Ep 62: Ivo Graham

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.

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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.

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James, I have wonderful news hello our podcast off menu has been nominated in two categories at the british podcast award james what the hell is a podcast okay we've been nominated in best entertainment and best comedy podcast which is very very exciting but also like all the rest of the podcasts we're up for the listener choice award james which is voted for by the listeners okay I'm sorry, this is all a lot of news at once.

Who is listening to us?

Lots of people are listening to us, James, and hopefully we're their favorite podcast and they can prove that by going onto britishpodcastawards.com forward slash vote and they can vote for the off-menu podcast with Ed Gamble and James Acaster and then maybe we'll win another award there'll be three awards under the belt presuming we win the other two which I am presuming so if the listeners win they'll leave us alone great please vote for us and make sure we win and just leave us alone forever okay our lives are our own we're making these little recordings for our own prosperity.

We just want to hear the conversations we have with our friends.

I didn't know all you guys were listening to this stuff.

Benito, you betrayed me.

If you are a listener, I knew you were listening, and you're very welcome.

And hopefully, we'll be the listener's choice.

So, go on to BritishpodcastAwards.com forward slash votes to vote for the off-menu podcast with Ed Gambler James A.

Caster as your favourite podcast.

And if you just swirl the podcast around in your ears, it gets more air to it and it tastes a lot better.

Welcome to the Off-Menu Podcast.

Nice weather, Gamble.

How are you?

Very well, James Acaster.

How are you?

Very well, thanks.

Spick and span.

Spick and span?

How are you doing?

Yes.

That's the catchphrase.

Yes, welcome to the Off-Menu Podcast, the food podcast, but we have a special guest and we ask them what, James?

We ask them what their favourite ever-starter main course dessert, side dish and drink ever is yes that's exactly the way we say it every week uh thank you very much for tuning in uh slash downloading the pod our guest this week is the wonderful stand-up comedian Ivo Graham one of the best we've got I think

one of the best we've got as in like uh comedians like classwise we yeah no we as in like the nation

like poshies you and your poshies yeah yeah one of the best we've got thank god there's someone out there fighting in this goddamn society where apparently as you look down upon if you've got a bit of bloody money in the bank, finally, we've got a crusader out there doing the right thing for us.

No, I meant in the nation.

He's one of the best.

Very, very funny man.

Very funny man.

And this is a higher energy episode than I was expecting because just before we recorded with Ivo, we ate approximately a loaf of bread each.

We have eaten a lot of sandwiches.

We've got some delicious sandwiches delivered to us.

Oh, this is from Sons and Daughters Sandwich Shop, which I'm not sure when this episode's coming out, but go and check that sandwich shop out.

It's at Coldrops Yard near King's Cross.

And honestly, we got sent a range of sandwiches.

A chicken sandwich that was incredible.

It had crispy chicken skin in it.

Yes, that chicken sandwich is, I'm thinking about it still.

An egg sandwich with crisps in it.

Absolutely delicious.

A broccoli sandwich doesn't sound fun, but it was.

What was the sandwich that had

actual like French fries in it?

The lamb merge sausage sandwich.

That one as well.

That one and the chicken one.

I've eaten so many of them.

Delicious.

Thank you for those.

Yeah, thank you very much for sending that in.

The guys who run that also run the restaurant Pidgin, which Jamie Dimitri talked about at great length in his off-menu episode.

So there you go.

It all links up.

Also,

I mean, what's nice about Pidgin and Sons and Daughters is that they don't kick you out of the restaurant if you say a certain ingredient.

No, they don't, but we do, don't we?

We absolutely do.

And we're going to kick Ivo Graham out if he mentions Quince.

Quince.

Don't expect him to go out during the water course, I imagine.

He might mention Quince.

He's a big posh boy, like we previously mentioned, and they love a beard of Quince.

Yeah, yes, we're setting that Quince mousetrap out for him.

So, if he mentions Quince, he's out on his ear.

Hopefully, he won't because he's a lovely guy.

Let's see how it goes.

Oh, Ivo.

Oh, look, his chauffeur's driving him here right now, pulling up in the driveway.

Beep, beep.

Oh, hello, Jeeves.

Let him in.

Ivo Graham, welcome to the Dream Restaurant.

Hello.

Oh, hello.

Welcome, Ivo Graham.

Hello, James.

You're looking well?

Thanks, James.

Looking great.

Have you made an effort, a special effort for the dream restaurant?

So you look ultra-sharp?

Yeah, I've ironed my shirt,

but I've undone the process by.

I I got an Uber and got hot and so took off the shirt and got stuck in it in the back of the Uber.

And I've undone all the ironing that I did.

Hang on, you took off.

Oh, no, I was wearing topless.

No, no, no, no.

Well, briefly, but only because I was wearing a t-shirt underneath this shirt.

No, I didn't just take off my college shirt in the Uber just so I could be topless for a bit.

So hang on, let's set the scene again.

So you had a t-shirt on and a shirt over the top, which you'd ironed.

Yes, exactly.

In the Uber.

You took off the shirt.

I'd broken into a swift pace on this hot September day

because I'd sent the chap to the wrong street.

Sound like a euphemism?

Is that an Eton thing?

No, it's not an Eton thing, but I'm glad to have ticked that.

Now and again, when you're away at school, you do need to send the chap to the wrong street.

So,

I mean, listen, we can turn everything I say into a euphemism for my time at Eton.

And of course, I came here slightly expecting it.

Slightly?

Well,

I listened to a podcast where Ed took a load of flack from James for saying that you'd eaten grouse with shot in it.

And I was like, maybe I'm not going to be such a

posh little figure of fun on this podcast.

Yes, that's true.

But then I shouldn't have started dishing out the eaten catchphrases so early.

So I thought the undershirt's got to go.

But obviously the overshirt's got to come off to take the underoff, as we used to say at Eaton.

But I couldn't be bothered to undo all the buttons on the overshirt, so I whisked it off.

Undershirt came off, no problem.

It's a t-shirt, it's a swift operation.

And then trying to-let's turn this Uber into a boober.

Wait, wait, wait, you got topless.

He's shouted out, let's turn this Uber into a boober.

He said it first.

Yeah, it was.

I was so pleased.

But it was trying to put the collared shirt back on with about half of its buttons done up.

That was where the title was.

So you were topless in the Uber for a while.

Yeah, very much so.

Lovely.

I wonder whether that was.

He actually then said, let's turn it back into an Uber now.

Please.

Please tell us about that.

I wonder whether how that affected your writing, positively or negatively?

I don't know.

I'll have to check my data later in the day.

We'll check later on in the day.

Very exciting.

But yes, sorry, what a needlessly long story about whether I've got ready nicely for today.

Yes, but still.

But

I very rarely, because I'm

frequently find myself in more of a dash than I'd like to be.

There's so many times that I've taken measures which are are nice, which are then immediately undone.

A classic is the shower and then having to break into a run, thus getting more stare.

But it's the shower that made you late in the first place.

That I say is a sort of thrice-weekly affair, and ironing a shirt only then to mega-crease it in a boober because

the ironing-related delay led to you being so hot that you had to change in the Uber.

That's vintage ground.

Yeah, absolutely.

At Eton, of course, we wore a tailcoat and it was even worse.

One of my favourite stories about you is related to food.

Okay.

Do you know what I'm getting at?

I don't know.

I've got one as well.

Oh, good.

Well, it must be, maybe it's the same one.

Can you talk about when you supported Jack D on tour?

Oh, no.

Yes.

Two answers.

I'll go with.

I did a few dates in the autumn of 2017 supporting Jack D on his

sort of, it doesn't matter, work in progress tour around the home counties.

And

obviously, he goes further with the finished material.

But understandably, what I'm not trying to do here is make Jack D sound a little easy.

But so in Hemel Hempstead, I supported him and I hadn't had dinner.

And there was a curry house around the corner from the venue, which had caught my eye on away in.

So I got a really lovely and quite large takeaway curry.

But I wanted it, it was one of the earliest dates, I wanted to listen to Jack.

So I thought, yeah, I'm really going to treat myself.

I'm going to sit backstage.

Well, I'm going to sit sort of side of stage and sort of listen to slash watch Jack from the side.

And I got, because you couldn't, it was a dressing room where you couldn't hear the show from the dressing room and it didn't have

one of those systems where you can sort of turn up on a microphone.

So

I carried a table through,

I got knife and fork.

It was real like napkin

in the shirt and just started eating my curry.

You know when you lay out a curry, you really get yourself established.

It's so nice.

It's plate in front of you and then rice on one side, curry in front, and then the naan to the left.

The curry clock.

The curry clock.

Yeah, that's exactly it.

And

at about quarter past naan,

Jack D on stage suddenly said, can anyone smell cuppa soup?

And

it hadn't not occurred to me that it was quite a strong smelling curry.

But I thought, that's not like.

He's a professional, he's not going to reference what he can smell in the room, right?

And I was frozen at the clock, just

unsure of whether I could.

And the fact that I'd move the table and stuff as well, it was such an obviously.

Just imagine you with the napkin tucked in with you,

Steve looking to the side of the stage to see this new comic.

What?

Laid out a banquet for himself with a napkin tucked into his shirt.

Newer comic, James.

You know,

after a decade in the game, you can have the old curry and Hemel, but not with Jack.

But also,

there was a curtain in front of me, which, if he'd pulled it aside, everyone in the crowd would have been able to see it.

And that reveals

the Wizard of Oz.

I was praying that he wouldn't do that.

I think in your situation, I've been praying that he would.

I mean, this would be great.

Yeah.

He pulls this aside and everyone sees me.

I think I was just frozen there, just not knowing, just feeling so embarrassed when we caught.

You know, in that, in the Peep Show wedding episode, when Jez wets himself and it starts going through the floorboards into the church, and Mark goes, Nothing this bad has ever happened to anyone.

I must be.

And

I was thinking, I mean, obviously, that's pretty overdramatic for just having a sly curry and getting caught, but I was just so obsessed with the fact that it was such an immediately stupid thing to have done.

And it betrayed so much of my own

greed as well, because I think I'd said before the gig, like, we're going to get dinner.

And Jack said, no, I think we'll be all right.

So it looked like a show of petulance.

And I was like, well, if you're not going to grant me the dinner I crave, then I'll just get it myself and waft it into your work in progress show.

Now, the story that I was going to ask for, I'm not sure if you'd be up for telling it and you don't have to, is a story you only very recently told me involving food.

And I believe it was a katsu curry involved in this.

Oh, no.

That's not a keyboard.

Yeah, okay.

So I did 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown

in, we filmed it in March, I think, and it's yet to be broadcast, as I'm assured it will be.

But

to be honest, as much as obviously

a great show as it was to go on and a privilege, I did find it quite stressful, and I wasn't good enough at countdown,

the actual like playing the game, which I thought, like, oh, at least I'll be good at the maths and the numbers games.

And I found it quite intimidating because, as well as all the sort of top-tier comic cast, I was on the same team as guest team captain Richard Iwarty, who I'm a fan of his work.

We'd only met once before, and that's when he'd seen me sitting in a hot tub with Big Nasty in a tail coat during an ill-advised chat about privilege for the pilot of Big Nasty's TV show, which I think Victoria Corrimitz will want to describe to you as Big Nasty's show where at one point he had some Eaton Butler in a hot tub.

That's exactly how you can describe it.

Not even the acknowledgement that I was a stand-up comedian doing a job.

She called you an Eaton Butler.

And so I thought this I've got to get myself back on a good track with Ayuwadi here.

But I'd already let myself down by wearing my mum had got me quite a fancy shirt for Christmas.

And when I'd gone to get it changed, it was the wrong size.

The woman in the shop said, Oh, this is a shop where Richard Iwadi buys all his clothes for the Crystal Maze because they're sort of quite funny patterned shirts.

So I thought, wouldn't it be nice, A, to wear the shirt my mum got me on Telly, but also it'd be funny to be on Richard Iwadi's team and wear a shirt from the same company.

He'll find that funny.

As soon as I told him, it became again became clear what a terrible idea.

Because he's very dry, obviously, and not one to hugely go over the top with sort of an emotional reaction to anything.

So he just looked so baffled and disappointed and immediately like, yeah, I'm just a fan who's dressed up as you

for this gig.

So I felt like a bit of a chump.

Also, I had

my mascot, they wanted something to do with Eton.

Fair enough.

I've got a USP and I've got to work it.

And I told them that at Eton they would make figurines of you in your full tails as a present for family members.

And even though I said that I actually hadn't got one of those, they'd said, Oh, we'll just make one.

And then you can say you have and you can put it on the desk.

So they'd got a full-length photo of me wearing my eaten tails, 13 years old, not a care in the world.

And that was my mascot.

It wasn't a very funny mascot.

I didn't have a lot to say about it.

I didn't really know when I was allowed to take it off the desk because of continuity.

So I just sort of sat awkwardly there in front of me as I was bad at maths wearing Richard Iowadi's shirt.

And then afterwards, we were getting a train back from Stockport.

It's filmed in Manchester.

And Richard and I were both getting the train back, but we got separate cars there.

And when I got to the station, I couldn't see him anywhere.

And I got on the train thinking, well, maybe he just maybe didn't come, maybe he stayed in Manchester, maybe he got a different train or whatever.

And they'd given us dinner.

because we hadn't had dinner before the show and you know how I insist on having a dinner at some point in procedures

and they'd given us a wagga mama so I had a lovely cold chicken katsu curry

but no cutlery to eat it with.

And I couldn't find cutlery anywhere

in the train.

And Richard Oyword appeared on the train behind me.

He saw me before I saw him as I was attempting to eat a chicken katsu curry using the figurine of me at Eton.

And it was such a low point.

It was so

like sort of dipping myself in my katsu.

Because

it was the only utensil to hand.

Because from his perspective, he's just turned up to work and

a young man has come up to him with a camera.

I bought my shirt from the same place as you.

And then on the train, on the way back, he's seen him eating a curry with a picture of himself.

It doesn't send a good message.

So I don't know if I'll have any further professional encounters with Richard Iwadi, but I think there's even more riding on the third one.

So, as always, we start with still or sparkling water.

Ivo,

what's your preference?

I would like still water, please.

Ideally,

tap water, complimentary tap water.

Now,

why?

Is this because you're trying to appear like an everyman?

No, I think that's gone.

I think I've said goodbye to that already on this and other appearances.

But I think for me, I suppose there is an everyman thing in that I'm quite,

I've spent a lot of my adult life being quite sort of anxious about money and feeling quite keen to go to a restaurant and have a nice time, but for there not to be too many frills

and and I consider a drink a frill.

So

so like so if I'm at you know if if if

if if I'm going for lunch with someone and it's it's it feels a a slightly indulgent thing to do, I comfort myself with the thought of a nice glass of still water to sit, and a huge sense of relief when someone else goes for still water first.

Right.

Just a couple of glasses of tap water, you go, oh yeah, actually, that seems, that makes sense.

And I think it's such a, it does feel quite a vulgar thing to pay for.

And I'd probably

put sparkling water in that as well.

And my mum was a big believer in

that you should,

that restaurants should fulfill their legal obligation to provide free tap water.

And

once

a legal issue.

week it is it is a legal requirement

but but not in certain parts of Europe and that's why

but once on a

on a family trip

my mum made us leave a restaurant because because they were charging us for tap water and she'd evidently decided that it was it was some sort of standoff that she needed to call their bluff on which was quite admirable in hindsight but it's a bit of a faff when you're like you're a young family and

you know

but I respond to that.

Maybe you have to find somewhere else to eat.

It's all very well and good in the moment, being like, good day to you, and you know, walking out, but it's like, and then you're outside and you're like, and that's the one place to have lunch in this town.

What does anyone else fancy to eat now?

Well, also, you go to the next place, and if they're charging for tap water as well, you're going, well, how long is this charrette?

You know,

are we never going to eat again?

It's clearly just the custom.

Yeah.

But

I think a nice still water.

So you like to start the meal by kind of like just

dealing with your mental state first.

Put all my anxieties to one side by having this guilt-free tap water and that makes me feel like the rest of it isn't too much of an indulgence.

Yeah, like I've already shown sort of a certain degree of respect to,

and now I can cut loose a little bit with a couple of sides,

which undermines the whole thing.

But also I just want,

can I say it, I love water.

I love

having

water with me out and about.

I love

so many bottles of refrigerated to water in my fridge.

I've just, yeah, you always have a bottle of water.

You know, a bottle of water in your pocket when you're on stage.

There's no reputation I crave more than always having a bottle of water.

That's music to my ears.

Well, that's, and that's, yeah, that's what I think.

When someone says, describe Overgray, I'd probably go Etonian first.

And then I'd follow it up with hydrated.

Itonian.

But funnily enough,

loves to act.

Rumoured to be a merman.

And when I do a gig, like up the creek in Greenwich,

you get those little glass bottles.

I love getting as many of those as I can

and taking them home.

And

not like more than one per gig.

Now, have you not...

What do you do when you take them home?

Kiss them all?

Kiss them all.

Fill them with water.

Put them in the fridge.

And

there's nothing better than remembering to take one with you when you leave the house on a hot day.

Have you not jumped on board with the one water bottle, reusable water bottle?

No, I've got a couple of those and lost them.

And that doesn't feel great.

It's probably even worse for the environment, though, isn't it?

What?

Losing all the reusable ones.

Losing loads of reusable ones.

Well, it's not easy to remember, you know,

a water bottle.

I agree with you.

And that's why I try to have as many as possible in the house, because I just have to accept that stuff will get lost along the way.

How many have you got in your house right now?

I'd say probably seven.

Seven in the fridge?

Yes, the house from Signs.

I've not seen Signs.

It's a great joke.

Yeah, sorry.

Yeah, I think I've got a couple of the Highland Spring ones from up the creek

which

are sort of quite triangular.

And then a couple of, my local pub has Strathmore ones,

the Strathmore glass ones, which are more of a sort of fat bottom

and the top up is thinner, which actually,

that's my favourite.

Your favourite is the Strathmore ones.

Yeah, and I've got a couple of blues and a green.

The fat bottom waters.

There was a period in July when I was doing, I was trying to write my Edinburgh show and the pub uh down down the road from us was showing the cricket every day during the World Cup and I thought I won't take my phone because that's my main distraction, but I'd like to go to a pub in the daytime with the cricket on because it's something you can sort of glance at but ignore.

I can't have I need a little bit of distraction, a little bit of reward.

And I would always go in and have a a glass bottle of of Strathmore and then take it home with me.

And that was and so July was such a net profit month for getting allergic little bottles and taking them home.

And I've I've since lost a few of them, but it was and and also by after a few days,

the woman in there wouldn't know when I came in.

So she was reaching for the glass bottle of Strathmore before I'd even got to the bar.

And

that's always an awesome thing.

I mean, you're saying you want tap water, but surely you prefer a bottle of Strathmore and then you take the bottle with you.

Oh, yeah, that's actually a good point.

And then I've got a souvenir from the Dream Restaurant.

Yes.

Or do you want to bring your own bottle of Strathmore, empty bottle of Strathmore and we'll fill it with Tapa.

No, I think I'd like to add another one to my collection, particularly if it had some sort of dream restaurant branding on it.

Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So Strathmore, but if you look very closely at the drawing of the lake on it, it's me.

Yeah.

I'm swimming in the lake as a genie.

Do genie swim?

Yes, genie does.

Lovely.

I can swim, yeah.

Pop-doms or bread!

Pop-doms or bread, Ivo!

Pop-doms or bread!

What a moment.

Jump.

Well, what was that?

Did you jump?

Please with that?

Well, I like the podcast, and I've listened to it a lot, and I've thought I'm not going to get bamboozled by this pop-adoms or bread business.

But obviously, you're a master of your craft, and what you'd made me do is you'd made me picture you swimming in a strapped wind.

And I was having such a nice time picturing that logo.

And also, I was thinking about when I was thinking about if I got a bottle with that specific logo, whether I would feel comfortable taking it out of the house.

Because sometimes, if I'm leaving in a bit of a hurry and I'm not feeling very organized, and particularly if I'm down to only a couple of glass bottles, I'm like, no,

let's not do this actually.

It's too much of a, I don't want to get to zero.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, it does make sure that.

So that's why I was caught so unawares by pop-adoms or bread

because the man in the lake was shouting at me.

And my answer would be, if I may, can I have dough balls?

I allow dough balls.

Can I have pizza express dough balls?

It's just bread.

It's just disguised bread, right?

It's disguised, but not even that well disguised.

No, not well disguised.

I'm just hiding in plain sight up disguised.

Just aure butter veil.

Yeah.

You would like Pizza Express Doughballs.

Yeah.

Probably a lot of listeners to this podcast agreeing with you there and annoyed that they've never thought of that.

Well, I'm sure people have thought of it.

I can't claim that I'm being massively original, but Pizza Express, I wanted Pizza Express represented somewhere.

Sure, yeah.

And it's because

I just love Pizza Express so much.

It's a British institution.

I didn't really feel I could have.

Well,

there's a few leading candidates for Maine.

I thought, I can't have a pizza.

But again, do balls are a classic example of something where, even though things are going okay, I can spend £3.50 or whatever on some doughballs.

If I ever go to Pizza Express, unless it's been a really good day, part of me looks at the Doughballs and goes, No, come on,

your pizza's made of dough, even though it's been what I want so much.

So, yeah, tap water, please, no doughballs.

And we're away.

But ideally I get the doughballs doppio, which are which are where you get twice as many and

you get more sauces.

Oh, I get tips.

What do you have to get?

One's red, one's green.

It's great.

They're sort of pesto-y things, I think.

I mean, obviously the garlic butter is still

right.

You're rolling it around.

How much coverage you get on each dough ball with the butter?

I'm going back in.

Certainly.

Yeah,

I'm going in more than once per dough ball.

And I'd probably actually, if I could have, so the Doughbo's Doppio, it's three, but I'd probably get rid of the red one and have another garlic butter, I think.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because I can't have more than three.

I want to play by the Pizza Express rules.

Yes.

But

there's never quite enough garlic butter right now.

They let you sub that out, I think.

They wouldn't bring me extra, but they'd sub in.

They've really, I think they've really cracked onto something pretty good there.

Because God knows how much it costs them to make that.

It's probably like one P or something.

Because it's just pizza dough.

It's the same stuff

and they just put it in a different shape

but it's so

it's always browned to such a perfect level I love looking at it like never looking at it for long before it's gone

try to try to relish even for a couple of seconds how I mean it's almost too

very occasionally I think I'd like to see a more like blackened dough ball yeah just just to sort of reassure me that it's not too clinical a process

but like most clinical processes it is unnerving but it is impressive.

Imagine you like you know leaning back on two legs of your chair flipping doubles into your mouth with a figurine of yourself.

Well the dream is me playing table tennis with Richard Oardi and he's got a figurine of himself but

that seems further than ever

from a possibility now.

Do you have a standard Pizza Express order in general?

Do you always go for the same thing when you go in Pizza Express?

I'd usually go American hot

but I'm trying to do more veggie stuff now, so it would probably be more like a Fiorentine or something.

Now, I wonder if I've told you this before, because you're going to laugh at me so much.

I don't think you have to.

My standard Pizza Express order is American Hot with Extra Cheese, because my dad ordered it once, and I copied him.

Great.

I do love that.

Absolutely love it.

How old were you?

Probably like 10 or 11.

My dad had an American Hot with Extra Cheese, and I was like, Yeah, that's pretty cool actually.

I'll have that too.

I love Ed copying his dad.

He's

so young.

He's that age.

He's copied his dad's awareness.

It's so great.

Oh, it's so sweet, though.

Yeah, and I still have it to this day.

Does your dad know you still have it to this day?

We've not been to a Pizza Express together in a while.

We should.

That was a big treat back in the day, Pizza Express.

Still, one of my favourite stand-up performances I've ever seen was a little kid who was like, it was Barbara Nice.

Yeah.

She did a

festival

and at the festival, she had done a comedy workshop with a bunch of kids one day and in the evening all the kids did a gig and the gig was on before I was doing the show so I stayed in there to wa watch the I got there early and watched the kids show and there was one kid who clearly like she had about like 20 kids in one day she had to teach to do stand-ups so some of them she spent more time on women.

Some of them slipped through the net.

Yeah, but she was like, do you know what?

Just she d just told this kid, look, if you like, lift your arm up like that to the audience, they'll cheer.

So just do that for the just tell them the story you've told me, but make sure they cheer after everything so he went on he went how's it going and they all cheered and he was like uh are you having a nice night and they cheered again and then he goes uh oh me and my dad went to alton towers we said who's been to alton towers

and then he was doing the whole story of like went on this one and he went then me and dad went for a pub lunch who likes a pub lunch and he went

me and my dad both had a steak and kidney pie and my favourite bit was he went who's had one of them

who's had one of them it's still one of my favourite books i've I've laughed so much for so long.

But it was the fact that him and his dad both had a steak and kidney pie that made me laugh people.

They both had it.

He copied his dad's order.

Is that what it meant?

And it was a kid's gig.

It was a kid gig.

Yeah, it got with their parents.

The audience was all like, mainly adults, really.

I like the thought of him saying, who's had one of them?

And lots of kids sat next to their dads raising their hands in unison.

They're pointing at their dads.

Dad might have.

Pizza with extra cheese.

That's really nice.

I don't think I know what my parents have.

I don't think I've ever had a Pizza Express with my my dad.

Big cool.

I immediately think that I must have done at some point.

But it's certainly the restaurant that I remember.

I think it's the first restaurant I remember.

Yeah.

And I think that's why it's so exciting.

And it's still the same to this day.

Everything's the same.

I don't think they've changed a lot.

They've added things to the menu, sure.

The Romana base, that's a fairly new.

Yes.

That pizza with a hole in the middle.

Nonsense.

Donut?

Donut?

Sounds like a donut.

What I just described.

It's the Liguera pizza.

It's supposed to be less calories, but they do that by cutting all the dough out of the middle of the pizza and filling it with salad.

And I'll tell you where that dough goes, into those lovely doughboards.

So perfectly browned.

I'm really pleased that no one else has had that on the podcast.

No, they haven't.

That's a great show.

I do like to think that

there'll be more people respecting the decision than suggesting that I'm breaking the rules inside of the business.

You're not, because it's bread.

It's arrested.

It's bread.

I mean, it's arguably.

And listen, I love poppa doms.

And if I wasn't allowed doughboys, I'd probably go poppa doms.

But doables are more bread than poppa doms are.

Yes.

Sure, sure, absolutely.

But, you know, look, there's a lot of people.

Sometimes when people don't choose poppadums or bread for this first week, we've had Des Ve chose

like

chordier chips and stuff.

Some people listen to the podcast, kick off about it, get a little bit annoyed.

All I will say is, we're going to make a lot of these episodes, so maybe enjoy a bit of variety.

If people are changing it up,

enjoy it.

You're going to need those.

Yeah.

Or someone else does dobuls at some point later down the line, but doesn't specify the doppio with the extra

with the extra sauce,

extra dips, one of which is then replaced again by the original

garlic butter.

Some people have enough of the garlic butter left over to put it on their pizza when it arrives.

And I always marvel at the restraint that entails.

Like, even if by some fluke I haven't put it all on my dough balls, I'm probably just eating it straight out of the tureen before the pizza arrives.

Just shotting it.

Lapping it up like a kitten.

Yeah.

Not a turine.

What would you call it?

The little

ramekin.

The ramekin.

There we go.

You guys, obviously, we do a podcast like this.

We do another podcast about different dishes.

Oh, I can't.

I'll sit there going, I've got to dinner tureen.

How's it going for the pizza afterwards?

That's humongous.

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Your starter.

I felt like Doughbulls were the starter, but they're not.

It does feel a bit like that's a target.

I think my starter is

sort of, I think it's almost laughably simple, but it's a nice light touch after the doughballs, which are pretty heavy, particularly

with the Turina version of

it.

I nearly said VAT.

I'm just always looking to fucking break.

By the end of this, it'll be me swimming in it in the Strathmore bottle full of garlic butterflies.

Lovely.

Yes.

With one little ante-pool of the red dip.

If it was socially acceptable, would you turn up to Pizza Express with a Strathmore bottle full of garlic butter?

I'd sort of love

shaking it up and just walking it off.

I think you know what I'd like.

Doppy, oh!

No shirt on.

Let's turn this pizza express into a boober express.

No, no, no, it doesn't work.

Doesn't work.

Doesn't work.

It all works.

Pizza Undress, I should have said.

Oh, yeah.

Pizza Undress.

I should have said pizza undressed.

Pizza undress was on the table and you said boober express.

God.

It's a little morality turn in taking another second.

I'm losing it.

So I would just have, I think it's called a caprese, just a tomato mozzarella salad.

Okay.

But big hunks of tomato, big hunks of mozzarella, loads of basil, bit of balsamic vinegar,

maybe even some pine nuts as well, which aren't a traditional part of it, but I've started putting them on.

You know, when

there's that bit in that, in the first episode of the new series of Fleabag, where they're arguing, and her sister, who's been on the podcast,

says,

putting pine nuts in everything doesn't make you an adult.

And she goes, it fucking does.

And I was so, I was watching that, and it really hit me quite hard because I was right in the midst of my own private pine nut revolution

have you ever got pine mouths no

so I've I heard about this thing where like I know I only know of one person it's happened to yeah you have a bad pine nut and it makes your whole mouth go horrible actually

hold on oh right the one person who I know it's happened to is Ed Easton and he's sat downstairs I'll go and get him and I'll bring him up and we'll quiz him about his pine mouth hold on a second what an incredible line

this has never happened before

Ed Easton's hopefully still hit Ed Easton from Gaines Family Gift.

And now Tarot.

And Tarot, yeah.

And

Porters.

Soon to be known as

Pine Mouth Eddie.

Also, James said,

have you ever had Pine Mouth?

And then he said, the only person I've ever known to have had Pine Mouth.

So it's not a regular thing.

It's just,

I don't know if he's remembered that Ed Easton is in the building before he's brought that up.

This is so exciting.

Here he is.

Oh, he's genuinely here.

Hello, mate.

Hello.

Very well.

You better sit in my seat.

Okay.

Quickly, Ed Easton is here from Sketch Group Games Family Gift Shop.

Ed, we were just talking about pine nuts, and I bought a Pine Mouth.

I don't know enough about it to answer the questions.

The way it was introduced, he said, have you ever had Pine Mouth?

I only know one other person who's had Pine Mouth.

So he's saying it's a thing, but he only knows you who's had it.

It's definitely a thing.

Me and my my flatmate both had it.

So what happens, Ed?

Nothing close to the mic.

Sorry, thank you very much.

Thanks for having me.

Hello, everyone.

Lovely to finally be invited onto the podcast.

So, Pine Mouth, what happens is you have a pine nut that's sort of gone off, and then the oil inside the nut coats your tongue for ages, for like two weeks, and everything tastes really chemically.

For two weeks?

Yes, for fucking ages, and everything.

Can you swear on the piece?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so it coats your tongue, and then everything tastes really ch chemically.

Have you ever had that stuff that stops you biting your nails?

Yes.

Yeah,

everything tastes like that.

Oh, God.

It's really bad.

And then we found these pills that make everything taste really sweet, but they didn't work.

So you probably spent loads of sweets.

You took some sweet pills?

Yeah.

You put money on buying some sweet pills and they didn't work.

No, they were a lie.

They didn't work either.

No.

So you were in a pretty desperate situation.

Yeah, but neither of us knew because we both shared the pine nuts things.

So for about a week, we were both just off our food and being really weird with each other.

asking if we wanted to eat.

We were like,

I'm not married, I'm not very hungry.

But you didn't tell me

that.

Not for ages.

You didn't tell each other about it.

And then one of us was like, Everything tastes weird, man.

It tastes horrible.

Did you ever get pine nuts since?

Yes.

So it's not put you off completely?

No, but it did for a while.

For like a couple of years, I didn't have any pine nuts.

For like two years, no pine nuts.

When was your big one when you went back in?

Well, I went back in, and what happens is if you can have like a

resurgence, what's it called?

Oh, a relapse?

Yeah,

your tongue is gonna have a relapse.

So your tongue relapsed and did you get pine mouth again?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, for a couple of days.

You were two years old.

I'm actually finding it very funny.

You've not had any pine mouths and you went back in again straight away.

So you got pine mouth again.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thanks very much, Ed.

We will have you on for a full exercise.

Do you want to promote anything?

No.

Any plugs?

Pine mouth?

Yeah, yeah, pine mouth.

Penny, everybody.

For real.

Bye.

Bye, man.

Thank you, Ed.

Thank you, Ed.

You're welcome.

Wow.

What a revelation.

Yeah.

I told you I wasn't lying.

We didn't think you were lying.

Everyone think I was lying mouth.

We didn't have a chance to think you were lying because you literally went, have you ever had pine mouth?

I know a guy who had pine mouth.

He's downstairs.

Wait there.

It was so.

It had to be quick.

I didn't know if he'd be gone.

Yeah, yeah, of course.

So you might put...

They're not going in now.

Yeah.

Not after.

I don't want to be two weeks out of the game.

So you're just going with standard caprese?

Yeah, I think so.

I mean, it's not so boring.

It's just

a big, a big tomato.

Is there anything better?

The mozzarella is my favourite.

Well, the mozzarella, and now, of course, you've got this.

Well, now I don't think it's a new thing, but Burata.

Oh, Burrata.

Oh, I love it.

It's so good.

It's creamy.

Cream oozing out of a Burrata.

It's so good.

I buy a lot of Burata.

So really, I'm looking to blend the line here between just having a sort of standard minimalist caprese and actually just some big beef tomatoes around a Burrata,

a sort of monster caprese.

No, that's what you're having.

I think in my monster caprese.

The monster caprese, I think, is what we're allowed to call it.

In my early days of sort of trying to

do dinner parties in my early 20s, I would always do a tomato mozzarella salad as a starter because I thought having a starter really took things up a notch, but

I couldn't cook two hot courses.

No.

Far too stressful.

I'm not a good enough.

It's a classy starter and it's a good starter.

And people are always so people are so impressed when I revealed that there was a starter.

But actually what happened was me putting quite a lot of the afternoon into a risotto and then 10 minutes before they arrived realising that I hadn't done the starter and just hastily cutting up some tomato and some mozzarella in those sad bags from supermarkets.

Just sort of sort of trying to drain them in a hurry and just about getting it and tearing it.

And then doing that fun thing with the basil where you've got one of those knives, which is like a smile, and you hold both ends on the chopping board, and it's a left hand down, right hand down.

And

it's such a fun way to chop herbs.

One of those knives that's like a smile.

Like a smile.

That's such a lovely insight.

What an innocent mind.

It's like a smile.

Well, it is like it's well, it's like a you.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm happy with smile, anyway.

Well, smiling nuts,

and are you putting some olive oil on that?

Yeah, of course.

Oh, yeah.

It's, I mean, and it's, and it's just it's sort of it's deceptive because obviously it's very filling, particularly if you're going with the monster capraise.

But it's, but it's actually, if it feels mentally so light, yeah, I love it.

Great starter.

Great.

A main course.

course, we come to the main.

I think that my main is going to be, I don't know if anyone else, this is the main thing that probably people are indecisive about, right?

Because

it's the most important one.

And

sentimentally,

the meal that is perhaps the most a sort of mental association for me is a carbon art at home cooked by my mum because it's just so nice and wholesome and it's what we have when we get together as a family.

and uh but but I don't like it actually as much as I like

misu ramen and that's what I want and I want misu ramen really and I'll and I'll and I'll I'll take us back to the Graham hearth for dessert

and I want and it's nothing to do with how nice the the the carbonara is but I just I think no meal makes me more excited going out than the thought of having misu Ramen and it used to be on the Waggama menu and then it disappeared from the menu and and I actually wrote a letter to Waggamama once asking for them to put it back on.

No replies.

Do you have that letter on you?

Can you read it?

No, I don't have it.

Do you love a letter?

I love a letter.

Hold on, you wrote a letter letter, not an email.

No, a letter.

A letter.

Yeah.

I think so.

One of my other favourite stories about you is a letter-based Ivo?

Is it Dave Gorman?

Yeah.

Also, probably about the same time as writing to Wagga Mama.

I also wrote to Dave Gorman.

I'm sure I'm not the only person to have written to those two big beasts in the same summer.

Dave Gorman.

Do you know his story, Joe?

Yes, I do.

do.

Like on the television, it was just after I started doing stand-up and Dave Gorman was doing a stand-up tour where he cycled around the UK and I asked if I could support him on that tour because I quote, I was a relatively new stand-up but have been a keen cyclist for many years.

I didn't get a reply from Wagamov and

didn't get any of the gigs, but I did get a nice reply from Dave Gorman saying that he didn't tend to take a support.

And if he did, it would probably be someone that he knew.

And you've got to say that's fair enough, actually.

Another Dave Gorman.

Yeah, yes, exactly.

Where are you getting the ramen from then?

So, my friend Matt and I have

a thing where

we've been trying to go to as many wagga mummas as we can over the last like 10 years.

And I think

we've done a really sizable proportion of the ones in London and a few in Berkshire.

But

absolutely pathetic attempt.

Not even all of them that wouldn't get

You can't start venturing out to Berkshire before you've completed London.

But he lives in Berkshire.

Fair enough.

The ones on your doorstep and seen it as a

mention my challenge.

Well, here's the problem.

Firstly, that

it's hard to meet up with your friends too regularly.

And also, Wagga Mama is not great, actually.

When you start enjoying food.

Wagga Mama was so exciting as a teenager because it was like you were allowed to leave Eton on Saturday afternoons to go into Windsor.

Is this your universal observation?

Yeah, yeah.

It was so exciting as a teenager when you're allowed to leave Eton to go into Windsor on Saturday afternoon.

When you're allowed to leave any private school of Windsor with a bunch of winged monkeys being freed from your cages.

No,

I don't know what that means.

Are we the winged monkeys?

Yeah, yeah.

Right, sorry.

And the hand mistresses of the witch.

I haven't seen The Wizard of Oz.

Oh, right.

See, I've made a reference to it earlier with you being behind the curtain in Curry as well.

Yeah, I know.

I let that one go.

If it's one Wizard of Oz reference per course,

it's

quite a busy podcast.

I mean, who hasn't seen The Wizard of Oz but has been to four different Wagon Mummers's in Berkshire?

And after the failure of my letter, I would always just have like the chicken ramen, but it's rubbish.

And I don't think I've never had a meal that I've not enjoyed as many times as I've had the chicken ramen from Wagamum.

I'm thinking, oh, maybe this time it'll be a bit more miso-y, but it's just not.

But there's a place in London called, well, there's Bone Daddy's, which is

really nice.

But I think you took me to Bone Daddy's for the first time.

Maybe I'd confided in you that I was struggling to look for sort of more ramen options.

And Matt and I have now been to Bone Daddy's, which is good, but it doesn't help the Wagamama project at all.

But I think we'd be done.

But there's a place called The Tortoise and Hare.

Oh, I've not been to that one.

And that has an amazing miso.

And it's just anything like Asian and brothy,

I'm just such a big fan of.

And I love going to Redbox in Edinburgh, which is obviously isn't a sort of ram and broth, but just seeing everything get chucked in.

Do you call it Redbox to people who don't know it?

Oh, it's an instant noodle place in the centre of Edinburgh.

Cash only,

burnt by that usually once a year.

But I respect their commitment to that,

even though goodness knows the reasons.

But

it's just the most I'd say it's most comics is like most visited restaurant in Edinburgh.

And the Moss Kitchen because they're just both quick and they're central.

And it's so, it's probably, it's just loads of salt, really.

Although, I'd say my now most visited restaurant in Edinburgh is actually Mackie and Ramen, which is a ramen place that's, I think, got three branches in Edinburgh now, and it's belting Ramen.

Misu ramen?

I think so.

I love misu.

That's the key, really.

I just love misu so much.

But you could make that a home, right?

You could get some miso paste and miso sachets.

Yeah.

At school, I used to have a lot of me and that school's eaten college again, I'm afraid.

I do a cat while I'm going to live.

But

I used to love getting loads of those boxes of misu sachets from Sainsbury's.

And

because there were quite strict rules on

having food outside of meal hours, but there was a hot water machine, so they couldn't stop you making tea.

But I used to think that I was really like just the the loophole king, just having just so much misu all the time.

And my bedroom

is so honked of mis, I haven't seen it.

It seems so.

It's when Ferris Bueller basically puts off school and goes to Windsor.

He's not supposed to go to Windsor that day, but he goes to Windsor anyway.

Well, it sounds like a great and relatable movie.

We've got to stop doing film references now because Ivo's clearly seen somehow less films than Michael Owen.

Looks up to Michael Owen.

I like Michael Owen.

I like him.

How does he find the time?

But I just,

yeah, I think

a nice Misu Ramen with lots of bean sprouts, they're my favourite bit.

And also, I went to this place at the

Heron Tortoise with my friend Ramia and I was quite soon after the first episode of Off Menu had come out, I think with Ashling or someone, or maybe that was one of the early ones.

And we were talking about it, and that was where I had my first Misu Ramen in about seven years.

And so it feels like it's a lovely, completely different.

Where is this place, Tortoise and Hair Park?

I think there's a few.

I know it's very London central.

Oh, I think Bone Daddy's is only in London, and I think Tortoise and Hare is only in London.

I think there's three.

The one we went to is near Fleet Street, I think.

But it's such a nice,

I wanted a big,

a big brothy mane, I think.

A big, brothy mane.

I love ramen so much.

There's, I mean,

tonkotsu in London as well.

So, yeah, again, very London-centric, but yeah, tonkotsu, ipudo, canada, ya.

Oh, well, I did need to.

And that well, that's what's so depressing about just going to Wagamama over and over again, is you really are shutting the door on so many more experiences.

Japan?

You should go to Japan.

Did they have Wagamama in Japan?

Oh, there's so much of it.

And they've still got the Miser Ramen on the bottom.

You haven't been to Japan Wagamama yet?

We've got to finish Berkshire.

It's Wagamama number one.

It's the first one.

The original Wagamama.

We want our last UK Wagamama to be a Wagga Mama at Heathrow before we fly to Japan to kick off a new chapter.

But yeah, that's it's it's nice.

And I don't know whether I'd have meat in it because I'm trying to do less.

You have an egg.

Well, I hope there should be an egg in there already.

Yeah, but

always order an extra egg.

Always order an egg.

James Aircastle rules.

Yep.

Which I copied from Amy Annette.

Our friend Amy Annette always orders extra egg.

I copied her.

I live by it.

That's great.

I love finding an egg in the broth.

It's so great.

Sometimes I push it down into it.

Just to help you hide it.

Hide it.

You hide it, deliberately try and forget about it, and then later on it's a nice little surprise for you.

That's exactly it.

Well, hello, old fellow.

That's what I imagine you say.

What you say to the egg?

When the waiter turns his back, secretly pouring in garlic butter from your Strathmore bottle.

I've got another Strathmore full of of misu.

Exactly.

That's what I should be taking to Wagamumas with.

I always, if there's like chili oil available on the tables at Ramen places, I always overchili.

So I see it as very, if I feel like I'm getting a cold, I always go for ramen because I feel like I can sweat it out.

Yeah.

I do end up blowing my nose quite a lot.

It's quite undignified ramen, I'd say.

And I think that

I wouldn't have it in sort of all company if it was any sort of business lunch.

But in the dream restaurant, I'm just eating alone, right?

You're eating alone.

It's your dream.

Yeah, we'll eat all of us.

We can not look at you.

Yeah.

Dream restaurant, it's

yeah, it's me on my own.

Just

top off.

I think probably watching Match of the Day, and I don't know the scores.

I think.

I think that's as good as it gets.

I think.

Your lovely broth

is accompanied by

loads of seaweed.

Loads of seaweed.

Just loads of seaweed.

What sort of seaweed?

You know, like you get at the beginning at a Chinese restaurant.

So Chinese seaweed, deep-fried

crispy.

Yes,

what's all that orange stuff?

No one knows.

It's just great though, isn't it?

No one knows what the powder is, but it's amazing.

It's so good.

This is such a good call, I vote.

I had not thought about this decided.

I love Chinese seaweed.

Oh, he's excited.

And it's such a big quantity of it.

I haven't seen it like this in ages.

I think if we're allowed another turine, this one is for the Chinese seaweed.

And I find it very difficult if I go for a Chinese meal not to um uh not just to get too excited and have so many of things at the beginning.

Um but the best bit, and there's never enough'cause it's just such tiny little flakes is the seaweed.

So this is a weird coincidence because this week I had a Chinese takeaway and I never ordered seaweed, but I ordered seaweed probably for the first time and I did not like it.

What?

Oh no.

And it was the crispy seaweed with the orange dust on it.

No.

And I was like, oh, do you know what, actually, maybe not.

What's there not to like?

It's just crispy, lovely, deep-fried lovely green.

She was a bit too salty for me at the time.

It is quite salty.

It's not seaweed, though, is it?

What?

It's not actually seaweed.

Oh, no.

I don't think Chinese

seaweed is deep-fried spring greens.

Or cabbage, they do.

I don't mind.

I love cabbage.

But it's called seaweed, isn't it?

It's called seaweed.

Look.

And is sushi wrapped in seaweed, or is that wrapped in seed?

No, that's nori, that is seaweed.

I think Chinese seaweed is such a good shout.

I'm very disappointed to hear that Chinese seaweed.

I'm so sorry.

But, you know, fair enough.

But it's just such a weird coincidence.

I'd never have it.

I had it for the first time this week.

I've had it before, but I've never ordered it.

First time this week, I'd give it a go, and now it's on the menu.

It's very salty.

I think it's a pit, again, a side where I get excited by the thought of there being an infinite amount of it, as opposed to restaurants where there's never enough because it's really quite decorative.

And also, again, I'm eating alone, so I just can.

You can go face first into that terrain.

Yeah.

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Your drink?

A Virgin Mary.

Wow.

No one was expecting

that.

Wow.

What's wrong with the Virgin Mary?

You know what's wrong with it?

You looked absolutely delighted.

You're so pleased with yourself when you said it before.

You expected a reaction.

Well, I haven't haven't got the reaction yet.

You're making me react in anticipation of the reaction.

Well, we're absolutely stunned, aren't we?

Well, I thought, look, I looked at the bottom of the corner.

What did you think from Lucian?

I'm

a bottle of a cold bottle of commercial lager.

Yeah, I suppose so.

Yeah, I do like that.

And I've increasingly started to move in the IPA direction.

And those are very flavoursome.

You know, maybe one of those cans of

neck oil with those cartoons, which I still feel like I haven't really sort of seen everything in a cartoon yet.

There's so much going on.

But I thought it would be nice not to have any alcohol

and to enjoy just a Virgin Mary, which is also spicy.

Yeah, sure.

A really nice and spicy...

Basically, I love Big Tom, which is the spiced tomato juice.

Not Tom Davis.

No, but I'm also a big fan of his work.

And I think my dream would be to appear on Murder and Success Phil and to be drinking a Big Tom at some point in the process.

We can get Big Tom Davis to bring you your drink if you want.

He's not big store as well, is he?

Let me get

that real genie stuff there, just being able to summon people at will from the next room.

When I said Eddie Easton was in the building, it actually wasn't.

I magicked him up.

But you can't magic up Tom Davis.

No, no,

I've drained myself of all my powers today.

I can just do the food from now on.

Yeah, Big Tom.

And so, as as I've started to get into drinking more

beer,

you very quickly fall into a pattern of like having just one or two beers at home every night.

And I became wary of just exactly what direction that was going in and how fast.

So, I ordered so much Big Tom off.

You've got it, and they come in little cans, which is annoying because my favourite is a big glass bottle.

For a collector of small glass bottles, of course,

glass bottle is the absolute dream.

You rock it up to gigs with a big tom bottle full of water.

Oh man.

I like to imagine that the big tom bottle is full of tiny glass bottles

of water.

So it's a big bottle for small bottles.

Yeah, yeah, of course.

That is an engineer's dream and I'd love to see it.

So I remember once

at university, the University of Oxford, when we had formal dinners,

they had these amazing, not amazing, they were just glass bottles, but I loved them.

And they had, what's it called?

The flip-top

on a glass bottle.

The cork that

flips out.

The cork that flips out and is attached.

Yes.

I know.

Oh, yeah, or those ones with the little lever and the little glottle stop.

Something like a

little bit of a stop.

Something stopped.

A bottle stop.

A bottle stop.

A bottle stop.

A glottal stop.

A Harry Potter thing.

I think it's a little bit more than a little bit of a bottle.

That's a linguistic thing.

It is a linguistic thing.

A bottle stop.

Bottle stop?

Sure, yeah.

Everyone knows what we're talking about by now, sure.

The thing, the cork on a gate.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And

listen,

I didn't sort of revel in

the pageantry of going to union and all of that awful snobby rubbish, but the bottles did have

the name of the college on.

And so it's more just attached to the memory of having these silly formal dinners at uni and pretending that you were sort of older than you were.

And

someone,

a friend of mine, went back to uni for like an old member's dinner.

And because I'd I'd reminisced him about it, he nicked one of the college class bottles

with the bottle stop in and brought it for me as a present.

And I'd say top 10 presents ever.

The combination of a souvenir glass bottle and nostalgia for younger, more innocent days is just so up my street, and that's never leaving the house.

So we could put the Virgin Mary in that

drink out of there, would you glut it out of that?

No, I'd still decant it, but I'd just love to see it on the table.

And also, because there's other stuff, like I want a big stick of celery.

I want some big cubes of ice.

I just,

it's such a, and it doesn't really fit with the rest of the meal, but it is hard to make all the meal fit together.

It's such a

sort of 1 p.m.

in at

the pub on a summer's day drink, and it's attached to so many memories of optimism, having a virgin memory, a virgin memory,

a virgin memory.

That could have been the title of your debut show.

Yeah.

Virgin Memory.

Absolutely beautiful.

The best slip of the tongue I've heard in the wild.

I've got a virgin memory.

Just brings back so many virgin memories.

Yeah, so I'm swinging a Virgin Mary, reminiscing virgin memories,

and there's an unwieldily large bit of celery, which I'm working my way through.

And if later on

in the evening,

you know as match of the day enters it's the the sort of lesser games if you could you yeah if you if you topped it up with maybe a little bit of vodka okay and I don't but I don't know when that's when that's happening that's that's sort of that's that's so you want you want this Virgin Mary to I want to know you don't want it to lose its virginity

I want it like me to lose its virginity at an unwieldily late stage

and

you want but you don't want to know about it I don't really want to know you want the waiter to fuck Mary behind your back yeah that's exactly.

Oh, no.

Oh, no,

oh no.

Oh, no.

I don't want to have to do any of this.

I'll distract you by bringing an Ed Easton in, and that's what I'll do.

Suddenly you appear.

But does that, I mean, I know it's a bit of a

stupid drink.

No, I like it.

And it's not really like an evening meal

with your ramen and your seaweed.

But

it's just,

I think it is, I think, a really spicy tomato tomato juice.

Yeah.

Big Tom.

I did a big Tom.

In an Oxford bottle.

Which you own 10 gallons of.

How much Big Tom do you own?

I think it was 96 cans.

What the

hell is the matter?

I think I

think you should just admit you're an alcoholic and get rid of the 96 cans of Big Tom is way more worrying than just having a few bits of balls.

Also, most people, when they're like, I'm drinking too much, it seems like people pouring booze down the sink.

If you're not filling their house with more liquid, I better get in loads of Big Tom.

96 cans.

Not a hundred.

I don't want to see a little maniac.

I'll get 96 cans.

What I'll do is I'll buy boxes and boxes of cans.

Trace.

They were slabs.

They were lovely slabs.

Slabs of Big Tom just to physically block myself from the beer.

Oh, no.

We, well, it was annoying.

We moved about halfway through my Big Tom Odyssey.

And as the move date approached, I stepped up my consumption to try and finish them.

And we arrive at your dessert, the greatest dish of all.

I think I'm going to disappoint James with the dessert.

Because I do like desserts, but I just don't have desserts that often.

I don't like whether it's this.

I don't.

And I don't feel good.

I feel great.

We have, and I told you we'd return to the Graham Hearth.

And we're back at my parents' house.

And

my mum will occasionally make some lovely like crumbles, apple crumbles up there, really nice apple crumbles.

But I think what I'm probably gonna have is just a banana cut up in

Yeo Valley Yogurt.

What?

What?

What?

I was almost stealing myself for cheese and biscuits and it's somehow worse.

A banana cut up in Yoh Valley Yogurt.

You absolute trash man.

You trash man of your trash family!

The Graham half!

The Graham half of the Graham half of the battle!

What's gonna be at the Graham Half?

Chopped a banana in Yeo Valley yogurt!

Well, because my dad...

That's his favourite thing.

What?!

What?

Who is he?

How is that his favourite thing?

Because my dad can't really,

he doesn't cook.

No!

No!

That is clear.

He barely eats full of sound effects.

He doesn't barely eat.

He has a lovely.

So it's either that or putty faloo.

I mean, petitifaloo.

What, one on its own?

A petit faloo on its own or with the chopped up banana.

No, no, no.

You use your

loads of different petitifalus all over the place.

No, no, no.

There's no banana with the petty faloo.

The petit value is just on its own.

If we don't have banana, but we do have petty falooo.

Five.

Well, no, I'm 29, and my dad's 48, 58.

Doesn't matter.

He,

so, but, but, so it's his...

Usually,

you know,

it'll be my mum or increasingly my brother who cooks a lot, who'll put a lot of effort into a big mane, usually a lovely carbonara, and then pudding will be a bit of a bits and bobs afterthought.

So there will be some cheese and biscuits, some grapes.

But my dad's very, and his sort of eyes light up

and he says, oh,

you wouldn't chop a banana into some yogurt for me, would you?

I would say, no, I wouldn't.

But now I'm afraid

I've spent the last two decades of my life drinking that guru.

We'll either catch it, cracking your family on Christmas Day.

And you put brown sugar on,

if that's one you tobacco occasion.

Brown sugar elevates it slightly.

And also

you watch the brown sugar sort of dissolve in such a lovely golden way.

So I'm aware of how brown sugar sinks into a yogurt.

I'm familiar with that visual, and it does not save any of this.

And a bit of squeezy honey

as well.

Okay.

Fine.

We've got squeezy honey and brown sugar has made it better.

But, like, still, this is the absolutely.

Also, Yo Valley makes me angrier.

Well, it doesn't have to be Yo Valley.

Putting up a banana, maybe the Greek cultural yoghurt.

And having some brown sugar and honey in it.

Why are you even bothering me?

Because I think that's the only reaction this was going to get.

Yeah.

The way your dad asks for it as well.

Oh, you wouldn't mind chopping up a banana in a bit.

No, no, he doesn't say it.

He says,

no, he says, you know what I like.

everyone goes, yes, the most boring thing in the world.

No, it's not the most boring thing in the world.

It's something sort of simple and rustic about it.

And from a very young age, I was able, as a man,

I knew some of those simple

hit you in the face, you Etonian Oxford graduate.

I knew something I could do that could make my dad happy, and that was to cut banana into some yo valley yogurt and sprinkle some brown or muscovado sugar on top.

And I'd have it as well, and everyone else would scoff much as much as you have but

it's basically my dad particularly when my like he's he's like him like he's spending like my mum's not around for whatever reason will live very much like a

divorced man who's got no idea how to defend for himself so he'll have beans on toast and he'll have banana yogurt for pudding and

and and those are two of my favourite things

I love it

I'm sorry that I didn't go for beans on toast as my main

yeah well I wouldn't have cared beans on toast as your main I would have thought well it's probably gearing up for a really good dessert.

Well,

what sort of pudding, you know, would you, I mean, I guess the apple crumble would have been a nice.

Yeah, how dare you?

But it doesn't make me

happy.

It doesn't make me happy.

I could see James was gripping the corner of the table and he had his mouth open because he thought you were going to say cheese and biscuits.

No.

And then you relaxed when you said apple crumble and then you hit him with the one-two of banana.

The whole thing was a roll.

Because as soon as Ivo started saying, well, I'm not.

To be honest, like putting us, I thought, how have I not anticipated that Ivo would go for cheese and biscuits?

Like, of course, he's going to to go for cheese and biscuits.

It's so unbrand.

So then I'm like, oh, how could I have been so blind?

Chastising myself, preparing myself for cheese and biscuits, and then even work.

Even though banana is my favorite fruit.

It's great.

So that's a good start.

Yeah, so even though banana, so when you said chopped up banana, I was like, okay, well, maybe we're going somewhere nice with this.

In a Yo Valley natural yogurt, and then trying to eke it back with the shit.

I've not riffed that off the cuff.

Ask any of the Graham family.

Chopped banana isn't a dessert though, it's something you could give to a sloth in a zoo.

Yes.

Well, you know.

Keep your palm flat.

I'm pleased to know that

my selection is so

applicable across the animal kingdom.

The sloth's not gonna have enjoyed the Misu Raman with a Virgin Mary slowly losing its virginity, but I'm glad to

win him or her back with their favourite dessert.

Right,

I'm gonna read you this Njorda back now.

And let me tell you, I didn't realise this during the episode, but looking back at it now, it is all over the shop.

It's absolutely all over the place.

Still, Strathmore

for your water, and you would like to take the bottle home?

Yeah, exactly.

Peace with Sas Doughballs, Dopio with

a red dip taken away in replacement with garlic butter.

Another garlic butter.

Starter, a monster capraisie.

Main, miso-varben from tortoise and hare.

Side, loads of crispy seaweed, drink, Virgin Mary that gradually loses its virginity during match of the day

and a dessert, a banana cut up in yo valley yogurt with some muscovano sugar sprinkled on top that you slowly watch sink into the yogurt along with all of my dreams of a good dessert.

I think it's a lovely meal.

I think it's it started really thematically consistent and then

there was some really wild turns.

Who has ordered 96 bottles of Big Tom for himself, cans of Big Tom?

They're very little cans they're annoyingly little and in an attempt to visit all the wagon members has visited some london ones and some berkshire ones

thank you very much for coming in ivo sorry for annoying you both so much thank you ivo

ivo graham there oh

i'm fuming that is uh one of my favourite moments uh one of my favourite course reveals we've ever had on the podcast Speak for yourself.

He took you through it, didn't he?

And you absolutely lost your mind.

No one was expecting chopped-up banana in Yo Valley natural yogurt.

It's not even that shouldn't be allowed, Ed.

It should not be allowed.

He's not eating enough stuff to know what he likes, in my opinion.

Look, I agree.

If you're going for a dream restaurant, why are you chopping up a banana as Yo Valley yogurt?

But when he talks about the connection he has with his father over that as a dish, I think it's wonderful.

That's what food's all about, making connections with other humans.

Sure, yeah, yeah, I'll accept that bit.

But you know, I think that

something that he needs to work out in his own time are you saying but why can't they make their connection over a lovely ice cream or something why can't they make their connection over a big old milkshake full of chocolate bars because look the the the grahams are a rakish slim family you know that's natural yogurt and banana and then they go for a for a whole run that's all the joy they get out of life yeah

oh well okay well at least he didn't say quince yes he didn't say quince that's fine luckily so he stayed in the restaurant uh for the whole meal well done, Ivo Graham.

Well done, Ivo.

Go and check out Ivo's stuff.

Go on Twitter, find him on Twitter and see what he's up to.

Absolutely.

Ed, what are you up to?

Oh, I don't know.

It depends on this is being released.

I'm normally doing something.

If you go on my Twitter at Againwall Comedy, you can probably find something on there about what I'm up to.

James, what are you doing?

Well,

in a minute, I'm about to go to the very nice people at Burger and Lobster, which is the place that I like eating at anyway.

I love the lobster roll.

Yes.

Lobster roll is delicious.

I've got lobster.

Shout out to that.

But they've invited me to go and try some.

They're doing some spicy lobster nuggets.

I'm going to try them for the first time.

And I will absolutely shout it out on the show because I want more people to invite me to try new dishes at their food eateries.

Hey, look, if you want to invite me and James to come and eat stuff at your restaurant, we are up for it.

Yeah, I don't even care how

grubby this sounds.

Doing a little beg on the podcast.

Oh, it's not a beg.

Not a beg.

I'm open to it.

Ain't too proud to beg.

Ain't too proud to beg.

And thank you, by the way, to Cafe Pod for sending me some of your coffee.

Speaking of.

I already buy your pods, so you've absolutely wasted your money there.

So I'm looking forward to drinking that.

Also, we've been sent a beautiful book called For the Love of Food, which is an incredible coffee table book, which is all about sustainable food producers in the UK and just beautiful black and white photos and information about them.

I've already seen a lovely picture of an old man called John who makes our broath smokies.

Really?

I don't even know what they are, but they sound great.

And I'm going to put that on my coffee table.

I'm going going to peruse it when people come over and go, I just I'm just really into sustainable UK food, guys.

Oh, also, big thank you to Ed Easton on on this group.

Oh, yeah, thank you, Ed Easton.

The Pine Mouth Boy.

You can find Gaines Family Gift Shop, his sketch group.

And Tarot, now his sketches.

And Tarot, his other sketch.

He's in two sketch groups, Tarot and Gaines Family Gift Shop.

They're on Twitter, as is Ed himself.

Yes.

So s so much, so much funny content from that boy.

And I did say to him just then when he was up here, I said, we'll get you on for a full episode soon.

And he said, I don't believe you.

Yes.

So now we have to get him on for a full episode, otherwise, I'll be rendered a liar.

Yes.

So look forward to an episode from him soon.

Thank you very much for listening.

Come back to the restaurant again soon.

Bye-bye.

See you later.

Hello, my name's Rob Orton and I do the Rob Autonom Daily Podcast.

The Roborton Daily Podcast is a daily podcast that is quite short, some are two minutes long, some are ten minutes long, and they are stories and poems and basically all the thoughts I've ever had that I like enough to want to share with people.

And the Roborton podcast is available on Apple, ACAST, Spotify, all the other places where you normally get your podcasts, and on social media, it is at Rob Autonompodcast.

Thank you.

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.