Final Thoughts and Closing Remarks

Welcome to the Offmenu Tasting Menu. La D. A new concept from the Off Menu Industries. Our minds are an endless well of ideas. Yes, this is our second one. In six years. This is basically our way of getting in uh some guests that we've had in the past. Yep. Fan favourites. We we always worried we Put too solid a line under guests and said you've done it once you're not coming back in. So many podcasts. Oh, third idea. Redemption dinner party. We did a redemption dinner party. So you so so just so you know, we've had three ideas. Yes, in six years. Uh and one of them was during Covid, just doing it on streaming, the redemption dinner party. Then we did it sort of live for the city. We kinda did it live, yeah. But now this is the third idea. Yes, is that we get A a menu, a dream menu from one of the guests that we've had on before, and we present it to a different guest who we've had on before. Yes. As a tasting menu. And get their thoughts on it and whether they'd like it. Yeah. And you know, you know us. It'll spin off into some wacky chats. We probably won't stay on topic. in crazy ways. Well drugs. Yeah. Bad ones. Well, our guest this week in the Tasting Menu restaurants. The Dream Restaurants. Dream restaurants. Is the wonderful. Phil Wang. Phil Wang. You all know Phil Wang. No need Do we even need to introduce Phil Wang as a concept to people? No, everyone knows he's a Fantastic comedian. He's an actor as well. He's been done some great acting and stuff. Since we had him on the podcast, which was the first series. Yes. He's been in Wonka. Wonka? He did a dance in one cut. That's the that that's like Oh but yeah, that's my That's my guy. Three body problem? There's one in that. Yeah. I haven't watched it yet. He's in it very you know, he's got one scene on it, but it's a very good scene. I'd love to see that. It's been he's worked on Worked with Amy Schumer and and Sketches and Look the guy's doing well, what can I say? But we've managed to get him back into the Dream Restaurant for a tasting menu. Yes. So we're going to present him the tasting menu of Jay Rayner. Jay Rayner, notorious and brilliant food critic Jay Raynor. Yeah. Who also came on very early in the life of the podcast. He did. We interviewed him in a room that I don't think we've before since it was like some of his place. We went to him. And maybe no. Was it publishers? Yeah, I think it was it is publishers' offices. thinking like who do we pair with filmmate? Like whose meal should we give him? We started thinking like comedians that are friends with Phil and like we can throw their meals at him and he can like Have fun picking them apart or get annoyed that oh no I've been given this. But actually we're like he's a sophisticated guy. He is. Phil. You know, we're gonna get more out of it. We're gonna learn more about Phil Wagner. By presenting him with A food critics menu. Yes, absolutely. So like I I think we've made a the right decision here. I believe so. Um I I mean I think we should just get stuck into it. No there's no secret ingredients on this? No, we're not gonna k kick him out. Uh, it was Harry Crankling when we had Jay Raynor on, but if not, you know, if Wang says Could I sprinkle some hairy crackling on that? Yeah, fine, fine. I mean maybe m if he does do that. Yeah, that'd be so good, then it we should kick him out. Phil is also on tour with his new show, Uh oh. And you can go to philwang.co.uk for tickets. I saw some stuff from it recently. It's brilliant. You're gonna love it. He's amazing. Uh oh. But this is the off-menu tasting menu of Phil Wang. Welcome back, Phil Wang, to the Dream Restaurant. All my days is so nice to be back. It's been Six years. That's mad. Has it actually? Yeah. Where did that voice come from? Sorry. I can't remember if if if 'cause we might this is the second uh echo on this button. What still in the lamp? Yeah, yeah. Welcome back, how you doing, buddy? It's good, man. Good to see you, James. I was just saying Ed. Oh My heel just killed the lowering mechanism on this chair. Phil's got back into the places. Oh that'd be a cheap trick on a genie, wouldn't it? Yeah. Rub him to get him out of the lamp and then sneak in there when he's not looking. Like a hermit crab just giving a shout. Yeah, la last time I was here, y there was no office. There was no uh cameras. Yes. There was No um mics. We were just shouting. Yeah. Uh and wow, this is yeah, I mean this is amazing. It's pretty fancy. Look look how far young Benito has come. Incredible. He's a man now. He's a man. He's built an empire. Tony Soprano of Bodcast. That was that was the first series I think you did. Maybe even like Episode like tw sixteen or twelve or something? Earlier. Thirteen Episode thirteen. Unlucky for some, lucky for us. Lucky for us 'cause we got Phil White. Well, lucky in Chinese numbers. Is it? Yeah. One and three is um um like life, basically, 'cause three sounds like life. Yeah whereas four sounds like death. So four is the four is the bad four is a bad So one and three together. Um lucky, double lucky. One one life. One life. One life. Do you do you subscribe to that? Yeah, I think there probably is just one life. Yeah. When I was um a very round ten year old boy, I had bought a black Nike vest. that I wore all the time 'cause I thought it made me look tough. And and I wore it to a non uniform day at my school in Boot Borneo once and I'm a massive guy, you know. Guy boy. And I had a f uh one I took it out as an opportunity to look really cool for non uniform day. And I had um on one my left hand a fingerless leather glove. I had the small sunglasses from the Matrix. I had shorts 'cause it's hot. Yeah. Uh T shirt and then this Nike sort of fleece vest. Fleece. Yeah. I remember now it's a fleece vest. And on the back it said one life live it. Oh yes. I was so excited about debuting my true self in school. Yeah. The one life living. The one life living. So one life is something I've always lived by. So did it go well do you remember the reception for the Um the f I arrive at school and the first kid that saw me collapsed to his knees from laughing so much. He just thrust his finger out at me and collapsed to his knees. Oh my gosh. Poor little Phil. He remembers that still. He's still laughing. He's still laughing. He's still on his knees at the school. Grows up sweeping up round him and stuff. Gets into watching Taskmaster as an adult. Yeah. Episode one, season seven, he's on his knees again. He's just recovering. Oh speaking of Borneo and one life Um James, it was uh it was your birthday. It was. I brought you a late gift. Wow. Oh wow, look it's in the pop a little bag. Pop a little bank. Thank you for the bag. And look, the the gold paper coming out the top looks like a genie exploding out of the lone. Yeah, of course. It does. Thank you for that. Oh there's some Sabasco. Sabasco. It's a hot sauce. Yeah. Chili sauce from Borneo and from My s my home state is called Saba. Yeah. And they there's a vr there's a chili there that only grows in Borneo called, I think the Kunak chili. And it's a taste of mine. childhood. And they started bottling it mass mass producing it. And they called it Sabasco. That's cool. And then recently they had to change because of they they It sounds like Sarah Pasco. She's so litigious, we know that. Oh I love that brought you a bottle as well. There's no no bow 'cause it's not your birthday. No, no, fair enough. Thank you so much. It's very unique. For a chili sauce. I'll try something fruity. Yeah, it's a few. How spicy is it? Are you pumpkin? It's pretty spicy. It's pretty spicy. Yeah, the James, the yellow bottle is like a sweet version. Oh you love sweet because you know me. Yeah, of course. It's the ice cream of Chinese as well. Well I'll try the same one that Ed's trying to try. No, we've been put before by Lad Bible. So none of that Halloween kind of thingy. I don't think the I don't think this is that bad. It is it but it's very fragrant, very floral fragrance. Is that a spoon for me? Oh yeah. Yeah, just I put it there for you. Oh thank it was under my mic uh arm. I couldn't see it. Yeah, definitely got a kick to it, but you there's still loads of flavour in it. But you'll say it's unique? Yeah. I would say it's unique. That's a Borneo chili. Smoky and fruity. I like that a lot. I'd say More than a kick? No, I've led Bible I've I'm such a lad. I've been wang Bible. Yeah. No, I'm so sorry about that. The Wang Bible. The Wang Bible. Well, you're kick. That's really nice. Yeah. But a little on the sign and just a little dips, little dabs. I'm putting that bad boy on eggs. That big boy on eggs. That spreads across the tongue at quite a nice pace. Ha ha ha. No. Tell you what this new format is. Yeah, we've got four nice. It's not a thing in hot sauce. No, it's low. It is nice to have an excuse just to get Friends back in and fan favourites. Yeah. Which one am I? Oh nice. You're both. Yes. You're the toofer. And uh this is the off menu tasting menu. That's so good. Where we Mm-hmm. That's not you. And this is what you're getting in the dream restaurant today. Great. I have no choice. This is the omikaze. This is the omikaze. And you can just be honest about how you feel about it. And You don't have to You can just be honest about how you feel about the menu 'cause yeah. We're bringing it out here. It's a taste in menu. Yes. Great. Well I'm very open minded. Who do you think we might have chosen for you? What guest? I was thinking 'cause you know, what I said I guess the most controversial thing I said on my episode was that I'm not really a bread guy. Yes. I don't love bread. And so I thought they're going to pelt me with bread. They're gonna be such a bready menu. And then who I thought who do I know that likes bread? I thought Fern, Fun, Fun loves a loaf. Yeah, yeah. Fun loves a loaf and I thought maybe you'd get But you up for me? You were trying to guess. who it was based on the idea, the preconception that we would want you to have a horrible time. Yes. We're naughty boys. Yeah. We're not gonna lad Bible, you? No. Yeah, sorry. My my lad brain was going over time. Yeah. Yeah. You can reveal it. It's that piece of paper nearest you there that we've put that says gas. Oh I see, yeah, gotcha. So this is who whose menu you'll be eating this evening, I'm sorry. Reading this now? Yes. Okay. Tonight I'll be eating the menu of Jay Rayner. Jay Rayner, legendary food critic Jay Raynor. I think I've done very well here to be honest. I think you might have done. Yeah, well no not everyone would say that, 'cause some people might be like a fucking food critic. Yeah. Not I but well, we were thinking Wang would probably be quite excited to get a Jay Rayner meal. I'm a big fanor. I got Rayner Mania. You are winning me. I I like I've read I've read one of his books. I uh I think his reviews are very good. I think he I think he very adroitly Balances himself between the domains of High taste and And no pretension. He's got good taste, but he doesn't have much time for pretension. I think that makes the ideal food critic. There you go. We've actually done really well here. Oh yeah, big time. Yeah. I can't wait. Although he does love bread. He does love bread. So So it's um I look uh fear coming into this. Yeah, already I'm trying to how have they how have they lad bibled me? How have the boys lad bible me? In the intervening six years between the last time you're in the dream restaurant We've shared a lot of meals together. Yes, we have. And I I think there must have been bread at those. I don't remember you sort of knocking a basket out of some poor waiter's hand. But those were very nice breads. Yes. Those were very, very high quality breads. Those a lot of time they were baked on site. I mean and when they come when they turn up warm and there's like there's butt but there's butter. But when it like turns out warm and there's love in their eyes. That's that's that's beautiful. But I'm not like I don't I don't default to bread all the time. And I' I I I don't try not to eat bread at the start of a meal 'cause it just kinda takes up value. V valuable space. I have very much the mind of like Yeah, an Asian guy at a buffet is like you need to be piling on as much value protein onto the plate and bread is taking up. Turns out. I'm an Asian guy at a buffer. I always say that that's. I always say this about you. I'm an Asian guy at a buffet. So is my wife. My wife's an Asian guy at a buffet. Your wife is the biggest Asian guy I've ever met. Yeah. No, w we we went to Vegas and went to like some big buffets, like the big expensive buffets. Awesome. Um and our catchphrase when we were going up to the buffet every time was was be Asian. I'm Asian. That was the Hello on their way there. Hello, we'd say to everyone. I'm Asian. And they say right this way. That's your catchphrase I is. No, it's a casino. Everyone We would shout, I'd say near the tops of our voices. Quite drunk. High quality protein. High quality proteins. High quality proteins. So high battle cry. Yeah. High value. High value. High value, that's an important thing. But does v does quality equal value? Not always. No. No. Yeah. Not not always. Sometimes things are expensive worth a lot not really worth that much. I mean lobster. Was fed to prisoners. in Maine. They there was a protest. in main prisons 'cause they're can't keep feeding us these bugs. Then it became fancy food and then it became expensive. And they don't get it in prison anymore, I guess. No, not that protesting Let us see some forgotten lobster. Yeah, he said the lobster. We take it back. We take it back. It's all about perception. Yeah, blinders thing. They got the butter. The cartoon lobster on the bed. Can you stop feeding us these bugs? Yeah they caught me Do you think they fed the prisoners lobsters that had done crimes? Mm-hmm. Yeah. They pinch things. Oh yes. Come on. It was there. It's not good, but it's there. It was right there. Something's good. That's all you can hope for as a comedian. That's yeah that it just works on a technical level. It's quick and it's there. It's quick and it's there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed that page. That was actually the slogan for lobster. Yeah. On the shores of Maine. It was quick and it's though. It's quick in it. What is your so what is your buffet technique? So first plate at a buffet. Say this is like a fancy buffet. Oh, okay. Oh like at a Singaporean hotel. Sure. Well avoid the c all avoid the starches. Mm-hmm. Do find hard of winning noodles. But seafood. So you want you want your prawns, you want lobster, crab. Got the Japanese area. High value, not very filling. Yeah. Japanese way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh uh Mackie's um Tuna, um a miso soup, not filling. Not meet the stuff's not particularly valuable, but and then you get into You're red meats. That's very high value, very expensive. So a bit of steak. Bit of uh Um a b bug. The silver and then you start on the silverware, because there's the real You gotta start filling up on the silverware. We're talking teaspoons. We're talking little forks. We're talking the little the little Snail forks. Those tiny little snail forks. You can back in fucking loads of those. Into a pocket. Then you're in prison. Then you're being fed lobster. I don't go to buffets not much anymore. Are the fancy buffets Yeah? I feel like not as fancy as that, I think. The fanciest ones I've been to, like in Vegas or It's like Vegas, Dubai. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Though I I I have very fond memories of going to the The All You Can Eat Buffet in Ketwin when I was growing up. I always used to look forward to I've shouted out Lee Gardens on the podcast before. But I'd I'd be excited every single time we're going to Lee Gardens. The Chinese buffet? Yeah. Lee can go either way. Yeah, yeah. But it was what Lee Gardens sounds like a guy from Catering who runs a gardening company. Shout out to him as well. Yeah. I don't want to him the thing got forgotten about it. Lee Gardens, you keep on doing your thing, brother. We all appreciate your work. I'm talking about the oil you could eat buffet, though. Yeah. Um yeah, delicious. And I I just get 'cause that no one else did that near us. Yeah. Like going to explain. It's like one of our birthdays. Oh just like going crazy. But that's like Chinese buffets, or you can eat Chinese buffets are where people really fuck up with the starches, I think. Yeah. They're going straight in with a pile of noodles and rice. That's it. And that's it. They're not going back. Yeah, and that's a smart thing. The Chinese make an event out of the starches. Yeah, yeah. And people think, Oh, I'm getting value here. Yeah. You pay like a ten at all you can eat, and then you've eaten less than a way less than a ten is worth and you can't fit any more in. You've got to go with the proteins. Avoid the chicken balls is mostly better. Yeah. Mostly better. That's how they're getting you there. Yeah. You need to be able to see the meat. Yeah. Scrap claws, all that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. Silver way Yeah. Chopsticks, every chopstick you can grab. Do water and pop them so bread together. He's quite brief on them. Between sparked in water and Interesting. Now you gotta be happy with that. Yeah. You were all scared about bread. I mean, look, please take this well. I've never had a guest get in their head so much about the bread before we've even started. You were panicking so like no bread on this is the guy's I was like, he's so scared there's gonna be bread here. And I we know that's poppa doms. Yeah. No, I'm happy about the poppa doms. Again, not filling up too much at all there. No, yeah. You have thrown some relishes. Did he pick on any relishes? Well I'm guessing you you're having whatever you want on those pop it once Phil. Oh great. Nutella. Yeah Yeah. Yeah, I I like I like that onion salad that comes with that. So do I. Yeah. I love it. I never used to like it. I'd be like, What why am I eating that? Mm, raw onion? Are you kidding me? I started off as a a mango chutney guy. Yeah. And then you realise you're eating dessert. Yeah. You need to start with some salad, a little onion, something zesty, a little lime. Th I guess the only problem with problems is I've never had it with a non Indian meal. Potentially. incoherent start to a meal unless it's the rest is Indian. Does coherence worry you, meal wise? Mm yeah. It does. Yeah. I I I think I I've if a meal isn't sort of th thematically or culturally tied together. Odd. All rules are out the window at a buffet. Yeah, of course. At a buffet. I'll have sushi next to a lasagna. And I'll be like, I'm getting my money's worth. Yeah. Take the rice out of the sushi, of course. Yeah. Don't have to be loading up on that. Do you change what hat you're wearing for each um Each each dish? A little hat? Yeah. Yeah, like a hat that represents the codes. Because we all know you're wearing a hat when you go into the buffet, but when you change that hat. Yeah, I have to bring it up. So just to make you feel like thematically you're still kind of like you're connected to everything in some way. Yes. So it's not that random. And maybe what you're listening on your headphones, you change that as well. Yeah I have a playlist. Yeah. Buffet it's it says Buffy Buffet twenty five. The new year now. So you're talking into a lasagna. Yeah. What hat are you wearing? Do they have it's not the no, Beret is French, isn't it? This is like an Italian one, isn't there? What's the what's the guy wearing on those pizza boxes you get in London? Chef's hat? Chef's Oh in the white the white. Um the gondola. Guys have a little beret. Yeah. Maybe that's but then if you go with the beret for Italy, Phil, thank you for it. 'Cause later on there's gonna be a there's gonna be a French a French dish. Well lucky I've already got a hat. Well you do it. You can't just go by the smaller beret, right? Yeah, I'm just gonna need to squish it. Yeah. Oh you're gonna use the same beret? Yeah, just squish the Italian one. Yeah, squish it up. Well there are certain ways of wearing berets in different regions. that are like, that means you're from there. Oh no. And you wear it differently, it means you're from a different place. I got shown it when I was in San Sebastian with Joe Lyset for Travelman. And we got to try some berets on and the guy was telling if you wear it like this, you're from San Sebastian. If you wear it from this, you're from Bill Bell. It was like do it all differently. So it must be the gondola guys must have their own way. But that's in Italy. So you're talking about Spain now? Yes, I'll talk about Spa just now. Yeah. So that so you know. Well, I've got a lot of cuisines covered by one hat, it sounds like. You've got to move it. Yeah. Otherwise something will come up to you and go, What are you doing? Chinese food are you gonna wear the hat? Or are you just gonna be like Oh, Chinese f yeah, I can have either that sort of tight cap. Yeah. Then I'm just pulling the beret down a bit, aren't I? I'm just tightening it. Mm. I don't know why you refuse to take more than one hat to the buffet. Well, I'm just trying to think how mu it's it just feels that unwieldy why we're putting all these hats. I think if you've got one and you keep just moving it around, it's gonna feel like some like Edinburgh one man show thing, generally where they just use as little props as possible and everyone goes, Oh, it's amazing what they did just with that bear. It completely transformed. Or you're gonna look like you got nets. Yeah. I think you got nets. Buffy. Yeah, no, that's not good. Mm, okay. Well the Barry covers a lot. Other uh yeah, other hats, the sombrero, that's gonna take up a lot of space. I could probably fit in some of the hats into the sombrero. Yeah. The barrier could go into the sombrero. And then there's often a string on the sombrero isn't there, so you can carry that in. So it's like a hat bag. It's a hat bag, it's a hat. Yeah. Yeah. And then when on the way out, that's why I put all the cutler in. Perfect. In the brim. You put the sombrero on, just line all the forks and knives around the sombrero and then go. Adios. Yeah. Really slowly, one step at a time. Sorry, I'm very fine. Turning your neck really slightly to look at the provider as you go out. Yeah. Thank you, my good man. Gently jangling. Yeah. Putting your hand up wearing that fingerless glove. Yeah. See you later. Everyone in the restaurant having to use their hands. Yeah. The hell happened to the cut thing. Where's that jangly mat going? Well, hopefully this menu will be coherent for you. Okay. From Poppadoms. But I trust I trust Big J. Okay. Your starter. This is Jay Vayner's starter that's coming to your table now and putting it in front of you. Oysters. Marvelous. From Rooney Fish. Castleford Lock N I. What's N I. Northern Ireland, I'd imagine, James. Not for Eaton. Not for Eaton. Is that what it means? Not for eating. Oh, take 'em away. Take 'em away again. Bad luck. Yeah. Very funny from Phil there, but I don't want to get off track that you didn't know what NI stands for. I thought it was like an American like state or something. Michigan. Michigan, yeah. Michigan everyone speaks the loud squawky voice all the time. Detroit, Michigan. Yeah. Um blue state, I imagine. Castleford. Lot is in Northern Ireland, so Okay. Yeah. Apologies. Apologies to everyone in Northern Ireland. I've exposed myself there. Ignorant. Yeah. Well these are delicious, these Northern I love an oyster and actually J. Rayner informed my oyster eating technique. Oh wow. It's in his book that he says There's all sorts of nonsense about not chewing an oyster, two chews, three chews, he says, It's food chew it. Choo choo chew until you've had enough chewing in it as well. This is all he does, he pee peels away the nonsense, old J. Yeah. He peels away the nonsense. Yeah, so I think about Jar and every time I slurp down a A Northern. And what do you do now like choo choo do you choose choo choo choo choo? I choo choo. I choo choo choo. Okay. Maybe four. If it's a real good one. Yeah. Sometimes you get a bit scared. Even I get scared. Yeah. Even even fans of oysters get a bit scared sometimes. You're like, not actually, maybe I'm not into this, actually. Every single time there's a little moment I'm like, Oh, what am I doing? And then I swallow and I go, That was great. So good. So gonna take another and like fuck what am I doing? Oh yeah, that's really good. They are scary. I love oysters, but every time I have them I think I've never had a Bad one. Uh-huh. business to me. No, that's right. Yeah. One day I'm sure I'm sure it'll happen. Yeah. When could it be? I'm spinning the rulette whale every time I have oysters. The the the oyster farmers. Fishers? Fish em oystermen? They they know from they they eat raw straight off the boat. When they're fishing and they slurp it and they know straight away if it's a bad one. Oh really? After they swallow it, and they um they swallow a bit of bit of salt water and they throw it up over the side and they keep going. So instantly puke. Instantly puke it out, yeah. They can just tell from the taste that's bad one and they get it. Yeah. I went to the Oyst the Oyster farm in Witstab. Something for uh a little uh travel show. Uh for a video game. And the guy' Hold on, a travel show for a video game. What are you talking about? An oyster farm. An oyster farm. It sounds like you were filming a Marvel film and then you've had to suddenly make up what you were doing. Yeah. What are you talking about? It was for Total Rome uh Rome Total War, which is a video game original strategy game I've always been a big fan of, and they were re remastering the original Rome Total War. And to coincide with it, they wanted to do like a funny travel around uh travel documentary. But the Romans, but it was Covid, so we can go to Rome. So we did Roman Britain. Yes. And for one episode is about Roman British food and they ate loads of all. L Roman um Roman's sites archaeological sites are full of voice or shells and their walls are full of voice or shells 'cause they reused and put in the Uh and so he went down to the visible Oyster Company, which is the oldest company s in Company House. In the UK. But the the Wisp of the Company is the oldest company in Company's House that survived. I can't wait to tell that to John Robbins. He'll know that. I can't wait to tell him that I know a detail about I'll go he loves trivia. Yeah. So I can't wait to say to him, Judo the oldest company. It comes out of this, and it will go, No, what is it? And then at that point I will have forgotten. Yes. It would be far enough away from this. Yeah. That I will have forgotten that only bit I would have retained is that I want to tell John. And then I will realise that I don't know. And I'll say Phil Wang. That would be it. We've had oysters a lot together. Oh sorry, quite recently. They're growing keep growing as well. Sorry, this has become oyster to keep going. Yeah on on the on the on the beach where the oyster farm is, there was a oyster that just dropped off one of the ranks years ago. And it was like the size of this table, it was massive. No one picked it up. It just fell off one of the racks and they went there, fuck it. See what happens. I can't be but we'll get it tomorrow. Every day we'll get it tomorrow. Eventually. How fucking big is that? Try lift it that It's impossible. I bet that oyster is you couldn't eat that though. No I bet it's disgusting. It'd be horrible. To chew or not to chew. And it goes what am I doing? Picks you back up again. Yeah. It's not a good one. Yeah. Phil just like naked, just slides across the floor. The the Oyster X. Was um You're very experienced oyster fishermen. And he was I was he's trying to get me to shuck them, which I couldn't do because the choices are so sharp and my soft, soft city hands were just breaking against the crust. Of this oysters. And he said um No, you're a c you're a city you're a city man. Luke pointed out my hands and he's and he went, You know what we call those here? And I thought And he goes, Lady Wow. Well that's not making the edit. Yeah. You could have just said take your breath, mate. Yeah, you're not gonna say nice soft hands. Yeah. All those lovely hands. Yeah and you're very welcome here. Lady hands. Lady hands. Looks at the camera. Yeah. I've shocked toist at home before a couple of times. Yeah. So hard. It's so hard. You you have to go in the opposite way to the o the opposite end that you think. Yeah, you can go in the joint. The joint bit and then get it in there, twist to Unlock it. then get the knife and try and cut all the muscle off the top. All while trying to not get shell into the shell. And then yeah, it's it's a nightmare. It makes me really angry when I've done it. Oh but yeah, yeah, yeah. Really stressed out. Not worth it. And then the product at the end of it is like lasts no point five seconds. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I've probably fucked it up. I've accidentally chopped it up into mints in the middle of the shell because I'm digging the knife around in there. I'd do that. I'd chop it all up, I'll get shell all in it. Yeah. And I'll be and and from like Two seconds in and it being hard, I'd think to myself, it's not even like marshmallows in here. Yeah. Not even doing this for a for a marshmallow. Doing for something that I'm gonna get halfway through and go, Well Yeah, freak out while I'm eating it. If this was a lovely goobby marshmallow, this would be worth it. Do you m when we went to Rick Stein's restaurant in Padstow? Yes. My style of you. Yeah. My starter. Was four oysters. But it came with some spicy sausages. Oh wow. Such a nice touch. Yeah. And I didn't know this was a thing, but apparently it's quite a sort of French thing to do. You neck an oyster. Have that, you know, what the fuck. And then take a bite of the spicy sausage straight afterwards. Or take a bite with an oyster in your mouth and it's it's perfect. It's so good. Wow. Little sausage chaser. Yeah, sausage chaser. That's good. That's my favorite part of eating is when you eat to animals that would never have met. You know that. It's the most wang thing you've ever said. Loads of people We have Lotion Connity on the podcast once and she said she loves watching YouTube videos of animals that wouldn't normally hang out with each other in you know who make friends in captivity and how sweet it is. I love each of them both and they never would have met. They wouldn't have. If you told an oyster about a pig, it would have lost its shit. I love that. You eat an oyster and you eat a bit of pig. You're in control of the whole world. On bacon? You're pouring a tree on a pig. Pouring a tree on a pig. If you tried to tell this pig when it was alive, I wanna kill you, I'm gonna pour a tree on you. It feels so good. Yeah. Yeah. It feels amazing. Yeah. That is one of those sentences that's gonna change people's lives. Pouring the tree on a pig. Every time they put maple syrup on bake and nothing, I'm pouring a tree on a pig. Damn right. Damn right. Crushing rocks onto I don't know. Snail. It's also it just it just Snails probably matter all. Salt Poor guy. Yeah, poor guy. Would you ever say, like you know, for breakfast would you say like to your partner or whoever, like Wanna go in? That sounds Say that to your partner. Sounds like you're out for some fun. Oh you wouldn't want to do that, so I'm Mammoth Man here. Wouldn't want to give us Yeah, but it's uh it's an awful way of suggesting it, isn't it? Wanna go drae on a pig? You gotta think, What's the tree and who's the pig? Which tree which tree train point. You sound like uh a socialite, like one of those old school socialites who has dinner parties and invites people from different walks of life. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But in this case you're eating the guests. Yeah, that's right. I'm doing I'm doing um Placing map. A se a seating map for for animals. Yeah. For dead animals to meet each other. You guys are really gonna get on. Yeah, that's my love for surfing time. Cow? You have to meet a lobster. I think you two would get on very well. If the cat was in prison, it made a lobster. Yeah. You two are gonna have a riot together. Is that a prison joke? Is that a prison pun? No, it wasn't supposed to be actually. I was just enjoying enjoying being one of those annoying hosts who has dinner parties and sits people next to each other who don't know each other. And you're like, fucking home, that's not why I'm here. W when you have people over for dinner, do you do you give them a seating plan? Do you tell them where to sit? Or just let them sit with people who they know. Probably haven't had anyone over for dinner for about three years. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I w I wouldn't do that. No. But also like the worst is obviously weddings. Where people go, We thought we'd just mix up all the friendship goes like Why the How long do you think this one in is one fucking day. Yeah. We're not I don't need to get into these I I wanted to sit with my fucking mate. It's like the wedding off together. And and do and and and like all you know, having sweepsee on the speeches, do fun shit. Yeah. And now you've sat next to someone and now I've got be on my best behaviour. Yeah. Yeah, you've got to be a city table. everyone else there is a comedian and their partner. Yeah. And I all I want to do is talk about comedy. While all of our partners look increasingly annoyed. Yeah. Surely you must hate that for you don't like sitting next to strangers at weddings? I I I like being sat with next to someone I I don't know. I like meeting new people in my third. People say oh making new friends In your thirties is hard. I find making new friends is easy. Keeping friends, that's hard. For me, that's hard. It's really hard. Yeah. I make friends, I lose 'em. That's how my work always works. Why do you think you lose them what happens? I think it's because w uh growing up I moved around. So I g you know, and moved a lot schools a lot and I moved like I went to boarding school in Borneo and then And then moved here and then I was only at school here for two years and went to university. So in my mind, I think my mind goes, Oh, you have friends for two years. Yeah, yeah. And then you and then you leave. Yeah, that that was just my conditioning. So they just are like where it's filled. So that they don't know they don't know what's happened. Yeah. No, no, no. They message you going, I thought we were supposed to meet up and you're going, check the calendar, mate. It's two years. I told you. Happy New Year, goodbye forever. I remember reading something once about a guy who Had a thing. a very rigid thing of like how long his relationships lasted. Like romantic so if he got in a relationship it was well say ten years. And that was how long it was gonna so every year every relationship was the same amount of time. To the point where he would Say to partners like This is what it is with me. No matter how it's going. After ten years. Wow. And I think at the beginning a lot of them would think like Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah And then it would get to ten years on the day you go, goodbye. Wow. And then we'll be like, are you fucking kidding me? That's crazy. How young did this guy start? Ten years is a long time. Yeah, probably I'm I probably shouldn't have. Ten years. Oh right, right, right. Might be for a year. Okay, okay. It's obviously not ten years. Sorry, baby, this is just something I do. Once But a every single person must think, I'm gonna change his mind. Right. We we are so right for each other. This is a good relationship. They're approaching the three year mark, whatever it is, and they're going, There's no way. We are this is the best relationship I've ever been in. It is great. Did he just decide that or did his first relationship end after three years? Maybe the second one is a coincidence and he was like, I guess that's how it has to be. Maybe. Yeah. And then it just became my conditioning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's like you with your you go, Well, I'm off to uni now. Yeah. Yeah. You're forty five. Guess I'm moving. Yeah, move it again, put your little bindle over your shoulder. Yeah. Go to the next town. With all your hats in it. Oh yeah, uh yeah, cut I mean it installed the. Your main course film. Yeah. That Jay Vayners chose for you. Some spare ribs from Louise and Harrow. Oh wow. I don't know losing arrow. What's so special about these spare ribs? Uh I I I seem to remember Jay Vayner saying that he likes the ritual of like eating with something with your hands. Yes. Yeah, fun. Getting stuck in and ince I've been you got no choice. Yeah, sure. You've got the silver my hat. So Yeah, I love ribs. One I never understood what makes a rib a spare rib. What's a spare? Yeah. Especially since those are the ribs you see the most. That's right. But they're not left over. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're they're the full rib. Yeah. Yeah. If those are spare ribs. What the spars like. What the spars are the spares like. Is it the spare ribs. Yeah, d do we know? No, I guess maybe traditionally when it was when a pig was being butchered, maybe, maybe they were the cheapest bits that no one wanted, so they were the spare ribs. No spare. And then They were like became The most desired bit. And they're just still called spare ribs. Why wouldn't you call them just ribs though? It's not like you butcher a pig and go, Well that's a spare anus. No one wants it. It does make it more anus is going begging. Do you remember the urban myth a few years back where the people were saying that Calamari was uh deep fried pig anus? This was a thing I read. It's like I read a thing and it said be careful but be careful. Hi guys. Be careful. That all the calamari out there, some of it might be uh pig ainers. Some of it might be. Not all of it. All of it. Some of it just to sort of you know beef up portions. Yeah. But you would love it. You'd be like a squid and a pig would never meet. Shoveling it in. Yum yum yum. Well I thought surely uh Pig Zanus is more expensive than A squid there's there's the many rings of squid in a squid. There's only one anus on a pig. So you think that's what that makes it more expensive. You think if if the if the someone just butchered a pig They got all the like all the choice cuts that people usually eat. So many chops. Only one anus. They're like I've only got one anus here. So you bet you better pony up some pretty big bucks for this. Start the bidding at fifty pounds for the games. You can take the chops. I don't give a shit about the chops. The thing's full of chops. So it gets quite difficult for these chefs who were just like I need a whole bowl of what looks like calamari. How am I gonna get enough pig atuses for this? Yeah. Well maybe just some of them will be pig atuses. I love that it's only some of them. Like why just why not just give one less calamari? I don't think anyone's gonna notice. No They're going, Oh no, they're expecting seven calamari out of this. I can't start start a whole new squid. Well they've printed the menu. The menu says seven calamari. Yeah, as it always does. Yeah. Yeah. Seven exact calamarias. Don't look at one of them too hard. Is one calamari a calamaro? That makes me feel sick. Because you know it's like with the Italian food, like the I is always the plural. Yeah, yeah. So there's one calamari or calamara? Maybe it is a color marvel. Yeah, because I guess ravioli raviolo. Yeah. Yeah. Raviolo's like a big raviola. Yeah. Yeah. True. I think so. Raviolo's definitely true. I've not heard spaghetto before. Yeah, I thought spaghetto it was just. You're thinking spaghettios. Yeah, I thought I think you're thinking of spaghettios, Phil. Like a tin of spaghetti hoops. Yeah. By the way, aspiraces. Little birdie I guess that they put in. It's just cheaper. It's just cheaper. Not all of them. Not all of them in the That would be dis that would be nuts. That would be beyond the pale. But some of them are. I feel like I'd noticed if there was a pig anus in my calamari. I would have thought so, yeah. Sure it would look different to the rest of them. None of us are saying we know what big anuses look like. No. I'm not saying that. No. Calamari are like you can see through the middle of it, right? Yeah. Surely the pig anus uh anus. It's to be quite puckered. Right, right. But sort of Liberated from the sphincter. No, the thing to the inside being Liberated from the anal muscles does it loosen. Maybe that maybe when it's heated. Ah, it expands. It expands. It could expand. Maybe they give the You can kill it. Even with a pop up budget, it's still cheaper. Yeah, yeah. Peggle get suspicious at that point, surely. Why you want to sniff it, yeah. You're not gonna pour a tree on me, are you? I'll sniff it. Stay away from my eyes. Ribs. Yeah. I I like I I like a rib. When someone says ribs, I assume they're gonna be spare ribs. Well that's always why they call the Chinese takeaway ribs. It's always called spare ribs. I guess that's the spare ribs are. But then a rack of ribs it's never call sp a rack of spare ribs. That's just a rack of ribs. Yes. Some places it is, I think. But that's but they are the spare ribs. They're the long ones, right? R Compared to Baby back baby back baby back ribs. And what are baby back ribs? The smaller ones. Oh so the spare ones are the long ones at the end. Yeah, the ribs. Okay, well that might be it then. Yeah. Yeah, I love um I love ribs. I love all the sauces that come with the ribs. The barbecue, the Sichuan. And any others? I I can't remember what Jade Rayner wanted, but I guess they're more in the sort of American style of barbecue. Barbecue sauce smothered ribs. I love pulling meat off a bone. It makes me feel like God. I just like that. The second time you said it makes you feel like God. It makes me feel like God. And it's gonna only end one way. Sort of medieval, right? Pulling me off a bone and eating it with your hands. You wanna throw the bone away like God. So sick. I want to feel like the corrupt king at the end of uh Return of the King. Yeah, Lord of the Rings. Yeah, just eating he e he bites the tomato and it goes and like tearing meat off like a leg. So so sick. We don't we don't pull enough meat off bone in this country. In in Malaysia Yeah, everything is on I didn't really come. Cross like breast like just chicken breast on its own until it moved to the UK. is the part that people don't want in Asia. Yeah. Because it's not so flavorful. And it doesn't you know, and it gets dry. Melcumber. My father is a Chinese as a Chinese guy and they all have this skill of just shoving. And then they go. And the mouth just moves around. Yeah. And then and then he'll s he'll lean over and he'll spit out thing thing thing perfect. Shining little bones. Wow. It's awesome. Like God. Yeah. Exactly like God. Yeah. You know how like on a T V show sometimes a sex a sexy lady will flirt with a man by putting a cherry stem in her mouth and and then she puts it out. Yeah. Pulls it out and it's tied in a knot. I eat a little bit But And I and I say madam and I More napkin. But uh split a beacon into a napkin. Just the beacon it's the whole skeleton I guess. Yeah, yeah, the whole skill of it. But oh I think you say Phil Wang, please to meet you. It spells out Phil Wang, please to meet you. The bones. Sometimes if like chickens like char grilled or anything like that, the small bones, if they've been like And they're like a bit carbonated. I'm crunching those down. Yeah, do we? Yeah. This guy. I learned something new about him every episode. I love it. I love like being able to crack through a crunchy bone, cartilage. When you do that makes me feel like a god. Ah I think I know this feeling. If you were a god, Phil. Yeah. What would be the first thing you so if if you woke, if you were Jim Carey and Bruce Almighty on the What what would you do? Mm mm. Sorry, Phil just put a small bird in his mouth. Yeah. This is what I would do. Um I'm I I'm pr I'm pretty satisfied with how the world is. It's that an irresponsible thing to say. I think the world is great in twenty twenty five. Didn't even need to talk about the state of the world, could have just come up with something mad that you do if you're a god, but you went with I'm pretty satisfied with the state of the world. I think the world is good. Um I can't think of anything that people are complaining about at the moment. I don't know, man. It's just it's too big an an ask. I I don't I wouldn't know where to Well to start Every you know, you you you you wanna say, Well, I'd get rid of all war and injustice, but it'll arise. We're built. fight and to be unfair to one another. It's how we're built. And every time we try. What the hell are you on it? Every time we try and affect something from the top down that changes this nature of ours, it ends up Yeah, but being a god is not top down. I think Oh well there's nothing more top down than being a god. No, because you can literally control everything that happens. It's not like you need to worry about the consequences. That sounds like a lot of work. I'm checking in every day. See how it's going. Yeah, you're God, man. Yeah. I just wanted to put tree on a pig and now I've got control every conflict in the world. Yeah. Um I I I think I wouldn't want to be like a um monotheistic Abrahamic God. I w 'cause that's too much of a broad scope. You got too much I want to be one of the Pantheon gods. Yeah. Like an Egyptian or a Greek or They had some fucking good times. A god of something. A god of something. Would you be the god of the I'd be the god of when you need to buy something with cash and you have just enough change that around You that is like the thing is um thirteen Pound uh fifteen pence. Yeah. And you have a tenor and and a five pound note. Yeah. But you also have fifteen pounds. Yeah. So you give ten pounds, five pounds, fifteen pounds, and you get Pounds. Yeah. Back. Yeah. I once did that at a supermarket in London. And the the checkout lady Very confusingly gave me two pounds back. Even though the price had some pence at the end of it. And she honestly said to me, How have you done that? I'd be the god of that Yeah. Like your Darren Brown or something. She's looking for hidden cameras. I mean I've got to assume you're getting bullied at God school. If that's what you're the god of. The best of them do the property. We know what the god's wearing. Yeah, absolutely. Everyone else wearing robes and stuff, you're turning up wearing your fleece. One life limit, which is absolutely redundant if you're a god. Yeah, one life is forever though. Yeah, but living it. I'm loving it. Uh fleece on your glove. Okay, well that you know, that I think you'll be a good god of care. So will people pray to you to make sure that that happens for them. Well these gods, these pantheon gods You know, when you dig into it, some of them are really specific what the gods of. And that's a pretty good one. That's a pretty crushing one. You'd have to do the very much work and you get to be a god. Um yeah, they pray for me. Uh they'd offer up loose change at the altar. Yeah. And um But you don't want that as a god, though. They'd have to offer up. Yeah. Yeah. No but n I guess no, I want loose change so that I can keep having the feeling. The experience. Yeah, and isn't the experience only good because you don't receive any loose change back. And get rid of the loose change initially. Oh yeah, you're right, actually. Yeah. You're gonna have to put some more work in if you wanna be the god of this, so sorry, goddamn. Being a God is hard. This is what I was saying earlier. Yeah. You just want to feel like a God. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. By putting a tree on a pig or Eating cheese on fish. That's a good one. Yeah, putting cheese on a fish, you're pouring a cow onto a fish. Yeah. Yeah. They had no idea about each other. No one's ever milked a cow over a river. No. No one's ever been milking a cow on a and just at the point where they squeeze the teeth. the bucket gets washed away and a fish was happened to be going past. Never and goes that never you mind what that was. You're a cow. You'll find out in the afterlife on that. Also their eyes are pointing on the side. I don't think they can actually look down at the water. Most of the cows looked at the seen the sea, but the cows never met a fish. Most cows have seen the sea. I wouldn't say most cows have seen the sea. Yeah. That's that's definitely not true. Yeah. Some cow have seen the cow. No, no, no. Some cow had me there. You really thought you had me there when you thought I said most guys have seen it. The side dish, but we're gonna learn a side dish now. Yeah. It's buttery cabbage. Made by Jay Rayner. This is mad because I do his uh I'm starting to sound Jay Raynor obsessed. I I do his Cabbage recipe from his book. Oh, this is hu this is such a coincidence. It's it's lots of butter, lots of cabbage, and then just loads of chicken stock and you just keep going and going and going. That's it. That's what you put on his dream meal. So you've actually had it before. I I I make it. I've made it. I haven't made it in a while actually. I've got to get back on that. It's fantastic. This is fantastic. Wow. It's full of butter and stock. See We just had a feeling. We were like, Let's choose Jay Raynor for Phil. We think that'd be good. We think 'cause we're not trying to we weren't trying to do what you thought we were gonna do and like punk you. We were trying to give you something that well, you think he would he would vibe with this a little bit. We were so on the money 'cause you're eating this anyway. Absolutely. I love it. How often do you make Jay's buttery cabbage? I haven't for a bit, but I went through a period of like having it in basically every other meal I would make this buttery cabbage. Wow. It's so good, man. It goes with so much. I love cabbage. Yeah. Shout out to cabbage. I mean cabbage is you know, it's It's got so many societies through so much across the world, you know? Europe The cabbage has has in the foundation of civilization. And it's front it's still like people think badly of Cabbage quite a lot. Yeah. I think people think it's like lame and farty and Farty. Yeah, Farty is something that gets leveled at it a lot. Charlie Bucket's family have cabbage soup. Delicious in Chelly Child. Not so bad. After all, being a bucket. Little cabbage soup. It's better for you than fucking chocolate. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean any sort of buttered greens. Big fan. I this does sound good. I've still not. buttered cabbage aller J right now. Oh yeah. But are you literally just cooking the cabbage in stock? Are you cooking it in the stock? Or Um yeah. I think lots of butter at the other start to fry it up and then and then kinda like a risotto, you keep adding Okay, so it's like evaporates. Yeah. Amazing. That's really good. It's really nice. It's delicious. So you can just make this you just got it in your head now, you know how to do it. Sometimes some crushed fennel seeds. And that's really nice. Well felt. Not a pepper, obviously. Yeah. Yeah, man. It's the best. It's really good. You must think of J Vaner when you're eating oysters and when you're eating cabbage. Yeah. I think about J Van a lot, actually. Yeah. He's a lucky guy. To get to live inside this. To live rent free in this. You know he plays jazz piano as well. Yeah. Have you been to one of his gigs? And too busy eating cabbage. Yeah. I imagine you' you're like learning his songs. You could eat a load of cabbage, then go to his gigs, hop on stage and play the bat trumpet. To read Trump. I was not expecting but Trump to come. Place it on my calamari and uh get it going. Super fad. Oh no, this always happens. Rip it out a solo from your ass. Someone's read my cookbook and now they're not. Think of you all the time, Jay. I think of you all the time. We saw in the new year. Um I can't remember if it was New Year's Eve. Ed and I watched Jay Vayner on Pointless. Yes. Win pointless to be fair to him with uh Thomasina Myers. Yes. Another guest? Another guest from the pod. So you know, we're voting for them because we're like interesting. They've both been on this podcast. We want them to win because then we've won. Yes. If no Ed. Have you guys done Ed? Pointless Snipes. Yes. How do you do it? I've done it a couple of times. Both times I did it with Nish. From Michigan. From the first time we crashed out after two rounds. Uh second time we won. Nice one. Oh, you won the jackpot? Uh yeah. Wow. Absolutely thrash past it into middle of next week. Peston's gone, see you later. Must have felt good. Yeah, it was really good. The the round that got us through to the final was towns. It was like pictures of town halls and the name and like just some letters missing. Yeah. Obviously men, all over. Small places with towels. From gigging. I got Ultringham 'cause I'd cancelled a gig there the week after. Well, that's Ultringham. Wrote that in an email recently. I know how those letters go. I shall not be coming to Ultringham. And then we lucked out 'cause the final round was actors in Marvel films. Ah and uh superhero films, yeah. There was Wow, I mean those two categories are Nisha's life. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I was throwing ones out there that and she was like, Yeah, whatever. Um They were also pointless. But we got a pointless answer on uh Michael Goff. Whoa who's Michael Goff? Uh Al uh Alfred. In the original Batman films, the Michael Keaton Batman films. Wow. One of the great Alfred. Yeah, yeah, really good Alfred. Yeah. My the first time I did pointless it did it with Cinder V. Yeah. And we got the Jack Bug Baby. Oh yeah. Cindy said Eritrea. And bang bang bang. We were champions. What was the category? Places where Phil was It was. State American states or African countries with seven letters in the name or more. My God. It's a lot more than then that did it again with Pierre Novelli. Yes. And we got to the final. We won, but Then we were asked to name some Middleb movies. Oh no. And I said Two. And we didn't win. Not as high as you think. A lot of people knew that film. Or w he was in it. A lot of people no I think the The qualifier the i yeah, the m the fact that there's a lot of people knew Edris Elba was in Thor two. But my thinking was well, everyone's gonna say Thor. Yeah but no one's gonna say Thor two. Turn out. People. People said it. Um We all thought you were about to say something there. One hundred percent the most bonitos ever laughed on the podcast. But he absolutely lost it. It's head spud mountain. Over and over again. That's the clip. This is my life, man. People always think I'm gonna say something, or not. All the time. Well you should stop then up. You went buy tickets for Phil's next to I I you were still looking at the table. You weren't even looking at any of us. It's like Where's Phil gone? It's not even in the room anymore. That's how you should open your next show, man Here's a drink coming for you. Ooh, yum. of vodka and lime. This is an odd choice. He's knocking back a vodka with With ribs. Buttery cabbage. He's had some oysters. And now he's gonna have a vodka and lime. Oh, I mean vodka and cabbage thematically culturally consistent. Yes. No problem with that. And the ribs? I think you were hoping for some wine, weren't you felt I was a little bit in the intervening six years. You know I was hoping for some wine and You are such a wine boy that I think it's something that a lot of people know about. You know, you did choose wine on the podcast, I believe, when you came on off menu. But but you were kind of going And I think wine's nice. Yeah. I to I took I took Ed's suggestion of a Riesling. Yeah. So that was where you were that open minded. Is that you recommended? Yeah. What did I recommend six years ago? So I don't think I knew anything about Riesling, really. But you're right. Yeah, yeah. Or just generally Riesling. Yeah, yeah. And that's it's still it's still it's still the cool the cool wide wine. It is, especially for us. We're in the We're a we're a little club. Yeah, you two are in a wine club. We're a gang we're a gang of just a gang of chats every time. Ed goes out on those it'll be like Well we've you know, we've just finished recording an episode and I'm like, What you up to tomorrow? It's like Oh, I'm going um Going to wait with the the the one guys, Ollie and uh f and uh Phil and Pierre. We're just gonna do it. I'm Freddy. I'm Freddy and we're just going uh for a wine weekend and I'm like Oh yeah, yeah. And he was like Yeah, yeah. Should be nice. Should be nice. It'll be be good to see the guys and um just get together. This is an awful lot. Just get together, have some wines. Um You know, it's but do you know what it should be a quiet one. I've uh you know, I've I've uh I've been out a a few times recently. I just I just fancy a quiet weekend, pace ourselves. The next day. Send me a selfie of all of you looking like cartoon characters whose eyes are going all over the place. Yeah, and you you' you're you're all trying to look like upstanding gentlemen. And you're absolutely like your your your heads are disappearing into your fucking necks. Mouth open. Just hang out. Bright red rep mouths. But but always like Hold up hold it up your glasses and like and then gathered around some like incredible looking food that hasn't been touched yet. So like like a base in just like a like a pig's head. Yeah, that's like shining. It's like the day one. The bottle picks at the end. The lineup. There's a lot. There's a always a lot in the lineup. Yeah. It's it's so fun, man. But yeah. May I say, Phil, you're usually the one who looks the most sober in the Well I'll tell you why that's. Oh no. You've already mentioned you've mentioned this. Yeah, on the podcast before, yeah. Um it's always good to recap it though. Yeah. So when you've got a few bottles going around and you're enjoying tasting them and like you might have like four or five glasses in front of you. Yeah. You know, you're tasting them, but then you're drinking. Yeah. And Phil is very slow when he drinks. I don't think I am. Well, we've all finished our glasses and Phil always has more like even when we want to open another bottle, Phil's got some of some of every wine left. And we were in a restaurant called Otto's and Otto came over and he looked at the situation. And he turned to Phil and he said, Ah, you are the baby of the group He's German, by the way. That's that wasn't just a bold. I don't even care what it was. I enjoyed the voice. Okay, well. And then he and then um at the end of the night he uh after everyone had finished their wines and I had a few left over, he patted me on the shoulder and said, Come back when you've grown up. Worth telling it again. Come back when you've grown up with such a horrible thing to say. Because someone else they're leaving your restaurant. And we've not been back Obviously my favourite wine memory with Phil is going to do uh Masterminds together in in Belfast. Uh so I know where that is. Yeah, yeah. And uh in Michigan? Yeah, in Michigan, of course. And I've probably talked about the podcast before, but I like talking about it 'cause I like that first of all, my main reason was food related for for doing uh Mastermind in Battlefast 'cause I wanted some seafood chowder. Mm-hmm. So um that was my main thing I'd said to the production. Could you uh let me know when there's good so feed you out of the night before Um punching to Phil at the airport, didn't even know that we were both gonna be on it on different episodes. I was like, Phil, you gotta come out tonight, get some seafood chowder. Uh I'll be revising tonight. I was like for what? Mastermind tomorrow. New Zealand wines is my t is my specialist subject. I need to revise. I was like, Phil, come out for just a you've got to eat at some point, what I said to him. Okay. Comes out as a C which I'm thinking in my head. He's gonna stay out. We're gonna go to the crown. Yeah. We're gonna have a pint of Guinness. Like he's gonna stay out. have the seafood. It's like you went, no, I'm going back to my room. Come on, Phil. It's like no and he went, he just went to his room, I can't fucking believe this shit. I I went back to my hotel. I'm just sitting there fucking bored out of my mind. I can't believe this. Eight o'clock or something. When you go to the crown. I'm going on my own. I I I might go with Phil Wang. I thought my buddy's here. This is great. I can believe it. Well that's the mastermind the next morning. You would call it a school night and you would talk about the whole thing in school terms. The next morning we have the briefing and there's all the uh celebs there. uh including the the guy from the the pottery throw down show who cries all the time. Yeah. And uh Michelle Gale, of course. And Michelle Gale was on my episode and uh after we'd all been briefed, which is very, very serious, she said, I'm gonna circulate. I'm gonna meet some people. She said to me, I'm gonna go around I'll be back in a minute. I'm gonna speak to some people I haven't met before who on the other episode she goes away. I talk to someone else, she comes back. She's not. As chipper as she was when she left me. She goes. Do you know that man? Look over. Phil is sat apart from everyone else. On his own. With his on a seat, but with his legs together because he's balancing a a a folder on them. Like a full like lever arch folder. Going through these laminated pages one by one. Very seriously. And she went, Do you know that I went, Yes, that's Phil Wang. And she went Oh I said to him, Do you want to have a chat? And he said, No, it's Xander Just told me no, it's Xander Well, he's very serious about this, Michelle. I I've known him for a while and he wouldn't go for a pipe with me last night because he had to move out. So And then he went on and he got all of 'em right, but one. Not all I got all my specialist subject right. All your special subject right. And then I think you only got one wrong on the uh on the on the other one. Absolutely like destroyed it. Yeah, of course. 'Cause he revised. I've got a photo on my phone of Phil doing the specialist subject that I took in the green room of the of the T V. And it's just him looking the happiest I've ever seen anyone on a T everyone else in Mastermind just looking shit scared, panicking, Phil just smiling because he's done he's done the work. And he's loving getting them all right. Yeah, so fun, man. It was so fun just nailing those questions. Yeah. You felt like Boom. What did you feel like? I guess I felt like a c That's actually how our wine gang came about. Yes. Because you wanted to revise for it. And you'd met Freddy's who works for the wine society and he suggested a meal. Mm. Well because Freddie was the the buyer there for New Zealand. For New Zealand, yeah. And he brought you a folder of stuff to of notes. I brought his notes to Belfast. Yeah, yeah. Then the very notes that infuriated Michelle Gale. Little did Freddie know. One day these notes will piss off Michelle Gale. So when Michelle Gale came? Do you know that man? Before I looked over, I thought in my head, please be Phil. Oh, if this is Phil Waggers would be great. Yep, there he is. I was the only one who brought notes to the morning meeting. I couldn't believe it. Yeah. I was the only one who brought notes to breakfast. You couldn't believe it? Guess what? The rest of us couldn't believe it either, Phil. You're not the only one who couldn't believe it. We were like, Does this guy know laugh? Celebrity mastermind. Meanwhile, James is asking me, Do you think they'll let me bring a real ice cream onto set? That was the thing that he was really worrying about. I don't know if we can bring a real ice cream onto set. Yeah. 'Cause you're doing history of ice cream. Yeah. I thought it'd really funny, especially 'cause on m Mastermind they they zoom in slowly on the guy who's being questioned. Yeah. Yeah. And it'd be so funny as I if I'd getting close to James. And ice cream just comes just rises from the bottom of the screen. Like he needs it to understand the question. You were terrified, though. Yeah, well, it's a titles I got from the dressing room being like why have I said yes to this, I've not revised, why didn't I do any revision? You did pretty well considering you got four four out of four of them. I I did quite well on it. Yeah, but I was in the dressing room, I was completely like I should have been more like Phil Wan. Like I would have lost a lot of friends and I wouldn't have been popular here. But I would not be panicking as much as I'm panicking now because I've not revised this whatsoever. So yeah, just to clarify, the vodka lime is just vodka and lime cordial and it's like a Gimlet. I do like a gimlet very much. So I'm I'm open to that. Really cold and in one of those small coupe glasses. Yes. Wow. Wh and the the level of the liquid is right flush with the top of the lip of the glass. Cocktails like that. So nice. When it helps. be the baby of the group. Small just a small amount of baby out there. Little sips? Little sips. You're one of those people where I look round and we're having a cocktail, fifteen minutes into the cocktail. I look and you're still halfway through the cocktail. But I've got both my hands around it. Like a like when a kid is drinking juice. It's a skull knight. Me, I'm getting that that's gone. Martini, anything in a small coop, two sips, gone. Really? Wow. Big time. Yeah. And then I'm in space. He's in space. Round Christmas Ed was going to space quite a lot. I was getting text from him pretty much every day. Yeah. 'Cause you went somewhere nice, I think. Every day you were like text me. I've just had a hot chocolate with marshmallows and cream in it. And then in a separate text. I'm in space. The next day I've just had an Irish coffee. No text. I'm in space. It was so good. To the point where it got to be that he was texting me what he'd had and then going, guess what I Are you in space again? Houston we have a problem. Like they're just busted out all that stuff. Oh yeah. I love uh it turns out I love a boozy hot chocolate and an Irish coffee. And I very rarely have Irish coffee, but it's so good. It isn't yeah, it turns out like sweet boozy chocolatey things are just really nice. It's very nice. But it was cold and like there was a fire in the place we were in. It's all about ambiance, is it? Off to space. Did I go to space this Christmas? Yeah. I think so. Why laughing because you've instantly adopted the phrase I'm in space for meeting something. And it's but you just thought about it very seriously of going, Did I go to space this? Yeah. Yeah. Must have. We love people adopting phrases and parenting phrases anyway, but especially when you adopted it in a way that's like you've been saying it all your life. Yes. What took you to space this Christmas? What took me to space this Christmas is I I try I try and do the wine pairings for family Christmas. And before I always bring like a red for the turkey for the main the main Like a light red. But this year I thought I'm gonna do Chardonnay all the way. Whoa. So we started with a blanc de blanc uh champagne. Only white grapes in the champagne. Prime which is primarily, if not all, shot. I think it is all the hosting that now. Who's hosting that now? Very nice. I'm just chiping inside. I think Blanc de Blanc has to be one hundred percent Chardonnay. I think it is Chardonnay. Because the other grapes are Petit Monier, I think, and uh Peninoir. Pin noir. And then Boom Boom. And then for Maines I had two Burgundy style Chardonnays. One from New Zealand, from Khmer River. Um which is meant to be the great Burgundian sort of white sh wine of the new world. And then to compare that with the classic white burgundy from uh Paulini Montrachet. Do you which was uh Do your family enjoy this? Because Yeah. Because you are I I've tried things like this with just my wife and my family sometimes. Oh yeah. It's not my dad. My dad would do this. Mm-hmm. tried this shit with anyone. They'd be like, You're the most boring man in the world, stop ruining Christmas Yeah. Phil, just for the record, this was also gonna be my question. I was about to basket. It's a ston it's astonishing how little people care about this. Well it reminds me of like when I used to make mixtapes for people when I was growing up. Very ups yeah, I still have obsessed in music. But I would be like I want them to like every single thing and know every single thing and here's the tape and then they'll go, Thank you. I've never listened to this and that'd be it. And I'll have to accept that as I get older. Yeah. So I admire that you're like you want them to know the connective all the songs and why you put this one after this one. Yeah. And it's that's that's what So in that situation where you're present you're telling everyone about the wine, yeah, how they all relate to each other, we're comparing these two. What are you doing if which it's definitely happening. They're ignoring you and just talking and getting on with their Christmas. Do you get angry or do you just accept it's happening? I just sort of quiet I just slowly get quieter. Yeah. I just get quiet, slowly quieter, quieter, and then I just stop talking. And then I pour Yeah. I pour the wine. But I also do a thing when I'm talking while I'm pouring the wine people so that there's this implic um this implication that if you don't listen to me, you don't get any wine. Yeah. That's the implication. I'm not saying it, out loud. But that's the implication. Yeah. You have to be in a position of power. Period where you want people to listen to you. This applies throughout life. If they talk to someone else about something else, do you stop pouring? I just stop pouring. Yeah. I take their glass and I pour it back into the bottle. Get the fuddle up. I did that to you once, th because I know it annoys Charlie, so I will do things like I had two bottles Across the period of five years, bought two different bottles of Barolo. Which are the same, but different vintages five years apart. Fascinating. And I said Well, we'll do vertical testing. Let's compare these vtages. A lucky lady. Yeah. She starts packing her bags. It's all good to be there for it. Yeah. Finally left it. Time. Yum. And there's a there's a bit of a story behind this, but Quite simply. Chocolate to Claire. Oh yeah. I don't like shoe pastry. This is what I said to Jay Rayner and he was not happy about it. Interesting. Yeah I I find shoe pastry like even when it's done right, it's kind of dry and papery and weird. Totally agree. I don't dig it. Totally agree. Don't like shoe pastry. He said you need to go to Matrix Shoe. And not there anymore. I always think though when you say someone, I don't like this type of food and they go, Well, you gotta go to this one place in the world It's probably not good food. If there's one place in the world where the food is nicer th then it is not good. Yeah, I don't I don't like sheet pastry. I don't like Eclairs. 'Cause you did go. He told you go to make a shoe. Yeah, it was better than 'cause it was like quite thin shoe pastry, so the cream was really nice. Yeah. So like a sweet cream. I don't like a close when when they're all the round ones where you buy 'em from like a supermarket and they've got that shit cream in them. I hate that. The um c potisserole, capitis what are they called? The perils, yeah. That's that's what I meant and I didn't say the name. But it's the same thing, it's the same thing, round a close, yeah. Yeah. I I love the perfitteroles that we We sold at the the second pub that I worked at, the perfect if I was there. I was just going into the walking Fridge. popping them in my mind. Were they making their own professorals? No, they got 'em in, but they were just full. They were proper pants. Um and I would just like pop one in. While I'm doing something I'll be like, I got a The walking fridge. Don't come in. If you hear chewing, that's me cleaning. Yeah. I make a strange chewy so I I enjoyed that a lot. Well I don't I I I I don't dig Claire's as as a dessert. I think it's too in in insubstantial really And it's kinda too light and airy f kind of like airy and I think you can start some you start the meal with something cold and like airy and light. To finish. Is there to fill you up if the rest of the meal hasn't done so. Is it there to just fucking Like beat you. Like to de like just to knock you out to like fucking fill So that's when space don't want to feel like a god is when you get to desert. Yeah, not to be defeated by the desert. You want the dessert to be got. And that's why I love br British desserts, I think. Like you y Britain gets a lot of flank for its food and the desserts are So nice. What we're talking. But not the pie. The g the goat. Sticky toffee pudding. You're not hungry after sticky toffee. You're not hungry at all. Bread and butter pudding. Spotted dick. Spotted dick. A spotter a spotted dick. Um crumble if you're feeling healthy. It's so it's so good. Yeah. It's so filling. And uh those are those are always the the desserts I want at the end. Well his reason for the chocolate eclare. was because his dad bring back a load of stuff from the bakery for the family to eat on the whatever. Oh sorry. And uh he would have W only one Eclair, the daddy boy, one eclair and it's for himself. So no one and and little Jay Vane would be like, Daddy, can I have the eclair though? No, that's my eclair. So now it but it's a thing that he's always coveted. Well now that there's a traumatic story behind it. How can I not an eclair? Gosh. That's kind of a dark reason to want to clear it. Yeah, I guess but I guess originally when you told it it didn't sound dark. I've made it sound I think you did make it sound dark when he told you that. Yeah, I think you found it really funny. Well I I found it funny, but I was like fuck that guy. Who I guess is your dad, but like, you know. What a what's he doing, not getting two of clairs. But also that's clearly maybe one of the things that's driven Jay Rainey to become a food critic. That he can have whatever he wants whenever he wants it. So if anything, thank you, Daddy. Yeah. And you can say Oh but this is this is this is everyone isn't it? Yeah. It's uh anybody who's bow thank you Think whatever parent it is for the trauma that's led to you doing this job. Yeah. It's a clare based trauma though, which is one of the lowest forms of drama. Yeah, at least for him it's like I just wasn't allowed an eclair. Because it's my Tap would eat one. There was still other stuff from the bakery as well. He's still got some baked goods. But he doesn't care about those anymore. He just wants in a class. So he can So he can make your kids do the job you want them to do by giving them the appropriate traumatic experience but just not letting your kids have paracetamol and become doctors to not all the paracetamal parecetimal I want. You can take the back of the computer out and fiddle around there and Of their heads, you know. Oh yeah. You're trying to make someone a com like a computer scientist. Yeah. Oh no. No, no. You fuck the computer up, you go in and fuck the computer up and go, Go on. Fix that. Fix that. Otherwise you can't you can't play your video games. Yeah. Yeah. Roman world or whatever you were. Roman world. For it. Roman World. Yeah. If you played as much Rome Total War as I did, you would laugh so much at Roman World. The idea of it being call Roman World is hilarious, to me. Was there anything in in your house growing up that was like Daddy has that and you can't have it? I I like a car. I was on I was like I wish I c I always as a kid I could drive places. Because then where I grew up there's no public transport. So I was hop I've declared the back of the gloves already. Dad, why do you think I bought this gloves? Let me drive the car. You can have the other glove when you're eighteen. Yeah, I think like just having Car and money. I was like It feels very hard to do anything without a car and money. That's what I was presenting. Like sick little fill wag walking about. It's so hard to do anything. And do you drive now? Yeah. Yeah. I got a little car. Got a couple of quid. Yeah. It worked out. So you think just when you're driving along, you're like, I did it on my dad. Yeah. Who's the daddy now? In your face, daddy. In your face, daddy. I'm behind the wheel. You couldn't stop me. I can go wherever I want. What cruelty stop you driving when you were six. Yeah. It's exactly the same as Jay Vader's dad, not buying a second of cloud. Dad, you could just buy another car. The problem here What kind of car you got? I've got a hybrid Toyota Yaris. Good for the environment. Good for the wallet. Well Phil, did you enjoy Jay's tasting menu? I really enjoy Jay's tasting menu. He's a man of fine taste, obviously. And is nice to have the the the cabbage dish that I know so well. I haven't had in a while. Oysters big old fan. A little a little tiny cold vodka cocktail in the middle of it. Delish. Spare ribs. Forget about the main ribs. I'll take the s yeah, I just and you get a message. Flintstones or something. Th w was there a start to go with the the ribs? It didn't he didn't shout it out, no. Do you want to I feel I I feel like Yeah, I feel foolish after my whole rant about bread. I'm now asking for starch. Okay. Um The with the ribs? Just some Chips, I think, with rips. Love it. I I don't think we've we've only done one other tasting menu before and I don't think we gave them a chance to add anything. Oh we didn't know. But it's a new that's a new thing. I think you can upgrade one dish. Yeah, it should be an upgraded dish. But Phil's a god. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Phil's a god in this. So you've got to let Phil Do what he wants to some degree. Yeah. The other person we had on was John Kearns, so barely a man. So And the secret ingredient for Jay, which would have gotten kicked out of the restaurant, was hairy crackling, which uh I don't know if you think that's fair. Do do people specify hairy crackling? Yeah. Well, in terms of like what they don't like, yeah. It's a huge genre in the don't like it. Yeah, yeah, massive. Very popular in don't like. I made some chicken uh crackling once. You ever made the chicken crackling? I see it on Instagram quite a lot. So nice. You have to scrape the chicken skin. That seems to be what people do. Chicken crackling up on Instagram and people just like 'Cause the all the little like bits of the gel like the the like hairs and the um the feathers and stuff were still on it. The feathers. Well I don't know what the smallest bit of the feather stem is. Like the pimples, like the g like the sort of little sort of chicken hair coming out of the pimples there. So you took that photo? You looked at it, I guess, before you posted it. Yeah. And did you think delicious? Yeah. Well. And then you were surprised at the comments that were like, that's disgusting. Yeah, I just expected people to be more open minded than clearly they are. So you wouldn't mind Harry Crackling, I'm guessing. Yeah. Right on, give it to me. Yeah. I've had crankling where the the the the brand is still on the skin. Mm. You know the brand on the pig that they go tss Oh God. Yeah. Why am I upsetting you so much today? If you eat hairy crackling, are you chewing it around in your mouth and then split splitting all the hairs out? Yeah. Yeah. Make a little toupee out of it. Phil, thank you so much for coming back to the Dream Restaurant. We hope you enjoyed your tasting menu. It's been so nice to return after all this time. So happy to see the restaurant doing so well. Um thank you both for having me so much. Oh, and Phil, that's uh it's that's will be um Two hundred pounds and twelve pence. Wha what? You've started charging? Yeah. Two hundred pounds, twelve pence, please, Phil. For th for Jay's meal? Yeah, yeah. What It's Cash. Cash only. Cash only. Well We are really trying to lead you to this callback. All you have to do is say that you're gonna pay with exact money. Well I have two other people. But instead, you're such a thrifty bastard. You think you have to pay you can't break out of the fact that you're like, What the I wasn't told how to pay But looking at Ben desperately. Ben this isn't fair. Bill can't improv when even fake money's involved. We should give it in more detail to try and lead them to the callback. An exact change, Phil. Please did you know Phil wanted to buy a wine fridge and it took him three years to make the decision. It wasn't three. Two years. Was it? Yeah, it was about that one. But you bought it. I got it eventually, yeah. Are you happy with it? Thrilled. I should have got an age. Thank you so much. Thanks guys Thank you so much to Phil for coming back to the Dream Restaurant to have Jay Rayner's tasting menu. How much he's grown over the years, Phil. Hasn't he, just He he loves he's he loves feeling like a God now. That wasn't when he first came on. Never said he liked to feel like a god. Never said it. He loves wine now. Loves wine, knows all about wine, knows everything about wine. The fact that the fact that not only when he we lived that wine tasting menu that he put on for Christmas. Not only did he know that for Christmas but he recited it to us n like word perfect. Yes. Here's the history of them all. Here's what order they were in, here's where they're from. I was like, I don't think I know that much about anything anymore. Yeah. Oh no, no, no, no. I d it's too late for me to start learning about stuff. Yeah. All all I'm doing now is shedding knowledge that I've built. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just just get rid of it. Maybe let something, you know, live in the head for a little bit. Yeah, but not useful stuff. No. No, never useful stuff. Never anything useful. Yeah. Um the the new thing in the head, of course, is pouring tree over pig. Which You have a pet named pick. Do have a pet named pig. I don't want to pour a tree on that guy. He doesn't go outside, he'd be so shocked. Yeah. And he really hasn't better tree. No, no, and also I'm not putting maple syrup on that guy. He's so hairy. Yeah, yeah, that would be a huge mistake. It would take years to get that out. Then you'd end up with a cat that looks like mine. Yeah. Um, but so fun to talk to Phil. Well that was a great episode. It was lovely. Thank you so much, Phil, for for coming on and Jay Mayner, if you're listening, I hope that You're happy with Phil's response to I I mean you've got to be happy he but says it he thinks about you When he ever eats an oyster, he makes your cabbage at home. He is a fan. Yeah, it it was a little bit Yeah. Dishing it out if you can't take it, mate. Don't dish it out if you can't take it, mate. Wow. And don't forget, Phil is on tour with his brand new show, Uh oh. Go to philwang.co.uk for tickets. It's gonna be fantastic. We will see you again soon for either a traditional off menu or another off menu tasting menu. Or maybe we'll have a fourth idea. Uh oh two years' time. Oh spaghetto's. Bye bye. Bye.