Doughboys - Rocklobsterfest: Red Lobster 1 with Jessica McKenna

Episode Date: October 6, 2016

Munch Madness veteran Jessica McKenna (Party Over Here, Serious Music) joins Mitch and Wiger in studio for the first edition of Rocklobsterfest, the monthlong review of Red Lobster. Jess discusses her lifetime of Red Lobster fandom and the Halloween season. Canada -exclusive snacks are in the spotlight in a Canadian Thanksgiving edition of Season's Eatings.Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lobster shells about a house are looked upon as signs of poverty and degradation. Those were the words of John J. Rowan, a 19th century Kentucky politician reflecting the sentiment of his time, extrapolated from a colonial America where lobsters were abundant and low value. On the beaches of New England in the 1700s, unwanted lobsters would stack waist high on the shores. Native Americans used them mostly not as meat, but as fertilizer. Up through the Civil War, lobster at a well-earned reputation as a cheap protein source for prisoners

and indentured servants. The slow conveyor belt of time combined with the relative scarcity of the shellfish and the ever-growing inland territory of the U.S. gradually shifted it into a gourmet delicacy, as if an alchemist had transmuted tin to gold. And it was restaurateurs Bill Darden and Charlie Woodsby who completed the circle in the 20th century by making the now-high-brow fare once again accessible to the masses. This week on Doughboys, the premiere of Rock Lobster Fest, our month-long review of Red Lobster.

Welcome to Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants. We're a part of Ferrellaudio.com. The best way to support ours and other shows in the network is to use the referral link on our website anytime you shop at Amazon. I'm Nick Weiger alongside my co-host, bargain basement Greg Grunberg impersonator, Mike Mitchell the Spoon Man. How are you, Mitch? I'm doing all right.

How am I supposed to impersonate, like, lost in... Snap Wexley. And Snap Wexley? Snap Wexley from episode seven. What does he say? Let's do this, guys, or something. I think his famous lines are, I'm Snap Wexley. I don't want to shit on Grunberg's career.

He's done great. Grunberg's had an enviable career as an actor. Yeah, he's done great. Being in a Star Wars is pretty cool, but Snap Wexley... Not in that Star Wars. Well, Snap Wexley, not the most quotable character in any event. I think he was in it. I think he might be the most quotable character in The Force Awakens.

More than Oonkar Plutt? Oonkar Plutt really steals the show. That roast was sent in by Joshua Fine. Thanks, Joshua. If you have a roast you'd like me to use on Mitch at the top of the show, roastspoonman at gmail.com. I just want to say, to Spoon Nation, and guess what? I'm playing another drop, not listening to it at all. But it says that it's short and to the point.

Hashtag Spoon Nation, so here we go. It's loading, and now it's playing. Referred to you, not as the Spoon Man, but the Spoon Master. I kind of am the Spoon Master. It still feels wrong. Look, the kids got buzzers. Was that a joke at me? I think so.

I think it was directed to you. What the fuck, asshole? That's where I'm Chris Hickey. At Octopin the Sky. What? Octopi in the Sky. Right. Sometimes when they're all pushed together, it's hard to figure it out.

And then also I got a Toast Spoon Man. Oh wait, you're doing Toast Spoon Man again? I thought we were stopping that. No, hold on, why? Because we said we were going to do it with a live show. I thought that was the end of Toast Spoon Man. Okay. You know that this is my birthday.

Today is my birthday. Today's your birthday? I mean, the day this recording gets released, it's my birthday. Come on, can I get one last Toast Spoon Man? Fine, let me have a birthday Toast Spoon Man. And no more Toast Spoon Man's, and I'll read them off till the end. How's that? No one send them in.

It's not like I have 50. How many do you have? Like 48. This is, look, this is your birthday, it's a good place to call it quits. Read a Toast Spoon Man, I don't have a burned Toast Spoon Man in retaliation loaded up. Read this one and then we'll retire it forever. This is from Zach Cody. There are a handful of people that embody joy in this world.

Mike Spoon Man Mitchell is one of those rare treasures. From the birthday boys to comedy bang bang, Mitch has given us all a little sparkle of fun in our otherwise dull, wiger-esque lives. Thank you for making the dough boys worthwhile, Mitch. Spoon Nation loves you. Hearts forever, Zach. Thanks, Zach. I don't like how, see, this is part of the problem with Toast Spoon Man is it also comes in with a slight wiger. This is unnecessary.

I think it's great. I think you can give you, you don't have to blow out my candle to make your shine brighter. You can give you a little bit of... Hey, it's my birthday, baby. I get to blow out all the candles I want. What are you, like, what is your birthday wish this year? Huh. You know what?

I made it, I'm turning 34, which I'm now like, I feel like old as fuck. I'm older than you. I know you are. You're old fuck. But I feel like 34 feels like one of those ages where you feel like it feels like you're old or something. Yeah. And so, in my mind, I'm like 33 is the year, is that people call it like the Jesus year, even though that's dumb. And I don't...

Because that's the year Jesus was... Yeah, I don't think Jesus looks on that year as a year that he liked, the year that he got killed and hung to a cross. Well, no, I think he does look on it because that was when he was his greatest act of love. He gave his life to it for all of us. So maybe that's his favorite year? Yeah, probably. I guess you and I would like our favorite year that we die to. If I could die horribly but then have everyone happy in the aftermath, I'd be pretty, I'd feel pretty content with that.

Yeah. I thought, you know, a lot of heavy set comedians die when they're 33, but I don't think I was nearly funny enough to die when I was 33. Yeah, you got a couple more decades to do. Or famous or anything. I mean, I had nothing. Right. I'll probably die when I'm 34 officially. You really think this is your last year?

No, I don't think it's my last year. I'll be around at least a few more years. But you know what, I gotta give a special shout out to David Ortiz. Big poppy. Big poppy. I was watching some of the opening ceremony this morning and a lot of the Red Sox players seem to be on the same diet as I am since they've stopped playing baseball. They look a little pudgy, but Ortiz is the man. He's brought a lot of great memories and I just want to give him a shout out.

He's retiring this year and it's going to be sad for me. Would you say he's the greatest Red Sox of all time? Or what would you say is the singular of Red Sox player? Do you say Red Sox? The greatest Sox guy? He's one of the Red Sox players. I just say Red Sox players. He's a Red Sox player.

There isn't like a bow town slang for an individual Red Sox? Hey, he's a great Red Sox. Yeah, I guess you could say Red Sox. He's up there for sure. Yeah. I mean, the World Series and everything, that's a huge bird in his pocket, I guess. But Manny and Pedro were back. I went to the parade with my dad when they won in 2004.

Right. And then I went to the parade and I remember the float came down and it stopped right in front of us and there was like a little lull in the crowd and it got quiet and I yelled out Ortiz and he looked at me. Yeah. And I think it was because it was like a 22 year old man who in a high pitched voice was like Ortiz and he just stared at me. I remember him staring at me.

It was very close and it was great to be so close to greatness. It was a great day for me. I love that. I really love David Ortiz. So he's definitely in your top but he's one of the greatest of all. Oh, for sure. I mean like also like yeah, for me I guess I have to say like he is. There are other players that like, because everybody loves Ortiz but I mean like Pedro,

Pedro is way up there too in Manny. But I mean, does anyone like baseball? I feel like this is the most boring thing on earth. I don't know. I mean. People like baseball. There's lots of baseball fans out there. It's my birthday and baseball is just kind of like a memory.

It's kind of like a, it makes you think of old times baseball for whatever reason. Yeah. The glory of the field. Back when America was great, right? Jesus Christ. You don't have to relate the two things. All right. But you are a big fan of Kurt Schilling's personal politics though, right?

He was there today actually. Was he? A great career, a storied career. I know. It's a bummer that he used. He had such a good story and the sock was bleeding. Right. And it turned red and now he's a huge Trump supporter in his videos.

And he destroyed a video game, like he had this whole thing where he like defrauded the state of Rhode Island for his vanity video game company and then a bunch of video game workers ended up being unemployed. Yeah. Yeah, he's a real piece of shit. On that note. You always get so offended by video game shit. It was an industry that I worked in.

You should go back to it. No, I should go. I was worse at that than I am at this. I should not do that. They should retire. I'd be less successful. Like Ortiz, you should retire this year. What am I going to do?

What am I going to live off of? I don't have like an income source. I didn't like sell a script years ago and I can live off of the residuals. I know. You should write a fucking script. You write a better, write some good script. I can't. I'm not able to do that.

Then fucking walk into the Pacific Ocean. Keep walking. Yeah, I get it. I guess so my parents are still alive, really. Once my parents die, I can probably kill myself without guilt. But that'll be a little while. Also, wait quickly. One last thing.

I just got to give a shout out to that guy, Mitch. He sent us, he sent some beers and we tried some. He sent some sweet beers and then he gave us a drink or stink that's in a paper bag that we still haven't done. Okay. Because I think we were weirded out that was just in a paper bag and he's like, don't look inside. Right.

And we just don't want it to be. Yeah, that's a red flag. It doesn't want to be like piss or something, I guess. Yeah, right. So, Mitch, just tweet at us, tell us it's not anything gross and we'll do it as a drink or stink. Also, please don't just send us weird packages of things. Don't send us mystery boxes.

Why not? I like mystery boxes. I don't know. It's just weird. It's off-putting. Whatever. Let's introduce our guest. You're from party over here in the new series, Serious Music, which is now streaming on

ABC Digital. Jessica McKenna, our old friend. Hi, Jess. Hello. Welcome back. I'm so happy to be here. You were last year at the beginning of the Tournament of Chompians. Munch Madness.

Munch Madness. Tournament of Chompians. Yep. One of our only successful, actually, that's not true. Not successful. I think basically everything established in that episode was overturned. But I had a great time hanging out, eating two burgers. We talked to, we did Fun Rockers versus Carl's Jr. Hardee's, I believe, was our episode.

That's right. The verdict was that Carl's Jr. Hardee's came out on top, and then we retroactively awarded the win to Fun Rockers. I believe, yeah. Right. It was a whole tangled mess. Yeah. It was bad.

It was bad. I mean, everything's been bad. Yeah. What do you want from us? Everything has been bad. I know. We're very forthright about the quality level of this podcast. I should have yelled at you for the last episode because didn't you call Blizzards milkshakes

at your point? I clarified that. I said that. Don't yell at me. It's my birthday. It's your birthday now. We're recording this on a Sunday. It's a Sunday before your birthday.

It's Ortiz's retirement day. All right. Fine. It's Ortiz's retirement day that's whatever. The Blizzard thing, that happened not on our Dairy Queen episode that happened over a year ago, and we're talking about whether a Blizzard was a shake or not, and I contended that it was a shake. I was wrong.

People got more mad at me at that than anything political I've ever posted. I was just getting roasted in the comments. Well, they don't care about your political stuff because you're dumb. I don't think I'm dumb. I'm not a dumb man. No, I know. You think I'm dumb? I guess I take that title.

Yeah. No, you're like the dumb guy here. I'm not smart. You're the dumb guy in this dynamic. Okay, fine. I'm not like a super smart guy, but it's very much like a vice and men style relationship, and I'm in the smarter man role. And so you're saying that I'm Lenny?

Yeah. And you're the rabbit? I was going to say Carl, but I realize that's the Simpsons. What's the other guy in there? You're probably more like Lenny and Carl. Yeah, we are like Lenny and Carl. George. George, right, right, right.

I'm not so fucking smart anymore. Yeah, I didn't. Again, I'm not claiming to be smart. I'm not dumb, but I'm smarter than you. So what's new in Yorvalinda, California, your hometown? What's new in it? Yeah. Actually, well, ooh, got some fresh buzz.

I think Yorvalinda itself is really just a bunch of houses. It's got very, very little commerce. It's just like a couple shopping centers, but it is very residential. But in the sprawl of Orange County, and it's like neighboring cities of Brea, Anaheim Hills, you know, Placentia Fullerton, that's like really where you're going for your needs. And on the border of Brea and Yorvalinda, we recently just got a pretty awesome new shopping center. We got a Mendocino Farms in there.

We got a Whole Foods. We got a Floyd's Barber Shop, but it's pretty hip stuff. And it was just like an empty lot for years. But in Yorvalinda proper, there's been a movement to like redo Main Street for years that people keep voting down for some reason. There aren't like cute shops on Main Street. There's like one restaurant and like a bank. And people are like, nah, we don't want anything happening here.

We want no cars. I think that's the buzz in Yorvalinda. They don't want like a revitalization process for whatever reason. Right. Right. But it's not like they're not protecting an adorable Main Street. It's just basically almost like a vacant Main Street. It's like, why wouldn't you want to put anything in here?

Sometimes it's nice to just have nothing. Yeah, I think that's what they think. We just want to have nothing. We want to have like, we drive to the next city for a movie theater. We don't, we just want to have like a grocery store and gas stations. Right. That could bring crowds. You don't want crowds.

They don't want crowds. No, no. Not in the wild. I'll tell you that Floyd's Barber Shop is going to keep me away from Yorvalinda. I got my worst haircut ever at a Floyd's Barber Shop. Really? And I love Pink Floyd. I was excited to make that my Barber Shop of choice.

So they, my receding hairline, she like took a razor and like receded my hairline more. That's weird. It was weird. To even it out? I think that's what she was doing. But she was literally like taking a razor and like moving my hairline back. And I was like, I was like, hey, lady, you got to stop doing it. I mean, I was like in my chair, like uncomfortable, like moving around as she was doing it.

But still too much a coward to tell her to stop doing it. That's crazy. Yeah. I didn't like it at all. That's insane. It was like a, I guess a razor blade is the wrong way to stop it. Like buzzing your back? No, but it wasn't even a, it was like kind of like a straight edge kind of like razor.

Did you go to Sweeney Todd? He was singing over, like he was singing the entire time. And then he pushed a button and I fell through the floor. Is that what happens in Sweeney Todd? I know so little about Sweeney Todd. He kills them with a straight razor. And then they get turned into meat pies. Oh my God, Sweeney Todd.

Yeah. Mitch, I think you were thinking of the itchy and scratchy episode where, so I get shot in the head by Elvis. Right. Yeah. Where they pour ants on my head. A little bumper shot in the pores. Jess, so we talked about this.

You went to school in a big food city, Chicago. That's right. Now, I got a new segment. This isn't really real. Actually, you know what? Maybe it is. A spoon man's going to take a little bite out of Chicago. Great.

Would the new segment is bite out of Chicago or just bite out of a spoon? Spoon man takes a bite. Spoon man takes a bite. Okay. Great. Here's my issue. I want to see what you think. Okay.

I'm sick and tired of these Chicagoans saying that they don't want any fucking ketchup on their hot dogs. Okay? That's it. They act all high and mighty and they say they don't want ketchup on their hot dogs. Guess what? Ketchup and mustard and relish on a hot dog is fucking good. And I know that you guys are just like, just mustard.

We only like mustard. I did a Boston accent when I was studying Chicago accent. But you know what? I think that ketchup on a hot dog is okay. Oh, yeah. You agree? Definitely. Okay.

Well, then fuck Chicago. We're on the same team. We're on the same team. There's like seven ingredients in a Chicago dog, I think. Yeah. They're the ones who go crazy with these ingredients. It's like mustard, relish, tomato, peppers. The peppers are good.

Take those fucking tomatoes and get the hell out of here, Chicago. Yeah, that's weird. And now I can't remember three. There's like a whole pickle. They have like relish and a pickle. A whole pickle. Yeah, a pickle. And then one of them is celery salt.

Celery salt, yeah. That's weird. That neon relish is really weird, too. It's like an unnatural color. Yeah. So what do you think, Weigert? Do you join me? Are you on my side on this one?

Ketchup on a hot dog, it's unobjectionable. I don't join you on the side of that you should make Spoonman take some bite of recurring segment. You were gesturing wildly during that. Because these Chicagoans. Your pulse must have skyrocketed. These Chicagoans, they're always so proud of, get that fucking ketchup out of here. How do Chicagoans talk, whatever.

You know what I'm saying. You know, there's also, I've heard a thing in Texas that if you put ketchup on a burger, that's a sissy burger. I don't know if that's true or not. Guess what, Texas, Spoonman's about to take a bite out of you, too. I don't know that's true. You're real. Ketchup on your burger.

You're a real ketchup crusader. I think that's what we're really finding out. Everyone's like, it's a little kid condiment. You know what, I'm taking it back. It's not for little kids anymore, it's for adults. We like ketchup, too. Yeah, sure. It's fine.

Yeah, but it's, I don't know if it adds as much as any of the other condiments. Right. I think. No, it adds, but not with like as great of a pop. Yeah. Like if I don't have mustard on a hot dog, I'm like, I'm eating something. I'm just eating bland, innards and dough. You're slowly taking the Chicago side on us.

But I like ketchup. I'm not against it. I'm just saying like, if I'm looking for the biggest percentile increase, I'm getting it from mustard, I think, than ketchup. You're gonna prove to me you like ketchup. I love it, though. What'd you say, but like, the big three condiments in America are maybe mustard, mayo, and ketchup? Yeah.

I'd say those are the big three. The big three. And I'd say, yeah, ketchup is the best dip of those three. Ranch might be making its way up, though. Ranch is going, and salsa always. People say salsa is the biggest selling condiment in America. That was a thing on Seinfeld 20 years ago. But yeah, but I think like of those three, the American traditional condiments, I think

that ketchup is the least useful thing on any sort of, the least useful addition. I'm agreeing with Jess. Okay. But it's the best dip. Like if you're going to use one of those as a dip, you're not gonna dip things in mustard, right? Mayo, maybe you can, but it's kind of a weird European thing to do. It is probably, yes.

It's probably the best dip, but I guess you are limited. It's fries, uningrings, maybe, I mean, as a kid, kids, oh, shit, now I'm making a point for if you're a kid's condiment. I don't think it's a kid condiment. It's just like, I think as our flavor profiles get bolder, I think ketchup is, it's like that solid guy you want at a party, but he's not the life of the party. And also, too, consider- That's fair.

That's me, I sounds like- Hell no. I'm not welcome to the party. You're definitely a fun mustard or a great ale, you bitch. You might put- That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said. You might put mustard or mayo on like a turkey sandwich, but you wouldn't put ketchup on it. That's right.

I think ketchup doesn't add to sandwiches as much. What do you- Yeah, maybe that's the nice hashtag. What do you- Catch us up? Yeah. Catch us up. Hashtag catch us up.

K-E-T-C-H. Tell us what you put- What do you use ketchup with? Because I think that's interesting. I think in Europe, they do dip fries and mayo. They do. Yes. And my friends were studying abroad in Prague, and they kept calling it Chexsauce.

They didn't understand that it was just mayo. They're like, gosh, gotta find some of this Chexsauce back in the States. I was like, it's mayo, just dipping fries and mayo. I mean, that does work. Fries and mayo is- Especially if you get like a, you know, not just your best foods, and I'm a best foods defender, but if you get like a, you know, like a nice, like restaurant has like a nice mayo that works out really well.

Oh yeah. Yeah, that's all right. It's, I would rather dip my fries in ketchup or have them plain, I guess. But at this point, aren't you on, are you not into like artisanal dips? I love those artisanal dips. If I want like a house-made spicy black cherry ketchup, or I want some fancy pesto aioli. Ooh, baby. We go to this place, plan check.

I don't know if you've ever- Oh yeah. Yeah. And I like it. And some people are back and forth on it, but they have their house-made ketchup, but I like that. Yeah. Kind of like a weirder, kind of vinegary tasting ketchup sometimes.

Ketchup is one of the things where I also have not seen anything really top Heinz. Like I just feel like, like the house, I will have that house ketchup there because it's a change of pace, but really like at the end of the day, Heinz is just, that's specifically what you're looking for when it comes to ketchup. Yeah. Right? Like I'm putting that in my pantry or my fridge. I'm having it if I'm having a BBQ.

I'm not putting out an artisanal. Yeah. But when I go out, it's a fun change of pace. I'm into that trend. Yeah. Yep. I agree with you. Also, I think though, sometimes what happens with those sauces, especially the ketchup-based

ones, is they're too sweet. Like they just, like you get like this, they start throwing peach in there or something. Sure. Sure. Or a compote of some kind. Yeah, exactly. I think my overall perfect situation is a multiple dip situation. Yeah.

Yeah, that's nice. If I have fries and I have four options, I'm having the best time. I love that. That's great. So, I think I'm going to be a little bit ridiculous with a friend of me, Jen D'Angelo, was we lived right by the Wendy's on us, like by Sunset and La Brea, and we would just go and get as many dipping sauces, and we had a Lazy Susan, and we would just cover it with dipping sauces.

A dip station. A dip station. Close our eyes and stick a fry in and try to guess. Not based on any like senses, just like, what do you think you got it in? Yeah. I'm getting a honey mustard this time, but getting a honey mustard, a ranch, and a barbecue, and maybe some ketchup. Ooh.

Yeah. Yeah, that's just good. I love that. That's great. I'm a big sweet and sour fan. I like that, especially with nuggets. I'm a big sweet and sour nuggets fan. I think there's, I think you, I think you need like, I think like two dips is good.

Maybe three. Once it starts to get more than that and like a dip thing, I just get like paralyzed by trying to decide which dip to have. You're going to dip limit from this guy. Okay. You all dipped out. I dip out. I tap out about three dips.

Okay. That's my limit. When you dip, you dip, you dip, and that's it. That's it. So it's the fall, Jess. The spookiest season. We're in October now. You were recording this October first.

This will be our first October episode. Halloween is approaching. First off, what are your thoughts on Halloween in general? And then do you have any position as an adult on Halloween candy? Okay. I'm a big, I have a huge sweet tooth and I'm like really into candy specifically. I've never grown out of that. I used to, as a kid, my, my theory was that, you know, God had a plan and it was for about

every other month to be a candy month, which was like February, you got Valentine's, January you're off, February is Valentine's, March you're off, April you got Easter candy. Then you're in summer, which doesn't need candy. That's like a hat on a hat. It's like old candy, old summer. You got all these sorts of little candies. You got all kinds of treats. You got all kinds of treats.

Also, you're in pools and you're not in school, so you don't need candy. Then you got... We're talking about this from the perspective of child. Yes. Yeah. This is a theory I had as a child. Then I still been like, yeah, this kind of holds up. And then October, you got candy, then you got November off, then you got Christmas candy.

Yeah. Christmas candy is funny, but it does, it is very much a thing. We got, we got candy laid in stockings. So I think in my mind, I was like, all I have to do is make my Halloween candy last through November and then I'm going to get a re-up. That's very much, December is very much a candy month. We always had little dishes of candy. Candy's just out of the bag.

For sure. No, I agree with that. I think your theory is airtight. Thank you. I don't think there's anything. I was trying to poke holes in it for God's sake. I said December is a candy month. Oh, I misheard you then.

I didn't say isn't a candy month. I misheard you. I think your thing was like, it does sneak up on you how it's candy month. Yeah. That's what I was saying. It doesn't hit you over the head. It's not as obvious as October being a candy month. October is the most obvious candy month.

It's King Candy Month. It's King Candy. It's King Candy. And also, it kind of makes November Candy Month, if you think about it. It's October 31st. Yeah. That was kind of my thing. You have a little bit of candy around the house, but you're getting most of the candy

at the end of the month. It's just like, this paces out great. Yeah. But you're right. You're going to get little bits of candy. You know, I'm just thinking of, in birthdays past, and we would go to the haunted hayrides and stuff like that when I was young, and you get all these little candies and donuts and ciders and all this stuff for a great month.

It's the time in here where teachers are like, hey, first person to answer this math question gets a mini snicker. You know, candy starts creeping into your life more in October because everyone's on board with, hey, this is a candy month. Oh yeah. Yep. So I embrace it in adulthood. I have a skull mug full of candy corns in my house right now.

Oh man. I love that. That's great. A candy corn polarizing. Yeah, it is. No, I understand that. It's not, it isn't itself a very delicious candy, but I'll tell you, just like one or two in a dish, and you're just like, yeah, it's just a tiny bit of, it has no flavor

other than sweet. Yeah, great. Like its flavor is sugar. I can eat a couple of them. Yeah. That's fun to have. I like that you have them all. And is it a real skull mug?

It's a real man's mug. It's Del Close's skull. It's Del Close. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The theater in Chicago does not have it. No, it's like a clear mug. All right. But it's spooky.

It's a spooky skull. Yeah, so I embrace candy. Sorry for making that thumb joke. No, I bought a bunch of candy last night because I went to see Scream in a park and I was like, I know what I'm going to contribute, a bunch of Halloween candy. And you know what, people had like one sucker and that was it. And I was like, yeah, way more of this candy. Scream is a classic.

Now I want to ask you, what are your favorite scary movies which is a line from Scream? That's right. I think you should ask it like the Scream guy. Yeah, please. What's your favorite scary movie? That was very good. That was good. Yeah.

That was very good. Yeah, thank you. I should be the new Scream guy. Scream 5. It's Mitch. I think there wouldn't be a lot of mystery about who the Scream killer was. Fuck you. Who's this giant loping oaf?

Who's wearing a Scream mask? You can't catch any of us. I like Halloween. My mom threw really fun Halloween parties for us growing up as a kid. She dressed up like a witch and she went by witch hazel, like blacked out of tooth. It was great. I like being festive in general. Anytime a holiday is coming up, I like just kind of getting into the spirit of it.

Having a couple little things around the house. Are you going to say you don't like scary movies? But I don't love scary movies. I like them, but I'm not like a scary movie head. Gotcha. The spookier side of Halloween is where I start to tap out. I like carbon pumpkins. I like caramel apples.

I like Hawatch and Hocus Pocus. And maybe like one or two scaries. Yeah. But real spooky stuff. No, thank you. Yeah. I know as much as that. I think my favorite scary movie might just be The Sixth Sense.

I think it's the one that hit me at the time in life where it scared me so much. It's the only one I can like re-condrop what that feeling was of sitting in the movie theater. And it was also, I think, I was in like fifth grade. It was one of the first scary movies I saw in the theater. And feeling like I wanted to like run out. Yeah. Because I was so scared. There's some chills in that one.

I think it's the timing though, really. It was before we knew he was going to just like have all these twists that we weren't going to. Oh yeah, for sure. And Ebonite Shyamalan, yeah, in his timeline it was definitely. So it was like young enough to be like, oh, this is the friggin' scariest thing I can think of. Yeah. I was just thinking of, this is pathetic, but when I saw The Ring and I was a sophomore in college and me and my roommate, Matt Grana, went and saw it.

And I remember as a 19 or 20 year old kid being afraid of the TV in my dorm room. It's scary. This is scary. I think actually as time goes on, watching a scary movie at home is way scarier than a theater. Oh yeah, for sure. Because I watched The Ring at home and then my brother-in-law called the house that classic ring prank. Oh man, that's scary. It was scary.

That's terrifying. Yeah. Fuck, fuck him. All I can find, all I can find. It is like, you're right. That is the thing to isolate of like, when you're by yourself, there's something about that. It is a little bit more horrific versus the theater that communal experience is a little bit more like, we know this is fake.

I feel like it dissipates as soon as you leave the theater. You're like, okay, because you're exiting the place where you were scared. Sure. But then it imbues your house and all that fear. And my house was kind of scary in just that it had like a lot of windows and was very dark. So it was like, our backyard was terrifying to look out at night. You know, it was just like, well, this is very scary. Someone could easily be in my backyard.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. I'm a New England area and I feel like it's all scary. So you got witches. You got witches walking around. There's witches walking around. We still burn them to this day.

But my favorite scary is probably, I like the thing, even though that's kind of a sci-fi horror movie. That's a good one. But that's probably up there is one of my favorites. Weigur, what do you got? What's your favorite scary movie? Can I say Silence of the Lambs? Is that okay?

Yeah, that's fair. Okay. I think that's my favorite. I think that's just like, it's such a wonderfully crafted film. It's just such a great work of art. And it is, it's like legitimately like chilling. Like it's like kind of... You would say aspirational, would you say?

It's not aspirational. I'm not aiming to abduct women and then wear their skin as my clothes. Although I did do the Buffalo Bill thing after I saw that movie. Oh, Jesus. I just wanted to see what it looks like. Wait, as a boy? Yeah, I saw it and it was like the part where he was like... Dad, look!

I didn't do it to my family, but I did it myself in the bathroom here. Oh my God. That's like a trick people do. Really? Wait, how old were you when this movie came out? I don't know the exact timeline. When did that movie come out? Ninety-one?

Eighty-nine? Some more in that range? Oh, so you were like twenty or so. It wasn't twenty. It was a pre-pubescent. You pulled that off? You didn't have a little...maybe we can't talk about this on air. You were able to tuck it all as a boy?

Why is that harder as a boy? Maybe it's easier as a boy. Right? Wouldn't it be? I don't know, but this is all weird. It's very strange. It is a strange thing to discuss. All right, I shouldn't have brought it up.

Look, I like the movie. The Buffalo Bill thing was the thing I tried. I think a lot of men probably tried that after they saw the movie. Yeah, I guess, but I'm sure that not a lot of ten-year-olds tried it after they saw the movie. Probably ten-year-olds didn't see the movie. Like, shouldn't have been watching the movie. Yeah, you shouldn't have been seeing the movie in general.

Spoon Nation. That's on my parents. Try a Buffalo Bill tonight. Eat your photos. Yeah, send your best Buffalo Bill photos to us. Hashtag Buffalo Kills. Don't do that. I hope no one does that.

Send them directly. Hashtag Wiger's Christmas. Also, whoever emailed the Scientology Center from the Roast Spoon Man Gmail as Nick Wiger asking questions about the Scientology's involvement in the restaurant industry. That's the funniest thing on Earth. They're replying to me now, so. You have a good conversation going, right? No, I don't have a conversation going, but it was a pretty funny thing to do.

All right, let's talk about Red Lobster. When did you start getting into, because I know this was a thing we talked about when we were going to have you on the podcast. Originally, we ended up having you on the theme month, but now that we're back for another dumb theme month, and it's covering your specialty, we figured we'd have you in here. I've known Red Lobster as a thing that you love. When did your love affair with Red Lobster begin? Very early.

I want to say like six or seven for probably like six years. It was my birthday restaurant. Wow. And it was also my sister's birthday restaurant. So now I'm going to it at least twice a year, but to me, I'm sure we went like a couple more times. There was one, there's one right by our mall in neighboring Brea, not in your blended because we can't handle commerce, but it was, to me, very fancy.

It was like an extremely fancy, fancy restaurant. I loved going. It would be like my grandparents would come and I'd open birthday presents, and I always like the same thing, popcorn shrimp and crab legs. So I was like, crab legs seemed just like a king's food to me, and we'd get like big king crab legs for the table, and it just felt like the most decadent treat. And I also felt, I knew I was like ahead of my time. I knew other eight year olds weren't eating shellfish.

Yeah, that's true. So I had like some pride about it of like, I don't know, you guys are just getting nuggets. You guys aren't like as sophisticated as me. Yeah. I had a crab leg on my birthday. Would you have pizza, you Philistine? But popcorn shrimp are just the nuggets of the sea. That was my meal.

But yeah, I think I just thought it was so fancy. It was like my pick for birthday restaurant, easy choice. It does exude class. I feel like when you're in a red lobster, they still kind of, and I'm just talking about the red lobsters that I've been to in recent years, the one we went to today, but it's like kind of like, oh, they are giving an atmosphere of fine dining. They're definitely trying to convey that. Well, yeah, because I have never been to a red lobster before.

And so from what I told people, I'm going to a red lobster, like a couple of people were like, oh, it's like Olive Garden for seafood. I don't think that is the case at all. Like I really don't think it's like that at all. I think it is a place that's like, tries to be closer to a cheesecake factory or something. Like what we were talking about, like kind of like these like, like a half step above chilies in these other places that are like kind of like these fancier chain restaurants. Yeah, I think by nature, like a box of pasta is super cheap, but like lobster, shellfish,

all that's like, the price point is just a little higher, so they have to like present it a little nicer. And in there, I mean, there is, there's good lobster bad luck. And so I grew up in Massachusetts and we never went and I ate lobster at a very young age and we used to race them when they were alive as we talked about on the show. But and I ate lobster when I was younger and shellfish and stuff. And lobster was probably the one I loved the most. I didn't love other shellfish, like I would eat shrimp, but didn't love it.

And like oysters and clams and all that stuff was off the table when I was younger. I hated it. It was the weirdest stuff on earth. I like there we never ever in my time, we would go to like the fish market and stuff, but we never ever ever went to Red Lobster. There was just no need to go to it. So I had no idea just besides like Red Lobster being a joke. And so often the joke is that it's bad.

You always hear like the like like people like oh Red Lobster like they make a joke about about like taking someone to on a date to Red Lobster or something. There's some there's some New England elitism about it. Oh, no, no, but yeah, I guess I'm saying everywhere like everyone kind of makes fun. I feel like people make fun of Red Lobster. I feel like Olive Garden is more of a fat target that I've seen. Do you feel like there's Red Lobster mockery? I feel like, and I'm saying that doesn't deserve to be put into that category,

but I feel like people would make fun of it. Well, I think it is like if that's your idea of where do you live, right? Like if that's your idea of a fancy restaurant, but you could go to a non chain, then that would be a more impressive date to like seek out a place. So I think taking anyone on a date to a chain restaurant, if you live in any kind of city is like you're going to make fun of that behavior. Because why didn't you just pick something more a more unique experience rather than like, now we'll go to this place.

I think it just seems like there seems like it's not thoughtful to go to a chain restaurant for some reason. Right. Because it just is like you know exactly what you're going to get. There's no sort of like research or risk taking on the part of like the date taker. Yes. But if you're in not a city area and your choices are chain restaurants, I think Red Lobster's got to be in the top drawer. Right.

It's like yeah. And I think this is partly what you're speaking to, Jess, of like I think there is some coastal snobbery towards the Middle America that factors into the condescension towards… On the West Coast too? Yeah. Yes. Yes.

From both coasts, but that factors into the general disdain for chain restaurants and for people who go to chain restaurants of like, oh, you think the Olive Garden is funny? Or you think the Olive Garden is fancy? Rather like that sort of casual mockery of it is because they're kind of looking down on places that only have chain restaurants. It's definitely with New England specifically. It feels like there's not…

But you know what? Here's the other thing too about Red Lobster. I was going to say there feels like there's not a need to go to Red Lobster. But the other side of it is that like they do have pretty decent prices for like you can get a lobster and you can keep it under 30 bucks or whatever. That's not bad. It's not the best quality lobster. It's not going to be the best lobster that you've ever had,

but it still is lobster. I mean I definitely wouldn't go to a Red Lobster if I lived in New England. I would definitely go to like mom and pop places or smaller places where I'm like, well they're probably getting this from like a fisherman like right here. Yeah. Just in the same way, I think the New England seafood is to SoCal Mexican where it's like I'm never going to go…

Sure. I'm not going to go to a Chevy's in Southern California. Yeah. Or like an El Torrito although I did growing up. But like I'm not going to do that now because I'd rather go to like small Mexican restaurants similar I think to seafood in New England. That's a great, great call. Like when I first got out here I went to like a couple of like chain Mexican restaurants.

Yeah. And besides like Taco Bell Tripoli which are different beasts, I'll never go and sit down at any like Al Capocco or whatever the hell there is out here. Yeah. We went to El Torrito last night. I think they're still, I think they still have value. Who?

Natalie? Yeah. We went together. We had a coupon. Was it an El Torrito or an El Torrito Grill? It was an actual El Torrito. I mean yeah. I went to El Torrito a lot as a kid.

I was just going to say El Torrito is even the one that is maybe like Al Capocco I feel like and there's like a couple others that are, El Torrito maybe is the one that slips over into the little case. They used to have their kids menu was a burro, a burro, a burro. Oh yes, yeah. That you could color and then turn it into a hat. So I loved going as a kid. I went to El Torrito with my parents for my 18th birthday.

We went to the San Diego Zoo and then we went to El Torrito. They put a hat on me and they sang me a song. Like this is your 18th birthday. No, great. The zoo as well. Yeah, I wanted to go to the zoo. I'll tell you what. What the fuck?

El Torrito has a great Sunday brunch. They do have a great brunch. We went for my like grandpa's like 87th birthday and they have a great buffet with like bottomless mimosas and you can get like really good like egg enchiladas or something or and then they got churros. It's great. That sounds great.

But it is less of a need that I would rather go to a small Mexican restaurant here and I think seafood is the same in New England. And also too like that was the, I think we hadn't been to El Torrito in probably two years, two or three years. And it's the point that the comparison is absolutely spot on. She's right. Yeah.

It was spot on. I don't know why you tried to direct. I wasn't. I was just saying relaying my personal experience. Did you so, but are there red lobsters period in New England? There are some. You do see them. But there was none that were close to me at all.

Right. And then so last night that was my first experience with it and I did notice a lot of people that looked like they were on dates there. It was packed. I had to go to Canoga Park. So far I'm going to tell you. I like rock lobster fest better than I like fucking rock dober fest. Okay.

Already. But I just have a feeling that this is going to sour on me soon. But who knows. But the drive to Canoga Park was, I mean, it was like a 40 minute drive or whatever. And there are no red lobsters that are close. But when I got there, it was funny to drive up to it and just see like the big red lobster sign. There was a crowd of people out front. There were lines.

We were supposed to wait for a long time. But we actually got lucky and we found a seat at the bar. But we were supposed to be like an hour wait. That's intense. Yeah. There was a ton of people and multiple birthdays in there. We heard the birthday song I think two or three times. Yeah.

Yeah. I went with friend of the podcast, Jack Allison. And when we went to sit down, some Southern guy who said, you guys aren't from around here, are you? I said, no. You're like, we accidentally drove to Texas. I thought that was a bar drive. It felt like we did.

Then he also said, you guys are, are you guys twins? Me and Jack Allison, which both of us probably weren't happy. Right. You're like a foot taller than Jack. Yes. We don't look like twins. I mean, we're both chubby men with beards, actual beards. And so that is the only way that we would look like.

We were like, maybe he meant the movie twins. That's how he was comparing us. But you're both Davidos. But we're both, I'm a taller Davido. And he's a shorter, he's a, and he's also a taller Davido. But yeah. And so that like, I was like, oh man, this annoying guy. But then that was over quickly.

And it was pretty great. It was kind of, it felt like it, it felt like the Red Lobster was new or something. It didn't, it like, it felt like people were excited to be there. And it was kind of, it was, it was nice. Yeah. I feel like the one near my hometown was like repainted every two years. Like it was always made to continually look nice and welcoming and just like, you got to go to Red Lobster.

Yeah. Yeah. I mentioned this, this, this afternoon when we went, or I guess it was technically, it was new. What do you call when something's right at noon? At noon today. Yeah. At noon?

Yeah. Today at high noon. But me and Jess and her husband Morgan went to the, the Red Lobster in Monrovia, California, which is near where my grandma lives in Arcadia. But the, or the Red Lobster in my hometown of Lakewood, California was originally a standalone Red Lobster ripoff called Red Snapper. And it was just like an off-brand Red Lobster that Red Lobster ended up buying and converting into a full-fledged Red Lobster.

But it was like, it was always very nice inside in the Monrovia interior. I feel like it was like, I thought it was like just genuinely classy and had like a good, you know, just sort of, what do you call that, that sort of Bay Harbor? Is there, is there a word for that New England sort of architecture? Water, front or, oh, oh, the architecture. Yeah. Or that just style of design. Was it like a Cape Cod?

Yeah. Like a Cape Cod vibe or something. It kind of had that, I've never been there, but from photographs actually. Sea Town. Shanties, I don't know. What the fuck are you looking for? I had that Sea Town vibe. But yeah, I thought that was like, it was like a genuinely nice interior.

And I feel like they've made that, they like have made that move because there was a period, well, it's always been trying to evoke like New England, but they had a period of time where it was a little kitschier. Right. I do remember that there used to be like more of a thing where there were like buoys up on the wall or like weathered beachwood or stuff like more like tacked to the wall. Now, I feel like they have clean exteriors with like that New England style like wood slats or whatever with like cool lanterns and white sort of Adirondack chairs.

Yeah. And then the inside is a little bit more like a clean, crisper, sparser vibe, but still evoking like a waterfront fish restaurant. Yes, for sure. Yeah. It's evolved kind of like how, which is good. I'm happy to hear that it's evolved. Because they definitely used to have more like wooden men and yellow like galoshes on

the wall. I feel like there was a time where it was a little kitschier. I feel like it seems like it has evolved with like New England in a way where like when I would go down the Cape there used to be like those fishermen and like dumb fishermen statues and stuff. And now they're like, oh, it's about that feel like kind of like all black wood and that sort of thing. Yeah.

It very much evokes a Cape Cod New England vibe or whatever, or like a Sea Town vibe, for sure. Right. Yeah. And that would just be my first time there, which I didn't know. And it has the little lobster cages up, or the lobster tanks up front. Yeah, that's a thing I think like. That actually did seem out of date, I will say.

Right. I feel like it must be only a matter of time before people are like, that's actually weird. Yeah. Right? Yeah. I have fresh lobster, but it just kind of looked messy. It was the one part of the restaurant that kind of looked shitty. Yeah.

You can't really get the lobsters to cluster in a necessarily presentable way. Like they're just going to be kind of crawling all over each other in little clumps. And it looks kind of gross. It looks like, oh, their last moments are crowded and sad. Yeah. Yeah. They should get that out of, because it used to be part of the presentation of any fish restaurant.

And you go and you can see the live fish. And now they kind of need to put that into the back. Jess told me that you didn't want to leave. You were hoping that you could watch some sort of lobster show on your way out. Lobster show? You want to watch a little lobster fuck is what I'm trying to imply. You want me to, you want me to, you thought I was going to camp out in front of the tank in hopes that some of these, these lobsters would get it on.

That's what I, that's what Jess told me. They direct some sexual pleasure from it. Yes. No, that's not what happened. It's not? And certainly if I had that thought in my head, I certainly wouldn't tell it to her. All right. Jess is a liar is what you're saying.

We'll get into our thoughts on the food of red lobster. Just one second. We'll be right back with more dough boys. Huh? Welcome back to dough boys. We're talking red lobster with Jess McKenna. So we took two separate trips. Let's get into our food.

What is your normal order from red lobster as someone who frequents it? Jessica. So I think from, from my youth, I just still got to get a crab leg involved somehow. So I do try to like, I went a couple months ago, I did a double lobster night where I went with some friends to red lobster and then saw the lobster. And it was the night that Beyonce was playing at the Rose Bowl and I didn't have tickets and she speaks of red lobster. That's right.

Yes. That's, that's a good point to bring up. She, she kind of, actually it's kind of dirty, right? If he effs me good, I take his A to red lobster. Thank you, Jess, for understanding that this is a family podcast. Wait a minute. What? We have a lot of children.

You think this is a fucking family podcast? You're so full of shit. Yeah, every kid is trying that buffalo bill and listening to this with his dad. Um, yes. So we had a lobster night in honor of that. And that time I went, I got like a real, we got like, we sort of menu hacked in order to bunch of different like, different shrimp options and things like that. But I think my go-to is a crab leg and then I'm down to para with whatever else.

Um, so, uh, but I think the crab legs are my, that's what I, Right. You're gonna get mad at me in a little bit, but I'll save it for a little, for a minute. Yeah. Give us a few more moments of me not being mad. You're gonna be livid in just a few minutes. Oh no. Are you gonna talk about Harry Potter?

Cause I told myself I wouldn't rake you over the course. Oh no, no, no. We won't talk about Harry Potter today. Uh. I'll talk to you about it in the parking lot with some of my big tough friends. But you know what, here's, you're gonna challenge me. What is the game that they play? Quidditch.

Quidditch. I won't defend Quidditch. It's easily the least compelling part of the series. Everyone says the books are better than, I've only, I've only watched the movies. Yeah. You're part of that Potter generation though. Yeah. That no good Potter generation.

Yeah. We all got trophies for everything and we're ruining the economy. Um, yes. Maybe I am a terrible, am I an alt-right boy? What's happening to me? No, no, no. I don't think so. Here's all I'll say and then I truly will just, just meet me in the parking lot is, um,

it'd be like if you loved the comics of Spider-Man and then watched only Spider-Man 3 and you were like F that noise. Ah. Oh, then we were probably on the same page I would guess. I think the movies are fine and for me. The movies are just fine. They're not good. But I think they get better in, in the course of, of the, of the eight movies.

Uh huh. And I, um, the early ones are certainly just like pale like exact replications of the book with no sort of like cinema. Uh huh. But, um. I liked Goosebumps books as a kid. But there was no craze to it. No, I mean there was like a small craze but it wasn't like a thing that like bonded.

I don't think there'll ever be anything like it where I was like waiting at midnight at a boarders with my dorky friends to get a book that I'd waited two years for and I was almost always the same age as him. Yeah. That's helpful. There's an interesting parallel I didn't think about. You might end up growing up with Harry Potter. Oh yeah.

And you're growing in, in sync with him. And the books get more complex as they go on. Right. And so you're like, it's, it is literally like growing with you. You read one and you're like, yeah, well it was fun when I read it when I was 12. Yeah. So I don't hold it to the same standard as like reading seven. I mean, I eventually aged him out a little bit, just by the pacing, but I was pretty

much on with him and by the end it was 20 and 17, like that's as far as the gap got. Oh man, okay. Did I grow up with anyone? Did I grow up with the goosebumps monsters or something? I think it is kind of a singular thing. Right. I feel like even as new, as kids find it now, they'll never know what it was like. Well, there's also too, that's not like a typical way that stories are told.

It was kind of like a signature of J.K. Rowling's work. Right. Which is the idea of like, oh, we're going to chronicle this person's rise through the school system. Right. Yeah, fuck Harry Potter. Oh, bitch. Okay, butt crab legs.

No, it's okay. You're in childhood your opinion, but the books really are their own thing. You know what? Maybe I'll read the Harry... No, that's a lie. I'm not going to read the Harry Potter books. I got to read anything. Hold on.

You don't think I'm going to read anything from here until the day I die? I think maybe if there's a printed manual for the next edition of the Mario Kart series, you might read that. A Prima strategy guide. I probably would. But yeah, crab legs. They're great. So here's what I...

And this is where I thought I was going to get you mad. Lobster beats out crab every day of the week, baby. I think for me, it's like a texture thing. Also, the fun... Lobster legs are... I mean, crab legs are so hard to get the meat out of. I know, it's a little task. It's so fucking hard.

I gave up. I feel like a fun barbarian. I'm cracking. It's sort of like... Here's the deal. I got some meat out of them, but I gave up... I ate one leg's worth, and it was like, this fucking sucks. I can't get the meat out of these things.

I actually injured myself during lunch. I got a little cut. Oh, my God. From... I was doing a combination of the cracker in my own hands. At one point, I cracked with my own hands, and some shell went into my thumb. I was like, I think I cut my thumb. But I like that effort.

I think it's a fun task. It makes me connected to what I'm eating in a way that it's sad, but also good to understand this is a thing I'm eating its leg. Thank you for your sacrifice. That's fair. And I think it's really fun and tactile to get that meat out. It's super satisfying. Also, it's helpful when they're bigger.

If you get a king crab leg, you can really get a good chunk of meat out. Those are super meaty. And that's super satisfying. I just think there's a lot of fun involved with that. But you get that fun with lobster, too. You don't do as much work, I feel like. Right, yeah. And typically, I've one time had a full lobster where I'm doing the work,

and it was fun. But, sorry, I have to take a quick detour. I have to tell you this thing I used to do when I was 19. I hope I didn't mention this last time. Fast-fooding, where I would ding-dong teachers I had in high school, and there would just be a KFC chicken bowl on their door. Oh, my God. What?

Why? It was like their houses? Yeah. I knew where enough of them lived. And the summer after my first year of college, because I wasn't drinking yet, or I don't know. I was back from college and didn't know what to do. And so I invented this thing.

This is right when chicken bowls came out, where it was like the mashed potatoes with chicken and gravy and corn and cheese. And I thought they were so ridiculous. So my friends and I would get them. We knew where some of our high school teachers lived, and we would ding-dong ditch them at 11 at night, and they would open their door and just see a KFC chicken bowl sitting there. We called it chicken bowling.

And I did it all summer, and eventually we started doing just quesadillas from Taco Bell, because we were like, a chicken bowl is $9. This sounds like a great, this sounds nice to me. Well, they would never eat it, because it's too scary, right? Yeah. But we would stay within range that we could watch them open the door and just be so confused and utterly bewildered.

And there's one house that was really hard to do, because it had a front gate, and as you walked through the gate, you'd have to walk by their open kitchen window, and they had a light sensor, and it was a married couple of teachers, so it was like really... Oh my God. You're getting like two teachers, so it was like, okay, well let's end on the Oberlies,

because they'll be really hard to pull off. Oh, naming them too, good. Yeah. They all know now. My mom went to a baby shop for one of them, and just told them all. It was me, and I was like... Jesus Christ.

What was their reaction? They were like, she doesn't have anything better to do. I guess... I think they thought it was funny. I was like... But I think they were more like, this is kind of dorky. That's also funny, like when you've graduated. Yeah, it was very dorky.

It was very dorky. But that same summer, my brother got married, and he got married on Cape Cod, and my family hosted the rehearsal dinner, and it was a lobster bake or lobster boil, to be in line with the location. Cape Cod, yeah. Yeah, Cape Cod, whatever.

And we had a bunch of lobsters, lobsters, and we had people coming out from the wedding who were staying, and inns and stuff all over this small Cape Cod town, and we did it with full lobsters. We did fast-fooding with the leftover lobsters. Oh, okay. I was gonna say, were they alive? They were cooked.

They were cooked. So we knew we were there all staying. We'd go and knock on little bed-and-breakfast doors, and our piano teacher would open it up, and just a propped up lobster would be sitting there. That's a fun prank. This is insane. No one's getting hurt.

No one's getting hurt. That's a classic Jessica McKenna prank. They don't do it on their shoe. No, just like a confused English teacher going, I thought you'd be doing cooler things by now. You see, my mom was an English teacher, and I'm trying to think if anyone ever did that to my house, if I would have just taken it in and eaten it.

Probably would have. Probably. I think if someone did that to you now, you'd just taken it in and had it. Yeah, I probably would take it in and eat it. I feel like at the end of the summer, as an apology, we left them something completely sealed with a note that was like, trust us, you can eat this.

Dear God, Jessica, this is about like a... This is like... This is like a, yeah, this happens in Dazed and Confused. In the Slabs vs. Snobz movie, this is like the lame prank that the Snobz do. True story. So, here's what I'll say about crabs vs. lobsters. I think I prefer lobster as a meat.

Okay. I like crab a lot. Sounds like you're on the fence, swagger. I think king crab is the place where I'll draw the line in terms of effort to meet ratio. Because once I think you get to those little, and you know, the Maryland Doe Boys fans are gonna lose their minds at this.

Who gives a shit? What is there, 10 of them? I don't know. I have no idea. Maryland's a pretty populated state. Yeah. Anyway... Fuck Maryland.

Okay, bitch is going hard against Maryland. Those Maryland blue crabs that are just like, I've gotten those before and they're so little and you've got to do so much effort to get like the smallest amount of meat out of them. It's like eating crawfish or crayfish or crawdads or mudflaps, however you say it. And it's just like, it's just too much work.

Whereas I feel like the king crabs is like, okay, that's fine. I crack something open. I get a pretty substantial portion out of it. Yeah, yeah. I'm... I think I just also... That's my main reason for liking it more,

but I think I also like that it's sweet and softer. Sure. And lobster has some like chewiness to it in a way that's like, it's firmer than shrimp but doesn't taste that much better than shrimp so I'd rather have a shrimp. Ooh, okay, this is tough for me. But I'd like lobster.

It's just like, I think in the ranking I just would rather have a really juicy crab leg. You know what I'm curious about? Why is there no imitation lobster? There's imitation crab. But imitation... I mean, there's langoustines, but that's as close as they...

And that's also like considered a type of lobster. I think it's because the flake... Like crab can really flake in a way that you can imitate. Whereas lobster is like so compact. I don't know, like when you have imitation crab, it's almost like a crab salad. It's like flaky. What is imitation crab?

It's just like... It's like fish product and... Yeah, that's my understanding. It's some type of bottom dwelling fish. That they've formed into like crab. Oh, okay. That's weird. Yeah, that's nasty.

Yeah, yeah. What about crab cakes? Love crab cakes. I love... I'm a big fan of crab cakes. That's probably... That is my favorite version of crab. I love crab cakes.

Give me a crab cake. I'm good to go. But lobster... And I grew up just having like the lobster... It was on, you know, not all the time, but special occasions and stuff like that. Yeah, I think... We had the full lobster.

You probably had just also better lobster. Yeah. Yeah, no, there was... Yeah, there was... We had great lobster in New England. But I feel like when I was younger, I liked a lot because it's just... I mean, it's really just like a butter...

A butter vehicle. It is. It is. A butter delivery system. But it's got some good texture to it, though. Like the texture of lobster is getting interesting. But if you like butter, lobster is a great meal. I mean, I was dunking my crab in butter, too.

Of course. You can always dunk in butter. Yeah. Here's my... Here's what I'll say to everyone out there listening. Mm-hmm. If you're a fan... And if you have a dog in this fight

in the lobster versus crab debate, if you have a shellfish in this fight... Ooh, sure. Let us know. Hashtag... If you like crab, use hashtag... I'm Krabby. Oh, my God.

And if you like lobster, use hashtag... Lobsnob. Wait, hold on. That's not fair. They're both negative. It is fair. I'm Krabby. Okay.

Yeah. I guess they're both negative. Yeah. But the Krabby one seems more fun. Lobsnob. Fine. Whatever. If you want to beat Lobsnob,

we can do something else. No. I'm not going to beat Lobsnob. All right. Yeah. I think that's as good as you can do. Let's get into our specific food. So, Mitch, what did you end up having

in your red lobster meal? Okay, well, everyone raves about these Cheddar Bay biscuits. Cheddar Bay biscuits. And I never had them, so you get them for free. And I guess that's the first thing I should talk about,

because they were very, very good. I understand why people like them. Nice and warm and really delicious and not overly cheddar-y. Yeah. Just kind of a really great... It's a really great way to start... kick off the meal.

It's a pretty dope-free thing. Yes, for sure. For something that's free. Yeah, for sure. I mean, that's crazy. You get an artisanal bread basket at a fancy place. Great.

Sure. But that's for a chain restaurant to give you that level of a free bread. 100% agree. It's way above chips and salsa. All goes so far as to say that the Cheddar Bay biscuit is Red Lobster's master stroke,

because it's fun for kids and adults alike. Yeah. It's complimentary. And if you don't like fish, you still got a reason to go. I think that's part of how they're able to succeed in a sector of the chain restaurant world that people are sometimes picky about.

There's some people who just don't like fish or think fish is weird, but everyone's gonna like the Cheddar Bay Biscuits. They're not gonna put any seafood in the biscuits. But having a non-seafood item is very smart of them. For sure. They have mozzarella sticks

and chicken fingers and stuff like that. But I'm talking specifically about Cheddar Bay Biscuits. Having that be like, this is our signature... That's how they started off. I ate three of them. So it was... I had gone on an empty stomach,

but I had a... We started off with the lobster in... How do you say that again? Langostino? Yeah, I think it's langostine. It's either langostine or langostino. Lobster langostino pizza is the appetizer we started off with,

which is... Meet your new favorite pizza. It's our signature crispy thin crust top with tender chunks of Maine and langostino lobsters, melted mozzarella, fresh tomatoes, and sweet basil. Perfect for sharing or not. We shared it.

It was good. I liked it. Here's my... I've talked about this before. To me, like a pizza to me is... is tomato sauce and cheese. Right.

But this was a nice little focaccia-y, tasting... Yeah, if you're gonna have it as an app. It was a fun little app. Like in hindsight, it was maybe unnecessary, but it was a different kind of tasting thing. Maybe we should have done like a dip or something instead because there was like a lobster artichoke dip

that maybe would have been a better replacement to that. But it was fun. And it was a... It wasn't a bad taste. Jack made the comment that it was kind of like like a Wolfgang puck frozen pizza or something. Okay, yeah. And that's kind of...

And I still think that those can be good. And it tasted like kind of a good version of that. Not the best thing on Earth. And obviously one slice wouldn't have any lobster on it and then another slice would have like a little bit on it. You enjoyed it, but you did not meet your new favorite pizza. I did not. No, for sure.

But I also knew going in that I was... Because I'm strictly... There's only one pizza and it has red sauce and cheese on it. Right. In my mind. And so I didn't think I was gonna have some sort of... I just thought it would be a nice app. And it was okay.

It wasn't terrible, but maybe it was the worst thing we had as far as the cheddar bay biscuits and my main meal, which I had the ultimate feast. Great. Great call. Which was... I felt like going for the first time I had to go and I had to do the ultimate feast.

Yeah, why not? And so the ultimate feast is gigantic. And it has a... Is it... It is bigger than the Admiral's feast? It's... It must be, right? If it's ultimate.

It's bigger than the Admiral's... I almost got the Admiral's feast and then I was happy I went with the ultimate feast just because also the Admiral's feast was like so much fried food. Yeah. It was all... It was pretty much all fried food.

So the ultimate feast... You know what I think they should do? I think they should call the ultimate feast the Grand Admiral feast. If we're going by Navy... If we're going by Navy rankings. Grand Admiral's feast? The Grand Admiral Thrawn's feast.

I don't think they should. I think that it would tie in better with the naval the nautical theme. And they could also give a nice shout out to Timothy Zahn's Star Wars novels. Oh my fucking god. That's the dorkiest shit you've ever said. God damn it.

I'm just saying I would order the Grand Admiral Thrawn's feast. Okay. Tender main lobster tail. Steamed North American snow crab legs. Our handcrafted garlic shrimp scampi in Walt's favorite shrimp. And then you get a side of a wild rice pilaf and a side of your choice and I got...

I didn't realize that it came with rice pilaf and I asked for mashed potatoes but it came with rice pilaf I wouldn't have gotten the mashed potatoes. That's a lot of starch. But the mashed potatoes were good and I didn't really eat much of the rice pilaf. Rice pilaf is real filler, right?

It is. Has it ever been great? Come on, get rid of it. Yeah, like who's ever like, ooh, rice pilaf. No one wants the... You know what? I took a bite of it and it was decent. It wasn't bad but you're...

And also you have a salad to start up to. They give you your choice of salad. I got a garden salad with ranch dressing. And it was kind of like what you've talked about before. It was kind of like a shitty chain restaurant garden salad but I like that with croutons and carrots and stuff. We both got garden salads too. I got it with Italian and I was like, this is fine.

Yeah, I got blue cheese. Perfectly acceptable. Perfectly acceptable. Nothing wrong with that. I am someone who's not super into the cherry tomatoes which they throw in there. But it is totally fine. Good croutons, good ratio of lettuce to everything else.

And I think also just like, again, really making a meal out of it which I appreciate. Yeah, it does. It makes you feel like you had a full meal. Oh, you got biscuits, you got a salad and then I get what I ordered up. Right. It's great.

And it also comes with... So this meal comes with butter, melted butter and... God, cocktail sauce. And so the lobster I loved, it was great. I told you how I felt about crab legs. No, it's okay. They were still good. The crab was good.

It just... I like lobster more and they were pain in the ass to get. But what I really liked and I don't know if you guys got them too... And I loved the garlic shrimp scampi and I was afraid that it was going to be... There was going to be pasta or something. There was nothing. It's just the shrimp itself in the scampi sauce or whatever.

And those were really great. But my favorite are the... are Walt's favorite shrimps. They're really... They're butter-flied and then deep-fried. And they're really... They're really, really, really good. I don't know if you guys got anything similar to that

but the Walt's shrimps are great. Did it clarify which Walt? I assume Whitman? I think it is Disney. So it's Walt Disney. Some guy, Walt, who worked at Red Lobster. We'll just say it's Walt Disney. Yeah, it's Walt Disney shrimps.

And they're really, really tasty. It was good. I was very surprised at how good the meal was. I ate myself sick and it was all... I felt happy about the most of it. Right. I wish I didn't eat that pizza but I felt really good. I also had a Bahama Mama and Jack had, like,

some sort of pina colada drink with, like, a strawberry top that was also good. Jack also went with Brussels sprouts. And I just got to say, I'm Brussels sprouted out. We've got too crazy with them. Yeah, it's a fad now. It is a fad. It's too much.

I also got the Brussels. Oh, no. I'm sorry. No, no, no. No offense. But I felt like this is a nice return to a simpler Brussels because they did not feel like the hip L.A. Brussels where they're halved and charred

and they have some sort of, like, Greek yogurt drizzle. They were just, like, roasted Brussels that had been roasted a little bit. Were they buttery? And buttery, yeah. Yeah, Jack's were buttery, which I did like. They just felt like a simpler.

So I agree we've had, like, a big sprout of sprouts, but these felt like kind of a throwback sprout. Yeah. That's kind of a thing of their sides, though, in general, right? Like, none of their sides are too fancy or too overthought. They're all pretty basic. Yeah. I think there's a few, like, there's a...

There was one I saw that it in order that had some sort of pecans in it that looked like it was a little complicated, but overall, like, the rice pilaf, the broccoli, the asparagus, your mashed potato, they're all, like, pretty straightforward. Right, right. I think so. I think they have just real classic, almost like steakhouse

sides, real throwbacky, simple. Yeah. I really enjoyed my entire meal. The drinks were pretty great, too. Oh, and I got a lobsterita, a strawberry lobsterita, which turns out is a gigantic margarita. I had no idea. It was fucking huge.

Yeah. And Jack thought that there might be actual lobster mixed into the margarita. And that was tasty, too. Everything was pretty good. And it had the sugar-coated rim. It was... I was having a good time at Red Lobster.

I'd never been before. I always thought it was dumb because the name Red Lobster is dumb in itself. Still a long nose. Yeah. That's like red apple, or I guess red apple is fine. What is that like? That's like saying...

Yellow banana. Yeah. It's like yellow banana. Which is the same as red apple. You know what's kind of fun about Red Lobster? Well, first of all, there are the very rare blue lobsters. That's true. They're electric blue.

But I think it's like lobsters turn bright red when they're cooked, which is kind of fun. It is kind of fucked up. But it's also kind of fun to be like, we're cooking them. Yeah. Because when they're in the wild, they are red, but they're more like brown. Yeah.

They turn red when they're cooked. Yeah. Yeah. So you're not getting brown lobsters. You're getting red lobsters. Come on in here for all your cooked lobster. So let's talk about our meal a little bit. First, we have to acknowledge Morgan, your husband's heroic

intake of shrimp. Yeah. This was the thing he texted us about. Yeah. That we... Because he'd previously eaten over 100 shrimp at the endless shrimp. That's right.

And endless shrimp is currently ongoing. I think if we hadn't run out of time and had to come over to the studio, Morgan would still be eating shrimp. Yes. I think he took down 80. He ate 80 shrimp. Yeah. He ate 80 shrimp.

Yep. Yeah. Holy shit. I did confirm with him in the car. I was like, you could have gotten to 100. He was like, yeah, no, definitely. Easily. Easily could have gotten to 100.

Not even sweating either. No. He was just like tossing them back like the... He ate 80 shrimp today? Yeah. Holy shit. Well, when he asked me to do a lobster, I was like, he has to come because he's just a king of shrimp.

Damn. That's a shrimp king for sure. Yeah. I think what's... He does... I guess the strategy is he orders the least complicated shrimp, so no breading, no fried, and no scampi, not really even a lot of butter.

So he was alternating between just grilled shrimp. So just... And they're pretty small. Just simple grilled shrimp. And they had a Korean barbecue. That was just a grilled shrimp with like a little sauce on it. He had one of those.

Don't belittle this feet. No, it is a feet. No, I'm just saying he... He... I think that's part of the game plan is like get simple shrimp. And yeah, he just like... He had to sort of become buds with our waitress, Christina, who was great.

Christina was fantastic at the Monrovia Red Lobster. Christina, if you ever hear this, you're excellent at your job, very attentive. I'll stop you now, so you won't hear this. Yeah, she's not going to hear this, but... But if someone who knows here, who knows her, who knows someone... Pass it along.

Pass it along. She would wait staff hall of fame. She was great. Great service today. She had that real perfect level of attentiveness and some fun, but also just like getting back on the job, you know? But she was pretty good about like coming around often enough for him to get his bang for the buck, you know?

Because of a promotion like that, you could just like, if you only come by three times, you're only getting that much shrimp. So she was pretty good about coming back. She knew. And he would be like, actually, I just go ahead and I'm going to eat this so quick. Can you just get me like another two more on the way? So he did eat 80 shrimp.

Jesus. Yep. Yeah. And yeah. You know what I... That's like... And he also had a Bahama Mama. He had a Bahama Mama too?

That's right. It's a great drink. It was a great drink. I'm just thinking, besides Morgan, who else today ate 80 shrimp? And it's like some sea creature maybe. Yeah. Probably not even a sea creature. I feel like it's hard to eat 80 shrimp.

Like a narwhal and then like someone doing an eating contest. Yeah. Yeah. But I think he might be the only man who ate 80 shrimp today. It's possible. I think he might... He did say, I'm sure you see people do this all the time, kill themselves with shrimp. And she said, I think this is a first.

I think his rate. Yeah. She turned white and walked off the restaurant. Yeah. And she knows I've seen her again. His single-mindedness. I think part of his success that was his single-mindedness. Yeah.

He took his plate with his sides, his rice pilaf and his broccoli and physically moved it to the other side of the table so it like wasn't even within his reach. Right. I saw him take one little scoop of rice, like a half fork full of rice pilaf and one individual broccoli floret and then that was it. He was just done with it. Yeah. He just used that for his discarded skewers.

Yep. It was really something. If you're ever in a situation where you have a bunch of shrimp and you need help, he's the guy to call apparently. Yeah. It was a real tragedy when we were getting married and we were like going through stuff for our wedding. He wanted a pile of shrimp.

It was like something he kept talking about. Like in a cocktail hour, he had been to one wedding once where they had like a seafood like spread as part of their cocktail hour and he was like, boy, if I could have one thing in our wedding, it would be just a pile of shrimp. But given like the style of our wedding, the size of it and the fact that we were at like a wedding venue that didn't just offer that, there was going to have to be like a special thing. It was in the thing for a while until ultimately we were like, we have to cut the pile of shrimp.

And it was really sad because he truly asked for so little. But I was like, sorry, you can't have this pile of shrimp. I think it's understandable. Yeah, my parents were paying for it. It was just like, sorry, we have to like. Yeah, you can't have just a big pile of shrimp for God's sake. It was going to be like a crazy markup just given the venue and everything. But my mom felt so much guilt over this that like basically every time we go down to Yorba

Linda, she gets like one of those like platters of cocktail shrimp from like Sam's Club or Costco. Is shrimp his favorite food? I don't think so. I think he just, he likes it a lot and he likes doing anything to the max. He likes accomplishing feats. That's right. Yeah.

He's like a man of extreme. So I think he just is like, I could eat all these shrimp and I will. That's amazing. You know, out there, if you've eaten a lot of shrimp at some point in your life or if you've just eaten a few, hashtag shrimp personal best. Give us, give us the count. So Jess. If you've eaten, someone's eating three.

If your personal best is three, let us know. And if it's more than 100, you're a hero. So, and then Jess, your meal, you got the, remind me what you got. I got a seafood combination and I got a pick, I did a pick two. So I did coconut shrimp and crab legs. I'm sad to not have the coconut shrimp. Yeah. You should try one of the next ones because it's similar.

I guess we do have three more. Yeah, you can get that. I think it's similar to the waltz with just like a coconut batter. Oh, okay. It's butterfly deep fried. And it just has a coconutty batter. They're really good. I love coconut shrimp.

They, I do like, when I've had them other places when they are served with more of a sweet and sour sauce, I find that to be like a nice sort of tangy breaking up the sweetness. It goes good with the coconut too. Yeah. This one came with, they call it like a pina colada sauce. So it was kind of a, it was kind of a sweet on a sweet. It was so good, but it wasn't cutting the same way as like a kind of tangier sauce or maybe even something like a sweet chili sauce would have been great.

But they were really tasty. And then the crab legs were very good. They were punier. So you did have to work harder for that meat. It wasn't a king crab leg. It was a snow crab. Oh, snow crab. Okay.

But it was, it was still really tasty. And then Morgan and I were like, well, we're here. We have to get lobster of some kind. So we ordered just an a la carte tail for the table. And just to feel like we had completed the season. For sure. Right. We're getting a, we're getting a crab, a shrimp and a lobster.

It feels to me like the red lobster. Yeah. The ultimate platter covered that and that. And it does, you feel like you want to try every, you want to try every little creature of the sea. Did you get steamed or grilled? For, for the lobster? Yeah.

I think it was, I'm pretty sure it was steamed. Because ours was grilled and it was nice. It had like some garlicky flavor. A little charred to it. A little charred to it. It was nice. Oh, okay, nice. Yeah.

It was good. I had a bite of that bad boy and it was real yummy. Dip it in that drawn butter. Real good. Yeah. And then I had a, sorry, I had a three triple berry sangria. Oh, yes. I saw that.

It looked good. Yeah. Yeah. Their cocktails are, because I had a sip of each of your cocktails. You were, you're kind enough to offer it to me. And not, not overly sweet. Like you expect. Even with such sweet sounding drinks.

But it was totally fine. And I got a Bloody Mary for my cocktail, very well made chain, you know, chain restaurant Bloody Mary. It's solid right down the middle. Garnished with three pimento olives, which I appreciated. Not too much garnish. You sometimes get those gimmicky Bloody Mary's that have just like too much stuff. Like there's like a dill pickle spear and a celery stalk and a carrot stalk and then

just like a bunch of parsley. There's just like all this shit crammed in it. It's too much. Yeah. Like just, just keep it simple. And then their garnish was just three pimento olives. It was totally fine. Good, good Bloody Mary.

Garden salad with blue cheese I mentioned. I asked Christina for a recommendation. End up on the wood grill tacos, which came with, which were you got your choice of meat and they have shrimp and lobster and chicken. I went with a blackened tilapia and it came with a little rice pilaf, which as we mentioned the rice pilaf was just kind of nothing. It was just sort of, you know, it was just like eating a cloud. It was nothing.

There was really nothing there. But the. That's every kid's dream is to eat a cloud. Is it really? I think so when I was younger. That's why cotton candy is so big. Oh, exactly. Yeah.

I wouldn't say it's like eating a cloud either. Well, I just meant in terms of it's not really substantial. There's really nothing there. Yeah. That you shouldn't be on there. Knicks it. Yeah. Knicks it.

It was like eating sand. The only rice. It was just like, it's not, this isn't particularly interesting. There's no real flavor to it. I want that cheesy broccoli rice or that's really it. That's the only rice right now. Throw some saffron in there. Pilaf, get out of here.

Yeah. Yeah. Pilaf, get, pilaf the menu as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, peel it off the menu. Yes. You did it. Great teamwork. We've both been thinking about that for 30 minutes.

So the wood girl tacos. Okay. The tilapia meat, which you had a taste of Jess. I thought was quite good. Yeah, it was good. And it had this little, this, this, you know, little creamy sauce, this, this crema sauce, a little bit of spice to it and some fresh tomatoes, which was, which were yummy. Here was my issue.

The tortilla was a little kind of stale. I mean, you just contrast it with like the fresh corn tortillas that you can get at a lot of, and you know, I'm judging it unfairly comparing it to a, to a bunch of local Mexican restaurants, but just like it, it was, it had that store bought gummy or texture to it. And it just wasn't that satisfying of a tortilla. And, and for that reason, like if I'm judging against all other tacos, it was good tilapia. And it was good if you're like craving something that's not one of their more conventional seafood entrees, you're in the mood for tacos or whatever reason, I think it'll scratch that itch, but

it just wasn't like, I just feel like it wasn't super successful in that regard, purely because of tortilla consistency. Was it a bad batch? Was it just like, you know, just the scale of having to distribute these corn tortillas throughout all the various locations is the issue? Whatever it is, I, you know, I don't know. I mean, just, just a thing to consider if that, that's a menu option your way. But overall a satisfactory dish and the black and tilapia was quite tasty as a, as a protein

choice. And yeah, it was pretty simple. That was pretty much all there was to it. It was really just, just meat and sauce and tomatoes. And I, I don't think there was any other, any other vegetable in there. Hmm. Do they have like a cabbage mix? Yeah, there might have been a, there was a little bit, I think of a little bit of a

cabbage slaw that see feels like there is. The vegetable mis, this, this interesting vegetable mystery. Do you guys have menu items where like when you're at a restaurant and you see it, you're like, shoot, I have to get that. Like for me, fish tacos is sometimes one of that where it's like, even if I was not in the mood for fish tacos and it's like probably not a restaurant I should even get fish tacos at. I love fish tacos so much that sometimes they're like a black hole for me.

I like the rest of the menu fades away and I have to get fish tacos. Yeah. I always get roped in by Buffalo chicken stuff and, and, and, and because I love Buffalo chicken, but, but besides that, the mashed potatoes were really concave. Once I saw that there were mashed potatoes, I was like, I want to have a good mashed potato. I like, I love a good mashed potato and, and, and, and I, I, it was calling my name at this place. But besides that, I'm not too sure if there's like anything.

You know what will hook me in? It's not specific, but if I ask what the soup is and there's like a soup that's even just a little bit of intrigue, I'll get the soup. Like what's your soup today? Like, oh, we got a corn chowder. I'm like, ooh. Like what? None of them, none of them today.

Then we're interested. No, I didn't get a, well, it was just like soups presented on a menu. I mean, specifically, like if they, they have a soup of the day and then I'll ask the waiter what it is and then once they tell me what it is, just hearing what it is will usually make me want to get it. Yeah. And then having a soup will really throw the rest of your menu decisions. Right.

Yeah. That'll affect everything. If you get soup, you can't go too liquid based after that. Right. You don't want a soup and then a pasta. Right. It's kind of weird combo. Yeah.

That's why I always, I usually always go with the salad option. I don't do like, it's at a restaurant like that, I won't, I won't go with, but if I'm getting like a sandwich and then you can get a super salad, I will sometimes, I will sometimes get the soup. But if I'm sitting down at Red Lobster and there's like, you're going to be eating kind of different things. I try not to do the soup. Is that strange?

No, I don't think that's particularly. I actually think a salad is like, is a good starter at a Red Lobster because the meal you're going to get is going to be fairly substantial. Even my tacos was like three tacos plus a side. It was like a lot of food. I couldn't finish it. What about you? Just super salad generally?

I think I'm more of a soup person, right? But I think a salad doesn't affect the rest of your meal the way a soup does. So that'll, that'll really, that'll get me. It's just like, well, if I'm going to go with a soup, now I'm going to like get something smaller. Am I going to get some sort of, if I get a soup, I might end up getting like a weird app as a meal because I'm worried about getting too full, especially if it's like a cream based soup.

That's true. Like I end up getting something weird, like a tomato soup and then chicken lettuce wraps because I'm just like, well, I want to have room. I can't get a big entree once I got this soup. So soup for me, I think is more like I'm having it for lunch and it is my meal. Yeah. A soup, it depends, it really depends for me. I guess it's tricky.

It is tricky. I think steakhouse starting with a cup of soup is my favorite. Yeah, that's why I think I get scared off by this, you know, with the, we're in the month of scares. Soup is one of those foods that scares me off. You're frightened by the thought of spooky soups. Spook scares me off. I, and I'm sure that there's a lot of, what foods scare you?

Hashtag, uh, uh, frightening food. Wait, okay, so like, you don't mean, I just want to get in what sense you mean frightened because do you mean like, I'm scared to try it because it's weird? Like I don't want to have these crickets. No, you're going to stay away from it for whatever reason. Because you're afraid of the consequences. No, I mean, of course bugs are going to make your frightening food list. But I'm just wondering, like, do you mean like weird food or do you mean like, like

food I'm scared to try because it's bizarre? No, no, no, no. Soup, I stay away, it kind of scares me off because I think it's going to mess with the rest of my meals. Okay, alright. Yeah. It's just going to disrupt your flow. Mm-hmm.

Okay, I get it. It's going to be more trick than treat. Yes. Yes. Should we change to hashtag? I think so. Oh, fine. Food flow or whatever the fuck you're saying.

No, I like hashtag more trick than treat. Hmm. Okay, good. Hashtag more trick than treat. Alright, just fix our hashtag. Let's get to our final thoughts on Red Lobster. Jessica, you've done the podcast before. Give your rate, so give your closing argument, then give us your rating on the scale of one

to five forks for Red Lobster. We will start with you. Wait, I thought you were going to do a time thing. We're going to talk, that'll be for you and me. We'll get to it now. We'll address it now since you brought it up. But we're, so Mitch and I are going to Red Lobster four times in the course of this month. So we figure what we'll do is we'll have our guests give their fork rating.

But Mitch and I will give our rating for an individual fork representing that visit. And then over the course of the month, we will add up all of our tines for those individual forks. Yeah. So like we will just be giving our score out of one to four tines for the first fork of our eventual five fork rating. And then the final fork, we will give an overall tine rating to the experience, to the month on stage.

Of course there has to be some fucking complicated thing. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. So like if we give it three tines this time and then next time we also give it three tines, then we'll cumulative, we'll have 1.5 forks. Okay. Or six tines. All right.

Great. Sorry, Jessica. Go ahead. I love Red Lobster. It holds a near and dear place in my heart. But I know nostalgia is a battle on the storied history of the Doughboys podcast. Whether or not you can even remove it, whether or not it should be part of your expectation. But thankfully, I feel like Red Lobster makes that a non-issue because it continues to evolve

and I continue to enjoy it without nostalgia. Sure, I'm going to have that nice memory of having enjoyed it for 20 years, but it just still is good. It just is still legitimately good. And there's more and more adventurous things for me to order there. You know, I can evolve from my popcorn shrimp days and get riskier different kinds of fried shrimp. But I think they've done a really good job of making sure that they know how to stay

relevant. They do have a pretty big menu. It's not a cheesecake factory novella size, but it's large and they have promotions and they have fresh fish options. So there's a lot to still explore on their menu that I think there really is something for everyone. And it's just, I think it's really doing what it's doing really well. I think it really delivers on its promise.

So I'm going to give it five forks. Five forks from Jess McKenna. Damn. Very good score. That's a great, I mean, going in, listen, I didn't, maybe I was going in as a little bit of a lobster snob or whatever the fuck that dumb hashtag was. Hashtag lob snob. Lob snob.

Lob snob. All right, I was going in as a lob snob and I got to tell you that this has been a little bit of a nostalgic episode. We talked about how you were late to this place and how Weiger put his dick between his legs when he was a little child and how it's my birthday and Big Poppy and all that bullshit. Whatever. Mine is not really that reminiscent, but whatever.

This place gives that vibe of nostalgia. It does a good job of that, even though I've never even been there before, it evokes a feeling of nostalgia and those good family friendly chain places that you used to go to when you were younger. You're right. It does. It seems like it has evolved and it's good. I was surprised it was gig because I've had good seafood and it's definitely not the best

seafood I've had for sure, but it was still like lobster, shrimp done well and decent lobsters. That's going to be a good meal no matter what. The lobster pizza was probably the worst thing I had and the drinks were great and boozy and sweet. I'm mostly going to give the batter up award for a well done battered shrimp. So often in honor of Big Poppy, the batter up award, in honor of Big Poppy, it wins the batter up award.

Those shrimp are really well-battered. They're battered really well. It's great. So many places like the batter would crust up or fall off of it or something and these things are so well done. The Walt shrimp tip my hat to Walt, they really fucking do it up well and I was impressed and if I'm going to have to give this out of tines, out of four tines, why not five? Oh, because there's only four tines.

Yeah, I don't think there's five tines for it. So I'm going to give it three and a half tines. Three and a half tines. Not a perfect score, but I was impressed. This is so, like I said, this is way better than Rocktoberfest. This may become a problem when I have to drive back to fucking Kenoga Park or Monerovia. I mean, yes, they're all equally far away. They're all a 45-minute drive.

So this is going to suck soon. And I thought that like, oh, Friday night was crowded, so I had to do this on some weekday or I get to figure it out, whatever, it will be fine. But yeah, no, it was great. And also, are we going to play a Rock Lobster song at some point? Yeah, I think they'll probably have that, they'll probably already have been played. They'll probably put it as their intro music. Oh, all right, cool.

Why, were you going to play it? No. I just said, I like that B-52 song. It's a good song. Three and a half tines for Bike Bitch or the Spoon Man. I'll keep my thoughts compact because we're running out of time. There's another recording coming here. But I will say this, the word evolve came up in both Jess and bitches evaluations, which

is interesting because the lobster itself is famously unevolved, an ancient creature. But I think the contrast between Red Lobster's corporate philosophy and the lobster itself, a crude creation straight out of the primordial soup, speaks to how they've been able to be successful for decades. And it's certainly impressive that they have this level of quality still, that they have this level of service, that they have like a nice atmosphere at the scale that they do. I think it's good seafood. I think there's a reason a lot of people like it.

And I think it's a successful chain for good reason, had a nice time today, had a good meal with great service and very good quality chain restaurant food. I'm going to agree with my buddy, Mike Mitchell, and give it three and a half tines. Hey, not bad. All right. I mean, this is ballpark bud mode, right? Yeah, we're in ballpark buds territory for sure. Even though it's weird.

And you and I are in the hand-holding club. We're in the hand-holding club. Yeah. Maybe we would have gotten, who knows what it would have gotten if it was out of forks. But it got a very good score. And I think three and a half tines is a kind of four forks. All right. Well, we're going to get into a segment now.

Those were our thoughts on week one of Red Lobster Fest. And also this October, this coming Monday is going to be Canadian Thanksgiving. And in honor of this North of the Border holiday, it's a new edition of Seasons Eatings. That's the official theme song of Seasons Eatings, Guster's cover of Donde esta Santa Claus. So old Guster. Mitch, do you know who sent us all these Canadian snacks? Yes. This guy, Jesse Karp.

And we played his drop on the live episode. Okay, great. Certainly that was like a Canadian, like it was supposed to go along with all this stuff here. Right. And so thank you, Jesse. This is great. We're very excited.

Tweet at us and we'll retweet you or something and we'll thank you for it. Here's the downside. We left the box here. Jesse wanted us to... This is why I was upset. Yeah. Because the YGOR saw me be upset because the all dressed up chips or the chips that he wanted me to try when he wrote to me the most.

Someone ate them. Someone just at the studio. Someone at Ferrell Audio ate them. It's our fault. We just left them out in the open. People assumed it was a snack. I'm calling out Dan Herman. But there's a mystery.

Hashtag ferrell mystery. We'll find the person and we'll beat him up, right? That's what the dope boys do. Yeah, yeah. The two of us get together and then clobber people. So Jesse, send some more fucking all dressed up chips or we'll go to Canada and we'll just try. Don't make them send more.

No. But you know what? Whoever ate them will go up to Canada and get new chips. That's what we'll do. So we're going to try these Maynard's wine gums. We've got a few different things. We're just going to try and sample them. The first one is Maynard's wine gums, which I don't know if that means that they are

wine flavored gum or gummies or what the deal is, but looking those around. They do have kind of a gummy texture. It looks like there's purple and red ones and pasting these over to Jess now. And while we're tasting these out, they have a little crown on them, too. What's next, Mitch? We've got Lay's ketchup flavored potato chips. So I'm going to test your love of ketchup right now, Jess. They smell a little bit like, here's the thing with these Maynard wine gums.

They're very hard to eat. They're too hard to chew. I feel like I'm going to lose a tooth. I think I'm going to spit it out. Oh, wow. So thumbs down, huh? I'm not. I'm not getting a wine flavor.

No, me neither. I got a little bit the more he went. All right, so here are the Lay's ketchup chips. I'm going to try one of these right now. Definitely like kind of a pink salmon color to them. Mm-hmm. Mm. Send it this way.

Okay. Have you guys had a lot of weird international chips? Not too many. Not really, no. I mean, like I haven't really traveled outside of the country, but I think just in terms of exotic snacks that I've tried here, I've had more of the weird candies. I haven't had more of really the foreign chips. How about yourself?

I've spent a month in Edinburgh and I had a lot of weird British chips. Also went to Australian New Zealand with my mom and we had like lamb flavored chips and chicken chips. Damn. That's bananas. These ketchup chips are pretty good. You know, we were talking ketchup earlier. I actually like this.

They've got a nice vinegary taste to them, which is not overpoweringly ketchup tasting. Yeah, they're not bad. A little bit of that tomato sweetness. They're kind of like a pasta sauce flavor, if anything. Now we have a crush cream soda. It looks like a red soda mousse. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is, honestly.

It's red. It just looks like red. In fact, I don't know what's distinctly Canadian about this. The other ones are a little bit more, oh, thank you so much, Jess. She's filling up my cup right now. It's like, it's a weird red, you know, it's actually pretty good. But we have crush here. Like, what's just, what's Canadian about this one?

But maybe the flavor. I mean, we have laze here too. What's the flavor of it though? It's cream. It's a red cream soda. So I have no idea. What flavor is red cream soda? Cream soda soda mousse, it says under it, which I guess is just a...

Soda mousse. It just tastes like cream soda that they've, I think, I think we might have a soda here. It's like a regional soda. It might be in the south. Cheerwine? No, cheerwine is like cherry-ish coke. I was thinking of Big Red. Oh, Big Red, okay.

Which I think is the same thing. I think it's like a creamy, that's just dyed red for fun. Yeah. Kind of like a red velvet cake is actually just, you know, like, it's just dye. It's fun. Yeah. This is what I imagine that Cizerp tastes like. It's kind of got, like, a little bit of a cough medicine-y aftertaste, but it's also

in this creamy... Like, I've never had lean. We're gonna get you to try lean. Okay, if I would, I think this is what I assume it would be. Okay, so this big turk is, so this is the last one, Nestle's Big Turk. It's some weird candy bar, a chocolate bar. It says less fat than your average chocolate bar. I just ripped it open.

It looks like there's some gummy center to the chocolate bar. Right. Yeah, this is, I mean, Big Turk. Oh, wow, this is weird as fuck. Big Turk sounds like a supporting Sopranos character. This thing is very crumbly. Watch out, Jess. It looks like it's got, like, a chocolate layer on top of a gummy interior.

I can't really... It's very strange. And I've got chocolate crumbles all over. This is a disaster. Well, I got a bunch of chocolate crumbles in my hand. It's pretty messed up. I don't have a napkin. You know what the issue is?

If I had already access to a napkin, I'm usually pretty fanatical about having napkins with me at all times, which is partly why I have Kleenex in my car, which you mentioned earlier. Not on the podcast, but before we start recording. He has Kleenex in his car. I do. I have a Kleenex in my car. It comes in handy all the time. Yeah, it sure does.

It says I don't have napkins right now. You know why it comes in handy. No, it's not because I'm jacking off in my car. But this is very crumbly. What do you think about this one, Josh? It's not bad. It's kind of like... I've ever gotten into chocolate-covered gummy bears.

I think it's giving me a similar enjoyment, but it's not as good because it's the ratio of chocolate to gummy is so much better than a gummy bear. It's closer to fifty-fifty. It's more like a seventy-thirty. This is like a ninety-ten in favor of the gummy, and the gummy is not that flavorful. Right. I have a snack and a drink to everything except for maybe the big turk, even though I don't hate it.

Yeah, it's like... But it's weird. I wish they were... If they were a little bite-size, I think I would like them. Basically, I want a chocolate-covered gummy bear. Yeah, and that's not... And that's not what it is. It's not really doing it.

Yeah. I think that chocolate and gummy never should mix. You don't like chocolate-covered gummy bears? Keep them separated. As the offspring said, you got to keep them separated. Okay. They were referring to chocolate and gummy in that song. Sure.

I like the... I think I would only like the Lay's ketchup chips. Everything else I could take or leave. So, I'm going to do one last one, this kinder surprise. I brought it in here because it's a four-storey... It looks like there's a Star Wars toy in here. Okay. It's a milk chocolate with milk lining, and there's a surprise toy at the center, so I

don't know how to... I'm guessing it's BB-8. Here we go. Oh, and then it just kind of... It does open up. What is the toy? It looks like a child's head. What is it?

Here we go. Come on. Let's put that up. Oh, that's not bad. I think these eggs are famously used in anti-gun ads, because we decided to not import them anymore because of choking hazards, but we allow guns. There's like a picture of two kids, and one of them's holding a kinder egg, and one of them's holding a gun, and it's like only one of these is illegal in the United States.

Oh, I get why there's choking hazards. I get it. These things are... I don't even know what the kind of... There's a Star Wars sticker. You can make a little Star Wars keychain, it turns out. Just put a little fucking Darth Vader in here. What is this?

This is kind of cool, though, it's like milk chocolate with white chocolate inside. Yeah, that's yummy. That's a yummy... It feels like an Easter treat. I mean, partly because it's egg-shaped, but very yummy. Kinder. Kinder sounds like a child's tinder. Kinder is also...

Yeah. Oh, but it's just to... Hey, who wants to fly kites? Why? Right. It's innocent. Weigar's kinder photo is him doing the Buffalo Billet stance, that's cute. God damn it.

Kinder, though, is like... It's not a Canadian company. Oh, no? I don't think so. I thought it was like Swedish or something. They could be. I guess these are just popular in Canada. Yeah.

So, what is the toy? What is a Star Wars toy? Tell me what you think it is. It's like some weird fucking keychain thing. I don't... I guess it's... I can't tell at all. It looks like a lanyard.

Yeah. Let me pass this over. Hmm. Sorry, sorry. There's stuff in the back. Maybe like a phone case? There's stuff in the back. It's the thing you have to assemble.

Oh, I think it's a tag, like almost like a luggage tag. Oh, okay. Like you could... Because it has like a little pencil showing you can write on the inside so you could write like property of Mitch and then put it on your backpack. Oh, okay. That's the thing kids like to do, I think. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, it's kind of a shitty toy for you. Yeah, it's pretty bad. That's a real disappointment. I'd be really let down. The actual candy was good. Yeah, candy was not bad. Yeah, I like that one.

Any closing thoughts on season's eating, Jess? I think I agree with you, Nick. I think the ketchup chips are the walk away winner for sure. And I think pro ketchup, Mitch. Yeah. There we go. And I think though that this is validating in earlier thought of yours, which is like that little, when it's a little more vinegary, that's when it brings a little more to the

party. For sure. And that's really what's been isolated in that chip. Yep. I agree. I think candy just got to go in pretty well. Yeah. We'll try, we gotta try those all dressed up at some point.

We'll get those in here. We'll get those in our house. But different but not bad. Not bad. Yeah, not bad at all. I would give, I think the only thumbs down for me is the picture. Well, happy Canadian Thanksgiving to all our Canuck listeners out there. Just like a restaurant we value your feedback, let's open up the feedback.

Today's email comes to us from Jack Bills, aka at JJ Bills. Jack writes, the food I associate most closely with Dairy Queen is easily the chili cheese dog. As a kid, chili cheese dogs were my favorite food due to their connection with Sonic the Hedgehog. I was always curious whether the addition of chili cheese dog to the Sonic mythos was a response to the success of the Ninja Turtles love for pizza and the brand integration that resulted from it.

My question is, what food would be the chili cheese dog to your Sonic the Hedgehog or the pizza to your Ninja Turtles or the pork chop to your Homer Simpson? I'd also say maybe the donut to your Homer Simpson. Thanks for the question, Jack. Jess, do you have any thoughts on... Yeah, pork chops at Homer Simpson is kind of... Yeah, I would say probably. I mean, he does love pork chops.

I'd say probably donuts. He likes all food though, I feel like. Yeah, but if you're going to pick one food stuff. I think it's that pink donut. Yeah, pink donut. Any thoughts on that, Jess? Oh boy, that's a tough one. Pizza and Ninja Turtles is so good.

Yeah, it's the best association. It's got so many good birthday party associations too. I feel like I always wanted that drippy piece of pizza like where cheese is somehow just like gooey and off like a can in a cartoon. Yeah, the chili cheese dog for Sonic was almost like too specific. If it was a calculation to be like, oh, we're going to associate this kids, it was almost like a little too specific. Yeah.

They just got running around after you eat a chili cheese dog. That's what always confused me, it's such a disconnect, the idea that this athlete would be fueled, the fastest hedgehog, I assume he's the fastest hedgehog among all the hedgehogs, that's what makes him stand out. Maybe the thing with Sonic is he always has to shit. So he's sprinting to a bathroom? He's running towards a bathroom. I think I could explain it.

But yeah, that was always, but the Ninja Turtles pizza like it kind of fit with their party due to aesthetic. Yeah, they were teenagers. This is how we were reminded, they were teenagers. Yes, they loved, the teenagers loved pizza and the turtles were teenagers. They're teens, guys. I'm just figuring it out. I think the closest thing I can think of is Gilmore Girls and Coffee.

Okay. I know you guys are probably two giant Gilmore girls, but they are so obsessed with coffee and it just like finds its way into so many like narratives that they're constantly mentioning it. Her on again, off again romance with Luke and his diner is like, when is she getting coffee from Luke? You know, it's like a vehicle for her to see Luke or if she's like not seeing Luke, they're when are they making coffee at home?

That's crazy. She comes into work. She's got to have coffee. It's how we like go in to talk to Suki in the kitchen. So that's, it's probably not the best answer, but it's the only one I can think of right now is just like that show and coffee really go super hand in hand. Also I think, sorry, I think it was also like a demonstration of their weird, not weird, but their atypical relationship of mother but friend is that she was a 16 year old who

was already like drinking a bunch of coffee because she was like, it was part of like a character mark of like her being more adult and them being more friends, not just mother daughter was their ability to like gab over coffee. So I think it was integral in that way. I've said on here before that I like family matters and all those shows that line up, the TGIF lineup I associate with pizza just to get it all the time. For me, if I'm a Sonic or if I'm, you know, like what is my meal, I would say it's either a cheese pizza as well, a big sloppy Neapolitan or New York style slice of pizza.

Or you know what, people don't do much as a, maybe a chicken burrito or something would be cool. Oh sure. No one really has a burrito that they do. Sure. And then the thinking on shows like that, I'm going to also go with a coffee one, Rich Meister and coffee. Rich Meister?

Yeah. Wait, what's Rich Meister? Rob Schneider's SNL character. Okay. Oh. Okay. All right. I think I misunderstood the question.

My personal one would be French fries, but a show one would be a coffee. French fries is great. French fries is a good answer. I can't think of a show one where there was like a relation like that. Well, I mean, I'm thinking. Besides Rich Meister. Contemporary one, I'm thinking of people always talking about Breaking Bad and Walt Junior's fixation on breakfast.

That was a big thing. That little scamp loved breakfast. He sure did. He ate a lot of it. Yeah. I think for me, I mean, my obvious pick might be ice cream. I love ice cream. I'm a big ice cream head.

I have it all the time. I'm going to have it later today. But I don't know, if I was going to go with something savory, I might say not my favorite food, but I think one that symbolizes just my sort of utilitarian pragmatist philosophy, my most common lunch, a chicken Caesar salad, no croutons. Ooh, okay. Just like, you know, no one's favorite. No one's going to like have their minds blown by it.

Yeah, this is like you. Yeah. It's just right down the middle of it. I like that you made it more boring. I like that you made it more boring. Chicken Caesar salad, no croutons. Right. You got to get those croutons out there for a health reasons.

Jesus Christ. If you have a question or comment about the world chain restaurants, you can email us at doughboyspodcasts at gmail.com. Check out our Facebook page, Doughboys. Follow us on Twitter at DoughboysPod and subscribe and read us on iTunes. Jessica McKenna, thank you so much for joining us for discussing your love of Red Lobster. We'll be doing this three more times. We're so glad you could join us for the inaugural visit.

It was a true dream. I think that I'm going to get sick of you, Iger, before I'm going to get sick of Red Lobster. Do you have anything you would like to plug at this time? I would just love for people to check out ABC Digital Series, and I created it with my writing partner, Zach Reno. It's on abc.com. It's called Serious Music.

It's about two comedians who accidentally start writing music for a Justin Bieber type. It's pretty silly and fun, and you can watch them for free. Nice. Awesome. Check it out. Check that out. Zach and Jess do some awesome musical comedy, super, super funny stuff. And don't do it for this episode of Doughboys.

Until next time for the Spoon Man, Mike Mitchell, I'm Nick Weiger. We'll see you next time with another edition of Rock a Lobster Fest. Happy eating. See ya.