Ep 221: Elis James (Live in London)

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

Yes.

Ever heard of the Royal Albert Hall?

I have.

We've done live shows there.

And guess what?

We're doing more live shows there next year.

Sure, a lot of them are sold out already.

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

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

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

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

Those shows have been a lot of fun.

We cannot wait to do them live.

Who will we pull out of our little magic bag?

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

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

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

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

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

The day in between is for reflecting.

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

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A brand new phone with Verizon.

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It's time for another bonus off-menu live tour show release, James.

Very exciting, this one.

The first night of our double...

I mean, someone could call it a residency.

Yes, a two-night residency at the Royal Abbott Hall from the 9th of October 2023.

Just to remind you, if you didn't listen last week, there will be callbacks in this show to things that happened in the first half when we asked the audience their dream menu.

Don't worry about that.

It just means you won't understand that joke, but there's some great stuff in there.

Yeah, and our delivery is so good.

It'll probably be funny anyway.

Yeah, you'll probably chuckle anyway, to be honest, knowing you guys.

The secret ingredient was runner beans.

Did we say it was Ellis James?

Nah, I don't.

I hate that guy.

I'm not going to mention his name again.

I shouldn't really mention it.

It was Ellis James.

He's a rival podcaster.

He has about a billion podcasts.

Yes, all of them are awful.

Yes.

A lot of podcasts about things he's not qualified to speak about.

So let's hear the live off-menu from the Royal Abba Hall with Alice Jones.

Welcome to the off-menu podcast, taking the grandma of conversation,

getting the bad beef of humour,

pouring over the gravy of the internet, and creating the wet podcast of wet meats live at the Royal Abba Hall.

Panic to the end.

Right, panic to the end.

They said the wet podcast of wet meat, which doesn't make any fucking sense.

It made perfect sense.

That is Ed Gamble.

My name is James A.

Caster.

We own a dream restaurant, and every single week we invite in a guest and we ask them their favourite ever start.

A main course, dessert, side dish, and drink, not in that order.

And this week, our guest is Alice James.

Okay.

What, you're just laughing to yourself at saying, I guess, Alice James, we're in the Royal Albert Hall.

It's really funny, man.

It's really funny.

Me, you, and Alice, Royal Albert Hall, so much to ask him.

We've known him for a long time.

And I'm quite looking forward to it.

Yeah, so it's going to be a fun one.

So let's crack on.

Without further ado, this is the off-menu menu of Alice James.

There we go.

James, what are you doing?

Yep, yep, sorry.

So, yeah.

So, we all know that James is the genie in this.

Never discussed why.

So, there's a genie in that lamp now, so we're going to have to get the genie out.

I can't be asked to get up and rub the lamp.

So, you all need to imagine rubbing it.

Imagine rubbing it with your mind hands.

Imagine rubbing the lamp.

Something might happen oh just oh

oh where is he where's the cheek rub rub rub

welcome ellis james to the dream restaurant we've been expecting you for some time

oh there we are that's where the money went

We're selling this entire set to Panto straight after the tour.

It feels a little bit like I'm in a rude Panto.

You know the rude ones that Jim Davidson does that are called things like boobs in the woods.

Boobs in the woods, yeah.

Jim Davidson, man.

One day we'll get to his heights, man.

He's another respectable guy.

Ellis, are you a foodie?

I wouldn't say I'm a foodie.

I would say I'm...

Thank you.

I would say I'm a very, very enthusiastic eater of food.

Yes.

What's the difference, do you think, between those two things?

Well, I don't cook elaborate dishes, but if you cook me an elaborate dish I will eat it and I will love you for it.

But the enthusiasm...

The intensity with which he looked at me there.

And I would love you for it.

But I think the enthusiasm can occasionally be quite irritating because I remember in the first couple of weeks of lockdown Izzy was she was down, she was anxious, she was pissed off, especially in the morning.

This is his wife.

And after about

14 days, I thought, I need to broach this.

I was like, what is it?

Is it what's happening to our careers?

Is it the fact there's a global pandemic and we don't know what's causing this thing?

And she went, no, no, it's not that.

It's when you eat wheatabix,

you don't realize you do it, do you?

And I said, what do you mean?

She went, you don't know you do this thing.

And I said, what?

She went, when you eat wheatabix with every fucking mouthful,

you say, mmm, yeah.

The fact that it's fucking wheat a bit as well.

So it's like.

Yeah.

What do you have on your wheat abits?

Plain.

Plain.

This with milk.

So I'm trying to cut down on sugar.

But I really, I've switched over to porridge now.

And what do you say when you're eating porridge?

Yabba dabba do.

No, but sometimes at night I will think to myself, less than eight hours to go.

And it's porridge time.

I bloody love it.

And she used to say as well, and when you pour squash into a pint glass,

you sort of go,

because you can't wait.

And you don't seem to be bothered by this pandemic, but I am.

Because for you, it's just more wheat-a-bits and squash time.

The little detail in that story that after two weeks you asked your wife what was wrong.

All right, what is it?

The global pandemic, is it I suppose?

Because

I just thought it was general worry about the pandemic, but it was that very specific thing.

And then...

You're still not understanding what I'm saying.

No, no.

I'm saying it's mad to leave it two weeks before you check to see if your partner's okay and what's wrong with her.

You're going, no, you don't understand.

I thought it was general worry.

So I left it unchecked.

Yeah, we were talking about general worries a lot,

but

that wasn't the headline.

The headline act

was me going, mmm yeah, every time I eat Weetabix.

But the fact is, if you've said, mmm yeah, every time you have a mouthful of Weetabix for as long as you've lived, it's a really hard habit to get out of.

For as long as you've lived.

Were you aware that you did it before it was pointed out to you?

No.

So then, next morning, having had the chat, I've got the spoon.

I was fucking trembling.

I was like,

can't say it, man.

You can't say it.

She's going to lose her fucking mind if you say it.

No matter how much you're enjoying this Weetabix, you've got to pretend it's a normal cereal, man.

She is on the edge.

So then I'd have a mouthful.

I'd be like, oh.

Pretend it's a normal cereal.

Yeah, not a fancy, tasty one like Witterbix.

Pretend this is just a normal boring cereal.

Just a normal boring cereal.

And I like them all.

But Whitabix, at the time.

Is that at the top for you, Weetabix?

No, I would say historically special K.

What?

How do you think I'm Bikini Beach body ready yet?

It's just bowl after bowl of special K.

And,

I mean, a long long time ago, Coco Pops.

But Coco Pops, sugar's had a bad press over the last sort of 60 years.

So I've kind of

tried to quite radically change the way I eat over the last...

But you had a lot of Cocoa Pops back in the day?

Back in the...

Oh, I mean, up to about

the sort of end of Brit Pop.

Coco Brit Pops.

Famously.

Sorry, I need to say.

Why do you say that like that?

No, no, keep sitting like that.

That's fine.

I like it.

It's good stuff.

I'm just having a really good time.

It's like going T4.

Would you have a brown flakes with Baileys?

A big fun of brown flakes.

Yeah, of course.

With Baileys.

Yeah, yeah, someone here, that's what the

dream meal is.

No, I used to eat over the summer holidays brown flakes, Weezer Bix, all brown and cocoa pops in the same bowl.

All in the same bowl?

All in in the same bowl.

Did you have a name for that cereal?

Yes, cereal time.

All brown, Weetabix.

And brown flakes, you say.

And Coca-Pops.

Oh, Coca-Pops.

So that's like the fun.

I used to do it with my cousin.

And then.

Good to know what clips we're going to get out for the trailer of this episode.

I've thought a lot about my choices, and I've realised how much the way I eat has changed.

Because I don't wanna it's no distract disrespect to my mother, but we used to have the same meal on every night.

There was a rota, like a seven-day rota.

I remember this.

I remember you had a routine about it.

Yes.

And if you are gonna list the foods that you had,

then I would like you to do it in the way that you did it in the routine years ago, which was you did it like a top-of-the-pops rundown.

Yes, yes, I'd forgotten about that.

Monday night check-in tonight.

Yeah, but that's not how you did it, is it?

You went, you went,

funny night, and it that's the way you did it.

I feel like chicken tonight.

Well, you're lucky because you're having it tonight.

It's Monday night, and it's always chicken tonight.

Yeah,

Thursday night was pizza because my mother had aerobics.

So we needed something quick.

Friday night, obviously, fish.

And so then when I went to university,

I was exposed to new tastes.

Take us, what was the first new taste you were exposed to at university?

Black pepper.

Wowee.

Where were you going to university?

Delhi?

This is incredible.

I lived with a girl called Caroline who'd been privately educated.

And she was a really good cook.

She used to like to cook.

And I lived with her, lovely girl.

I lived with her in the second and third year and her boyfriend Chris.

And she used to love to cook.

She introduced me to risotto.

That was great.

She also introduced me to coriander.

Wow.

Yeah.

She made a carrot and coriander soup.

And I was so overwhelmed by it

that at the end of the bowl I kissed her on the cheek

and said thank you.

What the fuck was that?

She was like, carrot and coriander soup, Ellis.

And I was like, well, I'm now I'm going to eat it every day for the rest of my life.

so we always start with still of sparkling water Ellis still

yeah

when you've had lemonade

which

I imagine for you what was that post-grad thing oh yeah

But when you've had lemonade,

sparkling water is so profoundly disappointing

Because it's got the same mouthfeel as lemonade, but it tastes like lemonade that's gone off.

And I've never really been able to get over how disappointing that is.

And it kind of dries your mouth out as well.

It's not even a thirst-quenching drink.

So I don't really trust people who like sparkling water, actually.

I kind of think, what's your game?

A bit suspicious of them.

Not sure.

There's a lot of people here who seem to be saying what they've been thinking all their lives and they're quite excited about this.

I'm a kind of man of the people really.

Yeah.

Yeah, and I think that still water out of a glass bottle just feels classy.

You know, when you think,

this is, this is living.

Yeah.

There goes the man of the people.

Yeah, yeah.

And it feels, and it feels really heavy, and it like, I'm in a top-top restaurant here.

You know, you give yourself away in the top-top restaurant when you're sat there just going,

look at that.

Feel that.

Feel that.

Who do you feel like?

When you say it feels classic, what are you imagining when you've got the bottle of sparkling water?

What great figures in history do you feel?

Well, no, no, no.

It's

still water in a glass bottle is what feels.

Sparkling water can get fucked.

I don't care if that's still water in a glass bottle.

Like still water in a glass bottle.

A plastic bottle is fine.

I love tap, make a saving.

Yeah.

But

when they do.

Occasionally you'll order still water and then they'll bring it in a glass bottle and they're charging you and that's quite annoying.

But still, if it's a glass bottle, I think

I'm earning.

That's all right, that's okay.

And it's very thirst-punchy, lovely.

Does Izzy like it when you have a glass bottle of still water, or does that annoy her as well?

When you're going around going, this is classic.

I think.

With every mouthful.

I think I've had to dial down my general enthusiasm for that kind of thing because it's sort of charming for the first hour you know someone and then it becomes grating quite quickly.

So and I've I've learnt that over the last 42 years of my life so yeah it's just still water.

Where's Izzy tonight?

She is doing a gig that fun fact I was meant to do that I pulled in order to do this.

Supposed to be doing a show with your partner and then you got offered this and you immediately dumped her.

Yeah.

And what has she brought along to the show to represent you as we speak across London?

Uh four pairs of my torn pants that I haven't thrown out and I don't really wear unless it's a real emergency.

But for some reason I don't know what it is about my physiology that does this.

My pants tend to tear in the sort of gusset area.

But they look like they've been slashed at by a kind of

like a like a tiger or a bear or something.

Yeah, so they're gonna be on a table representing me because I did pull out of the gig to do this because I quite fancy doing the art right now.

Why do you keep them?

Why yeah, that's the question why do you keep them um

well I mean in the 80s what people

used people used to use pants as dusters do you remember this

no anyone else remember that

I think there's one person over there who remembers it and I kind of think yeah every now and then I'll get the I'll get the Mr.

Sheen out

so do you use those those pants as dusters no I don't do any dusting but when I get into dusting

the pants are ready

dumps of bread!

Poplums of bread, I just change.

Pop dumps of bread.

In an Indian restaurant, popadons,

in any other kind of restaurant, it has to be bread, doesn't it?

I know that's not the question, but this is my dream restaurant, and I will say what I want.

Are you getting heckled?

Are you getting heckled by people on the front?

So it's got to be bread.

And it's got to be crusty French French bread that is so crusty it makes people laugh out loud when they bite into it.

What?

Is that a thing?

Is that a thing?

So crusty that people laugh out loud when they bite into it except it.

Yeah but you make some weird fucking noises when you eat anything.

Yeah.

You should see me eating chocolate is.

I mean

I'm really trying to eat less sugar.

And I will go for weeks without eating any chocolate at all.

And then there'll be

a set of circumstances that means there's chocolate in the house or cakes.

Like it was my daughter's birthday last week, and a birthday cake was made.

And I mean,

my god, it's like it's midnight, and I'm eating it over the sink.

And it's a kind of woodland animal noise.

It's like,

and this is what's going on down there.

Nothing, nothing, nothing.

Are Are you how are you?

What's your sort of body position while you're eating this?

Where are you?

Hunched.

Lights off.

Like, I was doing a gig and someone brought Tony's chocolate to the stage door.

And I was like a hostage.

Like, I ate it in about 15 seconds in the corner.

away from everyone else so I didn't have to share it.

It's like really, really sad.

So yeah, I make noises.

I'm not going to apologise.

Because you laugh when you have the crusty French bread.

If it's really crusty, you'll go.

Yeah.

Laugh to yourself.

What's making you laugh?

The taste, or just how.

Is it so crusty that you think this is hilarious?

How crusty is it?

Just the audacity of the crust.

You're like,

what were these guys bloody thinking?

This is mad.

Yeah.

That.

Yeah, it's a matter of time.

How much crust would there have to be for you to stop laughing?

Yeah.

Like, how long would the crust go on for if you go...

Oh.

French bread the day after.

Yeah.

If anything, I'm solemn.

Yeah.

Because it's quite chewy then, and you're like, oh, you know, and this is disappointing, isn't it?

But

when it's straight out of the oven, when it's warm, and it's crusty, and you just...

You're laughing, imagining it, aren't you?

This isn't an act, by the way.

Before we came on tonight, in the dressing room, we just got we ordered some sushi, and Ed and I were just eating our sushi, and Ellis was eating it, going,

so happy.

Look at us!

My heart all eating sushi

kept clapping his hands and rubbing them together

all the time and doing this.

Yeah, so happy.

It was nice, man.

Butter?

No.

Gets in the way, if anything.

What an odd podcast you've created.

Boom!

Yeah, that fucking...

That deserves a boo.

What do you say?

Butter gets in the way of bread?

No, I mean...

This is...

There's one person here wooing you.

But it's quite exciting.

Butter superb on toast.

You know, toast is bread, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's.

Yeah, but like I'm not toasting the French bread.

It's straight out of the packet.

Packet.

Yeah.

Okay.

Cool.

All right.

Yeah.

Yes.

It's the 80s Ed.

Oh, is it one of those part-baked ones that you put?

No, no, no, no.

It's just from a packet from Tesco.

I'm eating it in a trolley.

It's 1983.

I'm young.

So you know this is your dream meal, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You could be in France.

You could get this from...

a boulee in France, but you're having it from a 1983 Tesco.

The French bread.

Do you know what?

Going abroad hadn't occurred to me actually when it came

to your dream.

When it came to the dream restaurant.

But going back in time did.

I would say this about you, and that is absolutely true about you: that you prefer the past to foreign travel.

Yeah.

Do you want to say that?

It's like the first time I tried Nutella.

I remember.

I was at Nate's house.

house.

40th birthday.

He said,

Try some of this.

Who said this to you?

Who said this to you?

It would have been my friend Reen Lenny.

And he said, try some of this, ma'am.

And I said, what is it?

And he said, it's a chocolate spread.

We discovered it in Eton.

Yeah, no, no.

I had it on a spoon, and I was like, where's this from?

And he said, France.

I remember thinking, I have got to travel more.

This is, this is mad.

Chocolate on toast.

This is just insane.

But you're right.

And to be honest, you're doing two nights, aren't you?

Yeah.

I think I need to come back tomorrow night with some quite radically different choices.

Because it hadn't occurred to me that obviously I could travel.

Yeah, shit, shit.

But you don't want butter.

You still don't want butter on it.

No, it's just it makes the it makes the French bread sort of slimy, so I want slimy.

Yeah,

I just want to taste the bread.

When you were a kid, do you used to put your hand into it and take the dough out, and then it was just leaving the crust?

But then what have you got to laugh at if you're not eating the

inside?

Well, then

you're saving the laughs till the end then.

Oh, yeah, all the laughs.

You're just laughing at crusts.

Absolutely losing your mind at the end, just eating the crust.

So do you eat all the dough?

You're like miserable eating all the dough.

Yeah.

No, they're just fucking pissing yourself eating the crust.

Floating on the ceiling like Mary Poppins laughing.

No, no, no.

The dough is good, but they're kind of two different things, aren't they?

They're two different experiences.

So

I would save that for different moods, different vibes.

So I would eat the dough in the trolley.

What?

When I was being pushed around the trolley.

I'm sorry, you're...

So you've not just gone back in time.

You are the age you were then.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're sitting in the trolley.

Alice, why did you think this wasn't information we needed?

So you're a little boy in Carmarvon.

You're sat in the trolley as your mother pushes you around Tesco's in the 80s.

Yeah.

And as you're being pushed around, you're reaching your

baby arm, which is probably not even as deep as the log.

I can get about halfway down.

Yeah, inside, and you're pulling out the white...

doughy insides and eating them.

And then we get to the till and my mother apologises and says, don't worry, I can pay for it.

Yeah.

And then flash forward to being at the Royal Albert Hall in 2023, I'm thinking, fuck, why haven't I gone to New York with my choices?

But you want to be that age, eating the inside with your arms, and then go home and eat just the crust and laugh your head off.

Because that's the happiest I've been eating bread.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think

it's never really been that good since, I don't think.

Great.

Yeah, it's not one we've had before.

No, we haven't had that before, funnily enough.

Your dream starter, Ellis, this is your menu proper now.

We get to know the real Ellis James.

Right then.

Well.

He's bought notes.

Because the way I've eaten has changed quite radically,

I'll give you what I'm going to choose now,

and then I will talk to you about some of the things that didn't make the cuts.

That, to be honest, tell the story of the real me.

Okay, honourable mentions.

So my dream starter is salmon sashimi with ginger.

Now.

Now, the ginger thing we should probably explore.

Yeah before we move on let's talk about ginger because when we ordered the sat this the sushi pre-show after we'd made the delivery order you got unhappy for the first time we hadn't seen you unhappy and you were like oh shit

I didn't order ginger and he went can I have all the ginger please guys and you started pleading with us.

James really had to try and calm him down because he was head in hands.

Yeah.

Good meant to order extra ginger.

And I had to say don't worry Ellis I remember that you like ginger because I bumped into you once at Paddington train station and you were eating a wasabi takeaway and you were going on at me about how you love the pickled ginger.

Yeah.

So I knew that you liked that anyway.

So we'll save it all for you.

And then when it arrived, you were, I think you checked about three or four times.

Please guys, don't eat any of the pickled ginger I really wanted.

So when you were really freaked out about it, when it was on its way and it was too late, James had to really just say,

there will be plenty of ginger.

We've ordered quite a lot of sushi.

And you went,

can I have all of it?

Yeah.

Because there is no such thing as enough.

Like when I go to Wasabi, I will order maybe 25 packets of the little gingers.

What?

Yeah, easy.

But you know what it's for.

You know, it's like a palate cleanser in between.

I don't care what it's for, Mitt.

Addicts don't care what it's for.

I think half of those ginger packets are to cleans the palate in between the other packets of ginger, right?

That's for you.

Yeah, so when there was a Japanese restaurant near us that closed down Sampli, and on the last day they were open,

the guy who owned it in his van drove down with all of the ginger they never got around to using.

Kilograms of the stuff.

And said, I've never met a guy who likes ginger as much in my life.

Please take it.

We had kilograms of it in the fridge because I will eat it here first thing in the morning at lunchtime.

So there's nothing I will eat it with.

So he knew, as soon as they shut down, he was like, all that ginger's going to that guy's house.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You already had a reputation for liking ginger too much.

I would go and pick up a takeaway, and as I would walk in, he would say, Don't worry, we've got it.

What sort of things do you say when you're eating the ginger?

Do you have a little catchphrase for the ginger?

Just a chilling kind of silence.

But you didn't always like.

There was a time where you didn't eat anything like that, because you had to do

an actual, like, deliberate project to make yourself like that stuff, right?

I had a very, very childlike palate until I was about 35.

And then

on the radio show, I do a John Robbins because he really, really loves.

Oh, that's depressing.

That's good, man.

That's four in 5,000.

Nice.

Across the UK, that amounts to a lot of people.

Well,

he loves spicy food.

I never saw the appeal of it because I thought, why would you want to eat food that hurts?

Like, what's the point?

What?

It's mad.

You're the one laughing at crusts, mate.

So he said, no, no, genuinely,

once you get past the stage of it being unpleasant,

you become euphoric.

And I now, as someone who now likes spicy food, there are certain curries that make me feel euphoria.

But I had such a bland palate, I had to start off with ginger biscuits.

And then I moved on to English mustard.

That's a big jump.

It is.

I'd had experience of English mustard before.

Well done.

I'd had it on ham.

And there's some students in France passing around a pot of English mustard.

Where's this come from?

A place called England.

So we need to travel more.

And then I started buying

buying the weakest chilies in Tesco and then putting them on salads and things.

And then I got Project Spice.

It took about nine months.

I got as far as Vindelois.

I was slipping in there that it's called Project Spice.

I haven't mentioned that.

I've not mentioned that.

So I got as far as Vindaloo.

And

now I've dialed it down to sort of madras or Jalfraisi if I'm in an Indian restaurant.

And that's when you're euphoric?

No, there's a mustard, a prawn mustard Malai curry and it's not hugely spicy, it's probably less spicy than Madras, but the euphoria from that has lasted on occasion three days.

Where I'll be walking along and I'll just like have a flashback to to how much I enjoy the curry and then I'll give it a quick round of applause and then

and then on I go.

So the pickled ginger was part of Project Spice.

Yeah.

And I just fell in love with it and my God,

what a meal.

It's your favourite thing.

So this is your starter, but you don't think it represents who you are necessarily.

Salmon sashimi with pickled ginger.

I thought for a long time about barbecue spare ribs from a Chinese restaurant.

Because that is one of those meals that when the spare ribs come out, you're like, we're having a good time now.

But you have said that about every food we've talked about.

Yes, that is true.

I love rocket.

So I was thinking of like rocket and grand padano cheese maybe.

Just rocket.

I love rocket.

Yeah, I have it on its own.

But to be honest.

Love Rocket sounds like a name for a dick, doesn't it?

But go on.

What I really want, as much as I like sashimi, sashimi, salmon, sashimi, and ginger, what I really want is like a big plate of sausages.

But for the table,

that is, that's it.

Yeah, you came alive when you said that.

Yeah, fuck this salmon and sashimi bullshit.

Yeah, big plate of sausages.

You clearly want a big plate of sausages.

We were in.

Have you ever been to Betty's tea rooms in Yorkshire?

Popular.

I've never been.

You've never been.

Have you ever been?

Yeah, in where?

There's four of them.

Was there one in Harrogate or was there?

There's one in Harley.

Yeah, I've been to the Harrogat one.

There's one in Ilkley, North Alfredon.

I can't remember the York maybe?

York, right.

They're all in Yorkshire, yeah.

They're all in Yorkshire.

Yeah, that's the county.

Big fan of your puddings in Yorkshire?

Not everyone is.

It's like a...

It's a 45-minute wait to get in.

Yeah.

And it's been there since about 1911, so the waiters and waitresses are dressed like it's just before the First World War.

So we love it obviously.

Yeah, absolutely.

You're dressed as a baby, scooping me out of the bucket.

I was there at the weekend and my daughter had sausage, beans and chips and I finished her sausages.

Because she'd finished, I mean I wasn't

look over there, yoink.

Yeah, yeah.

No, it wasn't like, well I paid for them so technically they're mine.

It was none of that.

But they were really nice sausages.

And after the second or third bite, I just thought to myself, why am I not eating these three times a day every day?

And then I thought, all right, then I'll mention that for my starter.

A big plate of sausages.

A big plate of sausages.

So what kind of sausages are these?

Because there's a lot of different types of sausages.

But these bog standard, straightforward bangers.

Bog standard sausages.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So

I will eat a sort of pork and leek.

But really, it's like a Cumberland sausage.

The kind you would buy in a news agent.

Yeah, yeah.

yeah.

News agent sausages.

But they're

cooked to perfection.

Oh, yeah.

So

dark brown, like in like in Feynman Sam.

You know, when Elvis is burning the sausages,

just before the point he's at.

Yeah.

There.

Those are the sausages I want on a big plate, but it's for the table.

And do you want any sauce or does that get in the way of the sausages?

Ketchup.

You'd like to ketchup.

Yeah, so ketchup.

Did you say Fireman Sam was making them?

Or did I mishear that?

In the original opening credit, original opening titles, Elvis, who's very bad at cooking, is trying to fry some sausages and he's burnt them.

But he's actually not burnt them drastically.

He's not far off.

So I used to think to myself, he's actually a minute less, and he's basically made perfect sausages there.

So I want a minute less than Elvis and Fireman Sam sausages for the table.

But

do you want Elvis to cook them?

Elvis to cook them.

Do you want Elvis from Fireman Sam to cook them?

What your dream?

Well, I think he'll fuck him up, won't he?

So

I want him to be there.

So he can learn.

But then for someone with a steady hand on the tiller to go, no, no, no, no, no, no, now is that take them off now.

Was your daughter excited that you were doing this podcast?

Oh, yeah.

I forgot about this.

I told her yesterday.

How old's your daughter?

She's nine.

I said, I'm doing quite a big show tomorrow night.

Do you know, yeah?

I said, yeah,

I'm doing a live podcast with Ed Gamble and James A.

Custer.

And she went, Ed Gamble?

I said, and she's met James lots of times, right?

But I don't think she's met.

I don't even know.

No, I don't properly know.

She went, Ed Gumble.

I said, yeah, she went, Ed Gumble.

I said, yeah.

She went, oh my god.

Everyone at Brownies has got a crush on Ed Gumble.

Everyone at Brownies.

I said, what about James Agas?

And she went, oh, he's been mentioned.

Well, you didn't tell us that, are you?

He's been mentioned.

Good to know I'm in the conversation.

You're part of the conversation

because she went on a brownie camp, but her tent flooded.

So

she was put in with much, much older brownies.

Yeah.

And they just talked about...

She said it was boring.

They just talked about sex and crushes and Ed Gamble

I love that you said they were much older brownies as if that makes it any better

don't worry they were much older brownies

but you're part of the conversation James

yeah you are absolutely part of the conversation I'm part of the conversation yeah they're talking about it when they're waiting for their tents to be put back up yeah I don't anyone here fancy James A.

Caster

That's gonna be fun.

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Your dream bank cause

because

my ego can't take any more of this.

Considered chicken madras.

Considered the prawn mint, prawn mustard malai curry that makes me feel euphoric for three days.

But I've actually gone, oh, considered bolognese.

I mean bolognese is nice and then

not enough people are saying this it's a good dish but then if we're looking at the menu as a whole you've come on and said oh I'm getting I'm doing I'm doing great with food now I eat better food now and your menu so far would be a plate of sausages and spaghetti bolognese

Plus you you can't you can't choose something that you've only been eating for a week.

I mean you discovered it pretty recently.

The menu makes no sense at all.

That's fine.

As a main, I've gone sea bus

with steamed vegetables and steamed greens, in fact, and Dauphinois potatoes.

Because I had steak and dauphinois potatoes in a place in Crystal Palace, and at the end I shook hands with the waiter and said,

that is literally the best thing I've ever eaten in my life.

I think he thought I was taking the piss by Joe.

I genuinely wasn't.

So was that the first time you'd had Dauphinois potatoes?

I think it might have been, actually.

And I was like, oh, I thought I'd done potatoes.

I've had crisps.

I've had chips.

But this is on a different fucking planet, man.

Boiled.

Roast.

I thought I'd done them all.

And to be honest, with potatoes, it winds me up actually.

We kind of perfected potatoes years ago.

Like

skin on chips, skin on fries.

What the fuck is that?

Like triple cooked chips.

Just cook them once properly.

Why?

Disgusting.

But

it makes them crispier on the outside and fluffier in the middle.

But I don't want that from a chip.

It's the maniac's choice.

You sure?

I mean, that's pretty much how you like your bread.

Yeah.

I think you'd be laughing your head off eating some triple cooked chips.

Fries are great.

Chip shop chips are great.

Yeah.

Oven chips have their place.

Yeah.

Yeah, in the fucking bin.

In the fucking bin.

But yeah, but Dauphin Roar's potatoes, just

amazing.

Because it's my dream restaurant, though, alongside the Seabus, because Seabus is nice and light, because I'm there with all my friends.

And

you're there.

You're both there.

We're both in the restaurant.

Yeah, yeah.

And we're going to go clubbing after, so nothing too heavy.

I'll bow out after the mail if that's all.

So.

Who else is there?

You said all your friends are there.

You?

Yeah.

And Ed?

Ed, yeah.

Is he there?

Is he, yeah.

Whitticomb.

Okay.

Josh Whitticom's there.

Yeah, yeah.

And Paul McCartney.

And he likes me.

Yeah.

In my dream.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And he loves my stories.

Yeah.

And I'm keeping it together.

And we're having a really great conversation.

Can I just check?

Are you still a baby at this point?

No, but he really respects me.

Yeah.

Paul McCartney famously respects anyone who, for a starter, eats a full plate of sausages.

Well,

you say that.

Yes.

But I once read an interview with Paul McCartney where he said,

when he's in a top restaurant, he's like, you know, if I want a bowl of Cornflakes,

I'll just ask for a bowl of Cornflakes.

So that's the kind, that's the level he's at.

Yes.

Also, the level he's at is vegetarian.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right, a big plate of corn Linda McCartney sausages.

That's going to bring back bad memories.

You can't see.

Alright, they're bloody tofu

sausage-shaped

meal meal foodstuffs.

He's lost his mind.

Which is...

Mission accomplished.

End the show.

He's had a breakdown.

Tofu-shaped meals.

You want tofu shaped meals?

Sausage-shaped tofu meals.

Alright, okay.

Paul McCartney is...

He's on the table next to us, so he can't see what I'm eating.

But he can hear what we're saying, and every now and then he leans over.

But never looks at you.

Never looks.

Just like that.

Yeah.

That sounds like a really good point, actually.

But he can't see what I'm eating because alongside the C-bus,

I'd like a small disc of steak

with English mustard because I think English mustard is the world's greatest condiment.

But I don't want, yeah, but

I don't want a whole portion because I'll be too full for my pudding then.

So I just want a little disc of steak.

Just a little disc, like a sort of 50p

size.

50p.

The size of a 50p.

Because otherwise, because I've got obviously I've got the dauphins, potatoes, the sea bass, I've already had a lot of French bread.

I've had my sausages.

I'm going to get full very quickly.

Sure.

So this is just to taste.

Never mind, like, we turned you into a baby earlier, but we can't make you not full.

Well, I, for our 10-year anniversary, we went to a Michelin-styled restaurant.

Yeah.

And it was a...

What restaurant it was?

It was Trinity in Clapboard.

Nice.

Is this you and Izzy or you and John Robbins?

But

it was a tasting menu, and Izzy knew someone who worked in the kitchen.

And because we told them it was our anniversary, they treated us, we got more than we should have done.

And it was our ten-year anniversary, and I ate so much,

very sad to say, I was then unable to fulfil my physical promises I'd make

because I'd

because I'd eat

Because

they just kept bringing puddings

and if if it felt rude to say no

But what it meant But it didn't feel rude to say no to her

But it what it meant was

I was in the car park leaning against a wall

Why just get home for fuck's sake

no just

the honor anniversary man

Just

exhaling, because I was so full.

It's like a.

Whoa.

Okay.

Because I was so full.

So I'm desperate to avoid that scenario.

Because are you planning on having sex with your partner after the dream mail?

Well, I just never...

It was actually very unpleasant being that full.

But it was in the back of your mind on your anniversary, we'll probably have sex later.

I'm excited as part of the conversation, yeah, absolutely.

Hey, we've all been part of the conversation.

And

you're now in the car park thinking, I'm going to have to.

I just thought

this is not happening for days.

the way I feel.

So I've, since then, I promised myself I would I would stop overeating because it's actually very unfortunate.

Was it just the way it made you feel, you didn't feel uh sexy, or was it more of an actual physical impediment?

It was a physical impediment to Ed.

Ed, I wanted to die.

I'd pushed my body to its very limits.

So you want a 50p sized bit of steak?

Yeah.

But but but top like restaurant quality.

That's another thing I say to Izzy, because she now does most of the cooking.

It's actually flipped.

It used to be me, but over the last couple of years it's become Izzy started to cook more.

And I will often, to keep her confidence up, I will say that is restaurant quality.

Fucking hell.

Such an

amazing image of your home life building up in our head now.

That is restaurant quality.

Restaurant quality.

So this is top quality steak, but only a small amount, so I can have it with English mustard and then we can move on.

Okay, and that's next to your sea bus.

Now, can we get we need to get into the nitty-gritty with the veg here.

So you've got steamed spinach

with a little bit of nutmeg, green beans.

Okay.

Okay, someone's going to need to Google something for us.

Don't move on.

No.

We need to Google.

You've got your phone out.

You know what I want you to Google, and I'll have to say it to you.

Can you tell us more about the green beans?

Well, I really like my greens.

I like kidney beans.

Sorry, something fucking mad is happening in this room.

I cannot put my finger on.

Yeah.

You don't need to put it.

Leave your fingers off it for now.

We've got an army.

Because

I like spinach, I like cabbage.

Yeah.

He's fine.

You're in the clear.

You're in the clear.

Carry on.

Carry on talking.

I feel like I'm trying to walk across an icy lake.

As long as you walk and don't run.

Tender stem broccoli.

But I would like the chef to discuss them with slightly more enthusiasm than you two, Mr.

on your advert at the start of the podcast.

That's a good advert.

Yeah, we had to, originally, James wasn't around, I had to record that by myself.

You've never felt more fucking insane than recording an advert for broccoli alone.

My sister thought that advert was fake, was a prank.

She's like, you can't do an advert for tender stem broccoli.

It's like do an advert just for cake.

Yeah.

And she's like, I'm not going to go to that, because we give a website address at the end.

She's like, I'm not going to go on that website.

It's just going to be a picture of you, Ed, and toast dressed as broccoli.

Well,

I love my greens, so it's with greens and dauphinois,

potatoes, and then a disc of steak with English mustard, but only a small one, so I'm not too full.

Because it's a big night.

Are you factoring your dream side dish into that, or is there a different dream side dish?

Different dream side dish.

Okay, well, let's move on to that and hear what your different dream side dish is.

I mean, the two that almost made the cut:

special fried rice,

shredded chilli crispy beef.

But I thought, what genuinely makes me happy

looking at a bowl of sausages now.

Absolutely.

I thought, Soda, it's my dream restaurant, so for my side, I'd like a box of milk tray.

Ellis,

being here with you tonight is very special.

Royal Albert Hall,

someone's finally chosen milk tray as their dream side dish.

Can I ask?

No, no questions needed.

I respect the choice, but you're not fucking anyone after this meal.

I begged a difference.

Am I at least in the.

Thank you, Spencer.

Hope you guys are very happy together.

Am I at least in the conversation, Alice?

I don't know break those brownies' hearts.

That's the thing.

Can I check?

With the milk tray,

are you reading what each chocolate is before you eat it, or are you just...

I know.

i i know it's that it's actually a box of milk tray with a difference it's normal two tier but it's actually a third tier and the third tier is just the turkish delight ones which get an insanely bad wrap

like and like i like turkish delight but actually the cheaper end of turkish delight is the nicest stuff fries turkish delight is way nicer than the stuff that's covered in what looks like cocaine the easier

100% i would take a fries Turkish Delight or a milk tray Turkish Delight over that powdered stuff any day.

The powdered posh stuff,

yeah, it doesn't even compare.

And I always think that for some reason, Turkish Delight in milk tray, like people at Christmas, people leave it.

It's always one of the ones that's left at the end of the sort of festive period.

I love that one, so I would have a whole tray of that one because there's never enough of it.

That's the top layer for you.

That's the top.

It's actually the bottom layer, that's the treat at the end.

So I've worked my way through.

That's the treat at the end after the two other layers of chocolate.

I'm actually getting emotional here.

This is beautiful.

It's really great to hear.

I never hear someone.

This is.

Alice, I didn't expect this from you, and this is wonderful.

So I've had the top two layers, I like them all,

but then I've got a very similar attitude to Turkish like milk tray as I do to pickled ginger.

You can never have enough.

And then there's a whole sort of layer of them at the bottom then.

And that's when we move on to, you know, putting.

absolutely love it.

Are you eating all of that just straight away, or are you going back and forth with the you having a mouthful of sea bass and a bit of Turkish delight?

No, there's a sort of there's a sabbatical of about 10 minutes when I don't talk to anyone, yeah, and that's when I'm eating the milk tray.

So, for the sea bass, well, you know, we're having conversation with you know, with

swapping stories, we're all sorts of stuff, we're having a great time, yeah, we're laughing, we're talking about our childhoods, McCartney's

McCartney's, McCartney's.

That sounds like a really good point.

But then there's a kind of 10-minute sabbatical where everyone goes on their phones and I'm just eating the milk tray.

But you're still at the table with the music.

Yeah, yeah, then I return to the fray refreshed, revived, and I say, sorry, it's my dream restaurant, and I will eat what I want.

Yeah, I love it, Ellis.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

Deserved.

Deserves a round of applause.

Your dream drink, Ellis James.

Dream drink, I've become a real coffee dickhead

over the last probably three or four years.

So

I don't like craft beer.

I don't really care about beer, even though I drink it.

I don't really care about wine.

But coffee, so I would like a V60 handbrew coffee made with Panamanian geisha beans, made specifically by the coffee-based YouTuber James Hoffman.

So he is

a lot of people really

World Barista of the Year 2007.

Now

he's a coffee YouTuber and he's brilliant.

I watched it.

I mean you don't need to tell me about him.

I obviously subscribe.

I've no idea who this person is.

I've watched all his videos.

I really love his videos.

So he will do videos where he'll tell you the best way of making French press coffee or Aira Press or V60 or

the best way to make espresso and this kind of stuff.

And he'll talk about grinds and temperatures and all sorts of stuff.

And he'll talk about different equipment.

Sometimes he used to be able to buy like coffee-making kits, which would be quite popular at Christmas in the 60s.

And someone will send one in and say, this has been in my garage for 58 years.

And he'll go, I'll drink it.

And then he'll make coffee with the kit and

follow the instructions and then at the end of it say, inevitably, that is absolutely disgusting.

Right?

But

he is the absolute Don.

And I once saw him in a coffee shop I really liked.

So I thought, okay, well, I'm going to keep on coming here because

if he's coming here, then it's obviously a good place.

And they make geisha beans are the most expensive beans you can buy, really.

And I've bought the beans for at home, but

I've never made it as nice as

when I'm in this cafe.

So he's making the coffee, right?

Now, I read a review that Grace Dent wrote in The Guardian about a coffee shop in King's Cross that was selling cups of coffee that was 16 quid.

16 quid.

And I thought,

I've got to try this, right?

So I cycled up to King's Cross from my house, took about an hour,

turned up, and they'd sold out.

I was texting my friend Shan, who's a comedy writer, and she was working on a comedy show in Cardiff, and she was in the writer's room.

And she just texted, like, what are you up to?

And I said, I've cycled to King's Cross to try this £16 coffee and they've sold out.

But she was in a writer's room with a load of other comics that I knew.

And I didn't know that she was relaying this information to the writer's room.

Within about two minutes, I had like 20 text messages.

When did you turn into a cunt?

The fuck is wrong with you?

£16.

Are you mad?

But

it's my vice.

So I only have like two cups a day, but I take it quite seriously.

However, if you want the real me,

I mean, that really felt like the real you.

Yeah,

It got so intense.

Yeah.

You held the Royal Albert Hall in the palm of your hand for that whole thing.

Well, just talking about grinds and beans.

To accompany the coffee, I would like a can of grolsch and a pint of ribana.

That's all sides of Ellis.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Now I do know you love grolsch.

We're on a Tets group together, the three of us, and you regularly will bring up how much you love Groch.

It's just, you know what you're getting.

Yeah, a bad beer.

No, beer that tastes like beer.

It doesn't taste like, you know, pomegranate and pasties.

It's like...

On a podcast I do, we used to sell beer 52.

Have you ever drunk that stuff?

It is absolutely horrific.

It's like, oh, this one's great.

It tastes like mango and fags.

No, I think I'm alright, actually.

Oh, there's a lovely cigarette tobacco undertone to this one.

And, you know, peaches.

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

I just want it to taste like lager.

Well,

we've been sponsored by Beer52 again.

And we, you know, we very much love them.

And if they want to come back and sponsor us some more, that's...

That's great.

And, you know,

I have tried the beers and I really like them.

I had a lovely stout that was

blueberry maple syrup and one.

It tastes like the Turin Shroud and dust.

I drink all of that stuff.

I love it.

No, no, no, no, no.

But coffee is the one area where I get really pretentious.

So I would like a pretentious coffee, but then wash down with a nice can of crunch.

You know, I collaborated with Signature Brew on a sour beer, which was

rhubarb crumble and custard flavour.

That is, you are ill.

That is, that is mad.

That's a mad sentence.

It was called Let's Get Eddie to Crumble.

Humans have been making beer for like 20,000 years.

So it's about time they fucking up their game.

Rhubarb and custard crumble.

Yeah, and I did another one with Volt Volt Brewing, who are great.

They're at the Edinburgh-based brewing company that was apple and guava flavoured.

Oh my god.

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

I mean, you're essentially having a groch with a Rye beana.

That sounds pretty much like what is being made here.

Surely this is cutting out the middle

drink.

I've realised, well, I've had it pointed out to me.

That's not...

I want to go by.

That I don't really care having lots of different tastes around the same time.

So we went on a brilliant holiday to Portugal.

It's the best holiday I've ever been on.

And it was the breakfast buffet.

And they had everything.

They had absolutely everything.

And on the second day, Izzy's very good.

She doesn't go on her phone in front of the kids.

So we were eating breakfast, but she was on her phone.

And I said, What are you doing?

And she went, Oh,

I've set up a WhatsApp group to criticize your breakfast choices

because it was

all there.

Yeah.

So I had bacon, sausage, egg, melon, cucumber, spinach, almonds, cheese.

All on one plate.

All on one plate.

You know, that's the issue.

That's weird.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Olives, yeah.

Don't forget the olives.

So she said, you've got lots of different.

You've got lots of traditional, acceptable breakfasts there, but all on the same plate.

So why don't you go like go have the fried section first and then go back for the cucumber and blah blah blah.

And I was like, yeah, but you know, on the holiday of a lifetime.

I want to take the.

The kids want to go to the beach.

Let's just get it done.

And then we can move on.

Is that what you said after your anniversary meal?

Walked right into that, motherfucker.

Yeah.

Mackerel, that was in the mix.

So are you, with these three drinks, you've got the coffee.

Yeah.

You've got the groch.

Yeah.

And you've got the ribena.

Yeah.

We know you like weak squash.

Izzy told us that on the

live episode we did with her.

Well the joy on the water.

The weak squash came about because I was trying to wean myself off the stronger stuff.

Why?

Because the levels I was drinking it at were insane and that had to be stopped.

So I realised I had such a sweet tooth that I thought, okay, well, I'll move on to like sugar-free squash.

So it's water, but it's got a bit of taste.

But this is the dream restaurant, so I've gone back to ribena.

Like Ribena Tough Kind and Rybina Light and all that kind of stuff is just it is funny the way he says tooth, right?

Yeah, yeah, sorry.

I just wanted just to acknowledge that because it felt quite tense in the room where everyone was going,

does he mean tooth?

Tough kind.

Sorry, it's a some accent thing, sorry.

All right, tooth kind,

which sounds insane.

But the Rybina tooth kind

is just disgusting.

So if you're not going to drink the proper stuff, there's no point drinking it.

I think.

Yeah.

I mean, although I reckon if you stopped drinking normal Ribena for five years...

The Ribena tough kind will taste like normal Ribena.

Would you, are you sip, sip, sip, or are you whole drink, whole drink, whole drink?

In sequence.

Coffee, beer, Ribina, coffee, beer, Ribina, coffee, beer, Ribina, coffee, beer, Ribena, end.

Get it done and move on.

Pickle ginger, cleanse the palate, bosh.

We arrive at your dream dessert, Ellis James.

Very exciting.

You've already chosen milk tray.

I know I'm in good hands here.

What we talk.

So you're already positively like twitching because of sugar at this point.

Caffeine, and it's there for finger.

Well, no, if I was in a nice restaurant, I would probably go a cheese board.

What a fucking twist.

Drew him in.

Oh, milk tray, milk tray.

Oh, well done, Ellis.

Well done.

Bam!

Cheeseboard in your fucking face.

It sounds like this is a qualify.

I don't think this is the song I like.

I really love blue cheese.

Sweet Christ, Ellis.

Really like blue cheese.

Yeah.

All these new tastes.

Amazing.

Are like strong cheese, are like weak cheese.

You know, yeah.

I love some of the weak cheeses are my favourite.

I mean, that takes me back.

As a student, I used to...

God, this is embarrassing.

As a student, I used to-

I used to argue that all cheese tasted the same.

It was either weak or strong.

That is a foolish position that I used to maintain 25 years ago.

But I've moved on and accept that cheeses have different tastes, qualities, vibes.

However,

this is the dream restaurant,

and because it's a dream restaurant, my dream pudding is Little Chef's Mississippi Mud Kick.

Hello.

A lovely choice.

I believed in you, Alice.

I think it might have been, was it Mississippi or Alabama mud kick?

Mississippi, it will be Mississippi, yeah.

Sure.

I just, I will like, I actually googled the Little Chef menu today to try and find out definitively, but it hasn't been in business since like 2006.

So it was sadly, no one had uploaded the menu as a kind of

fond farewell to Little Chef.

I think it's more likely to be Mississippi Mud Cake

because of the alliteration.

I don't think they're going, I wish we could use three M's, but it's unfortunately the recipe's from Alabama.

That,

oh my god, take us there.

They still.

You can have it hot or cold.

Yeah.

But there was no wrong choice.

What would you go for, LS James?

I started off assuming that hot was the right answer and then the ice cream would start to melt on it.

But actually, once I'd gone cold, I thought the fondant icing now has got real heft.

And the heft is actually fantastic.

Like, did you used to eat a lot of French fancies in the sort of 80s?

Did you ever eat Miss Fonden French fancies?

Yeah, I know what you mean, but why do I have to have eaten them in the 80s?

You know, they're still available now.

We've established.

Ellis was eating only French things in the 80s.

Yeah.

And

he only eats puddings that all have three words and they all start with the same letter.

But I don't eat them anymore.

No, but you only ate them in the 80s.

Well, I ate them.

Up to Blair.

Okay, yeah.

But the Mississippi mud cake from Little Chef.

We used to eat in Little Chef quite often as kids.

Wasn't it just like a roadside thing?

Yeah.

It was a motorway service station restaurant.

Which services would you drive to?

There was one in St.

Clair's near Carmarthen and

we used to eat in that one quite a lot.

And

have your table ready for you?

I remember once,

we went there one weeknight and my mother made us wear our school uniform so we looked smart.

It was gala dinner night at the Little Chef.

People announcing you as you come in, the James family!

What else did you get from Little Chef?

Did you quickly reel off your Little Chef menu for us?

The burger was massive.

Are you sure you weren't just the child?

No, the burger was the size of a plate.

Then there was the Olympic breakfast.

I think one of the reasons I'm not a foodie is that when I was growing up, I'd never met a foodie.

I didn't meet a foodie until about seven or eight years ago.

Because when I was growing up, if you ever mentioned a restaurant, like if people would say, Oh, we had Sunday dinner in the Phoenix in Goslas on Saturday, and people would go, Was it nice?

And they go, Yeah, the portions were massive.

So the way everyone discussed food was always based on portion size.

And I think the way we eat in the UK has changed almost unimaginably in the last certainly 20 years, 25 years.

So, Little Chef, there was the Olympic breakfast.

I can't remember what they called the burger, but it was massive.

My favourite burger would have been Wimpy, which I actually still think is better.

It was better than McDonald's, and it was better than Burger King, and you got it on a plate

with lovely, finely diced onions.

So I tended to have the Olympic breakfast when I was eating Little Chef,

followed off with the followed by the Mississippi mud cake, and then the little barley sugar lollipops that you would get at the till

if you'd been a good boy and cleared your plate.

You forgot about the barley sugar lollipops at Little Chef.

Yeah.

So if you've been a good boy and you've eaten all your Mississippi mudcake, you'd get a fucking lollipop, would you?

Where do you think your sugar addiction came from, Alex?

I mean, now, I would say I would class myself as a health eater.

I don't eat, I haven't eaten, apart from Betty's birthday, I haven't eaten chocolate for weeks.

It's just I can't have it in the house.

Because if it's in the house, I'll eat all of it very, very quickly.

So I cannot buy it, but I can't own it for a long period, if you know what I mean.

That sounds good.

I guess I've never heard anyone use that term before.

I've never bought chocolate and considered myself a chocolate owner.

It's always a transient relationship, right?

Yeah.

You can never truly own chocolate.

The A-casters know this.

We talk to each other.

But you know some people will have the same pack of biscuits in the house for like five days.

Yeah, those people are fucking psychopaths.

And that's n that's what I can't I can't do that.

So I I either don't eat it or I eat it like chillingly quickly.

Obviously, I'm disappointed that

because we've had a lot of stories from your childhood.

Yeah.

And

I was hoping you'd talk about the farmer who lived next door, he used to bring round tomatoes for you, because that's my favourite story from your childhood that I'm now trying to tee you up for.

Oh, yeah.

About Sean the dog.

We had a dog called Sean the Dog.

James has given away some of the details of the story.

And um, I'm gonna change his name.

The dogs?

No.

Too late.

They know it's called Sean, man.

So, Mr.

Davis next door used to bring us tomatoes.

Okay, Mr.

Davis, we're going with.

Yeah.

The other Welsh surname.

So his real name's Mr.

Williams.

And Sean.

Sean the dog had jumped over the fence, and Mr.

Davis had a goose.

Called Petra?

Yeah.

There was a bucket of water in Mr.

Davis's garden.

And Sean, he meant no harm, he was a puppy,

he was very excitable.

And

he worried and panicked the goose to such an extent that the goose put its head in the bucket of water and

took its own life.

I'll immediate menu back to you now.

See how you feel about it.

You would like still water out of a glass bottle.

Poplongs of the bread, you want crusty French bread that is so crusty it makes people laugh out loud when they bite into it.

From 1983, Tesco, as a child, sat in the trolley eating it.

Starter, you would like a plate of Elberts and Weiman salmon sausages for the table with ketchup.

Also, you like for yourself some salmon sashimi with pickled ginger.

Main course: sea bass with steamed greens, spinach with nutmeg, green beans, tender stem broccoli, dopamine wise potatoes, and a 50-piece sized disc of steak with English mustard on it.

Side dish, a box of milk tray, third tier, just Turkish delight.

Drink, V60 hand-brewed coffee made with geisha beans, made by coffee-based YouTuber James Hoffman, and a can of gross and a pint of Ribena.

Dessert, Little Chefs, Mississippi mud cake, brackets cold.

How you feel about that?

What a night.

Imagine eating that stuff.

Oh my god.

And then there's the

special fried rice, the shredded chili beef that almost made the cut.

Yeah.

Food is fantastic.

Isn't food great?

Oh my god.

It is.

It truly is.

After the dream meal, we're all going clubbing, right?

That was.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're going clubbing after that.

We're going clubbing, yeah?

But we've got a nice VIP roped-off area where we're going to sit with our trousers down because we're full.

Hoping the rope's doing us many favours, though.

That was fantastic.

That was the off-menu menu of Alice James.

Alice James, everyone.

Thank you so much for coming to our first Royal Albert Hall show.

Good afternoon.

Fantastic.

Thank you very much.

Good night.

Good night, good night.

Goodbye.

Well, there we are.

We were mean about Ellis at the beginning, but he was a good guest, wasn't he?

The Royal Albert Hall.

He was a very good, fanfabulous guest.

And also, you know, I suppose we should encourage people to listen to Ellis James and John Robbins on Radio 5 Live or wherever they get their podcasts.

And they can listen to the socially distant sports bar.

And oh, what a time wherever they get their podcast as well, I suppose we should.

Yeah, I suppose so.

And I think Ellis and John are going to two podcasts a week soon.

So there's going to be a lot of Ellis and John content.

So if you'd enjoyed Ellis then and you don't listen to his podcasts already, I mean, what a treat you've got.

And he's already released enough episodes for the rest of your life.

Thanks for coming on the show, Ellis.

And thanks for listening, you guys.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

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Hello, I'm Carriead.

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.