Doughboys - Native Foods with Tawny Newsome & Alex Kliner

Episode Date: February 28, 2019

The 'boys are joined by The Supergroup's Tawny Newsome & Alex Kliner to review Native Foods, a vegan fast food chain with a focus on sustainability. Plus, a McDonalds edition of Breaking Chews.Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In February of 1941, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was deployed to the North African Front of World War II, taking command of the Deutsche Afrika Korps to replenish the defeated Italian troops. The military mastery displayed by Rommel earned him the nickname, the Desert Fox, and, flummoxed by his Panzer Division, the Americans and British regrouped to plan an Allied invasion that would become known as Operation Torch. In April of 1942, to train for the punishing environments of Morocco and Algeria, the U.S. assigned its own military genius, General George S. Patton, to command the newly opened

Desert Training Center located outside of Palm Springs, a Southern California city favored as a hideaway by Hollywood movie stars. Palm Springs Dry Dry Mojave Desert was a vital proving ground for Patton's exercises in preparation for the operation, which would begin in November that same year. In seven months and 400,000 combined casualties later, in May of 1943, the Axis forces surrendered, yielding the North African Front to the Allies for good. The Desert Training Center's usefulness was short-lived thereafter, and it closed in 1944 well before the war's end.

And in its post-war state, the resort town of Palm Springs resorted to its old ways. Far from hosting rugged tank divisions, it would be a drivable vacation destination for affluent Angelenos. The tourism economy of Palm Springs grew exponentially in the following decades, and some who came to visit would remain as the town evolved into a wealthy hedonistic community that might seem to outsiders like a caricature of California. And it's in this liberal oasis where, in 1994, Chef Tanya Petrovna opened a restaurant centered on a then-novel concept, vegan versions of American comfort food.

The strength of its execution, combined with a growing popularity of vegetarianism, made it a hit, and it grew across California and expanded into progressive-minded cities in other states. And in 2010, the company was purchased by investor Andrea McKinty, a newcomer to the restaurant industry who'd made her fortune by creating a dating website. McKinty relocated the headquarters to Chicago to focus on national expansion, and in 2012, Petrovna was bought out, severing her involvement with the company. Since then, the chain's troubles have accumulated as the decline of its own quality, the rise

of newer, flashier vegan competitors like Veggie Grill, and the presence of vegetarian meat substitutes at mainstream fast-food outlets like Carl's Jr. Hardee's have created a challenging environment. Far from a nationwide takeover, it has scaled back operations and halved its locations, from 26 to an unlucky 13. These days, the North African front is largely emitted from the American World War II narrative, which seems to fast-forward from Pearl Harbor straight to D-Day. And history is also being rewritten at this troubled vegan fast-food chain, as founder

Tanya Petrovna's name has been scrubbed from the website of the very restaurant she founded. This week on Doughboys, Native Foods. Welcome to Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants. I'm Nick Weiger, alongside my co-host, Plattington Bear, the Spoon Man, Mike Mitchell. That was fun. Yeah, I guess it was fun. Plattington Bear.

That was courtesy of Brad Hill. He sent that in. His email says, you know, because he wears plaid and is a big old bear. I'm unsure of his stance on marmalade, though. I'm going to guess you like marmalade. I do. Where would you rank it in your... I get my snout stuck in the marmalade jars all the time.

Right, yeah. And your bottom's stuck in honey jars. I'm going to get it going from both ends. What is your... Where would you rank it in your fruit-based spreads? Your preserves, your jams? You know, I really like strawberry jam. You say jelly.

Strawberry first. Strawberry's probably my number one. Yeah. I like... You know what? I became... I used to be a preserves guy. We were a preserves family growing up, and I came around to jam in adulthood.

I like the smoother texture of jam. Huh. I mean, what's... The one just has, like, more fruit in it, right? Preserves has more fruit. Jam is a lot smoother, and then the jelly is kind of a hybrid. They're both good. They're both good.

They're all good. They're all good. It's just the quality of the jammin'. But we had some lovely jam up in Saskatoon. We had some... Oh, what was that we had? Me and Alana had. You were still asleep.

I had a breakfast, and we had some... What the fuck was it? It was some fucking Saskatoon berry jam. She had probably passed on her fucking germs to me. And gone downstairs, and you guys had breakfast together as I started to become sick. We should talk about this a little bit, because Mitch, we were in Saskatoon. You got sick. I got sick over...

Like, the course of the week, I was battling it off. And then you went to the Super Bowl, which we have not yet discussed on the podcast. We have not talked about it yet on the podcast. We went to the Super Bowl, and you were sick at the Super Bowl. I was sick at the Super Bowl. I got sick from the knife, who was jokingly like, I'm going to get you all sick. She did. She got me sick.

Right. I took zinc the entire week, and then Saturday, I got to Atlanta. We went to Vortex. We went to a couple other places. We went to... These are restaurants. Fox Brothers Barbecue. Got it.

We went to some good spots. But Saturday, I woke up, and I was like, hmm, the left side of my throat, I can't swallow. This is the fucking knife's fault. I've been beating this off the entire week. I thought it felt intentional. Well, you did that on purpose. I was beating. I was I was defeating this thing off the whole week.

I was beating this thing off the whole week, and then I finally, and then I got to Atlanta. I couldn't swallow my left side on Saturday, and then Sunday, I was like, man, I am sick. And I was like, but just like Tom Brady, I'm going to go out there and just give it one last try, and I drank all day, and I drank a hundred beers, and drank, and ate a bunch of stuff. And then on Monday, when I was flying home, I felt dead, and then I have been, as you know, Nick, we've canceled the recording this last week. I've been just...

You were deathly ill. I was deathly ill. I didn't do anything for like the last 11 days. I've been... It was really, really, really bad. Well, you're on the other side of it now, I think. So thanks, the knife. You can't stop blaming someone for getting...

It was the knife's fault. She happened to be sick on something that she was... She had already committed to doing. It's not her fault that she was sick. She happened to... You happened to get sick of her. She was, but she was joking around saying, I'm going to get you all sick in sharing stuff with us.

Yeah. I mean, that was kind of funny. That was kind of funny that she, like, shared food with you and then told you she was sick afterwards. Yeah. It was a fucking the funniest thing. Great long game, prank. The Patriots won, Nick.

I would rather be sick there than here. Right. It was great. I'm glad you got to experience that. You're a man who's... You've seen two Super Bowls in a row in person, but you got to see him win one of them. So that's nice. Fucking Richie Rich across from me telling me what I can and can't do.

Nick, like I'm some sort of a fucking Silver Spoon child with... You have twice as much income than I do your piece of shit. I don't think that's true. That's 100% true. You're saying because I married, I have a wife. No, without the wife. You already do. I don't think that's true.

100% true. Second of all, we'll get a lot of our account and do the math on this. Second of all, it was a great choice to go to the Super Bowl. Seems like you had fun. You had fun with your friends. They won. It was... It was good.

It was a good thing. Why are you shaming me? I'm not shaming you. I'm just saying that you're very fortunate. I've got to go to two Super Bowls. I'm glad you guys see the team win one and I put a $25 bet on Julian Edelman being MPV... MPM... Oh my God, MVP.

And I won $1,000. Well, fucking great. That's great. You won $25 bet. Great. You have $1,000. What are you going to be doing with that money? I'm going back to the Super Bowl.

I want to say hi to Spoon Nation. I'm embarrassed that our guests have to see that. You always are. And then let's see here. I didn't test... We didn't have time to. Nick, it's been chaotic. We're going in cold.

This drop might be really bad. This drop might be really, really bad. I mean, they're mostly very bad. That's true. Everyone might actually, by the purpose of not filtering it, maybe it'll be better than normal, because maybe the issue is that the ones that you pick out to do that... I literally can't hear anything. I mean, it's too soft.

Do you want to just... Mitch, do you want to just play it in the microphone before? So we're not having issues with the OXCORD here? Here we go. All right. Here we go. Mitch is playing it off his phone. Hey, Hey, Hey, Wiger.

How you doing over there? Oh, Yoshi. Oh, Yoshi. Oh, Yoshi. Oh, Yoshi. Oh, Yoshi. Oh, Yoshi. Oh, Yoshi.

Oh, Yoshi. Oh, I like it. Oh, these are so hard. Yeah. And they have a core. Do it for a week. You'll drive yourself wild. So I cut a hole in it to buck it.

And I'm fucking this apple. Now, very raunchy here. Now hold on. It's trusted so hard that I split the apple into three pieces. The only reason I played this is the guys that go pats. So he's on team Spoon Nation there. Yoshi was and I thought that you like Yoshi. Does Yoshi eat apples?

Is that what those fruits are? I guess they are. They are kind of like big apples. They look good. Apple like are one of our guests is nodding at us. That was from Bill, by the way. Okay. Bill slain at bill underscores S L A N E.

Hey, Mitch really think we as I really think we as a society weren't talking enough about Weigar's apple revelation. So I made a little thing to show his love for the fruit. Right. Hopefully started a national conversation. Shout out to Madison, Joe and Caitlin for the help with it. Love the show Spoon Nation for life and go pats. See, he just in his email at the top, it said go pats.

He thanked three people. That was a four person job to put that drop together. Also, you 45 seconds of audio. Also, your cowards need to stop ducking, raising canes. You need to get on it before before it completes its world's takeover. It's just in the email header, it said go pats. And I thought it would fit on what we were talking about. Well, you out there, you know how to get through Mitch's very strict filtration system.

Just put a compliment to a Boston sports theme and he will play your drop on air without listening to it. Isn't it cool that I bet 25 bucks on Julian Edmond winning a BV and one. I think that's it's like it's pretty rich. You're bragging about having a thousand dollars on the show. Let's introduce our guests because they've sat through an inordinate amount of nonsense. They host the podcast. The super group season one is now available on Stitcher.

Tony Newsom and Alex Kleiner here. Hi guys. Hi. I want to point out that that drop didn't really do. It wasn't so much music as it was just your words set to music. Right. Yeah. That's a lot of a lot of them are.

That's what a lot of them are. I feel like I've heard more of them that are like a little more like musical. Yeah. They're massaged a bit. A little produced. Yeah. Which we like. A little bit.

This was just an excerpt. A lovely one. Right. Someone really just like to take what we say and I don't even know if it's taken out of context. I mean they just know the context was fully there. Yeah. We got the other elements.

You put it on top of another song. Sure. The audio clips and I'd also like to take this opportunity to apparently Yoshi eats berries, but they're also referred to as apples nuts or Yoshi fruit. Okay. Sorry for nodding enthusiastically and being semi wrong. You know it's important to admit when you're wrong. Yeah.

They're big. They look like apples. They look like apples. I mean they're like as big as a head. They're like giant, like weird, like mystical fruits. I want to try one now that I'm thinking about it. I'd love to have a Yoshi fruit. You know what's a fruit I've never had that I know about through Super Mario Sunshine

is the durian. Oh. It turns up in a good number of Japanese games. Is it the spiky one? That's a spiky one. Yeah. What does a durian taste like? Don't recall.

It was made into a drink. Okay. So it mostly tasted like rum. Right. So it was delicious. Did you get it into the spiky durian shell? No. I got it in a tumbler glass.

Okay. And they said this is rum and durian. And I said great. I love rum. I love rum too. Rum is my favorite liquor. Yeah. I do.

I like it too. It doesn't have any adverse effects on me. Like other ones do. I like I'm a tequila person and I also like rum. Those are my two. Those are my two favorites. I think. Alex, as far as spirits go, are you someone who imbibes on occasion?

On occasion. Yeah. I would put if it's a day-to-day cocktail, I'm going with vodka. Oh, okay. But occasionally like a bourbon on the rocks. That's fun. Sure, sure. Yeah.

Just something to keep my bones warm. Yeah. Vodka very versatile. I've come around on rum. I've become more of a rum consumer. You get like a, I mean, you can just sip it neat if you get a really good one. Oh, yeah. But those island drinks are just so fun.

If I'm gonna have a cocktail, they're so laden with sugar that I just like, give me something tropical. It's just a blast. Yeah. Let's take a trip. One of the first bottles of booze, like I ever had someone buy one of the first bottles of booze that you had that I had a complicit adult by me was complicit. That's right.

Was a bottle of Bacardi Limone. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The lemon flavored one. And I would keep it in my dorm room, mini fridge in the freezer, and every day I would take one shot. I'm like, wow, college is crazy, but you know, good grades. Bacardi Limone and in Sprite, I remember as a as a young when I was younger, that was

a fun combo. That was a big combo. Yeah. In my school, it was like in the theater program. We loved Rickle of vodka, which is just like garbage nail polish remover and a tang. We make a drink called ricketang. Rickle of vodka. What the fuck is that?

It is a it's like one of those big plastic handles that cost like two dollars. That's gonna cause a hangover. Oh, yeah. What part of the country was this? This is in like Towson, Maryland. It's just outside Baltimore. Okay. So this is in Maryland because I'm from Southern California as I've said on the podcast a number

of times, the off brand vodka we had out here, pop off. I'm not sure if that's nationwide or not. Pop off. I feel like I've seen that maybe in Chicago. That one is that's just it's just fucking lighter fluid. Oh, yeah. It's chemical agent, but it's so cheap. And so I added a lot when I was a young drinker.

I wanted to know you mentioned that you're from Southern California. I was taking issue with the way you were pronouncing the word preserves. Is that a Southern California situation? No, it's weird. Hmm. Weird man. Who over pronounces things? I didn't say it was weird.

I said I took issue with it. I could be the weird one, man. I could be weird. I what I say pre. I've been saying preserves. Oh, you said, but preserves is how it's supposed to be preserved like this. Maybe it's like the verb that you do. You preserve a thing, but when you eat a thing, it's a preserve.

Yeah. Look, I say a lot of things wrong and people make fun of me all the time on the podcast, but you have this over pronunciation thing where you go preserves. This is now I'm self-conscious about it because it's the first time I've been corrected, but it's possible I've been saying it wrong my entire life. Look, I'm so sorry to come in here and just start like throwing my weight around correcting you guys in your house. That's about time.

I'm very sorry. I don't know what got into me, but I wanted to know if it was a regionalism that I was hearing or if you had decided or if you had some information about jam and preserves that I did not have. No, I do. I do not. I'm just going off of what I read off the label so I could be I deserve to be called out if I'm wrong.

Hey, what's wrong with you? You know what you are? Everyone out there listening to the podcast, hashtag capital P R E lowercase S E R V S for V E S for preserves. There's no one on your side or the other way around lowercase P R E uppercase S E R V preservatives. I don't think our hashtags case sensitive though. You can write them out that way preservatives.

You know preservatives. Yes. It's that's what it's preserved. Preserves and preservatives. That's the etymology or the other way around. I don't know. All right. I'm not an expert as far as I know.

I've walked into your home and I don't mean to call you out on some shit. No, it's about time. This is this is this is a long time coming. I'm going to try to use both in like normal conversation and see how many looks I get right. Do you have any preserves or preserves that you should ask in a restaurant? Do you have? Do you have?

Do you have strawberry preserves or or peach preserves and see how they respond to that well? If you say it weird, you say it weird. I don't. I don't say that exaggerated. You do. You say preserves. Preserves.

I'm just putting the emphasis on the first. I want the rest of the I want the next 50 minutes of just him working this out. That's this. We're going to get a drop. That's just preserves preserves preserves preserves. If I may pitch your father, if you guys could vote hashtag primary stress or hashtag, what it would be ultimate stress, final final, final stress, final stress, final stress. That's good.

Which which syllable to stress. I like that primary emphasis or. I don't know second. Mm-hmm. My wife was a linguistics minor. She'll probably know. Oh yeah. Ask her.

I'll ask her. I'll ask her later. She'll be asleep. I just have a feeling this is going to be a mystery that evades us forever. I just feel bad. Your wife is so talented. She's got so many things I find out about her with a fucking dud. You feel bad.

I feel bad. You find out about her. I find out about her. She has all these interesting things about her. She's such a smart person. She's got a lot going on. She settled early on. King doth.

Man. Hey, I'm rolling with it. It's working for me. So you two, I know, and you were just saying you're from Maryland, Tony, where are you from originally? I grew up in Northern California. You grew up in Northern California. Okay.

Okay. I fell in California. But you converged in Chicago. We did. And you were in Chicago for a time. I'm curious. You know, big food city. In fact, Mitch, I think as of this episode's release, we will be about to be in Chicago

for our live shows. Okay. This is my first time. I've never been there. I've never been to Chicago. I've never spent any time in the windy Apple. Oh, wow. Dear God.

The windy Apple. The windy Apple. Yeah. And I'm curious. A big food city. What do you guys go to? Oh. Oh, for what?

My favorite. I'm just in general. Let's open it. Let's keep it open. Okay. I was just going to launch in with like 10 solid racks right now. Oh, boy. Very excited.

Because it is a great food city because we don't, we can't go outside for 10 months out of the year. You cannot be outdoors. It's illegal. So our inside spaces have to be a sanctuary. Our food has to be very intense. It's a heavy food city, but also like people also want to be healthy. There's a lot happening.

My favorite restaurant, I think on the planet is a VEC. I highly recommend it. You can get an amazing meal of any size. You can do like small plates. You can do bigger things. It's kind of got like Mediterranean influence, but it's very like beautiful new American food. They serve until 2 a.m.

Wow. You can sit at the bar by yourself. There's amazing wine pairs. It's the best restaurant in the world. That's some good Chicago stuff out there. It's so good. 2 a.m. Like you can have a full like rabbit dish or you can have like sea bass and parsley.

You can be as bougie as you want. I love it. Girl in the goat is really popular. That was Stephanie. It was one of the top chef winners. Yes, because dano my friend dano was going to Chicago and he wants to take us to the girl in the go. You definitely should go on Saturday.

You're going to ask you if you wanted to go and you didn't respond. I'm trying to work it out because that now is might come with me. No, she doesn't want to come. She does want to come. She wants to go to Chicago. She wants to go to these great eateries spent time with me. Then take her to girl in the goat. I'm telling you get the green beans even if you're not a green beans eater.

It's the best thing on the menu. Let me tell you. I'm a green bean machine. Hey, man. All right. We all have resumes. I call you lean bean green bean machine, right? That's all.

That's all that's on his resume. It's like, how do you keep getting jobs? That resume is a joke. I don't know. It works. Those are my big two. And then recently I just went with a friend of your show, John Gabriel to the loyalist, which is a newer place.

It's new since I haven't lived there anymore, but it was amazing. The burger there is like quoted as like the best burger in America, but I don't know someone with too much time. It was great. Alex, what are yours? I love this place on Randolph Street, which is like where they call it restaurant row where all like the fine dining is. Got it.

It's called a high five ramen. And I think you took me there for the first time. I think I went with you. And it's just like this little 16 seat like a ramen shop and they have like four things on the menu. But they're amazing. You get to keep all the extra like broth. They'll like package it up and give it to you when you're done.

If you've slurped up all your noodles and you can put it on like eggs or potatoes or something anything the next day. It's fantastic. It's a solid one. Yeah. And then also like if you're going outside of the downtown area, a place I go to a lot in Chicago is this brunch place called Tweet. It's kind of controversial because people say the food is and but it's just like a lot

of fun and they have fantastic Bloody Mary's. It's called Tweet. Tweet. It's on the menu. Hashtag Browns. Oh my god. Oh boy. That was pretty good.

I hope they hear this. What's on the menu? Oops. There goes my eggs. Was that a tweet song? Oops. There goes my head. Oh my.

Oh my. Oh yeah. Was that her name? Tweet. I think that was her name. There goes my shirt. Oh that one. And then also at night Tweet is a gay bar called shit.

What's it called? Big. Big chicks. Big chicks. Big chicks. It's a weird thing. Tweet sounds like a funny, fake place. If it sounds like.

Right. Yeah. It sounds like it was it sounds like a stuff on restaurant. Like I consider myself a relatively online person, but I never put that connection together until now when I feel foolish. Relatively online, relatively online. I've been to. I've been to a lot of touristy spots.

I've been to the Billy goat tavern of course, I've been to Kuma's. Yes. Kuma's corner is it? It is. Burgers, heavy money, burgers and macaroni and cheese is also to die for there. Yeah. There's there's you would. People have like thrown it out there that we might do it.

I mean look, I don't know if I should say this, but we're definitely going to do Portillo's, which I've been to Portillo's. I feel like is one that people want us to do and then the second one. I don't know. People want us to do culvers. I've never had culvers. I don't think culvers is. I don't know if that's a Chicago.

It's mad. I know it's. It's mad. So I don't think there's any like there's none in Chicago proper, but I think yeah, it's more of us. Should we do Al's beef? Doesn't that feel more? Sure, or should we do Giardano's?

I? What do you want? I like an Italian beef. Well, a pizza, but there's the whole pizza conversation. We have to figure it all out. Well, there's the pizza. Let me end it for you right now. Loomal Notties.

Everyone else can shut up. Don't go to Giardano's. Don't go to Geno's. Wow. Go to Pizzeria Uno with all the tourists. What about Pequots? Pequots. 100% percent.

But I thought you had to go to a chain. That's why I said Loomal Notties. Pequots is a standalone. Yeah. Loomal Notties. I know it's good, but Giardano's. When I was there last time Lou, like one of my friends had been to Luz and then it was between Giardano's and Pequots, and I was like, we should go to Pequots, one of the guys

that could bend to Pequots and went to Giardano's. I was like, I don't think it's as good and then they weren't happy with it. Yeah, it's kind of a disaster. It's all just so intense though. Yeah, all those pizzas are. I think it's good. We the and those are friends from Pizano's sent us pizzas. You know Pizano's that place is great to I like Pizano's to that this was we tasted

them on a patreon episode about a year ago. I feel like I think it was about a year or so delightful. You liked it. Yeah, I liked it. I mean, you know, it's it's free. It's shipped across the country. So it's not the full representation where heating up in Mitch's oven, but they give us a couple thin crusts.

That's the first time we'd use your you just use you. Fuck, never mind. The first time I should have said the first time you'd use your oven twice. Yeah. And Gibson steakhouse. I love them a big. That's a good one. House fan.

Sure. We got it. We got a lot of I mean, we're not going to do a lot of those for the shows, but you got a lot of eating there, Nick. Oh yeah. One thing about Chicago, you're not going hungry. No, you won't be small. No, no.

You will eat a lot. You know Atlanta was kind of a similar Atlanta was I was there. I was like man. Everything I've eaten so far has just been fucking thick. Very heavy. Yeah, man. Fucking heavy stuff. It was great.

I mean, I loved it. I want to go back and but for a city that I know that also like in the summer. It's hot in Atlanta. A lot of hot land. It's hot. It's hot. They call it hot Lanta. And then I was like.

Do they? I've heard it. We call it a hot Lanna here. Nick and I call hot Lanna. Okay. No, do you say hot land or hot Lanta? But yeah, no, a lot of a lot of heavy Lanna, a lot of heavy, heavy food. I liked it was great though.

I like vortex, which was just basically burgers and I really liked Fox Brothers barbecue. Oh yeah. It's gonna get to. Is it Hattie? Is it a Hattie bees? Oh yeah. Hattie bees fried chicken.

We didn't. And there was like a couple other places that were great that honey butter fried chicken. It's also a place in Chicago that you might want to check out if you're into cool chicken. That sounds good as hell. Either there's a place out here. Honey's Kettle or is it Honey Kettle? Honey Kettle or it's a Honey's Kettle, but it's a it's in Culver City and they've got a delightful fried chicken there.

I love a fried chicken. Yeah. It's a great city. That's just for you. What's wrong with people? Go to people live in Culver City. I was just there yesterday, Mitch. People go live.

You were driving through it to go to Sony or something. I went to Sony and I was right. I was right. I had to eat after Sony after walking 40 minutes across that fucking lot. I needed food after being rejected for my mere appearance. It's like when you walk into one of those rooms and they look at you and go, oh no. I know that. I know that feeling very well.

We all do, man. It's a bummer. So you need a comforting meal afterwards. Sony is the worst for. This is a very Los Angeles centric, but if you ever get a thing where you have to go to Sony Studios, just fucking sucks. It's so fucking far away. It's shot some of love there.

It depends on where you live. Yeah. Of course you like it. It's next door to you. It's so far. It's not next door to me, but it's not super inconvenient. It's where you would want to go. I feel like I'd rather go.

I could take the train over to Sony. That's not that. Paramount, baby. Give me Paramount right now. Baby. I used to live next. I used to live in large Mont Village and I could walk to Paramount and I walked to an audition once and I was like, look at me.

Didn't get it. But I still walked. So Nick, you hate going to like Warner, right? Yeah. Warner's a pain in the ass. This is, I think that Mitch, I think this is the least relatable the podcast has ever been. Go to studio lots.

We're talking about individual studio lots in Los Angeles. What's wrong with that? What's wrong with that? Yeah. Also people, people, I bet you people think that's interesting. The studio lots. I wonder if anyone, any listeners out there have a favorite lot. Hashtag.

I mean, to some people who live in Los Angeles, definitely do. There's, there's, there's a Piquino Moss on the, on the Warner Brothers. That's a lot. No, is that the one? Yes, it is the Warner lot. That's fine. You question me. It is the Warner lot.

Hashtag hit the lotto. Let us know your favorite lot. What's your favorite lot? There's a coffee bean on the Sony. I never go in there though. It seems like a trap. I want a thousand bucks and I'm walking across these Hollywood lots. You know, it's fun about the Fox lot, which is where I know you used to work for the Simpsons.

You gave me a ride at the Fox lot on one of the little golf carts. Oh, did I really? Yeah. You did me and Dave Horwitz. We were working on that fuel TV show. This was years ago. Oh man. And we texted you and you, you gave us a little ride around on one of the Simpsons mobiles.

It's a lot of fun. But anyway, the Fox lot has a, has a, an establishment. Moe's there. Yeah. It's bad. It's not like Moe's like the bar, but it's cool. That's called Moe's. It's no, it's not.

Is it the Brito or the place? No, it's like Moe the bartender from the Simpsons. It's like Moe's. And they put so little into it at one point and then now they have like a sign that says Moe's. There was nothing about it that makes it seem like there's nothing. There's like no Simpsons. There's no like Bart pizza or like a Homer burger.

There's nothing. It's the opposite of also those would be like the first pitches in the writer's room. Sure. But they're not even making that effort. Yeah. There's nothing at all. Yeah. There's no branding.

It's the opposite of the Simpsons land. Moe's Tavern, which is this full transformational, you know, sort of thing of the Krusty burger they get upstairs. I can't believe I gave it. I can't believe you were working first of all. Yeah. This is the least relatable. You're talking about having an actual job.

I'm talking about the slog of trying to get one. Yeah. No shit. I'm an every man bitch. Fucking driving you around. Having a job for with my five twenty five an hour fucking job that I had. Well, they're paying you sub minimum wage. I mean that one was that that was like 15 years.

Yeah. Oh boy. So beyond being from Chicago, you're out in LA now. But I know you guys spent some time touring on the road. Sure did. So what is your go to plan for road eats when you're doing this was a second city, your touring company. Correct.

That's right. We were in the touring company together. Shout out to Green Co. If that means anything to you. It probably doesn't. If you read the Tina Fey book, maybe you know. Maybe you know. I feel like we did a lot of subway.

Yeah. Vegetarians. But then also like I think Tony when Tony joined Green Co. He presented kind of this renaissance of good eating on the road. She seriously is the best person to have in a car if you're looking at places to eat. I love touring. Yeah.

Wow. She will like find in any small little town like any place you could possibly get a vegetable. She will look it up. Otherwise it's like just because I also look I will eat every French fry put in front of me. I don't want to act like some coastal elite sounds like a challenge. Right.

But you know when you're touring a lot, sometimes you just need like for regularity in your body. Yes. You need to find vegetables. People take it for granted because you're traveling. You want to like try crazy things. I know I'm preaching to the choir here. You guys probably have to eat all kinds of crazy shit that doesn't allow you to then

shit. So I feel like it's important to be like, where can I get Brussels sprouts? Right. A hundred percent. I mean, I had that thought in Atlanta, but it was like trying to try all like the cool places. And then at one point I was like, man, I need like I said this to Wu Tang. I was like, I need to drink a smoothie.

Yeah. And he was like, fuck you. Yeah. I do a smoothie every morning and I find I can find them anywhere. I've found them like all over the world just to be like, let's get shit regular. And then then we can try crazy things. I feel like it kind of went in waves between like going to any fast food restaurants, going to Arby's, throwing french fries around and or McDonald's or something like that to

like, okay, let's put some effort into this. Maybe there's a Thai place we can get like something. We also would play a lot of college towns, right? We'd play a lot of actual colleges. So then, which, you know what the second city does great? Or you know what college kids want is like a suit and tie, a sketch comedy. They want that sketch and improv blend. They really just want some old school, you know, 1959 temple of satire.

That's what they want. References to Alan Ark and all that shit. Oh yeah. All day Alan Ark and Joan Rivers. Do you know what surprised me about? I did some UCB Torco. College kids are so home. Also maybe it was just the shows.

But there's college kids are so quiet like afterwards. I'll talk to them afterwards and they'd be very quiet. They would be very. They will be very subdued. You don't also have noticed we've been doing these dope boys live shows. Don't boys fans are so quiet. It's weird. I also did go to colleges in Wyoming.

I want to. We went to is it the University of Wyoming or wherever Dick Cheney went to school, right? Cool. And it's bad and it's also the Matthew Shepard locations. There are me. Yeah. We played there.

I was walking afterwards. We did a show and I was walking with me and Neil. I think it was Neil Campbell Betsy Sedaro. And I think Trisha McAlpin. We were walking to the bar after the show. I got shot in the back by a BB gun. Oh my God. A big truck drove by and I got shot in the back.

Right. In Laramie. Holy shit. I like a big truck drove by and I was like like we're like because it was like kind of like they were like yelling and it was a big truck. And then they came back around. I heard like a and I heard like a shot, a sound of a shot. I was like, I got shot and I got shot in the back and I was like, oh God, I got

shot and I was like, is it am I bleeding? And I left out the shirt and Betsy and Trisha were like, there is like literally not a spot on you, but you've been drive by shot. Yeah. I was drive by shot. You can drive by gunshot. Yeah. Do you think that that car full of people was confused as to why a grizzly bear

was wearing a larry bird jersey? Or do you think they'd seen your show and it was their way of being like good one and welcome. We had joked about that. And then we were like, oh no, no one knew because we like walked out. Like I don't think anyone. I don't think it was. I don't think it was a student.

I think it was like someone who was just it was anything. It was probably just you were in a in a city that no one walks in. Yeah. That was so weird. It was October and it would snowed right early October. No one's on the immediately suspicious. Yeah. But in sometimes in those little college towns, you can find.

I always look for a hippie cafe. All right, because then a lot of times they'll have, you know, they'll have like a chicken wrap or like more mainstream food, but they'll promise like the healthiest shit. Yeah. Right. So just go to where the hippies go. You do.

You do a good job because it's it's. I saw Ben with I went cross country. I got to a big fight with my friend from Quincy because he was like, let's stop it. Like which one was this? It was Kiefer. Okay. Right. We stopped at a.

We stopped at like an olive garden. I was getting really mad at them because I was like, let's try like a local place that's good or, you know, like let's instead of trying just the same crap over and over again. Did you guys ever do that? Did you ever do the cruise ships? I did not. I did not either.

We both. We both did that one. Yeah. Although it pays well. Yeah. It does. That's this weird secret about Second City is that gig pays more than any of the other like clout gigs that you want to get.

You want to be on the resident stage and have your name go down with like all the, you know, other legends or whatever, but really like the money is on this fucking boat. The money is living on a boat. Yeah. Well, but all those contracts are gone now. So. Oh, did they get rid of them?

Well, yeah. Apparently. RIP. Yeah. Some second city Hollywood insider, but yeah, they don't longer do cruise ships. Wow. Yeah. So, uh, so you have like an, like an, because that was, that's an issue I have

and I don't love to travel. When I find myself traveling, if I'm, you know, my wife Natalie is, is wonderful about finding local places and, and I will follow her lead. Um, but if I'm like, by myself, I'll, I'll just default to like something safe or something that I know and I'll find myself at like a red Robin or something. And I'm just like, well, this isn't satisfying. This is just like when you were, when we were in New York and you got a salad at the, at the hotel restaurant.

You remember that? Oh yeah. I'm still mad about it. But you know, that was the same guiding principle that Tony was talking about is like, I needed some rough. Right. It was our first day there. Yeah.

But I wanted a salad. I knew I was going to eat garbage later. That was the, wait, you know, we went to that night. We went to Guy Fieri's restaurant and Times Square. I had to have something to counterbalance that. I don't think you've got a salad at that restaurant. Wait. So that, that makes Mitch, are you saying that when it's your first day in a

new place that eating a salad is like somehow breaking some contract you've had with, I think off to cats in New York City on the first day. Okay. You got to get cats. Cats is deli musical. I think Mitch is saying he wants you to find a local salad. He wants you to find an artisan salad. Yeah.

I'm with that. I want a local place. I don't. I don't love a chain restaurant. I want something that I can only have in this spot. Sure. Carnegie deli get a big giant salad. Yeah.

I mean, it's not open anymore. I don't think, but get a big deli salad. Yeah. Go back in time and get a deli salad from a closed place. You moron. Thank you guys. Yeah. I'm just here to hype up whoever's arguing.

This is fun. Yeah. Just throw kindling on the fire. Yeah. Yeah. So, but you touched on something and I don't know what your current status is. Tony, I know you don't eat dairy right now, but you both flirted with vegetarianism, veganism at certain point.

That's right. On tour. Yeah. On tour it was better to say, because you know, you put in your rider. Right. That's the other part. What food you get. And a lot of times it's college campuses just serving you food from their cafeteria.

So I think like half of us on that touring company were like, yo, we're just going to say we're vegan because then like the chances of getting something a little bit better. They have to put like any effort into it. Yeah. Just be a sad piece of pizza or a hot dog or something. Right. So we all kind of, well, about half of us were like, yeah, we're vegan. And they're like, are you all vegan?

And we're like, yeah, we are. You have to buy us tofu. We're into fucking, you know, like Iowa and shit. And they're just like, okay. And it only backfired like once or twice, but then I always kept, I always kept a thing of microwavable doll that I would get from Trader Joe's like the Indian dish doll. Yeah. And I would just keep it in my suitcase.

And the only time it backfired was one time they just gave us a pot of something brown. Do you remember this? This was where we had to change in the same room we had to eat. It was some fucking college. So everyone's like steaming their suits again, but you know, suit and tie comedy. Everyone's steaming their suits next to just this pot. And I was like, what is this? And they were like, well, it's vegan.

And I was like, but what is in it? No one can tell us. It's vegan brown. It was just brown lumps. And so I just pulled out my own brown lumps, which is a package of doll. And I heated up in the microwave and I was like, I have won this day. Yeah. But yeah, man.

I mean, touring really started that for me. And then now I keep like an 80%. I'm like 80% of the time I eat vegan and 20% usually just chicken wings. Right. Yeah. I'll eat whatever. I feel like now that I'm in LA, whatever it's going to just naturally become a little bit more healthy.

But after Chicago, you know, oh yeah, most things do become healthier. Well, it's easy here, man. Like everywhere you go, everyone's just like, do you want that vegan? I'm like, this is a vodka soda. Sure. Whatever. But like when you travel, I do want to like experience things that I travel a lot. I like to tour.

I'm in a band. We tour a lot. And like, I just want to like soak up what's happening there. You know, I like that. That's a good way to be. Thank you. You drink you to eat that brown stew, no matter what city you're in. I give the brown stew ago.

Yeah. Brown stew is probably top three favorite foods. Yeah. Brown stew, a gruel. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And then a soylent green. Sure.

Sure. That's not vegan. No. No, it's not vegan. Yeah, I found that out later. It was the whole thing. You're a Wettetarian. As long as it's moist.

As long as it's hot and wet. Oh God. The term Wettetarian is fucking awful. And Nick is definitely a fucking Wettetarian. I'm really mad. I just thought of it and said it. A militant Wettetarian. I need Wettetarian.

So like. I snorted. Jesus. How much of the how much of that that, Tani, your, your, your current nutrition plan, how much of it is, is for health? Like what is the motivation? Yeah, I think it's mainly for health. It's mainly just like, you know, I'm getting older.

I know how I feel best. I'm one of those people who's always been weirdly sensitive. Not like I have a sensitive stomach, but I can tell when things are actively zapping my energy and I can tell when things make me feel bad and I will still eat some trash. I'm telling you, I will eat any French fry that shows up in front of my face. But I can really feel the difference. And I've gotten to an age now where I like see it in my face. Like I see the salt and stuff.

And I'm just like, I don't need to feel this bad. So I have to like, I've constructed a way to not feel like I'm deprived. You know, I was, I did go vegan like completely for a couple of years and I was just dreaming about chicken wings the whole time. So it's mainly health. I also do think that if everyone just ate like, you know, two plant-based meals a week, then the impact on the environment would be incredibly beneficial for everyone. So I encourage anyone to try.

For sure. You told that story of you were like, you were like, I want to eat chicken wings. I want to eat chicken wings so bad. And then someone just like, wasn't someone just like, just eat some. Yeah. And then you ate some. Is that what happened? You just ate some of it kind of.

I think so. Yeah. I mean, I think I told you guys too. I've been in the studio for a while. I was always trying to find a thing that like kept my energy up and my weight down and whatever. And yeah. And then I was like, okay, I'll be vegan. This feels best.

I'll be vegan. And then I was just, yeah, someone was just like, just have the chicken wing. No one gives a shit what you do. You know, I feel like when you say you're vegan, there's this absolutism. Sure. Because so many people do it for moral reasons, which I, you know, more power to you. Yeah. I do not have your willpower.

Yeah. No, I think every reason that you listed, we're bad people. Nick and I. No. We, I mean, it's not just not just diet related, but yeah. Oh, you're airing some. Yeah. You have some sins.

Yeah. We're just shitty people in general. But I for me, the environmental thing is I tip my hat to everyone who does it arguable. It's in arguable. Cutting out beef a couple of times, you know, like limiting your beef intake right is big. Yeah. And but but I can. I can't do it.

I can. I don't think I could ever do it. I don't think I could do completely vegan or completely plant based. Yeah. That's tough. But it's, you know, like a middle ground, like Tony was saying, like some, you know, makes some more plant based meals. You're absolutely right.

I find myself doing that. And I do find it like it's, it's, especially if you get something that's intended to be like vegetarian or vegan, it's not like a, and this is, this is contra the chain that we're going to explore this week, but not something where it's like this is the vegetarian or vegan version of something that exists, but this is like a dish that was made like you were touching on doll earlier. Like this is a dish that was made by design that that doesn't have that is plant based. I feel like that always like works better and that I always find more satisfying and

I don't miss it when I have something like that. So so you're eating a vegetarian vegan. You talked about chicken wings as, as, as a, as a guilty pleasure. I love chicken wings. Alex, how are you on the wings? How do you stand on wings? I'm a Stan. I stand chicken wings.

They're a full fan. Yeah. Number one chicken wing boy here. Wow. Number one. Yeah. Well, I don't know. I don't want to invite the competition, but I'm there.

They're pretty great. Number two chicken wing boy has been hot on your heels. Yeah. I have to protect what is mine. It's like Joey Chestnut. It's like, it's like, it's like a food. It's like a professional food eater. Yeah.

I mean, I aspire one day to be, but yeah, no, Buffalo wings with ranch and ranch over blue cheese. Any day. Wow. I know I know my, my simple palette just never accommodated blue cheese. I don't think that makes, that's a simple palette. Thank you. I was looking for that.

That's a totally fair preference, but I'm, I'm very much a blue cheese guy. Yeah. Where do you guys, give me a both. I say I'll dip one in one. I'll dip one on the other. Okay. Nasty. Um, I, I, I'm, I'm into the, the multiple dip in sauces.

How do you guys go? Like, where do you guys go in heat intensity and where do you stand on drums versus flats? Oh, great questions. Very good questions. Very good questions. Um, I'm going to say I like a hot wing, but I got to have a few wings that I need to lemon pepper thrown in so that I can have a break and Rick Ross's favorite. Oh man.

Rick Ross is a smart man. Yeah. You know, um, every time, every time I hear Rick Ross, I just think of his lyric. I'm the only fat nigga in the sauna with Jews. That's all I think about. And it's one of my favorite fucking lines of his. So I just think of that and that also with chicken wings. That's amazing.

Um, so yeah. Hot for sure. A little lemon pepper thrown in. What was the other quote? Oh, drummies versus flats. Yeah. Um, cause second city famously serves chicken wings. They saw, they also serve deep dish pizzas.

So while you're trying to do a scene that you maybe wrote about like being adopted or something like very touching, someone is literally carving into a deep dish pizza in front of you. Um, and we were sitting there and you can hear them order to the servers and this woman is trying to whisper, but she goes, we're going to get the chicken wings. It's like her and her friend. And she goes, but I only like the drummies and she only likes the flatties. So can you separate them and God bless our servers.

They were just like, no, and just brought this woman a basket. So I always think like, I don't have a, I don't want to be that woman. I don't have a preference. I'll eat it or one. Yeah. I think early on in my wing career, um, I was full drummies, so much more accessible. You know, when you're a kid, the idea of, uh, you know, splitting that those two bones apart and the flat guys, uh, so, but at this point, I think I'm going more flatties than

drummies. More people want drummies. Let them fight over it. I sit there and split a part of those people are weak because they need a handle to enjoy their food. That's right. People are weak. I'm like, get a corn dog.

If you want a designated thing to hold and thing to eat. Right. Did you say weak? Because I'm one of those weekies. I think you're a week. I'm saying you're weak. If you can't handle a flat, I'll, I'll, I'll lead a, I'll lead a flap, but I, but I always will reach for the drums just because they're easier.

I can, you know, just shove them in my mouth. Sometimes what happens with the drums is that you'll get like a, I get immediately turned off at like any kind of gristle or like raw or like narrow or something that I'm gnawing on. And sometimes I feel like you get a little more of that with the, with the drumstick. So I liked wing career. I've had a, I've had about, I'm 36, so I probably had about a 30, 31, 30 year long wing career so far.

Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah. I think that makes you an admiral. A wing admiral. Nick, how old were you when you tried wings for the first time? I don't remember because I think that was a thing that we, I certainly had a lot of chicken as a kid, but I don't know.

I don't know. Wings was a thing we had in my, like we, we had so many meals at home. Do you know, I remember the first time I ate buffalo wings. When was that? It was, I was probably six or seven years old and it was down Cape Cod at this place that was like known for the, for, but I, I didn't like it was like a new food. It was like a crazy thing where I was like, what are these like? These are amazing.

I was with my godfathers. I was with my godfather son. I was with my godfather son, Neil Kiley and I tried Buffalo and I was like, this is a new, it was like experiencing a new, it was crazy. Like a, the first time you eat pizza or whatever, but like this new, like, it's like when you see a new color, it's like, I didn't know this was a thing that existed in the spectrum. But I also didn't realize that buffalo wings, like, like they weren't popular. They weren't on every menu at that point.

You know what I mean? Like it wasn't like it was a normal thing that you'd see out all the time. No, it, that, that definitely was something that kind of spread and became a national food within, I feel like our lifetimes. Yeah. And that was in every single restaurant. Now it's everywhere. Now it's ubiquitous.

Now it's at every pizza place. It's, it's, it's the fries to a burger as, as to pizza. Yeah. When did that happen? How did pizza get to like co-opt wings? I don't know. I don't know. We've talked about it on here, but it is, it is weird that that is just the combo that

happened. You know what? I think it was breadsticks for a while. I think part of it was honestly shakies because shakies was the first place I remember they had chicken. I don't. What is that? I wasn't upset you.

A California place. I don't think shakies is even a California original. Is it? I don't know. They've got them out here, but the south. Is it from the south? It might be. I don't know.

I don't know. Hold on. We've reviewed it here. I should remember it from the Midwest. Okay. It's from Sacramento, California. Okay. Look, I'm just saying here in the capital of the bare Republic.

They figured out the chicken wings go with pizza. Okay. Wait, let's talk about Korean chicken wings. Yes. Do you guys like those? I like, I will. Yes. I'm 100% into any sort of a varietal of chicken wing.

Well, that's because we wasn't that one of the places we discussed about maybe doing for. Yeah, I can vegan places. And I said, or this weirdo Korean chicken chain. Yes. It's amazing. It's bonchon. Bonchon.

I have not eaten there. Bonchon. Yeah. Kyochon. Kyochon in Korea town. It's good. They're good as hell. Yeah, it's really good.

I also recommend BBQ Chicken LA. Sounds like a fake name for like a front where you're going to get human traffic, but it is really it's good food. That's every good Korean restaurant is it can. It sounds like a fake place and it's delicious. Yeah. Yeah. I like a Korean chicken wing because there's unexpected sweetness and hotness in places

where you didn't know. And I feel like the breading is more intense. Yeah. I love it. The country. So maybe I'm being unrelatable again. No, not at all. You can get to one.

Everybody do it. Yeah. I wasn't blaming you for being unrelatable. Yeah, you were Nick. I wasn't putting that all on Tony. You were the bad guy. I was talking collectively about the topic. You said this episode is one of the most unrelatable and what's the foreign element

here? The two of us. I'll take the note, Nick. We'll take a break. We'll be right back with more Doe Boys. Welcome back to Doe Boys, Tony Newsom, Alex Kleiner. The podcast is the super group. The chain this week, Native Foods.

Another one from California, founded in Palm Springs, it's got locations now in California Oregon. I'm not going to get mad at everything else in California. Colorado and Chicago. It's fine. We get mad at meat plenty. The entire menu is plant-based and they do make their own tempeh and seitan, seitan. I'm not quite sure how to pronounce seitan.

That's another word. Don't get scared, bitch. You're terrified of the devil. The red being with horns with a pitchfork is going to poke you in the butt if you sin too much. That's probably, if he appeared before you, that's probably what you'd say with your weird mispronunciation. Behold, seitan, seitan, you're going to hell for saying prezers.

We all went together on Sunday night. This is one of those chains that I feel like is receded a little bit. We all had a meal, but before we get into that, part of why we wanted to discuss this is this was a place you went to in Chicago, yes? When Chicago was under-serviced in the vegan market, shout out to the Chicago diner, which has been holding strong since the 80s, which is an amazing place, independently owned. Everyone should go there. Does the lords work?

I went to college in Chicago. I lived there almost 15 years. I had eaten at every vegetarian-friendly place, Leona's, all the places. When Native Foods came out, it was fast food, but vegan, and they had nachos, and they had queso, and it was at a time when even your whole foods didn't have all the nut cheese on them. I remember when it first came, I would drag friends who were not even, would never eat vegan.

I was like, oh, come on for the novelty of it. You're going to get a vegan cheeseburger, and it's kind of like it, the real thing. They have french fries. It's not just kale. It was fun to blow people's minds a little bit, and be like, that buffalo chicken wrap isn't chicken. Chokes on you, dork. It's vegan.

Doesn't you, you fucking idiot? Why are we friends? You fucking clown. We're very aggressive in Chicago. They're like, why did I come out to lunch with you, salting me this entire time? I was trying to look for something that you guys hadn't, to my knowledge, covered before. A lot of the things that first came to mind, I'd seen that you'd done episodes of, or I'd heard them before.

So this one, I was like, oh, they haven't done this one. There are still some in LA, but you're right. They've like pulled back. Yeah. When we went to, there was a veggie grill, fucking flexing right across the goddamn street. Oh, I felt that through. You could really feel that veggie grills just moving in on its terribly rate of pounds

on that real estate comes available inevitably. Like the eye of Sauron looking at Frodo and saying, hold on a second. Wait a minute. This is where you lose me. That evil. I'm just saying it's kind of looming over native foods. Veggie grill. I like you guys like veggie grill.

It's another like fast foodie kind of not entirely sure I've been there, but sure. Yeah, it's good. It's good. It's it. I feel like that what when I was introduced to native foods, God probably 10 years ago or whatever the first time I went, that's it was veggie grill. That's one of the just. It just was what veggie grill is now I feel right just like this is going to blow your

mind. I know you're a big fat meat eater, but come in here and have and have have some vegetarian stuff and enjoy and I did the first time I went to to native foods. I enjoyed the idea of you guys going to it in Chicago is very funny like was a bunch of super fan, like the like SNL super fan, like like a bunch of big, burly Chicagoans wearing satin like satin or whatever had to take a belushi with you if you're going to go. They wouldn't let you in.

But yeah, now native foods have shifted. It feels like we're now we can get into that. Yeah, and and so we went and it's, you know, order the counter, you dine in. We dined in and it's, you know, it's not inexpensive. But so so we just just know what you're getting into there, because I don't think you're going to get anything. I mean, was there anything really on the menu below like $12? Like, I feel like all the the entrees work like around that range appetizers,

some of the cheaper ones, yeah, but it's it's a little on the price to your side, but that tends to be the case with these sorts of change. Here's immediately noticed just from being a veggie grill recently, you know, not to maybe a year ago, but like you go in there. It's kind of like a kind of like dark little Carter, I mean, it's a big open space, but you get into line there. You're talking about native foods, native foods, a little dark. Everyone's kind of looking at a menu.

No one wanted to go was like the big, like the feeling that I had when we first got in there, Nick, we were writing a line and they're like, you can go like four people in front of us, like go ahead. Yeah, we're having trouble deciding and and I feel like with veggie grill. I don't know. I feel like it's nice, bright and lit. There's a menu up front. You see what you see what there is and there's also a menu you can look at,

but there is like it's a little more exciting display. Yeah, yeah, native foods. You absolutely have to read the menu. They have like some specials like written big, but it's it's a pretty comprehensive menu for, you know, the same few proteins that offers and maybe blame the number one. First item on that menu was the thing that you ordered, Nick, that blew my mind. Yes.

But putting that first on a menu is daunting as a hundred. I was like, what? This isn't the place I remember. I'm sorry I brought us here. I felt regret. I hated seeing it. I hated that you ordered it. I hated the look on your face when you've been into it.

I feel bad for you now. Well, let's let's take the meal in sequence because we will definitely get to that. The beverage wise, you know, they have some decent selection of in-house fountain drinks. I got myself a watermelon fresco, which was fine. It did a decent flavor to it, not overly sweet. When you get a fresco, you don't want it to be too sweet. Tony, I noticed you got yourself a brew dog.

Yeah, I did. I haven't been drinking much lately, but I was like, here I am amongst my bro pals. Let me get a beer. Felt like a safe space to have a beer. Instead, I was like, lavender lemonade, please. We all we all nerd it out on you very hard, right? Did you get it?

Did you get yourself a alcoholic? I did not. I opted for something like an unsweetened peach tea or something like that. Yeah, we failed you pretty bad. Yes, you guys did not join me, but I had a modern times beer in a tall can. I love a tall can. I will drink any shit beer in a tall can because it makes me feel small. And I need that.

Yeah, modern times is good. It was like a Pilsner or maybe I don't fuck with an IPA. So I think it was a lighter or a logger. It was a logger. Meanie, I'm not into the IPA's anymore. Those hoppy beers are too much for me. I will take that a step further and say, I think anyone who says they like IPA's are lying to themselves to everyone.

Alex, you are going to get so many out of flame me. No, I'm just kidding. If you like IPA, I don't want to yuck your gum, but I have never had a sip of one and been like this is something I would love to keep drinking. I'm going to go a step further. Anyone who likes IPA's I hope they knows fucking dissolves you. Damn. Okay.

Thank you for saving me on that one. You're the dick now. It's dissolved by fucking Thanos. Like going after IPA fans is like going after gamer gate. Yeah, it's going to air poorly. Wait, Mitch, you had a lavender lemonade. I truly did have a lavender lemonade herbal and it did. It did taste a kind of like a lavend, lavendery lemonade.

I mean, it was not false advertising. I think it's everyone was like, oh, this is interesting. I was like, I like it. This is good the way things started off at native foods. Besides kind of the appearance of the place. It's just kind of there's there. There's definitely we talk about this, there's just like when you go in there,

there's a kind of a fun cartoonist portrait of like mushrooms and vegetables that have like cartoon smiling faces. And then besides that, I'm like, what is like, what is their thing like veggie grill? It's a brand. You feel the brand and sometimes that's sometimes you don't want that. I mean, like I get it, but walking to native foods. I don't really know what the deal is back in the day.

I knew, yeah, the vegan restaurant. That's all I'm having like quick service accessible vegan food was kind of its shtick and it made it like sit out amongst the rest. And now, but I don't think they've updated their approach to really stand apart from other places. But besides that, I had a lavender lemonade. We were sitting there having a nice time and the food came and the first couple bites were I was enjoying.

That's all before we get it move on to the drinks. I just want to say one comment is because this is the thing we both observe weird ice machine, very weird ice that ice like came. It came out and like clumps and fucking shoots ice. You had to press it and you got one clump that shot out like a softball. You had to do it. How fucking dare you native foods. But that's messy.

Did it create a splash? No, but I had. And we're not talking the good clumps for you people listening. No, no. These clumps weren't farting around at dinner table, making everyone laugh. Very lovely family. No, no, these are the bad clumps splashing your drink everywhere. You put you put the drink in the cup before.

No, no, no, this was I put I iced up first. But if you had had some beverage in there, it would have been a splash zone for sure. But yeah, the the first few bites and I will say our server was server. The person that counter who was taking our order was very nice and gave us some guidance. We asked a lot of questions. We got what we had to I was just literally laughing at. I was just thinking about the clumps dinner scene that it's really funny. It's so funny.

It's truly. I don't know if anyone it's a good. It's a great revisit. It's delightful. We watch that scene. It's funny. It holds up. It's so it's so fucking funny.

It's genuinely like this is a thing like I think it's funny. And then the also I think the parody of it. The the one in Tropic Thunder is also funny. The fatties are also funny. Yeah, I like both. I got mad at fatties because I was like, isn't making fun of the clumps. And then I because I was like so much. I like I understand.

Yeah, such a staunch clumps defender. Oh, I love it. I'm just thinking about the clumps now. Everyone just take a minute. Think about the clumps. We don't got to be nowhere. So we should do a subset of the podcast where we just remember movies and laugh about them.

Don't offer any comment. Just take a little moment in your car. Just think about it. It's funny. So the two of the two apps we got tight chili brussel sprouts and nachos. I'll read the many descriptions. The chili brussel sprouts crispy crunchy breaded brussel sprouts halves tossed in sweet and spicy Thai chili cilantro and topped with toasted sesame seeds and cilantro.

So kind of a deep fried version. And then the nachos tortillas black beans chipotle sauce cashew cheese salsa fresca roasted corn green onion cilantro pickled jalapeno peppers and guacamole a lot going on there. Did they have a little hummus with it too? What was that little? That was the cashew cheese. That was the cashew cheese. But it was in like as though you'd taken an ice cream scoop and put it in a round

situation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not a fan of. It was weird. And I lobbied hard for the night. I remember being like, guys, we got to get the nachos. And this also added to my regret of bringing my new friends here and me getting a beer and no one else was clearly ready to have a rip and good time.

But I lobbied hard for those nachos because I had such memories. That was like the thing because I haven't eaten dairy for like 10 years. And so and I never touched dairy. It fucks me up bad. So I was like, this is a place I can get nachos. And 10 years ago it was like the best revolutionary. It was mind blowing. So good.

Having it this time, man, I mean, I will say, I liked the nachos when we had them, when we all went, I liked them. I was a little disappointed. They were not as good as I remembered them being perhaps years ago in Chicago. I was just tasting nostalgia. And that was it, baby. Yeah, yeah. They have a lot of ingredients there.

I think they could have added it a little bit. I'm not sure if they need the corn on there. I'm not sure if, you know, I feel like they could they could just simplify it a little bit. I will say I like the pickled jalapenos. They were an apple and, you know, it speaks to some. That's the thing about vegan food is if you have something spicy, it always gives it a little bit of flavor. So having those on there, I think, I think salvage it a bit.

But come on, they were great. That's not fair. I mean, I'm just saying like pickled jalapenos is what anywhere can do that. I agree. I agree. And I will say also say the chips in particular. I don't think are great quality chips, which doesn't help it. I already forgot about the chips.

Yeah. The chile brussel sprouts, the tight chile brussel sprouts, those breaded brussel sprouts, I thought was one of the better bites I had. For sure. I think we were all excited. Once we had those, once we had those brussel sprouts, I think everyone was, I was excited. I was like, oh, this is how I remember being brought here.

This is great vegetarian food. I don't know who I went with. It was Armin to have like the buffalo, you know, like the fake buffalo wings. Oh, with that cauliflower. Yeah, which we maybe should have got. But maybe, but, but I, but, and I think that was like such a big deal to be like, oh, this is just buffalo sauce poured onto something. You know what I mean?

Yeah. But they were breaded nicely. They're breaded. They know they are. They were, they were breaded really nicely. And, and, but when I had that, the app, when I had the, the brussel sprouts, I was like, we're in for fun. This is going to be fun.

Yeah. This is going to be good. Yeah. That was like the first bite we, the first bites we were having, and it sort of set things off in a different course. And I was nice on the nachos because nachos are can be, but then also like with the beyond meat and stuff, I feel like there's been, there just is like, there's probably good versions of, of vegetarian nachos or vegan nachos.

Sure. Yeah. So I don't, I don't know. Well, vegetarian nachos are no challenge at all. At all. Yes. But, but vegan nachos. Yeah.

There are absolutely some, some better versions now that now exist. Let's get to our entrees. So, so we'll get, we'll get to mine, which was bizarre. But Tony, what did you get for your main? You, I can, I'll never forgive you for ordering that. I ordered the peri peri chicken because similar to my deep love affair with Buffalo wings, I love Nando's. Have you guys done a Nando's episode?

We have never done Nando's. No, not a Nando's. It's like big and Clinton, right? Or. It's South African slash Portuguese, but it's from South Africa, but the food style is Portuguese. But I think they started in Philly and DC. Anyway, there's some in Chicago.

I think there's some here. I don't know. I don't know if there's any here. It's more, it's more internet, it's more outside of the States, right? Yeah. There's way more of them overseas. So they had the native foods advertised a peri peri chicken sandwich. I thought it was going to be breaded or at least like crispy in some way.

The peri peri sauce was not what I remember a peri peri sauce to be. It just tasted like a kind of mild Buffalo sauce. And then it was just a pretty basic seitan faux chicken. It was not really particularly grilled. It was just like fine. It was like on a wheat bun. I didn't want to eat a lot of it. Yeah.

Yeah. I would say that the buns are perhaps a deficiency here. Alex, what did you get for your entree? Well, I wanted to keep the fiesta going from the nachos, and I got the taco salad with the bonjour. With the bonjour, bonjour, welcome to Mexico. With like the ground beef substitute. Sure.

And I would say that one looked pretty good. It looked fine. I did not eat that much of it. I didn't really want to keep returning to it. Boy, that was going to be a takeaway for me, is that there was a lot of food left on the table. Yeah. And I know we overordered a little bit, but not by that much.

We got like one extra app. I always feel like the bad side of a vegan restaurant, you kind of, you hit on this a little bit, but when everyone is reaching for the french fries. Yeah. And there was a lot of us being like, the french fries and like going back to the french fries and having the french fries.

And they were just french fries. And they were just, I mean, yeah, just basically. You serviceable? Well, to the salad's credit, it did like, it had like cool tortilla strips on it. Like it had a good blend of vegetables, like a kind of a cool zesty dressing that I think maybe was a little overpowering.

And then their ground beef, which was, with all the ground beef that you could even buy at a grocery, or vegan ground beef that you could buy at a grocery store, it just didn't taste like anything. Yeah. I mean, that impossible taco meat in particular, I said it as taco meat because I've had it in taco form, but it's mostly found in patties.

But that impossible meat to begin with is such like a game changer. And I feel like if you just put that on there instead, it would have plus it up quite a bit. Same deal with the nachos. Mitch, your entree. Well, we did a couple. We split a California burrito. Yeah.

And this was, this had fries in it, in addition to the marinated satin slices, American cheese, the vegan American cheese, salsa fresco, guacamole lettuce, and sour cream, again, vegan sour cream. Can I just say right off the bat, a low light of the. This was really bad. You got mad.

Yeah. I got mad. I also had a situation where I bit in and hurt my tooth. Yeah. The second time I, one of my back, one of my molars, Nick, bit into something and, and, and, and like point went to the point where my bottom and top tooth felt like they, like,

like they, that they had both like moved like a bent. They were bent, they bent, but didn't break. Like it felt like, you know, that moment where it's like, and like a half, just like a little bit more, and I would have broken one of my, like a tooth would have been broke. Do you know what happened? Like what was in there?

I never looked in the napkin because I was too freaked out by what it was. Right. What I think it was was maybe that I had another dish. I got the orange chicken and there were hard pieces of rice in it, and I think maybe that could have been what it was, but I think it was in the burrito, and I just didn't care to find out what it was.

Yeah. You don't want to investigate. I don't want to, but you could maybe sue and get another thousand dollars or something. My one thousand dollars. Nick thinks it makes me part of the top one. Mr. Money bags with his four figures. I get it.

They're working. Yeah. I will say the California burrito. It just haven't acted in a year, Nick. That's not the travesty. You should be working. You're very talented. Thank you.

Yeah. I agreed. This city is a toilet. I will say that the California, aside from your tooth injury, the issue is it just didn't have the texture right. Like the whole thing of a California burrito is that it's, you get the crunch of the fries contrasted with the,

you know, like it's a, it's a deviation from what you normally will get in a burrito, and when those elements come together, it's delightful. And this one, it like the texture was wrong, but also it didn't have any sort of like savory flavor to it. It just sort of tasted like a wheat mush. It was very, very bland. Well, there was a lot of lettuce.

Like we were saying how like, lettuce is so not an ingredient in a California burrito. Right. And there was, and there was just so much of it, and it felt like a main component. It was overwhelming. Was it like a crunchy lettuce or like a mixed green? Like a spring mix.

Yeah, it was like a spring mix. It was like a spring mix. Like a bad lettuce. That didn't even give it a crunch. It was, it was not fit. There was a lot of it in there. It was just a fucking, that, that whole wrap was, the California burrito was a fucking bummer.

That should have been, that should have been romaine or, or ice. All right, yeah. It could have been in there really. I mean, right. If it's like, I mean, I know that you have to, you have to cheat somehow. You have to fill it out a little bit,

but it, the fact that it was mescaline greens, the fact that it was like something you would like, like Alex said, you would get out of a bag at a grocery store was just like, so it just was, it didn't, it didn't fit at all. If it's not going to give you texture, what's it giving? Yeah, truly. I would truly rate it like a zero. Like it was, it was, it was, it was, it was bad.

You put it down like immediately. You put it down far away from you in the center of the table. Oh yeah. I did not, I didn't want it near me. I, I mean, it had hurt. It physically hurt me. Yeah.

I didn't want, I didn't, everything about it, I didn't like. I remember, I remember at the, the, the dinner you said, this is the opposite of the clumps. Yeah, you didn't get that. The joy I get from the clumps. This doesn't do that for me. And then I sucked air into my ass.

It was really cool to watch though. Yeah, it was like, I don't know how we all sense that, but it was undeniable. You did it. So, and then what was the other dish you got, Mitch? And then I got the orange chicken, which was serviceable. Yeah. There are some of the, like I said,

some of the rice was hard, which like, come on. That seems crazy. The undercooked rice at a vegan restaurant. Like that's crazy. Do the rice. Right. You gotta get that right. Because, because it, because it would have,

that dish would have been like, oh, this is, this is like a fine okay, like it wasn't great, but it also was, I would, if I had just had that and the rice was cooked right and everything was going well for it, I think it would have been a pretty good dish. Yeah. It would have been good. And instead it was kind of like, it's all right,

but now there's weird parts of it that I don't like to eat as much and not a great. So what was that? What was like the glaze or the sauce on the chicken? But it was, it was like an orange, kind of like it, like, like, yeah, like an, like an Asian orange. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Like it was trying to be a, like a, like Chinese food restaurants, orange chicken. Right. And it was close. I mean, besides the, it looked cool. Yeah. It was, it was, it was the one of, it was definitely

a thousand times better than that California burrito. That California burrito was rough and, you know, my other, the other thing I got was rough and odd. I'll just say what it is. I got the cherry chocolate barbecue burger. And this is described as, it's the first thing on the menu, as Tony mentioned, which is an insane to lead off with this. Insane.

Yeah. And I asked the, you know, I asked this, the person behind the counter if she'd had it and she said no, but it had heard it was good. She seemed like she was lying to her tears. She seemed hesitant. She was lying. I wish she just told me not to order it, but I was like,

the curiosity, I had to try it. So it's, it's coffee rubbed made with plants, burger patties, cherry chocolate, cherry chocolate barbecue sauce, vanilla maple satin bacon. And then it's also got Gouda caramelized onions, mayo and arugula. All those components were kind of overloaded by the chocolate, cherry, coffee, vanilla flavor. It was very strange.

It said purportedly a toasted pretzel bun, but I just like got like, it just felt like wheat to me. I told you guys at the restaurant, it was like a pan burger bun with a stack of pancakes in between it. It was so, that was a terrible thing. Extremely curtsy. The texture and flavor was just so off-putting. It, it wasn't terrible.

Like it wasn't eating. It was like, oh, this is gross, but I was just like, this is so unusual and it's so foreign from what I know of a burger. I think if you brought someone who was a burger fan, hey, I'm the burger boy. Yeah. That's number one burger boy. That's my thing.

If I'm number one burger boy. Yeah. God, you're not number one. One or two. Look, this is the crossover event of the century either way. But you know, if you're, if you're like a burger fan, you went in there for something like, I want to have my fake, I want to impress a friend with a fake burger.

This is not going to get the job done. In fact, this is going to make them think vegan food is weird and, and you know, you can't even, it doesn't even approximate the real thing. This is something that a serial killer feeds you before he cooks and eats you. Or like a child that like has a fancy parent that like owns it. And they're like, right, Timmy, you can make the, you get to make one burger. What do you want it to be?

And cherries and chocolate and vanilla and vegan. Yeah. It's bad. I, my eyebrows went up in a cartoon fashion when you ordered it. When I heard you talk, I was like, he's not going to do it. I know it's for entertainment, but no podcast is worth that. Yeah. You're brave.

It was rough. Got a side of steamed kale, which was not bad. What did you think of the kale? I'm mad at it because when like you go to like a black people, vegan soul food restaurant, they make like collards or kale. It's seasoned. Yeah, this was completely unseasoned. Literally just like they made it hot.

They made it wet. They cooled it down. They put it on a plate. That's the number two things about food. Is it hot? Is it wet? And then it's food. I didn't like it.

No salt. It was bad. It was completely unseasoned. They gave me a lemon. A lemon wedge, right? Squeeze over it, which gave it a little something. Now I'm cooking the food. No.

I'm talking about salt on this. It was cooked fine, but yeah, you're absolutely right. And the fries were, as we mentioned, fine. That was the other side we had. Do we miss out on these sides? I think that was pretty much all of it. You miss out on dessert. You got the dessert.

The oatmeal cream pie. And this was one that the server said was great. Here was a weird thing. Told us that. Yes, this was very strange. She said, this is the way this is great. You got a melt peanut butter on it. Insane.

When we left there, I was also, melt peanut butter on it? What is she talking about? What does that mean? Melting. I've never heard of melting peanut butter on something. Again, very nice, but they don't have a side of peanut butter. No, and they don't have a microwave for your use. They didn't offer that service, so shut up.

You're saying take it home and do that yourself. And I believe that, so the inside of this thing, it is a oatmeal cream pie cookie situation. The creamy shit on the inside would have just melted out. Think so, yeah. If you heated that up. Also, how do you melt peanut butter? Peanut butter is already, you've seen peanut butter sauce

for Sundays, though. Is that what she meant? Is that what she meant? Is that what she meant? Probably like a pump thing. So she's like, leave this establishment. Go to a yogurt place. Go to Forever Yogurt.

Just run. Get out of here. She was trying to tell us to get out and not eat that bad food. So she actually tried to save us. And she was right, yes. That's fair. That said, again, one of the better bites I had at this meal was the quarter of that oatmeal cream pie

along with the Thai chili Brussels sprouts. That was pretty good. For sure. All right, well, let's get to our final thoughts on this chain. Tony Alex said, this will work. We'll go around. We'll each sort of give a closing argument, if you will, and then give it a score from zero to five forks.

Tony, we will begin with you. I would say if you live in a part of the country where you don't have a bunch of other vegan options and this place is there, definitely go and get yourself something that is breaded and fried, like the Brussels sprouts or like a fried chicken wrap type situation. And number of forks.

I think I got to give it like two forks. Two forks, wow. I would honestly give it one, but I do think like just if you're fully vegan, like some this could scratch an itch. Right. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think similarly, if you are a vegan person that is in a food emergency and you needed to get

Please hang up and call 911. access to vegan food, that this would be a good stop for you. That said, I think we kind of talked about this, that like when it was the only like vegan place that didn't take very long to get your food and you could get something like a burger or a chicken wrap or with fries and it wasn't like just health food, which I think a lot of people conflated

vegan with health food right at the beginning. You know, it was kind of cool and exciting. That said, going to it, the only things I kept coming back to for taste were that that cookie, which I think was solid and it's going to affect my rating. And those Brussels sprouts, I think. Two and one half forks. Wow.

Two and one half. Two forks, two times. Two forks, two times. Go ahead, Mike Mitchell. Mike, you said my phone. Yeah, I'm going to say your full name now. I don't like it. I went home that night and I ordered McDonald's on Uber Eats.

I've never done that before. Proud of you. Ever. Good for you. And I when I first went to that restaurant, I think I had like the wing dings or whatever. Like I had like the chicken wing right wings. I was I was impressed by it.

I if you if you want to talk about veggie grill coming for them, it's already over. I mean like if if I mean veggie grill beats that place hands down 100 times out of 100 so much. I would go there and an instant and I would enjoy myself at veggie grill. That is what that's that is what native foods was used to be is a non vegan person can go there and have something

and enjoy themselves. Right. That was not the case this time. If the clumps were there, they would call the exorcist on some of the some of this on some of that. Satan because it was it was it was fucking. It was it was awful by my tooth my fucking. I almost cracked my tooth.

Nick the second time in this podcast that's ever happened and once before with a restaurant, which we really enjoy, which is a hillstone and here and I when when when something like that happens it. I can't get this place a good score. It's getting it hurt you. It hurt me. Yeah.

It hurt me again. It's getting it's getting two forks. I want to because because it gets two forks. We're in handholding club here. I if I want to give it a good rating because I know that it's doing good in some way. Yes. The cookie was really good, even with a melted peanut butter

quality cookie, but but but I can't I can't go higher than than two. I want them to do good too. I hope they'll listen to this podcast and use it as an incentive to better constructive criticism. Take the note. Maybe we got them on a really, really bad day. I it's possible.

Still wouldn't have changed them from putting a cherry burger on the menu. It was a bizarre choice. By the way, you song and Emma got me a a Patriots doughboys hat. Is that what you're wearing right now? It's a Patriots hat on the back. It says doughboys and I wore it at the Super Bowl when they won guys.

You broke the girl. Wow. How about that? Yeah. Thank you. How did you did you enjoy the game with people yelling behind you that podcast sucks? The players on the field said

they couldn't even see the bad guy behind me. He did call me dough boy the whole time. He's like, hey, dough boy. And I was like, I think that's an honorific. Yeah. You're like, oh, oh boy, you're reading my hat like what? All right. So I I mean, I agree with I agree with the consensus.

The room. This is this is just a place that time has passed it by. And I think veggie grill is a superior option. I think you can have the they had an impossible burger at Mendocino Farms recently, an L.A. chain. And that the impossible burger was just it was just outstanding. It just every element would came together.

The vegan cheese was maybe a little a little off. Although I even it was able to enjoy it. But it was it was just so far and above any above anything that we had here. And this place is just like what they should be doing. Their bread and butter should be executing these these these American classics in a in a in a vegan way. And and unfortunately, it's just not delivering consistently.

That man that just simplify. I feel like that's cherry chocolate barbecue burger. You're going to get screamed at by Taffer or Gordon Ramsay or your chef of choice is just going to come in there and tell you that that's just a poorly thought out menu item. But that wasn't the only problem. I think just a lot of textural and flavor issues throughout. I got to go with the room.

I'm going to say two forks. Wow. I think I think this is just sort of like a sub par eatery. Unfortunately. And it's a shame because I want it to succeed. You want a place like this to be good. But you kind of you kind of eat there and you understand why it's maybe retreating a little bit from its its heights or in earlier days.

Well, hey, Mitch, you mentioned you got McDonald's as a little bit of a coda to your underwhelming experience at Native Foods. And hey, we're going to have a little bit of McDonald's now because when fast food news breaks, the dough boys are on the case. This is breaking shoes. Boy, sorry, everyone. I like it. Breaking shoes.

Have you done this before? Breaking shoes. We did this. We did this once before. Yeah. You know, that soaring John Williams score there. It's still terrifying. It's as terrifying as it was the first time we did it.

I always wondered when I listened. If you sang it live or if you like quickly recorded it. But he doesn't live guys. He's a pro. How do you like this behind the curtain? So we got a okay. Oh no. Emma, you want some of mine?

Oh man. I'm sorry. Emma and you song. I'm sorry. You are definitely fired. Yeah, you song. You're fired, buddy. So we got the cheesy bacon fries from McDonald's.

They've got these bacon menu items right now. Look at the, this is a crazy McDonald's move here. This is very strange. I don't remember a fry modification in the history of McDonald's. I'm taking a little snapshot of these right now. It seems like more like a Wendy's thing. It does. Yeah.

It's very off brand for them. And also too, I feel like the idea of adding bacon to things, which is what they're doing. They've got a bacon, big Mac. They've got a bacon quarter pounder, and they've got these these cheesy bacon fries. To me, that feels like kind of a 10 to 15 years ago thing when the bacon craze was in full swing.

So it's interesting to do now. This is sort of a cheese sauce. And they are, they are a thinly kind of minced bacon bits here. They're chopped pretty finely. They're very salad bar bacon bits. Absolutely. Absolutely. Which I love that is not a knock.

That's an amazing quality to have that you don't find in a lot of places. Right. I'm going to dig into these now. And I have the, you guys were kind enough to give me the cheese-less ones. So I do have bacon on them, but no cheese. So there's nothing really holding the bacon to mine. Right. Which is often a problem for me.

I'm someone who gets a dry nacho in a Mexican restaurant, and I'll stand by it. But I still, I can scoop it with a fork. But this Diet Coke, this is good as ever. Great job on your Diet Coke, McDonald's. Until you leave from Alex here. We talked about this a little bit, but McDonald's has the best Coke and Diet Coke. And so a few of us got Diet Cokes. And it is, it's so good.

As part of their marketing right now, the side of your guys' beverages, as much of you noticed, it just says bacon, which is weird. That is weird. It's a weird thing to read on a drink. Well, it says quarter pounder bacon. Oh, okay. But the bacon is giant. It's big.

There's no like prepositions or anything. It's just quarter pounder bacon. It's reminding you of some things they have. Right. Makes you think of like, it's just like a 16 ounce cup of liquid grease. It's very, very strange. I would say- I got a lot of thoughts on this.

Okay. Yeah, I do too. But I mean, I'm wondering what everyone thinks. Here's what I'll say. I'll go first. I think this is a, this is a addition by subtraction or subtraction by addition, whatever the idiom is in this form. Is it just like, I'd rather have the plain fries.

To me, this kind of just tastes like a bacon egg and cheese biscuit. Like it tastes like a, one of their breakfast menu items with the bacon and that sort of gooey, melted American cheese sauce. It's just kind of like, you kind of lose the texture and the crispness and the distinct flavor that you got from the fries. It's kind of buried under all that. It's not unpleasant. It's good.

I like it, but I think I'd rather have the plain version. Oh, what do you guys think? My, my fries are like not as crispy and that might not be the fault of the bacon or the, I almost think it's the box. Because you don't often get a closed box of fries. And I think that it trapped the humidity in there. There is some condensation on the box too. So you're not getting the crisp.

That's what you want from McDonald's, a crispy, salty fry. I agree with that. That's what it's all about with McDonald's fries. Yeah. So the packaging, I find to blame. I used to work at McDonald's in like late high school, early college years. And I know, okay, why am I working? You buried the lead.

We're going to talk about this for 90 minutes. Well, no, we don't need to. But I, so I'm always wondering when, when McDonald's does something like, Oh, how do they make that? Like, so there's a, there's a, there's a like a melted cheese on these that I think McDonald's would have had to bring in some sort of hot cheese dispenser for perhaps the first time. Because I don't think it's on anything else. Like, because it doesn't look like, like it's shredded and then melted.

It's just, and I will say that it has that quality of the like that McDonald's American cheese that you, that you taste in their quarter, but like it has that specific McDonald's genius taste. Yeah, it's fine. I think I'd rather have McDonald's french fries than these. I mean, these are McDonald's french fries, but I mean, like a regular McDonald's fries and ketchup. Yeah.

The plain ones I think are just, are just better. Absolutely. But it does. It tastes good. Yeah. I don't know if I would get it instead of regular fries though. I'm probably going to eat all of these. Oh yeah.

I will eat every french fry. Yeah. I could easily eat them all. They were there. The issue, we talked about this, Nick. I said, I recently said I didn't like chili cheese fries. We got into a kind of a fight about it because I said that they, all it does is that it sogs them up. Right.

Sure. And you get soggy fries under chili. There's too much going on under chili cheese fries. I don't really hate them. I don't hate chili cheese fries, but I just would prefer regular fries. This is this. I mean, this to me is a similar thing as you put the cheese on top of you put the bacon on top of it. And then like you said, there's no crisp McDonald's fries, which are the,

that's what you go to McDonald's for is crisp fresh McDonald's fries. And it just changes the texture of them and they're soggy. Yeah. And that's when McDonald's fries aren't as good as when they, when they, when they, when you, they get a little bit of sag on them. Yeah. I'm wondering, because of the size of this box, if a, like a full length crisp McDonald's fry would even fit in it, you know, because.

Oh, you mean, so they have to be compromised? Yeah. Maybe they have to be taken out of the fryer a little early so they can kind of bend into it. Oh, that's a, yeah, they, because they're kind of like, uh, interesting up here. Like, I don't know. I'm just asking like pasta. It's a good question.

It's, yeah, I, I, I don't know. I mean, that said, it's good. It's good. So I'm not going to say, I just, I just give me the regular fry to me. It's like, I rather have a grilled cheese sandwich than a grilled cheese plus any other ingredient if you throw in there, just like, this is, this is one where the plain version is the best. They are interesting.

They're interesting. I mean, like, I'm, I, I'm, it's weirdly like, I'm happy I tried the, yeah. Right. Yeah. I'm missing the powdery, crazy dusty salt. You know, that signature McDonald's, like just dry out your mouth salt. That's not here. Maybe because the bacon's already salty, they didn't want to overwhelm you.

Huh. You nailed it though. It is just that sort of thing of you want hot, fresh, crispy McDonald's fries. Right. Right. And then you just can't, you, this just makes it so you can't have them. Now I'm wondering, do they take the fries out early for this specifically?

Call your old buds. I gotta, I gotta ask them all. I would not be surprised by that. If there was a different procedure for putting the fries in here than like in a regular order. I want, I feel, I, do you feel like they're, they're unsalted probably? I'm getting a lot of salt. We're getting a lot of salt. Okay.

Maybe I just got some unsalted. But it could also be the cheese and bacon. I think I'm getting it from the cheese maybe because I, I'm, I'm confident that my fries are unsalted and the bacon is the only salt element here. Alex, can I ask you a question as a McDonald's insider? You may. What's up with the McFlurry machine? Why is that thing always on the fridge?

Yeah, man. Did you sign an NDA or can you talk about this? Well, you know, I think I can, I can drop it here. I think my contract ran out last week and I've been looking for a place to bump this information. Wow. Last week. Uh, yeah.

They take it seriously. Yeah. And see them. Yeah. I don't know. I think, I don't know how they're made now. This was, this would have been the early odds, you know, I, I, uh, it was the spoon attached to the machine.

Yes. Hell yeah. And then it, the spoon was used to swirl the ingredients together. I don't know why it, I never really had that experience that it was down all the time. I didn't break a lot at your location. Oh God. No, I don't recall that. I think we had good.

Well, we were a great team. We were a great team with great management and nothing but good things to say about Pillsville, Maryland, McDonald's privately owned. Well paying. Yeah. Yeah. No, I can imagine it probably had something to do with like the spoon, something getting caught in the motor, maybe I got you.

I got a question. Yeah. Grimace real or not real? He's real, but the stories you hear about him are all true. He's a pretty good guy. He's a nice man. He got chased away at my birthday party, Nick. It stuck with me forever.

I mean, my Donald's birthday party. Did you have a McDonald's birthday party? I did. That's pretty bad. We used to keep the shit for those in the back, but like I never saw. It was like I worked there for three years on and off and we had a whole like like maybe enough supplies for like three McDonald's birthdays. Never never got used to kids do it anymore.

I wonder. I wonder it was a thing when I was young, but I don't know if it I don't know if it happens before even the play place came like the cool because then there was a play places that were like cool and a jungle gym. Yeah. Oh, and do you remember that where you can there was like the nine piece puzzle that you can like slide the things around that freestanding like move the blocks around to make the picture?

Yeah. Nick, you still play it occasionally, don't you? You've gotten good. You have a record. I'm pretty good. There was the one on Venice, the McDonald's on Venice for until like two years ago had a sign underneath the McDonald's marquee that said Nintendo 64 because they were advertising that and 64 in there until like 2017.

Jesus. Yeah. That's so funny. But yeah, I that said, I think I think I am Sam going to give these still. I'm still going to say these are a snack worth trying. Absolutely. Any descent there? Nope.

I'm there. They're a snack. Maybe not a snack I would get all the time, but I think you got to know. Don't go in expecting a crisp fry. I wager out of these four boxes of fries. Not one crisp. No, definitely not. Yeah, I agree.

So know what you're getting. I know. I won't say whack. I can't say a whack, but I'm going to say snack once and then go back to the go back to your old order. Snack it back. Snack it back. You know what?

An additional snack. Add it on to whatever you usually get. Get some regular fries. Get one of these for the table, maybe. Oh, there you go. That's the way to handle it. It is the tapas. Just like a restaurant without your feedback.

Let's open up the feedback. Today's email comes to us from Melissa Toro. Melissa writes, I recently heard the episode about corn coffee on the double, corn the ban, K-O-R-N. I hadn't listened to the band in years, but I remember in high school, class of 98, what what, hands clapping emoji. No, it's a high, sorry, high five emoji, I apologize. Being very into corn.

You guys made me want to reminisce, so I started listening to some old songs and I got to tell you I was scratching my head. Why did I used to love this? I guess it's because at 16 I was filled with a lot of angst and I thought being hard was cool. Towards the end of high school, I was seduced by the fun upbeat silliness of ska and to be honest, my heart still beats for horns and harmonies. My question is, did you just write this email yourself?

Melissa Toro is my alt. My question is, is there a particular band or genre of music you were very into at one point that you no longer enjoy? Conversely, is there a genre or band you loved in your youth that still holds up? Love the podcast. You song rules. Yeah, you song.

Got a shout out. That's nice. Very exciting. I didn't like that. They love them. He's still fired. Anything come to mind, I'm thinking through my own personal taste and I don't know if there's anything that I'm like, oh man,

how did I ever like that band, but maybe if I interrogated a little bit, does anything come to mind for you guys? I have one thing that was embarrassing that I like. What is it? For one of their albums I got, I was getting into like rap and hip hop and then they released an album that was like half rap, hip hop, I mean, like they, they were trying to be it, but limp biscuit I bought one.

I bought, I bought chocolate starfish in the hot dog flavored water. I had that there's like a method man is like on like one of the tracks and but that is an embarrassing if I go back and listen to any of that. It doesn't bum me out. I mean, sure, maybe they have a song or I don't know if they even have a song that early 2000s rap rock was a rough era. It was and I probably didn't get into like any of it, right? And then I had a failing with that, but aggressively marketed.

I don't think that's on you right, but, but I will say that like Lincoln Park still holds up and alone on this. I don't know if I am. I think I don't know. I think that there's still some Lincoln Park fans out there. Maybe want to chime in, but corn. I will say that I have a different experience from the, the person who wrote it. Yes.

I, I loved corn. I saw them six, maybe seven times like live, like make my like dad drive me so I can see a corn show when I was like 15. Listen to them with some friends in Maryland recently. Still great, still great. Still love corn. I like all that new metal stuff. Extremely my shit like system of it down.

That stuff's great. All of it's great. Wow, really? Isn't that wild looking at him and then hearing this disgusting secret? Oh yeah. Oh no, I was I was like a hot topic goth kid. Oh, I ruled and I still rule fucking awesome. Yeah.

Seven string guitars, man, fully my shit. I think you rule, but I thought that was a type of music that like universally everyone was like that stuff. I don't know, man, because it like you could dance to it kind of like it was like heavy, but like you look like Mitch thinking about the clumps. Yeah, corn is my clumps, but I did own the mighty, mighty Boston CD, which is I guess Scott and the impression that I get is a good song. The rest of the album's bad.

The genre of ska is bad to me, so I will have to just say the inverse of what she said. Nick and I will disagree with you on you guys like ska. I went to like the WBC and River Rave and the mighty mighty Boston's headline that event, and I and I enjoy and I'm friendly with Dickie and I and I just went to and saw them and I haven't listened to the Boston's a lot, but I went and saw the Boston's at like the winter throwdown or whatever it is and they were they ruled and there's there's like a lot of that music that I stopped listening to that was like alternative in like late nineties and like even like weezer. I like just stop listening to you, but like less than Jake Nick.

I told you about it. Sure. I listened to, but I fell into a lot of that ska territory, but Boston's I like a lot of it when I listen to it now. I don't think it's that embarrassing. Yeah, no. Yeah, I don't think you should ever be embarrassed by what you like. Yeah, I was going to say you're a new you're you're you're you're being nice to new and new is and you okay with an so you know it's it's tough, but yeah, no, like what you like. I mean, I like Dave Matthewsman. I like them in high school and I still like them now and I'm a semi embarrassed by it, but I but also kind of proud of it right. Yeah, I used to listen to this guy. I was really into

and he had these songs. Oh boy. And I didn't it wasn't till later that I realized like he had this song fat and the song eat it and I was like I didn't tell years later. I was like, wait, these are existing songs that he changed the lyrics to. What was this guy up to? What is this game? He must be so weird. There's a song called Rota. It's not Yoda. You just changed the lyrics to make it a joke. What a weird guy. It was very weird. It was a weird of him. Didn't you didn't you strangle him on set of comedy bang bang? To show how much you like that. Appreciation move. When I was a kid, I rode competition rodeo so it's not cool. It was bad,

but I got really into at the time mainstream pop country because that's what all my little like friends were listening to and so they would play it. There was this barn where a lot of people we boarded our horses. We'd be all like in there grooming our horses and there was just that that damn Faith Hill album on repeat. Tricia, you're what I will still stand by because she got a voice she can blow, but like there was a lot of that like new country. Like I never went into Dixie chicks, but it was like just below that like Shania Twain, Clint Black, Garth Brooks and I was really like, yeah, it's the nineties and this is what I listen to and I'm so now when I go back to them, I just like I actively cringe while I'm singing every word.

How did we this? I can't believe we got this reveal. The two big reveals. Yeah, you guys give two huge reveals got Alex rodeo. Tawny got got McDonald's working Alex. I know a crew trainer. Thank you and manager and training. Wow. This is amazing. You had status. I had status. Yeah. Have you seen the rider? No, it's a movie this year that came out and I liked it a lot. It was like one of my favorite movies of the year, but it's a it's a it's about a horse ride like a rodeo show rider. Sure. And how he gets, he gets, which I find out is that he gets really fucked up and because he was like on Broncos and stuff like he was getting booked. He was getting booked and he gets messed up and it was one of my favorites. You should check it out, but it

seems like a crazy world. It was. Yeah. And like I was a little kid, so I wasn't doing any of this shit where you fall off. I did fall off once, but I was doing like, you know, they have the little events where you're like, your horse basically is doing an agility test and you're on it for some reason. No, that's English. So the Western version is usually like barrels, like speed barrels are like single steak or there's, I always tell this to Paul F. Tomkins and he laughs so hard at the name of it. It's called hurry, scurry because it is what it sounds like. Your horse is just like hurrying and like scurrying over a little jumps and obstacles and shit. Yeah. I placed in hurry, scurry. I did not get so you would get like ribbons and like championships. The closest,

like the highest I ever placed was future champion, which is the saddest, the saddest designation. Just say you lost speculative winner. Say you're bad. Yeah, that's like a wager and I like t-shirt we'd wear future champion. Yeah, all that pop country shit that can pound sand man. Wow. This is amazing. The plot twists here, the character development we're getting from our guests. This is big, Nick. You know, Mitch, I have a revelation. Oh boy. Spill it. You know how I said before I played alto sax? I also played baritone sax. Whoa, dude. Wow. You're a sax man. You can get a full octave and a half lower than you previously stated. Is that the interval in this? I don't remember. It's around that. Your background character that you are,

became way more complex. If you have a question or comment on what the world of chain restaurants is, you can email us at doughboyspodcasts at gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 830 Godot. That's 830-4636844. And to get the Dough Boys double, our weekly bonus episode, join the Golden or Platinum Play Club at patreon.com slash Dough Boys. Alex Kleiner, Tony Newsom, the podcast is the super group. It's now available free on Stitcher, correct? Tell us about the show. And the ear wolf. And ear wolf. Yeah. So despite our trash musical takes that we just had, that's not the show. I stand by mine fuller. Mine were trash, but the show is better. So Alex and I are both comedians and musicians in earnest. And so what we did is we assembled each a person

from each of those worlds, a comedian and musician. And we endeavored to write an earnest song, write and record it in a week. Yeah. And they span all different genres and types of music. And usually they're inspired by a story that our guests from the comedy world, the comedian tells us and we work with the musician and the four of us more often than not, we get the comedian like either singing or playing an instrument on it too. And it gives like comedians and musicians a chance to like play with each other. And we make the songs all available for download at the and we play it at the end of the episode and they're all available for download on iTunes and wherever you get music and now free on Spotify. Yeah. A lot of comedians

are just amazing musicians. Like we have Mark Evan Jackson playing like classical piano and trumpet and doing like a talking word doing full like Bon Jovi 80s vocals. It's awesome. Yeah. Rules that's very fun to do. Yeah. Yeah. Much better than this podcast. Check that out. You guys should totally come on and if we get a second season. So come on. Would we sing a duet together? What do you guys play? Do you play any instruments? Let's see. I've got I've got I've got two types of saxophone. I guess I've got woodwinds. I've got woodwinds covered although I haven't touched them in 15 years. I've got a clarinet saxophone and bassoon if you want to get double ready. Yeah. And the only thing I have is I have an okay voice. You have a lovely singing voice. Thank you Nick

but I have no I have no musical instrument. It was a little ants marching. He wakes up Dave. Is he? Why did I even entertain that? And Nick, why'd you pull out that bassoon? Where did it come from? We're going to get started. I'll do it for this episode of Double Eyes and I'll do it for the swimman Mike Mitchell. I'm Nick Weigher. Happy and see ya. Hey guys. So after we recorded this episode, something very sad happened. Brody Stevens passed away. He's a very, very funny comic and a very just like unique kind of LA personality that I think everyone who interacted with just just found to be a delight. Mitch, you and I both crossed paths with him. Worked with him in various capacities. I worked with him. He was the warm up

guy. I did a lot of warm but he's a warm up guy and at midnight a show I wrote on and he was there for a couple years and just just like a contagious energy and just just so so good at what he did. Yeah. When I was first in Los Angeles and coming to shows at UCB, he used to close out like comedy death ray slash comedy bang bang and he was on a lot of stand-up shows and he would, you know, he would drum and do his crazy Brody thing, which was always so funny. So many just like LA ultra specifics about the San Fernando Valley. Yeah. Talking about the San Fernando Valley. 818 area code. I was saying yes and he was in positive energy and stuff like that. He was, he was just such a funny guy and just

he was, he was just a such a fun guy to watch. But then also I remember I was, I did a comedy show. I was a very young comedian just being in LA for the first time and I saw Brody outside of a comedy show on La Brea. It was probably the old funnier die offices and Brody was like Mike Mitchell, you know, and he came up to me and he, and I talked to him for, and Brody could talk your ear off. I talked to him for like two hours outside of this comedy show, but this guy knew who I was and I was, I was brand new. I didn't, I wasn't no one. You know, I was just a young kid doing comedy with this sketch group and he treated me like a human being. He really, he really talked to me like I was just this young kid doing comedy. I was 23 years old or whatever. And,

you know, you'll meet comics and they'll be like, Hey, nice to meet you and they'll move on. But Brody like genuinely talked to me and wanted to know, get to know me. And we talked for a couple hours outside of this comedy show. And I'll always remember that he was, he was a really good guy. I'm sad that we never had him on our podcast because we should have had him on here at some point. And you don't think someone's going to be gone like that. And it's, it's really sad. The world is a less funny place with Brody not in it. So yeah, it's, it's, it's just, it's just really, it's really sad. You know, as a guy who definitely had had some issues with mental health for years and it's, it's very sad that this is, this is how this played out. The, I'll just tell a real,

real quick, real quick Brody story. So he did audience warm up for, you know, there was a thing he did for, I think like nine years or something. He did, he did a ton of it. He used to say he did over a thousand audience warm ups or something like that. Yeah. He had the exact number. I can't remember. He did the best damn sports show, right? He like, like, I think he did that. Oh, right. He did do opens for Chelsea lately. Yes. Yeah. That was his big one. Yeah. He was, so, you know, he was, which is by the way, an incredibly hard job. It's such a hard job. I did it once and it's so hard, but he did it. You did it for the birthday boys. I did for the birthday boys pilot, but he, so, so this was a, this was another pilot that he was doing warm up for,

that I was in the audience for. And this is, this is, this was years before at midnight. And so there was a moment where he had to, you know, if you're the audience warm up guy, you're kind of the emcee of the crowd. And so he kind of had to get the whole crowd quiet for a reset because they're going to retake something. And so he's up there in his Brody Stevens case. He's like, all right, everyone, very quiet, very silent. Everyone just, just, just get quiet, settle in, settle in, gets everyone really quiet so that it's just like pin drop quiet. The whole, the whole room is completely silent. And he just goes, BrodyStevens.com. And the whole place is like a rubs and laughter completely defeated the purpose of what he was

doing. But it was super funny. That's so funny. But our engineer Emma, who spoke up a few seconds ago, Emma probably knew him better than either of us. You worked with him, recording his podcast for overall things comedy. I just wanted to give you a chance to say what do you want to say about Brody? I mean, you guys nailed it. He just was like an infectious energy. And I think he was one of the rare people that are in this industry just for the comedy and the laughs, not for the fame and the glory and the money. I didn't even realize he was as well known as he was until he passed. And I was watching just Twitter explode. But yeah, he's, there's a really good thread. I think the comedian's name is John. John Roy. John Roy's been on our show before. Yes, I retweeted it.

He wrote this whole thing about Brody, how he did. There was a stand up show. It was like a week night and it was an industry show. The entire room was agents and managers and stuff, which is notoriously a really hard crowd for stand ups because these people hear it all the time. They listen to it all the time. Like they're pretty numb to it. They don't, you know, every, I guess the show was about an hour into the show. Everyone was really kind of bombing and having a hard time. And Brody went out there and just wrecked it. Like he just completely murdered. He had them in stitches and then the rest of the show just like, you'd have to, you have to go read the way John wrote it. It was, he explained it much better. But that was just, that was Brody. He had just a very

infectious energy and, and it's still not real to me that he's gone. But yeah, we're doing, we did, I was his producer for the festival friendship for the past year or so over at All Things Comedy. We're doing one final show tomorrow when you hear this, it will have been yesterday. But the video should still be up. We're doing it on the All Things Comedy Facebook page comedians are going to come through and just tell Brody stories and talk and whatever. I don't know how long it's going to be. We have the studio indefinitely for it. So it'll just be a bunch of Brody stories from all of his comedian friends. And it should be really fun. We're also doing, there's a show on March 5th at the comedy store. The tribute to the festival friendship,

Sam Tripoli has been organizing it. The tickets are on sale. They're 30 bucks a person. The comedy store does have a, I think has a two drink minimum, but all the money is going to Brody's family for funeral services, as well as a organization to benefit mental health, which hasn't been decided yet. We're working with his family to figure it out. And then at the beginning of April at some point, there will be another show at the comedy store with ATC, same thing, all to benefit his family and all that. That's awesome. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Well, yeah, definitely check those out and in Rest in Peace to a great guy. Yeah, Rest in Peace, Brody. Yeah. And we'll share that John Roy, a tweet, a thread on our social media, because

it really is just an amazing story that just encompasses exactly what, what he brought. Yeah, it's a, it perfectly exemplifies Brody. All right, Rest in Peace, Brody. Bye, Brody. That was a hate gum podcast.