A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich - Nicole's Finally Back And We're Eating Chinese Food!

Episode Date: March 18, 2026

Today, Josh is joined by...JUST KIDDING, NICOLE IS BACK!!! The duo reunites to answer the age old question...does Panda Express actually have the best orange chicken? Leave us a voicemail at (833) DOG-POD1 Check out the video version of this podcast: youtube.com/@ahotdogisasandwich To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This, this, this is mythical. When West Jet first took flight in 1996, the vibes were a bit different. People thought denim on denim was peak fashion, inline skates were everywhere, and two out of three women rocked, the Rachel. While those things stayed in the 90s, one thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when WestJet welcomes you on board. Here's to Westjetting since 96. Travel back in time with us and actually travel with us at westjet.com slash 30 years.

One plus one equals more of the greatest stories. Hulu on Disney Plus. Stories about our survivors. The most dangerous planet. Family, retribution. Murder. Prophecy. Beer and propane.

Bobby doing it. Blake Pantha. The ultimate soldier. Chicago, all right? The best of the best stories now with even more from Hulu. Amazing. Have it all with D.U. on Disney Plus. Josh, you're the orange chicken to my fried rice.

Oh, and you're the lion's head meatball to my rice porous. with woodier fungus and century egg. Man, it's good to be back. Damn right, it is. This is a hot dog is a sandwich. Ketchup is a smoothie. Yeah, I put ice in my cereal, so what? That makes no sense.

A hot dog is a sandwich. A hot dog is a sandwich. What? Welcome back to our podcast, A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich, the show we break down the world's biggest food debates. I'm your host Josh Sherer. And I'm your host, Nicole in Idy.

And how long has it been since we've heard that phrase? That's crazy. Five months or so. Wait, hold on. It's been five, we can draw down the curtain here. Yeah, whatever. It's been five months since I've seen you in this seat. Correct. It's been like two and a half months since they've seen you in the seat. Oh, really? Is that true? Whatever.

It's been less than five months because what we did, we weren't like, we were lying about it. But yeah, we recorded a ton of episodes with you before you left from maternity leave. Yes, yes. But since then, you've accomplished so much. You've been shaping a baby's head. Yeah, she's a helmet baby. I love that so much. Some people say that it doesn't work. So I'm really excited to see it work or not.

What have you been feeding your little baby? Just milk. Why not? Slim gyms come, I think, in month eight. Wait, when do they start? You know, I'm actually starting solids. You know, so funny, I've actually been delaying starting solids because I'm so scared. Oh, really? But I will be feeding her a small bite of avocado tomorrow.

I breastfed until I was seven and a half, eight years old. So it's, no, I'm, no, that's just good. I don't even know if I was breastfed or bottle fed. Oh, that's so crazy. That was a silly joke. But I know so little about babies that if I had to guess when they stopped just drinking milk and started eating food, I'd say six months. You're so wrong. Oh my God, you're so wrong.

Wait, how long is it? I don't know, but I know it's not six months. Listen, I'm learning as I go. I'm not really, I'm doing my best. And I think I'm doing a good job. Well, take some orange chicken home to your baby and see if she likes it. I don't think I'm going to do that. You got to cut it up in little tiny pieces.

No, I'm so scared about baby lead weeding. I literally, I listen to a podcast about that. I don't listen to podcasts. I don't sit down and listen to podcasts. Why would I do that? I listen to a podcast about solids. That's how scared I am about it. I listen to a podcast.

I listen to four different podcasts about Hillary Deff giving birth. Yeah? Yeah. I love Hillary Duff. I love Hillary Duff, too. She did a closing of the bone ceremony. Let's go back. Back to the beginning.

No, but wait. Yeah, I mean, do you have any updates to share with people? How's your life going? I'll show a picture if you want. You don't have to. No, I will. Are you going to do the thing where you post pictures with you? Can we name her?

Her name is Eve. I don't know. Dude, I don't know people's boundaries. Oh, yeah. Her name is Eva Niety and she's the best baby in the world. Oh, took both your last names. That's good. My last name is Hendie Zada.

What? What? I said took both, don't both of you currently have the last name? Yes, yes, yes. Yes, yes. Yes, yes. It was a joke. Oh.

It's a stupid joke. I don't like it. Yeah, me neither. I really hated the joke, too. It kind of had no punchline and no point. Sometimes you just say things and I'm like, listen, you've been gone for a while and I've been having a really full time. Did you miss me? I really did, yeah. I miss you too. We had some fun times with guests.

Good. How were the guests? We replaced you with Steph Tollev for one episode. Natural. She was great. One time I saw it a stand-up show and she called me hot. And I was like, thanks Steph Tollev. I think Steph Tollive is just a wonderful talent.

I tried to replace you with another Persian woman. Oh, yeah? And her wife. Oh, Zoya and Alex, how was that? Yeah, it was good. Natural? Yeah, she did a pretty good impression of you. They were fun, but I mean, the friends of the show.

No, I am really glad to have you back. I'm glad to be back. It feels weird, but good. We would always say that, like, this hour recording every week is kind of, it feels like a vacation from the rest of work. So true. Yeah. We have, like, an excuse to leave people and just go hang out.

And great segue. Eat a bunch of Panda Express and tell them about the other spot. We are trying a delicious place. It's actually one of the highest rated places. in Burbank. It's called, where are you? Your name is right here. It's called Western Walk,

and it has 408 reviews and 4.3 stars on Google. Hell, yeah, because the thing that we're doing today, we are doing Panda Express versus the field. Because we talk about this all the time that Nicole and I, I mean, we both grew up within a 50-mile radius

of the founding of Panda Express. So so much of our childhood and, frankly, adult, Chinese American takeout was from Panda Express. Of course, yes. In the mall, they had one at UCLA. They had one everywhere.

I cannot stress it up. There's a Panda Express dotted on every single corner in L.A. It's like that and a Starbucks. And a Starbucks. That's exactly what I was going to say. Truly, though. But that said, we didn't grow up with a super strong, like, family-owned Chinese restaurant culture. Did you have a family-owned Chinese spot that you came to?

It was called California Walk, and it was next to the Beverly Center, and my dad would always get the shrimp with black bean sauce. That was his dish. Well, that's a fun thing, because they can have items that aren't Panda Express. I mean, they pretty much play the hits at this point. I think they have 12 menu items. Is that what it is? I think it's something like 12 to 15.

They don't even have like a fun rotating one right now. No, no. Because they did the hot ones, spicy orange chicken. Angus shrimp and steak. They had an orange chicken with bacon at one point when I was doing my research. Orange chicken and bacon. I would never imagine those two flavors ever been here. Someone was talking about the most overrated food trends.

And we've done a whole podcast on this. But like, looking back about a day. decade, 12 years ago, the bacon trend. The bacon aquilips, dude, bacon everything. Yeah. I don't even want a maple bacon bar anymore. That was the thing back then. Those were crazy times.

I mean, the chocolate covered bacon. Chocolate covered bacon. I worked at a chocolate store that literally pioneered chocolate covered bacon. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Like Marie Curie out here pioneering. Yeah, like bacon doesn't belong in orange chicken, man.

And so right now we're going to pit them one to one because, I mean, speak for yourself. But I've always maintained that like Panda Express is. is very, very good at what they do. It's delicious food, period, point blank. I've always thought that way. I agree. I mean, one, they invented orange chicken, chef Andy Cow in actually Hawaii. They were opening up a new store basically started a West Coast version of General Shows chicken,

which was a great documentary searching for General Shal. I also don't even know what I pronounce the name of the general. So many people call it. I've always said General Soes. People say sow. People say Shao. There's a lot. I don't speak.

I think, was it Cantonese technically? Couldn't tell you. I speak. Well, I speak neither dialect. Chinese. Cantonese nor Mandarin. Yeah, nor Shanxi, I speak no Shanghaiese, nothing. No, absolutely not.

No, not on his cover letter. Don't speak no Hokkien. No, he does not. I speak as much Chinese as Chris Tucker does in Rush Hour 2. Oh, my. You know? Rush Hour 2 is the best. Were you doing this or this?

No, he's doing a wink and gun. We got to sync to each other's rhythms. When he's on the plane. Oh, yeah. You try to say thank you. So funny. Hey, shay, shay. You know, that's great.

That's my Chinese. That's enough. But now we're going to actually try them side by side to see if the highest rated family-owned Chinese restaurant can't actually stack up Tampanda Express. I'm putting the laptop away for this one. I'm going to keep mine open because I have some notes and stuff that we can chat about. No, I'm here to grub, dude. I'm still getting my feet. I'm still, what is it getting my bearings?

Is that what they say? It's funny because I have a, not to brag. You're going with the heavy hitters? I'm breaking open immediately. This is, am I willing to call this my favorite Chinese American dish? That's really dramatic. Are you sure? Or I mean, orange chicken has my heart, but if there is honey walnut shrimp on a menu.

That's your bussy. It has my bussy in spades. The honey walnut shrimp, I mean, look at the cream. And if that's not proof that this has my bussey, despite the fact that orange chicken has my heart, I don't know what is. And I love that it smells like cabbage. I think there's cabbage on the bottom. I'm so excited. Also, this was 1899.

Oh, shoot. It's expansive. I've always thought shrimp was like the most expensive meat you can get. That's what I was always told. So whenever we would get the shrimp, it was a big deal. Yeah, at Chinese restaurants, there's a very clear tier. Sorry. It's like chicken is always the cheapest option.

It'll be a couple vegetarian, you know, tofu, whatever. The chicken is the cheapest. And then pork will sometimes be dotted in there, then beef, but then shrimp? Shrimp. You go to the shrimp section? Let me tell you. The shrimp over here is considered at Pan Express as a premium item. at like $8.40 for a small.

But this for like an $18 plate of shrimp, that's not bad you're getting a fair amount of shrimps. Yeah. I was like shrimp in the grocery store. Well, it depends on the grocery store you're going to. And it definitely depends on the quality of those shrimp were caught in. Because that was a big problem, I think. NPR won at Pulitzer for this. The slave shrimp?

Yeah, slave shrimp. A lot of mass market shrimp was straight up caught by like indentured servants, effectively slaves on boats in Southeast Asia. Yeah. And so maybe that's why a shrimp, it tends to be pretty cheap. I think you're eating the insulation. You know what I mean? Like, I see you eating the cabbage underneath. No, lettuce.

Just iceberg. Hot iceberg. Oh, it's not cabbage. It's lettuce. You said it smelled like cabbage. Yeah, well, iceberg sometimes smells like cabbage. I can't imagine, I can, but I can't imagine the Panda Express. And I've eaten their honey walnut shrimp is going to beat Western Wach's honey walnut shrimp.

I need you to try it. This is a lot more expensive. I need you to try it. To me, this is properly fried. You get the. The honey walnut shrimp from Panda, it's good, but the batter is really pancake-y. It is very, I was going to say, it is very thick, almost so, almost so that it becomes amorphous. I wonder if that's just because they're getting these, like, pre-frozen, kind of big battered shrimp.

Yeah. That's tougher when you're getting, like, this lacy, thin batter that just lets the sauce cling to it. These are really well-done. It's delicious. Honey-Wallnut shrimp, right? I will say that the mayonnaise flavor is much more prominent in the Chinese steakhouse. Do you like that or not? I don't.

There's something about hot mayonnaise funk that makes me a little uncomfortable, to be honest. It's like almost like coingly, like savory, if that makes sense. Yeah, there's a kind of like egg funk to it. The egg funk. And let me tell you, when it's hot, it's not as enjoyable. But when it's cold, egg funk cold, I love. Hot egg funk, not my cup of tea. Yeah, we talked about this before.

Like 80% of the flavor on honey-want shrimp is just coming from like mayonnaise and honey. Yeah. That has then poured onto a hot fried shrimp. Even though the candy on the walnuts here is like... I'm eating the walnut. I will say the walnut, the walnut is wonderfully candied. I don't know if they're just getting that from a store,

if they're cany it themselves. I don't care. I like don't care. It's so good. Give me a walnut from Panda Express. Let's do a side-by-side nut test. Talking a lot about bussy nuts and hot men. I've been surrounded by children and a baby that doesn't talk.

It's my first human-like experience. If I heard a guess at what age of baby starts talking, I'd say three and a half to four. Is that when you started talking? No, actually, I was, dude, I was like reading full books by age three. I was beyond precocious. Like, ordering on like, there's something. Like, there has to be a given take with, he's like reading a John Grisham book and he's three. Something's going to be wrong with him.

And then there was. Is there like an X-Men school thing that you should have gone to? It was just a Montessori school in Kansas City. You were a Montessori kid? I don't know like where we would have gotten the money. No way. I was in a Montessori school in Kansas City and I just remember like, I remember being three years old. This is insane.

And I was like reading and there was like a group of adults. This is a weird formative memory. Like a group of adults like around me like watching me read perfect full sentences out of this book. Wow. And then I got to the word buses and I said Buses. I was reading this three years old and I said like in the Buse is rolled by. And they said actually that's buses. And I said, that's interesting.

I would have thought that buses would have two S's in the word because phonetically, this seems to be pronounced abuses based on all that I know. And I'm three. And they seemed like weirded out. I don't know if I'm inventing this memory. Is it because I said bussy? That's not because you said bussy. Is it bussy or bussy?

It's whatever you wanted to be, maybe. You know what I mean? According to everything I know. Okay. Winner hands down, right? Gotta be Western Walk. It has to be Western Walk. Just based on the cook of the shrimp and the freshness of the candied walnut,

I will say the egg funk is turning me off a little bit, but not enough to say that the Pan Express one is better. Not I. My Bussy is enlightened by this egg funk. Are we going to get flagged for saying Bussy? You can say Bussy. The minute YouTube bans Bussy, that's when I walk and go to Vimeo. All right, you hear that?

Read, YouTube rep. Getting my ass to Vimeo if you censor me saying Bussy about the I'm going to daily motion. Flickr, Flickr with no E? Wow. Oh, my God. That's go around? I don't know, but I had a flicker.

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I feel sick already. I'm not in the best time. Do you want to do chalmen? Let's go chalman. I could use a starch. Could you? Let's try Western walk. Were you ever like jealous of, it's a weird thing to be jealous of,

jealous of people that had a relationship to their family Chinese restaurant? I told you I had one. It was light. But like you were like a... It was like not a heavy one. I'd much rather at that time when I was a kid, me, my parents, we would much rather go to Panda Express. Same.

Mine was called Ho Toys. Oh, cool. In Rancho Santa Marguerita, California. I don't know if Hotoes is still there. It was right by the RSM, the man-made lake. I don't know. There was a man-made lake. A big old man-made lake there.

But let me tell you. A kid died in eighth grade. I need to stop saying, let me tell you. Walked in the lake, never walked out. What? Died. Who? It was candy flipping.

What? They were like ninja flipping or Jedi flipping. One of them. He took a cocktail of drugs, thought he was on fire, went in the right aid, walked into the RSM Lake, never walked out. Who? I'm not going to say his name. I know his name.

He wasn't like a friend, but. A person? The person. It was like in eighth grade, dude. It was crazy. He was in eighth grade. He was in eighth grade? Dude, you've missed so much.

I will talk about Chinese in a second. I'm reading a book about the history of hate groups in Orange County. Oh, there's a lot. There's a lot. And I never really knew like why. But I had a formative memory of a Filipino classmate of mine. Oh, my gosh. He got arrested for a hate crime when he was 19.

Oh, my gosh. He got arrested for an anti-Semitic hate crime. Oh, my gosh. Against a black dude. Oh. Filipino kid, assault a black dude in a park, calls him an anti-Semitic slur. And I'm like, that is one horrifying, but then also, like, kind of speaks to the diversity of Orange County. None of it made any sense.

None of it made any sense at all. You make me laugh. But anyway, so I got this book called American Reich to just kind of learn about the history. And it's, yeah, really actually a fascinating book. I'm so glad that I'm here right now. My God. What have we doing kids? Yeah, a lot of it just had to do with the orange grows and, you know, white owners of it wanting to maintain control.

So there'd be like Latino farm worker groups around the Tennessee of Chavez that were trying to like unionize. And then basically like a lot of the white sheriffs, and you know about the history of the LAPD and the KKK. A lot of these white sheriffs wanted to just like control the orange groves themselves. So they would violently repress its Latino farm worker union rallies. And then, you know, that history and heritage kind of a... That's messed up, man. Yum. A little boring.

I already know who wins the Chalman battle after English. A little boring. There's not enough flavor in this. I think... Where's the flavor at? I've had, obviously, like, better chalmaine in my life. Or at least what Americans call chamein. Because if you're interesting chalmain and low main... Well, it's in the name.

In different regions. Yeah. What we call what can only be described as Chinese stir-fried spaghetti. I know it's not, it is... But, you know, stir-fried, like, thicker-ish wheat noodles. We call this chal-man. Right. Panda Express Chalmaine, I think, actually has a...

incredible amount of a walk hay on it. You can smell the char. You can smell the heat. And they do real walk cookery in Panda Express. Which is incredible, by the way. Dude, McDonald's, half of their, more, 70% of their items are just taken out of, like, a wet drawer.

Yes, I've seen the drawers. And slapped in a bun. I've seen the condensation drawers. Panda Express is actually relying on employees, and this feels like the bar is low, but they're relying on employees, like actually walk fire these dishes. Like, there must be an incredible amount of training.

Have you ever been to a Panda Express, and they say, oh, this will be ready in five minutes. I love that so much as a food person. Like the fact that they're willing to say, we're going to make this fresh. Yeah, and you can like know your rights. Because you can request if the orange chicken is getting low, you can go, hey, I'm away from the neck batch to come out.

Let's just all chill for a second. You can do that. And they don't harass you. You're allowed to. They let you stand on the side. And I think that's really nice. But I do respect the fact that they do walk-fry things. The texture on these noodles is incredible.

So bouncy. It's so bad. The Q-QU, as they call it. There's so much Q-Q-Q-Q-E. Like, genuinely, these are cooked really well, and these are steamed inside of a thing. Yeah. Chinese takeout style. But, like, the noodles from California are from Western Walk.

There's obviously a lot more, like, kind of soy and sesame in there. But they still don't taste as well-seasoned, and they're kind of soggy. Chalming from Panda, I think, is just so beautifully done. It's ubiquitous. It's delicious. There's nothing like it, in my opinion. This is my two-go side, by the way. This is my two-go starch whenever I go to Panda Express.

Well, what I do now, because I'm a skinny legend, is I do half noodles, half power greens. And that's the way to do it. That's skinny legend, but that's also like 30. That's like you're 30 now. You're 30? You get half vegetables from Panda Express. Those are the rules.

Yes. I'm here to shame anyone for their food choices. I'm here to, like, I'm here to elevate you. I'm here to. Josh is my life coach. This is my big life coach thing. You need to, wake up every day and clean your room.

Except you don't... No, get half vegetables from Panda Express. It'll improve your life. I'm trying to... Fried rice and chamein is excessive. Oh, yeah. No, I agree. I agree.

It's like getting French fries and rice. It's like, do you. French fries and rice? You don't have French fries and rice friends? You go to like... I have French fry and onion ring friends, and those are my best friends. No, but the friends that, like, will go to a restaurant, and if they have, like, you know, seven or eight sides, the rice peel off, they'll have French fries,

fries, they'll have steamed broccoli, they'll have coal salt. You're just a place like that. Okay, yeah. Do you have friends that will get French fries and rice as their two sides? Never. No, no. There's an unspoken rule. There's an unspoken rule where you get one starch, you get one salad, and then you get one, like, vegetable and then one like saucy, creamy delicious thing. There's a balance. Right? You have to do it that way. Yeah, that's the only way to do it.

No, but then you find out you have a French fry and rice rinds. I think Hitch is a French fry and rice girl. Really? Is she really? I'm pretty sure. I don't think I'm misrepresenting Hitch here. Maybe in Pittsburgh's, you know. Yeah, probably. Yins out there getting. And they put French fries on everything. Pittsburgh salads, Permanthi Bros, sandwiches.

But, oh, dude, this orange. Oh, shrimp. Oh, shrimp. We got hot sauce? No hot sauce. Sorry, boss. You want to get some. Dahl.

No, you don't need to. This is bad luck. Bad luck. Well, can you grab some hot sauce? Yeah. Thank you. See if they got like a syracia adjacent thing? Closest thing I got to it.

I don't take anything. Got it. Producer Logan is this is producing. I know that. I know that sticking your chopsticks into rice like that is bad luck. What about noodles? Surely it's also bad luck, but I will say this is mostly eaten in your car. And so I don't know if the same etiquette rules apply.

I never eat my Panda Express in the car. It doesn't taste as good. I don't eat most fast food things in the car. Oh yeah, you have standards. I forgot. I like eating inside the Taco Bell. Winner on the Chalman battle. It's got to be Panda Express.

I'm sorry. Have you had better Chalman than Panda Express? Yeah. Where? There's a place called Mama Luce. Oh. Great, tell me. Why don't you ever take me there?

Because you never want to hang out with me outside of work. You didn't hang out with me one? Actually, no. We hung out one, twice? I saw you once outside. You saw you twice? Did you want to see me more? Of course I did.

Well, I was busy. Don't let you raise your baby, dude. Well, I saw you with a holiday party, but then I came over and spent a lovely day with Eve. That's right. You put Eve on my tummy for a long time. You guys did tummy time together. I genuinely moved. I'm at that age where I get half vegetables at Panda Express,

and I look into a baby's eyes, and I feel a deep, intense longing to commune with mankind and the spirits that have come before us and after us. Is Eve the reason why? Eve's at least a reason why. Yeah. She's, like, convinced a few people to start trying. She's got, like, more spit coming out of her mouth at all times

than I thought there'd be... I don't think it's an Eve thing. It's so speedy. They're so speedy. But there's just, yeah, she was, like, crawling on my tummy, and I was laying back on the couch, And she's kind of crawling towards me. And there's just like active, thick spit coming out of the mouth.

Uncle Josh duties, man. What are you going to do? And I was like, I don't know when this is going to touch me, but it's going to touch me. No, that means she likes you. Should we have a little spring roll break or summer roll break or an egg roll break? Yeah, those noodles aren't great. They're not great. They're overcooked and they're a little bit sauceless.

Thanks, Logan. Logan, you can have any of the leftovers you want. Different between spring roll, summer roll, egg roll, imperial roll. Lumpia. Lumpia, Lumpia, but even Lumpia is a general term. Yeah, is Lumpia Shanghai is the one that we are used to. A lot of different, a lot of different terms. This is from Panda.

This is a Panda Express egg roll. So this is the veggie egg roll, not the chicken egg roll. Which chicken egg rolls are great, but that's called a chimichonga in my book. Those chicken egg rolls are like cigars. They are huge. They're massive. These egg rolls have a very distinct onion-y flavor that makes it undeniably delicious. It's so good.

It's so heavy on the garlic and scallion. It's so alumy. Oh, my goodness. There's like a little bit of like vermicelli rice noodle in there. They're kind of like soak up some of that. It almost acts like that kind of cornstarts slurry. Yeah, this is every like frozen vegetable egg roll, it's just kind of the same. There's got to be three factories that are pumping them out.

Make it that mula. But like this is the top. Delicious. And now let's see what they got. Well, you get a lot more over here. You got four of them, which is very nice. These are biggans. Oh, wow.

And these stay crispy from Western Walk. Ooh, ooh. Whoa. I can hear that crisp. Oh, my gosh. If this can deliver on flavor, then we're good. Western Walk wins the spring roll battle. Wow.

It tastes more chickeny than I was anticipating. I think it's a MSG. I think that it's that MSG umami taste. Which is great. Yeah, add MSG to your vegetables, dude. My God, that's good. The crispness? Oh.

That was actually a big thing behind, oh, God, I can't remember the name of the actual Japanese scientist who discovered MSG. But that was one of the reasons that he felt so passionately about it is because he thought it could improve nutrition. He thought that, like, hey, you take this delicious thing and add it to foods that are nutritious that you don't necessarily want to eat, and you're going to want to eat more of them. Oh. So add MSG to your vegetables. At that time in like, you know, post-futal Meiji Restoration in Japan, he wanted people to like eat more protein. And he was like, this is the taste of meat. Put it on soy.

Put it on fish, you know. And so, yeah, MSG is a means for nutrition. The laciness of this egg roll is so light and airy. It makes you want to eat more. Bam. The thing about the Pan Express one, it's heavy. Yeah. It's like the SOG factor weighs heavy on you.

you do not get that with this one. Wow, those egg rolls are fantastic. Western Walk, man, I've been sleeping on you. Wait, can I... What? Mythical often, and I love this about them, we'll just order vats of food from restaurants for catered lunches for when we're shooting on set.

Yeah. We've gotten a fair amount of different Chinese places. I haven't had Chinese food at Mythical in a long time. Also, I haven't been here for half a year. Yeah, we haven't gotten Thai food in a while either. What happened? But anyways, Vista, order from local spots, and I feel like we never

got Western Walk. Everywhere that we got was, I think, markedly less good than Western Walk. Mythical out here trying to save money. By not getting us that ice, right? Let me see the sauce that Western Walk, I did you. Unfortunately... I just couldn't figure out of open it, because I was so greasy. I got you. Unfortunately,

there is no sauce from the Panda Express. I believe that was intentional. I'm also reading a book about salt. I love how much you read. I'll tell you what. I wish I would have switched this. because I'm reading the book about salt, listening to the book about hate groups in Orange County

audiobook. It's just, it's too depressing to, I don't, I didn't think it would be fun. I didn't think it'd be fun, but it really is just written like a historiography of just like, and then this neo-Nazi group moved to Huntington Beach, and then the clan moved to Anaheim, and I'm like, oh, God.

And it's all framed through this one very, very sad murder case that I remember of like a young gay Jewish art student. Blaze, Blaze Bernstein. is his name. That would, one, great Jewish name. But he was murdered by, like, a white supremacist in Orange County, and they had known each other in high school and really, really sad. But anyways, I'm just like, you know, on my nice little walks listening to this.

But you just want to listen to the walks and learn about salt. I should be listening about why you rarely see table salt in China and why you see so much more soy sauce and fermented bean curd. It's a great way to stretch it out, especially with the formation of glutamates. Because the Chinese emperors would sort of go through periods of nilisian. nationalizing and then unnationalizing the salt trade, basically based on how much the huns were invading. So they're basically like, all right, we need to remand the great wall or we need to build the great wall. We need to raise funds.

We're taxing salt like crazy again. Sorry, guys. This is on us for taking over production. And then people get... That's exactly how they said it. Sorry, guys. Sorry, guys, but they probably said it in Chinese, which as we established, I do not speak. Speak as much to Chris Tucker in our shower, too.

But then people get pissed off. so they'd be like, okay, okay, we beat back the Huns. You can have your own municipal salt again. But anyways, there was always like generally salt shortages. And so, you know, forming it into, there's a lot of other reasons, you know, prevalence of soy, stuff like that. That's why you rarely see table salt in Chinese cooking. That's incredibly interesting. What part?

All of it. All of it. You're like a sponge and you just excrete knowledge all over the table. The human had weighs nine pounds. Josh and I have this running joke, whatever, either of us get really, like, intense about subjects, mostly Josh. And I tell him, like, a little kid that, like, found out a fact. Did you know that, um, Jupiter?

And it's just, and you never finish the fact. But it's just to let you know, like, I'm really into this. And I can acknowledge how into it you are. Um, do you know that actually, Jupiter, um, if we... Jupiter is mostly made of, um, gases? That's so funny. Your baby's like, what, 20, 30 years away

from doing something like that? When do baby start talking about facts? I don't know, man. I don't know when Eve's going to start talking about facts, but she lets you know how she's feeling. Panda Express needs a win here. Because we got right now, Western Walk is dominating Pan Express,

which sort of kills our thesis that Panda Express is about as good as, like, American Chinese takeout can be. Also, Western Walk is a little bit more expensive. This isn't like, we have a lot of God, what does it call? Is it Tasty Walk? You know what I mean?

There's like a local mini chain of Chinese like steam table spots. Okay. That's even cheaper than Panda Express in LA. Really? Never been. I remember going to one. Open that.

Is it Tasty Walk? I remember going to one next to the urgent care in Korea town after I found out I had a hernia and just like being kind of depressed and just like eating an overflowing clamshell of food. That is like definitely not as good as Panda. But beef and Brock. Thank you. I never.

get beef and broccoli. I don't, I never get it from Panda, but I generally get it at, like, Chinese takeout spots. It's broccoli. I don't even need the beef. I just want broccoli and oyster sauce, and I make that all the time. Good velveted beef? The velveting of the beef. Would you say this beef is maybe even over-velvited? No. No? So, velveting on beef, if you're about beef and broccoli, and the beef's almost kind of like, snappy and bouncy, but tender, that is a process called velveting where you basically soak it in baking soda. Yeah, some places do baking soda. Some people do egg white cornstarch.

Some people just put it in like a vat of like... The egg white cornstarch doesn't do that though. No, it doesn't. No, the egg white and corn... Because the baking soda, like... I know, baking soda tendrises it. And the way that saviche is the protein's toughened because of the acid. baking soda is a base so it relaxes it.

The egg white and cornstarch... What's that for? I think that adds to it. Open the panda one. Do you have it open? Yeah, it's right here. So this, I don't think they're using a lot of starch and egg white. You know, sometimes it'll be like a little goo coating, like a membrane on your beef and broccoli, which is really delicious.

Yes, there's a goo coating coating on the panda one. Yeah, so this goo coating, that's egg white and starch. Is it? But that tender snap, that is just pure baking soda. There are two different chemical processes. Yeah, taste the different meats. It's night and day. That's not panda's strength.

That's why I never get it. Yeah. It's not doing it. No. Yeah, this is good beef and broccoli over at Western Walk, too. Entirely too much starch. Yeah, this is straight too goopy. And I love...

Too much goop. I love goop. I use so much cornstarch in cooking at home. Mm-hmm. Dude, especially if you want to thicken a sauce without adding fat. Totally. Wow, it is night and day in terms of flavor, in terms of texture. Man. In terms of enjoyability.

Like, I do not like that. I legitimately... There's a pan-de-express on my neighborhood that I go to again. occasionally. Mm-hmm. I need to start just going into the family-owned spots. I think that's what I'm learning to. I don't always support local business and yada yada, but like...

I think that's what I'm learning too. Ma'am. It is not doing it. If Pandexpress doesn't win the next round, I will eat my shoe. No, you won't. Over the course? No, you won't. What kind of shoes are you wearing?

Dirty vans. He won't. He'll do a shoey. He'll do a shooy. You were recently did like an ad campaign where I referenced doing a shooey? Oh, no. I was on a Kentucky tour. and everyone did Chewys in the Kintiki tour.

Nice, nice. We did a bombus ad campaign where we worked the fact that I... I used to not wear socks. Yeah, yeah, that's true. And I am wearing socks now, I'm not lying. Oh my God, Mazel. Growth. It's really good.

This is awesome. It is awesome. Gochow tons of oyster sauce in there. Western Walk, you win this one. It's hard to make it home. Can't do it. I try. Yeah, can't do it.

And you have to cook in batches because if you over steam it. It's over. It's just done. And it's overstepped. Yeah. And the pan and the beef falls apart. totally oversteamed. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Not good. Orange chicken time? Break it out. It's orange chicken time. It's orange chicken time. I don't know that I've ever had an orange chicken better than panda. Yeah, me either. You know what I mean?

And I've gone to fancy restaurants, so they try and do it fancy style. The Western Walk one has other things in it. It looks like there's like maybe a sesame seed and a green thing. Is that intentional? There's a scalyon in there. I don't like that. I don't want to see any vegetation on my orange chicken. So in the Panda Express orange bottled sauce, I think the only orange in it is quote, orange essence, which I believe is the same stuff that makes LaCroix orange orange.

It's like a distillate of a zest. Other places will try and use a bunch of rind and like juice, which I do. We've made our own orange chicken. I think our homemade orange chicken is really great. But like there's something about Panda Express orange chicken that I can't craft. This is fine. This is run-of-the-mill homemade orange chicken. Mm-hmm. It's a little tough. Yeah.

I got a tough bit. Why does that happen? I think they might use breast. No? It tastes like breast. Sometimes you'll get a really over-fried piece of thigh. It's really over-fried. Yeah.

The sauce isn't bad, though. The sauce is delicious. It covers a world to hurt. This is what I was expecting from Western Walk on the orange chicken print. Yeah, it's not sweet enough. It's also not acidic enough, I don't think. No, there's a fair amount of acid in there. I think panda hammers the acid. which is what I think makes it good.

Oh my God. Yeah? Dude, side by side, where are we at? It's not even particularly orange. Like, the color is so different on it. Dude. You know what I mean? Sweet meat is the best.

More people need to eat sweet meat. It's acid. Oh, my God. It's so good. It's so bright, right? I freaking love cooked vinegar and cooked, like, juice. Give me that cook vinegar. You look at any recipe from more than, like, 200.

years ago and vinegar, they were spamming the vinegar button on so many things, dude. You ever had vinegar pie? No. It's delicious. Really? I made in culinary school. And vinegar marings. You kids these days don't understand how delicious vinegar is.

No, but cooked acid is delicious. And that's vinegar. That is what that is. When you eat it and the cooked vinegar touches your mouth, it like vaporizes. And you breathe in and it creates this delicious flavor profile that you just can't, you can't duplicate. Are you tasting it? Yeah. I wonder if like.

We can't duplicate that. So there's a lot of, you know, people talking to like, is this authentic Chinese, whatever? It's Chinese American. It's Chinese American 100%, which is like, you know, I don't know what you view authentic as. But it is like its own style. And people have been clowning on British Chinese food because they like the salt and pepper chips. Oh my God. It's gravy.

But that's, these are also, these are just regional forms of a food that have evolved. over centuries, and I think it's, you know, really interesting without putting a normative judgment of good or bad on it. But this profile of soup, this is sour. It's so, and you would never in, you would never anticipate the orange chicken to be sour until you actually sit down and think about it. I wonder if this like fried, I mean, I guess sweet and sour is a common profile and like, you know. Yeah. There's a lot of acid. I mean, shit citrus comes from China originally.

But I don't know. It's actually really illuminating to taste this side by side to that. because the acid profile in this is so much heavier. Oh, my God. And it's so much more delicious. Okay. Pan Express Orange Chicken blows any other chicken out of the water. The cookery from Western Walk again, highest rated Chinese takeout spot that isn't like fancy fancy in Burbank, because we could have gone to the P.F. Chang's in the downtown.

But they win overall. They've won more dishes. The beef and broccoli is excellent. The honeywant shrimp is excellent. Egg rolls are great. But if you're going for I'm so sorry, if you're going for orange chicken and chalem,

which I generally am, Panda Express doesn't get beat in those. My gosh, I think they really, I think they poured a lot of money, time, energy, and effort until making their orange chicken and chalmaine really, really, really good because they know the majority of Americans

are going to reach for those two items. And they knocked it out of the park. That's how it works. Taco Bell don't make money off their crunch wraps and their cheesy gordita crunches and their doubles. They make their money off of tacos and be maritos. Panda Express out here making money off of Chalme.

And the Chung family that founded Panda Express. Y'all keep the dream alive. This is awesome food. Great news. The federal EV rebate is back. Eligible customers get up to $5,000 with the federal EVAP rebate on select 2027 Volt and 26 Equinox EV models. Visit your local Chevrolet dealer today for more details.

This is a little. episode is brought to you by FedEx. These days, the power move isn't having a big metallic credit card to drop on the check at a corporate launch. The real power move is leveling up your business with FedEx intelligence and accessing one of the biggest data networks powered by one of the biggest delivery networks. Level up your business with FedEx, the new power move. All right, Nicole, I've heard what you and I have to say. Now it's time to find What other wacky opinions are rattling out there in the universe? Time for the little segment we call.

Opinions are like casseroles. God, she's still got it, folks. Hey, Logan, let's get that first pin. I'm full. Don't you want to open a fortune cookie first? Oh, my God. We're opening the fortune cookie. Let's see.

This is, winner goes to the best fortune cookie. Okay, wait. There's fortune cookies from Western Walk. Mine says, your talents and skills will shine in September. Wait, they're putting like real specific temporal limits on it now. Your talents and skills will shine in September. It's like August, your cooks.

People are really going to overlook you in August. Yeah. And possibly July. You know, I never read my fortune. Oh, childhood trauma. My mom really believed in fortune cooking. I don't believe in it. She would stash them.

She would hoard hundreds of these. And then she'd be in the middle of it. Oh, my God. It all comes flooding out again. she'd be in the middle of a depressive episode of romantic depression. Yeah. And she would just be like reading all the fortune cookie fortunes in bed. And then like find the ones that she'd see, it's all going to work out.

She would read them in bed. Do you know that there's a thing where you read fortune cookies and at the end you say in bed? So your mom was literally doing that? In bed. Your hobby will help you develop a greater appreciation for the beauty of the natural world. Thanks. In September. Should we open the panda one just because?

Yeah. Oh my God. I miss you trauma dumping. I was literally wondering like, gee, Josh, why don't you ever read the fortunes? And then I thought about it and remembered. It's okay. I thought I was trauma dumping whenever I told people about my traumatic birth on GMM. But honey, you got a lot more.

My one from Panda Express says, people gravitate towards your winsome personality. They use the term winsome? Yeah, what doesn't that mean? Winsome just means like charming. Winning? Yeah, I suppose. Discover the strength within yourself.

Don't tell me what to do. Your fortunes are terrible. I get the best fortunes. Okay, run that opinion, dog. Hi, Josh, and hopefully to pull back. I'm right here. My name is Tori. I was going to say

but originally for San Diego Pause, pause, pause, pause. Are you, are you at Universal Studios or stuck in a wind turbine? I was going to say, I think they're shooting Twisters three.

How her twister's is, or whatever, tell Glenn Powell we say what's up and I think he has good ketchup. Glenn Powell makes ketchup. Okay, sounded like you were like next to a roller coaster coaster or in a wintertime or Twisters three, Twisters three.

Okay, continue. Yeah, go ahead. opinion is that a good veggie burger is better than any meat burger. And by good veggie burger, I do mean it's not trying to be meat. Like, give me some beets and feta and carrots and rice and stuff in there, making that patty a good patty better than any meat patty, better than any imitation meat patty, better than imitation meat patty for sure. For sure.

I agree with that. The imitation meat patties, I think they were a really cool novelty. No one's talking about them anymore, really. No, I think they've all really crashed. And I can't stress this enough. Like, our culture is not linear, right? What does that mean? What I mean is that people are dumping billions of dollars into impossible patties,

beyond burgers, impossible sausages, the chicken, all this stuff 10 years ago, thinking that, oh, this is linear and this is going to be the future of eating less meat, et cetera. There's no such thing as a future. And now the head of health and human services put a freaking cartooned T-Bone steak at the top of the food pyramid and is making people switch to beef towel and not making people, but you know what I mean? Implying that they should. Implying. And so like this stuff is cyclical, right? What is, you know, popular in one decade is not going to be the next decade. And was it talking to Neil deGrasis about this idea of like in 1900, they asked a bunch of, like, thought leaders in the world of what the year

2000 would look like. Driving cars? You know, and, like, I think the automobile had just... I mean, not driving cars, I'm sorry, flying cars? I think, well, I don't even know if the phone hadn't happened. So stupid. But actually, I think it might have been like 1850 or something like that. But it was early, but people kind of only imagined a better version of what was currently

going on, right? They're like railroads are going to be everywhere. People are going to have personal trains on tracks that they're going to take... You know what I mean? And so you can kind of only... So anyways, this meatless imitation burger thing was so bizarrely huge in 2015. I remember. I remember.

And 10 years before that, you had Morning Star patties that were perfectly fine. Boka burgers. Boca burgers. But I love meat patties and I don't think a good veggie burger stands up to a mid-beef burger. And I stand by that. I like what you're talking about. There's a craft to making a good veggie burger. Sure.

I think it's awesome. I don't think anything will be pure, fresh ground, loose-packed chuck meat. Right. That's cooked to, like, a medium, medium well. Right. You know, that's its own beautiful sensation. Right. But that said, I'll give you a hot take back.

You call us with a hot take. I give you a hot take. The best veggie burger was invented several thousand years ago in Egypt. It's called falafel. Right. I think falafel was invented in Egypt. I think it was a couple thousand years ago. I'm not sure about your time, but it was founded in Egypt.

I think falafel is like thousands. I think falafel is the best. veggie burger. We did it. I love falafel. Chickpeas, spices, herbs, fry it delightful. They done it. Hi, mythical crew. I need help settling a very serious food debate. Oh. So I have a friend who thinks that sauces are totally unnecessary. Whether it be on chicken nuggets and fries or a consummate taco, he thinks that it's just used to hide bad cooking. And I believe it's a big part of it. of a flavor experience. What do you guys think?

I think both things can be true at the same time. I think people that rely on sauces to do the heavy lifting, clearly they're looking for a way to cover up their mistakes and just drenching stuff in sauce. Like, for example, Wingstop. Wingstop isn't known for their chicken cookery. They're known. They time it, though.

They time it. Okay, but have you ever had like a good wing from Wingstop? I feel like I used to. I feel like... I haven't in a long time. Your point is, your point is taken. People use sauce as a crutch a lot of the time, but a really good sauce with a really good thing underneath it is like a beautiful experience.

One of the best things and ways to eat is a sauce good thing. I missed what they said because I was looking up falafels. So they think it likely went back to like Faroanic Egypt, but it was made with fava beans. I love the word pharaonic. I can't believe I learned a new word today. And they think it was Egyptian cop. or the Coptic Christians, you know, over like well over a thousand years ago,

who were likely making it as a Lenton meat-free dish. So literally made as a veggie burger, dude. That is so wild. With Fava beans. Shout out to the Coptics. But then like modern falafels only probably 100 years old with the chickpeas and stuff and that was influenced from the Levant. Sorry, what did they say?

The sauce is a cop-out? Yeah. Yeah. Bad food plus good sauce equals, okay. Bad food plus bad sauce equals bad. Or no sauce, no sauce. Or bad food, no sauce, equal bad, right? Good food, no sauce.

Okay. Good food, good sauce. Good. That's the best. Best, the best. That's what we should be striving for. Yeah. You have a really good food and you go, that's great.

I couldn't imagine anything better. And then someone goes... There's a liquid and like viscous thing you can put on top. And it like changes it a little, but makes it even better. Sign me, T.F. Here's a nice creamy, creamy. acidic, shallity burnets, wonderful. Shalady Bernays?

That's my drag name. Oh my God, is that Tarragon? That's my drag name. She's Shalady Bernees and I'm Tarragon. I love it. I love it. Yeah. Yeah, I actually really viscerally dislike that sauce steak.

Sauce is good. Sauce is the lifebook. Sauce is great. Let's do two more. Let's do two more. I don't really need to go that soon. I just got to poop. You can poop if you need to.

No, it's fine. No, Josh wants to finish in that poop. Because I get fully naked. Got it. You're a fully naked booper? Not fully naked, just bottoms fully off. Leave tops on. Do you know there's a Seinfeld episode?

I need to be able to hit specific leg angles. If I can get fully naked, I'll do that. Have you seen the episode of sighted? You've never seen the episode of Seinfeld? Terrible. If I can't at home, fully naked. Going into the bathroom, fully naked, walk out, fully naked, put my clothes back on. Skidaddle here.

Shoes come off. Your are George Casillas? Shoes come off. Unless, check this out. This is the fun. thing. I love this is the same of the podcast. Is it? If I'm wearing shorts, the shoes don't have to come off.

Oh. Because the shorts are going over the shoes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It does enough. No shorts, no underwear, full top. Shows on so I can get a good grip. And so that explains why I can't go poop now and then come back to the podcast. Yeah, you can. You can just put your clothes back on. But it's a whole mischagas.

I've gone to the bathroom in a romper and you don't see me complaining. No, women have more to deal with. I'm soft. That part. I don't have years of... That part. Clock it. That part.

Oh, that is detective. Hi, I'm Jamie from L.A. Not a long-time listener. I've just found your show in the past month or so, and I'm making my way through it very chaotically. Yay. Yay. I love this.

I got a shock that we're getting new viewers. My oldest and hottest food take is that cheesecake is pie. Yes. It's not a cake. Caviote. It's not. It's not a caveat. Taxonomically, a cake.

And if key lime pie is pie with the grand cracker crust, cheese cake is pie. I just think we don't get into this as a culture because cheese pie, and I'll admit it, is not as appealing of a name. It's absolutely pie. Also, I am of New York Jews. I am aware of my deli culture.

I get to make a claim. Love you both. Thank you, bye. I am of New York Jews. Love you as well. And I can tell you're working through, not to shame here. I can tell you're working through

our discography chaotically because you missed an episode that we did work. I was just looking up. We've done this before. Something like that. We've been doing this for a long time. With Max Miller of tasting history

because he had just done like a medieval cheesecake recipe. I agree with you that when we're thinking New York, what is, what is what it's called? I think that's the famous one.

When you think of that or cheesecake factory for us, cheesecakes, that is a pie. It's almost even like a custardy cheese filling with a crust

Like you said, very similar anatomically to a key lime pie. However, what you're engaging in right now is cheesecake essentialism. And we don't like that? Well, well, it's just more complicated. Do we need that? So Salvadoran cheesecake. Oh, yeah. You know, it's literally called a Salvadoran cassidia, but it's like it's cheesecake is what they'll call it.

That's an actual cake that has farmer's cheese baked into it and sesame seeds on top. It is a beautiful dish. They sell it at 711. I eat it at 711. I ate a lot at 7-11. So, like, that is also a cheesecake. We are currently making, for the next last meal's guest, a basque burnt cheesecake. Yum.

Which has no crust. That's a baked custard. That's pudding. Well, there's flour in it. That's pudding. A very little amount. Very little amount. But how much flour does it need to be until it's a cake?

Oh, stop. You'll have some. Oh, stop. Some basque cheesecake isn't quite cakey. No. Oh, stop. You mean to tell me, oh, stop. Stop it.

Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop it! You think if I add a tablespoon of flour to creme-on glaze and I bake it, that makes it a cake? Literally, yeah. You're literally talking... Literally no. Like, letter earlier on? Yeah. That's creme brule. That's creme brule.

You're literally talking about taking eggs, sugar, and cream, and adding flour and baking it. Knock-knuck. Knock. Who's there? Josh? Yeah, Josh's here. Yeah. That would be a creme brulee.

I'm sorry. I just came to drop off your e-a-reats order. You had a bunch of Chinese who they forgot about it. Yeah, so I do agree with you. entirely. But I'm saying there are other wrenches to be thrown in in terms of what the rest of the world considers a cheesecake. Uncle Tetsu's cheesecake? You've had that? No, but I really want to.

You've seen it out of the jiggly Japanese? Oh, have I. Yeah, I really want to try it. That's a souffle, dude. They're calling it a cheesecake. They're calling it a cheesecake, so that way they can get people through the door. I know. I understand. What if you sold jiggly Japanese souffle? People aren't going to line up for that. Well, maybe me and you will, because we like jiggly Japanese suplays. But that's just me and you, like, you know what I mean?

You've got to think about the masses. We've got to think about the I'm thinking about him, but I'm thinking that that's a perfectly reasonable cheesecake. But if you're talking about New York-style American Jewish cheesecake. You really piss me off. You know, they piss me off. You're correct, that's a bye. There's so many cheesecakes up there. I love whenever a cheesecake has the sour cream topping.

Not me. You know what? It's about time we realize how different you and I were. I'm not the biggest cheesecake guy. I love cheesecake. I don't like cheesecake that ricotta, a ricotta-heavy cheesecake. Oh, I hate Ricoh-Coh-Rog. Oh, really?

I hate ricotta cheesecake. It's the sour. I don't like cream cheese frosting either. I love New York-style cheesecake. Yeah, I don't know. It's got to be, like, more sweet and dense than sour. There's something when you get too much sour cream in it to where it's just... I love the tang.

I don't enjoy it. It's just not my preferred taste. That's okay. Especially with, like, chocolate. Like, Lily loves a tuxedo cheesecake. I don't like chocolate cheesecakes. No. Strawberry on.

Best cheesecake of all time is Cheesecake Factory's pineapple upside-out cheesecake. It's unreal. There's layers of real cake in there. There's silk pineapples and raw. Oh, baby, baby. That's a good opinion. Hey, guys. So you know Wendy's, how they say their beaps never frozen?

Yeah. I don't believe them. Logistically, how do they do it? Do they get beef every day? Beef every day? Or is it like they keep it at 32.5 degrees or it's not technically frozen. That's interesting. I know Josh the encyclopedia.

Oh. Okay. You know they closed a bunch of Wendy's? My mom actually called me the other day. And she's like, I heard they closed a bunch of Wendy's. And I'm like, damn, that's crazy. That makes sense. Wendy, I feel like Wendy's, Wendy's and Hardys are probably ripe right now for Jack in the Box 2 for the next fast food giants to kind of start tapering off.

Arby's, we already see it. Thank you for calling me in Psychopedia. I do not know the answer to this at all. I don't know the answer. I know, for instance, like in and out doesn't freeze their beef at all. And they do indeed get daily shipments of beef. mostly coming from Harris Ranch, but that's easier because in and out is so central.

Localize, yeah, yeah, yeah. And even where they get almost all their beef from is like central cow. And so they have a supply line thing where it's, it has to be within a 12-hour drive. Okay. I'd have to fact-check this. It might be like a 24-hour drive from where the produce and the meat is coming from. So in-and-out figure that out.

But Wendy's is on a nationwide thing. So that would be a lot more difficult at that scale. I imagine, yeah. They have lower per store averages as well as in and out so they can afford they can't afford to play as much with that. I'm trying to think what they would do is there's some sort of like, oh, Logan has it. The company transports beef in refrigerator trucks two to three times a week to its restaurants. Oh, so if they deliver it on a Sunday, on a Wednesday, you might be getting, you know, the Wednesday beef. Yeah, but that was an interesting thing that he mentioned about like what constitutes frozen because people don't think enough about what temperature refrigerator is at.

Or even I was reading this in Consider the Fork, a great book by B. Wilson about refrigerated eggs in Europe. So many people have said stuff, and there might be truth to this, about how American eggs are processed versus European eggs that increase in salmonella, yada. A big thing that they posit is that room temperature in northern Europe, specifically, is colder than room temperature in a lot of places in America.

Really? Yeah, because one, AC, temperature-controlled room. rooms weren't a thing for a long, long time. Still, a lot of people don't have AC. But if your average temp, and they found that salmonella grows, I'm fudging the numbers here, but it's something like salmonella grows at like 74 degrees, exponentially more, not exponentially more, but significantly more than at 72. One of those weird things, right, that hot zone.

So if you're a room temp of 68 versus room temp is 75, those are going to be significantly different environments for something like bacteria. You're so right. So you're talking about a 33 degree. fridge that, hey, it ain't frozen, right? But it's by, you know, almost the same. That is going to spoil at a lower rate than a 41 degree fridge. Absolutely.

I don't know if they're fucking the numbers. I don't know the details. Shockingly, this is one of the few things in food that I haven't thought that much about. And thank you for in. It's because they make people sign NDAs and stuff. So, like, employees can't tell people. Call up a Wendy's, dude. I don't want to.

I did this once in those research in Teddy Swims. I called up the old chilies that I used to work at and started asking employees that they're, remember him. And then someone was like, yeah, I remember Jayden, and he was the best. And then the manager just goes, who are you talking to? Is it that guy? Is that that journalist calling? Don't talk to him. Doesn't it feel nice to be called

a journalist again, though? I don't know. I kind of felt bad. I kind of just felt like I was harassing Chili's employees. Oh, whatever. They were happy to talk the employer. Whatever. Really did not seem to like me. That's it. That's the first podcast, right? Are we done? Are we done? You got to do a wrap up. We're going to do a wrap up.

Yes, Josh. Something like, hey, thank you. For you could have chosen any podcast Thursday day. You could have been listening to SmartList right now. You could have been listening to Call Her Daddy. You could have been listening to Crime Junkies, Criminal. One of the many The Starting Solid podcast I listened to

today on the way. Starting and listen to Starting a song. I'm going to listen to that on my way home. Please don't. Just to see what Okay, Uncle Josh. At what your baby started eating hot dogs. But thank you so much. That's my hot dogs. We've got new episodes out on Wednesdays. It's on its own YouTube channel now, which you may be watching on. So crazy. Which is pretty cool. And we're sort of loving that.

Yeah, if you want to be featured on opinions or on casseroles, hit us up at 833 Dogpod 1. The number again is 833, Dogpod 1. And I mean, you like watching one of us or any combination of us. And if you like the idea of food, we do other stuff over at the Mythical Kitchen channel, which I think it's award winning. Maybe. Yeah. It's one a webby or two. I think you should subscribe.

Have you ever thought about subscribing? Oh, to this channel. Subscribe. Yeah. Yeah. Logan is communicating telepathically to us. No, she wrote it down. Telling you to subscribe.

Some people say subscribership is a dead metric, not us. Not us. We're trying to sell the chicken of the sea. They've been a great ad partner and maybe if we get more subscribers,

they'll come back. I'm just glad to be back on this. Have you had their new Franks Red Hot tuna? Yes. Dank. Capital D. D. Dank. See all next time.