone knows like like i went round shepherd's bush with him once and he had to do a load of errands and everywhere we went they were like nish

and i like getting him plating him up what he wants already it's like he's belling beauty and the beast yeah and i was like what the hell i'm staying in his flat at the moment or in his house and it is exactly what you think nish's house looks like yeah it's great it's like it's like brian blessed lives there

Do you know what I mean?

Like, there's just so much stuff.

Like, he's got stuff.

It's like what I, it's what I want it to look like.

Yeah.

Like, it's not chaotic.

Yeah.

It's just got a lot of stuff in it.

Then he's tidied it up.

Yeah, that is.

He's putting it.

It's a little bit chaotic.

But like, put in the effort in that.

But you know what I mean?

Like, it looks like it's like, oh, yeah, no, this is what Nish is.

Yeah, it's like books and guitars and comedy.

Yeah, yeah.

Pop dumbs or bread.

Pop dumbs or bread.

Pop dumbs or bread.

I'd be waiting every time it went a bit quiet.

I was like, it's coming.

Yeah.

The bread.

Bread.

As an Australian, you're not getting pop-a-dums anywhere else.

Yeah.

I don't think.

I do like, I like a pop-up.

I learnt from this very podcast from Jamie Oliver about the crushing it up and putting it over the top.

I'd never thought of that before.

And that's my whole vibe now.

My whole vibe, I'm basing my entire personality on that.

Thank you, Jamie Oliver.

I'm sorry that some of the restaurants didn't work out.

I want just a classic, nice sourdough.

I want it warm, not toasted, like warm, like very fresh.

And I want, there's a place called in Melbourne called edda which is like kyron and my my partner karen and i go there anytime i've been away for a long time it's like quite near our house and it's a good it's fine dining but not fine fine dining and you can just and the lady there knows this and uh they have this burnt or kind of browned butter with the salt through it but i think they brown it and then they like aerate it again and then chill it again so it's super like light

and it just spreads over and it's real good and it's like kind of nutty well that does sound good do you find, because you live in Melbourne,

that

you go to other countries and we kind of let you down when it comes to stuff like sour hipster diet.

Listen.

Not let it down.

I think whenever I'm, say, here, for example, like, I think I realize how lucky we are.

There is some incredible food in the UK, but I think you've got to be like Australia, I think we just are able to grow things more.

Like our produce is kind of fresher of our, yeah, and you know, we have continued relationships with the countries around us.

So we can get food brought in and et cetera, et cetera.

I think like you just have to be a little bit more selective here, if that makes sense.

Do you know what I mean?

Like you have to really, there are certain places, like we had an amazing dinner the other night.

Sorry, James.

What the hell?

We went to St.

James.

St.

James.

St.

John.

St.

John.

and ordered the whole menu.

Oh, yeah.

That's a great feeling, isn't it?

It wasn't just the whole menu, though, because some things we were like, three of those.

Yeah.

Three of those.

The guy, I'd never had this before.

The waiter came to check on us to see if we were still this was still the plan halfway through it like we must have looked unwell yeah we did cancel one dish i think but i believe that was a salad oh yeah so it's like do you still want everything it's like no we don't want the salad anymore we'd like to cancel shitting normally tomorrow

We'd like to remove that from any of our lives.

Whether you've got good gut health or not, it's going to be weird tomorrow.

You're not staying at a friend's house.

Yeah, I think

particularly like I realized when I was picking the dishes that I want for this they're all melbourne places and i've i've eaten a lot of other places and i like other places but i just noticed like the kind of comfort dishes that i like are all good that's what i found about melbourne because i'd never been there before until recently is like in in like the chinatown bit

you could walk into anywhere and it was going to be good yeah there was no like i wasn't hitting up google going like oh this place is supposed to be terrible you could literally just walk in anywhere and it was amazing one thing that we don't do that i love that you do here is you franchise nice places.

We don't have that.

We don't really have as soon as something has more than three locations, you're like, oh, uh-oh.

Like this is like, you know, restaurateurs like Andrew McConnell and these kind of guys that own big restaurants in Melbourne, they have three of them, but they're not connected by name or anything like that.

But, you know, things like, I don't know, like all your burger places here

are all good.

We don't really have that.

Like Nando's is good here.

Nando's is not good in Australia.

Yeah, I mean, we've talked about that on the pod before.

Yes.

You had an awful experience in Wellington.

Well, in Wellington, to be fair, in New Zealand, but like, yeah.

It's quite grim.

I'll never forget it, man.

There's a goddamn pipe going halfway, just straight down the middle of the legend of the Barcelona's cockle.

Couldn't even read the whole thing.

You love to read it, don't you?

I would like to know that they're honoring the legend like everywhere else does.

like we do in this country but you put a goddamn pipe halfway through it you're like well now no one knows what happened to the cockle so i hope you're fucking happy.

It's not often an Englishman gets annoyed with New Zealand for not honoring cultural traditions.

Yeah.

Look, as an Australian, I can't have any view around that.

I mean, to be fair, you guys started it.

We continued it.

Yeah, but yeah, I think we just, I was talking to someone about this the other day where Melbourne is like a very touristy city, but we don't have any touristy things.

Like Sydney has the, we've clumped them all up really into one view, but Melbourne's tourism is,

hey, how good's this?

Like

you just come there because it's nice and the food is so good.

And

but I give a lot of credit to New Zealand as well.

Like New Zealand has some of the best food I've ever eaten in my and same thing.

You can just walk in anywhere and just be some very intense Kiwi chef that's like just scooping shit out of the water and throwing it into a pot and then making you eat it.

Okay, that sounds more threatening than I meant it to.

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Well, let's get on to your dream stuff.

Let's get onto the menu proper.

We know it's going to be from Melbourne.

We know it's from Melbourne.

Spoiler alert.

It's all going to be places I didn't exactly.

Ed going to Melbourne for the first time, because normally I'm asking Ed for recommendations.

And he recommends some real fancy places, really delicious.

And Ed was like, where shall I go in Melbourne?

I was like, you've got to go to Schnitz.

It's the first place James sent me.

That's an example of a thing that has a lot of franchises that I wouldn't.

Yeah, sure.

Like, I mean, I've eaten it.

You find Schnitz in, you know, like a mall that has had its heyday.

That's where I went.

Yep.

Yeah.

Like a place that you're like, oh, I didn't even know there's a mall here.

And there's like a nail salon just with one lady standing in there waiting for anyone to come.

Yes.

And a barber that no one will ever go to.

I went to Schnitz.

This is the first day I arrived.

I was feeling pretty jet lagged.

Yeah.

And I thought, I just need something.

I don't really know where to go.

Oh, James told me to go to Schnitz.

I'll just get it out of the way.

Early doors.

Because I'd seen a few of them around and I was like, well, I'm not going to enjoy this.

Went into Schnitz, looked at what James told me to order.

Looked at that on the menu, thought, no fucking way of looking at.

That looks disgusting.

It's got beetroot and egg and pineapple in it.

Yeah, it's got egg and pineapple in it.

The beetroot is made of.

Egg and pineapple.

Yeah.

OMG wrap.

Yeah.

Love it from Schnitz.

Any time of day.

For some reason, Australia has an obsession.

Like, there's a type of pizza called the Aussie pizza.

And it's just a meat lover's pizza with an egg on it.

And I don't know why they've decided egg is Australian.

But yeah, you put an egg on there.

Australian.

Beetroot.

We love putting beetroot on there.

The gourmet burger kitchen here, like years and years ago, I think they had like one they said was Australian.

Yeah.

And that had beetroot and an egg on it.

We had the McOvs.

That was, and the only thing it was just a quarter pounder with some beetroot on it.

It's disgusting.

Yeah.

It's weird.

I don't mind beetroot, but I don't want it with egg on it.

And then you forget you've eaten it and you think you've got cancer.

Yeah, every single time.

Yeah.

Anyway, sorry.

So I ordered a schnitz.

I thought, it's fine.

I'll go in there.

I'll get it over with.

And then the rest of the trip will be nice food.

But no one has to know.

I've come to schnitz.

I'm standing there waiting for my schnitz.

Someone comes up going, I'm coming to see your show tonight.

I love the podcast.

Can I have a photo?

I'm like, oh, schnitz, not like this.

Didn't you say that they asked if I'd sent you?

Yeah, has James sent you here?

Because I've mentioned it on the podcast before.

I like saying it to Australians because I know it's the worst thing I can say.

It's not the worst thing I can say.

i went to fish bowl a lot though oh yeah i like that for a chain place yeah quick salad all of that that was good but the rest of the the rest of the meals i had were heavy multiple course meals it took me a second then to remember that because i i grew up i didn't grab that i lived for a while in my early 20s in the king's cross in sydney and there was a strip club there called Fishbowl.

Oh, in my mind, I was like, oh, God.

They do a good salad at the strip club Fish Bowl.

Beautiful wings.

Your dream starter.

My first thought was to just say seafood platter and then covers everything.

I think I like good food, but I always find that my tastes fall into like what is quite what movies have told me fine dining is.

Like things like I usually order like a steak tartare because I love it.

And I do not make it at home.

I don't know.

I feel like you might be the same where when I'm at a restaurant, if I enjoy something, I'm like, how can I re-make this at home somehow or make a version of this?

And something like steak tartar feels so out of it.

Anything raw.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

You're not messing around with that.

No.

Like, you're not doing sashimi at home.

No.

I mean, and if you are, I hope you had a nice life.

Enjoy.

And especially not giving it to people.

Yeah.

Like, there's, I've made some horrible mistakes trying to recreate things, but it's only ever for Kyron and I.

I will never like...

Have you ever like had a dinner party and someone's trying something for the first time?

Like, you are a lunatic.

This is insane.

I like the the way by the way you said oh i'm not going to cook it for people i'll just cook it for car yeah well it'll feel like a kind of a pact we made yeah yeah i've just noticed i wrote down steak tata and it's auto-corrected to jeff tata

beef tatar

come on down to jeff tata

bring the truck bring the trailer kids get in free um i would go to jeff tartare i think i would yeah yeah yeah yeah i would definitely go to do you think it's like a is it a themed french restaurant I feel like the way you did the advert there I feel like planning for the kids it's like a franchise like fast food tartare restaurant where they like shovel out the tartare and put it in a bucket yeah they're like but yeah then it's just mint isn't it just a big tub of mint big tub of mints I do like the

when you go to Paris and they do it at the table like that's like the dream yeah but it also I remember feeling very grown up realizing I liked it I think I can put most moments in my life that I've felt like mature because, you know, first time I ever ate a whole Big Mac, I was like, I'm a big kid.

I can do it.

You know what I mean?

Like, think about your dad's videos of that.

Yes.

If I stretch it out,

push it into your face.

I'm a big kid.

I'm a big boy.

Well, is that like the state tartare?

That's something you don't see.

If there was YouTube videos of babies eating state tartare for the first time, I'd watch them.

Oh, it's the other.

I I think it would work because unless it was, you know, if there was too much Tabasco in there, but like it's a, it's baby food texture.

Yeah.

A lot of French food is baby food.

Yeah.

Really?

It's a lot of like whipped up thing.

Like we've made this thing that used to be alive into a mush.

Enjoy.

Snails isn't baby food.

Sure.

Well, I guess sometimes babies might eat a snail by accident.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like they love it.

Yeah.

They love it.

Kids eat sand.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Like.

It's good for the immune system.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Give them give them some garlic.

I was reading the other day, and I think it's like a famous thing, but the Autolan, the bird, the little bird.

The little bird that you have to put a hood over because

you don't want God to see you eat it.

Just French people.

Just fucking hell.

Like, French food is probably my favorite food, I reckon, in terms of like the big classics.

But then you get to a point where you just think, were you guys bored?

Just bored?

So you're like, let's...

make this animal as scared as possible near the end of its life.

And then we'll make people hide from God as they eat it.

I don't know how much that's going on in France anymore.

Well, it's illegal.

They made it illegal.

That's what I was looking at.

I was like, I was trying to remember.

I just finished writing a book of essays and I was trying to remember part of an essay whether that was a real thing.

You know, some of you have memories where you're like, is that real?

Or have I, is this from like, have I made like a little Bloomhouse movie in my head about a chef?

But it does just fit like, because they boil it in Control.

Yeah, or no.

What does it fucking like that?

And then you put the whole bird in your mouth, givens and everything.

Yeah.

Beak.

You're eating a beak.

It can't be nice, can't you?

How do we know?

How do we know they're doing that?

Because they're covering up with the thing.

They could be doing anything.

My magic.

Well, that's the idea.

The whole thing, they put a napkin over their head to hide from God.

But God sees the bird go in under the body.

Well,

God can famously see everywhere, right?

Yes.

Yeah.

No.

It doesn't mean you can't see under a blind.

I think it says in Corinthians you can't see under a...

under a little napkin.

Unless you have a little napkin.

And I said to Moses, I've not read the Bible.

That's why napkins on laps started.

It wasn't to get rid of the crumbs or anything like that.

It was back in Roman times, everyone was just getting absolutely whacked off.

Yeah.

Stop at the vomitorium, come back to the feast, get jerked off,

napkin on the lap.

God is none the wiser.

Yeah, God's like, look at them having a good time down there.

Those Romans.

Good on them.

Good table matters.

Wait, what are you doing to my son?

That's what God sounds like, by the way.

What a letdown.

Yeah.

Get to God.

And he's like, hello.

It's just me.

But my actual one, after all, is, and it's another kind of grown-up thing.

There's a particular thing at this place called Carlton Wine Room in Melbourne, which is an anchovy toast.

And it's just very sip, but they do this.

And it was the first time I'd ever eaten anchovy toast when I ate it there.

And it has.

Now it's like a main, when people come over for dinner, it's like my main thing that I open with.

But I'd make, they do it.

It's like very like thin toasted, like kind of grilled bread kind of crispy and then it's like there's like whipped ricotta on it or something that they that they uh pipe on right and then there's i think they've got kind of thick coins of pickled gherkin but it's still like kind of crunchy so i'm getting very emotional

um

and then the anchovy over the top and then there's some sort of like very light spice that's the thing i've tried to make it at home and there's something like it's good it was okay at home but there's something missing it's that the there's something sprinkled over the top yeah yeah i mean it sounds amazing and it's just light and i like to have like a there's a place in melbourne called barmargo that they do like half martinis when you get there and it's just a perfect way to with like a little entree and maybe like an oyster can i have it maybe i'll have an oyster as well the anchovy toast and one oyster i don't want to like you don't want the half martini no yeah i do want the half martini and it's just like it's not because sometimes a full martini at the beginning of a meal if you haven't eaten yeah it's beginning it's going in hot that yeah that's my dream yeah yeah full martinis straight away yeah well we did we went to gimlet yeah in melbourne and that was a similar thing we were and i had to do a gig after that i was i don't know how you went and did a gig after that i i don't remember too much of it like that thing where you're having a nice dinner and i was like i've got a gig so i better not i'll order by the glass now i won't let's not get a bottle for the table i'll just have and i had like four glasses of the wine during the dinner after martinis yeah yeah oh boy anytime i've done a gig even vaguely tipsy i've gone on with a game plan of like, just focus, just do your material, you know, your material.

And it's like, oh, just go on, just do it, get off.

And then

two seconds in, I've confessed to them that I'm drunk.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We went to this restaurant, Gimlet, in Melbourne, and Gordon Ramsey was there.

Yes.

Was he?

Yeah.

And he walked through the kitchen to go to the toilet.

Yeah.

It's like you walking around the bar.

Yeah.

That's a power move.

Yeah.

And I don't think he even, because in my head, it was like, oh, he must be walking through going, great job, guys.

Great job, guys.

Nap, just walked through.

Sorry, got a shit.

Yeah.

It was exciting, though, wasn't it?

Yeah.

To see Ramsey.

Well, and a few weeks before, the Obamas had been there.

And classic hospitality.

I found this out.

We were having dinner at Ben's house and there were some chefs there.

And we found out it was one of the chefs from Gimlet.

And he said, oh, yeah, halfway through the dinner, he mentioned that the Obama's are at his restaurant tonight.

And the dinner stopped.

We were like, excuse me?

What are you doing here?

And he was like, oh, but I kind of understand.

He was a little bit like, why would, you know, it's like a hospitality mindset.

I love chefs and people that their whole lives are about hospitality because...

I said, oh, are they in the private dining room?

And he went, oh, no, it was booked.

But, you know, I mean, it's like, I can't, I respect it so much more because it was about, no, it's, I don't care who you are.

It's booked.

Yeah, yeah.

And so that was very impressive.

And apparently, yeah, they

sat like the Obamas just sitting out with Secret Service at tables around them.

eating a good time.

Great.

I would have wanted to work that night if I was.

I mean, I think that's, that's still too much it's just to be there.

It would have been a buzz to be there, but what do you actually I think I prefer the story that I didn't go?

You didn't go.

I think there's more satisfaction.

Yeah.

Payoff you get to meet a president.

Yeah.

I think to decide not to meet a president

is pretty fun.

If you were working there, James, say you were a waiter there and you were assigned to the Obama's table.

Yes.

How are you playing it?

Full erection whole time?

Napkins going on.

Are you saying anything specific or are you just treating them like normal customers or are you trying any little jokes are you asking them any questions

it's a very good question actually um i think uh i'd try and play it cool to begin with yeah definitely but then like i think probably pretty quickly i'd go into like asking them questions yeah confess you're drunk within two seconds yeah yeah geez i mean actually to be honest if i'm gonna go by a recent experience when i met i met andrew garfield the other day oh my god and uh i did not he hates mandaves i did not

i did not play that call no and he's not the obamas no so i think he's not and that's not an insult to andrew garfield i think i'm sure he'd agree with that

film he's ever been in yeah yeah i was i was it was at a festival and i was drunk yeah my opening line to him i'd never met him before and he was chatting to Nish Kumar gets another shout out.

Yeah.

Everyone loves Nish.

He was chatting to Nish.

I couldn't see who it was.

Nish is just chatting to someone at Glastonbury.

I walk up, I realise who it is.

I go, Garfield, you motherfucker.

Right.

Another person we can't have on the podcast.

Oh, boy.

Oh, no.

He just got a little fan, yeah.

His response was pretty good.

He goes, hey, Castor, you can.

I was like, that sounds pretty good.

But then...

Then me and Nish proceeded to just tell him about all of his films for like

a very long time.

Yeah, and that's so that's ruined.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now we've ruined it.

Did he have to do he make excuses and leave?

Yeah, eventually.

But like we had him there for quite a while.

Had him there.

Had him there.

You know, he couldn't get away for a bit.

Yeah, he was in a corner.

Yeah.

I've never understood the concept of just walking up to someone you admire just to meet them.

Yeah.

Like it's like similar.

But you met him in the right way.

Like you met him in the like

story again.

No, no, you didn't.

You got a Garfield, you motherfucker.

You didn't handle it well, but you're in the right circumstances.

Yeah.

You could have got mutual friends.

So that's how Nisha started talking to him.

But also, I just watched Silence, the Scorsaisia film he'd done it for the first time.

I'd never seen it before.

So that's what I said.

So I called him a motherfucker.

And then I sat down and it was like, I saw Silence the other week.

Man, you're telling people to trample all the way through that film?

You keep telling them to trample because you're telling people to trample on the Bible.

And he was like, yeah, you like the trampling stuff?

I was like, yeah, you just tell them to trample all the time.

Like,

oh, my God.

So not, it wasn't even, I loved it.

I thought it was a great performance.

It's more, these were some of your lines, Andrew.

Yeah, but that was my favourite bit was how much he kept telling people to trample.

So I was like, that's great.

I told him that seeing Spider-Man 2 in the cinema was the worst experience I've ever had in the cinema.

Oh mate, it's like not because of him.

Not because of him.

Honestly, it's because of the people in the cinema.

Hearing how you talk to people sometimes is like watching an episode of The Undatables.

I thought it went all right.

You said to trample.

You told him to trample.

Thing I remember about you.

Yeah.

I once saw David Byrne across, I was at like during Sydney Festival at this kind of, and I was plus one, never a bride.

And saw David Byrne talking to Nick Zimmer, guitarist from Yeah, Yeah, Yeves.

And they were chatting.

And David Byrne is my favorite thing.

Like,

and I almost went and then went just with thinking,

what's the end goal here?

I'm just another random person in his life that says, I love everything about you.

And then I walk away.

Or I can go, I saw him.

You know, like, I think, and I guess what I'm saying, it's similar with the Obama's where it's like, what's the end goal?

You're like, hey, I love what you, I love how you killed bin Laden.

Like, you know, like, no.

I bet they don't get that very much.

No.

Actually, that's my answer to the way you put it up.

And you put in the check down.

And by the way, I loved how you killed Bin Laden.

Oh, I can't bin Laden.

Not a big part of the drones.

I watched a 40-minute video about the operation to kill bin Laden the other other day.

Oh, yeah.

I love it.

It's what exciting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Your algorithm must be.

Yeah, it's fucked.

Yeah, absolutely fucked.

My algorithm, I don't know why.

Recently you just started showing me pilots very calmly dealing with emergencies on flights.

And it's just recordings with pictures.

It's not the plane that they're on.

It's just...

Video of planes flying with like,

control, we've got an engine is on fire.

And there's no payoff to it.

There's no like, they land, I guess, but there's no...

Anyways, that's my algorithm.

Yeah, I've got, yeah, mine's a mess.

Pilots landed a plane.

Pilots landing planes, drag queens, and food.

The Reese Nicholson story.

Someone finds a video of a drag queen calmly landed a plane while eating a burrito from anchovies on toast.

Yeah, so now I've got wrestling, food, military operations, and reviews of first-class cabins in our commercials.

Yeah, I get that as well.

Someone very calmly showing me a seat.

Yeah.

Or the showers.

Yeah.

I saw one the other day of

the on one of the big planes, the shower upstairs started leaking, so water was pouring into economy.

And that to me is a perfect metaphor for how for like class, like it's just a perfect class system, yeah, of just the dirty water of the rich pouring onto like even premium economy.

Yeah, but there must have been people sat in economy being dripped on, going, what is dripping on us?

They're going, oh, it's the shower.

They go, fucking shower.

Oh, it smells so beautiful.

It smells so clean there's no clearer class system than a plane like you know like it's such a there's no middle class in a plane the the just jump from even premium to economies and you turn different ways as well or you walk through the rich people to get to the poor people you can see you can touch it and then they make you walk through it again to get off just like kind of messed up beds in the sky everyone looking really refreshed yeah empty martini glasses clear evidence of an orgy yeah

for me asmr light triggers disney world vloggers and videos of myself on panel shows

your dream main course dream main course the first obvious choice was like just a a ribeye like a big steak I think a lot of lockdown for me with

wanking and

Kyron's gone for a walk quick the

the the quiet hurried wanks of long-term relationships during the lockdown

um

the quiet hurried

one is called

quick

but i i wanted to get quite good at cooking a steak like properly yeah i've i've started now finishing it off in the oven

um

hold for applause um but the and yeah cast iron iron, we got a barbecue during the lockdown.

Like, I feel like we, we were in a very, obviously had full-blown mental breakdown during the lockdown, put on 10 kilos, but at the same time was just doing big cooks all the time, just learning.

I cooked a lot of fried chicken.

I cooked a lot of steaks.

I started just making milkshakes with bourbon in them.

Great.

Like, we'd watch five movies a day sometimes.

Do you know how that's 10 hours of movies?

Anyways,

that's absolutely heavy.

This is the kind of like,

like, if there was a character called Jeff Tartar, that's how I would imagine they're living their life.

Yeah, yeah.

Milk chokes of bourbon in them.

Steaks.

Yeah.

It was the life that I know would lead to, you know, you see guys, their notes, just their paws, you could go swimming in them.

Like their noses seem like something you've put on top of their head.

Like, and you're just red all the time.

Yeah.

And just very kind of...

Just every, anytime you move, there's like a...

They're having big, big dinners every day.

Yeah, big.

Yeah.

Big boozy dinners.

Have you heard that story about, apparently,

Mel Brooks had dinner with Alfred Hitchcock?

And they have this big dinner.

He's trying to, I think it was to make high anxiety.

He was going to make like a Hitchcock parody.

And they had this big dinner and he was full, like feeling so sick and just trying to pitch.

And I want to do this and I want to do this.

And the waiter came at the end to give the check and Alfred Hitchcock apparently said, we'll go again.

And they just did the whole dinner again.

Oh, I love it.

We'll go again.

So I was thinking steak, and then I was was thinking lasagna, partly because my, my dad makes a really good lasagna, but in that way that I'm not even sure if it's good, it's just what my dad made.

Like it was the, I don't know if you had this as kids where you could pick what you wanted on your birthday.

And it was all, both my sister and I would always choose lasagna.

My dad makes like a really great lasagna.

But then I'm going to bring up Ben again.

The last time we went to his restaurant Attica, his new kind of main is a lasagna that he spent the better part of a year designing.

He came past our table.

He was working that night and he did that where they kind of crouch down next to the table and it's automatically much more intense.

And he explained like how he had gone through with this, how he's designing this and it took a long time to, but the way that they do it is it's the pasta is like big strips of pasta and he pipes on the meat and the bechamel and stuff and rolls it up almost like a cinnamon

roll.

Wow.

And then they bake it like that.

And so it's presented to you in the middle of the and it is, it was one of those things where you eat it and the everyone goes quiet for a little while.

Like no one's, no one's talking.

So it's just similar to with the steak.

I went on a holiday with some friends in the south of France and it was one of those steak restaurants where you pick,

like, I'll have 200 grams of that and blah, blah, blah.

And the most expensive one, the guy, he was taking us through.

And he went, and this one, they feed the cows beer and cereal.

And we were like, we thought it was maybe like a language issue.

And we thought maybe they're giving them like hops or like but anyway, no, no, no.

They mix beer with cereal, like oats, and they feed it to the cows and they get, they're just out there drunk and it marbles the beef in a really particular way.

And we're like, okay, well, we're going to have to get some of the drunk beef.

And it was the greatest.

We'd all try it.

We were there with someone who had been a vegetarian for a very long time.

And we were all, it was like in a movie when you eat something.

and everything kind of goes blurry around like and she tried it and was like yeah no this is and then she i think she might not be a vegetarian anymore anyways i feel like lasagna is one of those things it's still not my main i have it um but it feels strange to make it for a dinner party but i don't know why you wouldn't you know it feels homely but i think it's it delivers and it feels like the easier thing to make great make it during the day anyway i'll make a couple of massive lasagna's a year yeah and then there's no way i'm getting through it so section it up freeze it and then never eat it any any no any day i'll be like if there's no food in like fuck there is though

straight up freezing microwave or bake bake bake yeah got a bake don't ever mind

if i'd just lick some like a lollipop yeah i would do that the way the weather is at the moment yeah i'd love a lasagna lolly yeah currently hot by the way yeah

yes guys

your heat wave is adorable

so this is exciting now because both of those um honourable muncheons sound absolutely delicious that lasagna that steak so i feel like i'm gonna just it's my basic bitch to i just want want, I just want a fried chicken burger.

Wow.

Felt like that went off a cliff there.

Yeah, right off.

I mean, not a good one.

I think if I'm honest with myself, that is what I want to eat.

Yeah.

All the time.

Anytime, it could be the middle of the night and you shake me awake.

And you go, what do you want to eat?

I'm like, oh, right, fried chicken burger.

Karen and I went on a holiday.

years ago.

We went to Palm Springs and he pointed out to me.

Also, it's about right in thinking that palm springs is the name of your wanking book

oh it's lovely it's lovely

went to palm springs and i did i i probably um joked curin off a lot on that holiday as well so it all it all comes together yes um

the uh karin wheatly my partner

my partner in life my partner in business my partner in coming

um he pointed out to me at the end of the week that we've been in palm springs that I had not noticed I'd eaten a fried chicken burger every single day.

Amazing.

But in, had found new ways.

Like, it wasn't like, I'll have another fried chicken, but it was like we'd be at a different restaurant and I would order it for lunch.

And just, I wasn't making the connection.

You're going, oh, actually, I might have a fried chicken burger.

It is.

So I will always be at a restaurant and be like, I think if it's just lunch, I'll be like, I'm just going to get like a salad or something.

And then the waiter comes and I just panic and order a fried chicken.

It needs to be like with a flaw on it.

Like no, like not not crazy.

Like I want an American, like a chicken, what they call like a chicken sandwich in America, like that, like a potato bun, not a brioche.

Yeah.

Fried chicken where I, when I, I've made it at home before where you buttermilk brine and everything with some pickle juice in it.

And then you put a little bit of that into the flour to make it like kind of claggy.

And

that turns into like the little bits.

And like some sort of mayo, like a chipote, but not like crazy spicy.

I don't want to shit myself on the street.

And like a very acidic, kind of vinegary cold floor.

Yeah.

And with some curly fries.

Yeah.

Like thick curly fries.

To me, they're the best chip.

Yeah, I don't know.

When it's made well.

We went to the pub the other night and just ordered some chips and we ordered every type of chip that they had.

Yeah, there was a lot of those.

It wasn't just me and Ed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But that was good.

It was just me and you.

Yeah.

If Ed suggested it.

Yeah.

I'll do anything he says.

But like they sent over.

Good to know that.

They said over work on my Ed imitation.

Peel cold.

Two figures to palm spoons, please.

But

yeah, they sent over the French fries.

Yeah.

Thick cut chips.

Thick cut chips.

Chip chop chips.

Yeah.

And curly cut chips are

not good.

I'm trying to think.

I couldn't not get a hold of what I was trying to say then.

How high is the man holding the sign of the

fish chips?

Yeah, pretty low.

I think he's on the ground.

He didn't even make it.

The thick cut chips, I think, are a...

They're a scam.

Fish and chips, proper thick cut, the chip chips are fair enough.

But I think they're a middle ground.

And I think they're a kind of...

I mean, like the kind of, like almost veering on a wedge.

Yeah, no, I agree.

I agree with you with those.

Like, just get a...

I think roasted potatoes are one of the greatest gifts that our Lord has ever given us.

Don't pop a napkin over them.

Yeah.

But just, yeah, a thick chip is no.

It's like when they, you remember there was a while where polenta chips were like a big thing?

Yeah.

And they always came in like a little

stack, like as if the restaurant had just thought of this and they were so proud of themselves.

I don't know why I'm so angry at polenta chips.

Yeah, no, no, the little Jenga stack is not.

Yeah.

It's like, I don't know what's not making it better.

I can still see there's only six of them.

And you're aerating them as well.

So they're getting colder as you go through.

There's a real time, similar to Halloumi, real time limit on Halloumi.

Yeah.

As soon as it goes down, you don't have long.

Yeah.

And as soon as it's shit, it is irreversibly shit.

There's a deadline.

Like a polenta chip, like a thick cut chip.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, obviously the curly fries won when we were doing the

taste test of the chip.

I think because

it's fun, just on a kind of looking level, a baby would love to push it into its face.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But just all the little kind of craggy, crispy bits that come off it.

Yeah, and some bits are soggy in the middle of the spring, which I like.

Yes.

And if you're dipping like a kind of thick, like a aioli or something, it kind of goes up into there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

An extra little reservoir.

Yeah.

And some bits.

It's so massive.

Yes.

What fucking potato did this come from?

Yeah.

That's made me laugh.

How much waste?

There's a lot of must be a lot of potato wastage in curly fries, surely.

But then are they using that to maybe make the mash?

That's what I'd like to think.

Maybe.

Or do you think if you got a bowl of curly fries that all came from the same potato, you could rebuild before the potato?

You'd have to get a full potato.

You probably need a screwdriver or something to get it all back in.

That'd be a good taskmaster task.

Yeah.

I want to put together this potato from curly fries.

I want to buy one of those

vegetable sheet cutters that make really thin.

Yeah.

And I want to start making pomeanas at home, like they're kind of 100 layer.

Like just, I love a gadget.

Are you a gadget?

Are you like a gadget?

We've run out of space for gadgets now.

And also they get used like twice and then they just sit in a cupboard.

So I'm like that with hobby, like any, I recently bought a rug tufting gun.

What?

I'm going to start, I'm going to start making my own rugs.

And then

didn't do that.

No.

And now I've just got literally hundreds to thousands of pounds worth of rug tufting material just in the house.

It was like, it felt like the,

you know, during lockdowns, I was like, I'm going to make a quilt, bought all the quilt stuff that arrived.

Nah, it's all in the drawer now.

Just stare at a wall instead.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Got a lot of chicken in your house.

I do.

Yeah.

In the kind of in the area under the stairs that, um, there's definitely things I've hidden from Kyron that aren't for like deep, dark shame reasons.

They're just like, oh, he can't know I've bought that.

He can't know that I bought that and then wasn't interested in it.

Except to hope he doesn't open that door that's just full of yeah yeah just fabric and

some

poetry rug tufting gun wow you must have been pretty confident when you ordered it that it was going to be a i mean ordering a rug tufting gun well i think i'm still going to do it like it's pretty fun i have used it and it's it's pretty enjoyable to do yeah and it's like it's like embroider

and it it's it feels quite um it's a very gay thing to do but it feels quite straight

i think in terms

what other things fall into the category category?

It's pretty gay thing to do, but feels quite straight.

I don't know.

Love women.

Yeah, incredibly gay.

In terms of the hierarchy of guns, it's probably the least threatening, I'd say.

Yeah, although it's pretty scared.

So it pushes thread in and then snips it.

So it has these like, watch clips on YouTube.

It's pretty full on.

I'm not sure my algorithm can take that, to be honest.

People go, who the fuck are you?

Who's using this YouTube?

Did you, yeah.

Did you mean gun?

You mean big gun right?

But yeah, fried chicken burger and just not bonkers.

Like I don't want you go to those kind of burger places now and it's like

back in my day it was just chicken and cultural.

But like I want some pickles on there.

I love that guy.

That's a Jeff.

Yeah, it's got me.

Come in here.

Do you have some steak tattoo?

Jeff Tata.

I love it.

His brain's rushing a million miles an hour, but it's not to get anywhere.

A lot of urgency, but nothing's going on.

Yeah.

Beautiful.

You brought a kid.

Beautiful.

Family.

Family.

Oh, family in Jeff.

It's about family, doesn't it?

Like, just an odd man who is desperately trying to appear normal.

Yeah.

That's right, Jeff Tata.

Like, like, trying to, he knows that it should be lovely that they bought the kids, but he can't really say it in the confidence.

Beautiful.

Family.

Oh,

family never were for Jeff.

Jeff Tata.

Jeff, Jeff had to say tata to that.

Where's Jeff from?

None of your business.

Yeah, the one you don't know.

That's the one question or Jeff.

No, no, no, no.

Oh, tata, tata.

That's his catchphrase.

Tata.

Tata.

Doesn't talk about his past, Jeff.

In Jeff Tata's, tata means hello, uncuba.

I don't know where he's from.

No.

Seems to be America, Somewhere in the south of America.

Yeah.

Yeah, like the deep, like, or the shallow south.

Not the deep south.

Just the kind of.

Yeah, the shallow south.

The paddling end.

What do you think he looks like?

No neck.

Oh, actually, I imagined like quite a long but horizontal neck.

Oh,

old.

Yeah, like just completely coming out of his body horizontally with a just

old potato head on the end.

I think he looks like...

I'll tell you who I'm imagining, actually.

I'm just imagining the.

The food critic from Ratatouille.

No, that would be Peter Ratatouille.

Let's go with that.

Yeah.

Who are you imagining?

The Peter Farfen family guy.

Yes!

Herbert!

Herbert the Pervert.

Yes.

I imagine he looks, I've started describing a particular type of dad on stage recently, like small dads.

And I think this is what he looked,

like holding up a frog.

You know what I mean?

Like that kind of like round egg body.

I think that's what Jeff Tutta has.

Very long little legs.

Yeah.

And their wives dress them.

Small dads.

Yeah.

Little dads.

Jeff Tartar doesn't have a wife's dad.

No.

Jeff Jeff Tartar's single.

There were a lot of people.

There was a lady that owned a flower shop down the street that he was always.

Oh, go ahead, Dad, give her a shimmer.

What do you buy a lady that owns a flower shop?

What do you give her?

A Pepsi Mex.

Give her a Pepsi Mex.

Oh, I feel sorry for him now.

Your dream size dish.

Again, had a lot of thoughts.

We've got the curly fries, of course.

Curly fries, but I think they are

anytime a place sells just a burger, fuck off.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

If it doesn't come standard in a, like, add some other sides, but chips come with a burger.

Yeah.

If you're ordering, if you go into Macca's and just, oh, McDonald's, so in Australia, we call it Macca's.

And I didn't know that wasn't a thing here.

Yeah.

And

that it wasn't even, it's not just a nickname.

Because we call it like Mackey's or Mackey D's sometimes.

Mackeys.

Mackey's.

But it's on the adverts that gets called Macca's.

We're loving it.

It's a very relaxed culture.

Macas.

Yeah.

In most ways.

And then other ways, not so relaxed.

Very much not relaxed.

Very firm views, actually.

Side things, keeping it.

And it's always the struggle I feel like you must come up against with guests on this thing where do I pick a thing that's going to go well or is it just my dream?

And I think I've gone with what's going to...

I just want, I went through all the kind of dreamy side, like, you know, Brussels Sprouts having the biggest glow up.

of the mid-2000s or like all of those types of you know broccoli and all those things but i think i just want a very basic like what I would describe as a restaurantee green salad and maybe like a cucumber salad next to it because I'm gonna be eating the fried chicken and the curly fries and I want I went where was I I was in Newcastle and I I was on just on tour and I went to an Indian restaurant and I hadn't realized I'd never ordered Indian by myself.

Like, you know what I mean?

Like, and it really made me decide what I wanted to get from this experience.

And they had a salad.

I can't remember the name of the place.

I'm sorry.

It was like a, I think it was in Newcastle.

It was 100% vegetarian and vegan and kind of trendy.

It was like, it was a Friday night, a classic thing.

I'd had an afternoon show and I was just going to eat and then go back to my hotel room and be sad and lonely.

But everyone's at the beginning of the best night of their lives.

I'm just a load.

But I ordered a couple of things, but then got a cucumber, like chunks of cucumber that were in rice wine vinegar and had some maybe like sesame seeds or something on it.

And it was just in between each bite of thing, just cleansed.

And it's made me go, oh, I want that anytime I'm eating something heavy now.

Just refreshing.

Just to refresh.

And it's not changing anything about your mouth.

So yeah, I want something like that.

And then like a, yeah, just like a, something that in between big bites of the very heavy chicken burger, I'm eating like a very acidic,

what do I want?

Like a kind of butter lettuce with

some parthali in there, some dill, some tarragon.

and with a kind of vinaigrette, like a

shallot vinaigrette and then heaps of salt.

And just like resetting your mouth every time.

Yeah, every time.

And I know that's not, it's not like the most interesting, but I think it's what I want from a side dish.

It's helping the other dish.

It's not kind of, I think, you know, sometimes a side dish,

they step above their means from time to time to time.

So pull focus.

Yeah.

And you don't want that.

Some people have like, you know, some people arrange their off-menu menus to be like just like a greatest hits.

And some people think of it as a whole meal.

Yeah.

And you're thinking of it as an entire meal.

I mean, It does make sense with the burger and the fries.

I mean, it seems that I often always make a green salad when we eat at home, like whatever it is.

I mean, not, you know, not, but I, I make a salad if we're doing a roast, and I had someone online really go me.

They were like,

this is madness.

I was like, but it's, you're just eating so much kind of heavy beige food.

You want something that's not going to make you, you know, a bit of fiber in there from time to time.

And yeah, just a reset.

Yeah, I am thinking.

Did you talk around the person online?

Did they come?

Did I talk someone around online?

Yeah, I think that's famously possible.

Yeah, and I think they were probably a drag race fan.

So, you know, another classic toxic member of society.

A particular type of fan.

But yeah, no, and I wish I had something more interesting than that, but I think it's what I want.

You know, I love all the other...

That same Palm Springs time, we were going to a lot of steakhouses for dinner.

That kind of classic Sinatra went here, kind of Musso and Franks type of place.

And we just were and it was the it was pretty hot weather and you'd go in there and you'd eat like a big steak and then all the um like macaroni and cheese with the bread crumbs on top of it and all the things and then trying to walk home in like the desert i went to a steakhouse in palm springs and it does feel like you've you've got to do it it's like classic 100 like you feel so fancy i love a place and i think that's why i like french food as well is um old weight stuff very old weight stuff i think you get that a lot more in those kind of steakhouses and stuff like mousson franks particularly where they've oh they've literally these guys worked here 20 50 years yeah

and they're the same people because i don't know you just kind of trust it a bit more there's a bit more of a respect for hospitality over there i think yeah well there's that pride in it as well of like the history of the place yeah like you say they'll say like such and such ate here and there and like like when you're being waited on by someone who clearly thinks the place is lush yeah it's a lot better and yeah they're like they're very happy to work there and they're like i love um getting judgment from a white staff.

It's like,

I genuinely quite enjoy that.

Like, if it's like a nice place, because it's like, yeah, you think I'm not good enough to be here.

And I kind of understand that.

Like, it's like being, you know, told off by someone who works in a clothes shop.

You're like, you know, I'm buying the clothes, right?

Anyways,

class systems.

So I mean, like, I really thought through a lot of, like, I wanted to have a lot of impressive side dishes.

Like, you know, there's obviously, I make like a lot of things that, you know, an Ottolenki.

It's

any, you know, have you noticed the big thing in restaurants now of like a kind of yogurty sauce on the bottom of a salad?

They put it on the bottom and then, yeah, and then the leaves on the top or whatever.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That just seems to be like, is that going to stop?

Do we think?

It's like, I think it works for when it's like veg, when they put vegetables on top, because then you get the spoon and you can kind of get the whole bit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I like that.

But yeah, with the salads, you want to.

It's like similar to all

new plays involve a camera now.

Have you noticed that?

Someone did it well once.

This is all of them now, I reckon.

What do you mean?

And then they project.

Yeah, yeah.

Did you know you were coming to see Kiss?

That's how they do it.

Couldn't think of any other band.

Whenever I order, I quite regularly get Sticks and Sushi on Deliveroo and I'll get the cauliflower that has the black truffle

sauce onto that dish.

That's a great dish.

But they have it that they'll put a little drizzle on the top, but most most of it is on the bottom and when we get it takeaway it comes in this like black container so i can't see the sauce on the bottom oh and i'm having a guess chasing it around with the cauliflower and i only know how much sauce i got on there when i pick it you know i'm chasing it around the bottom i'll bring it up i just rubbed it around the plastic again even god can't see it i don't even know where any of it is it's a nightmare i do it regularly do you like the chase though i think you like the chase Not so much as Australia loves the chase.

Yeah, thank you.

We're all fighting for it.

Yeah.

I wish I'm trying to get better at that type of cook.

I'm not a good, Kyron is really good at looking what's in the pantry and going, I'm going to make this.

And I, and there's a confidence in that that I don't have.

I'm still very recipe-based.

And then I change that recipe over like six times of doing it.

And then it's mine.

You know, like, I'm not good at, I can work that, I like to work things out and I like to try it, but that involves me looking at other recipes for things.

Yeah,

I need to order in specifically for something that I am going to cook.

Yes.

And then I'll use a teaspoon of some spices, put them on a shelf, and three years later, I will throw them away.

Yes.

Yeah.

I had my big clear out yesterday, actually.

Yeah.

My big kitchen clear out.

We didn't have any food in either.

And I was like, I don't know what, what am I going to eat?

I can't get another delivery.

And very luckily, I've been sent a big box of stuff from Bella Zoo, who do a lot of olive oils.

And I opened the box and there was some pasta and pesto in there.

I was like, it's pasta pesto tonight.

Pasta pesto tonight.

I almost want to, and I mean, I feel like this is the dream of everyone that likes food but i want to do like a proper like cooking like a six week night course and just understand things a little bit more like and i also wish i could talk about i mainly like yeah i just finished writing a book of essays that has recipes in it but it's not like a food book it's like there's some bits about food and i'm very open about i mainly just want to get into the food like i just i want to be have a tv show where i just eat you know that's that's my dream job is like just going to another place place and eating yeah well i'm living i'm living that dream here he is

i also want to do a course like i in fact i i think my mum said she'd buy me a course for my birthday three years ago so i'm gonna i'm gonna do it at some point do a leth's course

two years ago i nearly uh completely quit comedy to go and do a course for six months didn't i wow i thought i'd just do a like a proper like everyday what was i gonna do well yeah that's gonna be hot and dry with this prick that's why i've had to put my i'd like to make it it clear he was pointing to bananas,

not me.

I'm not the prick in this situation.

Yeah, yeah.

So I'll just go and do like a week, a week course.

Sorry.

Just to be able to be like, oh, I can cook sauces.

Like, I could just whack.

I could whack up a sauce.

Stop it.

I could whack up a sauce now and again.

You know, we all have to whack up

without thinking about it, you know.

Try and rhyme that sentence with something.

Go get yourself a poem.

The dream drink.

Dream drink.

This is someone who owns a bar.

Yeah.

This is someone who owns a bar choosing their dream drink.

I mean, I'm not good at it, but like when we have dinner parties, we and we have like a little.

This happened just before lockdown, actually.

My friend Luca Muller and Alex Ward and her partner Hannah, we have like a little dinner club that we have like a group text and we mainly during lockdowns, we just sent pictures of our dinners to each other.

And then that turned into like we're on a constant kind of pilgrimage where we go to nice restaurants together and like a fifth group of anyway.

And Kyron, when we had them over to dinner, usually takes care of the bar.

Like he's, he's, when I'm, I've started like trying to get good at cooking, he's getting good at making drinks.

Oh, this is perfect.

The perfect household.

It's pretty good.

Yeah.

I think, I mean, with the burger, I don't ever, I'm not a beer drinker, but I feel like the burger wants a beer with it.

Like, I will only ever drink it like a pale ale or something with like Korean fried chicken or something like that.

Like something that will,

or I'll drink like a, but then like my favorite thing is a Reveling, like a very cold austrian reveling we went to a restaurant once and we got a magnum of wreathling which is they look mad very funny they are very funny it's like what and especially like a little a little white south person trying to you know what it looks like you know the galiano bottles yeah but huge so long and just trying to pour it into these teeny tiny little white wine glasses very funny very very funny yeah i think my my actual dream drink is a very cold austrian like a kind of bitey Rieveling to cut through whatever you're eating because I think you're like acidic a drier Riesling yeah yeah yeah no not sweet not and I think Riesling similarly is having a bit of a glow up and like when I think Riesling I used to think like sack wine

like or as we call it in Australia goon that's what you call it goon because we apparently I think Australia we invented the sack wine do you mean like the box wine box wine yeah but it is in a sack it's in a sack inside the box yeah we take it so we have a thing in Australia that when you're when you're a kid it's called goon of fortune where you hang sacks of box wine, the silver sacks, on like a clothesline, like a, we call them Holzhois,

and you spit it.

And someone is standing on each point of the clothesline.

And when it stops at you, you have to like guzzle it.

Did you say when you were kids?

Well, like teenagers.

Cool kids.

Yeah, yeah.

The coolest kids in town.

Coolest kids in town.

And no one wins.

No.

Even does one of the bags have something disgusting in it?

Nope.

No.

It's just...

And now you're drinking drinking this goon and now you're drinking this goon i think maybe sometimes you play it with with one of the myths it's almost like it's opposite russian roulette yeah like so that you lose by not getting one i guess yeah one of you doesn't get some

yeah i mean is there anything worse so you're all laughing the guy who doesn't get doesn't get one every time you're like you you're sober you jeff yeah oh not jeff tarto oh no no no good for old jeffy

so you want to go austrian Riesling?

Do you not feel like you're betraying your country folk by not having Australian Riesling?

Because there's some fantastic.

They're so fast and they won't know.

What did you say?

Austrian, Austrian Riesling.

It is Austrian that I'm thinking of, right?

They make good Riesling?

Yeah, yeah.

100%.

Very delicious.

I think I also, I've noticed as I've gotten older, I think, you know, when you first start drinking wine as an adult, you automatically go to very heavy, like I remember wanting like, cab fabs all the time and like just these kind of a lot of tannin talk, a lot of big chat about tannin.

tannin and now i'm only 33 which is not old but i just want pinot all the time pinot like just a very light like a whisp a whisper of a red something veering toward like a natural something veering towards a rose but it's not sweet i do i find myself in a similar situation but then also if you're eating like a big meal something heavy i do want like that

yeah blood wine yeah

thick blood proper light blood wine you know when you get out this has been fun guys When you get out of the bag, it's like you've gone into a hospital and taken a donation bag.

That's quite often how I want to.

I'll order a glass of that by the glass at the very end.

Like, after, after every, that kind of bit where you're waiting for the check and someone's still finishing their drink.

Yeah.

And you go, you know what?

I'm going to have one.

And then you find just, because drunk you is like, this is the best time to drink that heavy red wine.

You're going to be on stage in eight minutes.

Yeah.

4.30.

I think I want the Riesling.

I think I want a nice cold glass glass of Riesling.

Lovely.

That sounds good.

Yeah.

Oh, so with the, you know, you got the salad there in between each bite of the burger.

It's all kind of mixing together.

Yeah.

What order are you doing the bites in?

You're doing burger, salad, wiesling?

That's a gold.

God, this is like Star Wars.

I'm trying to decide which one to watch.

That's the thing.

Even like without nine of them, maybe.

That's what they're always like.

But what order do you show your kids?

Oh, yeah.

Star Wars.

We've got to decide that now.

All the nerds, all the dad nerds.

It's a bit different because you're then going back to it.

That would be like showing them a bit of

the first one, a bit of the next one, a bit of the second one, and then going back again.

Yeah.

A scene of each.

Until they're all done.

But I think now that they have all the other, like the

little Han Solo, like, I mean, technically, do you show them...

I mean, don't show them Han Solo, I guess.

I think just let them find it by themselves when they're teenagers.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And let's be honest.

Do they even have kids?

The nerds.

Yeah.

That's the point.

Good point.

Jeff likes Star Wars.

Yeah, of course he does.

Of course, he does.

Wanted to show it to the flower girl.

He made a whole little list.

How are they going to view it?

She wouldn't show her to those.

She would get it.

And then he went to the flower shop one day and it had shut.

She was gone.

Turned out with a drug front.

She got killed by the mammoth.

She's suddenly the more interesting character.

I think we spent all our time living at Jeff Tartar down the street.

Incredible.

So lovely glass of cold Riesling.

Yes.

Burger salad.

Rice, curly fries.

Yeah.

And I think I'm like a Riesling, I think you can also, you can go the whole time with a Riesling pretty lightly.

Like, and you can decide whether you're sipping that Riesling or you can decide, like, it's pretty gulpable, like a good, and you can get absolutely, you know, that feeling when you're so drunk at a dinner, it feels like you're day drunk?

Yeah.

Like, there's a giddiness, like, to the sugariness of it.

And it feels like I could be at an outdoor daytime party right now but it's 11 p.m yeah and my heart is racing

like i want to like i haven't wanted to do drugs in years but we should get some ketamine that would really light tonight up there's always someone there's always someone at a dinner that wants the night to not end you know they're always like let's do another round and everyone is there's someone like throwing up next to them yeah and their partner is way too it's always the partner of the person who's way too drunk that needs to be taken home does that make sense you know what i mean

we arrive at your dessert yes so excited about this obviously oh okay i'm always excited about the desserts yes i know i'm pretty sure that you like desserts uh-oh okay where we go with this there we go interesting okay i think i've maybe found a way though

to

help out with the constant struggle of this podcast of the cheese and dessert theme.

First of all, let me say I'm not a very desserty person.

Okay.

Usually, dessert for me at a a restaurant would be if I was true in my heart, I think I just want a spoon and I just want little bits of everyone else's, whatever else they've ordered.

That is my perfect dessert.

The desserts I do like I, you know, look like creme brulee.

I like creme brulee.

I like a, um, I like a rumbaba,

like a good one.

There's a really good one at cotton wine room.

But I went to a restaurant in London recently.

It was an Italian restaurant.

We ordered pecorino, big slices of pecorino that they'd put brown sugar on top and blowtorched.

Wow.

Oh Oh my God.

Well, I don't know what that restaurant is because I'd remember that.

And so it was like a kind of pecorino brulee

type of thing.

And it was wildly good.

And

it was as simple as that.

Like it wasn't, they hadn't done anything else to it.

Was it Bruto?

Oh, except that.

Is it Bruto?

It was.

I've still not been, but yeah.

Wow.

That's just how good Ed Gamble is at that one.

Wildly they did that.

He hasn't even been.

And he wasn't able to, he doesn't even know that there was a menu at Bruto, but he was able to guess it sounds about that ballpark and he got it.

Yeah, it sounds like that sort of place like is that a famous because we literally we were staying around there once Karin and I and we just went in we were like looking for somewhere to do yeah so it's a Russell Norman place who he had spontino but he's got um pulpo pole pod pulpo

wow it's got a Cambodian restaurant called Pol Pot it's very controversial it's kind of like a you cook your own thing you say pole pot

um it look I mean this isn't helpful for the it looked like that I love it I love it why is it I i can't see zoom that in oh it's going on like a slideshow i've got to be quick it's like so it looks like a slice of pizza but creme brulee on the top yeah yep

do you think if you're not

you would try and get all the description out before the picture moved on as if the picture went you'd forget immediately what it looked like that's how i felt that's that's what happened to rhys i i felt like

okay it's going to move on in a second it's like a slice of pizza with a brulee on the top

so if the picture had gone i would have lost all my words about what that was.

That was how I felt.

Also, I didn't know what the next pitch was going to be.

It's always a worry.

Yeah.

I've been in a relationship for long enough, it's not ever going to be a big pick.

I don't know how many times you jacked him off at Palm Spring.

Yeah.

Hey, that was five years ago.

I think that is the thing about getting your 30s, but it's all just pictures of like, if it's a bit of skin, it's just for medical reasons.

It looks bad.

Is it bad to you, do you think?

Can't see this bit of my neck.

Can you take a picture of it?

Screenshots of things fucked people have said on the internet

that you screenshot.

That's the only thing that'll ever get me cancelled properly.

I think it's like not dick pics being released.

It's like someone just releasing all the screenshots I've taken.

Yeah.

Shows Instagrams.

Yeah.

I was like, just why are you, why are you doing that?

Stop getting a Patreon.

Is this what you want for your dessert?

I think I want everyone else to get stuff.

Yeah.

And me to just, usually I get a drink for dessert.

Like I will get a digestive, like a kind of an amaro of some sort, maybe like a fernabranca with like a little bit of ice in it.

Maybe a Amaro Montenegro, which is like so old, but it's so good.

Yeah.

Like that's another, that's something that's happened in the last couple years of realizing how good digestives are after a dish, after a meal.

Like they properly were, I was a smoker for years and that was my digestive.

But now I need to rely on herbaceous Italian liqueurs.

Have you had the mint Fernet Branca?

No.

I had it in Australia for the first time, actually.

Maybe I have it.

In Sydney, and I loved it.

Yeah.

Oh, it's just like super lovely mouthwash.

It's yes.

And it's like...

Super lovely mouthwash.

We often now, Karin, like it's a nice way to end it.

If we've had dinner, and maybe we've had a glass of wine during dinner, and then maybe we go and watch a movie in our lounge room.

We'll have like, we'll just bring a little Fernabranca or something in there because you're not getting pissed on it.

No.

But it feels nice to set up.

It does settle your stomach.

And chefs love it, right?

That's like they'll drink it if they're having a massive meal to be able to eat more.

And it feels grown up to order it.

I don't know.

It's like knowing about things like that is very satisfying to me.

I also like, but usually I will get an old-fashioned or a Manhattan.

I've gotten very into Manhattan's.

They get you.

I think we had Manhattans that, or I might have had a Manhattan that

I got, like they fuck you up.

I think I had a Negroni at the end of the day.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Negronis, again, I love a Negroni at the start.

I think they're another bit of a...

Negronis are having their moment, like the Aperol Spritz moment that everyone, anytime just

a traditional drink is on a bus stop,

you're like, oh, look who's back.

You know what I mean?

Like, suddenly Aperol Spritz is worm everywhere.

All the bus stops.

Yeah.

Suddenly, like, Negronis are on bus stops.

You're like, really?

Good on you.

Yeah, I had a Negroni that night.

You went to do a gig, which is mad because we'd had like a, it was like

a three and a half hour four.

We'd had a big steak dinner.

Yeah, really big steak dinner

i was doing comedy to charity events yeah are you even a cocktail to with when the bill had come already i think and then even madder than that i just went home and went straight to bed now yeah i went and grown good night i definitely and i'd forgotten what i i think it might have been a not a grim charity but it was like a very good cause and just did that classic thing of walking out and just being like great job everyone for coming out and supporting stuff

having no fucking blue eyes there like

Yeah, no, we're raising money for cancelled white men.

That's cool.

They need it.

What is it?

Like a legal fund?

That's cool.

So I think what I actually want my dessert to be

is a little bite of everyone else's dessert.

John a long spoon.

Yes, a very long spoon.

Or can I just for this, can we use the magic of the genie?

Can I have a very long tongue?

Like an anteater's head, like in Betelgeuse when they pull out their face.

Yes.

Do you want the anteater's head or do you want the chameleon tongue or whatever?

A bit of both.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

And so I lean over and just go like

a little bit of a and it's quite a strong tongue and it breaks through the brulee.

Yeah.

And then just kind of scoops little bits out and then takes it back in.

Can the tongue go all the way to the kitchen?

Yeah.

So you can taste everything that they're coming.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And they don't know.

No.

They don't know.

I think they'd know.

Your tongue and Gordon Ramsey both walking through the kitchen.

You can sneak

your tongue.

Sneak your tongue in behind Ramsey every time he goes to the toilet.

Yeah.

The worst sentence anyone's ever said.

You can sneak your tongue in behind Ramsey before he goes to the toilet.

We've not had Gordon Ramsey on this podcast, but it's not going to happen now, is it?

So I think you might have up to our chances, actually.

Yeah.

And he knew all about it and he remembered that night.

Yeah.

But you are having the bruleed packaging.

That to me is...

I guess I'm just offering that as a potential.

I think the middle round sounds like a good bridge from the main course to the dessert, like a little extra course in between, bring that out,

and then the desserts.

It was a lot.

Like, I would say there were two big chunks of it there,

and that was too many.

We could have had one together.

Like, it was delicious for that kind of thing where you're like, ooh,

this is a lot of pecorino.

Yeah, I'm booking that place straight after we finish recording.

I want to eat that.

And similar, I think you could potentially make it at home as well in a very impressive pop-it-down type of way.

It sounds like it would end in tragedy if I tried that.

That's life, baby.

Sure, you've ordered a blowtorch and it's sitting unused in your house, but oh, I've got a blowtorch at home, yeah.

That's what I call Kyron.

Of course,

he never comes off well in the work that I do.

He's the best person I've ever met in my whole life, and he's always just like, ha ha, I fuck him.

That's completely changed my life for the better.

But, like, no, in comedy, he will always just be the guy

make and come

and making, making.

Region menu back to you, Nelsi, how you feel about it?

Yeah.

You would like a pint of very cold sparkling water with some lime.

You would like warm sourdough with brown butter.

Yep.

Starter, anchovy toast from the Carlton wine room.

Mm-hmm.

And oyster and a half martini from bar.

Margot.

Main course, fried chicken burger with slawed chipotle mayo in a potato bun with curly fries.

Side dish.

Restaurantee green salad and a cucumber salad.

Cleansing the palate in between bites.

Drink a very cold, dry Austrian Rieslin.

Rieslin?

Riesling?

Yeah.

Dessert.

Show title next year.

Austrian Riesling.

That's good.

You should do that, Matt.

Well, then, of course, before the dessert, the brulee pecorino, and the dessert, a mouthful of everyone else's, and a digestif, which we landed on.

I'll try the mint for a branch.

And also, obviously, you would like an Antita's tongue.

Yes, please.

Throw up that course.

Please.

And a long face.

And a long face.

Why the long face?

For all the dessert.

We finally know.

That's how I feel.

How do you feel about that menu?

It feels good.

It feels good.

I think, and I, I've been thinking this whole time, like, I don't know who I want to have it with.

Like, I think in the kind of, I had to very recently, for the book, write the acknowledgements.

And I was like, I don't know how to do it.

Like, what do you meant to?

And so I just wrote every name I could remember.

of people I've had nice dinners with.

Like, you guys are in the acknowledgements for my books.

But it is quite funny.

I'm using no last name.

So there's a lot.

It turns out I know a lot of Jameses and a lot of Eds.

But I think I just want like a rolling, somehow, if we could use the magic for me to experience dinner with every single one of those people equally.

Do you know what I mean?

Like some sort of multiverse situation.

Yeah.

And that would feel good.

But no, I feel good about that meal.

I think I would enjoy that.

We need to make sure your tongue can travel across multiverses.

Yes.

Okay.

I can do that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thanks, man.

I appreciate that.

Are you a sit-at-the-bar type of person?

Yeah, for me.

If it's just you and Charlie?

Yeah, actually, yeah.

If I'm with Charlie as well.

It feels nice to be, again, I'm talking about feeling grown up, but like, yeah, it's just the two of us.

If we go to Edda, that place that we always go to when I get back, we always sit at the bar.

It's like fun to like, there's something to look at when you run out of conversation.

Sure.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, and your satisfaction.

Yeah.

So it feels a bit more easy to do.

If you want to pretend you're not together, that's fun as well.

Okay.

Yeah.

I don't like it, though, when they bring the food from behind you.

No.

And you're sat at the bar.

No, no.

I like to be able to see the food coming and get excited rather than suddenly it's there what like a magic yeah would you say it make would you does it make you feel careful very careful thank you very much rhys thank you for having me

there we are great episode i knew it would be a great episode yeah

Rhys loves food.

Rhys loves food.

Food menu would be good.

And the whole thing was delicious.

Yeah, absolutely.

Detailed descriptions of the food.

We very much appreciate that.

And didn't say sesame snaps.

It didn't say sesame snaps,

which is good because I would have broken my heart to kick them out for that because I love sesame snaps.

Yes, you love sesame snaps.

You love Rhys Nicholson.

Yeah.

Reese Nicholson is like the third Sesame Snap that I've forgotten about.

Me, you, and Reese.

Oh, that's lovely.

They'll be tough to hear that.

Slash confused.

Don't forget to watch Reese's special live at the Athenaeum on Netflix.

Drag Race Down Under.

I think they're also, there's a book called Dish.

Which is food related.

Food Related.

Come on, people.

Where it's sort of a food-based memoir slash essays type thing.

If you only buy one food-based memoir published by Penguin, make it Reese's.

Ah, that's good of you.

But if you buy two.

Yeah, do buy Glutton, the Multi-Course Life of a Very Greedy Boy by Ed Gamble.

Yeah, if you buy two.

Yes.

But only if you buy two.

You'll probably just buy one, so buy Rhys's book.

Reese should have called their book Rhys's Pieces.

Oh yeah.

And released it one chapter at a time.

Yeah, that's great.

We'll go and tell little Sesame Snap that now.

Thank you very much for listening.

We will see you next week.

Goodbye.

Goodbye, cobbers.

Hello, I'm Carrie Add.

I'm Sarah.

And we are the Weirdos Book Club podcast.

We are doing a very special live live show as part of the London Podcast Festival.

The date is Thursday, 11th of September.

The time is 7pm.

And our special guest is the brilliant Alan Davies.

Tickets from kingsplace.co.uk.

Single ladies is coming to London.

True on Saturday, the 13th of September.

At the London Podcast Festival.

The rumours are true.

Saturday, the 13th of September.

At King's Place.

Oh, that sounds like a date to me, Harriet.