Ep 40: Kumail Nanjiani

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

Hello, it's James A.

Caster here from the Off Menu Podcast.

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

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

They've created an absolutely amazing thing.

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

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

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

Absolutely.

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

Every penny raised go to supporting people in Gaza.

Thank you so much and enjoy the episode.

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Welcome to the Off-Menu podcast.

If it was on a curry menu, it would have three chilies after it.

Bam, bam, bam.

Three Three chilies, really hot.

My name is James Acaster.

Or even three fire emojis, James.

I'm Ed Gamble.

How are you today, Ed?

I'm all right, thank you, mates.

Go what I want to do today.

Go on.

I want to ask a guest what their favourite ever starter main course dessert, side dish, and drink ever is.

You get the small talk out of the way

quicker and quicker every episode.

Well, Ed, if I wanted to chat to you, I'd just be your friend outside the podcast.

That's true.

That is true.

Yes, we are asking a special guest all their dream menu components And who, James, is our special guest today?

We have Kamal Nangiani!

Kamal Nangiani, fantastic comedian, actor, screenwriter.

Oh, he's done it all.

You may have seen his movie, The Big Sick.

The Big Sick.

He starred and co-wrote.

He was in one of my favourite newer sitcoms on the scene, Silicon Valley.

Silicon Valley, very, very big, very big sitcom.

Everyone loves it.

And now he's going to be in an actual Marvel film.

Very exciting that you said it's no secret.

He's going to be in the Eternals.

Very exciting.

Oh, man.

Is this our first Marvel actor?

First person from the MCU?

Hmm, I think so.

Oh, I don't know.

Yeah.

Do you think it is?

Yeah.

Oh, maybe Nish.

Oh, maybe Nish.

I think Victoria Corin Mitchell was Captain Marvel, wasn't she?

She was, actually.

Victoria Corin Mitchell was Captain Marvel.

Yeah.

And she beat the bad guys by throwing a plowman's at them.

Yeah.

So he's our second Marvel actor,

but no less exciting.

However, we still will kick him out if he mentions the secret ingredients.

I'm sorry about that.

And the secret ingredient that we hate this week is Star Anise.

Disgusting.

Oh, excuse me, I'd like to add some flavour to my meal.

Oh, I'll just put this piece of wood in it and then not remove it.

Yeah, but it looks like a star, so I guess that's nice.

Yeah, like a ninja star, it'll cut your mouth open.

Yeah, not like a lovely Christmas star that you put on the top of a tree and makes you feel happy.

It's like a Christmas tree.

Yeah, because you're a tree.

Sitting on a bit of wood.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like eating the tree instead of the star.

So if Kamale mentions Star and Ence, he is out of here.

It breaks my achy, breaky heart.

But for now, here is the off-menu menu of Kamale Nagiani.

Welcome, Kamale, to the Dream Restaurant.

Hey, thank you for having me.

Oh.

Welcome, Kamal Nagiani, to the podcast.

Oh, thank you so much.

Oh, my God.

So once

spectacle.

Much more enthusiastic.

Well, James is a genie waiter.

Okay.

Is what you really need to know.

Okay.

I'm welcoming you at the door of the restaurant.

Why did the genie waiter break the illusion that it's a podcast?

Like, why did he do that?

That's a very good point, and that's something we've never really discussed.

I didn't know that the podcast was an illusion.

Well, there's the illusion of the dream restaurant.

The restaurant is the illusion.

The podcast is the reality.

Yes, both are real, actually.

No, but I think what Kamal is saying is within the illusion of the restaurant, the genie exists.

So the genie shouldn't exist within the podcast reality, only within the restaurant illusion.

The genie shouldn't know it's a podcast.

No, it's a fucking one MCU movie.

And he's breaking.

Genie

in the restaurant realm.

Yeah.

But

I think...

I know.

No, no, no.

The genie knows it's a podcast.

The genie.

Why?

Okay.

Genie knows.

Obviously, the genie knows.

I feel like the genie kind of shouldn't pretend to know.

I should keep it a secret.

Yeah.

Not a secret, but go along with the fun of, oh, we're at a restaurant.

Yeah.

I don't know.

But genies can't lie.

Did you know that?

This is not canon.

No, this is canon.

This is not part of genie lore.

So which one of us is a genie?

I'm from the land of genies.

Genie's can't lie.

Genies can lie, I think, can't they?

No.

Genie can't.

No, we need to pick the right question.

What is it that you ask people when they say they can't lie?

My brother would say no.

Is that oh, yeah, that we'd need another one there?

Yes, genies can lie.

What about when Jafar turns into a genie?

That guy can lie, right?

Does he?

No, you're getting confused with the mask.

No, Jafar.

Jafar turns into a genie at the end.

But Jafar turns into a genie at the end.

How can you be a genie and not know the very few genie-based people?

I don't like talking about him.

He's a black sheep.

Because he lies?

Yeah, because he lies all the time.

That's not.

Genies don't like liars.

So you guys are choosing to not lie.

It's not magic that's preventing.

It's not like liar-liar.

Yeah, yeah, it's not like liar-liar.

We haven't been liar-liered.

We all swear on the genie Bible at the start of the coming to GD.

There's a code of ethics.

I see.

Well, there's a guy in liar, liar.

He goes green halfway through the film, doesn't he?

Yeah, yeah.

Just an ex-employee coming for his back pay.

Should I say, pay back?

Do you remember that?

Do not.

That's when Dorian has the mask on, and he's the bad mask.

Who's Dorian?

He's the bad guy in the mask.

He's the baddie in the mask.

And then at the end, Cameron tricks him to taking the mask off by going,

just like one last kiss.

He's like, it's almost time for one last kiss.

And who's the actor playing Dorian?

I forget.

Zed from

Popper Fiction.

He's really handsome in a very manly way.

Zed's dead, baby.

Zed's dead.

Yeah.

Oh, wow.

He's the bad guy.

Yeah, he's the bad guy in the mask.

Wow.

Those are the the two roles he had, I think.

No, are you guys as into Son of Mask?

This is not the podcast.

No, this is not the same.

This is not the rest.

No, sorry.

The genie also is basically IMDB as well.

So any question you want to ask about cast lists.

I can't lie about it.

But I want to make it very clear to the listeners that genies and any mask creatures are not the same.

Right, okay.

So

I don't want people getting confused listening to this and thinking that me and my fellow genies are like the like the mask and people and son of mask and people adore me are you guys then sort of looking down on the mask people yeah what's up with the master

they're part-timers

they're not part-time genies

i think you've misunderstood the mask oh you you're saying that you have to be genie 24-7 whereas these guys they can be a genie not be sorry not a genie they're not a genie they can be a masko they have magical yeah but they have these maskies have magical powers

don't say the m

they can put the masks on and they can do things that it looks like genie stuff.

If you watched Aladdin, Robin Williams' genie and you compared it to Jim Carrey's mask, you would think they're the same speech.

They're not the same as the crossovers, aren't they?

But they're not the same species.

It's not the same.

Yeah, very high energy.

Yeah.

Dancing, a lot of dancing.

Impressions, maybe?

A lot of impressions.

We can sing song do big musical numbers.

But crucially, we're doing it for other people, genies are.

And masks maskies are mainly doing it for themselves.

They're mainly selfish, even the good masks.

But also, Jafar gets turned into a genie, which means that genies can also

be human and back and forth a little bit.

Is that not true?

Well, Jafar, as I said, I mean, you keep on...

All right.

Yeah, but you don't remember this bit.

You've forgotten that bit of Aladdin, haven't you?

Yes.

At the end,

they trick him into wishing that he becomes a genie.

His final wish,

the genie.

Oh, and then guess what they do?

Guess what they do?

Put him in a lamp?

Correct.

Put him in a lamp.

Seal the lamp up.

At that point, then it's easy to connect the dots.

But yeah, people can only become genies that way if they wish to become a genie.

That is the only way.

You can't just become a genie any other way.

Yeah, yeah, that's just.

And James isn't that sort of genie.

There are no other wishes other than food-based ones.

Got it.

Love it.

I'm just a food genie.

Okay.

You like food, right?

I have a very.

I think about food more than I think about anything else.

And it's every single day.

I wake up in the morning.

I go to bed at night.

I decide what I'm going to eat all day the next day.

The next day I wake up, I review the plan, and I'll sort of call an audible if I need to.

You know, I'm not locked in.

I'm fluid, I'm flexible.

But I think

a lot about food.

And

before I go to a restaurant, I've already seen the menu and decided what I'm gonna how far in advance?

Sometimes days.

Excuse me.

Three to four days in advance, and then I'll sort of revisit the it's obsessive.

I'll revisit the

my decision every day.

And then if I go there and the menu is slightly different, I'm very upset about that.

That's annoying when that happens.

I hate that.

Yeah.

How flexible are you?

Would you plan something three to four days in advance?

And then when you get to the restaurant, if you see them bringing out another dish for another table and it looks good, will you go for that or will you stick rigidly to your decision?

I will probably stick rigidly to my decision and then be filled with regret at not getting the thing that other people get.

Emily will go to a restaurant, Emily, my wife, who you guys have met,

and she'll look at the menu and she'll, it's the first time she's looking at a menu.

I cannot believe it.

She has no plan.

And she'll do this thing where, so

I have my favorite restaurants I go to in LA.

Yes.

And I will always get the exact same thing.

Emily will go to her favorite restaurant where she has her favorite thing.

One of her favorite things is this green curry with

fish-like egg.

It's got like a fun name, like dragon egg green curry, something like that it's her favorite thing it's top five all time she'll go to the restaurant where they have that yeah the best version of it and she'll just get something else it makes no sense to me but then every fifth or sixth time she'll find a new favorite thing well that's the thing I think if you're going to a restaurant where you know they do your favorite thing you you believe in their you believe in their cooking right so they must do some other things that can be up there sure but why take the risk why take the risk will she like at least a few times in a row get the same thing when she's just found a new dish she likes?

Or is it straight onto something else?

Well, then she sort of has it in her quiver.

Yeah.

That thing.

She'll get different stuff almost every time.

Do you pretend to be okay with it?

No.

I tell her it's absurd.

What's the point of trying something and finding a great thing if you're not going to get it every single day?

Pretend to be okay with it.

That's not what a marriage is.

Sure, sorry.

Gotta tell her.

You guys are experts in marriages?

Yeah, yeah.

Are either of you married?

Nope.

I've been married.

I'd be engaged.

I'm engaged.

Congratulations.

Thank you very much.

Cheers.

Any tips for it?

Just communication.

Yeah, communication.

If she orders wrong in a restaurant, I'm going to tell her.

Yeah.

Which she does frequently.

It's best to impose your values onto them.

Absolutely.

And mold them.

How you see the world ideally is how you then get them.

This is what I've always thought, but it's good to hear a married guy telling me.

Yeah, 13 years.

13 years.

It's going great.

She agrees with me on everything now.

Ah, well done.

Thank you.

Almost everything.

This food thing, it's been a...

We're working on it.

That's good.

So I have a question for you guys.

Can I do that?

You can.

Absolutely.

So you guys both got a bunch of ice cream.

Delivered each eye.

We did.

We got loads of free ice cream delivered each.

I'd say...

Two freezer trays worth.

Yes.

And how many flavors are we talking about?

20 different flavors, I'd say, because there were lots of little tubs from Jude's.

Yeah, minimum 20.

I think more like 25, maybe creeping up to 30.

Okay.

A lot of flavours.

So, how are you guys approaching getting through this ice cream?

Well, before we answer, I do not think our answers are going to please you.

Okay.

Because I don't think

we've been as smart as we could have been.

No, there's no wrong possible.

I'm not going to be upset at you.

This feels like a trap.

No, it's not a trap.

I promise I won't be upset.

So, I don't know about you, Ed.

The first thing I did was one of the things we got from Snowflake Gelato, they gave us a, like,

like a box of ice cream, where it's like each flavor is like one scoop each.

So it's like little tasters of all their flavours.

I saw the picture.

It's like a sheet of ice cream.

Yes, yes.

A sheet of ice cream with little boxes in it.

Yeah.

Like when you're picking paint.

There's all different colours.

Swatches of ice.

Yeah, that's what it looks like.

Swatches of ice cream.

I began my ice cream adventure by having a taste of each one of them.

Oh, wow.

Completely on board.

So that's okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

So I waited to see what each one of those was like and tried them and really liked the Raspberry Sorbet personally as my favourite one.

I've not touched the swatch.

I've not gone near the swatched sheet yet, no.

And you're going to be really annoyed with what I've done.

It's a slippery slope, just so you know, the sheet.

Because you do, then it basically just, because it's all just so little, but it adds up.

I ate quite a lot of cake-based products yesterday because I was very hungover.

And I thought, oh, I'll have a bit of ice cream with those things.

And I've only eaten one flavor from all of the ice cream we've got.

What?

Vanilla.

Oh, you moron.

Ed?

If I was allowed to kick you out of the restaurant, I would.

Look, but it's really good vanilla.

It's not in my...

But I'm thinking, get that out of the way, and then I can crack on with the more exciting one.

So

you started with the least exciting one that you knew was going to be

and it's fine, it's you know, it's still tasty, and you're hungover, so the standards are lower, you don't want to waste exactly.

I want to be sharp for the good flavour, we could die at any second, any of us.

And you want to just have the worst flavor of ice cream and then die, yeah.

But I did have it with other stuff, so there was a lovely walnut cake I had yesterday, and a brownie

cake.

You know that that's the worst looking color cake, it's delicious.

Walnut cake, that is my fiancé's mum makes a walnut cake with caramelized pizza.

It sounds terrible, it's so good, No, I'm sure it's good.

It sounds good.

Walnut cake's great.

Is it?

You like it?

No,

it's not.

If I'm going to pick, it's not top 10 cakes.

No, not top 20.

Sure, but you've not had this walnut cake, and I know that my fiancé's mum listens to this podcast.

And I'd like to say, shout out to your walnut cake.

I'm going to back it till the day I die.

Yeah, you've got to.

People for an easy life is that it's nice.

Which I hope is not tomorrow because my dad has ever had a lot of vanilla.

Hello, as fiancé's mum.

Your walnut cake sucks.

And I'm somewhere in the middle.

It's not my favorite, but hey, I like it.

And I also had a halva brownie yesterday.

So I thought the vanilla would go very nice with that.

Yeah, it's nice.

Well, here's the thing that's interesting that you guys have with British cuisine, I've noticed that we don't have as much is there's a lot more influence of international foods that then gets incorporated into traditional foods.

So you'll see like halva in cakes, or you'll see a lot of like rose flavor and stuff.

In America, it's not that common.

Like you guys incorporate like tahini into desserts a lot.

Like it's fairly common to see like Middle Eastern flavors, Indian Pakistani flavors in traditional British sweets.

And there it's really not as common at all.

It's like pretty separate unless you go to a specific fusion place and those are generally not great.

But then is your...

It's most of your.

Actually, I don't know.

Is that like all across Britain, do you think?

Yeah, I don't know.

Obviously, like we live in London, so

we're little London boys.

We're little London boys.

Some flak for, which is fair enough.

If we're talking about London too much.

But yeah, obviously

it's a larger melting pot of communities in London.

So it feels like...

Yeah.

And the food seems quite sort of...

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I don't know if that's the case.

We definitely have the attitude there of like the some people are like, I don't, I only eat American food.

I don't eat tacos.

I don't want weird stuff in my dessert.

And that's definitely a pretty common stance, I would say.

It's very sad.

It's very upsetting.

I had an argument with a friend of mine who was like, and a pretty good friend of mine who was like, the only good food is American food and maybe Italian.

He's like, I was like, Thai food?

He's like,

I would never eat Thai food.

I was like, he's never.

Who is this guy?

His name's Joe DeRosa.

He's a comedian.

Joe DeRosa?

Yeah.

I've heard Joe DeRosa.

We didn't get onto food because otherwise.

So here's what I was going to say: how I would approach eating the ice cream, which is a combination of both your approaches.

What I would do, because I thought about it when you sent me the pictures.

Yes.

I would.

I think my pictures wouldn't be ice cream for sure.

I was very upset.

I would take a bite of every single flavor, very small bite.

Yes.

I would sort of rank them in my head from best to worst.

Yeah.

And then I would eat them in reverse order.

So I would start with the worst one, finish it, and then work my way up to the best one.

Now, again, Mr.

Flexible, you know, maybe some days I'll be like, oh, I want to try the maple, whatever, even though that's higher on the list, I'll skip a couple and get to that.

So that's what I would do.

How would you feel, though, if you eat the first one, which is your least favorite, and then you're eating the second one, and then a man comes in and shoots you?

If I get killed by a man in my home while eating ice cream, the flavor of the ice cream I'm eating is not going to be my biggest complaint.

But you just lay there dying and go, I wish I tried that.

Definitely not.

I should have just eaten that flavor.

If it was James, as the man came in and lifted the gun, he'd be diving to the freezer to get the flavoury one from us.

Yeah, yeah.

Wait, one second.

You can kill me, but I just want to have it.

All I have is walnut cake.

Shit.

Have a flavor.

So we always start, Camel, with a...

still or sparkling water is your your choice at the start of the meal.

Okay.

Before we bring everything out.

What's your preference?

It changes all the time, but I'm going to go with still because it's a nice neutral water and it won't, for me, get in the way of these amazing flavors I'm going to be tasting.

So I'm going still

still water.

So that implies that the sparkling water will get in the way of the flavors.

It's an experience and I'm really looking for...

To me, drinking sparkling water is something where I'm really looking for nothing when it comes to water for this particular meal.

So you almost want to prepare the mouth, not excite the mouth.

I'm not looking to excite the mouth with water.

It's too much personality, the sparkle.

That's exactly.

Too much of an event.

Too spicy.

Too much of an event.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I want, like, yeah, I want my water to be completely default, normal, room temp, even.

I don't want any ISIS.

You don't even notice it's in your mouth.

No.

It's just so that, just to, you know.

Do you want us to like

up to a drip?

Yeah, maybe an IV.

So you just hydrate me and water it.

And then it doesn't go anywhere near the mouth.

You don't have to.

Oh, yeah.

Or we could just spritz it into the air so it just sort of absorbs through the skin.

No, I don't want to spritz because then I feel like I'm sweating.

And I'm going to be sweating through this meal anyway.

Good.

Are you a sweater?

Am I a sweater?

If I eat spicy food, and I love spicy food, even if it's slightly spicy, I start sweating profusely, even if it's well below my threshold of spice.

But I start sweating immediately.

Emily said that I should have a reality show called Sweating in Restaurants with Kamal.

And it's just me going to very spicy restaurants.

I would watch that.

Yeah, I would, totally.

It's not pleasant to watch a man sweating.

Well, I don't know.

I think there are shows where you eat someone eats a spicy thing and you're like...

You could be one of the new jackass boys.

I'm a jackass boy.

Yeah, yeah.

I couldn't be a jackass.

You'd be on jackass, you could be sweating, and there'll be a lot of people.

But it's just

Kamale, I think.

No, but by the whole franchise, and Kamal's just the new jackass.

Do you think like Steve Owen Bam would be there puking up while he's looking at what you're sweating going?

He's sweating so much.

And all that.

It is going to be pretty gross, so they might be sweating about it.

Yeah.

Okay.

So

that's a good insight into what we're about to hear.

So

we might have a sweaty man on our hands by the end of this.

You're definitely going to have a sweaty man.

In the dream restaurant, you can wear whatever you like as well.

Yes.

And so if you want to wear anything specific that helps with the sweating.

I'm also looking for a very, if I can wear anything, I'm going to wear something very neutral and comfortable.

Again, I don't want the clothes to be part of the experience.

You don't want any clothes that you're going to look down and you're like, oh, I'm so jazzy today.

Yeah.

You just want to.

Or anything uncomfortable.

I want clothes I can barely feel.

A gown?

A gown?

I'm wearing pajamas.

Well, if you want to be naked in the restaurant, we won't stop you.

I'm not going to be naked.

That's due.

That's too disposed.

Also, then we need to talk about the chair and what kind of chair you have.

Do we want like a chair that you cover?

Do you want to have this whole meal in a flotation tent?

Yeah, a sensory deprivation tank would be ideal.

So it's just the taste of the food.

So all you've got is the food.

We can sort that out.

No, I want like a dimly lit restaurant.

Even though a good, you can tell a good Pakistani Indian restaurant, at least in America, by the lighting.

The lighting has to be terrible for it to be good.

It has to have like hospital lighting.

Yeah, yeah.

Fluorescent white lighting.

That's how you know it's going to be good.

So that's what you want us to get the fluorescent lights out.

But not in this place.

No, I want a dimly lit restaurant.

Okay.

Dimly.

A dimly lit restaurant.

Dimly lit, and you're wearing pajamas.

I'm wearing pajamas.

There's some candles, but

yeah, not every table gets a candle.

How let me put you up to a a water drip.

Oh, and I'm hooked up to a water drip and I've got a wall to my back.

So I'm in the corner of the restaurant.

At the moment it sounds like you're in a hospital cafeteria.

Sounds good, though.

Yeah, these pajamas with no back, right?

Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just the little, yeah, and I'm wearing those plastic slippers, yeah.

I can get you all those.

Easy.

Popadoms or bread.

Pop-dubs on bread, Kamale.

Pop-dums or bread.

Bread is just more versatile.

Oh, for this meal?

For this meal?

Oh, I'll get papadim.

Yes.

Oh, yes.

Okay.

Yeah, generally, you know, if I'm giving up one for the rest of my life.

Uh-huh.

But that's not the question.

That's not the question.

We're not making you give anything up.

I'm getting papadums.

From anywhere in particular?

Is there the best ones you've ever had?

Oh.

No, I don't think I've.

The only time papadoms aren't good is when they're stale.

I think as long as they're fresh, pretty good.

Yeah.

And there's so many different kinds, you know.

There's like the thin ones, there's the thicker, cracklier ones.

There's many different kinds of papadims.

But then you wouldn't have a preference between those ones?

Considering this is meant to be the best meal you've ever had, whichever kind you want.

I want definitely the really thin yellow ones, which I consider sort of the basic default papadum.

Yeah.

I want most of those because that's going to be the.

But then I want a smattering of all the other ones.

So that I can, I'll start with the basic one and I don't mean basic as a as any kind of negative thing sure

and then I'm sort of changing up the feel I'm changing up the so where would you go you're you're starting on the the thin round yellow one yeah where we where we where we're going now I'm doing yes go sorry I just need for the listener to let them know that James is sort of doing it like he's DJing yeah yeah yeah like you're sort of the the popper doms of the vinyl and you're just moving them around

DJ DJ popper

DJ popper

I'm doing a lot of the basic ones first,

until I've had my fill.

And then I'm going to

a thicker one than the little round ones.

And then I'm going back to, because now I'm hungry again for the basic ones.

So I'm going back to the basic ones.

Back to the OG.

Yeah.

Because for me, it's always, this is why I asked you guys the ice cream question.

If I have a plate with five things, I go in reverse order of what's the most exciting.

Yes.

So I'm ending with the thing I love the most.

I think I got it from my grandfather.

And so I'm making sure the last bite is the basic pop.

So I'm finishing everything else and I'm saving that.

So if you ever look at my plate, you'll know immediately what my favorite thing is and what my least favorite thing is.

I was also taught to do that mainly as a way of eating vegetables.

So it was always eat your vegetables first if you don't like them as much, just so you've eaten them and then you've got your thing you like best at the end.

But my grandma does the opposite.

She was one of nine kids.

So they used to bring the food and all the stuff used to go like so quickly.

So you always eat the nice thing first.

Prison rules.

Yeah, prison rules.

Oh, yeah.

She grew up in prison as well.

Yeah, yeah.

With only eight other kids.

Yeah.

Like a workhouse.

Like an Oliver kid.

Yeah, exactly.

Like an Oliver kid.

Yeah.

Oliver kid?

Yeah.

Edge Nam was an Oliver kid.

Pickpocket.

Oh, like an Oliver Twist kid.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, Oliver Twist kid.

Okay, okay, okay, okay.

Working in a workhouse with all the other kids trying to get the pockets.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Quick fingers, yeah.

Yeah.

So you've got all of these different popadoms.

All separate, or do you want us to do you a mega popadom, which has got all of them incorporated into one?

Oh, wow.

I do not want a mega.

It looks like a popadom.

Like it looks like a pie chart.

Yeah, I don't want that.

I do not want that.

Like a pizza with all, every slice is a different food.

I understand it is perfect.

I don't want it.

You don't want it.

Because I don't like my food to mix at all.

It has to be, ideally,

every plate I have is going to have like little sections.

Like prison rules.

Like prison rules.

Exactly.

Exactly.

I just don't want any of the food that's not supposed to mix, mix, because, and I'm going to be vague here.

I don't know who's listening.

There was a figure in my life who I didn't like who would get a bunch of food on a plate and mix it all up and eat it as a bite, like five or six different things mixed up into one bite.

And I would watch and go, I'm gonna live my life the exact opposite way.

So I like my food to be completely separate.

Another rule I've set for myself, because I've thought a lot about this.

I got very stressed out about this podcast, which I'm sure a lot of people do.

Yeah, yeah.

Everyone gets it.

People who care about it get stressed about it, I think.

Yeah, sure.

I think Vittoria Cohen Mitchell got stressed about it.

No, she's disrespectful.

Who?

Vittoria Cohen Mitchell.

I hope you never meet her.

Who's she?

She winds you up, meat.

She just winds up people who like food.

She chooses really plain things.

Deliberately.

Oh.

What was her dessert?

An apple or some shit?

It was rice pudding, I think, wasn't it?

Rice pudding.

So, you know, it's nice to have someone who's

passionate.

Oh, so passionate.

I set a rule because I was like, you know, I'm not going to pick bullshit like Grandmother's Biryani and stuff like that.

I'm not looking to tug at the heartstrings or make him money.

This is about food.

Yeah.

And it's not about memories.

Yes.

And food I can get at restaurants.

That's what I've picked.

Because otherwise it gets all muddy and

I'm not here to move people.

I'm here to pick the best

food that I can get at restaurants.

So that's the rule I set for myself

to eliminate

bullshit like grandmother's biryani and stuff.

Sure.

We're living in a post-regaturi world where everyone always wants to link it to memory.

Oh my god.

that's exactly right.

Yeah, and you're cutting through that, going, Let's stop.

Let's stop with this.

Right, right, right, right, right, right.

Yeah, you want to go back to before Ratatouille, right?

Before Ratatouille, when food was food and not linked to memory in your life.

Pre-Ratatouille, the only food film was Willy Wonka.

That was about eating what you liked and having a good time.

Yeah.

It wasn't about like, oh, I used to eat this when I was a kid and now it's reminding me.

I hate that stuff.

Anyway,

so this is going to be a completely emotionless meal.

Just about

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With that in mind, let's have your emotionally dead starter, please.

So this was...

Am I supposed to show my work?

Is it...

You can, if, yeah, absolutely.

I think we, yeah, we can.

Yeah, we want to hear that.

I mean, most people may be.

It's nice that you have workins.

Right.

Do you know what I mean?

So it's been very difficult.

The appetizer has been the hardest thing for me to pick.

Right.

Because I am generally not necessarily an appetizer person.

Also, maybe first person on the podcast to refer to it as an appetizer.

Yes, I think so.

Or what do you guys call them?

Starter?

Starter.

But it's nice to hear you say it.

It's nice that it's inside.

It's a different approach.

Yeah.

Why do you think of them as appetizers and not starters?

Because I feel like they're getting me hungry for the main thing.

Interesting.

It's more, I guess that sort of speaks to how I think of them.

Because

an appetizer would suggest you think it's before the meal starts.

Right.

Rather than at the official opening of the meal.

It's a runway, it's not the actual flight.

So again, it's like the emotionally dead thing.

Like

starters, we're like, we're starting.

It's exciting.

And you're like, this is the function of this.

This has to be.

This is to get me ready.

Yeah, this is the preview, not the movie.

This is still like, I don't want to, you know.

So I'm not a big appetizer person.

I don't generally

get them.

Yeah.

Okay.

I will

if very, very rarely, because I want to get to it.

I'm here to see Joker.

I don't want to know about other shit that's coming out in three months.

Every now and then I will order a soup, but it's pretty rare.

Yeah.

And so I did consider soups, and I dismissed them because I was like, if I'm picking my favorite meal, soup's not really going to be part of it.

I like texture.

Not that soup does not have texture, but it's not the texture that I associate with.

Soup, absolutely not.

No.

I'm so glad you didn't pick soup.

Yeah, soup is not a good start.

That's another little Ebenezer Scrooge meal, isn't it?

Yeah.

It is.

We're on Dickens again.

Yeah, it's properly.

It's so Dickensian.

Do you know what?

It's pretty impressive that soup has lasted as long as it has in terms of

that we're still eating soup.

Yeah.

And

also, stop trying to make soup happen, people, because they're trying to make soup hipster.

Oh, yeah.

There's a place in Old Street Station called Ninkum Soup.

I'm not going anywhere near that.

Ninkum soup.

But it's not trying to make soup.

Oh, trendy.

They're calling you an idiot for liking soup.

Yeah, exactly.

They're rubbing it in your face.

Who wants a whole restaurant of soup?

That's the section on the menu you ignore.

Yeah.

Unless it's.

Shout out to Lobster Beesk.

Okay.

Well, sure.

But that's creamy.

It's delicious.

It's filling.

It's a whole meal, right?

Yeah, it's a whole meal.

Yeah.

You can get that at a place called Imbisk Seal.

Oh, Beesley.

Seal.

I like it.

Luigi.

The thing thing is, it was excellent.

Was that your best?

Yeah.

I think it was.

Sadly.

I am seal.

I'm okay with it.

Imbiscale.

Imbisc seal.

You know what I'm trying to do.

Yeah, I get it.

Imbecile.

I think you did it.

I don't think you're trying.

I think it's great.

Yeah, yeah.

Probably what's better written down.

Yeah, if I am going to criticize anything,

it would be the lack of confidence in the delivery.

Because I think you should have gone for it.

I should have just gone for it.

We were both on board.

Yeah, but as I was

confident, it's not your thing.

It's not not your type of humor, really.

I didn't enunciate it very well.

No, you didn't.

There were three question marks in one word.

M-B-S-S-E-L.

Go for it.

Exclamation point at the end of a pun, baby.

Yeah, yeah.

So no soup.

So no soup.

So then I was like, is it something that, am I picking something that I get quite often

or am I picking something that I don't get to eat that I really love?

So my first option was there's a restaurant in LA called Jitlada, which is like a pretty famous Thai restaurant.

Yes.

And the woman who owns it always gets selfies with famous people.

And I've been trying to get on her Instagram for a very long time, and it has not worked.

And it is a source of some consternation.

And my friends know it, and they'll send me screen caps of her Instagram.

Like, look, Eric Andre's on it again.

And I'm like,

it's very upsetting.

Anyway, one time I went with a friend.

She got a selfie with my friend.

What?

Who's your friend?

The queen.

Ron Funches.

My friend is the queen.

Sorry if they're the most famous person.

Anyway.

Funches, I'll get a selfie with Funches.

He's a cool guy.

Whose side are you on?

Is he here?

Come on, could you get Funches on this podcast?

Well, he's a big soup guy.

Sleepy Funches, they call it.

So they have an appetizer starter called Crying Tiger Beef, which I really love.

And it's little strips of beef that that are already quite flavorful and spicy.

And then there's a dipping sauce with it that's like sour and very spicy.

And it's really, really very good.

So that would be the one that I was going to pick.

But then I thought, you know what?

I'm going with panipuri.

Do you guys know what that is?

No.

So it's a Pakistani dish.

And I'm using it as an appetizer, even though sometimes it can be.

Do you guys know what chaot is?

Have you guys heard that word?

Chaat?

Yes.

Although,

it can be nailed down on exactly what it is.

i i had a nice uh there's a place called mogli in

there's one in birmham there's one in liverpool little little

chain in england and they do these chart bombs and they're amazing they're like in bombs they're bombs so they're in like it's the chart it's in paste it's in like a very crispy pastry thing it's not orthodox

well but i love it well that what you're talking about might be similar to what i'm choosing so puri is like it's sort of like a crispy little pastry, and you get a bowl of like spicy water

and you put, and you have a bowl of chickpeas and a bowl of like potatoes, and they're all spiced differently.

So, you poke a hole in the pastry, you put in a little bit of potatoes, you put in a little bit of the chickpeas, and then you get a spoon of this water, and you put it in there, and then you have to slam it into your mouth because it's going to start dripping.

Because the pastry is not meant structurally to hold water for a very long period of time.

Yes.

So, and it's a type of chaat, and chaat is sort of like it's a genre of Pakistani Indian food that's like generally doesn't have meat, generally vegetarian, and it's usually a mix of flavors, so it'll be something crispy and textured.

So it'll be crispy, soft, sweet, sour, spicy.

It's all sorted together.

Sometimes there's like yogurty stuff on it.

So I am choosing Pani Puri as my appetizer because I really, really love it.

And it's kind of hard to find.

And if I'm at my,

you know, if I'm at a magical genie restaurant,

that's what I want.

It's also called Golgappa.

Right.

Right.

It sounds delicious.

It sounds very similar to the thing I had.

And it'll show you a picture of it.

It also sounds like an appetizer.

Like you say, it's got all the flavor, all the flavor profiles in there.

Right.

So it's getting the mouth warmed up.

You're ready for anything.

Yeah.

Right.

You have a preview.

You know, in a painting, they say that the colors are supposed to be balanced.

So if someone's wearing a red shirt, there should be like a red leaf somewhere.

This is the red red leaf so so every flavor that i'm expecting in my that was that was a very good observation actually

every flavor that i'm going to be getting over the course of this meal i'm getting previewed in in this

very clever yeah you're foreshadowing the whole meal yeah it's very good um i'm very happy with my choice also you were saying about this some construction required here yes do you want to do that or do you want no i do it you want to do it yep as

I'm full of contradictions, guys.

Oh, so it's this.

This is what it is.

Is it?

Yeah, that's what it looked like.

That's how the pastry looks like.

Yes, I think I have had that before, but I can't remember the name.

Mine was very yogurty.

My

yogurt kind of stuff in there.

It was yogurt in the bombs.

Yes.

And too much yogurt?

No, I loved it so much.

Okay, okay.

It was a lot.

Like when you bet into it, it was more than you expected, but I liked that surprise.

It was great.

We were at a restaurant.

It was one of those fancy ones where you get like 12 courses, and they had pani puri, but in chocolate.

So it was chocolate, and then it had instead of, it had like a spicy yogurty filling.

And it was called, I think it was called a bomb, some kind of bomb.

And it was very interesting.

As someone who for years resisted

fusion-y food, I always like very traditional stuff.

Recently, I've relaxed these arbitrary rules I've set for my life in many ways that I realize have just been making me more stressed out.

I've gotten more into foods that are sort of fusion-y or like old recipes prepared in new ways, that kind of stuff.

So Panipuri is what I'm opening with.

And it's a street food, so you in Pakistan generally get it like at carts on the street and stuff.

Would you like us to bring a cart in?

To serve it to you?

That would be great.

I love that kind of stuff.

If I order a dessert, I want someone to bring a cart and make it in front of me.

I want it to be a whole production.

I went to a restaurant called, I think it's called Gautier, but I'll check that.

They did

a vegan tasting menu, and the first dish was carrot tartare, and they brought out a big meat grinder and put carrots through the meat grinder, and it was absolutely delicious, but I think half of it was watching someone.

It was like a performance art piece.

I've never seen someone grind a carrot in my life.

There you go.

Get a Gautier.

Where is this place?

Soho.

So we should go.

Are Are you vegetarian?

No.

No, so I was eating more vegan stuff around then, but I'd do that again anyway, because it's

great.

A lot of good vegan stuff out there now.

Yeah.

Get to your carrot get grinded.

Yeah.

It took me a long time also to be like,

I also heard rules where I was like, it's not a meal if it doesn't have meat.

And I know that that's a very bad way of thinking.

And I also...

I'm going to say it on this podcast to sort of try and maybe keep myself to it.

I am going to try and go vegetarian next year.

Okay.

Okay.

In March.

I've set a date.

Yes.

And I've told my vegetarian vegan friends to follow up with me in March.

Uh-oh.

Make sure I at least try.

Now, why March?

Have you got loads of meals planned up until March?

Yeah, I have to go eat a bunch of goats.

No, because

the job I'm working on right now, I have to be on a very specific diet.

Right.

And that's till February.

It's like very,

it's just like all my meals are very planned out.

I have two cheat days and I can sort of eat whatever I want, but the rest of it, I can't gain or lose any weight for the next five months.

Wow.

And so I'm going to go until February.

Then February, I'm going to go nuts and eat everything I want.

And then March, I'm going to try and go vegetarian.

How easy was that at the start?

Having a switch to a different diet and you've got to be way more regimented and strict with yourself?

Actually, it was easier because

so I

have my relationship with food has always been very complicated in that I feel a lot of guilt about it.

I remember very specifically, Kentucky Fried Chicken had opened in Pakistan and it was weirdly like a fancy, expensive restaurant when it opened.

And I went there and I was maybe 13 and I ate a bunch of fried chicken and it was fucking amazing.

And then later I felt like extremely guilty about it.

And so I've had a pretty complicated rel I don't want to say I have an eating disorder or anything because I don't, and people have actual, you know, I don't want to minimize the

things that people deal with.

It's not that, but I have a lot of guilt associated with food.

And so every day when I would wake up, I plan my meal and if I've planned to eat something unhealthy, I'm already started.

I'm already starting on the guilt.

Sure.

So days before, if I've planned I'm going to have like sticky toffee pudding in three days, that's three days of guilt leading up to it

and then a couple days of guilt after it.

And so the good thing about these regimented meals, which only started about two months ago when I started working on the movie,

is that it takes all that out of it.

And they say you can eat whatever you want for two days a week and it's all done with science.

Yeah.

And so it makes me feel less guilty about sort of...

Also, it's a job, right?

So

you've got to eat the red kinds of stuff because you're but that's part of what you're being paid for that's right yeah that's exactly right so I really changed my diet in the last six months because I was like I'm going to get into the best shape of my life and so it required a it sort of became a little unhealthy for a while and it's still probably a little unhealthy but um so the last six months food wise have been a real adventure for me.

It's been a lot of different things.

I've tried a lot of different weird diets too.

I don't know if that's in the scope of this podcast.

Yeah, sure.

That's definitely.

Weird diets in the scope of it.

What's the weirdest one?

The hardest one for me was keto.

Do you guys know keto?

No.

Keto is where you eat no carbs at all, basically.

So it's less, you try and keep to under like 20 grams of carbs, which is

hard.

It's nothing.

Yeah.

Right.

Because the idea is, I don't know if this is interesting.

The idea is that you have no carbs in your system and your body runs on on carbs, so your body switches into a different mode called ketogenic and it starts turning fat basically into energy it can use.

And so you lose weight because your body switches into a different mode.

But

it takes five days to go ketogenic and you get the keto flu, it's called, which is where you get brain fog, so your brain doesn't work well because basically your body is kind of not functioning for a few days.

And

it upsets your stomach.

It's a mess.

And so that was the hardest one I did.

Your brain stopped working.

That's got to be a sign that it's not a good diet, right?

That's a warning sign.

It's called brain fog, yeah.

Brain fog.

Yeah.

That's not good.

Is there carbs in ice cream?

I think.

A couple carbs.

Maybe two or three carbs.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah,

it's not good.

Brain fog and no ice cream makes James a hungry boy.

I think there is keto ice cream, but I can't imagine it's any good.

It's supposed to be high fat.

You're supposed to eat a lot of fat on this diet.

A lot of protein as well, I guess.

A lot of protein.

A lot of fat, right.

Is there a lot of protein and a lot of fat in your main course?

Good segue.

So

there is.

So now I'm going for, if this is a meal, there's no guilt associated with it, I can eat whatever I want.

I am going to pick.

I can tell before you've said this that you already feel guilty, even though it's not, even though it's not real, right?

And I'm not sure we can do anything about the guilt.

The guilt is something that you bring with you to the dream.

Right, and I will take with me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no.

No, it's leaving.

Please leave with your guilt.

Yeah, we can't help you around.

No, no, no.

The next get who comes in here, like, why does it feel all

so guilty?

Why do I feel like, yeah, while I'm

tidying up the water drip?

So my main course,

and I've thought a lot about this, is going to be Grandmother Spiriani.

I am sorry.

I'm an unreliable narrator.

I couldn't get away from it.

I set these rules, and then at the end, I just couldn't keep to it.

Rules are made to be broken.

I really, because I was like, if there is one thing that I can eat in a magical restaurant, it has to be that.

It has to be that.

But I'm guessing, to kind of stay true to your rules, it's not because of memory.

It's just objectively delicious.

It's just objectively the best thing I've literally eaten in my entire life.

And

the biryani from Karachi, which is where I'm from, and the way my grandmother makes it, has a lot of potatoes in it.

Now, this is a controversial thing where some people think potatoes are sacrilege in biryani.

I think you need potatoes in biryani.

And of course you know you have meat, you have mutton or chicken or something.

Usually mutton is the best version.

And then some people,

but I have rules about biryani that go the other way.

No nuts.

I don't want cashews in my biryani.

Right, absolutely.

No raisins.

I don't want raisins.

Good boy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Raisins kind of ruin everything.

Well, I'd say so.

Unless you're just having a little box of raisins.

That's the only way raisins are good.

Yeah, like a little box of raisins.

Just raisins are good.

Because they're ruining everything else.

That texture doesn't go with anything but itself.

I like chocolate raisins.

I like raisins with nuts.

This is incorrect.

They're just on their own.

With nuts.

Raisins and nuts together, but just not with anything else.

Just like in a bowl.

I'll give you that, but the chocolate with the raisins are good.

Oh, I don't like chocolate with raisins.

I like yogurt raisins as well.

You know, when they're like covered in

hard yogurt?

I am being

surrounded by betrayal.

Yeah.

But

I think, especially in savory things, absolutely not.

Absolutely not.

So, this biryani, so biryani has been my favorite food my whole life.

Yeah.

This is true.

When I was, my parents have called me Kamal Biryani instead of Kamal Nanchiani for many, many years.

They said when I was two years old, this is my two years old.

Apparently, my grandmother cooked some biryani, and it was a big, big

dinner party.

And they found me sitting in the pot of biryani, eating it with my hands.

They told me this.

I found out decades later, it was a lie.

That did not happen.

My dad just said it to make my mom laugh, which I'm like, you guys have been married for decades.

I think you don't need to flirt anymore.

The deal is sealed.

It's in the bag, dad.

And so, so, so, but that was my origin story.

I was like, oh, this is so like it.

A superhero origin story.

You fell into a pan of biryani.

I don't.

I just love the flavor of it.

And what's, so there's like, it's layers, right?

Yeah.

I know I'm regressing because that's the best I could come up with.

I like the flavor of it.

Yeah.

No, no, no.

As soon as you said your family called you Kamal Biryani, I was like, James is not going to stop laughing at you.

Yeah, I can't stop laughing at you being called Kamal Biryani.

I can't also, what you said about falling into the pot of biryani and found eating it, and that and just the fact it was a lie, that you were being told it.

So, like, I just imagine the lies like, and when we came out and you were sitting in that pot, and you'd eaten all the biryani, and you were two years old, but you looked up at us and you said, More, please.

Yeah, my first words were, Biryani, more, please.

All lies.

I love the whole thing.

And then, my dad, when I told him,

when he told me it was a lie, it wasn't like I have to tell you.

He was like, it was very dismissive.

He was like, yeah, it was a lie.

I was like, what?

And he's like, yeah, imagine how hot a pot of biryani is.

You think you crawled in there?

And if a pot is full, there's no room for you to crawl in.

So he's like, just the physics doesn't work.

You know how when you're a little kid, you hear something and then you don't question the logic of it.

And then in your 20s, you look at it again and you're like, oh no, there's no way that could have happened.

It's like a pet going to live on a farm.

Exactly.

Yeah, sure.

But it's a baby sitting in a pot of biryani.

So it's layers.

It's layers.

Take us through the layers.

And so at the bottom is sort of the potatoes and the the the curry and the meat and you cook that first and then you put raw rice on it and then you cover it up so that when it cooks all the fragrance of the curry sort of cooks through the rice.

It's very slow cooked.

And there's the so there's the rice on top, which is mostly plain rice.

Then as you get I'm having trouble.

As you get get closer to the bottom the rice becomes more and more flavorful and you can start seeing the colors of the the the base in the rice as you get to the bottom and then at the bottom is the most flavor so when you're getting biryani you have to sort of go straight down yeah yeah so you get all the different layers of it so you get you want to get some of the plain rice just to mix it up

then you get the flavorful rice and then at the bottom you get that and then uh god i'm struggling and then there's you get enough potatoes And I don't know how my grandmother did it, but her potatoes had flavors right through the middle, and they would be very orange, like, like, not yellow.

So, whatever she was doing to it was like changing the color of the potatoes.

And the potatoes are very, they're very soft, these potatoes.

They melt in your mouth.

Has this recipe been passed down your family?

So my mother makes it too.

And my mother's is very, very, very good.

My mother is probably the best cook I know, other than my grandmother.

But

there is maybe a 5% difference, 3%.

My grandmother's is 3% better.

And I can't tell you what the difference is.

But if you blindfold me, I would be able to pick them up.

You better know.

Yeah, it's not just a psychological thing.

There is a very, very small difference.

Imagine if we blindfolded you to do the taste test, when you took the blindfold off, you were sitting in a pot of berries.

We've done it.

Oh, my God.

Oh, that would be amazing.

And so if you see my plate, as I said, I'm working from least to favorite.

I will always have a huge, so I'll get two big pieces of potato.

I'll get meat.

I'll get all that stuff.

One piece of potato to eat with each bite.

So each bite is there's some

plain rice.

There's some of the flavorful rice.

Then there's some of the really good juicy stuff.

Yeah.

And a piece of the potato.

So every bite has sort of everything in it.

And then I'm I'm leaving one piece of potato all the way at the end.

So when I finish everything else, all that's left is one piece of potato.

That's the headliner.

Yes, it's the headliner.

It's orange right to the middle.

And then I eat that very, very slowly.

What do you say before you eat it?

I'm not saying much of anything.

You're going to say, like,

here we go.

Yeah, I made it.

It's all been built into this.

Camel Biriani strikes again?

Yeah.

It'll be great if you say that, though.

Camel Biriani strikes again.

Then he's just eating potatoes.

Eat the potatoes.

And then what I'm doing is, as I'm getting the potatoes out at first, I'm also scoping out how many potatoes I estimate are left in the biryani.

And then I'm looking at other people's plates as I'm eating to see if there are potatoes left.

Because what will happen more often than not is when I eat the final potato,

I want more potatoes.

And so if I've calculated and there are enough potatoes left in the pot pot of biryani, I'm not stressed out.

But if I'm seeing like, okay, this is getting pretty close, then I'm sort of have to eat my biryani pretty fast.

And then to get more biryani.

To get more biryani.

And also to make sure that there's another.

Because I want, you know, I want a full piece of potato.

Yeah.

Because that, it's like unrealized potential.

Sure.

You know, it's the whole thing is there.

So as soon as you you're enjoying the headliner and all you can think about is the encore.

Yeah.

Which is also the headliner again.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

Right, right, right.

Which is what an encore is.

I am so sorry.

It would be awful if you went to a show and the headliner finished, and then the opener did an encore.

What's the popad on come back on?

Yeah.

They're doing the headliner songs for some reason.

They're on twist on it.

And so then...

Then I am not, no matter what happens, that last piece of potato, I am not like going fast through it.

I am working my way slowly through it.

But sometimes, if I'm quite, if I'm pretty shameless, and my family knows

that they know.

They know what the deal is.

I might go back and get another piece of potato as a backup.

And now

the issue I have is, am I eating the really hot, piping hot potato that's the best and then saving a cold one, so it's going to be like one is the best version of it and one is, it's still pretty great, but like closer to not the best version of it or am I eating two sort of lukewarm potatoes?

Am I eating one really hot one and one cold one or am I eating two lukewarm ones?

Because if I start with the other one then yeah.

So you're sort of in a situation where you get your first helping Then you go and get your seconds and you eat your sometimes eat your second helping before you eat the first helping.

That's correct.

Yeah.

Because I'm saving the best part.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I have a question.

Yeah.

All this anxiety and concern over your meal.

I'm also enjoying it.

I want you to be aware of that.

But has it ever gone as badly as you fear it would go?

Has it ever been a reality that it's ever actually gone this bad?

Where the potato's gone?

Where the potatoes have gone, you haven't got anything past the headliner.

Yes.

The last potato was cold.

Yes.

It's all gone badly.

How did you feel after that?

I felt awful and I said, never again.

I should be more anxious about this meal.

There should be more math involved.

Yeah, I mean, the potatoes are a hot commodity.

Yes.

Pun intended.

People are going for the potatoes.

This is not just me.

Everyone knows I love potatoes the most.

Yes.

And there's an unwritten rule, you save Kamal extra potatoes.

Oh, so they know to see if you want.

Yeah.

So it rarely happens that there aren't any potatoes left.

No, but it has happened.

Yeah, it has happened.

Because we're not just eating with the family.

Sometimes there's guests there.

And they don't know about you.

They have not been prepped about the rules.

They're just sitting there juggling potatoes.

They're just eating potatoes.

They're not like putting any thought into the temperature of the potatoes or sieving it for the end.

They're not enjoying the potatoes as much as I would enjoy the potatoes.

Throwing them into each other's mouths across the table.

Yeah, they're sitting there.

They're not filling around and counting potatoes like they're cheating in a casino.

They're really not.

Yeah, potato counting.

That's exactly right.

Oh, God.

Anyway, so that's the main meal, and I'm eating a lot of it.

And Emily says, when we go to, so you guys have amazing Indian Pakistani restaurants here.

LA does not.

And so I can never really order biryani because she says when you get biryani, you sort of go into this other mode and you cannot stop eating it.

So we were at a place a couple days ago, and I ordered the biryani.

And again,

because I have to manage the guilt associated with it, I just kept eating and eating and eating, and I couldn't stop eating the biryani.

It's sort of, I go into a mode and

it's very difficult to break out of.

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So what then is going to happen on the side of the biryani?

Yeah, this is exciting now.

So you've got a side dish to choose.

In my mind, you're going to be so involved in the biryani now.

Yeah, I feel like whatever's on the side is going to get...

The side is going to be extra potatoes.

I was actually going to say that.

You can do that.

Yeah.

You can totally just do extra potatoes that are just for you.

Can I have a plate of potatoes, but they're sort of coming out as I'm finishing one?

Yeah.

So I'm getting.

Yeah.

Okay.

Because here's the other thing: if I, and my parents also said this since I was a kid, if I go to a buffet and I try something and I really like that first thing, I'm not trying anything else.

I'm just getting that one thing over

and over.

And that would link back to your thing of going to your favorite restaurants and only ordering the same dish.

Sort of, yes.

It's very simple.

You should go back and forth at a buffet just getting the one dish.

I have been known to do that.

If one dish is really, really good, yes.

I'll just get the same thing over and over.

Are you worried that other people are going to get it?

It's going to run out your way.

No.

It's a buffet.

They've got a never-ending supply.

You just want to keep riding the wave.

No, there's no finite pot.

Right.

I'm just riding the wave.

That's correct.

Okay.

I think extra potatoes.

Extra potatoes bought out at just the right temperature at just the right time.

Yes.

Which is as hot as possible.

That's the right temperature.

And before you eat it, you shout.

Kamal Biryani strikes again.

So, to drink then, Kamal.

Okay.

What is your ideal drink for this meal?

Okay.

Again,

I had to sort of

I'll show you my work.

Yes.

So I was like, if I go with the bullshit memory-based thing,

I would have to go with, and this is not what I chose.

I remember one night in Pakistan, we went to like a fancy, like

back when I was there in Karachi, the fanciest restaurants were in like nice hotels.

We went to this one on the roof.

I believe it was called Avari Towers.

I believe that was the one.

And on the roof, I tried two things I'd never had in my life.

One was

they had shawarma, like they had the rotating spit, and they were, and you could just go back and get pockets and pockets of it.

And I remember being like, this is the best thing I've ever had.

The other thing that they had that I had never had in my life, and I was probably maybe 10 years old, was floats.

Ice cream floats.

Yes.

And I loved ice cream and I loved Coke.

And to put them together had never occurred to me.

It was the greatest thing.

I remember like, oh my God, it's all been there.

I've had all the ingredients.

Why have I not done this?

And so I kept going back and choosing different ones.

Sprite with chocolate ice cream.

And, you know it because it just sort of melts in there and it gets thick and it just was I couldn't believe it I'm getting tears in my eyes it is an amazing moment we discover that floats it creates a whole new thing as well it's two amazing things and when you put it together you can taste both amazing things separately and it creates a whole new thing and there's a whole new there's a new ineffable thing it's like its own new thing it's not ice cream plus soda does not equal ice cream plus soda.

It equals something more.

Something happens.

There's a chemistry.

There's that little in-between, like, creaminess.

Yes.

With the

closest thing you can get to is cream, is cream soda.

Yeah.

Sure.

Which is, I think, I don't have it very often, but still an amazing drink.

Pudding drink, I used to call it.

Wait, what is cream soda?

Cream soda is like, it's clear like lemonade, but it tastes almost like there's ice cream in it.

Right, right, right.

It's a proper Willy Wonka drink.

Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

That's delicious.

But it doesn't touch an actual flow.

No, because it doesn't have the texture, right?

Yeah, and it doesn't get that delicious scum on the top.

Yeah, it's delicious.

Scum on the top.

Oh, that's scum on the top.

That's right.

Where it's like pushing it to the top.

Yes.

Because evil chemistry has happened.

We could get you a whole glass of scum if you wanted.

I'll get you a glass of scum.

Just say the word.

Also, because that story of you going and getting the coke floats is from your childhood, I'm obviously imagining that at one point they were like, Where's Kamal gone?

And then

there's a little coke float starts wobbling, and then your head pops out wearing the blob blob of ice cream as a hat and it's like, I'm in here, my motherfucker.

This is delicious.

And then slurping up all the scum about you.

My God, yeah.

It's just a bunch of stories of me popping out of food I like.

That you couldn't possibly fit inside.

Like a normal-sized class.

Your head comes out of it.

Yeah, I once got stuck in a tub of ice cream.

I had hypothermia.

It had to take me to the hospital.

What combo are you going with for the dream meal then?

Well, so this is not, I'm not doing

it.

Sorry.

Okay, sorry.

What I am choosing is

it's going to sound unexciting, but I promise you it's very exciting.

So there's a specific Pakistani drink, and we used to get it at a place called Baloch ice cream.

It's called cold coffee, but it's so much more than just cold coffee.

It's basically a shake with coffee in it.

And you can get cold coffee.

You can get cold coffee with ice cream, which is just to also put a scoop of ice cream in there.

And And it's frothy.

It's got scum at the top.

Don't worry, scum.

Oh, don't worry.

There, your scum needs will be met.

And it's just, it was just so delicious and so thick.

Like it would coat your teeth and your tongue.

And I don't know if that was a pleasant feeling, but now...

You just and I remember I would get it and I could not drink it fast enough because again it was if because you if I can finish it fast enough before the adults finish their ice cream I can get another one sure and I'm not an I'm not an asshole I can't order two up top right but if I finish one really really quickly and then the second one I get with ice cream because then I can go slow on the second one.

Yeah

So I remember getting brain freeze from it and just sucking it down as quickly as I could and it just was so so good.

And I looked it up and they still have cold coffee and it is known as a specifically Pakistani drink.

Nice.

And where's it from?

The place where you get it from?

The establishment?

It's called Baloch.

B-A-L-O-C-H.

It's like sort of a Pakistani

ice cream parlor.

And then, you know, later like more Western-y ones came in, but that was the

like the OG one.

It was that, and then there was another ice cream place called Raju that had really good

mango ice cream when it was in season and chico ice cream.

Do you know what chico is?

No.

No.

it's a fruit that i've never seen anywhere else i have

chico fruit it's called a sapodilla what is chico fruit in english sapodilla oh no i never heard of that

so it's a it's like a brown fruit and you you you pop it open so you sort of it'll split into two halves you don't need a knife right and inside there are two big seeds and then the the fruit the meat of the fruit is like pretty grainy so it's got a lot of texture and it's it's very soft.

It's very sweet.

And ice cream with that was really good.

So those were sort of the two big Pakistani ice cream places.

But I'm going with cold coffee.

Cold coffee.

And would you like me to bring you cold coffee and then immediately followed by cold coffee with ice cream?

With ice cream, yes.

No problem.

And that takes us neatly.

It's a nice bridge.

Very nice bridge.

Your whole meal kind of leads it.

nicely one to the other.

It flows very nicely to the dessert.

Your dessert.

It's almost like I've burnt weight and we're starting.

So now the dessert.

Again, a lot of thought has gone into it.

And I have discussed this with you before.

Yes.

I have to go with the matcha French toast at Shack Fouill.

Yeah, boy.

I did it.

Yes.

A funny influence of guests enough to choose a dish on the podcast.

Yes.

This is great news.

I have to because it's just so good.

And it's the dessert that I think about the most.

You do think about it a lot.

Because

it's the textures of it, right?

So

you've got the outside of the toast is pretty crispy.

The inside is like gooey.

It's almost custardy.

Yes.

It's almost like undercooked or something.

And then the ice cream on top.

I usually think ice cream on like French toast or pancakes is unnecessary, but here it really is part of the whole experience of it because that's another texture.

Because the French toast is quite hot and the ice cream is cold, it goes together really well.

And then the powder that they put on it,

usually the powder is just aesthetic.

But here,

the powder is a really important part of the dish.

This is thick, kind of like, the powder's very thick as well.

The powder's

Kinneco is because it's Kinneco French toast with natural.

So it's like a, I think it's like a bean, a sweet bean powder.

I think that's what it is.

Is it?

Yeah.

Kinneco, I think is is the name of the powder.

Yeah.

After the French toast is the ice cream is soft serve as well.

Oh, yeah.

So that as well, really satisfying.

I like a green dessert.

Yeah, I do.

If it's green, I'm already sort of on board.

I remember telling you to try that.

And then you told me afterwards that while you were eating it, you started getting angry at it

for being as good as it was.

Yes, yes.

Because, first of all, I don't like that they give you half a slice of toast.

Give me the whole thing.

Sure.

Where's the other half of this?

Do they have it?

Yeah.

It's not theirs.

They've got my dessert.

Yeah, it's mine.

I don't need two swirls of ice cream.

I can manage that, you know, because I can.

But give me the whole.

Give me the whole.

I went to a, they did a one-night pop-up thing there where they did a crossover menu with Brad O'Staco, so a really good taco place in London.

And they did a riff on that dessert, but it was an ice cream sandwich.

So in the middle.

Oh, no.

So they had the two slices and then the soft serve in the middle and then like a cinnamon syrup over the top of it.

And how was it?

It was delicious, but it felt like too much.

I like the OG classic one.

It took me a while to come to this.

I don't think I like cinnamon.

Yeah, I'm not a big cinnamon guy.

I like cinnamon.

Yeah.

I definitely like it.

Okay, you're having a whole conversation.

I like cinnamon in a simple dessert where it's like the main kind of gist is like cinnamon with maybe some vanilla, but like...

It's very overpowering.

Yeah, that's what I don't know.

I wouldn't chuck it in with a busy dessert.

It needs to be the main player in the dessert, I think.

But I, it took me, you know, and I love Christmas, and cinnamon is sort of a Christmassy flavor, so I associate it with Christmas, and I do like that.

But the actual flavor of it, if we're going to be emotionless about it, cinnamon can stay home.

Yeah, cool.

I'm going to read your order back to you.

See how you feel about this.

You would like still water, room temperature on a drip.

Starting off strong.

Popadoms,

mostly the thin yellow ones with a smattering of the others, but always going back to the mostly thin yellow ones.

Starter is a panipuri and that

foreshadows the whole meal.

Yeah.

Yeah, all the flavours you want.

That's where all your foreshadow is happening.

Main, grandmother's biryani needs potatoes, no nuts, no raisins.

And

you want to sit in the pot of biryani?

If I could,

if that can be arranged,

ideal.

Because I think I've never felt it, but I feel like the feeling of biryani through my toes is going to be pleasant.

I think you will like it a lot.

Bear in mind you're wearing a backless hospital gown.

Yeah, yeah.

That is part of it.

Oh, so I'm really feeling biryani everywhere.

Side dish, extra potatoes, served at just the right time, so pipe and hot.

Drink, cold coffee from Baloch.

Beloch.

And dessert.

Matching with green tea, soft soap ice cream, French toast from Shak Fu Yu.

Yeah.

This is the most worked-up I've ever been on a podcast.

Yeah.

I feel like I felt every emotion.

Yeah.

And you said at the top that it wasn't going to be, there weren't going to be any emotions.

I guess.

But look at this.

I kind of like it.

Do you know what?

Do you know what, Camel?

I love it too much.

Life finds a way.

The mask.

The end where we started.

We quoted the mask.

Thank you very much for coming in, Kamal.

Thank you for having me.

I have to go gather myself now.

I think my life, I have to put myself back together.

Good luck.

Camel Viviani.

Strokes again.

Well, there we have it.

What a meal.

What an emotional roller coaster, even though he said it wouldn't be.

I know he tricked us.

I mean, he tricked us so many times.

Not to do childhood food, there's a childhood food.

Not to be emotional, there's loads of emotion.

So much emotion.

It's great.

I loved it.

I love the revelation about Kamal Biriani.

I loved that so much.

I mean, it's no secret.

You heard how much I loved it.

Lovely and lovely to hear a shout-out for something we're so behind in the dessert.

Oh, I can't believe.

Finally,

I've influenced one of the choices on the show.

I told someone to go somewhere, they had it, and it is their favorite thing.

It's come full circle.

Yes.

Well done, James.

Also glad that he did not mention Star and East head.

Yes, because he would have been out of the restaurant.

No mention for Star and East.

Thank you very much.

Kamale, if you're not aware of any of Kamale's work, you should be.

It's all brilliant.

Look him up.

Do the research, guys.

Do the research, guys.

There's so much stuff.

Watch Silicon Valley.

Watch the Big Sick.

Watch your stand-up.

Get on with it.

Stuba came out this year.

Okay, there's loads of films.

Keep going.

Men in Black.

Well, the latest Men in Black.

What do you play?

The Little Guy in it?

Little alien guy.

It was in

the Charlie Day one where he's going to fight Ice Cube outside.

Right.

School.

Well, you've done really well there, James.

Well done.

We do stuff as well.

Yeah, I mean, you do some stuff, you know.

I've got a book out.

James has got a book out, Perfect Sound Whatever, about why he thinks 2016 is the greatest year for music of all time and special on amazon i've got a special on amazon called blood sugar uh i don't know when this is coming out i might not be on tour but check out my twitter at a gamble comedy and find out more about me thank you don't check out my twitter i'm not on there anymore i'm free he's deleted it

the genie is free the genie is free if you like the sound of any of the restaurants mentioned on this episode of off menu or indeed any of the other episodes of off menu don't tweet us directly asking what they were you could listen to it hear about them or indeed go on on the website offmenupodcast.co.uk and there is a section of restaurants.

It's a list of all the restaurants mentioned and where they are.

Naughty, go and look at that.

Great Benito's made that list for you and Mowgli's getting added to it now.

Go and get the chat bumps.

Oh, man.

Finally, and finally, we can have a Karachi section.

Finally, there's a Karachi section in there.

I like it when a new section gets added, a new place.

Absolutely.

New ground.

Oh, and in Food Corner.

We are absolutely swimming around in this.

Free Food Corner, please.

Free Food Corner.

I mean, this is incredible.

We've been sent some lovely-looking beers uh from station 119

uh they've got beautiful uh hand-drawn labels uh i do like the look of these uh session ipa uh lady mo which is a a donkey mascot of the 96th bombardment group doing during world war ii

they're all like they're all like war-based stuff oh

that's what i want to think of you know station 119 pale ale brewed to celebrate the heroic carrier pigeon g.i joe that's lovely i want to think of a lovely pigeon you're learning while you're drinking learning while you're drinking and all the brave animals from the war we've got some cake or death vegan brownies here.

Dead vegan brownies.

Look at those.

Apparently there's a peanut butter flavour in there that I have my eye and my mouth on.

And Prime Minister sent us some pies today to eat for our lunch.

I mean, that's incredible, isn't it?

I love pie money.

I can't wait to tuck into that.

And James, as was mentioned in this episode of Off Menu,

we got delivered an absolute sack of ice cream.

So much ice cream all on the same day.

It was the happiest day of my life.

From various places.

Jude's sent us a lot of different flavours.

Snowflake?

Avoid gelato.

I already tucked into

the vanilla, so sorry.

Snowflake gelato sent us the swatch of all the different flavours.

Yes.

Remio sent us a few tubs of ice cream.

Lovely tubs.

Gelato that looks chocolate.

Absolutely delicious.

And Hagen does have also sent us some stuff.

Hagen does, thanks.

Thank you.

Hey, that was the last episode of this series.

The last bite.

As you know, we do 20 Eps per S,

and that was the end of S2.

You know, 20

dishes.

That's roughly a tasting menu, isn't it?

Yeah, I think so.

It's a big old tasting menu.

Big old tasting menu.

And they were all full courses, if you ask me.

All wine pairings.

Yes.

So, sad to be saying goodbye for this series, but we will be back, don't you worry, with Series 3.

We're already making a good start on that.

This is not the end for the restaurant.

It is merely

we are working on a new menu.

Yes, and it's a new season.

Yeah, don't worry.

Your stomachs won't be rumbling for long.

You check your feed and your account.

You check the score and the restaurant reviews.

You check your hair and reflective surfaces and the world around you for recession indicators.

So you check all that, but you don't check to see what your ride options are.

In this economy, next time, check Lyft.

A happy place comes in many colors.

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Oh, hi, James.

Have you heard the news?

Oh, yeah, go on.

You and I are modern boys because the Off Menu podcast is now on YouTube.

This is embarrassing.

Why is it embarrassing, man?

You love YouTube.

I love watching clips on YouTube.

Sure.

Now people can watch clips of Off Menu on YouTube and full episodes, but it's embarrassing, man.

It's not embarrassing at all.

It's really cool.

We're on YouTube with the great and good.

The coolest people in the world are on YouTube.

Me, you, Logan Paul.

Who's Logan Paul, the dad from Succession?

At Off Menu Podcast.

That's what Benito's calling us now.

And we're on TikTok.

This is embarrassing, man.

It's not embarrassing, man.

We're cool.

We're like Olivia Rodrigo.

And Ed.

People have been asking us, badgering us, bothering us, actually.

They want to watch the Stephen Graham supercut from the Stephen Graham episodes.

They can see all of his reactions to us, everything that he did.

Or Benito has bent to their whims, and he's going to put it on YouTube.

He's going to do it.

Follow us at Off Menu Official on TikTok.

At Off Menu Podcast.

On YouTube.

You can watch clips from the podcast.

And on YouTube, you can watch full video episodes.

People have been asking for it, and you're finally getting it.

Full video episodes.

So you can see every single nuance on our little faces.