Doughboys - Pret a Manger with Charlotte McDonnell and Libby Watson

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

Charlotte McDonnell (@coollike) and Libby Watson (@libbycwatson) join the 'boys to talk about their new podcast, What's All This Then, video games, and ghosts before diving into a review of Pret a Manger.Watch this episode at youtube.com/doughboysmediaGet ad-free episodes at patreon.com/doughboysGet Doughboys merch at kinshipgoods.com/doughboysAdvertise on Doughboys via Gumball.fmSources for this week's intro:https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22076886https://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2015/apr/14/pret-a-manger-happy-coffee-chainhttps://lexpress-franchise.com/en/articles/pret-a-manger-a-success-story-made-in-the-united-kingdom/https://www.britannica.com/biography/Margaret-Thatcherhttps://theweek.com/articles/465783/celebrating-margaret-thatchers-death-utterly-disgraceful-totally-justifiablehttps://www.pret.com/en-US/about-pretSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a HeadGum Podcast. Want to watch this episode? Check it out on our YouTube channel by going to youtube.com slash doughboysmedia. No, there will not be a woman prime minister in my lifetime. The male population is too prejudiced. This was the response given in a 1970 interview with the Finchi Press by then-member of Parliament, Margaret Thatcher. Less than a decade later, Thatcher would go on to prove her own prediction wrong, ascending to become the UK's first female prime minister in 1979. Unfortunately, this glass ceiling-shattering milestone is tainted by the fact that Thatcher was a truly massive piece of shit.

Much like her American presidential contemporary, the racist bad actor Ronald Reagan, Thatcher engineered the wholesale destruction of her country's public sector, making the 1980s the decade of immiserating the working poor and transferring wealth to upper-class twits. Though unlike us Yanks, at least the Brits got to keep their public health care. But while Thatcher was busy laying waste to her nation's post-war gains in favor of a morally bankrupt ideology of greed, University College London friends Julian Metcalf and Sinclair Beecham collaborated on a quick-service food and coffee shop named after a French term meaning ready to eat. A playoff the existing phrase ready to wear. Opening in 1983 in the London neighborhood of Westminster after enduring a rocky first year the chain quickly became entrenched

as an institution in the big smoke and then threw out the British Isles and in 2000 in a food oriented retread of its proud tradition of colonization the chain established its first North American outpost in New York City. As of 2025, it has approximately 700 locations worldwide, including about 40 in the U.S. While Thatcher and Reagan now both thankfully burn in hell, the damage these goblins did to both sides of the so-called special relationship has sadly outlived them both. But the British eatery with the French name established during Thatcher's reign thrives under the neoliberal global order the so-called Iron Lady helped make ironclad.

This week on Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants. I'm Tiger Weiger along with my co-host Donkey Kong, but he can't lift a barrel and doesn't eat fruit. The spoon man, Mike Mitchell. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. That's really good. It is mean, it's funny. Michael R sent that in, roasts at birdfuck.com.

I think you could lift a barrel. I can definitely lift a barrel, I'll throw it at your ass. Do you think that would, I'll fucking jump right over it, or hit it with a hammer. I don't think you can. I'll fucking throw my flames at you then next

or my springs, my spring boards. I don't think he throws the spring boards or does he? The spring boards just will come then at some point. Yeah, the flames come on their own out of the barrels. He might throw the spring boards. Okay. We're gonna have to do some research on this. When's the last time you played like old school Donkey Kong?

Cause it's, you know what? It's a good game. It's really fun to play. I haven't played it in a long while. I always, some of them, even like, you know, these like arcade cabinets from the eighties or whatever, or even Duncan's seventies, right? It started or.

Donkey Kong was maybe exactly 1980. Okay. They are oftentimes like, you know, hard. They're not easy. You know what I mean? No, cause they were the quarter munchers. They were the idea, you know, hard. They're not easy. You know what I mean? No, cause they were the quarter munchers. They were the idea, the economics of it was that you'd have to keep putting quarters in

to extend your play session. And as such, the idea was that you would die under two minutes. And it also is that sort of thing now of like, the controls are just like, it's hard to do cause the controls aren't good. You know what I mean? Yeah, they've refined certain, you know, they've refined the physics of it,

they refined how responsive the controls are, and then also there's just like feel things that you're used to in modern games, like you can die from a fall in the original Donkey Kong, which doesn't feel right when you're playing a character who Jumpman is basically Mario. He's Jumpman and he dies from a fall? Mitch preaching to the choir here.

He's not Fallman. He's not Fallman, that's true. He is not Fallman. No, that's a good point. But even if you jump and then land, like not just to fall, even if you jump and then land to too far of a height, you still will die, you still will perish.

You know what I really loved? Bubble Bobble. Bubble Bobble was fun. Bubble Bobble was fun. Little bit of a later game. I wanna say that I have been on Doughboys before and you guys have talked about Bubble Bobble. fun. Bubble Bobble was fun. A little bit of a later game. I want to say that I have been on Doughboys before and you guys have talked about Bubble Bobble. Wait, really?

Yeah, I think that we are now reaching that number of appearances for me where you guys are using Bubble Bobble references. Did I talk about how I made it to the final level, like the final level of Bubble Bobble and then someone tripped over the Nintendo power outlet? Did I talk about how I finished Bubble Bobble my friend Brandon, who was in the podcast? And when you finish it, they turn into real guys. It kind of sucks. Wait, what?

They turn into real guys? They're like the dragon. It was like a curse that they were like, we can finally return to our real form. And they're just like guys. And you're like, this is what? They're guys? I don't want to be guys.

I like that they're all dragons. That's insane. They're guys the whole time? What a plot twist. A rampage. A same thing happens at the end of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game for NES, which I think they were just like, they didn't know the lore of it. And so you finish the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game. And they turn into teenagers?

Well, no, it's just Shredder. But Shredder is like, now I can return to my true form. And he turns into a guy. Why Splinter, you mean? Splinter, I meant Splinter. Yeah, not Shredder. Because Shredder is a guy. Shredder is mean? Splinter, I meant Splinter, yeah not Shredder. Because Shredder is a guy. Shredder is a guy, sorry, I'll take this back. Splinter says.

You fucking idiot, you fucked it. Splinter the rat says I can return to my real form and turns into a guy. Because they won? Because they won, yeah. What you guys have to remember is like me and Libby are really young, so we know games we know is like, we know like Fortnite. Yeah.

We know Fortnite. I guess Call of Duty, but only the modern one. Yeah. I have to believe that there is a splinter on, there has to be splinter. Have you ever, do you remember splinter from Fortnite? I don't know if the Ninja Turtles are in Fortnite. I'm not sure what.

The Ninja Turtles are actually in Fortnite. They are, okay. So you can be Donatella with a sniper rifle if you want. Charlotte, who are you currently? Shooting Ariana Grande. Charlotte, what who are you currently? Shooting Ariana Grande. Charlotte, what skin are you currently using in Fortnite? My favorite, like I do love a good hot lady skin in Fortnite, but my go-to is always gonna be the Xenomorph.

Oh yeah, Xenomorph is fun. Because now you can put shoes on them as well. So I like to put the pink pink bunny slippers on the xenomorph and then have her do the little girly dances. And it makes me really happy. I like the Klebold and Harris skins for Fortnite. Those are good. There's a little edgy. The weirdest thing about Fortnite is that everyone is scaled to the same

because the hitboxes have to match. So they're all scaled to the same size. So you could be like any character like like Yannis is in it, but Yannis is like the same height as like Peter Griffin. It's like, this doesn't make any sense. Peter Griffin is the same height as Yannis? Yeah, in the Fortnite canon. What you have to remember about Peter Griffin

is they intentionally, they made him like really buff. Right. Like allegedly to match like that, like that default Fortnite model. Yeah. Which I'm really, I'm still really mad about it. I think it's one of the worst skins in Fortnite, which is why I grinded for like two months to get it because I, I really needed it in my collection

just because of how awful it is. You have to grind, you have to like, Oh yeah. To unlock it. Yeah. Really? That one was in the battle pass. Yeah.

Yeah. I like good games as well, by the way. I think she just put Osama and stuff in, why not? Why not? At this point, I think they could. Hey, speaking of good games, Mitch, I had something I wanted to say that might actually, it might actually alienate our guests. Cool.

But I kind of have this take right now. Uh-oh. This new game that's out right now, Clare Obscure Expedition 33, which is kind of the consensus game that's out right now, Claire Obscure Expedition 33, which is like kind of the consensus game of the year right now. It's from a French video game studio, Sandfall.

And it's this awesome like modern take on a JRPG. It's super duper fun. It's really cool. And also of course, Rudy Gobert, French NBA player having a great playoffs. Yeah, and one of the originators of COVID. One of the originators of COVID, but he's back. He had to get an absolute monster game

eliminating the Lakers, you know, like the Wolves are doing great as of this record. Oh yeah, no long COVID for him. Of course, Victor Wemba and Yama give me the new face of the league. And this week's chain even has a French name. Mitch, I think France is back. No!

They're never back to me, those traitors. No, France is back. They give us the Statue of Liberty, Mitch. Yeah, but to me, those traitors. No, France is back. They give us the Statue of Liberty, Mitch. Yeah, but they're cowardly traitors. I can never forgive them for World War II. Oh, I disagree. You forgive them? I think it's fine.

I even love all the Vichy France stuff too. That's fine too. Water under the bridge. I think France is back. I'm going to go on a pro-French bit. That's going to be my thing now. Okay, what's next then? What are you going to do?

Wee-wee, say wee-wee. You're going to wee-wee? Yeah. You think it's French to wee-wee? Wee-wee. Yeah, I think so. I'm doing a French wee-wee. The Minions?

French, Mitch? They are French. Wait, they're Les Minions? I mean, it's a French studio that, you know. Les Minions. Les Minions. A director Pierre Coffin, French. Do you know after you guys-

Pierre Coffin? Yeah. If you guys complete the podcast today, if you like beat the podcast, Wags and I will return to our original form. You're like head gum hunks. Oh man. How fun would that be?

I love it. Creatures. Shed this chrysalis of dough boys. They're guys? They're just some hunks. Oh man. How fun would that be? I love it. Creatures. Shed this chrysalis of doughboys. They're guys? They're just little guys? They're fucking guys. Are they tiny or do they show like a full screen animated thing of like them as guys?

They show full screen animated full frontal. Oh, man. No, they're just, they're little guys. They're the same size as like Bub and Bob or whatever their actual names are, but they just like have like human skin. In Rampage, they are a little nudeage They are a little nude their little there news and they they I like how they they walk sideways off screen holding their genital It's their money. They're they're different genitalia

And it's the one on you know the one thing you remember from the game that they decided not to put in the movie for some Dumb reason it's like so just put that throw that joke in there have that why not have why not have them be it? Would be fun to see them be a human after they got beat, you know, whatever. What if, at the end of the game, you turn back into your original form, but the only thing that changed is that your dick got smaller?

What the fuck? This sucks. I'll be in big trouble. I mean, for me, that's at least heading in the right direction. We'll get you, though. Mitch, I know you have a drop to play. Yeah, Amelia, hit him with a drop. Wow.

Butterfly in the sky. I can go twice as high. Too much books. It's too much books. A reading rainbow. Oh, doe. Oh, doe. Oh, doe.

Oh, doe. Oh, doe. Oh, doe. Jesus. What the hell was that? Hi, doe boys and everyone. Let's hear it for literacy. Shout out to Kinsey and Alex and little Sophie.

Love you all, Ivan and North Carolina. Wow, thanks Ivan. Charlotte, let's not do that for our podcast. Yeah. Yeah. This sounds like, this seems like an awful thing to get locked into doing. Every single week.

10 years. Yeah. Yeah, 500 episodes, we open the show with someone sends in an insult and then we listen to. You guys like nutting or whatever. Yeah, exactly. Horrible amalgamation of clips from our shitty podcast. I just wanna say, I just wanna,

we talked about him a little bit. I wanna say thank you to Donkey Kong. Thank you to Donkey Kong. Thank you, Donkey Kong. Thank you for all you've done. We were very excited for Bonanza. Yes, Bonanza looks very good. Still at it.

He's still at it all these years later. He's got some work done. I don't know if you noticed. That's fine though. Like that's fine. He's got a new look. Yeah. He's got a new look.

Dong Kong, my famous character that... Yeah, of course we know that your famous character from your SNL reel, Don Kong, the human being who inspired Donkey Kong. Do you guys know this? Well, it's interesting though, Mitch, because if you extrapolate the Don Kong lore, that would mean if you finished the Donkey Kong, he might turn back into a god. He might turn into Don Kong.

That could be lore. That could happen. That could be, yeah. It could be canon. I didn't, for a character on my SNL reel, I just wore a red tie shirtless and was like, hey, how you doing? I'm Don Kong, the inspiration for Donkey Kong. Shigeru Miyamoto, he came into my shop.

I had a barrel shop. And then Shigeru Miyamoto was loitering, so I threw barrels at him. And then he was like, I'm going to put you in a video game. I was like, oh, really? And then that's how the relationship started. And then Lord Michaels is watching that. He's like, this can't be on TV, it's too funny. You meant that sincerely.

I did mean it. I know, I know, but people are gonna think you're joking, but he meant that sincerely. I liked Hong Kong. Can I tell my Miyamoto story real quick? Yes, please. I interviewed him. Wow. I like Dong Gong. Can I tell my Miyamoto story real quick? Yes! I interviewed him. Wow!

I think he was Mario Maker? I was making a YouTube video for it. And it was so nice to meet him. It was one of my favorite pictures. It's one of the only pre-transition pictures I will look at because of how happy I am to just have my arm around that man. And I never posted the video because a Nintendo employee fell asleep in the background of it. Wow.

I was so embarrassed about it that I just sort of just blew out the whole thing. I was just like, I can't do this. I met the guy, so it's good for me. That's amazing. I mean, he's like, we've talked about the McList. And Shigeru Miyamoto is a guy who's on the- Yeah, open invite. If Miyamoto wants to come on Doughboy's review,

McDonald's will do it. Oh, wow. I mean, for both of us, Shigeru Miyamoto is up there. I'm sure, Charlotte, that employee was probably just really tired, because they'd been working like 120 hour weeks to get, you know, Pikmin 3 finished or whatever. Right.

Yeah. Oh yeah. 100% do not blame them or even the cameraman I was working on. Cause I only could afford to hire one other person who was doing the closeups and it was in the wide shot that nobody was checking. So I, the blame ultimately falls on me. Was it that sort of thing where he was just standing still for a few seconds and then he went,

I'm a tired, and then sat down? Right. In a way, the idol animation. He said something about spaghetti. Yeah. Just like one of his friend lying on his hands, and then Niff was asleep. God bless.

What was his name? Who did the voice? He's retired. He's retired. Charles Martinet. Charles Martinet. Yeah. Bring back Martinet.

I'm crying a lot. Wiges, I'm a little nervous with you because. Why's that? I just, I haven't done it so far, but I've been trying to be very nice because we're close to tour and I'm afraid that you're gonna, I'm afraid that you.

You think I'm on edge a little bit. I think you're on edge. I think you're a little, and Amelia just gave a big nod over there. You think I'm on edge? I don't, no, no, no, I'm just, I'm disagreeing with you. Yeah, we think you're on edge. I don't know, I'm just disagreeing with you Yeah, we think you're on edge

I'll speak for everyone, we're nervous I'm nervous, I got a fucking airplane I know, I know, it sucks You know actually I did see Nick downloading the Klee Boldskin on Fortnite Watch out We tellin' Casey don't show up to Head Gum tomorrow telling Casey, don't show up to Head Gum tomorrow. No. Conover, you're a good guy.

You shouldn't come in tomorrow. No. I'm doing great. We're doing great. We've had a binge of records in anticipation of the tour. It's always a whole thing because we have to cover those weeks where we're away. It's going to be fine. It's going to be fine.

Everything's going to be fine. Just don't get too, just don't get mad. Everything's going to be fine, and I'm not on edge. Oh, it seems it. OK, good. Drops at birdfuck.com. Mitch, you know, partly because of the tour, partly because everyone's got their own travel plans, Emma's not here today, Jemmy's not here today.

There's no Jemmy in this season. No Jemmy's. It's like the Christmas Carol. I see a seat where Jemmy is not sitting. Speaking of sleeping on camera, that's what Jemmy's favorite here today. There's no Jemmy in this scene. No Jemmy's. It's like the Christmas Carol. I see a seat where Jemmy is not sitting. Speaking of sleeping on camera, that's what Jemmy's favorite activity. I know. But Mitch, we do have a couple of great guests on the podcast.

She's very cute. Yes. And you know, you and I are both yanks, if you will. We are, yes. We're Americans. Yeah, yeah. And you ever run across some sort of British thing and you're like, the fuck is this? I don't know what this is.

Why? Someone explain this thing to me. Although, you know, right before we started, I talked about being upset about birds. I guess I was talking about something, someone being upset about birds. And I realized birds is a word for, isn't it? A lady.

A girl. A bit bird is like a woman you wanna, you know. That's right, yes. Do something with. Take the tea, yeah. Take the tea, okay, that's something. Is that an innuendo or is that just, or is that? No, I'm talking about shagging.

Oh, okay, all right, yeah. And is that an innuendo? Yeah. I need to get a diagram out. Well, they have a new podcast exactly for that purpose. Hosting the new podcast, What's All This Then? Charlotte McDonald and Libby Watson. Hi, Charlotte. Hi, Libby.

Hello. Hi. Thanks so much for being here. Hi. Thank you for having us. Quick question. First question right off the bat. Hot topic.

Here we go. Right off the bat. Fire the questions at you. This is like hardball. If you said shagging in America, pre-Austin Powers, what does that mean? Do you think people get it? I think people would think it was a baseball reference.

Hmm. I actually don't think you're wrong. In baseball, maybe. Actually, hold on a second. I do think you're wrong, but go on. Like shagging, like fly balls out in the field? Well, I do think you're right. That was the only usage I ever heard of it before Austin Powers damn

I guess I need a podcast by Americans. It's called like what's all this then? I think you said it earlier. You're like what the fuck is this? Shagging fly ball that would you know it's funny I have such a connection with Austin Powers when I was playing baseball because I think Awesome Powers one or two came out when I was playing baseball. And someone would say, like your old coach would be like, all right, go shag some fly balls and you'd be like, you think it was funny.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that makes me randy, baby. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I do wonder, I don't think that, I think Awesome Powers, now if you said like, they're gonna shag, I think people are like, oh, it means they're gonna, you know, they're gonna have sex. They're gonna fuckag, I think people are like, oh, it means they're gonna, you know, they're gonna have sex.

They're gonna fuck, yeah. Some people, yeah, other people might not know. And that's just the beauty of America, you know? Such a diverse place. It is. It's a great spot. Yeah, we love it here. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.

It's the best. Uh-huh. Okay, so I guessed it on your podcast. My episode, I believe, should be out as of this episode's release. We talked about Greggs. So Greggs was a black box to me. I did not know what Greggs was,

although I'd heard of it before we did the podcast. Can we explain to Mitch what Greggs is? I was just thinking black bag. I said black box, but you were thinking black bag in the Soderbergh film. It is a bit of a black bag in terms of, you're like, what's in this bag? I don't know. But film. It is a bit of a black bag in terms of like, what's in this bag? I don't know.

But Gregg's is a, what we landed on, or at least what I landed on is it's roughly equivalent to like kind of a UK Duncan. Yes, yes, I think that is absolutely true. And also Lewis, my husband, who is from Massachusetts came to that conclusion independently. So it is for sure the British Duncan. I mean, how would you describe it, Charlotte?

Sausage Roll Place? Sausage Roll Place. I mean, the interesting thing about Gregg's is it used to be a bakery. So they would have lots of lovely breads and things. And then they also had, like, you know, a hot shelf with sausage rolls and other like pastry items. And since then, they've discovered that the hot stuff is what's really selling, specifically that that sausage roll. is what's really selling specifically

that, um, that sausage roll. That's their really big hitter. And so they've gotten rid of the bread now and they've also sort of like added in like pizza slices as well. They look like, yeah, they really look bad, but it is like the most popular, like in terms of just like getting a quick bite to eat, like some hot food, it is the biggest one in the UK. So this is, sorry to interrupt. No, no, no. The idea of a hot shelf is something we were talking about earlier today. Yeah.

It's the idea of a hot, I mean, I'm not picturing an attractive shelf. No, yeah, you're thinking of an hourglass shelf. I'm not thinking of an hourglass, I think that would be, that's not, it would not, that doesn't make any sense structurally. Shelf with big titties is what you're thinking right now. Well. The Fitbird's got a hot shelf. That is horrid.

That is so horrid. What would it be? Hot shelf. I think it'd be a big ass, right? Yeah, yeah. It'd be like an ass that kind of goes out like a shelf. Oh, like the Kim Kardashian picture where she's got the poop of champagne on her back.

Yeah, yeah. Which seems like it could be useful, you know what I mean? If you place something back there. Much like Homer balancing his beer on his beer belly, you know, bellied champagne on bottom. Hey, that is a fat guy thing you can do. Oh, yeah.

You can put something on your belly, yeah. Wally and Norma love to sit on the belly. It's very cute. But they usually, they go between the leg, they're big between the leggers. It's what Digby does too. Yeah, yeah. Between the legs.

Cute. And it kind of mummifies you when you sleep. That's the only issue. You can't really, you can't really move. Oh, the number of times that I wake up during the night and I am twisted, you know, like I am, my legs are in one position and my spine is in another and Digby is pinning me down

and I can't move. It's definitely not good for me. The cat owners outnumber non-cat owners here today. That's what I was gonna say, because Charlotte, you're a fellow cat parent. I am indeed. What, wait, tell me. My cat is called Gideon.

Gideon. Gideon. So I live in Canada, he is from the UK, so he also migrated. Wow. I don't think I knew that, that's so nice. Yeah, he grew up on the streets of East London. Wow.

As part of a little gang of cats that was being fed by an old lady in the backyard. Wow. Or back garden, as we would say. Yes, we would. And so I came over one day and. Write that one down, another episode topic. Garden. When you were talking about shagging, the thing I thought of was I've run into trouble because when you say you have to peg it in the UK, that means you're going to run really

fast. And I have run into some issues. It means something a little different here. Yeah. It means something just a little little different here. No. Yeah. We need something just a little bit different here. Put this on the Wikipedia. The debut of the Peg Brothers bit. I'm totally.

That's when you beat the podcast. We've now turned to our true form, and we're just Peg. That's the only difference. I want to say, to get back to the hot shelf, a thing I did not know, and it does tie in today's episode, they're just like a hot case, right? Is that what a hot shelf is basically? Yeah, is that a hot case store? Do they have a hot shelf there? Or is that like a, you know, because a manger we'll get into in a second, but. Yeah, I mean. That's a thing that's more common

in UK chains it seems like. I think marginally more common, yeah. Have it on the consumer side rather than like, if you went to, for example, a 7-Eleven, you'd say, can I have that hot dog there that's rolling in the thing? What would you call that? A roller.

The hot dog roller. Hot dog roller, okay. How common are hot dogs in the thing. What would you call that? A hot dog roller. Do we just call it a roller? The hot dog roller. Hot dog roller, okay. How common are hot dogs in the UK? Is it not a thing you see in like a 7-Eleven or anything like that or no? I'm interested in Charlotte's take on this, but I would say the sausage is more common than the hot dog.

Yeah, so the sausage roll, as you were saying, is the Greg staple. I think in the UK, you want a good sausage most of the time. You're looking for some bangers, honestly. A bangin' banger to go along with your mash, ideally. That's right. I feel like, yeah, hot dog, I always associated hot dog as just bad sausage I don't want.

Wow. That's what I think growing up. Yeah, I think that's true. I definitely associate it with America. Like I actually have a very strong memory of when I was at uni and they were showing the Super Bowl in the student union and this would be like 2 a.m. or something and they were serving curly fries and hot dogs.

And that was like the American food that you could get. Wow. Yeah. Was anyone there? It was packed. People wanted to watch the Super Bowl at 2 a.m.? I remember this, it was the Saints in the Colts and it was, everyone was absolutely going crazy.

I remember that Super Bowl. It was a good Super Bowl, it was like a really good game. Yeah, yeah, exactly. We all went crazy. That's a thing they say in the U.S. that people are watching all over the world that I always, even as a kid, I was like, there's no way people are watching this.

But people actually do, that's crazy. Was that post-Katrina too? Was that like the win post-Katrina? I think it was. But look, that doesn't matter. I think I was in Disneyland with the birthday boys for that Super Bowl. It would have been 2010. Yeah, 2010.

So post-Katrina, Saints win. Yeah, several years removed. But that was part of the narrative, I remember. Right, for sure, yeah. It was like, you know, the recovery or whatever. Do you have 7-11s in England? Is it 7-23, you guys are a military time there or no? You fucker.

God. Hold on. No, that was good, that was good. Cause we would say, cause of course we would say 23 o'clock in the morning, Charlotte. We would say 23 hundred. Yes, exactly. Would you like to tag at 23 hundred? Shit. Because of course we would say 2300. It was good. We would say 2300. Yes, exactly.

Would you like to say I get 2300? What are you? No, no, no. They do military time over there. You see, you see, you, they love time over there. 11 is 11 o'clock, so it would say 23 because it's military time. Yeah.

You fucking, you've got me, because look. Wow, wow, wow, look at this, Wags. Military time, military time. Wow, how about that? Yeah, it's like one of the few things I've not adapted. No, Charlotte, we don't really have, I don't think we have 7-Eleven, do we? We don't have 7-Eleven, I'm thinking of Spa.

Oh, Spa. That's probably the most similar in the UK, Spa. Spa, yeah, S-P-A-R. Oh, there's an R in there. Spa. Spa. Spa. Spa. Spa. Spa. Yeah, it's like a corner store type place.

I don't know, I don't remember whether Spar had hot food like that, but yeah, I feel like the Greggs thing and the Pret-a-Mange thing of having like a select few, and this is important, a very select few, if you are allowed hot options a lot of the time. I mean, obviously there are places where you can go and get a hot sandwich and stuff, I'm sure,

in London or maybe Manchester, or I grew up. If you were allowed a hot meal, it was from a hot shelf. Wow. Wow. Yeah. Where did you, what area did you grow up? So I grew up in a really small village outside the town of Banbury, which is about an hour

and a half away from London. Wow. Yeah. And Charlotte, you're from Bath, correct? I learned this on the podcast. I am indeed from Bath. I did also, similar to Olivia, I grew up in a village just outside of Bath,

which makes us both seem more quaint and English as well, which is nice. We both grew up in little villages. But Bath is really nice. When I was a little boy, I visited Bath. You had one bath when you were a kid. Yeah, you said this before. I visited Bath. Bath. Bath. Bath. You had one bath when you were a kid. Yeah, you've said this before. I visited bath. I didn't visit the bath.

I visited bath. I think you can say bath. I visited bath. You can say bath. Yeah, that's fine. And you drink the bath water, right? I had the bath water there. Yeah, it's a natural hot spring.

Yes. I feel like, because there is also a Roman bath there, which is, because the town was originally like founded by the Romans. And so like, it was called Aquasoulis before that. So you can go and visit the old Roman baths, but the water there is like full of like green algae. So you don't want to drink that.

The natural hot spring stuff you can drink, but it does taste rank. It was weird. I remember, you know, I just unlocked a memory of when I was in second or third grade, when I went to London, my sister got mono. Oh no. She couldn't go.

She was in middle school. And so she couldn't go. And my dad and I went with my godparents family. And I just unlocked the thing of being in bath, drinking the bath water and having fish and chips. Yes. Nice. Fish and crisps, I believe.

No. Fuck. Oh, it is fish and chips. Yes. Nice. Fish and crisps, I believe. No. Oh, it is fish and chips. Yes. You overcorrected. Overcorrecting, but we really appreciate the spirit of the overcorrection. Very thoughtful. Yeah.

Unless it was, maybe it was crisps. We could save you by saying it was crisps. No, it was fish and chips. It was. It was rolled in a newspaper, I believe. Yep, that's the way to have it. Yeah. Wow. I want to in a newspaper, I believe. Yep, that's the way to have it. Yeah. Wow.

Yeah. Wow. Can I give a, I want to give a shout out to my favorite hot shelf item, which is the Cornish pasty. Yes. That was the big one for me. I did not have a lot of sausage rolls growing up. I had some at school, but mostly if I was going out to get like a hot bite, a little hot lunch to take away with me, specifically I would get the cheese and onion Cornish pasty, but my dad, my dad lives in Cornwall, so I used to go there and get the cheese and onion Cornish pasty. My dad lives in Cornwall,

so I used to go there and get the authentic ones and they are proper good. We went to Cornish. Yeah, we went to a chain and we talked about this on Y'all's Pod about a called Cornish pasty, which is in Arizona. And yeah, that's the place we remember, Mitch, where the server told us we were asked about pronunciation because a lot of Americans say pasty. Right. And he was like, pasty is for lips, pasty is for nips. It's like a real bro.

Yeah, he was a real bro. That guy rules. He sounds great. He was great. Maybe a possible Patreon goal for us, Charlotte, for me to go to Arizona to go to the Cornish pasty. I wonder what you think of it. Sorry if you can hear him banging it around.

Gideon's being a total wanker. Look at him. Is that Lewis and Digby on your phone by the way? Yes it is, yes. Very cute picture of Lewis and Digby on the phone. He pretends he doesn't love it, but he does. He loves it so much. What's your, do you have your cats in your background?

You're rolling over? Oh, that's so nice. Oh, that's not. Look at this now, look how cute, this is Nick's version. Of course we got my background. I know, I know what this is. Galen Maxwell at Mindy Kaling's book party.

Mindy Kaling's book party? Yeah. All the things that we all hold most precious. I wanna ask, cause we brought up 7-Eleven, and this is always the question that I think Americans are fascinated by because this is the prism through which we view the world. What are the American chains like in the UK?

Obviously, you've got your McDonald's, your KFCs, and the like there. You've got your Subways. But are there any American chains which British people are particularly have any sort of affinity for, or that where you notice, and you're both living in North America now, any sort of like big differences

between what's in the stateside varietals? Let me guess, you love Burger King? You can't say that over there, Mitch. Oh, you can't say Burger King? No, you can't, no. That's ridiculous. I did eat a lot of Burger King, actually, growing up. I was a big...

Me too. I think because I was very picky when it came to burgers and I didn't want any pickles or any of that. I didn't want anything resembling a vegetable. So at Burger King, I could get the bacon double cheeseburger and it was all just meat, cheese and bread. And I was very happy about that.

Charlotte, that's so crazy because that is my exact story. Is that I- No way. Yes, we never went to McDonald's because I didn't like the pickles. And so we went to Burger King and I got a bacon double cheeseburger. So I didn't mean to interrupt you.

We had another British guest who called them gherkins and said the gherkins were ghastly. No one liked the Gherkins. Yes, and also can you just check with me next time you're gonna have a British guest on? Well, it was before he did the podcast. We would never do that. The Gherkins were ghastly?

Yeah. Ghastly or ghastly? Yeah. Ghastly Gherkins? Yeah. No, actually- G-A-S-S-L-Y or something, or like G-H-A-S-T-L-Y. Yeah, the G-H one. Ghastly, got it. What did you think I said? GhastY or something, or like G-H-A-S-T-L-Y.

Yeah, the G-H one. Gassly, got it. What did you think I said? Gassly. No, not like gassly. Okay, I thought you said gass. Gassly, like it gives you gas. I didn't know.

Do you guys have Dairy Queen? Not anymore, it's Dairy Queen. As an Irish man, I'm pissed off. Yeah, you should be, and you're right to do so. I'm really sorry. I'm sorry to all Irish Americans. Thank you. No, I don't really think that we had a lot of American chains,

other than the ones you named. Yeah, sure. Berger and McDonald's, KFC were the main ones. There are a lot more American chains in London now. I feel like since I have left the country, there's been a bit of an explosion of American food. Oh, interesting food in England. And in general, I think the food has gotten better as well.

Like, you know, more flavors, but yeah, I don't really think, I don't really think we, Charlotte, did you have any chains outside the big ones in Bath? I was just thinking a big one for me was actually Domino's. Domino's, of course. I do still think that Domino's in the UK is like, it's the best Domino's I have ever had.

Wow. That's my specific garlic and herb dip that you get at the UK is unmatched in my opinion. We called it the cum dip because it looked like cum. Oh, that's fair. We love that. Yeah, I like that a lot. If this is what makes you go to London,

it's the Domino's. I have to go get better Domino's. That's interesting that you say that. Yeah, I like that a lot. This is what makes you go to London. Is it the Domino's? I have to go get comdict. They got better Domino's. Yeah. That's interesting that you say that, Charlotte, because in 2015, I had to go back to the UK for like two months while I was waiting for a visa, and it was fucking hell.

And while I was there, I got really sad because I missed America, and I was like, I'll order Domino's. And I remembered having it a lot when I was at uni. We used to get, you know, used to get like a book of coupons through the door, so we would always get two for one pizzas at Domino's. Wait, is this, because I know you, like me,

fellow Bruin went to UCLA, but like, was this your time when you say uni in the UK? Yeah, so I did a year at UCLA and then two in the UK. And so I ordered pizza and I got it and I was so excited to eat it and it was shit. It was so bad. But maybe that's just Banbury Dominoes, you know? Maybe that's just the Banbury Dominoes experience.

Hey, they're all location. Maybe you've got to go to Bath to get this Dominoes. The best, yeah. Specifically, that's the best one. Well, when you had Brendan on, did he tell his story about, Brendan James? Yes. Did he tell his story about going to Pizza Hut

and it just being absolutely devastating? I think he probably did. Yeah. Because when he studied at Oxford, like it was one of the first stories that Brendan ever told me. We, no, we reviewed Pizza Hut with Brendan. I remember getting probably did. Yeah. Because when he studied at Oxford, like it was one of the first stories that Brendan ever told me. We know we reviewed Pizza Hut with Brendan. I remember getting into this. I can't remember if it was on or off pod,

but we talked about it. Well, he said that, you know, he went to the Pizza Hut that was on the high street in Oxford and he was like so excited again to have this little taste of home. And it was so bad that he just like left and like walked home in the rain. And he was just like so depressed

about this bad experience he had. But again, maybe pizza has improved. Can I guess another one that you guys would love over there? left and like walked home in the rain and he was just like so depressed about this bad experience he had. But again, maybe pizza has improved. Can I guess another one that you guys would love over there? Yeah, please. Oh yeah, let's hear it. Burger King, Dairy Queen, White Castle. Yes.

Yes. Yes. We do have a lot of castles. It's a good pull. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. That's true.

It is a good pull. Thank you. Thank you, Charlotte. We do have castles, it's true. I just like, it's a thing, and I know this about the British Isles, but it's just like, hey, yeah, there's the Romans were there. There's like Roman ruins and shit, that's really crazy.

Yeah, they- It's old. It's old as fuck. What are the dungeons? What are the dungeons? What are the dungeons? What are the, what's the dungeon? What's the dungeon? Is it the Tower of London?

Tower of London, yes. Is that where the Dun- Is that where it was? I was confused by your question because we simply had so many dungeons. Do you have a lot of dungeons? We were putting people in dungeons all over the fucking place.

Actually, yeah. Dungeons are fucking cool. Dungeons are cool. Dungeons are cool. I remember reading that like they have trouble translating dungeons, the word, or Dungeons and Dragons when they're localizing it into other languages because it doesn't quite mean what dungeons means.

Like what a dungeon was before dungeons and dragons kind of redefined it as like an underground labyrinth with treasure is like, that's like an invention of fiction, you know? It's like an actual dungeon is like something entirely different. Yeah, yeah. I grew up very close to Warwick Castle,

which is a good castle to visit if you go to the UK. Warwick Davis Castle? No, actually, no, totally unrelated, yeah. That would be cool if it was Warwick Davis Castle. Yeah, it would be cool, yeah. I don't know, I don't know if I really have anything else to add to that. I don't know if I've got a riff on that.

That'd be pretty cool. It would be pretty cool. It would be pretty cool. That's what we're looking at. That's fine. Anyway, they have something there called the Oubliette, which was a part of many castles. And it's French for forgotten. And it basically was a hole that they would throw someone down so they slowly died.

And it was just big enough for a human body. And you can go and there literally like an escape room there. Wow. You Brits are wild, man. I know. With some of the, I guess you are, you say that you're, that it's very self-loathing over there, which may have been self-loathing over there, which makes sense because... Because we suck? Well, no, I'm just saying you come up with such torturous devices that makes sense.

Yeah, yeah, it's true. I just watched this Japanese movie from the 60s, Onibaba, and it's between Demon Woman. Have you seen Onibaba? Yeah, I know of Onibaba, but I've not seen it. Yeah, I've never seen it. But there is an element of luring a samurai to just fall into a hole.

It's like, what a horrible fucking death. You just fall into a hole, and you probably don't die instantly, right? You just very badly hurt yourself and then slowly die in a pile of your own like goo. That's fucking awful. This is why FromSoft games are so good. Yeah, 100%.

Because they have that sadistic approach. Captures that feeling. How haunted is, I mean, it's a very old place. How haunted would you say England is? This is a tough question for me to answer because I don't believe in ghosts. Yeah. I was going to say ghosts aren't real.

So I don't know what you're talking about. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. No, no, no, that's good. This is good. I'll say it's very spooky. There's definitely a lot of sure you're not spooked at all.

If you're, if you're, if you're at an escape room, that's above like a, you know, like a 500 year old hole, you know, that people got thrown down. I would be a little scared near the hole. Yeah. Wait, wait, wait. Sorry. No, I'm not scared if I'd be a little scared near the hole, yeah. Wait, wait, wait, sorry. No, I'm not scared if I'm at an escape room. No, no, you've put my joke.

I would not, I took it from you. I was gonna say. I sniped it, sorry. Yeah, not scared if I'm at an escape room near your mom. Leave her name out of your mouth. I'm really sorry, I'm really sorry. She sounds lovely. What's the ghost skepticism level behind the day is? Where are we with ghosts back there?

Very skeptical. Very skeptical, you don't believe in ghosts or ghoulies? Really? Casey, what do you think? You're an Italian, you don't fucking believe in it? I'm pretty skeptical, I've never had an encounter so I'll believe it when I see it. Here's what I'll say about Ghosts.

Oh, you geniuses. We know more than the universe. We know everything. It's all science. There's no intermingling of spirit. It's only science. It's molecules. You fools.

Look, dude, I fucking love science. Here's what I'll say about ghosts, is that I have very low tolerance for certain kinds of mystical beliefs. Like when people talk to me about star signs, I wanna fucking kill them. Cause I'm like, that's just made up. What the fuck are you talking about?

It's so annoying that you would even think to say to me that you know what I'm like. Stay away from Hollywood Woolworth. I know. I know. And I have no tolerance for that. But with ghosts, I have a lot more sympathy for people who think they have seen ghosts because the human brain can do some crazy stuff.

Yeah, sure. And I absolutely believe that you could have an experience that feels only like it could be a ghost, you know? I just kind of feel like I know by now, like it would have been in the paper if we were sure about ghosts, you know, like it might have been on the news. It has been in the paper, but you know, certain papers. Different papers.

Yeah. I can't deny the fact that even though I do not believe in ghosts, I am still sometimes scared of them. Yes. Like if I am in a, you know, a big old house and there's no one else there and it is nighttime and it is a bit cold. I'm like, it's still gonna like kick in like the natural instinct to be like, ooh, but what if? Yeah. Like is there gonna be, so even,

I do get it from that front. Totally, yeah, yeah. I mean, that is very- I mean, you guys are, I'd say you guys are responsible for the most famous ghost, a man who's afraid of ghosts is Scrooge. He's Scrooge is the most- Visited by three ghosts famously.

He's visited by three ghosts famously. One of the oldest examples of a human being being scared by spirits is Scrooge. I don't know if it's one of the oldest examples. I would have actually have said- That's all right, it's up there. I probably would have said Macbeth actually, but- Well, once again, another example of a Brit.

Yeah. Macbeth, I mean, Billy Shakespeare is a fucking Brit, isn't he? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he is. That's right. Yeah, he is.

Yeah, and he's good, isn't he? I think he's good. You have so many topics you could cover with Mitch, because I don't know you. I can't wait. Mitch, I would like to formally invite you to come on What's All This, then, and we can debate ghosts. Talk about Billy Shakespeare?

Oh, we'll talk about ghosts. I'd love to. We could talk about ghost tours, All This Then? And we can debate ghosts. Talk about Billy Shakespeare? Oh, we'll talk about ghosts. I'd love to. We could talk about ghost tours, Charlotte. I bet there's some really good ghost tour content. You guys do have the most, there's a lot of ghostly activity in the UK. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like Edinburgh famously has a lot of very stupid ghost tours that you can do. Maybe I'll do one, because I'm going to be there soon. Wow. Are you doing a show there? No, no, I'm just going on holiday. It's just really funny to think, Charlotte, if you, has it even crossed your mind that we would ever do a live show?

Um, actually when I was at the, the guys live show recently that our friends, the GoFKings were on, I was thinking, Oh, what, what if, what's all this then reaches this, this level? And maybe I can watch like a live podcast show that isn't just five white guys. I think that would be really fun. It was really good, just to be clear. It was a lot of fun. Hope everyone enjoyed the Doughboys tour.

We gave you actually more than five white guys. I want to ask about... I want to ask about coffee, because my understanding is that the chain that we're covering today is... I could be wrong about this, and maybe the UK one is different, but, like, they are very much front-loading coffee here.

And is that the case with Préda Monge in, you know, on the other side of the Atlantic. Charlotte? Well, Pret a manger does mean ready to eat. Right. Right. So it is, I would, I have always thought of it as food first, but they do put an emphasis on the coffee as well. Yes.

Uh, specifically the fact that it's like a nice organic coffee, but I also feel like I can't speak too much to this because I am a big tea drinker. I don't drink any coffee. Well, yeah, I guess that's kind of where I'm coming at this from is because like, I think, would the expectations be at the UK version is like, oh yeah, they got a bunch of different teas as well.

Or that's like, that's, or is that place like, I can get tea anywhere, come to us for coffee. Interesting. I hadn't really thought, because again, like most of my experience of Pr, come to us for coffee. Interesting. I hadn't really thought, because again, like most of my experience of Pret is actually in the US. Okay. So I think Charlotte can speak to this

a bit more than I can, but I do, am I remembering right, Charlotte, that like Pret has like a coffee pass or something? I think they have like an unlimited coffee pass that you can get now where it's like, you know, you pay X amount per month and then you can go in and get coffee whenever you want. I was looking into this a little bit.

My understanding is that this did exist and there was some controversy surrounding it. Oh, we do love our chain restaurant controversies, don't we? Oh, yes. And they're almost always about whether it's woke or not. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

The woke virus is taking over England? Unfortunately, the woke mind virus. Oh my God. has reached our shores. I wish. I'd love to be able to go back and feel safe. It maybe seems worse over there in terms of the kind of guy complaining about. Like, it's just like, you still have those same kind

of fucking, like a Piers Morgan, who's up there just being like a complete piece of shit and then complaining about everything. Here's the problem, is that just because it's a smaller country and I think has a less diverse media landscape in general, our big newspapers are like, the biggest newspapers are all explicitly right-wing and in a way that even the New York Times isn't.

The Daily Mail is the biggest newspaper in the UK and it is fucking vile and constantly full of like, oh, mum on benefits is at a Mars bar, isn't it? Disgrace or whatever. And I think it's definitely like, you have a Piers Morgan or whatever. They are simply louder because of the lack of other voices.

I had, I told a story about, part of a story about James Corden once, and then like a bunch of UK rags were like reaching out to me and like DMing me about for more info. Really? Yeah, well, no, I brought this up because this is the thing I talked to you about,

you maybe don't remember, but someone from the Daily Mail was like, wanted to talk to me, and I asked you, like, do you know about this guy? Oh, god, yes. And I think you told me, don't talk to that winker. Wow. I just say that so often, I guess. Corden was nice to me. That was my experience with Corden.

He was nice to me when I did the show. He was very nice to me. That is the truth. I know it seems like a lot of people don't have that same experience. Yeah, yeah. But it was a... all that said, yes, the ghouls, unfortunately, have megaphones on both sides of the Atlantic.

But we're not here just to talk about that. We call them mega-mobile? Yeah. Wait, really? No. No. Sorry. I just didn't have the coffee.

I'm sorry. No, I liked it have had the coffee. I'm sorry. I'm really hyper. No, I liked it. But we're here to talk about Pret-a-Manger. Am I saying that correctly or approximately correctly? So I just say Pret-a-Manger. Pret-a-Manger. I'm making it as sort of like as English sounding as I can.

Okay. Because that's what people do say. A lot of people just say pret. Yeah, yeah, you just say pret. We just hit the pret. I think when I came in I said, I said prat-a-manger when I came in. That's what it looks like. It looks like prat-a-manger.

Prat-a-manger. Well, that's funny. I thought it was Chris Pratt. I thought it was Chris Pratt-owned, Prat-a-manger, but it's not, it's P-R-E-T. It's a Christian Pratt. I love you, Pratt. Oh, I was gonna ask whether you know that Pratt is like a British term,

a sort of slightly endearing term for, it's kind of a less aggressive way of saying twat, you know? Wow. Pratt is a bit of a muppet, you know, a book. Yeah. Oh man, Chris is gonna hate this. No, but you were saying it's a nice thing. It's, I wouldn't say it's- Yeah, a bit of a muppet, you know, a book. Yeah. Oh man, Chris is gonna hate this. No, but you were saying it's a nice thing. It's, I wouldn't say it's-

Yeah, but it's a muppet. Yeah, it's not nice. Oh, it's not nice, okay. It's like less aggressive than like, there isn't really a good translation for this in American English to me because like, it's not a jerk, you're not an asshole. You know, you're just a bit of a bellend.

Bellend, yeah, I'm familiar with bellend. I'm gonna DM him this info and see it sit unread for years, like a tune, a digital tune. I think he probably knows about it. He has that really famous clip of him doing a perfect Essex accent. Really? Yeah, yeah.

So I think he would probably know about it. Pret a manger. Pret a manger. Pret a manger. Pret a manger. Never previously reviewed on the podcast. It has about 700 locations worldwide a manger. Pret a manger. Pret a manger. Pret a manger. Never previously reviewed on the podcast. It has about 700 locations worldwide, including 40 in the US,

the plurality of which are in NYC. Like it started in London and it became such an institution in London. They tried to replicate that over in Manhattan. Just like last week's chain, Mitch, Panera, which you've talked about with our friend, Kimya, it is currently owned by JAB Holding Company. Oh, my God, Jab Holding. Jab Holding, the same private equity firm,

owns both firms. Hey, Jab Holding, get to work on a woke mind vaccine, am I right, Wives? The Jab. The Jab. The Jab, yeah, the Jab. This is referencing an old episode. That sucks. It's one we called.

It's good. Going through the list of all of their companies. So, Brugger's, Caribou Coffee, Einstein Brothers Bagels, Intelligencia, Krispy Kreme, Panera, Peets, Stumptown, and of course a third of Keurig Dr. Pepper are all owned by J.B. Holman. Strab is a strange one. Strabb has got some interesting...

It's very much trying to capture all sides of kind of the quick service coffee base. So you've got places like Stumptown, which is from Portland, and Intelligencia, which is I think originally from Chicago, but is so well known for its LA outlets. And these are kind of like more upscale versions. Yeah, it's like pseudo, for pseudo intellectuals, it's like a, like a intelligence, I mean, intelligence when I first moved to LA. Yeah.

Is that too mean? No, I was just laughing about how stupid it is that it is true, that it's like, this is the smart guy coffee. It's called intelligence. Yeah. Yes. And it did have a good, I mean, intelligence, it does have a decent coffee, I guess.

Yeah, sure. I mean, but it's a little bit of a higher price point. Yeah, that's a place you'd see someone in there like working with a laptop. And it's like, it's just a little bit of a different demographic than some. Not all these chains are serving the same customer base. But with specifically Pret A Manger,

items are made fresh each morning and either disposed of or donated at the end of each day, but they are made in advance. So you're not going in there and you're not getting anything that they're, like you order a sandwich, even a hot sandwich, they're not making it for you. It's already been made

and it's been sitting there since they opened. Which we as Americans, we don't like that. We don't like it. We can be real, we don't like it. I mean, I'm just like, I certainly don't like that. We don't like it. We can be real, we don't like it. I mean, I'm just like, I certainly don't prefer it. Like for me, that makes me think of, again, we're saying this before we recorded, it's like I'm getting my lunch

from items that they have at Starbucks, or I'm getting my lunch from items that they have at 7-Eleven. It doesn't feel like a proper meal to me. Yeah, but Charlotte, Libby, like you both, both of your experience, or I but Charlotte, Libby, most of your experiences you were saying were in the US. Charlotte, was this a place you frequented in the UK? Undoubtedly, I am the person who has been to Primord specifically that it's like it's a very easy default lunch place where I knew exactly you know but what I wanted was going to be there very familiar so yeah I would go that all the time for breakfast and and for lunch I was a big, big, it was my default lunch for a very long time was to go to parent.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, for me, I used to go a fair amount when I had like an office job in DC. And there was one in, I think in McPherson square, which is like K street, where a lot of the lobbying shops are, oh, we ate it. And there was tons and tons of places in DC that serve this exact purpose, like Panera Bread is one.

And then I was thinking of this when we were having lunch, like all the, these other chains that I just never think about anymore because they, they really serve that specific market, like Au Bon Pain and there was one called Cozy, which, uh, these are all just places that like, you never have like really strong positive feelings. You just maybe have fewer negative feelings and that's the one you go to and Pratt sort of filled a hole, I guess.

Oban Pan was the one for me growing up. I don't know, like that my mom, there was one in the Braintree South Shore Plaza. There was a Oban Pan and they'd have great fresh squeezed orange juice, and then there was like a chicken with mustard, eat that in like any, like croissant sandwiches. And I had a high opinion of it,

even though it was food that was ready to eat mostly. Well, you know, it's gone, it's gone woke now. Now it's Obamapon. Jesus Christ. Ha ha ha. Pfft. Obamapon. Obamapon.

Obamapon. Obamapon. Obamapon. That's what it is now. Pfft. Obama pan... Obama, Obama, Obama. Obama, Obama, Obama. That's what it is now. The thing I'm realizing about Pratt is that like, I can see that for an American, it's going to be like worse for when compared to, I just want to get you, I want you to make me something right now and then

to eat it. Yeah, sure. But I think like the baseline lunch for a lot of people in UK is the prepackaged sandwich, specifically the one that comes with like the meal deal, where you're spending like five pounds to go and get you know, your little prepackaged sandwich, you're like, you know, your crisps and a little drink. And those sandwiches, I feel like it never, it's never guaranteed they're made the same day, they might be like a couple days old. So pret is like a level up where you know

that the thing you're gonna eat is actually fresh that day. Which is nice. Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, cause even if you're going to get a grocery store lunch in the States, like a lot of times they just have a place that will make you a fresh sandwich. And like, you know, a grocery store sandwich from Ralph's,

which is, you know, the West Coast Kroger is, will sometimes be like, hey, that's like actually a grocery store sandwich from Ralph's, which is the West Coast Kroger, will sometimes be like, hey, that's actually a pretty decent sandwich. That's a tier above what you might get made fresh at a Subway. We haven't had him report on this, but we had Zach Cherry. He was gonna be our British correspondent, which he stopped. What the fuck?

Come on, man. He was working over there for a bit. He was working? Oh, nice. He was over there, and I got fascinated by, Charlotte, you may see some of these, the Spuds trucks. They're very big on YouTube right now, where they're like the Spuds guys, where they're like,

hey, what can I get you? Hey, what do you want? Hey, mate. They're Italian? Hey, what? No. And it's like, they put like a bunch of garlic butter and then cheese and then tuna usually is the big thing.

I was gonna say, yeah. Tuna. One of my best friends growing up after school every day, I'd go around to his house, he also lived in the village and he would have a jacket potato with tuna and sweet corn. That's what it is, jacket potatoes. Jacket potatoes. Yeah, yeah.

A jacket potato. Love a jacket potato. It's what it is. Jacket potatoes. Yeah, yeah. A jacket potato. Love a jacket potato. It's usually tinfoil here in the US. Oh, is that what the jacket is? A jacket for the potato. I think for us, the jacket refers to its skin, right? Its skin is a jacket. I would say that, yeah, the jacket is the skin.

Yeah. For me as well, you gotta put baked beans on that. Baked beans. Oh, that's a lot. Beans were the, so there's a couple of viral, and I, Zach was there doing promotion. I need to Oh, that sounds good. So there's a couple of viral, and I, Zach was there doing promotion. I need to talk to Zach about this.

Doing promotion for Severance. And so I was like, can you go and have a, like do one of these, like go to one of these trucks? And he's like, it's gonna be huge pain in the ass to me. And then I was like, will you please just do it? And he did do it. That's so nice. And he was gonna correspond to us, but we do it. And he did do it. And he was, and he was going to correspond to us, but we never, we haven't done it yet. But is that, I guess, jacket potatoes are

a thing, but these new food trucks, I guess you haven't, these have popped up, like the viralness of that has popped up since you've been gone. Yeah. I feel out of the loop on this one, Charlotte. I don't know about you, the jacket potato trend. Yeah. Well, that's the thing about me and Libby is we both are from the UK, but I think you've been out of the UK for like 10 years, right? Maybe 11. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

I'm in Canada. I've been out of it for six. So we'd like, I mean, yeah, we're just not up on the trends of the UK. Why are we doing a podcast, Charlotte? It's so stupid. I know. We didn't mean to have you spiral out here. This is the kind of questions that we

should be prepared for, Libby. I know. But here we are. Well, hold on a second. Immediately, you. Mitch and I haven't eaten the food for this podcast in like five years. Just lie to these fucking idiots.

They don't know. Fucking listeners are so fucking stupid. We wear fat suits. Yeah, skinny guys. We wear fat suits. We'll return to our real forms after the episode. We got fat suits from the clump warehouse. Oh, I love that place on Sunset.

Yeah, it's a great spot. So we're going to do white clumps. White clumps? Yeah, how come white clumps never took off? Yeah, it just never got made. Because of woke, that was the whole issue. Yeah, it's woke got made. Because of Woke. Because of Woke, that was the whole issue. Yeah, it's Woke ruined white clumps. Yeah.

You both did jump on board immediately with jacket potatoes, though. So this is a thing. Yeah. A jacket potato, it's basically what? Like a just a baked potato. And then you put beans, garlic butter beans, tuna fish? Yeah, yeah, not all at once.

Tuna. But yeah, those are. Because our loaded potato is like sour cream, not all at once. Tuna? But, yeah, those are... Sometimes. Because our loaded potato is like, you know, sour cream, chives, cheese. That's kind of it. Yeah, you can throw chili on there, you can throw bacon on there, you can throw some broccoli if you want to get nuts. But tuna, that's not...

Tuna's not usually what we'd fuck with, but I'd be open to it. You just unlocked a memory for me, which is... Let's hear it. ...going to Tesco and getting the, we have a lot more like, I think the Tesco ready meal is like a lot more central to the British, I don't know, diet than, you know, an equivalent like supermarket prepared food would be here. But one of the ones I used to get a lot was the American loaded potato skins. Wow.

Which was like cheese and bacon and chives, I think. And they're just like pre-prepared, you put them in the oven. And I remember the packaging specifically had like stars and stripes on it. Wow. It made for rubbish, that was so bad. Now it's nearly problematic now.

Yeah. You see something like that. I see my ass in there, I'm getting the stars and stripes potato. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Chewing up. See my ass in there, I'm getting the Stars and Stripes potato. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Wow. And I remember the specific tour. You were unlocking a lot of my trip from when I was eight years old. We're doing therapy here. Eight years old to London.

Wags has never been. No, I've never crossed an ocean. I've been to London and I went once for Hidden America and was there for like the show on CISO and I was there for like two days. It was very quick, yeah. Yeah, I mean, look, it's kind of far from LA, which sucks. But if you happen to be like in Quincy for an extended period again,

it's a pretty quick flight. It's the same flight as going to LA. Yeah, exactly. It's the same trip. It's a quick flight? It's six hours. It takes me six hours to get out here. As an American going to another country that isn't Mexico or Canada,

then six hours is pretty good. Crossing the ocean. It's not like going to Australia, that was 16 hours. Yeah. I'm gonna get fucking cast away. I'm gonna do that. It's not gonna happen. You're gonna get cast away.

I'm gonna get cast away. You think that the Lost is gonna happen to you? I might get losted. In the Atlantic, Lost in the Atlantic is a horrible thought. Too cold, yeah. I had a thing I thought of, and maybe I'll run it by y'all. Paul Wilson.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Worn absolutely ragged. The ball is whiter than when we first lost it. Wilson deflates himself. When I said the ball was whiter, I meant like you. Yeah, no, I get it. That was commas, probably. I get what you're saying, yes, from the commas.

I had it, and I thought of this, and I was like, was probably it. I get what you're saying, yes, from the cum. I had it, I thought of this and I was like, this feels like maybe a rude British joke that exists, but let me know if this is, does anyone ever say a pret a minge? Does anyone ever say pret a minge? Does anyone say pret a minge? I mean, I will now. That means ready to vagina.

Yeah. Oh, okay. Cause a minge is a horny, of course. That sounds like a horny American. It kind of like, kind of does sound like a American version of that. Ready to vagina. What if it was like our version of Hooters?

Preda minge. Preda minge? All the minge you want in. I might as well make it Pet-a-Minge. Pet-a-Minge. Charlotte, that's something for the podcast, right? We can do Pet-a-Minge. That's the segment.

Yeah, it feels like a segment. Are we really that strapped for ideas at this point? Episode two. A hooter's called Pet-a-Minge. It's horrifying. Wait, Amelia, you piped in there to say Pet-a-Minge. Yeah. A hooter's called Pet a Minch. It's horrifying. Wait, Amelia, you piped in there to say Pet a Minch. You have a history yourself with, with,

Pet a Manger, is that correct? Yeah. So I, I had a layover in Paris. Wow. And I only had a few hours. And I was like, I gotta make the most of my few hours here. I'm gonna, the only thing I wanna do is go to see the Eiffel Tower

and get a really good croissant. So I went and saw the Eiffel Tower. I love that, there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that, it was great. I went and saw the Eiffel Tower and I walked into the first pastry shop I saw. It was a predominantly, and I didn't realize it was a chain.

That was in the US. Oh my God. And a British chain, specifically. Even though it has the French name, and they are in France, it is British. It must be really funny being in France and just seeing a store called Ready To Eat. Yeah.

I didn't think about that. That's a great point. Yeah. That does make it sound so much more like a convenience store or whatever. Like a gas station store, like AMPM or whatever. Like Ready to Eat is on that level, I think. Yeah, it doesn't sound fancy at all. No, no, because to the French, it's just regular. Yeah, exactly. They're fancy all the time.

How was the croissant? It was just a the croissant? It was just a plain croissant. It was really mid, and I left thinking, the pastry's in Paris. Fuck. And then I flew home, and one of the first places I saw is I was walking around was a Pret-A-Manger,

and I was like, wait, they're here too? What the hell? Oh, man. I'd never been to Pret A Manger myself before. I did take a trip to a restaurant to see what it was like yesterday. I dined in at the Westwood location, just south of UCLA campus.

And I told you they were brewing up some coffee. Yeah, that was really good. UCLA Bruins. That was really good. You didnins. That was really good. You didn't get the ha ha react on that one, I'm afraid. Ha ha ha ha. But you didn't have to do it, because I figured you were enjoying it.

Yeah, because you knew my sides were splitting. Anyway, I asked an employee who looked like a college student how to pronounce the chain's name, and he went and got the manager. Ha ha ha ha. Is that real? Yeah, it's 100% real. Yeah, he was not confident. But I will say, I'm glad I went in person because-

The poor college kid. I know that poor kid. I don't know, I guess I'll get the manager. I think even the manager was probably like, this fucking idiot. Like, you know, like he's like, how does he not know the name? You got the kid in trouble, basically.

They already are seeing a 40 year old man walking into a college location, taking photos of everything. They're already on guard. Who doesn't look like a professor. No, yeah. Anyway, so I, so, but I'm glad it went in person, because this did really hammer home what this concept is.

Cause, cause again, it's not a thing you're used to in the States, all the food, including the hot food is prepared in advance and just sitting on shelves. They have a hot shelf, which is just like, you know, we were talking about earlier, all of their hot items, including their soup, but also their hot sandwiches are there. It just kind of felt like to me is like, this is like a nicer Starbucks slash high, like seven 11.

It's sort of like, like in between the two of those, kind of both at once. Just basically a Starbucks with a more extensive menu. And we also got a two goal order to eat in the studio before the record, which we all shared. And I'll talk about both of those. But Charlotte, did you make a special trip to Prada Manjher?

Did you make an order today? And also sorry if you did. And also sorry. I did take a 25 minute Uber to downtown Toronto. Oh my God. Wow. That did make me feel a little bit sick, unfortunately. Oh wow.

But we only have one Pret A Monge location here, I believe in all of Canada. My understanding is that Canadian Pret A Monge is owned by A&W, so there was like a period where you would go into some like select A&W stores and they would just have one of the Pret-A-Manger shells just there that you could also pick from. That sucks.

Which is such a, that really just doesn't fit well together. So this is I think the the first location they have in Canada that is just a pret store and nothing else. It was my first time going to it. I was reading into this as well. And it was, the thing I saw is that the coffee they had at A&W restaurants, like the pret-a-majé coffee you can get there.

But I didn't see if they're, like, I mean, I'm sure that was a thing that happened in the past in terms of actually having a shelf there. But yeah, it's a, I don't know if this is a JAB holding company thing, or if this is a, just one of those weird things, because A&W Canada is a separate company from the American one, so it has like,

it plays by its own rules. Charlotte, what are some of your favorite chains up there in Canada? Canada is a separate company from the American one. So it has like a place by its own rules. Charlotte, what are some of your favorite chains up there in Canada? I mean, I really like A&W. A&W, right. Canadian A&W specifically is really, really good. Excellent fries.

I get that poutine quite a lot as well, which makes me very happy. They do have a Beyond Burger. I was a vegetarian for quite a while up until quite recently. These days I have a lot of their chicken burgers as well. I should go to it less. Sorry to make you laugh. Do you like that icy mug of root beer? Oh, I don't. Actually, I'm not a root beer fan, unfortunately.

Wow. But they do have the fridge with the glass door where you can see all of the big root beer glasses in there. Sharla, I just want to let you know that Amelia, when you can see all of the big root beer glasses in there. Charlotte, I just want to let you know that Amelia, when you said I'm not a big root beer fan, went whooooo. Cause I was looking at Casey, cause Casey is a huge root beer fan. Four root beer for me, that's how I see it. That's a great point Casey.

Guess what Casey, I don't like it either. What the four root beer for me? What's up with you Brits not liking root beer? It's rubbish. Oh my god It's not really a thing in the UK No, I think I knew as many people who drank root beer as drank dandelion and burdock Do you remember people drinking dandelion and burdock, Charlotte? What the fuck? I think I... You have vague memories of this. Dandelion and burdock?

Dandelion and burdock? Yeah, it's like a soda. What the fuck is burdock, first of all? I think it's like a dandelion. I don't know. Dandelion and burdock? It was like a soda. You could get it at Tesco and it would be like this huge two-liter bottle.

It would be like 20p or something. And it was like... They had their own brand cola and stuff and they had dandelion and burdock. You know what I think about Dandelion and Burdock? I think it's rubbish. Oh no, he can do it too. Oh no. Well, Wives, do you agree?

I think it is rubbish. It sounds like a, that's Dandelion and Burdock sounds like a royalty free like Simon and Garfunkel. It like sounds like an old folk act. It seems like one of the BBC show, like a mystery show. Right. And it ran for 28 seasons.

Wait, wait. So see ya. Can I, this is a thing that we should talk about on What's All This Then, but I worked on, y'all have Red Nose Day. Oh yeah, Red Nose Day. They brought Red Nose Day to America. And we went crazy for it.

We loved it. It is for a good cause, isn't it? It's like a huge, yeah. And it's a Richard Curtis who's in charge of it. I got to work directly with Richard Curtis, a lovely man. And that was the best part of the job. But the job itself kind of stunk. Writing sketches for Russell Brand.

Yeah, exactly. It was writing sketches mostly because every British celebrity was like, yes, I'm in and then all the American celebrities are like, what the fuck is this? No one had any context for what it was. But they brought it over here. And then also I got underpaid to the point where there was a lawsuit involving me and the other writers and we ultimately settled.

But like years later, like eight years later, we finally got the money that we were owed for working on the special. God damn. It was a whole ordeal. But anyway... You all like eight years later, we finally got the money that we were owed for working on the special. It was a whole ordeal. But anyway, You all got red noses too, right? We all got red noses. Those were the compensation. But I brought that up for some reason

that I've now forgotten because I went on too many tangents. So I guess we'll just move on. Wait, wait, what? I can talk about, I mean, like I actually also met Richard Curtis backstage at a gig. And he was the thing he was pushing for. He's like, I know you from your YouTube videos,

can you please do some stuff for Comic Relief? Like he really like goes for that. So I did, I mean, unfortunately I have another story about a video that didn't go very well. I wrote a song with the musical comedian, Tim Minchin. We were a song together, which was very fun. Recorded a video. The whole time he was like,

are we really doing this in one take because I have a flight to get on? And I was like, yeah, I'm sorry. That's the way we're doing it. And then after it was all done, my friend who was filming it didn't turn on the microphone. And so we just had this like footage of us just playing. I was playing my ukulele. He was singing along and there turn on the microphone. And so we just had this like footage of us just play. I was playing with ukulele.

He was singing along and there was no audio. Wow. So I had to make a video for comic relief about the fact that I fucked that up. Basically. What a nightmare. Man, when you don't record, when you're in the recording business as we are and you don't record something, it is you do want to jump into traffic. It's the worst. Oh man, Emma's not here, man.

Oh fuck. Do we turn on the microphones? Oh fuck. Oh fuck. You guys didn't need me to record on my end. Yeah. Yeah, so yeah, like comic relief, Red Nose Day, it's all like this charity thing,

it is like a good cause or whatever. Oh, I know what I was gonna say, which was just basically like, so this has been an institution in the UK for however long, 20 years or whatever the fuck. And so they would be like, hey, we're gonna show you some bit from our UK show just to get a sense of like the kind of thing,

you know, what worked on the British version. And we obviously, it's a different audience, but we'll figure it out. And I always had this sort of like opinion of British comedy as like, oh, it's like a more high brow, like more esteemed thing. And then every clip they'd show me, or they'd show us from, you know,

the British Red Nose Day would be like a guy with like the fakest looking wig and like these shitty fake teeth going like, oof, oof, oof, oof, oof, oof, oof, oof, oof, oof, oof, oof. And all the Brits in the room were going like, ho, ho, ho, oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof oof o drinking an ice cold root beer while he's not laughing at that shit. Yeah, okay. I'll say this. There's a couple schools of British comedy. There is the kind that I think tends to get imported

to America for media literate audiences. Obviously Monty Python, but then also The Office. Yeah, for sure. You've seen bits of British. I know a lot of Americans that love Peep Show, for example, fucking great show. And then there's the other kind, which is a guy waggling his bum and going, oh dear, oh, oh look at my bum, oh no. That's pretty good.

Oh, that's my bum. Sounds good. I like this guy. I think, yeah, I think of it as the like male British comedian who puts on a dress and goes, oh, I'm a lady. Like that genre of British comedy, which is my personal favorite. I love that. Yeah.

I mean, I think also the double entendre. Oh, sure. There are a lot of panel shows in the UK. If you're a comedian, I feel like one of the nicest gigs is to get, like, regular spots on panel shows, on TV or on the radio, where it's, like, QI or Taskmaster, to an extent, or 8 Out of 10 Cats or whatever. So you're kind of hosting to play, like, Jimmy Carr or whatever.

Yeah, exactly. See, he's not a goblin, right? Do we know? He's a tax cheat. He's a tax cheat, OK. That's an idea. I think kind of a twat. OK, all right. I don't know if Charlotte, a lot of the time, if I do. I think kind of a twat. Okay, all right.

I don't know if Charlotte, a lot of the time if you mention someone famous, Charlotte's like, oh yeah, I met them and they said I was great. Let me think. I don't think I've met Jimmy Carr. Okay. I always just think about his laugh, which is- Awful. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I have hated him for a long time because he was an early, like, you know, like mid-2000s, he was really into the shock humor, you know? Like saying, ooh, I'm saying this stuff, you're not supposed to say kind of thing, which is so tedious now, but even then it was. Anyway, what was I saying? Except they're saying, preda-minge,

I'm like, all right, dude. No, that's the high class stuff I was talking about, you know, the office or whatever. But no, yeah, there's a high class stuff I was talking about. Yeah, the office or whatever. But no, yeah, there's a lot of double entendres. Yeah. And you know, like, like making a joke about, you know, like, oh, I want to go down there, hey, you know what I mean?

That kind of thing, you know? Yeah, sure, sure. That is exactly the kind of like, that was just the... Wait, talking about what? Yeah, what did he explain there? Pussy. You know when you... Oh. You know when you... No, I got, but that's what they were talking about.

I don't want to go down. Here's the thing is my example was bad because I'm so unfunny. I couldn't even think of a bad double entendre. That's not true. That's true. They, what you're making me like think of is like, yeah, there is a Monty Python bit that's just,

and I think is making fun of that sort of thing. Say no more, say no more. Say no more. You know what I mean. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, no, that absolutely is right. But that is like 70% of the humor, you know, is a double entendre about Bums and Willys.

Right. You know, it's the famous Brits have really taken a hit over here lately. There's a cordon out, brand crazy piece of shit brand. I mean, mention to me, there's Piers Morgan real piece of shit, but he was a guy who was like there's, there's a big- I mean, mention to me, there's a Piers Morgan real piece of shit, but he was a guy who was like very prominent in the US for a bit, you know?

Like all these guys, you know, we don't like them anymore. I'm saying we need, there's room for a Brit celeb to come in and take over. That's true. Yeah. The spot is open. That's all I'm saying. There's a spot open.

That's what we're trying to do is we're trying to say, what's all this then? Is it? Well. I want to have a podcast that, you know, like 10,000 people listen to and no one else knows about. That's my goal. Yes, me too. All right, we got to get into the food of a pretty much.

Not so fast. Yeah. Another thing we've done wrong? Well, I do have one question. I do have a follow-up question, but also cheeky Nando's. Cheeky Nando's. You know, I really wanted us to do Nando's for this, but I don't think we have Nando's in LA.

There is one in LA now. This is what I'm going to say. Wiggs has never had Nando's. It's true. There's a Nando's in DC. He does not want to review it in DC. What? Well, no, I was going to say we could go,

but yeah, it doesn't feel associated with DC. We're gonna go to a DC live show, we're gonna talk about Nando's. Okay, how about this? Can you double dip and go to Nando's? So you just have Nando's for lunch. You could, it's a healthy enough spot. Yeah, we could conceivably go to Nando's

and then later do a studio record where we talked about it. That is an option. We could do that. Yeah, yeah. I think Nando's is shit. What about you, Charlotte? Oh! I really like Nando's. shit. What about you, Charlotte? I really like Nando's.

Wow. I do really like, but also I didn't eat chicken when I was like in my prime Nando's period. So I would have a lot of their halloumi wraps. Oh, yes. Which I did really, really like. That's the cheese, right? Yes. That's the cheese.

Squeaky cheese. And the peri-peri chips as well. Oh, yeah. I think are really, really solid. Yeah. You think Nando's a shit? I've only been twice, once in the UK and then once actually on a date in DC

where I matched with someone on Tinder. And obviously we're talking about leaving British. No, it wasn't Biden, actually. It was not Joe Biden. I didn't match with him on Tinder. I matched with him on Bumble. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Well, you went to Nando's for a day.

More like you matched on Tender. That's so annoying. I think we're killing it today. That's so annoying. Yeah, Tender. Were you actually handling on Tender, the Tender app? Just matching with different chickens. Anyway, it was a good date. It was funny.

He suggested it. It's like, do you want to get a cheeky Nando's? And I was like, all right. He knows about cheeky Nando's. He does. Wow. Because you're British? Was that part of it?

Yeah. That's fun. Nice plug. I thought Fanny was Minj. Fanny is Minj. Fanny is Minj. Fanny is Minj. Newsflash. Fanny is Minj. All right, man. Fanny is Mininge. Fanny is minge? Fanny is minge. Fanny is minge. Newsflash, Fanny is minge. All right, all right, man.

Fanny, I know, all right, Fanny is, okay. Good to know. Yeah. Do you think you guys can get a reel out of that? Fanny is minge. Fanny is minge. Fanny is minge. Fanny is minge.

Fanny is minge. They are UK numbers. You need me to say it as well. Yeah, we wouldn't mind a clean Fanny is minge. Hey, hey everybody. Did you know Fanny is Minj? I will get a lot of options there. You're welcome.

Okay, so I went to the one in Westwood. Here's what I got, and then we'll talk about what we got today. And Charlotte, I want to hear about your order. In store, I got the cheddar and tomato sandwich. This is the kind of thing I feel like this is, again, less of a US, the idea that you'd have just like a cold cheese sandwich. It is really funny. Yes, yeah.

Thinking about that as an American now, like those are just two toppings. Yeah, right, right. So it was just basically like a turkey sandwich without the turkey. And I also- A tea sandwich. A tea sandwich, yeah. Also got a Pretz tuna and cucumber baguette slim.

Now here's one thing I do like. You can get a slim of any sandwich from Pret, and that is just basically a half sandwich. And getting a half of a baguette, it was like, you know, again, like if you're eating light or you're on a budget, you can just get a half sandwich and that's like a good value. But also if you like wanna have a little indulgence,

you can get a little bonus half sandwich. And that's like a good value. But also if you like want to have a little indulgence, you can get a little bonus half sandwich. And that's kind of what I did. I got one whole sandwich and one little baguette slim. I got a cup of the white chicken chili. I got a pink guava sunshine black tea, which is what they call their Arnold Palmer sunshine tea. Is that known beyond?

Is that like a UK convention beyond Pret calling sunshine tea? Is that a thing they invented? I've never heard of sunshine tea. I've heard of sun tea, but that's an American thing. Yeah, it's an American thing, okay. And then I also got a chocolate brownie cookie and a hot oat latte as my dessert course. And everything was pretty solid.

Today we got a whole bunch of stuff, Mitch. I mean, like, should we just go down the menu? Okay, go for it. Want me to say my order? Okay, what I ordered today was a pink guava lemonade, which has the guava compote in the bottom. Yeah, that's basically my sunshine black tea was like 50% ice tea, 50% that pink guava lemonade.

Kind of like it, but we'll get into it. Small tomato and feta soup, cinnamon kugen, Cinnamon, Kugen? Like Steve Kugen? It's Queenamon. It's a really, really hot- Oh man, I really fucked it up. No, no, no, I'm laughing

because they did actually put the pronunciation on the website, which I've never seen before. Like they like spelled it out phonetically on the website. Queenamon. Queenamon. It's spelled, let's see if I can do this, K-O-U-I-G-N. You got it. And then a hyphen, and then A-M-M-A-N. And I actually learned from the website.

You just, singular M double N. Fuck. Fuck. A-M-A-N-N. What did you just learn from the website? I learned from the website that that comes from the Breton words for cake and butter. Wow. Wow. So it's not French in origin. It's the Breton words for cake and butter. Wow. Wow.

So it's not French in origin, it's from Breton. Which, but that's France, isn't it? Wait, that is France? Yeah, that's Brittany. It's part of France. I thought that was part of Britain. You thought Brittany was part of Britain? I don't know, it's got fucking got the name there. I thought you guys were saying Britain weird.

I thought you were saying Britain like Breton. Oh, Brittany. Yay, I'm from old Brittany, I am. You know, yeah, Brittany's a northern... It is funny, actually, to think about it, yes. It is a northern region of France, which is kind of near Britain, and it's called Brittany, but it has nothing to do with Britain. Wow. So it's not like Steve Coogan, it's Queen Amarna.

It's not like Steve Coogan, but I love Steve Coogan, though. Steve Coogan, very funny. One of the best. Buffalo chicken melt, which felt like something that's not a regular pret a manger thing. No. And I wanted to get something that was more a regular pret a manger. And I got a pret a manger.

And so I got a ham and cheese baguette slim. And the ham and cheese baguette was marked as one of their famous items. Yes. Yeah. And mixed thoughts on a lot of it. Sean. I'm gonna say just off the top,

I don't think this place is necessarily bad, right? Yeah. Well, that was kind of my thought from both experiences. Like, I don't know if I call this place bad. I don't know if I call this place shit. I don't know if I'd be like, I'm never going back here. Which I have that reaction to some of these chains. I'd honestly like kind of-

I don't know if I'm ever going back, to be fair. I could absolutely see myself going back to a pret contextually. Like, if it's a sort of thing like, hey, I need a quick lunch. Oh, there's a pret. I can literally see us on tour being like, we need to fucking eat.

Let's fucking eat a fucking pret. I get fine, I get an egg salad sandwich from here. This is fine. Libby, what did you end up getting? So I got a, was it called like the rainbow vegetable sandwich? Yes. And I got a half sandwich of that. And that is like vegetables with hummus, like pickled cabbage and hummus and avocado or something.

I also got the half tuna and cucumber baguette, because I'm a big tuna and cucumber head. Actually, it reminded me of last year, I went on a hike in the Angeles National Forest at Sunset Peak, which is really gorgeous. I went really early in the morning, so there was nowhere for me to get food except 7-Eleven. So I stopped at 7-Eleven and got a tuna

and cucumber sandwich from the thing. And I took that to the top for my, you know, halfway point meal, which was pretty hard hike. It's like eight miles. Yeah. And, you know, it's just like unbelievably beautiful. I didn't see anyone the whole time. Oh, you didn't see Eminem?

Eminem. Now can you explain that to me? Eight mile. Eight miles. Eight miles. I didn't see, you know, I didn't see Eminem. He said eight miles. Which is actually kind of crazy to think about it that I didn't see him because you would think I would see him on eight miles.

Yeah, it was eight miles. Eight miles. That's his whole length. Yeah, that's his whole thing. We were a little confused at the 7-11 because it wasn't a 7-23. It wasn't a 7-23. I went in and said, oh, is this 7-23 or what?

What's this then? Anyway, I stopped at the top, and it's like so beautiful and like quiet, and it was like just sunrise, and I messaged my group chat with Jesse Ferrar and Stefan Heck. Yeah. Has Stefan been on the show? No. We haven't had Stefan on Doughboys. No,. Has Stephen been on the show? No.

We haven't had Stephen on Doughboys. No, he hasn't been in the show. Stephen's never been on Doughboys. No, I'm sorry, Stephen. He's never come into the US again, so, because he hates Trump, unfortunately. Yeah, that's very unfortunate for the podcast. I know, I know.

Anyway, with them and our Australian friends, Tom and Demi, and I was saying, this is so lovely, and it reminds me of Tom and Demi. I was saying, this is so lovely and it reminds me of tuna and cucumber sandwiches I had when I was on a school trip in Wales. Tom said, the English mind's ability to take a memory that would be otherwise life-ruiningly depressing and feel nostalgic about it is incredible.

I'm always like, thank you, Tom. Yes. I'm having a nice time on top of the mountain. It's a nice memory, though. If Stefan came to do a Doughboy's episode and then ended up in El Salvador in the Super Prison, it'd be real high on the run. Just because of fucking, man, whatever. We can't get into it.

We can't get into it. The deportation episode of last week's night, very, just a horrid, if you want a horrid watch, give it a watch. We all could use a horrid watch right about now. Yeah. You know what, I think you gotta watch it. Consume something harrowing. You should, it's just truly insane.

Just innocent people sent to El Salvador and put into prison. Anyways, Stefan is right to not come to the US for you. Yeah, I wish he would though. Yes, we would love to have him. He actually was here, Mitch, but it was you were in Toronto at the time. Yeah, it was last year

because we did the pizza thing. That's what it was, right. We did pizza thing. A US Canada swap. That's what it was. It was a US Canada, it was like a prisoner exchange. Yeah. You can get from me, you can get like a couple Canadians.

They'll toss you like two or three Canadians. I got the, I'll just run through my order real quick. And then Charlotte, I want to hear what you got on this most recent trip. The Bang Bang Chicken Wrap, the Egg Salad and Arugula Sandwich, which was a slim half sandwich on their multigrain bread. The Moroccan Lentil Soup, Chocolate Croissant,

Guava Coconut Chia Pot, which they didn't have, so instead that got swapped out for a different pot. Ooh. And, uh, it caused some problems today. Little bit of an issue, and then also an iced churro oat latte. The chia pot. Oh, wow. I also got the... It fucked things up.

I bet you Amelia didn't even tell you, because she's stacked. What happened? Nothing's fucked up. Don't worry about it. What happened? The order wouldn't go through because of your fucking chia pot. The order didn't go through, but it didn't go through,

but it didn't tell me what the item was. It said an item in your cart is unavailable, but it wouldn't tell me which one. And because of it, I couldn't place the order. So I was just like mixing and matching and trying to decide what was. What platform were you using? Grubhub, and then I ended up switching to Seamless.

Wow. It was a more seamless experience. It's the same company, isn't it? It might be. Grubhub and Seamless? Pret doesn't have its own app? Mm-mm. Wow.

Your fucking nasty little Chia pot was the holdup. This is the whole thing. I brought this up because their menu lists a whole bunch of items, and I went in store, and I was like, half the shit they have on their menu is not in the store. You gave us a warning about this, actually. Yes, and so this was one thing that we didn't get flagged,

but you looked up the Grubhub for this particular location and it did list that one, which is partly why I picked it. And instead we ended up audible-ing for something else. But Charlotte, what did you get at the Toronto Pret? I wanna tell you first off what I didn't get. What I really wanted to get, but is not available. I hope you just list every menu item you didn't get, what I really wanted to get. But it's not available. I hope you just list every menu item you didn't get. Sell in, this is going to take a second.

No, I want to, cause there are my favorite things that I used to get at Print in the UK that I was really hoping would be available here in Canada, but which were not. I used to absolutely love their falafel and halloumi hot wrap from that hot shelf. I would eat a lot of those. That kind of honestly was enough to be a destination

for me for lunch. Cause I just love, I love halloumi so much. The other thing I used to really go in for is the, they have the mango and the little slice of like lime. So you can like squeeze it and put the lime juice onto the mango, which was so, so you can like squeeze it and put the lime juice onto the mango, which was so, so good. And they had one with pineapple in the Toronto location.

And I was like, I don't feel like that's gonna hit nearly as much. Interesting. So I couldn't do that. My favorite thing from Pret Always though, was the mozzarella and tomato croissant, which was like a little, it was like a hot little pastry with like,

it's almost like a tiny little pizza, but on like croissant pastry. It was mozzarella and what? Charlotte, sorry. Mozzarella and tomato. Oh. It's tomato. I used to-

I got that. Tomato. Jesus. Yeah. So those are the things I wanted and I couldn't get any of them, which is very sad for me. But in the end, I went for the chicken salad and avocado sandwich because I spoke to my brother who still lives in the UK.

I was like, what do you get? What's the staple? What's the classic? So I got one of those. And then I also, just because it was me going back to prayer, I had to get a San Pellegrino. I had to get the San Pellegrino. I had to get the sparkling water, because I always got that whenever I went.

And then I would also always get one of their little... Now, I think, now here in Canada, you get a brownie bite. I feel like it was more of like a brownie bar, but maybe I'm misremembering, but that was what I went for. Okay. Yeah, no, I did see those at the register. And those are just like shelf stable that they had sitting there as like a little, oh, I'll get one of those too.

I did not get one of those, but I did get the chocolate brownie cookie, which I mentioned. Let me say this, yeah. What is the background on Hulumi cheese? Is it big in the UK, Hulumi cheese? Cause I know that it's at, I know it's at Nando's,

Cheeky Nando's, and here in the UK, you said you got this Halloumi cheese wrap. I just, it's not a thing before, like when I was at Nando's, I was like, oh, Halloumi cheese, it wasn't a thing that I knew much of. I mean, it's Mediterranean, right, in origin. I think there's just like a little bit less of, there's plenty of Mediterranean food out here,

but there's just like Hall halloumi specifically is like- It's bigger in the UK, for sure. Yeah, you'll see it a little bit less in the US. Halloumi has had a better PR campaign in the UK than in the US, yeah. A lot of halloumi on like veggie burgers in restaurants in the UK, for sure. But it was also like a later in life discovery for me. Like I feel like as soon as I realized what halloumi cheese was, then I was like specifically always seeking it out whenever I had like the option available to me. Especially

being vegetarian at the time, because it has almost like a meaty like texture to it in the way that it's cooked sometimes. But then it's cheese, so that's delicious. So yeah, I did a lot of that. Is that the same with with with cucumber and tuna? Is that is that a So yeah, I did a lot of that. Is that the same with cucumber and tuna? Is that a big combo? I mean, I guess here it is. Oh, yeah. But would you say cucumber and tuna is a,

I would say less of a big thing. See, less of a thing, but I do like it when I encounter it. Just some more, like, halloumi, because I wonder if something has to do with the American dairy industry, because it's just not produced here. There's so much domestic dairy Like, halloumi, because I wonder if something has to do with the American dairy industry, because it's just not produced here.

There's so much domestic dairy that I wonder if that could be part of it, you know, that's part of what gets what's more widely available or what more what they're, you know, is more scalable, like economically. But I think it also might just be that it's, we're maybe just not used to it, because it's, I guess Cyprus is, okay, the Cyprus government actually owns the trademark for Halloumi in the US. Wow. Wow.

So I guess they have some government control over it. Anyway. Getting tariffed. That might be it, Mitch. 200% tariff from Cyprus. God. I really, overall, was, like, more impressed than I expected with my dine-in lunch.

Just because I go in there, I'm like, I don't know what this place is. I see everything that's just sitting in cases, pre-packaged, and I'm like, all right. Now my expectations, like, my expectations are like, okay, maybe kind of mid. Then they start to plummet a bit, because I'm like, okay, so I've just got a sandwich that was made this morning that's just been sitting in a case all day. And then I start eating, and I was like, my expectations are like, okay, maybe kind of mid. Then they start to plummet a bit, because I'm like, okay, so I've just got a sandwich

that was made this morning that's just been sitting in a case all day. And then I started eating it, and I was like, this sump bitch ain't bad. I don't mind it. This cheddar and tomato sandwich, not bad. It's getting the job done. And I'm having this, this cucumber, tuna and cucumber baguette slim. In particular, I thought was like, oh,

the texture from the cuques was quite nice. The tuna was a higher quality than I expected. The white chicken chili, again, just warmed there. But I was like, this is something I would get from soup plantation. This is a decent soup. It's a whole foods level soup. This is totally serviceable.

I'm having all this. And I'm just like, my socks aren't being knocked off. They're staying firmly on my feet. But I'm still enjoying my meal. And I'm still like, this is a satisfactory lunch. If I was one of these students here, who are still like, this is a satisfactory lunch. This is a toll. If I was like one of these students here who are all, like, and I was just like, whatever, there with my, you know, reading Tolstoy or whatever the fuck,

and this was my lunch, I'd be like, hey, this is fine. This is getting the job done. That's your idea of a student in their history. Yeah, I'd be like, hey, this nerd's reading Tolstoy. Let's get him. I'd be like, this is fine. And the chocolate brownie cookie in particular, I was like, I was not as impressed by the desserts today, but that dessert, I was like, man, this is like...

Did the socks shoot off? No, socks are still on there. But I was like... Sorry, Mitch. Ah, damn. No feet today. Me and Quinton. I hate that people say, who cares?

He likes feet. It's nice. Yeah, let the man look at some feet. Let the man jack off to cares? He likes feet, it's nice. Yeah, let the man look at some feet. Let the man jack off to a foot or two for Christ sakes. I mean that cookie and I imagine as someone else who spent some time at UCLA, you went to Diddy Reese at a certain point at the cookie shop.

Blew my fucking mind, I can tell you. There my socks are getting knocked off. I went to a couple of Diddy Reese parties. Diddy Reese is like a cookie shop. And it's like- Brought some baby oil. The cookies are legit very, very good. It's in Westwood Village.

It's a stone's throw from this place. It's not that good, but it is like better than I expected. It tastes like it could be from a cookie shop. Well, and it was cheap is the other thing about Diddy Reese. Diddy Reese is very cheap, yeah. You go there and it was like, when I was there, I think it was like $1.50 and you get like a baseball-sized ice cream sandwich.

Yeah, it was crazy. Nice try, Diddy Reese. And I thought the tea was too sweet for me, the sweet tea was too sweet, but the latte was totally serviceable. Louis is just outright mad at me. I'm not mad. I knew of Pret A Manger, I didn't know how to say it.

Again, I thought it was Pret A Manger. But I am not, we talked about this. In the United States, I wonder what you'll think of this, Charlotte, it's just that sort of thing of, like the idea of lunch, I think in the UK, or people are just like, oh, this is easy, I'm gonna eat this, and I'm on the go, and I'm checking off that I'm eating lunch.

And it's in. Yes. I just don't think Americans function in that way. I think it's like, we want, like we need something more. We need something satisfying. Like, or not, it has to be a thing. You want it to be a treat. You want it to be like, this is my midday respite.

And versus in the UK, you're just like, you have like your body of your fucking scone or whatever the fuck, and you're like, oh, that's sorted, let me go back to my job. You know what I mean? It's just like- And we would say sorted. You would say sorted, yeah.

Back to cranking the wheel at the Big Ben, you know? Yeah, right. Whatever the fuck you're doing. Yeah. But is it better to have your baseline of lunch should just be like, it's fine, it's going to fill the hole, and then I can go back? So that when you do go to the cheeky Nando's, you do like the, okay, this lunch is going to be like nicer, I'm going to have a better time,

it's more of a treat, as opposed to I kind of expect my lunch to always be like, good? Yes. That's my argument for things in the UK being worse, generally. Oh sorry, what makes you think good all of a sudden? I think that is a good thing. By the way, I'm gonna fill the hole not a thing I say very often.

Um, I think that that is a better base. That's what it should be. I think this is a thing in the states that has changed with, you know, the hustle culture has increased over the last 30 years, 40 years, you know what I mean? Where it's like, like you were saying, that respite of I'm doing my shitty job and I'm gonna have a fucking Jersey Mike's big old sub.

You know what I mean? But also, of course, we do the shoveling of the salad, like you've talked about before, too. Yeah, of course, but there's also, like, hey, I'm gonna have Carl's Jr., you know? I'm gonna have, like, a big sloppy burger. I'm gonna have a, you know, a Panda Express. I mean, there's a...

Even the salad... Panda Express is great. We both love it. We should go to Panda Inn, the original Panda Express. I would love to, yeah, yeah, yeah. But even the salad is like, you go to Sweet Green and it's like, I'm gonna get this thing on it

and this thing and they're making it in front of me and I get my version of slop, no matter what. The idea of the thing out of the case feels like an experience at, this is like, I'm traveling. This is what's at the airport. This is what's at this train station. I'm gonna grab and go this and it's gonna be this thing that was,

you know, there's the illusion of freshness when you're swatching someone make it for you. And also the customization I feel like is a very American thing. The idea of like, I can say exactly what I want to substitute. Have it your way. Exactly. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think you could do a lot of, you could like extrapolate a lot of cultural analysis from this thing. You know, you could, you could go on and on about the American treat mindset and consumer culture in general.

It's almost an extension of that kind of customer is always right thing. You should be able to have, if you are a consumer with buying power, you should be able to have whatever you want and it should taste great. And it should have all the salt and sugar and fat that your brain craves and all that stuff. Whereas in Britain I feel like it's not even that we're

healthier it's just that we don't we don't believe we deserve good things. Yeah sure. I don't know Charlotte do you agree with that cultural analysis? No I do agree with it and it was very interesting for me to go back as someone who's lived in North America for as long as I have, who hasn't had a prepackaged sandwich in such a long time, to go back to it and be like, I feel like I have such a fondness for it with Pret specifically, and also just with the concept of the meal deal. I feel like it's just such a nice idea to be able to get sort of like a good value to go lunch. And I think the main takeaway for me,

and I'm not sure if it's just this specific print, but I was like, it's not actually very nice to be eating a cold, like a cold sandwich that's like fridge cold. And I don't know if in like most prints, if they have the fridges calibrated like properly to the point where it's not really, really cold. But when I ate it, I was like, my sandwich is too cold and this is not very

nice. Icy tuna. Yeah. It kind of broke my heart a little bit, unfortunately. Yeah. I think also it is an expectationist thing. I think you are absolutely right, Charlotte, to compare it to the meal deal because the Tesco meal deal, which we talked about on our first episode with Jesse, is the baseline. I feel like that is probably like, I don't know if it's the number one thing eaten for

lunch in the UK, but it's very, very common and popular. People have opinions about what the best meal deal is or whatever, and it's just like one of these cold fridge sandwiches usually, or a pasta or or something and a side like crisps or a brownie or something and then a drink and it's four pounds or something. And so that baseline of cold fridge sandwich from Tesco or whatever, perhaps specifically it doesn't do a meal deal but it's selling the same type of food. So it is like by comparison it's like, oh, well it's posher the meal deal. Whereas here, it's competing with like going to a deli and getting like a big hot pastrami sandwich or something,

which is like the best thing on the earth, you know? I'm looking at the Tesco meal deals right now, and it's things like you get a Tesco prawn mayonnaise sandwich. I mean, you didn't have to mention the prawn mayonnaise, you know? Ooh, my mouth is watering. Ooh. Ooh, I can't wait to go back to the, you know? Ooh, my mouth is watering. Ooh.

Ooh, I can't wait to go back to the UK and eat one of those. Yes, yeah. You get like one of those and like a Pepsi max, no sugar cola and like that's your lunch or do you get another item too? Charlotte's hearing this and she's thinking, oh, I can do this and I can have someone yell a slur at me? Yeah, let's do it.

Let's go. Spicy chicken pasta. You have to get a snack as well. Oh, you get a snack too, okay. You have to get a slur at me? Yeah, let's do it. Let's go. Spicy chicken pasta. You have to get a snack as well. Oh, you get a snack too, okay. You have to get a snack to get the meal deal. I build one of these and I say the 360 pounds, three pounds, 60 pounds. Well, that's the club card price.

Oh, got it. So if you have the club card, it's 360. What do you call the 60 cents? 60p. P, three pounds, 60p. I get a strawberry and cream sugar free Pepsi, a Tesco chicken and bacon Caesar salad. And where do I get the,

I don't know how to build this fucking thing. Yeah, it's not a good website. We had this problem with Jessie as well. It's not super easy to navigate because obviously everyone who goes to Tesco already knows what their build is. Right, you have your loadout. You've game planned that in advance.

You know, I'm going in there, I'm getting that, God, this all looks really bad. Honestly, I'm looking this. But also part of the decision comes down to you look at the fridge and you see what actually looks good, because it's not just like the idea of a sandwich, it's just like, is this specific sandwich that's in the fridge right now going to be nice enough for me to eat in this moment?

I mean, I remember going to a bagel place in Banbury that I think was called like Bagel Bite or something, and it was such a novelty to me that they would make the bagel sandwich like to order with what you wanted. And they would say, what kind of bagel do you want? What filling do you want? And I would watch them make it. I was like, I've not seen this before. You can do that. You can have food made to order, you know?

Which I'm sure there are gonna be British people listening to this who are like, oh, just bloody nonsense. I get that all the time. And I've had that all my life or whatever. But for me at least, not growing up in... I like that you have angry Brits like that listening to the show.

I hope we do. I have, yes, already so many imagined angry Brits haunting my brain. Right, because I didn't even think about that. Because you, yes, you would have, to them, it's like, oh, you're my advocate. You're the standard bearer for British culture. Yeah, I would say, to them, it's like, oh, you're my advocate. You're the standard bearer for British culture.

Yeah, I would say I'm the standard bearer for British culture, yeah, that's true. You're telling what's going on over there to these couple of dipshit Americans. You better be representing us properly. Yes, the podcast certainly reflects, I think, for both of us, our mixed feelings about the UK, which is that we think it's bad, and often very funny to make fun of, but also a lot of the time

when Americans make fun of it, we're like, all right, steady on. Right. Steady on, mate. Yeah, I'm sorry. Hang on. No, not you, you're fine. So we have these little things that we feel maybe more defensive about or Things that you know, actually that's not you know, dr. Who actually that's that's pretty good or you know, like the BBC Yeah, all right, you know something something that we might manage to feel not ashamed of

Well, there's also the element and I'm sure this this happens in you know people's this definitely happens when people are Mocking America at large, is like you've taken the wrong angle here. Or like you don't have something, your opinion isn't quite correctly formed because there's some key element that you're omitting. Maybe just like not thinking of America as a monolith as opposed to like, there's all these different regions with their own different affiliations and preferences.

And I'm sure it's the same thing over there. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and you know, like all of my favorite people in the world are American. They're great, you know, I've met all my- Okay, sure. All right, interesting finding this out right now. That's cool, all right.

Someone is not on the Christmas card list anymore. That's not what I meant. I'm really sorry. All but one? Did you guys call Santa Papa Noel? What do you call him? What's up with Papa Noel? What's the deal with Papa Noel?

We come back for the Papa Noel episode. Is he like Father Christmas? What the fuck is his deal? I think Father Christmas. It's Father Christmas. Father Christmas. Father Christmas? What the fuck is the father Christmas? It's father Christmas. Father Christmas. Father Christmas You've managed to say something that makes father Christmas sound even more ridiculous than it is father Christmas

Santa Claus is father Christmas. Yeah, he's father Christmas. Get the fuck out of here with father Christmas. I'm sorry I'm fine with Fanny and Minj and all that shit, but Father Christmas? Why don't you tell me out here. Tim Allen and the Father Christmas Claus? I've never quite wrapped my head around Father Christmas, partly because I think just like the fantastical idea of Santa Claus seems more fun to me,

like from a world building standpoint. It's the same guy. Yeah, but it's to call of Santa Claus seems more fun to me, like from a world building standpoint. It's the same guy! Yeah, but it's to call him Santa Claus, a little bit more fun. Yeah, you call him Santa Claus. Yes, because that's the name you knew when you were a kid, but for me, I was so excited to go to bed so Father Christmas could come.

Oh my God! Yeah, and we would leave out a mince pie for... This is insane, well hold on a second. Mince pie is a better thing to leave out. Mince pie is fucking good as hell. Oh, I love the mince pie so much. Mince pie is better than cookie. What's in a mince pie?

It's like dried fruit. Oh, that sucks, nevermind. Okay. Milk and cookies is fun, or biscuits in white water. Charlotte, I don't know if you... White water. Were you just guessing that's what Brits call it? We call it white water.

Right, yeah. We don't know what milk is. I'm white water intolerant. Frank's so fucking mad. Yeah, fucking pissed off. So I don't know if you did this, but in our house, it was a mince pie for Father Christmas and some brandy as well. Wow, that's fun.

And a carrot for Rudolph. Oh, cute. I was going to mention the carrot for Rudolph specifically. Yeah. Um, I don't think, I don't think we did, I don't think we did brandy. Maybe my dad was just an alcoholic.

You kids didn't leave the fucking brandy for Father Christmas. No, we did. Yeah, booze not as much for Santa, but I did leave out the carrot. We'd leave out the carrots and sometimes celery or something for the reindeer. We'd do a couple of things.

Oh, that's nice. Bang Bang Chicken Wrap sucked. It was real bad. It was supposed to be a bit of a heat seeker. This one is supposed to be a little bit of a, I think the bang bang is supposed to be a little bit of spice. And I just wasn't getting it. And then just all of the components on it.

It's grilled chicken and miso sesame, crispy onions, gochujang, aioli, and then pickled cabbage and carrots, cilantro, cucumbers, carrots, red onions, a whole bunch. I didn't need to read all that shit, but it's a seven-grain wrap. It was a bit of a dry guy and just didn't have much flavor. The egg salad and arugula sandwich, which is what I got today as my proper sandwich,

I just got the slim, but that was quite nice. And that's the sort of thing where I'm just like, I could get this egg salad sandwich if I just had to get to eat lunch in a hurry. Like this would totally get the job done. This is completely serviceable. Same thing with the lentil soup. I was like, this is completely fine.

This is a replacement level lentil soup. No problem with it at all. The sweet treat, the chocolate croissant, I thought was a little too much chocolate, like a little unbalanced and did just like a pretty gummy as far as croissants go. Like it definitely did not feel as fresh baked as I would like.

Yeah, I didn't think it was good. I consider myself a bit of a chocolate croissant head and it was not very good. And it was also not the like the normal form factor you expect for a chocolate croissant or a panneau chocolat. No. It wasn't that shape where it's like pillow shaped. It was croissant shaped with some bits of chocolate on top

and then like a chocolate filling. Didn't like it. It was a little bit too long and girthy. It was kind of like chai haloude. It did not look like a proper chocolate croissant. I was thinking the same thing. It was chai haloude. It was very chai haloude.

It was chai haloude. Yeah, I think it was chai haloude. Yeah. The Queen Amann. Queen Amann was so good. That was good. That was yummy. That was buttery ased. It was very shy-halooed. Yeah, I think it was shy-halooed. Yeah. Yeah. The Queen of Mon. Queen of Mon was so good. That was good. That was yummy. That was buttery as hell.

Yeah, that was the real, the best treat. I thought the muffin was, the blueberry muffin that we got Amelia, that you got for us was pretty good. I thought all the pastries, the chocolate croissant was the one, I was saying that like, that coffee bean has a better chocolate croissant. Oh yeah.

What the fuck? Didn't we get one? Oh, we got a cookie, your cookie. Yes, it was the chocolate and pecan cookie and that was good, I thought it was a little stale around the edges, again I'm a little bit of a snob when it comes to baked goods. Yeah, well you're a proper baker.

That's true. I'm a proper baker, that's right. And you know- What's your favorite thing to bake? Ooh, favorite thing to bake, shit, fuck. Pie, pie crust. Wow. I think my pie crust is really fuck. Pie, pie crust. Wow. I think my pie crust is really good.

Charlotte, are you a baker at all? No, I'm not. I would like to get more into it. I did make myself some scones recently. Oh, that's, wow. Or scones. And they were proper good. I also made my own clotted cream

to go along with them with some strawberry jam. And it was so good, so, so good, but it's something I don't do. Honestly, I will do it on a Twitch stream to make it as content, because it does feel like unfortunately a waste of my time to bake goods for myself. That's a thing I need to figure out in my own head

because obviously I can make myself delicious treats whenever I want. But yeah, not too much of a baker. Libby also made some hot cross buns recently that looks really, really good. I love a hot cross bun. It's very good. Yeah, no, the cookie I thought, again, it's like,

once you realize actually how easy it is to make, especially chocolate chip cookies, which I think is maybe a perfect dessert. Once you realize how easy it is to make, like especially chocolate chip cookies, which I think is maybe a perfect dessert. Once you realize how easy it is to make those at home and put the dough in the freezer and you start having fresh hot chocolate chip cookies regularly, every other cookie starts to taste like shit. And like anything that's been sitting out like that,

it was just a little stale. But I thought that the salt level was really good. I'm very big on salty desserts. That's a good observation. And I think that's salt level was really good. I'm very big on salty desserts. That's a good observation. And I think that's your trained palate speaking, because yeah, you're absolutely right. Did y'all's grandmas bake cookies? Because that was the sort of thing I was just like,

oh yeah, grandmas love baking cookies. You know, my grandma did love to bake cookies. Now Charlotte, just to translate that, what he was saying was, did your nans make biscuits? Yeah, did your nans make biscuits? Yeah, did your nans make biscuits? Oh, yes. I was so confused, gasoline, completely. Actually not really, not really all that much, no,

to be honest. My nan hated cooking in a feminist way. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Is this, I wonder if this is a, and that might be specific to your nan, but I also wonder if like, is this a, is this an American thing, the cookie baking grandma? Is that specifically like an American trope?

For me it was, my grandma did like to, well at least my grandma loved cookies. Cookie baking grandma. I know, I wanted to say the same thing, cookie baking grandma. It makes me wish I had one, yeah. Now, Father Christmas hates biscuits, right? Amelia Casey, were your grandmas baking cookies?

No. Not really, my mom would make Christmas cookies. Okay really my mom would make Christmas cookies, okay, your mom make Christmas cookies, okay and Christmas is a cookie You don't even leave that you don't even leave biscuits out for the damn man What the fuck are you talking about? You give him mince pie or whatever the fuck you give Father Christmas. Yeah, nice. You don't even leave biscuits out for the damn man. It's not really a cookie holiday in the UK actually. It's more of a mince pie holiday. Wow. Another data point.

Yeah, yeah. Amelia? I agree with Casey. Just made cookies for Christmas for... So maybe this is a generational thing. For us it was more cake. Italian thing? Yeah.

Could be Italian thing too. Italian, fucking Italians love the Christmas cookies and other occasions. My mom would make Italian cookies. Like wedding cookies and stuff. Wow. Yeah, the only issue with those cookies is that they taste like shit.

They suck, they're so bad. Italian cookies are so fucking bad. Italians make some of the best food in the world, but their cookies just taste like shit. What the fuck is the issue? What is the issue here? I disagree, we disagree over here. Rainbow, but their cookies just taste like shit. What the fuck is the issue here? What is the issue here? I disagree, we disagree over here. Rainbow cookies.

Oh, they taste like shit. Let me swap out these chocolate chips for some meatballs. What the fuck are you talking about? They're like bitter, they're fucking bitter. Yeah. It's nothing, they're just like, I mean, like a lot of European cookies, I feel like they have been elapsed or eclipsed, sorry,

by American sweet technology. So like, you know, European cookies is like, oh, and this one tastes of almond and this one kind of tastes like lemons and almonds and this one tastes like orange and almond. Whereas in America, you've got like, we have like scientifically determined the ratio of salt to sugar

that is gonna make you go insane. So. Yeah, for sure. Charlotte, you mentioned the lime juice on mango. And that's the fruit cart. Victor, the fruit cart guy. Yeah. Even if I don't get tahini or chamoy,

I'll get the lime juice on there. I agree that pineapple needs it less than mango. Like, pineapple is so acidic already, but it is fucking good. That is one of the best LA things. And I really loved taking Jesse for all when he came to LA, taking him to Fruit Cart Guy and getting that experience,

because it's really lovely. I make a pretty good apple cranberry pie. Wags has had it before. Ooh. Right Wags? I have that, it was a lovely pie. Yeah, I gotta make you one at some point. We gotta talk more food. Charlotte, what was your assessment of what you got?

So like I said before, too cold. And that did make me unhappy. I did think the sandwich despite that was pretty good. The bread was like a little bit thin for me, which is a bit disappointing. The avocado in there though, I feel like when you're getting a pre-packaged sandwich, it's always a fear of is this avocado going to be ripe enough, or is it going to be like a little bit tough? It was perfectly ripe. It was very, very nice.

They sprinkle some little cranberries in there, some little dried cranberries in that sandwich as well, which was a really lovely surprise as I was eating it. I really felt like it elevated it. But I feel like overall overall with the sandwich specifically, the fact that it was just like too cold, just kind of overwhelmed everything else and just made me a bit sad. I do have to give a big shout out to the brownie bite though. That thing was bloody delicious.

It was so fudgy. And I don't know, I don't know why I felt like I needed to do this, but I was like, it's a brownie bite. I have to count the number of bites. And I'd suck up, it was not very big. It's like maybe like an inch and a half or something. You could eat it in one, but because it was so like rich and decadent, it took me eight

bites to eat that thing. I was savoring it. It was so, so good. And also I like a little sweet treat like that. I don't necessarily need a full-size thing. Just a little rich treat, it's great. No, that sounds like a meal for M&M. Eight bites.

Eight bites. One per mile. Eight bites. Eight bites. He has one on each mile. That's amazing. Well done, Mitch. Yeah, well done. Well done. I thought it was pretty damn good.

We all thought it was good. We all thought it was good. We all liked it. We're expressing our appreciation for it. We're all saying it's good. Yeah. I was looking at the dance. Casey not paying attention, Emma kind

of hiding behind her laptop. Emma? That's not Emma, by the way. It's a different lady. Oh my god. Oh boy. Amelia. Even I knew that.

What I like also is that Emma is going to hear this when she's editing. So. Hi, Amelia. I don't swap the names of people who've worked with us for seven years with Emma. And I don't know, a couple years for you. I don't know. Three.

Three. It's fine. Yesterday on my stream, there was a thing where people can pay for a picture of Digby to show up. And there was one where it was a picture of Digby on my lap and then our friend Demi on the TV behind her. And I said, oh, look, it's Demi and Libby. Oh.

That's your own name. That's my own fucking name. It's just our brains. You know what I mean? As you get older and the coronavirus, I think we're just turning to mush. Microplastics. Oh, God, I can't remember what the figure was,

but the number of milligrams of microplastics that are in our brains. It's probably grams, honestly. Yeah, it's just like... Got about a kilo in grams, honestly. It's like insane. Yeah, it's just like. We've got about a kilo in there, yeah. It's too much. I'm on a tech show with you, and we just share a lot of just dark news.

Just that thing about how this is the worst age for art. There's been no good art. And there was a song from 35 years ago that got big, because it was just played on Stranger Things. Which makes me want, got big because it was just played on Stranger Things. Which makes me want, we need to get Doughboys played on Stranger Things. But there's a- You think we can pull that off?

I think if we get bought by Private Equity, cause that was a big part of that article was just talking about how the same thing like a company like JAB Holding Company exists and just hoovers up, you know, it becomes this overlord of all these subsidiary companies that are all operating in similar spheres so it could just completely dominate the marketplace

but in a way that's opaque to the consumer. The same thing happens with hedge funds and private equity and acquiring intellectual property now. And now you see like, oh, this private equity firm, this hedge fund bought all Whitney Houston's like entire catalog. And so now all of a sudden you're hearing all these Whitney Houston songs. I'm not, I'm using Whitney Houston's like entire catalog. And so now all of a sudden you're hearing all these Whitney Houston songs.

I'm not, I'm using Whitney Houston as a random example. You're using Whitney Houston songs in commercials. And it's just like, yeah, because a private equity firm is aggressively licensing it out now to try and, you know, make money off of their investment. I went off on this the other night, remember? It's grim stuff. When I was talking about, remember what I was talking about?

I don't want to get into it now, but I- But there should be like, that's a whole, that's a whole nother conversation where IP other conversation where IP law should be reformed, where more of this stuff is going to the public domain. So it's not people making money off of a bunch of dead artists, creations, indefinitely. You want me to get angry for a second? Yeah, go for it.

I'm going to get angry for a second. I looked at, there was, speaking of Eminem, there was a video of Dr. Dre and Eminem. And they were talking about Napster. And they were like, oh, we don't like Fred Durst, because I was looking at Fred Durst videos. We don't like Fred Durst, because he's like pro Napster, and we don't like Napster.

And then all the comments were like, this age like milk, Eminem and Dr. Dre, and all you little fuckers out there, you're on Big Tech's side instead of the fucking artist's side. You're going to suck Big Tech's dick, you fucking dorks. That's the better thing. Now you're a slave to fucking Apple and you have to pay for Apple Plus subscriptions

your entire fucking life instead of giving the money to fucking artists, you fucking dorks. Yeah. Well, also, it's just like having to be in the Spotify ecosystem or whatever. Oh, god. You either have to pay out of pocket, or you're paying with your time. You have to listen to ads constantly.

Or everything is saturated with ads. There are things you can pay for now that are covered with ads. There's no way to escape them. Hell, music is horrible. Music is, I mean, look, music can be played for free. But it's also, it's an artistry. And you had an issue buying a $12 CD.

Who gives a shit? You have to pay that money to Spotify or Apple Plus every year. Yes. Little fucking dweebs. Yes. And it's just all tech bullshit that they've, it's all been assimilated into fucking tech bullshit.

Thinking about how I could have bought, you know, 10, $12 albums with my, you know, yearly Spotify charge or whatever, how many albums do I actually listen to? It's probably less than 12. Oh, sure, yes. Yeah. I'm just listening to like, you know, Kurt Weill and MJ Landeman over and over again. That's it, you know? Like, I don't need the illusion of choice.

Yeah. Well, it's also that thing of like, the music industry has been ruined. Like, it's like that sort of thing of like, like music isn't made in the same way anymore. Like, they don't of like, music isn't made in the same way anymore. Like they don't, like studios aren't rented in the same way. That sound is gone forever because everything has been cheapened because it doesn't exist in the same way anymore.

So anyways. Music is still pretty good right now though. There's a lot of music. There's a lot, I'm not saying that there's always gonna be good stuff. But you're right that the distribution channels have gotten so fucking, you know, onerous and a lot of that just has to do with big tech.

And also, it is that sort of thing, if you go back to the mid-'90s and you look at a year and see how many different music acts that have like, and it is like, someone could just have a hit, like have a hit song, and then they'd be okay to survive and make more music. And that just isn't, it's not the same, unless it's like a gigantic mega hit.

But it's like fucking everything. That's like an actor used to be able to make their year by being in a national commercial, and now those opportunities are existing. But isn't it weird that there's a weird correlation where the music is, like, if you, like I'm just saying, in the past, in a given year, there was a lot, there was a variety of music that was better.

The quality and the quantity were higher. I don't know how much that's true. I'm not saying that there's quality that is very high. The quantity was also very high. There were a lot of different acts that had a lot of great hits. Well, but what you're also talking about is kind of the death of the monoculture

and how this is just, you know, because fewer things rise to the level where everyone perceives of them, so it just feels like there's less out there. Don't you try to turn my words on me. I'm not saying that there. There's actually more. Don't you try to turn my words on me. I'm not saying that there's not good music now. I'm not trying to turn your words on you. People all know that culture is not,

we're flopping about here. That's what I'm saying. And it is, a lot of the issues are, is this big tech bullshit. Anyway. Yeah. I didn't even listen to music. You fucking do.

This guy's over here sucking big tech's dick, this motherfucker across from me. What? I'm not sucking big tech's, Dick. Ooh, I love this iPad. Oh. What the fuck you got? Fucking tech dick installed on the iPad? I'll say like paying for Apple dick is like worth it. You get like three sucks a month.

It's pretty decent. Yeah, it's pretty good. Yeah, and I really hate when you have to watch an ad just so you can suck your iPad off. Come on. You gotta go ad free on this one. It's insane. Yeah, exactly.

Wait, hold on. Did we get all the sweet treats? Cause we should talk drinks a little bit. I mentioned the sunshine black tea, too sweet for me. Hot oat latte, fine. This ice churro oat latte that I've been sucking on for the duration of this episode. I do wanna push back on you.

Yeah. Name three songs from last year you like. Oh, but this is the thing, I don't consume any modern music. Got ya! I don't consume any modern music. I'm just saying, that's my point, that's all. I mean, I certainly liked the score

for a metaphor refontasio. That was a great video game soundtrack. I'm sorry, I asked actually. So I mean, like, there's some good music that's being made out there. Yeah. But yeah, I don't like listen to modern music. So I'm impressed, because I don't know,

I can't name a song that came out within the past 20 years. It's like a pop song. I don't pay attention to any of that shit. Interesting correlation there. That's what I'm saying. Stuff was better when we were young. Yeah, stuff was better when we were young. See, this is the issue is that people are gonna just say

that's what I'm saying. And I know to an extent that's what it is. I agree with you. Hey, look, the nineties, the Simpsons, you know? Job done. That's all you have to say. That's true. I'm sad Simpsons.

This iced churro oat latte, a savor of the perfect blend of sweet and spice of our churro latte topped with a sprinkle of cinnamon sugar made with your choice of milk served over ice. Libby, you got the same thing with conventional milk. It was like way too sweet at first. And then as the ice is melted, this is mellowed a little bit and I'm just kind of getting the caffeine lift from it.

But overall, this is a thing I would never get outside for content. Yeah, you need to stir it and honestly shake it a lot. You do. Because the syrup collects at the bottom and you just, my first sip was just a pure cinnamon syrup. Right. After that, once I mixed it in,

and yeah, it was melting a little bit. It was fine, but it sort of tasted dusty. You know? That kind of replacement level, like sub-Duncan, like, syrup drink, you know? Yeah, it was like a themed Frappuccino that you would get like in a bottle. And it was also like, do I need a fucking churro drink?

Yeah. Does that need to exist? Yeah, and also like, it annoys me when they say churro when they mean cinnamon. Right. Tastes of cinnamon, not churro. To me, sub-Duncan is every other coffee, by the way. Of course, yes. It really does seem like the kind of thing where it's just like, it's designed to get

you to drink it once because you like churros and you sort of hope it will be good. And there's no other reason really for it to exist. It's not going to last. And that's, you know, they got you. They got me. You saw the word churro and you're like, yeah, okay, I'll try that. That's interesting. That's different. Oh yeah. It's just a sort of sweet, milky, cinnamony thing. That's kind of what I should have expected. We got scammed. We got scammed. Yeah. Charlotte, did you, I apologize if you already said, did you get any beverages? Well, I just got a San Pellegrino

sparkling water, which is not obviously specific to Pret A Monge, but it is specific to my experience of going to Pret A Monge a lot. And so I was like, you know what, I could go for something kind of better for this podcast, but I'm like, they're going to order a ton of stuff. I'm just going to get the thing that I know and just love. That's a part of it. I think that's a great choice. Yeah. Thank you.

For me, like a key Pret A Monge memory that I just remembered is that a lot of the time in DC, if I needed to use the loo, I would go to the Pret A Manger in Metro Center and buy a Diet Coke so that I had a reason to use that bathroom. So this is a bathroom, it's mostly a bathroom. It's a bathroom restaurant. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's a time kill place, yeah. I did write down notes in relation to Pret A Manger's bathroom.

Oh, yes. It's a time kill place. Yeah. I did write down notes in relation to Pritamajo's bathroom. I didn't know if that was going to be relevant because in the UK, you, you do need to get, you need to get your receipt, which will have a code for the bathrooms that you can go in and use it. Right. No bathroom code. The one in Toronto, which I was very pleased about. We've got, we've got the all gender bathrooms, which made me very happy. Very comfy, really nice and clean. But they did have the incredibly fucked up, you know, the Dyson tap that also has the

like the hand dryer built into it, like over the sink. I don't know about the Dyson. I have not encountered this. No, it's like, it's like a really long tap covers like most of the sink. And then it has two like metal wings that come off either side and then a little notice on the mirror above to give you instructions on how to use the terrifying three-pronged tap in front of you. Which I think it's like Dyson I feel like is known for having good design and I feel like the idea of forcing someone to continue to stand in front of the sink

to dry their hands is stupid. You've got it, that's just ruining the flow. It's okay if it's just a toilet and a sink with that, then that's fine, I understand, which is what this was. But when I see those in big bathrooms, I'm like, this is just idiotic. You're holding up the flow of traffic here. Right. You're lengthening this choke point

when it could be like- Exactly. Like broken into steps. I've, yeah, I've not encountered that specifically. I will say the bathroom at the Westwood one, it had a restroom key and it was like, I don't even know, I think it was like a bread basket that they weren't using

because it was like a huge like thing that you had to hold on, like it was so big it fit on top of the toilet tank, took up the entire toilet tank. Wow. And I was like, this is way too cumbersome for me to carry to the bathroom, but it's what they had there. Toilet tank's a good shark tank spin-off.

Yeah, that is a good shark tank spin-off, Mitch. That's a good idea. In bad image. By the way, I'm not trying to call you out Amelia, but Charlotte was saying, I'm not sure if this is relevant to the combo when you went, you very much wanted to hear the bathroom talk. It's relevant.

And then you were more engaged in that than I've seen you the entire episode. You were very interested in the bathroom talk. I was noticing you nodding along over there. Just the head to go in bathroom for me because I did noticing you nodding along over there. Um, I, uh, I did not, uh, just the head-gum bathroom for me because I did not go into Predamange. Do you have a review of the head-gum bathroom? Uh, too echoey.

This is the issue with the head-gum one. It is too echoey. Um, it's way too echoey. It's quite cavernous in there, isn't it? It is a little bit. More unused space. [♪THEME MUSIC PLAYING We gotta get to our final thoughts on Pret-a-Manger. So Libby, you've done the podcast before. I will let you begin.

But Charlotte, the way this will work, we'll each go around, we'll give our closing argument, if you will, on this particular chain and then give it a score from zero to five forks. Libby, we'll start with you. Your thoughts, your fork score on Pret-a-Manger. Actually, before I do, I want Amelia to say the thing that they said to her when she came to pick up the food. So I walk in there and they go, pick up? I go, yep. And they go, we were just talking about you.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Was that, didn't you have another, you said you had a story too, right? I told it already. Oh, you told it already. I told you. I told you. I told you. I told you. I told you.

I told you. I told you. I told you. I told you. I told you. I told you. I told you. I told you.

I told you. I told you. I told you. I told you. I told you. I told you. I told you. I told you.

I told you. I told you. I told you. I told you. I told you. I told you. I told you. I told you. I told you. I told you. I told you. like how well is it doing the thing it's trying to do? Right. And I think it is doing the thing it's trying to do pretty well. You also do have to consider that the thing

it's trying to do kind of sucks, which is like make a mid sandwich experience that you can tolerate having basically every day of your office job, you know? You can stop in there on the way from the tube station to your job at the, what would be a British job? The baked beans head office or whatever. Yeah, baked beans head office.

Baked beans head office. A fish, a newspaper fish wrapper. Yeah, exactly, yeah. How about 10 Downing Street? Ha, that's awesome. Let me tell you, they should get to work over there. Yeah, I don't think they do very much work. Ooh.

Abbey Road crossing guard. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha like a very solid, if we're doing the thing, if considering what they are doing, how well are they doing the thing they're trying to do? Three forks. Three forks, okay. Charlotte, your thoughts, your fork score from zero to five. And when it comes to this, am I reviewing my specific experience today or an overall? Great question.

You can think about a lifetime's worth of prep visits. I mean, if I'm thinking about a lifetime's worth, then I'm going three and a half probably. And then this specific visit, I think it's coming down just to two or three. I do feel like we are missing the vital context in this episode of the UK prep, obviously. We're getting sort of like the knockoff experience here

where it's like, it is very similar but it's also been like slightly adjusted. And I do feel like one of the things I've realized is that I am less inclined personally towards the pre-prepared sandwiches now, having not had them for a long time. But yeah, I do. I do feel like it still has a very soft spot in my heart, Pratt and Sleek. I think for me, I just always wanted to know a place I could go to lunch when I was out in the big city of London as a very anxious person, and to know that there are, I did write this down, 369 Pret-A-Manger's in London specifically.

Wow! Just knowing that there are so many and it didn't really matter where I was gonna be in London. I would always know that there will be a print that is easy for me to access. And I can go, actually I'm gonna move up to four for my like overall experience. Wow, four forks.

Specifically for that, just for the like. I love it. It became quite a comfort to me to know why, that I always had access to that. Um, but yeah, this specific pre experience in Toronto, I'm going to give it a three. It was nice that they, they had the CN tower

up on the wall in like the pret style. That was fun. Oh, that's fun. Made me feel happy. Yeah. That's the Nando's in Toronto is where I, I, I spent my summer basically. Oh, wow. Okay. That's uh, the, uh, I was is where I spent my summer. Oh, wow.

That's the, I was, that's, that's, for lunch wags, I'd walk over to that Nando's in Toronto, almost any day I had off almost, I loved it. I had a lovely time in Toronto. I, we had a good time. And I do want you to try, I do very much want you to try Nando's. I'll try Nando's in some way. I think, I think that you would enjoy,

even though Libby thinks it's shit, I think that you would like it more than Pret. This is an argument I had recently, I've mentioned it so many times, but this is an argument I had recently with Jesse Farrar because he was going to Toronto and he was saying, he was there for like something stupid, like 48 hours, and he was saying to Stefan, let's go to the poop restaurant.

Let's go to the restaurant where all the food is shaped like poop, and I was like, and Stefan was like, no, I did that in Taiwan and it sucked. And Jesse was like, I don't care. And I was like, Jesse, you have 48 hours to eat in like a really good food city and you're always complaining about the food where you're from.

So just go and get the good food. And he was like, no, I wanna go to the poop restaurant. Yeah, he's an idiot. Also bear in mind, this is the only meal I got to have while they were here. Yeah. So did an idiot. Bear in mind, this is the only meal I got to have while they were here. Yeah. So did you go to the poop restaurant? I didn't. We did not go to the poop restaurant. Okay. No, I took them to

General Assembly Pizza because it was a good pizza place that I knew and I knew they liked pizza and it was right next to a really fancy clothes store that they wanted to go to. I did nail it on the recommendation for lunch. Pizza in Toronto's got some good pizza. It does have some good pizza. Got a lot of good pizza here. Anyway, my vote would be, although as much as I want to hear you talk about Nando's, don't waste the DC meal in Nando's because there's so many good places to eat in DC. Wow. I said it before and I'll say it again. Jessie is a dipshit.

Wags, pret a manger. That's a way you can, you know what? It's a way you can describe me. I, uh... I, uh... Wig's... Preda-monger. That's a way you can... You know what? That's a way you can describe me. Ready to eat? Ready to eat. Ready to eat? I'm ready to eat. I'm always... I'm always preda-monger. Hell, me too. Preda-minger? Nah, you know. Preda-minger? I don't know how...

I don't know how you say it. Are you mongering minge? No, I know. No, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Sacre bleu, I know. Uh, uh, Preda Manger, I am always ready to eat. It's just as funny that I'm ready to eat in what Preda Manger has to offer. They're, they're, they're ready to serve you

because it's all ready to go. It's all just sitting there, sitting around. It is a, maybe it is a little too much of a USA attitude about the whole thing where I want it to be made fresh. And so that, honestly, it's gonna ding this place for me no matter what. It's gonna, it's not gonna go on the Golden Play Club for me, there's no way.

That being said, the Buffalo Chicken Sandwich, which was warm, not, it wasn't bad. It was bad, but it was fine. Right? That's exactly what you said. You took a bite and you're like, this is bad, but it's kind of good. Yeah, I thought it was bad, but it was not terrible.

Yeah. And I like my egg salad sandwich more, but you know. The egg salad, I mean, and that is, that's what I should have leaned into when I went there. I had the ham and cheese baguette slim or or whatever, I had the small one. And it was, and it was, I was like, oh, this is like this, the baguette tastes nice. Like this is the Slim baguette I'm a fan of and I, and in your egg salad sandwich I liked. And I was like, that's what I should have leaned into more of the thing that they're good at. And I didn't do do that. But the pastries, three out of four

pastries were good that we had. They were decent. The lemonade drink was decent. And I think for what it is, I think it's a three-forker. I think it knows what it's doing, but it's not anything that I would care to go back. Three is maybe even as generous possibly, but it's fine. If we were on the road and there was a pret-a-manger and we had to eat, we'd eat there and we'd be fine. Yeah, I agree. And I think this is- So maybe that's two and a half forks.

I was wavering between two and a half and three. Cause here's the thing, Mitch, I said all that stuff about Americans, but I, A, I'm also American, and B, I'm like you, I want a good lunch. I want to eat good food, and I want it fresh, and I want it my way, and I want it with extra jalapenos. Yeah. And I want it with french fries.

You've convinced me. Two and a half forks. It is two and a half. It's two and a half. It's going to be three forks for me. I just feel like this is a place where everything is totally fine, and it's an interesting companion I feel like this is a place where everything is totally fine. And it's an interesting companion piece

with last week's chain, Panera, which is, you know, they do have, like, pre-made pastries, but it is more of, like, you're ordering a salad, you're ordering a sandwich, you're ordering a hot dish, they're making it in store, but it's trying for basically the exact same thing that Pret A Manger is, which is just a functional sort of workday lunch. And I'd rather eat a Panera. It's also-

One of the headgum hunks just walked in with a handle of vodka. Just walked in with a handle of vodka. We also got in here, there was old taco meat on the table. Yeah, there was taco meat from the previous day, just like a chafing dish full of fajita meat. And then sitting at room temp for 24 hours. I think I'm going to go play beer pong with the hunks.

I'll see you guys later. I'll see you guys later. That would be the perfect encapsulation of Nick and I's life is that if the lady who was here to visit us left the room as we were just recording a podcast and played beer pong with the head gum hunks. I think mine would be being reluctantly let in to the room of the hunks.

It's like, yeah, okay, I guess. Fuck those hunks. I think this play, you know, obviously it's owned by the same company as Panera, which is its own thing, but. Yeah. You know what? Yeah.

Those hunks wouldn't know what to do with that minge if it was right in front of them. I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna outright say it. Oh! Oh! Oh, my God. They wouldn't know how to munch it at all. No.

No. No. That's right. It's good to not be a hunk. Yeah, I hate the hunk. We're normal men. I, we're normal men. I strap my seat cap on, left to right, just like every other man every night. I'm a normal man.

I think they, I just feel like this place is like, you know, you have to be selective with what you get. And I would lean into the cold instead of the hot, although maybe it, depending on a YMMV, you might end up in a situation like Charlotte where the cold is too cold hot, although maybe it, depending on a YAMMV, you might end up in a situation like Charlotte where the cold is too cold. But I don't know, it's like,

it's not a place to get excited about it, it's not a place to get pissed off about either. And for me, that puts it right in the sweet spot of three forks, and that's where I'm landing. I think this is where I'm at with it, which is like Panera is like a completely fucking middle of the road lunch chain. Yeah.

You know, it's everywhere and it's very bog standard and it's very bog standard and it's not that good, but it is still always trying to pitch itself as like a kind of premium experience. And Pret is also trying to pitch itself as a premium experience because compared to the rest of British food, it kind of is. Oh no.

The beast, right? Yeah, compared to Tesco. You are right. Panera is kind of a slightly elevated pret to me, from my one experience. If I had a choice between going to pret and Panera, I'm picking Panera every damn day. For sure.

Wow. I think the thing about it as well is it's a really bad Los Angeles lunch as well. Sure. It's like the best place for you to be in the world. In the US, most of the prets are in New York, and it makes so much sense to me that you would be like, I don't know, you're downtown,

you're working at your finance job and you just need your food to eat. And you're gonna grab your pretz sandwich and then head on out. And it's very similar here in Toronto. It's very similar in London, but lunch is a destination when you're in Los Angeles. And so it just seems, it's so silly to drive to the place

that has the pre-packaged sandwiches if you have to go somewhere, you know. That's very true. Yeah, no, the driving thing actually is such a good point. Cause if you're driving to go to Pret, you fucked up. And it's in the Westfield Mall on top of that, right? Yes, yeah. Which is just a...

Yeah, I just happened to be there the other day and really bad vibes. Nightmare. Yeah, very just happened to be there the other day and really bad vibes. A nightmare. Yeah, very, very scary. I took the bus to Pret and it was a lovely bus ride. That's great. I loved that bus. That's nice. It was nice.

Is that the big blue bus? Yeah, it's a big blue bus. You used to be able to get those for 25 cents with your burn card. Isn't that wild to think about? I know. No, not anymore. And you would wear an onion on your belt. Wow, that does it for Pret. Yeah, not anymore. And you would wear an onion on your belt. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Oh my god. Oh no. Oh my god.

Okay. He's having issues because he's trying to get the hat over his headphones. I can't get the hat over my headphones. Okay hold on. No, because I need to hear Charlotte. Where did you get this? Okay here we go. Okay I'm ready.

Okay actually, it kind of suits him. It does kind of suit him. Loki suits him. It's the return of Sherlock Crumbs. Oh, God. It is... I'm tricked. Culinarily, my dear Spoon Man.

This is the sort of thing, like, if I just, like, this is like, like, you could, this person could be in a mental asylum. Yeah, give him a pair of slippers. If I just, like, this is like, you could, this person could be in a mental asylum. Yeah, give him a pair of slippers. I love that I now have to text my friends and say I'm gonna be late to bar trivia because we've got to do Sherlock cook crumbs. Trivia of a different sort, I present to you

a series of distinct plates of crumbs in sequence. You must divine the source of these crumb-leavings using our skills of intuition alone. Amelia, what is our first plate of crumbs in sequence. You must divine the source of these crumb-leavings, using our skills of intuition alone. Amelia, what is our first plate of crumbs? All right, here's the first plate. Are you actually going to give us a plate? Oh, you're just showing us. Didn't you give us plates of crumbs before?

Yeah, the one at the witch's. Charlotte's not in the studio, so it's got to have a photo that everyone can play. By the way, Slim Baguette. That was wiger. But Sherlock Crumbs is here. Go on. Slim Baguette seems like an associate of Sherlock Crumbs. I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it.

I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it.

I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it.

I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it. I getz. Oh, okay. Oh, my. That's why Slim McGat didn't register for him. He had some other fucking bullshit.

I have a guess on what this is. I think we all do. Yes, I do as well. Mm-hmm. We all think it's a croissant. We all think it's a croissant, absolutely. We all think it's a croissant. 100%.

Correct, it is a croissant. Fucker. Cool and early, my dear Spoon Man. Next up. Oh. Mm. Correct, it is a croissant. Fucker. Cool and airy, my dear spoon man. Next up. Oh. Okay. Most interesting plate of crumbs.

Oh, I think I have a guess at least. Oh, okay. I mean, I guess a cake. My guess is like... I was gonna say Cheetos. I was gonna say Doritos or Cheetos, yeah. But that's not a baked good. It's a little big though. It looks like goldfish flakes almost.

It's a big pile. Hmm. You've got us good here Sherlock Crumbs. What's your brother's name again? Uh, Rycrust Crumbs. Rycrust. That's why you gave me no response to Slim Vagette again. You couldn't think of one.

Rye Crust Cl- Rye Crust Cl- Clunge. Rye Crust Clunge. Yeah. Do you know who created me? Who? Sir King Arthur Flower Conan Doyle. Love is what.

Love is what. Wait, do you have one for Watson? Spoon Man. Okay. Watson his work. Wait, do you have one for Watson? Uh, Spoon Man. Okay. Woutzen. Woutzen, that's good too. Wheatson?

Wheatson. Wheatson? Wheatson? Wheatson. Uh, I actually can't figure this one out. This is, uh, this one's hard. I think it's like Doritos or Cheetos, but that's not a baked good, and I'll be pissed if it's those things.

So I'm going to say cake. It's Cheeto dust. Cheeto dust. Cheeto dust. Charlotte, I think got that one. I mean, Charlotte got that one. How many more do we have in Melee? We have one more?

I did, I did get it. We have one, two, three, four, five. We have five more. Wow. We don't have to go through all of them. Let's do like one more, then we'll keep moving. Well, I think we can do a speed round. Go for it, go for it.

Yeah, let's do it fast. Do your thing. Cookies. Cookie. What kind? Cookie, chocolate. Oh, raisins. Oatmeal, chocolate.

Ding, ding, ding. Oatmeal, chocolate chip? Yes. Wow. Just to give a note to Amelia, I feel like Sherlock Crumb should have the answer key. Well, here's the thing, Sherlock Holmes really good at his job, but Sherlock Crumb's kind of nice. Yeah, it sucks.

Yeah, Sherlock Crumb seems like a fucking idiot. Wow. Oreo? I want to say Oreo. Oreo. That's so grand up. I was going to say coffee because I'm a dumb ass. It's Oreo.

Are you sure? Yes, you are. Let's do a speed level. I'm going to put out the last three. Is there three left? Yes. Potato. Cornflakes or potatoes?

Oh. Are these even crumbs? They just look like cornflakes.'s like corn food. There's just food Is that corn flakes it looks like like brittle or something To me this is like a broken up like wolf like one of those waffles. That is correct Charlie you're not get out of the park. She's Sherlock Crumbs. I'm doing pretty good, yeah.

Now that is just cereal. That's cereal, yeah. That's like honey bunches of oats. What kind? I don't, I actually don't, brazen brand? I'm, no, what is the nut brand? What is the brand one? Crunchy nut? Crunchy nut, yeah.

Oh, I love crunchy nut cornflakes. Yeah, me too. Cracklin' oat bran? Honey bunches of oat, dear Spoon Man. Alright. Alright. This is the last one. Is this the last one for real?

Yeah. Alright, here we go. Last one. This is just food. These are all food. Yeah, I think what that is is food. That's a pile of food. That looks like food to me. It looks like granola maybe or like a granola cookie. To me this looks like you've got a digestive, just a plain digestive biscuit, and you've got a bunch of those and they've gotten broken up. It's an odd knob.

Sherlock Holmes hasn't said anything for like three minutes. What are you thinking? He's in his mind palace, you know? This case reminds me of the time I cracked the sign of the flower, based off of the sign of the four, which was a Sherlock Holmes thing. I thought you were giving us a clue. He's just doing his little thing. You're doing puns. This looks like, I just want to say this.

The last four of these have all looked the same. They look like oatmeal or cereal or fucking, they all look alike. I'm going to say this is some sort of brand again. I have no idea. What do you think? I think it's like a granola type food. Granola. It's a Ritz cracker. What? I think it's like a granola type food granola It's a Ritz cracker What that's fucking it's cracker. Look, I'll say this the photos are really well done. They're really good photos Another case is a great solved

by the inimitable Sherlock crumbs and remember whatever you have eliminated the impossible Whatever remains however improbable must be the recipe Look, this segment... By the inimitable Sherlock Crumbs. And remember, whatever you have eliminated the impossible... Wait, this segment, what? Whatever remains, however improbable, must be the recipe. Yeah, that worked great. Just like a restaurant... Hey, that was Sherlock Crumbs. Just like a restaurant by your feedback, that's up to the feedback. Today's email is from Caroline. Caroline writes, I'm from Nova Scotia where McDonald's has a McLobster.

During lobster season, Dairy Queen does a scallop basket in the summer. They're both pretty good, not top tier, but acceptable for the price. Subway has also done a lobster sub in the past, not sure if they still do. What local specialty or ingredient would you like to see a fast food chain put their twist on? Nova Scotia McDonald's. Wow. They got a lobster surplus up there, just like they do up in New England.

So they have a Mclobster seasonally. You got some Sherlock threads on your head. Wait, really? Do from your Amazon basic Sherlock hat. Yeah. Yeah. It's still there. Do you want me to get it for you?

Sherlock thread. There it is. There we go. Wow. Wow. So what's the question again? Sorry, I was distracted by your thread. What local specialty or ingredient

would you like to see a fast food chain put their twist on? Hmm. I mean last time I was here we did Del Taco and they had the barrier. Oh, yeah Yeah tacos and I feel like that was I mean, I don't know if that's like necessarily an LA special But you know certainly like I don't know what a McDonald's taco be fucking crazy It's certainly a fit. Yeah, well, I would just say IHOP has tacos now, that's a thing they've been showing on their menu. Oh, really? Yeah, IHOP has tacos.

Damn. But it's like, I think what Carolyn is looking for more is something that is, you know, locally harvested or locally produced, and I'm just not quite sure what the, I mean, it's not like everyone has like a commercial, like, you know, fishery or whatever, has like, that's not necessarily the economic engine of every area.

How about like mick corn, a fresh corn on the cob? That sounds- Mick corn is kind of fun. So good, mick corn. A fresh corn on the cob. Yeah, cause they're usually processing corn into something else, into corn meal. But yeah, if they just had a corn cob, why not?

Why can't you get one in a fast food restaurant? I understand this answer is not what they're looking for, but I would like the muck sausage roll. Oh my god, Charlotte, yes. I was just thinking, if there was a British McDonald's, what would it be? The muck jacket potato? Yeah, sure. I love the muck jacket.

The muck jacket potato is great. Yeah, like the mcjacket potato. Yeah, sure. I love mcjacket. Mcjacket potato's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or like a mctoasty, you know? Mctoasty. Yeah. Sounds like Mick Jagger. That's what I was gonna say. Mick Jagger would be like a Pixar character

voiced by Mick Jagger and like Pixar's closet. Pixar's closet. Yeah. Don't give them ideas. What goes on in there when the doors are closed? That's a great question. Don't give them ideas. What goes on in there when the doors are closed? That's a great question. We're going to find out. We talked about when you were on, what's the list then?

We talked about the subway hot cross bun. That's right. Yes, yes, yes. They were doing that over there and everyone, they were all just saying like it was terrible. How about a po' boy? Give me a fast food po' boy. Po' boy's kind of fun.

Because you don't get that po' boy on a large scale. You know what I mean? They don't try to do the, the fast food po-boy. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Po-boy's kind of fun. Because you don't get that po-boy on a large scale. You know what I mean? They don't try to do the, the fast food places don't try to do it. I'm trying to think of what the, because the thing is LA has so much, so many types of cuisine, but it's hard to zero in on one specific thing.

Like something that's grown here. Exactly, yeah. Like, I mean, we have our citrus trees. Yeah, we had oranges back in the day maybe, or avocados. Yeah, yeah. Guava, our citrus trees. Yeah, we had oranges back in the day, maybe. Yeah, yeah. Avocados. Guava, cherimoya. Yeah, sure.

It's a fruit that you see at farmer's markets here. Here's one for you, McOyster. Okay. Oh. Pretty good. I don't know, I don't know about that. They come shucked on the, you know, they're on the half shell there.

Yeah, on the, served on the half shell. That's what it is. Yeah. And they got mignonette sauce and they're ready to sort them down through the drive-through. And then you get lovely norovirus as well. Why is there, are you a big, are you a big chia eater? Cause you wanted a chia seed thing earlier. I strictly grow chia.

I have a homer chia. That's what I usually keep my chia to, but are you a big chia eater? No, I'm not like a big chia guy. I can't say. All right. That's what you wanted today. I've kind of become chia-pilled.

I've started doing overnight oats. You're into chia. Yeah. Charlotte, where are you on chia? I guess I'm anti-chia. Anti-chia. Interesting. Yeah.

It looks like frog's eggs. It does look like frog's eggs. It does look like frog's eggs. Yeah. Yeah. And it's slimy and it gets stuck in your teeth. Oh, right, yeah. But it's fun to grow Yoda's hair out with my Chia Pets.

That is nice when the guy you know from the thing has the green hair. Yoda minge. Oh, you know Yoda minges. Nice. That's the... Yaddle m's the Yaddle minge. Yaddle minge, yeah. That's the Chia pet I have is the Yaddle minge. It's very rare. I mean, Stefan sends us kind of a lot of pics. I don't know if he sends these to you,

but he sends us a lot of pics of Yoda's minge. Interesting. Is this true, Stefan? If you ask, look, send him a text right now. He'll send you 50 different AI-generated images of Yoda with big fat pussy lips. Jesus Christ. We've got to get him on the show.

Interesting. What's a naughty, naughty man? Any other? Here's the issue is that I feel like this has been done so much, like a local favorite being brought around. And something like the McRib is so seasonally timed to when pork prices are.

I forget whether they're high or low, whatever it is, when it makes economic sense for them to be doing that. Brendan told me that it's when China has a pork surplus. I don't know. I didn't fact check that, but it definitely sounds believable. I got one. Charlotte, there's a sandwich in Toronto that's basically just a ham sandwich and I can't remember the name of it,

but it's a famous Toronto treat. The Toronto ham. Ah yes, the Toronto hammy. No, I have no idea what you're talking about. Hold on, I'm gonna find out the name of it. What about like a maple thing? That's Canadian. Maple kind of fun.

Yeah, like a- Maple is good. Yeah, like a maple milkshake or something. Maple ice cream is really good. Pea meal sandwich. Pea meal sandwich. Oh, pea meal sandwich. That is the famous, that is a famous-

I prefer poop meal. That's fucking sick. It's the grossest thing that a famous. I prefer poop meal. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. That's fucking sick. It's the grossest thing that's been said in the whole podcast. Yeah, it's fucking disgusting. Sorry, I'm really stupid. I've been hanging out with Jessie too long.

Yeah, I have actually. Ha ha ha ha. The pea meal sandwich is one that I haven't seen, but it is just like a ham sandwich basically. Yeah. Ham is great. I mean, like the French ham and butter thing, oof. Man, I've never had a brie and butter croissant.

Wait, wait. I'm letting Susser in. Oh. I've never had a brie and butter croissant. Like, I'm sorry, baguette? Mm-hmm. A brie and butter baguette? That would be fun.

By the way, I don't know if that got picked up by the mics, but Amelia's exiting the studio to let Susser in for some reason. Yeah, let Susser in for some reason. Here he is. I think he heard us talking about ham. He heard there was leftover taco meat. Anyway, Carolyn, I hope we answered your question. If you have a question or comment

about the world of chain restaurants, you can email us at feedback at birdfuck.com or leave us a voicemail at 830, go to that's 830-463-6844. Our producers Emma Erdbrink, our associate producers Emilia Marino, our supervising video producers Casey Donahue, our video editors Mike Dorfman. Special thanks to Sherlock Crumbs, whoever that was, just mysteriously disappeared out of the studio.

It was apparel and merchandise available in partnership at kinshipgoods.com slash doughboys. And to get the doughboys double, our weekly bonus episode plus our entire pre-2018. There's a whole layer to this thing. Yes, I know what happened. OK. I saw what you put on the hat, man.

It was like a whole thing. You need to leave the room. He had the threads on his head afterwards. And to get the Doughboys double our weekly bonus episode plus our entire pre-2018 back catalog, subscribe at patreon.com slash doughboys. Yeah, who is Sherlock Crumbs? One mystery we'll never solve. Charlotte McDonald and Libby Watson,

thanks so much for being here. What's all this then? My episode where I learn all about UK chain Gregs is out now. People should listen to that, but tell everyone again about the podcast and yeah, where they can listen to it. Charlotte, you do it. I have stuff in my throat. Well, you can listen to it in every way you get podcasts to see when we did it right. I mean, we've never done a podcast before. We have just started it. Honestly, we both probably should have started a podcast a while ago. But yeah, every week we tackle a different aspect of British culture, a different bit of the UK.

I'm bringing on a guest and importantly, don't do much research or fact checking. It's very silly and funny and it's a good time. And I'm really happy to be doing a podcast with my cool friend Libby. Yeah, we seem to like each other a lot more than you guys like each other so far. Did you leave your list of favorite Brits or something? Yeah, anyway, so thanks so much, Charlotte. We covered Greggs, you covered Tesco with Jessie Farrar, but you're not just covering restaurants, you're covering everything, all things British culture.

Yeah, episode two is about Mr. Blobby, which is... What the fuck? I'm going to pull up a photo for you. That's the doughboys in Britain. Mr. Blobby is a beloved children's TV character and also just general TV character in Britain. And he's a big pink guy with yellow spots and he looks like this. Oh God. What an abomination. Yeah. And he can only say Blobby as well.

He just says Blobby, Blobby, Blobby as he runs around and sort of like knocks into things and ruins people's day. So it's like Pokemon rules. It's very much like Pokemon. Yeah. I would say that Pokemon is Mr. Blobby rules. Mr. Blobby came first. Mr. Blobby came first. That's true. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think Nintendo saw that and they were like, we gotta do something like this.

Yeah, but we'll cover all kinds of stuff. Obviously food is a big thing for both of us, but we'll talk about other stores, other TV shows, stuff from our childhoods, places in the UK. What's the deal with Cornwall? I don't know, we'll find out. I enjoyed watching The Inbetweeners when I was over in Ireland for a short stretch of time.

Yeah, briefcase wanker is an all-time joke for me. Briefcase wanker? Yeah. You wouldn't get it, Wags. Yeah, a kid with a briefcase, they call him briefcase wanker. What else do you need to know? That's pretty good. I met the Inbetweeners. Of course you did.

I was hosting an award at the BAFTAs one year. Wow. What the fuck? Because I was like, I did a lot of, we're doing the podcast now and I still do YouTube sometimes, but back in the day I was a big old YouTube kid. And I think YouTube was sponsoring the audience awards. And so they were like, we have to get a YouTuber to present this award at the BAFTAs. And I was like, it was cool to be like just famous enough to present an award at the BAFTAs,

but not famous enough to be able to like have someone buy a suit for me for it. So I had to spend like a lot of money just to hand over the award. I remember one of the in-betweeners like giving me the like weakest handshake in the world and just being like, yeah, you're right. Thanks for the award. And then walking off, I'm sure they're very nice, but in the moment I was like, okay, well, I got to be on television. I call them the wankers actually now after I've heard that story. Wow. The wankers.

Yeah, yeah. That's an ally. That's right. That's right. And also our Patreon. We should also plug our Patreon. We are putting out three episodes every week, but patreon.com slash what's all this then for bonus content where it's mostly just me and Charlotte and we're being kind of naughty

a lot of the time. Wow. Saying things and stuff and we're being kind of naughty a lot of the time. Wow. We're saying things and stuff and we're being rude about people. And I love it. And maybe we'll talk about Charlotte's interesting past too. Wow. I have a very storied life.

She really does, it's crazy. I'm so boring. Well, we got two boring guys on our show. We're very boring. No, no, no. I think I'm, I think quite exciting. Well, we got two boring guys on our show. We're very boring. No, no, no. I think I'm quite exciting. I liked that guy with the hat before.

I thought he was exciting. Yeah, he was fun. Try to get him back. What's all this then? Check it out wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm looking forward to this episode of Doughboys. Until next time, for The Spoon Man, Mike Mitchell, I'm Tiger Weiger.

Happy eating. And as Shakespeare would say. I didn't have a quote. Uh, let me eat your minge. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. To eat minge or not to eat minge, that is the question. That was a HeadGum podcast.

McCrispy strips are now at McDonald's. Tender, juicy, and its own sauce. Would you look at that? Well, you can't see it, but trust me, it looks delicious. New Mcrispy strips, now at McDonald's.