Doughboys - Doughlympics: Chipotle v. Del Taco v. Taco Bell with Courtney Davis

Episode Date: August 11, 2016

Writer/director Courtney Davis (Jimmy Kimmel Live, Funny or Die) joins the 'boys for a defense of Tex-Mex cuisine and to help judge the three biggest Mexican chains in America, as the 2016 Doughlympic Susser Games continue. Friend of the podcast Evan Susser makes the crew endure a frozen food challenge.Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's one of the most iconic photographs in all of sports. John Carlos and Tommy Smith, two African American sprinters, standing atop the three-tiered Olympic podium wearing gold and bronze medals, gloved fists raised in black-power salutes. The third figure in the photograph? A white Australian named Peter Norman, the silver medalist, who helped plan the act of defiance and wore a pro-civil rights badge during the anthem. All three athletes were swiftly and severely punished for their silent political protest, yet their legacies proved more enduring than the medals that cost them.

The setting? Mexico City, 1968. And today, in 2016, amidst another time of racial strife, the Olympic Games again take place in Latin America, while the ugliest U.S. presidential election of our lifetimes is waged over Hispanic immigration. Yet in the intervening decades, took place the rapid ascent of Mexican-American cuisine, and today, the list of the top 100 chain restaurants in the U.S. includes an array of Mexican options. Today we weigh the three biggest, Chipotle Mexican Grill, founded in 1993, the pseudo-upscale

joint that melds freshness and affordability. Del Taco, founded as Casa del Taco in 1964, beloved west of the Rocky Mountains. Del Taco Bell, founded by Glen Bell in 1946, one-third of Yum Brands and the biggest Mexican food chain in the world. This week on Doe Boys, week two of the 2016 Olympic Susser Games, Mexican Food Division. Welcome to Doe Boys, the podcast about chain restaurants. We're a part of Ferrellaudio.com. The best way to support ours and other shows in the network is to use their referral link

on our website anytime you shop at Amazon. I'm Nick Weigar, alongside my co-host, recently divorced Paul Bunyan, Mike Mitchell, the Spoon Man. How are you, Spoon Man? Wow, you made me cough with that one. Yeah. Jesus. Do you think, I mean, are you feeling okay?

We just consumed a huge amount of Mexican food, and it seemed like, I wonder if the cough was at all related to that. It could be a little bit of that. It could be the body fighting against what I just put in my body. The body fighting against what I just put in my body, whatever. Yeah, you know what? I got bad news. I think that I have allergies.

I think I might be allergic to the kittens that I have. To the cats you adopted? Oh, Jesus Christ. I'll go to an allergist this week, and I'm going to keep them no matter what. And so I might have to get immunotherapy and get a shot every week for five years. You know what? This is a bubbling subplot on the night of on HBO, which I'm currently absorbing. I'm three episodes in, but there's a cat that's discovered, and the John Turturro character

has eczema and has allergies, and it seems like he can't care for the cat, gave it to a shelter at this point. I'm assuming at some point he gets it back, because it's a kill shelter, and it's the same sort of scenario here. He's got to get it back. He's got to get that cat back. It would be very sad if he didn't. I'm a lot like John Turturro.

I've had eczema before. Yeah. I currently, I guess I have allergies, and they gave me an inhaler for the week, because I almost died. It was a rough couple of days there. Anyways, I just want to say, to Spoon Nation, and here we go. There you go. How'd you feel about the little bit of announcements from the Lakers' most recent title repeat

over your Celtics coming in there? Well, I hated it. So big thanks to Alex Rickliff's, which he didn't give me a Twitter handle. Sorry, buddy. Tweet at us. Maybe we'll retweet you. He also says he has a special burger boy drop, which Nick ignore. Oh, wait.

That's what I played. Oh, you played the burger boy drop. Oh, no wonder why. Maybe you should read these emails before just playing the attachment. No, I was just so confused by that. How long is this one? Don't play another drop. Don't, for God's sake.

No, you're... God, Jesus Christ. The head of a young child begins to cry. They're pretty similar. At the top of her stretched out vaginal cavity. Spoon Chun, Spoon Chun, Spoon Chun, Spoon Chun, Spoon Chun, that boy out to something... It's kind of hip. There's the spine of this food, and it's got it.

Getting down in the drive from Lyon, make the double order. Liger in the basket, on the chicken nose. Smoky, that's it. Getting down in the drive from Lyon, make the double order. Liger in the basket, on the chicken nose. Smoky, that's it. Smoky, that's it. That's it.

This guy's strange. But I'm still getting so much pussy. Take your bitch to Wendy's on the first day. Kadeem in my posthum, chocolate, purple drink. Harry Potter, Justice, Sussex, Levin's Sussex. Spoon Man, Spoon Man, Spoon Man, Spoon Chun... What is going on? What is this?

I'll end it right now. Fuck you, Alex Rickles. Or whatever the fuck your name is. Alright. Eric Ricklifts. While we're acknowledging things that we're sending, let me give my quick thanks to Matt Hellseth for that roast of Mitch at the top. And if you've got an insult you'd like me to use on Mitch at the top of the show, roastspoonmanatgmail.com.

Or you just stop sending them in. Yeah, I've honestly got plenty at this point. We've got a backlog that will last like 10 years. People love sending in little insults at you. Maybe I stop playing drops, maybe the whole podcast goes away. I think there's a lot of things we could do to sort of shorten up this first 10 minutes of bullshit during which our guest patiently waits for us to allow them to chime in. I think you're done with this podcast.

I mean, no, I'm coming around to your side. I'm about ready to end this podcast. I think End of 2016 is probably about when it should stop. We had talked and I said, we need to end this at the end of 2016. This is real, behind the news, behind the scene stuff, behind the news. Jesus. This is why I don't want to do it. I just get insulted for being dumb all the time from our Twitter followers.

Mitch is dumb. And you, by the way, set that narrative. Yeah. Mitch is dumb. He doesn't do anything. I think you help reinforce that narrative, too. And now I'm just sick of it. I said, let's end this at the end of 2016 and he said, no, everybody, we're just starting

to take our eyes, man. We're really going to fucking, like, this thing is going up. You don't cancel right when you're at your peak and I was like, all right, fine. We're going to announce at the beginning of 2017 that the podcast is ending at the end of 2017. Okay. So we've jumped, we've bumped up back a year now. No, no.

Yeah. Now it's ending at the end of 2016. What do you think of that? Yeah. That's fine. All right, good. Let's just wrap it up. Also, never compare, don't ever mention social movements or anything of importance on our

show. Right. You know, this is nothing and you're trying to compare us to the famous Black Power stance in the Olympics. Yeah. No, don't do that. You're getting unreasonably mad at this bitch. Because I get called racist all the time.

You know, a little interesting factoid I read about this. I didn't incorporate in my intro, but I thought it was a nice little aside. So the one guy has his right fist raised and the other guy has his left fist raised. It's because one of the guys forgot his glove. So they share the same pair of gloves and so they were wearing them one on each hand. Yeah. That is interesting. Yeah.

You can't forget your gloves for something like that. No, you're going to do a big... Well, you know what? They worked it out. They improvised and they figured out a solution and it remains iconic. You know, Mitch, I want to introduce our guest, but real quick, the film Suicide Squad came out this past weekend. This is coming out on Thursday.

The past weekend was when Suicide Squad was released. We're kind of like the original Suicide Squad. That's why, yeah, we're kind of... And we're two men who constantly think about it. And we're kind of on a suicide mission by virtue of eating ourselves to death over the course of this podcast. But it just came out. Your thoughts on the film.

We've both seen it at this point. I thought the movie was really bad, but it had some elements in it that I thought were okay. Right. And honestly, I will say this, I've seen a lot of some of the movies this year where I just was, I was sitting in the theater and I was so fucking bored. And this movie isn't boring, but it is, it's bad. It's really bad.

I think that Will Smith is reminding me that he's a movie star and kind of an action star. Two real movie stars in this movie. There are. Margot Robbie and Will Smith. Oh, Margot Robbie. They both do a movie star caliber performance. Margot Robbie's portrayal of, I mean, maybe that character is just annoying, but I thought it was kind of, but I mean, nowhere near as annoying as the Joker was, who was extremely

fucking stupid and annoying and he's an idiot too. So what's his name? Jared Leto. Jared Leto, yeah. I found the movie bad and boring. Oh, interesting. I thought it was bad and boring, but there were a couple of okay moments. But just a lot of weird choices.

Just a very strange, confusing, weirdly dull movie. I agree. We remain the top suicide squad, you and I. All right, let's introduce our guest. She's written for Jimmy Kimmel Live and Funny or Die, the very funny Courtney Davis is with us. Hi, Courtney. Courtney Hey guys.

Jared How are you holding up, Courtney? We had a gigantic meal about 20 minutes ago and then hopped right into the studio. Courtney I feel gross. I felt gross when I woke up this morning, I think in anticipation of this meal. I still feel gross. Jared That's us. Courtney Yeah. Jared That's us every day.

Jared Yeah. Thank you for doing this. Courtney Oh my gosh. Yeah. Courtney Thank you for having me. This is, guys, I'm a big fan. Jared Well, we're a big fan of you. Well, yeah, no, we're very excited to have you here and also happy that you did one of

the grossest eating challenges we've ever had on this show. Courtney I mean, honestly, I was happy I got this one over a pizza. Jared Really? Courtney Yes. I love tacos. Jared Well, you're wearing a taco shirt. Courtney I'm wearing a taco deli shirt. I'm representing Austin, Texas, home of the best tacos.

So I love, I could eat, all that food was disgusting, but I was like. Jared Courtney, you come in and you make a strong statement right off the bat. Courtney But I made it in a friendly way. Jared Yeah. This is as strong of it. On our show, this is the equivalent of the Black Power Pose to come in and say something like that. I thought your shirt said taco del, which is appropriate for today for our competitors

in the... Courtney Right. What is... Courtney Yes. Taco del. Jared Taco Bell in Del Taco. Courtney Oh, gotcha. Okay.

Jared That made no sense. Courtney No. I followed it. Jared All right, so you're a Texas native, correct? Courtney Yes. Jared All right, let's imagine that this is an alternate reality where we're not doing this dumb susser games thing. This is an actual proper episode of Doe Boys.

What would have been your chain of choice in that version? Courtney Ah, it's, I think, it's not a chain that's out here. Jared Okay. Courtney But Taco Cabana. Jared Taco Cabana. How widespread is that over here? Courtney No. I think it goes...

I know there's one in El Paso. I think there's some in Arizona, but that was like growing up. There was one in Houston that we would go to all the time. It was open 24 hours, and then in college, went there a ton. And it's not great. Like I can't, I wouldn't be able to defend it. I think about it a lot. I'm like, if Doe Boys reviewed Taco Cabana, they would be like, this is gross.

And I'd be like, yes. But I still like it. Jared You think we would say it's gross, given our taste level? Courtney Maybe not. Maybe not. But it's like just what you grew up with. You know what I mean?

Jared What's the other big taco chain in Austin? It's like something that like, it's like chronic tacos. That's what it is, right? Courtney Chronic tacos? Jared I don't know. I don't know. I've never been gone too long. Courtney Are you thinking of Wee Man's chronic tacos?

Jared No. Not Wee Man's chronic tacos. Courtney Doesn't Wee Man have a taco shop? Wee Man from Jackass. I think he does. I think that's who it is. Jared Oh, no. I'm thinking of Wee Man's taco shop, Chronic.

Courtney It's also possible there's new chain. I mean, I've been gone from Austin like 10 years. So I feel like I'm not up on the best taco shops. Jared I think that is Wee Man's taco shop. Courtney I mean chronic tacos is delicious. Jared What is the, isn't there a big, there's a big taco chain in Austin, oh god. Courtney Oh, boy. Jared Oh, god.

I should do some research. Anyways, you two keep talking. Courtney Well, and I feel bad, but I don't know. I feel like, well, now I'm just kind of... Jared Well, he is being very descriptive. I'm going to figure out what it is. Courtney I really knew Austin. I'd be like, oh, is it this?

Is it this? Is this? Courtney I'm kind of a liar about how much I know. Jared Oh, torches taco. Courtney Oh, torches. Yes. Jared Yes, torches taco. Courtney Yeah, Chronic, exactly.

I see it. Jared Yeah. I mean, they all have kind of dumb names. Courtney Canada, sure. Jared No, torches is great. Jared Yes, torches. I went to torches and I loved it. I thought it was really great.

Courtney Yeah. Jared Because I don't know if I love... We've talked about this on the show before, right? I don't know if I love Tex-Mex, but torches is not Tex-Mex, I feel like, I feel like it's a... Courtney Yeah, it's just its own thing. And I love Tex-Mex. Jared I get it.

Courtney We're in a fight. Jared I get why people love Tex-Mex. It's just that nacho cheese. Courtney Oh, gosh. Jared It just overtakes everything in my mind. Courtney Do you mean, are you referring to queso specifically or more just sort of the cheese sauce? Jared I'm sorry, yes, queso specifically.

Courtney Okay. Courtney Yes. I feel like in Tex-Mex, people ask me, what's the difference between Tex-Mex and Mexican? And I'm like cheese. Jared Right. Courtney There's cheese on everything. Jared Yeah. Courtney And so good.

Jared That's so funny. Don't you think it just like, it just overtakes everything? It's like a bit, like it covers it all. Courtney That's what I want. Jared Look, you don't have to push me to defend California's version of anything versus any place else. Like I am a native of SoCal. I prefer the sort of Califresh slash, you know, Mexico adjacent version of Mexican cuisine

versus the Tex-Mex. But I like Tex-Mex. I think Tex-Mex is quite good and quite tasty. I think it definitely has its own merits. I understand what you're saying about the overpowering nature of queso, but man, you get some good queso. That is a real, real nice bite. Courtney So good.

Jared Jesus. Courtney I'm surprised. You wouldn't like just a bowl of cheese. Jared I mean, I mean, not to be. Jared Courtney, we're friends. You're one of the nice people. Courtney No, I'm sorry. I meant that in the best way.

Jared I mean, I do, and I do, I do enjoy a bowl of cheese. You're right. I was more saying it at Wiger saying, that's a real good bite. Also, I just want to quickly say that a lot of taco places have bad names. Jared Right. Even torches and, I mean, chronic tacos is bad. But none are as bad as L.A. chain, pink tacos, which I fucking, I hate it. I hate that.

I hate that they name their place pink tacos. They knew what they were doing. My mom is in town, which is driving me nuts, but I love her. But it's good. It's all good. Whatever. Courtney I have a mom-in-law in town. I go head to head.

That's even probably more stressful, but I'll never know that feeling. My mom is in town. Mitch, you can't tell. I have a lot of high hopes for you and marriage, by the way. Yeah. It's going to happen. My mom thinks Jennifer Lawrence likes me still. So my mom is in town, and her friend Joy is in town, and then my sister and Courtney

and her friend Kristen are in town. So they're all here. We drove by pink tacos, and my mom was like, pink tacos, and I was like, God, don't even fucking say it. Jesus Christ. Awful. I hate it. They shouldn't-

Did your mom know what that means? I hope to God not. I was just driving them all around yesterday. I was a little tour guide. It's been fun. I think it's such a calculated, disgusting thing to call your chain, something that's kind of like a gross little double entendre, but also to have that association with food. For me, I just don't want to be thinking about that.

Yeah. I don't either. I agree. Like, name it a place like Red Rocket or something. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, isn't that like a dog's boner? I wouldn't make that a Kaleep, but I like it.

A Red Rocket's a dog's boner. So you call it like a hot dog place, Red Rocket. I thought you called it a hot dog place. Oh, really? I've heard that, too. I think both are. Oh, wait, what's the other? What is it?

A red lip? What is it? Just lipstick? Yeah, here comes the lipstick. Oh, that's fucking nasty. Here comes the lipstick? I've heard that, yeah. That's what Nick says.

Yeah. Excitedly. Nice. Here comes the lipstick. I've had, I remember once I met this super cute bulldog and he was so cute, his name was Baby. Jesus Christ. His name was Baby.

He lived in my friend's apartment complex, and they're just like, oh, baby, huh? And everyone was like ruffling him up and riling him up, and he had like this big bulldog smile, and then like he got up like on his hind legs and just had like a huge boner. I was like, God, Jesus Christ. What is he expecting out of this interaction? But I mean, it is a thing to think about, because it's like if a human being was expected to be celibate for their entire lifespan, we know from just what happens when that's imposed upon somebody.

Yeah, I know. We know that that's... But we know that kind of drives someone crazy, but like it must have the same sort of... I mean, those urges don't completely go away when you neuter a dog, right? I don't think so. I don't even... I feel like maybe you're overthinking it. Like, I feel like he was just like, I'm having a good time, and this thing is happening.

I'm not ex... He's not expecting anything. He's not sexualizing the encounter. Yeah, I mean, I only say that because I have a baby and I've seen some baby boners, and it's weird. And you have to just be like, look at you, like, and there's nothing behind it. They're just like, whatever, like it's happening. Yeah, he doesn't understand what's going on, it's just sort of like...

He's nuts, just like he's happy. I should get myself neutered. Oh my God. This thing's useless anyway. Also, there's more cat drama. Wally, the boy, trying to hump Irma, his sister. Are they fixed? They're brother and sister in the same litter?

Not yet, no. They're brother and sister in the same litter. It's weird because the vet told me, like, oh, around six months, and now I'm reading up on it because they're close to four months now, and I guess at three months they produce Dander, which is why I think I've almost died. Gotcha. But I think that they're, Wally at least, is getting a little too active. He's ready to go.

I didn't think he'd just want some action to happen in my house, but I gotta do something about it. A lot of cat drama going on in my life right now. Well, I don't know what to tell you, I was gonna lead into some sage advice, I have no idea. Just trying to cheer me up. Yeah. All right, so Courtney, you did mention that you are a brother.

Did you, like, has motherhood changed your eating habits at all? Has it, like, does that inform your food decisions in any capacity? I mean, gosh, I don't know. You know what the biggest thing was when I was pregnant, because I was like, I'm a pretty healthy person. I'd say, like, growing up, mom's super healthy, like, raised us crazy, crazy healthy, and then I was always, like, very healthy, but then I was pregnant and I was like, fuck it, and I just went nuts.

Actually, I have a nice memory of going to a wedding that Mitch was at, remember, and we all went to that strip club, and you and I were, I was very pregnant. It was Evan Susser's wedding. It was Evan Susser's wedding. Hey, all right, bringing it all together. And we went to the strip club, and Mitch and I are the two that are like, where's the menu? Like, where?

Like, we need to get an appetizer plate, we need to get, like, some fries, like, immediately the two of us. Do you remember the food was weirdly not bad? I felt like it was kind of decent food. I mean, that place was so expensive, so hopefully they'd have decent food. But that was, like, that was a fun memory, because it's all you have when you're pregnant. You're like, I can't drink, I can't smoke weed, I'm just going to eat, I ate terrible, I gained so much weight.

I tell you, I was supposed to gain 25 to 35 pounds, I gained over 50 pounds. Whoa. Yeah. Well, you look, you look, you look great. Thanks. I was fishing for that. Do you have how long after, because does weed consumption and alcohol consumption, is that something there's also a prohibition on during the nursing period?

Yes. I mean, yes. Okay. Because basically the rule of thumb now is, like, wait till it's out of your system. They're like, it's okay. I mean, no one will say this about weed, but this is just, I was like, well, that's a rule for alcohol, so I'm just going to apply it to weed. And I can tell them with one friend who's like a big weed head, and I was like, when

can I smoke pot? She was like, oh, you're not smoking pot already? And I was like, okay, great. So it's just like, don't do it right before you feed them. That makes sense. Okay. Do it like at night when they go to sleep. Yeah.

It's just hard during the beginning, you can't do it because you're feeding them all the time. Okay. It's just you have to wait until they're old enough that they're kind of sleeping longer and like sleeping to the night. So it's like, you put them to bed and then you have whatever and then. You don't want the baby to come out given the peace sign. That's the big thing.

Listen, I abstained completely and it was hard. I was like, my husband come home and find me just like smelling this box where we kept our weed. Very sad. It was the saddest thing. And I was like, I'm not smoking and I just want to smell it. I barely smoke anymore and I really don't drink too much anymore. But here's the hard thing, like over the course of whatever, nine months or something, like

there are just times where I'm like, I need a fucking drink. Sure. Like I think every human being has that feeling. Yeah. Where you're just like, I need to have a drink. And you can have some alcohol. Like now they're kind of like alcohol is fine at some point, like later on. You're not supposed to be drunk though, right?

You're not supposed to be drunk and no one will tell you anything about weed. So I just didn't have anything because, you know. Yeah. And again, I don't want them coming out with the peace sign. No. Has that happened in a comedy yet? It should. Maybe immediately being born and flashing the peace sign.

Yeah, that's funny. Okay. Maybe I'm family guy. Oh, shit. I just wrote a family guy chat. Jesus Christ. I'm back. I gotta move back home.

Or you're right on track. Oh, I'm right on track. Yeah. Let's get to this week's Hustler Game. So we're talking about Mexican food and the thing that I want to get into is Del Taco and Taco Bell. I feel like people are very tribalist in terms of which one they are allied with. But the third competitor, and you know, we kind of did this the same way we did the pizza

one, which is we went one, two, three in terms of where their rankings were. I'm saying we. I'm just, and by we, I mean me and Evan Susser. I don't mean Mitch was involved in this discussion. Hey, what the fuck? Listen, the Olympics have started. Our listeners have seen that it's nothing that they wanted. Yes, right.

They've seen us. Oh, maybe like an Italian chain will go up against a Mexican chain. Nope. We didn't do that. We're doing some weird thing where we're ranking pizzas versus pizzas against pizzas and tacos against tacos. Yeah. It's, I mean, it kind of makes sense, but it also is very confusing.

Yeah, it sucks. It takes like a lot, a lot of explanation. Our previous, you know what works like in the midst of? And I'm just disappointed that it's so on the nose, but we're clearly jumping the shark right now. This is like where the podcast is starting to get bad. This is a very easy, clear marker of when it started. It's inevitable to climb.

I'll tell you, this speech right now is probably. Yeah, this is probably, this is the low point. Or this is not. I'm so glad to be here. Yeah. So this is the peak. It's not the nadir because that suggests that we're at a low point and we're going to come out of it.

This is, this is the point at which everything starts to. We're about to crash. We're about to crash. Okay. But like comparing it to, we had an earlier thing which people liked, which was the tournament of chompions. And we're kind of trying to recreate this in the competitive thing in the same sort of topical sense.

You and Susser. I stayed out of it. Yeah. I thought this was a bad idea. Right. Yeah. You were right. But then it's also like, but then it's just falling apart.

It's just such a clear miscalculation of what we should be doing on this podcast and it's really failing spectacularly. I feel like everyone online has actually probably said that they enjoy it. Yeah. So now. I enjoyed the first episode. Oh, thank you, Courtney. Okay.

Well, you know what? This, this one, this one will be better. Um, so, uh, but Del Taco and Taco Bell, they're both very similar. They have some differences, but they're similar restaurants. Chipotle is a little different. It's a little bit more expensive. It's that doesn't have a drive through. It's got a much more limited menu.

It's not like a trashy place. It's going, it's a little bit classier and I don't see, I don't say trashy as a pejorative. I like Del Taco. I like Taco Bell. Fresh ingredients. Fresh ingredients. Yeah. Made to order.

It's a little different, but they are all, they're the clear one, two, three in terms of market share. Um, Courtney, do you have any biases on any of these chains, uh, coming into this competition? I do. I do. I would say, I mean, between Del Taco and Taco Bell, for sure, I'm Taco Bell. Oh, wow. Oh, hell yeah.

I'm sorry. I know Nick, that's a, I know I'm in a fight with both of you guys. I didn't grow up with Del Taco. There was no, it was all Taco Bell. Right. Um, and definitely in college, that's like where I went. I didn't even know they had Del Taco. I felt like maybe they had a Del Taco when I was really little, and then I just thought

it was a chain that was gone. Right. And then when I came out here, I was like, oh, there's still Del Taco out here? Weird. And I've gone to it a few times, but it's just if I'm going to go get a fast food taco, it's going to be Taco Bell. I get that. And I like Chipotle, but I'm also a little snotty about Chipotle, like coming out here

from Texas. Yeah. I was like, ugh, because we had Chipotle in Texas and I'm like, why would I go there? What a dumb place to go and have all these amazing tacos. Your voice changes when you talk about, ugh, why would I go there? I'm so dazzled. I'm just like, it's a total snot. So yeah, I'm not that big a fan of Chipotle either, but then I've kind of come around

because it's like, well, I need something kind of healthy that's also decent. I don't know. I came around on Chipotle too. I did not like Chipotle. When Chipotle was first coming out and I tried it out here, I was like, whatever. And then I grew to like kind of like a simple chicken burrito with like sour. They have like great sour cream and cheese there. Some of their ingredients are, you can tell, are fresh and are really, really good.

There's a lot of stuff at Chipotle that they do do well. I think what we'll see as we get into this competition is that Chipotle's strengths are maybe liabilities in this specific format because I think one of the things I like from there is that you can get like a bowl and it's not super heavy and it's not super unhealthy, but there's just no direct analog to that. I mean, there's no real way to say that that's like a signature Mexican dish that's more sort of a Chipotle's invention. And yeah, I mean, I like it.

I think we maybe over it. We did it. We reviewed it very early on the podcast. One of our first episodes with Mike Hanford, and I think it got into the Platinum Plate Club. We may have overrated it a little bit, but it is a very solid, I feel like Chipotle is like one of the best work lunches. And like, oh, we're ordering for the office.

We're getting Chipotle. No one's going to object. It's like, sure, that's fine. It's going to make overall everyone happy. But if I go there, it's always going to be like a bowl or maybe a burrito, but I don't even think about other stuff like nachos. I didn't even think about that even on the menu. People forget that you can even get tacos there, but it is one of their, the nachos

you have to order off menu or a quesadilla you have to order off menu, but tacos, they have those on menu and you can order them online pretty easily. All right, let's get to this. So here's how this will work. Refresher for anyone or a refresher for anyone who listened last week or just some information, some baseline intel for anyone who's maybe joining us for this episode for their time. So here's how it works. Well, they will never listen to another episode.

Yeah. This is a very bad entry point. So we'll be doing four different categories for these Bexgood chains and the categories we've got are hard shell taco, soft shell taco, burrito and nachos. Last week, the thing we fucked up was we had way too long of a discussion period for each category and then we just amended it on the fly and reduced it down. So I think what we're going to do this week is three minutes per category, three minutes of discussion.

No, that's boring. What's boring about it? We started with 15 last week, I think. My idea was we got four categories. Right. You know, two minutes for the first category, a minute 30 for the second category, a minute for the third category and 30 seconds for the last one. 30 seconds is no time to discuss, but that's what the Olympics are all about, baby.

30 seconds was the duration of you explaining that. Like this 30 seconds is not enough time for discussing. Yeah, then fucking hurry it up. We'll do three minutes. If it feels too long, we can reduce it, but I think three minutes is a fucking lifetime. It's not a lifetime. I propose we do unlimited. That's a Beatles song.

Unlimited time, guys. Courtney wants to talk all day. Just riff. Here's what we'll do. We'll do three minutes. We'll see how it feels with the first one. We can adjust it if needed. Evan Susser is out there timing.

Are you ready, Susser? You want to give us a signal? He's coming in. Evan Susser is gradually making his way inside. I have? Got about 40 seconds. Come on in, Suss. Thank you.

Also, Susser brought me water, which I needed. Susser, do you have a time sheet? What is going on? What are you holding? Thank you. Are you expecting to get paid for this? Can I say it's funny to me that the Doughboy's, like, the Doughlympics logo is this thing of Evan running?

I mean, no offense, but like, I will, I will, I will, I will honestly say this. I'm not even saying this. I will say this honestly, and I don't even mean this in a mean way. I have never in my life in the 10 years that I've known you, I don't think I've ever seen you run ever. That's, I mean, I'm being honest with you. Yeah, I guess all those times you're going to the track without me. I guess I never enjoyed you in running.

All right, Susser has made his way to the microphone. Go ahead, Susser. Okay, I have a few corrections and clarifications. First of all, Jason Akuna, a.k.a. We Man, opened a franchise of Chronic Tacos, but not, he's not the owner of the whole thing and it's in Redondo Beach. Interesting. I'm closed.

Clarify, I did not go to a strip club the night of my wedding, as Courtney seemed to imply. I didn't mean to imply that. You should have. Why didn't you come? Great question. Weigar referred to it as the dumb Susser games. I think he meant awesome, and Weigar also said I met a young bulldog, a cute young bulldog

as a young boy. I think he meant tortured, a cute young bulldog as a young boy. That's it. Three minutes, I think sounds great. Wait, hold on a second. This isn't like part in the interruption. Why are you giving us corrections? You don't need your little stat boy segment.

I just got bored out there. It's very boring. Oh, that's great. This whole thing that you set up, you're bored, Doris. So boring. Wait a minute, actually, while Evan's here, and before we do our first scoring, I have a little something I brought, guys. Oh boy.

I was listening to the first episode, and I had this idea, I was like, oh, this would be cool, but I didn't think I had time to do it because we were going to tape last week. Then we got pushed, because Nick had some rumblings. Oh yeah, wow, Nick pushed it instead of Mitch. Want to speak to that, Weigar? I had. I had. No, I was feeling ill, and I didn't think, I felt very good this morning, and the amount

of Mexican food we ate just before recording, I feel like put me near death, and I feel like if we tried to record Thursday night, which we were supposed to, with as sick as I was feeling, I feel like I would have just died, which we should have done it. We should have, yes, that would have been better for everyone. So I had the night free, and I was like, I'm going to enact this little idea that I had, and I made a little metal stand. Oh my god, Courtney. Look at this thing.

For the, I thought we could. Oh my god, the susser's on the side of it. Oh my god. The susser's on the side, and then here's our little flags for each of our competitors. I don't want to put them in yet, since we don't know. Yeah, we don't know who's going to win what. We've got the, you know, number one is highest, and then two over here, and then three, and then three.

I'm going to snap a shot at this. Courtney, this is amazing. And, you know, I just want you guys to know what you're getting when you invite Courtney Davis on the Douglas. Is there any jokes you guys want to make about how she's now done more work than I ever have for the podcast? I don't think it's a joke. I'll leave you to it.

Okay, let's get to it. So we're going to start with hard shell taco. Wow, by the way, another exciting appearance from Evan Susser. We're going to start with hard shell taco. We've got our thoughts on Chipotle versus Del Taco versus Taco Bell in this particular category. We're going to start our three minutes now. Courtney, what did you think?

We had these three hard shells, and I should mention, just as a preface, the Chipotle order was, there was a little bit of confusion in terms of who was picking it up and when was picking it up, when it was getting picked up. So we got ours, and it was overall like a little soggy, and nothing I feel like was more impacted by the sogginess than the hard shell taco. Yeah, Chipotle taco, just so soggy and weird, I don't even know how to rate it, honestly. Taco Bell, for me, this was like my favorite thing in the bunch. It's solid.

You know what you're getting? Shell is still crunchy. That was the one I wanted to go back to. I just love a Taco Bell hard shell taco. I'm totally in. Del Taco was good. What do you think, when you're talking about Taco Bell, because you've got the baseline hard shell taco, but then also there, these days, you've got the Doritos Locos Taco, like

how do you feel about comparing the two of those? I don't like Doritos. I'm sorry. Oh my God, you don't like Doritos. I'm kind of a weird eater. I have a lot of weird things that I don't like, and I don't like a flavored chip of any kind. I don't want any flavor. I want a plain potato chip, maybe salt and vinegar, but that's it.

That's crazy. I don't want Doritos. Those tacos, they were one of the best fast food, and Taco Bell just continues to do it. They do so well with their new little gimmicks and innovations. You know, I'm curious out there, if there's anyone out there who prefers a flavored chip versus a plain chip, let us know. If you like the flavored chip, use hashtag Flavor Country, and if you like the plain chip, use the hashtag Chips Plain and Tall.

Oh my God. Hashtag Chips Plain and Tall. After Sarah Plain and Tall? Sarah Plain and Tall, yeah, the young adult book. Go ahead, Mitch. Your thoughts on these three. Are you currently reading that? Young adult book?

Yeah, what the fuck? Isn't it a young adult book? It's like a kid's book. Oh, okay. Well, same thing, right? The section that Weigar's hanging out in constantly, but he got there, buddy. The hard tacos, I love the Doritos logos taco. The Chipotle taco, I picked up the mess that was the Chipotle taco, and I pushed it in

of my mouth. What a fucking disgusting mess it was. Really bad. For me, I used so on my Taco Bell, I told you these allergies to these cats, it got me coughing all over the place. I'm sorry, I'm sure we'll hear about it a bunch from all the people who tweeted us and tell us that we suck. By the way, Mitch, my mom did those allergy shots for years, and I think it worked.

Really? All right, that's good to know. It's a long, it's a lot of, it's an investment. It's an investment, but I love those two little kitties, I love them. With the hard tacos, I got the fire, I used the fire and mild sauce, and with the del taco, hard taco, I used the del scorcho, the Chipotle, all my Chipotle items, I didn't, I just used whatever sauce that they put on. I gotta tell ya, bell one out on this one for me as well, del taco, del taco was close,

and then way far behind was Chipotle. Del taco, the corn of the del taco. We're out of time, go ahead, finish up. The corn of the del taco, uh, shell is, is much, there's a much cornier taste. Mm-hmm. Mitch, Evan's trying to cut you off. Jesus. Jesus.

Harsh. All right, so here's, here's what we'll do. Uh, I, I used up my time to, uh, talk about hashtags, so I'll give my thoughts real quick and then my score. Um, Chipotle, soggy, ruined, I take partial blame for this, I had an ambitious three point plan to get all of the food from three different chains here at the same time, it fell apart, so that got picked up a little late. The Chipotle hard shell tacos, I've had them in the past, they're pretty good.

Here with that soggy barbacoa meat, it just ruined them, they were inedible, uh, 0.0 for Chipotle for me. Whoa! What? Uh, Courtney, your thoughts. Oh, God, I mean, that was embarrassing. Your score on Chipotle. I went so much later.

I tried to, here's the thing, I tried to rate Chipotle on what I imagine it would have been like in a perfect world. Right. Because I was like, it's not Chipotle's fault, but it's, they don't, they're not designed like Taco Bell and del taco, I, I can't, I can't fault them for that, they're in it, it's a different thing. Did you hear, did I just give all my scores? I think we, wait, hey Evan, do we give our scores one at a time per chain?

That's how we're doing it, right? Isn't that how we did it last time? Yeah, that's how we do it. So we'll give our Chipotle scores, then we'll go around and do our del taco scores, then we'll give our Taco Bell scores. All right, well, this is going to seem high, but I still thought the flavors were okay even though it was a soggy weird taco. I give it a 3.17.

All right, pretty good, right? Uh, Chipotle, just missed out making a, uh, getting a, a full one for me. Oh my God. I scored so high. It got 0.99 because I had to scoop it into my mouth like a fucking trash monster. It was awful. It was real. I like, I would have thought it was a soft shell taco if you just presented it to me.

And again, I've had good hard, hard shell tacos there, but they do not travel. If you're going to get a Chipotle hard shell taco, eat it in store or forget about it. Don't get it. Also just don't get it. Yeah, you can maybe just not get it. Get something else. If I'm at Chipotle, oh, I'll save that for later. Go ahead.

Del Taco hard shell taco, the Del Taco, they've recently rebranded it. They used to be their classic taco. Now it's called the Del Taco. Um, I think it's the best hard shell taco in the game. Oh my God. Really, really delicious. Sick. Love that shell.

Love the cheese. Love the little bit of tomato. The lettuce balance that meat is delicious. 6.0. Wow. You are so full of shit. You're stacking the score. This is insane.

Okay, fine. That's how I honestly feel. Del Taco was very tasty. I gave it a 4.89. Wow. Okay. Good score. Very good score.

The corn, the shell, which is probably a good thing that it tastes more like corn in the law, you know, maybe is more authentic. Right. But it just doesn't do what the Taco Bell one can do. And I used Del Scorcho sauce on this one, by the way, which is a great sauce. It's their medium sauce. It's very, very good. It's their medium sauce, and it's right.

It's a great medium sauce. Yeah, it's fantastic. And it's neck and neck of that sauce versus Taco Bell's hot sauce, because I love the Taco Bell hot sauce. Anyways, Del Taco's hard shell taco got a 4.7. Very good score. Taco Bell, really good hard taco. You have to not compare it to the ... Even though I imposed this on you earlier, Courtney,

for the purpose of this exercise, I'm trying not to compare it to the Doritos Locos Taco, which I would almost always prefer. But just as a hard shell taco, I think, contrary to what you were saying, Mitch, I think just the slight more artificiality of the Taco Bell corn tortilla, hard tortilla versus the Del Taco one makes it a little bit less good for me, but it's still excellent. It still really gets the job done. I'm going to give it a 5.12. Go ahead, Courtney.

Taco Bell, definitely my favorite of the bunch, just very solid. That's the one I want to go back to. I give it a 5.2. Good score. Like I said, I had the fire and mild sauces on the hard shell taco. Now, I was thinking of giving this one a 5.11, because it was my favorite. But after hearing Liger's review of Del Taco, I'm giving this one a 6.0, you piece of shit. You know what?

Here's the thing. I'm fine with that. And the reason I gave it a 6.0, of all the things we ate, and semi-spoiler for the rest of what we're going to get to, of all the things we ate, the Del Taco was the only thing I finished. After I tasted everything, I went back to the Del Taco and finished it because it was really yummy. Evan Cessar is very, very naturally making his way into the studio.

That was quick, right? And let's see what the results are. Guys, a great start to this chapter of the Olympics. I thought you were going to yell at me for changing my score, based on Liger. I think that's in the spirit of the Olympics. Okay. With the bronze medal, Chipotle. Wow, what a shock.

With the silver medal, Del Taco, which gives the gold to Taco Bell. Wow. Congratulations, Taco Bell. You do make a really good... As it should be. You claim to have invented the hard shell taco, and you know what? You do a good job. You already put the flags in there.

I put the flags up, and... That's beautiful. That's very sharp. Kind of nice. We're going to move those around, I assume, as the competition progresses. Yes, I feel like each time we can... Yeah, do a little reset. Do a little reset.

That's very sharp. All right, we'll take one moment to play the national anthem of Taco Bell, which I have determined is Belle Biv DeVos Poison. What? Belle Biv DeVos? What? Yeah, what? I love this song, but...

I searched for Belle on Spotify, and Belle Biv DeVos was the first thing that came up, so... Doesn't Taco Bell have its own little... It has a little theme song, doesn't it? Yeah, that's not what we've been doing. Poison makes it seem like you think their food is poison. Well, it is to some degree. I mean, it's very tasty, but it's not good for you.

I would have gone with maybe Ring My Belle. I mean, I don't know what to tell you. Oh, what's Ring My Belle? That's way, way better. Okay, hold on. You can ring my bell. I'm going to look up Ring My Belle. We'll make that the national anthem.

Nice. We'll adjust that for future competitions if they want any more gold medals, which with Del Taco in the competition is not a certainty. Well, shut up. All right. I took a standards physics class in my senior year of high school, which is like the dumbest physics class you can be. It was the only standard class I ever took.

There was this guy named Todd White, and he always sang that poison song. Right. He would always be like, poison, poison. I was like, that song is like over a decade old. And then he would use the wrapper from his gum, and each table had like an electrical outlet at it, you know what I mean? And he would stick his gum wrapper, and it would cause a big shock. Oh, shit.

Todd White, probably dead, if I have a guess. Okay, let's get on to soft shell tacos. Three minutes on the clock. Chipotle, Del Taco, Taco Bell, starting now. Wow. Oh, God. I'll lead off with my thoughts. So all three of these have a flour tortilla, and I think that's the sort of thing that

we'll see of these Americanized Pseudo-Mexican, these Mexican-American chains is that the corn tortilla is certainly a lot more authentic than what you'll get if you go to a taqueria. The flour tortilla is this, you know, north of the border adaptation. I prefer a corn tortilla, but as the flour tortillas go, as the flour tortillas go, flour tortillas much better. I think that Del Taco had the best one, Taco Bells is a little gummy, Chipotle's again just suffered from the soggy's a little bit, although it was a lot more edible than the one that we got for the hard shell taco.

Why did we even do this competition? What do you mean? We should have just fucking sat out and said Del Taco for everything. You're such a piece of shit. I didn't say that. I was just evaluating just the tortilla. Now, when it comes to the nachos, Del Taco's my number one, but the burritos, listen, Del Taco wins it.

I am putting confirmation bias out of my head and evaluating these on an individual basis, and as far as their tortilla is concerned, I think I prefer Del Taco's tortilla. Now as far as the overall package was concerned, that Taco Bell soft taco is pretty darn good. The Chipotle one, we got it with a steak. There isn't a ground beef option, just as we got it with a barbacoa with a hard shell taco, so it's a little bit of a different beef kind of beef, but it's pretty good. Again, just like why get the tacos at Chipotle, it's just a disappointment, according to your thoughts.

First of all, I hope we don't have an in and out type fiasco like we did in the previous competition with Del Taco. All right, Del Taco was fine. I felt like it was a lot of, not a lot of filling. That was my complaint with the Del Taco. Yeah, that's fair. It was a lot of tortilla. That's fair.

Taco Bell, solid and tasty. Chipotle, that's fine. Same deal with the hard shell. It's just like, why would you go to Chipotle and order soft Del Taco? Yeah, geez. I'm not that great. Yeah. What I'll say about this one is that this is maybe the closest competition for me.

Very close. Everyone did really well on this one. I liked them all. For the Del, I used Inferno Sauce, and for the Bell, I used Diablo Sauce, so I used some hot sauces on this one. Chipotle showed up in this round, but did it do good enough to pull out the gold? I don't know. We'll see.

I guess I'm done. I want to save it for my scores. Are we done? Hey, Susser, can we? No, we got to keep going. How much time do we have left? We have to keep going. This is why three minutes is bad.

Okay. Let's talk about how much we dislike Susser for the next four seconds. Evan's a nice guy. Oh, Jesus. No, he's a nice man. Let's say how we first met Susser. I first met Susser at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in Los Angeles as I met the two of you.

He's going to give us as much time as we want. And okay, we're cutting it off. All right. All right, here we go. All right, soft shell taco. Oh, no, I need to hear the end of your story. That's it. I actually don't remember what context.

In fact, I don't have a specific memory attached. Did you meet him before our sketch team? I think I did. Yeah, I met him at some point. It was the director of the sketch team that Evan and I were on. Yeah, way back in the day. Way back in the day. I met Susser.

I didn't like him, which people have tweeted at me. They were like, everyone you met, you don't like, but I didn't, but Susser felt the same way about me. It was through Dave Ferguson. I was like, why does this guy think he's fucking funny? This is deal. And I didn't, I didn't like him that much. And then we became close friends.

Right, Suss? Thumbs up. Thumbs up. All right. Mitch, your thoughts. Go ahead and give your score first. For what we're doing. Chipotle?

We're doing Chipotle for a soft shell taco. Chipotle comes in with a very respectable 4.81101. Yeah, Chipotle's was definitely a good deal more edible than the previous one. So much better than the, the hard shell taco was just a mess. This one was, was not bad. I'm going to give it a 3.01 just slightly above average. Okay. Yeah.

I think I'm in the ballpark with you guys. I gave it a 3.62. All right. I want a little high, maybe, but that's okay. Del Taco soft shell. Go ahead, Mitch. Del Taco. Great job by Del Taco on this one.

Really, really good. 5.0. Great. Great soft shell taco. I agree with Corny. Could have, could have been a little bit more filler. Yeah. I think it's fair that maybe the ratios were a little bit puny in terms of, of filling

up that shell, but it's a really good soft shell taco. It's a really good flour tortilla. You know, I, I like the, I like this, the shredded cheese that they have there at the Del Taco. I think it's my favorite consistency of a, of a cheese shred in the spirit of coming together and not making the seam like some sort of thing where I'm just allied to, to one chain. I'm going to say that my score is the same as Mitch's 5.0 for this one.

Good, Corny. Nice. Yeah. Del Taco was tasty, but yeah, I, I knocked it a little bit for the, the lack of a ton of fillings. I gave it a 4.18. Still a very good score. And finally, Taco Bell soft shell taco.

Taco Bell, you did it again. This is maybe, this is maybe my, my star of the entire show. This is the, what would it be? The floor routine or something? What's a big Olympic event? What is your metaphor here? I'm saying what's, what's an Olympic, a must watch Olympic event. For me, it's nothing.

Yeah. Maybe the, I mean, I guess you could say the, the men, the 100 meter race. What's a 100 meter sprint? This is the 100. Men's 100 meters. That's the most popular. I don't know. Yeah.

I would agree. That's the floor exercise. Woman's floor exercise. Or even maybe it's just like the opening ceremony. That's the only thing I like to watch. This is like the opening ceremony for me. The soft shell taco. I, it got a, maybe this, maybe the star of the show, 5.44.

5.44. Um, you know, I, I will agree that this was the best soft shell taco of the bunch. Wow. I'm not, I'm not blinded by my fealty to the, uh, outstanding Del Taco chain. Wow. I'm going to give this a, a better score than Del Taco by a little bit. 5.36. Nice.

Wow. Um, yeah. For me, it was also the best of the bunch, solid, tasty. I give it a 5.0. Wow. Uh, this is turning into a route so far. Uh, Susser is doing the math out there. He is, uh...

I can tell you already, Susser, you fool. It's, it's, it's obvious that Taco Bell is going to win, um, and it is a race for the silver medal. I've already, uh, assembled the podium before Susser came in. All right, Evan. You guys would be surprised sometimes what seems obvious is not actually the result. In this case, that's not the situation. With the bronze, Chipotle, with the silver, Del Taco, and with the gold Taco Bell.

Wow. Congratulations, Taco Bell and your new anthem, courtesy of Courtney. Oh, yeah. Much better. This is by Anita Ward. He said that, like, it was a fun fact. Fun fact. Is this all the song does?

I don't know. I don't know how long it takes. I think it takes a while to get to this. This is funky. We gotta get one lyric. Yeah. Come on, Wager. This is like the music you'll hear when you finally lose your mind.

He'll be so happy, though. Did you do an instrumental version? Just the part where you're like, bugging in the disco. Just fast forward it. All right, wait a minute. Let me, let me, I'm gonna skip ahead a little bit. Man, this is embarrassing. All right, here we go.

I'm gonna skip ahead to three minutes and 24 seconds. You fast forward it to a weird spot. I think you fast forward it to the end. I don't know. I don't know this song. Oh, boy. It's time for a burritos. Now see, this is the, this to me is the big event for, I'm a burritos guy through and

through. Right. We started the clock, right, Susser? All right. The clock is running. Good. I can go for two minutes and we'll still be fine. But this, this, this, this competition was also, I'm gonna say, this one was also close.

It was really close to me and I was surprised by some things, so who did I think with it? I'm gonna save it for my scores, but the place I thought would win it, won it. So I don't know if that tips it in any ways for you guys, but yeah, I think between the three of them, it's a .5 difference for all three of them. Wow. Yeah. I mean, Chipotle is certainly known for its burritos and I feel like that's, as we were discussing earlier, burritos and bowls, I think, are what people go there.

I think those are their top two menu items. We use, we tried, we try as much as possible in this to have a one-to-one-to-one in that we're trying to have a very similar menu item and it wasn't 100% achievable here, but we did get a chicken burrito from all three places, the Chipotle chicken burrito with pretty much the baseline options of just, you know, rice beans, cheese, sour cream, lettuce, and the mild salsa, just keeping it very, very simple. They do do a good burrito at Chipotle. If I was going to say something, I always feel like rice is overused in burritos and

I feel like the rice at Chipotle is particularly dominant and makes it, makes things a little bit dry and if I was really customizing it, I'd ask for easy rice or maybe even no rice. I'm more of a bean burrito guy than a rice burrito guy. The Taco Bell one, I, you know, I didn't even, couldn't even identify it based on flavor, like which, you just ordered a chicken burrito, right Mitch? I ordered, I just ordered a chicken burrito is what I said. Yeah. And so I don't know what exactly it is, but it was very basic, but you know, the chicken

inside, it was very tasty. It was just like well-seasoned and it was a very compact, tiny, almost taquito-sized burrito, but it, you know, it packed a lot of flavor in there. And then the, um, the Del Taco was their classic chicken burrito, which has some lettuce and tomatoes in it. It kind of has the same sauce as on their chicken soft tacos, which I really like. I, a very solid, very solid chicken burrito, although if I was actually customizing it the way I'd like it, I'd probably go with our spicy chicken.

Courtney, your thoughts? Yeah. I mean, I feel like Chipotle for me was just so far and away, better than Del Taco and Taco Bell. I did not, I was not into those burritos. Right. I mean, they were still fine. They were decent.

I wrote down decent and fine as my comments for those. They were fine, but just compared to the Chipotle, I agree sometimes Chipotle is like a big burrito of rice, which is not great, but, um, I felt like the flavors were, were very good and I enjoyed it. Yeah. It's something to be said for, you know, I mean, there, it's the baseline burrito from each place, but the Chipotle ones, it's such a different price point and it's such, that's such expected to be a meal in and of itself versus what you'll get at Del Taco at Taco,

or Taco Bell is kind of like an accompaniment to whatever, you know, you'll get a combo meal there and it'll include a burrito, maybe a couple of tacos in a quesadilla. It's just a thing you'll throw in there. Um, so, I mean, unless you're getting something giant, like one of their big old, their, their intentionally big burritos, like I think Susser got, what'd you get Susser? The epic carne asada burrito? No? Are we out of time?

Yes, we're out of time. Wait, we're both out of time and you get a thumbs up in the epic carne asada burrito. Okay. It's confusing. It's the most confusing thing ever. Okay, great. Um, all right. Let's get to our, let's get to our scores.

Uh, we'll start with you this time, uh, uh, Courtney for Chipotle. Uh, Chipotle, uh, for me, best of, best of the bunch, uh, 4.8. 4.8. 4.8. Okay. Chipotle, this is what they do. They make the bur, they make good burritos, um, um, I give it a 5.12. It was for me, the gold winner, but I don't know if it's the same case for you, Weger.

Chipotle, it's just, it's the, the, all the ingredients in the, in the, the, the rice is so good, even though I agree with you on, on too much rice, the sour cream, the cheese, it's just, it's just a really well done burrito and it's, and it's why that place is in business. They make burritos. So yeah. Chipotle, I feel like their burritos are inconsistent, like from location to location. And I think, I think that Chipotle we went to today was maybe not a particularly strong Chipotle.

I'm not going to name the Chipotle because everyone has an off day. Um, but you know, like it, Leak it. No, I'm not going to, I'm not going to shame this particular Chipotle location. Shame them. I'm not, no, that's what our culture's all about now. Shame them. I'm just saying that if you happen to be going to see a movie in Burbank, um, near Pass Avenue

and there's a Chipotle nearby that doesn't have a lot of parking, you may not get the best parking. The Pass Avenue Burbank Chipotle sucks. No, I'm just saying, I'm just saying, I'm, you guys, you guys put it together on your own. Um, that said, uh, this was maybe not a top tier Chipotle burrito, but still a very good burrito. I don't know.

I feel like this, the burritos competition, it's like Kenya and distance running here. We just, we just knew Chipotle was going to win. They're the heavy favorite. Of course they, it's like the USA and basketball, we just know they're going to run away with it. Um, 5.61 for Chipotle for me, uh, Del Taco, go ahead, Courtney. Yeah, it was just fine. I felt like it was kind of like the soft shell taco, but I didn't like it as much for whatever

reason. I gave it a 3.3. No one like her? Yeah. You're going to be happy. Del Taco comes in with my silver medal at a 4.945. Uh, I used some Del Scorcho on this guy and it was another question mark for a star of the meal.

Now here's the deal. I do think that the Chipotle burrito is better. That's what they do, but I was still thinking about that Dell after the Chipotle burrito just for its simplicity. That's kind of the one I, that in the soft shell Taco bell taco are the two I kind of want to go back for it. It's just really well done. It's, it's, it's, it's simple.

You can kind of taste all the ingredients like, uh, like with the Chipotle burrito, it becomes like a big mess, but with that, with that Dell taco one, you can kind of taste all the individual ingredients and you didn't just, it's really well done and simple and good. It like, it gives you a taste. It kind of is like right in the middle. You get a little bit of like garbage taco bell. Sure. You get a little bit of like, like a great Chipotle ingredients and that kind of comes

together to form the Dell taco. So second place, really close, um, but, uh, but yeah, it gets my silver medal and another one of my kind of stars of the meal. So like you said, if this, it's the, the burrito, the chicken burrito from, from, uh, from Chipotle is it's, it's Kenya. It's just, yeah, it's just going to be superior. It's Kenya. There's no, it's just, it's going to win.

Um, Dell taco, you know, this is, I'm just trying to search for the right analogy here. I didn't land on anything good. Um, so this is just me saying that I don't have a good way of putting this, but it's, I think of my, I think of Dell taco, I think of it like I'm, I think I'm, even though I have no responsibility for it, I, I'm kind of like a proud parent of like, like, oh, they'll talk, you know, like I try to be an advocate for it and evangelist for it to encourage people to go there and try certain menu items. I would not point towards this chicken burrito as one of the menu items that I would get

or that I would encourage people to get. So viewed through that prism, it's still pretty good, uh, but it's just nothing spectacular. And I even think this individual flavor components that you get from this chicken burrito are better in that chicken soft taco. So I would steer people towards that. And certainly I would steer people towards a quesadillo or the chili fries over, over this particular burrito. That said, not bad, 3.89 for me.

Go ahead, Courtney. What, what, we're talking taco, I'm sorry. My apologies. All right. Taco Bell burrito for me, very similar to the Dell taco burrito. I thought it was fine. It wasn't to me as good as the, some of the other stuff we had from them. I gave it a 3.8.

Um, yeah, this got my, this got my bronze. I like it. It was just kind of, it was simple and I mean, it was good. It wasn't bad. Uh, just a little bit, not as great as the Dell taco and not nearly as great as Chipotle. I give it a 4.696 and I used hot sauce on there. I'm glad we get to know all the sauces. It's very important.

Taco Bell certainly surpassed my expectations here, especially with something so simple. I mean, I just am curious, genuinely curious if this is off menu, if they just heard chicken burrito or like, all right, we'll just put some chicken in a burrito because it was so simple. Are you accusing me of some, this is some sort of a scheme of mine? I'm not saying, I'm not saying it was a scheme. I'm just saying like, it was so simple. I didn't even see any other components in it except for chicken, seasoned chicken in

a tortilla. Like, was there anything else? There was rice in there. There's a little bit of rice. I don't know. I don't remember any rice. Um, it's possible. I'm just saying it was very, for something so simple, it was pretty damn good and it

wasn't my, it wasn't my winner. It, in fact, it was my bronze medalist as well, but still I'd get that again. I'd give it a 3.4. Very respectable. Very, very respectable. Um, 3.4 for me, for the burrito from Taco Bell, uh, Susser is totaling up. We've already done the math in our heads. The scores.

We know who is one. Wait, I mean, this is clear. We all, we all have the same one, two, and three. We're all in agreement here. Well, I had, I had, I had Del Taco as my third. Oh yeah, Del Taco was your third. But it was very close. Oh, okay.

All right. But, uh, but I think this is clear. But the numbers, sometimes these numbers. Oh, these numbers. Pretty clear what happened. Here we go. All right, Susser, go ahead. Well, it may be clear to you guys.

It's also cleared everywhere. With the bronze metal, metal, Taco Bell, with the silver metal, Del Taco, and with the gold. Wow. Chipotle. Chipotle. Congratulations, Chipotle. It's time for your national anthem. The cover of Pure Imagination, played by Fiona Apple in the web video you came out with

in 2013. What? What the fuck? Why? Why is this? Let me skip ahead a little bit. Fiona Apple? Haunted.

I guess this is probably closest to a national anthem. That's true. Oh my God. So, they actually have a little video that they put out that has a little scarecrow guy. Do you guys remember this at all? Yes, I do. A little scarecrow walking through a factory farm, and there's like scared cows in there. And it's basically saying that like, Chipotle doesn't do this.

Chipotle responsibly sources their meats. Jesus. That was Fiona Apple who's saying that. Yeah, they scored it with the Fiona Apple covering the Willy Wonka song. It was Del Taco commercial was a scarecrow. Walking through a factory farm. Chipotle commercial. Chipotle commercial, sorry.

Oh my God. But they still kill animals. They still kill animals. Yeah, it was really a weird thing of just saying like, we're not bad. These guys are bad, but just because they do, they use some slightly more responsible method of slaughtering. Was there a video game attached to that too? Yeah, they had a scarecrow video game.

And then they also have like a weird series with Ray Wise from Robocop where he plays like, Chipotle does not do conventional advertising, but they like paid for a Hulu series about factory farming that's presented by Chipotle. Sounds great. Yeah, Hulu's come a long way since they were doing Chipotle series. There was a series about factory farming. All right. I feel like you can't make a strong like statement on factory farming and then also include a

video game. I don't feel like that's fair. It's like whether you freed the cows or something and brought it to your factory. I got a cow trying to get out. What are you? Are you an animal? I think you're playing the scarecrow. I don't remember the exact mechanics of this app.

That's so weird too. Yeah, everything about it is weird. Look, here's the thing. Mitch is right that they are trying to distance themselves from a practice when really they are doing something that's all so bad. They still shoot cows in the head with some gun. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

I don't know. Whatever. I'm sorry about the ethics of factory farming right now. Does Chipotle have something where the cows willingly come in when they're ready to die? The cows nod and they step onto the conveyor belt? Is that the difference? Is that what they're trying to say? I don't know.

They have a gentle death kind of like in Soylent Green. Have you seen that where they watch beautiful images kind of as they're like fading away? I haven't seen that, but my point of reference is Cloud Atlas. When they have like the ritual of ascension and everyone's like they're like marching proudly on and they're like they're very happy and they think they're going to a great place and then they're just taken into a room and just like slaughtered with a dentist drill and then they get turned into a liquefied meal for the next generation. Oh, it's just like Soylent Green.

Yeah, it's the same. They probably stole it from Soylent Green. Okay, cool. Anyway, Cloud Atlas is good. All right. Let's get to our final category. Tom Hanks plays a bunch of different races. Yeah, he plays a bunch of different.

Everyone plays a bunch of different races. It's very problematic. That's the true truth. Yeah. Oh boy, a little Tom Hanks slang from future Hawaii. Who's a little green man who appears? Oh my God. Little Georgie?

Little Georgie. Yeah, Georgie. There's like a top hat on or something, right? Yeah, it's the future and then like and Halle Berry is a future person. He's a crude like barbarian person, but then he's also having visions where who's the bad guy from the Matrix? Hugh? What's his name?

Hugo Weaving. Hugo Weaving, yeah. Hugo Weaving in one of his many roles is playing a little green man who appears over his shoulder and like he's like, y'all know what's going on. He talks in this weird Cajun accent about all the ominous things that are going to happen to me. And then also a key point in the movie is that there's a crazy face painted barbarian. He looks like Kratos from God of War.

That's right. You like to hear that reference? Played by... No one does, don't worry. People, we have some gamer listeners, we're going to get the God of War thing. But he's played... Gamer gate listeners. That's your demographic.

Played by Hugh Grant. So like this big like scary like like brute is played by Hugh Grant. It's like so weird. Everything about that movie is bizarre. It's very weird. Does he speak in English accent too when he... I don't know if he speaks actually. Hugh Grant sounds like...

I mean, when you listen to Hugh Grant talk, he sounds like a huge puss. Yeah. What else? He sounds swan. Handsome. Also, Hugo Weaving also plays a female nurse in another one of the segments. She plays a female nurse in a nursing home. I actually really, really like the movie too.

It's an insane movie. Is it worth watching? I think it's a fun movie. I think it's a fun movie. Everyone should watch Cloud Atlas. Our buddy, Eric Appel, said it's like watching six movies because it really is. It's like six different realities that are interspersed with each other with the same cast, and they're all playing like race swapped roles.

It's so fucking insane. It's like it's a bananas movie, but it's got some really cool individual moments. And it's just so ambitious that that's part of the fun. It's just like this is just such a huge swing and a miss, but it's just so crazy to watch them try to do this. Were we okay with Tom Hanks playing different races because we were just like, well, it's Tom Hanks. I think Tom Hanks, he was maybe a little picky in terms of which races he portrayed.

Which races? I think Tom Hanks might have been smart on that one. Which races? Yeah. But some of the other actors... Did he get Asian? No, I think some of the actors without as much clout had to play some... I think Halle Berry played an Asian woman at one point.

An Asian man? I can't remember exactly, but there is an Asian actress who plays a white woman and then there's a few white actors in future Korea, New Soul, who play Korean, which is a little problematic. We're thinking of doing it for the podcast. Jesus Christ. Let's get back to nachos. We've got Chipotle, Del Taco, and Taco Bell. The clock is starting, right, Susser?

Clock has begun. Let's get our thoughts on nachos. Mitch, we'll start with you. Another close one, except... Let's just say it was close between Del Taco and Taco Bell. Chipotle, you forgot to put fucking chips in your nachos, and that's just not right. Let me say this. I think that Chipotle maybe had the best ingredients of all of them, which they do.

They have some great ingredients, their cheese, their sour cream, all of that stuff, but they didn't put any fucking chips in there. I was dipping into this stuff with other chips, and I was still basing it on that. I was actually giving them an advantage that they don't deserve, because I was using chips... Why got extra chips from Chipotle, and I was using those chips to kind of dip into this goop that was created from these nachos, and it was good, but I don't know. I'll say right now, that gets my bronze medal. The race between the other two, it was tight.

It was tight. I have a clear winner, but Del Taco and Taco Bell both pretty good. Yeah, and it's definitely... There's more of the cheese sauce nachos, or what you're getting at Del Taco and Taco Bell versus Chipotle is that authentic shredded cheese they're putting on there. They're sort of white cheese, which I'm not really clear on what it is exactly. I think it's a jack, right? Is that what they use to use a jack?

Or cotea? It doesn't seem as crumbly enough to be a cotea, but maybe it is. I don't know. Anyway, so here's the thing. Chipotle, you have to order off menu to get nachos, and we were weighing whether to get nachos or quesadilla. We settled on nachos, because I think that was different enough from burrito and taco to sort of give a clear demarcation. But you still have to say, it's still part of their secret menu. And so, judging it on those terms, I think you can kind of expect it to get fucked up.

And ours was clearly a little fucked up. There were some chips in there, but it was a very, very paltry number of chips, and we had to supplement it with those additional chips. Yeah, just a mash of wet ingredients. Really unpleasant. Del Taco and Taco Bell, I'm with you, Mitch. A close, close competition. I definitely like the presence of jalapenos on the Del Taco nachos.

I think that's a great thing. You get some jalapenos on there, get a little bit of heat. And also, you can adjust your own heat level as you go. You know, you want to have more jalapenos, you can spice it up a little bit. You want a little bit milder, you can leave those jalapenos to the side. I don't know, I enjoy that portion of it. What are your thoughts, Courtney? Yeah, I mean, the problem was they were all soggy.

Right. Everything was soggy. Chipotle, by far, was just a total, total mess. So soggy. I think I got to Chipotle first, because I didn't, I think I ate all the chips. I was like, whoops. Like, when you guys came over and you were like, there's no chips. I was like, there were plenty of chips when I was over there.

So sorry. I remember you going, there aren't? What on earth? Chips are just hanging out of my mouth. Those chips were very soggy, though, I will say. They were soggy. It was a mess, but for me, Chipotle was, I mean, I'm not saying it's the best of the bunch, but the flavors were the best.

Right. I don't like that nacho cheesy cheese. I felt like Taco Bell was, I liked it better. I didn't love, sorry, Nick, I didn't love the Del Taco cheese as much. And I'm the worst, I don't like jalapenos. And so I was also like, I don't like these jalapenos. So that, for me, wasn't as good. Cesar is vigorously cutting us off right now.

Finish your thoughts. That's all I got. We'll roll right into your thoughts right here. So give us your score for Chipotle. This is going to be high and you guys are probably going to disagree with this. But for me, Chipotle had very good flavors despite the total mass. And I guess I got all the chips. 3.9.

All right. I'll go next and I'll let you finish things off, Mitch, because I want to stay in suspense to see what your final verdict is. Chipotle, for me, is going to be just, I'm viewing it again through the prism of this isn't something that's normally on their menu, but also keep in mind, if you do order it, there's a good chance it'll be fucked up. I like the ingredients a lot, but I just wouldn't order this from there. 2.1.

Go ahead, Mitch. Wow. Weigher and I are very close. I agree that the ingredients are the best. The ingredients are very good. I had more fun with the other two. I just liked the other two more. There was no doubt about it.

And I gave it a 2.04. All right. Respectable for what we had to deal with. Absolutely. Moving on, Del Taco. Go ahead, Courtney. Del Taco. Guys, I scored this one out.

I didn't like that cheese. I wasn't into it. 2.46. Oh, boy. That is a low score. Sorry, Mitch. That's okay. I feel bad.

Here's the thing. Supreme nachos. Oh, boy. I'm not sure if supreme nachos. We got the macho nachos from Del Taco, and they were the nachos supreme. Is that what they were from Taco Bell? Taco's Bel Grande.

Taco's Bel Grande. Nachos Bel Grande. I'm not sure if I like supreme nachos versus regular cheese nachos. I think it like a grilled cheese sandwich. I think I like it simpler. But that said, as supreme nachos go, I think these were the clear standout in the bunch.

None of these nachos were great. These were a little on the soggy side. Again, I think the general sogginess probably neutralizes itself across the three competitors. But I think these were not bad. And certainly, I think I'm not... I'm trying to decide how high to go, but I think I'm comfortable just shy of 5.0

with a 4.97. Go ahead, Mitch. I really liked the Del Taco nachos as well. I just feel like Taco Bell just kind of beat them out. I give them a 4.5.9. All right, fair enough. Yep. So now we're going to Taco Bell.

Courtney, go ahead. Taco Bell, solid, although a little soggy. For me, the best of the bunch, 4.0. 4.0. Good score. I think the Taco Bell nachos are fine. You know, they're just beans and cheese and sour cream. They're pretty simple.

I don't know. I mean, I prefer those Del Taco ones probably every time. And I just think that they were above average, but not great. I'm going to give a score that would be a respectable GPA in school 3.6. Go ahead, Mitch. Huh. I thought that these were just the best. And the chips stayed crispy, and all the ingredients were just great.

A great bite, as Weigur would say. 4.75. 4.75, very good. All right, great. So Susser is tolling everything up. I actually don't know who won this one. Yeah, this is going to be an interesting sort of down-to-the-wire competition. Wow.

So Susser's adding it up. Oh, boy. And Usong is trailing after him. Oh, my God. Usong, our intern, is in here as well. What the fuck's happening? What's going on? For the Dolan Committee, it's not just me, I've written Usong.

Unfortunately, we had some issues. Who's turning red? Usong, you want to explain what that is? What is going on? Did you correct? Did Susser add wrong Usong? No, no, no. I'm so sorry.

I may have missed Kourtney's evaluation for Del Taco on Notches, and I'm so sorry. No problem. No problem. What do you guys do to this point? Why is he so scared? I don't know. He's dealing with Susser most of the time. He's just going to be beaten or something.

It was 2.46. 2.46. Susser, why aren't you, you're making Usong do this math? Why? I thought Susser was doing it. Oh, that means... What is going on? Susser, what the fuck is wrong with you?

You have one job. We bought you a fucking burrito. Evan is just back there lording over Usong, doing nothing. Thank you, Usong, for the Notches competition. Uh-huh. Yeah, okay. Susser, Jesus fucking Christ. In second place.

In second place? In third with the bronze Del Taco. Wow, with the bronze? That doesn't make sense. I'm sorry, that was me. The silver. I apologize. Chipotle.

Wow. And with the gold. Wow. Taco Bell. Wow. I would like to launch an official protest. You know what? I would like to change my score.

Due to the problematic issue with the... I feel like this isn't right. I feel like this isn't right. This isn't right. I'm going to retroactively change my score. Can I retroactively change my score? And now the overall... No, no, hang on.

No, no, hang on. I want to retroactively change my... Yeah, Susser, hold the fuck on. Hold the phone. You know what? I'm giving it... I'm retroactively giving it a 3.8. Where does that get us?

Oh, no. Courtney, this might... Now, this podcast is going to be like two hours long as they try to figure out this math. Do you need us to all give our scores again? Oh, boy. You saw it. This is not your fault, by the way.

I guess I thought... You saw you did nothing wrong. Don't let them bully you. Look, the only blameless person in all of this is you, song. All the rest of us are culpable in crafting this unlistable podcast. No, I fucked up because you're right. This isn't right. Don't talk about it.

It shouldn't be the bronze. I was too... I don't know what happened, guys. God. I thought you... Here's an idea. Next time you go down a computer, have a little spreadsheet, you can just pop a new number in.

We rarely edit this podcast, but I think there's a lot we could just chop out of the middle here. Probably about from about minute 35 to about minute 85. We could just get out of here. 50 minutes? Yeah. Amazingly, this somehow means... Oh, no.

...that with the bronze is Chipotle. Yeah. Okay. That seems about right. With the silver is Taco Bell. Oh, my God. What the fuck? I fucked it up too much.

It's Del Taco. Congratulations, Del Taco. Oh, my God. You came out with a gold... I'm good with that. ...richly deserved... Oh, this is such bullshit. And now it's time for your national anthem, Lana Del Ray's Video Games.

This is such bullshit. Just play the whole song. This is a lot like the fucking Chipotle song. It really is. It's very similar. Hmm. The song is fucking stupid, by the way. Congratulations, Del Taco.

Richly deserved. What is she saying with that song? No, it's not. So now we also have the results of the Catholic of all of the events. I think I know how this one's gonna go. With the bronze, Chipotle. Wow. They dragged down so far by their non-burrito scores.

They're just not good at anything else. With the silver, Del Taco. Yeah, baby. And with the gold. Yes. deservedly so. Wow. I mean, truly, Del Taco should not have won a category, but that was insane.

Five who cares. All right. So, sir, bad job at adding. No, you're not responsible. Gonna get the whip. Thank you, guys. Since I played a different song for the other Taco Bell ones, I started off with bell-bib-de-bose poison, moved on to Anita Ward's Ring My Bell.

I feel like I should mix it up for this third one. Wait, do you have something on standby? No, I don't have anything on standby. Oh, Jesus. All right, I got it figured out. Here we go. Bell and Sebastian's The Party Line. It's also like, I don't know that Bell and Sebastian song.

Me neither. Well, it's got a lot of energy to it, so that's good. Can you play any other Bell and Sebastian song? I just picked number one most played. Look, it doesn't matter. This is all getting cut out. All right, that was the disastrous second week of the Susser games. The worst thing we've done on this bad podcast.

Guys, remember the metal stand. The metal stand, I'd say, is a standout. That's a huge highlight. The metal stand alone justifies this entire competition. Thank you, Courtney, for bringing that. Courtney, you shouldn't have put time into that thing, but it's beautiful. You shouldn't have put time into that.

I really enjoyed it. You shouldn't have given up your Sunday to come record this podcast and eat a bunch of bad food. I got in-laws in town, and I'm happy to be here. Okay, so coming up next is the next part of our competition, which is, I've been so confused, because I thought the whole thing was the Susser games. He wanted to do this, or do you want to do this in Susser?

God damn it. Okay, so here's the thing. I thought the whole thing was the Olympic Susser games, but in last week, and also in this week, we're having another segment that is also called the Susser games. What is exactly happening here, Evan? Just like the other Olympics.

The Olympics is about excitement and live action. Okay. So now it's time for the Susser games. So wait, hold on. So the overall event is called the Olympic Susser games. Yes. But within that is a separate thing called the Susser games. Yes, that's correct.

You've ruined this podcast. You bring in this paper that looks all official, yet it's obviously like it has some weird shit printed on the back of it. You found it in here, and you wrote down and cray on what you're going to say right now. Today's Susser game is called the Frozen Face Off, where we'll be tasting and dealing with frozen meals

that you microwave, where we won't be counting them, but eating them. And we've got selections from TGI Fridays and CPK. Now, we may want to have a break in the action, or I've got some of it in the microwave now. I can kind of bring it in as it goes, and you guys can sample them. Here's what we'll do.

We're going to flip the script in terms of order. We'll jump ahead to the feedback. We'll answer a question from the viewer, or from a listener, rather, and then as we're going, as these things are ready, you can bring them in and then we'll jump back into the segment. Does that make sense? Okay, great.

Hold on a second. You had 84 minutes, and the help of you saw, and you don't have these fucking things cooked. What the fuck is wrong with you? Also, you were like, after they eat a bunch of tacos and feel disgusting, let's have them eat more gross things. Hey, while we're piling on you here, Susser,

Frozen Face Off is not like a pun or anything. You've come up with a better title. Frozen Face Off? It sounds like a sequel to Face Off, the movie, where they go to the Arctic and they change faces again. Sounds like a great idea. It's Elsa and Anna from the Frozen franchise have to switch faces.

And then what? I don't know. I actually watched Face Off the other night. It's good. It holds up. It holds up all right. You know the thing about Face Off? Have you seen Face Off, Courtney?

Yeah, it's been a while, but yeah. It ends with a big boat chase. They think everyone forgets about it. I totally forgot about that. This fucking movie has a big set piece. It's a big boat chase, and then I think he kills John Travolta with a harpoon or something. Yeah, he kills him with a harpoon.

It's really fucking weird. Here's my issue with Face Off. Nick, you're a married person. Yes. So if just another lady switched faces with your wife, you would be like, yep, no problem. I guess that's my life. Well, there's also a voice chip.

Yeah, there's a voice chip. The rest of their body is just identical? They do a little bit of plastic surgery to make the bodies line up, but I think you'd be able to tell the difference, right? I just feel like I would. Maybe the idea is that you wouldn't be paying that close attention because it's just like,

oh, this is someone that I've known for so long that I'm just sort of like... The marriage is dead at that point. It's all a blur to me. Yeah, maybe. It's weird. There is a storyline where it's, yeah, it's his Nick, or I guess John Travolta's wife.

They don't like, they're going through some trouble. Right. So they don't really... Oh, that's what it is. Yeah. Is it Joan Allen? Is that right? That sounds right.

And then he's also like, but while Nick Cage is in John Travolta's body wearing his face, he also is very protective of Nicholas Cage's teen daughter. He is protective of her, but also like, it's kind of like, it's kind of implied that he might want to have sex with her. It's really weird. It's very strange.

And then also like, that is a plot hole because he could easily kill both of them. Yeah. And he does it. But it's more tormenting to be like, I had sex with your wife. Right, right? I guess so.

But I don't think he does ever. Doesn't he? I think he does. Maybe implied. Oh, really? I feel like he did. Look, that movie is good. It's good.

It's like, it's got some problems, but it's good. It's a good 90s action movie. Yeah, yeah. And you know what? There's some real live stunts. There's some good stuff in there. We're killing time while Susser microwaves meals.

That's what's happening. You know what? That's what this podcast has become. That I always love is The Rock. Oh, The Rock's great. So good. They really, I feel like in action movies back then, like, got really nasty.

Right, yeah. They were really cool guys and like, fuck people up really bad. Like in horrible ways. Yeah. The action movies kind of have gotten soft. They've lessened the gore, and I think part of that is they're aiming for PG-13 ratings,

but I think also part of that is there's a lot of, like, CG blood and gore these days, where back when they did things practically, like, the blood and gore and, like, total recall of those Paul Verhoeven movies was just, like, so gritty. Like, watch, like, some of those Robocop scenes. Oh, my God.

Look at them up. They're so fucking graphic. Original Robocop is so graphic. It really is. That's so good. Have you watched Day of the Dead? There's a scene, and I watch this in college.

Yeah. And, like, when I was, like, a freshman or a sophomore. And I love it. It's one of my favorites, but there's a scene where they rip a guy's head off, and it's one of the most fucking intense things I've ever seen in my entire life. It is really good.

And he's, like, screaming, and then when they rip his head off, he stops screaming. His vocal cords stretch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's insane. It's really insane. You songs out there with plates.

What's going on? So we're going to answer viewer mail, or listener mail. Why don't you sing viewer? But it seems like we've got these things ready. We've got these things ready. We've killed time. So we'll just go into this.

Okay. These are Auntie Annie's pretzel dogs. All right. The first of three things that Evan says is currently cutting up and microwaving in the kitchen. Cutting up. Evan's just sitting around. He's like, go bring them the dogs.

You song. I'm very sorry. You guys are great. That is how you're spending your summer. How do you guys have an intern? I think I've had that all the time. There are all sorts of logical flaws that exist into this podcast.

Are you getting a credit for this? Weirdly enough, yeah. I mean, that is insane. I agree. You're preaching to the choir here. He goes to Cornell. He goes to an Ivy League school. We also have our producer Dustin,

who's giving up his weekend to come in here and record the show. None of it makes sense. No one should be doing this. We all should be doing something else. Thankfully, it ends next week. That's all we can look forward to. All right.

So what are we doing? I asked Evan what the premise was, and he just said, they're just going to taste them and rate them. So this is the first of three. Evan has left. I'll be back to the others shortly. All right, great.

Thank you, you song. I appreciate it. Thank you, you song. Okay. So this is like a pretzel dog. I didn't know Auntie Han's had a version of this. I guess it makes sense. Wetzel certainly has a version of this.

It's pretty good. Hmm. All right. All right. Not bad. I wish I had a little ketchup or mustard, but... Yeah, this needs a little condiment to wake it up. It's basically a pretzel-like bun,

which, having been microwaved, it just kind of has a very soggy, not pretzel-like exterior dog. It's just very much just normal. Let's rate it out of five on your rings, because someone online suggested that. All right, that's a good suggestion. Out of five on your rings, two. It's a two for me.

It's fine. All right. Yeah, the dog kind of is... The meat of the dog is kind of what I'm losing here. I mean, that's kind of the negative on this one, is the actual meat of the dog. Really? I kind of like the meat of the dog,

and I don't like the real bun or whatever. It feels like it's gotten maybe because of the microwave. It's, like, too chewy or something. A little soggy, yeah. I mean, that's always going to be an issue with microwave treats. I'll give it a three. U-Song's bringing it in.

Three on your rings for me. Three for Mitch. Yeah, I'll give it a three. All right, none of us are writing this down. It doesn't matter. None of this matters. U-Song is back again. What do you have for us, U-Song?

I now have T.G.I. Friday's Boneless Chicken Bites Buffalo Style. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. These sound real gross. Why do they sound gross? I hate buffalo wings. Here's another thing that I'm an asshole to hate.

Is your issue with... Jesus, why are we got, like, seven? Yeah, I got a giant plate. I'm giving it a zero. I don't even want to taste it. Is your issue, you don't like buffalo sauce? You don't like spicy? I don't like buffalo sauce at all.

Mm, ice cold, Susser. Are they really cold? I have ice cold. Mm. Oh, God, just the smell of it. You want one of these? Ugh, I hate it. Can I get another, like, a drink of some kind?

Is anyone out there? Can we run in our... Oh, uh, I'd love a... Just a water would be great. What a disaster. I don't even... Ugh. Mm.

I feel like I should... Ugh. These are really bad. Ugh. Zero. They're really bad. Yeah, they have this gummy sort of texture. Dustin, bringing in a water bottle for Courtney.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Dustin. It's truly chaos in the studio today. I mean, just next time, maybe a dessert. Yeah, dessert would have been better. Susser, what the fuck? I just wanted to give you guys an update that we're still waiting on the third course. I just wanted to see how it was going so far.

Um, it's going badly. What is the point? Is there something that's going to happen with these scores? No, you'll give them medals and the same thing that the whole episode was. Okay. I don't even need to give them more medals. That's not what we did last time with the fry counting. Is that what we did?

We did. Yeah. All right, listen. I give that one one onion ring. Listen, Buffalo... Boneless Buffalo are one of my favorite appetizers, but the sauce was weird on that, too. It's not a great sauce. They're just so gummy, and they don't even taste like they've got chicken in them.

They're just all just mush. I thought they were really gross. I'll give it one half of an onion ring. Those are bad. Yeah, zero onion rings for me. It's still going to be another minute or so until the last one. Jesus fucking Christ. Oh boy.

No compliments to the fucking dumb chef. Should we put a pause in the episode and then come back when it's ready? No, we'll just keep going. The longest episode yet. I don't think that's even close to true. This is actually one of the shortest. If it ended right now, it would be maybe the shortest. This is a fine-length episode.

It's just that the content is very bad. It's great to be here, yes. Courtney, you're doing great. You're the highlight of these proceedings. We've just had just a total cluster fuck of a Olympics. But I can't believe that the Olympics are coming to a close today. We should just end it one week early. No one would be upset.

Aren't the Olympics two weeks? They're three weeks. They're three weeks. As are the Olympics. Oh fuck, fine. Susser, get out of here. Go get the fucking food. God damn it.

Oh boy. We're going to have some things to discuss with Joe Saunders on AfterDale with Joe. The after show. I wanted to know more about this after show. What is it? That's an excellent question. No, every week after the Olympics,

one of the episodes is out already, as of this episode being released, is a laughter show hosted by Joe Saunders, where we'll discuss the outcomes with... I did it last time and he didn't know what to say to me at all. Joe, as the Bob Costas was a pretty hilarious pic. Especially since you gave him no information. You song is back in here.

He's holding something. What do we got for us, you song? This is the California Pizza Kitchen Crispy Flatbread Margarita Flavor. I don't want to eat this shit. It's terrible. Jesus Christ. Poor you song is shaking his head. Thanks you song.

This looks really bad. It looks bad. It looks like shit. This looks like a bisected hot pocket. It's basically just like a piece of flat toast with a bunch of shit pile on it. And I hate when they have... You know how sometimes microwave things have a little tray?

Yes. It's got a little tray. The silver tray. And that makes you want to kill yourself when you're putting your little thing on a little tray. I guess we're sharing this one. We'll share this one. The silver tray was something that...

I think it was an innovation in frozen food. I mean I think it is and it's supposed to make it better, but to me that always made me want to just commit suicide. Like the fact that I'm putting my little thing carefully on a little tray. I'm like, Jesus, what's happened to my life? I gotta be honest, I feel like the dominant flavor from this is Windex.

It's just got like a weird astringent flavor to it. Yeah, to know that you say it. Those trays, I don't know about those trays. You know what? My sister's friend when she was here, she was just talking about her life. Yeah. And I was listening to her and I was getting jealous.

She was just talking about her college days and then what she's up to now. I was just listening there and listening to her and I was just getting jealous of her life over my life. And in here today is not helping me much. No, yeah. I wish I was anyone else in the world. Right.

I told you last night that I hoped that I died in my sleep of a heart attack before this fucking competition. Yeah. And I wish that was true. Mitch. And now some people are like, now Mitch, you're being too drastic.

No, for real. No, I believe you 100%. I know you stand by that. Dying in your sleep is the way to go. I agree with that. Yeah. But who, do you have a plan for those kittens? They've drawn up a will?

Someone will take them. What's Mitch? Someone will be, someone, right now, I'm stating this right now on the air. Mm-hmm. If I die, all of my money, which is not a lot, goes towards those kittens. That's it.

That's nice. But who, who, who's going to take them? Someone has to. One of my friends has to step up and take the kittens. All right. They will. Those kittens will be able to survive for at least two months just by eating Mitch's big corpse.

Hold on a second. No one checks on me for two months? Yeah. But it's good. It's your last thing that you give to the kittens. Yes. Is your running towards them. I would be so happy if I, if I die, I want the kittens to eat me.

Yeah. I don't want them to die. Yeah. Your ghost will be, like, watching over them and smiling. That is a good, like, eat your eyeballs. That is a good point, Mitch, because I think we, and I think, a lot of times we think about the ethics of eating, like, we think of the alive scenario, right?

Like, the plane crashes and, like, oh, do I have to eat my dead friends? But, like, yeah, I think I'd want my friends to eat me to survive. Right? Yeah. I might do it just for the hell of it. Yeah, you don't know. That gets zero, zero rings for me. Yeah, I'll give it, I'll give it a half.

I'll give it one ring because I would rather eat more of that than eat another one of those awful buffalo chicken nuggets. I think the buffalo chicken wins for me. Really bad. Okay, fair enough. What is, so what, that's it? Evan, that's it? Gross and pointless.

That's what we did? What, who won? All right, well, great. Andy Ann's gets the gold. Yeah, Andy Ann's gets the gold. I don't have a flag for that. This one gets, whatever this was called, gets the silver. California pizza gets the silver and the, where were those things from?

The buffalo, the TGI Fridays. TGI Fridays gets the bronze. Gets the bronze? Okay. I think I gave it one. I gave those one. You guys gave them both zero. Mm-hmm.

Okay, so yeah, that's right. And this whole segment gets a zero. Well, Susser, your greatest segment so far was us counting fries. Yeah, let's bring back the fry count. That was way more captivating. And also a lot faster, which I think was the main appeal. That was the frozen face-off this week's Susser Games. Now, as promised earlier, just like a restaurant, we found your feedback.

Let's open up the feedback. Where did he go? Did he run away? I don't know. I think he's back there yelling at you, Song, for some reason. You fucked up. It's not you, Song. It's Fault.

Lay off him. You and Ivy League school. You waited till the last minute to microwave everything, you fucking idiot. It's been an hour and a half. All right. Today's email comes to us from Matthew Kugini. Matthew writes, I have an important question for the Spoon Man himself concerning his affinity for Diet Coke.

Like you, I am a portly fellow, always planning a new scheme towards a healthier lifestyle, but rarely, parentheses and at this point comically end parentheses, see any result. Throughout all of this, I keep Diet Coke as my go-to beverage to avoid additional calories. Over this time, I have had several different people claim that Diet Coke somehow causes more weight gain than regular soda, whether it be a secret agenda to keep us fat and thirsty for more, or that Diet Coke is simply Coca-Cola classic with a different label. Have you ever heard warnings like this? Can Mr. Weigher use his ever-growing wisdom on food to blow the top off of what may be

to prove to be the biggest conspiracy of our time? You are a big Diet Coke drinker, correct, Mitch? Does that continue? Yeah, but are you a Diet Coke drinker, dude? I don't. I swore off Diet Coke years ago. I mean, if I want a soda nowadays, I'll just go for a full sugar Coke, but that's a pretty rare occasion.

Yeah. And Courtney, over there, you've been sipping on a Dr. Pepper, which is something of a Texas treat, right? You drink a lot of DP Donself. I love a Dr. Pepper. I love it. I don't normally indulge in a full sugar drink like this, but today I felt like I had to because I needed a life preserver.

Might as well, right? I thought about food we're eating. Of course. I like a full sugar drink. I mean, if I could, I would drink them all the time. Here's the thing. I know that when I drink, I'm drinking full sugar drinks, like over the course of a month, I gain way more weight than when I'm drinking Diet Coke or whatever.

This is the thing. Diet Coke is not healthy. It can cause cancer is what they say, like just whatever. There's like carcinogens or whatever within the Diet Coke recipe is what people claim. I've heard those studies are maybe a little specious and inconclusive, but yes. Yes. Here's the thing. Diet Coke doesn't have any calories, but it uses fake sugar and that gets your body

to, what they say is that it gets your body to crave sweet or things, right? Isn't that kind of what this whole thing is based on? Just drinking Diet Coke alone shouldn't make you gain weight. I think it's something that it does to your head, your brain to affect you because there was, I remember there was a kid in college who was just wrong, who was like, you drink Diet Coke, there's like carbs and stuff, and I was like, no, it's not. There aren't carbs in it. There are no calories in it, so it shouldn't, but it's not good for you.

I know that as well. Why? What do you have to say about this? It is definitely one of the biggest, like it's the biggest food conspiracy theories out there, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, when I had, when I, I lost a good amount of weight a few weeks, a few years ago.

A few weeks? Yeah, a few weeks ago. I lost a good amount of weight a few years ago, and during a transitional period, I was drinking, you know, I used to drink a lot of RC Cola, Coca-Cola Classic, your Pepsi on occasion. We grew up, growing up, we were a Pepsi family, though, in adulthood, I transitioned more away from that. But I drank a lot of diet sodas in that first portion, and then I eventually got rid of

those. Diet Dr. Coke, Diet Dr. Pepper were my favorites, and just stopped drinking those entirely and just switched to like water and sparkling water. Diet Dr. Coke. Did I say Diet Dr. Coke? I was wondering if you were coming out. Hi, Diet Dr. Pepper. I'm, so I'm loopy, all right?

I'm being driven mad by the Susser games, much in, much like a, the Joker in Suicide Squad, I have gradually lost my mind over the course of this proceedings. I just dropped my iPad on the fucking floor. I'm losing it. This is done. Oh my God. Which is in the podcast right here. I dropped my iPad on the ground.

It's in good, good shape. Here's the, the rather crude biochemical, yes. We're trying to make a TV show out of this podcast, and Susser, you're sinking the ship with this fucking shit. That's how this announcement comes out. Me angrily saying, we're trying to make a fucking TV show, and it's, it's not going to happen. No, it's not going to happen.

If any studio in Hollywood listens to this particular podcast or any of the Susser games it's done for. Right. So you have, you can kind of give an iTunes rating for a podcast, but if you could do it for an individual episode, this is definitely like, this is definitely like a one star episode. I think this one's going to drag our average down quite a bit. Oh no.

I don't like that. Courtney, you're so good. No, no. Courtney, you're great. Is it me? You're doing a great job. No, no, it's not. It's not you.

We fucked up. We did. We're doing a bad job. Susser's presence is, is toxic. I'm not funny. I've wasted my life. Oh my God. Look, I can't speak today.

I can't form words. I'm incoherent. I'm saying things like diet, Dr. Ko. How have I ever done in my life? My life sucks. Neither of us have accomplished anything. We have very little to show for it. We're going down a spiral.

That was, my 20s are supposed to be your fun time in life? What the fuck? Yeah. I have nothing to look back on. Looking back at my 20s, nothing enjoyable happened. Jesus Christ. It was just a lost decade. Oh my God.

Like Japan's economy in the 90s. It was just ruinous. Wow. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know why we're doing this. Oh God. We shouldn't be. Who would have known that this, this would be a breakdown for both of us?

At least we're joined together now in some way or another. I'm glad this question about diet sodas has caused this like massive downward spiral. Huh? When am I supposed to have fucking fun, God, huh? Oh my God. That's what I'm asking you. In this life. What is it supposed to happen?

A piece of shit? Oh my God. That's how it ends with a Mitch cursing God. Here's what I've heard about Diet Coke is that on a biochemical level, it is as simple as the crystals of the sweetener are large, are so large that they can't be processed by your kidneys and they just pass through, which to me sounds like you're just tricking your body in a very crude way that can't, and I don't know, I might be wrong about that.

I'm sure someone will correct me on Twitter, but it just seems like a very crude way and to try to trick your body just doesn't seem like it ever works. Like I feel like any of those shortcuts, any time you hear about those diet drugs or do you remember that fat substitute that existed for a while and then was giving people like, like, you know, yeah, it's giving people like just, yeah, I always, I was being, I loved those chips. It was because it tasted like it was the, it was the fake fat in the same way that the sugar that, that the Diet Coke, the Aspartame or whatever the sweetener is a fake sugar.

It's like an artificial thing and I just don't think you can trick your body. I think it fucks you up and I think just the, the cue of sweetness alone is probably doing something to you on a biological level that's affecting your metabolism. I would say if you're really trying to be strict about your diet and you have a little bit of a sweet tooth, I would try to avoid Diet Coke and maybe go for gum or something like go for sugar-free gum, like seriously for some sweetness because then you're not putting this thing, not putting the raw quantity of this artificial sweetener into your body that you would be in a 12 ounce can of soda versus, you know, just, just getting a very,

very small amount of it from what you might absorb from a piece of chewing gum. So I would say avoid it. But I don't know. Do you think it causes actual weight gain? I don't think it helps. I just don't think it's going to be the kind of thing that's going to be productive for you. I don't drink a lot of diet sodas, like don't lose weight.

But I don't know. Is that causal or is it just? I don't know. It's hard. I feel like it's hard to isolate always because it's hard to say, like, you know, what is our, is our control group really going to have to be very strict about their diet or whatever? I don't, I don't know the term.

I mean, chubby people, I feel like are the ones who will drink Diet Coke more so, right? Yes. I think so. But I mean, like, again, I get what you're saying is a correlation without causation. I don't know. I just think like if you're trying to lose weight and you're struggling and you're still drinking diet soda, maybe try cutting the diet soda out and maybe, maybe that'll make a difference.

Yeah. Because why not? I agree. I've completely lost my place in what we're doing in the podcast. What's going on? You song is going to come in here again for some reason. Is that what's happening? What's going on here, Susser?

We've got another Susser Challenge. We're just done, right? Susser Challenge. We're just done, right? Oh, here he comes. Susser's walking back in. I didn't really mean for you to do it. What's going on?

I really takes this time. This concludes week two of the Doe-Lympics Susser game. Wow. Oh, jeez. We made it through. It was grueling just like it is for the athletes. I question life itself, but we're moving on and that's it. We're moving on.

Stick around to the tail end of this podcast to hear two gunshots. That'll be the official conclusion. Not starter guns, mind you. No. Shut up. We got you, and we got Courtney. Two great people. And Dustin.

Two standouts. Dustin, Courtney, and you, all made this podcast as good as it could possibly be today, making up for our deficiencies and Susser's giant Susser-sized efficiency. If you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants, you can email us at doeboyspodcast at gmail.com, check out our Facebook page, Doe Boys, follow us on Twitter at Doe Boys Pod. If you have a free second, rate and review us on iTunes. Courtney, thank you so much for joining us.

Guys, I had a great time. I know that maybe this is it for your lives, for the podcast. You were fantastic. I had a great time. You crafted a metal stand that will endure. I think this will be a fixture in the studio for some time. Just fantastic. Just great work.

If this is it for Wyger and I, we couldn't have shared it with a nicer, funnier person. 100%. Thank you so much. Do you have anything you would like to plug at this time? Just, you know, live your best life, guys. Just like. It seems like advice geared towards Wyger and I more than for people listening. Guys, you guys are doing great.

I'm going to give you a pep talk off, off, off mic. I look forward to this. About how all your best days are ahead of you much. They'll do it for this episode of Doe Boys. Until next time, for the Spoonman, Mike Mitchell, I'm Nick Wyger. Happy eating. See ya. Serial audio.

Jesus Christ. That was a shit share. Hi. Jesus Christ. That was a shit share.