Doughboys - Papa John's 2 with Raiza Licea

Episode Date: February 18, 2021

Raiza Licea (Spanish Aquí Presents) joins the 'boys to talk basketball, Cuban food, and Papa John's. Plus, another edition of Can I Take Your Order?Sources for this week's intro:http://www.sogoodblog.com/2008/05/03/papa-johns-pizza-hates-the-state-of-ohio/https://slice.seriouseats.com/2008/05/papa-johns-lebron-james-crybaby-shirt-controversy-means-cheap-pizza-for-clevelanders.htmlhttps://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/10/papa-johns-founder-john-schnatter-resigns-as-chairman-of-company-boar.htmlhttps://ir.papajohns.com/news-releases/news-release-details/papa-johns-and-shaquille-oneal-enter-new-partnershiphttps://www.papajohns.com/shaq/https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/27/papa-johns-sales-up-33point5percent-in-may-another-monthly-record.htmlWant more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Does this pizza chain hate the state of Ohio? This paraphrased headline appeared atop a 2008 viral post by Foodblog so good regarding a controversial promotion. Advance of a playoff game between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Washington Wizards, a D.C. area location distributed t-shirts with a brand's logo in the phrase, Cry Baby 23, using the jersey number of Cav superstar LeBron James. The defamatory shirtsies were spotted on fans at the NBA game and the subsequent backlash forced corporate ownership to apologize and offer Ohioans 23 cent pizzas, an appropriate

bribe for the carbon cheese craze Midwest. But the now forgotten incident would prove a comparatively minor controversy next to those caused by the chain's founder and CEO over the next decade, who, inconveniently, remains the name and face of the franchise. First, he criticized Obamacare for raising his labor costs, then separately he blamed kneeling NFL players for declining pizza sales, which, in our capitalist dystopia where brand allegiance signals political affiliation, turned the pizza into the preferred pie of the alt-right.

And finally, he made overtly racist statements on a conference call, which led to his firing from the company. Enter another NBA legend, tasked with reviving this toxic decaying brand. Four-time NBA champion and Kazam star Shaquille O'Neal, today an analyst on TNT's Inside the NBA, whose analysis mostly consists of unprovoked personal attacks on players. In 2019, the pizzeria added Shaq to its board of directors and made him a brand ambassador and steward of a non-et of Atlanta area locations. The partnership has breathed new life into the chain, as has, unnervingly, the COVID-19

pandemic, which led to surging demand for pizza delivery from lockdown consumers and boosted the eatery sales by double-digit percentages. Today, LeBron is matched Shaq in on-and-off court pursuits, winning four championships of his own, including one with the Los Angeles Lakers, starring in a movie, the upcoming sequel to Space Jam, and even investing in a pizza chain, Blaze. And while Bron remains Ohio's favorite son, it's the larger-than-life and physically large Papa Shaq who will forever have the heart of Los Angeles. This week on Doe Boys, we return to Papa John's Pizza.

Welcome to Doe Boys, the podcast about chain restaurants. I'm Nick Weiger, along with my co-host, my neighbor, Tater Totoro, the Spoon Man, Mike Mitchell. Tater? Tater? It's like Tater Tot, Tater Totoro, my neighbor, Tater Totoro, the Spoon Man, Mike Mitchell. That's courtesy of Jake Brannon, roastspoonmanatgmail.com. I use that one because I know you've been watching some Miyazaki on HBO Max.

I did. I watched my neighbor, Tator, and I loved it. It was great. I mean, that drop, I mean, that roast was bad. The roast was bad. The movie, great. Maybe it could have just been my neighbor, Tatero? Or is that unclear too?

How about my neighbor, Tater Tot? How come that doesn't work? My neighbor, Tater Tot, sure. That would have worked. Yeah. Why doesn't that work? How about Rye Neighbor, Tatoro? Change a different syllable.

Wait, what? Rye Neighbor, Tatoro. Like Rye Bread. Like Rye Bread? Yeah. Oh, what the fuck? I think that's pretty good. I had no idea what the fuck you were talking about.

Rye, no, bad. You should end the roasts. Okay, this is the last one. It's time for the roasts to end. That's from Nick. That's from the new Star Wars movies. It's time for the roast to end? It's time for the Jedi to end.

Isn't that a line from the new movies? Ah, jeez. And you're giving me shit for Rye Neighbor, Tatoro? Jedi to roast? Why? I try to show you it's snow outside, a beautiful snow. Yeah, it's a little blown out. It just looks like white outside your window.

But yeah, you got some tufts of snow coming in. Unfortunately, that's kind of Quincy for you. If you look out the window, it is pretty white. No, it's a nice movie snowfall coming down. It's a light snow. Not going to get too many inches. I'd say three to five. All right, moving on.

I know what jokes are forming in your head, piece of shit. Mitch is reading a text to a Tinder hookup. Oh, god. You have not dated in 20 years, you can tell. Yeah, what do I need to? Reading text to a Tinder hookup. That's what you do. Wags, Brady won it again.

How about that? How exciting for you? I mean, yeah, it's not like the Patriots winning, but. Our guest is shaking her head and giving a visible thumbs down. I get it, I get it. I get it. A lot of people, it's very funny because my sister's like, I hate Brady, she was talking about it.

And she's like, I love Travis Kelsey, the nice center in Oracle, about how Travis Kelsey was pumped up about going to visit Trump in the White House. She changed her tune. Wow. I mean, it's an issue. It's an issue with a lot of NFL players, I'm sure, so. I think probably just people in general it's an issue with.

That's true. Look, he's the greatest quarterback ever, and he brought my family joy, and I try not to think about the politics side of it all. But I was rooting for him. I like my homes a lot too, though, I'm a fan of my homes. He seems like a great guy. Yeah.

But it was not a great game. But I had some great food wigs. How about that? I had a muffaletta from Central Grocery in New Orleans. You mentioned you were ordering this on a Doe Boys double episode in that ship via Goldbelly. My mom made some wings. Ma, she's down here on the treadmill.

Ma, what were the wings? Mitch is yelling through the door. Not sure if the mic is picking this up. What were your wings that you got? All right, all right, that's wrong. OK, thank you. Marmalade. Oh, they're Martha.

They're Martha Stewart, she added at the end. How exciting. Martha Stewart. Oh, my god. Martha Stewart marmalade wings. And they were fantastic. My mom made them. And I made some buffalo wings in the air fryer.

My sister made a buffalo chicken dip, so we had buffalo two ways. Then the muffaletta, some cupcakes that her neighbor made. It was a gigantic feast. My mom made like a big platter of crackers and stuff that looked like a football. It was fantastic. It sounds like what you had is because you can't really

have a gathering these days. So it's just you and your mom and your sister, right? But you're feasting like it's a big gathering. You're kind of simulating it that way. Exactly, yeah. It was fun. It was a fun time. Yeah, my Boston accent's coming back too strong.

I need to get out of the state. It's bad. I think that it's, I can't speak anymore. Yeah, I've been auditioning and I can't speak. Anyways, here's a drop. We've wasted our guest time. I feel like a fucking idiot. Well, the drop will help.

Bones are bleeding, loud and globin'. Silly putty, baby. Silly putty, baby. Silly putty, baby. Goo-goo. Why does your sound fucking perverted? Because I've been a bad baby. Babies don't say that.

Babies aren't bad. Well, I need a tiny change. Jesus. Could you hear that? It was very soft in my headphones. I could hear it, yeah. Oh, you could hear it. Yeah.

Oh, I can't hear you that well. Maybe you need to turn up your headphones. My headphones are all the way up. Oh, no, they're not. There we go. Okay. Oh, they went back down. Weird.

Okay. Look, I got a new computer. This is the background of that. I got a new computer, everyone, all right? Everything died. Every fucking electronic thing I had died at the same time. Hey, Spoon Man. Made a drop for you.

Hope you like it. Love the show. Johan from Sweden. Johans from Sweden. J-O-H-A-N-N-E-S. Johans, right? Johans? I don't know.

I don't know how to pronounce that. Johans or Johans? Johans. Johanas, maybe? Oh, Johanas. Maybe that's what it is, or Johanas. It's a big mystery. Tweet at us, Johanas, or Johanas, or Johan.

Maybe just goes by yo. That's cool. Jesus Christ. All right. Introduce our guest, Jesus. Mitch. We're thrilled to have her. An actor and comedian.

Imagine coming into an ice cold room like this. Like, if we were like, if we went on stage, if we intro'd you at like a comedy club, you and I. Yeah. Ugh. If just the crowd would be so dead. We try to generate a feeling, a sensation at our live shows that we call deeper than silence.

A lot of the times during our live shows, we'll have like people from the film industry come in and they'll try to get perfect room tone. Yeah. Just so you can strain together lines of dialogue when you're editing. It's useful to have for post-production. There's scientists from surrounding areas from USC and what was your alma mater, Nick? UCLA? UCLA.

Got you sure we're remembering? Yeah. We also, we remember that show where Ethan Hunt was pulling off a heist dangling from the ceiling. That was pretty exciting. All right, now that we've warmed them up with that, into this inferno of laughs, we welcome our guest. An actor and comedian for the podcast, Spanish Aki presents Riza Lisea.

Hi, Riza. Hola. Hola. I have no idea about half the stuff you guys were talking about earlier. Like, Star Wars. I don't even, I'm like, uh-huh, yeah, the movie, you just have no clue. I'm just like, okay. I don't know.

You and our listeners both. Yeah. I think we just have, we just have voices that are like pleasant to hear. I think that's basically because the content of what we're saying is generally nonsense. I've told you that we should, we got to pivot over into an ASMR podcast and you don't. You guys do. You have really good like voices, like, because sometimes I'll be listening to a podcast and I'm like, uh, their voice is annoying, but I'm interested in what they're saying, so

I will listen. Wow. You guys have a really like- We have the opposite. Yeah. No, no, no. No, you're, I mean, it's obviously interesting, listen, anything with food I'm in, 100% I'm invested.

Uh, but yeah, I'm like, you do guys, you guys, I was going to mention that to you before we even recorded, but you guys have really good podcast voices. Wow. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you. It should be, we should be saying stuff like, I'm now like combing the back of your head. Like we got it.

That's what we should be doing. Lies. Oh wait, there's, what's on the back of your head? There's some sort of growth here. You should get that checked out. I'd worry about that if I were you. Untreated skin cancer can be very serious. Oh my gosh.

So our ASMR just fucking terrifies people? Yeah, we just bum people out. Like the podcast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, Reza, I want to talk to you. We have much food to discuss, but before we get into that, I was reading that you are a cat mom, uh, like our, uh, like our own Mike Mitchell, a cat parent. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm a hardcore cat mom to two cats, Meow and Mugsy. Meow. What a perfect cat name. Wow, great name. Yeah. I was a, I, I got him in Miami and I was hiding him from my dad for a couple weeks. Uh, and he just kept meowing and I didn't know what to name him and I was like, fuck

it. I'm just going to call you Meow. Uh, and then Mugsy. I named Mugsy after, um, Mugsy Bugs because I love basketball. I'm a big, big baller, uh, but I'm not big, big baller. That sounds totally different, but like, I love basketball and, um, she was like the run of her, like, of her, like, although when she was born or whatever. So I was like, oh, she's going to be Mugsy Bugs.

If anyone, uh, for those of you who don't follow the NBA, Mugsy Bugs, a famously short, uh, pro basketball player in the NBA. He's in space jam. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

He played for Charlotte. I got a question for you. Are you all hearing like dinging? No, you don't hear my dings? What dings? No. Oh, I'm, he got a few microwaves going or something, what's going on? My nails are out loud.

It's in my headphones. Okay. Then you're fine. God, I hope it's in my headphones. It's just in my head. It's constant dinging. I used to, I don't do it anymore. Now I carry in a pack, but for a while I kept my phone on my hip, like in my, in my pocket,

and I would get, you know, to have it on vibrate. And then when I would not have my phone in my pocket, my like leg would just vibrate. Like I'd get like a phantom vibration in my thigh. Emma is nodding. Have you ever experienced that? Yeah. I would, yeah. I would sometimes feel like I had messages when I didn't.

And then other times I just don't feel them at all. Like my phone not even in my pocket. Like it just, like it would be my, my leg, you know, a bare skin sometimes just vibrating on its own. It's so weird. That, that sometimes can be the sign of something worse. I might want to get that leg looked at. Go to a real doctor though.

There could be something wrong with your nervous system. We should get it checked out. Nick, we should, we should, we should pivot into the ASMR medical advice podcast. Just fucking the thing that you, the thing that will put you right to sleep is, is, is thinking about your mortality. But anyways, you're a, you're a baller. You're an MBA baller. I wish we all wish we all, yeah, we all do wish to, I mean, those guys are the coolest.

I mean, I thought I was going to be the first female to play in the NBA. Wow. Because like I legit thought I was that good at one point in my life and I wasn't. I was good, but I was like, not at all, like college level good. Like I got like little offers from very, very, very, very small, like private schools in like the middle of nowhere. But I refused. I was like, no fuck that.

I'm going to stay in Miami. Oh wow. Yeah. I, basketball is the sport that I was the worst at that I still love. Like I was terrible at, I remember when I was a little kid, a part of the issue I had with sports is that I was born in October and I was like older from my grade. So I always get pushed. Oh, that could be tough.

Yeah. I get pushed up into like the kids and they just like, on the other side of that, when I was like 16, that was a baseball was my best sport, but I feel like I also was like the old guy at that point. That's like a, I'm sorry. That's like a thing I've actually read about this regarding hockey prospects is that their birth month dictates like, like there's a disproportionate number of hockey prospects who are born on the latest month of eligibility because they get to be the big kid in their

class and so they get to dominate. Oh, yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. I was the opposite. I was like the youngest and also like super short until like junior year of like high school. I don't know. Like my body like grew like very late that I remember, I remember hitting a free throw

shot in basketball when I was a kid in the parents like clapping and cheering for me because I was so bad at basketball and then it really became one of the sports that like I really love to watch and then I'll play it over every so often now and I'm bad at it, but then also when you're a giant, they're just like, okay, like just stand there and block, like get in people's ways and so that's pretty good now. Like I'm better at playing it that way than I was when I was younger. Who are your favorite teams? Who do you root for?

What's, are you a Lakers fan? I knew it. God damn it. No, no, no, no, no, no. So, okay, I'm very hardcore. Hold on. Let me see if you can. I'm very Miami 305 till I die.

I even have my necklace. Yeah. I'm, I'm a heat fan because I am born and raised in Miami and I will always it's Wade County, not Dade County. And I love, I love the heat. This team was this year was very interesting because the Lakers actually have been my other like they've, I've always loved the Lakers. I like had a huge like basketball crush on like Rick Fox, Kobe, uh, like when it was

like that, like Dennis Rodman back in the day, I know he wasn't with the Lakers. You know what I mean? Like it was just like, uh, I don't know. I love like that kind of era of the basketball world, I guess, like in the 90s. Um, but I, it was a hard, it was a hard year this year because I had to cheer for the heat because they're my team knowing that the Lakers are my other team and my boyfriend is like hardcore Laker fan and I've been potting with him and his family. So like during the NBA, like I, in the beginning of the, in the beginning of the bubble, I

like would do, I literally said, Oh my God, how funny if it was like the heat and the Lakers, ha, ha, ha, and he was like, she are right. And everybody was like, yeah, right, yeah, right. And then when it happened, I was like, motherfuckers, but let me tell you, I don't want to be like, I'm a blue ha, but I fucking manifested this without even trying. And yeah. So it was a lot of a, I would like sit like watching that whenever we were like going to win those like two games that we won, I was just like really quiet.

I was like, I don't know if I'm allowed to show emotion in front of the other five people that are hardcore Laker fans if we win. And yeah. And so yeah. And you beat the Celtics to get there, which, uh, yeah, I don't like the Celtic. There we go. This is great. That no, it's not great, Nick.

The heat did my, my favorite thing any basketball team could do. They beat the Celtics and then lost to the Lakers. That is like, yeah, that's what I'm looking for. Um, but we, I want to, I just want to tell you that Nick and I also have necklaces that say three to five till we die. I mean, like it was like, it was, I don't know. I guess I wanted to like be like more like competitive about the finals, but then also like I wanted, I wanted this for Kobe and Gigi.

So like I was like, not to get like all like emotional, but I was kind of like, it's fine. Like if it's a Lakers, I don't care, but definitely fucking beat Boston. Everything Boston. Oh yeah. Narratively. Yeah. I agree.

It was kind of, yes. Well, I have to ask, what were you going to say when I said three to five till, until we die? You said, I imagine, I was going to say, imagine us wearing necklaces. Oh, like two men who could not pull that off more. Does my, my, my Italian friends growing up had like, like had like necklaces with like a crucifix on it or like a little cross. I never, I never did it, but I feel like if I had done it, maybe it would have

and maybe it would have changed some things. The Cubans do like this. So this is like my baby necklace. The one I have three on the one that I'm wearing. It has like a little like the cross as well. And then it has like a Virgen and an Asawachi. An Asawachi, a lot of people don't know about this. It's like they put it on the baby and it's supposed to protect you.

It's like a little black thingy. Yeah. So like babies will have it pinned on them. Like the Cubans are very like superstitious about it. They have to have like their little red booties and their little Asawachi before they leave the hospital because they need the protection for the world. The red booties also have a protective element. Yes. Yes. Wow.

You know, know who's in the red booties? Cool spot. Cool spot. I thought he had white shoes. No, I'm talking about he's the female red spot. I'm talking about a female red spots ass, Christ. Oh, that went over me. It's so even if you know what he's going for, it's confusing. It was good as hell. But he's holding out to that.

He's not in shoes, in terms of shoes, in terms of butts, because cool spot is red. Yeah. He wants red booty. I couldn't think of anything else red. What else is red? It's the devil. Oh, yeah, the devil. Fuck. Mm hmm.

Here's a spot. You mentioned you mentioned your Cuban heritage. I know you want to talk about Cuban food. So I like for a lot of Americans, I feel like in a lot of our listenership, their knowledge of Cuban food is going to begin and end with Cubano and an excellent sandwich. But I know there's a lot more to the cuisine than that. What is your like, like, like what is your passion for Cuban food begin?

So I mean, in Miami, like every every if you're Cuban, like you eat Cuban, probably like four times a week. And it's not. Yeah. It's actually not like the healthiest food, I would say, because it's, you know, it's a lot of like, like the carne, like the meat. And there's, you know, it's you've got to fry these things and like the tones and stuff like that. So I I would say

sure, the cobanos is what people really know. That's actually what we had at my boyfriend's house for the Super Bowl. I we got we got cobanos from El Cochinito, which is like my favorite Cuban spot in LA. It's in Silver Lake and it's a suit. It's a hole in the wall. But like it's very like mom and pop and like good and authentic. And I've tried a couple of different places in LA.

But what is it? What is it called? El Cochinito, the little pig. Oh, OK. Yeah, there's also a picture of me in the bathroom. But that's not why I'm saying it. Wow. Yeah. I'm like, it's like it's like Andy Garcia, like these other like very like famous like Cuban like actors and then like me just like randomly there and they're like, who is this bitch?

But, um, yeah, no, like I just Cuban food. It's it's I like I personally love to make for I don't eat meat. I've been a vegetarian since third grade, which is not something normal for a Cuban child, especially growing up in Miami. Um, but I think like one of the biggest like meals that everybody usually is familiar with is the Rosconn frijoles and the steak de palomía. So that's like a flank steak with like right white rice and black beans.

And then you would have like maduros or tostones. They're plantain. So you are Mariquitas even so you can have them like baked, toasted or like fried. And then there's also like a Rosconn pollo, like Picadillo. There's there's a lot of different plates that can be eaten that I think are very various to like it's like you have options, I guess, where like sometimes I feel with other other foods. I'm like, especially as a vegetarian, I'm like, I can't really like eat this.

So but yeah, well, as of as a vegetarian, what do you eat? Like when you're when you're getting Cuban food? So it's in like if I go to a restaurant, let's say I'm in Miami, like Versailles or La Carreta, which are like two like very known Cuban spots there. I would get like a Rosconn frijoles negro and then tostones. I always get an empanada de espinaca frita because that's a fried empanada. And it's like, why go for the baked one when you could get the extra calories with the fried one?

It's just fire. So there's no point. You cannot and then always like I always got to have a bunch of Cuban bread. There is no bread better in the entire world than Cuban bread. Like literally come come for me because I'm like, I don't care. Like it's the best. And there's no bread better than the best Cuban bread is literally in Miami. Like it's kind of like how people in New York, like they're like, you can't fucks with our bagels.

I say the same stuff about like the Cuban bread in Miami. It's not the same. And so, yeah, but you could get like Yucca, you could get Yucca frita. Yucca frita is really good. A lot of these things that I'm saying again are not like the healthiest for a diet. But if you're like there on vacay or something or it's like that one cheat meal, then I'm like, OK, fine. But yeah, it's like a lot of carbs.

Pretty much is what I end up eating. So you said you said El Cochinito. Is that the is that correct? Oh, El Cochinito. El Cochinito. Oh, God, I'm. Yeah, I can't say. I mean, I can't say normal. I can't say any word correctly, not normal words.

I can't say any. I can't say any word in the English language. So it's OK. I'm like, my English also gets messed up. And I say like 500,000 times. And I know that we are going to come. We get yelled at that on the pot all the time. In the all the time.

It's hard to fucking talk. You fucking record yourself talking extemporaneously for a fucking 90 minutes. See how many times you say or see how many times in so much filler you use. It's time. It's difficult. Here's our listeners. Here's our listeners recording themselves.

Yeah, what stinks? Oh, it's fucking me. I smell like shit. Oh, my wrong words. No, it's pretty much that. It's it's either that or or. Stranger things isn't good anymore. Oh, my God.

They've been good since season one. Oh, my God. People have such strong opinions on that. That is not right. It's true. But but the like thing, you know what? I like was I used to be super self-conscious about it. And I like posted about it recently

because I did this other this other podcast and people started like trolling me. And I was I was like, but there's proof that people that say like a lot when they're speaking, that just means that they're actually genuinely into the conversation and like connecting with the people instead of like thinking about what they're going to say.

So I was like, fuck you guys, read this article. Get them all out. Like is a good word. Hey, you fucking likes when you put up your Facebook posts, huh? We we only like that context. Yeah. I I when I worked at the Simpsons, little known fact, Nick, that I worked at the Simpsons

as as an assistant to the writers. Everyone, look, I know I say it all the time. I worked there, all right. And I picked up lunches and I picked up lunches from Versailles. That was one of the in West L.A. And you did mocap for Chief Wiggum. I did mocap for who Chief Wiggum. Bake them away, toys.

And that was that's like that wasn't my introduction to Cuban food, but that was like truly where I got to like try a lot because we went there at one point. We went there almost once a week. So I got to try a bunch of different food there. And that was kind of like a really my my my my deep dive into it. And I had never really had it before. Versailles, great.

And then there's a there's a there's a place in Los Fila as a Cafe Tropical. That's the one I go to. Yeah, that's the same owner as El Cochinito, Danny Navajo. Yeah, he he just recently purchased it like about a year ago. And he's changed a bunch of stuff. There was like even a Che Guevara picture there, which is very like not pro Cuban.

Like if you're like if you know about Cubans and like Cuba, like that's more like people just trying to be cool and wear that shirt and whatever. But it's yeah, it's like no bueno. And so he took that down, which was like, I was like, all right, tight, like you like did the first right thing. And then he's he's really he's been really like creating new pastries, which is again is another big thing,

which is why Cafe Tropical works so well. And he has a little ventanita. The ventanita is how the little window he has a window outside and in Miami, that's a really big thing. You have a ventanita and like you you just get your coffee and your pastelitos and you just hang out there like outside and that's where you eat. You don't even go inside and with the pandemic,

it's kind of like worked out just perfectly. But yeah, Cafe Tropical is fire. I think it's been there, but not under the new ownership. So I have to have to do a revisit. You you say, wait, so Versailles, Mitch mentioned, that's a local local chain in L.A. Yeah, have you have you been to Versailles? Do you have a verdict on that?

I did. Um, I went and I went with three other people from Miami that were visiting because they came into town for work to work this event. Like when I first had moved out here, like the second year. And it wasn't great for me, but I don't eat meat. So it's always hard for me to give that like opinion on these Cuban restaurants, especially I'm like, why can't like, I can't tell you what this like, if this like, you know, be fake was like bad.

So I went with them the second time and they were like, they were all like hate. Like they all hated it. They all hated it. I know, but it's like, you're not going to find the Mexican food in Miami. So like, it's just different. Like the Cubans got Miami lockdown. L.A. has a Mexican food lockdown and other foods, but definitely like, I mean, it makes sense. Right. Let me let me ask you because you mentioned empanadas.

And I do love myself an empanada, but like you, I am I'm vegetarian, at least for this year and trying that out. What do you what do you get inside your empanada? So I only get the spinach ones. Spinach, OK. Yeah, yeah, empanada pinaca. Those are like the ones that I like. It does have cheese.

I'm recently vegan from this past year, but it's more of like it's it's more of like a health choice like I had to because my it was just cheese was fucking up my body like most people. I think that's why a lot of people actually turn vegan that I know, like it's either like for skin care or like for like their body. But I would say like, like, for example, Café Tropical, they just he made like croquettes or like I love croquettes like the little croquettes, I guess they say that in English.

Yeah. And like the croquettes, they're usually the jamon or like the pollo. That's like the big ones in Miami or like, you know, like for the Cubans or Bacalao, which is fish. And he made carrot ones in Café Tropical. And I tried them recently at we had them for the Super Bowl. And I was like, oh, they're so good. Like they they were great, but it's still not going to compare to like one of Hamon, which I used to eat back in the day. Yeah.

But you've been vegetarian since third grade, you were saying. Have you have you swung back to meet at any point? Nope. Wow. Vegetarian, that whole point, that whole period of time. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I like I've eaten meat by mistake. And I mean, I've literally thrown it up because my body is not. Yeah. Like I can't I can't if I wanted to eat meat, if I decided, all right,

fuck it, I'm going to eat meat. I would have to literally go to a doctor or nutritionist or something or I don't know. I'm like, I have no idea. But someone that like would have to walk me through the process because I could I could get a serious like stomach like injury or whatever, I don't know, something that can happen to me. Yes, it's your body just I have a I have a friend, a friend's brother who was vegan for years and ended up at a party

where he had a cocktail that he didn't realize had Baileys in it and just violent, like bloody vomit. Like just like his body just completely rejected it. Yep. That was me with pizza rolls. Oh, I forget I was I was it was like I was OK. So I know I started this. Yeah, it was like disgust. But the thing is I went I went to Gainesville on her forget.

I was in Gainesville, my cousin Greer, and I went to like a party with her when she was in high school or something. I think I was like a like an eighth grader at that point or something. And I thought it was so cool. And then we came back and I didn't even like drink or anything. So I know it wasn't like that. And we came back and then we made pizza rolls and all of a sudden I don't know what I'm like, I just remember my grandma like giving me Coca-Cola

so that I would like just throw it up because I just could not. I was like, what is wrong with me? And so it was like Coca-Cola and toast, you know, I think the pizza rolls just like out, gross. Yeah, that's a bad puke, too. Where? Where? Yeah, that is that is a nasty. Where were you again? Pasta sauce in Gainesville. Gainesville.

Hmm. Yeah. Are you sure it wasn't just a reaction to being in Gainesville? I know these gators. Listen, I would go there and also rock on my U.M. gear. It was like Gator fucking town. I'm such a like sporty bitch. So like whenever I go to anywhere, I'm like, oh, I'm going to be in Boston. Cool. I'll make sure to bring my dolphins and my heat and my university

in Miami stuff. Nobody, nobody cares about the Marlins. So we don't even, we don't do that. If you walk by me, you see me go, ah, I was, I was looking. I was trying to figure out the place. That's why I was searching my phone frantically because there was another Cuban spot near, near in Los Feliz, near my place. And is it the one in Atwater? It was, it was Tropicalia and now it's changed to NOSA restaurant,

which is, which is, which is a Southern Brazilian, but it was Tropicalia, which was, which was, which was Cuban. There's another one because I'm literally in like the, like, I'm like on like Silver Lake, Los Feliz, like, and I, I used to do CrossFit in Atwater and I'd always passed by this other one. And I went there once, but I forget the name. It was also, it wasn't good. So I just kind of like just didn't.

I, I truly have tried other places. I know there's, there's another place in Downey, supposedly. That's what I was going to say. They're, they're, I was, and I'm just looking at this and maybe, maybe Tropicalia, they had a, they had a Cubano. So I figured that they were Cuban, but I think they maybe are just Brazilian. But, oh yeah, they do that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But, but, but a lot of restaurants do that. Like they'll mix in though. It's like, it's like Mexican food. And then they have like Cuban and like Salvadorian, like all these things. I'm like, oh, okay, cool. We just want like people to know their Latino food. Just call it like Latino food restaurant. Like I rather go in there knowing I can mix that shit up.

Like I'm happy to do that. Yeah. One of the best Cambodian restaurants in, in Long Beach, the area I'm from, I think is just, is a Thai restaurant. Like Thai is in the name, but they have Cambodian food, but they just know people are going to go to a Thai restaurant. They're more likely to do that, you know? You know, that's what I was going to say. That's why people do that, especially in like smaller,

like in the Midwest and stuff. They don't, if it's like Salvadorian or any other type of food, a lot of times they just put like Mexican food and then they'll like they'll because that's like the only type of food that like white America thinks is like Latino. Very much. 100% Like me and Mitch.

Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say like there's Fuji restaurant, which is a Japanese restaurant here, but then like it has Chinese food and Japanese food, you know, like, like, I feel like that happens a lot. Do you, do you feel like cube, like, uh, Cuban restaurants are well represented at LA? Or would you say just not at, or Cuban food just in general?

Is it a thing that you have to like, search out and find the good stuff? Or do you think that there's like for, for the number of restaurants you think it has a good representation? Um, so, okay. So there's Portos. Everybody loves Portos and loves to talk about Portos, but the authentic Cuban people that I know, they don't really fucks with Portos. Really?

Yeah. Number one, Portos also like, I just, I also want to say just for the listeners, that is like, I would say almost like an LA institution. Yeah, sure. Yeah, but not authentic apparently. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't, I don't know. I don't really, um, I, again, I had them and like it's hard because again, I don't eat the meat. So I always feel like, oh, my opinion is like so like authentic, but also I don't know like if it's what you want. But again, I've been with other Cuban people from Miami and they're like, it's fine. But then I've taken them to Cochinito and they're like, oh yeah,

I fucks with this way harder because the Cochinito feels like, like your abuela fucking just cooked that shit for you for real. And Portos feels like, like just like, yeah, someone random got paid to do it and whatever. And like also they, they do the same thing that I don't like. They have like caprese sandwiches. They have like all these other like French baguette thing. And it's, it's like, okay, that's great.

I love you're trying to like make a profit, like good for you. But I'm also, I want, I want like the Cuban food to be authentic and like real because I'm so Miami. And that makes me feel at home when I'm sitting at the Cochinito or, you know, back in the day, I can't really sit there right now. But, you know, be able to like just feel like I'm like on, you know, Caiocho and, you know, when I walk out, you know, there's a bunch of like Guanos just playing dominoes in Domino Park, which is not the same, but whatever.

But yeah, so I think, I definitely think that, that it's, it's not as represented as it, I'd like it to be, but also I, I cook. So I make Cuban food, like for myself or my friends or my family or whatever. And the cafecito is the one thing that like nobody here has gotten, like nobody, nobody here fucking makes a cortadito like Miami. And yeah, that's, that's a hard one. Wait, describe that for us and for our listeners. A cortadito?

Yeah. So a cortadito is like a cortado is how they say it, like when you order it. But I, so in Miami, the trick is you got to ask for the cortadito con leche evaporada. So like evaporated milk. And again, I'm vegan, but there's certain things. I'll drop a lactate and drink a bunch of these. So like you get it and then it's, it's, they, you know, they make it like in the espresso machine and then the little foamy thing is instead of regular milk or you could,

you could get a regular milk, but then you put leche evaporada and then my dad, I had to do it like him. I add like a little, like just like two, like, I don't know how to like two little like salt, I just get the salt shake. Dad, I guess I'm like, I don't know. I just, I like, I just go like, I don't know how to say it in words, but like that. And it's, it's fucking great. I can't make a cortadito because I don't have the machine to make a cortadito,

but I can make a cafecito and my espumita, which is like the foamy part. That's what you call the espumita. The foamy part is like, it's great. I've, I've locked that down. My tiaclada and my sister, Daniel, told me how to do espumita very well, because I made sure that they taught me before I moved to LA. Well, there you go. Yeah.

You actually just gave me an idea for what I want to do when, when the world opens back up. Nick, yes, we should take a trip around the world and make people's grandmas cook meals for us. Yeah, pay them. They'll do it. Yeah, we'll pay them. I mean, in, in, in Cuba. So I went to Cuba in 2017 and I had no fucking clue, like what, like what the food was going to be like there for me, because again, I'm vegetarian and a lot of the restaurants we

will go to, they just don't have food. So like you, you have, you would get, I would get a menu and it was me and my sister, and we had our guía and we would like go with like our Airbnb. The girl, the Airbnb, we came, became friends with her, Wendy. So it was like me, her, Humberto, my sister, and like we will go order the guías, our guide. So this guide became our friend and like would take us to like the little like authentic-ish kind of like mom and pop spots instead of like the touristy spots, because that's, I didn't want to do that.

And then I would like order like a pretty much like a veggie cheese sandwich and they're like, we don't have tomato, we don't have avocado, we don't have cheese. And I was like, okay, I'll take bread with lettuce. And then my sister is here like trying to like also like put in an order and like, oh, we don't have, you know, we don't actually have shrimp today or whatever that was, you know, we don't have that. So it was like really hard to eat. And then I was like, okay, like I want to have like a really good meal.

And in Cuba, there's this thing called like the paladeres. So like it's literally what you just kind of said, like your, your abuela cooking for you. So people in their own homes have like a mini restaurant. And I'm sure like you've probably seen this in like Anthony Bourdain episodes or like in other countries. I forget where, but this happened in an episode in Asia. And I remember literally he was like, that was the best fucking meal I've ever had. Like it was literally like the guy's like grandmother that cooked for him. And the, so yeah, so in the paladeres, like you just go and like you order and it's like

whatever they have that day. And it was the best food I had the entire trip in Cuba. And that's, it's, it's like what you said, it's like an abuela or like somebody just making that shit with love. And Wags, you, and you, you, Wags, you, you scoffed when I threw this idea out. I was just surprised, caught me off guard. But you know what, if we were traveling, let's put hundreds of grandmas to work, get out there and eat their food, Wags.

It's time to put grandmas back in the workforce. And if we were taking this trip around the globe, you know, some grandmas whose food I'd like to have are in the nation of Italy. Wow. And you know what else comes from Italy? Pizza. This week's chain Papa John's. Wow, what a segue.

That was great. Founded by the decidedly not Italian, John Schnatter in 1984 in Indiana. Man, he's not Italian at all, John Schnatter. I mean, just the name doesn't sound Italian. Maybe he is Italian. I don't know. In Indiana, last name Schnatter, I'm assuming not Italian American, but maybe. He's like the bad guy's name in like Revenge of the Nerds or something.

And he's like, I mean, it fits so well. I mean, look, we've said this before. Yeah. Papa John himself is a huge piece of shit. They should rebrand. They should rebrand to Papa Shacks. We've said this already. Miami Heat, great.

Shaquille O'Neal. And Lakers, great. And Celtics, great. I'm just always going to shit on Boston. I mean, did we lose a title because Shaq was maybe a little bit out of shape? I think so. But I think you can also say that. You're jumping so many steps to think that you would have been a title contender.

That season Shaquille O'Neal had been in shape. You're out of your mind. You're out of your mind. You know this is true. This is just true. Shaq had been cooked for several teams at that point. And also, by the way, you would have probably won more titles if he was in shape. He's like admitted that before.

Yeah, no, obviously. I love Shaq. Shaq is the greatest. I love Shaq. Shaq is wild. He's so big. I walked by him when the NBA All-Stars were here like two and a half years ago. I was working this event.

And he just walked by me. And again, everybody was so tall because it was the NBA All-Stars. So there were so many retired players or coaches and whatever, just fucking tall people everywhere. And I think I'm pretty tall and I'm just 5'7". And I'm like looking. And I look up and I literally bumped into kind of his some part of his leg or hip. And I was like, I'm so soft.

We owe that Shaq. Damn, you big. But I was like, I got to go buy. I got to go work. But he's big. He's gigantic. Yes. That's a part of the reason I love him is just because,

you know, he makes me feel tiny, which is fun. Yeah. Like I would feel like a little tiny guy running through his legs and stuff. It would be a blast. Why? Because I can never do stuff like that. You're the large, you know, you and I are both large men. You're a very large man.

You're the largest man in most places, but Shaq is larger than everyone. Shaq is gigantic. Yeah. Yeah. Big guy. Big dude. And he is, he joined the board of directors in 2019 for Papa John's, a spokesman these days. Papa John's has 5,000 locations worldwide.

Reza, we want to talk about this with you partly because pizza is a thing that you can do vegetarian with some ease as, as you no doubt are aware, although vegan, obviously a little bit more of a challenge. But also you worked at a pizza chain at some point. Is that correct? No. Okay. I had bad intel.

No, it's fine. But honestly, if I had to work at a food place, it would have been pizza because I love pizza. Like I literally like, you know what guys, by the way, I know like you guys record these ahead of time. So I don't know if you say it, but today is national pizza day. Wow. Like today is national pizza day. Wow.

Yep. Yeah. Check the hashtag. When you check it, it's going to be today. Pizza, pizza is my favorite food. And I did not know, I didn't know, but I wish I'd known I would have made some sort of pizza for dinner tonight or planned on pizza for dinner tonight. I could still do it.

I'm not going to do it, but. Yep. Pizza is so fire. My, I, I don't know. Like I had favorite pizza places in Miami, but then I remember I moved out here and everybody's always like, New York has the best pizza, blah, blah, blah. And, but I don't know. I fucks with tomato pie pizza joint in LA.

Hard. Tomato pie is a good choice. You get it well done, a little bit of ranch fire. Well done is, is a, is a good preview into my order. Interesting today. Look, LA gets craft for their pizza places and sometimes rightfully so, but there are, tomato pie is one of the places that you can get. And that, that is, that's, that's decent pizza in LA.

And there's a few other spots too. It's got a few other spots. I think it just doesn't have the numbers that the East Coast have and the quality that the East Coast, because you can just go to like any, I mean, like most pizza places in this, in the city of Quincy even have, will have decent pizza. And you, you can't, you can't really replicate that on the, on the West Coast, but there, there are, there are spots for sure. Yeah.

Yes. But I do, I do, I do to go back. I'm like, I didn't work at a pizza place, but like I said, I'm very, like tomato pie pizza joint is in my favorites on my phone. It's the only food place that is on my favorites, other than my family, my boyfriend. And it's, yeah, it's literally like my family, my boyfriend, tomato pie pizza joint, and like the boys from SAP, I think, and that's it. Wow.

So it's, it's very high ranking for me. Why should you get on your favorites? Okay, hold on. Let me look it up. I don't use my phone often. I love to ask that question too, because it's so interesting. Like certain people will have like, I have AAA and I'm like, oh, damn, that is kind of smart guess.

Yeah, that's very savvy. And I'm here like, I have a pizza place. Weigher, my guess is Weigher has. Yeah. Yeah. You know him. Throw a guess. It's only you song.

You song is not in my favorites, although maybe he should be here. My favorites, because I, you know, I, I, as far as calling people, it's a thing I rarely will initiate a phone call or, or answer a phone call. Do you have like 411 as one of your favorites? I don't have 411. But I do have four. I have my family. I have my, my, my lovely wife, Natalie.

And then I have my mom, my dad, and my brother. And that's it. Those are my favorites. What about you, Mitch? We got to look at my favorites. Yes. Let's see here. My favorites are I feel like you got a bunch.

I got home, which is my, my, my, the home telephone number of my house. Smart. I have my dad cell. My dad has passed away, but he's still in there. I have my mom cell, my sister Courtney. Wow. This is a funny one. Matt Koalik is Koalik.

Koalik is the fifth one. And it was because we lived together for sure. Right. Eliza Hooper, who was my coworker at the Simpsons. So, so she, she was, I was always calling and texting her. Yeah. Yeah. Armin Weitzman, Harris Whittles, who, and I kept him in there.

And the last one is an ex-girlfriend who I should remove. Yeah. You haven't updated this since like 2015, it sounds like. Well, I'm not going to take, I'm not going to remove the two people who have passed away. Yeah. I have, I have my abuela lala on it and I refuse to, like I know her phone was disconnected and everything and all that, but I'm like, I refuse to like delete it. Yeah. I'm not going to, I'm not going to get rid of that.

No way. I feel you. I do have someone here now that I'm looking at it, but they're not saved and they're my favorite. So I wonder if they changed their name. Interesting. I guess I'll find out if I call. And. Oh well.

Wags, also, uh, McDonald Wendy's, Burger King, Taco Bell, Pizzeria Regina. Well, as far as ordering pizza goes, Papa John's is not at the top of my list. There was a time when I used to get it in college, I think they had a lot of good deals and that they were expanding nationwide. And, and they, when they'd come, when they came to Southern California, they had, yeah, they had like a lot of coupons and I remember we used to get, that was our go-to pizza place because it was the cheapest. Wags, Papa John's.

Some people go to college, they have their firsts. I, one of my only firsts in college was getting Papa John's pizza. It was, uh, that was, that was, I became a Papa John's guy briefly in college. Yes. Yeah. And it was, and here's what I have to say about it. We shit on Papa John's, we've talked shit about Papa John's a lot. And people are like, I don't get it.

Like when I, when it comes to like Pizza Hut or Domino's or whatever, that's like my number one spot. And I think it's pretty good. And I don't know why the, why the, the dough boys are so hard on it. I mean, yes, the owner of it sucks. So that's a part of it. That's part of it. But too, truly in, in all the times I've got it, it has been really bad.

It like, like, and when I was in college, I did think it tasted pretty good. And you dip it in that garlic oil and the garlic butter and it would be great. But I think that there, I think like a lot of these fast food, like a lot of fast food or chains, I think the qualities has dipped for sure. Yes. And the best experience I've ever had with Papa John's was today on this episode, actually. Fascinating. I've had good Papa John's experiences in the past.

They are kind of in the distant past. When we've gotten it for the podcast, I don't think it's been very good. But similarly, it was a little better this time. I do want to say that, that by chain pizza standards, the app is a little janky. I'm not going to go as far as saying the app is crap, but the app is not ideal. What was wrong with mine? Mine actually worked okay. Just comparing it to Domino's and Pizza Hut,

I feel like it's just not up to that standard of sleekness. It's a little clunky. Which, by the way, when people are like, hey, Papa John's is better than Domino's, you are wrong. You have to experiment more with Domino's and you will find like, if you get the different pie styles at Domino's, you will get a better pizza than you get at Papa John's. So you are incorrect.

Pizza Hut, maybe Pizza Hut has been really bad. Maybe Pizza Hut is the bottom of the bunch. Yeah, I don't know. I feel like Pizza Hut got too, like their sauce got too like, there was just something too sweet about it. I don't know what that means, but it just started getting like sweet. A sauce in a lot of these places has become like super artificial. A lot of these sauces have been, do we lose Riza?

We might have lost you for a second, Riza, you froze, but you froze on as you were making a completely disgusted face. Fun, I love that. You froze on like, it's become too sweet. And then I was like, wow, she's really holding this sweet, this sweet, the disgust of sweet. I'm so pissed. I agree with you.

I think that sauces have become like kind of like artificial. And I know that with Domino's, you can choose like their old sauce. Pizza, Pizza Hut to me used to be like, oh man, that's like the fun, buttery, crispy crust pizza when you get that pan version. And now when I get the pan version of it, it does not taste that same way anymore. Just see, it tastes so artificial and like, like it was frozen or something. It just doesn't taste the same.

I don't know what happened. Yes. But it's definitely gone downhill. Puppet Johns, from my college days, I thought it was pretty decent. And I've never in Los Angeles had a great experience with it. Again, today was, or when I got it this Friday, was the best I had had it in a while. But there were still some flaws.

To talk positives, I do love, you know, I'm something of a heat seeker. I like spicy foods. And I like that you get a pepper and Chini inside the box. That's always a lot of fun. And I like the dipping cups. Have the pepper and Chini's gone like deflated too? They feel fucked up now. I'm sure they're using cheaper product than they want,

but I still admire that as like a distinguishing characteristic of the chain. I still like that they have the pepper and Chini. And I like the dipping cups. I always like a good dipping sauce. They have a bunch and they've helped popularize that, so which I think is they deserve some credit for. Oh, for sure. But let's talk about our most recent order.

So Reza, you got it. You got it last night, correct? Yeah. So I ordered mine last night. I bear I'm like I was smoking as I do before I go to sleep every night. And I was like, oh fuck, I have to order the pizza. And then thank God they were open till 11. So I didn't use an app.

So I have no like, I have nothing to say about the app. I literally just went on Yelp and was like, where the fuck is the closest Papa Chans that I can order? So I ordered from the one on Vermont. They were very helpful, very nice. I ordered a large mushroom pizza with the garlic sauce. And I ordered ranch, but they did not. They forgot the ranch, which is fine.

The garlic was perfect. I don't know. Sometimes I would heat up the garlic and sometimes I didn't. I used to eat Papa John's a lot in Miami because when I was younger, if I stayed in my house, we would order pizza on a Friday night. That was like when my parents had a party or had to go to something for work.

Me and my brother and sisters, we would get to order pizza. So we would literally go from the Domino's, Papa John's, Pizza Hut, and just kind of like one of us would get to pick. And I always would pick Papa John's actually as my choice. And it was good. I don't know if it was extra good because I was high and hungry after my workout. Again, I am vegan, so I did take a lactate before to make sure I don't end up in the bathroom all night long.

And I don't know. I'm very basic with my pizza, even though I'm vegetarian, vegan, whatever. I love a good, well done mushroom pizza with a dip. I can dip it in blue cheese. I can dip it in the garlic or I could dip it in ranch. A lot of people don't like blue cheese, so I end up having to just get ranch because that's the favorite within groups.

But I mean, it hit the spot. I hadn't had Papa John's in probably like, I don't even, maybe like eight or 10 years, like something crazy like that. Because I don't really eat that much fast food. And then my boyfriend eats a lot of fast food. So I started eating more fast food this year, like last year. And I was like, Papa John's, and I always try to get it in,

but he always goes for Domino's. I agree with him. I agree with him. It is, that is good judgment. Yeah, I will say that, like I mentioned earlier, I think this was a better Papa John's outing by recent standards. So I'll start with my Papadilla, which is kind of there. I'm not sure.

Oh, I saw those. Yeah, I don't know. The etymology, I guess, is Papa John quesadillas? It's kind of like a calzone, but it's more like two slices just mushed together. Yeah, I didn't get it. Yeah, it's a little confusing. And I will say, as someone not eating meat this year,

they don't have any vegetarian prefab Papadillas. So you have to design your own, which is, I wish they had like one curated veggie option. That said, I got it with mushrooms, onions, banana peppers, and then I subbed out that tomato sauce for barbecue sauce. And I got a ranch dip in sauce cup. That's pretty damn good, honestly. I was surprised by the Papadilla.

Mitch, you've had some success with the Papadilla in the past. Wags? Yeah, I too got the Papadilla. And I was ordering with my mom on Friday night. And there's a cheeseburger pizza at a local restaurant, Quincy 16C, which she loves. Great restaurant that my family goes to a lot, a great Quincy restaurant. It's called 16C?

That's correct, yes. Wow. And my mom loves like a cheeseburger pizza at that restaurant. And so she wanted to go with the double cheeseburger Papadilla. She said, let's try that. And that comes with the burger sauce cup, and it has with pickles, beef, and burger sauce on it and cheese. And that's what we got, Nick.

It was my bite of the night. It was good. It was surprisingly good. It was a tasty little burger. You're right that it is basically like, it feels like two pieces of pizza crust and stuffed with whatever. Like more so than even like, whatever, a pizzone or whatever, it feels like more made like a calzone or something.

It's not a calzone. It's not fully enclosed. They're just sort of, it's just like a sandwich. But it was tasty. The beef tasted good. It was probably one of the best things we had. I mean, I think it is the best thing we had that night. What is the burger sauce?

Just kind of like a Thousand Island? It's kind of like a Thousand Island-y sauce. It's hot. It was, it was, it was just, it just worked. All the ingredients worked well together. I was surprised because that was like one of the first things we had. And there and went downhill. I mean, like, things did get worse, but yeah.

Well, on that note, I mean, I will say, I didn't have anything that was outright bad, but I definitely think that the, that I had items that I liked less than others. So I got the, so right now they're really, really pushing their epic stuffed crust pizza. And so I got one of those. I saw that, I saw that too late.

Yeah. I got the epic stuffed crust pizza. And that's got a, I just got that cheese, just got it with a three cheese blend original sauce and got this one well done. Cause I like a well done cheese pizza. And then also got a large thin crust cheese pizza, which is, and this is, this is a topping combo actually got from the Doughboys Discord, the Doughscored.

Pineapple and jalapenos. It's a, it's a, you get a little sweet heat. So I got pineapple, jalapenos, and then some, some onions on that. I've told you this topping before. Listen to the, it works well. Fucking the Doughscored. The Doughscored told you. I've gotten this before too,

but everyone was talking it up in the Doughscored. And I was like, oh yeah, I gotta get this again. It's gotten into our regular rotation. We'll get that from Domino's. Pineapple and jalapenos works well. Usually throw some onions on there because we love onions. And the thin crust was definitely better as a pizza. Although I will say, I don't love their pineapple.

Like their pineapple was just like almost just too sweet. I don't know if it was the brand they were using or it was just like in heavy syrup or something. I don't know. It just, it didn't, it wasn't great pizza topping pineapples. Very funny cause I fell into something similar, which I'll get to. But the, but I thought it was a solid pizza.

Here's the issue with the stuffed crust pizza. That stuffed crust in particular here, it's ungepochka. It's too much crust. I don't need that much. Jesus. Get it out of there. It was, it was like half crust. The crust was going up so far on the slice.

And then I'm just getting like this bready, goopy mess that I'm biting into that's less toothsome than the actual cheese pizza that I was having. I was just, just give me three, just give me regular three cheese blend pizza all the way up to the edge and get rid of that, that stuffed crust. I didn't need that.

And also, and this was Natalie's observation. And then she was right on. You fucking ordered it. She needs, she needs to hold on. I want to try it. They're pushing it. I don't like the stuffed crust, but I ordered it. They're pushing it in their marketing.

If they're, if they're saying we're going to put our, we're confident enough in this product that we want you to get it, that we're going to put this on our commercials. We're going to say get the stuffed crust beats, get the epic stuffed crust beats. This is epic. This is like the Iliad.

That's what they're comparing it to. If they're going to say that, then it better deliver and it didn't. And I just want to add in Natalie had an observation, which was, was dead on, which is this should come by default with some marinara dip and sauce. Because it gets very, very dry and it would, it would have enhanced its,

it would have been much enhanced by the presence of a marinara dip and cup with that, that stuffed crust. But Mitch, let's hear about your pizza and the rest of your order. All right. I use the app as well. And I had an order from Brighton, Massachusetts,

about a 30 minute drive. So I went with my, with my mom. Thanks a lot, Weig. It's 30 minutes. So we had to, we had to go to. So, so roughly the, the commute from my place to your place when we used to record at your apartment. Sure.

Do that multiple times a week. Just normal. I knew you'd been waiting to fucking drop that, you piece of shit. That's what I did every week. Shut up. We drove, we drove to the Brighton store on 533 Washington street.

Now all the commenters are gonna be like, Mitch was actually mean to Wig. Shut up. God damn it. Shut up. Also, Mitch shouldn't have ducked the, the Papa John's in Brighton. Now everyone knows the address.

I'm going to go throw a tomato at it. Why? I went to the, on 533 Washington street in Brighton. My mom and I, we drove out there. I actually drove. And then I jumped out of the car while she waited in there and I ran inside quickly. Like a full bank job.

It was kind of, it kind of felt like that because there was, there had been snow. There wasn't a lot of parking. So it was kind of crazy. And I'm sure the employees seeing you, seeing you sprint into their restaurant were terrified. Take all the pizza you want. Here's, here's a rundown of what I got.

I got a 10 piece Buffalo chicken poppers with Buffalo hot dipping sauce cup. I got a small original, I'm sorry. I got a jalapeno pop, I got jalapeno popper rolls with ranch dipping sauce. I got the double cheese burger papadilla, which again comes with the burger sauce. And then I got for pizzas, I got a small,

original crust Tuscan six cheese. And then I got a large stuffed crust pizza wigs, extra cheese, onions and sausage on one half and pepperoni on the other half. And then I got a 20 ounce bottle of Mountain Dew. And then here, do you want to hear all the, you want to hear, you want to hear all the sauces I got? Sure.

I got two garlic, That's the most important. I got two garlic dipping sauces, one blue cheese dipping sauce. And again, the ranch that came with the, with the Buffalo chicken and the, and the, and the Buffalo, like a, what is it, the Buffalo flavor? So here's, here's, I'm just going to get into this right now.

The Buffalo chicken poppers suck. They were bad. They were like, the, just the quality of them were bad. At least the night we got them. And also you had to dip them in like the hot, they're not covered in hot sauce. So you have to dip them in Buffalo sauce. I hate that.

Yeah. It's stupid. Roll them in the sauce in the restaurant. Fucking, roll them in the sauce. It just seems like, it just seems like a step that's very easy to do when they don't do it. So ranch dipping sauce, I got a spicy garlic sauce cup. They have spicy garlic?

They have spicy garlic. Yeah. So spicy, spicy garlic. I really fucked up. Yeah. I should have tried that. The spicy garlic. Yeah. I had, I had, I had never, I had never even seen it before. So I got the spicy garlic, the, the burger sauce,

the ranch dipping sauce, two of those, the blue cheese. And then when I was in the store and the Buffalo hot sauce, and then, and then just two regular garlic sauces. And when I was in the store, I asked for marinara because why is I thought of it last second? And I said, I should get marinara for, even though I will say I enjoy dipping it because they, the marinara is not like a Papa John's marinara,

just came in a little black cup with a lid. Like, I think that they made it there or whatever. But the stuff crust was way better in the garlic sauce than it was in the, in the marinara. But I'll get to that in a minute. The chicken, the chicken poppers sucked. They were just, they were straight, just garbage. They were bad.

One of, one of, one of the least favorite, my mom and I both thought they were one of the worst things of the night. The jalapeno popper rolls were pretty good. I enjoy the jalapeno popper rolls. They were fun. That and the papadilla, we were doing all right with apps. One didn't, didn't do great for us.

It was like, I would, I still did. I mean, it's like breaded fried chicken nuggets. So I still ate some of them. And like no big deal for me, but they just were bad. Um, and then we got to the pizza. And sadly, the pizza was not good. I mean, like the, the, that's what the let down was. The small Tuscan cheese was, was the better of the two.

And it just had a better cook to it. The stuff, the large stuff crust, there was a lot of issues. It wasn't cooked well enough. Nick, I agree with you that it is too much. Like it does take up too much. It didn't bother me because we had a large, but like more, my issue more so with it than just taking up too much space on the, on the actual pie is that the stuff cheese in it is just like, no,

not flavorful. My mom made a great point of like, she's like, this is like eating nothing. It's like eating like just a solid nothing that's like super caloric. And why would you ever, why would you, why would you ever get it? If it's, if it's like, there's no flavor to it at all. It's just a gooey texture. And, and, and as that cools, it just gets, it just gets rubbery.

It gets rubbery. And so, and so like I said, we were a half an hour away. Most of the stuff stayed cold, but we put the, we put the stuff crust in the oven too. And even that just didn't help it. And it would, I thought, I thought it was undercooked the pizza a little bit. And the, so the, the one side was sausage in, and look, I got extra cheese, so I should have said, well done.

That's probably part of the issue. But one side was sausage and, and onion and like the onion had a, not great taste to it. It was, it was just strange tasting onion. And when I can ask a question, yes, of course. About the, so, you know, like when you, how you got a half and half, because I'm really picky about this, were they really good about the half and half, like one side only had one.

And the other side, the other, because every time I've, like every man I've dated, none of them have been vegetarian. And like anytime I would do that, it would drive me fucking nuts when a pepperoni or a sausage would end up on my mushrooms. I, I, I 100% get that. And I will say this, they were really good with it. And I do think that it's something that pizza places have gotten a lot better with because of.

Yes, I respect that. The apps, the apps, the apps let you break it down. And this apps lets you break it down too, which is, which is helpful. And they didn't fuck it up. And I've had it in the past with Domino's, where they've like messed it up and have both sides be it. But in my, in the visit, it wasn't, and you know what? I gotta give them credit too, because I went into the store and I was like,

do you have all the sauces? I asked the lady, like a fucking piece of shit. This fat guy looking for his sauces. And she was like, and she was like, they're in the box. And I remember being like, yeah, right. They're not in the fucking box. But you gotta check. You gotta check because then you, then you get home and you're like,

you get ready, you're going to fucking like put that shit in your mouth and you're getting the dip. And you're like, wait, where is this? And then it sucks. So here's the deal. I didn't. Oh no. I didn't check.

I put it in the car and I was thinking the same exact thing. I was like, I said to my mama, I was like, she said they're all in the boxes. She, but they definitely forgot them because that just is always what happens. But look, it's a dough boys experiment. I just got to go with it. And also the other thing too is that the boxes were taped. So I was running out. We were like double parked.

I ran out, got the pizza, put it in the car. I couldn't like untape all these boxes and check to see if all the sauces were there. I had to take her word for it. And guess what? We'll find out right after the break. Welcome back to dough boys. We are here with Riza Lisea discussing Papa John's Mitch. You have a whole bunch of dips in a sealed box.

That's right. You drive home 30 minutes, then what happens? I open up the boxes and I realize I own an apology to this Papa John's employee because all the sauces are there. Why? Cause they didn't miss a single one. Every single one was in the box. They knocked it out of the park, which gets them points honestly.

They like, uh, that's, that's, that's, uh, that's not easy to do. But every single, every single sauce was in the box. And I, hey, I did, I did the, I did the, I didn't say a word, but I, but I highly doubted that they were in there and they were all there. So, so props to props to them. And you got to check though. You have to because like I used to, I would, I always have to check my, the amount of times I've gone to a burger place and ordered a burger without a burger

and I get home and there's a fucking burger. Like I'm just like, I just have to be that annoying person now and just check it. But you like, now I think they're a little bit better because they're like what you said, taping it and stuff. Cause mine also was taped and I asked the same question and mine was missing the ranch. I, I, I, I, I, I believe that you should check and I don't think, if you go into your car and you check and then you come back and you're like, Hey, they forgot the thing. I don't think that that's a big issue.

And I, I don't think, I think that it's, if you can be, people can be rude about it as the only issue and just don't be rude about it. Sure. Go check in your car, figure it out. If they, if something's missing, go back and get it. It's not a big deal. Yeah. It's fine.

They don't care. It doesn't cost them anything like the employee for sure. They're just like, whatever. Yeah, sure. Here's another one. I'll give you some extra fries too. Bye. When I worked at The Simpsons, I had to check like every lunch, basically.

And the employees would have met a mind because I was basically checking them off as they came out. Right. And then God forbid if I ever came back and fucking Matt Groening didn't have his ham sandwich or some bullshit. Yeah. Or if like you got Homer's order wrong, he'd be pissed. I wanted donuts, boy. Wait, what about, okay, the garlic sauce.

Did you guys heat them up or not? Because that's also like very, very, everybody's different about that. Some people like will microwave the fuck out of that shit. And some people are like, no, I want it cold. So big heads up. If you do microwave this, this is forever. Because this is a problem I ran into in the past, not, not this time. You got to take that little flap off of it because it's going to spark.

There's like, there's some metallic shit in there. It sparks. I just hope that it's heated up by being in the box. A lot of the time it just won't be in the box and be heated up. Two of my garlic sauces were like thick and they were not, they were not. I don't love that. Yeah, it's always a bummer when that happens. But just only two of them.

And I got to say this, that garlic, the spicy garlic dipping sauce, I liked it a lot. That was one of my favorites. I think that garlic dipping sauce just is king still. It is at Papa John's. It's maybe the best thing they have is their garlic dipping sauce. But I, so I had that Tuscan six cheese. And look, there was just like a different bake to the two pizzas too. Like, like I said, that large stuff.

Of course, if you looked at the bottom of both of the pizzas, that Tuscan six cheese just had a much better bake to it. And the Tuscan six cheese was like fine. And then the, and then sadly that large stuff crust, it just was not good. That the, the sausage was lower quality than the domino sausage. The onions didn't taste that great. And the pepperonis weren't that great either. It was just, it was a bummer.

Um, the Mountain Dew, of course, is great. The, uh, the Puppet Dia, the Puppet Dia was, was, was great. I genuinely liked it. The jalapeno popper rolls were good. And then the, like I said, those, those buffalo, uh, chicken poppers, not great. Wags, we also had a dessert. We got a double chocolate chip brownie. And that was good.

It was, it was, it was good. It was like a nice warm brownie, not like the, the best quality thing, but very chocolatey and, and, and kind of like nice and chewy and, and chocolatey and good. So we enjoyed, we enjoyed that. It was, it was tasty. That's a nice thing about chain pizza desserts is they at least have that nice oven. So if you get something properly warmed, it can be pretty good. Well, hey, I guess we should get to our final thoughts on Papa John's.

So we'll each go around and give our closing argument, if you will, on this week's chain, and then end, uh, end that little summation by giving it a fork score from zero to five. Riza, you're our guest. We'll be, we'll begin with you. Your thoughts, your fork score. Zero to five. Um, okay. So I was very basic and ordered the mushroom, just well done cheese with a garlic.

I was annoyed about not having the ranch, but luckily I had my own ranch on Tapatillo here, which I was going to mention earlier. I fucking, they don't have a good dip. I put a little ranch on Tapatillo and it's fuego. But I will say for not having it, like for such a long time, Papa John still fucking slaps. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I definitely would order it for sure now before Domino's or Pizza Hut. I think it's, it's now my new, my new top chain pizza. Wow. Wow. Yeah. It's not going to be added to the favorites on my phone. So that's thought is still for tomato pie pizza joint.

So like relajade. It's not like that. I would give it a three. I was, um, I gave the, you know, the, the, I will say the delivery lady was really funny because I like gave specific instructions because I was ordering it on the phone. And usually I have to put it in, you know, in the notes or whatever. And she, uh, I'll give her a three because I thought it was funny. She, uh, rang the doorbell of someone downstairs at like mid or like 1130 or whatever

when she showed up to my house with a pizza and woke up my neighbor and like told me the tea. She was like, Oh my God, I got her mad. I think, and I was like, Oh well, like not my problem. So yeah, I gave it a three. It was good, you know, but it's, it's hard to give anybody a four when it's not like just perfect. I would be pissed if a pizza person bring my doorbell. I didn't get a slice.

That would be my big hold up. I know. I was like tempted to like text like some of them. I'm like, cause I don't even know who it was. She just said it was someone downstairs. And I was like, Oh, it could be two different like apartments. And I was like, it's fine. I'm like, whatever.

But, um, yeah, I'm like, it's fine. I give it, I give it three, uh, three, um, what do you call it? I was going to say Cuyertos, um, tenedores. That's how you say pork in Spanish. Ten lawyers. Ah-ha, tres tenedores. Wow. Well, I have been very hard on Papa John's in the past.

Look, Papa John himself sucks. We know this. It should be Papa, it should be Papa Shaxx. We should also note that Papa John himself, John Schneider is about not been, uh, involved in the company in an official capacity and for a few years now. So it's his name, his brand, but he's not actually making, you know, it's, it's, he's not running the ship anymore.

He stormed in the capital. How was he not in that footage? Shocking. Shocking omission. I, I think it should be turned into Papa Shaxx still. And look, I think there might just be a thing where like a lot of these pizza places, like Domino's, you know how Domino's is like, look, we sucked and we realized that we sucked and we're trying to get a better pizza.

Maybe Pizza Hut and Papa John's and Domino's, maybe they got to do this, like every couple of years now, they need to reset because I think, I think that the, I think there was a time when, when, when Papa John's did have some decent ingredients. I didn't think it was the better pizza ever, but it did have better ingredients. And it doesn't have better ingredients anymore. Is that the, is that the slow, wait, better ingredients, better pizza?

Better ingredients, better pizza, Papa John's. I thought I was listening to a commercial. We, we, we are basically just commercials for all these places where it's a bad podcast that should end, but no, but there's a good meme of like Papa John saying like better ingredients, better pizza, Papa John's. And he's like laughing and then it shows him like on the Olympic steps. And he's like in almost last place. He's like eighth out of 10, 10 or something, which honestly, like,

I can't think of a place that I like less than Papa John's. Like that is the issue is like, when I think of like the big chains, like Pizza Hut now sadly is maybe down there with Papa John's. But besides that, Domino's beats it for me. Little Caesar's beats it for me. Sure. What else? Why is anything?

Little Caesar. Stuck your tongue out at Little Caesar's. Little Caesar's, Little Caesar's is good. Little Caesar's. Askel, Askel. No, Askel. Little Caesar's is, wow. Little Caesar's are surprising.

Their deep dish is really good. They're, they're, they're, what is the, the best cheesiest or what is it wise? Like the, the bestest cheesiest. Extra most cheesiest, extra most bestest, yeah. Extra most bestest. Bad, bad marketing maybe, but that's, that's, that, that pizza is great. I, Little Caesar's. Yeah, when, when two men who, whose, whose job is this struggle to remember it.

Maybe it's not, not the best marketing. So I don't know if that's. We're also dumb. Yeah, we're also. Also two dumb guys. Look, this is one of the better outings Papa John's had on this show though. My mom and I both like that Papa D, the stuff crust was such a disappointment. The dessert was good, but you know what?

The, it's performance with the poppers, the Papadilla and the Tuscan three and six cheese prop, maybe along with that garlic sauce and the fact that they got it all right. I was going to say handholding club. Trace, how do you say it? Tenedores. Trace, tenedores. I think Doris, you were saying Loris. Ten, tenedores, Doris.

Like Doris, tenedores. I'm trying to think of what I've given Papa John's in the past. Two forks. We've, we definitely one forked it at one point. We had a really bad outing with it. Yeah. I feel like I'm going to go dose. Okay.

Dose point five. 2.5, tenedores. Dale. Say it again. I'm going to copy you exactly. 2.5. Dos. Ponto, Sico.

Tenedores. Tenedores. Wow, I really copied it exactly. I'm, you're, look, you're doing ads. You're doing ads for Papa John's and I'm doing ads for dual linguals. Or a babble, babble, babble. The babble has done ads on our podcast, so I guess babble. But hey, you helped me get it out.

I appreciate that. Two, two and a half, which is honestly probably, it's probably the best score I've given it since we've, since we've done Papa John's. Look, I think that it could go up. I think they should rebrand as Papa Shacks. I know that that's a sticking point for me. I know I hate Papa John, but just genuinely reviewing it on his food. I know that some people think this is one of the better places, but

each time we go there, there's something wrong and like, I can't overlook the fact that one of the issues was the pizza. You know what I mean? Like that's the thing that should be the best. So you're so, you're so right. The pizza, that's something I always say. Like if I go to like a pizza spot, I'm like, if you can't do a cheese, just a plain cheese pizza well,

then I don't fucking care about the rest of your menu. That's how I usually, that's how I judge most pizza places, the cheese pizza. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I had a better and that expected outing at Papa John's. I agree it should be Papa Shacks. I think that the Papa Dia was good, but I, but then this is, this is adjacent to both of your points.

Why am I getting a Papa Dia if I want pizza? Why is that a thing that like, that's not something to hang your shingle on is that we got the, we get the Papa Dia. This isn't a reason to go any place is to get this weird, you know, hybrid quesadilla pizza, whatever calzone, whatever they're trying to do. So even though it was a good execution,

I'm just like, this isn't what I want. The pizza, especially, here's what I'll say. Stuffed crust, always a bust. It's always something that seems like it's going to be good and they really push it up in the marketing and it's never, never as good as you expect. It's, it's to, it's a fucking honey trap for kids. That's what it is.

Yeah. It's, it's like little kids are like, oh, I want stuffed crust. There's more cheese. It's got to be better. It's not better. It just, it just lowers the overall quality of the slice. So I don't think the stuffed crust was all that good, even though the actual cheese part of the pizza

was pretty decent, especially well done. The thin crust, you know, I didn't like the pineapple, but the other components I think were pretty good. And I think that will, here's one of my favorite things to do with pizza. I've talked to them about this with you before, Mitch. I have it the next morning, cold with coffee as like a breakfast. I know, you've said this before, right?

That's what I had to do. Wow. Hell yeah. Wow. I had a slice and then my coffee. Yeah. Cause I woke up late. I should have made some protein, but I fucked up and was like,

well, I have pizza or whatever. It's a great, a little treat breakfast that all the, if you have some leftover pizza, which we occasionally do, I do like to do that. And when I had it in that context, I was like, you know what? This ain't half bad. So I'm going to, I'm going to be ballpark buds with the both of you, but I am going to be the hand holding club with our guest

and also say, Trace Tenedores. I'm going to say three forks for Papa John's. It beat my expectations. Níralo. So, uh, uh, so I feel pretty good. I honestly am not like, I wasn't, I thought it was going to hate this. I thought this was going to be bad and I think it was okay. And I think that's about what you, if it's like just down the middle,

I think that's a three fork range. I think that's, I think that's fair. Yeah. So I put it up, so I make it a three all around and make it a hand holding club. Wow. Si, si, aguantar manos. Trace Tenedores. Did I get it right?

Si, si. A hand holding club wise. Wow. Might as well be nice to the place that we're always mean to. Fuck Papa John though forever. Yes. Bad man. Yeah.

Yeah. But hey, that was our review of Papa John's. It's time for a segment. I've selected a chain and Mitch and Riza have 60 seconds to craft an order under an array of restrictions. It's another edition of Can I Take Your Order? Yeah. Can I take your order from a place that is a chain?

Can I take your order? There are rules that I'll explain. Now those rules are as follows. Okay. Yeah. I was going to say, I was wondering where you found the karaoke track to. Can you take me higher? And also I didn't realize it at the time when I did Snacrifice,

but I was, you had already done a creed, you'd already done a creed parody. Was that another creed song? Yeah. Snacrifice. My sacrifice. Oh, how about that? Well, there you go. We got creed on the brain.

We got creed, we love creed over at the on the Doughboy spot. This is a Christian podcast as we've said in the past. Are they Christian? Yeah, I think so. Can you take me higher is about God. I think they're like one of those covertly Christian bands that went into the mainstream. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah.

And then Scott Stapp got his fucking meat sucked next to a fucking kid rock. Did he really? Yeah, on video. Oh my God, I don't know any of this. Oh, wow. They have like dual BJs. Yeah, they were like, it's like one of those leaked sex tapes.

They were next to each other like backstage in a strip club or something. They're just both getting, they were just both getting blowjobs next to each other. Yeah, they're both getting top. They show that a lot in movies though and I'm just like, or like guys doing stuff like next to each other all the time. And I'm like, is this a thing? Do people actually do this? Like not part of the podcast, but I'm also like, I'm like, is this real?

Yeah, we call it the autofocus. I think it's a, yeah, you know, occasionally pre quarantine, not these days. It's not saving. Not these days. Gotta got it. All right. So for this edition of can I take your order? Let's see what happens on the next no boys tour.

VIP special. Oh my gosh. Tour in the tour in the globe with various grandmas. Have you guys done an episode at a strip club to like for the food? No, that's interesting. That would be my maiden voyage to a house of burlesque. I've never been to a strip club. Okay.

Cause in Miami there's one that like people literally swear. It's kind of like, you know, like what's his name? The one that he like, he left the bubble and got in trouble because he like landed on the food. Lou Williams. Yeah, Lou Williams. There you go. And I was like, honestly, there's a lot of people that would be like, yeah, I fucking fucks with the food in this place.

Yeah. Lou Williams. What's a magic city? I nominate myself. I nominate myself as the, as the guest to go with you guys to that. We'll do it. When it opens back up, I, I'm down. I'm down.

I'm a hundred percent down. I'd be scandalized. Magic city was the strip club. And he said he went for the wings and I checked out the magic city wings menu. And I was like, this looks pretty good, honestly. Yeah, that's the thing. Yeah. Like it was a, it could have not been a lie, but also we know,

we know why you were going there. You wanted some wings and titties. That's fine. I can't wait for the fucking, for Wyger to just become a ghost, get casparized. Fucking turn it, you're a floating, a floating spirit leaving the, leaving the club after, after this, you won't be able to handle it. But that would be fun. Why is we should do it in the new year?

Hell yeah, let me tell you. And by the new year, I mean 2022. Yeah, literally, right? I'm like 2022 for real. So for this edition of can I take your order? Your chain is the cheesecake factory. I have shared the menu with both of you in the group chat. You are there for brunch.

So let that guide your ordering. And in honor of our guest, you cannot get dairy. You must stay dairy free with your cheesecake factory order. Before we begin, you may ask any questions. Do we have a budget that we have to? Oh yeah, you should have a budget. Let's say, let's say you have $40.

$40, okay. $40. You know what's tricky is that this menu doesn't have prices on it. Oh. Yeah. So how about, how about we'll say this? Do we have to get it from the Saturday and Sunday brunch menu? You can get it from wherever you can get it from any,

I mean, the whole menu is going to be available. It's cheesecake factory. We've got the whole menu every time of day. But in terms of your score that is going to be, in terms of how we're going to evaluate you, might be better to, you know, keep in mind the time of day you're dining. Okay. I'm going to say, don't worry about a budget.

Just get yourself a meal and we'll, it's a splurge. It's cheesecake factory. You're going out there for fun. I can get, but I also can get, meat. You can get meat, but not dairy. Okay. Yeah.

No dairy. That's the restriction. You don't have to be vegan. Okay. All right. Here we go. Your 60 seconds for this challenge begins now. Wow.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. As we hear the Smash Brothers break the targets theme, Mitch just uttering a string of profanities. Our guests face very studious. Does cheesecake factory make a dairy-free cheesecake? I don't know if they have one. Great question, Emma.

Emma, how do you handle dairy? Are you all right with it? I'm fine with it. Yeah, I can eat. Yeah. I'm lucky. I can eat literally anything. My body doesn't care.

Wow. I envy your bowels. I have a, I don't have an iron stomach, but I can't handle dairy pretty well. Very luckily. All right. 20 seconds remain. Mitch went silent.

Tiki figured it out. Mitch, no. Yeah, Mitch has just been staring into the horizon. Might just be contemplating his life in general. All right. And time. Okay. All right.

Mitch, how do you go first? We'll have you go first. What is your order from the cheesecake factory? There for brunch cannot get dairy. Okay. Here's what I got. I got myself a fried chicken and waffles wigs. Writing this down, fried chicken and waffles.

With a side of two eggs over easy. And two eggs over easy. That's right. And I got myself a large orange juice because I couldn't get any. Oh, you know what? I'm going to get a strawberry fruit smoothie. Fuck you.

Wow. Oh, wow. So healthy. I'm like so healthy for the cheesecake factory. I like, I feel like when I go there, I just want like, because everything's so big. I'm like just fucking, even like the smallest bite is going to be 9,000 calories.

So fuck it. You know that was a good one. Wigs, you know that was a good order. Fried chicken and waffles, two eggs over easy. And a strawberry fruit smoothie. That is a very solid order. Riza, what is your pick? Okay.

So I, I like in my brain, I went in the order of how it would happen. I want to like pre-anthus that I saying cheesecake factories be one of my favorite restaurants, but then they took out my favorite sandwich off the menu, the portobello on a bun. And I was very upset. So I stopped going.

Wow. That was like what I like really liked. But anyways, I'm like, you know, bring it back cheesecake factory. I know, I know CEO, CFO, COO of the factory listen to the podcast. So I started with a mojito. If it's brunch, I want to, I need a cocktail.

And then I, I put some egg rolls. I always love the avocado egg rolls. I feel like you got to have an app, especially if you're drinking. And then I picked the factory huevo ranchero, but I would have my eggs poached and asked for vegan crema. Like if they have like sour cream or, but if they have like vegan, if not, it's fine.

Again, just would have it without it, since it's dairy free. Wow. That's good. Wow. Mojito avocado egg rolls. Factory huevo rancheros with some substitutions. Mitch had fried chicken and waffles,

two eggs over easy and a strawberry fruit smoothie. Judgment goes to our producer, Emma Erdbrink. Emma, which meal would you prefer? Oh my God, that's so hard. I'm sorry, I'm scary. He's like, if I don't pick her, I'm stuck, did he? I was just thinking those both sounds so damn delicious. I can't decide, but I have to be honest,

those huevos rancheros sounds so good to me right now. So I think I got to go rice up. Plus she picked a cocktail, no offense, Mitch. Yeah, I do honestly, I think your order is very solid, Mitch, but the mojito puts it over the top for me. Yeah, cocktail at brunch, I mean, you gotta. And they make good ones there. I will say the cheesecake factory has really good, tasty cocktails.

I'm not always down for a super sweet type of thing when I'm eating, but their mojitos and certain margs, they do it pretty well. Yeah, their cocktails are always really good. Especially, I mean brunch, you can't really do brunch without a cocktail. Yeah. We were talking, but good efforts from both of you. I picked chicken and waffles, your favorite dish. I wouldn't say that's my favorite dish.

You love chicken and waffles. I do love fried chicken. I do love fried chicken. But he's a vegetarian now. Fried chicken and waffles isn't necessarily, yeah. But that said, even if I was, I would love, either of these meals would be a delight. I'd be happy to have either of those.

It's just making me wish I could go to the cheesecake factory right now. Oh my God, Jesus Christ to be a little bit of heaven. Sitting in there. Yum. That pumpernickel bread. Oh God. Nobody likes that one. I'm like, everybody always gets a white bread.

And I'm like, no, give me that pumpernickel brown. That's so sad. Gotta do that brown bread. I found that at the grocery store. I found they had brown bread. Yes. And I was making grilled cheeses with it. And I was like, this is delightful.

Is it good? And like, did you? I mean, definitely had some preservatives in it. It's not the same bread you'll get up in the restaurant, but it was pretty damn good. Oh, nice. By the way, we were talking hoops earlier, and you mentioned a smoothie, Mitch.

It put in my head one of my favorite NBA tweets ever. This is from Yanis, two-time MVP. This is January 20th, 2014. I just taste for the first time a smoothie, S-M-O-T-H-I-E. English is the second language. Man, God bless America in all caps, smiley face. So there you go. That's awesome.

Yeah, it's adorable. That's nice. We take those things for granted, Weigz. We do. We do. I'm going to get a smoothie after the show. Man, I kind of want one too, actually. I might fucking go get a juice.

I was not planning on doing it today. I've been eating pretty healthy, but I might go get a fucking just a bunch of liquid calories. Yum. Hey, smoothies can be healthy. Can they be healthy, Weigz? I'm curious. I want to, because I know our guest is very health conscious.

I've heard you on the Dumbbells podcast. Is a smoothie something that's ever a part of your diet, or is that just an indulgence? I will make it if I can put protein powder in it, or I'm trying, but I just feel like smoothies to me just take so much work and effort for something that's not as satisfying. It takes like, the cleanup is the worst.

To clean the blender and the blades and make sure you don't get the part that shouldn't get wet, it's like, I don't know. Maybe I have the wrong tools, but it's just annoying as fuck to make. But my roomie, Sarah, she makes them, and she makes really good ones, and I always ask her to make me one,

and I add protein powder in it. Well, there you go. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, that was Can I Take Your Order, just like a restaurant value feedback. Let's open up the feedback, and we have a voicemail today.

Let's go ahead and listen to this. Hello, boys. What's your spell? I'm being filled out here. I was wondering if there's a food that you can think of that would, if you ate it, make the mask that you have to wear afterward smell the worst. You know, I recently had like five hot dogs,

and then I had to wear a mask for a few hours, and it was really bad. Bye. Phil from Philadelphia. Phil from Philadelphia. I mean, how perfect is that? What? It's perfect.

By the way, very much a Doughboys listener that having eaten five hot dogs is not the main thrust of their email. That's just an aside. You know, standard lunch, five hot dogs. But worst, mask smell food. I have an immediate reaction to this, and that is just as simple as,

I'll take a walk in the morning sometimes after I've had my coffee, and coffee breath in a mask is pretty vile, honestly. And it's one you forget about because you're so used to just drinking your coffee in your car in the morning, and then you leave, and you're like, fuck. Yeah.

Coffee breath is bad. Yeah, it's bad. It's bad news. It's pretty vile. And then when you're just breathing it into your mask and then right back into your nose, it's just like it's really stank. Yeah, just the animalistic side of just wearing masks

and being like, ugh, I fucking smell. I can just smell fucking everything. It's disgusting. It's just disgusting. For me, I just feel like if you had a rubin or something, I feel like a rubin, like sauerkraut and, or onions, honestly. I think any of the traditional stinky foods. But I think there's something more to it of beef or meat,

or like you were saying, with coffee, just anything that just fucking stinks. You know what? Honestly, just even your own fucking breath. Right. I'm like, I would say garlic because, yeah. So like I had, like I was saying how I had like the, like we had Cuban for the Super Bowl this past weekend.

And I, I had, we had mojito for the mariquitas, which is like, it's like oil and like garlic. And it's just like that you put it on top of like the plantains. And then I had to, I put my mask on. I was like, and I like did like, I was like, oh, this is like now. I was like, it was like a little like burp the next day. And I was like, this is from the day after, like literally, like last night.

So like last night it happened, like I was working out and I was like, and I had like a little burp inside my mask. I was like, oh no, what am I doing? Then I tried to open it and it was nasty. I was like, yeah, garlic, garlic is, it stays on you, but it's so fucking good that I don't care. Like I will have bad breath for a week and I like, I don't care. It's worth it.

Yeah. I'm kind of, Natalie and I are like kind of, we have that emerald sort of philosophy of just like throwing as many cloves of garlic as you. It's so fucking good. It's always, always worth the lingering bad breath. Yeah. It seeps out of your skin and has like an unnatural smell.

It's fucked, it's fucked up. That's, yeah, that's a little bit over the top. But hey, let us know your worst mask smell food. Hashtag not smoking. Jesus Christ. Okay, all right. Okay. Hashtag not smoking.

You know, the mask is smoking. In this case, it would be not smoking because it's so vile. Wally and Irma, when I put their little masks on, I'm sure they don't love to smell their cat food, their nine lines coming back in through their nose. Mitch, I don't think you know how the masks work. I was telling, I was telling you guys before this that Wally and Irma have been a little bit,

they've been, because they stay on the top level in my house. So Wally's been, he's been only angry at me. I'll see him and he'll kind of go like, like at the end of the day, he'll just kind of like, mwah, he'll just like give me like a mad, a little mad meow, like a mwah. And he'll be upset with me, which is very, it's like I said, why, it's very cute, but.

It's so cute. My cat's on Prozac right now. Wow. Yeah, he's back on. Wow. Yeah, so he would do the more like, mwah, like those like loud ones in the morning to wake me, Irma, roommate up to feed him.

Wow. And now that he's on Prozac, like because he was on it, but like now he's back on it because he wouldn't let me give it to him. And like his little meows are more, like it's like, they're so subdued that it's even cuter, but I know it's because of the Prozac, because he's like, he's more like, mwah, mwah.

And I'm like, oh my God, it's so cute. But also, like don't murder me. I'll get up, I'm like fine, I'll get up, I'll feed you. This motherfucker owns my life. If you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants, you can email us at doboyspodcast at gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 830 Godot.

That's 830 4636844. And to get the Doughboys double. Our weekly bonus episode, you can join the Golden or Platinum Play Club at patreon.com slash Doughboys. Wow. Reza Lisa, thank you so much for being here. What a treat to have you.

Please come back. Is there anything you would like to plug at this time? I mean, I guess I'll plug the podcast Spanish Aki Presents. You can follow us on Instagram at Spanish Aki Presents and on Twitter at Spanish Aki. We just made it, so we have like 20 followers. But yeah, and you can follow me on Instagram and on Twitter at Reza Lisa, our A-I-Z-A-L-I-C-E-A.

Get a lot of cat stuff, a lot of basketball stuff. Hell yeah. But yeah, I'm like, the podcast right now is what we got going on. And I guess whatever the hell comes up, you'll find out on my Instagram. But yeah. Hell yeah, check it out.

Well, there you go. And hey, that'll do it for this episode of Doughboys. And until next time for the Spoon Man, aka Mr. Slice, we didn't even use your other name on a pizza episode. Mr. Slice. Did I say howdy ho? Howdy ho, Spoon Nation.

Oh, that's the other thing you've been getting in trouble for. I mean, Mitch didn't say hidey ho at the start of the episode. You know what I'm going to say instead? Oh, no. What? Okay. Hidey ho.

You should say it like the Cubans. Then instead of hidey ho, they'd be like, I can't even attempt that one. Fair, fair. Good cop, good cop, good cop. Until next time for the Spoon Man, back by Mitchell Labdick, while you're happy eating.

See ya. On the next Doughboys Double, that's right. It's time for another feedback. Go to the podcast. You song Lou joins producer Emma as we answer your emails and voicemails. Will it be yours?

Statistically unlikely, but pay money and find out. Get the Doughboys Double every Tuesday only at patreon.com slash Doughboys. Sources for this week's intro are in the episode description.