Ep 2: Grace Dent

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

Yes.

Ever heard of the Royal Albert Hall?

I have.

We've done live shows there.

And guess what?

We're doing more live shows there next year.

Sure, a lot of them are sold out already.

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

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

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

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

Those shows have been a lot of fun.

We cannot wait to do them live.

Who will we pull out of our little magic bag?

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

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

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

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

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

The day in between is for reflecting.

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

Let's be real.

Life happens.

Kids spill, pets shed, and accidents are inevitable.

Find a sofa that can keep up at washable sofas.com.

Starting at just $699, our sofas are fully machine washable inside and out.

So you can say goodbye to stains and hello to worry-free living.

Made with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics.

They're kid-proof, pet-friendly, and built for everyday life.

Plus, changeable fabric covers let you refresh your sofa whenever you want.

Neat flexibility?

Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa anytime to fit your space, whether it's a growing family room or a cozy apartment.

Plus, they're earth-friendly and trusted by over 200,000 happy customers.

It's time to upgrade to a stress-free, mess-proof sofa.

Visit washablefas.com today and save.

That's washable sofas.com.

Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

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.

When disaster takes control of your life, ServePro helps you take it back.

ServePro shows up faster to any size disaster to make things right, starting with a single call, that's all.

Because the number one name in cleanup and restoration has the scale and the expertise to get you back up to speed quicker than you ever thought possible.

So, whenever never thought this would happen actually happens, ServePro's got you.

Call 1-800-SERVPRO or visit ServePro.com today to help make it like it never even happened.

Bonapetio, and welcome to the Off-Menu podcast with Ed Gamble and James Acaster.

Hello.

That's James Acaster.

I'll be your waiter this evening.

Oh, and we're still persisting with James being a waiter in this.

I've given in now.

I think that's the format.

May I take your jacket, Ed?

Thank you.

It's not normal for a waiter to do that as well, is it?

Well, we've established that I do all the jobs.

Let me introduce the podcast properly.

This is a podcast where each episode we have a guest.

We interview them about their dream meal, their perfect starter, main, side, drink, dessert.

And

I think when you talk to people about food, you find out more about their lives.

Absolutely.

Definitely do.

and also when you own a restaurant because you're a genie you learn more about people's lives so that and there's extra layers of confusion that james brings to the pot i think i like to i i bring uh sort of good chat yeah fun conversation topics a little bit of fun food knowledge yeah and you bring chaos would you say i bring being a genie and being a waiter so i went with bonapetitio there for that was nice that was a very nice start um i've i have been saying bon appetit but i've gone bon appetitio because that's what a

know why you said it.

Do you?

Yes, because you're trying to impress our guest who is the very

well-esteemed Grace Dent.

Grace Dent, everybody, she's a food critic, and you know, it was screwbiest pip.

You were just like, bon a petite, whatever.

Grace Dent, you're like, oh, I better up my game.

That must be it.

Or it reminds me of a waitress in Bellapastra in Durham who used to say, bon appetitio.

Yeah, probably it is that then.

So, yes, our guest today is the wonderful Grace Dent.

Guardian Food Critic, also

the,

she has her own show on Radio 4 called The Untold.

Yeah.

Podcast.

Yeah, this is also a podcast.

Which you should definitely get.

We'll do a better job of plugging things for Grace in the outro, I think.

Okay.

James, do you have any food news from this week?

Well, what I've had to eat.

What you've had to eat.

Where have you been?

What's your ingredient of the week?

Sure.

Sure.

Well, the nicest thing I've had to eat this week, I went to Bone Daddy's and I had the poke

bowl there, salmon poke.

Lovely.

Delicious, like

raw

salmon cut up with like these crispy little oniony bits in there and some that were fried and some rice and guacamole, loads of guacamole.

I put some hot sauce on it, some carrot in there.

So that's James's food news.

I saw a woman on a train nearly choked to death on a salad.

So that's my food news.

Loads of food news.

Also, this week, we should point out before we go to the podcast and interview Grace Dent.

Every week we have an ingredient that is a big no-no that we do not like.

And if it comes up in the podcast, they're getting kicked out of the restaurant.

And this week it is fennel.

I hate fennel, Ed.

I absolutely hate fennel.

Why do you hate fennel?

I don't mind a bit of fennel.

That's disgusting.

Aniseed stuff is not nice.

The first time I had aniseed or anything like aniseed-y was when I bought some of those licorice torpedoes, but I thought they were jelly beans.

Right, so what I expected as a child was that I was about to eat some jelly beans, and then I tasted the most disgusting thing you can possibly taste when you're expecting jelly beans.

I spat them out in the bin.

I've never done that with food before since.

Spat them out into a bin, and I hate anything aniseed now.

But you know, that's not what fennel tastes like.

It does taste like licorice torpedoes, it doesn't taste like licorice torpedoes, mate.

It's a very light aniseed flavor, and it can actually bring a lot to a dish.

And raw, it's very refreshing.

It tastes like licorice torpedoes, Ed.

And that is why, if Grace mentions it, she's out on her ass.

Here's Grace Dent.

Hello.

Hello.

Hey, Grace.

Welcome.

Thank you for having me.

This all just feels really sinister, actually.

Yeah, well, I'm going to address this up top.

You came in and you said, I've got some feelings about this, which I'm going to talk about when we start recording.

You seem suspicious of the whole situation.

It just seems a bit odd, actually.

You know,

for a start,

well, I heard that you were doing a podcast.

James asked me, and I generally try to ignore most of the messages James sent.

Sure, why wouldn't I?

And then James said, I'm doing a podcast.

And if you just said to me, What are the top 20 things that you would guess it was going to be about?

I would go through a massive list of them.

Some examples.

What sort of things do you think?

Cars.

Cars?

The comedy circuit.

Lads, laddish things, boys,

but boys' things.

I don't know.

How many times have you met James A.

Castle?

I don't know.

My laddie boy loves cars.

Well, yeah.

He's written off three cars in his life.

I have.

Well, this is where we bonded over that, didn't we?

Because

I've failed my driving test seven times.

Yes.

So I thought that was very incredible.

I thought, well, thank you very much.

Surely after time number five, you'd think this probably isn't for me.

No, no, I'm going to carry on.

Yeah.

I'm carrying on.

No, every time i get a few more like years older i think no no this is my time

you get in the car again and then i and it's and it's

fail bigger yeah uh and that i've got to say that is brewing again in me at the moment when was the last when was the last failure um

it's definitely before

my lost husband

is that how it works

failed the driver test test, married instructors.

Just sometimes you have to just count them off and husbands.

It was a while ago, and now

I feel older and I feel more like, no, I can do this.

And also, I live up north quite a lot in the Lake District.

It's a pain in the ass if you haven't got a car.

You can't go anywhere.

You can't do anything.

You can't, you know, anyway.

But that's just, I mean, look, I can drive.

Yeah.

So you were confused.

you thought this might be you can't but yeah yeah you know i can drive though i can not illegally though no the dvla won't let me but i can't illegally not yeah yeah that that's not really how it works so it's not it's not a podcast about cars it's not a podcast about lads things no what surprises you that we want to talk about food uh because i I mean, I know a lot of stand-up comedians and

they don't eat.

They tend to live in fairly unsanitary conditions,

mainly on service station pasties,

or back at home in rooms that smell kind of

reheated microwave supermarket meals.

You know, look at James, for example.

You've never been in my flat?

I mean, I've never been in your flat, but in my mind's eye, it's just it kind of smells of, you know,

cheese and chive

Pringles.

Yep.

A lot of cheese and chive Pringles.

What that smells of cheese and chive Pringles?

Well, probably that.

And then so like Lynx Wildebeest or whatever, just sprayed like randomly about.

What else is in the flat?

Lots of posters of cars?

Just loads.

Yeah, posters of cars.

And just lots of

cars.

Yeah, yeah,

basically High Street Honeys.

Lots of FHM High Street Honeys posters

pulled out of the magazine.

I don't know.

I just can't.

I've been...

In my cheese and chive then.

Cheese and chive.

i think so i i feel well look yes i think that you i mean and maybe this is the interesting thing about the podcast and this goes on to why it's surprising and also lovely that you're doing it is that there's a very set group of people in british media who discuss food yeah and that's it that's the end of it and it's very difficult to break into that so when you put bbc one

on the cooking programmes have got the same set of people and it is Greg Wallace speaking to Mary Berry.

And

then on a Saturday morning, it's the same people that are coming through, and it's the same chefs.

And

you know, and they don't, they maybe have a comedian on, but it's just to kind of sit awkwardly and get two lines, you know what I mean?

It's like kind of

opinions on Pringles.

Well, exactly.

Is it not?

I mean, do you feel offended?

Have I said anything that's wrong?

What is in your fridge at the moment?

Oh, what's in my fridge at the minute that is mine?

There's some, I've got some Saint-Aguer cheese.

Okay, well, I mean, that's just one step up from laughing cow triangles, isn't it?

Oh, God, God.

James, do not let me down, man.

We need to change the opinion of stand-up comedians.

Yeah, there's a pasta sauce, but I don't have any pasta.

It's a jar of pasta sauce.

Yeah,

he eats them like a yogurt.

Yeah, yeah.

I haven't done anything with that yet.

A jar of pasta sauce, that's just lazy.

Exactly.

We're going back to how have you got a food podcast when your idea of making a simple ragu is to go to a 24-hour garage and bring back something that's mainly toxic well to be honest i didn't buy it it was a gift

it was a gift i think i think i i what have you got in your fridge oh i've got all sorts a lot of vegetables tofu yeah but do you do your own shopping yeah i do my own shopping okay online does that count it does count well so you put in a

because i i mean i find this like uh grocery shopping online like a slight, it's like a therapy.

Yeah.

Like everything that and when everything in my, I've got on my phone, I've got my I've got my apps and when everything's going wrong, I just find a quiet corner of a studio and I just sit there going, you know what I mean, yeah, tofu.

Yeah.

And if you know that it's coming at that, you know that you have managed to get food coming to your house at 6 a.m.

the next day, it's like everything's okay.

It's beautiful.

And then also, if you get up and wait for that grocery, those groceries, and then put a wash on at the same time so the house smells of fabric conditioner, you can basically have a really high-functioning heroin out of it.

And it's just like everything's fine.

I haven't actually got high-functioning heroin.

Yeah, basically, specific example out of nowhere, though.

But you could, you could literally have been up until four in the morning going crazy, but you still feel like you're nailing life down.

I think my fridge is pretty, pretty full of

does a lot of cooking.

Do you?

Most of stuff does.

A lot of cooking.

I try to, I try to more than most comics, comics, I'd say.

Would you feel, would either of you feel confident to have...

I mean, I'm the restaurant critic for The Guardian

and I'm one of those gargoyles you see on MasterChef, like waiting for the chefs to come in so I can make them cry.

Yes.

Would either of you feel confident enough to cook for me?

No.

No,

I wouldn't feel confident enough to do it.

I'll answer that quickly.

No, I do not feel confident enough to cook for you.

So that's a good idea for a new column.

Do you have

a Santa Ger cheese in pasta sauce?

What a Santa Ger cheese.

It's not even cheese.

Delicious.

It's not even cheese.

It's some kind of mucus with some like nutritional yeast in it.

Keep on talking.

I love nutritional yeast.

But then I think that, I mean, joking aside, whatever you cooked for me, I would be very gracious.

And I wouldn't.

I'm not sure that's true.

I wouldn't.

Honestly, I think that

what people see on MasterChef MasterChef is very pantomime, you know.

And I think that

in real life, I would just be really happy that someone would cook for me because I'm generally very tired and I just want someone to cook something.

I mean, not you, James.

Because I don't want every.

But I mean, babe, do you want me to get you some pasta?

Do you want me to let you know?

If you buy some pasta on the way home, I'll definitely get you some pasta.

So, this podcast is not about us knowing too much about food, really, but I think there's a lot of discussion to be had building the perfect meal.

Yeah.

So we've asked you to come up with your favourite starter.

Welcome to our restaurant.

Oh, and something I should also let you know as well.

James has sort of gone so deep into the concept that he's imagined this is a restaurant and he's the waiter.

Ploud to be of service.

I can be of service to you.

But he's a waiter who sits with us for the whole meal and occasionally asks you what you want.

James, you would be a terrible waiter.

Well, we'll see, won't we?

What do you think would make James a terrible waiter?

Because I don't think that James is very good at hiding his contempt.

I think that is absolutely true.

And I think that that's one of the one of the I'd say that's probably rule one of hospitality.

But here's the thing though, the better a restaurant you'll find, the more rude the waiting staff I find, because they know that they've got good food and you'll carry on going there anyway.

This restaurant is a magical restaurant where you can order whatever you've had in your whole life, all your favorite things.

So I know that I can be as contemptful as I want.

I can be really rude or mean or judgmental to all the customers because they'll keep coming back because I've got all of their favorite dishes here.

And whatever you order is bringing you back cheese and chive bringles anyway.

Yeah, yeah.

I hope you like them.

Extra pasta sauce.

But before we get into your choices, we're springing a quick surprise question on you.

Okay.

Poppadoms or bread.

Pop-doms or bread.

James, stop it.

I would say poppadums because I think that it's very, it's tempting to go in on the bread, but the bread's going to, you know, with every meal when you're eating out, it's very tempting to like eat all that bread when it's first brought because we're all,

it's delicious and then it spoils your meal.

So my, you know, people say to me all the time, how are you not enormous?

Because I'm out all the time eating.

And it's because I avoid stuff like that.

You're going to have the bread.

And also, I think it can ruin the meal in another way.

If they bring bread at a restaurant and it's bad bread,

and it makes you really worried about the meal ahead.

Oh, yeah, yeah, but when they, or they, yeah, they put down a basket and

yeah, and it's and it's hard, and you think, well, how long has it been sitting there?

So, yes, and I don't think you can mess up a poppadum.

What dips do you want with a poppadum?

Oh,

um,

can I have a few?

Well, just just the just the random, the standard ones.

I want the raita, I want the mango chutney, I want something that's mint, and I want um we're talking about very, uh, very kind of uh British influenced 80s

like what we think Indian people eat, which they probably you know, they don't, I'm sure.

And you know, that kind of very lightly diced um onion.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it has to be in kind of silver tureens that are on a kind of stand where the four the four of them are like in a little tree

and it spins.

Yeah.

Um, but yeah, there's something, I think that there's something about that whole ritual of poppadoms coming um, and everybody getting one and crunching them.

And you've never felt and you know, spooning things.

And I don't think we've ever felt more British, yeah, yeah, because there's clearly nothing that's authentic about that.

That's just something that we

yeah, that's a that's that feels like a truly British thing, doesn't it?

Yeah, completely.

Would you take a whole pop-a-dom, or would you break a bit off?

No, I wouldn't be ever the person to there's a stack of pop-adoms.

Are you the person to break them?

Are you the person to just punch the top of the park?

Oh, no, no, I just think, no.

I think that's a really strange thing that people do.

It's such a dick-swinging move, though.

Yeah, it really is.

When the pop-a-doms arrive, and there's always somebody who just goes, oof.

And you just think, well, I don't want your...

I don't want your feisty-handed pop-a-dom.

And also, like,

why do you think you have the right to do that?

But I would never go and get a full one

because

I'm continually playing games with myself about how much food that I've eaten.

So I will always get less with an option to go back.

Do you see what I mean?

That's a good technique.

Because what I would normally do is get a whole pop of doll and get all the dips and put them in different quadrants along it and then just sort of eat it like a big pizza.

You see,

there's few, there's there's there's several things that men do if you were going to go out on a date with them, which they would do and you would think,

I can never see this man ever again.

And that's one of them, is it?

That is, that is

like a psychopath thing, isn't it?

Also, would you like

anything to drink

while you're looking at the menu?

If I was going to have a drink, usually the first drink when I go out is I'll have a glass of champagne.

You like a glass of champagne just to wait?

I'll just sit, yeah.

Any brand, any particular

champagne that you can get freely everywhere is Tattinga.

I always

like

T-A-I-T-T-I-N-G-E-R Tattinger.

Yeah, no, I like a glass of Tattinger and I will

yeah, that always just takes the takes the edge off the day.

I always have that if I go if I

can't drink a lot.

I'm not,

I always think, I think people think

that I drink, that I'm a big drinker and I'm not like I'm a real lightweight and it gets worse the older that I've got and

yeah, so I I and I the thing about being a woman when you're like in the public eye is that you only have to get a little bit drunk publicly a few times like or write about it.

Right.

And like you know, I heard Tracy Emmons say this once and it stuck with me always like you only have to be drunk on a couple of occasions and you are then ever more the incredible drunk shouting woman.

Do you know what I mean?

And

so, you know, I think that people are surprised that I'm pretty much sober all of the time.

Yeah.

And I suppose if you're out,

yeah, exactly.

That's how, yeah, I did, you know,

there was a point where I was being a restaurant when I started being a restaurant critic where I realised that there's two ways that this can go.

And, you know, exactly one of them is that I start to really control what is getting put, what I'm putting into my own mouth.

And like my hangovers and getting drunk, or you just end up with gout, really.

Yeah, I mean, you do get gout.

There's a few of those restaurant critics knocking around, you think you've really gone all in.

Yeah,

oh god, there's a you know, there's a there's there's a few that can no longer walk.

Well, we can't get them on the podcast,

I'd have to go and record it there.

Well, you can, but you have to, you have to push them in, like on Silence of the Lambs, just standing upright.

I'll take you those uh later on.

To start?

To start.

So

the thing that I would like is something that I'll probably never order again.

But I love it.

And it's the beef shin ragu

with

probably, it's like freshly made taglatelli and it's at a restaurant called Trollo in Islington.

And

I don't eat a lot of meat these days.

Like, I'm almost vegan.

And I say almost because I don't want people to spend my entire life tripping me up about it.

Sure.

Popping up

behind curtains.

So I can't, you know, and I'm never going to be perfect.

And with my job,

there's sometimes when I just, there's meat in front of me and I am going to professionally have to eat it.

But, you know, on a day-to-day basis, I don't.

So, and it's one of the things that really jumps out at me that I will miss because, and I've probably, you know, maybe I will eat it again, but it's so good.

The beef shin, which is a really kind of ugly piece of meat, you know, and it's like if someone brings a beef shin to your house to cook, like, if you're, you know,

one of my friends brought one when we went on holiday on a cottage, they were like, I've got a beef shin.

Opened up the boot, and it was just, it looked like they'd like, you know, a crime scene.

Yeah.

So it's ugly, but you have to you know stuit and stew it and stew it and then it's so good and so rich and clearly something wrong you know it's clearly the tasty tasty smell of murder you know it's clearly you know you know and morris he used to say you know that in kitchen and meat is murder he says kitchen aromas aren't very homely and and that's true and that is it it's something but

There's something about that that every time we me and my friends went out we would end up we would would get that.

And so, and some of my friends loved this dish so much that they would just go, Oh, I'll have that for the starter and that for the main course.

It's the greatest thing.

There is something about those big cuts of meat that you need to cook slow and long.

Yes, you can just taste the effort that's gone into cooking them, it's just amazing.

Um, but you know, getting back to the veganism, you know, like I live up in the lakes half my time, and it's like I feel as if I can't meet the sheep's gaze.

Yeah, you know, like I was out, you know, it was a few days ago, I was up there, and like I exercise loads up north, and there's like tiny little lambs, and they're all just lying out, like basking in the sun.

And I just think, oh, you can't have that smell coming from your house.

I know,

definitely taught, but you can stay away from that lady's hair.

You can smell what's coming out of there.

Yeah, I just feel like, oh, I just feel, so I'm very torn.

But if I was in a, if I was to set aside my consciousness, conscious, conscience,

conscience, consciousness.

Yeah, you're conscious that you have to be conscious.

That is one of our own.

Set aside my conscience.

I would, yeah.

But I mean, do you both eat meat?

I do.

Ed doesn't.

I'm three, I'm in a similar situation to you.

I'm saying like almost vegan, about three or four months, actually.

But I still like to, I still like to talk about meat a lot.

Sort of, don't agree that I ate so much of it in the past, but I feel like a sort of like a foot, like a football hooligan, a reformed football hooligan.

Like, I don't agree with what I did in the past, but I still like having a discussion about dust-ups that I got into.

Was the last meat or the glee?

The last meat you ate, was that with me in New York?

Technically, no, because then I had an awful chicken risotto on the plane on the way home.

Oh, yeah.

But I think we'll say the last meat that I ate was I shared a massive steak with James in a restaurant called The Dutch in Soho, New York.

Absolutely love the Dutch.

And we were good.

Yeah.

We got this because we originally went there on what was the last day of our holiday and then our flight was cancelled.

Hang on you two that go on holiday together.

We go on holiday together, yeah.

Yeah, but our flight was delayed.

So when we originally went to the Dutch, we wanted to get the steak and then didn't get the steak.

And then the flight was delayed and then we're like, right, our actual final day, we're going to the Dutch and getting that steak.

Okay.

And it was.

You know, when you cut into a steak and before you've even put it in your mouth, you go, oh my god yeah this is already the best thing I've ever tasted it has not even in my mouth yet.

What kind of steak was it?

Do you know?

I can't even remember what I think it was a ribeye.

It was a yeah it was a massive on the bone ribeye.

I'll show you what the um what the next steak is that you have to mention to be cool.

Oh yes, yeah cool steak.

So there's cool steak.

Ribeye used to be cool didn't it?

Ribeye is cool

but the one that people the one that's coming through now that you have to say is

have you got any tomahawk and that's a massive one on the that's like yeah and that's a bone tomahawk you have to get a bone tomahawk and then they cut it off and what you then have to do and this is a big power move this is up there with banging the pop-a-dom yeah you then um pick the bone up yeah

and you gnaw not gnaw not gnaw not gnaw you get a knife

whatever the one is you saw you saw the little bits off that's the ultimate that's the power move power move yeah and then somebody from the restaurant will come over and because they're in the know, they'll go, oh, yeah, they're the best bits, aren't you?

And you go, yes, they're the best bits.

So that's like, oh, it's all restaurant criticism is just smoke and mirrors.

I had to go for a wee.

Is that all that?

I mean, keep us in the loop.

Keep us in the loop.

It's a very unprofessional thing for a waiter to do.

That's going for a wee.

The thought of James as a waiter.

It's funny, isn't it?

I mean, he would never get the job in the first place.

I think you're exactly right about what you said about him not being able to conceal contempt.

Because that's almost,

yeah, it's like 80% of the job is that, especially if you come in on a Sunday to do the Sunday shift and you went to, like, you finished work at 11, you ended up staying until 3, like flirting with the waitresses and drinking.

And then you had like two hours' sleep upstairs on a sofa and it quickly wet wiped your armpits and then like, you know, went downstairs again.

That's what he would then have to put on a smile and kind of, and dealing with people on a Sunday when there's just huge families of them.

I worked in a pub for a while and had to work the Christmas Day shift.

Oh my god.

Now and again it wasn't hiding contempt that I had trouble for there.

It was hiding genuine sorrow for people having Christmas dinner in a terrible pub.

Like it wasn't a nice, I just like put the food down and go

there we are.

I'm so sorry.

Bless you.

I've seen how this is cooked.

This is no way anyone should spend Christmas Day with a boil-in-the-bag sliced turkey.

Oh, that was quick.

Yes,

I've actually just checked with the kitchen if we had a beef regular and we do.

We're very happy to make it for you.

Ever wonder why you have insurance for your car or home, but not your digital life?

Meet Webroot Total Protection, your digital bodyguard that is built for real life.

Webroot takes the guessing game out of cybersecurity so you can confidently browse, bank, and be yourself online without the worry of hackers lurking around the corner.

With Webroot Total Protection, you get antivirus that scans six times faster and takes up 33 times less space than the other guys.

Identity protection with up to $1 million in fraud expense reimbursement and 24-7 U.S.-based customer support.

VPN protection that hides your IP address, personal data, and location from hackers.

And cloud backup with unlimited storage that works automatically in the background.

With plans for individuals and families, Webroot makes it easy to live a better digital life.

Go to webroot.com forward slash promo and get 50% off today.

That's webroot.com slash promo to get 50% off today.

Live a better digital life with Webroot because peace of mind shouldn't be optional.

We get it.

It's more important than ever to get the most out of your money.

Options are key.

Options like Lyft, where you get great rewards, especially with partners like Dash Pass by DoorDash.

If you're a Dash Pass member, just link your DoorDash account and you'll get 5% off on-demand rides, 10% off scheduled rides to the airport, plus two free priority pickup upgrades every month.

New to Dash Pass?

To sign up for a three-month free trial, check Lyft.

Terms apply.

And for your main course?

Well, my main course is probably

would be a surprise to some of you, I think.

It is, it's just, see, I eat lots and lots of rich food and lots of, you know, food which is, like, I was out the other night at a place called Hyde, which is in London.

It's one of the biggest, most expensive openings of the year.

They spent millions.

It's got a car lift in it.

What's a car lift?

A lift that you drive your car in and drive.

It's Russian money.

It's Russian money.

Let's not ask where it came from.

It's just Russian money, right?

And when you go to order wine, they bring you like an embossed book with about sixty pages in it inside a wooden box.

and then they give you an iPad to go with it.

So the iPad's got 4,000 wines in it, and you know, all of the wines that are, you know, really, really, really expensive.

The minute you open it up, you can just see that some bottles of wine are £5,000.

Just ask for the house.

Exactly.

But they send a sommelier over.

And I just thought, right, I'm just going to, I'm going to say to him, not,

you're not fooling me into spending £200 on a bottle of wine because I just so I just kind of went, look, I just want to spend, like, choose me one, but

60 quid.

And he's like, his face was just crestfallen.

He was just like,

well, you've completely spoiled my evening.

You know, he did, he did bring his anyway.

I

digress.

I eat so many meals in places like that where everything is petals and pipettes and, you know, and jus and things that have been distilled, people that make their own.

Everything's made homemade.

That when I am off, I like beige plain plain food.

And I think that one of the best things I ate last year was a tray of chips and curry sauce.

Wow.

There he goes.

Because I'm Northern, so all chips should come with some kind of moist liquid.

Should be drenched, right?

Well, yeah.

Snow-dried chips.

I think that chips and gravy is a bit of a

northern people eating chips and gravy.

I actually think that's

a myth.

I think that from the 80s onwards, we got that taste for that chip shop brown, slightly radioactive curry sauce,

which is quite sweet.

It's got a little bit of heat,

and that's what

we started to eat.

And I, to me, that is just,

it sates me.

You know, I mean, it's like the chips, lots of salt, a bit of vinegar, and then curry, but not curry over all of them.

them, curry over some of them because some of them have to retain their

crispness.

And my brother had taken me to this

up north.

He said, I'll cheer you up, Grace.

We'll go out for the night and we're going to go and watch this festival, this like little kind of local festival.

And the headliner was Badly Drawn Boy.

Right.

Is this going to be the most northern night out there?

It was like literally the most northern night out.

And I remember, I remember he came Badly Drawn Boy kind of came on and he was like,

this is my friend who died.

And then he started to play some like, and I think someone started heckling him, going like, you know, like, buddy, we didn't come to hear your life story.

And he's like, ah.

And it just all went wrong.

And it was like kind of, obviously, it was the summer up north, so it was like sideways sleet.

And I remember saying to my brother, you're going home.

He's like, no, stay, we'll drink more Stella.

Like, no, no, I'm going home.

And I remember walking out and I got my sauce and chips and curry sauce and just walked like the mile home, eating them.

And I just thought, this is probably the nicest thing that I've eaten in a world of stupidness, you know, in a world of like, you know,

everywhere I go, it's like someone's just like banged a button on the wall and everyone just starts acting crazy, you know, because I'm a critic.

And like, everyone's like, oh,

oh, I'm sorry, I'm just going to say,

we don't,

I know that you want turbot, but we don't have turbot.

I'm thinking, another bloody set.

I don't want a turbo.

I want chips and curry sauce.

I'm acting mad.

I just find a cool and collected way to in comparison, aren't I?

Quite happy with my

how would you behave?

You are the first critic we've had in the restaurant, actually.

Yeah, but I am quite relaxed about it.

I understand why people are scared with regards to a critic coming in because, you know, you

they have spent a lot of money on this, and the money has come from

funding from people who have put all their money in but don't strictly know loads about restaurants often.

And they're going to have to report into them.

So they all sit down on Tuesday morning going.

And also, you know, what did she say?

And there's also, I've got, you know, all restaurant critics, all of the kind of big

well-known ones, we weren't food experts

in general.

We were just people that can fire out a lot of copy really on anything, you know?

So you've got that raised rights.

Like if you look look at what Jarles Corrin does as well, I think he's probably the one that's the most similar to me, or I'm similar to him.

We,

you know, we're both people that just write, we can write in a funny way.

So, I think it probably makes people worried.

Well, we're not worried in this restaurant because

this is an automatic five-star glowing review because you're choosing everything you want to eat.

Also, but just to make sure it is five-star, what chip shop are we getting this for?

Yeah, is it a specific thing or is it just generic northern chips and curry sauce?

I don't think I I can write that down.

We can't write northern chips and curry sauce.

Hate crime.

It would be chips from.

I'm not going to name him, but there's a place.

It's gone now.

There's a chip shop.

We can still name it.

I know, I can't because you haven't heard what I'm going to say.

There's a chip shop in Curric, in Carlisle, where I'm from.

And it's gone now.

But I had really, really good chips.

And I used to wind my brother up the entire, all of his childhood that that was actually his dad

was his dad

that's why you can't name the chip shop I'm not gonna name it because like I mean it's not true though the lie that you told as a kid we can still say it

I don't think he's alive anymore no I'm not gonna say it because people listen to it and it'll it'll end up in the Carlisle evening news or that you made a joke that he was your brother's dad yeah because it'll be like his wife's probably still alive she'll probably start getting like a

ready reckoner out and working out whether my mother could actually have sex with him or not.

We are in the early days of the podcast, so we could do with an exclusive like that.

But I used to always, as we were getting older, whenever there's a family occasion, I would always say, oh, Dave,

probably not you because it's just close family, you know.

That's a funny joke.

That is funny.

What side dish would you like with that, Grace?

Because we all need a side dish with chips and curry sauce.

Yes.

Well, I mean, I would eat these things together, and I think that this is probably why I really fare well as eating almost vegan.

It would be the side dish would be from Little Owl in

Manhattan.

And it would be

green beans in a kind of it's got green beans, but with like macadamia or it could have been walnut.

It was either it was it was a nut and I should have looked it up, but then it was and it was in a kind of a soy honey glaze.

So we've got it it's it's it's basically really souped up nutty beans in a kind of soy unami type.

And and oh, it really changed the way that I thought about food.

I went there for my God,

one of my birthdays a long time ago.

And I remember it really made me rethink how we do vegetables in this country.

Like, we, you know, we don't,

for a start, we're coming through a point in history where British people don't want to, working-class British people don't want to pay extra for sides of food in general.

They're like, oh, it should just, if you're paying the money, it should come with chips, you know, and then, oh, you mashed potato.

So, Pete, so so people are just about getting used to and I'm talking about outside London looking at the bottom of a menu and it says you know

mashed potato £2.95 or whatever right

but even then we don't really restaurants don't really do anything with that veg it's as if meat meat meat meat meat all the way down the page fish meat fish then maybe a salad and then at the bottom it'll just say potatoes of the day

you know uh carrots and all you can really hope hope for is like some butter's been put in with them maybe but often not you know often not sometimes it just comes out boiled veg yeah

you know you were talking about um a pub you worked in where you know christmas day people go in there for christmas and

you know that it's it's wrong to do that to people you know to kind of go that the turkey that's the turkey and then everything else should just be slapdash so i think that new york really began to teach me that you know you can go out for dinner and you could have two or three sides put put together and that would be like there's just as much love and care put into what they're doing with uh you know with the beans or the peas and brussel sprouts on every single wendy

like sprouts just you know like

what we do with sprouts in this country is ridiculous there's this idea that you know you only have them like going up to christmas and then you only have them like you have three at your office party pub dinner yeah and then you have three on christmas day

and they're like stewed and stewed and stewed and again, no butter.

Whereas if you put sprouts, you can make a casserole type thing with them.

You just kind of like layer them with like cream and salt and pepper and herbs.

And they are just

in this podcast that I should never do it hungry.

Because now I'm just thinking about those sprouts,

yeah.

As you describe all these, I'm like.

Ever wonder why you have insurance for your car or home, but not your digital life?

Meet Webroot Total Protection, your digital bodyguard that is built for real life.

Webroot takes the guessing game out of cybersecurity so you can confidently browse, bank, and be yourself online without the worry of hackers lurking around the corner.

With Webroot Total Protection, you get antivirus that scans six times faster and takes up 33 times less space than the other guys.

Identity protection with up to $1 million in fraud expense reimbursement and 24-7 U.S.-based customer support.

VPN protection that hides your IP address, personal data, and location from hackers.

And cloud backup with unlimited storage that works automatically in the background.

With plans for individuals and families, Webroot makes it easy to live a better digital life.

Go to webroot.com forward slash promo and get 50% off today.

That's webroot.com slash promo to get 50% off today.

Live a better digital life with Webroot because peace of mind shouldn't be optional.

We get it.

It's more important than ever to get the most out of your money.

Options are key.

Options like Lyft, where you get great rewards, especially with partners like Dash Pass by DoorDash.

If you're a Dash Pass member, just link your DoorDash account and you'll get 5% off on-demand rides, 10% off scheduled rides to the airport, plus two free priority pickup upgrades every month.

New to Dash Pass to sign up for a three-month free trial, check Lyft.

Terms apply.

Um, before we get into putting, uh, what drink have you got like a favourite drink?

Is that already gone with the...

No, I was thinking before I came in that

what has always kind of let me down in polite restaurant world society is that I don't like anything really

well it's not like I mind it but it's not like I hate it but I don't like a negroni like anything bitter do you know what I mean like the kind of I don't want anything that is kind of vermouth based and they're the very cool drinks you know like everything,

you know.

And I think that that kind of

there's something about vermouth, it just reminds me of being 11 or 12 or 13 and stealing it from my mother's

drinks cabinet, you know what I mean?

And like flailing around and around at a school disco.

Was that your first drink that you had too much of?

No, that was Merry Down Cider.

Merry Downs Cider.

Do you remember?

Do they make that Merry Downs double strength?

I remember

cheap bottled cider.

I remember drinking a bottle of it and waking up, and i'd came in and tip xed something on my desk and then just fallen into it and fallen asleep and i had like this kind of like tipx kind of

it wasn't meant to be a swastika but i remember that's kind of what it looked like you know um

and uh i remember just being sick and sick and couldn't drink merry down for ages uh but

do you remember special brew yeah yeah did you ever drink that when you were younger i had i remember drinking a can of special brew on wimbledon common we all used to go and i went to school in Wimbledon and then we'd all Friday night would go to Wimbledon Common just opposite the school and all drinks of cans of special brew.

Ed went to a private school.

Did he?

Come the weekend.

Yeah, yeah.

Doesn't matter where you went to school, it's cans of special brew on Winbury.

There was a special brew.

I need to finish what I'm saying.

So I don't drink bitter drinks.

And the one that I always find side, it really shocks people is I love a pina colada.

If you love pina colada.

and what you'll find with pina colada is because it's obviously it's sweet it's like a real hit of sugar and it's comforting and it you know it's pineapple-y and it's like and but it's also it kind of gets you pissed from the feet up so you kind of have like two or three and you realize you just seem to be shouting louder than everyone.

And what I find with pina colada is when they went when I'm in somewhere fancy and they come along and they go,

cocktails.

And someone will always go, can I have Corpse Revival number two, please?

And someone's like, Can I have a side card?

Someone's like, Oh,

can I have a Negroni?

But it has to be this type of Negroni.

And then I'll go, Can I get a pina colada?

And everyone will laugh, and then someone will go,

I'll have a pina colada,

and then it just kind of spreads down the table, and you can just see the waiter going, Fuck's that.

Yeah, and suddenly there's like, I've done a lot of stuff.

So, is it someone's gone?

Hang on, we don't, we don't have to be cool.

We don't have to be cool.

Because we've won

when you are, when When it's a hot day and you're somewhere and everyone has a pina glad, it is impossible not to have a good time.

It is club tropicana, it is wham heyday,

it is summer holidays, it is club 18 to 30s, it is getting pissed and

yeah, waking up with your knickers in your handbag.

You've done well though, because you've got quite a sort of carby mane.

So I don't think you're going to get pissed that quickly.

Yeah, but you've got quite a puddiny, that's quite a puddin-y drink.

And now we're gonna go on to a pudding.

I'm wondering, well, so help me God if you say cheese and biscuits, I'm flipping the table okay.

The pudding I've chosen is from the ridiculous Russian restaurant that I went to the on Friday, and uh, it was called something like um a religious,

it was it was, and um,

it was

uh kind of a

beautiful work of art,

kind of sponge, but iced with like a pale blue, like duck eggshell blue icing.

And it was like art, it was beautiful, you know.

Dinner for two there, being really, really

conservative with what we ate and trying to really pick out all the things they were charging us extra for was still £420.

Whoa, whoa.

And it was so this pudding came out and it was gorgeous.

Just it basically, it was a glorified

cupcake, basically made into something beautiful.

But it came with a tiny glass of jasmine, chilled, pearlescent jasmine tea.

And the jasmine tea was...

the greatest thing I think that I've, it was, that I've tasted.

When you're given it, you drink it kind of like this, like a frantic orphan being given mother's milk.

It's sugary, but it's also.

But I think that with jasmine, the taste, we kind of know, I think we can imagine how it smells, and we've tasted it maybe in low-rate jasmine tea, but this was the real deal.

And you never don't taste jasmine like that.

And I remember coming out and feeling quite giddy.

Yeah.

You know, like that's how that's one of the greatest things about food: that when it's done well, it, you know, it's, it's like drugs.

It's like, you get this feeling.

I always say this, I always kind of point at my chest and go, it's that

it's just, you know, that's that's why we're addicted, that's why I'm addicted to restaurants.

You know, I'm always looking for that, yeah, that kick, that high, you know.

There was a moment when we went to the Dutch the first time in New York.

James is a big puddings man, yeah.

And we ordered, I think we ordered all the puddings, didn't we?

To have us and

there was

four of us.

There was four of us,

but we did order all of them.

There was four and then nobody else wanted one.

And there was one that was

a chocolate mint, they called it like an

ice box cake or something.

And James had a bite of that and he grabbed my arm to steady himself, closed his eyes, and went, oh, fuck.

I said, fuck off, is what I said.

Oh, fuck off.

Yeah.

Fuck off.

He told the pudding to fuck off because he liked it.

Fuck off.

That is exactly what I'm talking about.

That's where

you just go.

And sometimes

the chefs

will play with an idea, you know, they'll kind of riff on, like they want to do something with apple that reminds them of a sweet that they had, like, you know, a boiled sweet they had when they were a child, and it'll, it'll, it'll turn out that it was the same boiled sweet that you had when you were a child.

And like things like that happen where you just go, you, you, you go to eat pudding and you feel, you want to cry, you know what I mean?

You feel like there's a place in

London called Farrer,

a restaurant, a chef called Simon Rogan.

He's He's got Michelle Stars, and yeah, and he does things like that.

You know, he's kind of roughly the same age as me, so he'll have themes will come through his food where I'll go,

that's the fox's glassier mint.

I was gonna, as soon as you started talking about those feelings with food, I was gonna mention Lanclum, which is one of my favourite eating experiences.

Up in Cumbria, yeah, up in Cumbria.

I was doing a gig in Olverston, so me and a few of the other comics went to Longclume for lunch.

It was absolutely phenomenal.

So good.

So the cupcake itself, is that, it's not really the headliner?

I think...

The jasmine tea.

I think the jasmine tea was the headliner.

And I also think that I'd eaten, I feel as if I'd eaten,

I had the vegetarian taste in menu at this place.

So it was kind of things like asparagus in three stages.

Right.

So one course was...

asparagus and then the next course came out in a completely different type of asparagus and there was it was it was lots of bits and you know there was a there was a kind of a pulverized beetroot course which was kind of had like

petals all over it.

But in reality, you've spent all evening drinking

and you haven't eaten anything.

I think it's a problem generally with like fine dining.

You're having such small little small little portions and you just end up absolutely wasted at the end of the day.

Muhammad.

Now, here's a big question.

Out of all those things you just told us about, you can only have one of them.

I had to have the chips and curry sauce, every single time.

Every single time.

We didn't edit out a pause there.

That's how quickly Grace said chips and curry.

Grace said chips and curry sauce without thinking about it.

If I, yeah, all around the world, all these fancy chefs started crying.

And not like deconstructed chips and curry sauce.

Oh, God.

Holestyrene tray.

Nothing fills my heart with more dread when you're master chef and you're just say a deconstructed, deconstructed banoffy pie.

What's the point?

What's the point of people deconstructing it?

No food in general, especially not puddings, benefits from an autopsy.

Just give me.

Because you can have it all together anyway, so you get the taste of the banoffee pie.

It's incredible that it's that, you know, yeah, putting everything in tiny little,

it's a kickback from

probably the late 90s and

experimental.

I just think that it's the.

Also, here's something I've noticed.

When people say the chef's got a sense of humour, they normally mean they've added popping candy to something, don't they?

Or they say, one of the things that drives me mad, yeah, it's yeah, it's playful, it's playful, it's very playful, or they say, the chef,

can I explain the concept?

The chef will be taking you on a journey.

I'm thinking, I don't want to go on a journey with him.

I just want you to bring me some food.

Stop talking.

I went, one of the most expensive dinners I ever had was

a place exactly like him.

It's called Alvin Lung and he used to call himself

he's going to hear this, I don't care, Alvin Lung, the demon chef.

Alvin listen to our podcast.

And Alvin's, all the photos of him were these big cockswinging photos of him like holding knives and like saying what the journey he was going to take.

Smashing pop a dumbs.

Smashing popadoms, yeah.

And he

so I went for dinner there and that was one of those where

every so often often they'd bring like one tiny little dim sum in, like with some kind of incredibly expensive caviar on it.

And, you know, at the end, at the end, it cost, it was about £600 per two, and

it sent me into this spiral of actual genuine depression, right?

Like for days, I just kept thinking about like how many shoes that would.

that would you know pay for for inner city children and tower hamlets kind of thing um but one of the causes of that he's talking about being playful um and and he he said

there was what the pudding was called Sex on the Beach.

Right.

And what he'd done was he'd got a pile of kind of sugar and made it into sand.

So it looked like sand.

And then he'd got, he'd sugar spun something that looked like a condom and he'd injected

sugar syrup semen into it

and then just draped it over this over the sand.

And

it was a playful take on when he used to live beside a beach and people used to have sex.

Playful.

It's gross.

And how he got around it.

Before they asked, before

they served it, they said, it's a little bit risque.

I hope you're not going to be offended.

And of course, I'm not going to be offended from Carlisle, you know,

seen it all.

And then they brought it out and then they gave £15 to the Elton John 8 Foundation.

What, because of the pudding?

Yeah,

they charge you an extra £15 for it.

Anyway,

it's gone now, that is.

Yeah, I bet.

So that means he had a conversation.

He was like, I really want to put a condom in one of my desserts.

You had to pick it up, though.

So you imagine you've paid, this is like £40.

So then you're picking it up and you're literally like, oh,

so you eat the whole thing, it's all edible.

It was all edible, yeah.

Yeah.

But he's basically gone...

Someone said to him, you can't.

No one's going to eat a condom.

It's going, what if the money went to an AIDS foundation?

Yeah.

And they're they're like, yeah.

Joe, what, if you really want to want to eat a condom that bad, well, phone up an actual charity and organise a thing.

Well, thank you very much, Grace.

I think that sounds like a wonderful meal.

Boys.

And I hope this wasn't as weird as you were expecting it to be.

You know, it hasn't been weird.

Apart from James being kind of a creepy butler with a strange option.

I'm a waiter.

I think that's very film.

He's a waiter and also, we haven't revealed this yet, a genie.

I'm also a genie.

Are you?

Yeah, well, this whole place, this whole restaurant, I magicked it up and I can go and get you whatever food you want from around the world and grant your wishes.

There's actually no other staff in this restaurant, it's just me, the genie.

And I come out of a gravy boat.

Every time that you go into character, it's just really unsettling.

But what I would say, being serious, is it's actually been lovely to talk to people who just love food and aren't involved with the restaurant industry because it's

funny.

Well,

you've made me laugh anyway.

And your descriptions of food were delicious.

I want to try all of it.

I'm genuinely hungry now.

Yeah, really hungry after this one.

Am I the best guest so far?

Yes.

That's all I want.

Safe journey home, Grace.

Thank you.

Can you come with the car lifters on your left?

Bye.

Bon appetites.

Done.

Yum, yum, yum.

All finished that episode.

That hit the spot.

Oh, what a our plates are all clean.

Let's.

And Grace was a bit mean.

Grace was a bit mean.

It was great.

What a different vibe we've had from every episode so far.

Yeah.

Very, very much appreciated.

And, I mean,

in a fun way, I'll say that.

Oh, yeah.

Hey.

Great fun.

I'm not going to pretend like I didn't know what I was getting myself into

when we booked Grace Dent.

So happy about that.

And she said that your flat probably smells of cheese and chive pringles.

It doesn't, but I might start trying to make it smell like that now.

Sounds delicious.

Quite like that.

So that was Grace Dent.

Thank you very much to Grace for coming in.

A few things we need to say about Grace.

She's the Guardian restaurant critic.

And she has a podcast called The Untold on Radio 4.

So check out those things.

Oh, we did that very well.

We're doing this world.

I mean, we're not so good at it that we can't congratulate ourselves afterwards out of mouth, but we're doing well at plugging it so far.

I just think, you know, we're perfect for just doing ad reads and things like that.

Yeah.

If anyone, if anyone wants to sponsor us, yeah, if anyone wants to sponsor.

I can't name any specific companies because that's we can't mention you

for free.

You know, naked bars.

Quite like them.

Oh, yes.

Grace, congratulations.

You did not mention fennel.

Well done.

It was not any of the ingredients in any of your dishes.

If it had been, oh, so help me.

There were no honourable munchions in that episode.

No.

Both had no honorable munchions.

That's a format point you're going to need to remember to bring in at the correct moment, I think.

Yeah, I've got to start doing that.

You've got to start doing that.

Don't eat that one.

Yeah.

Because you don't want to say it.

Yeah.

Because it's not good, man.

It's good.

Honourable Muncheons is not good.

It is good.

That could be a whole other restaurant.

Well, maybe you go and start that podcast yourself, Honourable Muncheons.

Honourable Munchends.

It's like a little extra thing to this podcast.

Yeah, it's like the extra slice to our bake-off.

Yeah.

Off-menu with James A.

Castor's Honourable Munchions.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that was the episode.

That was the episode this week.

We'll be back next week.

Next week with another guest and another delicious meal.

And listen.

If you feel like putting Netflix on and watching my Netflix specials under the name of repertoire,

I ain't getting involved either.

You can do what you like, watch them.

And while you're there, when you've watched all of those, maybe you want to watch a TV show called Almost Royal.

That's got Ed in it.

I was just leaving that.

I was just imagining if that was the last line of the podcast, but I think we should probably just say goodbye normally.

Goodbye normally.

That's a funny dad joke, isn't it?

This is like Jim Davidson and John Virgo now.

No, actually, goodbye.

Thank you very much.

Eat up.

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.

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 7 p.m., 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.