Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster - Ep 138: Dane Baptiste

Episode Date: March 2, 2022

We’re ordering this episode sunny side up, as stand-up comic and ‘Sunny D’ star Dane Baptiste dines at the dream restaurant. And remember: we’ve all got bellies and we all do sh*ts. Listen to Dane’s podcast ‘Dane Baptiste Questions Everything’ on Acast or wherever you listen to podcasts. Follow Dane on Twitter @danebaptweets and Instagram @danesnaptiste Recorded and edited by Ben Williams for Plosive.Artwork by Paul Gilbey (photography and design) and Amy Browne (illustrations).Follow Off Menu on Twitter and Instagram: @offmenuofficial.And go to our website www.offmenupodcast.co.uk for a list of restaurants recommended on the show.Watch Ed and James's YouTube series 'Just Puddings'. Watch here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, listeners of the Off Menu podcast. It is Ed Gamble here from the Off Menu podcast. I have a very exciting announcement. I have written my first ever book. I am absolutely over the moon to announce this. I'm very, very proud of it. Of course, what else could I write a book about? But food. My book is all about food. My life in food. How greedy I am. What a greedy little boy I was. What a greedy adult I am. I think it's very funny. I'm very proud of it. The book is called Glutton, the multi-course life of a very greedy boy. And it's coming out this October, but it is available to pre-order now, wherever you pre-order books from. And if you like my signature, I've done some signed copies,

which are exclusively available from Waterstones. But go and pre-order your copy of Glutton, the multi-course life of a very greedy boy now. Please? And if you just preheat the oven of chat, and we can slide in the Turkey of Fun. Welcome to the Off Menu podcast. Oh, Ed Gamble. Before we started recording, you said, I've got an intro, but it's awful. And you did not disappoint. That was the worst one you have ever done. What's wrong, man? As it came out, I was like, actually, this is way better than I thought. The Turkey of Fun. How do you imagine the Turkey of Fun? What do you imagine that? It's like a normal Turkey, but it's got sunglasses on. It's like the one Monica put on her head

in Friends. Yeah, okay, fair enough. Yeah, happy with that? Yeah, we'll heat that up. Yeah, although the sunglasses being on it in the oven scares me because they'd melt, wouldn't they? Yeah, but also you kept the head on as well. I mean, the whole thing is just a full Turkey. Oh, no, I'm imagining the sunglasses are on the body of the Turkey, and the Turkey is prepared for the oven. Like Monica reference, yes. Yeah, and the oven of chat is it's like a normal oven, but instead of like heat and flames, it's just loads of people talking, which generates the heat. Okay, well, it's actually worse now that you've explained it. Yeah, and I saw I thought that as I said, all the people talking. Yes, I mean, it's probably quite confusing if someone's never

listened to this podcast before. James, can you please pull this back from the brink and explain what the hell we're doing here? Yes, we on often on the off menu podcast, we welcome any guest. It's okay, we can do it. Come on. To the dream restaurant. And we asked them the favorite ever starter main course side dish drink and dessert. And this week, our guest is Dane Baptiste. Dane Baptiste, the brilliant stand up comedian. It's a pleasure to have Dane in the dream restaurant. We've known him for a long time. The brilliant comic can't wait to hear what he thinks about food. He did his own sitcom, Sunny D, he had a show called famous on BBC three. He's got a podcast called Dane Baptiste questions everything which me and Ed have done.

But what food does he like to eat? That's the question that we'll be asking him in this episode of the off menu podcast. But there's a secret ingredient that we don't like. And if the guest says the secret ingredient, we kick them out of the dream restaurant. Different ingredient every week. This week, secret ingredient that we will kick Dane Baptiste out for if he features it in his menu is chopped peal. Chopped peal, of course. You find it in in mince meat and mince pies now and again in Christmas puddings. Sometimes in a bag of raisins, it's just knocking around in there. Yeah, I don't like the chopped peal. It's too hard. I don't like the flavor of it. I don't get me wrong. Sometimes peal is quite nice and stuff. Candied peal is nice. Candied peal is nice.

Sometimes there's like, you know, zest is nice. Zest. Oh, zest is a whole other thing though, isn't it? It gets its own word. Yeah. People even describe good stuff as zesty, you know. No one describes it as chopped pealy. Yeah. Oh, it's so pealy. I thank you. That's bad stuff is pealy. When your skin peels, people don't go, Oh, good stuff. Good news. Your skin's peeling. But if your skin looks zesty, people will compliment you. Oh, yeah. If your skin comes off in shreds, like zest shreds, people are like, Oh, very zesty today. So zesty. So if Dane says zest, fine. Well, I think we reward him. If Dane says zest, what do we do? Give him a little kiss? I think we bring him in on the restaurant. He gets to be one of the owners. Okay. Legally. Yeah,

because we kick him out if he says peal. Yeah. We bring him into the business if he says zest. Okay. The business of zest. Yes. I'm okay with that, James. That's fine. Good. Signed off ratified as the co-owner of the restaurant. I'm on board. Look, let's get on with it. Let's see if we're going to have an enemy or a business partner. This is the off menu menu of Dane Baptiste. Welcome Dane Baptiste to the Dream Restaurant. Oh, thank you for having me. Thank you for having me. I'm glad I've got a reservation. It's a hard place to get into, but the genie's puff out of his lamp took a long time there. Welcome Dane Baptiste to the Dream Restaurant. We've been

expecting you for some time. Thank you, genie. I made reservations a long time ago, so I'm happy that I finally was able to visit. I'm alone though, unfortunately, but it's based on experience. I'll bring a guest another next time, but I'm just happy to be here. What guest would you like? Who's your dream guest? Great question. Straight away. Dream dining guest, because this is a dream restaurant, Dane. You don't need to commit to being alone at this restaurant. If you want to bring a dream guest, we can match them up for you. No, I'm fine. I don't force anybody. I'm not too particular about guests. My requisites for dinner guests are just people that want to eat and good for conversation.

I do like that, given the option of choosing anyone hypothetically from throughout history, alive or dead, any possible guest to have dinner with, and you went with, no, I'm all right. I'll just go alone. Yeah, I'll go alone. Do you dine alone a lot, Dane? Yeah. I find myself down on the road especially. I sort of live alone, so a lot of time I'll order stuff in and try and get actually quite nice meals from Deliveroo and the such. But yeah, a lot of time, they're meals for one. Sometimes I actually find eating alone is quite a nice experience as well sometimes. Great opportunity to people watch as well. Yeah. Yeah. Like more and more natural habitat than people eating and grazing. So yeah, it's a nice

experience. Just when you're talking about eating alone after gigs or before gigs. Normally, I'll just take food with me and then I'll come back home straight after the gig. So I don't eat alone then, but it just brings back a terrible memory of once I did a gig in Stratford-upon-Aven. I was staying over. The gig was quite early. I went to get some food afterwards, sat down on a table by myself. There was a couple on a table next to me and they were chatting about the gig I was just on at. They were going through the lineup and they went, ah, the guy on second wasn't very good and that was me. I wanted to just throw my drink on the floor and go, look, it's me. I'm literally here. Yeah. Right. So why would you not want to eat alone? That's the kind of people

that are out there in this cold, cold world. Of course you want to eat alone. You want to be joined by these kind of people that spend their dining experience destroying the dreams and self-esteem of others. I wouldn't know. You could have been like, maybe I was fucking hungry. Maybe that's why I couldn't give you 100% because I was starving. It's very hard to perform when you're malnourished. Let them know that. Did they tip their waiter? I bet they didn't. Yeah. No, they definitely didn't. What I did do in the end, Dane, was I genuinely took a picture of them and put it on Twitter. That's how you do it, Ed. Dane, if you want to people watch while you eat, do you want us to put some people into the dream restaurant for you so you can have a little

peak? And if so, what's your favorite type of people to people watch on? People on a date, I guess. Yeah. I just like to find out what kind of conversations people have. I think, obviously, a lot of time, people's basis for coupling and relationships can be a lot more of a physical one based on how people look or what their sexual prowess is like. But even me and my friends, when we kind of ponder celebrity coupling, they're kind of like, what did these people discuss about dinner? Because I think that's just the most common practice that most people do. And it's like the cornerstone relationships, like obviously, all relationships and new ones are different. But the main thing is finding someone that you can share a bed and a meal with. I think

it's a big part of relationships. And so I would like to see how people kind of react and how they interact and, you know, behind the veil of pomposity and pageantry and expensive clothes and perfumes and tannins and lotions. Who are these people who are doing a very basic thing of eating? You can tell a lot about somebody by the way they eat, I think. I would want the couple having a breakup in the room. Yeah, that's good. That's an absolute goldmine. Have you seen that before? Maybe once or twice, I thought that might be happening, but you're not sure. You're just going, or they're having an argument and you're like, oh man, they're upset with each other. I quite like those couples who have clearly been together for a long time. Now, there's two types

here, the silent couples. So it's either they're silent because they hate each other or they're silent because they're very content and you can immediately tell. Absolutely. Yeah. And I love just imagining that they're 40 years together of absolute misery. Some couples are just food is their reason for bonding. So I like those couples. You might go to a buffet and stuff, they're quite small and they're not talking because there's food to eat and they don't waste in time and waste in respiration when they could be putting food into their mouth and down their gullet. So I like those people like that as well, where they're just like, it works because they both like to eat and if they find somewhere good to eat, that's all that matters. I like that type

of person as well. It's an episode of Cheers where I think it's Sam and Diane, but it might be another couple. They've not yet slept with each other and for some reason they can't because like, I don't know, they're too busy. And so every time they're together, they just eat loads and they're trying to figure out why they're eating so much and then someone breaks it down that they're doing it because they can't have sex. So they're just eating all the time. So now whenever I see a couple of these stuff in their faces, I'm like, man, I guess haven't bound in a while. It's the only two things we refer to as an appetite is our sexual appetite and our appetite for food. Normally, your partner has a headache, you go to the fridge. So it's always filling the

hole. It's always a good indication of a good burgeoning relationship. It's when you both start putting on weight because you've been happily stuffing your faces and snacks all the time whilst you're flexing and chilling. So I think there's a real integral link between food and relationships. If someone lets you eat off their plate, very good way of telling what kind of person they are. If someone's like, but I ordered this one, I'm like, all right, fine. Then you can pay your own bill then. So what does it say about you then that you're eating in your flat alone a lot? That I really like to people watch with a certain level of sensory deprivation in that I don't want to smell them or hear them or have them look at me. I was thinking of the link between that and

your sexual appetite. Does that mean you just like you like to order in? Well, basically, I think Ed is making out that you're pounding it. You're pounding it. I mean, you know, it's let's say I'm watching my weight, if you will. You know, Ed, I'm nutrition. Between that nourishing, if you will, I am observing some intermittent fasting, whichever appetite you're referring to, where I say everything in moderation. Yeah, I think you're right. I think that's perfect. But then I also say five a day. So don't listen to me. We always start with still a spark in water. But just so you know, I'm just asking if you want still a spark in water. I'm not making out that that's what you ejaculate or anything.

I'm not going off the back of what we've just said. I'm not going still a spark in water. I wonder what sparkling semen is a symptom of James A. Casper. I mean, I'm absolutely fascinated carbonating your seed. Yeah, fizzy juice. Why is that not a thing yet? Yeah. What is that one? That's true. There must be some like pervy scientist who's invented a pill that you can take that makes it fizzy, right? Right? Because then at least then you're like, don't shake it. Don't shake it. It will go everywhere. Like a champagne bowl. You're like, imagine there's like a, actually, if jizz was fizzy, that would be a great way of indicating you've had a good time. They'd be like, you know, winning Formula One. They're like,

Ah, yeah. Pole position, if you will. Putting your thumb over it. Here you go. Here's the term, fizzy jizz. Oh, sorry, Benito. Apologies, Benito. We can't see him on the Zoom, but he was shaking his head. But we know he's shaking his head. He's definitely shaking his head. He would not be looking at the press. He'd be taking his headphones off and telling his partner, oh, they're talking about fizzy jizz again, but still a spark in water for you, Dave Baptiste, before your meal. May I have still, please? You may. May I also have with ice and a slice? A slice of anything in particular,

or is that dealer's choice? Surprised me, but with incitrus boundaries. That's key because you don't know what this journey is going to do. James, if you were offered the choice, if Dan said, put a slice of anything you want in my still water, what are you going for? Slice of ham. Slice of ham. Yeah. Nice slice of ham. Maybe slice of cake. Yeah. But I'd put it, you know, like I do with a slice of lemon on the rim of the glass. So I'd put a cake that's sitting on the rim. Do you remember this is Dan's dream meal, not yours? Well, if you leave it up to the, if it's waiter's choice. I first heard the term ice and a slice when I was a little kid and my auntie and uncle just

like started doing it at home. They put a glass in front of me. They said, I saw the slice and I absolutely lost my mind at how cool it was to say I saw the slice. I absolutely loved it because it right. It's still your humor. I was just like, that is brilliant. They just said ice and a slice because it's got a slice of lemon and some ice in it. I absolutely loved it. Blew my mind. Me too. I could have said, and a slice of lemon, but ice and a slice is a so much better. That's like, it's like, I'm right there next to him in the bar, right? Ice and a slice, buddy. Yeah. Would you say that in a restaurant environment to a waiter? Would you say ice and a slice? It would depend on the restaurant. I think if I was in maybe a Browns or like, you know, I guess like a steakhouse,

I might say ice and a slice. But if I was in maybe like in Nobu, I might not go ice and a slice. I'd probably say like, with a stick of cucumber. Yeah. One of those places. There are some things on the podcast, quite a few things actually, that I get way more excited than Ed about. And ice and a slice is absolutely one of them. I can't believe we've had this many episodes and no one said the term ice and a slice yet. And I'm so glad to hear it. I'll tell you why I didn't get excited, James. I'm sorry. It took me somewhere else. When you said the first time I heard the phrase ice and a slice, I was suddenly transported back to the first time I heard the term on the rocks. Okay. So on the rocks, I now know means with ice. But the first time I heard the term on the rocks

was in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. When he asks for something on the rocks and they bring it to him with loads of little pebbles, a glass with loads of pebbles in it. But I hadn't heard the term on the rocks. So I saw that and I thought, what's he complaining about? That's what he's asked for. I think that's why I first heard the term as well. Scotch on the rocks, right? Yeah. Scotch on the rocks. Bob Hoskins. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's like the first time I heard the term neat when someone was describing a drink. And I was just like, I mean, it's, it's anything but neat. It's not neat at all. It's really not neat at all. It could be further from the truth. It's definitely not neat. If aftershock was neat, it wouldn't always end up on the floor.

It's very, very, very untidy. And we know that because we often have to do gigs in nightclubs during the week when they're not nightclubs, but they're putting comedy on in them. And we have to walk around on the floors and like the soles of your shoes nearly get ripped off by the dry aftershock. It's horrendous. It really is. I mean, aftershock, that must be like aged in like kryptonite barrels. It's just because it takes down super many really destroys people. I did a gig at a place in Sheffield and commented during the gig at how sticky the floors were because every time I could hear people in the dark get up to go to the toilet and stuff like that. And next time I went there, they'd changed the floor since last time,

but when they pulled up the old floor, they cut out a block of it and engraved it to me and I now have it in my flat. I've got the sticky floor. I've got a square of the sticky floor and it says to James, here's your very own section of the stickiest dance floor in the world. And it's on my wall. Oh my God. That's disgusting. I can't believe you actually kept it. Yeah, I kept it. I kiss it every day. I'm sure that's pretty much a biohazard to have that on the wall, but then it might be a very good deterrent. I mean, you know, not going to have any vermin come in the house once they get a whiff of the sticky floor. And they'll get confused because they'll go in and go, the floor is on the wall. Do you know what I mean? There you go,

because they'll get the sugar, they'll get stuck on the wall and then they'll smell their ancestors. That's a new game show I'm working on. It's a bit like who do you think you are, but with a more slapstick approach. Yeah, like this. Welcome to Smell Your Ancestors. In front of you are five boxes. Daddy Dyer there, just huffing on Henry VIII's pants. Yeah. Fuck, you know, that's got a bit of a whiff to it, isn't it? That's Ponging that is, mate. Ponging. That's got to be Uncle Henry. That's Ponging that is. Pop it up, it's all bread. Pop it up, it's all bread. Dane Baptiste. Pop it up, it's all bread. Good question. I am going to go for Popodoms. Will they come with the obligatory chutneys and

sauces? They come with whatever you want. Oh, yes. I will go for the Popodoms then. They come with a little silver sauce pot thing that rotates, but we can add as many sauce chambers to that as you wish. So it depends what chutneys, what chutneys would you like? What's your favorite chutneys? What's your favorite sauces with the pops? I mean, I normally go for the typical, most variations are on the mango chutney, and I think there's the lime pickle and stuff as well. I love myself some raw onion at Curry House, so get that in there as well, both white and red. Funny how wine and onions are the same thing, but they're not made from the same thing. Right? Yeah. When you say they're the same thing,

you mean just some colors, right? Yeah. They come in white and red. Yeah. White and red, yeah. But then I guess red onions are purple, then so is red wine. Yeah. I feel like you're one separate way from insinuating that wine is made of onions. I feel like that's where you're headed. No, no, because that's vinegar. So there we got there. We got there. I know there was something in between there somewhere. One synapses off. So to answer the question, all the chutneys, please. I taught my nephews a song about wine. Did you? Cool. Yeah, they like learning simple songs. It's over at the dinner table, but it was a family meal, and my dad got really annoyed, and he hated the song, and he wanted them to stop singing

it. It's just them singing on a loop. They don't know how old they were at the time, but they both started singing. Wine, wine, wine. It's very alcoholic. Wine, wine, wine. It's very alcoholic. Over and over again. It's a really good song. You wonder why your dad was like, I've had enough of this song. Was there was someone drinking wine at the table? Is that how this started? Yes. Someone was drinking wine, and they asked about the wine and what it tasted like, and I think maybe the person just said alcoholic. It tastes alcoholic. We started singing wine, wine, wine. It's very alcoholic, and we didn't stop singing it.

And the wine kept flowing. Yeah, the wine kept flowing. I like making up little songs. Ed knows that. I like it. It's the most melodic intervention I've ever heard of. So, you know. Starter. Are you choosing proper domes because the meal ahead might suit it? No, this is a nice option I wanted to go for, I think. I'm someone when it comes to dining, I try to have the most immersive and broad experience as possible. I'm not typically like an out of cart person, but I'd say for this starter, then I'd like, so I used to work in media sales as an agency executive, which meant I'd take people like client lunches and stuff, and discovered this restaurant in London called Hackersam, which I think is one of my favourite,

and one of their stars includes a dim sum platter, which is what I would like to have for my starter. It's got like a shumai, which is like an open dumpling, and then it's got like one prawn dumpling, one's got like a fish roe on it, one's got like a black cod kind of one, and like a vegetable dumpling, but they are amazing, all different types and textures. It's like a little rainbow in a nice little steamer, and it's a wonderful one. It comes with also like a red chili paste and a little bit of light soy as well for dipping, and you also get like a Chinese vinegar as well for dipping, and so I'm a real big fan, big fan of the dim sum, so I'll go for that for the start. Oh man, I love it. I think I came to dim sum relatively late,

maybe. I absolutely love dim sum now. We're near a Chinese supermarket and regularly just go and sweep out the freezers and just grab everything we can and do and do dumpling night. Oh my god. So good. And the funny thing, I think in Chinese culture dim sum is more of like a brunch thing and more of a light lunch thing, but I'm just like, can I have about 20 different types please? They're amazing. Like they're so good, like whether it's shumai ones or prawn dumplings, gyoza as well, will be known again. I could do a bit of gyoza, but I'm a big fan of Chinese dumplings, so dim sum platter for sure. But I think you're right. I think you've hit on something there. The British attitude to things is take a really nice cuisine from another culture,

and then the twist we add is having loads of it. Yeah, loads and loads and loads. You know that delicious dish you've invented? I'm going to eat that until I'm sick. Also, can I have some chips of it as well, please? Yeah, also some chips as well, please. That'd be nice. What's the most dim sum you've ever eaten, Dane? Oh, good question. I think the most I ever had, no regrets by the way, but I think the two with my former housemate, I think we did maybe nine or 10, just a stack where I couldn't even see him, basically. And just the weight and kind of like a lean entire pizza bringing it to us. And yeah, we ate it all. Dim sum is so good. It's probably one of the only, I don't think I've ever eaten turnip under any other circumstances, but pan fried turnip cake

that you get from dim sum restaurants are so good. Making turnip into a delicacy, I think is amazing. I think it's because they put a cake in the name, right? Well, I think that definitely helps. Yeah, you'll always look at a cake, yeah. Yeah, I'm not going anywhere near it unless there's cake. If someone says I've made this turnip dish, I'm like, well, I don't want to fart for the next 48 hours, but they put a little bit of cake in it, lovely. Yeah, it's up there with one of the cake, as opposed to other Chinese dishes that have become cakes that aren't so good, like rice cakes. How can two words come together and make something so disgusting? Separately so nice. Separately so nice. I love rice, I love cake, but come together, oh my god,

it's like when cousins marry. I love both of those cousins, but they shouldn't be together. Separately, yeah, right? Come together, it's an abomination. What about chocolate-covered rice cakes? I'm not going by the metaphor. Forget the metaphor. I'm just talking about actual, like, what about... Yeah, if the cousin's fucking they make a baby and you cover it in chocolate, fine. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what it is. You don't like the chocolate ones, though? You don't have a part of the chocolate ones and think this is all right? I quite like the chocolate ones. Up until I get past the, you know, that small millimeter of chocolate and then I'm like, oh, this is a fucking rice cake. It's just not doing this to people. I'd rather just have a rice cake

and, you know, come to terms with the fact that I need to go on a diet or that I need to watch what I eat because that's why I'm eating. There's no other reason why you should be eating a rice cake. Sure, right. I feel like, you know, not with pop chips being available everywhere, that's the new one. Pop chips, that's where it's at. You like pop chips? I love pop chips. I've got a lot of pop chips in the flat at the minute. Yeah, me too. Nice. They're sponsoring us for an episode, Dane, and they delivered what I would call a pub's back room worth of pop chips. Pop chips, that amazing company that makes those delicious facts. Man, you guys are lucky. I really wish I could do a brand partnership with pop chips. But, you know, perfect example of the perfect

marriage of two delicious things. Pop, enjoyed by Northern children everywhere. Chips, enjoyed by both Northern children everywhere. Chips, enjoyed globally and in particular, enjoyed alongside all world cuisine by English tourists. Put them together and you've got pop chips. Everyone loves them. Well, Dane, look, I think we can do a proper campaign for you to get a load of free pop chips. I think we can get the listeners to tweet pop chips and tell them that they should send you loads of free beans because you've talked about them. Listeners, I will be forever indebted to you and I can assure you that if you were to continue your patronage by coming to a show, pop chips would be available as canopies. That would be great. Go and see Dane about

feast on tour, get a free bag of pop chips. Yeah. Although I think they've stopped doing the buffalo wing flavor, which is upsetting. We've got two campaigns. Yeah. Bring it back as well. Bring it back. Bring back the buffalos. I've been having to tell people that I'm currently involved in two campaigns about pop chips. Some people say I spread myself too thin, but pop chips are thin too and they're fine, so why can't I be? Imagine this, Dane. Close your eyes first. Dim some flavored pop chips. How does that make you feel? Do you think you'd like that? Each pop chip in the bag is a different dumpling, so you don't know what you're going to get each time. So it's like rebels. So it's like the platter, a hack-a-san dim sum platter flavored

bag of pop chips. I really like that. I like that. Yeah. Because I feel like dim sum stuffed with pop chips doesn't look the same way. No, they go soggy, wouldn't they? Yeah, they go really soggy, you know, the whole steam thing. So yeah, I think yeah, dim sum flavored pop chips, I'm here for that. Yeah. Great. Campaign number three. That's campaign number three. This is why I couldn't afford to eat with anybody else. We've got business to do here, guys. This is a business lunch. It's a business meal. It's a business lunch. Keep your mistakes so we can all climb on this. Let's get on to your main course now, Dane. It's come down to two very narrow options, but I think the best meal is always home cooked. This is what I believe. And so my main course is

basically elbow macaroni with brown stew chicken. And that's what my mum used to make, and it's like a comfort food. It is very, very nice. I actually had the opportunity to make this with Levi Roots last year. Wow. Oh my God, did I shit myself when I made it? But he helped me improve the recipe and stuff as well. And it's one of these things where I enjoy it as an adult. I enjoyed it as a child. You can give it to kids because, you know, kids can be quite fussy with food, you know, as their palates are in that development. And yeah, it's just a really nice, really nice comfort food that is to make. I think you're right about the home cooking thing. I love eating at restaurants, obviously, but when you're really missing good cooking, you're like,

I just want some home cooked food. I just want my mum to make something, please. Yeah. And that's what I go to. Or Levi Roots. Yeah, or Levi Roots. So I mean, hopefully one of them will choose not to listen to this particular episode. But that's between my mum and Levi. But it was a real close tie between either that or there is a Black Cod in miso sauce that I like from a place called Rocco, which is so nice. And they also do another, I think it's the Lay in Seabass in Chinese Champagne Honey. And those are my other two options. Because I remember eating those and thinking, my God, this is the life. And I think it was one day where, you know, I felt like my stomach was

beginning to rest on my space bar at work. And I was like, you need to stop over flying, Dennis. That's why I say, hold me was bad because it's, you know, may not be put together with the same kind of, I guess, polish when it's finished in the same presentation. But that meal does come with love. And someone's saying, you're getting a bit fat, mate. You know, they won't tell you that in a restaurant, but you know, at home. Mum will be like, you need to cut back a bit. And the key is, guys, is it's because the brown sugar chicken is a natural gravy producer. And just having that pasta with the little drizzle of gravy. Ah, man. Is it just like boiled pasta? There's not like a sauce with that or anything. It goes with the chicken. Yeah. Does the chicken with the pasta?

And also it worked for me as like as a student meal as well, where, you know, money's a bit tighter and stuff. And also cooking conditions for most students, it's just inhospitable. Like, but as we know, most student kitchens will not pass a minus one hygiene rating. So to be able to boil pasta and maybe have some leftovers, heat that up. There's just a little gravy on it. And it's the best. And I almost do use the gravy is not kind of like a stirring sauce and stuff as well. So, but it is so simple and so nice. And I can see myself eating that, like a lot of, you know, alongside like my nephew, who's so much younger than me. And we're just like, this is the life, young man. It's the life. This, this is my equivalent of like having my first

beer with like a nephew and my son is like, yeah, this is it in a plastic bowl too. Just like mama used to give me. Just to let you know, Dane, I love that description of the food. James has been sat there for the last five minutes, desperate to ask you a question about Levi Roots. James. Yes. It happened again, because when he said Levi Roots, James went, oh, wow. And then his head went to everything he wants to know about Levi Roots. And he completely glazed over. The Levi Roots anthology all the way from like, Dragonstone all the way to now because I see James in the background going, I'm sorry. I could even hear, I could even hear the regular sauce jingle in his head. I could hear it. Yeah. I was thinking, I wonder if I could get some of

my songs to Levi and get him to start singing, why, why, why it's very alcoholic and stuff like that. I could see that. Reggae, Reggae Wine. Reggae, Reggae Wine. What I was going to say was, Ed, can you guess what I want to ask Dane? Because I knew that. I knew that, Ed knew. I already knew that, I wanted to ask about Levi Roots. I wonder, Ed, if from Dane's original description of the dish, if you can guess the other thing that stuck into my head is something that I wanted to ask about and talk about. I'll be very impressed if you know this, but it's quite possible that you would think that's something he would pick up on. I also wanted to ask about elbow macaroni. I was going to guess that. Yes. Yeah. I was like, oh, I've never heard it called elbow macaroni

before, but I know exactly what Dane's talking about and I want to dig into elbow macaroni. If it's different from other macaroni, because I hadn't heard that term and I just immediately liked the term elbow macaroni as well. Yeah, it's very specific because macaroni, I think most people regard macaroni as long tubules of pasta, whereas elbow macaroni, they're just slightly, ever so slightly curves. I don't necessarily know if there's always different tastes, but I think it's very something, very psychosomatic in my head whereby it just tastes very different. It's not the same. In the same way, to me, it's the same as when people go, what the fuck's this? And they go, it's ketchup. And you go, no, this is not ketchup,

this is tomato sauce. Okay. So unless you've got another 56 varieties in that kitchen, you get to spend shit off my table. Yeah. So it just makes a big difference. So to get good elbow macaroni craft, do good stuff. And normally it's so weird because I'm lactose intolerant, but I'll buy a box of instant macaroni cheese because they do a particular type of elbow macaroni that I like. It's also the type that you normally use for kids when kids do macaroni pictures and stuff. But yeah, you can buy really inexpensive stuff. There's probably about four different types of macaroni in my kitchen. Now, what's he like? Did you get on with him and did you sing in his songs? Right. He is very cool. I got on with him very well because I was very

nervous. What was it for, Don? He has a podcast. And so he invites guests to cook and then just like, you know, just talk while you're cooking, which was very difficult when I was trying my best not to fuck up the recipe and then trying to multitask and answer the questions and stuff. But yeah, he was really cool, man. For me, the biggest fear was it's because the dish, as I understand it, I don't measure it in terms of like ingredients. I've just gone from following memory. And so when they're like, you need to send him the recipe in advance. And I'm like, how do you recipe? My mother doesn't recipe. She just goes, that's enough or a little bit more. So I have to kind of find a weird piece of meal recipe between the stuff I knew and the stuff

I could find on the internet. And then he was kind of like, don't worry about that. I don't even need it anyway. And then he made it. It was amazing. But he's a really cool guy and really fun and naturally a very good cook. Did he try and put reggae, reggae sauce in everything? No, he didn't. He was like, it was just like a nice accoutrement. So we made stewed chicken and stuff. I was the only thing I was concerned was that he put a Scotch bonnet in the rice to win it to steam. But yeah, came out really, really nicely. I'm actually not that famous spicy food yet. But I'm getting there. I've been improving over the last three or four years. So when you saw the Scotch bonnet, you were scared. Yeah, I was like, oh, I'm going to embarrass myself and I'm

going to sweat or shit myself in front of Levi Roots. And I feel like I don't know how much of a compliment you yourself is to a chef. I feel like it should be one though, right? If it's going the other way, right? Because it's almost like I ate so much I wasn't even paying attention to my bowel movements when I needed the shit. So I would rather sit here and shit myself than leave the table where you're cooking food. Chefs who are listening, let us know. We've had a few chefs on this podcast. We've never asked them that. I've never thought about how inappropriate the name Scotch bonnet is for something spicy. Yeah, it's a really sweet name. It's really up there, Fizzy Jizz. Fizzy Jizz, all over your Scotch bonnet. I mean, yeah, I guess Fizzy Jizz doesn't sound spicy either.

No, no. I mean, it's tunnel tingle, but yeah. I was thinking when you're talking about art on the wall, once when I was at primary school, we had to make our favorite meal, like a picture of our favorite meal that our parents cooked us for them to display on the wall. So when people came around, they'd be like, oh, look, it's all their favorite meals. And my mom's a great cook and she cooked loads of amazing stuff when I was little, especially, right? And I panicked and couldn't remember anything she'd ever cooked me. So I made peas with cheese sauce out of crepe paper. But a terrible artist didn't think it through. I made all the peas individually. Only the bottom layer stuck onto the plate. So when it went up on the wall, they all just fell off the plate.

So it's a bowl of cheese. Bowl of cheese, which to be fair, was my favorite meal. To be fair, he loved that. Yeah, I feel like at one point that could have been your favorite meal. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. It's well known on this podcast that I love cheese. I used to get pat lunch to school and then I used to go to the dining hall and have proper lunch as well. I had to sneak in as I didn't see because I knew I had pat lunch. And quite often I go to the salad bar and just get a bowl of cheese. Bowl of grated cheese. Hey, listen, it's your life, Ed. You know what? It's your life. And I've heard worse. You know, people have like, there's syringes where you can inject cheese and stuff into things and people do that. I used to work at Iceland and

I used to have an inside out cheeseburger, which was basically a burger with a cheese filling. I didn't know you used to work at Iceland. Yeah, used to work at Iceland. And I don't know. I have a theory that like, at some point at culinary school, Heston Blumenthal had a best friend. And his friend may have come from more modest background than Heston. And they would come up with all these crazy ideas. And Heston was like, I'm going to go and work and, you know, create things for his cryogenic storage and fridges and like, and they would, the guy was like, what the fuck happened to you, Heston? You forgotten who you are. He's like, come on, buddy. He's like, no, we said we're going to do this to give back to the people. Remember the five bird

medley, the turkey stuff with a goose stuff with a chicken stuff with a hamster. You were supposed to be part of that too, Heston. What happened to the inside out cheeseburger? You said we were going to do. And they went in separate ways. Yeah, I suppose you're right. Iceland is the sort of the cheaper equivalent of Heston style mad stuff. Chicken tikka lasagna, right? Yeah, it's like, you know, like the fat duck is like the fat pigeon. That's what Iceland is. Yeah, there's a lot of snobbery. People just look at Heston going, oh, it's a genius. I can't wait to see what he's done. And people turn in their nose up at the inside out cheeseburger as if it's stupid. As if it's stupid. If you went to the fat duck and they served that, everyone would be like,

oh, how did he come up with this idea? So good. Yeah, it's like, you can get snail porridge at the fat duck. And that's amazing. But if you get a capilla in your rice pudding, oh, it's for Charles. It's disgusting. Things got changed, guys. We've all got bellies. We all take shits. We're all people at the end of the day. That was the original name for this podcast. We all take shits. We've all got bellies and we all take shits. We all take bellies. We all get shits. Exactly. That could be the name of a nice tour, though. We've all got bellies. We've all got shits. And then you can open up every tour day. And you're like, have a look at this shit. You want to know what created this? Welcome, chef. Leave my roots. And look at that stall.

That's healthy and regular. Well, I use a lot of natural ingredients in my stuff. Allow me to demonstrate. And we get the whole audience to stand up. But we all get our bellies out at the beginning because we've all got bellies. We all got bellies. We all take a shit. Let me get straight, though. The format for the show, your tour show, is that you go on, you show the audience a picture of some shit that you've done. And then you get them to guess what celebrity chef cooked you the meal that made you do the shit. And then you bring the celebrity chef out and they talk the audience through the picture with the shit and talk about how their cooking influenced that shit. Now, James, I know how it sounds, but I would submit

to you that maybe two or three years ago, if I told you there was a game show where people dress up in masks and you can't see their face and they sing songs on TV. And then the game is to guess who they are. And they don't win any record contract at the end of that. And it's just a competition to see who's behind the mask. You'd say, what? But that's the last singer. Yeah, absolutely. I don't think they're quite the same. Not exactly the same because one comes at your mouth and one comes at your bum. But I'm just saying, you know, at the end of my tour, it was like, turns out this big shit was done by a big fact dude. You'd be like, yeah, that sounds right. So that's the end. The end of the tour,

the whole tour built up to you revealing that, and I quote, this big shit was taken by a big fact dude. Well, hold on. Now I'm getting confused. I thought the slide, I thought the slide you're showing them is a picture of a shit that you have done. And a celebrity chef cooked you a meal, you ate the meal, you did the shit. Oh, no, not what I've done. I've got a torture run, James. What an animal. It's like a celebrity takes a shit. And everyone's like, guess who's shit this is? So then that's the first hook, right? Then it's like, it's this person, turns out it's Divina McCall, let's say. So everyone's like, oh, they've never guessed. Divina, you seem so regular and healthy. What's your secret? I eat well, exercise well. Let's find out who made this

delicious meal that resulted in this delicious stall. It's Levi Roots. Now Levi's on the stage, he's like, and then he's like, then you add a Scotch bonnet and then Divina goes, that's what got me. That was it, right? And at the very least, people are there at least half an hour being like, what the fuck is going on? And then someone goes, I need to take a shit. And then someone goes, don't forget your camera. It's the level of audience engagement for everybody takes a shit or just be, you know, unmeasured. I think that's, I love the guessing element. I love that we're guessing who shit it is. So we've got the audience engaged then. Then the person who did the shit comes out and they've got to guess who made them do the shit. So they're guessing what chef cooked

them the meal that made the shit happen. My only problem with it is as an audience member is the picture of that shit is up for the whole show. No, I'll go back to the first slide, which is like the okay, which is a tour of the mosaic of like butts. Yeah. All the bellies is like alternate chessboards. Everybody's got a belly and everybody takes a shit. Now see butts and bellies, let's do it that way. That's an easier sell, right? That's nice. You call it butts and bellies. Yeah, rather than calling it everyone's shit. If I say butts and bellies, that can get through. I mean, I feel like there should be some sort of belly button pun there with butts, butt, button, belly butts. Belly butts on. I mean, actually, Jesonic could absolutely destroy me for

this, but like, I know we'll sell it to BBC and then when it's on the iPlayer, they'll be like, to find out more shit, press the belly button. And so yeah, that's great. And it is like a picture of someone's belly and their belly button is a butt. There you go. Or it's their butt and their aim. This is a belly button. Yeah, all right. I mean, yeah, I've really enjoyed this conversation. What's the side dish going to be? I think in the theme of what I'm going with now, I think it'll be a side of fried plantain. Oh, yeah. Plantain is, it's a literal gift from God. It's a vegetable that is delicious, continues to give back. Some say it is the bacon of the diaspora, you know, works the same way. You can have it any day or night. You can fry it,

have it sometimes crispy and slightly burned is even better. It's vegan as well. And you can have it at any meal, breakfast, lunch and dinner. And you can also make plantain chips. Yes. I think it might be the food that I think about the most, but never cook at home. And I've got to change that because I love it so much. It's so good. I think it's the same with a lot of people. It's like, and it's just like this perfect like window of ripeness for the ripe plantain that if you get it then when you fry it, it's naturally caramelized and charred. My goodness. I believe that manner from heaven was a misinterpretation or mistranslation and they meant planting from heaven. That's how good planting is. Yeah. You can't go wrong with it short of eating it raw. And I think

even then there's a whole thing now where you can like boil it and you can mash it up with avocado. And it's like amazing baby food. Obviously, the only thing I'm thinking of now is how funny I think manner from heaven is. Yeah. And I just want to talk about anything from heaven makes me laugh. I think you're aware, Ed. I find that heaven makes me laugh. Yeah. Heaven makes you laugh. Yeah. I really love it where people say they're in heaven. So now I just want to know what everyone's manner from heaven would be. For Dane, it would be plantain coming down from the sky. Yeah. Ed, what would you, if you were getting your manner from heaven, what would you hope to see coming down from the sky? So it's essentially what would I want to rain down from the sky, right?

Yes. But like, how familiar are you with the Bible, Ed? I'd say who are we talking? Jesus? Yeah. New Testament or Old Testament. Which, hang on, is he in both or just... He's in the new one. He's in the new one. Right. See, I'm more of a, I prefer the early work. So maybe actually just, what's he called in the first one? It's just God in part one. All right. Yeah. God. And then in a second one, it's Jesus. But he's also God because he's part of a Holy Trinity, which doesn't mean there is a sequel, Ed, even though the name implies there is a part three. But that's not happened yet. I'll wait for part three and then I'll read them all. Because I can't get into something if I don't know the end of it. Do you know what? That's a really

interesting existential point for most people. I'm way too... Because at the end of part two, there's some crazy post-credits shit and revelations. Literally. So yeah, I think most people are trying to find out what's going to happen in part three before they really sign up to the whole biblical, cinematic universe. So what is Manor from Heaven then, James? Well, so this is me now trying to remember from my Christian upbringing. I think there's a point where a group of people are traveling to the Promised Land, I think. And the camping overnight and stuff, and they're really, really hungry, haven't got any food. And one night, or at some point, just Manor from Heaven comes down from Heaven from the sky and they can eat

all that. So just comes down from Heaven for them and they get to eat the food from Heaven, straight from Heaven. And it's only one food? Yes. Right, it's the best food ever. It's really nice and it's filling, but it's also a little carolery. Then it's like Slurry's carbohydrate about the same time. Like it's fibrous and stuff as well. Before people said it was the best thing, before sliced bread, this was the sliced bread. That's how Manor from Heaven works. Because before people would be like, I've got this bread and people are like, I'm gonna fuck, we've got Manor at home. And people are like, this shit's already sliced. Game changer. That was when they started going, okay, well, now the phrase is best thing since sliced bread, but it was best

thing since Manor from Heaven. That's how it used to be. Yeah. Yeah. All right, eggs. You would like eggs to come down. They would splatter on the floor. No, they're fried already. You want fried eggs to come down from the sky? Yeah. It's probably the safest state for an egg to be in, coming down from the sky, right? Because you could just have like, you know, a laxer and just be like, and just catch it, right? And then you're good to go. Yeah, exactly. Well, just a bit of bread. It is straight in. Yes. A bit of bread on top. You've got all your tomato sauce and you've got your onions and stuff, like the shishu kind of just like, here you go. On the side. Like, perfect. Caught another one. Eggs. You would want fried eggs

coming down from the sky. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, fine. Manor from Heaven. Are they all the eggs sunny side up or any of them over easy? I don't like over easy. I don't know why people mess around with that sort of shit. It's just always sunny side up. I was blew my mind when the first time I went to America and people were going over easy, and they were being brought those eggs where you can't see that the yolk's in there. Yeah. And it's all, no, it should be sunny side up. You know, you need to be open and honest with your egg. Stop trying to conceal the yolk. Oh, yeah. I let that fly by the cheese injections. If there was a restaurant that exclusively injected cheese into like pastries, you'd go to that place, right? I'd go to the place that it directly

injects the cheese into me. Yeah. You've got another back alley saying, hey there. Hey, you like to party, buddy? Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Hey, buddy, you want to party? Also, like, Ed, you know, Ed has to inject himself pretty regularly anyway. So he could almost do it in front of friends and family, and they would assume, oh, Ed's doing one of his injections. Yeah. So you wouldn't even need to be a sneaky little, you know, going around, getting yourself your cheese. You could just do it in plain sight, and everyone would be like, oh, he's probably just doing one of his, give himself some insight. Exactly. Until they look, just look closely and see that I've screwed one of my needles onto the end of a Primula tube.

I can see it. I still, I think that's a good idea for a restaurant though, right? Like, you know, like Shake Shack every now and again, do that. They do different types of shakes and stuff. If you could get like a particular type of liquid cheese each month, a different cheese or a combination of cheese, and they're like, they leave stuff into the crust of like a slice, a pizza slice, or like in a croissant or muffin, that would you eat a muffin with a cheese, a melted cheese on their edge? There you go. Yes. Would you eat a donut filled with cheese? Oh, 100%. Man. And finally, would you eat a Magnum bar with a cheese centre? So like a chocolate, a choc ice, but with cheese in the middle instead of ice cream? Yeah. For the experience,

I would be like, you've got to try that once. If they've released it, I've definitely got to try it. I'm not sure I'd enjoy it. If in Edinburgh, they had like a deep fried Mars bar and then injected that with liquid camembert, you win? I think I might be dead. I think I might be in. Well, I'm not here to gut-shame Ed Gamble. I'm not here to gut-shame. This is a dream restaurant. You have whatever you want, sir. Ed, do you remember when we got sent that, did you get sent that dinner? Is it dinner ladies? The dinner ladies. Yes. Yeah, yeah. And they sent us a Scotch egg that you injected with like a tomato sauce before eating it. It was amazing. It was so good. I know some very, very good. I would go to a restaurant where

the whole concept of the whole thing is with every dish, you inject it with something, and you can choose what you inject it with. That's nice. You can order anything on the menu, and then you say, and I'd like that with this injection, please. Yeah. And they would bring you that along, and then you can inject it and eat whatever it is you want. That as a concept could work a lot better than you think, James. I think if you have like, for example, we have all the cheese selections you inject stuff with, and then various types of preserves and jams and syrups that you can inject stuff in with for dessert. And just like gravies as well. Absolutely. Gravies, any sauces. Gravies, rues. This is really good. We call it syringe with an

accent on the E. Yeah. Or IV. I think IV is a cool name as well. But it's not like the other IV. This is IV. The IV. Yeah. Right. That's good. Yeah. You could get it in a drip the stuff you're injecting in. There you go. The IV. The IV. Yeah. And then the fusion. And then, look, the oxygen bars, James, they cast. It could work. Remember those when people used to have oxygen bars? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I reckon we could do this. I mean, we better be careful with this. Someone's going to nick this idea off of us, because it would actually be pretty good. And then it's got all these injection restaurants will be like the new Shisha cafe. This is the best idea we've had on this podcast. Yeah, this is the best idea since the Glaze

curtain game show. Yeah. Well, if I give you a double inside out cheeseburger with both those patties injected with more cheese. Yes. Love it. Yeah, I'm on board. You believe in heaven now, James, they cast off. I believe in heaven. Bonito, don't put this episode out until we've properly made sure we copyrighted this idea. Now, well, I think I at least know one of the drinks that might be on your shortlist for your dream drink, because I've heard you talk about on stage before how much you like it. I don't know if milkshakes are going to be in the run in here, Dane, but I know you're a fan of the milkshake. Am I right? I am a big fan of the milkshake, and it's got to be in there. I'm going to keep it somewhat more classy and go for like a dirty

milkshake and add a double shot of Jack Daniels honey bourbon as well. I've stumbled upon a recipe for a lactose friendly milkshake as well now, because I've discovered that only make a strawberry ice cream. So I take a few scoops of that. I freeze some oat milk as well. So you've got cubes of oat milk, dollop of jam, some crushed ice, and then just maybe lactose free milk or soy milk, whichever one you choose, double shot of bourbon, put it in a blender. And my goodness, it is whipped to muck perfection. Sounds good. I love those shakes, hard shakes. I think they're called hard shakes. I like hard shakes like dirty lemonade and stuff as well. Do you know there's a restaurant called Sweet Chick, which had opened over here is a Naz's restaurant, the rapid Naza,

a chain restaurant called Sweet Chick. And they very recently opened in central before lockdown. And yeah, they used to do like the hard shakes and the like the dirty lemonade and stuff. And I really miss it, man. I'd never thought I'd be able to drink tamarind in a tamarind and juice, but there it was, with booze, live in a dream. So milkshakes definitely have to feature. I think milkshakes work as a perfect treat. They are both a drink and a dessert, refreshing, satisfying. And yeah, I've just gone through a very long, dark period of my life whereby my lactose intolerance has prevented me from being able to indulge in milkshakes unless I find vegan ones. Very few places do vegan milkshakes. And if any listeners have any clues as to where I can obtain vegan

milkshakes or any vegan milkshake manufacturers, then if you want a spokesperson, I'm all up for that kind of brand partnership. My goodness. And I'm this close to like inventing them myself out of frustration. People tend to be like infusing CBD into everything. And I was thinking that maybe I could be like, if Ben and Jerry's met Howard Marks, Mr. Nice, and then creating a whole new line of very nice organic CBD infused frozen treats, including milkshakes, you know, like the custards that you get, like Shake Shack, ice cream, sorbets. So imagine if your grandma has like, you know, some kind of arthritic pain, just give them a nice CBD infused ice pole, it can sit and shit out on a summer's day. I don't know if it's because we talked about

Levi Roots earlier on, but we are turning into entrepreneurs. We are coming up with so many business ideas. But you're saying we're coming up with so many business ideas. Dane's coming up with the ideas, but he's doing it in such an open way to make us feel part of the conversation that we feel like we've come up with the ideas as well. Hey, you guys have got the restaurant. I'm just coming to you with the ideas. Okay. That's all we do is innovation and, you know, levitation, as they say. They do say that, but you know, I think James has got all the logistics and stuff as well. So if you guys got a restaurant, this would be the perfect place to kind of, we let that kind of produce, see how it works. Look, I've got a notepad, all I've written

down is the IV restaurant. The IV restaurant. Don't let that go. First page of the notebook, blank notebook, completely new, the IV restaurant. In a few months time, when Ed sits down to write his new show, opens his notebook. That's still the only thing in there. What was that about? Oh, God. Oh, yeah. That's Dane's restaurant. I mean, surely there's a lot of money to be made in someone having a dairy-free milkshake chain or something like that. I'm telling you, the thing is, Dane, I like only ice cream. I don't really like that sort of thing. Like that doesn't fill me with joy. Sounds like frozen porridge. I know it. Jack Daniels, I don't really like, but you've put them together. It sounds lovely. It's like the opposite of cousin's fucking. Right?

It's the opposite of cousin's fucking. It's like two biodiverse strangers having consensual sex together. Yeah. Or just two cousins having a meal together and going home. Yeah. Or two cousins meeting platonically and maybe stumbling upon an idea for a frozen tree company. Yeah. Nice and normal stuff. Hey, here's another one. Liquor. People like liquor. People like rice. You put those together. That's licorice and it's a fucking abomination. Now, we come to your dessert and we've already, yo, we've got some clues maybe. We're probably not going to have a dairy-heavy dessert unless you've made it lactose-free. Quite a sweet drink already going into the dessert. I have a very sweet tooth, though, so I'm more than fine with this because I can't go for the

charcuterie board. Can I order selections of cheeses and grapes a lot of the time? So normally, I have to make my excuses when appetites and charcuterie arrive and, you know, be to make myself scarce. You just run away. If a cheese board arrives, you run away. You and me both. You and me both. Yeah. I've got to get out of there. I've got to get from here. I've got to get out of there. Yeah. I flip the board over. I ask if we're cousins and I leave. Like men did in the old days, James. Some of the old customs need to come back. My birthday a couple of years back, my partner's time. Oh, happy birthday for them. Thank you. Thank you very much. Sorry we missed it.

It's cool. You were there in spirit, guys. Trust me. But I was there with my partner at the time and we went to a place called Zuma in Kensington, which is, again, a really big fan of Asian Fusion and sushi and stuff. And the dessert was essentially like, again, a platter, which had, like, you know, when they cut, like, melon into shape of like a boat, like a melon boat, and they were like different fruits and stuff. If I see persimmons or passion fruit or dragon fruit, I know I'm eating pretty well. Your star apples and stuff, like these aren't normal. Like the kind of fruits you won't find synthesized in a packet of fruit pastels, you're having a good time. But I don't feel like the fruit selection. And it also came with a very

nice thing. The fondant is a chocolate fondant. Oh, yeah. And it came with matcha ice cream, which I found very, very nice. So I'd want something very similar, like maybe like a little chocolate selection, but with a matcha filling. I want to say, yeah, matcha fondant filling. So it was like a chocolate cake matcha fondant filling. And then like maybe some fruit sorbet and a selection of the different fruits. And then all of that is infused with CBD. And that would be my ideal dessert. Yes. I love matcha. It's one of my favorite powders. It's like Grinch Cocaine, isn't it? It is exactly that. It's exactly Grinch Cocaine. I love it. We glossed over the CBD infused food here because you've only chose to do it for the dessert.

Does it not go well with all your other courses? It can do, but I want people to just balance the palette and the appetite because it's kind of a tasting menu. There's a lot of different selections and stuff. And I feel like if I have CBD way too early, I'm going to veer off from the course and I'm going to go from like having the dim sum platter to being like, can I get some pop chips and another 12 poppadoms? And I don't want my appetite to be spoiled and these different delectable traits to be spoiled. What's it supposed to do? Just like take the edge off, chill you out a bit? I think the idea is that it's so CBD is one of the other active ingredients as well as THC in the marijuana leaf. But THC is like the stuff that gets you like stoned, right?

So that causes the head high, whereas CBD causes the body high. So the idea is that it works in terms of relaxing you and relaxing your muscles and stuff. So that, you know, I guess that's why it works with people that have the genitive disease and stuff. So their muscles aren't constantly spatter and being intense. That'll be why I shat myself. So it could be like you shat yourself? Yeah. And then everyone was like, guess who did this shit? Just in case anyone was, I am aware that I did my joke about shitting myself after Dave was making a serious point about the medicinal qualities of CBD. Thank you. Yes. Although that being said, Gamble, if constipation is your issue, that's fine too. That's true. Yeah, it's not.

Daniel, I'm going to read your menu back to you now. See how you feel about it. I feel good, man. I feel good. I have one request and I'm not sure if you guys will feel it. If I can't finish everything, could I please have a doggy bag in case I see a homeless person and I can give them some food? Absolutely. Some restaurants don't let you do that. Yeah. Really? Yeah. I've been to some restaurants. You're like, can I take it out and they're like, no, I'm afraid you can't, which I don't think is very nice. I think we waste metric tons of food, particularly in their restaurant and there's no hospitality industry all the time. And I think like France, we should make it a point of law that any food is provided to the

less fortunate in this country. If I could stand on one political thing and achieve one thing politically, I would like that law passed in this country that no food is allowed to go away and must be equally distributed among the less fortunate because nurse banks, so we're supposed to, we are the economic powerhouse of this part of the world, but all we've got is food banks. So why not, you know, do some real wealth distribution with the food? So that's my only request that the gym restaurant plays. Absolutely. You can do that. We'll give you a whole extra meal then. Oh, thank you very much. You guys are the greatest. That's mad that people don't let you do it because you've paid for it. That's yours. Right? Even if I choose to throw it on the floor, that's my choice,

which I wouldn't, but yeah, there's some places where they just don't let me take out strangely enough. But you know what? And if it turns out that like maybe a waiter or waitress was lying because they're like, I'm gonna eat it myself at home, then do you know what? That's fine. As long as it doesn't go to waste. As long as it's not thrown away, I don't mind. If someone gets to eat it, then that's fine. Well, thank you so much, Dane. Thank you, Dane. That is a delicious meal. Very good. A wonderful journey. And I think we've started about three different businesses together. Yeah, I think we have. And also maybe I've started off a wonderful relationship between Dane Baptiste and Popchips. And those also will be distributed amongst my fans, friends,

and well-wishers as well. So, you know, if Dane wins, everybody wins. Popchip wins. Depending on how many you get. Yeah, yeah. Thank you very much, Dane. My absolute pleasure, guys. Thank you so much for having me. Dane Baptiste there. Lovely menu. Lovely menu. Lovely men. The three of us. Yes, lovely. A real trio of great guys. Thank you very much for coming into the Dream Restaurant. Dane, thank you so much for all of your business ideas. We will be running with every single one of them. Absolutely. I can't wait to be millionaires. Make so much money together. Well done, Dane. For not saying chopped peel and getting chucked out of this restaurant. But bad luck for not

saying zest and becoming the owner. Yes, bad luck. It was a meal of two halves, in that sense. I guess he never knew what he lost. He'll only know when he listens back to this that he was nearly a co-owner of the restaurant. But he'll be a co-owner of the IV and he will be in charge of kicking out Bonito because let's face it, you and I will be too cowardly to do it. Yes, too cowardly and we'll be so drunk on our IV drips. We will be absolutely hammered. Do check out things that Dane does. Check on iPlayer. See if Baymus is still on there. Well worth a watch. Sorry, Bonito's rolling his eyes. At off-menu official on Instagram and Twitter, off-menupodcast.co.uk is our website. I'm so proud of you. Every time you get it right,

I'm so proud of you. There's also a list of restaurants on there. I don't know how regularly they're being updated. But every time someone mentions a restaurant on the podcast, it gets popped on the website. Hey, you should also listen to Dane's podcast, Dane Baptiste questions everything. Ed and I have been guessing the past fantastic stuff. Watch Sunny D as well. I'm not sure what platform any of these things are on because I'm bad at this. But Google it and watch it. Watch Dane Baptiste's clips on YouTube. I can't wait for you to have your own chat show, James, on BBC One. Yeah, it'd be pretty cool. So, Russell Crowe, what channels you film on? He would tell me. Google it. He would be really happy to tell me that.

Who the fuck is this weirdo? That's what he says. Here you go. It's so nice not to talk to a bloody kiss on us who knows all the details beforehand. Thank you, James. You've knocked you out, mate. You didn't let me read my poem. I'm going to slam you up against this wall. I wouldn't let you read the poem. Your little, your little lily livid penis. He wouldn't call me a lily livid penis. He would. Well, I want to hang out with that guy over there, Benito. Oh, Benito, come over here. I heard you're a laugh. Yes, and yeah, get here. Get here, you little pipsqueak. I got you in your head, Loch Nair. Listen to my, listen to my poem. Come here, I'm going to do a noogie on Benito. Anyway, see you next week. See you next week. Bye.

Hello, it's me, Amy Glentill. You might remember me from the best ever episode of Off Menu, where I spoke to my mum and asked her about seaweed on mashed potato, and our relationship's never been the same since. And I am joined by... Me, Ian Smith. I would probably go bread. I'm not going to spoil it in case... Get him on, James and Ed. But we're here, sneaking in to your podcast experience to tell you about a new podcast that we're doing. It's called Northern News. It's about all the news stories that we've missed out from the North, because look, we're two Northerners, sure, but we've been living in London for a long time. The news stories are funny. Quite a lot of them crimes. It's all kicking off, and that's a new podcast called Northern News we'd love you to

listen to. Maybe we'll get my mum on. Get Glentill's mum on every episode. That's Northern News. When's it out, Ian? It's already out now, Amy! Is it? Yeah, get listening. There's probably a backlog. You've left it so late.