Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster - Ep 147: Sikisa

Episode Date: May 4, 2022

Rising stand-up star Sikisa – aka Twix – has a reservation this week. And she‘s got opinions on sausage rolls. Sikisa’s taking her debut solo show – ‘Life of the Party’ – to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August. For tickets head to edfringe.com. Follow Sikisa on Twitter @sikisacomedy and Instagram @twix_choc87Recorded 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? Welcome to the Off Menu podcast, taking the biscuits of conversation, dipping it into the hot tea of the internet, watching the humour soak through it, and then a big glob falls off, and you scoop that up from the bottom of the mug with the spoon, and that's the podcast. Fair enough. Ed Gamble there giving you the introduction. My name is James Daycaster. I am a genie who can grant anyone any food from wherever they'd like in their whole entire history and world and time. I'm a waiter. Ed is The Matra Dream. Ed Gamble,

Matra Dream. We like to welcome people into the restaurant, and we ask for the favourite ever start, a main course dessert, side dish, and drink, not in that order. And this week, our guest is Sikisa. Sikisa, wonderful stand-up comedian. Fantastic stand-up. Only gigs with her for the first time recently, James. Oh, yeah? It's very annoying when you've not gigs with someone before, and then you meet them and they're brilliant. Yeah, that's very frustrating. I would like, you know, course you want them to be rubbish. Rubbish, and then I can feel good about my career. Yeah, you can go away, go away. I haven't wasted my life. Yeah, but turns out she's absolutely brilliant, so it's going to be a pleasure

to have her on the podcast. Looking forward to it, however, as always, if she says there's a secret ingredient, we will have to kick her out of the Dream restaurant. Oh, by Sikisa. That's the rule for everyone. And this week, the secret ingredient is margarine. Oh, margarine. We used to routinely have margarine at home. That was all we had in the fridge. Never used real butter. Absolutely. Because it's healthier to have margarine, but it's also absolutely joyless. Yeah, once you start having butter, you can't go back to margarine. Once you have butter, you can't go back. And that's what I always say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We had margarine all the time growing up to the point where I thought that's normal. And butter seemed

like a mad thing to put it. Like butter was just used in bacon and stuff. Why would you eat it as it is, you know, on some toast or whatever? You crazy? Now we're a butter house. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, we're a butter house. Do you go like Lerpac spreadable? Or are you just using like a big block of butter? I've got a big block. Once you have a block of butter, you can't go back. Yeah. No. Once you've got a block of butter, you can't go back. Is that all right? Yeah. Well, it's as good as any of the other things we've ever said on this podcast. I think how we get away with it sometimes. Yeah, very low bar. A low bar. You know, sometimes another podcast is there, taught us to go, Oh, what? Everyone loves

your podcast. Yeah. And they say it in that incredulous way. Yeah. And I'm like, Oh, blame you for the toast. Sometimes we say, would you have a block of butter? You can't go back. And not only did we say that, and we know the standard of it and how good it actually is, people are going to adopt it. Yeah. I love saying it. Yeah. They're going to really enjoy it. They're friends and family. Yeah. Every time they make some toast with butter, they're going to say, well, you have a block of butter, you can't go back. They will start saying it. Yeah. It'll become a funny little joke. Yeah. That's, look, we can't help it. Yeah. We've got help that are very low quality riffs somehow connect to the

very essence of being a human. Yeah. We do essentially do punch up on family conversations is what we do. Yeah. Yeah. We help you all talk to your family and friends with, I don't know, like weird banter that you can circulate amongst your household. Butter banter. Yeah. What would you have? Butter banter. You can't go butter back. There we go. You'll be using that one. Yeah. So if Sikisa has margarine, she's out on her ear mate. Yeah. Sorry, Sikisa, but hopefully that won't happen. No, hopefully not. Looking forward to speaking to her. So this is the off menu menu of Sikisa. Welcome, Sikisa, to the Dream Restaurant. Welcome. Thank you. You said welcome back.

Thank you, Sikisa, for welcoming me to the Dream Restaurant. I've been expecting you for some time. I love those exchanges where you just say the thing back you feel like you should. Classic is in an airport buying something in an airport. They say have a nice flight. You say you too. I do that all of the time. Yep. To the person working in Smiths. Absolutely. I did that to a delivery guy the other day. Enjoy your meal. You too. Oh, what the fuck. I've done that several times. Well, thank you for having me at the Dream Restaurant. How many times a day do you think a W.A. Smith employee in Heathrow Airport gets told to have a nice flight? Yeah. It means that when they eventually do have a nice flight, it's going to

be brilliant because so many people have wished them to have a nice flight. When they do get on it, it's going to be the best flight ever. Yeah. Everything that according to plan wasn't held up actually landed early. Got upgraded to first class. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that must be annoying because I feel like you've got like a quota of luck to be upgraded to first class. I've never happened to me. Yeah. No, I've never. I've never had it. I've always hoped. I went to Jamaica for friend's wedding and she carried her bride's dress in her hand just to be like, I'm getting married. Get upgraded. It didn't happen. She got stuck with the rest of us. But then imagine being upgraded on a flight to like Glasgow where it's like an hour and a half and one of those

slight hours. That's never going to happen again. I tried to do it on the way to New Zealand. Did I tell you this? No. I ran the London Marathon and the day after I was flying to New Zealand for New Zealand Comedy Festival. I love the fact you threw in that you ran a marathon. Well, it is important. It is important. In my head, he's ran a marathon and cannot go until he was on the plane. I wouldn't, I wouldn't bring it up unless it was important because I wore my marathon finishes t-shirt. And when I went up to check in, I limped. I put a limp on. I was like, this is a lie. I ran the Blooming Marathon yesterday, didn't I? I was really putting on the limp slight just like, oh, come on. It's annoying on a flight

today, really, because I ran the marathon for charity yesterday. So. And they were like, we don't give a fuck. Yeah, essentially they said we don't give a fuck, although they did upgrade me to the legroom seats in economy. Because achy legs from running the marathon. Old achy legs. Yeah. Oh, they must have known that because you, when you run the marathon, you run it for a diabetes charity, haven't you? So they must have known it's not really doing it for charity. He's doing it for himself. He's doing it to get the money back. He's being selfish about it. Yeah, I essentially use diabetes charities like a bank for the future. They're like a big isa. Are you a foodie, Sakisa? Are you a fan of food? I'm way too much of a

fan of food. I was very anxious about doing this, to be honest with you, because trying to pick my specific menu is my worst nightmare. You know, when people ask you that question, when people ask you that question on what you want to eat, what do you want to eat? I'm like, whatever, I will find something. And then they're like, no, no, but what do you want to eat? Like, do you want Thai or Mexican? And I'm like, I don't give a fuck. Put some food in my mouth. I will find something. I'm also one of those people that spends way too much money on food, especially at food markets. There's a very good one in Xmas Market in Angel, and they've got like maybe five or six stalls there. And I will go there quite regularly. And I would end up buying

four or five different meals from each stall in one day. It's because I feel like I'm never going to eat this kind of food again. Totally. I totally get this. But I'm like, I'm going to be in this market tomorrow. It's that thing of like, I have it as well whenever I see a menu, if I was at a food market, I'd be like, I'm clearly never going to have this ever again. Like this is the only opportunity I have. So I have to eat so much of it. I now hate it forever. Yes. But I will have it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, maybe brunch, I don't know, whatever we can fit this in. And I'm just looking at all this food. I think the most amount of money I spent in a food market has been 45 quid, because they're like five pounds normally for those kind of things. So I've spent like,

I bought nine items. So you're buying something and then spotting that there's another stall that you want something from and get. So have you ever thought to do a full loop of the market, see what you want the most and get that? I have done that. All right. Yeah, I'm a pro at this. I have been like, okay, you know what, let's just go and start from the beginning. Let's loop around and see what we like. Yeah, okay. And then we just do another loop and just buy everything. Yeah. Now, look, if you're buying like nine or whatever dishes, where are you going to eat these? Because when you're at a food market, you've got to find a little place to go and sit down. And if you've got a lot of stuff, I'm imagining you with a big like teetering pile of stuff.

Yeah, there's a bag. There's a bag of food. I will find somewhere to eat. So there's parks, obviously. There are benches. There's corners or streets. That got bleaker and bleaker with every single location. There's my bed. We did it. There's the toilet. I guess you want to be somewhere with like, you know, when the people around you are changing quite a lot. So they're not seeing, oh, that's like the fifth one. And that bag's never ended. I will never eat them all at the same time. I have done that. Where I've just picked at bits and then maybe like, okay, it's all right. And then being really disappointed with one dish and maybe try to fob it off to a friend. Well, actually, I've been quite good and have given food to homeless people. First person on the podcast who

said that, I think. Yeah, that's true. Oh, over a hundred episodes in now no one's ever given food to the homeless. Shut up. Before you get too big for your boots, because I saw that flash across your face when James said you're the only person to have talked about giving food to a homeless person. And you were like, oh, really? You only gave food to a homeless person because you bought yourself nine bags of food. Hey, hey, hey. It's not about how or how it came about. Sure. The fact that I was kind enough to not throw it in the bin. Yes, okay. But to give it to a homeless person. Yeah, you put one of your trays of food that you ate the rest of in the toilet to one side and then you gave it to a homeless person. Yeah, that's good. Allow me. Allow me. Allowed.

It's a bit of a compulsive thing sometimes because with me, like there's some things that if I buy them, I want to buy the whole set like naked bars. So like, I can't just buy one single naked bar. I'm like, no, I want to get a nice selection. I'm not going to eat them all at once necessarily, but like, I want to get all the ones that I like and go away with them. I've never bought just one before. I love the idea of you being like, well, you know, I understand compulsive eating, which is, you know, it's a serious issue. Compulsive eating, people overeating and stuff. You're like, you know, I have to buy all the different colors of naked bar. Well, I don't mean compulsive like that. I mean, I guess more, my own life, just more, you know. You like colors? Yeah.

I want to complete the whole set. When you have a skittles, like a packet of skittles, do you have a specific color? I can't say the word specific, by the way. It's okay. He said a skittles as well. Well, let that slide. Yeah, let that slide. Fine. Well, you have a packet of skittles. Fine. Well, you have a packet of skittles. Oh, God. Do I have a favorite color? Green has always been my favorite color of sweet, just because it was my favorite color as a kid. So then I just transferred it over to sweets.

And that's still the same? I think so, yes. So now something as an adult that is your favorite sweet is because it was your favorite color as a child and you decided it was your favorite sweet. Correct, yes. That is exactly right. It's still my favorite color of opal fruit, wine gums. The green one's the worst one. Yeah, I don't like the green one. It's worse than... Oh, yeah. I don't really like skittles. Oh, wait. Hold on, wait, though. Is it just the ordinary skittles packet that you don't like? Or have you tried the other flavors of skittles? The sour ones and stuff. Taught me through them. Sour? Sour. Tropical. I'm not going to like them. I don't really like

overly sour things. Yeah, the sour one, fair enough. Tropical flavor is not my vibe. What do you mean tropical? You know, you like... Yeah, yeah. What do you mean? I mean, I don't like tropical skittles. I don't like lils. I don't like anything like that. And quite often it tastes synthetic. Don't you two try and back me into a corner? Well, like, you have got like a West Indian woman on your podcast today. Yes, but... Yeah, but that... How about you think of that? I'm sorry. I don't think... I'm not talking about authentic things. I'm talking about synthetic tropical flavors. That's how aggressive he's getting over it.

I will not be crushed by that. So, synthetic, I will allow you. What about berry skittles? I think it's the texture of skittles that I don't like. The crushing. The hard, like sugar shell. And then I think what happened was, is once I put a whole pack of skittles in my mouth at once, choked them all up into a big ball and then spat the ball out to see what it would look like. And I think that put me off skittles. Oh, yeah. Do you think... Why would you do that? Put me off skittles, just listen to that. I'm never having a skittles again. After that description. How old were you when you did that?

Was it yesterday? It was yesterday. It's been a whole day since I've eaten skittles. The bit that I'm interested in is, spat it out to see what it would look like. What did you think it would look like in your head? Like the rainbow? Yeah, I thought maybe, you know, all different colors, like maybe I'd created stripes or like a sort of tie-dye pattern. And it's just a sort of... They're all like a horrible sugar, like white inside and like... Just lots of color around it. Yeah, I'm not in a pretty way. Let's get away from Ed's disgusted skittle ball and talk about something nice. You got an Edinburgh show coming up, so Keith, are you correct?

I am. It will be my debut. Exciting. Yeah, which I'm quite excited about. It's all about parties and I love a party. It's one of my favorite things to do. It's about Pacific. I can't say words, can I? We know what you mean. I feel like I'm going to get so many comments. But there are ones who do the comments on like how to say words there. I mean, they're boring, aren't they? The nerd trolls. Words are about meaning. We know exactly what you mean. Thank you very much. I appreciate you. This is why you're two of my favorite boys.

Yes. Even though that doesn't like tropical stuff, let's not forget that. No, but again, I think you're spitting that out. It's a far more of an issue than it needs to be. It's about one particular party, which is a house party. I talk about food in this part, in this show, in one section of it, because I think there's a massive difference between. I don't want to sound like I'm being discriminative against white people. It's just from my own experience. I think there's a difference of when white people have house parties in the food that they put in that party compared to black people. Because I have been to several house parties, quotes, where I've been told,

you don't need to eat. And I've turned up and there's been cold sausage rolls, pineapples on sticks, cheese. Keep talking. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, what? And there's been hummus, like four different types of hummus and bread and like cheese, just different types of cheese. But I'm like, okay, this is not food. And I've had to order like a delivery to get to the party. Is that have you genuinely gone to a house party in order to deliver it for yourself before? Yeah. Don't look at me like I'm mad. You looked at me like I was mad. I'm impressed.

I think it's an amazing move. But I've ordered a dominoes to a birthday party that I didn't know anyone at the party. And was the dominoes, this is the key question, just for you or for the party? Yeah, I think you already know the answer. Yeah, I do. Yeah. And well done. Well done. Did you keep it just for you or did someone else get in on it? The person I was dating at the time had some one slice. Before you realised? Yeah, because I was like, well, it's your fault. You told me not to eat. So this is your fault. I've ordered a KFC to a house party before. There's no adequate food for me then. So what is good house party food? For me, you've got to have at least minimum

three different types of chicken. When you say types, what are you talking about? What do you mean? The cut of the chicken, the flavour of the chicken, where the restaurant is coming from, what different types of chicken? Okay, we're going to go. I feel like this is now going to go into chicken. We'll just be about chicken, which is fair enough. We're going to say different types of chicken. Obviously, there's fried chicken, jerk chicken, barbecue chicken, roast chicken, wings, which is separate, by the way. So we're not going to get started on wings today. You say you're like, we can't go down that road. No, we can't do it. You've got a cater for the vegans nowadays.

So you've got to have the wing or the chicken with the keg. The fake chicken, the chicken. You've got to have that. And then you've got stew chicken, curry chicken. There's different types of chicken, but you have to have a minimum of three at a house party. What's your top three that you want to see when you walk into a house party? If they've only got three, what three types of chicken are you after? And we know cold chicken drumsticks are given with no seasoning. Do you want me to walk out of the podcast? Do you actually want me to walk out of this podcast? I was just giving you a freebie. James, baked chicken breast.

With a bit of ketchup to dip it in? Oh, mate. Now you're just egging me on. No, no, no, no, no. So if you're at a house party, I will say you can have chicken skewers. I will allow that. Yeah, you can have chicken skewers, fried chicken, and chicken wings. Minimum. And then obviously you've got to have coarse law, potato salad, rice and peas, plain rice, macaroni pie, salad, curry goat, fish, dumplings. I know what this is. It's all, I mean, needless to say, but it's all like store bought stuff, just like in the tubs. Maybe the potato salad and the coarse law, if you haven't got time to make it, but no. No, no, no, no, no. No. So the thing is, with all that, at a house party, you want to be moving around, you want to

be mingling, which is why a little mini-kish is so convenient, so just so you can take a little mini-kish, pop it in your mouth, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat. Yeah, but you can chat with a plate in your hand. If you're dancing with a mini-kish, it wobbles in a really satisfying way and enhances the dance. Okay, right. You can dance with two carrot batons with hummus on the end. All right, so you eat at the beginning of the, all right, so, okay, you tell people the house party's going to start at eight, which means it starts at nine. Not in my house. Ed's parties are not fun. If we start at nine, how's it going to be over by 10.30?

Boys, you lot need to throw it off the menu house party, please. Please let it happen, and please can I be invited? There'll be no judgment. Just me just writing some notes. We'll fill a bit, Judge, when the dominoes arrive. Yeah, so you got to, like, make sure you get enough food ready for the start of the party, and then if you want to, you can have leftovers for people to nibble at later on. But people will normally eat at the beginning of the house party. Just have a, on a plate, mingle, have a chat. And then the music is not like the banging dancing music at the beginning, it's just like the casual, mmm, good vibes. It's going to be a good night house party,

kind of music. And then once everyone's finished, then you throw in the bangers, and then everyone's dances off the food that they just ate. Exercise, people. I already know what he's going to say. And by bangers, do you mean mini cocktail sausages? Nearly said it. Saw you open your mouth like that. He's going to say, hold cocktail sausages on a stick. Still a sparkling water, Sakee. Can I just say, you've been doing this for quite a while now. Why is it only still and sparkling? Why have you not upgraded to at least like a soft drink or like a ribena or like a cocktail, at least? I thought maybe I got to a cocktail level right now.

I think we're doing it as if we're in a restaurant. So I personally have never been to a restaurant where the waiters come over at the beginning and said, still sparkling or ribena. Yes. Well, yeah, well done. You said this was a dream restaurant, right? Yeah, look, feel free. Also, people have found loopholes. We've had loopholes. We did our dream menus in the whole episode. I chose a jug of Causton Press, which is my favorite drink, rhubarb, Causton Press, with crushed Causton Press ice cubes all the way through. And guess what? Less than a week ago, I went to a restaurant for a meal, and instead of sending out water, that's what they sent out. They probably listened to the podcast.

Yeah, they sent it over. I couldn't believe it. They also didn't even make a big deal about the ice. The ice was in the glass, but I'd forgotten that I'd said that. I was just really jazzed. They gave me some Causton Press and then realized midway through that this is ice that they've made from Causton Press, and it really made my day. So whatever you pick now, this might happen for you. Oh, cocktail. Yeah, I'm on board with that, because normally people wait until the drink bit to pick a cocktail, but I can do that later as well. No, it's a pizza. You live your dreams. Yeah. Okay, then I want to go back to my ribbina dreams, please.

Ribbina dreams. The simplest cocktail of them all. What flavor, ribbina? Oh, original. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Toothkind. Do they still do Toothkind? Yeah, I mean, that is a thing. I should just... I don't remember that, but he said that, and I'm like, oh my God. Original or Toothkind? That should be the new Stilis Barclay. A vision of the Lord Toothkind, yeah, exactly, but you don't want that. No, I don't want that. I would like the original, please.

Is this like a long history you've got with ribbina? I just prefer ribbina. I think ribbina just reminds me of good old times. I don't know what good old times, but good old times. Come on, I bet if you cast your mind back, you can remember some good old times with a ribbina. I mean, had it since you were a little kid? Yeah, who hasn't had a ribbina? Well, I mean, yeah, to be honest, when I was a little kid, I don't think I was even allowed ribbina.

Causton press. Yeah, just Causton press 24-7. We were at Robinson's house. Oh, okay. We were at Robinson's house, mainly Robinson's apple and black currant, or Robinson's barley water, or lemon, or orange. All Robinson's, though. I was a ribbina and a saucer perrella. I beg your pardon? Do you not know a saucer?

No. You never heard? No? Don't think I know what you're talking about. Have you never heard of saucer perrella? No. What? Okay, it's still available, because I've got one in my cupboard. So, is that the last one left?

When you say it's still available, do we have to come to your house? It's not ancient. Then you can get it in the stores. It's just a weird, diluted drink. It's the same thing as like Robinson's or ribbina, but it's just called saucer perrella. Only reason why we really like it is because we used to go to this store when I was younger called Jackets.

I don't know. No? No, I don't know Jackets. Oh, my God. Don't know Jackets? Jackets was if you... We're making you doubt your whole existence. You are!

You are making me go, like, am I real? We made an agreement before you arrived that we were going to deny knowledge of anything you said. Is this actually happening? Are you two real? We were on the verge of going, what's chicken? Jackets was a like fast-food restaurant that basically sold jacket potatoes.

Great. Where was Jackets? Was it like a chain? There was a chain. It closed down in like the late 90s or early 90s, or middle 90s, 90s. And, yeah, it closed down. And I was very upset that it closed down.

It's not like I can't bake a jacket potato in my house, but it was just nice to have someone do it for you. It's a real decision though. To bake a jacket potato, you're like, that's an hour, right? But if you suddenly just want a jacket potato, you need somewhere to go and get it. Yeah. It was decent.

Like, I really enjoyed it. And it was very sad. But they had Salsa Perrilla in their dispensary. And that's what I used to have when I would go there. Favorite flavor of that? There's only one flavor. OK. Just one flavor.

And you're not telling me what I'm telling you? I don't actually know what flavor it is. This is a sign. It's one of those weird drinks that you have no idea what flavor it is. It's its own flavor. Yeah, it's just its own weird flavor. And it's like, what it looks like is that someone's...

Oh, no, I'm not gonna say it. Oh, that's when you should absolutely say it. Yeah, go for it. It looks like a demon has pissed. Like, really dark. Yes. It's like, really dark. It looks like a demon's piss.

It's a good demon's piss. But it doesn't look googly. I want to have a look and I'll see if you can guess it. It's one single flavor. Well, I don't know why anyone's looking at me. I'm not involved in this. I've never had it. Yeah, I want to guess four.

Oh, hold on. Salsa Perrilla. Oh, I think I know what that is. Oh, OK. Because I remember. I only know that from The Simpsons. Yeah, I think I know it from The Cartoon. But that...

Maybe I'm just pronouncing it wrong. You know I'm not going to say it. So it's like, A. I still don't know what flavor it is. I call it Salsa Perrilla. Like a root beer. It tastes like a root beer. Is it a root beer?

Or is it vanilla? Because that's what we found. Two things. One says vanilla and one says it's a root beer. It doesn't taste like Villena. OK. The root beer, it probably tastes more like that than Villena. Yeah.

Maybe I'm pronouncing it wrong. I only remember a bit in The Simpsons in the saloon where someone says, Salsa Perrilla. And it's Saspera. It can't be Sasperella. I've got to drink this. I've got to have it. Yeah, that says...

Yeah, I mean that just looks like it says Salsa Perrilla. Salsa Perrilla. Salsa Perrilla. Yeah. A tropical symbol. Oh, you are lucky. Tropical. You are lucky.

Yeah, that's her palm tree on that edge. It's a palm tree. You are lucky. You're having some Villena. Right, Villena. Thank you. I was the same as my own brand boy, by the way. Really?

Yeah. High juice and stuff. Just so you know. Go for you. High juice. High juice, yeah. I liked high juice. Did you ever pick up the bottle and go,

Hi juice. Yes. Every day. Every day. High juice. Yeah, yeah. Pop it up and sort of bread. Oh.

Pop it up and sort of bread, Sir Keesha. Pop it up and sort of bread. Aggressive, but neither. I'm really being really rebellious on this podcast. I'm scaring. You're skipping a course. I'm not, no. It's not that I want to skip a course.

I would like some chips, please, and dip. Yeah. What sort of chips? Like tortilla chips. Like tortilla chips, okay. Not potato chips. No. No.

Okay. Yeah. Not chip-chop chips. No, no. Too early. Too early. Yeah. We're talking what?

Like Doritos? What flavour? No. Okay, look. Like normal, lighty, like the proper Mexican chips. Yeah. What I'm really enjoying, Sir Keesha, if I can say, is your sort of MO on the podcast so far

is to say something that's quite broad and then we try to specify and you get offended by anything that we say. Chips is the broadest thing you could possibly say in all food. No, but will you say chips or dip? Yeah, no, no. I know. That's why there's, you know, I thought that's what you meant,

but I thought, you know, you could have like a crisp with dip, like a potato crisp with dip, couldn't you? Could you? Yeah. Yeah. What would you dip potato crisp in? Kind of anything.

I don't want to bring hummus up again. The way you react is as if you've said a food and we go, oh, are you a cannibal? What? God, the fuck are you? Fine. Okay. I'll go, I'll fight.

No, no. Keep it up. Yeah, we love it. I enjoyed it. We love it. So only one person, I think, has done this hack before. Yes. Which is Desiree.

Yes. Which is a long time ago. Yeah, a long time ago. I'm glad to see it return because not enough people hack this part of the podcast. It's there for hacking. Thank you. Um, I hate when people complain to us, going, what, poppadobs or ridiculous choice mover?

And you go, we'll hack it then. Try and hack it. Get in there and hack it, and you're hacking it and I respect it. Yeah, because also I find poppadobs and bread a bit too carby for the beginning of a meal. Yeah. I would like something that I could just like maybe just snack on. That's not too heavy, but also like has flavor.

However, I will say that you could have like different types of non-bread. But however, can I ask you a question? Because you know we talk about bread. Yeah. When you are in a restaurant, do you not ask for olive oil with your bread? Take whatever comes really. Some places do it.

They bring the bread with the olive oil and the balsamic vinegar. Some places bring butter. I just take whatever, whatever they bring. I take what they bring, but I will definitely, I like dipping bread in olive oil and balsamic. It happened to me the other day and I was like, oh. No, I've never had it before. Like I've never had someone bring out the bread.

And then my friend was like, can you bring out some olive oil? And I was like, who are you? What is happening right now? And I was like, just because we're the members only club, doesn't mean you have to get all fancy up in here. Right, I see. It came out and I was like, oh, what's happening right now?

And she probably dipped it in. I was like, you're having oily bread. Okay. Are you not a fan of the oily bread? I tried it. I'm not going to lie. I did try it. It's oily bread.

I don't know how to feel about it. Wait, wait, wait. You put it like that. See, I haven't really thought of it like that. But yeah, when you put it like that, oily bread doesn't sound appetising. It is though, isn't it? It is.

But then I don't know. I've never ate it with that thought in my head. I've never been thinking I'm eating oily bread right now and maybe that would ruin it for me and that's what you had in your head when you were eating it. Yeah. Yeah, but that works with any food. You'd have a steak, you go, I'm having a hot cow.

It ruins it, doesn't it? That sounds nice. Would you like a hot cow? Yes, please. Now, I want to ask you, and please don't get offended, what dips you're having specifically with the tortilla chips? I would like mild slash spicy salsa and a guacamole, please. Lovely.

Now, we've discussed this on the podcast before and we're talking about homemade stuff at house parties earlier. The dips, are you happy with store-bought dips or would you prefer for your dream meal homemade ones and if they're homemade, who's making them? I would assume that because we're in a restaurant, it would have been homemade. If there's a restaurant buying store-bought stuff,

they should be closed down. Yeah, oh no. James, you're the waiter. What's happening back there? Well, luckily for me, it's a dream restaurant, so it's just whatever people ask for, so I'm okay. It's literally whatever dip you want back there in the whole universe.

For me, personally, as long as the guacamole is a decent guacamole, oh, wahaka, do a banging. Guacamole, do a banging. Oh, sexy guacamole. Yeah, it's very sexy. It's very sexy. I don't like watery salsa. I like salsa that is quite chunky, but not too chunky,

but enough that you can actually see the tomato on your tortilla chip with a little bit of spice and chilli in it. Thank you. We were talking about store-bought guacamole the other day. You know what we call it? Shrekariya. Shrekariya. It's like Shrek's diarrhea.

Oh, wow. Wow. Okay, store-bought guacamole is Shrekariya. Shrekariya, yeah. You'll never be able to forget that. I'm not. If you go to a party and they've got store-bought guacamole out, they've just taken the lid off.

All you're going to think is you're going to think of Shrek on the toilet, not having a good day, straining away. Oh, that's really annoying, because I want to go, when after this, I wanted to go home and have homemade guacamole. Homemade? Homemade's fine. Homemade's fine. Just store-bought.

Homemade's a healthy day for Shrek. Looks lovely. The store-bought one, that looks like it's too pale. It's too smooth. There's nothing going on there. It just looks like it's rushed out of Shrek's butt. It's gone straight through him. Yeah.

What would he say again? Well, we all know what he'd say. Shrek, how would he do it, though? Oh, donkey. The Shrekariya's coming. Oh, he just, even he calls it Shrekariya. Don't get us. I got a bad Shrekariya, don't get us.

You better pass me that toilet. Oh, no, don't get us. Coming out of here. Coming out of here so small of a Shrekariya. I'm so glad they cut that out on Shrek. Yeah. Your dream starter. This was so much problems for me.

But I decided that I was going to have... See, now I'm even about to say it. I don't want to say it. How many things you'd torn between? Right, so it was between Sushi and Dim Sum with scallops. And scallops. Sorry, and scallops. Not with scallops, and scallops.

So really, you're torn between Sushi, Dim Sum, and scallops. But what you've done is you've lumped two of them together to try and get away with having two in one, right? Yeah. Well, that's what I would do anyway. Sure. Because I really love Sushi. Sushi is one of the things that you love.

And me and my best friend share our love of Sushi to the point where... Do you share Sushi? If you were out with someone, you have Sushi. You know, we don't actually live together, right? I know. But like, I'm assuming you eat together. I think I've shared Sushi in the past.

I think I have. To be honest, most of the time I'm having Sushi, I'm the only one who likes it at the tech... Yeah, like, I'm often with people who don't really like it, so I'll just have some. And I'm rarely with someone else who really likes it. Why are you in a Sushi restaurant then? Well, usually it's like...

Well, like, for example, Sticks and Sushi, which is... I like that place. It's amazing. Yeah, but that's got other stuff on the menu. Yeah, true. True, true, true. And like, people go there with me, and then I go really crazy for the...

I can't remember which one it is, what it's called, it's got the word devil in it, I think. Not Devil's Piss. But like, it's the best one. I order that on Deliveroo, and it's the best thing ever. Oh, that's so lucky to live near enough for Sticks and Sushi to order that on Deliveroo. I would go mad.

That cauliflower. Oh, my God, it's the best. The cauliflower in the truffle, like the black truffle sauce is just incredible. It is the best thing ever. I have that with the ebby bites. Yes. And the tempura sushi is the...

Yes, the tempura sushi, because the way that they do the coating on it was that bubbled kind of coating. So satisfying, so good. Yeah, so this is why I love sushi. But me and my best friend have a habit of spending way too much, it's the money thing, with sushi,

even though we don't have money. We spend way too much money. Because we both will order the same thing, but instead of sharing, we'll just order the... Like, my own one and her own one. And then we get full up, but we still want to eat all the sushi. And then we're just like,

why have we ordered so much sushi? And people look at us like, you're never going to finish this. And we're like, watch us work. So yeah. But yeah, I love sushi, but also I love dim sum and scallops. Yes, so dim sum, what are you getting at a dim sum place?

It's normally like the prawn and pork dim sums are lovely. I love prawns generally. I love seafood in anything I eat, but like in a dim sum, it's very nice. Crab as well. I do love a bit of crab. That sounds really wrong. But scallops, let's say scallops.

Scallops. I go between both. Yeah, I too and fro. I say scallops sometimes. Sometimes I say scallops. People say that about me. Yeah. What do you go in between things?

Yeah, people say it could be Jimmy Two Scallops. Yeah, or Jimmy Two Scallops. I know what you mean. I think I too and fro as well. Scallops, scallops. Yeah. I can't even work out which one I would say now. No.

Scallops. I think I say scallops, but then now I'm saying that it sounds stupid. Scallops. I think I say scallops. Benita. I might say scallops. He's a veggie though, so he's hardly ever saying it.

Yeah, he barely says it. He only ever said like, stop throwing those scallops at me. That's all he's ever said. How do you want your scallops slash scallops cooked? Is there a different way to cook them? How do you want it again? This has happened again, hasn't it?

So I've asked you completely what I would consider normal and innocent question. Sorry. Okay. I would like it cooked in a garlic butter. See, how was I to know that? Sorry. I would not have guessed that.

I thought you meant like, I thought you meant like, you know how you got like steaks medium? Yeah. Oh, right. Okay. Sure. But that's also an interesting question,

because scallops slash scallops, that you can cook them all the way through, but that is overdone. You want to see a little bit of like, translucence in the middle of a scallop. It needs to be like medium, medium, right? Yeah, that's a perfect scallop. But some people are weird about that.

But they don't know good food. There we go. But like the scallops, you have to cook it perfect. Slightly underdone. Uh-huh. Is it slightly? Yeah, it's just, just slightly slight. Yeah.

That's how you have to ask for it in a restaurant. Yeah. Slightly slight. I know what you mean. Thank you. Underdone. Uh, it's perfect. So now you're torn between these three.

You still haven't made a decision, and I know you think you're getting away with this. We're going to let you have all three of them, but we can't. Really? Well, I would say- It's my perfect restaurant. I would let you have a scallop slash scallop

with one of the other ones, but I don't think we can do a tray of sushi and dim sum. No, definitely not. For the starter. What if I called it... There we go. Yeah. A platter of seafood.

A platter of seafood. I think, but if I heard that there was a platter of seafood, I was assuming it would just be lots of different, like some prawns, some oysters, some scallops. Yeah. I wouldn't think sushi and dim sum and dumplings. If I ordered a platter of seafood and they brought some dim sum and some sushi,

I'd be like, this is misrepresented on the menu. What the hell have you done? Fine. Okay. Feel bad putting our foot down. You are. You are quite strict on this. Feel bad about it.

Yeah. But I mean, you know, we have let people... I reckon this is the main course. Yeah. I would let you get away with that. Maybe if you'd not come in here, it means so rude about white party food, then... Yeah, because this is off menu.

The ultimate white party. You come in here. You can pull it back if you have volavons for main course. Scallops, definitely. Yeah. Please. And dim sum. Okay, great.

That sounds great. I think that's the best pairing as well. Yeah. I think scallops and sushi would feel a bit weird. Like cooked scallops and then sushi. Although, have you had raw scallop at a sushi place? Oh my God, it's so good. Yeah.

It's so good. I went to this on my cassay thing and he did raw scallop and cut it. I think it was like... I can't remember how many times. It was a significant amount of times, 18 times. Like cross cut it so it like softens it up and tenderizes it. Just all in one.

It just melts in the mouth. Wow. Incredible. Main course now though, and I'm thinking, ah, I already... I can smell a hack coming round the corner. You would be incorrect. I am going to pick something called south.

It is a traditional. It would be western. There's some other western countries, but it's mainly Bayesian. So it's the country from where I'm from, Barbados. We have it traditionally on a Saturday for lunch and for dinner. It's called... So it's called south and it is...

It's called pudding and south, the full version. And the pudding is grated sweet potato, which has been shaped and steamed. And the south itself is pickled pig or pickled pork. And when I say... The reason why I said pig is because traditionally, you would use the whole pig, included ears, snout, trotters, tongue, but...

But? I have done that once and no. I have eaten trotters. I've got no problem with trotters, but everything else has been like... So I normally would have it with lean pork. So it's pickled pork with cucumbers, peppers. It's slightly spicy.

And then you would have it served with breadfruit. And is it all like portioned up? Like I said, the pig, do you get it all like... Is it on like a big tray or portioned up and you choose the bits you want? Or is it all just on the... No, it's just served how it is. Are you...

Because I'm trying to work out what you're imagining. Who's ever saying that the whole pig is used? Are you imagining a whole pig in like... In a vat of vinegar being pickled? Yeah. Are you imagining like shape of water? You walk in and there's like just a whole pig walking around in... I'm not imagining that.

I'm just saying, if the options are the bits of the whole pig, I would think that if you were doing that, having it that way, you'd want it all like laid out there and you can pick what bits you want. Oh, I see. You like it how they do it like a hug. Yeah, I guess so. But I was going to... You think you're like an autopsy.

Like... It's not laid out like the actual pig. Like all arranged in the shape of the pig. You just go up and then just pick out what you want. Yeah, I'd like that. It's a race for the middle, essentially. No, unfortunately not. No, it's already like cut up and boiled.

But I've accidentally had the traditional version and I was like, oh crap, I've got tongue in my throat. Yeah, that's what I meant. Like, do you get to choose the bitchy one? Or is it all just bang there? There's the whole thing and it's like, you don't know what you're going to get. So I don't think I've ever had pickled pork before.

What's the flavour like? I can't really describe it because it's normal for me. For me, I would eat it all day, every day. Does it taste like briny and pickly? No, no, no, no. It doesn't taste like... It doesn't... Because the pig itself is boiled

and the cucumber and the peppers give it some sort of sweetness to it. And then when you put it with the pudding and the breadfruit, it just brings the whole meal together. So is it like, is the pork pickled for a long time? Or is it a quick mix with like the vinegar and stuff? Or is it... No vinegar. No vinegar.

How would you pick? How do you pick? We call it... So we say pickled. I have realised what you lot mean. When I say pickled, our pickling isn't you lot's pickling. When I say pickled, I mean, you boil it and then you serve it with the peppers

and the chopped up cucumber and the hot pepper chilies. That is our pickling. Right, okay, cool. So that's what we say is pickling. So it's not a preserving thing or anything like that? No, not at all. No, that makes more sense. Sorry.

No, no, apologies for me. My bad. No one's at fault here, guys. Do you remember when you gave me a lift home from a gig once to Keeser? And we lived quite close to each other at the time. And you were saying about the good Caribbean restaurants that are around.

And I was like, yeah, yeah, you've been to Ram Kitchen and then you really laugh at ages. Yeah, I do remember that. And I felt really bad after you left the car because you were talking about Brixton. And I obviously have lived in South London all my life and like Brixton is my closest biggest town and like you in the car talking about, yeah, I'm going to take,

I'm going to have my birthday soon. I'm going to take some of my friends to Ram Kitchen. I was like, why would you do that? I was like, why would you literally do that to yourself? I'm like, there's wings and tings around the corner. Go to a genuine, authentic West Indian restaurant. And I remember you tweeted me because we hadn't chatted much apart from that one occasion.

That's the first time we properly met. I was on my way home and I was like, do you want to lift because you're carrying really big bags. And I felt really bad because you were talking about Brixton. I was like, yeah. Yeah, okay. And then you mentioned Ram Kitchen was like this boy. No, no, no, no, no.

And then I was like, I need to educate you about wings and tings. And then you tweeted to me and said, I should have listened to you. I should have gone to wings and tings. I was like, yes, you should have because genuine, genuine West Indian restaurants are very hard to find. They've got really good rum in Ram Kitchen,

hence the Ram Kitchen butt. Yeah, don't bother with the kitchen. I feel bad for them because obviously, I feel like a lot of people will go there and think this is what genuine West Indian food tastes like. But I'm like, support the small businesses. I go to Turtle Bay. That's more authentic.

What? You're doing this on purpose. You are actually doing... I go to Turtle Bay and have some lovely jerk halloumi. That's what... Okay. Ladies and gentlemen who are listening to this podcast, I'm so sorry we have to keep this episode short because Sikisa has now left the building. Why would you know?

I will say, I've been to Turtle Bay. I've given it a go at least three times. And the first time I was like, oh, this is all right. This is cool. And then I feel like they changed their menu the second time I went and it just went downhill from there. But if you want traditional Trinidadian food, go to Roti Jupa in Clapham,

which is absolutely banging. They do proper traditional Trinidadian rotis. I walk in there and they already know what I want. I just think if you're going to have like a traditional West Indian food, you would go to West Indies, obviously. But thank you. Number one. Number one, go to West Indies.

Number one recommendation for restaurants. You should go to somewhere that is a small business or that someone's grand is in the kitchen who was there. But like food from the Caribbean is so diverse. People will obviously think about jerk chicken when you're talking about Caribbean food or rice and peas. But not the whole of the West Indies do that. Like for example,

south is our traditional Saturday meal in Barbados. And our traditional dish in general is called cuckoo and flying fish. So and none of what people think is Caribbean food is that. I want to hear more about this flying fish dish. Cuckoo and flying fish is again a Bayesian traditional dish. When we, if you don't know, we have recently become independent from the Queen in Barbados. Congrats.

Thank you. Rana got a medal for singing. It was nice. And what my mom did was cooked traditional Bayesian food the whole weekend that the celebration was on. So I came home and there was like sauce, cuckoo and flying fish, sweet bread in the house. And I was having the best weekend ever.

So cuckoo is made out of cornmeal and okra. And flying fish is a fish normally found in Barbados. It's running out basically now. It's very hard to get flying fish nowadays. But we've all learned how to fly. Well, they do actually fly. If you Google it, Google it. They're big jumpers though, aren't they?

They're big jumpers basically. That's why they're called flying fish. So yeah, flying fish is very nice. You can fry it, you can steam it. It's served with a very nice gravy. It's one of my favorite things in the world. I would have picked that as my own dish. You mentioned macaroni pie earlier as well.

That's my side. Oh, okay. Well, let's get on to it. Let's get on to it. Let's get on to this macaroni pie side. Because I'm glad also that this has come up again. Because when you said it earlier, we were too busy being cheeky little boys pretending

that we love sausage rolls. And I wouldn't get to talk about macaroni pie properly. No, no, you don't like sausage rolls. Well, I don't like sausage rolls. We're not cold party sausage rolls. I'm not going to make out. But macaroni pie is a side. This is very exciting.

Because I don't think I've had a macaroni pie. You lived in South London for how long? We had a conversation in the car about you going to authentic with the new restaurants. And what this was like two and a half years ago, three years ago, are you still? By the way, he did take his friends to the Rom Kitchen for his birthday.

Yeah, I did. Yeah, no. No, that's why I tweeted. That's why I tweeted. That's why I tweeted. We didn't have food there, though. You were right. I should have.

No, we just didn't have. We just had drinks at the end of the night. Because you looked at them and you were like. Well, what I did that day was I went around Brixton Village for a whole day. So we met at Tea and Toast Cafe in the morning for breakfast. And then all day. Which is authentic white food.

Oh, so yeah, I mean, that's as authentic as it gets. Can we cut this whole bit out of that? Are you cutting white food? Because they're not really all day. Yeah, and then we went up to a bunch of different places. I think we just ended in Rom Kitchen for drinks. Fair enough. No.

And I remember being in Rom Kitchen and having one too many drinks and starting to think dark thoughts and be like, it's time to go home. You threw in your birthday. Well done. You've been out all day. You had a brilliant time. You had one drink too many.

And your brain's gone, everyone in this party hates you. Because I'm like, go home. But what did you have there? They spent the whole day with you, James. Don't go there for anything. That's why I tweeted. You said, oh yeah, we should have gone to Wings and Ticks. Yeah, that was a bad.

That was the low point of the day. Did you have a rum there? Yeah, I feel whatever I had, it sounded delicious. And it tasted delicious. But I'd been eating all day and drinking all day, but not really noticing it. And then when we got there, just suddenly like. Were you mixing your drinks?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, that's probably what happened. Yeah, it was like, it's my birthday. It's my birthday. So nothing goes. But wait, when you say that you had to leave, what time did you have to leave? Pretty late.

It was as though we were shutting it. We were kind of the only people there in the corner, by that point. And there was quite a few of us. And I think we were all thinking, this is one place too many by the time we got there. Did you stay? I stayed until the bitter end, I think.

I remember my now-wife, then-girlfriend, came to meet us. She came and met us at Rom Kitchen. And she saw us outside. And she was like, you were fine when we were outside Rom Kitchen. And then we went in and I went to the bar and turned around. And I was suddenly completely hammered. From the walk outside into Rom Kitchen.

And I was like, hey, oh, I'm so glad you can make it. Yeah, let's go. We're going in here. We're going in here. And then two seconds later, they were like, hello, you. Just the smell of rum just hit your face. And you were like, oh, my God, this is too much. There was a shift.

There was a shift. But the macaroni pie, this sounds like a much happier time, than the Rom Kitchen experience. I love a macaroni pie. And it has to, for me personally, it has to be a homemade macaroni pie. And it's not macaroni cheese. Yeah?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's macaroni pie. And there's been some banging macaroni pies I've had in my lifetime, including ones that I've made myself. It has to be a genuine, homemade macaroni pie. And it's got hing-volved onions. It's got to have potentially sweet peppers in it. All grated into it.

It's got to be baked properly. So the cheese just melts. So when you dip into it, ah. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, because I have had macaroni pie. Oh, well done. So the difference between a mac and cheese and macaroni pie, mac and cheese is quite saucy.

It's quite liquidy. Macaroni pie has so much cheese in it, that it can just stand up by itself, right? Yeah, if you throw a ball at it, it'll just bounce off. When you bake a macaroni pie, or when you make a macaroni pie, you don't make it saucy saucy. But there's egg in it, right?

There is egg in it, I think. You can whack an egg in it in order to keep it stable. You don't have to. I don't put egg in mine, but I know people do, just to give it an extra texture into it. And so it bakes properly. You put so much grated cheese into it. What you really want is the top to be solid.

And then when you put your spoon into it, that's how it's still got its shape, that you can cut into a perfect square. So on your plate, it looks like the cheese is just about baked. Just about baked? Yeah. How many types of cheese are you putting in there? Just the one?

No, me personally. So I've got this thing about cheese in general, because my mum suffers from migraines when she eats mature cheddar, or anything apart from mild cheese. So in my household, we never really had anything apart from mild cheese. But when I got older, I experimented.

But generally, you should have mild cheese and then a yellow cheese in a macaroni pie. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Bring them together. Yeah. It's so good. I love it. It's the best thing ever.

I could eat that all day, every day. And I probably did for a while. Like, if I've made like a big tray of macaroni pie, just for myself. And do you want your own homemade macaroni pie in your dream meal, or do you want someone else's homemade macaroni pie? I feel like if I said my own,

I feel like I'm being like, I'm at the best macaroni pie in the world. No, it's great. Some people choose to stuff on this point. No, it's very difficult for me to pick whose macaroni pie I would want to put in there. But I generally want someone's homemade macaroni pie. So whenever I go to like a christening,

or like a house party, or like a wedding, or funeral, and someone's got macaroni pie, that's coming home with me. So you would go to a funeral, and take the macaroni pie from the wake. Just to be clear. Why did you get me on this podcast?

You know, I've had so many people be like, are you going on the podcast? Oh, that's amazing. So looking forward to hearing it. And now I'm like, I want to die. Well, if you do, I'll be at the funeral with a big spoon. With a macaroni pie and tupperware. Make sure you rest in peace.

Goodbye. I've got to go, guys. Dream drink. Now you've already had to the water course. So I'm assuming that's because you're making way for, maybe torn between a dream drink. You've had, you've had something early doors, but now we're onto the headliner.

I like a good cocktail. I've made several cocktails in my life, because I used to work in a pub, and would basically, when I was bored, just experiment with cocktails behind the bar. One, one of my favorites was what I called a Dr. Pepper, which was half beer, double shot of disirano, topped with Coke. Wow.

And this is, uh, Secuse original. I think someone told me about it. Right. Because it was banging, and I remember having three of them and being wasted at my birthday party once. But they, if you've never had it, try it. But my, what I would pick for my dream drink

is what is called a June bug. It is a cocktail which has melon and yakuza in it. TGI when it was hip. TGI Fridays. TGI Fridays. I love that we spent, I'd say, three quarters of the podcast going, don't go to the chains, and then we get to your drink.

You go, this drink at this place, TGI Fridays. When it was hip though. Oh yeah. When it was hip. Which was never. But then the TGI was a swinging place. Yeah. Don't like yourself.

When it was just them and Frankie and Benny's, the new kids on the block. Don't like yourself. When you had to have a, like a party and a gathering, don't I like you didn't go to TGI Fridays? Well, I see, honestly, hand on heart, I've only been once to a TGI Fridays. However, it was my brother-in-law's stag do.

And still to this day, I remember that some of the best fries I've ever had. I'm not joking. The fries blew my mind. How have you only been once then? I just never had a reason to go again. The fries? The best fries I've ever had.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's go in and just get the fries. Like, you know, but like the season on the fries was insane. At some point I turned to everyone and went, these fries are insane. Did everyone think these fries are brilliant? And they're like, don't talk to that guy.

The bride's brother. I think it's crazy to name a restaurant after one day, because you want to be open all week, right? Yeah, you'd think so. Yeah, you're thinking that business meeting. They were like, are we kind of sending out the message that from Saturday through to Thursday, this is not the place to be.

Yeah. Because- It's all about Friday. Yeah, yeah. We've got to get everyone. It's been packed on Fridays. They're just so quiet there over the week. Yeah.

But you got to go there and get a June bug. Well, I haven't been there in about eight years. It's not hip anymore. It's not hip anymore. So, melon liqueur's in there. Yeah. What else we got? I have no idea.

No other flavors. I have no idea. Is it alone? There is no other flavors in it. I'm going to tell you now. Tell me now. But it is good, and it's absolutely- Melon liqueur is top of the list here.

One part melon liqueur. Half a part coconut rum. Yeah. Half a part banana liqueur. Yeah. Two parts. Oh, so it's not algae top. Pineapple juice.

Yeah. One part lemon juice. Oh, sorry. It's tropical. You can't have it. Now, this is the sort of tropical flavor that I'm talking about. Oh, is it?

It's too sweet. It's too sweet for me, I think. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm a sweet kind of person. Yeah. I can't. Good on you.

Yeah. I think it's a coconut pineapple all mixed together. But what I like for a drink is to have one and then immediately have another one. That sounds like the sort of thing that I would have one of them be like, I can't manage another one. No.

No, you would love it. Yeah. You would love it. Yeah, you would love it. I'm going to try it. When you have the off-menu party, we'll make it. That's what we'll bring. Yeah.

We'll make it. The Junbo from TGI Fridays. Yeah. You'll bring that. I'll specifically get one of the bartenders from TGI Fridays. While you're in there, get some fries. Oh, good job. So Keith, if we have an off-menu house party,

you're not invited because you're going to take all the food away with you again. We've established this. Oh, so most of you at the house party will have already got from your funeral the day before. This sounds like a delicious drink. I would. You'd love it.

I would love it. Yeah. Yeah, I would prefer it without ice because I don't like ice in drinks. Yes. Okay. Unless it's the flavor of the drink itself. I don't need the ice.

Too much falafel. Normally when people make cocktails in bars, they love to whack a lot of ice in it because they want to dilute the drink. And I'm like, no. And then you've got to have it with a plastic straw. I'm sorry. And now we're trying to shake.

Wow. Okay. Wow. Oh, a mix of straws. Quite a mix of firsts for the off-menu podcast today. The first person to say they give food to homeless people. And there we go. That's you're up then.

Morally you're up. And you've brought it crashing back down to earth. It's the first person off-menu to demand a plastic straw. It has to be a plastic straw. And we're back to neutral again. No, the reason why. No, there's a reason why. Yes.

There's a reason why. That's going to be a pretty good reason. No, no, I hate nature. It's going to have to be a pretty good reason, mate. Look, I know that we've got to save the planet. And I do appreciate paper straws. I'm putting this at hand on heart. I appreciate paper straws.

However, unless you're giving me five of them. Yeah, sure. Just give me one plastic one and I will recycle it. Will you though? Yes. Well, will you? Yeah, I've got plastic straws in my house that I recycle. Yeah, but how many have you got that?

You're going to have to tweet a fight with that. Of your straw drawer. Have you ever had a drink with a plastic straw and then used it again? Yes. Are you telling me the truth? Yes. How many plastic straws do you have at home?

He's just looking at you dead in the eyes. I've got two in my cutlery drawer. And you use them all the time. Do you take them out with you? No, that's the one thing I don't do. But when you're out, do you demand a plastic straw? No, because most places don't have plastic straws anymore. Yeah, that's true.

Unless you go and get bubble tea, they sometimes have. You need the big, the massive plastic straw, yeah. And by the way, bubble tea, love it, apart from the bubbles. Sure. OK, I'm going to blow your mind. Have you heard of tea? We arrive at your dream dessert.

I'm relaxed because you said you like sweet things. And slugged off cheese quite early doors at parties. So cheese boards, I don't think you're saying, right? Because I know that you love the cheese. I love the cheese. And you don't love the cheese. I hate cheese boards. My girlfriend's mum bought me a chocolate cheese board for Christmas.

Chocolate? Was it chocolate cheese? No, it wasn't cheese at all. But it was like, I opened it and I thought she got me a cheese board. But actually, it was all made of chocolate. Did you, were you like, what is she thinking? Yeah, I was all, I was like, but because she's familiar with the podcast. So then I did do the reaction of going like, this has to disgust me. I'm really yelling and stuff.

But yeah, okay. So I hate when I go into a restaurant and you see on the menu that there's a cheese board as a starter and dessert. Why did some get really aggressive with the table? Why does they need to be both? What they should do is see how many people's at the table. Don't have it on the menu. Just see them.

They're all, there's four of you at the table. Would you like our separate menu, which includes a cheese board, which you may enjoy if you are rubbish? No, I've never, I don't think I've ever seen a menu where you can get a cheese board as a starter and as a dessert. Because if I had seen it, I would absolutely do that. Oh, mate. Yeah, you would do a bookend it.

I thought we were going to be friends. I'd bookend it. I'd bookend it. No, mate. Why would you do that? Cheese is great. What is your favorite type of cheese? Oh, it changes all the time.

This is my problem. Because why is there so many types of cheeses? Yeah. Well, why is there so many types of wine? Why is there so many types of anything? Because it's a skill and you can get different flavors. Stilton, got a lovely bit of Stilton in the fridge. Can't wait to eat that.

Oh, no, he's got at least cheese. Comte. Comte, aged, you could age it for different amounts of months. Three months, six months, 18 months, 24 months. It takes on a different flavor profile every single time. Mumps, no. Are you going to do a TED talk? I could do a TED talk.

About cheese? Yeah. You could eat. Okay, we're going to have an ED talk. It should be one episode. Why is that not happening? You should have one episode where Ed just talks about cheese. Yeah, yeah.

No more than a chance. Like, I've never understood the concept of why there's so many cheeses. And I asked people at work about this. And one woman walked in and went, what are you talking about? And I went, cheese. And she went, oh, what kind of cheese we're talking about? I'm talking about north cheese, south cheese, soft cheese, hard cheese. And I was like, oh, my God, no, there's too much.

Why, why, why? I love how quickly you stopped listening to that woman that you thought she said north cheese and south cheese. She did. No, she didn't. She did. She didn't, Seguisa. You didn't like what she was saying,

so you completely blocked her out and made it up. So north cheese, south cheese, happy cheese, sad cheese. But dream dessert. It will be an apple and blackberry pie. Lovely. I thought we were going down a crumble route there, and then we swung back around. I know, I gave you a little pause, didn't I?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you consider crumble? No. No, no way. No, no. And it's got to be with, I'm going to say cream. I'm going to say double cream. Double cream.

Were you torn for a second there between other stuff? Custard. Brandy custard, though. Oh, yeah. But I really do love an apple and blackberry pie. I don't really like if it's just got apple in it. I just think it's a bit too bland. I do make a bang in pie, I will say.

Like apple and strawberry, sexy. That's very sexy. You did a little wink to Ed there. Yeah. What do you say, sexy? Sexy apple and strawberry pie. I would like, like me and Ben, it weren't even in the room. Yeah.

Well, you guys wouldn't understand how sexy an apple and strawberry pie is. No, no. So Kesa knows. I fucked a pie. Why are you going to ruin it? Oh, you're going to ruin it. Is Jason Biggs all grown up? No.

Listen to this. See if this ruins it for you. Probably will. You want custard or cream. You know, in some places, it's traditional to have apple pie, just apple pie, with a bit of mature cheddar. What? In the north, there's places in the north, but there's an old phrase,

and this is true. I've not made this up. Apple pie without cheese is like a kiss without a squeeze. So let's talk about Pokemon in it now. I want to hear David Dickinson say it on Bargain Hunt. Right, OK. Well, then it's not a saying. Apple pie without cheese is like a kiss without a squeeze.

You can't have apple pie with cheese. You can't imagine the mature cheddar cuts through the sweet apple. Perfect combination. Apple and cheese is a wonderful combination. Not apple pie and cheese. Apple pie and cheese. No. I would try that once.

I would try it just to see what it was like. Don't do it to your life. I do also like an apple pie with ice cream. Yes. Great. When I used to work in Arndale Centre in Wandsworth, I used to go to McDonald's and get their apple pie and then go across to KSC and get that ice cream

when they used to do avalanches because they had the best ice cream and then eat that together. It was so sexy. Yeah. Sexy. That is the level of fast food hacking that I appreciate. Going to two separate places and combining their signature dishes. That's great.

I like that. Mate, during lockdown, I was ordering two some of them from Uber Eats and some of them from Deliveroo and they would just see them just come together at the same time. And I was like, oh, God, they're going to meet each other. Imagine if they met each other and the drivers fell in love and then they got married one day and that was all because of you. Oh, that would be cute.

Fast food hacks is really... So what you would do is you would get the chips from McDonald's, you get the chicken from KSC, you would go to Burger King and get that onion rings. That's what you would do. Right. Okay. Nice.

Nice. Oh, you did your dream fast food meal. Yeah, I was done that before and the dessert for the fast food meal. The apple pie and ice cream. But KSC don't do that ever launches anymore, which is such a shame. So it would just have to be the McFlurry, which is blah, just without any of the bits. You just say you have a McFlurry without any bits.

Yes, that's a problem. No, it's not a problem. I've just never heard it before because there's no flurry element there really, is there? It's the mech. Yeah, it's the mech. It's the mech. So my nickname was Twix.

What is Twix? My nickname is Twix. I already knew that. But I knew that when you told her that, he was going to absolutely love it. I love it. I don't know how I've only just got to this. As soon as you said my...

You were doing a food podcast and your nickname's Twix. As soon as you said my nickname, I was like, oh, she's about to tell that. Where does that come from? I got it in law school. So me and two of my other friends had... Twirl and flake. Stop it.

Yeah, stop it, Ed. Two of my other friends also called chocolate. Stuff. They are. So that's that joke. So basically, we've got a chocolate... Don't start. We've got a chocolate family.

They've got chocolate babies now. So... Do the babies have nicknames now as well? One of them has. One of them doesn't. Not yet. We haven't named this one yet. We're going to have to hear all these nicknames.

No. There's this. Basically, we used to bring chocolates quite a lot into law school and our tutors said to us, why don't you just call yourselves the chocolate girls? So we named this. Ourselves after a chocolate that represents us. Not necessarily that we like but represents us

but because I was nicknamed Twix and used it quite a lot when I started out in comedy. A lot of people call me Twix. So why did you pick Twix? Why does the Twix represent you? Because I'm a Gemini. Okay. Twix.

Keep talking because I still don't know. Twins. Twins. Oh, of course. The twins. Yeah, twins. Yeah, I'm a Gemini. That's good.

And is that it? Well, it's also that skin-colour-wise chocolate with a hint of caramel. Okay, nice. Love it. I mean, the Gemini thing is way more like, I was like, let's hear how Sir Kiso explains this away, why she's like a Twix.

And then Gemini's like, you guys really thought about it. Okay, I don't read your menu back to you now. See how you feel about it. Okay. You would like watercourse, ribena, popcorn on some bread, tortilla chips with a mild, spicy salsa and guac homemade. Starter, scallops and dim sum.

Main course, puddin' and souse with breadfruit. Side dish, macaroni pie, brackets homemade. Drink, dune bug from TGI Fridays when it was hip with a plastic straw. You've also put here that you would like to see a seal club to death. I don't know what that's about. And dessert, you would like an apple

and blackberry pie with double cream. Yes, please. Sound good? Sounds amazing. I will also say I will apologise to all the white people that may have been offended. Never. But what you must understand Sir Kiso

is when you say that at white parties we have cocktail sausages and quiches, we don't find that offensive. That sounds delicious. We need to liven up your lives. Just a little sprinkle. You know what it needs? A little bit of seasoning.

A little bit of seasoning in your life. Just a little bit of seasoning. Just maybe some tropical stuff. I also want to address the tropical comment at the top. I was talking about synthetic tropical flavour added to sweets. Yeah, and I would like to say that all the way through

I've known what both of you mean by all your comments and I've been stirring the pot. Well there we are. Thank you very much to Sir Kiso for coming in and for that menu. Very, very enjoyable. Delicious menu. Thank you so much.

More macaroni pie so much James. I would really like macaroni pie now. Yeah, that's what I've been thinking about the most as well. Yeah. Since we stopped recording that. You should go see Sir Kiso at the Edinburgh Festival of course. Yes.

If you're a party animal. If you're a party animal, I don't know that's the name of the show but it's a good name if you're listening Sir Kiso. Do go and see Sir Kiso at the Edinburgh Fringe. Sir Kiso comedy on Twitter. Yeah. And I believe James, her Instagram is twix underscore choc87. Brilliant.

I've just found that out. Yeah. Because obviously I was unaware of the twix nickname. Sir Kiso didn't say margarine. Huge relief. Because once you go margarine, you can't go margarine. So go and see Sir Kiso. If I'm still on tour, it will be obvious from my website at gamble.co.uk.

Go and buy tickets for me. Yes. I think we're doing some more shows in the autumn potentially and probably need to sell some tickets. So yeah, buy them. And of course I will be touring Scandinavia for a week in September. Yeah. Idiot.

Oslo, Copenhagen I think. Don't look at me. But yeah, Gothenburg. Gothenburg, Lund. What I really like is you've not done stand-up in three years. Yes. Your persona has changed. And now your persona is an absolute sicko.

Yes. Yep, an idiot who doesn't understand anything. Let alone stand-up in a country that he's not from and has no reason, doesn't know any reference points when he's there. Anything like that. Doesn't know when it's like to live there. It's going to be like an alien doing a show. Yep, just beaming down.

But like an alien talking for the first time as well. He's never talked before. Somehow trying to make it work. But like, you know, that's live comedy. That's the experience of live comedy. No. Thanks very much for listening. We'll see you again some time soon.

Goodbye. Goodbye. Hello, it's me, Amy Gladhill. You might remember me from the best ever episode of Off Menu, where Spooked and my mum and Astro 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 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 Gladell'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.