Doughboys - Munch Madness: Cava vs Sweetgreen with Adam Pally

Episode Date: March 2, 2023

Adam Pally (Happy Endings, 101 Places To Party Before You Die, Who Invited Charlie?) joins the 'boys and Commissioner Evan Susser to set up the rules for Munch Madness 2023 and kick off The Tournament of Chompions: BOWL!Sources for this week's intro:https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bowlhttps://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/jun/28/ancient-chinese-pottery-oldest-yethttps://www.britannica.com/place/China/Historyhttps://cava.com/ourstoryhttps://www.sweetgreen.com/missionWant more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Want to watch this episode? Check it out on our YouTube channel by going to youtube.com slash doughboysmedia. What's up, everybody? It's your boy, The Spoon Man, and I want to talk to you about today's sponsor, UberEats. At UberEats, we've helped more than 400,000 restaurants across the U.S. reach new hungry customers and deliver growth quickly through new orders. Uber's global platform can help you grow, reach new people, get valuable sales data, and unlock ways to expand with flexible delivery options.

Put your business on UberEats. Get access to the UberEats platform, including valuable sales data to grow your business. Dig into your data. Really dig in there anytime to monitor your performance and customer order trends. Wow. Wow. Customers, enjoy 0% commission for the first 30 days on all orders, offer subject to change per the terms of the restaurant agreement.

Wow, 0% on the first 30 days. Sign up today. That link that you want to click on is down there in the episode description. Right down there. Check it out. There it is. Move your cursor. Go ahead and click.

There. Or if you're on your phone, use your finger. And click that link. Click that link in the episode description. Approximately 20,000 years ago, Neolithic Chinese potters pioneered the concave serving and eating basin that remains an essential part of any kitchen, the bowl. This versatile vessel has become the most utilized dish in the world, besting even its flatter sibling, the plate.

And while Americans have always eaten out of bowls, be they filled with soup or salad, the bowl-focused chain restaurant is a relatively recent phenomenon, spawning from a market demand for healthier and or budget-friendly yet filling meals ready to eat. And so it falls to this podcast to settle whose bowls make us say bravo. Eight wannabes enter in four first-round match-ups. The poke region, poke bar v sweet fin, the acai region, jamba v pressed, the rumblies region, chipotle v yoshinoya, and this week, the work-lunch region, which matches up two fast-growing, fast-casual concepts that have found success as go-tos for the once-cubicle-now-zoom

set, KAVA, an endlessly customizable Mediterranean outlet founded in 2011 by a trio of Greek-American friends with 250 locations nationwide. And Sweetgreen, the hipster farm-to-table approximation founded in 2007 by a triforce of college classmates with 150 outlets across the land of opportunity. Both headquartered in our nation's capital, Washington, D.C., and both currently lurking on the outside of the Golden Plate Club, which of these office-drone filling stations will advance in the quest for the most hallowed trophy in chain restaurant podcasting, the Dave Thomas Cup, or shall we say, the Dave Thomas Bowl.

We shall. It's the Dave Thomas Bowl now. This week on Doughboys, the first quarter-pounder final match-up of Bunch Madness 2023, the tournament of champions, Bowl, work-lunch region, KAVA, versus Sweetgreen. Welcome to Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants. I'm Nick Weiger, along with my co-host, Usain Boll, the Spoonman Mike Mitchell. Wow. A bowl.

A bowl roast from John from New Hampshire. Also from New Hampshire. I'm a heart-breaker engineer. A roast in honor of the retirement of Asafa Powell, the 100-meter world record holder before Usain Boll. I wonder if Mitch will tell the story about how he ran a mile to pass gym class. Wife and I love your show. Keep it up.

Y'all roastsmoo-man at gmail.com. No. I'm not going to tell you. You're not going to do it? No. Are you sure? I skipped too many gyms. Okay.

And then the gym teacher said, if you guys can run a mile, I said it was under, I was like, when I told the story, I was like, under seven minutes. And then Mike is like, they all listen to podcasts. It was like, they're like, it was like under like 10 minutes and I was like, it might have been under 10 minutes. I think it was under like nine or eight minutes, but I also maybe would have died at under those. And then so we were.

But you were also young. You were like a kid. I was young. Yeah. Yeah. And then Mike is in, Chankton ran behind me and pushed me for like the last couple. They like literally pushed me for the last couple laps. That's all.

That's the story. There it is again. Well, we're talking about you and fitness and sports related topics. Did you ever row crew in college? I rode crew. Oh, wow. Okay. I rode on the Skookle River.

I rode, uh, what's the, what's, what's the Rochester Skookle is, is Pennsylvania? Yes. I rode on, I rode on Lake Cayuga, YG's. There's no fun crew stories. Right. Um, Ward Romer, my coach. Great guy. Yeah.

That's all I'll say. Great guy. Ward Romer. I just, at the end of the year at like the breakdown when we were done, he was like, it was a great year. Um, like, uh, and he was like, Mike Mitchell, like really lost a lot of weight, he didn't say this on the breakdown. It was nice.

I'm eating healthy wags. I'm doing well. I'm doing the same. And that brings us to the tournament of champions, which is here, Mitch. It's munch madness wags and we got, we got quite the guests to kick it off. This is pretty wild. We sure do. Uh, we, we're, we're eating healthy.

You both, both of us are trying to eat healthy IRL in our actual lives and we're eating a healthy for the tournament for once. Yes. Uh, just to try to have a change of pace. I'll say this. Is it completely healthy? I mean, it's way better than we've done in the past. Yes.

Yeah. But, but I will say that like, I, I don't know where you are, Mitch. I find myself in a rut where I am doing everything right. I feel and like this Coke zero is the closest I have to a treat like that. I won Coke zero a day and that's like my, like my indulgence. I'm, I feel like I'm doing everything right and my, the scale is going nowhere. I'm just completely stagnant and I'm completely plateaued. Have you, is your gut on like the towel rack, like the Simpsons with Homer?

Is it that sort of scenario? It's not a towel rack situation. Um, it's more of a, yeah, no, I've just, I, I will same scale every day, weigh myself every day, weigh myself for the first thing in the morning. You already slimmed down quite a bit though before you started doing this. I slimmed down and then I ballooned back up. Yeah. I had a yo-yo'd last year.

Yeah. But I don't know if you're having the same experience if you feel like your weight is going anywhere. Uh, yeah. I don't look at the scale. I'm fucking kidding me. That's a thing. You weigh yourself every day to reduce scale anxiety.

Yeah. I wouldn't be here. I, I, I, I would, I do not want to look at the scale yet, but I will. Wow. But I'm eating, I'm like doing, I walked like seven miles yesterday. Oh, good for you. I was like exhausted by the time I was done. Yeah.

It's a lot of miles. I, I literally walked and I got home at like three and I fell asleep till like, like six 30. Yeah. Like, right. Fell asleep for three and a half hours. Um, but you know what? I did the walk.

Right. That's all that matters. Um, and then last mile, like Micahson, Chankton, uh, we're pushing you. Yeah. They were behind me pushing me back to the house. Got it. I went with Mookie. Uh, and I've been, I've been, and then last night, you know, I went out and I, and I,

and I actually had a couple of rum and diet cokes, which I'm trying not to drink at all, but I did a show. Sure. I went to UCB theater for the, I went to the new UCB theater for the first time. Wow. I never, I hadn't been there. How was it? Uh, bad.

I, you know, it was a weird thing to go back to high school or it felt like very much like, uh, going back to a place that you once spent so much time and meant a lot to you. And then you felt weird and not like, uh, not unwelcome, but like, it just felt to, no, I get you. Um, and then, but I, you know, I had a couple of drinks, why isn't I still going home and ate like my diet meal? Cause I'm having meals delivered to me. Well, God bless you.

Good for you. And Mitch, uh, we, we have a great guest that you mentioned. You also have a drop, I imagine. Emma hit him with the drop, the munch madness drop. Hopefully we have one. She's always on top of course. This is the podcast. Do you.

The Quincy. Or is we're on this shit. Jankster. That old. I flipped Mr. Slice composing. Hallelujah. Alla fucking Lula.

How, how, how is Lula? Alla fucking Lula. Hallelujah. God, how embarrassing that ended. That was the wise, that was the runner up. If that's not good, it makes sense because it's from seagulls. Wow. Seagulls.

The music artist. Hey, DK and Mitch, here's a drop of Mitch opening up SNL after Trump was elected of seagulls. Um. I should just pronounce Hallelujah. I did it. You did it. There we go.

I was going to say like Medea. Hallelujah. Oh yeah. I wouldn't have to worry about that other stuff. Right. But I got it right when I wasn't thinking about it. The. I'm not going to try again.

So we have one drop. Like we still have the winner of the drop off yet to play, right? Mm hmm. Why are we playing all these? We, I thought we were doing one month of this. I thought it was. We got like four runners up now. Whatever.

It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. They're all good drops. It's fine to Emma. Emma saw the email. It's, there was a, there was an explanation in there. It's fine.

All right. It's fine. DK, you fucked up. It's fine. It's fine, but DK 100% fuck. Uh-huh. Uh, Mitch, we have a fantastic guest with us to kick off the tournament of chompy.

It's an answering podcast. Funny for God's sake. It's not the dough boys way, but it's going to happen today because he's from happy endings and 101 places to party before you die. His new movie, who invited Charlie is available on demand right now. Adam Pally.

Hi, Adam. Hey, thanks so much for having me. Thank you for being here. Thanks for making time for us. Oh, please. No, I'm, this is, I love doing this show and I'm so grateful that you guys have me on. We're very excited to have you here.

Um, for people listening and not watching the video feed, Pally wearing sunglasses in studio, very alpha. Is it alpha? I think it's cool. I think it's cool. I mean, I, I am slightly hungover. And, and this is the first thing you're the first people I've talked to today.

Got it. And so the, the lights, it was like, when I walked in, I was like, this is a good excuse to keep these on. Yeah. You know, like, yeah, it works for you. And also we, we wouldn't be able to pull it off. I mean, I think it's also helpful with the lights, but I just think that Nick and I couldn't pull that look off.

Do you have sunglasses with you? I wouldn't mind if we were all in sunglasses. Yeah. Wait, I can. I'd borrow someone's here, but I didn't, Nick, I, I for sure didn't mean for it to be alpha. I mean, you know me, I, I'm actually more of a beta. I'm a beta with an alpha rising.

I didn't put on my sunglasses. I forget which brand these are. These are gooders. Those are cool. Those are Gabor's recommendation. Thank you. Those are cool as hell. They're a Gabor's, a Gabor's sunglass recommendation.

You know, it's going to be on point. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to borrow anyone's cause I'm going to stretch out the, the, I'm going to stretch them out. Not mine, but not mine. Yeah. So I, you're fine here.

My head is, is bigger or if not the same size. No, no, God. I have a squash head. Wagner makes fun of it all the time. What size did it have to you? I think it's, I don't know. I don't even, what's the largest? It's the largest.

You're, you're past eight. He's past eight. I'm in half. You're eight and a half. Never mind. Okay. Holy shit. Fucking Trek over here.

Trek actually has a smaller hat size. Does he? Yeah. But what about those things? Yeah. I know. They still, they still go in and it's still below eight and a half.

Your head is big enough. This really should be an alt-right podcast. Like, I have a huge head. I was a C-section baby. Me too. Where you at? Yeah. My mom held me in and because she didn't want me to be born on St.

Patrick's Day because she was like, it's just not going to be good. You're going to lose all of that. And, you know, you get older than it'll be like a thing. And when it's, you're younger, it's like going to, you're not going to have the attention. So she's like kept me and kept me in and then they came and they're like, actually it's the baby's breach. They're like, we're going in.

So are you wild? St. Patrick's Day, your birthday? No. March 18th, like 1235 in the morning. Wow. She pulled it off. Pulled it off. Yeah.

I mean, also probably good in the way of like, I don't want my child to like drink themselves to death. Yeah. No, she probably saved my life a couple of times. Well, this was an issue for you, Mitch, and Boston. Like, they didn't want you to be born on Martin Luther King Day, right? Jesus Christ. Coming out hit hard.

This is a roasting. Am I Jeffrey Ross? He's back. He's roasting Mr. Peanut. Yeah. I like it when you see the pictures of his Instagram and there's a line of like 30 people like waiting for him to walk down and roast. Pally, I'm curious because.

Yes. My mom held me in from Martin Luther King Day till October 6th. Wow. Marathon. Pally, last time we had you on, we were talking about Burger King, I believe. And, you know, we've talked about, you know, I know your guy who likes to indulge, but I'm curious about your healthy eating habits. No.

What's your approach towards it? I try to eat healthy, especially like it would have all gotten a little older. And I'm similarly like Yo-Yo pretty frequently due to work. So like, for this last movie that I did, I was about 40 pounds heavier. And it, like when we were done with the movie, like, like I got cast, I was already 40 pounds heavier. So then the movie ended and I was like, now what am I going to do? Yeah.

You know, so. Because you're coming out of the movie weighing more, no matter what. No matter what. Right. So you're like, oh man, now, so then I had time. So I was like, I'll start eating healthy. And I've developed kind of like better eating habits. And I've cut probably like maybe half of that off.

Wow. All right. That's pretty good. Yeah. Where did the movie film? The Hamptons. All right. You got some good food there.

And we had a week in New York City, which was, I mean, first of all, I was, the way that the movie came about was that I was gaining weight to do this other movie with the producer. And then I had like gained all the weight plus a little more. And then the pandemic hit. So that movie went away. And so I was walking around in the beginning of the pandemic, just like really depressed, like no job freaked out about the pandemic. And I had just changed my appearance like pretty drastically.

So I was like. Cause like you saw, like there were people like at the end of the pandemic, like, oh, you're pretty chuggy, but hey, it happened to us all. Like week one of the pandemic. Week one, I was like already ahead of everybody. So then I gained even more weight and I was like almost starting to come out of it. Like almost, I think this movie started filming in, in the November. If, if, if the pandemic started in March, this movie filmed that following November.

So I was like coming out of it a little bit. Yeah. And he was like, don't change your appearance. I actually am doing this other movie and it's good. And I think you would be good for it. So I read it and I was like, honestly, only got past the description, which was like, you know, heavier guy. And I was like, that seems like I don't have to do much more work.

I'll do it. And then I did it and I shot it and I was like, had them after it was done, I was like, I think I need to like make some life choice. Cause I was like to get to that weight. I was doing big like bagel pizza, Chinese food every day. Yeah. Between that milkshake in the morning, milkshake at dinner. It's like, that's and drinking.

Yeah. And drinking. Wow. Keeping my drinking habits. Was that, was that like great? No. No. It was great for a day.

Got it. Like maybe two. But then. That's actually what my diet plan is right now. Cause I've cut back to that. Yeah. You've cut back to three milkshakes today. Three milkshakes today.

So, okay. So you're, you're generally trying to eat healthier. Do you have like a, any go-to spots or, or, or do you have like a, like, okay, I'm targeting bowls. I'm targeting wraps. I'm targeting salads. Actually that's why I was so excited when, when you guys texted me cause I was like, I, in my new like kind of, it's been going on for like, I guess eight months.

Sweet green is a huge part of my life. Wow. Yeah. There's one near my house in New York. And I like have managed to find a bowl that is works for you. Yeah. That I've customized to my own things that is probably more calories than like four slices of pizza.

But it makes me feel like if I eat this during the day, if I just don't like fuck up during the day, if I just keep my shit together and have this salad, whenever I get around to that's how that's like better than anything else I was going to do. Well, I like the trifecta of sort of like healthiest chains that I find myself rotating through and, and hitting up each about twice a month or tender greens, sweet green, and then Mendocino Farms, which I'm not sure if it's made its way to New York City. No, but I know, I've, I, you know, lived here a long time. Yeah.

Like Mendocino Farms is a staple. I, I truthfully am such a creature of habit that I want, I've sampled almost all of these type of healthy chains. And now I think I have after today, after this day, have done them all and sweet greens, the combination I found was just like, it works for me. And I pretty much get it every day. Is this and not to get ahead of things. Is it the bowl you got for this episode?

100%. Wow. Okay. That's going to be helpful because Nick and I are sweet green skeptics, I would say. Well, I, you know what? I checked the, I checked the tape, Mitch. And I was going to get to this later, but we actually were, were higher on sweet green than I thought.

Last time. Last time. We reviewed it, we've reviewed it twice. Reviewed it first time in 2016 with Siobhan Thompson. It was in the golden plate club, four forks all around. And last reviewed in September 22 with Emmy Blotnick, and it did get booted out of the club, but it still had a decent fork score for each of us. So it was over three forks.

I, well, we'll get to it. I'm going to say this as an actor to go back to that a little bit. You've probably been, cause this has happened to me and I'm sure it's happened to you too, where it's like called in and when you, when, I don't know how often you go, I mean, no one goes in anymore. No, no. But, but. Back in the day.

Yeah. We were going for an audition. Yeah. And it would be a big guy. Like there's been times where I went in and I've been like, all right, I'm like slightly upset that I got called in for this, for this audition because it would be like gigantic. It would be gigantic people. Not to, I mean, like that's fine.

I don't care. But I'm saying like, and then there are other times where they go in and be like, you're going in for handsome guy. I'm like, I'm not going to, and I go in at like, I auditioned after like Jesse McCartney once and I'm like, I'm not, I'm a, I'm a giant. You're like, he's great. He's great. I'm not going to get this if Jesse McCartney.

No, I, I, of course I feel the same way. I mean, like I've had a horror story. I mean, one of my first jobs as an actor, I was like 23 and I booked a commercial in New York. It was like the biggest deal. Yeah. And it was to play the physical embodiment of the, of the word sloth. Wow.

In a Verizon commercial. Like the seven deadly sins. Yeah. Like a play on the movie seven. Yeah. So they were casting all the sins. And first I got sent in for it. And I was like, I think I'm really more greed.

No, they were like, no, pal, you're sloth. And then I got it. I booked it. And it was like, you know, what are you going to do? And like, I remember the audition. I had to take my shirt off and jump up and down. That's, that's wild. And then I guess they watched the tape and was like, what's the funniest looking jump

up and down? I got it. I booked it. But it was like, that's also how we screened dough boys. Guess the physical embodiment. Take your shirt off and jump up and down before. Oh, I thought that was voluntary.

I thought those videos I sent you, you didn't want them. Oh, no, we did. No, we didn't want it. Okay, cool. Sorry. I misunderstood what you guys were saying. I don't open the next one. I feel like I've, I've run the game like where there's like little guys and you know, you're

not going to get the little guy thing that Jessica McCartney thing was for that audition where the guy said he was going to claw his eyes out. By the way, I auditioned for a movie. It's a, what's his name? Alex. Alex. Alex. Alex and the pain.

Alex and the pain. Yeah. And then it was the one, you know, who was in it was a Rob Hubel was in it. Oh yeah. The descendants. The descendants. Yeah. Good movie.

Yeah. Good movie. I went in and auditioned for it and they were like, the guy talked to me and said, you know what the character is? And I was like, is this, this and this. And he's like, no, but let's see what you got. And I was like, all right. And I did it.

And I was like, how was that? And he was like, to be honest with you, I wanted to claw my eyes out. What a fucking prick. Yeah. So fucking. Alexander Payne said that. No, and it wasn't pain. It was the casting.

Oh yeah. Cause it doesn't be like. No. That's awful. Yeah. He was like, I want to claw my eyes out. And I was like, okay. And then he like told me he was like, he told me I was like pretty wooden and stuff.

And I was, I was also kind of green at this point. Yeah. All right. All right. Like, and then I was just, you know, I did it again and he was like better after I did it. But then Wiger knows this. We did UC, I did a UCB show.

The guy came up to me and was like, you got to meet like my boss. He's, and he's a casting director. And then he's like, how do I not know you? And he forgot who I was and he likes me in the show. And he was like, we'll reach out to your manager. We want to have you come in and read. And then they never did. They might maybe remembered who I was.

I mean, yeah. The show was filled with horrible. It was, it was, it was really embarrassing moment in my life. Yeah. It sounds like trauma. Yeah. The first ever writing packet I submitted was for the last season of Mad TV. And I thought, I ended up thinking this was st, was standard practice.

And then I realized it never happens. But the, the showrunner called me personally and he's like, Hey, I just want to let you know, I read your packet and we're not going to hire you. Yeah. All right. Oh my God. I have the, I mean, I just talked about this with, with Seth Meyers. I, in like 2004, I guess.

Yeah. Just from, I was doing Ascat a lot and stuff and Seth would show up sometimes. And so he's like, Hey, we would love for you to make a tape, you know? And I was like such a young, I mean, we, you guys were in LA and I was in New York. It was like, I was a like punk, like my whole thing was like, you know, I'm going to challenge the audience. I'm going to bomb on purpose. Like I'm going to do bits that are like really long.

Like we bombed on purpose. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. You guys never, I remember you guys being like professionals. Like it always felt like when you guys would, it would be like, Oh, that's how you do it. Good. And, and so I was like, I know what I'll do to make this tape and, and like cut through

the noise. I'll do like a conceptual tape. So I went to this thing called the Staten Island comedy show, which, which is a thing that gambling and I used to watch and, and, and Curtis Gwynn everybody. And it was a, a local axis comedy show run by these two men in their mid to late fifties who had clearly been in car accidents and our net like had life changes and left their jobs and families to be like comics. No.

And it was so horrible. And one played the drums and would do rim shots. And the other would do like stand up and we loved it. We would watch it nonstop. It would be like, you know, they would do like Confucius say jokes. It would be like horror. It was like horrible, you know, we, we edit a lot of my Confucius say jokes out of the show.

Good. But it was like, you know, it was the type of thing where we would like watch it. And I was like, you know, I'm going to go on that show and do my SNL audition. So I went there. I didn't you, was there not a party that wanted it? Or I did want it. I thought like, that's good. I mean, I get that.

This is the thing that like I was like trying to tell Seth later was like, I did want it because that was in question because I, anyone went there made the tape. It went horribly just like I wanted it to like my, my characters were terrible. No one laughed. They were doing rim shots after a character would bomb. Like it was like, like chef's kiss, kiss perfect. Awkward. And I sent it in and like never, never didn't hear anything.

I didn't even have a manager. And then like a couple weeks later, Seth's been asked and he was like, Hey, um, what is that tape? That's such a nightmare in my head. Oh my God. It was like, you can imagine. So like I'm like 25. My, the blood just like, like exits my face.

Yeah. Because I was not trying to not get it. I was trying to fucking get it. Yeah. Like fucking get it. Like as hard as I could. And I was like, what, what? He's like, when am I supposed to like, I can't, thank you.

He was like, thank you for sending that in, but we're going to move on. And I was like, okay. All right. And then I found out a couple of years later that it like they watched it and everyone would watch it and be like, look how horrible this is. Oh my God. Look what he was trying to do. And like, what were you trying to do?

That is fun. Sounds funny. It was. And like as gambling is my witness, it went the way I thought it would. From a guest of the show, we love gambling. Oh yeah. It's better than me earnestly doing Al Frankenstein. No, it's not.

No, it's not. I did the Adam Durrett's political talk show. Wow. That's good. That is good. I would be like, I didn't even do an intro. I just went, this is Adam Durrett's doing a political talk show. And then I handed the mic to one of the head wound guys.

And I was like, say something political. So say something political. I think that taxes should be lowered. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. That is funny. That's it.

That was the whole thing. And as you can imagine, the four people in the audience were like. And they would cut to the audience. Knowing that he's the Counting Crows guy. Not even knowing what I was saying. Right. They would cut to the, it was like so perfect. They cut to the audience.

The audience would be like. And then they'd cut to the host and the host would be like, whoa, all right. You know, and then they'd hear like a rim shot and then they'd cut back to me. And I'd be like, this is Matthew McConaughey ordering a burrito. I was like, pitch perfect. What I thought. Yeah. I like that.

But it was good. But at the time, and I'm making it sound better than it was executed, but it did not. It was like a lesson in like. Just do it. Just like, why would I, and it was cause I was insecure cause I knew, I knew I wasn't ready. And I knew that my shit was like weak and like, I was like, well, maybe I'll like conceptualize it. It's like, they don't, that's not talent. That's like, that's like, you know, not, I wouldn't have been good.

It was not right. I knew my shit was weak. And then also like, I look back at like those, like my packets that I would send into SNL and stuff like that. And I'm like, I still try to use some of that stuff. Yeah. No, no, no. Sometimes I just did it now. Like fucking pull that shit out if I'm on a podcast.

Yeah. By the way, bitch, I could not like, not, I could not not think of Redditors complaining about, when you're asked to say something political, your mind went to lower taxes. Yeah. I feel like that's just going to be such like a fucking whiny post about that. Are you guys, you guys ever feel handcuffed by the Redditors? 100%. Yeah. What's wrong with saying that?

What was wrong with that? I was trying to say something. Mitch is a one percenter who thinks the taxes are too high because he has a house with stairs in it. Oh my God. It's just going to be such like that, like, he could have said something about the environment or about the abortion. But let's say he was playing a character from the opposite perspective. Yeah. Well, there you go.

That would be some justification. There we go. That's a bit of nuance that I think is not going to be processed by dark underscore cum on the fucking Doughboy subreddit. I want taxers lower for everybody, including Elon Musk. I like all those guys. Anybody that's invested in Tesla, who thinks that now's a good time to buy. Adam, we have a lot of business to get to because this is our dumb tournament episode. Before we do that, I have two disputes that are ongoing with the podcast.

I want to get your perspective on both of them. The first one, and Susser and Mitch are on opposite sides of this. I am kind of a neutral party here, but. Oh, this is big. In your opinion, does matzabal soup include chicken by default? No. No. Strong vote for no.

Wow. No, it does not. That's a myth. That's a myth. Yes. And I'll tell you why. Please. Matzabal soup is traditionally, now it's served year round, right?

Especially in like Jewish delis or what you have now, which is like the new Vofo Jewish deli. It's like, you know, and so chicken gets put into it to make it become more of a soup than it actually is because matzabal soup by tradition is an appetizer for the Passover Seder. It's a course. It's light on the broth, one ball, unless you're a child, and then you move on to the eggs. And so I would say that chicken in it is like a Western European addition.

Fascinating. I love this. This is huge for me. Yeah. Your description of it being like kind of a broth, it reminds me of like miso soup. Yes. Like a Japanese restaurant. It is mis, and that's why there was a restaurant in Williamsburg that I loved.

I think it might still be there. That was like a Jewish Japanese fusion, and they would do a miso matzabal soup. That was like awesome. Yeah. I've gotten like messages about this. Didn't we get a message from someone too? Someone else was saying that there is no chicken in it, but I went to the Deli Boys. I brought this up.

Yes. And the Deli Boys made me feel, Evan Susser and David Phillips, they do a podcast about Jewish delis. They made me feel like a complete fool because I said, I think that the baseline is no chicken. And they were like, no, it just depends. And I was like, but it was like, so often you see you add chicken. You know what I mean? Adding chicken is a, first of all, Jews didn't have enough money for chicken.

Hmm. So. Well, hold on. Well, hold on. According to Joe Rogan. Well, yeah, sure. We found this before the podcast. This new history, right?

I'm sorry. When we landed here from our planet with all the money in the world, once we had the weather laser installed, you know, when Jews came to America, there was no money. We were, we were extremely poor. We couldn't afford poultry and add on top of that Passover, which is the matzabals traditionally were made for children because during Passover, when you're not allowed to eat leavened bread, children don't want to eat matzab. No one wants to eat matzab.

So there, you had to come up with ways to feed it to people. And one of the ways was to grind it into a meal, mix it with an egg and bake it, serve it in a soup. And we didn't. So the idea that you could have bits of chicken, sure, if you were a wealthy family and there was poultry around, maybe you'd throw that in your broth, especially the bone. But most likely that meat was getting served to, to the, to the family. Wow.

And that's, and it's, yes, it's like, to me, I was saying, like, like, you know, adding pepperoni to a pizza or something. Sure. Yeah. I think that's a pretty good analogy. Like, and especially when it, when it starts, you know, you hit America and then things start to blow up in the second Avenue deli and langers and it's like, people are coming and, you know, it's like, how can I serve this as a meal?

And, you know, it's like, add some chicken broth and then put the fucking chicken. It's like, now matzabal soup is something bigger. You know, I once got served a matzabal soup at a Nuvo deli in New York City on the Lower East Side and it came with a, uh, like a cracker. Yeah. And I was like, this is the dumbest, like, the whole point. They over thought it. It came with like a fancy, like French baguette cracker.

Oh wow. And I was like, the whole point of matzabal soup is no bread. Yes. Yeah. I was like 11. Yeah. Or maybe under thought it. I don't know.

Or they just was like, didn't know what they were doing. Yeah. And that's to me sometimes when I get like a too much chicken and vegetable matzabal soup. I, uh, I was, I was going a while because I had a sinus infection. Yeah. I was going wild on, uh, Canter's matzabal soup. And you know what?

Right. I was having a blast. Canter's matz, Canter's was a good. It was great. Yeah. They have a good matzabal soup. I actually haven't tried some of the, there's like a bunch of new delis, right? Like a bunch of them.

There's a bunch of new deli. You were saying kind of these new wave delis and it sucks cause LA was a great deli. One of the best. And it's, it's, they've been hurting. I feel like factors close. Yeah. A lot of on the, on the West side. And this was, I, I, you know, it wasn't the best deli, but I liked it cause it was

one of the few places on the West side that was open 24 hours Izzy's. I believe it's just closed. Yeah. Yeah. It's just close to, you know, and I also like the bummer with that for me is I do love Jewish food. Like I love matzabri. Yeah.

It's, which is a very specific Jewish dish, which like you can't get anymore. And in, there's only a couple of places in New York and like Nate now's, I think is the only place out here that you can still get matzabri. And like they now's almost shut down too. I know someone came in a ghost investor. Yeah. It's, it's George Soros. All right.

Greenblats too. Yeah. They had great matzabal. That was, I think that was low key one of the best delis. I loved that. Loved sitting at Greenblats. Yeah. To think about all the laugh factory comics coming in there.

Think of all the comics that had just committed some horrible Joe Rogan's coming in after. Think of all the crimes that have been just washed away. Deli. I, Palli, you mentioned Passover. One more holiday related question for you. In your mind is Christmas a cookie holiday? Yes. Yes.

Okay. Wow. You got to leave cookies out for Santa. Two. And so that the lower, that Laura alone. Yeah. Is more than any other holiday to me. I could think of where cookies are served.

Wow. Great, great point. Well, another data point for Christmas being a cookie holiday and matzabal soup, not including chicken by default. We're going to take a break and we'll be right back with much Mattis 2023, the term of champions. Here we go. This show is brought to you by better help. You know, Mitch, I learned something new about myself recently. I learned I can stick to a bedtime routine.

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Head to FactorMeals.com slash Doughboys50 and use code Doughboys50 to get 50% off your first box. That's code Doughboys50 at FactorMeals.com slash Doughboys50 to get 50% off your first box. Do it. Welcome back to Doughboys. We're here for Munch Madness 2023, the tournament of Chompion's Bowl. We're talking about bowl places, and this week it's the work-lunch region with Adam Pali. Kava versus Sweetgrain. Interestingly, Mitch, this is an all-caps versus all-lowercase battle. Wow. Kava is all-caps. Sweetgrain is all-lowercase.

Kava, we last reviewed in September of 2019 with Jamel Bowie and Carl Tartt. Mitch, you were the high man with 3.75 forks. We're kind of middling reviews there. I remember that because I thought everyone would go higher than me. Yeah, but I think everyone was like, it's fine. And I think that's a lot of people's take on both of these chains and kind of just about all of the chains that we're going to be surveying this month. But you know, since this is the first tournament episode, we have to welcome in

the Commissioner of the Tournament of Chompion's Evan Susser. He's playing No Chance, Vincent McMahon. No, he's not. He's changed it. He no longer is using Vincent McMahon's music. Wow, he's not? You don't think that would have been better if you had the music from the... No, it's good from the phone. I appreciate it. You think it's good from the phone. He's playing MJF's music.

Oh, wow. Okay, okay. I just assumed it was No Chance. Well, I didn't think it was very appropriate. Yeah, that's fair. Vincent McMahon's music, so I changed it. I think you should go back to Vincent McMahon's music personally. MJF more of a heel than a commissioner. Truthfully, if you play it off the phone, it won't matter. Hello.

And welcome to the Tournament of Chompion's Munch Madness 2023 Bowl. Wow. I'm going to make a brief statement after which... I'll take some questions. Okay, great. One month ago, the official Munch Madness Steering Committee met to decide the participants of the tournament. There was also another assignment for the committee agreeing to the tournament rules. Here are the rules as agreed to by the committee.

Wow. Salad ain't valid. Bowl is the goal. Wow. But no salads in this tournament. Hopefully we told you these rules. We didn't. I have a question about on this. I didn't know.

No one even... No, it's fine. Everything's fine. We're learning this in real time. Chili is silly, and silly is not allowed, so chili is not considered. Yeah, despite it being a bowl tournament, we just had a bowl of chili that's not really the spirit of it. Got it. So there's no soup either.

Stew won't do. Oh, okay. Bowl viscosity must be stew level at minimum. We want goop, not soup. Got it. Okay. Must be stew level at minimum, but stew won't do. Maybe greater than stew.

I don't know if you're taking notes. Stew is maybe the wording. Stew won't do. It's good that you're wearing sunglasses so you can fall asleep by the way, Adam. It's perfect time to get a 20-minute nap or so. Exactly what I was doing. I was like, I am looking at that iPad. There's about 50 more rhymes on there, so I'm just going to lean into my rib and...

When it comes to strikes... You tap me when he's... This one's not a rhyme, but it's very clever. When it comes to strikes, we're at the bowling alley, not the batter's box. Wow. That's right. Strikes aren't bad. They're good.

Wow. Okay. That midway. Three strikes and you're in. Wow. It hasn't been determined yet what a strike is or what that means. What that means. Okay.

We'll figure it out. I leave that for you guys to decide. Drinks are in the gutter. Sides are... Why did we go to bowling? It's because of the bowl. It's bowl. Like bowling.

Right, but we started rhyming and now we're just doing words that have two meanings. I think it's just kind of a riff on bowl. Anything with bowl goes in this. I think so. Yeah. We're going to get back to a rhyme if that makes you feel better. No, I figured we would. Drinks are in the gutter.

Sides are also in the gutter. You can't just rhyme gutter with gutter. That's the rhyme. That's the rhyme that I didn't expect. You can't consider drinks or sides. It's just bowls. Why is that though? Can I ask a question?

Because in both of these places, they're pretty crucial, not just as someone who frequents one and I guess I've been to the other now. In both places, people tend to walk out with two things. They do have their nice iced teas and frescas at both places. And especially as sweet greens now, they have a treat, a dessert treat. The people here at the start of the statement, I said I would take questions at the end. Oh, sorry. Sorry.

I didn't hear that. I guess I was preoccupied with what was going to rhyme with question. Cookies are oaky. Thank you, Adam. Very good. Okay. But are they also Christmassy? Cookies may not be considered, but every episode must ask the question, is Christmas a cookie holiday?

Okay, we can check that one off the list. Okay, great. And when it comes to bread, there is more that will be said. Wow. Little teaser. Wow. That concludes the official list of rules for the tournament to champions, Much Madness 2023. Bowl, I will now open the floor to questions.

I just first want to give a little bit of context for the people listening to the audio feed. Susser did show up in a full suit. Yes, actually a tuxedo. It's a tuxedo, but you have a standard tie, not a bow tie. Got it. Did you rent it? No, it's a tuxedo I wore to my wedding. Wow.

That's even worse of a man. Suss, I'm proud of you that it still fits very nicely. It fits well. Thank you. Oh, thank you. Yeah, life is not just one thing. Are there any serious questions about? Yes.

So I'll start with the sides and drinks. I think both places would hang their hat on them. So I think it's unfair and I think going forward, a lot of the places that I'm assuming you're visiting feel the same. So I feel like it would be unfair to not have that factor into your meal. The commissioner's defense. If we're going by how we've done it. I'm kind of on Pally's side here, by the way. Yes, but I'm just going to say that if we're going by tournaments past, we've generally said sides are on the sidelines, drinks are in the stink.

So this is following that pattern that we missed out. So it would be fun to switch it up? Well, I mean, we've already eaten there. Yeah, and Jackie Robinson used to not be allowed to play in the big. I'd like to make an update to my statement. Please. Considering the fact that I'm intimidated by the sunglasses that I'm wearing and also that's a good point about Jackie Robinson. Drinks are now out of the gutter.

Wow. And sides are also out of the gutter. Wow. So they can be considered now. Wow. That does not affect my particular matchup today. It doesn't affect me today, but I think it will going forward for you guys. It's very funny because we said you look cool when you came in with the sunglasses and then Nick said you looked alpha and you're like alpha.

And I was like, I said cool, but you completely alphaed Susser. Susser. Yeah. Well, I didn't appreciate the being rhymed to. It always feels like someone is trying to make me do something when they rhyme to me. You know, like, I guess I was like lied to, like, I guess in some other life, they were like, and don't be sauce. Get on the bus. You know.

Sure. I should have been more compassionate to the concern. I feel your pain. Get on the train. And you know what? I enjoyed the rhymes. Do you want to riff on that? I know.

I'll hit it to you guys. I want to say Suss, I enjoyed the rhymes though. I think there was maybe one successful rhyme in there, but I also want to say that I commend you for earlier today. We were like lunch is coming and Suss put in an order for it. And I was like, you know, it's going to come at like 2pm. And you said, you said that's okay. Yeah. You decided to stick around head down for now, probably close to an hour to wait for lunch.

Are you going to stick it? Are you going to wait through for lunch? Yes. Okay, great. That's good. And speaking of which, this is honestly, do you want something? No, I'm okay. You're good?

Yeah, I'm okay. I'm going to go to Sweet Greens. Casey, do you want anything? I think Anya took an order. Okay. That's all settled. Hey, I'm going to keep that all in the episode. You got it.

Guys, I have another question. Are you factoring in silverware containers and seating? This is a great question because I actually had an experience at one of these chains where I did not get a bowl due to supply chain. Me too. I had a bad experience at both. Yeah. I had a bad experience at both and I was going to factor that in.

And I do think silverware is something that should be, I mean, it's essential to eating a bowl. It's not like you're eating it with your hands. Right. And there was a time the NBA didn't have a three-point line. Exactly. That's true. That's true.

Off air, I'll tell you the reasons why it wasn't. Okay. So, yes, I think they have to be considered and they should be considered. Okay. All right, cool. Okay. I love it. Susser, any other thoughts?

No, that's it. I look forward to the tournament and I will try and be as non-intrusive as possible this year. I want a good, clean tournament. And good luck, guys. Thank you, Suss. You've been great. You've been very helpful, as always.

We love you. And we have another... That was awesome. Thank you. We've talked about matzo ball soup. Thank you, Adam. Yet again. So, we're going to continue this discussion with other guests.

Great. Okay, great. Perfect. How he disagreed with me. Just so you know. Well... It's pretty strongly about chicken not being invited. Offer.

I mean, you weren't in here, but he basically came down. I think your phone is ringing. Got it. Evan Susser. All right. The commissioner, Evan Susser. Wow. Wikes.

Let's talk about... The music's still going. I think it is, yeah. I think his phone is just ringing. Let's talk about... Let's start with Kava. I would say that I've definitely had sweet green more than Kava, but I have had my share of Kava over the years.

Polly, this chain was new to you. Yeah. Wow. Do they not have those in New York? They might not. They might not have been. Interesting. I know they're in DC.

Yeah. This was my first experience with Kava, which also, I will say, like, I made a mistake, which is my fault, which I will, like, factor into my judging, which is I went custom first time. I probably should have... I feel like I should have gone with one of the trusted specialties to get a hint of the place. There's not a ton of...

That's the thing, yeah. There wasn't. It was like a lot of... It was a lot of make your own, but that's why I went that way. But I still feel after, because I got... Right away, they go to dips, and that's something I'm not used to, is the offer of, like, what dip you want. Yeah.

And, like, I didn't know if... They're basically adding goop. I didn't know if I wanted, like, a goop of hummus in my lettuce and rice, you know? So, I was intimidated, and I don't think I made all the best choices. It's a... The app, and I will say that the... I know you love Rhymes, Adam. The app's not crap.

I have had an issue with... Like, it's very easy to assemble things, but it very much drives you towards customization. Yes. They're not trying to say, like, take one of these prefabs ones. They're saying, like, what base do you want? Do you want greens? Do you want rice? Do you want lentils?

And then, yes, the next thing you have to decide is what of three dips do you put on this thing before you've even picked, you know, your protein and what have you. So, it's a lot of... I wasn't afraid to make one of those Rhymes, like Sus was implying. I would have made one of those Rhymes, for sure. But, you know, I just... There wasn't time. Right.

Sure. I am not... I don't eat a ton of cava either. Yeah. And, in fact, I've only eaten it during, I think, only for dough boys. It's the only time I eat... That's wild. I think there's none nearby here.

Yeah. I went to Pasadena. Okay. I can walk to one. Yeah. So, like, but I'm on the west side. So, it's a little different. Also, apologies.

Yeah. Sorry about that. Just hearing how you went to Pasadena. That's a pain in the ass. We're sorry. Oh, no, no, no. Honestly, it was like... I had never been to that place and it was a nice experience.

I mean, I don't think I'll ever go back. Interesting. Like, I don't... There were a couple of things that, like, really turned me off early on and then continued throughout the whole experience. So, I think I'll stick with sweet greens. Yeah. Yes.

This is the funny thing, I think, with a lot of these places is like, I'm never... Maybe there's one... I mean, Mendocino Farms, who's not in the tournament, that's like a place and they're not really... I don't really think of bowls. Not a place. No. I think of cells and, honestly, sandwiches.

Yeah. 100%. Like, I don't even really think... Like, if you hear someone got Mendocino Farms, you're like, I hope they got the sandwiches. Yeah. And that's a one that I would go out of my way for, like, sweet greens is such the to me, it's like the healthy subway. Yeah.

It's like people eat subway because it's on every corner and it's there, like, sweet greens. If you're... It's in your neighborhood. It's a healthy option. You're like, I'm going to go get some fucking sweet greens, bowl or salad. Yeah. You keep pluralizing it.

It is just sweet green singular. It is? Tender greens is plural. Sweet green is singular. Sweet green. Oh. Who cares? I'm just saying.

The reddit. Oh, God. I think Nick is actually like an insider in the reddit who, like, has a bunch of burner names and goes on there and is like, did anyone else here, Mitch, do this bullshit today? I wish. This would make too much sense to me. Yeah.

It already is making too much sense to me. I'm getting upset. Now, I think I should do it because it would be good for the show when that was revealed. Mitch is a fucking idiot. They post stuff like that all the time. Of course. And I bet it's like from all these different burner accounts. It's that sort of thing where they're like, things could be different if like, Mitch wasn't

so lazy. They always say that. Oh, they want that. Yeah. You could tell Mitch was like 20 minutes late because he had to take a shit. Yeah. All right. That one might be true today.

Don't worry. You had the right guess. That one might be true today. Palli already knew it when I apologized to her. And I'm totally chill with it. I was fine. Yeah, it's fine. I like it.

You wouldn't be you. I went to, so I got my, I got my kava to go and I got a greens plus grains bowl, which is a 50, 50, some, one of their blends of greens and then some, you know, starch of your choice. I went splendid greens and saffron, Besmati rice. My three dips. I went Zatziki, crazy feta and roasted eggplant. I got falafel as my protein.

I just want to say that there's no where they don't, do they even imply that it's supposed to be crazy? They call it crazy. But I'm saying, do they imply that you're supposed to say it that way? No, I was just saying it like crazy tax. Okay. All right. Oh, that's what that was.

That's what they do. I mean, I don't know. That was fun. It was fun. No, it's fine. I gave you, look, I was late and I gave you Kalisto protocol today. That's true. Anytime I'm late, I'm going to give you a video game.

It could have been worse. You could have been wearing a tuxedo. Kalamata olives, pickled onions, lentils to bully, Persian cucumber, hot harissa vinaigrette, and then we talked about this condiment, I believe, last week with John Hodgman, Mitch. And we're unsure how to pronounce it. Zhuge. I looked it up. Zhuge is the spicy green sauce.

Yes. And I was saying something that was like an alt-right term, accidentally. Right. Which I had. Accidentally. I was saying, maybe, I don't know what that was, Zog or something. Yeah. That's all right.

Well, you don't need to try to repeat it. I had to try to repeat it. The... Zhuge, big fan of Zhuge. I like Zhuge. Give me that Zhuge. I just want to say, the side pita that I asked for was not included, which was an issue. I want to do bread versus bread for each of these chains, but I did not get rid of it.

What was the name of this bowl again? I just made a greens plus grains bowl. This didn't have a name. Got it. Yeah, I made my custom. Mitch, what did you get? Wags. I got a harissa avocado bowl.

Wow. So that's a prefab. That's a prefab. I'll tell you what's in it right now. It's a harissa honey chicken plus hot harissa vinaigrette, crazy feta. Hummus, corn, which I would have removed the corn, but I didn't even honestly notice how much corn, avocado, rice, super greens, more and more. It says more and wags.

What a healthy bowl, 880 calories. That's not terrible for a complete meal. Sure. That's not awful. Just a lot for a fucking bowl. Well, that's the thing because you're just getting like, like the ideal is like, okay, I'm getting pure nutrition and it's not going to maybe, it'll, it'll best will taste like pretty good, but it'll fill me up and it will not be a meal I'm burning on an indulgence.

That's the ideal for one of these places. So when you start to get closer to 1,000 calories, it doesn't feel as great to eat. Like the Greek salad. So a Greek salad, like I stayed, like I love a Greek salad, but I stayed away from the Greek salad because it was Greek salad feels like a cheat for bowl. Yeah. I agree. No, the salad isn't valid.

I don't want to publish that. Um, uh, Pali, what did you get from Kava? So I, again, like I, I probably should have done something like, like that as a first timer, but I went in and I got the rice, the brown rice and the super, the super greens was like my initial, my initial start. And then I got thrown off cause they were like dips and I was like, I don't have dips on my sweet greens. So I was like, I'll just avoid, I'll just say no to the dip.

Yeah. Maybe that's just like, oh no. I'm just like not, you know how sometimes it's like, oh, I don't need a dip. Yeah. Then I got to the next station, which was, uh, proteins or proteins. So I took the chicken and I saw the falafels and the pita on the side and I was like nervous honestly with the amount that I had had in my bowl. I was like, I don't think it's going to fill me up.

So I was like, can I get three falafels and a side of pita? And then I went and maybe some of the hummus on the side. God, because I was going to say that would have been the driest. Yeah, no, no, because I went back for the dip, but I, but that was on the side and put it in the bowl. So I don't know, again, like if you can, if you can count, no, that counts, that counts. Then, and then I topped that bowl off with some corn and some cabbage and the, uh, vinaigrette dressing.

And here's where I had another problem with the containers because they put the dressing on, did not do a mix. They were like, do you want on the side or on top? And I was like, on top, I didn't think that meant just on top and then they put the top of the lid on. So when I got back to the table and opened it up, the dressing was all over the lid and I lost like half the dressing and it went all over. No, they'll, they'll just like the way they do the, the dressing there, because the dressing

is distinct from the dip. The dips are like, kind of like distributed in a little reservoirs and they, they just kind of Peter North the dressing all over it. And then yeah, if you're getting it to go, it gets compressed down in there and I've had that happen so many times. And it bugged me because I was like, if you're not going to do the, the, the smush and the smush and peel and turn or whatever they do, then you have like at least distribute the dressing evenly because once you put that thing of like part of my salad was coming

off and then I had to like scrape it back in. It was just like annoying and not good. It's a little bit of an issue and, and it's one thing I do like about sweet green is that they'll mix the salad at the bar for you. Yeah. I think there's nothing worse than a dry bowl. 100%. Yeah.

Terrible. Dry bowl also sounds like the gathering of all my exes together in one spot. But uh. The dry bowl. Um. Why are you having it in a stadium? I don't know. It's a good point.

There's like, there's like people here. Hello. Yeah, we're all down here. Three people in the front row. It's just us. Rachel? Uh. Um.

I, I had this issue at the other spot. Hmm. Interesting. Really? 12. Sweet green is where I got my dry, where I have my dry bowl. We'll get, we'll get to our words there. Yeah.

Because they also changed, I guess supply chain wise something was going on when I went there too. There was, there, I was, I, I got a box at sweet green. Me too. Me too. But um. I, I gotta say this. I kind of enjoyed my bowl at Cava.

I was, uh, this is not in my regular rotation. I, as you know, I'm a huge Mediterranean fan. Mediterranean food fan. I mean, I like the Mediterranean too. I, I don't know if I've been there, um, but, uh, Italy counts, right? I've been to Italy. Is that the Mediterranean? Yeah.

Although I think when people think of Mediterranean food, they think of Italy as kind of its own thing. I've never been to Greece. Right. I've never been to, I've never been to Greece before. Yeah. Um, but I love kebabs. I love Mediterranean food, uh, and this worked for me.

I, I kind of been, I've kind of enjoyed my bowl. It was like, I could see myself eating this at work depressed and shoveling it down in 10 minutes, which is kind of what this tournament is about, is about depressing work lunches. Yes. 100%. And I'll say this. I was not set up for success from a Cava because, you know, my lovely wife Natalie had also put an order in her order included lamb meatballs and they were like, when we got there,

they're like, we're out of lamb meatballs. We need to make more, more lamb meatballs. That's good. Does she use like her own personal credit card is, uh, no, as, I mean, I put it as one order on the code voice card. Um, okay. I don't want to be a hero there. This seems like a you conversation.

She, uh, so, so it was a, uh, it was like, like, like, Mitch Mitch meant that when he said that I'm like, shut the fuck up. Mitch is so worried about money. That's why he brought up lower taxes early. Oh, fuck. Also, he doesn't reply to Weigar's text till after 11 a.m. I think that's when he wakes up. How does this account know that?

How does come drip 69 know that? Hold on a second. So the, so the, I was not set up for success here because I like mine was ready and then I had to wait another 15 minutes for them to make more meatballs. I responded to his exit at 1050. I know you did. Yes, I know. Uh, I, I agree with you completely.

And so my, so I got mine home and it was like, okay, I'd been sitting in a room temp for a while. It was room temp or, or slightly cold when I was eating it. But that said, there was a lot of flavor packed into this. And I think the falafel, I'm not sure what your take was, Pally, but my falafel was really flavorful. Mine had a lot, like it was like, you know, dense and well-seasoned. It was certainly better than the falafel we had at last week's chain, Mitch, um, we talked

about spits. And I just think kind of the mix of all the goops, it's just, it kind of came together. It was, it was, it was certainly not lacking for flavor and texture. Yeah. I hated it. Wow. I really hate it. Wow.

And I maybe it was because it was Pasadena, but to me, this was like eating, this was like eating hospital food. Like it was like, you were, you were making the best of a hospital meal. But you know what? I can't deny that either. I have 100%. No. Yeah.

I can see that being a hospital bowl. And, and, and I, and I, again, it might have been my fault. I might have messed up with the raspberry vinaigrette. That might have not been the right play. And I was trying to mix up that bowl as much as I could because it was dry because I lost a lot of the dressing and I was really trying to do it. But I ended up enjoying the pita and the hummus more as for the falafels. They were okay.

I, I like a falafel that is a little bigger and crispier on the outside. This was more like a, uh, like a, uh, gnocchi. Yeah. They're, they're little guys. They're pretty modest. They're little soft kind of like, you know, but it was fine. And honestly, I was so bummed by my bowl that I was like, this is going to have to fill me up.

But I ended up eating double the bread that I wanted to because I was like needed to get those falafel balls. Sure. So it was like not really my favorite. And then you had on top of that, that it was in Pasadena and every other person in there looked like they had just gotten out of the hospital and like, you know, and it was like, if I could eat a meal with my mask on, this would be the place. Yeah.

And, and I just, and I was like, I don't ever feel that way in sweet greens. Uh, well, let's talk about sweet green because I thought this was sweet greens match to lose. I was coming in pretty like, you know, Hey, I went last time we reviewed sweet green Mitch. I was the high man. I had like a four forks plus and I do like sweet green. I go to it consistently.

In fact, I'd gone to it separately before we'd settled on the bowl theme within this past week, like since, since we've, we've done our last recording, uh, I got the miso bowl and I should, I should make clear at this point, you can maybe infer it from what I got from Kaba. I'm, I'm trying to eat vegetarian for the course of this tournament. I think that's like that. I think that's in the spirit of what we're doing here. And so that's how I'm, I'm, I'm going green to green, uh, with these two chains, uh,

the miso bowl has shredded kale, uh, uh, warm wild rice, basil, shredded cabbage, toasted almonds. Uh, I got tofu instead of blackened chicken, a miso root vegetables, miso, sesame, ginger dressing. Uh, and I did get my bread here and the bread at sweet green is very, I mean, it's just kind of this inert multi-grain, you know, a little slice, but I don't mind it. I think it's fine for sobbing up syrup. Lepan coat, coated in bread.

Is it really? It, that's what it reminds me of. Oh, okay. It's got that same like where it's like, yeah, it's all right. It's totally fine. Well, you got, you got just a slice of the regular bread. Yeah. Did you get the focaccia?

I got the focaccia. Wow. That's, I like that there's that option. Yeah. Did I know that they, did they upsell me on the focaccia? No, I've gotten the focaccia when I'm feeling like it, but that counts for our bread, right? Yeah. 100%.

Okay. Um, I see like, I agree with you. I came in being like, this is sweet green soluz and, and I, I think again that, that because bowl places are so order based, that had I known what I was doing in Kava, maybe I would have had a better experience. Um, but I, from years of experience at sweet greens, I believe that I, I have constructed a bowl that just like works for me perfectly. And with the way that I order it, it covers all of the worries of what a bowl could be.

Yeah. So I usually enjoy my experience immensely. The packaging of it brought it down a level. That was huge. We all had the same experience and there's a sign. I took a picture of it outside the sweet green that's like due to supply chain issues, we do not have, uh, you know, our normal containers. So you may experience a different, you know, to go take out container, uh, thanks president

Brandon was kind of, kind of pointed at the end there. And um, Really? Yeah. Well, I mean, I added that with a, Oh, you wrote that. Yeah. I was like sweet greens wrote that.

Uh, it was a, so, so yeah, that really affected how, and I think it also affected how it was mixed because mine was kind of dry. Truly me too. And, and, and, and I think that part of the, the, the tech of sweet green is what makes it superior. Yeah. You know, like the app is pretty good. Apps great.

And you truly, I rarely have the thing where I like ordered on the app and walk in it's not ready. And I, the mixing is key. The fact that they will sit there and do the spin with the thing, it's like that, that, that makes it pretty superior to me as far as these places go. Do you guys remember when they used to have the big metal bowls and they put it into a separate metal bowl just for mixing and then they poured in your jigo container? That was great.

That was fucking great. Yeah. I was kind of upset that. So of course there was no bowls. I, I was on my walk with Mookie. I was, I'm being healthy and we, we, we, in totally yesterday I did about seven miles wise. I thought I was going to die.

Yeah. That's that. Did you, I don't know. I should look. I kind of look at, kind of look at yesterday's steps. Is that possible? I think so. Yeah.

I just saw and it looked there that like I had a 13,000 steps yesterday. That's a nice stepping day. And that is, that's like you being, you're counting stairs in your townhouse, right? Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. You walked more yesterday than the day before. This is funny. Yeah.

You walked more yesterday than the day before by 14,016 steps. How many did you walk before one? We recorded the day before that. So yeah, probably close to zero. I got the crispy rice bowl, which was, so I was talking to the lady there, Myra, I believe her name is. Yes. Myra from sweet green.

Myra. I accidentally told her that this, it was one of those things and Mookie made fun of me for it. But I, when my bowl was done, I was like, can I get the bread too? And then I immediately felt fat guy guilt for getting bread. Sure. And I was like, it's for a podcast. And then I was like, what have you done?

What have you done? And she's like, what's the podcast? And she was like, and she was great. Myra was great. I loved her. She was great. But she's a happy person and it was like, tell me what it is. And like excitedly saying this out loud.

And I was like, I'm so embarrassed by this. Yeah. And then Mookie came over and, and, and told her what it was and, and kind of usured me to my seat. Um, but it was, that was embarrassing. I, I apologize to Myra for telling you that I had a podcast. She said she's going to listen. Thanks for your service, Myra.

She was great. And there was a couple of things that's cause she said the harvest bowl was really popular. And I said, I'm thinking about that crispy rice bowl is the cashew dressing good. And she said, it's great. The thing is, I didn't realize that cashew dressing was kind of like they're kind of like a Asian style dressing. And I don't love like, uh, like Chinese chicken salad or something. I, I'm not a huge fan of like a ginger dressing, not like a miso dressing.

I don't, I'm not a huge fan of dress. I mean, I don't hate them or anything. I just, it's not my like number one thing. So I didn't realize that the spice to cashew dressing was that, um, I also think that it doesn't help with the bowls. Like I want the bowl to look like that. I don't want it all mixed up. Mitch is holding you.

You can show that to the camera. I don't want it all. I don't want it all. Just holding up a picture of a bowl. You don't want it mixed up. Seven texts from my mom as I hold that off the camera. Um, I, I picture like shit stained underwear. What do I do with these?

You want me to wash these and send these to you? Um. The credit card statement. This said pay urgent. It's from the laundromat. It's so, it's an extra soap cost. Stop texting. Um, so this has black and chicken, raw carrots, shredded cabbage, cucumber, cilantro, roast

almonds, crispy rice, warm, wild rice, arugula, lime, squeeze, spicy cashew dressing all mixed up. First of all, it is like a pound of arugula and it's like a pound of arugula. Arugula, lime, squeeze, spicy cashew dressing all mixed up. First of all, it is like a pound of arugula and it was just too much arugula for my taste. And then it's like just this kind of a dry bowl. Mookie got, and here's, I would have done the same thing. Mookie got the, the buffalo chicken salad, but it was, it was, it's called the buffalo

chicken bowl, but it's under salads. So I didn't think it counted, but this to me, it's like, it's a warm, they're, they're, they're classified as warm bowls. And when I was eating that crispy rice bowl, I was like, there's nothing warm about this. It's not, it's not warm. I'm not, they're like, I'm not, I like, I wasn't getting much of the rice or whatever. Just it wasn't, it wasn't that warm to me. I wonder if they, cause mine was very heavy on the kale and I was expecting like a 50 50

wild rice kale split. Mine was mostly kale. Yeah. And I, and again, I'll tell you my, my order, my custom, cause I, I really do feel like I perfected it and feel free, anybody to go use, I'm sure the Reddit will hate it, which is just you, but I feel like what I, I know, I know all these things about sweet greens. Now, like I know that the rice is not equal to the kale, the rice is a side portion. The kale is your bed, the rice is a pillow and like you, you have to know that with what,

what else you're getting, which is why to me, the mix is so important. So I'll give you mine because I find that to, to your point, when my mix is done, it still looks really appetizing. It doesn't look like, like throw up, you know, which is like what you don't want a bowl to look like. Mine looks like, mine looks like throw up. It looks like, it looks like mixed up garbage and Mookie, Mookie, who did the buffalo chicken bowl, he gave me like a few bites of his and I was like, this is, wait, I love this.

This is delicious. Comparatively. And, and so I feel like let me tell you mine. If you give it another shot, you can tell me if it's not good. The same way I would like to do yours at Kava because I feel like it's so order based. 100%. What I do is I get shredded kale, wild rice. Sometimes I will ask for a second scoop because they don't, it's not enough.

So now you got like half the bowl was kind of rice. Then I do carrots, cabbage and cucumber. Then I'll do roasted chicken, double almond, Parmesan crisp and nacho chip. This sounds good. Then I'll go spicy cashew heavy. Then they'll do the mix and it looks beautiful because it's like purple, orange, green, the spicy cashew gives it a nice like yellowish tint and the Parmesan crisp is like a nice way to cut through the ginger and Asian spices and it makes it more of just like a nice spicy

salad. And I get the bread and sometimes when I'm getting down to the end of it because the kale is shredded, it's not great on a fork, I'll smear it on the bread. My problem I find with sweet greens is that they're silverware socks and it breaks all the time. It does. And it has broken on me multiple times. And the bowl they do is the best when they can get it, when Dark Brandon's not clogging

up our porch, when they can get their bowls, they're amazing. And so the bummer is like the fork, I have busted a fork many a time. I wonder and I feel the same way and I'm like, is it like, are these, is it a biodegradable thing? It is. The silverware is compostable, compostable, whatever you say that. Isn't that at Kava too? At Kava, I think they do have the same thing, but they're a little bit more substantial.

Mine didn't break at Kava and I noticed that they were better there. They're a little better. They look frail. They're like frail, yes. It's almost like getting the wood fork, which might as well just be like a wood fork in a salad is ridiculous. This is a tangent, but when I've been to the AMC recently, they've abandoned the paper straws for a new kind of biodegradable straw.

The vomit straw. But it's like, wait, it tastes like vomit to you? It has the consistency. You know when you would go into like, when you were a kid and you'd go into like a magic or prank store and there would be like fake vomit on the table? That's what those, it's like someone rolled that up. That's what those straws have the consistency of. You put it to your mouth and there's like grain in it and you're like, is this like

garbage? Like what? We had Don's joke shop in Quincy, which like only clothes, not that. Don's or Don's? I think it was. Are you pronouncing it that way? Is it, is it Don, like John or is it John, like a female named Don? D-O-N, Don.

Okay. Don's, Don's, Don's joke shop, which I think only, I think clothes like within like the last 10, like something incredible, but like, I think it maybe was like around, but then later as in a, like as you got older, you realized it was like a pipe store. Like it was like a store. Yeah. Like you sell pipes and probably drugs. Yeah.

Yeah. It was like an adult section. Yeah. Yeah. In the days of DVDs, there was a place in L.A. near where I lived called Famous Sports Videos and like they were just like, it just looked like it all had like. That's already a funny. Well, no, you'd go in.

Why do I have to go? Don't they play this on TV? You'd go in and it would just be like all like, you know, like great goals and, and like sports bloopers would all just be like, you know, and like famous matches and have all those. But if you'd go in there and I never did this, I never had this interaction, but my roommate did it. No, I'm telling you, my roommate did this.

He went in once and the guy was like, he was in the store by himself and the guy was like, Hey man, the good stuff's in the back. And he went in the back and it was all these videos that were like called like, like ultimate submission, no boys allowed. And it was like a rest like a nude wrestling video. It was like all these, like it was just all fetish, wrestle, fetish nude wrestling. That was like the main business of the storefront. You know that that just means gay porn, right?

But that nude wrestling is like, well, yeah, you're explaining it as like still the guy that doesn't know like why are these men fighting? They're having their wrestling, but their clothes aren't on and it often turns into something sexual. I don't know why are those men holding hands? Are you, you never went in this store? No, I wouldn't. No, I didn't.

But like, I was like, I was going to have to say like a moth to a flame. He'd be in that back immediately. It was my guess. He's sitting up a cot. But the, yeah, that's, that's kind of amazing that those niche businesses used to exist before the internet. Anyway, what I was going to say is like those new straws, I'm kind of amazed they were able to iterate on the plastic straws enough where they have one that doesn't felt like dissolved

by the time a movie's over. That's an improvement. And you'd think they could do the same with the silverware at, at sweet grain. Yeah. There was a kid who lived around the corner for me. His name was Scott Collie. Yeah. And he was a guy who would always.

Like, like, like, like, like, like an AU or an Oh, I think it was like AU, L, E, Y, but it maybe, maybe was Oh, W, W, and you, and your family was like, Collie. Yeah. I mean, everyone in the, yeah, everyone on the street was like, Scott Collie. I mean, they maybe even said it that way, but Scott Collie was kind of a wild one and he, I remember he, he took a shovel that had no end to it and hit my head open and gave me stitches. And then like, he came, his dad came down his, his, I remember his family made a lot

of money because their tree, like the lights on their tree burst and always a family. But he was a guy who broke and he's probably a great kid. I don't know. That's like, that's like one of the pranks. They still let Don's joke shop. It's like, it's a shovel. You hit your friend with it and here's the stitches, stitches causing shovel. Thanks, Don.

It's Don. Scott was a guy who would like, it would be like, oh no, like Scott's fighting someone and then he would always fall and break his arm. And like, and it happened like, like, I'm not even trying. I like, when I say eight times, I'm like, it may be happened more than eight times. And that's like always, so you're always like, oh, he's like a brittle bone boy or something. You were like afraid that he's like, why is this guy breaking his arm so much? And that's what I feel like when I see those utensils, I'm like, I'm going to probably

grab two because I know that 100% it's going to break off in my salad. I had like a bad day a couple of weeks ago and I was, I had to pick my kid up from school and I was on the phone and what I, my usual routine is that I will, on the way to pick my son up, I will stop at a sweet greens and grab a salad and eat it in the car in front of his school while I wait and like answer emails and stuff. And so I did that, picked up the salad, sat down, dug in, first bite, snap. Ah, fuck. And I was like, fuck.

And then I'm like, you're left to the thing. It's like, do I take the little, do I just do it little? Yeah. The little that's, and that's always demeaning. It's demeaning and it doesn't work. You're like, it's on your thumb and shit. So I was like, I'll drive and get another fork. So like, I pull, pull out of the spot, which in New York is hard to find anyway.

I drive and I'm like, you should be able to find a fork anywhere. Pull the first deli, run in, no fork, second deli, run in, no fork. I'm like, geez, I got a, one of these places have like a plastic fork that finally I find one. I run back in, throw something in, in like throw my backpack in the back seat, run around, didn't realize that when I went out to get the salad, to get the fork, I left my salad open in the front seat and I sat down. Oh my God.

And I was so like in a rush to get my son. I sat down, put the car in drive, pulled away and was like, where's my salad? Not even realizing that I was, I mean, it was so bad. Like it was all over my back, it had gone like, it looks like a baby that like had shit his back. It was like almost up to my hair because I was like, and I was driving, I was like trying to get to school and everything. And then I got out and my son was like, what happened?

It looked like someone had puked down my back and it was all because of that stupid sweet green fork. That's fucking sad. That's also funny when like a child is like, what happened? I was freezing in New York and I was like, do I get out of the car with no jacket? And then I'm standing there like, hey kiddo, I was just like too late for that. I ran out and he was like, ew, I stank and the car stank was terrible. That's embarrassing.

He's probably embarrassed. Well look, we got to make a determination, we got to make a call on which of these is going to advance, Kava or Sweet Green and we'll do so right after this break. We'll be back with more Doe Boys. Hey you, you craving fresh, delicious, easy meals, try wild grain and get their bake from frozen sourdough breads, fresh pastas and artisanal pastries delivered right to your door. Wild grain is the first ever bake from frozen subscription box for sourdough breads, fresh

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Do it. Welcome back to Doe Boys. We are here with the Tournament of Champions 2023 Munch Madness Bowl. I said that backwards, but you get it. And Pali, it's time for us to make our determination. You let the sunglasses on the whole time. Is it to take them off? No, isn't it?

Susser's back. Susser's walking in. What's going on, Susser? Don't forget who the bowl is going to. Oh, yes. Yeah, that's part of it. Yeah. We're going to take this off.

Yes. It probably helps me mentally to know that you have it on for the rest of the episode. I get that. The suit. Isn't this? It looks like the suit wants to be taken. Yeah. The suit is begging for it.

In fact, if you don't let him suit, it might just go itself. I think after post-launch, it might be, yeah. The one button is like Captain America hanging onto a helicopter. The other side of it is like Cliffhanger trying to. Isn't it nice wearing sunglasses with the lights though? It is kind of cool. I know. I think it's a new thing for you.

You know the funny thing? I never usually wear sunglasses anyways because I have very squinty eyes, which Weiger has pointed out before. It's true. So like even driving, I kind of have gotten, I'm like a mold person. I've gotten used to like being awake at night. Well, that's another part of it. But just driving and stuff, like there'll be like bright sun, I'll just kind of like

squint my eyes a little bit. I'll be fine. I don't. There are some streets that you will turn down in New York City and there's no rhyme and reason. Just like the way that this block has a building and this one doesn't, it's like you will turn down some blocks where you are blinded by the sun, like directly in your eyes. And also I am high a lot.

Certainly not for this show. We would never allow that as part of our screening process as well. We're one of the few podcasts that drug tests still, right, Wags? Yeah, we're doing that. You thought it was a COVID test when you walked into the studio. Oh no, they told me that that's why I failed and was still allowed to purchase it. All right, Mitch, we always... You failed your COVID test.

Yeah, you failed your COVID test and you passed your drug test. We always do Mitch categories for this. And I wrote down a few, I typed out a few, but we can come up with others. The ones I was thinking up top were greens, grains, protein, dip slash dressing, bowl and silverware, aka the paleo. I think silverware now has to include drinks. Yeah. Drinks, okay.

Silverware slash drinks? I think so. I think that sounds normal to me. And then also, wait. And bread is bread. I think that could all be one, right? Silverware slash drink slash bread. I think that works.

Oh, there he goes. He's holding the bowl and he's leaving. He looked angry when he just looked at me. Did he look angry or was it the suit? The suit is, he took the jacket off. If the suit could talk, it'd be like, I can't believe I'm back here again. I had one job. I got him through his wedding.

Yeah, I never thought I'd be back here. Being of that wedding, I was there. And let me tell you, when we hoisted Suss Up on that chair after the wedding and the celebration... You were sore? I was very nervous. Why did he was going to fall off? Well, they were like, Evan's friends, come over and let's lift them up from the chair.

And it was like me and Jack and a few of us and we were all like, oh, looking at each other like, oh, shit, here we go. Like, we're going to try to do this. It's hard. It's, as a younger man, I would run to it. And now as an older man, I run from it. Yes, sure. Like, I don't want to.

And like, I feel like sometimes they see me like, and now we're going to pick them up and the spotlight shifts to me like running out. And I have to like, go back in like, it always looks like they're going to fall. It looks like they're going to fall. I did it for Phillips at David Phillips. Oh yeah. And sometimes you get, but then you get like a guy who's light and you're like tossing him off the chair.

It's great. Yeah. No, the female side can get crazy. Yeah. Yeah. But it's, it is, I'm with you. My friend, Joe Aranda's wedding. They put, they put him up on chairs and they put the, the father of the bride up and he

like almost was in the lights. Yeah. It's like too much. It's too much. Yeah. During mine, someone handed us an Israeli flag. They're like a lot of Israelis there. Oh man.

And so the two of us like, you know, we, my wife was like over there over there and the next thing you know, we're like holding an Israeli flag, we're like, what is this? And I guess really cousins like taking pictures of it, so we always know where you stand. Kyrie is giving it a thumbs down on social media. I'm going to walk. Yeah. Um, okay. All right.

So why are you left in that? Yeah. Okay. So let's, uh, bitch, anything else you want to add, greens, grains, protein, dips, dressing, bowl, silverware slash drinks slash bread. Why? As we talked about this, where the bowls go, where the bowls go? I mean, this was, this is, this is from the very first.

Oh yes. Yes. And that will be the ultimate decision. That is the, uh, Jess McKenna conundrum, which it was, we've used since the very first tournament of champions. Which of these are we sending to the aliens as the ideal representation of this particular food stuff was her burger version of it. Man, our guest is going to really love this.

Yeah. This is pre-decided, by the way. Yes. It's bowls this year, Wags. Yes. And we thought we'd send the winner to the dude. Bowls are going to the dude. From the big Lebowski, uh, because of bowling, because of bowling, uh-huh, right, if it's

going to the dude, the long walk, and, uh, and the bowl so good that he resurrects Donnie. Yeah. Donnie comes back. Donnie comes back to life. Spoiler alert. If you've never seen the movie. So all you college kids who are watching the movie, it's going to change for you. You're going to have to see Donnie come back to life.

That's what we're doing. Wow. If it's a football, if it goes back behind, it goes down to the man-wise. So do we, to, to, to, because for Susser strikes rule, do we just say like, if it advances again? This is, by the way, this is the second time I've, I've heard Pali go, give a big, twice in this episode. Once was during Susser, and once was during the dude explanation.

So are we just going to say- And mentally there's been a couple more. If it advances, it gets three strikes. Can we just say that? Like if the one that wins gets three strikes. Three strikes. Yes. I think we have to give them, I think we have to give them strikes now somehow.

Why can't you just do this with the first meaning of bull? Bulls have all ready, have all this stuff there. Why do you have to add on that, the other meaning? Like this, do you mean like the, like a, the Super Bowl? Like a- No, like why can't, like, it's a bull, right? Just like a literal interpretation. A literal interpretation, because now I think bowling has something to do with it.

Well it does. Three strikes and you're in. No, that does not have anything to do with it, that's something, it was a tournament with bracket. Three strikes you're in. Okay, great. That's baseball. Not bowling.

Three strikes and bowling gets you a turkey. Right. Right. Turkey's are good. Turkey's are good. Right. So we're, it's just like, I'm so lost. Hey, when it comes to, when it comes to these restaurants, do be a turkey.

Turkey is good. Three strikes you're in. Okay, okay. Like now I like, now, at least now I'm, if we all decide, it's going to be bowling from now on. It's bowling. Okay. Amelia, if you, when you listen to this later, if you could just transcribe what Mitch

just said and then just put it in the text threads. And so it's, the winner is going to the dude, the winner is going to the dude. But yeah. What about turkey? You know, maybe we'll do, maybe we'll do like a couple of dude impressions on an episode. But yeah, we might do that. Who's the more beta guest? Well, the guest who isn't funnier than us.

Oh, that, that was the nicest comment. I was going to say, I can't wait to see your next beta guest. What a fun episode. That's where we shine. Yeah. You shut up. I was going to say, I can't wait to see your next beta guest. What a fun episode.

That's where we shine. Yeah. You shut up. But wise, if it's a gutter ball, if it, if it goes back behind the, the, the pins, it's going down to the man, the guy who you eat lunch with every day. Oh yes. The boss. The man, the boss.

Yeah. The guy is going down to the man. So the dude or the man, that's where it can go. Okay. Great. All right. So, I'm going to go with protein dip slash dressing bowl, silverware slash drink slash bread.

I'll just go through these and I will kind of give my own takes and we'll just do this one at a time. Greens, I think, I think Kava takes it because I was just getting kale from, from sweet green and the splendid greens, I think actually have like a little bit more going on in terms of texture. The grains, I do like the, the flavor of that warm wild rice from sweet green. I could have used some more, but I give that one to sweet green. I got to say that falafel taking the protein slot was certainly more flavorful than the

tofu that I got, the miso tofu I got from sweet green. So I go Kava for that dip slash dressing. Here's the thing about Kava, there's a, there's so many dips and I think that's a big part of it is just like, you just, I got like five different things, just, just sprayed all over that and that was a lot of fun and they all kind of blend together, but I think they work together nicely and I feel like the miso bowl, I was just getting miso. That one, I think I also give to Kava bowl, didn't get a bowl from sweet green. So I think Kava takes it, silver rice, silverware slash drink slash bread, didn't have an issue

with the silver art sweet green. The drink, I didn't get a drink from either place, but you know what sweet green has a nice little water spigot, which I used to refill my headgum bottle, which was great. And I didn't get bread from Kava, they, they forgot my pita, but I got a nice piece of bread, a bread from sweet green. So I think sweet green takes it. So it's kind of a split decision for me, Mitch, how do you rank it? And I give you these categories one by one, if you need them first up greens, then grains.

Greens I'm going to, I'm actually going to give to sweet green. I think that sweet green has just a huge selections of greens. I look, I got, it was way too much arugula. I wish that I had mixed it up and I think Pali's right that you got to, you have to customize it, but I'm giving that, the green section to them. I actually opposite wise were grains. I give to Kava. I liked, I liked my rice and everything that came in that bowl more.

Yeah. What's the next one? Protein and then dip slash dressing. Protein is tough because I think I got to go Kava here, but I, but it's mostly because sweet green didn't give me enough of the, of the, I wanted more chicken. Yeah. And that's the sort of, it's something that can be fixed though. And I've had decent, I think neither of them blow me away to be honest with you, but maybe

slight advantage to Kava. What's the next one? And then you, you just did protein. Yep. Dip slash dressing. Hmm. This is, this is, this is tough because I think that if you get the blue cheese and the hot sauce, which by the way, sweet green has a great hot sauce.

That's a great point. A great hot. And I'm a bit of a heat seeker and they do have really good, like, like if you get there, you talked about that, that hot wing, the Buffalo chicken one, yeah, that Buffalo sauce on is quite nice. I'm, I gotta go draw. This one gets a draw. Wow.

They both, they both, they both do a good job. And then what else, what else we got here? You got bowl. Bowl. Kava. There was no, I just didn't have a bowl. It's such a frustrating outing. It's dark red ones fault, like you guys said, but it didn't get one.

And then silverware slash drink slash bread. Okay. So I actually got bread and silverware and drinks from each of these places. At Kava, I tried to get a lemonade and they didn't have it and I had a pineapple, apple mint. It had no ice, but that's what I got. And that was a pretty nice drink, but you know what? It was beaten by sweet green, which had the hibiscus berry and clover tea, which for zero

calorie tea is fantastic. It's so good. That one is really good. It's great. It's really, really. Did you get the found one or the one in the bottle? It's, it's in the bottle. Yeah, but it's a glass bottle.

It's a glass bottle. It's good. Yeah. I, I was truly impressed. Yeah. And then this, here's the crazy thing is that I liked my pita that I got from Kava and I was using it to basically eat my bowl. I was rapping, like taking pieces off and using it to eat it.

The focaccia at sweet green was one of the best things I had. So that also takes it. And then silverware is kind of a toss up. So that goes to sweet green as well. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Pali, your first category.

Yeah. That crispy rice treat. I love that thing. Who, I love my, our great, uh, the, the service was great. Um, I had one, I wasn't as sold on it, but it is a healthy version of, uh, yeah. Should we, I guess that should probably be silverware slash drink slash bread slash treat then, right? Maybe.

Okay. Great. All right. Pali, first category greens. Uh, greens. I go to sweet greens. I did not like the, the super green mix. I didn't like the way it was shredded.

Yeah. It was like, it reminded me of the sprouts you get on pad tie. Like I just didn't, which I hate anyway, like I just didn't like it. It was bothering me. Totally fair. And, and Nellie has pointed this out and it's, and it's really strange that the super greens at Kava are kind of whack, but the splendid greens are pretty consistently good. Yeah.

And I don't know why super is bad and splendid is great. And again, it's just a truck. Like I, I think I made the wrong choice, but I, but I, I think that's confusing to the consumer. Like why is super so different from splendid? Yes. So I have to give it to sweet greens because I, I think again, like the fact that I can eat that kale and enjoy it.

And it's not like chewy and Kaleigh, I give it to sweet green grains again to sweet green. I think that wild rice is better than any of the rice is at Kava protein is the, is your next category protein. I'm going to give it to sweet green as well. Uh, I really like the roasted chicken and sometimes when I mix it up, I like their tofu as well. So I, I feel like, uh, uh, and the chicken I got from Kava, it was just reminded me of like being in a hospital lunch line or something.

Like it just was not hitting. I mean, it was transported back to a hospital times. And I was like, I could see that. Sure. Ordering a bagel, ordering a bagel when my father died. Yeah, it was like, you're just like in the hospital and you're hungry and sad or sick or whatever. And you go down and you're like, just make whatever I can work.

And you get like a chili and a rice and a lettuce. You like pour it all into something. You're just like dipping a bagel in it. It's like, I didn't want that from lunch. Yeah. It seemed grim. I, I have that feeling at times, eating at both of these places. Um, do you think it was weird to just like, offhandly talk about how I ordered a bagel

when my father was passing away? Yeah, thank you. It made me feel, it made me feel more comfortable because most of my experiences are about death. Yes. All right. And that's, and if they're not about it, if they're not about it, they inform the rest of it. Yes.

Oh, sorry guys. Then so that, so that I give the speaker, then we go to what? A dip slash dressing. I hated the dressing at Cava. And, uh, so I got, and you got, you got the dry bowl. You got, you got, and I did get a, and I did get a dip. Eventually I went back for that hummus, which is good. The hummus was good, but like, I don't know.

I, I prefer, I've had most of the dressings as sweet greens. I like them all kind of. The next category, bowl. Cava. Yeah, I was so, I was so bummed and the guy, the people at sweet green, we've been like, talk to dark Brandon. And I was like, I don't want to get roasted. So I give that to Cava.

And then the final category, silverware slash drink slash bread slash treat. I give that to Cava as much as I like the treat at sweet green and the bread at sweet green. I think that PETA was superior to. PETA is pretty good. I didn't get one. I've had good PETA from there before, but I feel like it's like seasoned. This is like better than most. That focaccia really knocked my socks off.

I feel like now I'm going to go back and re-experience the focaccia. But I, I, so I would give that to, to, to Cava actually. And then the, the, also the silverware and the drinks were better at Cava. I had a, you know, it's harder to find sweet green, Tobiscus tea or a station at sweet green anymore. So I, I didn't have that option. So I made a, like a half Arnold Palmer at the station. And I, I always liked that. Yeah.

Natalie gets this is, this to me is pure chaos. Natalie gets a drink from Cava. She gets a half live, half lime cucumber fresca or not fresca, half lime cucumber, they're whatever the fuck that thing's called. Not fresca, the brand, the, uh, Agua fresca. Yeah. Agua fresca. Yeah.

Half lime cucumber, half root beer. That's chaotic. It's a nonsense. Joker energy. Yeah. But she says it's great. That is so insane. Isn't that wild?

I momentarily thought is Natalie the weirder one for a second, which is insane. That's how insane that order is. That's wild. Yeah. Uh, anyway, so, uh, this year's version of, of the McKenna conundrum, the bowls are going to the dude to bring Donnie back to life. Which of these is going to advance? I'll say, I, I just need to, to say this because I don't think I've been clear on it.

This is a down outing from sweet green for me. And I, this is a chain I really like. And I think in a vacuum, we said, which one do I like better? Sweet green or Cava, I would say sweet green, but this particular outing was not sweet green's best day. And that may inform my decision here, but we're all going to take a second. And it makes sense. Cause three strikes, cause we're going to say what we're giving a strike to.

And if a place wins on, on two strikes, that's a seven 10 split decision. Okay. And it still advances. Yeah. Okay. So seven 10 split decision. Got it. I thought we just made a list.

What was the last segment for? Well, now we're about to, we're about to announce our winner. We're not, we're not, it's our winner. We're going to count down from three to one. Okay. And then we'll say in unison, which of these two chains, Cava or sweet green, we think it's getting our strike, which one is getting our strike. What does that mean?

So three strikes are in. Okay. So that's good. So, but it also restrains collectively from all three of us. Yeah. But also if you can move on with two strikes, it's a seven 10 split, it's a seven 10 split decision, decision. So now we're mixing baseball, bowling, rhyming, and the bowls of the bowls.

Yeah. And boxing kind of with split decision. I guess. Yeah. Sure. Great. MMA. You know, I'm following.

Okay. Uh, I don't, I'm going to game time it because I honestly don't know. And it's, I'm not going to know until it comes out of my mouth. This is a tough one. This might be the closest, this is the first round, the first episode of recording of the tournament. And this might be the closest one. Yeah.

I, I am really, I'm really close here. I think I got to go with my heart. All right. Okay. We're going to count down from three to two to one. Here we go. Three green two one. Kava.

Man, I'm, I'm, I'm surprised. I thought it was going to be sweet green. I thought I was going to say sweet green, but I think Kava had a better outing. I'm kind of bummed that sweet green is eliminated because we could beat a lot of the first round matchups, but I think Kava just had a better day. I can't believe we eliminated sweet green. We're fucking 80. I mean, I don't think Kava, like, I think that the, the tail of the

table run on this one, like I could see Kava's closing down within six months. A hundred percent. It doesn't seem like the type of thing that's growing. Not, not only this, it's literally hard to get Kava for me. It's, it's, this, this is the restaurant that's hard. Like, there is no, like the fact, the lack of them leads me to believe that they are like on their way out. There was a, there was an Asian fusion Chipotle copy that was called Shophouse

that I really liked. Shophouse was good and Shophouse is shut down everywhere. Lemonade. Lemonade, same thing. Well, it's like reduct, remember, Lemonade was like in the airport. Yes. Yeah. And it's like, people were like, wait, actually, it's, it's really bad.

It's actually, it still is in that one terminal. Is that where the only place it is? It's like, is there's no more of them in the valley? They, they, a lot of them are closed. Because it was, because all I remember from Lemonade is like, you would walk in there and you'd be like, oh, what's the least diuretic option that I want to get from this? Like everything just like screamed.

It was like peanut curry salad. You're like, that's going to make me shit. Yeah. That's, that I felt very similar, similarly. And also it was that funny thing of Lemonade felt like a place where it was like protein without the base. Yes. It was like, here's like three salads that like kind of don't go together

and there's no base. And there's no consistency. So you would get like a, a ginger dressing with a like a curry chicken on top of like lentils. And almost everything is pre-made and just sitting there in the cold case. And as they started to expand, you know, they went to a central kitchen and we're just, we're shipping all that shit. I was going to say, there were some salads there that were like a week ago.

There was like a, some of it was okay. But that's the thing about this type of restaurant that again, like I want, I would, my parting thought would be like, these are the best. I was sitting in Kava, which was to me the worst of these kind. Yeah. And it is still the best and only type of this experience that I, that I like. And I think there should be more of them. Yeah.

It's like, I thought Wager was going to vote sweet green, truly. I, you know what, I might have, if I, if I had something, you know, it might have been the box. It was definitely the box. You know what, fuck me up about the box too. It got me, it got me dirty too, because you can't put a dressing in a box and have sides that fold out. No.

Because there's no other way to eat it. So I had to rip the sides off. Yeah. You know, it was like, it was just awkward. And, but, but again, is that their fault or is that the Democratic party? People raising the taxes. Being too woke. Yeah, it's true.

Well, look, we're advancing on to face the winner of the Poke region. Poke bar versus sweet fin, will be Kava and sweet green will live to bite another day in a fat chance kitchen. I, I, you know what, this, this might be like, trying to think of a, of a, of a mid-major school making it to the sweet 16. This might be Kava's equivalent. St. Bonaventure. Yeah, exactly.

Yes. Yeah. Well, will sweet green be back somehow? Maybe. Maybe. We'll see. How do you get back in? Uh, we have like a resurrection tournament.

Yeah, fat, fat chance kitchen, which is like, uh, the loser's bracket. All right, cool. Yeah. Uh, hey, just like a restaurant value feedback. Let's open the feedback. I've never been depressed by a winner before. I just have to, like, that's fine. This whole month is kind of depressing is the thing.

Cause like none of this is like fun to eat. Why? Cause it's black history month. I'm so happy why I said it instead of me, it's more, this episode's releasing in March. So good for you. Uh, okay. Today's email is from Steve.

Steve writes, a sailor recently survived 24 days lost at sea eating only ketchup and garlic powder. If you could eat nothing but one condiment and one spice for 24 days, what would it be if Weiger actually did this with Mayo during his youth? He has to come up with a new suggestion. I did not do that. With Mayo. And one spice.

What was the spicy? He's ketchup and ketchup and garlic powder. That's it. Love the show. Shit. Thanks, Steve. And I don't, all right. I guess what part of it is like, what, like, what defines a condiment?

Because I think like peanut butter is like a cheat. That's like a hummus. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. You can't say peanut butter is a fucking cheat. Are you kidding me? So really he means a sauce.

He means a sauce. Yeah. And, and I like, I don't think you want anything too sweet. I kind of think in terms of having some substance to it, I'd want to go with either like a, a, like a pico de gallo or a, like a dill relish. I feel like one of those like actually kind of pico de gallo is a great answer. Maybe it is pico de gallo. Maybe that's the move.

Because basically you're just eating tomatoes. Yes. Yeah. At that point. Which you would get sick of, but it's something. Yeah. I don't know if that's exactly the equivalent of ketchup though. Okay.

So maybe if we're, if we're going through something that's more of a viscosity like a sauce, you know what? Like a ranch. I might go juke. You mean that juke? I think I would go guacamole. Guacamole is pretty good. Guacamole is great.

I would go guacamole and like, um, chili flakes. Yeah. A little bit of, of spice will do a lot to liven it up because you can like. We're eating it every day. If you couldn't do guac, if it had to be sauce, do you have an answer for sauce? Okay. Well, sauce. Um, yeah.

I think sauce, and this is just because it's the taste that I think I would least get sick of, I think it would be soy. Soy is pretty good. And the, and I think that, um, the fact that it's light, like it could sustain. But I think I would need something in the second thing that is a little thicker to hold on to. So like maybe like an onion powder or like, um, yeah, something like that. Now you have me thinking hoisin sauce, which is like a thicker soy kind of.

I have an answer and I think for survival, it's a good answer. Yeah. And I think that you'll like this answer. Okay. Gravy. It's pretty good. Yeah. Italian gravy, like, no, no, it's gravy.

I mean, honestly, both answers, I was thinking like a meat gravy. Yeah. Like a sausage gravy, something like a marinara, but I think a marinara would also be, would be pretty good. Yeah. Marinara would be great. Um, was it like an all-you-one, uh, uh, yeah, yeah, my grandma was an episode of the, of their, of gabris's, the, the, oh right.

Yes. Yeah. Her best line was the waiter. She ordered lobster bisque and the waiter was like, we only have that on the weekend. She was like, I might not live that long. Is it a hundred or one places party before you died? I knew we've been to eight.

You should get to all a hundred. I hope so. I watched every episode. It was a hilarious show. If we go again, I, I speak for gabris. Let him go again. I can't wait to have you guys. Let him go again.

It's on HBO Max, right? Yeah. People can stream it on HBO Max. Check it out on HBO Max. Yeah. Two of the funniest people in the world. Getting fucked up. Um, I, I think I would go meat.

I think I would go meat gravy. I like that. I like that. It's pretty, it's pretty good. And then I'm just thinking about drinking soy sauce every day. I would look like I, like they found me at the bottom of a lake. They find your boat and they just kind of like push you back. Nothing.

We didn't find anything. That now the, the adding now, like that's the tougher thing is like, I guess I would maybe add like garlic or something to the gravy. That's the harder thing. Like, I don't think you have to eat them together. Like, cause I was just going to say straight up, cause I was almost thinking rails of garlic powder. I think you could, you could maybe get something, keep yourself from going

completely insane by having two different flavor profiles. Maybe not just heat, but like, if you were like, okay, I'm going to have, you know, I'm going to have something like a, like a, like a hoisin sauce, something that's like a thicker sort of, you know, more substantial sauce, uh, that's a little bit more savory. And then I'm going to have like cinnamon with me. You know, I'm going to have something that just like tastes different that maybe doesn't have a lot of nutrition to it, but I can have that on its own to

just kind of reset my mind. Tied you over a little bit. Yeah. Like you're, it tastes like you're eating dessert or maybe for sanity reason. It's not bad. I like that. Yeah. You know what?

I like, I like that combo. Gravy and cinnamon. Yeah. I think that's, I think that's the winner. Wow. Uh, well, hey, let us know your thoughts. Uh, hashtag. How quickly would you eat me if we were on like a boat, a raft?

I was at the hashtag. Hashtag. How quickly would you eat me? Now I'm really lost. I feel like that might overlap with some, it's like kind of like that video store where it might overlap with some fucking nasty stuff. Can't wait to see the reddit on that. If we were in a boat together, if we were, if we were in a,

it'd be so hard to cook something in a boat. That would be a challenge. It would be really hard to cook. And so we're in a, It's to be on an island. We're on an island. Okay. Sure.

With no fruit and no, it's just like beach. And I die. How long before you eat me? I'd say probably pretty quickly. Yeah. Really? I'd say, because I would know that like, okay, you're going to rot. You have the longer you go.

You have the longer you go. So I just got to do it now. And I would just accept like, it's just meat. Yeah. And I'm, it's a, it's a lot of meat to be frank. Yeah. Yeah. We know last a while.

If I, I don't think I would honestly, I don't think I could eat another person. Like I think that's the answer I was looking for. The nicer answer. I think I just don't have it in me to like butcher and like hang upside down a person and like let the blood out. Yeah. You watch like that yellow doing yellow jackets. It's pretty grim.

But I'll be surprised by how quickly he'd probably do it. Well, I would go into Boy Scout survival mode, but I also, I think there is an element in my brain where I'd be like, if I'm really on this deserted island and there's just nothing here, I'm probably going to die anyway. You're prolonging it. So what am I going to do? So, you know, why am I going to immiserate myself for the last,

you know, few days of my life, why bother? Maybe if I have like an implement I could use to cut you up, I would maybe use it to take my own life. Yeah. And maybe just that would be it. Or like find a tree. Or find a tree. Yeah.

That I could do that. If you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants, you can email us at donwyspodcast at gmail.com or leave us a voicemail, 830 go to the crash record and I was immediately just fucking full steam ahead to a tree to hang yourself right now. I don't want the belt to disintegrate. We have lifeboats. What's the use?

The next couple of days is going to be hell. The tournament in Puerto Rico. The tournament continues all month long in the Doughboys double only at patreon.com slash Doughboys. And hey, we're going to be talking about the tournament on Doughboys snack pack on Spotify live. Hang out and chat with us every Thursday at 830 PM Eastern. Listen live on Spotify.

Adam Pally, the movie is Who Invited Charlie? Everyone check that out. It is on demand. Tell us about the movie and anything else you want to plug. Oh, no, no, no, it's it's a really fun movie. It's about a guy who's like doesn't have his act together and he reunites with an old friend and then during the pandemic seeks out that old friend's house for shelter uninvited.

Well, it's it's kind of like, what about Bob or Uncle Bach or Plain Strings and Automobiles and it's it's it's really funny and sweet and light. And it's a quick watch. I'm really proud of it. I'm going to watch it this weekend. I saw it last night. I saw it on on Apple. Oh, yeah.

Oh, good. That's a that's a good sign, I guess. And now I'm like very excited. One of the funniest guys. Oh, thank you guys so much for having me. I really, really love God bless what a treat. And hey, that'll do for this episode of Doughboys. I'm down the next time.

The Spoonman, Mike Mitchell, I'm Nick Weigar. Happy eating. Yeah. On the next Doughboys double Munch Madness 2023. The tournament of champions bowl continues in the Poké region. Wow, bowl. Oscar Montoya joins to decide which bowl is best, Poké Bar or Sweet Fin Wigs. Wow, which bowl will advance to take on the quarter final match one winner, Kava?

Find out Tuesday only at patreon.com slash Doughboys. Sources for the intro are in the episode description.