A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich - Our Craziest Buffet Horror Stories

Episode Date: September 28, 2022

Today, we're looking back at our worst buffet experiences! Leave us a voicemail at (833) DOG-POD1 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, this is Mythical. Hey Nicole, you know the song Heaven is a Place on Earth by Belinda Carlyle? I sure do. Do you know that it was originally written about the Sizzler salad bar? I did. Oh, well. 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 to our podcast, A hot dog is a sandwich. A hot dog is a sandwich. What? Welcome to our podcast, A Hot Dog is a Sandwich, the show where we break down the world's biggest food debates. I'm your host, Josh Ayer. And I'm your host, Nicole Ianniti.

And today we are going to talk about the official Belinda Carlyle fan club that we have started. You know what's the best Belinda Carlyle song? Circle in the Sand. Actually, I had to Google who sang oh really place on earth weak sauce i'm a fake i love belinda carlisle wait name other of her what do i know her other songs i don't know if you're part of the membership you should know at least four she had a lot of great songs but circle in the sand is my personal study but she she's alive belinda carlisle god bless anywho uh today we are talking about buffets. We're talking about our worst buffet experiences because as much as I love buffets, I think we've had some bad experiences. We are having so many bad experiences. Yeah. I mean, it's it's rife for fantastic experiences.

Yeah, no doubt. Yeah, of course. No, duh. But also the fact that you have such a high ceiling on great experiences means you have such a low ceiling on terrible experiences. Very, very true. Now that nature's healing, Nicole, you know, people getting back into the swing of things after COVID because it took buffets completely away from us. You go to the Newtown Chinese Buffet in Burbank, greatest buffet to ever exist. But see, I'm not a buffet frequenter. Is that a word?

I don't frequent buffets often. But when I do, it's like a big deal. Like it's a big deal for me to be at a buffet. Okay. What's your buffet strategy? Because I think people should know some of the groundwork before we get into it. Well, the first thing you have to do whenever you get to any buffet is you need to scope out the scene. Take a lap.

Take a lap. Take a lap. Number one, take a lap. Take a look at what's good, what's getting replaced the most. Yes. Take a look at what's good, what's getting replaced the most. Yes. Take a look at what people are flocking towards. And just, you know, feel out the crowd, number one. Number two, you-

Feel out the crowd as if you're like, all right, I know there's an old lady at the crab legs. I can elbow her to the side. I mean, kind of. Yeah, I feel that. And then number two, you have to always go for high quality proteins first. So you want to go for the seafood typically. Because that's how you win. Yeah, yeah.

That's how you win the buffet. You got to go for the piloni shrimp. You have to go for the crab legs and you have to go for the steak or the carving section. Because there's typically a carving section if you're at a real, real good buffet. Yeah, but not if it's like a ham. It's got to be like a fresh beef.

No, no. It's got to be a side of beef and a turkey. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Correct, no. It's got to be a side of beef and a turkey. Yeah, correct. And then number three, then after you get all of your premium meats, you want to start getting the veggies. The veggies are very important because you can't... But bold move to eat

vegetables at a buffet. You have to. You have to because the name of the game is quantity. You want to be able to fill up on all the things you need to fill up on. Does that make sense? Because you can get bread from anywhere. You want to be able to fill up on all the things you need to fill up on. Does that make sense? Because you can get bread from anywhere. You can get pasta from anywhere. Although I do absolutely adore the bread baskets

that they do offer. No, the bread baskets are how they win, Nicole. That's exactly what I'm saying. Against the buffet. I'm literally telling you what I do. Can I finish my damn war of attrition? So once I get some nice patty pan squash and baby carrots.

I almost did a spit take of my water from what buffet is that? Patty pan squash. Patty pan squash of a buffet is the best patty pan squash you can ever get. I guess. Is it worse than bar mitzvah patty pan squash? No. Do you think people know what patty pan squash is? It's the yellow pretty

scallop squash That you see at bar mitzvahs Come on people The little nuggets Yeah the bar mitzvah squash The bar mitzvah squash are my favorites And little baby carrots And then maybe you get a side of spinach

If it's not too wilty And then you go into the Asian section Yes And then you get the cream cheese And tuna Canned tuna rolls You know what I'm talking about? They don't do

Their spicy tuna probably can't The Newtown Chinese Buffet They got a lot of canned tuna rolls. You know what I'm talking about? They don't do, their spicy tuna probably can't. The Newtown Chinese Buffet, they got a lot of canned tuna in the rolls. They will have some fresh raw fish, which people say, Josh, you're insane. This is next to a dilapidated Kmart in Bourbon. Yeah, yeah, don't do it, don't do it. No, I get it.

I eat the raw fish. Unless you're at a really high quality buffet. Like if you're at the Wynn, like sure, like you can have their tuna. You can have their like salmon sashimi. If you're willing, if you're willing. i will eat raw fish from anywhere anytime don't care where it came from if a toyota tacoma nicole pulls up in an alley behind a 7-eleven and says we have raw fish i will say how much you're wild and then after that you have to get um bottomless alcohol

what do you mean after that's how you that's how you get hungrier for the meal. And also alcohol is a diuretic, so it opens up more room. See, I'm not the kind of person who drinks in order to get hungry. I'm the opposite. I drink and I get full. I'm not kidding. That's why you got to drink liquor. Alcohol equal food.

No, I drink champagne when I go to a bar. Yeah, that's probably the way to go. You got to get bottles and bottles and bottles and bottles of champagne. And then you enjoy yourself. And that's how I like to do my buffet experiences. I'm very similar. I mentioned buffets are about winning because when I grew up, like feeding us via buffet, we would go to the Sizzler and eat the all-you-can-eat salad bar buffet for every birthday.

A kid's under 11 ate for 99 cents. Oh, wow. I didn't know that 99 cents and my brother Oh wow I didn't know that. Yeah my brother we would hide him in the bathroom as we paid.

He was 11 until he was like 17? Correct him yeah he had his little prepubescent mustache at 15 in the bathroom and then he'd go sit down and be like

that's a big 11 year old man and we'd be like shut up we're poor John go find the shrimp. They didn't have shrimp at Sizzler. But point is I've been always taught

to like break the bank at a buffet. Sure yeah. It's like trying to beat the house at a casino that's exactly it yeah don't fill up on bread never don't do not drink a single sip of water oh no you gotta drink well they always offer you coffee orange juice alcohol coffee's good people say it's an appetite suppressant but if you fight through that the coffee will just get you to metabolize the food quicker. That's what I'm thinking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why morning buffets are a really good way to go. Correct.

And I love laying down a base of like four to five champagnes on an empty stomach. Yeah, me too. I was once asked to leave, if we're talking about worst buffet experiences, being asked to leave a buffet

in Reno, Nevada for drinking 11 mimosas. Oh, I'm sorry. I think that's BS. It was all you can drink. I had not yet drank all that I could drink. I was trying to push for more and I wanted to eat as many crab legs.

You should have fought them. No, they were actually pretty nice about it. It was kind of like an acquiescence. They were nice when they were kicking you out. They were kind of like, hey, you know, you've been here for three hours. Oh, they didn't have a cap on it? Not an explicit one,

but apparently an implicit one because- Oh, I see. Yeah, you can't be at a buffet for too long. And a lot of the buffets I go to, cap on it not an explicit one but apparently an implicit one because oh i see yeah yeah yeah you can't be at a buffet for too long and a lot of the buffets i go to they like have like the the rule like you're this is your table for x amount of hours you gotta get up my friend rickards was a little belligerent and he was yeah yeah rickards like like it's a last name like ricketts yeah okay yeah like rickers island yeah it shouldn't like uh i don't want to put him in bomb blast with his employer, but he was respectfully belligerent.

I thought. I thought we were having a good time. I would love to meet Rickers just to say his name. Rickers. All right. So, oh, I was going to say also, find the old people. Not to elbow them out of the way, but to learn from them. Uh-huh.

Uh-huh. Dude, the old ladies at the base. Eggs Florentine. Eggs Florentine. Eggs Florentine. They are shameless about how many crab legs they will stack on one plate. You got to follow the veterans, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're a rookie in the NBA. You go find yourself a veteran mentor. I'm doing that with random old ladies at the buffet. Me and my dad, we would go to the buffet at the MGM because he was one of those high rollers that had the card. Yeah, yeah. So me and him, he'd be like, Baba, let's go to the buffet, crab legs. And then my mom wouldn't eat crab legs at the time,

but I would eat them because I was with my dad and my dad allowed me to. And then he'd be like, don't tell your mom. And it was so fun. From a kosher perspective? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And at that time, he's like, this is how you do it. And he taught me how to open a crab leg and like he taught me how to peel any

shrimp and then he'd be like go go go get the dessert or like go go go get this and i'm like okay and it was so much fun for us the best child parent bonding happens it's like that in like a baseball game yeah maybe if you go to baseball games not so so much me, but yeah. All right. Tell me about a buffet horror story. Okay. Tell me your worst. So I hate to crap on this place, but my mom and I went to a Hokkaido seafood buffet before we went to a movie at the Landmark. Do you know where the Landmark is?

There's a couple of Landmarks. The Landmark. There's one in Westwood. The one in Westwood. Yeah. So we were going to go watch some sort of weird indie flick or something because we like to do that sometimes, me and my mom. And I was like fresh in culinary school, like not even there for a year, okay? We go to Hokkaido Seafood.

Some people see the word seafood buffet and they run. I'm somebody who flocks to it because I'm no stranger. Yeah, yeah. My mom wanted to try it and I was like, okay, we'll try it. But I heard it's not the best, but we'll try it. We'll try it. We'll try it. So we go there and we, you know, we start out with the sushi and then we start out with the- Are we talking raw fish sushi or canned tuna sushi? Canned tuna sushi. Okay. So it's safe.

And then we get like a little side salad and then we start, you know, we start enjoying ourselves. And then all of a sudden this wave hits the two of us and we're like oh no and then we look at each other i'm like mom do you feel okay she's like no i don't and then i i'm like me either let's get out of here let's pay for the bill and let's go and then the manager stops us and goes why are you guys leaving so soon like or did you guys not have a good time and i'm like oh it's great thank you so much and then my mom goes, for some reason, she goes, my daughter, she goes to cooking school. Do you need someone to come help you? And I'm like, mom, this place is literally giving us active food poisoning. We need to run away.

In an alternate reality, you would have been sautéing the salt and pepper calamari. I would have been the head. I guess I was the head chef. Culinary innovation artist. No, not even. Not even. No even not even no no i don't even think they offer that would have just been that the head of the brigade at hokkaido hell yes dude hell yeah the place doesn't even exist anymore the one that i'm talking about and then for some reason this guy hands me my my card he looks like the guy from aqua teen hunger force you know the

one he looks like carl just with a few more rings on his hands. You love that. And he goes, here's my card. Call me when you graduate. I have a job for you. And I'm like, I'm literally like vomiting in my throat. Like I need to get the heck out of here. And I'm like, okay, thank you. So me and my mom run. We get movies. We got tickets to the movies.

And then like I just get violently sick at the movies in the bathroom. Do you remember what movie it was? I can't. It was some weird, it was some weird, like, off-the-beaten-path film. Ex Machina. No, I didn't watch it with my mom.

It was probably some sort of, like, Persian movie. Like, some sort of weird subtitled Persian movie where mom's like, oh, your cousin invested money in these movies. Something like that. So that was my worst experience because I almost got a job out of it. Wow.

Yeah. Always be working. Always be hustling. How do you think your life would be different if you were the chef at a Hokkaido seafood buffet? I would be very unfulfilled. Well, one, yeah. I'd smell, like, calamari every day. That's not bad, though.

Yeah. I hate going home smelling like food. It's one of my most, like, it's kind of one of those things I've learned to accept but I hate about myself. Like, I go home smelling, like, food every day when I should be smelling, like, flowers or, like, a freshly done manicure. No, no, no. Those are gendered stereotypes that we don't need to ascribe to.

But what I do to combat that, Nicole, I'm very glad you asked, is that I work out in the morning and I cover myself in lifting chalk. But you don't smell, which sucks. I know, but the body odor, enough of it covers up the food smell to just create this sort of like neutral man scent. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. You know?

Musk? Yeah, it's kind of a musk. You got a unique musk? It's a lot of pheromones mixed with like old deep fry oil. Have you heard of vabbing? What? Do you know what vabbing is? No, what's vabbing?

Google it later. Oh, I don't want to know what vabbing is, Maggie. Google vabbing. It is not work. Oh, no. What is vabbing? Oh, boy. That's something else, Nicole.

People do this. People do that at the gym. Speaking of seafood buffets, vabbing. I was going to say, I have also had an incredible experience at the Hokkaido Seafood Buffet. And I know you know the story. Yes, yes, yes. Because the story, it has been in my Twitter bio that I said did journalism once, wrote a cookbook once. Soy boy.

Threw up in the soy boy. Threw up in the bathroom of a Hokkaido Seafood Buffet once. What are the chances that one seafood chain about 40 miles apart. This is in Newport Beach in high school having like probably one of the first dinners with my stepmom. And I, for whatever reason,

I was, you know, big old 270 pound shoppin' monster at that point. This is when you were a big guy? This is when I was a big guy. I was like probably 18.

No, it would have been 17. Like so earlier in my senior year. And I was what was called dirty bulking, which is lifting as much as possible, eating as much as possible.

Whatever is in front of you, you just, whoo, you inhale like a vacuum. Oh, and when you're at the Hokkaido seafood buffet, and I don't know why,

for whatever reason, I, maybe it's because I was trying to like talk to my new stepmom. You know, I wasn't like, uh, enacting my typical buffet strategy plan.

Okay. Because all I ate were the Chinese spare ribs, you know, the real red ones that are like- Yeah, that are like chashu, but not really. Yeah, and they're kind of like leathery, but you love it. I ate like probably two pounds of those and probably three pounds of bang bang shrimp.

Did she make any comment to you or to your dad at the time? Yeah, she was just like, oh my God, you can eat so much. That's so cool. Really? Yeah, she was obsessed with it. She's, I mean, probably like a four foot ten like literally 80 pound uh woman and she was like big boy you can eat you know she was super stoked on it and so i was like i'll keep doing it if you like it you're gonna be my new mom do i call you mom it's confusing because i'm an adult almost you know any whom

and so i did that and i i'd driven my own car there and like my and my stepmom left and they were like, you're not going to go. And I was like, I got to take care of some business in the bathroom. It came at me like, I mean, a tsunami. How fast it just hits you. I know. And I do not get foodborne illnesses. Nicole, my stomach is a cast iron. It's almost like the Hurt Locker.

You know, they have the bomb defusing things. I never saw Hurt Locker. Me neither. But I know what it's almost like a um the hurt locker you know they have the bomb diffusing i never saw hurt me neither but i it's like but i know what it's about it's like it's like the locker where you throw the bomb in yeah yeah you sure you throw i think is that what it's about even i don't know what does hurt locker even mean why do i make so many movie references for films that i have never seen i don't know i feel like it's a it's a flex that you know the movie exists but you haven't watched it and like you know maybe like a short synopsis about it. Yeah. I understand why you do it, but nobody knows what a hot lurk.

That was made in 2008. I thought that was like 2019. Anyway, but you know, they take the bombs and they like put them in the thing and it explodes and suppresses. I feel like that's my stomach for like foodborne illness. It's like if you have extra salmonella, extra E. coli, extra listeria, throw that in me and it'll just go like and really do you think that you are just a human anomaly in that sense that you just

don't get sick from from certain things like why do you think that is one of my theories is that i do get sick but i'm so out of tune with how my body feels that i'm always in pain and that i just like sports have just conditioned me over years to not notice my own pain and batteries. Well, PSA to not do sports. But, but, but, but. No, it's great. Sports will toughen you, but it will also deaden you inside. Yeah, I heard about that. Yeah, and then you got to take your rage out by listening to Death Core

and lifting weights so your hands bleed every morning. But the foodborne illness is unmistakable, Nicole, when it starts literally squirting out of you. Yeah, yeah, I've been there. You know I've been there. I've gotten food poisoning so many times. Oh, yeah. I've been there. You know I've been there. I've gotten food poisoning so many times. Oh, yeah. Because I'm also an adventurous eater.

You know, I'll eat stuff that other people don't eat. I've eaten a lot of questionable oysters. I've eaten oysters from shopping carts. Yeah, I've eaten some gross stuff before and some questionable stuff. But, like, yeah, my body just, like, sometimes it's just like, no, sorry. Too much. Slow it down. Like, when I eat a lot of kosher food at a wedding, peace the F out.

All my bowels evacuate. Wait, why kosher food? I don't know. I don't know. There's like the meat at a lot of kosher places. Instant, instant regret. My dad's the same way. I think it's just a genetic thing for me and my dad.

That makes sense. Our bodies are just like anti-evacuate. Must eat before the party. And so there I am, Hokkaido Seafood Buffet, probably 9pm on a Tuesday and I am just... Oh, what time did you guys get there? I am probably like 6.30. You know, me and my stepmom trying to get to know each other. I'm trying to eat three pounds of bang bang shrimp.

It was a win, win, win. And then I go to the bathroom and I am like pants around the ankles. Just absolutely felt like my body. Oh my God. Like I got the cold sweats. That's the worst. And my body just like, you know, a sneeze, your body recognizing some particulates are in there. And they're like, gotta get it out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was like my whole body sneezed through my b-hole continually over the course of about seven minutes. You're like a sea cucumber. It just all comes out. It was like a siphon purging itself. And then my body was like, that's not enough. Something's still in there. Got to come out the other end. Oh, my God.

And so I am then on the toilet in an emergency situation trying to lean forward to get past my pants and underwear so I can throw up. Oh, so you did one of these. my pants and underwear so I can throw up. Oh, so you did one of these. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm like, I'm,

I'm, I'm my, so you're pooping and vomiting, pooping and vomiting same time. And of course a lot of the vomit gets on my pants. Uh, and I'm just like, what kind of pants are you wearing?

Jeans? Basketball shorts. Oh, I was like, okay, that's okay. No, it's better because you can wash basketball shorts.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. See, you can wash jeans. I wash jeans. No, people wash. I used to work at basketball shorts. Yeah. Do you not wash jeans? I wash jeans. No, people wash. I used to work at Levi's and they told us not to wash jeans. Oh, yeah. Fun fact.

But I wash my jeans. You're supposed to put them in the freezer. But it's so much better that you're wearing basketball shorts because that way you can rinse it in the sink. Yeah, flip flops too. You could also rinse those. No, I know. But it's weird because you're getting a lot of vomit on your bare feet when you're driving

home. You're supposed to rinse in the bathroom. Why didn't you rinse? I tried. I tried. I was like splashing water all over myself and there's a bunch of vomit on the ground. I'm like, listen, there's no paper towels. Did you tell anybody?

In the bathroom. No, but, but, but. I walk outside and like I open it and you can just see vomit on the ground and like the janitor is there. And I just go, I'm so sorry and just run away oh my god that said that doesn't count as a nightmare buffet experience that was a nightmare bathroom experience but the buffet experience was great the bathroom was in the buffet you technically you had to kind of like walk outside to get there and that's weird like that bathrooms that are like on the side yeah what are the you got any other buffet horror stories?

I mostly have great experiences. I love, well, the one time I went to the, what was it called? The Newtown Buffet? Chinese, yeah,

Newtown Chinese Buffet in Burbank. I used to bring every new hire there. I didn't really like it. To try and suss them out. I didn't really like it. So, so this buffet, it's the type of Chinese buffet

that has one sushi, which again, most of it is canned tuna which is still fine which is fine yeah it's basically korean kimbap at that point which i love me too it's a delicious rice roll you dip it in soy sauce um they have green tea ice cream that is like self-serve that's good and then they have all their litany of orange chicken general sao salt and pepper mackerel stuff like that. And then they have like mac and cheese, pizza, fried chicken, french fries. And it is my single favorite place in the world.

It is like 1099 on weekdays for lunch. Oh, I don't like it. I once walked in. There is a group of Buddhist monks eating there. That's rad. I thought that was cool. Did you take a picture with them? No, that's weird.

No, I don't ask to take a picture with them. I would have taken a picture. But you don't like that place? No. Why not? It's icky It's not icky It makes me feel icky

After I leave Which is really bad Well yeah But I mean that's cause You know You used to take Every new hire there Why did it take you

A year and a half To take me there? I don't know I think I was trying to impress you Cause I took you to like A nice kosher Like a kosher restaurant Even though I'm not kosher

Yeah I don't know I was just like Nicole's Jewish I'm like Jewish So funny Let's like take her To a kosher, like a kosher restaurant. Even though I'm not kosher. Yeah, I don't know. I feel like Nicole's Jewish. I'm like Jewish. Let's like take her to a kosher spot in Toluca Lake and get some shawarma. One time I went to the Wynn Buffet and I did too much. Yeah, Vegas buffets. I love Vegas buffets.

My whole childhood was Vegas buffets. Your whole day though, because if you're in Vegas, I'm not a big Vegas guy. I'm a big Reno, Nevada guy. I want to get into Laughlin a little bit. Oh, cool. Maybe a little bit of Henderson, Nevada., Nevada guy. I want to get into Laughlin a little bit. Oh, cool. Maybe a little bit of Henderson, Nevada. I think you need a boat to be in Laughlin. I'll be a boat person.

Are you a boat guy? Oh, my God. I love drinking on boats. I don't want to like captain a boat, but I love drinking on boats. Have you ever like done the thing on the boat? What's it called? You hold on and the boat. Wakeboarding?

Yeah. Have you ever done that? No, but I like the lying down version of wakeboarding. Which is boogie boarding? No, they just slap you. Sleeping. They just slap you. throw your ass in an inner tube and they go hold on to this rope and you're just getting dragged behind the boat like someone being drawn on a horse yeah those are fun one time me and my friends had a banana boat in mexico and doris got hit in the eye continue sorry oh i was gonna say vegas like if you are there to drink and party and do all that which which if you're going to Vegas and you're around our age, that's what a lot of people go there to do.

But I would love to go to Vegas on just a pure food trip where we have nothing. We're not going to a club. We're not going to a pool party. We're not even going to a bar trying to be social. It's like we're here to throw the F down. You know that they do that now. There are special tours in Vegas. You pay a flat fee

and they take you to everywhere you want. They take you to all the steakhouses, all the five star, I don't know the star rating, all like the diamond star rated like steakhouses. They take you to all the local places in Vegas. They take you like off the strip and stuff. They take you to like all the buffets.

So that exists already. And if you want to do that, there are people, like-minded people like you that want to do that and you off the strip and stuff. They take you to all the buffets. So that exists already. And if you want to do that, there are like-minded people like you that want to do that. And you should sign up and go. Oh, man. I want to embed with them. Yeah, I follow a bunch of them. I want to live with them. I want to live that lifestyle. Did you say embed with them? No, embed. Embed. What does embed? Like a

wartime journalist embeds with a rebel group. I would want to embed. You want to bed them? Although, if it's like a nudist group who just goes around to buffets. You would do nudist groups? Just hanging their dangly bits around. I would love to do. Imagine a buffet at a nudist club in Jamaica.

Okay, so there was this one piece that was written for Lucky Peach magazine a while ago. Okay, okay. That was about the buffets they would have at nudist gatherings and nudist orgies effectively. Okay, okay. And they were like, people would go into rooms, they'd play together, and nudist orgies effectively. Okay, okay. And they were like, they would just, you know, people would go into rooms, they'd play together,

and then they'd come out and there's a journalist just at the buffet just writing down, talking to people. And they're just coming out naked, hanging their dangly bits everywhere, eating chicken wings and mini corn dogs. Speaking of dangly bits, have you ever gone to a buffet on a cruise ship?

Oh. Have you ever gotten sick from buffet on like a cruise ship? Oh. Have you ever gotten sick from that? Yes. I did too. I was a kid. I was a kid and I ate a lot of Caesar salad and I threw up Caesar salad and it was like really bad. It was embarrassing.

How do you feel about cruise ship buffets? Bad. Don't do it. Bring your own pre-managed meals. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There is something that Phil Rosententhal best friend in the world in our dad our new dad said where he was talking about all-inclusive resorts but i think cruise ships are the worst version of that which is everything that's included you don't want and

everything you want it ain't included yeah and imagine that except you're parked out in the middle of the ocean i do love cruise i've gone on a fair amount. We did our 2015 fantasy football draft. That's fun. As a bunch of dudes on a cruise. That's cool. And we all, you know, smuggled in some bottles of liquor. We were doing the all-you-can-drink option,

which was very fun. You smuggled alcohol, but you still had an all-you-can-drink option? What is wrong with you? I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. Because they, and I do not advocate for binge drinking.

No. No, not at all. But I'm saying, if you're a big enough human and you're drinking for long enough, 15 drinks goes by kind of quick. They also water down their drinks. I was drinking Mike's Hards. I wanted to see if I could drink 15 Mike's Hards in a day. Once I bought 13 beers, then I ended up upside down on the couch and I woke up. It was actually a chair.

It was a big green chair. When you wake up, when you wake up at eight in the morning to start drinking Mike's hearts because it's college football season and then, no, no, here's the thing,

here's the thing. I'm throwing up. And then you go to the buffet and you just get as many fried shrimp as you can. Like to me, that represents a beautiful kind of freedom.

You know, it's like- So it's America. It's America. Sorry for touching your hand. No, I love that. You just said it's America and's america it's america and there's no i love that you just said it's america and then grabbed my hand like we're gonna start saluting the flag i gently graced it is america there there are positive and negative freedoms right there's freedom to and freedom from like okay like okay okay right okay like so you know we have the freedom to i I don't know,

protest and freedom of speech and freedom of religion. But then it's also like, well, you know, some people think you should have the freedom to not wear a seatbelt. You know, some people think you should have the freedom of drinking 15 Mike's Hards out in the open seas and eating as many shrimp as possible. And then you get the diarrhea. You get a little bit of the diarrhea.

Yeah. Well, it could have been a lot from that trip. Yeah. That was also the trip where I ate shopping cart oysters. There were oysters in a shopping cart? We were in Ensenada and I got a bunch of oysters from a shopping cart. And I don't think it was those. Like the man was pushing a shopping cart. It was a woman.

Ugh. It sucks as much. And women can sell. Was there ice in the shopping cart? No. Not like a lot. Why do you make these decisions for yourself? I don't know, but I also had some really great tostadas there.

That's fine. Yeah, I had like a manta ray tostada. Soup plantation slash green tomatoes. Okay, one, you invoked the name soup plantation. How the hell did they get away with putting the name plantation in a restaurant? I think it's antation. it's, what the hell? I think it's antation. It's soup. Antation.

Soupal antation? Yeah. How the hell? I know it's called sweet tomatoes in other parts of the country. Oh, I thought it was green tomatoes. Oops. It's called sweet tomatoes in other parts of the country. And like who the hell in that company was lobbying for like,

no, we got to keep the name. It's history. Maybe it started by someone whose family was a plantation owner. I don't know the details. Utterly bonkers that society let them get away with that. But do you like the idea of something like a buffet being so readily available to the American people? I don't think it's good for society, but I think it's great for me and I love it.

Oh, okay. I hate it. You think buffets shouldn't exist ethically and morally? I think buffets are an excessive, wasteful form of food. And you can have them every once in a while. But when it's right in front of you, you want to eat it all the time. And you want to eat that tuna tarragon pasta salad. You know what I'm talking about?

I like Jones broccoli madness. Oh, I do like that one too. No, it's so good. They put the sugar in it. Yeah, it's just in your face. And it's like, what are you supposed to do? Like, it's not fair to the average human that's dumb aka me and you just want to eat all the time.

Yeah, yeah. So for people who don't know how a buffet makes money, there was a really incredible, I think it might have been Lucky Peach again. I think they did a whole buffet issue. But they talked about the economics of buffets and it really is as simple as for any schmuck like us who goes, I'm'm gonna try and break

the freaking system here and eat as many crab legs as possible even if it ends in dysentery there's a three-year-old who's eaten six animal crackers that's paying full price and so that's how it works that's right but it also does lead to like an utterly insane amount of food waste but again i'm not here to moralize i'm here to tell you how much i love eating fried shrimp that's been steaming in its own juices for six hours under a heat lamp because I really do. One of my favorite times at a buffet was at the Sizzler. I was with my brother. We probably hadn't been there together since we were like children.

And we went maybe five, six years ago with my grandma. And I think my grandma had like had a bad day and she was really complaining a lot. And so my brother and I, we got like, we got like a little bit lit, you know what I mean? And then we decided to have a little bit of an Iron Chef competition to see- At Sizzler? Who could create the most insane buffet dish.

Like I was taking like- That's cute. I was taking their artificial crab and I was like trying to make like a vinaigrette like from scratch with like lemon juice and olive oil, trying to emulsify it with mustard at the table. Such different childhoods. And we were like, so I made like ceviche, the artificial crab. You made fake crab ceviche.

Yeah. Well, I tried to make like a campechana. Okay. With like the ketchup, like a coctele. Sure. Okay. But then I did that. I did the meatball tacos, of course.

That was a good one. You're so interesting. I took the bacon bits, and I made a cornbread ice cream sandwich that I rolled in bacon bits. Did you feed your grandma this? No, my grandma was like, what the hell is going on? Who was the competition about? Just me and my brother. We were trolling my grandma.

And you guys were also judges? Yeah, we were just kind of trying to one-up each other. But we formalized it. We were like, you have you have three courses how old who can make the best um john was probably 30 you know it's probably 26 oh this wasn't when you were guys were kids no no no this happened like recently this is recent yeah oh but it was that's the beauty like seven and like 10 year old would do no no this is like you thought i was trying to emulsify a vinaigrette when I was seven to make confit jama? Honestly, it's not the furthest thing from reality.

And hello. No, we're trying to like piss off my grandma and she didn't get pissed off. But you're 26 years old. Why are you pissing off your grandma? She's 100 years old, bro. What are you doing? She only would have been like 97 at that point. Why are you pissing off a 90 year old lady?

Listen, I don't know. Nicole, you've known me for like several years. Do you think that I am the most mature person who handles their emotions in the best way possible? This is incriminating. This is totally incriminating. But Josh, what I'm trying to say is, buff face, even though we've had such bad experiences there, would you go again soon? Oh, I fully believe that life is about riding the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. And it'll take a lot more than me throwing up in my basketball

shorts all over my bare feet. And it was a cold rainy day to the Hokkaido Seafood Buffet in Newport to get me to stop going to buffets. I want to go to the Newtown Chinese Buffet right now, Nicole, and I want to put some orange chicken on top of their spicy tuna and then drizzle that in sriracha and eat it with a scoop of green tea ice cream. You can do it, Josh. There's nothing you can't do. God bless America. Home that I love.

Stand beside her and guide her. To the light from above. To the mountains to the fairies to the mountains i already said mountains you're about to get your citizenship revoked i was born in america all right josh we've heard what you and I have to say. Now it's time to find out what other wacky ideas are rattling around out there in the Twitterverse. It's time for a segment we like to call Opinions Are Like Casseroles. That was good. Wow.

Are you one of the Neville brothers? Who are they? You don't know anybody I know. Who are the Neville brothers? The singers. The singers. The Neville brothers. The Allman brothers?

No. The, um. The Neville brothers. What do you mean? Who are the Neville? I don't know who the Neville brothers are. Sing one of their songs. Okay.

They have this part in Family Guy where they're in the sack race and then one of them has a microphone. There's like five metal brothers. It goes sack race. Well, no. I don't know. I don't know. Nicole, I don't know. I'm trying my best.

I just don't know. Let's start with the first one. Ben Understar Kodet says, boil hot dogs and use hot dog water to make Kraft mac and cheese. Cut up doggies and nudes. Yeah. So the technique he's talking about here is creating what's called a flash hot dog water to make Kraft mac and cheese. Cut up doggies and nudes. Yeah, so the technique he's talking about here is creating what's called a flash hot dog stock. It's, no, I'm saying, listen, this is based in French cookery.

What you're doing is you're taking the hot dogs and you're getting all of, you're extracting, Nicole, you're extracting that flavor using hot heat. Yes, Josh. Yes, Josh. And then I did this with something and I can't remember what it was.

I was boiling hot dogs and then I said deglaze with hot dog stock i don't think it was ramen it could have been a rice dish because what would i have been putting rice maybe risotto dogs don't believe it i was like cooking at home it wasn't like for a bit oh oh you did this at home yeah oh it was probably chili i was probably making chili dogs and scratch i was like yeah why not infuse some hot dog stock into the chili oh horrific um so i love this you're just infusing the flavors you're building layers of Oh, it was probably chili. I was probably making chili dogs from scratch. I was like, yeah, why not infuse some hot dog stock into the chili? Oh, horrific. So I love this. You're just infusing the flavors.

You're building layers of flavor. Nicole, that's what we're taught when we learn to cook. I love this. That's what we were taught? You're taught to build layers of flavor, are you not? We were taught in different schools. You went to the school of hard knocks. I went to a defunct fortress.

And we make hot dog water, hot dog water macaroni, Nicole. The school of hard knocks. I do like the idea of this, but I don't want to do it. I want someone to do it for me. You know what I mean? Oh, they're also saying cut the dogs into noodles.

Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. No, no, cut the dogs in the noodles. Like, cut up the hot, don't cut noodles out of the... No, of course they wouldn't. Well, you ever heard

like squid noodles? No. It's a really weird technique. It was popular probably like a decade ago. You mean the hot dogs that look like squids? No, no. You make like a farce.

Like you blend raw squid meat with like some liquid and maybe a little bit of starch to bind it. And then you like put it on a silpat and you like gently cook it with steam and then you cut it into noodles. So you make like noodles out of squid. Jean-Georges von Gerichten, classic French trained chef, JGV. He had a famous dish where he would cut ahi tuna into like fettuccine shape. And then he would like make a little twisty thing and dress it.

And you'd like slurp up ahi. And it kind of was just bad. Like you'd rather just have like a tartar or sashimi. I like the idea of that. But anywho, I like that. At Riker Garrison, ketchup is a perfectly reasonable condiment on tacos. Breakfast tacos. Okay.

So, so, so, so. This has an interesting cultural lineage. First We Feast once produced a really great documentary on what have become known as black tacos. Black tacos. Which are tacos. You've heard the phrase white people taco night. Sure. Right. But if you go to, say, Taco Mel, right? as black tacos. Black tacos. Which are tacos. You've heard the phrase white people taco night. Sure. Right?

If you go to, say Taco Mel, right? Taco Mel is a black run taco shop that makes crispy. I've never heard of it. You've never heard of Taco Mel? No. Oh, dude, it's in South LA.

And so there's kind of this like, you know, obviously in LA, black and Latino communities have been around each other for forever. And it, for whatever reason,

I believe ketchup on hard shell tacos is a big thing in the black community i don't know if you identify as black riker garrison but this is a thing that i have heard and has uh cultural lineage which if you look at the origin of taco sauce i'm not talking about ketchup sauce is basically, it was literally a way in the Taco Bell early days era to try and market tacos to non-Mexican diners.

They were like, yo, the salsas are too spicy, too acidic, too flavorful for you. We're going to blend it with some ketchup and call it taco sauce. That's very cool.

And so taco sauce is already halfway to ketchup. Like, why not put ketchup on it? Especially if you're eating the type of tacos with like sour cream, yellow cheese, lettuce, tomato, ground beef. I haven't had a crunchy taco like that in a long time. I'm sure ketchup would work fine on something like that, but not on, like, a street taco. Yeah, no. Like, I wouldn't put ketchup on, like, a carne asada taco, but.

I had carne asada fries the other day, and there was no ketchup on them, and I didn't need it. No. I wouldn't put ketchup on carne asada fries either. I would. Really? If it was offered to me, but it's never been. It's not salsa roja. It's never been offered.

Ariana Blade says, kiwi should be eaten like an apple. Bite right into it with the skin on. I don't like kiwis in general. They're like probably my bottom fruits. I don't mind kiwis. I just don't like the fuzzy bits. Like I don't need to bite into an apple. But you'd eat an apricot, a peach,

things that are fuzzy. Yeah, I like those things with the skin. You know, I was eating a peach the other day and I had a pretty fuzzy skin. It was a really good peach. I accidentally got white peaches instead of yellow peaches which white peaches are inferior. I know. Ruined my day when I found out I made the mistake. But they were

really good white peaches and I was really having a time. Big I found out I made the mistake. But they were really good white peaches. And I was really having a time. Big, like 12 ounce sons of biscuits. You know what I mean? And then every, I cut it. I cut it into slices so I could eat it nice while watching TV and not get the couch messy. Okay. But I was like, man, I'd enjoy this a lot more if the skin wasn't on.

You could peel it. Yeah, I don't know why. I thought my story had more of a point than that. And it didn't. Didn't at all. No. I mean, no. Kiwis should be cut, and you should remove the center, you know. You remove the center of a kiwi?

I like to eat the center first, the white part. I eat the white part first. Is it like the filet mignon of the kiwi? No. It's just for visuals. It's just I have to eat that part first, get rid of all the whites, and then I go for the seeds, and then I get all of the green parts. It's a lot of work. It's yummy. I used to have a kiwi knife then I get all of the green parts. It's a lot of work. It's yummy.

I used to have a kiwi knife. I had a spoon on the end. That's like, they market it as a kiwi knife? Mm-hmm. I loved it. What happened to it? It's my favorite. It's at my mom's house.

Bro, go get that kiwi spoon. I know. I'm going to go. How many other fruits have their own spoons? Banana. There's a banana spoon? I mean, it's a knife, or like a cutter. What are you- Maggie, Google it. What is a banana knife? Look's a banana spoon i mean it's a knife or like a cutter what do you

maggie google it what's a banana knife look a banana cutter what do you like a cutter for bananas okay yeah you're talking about the thing that it's like a sheath it's a blade you could put a hot dog in there geez you could put a zucchini in there you could put a zucchini in there. You could put a carrot. Add Velvet Foe says, not sure how controversial liking gefilte fish is, but that's all I got. And that is all you need, Velvet Foe, because I see you. I am with you.

I love gefilte fish. It's wet bread meatloaf. It's wet bread fish loaf. It's really bad. Wet bread fish loaf. If you didn't grow up with it, you're not going to like it. Do you think that's true?

Yeah. Well, okay. What about, this isn't like exactly analogous but you know you go to a hot pot or something and you get the like fish balls or fish cake fish tofu they'll call it but that's delicious why not gefilte fish the texture is off well it's a little bit softer a little bit mushier and it's cold you can eat gefilte fish hot if you want to i've never had has anyone in this room had gefilte fish hot if you want to. I've never had gefilte... Has anyone in this room

had gefilte fish hot? Maggie? Was it... When? She's lying. My family has their own recipe and so we're very proud of it and it's very good.

Okay, see? Wait, Maggie. Okay, just bring it. Bring in your family's gefilte fish one day. I'd really like to try it. I'd love to try it. I love...

And I want to make my own gefilte fish recipe. Okay, do it. I want to pass it down to my children. Okay. You know, I have a point of pride in gefilte fish. Nicole, it was all they had. It was all they had. They couldn't make

anything different. Okay, one time I thought it was gondi, which is like a Persian meatball, but it was not, and it was gefilte fish, and I was so disappointed. If you're not ready for that wet, spongy fish flavor, then you're going to be disappointed. But if your mouth is ready, if your body is willing to accept the gefilte.

With the beet and horseradish on the side. I'm sorry, guys. Gimme, gimme, gimme all your love. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Differendez1 says, oregano makes anything savory better. Oh, hard disagree. Yeah, I know. Hard disagree.

You know what does? Parsley flakes. You know what does? MSG. Okay, MSG too. But because here's the thing. When I, when I was a little baby boy and I was cooking, I'd be like, I'd be like green flex on food, green flex on food, make it taste better.

And we'd have oregano and I put it on everything. Oregano is a very, very strong flavor. It's actually soapier than cilantro. It's, it's soapier than, than rosemary. It's oregano is aggressive. And I, I like oregano. I love oregano on like a pizza. I would rather oregano with tomato than basil.

Sure. Yeah, I do love. I agree. And most of the time in Italian cookery, you would never mix fresh basil with oregano because, and I agree with that. They're two very competing profiles. Totally. And so if you just want green flex on your food because you see food with green flex

on it, it tastes better automatically. It's like how you see if rice is yellow it tastes better i don't agree with that statement if meat is tinged red it tastes better i don't agree with that those statements but green flex oregano is like incredibly strong and if you don't want that flavor parsley flakes have when you dry parsley not a lot of flavor fresh parsley is pretty aggressive yeah um some people say it has no flavor which is wild that to me. That's weird. Parsley is very, very obvious when it's in food. Also, you say parsley.

Parsley. Parsley. Whenever we're cooking in the kitchen, Josh goes, do we have any parsley? You got any parsley? No, you don't say parsley. You say, do we have any parsley? You got any parsley? No, he goes, do you have any parsley? You got any parsley? I say parsley. You do not say parsley! You say parsley. Ooh, dried say parsley. You say parsley.

Ooh, dried chives. Dried chives are fun. Dried chives. Fresh chives are great. I hate dried chives. I like fresh chives. I like fresh chives too. But fresh chives sometimes they don't sprinkle unless you dry them out.

So I'll like cut my, here's what I did. What do you do? I did this the other day. I knew I wanted chives for garnish. I was making like a pretty short rib thing. So I cut my chives and then I just let them hang out in the fridge to like kind of evaporate so I could sprinkle them better. God, I live an exciting life.

You know what's better than parsley? Jesus. Green onions. Ugh, yum. I love a smattering of green onions on any plate of food. Give it to me. All right. At Joshua C. Jones, if I could only eat one cheese for the rest of my life, it would hands

down be cotija. Interesting. Okay. What's yours? Desert Island cheese. You go first. You go it would hands down be cotija. Interesting. Okay, what's yours? Desert Island cheese, you go first. You go first. Okay, it's going to be so controversial. It's going to be those mini bay bells, the red ones. Wait, hold on.

That's a good pick. It is? Okay, because I can form the wax, and if I eat enough of them, I can make a bow out of the wax. I can get off the desert island. You know, they did not introduce the desert island scenario they said for the rest of your life they you said desert island okay i said but yeah it's like an expression everything you say i take very

seriously everything okay fine then i i would uh i get a thousand pound parmesan wheel uh and then i would hollow that out and then i'd float in it as a wrap, Nicole. That's what it would be. Is it because it's your favorite cheese? Maybe American. White American. White American. Yeah, Josh loves white American cheese because it's the only cheese he identifies. Oh, is there like a white half Jewish American non-practicing cheese? I think it's the white American.

Yeah, that's still it. Like you go to a kosher deli and they got like the white cheese. They don't have a name for it. The kosher deli does not have white cheese. That's how non-Jewish I am. Cheese and rice. You suck, Josh. Oh, man.

All right. Let's see. Desi Ray 1105 says quesadilla is a panini and a panini is a sandwich. So a quesadilla is a sandwich. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

Hold on. Here's the thing that people do with arguments. So this is like transitive property, right? If A equals B and B equals C, then A equals C. I failed math. I capital F failed math. I don't remember the properties.

Quesadilla is not a panini. What is a transitive property? I don't remember what you said. If A equals B and B equals C, then A equals C. Right? But that is under the assumption that a does in fact equal b quesadilla is a panini is simply not true in my book so uh a panini or a panino in

italian just means sandwich right pan is the word for bread yeah panini is actually a pluralization of panino in america we consider a panini to be like a pressed sandwich. I have a question. Like a cubano. I have a question. What's up? A panino is individual? A panino is a single sandwich.

Single sandwich. If I slice a sandwich in half, do I have one panino or do I have two panini? You have a panino that you've sliced in half. Okay, but what if I give it to somebody? Nicole, if you slice a sandwich in half, do you have one sandwich or two sandwiches? Well, this is back to the lasagna paradox.

God dang it. If I have one lasagna and I stack it on top of the other one, is it one lasagna or is it two lasagnas? Quesadilla ain't no dang panini. No, quesadilla is not a sandwich and it's not a panini. Get out of town. What are, gosh, there is an Italian piadini or a piadino. I don't know what that is. A piadino is an Italian flatbread sandwich, but I believe the dough is still leavened, kind of akin to a pizza dough, but it's called a piadino. I don't know what that is. A piadino is an Italian flatbread sandwich, but I believe the dose to 11 kind of akin to a pizza dough, but it's called a piadino.

Yeah. That's closer to a quesadilla. And that may or may not be a sandwich, but panino is literally just the Italian word for sandwich. A quesadilla is its own thing. And I love quesadillas. And if you go to El Salvador, a quesadilla is a little cheesecake with sesame seeds on it. It is a little cheesecake. Do you know that there is actually quesadillas in Mexico City that are served without cheese?

Yeah, dude, that freaks me out. Yeah, so I'm scared to go there because what if I make a mistake and then I say, ¿Por qué no queso? And then they'll just look at me. And then they'll just look at me. So I refuse to get quesadillas in Mexico City if I ever go there. Yeah, I remember when I was in Cabo and tried to order tacos de papa and they said

no tacos, solamente papa. I didn't really hear what they said and they just brought out a single potato. How yummy are those? Were the potatoes soaked in red sauce? No, Nicole. Potato natural. Cooked?

Just straight potato. Boiled? Baked. I think baked in foil thrown in foil on the grill. Oh so you got a baked potato? Listen oh yeah I know it was like we were vegetarian friends and I was like I didn't know they're vegetarian I was already like okay you're dragging me out here like don't speak Spanish I know how to say like

tres tacos de carne asada con todo por favor you know I know how to do that and I know cuanto cuesta you, I know how to do that. Yeah. And I know, ¿cuánto cuesta? You know, I know how to do that. But, yeah, yeah, not like, I'm vegetarian, what do I have? I'm like, figure it out, I don't give a fudge. Anywho. Does anyone want me to speak Spanish again?

I saw the comments, how much you guys liked it. ¿Y tú quieres que escuche? No, no, no, no, no. Mi español es, no bueno. Ay, no, no. Mi español es... No bueno. Ay, Dios mío. Mi español es así, así. Yo practicar mucho con last podcast.

¡Vera loca! No, no, no. And on that note, thank you for listening to A Hot Dog is a Sandwich. If you want to hear more from us here in the Mythical Kitchen, we got new episodes for you

every Wednesday. If you want to be featured on Opinions or like Casseroles, you can hit us up on Twitter at MythicalChef or at HennyZada with the hashtag OpinionCasserole. Or, or, or, if you want, you can leave us a voicemail because we have a damn phone number. And you can leave us voicemails at that phone number.

We got a landline now. The phone number is... It's an old-timey rotary telephone. Maggie sits by it every day and every night to monitor the calls. Just eating gefilte fish. The number is 833-DOG-POD-1. That number again is 833-

DOG-POD-1. Nicole, did you say 833-DOG-POD-1? I did say 833-DOG-POD-1. Did you tell our listeners that they should call 833-DOG-POD-1? Please call 833-DOG-POD-1. Nicole says you should call 833-DOG-POD-1. You should probably call 833-DOGPOD1. Please call 833-DOGPOD1. Nicole says you should call 833-DOGPOD1. You should probably call 833-DOGPOD1. And for more Mythical Kitchen, check us out on YouTube where we launch new videos every week.

We'll see you all next time.