Doughboys - L&L Hawaiian Barbecue with Eugene Cordero

Episode Date: October 1, 2015

Actor, comedian, and newly appointed captain of #SpoonNation Eugene Cordero (Other Space, Kroll Show) stops by to share his love for island institution L&L Hawaiian Barbecue / L&L Drive-Inn. Plus, another edition of Flavor of the Week.Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the 19th century, Hawaii's sugar plantations were in desperate need of labor, and so began an influx of immigration from Japan, China, the Philippines, Portugal, Korea, and more. As these cultures intermingled with each other and with the island territory's native population, so too did their dishes and flavors, and so Hawaiian food became the original Pan-Asian cuisine. Sometime in the 1880s, inspired by the Japanese bento box, plantation workers collectively created the plate lunch, a heaping helping of rice, macaroni salad, and a protein, such as teriyaki beef or char siu pork.

Nearly a century later, Hawaii now a U.S. state, and the plate lunch firmly ensconced in local food culture, entrepreneurs Johnson Cam and Eddie Flores Jr. purchased a drive-in restaurant in Honolulu specializing in the dish. After growing it into a massively successful regional Hawaiian chain, they traversed the Pacific to the western United States in 1999, quoting the term Hawaiian barbecue to market the plate lunch to unfamiliar mainlanders. The chain's expansion to the contiguous states was a success, and they exploded throughout the American West, and today there are 200 locations in places as far-flung as Texas,

New York, New Zealand, and Japan. This week on Doe Boys, L & L Hawaiian Barbecue. Welcome to Doe Boys, the podcast about chain restaurants. I'm Nick Weiger, alongside Mike, the Spoon Man, Mitchell. How you doing, Mitch? I'm doing well. I just want to say hi to Spoon Nation. Yeah.

Sure, yeah. Little Mr. Hanky greeting to everyone out there in Spoon Nation, including our guests. I'm so happy to witness that live. Oh man, that was worth, I couldn't believe. You know, Mitch, we started a contest last episode. Uh-huh. Hey, I just want to say that was a nice, that was an informative write-up on L & L. I did a little bit of research.

It was like a history channel documentary, but more boring. Once you get anywhere in colonialism, it just kind of gets fraught with, there's so much, there's just so much like dark shit that happened when, you know, people were going places and economically exploiting them, which is, you know, basically anytime you hear the word plantation, that's what's taking place. But I mean, and it's such like a part of like Hawaiian history and culture. But you know, I guess it ends up getting reflected in the cuisine, because that's, you know, as I was saying, like how a lot of these cultures came together.

My people are guilt-free. We were over on that little island next to Britain, and we were staying out of everybody's business. We were good. You were still in Ireland until, the Mitchels were still in Ireland until the 20th century sometime. Yeah, yeah, I think so. All right.

You know what? We don't know about my dad's dad. That's the one guy we don't know about. We know that everyone else originated from Ireland, and then my dad's dad, he is Irish. My dad always thought we were 2% Dutch. 2%? I know, we made fun of him too. It doesn't make any sense.

No. It's like, yeah, like one of my ancestors like kissed a Dutch woman one time. It just doesn't make sense. But my dad was like, I think we're a little Dutch or something like that. But yeah, mostly all Irish. How about you? What is your weird Aryan background? So I have a mishmash of various things, but Weiger comes from my Estonian great grandmother

and great grandfather, Morton T. Weiger, who immigrated from Estonia through Ellis Island sometime in the early 20th century. And then I'm also got English, Norwegian, Guatemalan, and fuck, I'm forgetting something. But yeah, that kind of shit. You got quite the mix going on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

A lot of the Hansen family on my mom's side, the Weiger family on my dad's side, there's just a lot of different ethnicities were sprinkled in. Interesting. Nice little tableau. It resulted in me and this podcast. We're all thankful for it. So last week, before we get to our guests, last week we debuted the guest mitches email address contest.

And so far we've gotten a lot of entries on Twitter. Guys, please keep chiming in. If you missed the episode or if you haven't seen what we posted on social media, so basically the contest is to guest mitches email address, which is a very cryptic, like kind of like in a cipher, if you will. It's kind of like the thing like the, you know, like a code breaking machine would try to overcome, you know, back in World War II. Yeah.

Like that movie with what's his name? Yeah. The Imitation Game. Yeah. The Imitation Game. The Imitation Game email address is basically like the gibberish string that follows the at and the domain is kind of what your email is. And so we're challenging people to try and guess what it is.

You get one entry per Twitter account, but you can put as many guesses as you can fit into one tweet. Use the hashtag Spoonmail, that's hashtag Spoonmail, and the winner receives a $25 Darden Restaurants gift card, which is redeemable at Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Longhorn Steak House, and many more. And like I said, last time when we announced it, not even worth the time of tweeting to win that card. It's not even worth the time that you put in to write up an answer.

I think you're poisoning the well because we haven't reviewed these restaurants yet. And I think you're going in, you're going to be, everyone's going to know that you have this confirmation bias, this tendency to dislike these restaurants in advance of our reviews. So I don't know. I think you should approach these with an open mind when we do eventually get to the Darden family of restaurants. Maybe we'll make good radio. I'll be blown away.

Can we call this radio? Yeah, we can call it radio. Why not? Also, hey, last week, you used the term hot brown to describe the coffee, and that was a nice shout out. Oh, a little subtle, a little sly birthday boy's reference. Yeah, I didn't notice it, and I want to thank you for that. Oh, you're welcome.

Thanks. Well, this is a nice little moment of sincerity to start things off. Yeah, and I don't like this. Let's introduce our guest. Yes. I'm very happy to have him, an amazing actor and comedian from other space, crawl show, parks and rec, many, many places, a hilarious guy, Eugene Cordero is here. Hi, Eugene.

Yeah, what's up? Listen, this guy. You already heard me earlier, because I was very excited about the hiding home. Hearing it live, I was hoping it wasn't going to be recorded that you pulled your phone out and I had to hear the original. I got to hear the version. It's almost as good as the original. Yeah.

And it's kind of my own thing, right? It's like my own joke now. Yeah. You've kind of fat-jewed Mr. Henke. Yeah. I think that's a messed up term. Okay, I'm sorry. Eugene is captain of Spoon Nation.

Oh, I never asked which captain, am I like a captain of a ship or like a captain of a football team? You're like a captain of a football team. Okay, I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure. Oh, yeah, no, no, no. Because no, there's no, actually, wait a minute, because they're both pretty good. Trudefonso Marks calls himself the first mate.

Yeah. That would suggest to some sort of ship situation, some sort of naval rank. Yeah. Unless we're a row team. Yeah. And then I guess that would still make sense that we would be, I'd be a captain of the row team. Yeah.

You know what, I could, I rode crew at one point, which is an embarrassing backstory to my life. Why is that embarrassing? I don't know, because one, I got way out of shape, two, I did it for two years in college and was a dork and couldn't drink or anything like that pretty much. You still played a sport in college. Yeah, that's true. Yeah.

It was fun. Actually, it was fine. I don't care. I got self-conscious. I'm sorry, everybody. But I don't think we should do a rowing team. I think that is cooler, a ship or a football captain. Both of them are amazingly cool.

Maybe we can combine the two somehow. Okay. I think a football captain is probably cooler. That guy probably gets laid more and is more popular. I feel like the ship's captain is more of like, oh, that guy's a... Never gets laid. No, I don't know. Maybe ship captains get laid.

No, no, no. No, that's okay. So I'll be the captain of the football team, but Drew will still be the first mate of the boat. Of Spoon Nation. This is my favorite. I 100% am behind that. See, that's why he's captain of Spoon Nation.

And here's the other reasons. One, you want to want to go up against this guy in a fighting ring. Sure. And you wouldn't want to go up against him in a comedy ring. So he's the perfect captain. Wow. What do you think? I'm right.

I jump in both rings a lot. I like find... I don't perform on stages. I perform on rings. Well, as everyone knows, are in rings. Comedy is extremely competitive and you go up on stage and you try to just embarrass the people you're going up against. Especially if you're an improv.

It's all about making yourself look amazing. I do like how Spoon Nation, which at one point was a throwaway joke, has turned into this thing where now there's some sort of structure to a paramilitary organization where you're assigning ranks to people and some sort of duties or responsibilities. It also makes us the Spoonies because I remember in that first episode where you became the Spoon Man, Jordan was like, oh, so maybe you're Spooning and you're like, I don't want to be called Spoonie. So I'm like, I guess that makes us the Spoonies if we're part of Spoon Nation.

I feel like everyone on the Spoon Nation team is already cooler than the Spoon Man himself. It's kind of a flaw in the system. But hey, you know what? Where's the little wise, the burger boy army? I don't think I need an army. Yeah, but there's not. I fly solo. See, that's your issue.

So Eugene, we're really happy to have you on. One thing I wanted to ask you about is because when I first met you and when you first moved out here from New York and at the time we were both kind of bigger guys and we both lost some weight, but you in particular have gone and turned into like this like Jacked Adonis. And I'm just like wondering what did you do exactly that, like what was your fitness and nutrition regimen that's kind of made you into this, you know, just like probably the fittest guy and one of the fittest guys in LA comedy. Geez, Louise.

Well, I got to ask him out first. I think it was, I think I got really focused into doing it as like a marathon like long term and I explained this recently that I decided to start referring to myself as an athlete rather than just like a guy, like I trained like an athlete, like a regular person does diet and exercise, but an athlete trains. Sure. Yeah. So I tried to get in my mindset to be more of an athlete.

So I started training. Gotcha. And I mean, I had been doing Muay Thai like kickboxing in New York and here and it was just hard to be a bigger guy doing it. Sure. And those guys are athletes. So I wanted to kind of join the ranks of that. And then I started doing CrossFit and got really insanely into it.

So then that helped. So would you say it's more like you kind of have gotten this, your obsessive tendencies of kind of, you've kind of exercised them through exercise or through fitness. Like that's kind of what, is that more it or diet's got to be a part of it? Yeah. Diet's like, you know, everybody says it and it's true. Like diet's like 80% of it. Okay.

Yeah. So I like pick my battles. So like meals like this that we had or like other fast food, like cheat meals or whatever are, I tried to curb. Sure. Gotcha. So I also enjoy them a lot more. Yeah.

Yeah. I would say, we'll get into the meals in a little bit, but I was actually surprised that like, because I'm dieting right now and I was surprised by like, I was like, oh, there's a lot of good, good things you can eat at this restaurant. Yeah. There's a lot of stuff there that I didn't feel too bad about, you know, the gravy on the other hand. Right.

Right. But there was some stuff where I was like, oh, this kind of fits it in. By the way, Weigar, I felt a little left out when you're like, me and you were big and now we're thin. Fuck you, Weigar. Weigar sold out. Eugene got himself in shape. Yeah.

No, I just sort of like got less fat, but I'm still like a little bit of a doughy stick man. Yeah. Yeah. You caved into yourself. Yeah. No, I would say Weigar looks lean and mean. He looks lean and mean.

I should say. Yeah. He looks good. He should have done that Tickle-Born. Oh, Tickle-Me Weigar should be. I'll take it. Do you think that toy, Tickle-Me Weigar toy would sell? No.

Especially not if it was anatomically correct. It would be controversial. That'd be a big toy. All right. So Eugene, we're talking about L and L Hawaiian barbecue today, but there was another chain I wanted to ask you about because it's a place that's kind of a mystery to me and a place that's always intriguing. I know it's a place you have some familiarity with, which is Jollibee.

Yeah. Is it Jollibee or Jollibee? Jollibee. Jollibee. Yeah, there's an eye in the middle there to make it Jollibee. So what like in the broadest sense, because I've driven by Jollibee and I've just like looked at it and I've thought about going there, but then I get intimidating and I've intimidated.

I've looked at their menu online. Yeah. I have a personal thing. This is a weird hang up of mine. I have to like steal myself up before I go to a restaurant for the first time. It's always like I get very nervous about it. It's like asking a girl out. And especially it's a place that's unknown to me, like a little unfamiliar.

I'm like, I don't know what I'd be doing here. And so I chicken out. Like I've seen their menu. It has like stuff like spaghetti on it. It has spaghetti and then it has chicken joy, which is just fried chicken. Okay. But they call it chicken joy. You are warning me even about this place tonight.

Yeah. Like when you say some people are really turned off by it. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know how much of it for me is nostalgia and how much of it is actually good. Like still I still try to taste it and I go like, man, I still like it because it's very specific. Gotcha.

Like I would, when I was growing up, we'd go to the Philippines and when we'd go to the Philippines, Jollibee was like the only real fast food thing that was around. Like there was a couple of McDonald's, but McDonald's was weird. Gotcha. In the Philippines. Oh yeah. That I didn't like it. So then Jollibee was its own thing, but I liked it because it was different and the

fast food of, you know, when I was a 13 year old kid, it felt like, oh, I'm still doing what the kids are doing here. So it's okay. So I got into it eating the chicken and eating the spaghetti and the spaghetti is really sweet. Oh, interesting. It's like almost like a ketchup on it and there's like a banana ketchup or it's called banana sauce, but it's a ketchup basically made out of bananas, which is really sweet.

Wow. And would you go to, do you have family in the Philippines? Yeah. Yeah. I have family in the Philippines. So then we would go there when I was a kid, went a bunch and then when I lived in New York, they opened one in Jackson Heights close to me and I got really excited and because it was the first one kind of in that area, they did really well with the stuff.

And I grew up eating, my folks didn't buy rolls for burgers or hot dogs because it was a waste of bread. Interesting. So you just buy like white bread or you ate everything with rice. I used to eat hot dogs with rice or hamburgers with rice. So that's why like some of those meals and fried chicken, we'd order KFC and my mom would, my dad would make like a pot of rice and then we would eat white rice with KFC. And that's basically what Jolly Bee is, is like their fried chicken is similar to KFC

chicken. Oh, okay. It's like fried chicken with white rice and it's awesome. So what was other food besides Jolly Bee in the Philippines, like is it close to Jolly Bee? Kind of because Jolly Bee also has this stuff like this Ponsit, which is basically like a Lomain that they sell at Jolly Bee, which is like a fast food like Lomain, but they'll also have like an Aloha burger, like a hamburger as well.

But like the hamburger had like, it was supposed to be kind of like a Thousand Island, but because of the sweetness of like, because of the sweetness of the ketchup, it doesn't mix as well and it just tastes different. Oh, wow. And I think that they were also, I think in the Philippines, they're also into that like real sweet taste or really or like mixing of taste as well because like in the Philippines also you wouldn't eat, what you would eat, ice cream in, it was in a roll, in like a salted roll.

Oh, wow. In a pandasal, you'd put like a scoop of ice cream in it. I can't eat like a sandwich. Yeah, and you did it like a sandwich, but it would be on like a soft roll, like a dinner roll. Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, that's crazy.

Yeah. So it's very specific in like their taste, but like, so you can have like this weird pasta or, you know, low main thing there at Jelly Bee, or you can have just like, their breakfast would be like rice and spam. Sure. There's like a lot of that kind of stuff too. It's funny because, you know, like we, like, you know, in the United States, we, I feel like we eat a lot of rice, but it's not like anywhere else.

I feel like in so many other spots, it's just you eat rice with breakfast and it's in dinner. It's always crazy when I kind of realize that I'm like, oh, that's like a main, that's a side with every dish. Yeah, it's not, and certainly like white rice is not like the standard starch in the United States. Right. That's like, my family, we would have white rice with a meal maybe once a week.

It was mostly like potatoes and dinner rolls and that sort of stuff. And would the white rice be with like a beef stew or something? Yeah, we'd have a lot of white rice with either, yeah, brown gravy on it or just butter, just like pats on fire on it. So yeah, just actually eating white rice as itself wasn't a thing until, just plain wasn't a thing until I started eating more Asian food as an adult. My family did a lot of, is it saffron rice, the yellow rice? Oh, sure, yeah.

I love that. That stuff was great. But we did potatoes and stuff too and peas and corn. Yeah, I grew up on so much rice that it, that was one of the things that was hard to cut out of my diet on a regular basis. I was going to ask you, so what are there just some things? Obviously, there's nothing that you'll miss as much as feeling as good as, you know, as feeling as good as you do and stuff like that.

But what are some of the big ones that you missed? You miss, like people, like a lot of times people will drop away and they're like, they don't drink soda anymore. And they're like, if I drink soda, it tastes like shit, you know, like I hate it. Soda, not so much. I would say, like, weirdly, and because this is a big one on this podcast too, is like, I miss Taco Bell. Oh, wow.

Yeah. It's just one of those things, man. I don't know what it is growing up that it just seemed so cool. And also, I'm a huge, I love burgers so much that, like, I like things in lettuce wraps. I'm used to it. Yeah. And I eat it regularly, things wrapped in lettuce or in, like, collard greens or something. But like, a good burger, you know, I have to break every once in a while to have.

Because you can still eat burger patties, just no fun. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I could technically eat the whole thing, but I just, you know, I choose my battles so that I can go to, like, you know, father's office or something every once in a while. Because I'm doing something similar right now, but I was both surprised at how quickly I was like, oh, this isn't bad. I like a lettuce-wrapped cheeseburger.

This is good. And I was surprised by how quickly I got used to that. And then I was also surprised by how much I was like, man, it would be great to have a burger on a bun. Yeah. Yeah, sure. It really is such a big, it just makes me be like, oh, yeah, that bun is a huge part of that burger equation.

Yeah. And it's good to have everyone. And it's like, you know, so a burger, like, you know, it's like one of those things like last meal thing is like, oh, I'd need a burger, I'd need white rice regularly. But like, I still eat white rice now and white potatoes if it's like a heavy workout day. So you grew up in New York City? I grew up in Detroit. Detroit, that's right.

Yeah. And then you moved to New York? For college and yeah. Okay. Yeah. And, but in New York is, I think where I like, you just get to try so many different foods. Yeah. So I got into, like there was a couple of Hawaiian barbecue places there, but they weren't like

Ellen now necessarily, but that's when I got into something similar to it. And in some of your favorite, or, I mean, that's a funny thing too, because you were talking about hot dogs and rice. Yeah. Detroit is a big hot dog town, right? Yeah, man. National Coney Island and those, and like chili dogs like that. Yeah, yeah.

Coney dogs. Woo. Yeah. Love them. Is that a thing like when you go back to Detroit, is that like a thing you have to have? Or what is like a Detroit delicacy you're craving? For me, a big one is going to a National Coney Island and having a, going to Nationals and having a Coney.

Gotcha. And another one for me, I think this was mentioned on this podcast at one point, was going to Greek town. Okay. Oh, because that was a chip, right? That was a chip. Oh, yes, yes, yes. It's like a Greek town chip for the, for the, for the, was it bad?

We tasted the Lay's give, give us a flavor, do us a flavor. Oh, it was the Boston Market one. Oh, the Boston Market. Yes. Yeah. And we tasted the Greek Euro chip. Yes. They had various flavors alongside their, their truffle fries and what were the other

ones they had? They have a Reuben sandwich. There's one more. The Greek one was my least favorite. Yeah. That one was really like putrid. Yeah. But Greek, Greek food in general is great, but that, that particular chip execution

was not. Who was the guest? They liked the Greek one. That was Annie Mebin. Oh, Annie. What the hell was wrong with her? Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know about lamb flavor on a chip, but I used to love yearos or gyros or however you would call them. I loved them and I would crave them when I'd go back to Michigan until I like lived in Astoria Queens in New York and had like real deal Greek food and was like, oh no, I don't miss the Michigan version. Oh, wow. Yeah. You lived in some, some good food cities every time, man.

Yeah. Yeah. You, you, you did it right. Detroit. New York. Los Angeles. I mean, I, I think Detroit is just kind of like a fun different one. It's kind of close to Chicago-ish.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. The Midwest food culture is interesting and you were mentioning when we're out eating at a restaurant, which we'll get to in just one second, but you were mentioning you

have an affinity for a deep dish pizza. Yeah. Is that, so is that a thing you can get at all out here in LA at any, any decent spots or is that a thing you kind of have to be back in the Midwest to find a good execution of it? I think you have to find it in the Midwest or you ask the people that are from Chicago who moved here. Gotcha.

Yeah. If they've found a decent deep dish place and they will, I think there's one or two. I think there's like a taste of Chicago or something like that type place. That's Joe Montaigne's restaurant. Really? It truly, truly is. Wow. Fat Tony himself.

Fat Tony himself. Yeah. How about that? So now I don't want to cause any trouble. I respect your opinion because you're the captain of Spoon Nation. Thank you. Football captain. Football captain.

You're the football captain and Drew is a little sailor guy, he's a sailor boy. You say that the superior pizza is a deep dish pizza, right? Yes. Okay. But that's because I am a, if I was going to get a pizza, I would get it with like the meat eaters or like the deluxe where it has like a bunch of stuff in it. Oh yeah. I don't like just cheese pizza or even just pepperoni, like I want it with everything

on there so it's a meal. Yeah. The deep dish slice feels like it's got all that stuff, it can hold it all and then you're getting like a meal in a slice. Yeah. Basically. Yeah. Like usually with deep dish, I can't eat more than like two slices.

Yeah. That's why I can eat fucking four or five, but I feel like there are two, I am a cheese pizza guy, I like to test the pizza by like a slice of cheese, but I feel like deep dish pizza is so much of a different, I almost think it's a different food for this regular pizza. Yeah. Well, because it's a knife and fork. Yes.

Yeah. Pizza. Yeah. It's like comparing like Gran Turismo to Mario Kart. It's like they're both racers, but they're such like different takes, you know, like a cartoon kart racer versus like a hardcore driving sim and so like I can understand how a fan of one would just look at the other and be like, what the fuck is this, you know? It's like, it's just like a totally different category based thing.

If you were in a simulated racer, but you had a turtle shell in your seat next to you. Yeah. And you could throw it at one of the other cars every once in a while. It would be pretty amazing. You know what, my heart is broken because you're saying deep dish is the Mario Kart in this scenario and I was thinking thin crust was Mario Kart and I guess you're right. No, no. I went deep dishes Mario Kart because there's so much shit that you can get out of it.

It's just a thin like a classic. If you go to the best spots and get those like a thin crust cheese pizza, sorry, I'm actually making the motion to cut a pizza. Yeah, that's right. I love it. Also, I feel like Weigar's comparing it to Gran Turismo, which is a game I've never even played. Seven people nodding along to this podcast and no one else knows what the fuck you're

talking about. A very popular Sony racing sim for the PlayStation. Oh my God. People play people who are into Gran Turismo. We're not going to argue the merits of Gran Turismo. What the hell is Gran Turismo? I'm not defending it. I'm a Mario Kart guy.

I'm a kart racer. Okay. Well, what's your choice? What do you like better? What, Chicago versus New York style? Yeah. I don't know. I honestly probably like a New York, I could probably New York style more frequently.

For that reason, I might put my thumb on the scale for that one just because it's like, I feel like the deep dish, once I have one of those, and this is probably the situation you're in now Eugene with your diet, I feel like I can have that once every three months and then I'm like, I got to check out of that for a while because it's just so heavy. It's like you're rewarding and punishing your body at the same time. It's thick. It's a thick meal. I love those Northern cities, man.

They need that slice to keep them going. And it's cold out. It's cold out? It helps you. It's so helpful. It's great. I think it's, is it Buddy's Pizza in Detroit? Yeah, Buddy's Pizza.

Oh man, I loved it. It's so good. Oh, that's a good one. Jet's Pizza was in. Jet's Pizza, I didn't get to try it. Hungry Howie's. See, I love that. Yeah.

Yeah, there was a bunch of different pizza-ish places. Little Caesars started there. All of those pizzas I liked, but as soon as Little Caesars became like a franchise franchise that I felt like, as soon as I started seeing them in Kmart's, I'm like, oh man. Yeah. Yeah. Once a chain gets into a Target or Kmart, it's kind of, its quality has, there's no doubt its quality has gone down.

Well, we'll talk, we'll talk about Little Caesars in a future episode, I'm sure. One thing I will say is that Little Caesars, I feel like, has had more success by going towards, we're going to worry less about quality and more about value. We're going to be the value pizza option. And that right now, that's like the cheapest pizza you can get, basically. That's true. Outside of like a frozen pizza, you know, it's like the cheapest pizza place. Yeah, five bucks.

Yeah, exactly. And it's ready. Yeah. And really, it delivers on, ready for five dollars, that's, yeah. We'll talk about that more when we can really dig into Little Caesars in a future episode. Right now though, let's talk about L&L, Hawaiian barbecue. So Eugene, this was a place I'd been to a few times before. But you have some sort of fandom and affinity for it.

Why L&L? Why was that what you chose to discuss? I chose to discuss it because as far as fast food restaurants, I will constantly try to find a Hawaiian barbecue place before anything else. Oh, interesting. If I'm going to eat something quick. Just because I have such a deep love of rice and a protein, and that's like a very Filipino, like a quick Filipino meal.

And there's like a couple of Filipino restaurants, well, there's a lot here in L&L, but those just seem quicker and they have like that really, like I like the teriyaki sauce kind of thing where it's just a couple of scoops of rice and then a meat and then a little bit of max salad. It's like the plate, the like lunch plate thing is like I'm on board for. There's something to that of, I was surprised at how like all of the flavors that we ate tonight weren't very overpowering. There were like some light sauces and like even some of the stuff that was marinated

and like or the fried stuff. I like, I didn't eat that and I wasn't like, whoa, this is like heavy. Yeah. It really came off as kind of light and nice. And yeah, I have no experience with Hawaiian. The most I know about Hawaii is on one of my list of places I want to visit before I die. Like Chicago was on that list at one point. I haven't been around as much as I'd like, but the most I know about Hawaii is like is

kind of like tropical drinks, which I don't even know. Like I think it's like the old, like kind of like a tiki thing, like the tiki room, which Hawaii isn't even really too much like that or like Joe versus the volcano, which doesn't take place in Hawaii. The most I know about Hawaii though is probably Joe versus the volcano. Wow. So I know nothing about Hawaii, but it's a thing that I've always wanted, a place I've always wanted to visit, especially when I found out that Summit Jurassic Park was.

Filmed in Hawaii and stuff and I love the way it looks and I love that cool tropical vibe, but I just know nothing at all about it. Besides that, I know that they eat spam and stuff like that. Yeah. And it has a very similar vibe to the Philippines. And there's a lot of Filipinos there. And their food is partially Japanese, partially Filipino, which is also partially Spanish and Japanese and you know, and Asian food.

So it mixes all of the flavors that I grew up having. Yeah. And I don't need to make it at home. Gotcha. So it is one of those things for me that I'm like, oh yeah, I'll either break by going to like Taco Bell or having a Hawaiian barbecue meal. Everybody secretly loves Taco Bell. Yeah, I feel like every person, if you push them likes, it's a chain that everyone makes fun of,

but everybody loves it, right? There's no... No, I think yeah, I think it's pretty universally beloved. I think there probably are some people who genuinely dislike it, but it is kind of a thing. I don't know. I mean, maybe it is like kind of a slightly generational thing where, you know, some people have maybe just like a little older than us or maybe more McDonald's is what they grew up on. And then maybe people, I don't know, our age or maybe a little younger than us,

like kind of grew up more on Taco Bell. I guess I have no idea. I don't know. It is sort of, I definitely remember Taco Bell is like the place in middle school that was like cool to go to. You know, I kind of have that association of like, like, oh yeah, we're going to walk over to Taco Bell and like that's a place to like hang out at, you know. The cool kids, you come with them?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All the cool kids still do that. Walk to a Taco Bell, wherever they can find one. Look, I'm not saying it was objectively cool. I'm saying it was my perception of what was cool was Taco Bell then versus like McDonald's would be more for kids, you know. Yeah. I don't know.

I'm talking completely out of my ass. I have no idea, but I think you're right. When you were a teenager, you went to Taco Bell and got a grande mail by yourself. That's kind of the end of the story. Yeah, I don't know. I think a lot of people do really love Taco Bell. I will also say, and I think this is this, when I was introduced to Hawaiian food, my initial introduction to it was, I think I told you guys this as we were eating, but my

friend, my friend's mom had made some Spam Masubi, which is basically Spam. It's basically like a kind of a kind of a Spam sushi roll, but not exactly, but it's like Spam over a bed of rice wrapped in seaweed. I was just like so surprised that this is what Hawaiian food was. Really just expecting Hawaiian food, like I don't know. It's coconuts and pineapples and pork. You know, I didn't really know, but it is such like a super unique kind of, man, I wish there was a better word that more, like a better word that reflected what I'm

trying to say in my head than mashup, but it's kind of like this mashup of all these different cuisines kind of put together and all these different influences. And then it's just like this really unique amalgamation of all this different stuff that you get. I mean, a Spam Masubi is almost like that perfect mix of what Hawaii kind of is a mix of, because as that Japanese seaweed wrap, Spam, which is what the US troops brought to eat while they were there, stationed there, and stationed in the Philippines too, was like a Spam thing was like an American thing that became a delicacy.

And then like rice, which is just like, of course, whatever Asian country there is, loving it. So it's just like that perfect like mix of, it's almost like a, I feel like it's like a Hawaiian sandwich. Yeah, yeah. You know, when I, it took me so long to get over, and I never thought that Hawaii, like they would eat seaweed, like I didn't know that it would be like a seaweed or even like a sushi type roll at all either.

But it took me so long to get over seaweed, because when I was younger, I would go down Cape Cod and Massachusetts. Hated seaweed, and it got on me, and I got grossed out and ran home, like a little coward, like I would run out of the ocean. And so I hated, I hated seaweed, but tonight when I was eating it, like it was done really well there, like it's not overpowering. And I've also had Spam before, and I, the first, I just ate Spam about a year ago for like, I think maybe the first time as an adult, and I was like, man, this is like really strong,

and it was just like a piece of Spam, and it was like, it tasted like. Why did you eat, how did, what was that? It wasn't cooked, it was just, it was just with a piece of pineapple, and it was just like, cut up Spam. Where did you have that? At my godparent's house. Oh wow. And I thought it tasted like cat foodish.

I was like, oh man, this is really, really hard to put down. But trying it tonight, I liked it. It's just, it added like a nice little salty flavor, and it was nothing, it wasn't too much more than that. Yeah. And especially because it was grilled, what we had, and it tasted good. Yeah, and the context of the Spam Musubi, I think what's nice about that dish, and Eleanor's execution of the Spam Musubi is like,

because there's such an overpowering saltiness that comes with Spam, and then the seaweed and the rice, it all kind of cuts that. So it kind of like numbs it a little bit, but you still get that pork flavor. And there's a little bit of teriyaki, I think, that kind of like, that they put between the rice and the Spam. I couldn't believe that it wasn't more salty though. I thought that would be the saltiest thing on earth, and it wasn't. It was a nice little light treat.

Yeah, oh, speaking of, this is, so Jolly Bee, to go back to Jolly Bee for a second, they have a take, the Filipino kind of take on Spam. And it's a Spam slider on a roll that's just Spam a lot of mayonnaise and a roll. See, and it's, yeah, I love it. But it's very, it's very like, there's my wife, who usually likes a lot of things that I eat,

is one of those things where he's like, okay, yeah, go ahead, go ahead. And I'm like, this feels weird, but I'll still eat it. That feels like the thing that you would bring to your sick friend as a joke, to make them throw up or something, like the heavy mayonnaise, a big chunk of Spam. Jesus. It's very specific. I mean, I make, we'll have a party at our house every once in a while and we'll grill out, and I will grill Spam and make little sliders.

But it doesn't have, it has pineapple on it and cheese and stuff, so it just tastes like kind of like a ham sandwich. Yeah, yeah. The grilling Spam is so much, it's huge. Yeah. I think that that was a huge difference for me, as opposed to having it kind of like not cooked in cold is the way I had it before. And if you cook up some Spam, I'm not against it.

It was a really a completely different experience for me tonight. Yeah. Yeah. Let's dig in to tonight's meal a little bit more. All right. So we all sat down at L and L barbecue. We went to the location in Glendale, right by the Outback Steakhouse, where we ate for the John Gabers episode, if you remember back to episode four,

just right across the street from there. And I got a seafood combo, which was, which came with Mahi Mahi, a deep fried Mahi Mahi, fried shrimp and chicken katsu, which is basically like a, if you're not familiar with the term, it's basically like a chicken breast breaded in a pinko breadcrumbs. It's like a very light sort of fried chicken that's got a nice flavor to it. And then comes with two scoops of rice and macaroni salad. I really like the the shrimps they have there. I feel like they're like a really good like fried shrimp.

I'm usually not like, I usually will opt for the barbecue if I'm going to a Hawaiian barbecue place. So I'll usually opt for more of like the the beef and the short rib. So I opted for the fried seafood this time. But it's a, if you're craving like a fried seafood, like it's like a really, it's a nice change of pace from a typical like fish and chips sort of of execution. It's got a really nice, like that pinko breading is really, really good and flavorful. And the sauces have a have a nice, it's like a little cocktail sauce, a little tartar sauce that kind of both have a nice little flavor to them.

That's why that is the place for me. This is why L&L for me is my favorite of the fast food, because if I'm going to have like one of those meals where I'm just like, I don't care what I'm going to eat. Yeah. It's hard for me to decide if I want fried chicken. It's hard for me to decide if I want a burger or if I want like barbecue or whatever. And I can go there and I know they have all of the options that I will like and it'll come with rice so that I can just make that last minute decision and be happy, I think. And that to me is usually the scariest thing on earth is like a place that's like,

we have all that stuff. I'm like, you do? You shouldn't have this, all this stuff? This is way too much. Yeah, yeah. But they do a really good job with it. I feel like most places like, you know, when you go to a Jewish diner or something, you're like, this is like a 17 page long menu and like half this stuff has to be bad. This place has a ton of options and just a lot of different tastes you can get. And they do a really good job with it. Yeah, I would say if you're going to try, you know, a place like, I imagine some of our listeners

will not have tried L and L and if you're thinking of trying it for the first time, I would go for one of those combinations and, you know, kind of go with follow Eugene's advice of just sort of like, you can get a few different things, try them out and see what you respond to, you know, because a lot of those combinations, they come with like three or four different proteins on a plate with the sides and it's pretty nice because you get a nice sampling of all of them. Yeah, we were lucky to have you there because you knew what you were doing for sure. Yeah, and I also was paying attention to what you guys ordered, so I ordered something different so that we had like more of a variety. We had a feast, the only issue we had when we were there

that we ran into because I'll be honest, I looked at the L and L menu and the website is maybe one of the most plain websites I've ever seen in my entire life. I'm like, this looks like it was created in 1998 or whatever. It's really frozen in time. It's like one of those websites that basically has like, you know, a counter on it and one of those little guys who's like those animated guys who's digging, it says under construction. Yeah, it really does feel like something that's just like, you know, you're looking back and through a portal at the web in 1997. Did you have one of those web pages? I never had like my own shitty website when I was a kid or anything. No, I don't think, how about yourself? I made one in college and I like, I don't know if

you can still find it. I don't think you can. Oh man, was it like a GeoCite or? It was like a Geo, yeah, it was like a GeoCity sort of thing and I listed what I thought were the top 10 best albums and top 10 best movies and then I put a picture of my buddy Adam Wu jumping off of a jump in the quarries and stuff like that. Wu Tang, correct? Wu Tang, yeah. Shout out to Wu Tang. Wow, all of them? Just him and all of them. Him and Edwin, his brother, Edwin and the Wu Tang clan. But yeah, no, one of those embarrassing websites is floating around in space for me and I think if you find it, which you won't, it's still better than the L&L barbecue website. Is there a link to your email address on it? Oh yeah, there is. There's the link to my college email address and probably

something that says like, hang out with me. Desperate plea from a college loser. So I was worried when I looked at that website, I was like, oh no, is this going to be one of those places where it's just completely non-descript, it's just a counter and it's white walls and you walk up and order something. But the restaurant was nice looking. That's the first thing I commented on when I was there. I was like, this is nice. They had a nice big kind of like oak tables and it felt kind of, it had like a little Hawaiian tropical field. To be fair, that one is one of the more recent remodels. Yeah. Like the old ones look like a counter and it has like yellow like tables and it just has like mahalo on the trash can. Also it looks like the website.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, almost. And this one was upgraded. They have beer at this one. They have poke at this one. Yeah. And a beetle that I was afraid of the entire, almost the entire meal. Yeah. There was one beetle that the doors were open so that beetle could have easily gotten in. Mitch kept checking to make sure that the beetle was far enough away. That was basically like, because you were sitting against the wall and there was like a little railing and the beetle was kind of slowly making his way across the railing and you were just kind of keeping an eye on him. Yeah. Yeah. And I was embarrassed. Eugene offered to take the beetle outside for me. Yeah. It could have easily, it eventually flew away anyway, but Mitch checked,

after it flew away, checked at least three times. At least. Hey, this is why you're captain of Spoon Nation. You were looking out for me. He could, he would have taken the beetle outside if it was necessary. So I appreciate it. I need to do that, man. These are some of your responsibilities. Yeah. That's what I got my varsity letter for. But yeah, no, the places, it's a very nice, it was, it was, it was a nice experience. There was an Elvis, the Elvis Hawaii movie with one of them. I don't know which one it was. Blue Hawaii. Blue Hawaii was playing on the TV and on a loop. And it was, yeah, it was, that was really fun. I get why Elvis loved Hawaii. It makes sense. I mean, from this L and L experience.

Yeah. He definitely hit up that L and L. Yeah. But speaking about, so we had an interesting situation with our food, which is that I received my, I ordered first, you guys were just behind me and ordered together. Yeah. Like Eugene and I were like in line and then Wyger like elbow did in front of us. I need to eat. Shouted his order out to the poor girl. So I received my, I was like one number ahead of you guys. I received my order and I had it. I checked the ticket time because I checked when we ultimately received our food, but my ticket, I placed it like, I think 716 PM was when I put my order in and I had my food like within 10 minutes and you guys ordered like one minute after I did, but didn't get your food for another like 40 minutes. Yeah. And it was

because this large catering order came and it came in like just before, just after I was handed my food, someone came in with a huge catering order and they just shifted all of their attention towards filling that. It was really strange. I hadn't seen something like this in a restaurant before. Well, I, I got there moments before you guys got there and was sitting there and I overheard the lady at the counter go, well, yeah, 730. And I heard her kept saying 730. So I was, so afterwards I'm like, oh, I guess that was the 730. I think they were expecting that catering order to come in at that time and have it ready. And they didn't have it ready. We just, we just, we just missed it because we, Weigar and I got held up with traffic. If there was,

it was just a few minutes different, we would never have had to deal with it. Also, there was, right after Weigar got his food, there was a moment where she brought the tray of the people's next to us food. So we thought we beat it. Yes. Oh God, that was, that was actually heartbreaking. She actually, she brought it to our table and was like, here you go. I was like, oh, this actually isn't for you. And walked away. And it kind of felt like a, like a, what would you do moment? Like there was like an ABC show we're gonna have to sign waivers for. Yeah. And she took it to another table. And then yeah, it was seriously like 35 minutes until that your food was brought out. It was, it was cartoonish. Yeah, she was like, and she was like,

I'm sorry, that was like mean. She even realized like, like how messed up it was. I'll be honest, too. I looked over at that table once or twice. And even when I stood up to use the bathroom, looked over to make sure that it wasn't our food. Was it not? It wasn't. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I was just curious because it was the same amount of containers as what we ended up getting. So I was like, oh, was that out? No, it's not. Okay, okay. And you know what? I'm going to be honest, too. When I saw that catering order being piled up onto, what's it called? There was a, like a dolly? Yeah, they had a dolly. When I saw that catering order being piled up onto dolly, I still thought it was Weiger's order. I thought they were just bringing, I thought that was your

full order coming over. So it didn't bother me for a while. I thought they were just making your stuff and then they were going to get us afterwards. But yeah, that, that way kind of a, it kind of a, it didn't, it didn't dampen it. But I think we were definitely hungry by the time the food came. I feel like if we didn't see that catering, those catering plates coming out and see that they were trying to take care of that, it would have been more angering to us. Yes. If it was just taking a while. Yeah. That was a ton of food. There was some sort of event going on. The guy next to us that were also waiting, they were mad. Yes. Yeah, I could tell. I think it was understandable to get mad. If you were like trying to make a movie or something,

you know, like that, it was a, it was an unreasonable delay. It was. And we were unusually patient, I think, because we were just sort of like relaxed and hanging out. But it's also too, it's like a thing where like I have a hard time, maybe partly because I was eating my food while you guys were waiting, but I have a hard time docking. You should have waited for us. I have a hard time docking them too many points because it seemed like such an unusual circumstance. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, I wonder, yeah, the people next to us, I was wondering how they felt too. They were a deaf couple. So they weren't, I saw them signing at the table. So I, yeah, so they weren't speaking. But the one guy looked very upset. Yeah.

He was kind of just staring ahead, dead on. And he kept standing and sitting and then they brought, I think they brought him over a free beer. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which they didn't do to us. Yeah, that was weird. Yeah. Yeah. But besides that, I thought the service, she was really nice. She was a really nice girl. And I can't play. I've worked in that, that, you know, picking up food for the Simpsons and I know that industry and you can't get mad at stuff like that. It just happens sometimes. You know, like you could tell by how much food there was. I wish they had gotten us in before them, but you can't get too mad. But the food was still good when we got it. Yes. I'm always excited about it.

Which I was afraid of that too. Yeah. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit more specifically about the food. So the macaroni salad, I, you know, I've had better macaroni salads, but I like their macaroni salad. I think it's satisfying. And it is the kind of the thing when you get that sort of Hawaiian Barbie, it just always feels like an necessary component. Like I don't feel like I'm ever satisfied with a meal unless I've got a little bit of that. Yeah. And I think they do a really, like just a nice simple white rice there. I think the texture and consistency is just like, just exactly how I want it with that kind of food, you know, which I think counts for a lot. Yeah. Well, I was going to say the same thing,

but we should ask you because I'm sure that you're a rice connoisseur, but I was like, yeah, you know, that's definitely kind of an underrated thing is having a nice, light, oh man, delicious rice. Yeah. I mean, it's like spongy. It's like, it soaks up all of the juice and all of the flavors really well. Like if you buy like that frozen rice that's pre-made at like Trader Joe's and you put it in the microwave, like it tastes like white rice, but it doesn't have that same like places like this or like sushi restaurants and stuff like they've mastered how much water to put in that, in that particular rice cooker. Yeah. So that it has that same consistency all the time, just like a good fast food restaurant. And fluffiness. Yeah.

I was just like thinking if I get like Chinese food takeout or something and I get like a side of rice, sometimes you can just be like this thick brick of rice that you're just kind of like, and this was just two fluffy balls of rice that were really, it was good. It was really, it was really well done, especially for the gigantic order that just went out a few minutes before. Right. And the rice has, it's light and they don't add anything to it. So it's a nice, nice like palate cleanser to like the sweet teriyaki sauce that you'll have in the barbecue. So I got the barbecue mix. Yes. Which is like short ribs, barbecue pork, or barbecue beef, and a barbecue chicken. So it was like a lot of the same ish sauce, but the way it was prepared

is different enough that you can taste the difference between the three. And again, with the macaroni salad, it's just like a good little different taste with a little mayonnaise. And I think because Weiger and I have the same kind of palate for that stuff, like I like that creamy. Oh yeah. That additional little creamy. You guys both love mayo. Yeah. Like, right? You're a big mayo. I'm a big mayo guy. Yeah. I'm a big, I'm a big mayo, aioli guy. Yeah, I'm not as, I am more now than I used to be, but for a long time, mayo wasn't my favorite thing. Like, it wasn't my favorite condiment. And I like, I would never, like I would rather have a mustard or

ketchup. But now, as I get older, I always feel like a little bit of mayo, like I'd rather have that on a sandwich now than mustard. I've changed. Yeah. Well, you dipped into the mayo. Yeah, probably the most of anyone I probably used that mayo. Yeah, yeah. For the, it's pronounced pokey. Yeah, pokey. Pokey. Yeah. And that was really, that was great. Yeah, it's really good. Let me ask you real quick. Sorry, go ahead, Mitch. I was just gonna say, well, no, you go first. I was just, while we're on the mayo thing, confession time, have you ever just eaten like a spoonful of mayo? Because I have definitely done that. There'll be times where I'll put mayonnaise on something, and if there's

someone left over on the spoon, I would like it off the spoon. I've also, I don't know who taught me this, but if you don't have butter, that you'd put mayo on the outside of a grilled cheese to make a grilled cheese? I used to, that was my go-to way to make grilled cheeses for years and actually really like it. I feel like it tastes better than butter. I prefer it, yeah. So if there's any of you out there that eats spoonfuls of mayo, solo, like Wyger, tweet at us because it looks like he wants to get a connection going on. I would think as a spoon man, you'd appreciate me using your favorite implement. Hey, don't you touch my spoons, man. I was going to talk about poke, so from, I don't know much about it. I really enjoyed it

tonight. It was good and nice and light. Have you had it before? I don't believe so. I mean, like I've had sushi and... Sushimi. Sushimi, thank you. But I don't know if I've ever had poke. And from what I've heard, I was talking to some foodie people and poke is supposed to be like the next big craze is what they think is going to really kind of take off. Well, because it's like simple preparations and it still feels healthy because it's really just, like to make the standard poke like marinade, it's just like rice vinegar, soy sauce, like garlic shallots, and then it's just like it marinates the raw tuna or raw salmon. Yeah, and I just loved the way that it was presented. It looked like nice cuts of fish.

And it tasted fresh and seemed healthy. But then also, it wasn't like the sort of thing of like, this is like really like every other time that I've eaten sushi or the thing I can never remember Sushimi. Sushimi, thank you. It's always presented like, well, this is like a really special dish. This came in like a plastic container. Yeah. They were casual. Yeah, there was no thrills about it, just kind of a, or frills. I don't know, I'm fucking up all over the place. But like, it was just like, this is just good, healthy, tasty food. Hey man, no thrills, no frills. You know what I mean? Poke, that's the theme of poke in general. No thrills, no frills. That needs to be the tag. When it does take off, that should be the tagline. And in Hawaii,

like it's, if you go to like a deli counter, it's like in like a trough the same way that everything else is. Yeah. Like the same way that you get like a macaroni salad or like, it's just like, oh, poke and you, it'd be like octopus or it'd be tuna or something. And it's just because it's from there, it's so fresh. Yeah. Interesting. Because you were in Hawaii recently. Am I wrong about that? Yeah, yeah. I was in Hawaii for a while over the summer and last fall, and then I'm going again for a couple months in a bit. So I've spent a lot of time in there recently. And because it feels like that similar thing to the Philippines, as an adult, I've like really locked into Hawaii life, man. Could you live there someday? Do you think you

I could live there today. I can live there for good. Like, I wish I could. And I would, I think. So let's say someone was going to travel to Hawaii. What would you say? I mean, we've touched on certainly the sort of plate lunch and the poke a little bit, but is there anything else you'd say? Like, like, oh, you got to, if you're a foodie going to Hawaii, if you're, you got to try this or this is a spot you got to hit up? Well, I mean, again, I'm not a local boy from there. But of my experience, the more local you can go with the food, the better it is. Like, wherever everybody looks like they're from there, they're eating, just eat that. Because like, even their bakeries are great. And it's usually just, you know, whatever you whatever doesn't come from

Costco, basically, yeah, yeah, is is awesome. Which is like the fish and, you know, the and they do have like the acai bowls there or acai bowls, which is just like that Brazilian, like, berry breakfast bowl thing. Oh, yeah, those are really good. Like, oh, yeah, yeah, it's just I've never known how to say that until now. Yeah, I'm learning a lot of stuff. But I I'm a huge plate lunch guy. There's also just a bunch of Filipino food there. And Japanese food, like there's a lot of good sushi places. But like Hawaiian cuisine is is usually like fish, fish based stuff or pork. So I know there's a tangent. How do you guys feel about those Hawaiian sweet rolls? Because I'm a big fan. We didn't get any tonight. Oh, yeah.

King rolls are they called? King rolls. I like them a lot. They're a little too sweet. They're very sweet. And for me, the big bread growing up was this called this stuff called pandesal, which is a Filipino bread that just means salted bread. So it's bread with just a little bit of salt on it. I love that. And that's what I was used to. So like, a sweet bread tastes a little bit too sweet for me. Gotcha. Yeah, I agree with you. It's a it's a little too sweet. But I do love the texture of that bread. It's always so nice and soft and kind of like a little bit. I hate to use the word gooey because that's gross for bread. But yeah, it just is like, it's just doughy enough where I like it. It's it's it's it's nice and soft, but salted. I mean, I'm glad I am here with the smooth

man. But buddy, like, I don't know if it was just too much eggs for dinner or something. But you're having a rough time being here in person. Maybe it'll sound different when I listen to this episode. No, no, no. I'm excited that the captain's here. Maybe I'm trying to impress him. And you know what, I'm going all over the place. But wow, I love that. I love the texture. But I love it. I love salty. I love bread with a little bit of salt on it. Yeah, I didn't realize that was I mean, and I probably never tried like a Filipino bread. But I love that. That's perfect. It's good. Mitch, talk about your loco moco a little bit. Oh, my favorite. That was that was great. It was two beef burger patties and two fried sunny side up eggs on top of them and then

gravy. So kind of like a dream meal. It really I mean, it really truly like a when I looked up at the board, I was like, that's I want that one. It didn't disappoint. You got a couple scoops of rice in the the macaroni salad. And I was mixing them all up. I loved it. It was so, so good. Such a surprise. The burger patties, it all went well together. And surprisingly, didn't feel heavy like like everything like everything else there. It was definitely maybe the heaviest thing right in the gravy was adds quite a bit to it. But but but it was still like it didn't put like a brick in my stomach. It still like felt pretty good. And I really, really, really enjoyed it. Yeah, it's just a very like I feel like everything is so dense

and caloric. It's just like it feels like you're getting so much like not heavy, but just like a lot of like like food, like nutrient rich, energy rich, like food, you're just putting inside yourself, you know, I will say there. If you got like, like the Kahlua pork or something, it does come with like cabbage underneath it. But other than that, you're just eating a lot of brown food. Yeah, yeah, brown and white food. Like if you looked at it, everything looks pretty similar, even though it tasted different. And that's like one of those things that you're just like, oh, I'm just eating brown food of different flavors. It's it's starch and meat with with syrupy sauces. It's it's a very, you know, it's it's a yeah, I still didn't think it was heavy, though. Like I like I like I truly

in the one of those rolls again, Eugene, I'm sorry, the the like the sushi rolls, they're the Masubi, Masubi. The Masubi was was great. Yeah, we got the spam Masubi, the the fried chicken, the katsu katsu chicken. We also got a Portuguese sausage Masubi. Yeah. And they were all really great and not like too heavy or overpowering. They were like, really good. I was I was really, I was really impressed by this place. Yeah. Um, I don't know if you guys have noticed, but my microphone is like tilting down. Just it's been slowly sort of going from like a 90 degree angle to now it's like at a 45 degree angle throughout the broadcast. That's so I've just been getting more and more slumps to now I'm like kind of just sitting in a sea posture. I thought that like it

looked as though you were starting to relax. Yeah, he's just relaxing now. I was like gross, Weigar is finally relaxing. I don't like how it looks. My shorts just come down. And our producer Dustin Marshall came in and helped the little baby boy. That's what he does. Dustin keeps this place humming along. But yeah, I, I usually get the locomoco. But because I because you ordered it, I was like, Oh, okay, I'll just try something else or get something else, not try. I've tried everything just like me tonight. It's a little bit sloppy. It is sloppy. It's sloppy. There's a lot of stuff that goes in there. But like you were saying like, Yeah, it's brown. But then you got those that nice yellow egg yolk running all

over it. So good. It's fucking it's good. I also like L and L because they accept I can ask for a spoon and people don't think that's weird. Because I you I grew up eating with a spoon and fork not a fork and a knife. So I use a spoon to cut in my right hand. Now ask me, is there a better captain for Spoon Nation than a guy who doesn't use a knife and uses a spork in its sorry, a spoon in its place. Jesus Christ, I am fucking off tonight. What happened? Spoon man, the champion of the sport. You fuck up. Fuck you, Walker. We haven't mentioned a friend of the podcast, Evan Susser yet tonight. You know, I just want to bring it up. Is that his nickname, by the way? It's like because there's Spoon Man, you know, it seems like that should be in quotes. We see here's the

thing. We we love Eugene and we are and we worked him into the podcast and he's a captain of Spoon Nation. Susser just pushed himself into our podcast without without really either of us probably wanted to be here. No, it's a good friend. Oh my god, I can't even make a joke. I'll take his side over yours any day. You and Susser. But I love that you guys always call him friend of the podcast. So I thought that was his nickname. Well, because they have like a him and Susser have a little weird text going on where they discuss the meals for doughboys and I don't know and so Susser always weighs in. Susser has been the guy who has who has eaten at most of these restaurants for meals more than anyone else that that I like he'll come with me to go eat at like a doughboys restaurant

when yeah he's not involved in it anyway. Yeah, well, he's a friend of the podcast. Like 100%. He's a real friend to make sure this podcast keeps happening. So I agree. I agree. You guys also have a lot of text conversations with friends. Yeah, I don't I don't have group texts. Well, we'll get a little Spoon Nation one go. Yeah, we should. It's good. You can catch up with people when you don't see him face to face to us. Susser just wants an excuse to eat at these restaurants. You know, last night was why we started the podcast. So last night, the you and I and some other people, Jordan Morris, Evan Susser, some of my friends were at night, we went to a Buffalo Wild Wings just for kicks just to have some fun. Beedubs. Beedubs. Had a great time. We

just we reviewed on the podcast with Matt Selman recently. We got a got a bunch of wings and then afterwards like the party had like broken up and me and Jordan and Susser like went to a bar. We went to like we were on Hollywood Boulevard. And so we went to like the shitty Irish pub on Hollywood Boulevard for like tourists. It's authentic, right? It's really authentic. Your ancestors would appreciate it. And we went in there and it was just like for me, it was such a thing of, you know, why I like chain restaurants and why they're so comfortable is that we were in this Buffalo Wild Wings were having a great time. We went to this like Irish pub. And then it was just like so like I felt like everything was engineered to like rip you off. You know what I mean? Right. And then

there was like there was some fucking dirt bag who was just like bugging us trying to sell us coke and trying to get us to saying he had some Australian ladies he could hook us up with. And I just like the fuck like this is if I'm a Beedubs, I'm not going to have this guy over my shoulder all night. Yeah. Well, I'm just trying to enjoy a beer with my friends. I would say like like it was one of those things where like I could really see where the night took a turn. And it's when I left the safety and the comfort of Beedubs for the wild of this independent business that you know. Yeah. And I guess that's the thing of like, you know, there is something there is so such such security and going to a place that's a known quantity. It's like it's like going to

like stopping at like a little store or going to Target. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like you'll they'll have it at Target. They'll even have their own version of whatever it is that you wanted to get. But we're going to support those little, well, I guess this is a funny, this entire setup is weird because like, yeah, you should also support little places, but this weird Hollywood Boulevard leverage bar isn't one of them. What I mean is that it's kind of like, you know, people like, okay, you hear from politicians like support small business, small business is great. And in the abstract, of course, everyone loves small businesses, but some small businesses are shitty. Some small businesses really suck. Yeah. And like, so I think if you and there is something

that's really impressive about a chain that has like L and L barbecue, hundreds of locations that does them all at a good quality level, like that's an impressive achievement, you know. So I don't know. I don't really have a point I'm making here other than what I'm saying is like, there is like a lot of times if you're going to an independent place without doing any sort of research ahead of time, just sort of popping in, it's a total crap shoot. And you don't necessarily have that with the chain that you are familiar with, you know. Yeah, I got a question for you. Yeah. How much Coke did you buy? An eight ball, one eight ball. Let's get to our final thoughts on L and L Hawaiian barbecue. So Eugene, you know the podcast, but what we'll do is we'll go around, give a little

summation of our thoughts and give a rating from a one to five forks. So let's start with you. Wait, are there the all you can give? You can give times if you like. Times if you want to. Okay. I wasn't sure if it was just one episode, Tines or if that's a thing. No, Tines are now Canon. You're captain of Spoon Nation, you can do what you want to do. Okay, so I will say, and we're not going to necessarily talk about the weight because we're not giving them beef over the fact that we had to wait a little bit longer for our food than normal. But as far as consistency of how good it is on a regular basis, will I keep going there as one of my cheap meals? Absolutely. Everything that you guys ordered, I was jealous that I

wasn't just eating that as a meal, but then it also enjoyed my own. So that just means that I will keep going back there. I will say it is four and two Tines of four Tines forks. So that's four and a half 4.5 forks. Wonderful. Go ahead, Mitch. Well, I'm not going to, you know what? I'll even take the weight into consideration because I don't think it's going to affect my score that much, but and they still handled it well. I had low expectations going into this. I was very glad that we were there with Eugene who knew what he was doing and he had some insight of what to get. But I really, I always kind of thought this was a cheap place and I just figured the food would be lousy to okay. I walked away a changed man. The thing about it that was so fun to me was

how different it was. I don't go to a lot of chain restaurants where you get a lot of different, interesting, weird food in there. It sounds like Jollibee is kind of the same thing. There was so much stuff that was completely all over the place. Two burger patties and gravy and fried eggs on top of it alone. I'm like, I can't get that at any other chain restaurant besides maybe like a diner or something. I walked away liking everything I tried. I liked all of it. I was really, really impressed by that place. I'm only going off the one location, but that's all I have to judge it on and if that quality is the same across the country, I'm really impressed. I give four forks. Four forks for the Spoonman. I really like Hawaiian food. It's really like a really

just interesting, unique type of cuisine. I think a big part of where a chain succeeds or fails is if it delivers on what it promises. I feel like L and L Hawaiian barbecue just delivers good that Hawaiian barbecue style food. It just is a great execution of it that you can just get consistently and if you're craving that, if you're specifically craving that, like it's going to pay off. Very good meal tonight. Service is generally good at the locations I've been to. I've been to Ono Hawaiian barbecue, which is another chain, which I feel like is comparable, maybe around the same level I'd have hard time choosing one as better than the others. I might give the nod to L and L just because I feel like it has more of the more history behind it

and is more sort of like owns the disc type of chain. I would say if anyone out there is maybe skeptical of or just not knowledgeable about or perhaps afraid of Hawaiian food or just it's just something they haven't had before, give L and L a shot. I think it's a really, really good place to get those flavors. Also, if you're someone who's just looking for, if you're someone who does crave it and is just looking for a place that will deliver that, then absolutely if there's a local L and L, I think it will meet your expectations there. So yeah, a very, very good, fun, unique type of food that is prepared well, very tasty, great rice, four forks. And that means L and L Hawaiian barbecue is in the

gold plate club. Wow. I never in a million years would think I never thought it would. I'm impressed. I will say if there is a day that if you guys don't cover it before, or if you ever do return guests with a different place and we do do Jollibee, we would have to get it to go and have a number for a pizza place if we're not going to eat the food as a possibility. Really? I get fearful of it a little bit where this, I was like, I feel like if they're into those flavors, they'll be into it. And I think it delivered tonight, so it was pretty cool. I'm leaving this podcast scared for my life of Jollibee. I'm afraid to eat a Jollibee. The menu item, I remember seeing on a Jollibee

menu at some point. I'm not sure if it was a limited time thing or not, but it was basically like an apple pie that had like tuna inside of it. Oh yeah. What the fuck's going on over there? I think that is just like a tuna fish pie. I was like, that's like, I try to have an open mind, especially for, you know, like other cultures, cuisines, but that was one where I was like, that's just, that's a strange thing. It's like a tuna melt. Yeah. Do they sort of be at all? Can you get B? No, I wish. B singular? Yeah, one B. I get it. It's like an Altoid. All right. Eugene, can I ask a quick question? Okay. You're going to Hawaii. Is it to film a new Joe versus the Volcano? Yes. Yeah. This one's actually taking place in Hawaii. Oh, wow.

So it's the, it's about time. It's Joseph versus the Volcanoes, is the way that they're switching it up. All right. You guys can continue talking about that. It's time for a segment we've done before. We've got four flavors of the same food stuff, and we're going to crown a champion. It's flavor of the week. So while you guys try to break down the plot of this Joseph versus the Volcano reboot, or whatever you want to discuss, I'm going to go retrieve our beverages from the fridge in the other room. I'll be back in one second. So I have a question for you. You're going to be in Hawaii for about six months? For about three months. Yeah. Three months. Okay. Are you hung up on leaving it all, or are you just,

are you looking forward to it? I know you have a lovely wife here. Lovely wife here. So that's a hang up, and it's huge. That's a huge hang up for me. If she was with me for it, then I would have no hang ups of leaving. Yeah. If I got to bring her and my dog with me, then I'd be like, oh, we're great. A dog too. That's tough. But other than that, I'm like, I'm not, I'm excited because it's for work, and I love Hawaii. So it's like both of those things. And this meal actually today makes me excited to go because I have plate lunches there, and it's just awesome. But I have to make sure that they, I split them up. Oh, if you're in LA also, there's a couple of just straight up, if you don't want the fast food version, Hawaiian restaurants that are awesome.

That's a great thing about LA. Yeah. And I'm sure the thing that you dealt with when you were in New York City, but there's like Ethiopian food. I'm like, I could never get Ethiopian food in Boston, at least when I was growing up there. Right. Yeah, I couldn't find anything like that. But you can kind of find any sort of food that you want to find. Yeah. And Roy Choi, who does like the Koji barbecue trucks and has pot, also has a place called out in Culver City that is Hawaiian food now. A-Frame, I believe. I've been to A-Frame. It's a great restaurant. And now they do like loco moco and stuff that's like a little bit more Roy Choi style. So it's up. That's all right. I got it picked up. We're having troubles with a rogue music stand here.

I'm trying to get some sort of stability for the beverages that I brought in. But let me acquaint everyone with what we're doing. So we decided to continue on with the Hawaiian theme for our flavor of the week. Yeah. So we've got some Hawaiian Sun beverages. This is something we saw Eugene purchasing on the way out. And we decided that we could take a few different flavors here for Trisha. My wife, Trisha McAlpin, great human being. Very funny. Love's wonderful. One of the flavors of this Hawaiian beverage called Pog, which is passion fruit, guava, and orange juice. Trisha is a wonderful writer, a great friend of the podcast. And I think that was a very nice husbandly thing to do to bring her a little beverage. Did you do anything for your wife

tonight, Nick? No. What an asshole. By the way, Trish is one of the friends of the podcast, but the friend of the podcast is still having some. All right. So we've got some different Hawaiian Sun Spoon Man. I'm going to hand these to you one at a time. Go ahead and read off for our listeners what we've got. All right. The first one is Hawaiian Sun Luau Punch. All right. Here's number two. Number two is Hawaiian Sun Strawberry. Oh, Jesus. Go for it. Go for it. Lily Koi. Okay. Great. Is that right? Sure. You should be able to handle this one. Hawaiian Sun Mango Orange Drink. All right. And then give this one a shot. Uh, Hawaiian Sun Paso Guava Nectar. There you go. Is that the one that you... Yeah, that's

Pog also. Pog. Okay. Cool. All right. Great. So here's what we're going to do. So we're going to taste these one at a time. I've got three cups for us. So I think the thing to do is... I don't really trust the stability of the stand, so I'm going to open these one at a time, pour these into these cups. If you guys just want to take them, and then we'll taste them one at a time, and in the end, we'll crown a champion. So we'll start with this one. Okay. To do this strawberry Lily Koi, I'll pour this in. Here you go, Eugene. I wonder who you annoy more, your wife or me. What? Like who I annoy more? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely my wife. Really? Yeah. Wait, which one is this? This is the strawberry. This is the strawberry Lily Koi we're trying.

No, I just think in terms of raw amount of time spent with a person. That's a good point, yeah. I feel very sad for her now. She should go to Hawaii with Eugene just to go and get away from me. This has a strawberry, I guess the strawberry flavor is pretty good. I don't know, what do you guys taste? Yeah, I'm tasting the strawberry afterwards, which is how I feel too, yeah. Like while I was drinking it, it just tasted like a punch. Yeah. And then now it tastes like I just ate a strawberry, but I didn't taste it while I was drinking it. I think that's the most accurate way to describe it. It's good. It tastes like it has kind of fresh fruit in it. Yeah. And Weigar poured me about half a cup full, so I'm still going out. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry if I

over poured, guys. I'll do a little bit less next time. All right, so next we're queuing up the mango orange drink. There you go. All right, let me give you a little bit here, Spoon Man. That's good. That's the right portion for you, baby. Yeah. We are going to be wide awake with this stuff tonight too. This is like sugar. Yeah. There's some sugar going on in these things. Yeah, I'm checking 37 grams of sugar per serving. Oh, how good. I think that's good for my low carb, low sugar. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, this is the mango orange drink. I actually like this one. This one tastes very tropical. Yeah. It's got kind of almost like a little, what's it called? It kind of tastes a little bit like an orange Julius too. Oh, yeah. It's got kind

of a creamy flavor. Is there orange juice in there? There is, right? Yeah, let me. It's mango orange juice. Let me check the ingredient list here. No. Mango orange drink is how it's classified, so I'm not sure. And then, you know, this is silver on orange, so it's not a very legible font, so I'm having a hard time reading what it is. I think that's on purpose. Yeah, especially since they called this one a drink. Yeah. Yeah, they're trying to include the of sorbic acid. Yeah. Like they at least hid the strawberry one by calling it some Hawaiian word that we're like, well, okay, what does that mean? Who knows what they call this drink? It's like, oh, they couldn't find anything. Hawaiians are kind of fucked up. All right, take it easy.

All right, next up we've got this luau punch. So this has kind of a redder character to it. That's good. Man, I would say that last mango one, too, would be like good with vodka or something. Oh, sure. That was a summertime. Oh, yes, 100%. Oh, this is like straight up Hawaiian punch, very similar to Hawaiian punch. I'm looking at the ingredient list. This one's a little bit more legible. It just says Hawaiian punch. Yeah. And it has the guy on it. And he's got his finger over his mouth. It's got high fructose corn syrup as a second ingredient. This is light on the actual juice quality. Welcome home. But tasty. He's always doing that. Yeah. All right. And the last one we got

is the Paso Guava Nectar. All right, this is the one. Cashion fruit, orange juice and guava. Yeah. So this is Trish's favorite. Yeah, okay. We'll close out with this one. We'll see if we agree with McAlpin. This is also a good one where you mix this with champagne or you mix it with vodka and it's good. Oh, that is a treat. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. That's really different. That's a really different. It's very specific. It's very of all four. I'd say it's definitely the most specific and different drink. Yeah. What I like about this one and the mango orange is that yeah, they both feel like, oh, I see how this is like a tropical sort of deviation from the standard sort of fruity juice like punch like beverages you might normally get. Yeah. This

is distinctly different from like a high C. Well, you'll rarely taste or you know what guava tastes like in a drink or passion fruit really. So I think that mix is awesome. And then you're a little bit familiar because of the orange juice in there. Yeah, and also I think I got like a couple fruity seeds, which I liked. Are you sure? I don't know if that should have been. I think you got pieces of your beard that came out into your cup. Maybe it was that beetle, finally. The beetle finally caught up with me. If that beetle was on your back right now. Oh, podcast over. Into traffic. All right. So we've tasted all four of them. Let's go ahead and do our rankings. So again, because of this perilous music stand that I fear is going to

topple over and spill juice everywhere, I've set the cans on the floor. And here's how we'll do it. Going left to right, we've got the Paso Guava nectar, the strawberry, the mango orange, and the luau punch. Got it. So that's left to right as I'm looking. The opposite for you, Eugene, obviously. So here's what we'll do. We'll start with our fourth place and everyone just go ahead and point to what your fourth place finisher is. Okay, so help clarify for me where you're pointing. I'm pointing at the luau punch. I'm pointing at the strawberry, strawberry one. And Mitch, you also pointed the luau punch. I was the luau punch was my least favorite. Yep. All right, great. Let's go on for our third place. No wonder why the Hawaiian punch guy is

putting his finger on his mouth. He doesn't want anyone to know that that's what you're involved with. Yeah. All right, third place. All right, Eugene, it looks like you're pointing at the luau punch now. Mitch, are you also pointing at this strawberry, Lilacoy? I'm pointing at the strawberry one. I like the strawberry one. I didn't hate it. Some consensus though on our bottom too. Why do we settle on these as the lesser of the four? I think the luau punch was, it reminded me of Hawaiian punch, so I think I liked it fine. And then the strawberry one I've put on the last place because even though it was different, I don't like that I tasted it more after than during. Yeah, it's a little disorienting. Yes, it is strange. Honestly,

if I'm being completely truthful with what I'd consume, I'd probably have the luau punch more frequently than the strawberry, Lilacoy. But I feel like I just responded to kind of that uniqueness a little bit more. I'm probably having, exhibiting a little bit of bias in terms of like evaluating these on their tropical character. But I don't know, that one, the luau punch just felt a little bit generic to me. Yeah. All right, let's go ahead and point to our second place. Okay, Mitch, it looks like you were pointing to the Paso Guava Nectar. I'm sorry, Trisha. And Eugene, you and I have agreed on the mango orange drink. Yes. Yeah. Why the mango orange drink in the two slot? I think because I like the taste of mango. I liked the flavors of it,

but it was, it did taste a little bit too drinky for me. It felt overly sugary rather than overly fruity. And I think if I'm going to have one of these Hawaiian soda flavors, I'd want it to have a little bit more fruit taste to it. Yeah, very, I mean, like tasty, a good drink. But like, yeah, the word drink is just a little bit of a, a little bit of a drink. It's just like, you know, I would say like concoction or, you know, yeah, that's why it won for me. I knew what it was. I would say the funny thing is, is that I will use Eugene's explanation, but that's why mine won. I liked the, I liked the sugary drink and the other one was like a little fruity fun cocktail that I would have with like, like you said, I'm like, oh, this would be great if you put some

champagne or made some of a mosa or something like this thing. But, but I really enjoyed it. Which by the way is champagne. Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah. That's okay. That's okay. Which, but I really enjoyed the, I enjoyed the orange Julius taste in that orange drink. Both very satisfying beverages. So Eugene, you and I had the Paso Guava Dector in the first place, but I mean that was maybe, I would assume your favorite going in, but it won me over because I just think that's just like a really unique, tasty combination that I, what like kind of, it kind of surprises you in a good way. Yeah. Yeah. And, and there's like three flavors in there that I feel like you do taste each of them together and then individually, weirdly. Yeah. Which is nice.

It's definitely of the four. It's, it's definitely the most out there. Like I'm like, and I still liked it a lot. It's, but it's definitely the thing I'm like, oh, I'm not used to these flavors as much as the other ones. Like having them all together in a drink. Like the orange drink is, like I said, tastes like an orange Julius. That one tasted like something really I hadn't, hadn't never had before. Yeah. And you is like a famously fearful xenophobic man where we're naturally resistant towards something that challenged your expectations. I think when we were describing our backgrounds, yours seemed way more hostile all over the country and weird and all over the globe or

whatever. Mine were just Irish people. Fuck you, I try to be nice to you this entire episode. No, you didn't. All right. And also Captain Smooth Nations on my side now, buddy. All right. So we'll beat the shit out of you. Hey, let's not turn this into some sort of physical competition. No, I don't know. I feel, I feel like Weigar was relaxed for a while in the middle of that. And I liked that relaxness that he had. You see, this is why I hired you. I want you to beat the shit out of Weigar. All right. That was flavor of the week. Just like a restaurant, we value your feedback. Let's open up the feedback. Today's email comes to us from Nathan Hare with subject line, Mitch, you're right. Nathan's email follows as such. Mitch, you're right about that

burnt taste in Starbucks drinks. Starbucks does burn their beans. That's how they get the taste to be so uniform. Roasting coffee beans is delicate process. And in order to avoid that, they just roast the beans to the point where you can't taste the actual bean at all. It's easier for them. And that way, every Starbucks has the same bland taste. Nick, you touched on this a little bit. Dark roasts are almost universally panned in the coffee community. Why would you want to taste the roast? It would be like if you ordered a steak so completely burnt that you could only taste how charred it was. Now to my feedback question, what level of service is perfect for you guys? Do you like to be talked to and asked about your day? A quick interaction with a smile?

Curious. A proud Canadian member of Spoon Nation. Wow. Nice. Yeah. We got something to be proud about. Canada. Yeah. That's great. I love that. And Eugene's going to be spreading it down in Hawaii soon too. It's going to be great. All right. So let's deal with this question. Eugene, what do you think? What level of service are you looking for? You want someone who's going to banter with you a little bit? Quick interaction? I like the quick interaction at the top that shows that they're going to be good servers, if that makes sense. Like a quick interaction that just kind of goes like, hey, I'm paying attention to you guys, but I'm also, I understand that you guys are having dinner together. So something quick, but then they realize what kind of mood you're in

and then either stay in there for a conversation or not. And then also like, so like good recommendations, I think is a good one too. Yes. I ask for recommendations a lot. So I'll try to talk to, you know, a server and pick their brain and kind of get their idea of what they think is the best. And also, I love banter if they're pleasant and they're funny, but I'd say the only time that that it will ever bother me is, I remember I went out to eat with my mom one time and our server was a really talkative guy and very friendly. And then he was doing it at other tables and it affected the service. And that for me, that's the only time where I'm like, where I'm just like, oh man, like, I know that you haven't put in our order or something like that.

And we're kind of, we're sitting around and waiting. But, you know, it's a tough job. But I think it can't get to the point where you're chatting so much that it's affecting service. Yeah, I still want them to be cool, but I don't want them to try to be cool. Like, I cannot stand if it's not necessary at the restaurant because they decide that this is one of their things they do. If you can write it down, write it down. Yes. I hate the ones that will point at you and then go, okay, so you're having the, and you're having it and trying to memorize it. And it's like, if you, if that's what this restaurant does, you're not allowed to use a pad, fine, go ahead and do that. But if I'm watching other servers using a pen and paper,

like you're killing me. I went to like a cheesecake factory with like a party of eight once and the waiter was like, while we were all giving him our orders or very specific orders going on the table, he was just standing there with his hands behind his back, just like nodding. And I was like, this is so like, even if you get it perfect, there's so much anxiety we all have now, just thinking of like, you're going to fuck something up or forget some little detail in your head. Did he? I don't actually don't remember, but I do remember there's this Indian restaurant we used to go to that is now a shutdown that had a waiter for a while and he tried to do the memory thing and he always fucked your order up. Like every time this guy, like every single

time it fucked up and then eventually like six months later, we kept going there because the food was good, but it was just infuriating. Six months later, we saw him with a pad and I think the manager at some point must have just been like, hey man, you got to write this shit down. Well, that's really funny if he was really cocky about it, it was bad. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, that unearned confidence is really abusing. I will say what I like for a server, I do like someone who, I mean, I like someone who's friendly, but I'll also, I'm totally on board with like the corny waiter jokes. Like a waiter does the, I got a clean plate and he's like, boy, you must have hated that, sir. I laugh every time. Like I love

those waiter bits. I love people do it. Like I love them having little like crafted one-liners that they're getting ready to deliver. To me, that's just a very satisfying part of the experience. I don't like the squatting at your table or the sitting at your table and writing it down on the paper or whatever. Yeah, it's a little too personal. That's, yeah, because there's still going to be a little space and I think the best servers know that sort of thing. But it's also good to hear for America to hear that a comedy writer like Nick Weigher is blown away when a waiter says, you must have really loved that. Jesus Christ, Weigher. He doesn't say you must have really loved that. He says you must have hated that. That's the whole joke. Oh, whatever,

the joke is still shitty. That's my point. The joke was bad. It's a good, fun joke that everyone can enjoy. God, step up your game. I refuse. I want to remain in the lower middle. When Weigher gets his own show, he's going to just hire his favorite waiters as a staff. I want to say that that was my favorite email though. That was a good email. Because of the title. Yeah. All right. Well, if you're out there, don't just pander to the spoon man in your email hoping to get your email picked. I'm still a gatekeeper. All right. If you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants, you can email us at dolboyspodcast at gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter at dolboyspod. Check out our Facebook fan page,

dolboys. And remember, still going strong is the guest Mitch's email address contest. You can receive a $25 Darden restaurant gift card if you come closest. Use the hashtag spoon mail on Twitter. Eugene Cordero, we know you're about to go out of town. We're so grateful that you made time. Yeah, podcast. Thank you so much. Hopefully when you're back around and available, you can come on back. But thank you so much for your time. Do you have anything you'd like to plug at the end of the show? No, man. L and L Hawaiian Barbecue. Try it. Yeah, we're going to have to have a post to why sit down with you at some point. Oh, Captain, my captain. Now that's a totally different one. Oh, no, am I going to lose you as captain?

Messed up. That'll do it for this episode of Doe Boys. Until next time, for Mike Mitchell, the Spoon Man, I'm Nick Weigher. Happy eating. As always, Doe Boys is produced by Dustin Marshall and brought to you by FeralAudio.com. The home of the Duncan Trestle family hour slumber party with Allie and Georgia and more. Our theme song is by Michael Cassidy and our cover art is by Chris Fenard Stalen. If you're going to shop on Amazon, visit the Doe Boys show page and use our Amazon affiliate link. And we get a little bit of a kickback and it helps the show out. Thanks, guys. Thanks for listening.