Doughboys - Octdoughberblessed: Loving Hut with Raj Desai

Episode Date: October 18, 2018

Octdoughberblessed continues as the 'boys are joined by Raj Desai (Triumph Election Special, I Love You, America) to review Loving Hut, a vegan chain dedicated to bringing peace, love, and harmony. Plus, a holy grail edition of The Wiger Challenge.Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A reading from the Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 17 of Religion by the Three-Fold Kinds of Faith, Verse 7, Edwin Arnold Translation. For like his foods are threefold for mankind in nourishing, so is their threefold way of worship, abstinence, and almsgiving. Here this of me, there is a food which brings force, substance, strength, and health, and joy to live, being well-seasoned, cordial, comforting, the soothfast meal, and there be foods which bring aches and unrests, and burning blood and grief, being too biting, heating, salt and sharp, and therefore craved by too strong appetite.

And there is foul food, kept from overnight, savorless, filthy, which the foul will eat, a feast of rottenness, meat for the lips, of such as love the darkness. This week on Doe Boys, another edition of October Blessed, our month-long exploration of religious chain restaurants, with a vegan chain founded by Vietnamese spiritual leader Supreme Master Ching Hai, whose legend began when she used her third eye to reveal a copy of the Bhagavad Gita within a sealed box, loving hut. Welcome to Doe Boys, the podcast about chain restaurants. I'm Nick Weiger, alongside my co-host.

My husband just refers to him as my boyfriend, the Spoon Man, Mike Mitchell. Wow. Poor situation. I feel bad for everyone involved in that situation. That was courtesy of Melissa Haley, all month-long for October Blessed, instead of Roast Spoon Man, where I told you it's Holy Ghost Spoon Man, where people will send in their reverential tributes to you. They can do that at roastspoonman.gmail.com.

Well, thanks to the both of you. That's very sweet of you both. They get some sort of hot-wifing arrangement. What is going on here, exactly? There's no setup, Nick. Jesus. Boy, it'd be cool if Mitch was your boyfriend, huh? I could just kind of like, you know, watch through the slats of the closet door.

Watch me sit on the couch. Watch me order pizza. Oh, yeah. He's ignoring her and using his phone. Nick, how the hell does Boon Nation? Another year older, Nick. I mean, year older. Oh, yes.

You celebrated a birthday recently. That's right. How many candles to you, my friend? Oh, my thank you. Nick, I had a birthday party. We went and got some pizza at DeSano's. You weren't there. We're going to rehash.

I knew you were going to want to rehash this. I had a very... No, no, no. I'm not. I'm not trying to rehash. I had a completely reasonable reason why I couldn't have made it. I make it your birthday every year. This year, I was staying down on Long Beach because my lovely wife, Natalie, was doing...

She was doing the bike race in the Long Beach Marathon the next morning, which she had a... She was at 6.30 a.m. So we wanted to get to bed early and stay near the starting line. So that's why I couldn't make your party, which I would have loved to have attended. Well, thanks, Nick. I appreciate that. I think you're... Stop laying the guilt on so thick.

I gave you this. I explained this to you earlier. I think you'll never miss another one after the shit I put you through. Yeah, it's not worth it. You're on your own, Natalie. I'm going to Mitch's birthday party. He doesn't throw a hissy fit. To be fair, my party was at 5 p.m. in the pizza party.

Look, I know you were down in Long Beach. We're not going to relitigate this. We are. We're going to endlessly relitigate this as we have already about a half dozen times in a text message. Sometimes I just think a true friend would be there. You're the 36 year old man. I think you're back here.

You throw yourself like a sweet 16. This is insane. If you throw a fit, if all your friends don't attend, I throw a party because I like to see my friends. Right. I do. I know I'm not going to do it next year. No.

You know what? You're invited next year. Good. I can avoid all this drama. See, you don't want to go out ever. I would love to go. You're banking on me being dead by next year anyways. Well, I mean, I may have put some money down in a sports book and put the hell Vegas is

taking bets on me. Yeah. Yeah. You go to the MGM grand. So the over under and how many years you will live right now it's one. Nick. I think about turning 36 and then I think about what this must have been like for you about 20 or so years ago.

Okay. Hold on. I'm two years older than you. We're the same generation. Anyway, here's a little drop and this one goes out for you. My birthday gift to you. Hmm. I don't know if I'll be good.

I love the morning. I embrace the morning. I got up today. I went for a run. A morning. Yeah. Because I'm an early riser. Wow.

And I'll take care of business before I go up all night. Morning boy. Oh my God. The last morning boy. It's the afternoon rain. We didn't listen to this morning boy. She told me that morning. Look, I didn't know that it's not over.

It's not over. The drop is not. All right. It's over. A lot of tail on that one. Look, I said it was dedicated because it said morning boy, but I did not know that there is going to be a fart sound, which and a toilet flushing. I'll just say like it with, you know, was a nice change of pace because usually these

are so foul and sexual. It was nice to have one that was scatological for a change. So kudos to over created that drop for going into poop direction instead of a boner direction. Hey guys. Long time listener. One drop per. Keep up that great. What keep up the great warm and happy.

It's got to be a typo or it's going to be an auto. Correct. Yeah. W.R.M. We know we got no worms and this maybe it's a bug main. I don't know. They were probably trying to type work and it got changed. Great work.

That makes sense. The K is right above the M on the keyboard. Nicholas are. All right. You knew that too quick. Nicholas are. Nicholas are in Minneapolis. Send that to us.

Very cool. We introduce our guest. I thought it was cool. You didn't. Why are you lying to Nicholas are. Okay. Yeah. No, we time to introduce our guest.

I like that. Another guy was named Nick. It's good name. Jesus. Let's next together. Hey, you know our guest today is a writer and stand up from triumph selection special and I love you America with Sarah Silverman. Raj Desai is here.

Hi Raj. Hi. Thank you for having me. Oh my God. You've already sat through hours worth of bullshit. Thank you. Hours worth. It wasn't that long.

It wasn't that long. Um, Raj, thank you for being here. Uh, so, uh, we've, we've been working together on this show for, for some time. I've known you for some time before that. Um, you are a vegetarian. I am. Yeah. How long have you been vegetarian?

I was, uh, you know, my whole life. Um, until, uh, you know, culturally, uh, my family is vegetarian. Right. And then around 12 or so, my parents said you can do whatever you want. Oh, I have had all kinds of meat. And then around 22, I just kind of went back to it. Right. Yeah.

Did you, so you at 12, did you, you broke, you, you tried meat. Yeah. Yeah. I had everything and, um, my brother eats meat, you know, right. And my parents actually eat meat too. Oh, interesting. Uh, I don't, don't tell their grid, don't tell their parents. Wait.

So you're, you're, you're basically the one person in your family who's still vegetarian. Yeah. I mean, in my nuclear family, right, right. Extended family, a lot of people are vegetarian. So you kind of, you kind of had a stretch from, from 12 to 22. It was kind of like a rum spring out where you were just having like all the meats you could, you could handle. And then you reached a point where you just all meet it out.

Yeah. I think, um, I, I mean, I remember liking pepperoni pizza. I definitely thought that was superior to cheese pizza. Hmm. Interesting. You know, I enjoy cheese pizza. You know what I'm going to say? I like cheese.

I've said this before. I like cheese more than pepperoni. Okay. That's interesting. Yeah. And now I just, I remember enjoying pepperoni pizza and I liked, um, uh, like McChicken sandwiches. Oh yeah, right.

Fried chicken sandwiches. I never took to burgers or anything much. Right. I never really did it for me, you know, whatever. Right. Whatever reason. Yeah. I mean, like I grew up eating meat and I've had like a basic, I had like basically like

a six month stretch where I was a vegetarian and that's basically it. I've just been a, a, a big meat eater my whole life. I found that like when I, the stretch, you know, I try to minimize the amount of meat I eat now that sometimes it's, it's difficult with this podcast because a lot of times that's the, the only thing available at some of these chains this week's chain accepted. Uh, but it's, uh, it, like I do feel, I generally like feel better even though like I, like, like you can, you end up eating, I feel like more carbs when you're eating vegetarian. I just kind of like generally like feel like less heavy for lack of a better term.

I, I don't know. I mean, I definitely do, I am one of the vegetarian, you know, vegetarian people who kind of makes up for it with cheese and dairy, dairy and carbs, which is not really, you know, what you want to be doing with your, you know, with your diet necessarily. So I, I do think that that can be a problem for some vegetarians for sure. And I don't, I mean, I remember like, yeah, it definitely is, it is lighter, you know. Right. Yeah.

I'm never, Nick, I've never, I've never attempted it. Now one day maybe. I think for a for a day, I mean, I did, I ate at the restaurant, we ate at today. Okay. Okay. So that's it. That's, I mean, you threw, you threw some bacon bits on top, but a little thermos of sausage gravy, you poured onto it.

I didn't bring bacon bits and sausage gravy with me to the vegetarian restaurant. Yeah. I, I, you know, I remember I did a diet for a long time where I like veggie patties and when I worked at the Simpsons, when I worked, when I worked at, I worked as an assistant at the Simpsons, but then I just, I could order anything I wanted to all day. And there was like this big, weird diet that I did that where you like eat a ton of fruit and then you eat like eight slices of tomato and then vegetarian patty and there was like days where you didn't eat meat.

So there, so I would have days of no meat in a, in a, I'd be hungry a lot. I feel like a lot of the time with like, I feel like, I mean, it was also during a diet, so that's not, that doesn't help either. Right. But I always like to get some protein in, but I'll save, I'll save some of that for, for later because, because I was pleasantly with some, with some things I was pleasantly surprised about eating a, eating a vegetarian meal. Right.

But so as you, because that is, in Mitch touched on something that I think is, is somewhat difficult to achieve with a vegetarian diet, particularly with a, if, if people are vegan, it is like, what are your, your primary protein sources? Oh yeah. Lean on, lean on dairy a lot, it seems like. It's somewhat dairy. And then I, I do eat a lot of like black beans. Oh yeah.

I mean, I, and I do eat, I mean, this is such a dumb, I mean, if you went back 30 years ago, what a dumb sentence I'm about to say, but I eat a lot of fake meat. I do. I, I have a bit of a. Really? Fake meat fan. Yeah. Have you tried the impossible burger?

I have. I liked it quite a bit. Yeah. I liked the Beyond Burger as well. Yeah. I mean, Morningstar is a big one. You guys probably heard of. Oh yeah.

You know, Gardeen. Right. You know, it's a decent source. I try to focus on plant protein because like Morningstar isn't even good for you. Oh really? I don't think it's really that great for you. The thing that we haven't talked about on the podcast is, and we've never actually done the restaurant, but Mendocino Farms, yes, they did an impossible burger taco salad.

I love that salad. I have had it. It's really good. It's really good. I think it's a better use of, and this is, this is Nali's opinion as well. It's like a better use of the burger meat than the burger itself. It's kind of like the best context I've had that, that impossible meat in. It's really good.

It's really good. It really, if you gave me that taco salad and you didn't say a word about it, I, I blind, like with the burger, I think even with the impossible burger, I think I would probably know something was up. Yeah. But with the possible taco salad, I don't think I think you could, I think you could get me. I think, I think, I think, I think you would trick me on that one.

Only once have I tricked a meat eater, not even like trying to, but they had a corn dog and they thought it was an actual veggie corn dog. I thought it was real corn dog. I thought also like it could have been not even a food related thing. Yeah. I wasn't trying to. Yeah. Once I tricked a meat eater, I could take his breaks out.

He's dead now. Oh boy. Good drink. Good prank. Yeah. I mean, it's good. I mean, you just admitted to murder on a podcast. So, you know, but that, yeah, so how do you rank like the, can you say?

As a, as a fan of fake meats or someone who has those? First of all, like how do you integrate those into your diet and what context you're eating this? Cause I imagine you're not, you're adding like four veggie burgers a week. And then, and then secondly, like how is, how would you rank them? What would you say? Like are the, the, the best fake meats and what are the ones that like they haven't quite nailed yet?

Um, you mean like type of fake meat or brand? I mean, feel free to, feel free to go for both. Okay. You know what? That was a good question, Nick. Oh, thanks, Mitch. I'm shocked. What do you mean?

I'm shocked. Oh, Jesus. I feel like I do a good job asking the guest questions. Yeah. It's a great question. A lot of people. A good questioner. No, you're, you're one of the best questioners at that was insincere.

Let them answer. Mr. Questioner. Let them answer. I want to hear, I want to hear the answer. Yeah. Please go ahead. Uh, I would say like, um, you know, a good, uh, benchmark for fake meat is, is, is, uh, chickless patties or as they call them, or chick apostrophe and, um, those are, those

are a good way to like, like that's what I got at this restaurant. I got the chicken. Yeah. Just to compare it. Um, and then, um, definitely like some of the fake, uh, fake burgers are good. You know, like the possible beyond, but then like, I don't mind the soy patty. I mean, I don't mind them. Um, that would be like, um, Boca is a soy patty.

That was a, that was the thing. My family would, if, if they wanted to mix it up and not do like a beef burger or turkey burger, my dad would have like the Boca burgers. We'd have those on occasion. Yeah. But then you know what, you know, you're like, that is that one really trying to be, is it trying to be like, is it trying to be like the taste of beef or is it kind of its own thing?

I think they're just like, we taste a little off. Yeah. And they have fake grill marks. I mean, it helps, I guess. I mean, yeah, I can see the box right now with the fake grill marks on the thing. It's just like, okay, but, um, and then, um, I would say like a lot of them get kind of shitty, like, you know, orange chicken, red ones or riblets are pretty bad, not dogs are not bad.

Uh, that's actually an actual brand, I think, um, tofu, I'm sure you guys have had tofu. It's okay. I mean, it's not really fake meat, but it's, it's serviceable. I like tofu quite a bit. Yeah. By the way, not dogs. I thought that's what cats were. Oh my fucking God.

Dear God. Not dog. You call Dwalli and Irma not dogs? Yeah, they're not dogs. People get what I'm saying. Yeah. I actually like tofu quite a bit. And if I, like, a lot of times when I'm getting like Thai food or something, like, I'll like

to have a tofu with my protein. It's very good. Yeah. It's nice to mix it up. It's a great way to, if you have something flavorful with it, it's very good. If you eat it plain, it's, it's pretty, pretty, pretty bland. I think not dogs sounds like, uh, you know how you say bad dog? Yeah.

Not dog sounds like a, like a good, a different reprimand to confuse them, like, not dogs. And then they, they're, they're very confused. They have an existential crisis. My whole identity was based around being a dog. Do I not like chasing balls? Do I not like sniffing crotches? What is this leash all about? I don't know if I want to eat out of a dish anymore.

Give me a plate and a spoon and a knife or a fork. We're talking about dogs this whole time, or is this, is a, was this a rundown of your, your favorite thing? Sniffing crotches. I, I remember the first, and I wonder, I wonder, I'm sure that you went there. You're a very funny stand up. I used to see you at a comedy death ray back in the day, and then comedy bang, all the time.

And so I'm sure that you probably ate it at this spot, but there was this place right on bait. You know where the Oakwood departments are the, and then, and then basically right down the hill, there's a little vegetarian spot that's like on, maybe it's Cahuenga, but like right there where universal is like that little bridge. There was this place that was supposed to be this great vegetarian restaurant. It's like a little shack. Really getting granular with the, I, I, I'm a specificity here.

I know, I know, but I don't talk about the Oakwood apartments. Cory Hame died there and they, they were built in 1983, PD Pablo stayed there when I was there, but there was this vegetarian restaurant there that was like known to be, and I just, I feel like this is, this is 2005. Yeah, so things have gotten so much better, but I remember my, my roommate at the time was a vegetarian, Rafi Goldbergstein, and he was like, we get to go here. It's this place is amazing, and we went, excuse me, and we went, and it was, and I, I disliked it so much.

Right. It was like such, like such a bummer to me, like, uh, like there was like a, I got like a big burger and, and like we got chicken, like chicken tenders too or something. I was like, man, none of this tastes. Yeah. It was trying too hard, but in the time that's passed, I've, of course, eaten at some vegetarian and vegan restaurants and I think it's gotten so much better. It's gotten a lot better.

I definitely cannot understand, you know, I understand maybe the health aspects, but if you're a meat eater, it cannot possibly taste as good as the real thing. I mean, those, those fake meat items, I mean, it just can't, right? I can't imagine. It's always a substitute. And, and, you know, I find like when I, when I eat vegetarian, I like to like have a dish that's designed to be a vegetarian dish, like, you know, like, like I mentioned Thai food or like Indian food or like something that's like, oh,

this is a vegetarian dish. This is, this is by design. This isn't something where we've got some sort of substitute in here for like, you know, at least for someone who can have the, or who treats himself to the real thing when he feels like it. Cause yeah, I also, like for me, one thing, and I know I asked you this earlier, but, but I'll volunteer my answer. I think the thing they haven't quite figured out with a vegetarian, a vegetarian

equivalent is bacon. I feel like, oh yeah, bacon is always pretty whack. Yeah. It's pretty bad. But I mean, it's, um, I mean, I, I, people obviously love bacon, the real bacon, but I, I guess I can't remember exactly what that was like. The veggie bacon is just like salty sticks or something. You know, it's not that great. I was, I was, I was just, I was thinking of a, to, to have a, you can't not

remembering bacon to me is like a, oh no, bacon is your religion. It's like a Twilight Zone episode. If I couldn't remember what bacon tasted like, I never hear anybody remember how much they like bacon and it's not a thing on the internet, especially it's weird. That is a very, we, we, we, we've kind of, we have talked about that times before, like a, a bacon crazy is it's an annoying, it's annoying, right? Bacon culture is a recent point where it got a little too over the top.

People were just a little too into it. Well, I don't like bacon and desserts. They started putting in the desserts and I don't need it in a dessert. Yeah. That always felt like a gimmick. I like bacon with eggs. That's, and, and, and on the same, what's occasionally, I like a BLT, well, maybe BLT, um, uh, I, oh shit. I forgot what I was going to say.

Nick, I got, I got to, I got to cut up and bacon. Yeah. You're having this. You're still trapped in that nightmare when he can't, coming out of your head and just has sizzling bacon. I don't know how that always happens. So, uh, one thing, cause you talk about someone as, as you had a phase where you were eating meat and oh, did you remember?

It was, it was basically along this line. I was, I was going to say your, your, your family was vegetarian at one and in that 12 year, 12 years old, you said something in that range. I would say end of elementary school. My parents were just like, well, you guys do what you want. And then they kind of started to, you know, they started to do it. They, and why was it religious reasons or was it? Yeah.

I mean, for, for centuries, like, you know, our, our culture has been vegetarian and many people still are. So, um, you know, uh, I'm Hindu, right? And some of my parents are, of course, and, and, and my, um, whole family is, but, uh, we're sort of from a particular part of India called Goodrat. That's like a state, um, that really is heavily vegetarian. You know, just like 90% and, and I think like, uh, a lot of people, including, you know, like my mom and some of the, some of them are just

vegetarian because of the guilt, you know, more so than like, it's like a big deal. For sure. So, um, but that's all, you know, things are changing in India as well. I mean, you can definitely get any type of meat you want. I mean, beef is hard to come by. That's the main one, you know, and the whole concept of it, you know, is, uh, is that, um, you know, God is permeating every living creature. So you should not eat, eat meat or kill insects or that type of thing.

That's the idea behind it. You know, and, um, that would be, it would be hard just a cockroach or something. It would be impossible, you know, to, to, to, to deal with that. So, um, you know, people do what they do. But I think like the vegetarianism has, it's pretty, I would, I might, you know, there's probably whatever 1.1 billion people in India. My guess is at least 500 million are vegetarian.

Wow. This is my guess. Yeah. I mean, you probably can't get an accurate stat on that, but it's, it's pretty up there, you know? Yeah. Which is, I mean, a good thing for the world to do in many ways. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think like, uh, and I think, you know, to Nick's point, I think that it did lead to that cuisine or our type of, you know, there's all types, just like in China, you know, there's all types of Chinese food, there's all types of Indian food. So ours is not really what you would get at an Indian restaurant here or sort of what you would call Gadrathi food, but it's all vegetarian and it's all,

you know, built to be that way. Right. I know it's not like, it's not, uh, chicken, apostrophe, you know, it's all meant to be that way. It's, so it's in some ways it's better, you know, it'd be weird though, if it was just like, you know, just fake meat, sloppy Joes with like an eye. All right. What, what, what type of, what type of food would you have?

Is it like, uh, in my experience with, with Indian food, I get here is there's like a lot of curries and kind of soup, like a more soupish, but a stew, stews. Yeah. Yeah. And those are, um, those are mostly, uh, you know, there's all types of Indian cuisine. I will definitely say the stuff that made it out of the country is, is what you're having, which is North Indian food. And it's definitely the, probably the best.

I mean, it's, it's the tastiest. And, uh, you know, so with that, you get a lot, a lot of curries, of course, rice and, and naan is the bread that comes with it. But I think sometimes people, I'm not saying you, but people think that naan is some common thing to be, you have to have a stone grill, a stone oven to make it. It's not commonly made in homes, you know, I honestly, I did think it was. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, it's very tasty, but it's sort of a special occasion thing. Oh, okay. But, um, because that is like, and, and, and I feel like every writer's room I've ever been in, like people go nuts about now. Yeah. I mean, it does taste, it's great. I love it too. But our, our food, uh, you definitely get like, um, uh, you know, a bread, but it's,

it's way thinner. It's made of wheat, um, and, um, and then some rice. Is that a roti or is that roti? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I like roti. Yeah.

Yeah. Um, I'll often opt for that over naan. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Little lighter. Yeah.

It's definitely lighter. It's wheat and, um, that's mostly what I grew up eating. And then other, other few types of bread as well. And then, um, uh, the, the dishes are not very curry heavy, to be honest. They're, they're more, um, flavorful, but dry. So, uh, and it's, you know, like mung beans, if you know what mung beans are, you know, um, potato, cauliflower is a big common. I mean, you can get cauliflower at all.

All you need in restaurants, you know, and, um, uh, um, uh, eggplants, um, all the vegetables that I just greens that, um, you know, beans, string beans and that kind of thing. And that's, it's probably all like flavored relatively similarly to all of them. I don't think there's that, that too big of a difference. And then I would say like, um, the rice is usually white rice usually. Yeah. Um, and so it's, it's definitely different. And then I would say, you know, I grew up eating it every day.

And then did you, did you spend any time in India? I've been there many times. I never lived there as like a permanent resident, but I spent summers there and, and yeah, pretty familiar with, with, uh, with, you know, I've been all over the country too, all over India. I got a question for you. What's the fast food scene like over there? Oh, that is a question.

Well, you know what? It's, it's, uh, I will tell you this. So I must have been in Bombay or Mumbai in like 97 and there was like a KFC. There was a, you know, like one or two and it was like a big deal. I'm a McDonald's, you know, a big deal. And then I think I went in 05 or something and it was just like Subway sizzling. Just like you were, I was just, could not believe it.

You know, wow, they're all there. They're all, many of them are there and then like Starbucks is there in a country that's known for tea, you know, and it lines out the door. I mean, people are just dying to try it because it's this big Western thing, you know. And like, so I was totally blown away by, um, by that. And even in smaller cities, you can see like a Starbucks or McDonald's and that type of thing. And it's Subway is a big one. Um, and so I, I, I was definitely like, because I remember, you know, India when it was,

frankly more poor and less developed and so, and I see it every five years or something. You know, I don't see it. It's just not in front of me growing. So I really noticed it. And it was, that was something that totally stuck out. Domino's Pizza Hut. That's crazy. Everything.

Yeah. Yum, yum brands is there, I guess. I remember I went, I went to Jamaica in 2000. Nick, I think there was a KFC in the center of town. And then like at night, it was just, I felt like it was like a thing that was like such a, like there was, maybe it was newer or something like that, but it was just, it would be mobbed. There'd be so many people there. It was, it was such a crazy site to see just the thing where people were going crazy over

this kind of like one thing in like the middle of this, of this town. It was, it was, it was insane. How spoiled are we in the States? You got KFCs there. When's the last time you went to your local KFC to show your appreciation? Yeah. Get out to your KFC. Go to your local KFC.

Spend some time there. Thank the employees. Thanks to Colonel. Thank the Colonel. Hashtag thank the Colonel. Nick, you know what? Yeah. I'm going to get some KFC just because of all this.

Wait, he's leaving. All right. You song, get over here. You're in Mitch's chair now. I don't think so, baby. Stay on the couch, you song. So you mentioned, you mentioned being Hindu. How observant were you growing up and how, what would you say your observance level is now?

I would say my observance level is as close to zero without being zero. I mean, I am a vegetarian, so that does count for something, but I don't. And I would say as a kid, I think it was, I think if we had grown up in communities, whether there was more, more people to draw from, it would have been more active. Because you grew up in Dallas, correct? I grew up in like, in like Tennessee and Arlington, Texas, near Dallas. So, and there weren't a ton of, there weren't enough people to sustain like a temple or that type of thing.

Right. So I think I do know just from my extended family that people, if you have that community, you end up doing at least something. But I mean, we didn't do a whole lot, my brother and I, and my parents just didn't have the ability to like, right, really, not that. What is, what is like a typical service like with like a Hindu service? Is it like you, you go to temple and you go to temple and I, you know, you, you, you often sing and pray, which are common to a lot of religious worship.

And then you typically, you may have seen it in a movie or something. You, you, there's like a holy flame and you put your hands over it and you sort of draft your hands over your head or something. That's sort of the end. You probably have seen it in something. Right. And then you usually donate money to the temple. So I was like, my dad is a, he's a, he's a chemical engineer and he definitely was like,

I don't believe in any of this stuff and don't tell my mom, you know, this stuff is nonsense. And he, he is now, I mean, his, his parents are dead and he's just like full out. I was like, I don't want to go there. They're just going to ask you for money. He just, he's totally, you know, in every, every religion or someone like that. This is nuts and I'm not touching it and they just want your money and it's all sham. My mom is more, more like willing to accept. So I think like everybody, because of her mom and dad, you know, she, she wants to

stay active, you know, do something for it. But my dad, yeah, my dad is just like, I know this is dumb. I mean, I got hit, you know, he, you know, he, he, you know, he got out of the village, he took science classes and was like, this seems way more logical. So, you know, you can't, you can't blame him, I guess. I think, I think the donations are a thing that every religion seems to have in common. Yeah, that's the one commonality, the money factor. But I was going to say the, the, the, I was going to say the flame thing

sounds kind of cool actually of all the, of all the, the religions that we looked into. It seems like one of the cooler things to do, Nick, if don't you think it is a cool thing? Yeah, it's like you're, you know, you're getting God's blessing basically. Yeah, I'm surprised you'd say that, Mitch, because I'd expect a Frankenstein style reaction. You're scared of fire. Dear God, I'm going to throw you into the fucking lake, Nick, just like Frankenstein threw the girl in. Good. That's how I want to die. But I would also say now in many communities, including Douseforth area, there's, there's

temp, there's, you know, there's, there's a lot more of it. Right. There's more people immigrated, you know. Right. Nick, when it comes to fire, I'm a little less Frankenstein, a little more Beavis. Beavis likes fire. Beavis likes fire, yeah. Someone's going to make a cornholio drop now. It's going to be 16 minutes long. Good. That sounds like a good drop. It does sound good. It eats up. Look, I mean, our guests are nice for coming on the show, but the guests don't want to do it. You and I don't want to do the show.

We should play a 60 minute drop and then talk about stuff for 10, 10 to 15 minutes. As much of this, the 90 minute runtime we can fill with stuff created for free by our listeners. They just makes our lives easier. And created by Mike Judge. So you mentioned, you mentioned Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington as someone who, you know, such a big meat eating, I feel like, like, like, I mean, the South in general, Texas in particular, such a big meat eating area. How did you feel in your vegetarian years living there? And then also when in your meat eating phase, what were your kind of your Texas faves? Was

there, did you, did you find any affiliation towards barbecue or anything? Sure. Well, you know, when I was young, you know, I got to Texas when I was like six or seven, and you know, you're just eating what your mom makes, just making our, you know, sort of traditional food. So I wouldn't say that I was too affected by it. Also, I will say Mexican food is beloved by Indian people because a lot of it is vegetarian. Oh, that's true. You know, beans are, it tastes great, you know, man. Yeah, you're right. You get some cheese enchiladas, some refried beans and rice. That's a great veggie meal. My friend, my friend's family in college, he was a guy who was Joe Rusty,

he was a vegetarian. They ate a Taco Bell a lot. Yeah, Taco Bell is mostly, I mean, I think like, I think if you just don't remember meat, it's all vegetarian. I think it used to be the rice hats. I mean, animal fat, but I think even now it's not even the case. So I mean, I mean, that, that was a great intact. DFWR certainly has great, you know, great Tex-Max, great Mexican food. So I would say, I mean, I had all, I mean, I had McDonald's and you know, people always make fun of Arby's. I kind of thought Arby's was good. I don't know. I like the beef and cheddar. I don't know Arby's. I agree. It's always the punching bag. Yeah, we're Arby's defenders. We think Arby's is pretty good. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I just feel like it's like the go-to

reference for like garbage food. And I'm like, I don't know. I kind of thought it was, and I guess I think at the time I thought it was high end compared to like McDonald's. No, that wasn't more expensive. Yeah. That wasn't a misconception. You're correct. It's one of the nicer restaurants out there. I think, no, but I think do is point. I think that they really do. It seems like that you can get a turkey sandwich or something from Arby's. You know what I mean? It feels like actual, like it feels like actual product. It doesn't feel like this weird like, like, oh, this is a super processed like glob of meat substance that's formed into a patty. You're like, okay, this is like, for me, you go, you know, Jack in the box is not considered as trashy

or Carl's Jr. You're not considered as trashy as Arby's, but I think Arby's has a quality, has a higher quality product than then either does. That's my guess. And they charge more, which indicates that the product might be a little higher quality. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Plus how about that Bing Reims of voiceover campaign? That's a lot of fun. It is great. Oh, he's either, we got the meat. So we got the meat guy. I did not know that. Yes. That is interesting. Ethan, we got the meat and you got 15 seconds before that bomb blows. Try the two beef and cheddars for five dollars is the bomb his stomach. Yeah. Yeah, they shoot both those at once. So

they're shooting the Arby's commercials on set of Mission Impossible. Yeah, I was at the only way can work out for a schedule. I mean, it makes sense. Ethan at bacon to any menu item for 150 for a limited time only and I will say Arby's was the first place I had curly fries and I was like, these are amazing. I mean, I loved curly fries. I don't really. I'm not a huge curly fry guy. And really fries are great. I love them. I love the season fry. Yeah, I was wondering why at the end of the new Mission Impossible that Bing Reims tells Tom Cruise that he has to do this. He has to try the new buffalo chicken which Arby's

it feels very incongruent and like where does come from? I don't remember this being set up earlier. Maybe I missed something in the second act, but there's a lot of Jamoka shake reference. A really weird IMF team was Jamoka shakes. I don't know what that's all about. Was there was there ever a fast food commercial where you know how the sweat moment in Mission Impossible won? Yes, there had to have been some food thing where they where they where they ripped that off and something went into a shake cup or something right a drop of it. Did they never take advantage of this? Yeah, a little bit of condensation coming off of somebody's beverage. Yeah, I don't think anyone did a parody of it. Well, we got our next commercial pitch season. We got our idea.

We're going to go around and pitch this idea. We're going to pitch commercials. Is that part of what we do now? Yeah, it's pilot season for commercials. Go around. You try to sell your commercials. Any of the big agencies want to take a meeting with the boys media commercial ideas, but a Buick spot where it's like racing the flash. I guess you could do that. I don't know God a lot of this partnership. Will you give something? My idea about the the one I just said and what is the idea? The shake something falls. Ethan Hunt has a shake and then a there. The blender shoots up one last piece and he catches it in the shake while he's hanging from the rope. So your idea is to get Tom Cruise

in a fast. All right, you know what? Fuck you. All right. We've never worked. This is the only thing we've ever worked on and it's good this way. We should never work together. You get mad at me when I try to have the dough boys delivery line. You try to change which I found the text of which I sent to you. Yes, I know we settled that this was a miss. This was a miscommunication. Here's what it was. You said that you wanted to rename the dough boys hotline, which we have here, the voicemail, the dough boys delivery line. That's what you said on the podcast. But in the text, you said you wanted to have an episode where people called in live, which we currently don't have the technical capacity to. We could figure it out. We could stick a you song on it. We don't

have the technical capacity to do it. Our voicemail line is just a voicemail box. So we'd have to like give out yours or my phone number or make a new phone number like to do it phone number. Yeah, I know. But I'm saying we currently don't have a way to do it. So we'd have to figure that out. But you want to call that episode the dough boys delivery line. And I was like, I'm not sure if that makes sense for the context of this is a live call in show calling that the delivery line, but we can call the voicemail the delivery line. That's fine. But the argument was like that you thought I didn't understand what you were saying. And I was saying, I do understand what you're saying. You were telling me it was a bad idea. I was saying, no, I said the idea of an episode

where people call in live is a good idea. We don't have a way to do it. We could figure it out. You said in that text, I don't like the name. I said, I don't like the name. That's bullshit. The name is good. We're using the name for the voicemail box now. Damn it. It's fine. We came to a compromise. We should end the podcast, Nick. Hey, I agree. We're the 37 minute mark right now. Pull the rig. This one specifically. No, I mean, this was just the end of the whole show forever. We say bye to Raj. Say bye to Spoon Nation, Burger Brigade. Raj, what do you think? Do you think we should call it? We should call this, this should be the series finale. I didn't know what you're getting yourself into.

So, so, but no, no, no, hold on. We got so much more planned and dough boys coming up in the next year. Stay tuned listeners. You don't want to miss out on all the many features we got coming up. We're adding another Patreon tier where you song sings to you. I don't know. We'll figure it out. We're just gonna make you song do. Yeah, two things. I think he's crying in the couch. He's gone. Like he's kind of gone to a joker thing now where he laughs at things, but he's he's gone crazy. Yeah. Yeah. It took working for us full time for like six months for you song to completely have a psychotic break. All right, I'm back on. Look, we shouldn't have thought about it. I'm sorry.

No, it's fine. I think we're on the same page with this. So, so, but you like like outside of chains was was there anything like with was there ever like a brisket or yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I've had a I've actually had like my my brother is a big food guy and and so I've had like some pretty famous Texas barbecue. Oh, wow. Sonny Brian's. Did you go to Lockhart ever? The that's the place I'm my brother as I have not been there. Yeah. Yeah. And like so I've had some of it never really. I mean, it sounds so dumb, but I think I preferred the sides. I think I was like, I like the cornbread. I don't think that's that. I mean, I think they're the sides for barbecue are great. Yeah. And especially a lot of times

because like especially out here and and you know the the there's good barbecue out here, but the it has a ceiling. It's like LA barbecue. It's never going to be as good as what they have in the south, but they do. They can do the sides for baby blues. Did they're do you see the mural they put up? No, they put up a fucking LeBron James mural. Yeah. That's cool. No, it's not. Someone someone already like did like throw paint at it or something. Oh, that was that's where those murals were those ones that kept getting vandalized. Yeah. It's so absurd because and also do you remember how I had that paint all over my hands for the last year? Look, I understand why you have it out for LeBron. He was a he was a rival for the

your Boston Celtics for many years. Now he's playing for your most hated franchise the Lakers, but he's a great player and a good humanitarian. Sure. Yeah, you say with you say with great reluctance. Sure. Whatever you say was your brother. Is he is he the type of guy who's like man, you don't know what you're missing with me with me. Does he does he ever does he ever try to rub it in your face a little bit here and there, but I think he also because our, you know, just the way we grew up, our family, he just is used to having to order one thing for himself. Right. Like to watch other people, you know, not eat meat. So he definitely will be like he definitely will say stuff like that, though, like this is really

good. You should be eating this. I'm like, you know, even when he comes to LA, he wants to go to like, you know, burn joints and yeah. Yeah. I feel yeah. Do you do you take him? Will you take him to vegetarian vegan restaurants or will you take him to like he wouldn't eat at those places? I mean, he's he's a maximizer of his meals, I would say. Yeah. Like, you know, you only get two to three a day, you know, you know, we'll make sure they count. So yeah, on the money. Yeah, except for that two to three part. That was a pretty good one. What are your favorite? We've talked about this on here a little bit, but the

Gracious Madre have been too. Have you have you been there? I would say, yeah, one of the best. Yeah, it's very it's really and that's one of the places that that that I when I tried, I was like, oh wow, this is very good. This is really, really vegetarian Mexican place. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Is it vegan or is it vegetarian? I want to say it's full on vegan, but I think I'm not. I think it might be full on vegan. Yeah, I'm unsure. Yeah. Oh, wow. Alright. Have you been there? I actually I don't. I think I've ever eaten there. Alright, so the guy's been there is the one who's unsure about it. Yeah. I think I think it might be vegan. It's great. Yeah. What are some of your other big spots? I would if I had to pick like the two best sort of, you know,

restaurants. I would say gracious. I would have said that and I would have said crossroads at near the Hollywood improv right now Melrose and owned by Britney Spears. Is it? No, no. No, Nick, it's owned by Bone Thugs and Harmony. Yes. No, no, you're both wrong. It's owned by Ralph Machio and Jamie Gertz. It's a really old vehicle. Right. Rajed, I had something else I wanted to ask you about before we get into this week's chain. You have an alter ego, the Mr. Hyde, if you will, to your pretty normal Dr. Jekyll. That's right. Called the Rajman. That's right. The Rajman comes out on Twitter and I've noticed the Rajman has some hot takes on food. Yes. I wanted to read a couple of these here and sort

of get your reaction to that. I don't know if you can even speak to them because it feels like you're in a completely different mindset when you're writing these. That's right. Yeah. Okay. Here we go. Here's one. Food chain, food pyramid, food. Could you make up your mind about how you want to be organized? Because I'm getting hungry over here. Food you just got snacked on, a.k.a. ripped a new one by the Rajman. Now that was, I mean, I guess you make a good point. It's like what have they settled on terms? I remember food groups as well. That used to be a thing. Could. Yes. Yeah. It just is, you know, make, you know, I'm here to eat you. I'm not here to watch you organize yourself, you know. Raj, I like that a lot. My thing that I fear is that

Nick is going to come up with some fucking alter ego. He tries to push on us. The white man white man sounds like it sounds more like slender manish. It sounds like a like a scary a scary thing. The white man is kind of a freddy creature wants the dreams of children. Here's another one from the Rajman. The pumpkin spice. Well, I should give the date for this one because we'll give some more context for it. This was dated on 28 the 28th of August. The pumpkin spice latte is back already. What's next? The shamrock shake in January. Give me some room because the Rajman just doubles up seasonal chain beverages. Hashtag two Bevs ones out. Now you really did. You really did Starbucks dirty on that one. Yeah, yeah.

You know, you shoot from the hip and you know, sometimes you miss your target. Sometimes you hit it dead on. Yeah, no, they got it right between the eyes. Hey, if that shamrock shake came in January, I wouldn't be complaining about it. Yeah, no shit. Here's one more. This was a little bit more extended. Breaking news. The Rajmans cheesed off again. So I go to Subway and they're calling their employees sandwich artists now. Yeah, because Picasso was best known for scooping tuna salad onto a six inch wheat. Also, anyone else getting sick of this Jared guy? Subway eat my zap. I should note the date of this one to October 10th, 2018. It was yesterday. Jared's been on the news for a bit. Yeah, yeah. You know, the Rajman, sometimes he's a little behind the times,

but he still brings it to that's more of when I started stand up. Yeah, there were eight hundred bits about they call them artists. I mean, what kind of artistry is so I, you know, so and a lot of Jared is annoying. And then I remember when Jared was a pedophile was like, boy, he really those guys really had something. They knew something about this guy, you know, four thousand standups. I saw talk about how much they hate this guy. They sense something about him. Listen to the open mic. Yes, we know what's going on. We call we. I mean, we're also hacks and we called it early on that that a that Jared was no good. You guys that someone was off. Well, Mitch, Mitch said that the something was up with Jared and I stood by him, which does not reflect

well on me. Doesn't reflect you. You're lucky that we meditated today, because I you're, you're, you know what? I'm, you're, you're, you're testing my boiling points like that MTV show. I'm testing your boiling points. You just keep, you keep rousing me. I wasn't rousing you. I was rousing myself. Okay. I said that you said that you pointed out that you didn't had a good, had a bad feeling about it. And I said that I didn't. I was like, I kind of defended. I'm on another plane. Anyways, it's all good. Have you ever meditated before? I have kind of tried, but I haven't achieved it. If you know what I mean, I just haven't. I mean, I'm, then I'm just thinking of, uh, then my next takedown. I can't focus. We'll take a break. We'll be back with

more dough boys. Welcome back to dough boys. We're here with Raj Desai. Loving Hut is this week's chain. And does this, what is, what is the religious connection? I mean, this is a place I texted you and it said that it was basically run by a cult. Yes. So, so the reporting is kind of all over the place in terms of what, what organization is actually behind Loving Hut. And we know that it's founded by a woman named who goes by Supreme Master Ching Hai and who is a, is a, is Buddhist, is a practicing Buddhist and, um, which Nick, you and I, we did it today. We went to a meditation. This was something that on, on this, the, the previous, uh, the episode of dough boys double or our Patreon episode that comes on Tuesday, we went with our buddy Ryan Stanger

and talked about the experience. You know what my issue is with this? Yeah, they say to like explore every corner of your mind, you know, it's not a lot of room in my brain of mind. So it's basically just like a cupboard. You know what I mean? Right? Yeah. You get so much skull pressing in on that acorn sized cerebellum of yours. They're like, go deeper and deeper. I'm like, I'm here. I, this is all I see. Everything I need to see right here. I, I, I, the, it's, it's funny to me because when we were searching for places to do this, uh, this one popped up when we were kind of looking for, and it was like, this place that's run by a cult from what I, from what I gather today in our, my one experience with the, with the, with the Buddhist faith, they are the most

peaceful, nicest and cult has just such a kind of scary, dirty word to, but Nick, do you, do you, do you know the history of this or no? All I know from it is, is that there is some certainly the organization that the spiritual leader heads up is, is like a subset of, it's kind of like its own sect. I don't know if that's, that's exactly the right term. Um, uh, but you know, there's, there's not like an organization like Catholicism with the Buddhist faith that's kind of like this overseeing, as is my understanding, that's kind of like, you know, a global organization that oversees how it's practiced. Um, but yeah, in, in terms of what exactly it, how cultish this, uh, this organization is, it's, it's hard for me to determine because it's hard to find like a really objective take on

it. Um, but this is like one of the few religious chains in America that isn't explicitly Christian. Uh, and, uh, uh, we, uh, there, there are 38 locations in the US, uh, over 100 locations, uh, in addition to that worldwide, they're mostly concentrated in Asia. Um, uh, Supreme Master Ching Hai is, is, uh, from Vietnam. So there's a lot of locations there. Uh, and, um, this was a chain I hadn't actually hadn't even heard of prior to this, uh, us doing this exercise. Roger, you ever heard of loving hot? Did not. And, um, I get when you first said, I, I thought it was Pizza Hut and I was like, Oh, I used to work at Pizza Hut. I know Pizza Hut quite well. You don't like pizza auto corrected to loving in my phone. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Never heard of it.

Uh, you, you worked at Pizza Hut? I did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What were you doing at Pizza Hut? I was a cook. Wait. So how, what, how old were you when you were working there? This is like your first job? I was, it was my first job. I was 16. And then I also worked there in college when I was like 21. Right. So you, so you, you worked in like the, the old huts basically, though, though, like the, the actual restaurants, like the, well, one of them was a delivery carryout only. Right. And then it's now also got a wing stop. Uh, yeah. And then the stops really, they really got in there. Yeah, they did. And then the other one was like, we had like the buffet and everything. Oh man. Was that Pizza Hut buffet? Better times. Shit. That's, that's

what made America great. Just bring back the buffet, the Pizza Hut buffet. I take it easy with that. Because I said, that's what made it great. I did actually, I do really like the, because there's, there's still an old shakies near where we work. Um, like that freestanding shake. Yeah. Right on Santa Monica Boulevard. And it's like, I like those places where it's like a pizza parlor where you can go in there and you can sit down, hang out. The Pizza Huts, unfortunately, I think, I think, actually, I think now is the time when Pizza Hut, you know, they were trying to rebrand to the hut for a time. I think now is the time when Pizza Hut should open like a half dozen in, in big cities of old school Pizza Hut parlor. The hut shaped building. Yeah,

exactly. Just open them up and they'll become attractions partly for nostalgia, partly because people are craving that sort of community. Don't even get me started on Duncan, which it's now called. It's fucking bullshit. Big mistake. Fucking sucks. Drop in the donut. Hey, look, you know how much I love it, but hey, I got a, I got a question for you. Wouldn't it be funny to be in a shakies during an earthquake? Yeah, you'd be like, it's shaky and they'd be like, yeah, I know it's shaky. No, it's shaky. So in this situation, the employee doesn't get that an earthquake is happening. Yeah, it'd be someone, they didn't quite know what was going on yet. You're trying to convey the gravity of the situation. It's, and when an earthquake happens,

you yell, it's shaky. Right. Yeah. That's what I yell every time there's an earthquake. Lifelong Southern Californian Northridge Quake. It's shaky. They yelled at shaky's first thing immediately. So what was your, like, like, did you have a good impression of Pizza Hut? Did you long for Pizza Hut as someone who used to work there ever? You know, I would say like one really interesting about working there was, it was incredibly diverse. Like, ethnically and up and down, like the education ladder and everything, like, you know, I was going to college one time, you know, and people hadn't gone to college. It was just, it was just a really interesting place to work. That's cool. The employees or the clientele or mostly the

employees? The employees. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the clientele, I didn't have a ton of interaction with them. What that type of question? Yeah, but the employees are really interesting. I don't know. The clientele is all over the map. Oh, whatever. I will tell you this. When I worked there the second time I went in for the interview and I basically said, you know, I used to work at one of the like guys, the guys like, oh, you're hired, the manager. And I come back and I go, oh, you know, he's like, come back Saturday at six or something. I go back Saturday at six and I'm like, where's Aaron? Oh, we had a fire and he was doing a heroin in the freezer. Oh my God. The guy who hired you? Yeah. Did you still have a job? And then the guy goes,

well, tell me about yourself. I used to work here and like when I was six, he's like, you're hired. And then he got, then he got fired for the same reason. And I was just like in the freezer. That's crazy. Yeah, so weird. Jesus, but man, so strict pizza hut. Yeah, yeah, the guy got fired. Lay off it. Yeah, dude's got to relax during his shift. It's stressful. I think they were introducing the edge pizza at the time. Oh, boy. Everyone was on edge. All of America. So we all took different paths to loving hot. I went to the Huntington Beach location and this was a, you know, the interior design of these. It's kind of like, you know, it's it's very. What day did you go? I want to back off.

I told you I was in Long Beach already. You went on Saturday. Is it my birthday? Yeah, I want the day, the day you were having your birthday celebration, but it's because I was already down there. I know I was just fucking around. All right. I had you sit at a, yeah, paperless post. It was screw Mitch's birthday. A few of us got together down there. I'm gonna be fucking surprised. But, you know, the interior design, you know, it has like a lot of the, it has a lot of like, Buddhist symbology and, you know, it has a lot of like pictures of Supreme Master Ching Hai. One of the oddest things, the oddest details, and I'm not sure if you noticed this while you were

there, Mitch, but they have a channel that was live streaming a thing called suprememastertv.com. Oh, yeah. No, I 100% noticed it. So they're playing that for, and it's just on a loop in there. And otherwise, you know, fairly normal looking restaurant outside of a few presences of Supreme Master Ching Hai. And, but actually, you know, I'm gonna play a little bit of this because it is live streaming on the website and we can kind of get a sense of what this is. So here's the kind of thing you'll hear on suprememastertv.com. To distribute the relief items in Lucknow of Renge within Baguio City, the destruction was overwhelming with many houses and properties completely destroyed

due to a landslide. One local woman shared her heartbreaking story. So this is like a really grim news broadcast right now. This is some sort of natural disaster in the Philippines, but the screen is covered with so much text. Is it subtitles? Yeah. Yeah, just covered with subtitles in every language. And it's kind of, it's just a weird presence because it'll have footage of things like this. And then it'll also have footage of people giving like faith demonstrations. And then it'll also have like footage of people making vegan recipes. It's just like kind of intersperses between them. Some things that are just like verses on the screen that are being read. It's

a strange eclectic sort of a television station. Well, you could also tell from like the bells ringing or like the music or whatever, like there's just weird sounds coming from it. So you'd hear like little bells or right, like kind of like that, that little music happening every so often. It was, it was, it was weird. A lot of strange, a lot of strange audio cues and definitely the strangest feature of this place. This was the Huntington Beach location was a new location. It's opened about, it opened about a month ago. So they seemed a little like they were still figuring it out in terms of service. Like there was, it was unclear whether you ordered the table or versus you ordered the counter. I ordered at the counter, I paid there,

but they still brought me a bill and then explained that it already paid and they were like a very apologetic. Everyone's very nice, but it was just like clearly a little, a little chaotic. I mean, this chain, and I guess there is just, it is almost openly really, I mean like a, the Ching, Ching, it's her name is Ching High, right? Yes. I mean, like it feels of all the, the restaurants we went to for October blessed. Yes. This one felt like the most, like this feels like there's something here. You know what I mean? They're wearing it on their sleeve. Yeah, exactly. You look at on the menu. There's, there's messages from Supreme Master Ching High. A lot of it is talking about like, you know, there's a lot of evangelizing about

veganism, about its value to, you know, spiritually and to the, you know, to the, to the planet. Raj, you would, you would like it because when you're in there, it's like, like go vegan and become a hero. Like it's basically, yeah. Well, I looked at the menu when I was ordering and I was like, it is kind of flattering. It's, you know, saying, right good for the world. You know, there's, there's a lot of things out there, which is, I mean, I think it's an admirable, admirable thing and I think it is very nice. It just is a very strange vibe and also this is, this is one of our, our bigger international chains really because there's, there's places in Europe, South America, Asia, North America, Africa, Australia. Yeah, there, there, there

aren't in and out burgers all over the world. There are, there are, there are loving huts. I forgot they're going to change for once again, but, but, but not not and I'm not saying like this is one of the biggest international I've ever done, but, but, but the funny thing is, is that there's only a hundred and forty restaurants, right? So that's a pretty low number for a something that's global. And every place I believe has kind of like a different like not a completely different menu, but the menu switched up a little bit. They take some liberties. They don't have like a, like the franchises are, are commanded like with the Wendy's, where you have to offer the Baconator, you have to offer the Dave's Double, like they

have like a very strict menu list. They have a lot of, they can, they can mix it up a lot, which actually became an issue with, with Raj's order, which we'll get to in a second, but the food I got, I got a Pinky Lady, which is cranberry juice and soy milk. I got the LH nachos, the loving hut nachos, which are fresh corn tortilla chips, corn, onion, fresh jalapeno, vegan cheese, and chipotle sauce topped with salsa. And I added to that gradient soy strips, which was a weird way to put it on the menu. You would think they would put like, like, like what you were saying, like, like, you know, chicken strips or then enter something that's called them gradient soy strips, like not even, not even getting bullshitting.

This is exactly what this is. And then I also got the Kung Pao IQ, which is soy protein with jicama, carrot and celery, and a spicy house sauce, red and green bell peppers, roasted peanuts served with special dressing, salad and steamed rice. Kung Pao IQ, is that what it was called? Yeah, I don't know what the IQ is all about. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe it's for the Brainiacs. So the peeky lady, I was, because I asked the woman working in the counter about it, and she was like, you know what, it's weird, but it's good. And she was right. It was kind of like this delicious sweet Pepto Bismol. It had that same chalky, I know, which is weird, because it has that same chalky consistency as like something that you would take for an upset stomach. But it

also had like this nice subtle cranberry flavor with it. And I actually found it quite delightful. It was like a diluted iced smoothie. Jesus. I know it was weird. It was like, I was like, but her assessment was correct. It was strange, but it was pleasant. I like drinking it. Not too sweet either. A lot of times these sweet drinks at these chains are super duper sugary. And this one was not. The nachos, I will say they were not so much nachos as corn chips with a bunch of stuff on them. Like they didn't, they didn't congeal or come together in any sort of nacho like fashion. They came out cold. Like they weren't, it wasn't like they were sitting out there. They were cold. But I thought they might be cold by design because it didn't seem like they tried to heat them up.

And, you know, it did have a lot of the avocado chunks, which was really nice. The fake chicken, which was the gradient soy strips, they were basically like a breaded chicken simulation, were not bad. The salsa verde was not bad. The vegan nacho cheese just had no flavor at all. It was just like it, it was just, it was just texture. It just offered no flavor. And then the black beans and olives, they just didn't have a lot of that. Jalapenos helped a lot. But here's what I'd say. It's just like there was too much going on. I still couldn't stop eating it. I was still like, I kind of just kept munching on all the bites because it was just like it was, it was weirdly addictive. But like flavor profile wise, it tasted more like ceviche than nachos, which is weird.

Partly because I think it was so cold. But it was just, I felt like it was getting the seasonings of that you'd get in a ceviche. Vegan cheese is hard. It's so weird. And especially that melted, it does not, it just, they have not found a way that they pulled that off at all. And the Kung Pao, I thought was good. It was like a great Kung Pao flavor, not super spicy. They didn't try to approximate me with a protein. It was just, you know, it was just a soy protein. It was just like a tofu, lots of peanuts. It came with a little, a little side salad, which was nice and simple, just mescaline greens, tomatoes, carrots, with a kind of avocado salsa type green, goddess-y dressing. Quite nice. It was just a nice compliment, nice balance,

because it wasn't just, you know, this, this protein and this, this starch, the rice. You got that little salad accompaniment. And the rice was very well cooked. It was great white rice. I thought this was a very nice vegetarian dish. It was a good, a Chinese style Kung Pao dish. And I really, I found it quite pleasant. Mitch, what was your, what was your trip like? Nick, I made the drive out to Claremont, California, lovely Claremont by myself, home of Harvey Mudd College. Is it Harvey? It's a Harvey Mudd college. They got like four colleges out there or something, but I saw that bucket head was from there, and there's, there's, there's a couple of interesting people from Claremont. Another reason to play, to pay tribute

to your local KFC bucket head. Without that, we wouldn't have bucket head. Claremont, it's about an hour away from where I am. A 50 to 45 minutes, if you're lucky with traffic. It's a strange place. I'd never been there, Nick. It is like a, like a town out of a movie. Like I, I pictured like dazed and confused happening there or something. Like I drove by the high school. I was like, this looks cool and nice. It was like a weird little suburb, which is weird because I went, it's east, you know what I mean? Like I always just picture it to be like kind of more deserty and kind of more nothing out that way. No, but it's not just the high desert out there. There's some, there's some little patches of different communities. Claremont. And then I found out

that it was like ranked like third on the best places to live or something. Yeah. I think it's very, it's very rich and very, you know, because of, because of all the liberal arts colleges out there. It's like a very. Yes. What is it called? The, like the college, there's like seven colleges. There's a bunch of them. Yeah. And they're called something. Right. And they're like extremely hard to get into, but it's funny. I drove by there and everyone told me I was really smart. I was smart. That was the compliment I could come up with. I am fucking dumb, but they all just said I was smart as I drove by Jesus to Christ, a guy in a mortar board just waving at you. You're smart. That's what happened. Okay. At this genius college. So I went to the Claremont location.

It was like in a little more and I'm like, oh, it seems kind of like they're like progressive people in Claremont, and so this makes sense that this exists here. I went in. There was a couple of people sitting there. My server Adrian was he was he was my my waiter and he was he was great. A super nice guy. It seemed like he was very much trying to like get everything right and and be like people, please. So you did have table service at yours. I did. Yeah. Okay, interesting. And he came up and took my order. I got myself the quesadilla with with a pineapple salsa for a drink. I got myself the pink lemonade. Then my main course was the Tacos Diego, and then I decided to before before I I thought I can't just get these. It's all I get to try

something that kind of feels like it would be hard to do. So I got right. I got the chicken strips basically, which were just like basically chicken. They're trying to be chicken tenders with the side of ranch, which it was just soy soy strips in there kind of their whatever what's it called their breadcrumbs or whatever, the gradient soy strip, the gradient soy strip with within their within their whatever their breading is whatever they're breading and which was good, but I'll start. I'll start off from but the pink lemonade brought to the table. Adrian did it was and it was a regular lemonade. I said this is pink and he said no and he went back and he changed it up. He got the he added. I think what is hibiscus possibly. I don't know what it was, but the but

the lemonade was good. It was fresh squeezed. It was really well made. He told me that it was fresh squeeze. It tasted really good, right, and but kind of like a floral taste to it. That was great. I was. I liked the drink and then he brought out the quesadilla. The quesadilla, the bottom of it was a little bit charred, a little bit burned, burned, but I was nervous about this because of just vegan cheese. I thought it would be bad. It was surprisingly good. Were they trying to do like a cheddar or jack? What kind of cheese was it? It is. I think they were trying to do like a jack, but it was just a bunch of different vegan cheeses. I have. I have no idea. There was some spinach inside of it and then there was a then there was this thing that was there was

like some sort of soy or non meat protein that looked almost like meat balls almost like kind of like a and I didn't know what it was and I and it didn't have it. It wasn't on the menu and but it didn't bother me. The pineapple salsa was almost just straight up pineapple. It was it was it was barely a salsa, but it was it was fine. And then when they brought out the tacos Diego, I just wrote this. I said it was good. I was shocked. I was truly shocked. It had there was like a well. There was guacamole with a quesadilla to and then there was guaca. They for my two things. I kind of went south of the order kind of entrees, but they they added they they laid the guaca on on both of them and the guac was good. So that was that was helpful, but it was just fake chicken

diced up some sort of protein, lettuce, jalapenos, guacamole, and then rice. And then when I was when I was eating and then on these tortillas, which were pretty decent sized tortillas, and there was two of them lettuce and then kind of like a ranch sauce on top. When I was eating these tacos and I got to taste the rice. I was like, I feel like a rice dish is what makes this place. And I know that you got that's what you got and and and I was because the bites with the rice and the guacamole and everything was were great and it didn't it didn't bother me that it wasn't. I truly I was really surprised. I feel like sometimes when you get chicken like that we've talked about this, Nick, but bad quality chicken. I almost would rather have it maybe be

a vegan meat or exactly right when it's like kind of like a shitty diced up virgin virgin, a shitty diced up version of that. That's like that doesn't taste good or taste game virgin. Sounds like one of Freddy's victims. You saved yourself for death. Freddie famously going after virgins. The horny kids all live and then so I so I so hold on. I'm going to look at the yeah. The case you know with pineapple salsa was a whole wheat tortillas, plant based cheese, soy pro. Oh, it's okay. There was soy

protein and organic spinach. Yeah, with a side of pineapple sauce and guacamole. The tacos Diego. I'm going to just tell you what was in there and I was it was tough looking at the menu because I was trying to go with something that I would enjoy right and some things I was afraid of, but there was like a dish with like a spicy eggplant and rice that looks pretty good to but I just I did. I wanted to kind of hit something that I thought would taste good and it worked. Taco Diego's corn tortillas mixed brown and black rice, guacamole, organic lettuce, tomatoes, jalapeno and cilantro, crispy protein topped with creamy ranch dressing and serve with the side of pineapple salsa. Again, the pineapple salsa was not great and then the the final thing

I did was those chicken strips, which was just in the the soy protein and and that was like that that was basically just a straight up just straight up soy right you know fried or whatever and the crispy wings with housemaid dressing and their crispy crispy tender soy protein crisps with spices serve with creamy housemaid dressing. They were good too. All three things were good. I was shocked. Yeah, they did. They all tasted good. I mean the the crispy wings were the thing that I was like this is not me and it's trying to be something, but they they still were good for what they were. You know what I mean? Like I agree. Other other times I've eaten stuff like that and I've and I've hated it and these ones I was enjoying. They seem to have a pretty high quality

product there. Mitch, when you were driving out of Claremont, where people waving and saying there goes the smartest man who's ever been in this town. Actually, no, you know what happened when I was leaving them. I got to make sure that I that's all the food. Yeah, that's all the food I got on the way out. I'm this guy, Chris, who worked at a how do you say is it Lemley the theater family, the family theater chain. Yeah, he he I was walking by and he was waving at me. I thought there were some sort of situation and he's like I like dough boys and he said tell. Why Gary sucks and then he was like why the hell are you in Claremont? But a very it was a it was a very nice experience, much way nicer than I expected and I enjoyed

the food way way more than I thought the taco. I would eat those tacos again. I liked them. You're just beaming because you met a fan who insulted me. I mean, it was great colored your whole experience. Did I hate everything before that moment? No, he apologized you online. He said that he regretted saying it, but I shouldn't have shared that part of the story. Raj, you also got your food from the loving at Claremont. We should we should discuss real quick because you were this is a this is an insane obligation to expect someone to drive an hour and a half out of LA as we did. So our producer you song lovingly picked up loving hot for you. It's an insane obligation. That's why we stuck you song on it. He's getting paid. He's making college credit.

He's texting the action boys trying to get a new job. So this we talked about the menu variants for these chains. So he originally was going to the Garden Grove one. You sent over your order from the Garden Grove one. And then for traffic reasons, he ended up shifting to the Claremont one as well. Hey, that was a big Mitch save right there. This is a big suggestion. Completely different menu there different enough for the items you've or you ordered were not they weren't done. Yeah, they weren't on the Claremont menu. But what did you end up getting? Yeah, it's very strange for a chain. Yeah. Yeah. Well, my strategy was to get one, you know, Asian dish because that was a decent part of both menus and one standard sort

of like fake meat, right? So the appetizer I got was the crystal rolls with mixed herbs, which comes with organic apples, carrots, cabbage, cucumber, tofu and herbs wrapped with rice paper and served with sweet and spicy miso dipping sauce. And they were so I got that. And then I got the meal. I got the spicy tender burger, which is a tender protein patty with spices, organic tomatoes, avocados, lettuce and red onions with pesto and spicy mayo spread. And then I got a slice of carrot cake. Let's talk me through it. How was everything? I thought the the crystal rolls were were not bad. They were they were they were decent, right? Yeah, they weren't bad. I mean, it's they seem pretty healthy, which is good, you know,

and the the miso sauce was was okay. And the tofu was well made. I thought they were they were pretty good. I mean, you know, the apples in a in the roll is unusual, at least my experience. I noticed that and it does. It was interesting, a little sweeter, right typical, right? I think partly because the apples. And then I thought I thought, you know, I would give very high marks to personally to the spicy tender burger. I've had many fake chicken sandwiches with in varying places and, you know, veggie grill and all the sort of other ones. And this one was was quite good. So this is it's called a burger, but it was more akin to a fried chicken sandwich. I think so. Yeah, yeah. It just looks like probably what Mitch hat for his appetizer. They basically

turned it to a big patty. Oh, yeah, put a red, yeah, which the breading was good in that. Yeah, yeah, it doesn't. It's it's it's funny that they are just like whatever it's a burger, because who cares it's not really a burger. Right, right, shit. Did that come with french fries look like it came with it came with a crinkle cut french fries that were seasoned and I they were great because I have not had crinkle. I don't remember the last time I had them. They could just be alright as but I enjoyed them. I love a crinkle. I know because of Del Taco. Yeah, it's not the only reason, but I do like I do like it. Do you ever go to Del Taco? I have been there. Yeah. Also, you can get some very tasty vegetarian stuff. Oh, absolutely. There's half pound beating cheese

burritos. Yeah, those are great. And they have now they do. Is it the impossible meat that they do? They have an impossible way. They have an impossible. I don't know if it's impossible meat. It might be actually I think it might be. I think it's the same protein, but they they only have it at two LA area locations. They're both on the west side, but I've been meaning to try it. I mean, we should do it for the show. I mean, you would never drive over the west side. That's right. But but you can bring it over here. Alright, I'll bring over some fuck. Yeah, those will travel well. Some hard shell tacos. I believe those are my car for 45 minutes. We'll do it when it comes over here. I come over here every week. I know I'll go over there. You know,

I drove to Claremont for God's sake. That's true. That's true. That's true. But the yeah, I I think they do a I'd be interested to see how they do it because like they have good like you mentioned, they have good, you know, quesadillas bean bean based entrees that I think work well and and I'd be interested to see how they get the fake meat. And then so you went with the by the way, if anyone out there also likes crinkle cut fries, hashtag crinkle. Yeah. Yeah, craze. Oh my God hashtag crinkle craze. I don't like the I don't like how you said crinkle and then craze and then tickled your neck. It looks like what was that as a nervous twitch. He took both hands and kind of tickled it. It is. Mitch is correct. Here's what was happening. I was going to tug my

collar kind of like a but I went. I reached with both hands and they were just pulling on each other in the opposite direction with the same amount of strength. You decided not to pull your collar when you thought crinkle craze was perfect. Yeah, the crinkle craze is great. And if you don't like them, hashtag crinkle unfazed. So you let you end up the meal with that carrot cake. Yeah, how was that carrot cake? Carrot cake was was pretty average at best. Yeah, I got to be honest. And I've had a few vegan carrot cakes and it's a tough one because you're dealing with the icing right to simulate. It's a little like the cheese. It's tough. Yeah, I will say. Yeah, but it was, you know, fine. Is that the reason you you gravitated towards carrot cake?

Is that one of your favorite drinks? It is. It is probably the preeminent favorite. Raj is very weird. I feel like why would people choose a cake with carrot in it? But yeah, I love it. That feels like the kind of thing the Raj man would take down. Yeah. What are they? What's put this carrot in my cake? Exactly. What am I supposed to dip this thing in ranch dressing? Yeah, I mean, I'm a man of contradictions, I guess. I think it's this spicy sort of, you know, like jijiri frosting thing. Oh yeah, they've got the seasoning and that is quite nice and a cream cheese cream cheese cream cheesy frosting is. Yeah, yeah, I like carrot cake quite a bit. Hey, hashtag a carrot cake fan, hashtag carrot cake craze.

Hashtag carrot craze, carrot cake craze or hashtag carrot cake on face. These are all home runs. Let's let's get to our final thoughts on loving hut. So here's how this will work Raj. We're each going to go around. We'll sort of give a closing argument, if you will, as a man who used to be a lawyer. You're familiar with that and then and end by rating it on the order of zero to five Supreme Master Forks. I like that. But Supreme Master Forks? Yeah, I sure, whatever. We normally do Forks, but in honor of the Supreme Master Ching Hai, zero to five Supreme Master Forks. Raj, you're a guest. We will begin. Wait, how about Spoon Master

Forks? Spoon Master Forks. There you go. And a shout out to you song's mom. Wait, Spoon Master still uses forks? Oh, whatever. We should explain. We should give us some context. You song's mom referred to you. Not as the Spoon Man, but the Spoon Master. Yes. You're right, though. I guess Spoon Man doesn't use forks. Let's Supreme Master Forks. Supreme Master Forks. Raj, your closing argument and your rating. Okay. Well, I will say, you know, the chrysorals were tasty. They were good, definitely solid. I thought they, you know, sort of a good, good, good way to wet your appetite, right? And good. And then I would say the sandwich was the tender burger or the fake chicken sandwich was excellent. I would say

as good as any I've had at your typical vegetarian restaurant. So, you know, high marks there, crinkle cut fries. I'm hashtag crinkle craze all the way. Hell yeah. Don't even have to question it. I can't even conceptualize the concept of being unfazed. And then the dessert, I would say, was pretty, pretty average. Right. Yeah. So I would say, you know, interesting menu. I think it's interesting that they have different items you could go to. You could make your meal in the morning at garbage grove and then head on over to Claremont and then hunting the beach, you know, have three totally different styles of food. They had pizza on one menu. It's wild. Yeah. But, um, and I didn't get the full

experience of going there. But, uh, you know, I did watch a, um, an episode of King of Queens on live stream. So, you know, that worked. Same thing. So I would say, uh, I would give it four supreme master force. Wow. Wow. Very good score. Yeah. Okay. Mitch, go ahead. I drove to Claremont thinking I was going to drive, you know, like you were going to take this big long trip and it was going to suck. Yeah. I was going to eat at this restaurant. I was going to be bad. Then I'm eating there and I'm thinking, but I'm up, but, but, but am I loving, loving? Right. And I'm eating this food and I'm enjoying it. I don't miss the meat on the, on the, the Diego tacos at all and the, the both of the, the case deal was nice.

The chicken strips were nice, even though they felt a little bit that you could tell that they were soy proteins or whatever. Uh, and the, the, the lemonade I had was great, fresh squeezed lemonade and it was really, and, and the service was really great. My, uh, my guy Adrian was, he was awesome. He was, he was, uh, he was very helpful and, and I asked him about a few things and he, and he was, he was helpful with the menu. He was, he was awesome. Man, this is look, I don't know the deal with the, I mean, we went to a place that basically, the only thing we knew about it was that it was possibly a cult, right? The buddhist religion is a very, uh, it's, it's, it's a very positive religion and, and, and, and my experience with

there earlier today was, was really nice. I don't know what the deal is with this whole cult thing and, and, and, and, but I will say this of all the chains we went to, this, this was the, that this felt like the most religious or the, the, where it was the most on display. Yeah, it's the most overtly religious for sure, including pictures of Bill Clinton that were hanging up, which are very strange. You had Clinton in your restaurant? Yes, you didn't have Clinton. I mean, was he in like a temple, Buddhist temple or something? He was just a random picture. It was, it was just, it was just, it was a random Clinton, Clinton was up on the wall. Wow. It used to be a DMV. It was like in 1996 and they just never took it down. Wow.

That's weird. Clinton came in too while I was there. Oh really? He's like, all right, good. My picture's up there. Perfect. And then he walked out. What was it? I just want to make sure his picture was in it. I just want to make sure that I feel like he just came here. That was such a good impression. Was that Bill Clinton? Yeah, I often feel that way. I, the only thing I realized Bill Clinton after he had, you remember he had that heart attack and then he became, he adopted a vegan diet. So maybe they're like, that's a famous. Oh, you know what? That, that's got to be all right. Yeah, but he was, he was hanging up there. Yeah, there was, there was a, there was a crazy crew of people that were hanging on the wall. I'll show you the pictures, but

man, this is as, I don't know why I wouldn't say four forks, but that seems crazy to me to here's the thing is that I read. You know what? I got to say four for I have to because it was, it was really good. Wow. How can I not say for like a part of me? And look, here's the thing is that I read reviews and it looks like it's really hit or miss. Yes, but they hit with everything. Look, the bottom of my case. The deal is a little burnt, but I, I turned out I liked that right, but I don't know in my experience. That's what it was. I'm sure that there's a because there were some people that were like this place sucks that were on the review. That's why I thought I was going to be bad, but in my experience, that's what it was. It

was four forks. There's, I think you got a big expectations game going on here, you know, plays into life, but definitely meals, you know, what you're expecting is a big part of it. Yeah, no, and it definitely flipped my expectations. I thought it was going to be bad. It was, it was quite good. And also the thing that we judge to buy Nick, too, is the of how are they doing what they set out to do with this restaurant? How like, how good a job are they doing? And right, I feel like they're doing a pretty good damn good job. It's, it feels like everything is, it feels like you're in a weird Buddhist restaurant when you're in there. So like, I think they're, I think they're doing it. So right, I got to go, I got to go for man. Yeah,

and to that point, you know, what they're trying to do is they're trying to offer vegan versions of both Western American comfort food and then, you know, East Asian dishes and that they're, they're offering both on their menu and, you know, I think what you spoke to Mitch earlier of like the, the, the ingredient quality seems pretty high here and I think that that seemed to help I will say it's expensive. It's expensive, but it's, it's not like, I mean, you come out of one of the other vegan restaurants kind of in this price category, like a veggie grill, like a, like a veggie grill is like also expensive. I think veggie grill is actually more expensive than this place or similar or similar. Yeah. Similar in terms of price, price

point. But you know, I think you're always paying a little bit of a premium for this kind of, especially if there's, if they're simulating something that's a meat dish, it feels like there's a little bit of a price premium there over using just cheap meat that they'd use in a fast food restaurant. Peaky Lady Enjoy, the Kung Pao IQ I enjoyed. The nachos I thought were, you know, they were, they were kind of a miss. I still kind of, I still ate almost all of them and I think they still had, they still had like a nice sort of, you know, quality to them. They just weren't nachos. I think they just didn't accomplish simulating nachos at all. They were just sort of like this weird sort of chip dish. But you know, as I arrive at my, at my overall

rating, I think I'd like to read from the Supreme Master Ching Hai's message, which is printed on the menus. I have a dream, a dream that all the world will become peaceful. I dream that all the killing will stop. I dream that all the children will walk in peace and harmony. I dream that all the nations shake hands with each other, protect each other and help each other. I dream that our beautiful planet will not be destroyed. It takes billion, billion, trillions of years to produce this planet and it's so beautiful, so wonderful. I dream that it will continue, but in peace, beauty, and love. I think that's a really nice sentiment and you look at how many, you know, kind of a, how many these asshole capitalists in charge of these chain restaurant megaliths

are actively destroying the planet and actively imposing large degrees of suffering on the animals raised in factory farms that are used in their product. I like the spirit of this. Sign me up for that cult, I say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, if that is even, even what's going on here. But overall, I agree with you, Mitch. I agree with Raj. I agree with the, that this chain accomplishes what it's trying to do to a degree of proficiency. And I think it absolutely belongs where we're going to put it. The Golden Collection Plate Club. Oh my God. Welcome, welcome, Loving Hut. You receive five forks. This is, this blows my mind. This blows my mind. Yeah, this happened. Four forks all around handholding club and a golden plate club for,

for Loving Hut. Yeah, I mean, it definitely surprised for me, but a pleasant one. Wow. Well, hey, that was our review of Loving Hut. By the way, I'm going to check in on Supreme Master TV real quick, see what's going on. It says the results. Okay. There's some sort of a humanitarian who is giving a talk about the value of vegan food. Is this the live feed of it? Yeah, this is the live feed. Maybe, maybe just play music instead of the TV going on. Yeah, I put ESPN on or something. That might be the only, that might get you up to four and a half forks. It's just the word Supreme Master. They just creep you out. It's a little weird. All right, it's time for a regular segment. I've got a mystery beverage

and Mitch and Raj must guess what it is. It's the Weiger Challenge Grail Edition. So here's how this will work. You guys will each take taste of this beverage that you have in front of you. I'm not going to tell you, you can look at it, you can describe what you're seeing, you can describe what you're smelling and tasting, but from that alone, try to guess what it is. And in the spirit of the famous grail scene from Indiana Jones. Wait, we'll turn old and die. One of you will turn old and die. The other of you will have eternal life, but you can never leave Mitch's apartment. Nick, Nick, did you take a sip and turn old and die? Come on. I look youthful. I may be older than you, but I look youthful. I have a boyish look about me.

My appearance is not cragged and old. An old man. You have a boyish look about you. That's what you're going for. I'm not actively going for it. How often does Nick in the room take out a big lolly? I only when he has his sailor out. I have an idea. This Nick, this looks insanely green. It looks like some ecto cooler type drink green. Yes, but I don't think it's ecto cooler. It smells a little tropical or fruity. I'm going to dig in and see how it goes. There, Mitch has taken a sip right now. So this beverage you song secured for us, and it has been poured into blue solo cups. Mitch is making a face from having tasted it. This is a strange Weigher challenge. I don't know what the fuck this is.

You song, is this some sort of fucking green tea shit? I'd be pretty on the nose with all the references we've made to you song enjoying green tea desserts, which I think are fine. I like green tea desserts for him to pick out a green tea based beverage. No, but that would be pretty on the nose. What do you think, Raj? It's green. It is a bit of a tropical. I will say that. Not Mountain Dew. Not Mountain Dew. Not Mountain Dew. I do taste some sort of deity. I feel like there might be some sort of fake sugar in this. Yes, it tastes a little. Yeah. Yeah. Or if there's maybe it could be an energy drink of some sorts. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

It's not Mountain Dew, but I do feel my sperm count going down. Is that happening before you took a sip of it? This is a very hard Weigher challenge. Good job, you and you song. Good job. Damn. You can. There's no time limit on the Weigher challenge, but if you'd like to tell me if you have made a guess, one Weigher challenge went three hours long. Yeah, it really is a lot of dead air. The stakes are not particularly high. The winner gets the balance of the bottle. So whatever is left over. Okay. Mitch, what do you think? I'm going to go with, oh man, I'm going to go with some sort of citrus. You know what I'm going to go? I'm going to go with a Mountain Dew

the Mountain Dew energy drink. I forget what it's what the Mountain Dew. I don't think it's called AM. It's like Mountain Dew Kickstarter. And this is the tropical flavor of that Mountain Dew energy drink tropical flavor. That's all like that's all I can. That's I also think that this is very much could just be a fruit juice drink that I just don't know. So Raj, any thoughts? I'm going with something I've literally just seen in supermarkets and stuff cactus cooler. Is that a thing you guys have heard of? Is it a like I feel like I've seen around. I'll go with a fruit punch fruit punch flavored cactus. I mean, I have no idea. That's a great guess. Yeah.

Boy, this is tough to judge. I'm trying not to. I'm trying to keep a poker face here. But Mitch Raj, you have both chosen poorly. What? This is I mean, it's just far off enough from from both of you. This is actually a brisk iced tea plus watermelon lemonade. It's a 50-50 Arnold Palmer with a little bit of watermelon in there. I don't think I could declare either of you the winner. I mean, you're both just pretty far off. Okay, you know, you know what? When I look back, what's dumb is there's no fizz, you know, so it couldn't have been. So yes, I was very thrown and I was trying not to look like a, it was trying not to have my eyes bulge out of my head when

you said cactus cooler because that was a childhood favorite of mine. I know cactus cooler is decidedly orange. Yeah. Oh, okay. But it's fair for you to assume that it would be green. Yeah. All right. Relax. That's why I thought. No, but it's because like cactus is our green. Of course that you would think it was green. Oh, Nick, what's happened to me? Are you turning into Bill Clinton? Yeah. Wow. Is that a weird event? That's what happened. All right, I get to get out of here. I get to go check Love and Hunt. Okay. You're going to go double check that your picture is still up there. I doubt they've taken it down within like 24 hours. Hey, Nick, yeah, I'm glad that you served it in a blue. Okay, you know that blues my favorite. Okay,

I don't think that you know what I do to blue stuff. I mean, I know the famous blue dress, but I didn't think the fact that the dress was blue was the reason that is. Oh, that was a motivating factor. It could have been anyone in there. Yeah. How do you react when you see the sky or the ocean? Yeah, you must be horny all the time. I am. That's true. Tracks. Yeah, this track. Fully tracks. That was the Weigar Challenge Holy Grail edition. Just like a restaurant, you via your feedback. Let's open up the feedback. Today's email comes to us from Dylan Allred. Dylan writes, I spent the last year fighting the Battle of the Bulge and I'm doing pretty well. Hell yeah. However, I like Nick enjoying adult beverage now and again. The problem is I have

trouble controlling what I eat when I'm intoxicated. Are there any healthy drunk foods? What are your favorites? P.S. My company is paying me for me to come to the Burbank area to attend a convention since the company is paying. Where should we go eat? Wow. Thanks for the question, Dylan. Healthy junk food. Is that what he said? Healthy drunk foods. Oh, healthy drunk foods. It's tough. And I would say, and this is not, you know, as someone who is whose way is vacillated a lot and is on the losing end right now. Wait, no, I'm on the boy. It's tough with the Battle of the Bulge because while you're losing weight, you're winning the Battle of the Bulge. Jesus. But as someone who's dropped a little bit of weight lately, you know, it helps a lot to cut

back your drinking. And I would say, you know, the thing is, if you're eating healthier, you're just going to get, the side benefit is you don't have to drink as much to feel a little intoxicated. It sounds like you might be getting blitzed if you're binging. Like if you're getting the point where you're like, you're needing more, you're having to eat some sort of food. Hey, maybe you're just even having tequila and soda waters in the live. Yeah, that's, that's, that's maybe what you want to do. You maybe want to moderate your alcohol intake is, is better than trying to find some sort of drunk food that's actually nutritious. That's going to sop up that alcohol. I would say maybe, maybe get a, if you get the tequila and club soda, you get that vodka soda. Ask for it

in a pint glass. You'll have a little bit more mix and you can drink it a little slower, something that you can, you can sip on for a while and stretch out the amount of alcohol you're consuming. Do you want me to tell you what I did when I was, when I would have drinks, when I'd have tequila and soda water, when I was doing, so if you're doing keto, you can get you, there's a lot of options you can do the ketogenic diet where you're eating basically no carbs. Yeah, basically you could, you could have buffalo wings and dip them in rant and you'd be good to go, but I would do a fat burger with no bun. A lot of that's a good, that's a good option. Yeah, some sort of burger with no, some sort of bunless burger,

some sort of meat treat, just kind of protein and, and I still really would enjoy it even if I had a, had a couple drinks. Besides that, I feel like the answer is boring and is like subway or something. Like, I mean, I know the people, but I'm saying like subway isn't fried or something. If you get like a six inch turkey on wheat or something like that, that's, that doesn't put, but I don't know because that, what are you going to say? You're going to say like a Del Chaco-ish type? No, I was going to say just like, like also too, which is proactive, try not to be drinking on an empty stomach because like it, like it's, I think it's better to have like, if you have a full meal and you're maybe going to have to deal with that problem less

and you're more likely to use good judgment when you, with your eating selections, if you're, you're having your, your big meal sober than having some, some libations afterward. Rajani, any thoughts on the, the battle of the bulge, any thoughts on, on, on trying to have some sort of healthy, healthy way to do that with, with, with consuming alcohol? Are you much of a drinker? I like, I love, I, you know, it's not the best time to be saying this, but I do like beer. I like beer. I'm more of a beer guy. Right. Yeah. Yeah. What, what kind of beers you go with? I think, I think when I was like young, I drank your Keystones and all that nonsense. And then I got into like all, trying all types of beers from all types of parts of the world and the country.

And then now I'm, I just like light beers, like Pilsner's and Lager's. Oh man, I'm with you. I had like a, like I got so burned out on like IPA. I can't have one. They're trying to out hop each other. It's so obnoxious. I don't, I don't, I don't like IPA. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, all these hops in here. Where am I? A bunny convention? A bunny country? Yeah. Yeah. A bunny country. Bunny convention was better. Do you almost say a rabbit farm or rabbit factory or? I was trying to come up with some sort of like bunny based city, but then I couldn't think of one. I was almost like bunny more like Baltimore, but it was like, that doesn't work. So I just said a bunny country. What about the bad guys in Super Mario Galaxy? Oh yeah. What are those guys? I forget. You should

know the rabbits. Yeah. Is it just the rabbits? No, they've got some cool name. They're, they're fucking cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you. Yeah. Cause they were getting like Lager's and Pilsner's. Like I love them. I love just like a light, just a fucking Lager now. It's just, it's just so much more, I feel like I'm not having to do work when I'm drinking. Yeah. Ross, I forgot to ask, do you eat any seafood or no? No. No. No. Okay. Yeah. I figured no. Yeah. I was going to say for a suggestion, I just went to major domo, which is the, Oh, that's supposed to be a great restaurant. Yeah. It's great. Yeah. And there's, I think there's one in, there's one originated in New York, right? And then he thinks, yeah. And I had,

I had a great time there, but Nick hit him with all the, is there any, are we supposed to do Burbank specific restaurants? That's what I'm wondering. I mean, the thing is, you'll be in Burbank, you're close enough to LA proper where I think you're going to hit up all the LA main street mainstays. You know, we go to downtown BS, Takaria, a broken Spanish, both fantastic. Guisados is there as well. Mitch, you're going to say something. I forgot that when I was in Loving Hut, someone came in for an interview to work as a waiter there and he was listening off his prior job experience. Nick, he worked at Pine burger. Whoa. How about that? That's a, that's a Pasadena classic. And that's not too far off from Burbank. Yeah. Um, uh, you know, there's

a, the, the one we all, when we often references, uh, jitlata tie restaurant. Uh, it's in Hollywood, fantastic tie restaurant, kind of an LA legend. There's a Guisados in Burbank now is there. Okay. Guisados in Burbank. Also, if you're up in Burbank, Nick, you got the, uh, Chili Johns, you can go to an old classic Burbank spot. Yeah. Right. You can drive by a Starburn's audio, where we used to record dough boys. We had kind of an acrimonious departure. Yeah. Put it on your, on your little tour. I once, uh, I don't remember which pack as I take that, and it was just felt like I was going to Mars. It's like deep Burbank. Oh yeah. It's, it's, it's out there. Yeah. It's weird. You mentioned Burbank specifically because Burbank has so much, uh, you know,

Burbank has so many chains. That's like a place we find ourselves a lot when we go to chain restaurants. So like the worst things I think of in Burbank are like, uh, like islands or, or fucking, uh, wood ranch or, uh, Buffalo Wild Wings. Yeah. Um, uh, but you know, there's, there's a whole bunch of those up there. But yeah, I mean, LA has, LA has a ton of great, um, a ton of great Mexican food, obviously, a ton of great Thai food, um, uh, a lot of great Persian food, uh, a lot of great sushi. Um, it just really kind of depends on your, on your price range and, and, uh, uh, in terms of, of, of what you're looking, looking for. If you want to hit those LA staples or if you just want to, you want to stay in Burbank proper. Um, uh, so yeah,

I don't know how much help we were there for you there, Dylan, but, uh, there's some answers. And if you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants, you can email us at DOBA's podcast at gmail.com or leave us a voicemail on the DOBA's delivery line, Mitch's suggestion at 830 Godot. That's 830-463-6844. And to get the DOBA's double, I don't want it to be called out. If you're going to say that every time like that, I'm not going to say it every time like that. I was saying it this time that we're going to bury it and we're going to move on. I found a place. I think there's a place. I think it's called Yala, which is a like a Mediterranean, like kind of a, like a hum, like hummus. I want to

say like Middle Eastern food. That's a chain restaurant. That's up in Burbank that I tried that I liked. Man, there's some fucking great Mediterranean food. I just, uh, I just want someplace with Natalie. I can't remember what it's called. Oh, fuck it was so fucking good. Wait, I'm going to text her and see if we can find out. Um, and to get the DOBA's double or weekly bonus episode, join the golden or platinum plate club at patreon.com slash DOBA's. I was going to say, don't say the ending so quick. If you're trying to stall to get the name of this place. Well, I'm not necessarily stalling. You might get back to me quickly or she is, she's out having a time for life.

I'm so blessed. She's definitely ignoring his text from you when you're, when you're not in the house. Uh, Raj Desai, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for, uh, for dining at the loving hut with us. Anything you would like to plug at this time? Uh, just actually, um, I love you, America with Sarah Silverman. It's now streaming on Hulu. Nick also writes for it. So check it out. We got, um, five more episodes left. Uh, quick, uh, the one coming out tonight. Basically, Nick wrote everything or inspired all the ideas. He was a big, big, big, big Nick, heavy Nick episode. Well, actually, I think timing wise will have been one week ago because this episode is actually coming out. Yeah. But the tonight as of our recording and you're in one

of the, you're in a sketch. I wrote. Yes. Damn. Yeah. No, I was thinking, I got our lowest rated episode ever, a lot of wider garbage that got forced into one episode and the rest of the season is free of me. You know, there's like a patreon level where I was like, oh, cut out the ads or whatever. Yeah. Uh, I love you. America should do like a patreon to your word. They cut out all the Nick every bit of Nick writing is out. Why did Sarah do an eight minute rant about how Sonic the Hedgehog ruined its franchise when it moved to 3D? Um, Natalie is not replied. Uh, hey, you know what? That'll do it for this. Yeah, it's some it's a good thing. I'm looking at saying you're blocked. Yeah. Does he do that just while you're

here? Uh, hit me up on, hit me up on Twitter, Dylan, and I will try to hit you to give you the name of some more. He'll tweet it out the day of the episode. Yeah. Okay. Give me you some more some more extra recommendations. And hey, that'll do it for this episode of Doughboys. Until next time with this movement, my Rachel, I'm Nick Weigher. Happy eating. See ya. Hey, San Diego. We're doing a live show at the house of blues on Friday, November 30th. For tickets and info, go to head gum.com slash live and look for dough boys. Surf's up. See you there, buddy. Now you're speaking my language. That was a head gum podcast.