Doughboys - Portillo's with Jon Gabrus & Christine Nangle (LIVE)

Episode Date: April 11, 2019

The 'boys hit Chicago and are joined by Christine Nangle (The President Show, Inside Amy Schumer) and Jon Gabrus (Raised by TV, High & Mighty) to review a midwest chain specializing in hot dogs: Portillo's. Recorded live at the Logan Square Auditorium in Chicago, IL.Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is a headgum podcast. You know we're just strutting for fun. Strutting our stuff for everyone. We're not here to start no trouble. We're just here to do the Super Bowl shuffle. On December 3, 1985, the Chicago Bears released the Super Bowl Shuffle, a charmingly amateurish hip hop adjacent music video, with the team's players rapping as they execute a crude dance routine.

Recorded before the playoffs even began, the track was an act of hubris that, thankfully for the Chicago Faithful, did not end up backfiring, and the Bears did in fact make the Super Bowl where they'd post a dominating 46-10 win over the New England Patriots. The Champion 85 Bears remain a legendary franchise known for a historic defense led by Mike Singletary, the punishing ground game of Walter Payton, and an oddball supporting cast including Jim McMahon and William refrigerator Perry. But the team's biggest star was arguably its coach,

a Polish-American retired player with the looks and cadence of a gruff police chief, Mike Ditka. The man nicknamed Iron Mike became a national celebrity and Windy City legend in the 1980s, and in 1990 Ditka parlayed his fame to compete on a new playing field, the fast, casual chain restaurant sector. In December of that year, he opened the first Ditka Dogs in Naperville, Illinois, one of ten planned locations.

But the outlet sported a menu that was suspiciously close to another Chicago area institution, a beloved local chain that was founded in 1963 as the doghouse by a man named Dick. Originally a trailer without running water in 1967, Dick moved his concept into a brick and mortar location where he gave it his last name, gradually growing his menu beyond hot dogs into Italian beef sandwiches and legendarily decadent shakes. By the time Ditka Dogs came on the scene, Dick's chain had double digit locations.

And when Ditka Dogs didn't stop at merely copying his menu, literally hiring away many of his employees, Dick, a man who professes a degree from Asphalt University, fought back. In his recently released memoir, he describes how he paid Bear Star refrigerator Perry to make in-store appearances, flew a banner advertising his chain over Soldier Field during Bear's Games, and offered cash bonuses to lure a wave of his employees back just before the weekend rush, leaving Ditka Dogs flailing and ultimately failing.

Dick considers forcing Ditka Dogs closure as one of his proudest career achievements. And while Ditka later found success with an upscale steakhouse concept, the chain Dick founded rules the local fast casual scene as it has become as entrenched with Chicago's identity as those Super Bowl Shufflin' 85 Bears. This week on Doughboys, Portillo's. Dough is the Doughboy's. The Doughboy's. Welcome to Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants.

How's it going? Are you guys doing Chicago? I went into a Tomaton mode and completely forgot there was a live audience to address. Like, I had time to get into my outline. Guys, we have an awesome show, but before we get any further, there's some business to attend to. This week's roast is courtesy of Will Sisko. Let me introduce my co-host, Chance the Fapper, the smooth man, Mike Mitchell! They gave you such an ovation that you looked at your phone on stage silently.

God. Yeah, that's what the show is. Jesus. We played the mess around for my opening. Nick warned me he was like, they're not going to like that. You need to play the Spoon Man theme song. I was like, I don't think it fucking matters. I think people are used to how the podcast goes and they want to hear Spoon Man when Spoon Man walks out.

You got Ray Charles, you got the mess around Chicago. You got Chris Cornell in Soundgarden singing Spoon Man, which is your name. Your name's not the best. I mean, the mess would fit you as a nickname better than Spoon Man. What's up, Chicago? Hold on a second. Duh, boys. This is the only thing I prepared tonight.

Duh, boys. I mean, it's really good. I'm glad you brought it. So that roast I mentioned said by Will Sisko, Tyler Moss and Chris Whipper also sent in the same roast. However, Tom Sitch and this Drew Johnson sent in an alt. Chance the Crapper. You thought that need to be stated. Yeah.

Everyone wanted, people wanted some sort of a Chance the Rapper reference because we were here in Chi Town. Have you heard Chance the Rapper ever? Have you heard any music, period? I've seen, I believe it's a Sprite commercial that Chance the Rapper is currently in. No, it's a Doritos commercial. It's a Doritos commercial, that's what it is. I was conflating it with a Drake Sprite commercial. He's in a Doritos commercial.

Oh, Jesus. All right, hit him with a drop if you don't mind. Who's that, Yousang? Yeah, Vanilla's great. You're so boring. I think he's exciting. Vanilla, which is a flavor, it's not plain. Vanilla, Vanilla's great.

All right, let's sit in silence. I thought the Vanilla could have been a little more Vanilla. And the Vanilla has a nice first bite to Vanilla. Hey, I had the actual Vanilla, Vanilla. Vanilla. I like Vanilla shakes. Vanilla would taste awful. Wow.

Nick, who are you texting? Okay, here's the thing. Are you texting your Uber? You are. I'm not getting a lift right now. He's texting his lift. Here's the issue. Our good friend, David Phillips.

So I had tickets to see the Lakers against the Milwaukee Bucks today at Staples Center. Some Bucks fans. Okay, having a fantastic season. We'd love to see Giannis out there. But unfortunately, because we're here, I, like, I was like... Are you transferring tickets?

I forgot to do this earlier. Because Tip opposite 7.30, he's at the venue. And so I just got a, yeah. That's insane. I'm sorry about that. I know, I'm fucked up, but what am I supposed to do? Want me to stop the show? No, no, I'll tell them about this drop.

Hi, Mitch. I'm going to the 7 p.m. live show in Chicago next week. Can't wait. I was going to mail you a gift for you in Weiger. Whatever. It's very cool. Here's a drop by somebody from Spoon Nation Fly, Sarah Hansen.

Thank you, Sarah. Did she not come? Good job. David Phillips says hi to the crowd. So that was nice. Wow. They got a hello from David Phillips over text. Mitch, my first time in Chicago, you've been before.

Oh, I've been plenty of times, Wags. Now, what do you think of this city that has a reputation for being quite windy? Are you a fan? It's windy because of the politicians, Nick. Yes. Not the actual wind, though it is windy and cold on top of that. Right.

But it has the origin of that nickname is because of all the gas bags that are involved in local politics. I got you. Everyone here is full of hot air. That's the issue when they speak wind comes out. Yes. That's the etymology of windy city. Yes.

Stop. What they're referring to is how City Hall is full of people who blow be ate like windbags. I got you. Jesus Christ. This is your last visit here. I love Chicago. It's a great food city.

You guys must feel sick all the time, right? It's a punishing diet. It seems really... I don't know how people are able to eat like that. It's intense. It's really intense. Yes. It's a great food city.

It's a fun city, Nick. I'm having fun. Jealous. I didn't spend any time here in college or after there's a big comedy scene here. I know. And us. We're here as well. But I came here to watch the Bears and Patriots game this year.

The Patriots won. You guys won the... Oh, shut up. You guys won one Super Bowl 30 years ago. Stop complaining. And their quarterback's name is Mitch. Hell yeah. Yeah.

I'm burning out all my applause breaks. Who do you think shows more symptoms of CTE? That Mitch or you? Mitch, we should introduce our guest. We should. You know her from the president's show on Inside Amy Schumer. Our friend Christine Nangle. Give it up.

Wow. Wow. What the hell? I'm not Christine Nangle. I'm Nick Weiger. Oh, my God. Safety third. Is your hair done up like Weiger's?

My hair is... I have Weiger's hair now. You're also wearing a Minions t-shirt. Which is a lot of fun. It says safety third and I genuinely laughed out loud when I saw it. That's funny. They're funny. But I'm Nick Weiger and I'm not making eye contact with anyone.

Okay, here's the thing. I got a note about my eye contact issues a few months ago. From your eye doctor? And so I was like, okay, I got to do... like I got to start blocking in a little bit more. A normal realization when you're 40. Yeah. I should make eye contact with the person I'm talking to.

I'm 38. So I... But then now I've gotten people who are like... Why are you staring at me? I guess just unbroken eye contact is not welcome either. You need to look away a little bit. You rarely blink, which is an issue. If you're staring at someone and you don't blink, I think it creeps them out.

You look at someone and you look down. You look away for a second and you look back. Yeah, I can learn these behaviors. Yeah, listen to... Jesus. You know, old eyes over here. Nagle, I'm going to say you've got a real challenge trying to be me because you've got to try to be a lot less funny than you are.

See if you can not be entertaining for a little bit. I got to say this. You're wearing a Minion shirt in honor of Weiger. Nick was eating a banana backstage. I was. A big Minion's nut. He was eating his banana fucking sideways. Like how you'd eat a piece of watermelon.

Yeah, kind of. I would describe it as a corn cob method. But yeah, I was sort of eating around the perimeter. Insane. There was a little bit of a bruise on it. So I had to like, I started to eat it, you know, conventionally. And then there was that bruise. I nibbled around the bruise.

Your lovely wife Natalie was like, what the fuck are you doing? Yeah, see, I mean, whatever. I had to avoid the bruise. I had to avoid the brown part. People don't eat the brown parts, right? Yeah, I ate the brown parts. Okay. Well, then I started to eat it.

No, I don't. I'm Nick Wagner and I don't eat the brown parts. That's what I meant. I also liked, I asked Natalie. I was like, are you sticking around for both shows? And she said, fuck no. She did say fuck no. We said that was a direct quote.

Let's introduce our other guests from the podcast raised by TV, High and Mighty in Action. Boys, our friend John Gabriel. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. And I go as the ocean is deep. There are joints of current, the canyons. And a good captain can fall asleep.

Hey there. I actually, I forgot to do that. Yeah, no shit. I'm supposed to be parodying you. And you can't even remember your own fucking game. Had a house, Moon Age. So for people listening, Gabriel has, he's wearing a Doughboy shirt like Mitch tends to with a flannel shirt over it.

He's got a trucker hat that he has affixed. I mean, I guess you couldn't even, you couldn't fully commit to the gimmick. You wrote, you wrote Pat Suckin' Cardboard on your hat. At the bar five minutes ago. I am Mike Mitchell, so I didn't want to do work for the podcast. I was just saying, I put more work into my eyeliner than Mitch has put into the podcast the entire time. I had that Doughboys, but Doughboys, it's, it killed.

Oh, we're, we're the Doughboys. We're the Doughboys. Do you mind if we do our introduction since we're the Doughboys? We're the Doughboys, you saw. You guys playing this shit? I mean, kind of, hold on. The year is 2005. And Miss McMenaman's eighth period home act class at Chicago High School

is just letting out. She wishes her students a good weekend and slips out to the faculty lounge for a must deserve cigarette and coffee break. Her mistake of not locking the door to her classroom would become one of podcastum's greatest gifts. As two students who'd never met each other would soon come to lock eyes while sneaking into salvage some sad students failed scones from the standard issue public school trash cans.

I'm Nick. I just moved here from California. I'm Mitch. I just moved here from Quincy. Do you not have enough to eat at home? Oh yeah, we definitely do. I'm just disgusting. Wow.

Me too. Cuts of 14 years later where they host a popular podcast while also managing to run Monkey Paw Studios and pay UCP performers out of their own pockets. This is Chicago. I forgot to end it. I mean, what is this? You're just looking at your phone. Fuck.

Shit. I did something. I remember I took the plane here in the lift. I did something. Yeah. Wait, I'm sorry. Can I use? I forgot my phone.

I got to play my drop. Okay, hold on. Here, it's somewhere on my phone. I don't usually send videos like this to listeners. But since you asked for it, this is me playing with my little nubby. Looks like Alf's nose. Oh, this isn't working. Hold on.

Let me have a sip of regular Coke. Okay. Doesn't it look like a hot dog? Let me eat me. I must have accidentally played a different video. You song, you're fired. Jesus Christ. I'm getting depressed just pretending to be Mitch.

Holy shit, that's hard. Yeah. Please turn back to Nang. Okay. I got some cute hoop earrings I wanted to wear. Put them in. You actually were wearing a wig. Wiger.

Come on. What the fuck is wrong with you? I thought you just tied your hair up. You had a wig on there. It was a confusing color choice for the Wiger impression. It was the 70s groovy guy at the party city. That's where I was, by the way, before we had lunch. And here's the thing, if you order something online,

or you order it to pick up at the store from Party City, when it's ready, you get an email that said, party time. Which I think is really funny. That rules. Nangle Gabris. Did you say my dick looked like Alph's nose? That's an inside joke for people who have seen your dick.

I mean, you guys are too young to know what Alph is, but you can guess. How can it be an inside joke for nobody? Holy shit, this is going to be such a weird show with two actual comedians on it. I'm sorry. I've been to the doctor, Nangle. Someone has seen my dick.

The receptionist. By the way, can we get a smaller table? We're a little cozy here. We're a little packed in. So, Gabris, Nangle, Chicago. Again, my first visit. I'm curious about your guys' past experiences here in Chicago. Well, I mean, everybody that knows me,

Gabris knows that we are from Chicago. That's why you brought us to this venue, right? Yes. For all our local hometown flavor. All right, Horace Grant. I think he was a bull. I liked everyone who had goggles. Anyone who had accessories in the NBA, I was a fan of.

Oh, yeah. Kareem, James Worthy. Hell yeah. Kurt Rambas. No, you guys don't all know that guy. The white guy from, like, 1984. You picked the one white guy with goggles. Congratulations.

Does the ball count as an accessory? Because that could be all of them. Did you set yourself with that one? I hit my tooth on the microphone. My last good tooth. Gabris and I are staying at an Airbnb together. Yes. You two, you guys got hotel rooms.

Yes. Is Natalie in your hotel room, Nick, or now? She's with me. Yeah. We're sharing a room, but we're doing the two queen beds. Horace, man. No, we're, of course, we're a married couple. We're doing what a married couple does.

We're sharing a marital bed away from home. Don't brag. So, yeah, but you were going somewhere. You guys are sharing an Airbnb. I thought you had something to say. No, I think Mitch had, like, a planned fucking interaction. So we were late today. Yes.

We were late today to the Portillo's. Yeah. But the reason why, Gabris and I worked out today. Yeah. No one believes us. Mitch and I worked out. Yeah. For some reason, the workout was us sitting on tiny motorcycles with cowboy hats.

Were they moving? Were the motorcycles moving? No, it was just a black and white photo taken of us. Are you guys old enough to have read the Guinness Book of World Records? It did. It looks like the beginning of the let's get physical video. For anyone who's seen that. No, way too old of a reference.

But yeah, we went on the elliptical together, Nick. We used one elliptical. You were both on one side. We were both on one elliptical. Then we actually got our own. And then when I had my own, it still said one at a time, please. And then we took a little sauna together, Nick. Oh, wow.

We hit the sauna together. I was like, oh, I'm going to go run upstairs and get a towel so we don't sauna in our clothes because that's gross. Mitch is like, I don't need a towel. I was like, what? I went, I went sans towel. Wow. You went in all natural. No.

Are you fucking kidding me? He went in like ankle length basketball shorts. He went one that I can only describe as either rave pants or janko shorts. They are basketball shorts that nearly go down to my socks. They're a particular fat guy short, if you guys know them. That they're like, if his waist is this wide, he must be this tall. Not true. Yeah, that's the thing they sell at Kohl's, right?

The Kevin Smith collection. But it looks fine on you because you have such ankle definition. I went in there in the basketball shorts. That's all right. I didn't know you could do that in a sauna. I don't think you should. I went in balls out. Hell yeah.

He did. I saw a lot of Gabriel's today. I tried to get Mitch to look at me while I was getting in the shower and he was being such a gentleman like turning around and and I just stood there nude until he turned around. And then he did shake his butt like that. You pulled a Charlie Rose on Mitch. It was actually a Matt Lauer because I locked the door secretly. Yeah.

How did you get a button installed in the sauna? I called ahead. Nang's calling in the party city to book her wig. I'm booking lockable doors. But you still get an email that says party time. I don't know when I, so they, you saw him booked me a hotel. Yes. And by first he said that you guys were getting an Airbnb and I thought I was going to have to be in the Airbnb with you.

And I was like only if there are nine bathrooms. I will share a bedroom but we need nine bathrooms. We do. And the Gabriel's and I will mark our territory on multiple bathrooms. I usually use the yard. I bring bags with me. I walk myself. Just hard to pick up puddles with bags.

Jesus Christ. I just throw a few bags in it and then walk away. What I like to do when I accidentally have diarrhea on the street is put T-Rex bones in it and pretend it's a tarpid. I saw a lady try to pick up like diarrhea, dog diarrhea. She did it cause I- Dog dog diarrhea. I was not paying a woman to pick up diarrhea. And she clearly did it cause I was there.

She got nothing. It was very sad. We were dog setting once and I had a dog like just fucking spattered. It was a mess and I did the best I could with that little baggie but it's tough. When it's like on the blades of grass, what are you supposed to do? Yeah. You clean up a little bit and you call it a day. I'm surprised you didn't matrix yourself in front of it.

Chicago's wanna get covered in dog shit? Like that's a fetish of mine? Yeah. What about me has been established? You can infer that I would like to be shit on by a dog. I feel like it's your brand. I don't know. This huge defense of it right now starts to point out.

Is dog shit in the streets a problem in Chicago or do you just like stub your toe on frozen rocks of joy? It's a major issue? It's a big problem apparently. It's a problem in the whole audience. I would stop giving your dogs feet of sausage links. Because if elected, I feel like after the snow like melts away then it's just like there's just like puddles of it everywhere.

Oh yeah. If you become a dog owner or a human mother like me to my human son who is my dog. Poop just becomes information. Yes. It becomes it. If you're a couple sharing a dog it becomes conversation. Okay, well I'm not. Okay.

Well I'm saying you have something to look forward to someday. Yeah. Someday. Eat dirt. It's got nothing to do with this podcast. I just recently got ancestry.com results back. I saw your ancestry.com results. They're very interesting.

Can't you just pretend you didn't for five seconds? Well you could have just said whatever you wanted in that third line of that setup. That's true. Shut up. God damn it. We've been derailed twice from a half idea. Let's get back to it. Yeah.

We're just going to punch up your pants. So you got your results. How's your LDL? Even 23andMe is like, you are pre-diabetic. They got that from my spit? It was mostly frosting. I'm 97% Irish. No.

It also said it said 100% Irish curse below it. 97% Irish, Nick, I want to tell you, I'm from Monster Island. I'm from Monster Island, basically. I'm from Monster Ireland. But that sounds like Monster Island. Right. That's where I'm from. It told you in those results?

It told me in the results. It said Monster Island, yes. It's like beware of villagers, fire, pitchforks. I've done that. I've done the DNA test. Have you really? Yeah. It was an ancestry.

It was 23andMe. There was no surprises. You're basically Irish and Polish, and that's it. And less than 1% Asian. I think every white person is hoping to have African or Native American or Middle Eastern, so they can be like, see, I'm different. No, 97%. And then the other 3% was like, you're up in Welsh or whatever.

It was still Ireland. 3% Buffalo. You can get broadly Northwestern European or something like that, but we just got it from my dad for Father's Day, so he sent away, but we're making a fake one for him, because his whole family is so hung up on the fact that they're Irish and then Engels are Irish, blah, blah, blah. But we were going to make one that says he's like 90% Italian.

The worst thing you can say. The worst thing. The worst thing you can safely say someone is on a podcast. That's a joke. No, no, no, no. The meanest joke you could say you're going to do to someone. I didn't even think to go worse than that. Still Catholic though, so he doesn't have a heart attack.

We're past Chicago business. I know you're right from the city. I know you aren't natives of Chicago. No, we are. Okay, we'll say you are natives of Chicago. You must have some opinions on the local fare, on the local cuisine, other than the chain that we're going to review today. Anything come to mind for either of you?

Yeah, well, the last few times I've come here, I don't think I ate Chicago food. Like, you know, Central Casting, if I could quote my favorite president, Donald Trump. Central Casting. Central Casting Chicago food. I went to awesome restaurants and I was like, oh, the food scene here is awesome, but I don't think I was getting exclusively Chicago things. When you get like a bougie burger at like a hip gastropub or whatever. But I had deep dish pizza previously, which was a new event for me.

I love it. So that's where do you know? Come to the nine o'clock show for that money, baby. Oh, right, right, right. I forgot which restaurant we were doing. Oh boy, we still have another one of these things to do. Maybe. Hey, dang gamers, I think we're just going to do the next one.

Hey, folks, I've been to Chicago and I'll speak to it. Wow. Finally, a hero the city needs. I've seen greatness at Soldier Field. I've taken a Wendella boat cruise down the canal and into the great lake that's here. Lake Chicago. Lake Chicago. Beautiful Lake Chicago.

I watched the fireworks on the 4th of July over Lake Chicago. Michigan. Yeah. Chicago, Illinois. I come every year for the fugitive St. Patrick's Day parade. I dress up as Richard Kimball. I come, I come here then and I just go to every hen house. I go to every single hen house and I search it.

Only the hen house is though. I've been on a Chicago pizza tour. I've been to the Billy Goat Tavern. I've been to Kuma's Corner. I've been to fucking Portillo's and every pizza fucking place that there is here. Mitch, it sounds like you're delivering the monologue from the end of Blade Runner. And if elected. I feel like he's delivering a monologue from his one man show, Mike Mitchell, Colin, pandering.

My Colin's quivering. And Gibson Steakhouse I love too. That's all. I like Chicago. It's fun. I want to, I want to a Cubs and White Sox game at Wrigley, at Wrigley Field. And the Cubs won. I sucked Dell Close's dick on Improv Olympic Stage.

We had microdosed LSD and Dell's like, You're a wild man, but you don't get game. And I said, open up Poppy. I was like, I've read Guru. The problem with second Dell Close's dick is then you're committed to doing a second beat and you got hiding it. Suck my dick in the Holocaust. Jesus. Dear God.

So let's get into that. I've been to Chicago. Do you want to list off street names or highways and get huge applause? I don't think I got a huge applause. I sucked Upton Sinclair's dick. You know where you are? You're in the jungle, baby. The only time I've been to Chicago was in college when I was at like a anti homelessness conference or something like that.

We had different college experience. Yeah, we did. I was a big activist in college. I got arrested and stuff. Oh, wow. Yeah. I got arrested in college. Maybe not too different after all.

Wait, to quote my favorite movie, which is every movie, you're the, we're the same, you and me. We use two sides of a coin. We're not so different. You and me is probably. The city needs both of us. This specific city at this specific time. This city that we're in. Weigur, what about you first time in Chicago?

How do you feel? Well, I tell you what, I'm not adapted to the cold and that's an issue. But I've got, I layered up. Here's what happened. I'm walking around in the cold. My fingers got, like I'm wearing gloves, but my, the tips of my fingers just turned white because they have like a circulation problem. And when I'm exposed to cold temperature. This happened in Saskatoon, his toes turned white.

Yeah, my toes turned white. This could be Raynaud's phenomenon. That's what it is. Raynaud's. Yeah, yeah. I know people that have that. Yeah. So I can't see my toes no matter how cold it is.

God knows what color they are. I got to get them amputated. It's called fat phenomenon. But I've enjoyed, I've enjoyed taking the train from the airport. That was a lot of fun. Those are all highlights. What was fun about it? What was fun about taking the train from the airport?

Great question. The conductor let him sit on his lap. You know, you can see things out the window. Did you look out the window? Yeah. No, you did not. A few times. When I didn't have reception on my phone.

No, I just like it. It was nice. In the tunnel? What's that? You looked out the window when you were in a tunnel. No, but that was fun. And I've enjoyed, it's a, you know, the area where, and I think is a, is a, maybe like a little bit of a sleepier area there.

Our hotel is in, but I've just, I've enjoyed walking around. Tell us the name of your hotel and what street it's on. For the, for everyone out here to know. Might as well go with what floor and. Room number. What area of town are you in? I don't know. I don't know what it's called.

You're the magnificent mile. That's where I am. Magnificent mile. You're near us and we're not in a sleepy part of town. Oh really? I don't think so. I walked home after we went to dinner last night and I didn't see anyone. And I was like, if I just, cause I was very cold and I just wanted to go to sleep.

We're near Gibson steakhouse. Is that a sleepy part of town? No, it's not. Me and Mitch are sleeping at the Weber Grill restaurant. We shouldn't say this, but there is a Weber Grill restaurant very close to our Airbnb. You didn't even have to say that. And it takes up a full fucking block. What is that?

What is the Weber Grill? What is it? What is it? Is it like a Benihana with Weber Grills? What is it? What is it? It's a steakhouse. It's a steakhouse.

Traditionally, your favorite thing to eat a steak off of is a barbecue one foot off the ground. I hope you pay $60 that costs more than a grill for the steak. It's a chain. It's a chain. No way. All right. Everyone's sitting here. We're going to Weber's Grill.

We'll be back with our fork review in two hours. I hear it's a chain restaurant and it's very important in Chicago. Yeah. Let's get out of here. Steven Weber from Wings. Yes. There you go. I should probably also say, stop talking to us.

What? To the audience. This is about us. We asked them. Yeah, yeah. Let's stop doing that. It's fine every once in a while, but then all of a sudden people start going, you know, screaming hot salad and bullshit. Oh, yeah.

I've been singing hot salad to the tune of brown sugar in my head. Oh, that's good. I'm not going to do it. Yeah. That's all. That's the best you're going to get from Nick. Yeah. I like it.

I like it. Look at me when you say you like it. I like it. Okay. I like it. I don't know how, but Nick made contact, eye contact with me through nangles up. No, I was trying to think of, I was thinking of the song Hot Blooded and I was like, oh, Hot Blooded, you could do it too.

Yeah, but that isn't what I do. I know it's not what you were saying, but I was like, as you were saying that I was hearing Hot Blooded in my head and then he realized, oh wait, brown sugar is a different song. It's that Rolling Stones song. Yeah. It's a song that is actually something that should never be played on the radio. It's very problematic.

That's true. It's problematic. Hey, let's get to this week's change for dillos. So that's where we went today, right? That's where we went today. We went for lunch. Usong and I were there and Usong was there first and then I hopped in. Dixie Music is playing inside a very Disney feel kind of in there.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but it looks very fun from the outside. Usong texted us while he was in there. He was like, guys, I'm here by myself. I'm having a blast. And then he wrote under that. He wrote, that's not a bit. It's really fun in here. We went in and Usong was like dancing around a flame that's up in the corner.

This dude is exclusively existing on anxiety. He's just like buzzes and like floats around. He's getting zapped by a blue light. He's a sweaty guy. So we're sitting there and you mentioned your sauna issue. Nangle, you also had, which delayed your guys' appearance, but Nangle, you also had a little bit of a navigation snafu. Yes.

You want me to tell the story? It's so stupid. Okay, I'm sorry. No, no, that's good. I picked up this wig at party city where I had EMA ordered ahead of time and then I got email. I said it's party time and my phone was about to die. So real quick, I had to put the address into for the Uber and I put it in for 1000 West.

What street is it? Ontario. Ontario. Yeah. 1000 West Ontario Street. And so then I got 1000 West Ontario Street and it was like the middle of nowhere and it turned out it's at 100 West Ontario Street. So I was like texting them the whole time.

I'll be late, but I'll be there in a second. And the guy like lets me out and I'm like, this isn't it. Which was good. Which gave us, and honestly gave us, we decided what we were going to get for a good 25 minutes. There was an intense game plan. And Mitch, I will say that you took the ball and you were kind of running the show there. Does nothing for the podcast. I never said you do nothing for the podcast.

I did. I did. I'm sorry. Thank you, Mitch, for ordering food. He took the ball from like an eight year old girl that was playing with a ball out front. It was a good looking ball. What did I say? Yeah.

A jasmine and a laden on it. So here was a little twist that it's just one of those things. Here's the thing about life. Sometimes things happen. You're like, I wasn't expecting that. And that was the case here. We shot up the place. Why you're deep talk?

Some of us were expecting that. We were sitting at the table coming up with a game plan and a voice comes from behind us and is like, I'll tell you guys what you should get. Like he's a very cool guy, like a very cool voice. I'm happy that you put on your cool voice affectation. That was my best attempt at a cool voice. And then he starts listing off some menu items and some very specific menu items. And we're like, okay, cool.

Thanks, man. And he says he works there, but he doesn't look like he works there. No, he's like sitting there in like a fleece with a hat on going. Right. And I work here. We were like, okay, man. It was like bagger vans. Bagger vans.

They're like, no, no one's ever worked here. Portillo's burned down 10 years ago. But then he took out, he says, I'm an off-duty cop and takes out his shield on a chain like on a detective show. And if you thought you sung with sweaty, you should have seen Gabriel who was higher than he's ever been. I had so much weed on me. And he's like, I'm a cop. And then starts going, what are you guys going to order? And I like, I can't even answer any question when I'm high.

But if a cop is saying, what do you want to eat? I was like, nothing, sir, nothing. I was like, he knows I'm high. He's looking at me. Can he smell this? Does he have jurisdiction inside Portillo's? Or is this like international waters? By the way, the answer to can he smell this answer was yes.

I was there. I could smell it. Yeah, he was security there, Nick. I think that's what we inferred is that he was working security just sort of hanging out by the door, making sure there were no troublemakers. Portillo's hired him just for your visit there. Yeah, so be careful if you're going to steal some fucking beef or something like that. There's a plain clothes cop hanging out by the front of the door.

Yeah, but he was a very, he was a very, very nice guy. He was walking that line that's dudes like him walk where he's very kind and intense at the same time, but like positively intense. He's like, no, don't order that. You want cheese sauce. It brings the steak alive. And I was just like, uh-huh. So it was like a common commercial.

No lie. And this happened before I even got there. Like, so it wasn't like, if I was there, I feel like I would have been like, he's flirting with me or something like that. But he was definitely flirting with you guys. I don't think, I don't know. He was just very, he was a very nice, we told, I also said to him, I was like, we're reviewing it for a podcast, sir.

Immediately. As he zip tied you on the hood of the fucking car. Pepper spray him. I'm immune. I'm a heat seeker. Nick just guzzling pepper spray. While you're shooting pepper spray into his mouth. Hey buddy, I'm a bit of a heat seeker.

Cop is just running away. It goes right to my fingertips. Putting his gun in your mouth. Just getting Nick hard. Because another word for gun is the heat. That's good. There you go. Yeah, that's good.

Like that. So that was a little bit of an unexpected thing that kind of affected our order a little bit. Yeah. Here's another. Well, I was going to say. In a good way. In a good way. We literally took every single thing.

We took all his suggestions. We took every single one of his suggestions because he was intense. Yeah. We did not want to get what he said. Right. So we got everything. I said, listen up pig. He's like, what?

No, you didn't. Just immediately. No, we literally were like, cool, we're also going to get this. And he was like, okay. And we were like, no, no, no, we should get these. But please, we're going to get everything you asked us to promise. Right. And then he delivers even harder for us and starts saying, and we start talking about Mitch,

of course, going away with Mitch, by the way, a grown man is like taking your nephew on vacation. We got to get the chocolate cake. We got to get the chocolate cake. Am I wrong? Am I fucking wrong? Worth it. How do you get agro at that moment?

Am I fucking wrong about the chocolate cake shake? What a fucking alpha. Cake should be put into more drinks, I say. A cake in every drink. If elected. Probably would get me elected here. You guys, I feel like you try to kill yourselves here in Chicago. With the places that you eat at, your bars are open till 4 a.m.

That's crazy. The fuck is wrong with all of you? Everyone's trying to get put in the hospital from September to April. The only way to survive is to fucking not pay for heat is to be in ICU for nine months out of the year. And New York bars are open till 4 a.m., right? Yeah. In New York.

Oh, fuck New York. Is this the... I'm a Chicago guy. Me too, also. Christine Angle, classic Chicago accent. Isn't the movie Widows, wasn't that set in Chicago? Yeah, that was a great movie. No Oscar love.

No Oscar. No Oscar love. But Green Book One. Yeah. Now you can show your t-shirt that says that. I have a Green Book t-shirt. Written by Time Traveling Me. You know, we met this super interesting black guy, Dr. Shirley, so we wrote a story about his driver.

All this guy's got two doctorates. He's a gay black man in the south in the 50s. But we wrote a story about this fucking Genzo driver of his. I was telling them the story. My college roommate is his great niece. And I saw... Like months ago, I saw a story. Boo, they're the ones that had an issue with the movie.

No, I know. Boo, my good friend. And I saw... I had seen Green Book months ago. I saw a thing about how it was like about Dr. Shirley. And I emailed her. I was like, oh my God, I remember you had Don Shirley's album on your wall. Isn't he like your uncle?

Oh my God, this is so great. Have you made money off of this? And I heard nothing back. And then like a month later, I see that his family's really upset about it. And I was like, hey... I should have known that they fucked this up. And she was just like, you know, I was busy. But yeah, they're not happy.

Do you know what though? You know what would have won Best Picture this year if it came out this year? Chicago! Didn't it actually win Best Picture this year? Yeah, but it would have won again this year. Right. You know what else I think won Best Picture? Philadelphia!

Oh! Yeah. And what? You don't like gay lawyers with AIDS? You don't like gay... Say it in a full sentence. You do not like gay lawyers with AIDS. Gay lawyers with AIDS.

We only like movies where the title is The City We Move To. Anyways, Dick. Yes. So within Portillo's, there is another chain. I knew he was coming in. There is another chain, Barneli's Pasta Bowl. It's a different restaurant. Slightly less of a pop than Portillo's, I noticed with the crowd.

It's a whole different restaurant. It's like its own cloistered little... You order that, the Barneli's pasta bowl items you can order at Portillo's, but you pick them up from their station. It's a little confusing. A little disorienting for your first time. It's not as good as the Portillo's half. Yeah.

And of course, Nick was like strongly... He like immediately was looking at those menu items. Yeah, I felt like we had to say what. You open past the Portillo's pages, if you remember correctly. Right. To look at the... What is it called? Portillo?

Barneli's Pasta Bowl. Barneli's. Yeah. So here, we got a couple of items from there. We got the... Jesus. The double stuffed cheese ravioli with marinara sauce. I subbed out the meat sauce because, Nangle, you are a vegetarian,

so you can sample that one. But you fish. Yes. And it has a... For the record. A pescatarian. And so we have a... Right before all the big Nang gang fans throw their fish out.

Don't worry, Nang eats fish. She'll eat your fillet of soul that you grilled for her after the show. I mean, I'm trying to phase out fish, but that's a whole different thing. So this is a three cheese filling stuffed in a pillow pasta with that sauce on there. I would characterize this as fine. How would you guys think of this ravioli? I mean, it's like... It had like that slightly...

It's not al dente. It's a little bit overcooked, but I think that's just how pasta comes at some of these places. And it's very, very saucy. It's just like a super amount of sauce. I'm just shocked that you locked in on the thing that's like the least ordered thing on the menu. I don't know how you do it. I don't know how he does it. Every restaurant we go to, he somehow finds the thing that is the least ordered thing.

And then he's like, it's your turn, right? I'm like, yeah, I know it's just... No one gets that. Well, there is a little bit of a troll element to it where it's like... Nick's tweet today is a picture of a Caesar salad and iced tea and ravioli. It was on purpose. It's like Portillo's baby. That was on purpose.

Yeah, and people are fucking... You got ratio. They took the bait. They took the bait. You idiots took the bait. Sometimes I get a little trolly. So why would you say it like that? I want to wash myself after hearing that.

Yeah, troll me, baby. I think if pressed, I would also describe it as fine. It's fine, yeah. It's fine. It was fine. It was fine. And speaking of fine, I think that Caesar salad is kind of the same way. Romaine lettuce, hard-boiled egg, croutons, and Parmesan cheese and Caesar dressing.

Didn't touch it. I didn't touch the... He's not lying. I touched everything else. That's for sure. I mean, you know, this was fine. It could have been out of a make-a-salad kit at a grocery store. It wasn't anything spectacular, but it got the job done.

If you're looking for a standard Caesar salad. You didn't eat the eggs. I didn't... The eggs looked a little... Like, I was just like, I don't know about these eggs. They got me a little upset that you didn't eat them, if you remember. He did get upset. Mitch was like, you threw out those two gray, half-boiled eggs.

And Nick was like, yes, sorry. And I'm like, Mitch, you made Nick apologize to throwing out old, hard-boiled eggs. He should try the eggs, for God's sakes. Eat the eggs! I probably should have had some of the egg. No, just for the sake of like, testing it, I probably should have had some of the egg. So yeah, you're right. There's a dereliction of duty there.

But you know, a fine Caesar salad. I don't think that would have swayed my take on the Caesar salad. I think it remains right in that fine portion of the bell curve. It remains right in that portion of the bell curve. Oh, that's fine. I'm a writer, too. So, and then we got into, I think, the fun of Portillo's. I wanted to start with the boringer stuff.

We got into the fun of it. A Chicago dog. Chicago style. Hold on. Can I hear that Chicago accent one more time? A Chicago dog. What word are you even emphasizing? Let's hear your Chicago accent.

Chicago dog. Hey, that's pretty good. Oh, that's good. I mean, to be fair, your jowls like naturally allow, you know, to have the voice of a volunteer firefighter from Evanston. It's like half of them in the crowd. Well, that's nice. He volunteers.

I just like having the beeper on my belt. I can't do a Chicago accent, but I wear a tinted football visor when I drive in honor of Jim McMahon. The coolest fucking thing when I was a kid. He wore like a sunglass visor on his football helmet. He looked like a fucking rebel pilot. It was the coolest thing he could have done. It was the goggles of the NFL.

It looked badass. Yes. Oh, I guess I'm just into accessories. No wonder why I own a major portion of Clairs. I'm a majority stakeholder in Clairs. Who wants to get their belly button, Pierce? Here's what you get on a Chicago dog. More mostly for our listeners, I feel like the people here are going to know this.

Mustard relish, celery salt, freshly chopped onions, sliced red ripe tomatoes, kosher pickle, and sport peppers. And you get that steamed poppy seed bun as well. A lot of ingredients on there, a lot of stuff. I loved it. I thought this was delightful. This is a great hot dog. Yeah.

We got, we got, we got four Chicago dogs, one for in U-Song and one for the, and then for Nang, there was a little thing where we were like, is there a veggie dog? And then brand, well, I shouldn't say his name. Maybe the guy who helped us out. Yes. The guy who helped us out said, he said, no. But U-Song heard a tip that there was veggie dogs.

You said the first syllable of what can only be one name. Unless he's a warg from Game of Thrones. His name may be Brain. Who knows? Officer Brain. But we weren't sure, but then we could order a veggie Chicago dog. There was just no hot dog in it. Right.

It was just, it was just, there was spurs and onions on the roll. All the veggies in a bun. Yeah. I was expecting at least some sort of like soy dog or something like that. But yeah, it was just all the vegetables, but I loved it. Yeah. It was great. The peppers that were on there that, what do they call them?

Sport peppers. Sport peppers. I got mad at you guys. I got mad at me. This is what Mitch says at lunch. Nang doesn't hear Mitch correctly. She's like, sport peppers? And he goes, sport as in sports.

He was really mad at me. What a cunning linguist. There's nothing that guy won't eat. I was yelling, I was yelling sport at you outside the restaurant. I apologize for that. That's okay. Chester Uber from 1000 West Ontario all the way to 100 West Ontario. They know I'm not running.

I love it too. Not only do I love it, maybe this is controversial. My favorite menu item of everything. I love it. It might be the big winner there. Yeah. It's really good. I'll say that thought for the end, but I had had a Chicago dog once or twice, but

never in Chicago was always like at Shake Shack or at a place that said we have Chicago style dogs. I'm a New Yorker. So in my head, I'm like, these are not toppings for a hot dog. Holy shit. Does that thing fucking work? It really works. The squishiness of that bun is just like so fantastic that you don't mind if you get

a bite that's like just a pepper and neon green relish. You're like, that's actually pretty fucking good. Yeah. And also, if I was a little kid, that neon green relish is cool as hell. Yeah. Oh yeah. I would be putting it in my roof every morning. It's like Ecto relish.

Wait, what? What? What? So like Ecto is what I heard. Let's get back to you. Ecto relish. Hold on a second. What is going on today with you earlier?

Earlier today, he was saying that Wyger feeds corn niblets into his urethra. What is going on today with you? I said Wyger orders a bowl of corn niblets, lets his hog out, and it goes in and like the sarlacc pit eats up all the corn niblets. It sucks up corn niblets. Like an anteater? Like an anteater. This is what he was saying on the way to the restaurant.

He's had this image in his head all day. I was doing a long impression of you ordering the wrong stuff at Portillo's. You're like extra ice please. John, do you need to talk about your urethra? Yeah, it's jammed with pennies at the moment. Who uses pennies anymore? I do. I would say that I thought that the bun was especially important to the whole thing.

I was saying in Philadelphia that the roll is very important to whatever the cheesesteak is, and it just felt like the steamed poppy seed bun was really important to that. It works really well. The other veggie option, we got the portobello sandwich, which had a grilled portobello mushrooms, red onion tomato, mozzarella cheese, basil pesto sauce, focaccia. What did you think of that one, Nagel? I want to think what they want me to think, because they get so happy when you think what they think.

Yeah, that's sort of what's undoing society currently. I don't think we should solve it here at Doe Boys Live, the early show. Yeah, Doe Boys. If you guys want to guess, Gabers and I did not have any of the portobello sandwich. It was beautiful. Just speak your truth, Nagel. Speak the truth. I have to be honest, it was kind of bland.

Yeah. And the mushroom, I don't know who to try to please. It's making my people pleasing sensibility. Keep in mind, these are people who paid to go see a podcast. Okay, that's true. Okay, so a fucking song. No, so it was just, I just felt like it needed some sort of spice or something. Right.

It was just very blah. Yeah, if you got that at like a Wolfgang puck at the airport. Like that's like, it's kind of, it wasn't, it wasn't exciting. The focaccia, I thought was like just really, just kind of soft and doughy and inert. It didn't really add much. Look, I'm not pandering to the audience here. I didn't try it. But if I tried it, I think it would have been delicious.

It's just a matter of saying it like it's a punchline. Let's talk about the beef sandwiches. Wow. See? Wow, maybe the beefs are where it's at, huh? Seems like it. So we got the, this was this, and this was the very specific order we got from this off-duty cop.

We got the big beef hot peppers dry cut in half. Yep. Oh shit. Wow. Whoa. Hold on. Hold on. Listen to yourselves.

This is what you care about. This is what you have super strong opinions about. Look back on your fucking lives, people. Now, let's express our opinions. He works at the Portillo's down on Ontario Street. Kill him. Yeah. His name is Brain.

I really, I really wish that was the speech you had a heart attack, heart attack during. I'm fascinated by that reaction. What is the, what is wrong? They wanted it wet. They wanted it wet. The word dry. It's the word dry, isn't it? Okay.

Are you guys, do you guys know that in Chicago, dry means with gravies still on, but it's not enough for you freaks. You like to eat your fucking pizzas with forks and knives, and you like to eat your fucking sandwiches with forks and knives. That's what's wrong with you freaks. You don't like handheld food here. Well, hot dog. The most handheld food ever.

Throw a fucking salad bar on top of it. This is, I'm out of here. I just love being in a Rust Belt city having an audience screen wet at me. It's great. I'm going to take the blame here. It's my inability to get anything wet. There you go. I don't know.

Your sheets were soaked this morning. Oh, sweating. Yeah. You get anything wet. Nocturnal emissions from all of your pores. There was a kid at summer camp who got up once. This is not, this is not me. Is this Boy Scout summer camp or no?

This was not in Boy Scouts. This is not, but like got up, got out, and the first thing he says to everyone is just like, Hey, FYI, I didn't sperm my sleeping bag. Like what? Like why? No one thought, like no one suspected that. Now that you say it, everyone thinks you did. What did he say?

Sperm? I didn't sperm my sleeping bag. I haven't used sperm as a verb maybe ever. I'm going to sperm. It's a funny thing to say. It is funny. It's good. I like that.

I'm going to sperm. I'm going to sperm. Let's make a pact that on your wedding night, you have to say that. Just say yes. It's not a big deal. Sounds like you don't think it might not happen. No, no, no. I think hologram marriage will be legalized by the time you can marry a female Yoshi or

whatever the fuck you want to do. Irma. What? I'll walk Irma down the aisle and be beautiful. All right. We, we, let's talk about these sandwiches. So the Italian beef sandwich has a, it's slow roasted Italian beef. And it was still fucking soaking wet by the way.

Finley sliced, still soaking au jus. It comes on French bread. We got that one. That's the big beef. It's sperms on French bread. We also got a combo beef and sausage cut into with sweet and hot peppers. So that, that one is the similar thing, but adds an Italian pork sausage. And then we got a beef, Gabriel's got a beef and cheddar croissant.

And both peppers also dry. You know what? Side of au jus. Hey dude, you got a side of au jus. The same thing with, with cheddar cheese and served on a toasted croissant. I mean, I thought the, I, you know what? I like the combo. I, and maybe it was the dryness element, but I legit thought that big beef or needed a

little bit of au jus. I legit thought it was like a little on the dry side. Well, what can we, he let us, he told us the wrong thing. I will say, and I don't ever defend the police. Blue lives matter. Blue lives matter. I will. I'm never on the cop side, but I will say he gave, he gave you free drinks.

Yeah. Yeah. We didn't get to that part. Yeah. And he wouldn't accept the tip. Yeah. He wouldn't accept the tip. He gave us free drinks and dessert on him.

Like he went and got it for us. He's a good guy. He was a good guy. But he fucked up really bad apparently. He definitely had blood on his hands though. My big beef was a little, despite it being damp was not wet enough, but I had a side of au jus and a couple of sides of cheese sauce that the cop had recommended. Yeah.

And truly that was the only way, that was the thing that brought the big beef to the next level for me was adding the whiz and the au jus to it. You were adding so much lube to it. You can chew that sandwich. You don't have to chew it though. Did you call it lube? Yeah. Yeah.

I squirted a bunch of mayonnaise in my throat and like used my finger for a second. No reason to be ashamed. I just jammed the big beef in all the way down. I liked the big beef a lot. I didn't think it was too dry and there was that side of au jus, so I was fine with it. I liked the combo a little bit better. The combo, I don't think we specify that it was dry. No.

I think it just came regular. We got that as it comes. And yeah, I think that worked a little bit better. I mean, it's dense. It's a lot to it because you're getting that pork sausage and that slow roasted beef. I always say the more species on one sandwich, the better it is for me. The cop also didn't eat it. This poor woman who like brought her rabbit with her to the show is just going ham.

Wait, there's a rabbit? There's a rabbit in the audience? Guys, I meant the sex toy, you fucking nerds. Oh. I too thought it was the bunny rabbit. I know. I realize that as I said it, that I'm on stage with the fucking electric light orchestra. I meant to say the electric company, but I got confused.

D.L.O. is cool as hell. I know. Yeah, there's Berman all the time. I want to just say real quick, and I may have told the story before, but the reason that I don't eat meat is because I have a dog and I one time imagined eating him. Mitch literally went mmm. Mitch. That was wiker.

That was me, and it was more of a thoughtful like mmm. It was not like a mmm, like a lick living. But now that I have my moment, mmm, mmm. No. I always tell, I always say I would eat my dog as like a tribute. Yeah, but after he like lived for like 20 years. Yeah. Or forever as my human son will live.

And I just like had this like, I just thought about it because I was thinking about how we treat the animals that we eat. And I was like, what if I ate my dog? And then I just stopped eating meat after that. Like literally one like weird afternoon fantasy and I just stopped eating meat. That's a Philby the dog. Check out my Twitter account. Look at Philby.

Not enough claps. Very noble of you. Thank you. This is, this is this. Philby's covered in gravy. No. That's what we want. This is, this is not smarter than you.

This is not the best place to go if you're a vegetarian. Right. Like there are. There aren't. There aren't. It doesn't seem like that. Chicago. Yes.

Chicago in general. Yeah. We also got the staying in sausage country. We got the char grilled Maxwell street style Polish with mustard and grilled onions. That reminds me what, let's change the name of our Airbnb to sausage country. I thought that was, I thought this was great. I thought this was one of my favorite things. It looks so good.

This was really, really good. The grilled onions worked really, really well with this. I loved it. Yeah. That was awesome. The flavor was really a lot in a good way. Like it was a little spicy and very strong. I enjoyed it.

That was a big winner. A few of our sides onion rings and fries. I thought the, I think the fries are like a crinkle cut and I thought they, they're like a nice execution of the fries. Onion rings, again, our, our, you know, guide was very insistent on us getting them. I thought they were good onion rings, not particularly greasy. They had a nice fry to them. I thought they were really, really nice execution.

Those fries are really great with the cheese sauce. They do work. They're great to dip in that cheese sauce. That's how you do it, Wags. This is how like riots start. We can, we can just get you guys chanting cheese sauce. Let me go like set the mayor's house on. Fucking psychopaths.

Let's talk desserts. We got the chocolate malt. We got the chocolate cake shake. Yeah. So good. So good. Here's the menu description. Yes.

We actually put a slice of chocolate cake into our blended milkshakes, making a truly unique must try dessert. So they were like, they were saying, we're really doing it. And they really do it. Gabriel, she pointed out, we all had the same observation as we were drinking this, which is just that it really is a cake slice blended up in the shake. We all explained it differently. We passed it around.

Everyone took a sip and Mitch was like, oh yeah, it's like the cakes blended right in there. And then Nick had a sip and he was like, yeah, it's like they're mixed together. Nangle took a sip. She's like, the cake and the milkshake are like in the same cup. Don't include me in this. I've had a hundred chocolate cake shakes. When I visited, when I visited Chicago with my sick dad, I demanded we stop and get one.

Okay. Yeah. So you busted Nick's balls before for not just going along with the story. You waited till the finale of a story to go. No. I love cake shakes. I told you earlier. That's such a little fucking, you're the kid and when you're playing make believe is

like, no, my guy's also bulletproof. No, my guy can fly. You can't catch me. I'm invisible too. Fucking prick. But that's also how it happened. My guy is bulletproof and he can't fly. But there's also like, we were like, I don't even think you were here.

I think you were, I don't know where you were, but we were. He was eating corn niblets somehow. And I was just like taking like one final sip and I was like, wait a minute. And I had like the straw in the cup and I was like, hold on. I think there's got cake at the bottom. And we were all trying to figure it out. Then I finally just got my fork and dug in and pulled out a giant piece of cake. It was like the beginning of there will be fun.

And then no joke. We passed it around at that point and went, it's like they put a piece of cake at the bottom. We like explained how there was cake in there again, each taking a turn. Or like the meeting of the midnight society. The texture is really nice because it's, you know, it, yeah, it has that, but it's not like the, the blizzardy chunks that I expected. It is like just like a smooth sort of a frappe of. You saw that it's, you said that it sounded like an insult.

I didn't like it, honestly. No, I'm with him. It's like, it's more cookies and cream, like cakes and cream. It's more granular than you expect. It's not as chunky. It's like, if you put a piece of cake in a blender and there's ice cream, or if you're eating cake and ice cream at like a birthday party and you, and you get there late and then like, you kind of mix it up.

Oh, I said that when I had it last time. Did someone just say Nangang as you said your, after you said your joke, someone said Nangang. Nangang. I love you. There's a rumor. I don't know how much of a rumor it is that there's mayo in the chocolate cake shake. Oh boy. Wait, wait, what?

Wait, wait, wait. It's in the cake itself. Oh yeah. Okay, Nangang. There's, yeah, there's supposedly mayo in the cake and the chocolate cake. I said, okay, yes. That makes sense. You still need to add extra mayo to the shake.

That was such a good one. You didn't have to do that. This is how I eat it when I come to Chicago every weekend for the last 10 years. He had a, he had a. Scotty Pippin. He would take a sip of the mayo with his straw a little bit, but that's the mayo getting all the way up into his mouth. And then he would put the straw into the milkshake and then suck it all up together.

It's impressive. It's the, it's the standout ingredient in the shake. It's a great, it's, it that shake is, it's a, it's delicious. It's, it's delightful and it, and it's unique and it's a great execution. Let me ask a question. And that's, that's unique to Portillo's or that's a Chicago thing. I think it's a Portillo's thing. Portillo's.

Wow. It's a lot of fun. The chocolate malt I thought was solid, but on this unspectacular. Okay. Another recommendation from the guy. Yeah. He got it for us for free. I'd like to see you guys look a cop in the face and say,

keep your chocolate malt asshole. No, you're going to fucking take it. You're going to sip it and you're going to talk about it on a fucking live podcast. And Nick, we also. I'm getting drunk. You never know until you're on another show. You never know until you're in that situation what you would do if a cop had a chocolate malt right up to your head.

That's truly white privilege that I'm like, do you know how scary it is to be around a cop? They can make you drink a chocolate shake. Black people across America are like, really dude. Okay. We have different opinions on cars. I will, I will say the one, the one proper dessert. We got the strawberry shortcake, which was, you know, strawberries, homemade marscapone,

cheese, whipped topping. I thought that was great. I thought it was really good strawberry. And that was one of his recommendations as well. Worked out really well. It was like they took a bunch of cream and then dropped strawberries into it and mixed it up. That was the only fruits or vegetables I've had today.

Oh, I guess there was peppers on some of the steak. Sport peppers. Sport peppers. I thought the strawberry shortcake was great. Really nice. Then Gabers and I went home and I fell asleep and snored for two hours. I would not call it sleep. It was horrifying to witness.

He like just leaned back. He just, I thought he was going to elephant man himself and die right in front of me. His head just went back and he was like, I was like, I'm going to just move to another room. Well, let's get to our review of Portillo. Let's go around. Give it a short summation of our thoughts on this chain and then give it a rating from 0 to 5 forks.

Christine Nangle. I don't want to go first. Okay. Christine Nangle will not go first. She is passing. You can pass, I guess. That's a thing now. This is a game show now?

That's canon. It's canon. You can pass. It's canon that you can pass. All right. John Gabers, you're up. Okay. Never pass.

I just shoot bricks all afternoon. Okay. For me, I really enjoyed, I was in my head going, hot dog joint, all right, fine. And then it was so much more than I expected upon arrival there. The scene was great. Something we didn't mention in the run through was a couple of us weren't pussies and got beers. That's right.

In like giant frozen chalices. Yeah. Actually, I'm going to take that back. I'm trying not to say pussy negatively. It's one of the strongest muscles in the human body. I got into comedy for that specific organ. So the least I can do is not use it in a negative way. I almost left comedy because of that specific organ.

You almost never got in because of it. So I was so pumped to show up there and the beer was nice and ice cold and a fucking chalice. What do we get for beers again? I had a toasted head. Oh yeah, fat tire. And what was mine called? It was a... You had the hacker shore.

The hacker shore. I got a blue moon. The blue moon. Yeah. Why did you usually drink all the time? What happened? I was very sleepy. And I was like, because you know, I knew this show was going to be past my bedtime.

And so... The early show. The early show is past this bedtime. I'm thinking of the late show. You got to take the time change into account. It feels different for me. Yeah, but you're coming from the west coast. Yeah, but you got...

You're coming from the same place as me and Mitch. There's... You got jet lag. There's like a couple hours to it. No. So it's... I'm one hour ahead. And my brain is 9.30.

What does that mean? 9.30? Did you say? 9.30. It's 9.30, baby. So we had... I wish. I liked the vibe of the place.

Every single employee, even the undercover employees we engaged with. The woman who took our order, the woman who was bartending, whose name was maybe like Ash Clash. Or Ash Bash or Ash Mash. It was something like... It was two Ash words. I was like, this fucking lady rules. She gripped out some beers.

The food was awesome. I ate... You guys liked that soaking wet croissant. You went ham for it. I see the kind of food Chicago's into because that turned into like soup on a piece of paper. And I don't mean that negatively. Soup? It's like soup on a parking ticket.

Yeah, yeah. It was like... I picked the bread up and the croissant had become like the size of a manhole cover. And it weighed like 9 pounds. I just pressed that thing into my fucking directly, moved some fucking plaque out of one of my arteries and jammed it in there. Overall, and the Chicago style dog is not the style of dog. I was like...

When I think... When I picture a hot dog in my head, I don't picture that. But holy shit, that was maybe my favorite thing on the menu. Yeah. I don't picture like a hot dog in a bikini with high heels on. Yeah. When I picture a hot dog, I picture a professional hand glider showing off... What?

Yeah, I don't know. Like hot dog in it. Like hot dog. You can't riff for two hours and hit them all the time, all right? I got it. And then so I'm gonna gather around, get back to where my score and I'm gonna go with four and a half fours. Four and a half fours.

Very good score. Wow. All right. Mike Mitchell, we started a little late. We're coming up against our time limit. We've got to speed through things a little bit. Your review of Portillo's. Oh, thanks, Nick.

I'm just letting you know. I'm letting us all know. For the record, you should say that before I say anything. Um, Portillo's is Chicago, right? I mean, it is. Wow. The thesis of his entire style of comedy for this show tonight. I know.

He's basically saying, look under your seat. There's $5,000 for everyone. He's gonna reveal an Al Capone tattoo on his back and hope you guys are game. You go in there. I like the atmosphere, Nick. There's music playing. It feels Disney-ish. You go up to the front counter there.

It's a fun way to order food. I know that it's not sit down service, but I was fine with that. The game versus right. There is a soppy wet vibe to all your food. I mean, I tried to give Gabers a part of the hot dog and he was taking the bottom wrapper of the hot dog with it. And I didn't even realize. He didn't even realize.

I might have eaten two or three wrappers this afternoon and it was all by accident. The Chicago dogs great, Nick. It is. Yeah, it's great. The chocolate cake shake. It's decadent, but it's a lot of fun. Portillo's is a fun rest. I don't, I don't, I don't know what this, I mean, it's easy for me.

I had my mind made up before I got to the restaurant. I've been there before, but I'll do it like how I, I'll, I'll end it like how I started it with my joke. Bye forks. Wow. Wow. I don't like to tell jokes. I like to pander.

Yeah. There's nothing wrong with that. That's why you fly me a name here. Yeah. Yeah. Six forks. Six. All right.

Six forks. Six forks. Mitch, if you can't get, and I love you from the front row that's labeled VIP reserve, as in these tickets cost extra. Was it Dano? My friend Dano's here tonight. What the fuck? I'll go real quick because I'm aware that we're up against our time limit, but I really

don't have that much to say. Honestly, I think I would be lower if those sport peppers weren't in the hot dog. I think I would be a lot lower because they made such a huge difference. I kept bringing it up and it was annoying. And then the chocolate cake shake. So I'm going to give it a four and a half four. Wow. Four and a half four.

Yeah. I was, I was truly nervous. Were you nervous? I thought you were going to go under four and I was going to fucking riot. I mean, it's, it's a weird, it's a weird, it's a weird thing. I like for me because I can't eat most of the stuff on the menu. Right. Also, I barely, barely ever eat dairy.

I'm going to be so sick. You're going to have an awful night this week. We went to it. Where did we go last night? Lose, lose. Luma Nadis. Luma Nadis. I have just, anyway, that's all.

Good thing I live alone with my human son. I really enjoyed, I think we haven't touched on, they have a very fun order number game there, which is when your, when your order is up, they make a little rhyme out of it. 266, come get your fix. 248, don't be late. 251, come have fun. And we did. The atmosphere is great.

It's playful. The customer service was great. Everyone was very friendly, including the very intense undercover cop who forced us to abide by his ordering demands. It hinges on me. I love the Chicago style dog. I love the Italian beef, which I think is the reason you go there. I thought the sides were excellent.

However, Nick, I have to evaluate this thoroughly by including Barnelli's pasta bowl. Nick! Oh. He'll turn. It's his heel turn night. Bring, bring Wiger to bingo because he's a troll. And unfortunately. What is happening?

I don't know. The lights just flickered. We got the light. The tech guy is furious. That's what happened. So I have to deduct a half fork because of Barnelli's. From what? Which gives it a score of four and a half, four.

Welcome to the Golden Plate Club, Portellos. Jesus. All right. One thing we didn't touch on either is the price point is we also got three waters. Yes. Coca-Cola and an iced tea and all that shit was only like 80 bucks for so much food. It was a reasonable price. It was a good price point.

It helped that we got our drinks and dessert for free. Thank you, officer. Oh, yeah. All right. That was our review of Portellos. It's time for a segment. We've got a food stuff we're going to decide if you put it in your mouth. It's snack or whack.

And to bring out our snack, please welcome our producer, Yu Song Liu. Hit it. Yu Song. Always sees me through when you're good to Yu Song. Yu Song brings you food. There's a lot of flavors we're prepared to eat. When you fly out, Yu Song. Yu Song feeds you treats.

Okay. We cut it. I missed my cue there because I couldn't hear my backing track. Hot salad. That's how you taste so good. Okay. Here's what we're going to do since we're up against our time limit here. We've got some Garrett Popcorn.

We got in this fun Chicago Bulls tin. So we're going to taste test this. But while we're taste testing this, we are going to take a few audience questions. Now, hold your stage seats for one second. No one's scamper up to the microphone. No one. No one did. Only hot people.

We only want hunks and babes at the mic. No, anyone can ask a question, but we only have time for three questions. So just like, just take a beat and if you have a question, if you think you have a banger, you have one of the bronze silver gold medal winning questions. Step on up to this aisle mic right here. We'll answer your query as we were munching on this Garrett Popcorn. That's bad. Gabers is going to kick your ass.

It's all the same. So we've got two. We've got a different. We've got the buttery popcorn. We've got cheese corn and we've got Garrett mix within this tin. They're all kind of mixed together. Garrett mix is a caramel crisp cheese corn combo. And then we've also got the buffalo ranch in here.

So this is a different flavor. Oh, yeah. Fire that up maybe. Hi. What's your name? What's your question? My name is Chris. Hi, Chris.

Thank you. Hello. You are caught in the great Chicago fire. You can only save one person on stage. Which person do you save and why? Oh my God. It's a good question. Nangle, she's the nicest to me.

Nangle, she's the nicest to me. I saved myself. Okay. You're two people. I saved the city of Chicago. Did that guy just say I was two people? Yeah. By the way, this looks like a...

How does it feel, huh? It looks like a trash can that would be in my high school boyfriend's bathroom. You dated Dennis Rodman in high school, right? Yeah, it was my high school boyfriend because I was in high school. Dennis Rodman is saving the world in North Korea. He's doing a good job. Next question. Oh boy.

What? I'd say Dennis Rodman is saving the world. Oh, he's doing a good job. I've never been on the North Korean side before. All right. Hi. You're wearing a bear sweatshirt? I am.

Very cool. What's your name? What's your question? My name is Connor. My question is... So I'm born and raised in Chicago. I've been to a lot of sports games where I got to eat food afterwards. I want to know everyone on stage.

What is the best food memory you have associated with a sports game? Oh shit. Okay. That's a good question. I have an answer for that. Yes, please. A friend of mine that I played rugby with in New York. His whole family is New York Giants fans and I'm a New York Giants fan.

They have season tickets. I said, hey, I'm going to be at the game this weekend. He's like, oh dude, you should come by my tailgate. I was like, oh, of course. I'm like, who's at your tailgate? He's like, just my family. He's like, it's like 50 bucks ahead and it's like just his family, so I'm paying. We show up.

Turns out one of his brothers is a chef and his other brother is a millionaire and it's the perfect two people to throw a tailgate. I had chicken Parmesan sausage that was handmade. It was chicken sausage with cheese and tomato jam in it. He made us bacon egg and cheeses. And then finally on the walk to the stadium, he goes, we make these drinks called annihilators and you're supposed to drink them on the way to the stadium as your last beverage before you go into the stadium.

He gave me like a big gulp cup full of tequila with like lime juice at the top and that's it. I drank the whole thing. I don't remember one minute of the football game. I was blacked out upon arriving in my seat. Wow. I pissed like 70 times during the game, but it's my best sports and food memory. I'm just going to say Fenway Frank, Fenway Frank is a great dog.

I remember on my birthday, it was my 21st birthday, I went over to my friend's house and we got a carrier of wings from Wings over Ithaca. Wow. A carrier of wings, which is 150 or 200 wings and four of us sat there and ate them, standing up over the carrier, just ate the wings. That's a hundred chickens. It was at least a hundred chickens. And we just ate them.

And then Damien Jackson and Johnny Damon collided in the outfield. I think it was game five where they won and I cried. I was like, are they hurt? It looks like they're hurt and then I start to cry. Oh, I thought you were crying because you were out of wings. We didn't get enough wings. I said two carriers. I have one.

So I was in high school and my boyfriend was playing for the Bulls, right? No, I don't really have one. I saw pretzels and cheese steaks. I don't know. I don't have a specific flash bulb memory like Richard Gaboris, but I do. My favorite food related sports thing. I was at a Lakers game. I had a large water and it was too much water.

I threw away some of the water. If the Lakers win a home game at Staples and hold their opponent to under 100 points, this conditional is satisfied. You get a coupon for two free Jack in the Box tacos, which you cannot redeem that same night. However, you can redeem it the next day and those are very satisfying victory tacos. So I'd say the Jack in the Box tacos that you get via that coupon. Hell yeah.

One final question. You're going to be a great dad. You're wearing an itchy and scratchy sweatshirt there. Very cool. Lots of cool sweatshirts from our questioners. Yeah, you have to wear sweatshirts here. What's your name? What's your question?

Hey, I'm Jack. Hey, guys, in the Texas show, I wore the same sweatshirt. Oh, hell yeah. Considering the ethical implications of supporting all these chain restaurants owned by capitalist monsters, what do you think your ironic punishment will be when you go to hell? That's a good question. Why are you following us? He's true.

He is Satan. Oh, yeah. There is a tail. I'll probably be in a plural marriage with Andy Puzder, CEO of Carl's Jr. and Papa John Schnatter. That's my guess. Man, go ahead, Gabers. I'm going to use that pass option.

Your mango pass? Due to all my consumption of taco bell, I'll have to have Ricky Gervais explain comedy to me for the rest of my life. All right, I got one. For me, if I get sent to hell, it would be any other city besides Chicago. Jesus Christ. I have no loyalty to Quincy. I never talk about Quincy.

I'm all about Chicago all the time. Seriously, though, I'm not going to hell. I just want to clarify that. I won't go to hell. I will make it to heaven, I think. I will repent before I die. Nick, you're the writer. Give me an ironic hell situation.

Jesus Christ. See how hard it is to get put on the spot? You're destined to be sodomized by the Taco Bell Chihuahua for the rest of your life. Yo, Kiro Mitch. That's somebody's human son. He's long. He's bones now. Can I talk about the problem?

It was a girl dog. He's chalupa now. It was a girl dog. She's chalupa now. Can we talk about the popcorn? What's that? Can we talk about the popcorn? Yeah, talk about it.

Yeah. I think it's great. Yeah. You know what? I'm a popcorn skeptic. Snack. What's that? Well, Nangle's verdict is snack.

Snack. I'm something of a popcorn skeptic. I will say that Garret Popcorn is pretty good. And I like the Buffalo Ranch. They have good flavors to them. I just think popcorn is a snack is like greasy and unspectacular, but these are good executions of it. Where do you land on Pirates Booty?

I tell you, I think the name is fun, but I just don't really like it. I don't like the texture of popcorn. It's very rice cakey to me. That said, this is good enough to earn a snack as popcorn goes. Here's my issue. And I'm yelling at either you or Usong, who is giving us the wrap it up sign. He's been giving us the wrap it up sign continuously for like 20 minutes in. It's a snack to both of these, but it's cold as hell.

Did you refrigerate this shit? No, it is fucking just taken in the city. It is cold. Yeah. It must be all those politicians bloviated. Guys, that's our show. Thanks so much for coming out. John Gabriel.

You saw glue. I don't have time for the Spoonman. Mike Mitchell. Mike McGuire. Happy. Eat it. Yeah. Thanks.

Yeah. Thanks. That was a hate gun podcast.