Doughboys - KFC Beyond with Mike Sacks

Episode Date: February 3, 2022

Mike Sacks (Passing On The Right, Doin’ It with Mike Sacks) joins the ‘boys to discuss baseball, crab cakes, and writer John Swartzwelder before a review of KFC Beyond. Plus, a special edition of Snack or Wack. Sources for this week's intro: https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2209&dat=19801217&id=taQrAAAAIBAJ&pg=5022,3339398 https://www.timesnews.net/news/state/fried-chicken-the-colonel-and-the-nashville-businessman/article_9d2d7974-53b0-11ec-ac68-e705e486df26.html https://web.archive.org/web/20150519224425/http://old.chronicle.augusta.com/stories/1998/09/05/bus_238094.shtml https://web.archive.org/web/20150520232152/http://www.virtualpressoffice.com/publicsiteContentFileAccess?fileContentId=2007917&fromOtherPageToDisableHistory=Y&menuName=News https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/kfc-swaps-out-norm-macdonald-jim-gaffigan-its-latest-real-colonel-169469/ Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What's up, everybody? It's your boy, The Spoon Man, and I want to talk to you about today's sponsor, Uber Eats. At Uber Eats, we've helped more than 400,000 restaurants across the U.S. reach new, hungry customers and deliver growth quickly through new orders. Uber's global platform can help you grow, reach new people, get valuable sales data, and unlock ways to expand with flexible delivery options. Put your business on Uber Eats. Get access to the Uber Eats platform, including valuable sales data to grow your business. Dig into your data. Really dig in there anytime to monitor your performance and customer order trends. Wow. Wow. Why, restaurant owners, enjoy 0% commission for the first 30 days on all orders,

offer subject to change per the terms of the restaurant agreement. Wow. 0% on the first 30 days. Sign up today. That link that you want to click on is down there in the episode description. Right down there. Check it out. There it is. Move your cursor. Go ahead and click. There. Or if you're on your phone, use your finger and click that link. Click that link in the episode description. Flags we're flying at half staff here today is Kentucky-honored Colonel Harlan Sanders, the smiling white-suited gentleman whose secret recipe started an international fried chicken empire. This is the Associated Press report dated December 17th, 1980, to mark the death of the founder of the world's largest chicken chain and second largest restaurant chain overall.

Though Colonel was an honorific, not a military rank, in his home commonwealth, his passing at the age of 90 was met with full honors. Instantly recognizable with his matching white coiff, goatee, and southern dandy suit, the bespectacled Sanders had been a brand ambassador living mascot for his chain. And in 1964, when he sold his business for $2 million to the men who had become the restaurant's dual Ray Crocs, Jack Massey and John Brown Jr., Brown was perhaps not coincidentally later governor of Kentucky. The duo savilly acquired the rights to Sanders' likeness, which they would fully exploit after his death. An actor was hired to portray the Colonel in live action spots at the first air in the 90s. Shortly after, the campaign was abandoned for

an animated Colonel voiced by actor Randy Quaid, hot off as portrayal of a heroic hick pilot in the blockbuster film Independence Day. And most famously in 2015, the brand launched a new salvo with ad agency Whedon and Kennedy, an ever-changing cast of celebrity colonels that the ad shop likened to casting James Bond. Among the actors who portrayed Sanders were impressionist Darrell Hammond, the late great comedian Norm MacDonald, thoroughly tan thespian George Hamilton, and country singer Reba McIntyre. And though that campaign has been retired today, 42 years since his death lowered flags in the bluegrass state, Sanders' face remains the logo of the crown jewel of the young brand's triumvirate. His visage even looms on the branding of a product that's

not chicken at all. This week on Doughboys, we return to KFC for Beyond Fried Chicken. Welcome to Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants. I'm Nick Weiger, along with my co-host, the creature from the snack legume. Mr. Slice, Mike Mitchell. Legume, huh? Legume. Wow. As snacks go, you could do worse. These wordsmiths that submit to the roast, Wags. That wordsmith was Daniel C. Atmos Dapper Dan. Hey, Doughboys, longtime fan, the podcast gets me through my days at work thanks for the laughs. I found these doodles I made a while back, wanted to share them with you again. This is some pretty cool fan art. I'm going to share it with

you guys and we can take gander. Let me guess, it's March having sex with Bart Simpson. I'm not going to show that one, but there were a couple other ones that were more on theme for the podcast that I thought might be fun to take a look at. All right, here we go. Although that March one is lovingly rendered. It's funny to think of the evolution of man and how... Oh, that's good. Oh, yeah, I've seen these online. Yeah, sorry, Mitch. Finish your thought about the evolution of man. This is... We see a young spoon man here holding a big lolly with a propeller beanie. You see it next to a Mickey Mouse doll, which of course you are famously had a

night terror about, thinking that it was touching your leg. And we see them also, they're silhouettes, they're shadows. We see Mickey is in fact a ghoul looming behind you with demonic claws. Freddie-type hand, yeah. Freddie-type hand. And also, for some reason, I've eaten half of my lollipop in my reflection. Yeah, I'm not sure what's going on there. If the demon Mickey stole a bite, or if... Maybe this is just... We're just seeing the future in the shadows. Maybe that's what's happening. Because that's inevitable. You're going to take a big bite of that lolly. I was just saying that maybe 100 years ago, some of these people that submitted

roasts would be like Oscar Wilde level writers and poets. But instead, now in modern day, they are like... I don't know, I was trying to think of some Jabba pun. They would have been painting frescoes. And now they're making an animated gif of you as Donkey Kong with the Wendy's girl. Which is what we're looking at. And so that's you, Wagga. You're... That's me down. I'm the jump man here. You're the Donkey Kong, sort of playing with our hero and villain status on the podcast, which is well established. And I... Part of your mind that you think you're the hero of this podcast.

There are cupcakes here. I'm the face here, the heel. There are cupcakes here, which I imagine is a reference to your cupcakes are pie theory. And there's also... I believe taking the place of the villains are giant fries, which is playing with a fantasy that I dislike fries when in fact they're my favorite potato preparation. A lot of fun here. And then there's a hot salad bonus. So that must come down later. Yeah. Oh, and I throw... It looks like... Oh, wait, but there's cupcakes by me. Yes.

So am I not throwing... They're taking the place of the barrels, the DK barrels. And I don't know if... Donkey Kong seems to have a love hate relationship with barrels. Like he likes them. There are things... His buddy Diddy Kong is oftentimes in a barrel. He will shoot himself out of a barrel like a cannon, but also he will throw barrels as if they displease him. So I think taking the place of the barrels here are cupcakes. You're throwing those, using those as ammunition to try and stop jump man, me, the hero from rescuing the Wendy's girl.

I told our guests it would be about five minutes until we introduced them. And then... But... Four minutes in. Now I gotta know. We're four minutes in and... Who's your favorite Kong likes? Great question. Thank you for asking. Let's just hear who's your favorite Kong. Yeah, boy. It's... Am I... Am I boring for picking funky Kong?

I mean, is that like picking Michelangelo from as your favorite Ninja Turtle? But I do like funky Kong. He's really cool. I mean, he's a war profiteer, which is not great. But he is just so cool. And if you play funky mode in Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze, he just is so powerful. He's totally OP. So I think I probably say funky. Maybe cranky. I have a soft spot for cranky and just kind of his world outlook. I can see that. Pretty similar you two. And cranky also isn't like the original Donkey Kong in that lore, right? Well, yeah. I mean, that's not confirmed, but I think it's pretty clearly implied.

I like like Baby Kong, the big one. Is that who he is? He's fun. There's Baby Kong and there's Tiny Kong. Yeah, Tiny's also good. I think you're more Baby Kong because you have the diapers in common. But not wearing one today. Lost my voice there a little bit. And embarrassing prestigious guests. Gonna say howdy ho in front of them.

Howdy ho. Well, it's gone, Wikes. Have I lost it? I think that was the last bit of shame exiting your body. So howdy ho. It's still there a little bit. Am I losing it? Is this like when like, you know, like an older pitcher is on the mound and the ball gets away from him?

Is this what's happening? You lost his fastball. That's what happened. Time for Clemens to retire. Shit. Oh, he's not going in the hall because he used PEDs. That's so stupid. God, we can get into that. Our guest is a baseball fan. Yeah.

And not to mention what happened with Kurt Schilling. Look, I mean, his people are persecuting him because of his politics, of his politics, because of his personal beliefs. What's up with that? Give me the Kurt Schilling January 6th video game. I want to play it. Bankrupts the state of Rhode Island. How did he spend so much money on this?

A hero. What a simpler time 2004 was, damn. Really was. Just a hero. Anyways, why he is... Someone get canceled for saying, like, not my president. I was like, wait a minute. That's the worst he can do. People will be just confused.

Yeah. Back then, they thought, that is your president. Imagine that. You know what I mean? It's a different time. Yeah. All right, here is a little drop. I head butted a woman who was just minding her own business. So you can head butt things and you can lick things. But I head butted a woman. She immediately started crying.

Hold the, hold the, hold the fuck up. But I head butted a woman. She immediately started crying. You lost your mind that day. Yeah, I don't mind people bringing that moment up when I vindicated myself. Well, what was that? I mean, this was shocking for me to hear it. I forgot about this story. That didn't happen in IRL. That happened in some sort of video game. I'm serious.

And head butted a woman in real life. Is that really what it is? I'm pretty sure that was the context. You're pretty sure? I didn't head butt a woman in real life. And then she started crying. I'd never forgive myself. It was in a video game. Are we going to start believing whatever the drops are?

I mean, I don't remember the show. So it just seems to me like that could have been it. Maybe I did do it. I don't know. Well, well, it's going to make sense who this, who this, this drop came from when I, when I say, when I say their name in just a minute here. Hey there, Nick, Mitch, Emma and DK, hope to see you all back in Vancouver someday.

Give white spot slash triple O's a try. Thanks guys. And he puts his full name. Should I say his full name? We can bleep it. Yeah, I think so. You can always, you can use the last, the last initial if you like.

Kirk Savage. That's why I was saying. Wow, that's a great name. Kirk Peace, Kirk Peace Savage on Instagram. Oh, so I guess he doesn't care. Yeah. And that was a savage. Are you saying that name was, yeah, that's what,

okay, that's why you said it would make sense. Yeah, it was a savage drop. Very much so. And we have a savage guest, Mitch. That's right. Our guest today has written for the New Yorker Vanity Fair and McSweeney's and has written books, including poking a dead frog and stinker lets loose.

You can pre-order his newest book, passing on the right wherever you buy media. Mike Stax is here. Hi, Mike. Hello. Thank you for doing this. Thank you so much for making time for us. Oh yeah.

Thanks for having me on. Any regrets you have while listening to our 10-minute intro? I have many regrets, but I'm going to go forward with this. I didn't head but a woman. Mike, you have a, the places you've lived, you've lived in some amazing food towns. And one place that I want to start with, even though I know that this was,

this is not where you grew up, but you went to Tulane University. Yeah. And in New Orleans, one of the best food cities in the world. What were your culinary delights in that period of your life? Well, I was just thinking about this because, you know, I look, I have a lot of regrets,

as I'm sure we all do. One of my regrets is not taking advantage more of the New Orleans food scene. I'm very OCD and I like routine. So I had a routine going for about three years, where I would literally eat the same things every day. And it would consist of lunch, Bud's broiler, which was a burger place, with a, it was a cheeseburger with cheese fries.

At dinner, I would then take my car, and I would drive through Wendy's, where I get a cheeseburger, drive next door to Popeyes and get a biscuit and mashed potatoes and gravy. So that was dinner. And then for dessert every night, I would have Reese's Peanut Butter Cups

that were in the freezer. And I couldn't understand why my ass was getting big. Why am I getting... I refer to it as my fat Elvis period. I like to say that I was up to about 250 and a spoon-fed yogurt by Dick Gregory in bed. But in reality, I did gain some weight. Yeah, I looked back and I was a little chubby,

but not as bad as I thought I was at the time. But a very unhealthy way to live. But even worse, I mean... You would do that every day? That was like every day. Every day, wow. Smokes. Why? So have you been eating this way?

It could explain some of that thick behind you got going on. But I mean, what was I thinking? I think it was the best food, especially at this time back in the 90s, when the Cajun scene was exploding and there was a lot of great restaurants down there. I just don't know what I was doing. You know, just a lack of interest on my part.

Sure. And I could just kill myself because when I go to places now, really the best type of vacation for me is just going to a new city and just hitting the food scene, checking in on the restaurants. Love it.

Yeah, I mean, I think that... But that's a unique period of your life in college, right? When it's like... I have the freedom to make my own decisions about what I'm going to eat. What I'm going to put in my body. And I had so much bad... Again, I went to UCLA.

I've never lived outside of LA County, but LA a great food city. And I would just have so much shaky's takeout. I could have like fucking mojo potatoes and fried chicken and pizza from shaky's, just like routinely. And so much like Burger King and so much just Baja Fresh,

just like junk you could get anywhere. Yeah, totally. And even drinking, like I could have gone to great places and had really interesting drinks, but it was always the same shit that I got at the convenience store. It was just a lack of any interest

on my part to explore. And that really is one of my biggest regrets. And also after college, where I could have, I suppose traveled through Europe, although I had no money. But it was just like routine based. Every day I did the same.

It sort of reminds me of... There are these flies. I don't know if you ever seen these flies. And they just fly in not even circles, but in squares. They just go like this. In squares. And they have the whole world to explore.

And this is the move they make, not going anywhere, just flying in squares. And I kind of look back at my time and that's, you know, I had more freedom than I ever had in my life. And yet I sort of boxed myself in. Right.

There's, if you notice, there's a few of those flies flying around me right now in that pattern. I didn't want to say that, but right above your head there's some square flies. But you know, young people are dumb. I mean, like it's that sort of thing

of like, I feel like even when I went to college, I... Why is when I went to college, I didn't eat sushi really. Like I tried it and I didn't eat it. You know, there was like a lot of food that I... When I got to college, I kind of branched out

and tried different stuff a little bit, but you're still just such a dummy. You know what I mean? You're still... You're still eating pretty bad at that point, but that is such a great food city. I was just down there recently and you could spend like seven days

trying to eat your way through there and not even come close to touching amazing restaurants. But there was so much food I didn't even try until I was out of college for years. Like I never had blue cheese or any really soft stinky cheese until years after college. And there's just no reason that I didn't.

I just didn't know from it. And I had no... I didn't grow up with it and didn't want to push myself into trying new things. Now I'll eat anything. Well, I feel like blue cheese also... I was talking about my introduction

to wings the other day, Wigs, which I ate down Cape Cod for the first time when I was young. It's a class at Ithaca. Took that your first semester. Wings over class. There was Wings over Ithaca, which was the...

You get a carrier, which was 200 wings, which mean a few thick friends of mine would usually get at the end of the night. But I remember being... 200 wings. Yeah, it was 200 wings. A lot of wings.

How many... You say a few thick friends. How many thick friends are we talking? You know. So you're going to leave it at? 200. More than five? That's like a brace of chickens.

That's crazy. I mean, maybe five. Total. Five, okay. So that's still... I'm going to make sure the carrier's 200. Five total, so you're talking... Wait, 40 wings a piece?

A carrier was huge, yeah. No, we need a lot of wings. Well, now I got a... Now, all right. Now you're making me feel bad about how many wings I have. You're not trying to make me feel bad. People, you're still growing when you're in college.

I'm still growing now. And so you see some of voracious appetite. Well, yeah. We both are. That tank. So I was down Cape Cod. Stop talking about my ass. And there was a place down Cape Cod.

I got to try to figure out what... I'm going to text Neil Kiley, owner of the Fat Cat, right now to figure out... Yeah, definitely text while you're recording the show. Oh, come on. You know I do that anyways. Yeah, I know. I might as well give you permission.

I remember being like a... I think in the single digits the first time I had wings. I maybe was like 10, but I think I was like eight or nine and having wings down there. And that's also like blue cheese. I didn't... In, you know, in dipping form,

I don't think I had ever seen it before that. I was so used to blocks of blue cheese. I remember in fourth grade my mom liked blue cheese and I brought in like blue cheese for the class in fourth grade and it felt very foreign and weird. You know, like a... Michael, did you take my blue cheese to school? She knew about it.

It was for a... It was a class, but that saying it felt foreign is the wrong word for it. It just, it felt... It was like a strange thing that I didn't have ever, almost ever. You know, and then in college it was like, oh, you dip it in blue cheese.

But when I was in college, wings had taken off completely. Like the trajectory of wings is what? In the 90s, why? So maybe that... They really exploded. They became a national food. I mean, like you still, you'd see them on bar menus,

but as far as wing chains, we started to see, you know, Buffalo Wild Wings, Wing Stop. We started to see wings as becoming the fries of... As fries are to burgers, wings became to pizza and we started seeing them at national pizza chains. So yeah, it really was in the 90s when they went...

They were everywhere. Right. I started to equate it with the cigar bar phase when every other bar was cigar bar or wraps. Those three things. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. You know what?

Just talking about wraps the other day with Susser. Susser and Saunders and Phillips. Why? Because we were talking about wraps and you can't even really get a good wrap in LA anymore. Wait, what is this? What is this text chain? You get a side text chain with these guys talking to wraps?

Excluded me. No, it's not a side text chain. No. Why would we exclude you? We love you. Anyway. Yeah. I was texting Susser and Saunders and Phillips

about Michael Barbaro's podcast, The Daily. So there you go. Jesus. All right. Don't add me to that text chain. Sounds boring as hell. But we were talking about not a lot of wraps in Los Angeles. You can't find a lot of good wraps.

Such a thing that seems to be a... It's just... And you made the point, Wags, when I said it's you, that they're just kind of phased out. It's salads now. Yeah, you just go salads. Yeah, if you're going to... It's like...

What was the... There was a phase when they had like a Coke that had like 100 calories or something, right? Or they had like... It had both sugar and some... Yeah, it was like a less sugary Coke or like a less sugary Pepsi. They tried one of them.

It was called Pepsi Light. I don't remember what the fuck it was called. Pepsi Next maybe? Pepsi Next I think is the one that I'm thinking of. It was like... It had like 90 calories. It was artificial sweetener and then also sugar. And they just kind of realized there's not a market for that.

People are either going to have the healthy version or they're going to have the heavy version. And I think wraps are the same sort of... They exist in that same sort of gray zone where if people are going to be healthy, they're going to say no carbs. And they're just going to go for a salad or a bowl. Little bit of sugar, little bit of cancer

is kind of what that one was. It's funny to... Mike, I was introduced to you with... And here's the kicker. Yeah, that was my first book of interviews with comedy writers. Everyone always says comedians, but this really wasn't an interview book with comedians.

It was... To me, it was writers and for any genre, any medium. Not any genre, but any medium, whether it was for print or for the stage or for movies or for TV, that's really what I wanted to do. Do you think if you ever updated the book, you'd include Nick and I in it now?

I probably would. I mean, yeah, I would have you guys write the forward and I would interview you for the book. Wow, wow. I'm in. You're that good. All right, I like this. Mike, you just had a great...

Well, and some connections here. You interviewed Bob for that book, and I've worked with Bob Odenkirk in the... Doing some sketch in the past few years. I hope Bob's doing all right. We were supposed to have him on the show. He's a great...

I love Bob. He is doing okay. I actually texted him recently. Yeah, he's back. He did suffer a medical situation, but he's doing great. That's good. That's good to hear.

And Mike, recently, you just had a great interview with John Schwartzwalder. Yeah, John Schwartzwalder was someone I was trying to get for years, going back to 2008, when I first started putting the first book together of interviews. About six, seven years later,

I put out another book called Poking a Dead Frog. So for both of those books, I did reach out to him, and he was sort of the white whale, as they say. There are a few authors who are white whales, and he was always one of them. And I reached out and he always got back to me.

He always wrote back. He was very nice. He had impeccable manners, and he would always nicely, very nicely say he couldn't do it, didn't want to do it. So when I started doing interviews for New Yorker, that's really what changed his mind.

It wasn't me. It was the New Yorker, because he grew up loving the humorous for the New Yorker. And for him to be in the New Yorker and to talk about his books, and that's a lot. So that was really what pushed him over into saying, yes, finally.

It's an amazing interview. Yeah, it's a great interview. Oh, thanks. Yeah, aside from just like, it's like, oh, wow, it's the subject who hasn't been heard from in really ever in any sort of depth. And it's such a subject of fascination

for comedy fans, and particularly Simpson's nerds. It's not just like that. It's not just that, but it's also like, you got a lot of stuff out of him. It's like, oh, man, I never, this is what I want to hear.

And this is like, this is some depth into this guy who's always kind of seemed like an enigma. Yeah, it's a really, really great read. Oh, thanks. Yeah, I mean, an interview is only as good as their willy to make it. And in order for it to be good,

they have to put in time. And we spent a month on that. Right. Going back and forth. And there was a lot of questions he did. He refused to answer nicely, but he didn't want to answer. So when it was done, I thought it was okay.

You asked if he listened to Doe Boys and he refused to answer? Yeah, he refused. He was offended. I would even ask if he would listen. That's a yes, then. I did ask him a few questions. I didn't make it.

And he did answer them, but it didn't make the final cut. I asked him if, you know, he had been quoted as saying that he felt that Abraham Lincoln was an asshole. I asked him. And he said no comment, but you could tell he thought Abraham Lincoln was an asshole.

Also, as far as baseball, he's a huge baseball fan. I asked him if it's true if he owns the world's oldest baseball. And he refused to answer, but I'm pretty sure the answer is yes. He has it in a safe deposit box from the... 1880s, I guess, 1890s.

And another question I asked was, was it true that he rented out Dodger Stadium when he was younger to have private baseball games with friends? And that was true. He would rent out Dodger Stadium. And he said he would still do it, too. But this is during the COVID situation.

So there is a chance. And I said, listen, if you ever rent out Dodger Stadium, whatever you do, I beg of you, let me know. I will fly out to Los Angeles. All I would want to do is just shag a few flies in Dodger Stadium.

I would be the happiest guy in the world. That would rule. I don't even know how much that would cost to rent out Dodger Stadium. It's got to be staggering. Incredibly expensive. But he's a single guy, lives with his brother.

And he's hugely into baseball, but it's 19th century baseball. All the Simpsons 19th century baseball references jokes are written by him. He was a specialist in certain subjects, whether it was Carnivals or Stu Bums or 19th century baseball. He was the go-to writer.

Wow. He's the reason Three Fingers, Mortaguy Brown gets mentioned in the show. Yeah. Wow. He knows them all. I went and by time working there, I saw I saw him once, basically,

maybe twice, actually. And I was thrilled to just even see him. Well, the big rumor was that he liked to work in a diner's table. That the diner close to the studio. So he, the rumor was he bought the very diner table that he used to sit at at the studio when the diner closed.

And it was close. He built himself a diner's table, but it was not the diner table that he used to sit at. Oh, all right. Because yeah, there was always the rumor that he bought it. Do you know what diner it was? Because you know what, Wags, I was wondering, I was thinking about that

because there's a few places down there, but my hope was always that, and I don't think it is because this is more of a counter, your favorite hamburger spot is right by the Fox lot, which I'm sure that he went to quite a bit. Oh, the Apple Pan. Apple Pan. Great, great hamburger-y.

Yeah, I think it's usually counter service. Like you're sitting at a counter, a long bar. So I'm not sure that quite fits the bill, but I'd have to see what the, I bet if we saw a picture, which no one will ever see, but if we saw a picture of the diner booth that he works at, we could maybe reverse engineer what it was.

Well, I can describe it to you. It was a semi-circle and it was red. A red semi-circle? I think from what I understood, and I don't know LA, certainly not LA restaurants, but I think it was one of those just classic diners where you could go in, sit at a booth, smoke, eat, and just sit there for hours and write.

So maybe it's not, maybe it's closed. Maybe it's been closed for some time. I think it has been, you know. It seems like this is a job for the diner detectives. You and I, we can get to the bottom of this. It's our new format. Kind of like a cereal. We'll have Sus produce it in Emma.

So they'll just do all the work, but we'll be... Yeah, basically. I'm in. Great. I love what I made. What do you think of this? You said you were a Red Sox fan, and then you switched the Orioles,

which infuriated me. I kept it inside, but... Make it easy. Sorry. Have you been to a bunch of Oriole games? Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, actually, I should say, I never really... I always liked the Orioles.

They were the only team on where I grew up. So they were on Channel 20 and then on the radio as well. It was Memorial Stadium and now Camden Yards. Camden Yards, yeah. Just down there a few months ago before they shut down for the season. And it was one of the emptiest games in the stands. It was just totally empty. Strange, too, because they're such sticklers

for the rules, even though no one's there. You would think they would want people to have fun. We were sitting just behind the dugout, and they didn't allow you to put your food on the dugout as you were watching the game. Oh, man. Trying to avoid the hungry pitcher. I guess, but you would think they would want the few fans

who do show up to have fun. Yeah, yeah. Doesn't exist there. Is what is what is that? And that's what I was going to ask you. What are the go-to food at Camden Yards? You know, you got Fenway Franks at Fenway. Let me hear it.

Because Boog Powell used to play for the Orioles. He has a barbecue joint in the stadium, and also the crack cakes are really good. So those are the two that I usually get. Wow. And I'd imagine as someone who grew up in Virginia and Maryland, you have some pretty strong takes on what constitutes a good crab cake. Very, very particular.

And in fact, I am a VIP member of a crab ordering system. It's like Amazon Prime for crabs. And they do not charge for overnight delivery. So I'll order throughout the year, both the actual crabs and also the crab meat, which you can just get separately. Right. So you're getting live crab shipped to you? No.

They are frozen. They're already steamed. So all you have to do is reheat them. But they are seasoned with Old Bay. And it comes in packed and dry ice. Ready to go. Just put them in the steamer for a few minutes. And are we talking those like Maryland crabs a little bit more,

you know, a little bit more modest? Those are, I've had some Maryland crabs when I've been, when I was in Baltimore as a kid on a family vacation. This is news to me. Yeah. We went to D.C. and I think we made a little trip over to Baltimore. Just as like, like, hey, we're in D.C. Let's check out Baltimore.

And I remember them just being a bear to eat as someone who doesn't have these commonly. This is like the prequel to January 6th. Okay. Yeah, they are. You know, it's funny because I've dated a few women strangely from Maine and they knew nothing from crabs, but they knew a lot about lobsters.

In comparison, eating crabs is a lot of fucking work for a little bit of meat, you know. But part of the process is you sit outside and you have a drink, you know, drinks, and you just chuck the crabs and talk. So it's not really something you would do if you're incredibly hungry and want to get the food quickly. It's sort of a social type of thing.

Yeah, I came around with that sort of struggling to eat something when I had more crawdads or crawfish or crayfish, depending on where you're from. It's a, and that was the same sort of thing. Like, like, oh, I kind of like the process of disassembling these life forms and eating like, you know, 80 of them, feeling like an ogre. But it is like, it's like that in and of itself is fun.

Emma, who, do you mention women? So the highlight for you is disassembling the life forms. That's one of the plus sides. I mean, when you really break down what you're doing, you feel monstrous. When you really feel like I am going to eat 80 souls, you know? When you want to feel really monstrous, eat the, not the hard shells, but the soft shell.

I mean, that's like an ex-skeleton. You don't even know what you're eating there. That's always kind of freaked me out. But when you break down, you know, when people ask, like, how do you, what's the best way to eat crab? I'd say just get a crab stick because it's really, you're saving yourself a tremendous amount of time

and effort. Just go straight to the meat. What constitutes a good crab cake in your, Well, there's a, there's a crab bomb down in Maryland, which is like two pounds of crab meat. There, you know, there are places down in Maryland that are sort of off the beaten track. I was just down in Fells Point.

I was staying in Fells Point. I was doing a reading. And the, the down in Fells Point, when I haven't been down there in years, this is where they used to shoot John Waters movie. It used to be really sketchy. It's now changed. And they have some of the best crab cake restaurants

I've ever eaten at. It's just incredible. Wow. My God, I had, I just assumed that people liked crab, but that lobster was number one. And then I talked to some Maryland people. I'm trying to think of who it was, not Susser. Susser loves all food.

I don't think he could decide. Derek Waters? I think maybe it was, maybe it was Derek. Maybe it was Derek who just was so much more on board with. Oh yeah. I was like, lobster is, is better. And then it was like, no crabs are better. Well, I never had lobster until I was out of,

that's the food I didn't have until I was after college. Just did not exist in my world. I just did not have it ever. Emma, Emma is in Maine. And I imagine has. Cannon bunk. Oh, South Maine. Yeah.

Southern Maine. Very southern. Surrounded by a bunch of your exes, Mike. Oh, well, actually my, my current, my current wife is from Lewiston. So that's, that's not far from here. It's like an hour north. Yeah.

I love Lewiston. They call it the dirty Lou, which is not very fair. But I think, and actually speaking of food, that is a city coming on and Portland, Maine, incredible foodie scene in both of those cities and great bars too. Because I used to go up 20 years ago and there was really nothing.

And over the last 10 years, it has exploded up there. Yeah. I, I, I, I was up in Portland recently and the, and the, and the food was, was really fantastic. I love it. Why is that? I also liked this scenario where, where Mike was getting live crabs shipped in,

which I know is a thing. It's not. I know that just. They're not live. They're dead, freshly killed, I guess you could say. Yeah. Just why, I know, I know that why is wanted some scenario where they escaped.

Why did you hear about the monkeys escaping on the CDC monkeys or whatever, escaping on the freeway? That's what everyone's talking about. The murder hornets of 2022, the escaped plague monkeys. What? Apparently infecting people. I love monkey stories. Me too.

It just happened this week. Monkeys, which, which is maybe dating. Oh, this will come out next week, but it's, but monkeys, there was like a, an accident on the freeway and it's like very much an outbreak situation where infected monkeys have escaped and, and infected people already. Yeah.

It's a, it's a. That's so. René Russo got it. René Russo got, yeah. René Russo got it. Dustin Hoffman has it. It's sad. Yeah.

Boy, it's very sad. How do you transport monkeys? So it's infected monkeys. What's the, what are the logistics for such a thing? Great question. I don't know. I think that they did it. I think that they, they, they maybe went the,

the cheapest route possible because they all escaped. Maybe it was. The classic. Spirit air. Yeah. Spirit. I think the monkeys flying the spirit air. Barrels, barrels full of monkeys,

like the, the classic way to do it. But, but yeah, so many of them escaped, like a bunch of them escaped and people already are, or have gotten sick. I don't think that it's, I don't think it should be anything too bad, but you know, it's. This is a great thing to say,

10 days before the episode releases. Right. Because next Thursday, just everyone has. Everyone has. Monkey Fox. Captain Trips from the stay. Yeah. This is our last, last episode of Doe Boys.

There's one person alive listening to this. Yeah. Laughing to himself around a bonfire. We'll take a break. We'll be back with more Doe Boys. You know, Mitch, you're about to take a little trip abroad. You're going to Costa Rica. That's right.

Why? So I'm going to Costa Rica with the family. It's going to be a lot of fun. Going to maybe see a monkey. Oh, that's fun. Going to maybe see a bird. Just that, just a one monkey, one bird. That's it.

Hey, that sounds like a heck of a vacay. And you know what? Mm hmm. Knowing some Spanish might be helpful down there. Nice. And if you have an upcoming summer trip abroad, my go to travel hack is Babel. Whether you're a season traveler or embarking on your first adventure,

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With Babel, you can choose from 14 different languages. Plus, Babel's speech recognition technology helps you improve your pronunciation and accent. There are so many ways to learn with Babel. In addition to lessons, you can access podcasts, games, videos, stories, and even live classes. Plus, it comes with a 20-day money-back guarantee. Start your new language learning journey today with Babel. Hey, everyone, it's the Doe Boys.

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Wow. Tropical fruit smoothie, it was delicious. Wow, hey, want to cut back on takeout? Get factor instead. Not only is factor cheaper than takeout, but meals are ready faster than restaurant delivery in just two minutes. With factor, you can rest assured you're making a sustainable choice. We offset 100% of our delivery admissions to your door,

source 100% renewable energy for our production sites and offices, and feature sustainably sourced seafood in our meals. Head to factormeals.com slash doughboys50 and use code DOBOYS50 to get 50% off your first box. That's code DOBOYS50 at factormeals.com slash doughboys50 to get 50% off your first box. Do it. Welcome back to DOBOYS. We're here with our guest, Mike Sacks, returning to KFC one more time. KFC founded, of course, in Kentucky in 1930.

Part of the Yum Brands Triforce with Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, and began testing beyond chicken, Mitch, way back in 2019. Pre-pandemic, they already had this in test markets. I feel like that's got to be a part of the reason that it took so long, right? Is it the pandemic stuff? But a while back, this has been cooking for a long time, Wikes. This is something that they've been toying with. Absolutely, and they finally launched it nationwide in January of 2022.

Mike, I'm curious before we get into the beyond chicken and the rest of our KFC order, where do you stand on chicken? How do you like it prepared? What poultry portions do you like? What are your faves? Roasted. If it's grilled, I just can't stand it, but I do like roasted. But what is interest?

I never used to eat vegetarian meat, but my daughter became a vegetarian two years ago. And in fact, we're having tonight the Impossible Burgers. So because of that, I've been eating a lot of it. And I'm as excited to see as an option that I could have the Beyond Nuggets option, which is kind of exciting because I never had had that before. I'm not that familiar with chicken, fake chicken as much as fake beef, but I was excited to try it. It's not as close to that Impossible Burger and the new Beyond Burger, honestly. They did a Beyond Burger update recently.

And the new Beyond Burger are both just like great simulacrums of beef and also just like tasty in their own right. I grilled up some Impossible Burgers last night for us for dinner. The fake chicken's not quite there yet, although it seems to be getting better. Yeah, but there's so many different options. I mean, basically, it's just compressed into whatever shape of meat you want, whether it's sliced turkey, baloney, chicken or whatever. But yeah, I wasn't that familiar with the chicken.

But my question, too, is like going back to wraps and salads and the low sugar Pepsi, aren't people going to these places to get this food in particular? Or is it just one person in each family who's a vegetarian and this would be for them? I think it's a little above. I think it is a little above. I think that that is, I think wise, I think that's right. Like in your scenario with your daughter or something, you have an option that works. I think that the issue right now is that this KFC Beyond chicken is fried.

Is it Beyond or Impossible? It's Beyond, right? It's Beyond, yeah. It's Beyond, yeah. So it's fried in the same chicken fat, the same fat. And so it's not completely vegan, or even some might not consider it vegetarian even, right, Wags? But I think the idea of just having these options for the future

and people trying to get off meat and just, you know, someone in the family, you can still go there and get a bunch of stuff because it's more and more common. And honestly, Nick, like you said, sometimes when you go to BK now, it's like, just get an Impossible Whopper. Why not? It tastes good and you're not eating red meat. Yeah, I mean, I did need any. I still haven't eaten red meat this year and we're in February as of this episode's release.

I have no time to have any anytime soon. I haven't, I didn't have any meat at all for all of 2021. And as I mentioned before in this podcast, that Impossible Whopper in particular, but also all of the various plant-based proteins that they have at these chains now, you know, Taco Bell certainly got a lot of them. My beloved Del Taco has the same. We're such lifelines because even if you're not eating meat, you still want to eat garbage on occasion and just being able to eat like,

like just a fucking trashy ass Whopper with heavy cheese. But it's a plant-based protein is so great. And I still think that BK has done it the most right. I mean, we'll get into this in a second. For sure. And the reason why is I just think that so much of it is like seasoning and toppings and all of that. And that's why Nick and I tried the McDonald's, the McPlant.

The McPlant. And it was good, but just make a Big Mac version of that. And that's why the Impossible Whopper is so successful. Just because it's the Whopper and it's just, the patty is a little bit different. It's hard to tell. So, and so for Impossible Chicken, for Beyond Chicken, it is that sort of thing of this. It's going to be, it's a, it's an uphill battle to try to get like,

this is supposed to be like KFC chicken. It's not, it's going to be hard because fried chicken is juicy. And just, and by design, the Beyond Chicken is not juicy. It's not, you're not biting into like a juicy breast of chicken. Right. Right. But do you, I mean, when you bite into a nugget from a fast, do you want it juicy? You don't know what the fuck is in the juicy nugget.

I like knowing what's in there. At least I know with a Beyond nugget what is in there. When I used to eat nuggets, I didn't know what was, I mean, I love them, but I never quite knew what was in there. Now I should say too, before I ate these Beyond nuggets, I've not had a fast food meal in maybe 25 years. This is the first fast food. Come on.

Nope. Really? Have not, no. Because I have too many friends who worked mostly at Roy Rogers, which was a big place around DC, and every single one of them had a nightmare scenario in which a customer pissed them off or a manager pissed them off, or they were just in a bad mood and they did something to the food. Every single friend.

Oh my God. Now it may just be the friends I hung around with, but every single friend did something. It's not like the sinister six. Actually, I had a friend who worked for a piece delivery in Alabama, and there was one customer he told me that would tip so poorly that they would always stick the pizza dough down their pants before they made his pizza. So that always scared me off.

You know, he had these teenagers working for seven bucks an hour, not necessarily those I would trust the most with my food. So this was the first time in at least 25 years I had fast food. Wow. That's amazing. But you had so much of it in college. So it really was after that when you started talking to more, your friends and realizing what was happening in these kitchens,

that you're just like, I'm completely off of it? Yeah. I mean, it was just, and also like for years after I graduated, I couldn't even afford fast food. I would have macaroni with cream cheese pretty much every night or frozen macaroni. So fast food, and especially around this time, the upper echelons of fast food, like there was a place called Chicken Out in DC. I mean, that was a real treat for me.

If I could afford a meal at these high-end fast food places. But for years, I avoided it, just I didn't have the money, and then I sort of got out of the habit and just never went back. We're going to go back to something for a second here. You said macaroni and cream cheese. Was that what you said? That's what I got that too. Yeah, macaroni and cream cheese.

Have you had that combination? I have not. And it was very interesting to me. So it sounds absolutely disgusting. I mean, my mom used to make two types of macaroni. One was the sofas, which you could put in the oven or microwave, which was yellow. It was just great. And then the other one was even quicker for her to make,

which was just elbows and a dollop of cream cheese when you take it out. And it's obviously incredibly cheap. And it's a lot more tasteful than you might imagine, especially if you can put some stuff on it. But that, to me, was all I could afford for literally years was just elbows with cream cheese. And that was it. Damn. Wow.

I need to try this macaroni and cream cheese though. It sounds like an interesting combo. Sounds pretty good. After the end of that, after like two, three years of doing that, I came down with some muscle condition because I wasn't getting enough nutrients. So I stopped eating that for a while too. I was just an absolute mess. I mean, I went from fat Elvis to like an emaciated freak who never left his apartment,

who would only make himself cream cheese with elbows. I'm like that, but not emaciated. You're very emaciated. I mentioned before, I had a too emaciated, some would say. I mentioned before I had a friend who didn't work at Taco Bell, who worked with me in the video game industry, who before I'd worked with him had for a period of time subsisted solely on Taco Bell. It was the only thing he was eating, the only thing he was putting in his body.

And he started to get very, very sick off of this, not changing his diet, but still seeing like that end up seeing a doctor. The doctor did some blood work, came back in and was laughing and said, this has never happened before in my career. You have scurvy. He had so few vitamins that he got diagnosed with scurvy. And basically the, the, it was just prescribed like 500 milligrams or just whatever the highest dosages of vitamin C,

and just had that and it went away in a couple of weeks. Didn't you say he left the video game industry and became a pirate? Is that right? He did. He's sailing the high seas. It's going great for him. Who the fuck gets scurvy these days? I mean, that is, yeah.

But that's like mutiny on the bounty shit. Yeah, exactly. Wait, so there's a blood test for scurvy? I mean, or is it just a lack of vitamin C? I think that's what, I think that was where the diagnosis came from is like, oh, your vitamin C levels are so depleted. And then all your list of symptoms lines up with a diagnosis for scurvy. I mean, when your fucking doctor looks at a blood test and starts laughing,

you got, you got trouble. You got a world of trouble. It just starts giggling. That should be a dough boys double. I'm sure that, I'm sure that that would, I'm sure we probably have the same, the, the muscle issues you had back when you were, when you were living off of the mac, the cream cheese, the macaroni. Yeah.

I mean, I would pick up anything, even a pencil or pen and my arm would start to shake. Man, that happens to us too, just because we're very weak. Mike, did, I got to go, because I'm going to forget, if not, did Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, did they get into the hall or no? No, no, no, it's wild. What do you think of that? Well, the thing about Barry Bonds is he, if he wasn't such an asshole, he would have been in, but the sports writers hated him.

He was the biggest asshole in baseball. So they're not going to go out of their way to do any favors for him. And it was so extended, you know, his, his home run stats because he was so, I mean, it just became ridiculous. It wasn't like he got one more than Hank Aaron and then he stopped and he just kept going and going. So it was, it was like enough already. It just was too much.

I don't think he will ever get, I don't think Pete Rose will ever get. I do think Clemens will get in now. I hope he does. I kind of, I kind of hope, I kind of hope that Clemens and Bonds, and you know what, get Pete Rose in there too. I mean, like it's that sort of thing of, I mean, and I know that Pete Rose is tough, but there's that, there's that sort of thing of like, because I just think when you, when you cheat in any sort of way to, to the baseball writers, it's over.

But especially with Barry Bonds, just like the man almost did, the man basically did save baseball in a way during that time. And it's that, and it's that sort of thing of like everyone was, so many people were juicing. It's just whether you, you know, you got, right, exactly. I mean, that's the thing too about Lance Armstrong. You know, people think, oh, he juice.

So it wasn't, still wasn't easy what he did. I mean, it's fucking grueling. So he, but even if you have a 1%, 2% advantage, it's a huge thing, but he did accomplish what he accomplished in this, you know, sort of a shame that he felt he had to do that. And the same thing with Barry Bonds. I mean, I think he would have done it eventually if he hadn't juiced up, but there was such a, you know, such a, everyone had to be doing it at that time.

This was what, you know, Mark McGuire, 97, Sammy Sosa, just like if you weren't jacked up, you look like a freak on the field. Yeah. I guess, I guess, and I guess, I guess, McGuire and Sammy Sosa are more the baseball saviors, right? I guess more than Bonds was. Post sportsman of the year. But I think it's too, it's a lying. And that's what really pissed people off about Lance Armstrong.

Not only did he lie about it, but he went after, you know, litigation-wise people who were telling the truth. And I think that pissed a shit out of people. Well, I just want to say, seasons three and four of Doe Boyz, Weigher and I were using performance enhancing drugs. Wow, I wondered. Yeah, we were juicing. He seemed a little bit sharper those seasons.

Yeah, I mean, we were on the stuff. We were on the juice, meaning juice. We were drinking juice. Actual juice. But why would you lie about it when the New Yorker and Vanity Fair came asking, what was, and why would you go after those in litigation who accused you, including myself, of juicing?

Well, to be fair, we go after everyone with litigation. That's just kind of a blanket thing. Yeah, a lot of lawsuits. Very litigious. Our lawyer loves it. When you say the juice, you just mean like Mr. Pib, right? You're not talking about it. Mr. Pib, Orange Julius, Mountain Dew, Code Red, you know.

Kind of all of it. Orbits. They had those little medicine balls in it. And to be clear, those episodes, still bad. Still very bad. They're so terrible. They're terrible, but you're funnier than you were at any other time. Let's talk about KFC.

The first thing I'll say is the app is not crap. It's a pretty sleek app. And one thing that the app did for me, I was not going to have any meat on this for this. I was just going to get the Beyond Nuggets and some sides, some veggie sides. Big mistake. But the app gave me a free KFC chicken sandwich. And I was like, I haven't had this bad boy.

It came out last year when I wasn't eating meat. The chicken sandwich craze is still going strong. I got to try this fucking thing. I'm not going to turn down a free sandwich. So I got the six piece Beyond Nuggets, the KFC chicken sandwich. And I got some coleslaw and a side of mashed potatoes with no gravy. Because I believe the gravy has beef, though I'm not sure on that. Mitch, give us a rundown of your order.

All right, this is going to be like our intro. Mike, you can sit back for a minute here. Of course, I got the six piece Beyond Nuggets combo. And with that, I got a couple of KFC sauces and the fries. Why? Because I got the secret recipe fries and a medium diet Pepsi. Then I got another meal because I wanted sides anyways. I got some, I decided to get three tenders to just kind of compare what regular tenders are compared to the Beyond Nuggets.

I got an individual mashed potatoes and gravy. And I got some ranch dipping with that. And I also got myself a biscuit and another medium diet Pepsi. Why? Because I too used the app and got this free chicken sandwich. So that was there as well. But I thought I needed a biscuit, so I got a biscuit. And then actually a biscuit already came with this. So I had two biscuits, which was kind of great.

But I thought, all right, I got the tenders and I got the Beyond Nuggets. And I got the sandwich that just comes with it for free. It's the promotion. What am I missing? And I said, I got to get an original breast. I got to just try, sure. I got to cover all the chicken bases here at KFC while I'm here. So I got one original breast.

And then I also got a bunch of dipping sauces, KFC sauce, honey barbecue, honey mustard, ranch, and honey sauce, which is just honey. You got literally every sauce then. That's all the sauces they offer. I got every sauce. And I also got a small mac and cheese. So I went, I went a little nutty. I haven't been at KFC in a while.

And yeah, I went, I went all out. I wanted to try to. Right. Yeah. I wanted, I wanted to try to, to compare the best they have to these new nuggets. And speaking of not having been to KFC in a while, a man who hasn't been to any fast food restaurant in a quarter century. Mike Sax, what did you get from KFC?

Sorry. Yeah, sorry. Yeah. I got the beyond six piece beyond nuggets combo. Then I got the regular chicken sandwich. But what I looked at it, I looked at it as an opportunity for sort of a Thanksgiving in January. I'm a big size guy. Got the biscuit, got the mashed potatoes, and I got it with gravy.

But I don't think it does contain meat. I think it is, I didn't taste meat in it, but not that it matters to me. So mashed potatoes and gravy and the mac and cheese. And the fries that came with the six piece nuggets. Well, let's, let's get into it. And I think let's maybe start with that, with the headline, with the beyond nugs. The first thing I'll say, Mitch, is I had a little bit of a sauce snafu. I requested because you, you're ordering, as you know, Mitch, I don't know if you,

wait, actually, did you use the app? You, you must use the app. I use the app. Yeah. Okay. So in the app, you specify what sauces come with your, with your nuggets. And then also you can add additional sauces. I did not get the sauces that I requested to have with my nuggets, which was KFC sauce and

honey mustard. I only got the additional sauces I asked for, honey barbecue, classic ranch and hot sauce, because I'm a bit of a heat seeker. So I didn't get to try the, the KFC, well, I've had the K, I've had both of these sauces, but I like the KFC sauce and I was hoping to have some with the nuggets. I think it would have been good for the dip. And that said, the honey barbecue was a, was a good companion. And I think they do have a very solid ranch there.

My beyond nuggets looked like absolute shit. Like I'll, we'll post the photo of them. They looked fucking God awful. They looked really. Yeah. Some of the breading was coming off of them. They had weird like impressions on them. Like almost like, like someone had like kind of stabbed them with a pen or something.

And, and so I just thought like, oh man, these look really gross. They look super processed. But I'll say they do good fryer work there. And I thought they were pretty good fake nuggets. I was having them as like, these are, these are not bad at all. Honestly, this is completely scratching the itch for, for, for a nug. So it worked for me. That's interesting.

See, I was wondering this too. I was looking at mine and I thought later, would I have analyzed just the regular chicken nuggets if I were to order them or probably not, right? I think anything, if you analyze too closely, it's going to look like shit. But I, I felt the same way. I thought it looked off, you know, it did look, you know, compressed and there's, you know, it was sliding off in places. But I have to say that I really liked those nuggets.

So it's fake chicken nuggets. I thought they were fucking good, especially when you cover them with the sauces. You would not know. I wouldn't have known really if, if someone gave that to me now. Now granted, it's been a long time, but if you start, if you coat it with those sauces, you wouldn't know, or I wouldn't know that those were fake. That was fake chicken. I would not have known.

Um, I, yeah, mine had, mine had weird impressions too. I opened it up and it was like, yeah, I don't get no respect. And I was like, what the hell? Mitch, you're juicing. That was too funny. I'm on the juicing. I'm on the juicing. You're on the juice.

You're on the Mr. Pid, bro. Orbits. Um, mine, mine did, mine did not have any impressions. Mine, mine actually looked okay. I thought mine looked decent. I specifically, uh, made the trek to, um, to, uh, Glendale, where I, I'm starting to think that Glendale is like this fast food haven. Why is that?

Like, uh, there's just a, like it's this sort of thing of like the other KFC is kind of on, is it on Western or is it on Vine? It's, it's, I don't, I don't know where, or maybe Vermont. There's one that's like deep in LA and it is, and I, I've been there before and I'm like, it's just not going to be good. So I made the, like a little further trek over to, to Glendale and. Well, why would you say that? Cause I felt the same thing.

I mean, I'm in Brooklyn. So I'm doing, I'm dealing with Brooklyn KFC here. Are the ones in the suburbs better than the ones in the city? I think that so many of these places are location dependent and I, and I, and I, like we've said that with Burger King before that there's like, you can go to Burger King, but this is fantastic. Burger King is good. And then you can go to like the Burger King on sunset here in Los Angeles and it is the biggest

shithole and the food is bad. And I do, I do think it just depends on what the location is and maybe some of those places just get too many people coming in and the city and stuff like that. And there's just, and they just, you know, it's just an overload of people. I, I, I'm not, I'm not sure, but I do think a lot of the times I do think the suburbs just outside of the city do have kind of the better quality fast food places. Why is, what do you think of that? Yeah, it also depends.

Cause sometimes there's, there's like a high volume location that's really humming, like that's really firing in all cylinders, but some, but sometimes those, those high volume, you know, locations and denser areas that are just, they're just kind of overwhelmed. They don't have enough people working there. Or maybe the franchise owner is cheap. And so it, I think it just depends. I think probably it did probably by and large, Mitch. I think your, your assumption is correct.

Well, you know what? I think that it's specifically the sort of thing of like, oh, you're like a KFC, your KFC, your Burger Kings and, and like maybe your Taco Bells or something. You're like, if you go outside of the city, you're going to get places that are usually, first of all, a little bit cleaner. There, you know, there's just not as many people going to them. So that's one side to it. And then, and then I do think that it is just that sort of thing of like,

I don't know, maybe it's overload. Maybe it is just the, you know, the, the, the managers or whatever. I have no idea, but I do think that the suburbs can be, can be helpful. So I'm, I'm, I'm a Glendale guy now. I'm, I'm going to Glendale wise. I'm, I'm driving into Glendale and, and hitting up fast food spots. Cause my, my nuggets looked good. And they also might come with you.

They tasted, they tasted good. My, my nuggets were, were good. I thought they tasted great. I'll just say, I like, I thought it was a, I thought it was a good insight that basically what you're getting, Mike, what you're getting out of a nugget is texture and then also a sauce delivery mechanism. Cause that's really what you want. It's not like you don't, you're not going to eat a plain, you know,

McNugget, you're just, you're going to eat it dipped in something and they had a great, great texture on them. Yeah. They're like the scooper tostitos. I mean, not eating the tostitos, you're just scooping up that cheese. And for me, I was scooping up the, the flavors of the sauces. That's really what it was. But I liked that.

I liked the fake chicken more than the chicken sandwich that I got now. Wow. Yeah. I mean, but this, again, this is Brooklyn. This was a Sunday night. And I don't know about you guys, but when you order food and it gets here too quickly, it kind of makes me nervous. You know what I mean?

Like I kind of want it taking a little bit more. I mean, they were here in like 15 minutes. It was nothing. Wow. Yeah. I was shocking. Almost as if the delivery guy made it himself in the car or something. Skip the cook over.

Oh man. Yeah, I was. That dystopia that just seems too likely to happen at some point where people are frying in their cars. Deep frying in their fans. Yeah. I liked the fake chicken more. Now, with that said, in Brooklyn now, it's sort of a thing where a hot Tennessee Memphis

chicken is sort of a big thing now. And there's a few places that do it really, really well. Memphis style chicken. So I've had that recently in these restaurants. So in comparing it to those, it just didn't stand up. I mean, if I were to do it again, I would get all the sides that I got, all the sauces, and the fake chicken. Chicken nugs again.

Wow. Yeah. Wow. I would. That's great. It's really something. And you know, I enjoy the nugs quite a bit too. I think that there is a thing with them where you got to eat them hot and fresh when they

come. I think there's a little bit of the McDonald's fry factor wags. I love McDonald's fries. They're the best. And then when McDonald's fries are cold, they really turn into a different animal. It's that sort of thing of you got to eat these quickly. And then I did reheat a couple of them in my, what's it called? Air fryer.

Air fryer. And it didn't, you could kind of taste the block of beyond chicken that second time when I heated them up. Like I felt like the experience when they came hot and fresh, it was like, oh, I'm not, I'm not really, like I'm not, this all is mixing together well. And I'm not tasting like this brick of fake chicken meat in the middle. And then when I reheated it up, you could definitely, you could sense that. But they were good.

I was, I was, I was impressed. I think it's for, for me, basically the start of this, it's, it's a pretty strong start because this is only going to get, get better and better is what I think. Yeah. That's what I was thinking too. I mean, this is brand new. And I'm sure they, they tested it in test kitchens for the years. But they, I think they got it to a point where this is the first offering.

Like I'm kind of, I wouldn't say excited, but I'm interested to see what they can come up with down the road because this is fucking great. Yeah. And I think like a, like, you know, talking about the chicken sandwich, I'd like to see them do a veggie patty, you know, like a beyond breaded patty. So we could get that chicken sandwich as well in a, in a plant based fashion. I all agree that the chicken sandwich for me, especially it's been something that's been hyped a lot.

Like I've heard a lot of people say like, oh, you know what the KFC chicken sandwich is sneaky. Great. And I, I, mine was well constructed. I went to a good KFC and or a pretty consistent KFC actually in a pretty dense area. So, and this one, I think it was well constructed, but I think it was just maybe, I don't know, like, like, I think it was just, I think it might have just been the breast wasn't as the chicken breast, the chicken patty just wasn't the quality that I was expecting in this kind of chicken sandwich where that's so dominant.

Yeah. It wasn't exactly a great piece of chicken that I think they fried up. And also this was, uh, this was arranged in Brooklyn. So this was a Brooklyn arranged sandwich, uh, fast foods. Not exactly perfectionists in that kitchen, I'm imagining. I, mine was, I had had it before and I had it in Quincy and, and I believe that there was a spicy version at one point. And maybe that's just gone for the original.

Yeah. I didn't see it, but I, I really liked it when I had it. And I said that was right up there behind pup eyes. Pup eyes was number one on this. And then, and then I thought KFC was maybe number two, uh, when everyone was doing, was pushing out their, their fried chicken sandwiches. Now, does Wendy's have this? Well, here's the issue is that Wendy's spicy chicken sandwich is number one for me.

I mean, like that Nick and I both love the Wendy's spicy chicken sandwich. Great. And they, they've now done, and that's like number one overall, but it's very different from like these fried chicken sandwiches that pup eyes started to do. And then every other fast food restaurant was trying to do the same thing, which is like mayo and pickles on like a nice spun or whatever in a, in a big fried chicken fillet. The spicy chicken sandwich is kind of its own thing. But Wendy's also did their own version of this, of these chicken sandwich on top of that outside

of the chicken fillet sandwich. Basically. Yes. There are, there are all kinds of clones of the Chick-fil-A sandwich. I do, I might like the Popeyes one better than the Wendy's spicy chicken sandwich, but I haven't had a Wendy's spicy chicken in a while, but the Popeyes one's really great. I mean, you could also get the Popeyes one spicy. Go get a Wendy's spicy.

It's just, it's, it's, it's the best. Hey, go get a Wendy's spicy. Come on. Yeah, yeah. Come on. You don't have to talk me into it. I'll do it. Sure.

Yeah. No problem. Negotiation over. I'll say this, here's, here was, here was a big thing for me, is that I ate those, I ate the Beyond Nuggets, and then I did, and then I, that the a la carte breast, which I think we've mentioned on here, sounds like a, a modern day, like a modern day strip, strip club menu to get the off menu, off menu, a la carte breast, just a single. Um, I, and we've, we've kind of been hard on the, on KSC the couple of times, but not,

not too hard, just like, what's going on with this place? It's not great. Kind of, uh, is, is where we stood. Yeah, we've been underwhelmed. I, I've been into this a la carte breast and I was, and it was juicy and delicious. It was the sort of thing where I was like, this is the thing that is hard to, to replicate. You can't do this with Beyond Nuggets is, is, is, is basically get that kind of juicy, crispy chicken meat.

And that's okay. I think that, I think it's like, Mike, like you're saying, like, those nuggets are good enough and they scratch an itch of like chicken nuggets enough that I do like them. I actually do think that the flavor is there, which is the hardest thing is like the seasoning. It, it tastes, it tastes like it. But I can see, I can see the chicken looking more like chicken in the future, like beyond or impossible does now. And I guess beyond got their act together because that's freakish how similar it looks.

But I, I do think that they'll make it look. Yeah. Cause you would, I mean, if you looked at it real closely, you would know, but if you're dipping in the sauce, you wouldn't. So the taste for me was great. Yes. But I think the juiciness aspect, I bet they'll figure that out. They've also talked about edible bones. Why, have you heard this?

And like, uh, just like having bones, like bones, eating the bones. Plant-based bones. Plant-based, like a, like a things that, so it makes it feel like you have like a chicken wing or something. Well, does that like the compressed rib, McRib? Basically, I think probably something like, and maybe even a little bit more substantial than that. Yeah. Cause McRib is just like a form factor. It doesn't actually have the texture of a bone. Now I've never had that. I have, I have friends who were wild for those things.

Do you guys have those? I like them. They are, it's another one where it's just like the sauce is the whole thing. You know, I think the actual meat is pretty, the pork patty is pretty bad. I was about to say like, we don't like, I don't like, it's, it's not my favorite thing of McDonald's. But then I was like, have we done the McRib every time it's come out on the podcast? Probably. Yeah.

Every time, every time that it comes back, we probably go and get it. And it's fun. Breaking chews. We got to review this for the sixth time. We have to. It's in the zeitgeist. Everyone's talking about it. It's in the zeitgeist. I mean, I just want a Big Mac.

When I, when I go to McDonald's, I want, I want to, I want the Big Mac. I don't, I don't, I don't care as much about, about the, I don't care as much about the McRib. It's very sweet too, on top of that. But, but, uh, there's people who love it. There are people who really stand by it, just like people love the Filet-O-Fish. Or the, what does Trump call it? The fish delight.

The fish delight. Some people call it a fish, a Filet-O-Fish. I call it the fish delight. God, um, but people stand by it. People love the, the, the Filet-O-Fish. So, uh, and I, and I, so I, my question is, is like, people were talking about the McDonald's McPlant, and there was an article just about how, about how it's going to be.

It could be a failure or whatever. And if you just give it the option to be in Big Macs, or in Quarter Pounders, or whatever, in cheeseburgers, I don't think that that's a failure. I think that people will do it. And the same thing here with KFC, I don't know what their plan is as far as adding this to the menu, but I think it works.

I think it's a good thing for them. I, it feels like, uh, for, for, for a restaurant that wags to me of, of all the rest, like of all the fast food restaurants we do, of like, of all the Titans of fast food. Doesn't it feel like KFC is the one that's kind of like the most old and boring of the bunch? Like it doesn't, to me, it just feels like kind of like the,

the one that I don't care about as much. Well, what are you classifying as Titans? Cause yeah, in terms of, in terms of sales, KFC is number two worldwide. So it's, it's a big one. Is it really? Yeah. Huge in China.

People love KFC in China. Yeah. It just, to me, is just, it, it feels kind of like the one, the fast food place I'm never thinking about going. And it just feels like old news to me. And I don't know. I think they're just better, they're just better chicken options domestically is the thing.

Like I, like there's, they're, KFC and Popeyes are the same, the same amount of distance between them from where I live. I'd go Popeyes every time. There's no reason I would opt for a KFC unless we were doing it for the podcast. I'd be curious to see what sales were like. My cousin's husband worked until recently as a Popeyes executive.

Wow. I think he'd be great on the show actually. He doesn't work there anymore. He's starting a chain of restaurants in Charlotte, North Carolina. But he worked at Popeyes for about a year and a half. I'd be curious to see, I bet he could find out somehow how this new chicken is doing at KFC. I'd be kind of curious.

Yeah. Yeah, I do. I do wonder because I, and I, and I hope that that's not, you know, the, the, the, like, uh, I hope the deciding factor is like sales aren't great and we're not going to continue because I do think it's something they should do. I think it's, it's, it, I think it is an option of,

an option that will be great for the future. They should keep, they should keep pushing in this direction. Yeah. But who knows? I mean, for me, I'm from Maryland. They had a ton of chicken farms. And I can tell you, if you've ever been close to a chicken farm, it is one of the most disgusting smells you'll ever smell.

I mean, the health benefits of not eating as much chicken as we're eating is, is a good thing. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Especially factory farm chicken. Yeah. Well, let's, uh, let's get to our final thoughts.

And I know we haven't talked about our sides, but we can get to them and our reviews. So, uh, so, Mike, this is how this will work. We'll each go around, give a closing argument, if you will, regarding this visit to KFC and end it by giving a score from zero to five forks. You are a guest. We'll start with you, Mike Sacks. Okay.

Well, I loved the, um, I, I'd give the beyond nuggets, uh, four. And I would give the sides, the mashed potatoes. I would, are we rating each of them or just overall? I, I give it an overall score, but if you want to read some individual items, that's fine. All right. Well, I found the mashed potatoes and gravy a bit too salty for my taste. I thought the mac and cheese was a little bit runny.

The biscuits were really good. The chicken sandwich, as I mentioned, wasn't really up to par. So I would say, um, I'd give it overall 3.5. 3.5. 3.5. Good score. Good score. Yeah.

I mean, granted, this is the first one in 20, in, in decades. And I have to say that if I'm ever on the road and I see a KFC and they're selling these, uh, fake nuggets, I would get them again. Yeah. Why not? Yeah. Yeah. I agree with that.

I think that that's the, that's the sort of thing. If, if KFC is around, I don't see a Popeyes, Nick, like you're saying basically the fake nugget. And also if I'm, it's the sort of thing of like, Hey, I don't want to eat meat. That should be the plus side of it. So that's why they should keep pushing in that direction of frying these and, and you know, try to fry these in separate oil or whatever, whatever they, whatever they plan to do.

But, um, I was dipping my biscuit in some, in some, uh, mashed potatoes and gravy. And Mike, I agree. Those, the biscuits there are still really good. Still, still really good. The tenders were okay. Why is the sides alone? I basically just agreed with you. You kind of nailed it.

Mike, the mac and cheese is a little bit runny and the, and the, uh, the, the mashed potatoes and gravy, I feel like over time, the sides have gotten worse at KFC. But is that just my child brain thinking that the signs were really good when I was younger? Right. Or am I more sensitive to salt as I age, which is probably the case too. That's a possibility too. That they definitely, they definitely taste like, to me, they taste more produced to them, like a more like, uh, in a, like, uh, whatever, like fake mashed potatoes and gravies more,

more than they used to seem like they made them in house or something, which maybe is, it is a possibility that they made them in the stores and, and now it's just comes in a bag that they heat up the bag or whatever. And there's more preservatives, but I KFC is a tricky one for me, Nick. I never, it's never great. And also I wouldn't maybe ever give it below, maybe in a bad experience, I'd give it below three forks, but I feel like it hovers around three forks. Sure.

And honestly, these nuggets are a highlight. I think these nuggets are a thing that kind of push it forward. And I think the sandwich was also in the past was good and now it was just kind of, and so I'm like, is this KFC being KFC is the sandwich now just kind of shitty and the quality has gone down. But I'm excited for the future of these nuggets. I'm going to go 3.5 for this, for this visit. Wow.

Wow. Three forks, two tines, very good score. Handholding club. Handholding club so far with our guest. I am going to say a big part of me eating vegetarian last year, even though like I was working from home the entire time, was thinking about like, okay, if I was in some sort of group situation and everyone was going to this place, could I get something to eat?

I think with KFC's Beyond Nuggets, they have absolutely accomplished that. Like that's a thing where if I was working an office job and everyone was like, hey, we're going to KFC today, we're ordering from KFC. Are you in? I'd be like, yeah, I could do KFC because these Beyond Nuggets are good. They're tasty. They've got a great texture.

As we discussed, they're great for the sauce and then they have good solid sauces there. You can get an array of different sides that all satisfy a vegetarian diet. I thought my mashed potatoes were fine without gravy. I checked the nutrition info because we're discussing whether they do have meat in them. There is added chicken fat or that is the basis of the gravy. So that's not, yeah. Do you think that the mashed potatoes have gotten worse? Do they feel more like a boxed mashed potato?

You know what I mean? Like, in my mind, I think they have. Yeah. I also don't think they were ever great. I think they were always just like, just get a bunch of gravy. I remember getting extra gravy as a kid when we get these as family meals, like just having, just throwing on is just loading this up with gravy and then you're just dipping your biscuit in the potatoes and gravy and it's just a big gravy-covered

dish. I think you told me that you used to get a soda and just fill the soda cup up with gravy. Is that correct? That's right. That's what I was juicing. I did have a point in my life where my favorite food was gravy. Oh, my gosh. People would ask me that question.

It's like gravy. Love gravy. It's so good. It seems like they're pushing fries now, too. But the mashed potatoes and gravy and the mac and cheese, that's what makes KFC fun, too, to an extent. I think those sides are pretty weak now compared to what I used to think of them. And it seems like they're pushing the new Colonel's fries or whatever.

Totally agree. Do you guys know if any of these fast food marketing or PR people follow you on Twitter or listen to your podcast? Because I bet you that they take what you guys say really seriously. A couple have treated us- It depends on the chain. We've gotten a few cease and desists. A couple people have-

People came to the live show. Like White Castle. Someone from White Castle came to the live show. We had White Castle raps. We had Rubio's raps. Yeah, we've had a number of connections. It's usually people who are- I don't know.

It's usually- We've rarely gotten a thing where- Umami Burger, I think, is the big exception. And we talked about that fairly recently, Mitch, on the podcast, where we got someone who was just like, hey, we heard what you said and we're taking that to heart and we're making some changes as a result. But it's usually not that concrete.

It's usually like, hey, thanks for talking about us on the show. Or, hey, we'll try to do better. It's usually a little bit more general. Or maybe I'm going to fuck you. Yeah, it's mostly fuck yous. Actually, those are just- Those are just our listeners, though. Oh, yeah.

That's it's most of our feedback. Especially our fans. Yeah. Speaking of, speaking of the Colonel's fries, who is the Colonel right now? Do we know who the Colonel is currently? Yeah, like which celebrity is- Oh my God, I just looked.

Yeah. It's Jared Fogle. Oh, what a mistake. Why did they do that? Of course, you're- He's already associated with it, even without the charges. He's so well associated with another brand. They're not charges anymore.

Those are convictions. Well. Not to wags. He's kind of- He's a bit of a Jared Truther. Yeah. Some people say convictions. I say charges.

Yeah, I don't know who the Colonel is right now. I don't know if they've been- I think they've maybe got off that campaign. Yeah, they were like different actors would be the Colonel from time to time. Was Bill Hader one or was that just him on SNL? I don't know if Hader was actually in a spot. That's a great question.

Yeah, Daryl Hammond was in it. Norm McDonald, R.A.P. was the Colonel for a bit. Reba McIntyre, that was a fun one. Reba was one, yeah. I still changed a pace. She was good. I prefer the original racist Colonel. Yes.

Also, committed stolen valor. Never served. No. Wow. No. I love the fact that he gave himself the Colonel designation. Not too high, not too low, just smack in there. It wasn't a first class private or a general.

He was the Colonel. I'll go four forks because I think the Beyond Nuggets exceeded my expectation. And I think it's great that this is a huge chain, that they're making this big stride towards normalizing plant-based proteins at a fast food restaurant I think is big. So I think they're well executed and I'm glad they're nationwide. Four forks.

If they ever deserve four forks, wow. If they ever deserve four forks, it's for this. I agree with you, Nick. It's still 3.5 for me. But four, that makes sense. Wow. Well, that was our review of KFC and their new Beyond Nuggets. We'll take a break.

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Welcome back to DOBOYS. We are here with our guest, Mike Sacks. Now, Mitch, we were trying to decide on a segment for today's show, and it's been a year since we did My Snackrifice, which is when we basically gave up a snack for the rest of the year. I figured, hey, we're in the February already in 2022. Let's bring back My Snackrifice. You vetoed it.

You said no. You also said you needed 48 hours to prepare for My Snackrifice. I don't know how this is possible. The My Snackrifice segment, and Mike, for you and for our listeners who aren't familiar, we pick three foods that we're going to give up. That's all the prep that needs to be done.

You said you couldn't do it on same-day notice. You needed two full days. Same-day notice is being generous, by the way. I'd say 20 minutes before the show. 20 minutes before the show started. Hold on. I don't think it was around 20 minutes. Maybe 30 minutes?

Maybe. You said, let's do My Snackrifice. I said, I want to write a new song for it if we do it. And I said, so I need just a little bit of prep. I said 48 hours just so you can give me. Here's what happened. Let's see if time stands. I mentioned this, 10.33 a.m., which is an hour and a half

before our record started. The issue is, you saw this and replied to it at 11.40 when I assume you got out of bed and checked your phone. I didn't get out of bed and checked my phone at 11.40. It was 20 minutes before we recorded, not when I texted you, but when you saw it. First of all, I woke up at 10 a.m. and replied to you at one point. Not that 10 a.m. is a good time to wake up,

but that's when I woke up. And then I had 100 text messages, and I was reading through all of them, and I read through yours last. OK. Well, maybe read through the work-related ones. When you're on a work-day. Oh, OK.

He says the guy who doesn't use his phone on Sundays. Is that a work-day? That's the day of rest. It's prescribed by the Lord. We're always on. We're on 24-7. Fast food news doesn't sleep, likes. Look, we don't need to litigate this in front of our guest.

No, we do. We're doing a different segment. Let's get into it a little bit more. I was going to, and so I said, here's an idea. We could do a snack or whack. And then I said, here's. And then I said, I could do this, too. And I said, go ahead, write a song about it.

And so I wonder if you have now written a song for this new segment. Anyway, besides the point, I just wanted to write a new song. And we had been doing a double that I didn't want to do this week, because it's the last week I'm in my old place at Palmerston. Goodbye, Palmerston. It's officially this Sunday. I will be officially moved out.

And so we're in your new place recording, as you mentioned. It's the scale, too. Do we have to bleep that? No, this will come out afterwards. The scale, too. We were doing the scale, too. Check out the Google Calendar for the show. It shows when episodes are recording and when they're releasing.

I spent six hours on the fucking scale, too, yesterday. All right, here we go. There's no way that's possible. It's 100% the truth, getting a bunch of food and writing something up. You told me to write a song about this 11 minutes before we began recording. So let's see it.

You told me to write a song. Hey, Mike, I apologize for all of that. Mike, we've got a food stuff. We're going to determine if it's something you can put in your mouth. It's snack or whack, though in honor of our esteemed guest, today it's snack or sack. Damn, snack on it or sack it, as people in the UK say,

when you're firing someone. I fucking love to sack it. Yeah, so we're going to find out. You know, there was a restaurant in Virginia that's called Steak and the Sack. No way. Wow. Yeah.

What was the sack? Sounds like a dream come true. It was just a nasty, nasty dirty fucking place, but I loved it. Sack was just like a pita bread. Okay. So this is like a Mediterranean concept or what? Yeah, Mediterranean.

Wow. I thought you were saying like steak in a bed, basically. I'd like... I thought you were saying... That's cool. That's what it seemed like. Yeah, no, steak in a sack. Not the sack.

Steak in a sack. Wow. That's right. It's snack or sack. And Mitch, you're going to taste some popcorn, which means I'm going to sing my hastily composed song. Pop, pop, pop, pop, cornopolis, yeah, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. Mitch is going to eat it.

Pop, pop, pop, pop, cornopolis, yeah, pop, pop, pop, pop. Mitch is going to eat it. Okay. I will only make luck to this song from now until I die. Mitch, you got some popcorn from Popcornopolis. I can't wait for people to tweet, why you're as a genius for that. I got some popcornopolis, different popcorn snacks.

We're going to talk about them. I'm going to try them. Unfortunately, in the world we live in now, there is only one who can try. I got four different flavors. I don't know if we'll get to all four, but we'll try. Okay. I'm going to start with the first popcornopolis flavor.

And I think you guys could guess if you're going to snack or sack it. If I'm going to snack or sack it. It's popcornopolis red velvet flavor. What? That feels like a sack to me. Here we go. Red velvet flavor. I'm going to tear this open.

What is even red velvet? I mean, it's just a color. Yeah, I mean, like it's a red velvet cake is. Yeah, I know, but. But yes, I don't know how that would translate to a popcorn. That's crazy. Mitch is holding up a kernel. It's covered in sort of a red, I mean, it's the color you would expect.

Red white. It's a nice color. Yeah, it's red and white. White frosting. It looks like a peppermint. I've eaten the first piece. I got a song stuck in my head. Man, that is hot.

It's an earworm. What do you think, Mitchie? You know what? Oh, the aftertaste is not good. They're face. The aftertaste is not. The aftertaste is not good. I was surprised because I was like, this is just.

Nick, you're a popcorn skeptic. Mike, how do you feel about popcorn? I love popcorn. I love popcorn, too. Not good. A normal human being that likes popcorn. But your face, it looked like a baby pinching one out. I mean, that was a huge aftertaste.

Well, who's to say I did or didn't? Not for me to say. This just doesn't work. I was surprised because the sweetness. I was like, look, I'm a popcorn just with butter. Give me popcorn and butter. I'm a popcorn and butter guy. I don't need sweet popcorn as much.

But the first bite, I was like, this isn't bad. It's just that red velvet aftertaste is just not good. It just doesn't work in the popcorn form. Are you actually tasting the same aftertaste you'd have from a red velvet cake, or is it kind of sciency? It tastes artificial. A hundred percent.

Oh, you are. OK. There is a little bit of a sciency thing to it, I feel like. There's a little bit of how am I tasting this? But it is very much a red velvet taste. So I'll give them that. I borrowed that from the Dumbbells, by the way. Shout out to the Dumbbells, the Fitness Podcast.

All right. The next one is this one. I have higher hopes for this. This is Cinnamon Toast, TWIGS. I love Cinnamon Toast. Oh, Cinnamon Popcorn. Cinnamon Toast Popcorn from Popcornopolis. You know what I once had at Baskin Robbins years and years ago?

It was just an experimental flavor that didn't last, was popcorn flavored ice cream. Fascinating. Wow. Yeah, and it was good. It was really good. There's an artisan ice cream place, a parlor, that Natalie and I used to go to called Sweet Rose Creamery.

There's a few locations in LA, and they had a corn ice cream seasonally. And it was like a sweet corn, and that was delicious. It wasn't popcorn specifically, but I was like, oh, this really works. Yeah, that sounds cool. Oh, wow. I just ripped this bag open.

Strong, strong smell of Cinnamon Toast. Like if you made Cinnamon Toast in your home. Right. It feels like this is what you'd be smelling. It smells kind of buttery. It smells decent. It smells kind of buttery. It smells decent, TWIGS.

So I'm going to, here, you can take a little look here. Take a little chomp. Yeah, it just looks like caramel corn to me. Here we go. I'm going to take a little chomp. Mike, you mentioned you like Cinnamon Toast. Are you talking the actual Cinnamon Toast or the cereal or both?

No, actual Cinnamon Toast is a little bit of butter on it. Love it. Yeah, it's quite good. And the smell too, it's good. Wise, I got to say, Red Velvet was a sack, a sack. Cinnamon Toast. You look very pleased. Yeah.

Like a big old grizzly, just had some honey. She either looks like a baby or a bear. Those are my go-to looks. Yeah. I got to say this, very strong Cinnamon, almost overwhelming. But these are snack. These are good. This does it.

This is wise. It is a simulacrum of getting yourself some Cinnamon Toast in the morning. It works. It works. I think it also works because they're all popcornopolis, so it's all four I have are popcornopolis. I think that what helps this is the butter and Cinnamon Toast, a good Cinnamon Toast back in the day,

toast up bread, put butter on there, and then put the Cinnamon Toast. Put the Cinnamon on, Cinnamon and Sugar. And I think that the little bit of butter on the popcorn just kind of works better. This is a snack, Wags. Snack. Wow. I'm impressed. This is good.

Now, Mitch, did you get shipped these? Did someone send these to you, or did you buy these on your own? Yeah, my landlord. Right before I told him I was moving out of Palmerston. Wait, really? Yeah. They give me Christmas gift. So it was a Christmas gift, and then you told him you were moving out towards.

It wasn't like a farewell good luck gift. Yeah, I was waiting for it. I was waiting for it. Waiting for the Christmas gift and gave him the news. I was moving out. I like it. All right. Here we go.

Wags, there's two more, but maybe we'll just pick between the last two. I have, in the holiday theme, holiday cookie or hot cocoa and marshmallow. God, those both sound vile to me. I think the hot cocoa and marshmallow sounds worse, but holiday cookie is just abstract enough where I'm like, what is that exactly? I think they're basically like, you know, like the red and green sugar cookies? I think that's possible. Okay, yes, yeah.

What holiday cookie is supposed to be? I think that we should maybe do hot cocoa just because, Mike, what do you think? Just it seems like a fucking monstrous thing. Yeah, it really does seem monstrous, almost Nazi-like. I don't know, man. I wouldn't put any of those. Mangala use both of those.

And no, I would go for the, I'd go for hot cocoa. I'm just curious how they pulled that off. Yeah, let's break in a hot cocoa here. This is one of those ones where all these varietals, it's just like, I'd rather just have regular popcorn, right? It's like, why would you order any of these over the baseline? Wags, I'll tell you, if you put it that, the cinnamon toast in a bowl, you know, around the holidays for a party or whatever, it's pretty good.

It was pretty good. Sure. I mean, like, popcornopolis is a strange place. We never reviewed it. We should because it technically is, I guess, a chain, right? Like, you can go to popcornopolis. Yeah, we should. No, I think that works.

We go up to Universal Studios, get some popcornopolis. All right, here we go. Hot cocoa looks, they look pretty cocoa-ish. I'm going to show you guys. Oh, there are little bits of marshmallow attached to it. It looks like, hold on. Oof, I don't love that. All right, here we go.

It's open. I'm going to show you guys just kind of how cocoa. Oh, God, I pour popcorn all over my computer. Oh, boy. It's like 70s cereal, breakfast cereal. It does. It does. That's exactly what it looks like.

It's a, sorry, here we go. I'm eating it off my computer. What other foods you got on that computer? What sauces do you have on there? There's KFC sauce. Oh, my God. This tastes so much like cocoa. It tastes like hot cocoa.

Really? It really nails that science. So the Willy Wonka candy. The Willy Wonka candy. It really nails that science of tasting like hot cocoa. That's incredible. I wonder how they pull that off? That's wild.

It's not good. I was going to ask. Is it good or just? It's not good. No, it's just a magic trick. It is, and it's truly an impressive, like especially the aftertaste when it just settles in and it tastes like hot cocoa is in your mouth.

Wow. I think all of these are extremely impressive in how much they nail the flavors they're trying to be. Sure. But this is also a sack. Two out of the three are sacks. Wow. Two sacks are good, right?

Hey, two sacks better than one sack, I guess. Yeah, I've always said it. Especially when there's a steak in one of them. But the cinnamon toast is a snack. Cinnamon toast is fun. Wow. And it just works with Pokemon More. These other two just don't work.

I could see like the hot cocoa if you're at Universal Studios the week of Christmas with kids and you get hot cocoa, popcorn, and people would have fun with it. But just such a weird, just a bizarre tasting thing. Yeah. Yeah, that's strange. Well, hey, that was snack or whack, a.k.a. snack. No, it wasn't.

For this particular year. There you go. This particular week, rather. And just like a restaurant via your feedback, let's up with the feedback. Today, we have an email from Steve in St. Catherine's, Ontario. Professor Steve on the Dosecord. Hi, Professor Steve.

Professor Steve writes, When I was at university in Toronto, there was a student living in my dorm from Peru named Pavan. I'm assuming is how you pronounce it. Pavan had never had Canadian maple syrup before and was obsessed with it. He would get a plate of scrambled eggs and cover them in maple syrup.

Oh, man. While those Canadians had surely all had maple syrup on her eggs before, whether intentionally or not, his gusto for the combo led us to affectionately calling them Eggs Pavan. So my question to you is, is there one dish you like so much you wish it could be named after you? We all know that Nick has the drink known as the Weiger. That's true.

Third lemonade, two-thirds iced tea. That's the Nick Weiger invented it. That's not. Are there any other things that you think are uniquely yours? Literally what Arnold Palmer's order is what you said. That's the Nick Weiger. So Mike, both Mike's. Mitchell and Saks, is there a dish that you would like to,

like that you were so associated with, so strongly associated with that you would name after yourself? Yeah, I just thought of it. Mac and Saks is the elbows with cream cheese. It's pretty good. I'm going to try Mac and Saks. That sounds fantastic. It's perfect for winter.

People are going to tweet us pictures of Mac and Saks. I'm telling you. People are going to enjoy that. I used to have a drink I called the Hurricane Mitch, which was orange juice in Captain Morgan's. That's what it was. It was just OJ and Captain Morgan's. And I thought it was pretty good, honestly.

The spice drum or the regular? Or the regular. The spice drum. Wow. It would just be ice. So I kind of named my own thing at one point. But in actual, by the way, I wanted to say that when it comes to maple syrup, I guess I can get behind getting some sausage

in the maple syrup. But I don't love to cover my bacon or anything. A lot of people like the meats in the maple syrup, and I kind of like it just on my pancakes. I'm not a big meat crossover into the maple syrup guy, if that makes sense. Yeah. I don't know how you feel about that.

No, I mean, I honestly got no problem with it. We talked about this recently when we reviewed Sweet Chick with the Rantami. And to me, you get some of that maple syrup on your fried chicken if you're having chicken and waffles. Or if you're having some bacon and sausages with your hotcakes. I mean, that's no problem at all. I'll take all that that you got.

I'm not intentionally dipping it, but if some gets on there, that's great. I guess I want to specifically when it comes to eggs or something. I don't know. If I have whatever. To me, eggs are gross. I don't want syrup on eggs. That just sounds disgusting, the eggs move on. Here's my pet peeve.

And I've seen this often in Maine, where you have an amazing maple syrup. People prefer the fake fructose crap. Yeah, yeah, sure. Which I don't understand. I mean, once you taste the real stuff, I would think to go back to the crap is not easy. Yeah. Yes.

That's kind of an alt name for this podcast, back to the crap. Back to the crap with sex. Back to the Mac and Sacks with Crap the Sacks. I'm trying to think of a punny. Yeah, I'll go ahead. I was just going to say the dish I haven't had in a long time is a taquito.

I really like taquitos. And I would like to see like not not not the taquitos. I think like you'll get a plant-based protein and a taquito. Let's have a veggie taquito or maybe maybe can make a good taquito with a black bean. I don't know. Maybe that would work. But some sort of veggie taquito, I wouldn't mind being being associated with.

I can't think of like a food I've made that like where I put a different twist on it. And it's crazy that Mike had one just in the beginning of this episode. But I would love to have like a Mitch Benedict in some way. I've talked about one. What would be on a Mitch Benedict? I'll tell you the Mitch Benedict, an ingredient has been forgotten. So like there's like there's like no Canadian bacon or no ham. Like they just messed up.

Oh, I didn't I saw sorry. And then also it arrives at like 1 p.m. That's perfect for brunch. Here's a Mitch Benedict. Here you go, Iks. Here it is an English muffin. A cheeseburger, a burger patty with cheese, egg, hollandaise sauce on top of it. That's a Mitch Benedict.

That sounds good. It sounds good. Yeah. I'm also realizing that the mac and cheese variant I will do, and Mike is reminding me of this, is I will make a mac and cheese from scratch, but I'll throw in some green chilies. And so like a green chili mac, which I don't think is a very common mac and cheese. That could be a that could be a weiger. That sounds good.

That's just called a weiger. That's just called a weiger and a nicking cheese. Okay, nicking cheese. Mitch Benedict is the is the burger on the English muffin with the egg in the hollandaise sauce. And the is it sack and cheese? Is that what we call it? Mike, what was it called? Mac and sacks.

Mac and sacks. Mac and sacks even better is the macaroni with cream cheese. Tell us what you think. We got to do a show where each of us take the other person's food name and rate it. I like that. Let's book it. Just keep in mind, Mitch is going to need 48 hours notice. Listen, if you can write another song within minutes like you did, we can pull this off.

Send us what you would like your own dish to be. Hashtag call me by your dish. And if you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants, you can email us at dowboyspodcast at gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 830 Godot. That's 830-463-6844. And to get the Doughboys double or weekly bonus episode, you can join the Golden or Platinum Play Club at patreon.com slash Doughboys. Mike Sacks, thank you so much for being here.

Oh, this is super fun. The book is passing on the right. Yeah, thank you. Such a thrill. So we really appreciate you giving us so much of your time. The book is passing on the right. Tell us about that and anything else you would like to plug. Passing on the right is a fake memoir from, you know, I mentioned a pet peeve earlier.

I have a lot of pet peeves. My literature pet peeve is a very poorly written memoir from a comedian. And there are a lot of them. Writing a book is a very specific skill set that comedians don't often can often pull off. It'll usually just be an extended transcript of one of their shows or multiple shows. So I was wanting to write a parody of a comedian who wrote the worst memoir out there. And I combine that with the worst person in comedy. In this case, his name is Skippy Baddy-Battison from DC,

who starts off as a very mediocre comedian, becomes a very mediocre comedy writer. He wrote the Titanic parody in the 1998 Oscar Awards. And he also claims to have written the, that's what she said, line from the office. Just a really mediocre character who becomes a huge podcast, conservative podcasting, and satellite radio star. So it's 450 pages of the worst person in comedy. That's, that's awesome. It also seems like he'd be a hit on the show, our show, Doughboys.

We probably have him back multiple times. I'd love for him to come back. Mike, I also, I did, I did a podcast that you also helped create back in the day too with Randy. Yes, that's right. Yeah. Which I really appreciate it. That's another book. I like writing these books, these fake found items.

Randy was a book written by a 30-something loser in Maryland that I supposedly found at a garage sale. And it's, it's his life story for one year. And that's actually being reissued in April from Simon Schuster. Wow, check that out. Check out both of those. That and passing on the right, you can, you can, which you can pre-order now. And Mike Stax, thanks for being here.

Hey guys, this is super fun. Thank you so much. Thank you. Such a blast. And Mitch, that'll do it for this episode of Doughboys. Until next time, for The Spoonman, Mike Mitchell, I'm Nick Weigar. Happy eating. See ya.

On the next Doughboys Double, it's the return of Doughboys Pilot Program, our TV pilot watch-along series. Horror aficionado, Oscar Montoya joins to discuss episode one of zeitgeisty teen cannibalism drama, Yellow Jackets. You are who, Yui? Get the Doughboys Double every Tuesday only at patreon.com.