Ep 246: Karan Gokani

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

Yes.

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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.

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Welcome to the Off-Menu podcast, Taking the Hopper of Conversation, Cracking in the Egg of Humor, and you got yourself a Hopper with an egg podcast that is Ed Gamble my name is James A.

Castlecast together we own a dream restaurant and every week we invite in a guest we ask them their favorite ever starter main course dessert side dish and drink not in that order and this week our guest is Karen Gokani

chef owner of hoppers entrepreneur uh hoppers is a fantastic uh mini chain wouldn't call it a mini chain this there's three restaurants in London yes uh they are fantastic restaurants that we are huge fans of uh cooking cooking Sri Lankan cuisine.

I think it was you who recommended it to me for the first time, as it is with anywhere that I eat.

Yes.

Ed recommended it to me.

But then you, it normally happens that I've been somewhere once, I recommend it to you.

And then within a two-month period, you go there more times than I've ever been there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah, definitely.

Because you'll go with your girlfriend, you'll go with some friends.

Your parents are in town, you take them there.

Yeah.

Some other family are in town, you take them there.

And then you're like, Ed, have you had this on the menu?

Go, no, I've not been there for three months, maybe.

Well, I've been there six times.

So you've been trying other restaurants.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They recommended them to me, but I don't listen for that three-month period because I've got my new favourite place.

They know my name, no?

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah, lost count the amount of times.

Yes.

I've been to Hopper's many a special meal.

Very excited to talk to Cohen about, I mean, I'll try and get him talking about some of my favorite dishes.

That's my plan going into it.

That's your plan, going.

I mean, I don't think you're going to have to trick him into that.

I'm going to trick him.

It is his restaurant.

He's going to get tricked.

Yeah.

He will think it's his idea.

Yes.

Right.

we will see i mean it was his idea the restaurant was his idea and he'll think it's his idea to talk about the dishes right okay yeah well i'm excited to talk to him there's also a hoppers cookbook out now james yeah i mean obviously any

any aspiring chefs yes anyone who just wants to you know make some more interest vary up their menu at home any yeah any current chefs yeah any current chefs actually yes any retired chefs who uh want to get back in the game yeah

you can all get the hoppers cookbook that cohin's written it looks beautiful as well recipes memories and inspiration from sri lankan homes streets and beyond lovely i've got a copy at home actually i've been flicking through it it looks fantastic don't really have any time to cook any of it but you know what i'm reading it you know what else people should read they should read ed gamble glutton the multi-course life of a very greedy boy thank you so much james yes that's my book out now that is out now now we love currencies we do but if he says the secret ingredient an ingredient which we deem to be unacceptable we will be forced to kick him out of the dream restaurant, which is a shame.

Yes.

Because he has a restaurant and he could get us back.

Yeah, he could kick us out of our dream restaurant, which is Hopper's.

Yeah.

So let's hope we won't have to do this.

But this week, the secret ingredient is Bovril.

Bovril.

I mean, it doesn't feel like he's...

I swear to God, we've already had it.

But we did a live show recently and someone shouted out Bovril and then it turned out we'd never had it.

And we thought, that's too good.

We have to have it on a proper studio episode.

I don't like it, man.

Bovril.

No.

It's what's it playing at?

Yeah, well, it's...

It's trying to be like Marmite.

Yeah, it's like liquid Marmite drink, hot drink.

Oh,

and some stinky old man will drink it at a football game.

Yeah.

That's that's my only memory of it.

Stinky old footy fans.

Yeah,

they sit there drinking it.

You're like, what a

Saturday.

Yeah.

You know?

Have a tea or coffee.

Have a tea or coffee, mate.

Don't drink that Bovril around other people in a crowded stand.

Yeah.

You're trying to watch the footy.

Yeah, we always think that when we go go to the footy, don't we?

Yeah, when me and you go to the footy and we just want to watch the football, we want to watch them kick the old footy about, yeah, and then we're just sitting next to some stinky bobville drink.

Yeah, disgusting, disgusting.

So, if Curran picks that, he's obviously out on his ear, out of the podcast, out of the dream restaurant, out of the footy stand.

This is the off-menu menu.

Oh, interesting,

you're doing that.

Well, not anymore, because you interrupted me.

This is the off-menu menu of Curran.

Currengani!

Welcome, Curran, to the Dream Restaurant.

Absolutely.

I've been waiting to come and dine here with real food.

Welcome, Curran Gokani, to the Dream Restaurant.

We've been expecting you for some time.

Thank you.

It's odd at a restaurant to get two welcomes immediately.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's good hospitality.

We need some of that right now.

We keep saying the welcome is the most important thing.

The farewell is equally important.

You often don't get those.

that's true that's true actually normally they're you know five minutes i i don't think badly of it but if you're in a restaurant and you know you finished the transaction yeah and you're leaving and sometimes i might see like the server who i was dealing with yeah talking to another table and then i feel oddly jealous yeah yeah yeah that is true though yeah that's very and for that reason i say there's no harm stopping to talk to that table look up for a second say goodbye because now you've done two good things you've stopped you from being jealous but the other the guys he's talking to to know that he'll do the same for them hopefully yeah so you've kind of won two parties what's the best one farewell you've had at a restaurant it's probably one i gave to someone i've run down the street like just thanking someone who was a complete ass yeah i've run down so they said you know they were they were difficult on the table years ago and i said this is my culture it's not theirs and eventually you know i think the observer who was pissed off with them sort of did say bye to them.

They just walked past.

And then I chased them down the street.

I was like, listen, I just want to say big thank you for coming in.

Hope to see you again.

And they're just shocked.

Yeah.

And I think it's a nice one too.

Yeah.

Maybe

they'd have to change their mind in future because they probably walked out of there going, like, oh, I've been rude again.

Well, hopefully not.

I've been rude again.

I can't go back to that restaurant.

I burnt my bridges again.

Yeah, yeah.

And then you chase them down the street.

I'd imagine when they first see you chasing them down the street, you think, oh no,

he's come to tell me off here.

Uh-oh.

Yeah.

You're beaten up again by a number of people.

No, I think that's what's hospitality about.

You know, you catch people on the wrong day sometimes.

Sure.

And you've got to give them the benefit of doubt.

You know, there's this whole thing about the guest is always right in hospitality.

People go a bit crazy about that.

I was like, look, give them the benefit of the doubt.

Listen to them before you make a judgment and allow them that little bit of grace because they could be having a bad day and that's why they've probably stepped in.

It could be one person who's booked a table, the other person's not really keen on eating.

And if we could convert both, we've done something really nice.

Otherwise, it just gets boring bussing tables.

Yeah.

And also, you've probably, you know, if you confront someone like that, it's probably not going to go very well.

But if you chase them down the street and say, hey, I just wanted to say, thank you for coming.

Hope we see you again.

If they think, well, that was odd.

Yeah.

And then they're like, well, why do we think it's odd?

Oh, because we didn't deserve it.

Yeah, yeah.

But then they might, that might make them reflect a bit more rather than just going, like, you guys are a bunch of dickheads.

it's a much it's a much better way to make your point i think that's good we've never we've never talked about the the farewell before yeah i never go back in the lamp at the end of the yeah

you've really got a nail the end of this episode james you should go back in the lamp yeah yeah we've really got to do that i actually don't know your history of where you where you started out uh like what your first restaurant was that you worked at

a wild shot you want to just guess

where you learned where you learned these things and and got the got the farewell i mean mcdonald's

Actually, I'm a huge fan of what they do.

Yeah.

I'm not going to lie and say, no, there are lots of restaurants of chefs who will come in and be like, oh, I don't eat a McD's, but I love it.

You know, I do eat it once in a while.

There's a reason you go to McDonald's.

The Phileo Fish Burger changes very minutely across the globe.

And I think that's an amazing feat.

Yeah.

To have created a product that that's consistent.

And, you know, this is another sort of way going into a whole hospitality podcast.

So farewell was one.

The other thing is consistency.

Sometimes it's not about the food.

It's not about the service.

It's about the consistency you get from that experience.

And I think we all go to McDonald's or we go to fast food restaurants for that, the same colors.

You know what it's going to feel like.

You know what it's going to smell like.

And there was a book by the founder of McDonald's called Grinding It Out.

Yeah.

And it was fantastic.

They made it into a movie as well.

I love that book.

And I read that when I was a lawyer and it really inspired me.

Not to do McDonald's, maybe one day.

a fast food chain, but Hopper's is very different.

Another great inspiration was Danny Meyer.

And I think I've learned a lot of this from him.

It's probably one of the greatest.

Have you guys heard of him?

No, probably one of the greatest restauranteers across the porn.

New York.

He has a restaurant called Union Square Cafe.

He's got Grammar City Tavern.

He's got the whole load of great hospitality.

He has been to both of those restaurants across New York, but he's also got Shake Shacks.

Oh, wow, yeah.

And one of the highlights of my career has been doing burgers with Shake Shack.

So we've done a Hopper's burger with Shake Shack in New York here.

Oh my God, we never wanted to eat something immediately so much.

It was a really good lunch.

I'd love a Hopper's burger from Shake Shack.

Hopefully, this brings it back.

I've been trying every angle.

What was it?

We basically, every time I do a collab, the idea should really be: it's not me stepping into your kitchen on your toes, but it's how is there this meeting of mind, meeting of food?

And it was the same with Shake Shack.

Mark Rosati, who is the culinary director of Shake Shack, the entire team, we're all really good friends.

I mean, gone back a long time.

And when it came to finally doing this burger, we said, look, I'll use your burger.

You've put all this effort into creating.

I'm not going to do a new patty.

So we use their their bread, lovely rolls, love their bread, their patty, their cheese.

But then we added layers onto that.

So we did this lovely sort of

slow-cooked beef in, I'm sure you've tried our bone marrow curry at home.

Yes, absolutely.

So that was an inspiration.

So we got all the bone marrow into the curry, folded it through, cooked, slow-cooked it, added some meat to it, pulled that meat, and we had that sloppy meat on top.

So a bit like a sloppy joe on top of their burger.

We then had pickled red onions for color as well as that, not to cut the fat, a green coriander mayo.

So it's a really visually beautiful burger.

You can check it out on Instagram.

We've got like a really nice build of it.

And then finally, a green chili.

So half a green chili.

And then anyone we didn't like, we just put a whole green chili.

Yeah, it was really fun because it's

a good fun to say.

Thank you very much for coming.

Enjoy your afternoon.

That sounds so delicious.

So yeah, so Danny is who I've learned.

He's got a book called Setting the Table,

which has been a Bible.

I read it every year.

I get the team to read it.

It's got videos out on YouTube.

The man is a genius.

And the way he sort of explains concepts, there's a more recent book by Will Kudera, EMP, called Unreasonable Hospitality, which is great.

It's kind of extension because Will worked with Danny for a long time.

So those are great books to read and understand these concepts.

And I think they're natural.

You've either got hospitality within you or you don't.

And I think maybe I had that.

So I used to be a lawyer.

Yeah.

And then I jumped ship, moved back to India for a year, dabbled a little bit there, came back.

My wife and her brothers had set up a great group of restaurants by then, smaller group, then much bigger now.

Joined them, came up with this idea of Hopper's, tiny little 40-seat restaurant in Soho.

And there were queues around the block.

It was just really fun.

I still love Soho.

I still say it's our flagship restaurant, although our most recent King's Cross, our third site, is about four times the size of Soho.

Yeah, yeah.

I felt very lucky.

The first time I went to Hopper's, I just got there.

So I was there before it opened that day.

Hopper's Soho.

I've done that before.

Soho, yeah, yeah.

I was probably on the door.

Really?

I swear to you.

I was there on the door for the first two and a half years.

Somebody did chase me down.

But yeah, and felt very lucky to get a table there.

And it was, yeah, it was so good.

We should talk about the book because there's a Hopper's cookbook, which is out now, which is incredible.

It's the debut cookbook.

It's the debut cookbook.

My debut cookbook, Hopper's debut cookbook.

It was, you know, a year in the making.

And in many ways, it's like, you know, I treated it like our fourth restaurant,

but at an international scale.

So Hopper's Soho was first, Hopper's Marlebone, which is on the corner of James and Wigmore, just beyond Self-Ridges.

That was number two in 2017.

And then King's Cross was 20.

And then everyone knows what happened for the best part of, you know, a year and a half.

I'd write from about 10 to 3 o'clock for about six months.

It was good.

There was no distractions, nowhere to go out and eat.

No restaurant to run then.

I mean, off and on.

And it was a...

an amazing project but i think design was a very very important part of it because again it was what i'm doing here is not, I'm not just looking back and trying to write a book for fans of Hoppers or people who've been to Hoppers and want to cook the dishes at home because that's a given.

They will come and buy the book.

I want to write the book for people who've never heard of Hoppers.

How do we create that little sense of Hoppers in their homes,

wherever in the world they are?

You know, there's a little ribbon, which is the border of the floor tile that kind of borders you in Soho.

And it was the first, one of the first elements we chose when my brother-in-law and I were in Sri Lanka.

We were researching the restaurant and the design.

We saw a lovely floor in someone's home, took a picture, sent it to our designer here.

She then sent it to Italy to copy.

And we had these beautiful floor tiles, probably spent more on those tiles than anything else in that restaurant.

And this border borders that tiny little, you know, whatever, 500, 600 square foot room.

And I just wanted that same border to follow you through the book.

So it's on the cover, it's on the back page, and it's on this ribbon.

I had to fight with the, it wasn't a very hard fight.

They were quadrille, my publisher, and you know, they allowed me to do it.

So those little touches, I feel kind of, if you've read the book and you've never been to Hopper's and then that entices you to come in, when you walk in, you're like, oh my God, this is like the book in three, four, five D.

I think it's so important with cookbooks, especially to get the aesthetic right and make them look beautiful and the formatting and all of that sort of stuff.

Because I mean, I can only speak for myself.

I'm not doing every recipe in a cookbook.

I'm not cooking cover to cover.

Yeah.

But I like to read them like novels.

Yeah.

So I will sit there and enjoy them and go through them.

So it's so important that it looks lovely on a shelf even

so yeah

it looks absolutely amazing

books that i own in terms of how they look cookbooks

they look much nicer than anything else yeah apart from meds books

a mod cook life of a very greedy boy thank you james

let's start your dream menu then you we always start with still a sparkling water Still to hydrate, sparkling to celebrate.

But I'll tell you why, because sparkling water just makes me want to pee.

It's a long meeting, if it's an interview, I'm not going to drink sparkling water.

Or if it's a podcast.

More than still water.

Sparkling water makes you want to pee.

There's just something in it.

I don't know what it is.

I do love it.

And I've recently stopped drinking, which will probably answer the second question, but that's even more reason to sort of, you know, when you want to, when someone's having a drink on the table and you kind of miss it once in a while.

Yeah.

The sparkling water.

But then you have to immediately go to the toilet.

Not immediately.

Oh, hang on, after a bottle or two.

Sorry, I spoke because I wanted to talk more about the pee, but then

I I missed the bitters.

Yeah, that's way more.

No, you just get a little bit of wedger citrus, get a little bit of bitters in there, and it's a bit of a drink.

And, you know, you're not having them.

It's not a sweet drink.

It's not pop.

It's just nice fizz on your terms.

Yeah.

Fizz on your terms.

Yeah.

A good tap.

A good drink, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Start bottling this.

Yeah,

fizz on your terms.

So you wouldn't have that for your dream meal, though you would.

Now that secret's out and you don't mind me getting up and going off to the loo, I'll start off.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, because that sounds great with the bitters.

I'd want.

Yeah.

i think yeah definitely and also it's your dream it's your dream meal so you can get up and go to the loo's if you like yeah yeah or can the genie remove i can remove the urge to pee okay if you like my genie powers okay unless you like going to the toilet in a restaurant in which case you can carry on you always check the toilet in a restaurant it says a lot about the restaurant yeah i think so good point actually yeah it's nice to see the if they ran out of budget they're actually cleaning the path clean the toilets yeah well when when you're like you know designing a new restaurant and you're it comes comes to the toilets,

what things are very important to you for the

most important thing, music.

And I've screwed up a few times.

Yeah.

Having music in the toilets.

And especially if you're going unisex, which is also something we've done.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You've got to have a...

What's the best toilet music?

Good question.

I don't know.

I'm trying to figure it out.

Just anything loud.

Yeah.

Anything with a lot of beats dropping.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

A lot of songs that have got plops in them.

Yeah, exactly.

I was going to say that.

Yeah.

Podlog's all bad.

Podlog's not are bad.

See, the good thing is I've heard this podcast enough to know that that's not a, you know, that's not directed to me because of the colour of my skin.

Pop-doms are bad, Karagakani.

Pop-doms are bad.

I'll tell you what.

Obviously, it depends on what I'm going to be eating later, but this is the dream meal.

My palate will be completely cleansed.

I do love popadums.

Yeah.

But...

I call them puppets.

Yes.

That's what the name is.

And I also like them roasted.

I only like one particular kind.

Yes.

It's the one made with the black lentils, the urad dal, with black pepper.

And you roast that, which gives it a completely different flavor from frying it.

It's got a lot more depth.

It's got that spice.

And then with that, the best thing you can ever do is if you ever get these from a restaurant, so even if you get the fried stuff, the coriander chutney they normally send, ask for some yogurt, mix it through, and you've got this lovely yogurty coriander chutney to dip into.

But then bread any day is

a lawyer.

I'm going to caveat everything.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you can argue both sides.

That's good, I have to.

Bungie butter, good sourdough bread.

You know bungie butter?

No.

Tried it?

Fen Farms.

Oh, so good.

What's it called?

Bungie butter.

Fen Farms, yeah.

So they're called Fen Farms out in

Sussex.

You get it at good sort of good cheese shops.

Yeah.

Comes in a little, it's almost like a brie, one of those wooden boxes.

There's sort of little wooden boxes, I'm guessing.

And it's incredible butter.

Really, really good.

Oh, no, I want that.

You've got to try it.

But that's if you were having bread, I'm having papadums with a chutney yogurt.

The chutney yogurt is such a good hack.

I'm going to do that next time.

I'm having a curry.

Yeah.

And you know what?

It's quite forgiving because sometimes you've got a chutney that might be too acidic, or sometimes it's a bit salty, or it's just not got the flavor.

The yogurt, really good Greek yogurt just blends it nicely together.

Yeah.

And gives you this, you know, and then you can add a little bit of sugar or salt just to balance it out.

You've made me want you to have both now.

That's exactly what I was going for.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

She's got you.

So because,

also I just want to order bungee butter because it's fun to sell you've got

we'll go for a walk after this you're not recording anymore.

We'll go pick some up Yeah, go get some bungee butter on the way to the airport and then fly to Sri Lanka.

Yeah, and then we've got all of our dreams

Popsicles, sprinklers, a cool breeze.

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Let's start with your menu proper, your dream starter.

So a trick I always have at restaurants.

Again, you can see I've thought this through.

Yeah.

A bit like the whole bunky butter and poppet vibe.

This is great.

I go with someone I like and I have a good rapper with, and I make sure I order their meal as well so I get to taste both.

I'm going to do the same thing here.

Lovely.

So two starters.

This is so funny that we've established that you used to be a lawyer and now you're a restaurateur and you are absolutely attacking this in the way a lawyer would.

Oh, if I was ever like, I mean.

There's no life in which I'm a lawyer, but

if I was and I was against you in court, you would make mince meat out of me.

Yeah.

You would absolutely make me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You would destroy him.

There is a world where I was a lawyer, but a very bad one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

I'd be like Uncle Jack and always Sonny.

That's as good a lawyer as I would be.

I'd be Lionel Hutz.

Yes, and Cohen would destroy both of us.

Who's the other friend?

Who's the friend you're bringing with you?

Yes.

I thought it's Ed.

Yeah,

you're the genie, yeah.

Yeah, oh, great.

We've hung out in a festival.

We've

eaten together.

We hung out at a pub in the park.

Yeah.

Ed, you're eating a pizza.

I'm eating together.

We can eat the mini pizza because it's a starter.

No, we don't need a mini pizza.

Yeah, okay.

I'm at the meal.

Come on.

Fine party.

I'm at the meal now.

Fine.

Cohen's ordering it for you.

Yeah, yeah.

So don't make me keep your opinions to yourself.

I'm just...

So that's not my starter on the edge.

Yeah.

That's his.

What's my pizza?

What's my pizza?

I think just a simple margarita.

Good chilies on the side, dried chilies on the side, chili oil on the side.

And then you just dip in.

You don't even sprinkle it over.

It's just simple.

I love that.

Yeah.

There's so much.

It's like good bread.

There's just few ingredients and there's so much effort.

And this is the chef of the cooking me talking.

Yeah.

And I'm obsessed with pizza.

If you follow my Instagram account, there's Indian, Indian, Indian, Sri Lankan, Sri Lankan, hoppers, and then pizza.

Everyone's like, what the hell?

There's no connection.

Curate the account.

I said, this is just me.

This is what I do.

And hopefully I'll get some pizza lovers.

I'll get some Sri Lankan lovers.

And that's it.

Whereabouts is your favorite pizza?

I mean, in the world, I cook a lot of it at home.

But in London, my go-to place is Moza.

Have you been?

No.

It's Nancy Silverton's restaurant.

So she's from LA.

Great, very well-renowned, sort of legendary pizza chef.

She's got got a restaurant called Mozer, M-O-Douza, at the Treehouse Hotel.

It's sort of right next to the BBC Studios.

Oh, nice, yeah.

Can I talk about her studios?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.

So off sort of Regent Street.

I love it.

Someone was telling me about that.

I'm saying that

is like so renowned in LA.

It's like the place to go to, but it doesn't seem to have had that.

No, I think they've had a construction site in front of their building for a long time.

Right, okay.

And look, it's different people have different sort of preferences.

I think hers is a very LA style pizza.

It's a really cool crust.

The crust is quite sort of, she's got semolina on it and almost overdone to an extent.

But I love it.

It's just really, and again, a simple pizza there is great on the counter, watching the guys make it in front of you.

But then equally, there's, I want to try this crisp pizza.

I haven't been to it yet.

Sort of East London, I think.

Crisp pizza.

I see it all over Instagram.

Hear people talking about it.

Now, I guess it might be a silly question.

Yep, it's going to be.

What's my real start?

Are the crisps on top of the pizza or is the base made of crisps?

No.

Crisp doesn't necessarily just relate to

potato crisps, does it?

It'd be a good one, though.

Yeah.

You know, crisp is also just the general word for a texture.

Well, why is it on Instagram?

It doesn't sound very exciting.

Well, everything's on Instagram, isn't it?

So it's just crisp.

It's just crispy.

Crispy pizza.

I think I missed the

why.

Yeah, yeah.

But yeah, I mean, there's great pizza.

Even Pilgrims does a good pizza.

Yeah.

You know, I like the story of the guys that, you know, I was following them ever since I was a lawyer.

They've done so well.

It's still a relevant brand.

It's amazing.

Amazing what they've done.

So I'm having a, I've got a...

You're having a pizza.

I've nicked a slice or two.

Yes.

But my

start and

if it's a mini pizza.

That's what's happening.

If it's a mini pizza, how are you nicking a slice or two?

There's not very much left for me.

I'm glad you chose the big one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Thank you for that.

Full mean-sized pizza sliced up.

Yeah.

Sliced up.

See, I don't get why people don't slice pizzas sometimes.

Sometimes they arrive.

Sometimes they arrive.

Like I order them sometimes and they arrive and they've not been sliced.

And I get so annoyed.

Yeah.

Luckily, I've got one of those big curved blades.

I've got to do that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't carry it with me, but I've got one at home.

It's different.

It sings a sailor song when you're in.

The only thing more annoying than that is when it's sliced, but it's not really sliced.

Yeah.

So they've kind of gone through the top.

And you think it's sliced and you've got to pull it and all the cheese just comes off of one slice.

Yeah, yeah.

What's that about?

Yeah,

I don't know what they're thinking.

No.

Yeah.

I know that during COVID or during the lockdowns, they were like, we can't be slicing up their pizza.

We've got to be careful here.

So I was like, okay, fair enough.

But now they've continued it.

Yeah.

I'm like, guys, you know, that I'm going to want to slice this up.

I know I've got to do it myself.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, that's a sad day.

And you're just reminding me of a global pandemic.

I'm sorry.

So what's your starter?

Duck pancakes.

Yeah.

I love them.

It's one of those you can never get enough.

Yeah.

It's like this dish we ate growing up called panipur.

You know, this might be not my third starter.

I mean, it could be, but you have these little crisps.

Have you ever tried

onion restaurants?

You get these little crisps and then you fill them in with some potato, spiced potato and chickpeas and stuff.

And then you get this green minty water.

It's delicious, like with tamarind and stuff.

And you pour that in.

The point is, when you finish the crisps, you have the other two left.

So you ask for more crisps, the little crispy balloons.

Then you finish the water and you ask for more and you can never stop.

It's this sort of constantly sort of this, this vicious circle.

And I find it's the same with duck pancakes until the duck is finished.

But then I start eating it with the vegetables and chili oil and sauce.

Yeah, of course.

But I love that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I'd be very tempted to put the pancakes to one side for a second and put all the duck and everything on the pizza and

eat that.

I'll be tempted to

Frankenfield.

Shout out to Bella Italia.

I once had a Hoisin duck pizza.

At the time, I loved it.

Looking back, it was crazy.

Instead of tomato sauce base, it was Hoisin sauce.

Too much.

Duck, cheese, and spring onion.

Absolutely insane.

Yeah.

Yeah.

In a a good way?

No.

No.

No, I just, just mad.

Just you're eating and you want that cheese.

Yeah, well, the cheese was.

Yeah.

It has to have cheese to be the pizza, right?

Maybe.

That's another thing where you get like the white pizzas.

You get pizza without cheese and all that.

So that's the worst thing.

You order that pizza.

It just sounds so good.

And then, you know, that's why I started going for margarita.

Yeah.

You know what it's going to be.

But, you know, you go with four friends and they're not going to share with you.

And then you get that.

You're the only person who gets that white pizza.

It's like, oh, are you?

How do you build your pancakes?

What order are you putting the things?

Or HEOs?

Hoisten sauce.

Yeah.

Chili oil.

And you build it in your hand.

That's a nice way of doing it.

You pick it up.

You can stretch over.

A little bit of hoisten sauce.

Chili oil.

Something we always love, my wife and I, is chopped fresh red chilies with soy sauce.

So you sort of pour soy sauce over.

It kind of just does something to the soy sauce and to the chili.

Then duck, a little sliver or two of spring onion.

cucumber for crunch and then those little red chilies.

Yeah.

Great.

I love that you're adding all this chili stuff as well that's great normally i i just end up having the the duck the veg and the hoisin sauce which is great but with chili oil as well

nice balance i go uh hoisin sauce first spread it out on the pancake same duck vegetables on top yeah you to me seem like a drizzler james yeah yeah yeah i'll

you go last hoisin last no no no no no come on don't don't put me in that category because these people who go hoisin last are using up all the fucking hoisin because they've got no way of regulating how much they're putting on.

You need to put enough on to get the flavor of it, but you're not putting dollops on.

These people are fucking dolloping and drizzling.

It gets on my nerves.

But I'll tell you what's worse than that.

It's people who are using up all the duck.

When they just pile that pancake high with duck, I said, just get that little shred of duck.

It's a nice balance.

And then we can have more.

Yeah.

Did you say pancake last, James?

Yes.

Pancake last.

So you in your hand.

Yeah.

Duck in your hand.

In my hand.

Yeah.

Duck.

I just grab everything.

Yeah.

In my hand.

And then I get a pancake, slap it on the top.

Yeah.

And then pancake first into my mouth.

Yeah

Dream main course, main course is, I guess.

Main course is for you and for Edward Gambling.

Exactly.

So

here I've got it kind of built into the course itself.

So I'm not necessarily going to have to choose to, but very happy to, always greedy when it comes to ordering.

In close second, it could be a biryani.

Yes.

And a lovely biryani at Pub in the Park from Hopper's.

Yes.

Yeah.

Very, very good.

That was, yeah.

So that was one kind of biryani.

So we kind of toss it all together.

We call it a taba biryani or pan biryani where the sauce is mixed with the rice and it's really delicious.

It's perfect for volume like that.

But then the dham biryani, which is

where you've got the meat, you've got layers of rice and meat and the rice almost sort of steams through in that lovely aroma and then it's garnished on top and it's usually under a little seal, which could be pastry, which could be broti, which could just be a lid.

I love that stuff.

I think it's the ideal sort of dinner party menu.

It's the ideal sort of one pot meal coming out of that region of the world.

Just a little raith on the side is perfect.

Yeah.

But the other sort of equivalent of that, which would be my first choice, is something called a lump rice.

Now you'll have to buy the book to find out what that is.

Tell us.

It is.

I will tell you.

But to cook it, maybe.

So we've got the whole recipe broken down in the book.

It's a Sri Lankan dish.

Have to be Sri Lankan here.

Repping.

It's spelt L-A-M-P-R-A-I-S, and it's a Dutch burger dish.

So it was, you know, like you had the Anglo-Indians, you had the Dutch sort of colonize Sri Lanka for a while, and the children were known as the burgers, B-U-R-G-H-E-R-S.

There's an H there.

So nothing to do with the McDonald's burgers we were talking about earlier.

But it's an incredible dish.

It's in banana leaf.

You've got this short grained rice.

So first you cook a meat.

So it's usually mixed meat, three kinds of meat.

We're really going all in here.

Yeah, this is like a full feast in one parcel.

three kinds of meat lots of lovely spices you stew them and then you collect the stock it's almost like think Hainanese chicken rice you get the stock you boil the rice in that stock really aromatic rice and you put these two together so it becomes a dryish curry by the time you sort of dried out and that stock is used to cook the rice then you've got lovely aubergine pickle like a moju or pahi so it's this aubergine pickled aubergine with onions and stuff then tend to have two or three other little dishes in there you have a little fried egg on top you have a cutlet, and then you wrap the whole thing in banana leaf.

And I used to have friends at university, still have friends, who bring parcels and parcels of these from Sri Lanka Frozen.

And they keep in the freezer and they're very, very protective of them.

So you've got to be a really good friend for one of them to share it with you.

So they do these tiny parcels.

Hoppers, we...

occasionally for specials do larger parcels.

But imagine that that little parcel is then steamed or baked.

So now on top of all the flavor, you also get that lovely flavor from the banana leaf into all these things.

And then you just open it up.

It's not much to look at.

So it took a while for us to actually bring it on the menu because it just looks like someone's had this doggy bag where they were given, you know, very stingily given just one box and they had to clear the whole table, everything left over into one box and they swung it on the way home.

It's like one of those really bad takeaway orders that you get.

You know, someone swung the whole thing.

It just, everything's mixed into everything.

But it looks a bit like that sometimes.

And it's hard to make it look visually pleasing, but the flavors are insane.

And is that going to be on Ed's plate or your plate?

Yes.

I reckon I'll take this one.

So Ed's having a biryani.

Okay.

Oh, we won't show you.

Yeah, yeah.

All right, sure.

If he wants one, if he wants one.

Yeah, I was going to ask, we hadn't quite established whether, because obviously you're going to have some of mine, because that's why you've established this.

But am I going to have any of yours?

Only if you have that duck pancake the other way around.

Yes,

I'll eat the duck pancake like James.

I get to decide how Ed eats your food.

Yes, there you go.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah.

So how am I eating the biryani?

Well, you've got the biryani.

Oh, yeah.

How am I going to eat it for a lump price?

I guess I'd like you eat it one grain at a time.

Oh, no.

That's you've got a banana leaf to play with.

Oh, yeah.

You can use that.

You have to lick the banana leaf clean.

Lick the banana leaf clean, yeah.

Yeah, but you have to eat one grain of rice at a time and then just lick everything else off the banana leaf.

That genuinely sounds like torture to me.

That's awful.

That's given the idea of eating...

having an amazing like flavoursome meal and I'm hungry and I've got to eat one grain of rice at a time.

Yeah.

That's like when you were a kid and and they were saying chew everything 32 times.

Did you guys have that?

Yeah.

There's always this thing.

It's like chew your food 32 times.

Now I'm in the opposite position.

My elder son who hates eating for some reason, it's really upsetting.

He's his five-year-old and you know, I just finished battles at breakfast with him and you give him a bite and he's got this really good way of hiding food in his cheek.

Like a hamster.

Like a hamster.

Yeah.

And, you know, it just fills up.

And like there are days I've caught him with a slice of pizza there about an hour and a half later.

Like he's gone off to play something.

He's gone to a class and he's come back and he's like, he's been eating.

And the teacher's like, Oh, was he chewing gum?

I said, No, it's like, What's in his mouth?

And he's like, Oh, I've got pizza has now become too dry.

Can I spit it out?

I was like, You should just ask me earlier.

But it's a bit like him.

Like, I tell him, Eat fast, because we always grew up saying, Yeah, yeah, 32 bites, and that was really frustrating.

Yeah, you've got to chew everything so many times.

Yeah, I was told that as well.

There was no chance I was listening to that four or five times at most,

just enough to make sure it sort of doesn't kill you on the way down.

Yeah, just to get it down, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Also, I can't be counting and eating like that's

falling asleep, Yeah.

Yeah.

Forget it, man.

Just change his favour.

After like five, six bites of this, nothing does it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, thank you.

No, you can have as many bites as you like in the dream restaurant.

Yeah.

Okay.

So Ed has to

slamming a pancake into my face with all the filling on my hand.

Yeah.

Pancake first.

I think that's.

Pancake last.

Huh?

Pancake last.

Pancake goes on last and it goes in your mouth first.

Right, okay.

It's very important.

Yes, thank you.

actually maybe the banana leaf do you want me to wear it like balouch yeah i was gonna say do you want me to wear it like balou yes

yes can i leave the restaurant

your dream side dish in being honest to that main i think i just have a simple pot of yogurt which is really nice to balance out

so

stick to that if i was having something

as well yeah we're sharing everything

Except the banana leaf.

Well, I'm disappointed to hear I get the yogurt because God knows how I'm going to have to eat it, James.

Oh, yeah.

For a straw.

Yeah, okay.

Ooh.

Ed's got to use a straw for the yogurt for a little bit.

One of those big, fat boba straws, bubble tea straws.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It needs to be nice and thick.

Yes, it is two feet long.

Ooh, perfect.

Lots of lung power.

Oh, no.

This is turning into my nightmare meal.

Oh, sorry, Ed.

I don't make the rules.

You do.

You literally do.

That's what you're doing right now.

I'll tell you what.

I mean, if there was something else, I'll just go simple french fries.

Oh, yeah.

Simple French fries.

It's really nice.

No truffle oil, none of that crap on top.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Veggies sometimes, but just good French fries are great.

Where from?

Where does the best French fries, do you reckon?

Is it a fast food chain?

There's something about that smell of McDonald's French fries, but I'll tell you what, Shake Shack.

Yeah, I was going to say they do

the best French fries.

If you want to eat, not French fries.

They do contribute to fries.

Yeah.

Those, you know, the crinkle.

Crinkle cutter.

Crinkle cut

with cheese on top.

I was just having some of them the other day.

We did.

So when we did the burger with them,

we did chili, cheese, french fries.

I'll take that.

I'll take that.

I can't believe we missed this collab, man.

It was in New York, right?

It was in New York.

There was one.

There was one here as well.

There was one here.

And then we did a home in a week.

You're breaking my heart.

We'll bring it back.

Yeah.

Hopefully the guys are listening.

Yeah.

Bring it back.

Shake Shack.

Do you have like a dream like collab?

Like somebody who you haven't collaborated with before who you would love to just like, yeah, team up on?

Team up on?

We've done some interesting ones.

We're doing, you know, I've done some really cool stuff.

We did a burger.

We did an ice cream with salt and straw.

Do you know those guys?

Yeah.

So they're like Ben and Jerry's off the West Coast.

Tyler is one of the coolest, most fun guys I've met.

So we did a bone marrow ice cream.

The bone marrow.

He turned into an ice cream, which was incredible.

So that was earlier this year.

I've done stuff with Tyler.

I shouldn't have asked everybody.

I'm going to be a crime.

But I think I'd love to do something with a musician.

Like, I think, you know, again, that bringing that whole experience together doesn't need to be because we're artists, we're doing different things.

I don't really understand visual art or not really into sort of painting and that kind of stuff.

But I love music.

I don't know much about it.

I can't play an instrument to save my life, but I love rock and roll.

Who's your dream musician to do a collab with?

Bruce Springsteen.

Yeah.

It would have to be the boss.

Yeah.

The boss.

I mean, Mitt Jagger's.

out in the market again.

He's doing new albums and stuff, but I think Bruce Springsteen.

I think Springsteen would be the coolest one to do a Hopper's collab.

I hope he's listening as well.

Yeah,

please make it happen, Bruce.

Come on, Bruce.

I'm trying to think of...

I know you are.

I can see in your eyes, you're trying to think of what the dish would be called.

Yeah.

Trying to think of like his song titles and a pun

that would involve food.

Yeah.

I can't do it.

It's stressing me out.

Yeah.

It's stressing me out here.

It'll drop by the end of the episode.

We'll know what it is.

We'll finish with that.

Ben's got one.

Benito's got one.

It's going to be bad.

Prawn in the USA.

Prawn in the USA.

Fuck that.

We'll just do a festival then.

We'll do a festival that's good I'm having a nice episode myself bed

I'm learning about all these nice foods that have been and gone that I wish I could try I want the bone marrow ice cream so much Bonito's beat you at a job Bonito's just beat me yeah I just had my ass handed to me in a

in a pun war by bonito prawn in the USA that's so good

it's so good I'm now just thinking about that ice cream and how much I want that.

It was nuts.

It was totally nuts.

But it was.

I love like weird flavoured ice creams that you like especially like they've got a bit of salty savory thing going on with them oh man yeah and texture yeah yeah yeah and they just do it so well yeah yeah it's almost like that was like being in billy wonker's chocolate factory where he's like all these different flavors he's telling you all about them the guy's a complete ice cream nerd yeah but one of the nicest nicest guys i've ever collaborated with And again, it was the same thing.

It's like, let's do what you guys do really well.

And let's add a layer of our stuff on top of that so he kind of you know our rotis which you've had are these flaky piratas which you make in-house and when he had those we started talking about it we both came to the conclusion that actually doing this out in portland oregon which is a phenomenal place by the way we could just come and make these there but he's like no let's just use something local and then we came upon flattening croissants Because it's effectively the same thing.

It's got the same amount of oil in there as croissants have butter.

It's that lovely, flaky texture.

So we flattened croissants, candied them, and then ran them through this lovely sort of spiced ice cream.

And then he did a bone marrow fudge.

So we did a coconut base,

spices into it, and that was a soft serve.

Not the soft serve, the sort of base of the ice cream.

We had these candied pieces of croissant.

And then we had this lovely bone marrow, rich bone marrow fudge.

So he just melted bone marrow in and made this fudge sauce.

Oh my God.

It's amazing.

James has lost it.

He's gone.

Where'd you get off card?

I'll tell you what, he's

saying the stuff to me.

He's a genie.

You could have that for your decision.

No, that's that is truly torture because then I'm having to imagine something I've not had and there's absolutely no chance of me having.

Yeah, we're back on like, I mean, we've mentioned the banquet scene in the film hook many times over the years and bangerang.

But then it really is like being at that meal, but being unable to imagine the food and just like eating the ice cream and imagining everything that Covin just described.

So do they do that anymore in Portland?

It was literally one weekend only.

Oh my gosh, you monster.

We made it.

We did a video.

We just had fun doing it.

We went off to the biggest bookstore in all of USA, biggest independent bookstore.

It was a whole block called

Spowell's of Portland.

And we did a little talk to a bus.

And then we had free ice cream, killing it away to anyone who came.

There's one way to bribe people.

You know what?

It's nice to know that I finally got an answer to if I had a time machine, where would I go?

It wasn't that far back.

March this year.

Yep.

March this year, please.

March 23,

Portland already.

Get the massive bookstore, please.

Yeah.

Get my free ice cream and keep going around the block in a different disguise each time.

Well, I keep using the time machine, right?

Yeah, just keep using the time machine.

I go back to the end first of the talk.

Yeah.

And then I go back one minute each time until I get to the beginning of the talk.

Yeah.

And I always get the ice cream every time.

Yeah.

We haven't asked him how he'd eat the ice cream, though.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, that's a good point.

Well, different every time, right?

Yeah.

Well, yeah, yeah.

Give us the top three.

I mean, were you serving it in cones or were you?

No, we were doing cups.

You were doing cups.

Well, I i guess we can serve it to you in a cone if you like i'd change my cup every time to like a different i i also use a time machine yeah to bounce around time and get famous cups like the like king arthur's cup oh hang on well you you'd bring your own cup would you i'd get the ark of the covenant probably and uh have the have the ice cream the ark of the covenant the ark of the covenant wasn't a cup man was it not a cup massive i thought it was a cup no you're thinking the holy grail you're thinking of the other indiana jones film yes yes the ark of the covenant was that massive thing that they open it and all the nazis faces melt Yes, sorry.

Oh, no, I would have it out that.

I mean, I don't, if they give me a free ice cream,

it would melt the ice cream.

It would melt the ice cream.

Yeah, forgot.

You're a genie.

Provided melting.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'll have it in a load of things from Indiana Jones.

The crystal skull.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Makes sense.

They ate the monkey brains at one point out of the monkey skull, don't they?

So I'd have the monkey skull as well and the ice cream in there.

I'd just do that because I just like you guys to start thinking like a lot of people turning up today like thinking of joke yeah and then whatever that last one was about you could have it in that yeah the dialog i don't know fleabag

fleabag flea bag

yeah

now dream drink is very exciting because one of my dream drinks yeah is a hopper's drink which is i don't think it is on the menu anymore we'll bring it back that's easy enough to do you'll bring it back yeah that's easy i don't need salt and straw shape check but i'm about to burst into tears because i I can't remember his fucking name.

Describe it.

It's got...

Do you know the name, Benito?

You know it, because you know what I'm talking about, because I've talked about it before.

Rose Smash.

Rose Smash.

The Rose Smash.

Do you remember it?

From Hoppers?

Yeah.

That was a while ago.

Yeah, man.

I loved it so much.

Like, every time I went there, I'd get it.

Sometimes I'd go in just because I fancy the Rose Smash.

Okay.

Think about it all the time still.

We'll do version 2.0 for you.

Fancy the Rose Smash.

Yeah, I fancy the Rose Smash.

I thought you're banging someone someone at a picnic.

Fancy a quick rose smash.

That's a sound, quite an elegant way of putting it, actually.

I've considered myself quite the gentleman if I offer someone a rose smash at a picnic.

Yeah, man, I loved it.

Good.

I know what I'm going to be doing the rest of the day.

We'll work with the team.

We'll bring back the rose smash.

What was the rose smash?

I never had the rose smash.

Yeah, no, the thing that it had in it that I think was the, yeah, but it was a rose.

But it was like, it was like a slushy.

Yeah.

wasn't it?

But there was like a rose vermouth, was it or a rose it was like a it was it rose vermouth Benito nodding his head according to the menu.

Yeah, so like that was like it had this flavor that I've just never found in any other drink.

It must have come from the rose vermouth.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That like I can't even describe it to you because it was just like I hadn't had it anywhere else and it was very addictive because of that.

I tell you, this is the thing we do with hoppers because we've reached a point where we've got the three restaurants and very often people come there expecting the food to be just to have certain dishes.

And they've become so famous.

And for a little while we tinkered with the menu, changed things around and we realized we're just pissing people off because they come for classics.

It's like McDonald's doing sandwiches one day and deciding we're not doing burgers or doing a wrap one day and stuff.

And then we said, okay, fine, let's rein that creativity in.

Let's do a dish or two on the specials.

Let's keep the menu very focused.

Let's get better at doing what we're doing.

Let's do these collaborations outside, which is, you know, where we express our creativity, have some fun.

But what we've started doing a lot of is getting very creative on the drink side.

And we've got Martin, Angelus, and the team, and they're doing a phenomenal, phenomenal job.

And you've got to come back.

I mean, I think we will definitely match and raise you on that sort of, on that Rosé Smash, because the drinks are the best they've ever been.

And, you know, King's Ross has the biggest bar for that reason.

We wanted to show people that, look, you can actually have a nice overall great time.

Hopper Soho, most people used to come in smashed because I'd make them wait two and a half hours.

So we really missed a trick there.

You know, the guys next door were doing more sales on drinks and potentially snacks than we were doing on food because they'd be waiting two and a half hours.

And when you opened Marlebone, it was a different area.

People kind of come there for the food.

It's more functional.

Now they're drinking a lot more, but King's Cross is a great area.

No one waits.

If you tell someone to go off and wait for an hour for a table, they just leave and eat somewhere else.

So we kind of created, we've built this whole beautiful bar when you walk in.

And the idea is you wait there, you have a few great drinks, you make friends with the team, then you have your dinner, and you kind of want to come back there before you get your train back home.

Yeah.

So, drinks have become a big part of what we do.

And obviously, we'll be food-led, but I, you know, I'm very, very excited about what's in store, what we've been doing, and some lovely drinks out there.

Oh,

yeah.

So, please, I mean, we'll bring the Rose Smash back, but we'll make you try about 15 more as well.

Oh, and then roll you out.

If I must, yeah.

Yeah.

But

your dream drink.

What's Ed having first?

Yeah, what am I having for my drink?

I'll let you choose your drink here.

I'm not going to.

So like I said, I think three months ago,

I just decided one day I want to stop drinking.

Not because I was an alcoholic or any of that sort of stuff, but it just gives you, you know, it's just been a really refreshing time.

It's fun.

I don't know when this will, by the time this airs, I might be drinking again.

So I don't want to harp too much about it.

But I've enjoyed this sort of little phase of not drinking.

It's also meant I have tasted a lot of non-alcoholic beer, something I frowned upon earlier.

It's definitely a market that's picking up a lot.

Yeah.

I had one at a festival.

Was it?

No, it wasn't Pub in the Park.

It was at the Rock Oyster Festival in Cornwall.

This guy's called Impossible Brew.

And they almost, they have something in their beer which says it even gives you a buzz.

I didn't feel it, but

it was interesting.

And then these guys called Brulo, they do a beer.

But it also makes you realize that...

A lot of drinking is about the social setting and a ritual.

Yeah, for sure.

A bit like coffee.

So, you know, people go on about, oh my god it takes a lot to you get addicted to these things but I think you can break that ritual if you just decide and you just you look at everything surrounding that ritual so it might be friends who only want you to drink or won't hang out with you if you don't drink and I feel shift that little bit yeah but I've loved it and you know I guess it'll be the sparkling water with a touch of bitters in it maybe a non-alcoholic beer but I'll tell you what I don't not drink at all.

So I do have sips from the other person, which doesn't count.

So you're probably having a Negroni.

No, I'm having a rosé smash okay with the negroni which i can have a sip of yeah i love a bloody negroni yeah you can have a love a negroni i'd like a rose smash

yeah and you can have a sip karen but james can't what the

i just told you about it i'd have sold it to you yeah well i'll enjoy it very much head gamble well i'm i'm getting the 2.0 oh yeah the smash king that's good you should do a collab with james yeah let's do it but it has to be on a cocktail called the smash king and it has to have

mashed potato in it.

No, it doesn't have to have a mashed potato in it.

Yeah.

I'm the mashed king, so I used to make great mashed potato toys.

Yeah, okay.

You see, so I can record, we can do a cocktail called the Smash King, but don't put potatoes in it.

I'm sure we can work on it.

Yeah, exactly.

I trust Curran and his team.

Actually, that's exciting.

Yeah, I'm sure you and your team could come up with a cocktail with mashed potatoes.

Wow.

Tastes great.

Yeah.

Wow.

Well, yeah, this is exciting.

What's your recipe for the best mashed potatoes?

It was

obviously the potatoes and cream full-fat cream salt and pepper butter cheese orange cheese oh orange cheese yeah well just like orange color sounds horrible and then I mash it up don't start mashing until it looks beautiful and there's no lumps and then send that out and everyone would say you're the mash king send it out have you worked in a restaurant before I did I worked at a

pub kitchen

Doing the best mash doing the best mash time travel I'd love to come and eat that yeah I would love to Hey, you can buy my time machine if you want to try my mashed potato at the star in the machine.

You can come along with the burger, with the ice cream, with the rosé smash.

And all I want is mashed potatoes in return.

Absolutely.

Bring all that nice stuff.

That's the cool.

To the star in Geddington.

Yeah, the star in Geddington.

You should also get the nachos.

If you're going back to that time,

you should get the layered nachos with all the chili in it.

That was a great dish at the star in Geddington when I was there.

Yes.

Very good.

People love that.

That's where the orange cheese came from, didn't it?

Yeah, yeah,

the orange cheese, not going to battle with it.

That's That's it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's some nachos in the potatoes as well.

Actually, a good one.

Probably.

Cool.

Scoobas.

Bit of texture.

Yeah.

Mashed potatoes with nachos.

Oh, that'd be great.

Yeah.

You guys are coming up with great stuff.

Yeah.

I mean, this would be a whole race.

So you

have a sip of the negroni.

Yes.

I love a negroni.

Negronis are good stuff.

I didn't used to like them.

Because whenever I had one, the way it sort of connects with your mouth and the feeling it gave me was the same feeling I have when I'm just about to vomit.

Do you know what I mean?

Like the back of the throat starts to moisten because it's that bitter that hits right at the back of the throat.

And that's what that's what you get when you're about to be sick and your mouth starts producing saliva.

So every time I'd have a sip of negroni and be like, oh no, I think I'm about to be sick.

But then I taught myself to enjoy that, which means now I love negronis and I love being sick.

Do you know what?

I like how my Ed occasionally picks up the torch of the boring stories for me.

That's more exciting than the Diet Coke story.

What are you talking about?

It's not mine.

The Diet Coke story is fascinating.

It's a story of science.

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We arrive at your dream dessert.

We've already talked about ice cream and it was fantastic.

It's one of my favorite conversations I've ever had.

By murafudge.

Can we continue that?

Yes.

The dessert's definitely going to be ice cream.

I just love ice cream.

It has to be a massive, massive Sunday.

Yes.

Right.

With all kinds of textures.

It has to be chocolate in there.

Yeah.

And lots of hot fudge sauce.

None of that

stuff that sort of crystallizes.

None of that sort of quick freeze stuff.

Yeah, yeah.

I like it.

Just for me, it's like gooey textures.

Yeah, yeah.

Ben and Jerry's on the couch.

Yeah.

Guilty pleasure.

But I think this is like, this takes Ben and Jerry's to the next level, this dream dessert, like tons of ice cream.

Oh, so would it be Ben and Jerry's?

It would, but you're a genie.

You'll make something much better than that.

So,

yeah, so all kinds of flavors.

Peanut butter.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, Ben and Jerry's did this with, did a, did a flavor with Tony's recently, you know, the chocolate ice.

Yeah.

It was amazing.

Yeah, I had that one.

I think it's still available, and it's, it's fantastic.

Yeah, yeah.

It's great chocolate.

You can get it in a big Tesco near my house.

Yeah, yeah.

And they do amazing chocolate.

So great chocolate, great ice cream, plus all the other add-ins.

I just think, I think clean ice cream doesn't do it for me.

You need the texture.

Yeah.

And it goes back to that whole thing of pani puri and duck pancakes where it's like I'll sit on the couch, tub of ice cream.

In my head, I say, okay, I think I can eat about it's midnight or bars.

It's like, I should not eat more than a third of that tub now.

But then you reach that line, that imaginary line, like, actually, there's a little piece of brownie.

It's like the tip of the iceberg.

It's like, it's just looking at me.

I need to have that.

And you kind of dig in.

It's like, okay, now I've had the brownie.

I need to have a little bit of ice cream.

Yeah.

Just to balance it out.

You have that ice cream and then you're like, actually, there's chocolate looking at me.

And you just go down.

It's like, I've had a whole tub in a sit.

Yeah.

And, you know, I've been very ashamed of that.

Also, you kid yourself because you're like, I'll eat half of this, so you think that's halfway down exactly, but the tub's wide exactly.

So, you've eaten three-quarters of it by the time you get to what you think is halfway, and then you're like, fuck it, I'll just eat the rest.

Or you just feel really shit the next day when you're eating that other half.

It's like, I shouldn't have just eaten that.

Yeah, you're like, I can't wait for that.

The smaller half yesterday.

Oh, I can't wait for another half of ice cream, half tub of ice cream.

Oh, that's the one.

Or you open the next one, so you finish that, and you open the next one.

Yeah, that's another thing I've done.

So, so, yeah, for me, ice cream is definitely the thing, but textures, all kinds of the main thing i do with the bed and jerries is the uh because the sides obviously melt first the outside so i just get the spoon down there and i'm telling myself i'm not really having much i'm just eating the sides

so i just i just i just go right down to the bottom scrape up yeah just have the more melted bits and then i go all the way around

so i go all the way around just go oh this this next layer is quite soft as well i go around there so like yeah a lot of the time that's that that's my and then i'm the same as you like a beaver on a a log Yes like a beaver on a log and then I see a little Little chunk like you do and go got to get that chunk Yeah, yeah And then you're left the next day with just chocolate ice.

Yeah, yeah, yeah I'll tell you what of all the ways he's told us how to eat things This is probably the truest Yes, that's how

I totally agree with you.

Yeah,

I do I do outside first and the ice cream and Because your hands warming that tub up isn't it?

Yeah, yeah, hands warming up

with anticipation.

Yeah sweating.

It's like I want more.

I want more.

I don't like it when it's too hard i used to live with someone no who was like who wanted it straight out the freezer that like didn't let it melt but how were they she was like this is how like scraping little bits

she's like that's how i like it and i was like what the are you high as a kite you got you got to like soften these things i like soft ice cream the trick there is putting it in the microwave just like on the lowest power for like five or ten seconds i don't have the patience to wait then yeah yeah

and invariably it kind of melts weirdly but i think putting that in the microwave just melts it evenly across.

But you've got to find that because the worst thing is putting it in on the wrong setting and now it's turned to milk.

And you don't have the ice cream.

What I do, if I have ice cream and I'm eating dinner, when I'm about to eat the main savory bit of dinner, that's when I get the ice cream out.

So I'm happy with the savory food.

And then by the time that's finished, we are ready to go to ice cream town.

That's good.

In a buffet, that's always...

I hit the desserts first.

Got a massive sweet dessert.

Respect.

Hit the desserts first.

I just try them.

So I know how much of an appetite I need to save for it.

Knowing fully well, I've got a separate stomach, as everyone says.

So I'll first try it, justifying to myself, okay, I'm just tasting it so I know how much to save up.

Then I'll hit the buffet.

Yeah.

And then I'll go back loading a plate full of dessert.

I just love it.

You know what you like at that point?

Yeah.

I've got a...

So my sofa, that's if I want to watch television, has a radiator behind it.

So that's where the ice cream goes.

I put the Bed and Jerry's on the radiator.

No wonder it's melting from around first.

When I start, and then I watch it, you'll start to watch Strictly and then I'll reach behind.

You just, you said my story about Negroni tasting like sick was boring and you've somehow trumped me an even more boring story.

I think it's a beautiful story what I've just told about.

A story about watching Strictly on the sofa and putting your ice cream on the radiator.

If you look up happiness in the dictionary, Ed, and you'll find that story.

I'm holding up a sparkly paddle saying three.

Oh, not they're not sparkly, the paddles.

I love it.

So you're just basically a massive Sunday with loads of texture.

Cookies, texture, cookies, brownies for sure, nuts, toasted nuts, cashew nuts.

They taste amazing.

You guys ever had like a chocolate, a sizzling brownie?

We grew up having that.

There's a restaurant locally called Colaba where I live.

Great little Indian spot around the corner, run by some amazing people.

They do like a sizzling chocolate brownie.

So it's like they bring a brownie on a sizzling platter, then you dump hot fat sauce on top.

It all sizzles and kind of burns at the bottom.

Vanilla ice cream.

yeah it's like now melting you don't need a radiator for it it's almost like the radiator actually next time get a brownie on the radiator yes put your chocolate uh hot fudge on i mean put your penanjeri stub on top and then you've got the sizzling

i'll do whatever you say

i'll absolutely do that and then cashew nuts salted cashew nuts great and that is um it's just there's something about the nuts and salted nuts on the ice cream I'm definitely, I know what I'm going to do tonight.

I know I'm going to go home, I'm going to order Hoppazon deliveroo, and then I'm going to get some ice cream and some salted cashew nuts from the shop and I'm going to mix them together.

Don't forget the brownie.

I won't forget the brownie.

The brownie.

I'm going to get a brownie as well.

Right.

And read your menu back to you now and see how you feel about it.

Sparkling water with bitters and a wedge of citrus.

A wedge of citrus.

Oh, yeah.

Yes.

A citrus you fruit.

Grapefruit, lime.

Oh, grapefruit.

Let's go for grapefruit.

Grapefruit.

Yeah, yeah.

Narrow that down.

Popped up as or bread.

You want pop-up with black chutney

and lentils and yogurt?

No.

No.

Black chutney, yogurt.

No, not black chutney.

Black lentils.

Black lentil and black pepper, yoghurt.

Oh, no.

Poppards.

I've forgotten this as well.

No, you haven't messed up the body.

Puppet itself is made of black lentil and black pepper.

Black lentils and chutney.

Yeah.

Yogurt.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

Definitely a ton of water.

The coriander chutney is mixed with the yogurt.

Puppet's made with black lentils.

And you would like a chutney yogurt with it.

Yes.

Yes.

Jesus Christ.

And you want bread with fungi butter.

Ed's having that.

Ed's having that.

I'm having a bite.

Starter, you got the duck pancakes with the chili oil and the fresh chilies.

And Ed's got the margarita pizza.

Thank you.

Yum.

With chili oil as well.

And dried chili.

And dried chili.

Bay course.

Lump rice.

Yeah.

And biryani for Ed.

Thank you.

Yes.

Did we say what meat is in the biryani?

Did I miss that?

No, we didn't.

We did.

Chicken or lamb, but I like lamb.

Like a nice lamb shank biryani we do it at hoppers.

Just nice fall off the bone lamb shank biryanis.

Suck the marrow out afterwards.

Delicious.

Yeah.

And talking of falling off the bone, I'll be dressing as balloo for that course.

Does he fall off the bone?

I don't know.

So I can make it sound sexual.

Talking of sucking the marrow.

I think we go to the same picnic, said

side dish.

A simple pot of yogurt.

Also, the chili cheese french fries from Shake Shack.

Yeah.

That you did as a collab.

Drink.

A sip of Ed's Negroni.

Dessert.

A massive sundae.

Chocolate ice cream, peanut butter, cookies, brownies, nuts, salted cashews,

loads of hot fudge sauce.

And it may or may not be Ben and Jerry's.

Basically, it's be like the genie version of that, which Ed at some point did call Ben and Genie's.

We've glossed over it, but I think it's worth shouting out.

Benito and Genie's, maybe.

Benito and Genie's.

Yeah, ice cream.

Thank you so much for coming to the dream restaurant, Curran.

Yeah.

Curran, that was so good.

Absolutely delicious.

It's been a long time since we've had a menu that has made my mouth water that much.

So thank you for Daniel.

Look out for Hoppers X, The Smash King.

Yeah, coming soon.

Smash King.

Well, there we are, James.

A wonderful menu from Current Gokani.

Covered in drool over here.

Yeah, James is covered in drool.

He's drooled all over himself, all over his front and all over his crotch.

I should have worn a bib for that episode.

Should have worn a bib, especially when he started talking about that fucking bone marrow fudge, man.

That bone marrow fudge ice cream with the candied flattened croissants in it.

Oh my god.

Christ.

Oh my God.

Why is all the best stuff only available for limited times?

What are these people doing?

For one day in a bookshop.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Talk to all the books.

The Hopper's Cookbook is out, of course.

Yes, the Hopper's Cookbook is out, but you can't get the ice cream when you go and buy it.

The book itself is enough reward.

And obviously, go to Hopper's restaurants if you can.

Yeah, yeah, highly recommended.

There's three.

There's one in Soho, one in Maryland, and one in King's Cross.

Yeah, and if if you go to the one in King's Cross, you can catch a train to Ketwin after.

Yeah, why not do that?

Yeah, that's St.

Pancras, though, but they're the same.

Yeah.

And who knows?

I mean, in fact, I think where Hoppers is, is probably close to St Pancras.

And who knows, one day the Rose Smash might be back on the menu.

And if it is, raise a glass for me, will you?

You're going to die?

Yeah.

Yeah.

One day.

The Rose Smash will only come back on the menu when James A.

Caster is dead.

Oh, no.

Don't say that.

You'll never be able to have it again.

That would be so bad.

Yeah.

Oh, I hope I never die.

I also have a book out called Glutton, The Multi-Course Life of a Very Greedy Boy.

It's available now in a hardcover audiobook and e-book from wherever you get those things from.

Great.

Great.

I mean, we're still recording this on the day that I've been giving it.

Yes.

So I'm looking forward to it still.

Yes.

Thank you.

Hoppers London is the Instagram for Hoppers and Curran Cooks is Curran's personal Instagram where he puts up loads of exciting food stuff.

Yeah.

he has promised pizza.

He's promised pizza.

He makes it at home.

He said it.

I should make pizza at home again.

Yeah, you went for a big stage of that.

Making a lot of pizza at home.

Did I try your lamb anchovy pizza?

I think I did.

Yes, you did.

That's good stuff, man.

Man, I just, I just want to do no work and just stay at home and cook.

Yeah, we're hungry.

I mean, just for the listener, we're hungry, man.

Like, we haven't really had a proper lunch.

No.

We just listened to Curren describe all this amazing food.

We're hungry.

Yeah, we're hungry.

That's the situation.

We should go eat.

We should go eat now.

We should go and eat.

And he didn't say Bovril.

We need to go and eat.

Sorry, Benita's just stopped us when we were about to go eat.

He didn't say Bovril.

Obviously.

Yeah, we need to go eat, man.

Abovrilisly.

Bovrilously.

Bovrilously.

He didn't say Bovil.

What does your t-shirt say?

It doesn't say corn.

Aries.

Why does it say Aries?

Because it's an Aries t-shirt.

It's a collab.

with corn and Aries.

It's the cover of the debut corn album and instead of saying corn in the shadows, it says Aries.

I thought my

how hungry I am was making me hallucinate.

Thank you very much for listening.

We will see you again next week.

I'm so hungry.

Bye-bye.

Popsicles, sprinklers, a cool breeze.

Talk about refreshing.

You know what else is refreshing this summer?

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Oh, hello, it's Amy Gladhill here.

Hello, I'm Harriet Kemsley.

Single ladies, it's coming to London.

Well, we're already in London, I suppose, in a way, but we're doing a live show, aren't we?

It's true on Saturday, the 13th of September at 7pm at King's Place.

So we've got your Saturday night sorted.

We've done all the organising for you.

Come along, have some drinks, alcoholic or non-alcoholic, both are available.

And you can get your tickets from plursive.co.uk.

Or just head to the link in our Instagram bio and just clickety click click.

London, we're coming.