Ep 227: John Robins (Live in Bristol)

Hello, it's Ed Gamble here from the Off Menu Podcast.

Hello, it's James Acaster here from the Off Menu Podcast.

And before the episode starts, we'd like to talk to you about All Our Relations, a non-profit co-founded by your friend of mine, comedian Jen Brister, and Georgia Takax.

Yes, All Our Relations was originally started to support 15 families in Gaza when the genocide started, but now supports 21 families and funds several mutual aid projects, including two seven-day food kitchens and two mobile food parcel delivery schemes, as well, feeding hundreds of families in Gaza every single day.

They've created an absolutely amazing thing.

And we feel like, you know, it's the off-menu podcast.

We talk about food and we are very lucky to eat wonderful food and have access to absolutely brilliant food all of the time.

And I think we need to talk about people who have access to no food, James.

Absolutely.

So if people would like to donate, please go to allourrelations.co.uk or look at the links in Jen Brister's bio on Instagram.

Every penny raised goes to supporting people in Gaza.

Thank you so much and enjoy the episode.

Popsicles, sprinklers, a cool breeze.

Talk about refreshing.

You know what else is refreshing this summer?

A brand new phone with Verizon.

Yep, get a new phone on any plan with Select Phone Trade In MyPlan.

And lock down a low price for three years on any plan with MyPlan.

This is a deal for everyone, whether you're a new or existing customer.

Swing by Verizon today for our best phone deals.

Three-year price guarantee applies to then current base monthly rate only.

Additional terms and conditions apply for all offers.

There's nothing like sinking into luxury.

At washable sofas.com, you'll find the Anibay sofa, which combines ultimate comfort and design at an affordable price.

And get this, it's the only sofa that's fully machine washable from top to bottom, starting at only $699.

The stain-resistant performance fabric slip covers and cloud-like frame duvet can go straight into your wash.

Perfect for anyone with kids, pets, or anyone who loves an easy-to-clean, spotless sofa.

With a modular design and changeable slip covers, you can customize your sofa to fit any space and style.

Whether you need a single chair, love seat, or a luxuriously large sectional, Anabay has you covered.

Visit washable sofas.com to upgrade your home.

Right now, you can shop up to 60% off store-wide with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Shop now at washable sofas.com.

Add a little

to your life.

Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Well, welcome back to the Off-Menu Live Tour Show episode Bubba

bonuses.

And this is the second of our Bristol Hippodrome residencies.

Residual residencies, yeah.

Yeah.

It was recorded at the Bristol Hippodrome on the 12th of October 2023 with our brilliant guest, John Robbins.

John Robbins.

We love John Robbins so much.

Very excited to hear.

We'd already had Ellis James.

We'd already had Ellis James.

Time to complete the site.

That's what you have to do.

If you want to get John, you have to put up with Ellis first.

Yeah, it's the package deal.

Yeah, yeah.

So luckily, it came good, and we got what we wanted out of the deal.

Yes, we did.

We got John.

We got Bobbins.

Yeah.

There's callbacks, as always, to the first half, but please don't worry about that.

Don't get your knickers in a twist.

Don't worry about it.

And the audience on the night, as a secret ingredient for John, chose baked beans.

Baked beans, which is

quite a big secret ingredient.

The musical fruit.

So, you know, John likes music.

John likes music.

John has a very good routine about farting.

So who knows?

What will John say?

I mean, we know we were there.

We know we were there.

This is the off-menu menu live of of John Robbins.

Welcome to the Off Menu Podcast, taking the lasagna sheets of humor, pouring over the bolognese sauce of the internet, adding the bechamel of friendship, and creating a podcast lasagna, which is a fucking pie, unlike the ones in pubs.

That is Ed Gamble.

My name is James A.

Caster.

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

And this week, our guest is

John Robbins.

Very exciting.

Very excited to finally have John on the podcast.

It's a long time coming.

We cannot wait to hear John's choices.

You all know the secret ingredient already.

Keep that in your heads.

But for now, here it is: the off-menu menu menu of john robbin

well it's our first of of course i should have known the first live guest to bring a printout of his menu with him

yes

Did it on my laptop and it's all center aligned like a proper menu.

Oh, sorry, yeah.

Has he done a guff?

We can't start now, sorry.

Yes.

Because James is a genie, so we can't, he needs to make his proper entrance.

John, feel free if you want to rub the lamp, otherwise the audience can rub the lamp with their minds.

Would you like to physically rub the lamp or should we leave that up to the audience's minds?

I'd quite like to physically rub the lamp.

Okay, well please, you are most welcome to physically rub the lamp.

Which end?

It's surprised me.

It's a very sensitive lamp, so sort of wherever you rub it, it's going to explode.

The tips always are good.

Well,

there's a sort of tawdry option, isn't there?

Yes, there is.

But

I'm not going to start this gig in the gutter.

Unfortunately, we've already done that, John.

Oh, yeah, I tried to avoid listening earlier because I didn't want to hear what the secret ingredient was.

But

I did listen for about two seconds, heard you saying, you fuck a beat true, it makes your dick go red, and then I turned it off.

So if you just want to wank off the neck, that'd be great, Cheers.

I'm rubbing, oh my gee.

Welcome, John Robbins, to the Dream Restaurant.

We've been expecting you for some time.

Very exciting.

Big jump out of the lamp that time as well.

And I love to see someone rub a lamp and then immediately run away.

Well, it was more than I expected.

Yeah.

You've really pulled out all the stops here.

Thank you, son.

The banter beforehand was a little bit stressful on the old knees.

We've not done much banter.

Well, James has been in the lamp before, so that's.

Oh, okay.

He's been doing yoga, you know, the guy can squat.

You got a bit of lamp cramp.

Yeah.

I got some lamp cramp, but he's a bit damper.

You got some damp lamp cramp.

I got some damp lamp cramp, no mistake.

Well, I was just going to say that when I did print my menu, because you don't often print stuff you've written off anymore, I did spend an inordinate amount of time on the fonts.

I went through all of the fonts in Word.

Yep.

And there's a lot of them.

You get a little preview of them.

Some of them look nice in bold.

Some of them lose a bit of the jeunaisé quart in bold.

And I felt like a.

Would it be a Maitre D?

Yes.

Is that who would type?

Because I was learning lots of menu terms as well.

Right.

What's great about you spending ages on the font is you are the only person who's going to see that.

I gave a copy to Benito as well.

I know what you mean, though.

I type up Word documents for myself, not that I'm going to print, but like, you know, for work stuff, and only I'm going to see it.

Yeah.

And the first hour is just going through the fonts, choosing the font size, basically just on the title, and then I need a break.

Anyway, you went with wingdings and you don't know what your menu is.

Yeah, no idea.

It's always tempted, wingdings, isn't it?

I say, if I pop my head around a restaurant door and I'm deciding whether I want to go there, If the menu's in Comic Sans, there's no fucking chance I'm eating there.

Right.

That is the worst font for a menu to be in.

Discuss.

Or anything to be in.

To be honest, I don't trust anything in Comic Sans.

No?

No.

If I saw anything that was like Comic Sans, I'm not going in there.

Even if it was like fire evacuation instructions.

Yeah, especially if it's that.

If it says fire evacuation door, it's in Comic Sans.

I'll take my chances.

Some fucking babies written it.

You wouldn't want want the sort of bump on the back of a packet of condoms in comics.

The bump.

Absolutely amazing.

How often are you reading the bump on the back of a condom?

Back of a condom?

You know, you like to see what other authors have enjoyed them.

I want to get a feel for the sort of characters and stuff.

I'll be with you in a minute, dear.

I'm just reading the bump.

So what matrix D terms did you learn, or are you going to tell us that during the course of the meal?

Well, do you want me to sort of reveal the broad stroke of my menu now?

Is that what you say when you're reading the back of the colour?

Oh, God, I love humour.

I do.

Yes.

I'm on tour at the minute, and you've just reminded me why I do my job.

Yeah, because it ain't what I'm doing.

You did proper Fred Flintstone legs there.

Yaba-dabadoo stuff.

You can reveal the broad strokes if you want to.

We don't know what's on there.

So like we probably can't dictate when would be a good time to deliver the broad strokes.

Do you want the good news or the bad news?

Oh, let's go for the good news first, followed by the bad news.

The good news is I've really, really thought about it.

Great.

I mean, that's not news to us.

You printed the fucking thing out, doesn't it?

We can see that.

This is the first time this has happened.

We haven't had a chat at the top of any of the other podcast episodes we've had about selecting the font.

The bad news is it's 12 courses.

A lot of respect here.

Some people who aren't clapping who have train times in their heads.

You can see a few people going, not ideal for me.

They could rattle through some of those courses.

That would help me out.

Well, we can do, because it's a taster menu, is what it is.

Yeah.

Yes.

But, you know what, Robins, just take your time, because if anything, I would love to make Damien late home.

Now, of course, 12 courses does feel like it goes against the format of the podcast somewhat, John, would you say?

Well, do you know what I figured was it's a dream restaurant, right?

This is not a real restaurant.

And I was thinking

pretty disrespectful, but go on.

Well,

but it's a...

No, what I mean is

it's a restaurant of the mind where anything is possible.

Yes.

Apart from breaking out of the strict course format.

I'm sorry, am I the only one who saw me explode out of a fucking lamp?

So I was thinking about, you know, what are are my favorite meals from restaurants?

What are my favorite meals I cook?

And I, and when I was putting them together, I thought, well, I can just,

that's not a dream restaurant, that's a day in London and a hundred quid, which I'm not willing to spend.

And the stuff I like that I cook at home, I can cook at home.

So what I've gone for is all the things I know I will never be able to taste again.

Okay.

So it's either quite specific in time, stuff that there's no way I could track down, or stuff that I no longer eat.

It's that.

so it is literally my dream.

If I turn up to my dream restaurant and I could go through a trip through all the

things I know I've had for the last time,

I would get to experience them once again and enjoy those memories.

Now, the way you're saying this, and knowing you very well, tears.

I suspect some of this menu is going to be very sad.

There is one where I'm going to cry.

At least one, I'm sure.

You should have fucking laminated that menu, mate.

When we did our dream menus, Ed and I, for the 200th episodes,

we chose multiple courses, more so than usual.

But we did that by employing the hacks that past guests had utilized.

So we will see as we go along through this what sort of hacks you're employing, if they're stuff that have been allowed in the podcast before, fair enough.

And we'll give that to the audience aside as we go along as well, because you're here, we want to utilise you.

if we can just allow, I would like a tasted menu and that be the explanation.

But should we start?

Are you ready to start?

So we always start, John, with still or spark it.

Water.

Yeah.

You look then as if you hadn't thought about that, but you've...

Well, what if he's talking about conversation?

Also, that question, we want both answers, please.

I would like sparkling conversation and still water because I don't trust people people who like sparkling water.

I love just looking around and then a lot of happy people clapping that, but everyone not clapping it.

Absolutely like you just said you were a Tory.

Oh, a Tory would full-on go sparkling.

Yeah, they would.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, sparkling is for Tories.

Is there a worse

sensational feeling in the world of drinking than when you are super, super thirsty, you grab a plastic bottle of water, you down it, it turns out it's sparkling, and you're like, I want to call the police.

This feels disgusting, it's in no way hydrating, and this is a very unpleasant, sensory experience.

I'd say swallowing a cocktail umbrella is the.

That's the only thing I'd put above it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I've done it, man.

Well,

imagine swallowing a cocktail umbrella out of a bottle of sparkling water when you're very thirsty on a hot summer's day.

No, thank you I wouldn't like it.

No.

You'd convince me.

Sometimes I like sparkling water, but not anymore.

I also don't trust people who don't like tea and coffee.

And that is only made worse if hot chocolate is their drink of choice.

Which I find genuinely disturbing.

There will be some people this is Bristol so that statistically

there's a lot of people here who just drink hot chocolate.

Yeah.

that is right I've met people you go do you want a tea or coffee and they go yeah hot chocolate please yeah absolutely mad it's not it's it's you you're allowed that on bonfire night or Christmas

also I looked at Wednesdays Thursdays and Fridays

well I looked it up like a cost of hot chocolate with whipped cream is 480 calories imagine if you're having three of those a day

no one's having three hot chocolates there are people for whom it is their go-to with whipped cream yes my father

Yes.

Who do you know who's ever done that?

A day.

Well,

I'm pretty sure star of Beef and Dairy Network and three bean salad, Ben Partridge, is a hot chocolate guy.

He has figured out.

Yeah, but he's not waking up in the morning and being like, don't talk to me until I've had my hot chocolate with whipped cream.

I think of Ben Partridge every time I have corn on the cob.

That's true.

Because Because I went round someone's house once and Partridge was eating corn on the cob and someone said,

eating corn on the cob Ben?

And he went, yes, I just thought to myself this today, it's been a while since I've had corn on the cob, so I've had corn on the cob.

And I went, oh, very nice.

And I think of that every time I have corn on the cob.

What a weird conversation to have witnessed as well.

Well, yeah.

Firstly, you're fucking starting it off weird, walking up to someone eating corn on the cob and going, are you eating corn on the cob?

Yes, I thought the other day I hadn't had corn on the cob for a while, so now I'm eating it, just like two robots pretending to be human.

It was his entire meal,

genuinely was just eating corn on the cob.

I love corn on the cob, it's a very good example of the theory of calorific availability.

Because

obviously, every food you get has the calories on the side, but what that doesn't take into account is how many of those calories you actually absorb and digest.

And as we all know, our old friend corn,

not all of it's staying indoors.

so were you to eat an entire meal of corn on the cob yeah you'd feel nice and full but actually you'd be saving a bit cow wise because you don't digest half of it

pop loves your bed pop logs on bed johnny robbers pop logs on bed

Well

really scared you there, didn't he?

Yeah, really, really, really scared.

I've never seen him scared before.

That's That's the first time I've seen him scared.

Yeah.

Just quickly, Ian, are you all right after that?

I'll try to give you a little heads up, brother.

Just look, just a little look at you.

It's coming, Ian.

Well, it's bread.

Yeah.

And I.

77% of you should be cheering right now.

I tell you for why.

Yeah.

Because I've got a very specific rule whenever I have a curry, which is I never, ever, ever order poppadons.

Wait for it!

I never ever ever order poppadons.

Instead, I order two curries.

Okay.

Also, you never ever order rice, am I right?

Well.

You see rice as a con with curries, and you get very passionate about that.

Well, I see carbs as a con in all forms of cuisine.

Apart from Cornon on the carb.

Apart from corn on the Cobb.

No, I don't, I will share a rice, share a Naan.

Con on the Cobb.

That's my golden rule.

If you're going for a curry with me, we're sharing a rice, sharing a naan, because

I'm not filling up on carbs when there is curry at play.

So I'll have,

thank you, I'll either have a starter and two curries or a side and two curries.

And I won't even finish half a rice or half a naan because I want the prime cuts, those juicy sauces.

And in lockdown, I taught myself how to make British Indian restaurant curries using a YouTube channel called Al's Kitchen, where he tells you how to make the base gravy, all the different things, and all the different curries.

He's a very charming guy.

I've had the pleasure of not only meeting Al

but cooking a curry in his kitchen.

Wow.

That escalated?

Yeah.

How long have you and Al been together now?

Me

and Al.

Me and Al have the sort of bond that only a curry master and his student can have.

But once you learn how to cook an actual curry that you get

in a curry house, the world of curries

just opens up.

Because it's like, oh, what's my favourite one?

It's just a different set of spices.

Oh, it's just a little bit less of this and a bit more of that.

So you can have every curry you want.

And fortunately, because my house is very small, when when I make the base gravy which is a whole day's work and it's great fun the whole place stinks of onions for two weeks but I've come to accept that and no one else ever comes into my house so it's fine

there's the sad story

here we go sad story number one if you don't keep a tally

his house stinks of onions for two weeks but doesn't matter no one ever comes to see him

Ding, chalk it up, and he's friends with somebody watched on YouTube.

Somehow that's sad as as well.

Is that two sad stories or are we going with that as one?

I think it's one story.

There's a lot of little sad bits in there.

So bread.

What kind of bread are you having?

Well

I want I want to be able to dip it in a bit of olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

I want it to be really nice balsamic vinegar.

You know it's thick.

Like a supermarket would sell this as a drizzle, but it ain't a drizzle.

This is just how thick balsamic vinegar can be.

And I actually want the olive oil to be slightly bitter, and I want the balsamic vinegar to be super sweet.

And I'm going to be mixing those up.

I'm going to be playing with ratios.

John, I don't think you heard the question.

What fucking bread do you want?

Not.

Have you ever had a freeze them?

I don't have to answer that question.

No, no, no, no.

I already know the answer.

I mean, weren't you in a...

Wish I didn't.

Well, it would be another sad story.

Another sad story.

The truth is he nearly had one, but he was reading the bump for too long.

Right, ready to go let me load it.

You made me laugh so much on got heartburn.

No, this is early on in the meal.

But bread-wise, I just want a really crusty, doughy white bread and like focaccia, but not one that makes you feel like you've just sort of eaten a fried breakfast.

I don't want it too oily.

We had some banging focaccia today at sunny stores.

What a restaurant.

Great.

What great focaccia?

Not too oily.

Little bit of oil, but really fluffy and warm in the middle.

Fantastic.

What was it that they bought out before the whole meal that we didn't order that they just bought out?

I can't remember the name of it now, but it was like a chickpea.

Farinata.

That

was that what you were talking about earlier?

Say the name of it again?

Farinata.

Farinata.

It was like a channel.

Farinata.

Chickpea pancake.

Oh, lovely.

Absolutely delicious.

I was seriously thinking about them afterwards and thinking about how they might be on my dream menu.

Yeah, yeah.

Because they were good

from that place.

Sorry, John, it's your time.

But on the FocaCrafta, like some quite chunky chunky salt crystals on the top and maybe maybe a bit of rosemary sort of you know in the general vicinity

so you don't necessarily want it on it you just i want to know i want to know they've met

but i don't need to know the details of where or what went down i certainly don't want to be chewing on a rosemary stalk yeah but i want to be able to say to the bread

Have you met rosemary?

We could arrange that for you.

Yeah, we could definitely arrange that.

I mean, the fact is, I'm not eating any of this bread in the restaurant because I've got 13 courses.

There's a lot of courses here.

It would be absolute madness if I filled up on bread and didn't get through any of this.

Yeah, all right.

See, I'm the RT Dream starter now, but I don't know if that's what we're about to be told.

Well, I'm happy if you, because this is your vibe, man.

Yeah.

I've always said it, this restaurant is your guys' vibe.

So if you want to veto anything or get the audience to veto anything that's fine but I'm starting with an aperitif okay yeah great

we've allowed that hack before we've done it plenty of times so bear in mind these are all things that I know I'm never going to taste again my aperitif is banana antibiotics

it is popular

Again, I feel like...

I don't want you to feel like I view Bristol as just a fucking place where where all babies live

but any date of the tour that would have gotten applause

but tonight oh yeah

you used to get it

I know what you mean yeah yeah little bottle it would be in the fridge

I would have last had that in like 1988 or 89 or something.

I remember the taste vividly.

It was like pure industrial banana flavour in a form so pure, even if you had like one of those foam bananas, it wouldn't come close.

Yeah, and I'm never gonna have it again for two reasons.

Firstly, it would be absolutely bizarre if I went to my GP and said,

I'm ill, but I don't like the tablets.

Can I have some of that stuff for you, kids?

Secondly, I'm allergic to amoxicillin, which is what?

Oh, mate, I didn't know that.

I'm sorry.

Is that number two?

Is that a sad story, too?

Or maybe you feel sad for him.

Yeah.

So he's allergic to a marks of sillin?

I think the first few times I had it, I was fine.

Otherwise, I would not remember enjoying the taste.

But

I just haven't had penicillin for like forever.

And you know what it's like when you haven't tasted something bro.

But I thought that would be such a flavour of childhood.

Do you want it in like a shot?

Do you want a little shot of it?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

So that's how you're going to kick off the dream meal?

Yeah, I just want it to arrive, one shot glass of banana antibiotics.

And also, if I get an infection at any point during the rest of the meal, I'm going to be okay.

Absolutely.

It's weight off your mind.

Yeah.

Straight out the door.

Joe, I think that's a great choice.

I think we've all got, you know, some people might be more cowpole-leaning in the room of the cowpole kids.

But I think even the cowpole kids can get on board and recognise that nostalgic, just wanting to drink the medicine all the time.

Yeah.

That's great.

A shot of that.

That would be amazing if you're in the pub and like your Larry mate goes, who's having shots?

They come back with banana antibiotics, just keeping us all safe, guys.

Who's allergic to a moxa cylinder?

Be honest,

drink plenty of water.

So, we're moving on to more things in the realms of starters now.

Well, this called starter, this next course, what we're doing.

No, I did have to google quite a lot of phrases.

Okay, we got now, Flintstones, vitamins.

So, we go from the imperative to the hors d'oeuvre.

Now,

I don't think anyone's employed the hors d'oeuvre hack.

I think it's a legit hack, though.

It's a legit thing.

Yeah.

I think it would be churlish of us.

James has been doing his word a day calendar.

You learn hors d'oeuvre, aren't they?

Churlish.

Well, maybe it's good if you veto when I give you the name of the course before revealing the thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think hors d'oeuvres.

Yeah.

Hors d'oeuvres, yes.

Yeah.

What's your hors d'oeuvre?

Pickled scrummion mccoys.

Jesus, you could blindfold me.

What guest is in?

John Roberts.

Yeah.

McCoy's.

Very happy to hear McCoy's get a shout-out, though.

Yeah.

I don't think I've had.

Pickled what?

Well, exactly.

Here's the rub.

Yeah.

Pickled Scrummion McCoy's were released in 2011

to coincide with the Rugby World Cup.

It's another sad story, Lumi.

I saw them first at a BP garage

and I thought to myself, John, you are dreaming.

Because pickled onions, my favourite flavour of crisp.

McCoy's at the time were my favourite style of crisp.

I could not believe it.

I think we've all had those moments and that it is exciting.

And usually when a crisp is limited edition, like there's a few out of the the minute, and it's all various variations on beef

or like Texan barbecue.

And you know it's just going to taste of paprika and sugar.

So I never buy any of that sort of like limited edition stuff.

But I thought pickled onion McCoy's.

Please.

Pickled scrummy.

Pickled scrummy and mccoys.

Wuggy scrum.

And I bought three bags and I sat in my car.

Oh.

And I tasted heaven.

I then, of course, did what I think we would all do in a similar situation.

Bought so many bags that I just felt so sick.

I felt like my skin was drying out, like I was going to have a heart problem.

And then they stopped making them at the end of the Rugby World Cup.

And I messaged McCoy's on Twitter.

I said,

when are they coming back though?

And they did one of those sort of slightly annoying sort of messages where they're like, never say never.

And I was like, yeah, but yeah, but when?

To be frank, you're lucky you got a reply jockey here.

Why aren't they coming back, though?

Ignore that.

Well, it wasn't from McCoy, him or herself.

I don't know whether it's

Sylvester or

DP.

Is that the jockey?

DP McCoy.

Racehorse owner.

Anthony McCoy.

Anyway, I don't know who McCoy is, but...

It's neither of them.

Neither of them.

They they did return for the 2015 World Cup, but as far as I'm aware, they've not returned for subsequent World Cups.

So, when they returned for the 2015,

how did you feel then?

A lot of people sent them to me in the post

because I'd gone on so much about them the last time.

I tried them again.

They were still the most delicious crisp I've ever tasted in my life.

And you just want a bag of them?

I don't even want a bag.

I'd actually like, because it's an hors d'oeuvre, I would just like a little stack of maybe like five

descending like circumference.

Yeah.

Just so it looks neat and sort of like nicely presented.

Yeah, that's nice.

Do you remember what any of the other rugby World Cup flavours were?

Oh, yeah.

Oh,

no.

Oh, no, no.

No.

No, is the answer no.

I was trying to think of rugby puns then, but I'm not much of a rugby job.

All I've got is rugby salted.

That's pathetic.

Oh, that's quite nice.

Absolutely pathetic is the word rugby in the rugby rugby salted.

Rugby salted.

Rugby salted.

They're not doing that one, are they?

Salt and vinegar, because you can win.

I don't know.

Absolutely pathetic.

Well, it would have to be a flavour they don't already do, so it could be like...

Forgot about that.

A lasagne rugby.

Lasanne rugby.

Lasanne rugby.

Yeah.

Is that because Ed was talking about lasagna?

Yeah.

And then that's directly led to you saying lasagna rugby.

Yeah.

But lasagna flavoured crisps are exactly the sort of crappy, limited edition they would do, where it is just like it's sort of cheese and sort of beef at a magic.

And

with what you said about the stacking them up, if there was like each layer of the lasagna, it's each different crisp.

And if you layer them up right.

So pasta flavoured crisp.

Yeah.

Bolognese flavour.

Yeah.

Bechamel flavour.

Bechamel flavour.

Maybe like a parmesan-y one.

Well, parmesan crisps would be nice.

Yeah.

I think they exist.

Yeah.

God damn it.

I was going to make my millions.

I think it's a lovely hors d'oeuvre.

That's a lovely hors d'oeuvre, John, and it's a lovely another lovely memory.

Yeah, of a

short-lived promotional crisp.

Ah, memory.

So far, we've got being ill

and eating in your car.

yeah

do you know what it's it's a while till I get to food that I eat with other people

do you remember when you told us you ate a prawn sandwich out the bin

yes I remember when I told you I ate a prawn sandwich out of a bin in confidence

made you sick

and you were trying to crack the code as to what had made you sick on the group.

And we all suggested maybe it's that prawn sandwich that you told us you ate out of the bin yesterday.

No, because it was a clean bin and it had only been in there for an hour.

I will repeat what I said to you at the time as I think I might be allergic to onions.

Popsicles, sprinklers, a cool breeze.

Talk about refreshing.

You know what else is refreshing this summer?

A brand new phone with Verizon.

Yep, get a new phone on any plan with Select Phone Trade In MyPlan.

And lock down a low price for three years on any plan with MyPlan.

This is a deal for everyone, whether you're a new or existing customer.

Swing by Verizon today for our best phone deals.

Three-year price guarantee applies to then-current base monthly rate only.

Additional terms and conditions apply for all offers.

Why does every recipe I try need 18 ingredients, including a jar of something paste I'll never use again, but will sit in my fridge for nine months?

I just want dinner in the oven fast.

That's why I love Blue Apron's new one-pan assemble and bake meals.

They send you fresh ingredients that are already chopped.

All you do is put it all together and bake.

That's it.

No chopping, no weird leftovers, just delicious, easy-to-make meals.

Get 20% off your first two orders with code APRAN20.

Terms and conditions apply.

Visit blueapron.com/slash terms for more.

Time for a sofa upgrade?

Visit washable sofas.com and discover Anibay, where designer style meets budget-friendly prices, with sofas starting at $699.

Anibay brings you the ultimate in furniture innovation with a modular design that allows you to rearrange your space effortlessly.

Perfect for both small and large spaces, Anibay is the only machine-washable sofa inside and out.

Say goodbye to stains and messes with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics that make cleaning easy.

Liquid Simply slides right off.

Designed for custom comfort, our high-resilience foam foam lets you choose between a sink-in feel or a supportive memory foam blend.

Plus, our pet-friendly, stain-resistant fabrics ensure your sofa stays beautiful for years.

Don't compromise quality for price.

Visit washable sofas.com to upgrade your living space today with no-risk returns and a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Get up to 60% off, plus, free shipping and free returns.

Shop now at washable sofas.com.

Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Your next course, John?

Well, it's an amuse bouche.

Absolutely, you can have an amuse bouche.

Yeah.

I mean, I think that traditionally comes as the first thing you eat before the hors d'oeuvre.

Amuse your bouche.

I think your bouche has been taken through the fucking ringer already, to be honest.

You take banana antibiotics and a pickled onion crisp.

You're not tasting any of this menu after that.

But

by all means, your bouche is not laughing.

Right.

Amuse bouche, yeah, well, that you have that.

I mean, you know, if you want to switch around the titles after this, you can.

This is the order you're having them in.

Okay.

And Amuse Bouche is definitely...

We've done that before.

Yes.

I've done that before.

So I've been,

I've made a fool of myself in Maitre D school by putting the Muse Bouche third.

It should be first.

Yeah, if you came out third and said, here's an Amuse Bouche, they would go, well, this restaurant doesn't know its stuff.

And we thought we could trust them after the medicine and the pub,

the fucking petrol station crisps they gave us.

God, there's a lot of rules in my dream, isn't there?

But I like that.

Obviously, the dream restaurant can look however you like and it can be transformed for different courses.

Would you like the hors d'oeuvre to be served in your car outside a petrol station?

Do you know what?

Yeah.

I'd like the banana antibiotics to be served in my childhood kitchen.

Yes, that's okay.

Yeah.

Would you love your child when you have it?

I think I know that would be too, that would be very confusing from a sort of, I guess, therapy perspective.

Yeah, I would never stop crying.

If I, as me now, came back as a child in my childhood kitchen and tasted something I haven't tasted for 35 years,

I would cry all my tears and probably just dissolve into a paste.

Yeah.

And then the tears would clear and you'd realize you were suddenly in your car outside a petrol station.

Yeah.

I'd be like, oh, great, well, Scottium's back.

She'd be right up.

So my amuse bouche is a stolen Portuguese breakfast buffet roll containing cheese, onion, tomato, butter, and mustard.

And that's to be enjoyed on the 12th hole of a golf course.

Because

every year...

Things just got more depressing.

Alex Horn is there.

Alex Horn is there.

Yeah, even worse than being on your own.

Oh, that's mean.

So, every year I go on a golf trip to Portugal, and one of the most fun bits of the trip is the buffet breakfast.

I love a buffet breakfast, and they have mad stuff,

and often the translation on the little cards is quite strange.

So, this year they had

it was a pig snout salad,

moist bread with garlic

was one of them.

But the best bit about the buffet breakfast, and all of the places that have buffets in golf courses have this, is signs saying no food can be removed from the buffet.

And that's to stop people making their lunch at breakfast, whacking it in the old pocket, taking it out on the golf course with them.

But we all do it, and we've all got different tactics.

And I like to have, I'll have my cooked breakfast, and then I'll have like some pastries and some maybe some fruit and yogurt, coffee, go back for a second, go at the cook breakfast, and then I'll get my rolls, I'll get my cheese, I'll get a butter, I'll get a couple of napkins, and I just begin to assemble it all on my lap.

The least worth it thing I've ever had.

Do you know what?

So, like,

this gets more depressing, but I like it.

So, you make the little sandwich, you cut it, you put a fold over a slice of cheese, you put some butter in there, maybe onion and tomato, and then you, I make two and the rolls are quite small anyway, so they're perfect.

You put one in each pocket, wrapped in a napkin, you take it out on the golf course, you put it in the golf bag, and then you sort of grab them after about an hour and a half or whatever.

At which point, always a cart comes round selling exactly the same thing for like three Euros.

And I'll be like,

You're not gonna get one over on me.

I stole it from the breakfast.

I'm not spending three Euros on a nicer, fresher, bigger version of the

that I made under a table and have had in my pocket for two hours, covered in sun cream and bits of grass and mud.

Oh, no, you won't.

You don't got to get up pretty early in the morning to be old Johnny Jay

while everybody else is just buying their nice baguette from the guy and enjoying it.

Why do you make it on your lap?

So they can't see it.

They can't see it.

But what?

Is there a fucking like lifeguard in there watching you?

You can just make it on the table, fold it up, put it in your pocket, surely.

They know what's going on, right?

It's like in prison.

They know.

It's exactly like prison.

They know there's contraband.

Yeah.

And they pick their moments.

They know we're smoking a bit of blow.

But as long as you're discreet,

They're not going to cause a problem.

They'll turn a blind eye if you start walking in there making big sandwiches on the top of the table, not abiding by the lap rule,

if you start carrying them out in broad daylight, not hiding them in a napkin in your pocket or in the centre of a Bible that's been hollowed out,

you're gonna start to attract attention, Ed.

Imagine

how long Alex Horne would last in prison.

He always steals a boiled egg.

Surprising to no one.

What a disgusted man

steals a boiled egg and eats that while he's playing golf.

Yeah.

So that's why there's so many eggs in tasks on Taskmaster, right?

It's just fucking from his suitcase on the way back from Portugal.

Yeah, he'll come back with about 200 eggs.

Next course.

Next course.

You didn't drop that in on your bread course, that last one.

You could have had that as your bread course.

A bread course?

The bread course earlier when you had the focaccia, but.

Fuck you, I should have done that.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, the next course, you'll be glad to hear, is the starter.

Lovely.

40 minutes in.

Oh, Jesus Christ, it actually is.

Sorry, John, go on.

So, the next course, every year for the past sort of six or seven years, I've lived in Edinburgh when I do the festival with George Egg.

And Alexon brought him back from Portugal.

Race to that, absolute race to it.

Come on, again, Alexon!

I backed down.

And people might know George Egg as the anarchist chef or snack hacker on YouTube.

He's got a channel where he hacks snacks,

stuff you can sort of do in your car, which appeals to me.

Are all your friends your favourite YouTubers?

To an extent.

I do have a YouTube channel with Alex Horne.

I do.

But so he living with him in Edinburgh is just such a treat because AE's a wonderful guy, but also he's not just a brilliant chef, but he loves cooking cooking and he gets excited about you tasting stuff and he likes presenting it to you.

You know, he's cooked me a six-course meal in Edinburgh before, but what I would like to go for for my starter is what we'd always have for breakfast together, which is George Eggs cuppy egg on veggie haggis with a craft cheese slice, kismot Mr Naga sauce, and a mocha pot coffee with evaporated milk.

Yeah, sounds very nice.

Sounds lovely.

It does sound lovely.

So I can talk you through it very quickly.

Yes.

Cuppy egg, you butter the bottom of a mug, crack an egg into it, put it in the microwave for about 45 seconds.

It makes a perfect poached egg, but buttery.

He puts that on the top of vegetarian haggis, which is sliced into a circle that's been fried.

Between those is a craft cheese slice.

And then we went for a curry.

in Kismot in Edinburgh and the hot sauce was so nice that we asked if we could take some home with us.

So they put it in a little plastic pot and it was so delicious that if you just dip the end of a like a fork tine

into it and dip a bit of the oil off, it's just wonderful on poached eggs or on cheese, like melted cheese.

So we'd have that for breakfast and make a little coffee in Georgia's got like an espresso-sized mocha pot, and you mix it with evaporated milk, and it's just sweet, and it's like a sort of shot of sweet coffee goodness.

And that will remind me of wonderful mornings in Edinburgh with my dear friends tasting wonderful food.

That's lovely, John.

And George Egg is a magnificent chef, so I imagine that tastes very nice.

I think a few people in here might try that cuppy egg.

That sounds like something that...

He's well, the cuppy egg is on his YouTube channel, so you can find out how to make cuppy egg.

But also, that naga sauce you can buy.

If I mention like stuff you can buy, does it fucking ruin ruin it forever for the suppliers because they suddenly have a billion orders no you're gonna get some for free yeah

the audience get them for free no you will not the audience they won't

but you you will it will turn up on your doorstep probably before you've even got home tonight

well I don't need any because I've got some yeah well bad luck you're gonna get some

but anyway if you want that delicious chili sauce it's called Mr.

Naga and it's basically like sort of chili it's oil with sort sort of crushed chilies, but it is fucking delicious.

But do use with caution for Christ's sake.

It will bite you on the ass, both literally and in a very horrible way, metaphorically.

You've had a few nightmares over the years, haven't you?

With stuff.

A few close shaves.

But I haven't actually shipped myself since 2002.

Not true?

No, it's rumor.

Oh, okay, yeah.

Well, there is no need to say.

I'd forgotten about that.

There's no need to say.

Just lying, just lying, John, throwing years around

so confidently.

I guess, in a way, does that count as shitting yourself, that story?

I mean, obviously, I'm on the cusp of just describing it.

I never had that combination again of neck oil and bang-bang cauliflower

with Frank's extra hot wings sauce.

It was a fucking car crash.

Just saying that out loud, of course, no one should have that.

Yeah, I know.

Well, I didn't know that.

Neck oil, bang, bang, cauliflower, which sounds like a metaphor for shitting yourself.

Oh no, I've done a bang bang cauliflower in my pants.

Do you want to quickly run through the story?

Oh, God, I had.

I had neck oil and bang bang cauliflower.

And it was just, I was going through a bad period with my guts anyway.

drinking quite

it was drinking quite a lot the cauliflower and the batter was a fucking mistake the sauce was just arrogant

and I was in a I was in a situation where I couldn't fart freely

so I I don't for me that situation has never existed

oh come on It was what time in the morning was it?

It was.

It would have been like 1:30, 20, 1.30, and you were at the time in a relationship and didn't want to fart in front of them.

Yeah, I wasn't sure.

Even though they were sleeping.

That's as much as I would like to say about that.

You're a gentleman.

Yeah.

Oh, actually, yeah, I was a gentleman.

And what do gentlemen do in that situation?

They don't fart in the bed.

They don't fart in the bed.

They go downstairs, try to fart in some kitchen roll, and shit themselves.

Have you not read any etiquette guides?

My favourite thing about that is I understand going downstairs.

I get that, I'll go in another room and I'll fart.

But then going, I need some sort of muffler.

I thought he would deaden the sound.

It actually turned out to be a master stroke.

What's the next course, John?

It's a fish course.

Yep.

Yep.

That's the existing course on the menu.

It exists.

It's a trio of...

Okay, so it's...

So you've actually got a 16-course menu, right?

Yeah.

So when I was...

It was about nearly 20 years ago, Christ alive.

Come on, John, bring it back.

No,

that's sort of neutral.

That's just the sort of the, you know,

the trick of time.

That's just sort of nostalgia.

That's neither sad or happy.

Judging by what you said earlier, 20 years ago is when the time before you shit yourself as well.

Oh, yeah, it would have been around.

So that last shit.

I kissed a girl at a festival.

Wow.

What an odd feeling I'm experiencing right now.

In a room of 1,800 people, I say I kissed a girl at a festival 20 years ago and hear a solitary man clapping.

And

we kept in touch and I went to visit her in London.

I was living in Bristol at the time and it was just so exciting.

I was still, you know, I was very young and it was just exciting.

Nice.

And her friend had had brought back some salmon from Alaska that had been cured in a way I have never heard of or seen before or since.

And it had like the texture of jerky.

So you could like tear strips of this Alaskan salmon.

And it had only been caught, I don't know, months or so before, and then all this curing had happened.

And we made sushi out of it.

I'd never made sushi before.

This was like insane.

But

you could cut it into little matchsticks.

It was so hard.

And it was just the most delicious flavor.

And I remember we were listening to Rolling Stones' Greatest Hits.

And I'm not like a massive Rolling Stones fan, but every time I hear those songs, I think of that Alaskan cured salmon.

Yeah.

And I know I'll never ever get to taste that again.

But it was also just the excitement of the trip.

And I never saw her again after that.

She moved on to being.

It was nice of a day.

Yeah.

You You want the sound of things.

I was going to say, it's a lovely memory.

The problem is, now every time I hear the Rolling Stones, I'm going to think of you eating Alaskan salmon jerky.

That's all right.

That's all right.

It's quite weird, isn't it?

Yeah, but it's nice.

But if anyone knows how to make Alaskan salmon jerky,

I would actually like to know how to do that.

Every time I mention I can't cook rice, I get a hundred people telling me, oh, you want to try this method?

And I try it and it tastes like fucking sludge.

I don't want to hear another rice cooking method ever in my my life however if you've got a method for making alaskan salmon the texture of jerky i want to know i know this guy on youtube who does it you

well then i'll probably end up marrying you

wouldn't be surprised if we discover that this woman was zoella

do you know what i think i'm gonna leave it at that for the fish course i think so yeah that sounds

like the last

the sushi that you made no I just want the salmon.

Oh, I just want the salmon turkey.

Or maybe a little bit of salmon, a risushi stuff on the side, so I can maybe make one, but I did end up just like eating it directly.

Okay.

But maybe you have that experience again for your fish course.

You with those people making the sushi, sometimes just eating the salmon as it is, rolling stones playing.

Yes, please.

That's nice.

What are we talking now?

Palate cleanser.

To be fair, you absolutely need that at this point.

Yeah, I absolutely respect the palate cleanser.

Yeah, go on.

Because fuck it up.

Your mouth has experienced some wild shit so far.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's been a little bit.

I mean, I've been to the toilet a couple of times in this restaurant.

What is the toileting situation in the restaurant?

Whatever you want it to be.

Holy shit, really?

Yeah, we can get the kitchen roll out if you like.

Whole roll to yourself, little corner in the restaurant.

Yeah.

Go over, do some muffled guffs, and then shit all over it, and then sit down again, make sushi with those people.

Do you want a Japanese toilet?

What's that?

Well, where do you start?

It's a toilet from Japan.

God, no.

It sheeps like Japanese.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I cannot imagine that being specific enough to my body.

What if it gets it wrong?

Well, John, I don't know.

We're barely halfway through this menu.

We don't have time to discuss where John's asshole is.

I'd say across the globe,

99.9% of people's anuses are in the same place on their body.

I know that.

Plus it's like you can move the jet, right?

So if yours is on your fucking back for some reason, you can still...

I just feel...

It feels odd, all of that.

It's overengineered is the words.

I would just want a toilet.

that's not a normal toilet.

Yes.

But I think...

Well, can I tell you something else they do on Japanese toilets?

There's some toilets that play music to cover up the sound of what you're doing on the toilet.

Now I'm interested.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But just the music.

Just the music.

Well, why not just a toilet with a jukebox in each cubicle?

We can do that.

It's your dream restaurant.

Yeah.

You'd want it to be regularly wiped down.

Or maybe you'd know Alexa.

You want Alexa in the toilet?

Yeah.

Yeah, Alexa, play Metallica.

Loud.

but I would want just like I want individual closed cubicles with lids roofs whatever you want to call it I don't like gaps anywhere I want to feel like I'm inside with a nice dark brown wooden seat

yeah a few people might have been wondering where that sentence is going

The nice toilet soundproofed soundproofed to the yeah I mean it's going to be soundproof because you've got to get through like eight different doors to get there, right?

Gringotts, yeah, yeah, yes, yes, that's what I want the toilet in my house to be like.

Yeah,

I forgot who I was talking to.

Of course, you wanted it to be like, as soon as I said it for a laugh, be like, oh, yeah, great.

Gringots, please.

Okay, we'll give you a Gringotts toilet.

I'm the palate cleanser, John, because it's 10 to 10, mate.

53 minutes in.

Do you know know what?

53 minutes in, and we're cleansing the palette.

But don't worry, we've spent five minutes on what the toilet's going to look like.

Can't believe we spoke to this lot in the first half.

Could have just done first half of John's menu, interval, second.

No one would have complained.

Instead, we asked that prick why he was late for ages.

I also want moist wipes in the toilet.

You got it, Captain.

Flushable, flushable, moist wipes.

I've already cut three of the things I was going to have because I don't need them.

Okay, you can just say them.

Tell us,

I'm going to go to the bottom.

The palate cleanser, when I was a kid, my...

What?

I laugh because another story's coming.

Do people not usually tell?

Some people have already left to get their trains done.

Do people not usually tell stories about the stuff they're doing?

No, they do, they do.

They do.

They've got like four or five.

It's not me.

We haven't had Eustenov on yet, but

go on.

Well, when I was little, my mum's friend, Auntie Anne and Uncle Bill, who weren't my real Auntie and Uncle, but they were.

No details spared, please.

Please, and what were their dream menus from beginning to end?

But they're, you know, okay.

Auntie Anne used to make this creme de month ice cream.

Oh.

And it's good

stuff.

Yeah, I bet.

And I would love, love to taste that again.

Because I've never even heard of anyone making creme demonstrated ice cream, but it works.

Yeah, that sounds good.

Yeah, I love that.

From Anti-N.

Yeah, yeah, great.

Not your real answer.

Pop that on the menu.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We can move on to my main.

Sure.

Is there anything in between there?

No.

There's nothing in between that anyway.

No.

Go for main course.

So I don't eat meat anymore.

I've ate meat twice in the last 10 years and it was both accidentally.

and it was horrible.

But there is meat on my menu, okay,

because from an animal that doesn't die,

I don't mind

someone's not gone for their train yet.

Why does that someone in the first half wanted magic meat from an animal that doesn't die?

Yes, and then we thought that someone's not a damned.

No, no, the animal can die, okay, okay,

as long as an animal just has one bad day, I don't mind.

Right?

That should be that should be the rule about meat.

You can eat meat if the animal has one bad day.

If it's had a torturous, awful life just so it can be served up to you, that's unacceptable.

But if it's having a great time, then

gone.

Yeah.

I suppose that is quite a bad day, isn't it?

Yeah,

it's hard to come back from.

I don't know if you've been paying attention to most of your stories, John, but these animals have nicer lives than you.

Anyway, I would have, so my dad left when I was seven.

Your real dad?

Yeah, real dad.

Anyway, I went to visit him when I was first, when I was about 12.

In prison, probably?

No.

And

he lives in Canada and has done ever since I was very young

and I went on my own and he took me to Schwartz's deli in Montreal yes

and I had

it's an incredible place it's amazing it's been there for probably a hundred years yeah maybe more long time this incredible traditional family-run deli and it was my first experience of salt beef.

My dad says, you're coming Montreal, I've got to take you to Schwartz's.

You've got to taste salt beef.

I was like, what's this?

So I went in and you could get, you basically get a salt beef sandwich.

You get it lean, medium or fatty.

I said lean.

They all made fun of me, but it was fun because I was 12, they're being very sweet.

And I tasted salt beef for the first time in a sandwich as thick as my fist.

It was literally that big and it was the best flavour I think I'd encountered.

And ever since then, I did this sorry sorry-ass search for salt beef sandwiches in London.

And compared to that, they are abysmal and should be ashamed of themselves.

And they're that thick, and they've got one sort of centimeter-wide slice of salt beef.

And I'm thinking, what?

It's that big.

It's like six inches.

It's like you literally have to dismantle the sandwich to eat it.

That's how thick it should be.

You get these poxy little things with English mustard, which doesn't work.

Anyway, I would have a Schwartz's deli salt beef sandwich, lean

white bread with pickles on the side.

Oh, that is great.

That place is amazing.

I've been to Montreal three times.

Every single time I've been, first thing I do, get off the plane, straight to Schwartz's, always a queue outside.

But I march up to the front of the queue and say, hello, I am alone.

And you can get straight in.

Great.

There's always one seat.

And I went to the one in New York.

I went to the one in New York, the Harry Met Sally one.

Katz's.

Katz's.

It's great.

It's really nice.

It's on a similar part.

It ain't no Schwartz's.

It's not as good.

Yeah, it's not as good.

Do you want to hear a joke that I thought of while you were saying that the audience won't like, but you will?

Yeah.

You were saying it was Family Mandeli and stuff.

You said, oh, my dad said to me, John, I'm going to take you to Schwartz's.

I've got to show you.

And I was going to say, what a family looks like.

That's humor.

Yeah.

That's perfect humour.

John's type of stuff.

That's nice stuff.

That sounds great, John.

What's your next course and what's it called?

Well, I'm sort of skipping ahead now because I'm guessing there's a little bit of business towards the end.

Maybe.

Maybe.

Well,

the next one, I think I'm gonna...

There's the cheese course, which is just very quick.

Yeah, yeah.

Cheese course.

No, but

he doesn't mind cheese course.

Yeah, it's good news.

And cheese course is good news.

That means that the dessert is a proper dessert and we're not skipping it.

If anything, I'm pro-cheese course.

So the

Anna wants to kiss the girl there.

So the cheese course is very simply the cheese, which is a cheese.

It was known as, in my family, known as the cheese.

And my stepdad, whenever he went down to Somerset, because he loved Somerset, so he'd go down to Somerset quite a lot, work down there.

He would bring back the cheese, which is a big

wheel of cheddar in black wax from a company.

It's the Maryland Farm Mature Cheddar Cheese.

And anyone who tasted this cheese said, You've got to sort me out with some of this cheese.

This is insane.

I thought I knew Cheddar.

Yeah, yeah.

Everyone would say this, right?

Honestly.

Word for word, everyone would say say it.

Everyone would say word for word.

I got some cheddar.

Yeah.

And then they'd leave it there?

They'd say, I thought I knew Cheddar until I tasted the cheese.

So then.

Wipe that on a t-shirt?

Then, when the next time my stepdad went down to Somerset, I'd have to say, oh, can you sort my friend Sam's mum out with some of your cheese?

Awful sentence out of context.

So he'd be like well i don't know what it's like 15 quid for a enormous like four kilos of cheese yeah and he'd say well yeah well yeah they can pay me back or whatever i'll bring it up before you know it he's bringing back quite a lot of cheese from somerset into

you know avon and north somerset across the border well yeah it it becomes a county lines drug operation

But I mean, I'm not kidding.

He would come back with like four wheels of this cheese.

one for me one for my friend Sam one for my friend Sam's mum one for you know someone else fucking Sam can't share one with his mum.

What's going on?

But once you start with a broken home as well no

once you start eating this cheese yeah You just eat a whole wheel of cheese.

It's mad.

It's mad.

And I would go around.

I'd go from mine where we'd be eating the cheese.

I'd go around to Sam's house.

They'd be sat in their kitchen just cutting off slices of cheese, eating this cheese.

It's so creamy, it's so tangy.

Do people not usually talk this long about their choices?

They do.

No, Joe, John.

I love it.

I want to try the cheese.

To be fair, you're doing absolutely nothing wrong if this was a studio recorded episode.

It's said on the thing, an hour and a half.

Really?

Yeah.

Well, then, you are in the right.

And I don't know how I'm getting back to London today.

Do you want anything with the cheese?

A Taxi for James.

Do you want the full wheel?

Do you know what I do?

Yeah, you have the full wheel.

Five kilos of cheese.

Yeah, yeah.

I think that's great.

And we'll all, and we get like, if there's other people in the restaurant, which I hope they are, otherwise this is a depressing evening for me, we all get a little knife to sort of just scrape off little bits of cheese.

Communal cheese.

I like it.

Dessert?

Well, we haven't even heard your side dish.

I mean, I hate to or your drink.

I hate to draw this out even longer, but

two of the key format points

are that including like, I think, you know, especially hearing what John Robbins' current dream drink is in 2023, I think if we skip that.

Oh, no, we can't skip that.

We can't skip anything.

Should we do side dish first?

Yeah.

Side dish.

Side dish.

Right, okay.

Side dish is going to be from

a breakfast buffet in the Bahamas, fried salt cod with onions and Auntie May's Bajan hot pepper sauce.

I honestly, that sounds great.

They just, this salt cod,

I never had it before.

And it's like a buffet, so you can scoop it out as much as you want, which was dangerous.

And it's just sort of crispy and salty, and it's cod.

It's got onions in.

They put a poached egg on top if you wanted a poached egg, and you'd cover cover it.

I'd never had Bajan hot pepper sauce before.

It's insane, man.

Is that hot pepper sauce called?

I think it's auntie maze.

Auntie Maze, yeah, it's the one that looks like it comes in like a soda pot bottle, right?

It looks like it comes in like one of those small whiskey bottles.

It's like a sort of hip flask shape.

Yeah, I've had it.

And just to be clear, that's not your real auntie.

Auntie Maze.

Onions making another appearance.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You've got to be careful, mate.

Messes with your stomach, those do.

Especially bin onions.

So,

my side dish

would be that.

The drink is like,

I mean, I don't know how to answer this question.

It's tough.

Yeah.

You want to give them some background, those are people who don't know you?

Yeah.

You just don't drink anymore.

I'm an alcoholic.

Yeah.

And I've stopped drinking.

And I,

for two years, did a podcast not a million miles from this format based on...

Oh, you've met us off.

We're all dining out on the Desert Island Discs gravy train.

Welcome aboard.

So we would get people to create a dream pub with all their favorite drinks.

And,

you know, I've spent more

time in my life thinking about my dream drink than I have any other thing.

I like would use it to get to sleep at night.

I would think about my favorite drinks.

And

really, like, and I think this is quite normal, people who drink, you're drinking to try and fulfill a dream of what drinking is or what it was, like, whether it's to recapture uni days or times when you were younger or times with your pals or drinking at Christmas to try and just sort of bring back that feeling.

And you said once, when we were on holiday together, you said,

and I wrote it down, you said, you never quite get to where you remember being the last time.

And that that is such a great way of describing that feeling of like chasing the dream drink.

And there are a couple of drinks, well, there's a handful of drinks that are monumentally important in my brain.

They just stand there like sort of like monolithic memories.

And that nostalgia is so powerful.

But towards the end of my drinking,

the cost of trying to recapture that feeling was so enormous that it stopped becoming about that and I ended up basically drinking to just like disappear, like turn my brain off completely and sort of obliterate myself.

So I had to stop and I did and

the last year has been like amazing and really transformative but part of that process is not allowing myself to slip back into those fantasies about alcohol or when they come up use sort of certain tools I've learnt to

separate myself again and see that for what it is and bring that to awareness.

Because otherwise, I sort of fall into a reverie about it.

And it's mad because I can walk past a pub and see a couple sharing a bottle of wine and think, oh god, that was what it was like.

That was so nice.

I'd love to be able to share that bottle of wine.

Look how that

the glass, so that's a Sauvignon Blanc.

You know, there's the condensation.

Two minutes past 10 minutes.

but the problem is

I was told half 10 it's not my fault you've got to get

I just thought it'd be funny to do that then because what you were saying was so lovely and beautiful and so so important I was like it'd be really funny if I'm a dick now

so do carry on because it is but like the the problem with the fantasies I've never in my life shared a bottle of wine with anyone because I've absolutely fucking hoofed it

and left

if I have been sharing it with a friend or a partner left them going where the fuck did that wine go

so your brain is this thing called euphoric recall where it basically invents memories that don't even exist to try and get you to drink again however there are a couple of alcoholic drinks that were I to allow myself to go down that staircase I just can't go there anymore, but they are huge in my head.

And one of them would be a drink we shared in New York, that red wine that you bought in the shop, which is one of my favorite memories.

But I can't allow myself for that to be my favorite memory anymore.

So

I think probably to step out of the past and something a bit more optimistic and a bit more fun

and something more present.

Because

a lot of these choices are things from years and years ago, and that's something I think I'd really enjoy is to have my taster menu in my dream restaurant a trip back through taste and tastes that I'll never be able to experience again, just for that one night.

But

in Edinburgh this year, in quite a full-on month and after quite a sort of tumultuous couple of years for me, I totally unexpectedly met someone and

she's absolutely amazing.

And it was nuts how it happened.

And we met the first time we went for a walk up Arthur's seat and she took uh like a chili bottle you know those chili sort of bottles used to keep water cool just like a water fucking water bottle you sick

but anyway

every added detail is making me so happy

you know there's a chili you get them in different colours and

even that person didn't applaud you meeting someone at a festival

at Edinburgh, met someone there, amazing.

But

like

anyway, like all great romances, I got a message on a Dodgeball WhatsApp group

saying, is it fucking the Dodgeball WhatsApp group now?

Saying, is anyone up in Edinburgh looking to do stuff in the morning?

And I was like, I'm sober this year.

It's my first time doing Edinburgh sober.

That is exactly what I want to do.

So I messaged her.

And we went for a walk up Arthur's seat.

She had a water bottle

that she'd brought coffee in because it keeps stuff warm as well as cold.

I didn't know that.

I did.

So we walk up Arthur's seat and we're just like talking about our lives and never.

I'm actually a very good listener, Ed.

I can't say the last time you need to be talking about your life is when you're on your way to a fucking high ledge.

So when we got to the top,

she

had bought a couple of plastic cups and she poured us out some coffee that she'd made and a couple of pastries

and we talked and had the coffee and it was so nice and walked back down Arthur's seat and by the time we got to the bottom I think it was it was we were quite smitten and

it's been

it's just been amazing and

I would like to have that water bottle

full of coffee and the pastries as as my drink.

Very nice.

That's lovely.

That's very nice.

Very nice.

How's the old farting situation with this?

There's a much more light-hearted approach to the whole arena.

That's good.

Yeah.

I'm glad to hear that.

I mean, it's still, you know, I'm still being a gentleman.

Yeah.

But I think when the time comes.

I wouldn't make an event out of it.

I need to add you to the WhatsApp group.

I'm sure it'll be absolutely fine.

That was the last thing I was expecting to discuss.

But yeah,

I'm sure that will be fine.

I'm not worried about it.

That's the thing.

I'm not worried.

I don't worry anymore.

That's good.

Well, I hope you enjoy every single fart.

What's your next course, John?

Well, it's dessert.

I'm just going to finish on dessert.

Okay.

And

it's a dessert I used to have at a coffee shop in Thornbury, which is not far from here.

And that's where I was brought up.

And it's a coffee shop called Heritage.

Yeah, a few fans in.

My mum would go there every Saturday to meet her friends, and I'd go down with my mum.

And they had this cake, which I'm going to enjoy describing to you, James.

I'm going to enjoy listening to it, John.

That's how people describe cakes.

It's a dome.

Great start.

Okay.

Great start.

Yep.

Bottom layer, white chocolate sponge.

Great, delicious.

Layer of what I'm assuming is white chocolate sort of buttercream.

Lovely.

Next layer, milk chocolate sponge.

Ooh, Mr.

Canberry's got involved.

Then we go the sort of white chocolate buttercream again.

Okay.

And then we go...

I don't think it was buttercream.

I don't like buttercream, but I think it was some sort of white chocolate.

Top layer.

Let's say a ganache.

Yeah.

it might be ganache, yeah.

Top layer white chocolate sponge.

The whole dome is encased in white chocolate, like thin, very thin white chocolate.

And then on top of it are shavings of white chocolate.

Okay.

Now, this may surprise you.

I'm not a huge fan of white chocolate.

However, as a kid, this was the highlight of the week.

It was called

by the people in the cafe, it was known as blonde bombshell.

White chocolate gato.

So make sure they knew this is the people in the cafe that called it that,

not myself and my mother.

Oh, no, we did as well.

Yes, but it wasn't called something else.

You and your mum were like, oh, the blonde bombshell.

No, no, no.

Come on, John.

We're going to go and get that blonde bombshell.

Oh, yeah, mum.

So.

Blonde bombshell.

So that would have been like late 80s.

Oh, Jesus.

They're making very rude gestures if you're listening on the podcast.

Now we called it blonde bombshell based on their lead.

We followed their lead.

And I just always used to have a big slice of that, and I've never seen it before since.

And I'd like to have that in my dream restaurant.

And it would go very nicely with that coffee, I think.

Oh, yeah, sounds delicious.

The people who cheered Heritage Coffee, is it still going?

Do they do the blonde bombshell?

No.

Okay, there you go.

It's changed ownership since then.

Yes.

And I once went in when I was a kid and I was playing around with a little

you know those perfume dispensers where you actually press a little ball and it goes pip pop.

Yes.

I was playing around with one of them and it fell off and smashed.

I don't know.

I shouldn't have even started the anecdote.

It may smash through another vase in a sort of continual cut glass absolute smash-a-thon.

With Heritage Cafe, I know they don't do the blonde bombshell anymore.

Do they still do the MILF pie?

Okay, here we go.

John, I'm gonna read your menu back to you now, see how you feel about it.

You would like still water.

Probably on some bread, you want crusty, doughy white bread and focaccia with chunky salt, crystals, and rosemary in the general vicinity.

You You'd like to know they've met.

Dipped in olive oil and balsamic vinegar, perfect ratios.

A pair of teeth, banana antibiotics in your childhood kitchen.

Hors d'oeuvre, a stack of pickled scrum yun mccoys 2011 in your car.

Amused bouche, stolen Portuguese breakfast buffet roll, cheese, onion, tomato, butter, mustard at the 12th hole.

Okay, starter.

George eggs, cuppy egg on veggie haggis, craft cheese slice, kismut Mr.

Naga sauce, mocha, pot, coffee, and evaporated milk.

Fish course, cured Alaskan salmon, listen to Rollins Stone's greatest hits with all the people from the festival.

Palate cleanser, your auntie and not your real auntie, creme de men ice cream.

Main course, Schwartz's salt beef sandwich lean with white bread and pickles.

Cheese course, a full wheel of the cheese.

Side, fried salt cod with onions and auntie maid's not your real auntie.

Bayesian hot pepper sauce from a Bahamas breakfast buffet.

Drink, Arthur Seat chil chili bottle coffee with oat milk and some pastries.

Dessert, the blonde bombshell from Heritage Cafe 1999.

John Robbins, this is your dream, men.

I mean, that is great, John.

Keep it up once more, John Robbins.

The magnificent John Robbins, everybody.

Bristol, thank you so much.

Absolutely amazing.

Thank you so much for being here, many lives.

Bye-bye.

There we are, fantastic.

And of course, listen to Ellis and John on Radio 5 Live.

I think going to two podcasts a week soon, wherever you get your pods.

Thank you so much again, John.

I mean, you know, I was messing around on the episode about how long the episode was lasting, but I could have talked to John for another five hours.

No, you couldn't.

You had to get a train.

Yeah, I had to get a train.

But I would have loved to have done it.

Yes.

Me and Benito went back to the hotel and I had a charcuterie board.

Yes.

Well, you did, and then you sent me a photo of it.

And instead of giving you olives, they've given you cherries.

Yes, and you know what?

It worked.

Yeah, you were very happy with it.

It really worked.

They were the cherries that you put in like an old-fashioned or a

Manhattan, you know, in a cock, there was like a cocktail cherry.

And I've since been to the wonderful restaurant, Black Axe Mangal, and they had a duck liver parfait with the cherries that you would put in a whiskey sour, and it was amazing.

So, you know, it was accidental, but they've hit on something pretty special.

Okay, bye.

Bye.

Popsicles, sprinklers, a cool breeze.

Talk about refreshing.

You know what else is refreshing this summer?

A brand new phone with Verizon.

Yep, get a new phone on any plan with Select Phone Trade In MyPlan and lock down a low low price for three years on any plan with MyPlan.

This is a deal for everyone, whether you're a new or existing customer.

Swing by Verizon today for our best phone deals.

Three-year price guarantee applies to then-current base monthly rate only.

Additional terms and conditions apply for all offers.

Hello, I'm Carrie Add.

I'm Sarah.

And we are the Weirdos Book Club Podcast.

We are doing a very special 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.