Ep 47: Ronny Chieng

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

Yes.

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And guess what?

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

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

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

Those shows have been a lot of fun.

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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.

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Is that all right?

Didn't know when it would end, but yes.

Sounds lovely.

Neither did I, and that's why it was was a good intro.

Welcome to the Off-Menu podcast with me, Ed Gamble, and James Acastor over there.

That is me.

Good to see you, Ed.

Love to see you.

New York City.

We're in New York City, of course, and that's why it was a slightly smoother tone to the beginning of the podcast, because we're in the bar of our hotel.

We're in a bar.

People are around, we're trying to look cool.

James and Ed in a New York City bar.

Which sounds cool that we're recording an intro to our podcast in a bar, but actually we look like absolute dorks because the mics are massive and people are trying to enjoy a nice drink.

We're We're going to ask our guest what their favourite ever starter main course dessert side dish and drink is.

And our guest this week is Ronnie Chang.

Ronnie Chang, a fantastic stand-up comedian.

So funny.

He's on the Daily Show.

He's on The Daily Show.

He's got a Netflix special as well called Asian Comic Destroys America.

He is excellent, very funny.

I'm looking forward to chatting with him and seeing how he takes to us.

and the concept.

He's got loads of, I know he's a foodie, he's got loads of food recommendations.

He used to make during the Melbourne Comedy Festival every year.

But let me tell you, Red, even though he's a foodie, if he says the secret ingredient, I'm going to kick him out of the restaurant.

That's the rules.

Which would be tricky.

I feel like he's really going to dominate us conversationally.

Yeah, he might do.

I'm a bit worried about that.

But look, I'm pretty sure that this week...

I might have a chance of kicking him out.

What's the secret ingredient?

And James, you've picked this.

I want everyone to know.

James has picked this.

This is what happens when you leave James with the basic admin.

Ice.

Ice is the secret ingredient.

It's overrated.

It's overrated.

It takes up too much room.

It's very boring.

I could happily live the rest of my life without ice.

What if you want a cold drink?

Just put it in the freezer.

Put it in the freezer.

Just like a cocktail, you get a cocktail and you put it in.

Just chill it for a while.

Okay, you're a very odd man.

But I do like you despite myself.

But if Ronnie says ice, he's gone.

He's gone.

It takes up too much space in the drink.

I don't like it.

Yeah, no, I know why you don't like it.

I'm just saying, if Ronnie says it, he's gone, which is unfortunate because he's a very good guest and he will not be expecting to say ice and then be kicked out.

I just think, you know, he might say it in the water course.

He might say it straight away, straight out the gate that he wants an ice water, and then I'm going to chuck him out.

Okay, well, let's see if that happens.

This is the off-menu menu of Ronnie Chang.

Welcome, Ronnie, to the Dream Restaurant.

D.

Welcome, Ronnie Chang.

I have an amuse bouche for you.

What?

What was that?

Yeah, okay.

Nice to meet you.

Join us for the gamble.

Amused Bouche.

Amoozbouche.

Amused Bouche?

You gotta say it right.

You know, this is really...

We're really at the

bottom.

Like,

this is the end of podcasting, I think.

Yeah.

I mean, we're down to two British guys whimsically talking about lunch now.

What more can we fucking do?

This is it.

Yeah.

We realized that as well when we started the podcast.

We were like, we're gonna, we're really ringing the death knell of podcasting here.

I never realized that.

This is my life now.

I love it.

And you guys travel.

You guys are in New York now.

Do you mention that?

Yeah, yeah.

Your listeners know we're actually in New York.

And they came here just for this.

Yeah.

I can't believe it.

Do you guys get like,

who is funding this?

This is...

Bonito.

The great Benito.

Great Benito funds it all.

Yeah, I'm telling you, man.

You guys have some big names calling in favours.

That's what you're doing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mish, you have Ben come in, Aster.

I mean,

I don't know Mr.

Gamble from the UK.

I've never had the pleasure of meeting you.

We've never met each other before.

Yeah, but these are big names, man.

Pretty big.

Yeah.

Pretty big.

I'm glad I get to be here when you meet Ed for the first time.

I always like being around when someone meets you for the first time.

Really?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Why is that?

Oh, are you enjoying yourself?

I'm having a lovely time.

I just like to see people happy.

Okay, so when the dream

restaurant, I did have a moose bouge for you.

You didn't sound too impressed by it.

I have no idea what that is.

What is that?

It's like a little, you know, sometimes you go to a restaurant and before the meal that you have ordered, they just throw in a little something at...

There you go.

A little.

Little snack.

A little snack for you.

Is that like a British thing?

No, it's like.

They do it here in New York.

In Melbourne, where you lived for ages?

What is a moose bouche in Melbourne?

It's like a...

They might just give you a little, before your main meal, they go like, oh, just a little amuse bouche.

Here's a little wafer.

Here's a little...

Yeah, here's a little

dish, a tiny little mouse.

I mean, maybe that's happened once, but that's not like enough to have its own fucking nickname.

You know what I mean?

Like, moush.

What do you call it?

Amuse bouche?

Amuse bouche.

Amuse bouche, yeah.

Yeah, dude.

No, man.

And when, no, that's what I'm asking you for, I'm not trying to be a dick.

I'm specific examples of what.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

For example, what would be a.

What was one you had in New York?

So in New York, I went to Dirt Candy and they gave me this like, it was a little tin of

vegan or vegetarian caviar.

So they've made

that.

Did they give you caviar just

to wet your appetite at the start?

Yeah, but it was like fake caviar because it was like vegetarian.

So it was made of other stuff.

Like, I think like,

what have they got?

Like cabbage and like...

What have they got?

Yeah.

You mean vegans?

Well, this dirt candy.

They work with some cabbage.

They got to shrunk it right down to these little caviar balls.

And then on top of like little balls of cucumber and sour cream.

And it was this, and you scooped it out of the tea.

And you didn't order this?

You didn't order it?

It was quite often with, like, if you go and have like a tasting menu or something, they'll have the menu of what you're going to have, but then they'll just throw in a little extra thing on top.

A little surprise.

Dude, I mean, look, it's not unheard of, but it's definitely not like the regular stuff.

I thought you'd be more like

you eat out a lot.

You're very,

that's why I've got it.

I'm surprised.

Maybe I just ignored it.

The first thing that comes to, I'm like, this is some free BS that probably

costs them nothing.

I send it a bag.

It's probably, yeah, it's probably rejected food from the kitchen or whatever.

Yeah, yeah.

So what's the amuseboo for Roddy?

Glass of milk.

Glass of milk.

All right.

Okay.

I got a glass of milk.

What kind of milk?

I mixed all the different ones together for you.

That should actually be an option.

That's not bad.

Because sometimes you can't decide between the fucking soy or the almond or the

milk or

cream, half, whatever the fuck.

Yeah, yeah.

This is ultimate milk.

Everything you want.

Yeah, yeah.

Normally how we start, we ask if you want still or sparkling water.

Right.

I'll go.

Who am I kidding myself?

I'm going to go

still.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's just how I roll.

Were you about to say sparkling there and then realized that you were trying to sound fancy?

No, no.

It was more that

I don't, because I, yeah, I'm just scared of what the hell it's going to cost.

So I'm just going to go still.

It's what I usually do in restaurants.

I'm just like, although that being said, there's one Jewish, I don't know if this is a hallmark of Jewish restaurants.

I'm ashamed to say I haven't been to enough Jewish restaurants to know, but Russ and Daughters in New York,

landmark bagel place.

Right.

They have it on tap.

Seltzer on tap.

So if you go to the Russ and Daughters, don't be afraid to order the Seltzer because it's free.

We were talking about, me and Benito were just talking before how we really want to get a bagel in New York.

Is that where you'd recommend?

I would say Russ and Daughters because

I think it's one of the best bagels in New York.

Everyone in New York gets bitchy about their fucking bagels.

Who cares?

It's high level.

It's New York.

I think it's high level.

It's NBA of bagels in New York.

And more importantly, the decor is super New York.

So it's worth going for the ambiance alone.

But the food more than, the food more than delivers.

Yeah.

On the thing.

Yeah, it's a nice restaurant.

You'll love it.

You guys will love it.

It's quintessentially very New York and they kind of play it up a bit, but it's still very authentic.

In New York, it's a real struggle to find authentic New York places that keep it sold, but have really good food, you know, and

have some history.

And, you know, like

it's hard to find now.

You'd be surprised.

In New York, Manhattan food is, I find it a little lacking.

I think Melbourne was the city to go to.

Melbourne's probably the pound-for-pound food capital.

Oh, yeah, you lived there for how long?

I lived there there for like 10 years, yeah.

10 years in Melbourne.

Anyone fine dining.

Well, I don't give away any of your picks.

Yeah, please.

But like,

if anyone's going to Melbourne,

where would you?

I've never been.

Ed's never been.

Are you going this year for Melbourne County Festival?

No, I'm not going, but if I was to plan it, you know, me, Ronnie, I'd just plan a podcast trip.

Yeah, I can't believe you guys came in for a podcast.

That's incredible.

Yeah, Melbourne.

I'm a little out of date right now, but basically,

man, I have a website about it.

it's called uh i'm okay with anything.com so if you go there it's a list of all the melbourne food oh amazing yeah i went and there's uh my wife's favorite peruvian restaurant oh fuck what's it called i'm okay with anything is a reference to one of uh ronnie's uh bits signature bits okay where he talks about people eating diarrhea

wait is it oh yeah yeah i haven't done that bit in a while it's a bit about like okay okay with diarrhea yeah yeah people saying they're okay with anything to eat are you saying oh no not eating diarrhea not eating diarrhea is like, are you okay with diarrhea after the meal?

Was they?

Oh, really?

Yeah, I think that's the implication.

Ah, I always thought you were saying, like, eat diarrhea.

Eat diarrhea.

Maybe I maybe I was.

Did you like the bit because it was about eating diarrhea?

Yeah, I thought the whole bit was about people eating diarrhea.

Well, well, you know what?

Art is more than what we make of it, so you can't interpret.

It's open to interpretation unless you're a fucking reviewer from Edinburgh.

Okay, so this is

this is the this is my map of New York.

That is the the restaurant.

A lot of pins.

I can't even see the land.

So

red means I've been there.

It's awesome.

And then blue.

Ah, sorry, green means it's someone recommended or I read about it somewhere.

Do you have a brown pin for diarrhea?

The diarrhea is probably.

Do you have to eat diarrhea?

Yeah.

So Melbourne, this is the map.

This is a shadow of what, a shade of what I once was.

Melbourne used to be my city, man.

I used to know ins and outs.

Yeah.

But anyway, if you want

some quick recommendations uh for melbourne pestuso is a really nice greek restaurant uh it's sorry if pestuso is the the freaking peruvian restaurants my wife's favorite one uh it's in an alleyway in an alleyway literally as is most good restaurants in melbourne uh you can always go gazi uh on um

exhibition street that's a really nice greek restaurant in the city um my favorite bar is ba americano it's like this little speakeasy bar in an alleyway in the alleyway standing only eight people max.

Amazing.

Don't know how they make money.

Very, very cool vibes in there.

There's a whole bunch of like brunch places in Melbourne.

Man, this whole thing, I mean, you know,

you guys know I'm all about this.

We know.

Yeah.

So if you asked me for Rex, this podcast turned into just a list.

But that's great.

It's going to become a listical.

People love lists.

Yeah, people love lists.

We love lists.

Yeah, yeah.

Right.

Anything on, what's that?

Little Collins Street?

You know, there's a bunch of restaurants, and that's probably the eating street.

Like, there's super normal on that.

All these like

chin chins on that restaurant.

So it's all these restaurants, which are like, I would say, what, $50.

Yeah.

You know, you can eat less, but about $50 a head, that kind of street.

Where it's like, it's not super inaccessibly expensive, but it's not like an everyday thing.

That's the street for it.

Yeah.

You'll tell you what I always like to get.

Go to Tropicano and get the South American smoothie.

You know what's funny about Tropicano, which is famous in Melbourne.

It's got all the oranges outside.

Yeah.

Is that the guy who originally owned it, I think he read Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss.

You know that guy, Tim Ferriss?

You know that guy?

No.

He's like this

lifestyle hacker.

You know, basically the thesis of his book was like outsource all the shit you don't want to do to other people.

That's basically how you get a four-hour work week.

You make less money, but you hire people to do the shit you don't want to do, which is like, apparently, that's some revolutionary fucking business activity.

We've heard The Great Benito to do all the stuff, stuff yeah for example so the guys who owned tropicana were like big tim ferris fans i think because they had his goddamn four-hour work week like like like literally in a framed so is it only open four hours a week no but what happened was that they slowly got more and more like immigrants to work there so i never see them anymore i think they just outsource their whole life to the okay you know i mean like they don't they outsource tropicana to yeah they basically like what do you call it when you you know you you it's called task rabbit here but what do you do in the uk when When you can you we have Task Rabbit in the UK, yeah, yeah, like gig economy.

He's like, he basically ubered out the Tropicana or something.

I don't know.

Yeah, I had a very like low moment where I nearly went on Task Rabbit to get someone to come and build an IKEA flat for me.

That's not a low moment.

Just do that.

Yeah, but I felt pretty bad about it.

Do you have the tools to do it?

Yeah, all you need is an Allen key, right?

No, you don't.

That's what, that's the fucking lie.

They make you think all you need is an Allen key.

You need more than that.

You can't build, you can't screw a screw into wood with a fucking Allen key.

You need the drill to do it.

They make you feel like you're a piece of shit because you can't do it.

But the truth is, you can't execute on the plans without.

Like, there's one instruction where it's literally like, hey, can you screw

into solid wood

and link with this Allen key?

And if you can't do it, you're a fucking piece of shit.

It's like, no, man, people can't do this.

Yeah, so hire people to do it.

Hire people with the tools and get it done.

I did definitely like a piece of shit, actually.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, you got money to fly the New York podcast, you can hire somebody for

a table.

Yeah, still, South American smoothie is good, though.

From Tropicana, yeah, it's good.

I'll give you that.

It's good, yeah.

I think it's delicious.

I love it.

True, the smoothies are delicious.

It's been, it's that whole street has changed over 20 years.

Tropicana is the thing that stayed.

So, here's something

I think.

I don't know what response it will get.

Every time I go to Melbourne,

you know where I go all the time to eat food?

Schnitz.

Oh.

The chain schnitzel place.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Schnitz is good.

Schnitz.

They snitch every they snitch all everything.

They snitch all dark.

They snitch all like beef.

They snitch all.

Yeah, the whole thing is.

Yeah.

It's okay.

Yeah, yeah.

Everyone's always really angry with me that I go there.

This is a chain place.

Yeah, it's the chain schnitzel place, but I'm going there and get the OMG wrap.

It's a chain place, but it's also like a small business chain, so it's kind of okay.

It's still got a bit of soul in it, you know.

Yeah, yeah.

It's not that bad.

Although I would say if you're eating that all the time, then

you have no fucking business starting a

you shouldn't be eating every day, but yeah, it's a nice place.

I don't go there every day, but I'll go, but probably like day one, I'm straight into schnitz.

How much of that is based on the fact that you clearly really enjoy saying the word schnitz?

Part of it is that I enjoy it.

Because every time schnitz, schnitz.

Yes.

I like saying schnitz.

I like saying an OMG rap, please.

Yes.

I like saying that as well.

There's some words you say which you clearly are very pleased with yourself.

I agree.

That's good.

Good observation by you.

All things are good.

Pop an absorb bread.

Pop an absorb bread, Roddy.

Pop an absorb bread.

I love Ben in the corner of my eye making notes as we talk, trying to decide what to keep and what not to keep it.

Yeah, that'll happen.

You got to not look at him during the podcast.

This is the equivalent of the audience response.

Yeah, yeah.

It's pretty demeaning sometimes when you tell an anecdote and then you look over and he's scribbling away.

Yeah,

the point, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, honestly, we talk about Melbourne food.

I mean, for white people, high eating, Melbourne's pretty high up there.

But, I mean, Singapore, you know, Singapore and Malaysia for me kills the food game.

There's no there's nothing that you can f like in Melbourne

you can't anyway, you can't find that cuisine anywhere else.

Singapore and Mal Mal Malaysian food, you there's no no one has done it well outside of Singapore, Malaysia.

Right, yeah.

Yeah, definitely not the UK.

But I mean, even, you know, Australia or

even in America, you're hard-pressed to find good Singapore, like,

where it tastes actually the way it's supposed to taste.

Right, yeah.

Huge shout-out to Ronnie for completely ignoring the Papa Dumbread.

I didn't know what you were saying, Ronnie.

Pop an ups or bread, Ronnie.

What is that?

What is that?

Popping up's all bread.

What is that?

Is that like a meal?

Popping up's all bread.

Is that like pump-dumb?

Pop it up so bread.

I think you're saying papa dumb is a bread.

Pop a dumbzo bread.

But papa dumb

is technically a cracker, I think.

Papa Nap is all bread.

Yeah, I don't know what that is.

Papa dumbs.

Or

bread.

Oh, you actually did say papa dumbs are bread.

Oh!

Oh, oh, bread.

Okay.

But where would you yell that?

Oh, you're asking me.

Oh, okay.

Poppin up is all bread.

Why is it there's two fucking choices?

The fuck is this?

Well, in a magic restaurant, you gave me your what you like.

I thought this is what about what I like.

Well, if there's anything that would usually be at this point in the meal that you would like instead,

you can have

things that you can do.

First of all, this whole fucking thing is, okay, why are you dividing it into goddamn like you don't go for like the idea of it must be a what first course second course third course.

This is already imperial colonial mentality.

Right, yeah.

What if I don't eat with that?

I eat like shared plates, man.

Bring it out and then we share it.

I don't eat fucking first, second, first.

So you're yelling at me about a public.

So we're whitewashing whitewashing food, right?

Yeah, right now.

The whole concept of what the fuck you're doing is already, in my opinion, is already flawed.

Hashtag dinner so white.

Yeah, yeah, dinner so white.

No, I didn't say white.

I didn't say white.

Wait, wait, imperial colonialists.

Yes.

Yeah.

It's not about race.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's not about race.

Colonialism is not a lot racialized at all.

It's about nationality.

Yes.

I guess Papa Don't.

Yeah.

Yeah, I like it.

It's crunchy.

I mean, good texture, nice flavor.

Bread is basically evil, right?

Yeah.

We now know that

the way it reacts with our body is really bad.

So Papa Dom's, I guess.

So do you avoid bread?

Yeah, I avoid bread, man.

Yeah.

Here's a tip.

If you eat a sandwich and you just remove one slice, just eat one slice.

That's how you eat less bread.

You're having open sandwiches these days.

Sometimes I eat the fucking inside of a sandwich like I'm going down on someone.

I'll just open it up and yeah.

Just to avoid the carbs, yeah.

In public, will you do that?

Yeah, I do that in public.

I do it.

Yeah.

yeah, yeah, for sure.

It's disgusting.

People, I say, like, if people don't want to see like me eating sandwiches around them, if I look, they're like, get the fuck away from me.

If I, yeah, because I look, it's disgusting.

I eat the inside of it.

You maintain eye contact with the eye contact.

I also tear my dick out.

And it's good practice.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, and vice versa.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So after, yeah.

I reject this whole first, second, and third course structure.

Sure.

Yeah.

It's yeah.

It's limiting and it's also kind of insulting, to be honest.

Yeah, yeah.

Pretty insulting.

Well, normally we go on the starter.

Okay.

What you're drinking is that you're

rejecting the separation.

No, maybe you're rejecting the.

Yeah, I'm rejecting the separation.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we can just call it your first dish if you want.

Okay.

The first dish coming from.

The first dish that you would like to order.

Okay.

Let's go

Kang Kong in sambal sauce, which I think white people call it morning glory, I think.

Right.

It's stir-fried with sambal sauce, which is a Malaysian

chili with, I think it has shrimp paste in it.

And they put some garlic in there.

Yeah, it's really nice.

It's a vegetable, right?

It's a bread.

Morning glory.

It's like a green

green veg.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Nice.

You know, green vegetable.

Yeah.

Where's the best place you've had this?

Everywhere in...

It's like a pretty standard in restaurants in Singapore, yeah.

Love eating it.

Very hard to find.

Well, it's not hard to find.

It's hard to find done well outside of Singapore.

It's very fresh there.

It's like

it's it's got a good, like, uh, I mean, I can't even explain.

I don't know how to explain this.

Maybe I should have gone something you guys would know, right?

Then you should talk about it.

Yeah, it's quite fun.

You can try to explain it.

Don't give up on it.

I don't know.

Peanut butter.

Yeah.

What do you what the scones?

How the scone?

What?

Peanut butter scone.

Yeah, I don't know what you guys, what do you guys eat for?

What's your stand?

I'm trying to relate to you people.

So you're trying to describe the vegetable boarding glory in relation to a peanut butter sauce.

No, no, I'm just saying maybe we should forget about the morning glory because you guys are looking at me like it's

like

you know, so scone.

I don't know, I have a scone.

No, no, no, no, don't change it to scone because you're worried that we're looking at you.

We're not looking at you going, choose something white, please.

Yeah, I'll have the cankong and the

sambal sauce.

Is it spicy?

Yeah, with the sambal, it's spicy.

Yeah, sambal is spicy.

How spicy do you are you?

Do you like spicy food?

I'm actually not great with spicy food,

so medium spicy, please.

I'm not, yeah.

I mean, there's I think Malaysians take as a their ability to take spice as a source of pride.

Unfortunately, I don't have the ability.

So do you feel ashamed?

No, I'm very secure with my.

Are you guys spice guys?

I like spice guys.

I do like spice.

Oh, you do?

Yeah, yeah.

I like the rush.

Okay, like what we talk about.

Are you like a...

Are you at the NBA level of spice?

I don't think I'm at the NBA level of it.

You're not a spice.

No, okay.

Then don't worry about it.

Because there's this street cart in New York.

It's called the Halal Guys.

It's a famous street cart.

It's near the Colbert

show.

So it's like Midtown.

There's a famous street cart, and it's...

They have another location where they're actually inside the building, but this is the original cart.

And it's open till like...

It's not outright 24 hours, it's open till like 5 a.m.

or something.

And long lines,

the best, like,

I can't explain it, like the spice meat.

You gotta try before you go.

That's very concentrated in New York.

All right, we're gonna do that.

It's like six bucks.

And they have white sauce, which is not spicy and super delicious.

And then they have spi the hot sauce.

And that hot sauce 100% will give you diarrhea.

Just not because it's dirty, it's just because that's how much spice will go.

It goes straight through.

Yeah, it goes straight through.

And it's

gonna go and have the sauce from.

Yeah, you wanna have that sauce and you wanna have diarrhea.

Is there a bathroom near the cart?

Oh, the halo guys?

Yeah.

No, there's none.

No.

So you gotta.

I mean, there's a Starbucks nearby.

I don't know how they might be used to it by now, but I don't know how.

Yeah.

Yeah, that poor Starbucks.

It's like, I've just been to halal guys.

Open the door.

They literally have people mining up the shit in Star Luck.

It's outdoors.

It's nice.

It's a nice New York experience.

You still have a good time.

The halal guys.

Yeah, the halal guys.

But don't be fooled.

There's a lot of imitators around.

Right.

The original halal guys.

There's like halal guys with a Zed.

Halal boys.

Yeah, yeah.

I wouldn't normally eat from a cart.

I'd be too worried about that because you never know what's legit and what's not.

Really?

Yeah.

Have you been to Southeast Asia?

Obviously, not.

No.

Okay.

Is this your first time out of the country?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I've just got a passport.

And yeah, well.

No, but in the UK, I wouldn't eat from a cart.

I mean, do you eat it?

I mean, James, I don't know what you're eating.

In Edinburgh, do you eat in Edinburgh?

Yeah, yeah.

Well, that's the equivalent of fucking eating from a cart.

Edinburgh.

No, I mean, I don't mean eating in a restaurant in Edinburgh.

I mean, you know, Edinburgh Festival, yeah, all the bullshit around Europe.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Fair enough.

I think I just, but James is going, oh, no, he'd eat from a car.

He went to LA and ate a taco from a car, and then he shit himself.

Oh, really?

Wrong?

Quesadilla.

But yes, I had a quesadilla because I was a bit felt in a really good mood.

And then the next day, I had to do a TV appearance and I was very close to shit myself for the whole thing and then came out and shat myself.

Oh, for real?

You show yourself?

Yeah, yeah.

After

I filmed it, and then within half an hour of filming it, I'd shit my pants.

Yeah.

It went really bad.

Damn.

And

you can watch the clip online.

Yeah.

And you can imagine that James really needs to shit himself, and it really does help.

What clip is it?

It's Conan.

And you can just see a guy performing and just trying not to shit his pants.

That's all it is.

Damn.

You can really see it in my eyes.

But you have that

glassy sort of faraway stare of a man holding in a shit.

Yeah.

But to be fair, you look like that normally anyway.

Yeah.

You could be.

I mean, there's not much.

You could tell me

you're holding a shit in for four Netflix specials.

Yeah.

So it looked like that for the whole.

Yeah.

All four of them.

I got as really holding in as shit.

Fair enough, it was the same year.

Yeah.

Yeah, but it was a pretty bumpy year.

But yeah, so James, you're okay with street cart food?

Yeah, I think so.

You're not.

No,

I think I am as long as you've told me that that place is legit.

Yeah.

Well, hello, guys, is pretty legit, I would say.

Like, I wouldn't eat anywhere.

Well, you should go.

I haven't done this since I first moved to New York, but you should go when you go to Central Park, you gotta eat like a hot dog at the yeah, you know, yeah, and they're actually pretty good.

Okay, but that's the thing.

So I got a hot dog from a street vendor in New York, and it wasn't good.

And I felt like, oh, I've just gone to the wrong place.

And that, like you say, you get really gutted that like you didn't go and get one of the good ones and have the proper experience of having a great dog.

I mean, then.

Oh, Cats' Deadly.

I don't know.

I don't know where you go for a proper hot dog in New York.

Yankee Stadium.

Yeah.

I mean, you go Yankee Stadium with Nathan's hot dogs, yeah.

Have you been to the Sports the baseballs?

Yes, I did.

It's basically it's like cricket.

It's like you're there to

drink and whatever that happens, a game happens beyond.

It's like an outdoor bar.

That's why I always think of like cricket and baseball as like I was just at an outdoor bar just to drink.

And then when you eat the hot dogs, do you like open up the bun and then just like

and suck the suck the hot dogs.

Let's be real.

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According to your main course now, the second

dish, apologies.

Again, which is this is a flawed system of eating, but

for what I'm trying to do, which is in Singapore, we don't go like you know, we don't.

Anyway, so anyway, so uh, is this the main?

Is this the well, yeah, but if you want like a number of small dishes for your main, no, it's okay, I'll just do whatever the fuck you guys want.

So,

the second so other people have done it, yeah,

is third, is third the dessert or well no, because then you have a side dish as well.

Okay, so uh I gotta go with chocolate yao.

Chocolate yao is in my opinion probably the

quintessential Singapore Malaysian food.

It's like a wok

the description doesn't do it justice, but it's wok stir-fried noodles in dark sauce, flat noodles.

Yeah.

And that flavor cannot be replicated anywhere other than Singapore Malaysia.

Yeah, I've never had it.

They have it on the menu.

They try to do it, but it's always.

I don't know how to make that analogy to you.

It'd be our eating, oh man, fish and chips.

And as soon as you eat it, you're like, yeah, this ain't.

But fish and chips is so easy.

It's so hard to fuck up fish and chips.

Sure.

People do it.

People do it.

People manage people.

Fuck out fish and chips.

Yeah, but it still tastes like, I know what you mean.

It's still fish and chips.

But it's like soggy shit, fish and chips.

Oh, right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But you can't.

You can't fuck it.

You don't taste some bad fish and chips that it tastes like apple or anything.

That's true.

Yeah, so I'll go chocolate dale, yeah.

Chocolate dale is delicious, it's extremely unhealthy, I think.

What's in this?

Is it like a sweet sauce?

Is it a spicy sauce?

It's like Swedish dark soy sauce, but it's a mixture of sauces.

You put a bit of chili in there.

There's cockles, which I guess is a form of mussels.

Although in Singapore, we call it cockles.

There's bean sprouts in it.

Some people put fish cake in it, but really it's the noodles that's the main so you're

your no-carb.

Your no-carb vibes doesn't stretch the noodles.

Oh man, no, this chocolate yo is what I'll always make an exception for chocolate jelly.

Yeah, you know, I miss it.

You're not sucking it between the noodles.

You're not sucking the cockles.

Sucking the cockles all the time.

I don't know the chocolate yellow.

Yeah, I love.

I'm saying chocolate yellow, and again, I don't know you guys can't even conceptualize what it is, but Ed, I would love for you to try it one day.

I think you're seem like a worldly guy despite never having.

I'd be into it.

Why not me?

Well, no, you too, for sure.

You don't want me to try it?

No, but I feel like you would have been to Southeast Asia, right?

No, but I would love to.

Oh, okay.

And I would try that.

Yeah, there's a gig there.

You should do it.

Yeah.

Just for a tax deduction.

Do you think we'd, I mean, do you think we'd do well at the gig?

No, no, I think.

But it would, like, you guys, it would be an excuse to go there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And just get the gig out of the way quickly.

Yeah, just get out of the way.

I'm going to die on my ass, fine.

You should just bring food to the gig, honestly, and just eat on stage.

Who are we kidding?

It's what I'm really here for.

When's the last time you had this dish

man i was in singapore over christmas visiting my mom so also yeah loaded up on something i'm loaded up on that yeah yeah but yeah i still miss it it's that it's hard to find man so have you not found anywhere in new york that does a good i can't find no i haven't found it yet that i have i've i i for the last 20 years Wait, when did I leave Singapore?

I left in 2004.

Yeah, so for the last 16 years,

I've given everywhere a chance to make it.

I've never had it good.

So I believe it can't actually be done.

Have you tried cooking it yourself?

My wife has, yeah.

And

you can't nail it.

She does a pretty good job.

She's a really good cook.

My wife is really good at cooking.

She has an Instagram page.

Oh, yeah?

You want to plug the Instagram page?

Fan Bam Kitchen.

Great.

Nice.

Loads of pictures of food.

Are you in any of the pictures?

I'm in one of the videos, yeah.

What was the video?

What were you doing to the sandwich?

Yeah,

did instagram block it what was it

i got reported an exception

the reason she started cooking is because we couldn't find what we wanted to eat anywhere so she just decided to make it we got so angry about it we just made it and then it turned out to be great so it's become a it's become a whole thing yeah that's good that's great yeah

you maybe start an instagram food page do you think i should i'm not good at the photos though that's the problem i like cooking i like eating out but every photo i take of food is shit

maybe that's your thing then maybe give the shit photos of food

yeah yeah

we went out last night and I tried to take a photo of of one of the dishes yeah it looks awful yeah where'd you guys go last night went to Lil Frankie's last night yeah oh we had an a roasted aubergine eggplant okay that they so they bought it just and it just looked like a normal just whole aubergine and then they cut it in half in front of us the guys did an autopsy on it in front of us sawed it in half, opened it up, and then like scored it left and right in little crisscrosses.

Yeah.

Then put salt on it,

seasoning, some olive oil, some hot oil as well, some spicy oil.

Oh, it was so good.

All of the flesh just lifted off of the skin so easily with hardly any effort.

It was delicious.

It was delicious.

Wait, are you vegetarian?

No.

Oh, okay.

But I still eat vegetables.

Sure.

That's good.

Yeah.

And one thing is that I think Americans or I don't know if British people do this, but we got to eat more cooked vegetables, man.

That's why I opened with the cooked vegetables thing.

Yeah.

This idea that vegetables is salad or nothing is bullshit, man.

We don't eat salads.

Salads is like, it came, it's an idea that was imported into Asia.

Like we eat it, freaking, we cook it.

You still fry, you cook it.

It's healthier.

Sorry, I don't know if it's healthier, but less likely to be, you know, infected with some stupid romaine disease or whatever the romaine whatever feces is used as fertilizer on romaine lettuce yeah and um

uh so it's you know it's sanitary i think more sanitary and it just tastes better yeah i don't it salads you know it's salads is basically like a delivery system for the salad dressing that's all we're just trying to eat salad dressing we have the fucking salad that's the yeah mix it up a bit so i'm not chugging from the bottle but but but like cooked vegetables actually taste good You put ginger in there, some garlic, still fry it.

Cook our vegetables.

Yeah, good vegetables last night.

Absolutely.

Yeah, we did.

We had a lot of appetizers, and then by the time we came to the main, it was just too much.

It was just too much.

It was like, I had a huge plate of pasta with like red sauce.

It was like a soprano's meal.

And then I was just like, nah.

That aubergine.

I'll dream about it for a long time.

And all I wanted was, I got a massive plate of antipasto.

I just wanted some meat, some cheese, some vegetables, and a big glass of red wine.

And that's exactly.

Also, some pasta.

I was singing a song about wanting pasta and wine.

Yeah, he was.

Do you want to sing the song?

I can't really remember it.

Good song you were just singing about the water.

No, but I can't remember how the song went.

You can have improvised.

I'm sort of blinded by hunger.

I went a bit mad.

Do you ever get so hungry that you sing a song about the food?

Absolutely not.

No.

I'm wondering if you guys have enough money to fly to.

This has baffled you, hasn't it, Ronnie?

I don't know.

We're not obsessed with the fact that we've flown here today, the population.

To do this, yeah.

This must be some Edinburgh experimental.

I'm going to go broke and do this thing.

I get it.

But like, what is the...

Can't you guys find sponsorship for eating at restaurants then?

Get sponsored to have the meal.

Yeah, or not even just go, hey, here's some dinner or something.

You guys don't strike me as haters.

So I don't think you're going to places and trying to destroy businesses.

No, we just want a nice time.

Exactly.

So, I mean, that's if that kind of positivity, I think, lends itself to, oh, just coffee ben aubergine.

Coffee benoboga.

Just give me another aubergine for free.

Yeah, I'll take that.

But no, I mean, I look, I'm just, I'm just because I also, you know, God knows it's hard to open a restaurant, so it's good to kind of support people with my iOS.

You seem worried about our finances as well.

But listen, man.

Let's talk about your side dish, even though...

I don't even know what that means.

What is a side dish?

So normally it would be a smaller smaller dish to accompany your main meal, like your big food, and then this is little food.

But as I'll say,

you can really have anything you want.

I don't want to

constrain me with

Western notions of what food should be.

Absolutely.

You can just have another dish if you want.

Yeah, I'll just go.

Okay, so you gotta try the

I really love eating steamed fish.

Yeah.

They usually do it with, I think it's Tiochu style is you steam it with like ginger on top and you put coriander and

Sao Sing, cooking wine and some light soy sauce, I think.

And if you get the right fish, you know, like sea bass is a really nice fish to steam.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Cod is a nice fish to steam.

It's it man, it's one of my favorite things to eat.

Steamed fish is light, it's super tasty.

I think it's relatively healthy.

Yeah.

You know, because it's, there's no, you're not putting batter on it.

You're not putting.

Yeah.

So I don't know, man.

Steam fish.

Have you guys ever nice steamed fish before?

Chinese style steam fish?

I've never had steamed fish before.

It takes on flavor very well.

Yeah.

Great texture.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

If you get the right one, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

The bass, any bass is good.

You're a fan of the bass.

I like bass.

Stone bass.

Okay, wait, Harry.

How do you have basses?

The Chilean sea bass.

Sea bass.

Sea bass.

How do you feel?

Ronnie Ronnie's already said sea bass.

And you got to stone bass and dried up.

Forgot.

Wait, have you guys had Chinese steamed fish?

I think I've had Chinese steamed fish before.

I want to say I have.

I think so.

Damn.

You guys want a food podcast.

Yeah.

Where are we going in New York for a nice

Chinese steamed fish?

My house.

Your house?

Yeah, my house.

Your wife's cooking.

Yeah, yeah.

Amazing.

What night do you want us to come?

Can we be in the video?

And you have it with rice.

Kang Kong goes really well with it.

The first thing I mentioned.

Chocolate yellow is actually its own dish.

You will probably eat it like its own, you know.

Right, yeah, yeah.

Like, I don't know,

it's its own container thing.

But Kang Kong and steamed fish you probably eat at like a

multiple course dinner

in Malaysia.

So you don't want all of these bought out at the same time?

You can do it.

You can bring it out at the same time, yeah.

All three of them.

Yeah, yeah, good.

Yeah, yeah.

Who are you?

So, this is a big sharing meal.

Who's your dream guest to share it with?

Because we can do that at the dream restaurant.

I can bring in whoever you like to share all this food with.

Bring with my wife.

I love you.

Bringing my wife.

Yeah.

She's the best.

Yeah.

She said she's not available.

Damn.

Dream person to eat with.

I think I like to eat with Gordon Ramsey.

Wouldn't he be really angry?

I don't know.

I want to see what, you know, I feel like he's actually

when he's not in work mode, I think he seems, he strikes me as someone who's like a pretty chill guy.

Yeah.

I think the two of you

would either have a very chilled evening or you would get in the best argument I've ever seen.

Right.

I think neither of you would back down.

Right, I'd really like to see it.

Yeah, I think Gordon Ramsey, I'd like to meet him.

Yeah,

I like to have dinner with him, get his opinions on food.

Yeah.

Maybe, yeah.

Terrifying for you, of course, being the waiter in the restaurant day.

I'd I'd be very scared.

But Ramsey's in with Ronnie, so you're going to have the absolute shit ripped out of you all night.

Yeah, I'll be like, I'm in big trouble here.

What do you mean, man?

Throwing peanut butter scones at me.

Telling me I'd love to eat them.

Oh, how about Jimmy Oliver?

I'd bring Jimmy Oliver.

Bring Jimmy Oliver in as well.

Yeah, I bring Jimmy Oliver.

I used to watch his show when I was in high school.

Yeah.

The Naked Chef.

I used to watch all of it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I find it quite a comforting show, The Naked Chef.

There's a nice little boy making food for you.

Yeah, he was like his young guy.

I was like, who the this guy he rode on like a scooter.

Yeah,

yeah, he'd drive to his apartment where there'd be cameras waiting.

He had that circular staircase.

Yeah, yeah.

Slide down.

It was killer.

Yeah.

It was killer.

It was good.

Who's the new naked chef?

We need a new naked chef.

Yeah, I don't know.

That could be us.

Us?

We could be the new naked chefs.

Not happy about that?

Yeah,

okay.

No, Ronnie.

But you might beat your mind.

We're not like the new naked chef.

No, do it.

Yeah.

Don't think we'd be good at it?

No.

No, we'd be great.

Yeah.

What do you think is holding us back from being

skills?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Cooking cooking.

Skills skills.

Straight out the gate.

That's it.

That's a big one.

Yeah.

We're enthusiastic, though.

Yeah, you can be the enthusiastic chef.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

That would be a cool cooking show, actually, where both of you fuck it up.

Yeah, the whole time.

But we try so hard.

Yeah, you try so hard.

You fuck it up.

Positive people.

Yeah.

Man, how young.

He was like 18 years old.

He had his cooking show.

Nothing made sense.

Why was he called the naked chef?

Yeah.

He wasn't naked.

Is it some kind of metaphor for being stripped down?

But his food was always very heavily seasoned.

So

the food was never naked.

What is it?

I'll never forget this.

This is not a fun fact.

But when he was doing the school dinners thing,

they met a nurse who'd met loads of kids who had terrible diets, and she'd met a kid with such a bad diet that they did a shit out of their mouth.

How did they do that?

Well, they didn't go into details, but she was like, it was so bad that they she didn't say they did a shit out of their mouth.

No.

Yeah.

So bad that.

Yeah.

How'd she word it?

It pooed out of his mouth.

Like feces came out of his mouth.

Not even possible.

No, apparently it is.

If you eat too many turkey Twizzlers, you do a shit out of your mouth.

Did you guys grow up eating well or was it yeah

my mum cooked healthily pretty healthy i think yeah right but did you guys eat like varied stuff or was it kind of like the same stuff every day or like pretty varied my mum yeah mum i was very lucky my mum was uh pretty healthy into healthy cooking and um gave us she didn't let us have a school dinner she gave us packed lunches yeah i had pack lunches as well but i was a fat little boy runny so i would eat my pack lunch at 11am and then go and then sneak in and get school lunch as well what would be a typical heathen dust out of his mouth every day?

I loved it though.

What would be a typical pack lunch?

Scone.

A scone would be in the mouth.

There's like a scone in there.

What are you doing?

Scones all the time.

I don't know.

I'm trying to relate to you.

I'm asking.

What was in the packed lunch?

A sandwich.

Sandwich?

What kind of sandwich?

Ham, cheese, let me guess.

Ham and cheese.

My mum would pack my sandwich every day and she'd go, go practice your kind of lingus.

Sandwich was a great invention.

Before the Earl of Sandwich invented it, these idiots were eating stuff separately.

And they had to carry all that shit around.

He was the first guy to be like, yo,

we just put this shit in the bread.

And that is a direct quote as well.

Yeah.

He was like, guys,

just put this in the bread.

And he figured it was like inventing the wheel.

Yeah.

Yeah.

When he invented the sandwiches.

It was pretty huge.

Yeah.

And I love that it's the Earl of Sandwich.

I always forget that it's the Earl of Sandwich.

Well, a moment in time.

You seem to really respect, even though you hate sandwiches, you really respect

the Earl of Sandwich.

You respect the Earl of Sandwich quite a lot.

Yeah, the innovation behind it.

That was the fucking Google of its time.

And he invented the iPhone essentially.

Yeah, yeah.

He put the two bread.

He was like, yo, we don't have to eat bread in a loaf.

Yeah.

Stop ripping up this loaf.

Let's cut it.

First of all, let's cut it.

Yeah.

Like, no, let's not be barbarians here.

Let's fucking cut it.

And then you get the meat and you put it in between.

Yeah.

Thing, and then it's done.

And then you can't care.

You can do other stuff.

Yeah.

You can walk around.

You can take it with you.

You don't have to have cutlery.

You can go, you know, yeah,

I really feel like you're trying to sell the sandwich to us, yeah.

Even though it's like as if there's people listening out there going, like, what the fuck?

Because you hate sandwiches, but you love, but you love the Earl of Sandwich.

No, I just, the bread, there's too much bread in it, but I love the innovation behind it, the thought behind it, Earl Sandwich, great guy.

So, my question is: because you love the Earl of Sandwich so much, when you are eating a sandwich and you spread it apart, do you pretend it's the Earl of Sandwich that

you're going down on?

Well,

I assume the Earl Sandwich is a dude.

Yeah.

You can still do that.

You can still spread him and go down on him.

Do you know how vaginas and penises are different, man?

It's a different.

You could flip the Earl of Sandwich over and go down on his butthole.

That's what I was trying to say to you.

I didn't even think of that.

I'm sorry.

I was trying to say...

Well, you gotta be more direct, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sorry.

You're going down on the acid sandwich.

No, I'm not.

No, I'm not thinking about the.

But unfortunately, now I will be thinking about it.

Forever, you'll be

fine.

But you'll be so filled with respect that it'll be quite a nice occasion for you.

Sure.

Thanks, James.

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You're coming to your favorite drink now?

Sure.

Let's go tetarek.

Tetarek is a milk tea

drink in Singapore, Malaysia.

Tarek means pull in Malay.

And basically the way they do it is the good, the way they sh supposed to to do it is they brew the tea from scratch.

Yeah.

And then they add milk at a very specific quantity so it tastes the way it's supposed to taste.

It's not just fucking putting milk into tea.

Yeah.

And then they everything's super hot so they pull it.

They pour it from cup to cup.

Oh, yes.

Okay.

And they pull it that like they s they spread their hands apart as they pull it.

Yeah.

And the tea falls from the higher cup to the lower cup.

And that both frosts the milk tea and cools it down.

I've seen that.

on YouTube.

Where'd you see it?

Well, you can see it.

People are doing the.

I watch food videos on YouTube and stuff.

Also on TV.

And every now and again, they'll do a little montage of going around that particular place.

And they always do that milk stuff.

It's very impressive.

They'll do a quick shot of someone stretching the milk.

Okay.

Because it's like it's a bit visually pleasing, isn't it?

Sure.

It's non-threatening.

Sure.

Makes me trustable.

And that's my go-to drink, and I recommend that for everyone who visits Singapore, Malaysia.

Go get some nice Teeta rig.

I think

it's colonial influenced, but like a lot of cool stuff, they kind of made it their own.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, because Singapore is a British colony, and I think they like their milk in the tea, which is not a Chinese thing.

And it turned out to be great.

So, yeah.

Is it sweetened at all?

It's sweet.

It's sweet.

It's sweet.

It's sweet milk tea.

I want to learn how to do that milk thing.

I did one for a photo shoot two days ago.

Yeah.

Oh, really?

How did it look?

Yeah, most of it ended up on my shoe.

Yeah.

I guess they have to train for quite a long time to make sure they

have you guys drunk bubble tea before?

Yeah.

Bubble tea.

Yeah, I'm not sure about that.

Okay.

I don't like the texture of the bubbles.

That's fair.

That's fair.

Yeah.

I was asking, yeah.

I think it's just.

Did you get

the sweet?

I like the tea.

Okay.

But the just, it's like.

Damn, it's interesting how divisive bubble tea is with.

with um in Western culture.

And I'm not even saying you should like, I'm not, dude, I'm not the guy who plays the race card.

Sure.

So, Yeah, yeah, I've met you.

Yeah, but.

I think it's just a textural thing.

Yeah.

It's a bit like a bit slimy.

Right.

Did you drink it?

Did you?

Yeah, I liked it.

Where did you guys have it?

Where did you have it, Ed?

There's a place, there's loads of places in London, actually.

Bubbolology.

In Chinatown.

Bubbleology.

Yeah, Bubbology.

Bubbleology.

Who is it?

Bubbology.

Bubbleology.

Guys in London, Chinatown.

Uh-huh.

Yo, these guys are the angriest.

These guys have the worst customer service in Chinese.

By Chinese restaurant standards, they have the worst.

Even to elder Chinese people.

So it's not just,

don't think it's racial.

Yeah, yeah.

These fucking people hate customers.

Which is crazy because there's so many restaurants that you would have thought you'd have to stand out.

Yeah.

By being the last.

Oh, the worst service I've ever...

I literally get

abused just by coming into your fucking restaurant.

But people start liking it, don't you?

Yeah, there's a place, there's a place in Chinatown called Wong Key, which is quite famous for for its bad service, and people go there for it.

People go there and they love getting yelled at.

Yeah.

Because I went into one and, yeah, the syllabus was like, oh my God.

I was like, yo.

None of you.

I was like, yo, what the fuck?

What are you doing?

This isn't.

I feel bad about giving you that milk at the start now because clearly what a waste.

No, do you want

with your milk tea?

Do you want the ultimate milk?

Yeah.

You can make ketaro with ultimate milk, yeah.

Yeah, yeah,

that's how it is.

Ultimate milk is amazing, man.

That should be, yeah, you could do something with that.

Yeah, yeah.

You guys could open a cafe in London.

Yeah, again, you're worried about how we're making money, right?

Yeah, yeah.

I know that you're seconds away from saying because you're coming here all the way to New York to do your podcast, and that's all you're doing here.

We arrive at the final course, which is the dessert.

Oh, dessert?

I don't know if I.

Are you a big dessert guy?

Again, I'm not, but I will.

If you go to Singapore, Malaysia, have the kue.

Kwe is a steamed.

Man, I've never had to describe it like this before.

This is

a steamed cake, I guess.

If you Google it, it's super colorful.

It looks appealing.

It tastes nice.

Very pandan in flavor.

You know, if you think of pandan stuff, it's actually what it is.

It's, I don't know.

I don't know how to put this in a fucking podcast.

It's squaresh, usually it's squaresh, rectangular-shaped, three-dimensional,

small, sliced, there's color, bright colors, like green and

white, and there's there's different types of queers.

There's like queer pizza, which is layered, layered cake, so there's different layers, and every layer is a different color.

And then there's like a different type of queer, which fuck, just go.

it.

I feel like this is like a new ASMR category.

Man angrily describes cake he likes.

Yeah, I don't even know how the bigger.

Who's your, do you know the demographics of your listeners?

Do you have any data on that?

Benito's got all the data.

Yeah.

Yeah, populists.

A wide range of people, mainly from Britain.

Okay, well then this is impossible then.

Just Google it.

Yeah.

I can't.

It's.

Fuck.

I don't know.

It's like an egg tart, but the inside of it egg tart.

So without the crust.

Now I'm I'm confused.

Oh, so it's a steamed cake, but

it's like egg custody, sort of.

Yeah, imagine it's custody.

There's no crust around it.

Right, okay.

Yeah, it's not, it's not even

cake.

Yeah, yeah.

It's not crispy.

It's not sponge cake.

It's steam.

It's cube.

It's rectangular.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And colourful.

Bring that is what I'm ordering that.

Do you have anything with that?

Is that ice cream with it?

No, no, no fucking ice cream.

Just eat that, okay?

Don't put your sugar shit on it.

We don't need any more of that.

Don't drizzle any of your bullshit.

No honey.

Just eat it as it is.

Preferably with Titaring.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

So, no, but no bullshit.

Write that down on the order.

No bullshit.

So, I'm going to read this back to you now.

Oh, I can't wait for you to read this back, James.

Let me tell you,

I

am not feeling confident about this.

You know, I'm going to do my best, but you've not been relaxed for the show, and I'm worried worried that if I get these wrong, no, no, I won't come at you.

I respect your

effort.

I know where you're coming from, man.

First of all, still water.

Wait, hang on.

Is seltzer free, though?

Huh?

Yeah, seltzer free.

Yeah, they're fucking seltzer then.

Jesus.

Okay, well, here we go.

This is what I'm talking about.

Wait, but who would order?

Given that,

of course, given the choice of free seltzer or still,

you got to open with, hey, do you want still or sparkling?

They're both free.

That's what you got to open with.

They're both free?

That's all free.

Well,

if I knew that, maybe I would change my order.

What, are you on the budget?

What have you budgeted for this meal?

Whatever.

What, at 30 bucks, maybe?

Seltzer water.

Okay, Seltzer.

Thank you.

Papa Doms.

Fuck.

Alright.

If you must, then yeah.

If you must, for some reason, you must eat Papa Doms or bread.

You must.

Every meal, you must eat this.

Fine, then fine, Papa Dum.

There's somebody else there, if you want.

How about cut that thing out?

Cut the whole thing out.

We got enough food coming.

We don't need food.

Well, we'll bring the popadums and then you can just leave them.

That's wasting food.

That's horrible.

Sure.

Okay, bring it.

Bring our poppadums.

First dish.

Kung Kong.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, you go.

With some ball with sambal.

With some bowl?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Second dish.

Cha kwai.

Yeah?

One more word.

Cha kwa.

Cha kwai teow.

You nailed it.

Well done, James.

I'm actually enjoying this.

Yeah.

Steamed fish.

Okay.

Okay.

Is that all you're doing?

Teoju style.

Teoju style.

Teoju style steamed fish.

Teoju style?

Steamed fish.

Steamed fish.

Okay.

Teoju style, steam, steamed fish.

Yes, thank you.

You couldn't even say steam then.

Yeah.

Well, that's.

I'm so panicked about the rest of it.

Okay, cool.

I messed up my.

Right, drink.

Yeah.

Teotarik?

Great.

Nailed it.

There's a.

Koi?

Cool.

No?

Yeah.

Say quick, though.

Say quick.

Koi.

Yeah.

No ice cream.

No, no ice cream, no bullshit.

No ice cream, no bullshit.

Don't put any shit on it.

No ice cream, no bullshit.

Yeah.

Well, I think that sounds delicious.

We've learnt a lot about some new foods that we didn't know about.

Thank you.

Thanks for

humoring me with the.

Humouring you?

Yeah, with the food.

I appreciate it.

No, no, no, no.

You had to humor us, if anything.

Yeah.

No, I hope one day you guys actually get to try it.

Yeah, I'd like to.

I want to try all of this.

This is the thing.

What's good about the podcast is that we get to discover dishes we've never heard of.

Yeah, I discover dishes and never actually eat them.

No, we eat them.

Yeah, when the fuck are you going to eat a dish?

Well, when we come over to your house.

But I don't cook jog with you.

No, but we can go to...

Where?

Singapore, Malaysia.

Are you ever going to go?

Yeah.

Yeah.

When?

When are you going to go?

Well,

when they get some good podcast guests.

Yeah, yeah, they're going to have some good podcast guests there.

Who lives there?

Who's cool?

Go to the podcast.

Who lives there?

That's cool.

Who's there who you would like to be like, that's a good guest for them?

The British guys they are running from the law.

They sound cool.

Yeah, cool.

Yeah, you get some bandits in.

Thank you very much for coming to the Dream Wrestling.

Thank you so much, Ronnie.

No, thanks, guys.

Thanks for having me in.

There we have it.

Ronnie Chang there.

An excellent episode.

I don't know how he avoided saying ice, but he did.

Yeah, he managed to avoid saying ice, but also, what I was really enjoying for the whole episode was every time he said something, I knew that you were going to have to try and pronounce it at the end of the episode.

Yes you were excited about that I could tell.

But you actually did a really good job and Ronnie was very supportive of you.

Well I was quite relieved there yes I did my best and Ronnie was very nice to me.

Yes he was.

Well done Ronnie and thank you and we actually

we went for a meal afterwards

Ronnie said I'm going to take you to this place Upland

President Obama went there once.

Yep he told us Obama went there.

It's sort of high-ish end American food because I know you two don't want any Asian food.

Yeah, and we said, no, we would love Asian food.

We would love Asian food.

We kept protesting, and he was like, no, I'd look at you, you don't want any Asian food.

Kept refusing to take us to any Asian places.

Kept talking about how the place he was taking us wasn't actually that good, and there were loads of great Asian places in the area.

Yep, Kept said, I don't really like this place.

It's just a good white person place.

You guys could go there.

We arrived 50 minutes before it opened and we waited outside, despite there being Asian places open at that time.

Yeah, we were like, we'll go to one of those places, Willie.

He went, no, you don't like that kind of stuff.

You guys don't like it.

So we go here.

It's this white person place.

And you know what?

It was right.

It was so delicious.

It was great.

We had absolutely delicious duck wings there.

If you are ever in New York City, go to Upland and just get those crispy duck wings.

They're so good.

They were absolutely delicious.

What did you say was on the mid?

It was like a Yuzu sauce, which is the Japanese ingredient.

It was delicious.

We fooled him in the end.

We got you, Ronnie.

But thank you.

Check out Ronnie's Netflix special, Asian Comedian, Destroys America.

It's very funny indeed.

But for now, we will see you next week on the Off Menu podcast.

Don't be a stranger to food.

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.