Doughboys - Benihana with D'Arcy Carden

Episode Date: September 27, 2018

Actor and comedian D'Arcy Carden (The Good Place, Barry) to review and discuss her childhood relationship to this week's chain, Benihana. Plus, discussions about favorite autumn eats and snacking habits on sets before getting into a Halloween edition of Cereal. Check out audible.com/doughboys or text Doughboys to 500500 to get started!Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This was the tagline for Genesis Magazine, a men's softcore periodical designed to compete with industry titans Playboy and Penthouse, launched in 1973 by hero Aki Raki Eoki. Eoki's interest in adult entertainment was perhaps related to his legendary libido. A thrice-married serial dator, Eoki at one point bragged about having three different women pregnant with his children simultaneously. Pornography was one of Eoki's many divergent interests. He competed in the professional powerboat racing circuit, was an international backgammon champion, and crossed the Pacific Ocean in a hot-air balloon.

The source of revenue that enabled Eoki's extravagant hobbies was an early career business success. A teppanyaki-style steakhouse opened in Manhattan in 1964. Teppanyaki, a showy style of cooking employing a table-sized flat-top grill with customers seated around its perimeter, had originated in Japan after World War II as a way to introduce Japanese diners to then-foreign Western ingredients and preparation methods. It evolved into a category itself foreign to Westerners, and sensing an opportunity, Eoki, a Japanese-American immigrant who'd built a successful ice cream truck business

in New York City, imported teppanyaki to the U.S. Eoki was so conscious of making the theming feel authentic that he had his father ship an entire Japanese barn to the States, which he used to build as establishment's interior. The restaurant's novel unique experience, complete with flamboyant demonstrations of flair and scripted light comedy, made it a huge draw in short order for both ordinary New Yorkers and the city's elite. The Beatles and Muhammad Ali were among the A-list clients who patronized the original location.

Eoki expanded the size of his restaurant and then expanded the scope of his business, opening a Chicago branch in 1968, and soon had outlets across the U.S. And today, the celebrity fascination with the chain has not subsided. Tyrese Gibson built a fully-equipped replica of one of its grills in his backyard, and Tori Spelling sued the corporation after sustaining severe burns from direct contact with one of the dining room's flat tops. Some of Eoki's children have even become celebrities in their own right, actor Devon Eoki and her half-brother, superstar DJ Steve Eoki, who now has gotten into his father's

business, recently opening a pizza concept called Pizza Eoki. Today, the elder Eoki's chain claims 76 franchises across Northern South America, and licensed versions exist in Asia and the Middle East. And while Genesis Magazine never ascended beyond being a low-tier porno rag, grouped on the newsstand alongside club, jugs and swank, Eoki's restaurant chain remains the champion of its category, a trailblazing Japanese import that made its format a stateside sensation, a place to quote its tagline, where dinner is the show. This week on Doughboys, Benihana.

Welcome to Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants. I'm Nick Weiger, alongside my co-host, Chewin McGregor, the Spoon Man, Mike Mitchell. Again, I'd never have when it's like a handsome guy that they then say that he eats more. I love it. You can't complain about that. That was courtesy of Ben Jones at Ben Coover, with a trailing underscore. Thanks for sending that in, and if you have an insult you'd like me to use on the top of the show, roastspoonmanatgmail.com.

You're a good man, Ben. I liked it. I liked it. That's like the trifecta of the Spoon Man roast. They can get you on their side, then that's like a slam dunk. Yeah, and I still don't like you anymore. I'm not trying to get you to endear myself to you. That's a lost cause.

You always want me to like you more. I think that's projection. You want me to like you. That's bullshit. No, that's totally what's going on. You love me. I like you. I'm the Spoon Man, baby.

Nick, I got exciting news. You told me in our guest that you had exciting news, and we were anticipating this, so go ahead. Ready? Yeah. I got a new kitty litter box. No, not worth it. Not a payoff.

Look, someone on one of our listeners, you know, for the most part, they don't say helpful things to us ever. They're mean. They be littlest. They're fools. It depends. All of our listeners are fools. I think you're painting with a broad brush.

Some of our listeners are very nice. A lot of them are very nice. I'm kidding, Nick. It's a joke. It's a show that we joke on. I know. Some are true fools, though. One of these guys, he said, check out this kitty litter box.

We'll change your life. It changed my life. And I got to give him credit. If you're listening, I got this thing. It's called a rock. And this sounds again. This sounds like brain and content word. We're such losers that we do brain and content when we haven't.

No one's paid us money or told us to do it, but yeah, the no boys can't be bought. It's like this rock and roller thing where you got the kitty litter in there. You turn it to the side, all the clumped up cat pee and poo falls into a little tray. That's convenient. You pull the tray out. You put it. You throw it away. It's it's amazing.

So that's what that new thing is. And you're in your office. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, because I know it's. Yeah, you were using it early. Yeah. God damn it. You fucking snipe my own joke.

I was setting up. I was going to say you put out a human. I noticed there was a human toilet seat mounted on top. Nevermind. You think that's more convenient for me than using the toilet. That's what I was implying that you shit in a box like a cat. They got things right. Yeah.

Let me tell you. Anyways, it's been great. That's what you wait. They got things right, referencing them, defecating into sand. They get a lot of things right. The amount of hours they sleep in a day. That's true. Pretty good.

That's enviable. Look, it's it's really. It's changed my life. They're there. They're their litter box is cleaner. It's great. You know, I'll show you. I'll give you a little walkthrough of it after the show.

Yeah, please. I can't wait. Mitch, I'd love to talk about where your cats piss and shit all day. I gotta drop first. Oh, yes. You've gotta drop it. I've got something. Just do a nation.

Here's a little drop. B Bug exams or sports or sports? I don't know what you're trying to say. Or catty or or orącete, or catty or or or or kitty or, or, or catty or catty, put or or catty or catty. Or or, do say it or. I don't know how to spell it or catty pasta, the pasta. When the pasta.

Oh, it's like they look like little thumb prints. Yeah. Or catty or catty. I mean, it's fun to kiss kids. Grandpa's hungry. There we go. What? What?

Did we ever figure out what the correct pronunciation was? Or catty. But I still don't know. Yeah. Maybe our guests will know. But yeah, I think it's or catty. Okay. Hashtag pasta pronunciation.

If you want to give it to us phonetically. How did you not know this? I know when I saw it, but I didn't know what it was called. I don't know the different pasta types or catty. I believe. Or catty. Yeah. I mean, maybe you're right.

I don't know someone. Someone will correct us. Hashtag pasta pronunciation. Spoonman been a been a listener since rock doberfest. Oh, hey, we're going to have some fun news about that later on. Yeah. Thanks for all the laughs and fun. Thanks for all the laughs and finally plugging the drops email.

I've wanted to send something in for a long time. So here you go. Hope a wave attachment is okay. Sasha, it is okay. It works great. That was fantastic. Good one yourself, Sasha. Thank you.

That was great. Nice little audio edit job. Hey, Mitch, send me the oxcord. I got something on my own to play up top. And then we're going to introduce our guest. You know, as as as regular listeners to the podcast are aware, we have a someone who calls someone to our voicemail with some frequency and lives a lengthy message and we're going to listen to one of those now.

Hey, double read. Hey, Spoonman, aka John Quincy Adams. That one has to have been done a million times, right? I'm sorry. I'm back from Maine. Now I'm in a gym in Brooklyn. I'm walking in a circle because this is going to make me a little forever, but I had to take a pause.

I'm sure Twitter has already gotten here. But I just wanted to let you know the pasta in question is pronounced. Orchietti. Orchietti. Wow. What the hell? Did you set this up? I did not.

Orchietti. I didn't listen to this. You sung just flag deforming. Orchietti. And it means little ears. Thanks, Dave King, for recommending a really good book called Vacationland. That's his own bookie plug Vacationland by John Hodgman. People are going to think this is a setup.

It's not a setup. No, hold on a second, because I told you right before this podcast, I said I didn't listen to the drop. Yes. And he said, I think it's fine. Yeah, I didn't listen to the drop. I didn't know what the drop was going to be. And then it turns out you give me shit all the time.

You didn't listen to the voicemail. No, I didn't. Because I know Hodgman's going to deliver. He's going to do some right ball left turn at the end where he throws in something graphic. You what if he did? I mean, I think he'd do it in a delightful fashion. Mitch, we bullshit way too much to the top of the show. I mean, that is bull.

This is bullshit. You didn't listen to the. That was a good turn. That was great. Answer the question. Of course it was great. He always delivers, but you should always screen. You song screened it.

No, I trust you song. All right. You song new responsibility. You're going to screen all my drops. Our guest today has been sitting very patiently through all this. This is an actor and comedian from Barry and the good place Darcy Cardin is back. Hi Darcy. Or check.

That was a beautiful thing to witness. I couldn't believe it. I was like that was weird. Those kind of things really blow my fucking mind. Right. That's that was a true coincidence. Yeah, I loved it. I loved it.

And I am. I witnessed the lack of listening before meaning like you started it. You started it. You started to play it and you were like, no, we don't need to listen to it. So we had no idea that was wild. That was wild. I could. I could scream.

Yeah, it's it's it's and less. Here's the only thing Nick and I set that up for you, which is then the dorkiest shit on earth. Why would it work? If you did, it worked. I hope you did. That would require. It would require you and me spending extra time together and I'm like fully acting.

Right. Right. I could not pull you guys were both making like big mouths and wide eyes. So that was like just for me like whoa. Anyway, if that was true, then thank you. Either way, it was great. It was great to win. Good.

I that was that was a that was a nice surprise for me too. It starts the day off great. Hey, almost as great as your kitty litter box story. Whoever this kid is, man, he changed my what a what a what a delight. The cat's litter is. Oh boy. I'm happier. It's great.

It's great. It is cool when you find something that makes you happy. I ordered a second one. I got why did you do that because now I have to because they need to they need to get a litter boxes. They need their own or they get spots in the house. There's no they can use either one they want. They they will.

You know there was a time I put them in my room for the recording. Yeah of the show and I put my laundry basket right next to the litter box with fresh laundry. Oh boy. And I'm a pistol over that. Did she really just to get get you? No, I think she it was just next to it. She got confused and and and and I probably it probably wasn't.

I had to scoop it. I should have scooped it sooner. She wasn't confused. Yeah, she was saying thank you for locking me in this room. I'm a fucking Irma loves me. Yeah, but she wants to be with you right now, which is why she peepied. She's we sometimes can let the cats out if you want the if you're okay with the cats coming out.

I was actually going to ask if you could. All right, Nick. Can we unleash the cats? Yeah, I guess that's fine. What the fuck? Bring the cats in here. What is this shit? No, get them.

Get the cats. The cats are great. I love cats. They're great. Do you have cats? No, I have a dog and I was going to say I have like three dog beds. So I sort of understand. Right.

The feeling of like getting more like she doesn't need three beds. But are those are those spread across the house? Yes. So you get a few different spots with a dog to lay down. She doesn't need that. She could do the couch. She could do the ground. Right.

Do a towel. But you just start thinking like, you know, maybe we're all just we all just are supposed to have kids. Yeah. And when we just have dogs and cats, we're like, I need to. Hi, kitty. That's Irma. Hi, Irms.

She's beautiful. The listeners need to know this is a beautiful cat. Yeah, they're good. They're good looking cats. Yeah. I was in there. She was pissing all over my clothes again. No.

That's a beautiful cat. Yeah. I haven't had a cat in a long time since chrysanthemum died at slow and painful death. Just kidding. Just kidding. Just kidding. What happened? She just died of old age.

She was like 18 years old. Oh, okay. That rules actually. She had a great life. Yeah. Actually, she was like a real bitch for the first, I don't know, 15 years. Really? A meanie.

Yeah. And then the last few years of her life, she was so sweet. So, you know, Maybe you'll have a turn like that. A reverse curmudgeon. Like I'll get in old age. I'll become, I'll become like this sort of.

Yeah. This, I could have happened. I don't think I'm unpleasant. One thing's for sure. You're lovely. I'll be there the day you get put down. Holy crap.

You're not going to outlive me. Come on. You know, I was even thinking that cats can live for 20 years and I was like, man, I'll be like 50, like five or whatever. But like that could be 55 by the time they're, they're up there in old age and getting close to passing on.

And then I was like, there's a good chance these cats outlive me. They're going to get the Mitchell estate most likely. I think if someone looks at you and then is like examining an actuarial table, they're going to take the under on 55 years. Man, we're all getting close guys.

Yeah. To dying. It's true. God. No, you love life. No, it's about time to wrap this shit up. You know what? You got a brief time to be alive and then you got forever to be dead.

So, you know, I love the afterlife. Exactly. Hey, Wally's Wally's Wally's here now. Oh, Wiger. He just went between your legs. Wiger sexy. Was that a was that a slight or like a show of dominance sort of brushing

underneath me? Dominate your ass. Wow. I got dunked on by Wally. Darcy, thank you so much for returning. One thing I know is that the summer is is fully wrapped up. We're going into fall.

There's two things I want to ask you also. Yes. Yeah, to that. You like fall. You don't like summer. I like I love fall. I'm scared. I'm a scared of.

I'm afraid of the devil right of the devil. We talked about that, but October as we said is the spookiest of months. We said yes. I love October. It's my favorite month of the year. It's great. You're scared of the dev. I'm afraid of the real devil, but then dress up and all that is fine.

I love real devil. He rules. No, he does not bring him. What the hell is this? I absolutely love the real devil. Absolutely live for the real devil. The real devil is. Oh, he's got it going on.

You know it. What do you mean? He's got it going on. He's of anything. He's goat-ish. He's a rocker man. He's he's a full goat. He loves rock and he's hot as hell.

He's got hooves. He'll track. Right. More than hooves. He has hot hooves. Oh, he's got the hottest hooves and I'm saying he'll leave imprints on your floor. You should be so lucky. This guy sucks.

Nick, right? The real devil, your beard of hair is standing on end. I, you know, hey, look, I think the devils got some problems. I'm not a fan, but I'm not like terrified of him like you, but I'm also not like an acolyte. I think I could win him over. At first, he would be so mean and then by the end of it, he'd be like, I like this chick. Has that ever been done? Because that feels like a movie of like the kind of the devil's heart being turned into

South Park, didn't it? A little Nicky. They did that with the devil. Oh, you're right. You're right. That is what that's basically bigger. Little Nicky kind of is that. Yeah, you're right.

Little Nicky. There's like other evil demons in hell that like, like mess with Adam Sandler's dad, who is like the king, who is basically sorry to do this, but literally the good place, the show that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Right. I mean, not that Ted Danson is the devil.

Spoiler alert. If you haven't watched it, but he's been, he gets one over by good people. Right. If you haven't watched it, check it out. Three. The devil's got to change your heart a lot. He's being. He's pretty nice guy.

Yeah. It's right. He doesn't rock. He's bad. He rocks. He rocks. He loves rock. He lives to rock.

I got to watch the Exorcist and I'm like afraid to watch it. It's scary. You've seen it, right? Yeah, but it's still scary and has the added added edge of you are you're raised about Lee Catholic and you're still on a second. I wasn't raised in like a very religious family. Okay. Well, you're raised Catholic and you're stay.

You're someone who is still a man of faith. You still are right. You're still. You're not like a guy who goes to church all the time. I believe in God. That's all which is which is which in Los Angeles is no one does. No one believes in God. That is so true.

And so I believe in God. I'm like, I mean like you're paying this as some sort of a heretical left coast to the the the stereotype that people have in the heartland. I don't think that's fully true. There's plenty of churches and synagogues out here. Plenty of places of worship. You live on the street with a Buddhist temple. Oh, cool.

Why don't you just give my fucking address? Yeah, I'm not saying that it's a heretical or LA is a bad place. I'm not. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that you if especially in the come on comedy committee. God damn it. Comedy community. Right.

If you believe in God, you're free. You're free. And I mean like I just believe that there's something more. I'm sure it's almost agnostic. I guess but but it's nice. I wish I I wish I was there. I wish I was with you on that. I truly do.

I'm not even being a you know funny. Right. Yeah. I wish I did. Were you raised a religious at all? I was. I was raised Episcopalian. Me too.

Yeah. I like it. I like Episcopalian. It's like fun Catholic. It's like pretty. Oh my God. It was. It was pretty.

It's a little more casual. It was super casual. Yeah. You could have like a female priest or like a gay priest. That's cool. Yeah. That is fucking cool. We'd probably solve a lot of the Catholic Church's problems.

I think it might. I think it just might. Anyway, the devil rocks. I hate God. Wow. So outside of the outside of the devilry and the general spookiness of October, which is coming up, we're also at the end of the summer season and Darcy. I know from your Instagram at least that you're someone who goes on vacations.

What is your vacation like eating agenda? Oh, great question. I love to eat. Okay. Okay. Let's see. Here's my thing with eating. I do it a lot.

I love it. I'm not great at a restaurant like, you know how we all have friends and probably I get the feeling probably you guys are at least you are Nick into like, sorry, into like figuring out what, I bet you look at menus ahead of time. I bet you. Yeah. Yeah. Hold on a second.

Yeah. 1000%. I looked at the menu for the place we went to yesterday. Yeah. But I mean, it's one thing for the podcast, but like if you're just going out to dinner with friends, are you like, are you a big, I guess, foodie so to speak? Oh yeah. Yeah.

But I just, I go where someone says go to and I order what looks good and I don't know what like the new cool restaurants are. All that being said, when I go on vacation, I'm sure there are like amazing restaurants that I'm missing. Yes. I'll eat at the hotel restaurant. I'll eat at the restaurant down the street. Oh really?

Okay. I know. But luckily when, when we go on vacation with friends are, are sort of like best friend group. They're all really into restaurants. So I just go with the fricking flow. That's ideal, I think. It is ideal.

Yeah. If you have someone else just sort of like being the, the, the steward of that, my lovely wife Natalie, she's like very, she, she knows a lot more about food than I do. Right. It just, just knows all these, these spots and just last weekend took us, took us down to Little Saigon with some friends and in Orange County, we just went to all these different Vietnamese places. Yeah.

She picked them all out. It was fantastic. And the nice thing is also like the people that are into it, big shout out to Paul Downs, Jen Statsky, Bobby Vance. Okay. These are the friends. Wow. The whole crew.

Yeah. They, they enjoy it. Like I don't enjoy the, I don't like to look. Right. It probably says something bigger about my personality because also I don't play on the trips. I just go where they say go. Right.

I'm a baby. I'm a child. What I am is a little baby. No, that's a great ride. I'm a tiny baby. I mean, that's what Weigur does do. Yeah. You just go for the ride.

And my question to you is who is a bigger foodie? Well, I mean, look, no one likes to term foodie. I know. I wish I didn't say it. No, but I, I say this all the time, but I mean, it's like, it's like hipster. No one really self identifies as it. It's used as a, but I mean, I like, like, I think people who are like food enthusiasts, you kind of get it.

Who, who is bigger on? I used to be very big into it and then, and then I was heavy and I got heavier and heavier and I, so now I don't seek it out as much as I do, but I used to go to all the, all the little hidden spots and I'm wondering between you and I, I mean, you're pretty, because of Natalie, I feel like you're always, you're always going on to places. Do you mean who has a more, who's, who's tried more places? Is that what you're saying? I just know more of a foodie guy person between the two of us.

Well, I think visually the answer is clear. God damn it. I think like, I think we're both, we're both into food. We both like it a lot. We both like to try different places. I think we have different tastes. I think you're someone who likes like, you know, you said before your favorite food is pizza.

Yeah. I like pizza, but I would not say pizza is my favorite food. I don't know what you, how, like, how are you, and this is a question for you as well. I'm going to fucking eat your. I'm going to put you between two pieces. You just said I'm going to fucking eat your ass. You said it. You said it.

I heard it. Did you hear it? I did hear it. I'm going to put you between two pieces. Put that on a drop. I beg someone to put that on a drop. I beg you. I beg you.

I beg you. I beg you. Drop it. Drop it like it's hot. I'm going to put you between two pieces of white bread. Even sexier. Fucking eat you alive. Fire and somehow you'll be whiter than the white bread on the outside.

Oh my God. I am sitting at a table of sexual tension. It's thick. Wait. What were you doing before I cut you off? I'm sorry. I was going to ask if you guys are picky eaters because I feel like I'm. Just because pizza is my favorite.

What the fuck was that? No, this is not related to that. I'm saying but. What the fuck was that? That's what I'm talking about because you're asking like who's more. If we're trying to decide who's more into food. Yeah. I think part of it is like I will try pretty much everything.

There are things I don't like, but I'm pretty much down to try everything except my weird thing is I don't eat cephalopods, which are a squid, not because I think they're gross, but just because I think they're too smart to eat. But that's like, that's like a weird, weird person lying up. Are they smarter than pigs? I don't know. They're very, they're like they're, they're the geniuses of the sea. I mean, they're very, very smart, but they're solving puzzles and playing pranks and shit.

I'm going to put you produce a sandwich and eat you. I don't care how fucking smart you are. I am horny. But are you a Darcy? Are you a picky eater? Are you someone who will try whatever? I kind of will try whatever. Yeah.

I mean, I'm trying to think of all like, what's the weirdest thing, you know, whoa, whoa. I just said weird thing. And now on your Alexa, it says weird thing. Yeah. She's always, oh, my mom is there too. We won't talk to her, but she's there. Okay. We should talk to her.

But anyway, I think I'll try most things. Yeah. I'll try most things, but I maybe like most people I get into the habits of like, I'll probably order the, the thing I order the most, but, but I'm down to try it. I'm down to try it. Yeah. Yeah. Like I, I mean, I tried something yesterday.

Oh boy. At the very end of our meal. Oh, that's right. And I made it. But I tried it. We'll get into that. Yeah, we'll get into that. That was huge.

Might lead to someone being fired. I, I'll try anything. I, I, I'll try anything once. I mean, we, we, we've talked about this on a double where Nick, you and I, we ate. I mean, this is bad to say, but I brought back some salami from Italy and we, yes, we ate horse meat. Right. And, and, and, and some donkey meat.

Oh God. I would try anything once. I mean, I get it like a little bit like if it's, if, if the bugs are kind of out of the question, but like if, if, if it's presented well enough, I need it. Like the things that get me a little bit like is like a sweet breads and and like, like, you know, like if it was like brain or something, it would be, it would be, it would be heart brain or heart. I'm saying it.

I'm like, I don't really want to try tongue or brain or, you know, I had tongue before in tacos. I like tongue. It's good. I like that a lot. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know.

Yeah. Maybe I'm not as adventurous as I would think. And also this is true. I mean, I eat a ton of meat, but since I've had a dog the last two years, it is harder for me to eat less meat. Right. I really, I mean, like even just when you were talking about smart pigs, I'm like, God damn it.

Yeah. That's a dog. I know. A pig's a dog. This podcast is, it's bad. It's a bummer. I do wonder sometimes that like, you know, general, this is something I've said on the show before, but I wonder if it's a kind of like future generations.

I'm not talking about 20, 40 years from now and, and, you know, like, like a social board is changing a little bit. I'm talking like 200 years in the future, if the world's still around, we'll meet consumption and factory farming be viewed as this, this atrocity that everyone was complicit in. I totally think it will. Cause especially once we learn more about like how human, how animals process and like the world or how intelligent they are, right? As someone again, who eats a lot of meat, so I'm not trying to like point fingers, but

I think it will be one of those like cigarette or seatbelt things, you know, where we look like our kids will be like, you did what? I just, I just don't know what's going to, I can't tell what's going to happen. Like I know that like cattle farming and, and like producing beef is terrible for the environment. So that's, that's a big issue. But I just don't know. I feel like people are always going to want to eat meat.

I know. But if they figure out an alternative or hey, you put on your VR headset and you're chewing some, some, you know, synthetic protein while you're having sex with a robot. In the VR simulation, you're fucking this robot. It's weird. It's a robot that you're fucking in the VR. It's strange. It can't be human.

No, not in this simulation. You chose it. That's a prize. But yeah, I guess if they, if they have some sort of synthetic meat that tastes as close to, I've been buying a lot of the impossible burger or whatever it's called. I like the impossible burger. Although I will say that the selling point is like, oh, it tastes exactly like beef, which I totally don't think it does.

No, not really. And, but I think that's okay. Yeah. Well, you know what it does? The flavor is not on point, but the don't think maybe. Yeah. I think the texture and the fact that it's like a lot of these, a lot of those, those veggie based patties are just like bone dry.

Yeah. It has a little bit of moisture to it. It's like kind of juicy, like a real burger and that, that counts for a lot. And sorry to be disgusting, but put a couple fried eggs on that and it's going to juice right up. That sounds great. That doesn't sound disgusting at all. But don't you need talking about juicy meats?

I don't know. Fuck. Sorry. Yeah. Well, the wager should be sorry. What did I do? I feel like if they can like, if they can like basically clone meat, if they can just like produce meat without, you know, like if they can do it in laboratories, that's the whole

thing they talk about, right? They're, they're creating, you know, basically creating like, like, like the slabs of, of flesh without a central nervous system. So it can't feel pain or experience a fear. And it's just, it's, you're just like, like it would be like a just animal. Yeah. I think of what the, the, you know, the, I've heard the futurist talk about what meat will be like, is it'll be like, they'll basically be able to grow just the pig part of the pig,

not what it's brain or anything. Oh my God. Yeah. Whoa. Yeah. That's kind of cool. It is cool. Yeah.

Well, I mean, we'll see if it happens. We'll see if it, we'll see if it ends up. Yeah, we'll see. Yeah. Yeah. We'll all see. We'll live long enough to see. Yeah.

Okay. So then we're going into fall and, you know, with the season changing, do you have any fall eats as the weather starts to get a little bit cooler that you like? I mean, I'm a big soup head. Oh hell yeah. I love soup, but I really don't touch the stuff when it's hot outside. So I'm excited to get into some soups. Right.

I love soup. Yeah. What's it, wait. So hashtag soup head, if anyone else there agrees with Darcy, what are your soups of choice? Okay. Soups of choice. We're talking about like that, the, the like sort of lemon chicken Greek soup. I can't remember what it's called.

I know it has like a good Greek name. Like off, off. I can't remember. And, uh, Watchmen will answer it for us in one of those voicemails. Um, I love like a chicken tortilla soup. Oh yeah. That's a great one.

Um, I mean, I, I won't say no to a soup. Right. What about a clam chowder? I was just about to say, I'll probably go less on the like creamy soups only because I think they, you know, it's just whatever. It's just a little more on the caloric side. Right. But, um, but it's good.

Why is it creamsmen? You like the creamy soups. I will say the hot dairy sometimes can be a recipe for some rumblies and rumblies. God, that was a whole sentence was gross, but that's true. It's true though. Yeah. Like a cream of tomato soup or a, or a, or a clam chowder that can really, you know, cause some problems.

All right. I got, I got a question for you. Yes. Rank them. Right. You know, I'm going to put in ramen. Yeah. And I'm going to finally put in soup.

Bottom. I'm in our soups. What are you doing? No shit they are. I'm telling you to rank them. Rank them for ramen and soup for ramen and like a chowder and straight up soup. You rank them. Okay.

And when you say straight up super, you're talking about like a chicken noodle or just something very basic or no. Yeah. Yeah. It can be chicken noodle. That falls in the soup. You're throwing in two subcategories and then fucking you. Fa is in there.

Okay. You're like saying this. Okay. Rank them cheddar, brie, cheese and food. Yeah. So who gives a shit? Rank them cheddar, brie, cheese and food. I love all that because you know that fa is a specific style of soup.

Yeah. I know. But compare it to a to another style of soup. I did. There's ramen and then I'm saying like your basic soups for soups. I then says encompassing everything from a consomme to a split pea. There's a huge range of conventional soups in the western sense. If I was going to rank them, I think you're forcing my hand to put soup number one because

it has the most options. Well, guess what? You're wrong already. Really? Yeah. Soup one, fa two, chowder three, ramen four. Wow. Fa one.

I'm saying ramen one. Ramen one. As far as like what I'm mostly in the mood for, like on any particular day, what I would want the most would be ramen. I don't eat it the most. A lot of saltiness. No. Right.

Ramen is delicious. But it's delicious. Ramen's great. I like all of these. I put it forth, but they're all great. There was nothing wrong with my ranking system. It's confusing. You were being a whiny baby about it.

It's a little confusing. God. When you put it in the, in the cheese way, I really understood what you were talking about. Right. It's like, and also what do chilies go in there? Do stews? Yeah.

No. Oh. Do you want to add them to the rankings? Yeah. Chili's and stews? I mean, I love chili. I might put chili up a little higher. I probably put chili third before chowders because I could have chili more often.

Right. And it's more flexible. Let's not forget about chili. Chili is great. I have chili once a goddamn week. You know what I mean? It's a great meal. You know what?

For me, like the answer to this is very clear. Here we go. Because it would be fuzz. Number one. I'm surprised. I thought you were a ramen guy. I'm surprised fuzz climbed your rank. Fuzz is my favorite.

Wow. And then two would be ramen. You got to come with us to a little Saigon. No. Two is ramen. I would love to go to. No. I'd love to go to a little Saigon.

Take it back. Two is ramen. Three is chowder. Four is soup. But hold on. Here's my thing. Hold on. Because with soup, whatever.

Soup is just fine. Right. Basic boring soup. I mean, Campbell's soups. Any sort of soup. But I've been really one over with tomato soup. For a soup that I disliked as a boy. Right.

Right. Tomato soup is really, it's really come back. I really love tomato soup. Just like a basic nothing. Sort of like nothing in it, but the tomato soupness of it all. Have you ever been to, it's kind of creamy. Have you ever been to the, I love a cream of tomato soup. And then I love just a regular tomato soup too.

If it's well done. But then you can have like, if you get the tomato soup that tastes like tomato juice warmed up. Yeah. Not a huge fan. Right. Or like sometimes marinara sauce. Yeah.

Yeah. There's this place called Sidewalk Grill down the street. Have you ever been there? I love that place. I love that place. Have you've never had the tomato soup from there? I've never had it because I always get the same things. The two sides I get are grilled vegetables and the domas.

Yeah. Yeah. They're great. Yeah. That place rocks. That place rules. Really good. Do yourself a favor.

Yeah. Try the tomato soup from down there. Okay. You'll be in heaven. It's great. By the way, a couple of weeks ago, because sometimes we record at night and we'll record a few episodes in a row and then we'll do like a, we'll have like a little. Dinden.

Well, yeah. We'll order something in and eat that and then record the late episode. We were, I suggested. A family meal. Yeah. We have a little family meal. Cute. I suggested we get Sidewalk Grill, which we'd gotten previously.

We just got it a week before. We got it a week before and Mitch was like, like, what are you talking about? Live a little. Right. And you suggested Subway. Like how dare you? That is perfect. I had Sidewalk Grill like the night before.

All right. Right. Right. Right. He had. Yes. Live a little. You know, and then where do we end up going?

We went to Cougar instead. Yeah. We went to Cougar, which is a similar to Sidewalk Grill in Mediterranean place. Quite good. It's Cougar's cousin. Yeah. You know, I always think it's like, I've never been there and I think until you just said that I always assumed it was like a frozen yogurt place that was for like dairy free

people. Yeah. Yeah. It's a bizarre name. It's a weird name. It really is. And we're very Los Feliz specific right now. Yeah.

Let's get out of the Los Feliz. He's poor listeners. But it's like, it's a cucumber yogurt. I think that's what it's. Yum. It's the. Should we talk about how Josh Gad married Kubert in the, what was it? What was the movie?

In, at the end of Pixels. At the end of Pixels. I mean, this will be like the 10th time we've had this conversation. But it warrants. And it's bizarre. I always like talking about it. Gad fucks, fucks Kubert in Pixels, a movie for children. And then has Kubert babies.

Yeah. Do they show the sex scene? Yes. Yeah. It's graphic. No, no, no. No, they don't. Okay.

No, it's. We got news for your. Kubert's only got that one hole. Nozzle. Nozzle. Disgusting. Sorry. Sorry, everyone.

We'll delete that. Moving on, Nick. So you guys are at, you both, you guys are actors. Yeah. And this is a thing I fall. Why? What? What?

Well, both of you guys are actors. You said moving on. You cued me to for a transition. So I thought, okay, I got something. You did a good job. I apologize. It's okay. But you know what?

We've been, the show I've been working on, we've been shooting lately. I find myself snacking on set a lot. I'm curious as act. Mitch is, Mitch is literally holding up. Are we actors? Mitch is holding up Michael Cain's acting in film. The book just right in front of you. Sitting on his desk, clearly unread.

I just bought it. You piece of shit. But you guys, yeah, I'm sure you'll read it. What the hell? I think there's also a video of it somewhere. Where's the trash? So this is a great question. Or you haven't quite asked yet, but I know what you're about to say.

Snacking on set is such a big deal. Exactly. What do you guys do? Because for people that don't know, there's so much food on sets. They have like crafty tables that are full of snacks. They have catering that's like, you know, sort of buffet, all you can eat type of stuff. Right. So I, I mean, it's hard.

I love food and I don't like to be too limiting with it. Right. But I do find that if I, you know, you're on set sometimes from like five in the morning until who the hell knows. So this is like your day of eating. So I sort of made some rules for myself, like don't touch donuts. Yeah, that's good. Things like that.

Yeah. Don't, like, it's almost like things are invisible to me. Right. No donuts, no chips. Like I know what I go for and the rest of it just disappears. Otherwise I would never stop eating donuts and chips. Yeah. That's a good rule of thumb.

I was, I was actually very similarly. I was at, I was on a, or last week I was on a, I was on set and then there was a, they have like this thing sometimes. And this is the kind of thing whenever you complain about having one of these jobs, whenever you complain about any sort of minor annoyance, just the fact that there's free food and abundance makes you feel like such an asshole. But they have like a, they had like a little like catering truck where they were like presenting breakfast and they had like a whole thing of donuts.

And I was like, and I was looking at the donuts, I was like, oh my God, those look so fucking good, but I can't do it from, I can't do it to myself. And I was saying this to an editor and the editor's like, I was like, so yourself, man, grabbed a donut and a breakfast burrito. Wow. I was like, fuck, that's so awesome. And an editor just sits down all day. Yeah, exactly, right.

Yeah. Yeah. I just, I just love junk food so much that if I, if I, it's one of those like you, you open the, what, floodgates? Yes, right. So to speak. Yeah. So whatever.

I mean, but sometimes, you know, like a director or somebody will get like a, like an ice cream truck to like celebrate the week or something. Yeah, sure. I'm not going to like say, no, I love, I love a treat, but it's the day to day. I try to stick to the Jennifer Aniston special. Yeah. I remember when I was a kid or whenever, when I was a teenager, I like, what is that? When I was a teenager, I like read that she ate the same thing on set every day, which

sounds so boring. But now that I, now that when you're on a set every day, really the choices are just overwhelming. Right. You got to kind of just know what you're going to get. Well, there's, there's, here's, here's the issues with it is one, if you start your day off with a breakfast burrito, it can truly just slog you down. Yeah.

Absolutely. And it can affect you. One, you're acting. And then two, it can give you tummy issues. You don't want the rumbly. Exactly. So when you're, when you're, when you're on set, it's like a lot of the time, like your chance to use the restroom is in six hours at lunch, because it's six hours until right.

It's six hours. There's no like pausing. Like I have to go to the bathroom. Right. Or whatever. Yeah. I'm sure if you're an actor, that's, that's more of an issue. Oh, it's terrifying.

Right. You're mic'd up. You like go to the bathroom and you like pull your pants down and then like the mic pack falls in like falls between your legs. It's terrible. It's bad. Yeah. And then like the sound guy can hear you.

I mean, like they, you always mute you or whatever. They're, they're, they're so used to it. They say that, but I don't know. If I was a sound guy, I would not mute. I would listen to every, I would listen to every peep and poop that comes out of anybody's butt or what. Why is it? There's some things like, cause I did, and I, and I act rarely, but I've been on camera

a few times. Yeah, I have. Like why do they, why do they, why isn't that pack have like a thing that you can just flick off on your own? I know, I know. It does, dude. Where? I tend to unplug a lot.

Yeah. You got to unplug it. Unplug it is. That's great. That's a good technique. I can't believe that there's not, it's so big and bulky in the age of like wireless everything. I can't believe there's not like a little button that you like put on your neck. I know.

But whatever, whatever. There's other things to worry about. Right? No, Flint. No, exactly. It's a thing you, you feel, you feel very privileged, complaining about, but it is very weird. Like when we shot that, that, that sizzle reel for the Doughboy's pilot presentation that

ended up going anywhere, there was a point where I like, I had to use a bathroom and I went up to the sound guy because I was mic'd and I was like, I was like, hey man, I'm going to use a bathroom. Can you flick this off? And he's just like, oh man, you're good. I was like, wait, no, but you didn't address. What do you mean by that? You didn't address it at all.

He sent me all that. He sent me the, all the, all the, the thirty three minutes and it went a little something like this. Oh, this feels so good. Oh yeah. You showed me that or let me listen to that. That was intense. It's on my, it's on my iPhone now, which shuffles into my music, but I think you got

to set yourself up for, you know, success with eating on set. Not that we're like athletes or something, but it is like, you got to think of the long day. I can get you tired. Like snacking can get you tired. I mean, you definitely will have some sort of snack as you'll get hungry, but I'm big up like apple and almond butter or banana and that's going to, that's going to get you through.

Yeah. Like a veggie scramble for breakfast. Yeah. You can get yourself some protein and some, you know, like the, I mean, I truly live for a donut. I love donuts, but if I did it every day, I would just, I would want to take it. I can't even do it. Right.

It's just the sugar. Yeah. It just is not good and you'll crash afterwards. I think you're right. I think like scrambled eggs and bacon. Yeah. If you like the basic, like cause I'll try to do a breakfast burrito and then I'll do it every so often and then every time I do it, I'm like, oh fuck, this sucks.

Yeah. That's starch just lays you down. Yeah. I think like the, yeah, I think you're right. And you know, this was, this was even before I was working in the, the, the TV industry. I was a, you know, I, I, I kind of developed an attitude towards workplace lunch of like, and I think this is, this is a lot of what you're saying of like thinking of that as part of the workday.

Yeah. Whereas like, okay, I'm not going to go and get like a big burger and onion rings or something like that. Like, oh, just have a boring ass salad because this is, work is boring. And yeah, this is, it would be nice to have a little bit of a food escape, but I'll just embrace the boringness of it and have this be part of my day. I do think that's the move. Yeah.

And then go nuts on the weekends or whatever. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Nick, I got a question for you. What about me? And well, Darcy YouTube, but I didn't want, I liked that move. I didn't.

It's a guest power. The reason, the reason I didn't say you is because it's a gross question. Okay. Okay. Perfect time. To poo poo. Time to two. Yeah.

Perfect time for two. Why are we discussing this? Because it's a, it's interesting with food. This is a food podcast. And what happens to food? Yeah. Well, that's true. Food becomes two.

Because with actors, you, you got to go when it's a lunch break, you get like an hour lunch break and that's usually like the best time to go to the bathroom. It takes you an hour. This is Doe Boys, the podcast about chain restaurants, not Dump Boys, the podcast about dropping heat. This is a bad question. I mean, I just wonder, here's here, if you want me to answer, and I don't like to, I like to, I, I have on a schedule where I will usually go before I go to work.

You're a morning boy. Yeah. A morning boy. Yeah. Because I'm an early riser. Wow. And I'll take care of business before I'd be, be in my community. So you load up all night.

I'm not, I'm like, I'm fueling up to just set my digestive system up to. Being a morning boy. Unleash right away. Morning boy. I mean, that's great. But then over the course of the day, you know, nothing, nothing again, you're good to go. Usually I'm one and done.

Wow. Oh God. Wow. Where's this going? You're stunned. I mean, not, not, not universally. Sometimes you'll hurt your, your stomach will have some sort of issue and you got to address things.

I, I would usually find in the, an after lunch lull perhaps there's like a window there. That's what I wonder. I mean, also another big thing with the, with the lunch break for actors, a lot of actors like to go nap in. Do you, do you, will you do the nap or no? You know, I'll do a nap if I have, I won't do a nap on a lunch break, but if I'm like, if, if there's a scene in between scenes or something like that, I kind of like corpse up.

I like, I like getting in a little sarcophagus and just like, um, become King Tut for a moment that's good. And then, uh, like, I like don't mess up the hair or makeup costume and just kind of lie down on my little couch and you know, sometimes I set an alarm for 20. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. I like that.

That's a good move. Should I tell other actors secrets? Ted Danson takes a nap every single day. Does he really? That's amazing. It's great. Yeah. Wow.

That's awesome. Dancing and I are a lot of like. Yeah. Like basically at crafty. Got it. So that on his, on his, uh, lunch break, he can sleep the whole time. Man. Yeah.

He knows what the fuck he's doing. He's from Cheers too. I mean, Wow. You got destroyed. Cheers is the best sitcom of all time. Relax. Relax morning boy.

She told me that morning boy. I'll take that nickname. That's fine. You want morning? I love the morning. I embrace the morning. I got up today. I went for a run.

Nice. I had some coffee. I slept in today. What is today? Sunday. Sunday. Yeah. Well, I woke up.

Wait. Did I wake up with my doggy? No, Jason did. So I slept in. I slept in. It was great. I got the cats. Irma to the left side of the bed.

To the right side. They go to my feet. But on the, On left and right. You're living. You're living. You're living. You're living.

You're living. You're living. You're living. You're living the good life. That's right. No girl from your wife. Flanked by your cats who piss on your clothes and defiance one time. It happened.

Dick. This is that's pretty good. I mean, I messed up by putting the clothes there. Blame yourself. That's a good daddy. Wait a minute. Irma is over there defecating on your switch. Relax morning boys.

Oh my God. Irma is not a morning girl. She does it whenever she wants. It's the afternoon. For me, it's the morning. Wait, what was I going to say? Oh, cheers is one of my favorite sitcoms of all time. It's great.

It's so great. You're grabbing your mic. It's making a relax. That is what that noise is. Yes. For the listeners. When the whole time they can be like, what is that? It's great.

It adds to it. It adds to it. It makes it feel live. It literally does add sound to it. We'll take a break. What the hell? Welcome back to Dough Boys. We're here with Darcy Cardin.

Hi. Mitch had a thought to finish. Cheers is good. Yeah. Cheers is so good. Wow. Glad we got closure on that anecdote. And it's just such a, you know, people don't say it enough.

Yeah. I mean, I actually think that people don't say it enough. I mean, there's a young generation that never won. And I don't even know if they would like it. But just the fact that every episode, it just feels like a play. And it's great. Right. It was maybe on, I mean, it was on when I was a kid.

And then it was on an incendication. You were a kid. You were fucking writing for that show. Man, I wish I wouldn't have to do this podcast. It'd be set for life. It'd be living in Malibu. But yeah, it's great. Check it out.

It holds up. So Benny, it does. I think it does. I know it does. Especially the pilot. I think people think that the pilot is like one of the best of all time. So if you're just like, will I like Cheers? Check out that pilot.

Cheers is great. Boston. Get ready to fall in love with a young Ted Danson and then keep being in love with him for the rest of your life. He's so good. He's so good in it. He's always good. He's so good.

So good. Yeah. He sees one in a million. He really is. Talent and hotness. He's a good looking guy. I saw him in CVS once. Did you?

Yeah. Can't mistake him. No, absolutely. Clearly Ted Danson. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh God, he's probably creeped the fuck out. Were you falling around in the store? I wasn't following him around.

I give him his privacy. Oh, that's so nice. So, Benihana is this week's chain. Woo! This was really quite an adventure. Darcy, before we get into this specific visit, Benihana is a place that you've been to a number of times. You have some connection to.

Yeah. What is your history with this chain? The history with Benihana is for me and my family. My family and me would be this. We would go there all the goddamn time. For any celebration, so like a mother's day, a mother's birthday, a dad's birthday, father's day, somebody's birthday. But whenever we could, that was our celebration place.

Right. I mean, but also, it was special, so I don't remember ever going there on a not celebration time. Right. It wasn't just like, let's go to dinner tonight. Yeah. I mean, it's not really that kind of place. Yeah.

It's not that you're just, you're not weighing like Chili or Red Robin or Benihana. Yeah. You go there for a birthday or a podcast. Exactly. Yeah. In fact, there were other podcasts there. I think Marin was at a different table. Marin was at a table.

Rogan had a corner. So yeah, we went there a lot and at the one in the Bay area in Pleasant Hill, and it was its own little beautiful building. Right. And like a sort of Japanese theme to the look of it. It was just very beautiful. It was very beautiful. It was beautiful, much more beautiful than the one that we went to last night, although

it was great. Yes. But it was like in Santa Monica. It was, I was kind of, when we walked in there, I was like, I was like, I was like, I want, I asked when the last time I was remodeled because it was kind of like this dark woody vibe, you know, like a carpeted carpeted, but, but I liked it. It was, it had, it had a great vibe in there. It was, it was, it was great.

It was really great. And then they also have like in that, and I think what, what Darcy, what you're speaking to a little bit is the, is from the exterior. It's just kind of like in an office building. Yeah. It's not very, I mean, they have a little bit of, of signage out there, but it definitely doesn't like, you know, look like some one that we went to, it was, you know, it was like its own building.

It was sort of far away from things. It had like a little bridge that you had to cross and like rocks and, and like beautiful plants. It looked like it felt very, I don't know, almost like, I don't know, like Disneyland or something like that. It was like its own little thing. Yeah. They have like kind of this Pagoda feel.

It's like evoking Himeji Castle. It like looks like a, you know, very, very, very, you know, intentionally. Yeah. Exactly. The whole thing. Yeah. And this was not one of those. Descript from the outside.

Was there, was there any importance to this one? Was it an older, was it a, one of the originals or something? They had a lot of pictures with celebrities on the wall. But I think, I think they all do. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I can think of the lobby of the one that we used to go to as kids. It was like three walls of it were covered in pictures of celebs, the chefs with celebs.

Yeah. So, and, and yeah, and it wasn't clear that, I mean, clearly some of these were not from this location. Right. They were, you know, from a different era. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know anything significant about the Santa Monica one in terms of when it, when

it opened. Right. I will say that I'm surprised because there's a lot of turnover in that area. You know, a lot of places like, I was surprised that it stayed in business considering other Benihana's in LA have closed. And I wonder if it's, I mean, I hope it's, it's, it sticks around, but maybe it's perhaps it's not long for this world. It was, it was hard to get a reservation.

That's it. It was hard to get a res. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Because it seems that there are some are closing and then it seemed like it was hard to get in there. I went to one about a year ago with some friends.

I think maybe the Encino one or something, and it was a weeknight and it was absolutely packed. Right. Like we had a reservation and we probably didn't sit down for an hour until after a reservation. Wow. That's insane. We went to like the bar. It was, I was, I was shocked.

Yeah. That's great though. That is good. Yeah. I mean, cause, cause, and I think we'll, we'll, we'll get into it as we review it, but I think we all had a pretty positive experience for this particular visit. For me, Mitch, I hadn't been to Benihana not, not as frequently as Darcy, but I had been as a kid.

It had been a while. I mean, it's been over 10 years, probably over 15 years since I've been to Benihana. And you know, also my, also my first visit to a Benihana type restaurant was to like a rip off Benihana. There was like, there was like a different sort of, you know, it's called like Osaka Grill or something in Lakewood, California. But I remember that being, I having, I remember having a great time there. And I remember that was the first place they ever had medium rare steak and I ordered it

that way because that's what Gandhi ordered in UHF. Dear God. Man. That's so funny. Yeah. I was like, well, cause I'd only, I'd only, I love it. Yeah. You were fucking losing.

I love it. I'd only had well done steak up to that point. And then you were like, yeah. I was intrigued by it. Yeah. I would be too. Yeah. That's so funny.

That's so adult. Well done. Because of a movie that I watched, I don't, I can't tell the, if I, when I have been to Benny, if I even have been to Benihana, it's really hard to, I don't know why, but I feel like you'd remember. I feel like I see. Here's the thing. I think that I very much have been and I'm like, almost sure that I've been, but I bet

growing up, I went to just Hibachi. I remember an Epcot center. I brought this up yesterday, but I went to the Hibachi place in Epcot center. Might have been a Benihana. And I don't, I don't even, I don't think it is. I think it is just like the, whatever the Disney Hibachi, but that means they're like doing the, the knives and they're like cooking at your they did, they did everything. They did the same and I feel like I've been.

I feel like I had been to Benihana and I just can't remember specific because I've been to. He just glazed right over that word that he totally fucked up because I've been to, I've been to, I've been to of Hibachi a bunch over the years. I just, I just can't specifically remember Mitch. I just looked it up real quick. I try not to look up things too much on this podcast, but the there is a Benihana in Orlando.

Okay, however, what you probably went to in Epcot was a teponado, which is a, which is a Benihana style restaurant. I mean, I went to this place when I was like six or seven years old or something. Can you imagine? I think I've seen pics of him. I was, I was a very blonde little boy. Nick, you've, you've seen me before. You're a toe-headed little scamp.

I love it. I was skinny as hell. The doctors, they couldn't get me to gain weight if they, if I tried and go to a damn Hibachi restaurant. And then I've told you this, Nick, before I went down seller with the Super Nintendo and a bag of Doritos and at the end of the summer, I came up and I looked like I do now. Perfect, perfect.

Just like a, like a coon turned a butterfly into a caterpillar. Exactly. Yeah, wait, wait, what the fuck? Yeah, I was a little blonde boy and I was, I was picky, but then also I think with Hibachi, it's like chicken and, and steak. So, right. One thing I remember about Benihana as a kid, well, even though I'm adventurous-ish with eating now, I wasn't as a kid, but I would eat anything at Benihana because

they kind of throw things at you. Yes. I mean, you're getting like soup and rice and salad and, and well, none of those sound that scary, but like as a kid, I don't know that I would have had like onion mushroom soup, right, but I took it down or the shrimp. I don't think I'd ever had shrimp before Benihana, like anything that they put on my plate, I was eating and to me, it was the best food I had ever had in my life. Right.

I didn't, I didn't want to, we won't jump in up into performance yet, but I'm saying this is me here, but I remembered as a kid, getting something tossed in my mouth. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that sounds strange. Yeah, really, I'm good. I mean, the things you've said today, I know I've been all over the place today. White bread. Yeah, no, but there was, I do remember that too.

Having like a, like there was, well, we, we'll talk about performance later. I think whatever. I was just about to jump into Victor. No, it's, I think, I think it's, you think it's time. I think it's totally, we got to, we got to talk about this, this visit. That's what this is all about. When are we going to do drinks or anything first? Yeah, we'll get into it.

So then we'll go chronologically. The reservation, I told everyone it was for two. I actually made it for two 15, knowing that traffic and parking would take a little longer. So it actually worked out. Mitch landed at two 19, but it was two 10 or maybe 11. Yeah, yeah, you guys were, you guys were fine and so it wasn't two 19. First of all, it was no, it wasn't.

I looked at my phone when I walked through the door. I was late. You texted. I'm here when you parked and then it was like another five minutes walk over. Listen to me. I was going to be you credit it because going to Santa Monica is trash and so you do that all the time. Good for you.

It's great over there. That's where I live. It takes so long to, it takes very long to get there. It takes very long to get there unless you live there. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. I can't believe that you do that trip. I was giving you credit for God's sake.

It was nice of you guys to make the trek out there because rarely are these restaurants over in my neck of the woods. Right. And it was, you know, it was, it was nice to have you guys come over to, to that side of town. I appreciate it. He does that every day. Yeah, that's, that's wild.

I took the train today. It was delightful. Cute. Okay. So we sat down. So they, you get a, so with our drinks and we'll start there, um, Mitch, what, for you, you were queued up because of the drink you ordered where you got a selection of novelty mug.

That's right. And the options were a Buddha, which you ended up going with a gaysha or a baby gaysha and I, they said baby gaysha and why you're said, please baby gaysha. Baby gaysha. He started crying. He was like pounding his fist on the table. Onto this, onto the hot girl, yeah, yeah, no, we, when he said baby gaysha, we were all like yeesh.

Yeah, don't say those two things together, so you got the cute Buddha, which where is it? It's in the backseat of my car. Oh bummer. It's probably disgusting by now. No, he watched it up and then he forgot to give it to me. I remembered at the last second went back and grabbed it. I was with Jeff Dutton.

Oh yeah, Dutton. We should talk about our party. So it's so M.R. Engineer accompanied us as did you. Darcy and Mitch and our buddy Dutton were all there. It's nice to go with a big group to that place. Absolutely. I would say like if you're there with your family or I guess it could work out as

a date, like if you had like a date, I don't know. I totally, totally recommend going with six to eight people. Yeah, it seems like you want to get more fun with it with a girl. Yeah, in fact, like if we had two extra people that we didn't know at that table, I wouldn't have loved it. Yeah, you're eight people. You have eight friends. You have seven friends.

Go with eight people. Yeah, just do it. Yeah, just do it. Yeah, take a date on say I'm going to take you on a date. Do you know the first day? Number eight, right? Yeah, there's eight seats at one of those. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, go on a first date with someone and bring six year. Exactly. Exactly. Bring six friends on the first day. So we all got drinks. Yes. I got the Benihana punch. What?

Inside of a. It was actually called the Benihana punch. Not the Benihana punch. I got the Benihana punch. The Benihana punch, which came with the Benihana punch, which came inside this, this Buddha. It was like drinking the Buddha's guts. Yeah, man.

It's kind of strange. We all got like fun. I've never. This is another thing is because I'm like a, a Benihana is like a kid's restaurant to me. Right. I don't know that I've ever even really had it. Maybe last, last time I went,

but I had never really looked at the cocktail menu before. And it, there were so many good ones. Yeah, there's a lot. There's a, it's a sprawling cocktail menu with a lot of, you know, some, some traditional drinks and other ones that have kind of been Benihanaed up. Yeah. But yeah, same thing for me.

I'd never gotten an adult beverage from a, from a Benihana before. And we went at two, two 15 in the afternoon and we all quickly got a drink. Yeah. Nobody held back. I got some sort of coconut mojito. It was great.

Naked. You know, I'm surprised that it was a two 15 reservation. That makes some sense, but they, cause it did take them a while to, to get us going. It took us a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. I think about 10 minutes more or so.

Well, so, but we were already there. We were there at our reservation time, but it still took us some extra time to get seated. It was weird cause it was like, the restaurant was like a third capacity, but also they seemed really understaffed. I felt like they just didn't have the, the chefs do anyways. I, the Benihana punch has Myers plant, platinum rum bowls

or how do you say balls? Balls. Bite his balls. I don't know. Balls, strawberry and peach liqueurs and then tropical fruit juices. I liked it. It was great. I was in your drink again.

It was like a coconut mojito. I believe it was just kind of like coconutty frothy, yummy alcohol. I like it. Yeah. Coconut vodka, Malibu rum, coconut pineapple, fresh limes and mint. I took a sip and I was like, I'm, I'm having dessert right now.

It was sweet and delicious. Yeah. And that was the same from, I also got a mojito variant. I got the exotic mojito, which was mango rum, passion fruit puree, puree, which actually the, the passion fruit, fruit puree, fuck tongue toaster. Yeah. Passion fruit puree.

Well, because that one I really, I understood. Passion fruit. Damn it. That actually had a presence in the drink. I thought it would just be kind of like a, a toss and pineapple juice, fresh limes and mint. And it was quite nice. It was like you were saying it was dessert.

It was very, very sweet, but it was, it was, it was appropriate for this kind of outing. I think sangria. You guys, there was a couple of sangrias. Yeah. You saw and I both got the sparkling strawberry. Yeah. That looks great.

It was refreshing. It looked refreshing. Yeah. And Dutton got a Mai Tai, which I tasted and it was good. Yeah. It was, it was very good. Man. Dutton's fucking cool.

Yeah. He's so cool. He's so cool. I was just like, he was there. I was just like, man, this guy is fucking. Yeah. He was fucking cool. Hello.

I'm cooler than Dutton. I don't know. Definitely. I don't think so. His energy is so like, like, I've known Jeff for years. Jeff's like, Jeff's a great dude. But he's just like kind of like this. He seemed at home and kind of the, this beachy area.

He had like this, this, this print shirt. That was very cool. That's fucking dorkiest shit I've ever heard about. He has this sort of stubble look that he pulls off really well. Yeah. Look, Jeff is cool. He's friends with me. He's cool.

That's not why. I'm cool. Yeah. You are cool. So definitely nothing cooler than angrily declaring. I'm cool. I'm cool. I'll prove it to all of you.

Now he's beating his fist against the grill. Okay. So we drank, we sucked down our drinks and then we all chose from, you know, there's like a, wait, am I, I'm like doing what you were about. This is great. You're doing a better job than I ever knew. No, no, no. I just, I was thinking back to us ordering because the menu is big.

It's big, but we all went for the same page, which is like the, the combination, not combinations. What's it called? The, it's the, it's the, the, the, the, they just call it, call it the teppanyaki experience or the teppanyaki meals where you have like five or six basically like mini courses, right? Yeah. Or they, they might call it the Hibachi meal. One of the two. By the way, Dutton is probably right now is scrolling the Mega Man Reddit page.

And this is the guy that Weigar thinks is cool. And he is way cooler than Weigar. Don't get me wrong. That's also cool being in a, it's cool to be in a video game since anime now times of change. Um, but yeah, so, and this was your, this was at your suggestion. You can order all a cart there and they, they have sushi, which we didn't try. They have like some traditional, some, you know, traditional Japanese American fare that

you just sort of, uh, uh, you know, seeing, seeing one of these restaurants, but the, the experience is what this is all about. I sort of pressured everybody to really go that, that route. And you were right. You're absolutely right. Um, so you get a, you get either a five or a six course meal, depending on which version you go with. Uh, and then here are the courses, Benihana onion soup, Benihana salad, Hibachi shrimp

appetizer, Hibachi, Hibachi vegetables. Those, those, some of these kinds of these items kind of blend together into the same course. Uh, mushrooms, which I think were part of the soup. I don't know why it's listed separately. We actually did get a little scoop of mushrooms. Oh, we did get some mushrooms. That's right.

Um, uh, homemade dip and sauce is not a course. This is the way this is listed is insane. Um, steamed rice, or you can also get, uh, Hibachi chicken rice, um, and, uh, which is like their fried rice. Uh, and then you get an ice cream or sherbet, uh, to end things out. Hey, wait a minute. There's something that they didn't give us on. That's on that list.

The Japanese hot green tea. Yeah. You might have to request it. We didn't get the green tea is so fucked up. God, I love that green tea. I wait or fuck. There was another guy who wasn't, uh, Victor. No, with the big old beard.

Yeah. The big guy with the big old beer who forgot to give me my cup at the end. It sounds like he forgot to give us our fucking hot tea. I'm going to only give him the benefit of the doubt that I think he was every, every table's yeah, so to speak. What are they called? Not? Well, he also asked us to the end if we wanted later.

Yeah. Not the doctor, but the nurse. Yeah. He also asked if he asked us if we wanted ice cream at the end, which we all were supposed to get. Yeah. We're like, dude, we, that's what we ordered. Yeah.

Of course we want ice cream. Yeah. Fucking piece of shit. Maybe there's a reason we didn't get good service. I threw, I threw him on the fucking papachi. Yeah. One of the things though was that you had the choice, as you said, between the white rice, just the regular old steamed rice and the fried

rice. Oh, here it comes. And remember Mitchell was like, I guess I'll get the white rice. And we all called him an idiot. Yeah. Until he changed his order. Everyone really came at me for this. Every person got, including Dutton, got the fried rice.

And you were the one to hold out who got the steamed rice. And I understand. I like steamed rice. Then you changed your order. Then you changed your order. Yeah, yeah. I said, I was just thinking on it for God's sake. I know.

You were basically saying, I love white rice, which you should. It's great. It's delicious. White rice is great. But if you had the choice of this amazing fried rice that they have at Benihana's, you're not going to want to pass up. They put a huge like ice cream scoops worth of garlic butter into it. It's crazy.

It's so good. It's great. It's great. And it's just so fun. Wait, like let's talk about like how they make it in front of us. That I think is a big part of it. It's so fun. And the guy who was serving us was named Victor.

Great dude. Immediately started off with this just like show of force flare where it was just like flipping around his tools and banging them on. We have a little video that we'll put up on social media. And kind of like staring at us in the eye, huh? Yeah. He loves to perform. Yeah.

He knew what he was doing. It was great. Victor fucking ruled. Yeah, Victor absolutely ruled. I asked Victor early on. I was like, how long have you worked here? And he was like a started yesterday that we all laugh. We all laugh.

It's funny. Also bad delivery of his joke right there. I know. Victor's funnier than me. I resent him for it. Yeah. He was very like he's definitely said that every single day for the last 26 years. But it's great.

But he sold it. It was perfect. Sold it so well. He mastered that delivery. But he's been working there for 26 years and really wanted to let us know that it is basically in a nice way. He was saying like he's so much better than the new kids. Right.

Right. Yeah, absolutely. It took him a while. Like what a two week course or something like that. Yeah. He said it was two or three weeks where he was training. It probably doesn't sound that long. Doesn't sound that long.

I would have thought it was like six months or something. Me too. I mean he was so good with everything that it was shocking. Yeah. But he said two weeks or three weeks or whatever it was. And then was very quick to tell us that like today's chefs do not have a two or three week course. Right.

It's all very quick. Yeah. But he was cool about it. I'm really glad we got a veteran. He knew what he was doing and he he pulled out all the stops and for a lunch service it was really, really quite a show we got. So you start with the Benihana onion soup. That's right.

You expect a lot of, you would expect at one of these places to have a miso soup. But I guess this is what they've been serving since 1964 and I think back on that era probably a miso soup was so foreign to American audiences back then that they started with something that's kind of derivative of a French onion soup with some mushrooms in it. It's actually nice. I like that soup. I loved it. It's simple, but it was great.

Kind of crunchy onions in there. Little crunchy onions. A nice flavor to it. I liked it. It was kind of like a soup. Yeah. It's kind of like a subdued French onion soup. Yeah.

Way, way subdued. I mean, like it's a very light soup. Yeah. It's great. But there's so much food. It's like you don't want anything heavier than that. Yeah. One more.

It works out perfect as like a little aperitif. And yeah. The onion strings do get a little mushy just sitting at the bottom of that. But it's actually fine. I was into that mush. I like the mush too. Then you get it up. I love it.

That's what I always say. Mush it. Mush it up. Mush it real good. There is some food that is better if you mush it up and the onions there on the bottom. I'm trying to think of other examples and I can't top the top of my head. Oatmeal. Yeah.

Oatmeal is good. Mushy. Yeah. Hate a crunchy oatmeal. I mean, that's I don't like. No, you want it. You want it mushy. The mush, you're the better.

I kind of like it when potatoes are going to be mushy. Right. You want them lumpy, Nick. No, absolutely. When is mush? When is mush better, Nick? I mean, I was going to say, I kind of like it when, you know, I like a crunchy cereal, but I also kind of like it that those bits of cereal have been soaking for a little while.

Yeah. Yeah. And then you get a little mushy. A little different texture. Yeah. There's some good mush. There's some good mush stuff. Yeah, good mush.

Then you get the, and we should just say real quick, if anyone hasn't been to Benny Hunter or one of these types of restaurants, these first couple courses, the chef is not preparing in front of you. Right. So the soup you get, and then the salad you get after that, which is crisp greens, red cabbage, carrots, and grape tomatoes with a tangy ginger dressing. Really good dressing. Dressing is great.

Dressing is delightful. I usually don't like an Asian salad dressing. Really? I love. I love this a lot. I would buy it by the bottle if they sold it. Oh yeah. Like Benny Hunter dressing, I would get.

Yeah. That's great. That ginger dressing is great. Nick, I saw that you threw your salad onto the hibachi real quick. All right. Come on. I don't like hot salad. Stop suggesting that to our listeners.

No, I ate it at the temperature it was served. The only thing I would say is that the greens, there was a lot of iceberg in there. I would like some romaine or something. Oh, come on. I'm not a huge iceberg guy. Yeah. Come on. Who's eating white lettuce?

Yeah. I mean, I made, I made, I made, I kind of went against fancy lettuce, I don't want like a mixed green. I mean, a spring mix or whatever. Why don't you? Give me the iceberg. It's good. It tastes good.

Iceberg has its place. I like it. Like there's some classic burgers where a big slice of iceberg or like a wedge salad can work. But I think in like a traditional dinner salad, give me, give me a different. I'm standing up for the every man. Give us some iceberg fucking lettuce, baby. The every man position is pro iceberg.

Yeah. I think it might be. I think it is. I think it is. Iceberg lettuce. What, you're too good for it, Nick? Yeah. I think it's that kind of thing.

I don't like iceberg lettuce. Hashtag. Titanic. Oh my gosh. Hashtag. Ice is nice. There you go. Hashtag.

Ice is nice. Hashtag. Titanic. Don't like iceberg. Hashtag. Titanic. Just hashtag. Titanic.

Nothing else. Yeah. Fine. They know how to use it. But I do think it's a nice salad and the dressing to speak to your point, Mitch. Sometimes a lot of these, these Asian inspired dressings you'll get at chain restaurants are very sweet. Yeah.

This one is not like super sweet. It's more like tangy. Yeah. And the ginger is a very strong element of it. I liked it a lot. And then you get the, your rice core. So this is when your chef steps in and just sort of takes control of the stage. Amazing.

Yeah. I mean, when it starts up, you get like, even though those two first things were good, you're kind of like, what's the deal here? Yeah. Right. This is kind of like boring so far. It's kind of like fine. Yeah.

Right. Then when you look at it as a whole, it's like, wow. Oh my God. Couldn't be better. Yeah. So that rice. So he's dumping rice on the, what do we call this thing? Yeah.

They just, yeah. This, the grill, I think is conveys it. And for everybody knows that's listening right now, right? You're sitting at a table, a big rectangle where most of the table is the grill. Yeah. So you best not be touching it because you're going to burn your tootsies. Which by the way, Tori Spelling, Nick, you said it in your intro. Yes.

She sued, she sued Benihana because she burned her arm. Is that what it was? Yeah. She, she, this is just fucking, hold on. She got a burn from the grill. It's unclear whether she stumbled or whether she just touched it accidentally. God, nothing could make more sense. Yeah.

It's so perfect. She filed a lawsuit as a result. Yeah. That is such trash. They, they weren't on her right now. They warn you about it in advance. Like, you know, I don't know the exact circumstances. She sued?

What the fuck? What is this shit? How dare she? It feels like an avoidable injury from the patrons. From a billionaire, first of all. Yes. Right. Exactly.

Exactly. Come on. But anyway, so they, they, yeah. There, there's egg. The egg he throws on, he, he made a little like runway with his, uh, Like a slide almost? Yeah. With his spatula and he's just, just sort of like, like, like, let him slide down.

I wish my mouth was at the bottom of that slide. What, you want raw egg in your mouth? Hey, Rocky likes it. If it's good enough for Rocky, it's good enough for me. I wish my mouth was at the bottom of it. It looked delicious. I mean, We could probably make that happen.

Yeah. Easy. Yeah. You want to skateboard ramp some raw egg in your mouth? And he just like, you know, he's like scrambling it up right in front of you. It's all just basic stuff, but it looks so impressive. It looks so cool. Oh my God.

And it makes it so, it makes it like, it's like the quickest he could, you could possibly make that dish. He makes it so quick. This guy's making a dinner for six. Yes. He makes this dinner for six in a record time and cleans up everything. I know. There's no cleanup.

It's insane. And he cleans the grill after. And also like, think of the way he timed it. So like, he threw on chicken when we first sat down and some of the chicken was just sitting there for minutes and minutes. Like he put it sort of on the outside of the, like, further side of the grill. So it was maybe cooler. Yeah.

But then some of the chicken, he was making on the hot part of the grill and like the, the, the, we were sort of talking about, uh, uh, what was it, hello, fresh or one of those things? Yes. How hard it is to like, I mean, I guess any cooking, how hard it is to time your meal. Yeah. To have everything ready at the same time. Right.

He has it like, I mean, sure, he's been doing this for 26 years. So of course he does, but like the timing of it is as impressive as any of the, like, he started cooking some chicken that we didn't eat for probably until 30 minutes later, which was the, which was the main course chicken. Right. And then the other chicken he cooked up for the, the fried rice, which was in like a minute. Exactly.

It was amazing. It's amazing. Yeah. It's, it's, it's a really, it's, it's staggering to see the way that it's, that it's all timed out like you were saying. And the, and the, the, let's talk about the, the flavor of that, that fried rice a little bit. Baby.

I think it's really good. I feel, I know this is not true, but I feel like it's the best of it. That I'm so, I'm so like, um, uh, I have such stars in my eyes for this restaurant. Right. It's so attached to my childhood that I'm like, well, it's the best. It's the best I've ever had. Yeah. But of course it's not.

Well, I think a lot of, it's, it's, it's very good. It's, it's, it's different than like a fried rice you'll get at, at any Thai place or, or a Chinese food restaurant or something, but it, but it's very garlicky. They, that garlic butter really gets in there. It's super garlicky. I think that's like the dominant element of a lot of their food is the garlic butter. Garlic butter. But the, but here, here's what I'll say about it is that you, I feel like you rarely are

getting fried rice that's just like a lot of times I feel like that's like sitting in a walk in the kitchen back there and they're just like giving you a portion. Obviously if you go to, it's certainly if you go to like a, a Panda Express, they've just got a big steam tray, rarely are you getting it like fresh made right off a grill and then put into a bowl and then you're eating it seconds later. That's one of the best. It's just so fresh. Everything was so fresh.

We were like burning our mouth on the rice. Yeah. It was, it was, it was, it was piping hot. It was the pieces of egg in there, the chicken in there. It's, it's great. It's so, and then a bunch of vegetables too. You don't sell a bunch of vegetables. They give you these, this dark sauce and a light sauce and they say like, I think the

dark sauce is for meat and vegetables. It's, it's for, it's for, it's, it's for chicken and beef. And then the, the other sauce is for vegetables and seafood. Right. Yeah. I think that it's a mustard sauce and a ginger sauce. They both are pretty gingery, which Dutton pointed out, but I think I, I can't remember what it was.

I just ended up dunking in both everything in both and it actually 100% works out. Yeah. Yeah. I do too, but it was fun to mix them up. Yeah. Like I think that they were, they were, uh, correct that those were the better flavors for those meats or whatever, but it was fun to just mix them up and putting that darker ginger sauce on the rice was a great trick.

Yeah. Yeah. That definitely were, that definitely added a good amount. Um, the, uh, yeah, go for it. I was going to say we, we had shrimp next. Yes. The shrimp app, which is a, which is again, you know, you're getting that, that garlic flavored butter and then they're just basically throwing some shrimps on the grill and then

chopping them up into bite sized portions. Yeah. It's good. It's good shrimp. It's good shrimp. Nick, it's very simple. What was the name of the feast we did? We did the Benihana Trio.

You and I, yeah, we both did the trio, which you get, uh, you get chicken, chicken, uh, a filet mignon and shrimp and that, that's on top of the shrimp app that you get. And I don't know if there's a lot of differentiation between those two shrimp. I would say that the shrimp, the shrimp within the meal was better. They were bigger. Yeah. They were bigger and it was just kind of taste of your shrimp. This shrimp was, I liked, I mean, like, I'm not going to complain about it of, I was,

I was, I was trying to find things I didn't like about the meal, which I was very, very hard because I really, really, really enjoyed this meal. Yeah. And I was saying like, oh, maybe like that shrimp, like maybe the quality of the seafood wasn't the best. I think that's probably true. I think you're right. Yeah.

And when I went to the back, when I forgot my Buddha cup, this is, this is the thing that I didn't tell you guys, but because you were already left, but the smell of the back, back of that restaurant smells, it's smells really bad. It smells like, it smells like a, like a, like the seafood part of a, of a supermarket. Yeah. I went to the, when I went to the bathroom, I was like, oh, this is, you don't, you don't want the smell at a restaurant. Right.

Yeah. You don't want to see behind the curtain. Yeah. It's a little suspect how fresh all that, that those ingredients are, but the, so then after you get the shrimp app, which I think, I think just overall, the, my assessment is just, it's like simple. Yeah. Like it's, it's tasty, but they put a little bit of lemon on there and it's in butter

and that, and then they give it to you. Yeah. So with the, they're, they're really like making a show of, of the food. So like with the rice, he, he made it into like a heart shape and then put a spatula under it and made it like a beating heart and then the heart, I mean, it's like, it's a show. It's like a fun little show that you're watching with, you know, the eggs sliding into Mitchell's mouth and all that stuff.

The shrimp is actually kind of grim if you think it, because he's taking these whole shrimp and then part of it is just like this knife work of as, as he's like dissecting them into these little bite-sized chunks, but you just sort of like, you're like, oh, these were alive once and you're just, you're making a show of like dicing their corpses. It's like kind of crazy. Yeah. And he was throwing some shrimp tails into his hat and that was amazing. He never missed one.

Yeah, that was great. I was definitely wishing he was going to throw it at one of us. He didn't, which is so fucked up. Yeah. You wanted to throw a shrimp tail at us? Oh yes. What, and did you just hit us? I wanted to catch it.

I wanted him to say like, make a hoop with your fingers or something or, or, or something. I wanted to be, I wanted to be a part of it. My guess was that they took away the, the throwing food at people because like, and also like, if you catch food in your mouth, someone's probably choked or something, but I, Tori Spelling's probably sued you. Yeah. Tori's selling stewed for that as well. The beating heart thing I liked, but I thought I was also fucked up because the

heart was beating of, it was rice and he was making it be, and then it exploded. Yeah, it was kind of fucked up. I agree. Yeah. But Victor is cool and it was funny. He, he played a, I think we kind of in the spectacle, maybe his line got buried, but he was like, he's like, oh, you've got a broken heart. He was saying, and he directed it you specifically, which was weird.

He did. You started crying. Do you guys remember he kept doing like the Wakanda sign? Yeah. What was that? Oh, yes, he did do that. That was that. Yeah.

That I thought it was just like some sort of chef. I think maybe it's, maybe he's saying Victor or something like that could have been. Maybe that was at one point the Benihana sign. It was very much like a been street fighter. If you like want to match and right, like you put like it was cool. It was so cool. It's a very cool posture. Yeah.

I mean, Dutton there and Victor doing that cool pose, we were overrun with the coolness there. So, then you get your entree, which, you know, as we mentioned, Mitch, you and I both got the same thing. The, the, you get the steak and boy, when he throws those stakes on the grill, it's just like kind of started clapping. It's kind of amazing. The parade red meat.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, by the way, he did the onion volcano. Oh, yes, the end of volcano. Yeah. That's just for show. That's not something you can eat, but it's really cool. He throws the onion away.

Right. Does he really? He threw, he threw, he threw the onion away. So, he did an onion volcano and sort of a fire show where he put his hand in the fire. Do you know that? Yeah, yeah. And then he did something I've never seen before, which is like a train, a chuchu

train with like a, was he using a spatula as like the toot-toot something? Yes. We have it on video. Which is like one of the, that was like the joke that I forced laugh. I had like a forced laugh. Where you were like, this is not good. Weigar was literally clapping because he loves chuchu chains. Yeah.

It was wonderful. His eyes were wide and he was just clapping very slowly. He was, he was very happy. I was imagining being on that train. Ah, train boy. And then a morning boys, also a train boy. Damn right. It took a train over here.

But yeah, we know, all right. But with that one, I was just kind of like, chuchu train. Yeah, great. We're fucking adults, Victor. He saw I was a forever. He saw I was at the table. Yeah. He knew his audience.

It's like, ah, yes. Train boy. What, what, what was, what was the train? Do you, does anyone remember? It was, it was the onions. It was the, it was the, it was the volcano turned. Trained. He was moving it around and it like had steam coming out of the top of it.

So it looked like a steam engine. Oh yeah, wait. I said it was the chuchu, but it was the ding ding of the, of the train bell. Yeah, he was, he was, he was hitting the, the spatula against the table. The metal spatula against, yeah. No, I was the one saying chuchu. Oh, that's right. Yeah.

You were screaming chuchu. You stood up on your chair. It was, Dutton was like, uncool. This is uncool. Chuchu. Yeah. You stood up on your chair, yelled chuchu over and over again. He said, baby want a chuchu.

And then there was a big pile of vegetables there that had onions in it. So even though they threw those onions away, you still got onions. Right. And they, they cooked up those on the, all the mixed vegetables. I basically threw those vegetables in my rice, mixed them up with the rice. That's a good move. Cause they get on their own there. We already finished our fucking rice.

I ate my rice pretty quick cause I was very hungry, but the, the vegetables on their own are just, they're just kind of plain. They're like the shrimp. There's nothing too exciting going on there. Again, more, you know, some of that, that, uh, that garlic butter is thrown in there. Now you guys, you guys finish your rice quickly. So tell me if I'm wrong. I would recommend in the future for people going to slowly eat the rice, right?

Cause the rice, it looks like a small bowl, but it's not. It's a big bowl of rice. It's a huge bowl. Here's the thing is it would, and that part of the reason why I even like said that thing about white rice, it would be overboard if I tried to get like a side of white rice as well. Right. But it would have been fun to have with your meat. Yes.

I know, but it's impossible to resist. Yeah. So take a couple of bites of it. I mean, cause you want to just, just fork it in your mouth or chop it in your mouth, chop sticks it in your mouth. Anyway, you want to pound it because it's so good, but I remembered the last time I went by the time my entree came, I was so full. So I tried to slowly eat it, but it was, it's hard to resist.

You get, cause you're getting to what, to your point, you're getting throughout the, the course of the meal, there's just like so much protein there. Like I'd say the main thing you're getting is like meat and seafood. It's basically like a, like a paleo meal. It is. Yeah. Other than the rice. And so if you kind of want to have that rice there is some sort of starch component.

Otherwise, yeah, you're just basically just eating meat towards the, the back of the meal. So the, so I think the, for me, of the, of the meat courses that we had or of the, the mains that we had, we touched on the shrimp. It's like a better version of the shrimp app. It's, it's a little, a little higher quality shrimp, I think. It was. And he cooks them up. We were saying how, you know, shrimp is like a pink, pinkish orange.

It's normally how you see it. When you look at them raw, they look a little different. They're all, they're these little clear jelly boys. Yeah. Yeah. They're gross kind of little gray boys. Yeah. I was saying that you don't see, you don't see raw shrimp too often.

You go to the grocery store. You go to the grocery store. If you go to the, look at, look, actually, that's not even true because a lot of time they do, they, they have the, they have cocktail cocktail. Yes, but, but a meat section. Yeah, like the seafood section, the clear jelly shrimp. You don't see too often. Right.

Yeah. Hey, I'm a new wingloom boy. I know you are. I've, I've boiled shrimp myself, Vic. All right. I, and I got the scallops and the steak. It was called, I think land and sea or something like that. Right.

They have a bunch of different, they have like, like 12 different menu options and they're all just variants of the same, like, like, exactly in different combos. Just whatever you have. Well, how, how were the scallops? Because that was the one thing I didn't try. I like, as much as I love Benihana and I, and I recommend going, I don't think I would do the scallops again. Interesting.

Because it's just the quality was so, it was just so like rubbery and the only thing you're really getting is like the taste of the butter or whatever they put on it. Right. But I think. Scallops are, are, are, are. You want it to be like high quality, right? I should have, I should have thought of that. And I revealed to you guys yesterday that in the Northeast to call them scallops.

Yeah. Weird. And my, I said scallops in front of my mom and she got mad at it. Yeah. She was literally, she's like, why are you, why are you saying it like that? Scallops. Scallops, scallops. We say scallops.

In her defense, I'm sure that was the straw that broke the camel's back. It wasn't the only thing that ever angered her about your behavior. My mom loves you, you piece of shit. She likes, she does like me. No, I said me. No, you said you. You said you. I might, my mom likes me.

You're looking in the mirror when you said that. My mom likes me, you piece of shit. She likes you, but you guys bicker. And she doesn't like you that much. What the fuck are you talking about? We get along. You think you're, my mom likes you more than she likes me? No.

She's on the Alexa thing right now. Oh no, she, the thing went away so she's not there. Alexa knows when she's there. Oh, you said her name and now she woke up. Alexa, shut up. Alexa, bye. Shut down Alexa. Apologize to her right now.

Get the Alexa, get the Alexa off your table while we're recording. Why does it need to live in here? What? It is. That's, that's, hold on. That is insane. I don't think it's insane. I don't think it's insane to say there's Alexa.

Get your Alexa out of here when you're recording. Who gives a shit that it even turns on? It interrupts what we're doing sometimes. Oh fuck off. We could use the fucking time that it takes. It is, I mean, I'm staring at it like it's like a revolving like newspaper headline. It's crazy. It's great.

I don't know. It's a lot. Look, Emma, what did you think about the scallops or scallops? I kind of agree with Darcy. I mean, I had, I was in New England last weekend and I had like homemade scallops. Daddy made them. Yeah, my dad made them for me. So like nothing really beats that because they were like four times the size of the

scallops we had yesterday. I do think that the, maybe thinking of the, like you want a high quality scallop. So like maybe save the scallops for the nice response and go with like a chicken or a shrimp or a, or a steak here. Like they had lobster. I bet that wouldn't have been that great. Yeah. And, and I mean, I, I was, I, as a kid, I would always do the, I think it was called the Rocky's

Choice, which is chicken and steak. And I felt like as an adult, I should do like more of a seafood vibe. But when I was watching him make it, I was like, oh, I should have just done the chicken and steak. I think, I think so. Yeah. I thought those, the jumbo shrimp that we got were great. They were pretty good.

Yeah. Those are, those are good. I like them. Good. They were better than the shrimp app. But I would also just say, I mean, but it's a repeat. You get more shrimp.

Exactly. It's like, it's like, unless you really, really love seafood since you're getting the shrimp app anyway with the, with the prefix a deal you're getting there, maybe just go in, in more of a poultry and, and, and red meat direction for the entree. They should probably pull that shrimp app off. I know, because it kind of deterred, sort of deterred me from getting a shrimp entree. Yeah. But I'm really, no, you know what?

I love the shrimp app. Yeah. I love it. I love it. It's great. It's great to have. So the, so I like the filet mignon. I like the, the steak again, which you could cook to temperature.

I got it medium rare. Uh, you, you get the, the steak I thought was quite nice and they, they, they throw, they do throw those mushrooms on there. You know, it had a little bit of, a little bit of a, of a sauce to it. Not like a, like a, you know, just like a, not like a real teriyaki sauce, but so, but a little bit of a, of, of something to it and huge mushroom guys. So the mushrooms were my least, he mixed them in with the steak. So that was fine, but they were, they were kind of my least favorite part of the, of the, of the,

if you're not a mushroom head, you're not going to be. Exactly. Right. Jesus Christ. Sorry. Mushroom dude. God thinking of Trump's fucking toad dick right now. You're never not though.

It's true. What a bummer that that's now the way you like, you think a cute little toad. Wait, is Yoshi and toad the same thing? No, they're quite different. Oh my God. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Yoshi is a dragon? Yoshi is a dinosaur.

Dragon's not far off. What the hell? You're, oh, you think Yoshi's a dragon? He's got like, no, no, no, no. Stand by that. He's got that ridge to his back. When he eats a red shell, he spits fire. That's more dragon-like than dino lights.

That is the reaction from the shell with the dinosaur. That doesn't have with a real dino. Oh yeah. You've met a real dino? Well, look, you know, you think historically that like a stegosaurus ate a red turtle that he would breathe fire. Who fucking knows? Dutton probably knows.

I am sorry. I totally know that Yoshi's the green guy. Yeah. But, but, but, um, I just want to say, yeah, people can get mad at you online. I think if you, if you, I didn't say he was a dragon.

I said that when she said he was like a dragon, it wasn't far off. Is Yoshi more dragon or dino? He's more dino-like, obviously. If you think he's more dino, tweet hashtag titan. Also, you're acting like she'd be offended by this. Of course. She doesn't have to know who the fuck Yoshi is.

I do. I played a lot of, I played a lot, but I only played, I really only played the first couple, the first three. Yeah. No one has to know who Yoshi, we're losers, Nick. You get that? No, you guys are great. I've never played Mario Kart.

Oh man, it's a lot of fun. That actually, that's crazy. That's a bummer, right? But I, I really, I'm like, maybe I'm just old. I'm just like, I, those first three Super Mario games were the, were really the only ones I was into. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That's normal. I think a lot of people don't. That's normal. We're the same age. I still play Mario games. It's like, that's not like, yeah, it's, it, but it, that doesn't make me cooler.

It's like, it's like, that's just like, that's, I shouldn't be doing that. No, it's great. Dunn plays them. Whoa. Yeah. That's so cool. You get away with it.

Toad's name is just plain old Toad. He doesn't have a cute little name, like Toadie or like Yoshi. No, he's, he's Toad. There's also a, and you know, a Toad is kind of applies to an indeterminate number of that species. There's also Captain Toad.

There's Captain Toad. And he's like, he's a forward adventure. And there's Toadette. My issue with Toad is that the, like, I, in my mind, there is like one original Toad. Right. Who's like the original Toad. I don't like them being like a mix.

I want there to be one specific Toad. Like it's like Mario Luigi Toad. Toad, yeah. I know, and I know that the species is Toad. I get it, Nick. But you don't want there, you don't like the idea that there are a bunch of them who could all be the same. I like the fact that there is like the one original Toad

who's been on the adventure with all of them. You want like a Papa Smurf. You want like this is the one special one and the rest are these other guys. And I think that there is one. Don't you, wouldn't you agree? I think you can sort of infer that one of them is kind of the, the Toad.

He's got the red shirt. He's like, yeah. He's like, how the hell? He's like, how the hell? I'm so sorry to do this. And I know we're going to get so much hate. But wait, or I am, but Toad is the guy that looks like a mushroom.

Yes. Yeah. Why is this Toad? Great question. He doesn't look like a frickin Toad. He looks like a frickin mushroom. In the Super Mario Brothers movie, his name is just Toad and then it gets turned into a dinosaur type man.

It doesn't make any sense. Very confusing. But that movie's not canon. Yeah, the movie's not canon. But my question to you is, is Captain Toad Toad? No, I think he's a different. He's a different Toad. Yeah.

Because he's got a sort of absent-minded quality about him. I think he's different. In my, no, go ahead. I was just going to say, the main Toad is kind of like a nervous Toad. Yeah. Yeah, OK. Is it, if you're going back to early Nintendo stuff,

I feel like the first time I really saw Toad was in three or two? Two. And he's really fast, yeah? But he can't jump high. Well, actually, they were, I apologize. I'm a little mistaken. They are a presence in one. When you go to the castle and the princess isn't there,

that's the Toad guy. You just can't play them. Yeah. Two of the, yes, that's playable. And Toad is the fastest and the best at pulling up vegetables. And Yoshi just, what, like, can't he jump far? He can, when he jumps, he can move his feet and float. But not crazy legs like Luigi.

Right. Oh, no, not like Luigi. Luigi is just jumping very high. Although the way that the kind of a kick jump, that the bicycle kick jump that Yoshi does is akin to Luigi's jump in Super Mario Brothers 2. Because, you know, he has that long jump where he flutters his legs a little bit.

Let's play after this. Right, great. You're saying this is the wrong guys because we will. Which is already taking out his switch. I like the, I like the Flaminion quite a bit. The chicken breast, I thought was just, maybe because it was sitting in that girl for so long, I just thought it was a little dry.

And I just want to say one last thing. But it was pretty good. I hope the playable Toad in Mario 2 is the Toad that's with you the whole time. That would be nice, actually. It would be nice. That'd be sweet. That's so nice.

I choose to believe that's the case. Yeah, and that's all you need to do is choose to believe. Hashtag, I choose to believe as well. Although, you know, that Toad is taking, that is that whole game, the framing devices, it's a dream. Yeah, I know. So it's like, is Mario dreaming about,

I guess he is dreaming about his friend Toad. And then the third one is a play that they put on. For God's sakes, just give us a straight up Mario game. Good Lord. Give us an adventure. Come on. These bizarre narrative devices. Yeah, we will believe you.

Just go give us the regular shit. Yeah, we believe the regular stuff. Come on, Shigeru Miyamoto. Stop trying to be Tarantino. He is like Tarantino. Anyways, Dutton got just a beef and chicken. Yes. I want to say this.

Here's what I was afraid of. Yeah. I was afraid that the steak wasn't going to be great. And then I ate it and it was so great. It was my favorite protein of the entire meal. Quite good. It almost made me wish I had only gotten steak. Yeah, yeah.

But it's fun to, whatever, it's fun to mix it up. It's fun to get something else. And it might as well. But maybe just save that for your last bite. But the thing is, you won't be hungry. So that's the thing, is it's not like I wish I had more steak. I didn't even finish my whole steak. So I guess it's fine.

Mix it up. Try your shrimp, try your scallops, try whatever the hell. But the steak, you're going to be happy with. The steak I thought was delightful. The chicken I thought was a little boring. We all got the filet mignon. And I think there's also a hibachi steak, which I think is the steak I got as a kid.

It's more of like a thin sort of like, not as tasty, probably. Also, the chicken, which had been sitting there this whole meal, getting slowly cooked to this entire meal. I thought the chicken was great, too. I was just saying, I thought it was a little dry and boring. Oh, really? You didn't find it dry? I dipped it in the sauce, which, you know,

woke it up a little bit. I thought it was fucking great. I thought it was way better than I thought it was going to be. I thought it was, I thought it was fine. Dry and boring, really? Are you sure you weren't thinking about yourself? All right. Woo!

Piece of shit. Don't come at the fucking hibachi chicken. Benihana chicken, for God's sakes. It was good. It was good. I thought it was fine. What the hell, really? I just want to say, overall, we'll save that for later.

But I mean, I really like this meal. Yeah. You're saying that, it's like coming at Victor a little bit. It's getting me upset. Victor did a great job. It's not his fault. He's executing the recipe. He's doing the formula.

It was dry. I thought it was, yeah, that could be an issue with the sourcing of the ingredient. That could be the fact that maybe just like the way Benihana game plans out their meal is skewed a little bit. I didn't think it was dry. I thought it was moist. I thought it was delicious.

I really liked the chicken. I thought it was fine. And then we have one more course to discuss and then we'll get into our rankings. That is, of course, the ice cream. Boo. Darcy is booing. Can we talk about the vegetables too?

The vegetables were whatever. They were good. They're fine. Yeah, you can like, I'd say add them to a different bite. Add them to a meat bite or a rice bite. Now, Darcy is booing for a reason. You say, why don't you come over here for a second? Hello.

There was a few different options for. I'm just gonna name off the option. Yeah, there was a vanilla. There was chocolate. There was rainbow sherbet and finally what was the last option you song can't quite remember is green tea ice cream. Oh, that's right green tea, a flavor that should not be a fucking ice cream flavor, a flavor that is a great tea

and a truly terrible ice cream. So we were all thinking of what we should get for me. My, my grandma Helen Donovan, my, my middle name is Donovan and in the Donovan honor. I knew that she used to take me to Purdy's and we get a rainbow sherbet together. It was a great time. Great grandma was a great lady.

I said, I'm gonna get that rainbow sherbet. It's gonna be a great time. Darcy was, she said, I really want chocolate, but green tea seems and then you song jumps in and says you gotta get green tea. I get the green tea guys. It was really good. Hashtag you sang to nothing wrong. It close to ruins your meal.

I would say of all those amazing tastes to have their last taste be a piece of shit green tea ice cream bite makes you want to fucking murder somebody. Nick, I tried a bite of yours. I also get a green tea ice cream tasted like like a green tea tea bag. Yeah, brother. It sucked. It sucked.

It tasted like hot green tea with no, there was no sugary or like milky taste to it. It fucking sucked. Let me say this. It tasted like hot tea. It tasted like hot green tea. That ice cream tasted like hot tea. Which we weren't served.

No, that's true. We didn't get the hot tea. I look in you songs defense. I got the green tea ice cream and I enjoyed it. I did not finish it because it was full, but I thought I thought it was nice. I like that it's not. You didn't finish it.

I like that it's not super sweet. And I like green tea ice cream in general. Is this the best green tea ice cream I ever had? No, they're better green tea ice creams out there. They're better executions of this, but I think it's a good flavor. I'll never know because I will never try it again. Darcy, it's up to you. Should we fire you song?

I'm so sorry, but yeah, you got to find. No, I love him so much. I love him so much. I love him so much. I love him so much. Also, you said what the hell did you get? He got the salmon with avocado. Yeah, what the hell?

I know he ordered he ordered wacky. OK, OK, I got the same one with like avocado, tartar sauce and it was really good. It looked great. Yeah, yeah, I noodles, too. Yeah, I came with noodles. They were like a little buttery and like a lot of soy sauce, but it was like I had a great time.

I don't know if it was because of the company or. Oh, yeah, yeah. But like, as a pretty like, you get you drink a third of a cup of sangria and got fucking wasted because your body weight is 85 pounds. So can what I had a great time. We had a great time. No, come back.

I'm back. You're going to shiitake mushroom as well, right? Yeah, that was a big boy. I thought it was a I thought it was a potato until he cut it up. Yeah, it was really good. I like I'm not like the most like a chipper chip person, but like I genuinely remember like a one point like oh, I'm having like a great time.

I'm sorry. You seem shipper as hell. You seem like you were having the best day of your life. I you you made my experience better. I truly love you. Oh, thank you. That's really nice. Cool.

All right, I love you. All right, you song up. Pack up your shit. Don't you guys love him? He's great. Like deep love. He's a great dude. He's great.

Yeah, he's all right. He's good. He's like good company, good, good vibes. I really like him. We love it. We love you. So we fucks up his fucking ice cream. So I think you think he would learn once if I could go back

in time. I would have ordered chocolate ice cream without a doubt. And yeah, and I grandma. I did get I got the rainbow. I just tried I tried Nick's and it truly the one taste of it, even though I said the mushrooms, the mushrooms weren't my least favorite. The taste of the green tea was my least.

The mushrooms were ice cream in comparison to the green tea ice cream. Yep. Yep. I think this is a point. I think this is just one of those things like cilantro that's just polarizing. Yeah.

I think some people like it. Some people don't. It's Amy polarizing for sure. It's very Amy polarizing. I was going to say hashtag Amy polarizing. I was going to say that the rainbow sherbert was great. And I haven't had it in so long right was it made my meal. Now I also say rainbow sherbert.

But I feel like I've heard it said sherbet. Yeah. What's the deal? I don't know if it's sherbert or sherbet. I've seen it both ways. I know sorbet is something different. Is it Cubert and Cubert bit? Yeah.

Ask Josh Gad. It's a regional thing. Is that the same person? Ask Gad. We're going to ask Gad. Hashtag Ask Gad. Hashtag Ask Gad. Hashtag Ask Gad.

Ask Gad. A-S-S-G-A-D-D. Hashtag Ask Gad. He's going to see that hashtag right. What the fuck is happening? He won't see it. The rainbow sherbet I think is like orange sherbet and maybe cherry sherbet or something.

It's great. Whatever it is. Sounds about right. It's fucking. It was delicious. It was the perfect end to the meal. I loved it. Oh, so lucky.

Let's get to our final thoughts on Benihana. So Darcy, you've been on the show before, but just a refresher. We'll each go around sort of give our closing argument and then assign this a rating from zero to five forks. You are our guest. We'll begin with you. Okay.

Well, I had this, okay. Scheduling for this was a little difficult just because of what people's schedules. And there was the option of, since I had been many times, to not go to the restaurant. And we absolutely insisted as a team that we go to the restaurant together.

So much of this experience is not about the food, even though the food is amazing. It's about the experience. Right. It's about your chef. It's about eight people, six to eight people together at a table, having a good time.

All of those things were thumbs up in my book. The food was great. Victor was great. The company was great. Other than the green tea ice cream, to me, and the scallops, I didn't even care. As I was eating them and knew they weren't amazing, I didn't care.

I still ate them and was happy. Is this crazy if I give this experience five forks? It's not crazy. Okay, good. Then I can do it. That's a great score. For me, it was five forks. Five forks from Darcy Garden.

Go ahead, Mitch. I also, for just for the full take sake, we all had glasses of water. It's so important, truly so important. But then at the end, this is why I brought it up, is there were some ice cubes left, and Darcy and you and Yusong were throwing your ice cubes onto the hibachi and it was melting.

And it was not like disrespectfully. Right. Like just one each. It was fun. To watch them sciss. Yeah, it was great. I was worried we were going to get in trouble. Of course you were.

Geez, you thought we were going to... Anyways, I feel like I almost, I'm 100% sure that I was texting my mom. That's why I was looking at my phone, but she never answered. If I had been to Benihana, I know I have. And so much of this stuff is from my, like hibachi stuff is from my youth.

Right. That experience in Epcot when I was younger and stuff. And they were such fun restaurants, and I have fond memories of them when I was younger. But man, don't kind of amount as an adult. It's such a great time. Yeah. Dutton told me that he went, during the meal,

he said that he was enjoying himself so much. And he sat and thought for a minute, he's like, I'm so fortunate. That's what he said that he thought. That's amazing. He's so cool. That's so cool. Yeah, that's a real cool thing.

No, we have taking assessment of where your life is, being able to process it. It's just funny for like, I feel like a leather jacket is cool. Like being like, I'm a fortunate man. I mean, that is, that's the real cool. Nick, you know, I was doing that all the time. You know what? That is why Dutton is cool because he is like that.

And he was like, I'm so fortunate. I was like, man, that's such a great thing to think when you're out at for a meal with friends. I know. And the show is great. I mean, the show. Victor was amazing. It was fun to watch.

We were clapping for him. We were genuinely having a good time. And I thought the food was great. The steak, the chicken, all of it. I would have saved some rife for a while. My drink was good. Great company. Just a fun fucking time.

I'm five forks as well. Wow. How can I not give it five forks? How can you not give it five forks? I'm like, this seems like maybe one of the most earned five forks of any of any place we've been to. It was, it was, it was so good. I can't, I want to go to Benihana with friends more often.

All the time. All the time. I can't believe people don't do it more often. I would go to Benihana. If a group of seven of my friends are like, we're going to go to Benihana. I'd be in every time they set it up. I feel the exact same way.

It's great. I'm down any time. It's great. Mitch, you're full of shit. And make that drive to Santa Monica. I mean, the drive to Santa Monica sucks. That's absolutely. Also, what the hell are you talking about?

You're not going to go. You're just not going to do it. Oh, a view and a hundred percent would flake or bail on a Benihana trip. If it wasn't for a podcast, that is fucking bullshit. There's no way I went out to dinner with, with, with people just the other night. You don't go out to dinner with friends.

Probably a place. What? With them within a half mile of your apartment. No, it wasn't a half mile. It was a little more than a half mile. So wait. So wait. I was a massa.

Oh, yum. Which is not that far away. But I go all the way. What are you talking about? You're just not going to. I just, I know where the Benihanas are in relative to your apartment. You're not going to make that.

I will go every time. If people and friends were going, I would go. I'll schedule another Benihana meal. We'll see if we can. Hey, guess what? This is where you fucked up. I don't want to go with you. Oh, God.

Because of comments like that, you piece of shit. All right. So Benihana is great and it is, it's more, you know, I think a better point of comparison for this place. It's, it's, you know, even though it's in the same category as like a P.F. Chang's, this sort of, this sort of Pan-Asian sort of concept designed for an American audience, it's closer to a medieval times.

It's closer to a dinner theater experience where, where the show is really what it's all about. And I think that's where this place shines. Service employees are so, have so become kind of the backbone of the American economy. This is a service-based, service-based economy now. And I think a place like this, seeing how much Victor enriched our experience,

this guy who worked there, seeing how much like his labor is like part of why that was, the biggest part of why that was such a great experience there, both eating the food and also in terms of taking in his showmanship. Like that to me was just sort of like, like, ah, this is, this is great and this is, this is why one of the, this is like a really like big example of like why we should always try to, to acknowledge and appreciate service workers.

And they're not our servants, they're people who work hard and enrich our lives and make them either more enjoyable or just easier to get through. So, you know, I hope anyone, whoever has an interaction, maybe, you know, maybe you have a negative reaction with a food service worker at some point, or maybe you have a, I hope you overlook that at times because you never know what's going on in someone's life.

And if you have a great experience with a food service worker, I hope you acknowledge that as well. Because if someone's going out of their way to, to make sure that you're having a great time, I think that's what, that's what it's all about. And Victor, Victor fucking ruled. He was just so, so great. As far as ranking this place, it's such a fun time.

It's, it's, there's, there's, there's nothing really like, no, it's, it's such a unique, fun experience. You know, I had a condensation issue on the drinks, they're right by that hot, that hot grill. And so they're kind of like, The fuck is this shit? There's just like some condensation coming off of it. A condensation issue?

Yeah, it's like, there's a lot of moisture beating on the outside. You're getting a big ring under the, You're about to get a fucking beating on the outside. Beating, not beating. Oh, well, you're going to get a beating on the outside. I think that's sexual again, right? Like the beat, like a, like a, one of those things you put on a car seat,

some beat, you're going to beat me. You're going to get a beating on the outside. All right, that is very sexy. I'm positive, I'm positive. But, and I think the food is like only it's, the food is not five forks. The food is, is good. But I think like, like as far as the food,

all of itself, you know, the, the salad is, is, is fine, but the produce is unimpressive. In general, I think the quality of ingredients is not great. Some of the, some of the items are inconsistent. I just going to say that I think the quality of ingredients is a lot better than a lot of other places. It's, it's on par. I think with a chain restaurant in its price category,

which is a lot of necessarily stellar. We just went to Outback Steakhouse. The quality of the steak at Benihana, much better than the steak at Outback Steakhouse. Much better than Outback Steakhouse. Yeah, absolutely. But, you know, if you compare it to other, there are other places, upscale,

non-chains, upscale restaurants that have a better product. It's not better than the best. Have better product. If you eat, okay. Yes. That said, that's not what it's all about. It's about the experience. And I think you have to evaluate this experience.

You evaluate it as the medieval times. How does it deliver on that? Does medieval times have the best half chicken or the best tomato soup in the world? No, absolutely not. But the whole, the experience, the five fork experience, that's the case with Benihana. This is a five fork restaurant.

It belongs to the platinum plate club. Oh my God. I'm so happy. I'm so happy. Oh my God. Yes, yes, yes. I could cry. And you know what?

Dutton is fucking cool. Yeah. And he's my friend, okay? Dutton is the first human entrance into the platinum plate club. You can totally cut out because I know we're probably already going over. But I do have to say.

Yes. We had a gardener growing up in my house in the Eriken household. That's my maiden name. I didn't know that. Named Edo, yeah. And he was our gardener for like 20 to 30 years. And he was a Benihana chef before he was a gardener.

And he was ready for this. Elvis' favorite Benihana chef. Wow. Elvis would like request him personally. We can't cut this out, do you know? This is amazing. So when, when, and we were close to him in his family and he had kids that were my age,

mine and my sister's age. So we would like kind of hang out with him a lot. But he, I thought of him as a celebrity because of Benihana. I thought of him as like a celebrity. He, to me, it was a celebrity coming into my house. I was like, he was the fucking coolest. So big shout out to Edo and his family.

That's amazing. That's great. Benihana chef to the stars and gardener to my family. That's awesome. Great gardener. Really cared about his work. All right. One time he planted tulips for me.

Another great service worker. Yes, yes. Emma, what did you think? What fork rating would you give it? Oh, absolutely. Five stars. That's my only recommendation, though, is go for dinner, not for lunch.

It's a lot of food. Yes, you're right. Oh, you guys, I should have said that. Absolutely right. Guess what I did when I got home? Fucking slept. I went home and truly passed out on the couch. You saw when I walked around the pier

and then just sat on the couch. Yeah, you need a break. You saw, what's your fork rating? Five forks. Yeah, maybe. Let's all kiss. Ready? Oh, man.

Five forks, you always got to kiss each other. Mitch just kissed his cats. On the butthole. They would have kissed you on the mouth. You're a damn freak. That was our review. It's medically, you kiss them there medically. It's good for the cats.

You guys, I'm thrilled. I'm so thrilled with this five forks. This is good. I'm so happy. We did it. Yeah. Hey, that was our review of Benny Haun. It's time for a regular segment.

From Dubois Media Studios in Los Feliz, this is Serial. A segment told one bowl at a time. All right, so we've got this seasonal as we go into the spookiest of months, October. We've got the seasonal Halloween crunch right here. Sweet and corn and oat cereal. Ghosts turn milk green. And you got it.

I got to say, there's nothing in this cereal looking at it. That is green. No, not at all. Wild. Yeah. Yeah, it's just yellow and orange. It's yellow and orange. Absolutely.

The other the orange thing is supposed to be ghosties. Yeah, if you look here, look at this guy. Yeah, that's okay. Some of them are malformed. It also seems like this seems like it could be a statement beyond the cereal that ghosts turn milk green. Is that just like it? Go on, go on.

Dig into that. Is that like ghost lore? Yeah, generally about the paranormal. That's one of the things they do. Now we have almond milk and chandelier and green your milk. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. There's a statement about ghosts. If a ghost goes through your milk carton, it turns it green.

It's what I think that means. We got almond milk. I don't know if it works as almond milk, but and then we have regular milk. I'm going to go regular milk. I'm going to go with almond milk because I'm going to have some. I'm not necessarily lactose intolerant, but I think my stomach is going to agree better

with the you guys have anything to eat yesterday after the bunny honey meal. I tried to nap. I couldn't. And then I had I watched some movies that night and I had pizza. So I was a fucking stuffed full day. I had we went to a little party that had past orders,

which was almost the perfect dinner because then I could. That's great. So I had a couple little meatballs, a couple little I don't even know, little veggie, whatever's. So I don't think I could have eaten like a dinner. Yeah, it was insanely stuffing these. So these green ghosts are turning a little bit green

when you when these orange ghosts are turning green when you pour the milk on. I think that's the magic trick. I think the orange coating response to the moisture work. What the hell did you do? Did you crush it open poking it? Wow. I'm just poking it a lot.

I really just want to get a good picture. Yeah, you got to mix it up. You know, I mean, like it's not like green green. It's not like lime green. It's like you can see some green dye based on whatever it is. It's not good. Emma's really got hers working. Mine's pretty green.

Also, the captain is zombified. He's the captain crunches. You see him? He looks like he's been bit by a zombie, right? Damn, he's been zombified. He's he's really been zombified, Nick. I don't know. Nick, can you tell that the captain's been zombified?

Yeah, he's clearly been zombified and it's unsettling. You don't know how you feel about that. Yeah. Captain. He's a good guy. I don't know if he should be the undead. All right. So yeah, I mean, this milk just sort of looks kind of grayish to me.

I'm going to take a bite of this. I am a huge captain crunch man, by the way. Well, you have almond milk. One of my favorite cereal. My favorite cereal is a kid. Yeah, this is about to go ASMR real quick. I mean, it's so crunchy. God, it's so good.

I love cereal. It's really good. Yours is green. Yeah, mine's green. It's some of the orange. It almost like, I mean, it's just like chemicals or something, right? Because like the orange is coming off in the in the liquid. And then underneath is like this dark green.

I don't know. If I was a kid, I would absolutely love that. I would. I would. Here's my question. This is literally Enfigured. Captain Crunch. I didn't eat as a kid and it is as I've gotten older.

I tried it. I tried it when I was older and I was like, oh, it's great. I like it. It's so good. It's very good. My question about Captain Crunch is does this is this is Halloween crunch. Does it taste any different than I don't think it does at all. Tastes 100% same.

Doesn't even taste like like Crunch berries. It just tastes like straight up Captain Crunch. Crunch berries is good. Okay. I don't want to be too disgusting, but one of the things that some sugar cereals and especially Captain Crunch does that bums me out is the film. It leaves on your spoon. It's such a bummer.

Right. It's so what I mean. What is it? Yeah. What is it? I like how you apologize for being gross there talking about film on a spoon in an episode where we talked at length about bowel movements. Morning boy.

It's going to really come out in the morning. My milk's getting real green. It's getting greener as it goes. I guess that's part of the fun for a kid. You know, to this, this, uh, here's what I would say to this. Captain Halloween crunch. Ahoy. Oh, fuck.

This is great. This is a lot of fun. I agree. Ahoy. Got it. Ahoy. It's so fun to crunch these. It's really, yeah.

I wish there wasn't a microphone here so that I could really go to town. I just turned my head away. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Captain Crunch is great. This is just flavor-wise. It's Captain Crunch, but with a little gimmick.

If you hadn't had it for a while and you're craving it nostalgically, this is maybe a reason to jump back in, experience this green milk, and just enjoy that, that Captain Crunch flavor over your youth. I'll tell you what. I don't, I don't keep cereal in my house because I love it so much. It would be like a, it would be the thing that I couldn't put down. Yeah. Here's my issue.

Go ahead, Mitch. Actually, I can't tell. I can't tell if these little ghosts are changing the flavor of the cereal because when I eat one, it does taste maybe a little bit like, like a, like the, the all berries kind of taste, but I can't tell. It might be kind of like a crunch berry. Maybe it's been haunted just a little bit. Just a little, just, just only a little bit.

But, but here's what, here's, here's what I like about it. The gimmick, it changes the, the color green. Yes. The ghosts, that's fun. But I might need to just a little bit more different flavor. I like, like if it's, if it's like a limited edition cereal, I kind of want like an additional flavor to it. I can't tell.

I could be wrong. Like, like a, this might taste different from Captain Crunch. Like I said, I wasn't a huge Captain Crunch nut. Maybe a little berry. No, I don't know. I don't know. It might, I mean, those might be, they might be crunch berry, crunch berry adjacent.

I mean, I'm going to give them a snack anyways, because they're good. Yeah, absolutely. And it's fun. I just, I wish that it, it added some additional flavor. Maybe like a pumpkin-y flavor. No, I don't think so. I don't think so.

I was actually thinking that that's what it was going to be, and I was, I was not looking forward to it. Because I don't want to jump down my throat for throwing out a suggestion. Well, don't throw out the grossest suggestion on earth. Yeah. Jesus Christ. What the fuck is wrong with you? You saw him get over here and suggest green tea,

so they'll get off my pack. Um, yeah, I mean, I think this stuff is great. You guys are free to keep munching on that. Oh my God, cereal rocks. Just like the devil. That was cereal, just like a restaurant, without your feedback. Let's open up the feedback.

This week's email comes to us from Mason in Billings, Montana. Mason writes, Hey, Doughboys, big fan, love you both. Currently at work, and I don't have, I didn't bring anything with me for lunch. My only option at this point is a vending machine. If you are in a position where you have to supplement a meal

for something from a vending machine, what would you choose? Talking about your general snack vending machine, chips, candy bars, gum, et cetera. Oh, wow, that's bad. Yeah, that's tough. I have one, but it would be kind of a little bit specialized. If you, a beef jerky.

Yeah, that's great. That's great. If there's some sort of protein available in that vending machine, zero in on it, because that's the thing that it's almost always usually like just salty and sweet snacks. Get that protein. If there's a jerky in there.

Or maybe a peanut butter cracker. Oh, that's great. That's a good one. My two suggestions. Yeah, any sort of protein source, whether it's animal or vegetable, if that's sitting in H2, dial in H2, and make sure you get that.

Do you know what I would do? This is, I mean, your lunch is fucked. It's tough. It's a very tough situation. Your lunch is tough. If there's an option where you have an actual burrito or something like that, one of those vending machines, then obviously get something like that.

It sounds like, yeah, it sounds like he doesn't have access to a refrigerated vending machine. I would say, jerky is, I mean, I'm going to say jerky is probably not usually in a vending machine. Sometimes you'll find it. And like peanut butter cracker is probably more likely. Here's what I'd say.

I think a Snickers bar. I was going to say, what about a payday? Payday is great. These are great suggestions because the nuts will give you some protein. And that's the thing that you're most likely to not get. A Snickers bar to me feels like the, like maybe the closest to like some sort of,

I mean, it's bad for you, but it's the closest to kind of like some sort of like power bars. And then maybe you could get a drink and chips or something. It's really satisfying. It really does. It really does. Snickers, I think Snickers would be what I would go to and maybe a bag of chips.

I mean, this is, that sucks. Right. It's a bummer. I also just want to remind people of paydays. I think we, when we were little kids, a payday was not the go to because it didn't have any chocolate. Exactly. But as an adult, I implore you to revisit a payday.

Absolutely, they've grown on me. And along those lines, also if you can, and this is making me think of that, sometimes they'll have like that bag of peanuts or those bag of almonds or something. That can be something with some protein and with some fibers. So you can go for that as well. As far as what to supplement it with,

the ideal is, I got a little green milk in my throat, the ideal is you have some sort of protein, whatever that is, you can supplement that with some sort of like, you know, like a pretzels or cracker or chips of your choice. And then, you know, what I like to get from a vending machine, I don't see in a lot of different contexts, you know those knots cookies, they're like these shortbread cookies with like a strawberry jam in them.

I think those are a delight. And that makes your vending machine meal feel like a treat because you can't usually get those in other contexts. I think that's a great idea. But yeah, that's a tough situation to be in, Mason. I hope you can make the best of it. Mason, you're gonna have a shit out of luck, honestly. I'll say, yeah, Postmates something, brother.

Yeah, I guess, I mean, who knows, Billings Montana, who knows if they have access to Postmates. Great point. I don't know. But yeah, good luck with that. If you have a question about it. Ask your boss, you can just go outside for a second. Yeah, what is your job, Mason?

Man. Yeah, I wonder. Good luck. But if you're a boss and you don't let your fucking employee go out for lunch, you're fucking crazy. Okay, good luck getting a job now. But now that I've insulted every boss. Boss is stink, am I right?

I think they're great. Mitch, technically, you're my boss. You're the president of the Doe Boys Corporation. That's right. Cute. And guess what? Overtime today, buddy. I'm getting overtime?

Oh shit, wait. I think you know this relationship works. If you have a question or comment about the word of chain residence, you email us at Doe Boys Podcast at gmail.com. You may be president so that if this fucking podcast goes down, I go down with it or something. I'm gonna be arrested someday for Doe Boys.

It was totally arbitrary. I'm not earning some sort of scam through this. What, are you a treasurer again or something? I'm vice president. Oh, you're a secretary. I'm vice president and secretary. You're president and treasurer. That's right.

Cute. That makes sense. You have all the authority and you're in charge of the money. Is that right? Or leave us a voicemail at 830 Go Doe. That's 830 4636844. Oh, like fucking Wario. Yeah, visually.

To get the Doe Boys double our weekly bonus episode, join the Golden North Platinum Play Club at patreon.com slash Doe Boys. And hey, Mitch, quick announcement. Yes. Next month, October. Okay. All right.

Ready, Nick? Should we say it together? Yeah, say it together. One, two, three. October blessed. A full month based on religious restaurants. That's right. We're going to all the chains that have some religious aspect

to them. You are working overtime today because we're gonna figure it all out today. We absolutely are. Darcy Cardin, thank you for staying overtime on a super long episode. I do love you guys. Oh, I do.

I do, right? Okay. It doesn't rhyme. Why did I do that? That was great. It was a delightful pun. All right. Do you have anything you would like to plug at this time?

I think you could check out The Good Place on NBC Thursday nights. I think it probably premieres tonight. It's very possible. This is out, yeah. I think this is tonight, yeah. Okay. It's a great season, but do catch up.

Doe, catch up. If you haven't watched it yet, watch the first two seasons on Netflix immediately. Because it's really fun. Check it out. Check, watch it. Amazing show. And dancing.

You got dancing. Get dancing on this show. He's great. Yeah. We're going to get dancing on the pod. He loves chips. Oh, man. Dancing on the pod.

You guys could do Doe Boys for chips. Oh, I can't. He's going to reject us. Thanks for having me, you guys. I really love this podcast. And I loved our dinner yesterday, our lunch. And it was great. And I love everybody in this room.

A delightful 48 hours we had. That's right. Yeah. Actually, when I told my husband I was coming to do this podcast today, he was like, what the fuck? We had like four hours yesterday. Just like you didn't record it yesterday.

Yeah. And I said, you know, get lost. It's absurd. Get lost. It's an absurd commitment. Yeah. But hey, here we are. Getting husbands angry at us.

No, no, no. He loves you guys. He loves you guys. He loves you guys. All right. Good, good, good. Good. Thank God.

Yeah. I know. All right, you guys. Big kiss. Bye. See ya. You want more Doe Boys? For exclusive bonus content,

including the Doe Boys Double, subscribe at patreon.com slash Doe Boys. Check it out. That was a HitGum podcast.