Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster - Ep 64: Teri Hatcher

Episode Date: June 17, 2020

It’s the final episode of the series, and what better for a season finale than our most prepared guest ever? Teri Hatcher – yes, Lois actual Lane and star of ‘Desperate Housewives’ – drops by the dream restaurant (/our Airbnb), orders her favourite meal and indulges Ed’s medieval chatter.Follow Teri Hatcher on Twitter @HatchingChange and Instagram @officialterhatcherRecorded and edited by Ben Williams for Plosive Productions.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 there's actually only a small portion of this podcast that you can enjoy. The rest is deadly poisonous. Welcome to the Off Menu podcast. Oh, what a scary introduction, Ed Gamble. Oh, like the puffer fish. Oh, yeah. That was what you were thinking of, a puffer fish. Is that because we're in Los Angeles, California, where they eat a lot of sushi, a lot of raw fish? Sure. I guess so. We're in LA. That was a lovely link into it, James.

No, no worries. My pleasure. We are in Los Angeles, California. Oh, baby. So cool, dude. Oh, it's really sunny outside. I think I might have caught the sun a bit. I think you have actually. I only noticed a little bit earlier. You do look like you caught the sun slightly, even though you did plaster yourself in sun cream, like a true British gents. Slapped it on. Absolutely slapped it on, pasted it on, like butter on a roll. And you went out earlier for a little walk, didn't you?

Yeah, went out for a little walk, was strolling, seeing the sights, you know, just taking in the local scenery. Catching Pokemon. James, this whole trip has been on Pokemon Go, has not stopped just leaving rooms, leaving buildings at a moment's notice and walking around to catch Pokemon. Well, they can get ones here that we aren't available back home and, you know, going on and it's Sinnoh weekend is that you can get Sinnoh stones and normally you can't get Sinnoh stones. I've got loads of Evolves that need the Sinnoh stone in order to evolve them.

You see, you get from sure, Ed, I know what you're going to say. Or why can't you just like keep on catching the Pokemon and then trading them to Professor Willow and then keeping the candies? Well, some Pokemon, you get all the candies that you need to evolve them, but then that's not enough. You need the stone on top of that in order to help it. And Sinnoh stones are very rare right now. It's a Sinnoh stone frenzy of a weekend.

It's going to be over by Monday. I need to take advantage of that while I can. That means I'm spinning. I'm spinning poker stops. I'm getting the challenges from Professor Willow and I'm trying to do as many as possible to get those sweet stones free so far, but I need 13. So the off menu podcast is a food podcast hosted by myself, Ed Gamble and James Acaster.

And what happens on it, James? We're going to ask a guest their favorite ever. Start a main course dessert side and drink. And our special guest this week is Terry Hatcher. Hatcher Terry Hatcher is coming into the dream restaurant to chat to us about her dream meal. It's very, very exciting, very exciting. We are huge fans of Terry Hatcher.

Especially because as a Pokemon master, I'm not just catching Pokemon. I'm hatching Pokemon. So I'm a bit of a Hatcher myself, you know what I'm saying? But if Terry Hatcher says a secret ingredient that we have pre-organized as part of her dream meal, she will unfortunately have to be kicked out of the restaurant. Absolutely. And today, the secret ingredient is brioche buns. Now, normally I would join in saying that at the same time as James,

but I do not agree with this. Well, you know, sometimes there's been a few secret ingredients which I've not agreed with. And I know how you're feeling right now, Ed. It feels pretty bad. You're specifically talking about like a brioche bun with the burger as well. Yes, I'm not talking about it. Like, I love brioche, like custard brioche and stuff like that.

Desserts as a little on its own, you know. I actually prefer it with a burger. That's when I like brioche is when it's with a burger. Madness. It's the worst when it's with a burger. We went for a lovely meal at Egg Slot today. Yeah, that was nice. And I did like it. Yes. But I said to you, I think if I went again, I would have it without the bun.

That's because you all LA now. We've been here for a day and you've gone, I want that without the bread. I'm preparing for a role. No role for this role. So who's this character? It's it's the actor. Oh, it's the actor, the LA actor. LA actor.

Who's very much preparing for a role. I can't have bread. Oh, yeah. Would you like some chocolate? No, sir, please. I'm preparing for a role. How about this tasty bowl of ice cream? Why I eat the bowl. Well, what?

Surely worse for you. No, the bowl. If I cut up my throat, then I can't eat anything. Oh, so it's win-win there. I don't know what's happening. Oh, well, I hope you get the role. What what are you auditioning for? What's the role that you don't know yet?

You don't know yet. I'm just preparing. You just you're always preparing for a role. Did you have an agent? The role. No, sir. No agent. No, sir. No, just a heart full of dreams. Have you any upcoming work?

Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Name, name one. Uber, Uber. OK, you're an Uber driver. Yeah, you're an Uber driver who watches what they eat and lives in LA. I can't drive. Personally, I'm preparing for my role as an Uber driver.

Oh, this is like the new Scorsese film, Uber driver. Yes. Going around. You talking to me? Well, I mean, if it was if it was an Uber driver, it would be like, are you talking to me? Because I didn't like it. And I'll give you that a bad rating. Oh, yes.

Cut all this. Don't cut all that. I think Uber driver. I think Uber driver is a good riff in terms of a film. Yeah, but because I was still within the character. You talking to me? I couldn't hop on the bucket. They was a good.

It was very nice. Yeah, five stars. Yeah, it was a good. That kind of thing. So if Terry Hatt just says Brioche buns. She is out on her ear. We really don't want to kick her out. We're very happy she's coming in.

Yeah, we actually, I mean, you know, quite regularly, we can't believe that we've got certain guests and to kick them out straight away would be pretty bad. Yes. And we can't think of a better way to close out this series than with the wonderful Terry Hatcher. So she is the final guest in the restaurant. This series before we power down the ovens for another few weeks.

So let's hear the off menu menu of Terry Hatcher. Welcome, Terry Hatcher, to the dream restaurant. Thank you so much. Welcome, Terry Hatcher, to the dream restaurant. We've been expecting you for some time. James is our genie waiter in the dream restaurant. OK, that's what that wonderful sound effect was. Right, I've heard it before.

I've heard your podcast. Oh, wow, that's great news. I'm familiar. I expected you to be in a full on sort of costume, but you're not. Yeah, well, I thought this would make you feel more at home. You know, I don't want to freak people out. Do you want to just take us through what the genie's wearing today, James? Yeah, yeah, just just a checked top.

Just like a plant. We would call that plaid. Well, normally what I was expecting, Terry. But I thought he was going to be honest. He was going to say there's some like chiffon purple genie pants with a little tube top with gold sequins, with some like seven veils that you're slowly taking off just to try to, I don't know, turn me on.

Is that what you're doing? Yes, actually, normally I'm trying to turn Benito on. Yeah, it never works. It wasn't me. I'm trying to see if that little. It wasn't aimed at me. Otherwise, you've been looking this way. I see.

I think we all expect James to do an amusing improv at that point. But what he did was he panicked and told us what he was actually wearing. Yeah, it's a good start. Yeah, definitely felt like a dirty phone call, actually, when you asked me that. But do you want to quickly change into what Terry described there, please? The seven veils. Yes, I can wear that and see if it has any effect on Benito. Yeah, here we go.

Alakazam. How are you feeling about that, Benito? Still cold as ice. Still absolutely dead inside. Now, normally at this stage, we'd sort of ask our guest if they're a foodie or not. But I think we already know that you are because you've come in here and you're already talking about food ready to go. And on your social media, I think your bio says foodie.

It probably does. Yeah, I know it already. I think food, food really, I lead with food. I mean, in terms of what I cook and cooking in my life, it's really how I show people I love them. I love having I love cooking for people. I love hosting dinner parties. But then also I love going to restaurants all over the world,

which I have. That's the way I travel. So yeah, that informs where you go is where you're going to eat. I mean, there was one specific example years ago when my daughter was a sophomore in high school, we needed to go look at colleges. It's something most people do when you're thinking about going to university. So we wanted to see 16 different universities. And so we decided to drive across the country about 3,000 miles

and go to all these different universities. But I said, if we're going to do that, we're also going to go to all the James Beard Award winning restaurants in those towns. So that that's my idea of an amazing trip. Yeah, that sounds incredible. Cross country road trip with food. And what award was that? James Beard.

Yeah, that's you don't know the James Beard Awards. No, the James Beard Awards. Do you know the James Beard Awards? I only I hear about the James Beard Awards on American Food TV shows. Oh, OK. So, yeah, it's a they do it, you know, like Northern, Southern, Eastern and like best new chef, best restaurant, best dessert. But it's yeah, it's a big it's a pretty prestigious award. Who is James Beard?

I a chef. I don't actually know. That's so funny. I should know that I should definitely know that. James Beard sounds like a character with makeup on this podcast for a joke. Yeah, I can just imagine he's got a lot of food in his big beard. Yeah, I'm imagining. He's got a big old big old beard that goes down to his feet. Yeah, he's got a refrigerator and all these award winning restaurants are in it.

Yeah, yeah, all the magical beard. Did you find yourself pushing your doors towards the university that had the best restaurant in it? No, I did not. And on this trip, we actually did we go? I can't know. I can't remember where she ended up in school. Well, I can just say it. It's Providence, Rhode Island and it's a small town,

but actually quite a foodie town. One of the Johnson and Wales is a very big culinary institute, and that happens to be in Providence. So I don't know if that's why, but there's quite a few chefs that have trickled off into some pretty great restaurants. So every time I get to go and visit her, we always go to one of them. Lovely. Yeah. Would you say and be honest that you've maybe visited her more than you would have?

Because the food is so good around there. No, but it is a bonus for sure. Yeah. And she likes it because they're sometimes expensive. And so she can't go without me. So that's the that's the one. So then she invites me to come see her more because she knows she'll get to go to these restaurants. When I was at university,

it was I'd always picked like two or three restaurants that every time anyone came to visit me, I'd be like, you're taking me here, please. Well, we always start off here as any of the restaurant does. We're still a spark in water. But when you came in to just say that we're in air BNB. Yes. And we said, would you like some water? And you were like, absolutely not. You said just don't offer me any water.

I don't think it was that aggressive. I didn't really say that. I don't know why. You said if I wanted water, I would have asked for water. Mr. Platt shirt, that is not what I said. I think I said, no, thank you. I'm good. But but I mean, now that you're asking me, now that you're forcing me really to drink something,

I mean, if I had to choose going into the restaurant, I probably would pick sparkling. Right. Yeah. Yeah, I don't need it now, though, because I'm hydrated. No, no, no. This morning I was at the gym, so I've already been drinking a lot of water. Right. Yeah. Everyone in LA is.

Goes to the gym. Oh, they're hydrated. Yes. And goes to the gym. I think everyone in the UK is dehydrated. Probably. That's my theory. Yeah. Which is crazy. But we're about five years behind hydration, I think. Some point we'll start drinking water. Yeah. Now only milkshake.

And and and sort of like. I was going to say beer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Weak ale is our water, for sure. You got a preferred gym water. I prefer gym water. Yeah, yeah. I guess you're not. No, just filtered.

No, no, just filtered. Yeah, filtered water. Yeah, filtered. Why does it have to be filtered? We've just come from New York and people were very evangelical about the quality about their tap water. Right. Yeah.

But in LA, does it have to be filtered? I think I think I think I would try to filter it anywhere. Although when I go to a restaurant and and they'll say like, I probably wouldn't buy bottled still water. I would just get tap. I would get LA tap or New York tap and bring your own little filter with you in your. No, I would just drink it.

But then I would also order sparkling. But I don't know. Gosh, the studies that have just come out have said that. I don't remember. The percentage was very high of all the crappy elements that are in our regular water. Yeah. But you I mean, we're not doing a very good job

as a government of keeping our water clean. I think that's a national problem. I think you'd be the first guest to do this on off menu, but feel free to skip the water. If you've turned up to the dream restaurant hydrated anyway, been at the gym, you hydrated, feel free to pass on the water. I'm going to pass on the water.

There you go. What did you do that? What did you make? That's an option. These people are hydrated, James. They don't need water. It's an insult. If you really need me to have water, I will totally have sparkling.

You saw Terry's reaction when she came in here and you offered her water. If I drink sparkling water while we're talking, I'll probably burp. Yeah, okay. That's another thing. That's true. She doesn't want water.

You saw it when she came in, you offered her water. And she went, no, I don't want any water. But he tried to offer her water. She smashed it out of his hand. But Tennis not heard what the Amuse Bush is yet. Oh, you're doing the Amuse Bush, are you? Yes. Okay.

Sand. Oh, well then, I would like some water, please. Okay, sorry. I didn't realize that sand was going to be the Amuse Bush. Yeah, yeah, just some nice sand. Do you know my daughter, when she was like six months old, I think the first time I ever took her to the beach,

I took her to the beach in Malibu. And she just, you know, was that age where they're just kind of like plopped down. You know, they're not really mobile yet or anything. And I turned away for two seconds and she had fistfuls of sand. She was just eating fistfuls of sand. And of course, I go running to the pediatrician, you know,

she ate sand. She was just eating it by the handfuls. Like, and he said it was fine that, you know, they just poop it out or whatever. But I thought, that is insane to me. Like that texture is so hideous. I don't know why a baby would do that, but she did. I bet she got to know that to try that.

You got to try it to know that you don't like sand. I guess that's true. But she kept, it wasn't like she did. And then she just kept eating it. She kept eating it and swallowing it. At that point, were you thinking, one day I'll probably do a cross-country trip with this person looking for universities.

You know, I did not anticipate that. I did not see that coming. You didn't see her eating sand and going, maybe she's not the college type. That's great, eating that much. Did you ever eat anything weird as a baby yet? Oh yeah, I ate everything. I probably would have eaten some sand.

She also ate, one time we were in New York, this is very, very young, like baby age again. Maybe I'm tall enough for these stories, just gonna see what a bad parent I am. We were at a brunch at a restaurant and you know, they serve, so she must have been old enough to be drawing with the crayons. They serve, you know, give crayons for the kids

to have their attention on something. And I turned, she had this blue crayon, I remember it. And I turned away again, probably to eat my bacon or something and I turned back and the crayon was gone. And I thought, okay, where did the crayon go? Is it on the ground, whatever, look for it. And she had little like crumbs of blue. She ate it, she ate the crayon.

Please, both of these things. She finally stopped this, thank God. They both look good. They both look pretty tasty if you don't know any better. Like sand kind of looks like it could be. Glistening. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. But that blue kind of like,

I'm more amazed that we ever know as babies, like what not to, yo. Well, we only know after we, yeah, yeah, yeah. My uncle, who is a grown man now, but the main story that circulates around the family about him is, and sorry to be gross, early doors, Terry. Oh no, sorry, Terry, I don't know what this story is. When he was a little baby.

Oh, I know what he ate. He's one of his own poops. Yeah, yeah. That's probably more common than you think. Yeah. How did he cook it? Well. Probably not so common.

Yeah. He did it, forgot about it, went back to it, thought it was chocolate and ate it. Oh my God. Oh no. Okay, I might vomit. You're right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You apologized in advance. This is such a terrible welcome to the restaurant. It's a reflex. I didn't think it was gonna happen, but it's happening anyway. Must be changed. Can we move on? Can we move on?

Let's move on. Pop it up, it's all bread. Pop it up, it's all bread, Terry. Pop it up, it's all bread. Say again this point. Pop it up. Pop it up, it's all bread, yeah. So Indian thing.

Yeah. Well, let's see. There is a restaurant here in LA called Bevel that does beautiful breads. They're sort of a Israeli Mediterranean kind of restaurant and they do their own pita breads and they make everything. They do this one dish that I guess is a starter

kind of thing. I mean, that's how I order it. Well, they do serve pita and hummus and that's amazing. I mean, but like the best pita and hummus you've ever had. But they also do this burnt black sesame bread that they serve with a chicken liver pate and that's probably one of the best bites of, like when you think about,

I have many, many images of the best bites I've had of food all over the world. That's definitely one of them. That does sound good. I don't, unless the bread is great bread, like we have a bread company here in town called Bread Lounge. They make great bread.

I think it's Bubbs and Grandma's. They make great bread. Like unless it's great bread, I'm not going to eat it because I don't want to like fill up on that. Bread that's not exciting. I just find it, I feel like I'm wasting it. I'm kind of like just eating it for the sake of it. Chips and dips always good.

Pop it on was always good. Prawn crackers always good. Bad bread is bad. Bad bread is bad. Yeah. But that black sesame bread with chicken liver pate sounds amazing. Also, I love that burnt now makes me think,

oh, that's going to be delicious. When people say burnt something, I'm like, oh yeah, I'd love it like that. Whereas back in the day, it's been like, oh dear. Yeah, it was rude, yeah. Yes, it's true, right. It gives it class now. Yeah, yeah.

Do you cook yourself, don't you? I do, I do. Have you ever done a burnt dish like? Like actually burned it? Oh, no, like delivered. On purpose. Or even by accident. Yeah, no, I definitely have burnt.

Lately, I don't know what's up with me. I've left a few things on the stove, like cooking and then walked away. Got involved in my computer and then come back and I'm just lucky the house isn't like on fire. You know, when you leave a pan on the stove too long and you burn whatever's in it too long, like that pan has to go in the garbage.

Like you can't even, you can't even clean it. You ruin the pan. It's just ruined, you ruin the pan. I've done that a couple of times. God, I hope it's not. And do you bake bread? I have baked bread. I mean, I went to culinary school

and that was when I first started learning to bake bread just because it was one of the classes. I think I've made my own pita bread at home. That's pretty easy to do. Although I certainly don't do it as well as this restaurant I was telling you about. And I've made focaccia. I made Paul Hollywood's focaccia recipe

and that came out really good. Oh wow. Well, of course we've got two alumni of the Great British Bake Off sat in front of me. It sounds like we had very different experiences. Yeah. James, do you want to talk Terry through what happened? Well, I'd call it an experience.

I was, I was just very jet lagged at the time. I just come back from here actually. Okay. And... Terry, did you travel from here? Yeah, I traveled from here. So I'm not quite sure. Yeah, let's check it again.

I'm not, I don't travel from here. So I'm not quite sure. Yes. But go ahead. I'm not trying to show you everything. It was difficult. I probably did a different route back. Right, okay.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I had what I think is commonly just, I think this is a baking term, but what is referred to as a waking nightmare. And everything fell apart. My flapjacks were just like a porridgey mess. I had to do a cream horn for the technical,

which is I think a bit too hard for the technical. I think technical was meant to be. We had the, we had the cream pie. Yeah. How did that go? How did you do on that? I finished mine and helped other people. Well, I did neither of those things.

Yeah, Alan Carr didn't know how to make custard. So I helped him make his custard. And then one of the other girls had an issue with her hand. So she couldn't pipe her whipped cream. So I went and did that because I was finished. Wow. Wow. That's how you do it, Joe.

I don't know how you did that. I couldn't even think in like normal, my brain was all over the place. No, I will say the technical is hard. Because if you, the way it works with the directions, the very minimal directions they give, if you don't know what you're doing, it doesn't tell you what to do.

So you're right. Like if you don't know how to do it, it's not there. And that makes it very hard. They knew what they were doing with us. They just, they just completely gave very little direction. Cream, horns, like pastry and like creme pat. There's a lot of stuff going on there. So you had to make the custard and then you had to pipe,

you had to make the corn and then you had to pipe it in. Yeah. Yeah. And like, I couldn't do any of that. No, that sounds like a lot. It all fell apart. That sounds like a lot. And then the next day I had to make my,

make my special place out of, out of, it's meant to be, I guess, like cake and stuff. But I just did it with sweets. Oh, meringue, that was it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But I had to make, I run my mouth off and told him, I can make a theme park out of meringue, but I couldn't.

So that didn't go well either. He, it went so badly, Terry, that he became a meme. Really? He became a meme. Wow. That's how badly it went. He became known as the worst baker in Bake Off history and that's including, but that's not just the celeb one.

That's like all of them. Oh, I'm sorry. That's not good. It was the best day of my life, Terry. He had a great time. I had a great time. Did you like the show before though? I mean, is that why?

Yeah. I've not watched an episode since. Like PTSD, I can't do it. I've not been able to watch it since that time. I was such a huge fan and this was back a couple of years ago at least and I think I was one of the first people in the States to be a huge, huge fan. Because when they, when the offer came to me

to do the thing for charity, it sort of came to me in a way of like, you probably don't want to do this, but here's this thing. And I was like, what? Of course I want to do it. Oh my God. And I went over there with two big suitcases packed full of 30 pounds worth of flour

and all my own tools and all my... What, your own flour? Yeah. How did that look at customs? Well, I know. I really, I was sweating it out on the plane. I thought I am completely getting arrested for this. Unmelt bags.

But the producer called me like the day before I was supposed to leave and she said, you know, it just really dawned on me that our flour is different than your flour. And if you've been practicing with this stuff, like it might not work with what we have here. So you better bring. So I brought my own food color dye.

I brought my own. Yeah, I brought a lot of stuff. Wow. Yeah. Sounds like you're really prepared for it as well. I did. I might have been doing it with different flour. That was your problem.

Yeah. At home when you practiced. When I made my flapjacks. Did you practice at home? Once, yeah. I had one run through with my sister. It was easy. Because your sister did it?

Yes. Oh. But it looked very easy when I watched her doing it. I thought, this is gonna be great. I'm gonna nail this. Wasn't it pretty though, the tent and the whole thing? No. No.

Okay. I just kept saying, I can't believe I'm in this tent. I can't believe I'm in this tent. I really love it. I said that as well, but not in that tone. Also, when I did it, it was a very cold day. I don't know what the weather was like.

Yeah, it was cold. Yeah, so I was like. It was cold and rainy. Stop trying to make excuses. Terry also flew from LA. It was also a cold day. She finished and helped everyone else. It was raining.

Yes. She probably could have finished and then comes to your episode as well and helped you. That would have been good. I would next time. If you ever feel like you wanna confront your fears or whatever, I could be your sous chef. Yeah, well, that'd be good.

That'd be quite the team actually. Like the worst and the best who have ever done it. I think team is probably stretching the term. You just didn't practice. I bet you would. Yeah, I didn't practice. And, you know, all the so many things. I guess, you know, cream pie is a bit easier than cream or...

I agree. You know, it sounds pretty easy. I think you're right. I think you're right. What did you do for your showstopper? So we had to do a rainbow cake and it had to have at least six layers that represented all the colors.

Wow. And it had to be at least two tiers. But so then I did 12 tiers. Oh my God. Overachiever. So I did the bottom layer I did with the cake being the rainbow, all the different six colors.

And then the top layer, I did a white cake and I made lemon curd as the filling between the layers, but I changed the color so that the curd was all the different colors. So that when you cut into it, it was white cake with the rainbow in the filling and then the bottom was rainbow cake with white filling. Absolutely incredible.

Iced an egg. I piped some icing onto an egg, so it looked like Sandy Tox thing. That's what I did. Yeah. Oh, James. Good times. Yeah.

Good times in the tent. I did have one fun time there, but they edited it out. It didn't make the edit. Oh, what was the fun time? We'll tell everybody what it was. Paul Hollywood. Yeah.

I don't know if you found this. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know if you found this. Yeah. It's an awful environment for him to be in really. He's got a real sweet tooth and he loves like just like picking and stealing little bits of food. Oh, I didn't notice that. Well, I had, from my showstop,

I had a whole kind of like, you know, sweet shop. Candies. So yeah, I had loads of dolly mixtures. I don't know if you have them in the States, dolly mixtures, but they're very sweet little kids' sweets, almost. No, that's not the all sorts. I don't know what you're talking about.

No, they look kind of similar. They look like miniature all sorts, almost. But they're not licorice, they're very sweet. Okay. And Paul Hollywood loves them. Okay. He's like addicted to them. Good to know, okay.

And he kept on coming over and stealing handfuls and I was quite annoyed with him. So me and Ryland, who was another contestant on it, we thought we'd try and catch Paul Hollywood, like, and I got the bowl full of dolly mixtures and I put them on the floor and I put them under a cardboard box that I'd propped up with a stick

and then I tied a string to the stick and I hid behind a bin, holding the other end of the string and then Ryland would shout in, Paul Hollywood! Like that. Then Hollywood came along and he looked at the bowl and I shouted, lights out, Hollywood! And I pulled the string and then the box,

well, I mean, it didn't get him, he didn't get under the box, but it was still pretty fun. This is why you didn't finish your cream pie or whatever because you were busy connecting a rat trap for Paul Hollywood. Yeah, yeah, because that's exactly why, I think. Yeah, and then you had to quickly answer that. People should know this.

People should know that you were doing other things. I was doing things that I thought would be great television and they didn't even make the edit, apparently. Good television is a man having a breakdown. That's what they really like. Well, we'll come to your starter just so we can stop reliving my worst nightmares. But, so your starter, is it from a specific place?

I've made a list. Turned into that. Yeah, yeah, of course, yeah. I just figured it out. Yeah, absolutely. I'm so organized. Yeah. I mean, this is, yeah, exactly.

I didn't even think about what I was gonna say. I behaved on the bake-off. I take things very seriously, especially when it has to do. The listener, Terry, has produced a printed out, typed list that looks incredibly detailed. It is typed out, but also has amendments written in the edit in handwriting. She's given herself some notes.

And I did this at midnight last night, well, no, 11.18. You can say almost midnight. Okay, see, this is my problem. I've been fortunate enough to go to so many places that I couldn't decide. Plus, I also really have a problem with the word favorite. I've never, ever, in regards to anything, been able to really, what's your favorite movie?

What's your favorite song? Like, it's all, there's just too many, and they're all connected to different memories, and I can't pick one over the other. So, that was very hard for me. So, the French Laundry has a starter called Oysters and Pearls, and it is just, I don't even know. I don't know what they do at the French Laundry.

I mean, that guy's, I've been there over in the decades, I've been there three times. Most recently, like maybe three or four years ago. And every bite of food that you have there is a bite that you would remember. But there's something about this dish that it's just like the perfect bite. So, and so rare and special and caviar and just yum.

Okay, so Oysters and Pearls from the French Laundry. Then, and this makes me sad, because this is my favorite. Okay, well, I have one favorite, one favorite thing. Excellent. My favorite resort hotel, and I got to go there twice in the whole world, was a place called the Southern Ocean Lodge on Kangaroo Island in Australia. And the whole thing just burned down.

Yeah, so, so sad, so sad. I mean, the times I've had there, you literally would sit in their lobby and look out over, I guess it's the Southern Ocean, and there'd be double rainbows, like every day, and nothing, 2000 miles of ocean between you and Antarctica. Like just, and that feeling of, like you're on the edge of the world,

like there's nothing between you and Antarctica. And just, oh, it was just beautiful. And in, actually in their lobby, they had a wine room with all Australian wines. And you could go in, and it was part of the fee. You could open any bottle of wine. What? You could have one glass,

and then you could put it on the common bar, and then you could open another bottle, and then you could have another glass. Like that idea for, that you could just, you mean, I can just open any of these bottles whenever I want, and that was really fun. Anyways, they had great food, you know, amazing staff. And the first time I was there,

and I had a Kumamoto oyster. So just, if you imagine, one oyster in its little shell, you know, served to you on ice, and this bite of this oyster was this experience, the temperature, whatever. I remember it, like it was yesterday. So maybe that Kumamoto oyster. But you'd need the surroundings as well,

because it's all, it all feeds into each other. Well, and I think this is part of probably every, I think this is part of probably every food story that you will hear me say is, it is all like, who was I with, and where was I, and what was I doing? It is, you're right. You're not in a vacuum. You're not in a room eating the food by yourself,

although this was pretty great. So then, let's see what else do I have. Okay, last, this is from Bizarre in Los Angeles. Okay. And he, I don't know if he still does, but I think he does. He does a chunk of frog raw that's wrapped in cotton candy. And you eat that in basically one bite.

And somehow that combination of the fat, and the salt, and the sugar, it's just insane. I was gonna ask if it was Bizarre, like the market or Bizarre, but when you tell me what the dish was, it's Bizarre, right? No, it's Bizarre. Well, it sounds Bizarre. Ha ha ha, I mean, it's very, you know,

it's very, the whole restaurant is very, what do you call that, like, you know, molecular gastronomy. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Everything is, they have a very famous dish, which I don't, is not one of my favorite things, but where it looks like an olive, and you bite into it, and it all just goes gush, like, so it's not really an olive,

but it tastes like an olive, but it isn't an olive, like they've done, it's a lot of that. Yeah, yeah. And to me, some of that is fun, and some of that, but this particular thing, I think it's the combination of the sweet, and the fat, and the salty that I just liked. Most places, if they wanna be useful, they should make a dish that looks like a blue crayon.

Yeah. Like, food, and then you can bring your kids there. Yeah, big bowl of sounds. And the kids are like, being naughty here, and actually it's vegetables, and stuff like that, and they're knocking them out. That would be genius, that would be good. So I think after just reciting them all to you,

I think I'm gonna go with the kumamon oyster, and probably because of my, the heartfelt loss of that beautiful resort, and all those people's, like, jobs and things, I feel. Also, dishes like that, when it's like just one thing, and that's all, all it is, those often tend to be pretty amazing, at those kind of places,

because they just put everything into thinking about, like, this doesn't need anything else, this is enough, and that flavor that they're trying. So was it a, we had a lot of oyster chat on this podcast in the past, was it a creamy oyster? Or, cause I don't really know, from the name, but not that good. I think it was a little more firm, and crisp,

and, I mean, small, tiny, they're tiny, which I like the smaller oysters. I sometimes think of the bigger ones as being creamier, but yeah, I never, I don't know what the right correct adjective is, for, you know. How much did the free wine bar contribute to how much you enjoyed the oyster? I'm not gonna take away from this oyster.

I'm not even sure, it was at the beginning of the meal, so I may not have even been drinking that much yet. I'm sure later it contributed to my giant scrabble loss. So things got pretty crazy a lot, wasn't it? We would sit in the lobby and play scrabble all night long, and drink wine, and yeah. I'm guessing that you bought your own scrabble from home? No, they had it there.

Oh, okay. But you've been practicing American Scrabble. I would do that. I would bring Scrabble, and Yahtzee. Oh, yeah, Yahtzee fan? Yeah, I like games. We were playing a great game last night. What were you playing?

The great Benito bought it along with him. It's called Love Letters. Oh, I thought you were gonna say Cards Against Humanities. No, no, no, no, it's almost the opposite of Cards Against Humanity. Oh, okay. The aim is, and I had no idea about this card game, the aim is to get a love letter to the princess.

Yes. And you've got all these different medieval characters that you've got to play, and we're really upset, James, but we're putting some medieval music on, and then I started talking like I was a medieval man. Yes, they put on some lute music, and Ed was there going, ah ha, how's thou the prince in your hand?

All that kind of stuff, putting people fair maid, and all these kind of things. But you basically just have to guess what other people have got in their hands. So it's sort of like Go Fish? Yeah, it's basically Go Fish that's needlessly medieval. Countess. Okay.

A baron. Were you drinking when you played this game? Yes, I was heavy with mead. Ah, okay. Yes, there he goes, there he goes, but this is yes. I'm heavy with mead. He said it repeatedly. It was a long day on the battlefield.

He said that he was heavy with mead. Said it all the time. Really upset him, it was great. It's first to five, and if you win a game, you get a token of affection from the princess. It's pathetic. I was going to use the word sad, but yes, yeah. But creative.

I like it. Games are good. It was our first night in LA. What better thing to do than play a medieval card game? Then stay inside and play a medieval card game. It's Oscars week, you know? You guys need to get out more. Yeah, well every now and again,

we'd be like all looking at our cards, and I'd just like just sit and look around and just hear the music being like, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down. Down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down. It sounds like you should be in Spamalot or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was that sort of thing. Three nights sitting on a hill

playing a card game with her princess. Exactly how it felt. And I also, I guess I didn't like it because I lost. Yes. Ed and Benito both won a... There's a theme with you losing things. Yeah. We're going to have to turn you into a winner.

Yeah, that's why I came to Hollywood. Yes. I suppose it's about, even though Hollywood was my downfall, originally, in the tent. You've come here for the real Hollywood handshake. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I got one of those.

Sorry to run it in. I forgot to tell you about that. Sure, I got a Hollywood handshake. I got one for each tier of the cake, I mean. For your main course. Yes. You've teed yourself up lovely with that moister. So now the main course,

I assume you've got a few options for this one or was it down to just one? No, no, I do. And I'm reviewing my list to see if I can... Terry's just had to turn on to the second page of A4? Yep, just flipped. Okay, well, I'll just tell you. Okay, so there's a place in Kennebunkport, Maine,

called the Lobster House, and it's not a restaurant. It's a fish house, an actual lobster, where restaurants go to get their lobsters or if you were going to cook lobsters at your house, you could go get fresh lobsters that they just got that morning out of the ocean. But you can also bring your own wine and go there

and they'll steam it for you and you can sit on their back porch, you know, at just like a crummy picnic table and overlooking the ocean and just put on a lobster bib. They'll give you one of those plastic lobsters and just rip your lobster apart and drink your wine. And again, getting back to who you're with and where you are on a beautiful August day.

That's amazing. That's an amazing, amazing meal. What was the name of the town you said? Kennebunkport, Maine. Yeah, Kennebunkport. Kennebunkport. Kennebunkport. Kennebunkport.

That's fun. It's a pretty famous city because, I mean, it's a small town. It's kind of, you know, and it's become quite touristy. And one of the reasons for that is that the Bush family had their big sort of summer complex. Right. That was, I mean, they still have it.

Kennebunkport does sound like something that George Bush Jr. would accidentally call someone. Like it's not actually their name. You must be Kennebunkport. Oh, Kennebunk, what the hell is this, Troy? I'm Angela Merkel. Kennebunkport. What I enjoy about, so lobster's supposed to be

like the fanciest, one of the fanciest foods, but also it's offset by the fact you have to wear a bib while you're eating it. I know, right? I know. Like it's almost like they're not letting you be fancy because you have to put on a child bib. But actually, and I love it like that.

I love ripping it apart myself with my hands. And I just, I don't know. Yes. It's part of the whole, as opposed to, I don't really get it in restaurants. Like I don't really order. I think maybe once you have an experience like this, eating like a lobster tail in a restaurant

is maybe less fun. So my next place is called Kismet, and that's here. I've just heard about this place today. My friend wants to take me there. Well, if you go. This is a good sign. You should have the rabbit platter. And it's served for two,

but I always eat the whole thing by myself. And speaking of breads that are worth having. So if you order this platter, it comes with the rabbit. It comes with different vegetables, pickled and cooked or sauteed. There are different sauces to sort of dip everything in. And then it comes with the side of this thing called flaky breads.

That might be the best bread. Oh, wow. And I think you can only get the flaky bread if you order the rabbit platter. So it's a hack to get the flaky bread. I'm not sure. I'm not sure if you can just get a side of the, you can get other bread there that's also very good.

And everything there is good. But something about, I just, your face, you kind of freaked when I said rabbit platter. No, not at all. No, no, no, no, no, no. Okay. I will eat. You eat anything.

I'll eat a rabbit platter. I absolutely love it. I had beef heart last night, and James really, really looked ill when I ordered that. I made you try it, didn't I? You made me try it, yes. And it was good. It was fine.

I had one of the best. Here's another place you guys should go while you're here, Gorilla Tacos. Have you heard of this yet? No. Okay, Gorilla Tacos, I think it's maybe one of, it's probably the best tacos in town. But kind of gourmet tacos,

although they do make one called the pocho, which I think is sort of like, like when I think of my childhood of like crappy, crispy corn with ground beef, you know, just like somehow they've done that. And it's like the most elevated version of that. It's that, that might be one of my, if you had asked me what my comfort food bite would be,

I would say the pocho taco at Gorilla Tacos. But they started as a food truck. They didn't even have a brick and mortar. And I don't know if you know who Jonathan Gold is. Yeah, he's the reviewer, right? Yes, I mean, he's passed away since. But in those days, he put Gorilla Tacos food truck on the best 20 restaurants in LA.

Oh, wow. When it wasn't even a restaurant. And so people used to stand in line for these tacos for like an hour. And so back in those days, I don't think he makes it anymore, but he used to make a duck heart and persimmon taco. And that was one of my favorite things.

And I would have never thought of myself as somebody who was gonna eat duck hearts, but you know, it was delicious. And I do really, I don't eat a ton of meat. I eat more fish. I will eat meat, but I really, what I really believe in is respecting the whole animal. So when I cook at home,

like if you're gonna cook a chicken, like use all those parts of it. That makes sense. And there's no point being squeamish. If you're gonna eat meat, you should eat all of it. Yeah, that's true. Well, it's using the whole animal, not eating it.

You could like, if you don't wanna eat like some of it, you could use it for other stuff. Like what? Like chicken beak, you could have a pair of mini castanets. Yeah. I don't think anyone's suggesting you should eat the chicken beak. I'll get the chicken beak, I'd stick it on,

and I'd like a half man, half chicken character called Kenny Bunkport. I'd walk around. I'm Kenny Bunkport. Nice to meet you. So... Yeah, Terry's moving us on, fair enough. No, I'm not.

I'm just, I have so many to go through. Terry is fair enough. That's my problem. I was about to pretend to be a chicken man for a while. Oh, I think so. Called Kenny Bunkport. No, no, no. That was the perfect time to move him on.

I could see in his eyes that the improv was dying. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I thought. I mean, really, all it is is that I'm completely obsessed with this Kenny Bunkport name. It's the kind of thing that I would normally want to stick on braiders, but I don't really know exactly. I wish I'd brought a hat or something. I'm gonna get you a Kenny Bunkport hat.

That's what I'm gonna do. That would be awesome. I'm gonna send that to you. It's like, normally... It's probably gonna have a lobster on it. And then it'll say Kenny Bunkport. Like a big lobster, like a lobster tail coming out of the hat, almost.

That'd be cool. And big, like a huge hat. It's like... Ah, see. I was gonna go with just a classic baseball hat, but if you would like a silly lobster out each ear. Yeah, lobster out of each ear and stuff like that. The thing is with the name Kenny Bunkport,

sometimes there's a comic, you know, there's like something comes up that's clearly like, oh, there's a joke in that. And it's very clear what the joke is. And you just go straight for the joke. Kenny Bunkport, I feel like I'm... I feel like you are with your dishes. I was like, I'm spoiled for choice here.

The amount of things I could do with this Kenny Bunkport person. And it's very hard to like know what kind of character Kenny Bunkport is. I went with like half chicken, half man person, but like... Yeah, that was a big swing. I actually feel that, I don't know.

It's very good. I think it would have to be lobster. You'd have to be half lobster, half person? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really a lobster town. He'd have lobster claws like Dr. Zoid. Well, or you could have clams.

You could also, you could do clams because they do clams and lobster. That's the thing. I feel like he'd be like your American cousin that you've never met before. Yeah, maybe one of those people who walks around who's got like a tray of like cockles and clams and the seafood stuff.

And he goes around trying to sell it to people or they're trying to do other things. But like really inappropriate times. So not like when they're eating or when they're like, he'd be straight into like a business meeting and we're like, any clams?

Anybody? I'm Kenny Bunkport. Big ol' smelly tray of clams. Yeah, yeah. You want clams, don't you? This is a funeral, Kenny Bunkport. Get out of here. Never too sad for clams.

I don't like him. Well, I don't really like Kenny Bunkport. No, I've made him into quite a monster. He's not a good guy. If you had a children's book about this, I want like a portion of the... You'll get a hundred percent of it, Terry. I mean, I'll do it for free

and you'll get all the money. Absolutely. So, what was it? Well, I don't know. Are you? Oh, absolutely. To be honest, I was... He was done 10 minutes ago.

I was done before I even stopped you. Oh, okay. Okay. Well, I don't want to bore you guys. Okay, so you've been to New York already. Yes. And I think if I had to pick, so I think this is the one.

Okay. I mean, I have more stories. I think the best entree at a place called Laertuce in New York, which I wish I'd known before you went. I would have told you to go there. They do this charred octopus and they serve it with little like fingerling potatoes,

I think, and olives and chili. So, it's so simple, but so flavorful and it's just insane. And the last time I went there was not that long ago. This is how good it is. I went there by myself. You can't really get a reservation there very easily, but I just thought, you know what?

I'm going to walk over there when it first opens at 5.30 by myself and see if I could sit at the bar. And even then I had to wait maybe like 40 minutes, but I sat at the bar, restaurants totally packed all night long and got a glass of wine and had a few things, but this was my entree and chatted up to the people next to me or whatever. I just, I love people that love food.

Yeah. A good icebreaker. You talk to strangers? Yeah. Yeah. That's impressive. Yeah. Not me.

Never. Too nervous. Leave it a night. I tell you, you would be able to talk to strangers. Kenny Bunkport. Hi, are you all right? Way to bring it back. Yeah.

Way to bring it back. Aren't you guys eating over there? I enjoy clam, personally. They put clams in their meal, even though they weren't eating clams anyway. That's what Kenny Bunkport would do. You could just use it as like a mask when you feel shy.

I mean, you don't even have to have the clams. You could just pretend to be him. Yeah, yeah. That's the point. Who's pretend to be Kenny Bunkport. When you don't want to talk to strangers, but then you have to. Kenny, what would Kenny do?

What would Kenny do? Yeah, what would Kenny Bunkport do in that situation? Talk to the strangers and he put clams in their meal, even though they didn't ask. Yeah, yeah. They're chocolate. Chocolate clams, be nice. Anyway.

I love octopus. I think it's delicious. Some people get squeamish about octopus. How do you feel about it, James? So I'm one of those people who, as long as it doesn't look like an octopus, I'm fine with it. Oh, it looks like an octopus.

So the whole thing is in there? Well, it's a big, long tentacle. Like a big piece of tentacle. That's pretty much what's on your plate. The tentacle I can hack. I think the head bit is what kind of like puts me off. I don't know if anybody eats the head. Yeah, yeah.

I've only ever seen it. I've only ever seen it. It's the tentacle. Squid rings, I guess. It's the tentacles. It's like the head, isn't it? Yeah. You've seen Old Boy when he eats a live octopus?

No. No. Well, the actor just did it for real. Wow. Is it crazy? Do you ever believe in that? When you've done your acting parts, do you be like, I insist on doing it for real every time?

Or do you, no, I'm an actor. I wouldn't do anything like that would be weird. I wouldn't be real. I mean, to me, I wouldn't eat a live real octopus over in a tentacle. Especially if it had nothing to do with the role. Yeah. It wasn't in the script.

No, it wouldn't do that. If you were just in the daily planet offices and then decided to get a live octopus out of the drawer. That would be weird. Yeah, that would be weird. What a scene that would be, though. Everyone's still talking about that scene. Maybe they would.

When Lois ate a live octopus for no reason. Absolutely no reason. Right. I think I did eat, there was an episode where I ate frogs, I think, on that show. But it was so long ago, I don't remember. You'd probably faked that. I'm sure that I did.

And it probably wasn't alive. My point is, yeah, I would eat frogs. Frog legs is definitely something that's up there on my list. It didn't quite make it to, well, it sort of did. There's a restaurant in Paris that called Che La Mille Louis that people sometimes refer to as the most expensive bistro in the world. And it's got the most controversial reviews.

Like some people say it's the best restaurant to go to. And some people say it's the worst restaurant. Oh, wow. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of funny. But when I went there, again, with the people that I was with, we had an amazing time, beautiful roast chicken, the best french fries, frog legs. And then for dessert, they brought out

this big bowl of the darkest, purpolous Bing cherries. Like the biggest cherries, just fresh cherries. It's the bowl of cherries. Yeah, but I mean, fantastic. Like those cherries were just, oh, fantastic. I mean, they were just insane. How much for that bowl of cherries, do you think? I don't remember.

I'm sure it was an expensive meal. That's what people say about this place. That it's very, very expensive. They definitely know that people are coming because they know it's expensive. And they're doing things like bringing out a bowl of cherries and going, we know that you'll eat that and still pay for it. We've not even taken the stones out.

Eat those cherries. Eat those cherries. So out of all those dishes, what would you, what are you going for the octopus? I think the octopus, yeah. What's accompanying that octopus on the side there? Just me full out of my hand, you don't need this. That I typed up last night.

Chapter four of this novel? Chapter four of this novel? You guys, I love food. I can't help myself. That's a good one, absolutely. Well, I'll start with this one because it's from Cornwall. Actually, I have two dishes on my list from Cornwall. This is from the Scarlet Hotel.

Cornwall in England. Cornwall in England. I just looked at a house there online the other day. I've been threatening to buy a house there. Well, ever since I went the first time, which is probably seven years ago, I've been surfing there. Wow, really?

Yeah, yeah. No, I like, I like, I'm not a surfer, but I have been surfing there. If I lived there, I think I would try to surf more. Do you say Cowabunga? I was not very good at it. No, I don't say that or Kenny Bunkport. Kenny Bunkport is.

That'd be quite a good thing to say while surfing. Kenny Bunkport, dude. Yeah, Kenny Bunkport, baby. What was my point? Oh, Scarlet Hotel has back to bread. Bread worth eating. Serves you kind of at the beginning of your meal, or it could be a side dish.

These little paprika kind of like bread rolls. They're just, I don't even know, like a knot almost. So that was on my list as a side dish. And let's see what else. Oh, could this is strange? I was in Bangkok last summer at a restaurant called Canvas. And they served this bread again, but made out of rice. So it was gluten.

But the texture of this thing, I'd never eaten anything like it. It was amazing. And then lastly, and I think this is the one I'm going to put on our menu here today, is from a place in New York called Bohemian, little tiny Japanese place. And they serve something called the hot and cold crudité, which sounds really boring. It's just raw vegetables.

But it's served in this big bowl, like with all this ice, and these big, large pieces of vegetable just sticking up out of this ice. And then this amazing gourmet version of some sort of dip that you would want to dip the vegetables into. It's just insane to me that that, out of everything I've eaten, could make the list. But something about it was just great.

There's something about very fresh, cold vegetables and a nice... I completely agree. That sounds amazing. It was amazing. I've had something similar, actually, not in a Japanese restaurant, in a restaurant in Copenhagen called Bar, which is a phenomenal restaurant, if you ever go there.

I have been there. And one of the dishes is the dips. Yeah, yeah. Try and think if I've had that. I think I was there right when that opened. Oh, great. Have you been to a mass? No, I didn't get to a mass.

OK. Next time. Another great restaurant. Yeah. We did a lot of eating there. We went to Kado and to Manfred's. That is, I think, the best place for food, of everything.

So you're the foodie or you're both foodies? No, we both are. But we sort of, you know, whenever we can, we go to place. You do. It's a lot better at memorising it and understanding what it's just eaten. And I'm the one organising on this trip of where we're going to eat. OK. But you do trips about going to food.

Yeah. So everywhere I go would be based on the food. I'm like that. Yeah. There's absolutely no way that I'd never go somewhere if it didn't have a good reputation for food or there's places I wanted to eat. Right. Do you get the, I get the, every year, the 50 best restaurants in the world list.

And then I try to knock a few of those off. I don't think I've ever done that. I need to start sort of trying to take them off. The farthest one I ever went to, I went to Favocen in Sweden, which is literally in the middle of nowhere. Like a plane to a plane and then two hours to another thing. Like you are literally in the middle of nowhere. Yeah.

And that guy, that's closed now, but that guy was doing really interesting things with like classic traditional Nordic food, which is typically a little rough. Yeah, yeah. You know, like a lot of preserved things and gamey stuff. Some of it was really interesting. He was a very interesting chef. And then I went, the only Michelin star, like three hour sort of experience dinner, 19 course or whatever I've ever, I went to buy myself.

I went to Attica and Melbourne and Australia. And I sat, I got ready in the hotel and then I went over to the restaurant and I was pacing up and down outside the restaurant going like, it's okay. You can go to dinner by yourself. Like it's going to be okay. It's not weird that you're going to dinner by yourself because this isn't like popping into, you know, I can live in my neighborhood here in LA and pop in somewhere and eat really quickly by myself, whatever.

That doesn't bother me. But like going to fine dining three hour 19 course, you know, $250 meal, whatever it is, buy yourself. Like most people are there for their anniversary, their birthday to propose to somebody, you know, whatever. That's what people are doing there. And it was actually great. I ended up closing the place with the general manager drinking whiskey.

Amazing. While the, while the waiters were, you know, taking the tablecloths off the table and everything, it was amazing. I think it's great. If I ever see someone in one of those places eating by themselves, I just think you're an absolute badass who clearly loves food. Yeah. Ever, ever, ever respect that place.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll take that. I'll take that. I've done it once before. I went to, that's, it's closed as well. Now WD 50 in, in New York, which is Wiley Dufresne's place and sat up at the bar by myself and had like a, you know, 12 course tasting. Wow.

Chatting to the bar, and the barman was like making cocktails and testing new ones and was just throwing some down my way. Oh, that's nice. Great. Yeah. Is that a Ben Shui's recipe? Yes. Now who's the foodie, Ed?

Wow. Nice way. Kenny Bugport. Kenny Bugport. He's finally, see, you went into the character of Kenny. Kenny Bugport pulling all. That's also the place where I had the weirdest food, I guess I ever. Well, I don't know if it's the weirdest, but it was good.

Two things. The first course, the first whole, like maybe 45 minutes was with no silverware. And I was like, huh, so you, all the dishes that came, maybe four or five dishes, you eat with your hands. Yeah. And there was one dish in particular, speaking of the vegetable thing, it was just like fresh lettuces and some sort of dressing. And you were supposed to take the vegetables and sort of wipe them and, you

know, eat. And I'm sure this was what he wanted, but you go from them first saying, you can't have any utensils and you're thinking like, oh my God, how am I going to possibly, this is ridiculous to this joyful, playful, kidlike thing of like, oh my gosh, I remember, like, I'm eating with my hands. This is so fun. And so the way it should be. And they bring bowl of sand.

Yeah. And then they bring sand and then the pediatrician goes, it's okay. You'll just poop it out. It's fine. Great. Every meal into a pediatrician coming out. Don't worry. Don't worry.

You're going to poop that out. You're going to poop all this out. Goodbye. Yeah, just hope that's uncle isn't around. And then the dessert they had was kind of some sort of frozen dessert, but on the top of it was like pop rock ants. Like ants. And I've eaten a cricket one time, but the ants really, they're presented like

chocolate sprinkles, you know, going into that, I thought, oh wow, I might have to pass on this. And then I thought I'm all the way in Melbourne. I'm by myself. I have to at least taste this. And the truth is, once I had one bite, it was really good. So we come to your favorite drink. Have you got some, a few contenders?

I do. You know, in line with the rest of my lecture that I'm giving you here. Okay. This is my top choice. So actually this is my top choice hands down. So I didn't really need to write the other ones, but I do like these other places. So, um, so faith and flower is a restaurant downtown and they make a cocktail called milk punch.

And apparently it's for men, it's, it's, they take the milk, I don't know if the milk is fermented or distilled. The milk is distilled for like three days with vodka and then they strain it and then I think they infuse it again or something, but it is ridiculous. It's just so good. I don't even know what to say. It's like boozy milk, basically. It's distilled milk, I guess it is.

You don't get any sense of milk though, you know, and it's very clear by the time it gets to you, it's not as clear as vodka, but like they're, you know, pretty clear. They also do milk punch at nightshades, which is also downtown. And they're both good, but the first place I ever had milk punch was at faith and flower and it, it really is the cocktail that I remember most from around the world. It's something to do with, with infusing, I don't know, you put vodka with the milk and you let it sit for like three days and then you strain it out and maybe there's some other kinds of flavors in it.

I'm always amazed. How do they even get to that point? How do they go, well, I'm going to mix vodka and milk and then I'm just going to leave it and then I'm going to taste it. Right. Yeah, I don't know. I know that faith and flower milk punch and this is now probably going back like five years.

That one, the best, I think the best cocktail in the city and maybe the best cocktail in the country. Oh, wow. Like that was an award winning. Wow. cocktail at the time. Oh, definitely having the milk punch. Yeah.

The other two places that you should go just to drink and eat, there's a place called here's looking at you. Here's looking at you. Not here's looking at you kid. I always say that. Here's looking at you. That's in Koreatown and that's kind of Asian fusion thing again, bone marrow stuff but also fish, insane cocktails and they used to do this thing.

This is my love of food. This is another go by yourself, sit at the bar situation. When they first opened, they don't do this anymore, but when they first opened, small restaurant, if you sat at the bar, only if you sat at the bar, you got the, they would make one pie a day. So they have great pastries and great desserts that you can get when you're just at a regular table. But if you're at the bar, they made one pie a day and this was like the best pie and I

make good pie. This was the best pie I've ever had and you could get a piece of the pie if you got there early enough and if you sat at the bar and it was like the secret thing. If you didn't know and then people would be like, I'd like a piece of pie and they'd be like, oh, sorry. You can't get that. And I was, and I just, so I don't know if it was, you're not a pie person. I don't know if it was the secret of knowing that you knew what to do to get the pie, like

you have to sit at the bar or, or if it was that the pie was actually indeed so amazing or maybe it was both of those things, but that was a really fun thing, but they don't do it anymore. And then. How do you know if they don't do it anymore? Maybe they made it even more difficult to get the same pie. You're right. And I'm off the list.

It's something I don't know. Maybe you have to go and sit in the bathroom and shout to the secret pie. Maybe. Maybe you're right. Maybe I just don't know. That'd be so sad. I was one of the cubicles and you have to sing a little song about how much you love pie.

And then they slide the slice underneath the door. How would that song go? It's funny because Kenny Bunkport would do it for sure. I think Kenny would know the song. Kenny would sing it. Yeah. Yeah. I am a pie guy.

I've always been a pie guy, a pie boy into a pie man. I'm a pie guy. Can I have some pie please? There we go. There's the song. Ding. And then your pie shows up through the door. Except it comes through like the prison little slob because you're in the Insanus

Island. When you're singing that song, that's where they put you. It's just funny when you know about, and maybe this is why I don't eat processed food and I do cook a lot for myself. When you know about these great foods, when you know that this pie exists or you know these great desserts or whatever, it just makes it hard to just eat crap. You know? Like, anyway.

Okay. So here's looking at you and then Nomad. Did you say you went to Nomad in New York when you were there? No. Is that the hotel? Yeah. I did. I went and I had a drink in Nomad actually.

They have one here. Right. Okay. Cool. And their cocktail, I mean, their cocktail list is like a encyclopedia. Right. You feel like by the time. I had a glass of wine terry.

I feel like an absolute fool. Did you really? We arrive at the dessert, my favorite of the courses. I'm quite optimistic that this is going to be a delicious dessert and a sugary dessert or a sweet dessert because of the cakes that you made. And a lot of the pie chat as well. And the pie chat as well. James is always worried.

He's always worried that people aren't going to go for like a sweet dessert. Oh, okay. Yeah. Sometimes people choose cheese and biscuits and... Oh, I'm not choosing that. Ah, good. Otherwise I'd have to throw beneath her other window. Plus that would be like second dessert, you know?

Yeah. An extra one. Extra dessert, I think. If cheese. I mean, cheese is great. Good cheese is great. But that's not the direction I went in. And for me, I'm more of a savory person.

Like I would rather have an extra side of great fries or an extra bowl of pasta than dessert. Like I... Wow. What? No? This is the... I agree. This is the...

That is the wrong choice, lady. You were going to go ejected through the roof. Now push the button. No, I think you're correct. I think you're correct. I think you're correct, Terry. James, I can feel him tensing up when you said that, that you'd rather have an extra bowl of pasta than a dessert, but I completely agree with you.

But I would. I've got your back here, don't you worry. You can stay in the restaurant. Okay. That said, this was very hard for me to choose. But if I'm going to pick, I'm going to go with Paul Ainsworth's taste of the fairground. And that's, you know, he won one of those cooking chef shows with that. Yeah, he's a great British menu, maybe.

I guess, yeah. Yeah. I don't even know that this actual dessert is on his menu anymore, but I did have it when it was, and I've had dessert since, and he does some incredible ingenuity, you know, and flavor comes together. But like I said, since I don't really do dessert a lot, it has to have like a special thematic thing, which leads me to, you know, maybe these two tie. Okay.

So this is probably one, I guess it is one of the best restaurants in the world, Alinnea in Chicago. And it's again, one of those molecular kind of places. And many, many things, I haven't been there in a long time, but many things that I had still remain in my mind, like, wow, that was one of the greatest things I've ever had. But I think beyond a doubt, if I was going to pick one thing ever in a restaurant ever, they made a dessert that was an apple taffy blown up into a balloon with helium, and it would come to your table like an actual balloon, an edible balloon, and you would put your

mouth on the balloon, and it would kind of dissolve some of the taffy while you sucked in the helium. And then I was with four people, everybody would be, oh my gosh, he leased the taffy to us, we had this meal, it's been the most amazing meal of my entire life. And then, you know, then you'd start talking, then you'd get another helium hit, and oh my God, I would have never been able to do it. Oh wow. Yeah, it was crazy.

Yeah. And be laughing. And it was just a very memorable experience. What's in the taste of the fairground as well? What's in that one? So that, he had that set up as a whole, like a fairground, you know, and there were, oh, I don't know, candy apples, and taffy things, and fudge things, and marshmallow things, and ice cream, and it just was this beautiful sort of carousel of sugar.

It's sort of like a better version of what you did on Bake Off, James. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess they proved on my idea. Yeah. At any point, is there an iced egg involved in the taste of the fairground? Oh yeah. Don't recall an iced egg, but the next time I see Paul, I'll mention to him that he might want to consider that. Yeah, he might want to consider it, yeah.

Actually, if it was going to be taste of the fairground, I'd probably ice a coconut. A whole coconut. I'll have a coconut shine, I'd ice the coconut properly to look like a happy person at the fairground. That one with the helium balloons, is that the chef who lost his sense of smell or taste? Taste. I think he had cancer of the tongue. Yeah.

Oh, wow. He lost his sense of taste, this guy, and then he... It's a pretty inspirational, brilliant story about how he survived and came back, and now has more restaurants, and is so successful. Grant. Like I imagine they're like, if you as a comedian lost your sense of humor. Oh, no, that happened many years ago. So, you're going to read you back your menu, and see how you feel about it.

Now, you know, you've had a lot of... You've had to really, you know... Struggle. I've struggled with what's happened. You've fought, haven't you? This is the most Bonito has ever had to write during the podcast, and I can see so many... I'm so sorry, I apologize. It's great.

And also, because what we like to do is we like to keep track of all the restaurants that are mentioned on the podcast, and you can put them on the website, so people can go, oh, that sounds nice, I'd like to go there every one day. And you have mentioned so many restaurants, and I've seen how much he's had to write, and it's making me laugh a lot. Well, Ed, I'm holding this in my hand now, and let me tell you, I mean, I too thought that he was writing down all the names of the restaurants and stuff like that, but leading it back, it says, Fairest Princess.

It is I, the nice Bonito. I am heavy on the mead. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a brutal day on the battlefield, and many lives were lost. I have heard words that your head has been turned by the Dark Knight Gamble. So you could do it. You joined in tonight, please. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You just needed a night to loosen up. He's going to be ready. You guys watch out. Yeah. He's getting there. He's coming for the princess tonight. A couple of flaggons of ale. Yep.

Okay, so you passed on the water. I did. You had the burnt black sesame bread with chicken liver pate from a baffle starter. From a motor always start from Southern Ocean Lodge on Kangaroo Island. Your main course, charred octopus from La Tuzi in New York City. Side dish, hot and cold crudité from Bohemian, also in New York. Drink milk punch from Fae from Flower in LA, and dessert, taste of the fairground by Paul Ainsworth.

Wow. Feel pretty good. You did very well. I do. I feel like I wish it was all here. Yeah. Yeah, well, it does sound like a delicious, a delicious meal. I think out of all of our guests, you are the one who's done the most research and has

clearly eaten in some amazing places. Some people just pick ham. Yes. Yes. You've put more effort into your menu today than we've ever put into this podcast. In all the combined episodes that we've ever recorded, you've put more effort into it for this episode. I hope that's not too obnoxious.

No, it's a compliment. I truly love food, and I also love hosting, and I know you guys are not from LA, so I really do. You should go to Kismet. Yes. You should go to Guerrilla Tacos. Yeah. We'll go to those places and maybe take some photos of ourselves outside.

So far, we've just taken one photo of one of us outside a restaurant, and it was me, and it was a restaurant that last time I went there, I shit myself, so the photo was just to commemorate that. I was like, oh, there's the restaurant that I shat my pants in, and then we went over and we took a photo of me outside of it. Sorry. A lot of poop jokes going on. Sorry.

I'll be honest. It's been fairly light on the poop. Oh, there's a lot of stuff I've been restraining. When you said about the balloons full of helium, I said I was going to say about someone farting in it, and that you got to eat the balloon, and then someone as a prank has farted in your balloon. But I didn't say it because I thought it would be in a prank. But you did now.

Yeah. I just thought I'd be honest with you about what was going on. I feel good about you being honest, be yourself. I can take it. The thing is, it wouldn't have been a good joke. Kenny Bunkport would have said the fart thing. Kenny Bunkport would have said it, but it would have been bad. It's not a good joke.

No, no, no. I knew at the time, don't say that. That's stupid. So I didn't say it. But then I felt like now we've acknowledged that we're just a couple of poop gag merchants. We may as well admit that at one point I had that in my head, and I'm quite ashamed of myself. Also, the podcast in the can now, so it's too late for you to back out, Terry.

Okay. So if we'd been that horrible at the beginning, you could have said I'm out. Wait. Like a secret thing that if somebody, or do you guys not do that anymore? There's a secret ingredient that if someone says then we have to kick them out the rest of it. I was so sure that with all I talk about about food that I would say it. Sure, yeah.

I was so thinking, and then I was really imagining, what do they actually do? Like are they actually just going to say, Terry, you can leave now? Yeah, yeah. I guess we would have to. What's the word? Well, so this time, and actually, I mean, it could have been, you mentioned a lot of bread. So many different breads.

Yes, but it was, and this is, I don't like this, Ed likes it, but I don't like it, so it's made the list of secret ingredients, is a brioche bun. Oh yeah, okay. I don't like brioche buns and burgers and stuff like that. Oh, you don't. What about a pretzel bun? Do you like pretzel buns? I'd have a pretzel bun, I'd have a potato bun, I'd have a lot of that.

You're just done with the brioche. So brioche was the word? Yes. Brioche bun. Oh, brioche bun was the word. You would have been out. Especially if it were, I think if you'd said it in your dessert, we would have been a bit more lenient.

Okay. But if you had gone a burger and a brioche bun, I'd be like, goodbye. Wow. And I would have taken your notes and I would have ripped them up. Oh my God. I would have cried them off the balcony as you were leaning out the front door. I don't handle rejection well, that would have been really bad. But I kind of forgot about it once we were talking.

I didn't think about it until right now, but then it's good. But then, before I came over here, I thought, oh wow, I wonder what happens if you get kicked out. But then now, feel free to say brioche bun now and then we'll kick you out. I do make an unbelievable burger with brioche bun. Get the bun. Get out of our Terry Hatcher, get out of the dream restaurant. Never come back.

Wait, you don't want to hear how I inject it with duck fat and brie? That sounds really good. Come back, Terry, come back. That sounds good. Duck fat and brie sounds good. Terry Hatcher there. Whoa. What a pleasure.

What a pleasure. And what a menu. Let's say, in terms of guess what we've had, that is the most dedication to food and the most research that's gone in, I'm going to say. So impressed. I'm so impressed with the amount of work that went into it. I'm humbled by the fact that someone would prepare so much for our podcast. All those places sounded so good.

I felt stupid that I've not been to any of those places. Don't worry. Oh, I felt so. Don't worry, man. I just like it. Don't feel stupid. Don't feel stupid. We can't say that.

Yeah, Terry Hatcher. Oh, yeah. That sounds great. Have you been to Egg Slut? We went to Egg Slut. Yes. No, it's not. It's not fun to say.

Wonderful, wonderful menu. And she did not say brioche buns, but very interesting to know that she was worried that she was going to say the secret. Yeah. Normally, the guests don't come in, you know, going, oh, I know, I know, there's a secret in here. Yeah. But we're pretty tense for the whole episode.

I know. That was our doing there. It made people feel, feel on edge. Thank God the secret ingredient was an octopus. Yes. Oh, but it will never be. Are you going to eat it? Yes.

You're going to eat all those things, aren't you? You can tell it in your eyes when Terry was explaining her menu. So delicious. You should hit us up on the socials. That's all of us, including Terry. Her Instagram account is official Terry Hatcher. So, all of Terry's work speaks for itself. She's got a huge back catalog that you should go and fully investigate if you haven't.

Absolutely. Ed, can people find you on social media? Yes. I'm very much here to plug the podcast social media. Oh, yeah. Off menu official. At? Off menu official is the Twitter.

Yes. On Instagram, it's also at off menu official. And what's the website, James? The website is offmenupodcast.com. .co.uk. So close. So close. But really good, man.

You're totally getting there. You're going to be an influencer before we leave LA. Thank you, man. Also, I mean, a lot, as we said in the episode, there were so many restaurants mentioned in Terry's episode, and they will all be on the off menu official website. There is a restaurants page on the website where Benito has painstakingly listed every single place that's mentioned in every single episode of this podcast. He's put hyperlinks to all of them so that you can just click on the name and it will

take you to the website. Of that place is grouped it all into like, here's all the London ones. Here's all the LA ones. Here's all the New York ones. Here's all the ones in Melbourne. He's done all of that for you. You can go on there. It's an absolute dream.

But for a laugh, tweet him and ask where those restaurants are. Yeah, where they are, what was the restaurant you mentioned, et cetera. And Terry is the final guest of this series of off menu. So thank you very much for Terry. Thank you, you, the listener. We will be back soon in the Dream Restaurant with more special guests. But for now, goodbye. Goodbye.

Bon appetito. Bon appetito, Mr. Benito. Hi, I'm Gina Martin, a campaigner and writer. And I'm Stevie Martin. I'm a comedian and writer and also we're sisters. We are sisters and we're doing our new podcast, Mike Delete Later. It's a podcast about social media, about going back, looking at your embarrassing ones, things you like, things you don't like, and we're talking to all of them types of people.

So many different types of people. We've got writers, we've got comedians. Maybe we'll get a politician. Maybe we'll get a dog. Maybe I'll talk to a plant, deal with it. Who knows? It's like a little snapshot into people's social media lives. Yeah, and hopefully it will make you think more about how you use social media and how

you feel about it. So do subscribe on all of the platforms that you usually get your podcasts on and visit at Mike Delete Later pod on Instagram because we're going to be putting up really fun videos and the things that you didn't see in the podcast episode. Ooh, exciting. Thanks, dudes. Hello, it's me, Amy Gladhill. 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, 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 Glyll's mum on every episode. That's Northern News. When's it out, Ian? It's already out now, Amy! Is it? Get listening, there's probably a backlog you've left it so late.