Chris McCausland (Christmas Special)

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Welcome to the Off Menu Podcast. Taking the mini sausages of conversation, wrapping them in the bacon of humor, roasting them perfectly in the oven of podcasts.
Pigs in blankets. Merry Christmas.

pods in blankets pods in blankets it's a christmas special it's a christmas miracle so ed's done a little uh ed gas i gamble by the way oh yeah that's james a castor over there and we own a dream restaurant and every single week we're inviting a guest asking their favourite starter

main course side dish drink dessert and christmas and christmas dinner not in that order not in that order thankfully and this week our guest is

Christma Causeland. Christma Causaland.

If you say it quickly, it sounds like Christmas. Christmas Ausland.
Christmas Sauceland. Christmas Sauceland.
And that's, of course, not the main reason we've got Chris on.

We've got Chris on because he's a fantastic comedian. Amazing comedian.
A lovely man, and he won Strictly Come Dancing, James. Is this our first Strictly Champ? I don't know.

I don't know anything about Strictly. Of course you don't.
Yeah. Well, I think it's our first Strictly Champ.
I think it might be our first Strictly Champ.

I couldn't name any others apart from Bill Bailey. Was he a Strictly Champ? He was.
We've not had him on the pod. No, which is criminal.
Yeah, especially at Christmas, Bill Bailey's.

Oh, yeah, of course. Very Christmassy.
Yeah. Dooley.
We've had Dooley on, actually, James Ben's just informed us. Dooley loves a party.
Dooley loves a party? Yeah. Dooley's.

Do you remember Dooley's Toffee Vodka? No. Okay.

Chris has got a book out.

His autobiography, Keep Laughing. Chris has obviously done a lot in his life.
He's got a lot of things to say. I can't wait to read the book.
It's going to be a fantastic book.

The book, James, is also available in audio. Chris is reading it, the audiobook.
A great way to consume comedians' books, I think. And this podcast is available in audio.
Yeah.

And also visual on YouTube tomorrow. Yes, very good.
And also, Benito's typing it all up as a book. Is he? Yeah, every single episode.

Is it just going to be Benito's book? Yeah, it's called The Great Benito, The Off-Menu Podcast. In my own words.
Yeah,

exactly. Yeah.

And there's going to be every episode available in loads of volumes. And it's, you know, for people with library specialists.
Do we get any money from that? No.

No, just him, wouldn't have thought so, yeah, just him.

But if Chris chooses the secret ingredient, ingredient which we deem to be unacceptable, we will have to kick him out of the dream restaurant.

Yes, and this week, the secret ingredient is Chris Dingle. Chrisingle.
That's another name thing, and also it's Christmassy. Yeah, it's an orange that has loads of stuff stuck in it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, clove scholars have covered it. Yeah, yeah.
Some of the great minds of the last millennium have covered the Chris Dingle

in a humorous fashion. And some people thought they made it up.
Oh, really? Yeah, some people have said to those great minds, that's made up. And the great mind has had to say, no, it's real.

What an awful routine that would be. Yeah.

An observational routine about something that you've made up. Yeah, yeah.
Actually, that's quite funny. That's quite good, though.
Yeah, that's quite a good idea.

But

it's unlikely that Christmas Osland will choose the Christingle. But if he does, he's out of here.

He is out of here. This is the off-menu Christmas menu of Christmas.
Causland.

Welcome, Chris, to the Dream Restaurant. Oh, thank you very much for having me.
Welcome, Chris McCausland, to the Dream Restaurant. We've been expecting you for some time.

Now, James has lost his voice recently, Chris. So normally he'd do a big explosion and he'd shout.

But what you went with there was actually, it was from the stomach. It was quite a good projection, I thought.
Whoa.

Project Projecting there. He's also spilled a breakfast baguette down his trousers today.
Stomach Christmas.

And,

you know, he has the perfect guest in front of him for this to be the day of a disastrous spillage, but yet still felt the need to talk about it.

He also texted me about that, and I thought, well, I must remember to bring that up on the episode because that will annoy him.

Luckily, I've got Chris here in Broyu because it's quicker when I ever thought I would. Well, it's not often I'm the only one without food down my trousers.

It was a breakfast wrap, and they put too much sauce in it and they should let you know.

Did you kind of have a bit of a disaster yourself or did you bite one end and then squirt it out the other? Well, actually, so yeah. First of all, I dripped on my right leg when I was eating it.
Yeah.

So like dripped out of the, and then I was like, oh no. You're so OCD that you had to do the other legs.

But when I was sorting out my right leg, it came up the bottom on my left leg. So.
See, to me, what this is... My left leg's worse.

You know, when you're at school and someone came to school with like a big stain on their trousers and they'd be like, oh, I had a yoghurt this morning and I spilt it or it's tiff.

Yeah. It feels like that.
It feels like... Yeah, well, it's exactly where...

If I had checked in my pants,

it would be.

So, like, yeah, it's pretty annoying. Yeah.
Because, like, we've got three episodes today. Yeah.

And then after that, I've got to go and like try and pitch a TV idea to someone. Well, that's not getting away.
Well, what's the TV idea? Is it about a man who doesn't wash his clothes and stuff?

You could pivot. You could pivot and say you're in character.

I mean, the state of TV in this day and age, it could be a reality TV show called Jizz or Not, and then you've just got to guess whether somebody jizzed in their pants or have they had a bit of a food disaster.

Chris, that's a brilliant. Oh, God, Channel 5.
The follow-up to is it cake or what? Yeah.

Is it jizz?

Oh, have you ever had an episode star so low?

Yeah.

It'd be nice to say no to that question.

But let's elevate the episode. Let's talk about your book, Chris.
Keep laughing. Keep laughing.
The autobiography. Yes.

Let's elevate this episode and not talk about jizz unless the whole book is about jizz.

Chapter 12 entirely about jiz.

Respect. Yeah.
If you read the index. Yeah.
The j page goes on for about.

Now, is it your first book? It is, yeah. At the minute, it's also the last one.
Oh, yeah. It's both.
It straddles both first and last. Otherwise, known as only.

So you enjoyed writing it, then you enjoyed the process. Do you know what I did? Yeah,

I wrote it this year.

Michael Joseph, part of Penguin. I never know whether I should call them Michael Joseph or Penguin, but you know, no one's heard of Michael Joseph.

I don't know who Michael Joseph is, so people have heard of Penguin.

They had a stroke of genius. They put the book on sale before I started writing it.
There's nothing puts a rocket up your ass.

Like a book being on sale, it doesn't exist.

And what that meant is I didn't plan any of it. I just got stuck in.
And if I'd have been left to my own devices, I'd have gone around in circles and over-planned it.

And just, you know, what about this? What order should I put the chapters in that don't exist?

And so I just started writing and I made sure I got to like 50,000 words before I even started looking how it went together.

And it's mad when you start writing because you've got no idea whether you've got the word count, you know, like you don't know whether your story is the minimum word count and in the end it was like what it was well over to the point of arrogance really

i'm thinking i'm thinking people need to read 122 000 words about my life

how often are you checking the word count i every time i've written a book i just keep checking the word count like all the time to the point where i'm like this is too much i'm just i'm pushing the font size every time i'm writing it i'm going bigger font every single time it doesn't affect the word count that though mate Yeah, I know, but it affects how it looks on the shelf.

Yeah, more pictures. That's one thing they asked me.
They went, we need to sort out the photographs for the book. I said, What do you mean, the photographs for the book?

They went, oh, people put photographs in autobiographies. I said, I'm not putting photographs.
I'm not being the only one that doesn't know what the photos are in my own book.

People can use the imagination. I've used words to describe things.
They can picture them in their minds.

But no, do you know what? It was, it was good. It was easy.
Well, that wasn't easy, but it was easier than it would have been a year before. So, you know, like I did strictly.

And it kind of just changed how I felt about

a couple of things, really. About, you know, all the things that you'd be typically closed off about and like all your emotions and you keep them kind of buried away and you don't let people in.

If I'd have written it a year before, I'd have written just the jokes, just the funny stories. And they're all in there.

But like, once you've cried on the telly in front of 10 million people, you kind of feel a little bit more open about

things, but also, like, I was such a perfectionist, like, in that I would, I wouldn't kind of put things out if I didn't think they were good enough.

And then all of a sudden, you know, you do this thing that teaches you that, you know, it things can connect with people in a way that you don't expect when if you just put yourself out there, it doesn't have to, like, it's that I do, my, you know, the dancing wasn't the best dancing, and there are, you know, there are

greater works of,

you know, literary kind of non-fiction out there.

But if it connects with people, then that's the main thing, innit? Yeah. Yeah, I've said that.
4.9 stars on Audible.

You get halfway through that sentence and real, I was supposed to be promoting my book here, and I've just said it's not the greatest work of literature. Well, it's not, is it?

I mean, it's hardly, it's hardly bloody Charles Dickens, is it?

But, you know, for a comedian's autobiography, I think it more than holds its own. own.
Charles Dickens could also do the comedy clubs of the UK and win a dance competition, couldn't he?

Also, never had a chapter entirely about Jiz. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That I know of. I've never read any of his books, actually.
He could have. Charles Dickens could have.
Towards the end of Great Expectations. Yeah, well, he always named his characters, didn't he?

About how their personality traits and things. That was the thing.
You probably had a Mr. Jiz in one of his books.

But it'd be like Mr.

Jizzlekins or something. Yeah, Andrew Jizzlekins.

So we always start with still or sparkling water, Chris. Do you have a preference? I just think it's, I mean,

I don't really trust people who drink sparkling water.

Don't really doesn't sit right with me. Yeah.
It's like someone sucked all the fun out of lemonade, innit?

And

do you know what?

You drink sparkling water, your brain expects fun.

It's like you've got COVID.

It's just, there's just, it's missing something. It's the beverage equivalent of when you stand on an escalator that's not moving.

Your brain's expecting one thing and you get an entirely different thing, and there's just something not quite right about the universe.

And I think people who enjoy sparkling water are people who are just so void of any fun and joy in their life, but like to pretend that they've got something going on.

Yeah, and that's their idea of fun, then. Yeah, because I love bubbles, but not bubbles without the fun.

The bubbles add to the fun. The bubbles make the fun better, but the bubbles aren't the fun.

It's such a good comparison, that escalator thing, because even

when you know the escalator's not working,

your brain can't handle it. And it's the same with sparkling water, you think.
Even though you know it's sparkling water. Yeah, your brain can't handle it.

There's a moment where you just go, something's not right here. I feel like I'm kind of in a bit of a

that the matrix is revealing itself.

But the escalator thing is not even a visual thing because I still get it and I'm not seeing the escalator.

It's a psychology thing.

I have the same thing with

still water in a can. I still haven't got around that.
My brain hasn't evolved yet to handle the fact that still water comes out of a can.

And so that for me still, there's a moment of where something isn't right.

Yeah, we've got a long way to go there because like it's pretty important that we have water in cans for the planet and whatnot. But is it?

Is it? Great question from Chris. Is it, James? You've said that because you've heard it somewhere.
You've said that because somebody said it to you.

And you've

regurgitated it like a piece of wisdom. You can't put the lid back on the can.

That's not your idea.

You've got two choices with the water in the can. You either finish the can or you leave, you have your three swigs and you leave a can of water.
Yeah.

You can't take it with you. You don't trust a can in a bag.
You've got a laptop in a bag. you got your stuff.
You don't trust the can. No.
You trust the bottle. You don't trust the can.

It's good for the environment, but bear in mind every time I have a can of water, I take two sips and then throw the rest of it at a bird. Yeah.
Oh, I didn't know you did that.

Yeah, well, you but you're the one who thinks it's good for the environment because someone else said it to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, Jimmy, are you talking?

I mean, I don't, I don't know your vernacular here. Are you talking like kind of tweety tweety or just some

woman walking down the street? Like,

no, I'm not, I'm not going, yeah,

I'll chop it at a bird. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because that wouldn't be bad for the environment, just sort of like just your career.

That'd be it. That'd be I'm posting this podcast on my own.
Benito would have to develop a personality pretty quick and get in that chair. Yeah.
How's Benito taken the flack here? He just sat there.

I'm the one who's just been accused of throwing cans at women, and suddenly Benito's taken it in the neck for not having a personality.

The guns are aimed at everyone. Mexican stuff.
I think Benito's just been told that there's a career opportunity there for him and he knows what he needs to do if he wants to make the most of it.

Chris, I've got to say,

have you just met Benito for the first time today? Yes. Yeah.
It would be his absolute nightmare to have to be on the podcast.

Sometimes his voice is in the edit because he can't get rid of it and he hates those days. He hates it.

I imagine that when those days happen, he thinks in the edit, oh, can I get someone to like re-record that line?

So it's someone else saying it. It's a funny name as well, innit? Yeah, Benito.
Yeah. Yeah.
It sounds like

Benito sounds like some, you'd order like a version of a taco or something. Yeah, yeah.
You're in, I'm like, do you want a taco or do you want a, what's the other one you get a fajita?

Or do you want a bonito? Yeah, bonito. It's like a cross between the two.
It sounds like something that James would have down his pants.

I don't need to do any work today. Chris has got this.
Chris has absolutely roasted me for chucking all the food down my pants. What was in the breakfast wrap?

Well, I made the mistake of ordering extra sausage.

So two sausages. Yeah.

Bacon, scrambled scrambled egg and that was the killer actually because the scrambled egg then waters down all the sauce and the sauce is like a a hot sauce like a like a sriracha tomato sauce sounds nice yeah it was nice but you have a lot of liquid in there do you want to shout out the place

i don't think we've done anything i don't think they'd appreciate it i don't think they would actually although the man was very nice who gave me my food yeah so that was nice that was a nice start to the day yeah

and then i stupidly decided to eat it while walking which i don't know why i didn't eat Madness. Let's just have a moment there.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Yeah.

No, I know. I knew it.
I knew this was going to happen, Chris. I've given him the responsibility, as you saw before we started the podcast.

I gave him the responsibility that he's got to do the shouting. And I said, that means you've got to know when to do it.
And he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And during this whole bit, I was like, he's forgotten.

Yeah, no, I didn't forget. I was just enjoying the chat.
That's the problem. Because I enjoyed just a nice chat, Chris.
What shouting has he got to do? I've got a shout popping onto a bread in a bit.

But the idea is I surprise the guest, but it's not going to surprise you. The least surprise is anything.
I wasn't listening. Yeah.

All right.

Talk about something else for a sec. Chris.
Yes, ma'am.

You said. Pop and umso bread, Chris McCauley and Poppin' Omsaw Bread.

Are you surprised? Oh, do you know what? Phew.

Phew. That's all I can say to that.

Popped up bread.

Where am I? Who offers Poppa Domino Bread? Ed?

Why did you do that, Ed? That's weird. Oh, yeah, good point.
Yeah.

What kind of restaurant? What kind of restaurant is that an option?

It's the dream restaurant, Chris.

Over 300 episodes.

It's the sort of thing you'd get at the start of a meal. So, you know, obviously, if you're in an Indian restaurant, they bring pop-adoms at the beginning.

If you're, you know, many other restaurants bring bread.

You know, there's other things as well if you want to hack it a little bit. But if you had the choice between poppadums or bread, which would you go for? Do you know what? I mean, it depends.

Like, bread's a funny one, isn't it? Like, we've kind of conditioned ourselves to think the bread dipped in vinegar is cultured. It's like,

it feels like something you'd eat if you're in prison. Yeah.
Oh, do you know what? All we've got left is bread and vinegar.

Have you ever tried dipping the bread in the vinegar? Well, it's better than just the bread or the vinegar separately on their own.

It's like the vinegar decontaminates the bread or something.

It's probably one of the greatest successes in marketing, in the history of marketing, that they've managed to make bread and vinegar with a bit of oil, like something that

we become excited about and feel cultured about. What kind did you do that made you go in prison for the bread and the vinegar?

Just throwing cans of birds

straight in the slammer.

Yeah, no,

I mean, I love bread, but like, is bread dipped in a bit of oil and vinegar as good as people make out? I think we pretend it's better than it is, to be honest. Popper doms,

they stress me out. I can't handle the logistics of the sharing of the sources, especially because

I don't have

the optical ability to kind of interact with the sharing from the other people. I kind of hog one.
The mango chutney I like, and then you get an onion-y one, which is

you know, a bit too onion-y.

There's a hot one, and then there's a yoggety one. Yeah, don't like the yoggety one.
Sometimes I get the yogurty one, and I think I've got the mango one because somebody's taking the mango one.

I put the yogurty one where the mango one was, and I've spooned it on. I don't know what it is until I get it in my mouth.

Who are you hanging out with that's having dinner with you and swapping the mango one with the yogurt one?

Well, they're not swapping it, it's just that they'll have the yogurty one and then they'll go, oh, a fancy bit of mango one. So they pick the mango one up.

Then there's a because they take up too much space as well, don't they? Then there's a space, so they put the yogurty one where the mango one was. I picked that up thinking it's the mango one.

I spoon it on, mouthful of yoghurt

when I'm expecting mango. Yeah.

And again, you know, the world's a bit funny then, isn't it? Because you're expecting one thing and you get another.

Yeah.

So I find it quite stressful.

I mean, the poppa dums, they're so minimalistic in their, you know, solidity, aren't they? Really? It's such a thin line between poppa dums and

what do you call them? Do you call them dips or accompaniments or whatever?

Condiments. Condiments.
It's such a thin line between poppa dums and them and just spooning the substance into your mouth, isn't it? It's like

there's so little between. You might as well just go, just pass that in a spoon, and I'll just eat mango chutney.
Yeah. And every so often, I'll have a bite of poppa dumb.

I mean, why don't people do that? Actually, that'd be a lot less hassle, wouldn't it? You'd need a spoon each, I think. Spoon of mango chutney.
Stick the poppa dumb in your mouth. Have a bite of that.

It's all in there. It would have been in there anyway.
Yeah.

And then have that.

You could say that about all food, though, couldn't you, Chris?

Like, why are we having it all prepared as meals why don't we just eat each individual ingredient and it all mixes up in our stomach well i'll tell you what why don't why don't why do people spend so much effort balancing toothpaste on a toothbrush just to put it in your mouth squirt it in your mouth

what's what's the point of that balancing it everybody does it yeah i'm gonna balance this on because it needs to ride the toothbrush into my mouth squirt it in your mouth and then just brush your teeth it's all in there yeah so do you put a line of toothpaste across your teeth no i just squirt it in just square it in yeah but like i i do that because it's a pain in the arse for me to try and balance the toothpaste like i'll balance i i went to a period in my life when i was losing my side trying to balance the toothpaste on the toothbrush and i get the toothbrush to my mouth and realize there was no toothpaste on it yeah right so i just realized well i just square the toothpaste in my mouth but now i do that yeah i don't know why don't why do why does not everybody do that why'd you all go through the palava of putting it on the toothbrush and it's the same with poppadums you know when

you know when someone says something that you know you're gonna think about every day yeah so now every time i brush my teeth yeah i'm gonna think of you chris mcaulsman i've just realized that um my electric toothbrush died this morning and then i forgot to put it on charge oh no so now i'm gonna get home and i'm gonna have to wait before maybe to brush my teeth you're gonna have to go manual i mean do you brush your teeth as soon as you get in no but like well then put it on charge yeah but what's the problem but i know i'm not gonna remember until i actually come to brush my teeth yeah but he's also gonna use it to clean clean his trousers.

Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, that's why it will look the way it does.

So in answer to your question,

I'll take the poppadums and dips, but if I can get rid of

the two I don't want,

and if I can have my own. Yeah.
And if I can just spoon

the mango chutney into my mouth and then just have a bite of poppadum to go with it, that makes it easier. I'll do that.
Absolutely. Brilliant.
Perfect.

dream starter chris do you know what i love um

i i i never anti-pasty is it antipasty or anti-past yeah antipasty yeah did i say that right yeah i think so yeah anti-pasty

because it depends what you're gonna say you want chris because if you say anti-pasty and then you start you're describing spaghetti

i've got to know what you think i said it i said it out loud and then i was like is it anti-pasta

no antipasty is right yeah yeah yeah the starter i i love an arrangement of foods that I can just put in my mouth. And again,

again, do you know what? I mean, completely coincidentally, we followed on here with a theme, haven't we? Yeah. But I like the idea of just putting separate things in your mouth

in different combinations.

And, you know, I kind of make my own little version of it at home in a way in that, you know, and I like standing up while I eat it as well.

I'll just stand in the kitchen and I'll have some meat and some cheese and some tomatoes and some maybe some dried tomatoes, some olives.

And I'll just sit there and I'll stand there and I'll just munch.

And so the meats, a little bit of cheese, a mozzarella, some dried tomatoes, some different meats.

I don't even need to know the meats. I just need to know that there's different meats.

And like, oh, that one's different to that one. I don't even know where they came from, how long they've been aged,

what part of the animal they're from, or what animal it is. It's just different meats.
Now, the only one I'm going to pick you up on there is you don't need to know what animal it is.

Well, no, I mean, what I mean is I can probably tell when I eat it, but like, I don't need to know when it's on the way up to my mouth. Yeah, you know, I'm happy with, like,

you know, just give me some different meats and I'll figure it out as I'm going. I'll play a little game.

That's good. We always like to add a game element to it.

Don't be giving me animals that don't belong on it. Yeah.

You know, but like a little bit of beef, some ham, um you know different types of of of ham there's different names for that inn there yeah i don't need to know them just i'm just gonna list something

just just give me them and and and those those you know i've just slagged off the bread as a starter yeah but those lovely soft long breadsticks that you get that That's where they belong.

Get them on there because

you can wrap some meat around the end.

Put a bit of sun-dried tomato with it. Have a bite of that.
Then you've kind of got a ham, breadsticks, sun-dried tomato thing going on.

And then next time, get a bit of mozzarella, put that on with a bit of olive, and then you've got like a completely different thing.

I'm cooking at this point. Oh, cooking in my mouth.

It isn't, I would say,

balancing isn't.

Oh, yeah, you're balancing. You're balancing here again.
I am, but I'm putting up on your breadstick. I am, but I'm holding it on with my fingers.
Yeah. My fingers just get

out of the way at the last minute, my fingers.

But antipasty, yeah but i want antipasty for four right i don't i mean because

if i'm if i'm in a restaurant i've sometimes i've ordered the antipasty for two because the antipasty for one is just not good enough yeah so i've ordered the antipasty for two just for myself and i've i've i've eaten it all so this is a dream restaurant so sodi i'm having the anti-pasty i'm having the antipasty for four don't know how to do it give me two antipasties for two put them on a bigger plate well we can do it absolutely

but we'll do it for four like it would traditionally be in a restaurant that amount but here at the dream restaurant we'll call it antipasty for one but no no no because then i feel like it undermines what i'm getting i want to know i'm getting it for four yeah yeah would you like to know like would you like to like have three people in mind who aren't getting it

do i want to eat my antipasty for four in front of three people who are who are salivating yeah do you know who do you want those three people to be no look let them have their own antipasty for four

so yeah yeah they can have their own thing it's not this isn't this isn't a gluttonous thing of, ooh, look what I've got, and you've got nothing. Yeah.
It's not that kind of thing.

It's just, it's just, I like a bit of antipasty. And if it's for four, at all, the better.
I completely agree. This is a perfect starter for me.
Yeah.

The arrangement of hams, just like, yeah, you know all of those hams. Oh, just like kind of slightly overlapping, fanned out, almost like pick a card.
Pick a meat.

Pick a meat, any meat.

Don't show me what it is.

Put it in your mouth. Put it in your mouth.

Was it the pastrami? It was the pastrami.

Mozzarella, sun-dried tomatoes, olives, that sort of stuff. Sun-dried tomatoes.

It's another one of those kind of weird foods, isn't it, that they've managed to sell to us, but it works. It works, adds a bit of sweetness.
I don't know how many...

When you have sun-dried tomatoes now, I don't think they could really have been dried by the sun. No, no, there's a process, isn't there?

There's a, I mean, there's sun-dried tomatoes and then there's some blush tomatoes where they just they've lost it they've just been impatient

just just get them out get them out let's get the next lot in legally we have to expose them to the sun briefly yeah yeah yeah they're not dried enough they then

call them something different

how long have they been around for sun-dried tomatoes because someone's shown me some stuff as long as the sun i think yeah what

well i would i would actually say i think the sun was around first of all as long as the tomato yeah as long as the tomato yeah they would have both have to have been around unless the tomato came before the sun which i don't think it did god said Let there be light and tomatoes.

And then very quickly,

he said, Let there be tomatoes and then sun-dried tomatoes. And that begat sun-dried tomatoes.
Yeah. I've got to read the Bible again.
Bagat.

I love the authenticity of bagat there. Yeah, that was a nice little use of language.
People have got to bring bagat back, I think. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, sometimes people order a bagat when we.

Well, you had a breakfast bagat. Oh, god damn it.

Oh, god, damn. Breakfast bagat.
Oh, my God. Breakfast bagat, you're dirty ass trousers.

Dream main cause, Chris?

Dream main cause. We didn't talk about it.
Did you want to know who I want there? What? Did you want to know who I want there and then? There's three other people. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Sorry.

I thought you did a bunch of them there. Yeah, yeah.
Who are the three other people getting an anthropology?

They also get an antipathy. Oh, I don't want to give them an antipathy.
I want them to have to watch Chris eat an antipathy for four. Yeah.
It's weird. Who do people pick on this usually?

Like, do they pick like... Sometimes their friends and family, sometimes from celebrities celebrities they'd like to meet.
Yeah. Sometimes they say that we could be there, but.

Oh, no, I don't want that. Yeah, yeah.

Although, you know, James would take some of the heat off any spillages I have.

Yeah. It's weird, isn't it? Like, because I'd imagine people on this a lot kind of pick people who, like,

their dream kind of dinner guests. They go, oh, do you know what? Like, imagine having dinner with Jimi Hendrix.

But, like, do you really want to have your dinner with Jimi Hendrix? I mean, does Jimi Hendrix want to have his dinner with you? That's the thing. Yeah.

Is there any point in picking somebody that's going to be miffed that they're there? Yeah.

So be livid, wouldn't it? Yeah, he wouldn't be. Oh, he wouldn't want to have dinner with me.
He'd ruin the whole thing. Would you not want Eddie Vedder there? Again, again.
Chris loves Pearl Jam.

I really love Pearl James.

Pearl Jam on Celebrity Mastermind. Oh, great.
I just, yeah, I think sometimes these people would add a little bit of pressure to dinner that you don't need. You always feel like you've got to kind of,

you can't, I can't, I can't enjoy the antipasty in the way that I want to enjoy it. Do I want to be shoving random foods into my mouth in front of Eddie Vedder from Pearl Joe?

I'm not sure I do. Do you know what?

I'd love to have my dinner if I can enter a fictional world.

I'd love to have me dinner in an episode of Frasier. I'd love to be there with Frasier Crane and Niles

and Daphne and Martin, like the original Frasier.

I'd love to be in there. I'd love to be, I could be like a less annoying version of Daphne's Northern family

from the later series. Yeah.

And just to be in there and to be part of the farce and the pretense and the,

yeah. And I think my favourite thing on that, I loved Fraser.
It was my favourite sitcom. I loved it when Niles was going out with Daphne and she was taking him to a concert.

And he said, Am I dressed appropriately for something called Banana Rama?

I love that this one's going to be in an episode of Frasier. Yeah.
We know what the side dish is going to be.

There you go. So I'd love to have me dinner.
Yeah, I'd love to be in an episode of they do a good anti-pasty. Yeah, Nalton Festival.
Oh, yeah, they would put that together beautifully. Oh, yeah.

But they'd tell you what all the meats are. They'd love to take you through what all the meats are.
They would. You know, I'd put up with it for that.
Yeah.

Yeah, they would love to do it.

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okay Matt and Course.

My wife's Brazilian and

I

must admit that the

Brazilian offerings of food are absolutely solid

today.

They are

you know what I mean. Brazil, solid offerings, yeah, yeah.
Um, oh, they love they love steak, you know. I love that cheese bread, you know, the

it's like good, like panda quejo or something, the where it's like looks like a bread roll and then you tear it open and there's more cheese than bread in there. Yeah, absolutely amazing.
Yeah,

they've got a lot of the baked goods are nailed in in Brazil. Um, a lot of kind of pastels, which are like you know, egg and chicken and

like a a pastry kind of suet thing, and

chicken and cheese, fried sandwiches.

It's phenomenal. But like, so they do picania, which is steak, and it's steak

cooked on a, I think they cook it on like an open flame, but it's just salted. It's really salted, just salty steak.
And then they'll carve it thin into small pieces. There's only one thing better.

I love a meal. You might have figured out that.
I don't have to use a knife, right?

So

you get the steak kind of in bite-sized pieces. You can just eat it.
It comes with like black beans,

garlic, and onions.

They've got this thing called fruffer, which I always take the piss out of because it's like sand. It's like some of these emptied their flip-flop on your plate.

You know, it's like a pile of sand. I think they make it with flour.
It looks like a grain, but it mops up the black bean sauce and the garlic and just just kind of gets involved with the other foods.

And I'll have some chips with that, some chips, and yeah, steak, black beans, foroffer. Oh, it's it's good.

The foroffer thing is wild because I've been to Brazil and I had no idea what it was, but you're right, it's sort of it soaks up whatever moisture's left, right?

And then you've just got a completely flavoured flavored sand, but it's almost like clumping cat litter, is uh

yeah, but it works, it does work, it works, it's delicious, you wouldn't eat it on its own. No.
Yeah, it'd just be like a little cup of sand.

John, a cup of sand.

But when you've got a bit of juice going on, you've got a bit of meat juice, you've got a bit of black bean juice,

it all lends itself. And everything on that plate can be eaten with a fork.
You can just kind of stab and shovel and get involved.

There's loads of garlic in the black beans. And yeah,

it's good. Do you like the Brazilian barbecue places where they bring around the skewers and just cut it off for you? Yeah, I love it.
Yeah. And they just keep going.

And you have your little traffic light on your table and they completely ignore it. Yeah.
You know, green means meat. Red means come over and check if I want some meat.

Yeah, so I just noticed your dingers on ready. Are you sure you don't want it? Oh, go on then.
Go on then. Yeah, I've only been to one of those places once, but that's exactly the experience.

And also, they told me about the system really strictly beforehand as if I was going to be able to do it. Yeah.
And then they didn't do it. Yeah.

I went to one in Philadelphia called Foggo de Chow, which I think is a chase. It's the one I went to.
Is it? Yeah, but in LA. Oh.
And I went absolutely wild, obviously. I ate so much meat.

And the salad bar as well is basically like you can just go and get huge chunks of parmesan. So I did that.

And I was only staying in Philadelphia for one night and went back to the hotel room and did the worst farts I've ever done all night to the extent the next morning I checked out and I felt guilty.

I was like,

they're going to have to burn the whole hotel. Yeah, this is the worst.
It was in the curtains by the end. Oh, man.
You have to, my mother-in-law does this thing

whenever she wants to get rid of an odour in the kitchen, in the kitchen, in the bathroom,

she lights a match and waves it around as if she's just burning the fart.

I think that works.

In his bedroom that night. Yeah.

It would have been like a terrorist. Yeah, Homer,

if I just flaming head in the toilet.

But does it work because it does what

she claims it does? That it burns the aroma in the air, or does it work because the room just now smells a burnt match? That one, yeah. Yeah, it's definitely just because it smells.

You just put a stronger smell. That's just the stronger smell in, yeah.

How often have you been to Brazil, Chris? A few times.

Yeah, not as often as. So my mother-in-law lived over there, but she also came over when we had our daughter and

she lived over here for ages.

It's you know, for all of its good points with the food, it's bloody hot, innit? Oh, God,

it's so hot. Yeah, it's I remember first time, I remember when the first time I went,

my wife was like bigging it up, and she was going, Oh, the food, you're gonna love the food, you're gonna love

the country, yeah.

No, but this is his feelings on TS, right?

There she

Oh, the food, the steak, the blah, blah, blah. And she goes, the beer, the cold beer.
Oh, they love a cold beer. Brazilians know a good beer.
They love a cold beer.

And it turned up, do you know what it was? Skull.

Skull.

Everywhere. They sell it in the shops.
They sell it on the beach. They have guys walking up and down the beach with bags of skull.

I said to her, Skull is like literally like the only place you can buy it is Quicksave in 1992.

But yeah, so they love a cold skull.

But yeah, it's anything

that's here is good, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's so hot.

I had this thing with it where, like, we were, you couldn't walk on the sand.

It was so hot, the sand, that you couldn't, it burned your feet trying to walk across to find where you were going to go to like pitch up on the sand.

And I said to her, why can't I just wear me socks? And she said, I'm not taking you out with socks on the beach.

I said, well, why can't I just like it makes no sense because we're walking on the beach, it's too hot.

Then we're putting the towel down and we're standing on the towel and we're letting our feet regain a little bit of normality before getting off the towel and walking, carrying and walking.

Then we're putting the towel down.

I said, if we put socks on, it's like we've got towels on our feet. We've just got towels on our feet.
We can just walk and then take the. She said, no, I'm not being seen with socks on the beach.

I said, well, there you go. You're putting completely kind of aesthetic qualities above practicality.
Yeah. It's the fun return home for your wife.
Yeah. Yeah.
Feet towels.

And wait till you hear my ideas about toothpaste. Yeah.
Do you know what, though? If, like, if there was no such thing as socks,

and then somebody, like, somebody said, like, oh, I've invented something, you just put it on your feet, and then you can walk on the beach. It's called feet towels.

They would sell like hot cakes. Everyone would be like, oh, my God, feet towels have changed the world.

My life is now completely different. Yeah.
With feet towels. Feet towels.
Because of feet towels. It's a shame, really, that socks got in there.
Socks got in there, they've ruined it.

Now people can't view them differently.

I guess you could bring out feet towels and just make sure they're made of the exact same material as a towel.

This could be your dragon's den moment.

What do you reckon Stephen Bartlett would say to him? I'm stood up there in front of him and saying, He's saying, How high up the leg do they come?

I'm like, Well, they just need to be trainer size because it's only the sole of the feet that he's protecting, Stephen. Yeah, they are made of regular toweled material.

Um, and um, I reckon they'll um they'll sell like um hot kegs in um,

you've got to change that phrase because you're meant to be cooling your feet down.

Maybe it's selling like cold cakes. They'll smell like cold sandwiches

in a very small number of countries. Yeah, yeah.
Okay, well, you might lose Bartlett on a very small number of countries.

Yeah, yeah.

Your dream Christmas dinner. Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas, Chris. Merry Christmas.

Ho, ho, ho.

Cream, cream, dream Christmas dinner.

If your dream Christmas dinner is just some cream,

a bowl of cream, please.

Do you know what? Like, I had

I remember going back years, I had this Christmas dinner that I, so I would, this must be like in 2008, 2009, somewhere around there. And I'd cooked it, right?

And we had friends coming over, and one of them is an Italian chef. And so I'd really, really planned this Christmas dinner, yeah.
And like, you know, there's a lot of things going on.

I'd researched what I need to do to make everything good. I didn't want to be showing up, yeah.
And I'd like worked out the times.

I kind of half-cooked some things and then put them on the side so I could put them on, have everything done at the right time.

I had the times all worked out, four different timers going at once for things. And I had it, it was couldn't have been gone better.
And then he turned up and he rolled a spliff

and

he said, have some of this. And I just,

I, I,

in the space of two minutes, I forgot everything that was on the oven. I literally, it was like, honestly,

you can imagine that there's the chaos in my mind of like, I couldn't even see what was on the oven. I couldn't even remind myself visually.
I lost track of all the times.

I lost track of what I was cooking.

I just ended, the whole thing was so farcical to me that

I thought it was all ruined. I thought, that's it.
The dinner's gone. And then he stepped in and he saved the dinner because he's an Italian chef.

But the combination of having this dinner that I was half responsible for, that I thought I'd lost, that suddenly somebody else stepped in and saved and probably made better than what I would have made it.

And combined with the fact that I now had the munchies.

I absolutely love that sliding doors moment of you've got everything prepared and then an Italian chef comes over and says, Do you want some of this? And it's just, it's yes or no.

And the dinner is so different based on which question you're doing. Oh, God.
I couldn't have even told you what vegetables I was cooking.

Oh, it's just,

I had no idea of anything. I didn't even know, I didn't know where to begin.
And

yeah, so

that was a good Christmas dinner for a lot of reasons.

So was that like the traditional Christmas dinner? Was it like turkey and a little bit of a tiny? So I don't really go for the turkey. I don't,

I can't, I can't cook a turkey. I'll have a turkey.
Do you know what?

Like, just for tradition's sake, if I'm out somewhere that's doing Christmas dinners, I'll have a turkey, a turkey dinner like once a year, just to say I've done it.

Cranberry, I don't,

keep your cranberry sauce.

Do you know what? I don't get it. I don't understand why.
It's like one kind of mad person did it 200 years ago. Like, you know what? I'm going to put jam on a dinner.

Like, like, just some absolute loon.

What have we got? Well, we've only got five things left. We've got some turkey.
We've got some jam. Let's have turkey and jam.

It was probably like a member of the aristocracy or something, or someone in the royal family, so everyone had to agree with it and eat it at the same time.

Yeah, and then all of a sudden, it's like a thing that we have to do. It's just, it's, you have a Christmas dinner sandwich? Oh,

it's just like someone's put, it's like somebody's combined a meat sandwich with a jam sandwich. You like jam, don't you? Like pearl jam?

Which I've just remembered what pearl jam means. Yeah,

there's just no way of you editing that out now, is there? It's been such a key part of the thread of the podcast.

You know, get rid of that.

I think Christmas dinner is as much about enjoying the leftovers as it is about the dinner itself.

And on that regard, yeah, just a ham, ham, lovely ham.

Ham for you because ham's great cold, ham's great hot, ham's great cold, ham's great sliced thin, fat chunks in a sandwich on its own used as a vehicle for something else almost like it's like a meaty poppa dum in it you can just yeah ah so ham lots of ham

christmas ham christmas hammon basically like big slices of gammon yeah yeah yeah and um

Yeah, and then it's good then in any form over the next few days, isn't it? Yeah.

Love a ham.

The stuffing's good. Again, with the applesauce, like I'm not as anti-applesauce as M cranberry, but I still wouldn't put it on my dinner.
Yeah.

Like, just give it to yourself. It's not as harsh and as jam-like as cranberry,

but still, it's not for me. I do kind of agree with you on the sweet sauces.
I would do it out of tradition, but how do you feel about bread sauce? Yeah, it's a bit savoury, isn't it?

I mean, you have it with the turkey, don't you? You don't have it with ham. You could have it with ham.
Could you have it with ham?

I'd have bread sauce with ham.

I'd pop horseradish with ham i'd pop mustard i'd pop mustard with ham chris

i don't know i mean it's weird isn't it because like i've only ever had mint sauce with lamb all the way the mint sauce would go with other things it's never been it's never been an available option for me to just work in a kitchen and we'd make a like an onion salad with mint sauce and just have to mix it all together and it was actually really nice

but sent that out and that was with other dishes that weren't just lamb

i can't actually remember what it was with now but like it it was quite a popular item on the menu. I'd go mint jelly over mint sauce anyway.
I love mint jelly.

Didn't know that about you. Yeah.

I remember when I was a kid, this has gone back years. I remember having

a little spooned out kind of combination on a salad of

celery, beetroot, and apple.

like chunks of apple and that that was that was good like apple adding a bit of um sweetness on it like in that form to uh to something that's um savory was good yeah um but not i think the sauces just get a bit a bit sickly don't they they sort of take everything over yeah they take over yeah um no i'm happy with the gravy to be honest

gravy parsnips carrots get a bit of bro i know broccoli is not traditional but it

it absorbs gravy it's a good i also like to pretend i'm a giant when i eat broccoli yeah and like i pulled up trees from the road and then i like go um

and I eat it. Like I honestly do the noise, like I'm kind of, I don't know, like giants can't eat anything without going

like before they put it in their mouth. They probably just eat like us, don't they? Just bigger.
I just imagine your Brazilian wife sat there now.

Like you're she doesn't take me out. That's why she doesn't take me out.
I'm at the restaurant.

Yeah.

Yeah. Feet towels.
Feet towels. Yeah.
Yeah.

Roast potatoes, parsnips. Do you know what? Like parsnips, for me,

there seems to be a trend of trying to make the parsnip the full length of the parsnip. You know,

interesting, yeah. Yeah,

and

it's quite lethal for a blind man having a sharpened parsnip on a fork because you don't know, first of all, often you don't know what you've got in your fork. Yeah.

Also, even if you do know what's a parsnip, you don't know where you've skewed the parsnip. You don't know how much of the spike you got.
I've had them up my nose and everything.

So,

you know you go to you go to kind of get one in your mouth and it kind of hits you with it up the nose in the in the eye quite a lethal vegetable especially if it's well roasted it's quite sharp on the end yeah and we've got to stick to the tradition with parsnips which is you get the fat end and then the spike the spiked end right two separate parsnips yeah i i'd shorten them yeah you short them even more yeah the thing for me when that happens it's often the short end

the flat end looks like a roast potato so i think i'm it's like it's like you with the pop-adom dips. I think I'm getting a roast potato and then it turns out it's a parsnip.
I'm not happy with that.

I don't like that. No,

is there a do they look the same or you just well okay yeah Chris I'll offer a counter argument and say they don't look the same. They don't.
I wouldn't imagine they look the same. No, they don't.

They look the same. No.
They're identical, Chris. They're not identical, mate.

You think you're cutting your potatoes too small. Yeah, you're cutting your potatoes too small and cutting the ends off weirdly.
Yeah.

Chris is the one who's in the right here, and Chris is blind. Yeah.
Well, Chris is telling you they don't look the same, and he's Chris.

It's a low point for me

on the podcast.

They don't look the same, and your trousers look fine.

Do you know what? Like,

the amount of times as well, I tell you, this is the worst. This is the worst, is when you're having your dinner, like, not being able to say, it's like Russian roulette.

You don't know what you gotta, you got it, yeah?

The number of times I've thought I'm biting into a juicy quarter of tomato and it's a whole piece of lemon. Oh, and yeah, but I mean, that is the opposite of fizzy water.

That is, you know, the fizzy water, you think you're getting something, you're getting nothing. Yeah, that you think you're getting a little bit of something, you're getting everything.

You're getting too much.

Too much.

Your dream side dish, Chris?

Now, is that just the chips that you chose earlier? Yeah, I think there was chips with the pecania, right? I guess. But if you have a different side dish you'd like to pick, yeah.

I mean, this is really sad, but when I was in uni, I used to love a pot noodle sandwich.

I just

piece of white bread with a beef and tomato pot noodle,

spoon it onto the white bread,

don't even butter it, just fold it over, just a pot noodle fold over.

And

that was a hearty meal for a starving student. Wow.
And I'd never dream of making one now, you know, at the

distinguished age that I am. But this is a fantasy dream restaurant, isn't it? Yeah.
Where

what goes on in the fantasy dream restaurant stays in the fantasy dream restaurant. Yes.

So,

yeah, I think I had like one single white bread pot noodle fold over.

I also remember, do you know what? Like, I was so kind of

unworldly with my foods. Like, the first time I ever had pizza was

when I was a student at uni. I'd never eaten pizza.

It just wasn't a thing that was like, I mean, it was a thing, but there was, like, there just wasn't, we didn't go out for, we didn't go to pizza restaurants when I was younger.

Going to a restaurant just wasn't a thing that we did, really. Do you know what I mean?

And I also didn't like cheese when I was younger. And I didn't know that melted cheese tasted so much differently to blocks of cheese.

And a mate of mine, a new and he said, you want a piece of this pizza? It was a 99-piece Sainsbury's kind of thin smear of cheese on a burnt bread base

and with like eight pieces of pepperoni on it. And I said, no.
And he went, you're sure it's good, you know. And I had a piece.
And it was the greatest culinary revelation of my life.

Is that that single piece? And I'm glad I started with a 99 pence pizza because if I'd have gone straight in dominoes, I don't, I probably wouldn't be here to tell a tale.

It would have been too much for me. Yeah, so that moment was one of the greatest kind of shifts in my eating was the realization that melted cheese and pizza was incredible.

And I still had a world of pizza to enjoy from that moment. I'd started at the bottom.
It's the best place to start. Yeah, now we're here.

But you know what? If I could recreate that moment of that first piece of pizza back then, just give me that as a little side. Oh, yeah, nice.
So we're dispensing with the pot noodles.

I think I'm going to give Chris both because I like both. The pot noodle foldover.
I think we mean like Chris's uni years. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's nice. Yeah, uni university years.

University platter as the um as the side dish. So I don't think we'll ever have a pot noodle fold over again on the podcast.
No, I think

I think this we've got to grab this with both of us. Yeah, very much sounds like an invention that Chris has come up with.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Add it to towel socks or whatever. Yeah.
Peak towels. Yeah,

Trey Marfs, to TM. Copyright.
2025. I don't know how Bart is going to respond to the pot noodle foldover.
I can't see him going in on this. Well, if he's out, if he's out for

the feet towels, imagine Dragon Stead. He's out for the feet towels.
Chris doesn't get investment leaves. The next person in is Chris, clearly just wearing a hat.
Holding a single.

He's like, right, hear me out.

That's you. I know that's you.

I'll tell you what, as well, back in the day, like going back to like, I don't know, late 90s or something like that, you're going to a festival.

You went to the Reading Festival or something like that in the late 90s. They would have a pot noodle stand, an official pot noodle stand, right?

And it was a giant pot noodle. And you'd go into the pot noodle to order a pot noodle.
And

I would go in to get a pot noodle just because the thrill of being in a pot noodle was so much fun

that you like the idea of being in the pot noodle was better than the pot noodle.

So you'd almost feel like you were going in on a ride. Yeah.

Just.

Do you want your dream meal to be in a pot noodle? A massive pot noodle? A Christmassy one. Yeah.
Yeah.

Well,

if it fits the format. Yeah, yeah.

Let's not forget that this will have to be a big pot noodle restaurant in the middle of an episode of Fraser. Yeah.

Giant pot noodle, size of the Seattle Space Needle.

But honestly, like walk, like, so the whole, it just looked like, because I could see back then, so we did for the people at home, it just looked like a huge pot noodle.

But the front of it was cut out like a little doorway, and you'd walk in the pot noodle and you'd come out the big pot noodle with a little pot with a little pot noodle.

And even just

now, the thought of it's making me giddy with like excitement. It's just a thrilling thing to do.

Where else do you get to go in the big thing and come up with a little version of the big thing?

Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah.

There's not enough of that in life. Eiffel Tower, maybe, yeah.
Well, okay, that's a commemorative thing, innit? Like, yeah, but but not an actual

artwork, yeah, I know what you mean,

of landmarks, yeah, yeah, the pot big pot noodle is probably the only example of that.

I mean, if you got to like, if you were at a burger shop, make it a big burger, and then the amount of people that would go in the big burger to come up with a little burger, yeah, oh, your burger sales will go through the roof, yeah, yeah,

literally.

Hey, guys, it's Kamal Nanjiani. My new stand-up special, Night Thoughts, is now streaming on Hulu.
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Okay, what you can't do is point at someone else.

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Your dream drink.

I don't think my dream drink exists. Okay, perfect.

So

I love.

Bott Bartlett's getting ready to hear this.

This is the third time you've been in it. Here we go.

I love it.

And

I always got confused between ginger ale and ginger beer. Right?

And now I came up with a way of remembering it, and it is that

ginger beer, cheer.

Ginger ale, fail.

Right. Perfect.
And

that's because ginger ale, I think, is like a bit too lemonade-y.

And ginger beer is the gingery bum with a bit of a kick. Yes.

Now, I don't like it sweet. I like it quite, you know, dry and gingery.
But whenever I have a ginger beer, I always think, I wish this was more gingery. Yeah.
So I want the most gingery ginger beer.

Like, so, like, I want it hot. I want it to burn the back of my throat.
I want it to be, I want it to, I want it to come with some pain. Like you would get with a chili.
Like, you get,

people enjoy hot foods and hot sauces and, and there's a certain level of kind of pain that comes with the enjoyment. There's this physical reaction, there's a sensation to it.
I want a ginger beer.

that kicks my ass.

Yeah.

Yeah, we could do that for you. I can use my genie powers and make you the most most gingery, fiery, ginger beer.

What's the ginger beer that's commercially available that you think gets closest to that?

I mean, I like a Fentonman's because the Fentonman's comes in a decent sized bottle. Sometimes if you order a ginger beer, you get like a tiny little miniature that they'd use the top of a

short.

The Fentonman's comes in a decent size bottle, like 200 milliliters or something. And it's not too sweet.

It tastes quite dry.

So that's kind of the go-to if you're out and about. But it could do, I'd love an ultraversion.
Yeah. Extreme.
Fentnam's extreme. Yeah.
I really want a ginger beer now. Yeah.

I've sold it well, haven't I? Yeah, you really. And imagine going in a massive ginger beer to get a smaller ginger beer.

Well, it's going to happen for the dreamer as well.

We can make sure that every course, even in a giant amount,

when you're eating,

you're drinking it.

That would be good. Yeah, except I don't know how you'd do a big poppa dumb.
It'd just be like a gazebo, wouldn't it? Where the top was the poppa dump? It would have to be.

Otherwise, it would just be a door, wouldn't it? You'd just walk through and you're out. Yeah, you just smashed right through it.

Yeah. I think if you had a gazebo as well, where the top was a poppa dump, you'd get sick of having to point it out to people, wouldn't you? Yeah.

Because like massive potenodle looks like a big potnoodle.

You'd have to say to people, do you like me? And they go, oh, yeah, it's nice, isn't it? And then you have to go, the top's a poppa dump.

Oh, is it? Yeah, I never noticed that. Yeah, it is.
Oh, I can now you've pointed it out. I can see it.
We know that all too well.

We did a live show with this podcast. We had a set behind us with a massive giant poppadum.
And everyone just thought it was the moon. Yeah.
Just looking at the moon.

Every guest was like, oh, it's the moon. But it's a lot of making poppadum.
It's a poppadum from the show. Come on, from the show.
Yeah.

No.

Ginger beer always makes me think of the famous five.

They would always have ginger beer, lush and lashes and ginger beer.

Do you think you'd be a good addition to the famous five, Chris? Um do I

solving crimes with four kids and a dog? Uh a good do you know what? Like I yeah, I think I it's of a time, isn't it? Yeah, they solve crimes. I like the words they're like caught criminals and stuff.

I like the words they use, you know. There's always those words, isn't he? The good food words that she used in those books.
Like she'd mixed the words up, wouldn't she? Like dilumptious

and scrillicious

and things like that. So

yeah, it's innocent times, isn't it? Yeah, I'd imagine being in the gang that sells crimes. They didn't solve proper crimes, though, did they? Yeah, there'd be like drug dealers in a lighthouse.

Drug dealers in a lighthouse or something. They didn't do drug dealers in a lighthouse, did they? Oh, yeah, definitely are.
I thought they stealed closer murder, and did they do murders? Yeah,

five-finder shipload of ket was one of them.

We arrived at your dream dessert, Chris. Yeah,

do you have one?

What are we in a giant one of now? Oh, God, this meal's dragging, innit?

Yeah, no.

When we can see the exact moment our guest runs out of energy. Yeah.

So I love, or I did love, I probably wouldn't love them now, but like I did, I love a school dessert.

And when I was in school, I loved school desserts.

I always remember the joy of a pink custard day or a chocolate custard day.

And they're probably so sweet for my 48 year old palate now but like if i could eat those desserts with the palate of a child

and the the just the amount of custard the the like i what winds me up is when you go somewhere and you order a pudding that should be in a bowl and it comes on a plate and and they you know you get like oh i'll have the treacle sponge and custard and you get a block a little block of sponge on a plate with a drizzle of custard on it and you want to send it back and go where

where is this an acceptable vehicle for treacle sponge and custard?

I want it swimming in it. I want a bowl.
I want a bowl that facilitates the custard being higher than the sponge. I want to be surprised when I see sponge in there.

You know, I want it to be a bowl of custard and I want to excavate the sponge like I'm an archaeologist.

So, good old school desserts with huge amounts of custards of various fluorescent colours

with the palate of a child. So, we're going with the Treacle Sponge.
Is that the one that you would have? Love a Treacle Sponge, yeah. A good old spotted dick,

even like a Bakewell tart with custard. Yeah, love all them.
Jamal was, I love Jam Raleigh Polyton. With a good old, I mean, a pink custard.

I mean, does that still exist? Do people still have pink custard? I don't think so. I've not come across pink custard for a while.
When you did Strictly, did you have to change your diet at all?

So, when I did Strictly, which I talk about in my book, Keep Laughing, which is out for Christmas,

makes a

PR guys out there, they'd be like, oh, God. They left ages ago, Chris.

Thank God he's brought it back to the book.

I could eat what I wanted. Like, literally, it was insane.
Like, we'd be training eight hours a day.

I would have a burger for like a Tuesday dinner time. Who's having a burger for a Tuesday dinner time at the age of 48? And then, and then I'd go, I'll have a burger again on the Wednesday.

It just didn't matter.

I was eating chocolate like it was Christmas, and then it was Christmas. And so there was the calories didn't matter.
I ate what I wanted, and I still lost weight.

It was insane. Wow.

But you know, to counterbalance that, I was also held together with physiotech.

Yeah, it was

physically kind of slowly ripped me apart over four months.

People go, do you feel healthier?

I literally feel like I've been in a car crash. Yeah, like I'm

my ass is literally seller tape to my back

and like with actual pieces of tape. They've taken tape, they've attached it to my cheeks, and they've stretched that up to my shoulders.

Yeah, and they've gone, This will hold you in the form of a human for another week.

You just say to your wife, that's a Brazilian butt lift.

Yeah. Some stuff.
I could eat what I wanted. It was good.
But then you've really got to rein it in when it finishes because you don't carry on dancing.

And that's the one thing you can't carry on eating like that. Otherwise,

it all goes wrong, doesn't it?

It was great.

It was great to watch it every single week.

Every time were you like, I can't believe I'm still in it. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, like, I honestly thought, I said no to it a few times because I didn't think it was possible.

I thought, like, I'm all for diversity. I'm like, we should have more diversity, more representation across mainstream program.
Do you want to do strictly? Are you insane?

Literally insane.

Come on. In what world do you think this is even possible? And I didn't know what it was they were asking me to do because I couldn't.
You can't describe it. Describe it.
It was dancing, but how good?

How technical? How fast? What are the dances? So the only way I was able to figure out what it was they wanted me to do was by doing it.

So it was so the unknown, most terrifying thing I've ever done in my life. And, you know, top 10 scariest things I've ever done in my life.
A 10 episodes are strictly hands down. It was that

feeling of 8 million people watching at home and you're in the studio while that VT plays and you're just waiting for this moment of reckoning.

And then it comes in the studio and they go dancing or whatever.

And honestly,

the nerves, I've never felt anything like it.

And you just have to flick those switches in your head and just try and belt through it, you know, but it is.

It's terrifying, which is why as soon as that dance was over, if I felt like I'd done a good job and we'd put the hours in, we'd done all right, I went straight into comedy modes because that was my safety net.

You know, that was like,

I've just blagged me, I've just blagged myself as a dancer for the last two minutes. Yeah, now let's take the piss out of Craig and have a laugh and

do something that I know I can do. And

it worked. People kind of

liked it.

But the thing is, is that, I mean, the thing I'm proud of with it is that for none of the weeks throughout the whole 13 weeks, were me and Diane ever kept in above somebody that got more points than us.

Every week, the person that went out had less points than us, but from the judges.

So we always held our own, even though it connected with the audience at home and they liked what we were doing and we had people supporting us and stuff. We always held our own up until the final.

And then in the final, over three dances,

we were only four points off a maximum. So I couldn't be prouder of what we did.
You know, it was

remarkable, and even when we got to February, two months after, I'd look back and I'd just when you're out of that bubble for just two months, I'd look back and I'd go, How the fuck did we do that?

It just felt, it felt, it felt insane that that was even something that happened. So, um,

yeah, but it's um, it's all in the book, yeah.

Look at you now on the giant pot noodle,

yeah,

dancing a giant pot noodle, Chris. Yeah, yeah, I suggested a lot, you know,

a lot of the music music that you dance as well,

you're allowed to kind of,

it's a three-way kind of conversation between strictly and you and Diane and your dancer.

And I'd, I, you know, I have my input on some dances and some ideas, but I'd say most of the things I suggested on that show were shut down quite early on.

A lot of my musical, I mean, me and you, Ed, share a lot of musical tastes, yeah. Yes.

A lot of my musical tastes were like, I'd, I'd play Diane something that I thought had a really good beat and a really good rhythm, and she'd say, you just can't dance to this.

There's nothing in it at all that even remotely resembles. I'm like, listen to that bass line, Diane.

Any examples of the of the ones that got away?

You know, I did play some Pearl Jam. I played.

So I was told that, like, well, the couple's choice, you can do something that kind of means something to you.

And also the the Pasadoble, I was told, is kind of the one that you could do something heavier to. I went through a whole morning of

playing Diane Sepaltora and Sulphide songs, which is

Brazilian thrash metal. It's the thrash/slash groove metal,

and kind of arguing with it in disbelief that she was saying there was no rhythm to them.

It's pure rhythm. It's pure rhythm.
Too much rhythm, I would say. I would say it's the cranberry sauce of the musical world.

But too much. It's bloody movement.

It's Christmas.

Yeah, but I see your point. And I realize doing strictly as well that it's as much about the song as it is about the dancing.
Like, people will only like a dance if they like the song.

And I think that the song really, unless it's a pasadoble, which is like traditional kind of,

it works well with the traditional music. I think it needs to be it needs to have words to the song.
It needs to be it they work better than like a score or a I remember I remember

Shane who I was on with did one of his dances. I can't remember which one it was, but he did it to whatever that tune is that's the theme tune for Alton Towers.
Yeah, yeah, and

Fall of the Mountain King. I can't remember how it goes.

But it gets faster and faster, doesn't it? Yeah, it's the Fantasia thing as well, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He did it to that, and I was listening to it because I'd do that every week.

I'd be up there, like, there'd be an amazing dance get done, and they'd finish. And I'd say to dad, God, the band's amazing.

But he did it to that, and it sounded amazing, but I was just thinking, I don't think people are going to like the song compared to the other choices on that week.

So I think that's important, on it, you know. Yeah, I really wish I'd been able to see you dance to a soul flow song.

Would you do it? No, never.

I wouldn't hold up, Chris.

I'll be outweek one

from stress. I'll be pleading down the down of the camera for them to vote me off.

Please no one vote for me. I can't take this anymore.
Also, costume would have have an absolute nightmare with him when he just gets an egg on it every single week. Please stop eating

breakfast wrap just before you go on. I can't help it.
Herbie to menu back to you now, Chris.

Oh, yeah, let's have this. Okay, still water.
Absolutely. You would like pop it on some spoons of condiments straight into your mouth.
Yeah.

An antipasty for four. Beef, different types of ham, breadsticks, sun-dried tomatoes, mozzarella, olives.
Main course. Green.

Let's get rid of the black ones. Let's just go with the big green ones.
Just the big green ones. Big green ones.
Main course. Pecaña.

Brazilian salted steak, cooked on an open flame with black beans, garlic, froffa, and chips. Christmas dinner, you would like a Christmas ham.
You love ham. Stuff in roast potatoes and parsnips.

Side dish.

Did that make it clear how much I like ham?

You didn't really say ham enough. No, not enough.
Side dish, beef and tomato pot noodle sandwich, a fold over on white bread, and a bite of your first pizza when you were at university. Yeah.

Life-changing. Life-changing.
Drink the most fiery, gingery, ginger beer that we can make for you. And dessert, a school dessert, huge amounts of various custards with the palate of a child.

Well, can I just say that it sounds like the palate of a child is the thing that's been eaten there?

Can I just,

I don't want a bowl of custard

on the palate of a child.

Just if anyone's tuned in at the end, I don't know why they would, but maybe they got bored and just skipped to the end to see how it finishes.

Yeah, so maybe people do that sometimes about episodes, especially when they do the menu at the end. I'll hear the menu to know if I'm going to like this episode.

Yeah, oh my god, he's eating the palate of a child.

What's the hell? For this of the nice guy from Strickland, a little bit more context to it than that. Yes, yeah, yeah.
What a lovely Christmassy way to end it.

Um, Chris, thank you so much for coming to the Dream Restaurant. Thanks for having me.
Thank you, Chris. Ham.

Well, there we are, James. What a lovely start to our Christmas specials.
What I mean a crazy journey there. We're eating giant pot noodles, wearing towels on our feet.
Frasier. Frasier was there.

That was the most normal part. Yeah, that was the most normal part.
But lovely to see Chris. Lovely to chat to him.
Always funny. Get his book.
Keep laughing. On audio as well.

You can get it on audio. I'd say buy it in hardcover.
Yeah. And buy it in audio.
Yeah.

Makes a lovely Christmas gift. Maybe get one for yourself and one for your loved one.
Wait till the paperback comes out, get that. Yeah.

For the completest. You got it for the completest.

And also, Chris did not say Chris Dingle. No, he didn't say Christingle.
Which I'm glad about because I was enjoying the chat.

I would have been surprised if he said Chris Dingle with given what his food choices were. Yeah.

I thought he don't think he'll really like an orange with like Donny mixtures and raisins stuck in it and cloves. Yeah, and cloves.
We've had cloves already as a secret in Christian. Disgusting.

Disgusting. Yes.
Next week, there's another Christmas episode. Yes, there is.
Of course. And, you know, let's just say

similar vibe.

That's the clue. That's the clue.
It's a good clue. Why it's a good clue is it's not true.

So it'll really throw people off the scent. Okay.
Well, you know, we'll see. See what people think, if I'm right or you're right.
Yes, okay. This is available tomorrow on YouTube.

If you're listening to this on the day it came out, otherwise, pop on YouTube. It's probably there anyway.

Had a few messages from people saying that Benito's winning, that they're listening to the episode on audio and then watching it on YouTube. Benito's, oh,

that's because of us. That's because we're doing his bidding for him and saying that it's on YouTube.
I love to do his bidding. We should stop promoting it.
Yeah, no, I love it. Stop promoting the US.

I love to do Benito's bidding. Oh, I hate it.
I hate doing his bidding. It's the worst part of my life.

I'm going to do his bidding all the time. Well, Merry Christmas, James.
Merry Christmas to all of you. We'll be back next week with another Christmas episode.
But for now, bye-bye, jingle bells.

Bye-bye, jingle bells.

Hey guys, it's Kamal Nanjiani. My new stand-up special, Night Thoughts, is now streaming on Hulu.
I promise you're gonna laugh.

I am an immigrant.

Are there any other immigrants here?

Okay, what you can't do is point at someone else.

Night Thoughts is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.
That wasn't my call. If it wasn't my call, terms would not apply, but it's not my call.

Terms apply.

Hi, folks. It's Mark Bittman from the podcast Food with Mark Bittman.

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