Doughboys - Coco's with Alison Rosen

Episode Date: April 5, 2018

The ‘boys welcome author and podcaster Alison Rosen (Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend) to review one of her childhood favorites: SoCal based diner and bakery chain Coco’s. A previous guest leaves a lengthy voicemail on the Audio Feedbag. And, the premiere of a new quiz segment: Fake Chews.Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For the first time in more than a century, the general public was today given access to the scenic wonders of the famous Malibu Ranch when the last link in the Roosevelt Highway, extending from Canada to Mexico, was formally opened and dedicated by Governor Young. This was the lead in a Los Angeles Times story written by reporter Burton L. Smith, published on June 29, 1929. This optimistic paragraph, documenting the progress of America's burgeoning interstate highway system, was written just four short months before the Black Tuesday stock market

crash, which plunged the nation into a near decade-long depression. In the 1930s, as the enactment of Keynesian New Deal economic policies by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, cousin of the Roosevelt Highway's namesake Theodore, helped pull the nation back toward prosperity, the coastal drive that seduced motorists with its picturesque ocean views would become iconic in the Golden State under its regional name, the Pacific Coast Highway, or PCH. In 1948, in the Orange County town of Corona Del Mar, Mr. and Mrs. John and Audrey McIntosh, both Marine Corps veterans who had met while serving at the El Toro Air Base during World

War II, purchased a restaurant called the Snack Shop, alongside the Pacific Coast Highway. The Snack Shop's accessible diner concept quickly expanded to multiple locations throughout the Southland, becoming renowned for its bakery, especially its pies, and the male McIntosh was credited with the success as one periodical dub the Scottish American restaurant tour, the Canny Scott with a golden touch. In the 1960s, the company rebranded with a punchy, alliterative name that remains to this day. The chain shoveled through different ownership hands over the decades and expanded to a peak

of about 150 locations, including some in Japan, though it's contracted down to just a few dozen today. Still, it continues as a breakfast and baked goods focused chain in the western United States, primarily in the Pacific Coastal states linked by the Roosevelt Highway. This week on Doughboys, Coco's. Welcome to Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants. I'm Nick Weiger, alongside my co-host, Gorge of the Jungle, Mitchie Two Spoons, Mike Mitchell. Gorge of the Jungle.

That was courtesy of Steve Barris at Barris Wheel. Hey, if you have an insult you'd like me to use on Mitch at the top of the show, roastspoonmanatgmail.com is the address. Mitch. It was a well-known episode with an 1850s burn on me. There was a Brendan Fraser movie. Sure. Okay.

It was fairly recent, a lot of fun, fairly recent, like within the past 20 years. 20 years old. At least I remember watching it and having a great time when I was younger. Mitch, big news this episode. It's April. Yep. The tournament is done thingfully as we thank God, as we both know the winner was Duminos Duminos.

And so, so congrats to Duminos. But you know, the big news beyond the tournament winner, the champion being crowned at the end of Munch Madness, the slice is right, is that we are now in the head gum network. That's right. A big move for us. Yeah. But we think- This is no April Fools.

No, this is no, just because it's coming early on in April, don't mistake this for some sort of April Fools gag. This is for real. And us saying this is for real is not part of a more elaborate April Fools gag. It's like, this is really real. We did it. We did it. We're on head gum now.

We're very excited to be here. Lots of great shows on this network. We like all the people over there. They're very nice. Very, very awesome. So we think this is the right move for us. Yep. Yes.

That's, I agree. Yeah. We're happy about it. We're happy. You know, hey, we're happy. We're happy. Things are kind of working out. Uh, hey, come we'll have a nice podcast for a year, maybe two, not probably not

two years will be a part of the family for a year. I mean, we signed a year deal. So at minimum one year, uh, to Mitchie two spoons nation and here is a drop. I was getting it ready. I apologize to you and our guest because I was looking through my phone and this guy's pretty good. So here we go. It's coming.

What's your favorite fruit, Nick? Mmm. That's a good question. I think I might say a really good peach. Yeah. Peach has got it. You know, I can, uh, eat a peach for hours. If I had my little way, buy me peaches every day.

Peachy. Peachy. I didn't know that it was going to be what it was. You could start. You could, I mean, you could always screen these. You can always listen to them in advance. This guy's good. It's Robert Persinger who always gives us one.

I will say it's a very comprehensive rundown of all the references to peach in popular culture. Robert Persinger, I hope he, and he just said a great new drop. Okay. Hope you and the cats are doing well. I made a drop. Hope you like it. Uh, now Mitch, you know, we have,

And then it was a fucked up drop about peach. It was fine. Uh, Mitch, we have a, an excellent guest here today, but before we, we introduce her. Um, so we have, we said, She's still here. She's sitting there very patiently. She hasn't left yet. Uh, hi guys.

I'm here. I've been, I've been, there's been so many things I've wanted to say, but I haven't, You're going to, you're going to edit this out, right? No, we'll keep this. Okay. Hey you guys, talk to you in a bit. Um, we set up this, we set up this hotline, 830 Godot, our friend Van Roby show set it up for us.

And we got a couple of interesting voicemails on that hotline recently that caught me off guard. Uh, I'm just going to play them for us. Yeah. Oh, hey, uh, Mitch, two spoons and Nikki, double read. This is John Hodgman calling you from a car in Brooklyn, New York, where I live. You may recall I was on your program when we all ate Arby's together. I just, I'm very excited about the audio feedback.

So I decided to give you a ring, just to give you some feedback, which is that the show has been making me very happy lately. Thank you for being inside my ears. You know, when I talk to people, uh, about the show, if they haven't heard it and I describe it, they almost universally say, no, thank you. But then I said, no, no, it's not about the food. The food is universally garbage, trash food that no one should be eating and still reeling from the fact that you guys, uh, wanted to give more than one fork to Arby's.

Uh, it made me realize just, you know, what a, what a, what a low bar you're grading on such a curve, such a low curve that it's basically a flat line. Um, but it's not about the food. It's about the relationship between Mitch and, uh, and, uh, Nick Liger. To me, I don't remember his name. Uh, I call him double Reed. Uh, the, the, the lovely interplayed two of you, the friendship and then the, the little moments of anger that flash up between you.

And then, and then the reunion, uh, of your friendship that happens every week. I enjoy it. I would say honestly, the moment, look, I'm not keeping it short. Let me tell you right now, the moment that I laughed the hardest in 2018 and, uh, and it's early in the year, but I'm, I betcha it's going to be the hardest for the year was when Mitch said to Wiger, I wish there were a button I could push that would send you straight to hell. I'm laughing, I'm laughing about it again.

That was a great, great moment. But I'm going to tell you for all of the enjoyment I take in you guys talking to each other, the, the, the, uh, the, the champion's episode between Papa John's and little C. Okay. It's Hodgman again. Your, your voicemail hung up on me when I was criticizing you for going too long, uh, in your process argument about giving directions to Wiger to little C's, little C'sers. And then you hung up on me for going too long.

This is the irony that I think Marx, this is one of the great podcasts, one of the most more subtle comedic podcasts of all time. Um, so that's, um, and I just wanted to just a little comment that I think you went too far in that case into, into the scenes. Um, but I only use this as an excuse to call you guys and tell you, uh, how much I adore you both and I adore you to the show. And, uh, you owe me, uh, you owe me a wiener schnitzel. You both stole that from me and I haven't forgotten it.

Hope to see you guys soon and I'll, I'll have you in my ears even sooner. Goodbye. I'm going to have to hang up cause I'm going to run over a pedestrian. Goodbye. I'm not really going to run over a pedestrian. Don't, don't, I, it's all hands free. Goodbye. What a great guy.

That was very nice of him. A great man. Yeah. A lot of fun. Uh, we should just shut down the voicemail, uh, after that right now to your feedback. Yeah, probably. Close it up. Uh, a man so smart and so funny shouldn't be listening to us.

I agree. I mean, he's trying to get dumber. That's what, that's what, that's what he's doing. Well, it's going to work. Hey Mitch, let's introduce our guest. Speaking of smart and funny. Uh, she's the host of the podcast. Alison Rosen is your new best friend, her new book Tropical Attire Encouraged and other

phrases that scare me is available April 10th. Alison Rosen is here. Hi Alison. Hello. Thank you so much for having me. Is John Hodgman just a voracious listener of podcasts because just this week, uh, I heard of someone else who hosts a podcast. He said that he gets an email from John Hodgman every week saying like what he liked and I

think just what he liked about the episode. I don't mean to take anything away from you guys. No. Wait, wait. I, as in the course of saying that I realized like, oh, reel it in, reel it in. Um, I think he likes you guys the best. It's just you two. Yeah.

No, I mean that, that, that, that seems to make sense. I mean, I think there are a lot of people. But I mean, I don't hear anything from John Hodgman regarding my podcast and I put out, regularly put out podcast offerings. Yeah. Hodgman, we know you're listening to this. Give Rosen a listen. Yeah.

Hey, send her a nice voicemail. Hello. Yeah. Unless it bums you out of your, us out of your listens, then continue to us. Sorry. Sorry. Don't, don't substitute her podcast for our podcast, but if you have room for another podcast, add that one in.

Yeah. Bump out that other, the other podcast you were talking about. Yeah. Can read TV guidance counselor. Say goodbye to that one. Alison, thank you so much for being here. So I know you're from Orange County original, originally another so Cal native, just like me.

Um, so what I'm curious about and we're going to, boy, the bonding has begun. Well, the bond, we just got back from Cocoa. So the bonding has already, yeah, we are, I did not join you guys. We're a bonded pair. Yeah. Right. We're like a Wally and Irma bonded because we're like them.

You guys are like Wally and Irma. What do you mean? Weigar could never be compared to Wally. Oh, okay. That's your issue. That's your issue. I can't, you can't come over to your beloved cat named after what your hometown. What is Wally?

Right after Walliston, which is the area of Quincy. I'm from. So like an adjacent town to or no, the specific neighborhood in Quincy, the neighborhood in Quincy. I'm from you're getting on me for talking about Southern California. You have a cat named after your neighborhood. That's right. What's Irma named after my sister used to do a funny old lady character when she was

younger and it was called Irma and so I named it after that. That's a fun detail. My sister's funny, funnier than me and Weigar combined. Let's get her on the show. I don't know if we should do that. But being from Orange County, you have a lot of great eats out here in SoCal. What were outside of the chain? We're going to discuss and review in depth later.

What was your, what were your preferred chains growing up? What were your kind of go-to restaurants? As a teenager, when I began driving, for some reason we went to, oh, I know. So we went to Chili's a lot. Oh yeah. I don't know why we went to Chili's because like the coolest party I ever went to, it was in Redlands and I was 16 or 17 and I met this guy named Dave who had a last name that rhymed with my first name.

I'm not going to say it even though it's not that hard to figure out and I don't think I'm going to find him. But anyway, he was 23. Yeah. And I had like a years long crush on him because he had paid attention to me for 45 minutes out of party. Right. His friend worked at the Chili's in Orange County.

So my friends and I began frequenting that Chili's. It wasn't for the food. It was for the waiter. Right. So I liked Chili's. I feel, are you familiar with Sacey Ball? No. It's French.

Okay. I was going to guess French. Yeah. But it was like a little, almost like a little French deli. There's a couple of them down there. Go there. El Torrito Grill. Oh yeah.

That's a big one. That's a big one. Even though that was, was that an East Coast one? I don't know. I mean, I think the El Torritos are more widespread. The El Torrito Grill is the slightly classier version. Yeah. Upscale El Torrito.

Right. I have a story like yours about the Chili's except it wasn't about, it was about the food at Chili's. Which item? Hmm. You know, I was a big, with Chili's, I always loved the Buffalo. I mean, I was joking, but I always did love the, the Buffalo thing, the little Buffalo bites at Chili's.

Right. And in college, we go to Chili's and they had like dollar, frozen margaritas. It's just great. Yeah. And baby back ribs, I imagine. You know what? I never really did the baby back rigs. Really?

I didn't, I didn't care. I didn't, we talked about this before. Right. We went there. You know what? That was way back in our very first episode. First episode. Yeah.

They weren't that great. Yeah. So you never wanted your baby back, baby back, baby. Oh my God. You wanted this. I did. You wanted to sing the song. Yeah, I did.

I was excited. It's a great jingle. All right. I'm going to take that from you. Fine. You should get to sing the song. We also went to Denny's a fair amount. Oh yeah.

In the middle of the night. Not middle of the night, but end of the night. I know what you mean. Yeah. You bringing up just driving. First of all, it's so great when you're, what a great time in your life when you become a teenager. You can drive the car around.

You can't drive on your parents anymore to get around. Although I think nowadays there's teenagers can use Uber and Lyft. Right. Oh yeah. That changes everything. Yeah. They don't care as much. Maybe they don't care as much.

Yeah. That's a good point. I read something that people were, that like some Uber and Lyft drivers were upset about liability because some parents will like put their kid in a Lyft or an Uber by themselves just to like shuttle them somewhere. That's interesting. Yeah. Which is just so weird to be like, Hey, I'm just going to give my kid to this stranger.

Oh yeah. I'm just going to take, like go to the, you know, take them over to their friend's house because I can't drive them over there or whatever. Take them to school. Yeah. You know what? If I was a kidnapper, I'd be signing up for Uber right now. Right.

Kidnap away. I guess you would get in trouble. I feel like there's. Eventually. Yeah. But you'd have some good, you'd have like a real honeymoon period. Yeah. Real kidnapping streak going.

Uber doesn't seem to have a very stringent screening process. I mean, it's part of their issue as a company. Definitely choose them then. Right. This is your plan. Right. Kidnappers. How many?

I don't know how many kidnappers we have listening probably in the two hundreds. What? You don't think that there's any kidnappers listening to? I don't want to encourage and engage with our kidnapping. This is a joke. You sick fucker. I know you're joking. If I were a kidnapper, I would enjoy chain restaurants.

Sure. More than like a mom and pop sort of they're going to know me here. Yeah. You can kind of be a little bit more into the crowd. Yeah. And also, you know, you're probably going across the country probably trying to flee the authorities. You might appreciate the consistency.

Exactly. Because when you're a kidnapper every day is new, but the consistency of a chain restaurant is comforting. Thank you, Allison. Someone who can talk about kidnapping and now you open up about it, Nick. And now you got a lot of thoughts about it. Yeah. I don't have a lot of thoughts about kidnap.

Seems like you have a lot. Don't turn this around on me. I was going to say that one of the, one of just a great time in your life you can go through. You can go through drive-through. Right. You can hang out with it's great. It's great.

You can hang out with your friends. You get some fast food. You get drive-through. And then I do think that like you were saying Denny's, I remember on the East Coast like Bickford's or even maybe I hop because they're, but we're like any kind of diner breakfast place, which ties into what we're talking about today. But those were always, those are big places for kids in high school. I feel like.

Right. Because you're looking, we, we went to coffee houses a lot, but in general, you're looking for some place to go to hang out. Yeah. So it's always like a diner or a coffee house. Uh-huh. Coffee house diner. Yeah.

Those are great. Great times. I was, I was never much of a coffee house guy, but it was a big diner guy. I mean, like, you know, I really did, like you were saying Denny's was a, was a big one. Um, uh, Coco's, which we're reviewing today was, was one we'd go to Bob's big boy and then Baker's Square, which I think is folded, but it used to be a kind of a very, very analogous to these, these other chains and also Keros, which we, we reviewed very early on and was yes.

One of the worst chains we've ever been. I don't think there's any Keros down by where I grew up in Orange County. Right. I think of that as more of like on a road trip I encounter them. There's another, just as a specific reference that I now can't make cause I forget the name, but there is a, I think it's a 24 hour diner and there's one in Dana Point and Sunset Beach. This is just SoCal.

So for the kidnappers who are based in SoCal, they might know it. Right. So, Nick, what I mean, it's something, it's something house. It was near the water. It was actually surprisingly good. Someone is yelling at, at the, their speakers right now. Yeah. They have a name.

There's, there's, there's one, one person. There's gotta be someone who does this. Right. Hey, you know what? Yell at us in our at mentions. Hashtag SoCal mystery diner. Let us know which one it was. And also hashtag, I am a kidnapper.

Hey, you know what, if you're using that one at the FBI as well, so they can bust your ass. Agreed. We can both agree on that. So I wanted to get caught. That's why I hashtagged it on Doughboys. So yeah, what is it, what is it about a diner? Because that's the thing I feel like I used to, I, you're right that they're, they're

open late and it's a place you can kind of hang out, which is, which is a big thing. But also like I'm a big breakfast guy. So that was kind of the appeal for me is I feel like a diner, you can get breakfast anytime, which I love. I feel like every restaurant should have breakfast anytime because it's just such a great feature. But, but that's the appeal to you pretty much was just like it's kind of like a hang. It's kind of like an informal spot. Yeah, like after a night, well, then when I was older, like after a night of drinking

or after the bars, clothes or whatever. And then it's like, well, no one wanted to go home. So I go hang out at a diner. I also like the breakfast at night thing though, more than breakfast at breakfast. Yeah, I actually go for it. I agree with that in many ways. I never like breakfast at like, well, I think we have to define what is the breakfasting hour.

Nick, you like you like breakfast and you probably like like six a.m. breakfast. Well, I don't need that. Crazy, but I do. I do you're up. You were up at today at six a.m. Yeah, I woke up at six a.m. Today do is and it is six thirty yoga class, but I didn't have like I would

normally have breakfast if I am eating breakfast. It's probably about an hour after I wake up. Are there people in the six thirty yoga class? There were like four people. Jesus, but what can you describe these people? I mean, I was the one guy. So but I mean, it was they were, you know, they were in exercise enthusiasts, people with trying to get a nice start to their day.

Maybe, you know, you get to get the blood bumping before you go out and work a shift. It's a it's a thing people do. People go exercise. I believe it. I believe that they do. But but no, I am actually doing intermittent fasting right now. So this was a deviation from my normal routine, which is that I don't have. I have basically this is something I picked up from.

Hey, from Hello, a fellow head gum podcast, the dumbbells. That's right. The idea of having an eating window from an eight hour eating window and then sixteen hours of not eating. So I was I've been basically doing a 12 to 8 p.m. eating window. And then the rest I'm fasting today. We had a little bit earlier had a breakfast.

But yeah, I think I agree with you that. Because the the big American breakfast is so, so good, but so heavy. And like that's a very heavy start to your day that I think if I am going to do the like the eggs and the bacon and the pancakes and the hash browns and all that rigamarole, I think I'd rather have that as a later meal than versus having that at like eight a.m. You know what I mean? Yeah, because I feel like if you eat all that at eight a.m.

Then you have to just spend the rest of the day watching TV, right? Possibly running to the bathroom. Can I take us on a quick, quick tangent about head gum? I really like those guys and I like the head gum podcast. Are you going to try to talk us out of it? No, no, no, not at all because it's too late. But I was on a head gum podcast recently that recorded at their headquarters. You have to like hoist yourself up the side of a building to get it.

What is up with their lack of steps? It's a ladder. You know what? Well, we're going to get this song right, Nick. Yeah, this is you have a similar thought. You probably didn't. I'm very uncoordinated. So when I say a ladder base, I think there might be another way. I think there is another way in right just because of accessibility issues. I'm sure there's a back way. There is a back way in, but yeah, I always went through the ladder, which I thought was fun. It is. It is fun and cool and hip, but also I'm like, I could imagine

falling right. Not like a compliant for sure. I felt like a firefighter for a moment. It does make you feel that way. I want that would fail the physical test. Yeah, I mean, we record at Mitch's place. So there's no real. You got three steps to navigate. That's about it. It's gonna be tricky. Yeah. I mean, if it's late at night, you should get. I think your porch light situation could improve. What the hell? It's a little dim out there after hours. What do you mean? It's a little dim out there. I don't know. I feel like I'm gonna chip on, chip going down the stairs. Sometimes it record late at night.

That's your own fault. And I hope it happens. I hope you have an exorcist fall down my stairs. Hey, you know, if I die on your property, I think you're gonna be liable. Guess what? I don't own this place. Touche. Mitch, like, what is your... This is what I'm curious about because this is such a breakfast-focused chain and that we're reviewing today. What is your... Mitch, what is your breakfast of choice? Like, if you are gonna get the big breakfast, I know we all seem to like something a little bit lighter in the morning, but what is like your big breakfast of choice? I mean, if you're going all out, it will be

like eggs and bacon and like you were saying, and like a thing of pink, like a short stack. That's like the crazy... That's as crazy as I'll get though. And that's like never happens. That's like I'm drunk or I don't know what's going on, but... You any potatoes with that order? So normally what I would... Like, I feel like a regular breakfast... When I go out to eat or whatever. One, I love Eggs Benedict, so I'll try to get Eggs Benedict a bunch. And I also like... If a place like... If they send you the eggs and the eggs are overboit, they're the soft-boiled... Because it's soft or poached egg. Poached egg, yeah. But then

if it's hard, if they've overcooked it, I get very upset. Yeah, that yolk is just solid. If the yolk is solid, you gotta... If you're gonna have Eggs Benedict on the menu, you gotta have the soft yolk. You need the runny yolk. You need the runny yolk or it's... Then what is it? You know what I mean? So Eggs Benedict is big. And then sometimes I'll do an omelet or something. You know what I do, which is terribly unhealthy. But I would do... I used to do like a ham, ham, onion and cheese. And then I went to a bacon, onion and cheese. But that's too much bacon. It's so much bacon if they put it in an omelet. But anyways, my normal thing is

just like two eggs over easy bacon and toast and maybe some home fries, depending. So that's a good, good standard order. Alison, how about yourself? It's interesting. I have... I'm fairly disconnected from the foods that I actually enjoy eating. Okay. And what Mitch was saying is reminding me that I used to love Eggs Benedict. Oh, wow. That was like... It's so good. If we ever took a trip as a family when I was a little girl, Eggs Benedict is something I would definitely order. I haven't had it. I think I had a bite of my husbands in the last many years. My go-to breakfast... I'm not a big breakfast eater, but my go-to

breakfast would be like egg white omelet with something healthy in there. I'm always trying to eat healthy. So that's what I'm saying. This is like a reminder of like, oh, food that is delicious to eat. It's been, it's been so long. So, yeah, something egg white based or a salad. Although, although I'm a big... Breakfast salad, eh? Sometimes. That can work out. Yeah. But if I'm somewhere and there's like a surprise bread basket with pastries in it or something, like that's never sanctioned, but I definitely will want to dive into that. And in fact, my husband and I went to Paris a couple years ago. Wow. Yeah. We're fancy. I mean, we were

for those six days at least until I got horribly sick and couldn't eat anything. But before that... What the heck? What happened? I don't know if it was just like some kind of traveler's disease or if... I actually, it followed eating some cheese at this cute little place. I was going to joke that it was some sort of bad French cheese. Yeah. I mean, I think it was good French cheese that just didn't agree with my bad American stomach. I don't know what it was, but I was violently ill and I lost my appetite to such a degree that I actually thought like, oh, food will never be an issue for me anymore. Like I'm just done. I'm done with food. I've never had that happen before. And of course,

my appetite came back because I'm a human being. But anyway, there was this bread basket that they would deliver in the morning that was so good that I... We put it in the safe in the room because I didn't want them to take it that night. But then when I got really sick, it'd be... When I got really sick, the idea of... I felt like I could smell it. We have to get that out of our room. We have to get it. We had to go into the safe and remove all the breadstuffs. I would like it if robbers broke in your room and then broke into the safe and found a basket of bread. There's just so much jam. It feels like something you'd hear about Howard Hughes late in life. Yeah, he was keeping bread in his safe. Lost his mind. It was bread and

pastries. Just all sorts of delectable things and butter and jam. That's the thing is just when you get that big variety of... At a nice restaurant, you'll get just all these different breads and you're almost paralyzed by choice because there's so many options and then you end up having six pieces of bread because they're all different and they're all good. That is such an amazing restaurant experience when you stumble into that. I was in Paris for under six hours. I was there for... I was there helping shoot something and I literally just drove to the Eiffel Tower and then shot the bit and then had lunch and then left. I never got to see it ever, but it seems like a cool place. How was your lunch during your six hours there? They tried to

give me a bad piece of cheese and I denied them. Smart because you had to work. But speaking of bread, you know what bread I feel like is overrated and this just came up on my podcast that I think cheesecake is overrated and I'll never hear the end of it now, but I'm not... I'm sorry. I'm tired of apologizing. I feel like all of bread, everyone gets excited about it, not this gal. Yeah, I think that's certainly less of a searing hot take versus your anti-cheese cake agenda. I could be booked on like CNN for that one. It's my hot take. But yeah, I agree with you. The olive bread is... I mean, it looks better than it is. I think a lot of times... That's what I think. Yeah, it looks more appealing than it ends up. I get that.

I like it sometimes, but it can be very salty. It's my issue. Too much salt going on. I just insist anytime there's like, oh, this is something... Anytime there's an element on bread that's been sitting at room temp for too long. I know that it's totally fine and it's been baked and there's no microbial chance of any sort of bacterial infection or anything like that, but I always kind of have that sort of feeling of like, oh, this is like the equivalent of a sandwich that's been sitting here. Speaking of hard use. Okay, on a scale of one to four Purell bottles, how much of a germophobe are you? Oh, I think I'm just like a two. I'm not crazy about it. How much Purell do you squirt on your olive bread is my question.

No, I'm not crazy about germs, but I think there are things where I am very worried about food spoiling. I guess that's maybe a thing that I'm maybe a little bit more paranoid about than I should be. Yeah, but my dad, I've talked about this on the podcast, but he was such a guy who would try to... If there was mold on the bread, he'd throw up the piece of the bread, the one piece that was bad, which meant that there was going to be mold on the other pieces within the next day or so. Yeah. But he and I bit into moldy sandwiches more times than I can remember. Oh boy. I know. It was bad. Yeah. So I am like that too, Wiger, now, where I never want that experience ever again. So I will... What does it taste like? Bad. It tastes... Oh, God. Like,

I remember in middle school, eating a sandwich and being like, what's wrong with this? And I'm like, opening it and seeing mold. Yeah. I had a... I ended up throwing out a perfectly good sandwich once because I thought it was mold, but it was actually like a little bit of flour that had been dusted on it for presentational purposes. What? Wasted on you. Yeah. What the hell? I looked at it and I saw there was... Look, I was a kid and there was like some sort of... There was like a dusting of flour on top of the crust and so I was going to bite into my sandwich and I thought it had like white mold on it and I was like, oh, I'm not supposed to eat this. So I got rid of it, but then I laid out... I will say flour, white mold. That's the tricky one because it does look

like flour. I'll give it to you. Yeah. Yeah. You know what? We need to change the color of flour. Make it red. Yes. Then it can only be confused with like paprika. Yeah. Right. Which is fine. Paprika is fine. Yeah. See, there you go. Make flour red. Breds will be more fun. We'll get that movement started. So outside of diner culture and outside of OC, your big podcaster, you're a writer. I see you got a bottle of water while you're doing this podcast. What are your... Good observation. Thank you, Mitch. But it's thank you for calling it water. Right. It's actually... It's this refresh wild cherry sparkling water beverage that looks healthy, but it's very, very artificially flavored and artificially sweetened.

This has been a real point of contention in my life, especially lately. I don't like water. Wow. You love flavor. That way I'm not human. Right. I want to come... Here's the thing. I do like water when I really am extremely thirsty, but I'm with you. I'm afraid of saying it because people make fun of people who say they don't like water. Do they? They really do. They don't understand. Look, I don't hate... I don't... I like water, but I'm scared now to even say this. Come out. I want to. I'm trying to. It's hard because people are... I was saying this to Nick the other day because I'll drink sparkling water and I was saying like, oh, it never quenches my thirst. Right? We talked about this a little bit. Well, I think it does, but it maybe doesn't have the...

I think what it's doing physiologically in your body, it has the same hydration power as flat water, but it doesn't necessarily feel like that way in your mouth. Yeah. The mouth feel is different. And then so with regular water, I'm just like, it's just so boring. And then I'll try my best. I'll have best intentions. I'll have a big glass of water, try to drink a bunch of it a day, and I'll just... It will just sit there. I can't get myself to do it. Yes. I can't get excited about it either. I've spent like a whole day just trying to drink water, and if I failed, that means I did nothing. But do you feel like you're properly hydrated? Because while I don't drink that much water, I feel like I'm perhaps over hydrated.

Sure. And I know how gross... You probably don't get very gross on this podcast. No, we get gross as hell. Okay, good. I know this because I had a baby, and every time you would go in for every checkup, you'd have to give them a urine specimen. So I've peed in so many cups, and they have you put it on this tray that has... It almost looks like the worst kind of like past order or something, because it's just this tray with a whole bunch of cups of urine, and I put mine down, and they would all be like different shades of yellow, and then mine is like clear. So I'm like, I'm very hydrated, but given that I drink very little water, that means I'm drinking a ton of artificially sweetened beverages. Actually, wait a minute though. While I was

pregnant, I gave up all the artificial sweetener. So that means that I was... That was like the hardest thing I've ever made. The biggest sacrifice I've ever made for another person. So I guess I was drinking a fair amount of water, even though I was miserable doing it. I was gonna say, are you secretly pro-water, and you're telling this story? No. No. Like a some kind of double agent for water. No, but I still... Anytime I go in now, I still have to... I just noticed that like, oh, I'm actually very hydrated. Right. Oh, yes. The point of this was, Mitch, given that you don't like water, do you feel like you're still hydrated enough though? I don't know. Probably not 100%.

What color is your urine? Honey yellow? There are always bees around it. It can be... It's rarely clear. I need to get it more clear, but I don't always feel dehydrated. I usually feel like kind of normal. Yeah. I mean, I feel like... You're a big water guy though. Yeah. I think water might be my favorite beverage. I think I like... I think flat water is the most satisfying thing to drink. Well, I... You're so... I recently asked on my podcast, because I experienced something that I had never experienced before, which is I was thirsty and I actually craved water. Right. And everyone thought that was hilarious because apparently that's normal. Like apparently... Mitch, get this.

Apparently most people, when they're thirsty, they want water. Other beverages are just sort of recreation. Yeah. That's not how I am. Yeah. No, I get that. And when I'm thirsty, I want... I want... I always want something else is my issue, but that's sure. This is the sort of stuff. What is it that you want? God, I always want... I love Gatorade. The worst thing that it's so bad for you, and I've kind of given it up this year, which has been good. It's tough. I mean, because that is... It's so satisfying, especially... It's also so refreshing, and it's hard to replicate that refreshment from something else. Hey, just for people keeping score at home, Weiger's favorite drink, flat water, favorite ice cream, vanilla. Yes. A flavor. It's not plain.

I like vanilla, too. Vanilla flavor. Yeah. And I like... I was gonna make a joke. It's not worth it. Oh, no, no, no. Please, please. I was just saying, I like really boring sacks. Weiger, it just very... I hope my wife likes that. Fingers crossed. Weiger, what color is your urine? I think I... Your peening cup's left and right, right? Now, I have pretty clear urine. I would say I'm very high... I'm probably over... I'm probably similarly overly hydrated, because part of it is a nervous tick, is that I'm just kind of like constantly... I used to be... I used to have mints all the time. Now, I've mints less, and I'm just kind of sipping on beverages a lot. And I do do a lot of... I mention flat water, but I also do a

lot of... I've got a Pellegrino in front of me. I mention a lot of sparkling water as well. How often do robot men piss, by the way? Mitch, robot men don't piss. Your oil pan is empty once every week. But... And I drink a lot of coffee as well, and some iced tea. So, yeah, I'd say I'm quite well hydrated, and yeah, I have generally a pretty clear urine guy. I was getting, hey, a little behind-the-scenes thing. I'm in... Mitch, who does nothing, even though this is very little, I'm in charge of the beverages here at the house. That's correct. You're in charge of getting the drinks at your house, where we record for the podcast. Yes, it's nice. Are you belittling

that asshole? It's a nice contribution. He did offer me a beverage right when I walked in. That he's very good about that. A beverage is all around for everybody, and you... I had to tone it back. I was getting, like, lemon-flavored sparkling water, and why I was like, actually, could you just get plain sparkling water? And I was like, yeah, sure. I'll get plain sparkling water as well, because the flavor, what, gets you too excited? Is lemon just too much? No. Is it going to keep you up to 11 p.m. or something? I prefer the plain flavor-wise, but also to Allison's point earlier, because I like some of those. I like the Pamplemousse Le Coroy. I like some of the flavored ones. But to what you were saying earlier, I'm suspicious

of the artificial flavors that are laden in these. Even if it's zero calories, I'm just like, it's still got some sort of chemical or something going on. It's just no artificial flavor, doesn't it? Then whatever the natural flavor... I just don't trust it. I feel like you can't trick your taste buds. I feel like anytime... Because that's the whole thing they say about diet drinks, is that when you have those artificial sweeteners, your body still kind of treats it sugar, and it can lead to the same weight gain problems or the same sort of lack of weight loss rather than happens when people are drinking sugar beverages. But I don't know if that's the same... I don't know if that's the case. I don't know if there's been any scientific study about that with

just flavored sparkling water. But that's the thing, right? Because it's so new. But it's also so new. I feel like it could have the same sort of effect. Like it sort of primes your brain in some way. But you definitely don't think that water with squeezed in lemon is going to do that to you, right? No, because I think what you're getting out of that is just like... I mean, I think you're getting whatever the nutrition is in the lemon juice itself, right? I think you're being insane. All right. I just... I think that you are two Purelles regarding Purelle, but four Purelles regarding... Like if we're looking at it figuratively. Yeah, that's fair. I like the Purelle scale. And as far as washing my hands after I use the bathroom,

zero Purelles. I don't do that shit. Now it makes it seem like I have Purelle on my sink instead of soap. Right. That is always gross to me is that when there's Purelle in a bathroom, I feel like a lot of like... I feel like there is like a lot of fast food places or something, or like chains that have like a Purelle thing. And I'm like, I need fucking soap. Right. Don't give me fucking Purelle. Yeah. I just... Yeah. Have some actual... And this is the other thing. And you'll run at this sometimes. And it doesn't bother me as much when I'm at someone's place, because whatever, they're just stretching the soap to save a dime, or they're maybe out of this soap, they're out of refills, and they're trying to make this last a little bit. But if you're at

a restaurant and they've got the half soap, and then it's filled up with water to try to extend the life of the soap, I'm just like, that's not sanitary at all. No. Yeah. It has some legit soap in there. Yeah. Oh, and if they're ever out of soap, oh man, that drives me crazy. Like your restaurant has soap. Am I correct that the way you found out they were out of soap was by like touching that crusty, pumpy thing. Right. Right. Those pumps are, they are pretty gross. Yeah. They're disgusting. Yeah. I like the auto soap. Man, that's nice when you encounter it. Sort of wave your hand under it. Oh, you like the robot soap. How do you feel about the hand dryers versus paper towels? We're talking about the Dyson

air blade. That's that's really like the Cadillac and is the Cadillac, even the Cadillac, but that's like the Cadillac of those. That's the only one that works. I want a Dyson air body. I want. I want that. I want the body, the Dyson air body like an original body blade. Yeah. They don't have. If imagine if they had that, they should have it because it would blow you across the room towel. You know what the towel industry will crumble if it happens. Oh, big towel would hate that. That big towel would hate it, but hey, you would probably I'm actually I'm thinking about the electricity used to for a full body dry every day. Yeah, but I was saying that it could be good as far as like the washing using water. You know the water, the water benefits

might be worth it alone Dyson. I think Dyson should do it. Mitch, I think the electricity used to dry your full body might take down the power grid. Also blow your bits to the side. Yeah, all of them. I like that. I like that part of it. I want. I want my bits flying around. I want to see some action everywhere. Right Dyson, the body blade, they got to make it. Yeah, I still let me say this. I know there's not as futurist as I know that I we could be more futurist. I mean, we are in some we are in the hellish sort of dystopian ways. I mean, we have that's bad. Let's get the cool future stuff going. We have driverless cars going down pedestrians. Yeah, so we've got the we got that part covered. But yeah, we should start

getting sort of more of the fun stuff going. But I'll say this about the Dyson air blade. No, there are some big fans of it. I feel like it's not the killer app in the hand dryer space that it promised itself to be like it sort of put itself out there is like this is the the ultimate hand dryer. And I feel like when I use it, I'm kind of like this isn't that much better than a regular hand dryer. It still is the same sort of crazy. It's better, but it's not that much. You haven't used a regular bad hand dryer in a long time. I have. I've used they don't even try your hands. They don't do anything. Yeah, they make your hands warm. It takes a little longer to do to use, but it still works. This is insane. The air blade is better, but it's not so much better

where I'm like this is mind blowing. The airplane you run it through like two or maybe three times and your hands are dry. It's an incremental advance. It's not a revolution. Sorry, I disagree. It's like the difference between an elevator and just wishing you were on a different floor. I don't know. I find that those hand dryers maybe maybe my technique's wrong. Yeah, but I find they don't do anything, but the but the Dyson one actually does dry your hands. The Dyson one dries your hands. This is insane. How long are you like rubbing your hands together under that thing and then thinking that they're dry? I mean, it takes a while. It's not a fast process. 12 minutes. Do you have to hit it more than once

to turn on? Yeah, I put in an episode of Jeopardy. Watch half of it. No, I like I think you have to you have to put in the episode of Jeopardy in my brain. That's what I was hoping for. No, I think you have to you have to sort of flick the the water off into the sink first off of your hand already bad. This is already bad. You have to flick the water off and then you're pre drying right. Yeah, you have to pre dry a little bit and then you you hit the use of paper towel and then a lot of vigorous sort of rubbing underneath. I don't want to do that. The onus should be on them. Yeah, you're gonna rub your hand your wet hands together. This sucks. Look, I'm not defending the traditional hand dryer. I'm saying that the Dyson air blade is not

so much better than those are stock in the old fucking hand dryers. What is this? Why are you going after the air blade? The air blade is it's a good invention. It's a futuristic invention. It's possible. I have most of my 401k in Cubison's old timey hand dryer company. And Nick, I don't want to disagree with you just because it seems to be a fun thing we do on this podcast, but I have to. I do actually have to disagree with you regarding the hand dryer thing. I think that the Dyson does work a lot better than the other one. Agreed truly. I do. I really think that the air blade. Look, yes, it's not a hundred percent that like it's not like you put your hands in and then you take them out after five seconds and they're completely dry. You still

got to do a back and forth a couple times, but it's better than almost anything else. I don't know where the air. The air blade is is good. It's a good invention. Give them some credit for God's sake. You know to our listeners out there. If you're a Dyson air blade fan, hashtag Dyson fair blade and so they think it's fair. Yeah, fans. Okay. All right. And if you think it under delivers hashtag Dyson spare played perfect. That's perfect. Okay. Thanks. Thanks, Mitch. Wow. A Y. E. D. Yeah, fair, but this already shows that you have your route. You have a side or right is a fair blade.

What? Okay. Okay. Punch that up for me. Dyson great blade. Yeah. Okay. Dyson great blade. Dyson great. We didn't have to have it rhyme. This is the you. You were the one who said it and then you know a Dyson bad blade. If you don't like it, we'll take a break. We'll be back aboard. Oh, boys, welcome back to dough boys. We've calmed ourselves down after this heated Dyson air blade discussion where we've agreed to put it aside and get to this week's chain. So, I had to separate YouTube. I was still mad. I was crying. Before even the argument.

Allison, a Coco's was a place you used to go all the time as a kid. You were saying, there were two Coco's near, uh, near where I grew up. So oftentimes we'd go to one, occasionally we'd spice it up and go to the other. And we went as a family and then also sometimes my, just my mom and my sister and I would go and my mom would always order something to bring home to my dad. And I remember there was like a whole timing of when to put in that order for my dad. And it was one of two things that she would get from him. One was a chili size, which I'm still confused by the use of size. And are you familiar with what this is? I know what it is. And actually it is, it is a real treat. It's, it's like an open face chili

burger basically. And they didn't have that on the menu. I looked this morning and then, or she would get them, I think it was a mushroom Swiss burger for my dad. And then also when I, even before that, when I was younger, once a week, my dad would take me out and they're still married. It sounds like a divorced dad thing, but there's actually a married thing like so that she could get some stuff done at home. He would take me out and we would go to a toy store usually, and then we would get lunch and there was a couple of different places we went, but oftentimes that was Coco's as well. And then turns out my husband used to go to Coco's. He's not from Southern California. He's from Arizona, but they used to go to Coco's all the time too. It's almost like

Coco's is a much bigger part of my life than I'm aware to right now. But then I hadn't been to one in a million years until this, my husband and I went to one, I don't know, like four years ago. It might have been the one that we went to this morning. Oh, interesting. Because I remember we were both sort of disappointed and felt that it was sad, which is much like my reaction to how it was this morning. Yeah. I mean, and I have a similar history with Coco's that you do. There was one in my hometown of Lakewood. It used to be a Bob's big boy. And then they took the big boy out of there and then they changed it into a Coco's, which was pretty lateral. You know, it's kind of on the same level as a Bob's big boy, perhaps a little less fun. I actually recall it

being a little more upscale. Sure. Yeah. And I don't know if that's just my memory. Yeah. I honestly, like, I think it was, it's definitely like nicer than Denny's. That was at least my memory of it as it was a kid. Yeah, it was at one point. It was nicer. It was nicer than Denny's. Interesting to find out. And then that Coco's is closed and is now a Heritage Bakery, which is an up and coming local chain, as is my understanding. But yeah, that used to be a place I'd go to a lot. And it was a big family breakfast place for me. I had been for lunch before, but it had been, that was not nearly as frequent. I mean, I think breakfast in pies is what I always thought of Coco's as being. Which is what I think it is. And yet for us, it was always dinner or lunch.

In my growing up, I thought it was sort of on par in terms of niceness with like a Marie Calender's. But I don't know that it was. I think it's not anymore. I think it was, there was a time when it was a lot closer to that than it was to a Denny's. And now I feel like it's more like a Denny's. It's more like just sort of like a mainstream budget for Denny's. Wow. Was this your first Coco's trip, Mitch? This is my first Coco's trip. I gotta say that I have noticed Coco's around. And I feel like there must have been one closer to the city at one point that it's now gone, right? Like within the city, within LA somewhere, because we all had to kind of travel a little bit to find one. Yeah, they're all kind of dotted around the

exterior of there must have been one that was closer. That was around and then shut down. There's one in Culver City. There was one. Actually, there was one in Santa Monica fairly recently, actually right next to the just closed caros. There was a Coco's and a caros in the same like shopping center. Yeah. And they're both shuttered. Wow. Also, by the way, this is this is like a little bit of indel because I've been keeping an eye on the construction of the they closed down the caros and they're remodeling it. I think it's going to be a Mimi's. So if you're Wow, breaking shoes, breaking shoes. If you're if you're a driving down Ocean Park Boulevard, you see a chain restaurant under construction. If it ends up being a Mimi's, why are called it?

Wow, I can't wait for someone to say that. That is what it is. Yeah. I'm just saying it has some architectural features that resemble of Mimi Jesus. What brick? Yeah, structure, basic structure. It might be a kitchen for a stove. I I've noticed Coco's around and they always like it's the same thing with norms. I've never been into a norms, which is another kind of diner out here. Yeah, and they're just like always these things that I noticed that I'm like, oh, that's funny. That like looks interesting and I like I kind of like the old look and charm of the of a Coco's, but then last night, even the one I want to like the sign was like faded and old sure and we don't have to get into it right away

because I know we're just generally talking about it, but like the interior was drab. It was it was it was bad. It was not looking good. It needs. Do we say what part of town we went to? Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I was I was in Highland Park, okay, which seems like I was, you know, in my mind and there were like actually like the it was like for like like close to four stars on like the Yelp page or whatever when I looked it up and I was like, oh, this is like Highland Park is a hip part of town. Maybe this is like a thing that people because look here's what I have to say. I love diners and like we're saying I have so many good memories of going to diners late night, getting breakfast late at night and I just thought it would be something like that. Like I feel like

that's not that hard of a thing to pull off to have decent breakfast food, but what I found out one of the and I and I agree with you, Nick. I think that every diner should sort serve breakfast and I think it might. I think Coco's might do it, but they give you the menu menu when you go in there at night and they and there's no option for breakfast at least on the menu. I think most of their breakfast options stop at 11 a.m. Which is and they close fairly early too. Yeah, they're missing their true calling. They should be a day. They should be. They should be a denny's right and and I feel like that's like. I think it's very possible. I think it would be very possible to do that, but it just seems like this. It feels like it's hard for me to even comment on

something like this because it feels like a thing of yesteryear where you guys might have some good attachments to it and I am seeing maybe the end of it right. Well, that's I feel like that's what I saw. Yeah, today as well. Right. I think I mean, I agree because I you know, that's that's always the test with something that you've been to it. You went to as a kid and then you're returning to later in life is how much of my attachment to it was nostalgia and how much of it was. Oh, this was actually good and my kid brain actually perceived this correctly and I think this one is well, I mean, let's get into it. Mitch, let's talk about your experience because you went for dinner last night. I went for dinner last night. I went with David Phillips, who was a guy who who

also grew up in the Los Angeles area. He had fond memories of going and I said, come with me. I'll buy your dinner if you come to this terrible place and he came and he came with me and he and he and when he walked in there, you know, there's like by the way that seems it seems like you're a little prejudice going in. You're calling it a terrible place. I mean, I was nervous that it could be bad right. Okay, here's what I'm going to say though. Yeah, unlike caros, which I was like this place should die. Yes, bad. I kind of felt sad with cocos for whatever reason. It made me feel sad because I I felt some sort of warmth there as well. Sure. Whereas caros just felt like it was like it was it needed to be put down. Cocos is like not a hundred percent needs to be put down yet,

but it feels like it's on its way out and it feels like they don't care anymore, but they did at one point. Yes. Yeah, you can you can still feel that warmth is maybe why I kind of cared for and and Phillips told me that he would have had good experience of coming after, you know, like after Lakers game or when he was a kid after Disney or something like that. I think there was one down in Anaheim, but just going in there, it just like it looked like, you know, and in like high school or like, like, like those like flora, like the fluorescent lights. Yes, like when you're sitting in a room, you're like, like the like the it just like they like are buzzing. Like it just had like that. That was like kind of the atmosphere in there. There were

there were a couple tables. We went. We got there about nine p.m. It closes at ten and there were there were like a like maybe like three or four other tables, which is more than I even. I honestly thought we would maybe be the only people in there, but there were a few more people in there and the and the staff was nice and and, but the food was was definitely a different story. I can I can I can wait on that, but no, let's get into it. Okay. I had so Phillips and I we ordered the the I forget the works platter, which is like an appetizer platter, which we did at caros and our waiter actually recommended to do it because we were thinking about what to get and he was like, you should just do the the works platter. I mean, all right,

we'll get it and it comes with southern style chicken strips, crispy onion straws, chicken and avocado rolls and green chilies and cheddar quesadilla. So the green chili and cheddar quesadilla is the one we almost got as an appetizer and that comes with barbecue sauce and and a spicy chipotle sauce. So the onion strings were good and then the chicken strips as soon as you bit into them, like you could just tell that they were just had been frozen forever, right? Like in like it makes sense. Just looking at that place like you're like, yeah, I'm sure that they have a bunch of old chicken strips frozen in their freezer. They maybe just eat buying them from Cisco as is like buying them from a wholesale supplier. They're not even something they make.

You could taste you could taste the freezer. It would like they just were not tasting great. The chicken and avocado rolls were inedible. They were so bad. They were like what kind of bad they like just biting into them. You're like, this is gross. Like I don't want to continue eating this like a taste old and frozen and bad and gross. The onion straws were good. Yeah, they were good. They were like maybe the only thing on there and then the the green chili and cheddar quesadilla. It was like almost good. It was it was it was the second best thing and it was it just was like a little bit like kind of like sloppy and like runny and and that was the issue is it was just kind of like wet. The cheese wasn't good. It sounds like the cheese.

Well, yeah, there were there were issues with it, but it was like a thing that was like oh this tastes better right than other things, but that was that that and that's how we started our meal. Yeah. So you can you can go Nick if you want because yeah and then we each got some some main dishes after but by the way on that subject on the appetizer sampler sort of like that big like you know plate of just of all the different apps note that just just makes me think of a co-worker of mine back when I worked in video games and I won't name him because he's very shy, but he had a diet. He had a diet that was like, you know, it was like a kid who'd been turned into an adult like the he just like he had a big diet and so like he would like we would go to

like iHop and then his meal would be the appetizer sampler platter. Isn't it weird and big that they have sex though? Like she has sex with him. Yeah, it's weird. That's pretty crazy. Right. Pedophilia when you think about it. Yeah, it's a crime. I mean, she didn't know. There should be a follow-up to big where she gets arrested. And then she's she's like, I'm telling you he had turned into a man. It was like, yeah, right lady. So Allison and I and our and our good friend Jordan Morris went to the the the Cocos, rather, I was going to say carols, the Cocos up in Van Nuys area. It's Panorama City actually was the specific area, but up in Van Nuys, California in the valley. And it's a, you know, ample parking, which I like. I do. That's one

thing I like about a diner. Sounds like a park. Hey, you know, also Cartman was there, which is interesting. But the I really, I will say, because we sat down there and one thing that I liked right away, and this was this was one of Jordan's observation is they give you a Mitch, I don't know if you I know you're not a big coffee drinker and probably not at night, but they give you a very tall mug of coffee with a big handle, which is great. I really like that. And that's like that sort of set the table. I was like, Oh my God, this is going to be a great diner experience. Got that big old mug, mug of Joe. And they were very quick to refresh it. Yeah, lots of refills on the coffee and the water, which was very nice. But then, yeah, actually getting

into the food. Well, Alison, what was your, tell us about your standard order at Cocos, because I know this was a thing that we, this was part of our, our decision making. And I think we both sort of landed on, we're going to try to get the standard order that we used to get when we were kids. Yeah. So I would usually get a salad with, they had a really good buttermilk ranch dressing. Okay. I believe that's what it was. It was ranch. I think it was buttermilk ranch. And then my mom always got, she ordered Roke Fert. And I don't know if they actually called it that or she was, that was just her fancy term for blue cheese. Yeah. So I wanted, so I got, so I got a salad and I asked for both of those dressings on the side. So I always got

a salad. Oftentimes I would get their cream of broccoli soup, which I tried to order, but it wasn't ready yet. And then sometimes I would, I went through a phase where I would order their french dip sandwich, or sometimes I would get, I think it's the turkey, Swiss and avocado on a croissant, or croissant. I've been, I've been attacked for the way I say croissant, but do you know Jensen Karp, he does not like the way he feels like it's pretentious. And I feel like I don't want to be a pretentious person. What do you say, croissant? No, I don't, I don't frenchify the end. I just say croissant, but he's feels like you say you leave the R out. Yeah, he feels it should be croissant. And it does sound right when I say it that way. How do you guys say it? I say, I mean,

these French people gave you bad cheese. You might as well say, you might as well. Yeah, I say croissant. I say croissant. Maybe I'm just gonna switch. Yeah, you know what, you be your, you be you. Yeah, maybe it's not working. Maybe it's not working for me. No, don't anymore. You're self conscious. You're letting Jensen Karp tell you what you should and shouldn't do. Jensen Karp, suck it. Wow. You guys might need to settle it with a battle wrap. Is there a venue in which to do that? I don't know. I mean, I'm working on something. I'm gonna sell a show. I'm working on a show I might sell on that, on that concept I invented. So I ordered the French dip and the salad and first of all, the salad came on the same plate,

which I don't think is how it used to be. The salad was a little came on its own plate back in the day and the sides of dressing were tiny little plastic cups. I feel like in the old days, it would have been a silver late kind of situation or the gravy boat. So why don't they do? They should give you a little, hey, come on. We're making too much waste as is. Yeah. Wash those little things. Yeah. And instantly I said, this looks more gelatinous than I remember the dressing. So the dress, I think they changed the dressing or it's one of those things where I just remember it as different, but I remember it being pretty fresh and good tasting and this had a, it's been in a bottle or a vat kind of flavor. It wasn't terrible though. And the blue cheese was really,

really strongly seasoned, like very salty and garlic powdery and whatever it is in there. I don't remember it being that strongly flavored, but I mean, it had a strong flavor, but it just wasn't as good as I remembered at all. The sandwich, when you dipped it into the oh just, that's probably how Jensen Karp would, oh just would recommend pronouncing it. It was fine, but then I took a bite of the meat just plain and I pretty much kind of wanted to spit it out, but I didn't because I was around you guys, but it was so, it was dry and just not good. Yeah. I had one bite of your sandwich, as did Jordan. And I would say that just, I was unimpressed as charitable. I mean, like the bread was very doughy. I feel like the meat was

just flavorless. Yeah. It was a real bummer. I got, so I got the, I got an order that I would get as a kid and this is something, this was just a diner favorite of mine, country fried steak and eggs. So the, you get kind of two hamburger patty shaped fries, the chicken fried steak and they're, it was nice and crispy batter. The well seasoned, surprisingly, and then the gravy was thick and rich and it had some sausage bits in it. Biting that chicken fried steak and dipping in that gravy, I was like, oh man, this is great. This is exactly what I remember. This is satisfying. And the scrambled eggs as well, I thought were very, they were nicely cooked and buttery, very good diner eggs, but the rest I found pretty underwhelming, the country potatoes.

And you know, I asked our waiter, I would say our server was, was clearly overworked. Yeah. She had, she clearly had a lot of tables to take care of and but, but I would say she was, she was perhaps a little unenthusiastic and that may reflect more on management than on this individual worker. I don't want it to, to call her out, but Namer. I'm not going to name her. I'm not going to name her. I'm not going to get someone at the Van Nizer or Panorama City. Coco is in trouble. That's not the mission of this podcast. But you think the HR listens? Hey, you know, it's, we have the social media from some Jane restaurants that interact with us sometimes. So I don't want to get anyone in trouble. I,

that she did a very nice job overall. She just clearly had, they probably were a little understaffed that might have reflected on it, but she was pretty unenthusiastic about all the potato options. And I can understand why? Cause the country potatoes were very under seasoned, not really crispy at all. Like you expect some nice like crunch or crispiness to them. They were just sort of like chewy and not satisfied. This seems to be a theme because my, our server at, at the restaurant, he, he was not enthusiastic about many options that we were asking about. Nick, you asked her which potato she would recommend and she said they're both good. Yeah. It was very, it was very flat and detached and you know, like she was,

she was just spewing the corporate line. And also, you know, and again, harkening back to Keros, that was a similar thing we experienced with the, with the server there, where she said, she was so ready for a new job. She flat out said, I don't know if you remember this, Mitch, she flat out said, we asked her what the best things were on the menu and she flat out said, Oh, I don't eat here. I don't eat here. Which was insane. Yes. Oh, that's like a, do you think that she was just answering honestly, or do you think she was trying to tell you that nothing is good? I think she was doing a combo. It was a combo. Yeah. Low from column A, low from column B. So continuing on, on the menu. So I ordered a

Coco's famous buttermilk biscuit and here's why it was my favorite thing that I used to get there and great with that gravy. And then also this is the menu description verbatim I copied made from scratch using sustainably farmed flour. Our biscuits are flaky golden and fresh baked. They're really making a big point out of these, these biscuits. They don't have biscuits at this one. So I asked for their famous coffee cake. I said, can I get the coffee cake? Because that's another thing. They really call out the menu. This is our signature thing. They don't have the coffee cake at the Van Nuys Coco's. What's going on with these franchises? How do they not, how are they not carrying the company's, they were just out of it that day or like, Oh, we don't have that

here. I got the sense that they were maybe out of the biscuits and they flat out don't have the coffee cake. Like they like, when I asked which breakfast breads they had and they have a bunch that they're trying to, they're supposed to be selling their bakery, all they offered me was toast and pancakes. So wow. Yeah. So I mean, I don't, I feel like consistency is such a big part of these chains. If this is going to be a signature item there, like you got to make sure you, you carry it, you got to, you got to get your franchises in order to make sure that they're all, they're all toe in the company line here. So I settled for right toast, which was as fine as toast can be. It was not exciting at all. It was as fine as toast can be. It was as mediocre as toast

can be. I didn't taste it, but I saw it being delivered onto the table and it actually looked kind of unappealing and I'm not sure why it was. Well, it was a little under toasted or under toasted. Yeah, it was. I mean, it may, it may have had the appearance of being in the toaster too long, but when I actually bit into it, it was like a little soft and chewy and then it was, you know, whatever. It was just kind of lazily a bludder. Toast right at this place. By the way, it's supposed to be a bakery restaurant. Yes. And there's a little cupcake. What is that a little cupcake? It says cocos and there's a little cupcake. Yeah. Right. Isn't there like a little cupcake part of their logo on the logo? Yes. Yes. Take a look at the code. Look at those. There's

a little. I think I've ever paid attention. A little muffin, rather a little muffin. Oh, yes. Yes. Yeah. In the middle in between bakery and restaurant, there's a little muffin there. There's a little muffin. It makes me think that there's like oh they're cooking bread and like when, when, when Phillips and I got there, it was like, oh, like we're going to get like so like a basket of fresh bread or something, you know, and there was nothing like that. You don't get any. There's, there's, there is no, there is no indication that this place is making fresh bread or is a bakery restaurant in any single way, you know. Yeah. There's that. There's that logo. Allison. The first time I took this image, I tried to type cocos logo real quick,

and I actually typed in crocs logo, and then you looked at it for five minutes. Pull up your home page. I was going to get the top sirloin in wedge salad for dinner. That was what I saw on the menu that I originally was like. Oh, I'm going to get. It was like this steak that's on this piece of bread, like cheese, garlic, cheese bread, and then there's a wedge salad with it, and I asked our server. I was like, what do you think about? And I probably don't know. I don't know if I should have taken this guy's advice as it turns out, but I was like, what do you think of that thing? And he's like, no, and I was like, what do you mean? No, he's like, he's like, I don't, he's like, I don't like the wedge. I was like the wedge. He was, he had an issue with the wedge.

Yeah, he's like, yeah, the wedge. I was like, how was like the other thing like the meat? And he was like, it's okay. And I was like, well, how about the prime rib, Philly sandwich, and then he was like, oh, that's, he said it was bomb. Okay, is how he described it. And I said, okay, well, I'm going to get the prime rib Philly sandwich, though. I don't feel good about this sandwich. I'm going to get it. I got that and I got it with French fries. Was it bomb? It came out. David Phillips ordered a cheeseburger and he was like, I'm going to go safe. I'm either going to do tuna melt or cheeseburger. He got a cheeseburger with sweet potato fries. My prime rib Philly sandwich came out and I took a bite of it and it was like inedible. It was like it was another

caro's situation where I was like a bummer. I can't eat this. Philip took a bite. Like it was like not as it honestly wasn't as bad like the car was when I couldn't even touch. I took a few bites of this, but it was like it was not and Phillips thought it was the quality of the meat. It just was not good. It was not good. The fries were decent. They tasted like Burger King fries, which are not the best fries. Yeah, they were like okay, and they were edible enough that I was eating them, but the the the prime rib Philly sandwich was just was bad. It was just bad and I don't know if it was the quality of the meat. It kind of tasted like kind of like mushroom. It just tasted like grimy and it was bad. Now here's the crazy thing. Phillips's burger was good

and he gave me half of it and it was actually good and I was like oh maybe this is just like such like kind of like a like a classic diner-y thing that they could. They just got this one down or something right, but the his his cheeseburger was it was good. It was it was it was decent, not great, not a great cheeseburger, but like lower end of like decent. So like it was like a passable diner cheese, like a passable diner cheese burger. Did it happen to have a little wooden paddle stuck in it saying if it was like rare or medium rare because I'm all of a sudden remembering they used to do that. There was a wooden paddle, but I don't think it had any temperature like I didn't think it indicated the temperature, but it was like it was a meal saver in many ways

and it and and and and like it wasn't a great, but it was decent. You know, it'd be fun if those little paddles like if you're doing like another Stuart Little movie, if you got a couple of those paddles from burgers and then he was using them to like roll a little boat. Send that to someone. Hold on a second. If they were doing another Stuart Little movie, is the setup for all of this? Like if they had a when he had another, they reboot the franchise could be fun. I don't know if it would be worth it to reboot the franchise for this one bit. I don't think that one moment is necessarily worth it. I got news for you. We'll go on. What I have some pitches if they make another Stuart Little movie. I got news for you. Get on the Paddington

train, baby. Oh boy Paddington's good. How big is Paddington? Could he use his paddles to canoe? He's no. He's far too big for these. He regular stuffed bear size. Yeah, bigger even. What's that? He's. Oh, something crashed outside. You hear that? Do you want to go check? No, okay. No, he's he's he's like a little bear. He's like a little bear. And you know what? In the movie, he is a bear. He is a bear cub. He's like he's he's yeah, because I guess that's what Paddington is. Anyway, yeah, no, there's always. I'm talking like a little tiny creature. I get smaller objects for little is smaller than Paddington. Okay. I'm just saying if they make another Stuart Little, I'm saying I was saying get on the Paddington train because it's okay. Fine

Stuart Little's dead. You hear me? Hold on. He's gone. He's dead. He's done for canonically. Yeah. Well, how long does a mouse live? All right. The lifespan of a rodent means that the original Stuart Little probably died. Yes, but it can read how many generations of Stuart Little has died in the movie. Well, let's see what his great grandson is up to. More than that is like great, great, great grandson. He's probably caught in a trap somewhere. Anyways, Jesus. Watch Paddington. It's good. It's a good movie. So anyways, yeah, that prime fillet rib, Philly sandwich. It's thinly shaved prime rib with sauteed peppers, onions, melted Swiss cheese

on grilled sourdough bread. Just bad, bad, bad, bad. The cheese didn't have much flavor. It just was. No, not really. It just was so bad. It was so bad. Like you would, you would have taken a bite of it and been like, this is like I can't have. I can't have like that is how I feel. And I took a couple more bites because I was like, maybe it's better than like maybe I need to get into it a little bit and then that wasn't the case at all. Yeah. So like we ate of the of the two halves of it. We ate like like a quarter of the one half. Yeah. So the cheeseburger was good and then we did and I got to die Pepsi just to let people know. And then also we did get dessert, which maybe do you want to do you want to talk about? Did you

guys get dessert? We didn't. Well, actually, you know, I actually got us a little dessert to go and it's I'll leave it to you guys. If you, if anyone wants to have a bite of this, but I got us a a little chocolate raspberry cake. So it's chocolate harvest. Yeah, let me I have the exact name here. I think you're I think that sounds right. It's a raspberry chocolate harvest. You are correct. So the and this was they they have like they have like a crazy raspberry promotion going on right now. Yeah, very strange. Yeah. So the raspberry promotion is weird. Yeah. So Alison, if you like no pressure, there's a fork for you. I'm gonna grab a fork here. Mitch, feel free to

grab a bite. There's another fork here for you. You can pass this over. So this kind of has like a little bit of a just as like a little bit of a raspberry topping. Can I say something before you guys bite and chocolate cream filling? So so DP and I, we got ourselves. We got a chocolate cream pie and a dark chocolate chip cheese and we liked the pies. Yeah, we thought the pies were good. I don't know how this one is. It might be bad. Well, I just took a bite of it. I like this pie. It's not bad. The pies were pretty good. The pies were good. The pies were good. Yeah. And we were like, huh, the pie is decent. Mm hmm. Thank you. The and the cheeseburger was half good. And honestly, it saved it from a Carol situation

for me. Yeah, I will say I mean that that's got like a nice, you know, the chocolate cream flavor is is is good and not too rich and like that little bit of raspberry is a nice touch. It's kind of like a mousse. It is like a mousse. Yes. Yeah, it is very it is lighter than you would think. And the whip topping on is nice, nice crust. It's a good pie. They've got a very solid pie there. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, the best pie, but hey, you know what, it's passable. You could sit down there with a cup of coffee and a slice of pie and probably be satisfied if that's what you're craving. They're advertising should be like. Cocos don't eat our meat. Entrees are for suckers pies only. They used to have cookies as well. Yeah, they had a lot.

They had like a big bakery selection and I don't it's kind of been reduced. The bakery. The bakery factor is the bakery factor. Besides this is it's just gone. Yeah, besides the pies, a very sad thing when we were there, like Phillips and I were like, Oh, we should look at like like the pie and because Phillips is like there's like this little website on the bottom of the menu that says like pie in this guy dot com or something. Wait, our segment pie in this guy dot com. I mean claim the URL. You know, I don't know what the hold on. I got to figure out what the exact one was, but here's the thing. This is the sad side of it. We put it into like see more about it's like for more about the pies go here and the website was defunct. It was it was dead.

It didn't even load. Boy, it just was completely dead link. Well, that's a bummer. Well, you know what? Let's get to our final thoughts on Cocos. So Allison, this is how this will work. We'll all go around. You can kind of give your closing argument, your summation of thoughts on this chain based on a lifetime of experiences there. And then end by giving it a rating on the order of zero to five forks. We will start with you. Cocos was a huge part of my childhood. I always enjoyed going there. I have really fond memories. And it was disappointing in a number of ways today, although I'm not ready to say goodbye entirely to Cocos. I do think a little bit it was sort of a depressing part of maybe they only exist in depressing parts of town. I don't know,

but like just the general vibe of the whole block wasn't maybe that no, no, I think it was Cocos itself that just felt it just felt like, oh, the sun has kind of set on this place. Maybe even take Cocos off that block, that block flourishes. Right? Well, I did pass explicit vapes, and I don't know what goes on there. It's like an adult store and also vaping, or they just, it just said X vapes. And then if you look closely, it said explicit next to X. So I don't know. I want to give it two fork, two tines or two forks? Forks. I want to give it two forks. Although you can add tines if you like. You want to do like a half or a quarter fork. You could do one and three quarters forks or if you wanted to. In my gut, I'm going to give it two,

but I think an argument could be made that it deserves a couple of tines less than that, but it's still two to me because if I had wanted to continue eating my meal, I could have powered through a little more. Right. But I was just sort of like this in general is not that good and also the menu has the calories too. So it's like this is super unhealthy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. See, I'm still, I'm still, I'm still willing to say that maybe if I had ordered differently, it could have been okay, but nothing that happened would suggest that's the case. I'm sorry. Cocos, you get one and three quarters forks. Wow. One fork, three tines from Alison Rosen. Mike Mitchell, go ahead. Look, Cocos. I want to like it because I like, I like old diners.

I like to look at it. It's a sad thing to me. Yeah. That a lot of old diners are kind of dying out. It seems like a dying breed. My mom has always complained about this like in Quincy, like she's like, there's no more like diners like there used to be and she's right in a lot of ways. Cocos though. Look, Coco the gorilla that Eva Anderson doesn't believe can actually communicate. She makes a convincing case. That's fun. Coco beware the wrestler. That's fun. Yeah. My mom's nickname is Coco. That's great. I like this because her name is green. And so I, I like the name Coco. I want Pixar's Coco. Pixar's Coco. There's a lot. Coco. There's a lot of stuff. Coco is a nice word. It's a good name. Yes, it's it works

and I want to root for it, but this is just something that we see in it and this one makes did make me more like for for what's it called the other place that was terrible caros. We want to put it out of its misery. This one I did feel worse for, but like the menu is a mess. Phillips made a great observation of if you look at a menu in the food on the menu isn't appetizing in the menu. That's like terror. That's a bad, bad sign and I think that Cocos needs to do a couple things. I need. I think one they need to serve breakfast all day to they need to simplify some stuff down on that menu and just figure out what the hell they're doing and just do some diner classics. That's it. Do like 12 things total and do diner

classics and keep that place open till three in the morning and and and and and just concentrate on making good diner food. I don't even know why I'm trying to help save it. I don't know if it's I don't know if it's ever gonna and but I get it because I have. I'm a guy who's I am huge nostalgia man and I care about everything in Quincy that is closing and I want like something for my childhood that I love. I want it to be good. You could equate this to Star Wars in some way or something, but but I feel for you guys. I get that this was like a special important place and that it makes me feel sad, but they gotta they gotta make some changes if they want to survive. I feel like the door is about to be closed and and and it's and it's on

them to see if they can open it back up again, but there's a lot of work to do. The inside is just kind of like dreary and not great. There's there's so much stuff and I feel like this might just be a thing where there's a generation of older people that once those people have passed on or then this place maybe just will will go away. Are we those people we might we might be those people right probably handholding club for me one fork in one and a three quarters fork wow one fork three times one fork three times a lot of fond memories of cocos used to go as a kid. I mentioned this earlier the detail I forgot to mention after Long Beach Poly High football games Friday night lights for some reason that what cocos was a place a lot of kids went to.

So I remember I remember some cocos gatherings there. We were sitting at a table separate from all the kids. Hold on. I was part of a social circle in high school. Jordan Morris our friend got the everyday breakfast combo which is $7.99 Monday through Friday until 11 a.m pretty good value in this day and age for chain restaurant fare and he thought it was nothing special but fine kind of standard fare. One thing I will say he asked for because they had they have Tabasco on the table and he asked our server for a different hot sauce and was met was like you know do you have like a chelula or a tapatio because Tabasco's whatever it's fine and was met with a very curt we have Tabasco which I'm just also like why not carry some more hot sauces you know people

like them. You know what's weird Jordan does I asked him his thoughts about Tabasco he doesn't like it because it looks like come yeah we using to me yeah we Jordan ran past that at the meal Jordan get to a fucking doctor my man that is bad he put some on a plate to demonstrate and we were like not at all convinced I'm there's I have so many questions unless he just was really straight faced making a joke no I think he would he really I think he means like from like I think he means from like the viscosity of the viscosity globular it is Jesus it's kind of yeah I don't I don't color to me is it's that one of the main facets it's so distinctly red it's hard to think of it they are both spicy right does Jordan have dog eyes is that the issue she's the world in black

and white it actually made me wonder and I'm just gonna dig into this for a second it made me wonder is there some new like cream based Tabasco on the table that I am unaware of well I think maybe the jalapeno version is like a little bit closer to yeah a white color it's still green yeah it's green it's not I would not I would not describe it as such anyway that was his that was a strange observation of his but his overall assessment because I delegated one of my five forks to Jordan as he joined us at this meal and he gave it a total of two times on one fork so two times is our floor here we're starting from two times what do I want to add to that well I found my meal just underwhelming and I found the service that could have been you know charming

and and even though it was it was good at doing the job of like making sure we were getting our food and getting things refilled I felt like it was relatively inattentive and relatively like that we that it was somebody who didn't really present any sort of hospitality towards us which is fine I understand you know who knows what someone's going through in their day who knows why that might be reflected in this individual shift but uh it wasn't a particularly comforting sort of diner experience one weird thing I noticed Allison I'm not sure if this is this is a thing you you caught because it was over your shoulder but there was an old man behind you and he was eating his meal with just a knife no I didn't see that yeah it was kind of a badass

move yeah it sounds like crocodile done by the way maybe Jordan buys his Tabasco from some freak gets it from a guy in an unmarked van Tabasco is written on this in pencil all right so uh yeah I found the I found the food and service both underwhelming you know the the country fried steak itself was nice but the rest of the meal was was just did not deliver and yeah the fact that they were just out of there some of their signature items was a bummer so I will I will add an additional fork and a half to this however that pie was pretty good the pie is good I'm gonna say that gets it an extra tine in and of itself two forks wow one time oh highest rating

yeah well I mean we're ballpark buds here but none of us are none of us had a particularly uh fun experience I mean this caro at this cocos rather I keep saying caro's instead of Mitch we keep making this mistake and there's a reason there's a reason for it and also I got to say that the the pie in the the pie really saved the whole thing and then and then the his burger was Phillips's burger was decent right so there were there were a couple of meal savers where if Phillips had gotten something bad it would have been all on the pie probably would have been a lower score maybe would have been a one or one and a quarter or something yeah but uh but yeah not not great my my service seemed to be a little bit better I feel like my guy didn't

he get he led me in the wrong way but he seemed like a much nicer guy he was not he was a younger kid right he brought me ranch for he he just brought ranch for the appetite he was like you guys want ranch he brought over some ranch he was very nice what was it delivered in it was delivered in a little plastic backup yeah not great uh hey Mitch I thought of another cocoa team cocoa hey cocoa himself cocoa is a good word all right that was a review of cocos it's time for a new segment I've got some chain restaurant trivia and Mitch and Allison must guess what's food fact and what's food fiction this is fake chews and Mitch this week's topic on the first day of song no I don't have a song uh this is the first time we're doing this is the first

time segment inaugural segment and this week's topic for this first one this first edition minor mcdonald's land characters okay now look we all know ronald grimace the hamburger mere mac cheese I mean we can recite these like we recite the members of our immediate family that's right but these aren't these guys these are just some real mcdonald land deep cuts all right this is like the star wars expanded universes equivalent of bel dorian the hut jedi or pohas equish the horse x-wing pilot so we're gonna see if you guys can ID these so here's what we'll do I'll name an obscure mcdonald land character and you each are going to tell me if you think this one is real or fake chews okay first up sunday the dog ronald's talking dog who has a feud with a

hamburger and loves outer space I go ahead you can go I think he's real Allison says real I also want to say real you are both correct sunday the dog is very real it's one one next up does the winner get the rest of this pie yeah the winner gets the balance of that pie and this empty bottle on your table that's not empty it's full okay it's from you song's family oh okay never mind they get your router first of all that's a nest it's a fire smoke detector okay it's sitting on the table because I've never installed the thing on the ceiling and you know what it's for my baby cat so if there's ever a fire I can come home and save them all right fine your smoke detectors say so it would send you an alert it would send me a yeah it

sends you an alert on the phone yeah here we'll say they get the pie then that's fine they just get the pie next up shepherd browns an absent minded shepherd who neglects his flock in pursuit of mcdonald's hash browns I am gonna say Allison you want to go first this is my problem with these things because I'm trying to I'm trying to now think in what way are you trying to outsmart us like would you do it true and then it falls or would you do I think he's real okay I also think he's real he is not real shepherd oh no it's a fabrication next up uncle o grimacy and irish green grimace who appears to evangelize for the seasonal shamrock shake I think he's fake I'm gonna say real Mitch he is real wow and he is he looks like you

let me see a picture of this guy turn this around I'm gonna be shocked if he looks like me really hey it kind of does all right we'll do a couple more uh uh uh the score is allison as one mitch has two uh next up cosmic a space alien who talks like a surfer dude and trades flowers for mcdonald's food I think he's fake I also think he's fake cosmic is real what what that is insane it also mitch it just sounds like a very irish slur yeah cosmic maybe it is I mean they got they're not being very sensitive with uncle o grimacy all right couple more score is score remains one two the talking trash cans anthropomorphic garbage bins that love to eat trash that children put inside them this feels real it feels educational

and real I'm gonna say false fake allison you are correct the talking trash cans were real they existed in a mcdonald's campaign that was trying to tell kill kids not to litter in the early 80s one more guys littering school tiebreaker this is the tiebreaker this one will settle it cch pounder officer big max boss she's a no-nonsense police chief with the head of a quarter pounder I'm gonna say real because I want her to be real nick I'm gonna wrap up this game right now fake cch pounder went to ithica college and was on the shield a very accomplished actress best known for the shield mitch you have won the pie congratulations you also get to keep a smoke detector and the wine that the song's parents are you gonna when we play this game in the future

are you gonna put more of my personal items up to win yeah we're gonna try to clean up this place why don't you start with the fucking captain phasma pop star wars thing no that belongs there hey uh that was uh that was fake chews that was fun oh good we'll try again hey just like a restaurant value feedback let's open up the feedback today's email comes to us from will oxford will writes what are your thoughts on adding extra salt pepper or other seasoning when you're out to eat I try to only add salt when absolutely necessary and almost never do it because I don't want to insult the chef what do you guys find yourself doing when you're eating under seasoned food Allison you have any strong opinions on salt and pepper on the table I never

added I'm into it yeah however I never added salt and pepper to my food until I don't know how old I was like maybe 11 or 12 and my sister's friend was over my younger sister she had a friend over and her friend put salt and pepper on our food and I was like oh I've never done that before it's just weird these things that you like just do what your family does even though they will always had salt and pepper on the table um so then I would season my food sometimes and now it's just like if needed but not it's not automatic yeah I will say I mean any thoughts on this Mitch go ahead I rarely salt and pepper my food I'll salt french fries I feel like if if uh if they need some salt but I don't do and I remember when I was younger I would sometimes put some

black the the black pepper on my or you know just the pepper shaker I would put some on my pizza yeah but I rarely put it on and you know so often now they come around with crushed pepper and stuff and I always tell them to hit the road yeah yeah I do I and if they offer that for my salad I'll say yes but I'll never put it on my I very rarely use the salt and pepper shakers and maybe I'm strange yeah I don't know I don't I don't I don't use them too too much um I'm something of a salt psycho and a pepper freak I mean I'll just I'll just load on there psycho pepper freak I go nuts with those anytime that's available especially on something like a salad I'll put a lot of pepper and a lot of salt on there you referred to yourself this way before maybe I mean the context of my

fandom for the Angelina Jolie movie salt said it was a real salt psycho well salt I try not to add salt in general because it's just not great it's not great to add salt nutritionally it's not it's not ideal although I've read some conflicting I've read that if you don't have existing hypertension then additional salt actually doesn't necessarily do anything bad for you it's just it just can exacerbate an existing condition but that can actually cause any health issues but it's probably like all things it's probably best to do it using moderation you said I said salt on french fries which I think yeah is like I mean how often are you ordering I try not to eat right bad I got some last night didn't add any salt but like if you get a thing of french fries with a table sometimes

you add salt to it it's already unhealthy kind of might as well yeah and then more so though I'm with you with a salad maybe it's the most I'll ever like put use pepper and put pepper on there I love pepper I mean pepper is a great spice and it doesn't it's not doing anything negative for you calorically so like yeah do what you have to do if there's that that pepper the guy bringing the fresh ground pepper to the table I mean I'm in hog heaven you know what that guy says is say when I'm just gonna I'm not gonna say it keep going one time I ate a packet of miso soup plain uh which is hard to get down first of all but I woke up the next day and my whole face was swollen it was so much sodium that's right yeah and then I cut out what's weird is I really

overdid it like I could have just maybe this is a hint to not eat miso soup plain but instead I really like cut out sodium across the board right so then for a long time I I never use salt at all because of that yeah I recommend do it if you want to wait if you want to see what you look like with a different face eat a pack of a plain miso soup yeah salt pepper more pepper hey bring the pepper over yeah crushed pepper doctor pepper anything you want to bring um and what your your side point you had their will about worried about insulting the chef I would say if salt and pepper are on your table you don't have to worry about insulting the chef that's the kind of restaurant where it's okay to do that if you go to the fine dining place you'll find a lot of times those aren't

present yeah if it's not present then I'd say that that's that's a place where the chef is maybe a little bit more concerned about you uh eating it as it's presented and and and it's more likely to have season to that I'm a pepper man more than a salt man yeah but but also I don't know I'm never in a situation where I'm gonna add it too much yeah besides the salad like you said and even then sometimes I don't add it so well let us know what your seasoning is are you a hashtag salt psycho a hashtag pepper freak or a hashtag plain jane or hashtag plain joe let us know you know there's just been one for the planes I wanted to make it inclusive all right fine if you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants you can email us at

Doughboys podcast at gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 830 go dough that's 830 4636844 and hey to get the Doughboys double our weekly bonus episode join the golden play club at patreon.com slash Doughboys Allison Rosen the book is Tropical Attire Encouraged and other phrases that scare me it's everywhere April 10th thank you so much for joining us thank you for having me this was really fun but yeah next time we come back we we gotta get you to better deal do you have anything you would like to plug besides the book my podcast Allison Rosen is your new best friend comes out twice a week Monday is an interview Thursday is a panel show and I've been on there before that's right yes you have that was a really fun episode I liked it

a lot well you guys both have to come back we'd love to and you gave a you well sorry not to cut you off and continue on after this but you get you also gave some you we we tasted some cool yeah we did snack chat which I haven't done in a while um but I sometimes do a snack chat segment where people send in stuff and someone had sent in some candy from Germany yeah and it was it was good yeah um you can get that everywhere you can get podcasts but a quick place to go itunes.com slash Allison Rosen and go to allisonrosan.com just one L and Allison ali s one rosin.com for everything including the book well there you go Mitch that'll do it for this episode of Doughboys all right our first on the head gum network all right Nick cheers to you my boy cheers

to you my boy hooray we're happy now until next time for your Mitchie two spoons Mike Mitchell I'm Nick Weigher happy eating see ya hey guys you want more Doughboys to get the Doughboys double our weekly bonus episode join the golden play club sign up at patreon.com slash Doughboys that was a headgum podcast