Ep 110: Ross Kemp

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 or offmenupodcast.co.uk.

Welcome to the off-menu podcast, dicing chat into tiny little cubes.

No, it's not good, is it, James?

Oh, that was good.

I knew the general area it was going to be in, and then I ran out halfway through.

That was maybe the weakest one yeah it was definitely we've ever had because i think you've talked about dice and stuff before yeah well what else am i going to do now come on it's hard isn't it yeah it's hard you made your bed oh i have pouring the sugar of fun into the heated tin of the internet and making the candy floss of content now that is much better i maybe think of it more as a as a drum heated drum what is it a heated tin did i say tin you said a heated tin

more of a drum but otherwise that's good and getting the internet involved

You rarely get the interview.

You always normally focus on chat and fun

and humour and stuff like that, and humour.

But you don't often, you know, remember that, yeah, this is an online thing and you can get the internet involved.

So that's a new string to your bow now when it comes to this.

Well, you knowing it's an online thing is a new string to your bow.

Yeah, well, I've just learned it from, you said it just then.

I assume

that the internet's involved.

Do you want to tell everyone what this is, James?

Yes.

As far as I know, this is the Off-Menu podcast.

We've got a dream restaurant.

Ed's the Maitre D.

I am a genie.

And we invite a new guest in every week and we ask them their favourite ever starter, main course, side dish, drink, dessert to make their dream meal.

And this week, our very special guest in the dream restaurant is Ross Kemp.

Ross Kemp.

Ross Kemp.

It's Ross Kemp.

It's Ross Kemp.

It's Ross Kemp, the actor, the documentarian.

I mean, it's Ross Kemp, national treasure.

That's what I say.

Those are about to be the two words out.

And the next two words out of my mouth for Ed.

National treasure.

Treasure.

That's what I was about to say.

You'll know him from everything.

Well, no, specific things, actually.

EastEnders, Ross Kemp on gangs.

My favourite TV show at university, Ultimate Force, which I'm not sure I'm going to get a chance to bring up with Ross because I'll absolutely fanboy.

We had a TV that the Ariel didn't work on, so we couldn't get regular TV.

We only had a small collection of DVDs, and one of those DVDs was the Ultimate Force box set.

In one episode, he captures a machete in mid-air, and in one movement, slices off a man's head.

What?

See, I was still thinking about his documentaries.

I haven't seen Ultimate Force.

Oh, mate, you have got to watch Ultimate Force.

It is phenomenal.

What?

He killed someone.

We're going to interview this guy.

No, he has not killed anyone in real life, but he has spoken to a lot of people who have killed other people in real life.

He has done.

What a life.

I mean, I don't think we've had a guest on the podcast who's spoken to...

as many killers before.

Correct.

So this will be interesting.

Will that influence the food choices?

Who knows?

And look, Ross Kemp is no stranger to podcasts.

He has his own podcast, The Kemp Cast, where he chats to interesting people and chats about their lives and their stories and things like that.

Sounds like quite a good journalistic podcast, James.

Unlike this piece of absolute shit.

We will see.

Maybe we will turn this piece of absolute shit into

the creme de la creme this week, just for Ross Kemp.

But more than likely, it'll stay a piece of absolute shit.

I know he's met a lot of dangerous people, but he has not met us before.

He's not met an angry genie.

Not my angry genie.

Who has just heard a secret ingredient that we have decided before the episode?

And if Ross Kemp says a secret ingredient, we will kick him out.

And yes, I'm going to grab him around the scruff of the neck.

You're going to grab his boots.

Benito's going to tickle him on the way out.

And we're going to chuck him out of here.

We are.

Machete or no machete.

He's going out.

And this week, the secret ingredient, which we deem to be disgusting, is chicken mints.

Chicken mints.

Chicken mints.

I've had nice chicken mints, but I would agree that broadly it dries out very quickly.

If, you know, if you line up all the minces, it's going to be the first one I push off the table.

Yeah, look, in general, I think chicken mince is alright, but I think the idea of it is disgusting.

Thinking of it is great.

Yeah.

And thank you very much to the person who suggested chicken mints.

We get people to tweet the podcast.

And this week, chicken mince was suggested to us by Bleasdale.

It wasn't Bleasdale, James.

Bleasdale.

It wasn't Bleasdale.

This is going to be a confusion.

Bleasdale.

Thank you, Bleasedale.

Thank you very much for the suggestion of chicken mints from C.S.

Sheeran.

Sounds like an alias of Bleasedale.

It sounds like an alias of a sheep, is what it sounds like, who's clearly putting other meats forward as a secret ingredient.

Yes, actually.

They want lamb mints to take over.

They don't like people getting on the mince turf.

Yeah.

Well, fair enough.

C.S.

Sheeran, let's see if you can.

If you get...

Ross Kemp kicked out the dream restaurant.

You are fishing it hard as nails, C.S.

Sheeran.

God, I hope not.

I'm so happy we've got Ross Kemp on the podcast.

So am I.

I can't wait to hear his dream meal.

Shall we get to it, Ed?

Let's get to it.

This is the off-menu menu of Ross Kemp.

Welcome, Ross Kemp, to the Dream Restaurant.

Thank you guys for inviting me.

Welcome, Ross Kemp, to the Dream Restaurant.

We've been expecting you for some time.

I'm here at last.

Ah, yes.

Matching the sense of occasion with the voice there.

Not enough people do that, actually.

I'm going to complain about all the other guests who've ever been on this podcast.

Yeah.

It's

never done that.

No, I'm really happy to be here.

I love food, really.

As you could probably tell by looking at me.

And I think it's one of those few remaining pleasures left once you go past 50.

So I enjoy it still very, very much.

That must be a great thing about, you know, you've filmed loads of stuff all over the world.

You get to like discover new dishes in different places.

When you arrive in a different country, are you trying to find out where the best places to eat are?

First thing, yeah.

Obviously, you've got to spend time with the people that you're going to be talking to.

So you're not necessarily in their best restaurants.

Going into the favelas of Brazil, for instance, that you know, you have to go through a thing called the Boca de Fumeritz, where they used to sell

cannabis, but they now sell everything from crack, generally cracky, cracky, which is crack cocaine.

But once you're through that and you're through the barricades where the guns are and the gangsters sit, and you go up into the favelas, you'll find all these small little restaurants that are selling skull beer.

You won't find wine, but you'll get some fantastic little barbecue restaurants.

And everyone's got a smile on their face.

Everyone's happy to be alive.

And I've often found some of the more poorer in brackets restaurants have generally been the happiest places that I've been to.

And when I was really young,

I took one of my first girlfriends, we went to France.

I think i just got into eastenders and she ended up booking this really expensive restaurant in es village and it was like a comedy sketch from the pythons there were like 12 waiters in ascending height going boso boir boir boir and i don't know to this day whether they did it on purpose but they gave they're supposed to it's very sexist but they give the the male the menu with the prices and they give the female the menu without the prices but for whatever reason maybe because i was wearing a a marks and spencer's shirt that had holes in it they swapped them round so she got the prices and i looked across at her her name was sue and i said sue you're okay this was your idea this is my birthday you know we're gonna splash the cash and she went have you seen what it costs for a bowl of bread and and i looked at it and it was like 50 or 60 francs as before euros and it was just like and you know what god bless her you know like she we were too scared to order any food we virtually you

And I just thought, sod it, let's just, let's smash the credit card, which we did.

And we had a very good time.

But I remember the tears rolling down the cheeks and like, don't worry.

And I looked at the menu and went, oh, shit.

So that was it.

That day onwards, you were done with the Fancy Pants places.

Into the favelas.

Into the favelas, yeah.

And I've got like my options.

Some of the food are actually from Fancy Pants restaurants and some of them are actually not.

They're just like, it's just the food.

And it's often the place, I think, is the time and the place yeah so you know i've got um you know really some really good memories attached to a lot of food and i think food can can bring up places for you you know you go back if the food's similar you know what i mean you can definitely recreate a good time in your life through food like you can through smells you know if you had to join one of the gangs that you've you've spoken to yeah and you were picking them based on what they were eating based on what they eat what gang are you going for what gang has the best food cool uh well one of the organized crime groups because they spend their life having a really good time so one of the russian chaps i mean they just like spend their time you know quoughing vodka and and having caviar though actually there was a gang that i met in unampatto which is obviously in mongolia because i knew that before i went there no

and they they frequented a sushi restaurant now mongolia is one of the most landlocked countries on the planet and apart from the fact they like to have snuff and vodka for breakfast which i had to partake in of course to be accepted by the group every morning.

You're doing a documentary, you've got to do it, got to do it.

Exactly.

This sushi used to be flown in from Japan every day.

And I've never even been to Japan, but I like sushi a lot.

And the sushi that these guys, this gang, used to have, apart from the fact that I didn't like the idea that they went around celebrating Hitler's birthday

and they had SS tattoos on their heads and stuff like that.

But that might have been for sushi sushi.

Sushi said, absolutely.

Scrubshush.

Scrubby sushi.

So yeah, so maybe the richer gangs, the poorer gangs, possibly not.

Well, that is, that is quite the bind.

This sushi is delicious, but these guys, I'm pretty sure they're Nazis.

Yeah.

Yes, but they gave that away by the kit they were wearing and going around waving flags on Hitler's birthday, which is something I never...

I also, I declined the cake on Hitler's birthday as well, which they were quite upset about.

Funnily enough.

Well done.

Did the cake have Hitler on it?

Do you know?

Do you know what?

Can I tell you how many times I've been offered cake by Nazis?

Whether it be in in moscow dallas or in fact ulaan patour more than once and they love a cake yeah i didn't know that about nazis why do you think they love cake so much well because they like sticking their insignia or anything they can don't they like draping it everywhere so why not put it on a cake if you're going to stick it on your forehead stick it on your arm you might as well stick it on your cake yeah it's an easier way to get people in isn't it because like they go if we offer people the cake their need for cake might override the fact that yeah

everything we believe is abhorrent So we'll get him in that way.

Yeah, and that is no joking.

I can remember going to meet a load of Moscow Nazis and they literally put a salad out and in tomato capture they'd put a swastika.

Oh my god.

Cross.

I mean pathetic.

Anyway,

I don't wish to remember them.

Are you at that point now when whenever you meet a new gang of Nazis before they've even opened your mouth you went no I don't want any cake thank you very much and they're like yeah yeah put it put the battenberg away he doesn't want it

I can tell you something I mean you know I've got to go through the whole menu, but some of them do actually relate to places that I've missed.

And I've also got a list of things that I just couldn't eat when I was offered.

Oh, wow.

Oh, great.

And one that I did do and had spectacular results.

So I'll tell you about that when we get there.

Well, let's start with still or sparkling water at the beginning.

What's really funny about still and sparkling, I will go still.

And I often drink.

lots of water when I'm away.

Sadly, you know, it's often in plastic bottles and you only have to go to certain places that I've been to, you see it piled up.

But I try not to, if I can, not to, but sadly, yeah, still, still would be my choice.

Um, though, having said that, when I'm and I have to go for times I don't drink alcohol or anything like it, I will have a little bit of orange juice with some fizzy water, you see.

So, if it's just water on its own, I'll have it still.

But if I'm gonna mix some juice into it, I might like it a little bit fizzy.

Got to fizz it up because it's your dream meal.

Yeah, which one would fit the dream meal more?

Which one would be like, that's special?

That's what I'd like for the meal.

That's the best way to start it off.

I would like

some mineral water from Scotland in a glass bottle rather than a plastic bottle, please.

Lovely.

We can sort that out for you.

Easy.

Why Scotland?

Slightly peaty.

Nice.

If it's properly out of that, kind of through those rocks.

And I used to go walking up in Scotland quite a lot.

And there are, you know, little springs that you genuinely can find.

And where people leave little cups.

And so before, obviously, Covid and stuff like that, people are less kind of concerned.

You can wipe it around anyway if you're carrying something, some hand wash with you.

And you just fill up the cup and you can pour from it and you just drink straight out of the side of the mountain.

And that's, you know, that's so refreshing, particularly if you've just climbed a bit, you walked a bit up a hill, you know.

It's nice to have a nice drinky at the end of it.

That's one of the often forgotten victims of COVID is the communal Scottish mountain cups.

Yeah.

I reckon they're still there.

Yeah.

I wouldn't try it right now, though.

People don't talk about it enough, pal.

We're not able to just walk along and pick a cup off the floor and drink from it anymore because we don't know who's drunk out of it.

I can assure you there's some people I know that still are.

Yeah, sure.

Some people going around.

If we could sort it out for you that the dream restaurant has a Scottish Spring directly funneled into it that you can just drink fresh from, would you prefer that to a bottle of 400?

Oh, just trust me.

Yeah, lovely.

Absolutely fantastic.

Oh, we can do that.

I don't think we'll do that.

Have you ever been tempted to bring a cup with you on the walk and leave that for other people?

Do you know what I haven't?

Though you do take, when you go walking, they used to take a thing called your piece, and inside that would be like uh bread and maybe some some some kind of like filling inside the bread, like whether it be old gammon or cheese and pickle or something like that.

And there would often be a little metal cup that came along with you, but you know, woe betide you if you did not return said cup.

So sometimes you would take a cup.

If you didn't have a cup with you, you could find one generally beside one of these springs, or which is probably generally more hygienic, you had a little cup in in your pocket.

You often filled it with more than just spring water as well, if you were lucky.

When you say why betide you, if you didn't come back with the metal cup.

Well, we got told off by the woman of the house, the kind of lady that ran the Scott,

the Scotts cottage.

So hold on a sec.

I might have missed something.

You're staying at a cottage and someone's in charge of it.

Yeah.

And they give you your piece before you go out.

That's right.

And you've got to come back not only with your wrap foil, so you haven't left it up on the mountainside.

Fair point.

But you've also also got to come back with your little aluminium cup.

You've got to have the full shebang, otherwise you'd have been sent back up there to retrieve them.

Well, she's cooking you dinner that night, and you know, depending on how she felt about you, you know, depending on the quality of the food that you got served.

So, and it was also very good, I have to say.

There you go.

But I have to say, it wasn't the most, it wasn't the most dangerous episode of my life, wondering whether the lady of the house was going to

serve a dinner cold because we didn't come back with the aluminium cup.

I'd say I'd absolutely love it if that was the one time you were like, you do not want to cross these women.

Live in the Scottish Mountains in a cottage.

The only time I feared for my life is Scottish Cup lady.

Do you want to say one of the foods that you refuse to eat before we continue?

Pepper these throughout the episode?

There's, well, not refused.

I don't have a lot of choice in one case.

I was in El Salvador.

I was staying with or meeting members of MS-13 Marasalva Trucha.

one of the most dangerous street gangs in the United States and across that part of Central America.

And we were interviewing on a regular basis a guy called Chucho, who was the leader of the little psychopaths.

And you're going to love this: the little psychopaths of Delgado.

And he obviously carried a gun everywhere he went, more than one, and so did his cohorts.

And

I made a really, I mean, very, very big error, early doors error.

Before I, it's like the first series of gangs.

I didn't have a clue what I was doing.

Probably still didn't at the end of the 19 programs that we made.

But his sister, she gave me a soft toy that you, there are in the petrol stations all across El Salvador City.

It's kind of like little kind of furry gnome type thing.

Little face, plastic face, and it was a ball of fur.

And it was soaked in really, really strong perfume.

And, you know, you're offered a gift.

So it is rude to refuse.

Now, stupidly, I went and bought her one.

I didn't soak it in perfume, but I did give it back to her.

Like three or four days later, but we're going back to Tuchi's house.

We'll take some beers.

We'll take some food.

Won't take any cake with swastikas on it, but we will take something nice and sweet to eat as well.

And I gave her this thing.

What I was doing was getting engaged to Chucho's sister at that point.

So when I explained to him that I already had a girlfriend at home, Chucho was rather unpleased.

So he said, you must come to my house before you leave and you must have chicken with us.

Right?

So I remember I was sitting next to Marta.

Marta speaks really good Spanish, Portuguese, and every other language around the world.

And she's been a great friend and a great support to me over the years.

She ended up being one of the big directors in all the films.

Like we went to Syria, Libya.

She's a very brave lady.

But she was just starting the job as well.

And so she was translating, and you've got to tell him that you're not marrying his sister.

I don't want to tell him I'm not marrying his sister.

He's got a gun and he's put his gun on the table.

And honestly,

he brought out this chicken and it's like beautifully grilled chicken with a salad.

I look at my piece and it's pinker than my bald head it has not seen flame or if it has it's just been licked delicately on the outside with it so i put my fork into it and blood comes out right so i go i can't eat this i ain't gonna be so sick i can't eat this so chucha goes on a polo polo you polo So you eat the chicken, you eat the chicken.

And he's not waving at me with his finger.

He's waving at me with some very large pistol.

So I start eating the chicken.

And literally, I am three mouthfuls into this stuff, right?

I've got blood dribbling down the side, look like a vampire.

So you wipe your muscle and wipe your chin, wipe your chin, you look like you're bleeding.

And I go, I go, I can't,

I can't,

I can't eat anymore.

And I literally was like, by the time we got into the four by four and tried to drive back to the hotel, I was actually like, nearly like sick, passing out.

And she's like, get yourself together, Ross.

Get yourself together.

You should have four mouthfuls of chicken.

I said, I need something.

I've got food poison.

I know I'm going to be really sick.

I'm going to be really sick.

So she went off, and the best thing she could find for whatever it was, that severe food poisoning, was

a bottle of peptobismol, which is an American anti-acid, which is also bright pink, right?

So I neck this, bad idea.

I neck this, and within seconds, I was like a Roman candle at both ends, spraying pink.

Now, I know this won't make a food program, but it was quite a scene inside that bathroom.

Oh, it will.

And I literally passed out and I woke up about seven or eight hours later, and I was just sick for like three or four days.

Oh, wow.

So Chicho's revenge.

But you still married, huh?

I never married his sister and I definitely didn't marry the girlfriend when I got home either.

Pop and obsorb bread.

Pop and obsorb bread.

Ross Kemp, pop and obsorb bread.

Yeah, it's going to be sort of like Afghan flat bread.

They make the best bread.

And it's ginormous.

Think a three times size rugby ball.

And they make it.

They can make it it anywhere they're just amazing people the afghans and so yeah it's that kind of bread i think it's quite healthy for you as well i love all sorts of bread they don't often love me um but i love that kind of flat bread really like it particularly when it's it's grilled and crispy it's just comes straight off a skillet or off a stone slab and it's got that crispiness to it uh the bubble it bubbles up and sort of goes slightly brown and crispy i like crispy stuff to go with your chicken salad did chucho give you just a ball of dough as well

Yeah.

Eat the dough.

Yeah.

Eat the dough.

No, but I found, honestly, I found a lot of the Afghan people I met to be so generous, so kind, and when they had nothing, would give you as much as they could.

Unlike Chuchu, who would like to have read the, he gives you, they say that the lead of the silver, Le Plom or La Plata, he was the lead or the chicken.

Yeah, yeah.

You know what TV show I'd like to commission is every episode is the same as Ross Kempon Gangs.

It's all the same gangs, all the same people.

But instead of you hosting it, Steve McFadden is hosting it.

And we get to see who the toughest one of the Mitchells is proper.

That's what I want.

I want to send Steve McFadden out to do the exact same things you had to do and see how he fares.

James, he has to deal with the BBC canteen every day, so he's got enough problems.

So

I'm joking.

The BBC canteen is very, very nice.

But yeah, I'll be very, I mean, I'll be very happy to see him get that commission.

It'd be a good laugh, right?

Yeah, it'd be.

You'd have to ask Steve.

I don't know.

But would you be be watching it?

Fingers crossed that

he cries every episode and you're the toughest.

I think Grant was always the more cryy of the two.

Yeah, the two chaps, though.

He could turn the tears on if he wanted to.

He's a very, very good actor.

And, you know, I think a lot of actors in soaps, I mean, I think they've changed over the years because everything happens so much quicker now and people aren't given as much time as they used to.

But, you know, him and I used to work really well together and I really enjoyed the years that we worked.

And, you know, he's just, he's a very good.

He went to Rada.

He's a very, he's a classically trained actor.

And that's often sometimes forgotten about a lot of some of the actors that

find themselves in soaps.

A lot of them are just really, really good actors.

Yeah, man.

How many?

I know that everything you just said, I took it in and it's brilliant.

However, I want to know how many mouthfuls of the raw chicken you think Stephen McFannon could eat.

Do you know what?

He doesn't eat meat, so none.

He'd probably taking the lead.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, he's a pescatorian from my recollection.

Yeah.

He doesn't eat chicken or anything like that.

But you'd still be texting him going, yeah, Steve, you should buy her a toy back.

That would be a lovely gesture.

Go to a petrol station, buy a fluffy toy, and give it to his sister.

I mean, and also,

I got chastised for doing it as well.

Well, everybody knows that's an engagement present in El Salvador.

I said, well, I didn't read that on the kind of guide.

We come to your starter.

Yeah.

Is your starter something that you've had on your travels or from elsewhere?

So the sashimi would definitely be in Ulaanbaatar.

Oysters Kilpatrick is probably going to win.

And that's after I generally, because I made films in Papua New Guinea and made a film with sort of motorcycle gangs of Australia.

My wife's Australian.

So it was really handy.

And I went to Indonesia and made a film about pirates that we could always meet.

where she's from which is Cairns and the northern, like North Queensland.

And there's a restaurant that I go to there called Lunico.

It's full of lunatics.

It's a very interesting place because most of you can't swim in the sea because of the crocodiles and because of all the poisonous things that are in there.

Irraganges, jellyfish that are the size of your thumbnail, have more poison in them than a cobra.

But you can look out across the sea there.

And again, it's about memories and it's about what food evokes inside you.

And it was always a massive relief to get there because I'd like either, I mean, the motorcycle boys were pretty dangerous, but they weren't as bad as being in Papua New Guinea and having people shoving guns in your face

or dealing with at one point there were seven pirates up a tree and I never thought that's got to be a poem or a song one day.

I want to hear Eminem do seven pirates up a tree.

These guys could literally get bamboo poles and they kind of like tie them together and they'd speed up behind ocean-going container vessels, these big ships that carry, you know, these multi-story big, there's big shipping containers.

And they'd they'd get the boat and then they'd just climb up, right?

And they'd have a like a cheap panga, a cheap kind of like knife, long knife, tied around their neck with a bit of ribbon.

And they'd find the skipper of the ship who's generally asleep because they'd do it at night.

They'd take control of the ship because most of them knew how to.

They'd rob all the crew.

They'd take all the money out of the safe.

There's a lot a lot of money.

Then they'd skim down because one baby were keeping the small speed boat

at the right speed.

They'd skinny down and they'd be off.

And they showed me how easy they could get up the side of the back of a ship by putting it on an island.

We went to an island, there's an island on the boat, one of their boats.

And those guys were just such athletes.

They could just get, yeah, they could climb up a 40-50 foot pole.

I tried, man.

I just couldn't.

I couldn't get one foot on it.

So how did I get to that?

So like doing things like that, always going back to Cairns was always a real relief for me.

I have another starter, which is from a restaurant called Poulopo, which is in Ebry Street in London.

I lived in Battersea for like 28 years, and that was one of my big treats to go across to Poulopo Posh restaurant.

But the French guys in there were absolutely fantastic.

And they make a quiche that I defy anyone to beat

in terms of fluffiness, cheesiness, crispiness, loveliness.

But I'm going to go for the Oysters Kilpatrick

with my wife, before she was my wife, looking out of Lunico

across the ocean.

Is that where you said the sun was coming down?

You knew you wanted to spend the rest of your life with her, and you pushed a little box across the table and she opened it up, and there was a tiny little cuddly toy in there.

No, do you know what I actually honestly,

I actually got engaged to my wife after coming back from Haiti and witnessing so many people, sadly, who had died and a cholera epidemic.

So I was like, we went out and we collected bodies with the body collectors.

And I met her in New York.

I went down to the diamond market, bought her a diamond, and I went down on one knee in the Bowery Hotel.

and asked her to marry me there.

It's a classic story of romance for us.

Do you know what I did though?

Do you know what's a really stupid thing to do before you do that though?

I was given some Haitian rum and I think it's got more than rum in it.

Right.

And I drank about what I thought was four or five snips and it was more like four or five large glasses so I was a little bit squiffy when I went down on one knee.

Didn't it come up for a while?

Oh mate no it was a mess.

It could have been very messy luckily she took she took pity on me.

Yeah so definitely oysters Kilpatrick and for people who don't know it is oyster with Worcester sauce and maybe sometimes a little bit of a little bit of bacon on it but I prefer it just the heated up the hot oysters with Worcester sauce.

Ah the hot oysters.

yeah yeah so you grill them so you can make them at home you just chop a lard on small lardons um you obviously leave the juice of the oyster in the oyster you put a little bit of worcestershire sauce the people say that's cardinal sin you should never do it and i do like cold oysters as well with you know lemon and a little bit of tabasco but this is just an australian obviously an australian thing on it it's called oysters kilpatrick lovely by the way i'd like to know what kind of a tree that was that they climbed because when you said seven pirates up a tree i was like that's a palm tree i don't know how they've done that it's a big tree it's on an it's on an island And I can, do you know what?

It's quite a famous island because it was involved in the

nutmeg trade, which was really big in the East Indies, or it was called the East Indies in those days.

So, yeah, there's some pretty, quite, quite a big tree.

It might be a nutmeg tree for all I know, but it was quite a big tree.

Yeah.

Are there quite a lot of branches up this tree?

And each pirate is sat on a different branch, or are they all just huddled up together somewhere?

Do you know what?

The great thing about what I do, I say, is it's on camera.

So you've just got to look up pirates.

There's three programs.

Don't go to the one in Somalia.

Don't go to the one in

Nigeria.

Go to the one that's done in Indonesia and Malaysia in the Moluccus Straits and you'll see six pirates up or seven pirates up a tree because you saw so much mad stuff like that did it ever start to wash over you or were you always like oh my god that's seven pirates up a tree I think do you know what I did on the way back I jumped off the boat and they got really angry with me I just thought I'd just start to do something mad it just was one of those surreal moments so I just thought we were close to the beach it wasn't like you know I did it in the middle of an ocean and I don't think it ever does I think honestly that you I think if you did then you wouldn't be doing your job properly and a lot of people people say, you know, you're not a trained journalist, you're not this, you're not that.

I'm a documentary maker, I guess.

And part of what I do is I try to be as honest and

as straight as I possibly can do in terms of telling both sides of the story and walking the line.

I've just made a program about people in the UK that keep lions and tigers in their back gardens and other dangerous wild animals.

And gosh, that's a hard one to walk a straight line over because you automatically feel very much on the side of the animals.

But

some of the owners are just such interesting characters uh they're not the carol baskins and they're not necessarily the joe exotics but you know anybody who wants to keep 350 kilos of killing machine in their back garden has to be interesting yeah

i mean if you're then if you're their neighbor you're not asking for your ball back put it that way that's correct i'll tell you what there's there's there's uh 4 000 cats in in captivity in people's back gardens in the uk wow which was absolutely jaw-dropping isn't it uh i've got because because I've got the numbers here.

There's 274 primates, there's 158 crocodilians, there's 332 scorpions, and 106 venomous lizards.

That's insane.

It is, isn't it?

I think it is.

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Are there any other things that you've refused to eat or discussed if things you've eaten before we get onto the main course?

One thing I did, I was in the Congo

at a really bad time.

It's probably the most heartbreaking film I've ever made.

And I met an amazing man called Dr.

McQuage who went on to get the Nobel Peace Prize.

But a very difficult man to talk to because he basically looks after people who've been mutilated, bits of them chopped off.

And he was just an incredible man.

He was so busy.

He was looking after people.

Why would he want to?

talk to some Westerner who you know is not really going to help the plight of any of the people that are suffering around him But while I was there, we got a UN helicopter and went right into where the rebels were fighting.

And it was basically, uh, it was Hutus and Tootsis.

So the genocide that happened in Rwanda moved over into the eastern DRC.

And a very brutal, very brutal war with child soldiers, etc.

But I was presented, we went into a place, we got two cans of tuna of the local market.

And two guys tried to come into my room that night and steal it off me.

And I managed to kind of like defend my way away from them.

they pulled a knife on me and they were going

no boofy see no boofy see with my CNC grade one French um

but they managed to leave me but I got I remember I got there I was there on a mattress there was no thing I got mosquitoed I got they were beating the sun going down and beating the sun go up and they were watching black caulk down below us all these guys were dripping in grenades ak 47s but they bizarrely wear white wellington boots so they all look like you know kind of like they've got berets on they've got they look tough they are as tough as hell.

But when you look down at their feet, they've all got white Wellington boots on, which always made me like slightly titter, slightly.

But um, they were they were clapping every time an American soldier got shot.

Uh, they think they took us to be American, so I was just waiting for them to come up with the stairs and shoot us.

I got through the night with no sleep whatsoever, really dehydrated, too scared to go to the toilet.

So, I weeded my bottle, my little bowl, and um, I was confronted with breakfast, which I have a picture of uh, still.

Uh, It's a skillet, and it was a porcupine, not prepared, a porcupine,

and a baby primemate that had been cut in four, or a primate, I'll just be clear, a primemate that had been cut into four bits and left on the skillet.

Oh my god.

I mean,

hang on, I'll show it to you.

Oh, yes, please do.

Just got off to get the photo now from this cabinet.

Oh, it's in his book.

Here we go.

There it is.

You can see the porcupine's little claws there.

Oh, yeah.

Tucked up.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

There it is.

Thank you.

Yeah, I've never been a great favour of any kind of bush meat that I've been offered.

And, you know, I've had some fantastic meals in all sorts of parts of the world where they eat that stuff.

And some people really like it.

But it's never been for me, I have to say.

So you didn't have any porcupine or primate?

No.

Couldn't, man.

And also when I opened the can of tuna, so I had this can of tuna that I defended with my life the night before.

We hadn't really eaten properly for but I mean I'm woe is me but that's the longest probably I've ever been without ever having any food when on any job that I've done and I opened it up and there was this dry little disc and I looked at when it had been canned and it had been canned in 1986.

So it was about nearly 20 years old or something.

It was a yeah, waste of the can of tuna as well.

But there you go.

Also, you said you had to wee into your little bowl.

Yeah, and tempted to drink it once or twice.

Yeah.

Is that like the little tin cup in the Scottish Mountains?

Is that like yeah.

So that's got a happier times in your main course.

Yes.

Well, hopefully happier times.

Who knows what's going to be in the main course?

Well, there's two moments.

I love grilled fish, right?

I've always have done.

And I love, we were in a place called East Timor early doors as well on gangs.

And it's, you know, it's suffered a bit as a country.

But we'd filmed that.

We'd actually gone out there with the wrong stock to film.

So we actually, instead of staying there for like three weeks, we were actually out there for nearly two months.

months and there's very little you can do after a while after getting rocks hurled at you where you with the UN troops who are trying to stop the uprising and they use a thing called I can show you I'll show them I'm doing this kind of like I'll get up I'll show you something hang on just got up again to his shelf they fire these things which I will describe as a 12 inch nail with a point on the end and a hook now the hook's important because that's caught by the kind of Dennis the Menis slingshot that's made out of wire right right and on the end of it there's like flails from a rice bag and they wrap that that around where the head of the nail would, where you'd hit it normally.

But they flatten this out and they sharpen it to quite a sharp point.

And then they dip it either in feces

or snake poison or toad poison.

But these guys were just amazing with these things.

They have them like a little pouch on their hip.

And they bring out this what, you know, laughable little wooden Dennis Domenis thing with lots of elastic bands on the end of it and a metal hook that links the plastic bands from one end of the branch to the other end of the branch.

And then they can zip these things off like they're firing a pistol.

Wow.

And they like have practice on melons at about five or six meters, and they wouldn't miss.

So let me get this straight, Ross.

Your dream main course is a flattened nail dipped in shit.

Because I'm that odd.

All right?

I'm that odd.

Tell you what, that would be amazing.

We had a hard time with people aiming things like that to us.

And that was only the tip, get me of the iceberg.

But we finished filming, like, we just like, they'd found us a nice restaurant.

The local fix and Maritzi had found us a restaurant on the beach.

This big fish had been lied out.

It had been split in two.

It was grilling.

There were beers.

And we were sitting there sipping our beers, just eating this beautifully, just freshly out-of-the-sea, moist fish.

I think there might have been French fries there, but it's salad.

Everybody's chilled.

The sun goes down across the ocean.

Wow, we've got through this.

And we were right at the end of the bay of Dili, Dili being the capital of his Timor.

And Maurizio, who should have been there, going, Where's Morizio?

Mauritius says there's no mobile phone service or anything like that.

So, where's Mazzio?

What's up to Maurizio?

Maurizio drives up in his little Suzuki Jeep, open top Jeep.

He goes, We must go, we must go.

I said, We're not leaving, Mauritzio.

We're just looking, mate.

We're just eating fish, mate.

We're on our sixth beer.

We're not going anywhere, man.

We're just going to like just lay here until the sun comes back up again.

He said, You have to go now.

Look across the bay.

Look across the bay.

Look across the bay.

And there's like this kind of fire going on, but you can't wait.

He said, That's your hotel.

And they basically, there'd been another uprising because there was an uprising every other day when we were there.

And they wanted to burn down the records office so they could do a land grab.

The only problem was that the records office joined our hotel.

So the flames had gone across the roof and they'd set fire to a hotel.

So that was my grilled fish moment out of the way.

But I've always loved grilled fish.

But my favorite I will go for is from the Hutong restaurant in Hong Kong.

Not that I go there on a regular basis.

It's really,

I like hot food, but not uber hot.

And the first time I went there i just had the regular not the the cooler version of the crispy soft shell crab uh besash one chilies and it comes in this big kind of wooden basket and even though the soft shell as crab's been sort of like dipped into kind of this this this chili and then deep fried and then they put chilies all over it it actually if you get it at the right temperature with the with the right drink it is probably the closest that you get to having sex without having sex.

So absolutely, my favorite main course would be the soft shell crab.

What's nice about the soft shell crab in comparison to the grilled fish is when you'd finish it, you didn't look up and see where you were sleeping was burning to the ground.

I was looking across the Kowloon as far as I can remember, and it was definitely not burning to the ground.

But honestly, you can't make that.

And also, the true story about, so we do get in the vehicle and we do go down to the hotel and we get our kit out.

And the hotel was actually just a little bit singed.

But then we obviously carry on filming.

And the gas bottles inside the houses that are used to cook off are suddenly going bang, right?

So I'm doing a do I try to do a piece to camera and all of a sudden it was just like I have a movie.

It's like I didn't know I was going to go to Afghanistan and see big bombs going off and stuff like that.

I literally wet myself when one of those canisters went off.

Well, when we come to your side dish, are we sticking to the seafood?

No,

it's either, so I love Lebanese food and I like the Lebanon as a country and the people in it.

It's a fascinating country.

It's in a lot of trouble over the years.

But I love Lebanese people and I love the food.

So I love that kind of baba ganoush stuff, like kind of or fatou salad.

So fried pizza bread, you know, pomegranates,

molasses.

I like radishes sliced up thinly, onions sliced up thinly, a nice green salad in that with with my with

either with the fish or or with the soft shell crab.

I know that you said nice green salad there but my ears heard ice cream salad and i get i got really excited

what what's an ice cream salad in your mind james just uh three different scoops of different ice creams

yeah yeah all of ice cream and call it an ice cream salad beautiful i think ross we can let you have the baba ganoush and the fatouche salad as a side dish.

I think we can double up on sides there because they're from the same place.

I think they go together hand in hand.

Yeah.

What's the opposite of that in terms of things you've been offered to eat?

I tell you one of the things I just really hated about being out in Afghan were the MREs.

So I sort of like I was asked to kind of give my honest opinion on what the soldiers and the Marines were given when they first went out there and the early Herricks they were called six month operations were called a Herrick.

So I went out there for about over a period of four to five years, maybe longer, five years at least, and the food got better.

But I remember one of the things that used to make you gip and you had to eat it because there weren't much else to eat.

If you're doing a five or six day day operation, this is before the IEDs really came into play.

They used to used to do a lot of marching, walking, whatever you want to call it, running and getting shot at basically.

And in my top pack, you'd have the meal that you were going to eat that night and with your body armor plate and the heat, because it's like 40 degrees, it would actually, when you opened it up, it would be steaming.

You'd actually cook it through wearing your body armor.

But the one thing that you'd stop to have for lunch, a thing called biscuits brown, which sounds so military, doesn't it?

Biscuits brown, brown because they're biscuits and they're brown sounds like my nickname

just i mean what are they like they're like a digestive that's been made with tarmac tasteless and what they would expect you to do is they'd put you expect you to squeeze it's in like a sachet like you imagine like the sachets you get a tomato sauce about four times longer than one of those about the same width and inside it was supposedly tuna a tuna again but it wasn't you could see it was just eyes and tails and in that kind of heat when you're dehydrated, squeezing that out onto a biscuit brown and trying to eat it.

You just want to gif.

Yeah.

If someone came to your room and tried to rob you for that, it'd be absolutely take it.

Have it.

Please take my biscuit brown.

I hate it.

Take my biscuit brown.

Oh, please, Wellies White, take my biscuit brown.

How many, just on their own, how many biscuit browns do you think you could eat in a row?

Oh man, that's a question.

You just wouldn't want to.

And I remember because they were in a purple kind of sachet, and it was really interesting.

You know what I mean?

Stealth, company of 30-odd blokes, tough as nails, and with, you know, me and my cameraman attached.

And you could see where we'd stop for lunch because there were piles of biscuit brown everywhere.

It's like, where were they last?

I have them.

I have the biscuit brown.

I'm on the trail.

Literally, like Hanson and Gretel was following the crumbs to find all you guys to a big house built of biscuit brown.

Your favourite drink?

We've mentioned a few beers along the way so far.

Yeah, I do.

Sadly, yeah, I do like a beer.

I found out very late on life that I was allergic to most grapes, which explained why I was probably angry in the morning quite a lot,

particularly at the weekends.

But I do like Pinot Noir wine, the grape, and the wine that goes with it.

And

I've sort of, luckily spent a lot of time in New Zealand doing films.

My best mate's

Doch for Sociology at Christchurch University and him and I have made it our goal to go to near every vineyard.

And there's quite a few in New Zealand.

Yeah, so Pinot Noir.

And it doesn't really matter whether it's from the Napa Valley, whether it's from Burgundy, I think where he originates, or whether it's from Germany, some really good German ones.

So a thin glass of Pinot Noir or a glass of Alberinho, which is my other favorite sort of white wine, which is Spanish.

Lovely.

I mean,

I thought you might go for beer because you've been to a lot of hot countries where you've been working hard during the day, and I don't think you'd properly taste beer until you've had a cold beer in a boiling country, maybe after being chased by a murderer.

Yeah, true, true.

And

also, interesting,

we didn't realize that the beer is kept from going off in Karachi because they put formaldehyde in it.

And formaldehyde, I can assure you, gives you a stinking hangover.

We only had two bottles of beer, and we just me, Dave Sound.

Jonathan doesn't drink.

When you say Dave Sound, it's a man called Dave who works on sound.

His name's not Dave Sound.

His name's Dave Williams, but he'll hate me.

I'll tell you a true story about him as well.

His name's Dave.

So whenever I have to interview someone and give them a pseudonym, particularly if they're a murderer, a robber, or an assassin, they're always called Dave.

And it's funny after that point, when you go to someone, look obviously you can't say who you really are we're shooting you in silhouette uh would you like to have a name a pseudonym do you know how many of them often came up with the name dave

there was a guy tortured people in colombia we met him in a sex hotel this guy uh was cold-blooded killer he cuts people up for a living to find out where the stash is and he literally turned around to us and he said you could call me dave and like i was on the floor right and dave you told him you told him to say that

you told him to say that like you're gonna go up to a guy like that and go before we interview you come here this will be a laugh exactly that guy's name's dave say your name is dave because your sort is the last kind of people he'd want to be associated with it'll be a funny little joke nice sex hotel by the way let's shoot this

Cartoon something about the sex hotel as well, which is really, really odd.

Yes.

Because the aircon's on, it's right down on the Pacific coast of Columbia, which is where all the drugs go up to, Los Angeles.

And we had to turn this, because of Dave Sound, my good mate, Dave Williams, we had to turn the air con off, right?

So all of a sudden, this guy's sitting there, he's got a locked-off camera on him.

And Jonathan, who's the big cameraman.

Jonathan, who doesn't drink?

Jonathan doesn't drink, Jonathan Young, is on a penny case, you know, those big plastic cases.

Jonathan Lenz.

Jonathan Lens, yes, you've got it.

And we suddenly start seeing all the fingerprints because the lube.

is now becoming apparent, but the floor is turning into an ice skating ring, right?

Now, I am absolutely dripping.

Our chap, funny enough, doesn't drip at all.

He's talking about cutting up his best friends, how his dad was cut up, how he thinks he's going to get cut up.

He's like, it's got a heavy stuff.

He's really trying not to get cut up.

This guy, anyway, I'm realising.

I'm seeing all these handprints on all these kind of furniture and everything like that.

And there's this kind of fridge in the corner that's full of condoms and gel and bizarrely a comb.

What do you want the comb for?

Anyway, I certainly don't need the comb.

Right.

Anyway.

Want to put it in the fridge?

We're doing this interview, right?

It's now dripping.

The floor's gone like a rink full of lube, right?

And Jonathan's on this penny case and he slips off it.

Now, he's about six foot five and weighs a good like 15, 16 stone.

The penny case goes bang.

I jump out of my skin.

This lad who we're interviewing because he was locked on a D5 camera, he didn't move an inch.

He's just like, I'm used to big bangs, funnily enough.

But yeah, sex hotels, don't go shooting in them, particularly when the town man says turn the air con off.

Too slippery.

It's a slip, slippery occasion

before we go to your dessert let me ask you the big question very important can't have you on without asking you this who do you think's toughest out of me and ed oh god i've not got a toughometer on me i'm gonna go

ben williams sounder the great bonito you can't see ben sounds he looks like you can't even know you don't argue with ben Ben sorted it all out didn't he at the beginning yeah

Ben's the toughest the great benito yeah he's definitely the toughest he's written thank you in the chat like like any tough guy would.

Yeah, Ben, don't mess with Ben.

That's what I'm saying.

Ben is pretty tough.

So your dream desserts.

There's two, and this is where you see kind of like the softy, squishy side of Mr.

Kemp.

When I was a kid, my mum on a Saturday night, because my dad was not around, he worked as a police officer.

He was a detective.

He wasn't around a lot.

So on Saturday nights, if he was not working, we would have a big meal.

And there were these books that came out called Supercook.

And it was like, this is before TV chefs.

It was like in the 70s.

And she started cooking a thing called baked alaska which for a kid like me was just like oh my word what you put ice cream in the oven and it doesn't melt and it's got sponge on it and it's covered in meringue are you kidding me this is like heaven i i still don't get how it works it that is magic I think it is.

It's food magic.

And that's why I still love it.

Now, obviously, it's maybe a little bit too sweet for my taste these days.

But for my birthday, therein, from about the age of about eight to the time i was about 12 or 13 my mum would make me a baked alaska for my birthday yes so even though i love my nan's lemon and apple pie god rest her soul and it was special because she managed to make apple zesty and lemony really really special apple pie crust the beautiful crust norfolk crust pastry beautiful then why it's called norfolk crust i just called it that because it was from norfolk but Baked Alaska for me will always do it because it's like that moment in Ratatouille.

You know, when the rat cooks him that dish and you're expecting him to hate it, and he suddenly puts his spoon in it and it goes into his mouth, and all of a sudden he's transported back to his mum coming through the door in the farmhouse.

Well, it wasn't exactly a farmhouse, it was a semi-detached house in Essex.

But I'm transported back to that kitchen every time I taste baked Alaska.

So it will always be baked Alaska.

Maybe that's you should take that, you know, whenever you're abroad filming with gangs, you should take some baked Alaska with you so that if you're feeling scared, you can just have a mouthful of it.

I'd take it in a plastic bag and freeze it, not take it to a sex hotel, because it'll definitely melt.

It'll be all over the place.

Everyone's slipping around on lube.

You've got your baked Alaskas spilling all over the place.

Why did you bring a baked Alaska?

In case I get scared.

You know, I get scared.

You know, the one, the one rule, never bring a baked Alaska to a sex hotel.

We told you that.

You wouldn't listen.

I would imagine that baked Alaskas have been taken to sex hotels.

I reckon it's something like, what wouldn't be taken?

What dessert would not be taken?

If it's got cream attached to it, it'd probably have been taken.

After the act, it's not being referred to as a baked Alaska anymore.

That's what I'm saying.

Do you know what really got me about what they're called sex hotels?

Not because of all the lube everywhere and all the

oddly shaped furniture.

It's because people can drive in, and there's two garages.

So you drive in, and no one sees you come in, and you kind of close the garage door and you go in one side.

And the other person comes in their cart and then closes the garage door and they go in.

They do what their business is.

And then they both leave under the cover of darkness.

I'm not sure, guys.

James, Ned, have you ever seen such a thing in the UK?

Is there a market, do you think?

I don't know.

No, I've never known such a thing before.

Did you stay the night in the sex hotel?

Or you just met the guy there?

No, no, that was one of those jobs where you just say thank you very much and you slip your way out as quickly as possible.

You slither out like one of Gary's lizards.

Slide out like Bart Simpson.

It lended itself to, you know, when you're a kid and it ices for the first time with the winter and everybody goes out and like tries to skid across the playground?

It was literally like that.

It was like, bah!

The thing is, because we're talking to you, I know that you said when you're a kid and it ices, but because it's you, I thought you said, you know, when you're a kid, an ISIS coming, and it was like, what?

You know what I mean?

About gangs your whole life.

Sadly, yeah.

They were an interesting bunch of people.

Oh, yeah, I forgot you probably have met them.

Yeah, you have met ISIS.

Sadly, I've been shot at by them, yeah, in Syria.

No, yeah, let's not talk about them.

Do you do, you don't do coffee or tea, do you?

Do you do coffee or tea in your restaurant?

Oh, do you know what, mate?

If you want a coffee or tea at the end, well, absolutely, we'll do it.

Can I tell you one of the most wankiest things I ever saw or ever witnessed?

And I can't tell you who they were, but they were really uber famous people.

I was taking out to a restaurant in Spain, uh, in Madrid, and it was like, I think it had like more than five mission in stars.

This restaurant, they were really uber celebrities, and I was obviously no one knew them, no one cared, and why would they?

But you know, you didn't, they said, We have five teas.

Would you like to try our teas?

And I was like, yeah okay they were really excited about this and you don't get to go to restaurants well that was the only time i've ever been to a restaurant like that and it will be the last time i ever go to a restaurant like that and do you know what they did they had the tea in like kind of a big test tube with a like a cork on top and you didn't drink it you smelt it that was your tea

it's like emperor's new clothes isn't it it's like oh no no no no no don't let them if you if you pour boiling water on that we'll have to get some more tea in just let them sniff it then charge them 50 pounds.

So that's not what you want.

You don't want to sniff some tea at the end of the tea.

I don't want sniffy tea.

I want proper tea.

I'll have a cup of tea.

I love a cup of tea.

Milk sugar?

Just normal black tea or green tea.

Don't mind.

Black tea.

Yeah.

Love it.

You got it.

I'll keep some black tea at the end of this.

Let me read your menu back, see how you feel about it.

Water.

You would like Scottish mineral water fresh out of the mountains.

Straight out.

Popped once or bread, Afghan flatbread.

Yeah, love it.

Starter.

Oysters Kilpatrick from Lunaco, Australia.

Yeah.

Main course,

crispy, soft-shelled crab, Sechuan style from Hutong in Hong Kong.

Yep.

Side dish, Baba Ganoush and Fatouche salad.

Drink, Pinot Noir, and dessert.

Mum's birthday baked Alaska.

Love it.

Sounds good.

Great.

Really, really good menu, I reckon.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Really delicious.

I mean, I'd eat most of that.

I'd definitely eat that.

I mean, listeners know.

I'd eat that baked Alaska.

In a heartbeat.

James is actually the only person I know who would take a baked Alaska to a sex hotel.

And

just check in with the baked Alaska, eat the Baked Alaska, and then check out.

Yep.

I wouldn't see anyone else.

I'd go, a room for one, please.

Yeah.

Goodbye.

You'd send the Baked Alaska into the other garage in an Uber.

I'd go in.

One of us would leave under cover of darkness.

Ross, thank you so much for coming to the Dream Restaurant.

You've been a lovely guest.

Thank you so much, guys.

What a pleasure and what fantastic company.

Thank you for coming, Ross.

But also, I should warn you,

obviously, you didn't research the Customs of the Off Menu podcast before you came on it, and you should know that when we ask you who's the toughest, whoever you choose, you are engaged to.

And so you are now engaged to the Great Benito?

Congratulations to you and the Great Benito.

Well, there we are.

Ross Kemp was in the dream restaurant, James.

Ross Kemp came to the dream restaurant, he picked a delicious meal, and we got the stories we wanted going in.

I was like, oh, man,

how easy is it going to be to get amazing stories out of this guy?

Maybe he's burnt out on talking about him.

He's done so many amazing things.

Maybe he's tired of talking about all this stuff.

No.

No, sir.

No, sir.

The guy is a big old treasure chest full of stories.

Excellent.

I loved it.

He goes around shitting himself and pissing himself all over the place.

Another fine addition to the Pooh Pooh Wee Wee podcast.

Yes, he is keeping us where we like it.

This is the kind of podcast we know what our listeners like, and Ross Kemp gave our listeners what they want.

It's great to finally extend the remit of the Pooh Pooh Wee Wee podcast to Lube.

Yeah, yeah.

A bit of lube and a load of people sliding around on lube at a sex hotel.

High time that came up.

Luckily, lube was not the secret ingredient because we would have kicked him out of the restaurant.

The secret ingredient was chicken mints, and he did not have chicken mints in his menu.

So thank you, Ross, for coming in.

We will now plug your podcast, The Kempcast.

The Kempcast.

Make sure you listen to it.

Great journalistic podcast.

That's what Ed said at the beginning.

Yeah, and now you're quoting me on that.

Yeah.

Well,

that's how quotes work, Bebe.

Go and check out Ross Kemp's podcast, The Kempcast.

It is fantastic, The Times.

I've made that up.

But that's not how quotes work, Bebe.

Check out his books.

He showed us that absolutely horrific picture of a porcupine and a primemate that he turned down to eat for breakfast once.

That was in one of his books.

Yeah, a good selling point for that book.

Yeah.

I mean, basically, I don't know which of his books it was in because he didn't show us the front cover.

But your challenge, as the listeners, is find what book that picture is in.

Thank you very much, Ross.

And thank you very much to you, the listener.

Check us out on social media at OffMenuOfficial

on Twitter and Instagram and offmenupodcast.co.uk on the internet websites list.

Such a great thing.

The internet.

I learned about it in the intro today.

Thank you very much for listening.

We'll see you again sometime soon.

Goodbye.

Goodbye.

If you enjoyed this podcast, can I interest you in a totally different podcast that's not about food and doesn't have James A Caster or Ed Gamble, but I would say is quite fun.

No, thank you.

Oh, okay.

Not to worry.

If you change your mind at a later date, it's called Nobody Panic.

Right.

It's hosted by me, Tessa Coates, and my friend Stevie Martin.

Which is weirdly me.

And we tackle all kinds of how-tos from big things to small things.

How to stop saying sorry, how to poo, how to break up with someone, how to quit your job, how to relax, how to have a conversation, how to deal with unrequited love.

A smorgasbord of thing.

Absolutely.

We have a nice time.

People seem to like it.

If you like, you can come and see what all the fuss is about.

All that fuss.

What's it called?

Nobody panic.

You can find it on all of the podcast apps that you would imagine it would be on.

Please have a listen.

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.