BudPod with Phil Wang & Pierre Novellie - Episode 184 - Podcasht Epishode

Episode Date: October 12, 2022

The lads chat Dutch food, Amsterdam, train promises, The Night Watch, hot sizzles, Indonesian restaurants Get bonus BudPod on Patreon! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's Budpod 184. 184! Wang's on tour! Yeah. Well, not really on tour, I'm just in Amsterdam. I'm in Amsterdam. Phil's decided that he needed a belly befter. Apologies for the quality of my sound this week, listeners. I'm just so high I'm in Amsterdam

just doing a bit of work and so found a little bit of time here to come talk with you guys it's a beautiful shitty Amsterdam it's really nice my hotel is quite a nice location actually. It's right in the center of town and right on the canal. It's beautiful. It's really nice. But you might hear cheerful

people walking on their clogs out on the street because we are right by the streets. You might hear the clip-clop of Dutch clogs. And have you had any strip waffles yet? I had my first strip waffle that came with my coffee. The strip waffles here it seems to come with hot drinks. Yeah.

In the same way we have a bisque off. Do you know what you're supposed to do with a strip waffle? It's something like you perch it on the lip of the cup until it sogs up and falls in and then you throw it on the floor and you shout yahtzee is that right yes yes you you use it as a sort of hot coffee lid and it melts the caramel a bit that's true yeah yeah yeah yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're lovely. I love a strip waffle. Are you a big fan? I'm a big fan. I like a caramel anything really.

There's someone in my room. Just wait a sec. This is Cinema Verite listeners. You're going to hear Phil get assassinated by some sort of international cabal. Live on the pod. Oh. some sort of international cabal live on the pod hello hello

hello you sound far away again there we go now you're back to yeah sorry yeah um sorry my my hotel's a bit of a weird one where they'll come and they'll do something like bring you um some milk which i accidentally ordered yesterday and then they'll come back and say did we deliver the milk they'll check up on it oh no i hate that so much a lady just came to check up that the room has been cleaned i was like yeah yeah yeah it's been clean yeah so do you not have a do you not have a do not disturb sign i that's the first thing i do if i go to a hotel is immediately tell them to not disturb me the undisturbable man maybe i'm maybe that's why they keep bothering me because i'm like i've basically got a sign on my door that says come on in the water's warm yeah i you've you've

accidentally hung up a sign that says i'd love a visitor uh it's a lovely hotel but maybe they're a little too attentive. I checked in yesterday, and there was waiting for me in my sitting room. I've got a suite. I've got like a bedroom. I know. It's very swish. You walk in and go, sweet!

Sweet! Halloumi wrap! Look at this place! As you pointed around the room at the suite, you just went, sweet, just like gesturing. And then, bedroom, as you saw the bedroom. That's a good joke. That's a good joke for a short sketch.

Will I ever load up TikTok? Probably not. That's a good TikTok sketch. So I came in and there was a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket. And I'm like, oh, that's fancy, but... You're kidding, really? Yeah, when am I going to drink that?

They picture I just come in and go, hey, yeah! On my own, just, yeah. Congrats on being a great guy, Phil. Just get a glass. Well, did you? Well, no. Now it's a bottle of champagne sitting in a bucket of water.

Yeah. Still, though, that's fucking sweet. I had no idea that you were royalty, Philip. it's a bottle of champagne sitting in a bucket of water. Yeah. Still though. That's fucking sweet. I had no idea that you were royalty, Philip. It's getting there. It's getting there. The Dutch accent is hard to do without slipping into,

uh, Sean Connery. Yeah. And they don't, they don't, they don't show as much as people say, I think it just every now and then. I think it's actually quite common that they share.

I think it's quite common. It ends up sounding like a character with braces, if you're not careful. That's true, that's true. Sort of medical-level braces. It's a beautiful city, Amsterdam. And I was saying this to some couple of people here that amsterdam is one of the few

cities that really delivers on what you expect from it oh yeah you expect amsterdam to look away and you turn up and it really does look that way which if you contrast with somewhere like paris yeah you think paris is it's supposed to be this beautiful city in the world and you turn up and it really does look that way which if you contrast with somewhere like paris yeah you think paris is it's supposed to be the most beautiful city in the world and you turn up and it's a fucking dump and there's a lot of dog shit on the floor disgusting and you go what what is this amsterdam's not like that amsterdam you turn up in like yes there is the canals there's ours the bicycles yeah it really delivers and everything and there's like all the lovely red bricks yeah and there's some weed and there's a stag do and there's a little there's like a weird little um windmill little windmill maybe

there's a little windmill in every house it's very green yes lovely the trees the canals ah it's like Venice it's so nice everyone speaks English

but they have that sort of Dutch directness where they're basically rude but I like that I like people who are

honest to the point of rudeness yes yes has any of that happened to you so far, people say? Not yet, actually. Not yet, no. No. Maybe the people I've been working with have been briefed on how to speak to British people. You should wander around being sort of moderately incorrect

about things to try and provoke some Dutch directness, maybe. Yes. Try and get it out of them. I wonder what I could get wrong. Maybe standing in the cycle lane, that's going to get you. Yeah, a lady just

shouted at me and a guy walking in front of her bike. What did she say? She went like, ock, ock, ock, something like that. She was so quiet. She went,

ock, ock, ock, ock, ock, like that. But I might have been Dutch. I don't know. Ock, ock, ock, ock, ock. I think you accidentally got cycled over by an orc. She was shouting at you about herself. Ock, ock, ock, ock.

Ock, ock, ock orc she was jabbing at her chest orc orc orc orc did she have tusks? yes and she was green big green face you know a Dutch lady yeah she got a vision of an orc with like

the hair and those big swirls with curlers in her hair yeah well like those big dutch swirls that look like headphones the princess leia oh I see yes yes yes um and uh will

what are you what are you gonna do I get terrible regret for wastage so on the last night are you in a panic going to just drink by then flat or warm champagne on your own in a big glug just so you can say you didn't waste it it won't be flat

because it hasn't been opened it won't be warm I have considered putting it in my bag and taking it back I'm not kidding I looked up the value of the bottle to see if it's and taking it back and i i'm not kidding i looked up the the value of the bottle to see if it's worth me taking back yeah and and it costs the amount that a bottle of champagne costs so it might yeah i might smuggle it there'll be something about like trying to

smuggle a bottle of champagne on a train through europe that feels so World War II I might have to do it. I see you're doing the train to and from. Yeah, you're a starring to and from. Ooh, baby! That low-carbon travel. Ooh, baby, you know what it's worth.

Ooh, baby, saving the Earth. Saving the Earth. Yeah, it's nice that you do your stuff. It's still,... Ooh, baby, saving the Earth. Saving the Earth. Yeah, it's nice, the Eurostar. It's still, after all these years, it has screens on the train telling you, like, fun Eurostar facts. Oh, yeah? Like a little cartoon of the tunnel deep underwater,

and then at the seabed, there's, like, a sunken submarine and a happy octopus. Right. And it says we we've the top speed hit is 346 kilometers per hour um and then it should there's a bit where it shows you the current speed you're going at which is pretty cool it's like 245 kilometers per hour 246 kilometers that's pretty sick i'd like more i'd like more transport to do that You only get that on the Eurostar and planes

Yeah I suppose the trouble with the normal British trains Maybe it's just Wait what transport don't you get that on now British trains I guess They probably don't want you to know Well I was going to say the trouble is that all the fun facts On the screens would be things like

Did you know that we're mostly late It would be like fun, did you know that we're mostly late? It would be like fun facts about how shit it was. Did you know that these carriages haven't been updated since the 90s? Did you know that this train would be able to travel in such a way that you wouldn't have to make four changes if only that a local fucking citizens planning committee hadn't objected to the plans on the grounds of a rare

slug living in a particular swamp yeah here's their email address thank them for this we've spoken before sitting on a British train on the piece of information in front of us it says it'll be like rail now download the rail now app and order we'll bring it straight to

your seat and we're like no you fucking won't no you won't of course you won't my it's one of my favorite observations you've ever made is the promises made by the backs of seats of trains are insane. It's so true. I think it every time I go on the train. And like you say, it's like a great Western Netflix suite. And we'll bring this incredible artisan toasty right to your fucking mouth as you enjoy a free version of Top Gun that only we have access to. It's not true. none of it's true to the point where i kind of think they're just going download an app that will harvest your data for these reasons that will not it's like a scam because it never nothing none of it ever works

sometimes the trains are so overcrowded they just go we can't push the trolley down to sell you things because there's just people bodies in the way. We're not even checking tickets. That's how busy this train is. This train is so busy. We physically can't check tickets. We don't care if you steal it because we can't check. Because something has fucked up at a level that is beyond the level of everyone who's physically on this train.

So we're very ambivalent and yeah, there, I was on LNER or Virgin. One of them, they always, they always have the back of seats promising. Yeah. Just food being delivered to you.

I mean, I've never, I've never ever seen it happen. No, no, it cannot be the case. It's simply I've never ever seen it happen. No, no. It cannot be the case. It simply can't. Or they'll be like, just download the app. And it'll be like, well, there's no service.

What about the Wi-Fi? If there's no service, the Wi-Fi doesn't work. Well, then why is there... Yeah, the whole point is that your phone loses service. So that's why you need the Wi-Fi. But if the train needs service, what is the point? Yes, they just go, no, the Wi-Fi is just a big mobile phone

with sellotape to the top of the train that you're hot-spotting off. You go, well, that's pointless, isn't it? Make it a satellite dish or something. I don't know. However internet works, make it that. Make it the way that things work. I don't care what it is. Not just a big phone that I hotspot off.

I don't want to fill in a stupid form just to... When will... But the Eurostar seems to be pretty on it. It seems to be sort of fast and comfortable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was comfy. It was good. I saw Brussels through the window. Bloody Brussels. We stopped in Brussels.

Did you shake your fist at it? Yeah. Yeah. Just every building just covered in red tape. Did you proudly hold up a bendy British banana out the window? Banana.

A British banana. A bendy British banana. Yeah. Yeah. There's this inescapable feeling of travelling through Europe as a Brit now. This feeling of traveling through Europe as a Brit now. This feeling of... It's a perpetual, it's a permanent feeling of having just shat yourself. Traveling through Europe as a Brit right now.

You know what I mean? Ever since Brexit, every time you travel through Europe, you feel a bit like you've just shat yourself. Maybe. Because of Brexit. I think in the initial year, it was like a full shitting and I think now we're at sort of bad but consistent farts territory.

Yeah. And I have been doing those literally as well here, so that's not how. Well, the really, really hot ones that heat your whole pants. Yeah, yeah. The ones that are silent and they go... But you know, but you feel how hot they are and you know they're going to be really bad.

Why are the worst ones hotter? What does that mean? Yeah, it's like your ass is going this one isn't even about the show, this is just delivery. This is just like content delivery. Why would it be hotter

though? Yeah, more freshly baked. It's good. It's a good point. It's weird because it's like it's all body temperature, so why aren't the other ones you know? Yeah, why are they all the same heat? It's a very good question.

Hmm. It's like when someone in a restaurant orders sizzling fajitas. Is it to do with the spiciness of your food? So if it's a food that draws the blood closer to the walls of your intestines, maybe that warms... If it irritates the walls of the intestines, maybe

blood goes to it and it gets warmer? It gets hotter? I don't know. There's some real armchair medicine here. Yeah, yeah. Well, maybe if there's microscopic spicy particles in there, it feels hotter. If there are spicotrons in there... Miniature spicotrons. Yeah. At a quantum level. if there are spicer trons in there miniature spicer trons yeah

at a quantum level but it's like the fart equivalent of when the waitress walks through carrying the sizzling plate and everyone turns to look it doesn't always make me think though if you're in that restaurant and you've ordered a steak or similar you sort of think why isn't my food sizzling yeah i was thinking yeah you order something a restaurant and then something sizzling comes by like what was a sizzling thing i didn't say a sizzling thing i want my food to sizzle i want my food to be so fresh that it's sizzling i don't want all this like nearly recently done food, like some clown.

Yeah, I want it to still be cooking at my table. I want to be technically working at the restaurant as a cook for the first minute of my meal. Yes. Yes. Yes. That's the dream, is that it's still got the, it hasn't sat out too long.

I, my sister and her husband had been traveling around it hasn't sat out too long. I, um, my, my, uh, my, my, my sister and her husband had been traveling around and they were regaling me, Phil with tales of a Vegas buffet. Oh yes, yes, yes.

And they were saying that the standard of everything that a, whatever food you can imagine, they had it. It was there. Yep. Yep. What about a banana sushi yep uh what about um a burger made out of

ice yep what about cheese juice yep what. What about frozen coffee? Like a single, not a frappuccino, not iced coffee, like it's all one block. Like it's just slid out of a mug, like a tube. No, it's in the mug, but it's all one block of ice. Oh, I see. Is it the shape of the mug,

or is it a square within a mug? Shape of the mug. Got it, got got it got it yeah yeah that was there wow it was all there incredible giant king crab legs like huge like you just pile them up on your plate and people were and then just more would just come out an entire tray of just butter for the crab legs so you could just spoon butter for yourself you like everything it was insane insane. And my sister was saying what was unusual

was that it was like good quality. It was all excellent. It wasn't like a big buffet where they've gone for quantity over quality. Somehow they managed to make it all good as well. But they were saying that

some of the sights they saw food-wise were just like gobsmacking. It did remind me of... I mean, you and I have experienced American portions before, and there's nothing else like it. Yeah. It's truly good.

Whereas I think the Netherlands food culture is the opposite of that. It's like thin, okay toasties, and that's about it. Yeah, the food, Dutch food is pretty... It's bad. It's not great. The two greatest empires of our time well of recent times the british and the dutch who had the worst food in europe i don't think that's a coincidence i last night i wanted to have an indonesian food um which is the big cuisine here because it was a dutch colony and indonesian food is kind of like the main cuisine here in a way rice table um and which says a lot because

in southeast asia no one thinks a second about indonesian food if you if you say indonesian food you'll go what indonesia really yeah it's not good i mean because like it's it's kind of it's a poor man's malaysian really indonesia it's not really worth your time if you have malaysian um if you have malaysian available hang on a minute but how have they managed to do that because they're a massive country of bajillions and bajillions of people and they're in Flavour Corner it's true the original spice trade this year's spice trade country

so what is it? is this just like generic it's a lot of boring kind of just rice and like just slightly stir fried vegetables and

they have sambal but it's not as nice as Malaysian sambal and they have kind of curries but it's not as nice as Malaysian curries it's just all fine maybe I'm spoiled because I grew up in Malaysia which is very very good food

it sounds like you're saying my dinner last night was great it was a really good restaurant but as a cuisine Because I grew up in Malaysia, which is very, very good food. It sounds like you're saying Indonesian food. My dinner last night was great. My dinner last night was really good. It was a really good restaurant. But as a cuisine, it's pretty meh. But it says a lot about Dutch food that when Dutch people eat Indonesian food, they go, wow, this is amazing.

But now you're saying that it sounds like Indonesian food is the Southeast asian food equivalent of like the vanilla version of the video game like no dlc no bonuses yeah exactly exactly yeah yeah for if you even on every piece of indonesian food if you look really closely printed vers 1.0 vrs dot and then just 1.0 yeah updates no patches yeah a big watermark saying free version that's very strange it's fine it's But you know, there are cuisines that are like, this cuisine is a celebration. This cuisine is a celebration of food. And there are other cuisines that are like, this is to survive. Yes.

Yeah. And Indonesian food is closer to this is to survive than the rest of Southeast Asia. Yeah. Yeah, that's fair. And I think there are other countries that are similar. Yeah, that's fair. And I think there are other countries that are similar. I think we haven't quite got the kind of revolutionary pork and soup and whatever based Polish cuisine that we deserve.

Yes. Things like that. Yeah, I suppose that's true. Maybe the difference is that Malaysia feels wealthier than Indonesia. Is that true? It's one of these questions. Indonesia is enormous. Biggest Muslim nation in the world.

Very big economy. But having a big economy doesn't mean that people are wealthy, are rich. So my feeling is that the average Malaysian is better off, is wealthier than the average Indonesian. But the economy of Indonesia is better off is wealthier than the average Indonesian, but the, the, the economy of Indonesia is larger than Malaysia. Yeah. Well,

that's, that makes sense. That's the sort of vague impression I have. It's, um, well, that's interesting. And was there anything on the,

on the menu of the Indonesian restaurant that you could tell was like, you know how obviously a lot of Chinese restaurants in the UK just sell a British person's fever dream of Chinese food? Yeah. Could you tell there was any of that going on where it was like, hang on a minute, this sambal's got lumps of cheese floating in it. Go wait a minute. No, no, no. It was very authentic.

It was very good. And you know me, I spent like an hour in the hotel room just Googling indonesian restaurant amsterdam trying to find one worth my time and it's like this i went to the guy asking the call to reserve and he's like with a pained face he looked at me and said they've only got space at nine and and i was like that's fine i'll wait and i just went up to my room and i just sort of sat there and stared at the wall until nine because it was the best restaurant I could find in the vicinity and I was like, I'm going there even if I'm late. I'm picturing you sitting with your

fingers interlaced in the dark, looking at the bottle of champagne as the ice melts. Yes. And then the moment the final ice cube turns to water, I'm like, I get up and it's time to go to the restaurant. I will say, there's a dish that's Indonesian slash Malay called soto,

which is a broth, a salty broth. The classic one's chicken, but I had a sort of beef one with bits of radish in it last night at this restaurant. And it was maybe the best soto I've ever had. It was really good. Really, really good. Really? Like a beef one with bits of radish in it last night at this restaurant. And it was maybe the best I've ever had. It was really good. Really, really good. Really? Like a beefy broth with some radishes?

Yeah. Yeah, it was spectacular. Really nice. And also, there's a lamb satay there that didn't come with the peanut satay sauce, but in a blackened,ened so caramelized dark sticky soy that was fantastic really nice but then I had

like a sambal chicken rice dish which was fine it wasn't that tasty but the other bits were super this is I guess you probably can't say why you're there, can you? No, not really. Not just yet.

But it all sounds like a pretty good deal so far. Oh, yeah. It's a nice time. It's a great city. It's a great city. Have you managed to... Have you got any time to do anything cultural? I just walked past the Anne Frank Museum.

Yeah, it's always got a very long queue. Yeah, they didn't seem to be very long on this time, but there's still a queue. I mean, Kepora, it was raining as well, so it's still pretty good for a rainy Monday. It's another rainy Monday. Have you been to the Anne Frank Museum?

No, because every time I've been, it's been like a weekend in a touristy time so the queue's been about a mile long in the heat and I just thought oh I don't know I was the second I saw the queue and all the metal detectors it made sense to me I went oh of course but I got all excited because

I think my dad saw it in the sort of 80s or something when it was like the guy who owned the house is the one who took you around. Wow. Like it really was just going to like a house and it wasn't the tourist attraction quite that it is now. Um,

and so I went, Oh, okay, well, and then I saw the size of the queue and I thought, well, I want to go to the Rijksmuseum and dah, dah,

dah. So I just went, okay. Um, I want to go to the resistance museum at some point too that would be sick oh that's cool i don't know about that yeah the dutch resistance was very cool um very hard to get into the resistance museum the cards they just keep shoving you back it's really hard to find where it is you need a password and a really heavy door, the Resistance Museum.

The Resistance Museum is an arduous thing to go around. It's an ode to resistance itself, not just the resistance. As you go in, they fit you. The back of your belt, the back of your trouser loop, they fit you with a bungee cord and you have to fight the stretch to go around the museum. Like when there's things where people have to run down an inflatable track, you know, with the thing hooked up behind them.

Yes. The whole museum's like that. The whole museum's like that. No, I want to do that um I want to go there someday have you been to the Rijksmuseum no what is the Rijksmuseum it's the big massive sort of palace full of art and statues and so on

oh it's where the Night's Watch is the Night Watch you can go and see all the Vermeers you can see the paintings of the windmills, Philip. Oh, nice. Is there a Van Gogh Museum? I've been to that one.

That's very near the Rijksmuseum. Oh. Yeah. But the Night's Watch is an incredible painting. It's the size of a barn. It's just fucking massive. It's so detailed. I want to look it up now. Yeah, give it a Google.

I highly recommend listeners going online because they photograph the Night's Watch with like a mega, mega, mega 4K HD camera as part of a big project and as a result you can watch it watch it, you can view it yourself on your computer as if

you were basically smushing your fucking eyeball up against it and you can see the detail in the painting. From the comfort of your own home! I see that it is a Rembrandt. Yeah. Oh yeah. You better believe it is.

I think we have a Rembrandt in King's College in Cambridge. Is it called the Day Watch? Yeah. It's a bunch of much more relaxed looking guys. Much easier to see things in the day. It is dark, this painting. Yeah. Yeah, it's lovely.

And what's nice about it is that it was painted... Like the money to make it, that Rembrandt was paid, was from from a subscription from all the guys. I'm sorry. The one that we have in King's is a Rubens. Not a Rembrandt.

Pathetic. Just a pathetic Ruben. Take that champagne, Phil, and pour it on your head in shame. Yeah. Yeah, the night's watch was painted by like a subscription everyone sort of chucked some money in oh really yeah well from the uk we're used to all of our traditional like older art just being the result of like royal patronage or aristocrats. But in the Netherlands, if you go around the Rijksmuseum, you see these incredible paintings and it's just like a guy,

really richly dressed guy. And he's just like the harbour master of some fucking town. And he just used his money to buy some, to make some great art. And it's a lot more sort of middle class and a flat society. Whereas in the UK, if you see a fabulous painting, it's either the church or or the monarchy

it's not it's not just it's not just a bunch of guys clubbing together to have some fabulous art made for them yeah real merchant vibe real sort of merchant totally yeah absolutely um well we're going to do a short um a short part this week listeners because phil got to sober up from all those sweet green fucking fat, what do you call them spliffs that he's been enjoying and now I'm off to pick tulips

yes and you've got to do that sober because it's harder than it looks it's difficult, yeah, it's very tricky very mean dexterous skill because it's harder than it looks. It's difficult, yeah. It's very tricky. Very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very highly recommend from from experience you do need to type in the knight's watch painting otherwise you just get pictures of john snow from game of thrones oh of course yes yeah zoom in on him too it'd be very funny for someone to type in from this recommendation pair type in the knight's watch and just get like google image results of fan fan art of like the old guy on a horse with a crow feather jacket

and for someone to go oh it's not that good I zoomed in I don't know it's fine but yes see you next week or if you're a Patreon see you in the this week's Patreon oh well

we've decided to trial this week guys based on some feedback releasing the Patreon episode on Friday 5pm give you that Friday feeling that's right spread the poo across the week spread the poo across the week

we had some listeners say that they kind of almost forget that they have an extra chunk because they listen all in one go and it's all it's a bit like we're giving them the food all in once and they're just eating all the marshmallows and they feel sick afterwards so we need to space it out we're doing the equivalent of putting the scarf on once you've left the house so you can feel the benefit yes yes exactly that's right um perfect well then in which case patreon people do not worry that's what's happened but we will see you as it were on Friday

see you on Friday how exciting bye