Doughboys - Morton's The Steakhouse with Tim Kalpakis

Episode Date: May 12, 2016

Writer/comedian Tim Kalpakis (The Birthday Boys, Comedy Bang! Bang!) guests in studio to break down classic American steakhouse chain Morton's, as well as discuss Greek food favorites and attending college with Mitch. Plus, Tim describes his Last Meal.Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1953, an ambitious young American publisher named Hugh Hefner launched Playboy Magazine. The periodicals then scandalous nude photos of Buxom Vixens helped ignite the sexual revolution, and by the end of the decade the man who went by Hef initiated the next phase of his empire. The first Playboy Club opened in 1960 in Chicago, Illinois. A private nightclub chain catering naturally to men, with bunnies serving as cocktail waitresses, it thrived throughout the 60s and 70s, before beginning a prolonged refractory period in the 80s. But during the Playboy Club's heyday, a pair of men named Klaus and Arnie met his coworkers at its Montreal branch. Klaus the chef impressed Arnie the businessman by serving him the best

burger he ever tasted, and in 1978 the two struck out on their own, ditching the overt sexuality of their former employer but retaining the elitism and air of exclusivity with their high-end steakhouse concept. Using Arnie's last name as their branding, the duo claimed to offer, quote, the best steak anywhere, perhaps appropriately giving its lascivious origins, though the restaurant now boasts 69 locations across America as the go-to chain for power-lunching businessmen, celebrities, and the idle rich, or people who just want to experience a small sliver of that world. This week on Doughboys, Morton's The Stakehouse. Welcome to Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants. I'm Nick Weiger, alongside my coast,

as always. Racist Wario, Mike Mitchell, the Spoon Man. What the fuck? How you doing, Spoon Man? Racist Wario? Yeah, there's a new thing I'm going to be doing at the top of each episode. I've got a different insult for Mitch in the works, and if you have an insult for Mitch, you can email roastspoonman at gmail.com. What? And if I like it, I'll use it on the air. Roastspoonman at gmail.com. Fuck you, Nick the Cuck Weiger. This is fucking an outrage. Well, look, you got your drop at the top of each episode. I got my little signature thing. You got your insult of me at the top of our episode? Yeah, yeah. Fuck you. Very often your drop turns into an insult of me, so...

This is fucking ridiculous. Look, I've already had Spoon Nation call me Cuck Weiger on the on Twitter, so... You are Nick the Cuck Weiger. So fine, I'll just wear it as a badge of honor. Nick the Little Cuck Weiger. The Little Cuck, so I don't get cucked that much? No, no, no, like I'm saying small, like a little, like a little burger boy, you're just like the little cuckoo. Oh, like I'm just like a little guy, so that's not necessarily drawing it to me. No, no, yeah, no, no, it doesn't, I mean, you get cucked a bunch, but you're just all right. I just want to say, uh, to Spoon Nation, get ready for a long one. Welcome to Spoon Nation.

What the fuck? No, this kind of insulting. I admit to screaming, fuck you, Weiger off mic. Fuck you, Weiger. Fuck you, Weiger. Fuck all of you. Picture your mind. But if at least we mentioned you were never really a part of it, the piece of the shit, you're a fucking dumb fuck. What the fuck? Stop looking at that clock, Weiger, because I'm going to take my sweet ass down. What the fuck?

Is Spoon Nation cranking off my big old dick? Are you sitting ready? Fuck, what the fuck? I mean, it was- Wait, hold on a second, what the fuck? What the hell is this? That's your first yellow card. What the fuck? What the fuck? You guys suck.

What the fuck me? What the fuck? Fuck you. What the fuck? This is fucked up. What the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck? You know what, dick?

What the fuck is Barnell? Fuck you, Weiger. What the fuck? Are you serious? Throw that in the trash. What the fuck? What the fuck? Fuck you. What the fuck?

What the fuck is wrong with you? I ain't fucked off. Like, do it, do it, and fuck you. And he goes, fuck. What the fuck? You motherfucker. What the fuck is fucking ridiculous? That's that.

So Mitch, there was a point in that drop that I felt like, oh, it's almost over, and you turned towards me, held up a single finger, and mouthed one more minute. That was interminable. That was my favorite drop yet. Thanks to At How Intensive. His name is Mitch. Hey, good for you.

Hey, that's something you guys have in common. What a good guy. Long time caller, first time listener, hashtag Spoon Nation in his Twitter bio. I like this guy. It's from Michigan. We get each other. Good job.

Sure. And fuck you, Weiger. It is warm in here. Warm in the studio. The AC is broken. It's true. Our intrepid producer, Dustin, is doing his best. He's got fans rigged all over.

He's fanning us. He's got a big fan that's fanning us. He's feeding you grapes for some reason. That was a request. Yeah, but we're going to power through it. A little toasty. I think we might get a little fatigued as this drags on, but I think we're going to make the best of it.

And it's a one sweaty guest. We've got one sweaty guest. He's sitting over there patiently, was pretty much wincing the entire time you were playing that eight minute drop to start our podcast. But we're very, very excited to have him. A writer and actor from The Birthday Boys, comedy bang bang.

And you can now see him on Lords of Synth on Adult Swim, Tim Calpakis. Hi, Tim. Hey, how's it going? It's going great. The Catman, as I call him. The Catman. Yeah.

That's derived from the T-Cat bus in Ithaca, New York. And you know what's funny? Appropriate to start off this podcast. I got a call from Ithaca, New York, Ithaca College. Asking for money? Ithaca College was calling me asking for money. Sorry. Did you get any?

I gave him like $1,000. Oh, no, no, no. You got to get that back. Well, what did you say? When they call me, I say, look, I would love to give you money, but I haven't finished paying off my student loans. So it would be weird to give money if I still owe you money. Yeah, that's insane.

I never answer ever. I try to never answer. And also, I'm never going to give him money. They packed us into that school like fucking sardines. And now they have a gigantic, they've made tons of new nice buildings that weren't there when I was there. Fuck you. I don't fucking want to pay for anything else.

Fuck Ithaca. Except you know what? It led me to hang out with all the birthday boys. So yeah, you know what? Fuck Ithaca. Well, most of the birthday boys, you guys are mostly there, right? All of us. All of you?

OK. Yeah, Tim has been one of my longest friends in LA. You guys all didn't live together. That's the thing. We did not. No. OK, all right. I actually didn't know Mitch on campus.

Oh, God. So Mitch, like when I met Mitch in Los Angeles, he knew of me from Ithaca because I was sort of a big man on campus. And then he didn't ring a bell to me. And I looked him up and down and said, I got nothing. I do not recognize you. He's done this bit for a good decade now. But it is true that when you met me,

you said that you knew me from Ithaca. If I remember correctly, you were my secret admirer and you followed me around campus and left me roses at my dorm. No, we didn't know each other in Ithaca. I knew my Canford. From the 12th episode very early on. Yeah, and Dave Ferguson. These are birthday boys.

And then Tim and I officially met out here. I said, this guy's a rock and dude. Do you remember the very moment? Oh, yeah. You said this guy's a rock and dude. I know how you can tell how we met. It was that we had a party at that house. And then the next morning, you were sleeping on the couch.

And I didn't know who you were. And you were like, yeah, I couldn't sleep in my house because it's haunted. It's haunted by another ghost thing. The house that I'm staying in belongs to my boss, but it's haunted by Charlie Chaplin's ghost. It was haunted by Charlie Chaplin's ghost. Is this the boss who asked you to blow him?

It is the boss who's going to give him a blow job. Okay. That you're okay with, but the ghost is where you do the line. Yeah, that was too creepy. That's like this dick every day, but I'll be around that ghosty. The ghost, the house was haunted. It was supposedly either Marilyn Monroe or Charlie Chaplin's mom was the story.

But those are the two ghosts. Any house in Los Angeles is linked to ghosts. It's Charlie Chaplin or Marilyn Monroe. Saying it's their mom is just a weird lie to make it sound more real. I mean, we should start. I should have just figured this out with the destiny. I should have seen this with Dustin off podcast.

But it would be great if we could convince Mitch that this studio is haunted by the ghost of the big bopper. Hello. But then he just stopped showing up. So podcast would be over. Now you're, yeah, I would for good reason. I'll tell you right now, this house, this studio is haunted by heat. It is thirsty.

It's very warm. It's like kind of do the right thing type of day where it's like the hot day of the hottest day of summer. And we're trying to sludge on through it. And I saw Spike Lee outside the studio too. Oh yeah. He's making a new movie. Do the right thing too.

Is he really making do the right thing too? Yeah, he's not. Tim. That is a burn. Oh, that was a Mitch Rose. Fooled you. Tim and I, yeah, we didn't know each other at Ithaca, but he's been one of my longest friends out here in LA.

We did comedy together. One of the funny writers and actors at the UCB theater. One of the funniest. One of the funniest. Well, thank you. Now, Tim, knowing you, we work together. You're a guy who wears a Hawaiian shirt to work on Fridays. You drive a cattle.

You're not a cattle. You drive a convertible. Yeah, what's your problem? I'm cool. I would say you're kind of a classic party animal. It's kind of at least my outward perception of you. Is that, would you say that's fair? And how does that govern your intake of food and beverage?

Well, you are correct. Objectively. A Mitch thinks I'm more of a Bruce Valanche. I would spit more as a classic party animal, which includes a lot of, you know, my ties. Oh yeah. A little my ties. That's my favorite drink.

And it includes a lot of, you know, steaks, which is the fancy party I got. You know, maybe in the past you had a lot of hot dogs and burgers, but these days you get a big steak. I'd say you're like a party animal, one of those electronic plants that dance to music are party animals. They're on the same level of party animal. Yeah.

Well, if I hear a good beat, I'm going to start moving to it. There's a period when those were branded too. They had like dancing Coke cans. Am I misremembering that? Yeah, with sunglasses. Oh yeah. There were dancing Coke cans at one point. That's weird.

Yeah. Why did that craze go away? I don't know. Because it's one thing it's like, okay, a plant like that's justified. The plant or the big mouth, Billy Bass, it's like, okay, I would have a fish on my wall mounted. I might have a potted plant. But why would you ever have like a mounted Coke can?

Like that's not, it's not a riff on a real thing. It's just like its own invented thing. Did you have a big mouth Billy Bass? No, I didn't have a big mouth Billy Bass, but I remember it from Sopranos. Okay. I mean, I guess you're supposed to get fooled by the can. You think, hey, there's an oral can of Coke sitting there,

and then it starts dancing and it's a parody of the beverage can. I got you. It's a really good parody. That's a professional comedy writer. I can say it's a good parody. I'd say you and I were similar guys. I think we were in the same, close to the same programs. I was cinema and you were TV.

TV running, yeah. We were both party animals, party dudes, big men on campus. A big man on campus and his friend. You're one of the guys I've known. You're one of my oldest LA friends. And I mean that specifically. Because I'm 33? Yeah, I mean that specifically in age.

And in Ithaca, at the end of the night, you and I, we're always going home with a nice hot sandwich usually. Oh, yeah. Sometimes we'd be the same one sandwich. We'd come back to the dorm. And we'd go at it from both angles. We were big. What was your favorite in Ithaca?

What was your favorite late night sandwich spot? Sandwich was shortstop. I love shortstop. It's for the 10 people maybe. No, it's probably not 10 people. Maybe 10 people who know Ithaca, New York. Shortstop Deli was one of my favorite late night. It was really good.

How about for the many thousands who have no knowledge of it? Give us some background of shortstop. It's just this big sandwich deli that you could get. Gigantic sandwiches. It was open 24 hours. And it's named after a baseball position. A shortstop player. Gotcha.

But it was one of the only 24 hour, I think, food places. There was Wings Over, which I guess is... Wings Over is kind of like a chain, right? And I think there's a few other spots. The big one is D.P. Doe is the big all night Calzone place. D.P. Doe. D.P. Doe, which is like a Calzone delivery place that was big, especially when we were younger, when we were like freshmen or something.

I think that's a chain that's around a few spots. Yeah, there's one in Denver. Are Calzones a big thing in upstate New York? They kind of... I feel like the Buffalo Chicken Calzone is a thing, because I saw a lot in Rochester and then in Ithaca. And I think that the reason D.P. Doe is so popular is that they would deliver just one Calzone. You could have a $5 delivery order, no delivery charge,

and they're fine to drive up, because all the deliveries are at campus. So you just get one... At 4 a.m., you get one Calzone for five bucks. And I had a back... In my senior year, my room was just had its own back door, and so I'd get D.P. Doe's delivered to my door all the time. My roommate would just... Like some of my other roommates would be like,

see a car coming down and be like, who's going to Mitch's place and it was a D.P. Doe delivery guy? Do you guys... Okay, so... And Tim, you've got a... You have a pizzeria in your family, correct? Oh, yeah, that's right. So you're a man who knows...

Or I assume has some opinions in the pizza realm. How do you guys fare? How do Calzones fare versus pizza in your estimation? I think they're great, but I don't order them because they're too hot. Everybody gets their pizza, their sandwich, and then you have this huge Calzone that is molten lava on the inside. Yeah. And by the time you start, everybody else is done in the car.

That's true. I... Wait a minute, we're eating in a car? No, they're back in the car. I'm in the restaurant by myself. All right, all right, all right. The Calzone restaurant. I enjoy Calzone, but I kind of agree with you.

I'm usually going to get a pizza instead of a sub. But I feel like the Calzone is a... That's a very northeast sort of heavy food that people like to have in the winter. I mean, D.B. Doe is the best version of a fast food version of a Calzone I've ever seen. It's kind of like... I feel like if you just want to mix up your pizza routine is when you throw a Calzone or a Stromboli in there. But for me, I always have the problem of thinking back to a different form of it,

which was the double pizza from Zbarro. They had a pizza that's kind of two-sided. I feel like it's just an excess of bread. And I feel like pizza just kind of has that nice, that perfect balance of dough to toppings, to cheese, to sauce, and everything. But you can really stuff the meat in there in those Calzones. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm just true. What did pizza do with the Pizzone? Did they make it thin and not too bready? I never had a Pizzone from Pizzone. I never had a Pizzone. I never had a Pizzone either. They're officially dead, right? They don't...

Yeah, that was a brief glimmer and it's no more. Is Calzone just one of those besides the rare instances of D.B. Doe in Ithaca, New York, and a few other... I think they're in a bunch of other college towns. Are Calzones just one of those things that America won't take to as much? I feel like you'll find them at Italian restaurants or pizzerias that maybe have a little bit more of an extensive menu. Maybe some pizzerias that have kind of been around for a while,

and they have more of a dine-in thing, and they want some variants in their menu. Stromboli, I think, is even more rare than a Calzone. I feel like you'll encounter that occasionally in the wild. But yeah, I feel like mostly just America's made its choice. They're with Team Pizza. Well, Tim, when you were working at your dad's restaurant, Woodstock Pizza... Yeah. First, he had Woodstock Pizza, and then he opened Winchel's Pizza.

Oh, wait. You worked at Winchel's, correct? Yeah, yeah. Okay, sorry. Shokan, New York. Shokan, which is near Woodstock, correct? Yeah, it's the next town over. Okay.

It's Winchel's Pizza and Barbecue. So it was pizza in the 80s when pizza parlors and video games and the whole thing was at its peak. And then in the 90s, my dad said, Oh, I'm going to throw a little barbecue in here. And then I was the barbecue cook. So I don't know how to make a pizza. I mean, I know it's dosas cheese. But my job was to be like smoking big briskets and racks of ribs and that type of thing.

Is that an early in the morning sort of thing? It would... briskets were overnight. Okay, gotcha. So put them in. Next morning. All the listeners will love these sound effects that they're getting to demonstrate what you did. So my question is, were you eating this brisket? That was the sound of me eating it.

It never gets to go out to the table. I would steal a little slice now and then. Yeah, I feel like that's a hard thing to not do if you're working around delicious barbecue, right? Absolutely. I probably in a day of work would have 4,000 calories for the food. It's impossible. I mean, because it's just constant. And then there was a soda fountain.

And then once I was old enough, I could have beer. So there was like six kegs of beer. And then we'd close up at 10 and then sit around like me and my brother. And a lot of the employees were my friends. So that we would just like then drink beer for another hour. It was the best. Did you enjoy working in the restaurant industry for the time that you did? I had fun smoking brisket and that type of thing.

But I tried to wait tables and oh boy, I could not. Have you ever been a waiter? No, I'd be terrible at it. There's something that you have to do when you're a waiter or a waitress is that like, it's all a fake facade and you are unflinching. And you're like, hey, how's it going? Okay, great. And now this table, oh, I didn't bring you to the salt yet.

I'll go grab it. And I would be like, hi, is everything okay? Oh, you don't have salt? Oh, God, I'll go get a salt. Not that I was super nervous, but that I was just actually myself. I wasn't in a character that made it roll off of me. I felt like every interaction was like, oh, this is a good table. Maybe I'll get a good tip.

Oh, I didn't get a good tip. And I always got bad tips. Like I would get like under 10% regular all the time. It is. I guess that is so much of the showmanship of it, which I would be horrible at. I think I could handle pressure decently well. I'm very clumsy, so I would drop a lot of things. And then also, I think my main issue is I have trouble disguising my contempt for people.

So I feel like if I had a customer I didn't like, they would just sense it. And then that would be taking up the chain of management. I would say that you're the closest thing I've ever seen to a kiosk in my life. So in that way, maybe you wouldn't be too bad. You have a hard time. Oh, yeah, I noticed that on this podcast all the time where you have a hard time not showing the contempt you have for me. I love you, Mitch.

You're great. So you worked there and you worked there in the summertime, even when you were in school? No, I worked as a summer job. And then I think maybe during a year I worked on the weekends, but I I don't think I could have really pulled that off. I think I saved up money over the summer and then same thing in college right through until I moved to LA.

I'd work over this summer and then go for another semester and spend all that money and then be super poor and then work again. Did your dad like you as an employee? Yeah, I think I was good. I think that I gave away. I remember him always telling me to make the portion smaller because I put like a huge amount of fries again. That's a good plate of barbecue with a huge amount of fries on it.

And then he'd be like, what are you doing? That's like, you just made it so I lose money on this plate. But I was like not thinking about profit. I was thinking about like the pride in this barbecue plate that I put together. But I prepped and I cleaned and I did all that stuff. But I think in the amount of time I was there, I should have graduated to then also making pizza and also being a manager and scheduling things and deliveries come and I take the inventory. But I was there for seven years and I never went into the front room.

I was hidden in the back. Your old man was challenging you. Yeah, yeah. I worked. That's why I'm so sweaty. And explains the barbecue sauce. Yeah, I'm drenched in it. So your dad, your dad, a great guy, he's a foodie.

Your dad is like when we went to Montreal together as the birthday boys, I remember your dad took us around to what was that place that we went to, the smoked... Oh, Schwartz's. Oh, Schwartz's. Oh man, it was so great. So it kind of, what's Schwartz's? Tim, would you like to explain? It's a Montreal deli that serves smoked meat, which is a lot like pastrami or corned beef or

something. Yeah. It's got these like pickle-y spices on it and it's a specific thing that you only get in like French Canadian restaurants. Gotcha. But Schwartz's also, it's super famous and now, you know, it's got like a second location attached to it for takeout and it's just this big meat deli. But yeah, we went there and then we walked over to a rotisserie chicken place and had that too.

Oh yeah. And that's a big thing that my family likes to do is like walking from, we did that in New York also where we were like, hey, we're having hot dogs at this place that deep fries their hot dogs. Hey, we're walking over to Ray's Pizza. We're just walking and eating all day. Your family and I always kind of end up wheezing my way into those trips. Yeah.

I don't think I was here for that a few times. Yeah, they're like, what's Mitch doing here? Wait, so you just have like a marathon of meals? They weren't, it's not a meal in each place. It's sort of like a food tour. I got you. I still do that. When my brother's in town, I'll like go out to the San Gabriel Valley and be like,

have a little bite of Chinese food here, but don't go crazy because we're going to get tacos in Korea town after this. And we, when we were out here, I remember early on in the early days that we were out in LA, we kind of went around and tried to find like the best burritos at some place. So you've kind of always been a foodie guy. You've liked food. Yeah. I think that foodie sort of implies like a completeness thing.

Like, you know, I don't think I know all the hip new chefs and stuff, but I do like to eat all day. You're not like a, I feel like there's a distinction now where between like the, I think a foodie is thought of someone who is like very knowledgeable, but you can be someone who's not a gourmet, but it's just into eating and into trying a bunch of different things. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's really cool to be into eating. I'll bring it back to the classic party dude thing you had going. I like that a lot better.

Oh no, I'd say you're more into eating. No, no, party. Party. I party my way to a restaurant. I party the food into my mouth. I wanted to pick your brain a little bit, Tim, while you're here, because you are a very, I think, obviously a Greek American. And I am laringly obvious.

And I'm wondering your opinions on Greek food, Mediterranean food, any tips for anyone out there in the greater Los Angeles area or nationwide? In Los Angeles, you got papakristos and the great Greek. I have had papakristos. Papakristos is really good. Those are kind of two, obviously the best Maya mile. And then I'm not too picky. I mean, I have Daphne's, you know, they have that fire feta.

It's not too bad. Have you guys done Daphne's on this show? We haven't done Daphne's yet. We haven't done Daphne's yet. You want to switch to Daphne's right now? Yeah, we'll just talk about Daphne's. You probably ate it before you came here, right? Between on the drive from Morton's to here, I swung by two Daphne's.

I said, team, we're all out of feta. You'll have it to stop. That's Italian, you guys. What's going on? Are you telling us saying that to them? That was them yelling at me in Italian and me reprimanding them for having the wrong accent. I, uh, Greek food became, I think, one of my favorites.

I don't get it as much anymore. There was a great Greek place by my, uh, near, by where I live, uh, El Greco. Closed. That closed. And I liked that a lot. You also liked the petite Greek, right? I liked the petite Greek. Yeah, there's, there's, there's a few of them, uh, in LA,

but it's one of my favorite. I like feta cheese. I like feta cheese. I think it's a part of it. I like, uh, the Greek salad. I'll just come right out in that minute. I like feta cheese. I'm a hummus guy.

I like feta cheese. That's also like, you can kind of go healthy and I'm a guy who doesn't make stuff a lot. So you can kind of get a healthy, oh, you got to play to chicken and you got to play to Greek salad with feta. And it's not too bad. You know, just going to watch that pita bread. The pita bread is rough.

That's, that's, that's what gets you, but you know, that tricks everybody. That's just white flour bread as bad as if you eat a bunch of pita and you just had like a pizza dinner. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I feel like I've gained a lot of weight

eating Greek food as well. But if you do some Greek salads, it's like some of my favorite healthier food. Do you guys like a, like, do you prefer a Euro plate or a Euro sandwich? Ooh, this is tough. Usually the sandwich is too small. You know, it's on the menu, it's $3.99

and then you got to get a side. So I do the plate. I like to, sometimes I'm a big meat guy, but at a Greek place, I'll have the veggie platter just so I could be dipping and bippin and bopping all over the table. They do have really good veggie platters. Yeah.

Yeah, no, I'm the same as you. I like to get the plate and then you make your own euros out of it, you know. Yeah. And then you can, you can sell them to the other people in the dining room. Mark them up for $4.99. I gotta say, to go back to Montreal for a second,

one of the great food cities. I had no idea. That place is great. Oh my God. I think it's probably my favorite food city for that. They have really good, like rotisserie chicken and french fries with gravy, poutine and all that stuff. Poutine.

It's good cold weather food. It might be weird to be there in the summer eating a bunch of gravy. We did that though for when we were up there for just for laughs. We, we did, we were in the summertime and we did eat all that shit, I feel like. Oh yeah.

Did you go to Opie de Couchon? Oh, I went to Opie de Couchon. It's great. That's one of my favorite restaurants on earth. Yeah, it's great. That, all of Montreal. I don't know if people ever get the chance. Great food city.

Worry at me on that place you just said that I can't pronounce. Opie de Couchon. The foot of the pig maybe? Yeah, the, yeah. Gotcha. The pig's foot pretty much. Okay.

They, it's a little french restaurant where they put duck in a can. They roast this duck in a can with mashed potatoes and stuff and then they bring the can out to your table. They open the can and dump it on your plate. And then there's this really good fancy roast duck that almost tastes like prime rib. It's like almost red meat.

It's insane. And then there's just foie gras. It's the only restaurant where you have, you can't finish the portions of foie gras. Like I was sending back like wiping it off of my food because there's huge stacks of delicious foie gras. And it's like, it's run by this big Canadian, like French Canadian chef who's like a big burly man.

Martin Picard. Picard, yeah. And he loves a, and he loves his foie gras. It's a great, great restaurant. If you're up and getting up north of the border, check out Opie de Couchon. It's, it's, it's great. Now Tim would, so what is your favorite food?

Are you a Greek guy or what? What is it? I'm a Greek guy, but not a Greek food. I would say my favorite, when I think of eating, and I'm like, Timmy, you're going to get some dinner. So this is like a nightly thing. Yeah. This is like around six o'clock every night.

Being from the Northeast, it was always buffalo chicken wings. Yeah. From zero until very recently. And now I'm just so fixated on a ribeye steak on a plate, no sides. That's my favorite meal in the world is a ribeye steak. Just a ribeye by itself. On a plate, nothing else. Explicitly no sides.

No, and it's so stupid, but sides on the plate does bother me if it's steaks. I feel like a steakhouse is supposed to have everything all a cart. And you're supposed to have some like cream spinach on the table that you could reach for. Gotcha. But just a big old, specifically a ribeye because it's a fatty flavorful.

I got really into filet. Yeah, I feel like the filet, I'm always curious as to why the filet is like so highly regarded. Because for me, I feel like it's like it has less flavor than these fattier cuts. Is it just because it's so lean? I think it's people can quantify the texture difference really obviously. Gotcha.

They don't have the best palate. You could still cut through your filet with a fork and no knife and say, oh my god, it's so tender. Yeah. But what people don't realize is a lot of time when a filet is wrapped in bacon or covered in sauce or thinly sliced and drizzled with something, it's because it does lack flavor. Yeah, I've come in, I've gotten into a stack of different things before.

It's kind of like they're trying to put the filet atop, you know, some potatoes and some cream spinach to sort of like have this all be one bite that you're having. I come from a filet mignon family and I know that's a strange thing to say. Wow. That's your official surname? That was like my dad's favorite cut of steak. So if we were making steak, he would do like steak au poivre sometimes,

which is, you know, the pepper. Creamy pepper sauce. Yeah, and he loved filet. And I liked it a lot too. But my dad was also, my dad liked his steak like medium well. Yeah. And over time, I've gone away from that. He also had, you know, heart problems and stuff.

So I think he tried to stay, he, I think it was. So he had to stay cooked a little bit more? I cooked a little bit. Honestly, I don't know if that maybe was the thing at one point. I guess more fat drips out. Yeah, I think that was a part of it. But he would cook him a little bit more and it was usually filets, which I do, it holds us a spot in my heart.

Yeah. But I've moved on, I'm with you. I like a strip or something now. I like a fatty steak. And if it's done well, it is, that's one of my favorite meals if it's done well. And actually, a kind of a place where I fell in love with steak dinner is Ithaca, a place called John Thomas Steakhouse,

which you never went to, which is a hard break to make. I was out at the parties. You would be at John Thomas and I'd be saying, Mitch, you got to get out here, man. We're on the dance floor, buddy. That sounds terrible. Join you on the dance floor. Yeah, I was a social guy.

I was going to John Thomas and drinking martinis. It was great. But I would say that I probably ate more wings than I ever have in my life when I was up there. That is a big college staple, anyways. Have you seen the movie, The Great Chicken Wing Hunt? No, what is this? A documentary?

A documentary. It's on Hulu. You should watch it. It's about the wing belt going through all of Central and Western New York looking for the best wings. And what they find is very interesting. Now, I feel like another guest has brought this up on the podcast before.

The wing belt? Yeah. No, just this very documentary. And I think maybe we had a conversation with a guest off podcast, but I'm having a memory of it now. If I know I'm having wings for dinner, I usually put on my wing belt. This is the looser belt.

What was your favorite wings in Ithaca? In Ithaca, it was this place called Italian Carryout. Oh, all right. Those were your favorite wings? It's a classic Frank's Red Hot wing, but just perfectly executed. And then I also, like for a weird one, I like down at Benchwormers.

All right. It was yellow. I'm a Sammy's guy. So don't tell my wing buddies. Sammy's pizza. Yeah, Sammy's pizza. There are so many. There is so much good.

And I guess that's kind of a thing you missed out on, Weigert. You don't have... The Northeast has the best buffalo chicken there is. Yeah, I trust you on that. Did you eat a lot of it growing up or no? What, buffalo wings? That was not a thing...

Between spoonfuls of mayo, did you ever... I don't think buffalo wings were a thing I had until adulthood. I don't think we ever had them growing up. We were not necessarily an Epicurious family. We had a lot of just very conventional food that we ate at home. Spaghetti and meatballs. Not even spaghetti and meatballs.

Spaghetti and meat sauce. Steak, as we mentioned. Meatloaf. You know, it was a very classic American dishes were what we had. And so yeah, even something like buffalo wings, it just was maybe a little exotic for us. It would really freak you out.

Yeah. So as a person that then grew up eating them, when someone says wings, do you think red buffalo wings? Or are you thinking like, oh, it's chicken wings and I'll choose between barbecue or parmesan or all these different... Like soft white kid Icarus wings. As worn by Pitt in the game Kid Icarus?

Gotcha, yeah. No, I don't... Thanks for clarifying that. I don't think of the Kid Icarus wings from the Nintendo game from 1986. Icarus fights Medusa Angels, I believe, followed by two rows of exclamation points. Got you all of the items.

Why is that a reference? Why did you reference Kid Icarus and not Icarus? The Greek myth. Wait, there's a grown-up Icarus? Oh yeah, the myth is called adult Icarus. Yeah, his wax wings melted. I always the eggplant wizard from that game. I always felt was so...

Like when I was a kid, I was like, I got an eggplant wizard, this is weird. But when I got older, I was like, oh, that's such like a crazy imaginative Japanese thing to have like a wizard who's got like an eggplant head and he throws eggplants at you. And if you get hit by one, you turn into an eggplant with legs.

That's a really crazy surreal thing. That is really... And also, that made me afraid to eat eggplant. Yeah. That was like one of those foods. Like even like Pizza the Hut, when I was younger, I loved pizza, so it didn't turn me away from it.

But I remember seeing Pizza the Hut and being like, that's fucking nasty. That's really gross. I don't want to eat pizza, like, but I still did. That is such a bad joke, Pizza the Hut. It's a terrible... It was a bad joke? I think it's the worst joke.

Mel Brooks, we're gonna get Mel Brooks on here. I think it's one of my favorite jokes. I loved that movie, but I feel like I was zero years old watching that being like, oh, come on, Mel. You could do better than Pizza the Hut. But like, okay, Jabba the Hut. So we've already got the Hut. Like, it's earned the Hut.

There is a chain called Pizza Hut. I don't know. I feel like it's a pretty good A to C. I never got it until now. Now it's funny. Yeah, were you just explaining that joke? No, I was saying that it's not like it's just like, it's not like random.

It's like, oh, it's kind of earned because there's a point of unity between Pizza Hut the Chain and Jabba the Hut, the Star Wars character. He looked gross too. But Jabba looked gross, so I don't know. It kind of works for him. Jabba didn't look that gross. He looks pretty gross.

When his tongue is out and he's licking Leia, that's disgusting. But Jabba is not made out of Jabba. Pizza the Hut is made out of pizza? That's fair. That's maybe where the logic breaks down. But in its defense, it is very funny. Does Pizza Hut make you hungry? It didn't make me hungry, but I don't know.

I liked, okay, I will say this. What? A big glob of just cheese and pepperoni. Like there's a point where the metal guy, I don't remember his name, eats a big glob of pepperoni and cheese off of Pizza the Hut and is like, hey, pizza, you're delicious. That always looked appetizing to me.

That's fucking nasty. The idea of just picking up a handful of cheese and pepperoni, like just that, with no dough and putting that in my mouth, that looked good. You would eat a part of Pizza the Hut. I don't know if I would, if it was a sentient character, if it was a sentient creature presented in front of me and was like, hey, you want to eat a part of me,

I probably wouldn't. If I saw a few other people do it, I might. But I don't think it'd be the first one to eat off of this man. I wouldn't touch him with a 40-foot pole. He's gross. The guy's gross. He ate himself to death. Yeah, that's funny.

That's good. That was good. That was like a joke. That's kind of how we're going to die, too, I guess. All right, go for it. Oh, I was just going to say, I stayed away from eggplant for a really long time. I think probably because of the Kid Icarus game.

Yeah. And then it became one of those things where I tried it later. I tried like eggplant parmesan. I was like, this is fucking delicious. I had no idea when I was younger. It was one of those weird foods. I think that's a good thing. Tweet at us.

I don't have a good hashtag for this one. But foods that grew on you. Puberty. Food puberty or something. Something like that. Hashtag food puberty. Food bur- food bur- no, it's not really- food bur-t doesn't really work.

Food bur-t works. Yeah. I think I think food puberty is good. Food bur-t feels confusing. And food bur-t works. Try to ask food bur-t. F-O-R-F-U. Food bur-t is F-O-R-F-U.

F-U. Food bur-t. Food bur-t, all right. I'll tell you mine. Celery. Because I- Interesting. What is this boring choice?

But here, I'll make it interesting. It was the only food in the world I didn't like. Oh, wow. I currently like all foods. You like every food? I like- the only food I don't like is if you like give me- it's like rancid or it's wrong. You spilled the salt in it.

But if there's food that other people agree is good or, you know, servable, I like it. And celery was the only thing- I guess I was eating all my buffalo wings and brushing aside the celery. And I trained myself. I just ate it until I like it and now I love celery. It's just- it's such a nothing to me.

It doesn't even taste like anything. But if you put peanut butter on it, it's good. I don't know. Celery is one of those- it's such a nothing. Yeah. It's like- I feel like it's like a dip or spread delivery system. Yeah. Yeah, I feel- I think my answer would be cooked fish.

Like for a long time, like I could eat tuna fish. I could eat- even eat like sushi rolls. But as a kid, like I had a bigger version towards like a salmon filet. If you put that in front of me, I would just- I think it was disgusting. I could maybe try to put a bunch of salt and ketchup on it. But most of the time, if my dad was making fish at home- Curse you made it much nastier than that.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Yeah. Get ketchup on the salmon. It's kid logic. But you know, most of the time, if my dad was making a, like, salmon at home or something, I would just ask for a grilled cheese sandwich or something. But yeah, in adulthood, of course I'm into some tilapia

or some sea bass or what have you. I'm with you. I don't- I've talked about how I don't love capers, but like, I will eat anything. I'll- the basil and capers I don't like, but I eat them. And I'll eat just about anything. And I would try everything too. Would you- are you a guy who would try everything, Kevin?

You think you would do a- Yeah, I think I'm curious. I'm extra curious of people. If it's an option, if I can try something that I am gonna end up not liking, I'm excited at the prospect. You know what? I oddly drew the line in adulthood of the thing I will not eat is cephalopods.

So octopus or squid. And it's- it's like for a weird tortured ethical reason where I have like read so much about how they are smart and they're intelligent and the fishing processes are particularly traumatic for them. Where I was like, I'm just not gonna eat that because I like it but I don't like it that much. It's- it's an easy thing for me to say no to.

Now of course pigs are as smarter, smarter, and have much more torturous existences, but I still eat pork and bacon and ham because I like it that much. So it's not like a- like a super ethical thing I'm doing, but for whatever reason I was able to draw the line there. You're just a hypocrite. Yeah, I'm a- I'm a huge hypocrite.

Absolutely. You choose the concession that you're- that is easier for me. That is easy for me. I get that. I think- I think like for me, health-wise, there's like- I could never cut out meat or like fat or salt, I love too much,

but I'm not too crazy about sweets. So I don't have sugar in my coffee and I don't need a lot of sweets. And it is one thing I can tell myself, I feel better being like, well, you know, Doc, I don't need a lot of sweets. You know it was a thing I did, and this was a conscious thing.

I- you're- you're a celery thing, and then what you just mentioning the unsweetened coffee thing is reminding me of this thing I did intentionally that now is- has turned into a preference is, at a young age when I started drinking coffee, not that young of an age, in young adulthood when I started drinking coffee,

I forced myself to start just drinking black coffee and it was purely so I never had to deal with getting my coffee wrong. Like I never had to be like, oh, I- I've got to make sure I get the right kind of milk and the right kind of sweetener and everything. Like when I was trying to deal with like, oh, I need to get two half and halves and a couple of equals

and like if sometimes they didn't have it, I was like, if we don't forget this, I'm just going to drink black coffee. I never have to worry about it. It comes- I'll just enjoy the default and it's made my life a lot easier and I actually just appreciate coffee taste now. All that stuff about how you make your coffee

is such bullshit. I didn't drink coffee until my mid-20s and I thought like, oh my god, is it two lumps? Do I want this and that? It's like, it's just coffee. You're drinking it for the caffeine. It's so stupid.

Yeah, exactly. I can't- my issue with coffee, which I've talked about on here, is that it gets me too jittery. I can't- it takes the right brand of coffee. How much do you drink when you do drink coffee? I drink like the full pot, right? The full pot of grinds.

I- a small Dunkin Donuts coffee won't get me too jittery but I've said this before, Starbucks coffee gets me too jittery, which I've heard people say that there's more caffeine in Dunkin Donuts but it doesn't- it doesn't affect me as much for whatever reason. But I'm with you.

That's another feuberty thing where I feel like I've- what? You winced when I said that. I regret suggesting it. Because I was a- I was a Dunkin Donuts cream and sugar guy all the way. Extra cream, extra sugar. When I was younger and now I-

I like a cup of black coffee. Yeah. Yeah. How do you like your coffee out there? Use a hashtag. How I like my coffee. Let us know. Jesus Christ.

All right. Let's- let's talk about Mortons. And Tim, this was a suggestion you had. We were excited to take it on because we did do Hillstone recently with David Phillips but usually in terms of chains, we don't get that many opportunities

to indulge in fine dining. And Mortons is certainly, you know, an upper- an upper-tears type of restaurant. People- people aren't gonna get mad at us but come on, we go to a lot of shitty places. We gotta try the whole spectrum of chains. That's the adventure of this podcast. And also I think- I think for what we ordered

which we'll get into, I think we try to do- that we did- we did some- we did some money-conscious orders today, I'd say, too. But as lunch for three people with gratuity was $220. Hey, to be fair,

I think the majority of that was me. When Mitch- I felt really bad because Mitch texted me to be on this show, hey, you want to be on Doe Boys? And I said, do you guys pay for the meal? As a joke, being kind of a dick. And then I- when you asked where to go, I was like, well, my-

my favorite chain is Mortons. I do just, like, love Mortons, so I have to go there. Then I swear to God, when we were walking into Mortons today, I touched my pants and I felt that I didn't have my wallet on me. And I honestly had already texted you,

like, I'm gonna- let's go to some place expensive and then walk in like, hey, I know. And then to make matters worse, they had plenty of inexpensive options or lunch deals, but I had so- I wanted this one specific.

No, I- I was- It's so bad that I ordered $100 worth of food. I was really happy with your order. It was a good order. You were happy with my order? I was- I was like-

Proud. I was proud of your order. I wish I had gotten it, but for the podcast, I thought what we got was good. Yeah. The lunch special, which was good. And I mean, Morton, it is.

It's one of the higher- it's one of the higher-tier restaurants and- or chain restaurants. Frequented by celebs. Yes. But I feel like this one is a little bit more widespread than Hillstone, right? Well, in terms of raw numbers,

yeah, there are more of them. There are about 70 and Hillstone, there are about 50. So, you might be a little bit more likely to encounter it. And also, I think like you'll- it's definitely something that I think maybe has a little bit more visibility

because the brand is so uniform, whereas as we talked about in Hillstone, it's spread about across 13 different restaurant names. So, Tim, so when did your love affair with Morton's begin? Well, a love affair with Morton's is really a love affair with the American

Steakhouse. The white tablecloth, you know? An old waterboy. That's- I think that- I didn't go to Morton's growing up. I probably- Oh, yeah, it's the old waterboy. Yeah, well, the movie.

That old movie without him saying that. I- I think I grew up loving Steakhouses. And then Morton's- I didn't even know probably like, you know, six or something years ago, went to the Morton's in Beverly Hills thinking like, ooh, Morton's, this is- I didn't even know it was a chain.

Yeah. I just thought it was a great Steakhouse. And then I went to the one in Burbank, and then I saw there was one downtown. I said, hey, what the what? Next thing you know, I'm here in the studio. But I think that that- I like, you know, the Polo Lounge,

Dan Tana's, Taylor's, the Dresden, all of those. I like- Bunch of LA classics you're naming. Exactly. We're talking about the places where they got- We said this on the Hillstone episode, but these places where they got the caricatures of celebrities on the wall.

That sort of spot. Right. That's Sardi's in New York. They kind of started that whole thing. And yeah, that type of food. Musso and Frank out here. Yeah, Musso and Frank, that's a good one. And it is fun to see celebs.

Sometimes, you know, like if you're at- I saw Buzz Aldrin at the Polo Lounge. Whoa. Oh, wow. Yeah. Actually, one time I went there with my fiancé and we saw a bunch of celebs. So then we came back thinking like,

let's see some celebs this time. And then on our second trip, there weren't a lot of celebs. And we were like sad in paying the bill. And then we heard the waiter say, how was everything, Mr. Aldrin? And we turned and looked and saw Buzz Aldrin at the very next table. And that's the ultimate celeb.

Did he reply out of this world? And then he took off. He was wearing a rocketeer kind of backpack and he shot through the ceiling. But I hear you get that if you graduate from NASA. Yeah, it's so weird to give you a- and it's branded the rocketeer. Hey, here's another great celeb steak story.

Have you ever been to Dan Tana's? I know of it. I've never been there. I know of it and I've never been. But I think I've heard you rant about it. Well, it's fun. It's kind of like a raucous. You know, if you're like an old rich divorcee,

you'd go to Dan Tana's and have too many martinis and like hit on people. They have a steak called the Dabney Coleman, I believe. Named after the actor. Absolutely. I was at Dan Tana's. I ordered the Dabney Coleman. I'm mid Dabney Coleman steak.

I look up, who do I see? Dabney Coleman. Get out of town. In the restaurant. Wow. The guy whose steak I was eating. Was he staring at you? Yeah.

He was like, give me my steak. That's all right. Here's a cool thing, classy move. He was waiting for a table. For 20 minutes. He stood at the host stand. Oh, wow. Didn't cut ahead and didn't have his own table.

He was just a chill guy. My godfather's son owns a restaurant in Quincy. It's called the Fat Cat. I love it. If you're ever in Quincy, try out the Fat Cat. Or if you're in Weymouth, try out Passport. Both great restaurants. And he has a rule where his parents and friends

and everything like that, everybody's get away. You just get away. The order you came in is the order you get seated. That's great. Yeah, I think that's a good rule. Nice nod to fairness. Yeah. Yeah, you got to be fair like that.

So, okay. So Morton's, you just, is it a place you'd frequent out here? Is it just like an occasional treat for special occasions? Special occasion place. I really love Lowry's and then Morton's was right across the street. So that's what brought me there. And yeah, I would say it's birthdays, anniversaries, Mother's Day type of place.

Gotcha. Because it's pricey. Yeah, there's also two. One feature, because while we're in the world of celebs, they have little vaults for people's private liquor stash towards the front of the restaurant. Have you guys noticed this feature before? Yeah, if you'll look at it and I think the Burbank one,

because they have like a bunch of different, like basically little booze lockers that they'll unlock and then bring someone's private, you know, Scotch or whatever to their table and just store it for safekeeping when they're not there for regulars. But I think they have one for like Rick D's or Rick D's type celebrity. They have like a Rick D's name plate in this wall

and then there's like a bunch of them. It's just like a weird. I saw those. Yeah, they were there at the downtown location we dined at today as well. Yeah, it's bizarre. I wonder if you have to have fancy liquor or if I could get one and just have like a little can of Takate.

Well, I imagine you're paying a pretty substantial rental fee for that. That's the sort of thing where it's just sort of like, oh, you're proving you're one of the elites when you're doing that. Steak dinners are so funny to me because you get these fancy cocktails and a lot of people dress up

and have a nice suit or shirt on. Yeah. And then you eat a steak and you get the most fucking full you can ever be. The most like stuffed and like sweating and thinking I'm going to like puke is after I've eaten like a huge steak where I've forced it all down my throat.

Well, because the cut of meat is expensive, they kind of have to up everything to justify that expense or they feel like they have to of just like, well, we're going to charge $50 for this piece of meat we need to have, you know, an ambiance and a level of service to justify it. But it is very weird because it's like very formal for,

basically the same as, it's like you're eating barbecue. You're eating like a gigantic hunk of meat that's going to make you very fatigued and sleepy. What do you think of ordering? Because we all, and we'll get to the orders in just a second now because I know we have to. What do you think of ordering a non-steak

like a chicken option in a restaurant? Because let me tell you, I was at my friend Luke Michael's birthday in Ithaca and we went to John Thomas and Joe Resty ordered a fucking chicken and it pissed me off and it still makes me angry to this day. But what do you think about ordering chicken when you're in a steakhouse? I think get that the fuck out of there.

Is Joe Resty missing? He should be missing. I should have fucking killed him when I had the chance. You heard it, Resty. You should be missing. I think it's the same as if you go to a fish house, you're a little picky and you feel like getting like a BLT or something. Whatever you want to order is fine with me.

Or if you're a vegetarian, our friend, we had a workplace dinner at Morton's once, Tim, and our friend Caroline Anderson came to the dinner and she's a vegetarian so she couldn't have one of their many steak offerings. Was there like a portobello type of thing? I think she just had to get like a veggie plate. I don't know if she, I don't remember.

Rob Veggie Son. But I think it's fine. I don't personally have a problem with it, but I get what you're saying. Get the fuck out of there. Also, you know, honestly, the vegetarian option is better because I love, I love that about steakhouses is like the specific sides.

Like you're talking about portobello, you're talking about the mashed potatoes. Oh yeah. You got the cream spinach. There's those certain sides. Mac and cheese, ogratin, potatoes, asparagus with like a bearnaise on it, or hollandaise or something.

What's your rank? What's your top three for a steakhouse side? Are we including shrimp cocktail or is that more of an app? Ah, Jesus. Yeah, we can include fucking shrimp cocktail. I would say my favorite thing that's not steak at a steakhouse is shrimp cocktail. Wow.

That's, I love shrimp cocktail. So you always do a surf and turf sort of deal, huh? I won't always do it, but a lot of times I'll get myself a shrimp cocktail and I will not regret it. But yeah, I guess that is more of an app than a side. If we're just talking strictly sides, I like cream spinach.

I like, you know what? I like my favorite side with steak is fries. I'd rather have fries than mashed potato or baked potato, potatoes or gratin, which I like a lot, and I'd put in my top five of potato preparations. But yeah, I would say fries is probably number one. Steak frites is maybe my favorite way to eat steak with a side.

Interesting. And then yeah, but I'd probably put cream spinach in there, maybe like a mac and cheese, although I don't think that's necessarily always a steakhouse thing, but I think that is just a very, very tasty side. How about yourself, Galbackus? Yeah, I'm cream spinach.

Great choice. Then maybe sauteed spinach, because it's the last time they have them both. Yeah, mix them together, kind of half cream. Hey, why not? You're at a steakhouse. Classic party animal. Yeah. And then I like a potato or gratin,

you know, like super, really, really creamy and rich. All of those are more cream than vegetable. Well, my top are probably, I love mashed potatoes, so I'm doing mashed potatoes probably number one. But then cream spinach, and maybe even cream corn would be my third one. I, if I'm having a big steak, those are kind of my go-to. I also like a, you know, and I don't,

it's not usually my favorite, but like a big beef steak tomato and like some mozzarella. Yeah, or some blue cheese. Or blue cheese, or even, oh, I completely forgot, and you Tim did it today, a wedge salad. Wedge salad, yeah, sure. That to me is, it fits perfectly with a steak dinner. Oh man.

There's something about the ingredients being visible. It doesn't feel like you can just get a beef steak tomato there. You can just slice a tomato or like shrimp cocktails, just like, here's your shrimp. There's some sauce if you want it. I feel like all the best stuff at a steakhouse is not that they like went wild with a bunch of ingredients. Just like, here's the thing, and there you go.

Yep. Yeah, and when it's done really well, it is, it is one of my favorite meals. This is a nice steak dinner. When it's, when it's, when it's done right. And I think Morton's does a, does a really great job. They, they, it is a, it is definitely a fancy restaurant, and walking in there.

Money is no object. The guy who forgot his wallet. I, I, I felt, I felt underdressed, definitely, and more. It was, it was a funny experience to go there for lunch, because it, there are a couple of reasons. One, it was in a downtown LA, like in a mall complex, but then it was also like a fancy diner place within this mall complex.

Yeah, they've got like, there, it's one of their, I think this is new construction within the past 10 years, this Figaro and Sevenths sort of urban revitalization thing, where it's the super new, super sleek mall, slash outdoor shopping center. But yeah, the Morton's is, is there, but then you, you're sort of guided down a couple of levels, and then it's kind of, it's kind of, I don't know if it's

street level, I think it's basement, it's in the basement actually, the dining room. Yeah. It's like, and it's kind of enclosed, and it's kind of got this Vegas thing of we were in the middle of the day, but it's just, you know, everything is blacked out. You, it might as well be, you know,

nine o'clock at night, you can't really tell inside. Like your room in high school. I had in high school, I, so I basically got my parents to put up a Ninja Turtles poster, and a Ren and Stimpy poster, when I was like 12, and then I just didn't take them down for the rest of my adolescence. So those were just there until I was like 18.

It is hard to take those posters down. I feel like I, one year, put up a Timu Solani poster, being like, here's the new hockey player, and I was not like, I didn't watch the Ducks, but then I just left that up there. It's probably still there now, and I've probably seen Timu Solani play hockey for like one period.

I still got the Rolling Stones album put up on my wall by my mom. So it was this thing of like, cool, like a framed Rolling Stones, like a vinyl album, and then, but my mom did all the works, and it's still there. You know what, she now frames, when I've done any notable things in comedy,

she frames them and puts them on my wall in my room. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, there's a big birthday boy's collage on my headboard, above my headboard. I like that, just your mom puts it there, and then you're like, oh, well, it's there. No, you can't take it down. You know what, my mom's coming out here

in a couple of weeks, and she's gonna help me decorate my house again, and it's probably something I'll always need help with. But you know, I love my mommy, and I'm fine with that. Are we gonna bring her on the podcast? No fucking way, no. I'm happy she doesn't know this exists. I, one time at the birthday boy's office,

I heard Mitch giving his mom a kind of a virtual tour of our office on the lot. He was walking on his laptop around, saying like, this is Tim's desk, and this is this, and then he went into the kitchen, and was like, this is the kitchen, you know, there's snacks and stuff, and then your mom said, do you have cheez-its?

I just specifically wanted to make sure that you had that specific snack, and we did. My mom knows what I like. Yeah, that's nice. She knows that I need my cheez-its. She was worried that you didn't have your cheez-its. Is that the most I use in my laptop? That's even, yeah.

You bought the laptop just for that new, threw it out after that cheez-it thing. All right, let's talk Morton's a little bit. So we went today, three of us set a table, I got there a little bit early, sat in the lounge. I started off with a Mortini while I was waiting for you guys to arrive, and it was a, Mortini is their version of a Martini.

They have a bunch of spirits you can choose from. I chose Tito's vodka, my favorite vodka, and they say specifically they don't make theirs with vermouth, I found interesting, because I think it's just basically vodka and vermouth, or gin and vermouth, so I wasn't sure if I was just getting a chilled spirit. What did you taste?

Because you also got a Mortini with your meal. Mine, Tate, I went with gin? Yeah. And it was very strong, and I was drunk of one sip because it was early in the day, and I hadn't had breakfast, so I was like, pow! I don't think there was vermouth in there, and then I'm very confused, why it's a Martini at all?

Well, I guess it's a Mortini, it's their spin on a Martini, but it's where just emitting an ingredient makes it their own. Did they put olive juice or something in there? Maybe there's olive juice in it, I didn't really taste any, it seemed pretty clear to me. That's really strange. I mean, it was prepared, it was like shaking with ice, and then poured straight like a Martini,

and it was in a Martini glass. It was ice cold, it was nice. Yeah, it was great, and then those blue cheese olives are really good. Really yummy. Those are like hand stuffed in the house. Love a blue cheese olive. Yeah. So I don't know if they also poured in juice,

or just the olive was giving it that flavor, but I feel like it was just a cold cup of gin that I had. Yeah, that's the same thing, that was also my estimation of vodka. And then when we sat down, we started off, and they brought us some, you know, they did the thing that I always find disorienting at restaurants, and I feel like I wish they wouldn't do this because I feel like in fine dining,

they're trying to shame you from the outset and to spending more, which is they ask you if you want, would you like a still water or sparkling, or are you okay with just tap? Like they're trying to sell you like fancy water, and then saying like if you just settle for tap, they kind of know you're not a high roller. I don't know, I don't really love that is the first thing that happens.

I get what you're saying. Yeah, I know, that is funny. And the thing is, I love sparkling water, so I do like to get it, but I never do. But yeah, it does make you feel like a little bit like, because I consider myself a good tipper. Sure, but I don't want to feel like a, I don't want to feel like a lower,

you know, like a lower creature because I don't, because I don't, because I'm dressed like a goon already. And I'm wearing, you know, like a Patriots hat or whatever to this fine dining establishment. And yeah, it feels a little bit classist if you don't, I feel like you're supposed to order up some, some fizzy water, but you know what? I don't have the money, so I'm not going to get it.

Mitch, you wear that Patriots hat so often that I feel like I wouldn't be surprised if you took it off and underneath with just your exposed brain. I don't see you without it. It's weird that there'd be no, no sculling. Like an animal, yeah. Let me tell you, that thing is fat and juicy, that brain of mine.

Oh yeah. You probably see sparks jumping back and forth. Ideas, ideas. You know what? To all those Doughboy listeners who I had, a susser told me that, think that I'm dumb. Fuck those guys. Tim, you worked with me for a decade.

I'm one of the smartest guys you ever met, right? Yeah, he gave that tour to your mom. You know, we had the cheeses. Yeah, really good. Smart guy. You're about to say something a second ago, Tim. I'm really bad at crosstalk on podcasts, by the way. That's okay.

I apologize. We almost named this podcast crosstalk. Yeah, he's really taken on the issues. I felt like that waitress did really emphasize tap in a mean, in a lower creature type of way. She did say, would you like sparkling water or flat? And then there was a pause and then, or are you cool with just tap?

And I felt embarrassed saying tap. Yeah, but you know what? She might have been Greek or something. I was trying to figure it out. Don't pin this on me. I think she was Greek. Well, then she was a hell of a lady. She was good.

She was very nice besides that. And then they brought out some bread for us, which was nice. And the waiter came by and said, you guys want some bread? And I think you could tell that we did. Yeah. And we said, hell yeah.

And he brought it over. And it was a nice roll. A nice big onion roll, a nice hot onion roll, which I really liked. Like to me, I feel like that's always like a good sign of a steak restaurant. Because I know you're not supposed to fill up on it. But when you get in there and you get a night,

if the bread is good, you're in for a good treat, I feel like. And Morton's has, for something that's like more of a chain, it has a nice hot bread with butter and some weird jam that we couldn't really figure out what it was. Really weird. Yeah, it was like sugary jam, but there was no fruit in it. It tasted kind of like a vinaigrette or something. It was really weird.

I couldn't tell, but I honestly was like, is this an olive based jam? I was trying to figure out the flavors. The closest thing that it had, it reminded me of as a sense memory, was the Bronco Berry sauce at Arby's, which is the dipping sauce they give you with their jalapeno poppers. That's a good comparison.

It's a very weird sauce. It's like a very kind of oddly sweet thing that you're having with something savory and you're not quite sure what it was. It's pretty good though. It was good. That's pretty good. And that bread, I thought, was really yummy.

I mean, it's not too tough. Yeah, you mentioned the warmth, which was nice. The butter was good. Yeah, I could eat a bunch of that bread. It's a departure for steakhouse. I feel like normally, like at the smokehouse, they have that cheese bread. Sure.

That sort of like cheesy garlic bread is the norm. And then Morton's, I don't know if this is their famous onion bread, they're proud of it, but it is nice to have something different. That's a good bread ranking. I wonder what people's favorite bread ranking is, because I love Bertucci's bread rolls. That's a, you know Bertucci's maybe, right?

No, Timmy? But I wonder, yeah, hit us up with your, fuck, hashtag, head of the bread. So wait, are we talking, but we're not talking like sandwich bread. We're talking like specifically like restaurant bread. Restaurants bread in rolls that they bring to you before your meal.

What's your favorite? That's what I want to find out. Let's be clear, I think Mitch made it clear, but just to emphasize it, we're not talking about the kind of, we're not talking about the sandwich bread at a restaurant. We're not talking about like, oh, I really like the roll that this French dip comes on. That's right.

The free bread, the complimentary bread. The free bread, complimentary bread. Because that's a big, that can be a big part of the meal. Yeah. I really can't. You know what, how about, how about this for a hashtag? Compliments to the bread. No.

Like we say, it's complimentary. So compliments to the bread. Oh, God damn it. That's nice, it's sweet. Yeah, it's really sweet, cool. I say red lobster, right? The cheesy biscuits. Oh, those cheesy biscuits are really, as chain restaurants go,

I mean, that's, that's the only place I can think of where the free bread is a showstopper. That's like, oh, that's a justification for going to red lobster is the free bread. Confession, never had red lobster before. Well, listen to this, you can buy the bread mix and make cheesy biscuits at your house. Everybody loves those cheesy biscuits.

I gotta, I gotta try that at some point. Cheddar Bay biscuits, delicious. So we had the bread and then let's get, I guess, let's get into the meals, right? Yeah. So we, we already established that you had a big glass of vodka before we got here. That was my one drink.

Okay. It seemed like you arrived at the restaurant with a big glass of vodka. I don't like this insinuation that I have a drinking problem. Mitch has been doing lately. All right, so, so we went to Morton's and we each, Mitch and I, Mitch, you and I each got the lunch special combo.

That's right. And I'm struggling, I was, I was checking my notes and I guess I didn't write down which specific one I got, but I got the chop steak. I'm struggling to remember exactly what it was called on the menu, but it was, you ordered it initially. I did. And our waitress like sort of like, like gave you like a,

like a hold on there. This isn't what you're thinking. This isn't like a normal steak. This is a chop steak. It's more like a hamburger steak. She really warned me. She really tried to steer you away from it, like consciously.

Yeah, no, which, which I, I actually appreciated that you told me that. She said, yeah, this is like a hamburger without a bun sort of deal. And I said, oh no, no, thank you. I don't want to do that. So I went with a nine, nine ounce ribeye with garlic butter on top of it, came with a side of mashed potatoes.

And it was a, it was a combo where you could get an appetizer. And I got the Morton salad and that Morton salad was lettuce, egg, chopped up egg, blue cheese and anchovies. I said, like the Ninja Turtles, I said, hold the anchovies. Very cool. I think you shouldn't have been like the Ninja Turtles there because here's the thing that the Morton salad, the concept

to me is that we're mixing a Caesar salad with like a wedge salad or like a blue cheesy salad. And if you take the anchovies, I mean, if you don't like anchovies, I guess, you know, you wouldn't like it, but it almost seems like the whole concept is like, that's the anchovy salad. I was afraid that it was going to be too, the anchovies are going to be too thick.

Here's the deal. Too thick? Like, like big pieces of anchovy. I was, I was not, I was not looking forward to that. Slice them up small. Use your knife. And I regretted not getting the anchovies afterwards, but more so, I regretted not getting the chopped salad,

which you got, but we'll get to that in a second. The, so it was chopped egg, chopped egg, blue cheese, lettuce, and like the Ninja Turtles, I said, hold the anchovies, dude. Also, I saw Ninja Turtles too, comes out later this summer. I know a lot of people didn't believe me when I saw the new Star Wars. Look at you, Hollywood insider.

Yeah, I got a little Hollywood inside scoop. Damn. You want any, want some spoilers? Yeah, spoil this movie that's not out. I'm sure like the non-disclosure agreement you signed at this advanced screening. I didn't sign anything, baby. Crank, cranks in it.

Yeah, I've heard the cranks in it, that's crazy. Yeah, yeah, he's crank, he's there. What does he look like? A little brain. Like just like the old crank? He kind of looks like the cartoon crank. Who's the voice of crank? Fred Armisen.

Oh, that's fun. Which he wasn't, he wasn't, I saw a not complete version of it. Yeah, maybe I shouldn't talk about this. I just want the don't-voices listeners to think I'm cool. Which they'll take out, they'll think I'm cool if I went and saw a children's movie early, right? He saw a movie. Well, you know what, tweet at me.

If you want some spoilers, we'll direct message back and forth. The salad, I really enjoyed that salad, it was good. It was a tasty salad. You're right, I feel like it would have been more complete with the anchovies chopped in there. And then the steak I got in there, it comes with the side of mashed potatoes, delicious. It was a great steak, great cut, a little smaller

because it's a dinounce ribeye steak. Nice and fatty in areas, but also juicy. I got mine medium. I almost got it medium rare, but I moved to medium. The garlic butter was really nice. It was a delicious taste to steak. And the mashed potatoes were great. A kind of garlicky mash too.

And maybe that was just an effect of the garlic butter. But the mashed potatoes tasted a little juicy. It has a little garlic. Yeah, I did not have the garlic butter, but they're definitely with some garlic flavor in those mashed potatoes. And I will say, this is I think a good sign for a steakhouse is when if you order at medium and they just like,

they emphasize that medium is pink in the middle, then it's like, okay, this place is really cooking at temperature because a lot of places like medium is kind of like shorthand. If they don't really do a steak well, they'll just like cook it through. But actually medium is still pretty pink. So yeah, I was glad they gave me that caution.

I got the same special, but I mixed up what my components were. I started with a lobster bisque, which was, you know, you got a pretty substantial salad, I felt like, bitch. And I just got a little like, you know, like coffee cup sized cup of soup, which was fine.

The portion was maybe a little bit small, but that soup was delicious. It was just a very creamy, a very flavorful lobster. It was gone so fast. It looked like you would see now you see me because your soup was, it was gone. It disappeared. Oh my God.

All right. No, it was like, it was very, very tasty. And it was just, yeah, it was very easy to eat because, you know, the spoon to portion ratio was, Spoon Man. Yeah. The spoon to portion ratio was, you know, in such that I could just eat it very quickly.

Yeah, I really, really liked that. And then my steak, I looked it up on the menu on Morton's website. It's the prime sirloin chop steak. And it had caramelized onions, cheddar cheese, and it had a side of the same mashed potatoes that Mitch had, which were very, very good. You know, again, the waitress cautioned me,

I assume because people have ordered this in the past and been like, what the hell is this? But man, it was real, real good. It was fucking good. Very tasty. You gave me a bite of it and I was, it was so strange that it was so good and didn't really taste like a bur, like,

yeah, I've gotten bunless burgers before. I'm like, oh, that's a bunless burger and whatever has cheese on it. It's pretty good. And I like a bun burger better. But that was like a different experience than a bunless burger. It was really, really good and crisp on the outside.

It was, and the cheddar cheese added a lot to it. It was really good. It was fucking good. Very tasty. And you know, like, I, you know, I was, I mixed it up because I've had their ribeye a number of times. But I didn't regret my decision because it was very tasty. And I think the difference between it being chopped

and ground and also just being a higher class of meat, being like a sirloin that they're using, just makes it that much better than maybe a hamburger steak, which is what she kind of undersolded as being. Yeah, I was very, very delicious and exceeded expectations. How about you, Tim? I did the meal that I knew I was going to order when we, when I first suggested Morton's,

because I was like, ooh, baby, wedge salad. They call it the iceberg center cut iceberg salad, I think. And yeah, you know, so it's like iceberg lettuce, just drizzled with blue cheese dressing and piled with blue cheese and bacon and tomato. It looks delicious when I came out. It was huge and it was really, really good. I should say it was not a part of the lunch.

You guys did the nice, relatively inexpensive. It was, I think, $33.50 or $35.50? Yeah. $33.50. It was in the $35 range. I don't remember exactly how much it was. But for an appetizer, a main course. And a dessert, which we'll get to.

Which we'll get to. Right, so I looked at the menu and said, hey, maybe y'all get one of these cheap three-course lunches these guys are getting. And then when I saw that there were the nine ounce rib, had mashed potatoes on the plate. And I was like, that's not what I want. I just want my steak on the plate.

I don't want mashed potatoes crowned in my style. Also, I think I could be wrong here, but mashed potatoes, while delicious, seem almost too rustic for that type of steakhouse. It seems like that's like a southern food or like a comfort food. I think it's a weird potato dish to just assume that we want it on our plate.

Yeah, maybe it's a little out of place at Morn's. I can, I can agree with that. Well, it's a crowd pleaser. Yeah, I mean, no one doesn't, and anyone that likes like potatoes or would be inside of a steakhouse, like I was going to be okay with garlic, buttery mashed potatoes.

But yeah, so I got that wedge salad, which she warned me that it's not part of the the three-course lunch deal. And I had to say, yeah, I know I'm going for a more expensive meal. And then I ordered the rib eye center cut, the dinner portion, not the lunch one, which is 16 ounces.

And I got a medium rare. And she said, that is a warm red center, which I almost felt like at that point I was getting a lot of too much feedback. I think the way that you're saying you like it when the waitstaff says, you know, we're cooking at temperature. So just so you know, this is where we're getting,

I almost took it as a little bit of the tap water. Yeah, I was like, hey, like, hey, dumbass. Yeah, look, you have fat fuck. You don't know what you're eating. You'll eat anything. I'm going to explain to you that a medium rare steak has a warm red center. I know that has a warm red center.

That's why I'm wearing a medium rare steak. But I'm guess people will send back their food all the time. I imagine. I think also too, she saw the three of us. We're dressed very casually. She doesn't know if we're locals or tourists. She probably marked us as a trio of rubes. All three of us came in gnawing on bones.

Should we go back and tell her the three of us were comedy geniuses? Have you ever seen birthday boys? Oh, she faints. She loves enough to faint, but then didn't recognize this while we're eating. Weird. So Tim, that steak, it looked fantastic.

Yeah, it was really good. And that right there is my favorite cut of meat. It was a rib eye. Usually, if you get a bone in, it's probably better, but I didn't feel like paying another $12, I guess. I didn't want a $60 steak. I think my steak was like 50, 51 bucks. And here, yeah, with the rib eye,

it's got that, you know, the thing I was squawking about while I was eating it. It has the eye, you know, because it's carved off of a rib. And then the main part of the steak is the eye. And then there's this cap along the side that's like the decal that runs the length of a cow's back. And it's like loose and so marbleized and really fatty. And that's my favorite part of it.

That's my favorite type of beef. So that's why I got the fancier rib eye was because I think, I imagine that the smaller lunch cut, they take like, I think farther back on the cow, there's a smaller cap. And then closer up towards the chuck, there's a big fat decal. And that's what I want.

Your cut was definitely, I would say, better than the cut I have. And not to put down my steak, because it was really good. But yeah, you had a nice cut. It looked big and beefy and fatty and good. Your steak didn't have that garlic butter on it, though. That's good. Yeah, it was great.

I loved it. Mine was, it felt closer to like a flank steak. And yours felt kind of like a thicker, more like, I mean, they were both prime, what's it called? Yeah, prime. Yeah, they were both prime. But like yours was probably, you know, like a few inches thicker.

Yeah, well, also, I think you bit yours is a little bit less fatty, rather. And I think that's maybe why they felt like they had to put that sauce on there to bring it to life a little bit. Yeah. But yeah. That's great.

So do you have a, so when you got that, you got that cap and you got that exterior, do you have a strategy? Like, do you start with a cap and then work your way out to your favorite part? I start with I and then I reward myself with little bites of cap. Gotcha.

Because the cap's smaller, there's not so much of it. So I'm, you know, being a good boy and eating my rib eye, and then I say, Tim, you know, you had three bites, why don't you go for some of that cap? If I could have a whole plate of cap, I would go for it. You know what, and I appreciate that you're the only guy who's been on the podcast who goes and making the sound effects.

It's helpful. How do people know what it sounded like when you're eating? This is probably, this is solving a lot of problems with the podcast, I feel like. So everyone was pretty happy with the meals. Tim, since you didn't get the combo, you didn't get a dessert. But Weigar and I got a dessert.

Yeah. I got the cheesecake, which was, it had a strawberry on it. I think you guys had a bite of it. I think you enjoyed it. It was good. It was a good restaurant cheesecake. It didn't blow my mind. I felt like this is the part where they were maybe

cutting some corners with this discount meal, where they were kind of like, oh, there's a lunch special. Well, we'll give them a little dessert, but we're going to try to make up our profit margin on this, give them kind of something that's very cheap to make in the kitchen. And kind of a very small portion. I feel like my guy got the chocolate mousse,

which had a little bit of whipped cream on top of it and a little raspberry. And I feel like mine was maybe a little bit better than that cheesecake, which I didn't expect. I thought the cheesecake would be better. I was just in the mood for chocolate and for dessert at lunch. And, but I ended up enjoying it, but it was tiny. It didn't feel, it felt the most like a fake.

It didn't feel real. Like it did feel like a real part of their men. Yeah, it didn't feel. Well, because you know, their desserts are so good. Have you had like, they have a Grand Marnier souffle, like orange liqueur souffle. And then they have, I think their signature dessert is a some sort of chocolate cake that's hot

and has a kind of a wet middle to it. And Haagen-Dazs ice cream. So they have really, really good desserts. And those desserts felt like they were lunch special desserts. It felt like they were like, you're on a cruise ship and that's what they're walking around with on the tray and they're handing you. Because yours was, yours came in a champagne flute.

It was a tiny portion. Yes, it was a really tiny portion. Yeah, it was small. But it was, it was tasty. It was, I enjoyed it. I, it wasn't the worst, it wasn't the worst dessert, but it certainly wasn't the best. I say it was kind of middle of the road.

They were very tasty, but I would say in the cadence of Unkar Plutt, as opposed to full desserts, we each received a one quarter portion. Mm-hmm. Jesus Christ, you dropped your shoehorn. I felt like we'd had a little bit of a dry spell with regards to Unkar Plutt references on the podcast. Do you know what should have happened?

Unkar Plutt should have never existed. Unkar Plutt is great. And what are you, Tim, what did you think of The Force Awakens? I liked Unkar Plutt. I, I liked The Force Awakens. I had rock bottom expectations. I went in free screening at the WGA saying, hey, I'll watch this movie.

I was relieved that it wasn't stupid. Oh, I thought it was stupid. You like Unkar Plutt because he's a big Greek guy. Yeah, that's true. I think the best in all of the Star Wars movies, the best character is that guy in Episode Two who runs the diner, whose pants are falling down a little bit. What's his, oh, shit.

Dexter's diner. Dexter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's Dexter Wex. It's like a W last. Yeah, I guess I can't remember exactly what it is. Yeah, and then also in that movie is the death stick seller, Elon Sleaze Bagano.

Still better. Yeah. Still better than The Force Awakens, I'd say. I don't think so. Yeah, that 50s diner in Episode Two is a weird, like what is this doing in this movie? It's so stupid. This is a throwback.

He likes that time period. Oh, okay. He made American graffiti. It makes sense. I don't mind Episode Two. I think Episode Two is like pretty, you know, it's got some issues with acting and dialogue, but I think it's a pretty interesting structure

for a Star Wars movie, and it's got some good adventure scenes. I like Two All Right. Yeah, but it's got some stuff that's real dumb. All right, so let's get to our summation of Morton's. Tim, I believe you've listened to the podcast, you know how this goes, but give your closing argument and then give us a rating on the scale of one to five forks. We will start with you.

Okay. Well, my salad was fantastic. I can't really picture a better salad on Earth than that wedge salad. And then the steak was so, so great. Not so, so. It was so, comma, so great. The only negative part of my day and...

Was the company? Yeah, born out of my mind. Actually, I was kind of drunk off my martini. I just started shit talking to people we know. I was having a blast. But I didn't want to influence your restaurant experience too much, so I didn't linger on it. But the renovation of the decor does bum me out a lot.

And the experience, while the food is almost, to me, literally perfect, and I can't believe that's chain food because you would be hard to... You know, it was almost like Mastro's-level type of steak to me. It was... I think I enjoyed, when I first started going to Morton's, that old-school, stupid club atmosphere with, like, mahogany walls and white jackets. And you used to go and they would bring out raw steaks, like wheel out a cart or hold up a tray of raw steaks and talk you through, you know, say,

this is the t-bone and this is the porterhouse and that's the fillet side and that's a strip side and you could do... And it was an event. That's missing, yeah. And it makes it... That made it feel almost like Benihana or something, where you're like, oh, we're involved in this thing. And the kind of...

I get why you wouldn't want your restaurant to feel like the Playboy Club from the 50s, but the new look is sort of like a hip lounge kind of, you know, was like, the music, there was a steady bed of kind of techno throbbing music. Yeah, it felt like a European club or something. Like, it felt like we were like in Greece or something at some weird, dark club. Well, and we had that Greek waitress. For me, it's kind of like the thing it makes me think of is, like a restaurant in the Palms Hotel in Vegas.

It's like kind of like a thing that's like trying a little too hard to be hip. And as opposed to what you were saying, this sort of classic presentation. But please continue. Well, I think that I understand that I guess you can't just do the old thing forever. And maybe their sales were dipping and then they had to, you know, change their style a little bit. I can't imagine anyone walks in there now and is like, awesome. This is so cool.

I don't know. Did you guys think that that was awesome carpeting with like cool blue circles on it? No, if anything, I kind of felt I would have felt more at home in like the 50, the other version you're talking about this. This felt like a little like it felt like when like when you rent out a hall or something for when someone dies or like it like a like a like it was really it was strange and dark and nice and but and nice looking. Yeah, it's so nice and it's lacquered and it's dim,

but it's a little hard to put your finger on what exactly it is. The chairs weren't really comfortable like like sitting in the chairs. It was a little bit uncomfortable. I think I would rather sit in a booth. You know, like there was a there was a few things that were just like, are you just giving your fork rating now? What the fuck? I'm just, all right.

Hey, what the fuck? I'm just I'm going on to what he's saying. Jesus. Yeah, I'm trying to talk here, man. I can't get a word in. Why you won't you gotta get that fork rating out. Okay, here it comes. Um, so that was my only disappointment.

And I would have loved if also the menu had a few items that were trying to be hit. We didn't order them, but there was like a short rib taco. Yeah, that is a little bit thirsty, as you might say. And there even an ahi tuna tower, which is not crazy, but it's a little it's a little bit. They're trying something and I don't know if that's going to work for them. So I wonder if they're if I wonder if they're having issues with people coming in. But well, it was empty when they were there. Was it lunchtime?

Yeah, pretty empty. That I've decided that my take on that is you can't live in the past. They got to do what they got to do to stay in business. So I respect it. I'm not going to get hung up because the waitress wasn't old enough because I would have liked if she was 90 years old. That'd be fun. I'll settle for a waitress who's my age.

But the white jackets, the decor that I think that I'm probably a minority in being hung up on that set. So that said, the meal was flawless. It's a perfect steak, a perfect salad, a perfect martini, five forks. Wow, there you have it. I kind of agree with you in that the atmosphere where we were wasn't my favorite. I probably would have enjoyed the Hefner style of it. Not that I enjoy Hefner.

I think he's a horny perv. Yeah, it makes it feel a little bland for a place where the food is not bland. The food is delicious. Doing the lunch meal deal for under 40 bucks. 40 bucks is still expensive for lunch. It's very expensive. But I got a salad that I really enjoyed. I probably should have gotten some anchovies on there, but it was a great salad.

Had big chunks of blue cheese in it. And the steak with the garlic powder and mashed potatoes was delicious. Small, kind of weaker dessert, but still a really good deal for only 40 bucks. I also, besides the tap water, which we've talked about, I also had myself a Moscow mule, which was pretty tasty. And it was served in one of the old tin cups or whatever they are there. And it was copper cups. Sorry.

It's vodka. Ginger beer. And ginger beer. Yeah, and lime. Yeah, and I tossed the lime in there. And that was tasty. I'm with you, Tim. I'm thinking, do I want to take a half fork off this place just because the actual atmosphere

wasn't great? But at the same time, there's other ones that are open that still have that. And the food was so good, I got to go five forks. It's great. Yeah, I've had a great experience every time I've been to Morton's. It's expensive. And you know, we talked about Hillstone a little bit and talked about how pricey it was. I think this is in another price category.

There aren't as many. I mean, there are a few. You can spend $50 on a menu item at Hillstone. But just the dinner entrees, they come all a cart. Like if you're getting one of their premium steaks there, you're spending a lot of money. And then you've also got to pay for an app and a side. I think like, you know, again, I mentioned it earlier and I'm not going to run away from it. We spent, with the gratuity, we spent $220 on lunch for three people.

That's a lot of money. That's just a lot of money. And you have to evaluate it in those terms. Especially on a podcast where we make no money. Yeah, something we do for free. So do you, is it, do you guys normally, is it pound for power, like dollar for dollar? Is that something you're going to divide the quality by the dollar amount? Here's the thing, because okay, let me, let me just say a five fork restaurant in past,

Chipotle, I gave five forks to. This food is way better than Chipotle, but also 10 times as expensive. You're just going to spend a lot more there than you are going to spend on a Chipotle meal. But I think we have to evaluate it in terms of what it's trying to do. And I think it's trying to be a classic steakhouse. I agree that a core is a little bit of a failure, although I wonder if this is an experiment at some locations. And I think I assume they had the classic interior design at some, at an atmosphere,

at some of their older locations. Maybe, maybe they retrofitted all of them at this point. But this felt like this was one that was built in the past decade. And so I felt like maybe they were trying out something new and seeing if it was going to stick. The decor was, the decor and atmosphere was a little off putting at this thing. But the food is so good. And I think it is just such that classic steakhouse experience that you're getting at a chain level. It's delivering on that.

I personally prefer something like Hillstone if I'm going to find dining, but I feel like for me to knock off a half fork just because I have a little bit of a preference would seem petty. It would just seem like tribalism. So for that reason, welcome to the Platinum Plate Club. Mortons, you're getting five forks. Oh my God. And the Hand Holding Club.

And Hand Holding Club. Wow, look at that. Yeah. That's a couple in a row. And now this is, this is the podcast is going to a tricky place because... Never going back. Because, I mean, because I mean, it makes sense that this place got five forks. It's good.

It's really good. Also, is it named after Morton Koopa? Yeah, it's named after Morton Koopa Jr. As I mentioned in my intro. You weren't listening to my intro. Wait, did you say that? Yeah. I mentioned that all the, that, you know, way back in 1979, they got an early concept

document from Shigeru Miyamoto of all the Koopalings. And they saw, they thought, Lemmy, that's not going to work. Ludwig Vaughn, no way. Morton Koopa Jr., we might be onto something and they named their steakhouse after it. I think they should have gone with Ludwig. Ludwig sounds like a fun place. Yeah. No, it's, it's, it's a really good spot.

We're moving in, you know, we want to try all sorts of ranges of restaurants and, you know, the lower tire and the higher tire, what did I say? Tire. Tire. The higher tire, the lower tire and the higher tire. All the different types of tire on your car. The lower tier and the higher tier and this one is, it's a higher, higher tier, but it's good. And I don't think you're not going to, for health reasons alone, you're not going to go to a steakhouse

multiple times a week or even every week. I think it's meant to be a special occasion place. But did you say any Richters in there all the time? Oh yeah. Yeah, apparently any Richters in there all the time. Yeah, I think, I think if you're very rich, it's the kind of place that you might frequent. But, you know, I mean, that's, that wasn't an old cliche of like, if you're eating steak for every meal, it loses its specialness.

So yeah, I think this is a, a special occasion type of place and, you know, it lets you feel like a rich person for a little bit, although you have to spend like a rich person. And yeah, I don't know, I feel like it's, it's, it does a good job of, of making you feel, making it like, I feel like this is, I mentioned this at lunch and I'm saying it very clumsily now, but it's kind of like a rich person's idea of a meal or like a regular person's idea of what, what rich people eat, you know, it's like very like, you get very opulent food that's justifiably expensive. Okay.

Yeah, I do think it's exact, it's the food that I picture. If I picture like winning the lottery, I'm like, wow, I want to, I'm going to be sitting at a white tablecloth and I'm going to be eating a big porterhouse steak. Yeah, for the rest of your life. Trying to shorten my life. All right. Congrats to half. Yeah.

I have to add nothing to do with it. Whatever. I concede. Well, congrats on a great magazine you ran for all those years. That's true. Yeah. All right. That was Morton's Steakhouse.

Morton's the Steakhouse. It's time for a regular segment. Last meal. Tim Calpakis, you've been sentenced to death. Oh boy. That's right. All right, Mitch. So what, what, what felony act did Tim commit that led us to this scenario?

Here we go. All right. Trump has just ended his third term as president. Third term, wow. So he's done. So he's repealed the constitutional amendment limiting presidents to two terms. That's correct. Wow.

Taking over for him is his vice president, Guy Fieri. Now, Guy's in power and his issue is he doesn't like any guys who look or act or dress or drive like him. Tim Calpakis. That is his law. If you look or drive or dress like him. You're in trouble. Tim is at the top of his hit list.

Wait, you're, you're pretty high up there too though, Mitch. For looking like him. Hey, I think if you get in my car, it's done. Tim has a very Guy Fieri type car and wears Hawaiian shirts. He loves my size. I love my size. I'm in trouble too. I wear Hawaiian shirts only on Friday.

Casual Friday. It's a fun thing. Well, bad news. Trump made it so every day is Friday. Oh no, I'm fucked. I like this presidency. And so, quite cuck. You've been sentenced to death.

You're going to be grilled to death. On a grill? On a giant Guy Fieri grill. Grilled just like the steaks you like so much. Wow. So, you got one last meal. Timmy, you can get it from anywhere. Any decade, really truly the thing with this is any time period.

Anything is possible. Anything is possible. Any specifics, anything you want. What do you want for your last meal? Multiple things too, whatever you'd like. Okay. And it's any time period? So, like from other centuries?

That's true. If you want. If you want. Let's keep it reasonable. I'll have like ambrosia. If you can, if you want to. Manna. No.

I would say, you know, the death row meal, it's not just your favorite meal, but it's comforting. You think back to what your mom made or, you know, the things you had early in life. So, I think I'm going backwards in the time machine, away from my beloved rib-eyes. I think it's going to be like buffalo chicken wings.

Wow. Oh boy. And I think it's even though I said that I'm from the northeast and I love the wings and the wing belt. Oh no. I love the wings at Ye Rustic in right here in Los Feliz, California. Next to my house, my favorite wings on the planet now. And they're very comforting.

And, you know, maybe then I would, if I could combine any weird shit I want. I like, you know, a like a poutine, you know, for the some Montreal nostalgia. I would have some poutine and I would have some buffalo wings. I wash it all down with like some Ben and Jerry's ice cream, a whole Vermont story, a 30, 30 scoops of Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Oh wow.

Different flavors. Yeah. The Vermont store is where it's like every flavor they have in a huge bucket. Oh shit. And they cover it with like every topping they have. Oh, I've never done that before. It's like a thing that a whole party full of people would go have.

But if it's, if I'm going to be grilled on a giant barbecue grill, I'm just going to eat the whole thing myself. Maybe I'll melt it down and drink it. Any beverages? Melted down for monster. A Mai Tai, but like, you know, made in the classic way where there's that floater of dark rum on top. Oh yeah.

What's your favorite? Where's your favorite Mai Tai? Tiki tea. Yeah, that's a good one. It's great. Well, guess what, Tim? At the last second, right when guy's about to tie you to the grill. Oh no.

Oh, he's personally executing him. Uh-huh. Okay. The vice president? Now the president. Now the president is the one who ties you to the grill. Bruce Springsteen comes out of nowhere. Oh my God, my idol.

And he plays a, the opening rift of Born to Run. And he blows Guy away and he falls through the cracks of the grill and he burns up himself. Wait, the sound waves? The sound waves blow. The sound waves knock Guy Fieri through the griddle of the grill and he falls and burns to death. This is 12 years in the future.

So this would be like an 86-year-old Bruce Springsteen. How old is he now? Yeah, he's up there. Yeah. All right. And then he says, Tim, you suck and he walks away. I'm climbing back up onto that grill. I don't know if I live in a world where Bruce Springsteen doesn't like me.

Offer him some Vermonster. He'll win him over. That was last meal. I just like a restaurant. We value your feedback. Let's open up the feedback. Today's email comes to us from Nicola Brambilla. Nicola writes,

Hey, love the podcast. My question is for the Spoon Man. You talk a lot about your time at Ithaca College, which is awesome since my girlfriend went there and I visited there over winter. My question is about your women's poetry class. Did Professor Stuprich teach that class? I am wondering because that is my girlfriend's father

and we just wanted to put the Spoon Man on the illustrious list of the famous young people that were in Professor Stuprich's class. I was not in Professor Stuprich's class, but I remember that name, I believe. I wonder when he was there. Did you have Professor Stuprich? No, I didn't have Professor Stuprich. I wish it was.

No, it was a newer professor and I forget what her name was, but she made me phonetically learn Polish, which was the biggest waste of time I've ever done in my life. And it was in the little chapel is where it took place. Oh yeah, it's a non-denominational chapel, right? Every religion worship there all at the same time. You have classes in the chapel? There was one...

This was one of the only classes I ever had in the chapel. Wow. Yeah, it was dumb. But no, I wish. I'm sorry to say that that wasn't the case, but you know what? I met big man on campus, Tim Kalpakis there. And Stuprich sounds familiar,

so I feel like maybe I almost took women's poetry with Professor Stuprich. Yeah, you could have just lied. Yeah, you know what? Yeah, I did. Congrats. Tim, you... Yeah, yeah, he's great.

Did you guys... Okay, you talked about the local eats in the Ithaca area. How were the campus eats at Ithaca College? Or did you guys have the meal plan ever? Oh, I had the meal plan, and the terrace dining hall had really good chicken wings. And they had a good wing night. They had a wing night,

and it was, yeah, there was some good stuff up there. And people would just go up and load up on like 20 wings and get out of there. I remember guys getting wings. They had trays with no plates, and they would just put wings directly onto their tray. Wait, really? Yeah, just...

At Gross College. Gross College, guys. Jesus. And then have like chicken wing eating contests, just because I... Wings kind of bring that out in people that you're not just eating dinner. You're like, oh, fuck, we're gonna eat it with your wing, man.

And people would just go nuts. I felt like the food there... Kosher dining was really good. Oh, yeah. And I felt like that would always have like really good food, which they could tell that this big fat Catholic guy wasn't Jewish. And I would go up and take all their food and take off.

The Kosher dining was good. I felt like Ithaca had a lot of great food during like parents' weekend. And then you would... And then over the rest of the year, it was just kind of okay. The wing... They had like good wing night,

and then like I would do bad lunches sometimes. But for the most part, I feel like... I feel like Ithaca was a good... For a small city, it's a good food town. There was a lot of good food up there. Oh, yeah. You know that Kosher kitchen, I did that a lot because it was good food.

And then one time I took my normal food over to the Kosher counter and used some of their condiments and I put it on my food. And then the guy grabbed the condiment bottle and went and threw it out. Oh, wow. I didn't know that that's a rule of...

You befell it. Yeah. I tainted it for everybody. You like pulled it off the buffet. That's crazy. That food was great there, and I'm sure that I made that mistake multiple times. But the food...

I feel like the food could be good sometimes, but it wasn't really overall great. But what were some of your favorite? Sammy's wings and... Oh, wait. No, what's it called? What were the wings? I was the Italian carry-out wings.

Italian carry-out. What's the other place down there in the commons that had the wings that were great? Bench warmers? No, not bench warmers. Fuck the kids. Fucking cold as shit up there. Your wings get cold too fast.

You gotta admit, go bombers. Yeah, go bombers. Is that the name of your mascot? Yeah, and they were gonna change it. And then the winning... They offered different names and people voted on what to change it to, and they picked the flying squirrels.

And that was such a lame name that people said, let's not do this at all. And then they stayed bombers. Why did they wear the anti-switch bombers? Too violent? They're very hippy. Yeah, it's a hippy school. Bombers is fine.

Yeah. And they work a hippy couple of dudes. Yeah, peace. If you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants, or I guess Ithaca College, you can email us at doboyspodcasts at gmail.com. Check out our Facebook page,

Do Boys, follow us on Twitter at doboyspod. And if you have a free second, rate and review us on iTunes, help us out the podcast. Tim Cowpacus, thank you so much for being with us, for dining with us at Morton's Steakhouse. Do you have anything you would like to plug? Check me out online.

I'm on there, man. Lord's of Synth that just came out. Yeah, I got a lot of stuff coming out, but you know where you'll find it is online. This is... We're recording this a couple of days after Lord's of Synth had just come out, and this will be out in a week in change.

But it'll still be up on the Adult Swim YouTube. I believe the title is Live from the Necropolis, the Lord's of Synth. Look it up, it's 11 minutes long. Tim Cowpacus is in it. He's very funny. It's made by a bunch of friends of the... And former guest of the podcast,

Ryan Perez, Denny Dellenick, Charles Ingram, Nick Karasi, Scott Gairdner. And it's very funny, and it's very weird in this Adult Swim way. It's very, very watchable. So check that out if you haven't already. And check out Birthday Boys, sweet ass.

Which one do you like better, me or Tim? These are favorite for that boy. Let's get this settled once and for all. Big man on campus or small man off campus? That was off campus. Senior year, you must have been. Gila, do you like Tim or Mitch? Use the hashtag Greek or Freak.

What the... Fuck you, Cuck. That'll do it for this episode of Doe Boys. Until next time for the Swoon Man, Mike Mitchell. I'm Nick Weiger. Happy eating. See ya.