Fern Brady (Tasting Menu)

We’re rolling out a Tasting Menu once again, and this time Off Menu fan favourite, Taskmaster star, superstar stand-up and podcaster Fern Brady gets given a surprise menu. Fern Brady has launched a new podcast ‘Ignore That Feeling’ with Alison Spittle. Listen to it on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/7g9lqAR9RZIieJu6xjwcVi, Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/ignore-that-feeling-with-fern-brady-and-alison-spittle/id1871414238 and watch it on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ignorethatfeelingpodcast Follow Fern on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/fernfrombathgate @fernfrombathgate and TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@fernbradyofficial @fernbradyofficial Watch the video version of this episode on the Off Menu YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@offmenupodcast on Thu 19 Feb. Off Menu is now on YouTube: @offmenupodcast https://www.youtube.com/@offmenupodcast Follow Off Menu on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/offmenuofficial and TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@offmenuofficial: @offmenuofficial. And go to our website www.offmenupodcast.co.uk https://www.offmenupodcast.co.uk/ for a list of restaurants recommended on the show. Off Menu is a comedy podcast hosted by Ed Gamble and James Acaster. Produced, recorded and edited by Ben Williams for Plosive https://www.plosive.co.uk/. Video production by Megan McCarthy for Plosive https://www.plosive.co.uk/. Artwork by Paul Gilbey https://www.instagram.com/pushgilbey/ (photography and design). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

• 0:13Speaker 00

  Well, hello and welcome to Off Menu.

• 0:16Speaker 01

  Well, hello.

• 0:16Speaker 00

  The tasting menus, James.

• 0:18Speaker 01

  The tasting menus.

• 0:20Speaker 00

  That's what it is now.

• 0:21Speaker 01

  When we give a fan favourite guest the menu of another fan favourite guest.

• 0:26Speaker 00

  Yes, it's an excuse to get some people back on.

• 0:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, always nice to get people back on, have a little chat. And we're very excited this week because we have a firm fan favourite back on the podcast. Our guest is Fern Brady.

• 0:40Speaker 00

  A Fern fan favourite.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  A Fern fan, a firm, a Fern firm fan favourite.

• 0:46Speaker 00

  Yes, lovely.

• 0:47Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, the amount of run-ups I took at it.

• 0:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 0:51Speaker 01

  Probably.

• 0:51Speaker 00

  Beneath all edit it down so you sound slick, I'm sure.

• 0:54Speaker 01

  Oh, thanks, man. Really appreciate it. Yeah, yeah. Of course, Fern Brady, a fantastic comedian, writer.

• 0:59Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:00Speaker 01

  Book is fantastic.

• 1:02Speaker 00

  A hit writer.

• 1:03Speaker 01

  A hit writer.

• 1:04Speaker 00

  Huge success.

• 1:05Speaker 01

  A smash.

• 1:05Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:06Speaker 01

  A smash hit writer. Brilliant on Taskmaster as well.

• 1:08Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 1:09Speaker 01

  Um, we've already had John Kearns do a tasting menu and the moment in Taskmaster where the two of them, uh, and Dara are doing that book task.

• 1:18Speaker 00

  Yes, and John is the saboteur.

• 1:20Speaker 01

  The saboteur. Fern is so funny throughout all that, calls him Daftie in the middle.

• 1:24Speaker 00

  Called Daftie in the middle, yeah. And Fern is a foodie as well.

• 1:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:29Speaker 00

  Really, really likes food and enjoys talking about food a lot as well. So very much looking forward to having her back on and we will be giving her the menu of Phil Wang. We've get, I think we've given Fern a little treat here because they're good friends, her and Phil.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43Speaker 00

  Uh, and they eat together a lot, uh, and I think she will enjoy this menu.

• 1:47Speaker 01

  I think their friendship hasn't been documented enough.

• 1:50Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:50Speaker 01

  And we can be the first, um... Platform.

• 1:54Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:54Speaker 01

  To really break a lot of stories about their friendship.

• 1:57Speaker 00

  We're looking for scoops.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  Looking for scoops, hopefully we're going to get some hot scoops.

• 2:00Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 2:01Speaker 01

  About the friendship of Fern Brady and Phil Wang.

• 2:03Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 2:04Speaker 01

  And it's a nice menu as well. So I think Fern will like it.

• 2:06Speaker 00

  I think it is. And I, you know, but you know what? It's interesting reading these menus from, uh, from your. Because.

• 2:12Speaker 01

  And your.

• 2:13Speaker 00

  I think, um, a lot of these menus would have changed for people. And Fern has a brand new podcast with Alison Spittle, another friend of the pod.

• 2:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:21Speaker 00

  Finally reunited.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  Oh, yes, finally. They did a fantastic podcast.

• 2:25Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  With a misfortune back in the day. And now they're doing a new podcast called Ignore That Feeling and you can listen to it wherever you get your podcasts.

• 2:33Speaker 00

  And watch it on YouTube.

• 2:34Speaker 01

  And watch it on YouTube, which Benito loves.

• 2:36Speaker 00

  Very excited to have Fern back on. This is not the off-menu menu of Fern Brady.

• 2:49Speaker 00

  Welcome back Fern to the dream restaurant.

• 2:51Speaker 02

  Uh, thanks for having me.

• 2:53Speaker 01

  Welcome back. Good to see you again.

• 2:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, you too. Why is there a lamp?

• 2:58Speaker 01

  There's a genie lamp that's on there.

• 2:59Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 3:00Speaker 01

  Um, why, why do you think?

• 3:02Speaker 02

  Um. Don't know. Is it the new Papa Dums or bread? I don't know. What is that?

• 3:08Speaker 00

  Now, when you did the podcast the first time.

• 3:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:11Speaker 00

  Do you remember, what else do you remember about it other than Papa Dums or bread?

• 3:17Speaker 02

  Nothing.

• 3:18Speaker 00

  Hmm. Yeah, that's fair enough. That, that tracks.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  That's fair enough.

• 3:21Speaker 00

  James is a genie in the podcast. Do you remember that?

• 3:25Speaker 02

  Have you always been that?

• 3:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, from episode one. Yeah, I was always a genie.

• 3:30Speaker 02

  Well, you're subtle about that. What do you mean?

• 3:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess it's a bit subtle in a way.

• 3:33Speaker 00

  No, he bursts out the lamp at the beginning and then normally I explain to the guests that James is a genie so he can get you any food from anywhere in the world.

• 3:39Speaker 02

  I mean, I've listened to a lot of episodes.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, you have listened to a lot of episodes.

• 3:43Speaker 02

  Oh, but a lot of episodes, I tend to skip past the first bit of podcasts.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  Sure. So the intro and that, that's gone.

• 3:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:51Speaker 01

  They don't hear that.

• 3:51Speaker 00

  The, I'd say like a lot of the artwork, there's lamps involved and James is a genie in the artwork.

• 3:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:57Speaker 02

  Is there?

• 3:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, last time I saw you, you'd said, cause you'd been on the podcast and then you'd started listening to it, I think. And you were like, I've listened to loads now, but clearly none of, in none of them, you mentioned me being a genie, which is

• 4:12Speaker 00

  I think we do.

• 4:13Speaker 01

  Off brand for us.

• 4:14Speaker 02

  You maybe mumbled it or something.

• 4:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:17Speaker 02

  I really, I think that would just stood out. So that's a me, a central theme.

• 4:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, definitely a central theme. And quite often if, if a guest hasn't heard the podcast, I'll explain that James is a genie. And then quite often that leads on to conversations about genies.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's been a few conversations about genie lore and stuff on the podcast and, you know.

• 4:39Speaker 01

  Um, because you came on the podcast and then you listened to it.

• 4:43Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 4:44Speaker 01

  Did you change your mind afterwards about your menu? Were you like, oh, actually I wish I'd said this. I should have chosen this. Now, now I've listened to it.

• 4:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm not saying this to date, but can you remind me of the format of the show?

• 4:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 4:57Speaker 00

  I'm not surprised now.

• 4:58Speaker 02

  And you can edit that part out if you want.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  No, no, we'll keep that in.

• 5:01Speaker 00

  No, that's all, that's all staying in.

• 5:03Speaker 01

  So we ask you like, you know, whether you want still a sparkling water, whether you want poppy.

• 5:07Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  What your dream starter is, your dream main course, your dream dessert, your dream drink, your dream side dish, not in that order.

• 5:14Speaker 00

  So, but you remember that if you've listened, if you've listened to loads of episodes.

• 5:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. I, I mean, I think about the water thing a lot because I've stuck, I can only drink sparkling water now. Uh, I, I'll try and drink this, but um, I started ju- only drinking sparkling water. And now when I try and drink normal water, it's so boring in my mouth that I'll often just uh, get very dehydrated until I can have some sparkling water again.

• 5:41Speaker 00

  So you've always got it in the house? It's the first?

• 5:43Speaker 02

  Well, that's the thing. If I don't have it in the house, I then just have to drink all the other drinks in the fridge, which isn't good. So I would drink like oat milk, which I think is poison. Um. All the non-alcoholic beers.

• 5:58Speaker 00

  First thing in the morning.

• 5:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 6:00Speaker 01

  That's a good thing with a non-alcoholic beer though, isn't it? You can't just have it first thing in the morning.

• 6:04Speaker 02

  But you know what I've got into drinking is, uh, this is really sad. Cause I listened to that Mads Gut Microbiome podcast, right? And they, you know, do you say it Kefir or Kefir?

• 6:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, Kefir, yeah.

• 6:17Speaker 02

  Right, I say Kefir, right.

• 6:19Speaker 00

  Kefir is an actor.

• 6:20Speaker 02

  No, but they say Kefir on the podcast and they're like experts at it.

• 6:24Speaker 00

  Do they?

• 6:24Speaker 02

  So I was drinking Kefir before that was like child's play Kefir. And then this podcast was like, you've got to drink this. It's from a goat farm in Wales and it's like the most powerful bacteria ever. And there's a guide on how to open it in your kitchen because it explodes all over the kitchen. So I started drinking that being, uh, wondering what it's going to do to me. And it's meant to make you feel like more alive. And they were like, don't drink this at night because you'll just be too awake.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  And you've been having it in the mornings?

• 6:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  Is it good?

• 6:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, I had it this morning and then I like ran a 5K and felt like so alive.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 7:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was going to ask you about running, but that's for another day.

• 7:08Speaker 00

  No, go for it. I don't really run anymore.

• 7:10Speaker 02

  You don't?

• 7:10Speaker 00

  No.

• 7:11Speaker 02

  But you're so fast.

• 7:12Speaker 00

  I do, I do CrossFit. Thanks for saying I'm so fast though.

• 7:17Speaker 02

  My surf, there's a fly flying in my face.

• 7:19Speaker 00

  There was a small fly. That's part of the podcast. That's another format point.

• 7:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, fast and powerful. Cause I did that thing where we were doing big footballs years ago with Lou Sanders.

• 7:29Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. It was one of Lou's activities.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  Zorbin. You went Zorbin?

• 7:32Speaker 00

  Zorb football we did.

• 7:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, and Ed was like really frighteningly fast and also would just like knock you over really powerfully.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah, yeah.

• 7:40Speaker 00

  I had a big ball on, big ball on me to be fair.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  So you were knocking Fern over?

• 7:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 7:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was, I was trying, I was thinking that this, I was trying to do like a speed workout this morning thinking like, I wonder.

• 7:52Speaker 00

  Keeping your arms as if you were in a ball?

• 7:54Speaker 02

  You're meant to have your arms so that you're, imagine you're holding two handfuls of crisps.

• 8:00Speaker 00

  What?

• 8:01Speaker 02

  That's how, that's what you're meant to do with your arms when you're running.

• 8:06Speaker 00

  Specifically crisps?

• 8:07Speaker 02

  Well, some people say a tray of drinks, but that's too stressful for me to maintain for the whole run. Because I used to be a waitress and it was really bad. So I'd rather think of crisps.

• 8:20Speaker 00

  Because then if you drop a few, it's fine.

• 8:22Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I think that isn't the idea that I'm trying not to crush them. So keep your hands like open.

• 8:28Speaker 00

  What sort of crisps are you imagining?

• 8:30Speaker 02

  Just ready sold out. Um, but I'm just, I'm gonna do the marathon next year and I'm really worried that I'm gonna, because I'm very food motivated. I keep setting, um, for my long runs, I pick a place that I want to eat in London and then run to it.

• 8:45Speaker 00

  That's great.

• 8:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:46Speaker 00

  Yeah. Cause you've got to keep eat, you've got to eat loads to train for the marathon. So that's perfect.

• 8:50Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, that's not an issue for me. I like going into Toads. Do you know those guys?

• 8:55Speaker 00

  No.

• 8:56Speaker 02

  You know those guys?

• 8:57Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Toad Bakery.

• 8:59Speaker 02

  And then I ran to a place that claims to be like the only place in London that does proper pudding and like proper good sandwiches.

• 9:09Speaker 00

  Nice.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  What's that called?

• 9:09Speaker 02

  American style sandwiches. Can't remember. It was somewhere in East London, but it was amazing. It was like really, especially after a long run. It was unbelievable.

• 9:20Speaker 00

  So I take it you're doing the whole long run there. You're not, it's not half, you're not doing half the long run, eating pudding and then running back?

• 9:27Speaker 02

  No, no, I got an Uber back. No.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course.

• 9:31Speaker 02

  I mean, I know, I think that was like the first time I'd run like 10 miles or something. I'd run 10 miles just to get pudding.

• 9:38Speaker 00

  I think that's a great, that's a good motivator.

• 9:40Speaker 02

  It honestly does really motivate me because otherwise you get bored doing the same routes.

• 9:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:46Speaker 02

  But yeah, I found out about that sandwich place. Um, I found out that with Americans, they do actually have better sandwiches, Americans and Canadians. And it's something that, have you heard about this?

• 9:57Speaker 00

  No.

• 9:58Speaker 02

  It's to do with the way they like build all the layers in the sandwich and pack it.

• 10:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:03Speaker 02

  Uh, and they, they just have a much better sandwich culture than the UK, which wouldn't be hard, but yeah.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, they definitely do better sandwiches over there.

• 10:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, sandwiches are like misery.

• 10:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  They see it as an art form.

• 10:15Speaker 02

  Exactly. So the plotline where Joey and friends would nearly die for his sandwich wouldn't make sense in the UK. I've thought about this a lot.

• 10:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:25Speaker 02

  Um, because no one would die for like an M and S or a bus meal deal.

• 10:31Speaker 00

  M and S are like, if you're thinking about British supermarket sandwiches, they are the best. They're still like freezing cold, like.

• 10:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. In terms of supermarket sandwiches. Yeah.

• 10:39Speaker 02

  And they all made in the same factory though.

• 10:42Speaker 00

  Well, they're not made as well, though. Well, as in all the supermarket sandwiches.

• 10:45Speaker 02

  All the sandwiches are made in the same place.

• 10:47Speaker 00

  But not with the same ingredients and stuff, surely.

• 10:50Speaker 02

  I suppose, yeah.

• 10:51Speaker 00

  I'm thinking like a wet tuna and sweet corn boot sandwich is not, is not comparable to an M and S sandwich.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, that you can get like steak and caramelized onion sandwiches.

• 11:01Speaker 02

  The M and S one would just be in a nicer roll, probably. But I'm sorry, I was sorry to like have a dig at M and S there. I just, what I just meant was like British sandwich culture in general.

• 11:13Speaker 01

  When I was younger, I read a lot of the Garfield comics, you know, Garfield.

• 11:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:17Speaker 01

  And.

• 11:19Speaker 02

  Is that what you like lasagna? Sorry for.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's probably where the lasagna thing comes from originally. Yeah, I wanted to be like Garfield. And there was one where Garfield and John, who's his owner, they love on a, you know, at the end of each month, making a sandwich out of everything that's in the fridge. And I just remember this panel where they're like going, oh, if we put peanut butter down, then the peas won't roll off of the sandwich. And even though that sounds disgusting, I was as a kid thinking, I want to make a sandwich out of everything in the fridge. And that sounds so, and so I was instantly like really obsessed with making sandwiches with as many things in them as possible, then very disappointed to go out into the world and not find any cool sandwiches in the UK that did that kind of thing. Cause this American cartoon had made me think sandwiches could be awesome.

• 12:03Speaker 02

  It's turning around though, cause there's another big sandwich shop opened in London. I can't remember their name again. They are, they are trying to improve the sandwich game. If you like sandwiches with a load of stuff in them, there's an Italian style one that I made during lockdown. This was one of the only happy points of lockdown. We made it for a picnic and it's loads and loads and loads of layers in a ciabatta or focaccia or something. And then you put like a heavy cast iron pan on it for the night to squash all the layers down.

• 12:37Speaker 00

  You're literally just squishing it overnight.

• 12:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:39Speaker 00

  That's great.

• 12:40Speaker 02

  It's amazing.

• 12:41Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 12:41Speaker 02

  I can't remember the name of it, but someone listening is gonna know what I'm on about.

• 12:45Speaker 01

  Was it like meat and stuff?

• 12:46Speaker 02

  Very many layers of meat and cheese. Oh, that's what's happened since I've last been on this podcast. I started eating meat again, so I'm gonna go to hell.

• 12:56Speaker 00

  That's good. That's why we got you back on.

• 12:58Speaker 02

  Well, I'll tell you how it started was tacos when I was in LA last year. Cause tacos in the UK are rubbish, like or good ones would be hard to find. And I just wanted to eat tacos every day that was in America, specifically the beef birria ones.

• 13:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 13:18Speaker 02

  I can't find a good veggie version of this and they fucked me up like.

• 13:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:23Speaker 02

  They really made my tummy hurt a lot. And I remember like Sarah Pascoe or Ramesh or someone saying years ago, if you stop eating meat for ages and then you start eating it again, your tummy's gonna hurt. Cause your body stops being able to break it down. And I just thought that was propaganda or something. But it's, it's true.

• 13:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, got you.

• 13:46Speaker 02

  I was in so much pain.

• 13:47Speaker 00

  But you worked through that. You were like, let's just keep having the, keep having the beef until I'm fine again.

• 13:52Speaker 02

  Do you know where you hear about people like bottoming out when they're alcoholics? So there was this night where I was in San Francisco, I'd ordered a load of tacos again. Eat them. They hurt my tummy. And then I was, I went to sleep and I woke up again at like two or three in the morning. Started to eat them again, even though my tummy was still sore. And I just was, I didn't know why I was doing it.

• 14:15Speaker 00

  That's a low moment, but also a high point.

• 14:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. But it made me think like, I've got to stop doing this. But I haven't been able to fully cut it out since then. Yeah.

• 14:26Speaker 00

  But when it's good like that, I mean, I had amazing tacos in San Francisco. We walked for ages to find this place and they had like the tongue tacos, lengua. It was fucking great though. No, you're not, you're not on that yet.

• 14:39Speaker 02

  No, and I hope that what I want, I've been trying to be like, oh cauliflower tacos can be just as nice.

• 14:46Speaker 00

  Not true, is it?

• 14:49Speaker 01

  We're gonna be giving you another guest's menu. You're familiar with the, you understand the format for this episode? Cause I know that the main episode's a bit hazy.

• 14:57Speaker 02

  John did, Mary and Margulies won.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  He did.

• 15:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 15:01Speaker 01

  And so anyone you're hoping for, whose menu we might be presenting you with, you know a lot of people.

• 15:06Speaker 02

  I know who I wouldn't want.

• 15:07Speaker 01

  Who would you not want?

• 15:09Speaker 02

  Maybe like Alex Horn, because he seems to not be interested in food.

• 15:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's actually a really good one to do for someone else, Alex Horn.

• 15:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, cause it's disgusting.

• 15:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, sometimes I think it'd be cool to be a food as fuel person. Cause it would be easy to diet then, but then also it would take like 90% of the joy out of my life.

• 15:31Speaker 00

  Absolutely, I completely agree.

• 15:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'd hate it.

• 15:34Speaker 00

  It's just be so sad all of the time.

• 15:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, it is interesting to have those people on the, on this podcast to like contrast to people that do like food.

• 15:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, you wanna, you wanna hear what life is like for them? And every time it just reconfirms to me that like, that's not the way I wanna live my life.

• 15:50Speaker 00

  Cause you would assume that people who don't get joy from food are forced to find joy in other places in their life, but often they don't.

• 15:58Speaker 02

  Really?

• 15:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, they just, you say, well, what gives you joy? And they're like, nah, nothing, walking about.

• 16:04Speaker 01

  They don't even say that. They, they, the question confuses them.

• 16:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:08Speaker 01

  What gives you joy? They go, I don't really know what you mean. Like.

• 16:12Speaker 00

  What is joy?

• 16:13Speaker 01

  I'm just alive, aren't I? I just have to do stuff every day and wake up and do stuff. You're like, no, no, you can enjoy these things that you have to do.

• 16:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  Like eat.

• 16:24Speaker 02

  Eating dinners are like my favorite thing about touring.

• 16:27Speaker 00

  Do you try, when you're touring, do you try and find a new place to eat when you're in a new town? Yes?

• 16:32Speaker 02

  I've actually already, I'm building up a list for this tour that I'm going on of different taco places. People have been trying to recommend barbecue places in Texas, but I'm not, I won't be that fussed about that. No.

• 16:46Speaker 00

  I think if you like the sort of the slow cooked beef tacos.

• 16:50Speaker 02

  But I don't want to, I want to like start to move back from that.

• 16:54Speaker 00

  Oh, you're pulling away from the meat. Okay.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  Well then you shouldn't go to those.

• 16:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, don't, because that, that's like diving, that's like diving to heroin when you're trying to quit coke.

• 17:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:02Speaker 00

  Bad idea, yeah.

• 17:03Speaker 02

  I'd be more into the side dishes like cornbread and macaroni and cheese and stuff. Yeah.

• 17:09Speaker 01

  So, we're going to reveal now whose menu it is.

• 17:12Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 17:13Speaker 01

  Today, Fern Brady, you'll be eating the dream menu of Phil Wang.

• 17:20Speaker 02

  Oh, I know him.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:25Speaker 02

  Um, he's introduced me as so many great food experiences.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:30Speaker 02

  Um, but he also, we were, we went on holiday together, right? Uh, last, no, two summers ago and, uh.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  So just you and Phil?

• 17:39Speaker 02

  Oh, it was so weird. It was just gonna be me that went, right? And then I said to my little brother, do you wanna meet me there? Cause he lives in China. Um, and then Phil was like, oh, I'm gonna come along as well. But it was just.

• 17:52Speaker 00

  Phil invited himself. I didn't know that, that aspect of it.

• 17:55Speaker 02

  So, so it was just me and Phil, uh, for the first week.

• 17:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:59Speaker 02

  And we kept getting mistaken for a couple on honeymoon together. And I remember one night, people looking at me sympathetically because Phil got really angry with, I'd like people's feedback on whether I did the wrong thing here, right? So we ordered some of that nice spicy papaya salad to share.

• 18:20Speaker 00

  You're in Thailand.

• 18:21Speaker 02

  In Thailand. Ordered some, yeah, yeah. I did actually want to go before White Lotus came out, so that was the reason.

• 18:28Speaker 00

  I'd not heard of it before then.

• 18:29Speaker 02

  Um.

• 18:31Speaker 00

  It's my first time.

• 18:33Speaker 02

  So we got some papaya salad between us and then, uh, I put some on my plate. Then I wanted to eat the next course and my plate was covered in like spicy, uh, water.

• 18:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:45Speaker 02

  So I tipped the spicy water back into the salad dish. He went mental. He was like, you can't do that. That's so unhygienic. How can you, who would even think that's an appropriate thing to do? And I was just standing there like, what? And people were looking like that, but I can't believe she's married to him.

• 19:05Speaker 00

  Oh yeah, you married that man.

• 19:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:07Speaker 00

  I think it's fine to do that. Yeah, because you're eating it with chopsticks. You're not gobbing any salad back onto the plate.

• 19:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, that's the thing is I wasn't slaving it onto the plate. Also, can I just say, because I never brought this up to him at the time, but I don't eat that much rice. So we don't need two to three bowls of rice every time for the table. Like, he just, he thinks rice is better than it is and he's so, he's always saying that bread is a white person thing.

• 19:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:36Speaker 00

  I've had many, I've had many meals with Phil since, since that moment. And he eats bread, he loves bread. I think he's been turned around. I think he's assimilated himself into bread culture. Yeah.

• 19:46Speaker 02

  Maybe, yeah, because he kicks off about it, but then I'm sure I've seen him eat it a few times. But I'm pretty indifferent to rice. Um, I only really feel like I need it if I, if I was eating like Mapo tofu, I feel like you need to have rice with that. Um, so that's where we differ. Having said that, he's introduced me to a lot of amazing, like new Asian food places. And he wasn't in Melbourne last year and it was really hard.

• 20:17Speaker 02

  Because basically a big group of us went to a Chinese restaurant in Melbourne. And it was the type of Chinese restaurant that English people like. And like, it was all like sweet and sour chicken and like crispy beef and just like. A text fell after being like, we went to a white person's Chinese restaurant and it was disgusting.

• 20:42Speaker 00

  And you needed him there really to sort of glance across the lazy Susan at him and nod that you were in the wrong place.

• 20:48Speaker 02

  It was, there was a lazy, there was a lazy Susan, actually. It was the worst Chinese meal I've had in years. And I just kept thinking if Phil was here, this wouldn't have happened.

• 21:01Speaker 01

  When you started the anecdote, and you said Phil didn't go to Melbourne last year, and that was really hard. And I thought, wow, they're such good friends and she really missed him.

• 21:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:11Speaker 01

  It was like, because I went to a bad Chinese restaurant, if Phil was there, that wouldn't have happened. It's a really funny reason.

• 21:16Speaker 00

  That's a reason to miss someone.

• 21:17Speaker 02

  But, no, I did, because, because it meant that people just didn't know the places to go. And when we were, when we were in Melbourne before, like Phil would find places that we wouldn't have otherwise. Like he took, he took me and Flo and John, that's not their actual names.

• 21:38Speaker 02

  But we all went to this Malaysian place that served a thing that he used to eat growing up. And I wouldn't have found it if he hadn't took us there. And then he's also more up for eating spicy foods.

• 21:49Speaker 00

  Yes. But I'm on your side with tipping the spicy water back into the salad.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, I was quite embarrassed at the time because I wouldn't think that I had bad table manners.

• 22:00Speaker 00

  No, you don't. I think, I think that's fine to tip that back in because if anything, you're adding back to the salad.

• 22:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:06Speaker 00

  It's a circular economy.

• 22:07Speaker 02

  But I didn't want this, but if you've had that salad before, especially in Thailand, the spicy water, it's gonna pollute the rest of your dinners. You can't have it on the plate.

• 22:17Speaker 01

  If I go for a meal with Phil again, which I imagine I will at some point, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do a move like that and see, and see if he pulls me up on it.

• 22:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:25Speaker 02

  Oh, well, yeah, I'd be interested.

• 22:27Speaker 01

  I'll be like, oh, that's interesting.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  Went after Fern, didn't you? Pretty fast to go after Fern on the holiday that you crashed and weren't invited on, Phil.

• 22:36Speaker 02

  We also, we kept getting couples massages on the holiday and.

• 22:42Speaker 00

  I wonder why people thought you were married? That's weird.

• 22:45Speaker 02

  One of the least, the least erotic moments of my life. Because he breathes so much during the, like, I kind of just wanna zone out and I'll just hear him being like,

• 22:58Speaker 02

  doing these like exaggerated deep breaths next to me.

• 23:02Speaker 00

  You do sound like you've been married for 50 years. Like, oh, his fucking breathing annoys me so much.

• 23:08Speaker 01

  It's a good impression of Phil breathing, though. That does sound like Phil.

• 23:11Speaker 02

  It was, yeah, so, but yeah, it was a good holiday.

• 23:16Speaker 01

  Well, we'll start with some good news for you.

• 23:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:19Speaker 01

  He chose sparkling water.

• 23:21Speaker 02

  Cool.

• 23:22Speaker 01

  So that's good for you. You got that. That you know that you like that. You don't really like having to drink normal water.

• 23:27Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 23:27Speaker 01

  So he's instantly played into your hands. Yeah. And I think you can probably guess what he chose for poppadoms or bread.

• 23:34Speaker 02

  Poppadoms.

• 23:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was the big, the big anti-bread rant came at that point. Yeah, yeah. So he, he put his cards on the table there. None of that will surprise you, I imagine.

• 23:44Speaker 02

  No.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  The starter, salmon roe.

• 23:49Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  On drug leaf. Yeah, so we just called it drug leaf on the day, but Phil was very clear it was a hallucinogenic leaf.

• 23:58Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 23:58Speaker 01

  So it was like a drug that would like make you hallucinate. You like drugs?

• 24:02Speaker 02

  Oh, yes.

• 24:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, big time.

• 24:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:08Speaker 02

  Um, yeah, I'm really interested in psychedelics as well, um, but, um, that surprises me. I don't know about having it with my dinner.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  Why not?

• 24:19Speaker 02

  Uh, because it would make it hard to talk, uh, and I don't, I'd rather not be out in public if I was hallucinating. Uh, you should be in a safe space with someone, uh, trips it in you.

• 24:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, not a restaurant.

• 24:32Speaker 02

  No, but I have done that before. Wait, no, don't want to get him in trouble. Not one.

• 24:39Speaker 01

  You don't have to name the person. You don't have to name the person.

• 24:41Speaker 02

  Uh, just, I made edibles one time and, uh, forgot I had a big birthday dinner at this like posh seafood restaurant in East London somewhere. And we made them too strong. And then I remember just like sitting in silence, getting upset at this crab and not wanting to break it open and, um, such a waste of money, uh, just not being able to speak for hours and hours.

• 25:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, I feel like, well, maybe, you know, we could say the drug leaf doesn't have big effects. I don't think Phil wanted it to have a massive effect on him.

• 25:14Speaker 02

  No.

• 25:14Speaker 01

  It's hallucinogenic, just like a buzzed out, just things.

• 25:17Speaker 02

  I've never heard of that.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  Maybe hallucinating a few mild things, I don't know.

• 25:21Speaker 00

  I don't remember him wanting to be hallucinating at all. I think he might have meant a shiso leaf, you know.

• 25:26Speaker 01

  That's all he meant.

• 25:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:28Speaker 01

  That's not a drug.

• 25:28Speaker 00

  He just meant a shiso leaf.

• 25:29Speaker 01

  And we jumped on that and made it a drug leaf.

• 25:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:32Speaker 00

  How are you feeling about the salmon roe, though? That's the main constituent.

• 25:35Speaker 02

  Salmon roe is like little eggs, right?

• 25:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, the bigger, the bigger orange ones.

• 25:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, I like it.

• 25:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, that pop.

• 25:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, I like it.

• 25:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:43Speaker 02

  I like interest in textures of foods. Yeah, so I'm fine with that.

• 25:48Speaker 00

  I think that's good. Some people get so weird about texture and about, especially about those salmon eggs, because they, you pop them on the roof of your mouth, they go blamo.

• 25:56Speaker 01

  Blamo.

• 25:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:57Speaker 02

  But then don't people like that bubble tea?

• 25:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, which actually I don't like the idea of bubble tea.

• 26:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't want my drinks to be textured. Well, although Kaffir's got a texture in it.

• 26:09Speaker 00

  I've never had Kaffir. Can you describe the texture of Kaffir for me?

• 26:12Speaker 02

  Well, firstly, the flavors, it's like, imagine if you were drinking like fizzy Parmesan flavored vomit.

• 26:20Speaker 00

  Ah.

• 26:21Speaker 02

  It's like that.

• 26:24Speaker 02

  And it's got like lumps at the bottom, like little cheesy lumps.

• 26:30Speaker 02

  You look like you're gonna puke in your mouth.

• 26:32Speaker 00

  Really bad. And honestly, I'm fine with like weird food textures as well, but that sounds really horrible, actually.

• 26:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, but you just put it in, I put it in a blender with a banana and some blueberries and then it's okay.

• 26:43Speaker 00

  And then it's just Parmesan, blueberries and banana.

• 26:46Speaker 02

  Well, the first time you drink it, you're like, ugh, and then you start to get used to it and then you start to crave it.

• 26:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:52Speaker 02

  And then you're fine.

• 26:54Speaker 01

  So do you think if you, if you did vomit now, it would be nice for you? You would like it?

• 26:59Speaker 02

  Um, I don't know.

• 27:01Speaker 01

  The taste?

• 27:02Speaker 02

  No, no.

• 27:05Speaker 01

  You might be like, oh, it's like my lovely Kaffir drink.

• 27:09Speaker 02

  Uh, only if I just drank, if you're.

• 27:12Speaker 01

  If it's straight away.

• 27:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:15Speaker 01

  Um, if you did hallucinate in a meal, if you had the salmon and the, and the leaf did make you, what kind of stuff would you like to hallucinate during a meal that wouldn't spoil the meal?

• 27:25Speaker 02

  What kind of stuff would other, well, I wouldn't want any of the animals like the salmon. Uh, I know the salmon would pull me up on how unethical it is.

• 27:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:34Speaker 02

  For salmon roe to exist. So not that. What I would like is, um, for the food to talk to me and say it was happy for me to eat it.

• 27:45Speaker 01

  Make you feel better?

• 27:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:47Speaker 00

  Would that make you feel better?

• 27:49Speaker 02

  If this, well, if this salmon roe was like we were, we were born to, uh, be eaten.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 27:55Speaker 00

  Can you hear how creepy that sounds though?

• 27:58Speaker 01

  Cause then that's like, do you remember that news story when we, I mean, I think we're all around the same age, aren't we?

• 28:05Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 28:06Speaker 01

  And, uh, when we were younger, there was that news story.

• 28:10Speaker 02

  Cause you thought I was younger than you.

• 28:12Speaker 01

  I did for ages, yeah.

• 28:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, no, that's.

• 28:14Speaker 01

  For ages, I was certain you were like fifteen years younger than me.

• 28:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, no, everyone, but I've stopped getting botox now so that people take me seriously.

• 28:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I felt that today. I'm very, very serious. Um, remember that story of the, of the person, the cannibal who put an advert in the paper?

• 28:31Speaker 00

  Yes, in Germany.

• 28:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was like a huge thing when we were kids and there was the debate as to whether it was okay because the person had consented to be eaten.

• 28:42Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 28:42Speaker 01

  Had replied to the, and it was like, yes, I would like you to eat me. It's fine, but it's still scary. It's still creepy. And I was still not sure it was okay for the cannibal to be eaten.

• 28:51Speaker 00

  I think it was, it's still a crime, isn't it?

• 28:53Speaker 01

  That person, you know?

• 28:55Speaker 02

  It's, it's funny you've brought this up because I've been talking about this with my boyfriend a lot recently. Um.

• 29:01Speaker 00

  In what, in what context then?

• 29:02Speaker 02

  It's, um, not cause I was one to eat the other one. We were just talking about whether it's ethically okay. Cause there was another, cause there was a similar story, uh, recently that I don't want to go into cause this is like quite a lighthearted podcast. So I don't know if it's right, because I think I'm very like pro, we should all be allowed to do what we want with our bodies. And if you are very excited that the thought of someone eating you, then I just think it's one of those things you change your mind halfway through.

• 29:38Speaker 00

  That's it, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's the fact that you then can't change your mind that you're like, someone's just eaten my cock and bollocks.

• 29:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. And if it gets to the point where, I mean, because I presume they're just numbing your whole body up.

• 29:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:53Speaker 01

  And you're just there being, and if you do change your mind, but they're so fucking into it.

• 29:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:57Speaker 01

  And they just don't want to stop. That's terrifying.

• 30:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. Also, don't kink shame. You're not meant to kink shame now. So aren't you meant to be like, that's great?

• 30:06Speaker 00

  The thing is, I'd happily shame that kink. I feel like we've got to draw a line somewhere, haven't we? You know, broadly, broadly no kink shaming, but that one, fucking disgusting and weird.

• 30:16Speaker 01

  That's the comeback on us in 20 years' time where everyone's doing it.

• 30:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, I'm going to be, I'm going to be cancelled to hell for that.

• 30:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I'll be, I'll be leading that.

• 30:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:28Speaker 01

  You're gone. So that, so that seems like a nice start, the salmon roe and the drug leaf. So who wants a betel leaf?

• 30:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, just to update, Benitez let us know. It's a betel leaf. So it's not, it's not a hallucinogenic leaf.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  No, it's like marijuana is what Phil said apparently, or what the internet says.

• 30:44Speaker 02

  Well, I've eaten it before and I started in a Vietnamese place and I wasn't high at all.

• 30:50Speaker 01

  No.

• 30:50Speaker 02

  But I think if it's just like four, two or three little leaves.

• 30:54Speaker 00

  And you were high when you went in, weren't you?

• 30:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, to be fair.

• 31:05Speaker 01

  Well, the main course, it sounds like this might be what you were alluding to earlier with Flo and Joan, not their names, the Wat Tan Ho, which is the Malaysian eggy soup that Phil likes. It's a dish that he's had all his life that he's introduced me to that and a few of our other friends.

• 31:22Speaker 02

  It wasn't a soup.

• 31:23Speaker 01

  Okay. Well, this is that. It's got a very thick gravy kind of texture to it.

• 31:30Speaker 00

  Eggy gravy. I remember when he described it on the podcast, he almost deliberately made it sound gross.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  He said snotty, I think at one point, which is like a fair enough.

• 31:40Speaker 02

  And it's definitely more a soup than a, because I think the place we went, I remember it being like. Either noodles or a, or some sort of star fry thing.

• 31:51Speaker 00

  Is that cha- cha- cha- ke tao or something? I think he's obsessed with that Malaysian dish, which is like the flat rice noodles.

• 31:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. I, I don't, no, but cause I've had loads of different Malaysian food when I go to Australia and that. And I remember this one being like, I was like, oh, I've not had this before and it's really tasty. And they had loads of stuff that I hadn't seen on other Malaysian menus.

• 32:14Speaker 00

  But today you're getting the, the eggy soup.

• 32:16Speaker 01

  The eggy soup. How do you feel about that?

• 32:18Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, great. I generally like, I've never not trusted Phil's food choices.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:25Speaker 02

  Other than the rice thing, I'm just not fussed about.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  Too much rice every time.

• 32:29Speaker 02

  Rice, yeah.

• 32:30Speaker 00

  I agree. I mean, I agree with the rice personally. Like I, I only need a tiny bit of rice.

• 32:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:35Speaker 00

  And like a big, I find it quite intimidating looking at a big pile of rice and thinking I've got to eat that. And I need loads of sauce. I need like proper wet food to go on top of it.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm not gonna eat that much rice. I mean, I, I, I don't like it enough. I like, often I over order because I'm worried we're having enough food, but never in the rice department.

• 32:52Speaker 02

  I tend to under order rice in that I'll often not even order it at all.

• 32:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:58Speaker 02

  Um, and other people think it's weird because, but it's just, the last time I was on here, I talked about foods that are like a waste of time. And that's one of the ones where I'm like, it just tastes of nothing.

• 33:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:10Speaker 02

  Um, and not in the way that breads has a like comforting nothing taste. Rice is just so pointless to me. Unless it's, unless it's like a proper dish. I like, um, what's that? It's like, uh, like fried rice dishes are nice or anything where there's a lot of different stuff going on with the rice.

• 33:31Speaker 00

  And just, or that. Just season, just seasoned rice. Like, I mean, we went to, there's a place, uh, in Hackney. Now like a barbecue pop-up, which is like American style barbecue, but with like sort of Chinese flavours.

• 33:44Speaker 02

  Oh, cool.

• 33:45Speaker 00

  And one of the dishes they serve with it is just a bowl of seasoned rice. And it's actually really good with the, with the vinegar in it and stuff was really tasty and went really well with the. Super rich, like beef ribs, like Szechuan beef ribs and all of their stuff.

• 33:57Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 33:57Speaker 00

  It was really, really good.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  It's called flavoured rice, the dish.

• 34:00Speaker 00

  I think it was called flavoured rice.

• 34:01Speaker 01

  I was quite excited about it because it was called flavoured rice.

• 34:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:03Speaker 02

  Amazing.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  And it was very nice.

• 34:05Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 34:05Speaker 02

  Mmm.

• 34:06Speaker 01

  What was that place called again?

• 34:07Speaker 00

  Uh, I should know that.

• 34:10Speaker 01

  Great noise. Isolate that noise and repeat it over and over.

• 34:12Speaker 00

  Uncle Hans.

• 34:13Speaker 01

  Uncle Hans BBQ.

• 34:15Speaker 02

  Mmm.

• 34:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was very good.

• 34:16Speaker 02

  Have you been to that Korean place that's meant to, it's in East London and it's meant to be like one of the best new restaurants?

• 34:23Speaker 00

  Don't think I have.

• 34:24Speaker 02

  Um, and the guy that works in it, he said his dad is the best Korean chef in all of London.

• 34:31Speaker 00

  No.

• 34:31Speaker 02

  Can't remember the name of it.

• 34:33Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 34:33Speaker 02

  I was gonna go with Phil, but they, they don't show what the menu is online, which bothers me.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  If you find out about a, a new place that looks good, is Phil one of your first points of contact? Do you phone your Phil?

• 34:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, he would be one of my first points of contact, actually. Um, because we went to this good noodle place in, I think it was like Bethnal Green. And I usually get spicier food than Phil.

• 34:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:58Speaker 02

  Um, but in this place, he ordered like the top level of spice for this noodle soup. So then to compete with him, I ordered that as well. And we both were like crying and unable to finish the food. Pierre Novelli was there as well and he'd got like a normal level.

• 35:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:15Speaker 02

  Um, and I just felt like I'd poisoned my food. Um, so I said about going back there again and ordering properly. But I think he found that through, he said, there's some lady on Instagram who's got a list of all like the top spicy noodle places in London, which sounds great.

• 35:33Speaker 00

  I love that. I, I always do, overdo it on spice as well.

• 35:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:37Speaker 00

  In, in Japan, we went to a cocoa curry and there's, there's a couple in London as well, I think. It's like a cats' curry place. And you order on the iPad and there's so many different types of things. You can add to the curry and you can pick the spice level. And it, in Japan, it goes from one to 20. This is the spice level. And I was like, I don't want too spicy, but I'll order a fifteen. I was about to order it on the iPad and Charlie went, what the fuck are you doing? You cannot cope with the fifteen. And when I finally have a ten, she went, just don't do it. Cause like, it's proper spicy. Like, I can see that there's people around here who can handle that. So I finally have a seven. And then there's a video of me halfway through the seven and I am a wreck. Like, I'm crying. I'm like, why did I do this to myself? I just saw the video again recently.

• 36:21Speaker 00

  I'm going, I was gonna order a fifteen and I looked on Reddit and they said that if you get over a five, it's not nice. Like, proper awful. And I'd added sausages to the curry.

• 36:31Speaker 01

  I'd have done what you did though. I would have thought, okay, so five is most people's cutoff.

• 36:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 36:38Speaker 01

  I can do two above that.

• 36:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 36:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:40Speaker 01

  I would think that.

• 36:41Speaker 00

  It was great though.

• 36:42Speaker 01

  Imagine if you had fifteen.

• 36:44Speaker 00

  It was really good, but if I'd had fifteen, I wouldn't have been able to eat it. It's like you say about poisoning the food, really.

• 36:49Speaker 02

  Well, it's because so many places you can't get, they've toned down the spice. Cause a lot of like, western people don't like spicy foods. And actually, when we were in Thailand, I struggled to get spicy enough food. And I was hoping having like my fake half Asian husband with me was gonna help. Which, which helped us get the spice level up a notch. And we didn't, like, one of my mates that had gone before, he said, oh, you have to ask for Thai spicy. Otherwise they'll automatically tone it down.

• 37:24Speaker 00

  And even then, are they gonna give it to you Thai spicy? Because do they trust that?

• 37:28Speaker 02

  No, yeah, we had to like say a couple of times and I really didn't have, there wasn't that many meals where I had like proper spicy food.

• 37:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:38Speaker 02

  But it was so good.

• 37:40Speaker 00

  It's like that taco place in LA, Guisados, where they've got one taco where they just won't sell it to white people. Like, Nish has it all the time and I went up once and asked for, or like a five level spicy of another one. And they were like, no, no.

• 37:52Speaker 02

  I have to go.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  They wouldn't give me that.

• 37:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:55Speaker 01

  We were, yeah, we were there for off menu and yeah.

• 37:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:58Speaker 01

  We made a little pilgrimage there, really wanted that taco. They went, that's not gonna happen.

• 38:03Speaker 02

  Why?

• 38:04Speaker 01

  We're getting that. Well, I mean, they're probably right, but they wouldn't sell it to me.

• 38:09Speaker 00

  And that obviously makes us want it so much more.

• 38:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 38:12Speaker 01

  And then you end up buying the other ones anyway, because you've gone there hungry and wanted tacos. So I got the other ones and they were delicious.

• 38:17Speaker 02

  Guisados.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:19Speaker 02

  Okay, I'm gonna go.

• 38:20Speaker 00

  It's in West Hollywood and they wouldn't sell me that taco. I'll go, go down the road and buy a gun, mate. I said that and then I dropped the mic that I was holding and I walked out.

• 38:30Speaker 00

  Today's episode of the Off Menu podcast is sponsored by Cozy, the home of possibilities, James.

• 38:37Speaker 01

  Oh, man, Ed, Cozy has everything you need to make your home feel like it has a plan. Do you know what I mean?

• 38:42Speaker 00

  I know what you mean. Cozy is a wonderful furniture company. It makes furnishing your whole home easy. Sofas, dining, storage, rugs, bedroom, even outdoor, all designed to make your space feel put together without the usual furniture stress. And James, we talk about dream meals on this podcast, but you know what? We very rarely talk about where we want to eat this dream meal.

• 39:02Speaker 01

  Sure, yeah, I like it when it does come up. It is very important. It changes the whole meal, the setting, the vibe. And Cozy's modular customizable furniture for the whole home does just that.

• 39:13Speaker 00

  And the meal, James, doesn't necessarily end at dessert. We've often talked about wanting to take our maybe final course through to a comfy room. And I think this is where Cozy can really come in handy. Go and relax on the sofa, maybe even eat your meal at a lovely, beautiful cozy table, linger a little bit, move through with coffees and dessert to a lovely couch. But I know what you're like, James, you're a mucky pup.

• 39:34Speaker 01

  I'm gonna spill stuff everywhere. Is that gonna ruin the Cozy furniture?

• 39:38Speaker 00

  No, don't worry about that, James, because it's highly washable, James. It's sauce, wine, sparkling water, dessert crumbs, you telling one of your big stories and sloshing a coffee everywhere. Don't worry, you can pop it in the wash.

• 39:49Speaker 01

  Oh, so you're saying Cozy makes every day at home feel like my best day?

• 39:53Speaker 00

  Absolutely, that's exactly what I'm saying. And with Cozy, your home can grow with you, adapting to new spaces, new styles and every era of your life. James, I think it's so hard, especially when you move somewhere new, to immediately make that place feel like yours, that it's been put together well. And that's where Cozy comes in.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  And because it's cozy, the furniture isn't just good looking, but actually practical. Modular pieces, easy assembly, washable and interchangeable covers and free design consultations, if you want help making the whole room work.

• 40:21Speaker 00

  And it's easy to order, ship and assemble and maintain, James. The only way is the Cozy way.

• 40:28Speaker 01

  Visit Cozy today, that's C O Z E Y dot com and make yourself at home.

• 40:41Speaker 01

  Side dish, clear Chinese broth.

• 40:45Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 40:48Speaker 00

  So this was, yeah, Phil was saying he didn't really want a side dish, but he just thinks he can't find broths enough in, in England.

• 40:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's so weird you mention this. I just had the best broth, uh, like, two days ago, I was in Glasgow and, uh, I had, I had this thing twice in a week. I went to, um, I was with Alison Spito and, uh, there's a place called Stereo that, um, it's a vegan food place near the station.

• 41:18Speaker 00

  Benito nodded there and smiled to himself. He, he knows it.

• 41:21Speaker 02

  Have you been? I've been so, so many times, uh, go all the time and they, they, they changed the menu up a lot as well. So they had this thing called, um, Silesian potato dumplings with broth. And it was a lovely light broth with, uh, dill flavour in it. Um, and Alison is really into soup. She has a, a soup group.

• 41:45Speaker 00

  She's on a soup WhatsApp. She's got soup earrings. Yeah, we talked soup, we talked to, uh, about soup to Alison a lot. And he said, talk to soup about Alison.

• 41:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, the guy, I, she, she's into soup, I think, too much. Um, but, um, I, I ordered this thinking, I bet Alison's gonna like this and she loved it.

• 42:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:05Speaker 02

  Everyone at the table, another comedian was there, everyone on the table loved this, this broth. Um, so I went back and got it the other day. It was great. And I, I did think there should be more things like this on menus. You don't.

• 42:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:19Speaker 02

  That's why I like that place. I often get something that you don't see a lot on other menus. Like where's Silesia? What's a Silesian?

• 42:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's a good point. When you said Silesian, it was, I do this a lot in life. I was like, I should probably know what that is, so I'm not gonna ask and find out.

• 42:35Speaker 01

  I, I, I literally, my brain, uh, went, yep, that's a normal thing. But then if I analyse that, it was, um, accepting it the same way I accept information in Marvel films.

• 42:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:47Speaker 02

  Right.

• 42:48Speaker 01

  So it was like, but, you know, vibranium, yep, okay, I understand what that is.

• 42:52Speaker 02

  Where, where does Silesian?

• 42:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay, great.

• 42:56Speaker 00

  With the broth, Phil talked so much about the broth that a chef called Tom Barnes then

• 43:03Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 43:04Speaker 00

  Then put a broth on his menu for the opening night of his amazing new restaurant, Scoff, and I think named it after Phil.

• 43:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, Phil was there.

• 43:12Speaker 00

  Phil was there at the opening night and

• 43:13Speaker 02

  Oh, amazing.

• 43:14Speaker 00

  On the menu was Phil Wang's broth. And I believe a broth is still on the menu, but Phil's name has been removed.

• 43:19Speaker 02

  Oh, that's so cool.

• 43:20Speaker 01

  Phil's name is in the restaurant, though. He's signed a pillow in there.

• 43:23Speaker 02

  Oh, cool.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  If you ever go there. After see Phil's name.

• 43:27Speaker 02

  Poland, that's where Silesian

• 43:31Speaker 01

  Oh, lovely.

• 43:31Speaker 02

  Stuff comes from. So there you go.

• 43:33Speaker 00

  That would make sense for the potato dumplings.

• 43:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:36Speaker 00

  I love a broth as well because it's like super flavoursome, but

• 43:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:40Speaker 01

  Pun intended?

• 43:41Speaker 00

  Super flavoursome? No, actually. It's just how good I am, I guess.

• 43:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:46Speaker 00

  But liked.

• 43:47Speaker 02

  Good for running as well. If you've been running a lot, it's very good having the salty broth to rehydrate you.

• 43:54Speaker 01

  Have you done one of your runs to a broth shop before?

• 43:57Speaker 02

  I mean, that's not a thing, is it?

• 44:02Speaker 00

  You could run to

• 44:03Speaker 01

  A broth shack?

• 44:04Speaker 00

  To Stereo?

• 44:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. Wouldn't be far away enough. Well, oh, you mean I could run from here?

• 44:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. That would be a long run, wouldn't it?

• 44:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. But you need some salty water, which is basically what broth is. That just minded me. But I don't know whether to tell this on the... So I went, I went to this fasting clinic, right? I mean, this is the opposite of what you was wanting to hear because there was no eating.

• 44:33Speaker 02

  And I went to this fasting clinic in Germany and all you got to eat each day was a broth.

• 44:40Speaker 00

  What the fuck?

• 44:43Speaker 02

  Because if you fast for long enough.

• 44:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:46Speaker 02

  Where's your fa- you fast?

• 44:48Speaker 00

  I don't fast.

• 44:49Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 44:50Speaker 00

  I am fast, remember?

• 44:51Speaker 01

  He is fast, he's the fastest.

• 44:52Speaker 02

  You don't fast?

• 44:53Speaker 00

  No, no, no.

• 44:54Speaker 02

  You don't fast with your chesed old face?

• 44:56Speaker 00

  No, I don't fast.

• 44:57Speaker 01

  He exercises a lot, there's a lot of exercise.

• 44:59Speaker 00

  I love, I love breakfast too much.

• 45:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I love breakfast, it's always got in the way of a regular fasting regime. We went to this fasting place and you got broth that was basically just hot water that had touched a carrot at some point. And then, um, by day two of the fast, they're going, oh, do you want some herbs on your broth? And you're like, yes, yes, please. They put some parsley on it and you're just desperate for anything.

• 45:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:27Speaker 02

  But I, I, I'd said to the nurses there, look, I don't know if I'm gonna last the full fast. Um, this is like day two or three.

• 45:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:36Speaker 02

  And I was gonna say, can you take my Monzo card away from me? Cause I think I'm gonna run away. And they were like, no, no, you must stay on the fast. If you want, we would give you half a yogurt and some cashews. I was like, right, um, that's not gonna cut it, guys, cause I feel like I'm witnessing my own death.

• 45:57Speaker 02

  Like, you, you can't think, you can't, um, watch telly, you can't read, you can't sleep. You also can't really be awake, it's just terrible. Um, so I said to the nurses, are you late? I think I'm gonna eat something. And they were like, no, no, if you do break the fast, break it with something gentle, like one prune or something. Cause you're gonna really cause damage to yourself otherwise. And I was like, right, right, okay. And then I went down into, cause it was on a mountain, uh, overlooking like a lake and a village, right? And I went down into the village.

• 46:35Speaker 01

  When was this?

• 46:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:36Speaker 02

  Couple of years ago.

• 46:37Speaker 01

  Okay, sorry, carry on.

• 46:38Speaker 02

  It was as we were doing the final edits in my book, I thought this is gonna really reset me mentally.

• 46:43Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah, yeah.

• 46:44Speaker 02

  Um, so I went down into the village, went to this bakery, German bakeries are amazing. And I got this pastry that was just like this big with apples and custard in it. And I took a bite out of it and I went, yum!

• 46:59Speaker 01

  Out loud.

• 46:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was like a cartoon and people were looking at me but they weren't surprised because they obviously were like, someone's got out of the retreat again and this is happening on the regular.

• 47:11Speaker 00

  Oh, she's from the mountain.

• 47:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I thought, I'm not breaking it with a, I did get some prunes, but then I went mental, I like ate a whole bag of prunes and the nurse wasn't lying, like it does fuck you up if you don't break your fast properly.

• 47:28Speaker 00

  Was this before or after Pascoe and Ramesh had told you to not eat meat?

• 47:32Speaker 02

  Oh, like years after.

• 47:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 47:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:34Speaker 00

  So it's just the same lesson again.

• 47:36Speaker 02

  Well, it's the same again, as your body's stopped making the stuff that breaks down everything.

• 47:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:41Speaker 02

  But when you start eating again, you just feel so euphoric for, for days and you want to tell everyone to go on a fast, but no one believes you. So I'd love to do it again, but I think this time at the very start, I'd say put my card in the safe and don't like give me any money or anything.

• 48:01Speaker 00

  Like it's rehab, basically.

• 48:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 48:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 48:05Speaker 02

  Because you're not even allowed coffee.

• 48:07Speaker 00

  You're not allowed coffee?

• 48:08Speaker 02

  No.

• 48:09Speaker 00

  So is everyone just sort of lolling about this place, just like super low energy?

• 48:13Speaker 02

  Um, you're, well, you can go on walks through the forest with people, but they're all mental rich people, so I don't have anything to say to them. The worst bit is the first night to ease you into the fast, you eat some mashed potato with like a bit of cabbage or something and you have to like sit with other people who are going on the fast. So they sat me with this like lovely old Greek man who was, he was massive and he was like, every year I ate lots of feta pies on my Greek island, then I come on the fasting retreat, then I go back to Greece and I do the whole thing again. And I was like, right, that's

• 48:53Speaker 00

  It doesn't feel healthy. It doesn't feel like the healthy way of doing things necessarily.

• 48:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so then I had to, I still had another like five days to go in the retreat and I'd paid my money. So I just like had to pretend I was on the fast, but I was going down to the bakery every day.

• 49:09Speaker 01

  Every day.

• 49:12Speaker 00

  They must have known. You're the only one with energy bouncing around, like going, come on, on the walks, getting everyone to run.

• 49:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:19Speaker 00

  You've got crumbs all over you.

• 49:20Speaker 02

  Oh, honestly, like that was the thought was like, they must know. Uh, cause I was coming back with like cakes in my backpack and stuff.

• 49:27Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 49:30Speaker 00

  Also, I guess they don't care, right? You're still paid to be at the retreat, so you can just go through the motions.

• 49:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, and at the end they give you a certificate and you get to eat like another plate of mashed potatoes or something. And um, yeah, I felt really ashamed. I wanted to hand it back and be like, I felt like an Olympian that had been uh doping.

• 49:51Speaker 02

  It's what deserved this.

• 49:57Speaker 01

  I reckon you'll be able to guess Phil's drink.

• 50:01Speaker 02

  A red wine?

• 50:03Speaker 01

  It is a wine. It's a Riesling white wine.

• 50:05Speaker 02

  Oh, Riesling.

• 50:07Speaker 00

  It's a Riesling. I think we talked, Phil was less into wine when we did.

• 50:11Speaker 01

  He was just starting to get into wine.

• 50:12Speaker 00

  Just starting to get into wine and I think even I might have suggested the Riesling to him. Cause he wanted something to, but now, as you know, Phil's a wine boff.

• 50:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:22Speaker 00

  Phil knows so much about wine.

• 50:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think he did the wines of New Zealand on Mastermind and got everything, right?

• 50:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I went there with him. We were, I was on the other episode.

• 50:32Speaker 02

  Oh, what did you do?

• 50:33Speaker 01

  I was doing uh history of ice cream, which I did not revise for.

• 50:37Speaker 02

  How did you do?

• 50:38Speaker 01

  All right, actually. Yeah, I mean, I really panicked before I went on. Um, had to text Ed in the dressing room being like, this is the worst thing I've ever done. Like, I can't be, if I've agreed to do this, I, I, I haven't even revised, I don't know anything. Cause yeah, they make it quite, have you done it?

• 50:52Speaker 02

  Uh, actually I got offered it and decided not to, uh, because I was worried that I wouldn't do well on it. I was gonna do um facts about Sylvia Plaff and Ted Hughes' marriage or something.

• 51:04Speaker 01

  The marriage specifically.

• 51:06Speaker 00

  Nice jolly topic.

• 51:07Speaker 02

  I know, I know more about their marriage than I do about her body of, what about like her poetry anyway.

• 51:13Speaker 01

  What can you tell us about the Ted Hughes Sylvia Plath marriage?

• 51:16Speaker 00

  Happy marriage?

• 51:17Speaker 02

  Um, no, I mean, well, like he was getting all this praise for his writing and then she wasn't. Um, and then he had an affair with a woman called Ashia. Um, and it was gonna get dark.

• 51:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:32Speaker 02

  Um, but I mean, happily after she died, after Sylvia Plath died, she got critical acclaim. So maybe she's watching down from heaven.

• 51:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:44Speaker 00

  It's a nicer way to end the story.

• 51:46Speaker 01

  And she went to heaven and she's now watching all the critical acclaim she's got for the Bell Jar.

• 51:51Speaker 02

  Well, he was like, Ted Hughes was like, no, like after she like died, he was like really guilty about having the affair.

• 51:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:59Speaker 02

  I know a lot about her and it's useless. So I don't know why I didn't go on Mastermind with it, to be honest. Me and Alison did pointless. I'm like, actually me and Alison were the bad people because AJ and Curtis got asked, which 1947 film was written, directed and had this actor starring in it? O W, right? And they said Oprah Winfrey. And you can, you can hear me and Alison laughing.

• 52:27Speaker 00

  It is funny.

• 52:28Speaker 02

  It was very funny. And they were, they were even saying to each other, they were like, oh Curtis, we say stupid things all the time. So they just got to go home after the first question.

• 52:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 52:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, that, that is the thing about doing pointless is you're like, yeah, I didn't go out first. Then you're like, I could have been home by now.

• 52:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:46Speaker 01

  I mean, how far did you get in it?

• 52:47Speaker 02

  We won.

• 52:49Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 52:49Speaker 02

  Cause Alison is like psychotically obsessed with pointless.

• 52:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. Did you get a pointless answer in the final?

• 52:56Speaker 02

  I don't, I, I don't really want to, even though I've been on it, I can't remember the first one.

• 53:01Speaker 00

  Phone asks, why, why there's a lamp here?

• 53:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I fully believe that you would not know if you won or not.

• 53:05Speaker 02

  We did, we won.

• 53:07Speaker 01

  But you don't know if you got the pointless answer or not.

• 53:09Speaker 02

  No, the very final bet, we didn't get that.

• 53:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:12Speaker 02

  We got trophies.

• 53:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 53:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:14Speaker 02

  But, um, yeah, the very final bet we didn't. But I mean, it was easier than I thought it would be, much easier.

• 53:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:21Speaker 02

  It's about anticipating how stupid the British public is.

• 53:24Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 53:25Speaker 02

  That's the premise of the show.

• 53:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, it really is. Yeah, yeah.

• 53:28Speaker 02

  It seemed to be that way.

• 53:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, sometimes you watch it at home and you kind of go, okay, well, my first instinct is this answer, but loads of people would have said that, so I wouldn't say it.

• 53:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:39Speaker 01

  And then you discover that was like a pointless answer.

• 53:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:42Speaker 01

  Because actually, no one knows anything about that subject anyway, or whatever, you know, and like, and I'm not, I'm not clever.

• 53:50Speaker 02

  No.

• 53:50Speaker 01

  By any stretch.

• 53:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:52Speaker 01

  Um, but like, there were a lot of people, it seemed to not get any of them on it.

• 53:57Speaker 00

  I really enjoyed you saying you're not clever and Fern making no attempts to.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, she said, yeah.

• 54:03Speaker 02

  No, I didn't. I'm saying, I'm saying yes, thinking, yeah, I'm not that clever, but like, dude, I often, I've realised for a lot of my life, I'm overestimating how clever other people are.

• 54:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:17Speaker 02

  Uh, and it's, uh, that hasn't changed you on you, or if anything, it just gets more frightening.

• 54:23Speaker 00

  That's the only thing that relaxed me when I was learning to drive, because I learned, I learned to drive quite like, late-ish. Uh, I was like, in my early twenties, and I was like, really nervous, like, you're in charge of this vehicle, it's terrifying. And someone said to me, but think how stupid most people are. Stupid, stupid people drive.

• 54:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:43Speaker 00

  Right? And stupid people don't think I'm in charge of a vehicle.

• 54:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:47Speaker 00

  So the fact you're even thinking that.

• 54:48Speaker 01

  Scariest for me.

• 54:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, it does make.

• 54:49Speaker 01

  Being on the road with other people who are stupid and don't think they're in charge of a vehicle.

• 54:52Speaker 00

  You're the worst one, you're the worst driver ever.

• 54:54Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. You came up during my, uh, because I kept asking people when I was, I only passed my test last year.

• 55:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:00Speaker 02

  And then, um, I would ask other, lots of comedians about it. You were very comforting.

• 55:05Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 55:05Speaker 02

  Then people would tell the story of like, why James doesn't drive. And it was so harrowing. And it was so, someone told it once and it was so like cinematic, the way they told it. And I was like, oh God.

• 55:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty crazy.

• 55:20Speaker 02

  Was it like, the way I got told it was that you were in a car, crashed it.

• 55:25Speaker 01

  I'm quite looking forward to hearing this. It's like, I haven't heard it told back to me before.

• 55:28Speaker 02

  So you crashed this car and then Henry Widdicombe was driving a little way behind you.

• 55:34Speaker 01

  In front of us.

• 55:35Speaker 02

  In front of you.

• 55:36Speaker 01

  Don't interrupt, sorry.

• 55:36Speaker 02

  So he gets, he gets out of the car and he just walks slowly towards it because he's like, I'm going to find all of my friends dead.

• 55:44Speaker 01

  That is true.

• 55:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 55:46Speaker 02

  And then the guy.

• 55:47Speaker 01

  I'm sure he's got more friends.

• 55:48Speaker 02

  Then like a guy driving a tractor or something.

• 55:53Speaker 02

  Goes over to you and is like, you fucking idiot. And then that was the moment where you were like, I will not drive again because I'm not meant to drive.

• 56:01Speaker 01

  Yes. Uh, yeah, it was, it was a lorry, it was a log lorry, not a tractor.

• 56:06Speaker 02

  Oh, that's worse.

• 56:07Speaker 01

  And he's, yeah, he called me a twat, but he, he really suckered me in really well because, um, he was up on the road and we would, by this point, we were down in a field. We had gone completely. So that, and there was a whole sea of logs in between us and him. And he shouted down, are you guys okay? Which one's the driver? You okay? And I was like, oh, I'm, I'm the driver. Anyway, you're a fucking twat, mate. And I was like, well, I fell for that. Yeah. But yeah. Henry, Henry walked back to the car because he, he did to us because he thought, I don't want to see this. Cause he was in front of us. So when he saw it and he was pulled up at the side of the road, waiting for us to catch up with him. So he saw the whole thing in his rearview mirror.

• 56:47Speaker 01

  And he saw the lorry drive over the front of our car, drive over the bonnet. But he thought it had gone over the middle because obviously he couldn't see where it had driven over. So he thought it's gone over the whole car. And then he saw it flip over the lorry and all the logs fall out and onto our car. And it looked, he said it looked like the logs were going through the car. So he's like, well, there's just no way that my friends are going to be there still. Um, so that's why he walked back.

• 57:12Speaker 02

  Oh my god.

• 57:14Speaker 01

  And then we were just all three of us standing there, like.

• 57:18Speaker 01

  Is the gig still on, Henry? Are we still doing the gig tonight? But yeah.

• 57:22Speaker 02

  Did you do the gig?

• 57:23Speaker 01

  Nah, could cancel the rest of that leg of the tour. Um, yeah, so, you know, there are stupid people out there who shouldn't drive.

• 57:31Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 57:31Speaker 01

  And I'm one of them.

• 57:32Speaker 02

  I'm all right at it.

• 57:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, good on you.

• 57:35Speaker 02

  I think it helps if you learn in London though, because that's the worst it's ever gonna be.

• 57:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:40Speaker 02

  Um, and then everywhere else feels quite nice. Although I was driving in Manchester on tour and I didn't like that.

• 57:47Speaker 00

  No?

• 57:47Speaker 02

  No, they're pretty mad.

• 57:49Speaker 00

  They're mad for it?

• 57:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're mad for it, Manchester.

• 57:52Speaker 00

  So Phil's having a riesling. You're not really a boozer, are you? You'd rather?

• 57:56Speaker 02

  No, I, I, I actually, um, uh, there's a really nice wine bar between my house and Phil's house. Um, and we went there because what I try and do now is not drink for as long as I possibly can. And then break it with one glass of wine.

• 58:13Speaker 00

  Nice.

• 58:14Speaker 02

  And then I regret it because I've just not got tolerance for it. And then I go back to not drinking again. So the wine has to really be worth it.

• 58:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:24Speaker 02

  Um, yeah, we went to this place, Joyce and Broccoli, that's what it's called. And it does loads of natural wines. But the reason it's good is because often when I break my drinking streak, I'll have the drink and be like, this wine is disgusting. And now I've broken a drink, a no drinking streak for no reason.

• 58:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:44Speaker 02

  But this place, they let you try all the wines first to make sure you're picking the right one. And it's great.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  Did you shout yum?

• 58:52Speaker 02

  Uh, I did, I did, shit, so weird you say that. I did say something that I remember, like, Phil made a little face that I was like yummy. Uh, and then the woman behind the, because the staff are nice there. And the woman behind the bar was just like, it's okay.

• 59:11Speaker 00

  So you said something and Phil made a face like he cried.

• 59:14Speaker 02

  Because I wasn't like. Doing the right, but I.

• 59:17Speaker 00

  I don't think you two should be friends, you know.

• 59:20Speaker 01

  Well, you shouldn't be married.

• 59:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 59:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:21Speaker 00

  Worst marriage ever.

• 59:23Speaker 02

  Definitely not married, but I I I made a I made a noise that wasn't like a cool wine noise.

• 59:30Speaker 01

  Yummy.

• 59:32Speaker 02

  I didn't go interested.

• 59:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 59:35Speaker 02

  So, yeah, like places that let you try, because I just, I had a drink last month. I broke the drinking streak. I really like this place. Sylvan in Glasgow. It's the same people that run the Hog and Pint and they do loads of like small plates or like fancy vegetables and all that stuff. But they also have a massive wine list and I had an English Pinot Noir and I regretted that.

• 1:00:03Speaker 01

  Because it was English.

• 1:00:03Speaker 00

  Because it was English.

• 1:00:04Speaker 02

  No, there's an English champagne that I like a lot. You would know it, do you know what I mean?

• 1:00:09Speaker 00

  Uh, yeah, Night Timber.

• 1:00:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I like that and.

• 1:00:13Speaker 01

  Doesn't it scare you though when you're drinking English champagne?

• 1:00:16Speaker 02

  Does it? No.

• 1:00:17Speaker 01

  Because it's just like sign of.

• 1:00:20Speaker 02

  Global warming.

• 1:00:20Speaker 00

  It's not champagne.

• 1:00:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:21Speaker 00

  Just not got on their head, there's not champagne, but.

• 1:00:24Speaker 01

  Sign of, it's just a reminder of the climate crisis.

• 1:00:27Speaker 02

  Well, so I was thinking about the climate. I was like, let's have a positive come out of the climate crisis. The English wine scene is meant to be getting better and better. So I'll try this English Pinot Noir. It tasted like dirt from the ground. Uh, and I wish I'd just stuck with something Spanish or Italian.

• 1:00:48Speaker 00

  So we're not there yet. At least we know the climate's not so bad that we've got good English Pinot Noir.

• 1:00:54Speaker 01

  That's when we need to be.

• 1:00:55Speaker 00

  That's when we worry.

• 1:00:56Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, worry now anyway, but like.

• 1:00:58Speaker 00

  No, we only worry when we start getting excellent Cabernet Sauvignon.

• 1:01:02Speaker 01

  You know, it's absolute doomsday when you have a drink of English sparkling wine and go, that is the best, oh no.

• 1:01:09Speaker 00

  By the time we got Malbec, the the whole world's on fire.

• 1:01:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:01:13Speaker 02

  Oh, so you need it needs to be hot for Malbec.

• 1:01:16Speaker 00

  Malbec tends to come from hotter hotter climate places like South America and, yeah, places like that.

• 1:01:21Speaker 02

  And then colder places make minerally wine.

• 1:01:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, it depends more minerally, it depends on the terroir.

• 1:01:29Speaker 01

  Whoa, what?

• 1:01:29Speaker 00

  So.

• 1:01:30Speaker 01

  What?

• 1:01:31Speaker 00

  Which is through the area, the whole, the whole environment of where, of where it's grown. So quite often wines, uh, the vineyards that are on the coastline, close to the sea will actually be more saline and have more mineral taste. But yeah, I try and keep it under my hat a little bit on this podcast. I'm a total tosser. So.

• 1:01:48Speaker 02

  No, well, Phil told me that you shouldn't, uh, go off the, you shouldn't go off the country. You should go off the grape.

• 1:01:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, but there's certain grapes grow better in certain.

• 1:01:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:00Speaker 00

  Countries. So like riesling, well, they're grown like nice riesling in California and, but also in Germany and Austria as well.

• 1:02:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, I just, um, but I, I mean, I've found if I pick according to country, it's pretty consistent. Having said that, I was always so unfair. Like I always thought I hated French wines and then I had loads of nice, um, natural French wine in Paris. Loads and loads and they were, and they were so lovely about it as well. Last two times I've been to Paris. No, because the Parisians have this rep.

• 1:02:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:02:34Speaker 02

  And, and they were, they were dead sound.

• 1:02:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's good. I guess if you're going to cool places where they're a bit more relaxed than sort of.

• 1:02:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, might be that. Yeah. If, if I could give up wine, I've, maybe I said that on the last thing. If I didn't like red wine, I'd be fine to not drink.

• 1:02:49Speaker 00

  Right. That's the one.

• 1:02:51Speaker 02

  It's just so tasty. When you finally have a good one, it's so good.

• 1:02:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think it's good to like, you know, every now and again, break your fast with like, you break your wine fast. So you're a fast fan. It's very confusing. Yeah. You did actual, you go to fasting retreats too, but like, um, to break it with a really good one. And it's impressive that you don't then, that's you drinking from then on. Cause like for me, I'll have breaks from drinking. And then I know that as soon as I start drinking again, it's like, well, I'm back to normal.

• 1:03:19Speaker 02

  Oh no, I don't like the feeling of my eyes rolling around my heads.

• 1:03:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, they shouldn't be doing that. They really shouldn't be.

• 1:03:26Speaker 00

  My eyes roll around my head.

• 1:03:29Speaker 02

  It's making sense that yous are responding this week, because I've been trying to tell my audience this.

• 1:03:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:37Speaker 02

  And I thought everyone would know what I meant.

• 1:03:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:40Speaker 02

  Um, I can't, if I, it used to just be, I could handle two glasses of wine, now I can't go past one glass of wine, because my eyes start moving around my head.

• 1:03:52Speaker 00

  How far back are we talking? How far back do the eyes go?

• 1:03:55Speaker 02

  It's like, I can't focus on people when I'm talking to them and it's really embarrassing.

• 1:04:03Speaker 00

  We're arriving at the desserts, this is Phil Wang's dream dessert.

• 1:04:07Speaker 02

  Um, let me try and guess.

• 1:04:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, go on. Give you, give you three guesses.

• 1:04:12Speaker 02

  Uh, is it ice cream?

• 1:04:15Speaker 00

  Not ice cream.

• 1:04:16Speaker 02

  Is it a cake?

• 1:04:17Speaker 00

  Not quite a cake.

• 1:04:18Speaker 02

  Oh, oh no, he, he says the only thing that the British do well is puddings. So I'm gonna guess that it's something like a sticky toffee pudding.

• 1:04:31Speaker 00

  It's not, it's a. It's got an element of that within it.

• 1:04:34Speaker 02

  Benoffy. Is it Benoffy?

• 1:04:36Speaker 00

  Benoffy pie?

• 1:04:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:37Speaker 00

  Benoffy pie. Yes. There you go. Well, that was pretty good.

• 1:04:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, that was pretty good.

• 1:04:41Speaker 02

  That was gonna be my first guess.

• 1:04:43Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 1:04:45Speaker 02

  Because he did this Guardian food thing.

• 1:04:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:04:47Speaker 02

  And Benoffy pie, I think they like covered him in Benoffy pies for it or something.

• 1:04:52Speaker 00

  Really?

• 1:04:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:53Speaker 00

  Looking up Benito, for god's sake. Let's say this image. I wanna see Wang covered in Benoffy pies. Covered in Benoffy pie.

• 1:05:01Speaker 02

  Because for my one, they had bagels and that isn't my number one food.

• 1:05:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:05:05Speaker 02

  Of all time. I think they just thought it would make a nice picture.

• 1:05:09Speaker 00

  Yeah. Right, okay.

• 1:05:12Speaker 00

  We talked about the, uh, Benito's found something. It's a big pile of bananas, yeah, fair enough. It's got a Benoffy pie at the top there.

• 1:05:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, maybe it's a better.

• 1:05:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, he has got a slice of Benoffy pie. Mine was more embarrassing than that. I'm grating cheese in a guitar shaped cheese grater. What is this?

• 1:05:28Speaker 02

  It's a.

• 1:05:29Speaker 00

  Observer Food Month, is it?

• 1:05:30Speaker 02

  You've done it, haven't you?

• 1:05:31Speaker 01

  I haven't done it.

• 1:05:32Speaker 02

  You've done it and you were like, had an ice cream and you were looking.

• 1:05:35Speaker 01

  Oh, I did do a photo shoot and they gave me ice cream.

• 1:05:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:05:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, so you've, yeah.

• 1:05:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, I've done it.

• 1:05:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't trust James to remember what he's done, but he's definitely done it.

• 1:05:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:05:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:05:45Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, Ed's looking very metal there with a little heavy metal.

• 1:05:48Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:05:49Speaker 01

  Cheese grater, that's good.

• 1:05:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, look up James's.

• 1:05:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I definitely did an ice cream one.

• 1:05:56Speaker 02

  Oh, I'll tell you my favourite dessert I've discovered in the last year or so. I met this Turkish chef, I think his name's Big Has.

• 1:06:07Speaker 00

  Big Has, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:06:09Speaker 02

  Oh my god, knefah, have you had it?

• 1:06:12Speaker 00

  I don't think I've ever had it, you know, but I'm, it's the shreds of pastry, right, you get?

• 1:06:17Speaker 02

  It's, yeah, it's a little bit like, a bit like baklava, um, but a different texture. But it's got this sweet mozzarella type cheese in the middle and it's amazing. It's like my favourite, sorry, my tummy's drumming now.

• 1:06:32Speaker 00

  I can hear it.

• 1:06:35Speaker 01

  Not the first, you want to be the last, fun.

• 1:06:37Speaker 02

  I have to eat it and, um, uh, when I, uh, I did the London bit of my tour in West London and they've got much better like Lebanese and Middle Eastern foods compared to where I live. And I got a load of knefahs. No one else was that excited about it. Like I got one from my tour manager, one for me and then one from my boyfriend that I then also ate the next day.

• 1:07:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sure he understood that that was the deal.

• 1:07:03Speaker 02

  Well, he was just like, oh, this is just, he was like, it's fine, it's not that good.

• 1:07:07Speaker 01

  It's so gutting, isn't it? Well, when, when you discover something that's amazing.

• 1:07:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:07:11Speaker 01

  And you want to introduce it, people, to the people who, you know, mean something to you or you're making, you know, try these. And they go, yeah, it's all right.

• 1:07:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:07:20Speaker 01

  And for one, I've never had the guts to really do that. If I'm on the receiving end of that, if, if someone else says to me, you've got to try this stuff, it's so good.

• 1:07:28Speaker 02

  Hmm, yeah.

• 1:07:29Speaker 01

  And I think it's just fine, I'll at least upgrade that to, oh yeah, that's really tasty.

• 1:07:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:07:35Speaker 01

  I won't go, it's all right. And completely crush this thing that they love for them.

• 1:07:39Speaker 00

  James is currently having a long distance argument with his fake Asian husband, Nish. Because Nish is travelling around America and James keeps recommending him places to go. And Nish either goes to them and doesn't say anything about the food he ate, or he doesn't, he ignores the recommendation.

• 1:07:56Speaker 02

  But doesn't Nish have Nando's for every tour date?

• 1:07:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, but good luck in America.

• 1:08:01Speaker 00

  See, I do that when I'm in the UK quite a lot.

• 1:08:03Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:08:04Speaker 02

  You are right that it's, that Nando's is the live, laugh, love of the food world.

• 1:08:09Speaker 00

  It can possibly.

• 1:08:09Speaker 02

  And I thought that was so accurate.

• 1:08:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, I can to- totally get on board with that. And you know what? I live, I laugh, I love.

• 1:08:15Speaker 02

  Don't, but is it because, but what? Because you can, for me, the best bit of tour is that I might find a new tasty food place.

• 1:08:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it's the best.

• 1:08:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:27Speaker 01

  But there is also that thing around the UK where if you can't, I definitely try like when we're, when we're on the way in to the actual city itself. I'll Google where the best place to eat is, try and find somewhere. But if you can't, Nando's is always there as a little.

• 1:08:44Speaker 00

  And it's always the same.

• 1:08:45Speaker 02

  But the food scene's got so much better across the rest of the UK, like, because when I started touring, I would go to places and just be like, I'm just gonna go to a supermarket and get stuff for my dinner. Whereas this tour, like, all the best Thai food. Sheffield and Nottingham have this Thai, not a chain, there's a place that has like two restaurants, I can't remember the name of it.

• 1:09:09Speaker 01

  Sure. I think I know what you mean. I think Nottingham up into a really good Thai place as well.

• 1:09:13Speaker 02

  It's, it's definitely gonna be this one. I couldn't believe how spicy it was.

• 1:09:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:18Speaker 02

  And like a lot of Thai takeaways you get in the UK are too sugary and this tasted like proper Thai food.

• 1:09:24Speaker 00

  I think I have been to one in Nottingham like that actually, maybe. I went to, I went to a place in Bath as well. That did Thai, like good Thai street food. Zap.

• 1:09:33Speaker 02

  Zap.

• 1:09:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, I've been, I've been to Zap.

• 1:09:35Speaker 01

  Zap.

• 1:09:36Speaker 02

  I was so happy when, cause I did Nottingham and then I did Sheffield like a month later and I found out that they had a branch of Zap there as well. And I was like, this is amazing.

• 1:09:45Speaker 00

  You go in and there's like rickshaws everywhere and stuff. Like it's quite a mad interior.

• 1:09:49Speaker 02

  Oh, I haven't been in. I just ordered it. Cause the, it was because the door staff recommended it. Yeah.

• 1:09:54Speaker 00

  Well, I went to a place in Bath. I don't, I don't think it was a Zap, but I sort of ordered just quickly. And then everything arrived and it turned out I'd ordered just three soups, basically.

• 1:10:04Speaker 02

  Oh, no.

• 1:10:04Speaker 00

  Quite sort of broth, broths.

• 1:10:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:06Speaker 00

  Alison Spittle jumping for joy. Spicy broth. She wouldn't have been after this. So I ate all the broths really quickly. Went off to do the gig. I'd say 10 minutes before I went on, the worst diarrhea I've ever had in my life.

• 1:10:17Speaker 02

  Oh, no.

• 1:10:18Speaker 00

  And I don't think this was an issue with the food. I think it was my selection of the food. My body was just screaming at me going, why? We've just got loads of spicy water. And it was funny though, man. It's the only time I've ever been ill and laughing out loud at the same time. My tour manager was going, Ed, you do, you do on stage, we've got clearance. We're ready to go. I go, I've got fucking clearance, mate. And I'm laughing out loud while I'm.

• 1:10:40Speaker 02

  That's lovely. Even your diarrhea is wholesome. You're just like laughing away.

• 1:10:44Speaker 00

  Funny, funny old times. Good gig, a gamble. Gig of my life as well when I went on.

• 1:10:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was flying.

• 1:10:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, because you've done a lot of poos. Yeah. What you did there was, um, you accidentally did a detox thing called a saltwater flush, I think.

• 1:10:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:59Speaker 02

  Which they do in the fasting world where you drink a load of salty water.

• 1:11:03Speaker 00

  There you go.

• 1:11:03Speaker 02

  And it makes you poop. Uh, that's what you've done to yourself by having all the broth.

• 1:11:08Speaker 00

  I did a cheaper version of going up a mountain in Germany.

• 1:11:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:11:12Speaker 01

  So how do you feel about the menu that we bought?

• 1:11:16Speaker 02

  Oh, great.

• 1:11:17Speaker 01

  Spark the water, the poppadoms, salmon roe and drugged leaf, the Malaysian eggy soup, clear Chinese broth, reason white wine and the banoffee pie. We haven't really talked much about the banoffee pie. Would you like that? You enjoy banoffee pie?

• 1:11:28Speaker 02

  I deliberately skipped over the banoffee pie thing because, um, I made it. When I make, when I bake something and it goes wrong, I carry the shame with me for years. Uh, like a Japanese businessman that's let down the whole company. That's how I feel.

• 1:11:46Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:11:47Speaker 02

  So I made.

• 1:11:48Speaker 01

  Only specific.

• 1:11:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, every year, uh, my, my boyfriend's pals have this Christmas, um, party. It's like all Irish people in London. And one year I said, I'm gonna make a Benafi pie for it. And I made the caramel wrong and it was like rock hard and it just wasn't right. I mean, they were all dropped, they're like, they wouldn't even remember this. No one remembers this apart from me.

• 1:12:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:14Speaker 02

  But every year since, my desserts have had to get more and more exciting and more and more perfect. Sometimes I bring two desserts, uh, because I just feel so ashamed of that time. I haven't been baking since Bake Off.

• 1:12:28Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 1:12:29Speaker 02

  It traumatized me, yeah.

• 1:12:31Speaker 01

  Join the club. Yeah.

• 1:12:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, but you weren't good at it. You weren't good at baking when you went on it, eh?

• 1:12:37Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 1:12:37Speaker 02

  I was good at baking.

• 1:12:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:39Speaker 02

  And then Paul Hollywood criticised like the size of my buns and said that they weren't all uniforms, shape and size.

• 1:12:47Speaker 01

  That'd be immature, be sorry. Yeah, that's funny though. Sorry.

• 1:12:50Speaker 02

  Oh, right, yeah, like bums or bum or boobs.

• 1:12:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Apologies for laughing at that. Paul Hollywood criticised the size of your buns. Yeah, that's funny, fair enough. Apologies.

• 1:13:02Speaker 02

  And he said, like, it almost tastes like a pretzel and I was, I just took that. I don't think he meant it negatively, but yeah.

• 1:13:10Speaker 00

  Does he know that? Does he know that he's, what he's actually done is affect your future confidence in baking?

• 1:13:15Speaker 02

  I don't care. Like, I mean, the end of my current tour show is about Bake Off and, um, what, what dark programme it is.

• 1:13:27Speaker 00

  Did you find it to be quite a dark experience? I found that.

• 1:13:29Speaker 02

  I actually watched a clip of you afterwards.

• 1:13:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:13:33Speaker 02

  Uh, no, I really liked the crew cause Sam from.

• 1:13:36Speaker 00

  Sam.

• 1:13:37Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So when I finished filming, I went back to the hotel and then I was like, cause I hadn't watched Bake Off. Never mind the celebrity Bake Off. So that was, that was where I went wrong, just having not watched it at all. And then I looked up comedians on Bake Off and your clip came up and you were like, whoa, whoa, getting everything wrong and being silly. And I was like.

• 1:14:02Speaker 00

  That's a good impression.

• 1:14:03Speaker 02

  But that was when I was like, oh, I've, I've fucked this. Like, I've done this so wrong. Because I, I kept getting confused because like Dermot O'Leary, uh, who's a really nice man, kept coming over to be like, oh, how are you getting on, Fern? And there must be something in the show where you're meant to stop baking and chat. And I just was like, go back to your island. Like I'm trying to. Um, and then the other guy, Greg James would like call over to me, how are you getting on? And I just didn't know why people kept trying to talk to me because I wanted to just bake and bake and bake.

• 1:14:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:14:38Speaker 02

  And then Mel B, who I idolized as a child, literally I have a hole in my tongue from getting my tongue pierced to copy her when I was a teenager. Mel B kept, it was almost like a, like a hallucinogenic type situation. She kept coming over being like, Fern, how do I turn my blender on? And I'd be like, go away. Please let me just keep baking.

• 1:15:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:15:05Speaker 02

  But you're not meant to do that.

• 1:15:07Speaker 00

  I didn't expect you to do a little bit of chat, maybe.

• 1:15:10Speaker 02

  I found the chat excruciating. Uh, I just, and then Noel Fielding was like, oh, you're, you're the only person that's come on this and wanted to talk about yeast and whether you've killed off your yeast. And people kept like hinting at me that I was getting the tone wrong.

• 1:15:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:32Speaker 02

  But it's only two days, so yeah.

• 1:15:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's two days. And once you've committed to that the first, yeah, the second day I had to retake all of my talking head bits from the day before.

• 1:15:42Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:15:43Speaker 01

  They said, we're gonna have to do all of those again.

• 1:15:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, and cheer up this time.

• 1:15:46Speaker 01

  And can you, can you just keep it a bit light and remember that this is for charity and we're trying to raise some money here?

• 1:15:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:15:52Speaker 01

  Don't, don't just stand there going, no one should ever bake. This is, this is the worst thing ever.

• 1:15:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fair enough.

• 1:15:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:15:59Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Absolutely saw it from their point of view.

• 1:16:03Speaker 00

  You're, that, obviously that clip of you pops up a lot.

• 1:16:06Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:16:06Speaker 00

  And it popped up again for me, I think today or yesterday. And you know, there's all these people who do impressions of you online and they're insane.

• 1:16:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:16:12Speaker 00

  Just like completely over the top.

• 1:16:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:14Speaker 00

  They're all basing it on that clip because in that clip, you genuinely sound like all of those impressions.

• 1:16:20Speaker 01

  It, it.

• 1:16:20Speaker 00

  You're way higher. I don't know what's happened to your voice.

• 1:16:22Speaker 01

  When I'm on baker.

• 1:16:23Speaker 00

  Yeah. Your voice is so much higher than it is now.

• 1:16:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:26Speaker 00

  It's like you, you went through puberty af- after that clip.

• 1:16:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I, I was, I was going.

• 1:16:31Speaker 00

  Start a baker. It is that.

• 1:16:33Speaker 01

  I was going insane. I was jet lagged all over the place. I didn't know what I was doing.

• 1:16:40Speaker 02

  I wish I'd gone on and baked things in a bad way, but I couldn't.

• 1:16:45Speaker 00

  You've got to be committed to it if you want to do it. I got to try. I went on, I went on, just baked, baked my heart out. It wasn't good enough, but.

• 1:16:52Speaker 02

  Are you, and you're good at baking?

• 1:16:53Speaker 00

  No, I'm not really a baker. I wouldn't bake for fun, but obviously it's like based in cooking and I'm competitive. So I was like, I did practise it a lot.

• 1:17:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. Um, I mean, I, I really generally, I, I wasn't able to bake after, for a long time after.

• 1:17:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:10Speaker 02

  Because I would just look at my things that I made and think, oh, they're not a uniform size and shape and have Paul Hollywood's words echoing in my head.

• 1:17:19Speaker 00

  Thank you so much for coming back to the Dream Restaurant, Fern.

• 1:17:22Speaker 02

  It was a pleasure.

• 1:17:23Speaker 00

  It's been delight, delightful hosting you again.

• 1:17:25Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:17:26Speaker 00

  And we hope you enjoyed Phil Wang's menu. And congratulations, we selected a nice menu for you that we thought you'd actually like.

• 1:17:31Speaker 02

  Oh, I did. It's making me really crave Malaysian eggy soup now.

• 1:17:35Speaker 00

  Fantastic.

• 1:17:42Speaker 00

  Brilliant. Thank you so much to Fern for coming back on the pod.

• 1:17:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, we learnt so much more about Fern, about Phil, about Fern and Phil.

• 1:17:50Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:17:51Speaker 01

  And that's not.

• 1:17:53Speaker 00

  Not Fern Britton and Phil Schofield.

• 1:17:55Speaker 01

  No, we've learnt too much about one of them.

• 1:17:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:17:59Speaker 01

  That we wish we hadn't.

• 1:18:02Speaker 01

  I think Fern enjoyed that menu.

• 1:18:03Speaker 00

  Yes, I think she did. And yeah, it was great to hear about the fasting retreat. Good to hear about another nightmare Bake Off appearance.

• 1:18:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I really feel, and she said she doubts that, she doesn't know if Paul Hollywood will be able to remember it.

• 1:18:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:18:19Speaker 01

  He won't.

• 1:18:20Speaker 00

  He won't remember.

• 1:18:20Speaker 01

  We know that.

• 1:18:21Speaker 00

  He didn't remember you.

• 1:18:22Speaker 01

  He didn't remember. He goes, I remember. You didn't do too well. I don't really remember what the thing was. Are you kidding me? Worst day of my life.

• 1:18:28Speaker 00

  To be fair, Fern also asked why there was a lamp here and what the original format of the podcast was. And also said she listens to loads of episodes.

• 1:18:36Speaker 01

  And she definitely listens to loads of episodes. You know, that's not something she's just said to be nice in the past. She listens to loads and never once clocked that it's a dream menu and that there's a genie involved. So like, you know.

• 1:18:48Speaker 00

  Did we not make that obvious enough?

• 1:18:50Speaker 01

  I thought we had. Maybe we need to focus on our branding a little bit more.

• 1:18:54Speaker 00

  Dress it up, man.

• 1:18:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, we really need to go hard on the branding. Benito's holding his laptop like it's going to show us something. I guess me with some ice cream.

• 1:19:01Speaker 00

  Oh, we finally saw your, is it Observer Food Monthly or was it?

• 1:19:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've got some ice creams there. There's a bright yellow one, but I think they might have even been sorbets. I definitely ate all of it.

• 1:19:10Speaker 00

  Yes. Well, you've got to, because you know, you get the pictures and then it's just melting, right?

• 1:19:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, we just put two ice creams in the bin and go home. There's a blood orange one there and a lemon sherbet one.

• 1:19:19Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:19:20Speaker 01

  Delicious.

• 1:19:21Speaker 00

  That's a nice photo.

• 1:19:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's quite a nice photo.

• 1:19:23Speaker 00

  And Phil ate all the bananas. Yeah.

• 1:19:25Speaker 01

  That's what Benito says.

• 1:19:26Speaker 00

  Benito just said Phil ate all the bananas.

• 1:19:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's smiling to himself. Now he's laughing to himself.

• 1:19:30Speaker 00

  Benito is his own biggest fan.

• 1:19:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was a good, good way to be. It's a good way to be.

• 1:19:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:19:36Speaker 01

  Um, you know, but also like, he's his own biggest fan, but doesn't expect anyone else to be. So doesn't include himself in the podcast?

• 1:19:44Speaker 00

  No, just quietly will smile and laugh to himself at something he's just said.

• 1:19:47Speaker 01

  A lot of self-awareness there to be like, I love it.

• 1:19:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:19:50Speaker 01

  But I don't think it's like gonna necessarily translate to everyone. So I will not include it in the podcast, but I will enjoy it.

• 1:19:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:19:57Speaker 01

  Maximum amount every time.

• 1:19:58Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:20:00Speaker 01

  Quite sweet.

• 1:20:01Speaker 00

  Yeah. And don't forget that Fern is doing a brand new podcast with the wonderful Alison Spittle. It's called Ignore That Feeling. It's available wherever you get your podcasts from and indeed watch it on YouTube and watch us on YouTube. Thank you very much for listening. We'll be back with something next week. Bye bye.

• 1:20:17Speaker 01

  Goodbye.