Doughboys - Rocklobsterfest: Red Lobster 2 with Ross Kimball

Episode Date: October 13, 2016

For their second voyage to Red Lobster, Mitch and Wiger welcome actor and comedian Ross Kimball (Masterminds, Mascots) to discuss shellfish, Chi-town eats, and summering in Maine. Mitch tries to break his long-running losing streak in the return of fan favorite segment Pie in this GuyWant more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What's the most dangerous job in America? It's not firefighter or police officer or window washer or long-haul trucker. It's commercial fisherman. The absence of an elegant gender-neutral term like fisher or fisherperson or fish harvester may be by design, as in the U.S. it's an almost exclusively male profession. In America, from 2000 to 2010, 554 fishermen lost their lives in expeditions off the east coast, west coast, Gulf coast, and Alaskan shores. The human toll of fishing-related labor extends beyond catching to processing, as seafood is

often scaled, peeled, and canned by low-wage labor, indentured servants, and even slaves. A 2015 AP report exposed how Thailand's billion-dollar shrimp industry is powered by slave labor, with human victims trafficked from Myanmar and Papua New Guinea and forced to work 16-hour days for no pay under the threat of violence and death. The end result of these life-risking conditions and labor abuses up and down the supply chain, inexpensive, abundant fish and shellfish in U.S. supermarkets and chain restaurants. This week on Doughboys, part two of Rock Lobster Fest, our month-long review of Red Lobster. Welcome to Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants.

We're 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, Celtic's era Shaquille O'Neal, Mike Mitchell, the Spoon Man. What the... fine, I'll take that. I love Shaq on the Celtics. Shaq's great.

He wasn't... I think he probably not in the best shape of his career when he was on the Celtics. Yeah, but he was in great shape. This is a compliment. He was in much better shape than I am. All right, well, you can credit Evan Hochschild for that insult slash compliment. And if you have an insult you'd like me to use on Mitch at the top of the show, roastspoonmanatgmail.com. Mitch, you're in rough shape.

I'm not feeling well. Yeah. And then your sad story that I've heard... I even miss your sad story because I was not feeling well. Right. And I'll never hear it now. Because you don't really listen to this podcast. No.

Yeah. No, no, no. Also, you think of what my little intro at the top is a story? I guess it is. Yeah, it's a little Weiger story. Not feeling well. Yeah. I did my birthday a little bit last night at the Red Lion Tavern and I didn't even drink

that much. Right. But it feels like I ate a bunch of chili peppers, I told you. Yeah, I'm not feeling great. I'm turning my back on drinking. I told you this. I'm done with it. You're not done done with it.

I'm not done done with it. But it's just... I can't do it as much. It used to be a part of my identity. Yeah. Which is the door... I mean, I used to drink and I can't drink anymore. You're a party animal. I was a party animal and now it's sad. I'm a washed up party animal.

Well most party animals have a shorter life expectancy. Yeah, they die. Yeah. So maybe I'll... Yeah, I made it through that 33rd year. Right. I didn't die in the week leading up to my 33rd birthday. And now your body's telling you that you need to stop. I looked at my arm this morning and I thought that I was developing mold on my arm.

Like shower tile? Like black mold. I think I'm molding over. How is that possible? I don't know, but I think it's happening to me. That's like something that happens to someone who's bedridden with an open wound for like... Uh-huh. Go on.

Anyways, I want to say to Spoon Nation, and here's a drop I haven't listened to. Oh my god. Do you think it was intentional that the one time they've actually tried to schedule me to do Doe Boys, they did it at the exact time that we've recorded a Hollywood Handbook every week for the past three years. Oh my god. And then told them we were recording that because we tried to get them on the show. Yes, Nick's been on it and we've invited them and said if there's any Saturday at 11,

you can do it. And then they were like, can you do Saturday at 11 for Doe Boys, we really want to get you on. That's... Because normally they record at night, they make you the problem. Oh, I know. Oh boy. Really getting the ongoing feud, the one-sided feud between us and Hollywood Handbook is

kind of escalating there. Who was responsible for that drop? It's from Jordy McGrath. I think I'm saying it correctly, Jordy. Here's the dankest drop in town he said. I had no idea that it was going to spark this war between the two podcasts. They've been having it going legitimately. We'd love to have Hayes' shot on the show.

We've tried to work it out. The schedule hasn't... I guess we tried once to work it out. We're bad at scheduling. We're bad at this. We want them on here. This came together like yesterday with our current guests. We scheduled this yesterday.

You know what, now that I hear those insults, fuck you guys. Okay, so now you're asking for that again too. The war is on, baby. All right, great. Yeah, they put one of us in the hospital, we put one of theirs in the morgue, right? Fuck yeah. Know who we're going to do... You want to do BJ's Brewhouse?

Is that Sean? I think Sean wants to do BJ's, yeah. You want to do BJ's Brewhouse? Guess we're going to take it to BJ's Brewhouse. Who's the shitty person to bring to BJ's Brewhouse? Mike Pence. We're going to bring Mike Pence to BJ's Brewhouse. Mike Pence prefers chilies among chain restaurants.

He doesn't even like BJ's that much. We're going to bring it back. We need to ask so much about what Pence likes and doesn't like. He posted, he tweeted out a shot of him at Chili's, having a great time. All right. Yeah. You're all excited with the politics going on right now, right? It's a crazy time.

You know what, let's bring our guest in here. I just want to quickly say that. Are you happy that saying grabber by the pussy is more acceptable now? No, it's a horrific phrase. It's a phrase that you like to use though. I do not use that. I've never said that. I've never even think to string those words together.

That's not like a way that anyone talks. That's just like a sentence. Those words in order have only been said by Donald Trump that one time. Nobody says that. Who constructs sentences that way? Let's introduce our guest from Chicago Med, Masterminds, and the new film, Mascots, which I believe as of this episode release is now on Netflix. Ross Kimball is here.

Hi, Ross. Hey, guys. What's up, Ross? Welcome to the show. Oh, thanks for having me. We're recording this. So, you know, this may, this will be a little bit of a time capsule. And why Mitch brought this up is that we're recording this basically in the immediate

aftermath of the Trump tape servicing and this episode will be on the next Thursday. I mean, I think it will still be at least a little bit of a topic next Thursday, right? Yeah, it'll still be relevant. Yeah, you'll probably see some t-shirts around. Right. I actually did see some t-shirts already. Really? Yeah, someone, I think our friend Jordan, our friend Jordan Morris, who was on the podcast

before on our TGA Fridays episode, great guy, but he texted us a picture of, here, I'll show this to you. It's two women, two older women wearing a shirt that says, Trumpet, and then underneath it, it says, you can grab my pussy. No, I don't want to see that. Well, you don't have to see it. They saw it. There's an arrow pointing down underneath that you can grab my pussy.

Oh, my God. So, yeah, I think some of the deplorable set are going to embrace this language. Hey, you know, it's a very big country. Yeah. I'm not going to test the fact that we take forever to get people on the show. Right. We're going to have you on for a long time, too. It's been great since 98.

It's been a ride. Don't boys, 98. I was telling Nick before we got started, I met Nick, one of my first people meeting here in the comedy world in LA. You haven't been out in LA that long. No, about a little over two years. A little over two years. And then you were back in Chicago for a time.

Yeah, I was in Chicago for a few months, too, in Chicago Med, and then, but we met and then I saw this post that he had about, you know, dope boys, and I was like, oh, that's great. Started listening to it and it was hooked ever since day one. Oh, my God, bless you. Since day one. What's wrong with you, Ross? A lot. Let's get into it.

So, you... You met Weiger first? Oh, yeah. Crazy, right? You were like right out here. Well, shitty introduction. I would have moved back home. It was my third or fourth day in LA, and I walked in to this room and there was a screen

and Weiger was already in on the couch facing the black screen, waiting to watch the DVD, and he was on his phone, and I sit next to him, and I was like, hi, and he goes, hey, and then we watched the movie that we were in there to write some jokes for. Yeah, so this is a... A little punch-up work. Yeah, a little punch-up work. This is one of those weird jobs that you get in LA if you're on the periphery of whatever, you know, the comedy writing scene as I am.

This is where Mike Rowe would go. This is the equivalent of the dirty job. This is a real dirty job. This is a dirty job in LA. Basically, we had... I don't know how much we want to go into the details of what it is. I don't think... I guess we could maybe keep it vague.

Say it. Say what it is. Okay, it was the film The Brothers Grimsby, the Sasha Baron Cohen film, and we were there, and there was a finished cut, so basically we watched a cut of the movie, and then they were going to do some reshoots. It's a very common thing. You have like a room full of writers, and then you're just pitching jokes and pitching new scenes that they can reshoot, either adjusting existing scenes or shooting entirely

new stuff. And it was a very surreal day, because it was the two of us, who I think were the only Americans there, and then a bunch of Sasha Baron Cohen's British guys, his like team of writers, and then Sasha himself, which was a very intimidating thing to be around in the vicinity of this comedy genius, who's just, you know, yeah, exactly. That's what he was like the whole time, he was a bore at the whole time. He was in character, he had to be shaken out of it to be reminded this is a different movie. And it was a very weird day, and I feel like you and I were just like looking at each other

as scants throughout, just like what the fuck is going on. Yeah, I think I would have, you know, just like you, if I knew you, I would have been looking over at you more, being like, oh, this is wild, it's been a while, right? Like what's happening? But all I could do is just like look down the entire time, because I didn't know how you were reacting. Yeah, exactly, I didn't even watch it. You just looked down, didn't watch the movie?

I didn't. I was like more explosions, more explosions. And what I hear about the brothers Grimsby, it sounds like you guys fucked up. Let me tell you, anything that I've ever worked on has ultimately failed, like I am a grim reaper for the success of your project. So if you bring me in to do some punch-up, get ready for this thing to eat you in the box office. Yeah, this fucking podcast keeps going for whatever reason, it won't die.

Well, you're here. You got a beautiful thing going on. We've got the two of us working, like we've got a yin and yang, if you've got all this like charisma and inherent likability and I'm just like poison, but the two of us are still kind of sustaining this thing somehow. I'm glad you finally come around on me. I've always said you're a very charismatic guy, I get why people like you. You're just an impossible man.

This is what... Come on now. One more thing I'll throw out real quick about this weird day we had. Oh please, yes. But, so, Sasha Baird Cohen, comedy genius, a very eccentric man I think is how I describe him. He seemed very strange by all counts of other people's interactions, he just seems like a strange guy.

Just mind works in weird ways, which is partly maybe how he's able to create such brilliance, but he thought, Ross, you're a tall drink of water, what are you, six foot seven? Yeah, about six, seven, six, eight. You're a very, very tall man and Sasha himself is a tall man, but you tower over him and Sasha thought that the funniest thing in the world was how tall Ross was and throughout the day kept making him stand up and stand next to people so that he could laugh at the height disparity. At one point there was a British, there was one of his British co-writers who I think

was probably 5'4", and a tiny guy and he had the two of you stand next to each other and just was belly laughing. Oh my God. Like one of those belly laughs, he's sitting down and the seat doesn't recline or move at all, but he leaned back so only two legs are on it and he grabbed his belly like this and was laughing so hard. That's very interesting, what a strange man. Ross is one of those, I don't notice that people are tall, I'm a big guy, I don't usually

notice people are tall. I don't notice height that much, I don't know if you're the same way, I don't notice it, I don't think about it. If you asked me, if we were talking to people and then those people laughing, how tall do you think Mike was, I go, not you Mike, but like a different Mike, I can't, anything under six feet I can't do. Yeah, but seeing a guy like you, I'm like, oh he's tall. Yeah, I saw you glancing, I saw you doing some double takes, I saw double takes.

Because it's a weird thing where you make me look small, you don't make me, you're much slimmer than me, you make me look shorter. I feel like a smaller man and if anything, you make me look fat or in good shape. It's like when Charles Barkley is standing next to Yao Ming, if you've seen a photo, it's crazy because it's a very tall man next to an insanely tall man and you're not insanely tall, you're close to Charles Barkley. So I'm Charles Barkley, actually that's probably me actually. You're my Charles Barkley.

You're my Charles Barkley. I think maybe Narls Barkley would be better. Is there a picture, there's gotta be a picture floating around with Charles Barkley next to Narls Barkley. I want Yao Ming next to Narls Barkley, I bet that exists too somewhere. Is there? Cheerlead us. Yeah, if you've got a picture of Yao Ming standing next to Narls Barkley, tweet us with

the hashtag, I've got that photo. I was gonna say Yao Narls. Yao Narls is better. I just want to say that you were right, like I said, I didn't drink too much last night but this morning I was late which is kind of standard but I was pretty late and it was one of those things where I was like, I had six or so beers last night and then a couple of shots of, what should we call it? What's the German?

Gasoline? A couple shots of gasoline that I- Snaps? Yeah, I was there. Snaps. I saw this party animal. I wasn't going that crazy. You slipped over a table.

I didn't really go, I didn't go nuts but I was like, I'm gonna be good. I had some Del Taco late night and maybe that's why you think it's a good call, I think that's why I kind of feel sick but it was that sort of thing with this morning when I woke up because I did wake up pretty late, like I think I woke up around noon and I was like, I gotta go to the fucking, I have to go to Red Lobster with this hangover and eat seafood and that was one of the most depressing things on earth. Just that drug, right. Well, we had to drive like 45 minutes to an hour to this Red Lobster and then eat seafood

when I'm hungover and I told you it reminded me very much of the holidays or something. Ross got this of like, maybe this is an east coast thing but that sort of thing of like I'm hungover and I'm like eating shrimp and cocktail sauce like I would on Christmas Eve or something like that. Or waking up really, really late, like three in the morning and just walking down and opening up the fridge and there's like a brick of cheddar cheese and shrimp cocktail and like you're just eating both. That's what I do.

Early morning Christmas, that's what I do. So Ross, you're originally from the Boston area, now you spent some time in Maine as well, is that correct? Yeah, so I was born in Boston, my mom and dad, family was born. My mom is from Arlington, my dad's from Hingham, South Shore, cake eaters. Hingham, Massachusetts. Yeah, both. Yeah.

And we have talked about this. Yeah, talked about how like they're cake eaters and you know, they're South Shore kids, you don't do that all the time. I have cousins who grew up in Hingham. Yeah, it's a little bit more of the, it's like idyllic cottage on the ocean front sort of feeling vibe to it. It's cloth napkins. Yes, yes.

The blue bloods. Yeah, yeah. Wait, is that what it is? Isn't that what people say, blue bloods? It's funny because those blue colors. Or the blue color is hard to work in. Blue color is like, yeah. Yeah, blue color is a hard work, is a working man.

White color has an office job, but I thought blue bloods is, blue bloods was like someone who's like from a, it's like a wasp. That's what I always understand. Oh, okay. I call those people cake eaters. Cake eaters is cake eaters, I know more, yeah. I'm a cake eater, just not, I guess I'm not a cake, I'm a cake eater in a sense. Yeah, in a literal sense.

Yeah, so my family's from Boston area and then for like 10 years, then when I was really young we moved to the Chicago land area, like in Naperville, just outside of Chicago, but every summer. You're stuck around Boston if you can't say. I know. I had no choice. I was a little baby. So I was in Chicago and for like 12 years, my family, they wanted to have, not recreate,

but they wanted to kind of have the same childhood as they had where it's like going to the beach, swimming in cold water, eating seafood. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, baby. Let's do that. So we did that for 12 years. We'd drive from Chicago. We'd do two days, two main, we'd stay two weeks there.

I love it. Swimming in 50 degree water. I love it. Yeah, having muscles and lobster every night. It was great. That's why Ross and I grew up to be big boys and Weigar's a little fucking dopey little guy. I'm six foot one.

I'm not a small man. When we were walking out of the red lobster, I was like, we're kind of like an intimidating crew. Big crew. We're some big dudes. Me with my teal polo, I'm ready to start some shit. Well Weigar, it's funny because, I mean, like Ross and I could just like kill you in this room right now.

Yeah. Here's the thing, is that- I wouldn't allow that, Mike. Thank you, Ross. When you first started tweeting at us, Ross, you were very much a burger brigade or you were- Absolutely. It sounded like you were going to stick up for Nick and you were going to kick my ass.

Absolutely. But I forget who I was going to, who I had enrolled as my enforcer. I think you tried to recruit our friend Ryan Stanger. Oh, Stanger. Yeah. Oh, Stanger. Here's the man. Yeah.

Stanger is going to be my bodyguard. I think I was just reaching out just for some connection. I thought, I wasn't really mad. I just wanted some connection. Stanger and Ross, oh wow, what a rumble that would be. That'd be quite a bore. You and I would be running away. Yeah.

It'd be like in Super Smash Brothers when you pick Kirby and then you're just like floating the whole time, trying to avoid everyone. All right. So let's talk a little bit about seafood in particular because having this background in Maine and everything and I know that I want to get to our restaurant one second, but I first want to talk about just your- Why are you in such a rush, baby? I'm not in a rush.

We're not in a rush. Yeah, settle down, baby. I just said we're going to get the restaurant in a second. We're talking some general food chat first. You take over too much. I don't want to take over. Fine. You do it.

You do it. What's up, Ross? What's up, Mitch? Let's talk, baby. I wanted to just talk because I was trying to make some sort of point about us fighting, but then Ross was just a little upset with my Spoon Man Takes a Bite because I took a bite out of his hometown, Chicago. Oh, right.

I just wanted to address this. I wasn't upset. I was just appalled. What appalled you about it? No, I wasn't. It was just more of- Because guess what? Spoon Man can take another bite if you don't watch it out.

Okay. Well, here's the thing. In both of you said this, that Chicago people talk way too much about, get that ketchup off the hot dog. I'm not one of those guys. If you want ketchup, that's fine. I'm not going to- I think it's just one of those things. There's kind of an influx of Chicago comedians here, so you're probably going to hear it

more. You're going to hear it a lot. Yeah, so you're going to hear it more. Maybe you're hanging around the wrong people, baby. You've got to hang out with people that are just chill about ketchup. You know, I'm going to take one bite out of- Yeah, do it. But now I feel bad.

No, do it. I just wanted to take another bite out of Chicago. That man takes a bite out of Chicago, babe. The bean. That big bean. Ooh. What's the deal with that big bean? Fuck that big bean, baby.

You mean Cloudgate? Cloudgate. Is that what it's called? It's called Cloudgate, but everyone calls it the bean because it looks like the bean. Hey, Spoon Man's taking a bite out of that bean. Fuck that bean, baby. So you want to hear- it's kind of nuts, but I was a double decker, like Vince Vaughn, in the breakup.

I was a double decker tour bus guide. Oh, his most famous role? His most famous role in the breakup. So that bean, it gets polished every year. It costs $15,000 to polish that thing. And if you've ever been to Chicago, the bean in Millennium Park, it has a really cool view of the city, and you can take cool pictures of, you know, it bends, so it like has like this weird, you know, fish eye look, the city.

I don't know. I think at 2000, the park was made to like celebrate the Millennium. So it was all this new stuff that was happening, and that was, I think that's the future. I think that's what they think houses are going to look like. A big bean? Yeah. So is that a fairly recent thing? Yeah, 2000, yeah.

Oh, wow, I always figured it dated to like the 1930 World's Fair or something. No, no, no. No, it was the recent. Fuck the bean, babe. Okay. Get that bean, flick it out of here. Is part of your contempt for the bean because you once attempted to take a bite out of it? You shattered all your teeth.

I shattered my teeth. Boston is the bean town, baby. Right. Chicago is trying to steal our stuff. Ross, you're too nice. I can't take a bite out of Chicago. No, you can. You know what?

Go for it, dude. Spoon Man. I'm going to put the Spoon Man curse on the Cubs, which means they're going to win. They're going to go all the way. I was talking to you. It would be cool to see Cubs and the Red Sox. It's not looking good right now. In the World Series.

It's not looking for the Red Sox part of that equation, but you never know. You can never tell. That'd be nice. Well, good luck to the Cubs. You're a good man. You're making me like Chicago. I like Chicago anyway. It's a great city.

Yeah. But you're making me like it even more. Good job, Ross. Hey, my pleasure. All right. Thanks for having me, guys. Of course. Now, let's hand it back over to the driver.

Let's drive on through the fucking segments he want to get through. I was just going to talk about food. Like I was just going to talk about seafood. I don't think it's unreasonable to have a topic, a conversation lined up that we can discuss. Yours was fine. I'm glad we went on that tangent. Oh my God.

You're going to make me feel bad today, dude. No. Let's do this. It's fine. You mentioned lobster. You mentioned summering in Maine. What is your favorite seafood? Are you a shellfish guy?

Do you have any fish in particular you like to see as a fillet? I think in anything with food-wise, you go through waves. Right. It's like what they say. Every eight years, you can go on roller coasters. You hate them. And then another eight years, you can't go on them. Someone told me that.

Anyway. Who is this fucking nerd? My dad. Oh my God. You should have led with that. Literal roller coasters, though? Is that the idea? Yeah.

Or you just go through changes. I got you. I think psychologically you like things and then you don't like things. But for me- I'm a coaster nut just to make it clear. Oh really? Yeah. Like since the beginning?

Do you like coasters? Yeah, man. Let's go. I can't fit on a lot of them. Oh yeah. I was about to say I have a similar issue where also I'm just afraid that I'm going to get my head knocked off. Do you ever fit?

I have a regular-sized torso. The problem is my legs. I can't fit. My girlfriend and I went to Disneyland about a year ago and we were in Space Mountain and waited like an hour and a half. We got there, got to the front. I couldn't get in. So she rode it alone.

Oh man. What a bummer. Yeah. And I was waiting for her and all these people were walking off that were on her tram and they were laughing at me. All these people were just laughing at me because I couldn't make it. What the fuck? It's fucked up.

Ross, you should have kicked their fucking asses. I did. I'm not allowed to Disneyland anymore. Good. I wish I was there. I wish I was there. I would have lost you. It happens all the time.

Yeah, no. I am definitely, I'm the big guy borderline for, I feel, I feel like in Disney, those rides are like, it's the charm of Disney but they weren't made for like giant men. Like a lot of them I feel like don't work as much anymore for big guys. Soaring. Have you been on soaring? Oh yes. That's great because your feet dangle and that's fun.

And you're kicking the people below you. Yeah. Right in the forehead. My heels going right in the forehead. But they have the misters. Anyway, I'm going on a tangent. No, I like that. Just on the misters.

The soaring thing, I think it's part of the atmosphere I wish you'd see in more rides is like they give scents at you. It's really interesting. When you're going over the pines in Northern California. It just smells like pine. They just, yeah. And then there's orange, right? Don't you go over the orange fields?

Yeah. And then they have, I don't know how they do it but when you're going over the ocean you can smell that salt water. Yeah. It's pretty amazing. When you're going over Wyger's apartment you can smell like shit and bacon. And then you swing over Mitch's apartment in Palmerston and you just smell a cat dander and comb.

You know cat dander as a smell? Right. Yeah. There's cat dander in the air. You can pick that out. Yeah. It's very sensitive to those. Yeah.

You can detect that. I'm not surprised you can smell a comb. All right. Favorite seafood? It's always been scallops. Oh, scallops. Yeah. Those are good.

Those are real good. Wow. Yeah. That's a crazy answer. It's scallops and mussels because I remember we would go, we'd have this little beach house that wouldn't be on the beach. It would be on the bay side. I just want to be clear too by the way when I said I'm not surprised you can smell a comb.

It's because he loves the stuff. Just so everyone knows. Okay. Thanks for underlining that. I was a little confused. Thank you for clarifying. That's circling something that's already been highlighted and drawing an arrow towards it.

We would go muscling or we'd go clam digging for mussels and then we'd take it back to the place and we'd have 10 to 14 people in these beach houses where our families would go and I remember just steaming them and you get melt sticks and sticks of butter. Oh, wow. Yeah. Melting like at least 12 sticks of butter, dipping it and eating it. It was great. It was a good time.

This is even when you were young. You liked mussels, correct? Yeah. Yeah. I think the butter helped. Yeah. But after a while, you just wean yourself off the butter. Yeah.

So, I mean, for so many of these, so much seafood, a lot of it is about the butter, but you can still taste what you're eating. It's just, it adds to it, but mussels were one of the things that I did not like when I was younger and even into like my like 20, it took me a while and now I'll eat them. They're not my favorite, but I have come around on them and they are good. They are just like such a, they're such a seafood in my eyes or whatever. That's a seafood entree is like, that's like the real deal. Yeah.

Yeah. It has, what was it? It doesn't have the oyster effect where it's like you're not eating, it's like you're tasting like a booger, like you're eating a booger. Yes. A gummy texture to it, but I think, I don't know, I think it's just a mind of a matter thing for me. Yeah.

Oh yeah, I enjoy this. The gummy thing always, because that was like when you're younger or whatever, it's like, oh, here's like an intense seafood taste. Yeah. And now you got the, it's a gummy thing too and like it's like, how are you get this, and like as a kid, you're just like, I just want to swallow this right away. So I was never as big into it and now I get them. I get them now.

Yeah. I get mussels. Do you like a seafood, like is it paella? Like a seafood, like a pasta seafood dish, like something like that, because they usually involve, there's usually a lot of mussels and like a red sauce and spaghetti, right? What is that called? Yeah, there is like, I mean, I think you're conflating, yeah, I think you're conflating like a chiopino with a paella.

Yeah, I'm sorry. A paella is like a rice dish, yeah. That will have mussels and shellfish in it. Yeah, this is seafood paella. Okay. Yeah, it's like the Italian version of that, that's like a seafood. I think it's a chiopino, but maybe that's a soup, but I know chiopino has some sort of seafood and red sauce involved in it.

But yeah, I know what you're talking about and I think that is like a, it's good when you get that. I will say like on the scallops front, like do you have a favorite preparation there? Because for a long time, when I went to like a fancy restaurant, I would seared scallops or just like my go-to high-end dish. Seared grilled. Right. A little bit of lemon, as plain as possible.

Oh, interesting. And before it was like deep fry it. Right. Maybe a side of ketchup, like just try to, because I think for me, when I was younger, I was just trying to keep up with everybody. Right. I was like, oh, is everyone's doing this? Oh, we just got off the beach.

Everyone's sunburned. I'm just hungry. This is all we have. We have corn and this. So it's just, you just got to eat this. Yeah. So I would just cover it and mask it with blue cheese, ranch. I'd get really intricate about it.

But now it's just seared, a little bit of rice and lemon. Yeah. Just nice and simple. And it's such a unique texture that's sort of like, I don't even know how to describe a scallop exactly. It's just, it's so, it's not quite gummy. It's not quite firm. I would say not as flaky as cod.

Right. So it's like a white fish, but like more binding. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Scallops are not my favorite, but if they are done well, it's like, I think you're gonna have such bad, it's, I mean, like, like most seafood, you can have a bad version of it. Right.

And luckily you are in Maine and I had New England, but like, it's that sort of thing of like, so often I'll get bad scallops, but then if I get them and they're really, really well done, I think they're amazingly good. But it's tough to, for me, like it's tough to get the good version of them. Yeah. Did you ever in New England, did you ever go to Maine? Oh yeah. Yeah.

Like a lobster pound. I don't know if we went to a lobster pound. I don't know if we went to a lobster pound. Yeah. Like I remember going to like a fish hatchery. Right. And when I was down Cape Cod and like the, like we would go to like the cranberry bogs. My godfather son, Neil, fell into the fish hatchery, which was very funny.

He fell into the fish hatchery. And it was like, he was like, he's like a few years older than me and he was like a very funny guy and he was a very funny, like he fell into the fish hatchery. Like accidentally? Yeah, accidentally. Like the fish are being, our fish hatchery is where the fish, they have the fish fuck each other. I don't know.

I think it's like a sanctuary type thing where it's like, this is a safe place. You guys can have your eggs here. Oh, gotcha. But we'll eat you eventually. Oh, okay. Well, it was not a safe place when Neil fell in there. It was very funny. But I mean, like I did so much of that.

Yeah. The cranberry bogs. And I don't know if I actually, I mean, like we've talked about, and Ross has this in common with me, he would race his lobsters as well. Oh yeah. It's not a weird thing. And the guy at our, we'll get into Red Lobster in a minute, but the waiter at Red Lobster today told you a story that they, they race him right there in front.

Having him crawl around, especially like with younger kids, I just remember that and I think now it still goes on. It's just a fun thing, especially if the lobsters claws a rubber band, it's fine. Right. But I just remember that being like a normal thing. And then they'd go in the pot and then you hear him hiss. Yeah. And then my dad would always say that's them screaming.

Yeah. But it's actually the air escaping. I believe. I don't know. They say the same thing too. They're screaming. Fucked up dads. Jesus.

What? Why are we doing this? I think it's kind of like, it's, you know, there may be, there's maybe some ethical issues with how lobsters are cooked and prepared. It supposedly is supposed to be a very quick, like they, like, it's not a thing of the way the lobsters, like it's like they almost pass out immediately is what I've heard. Right. Well, like for, and what I was driving at, and I can see that and I probably, I probably

wouldn't buy that it is a pretty instant death, but in any event, I kind of have the same view of it as I do of like swatting a moth. You know what I mean? It's like, I don't think of this as, yes, it's alive, but I don't know. I mean, how developed is its brain? Is it, does that qualify as consciousness? Is there much of an ethical issue with, with it? I don't know.

It's, it's weird. Is this, is this you trying to figure out if you can murder me? Because of your low brain power, because you're basically on par with a field mouse. No, I don't know. I think it's because the, I just like, I think about the ethics of killing animals a lot. And certainly like I talked about earlier, like I think the ethics of the commercial fishing industry and the agricultural industry and slaughterhouses, I think what, what's happening to human labor right now is a bigger issue.

But certainly I, like I question like how fucked up is it really to boil a lobster alive versus stepping on a cockroach? You know what I mean? Like one, we'd be, they're both, they're both kind of instant deaths. Well, in my mind, all cockroaches should die. Right. They're not kind of though. They, they should.

They're never gonna die. They're not gonna die. So they'll eventually be like the intelligent life form on this planet, I guess. But I, but I, if all, if all cockroaches were wiped out, would that be a bad thing? I think it would be a good thing. No, it'd probably like wreck our ecosystem somehow. I think somehow they are not integral, but like they, maybe they, they eat garbage or something bad.

Yeah. To keep us alive. Yeah. It's fucking nasty. It feels like the whole stuff we need. I don't think they're as important as bees, but they probably have a importance. It grosses me out too when people call referred to lobsters like the cockroach of the sea. Right.

Yeah. It's fucking nasty. I don't want to hear that ever. They're very different in my mind. And, and I feel like, I feel like, I feel like, I feel like I'm not a god, as you know. Okay. All right. I'm not a god, but I think if we got rid of cockroaches, the world would be fine.

Okay. Yeah. I don't know. I think there, there might be unintended consequences, but it's possible to work out. Let's talk about red lobster. So Ross, certainly someone with a lot of experience in the lobster realm, your, your dad did some lobster fishing. Right.

Am I right about that? Yeah. My dad, he grew up, not grew up scuba diving, but he scuba dove for a long, long time. He stopped when he moved to Chicago. But I remember being young and being on, it wasn't a lobster boat because we'd fish off it, but my dad and his friend would go down, they would set traps and then they'd go back a few days later with us. Right.

Go down, pick up the traps and we'd have, that would be our meals. Can I just tell a quick story? Of course. A quick scuba dive story. It's one of my favorites. So my dad and his friend, that he's known since high school, were down there getting the traps and if you go down deep enough, you can't come straight up because then you get the bends.

Right. Yeah. It's just bad stuff. So you have to stop, you have to stop, hold onto the rope and decompress, you know, get everything back in order so you can go up. I don't know the technical terms, but you have to hang out there for a little bit. So they're hanging out there and then my dad's friend taps my dad on the shoulder and points behind my dad and it got really dark all of a sudden behind my dad.

And so, and my dad is a very, very laid back, like in those situations, you want him in those situations because he's like, okay, I got this, all right, here we go. So my dad slowly turns, my dad said, my friend's eyes got like three times big, just, they're huge and he just tapped and pointed, got dark, my dad turned around and from here, from here to Mitch. So about. Two feet? Yeah.

Less than 10 feet. It was just dark and my dad looked down just a little bit and he could see a little eye and my dad looked to his left, looked all the way down and it was a giant sperm whale. Wow. Whoa. Yeah. And he looked underneath it and it was a baby whale underneath it. Whoa.

And so they were looking and he said it had to be about 10 seconds where he was just staring at the eye and he was looking down and all of a sudden he saw the tail kick and in just one kick, it disappeared. Wow. And that's my scuba diving story. That's insane. That's insane. And I think about, I don't know how to react to that.

I don't know. And when you scuba dive, the big thing is like keeping calm and breathing. But I mean, that was just insane. Do you know what I would do no matter what? Yeah. What? I would take my oxygen tank off and shove it in its mouth and shoot it. So make it explode.

You watch too many movies, Mitch. No matter what. Yeah. Even if I was very deep down under water, I would rip my oxygen tank off, put it in the monster's mouth and shoot the oxygen tank. But he said in that one kick, the whale and the baby whale were gone. So I don't know if it was like, it took in like, I don't know the scientific term, but like some sort of force where, like this pocket where the baby was still underneath.

It was weird. That's crazy. It was crazy. Yeah. The terrors of the deep. The ocean. I want no part of it. The ocean is a scary place, but it's also, it's such a beautiful, great place and I have

memories of, and it sucks that the East Coast now has a lot more, in the summertime, they have a lot more great whites, which is terrifying. All those deep water memories, Mitch. Those deep water. You and the deep water. As a boy, going to sandbars and running around and getting covered in seaweed, it was a great, it was a great time. In the summertime being down Cape Cod, it was a great time in my life.

I really look back on it and every time I visit there, it's just, there's so much nostalgia that floods into me and I really love it, but I also remember being on a boat with my dad when I was younger and us pulling up lobster traps. I think we were probably with his friend or whatever and we would pull up lobster traps and stuff. Yeah. It's expensive to get a trap now. Yeah.

I think that, because you have to permits, I think it's over like $500. Oh, interesting. That's what I heard. Yeah, to get traps and stuff. Even though, like in the 90s, I guess the lobster population was low in the New England area, but now it's back up. It's booming. It's booming industry.

I remember when I was, because Quincy is right on the water and my dad used to like, my dad when he was younger would like run, like just take a boat out and go all along to like the islands and Massachusetts just as like a teenager. He would just like go to all these islands and like would explore the islands, which sounds insane. Yeah. Like if anything like, like that can't happen anymore, but this is, you know, like this is like the 50s and 60s or whatever, but I remember like being out on a boat and like we would

meet up with like other boats, like my dad's friends and we would just like, they would like anchor like at a certain point, like in the water and like all the boats would be around and then people would just be like, they'd make a circle and people would be swimming in the circle, like in the middle of, you know, like not far out, but like we couldn't see land or whatever. You know what I mean? And like, you would just be swimming in the water and I was like, I was swimming in like the deep ocean.

What the fuck? It's really weird. It's fucking terrifying. I would never do that as an, that's insane. I would never do that as an adult. I always makes me think of like party boats when I think that's, so it feels like a party boat thing, which is a thing I've never been on and I never will be on a party boat, but I've been like in Boy Scouts, it was like family family thing, but it's like, it has

that as the idea of a boat being like anchored in the sea and then just people like having a good time to me that makes me think of a party boat. But I always remember that being a phenomenon when we go to like in Boy Scouts, we go to like Lake Havasu, it's like in Arizona, we go to the Colorado River and do canoeing trips down the Colorado River. Yeah. Give me a river or like, I'll do that shit all day long. Right.

But then there'd be like, there are just like bikini girls and like hunks just like on boats just like getting drunk and just like having a great time and like me and my- My mom and dad? No. My mom and dad. But that would be happening at the same time that like my Boy Scout troop would be like paddling down the river. It was just like a very weird thing, these two things coexisting.

I remember one trip down the Colorado River, there was a rumor like what, like a rumor started circulating throughout the troop that got passed from boat to boat that there was a boat with topless women and you could, like if you saw it like- Maybe someone just saw you sure. Yeah. I was a heavy kid. All right. So let's talk about Red Lobster a little bit.

So as someone with a lot of lobster experience, you like Mitch is someone who's come from that sort of world of New England seafood. But you too, like Mitch was last week, you were a neophyte to Red Lobster itself. And so like what was your perception going into Red Lobster and what was your experience going in there for the first time today? Well I think as a kid, you know going to Maine every summer and having like these two, three pound lobsters, it was like, oh this is great, this is what we're gonna do. And it just didn't register, I lived in a landlocked state, I lived in Illinois even

though it was like Michigan, you still can't get great seafood from it. I just didn't have a reason to go. Right. I just didn't have, there's plenty of options for like homecoming dances, dinners, we wouldn't go there. And just, it was on my radar because there was like three in the town I grew up in. But I just thought it was, I just, it was kind of like, I was like poo-pooing it all the time.

Yeah. Like oh, it was just like, oh you want to have a bad time, go to Red Lobster. You want like bad seafood, go to Red Lobster. But that's like such the joke of it forever, which I was saying last week, I don't think that that joke actually, being out of the second time, I'm like, oh I don't think the joke was accurate. Like Olive Garden I get, Red Lobster, it doesn't really check out. But go ahead Russ.

It's coastal snobbery I think. Yeah, I think it was, the people, the people making those jokes, I don't think went to Red Lobster. Right. I think it was just an assumption. I think like Olive Garden jokes, 80% of those people that are making Olive Garden jokes have never even walked in one. But I feel like the Red Lobster just were like Letterman.

Letterman perpetuated all, he's the blame. We should blame Letterman for all this. I think there's probably some, I mean probably some of that came from these New York City or LA comedy rooms where they were, it was just like the consensus of these elitist comedy writers that that was something that you looked down upon and so that ended up coming out of the mouths of talk show hosts or sitcom characters. That seems very plausible to me. I think there's just sort of a general condescension towards middle America from the coast and

I think that gets amplified in cities like LA and New York where it's like a little bit more of an urban and certainly in the TV industry, in the film industry a little bit more of a wealth concentrated population. If I see Leno driving around sometimes, next time I see him, I had to confront him about all this. He threw a bunch of shrimp scapey at him. Was he ever making Red Lobster jokes? I don't know if that was a Leno thing.

I think he was more taking it to Jujito. Who is Arby's? Arby's is John Stewart. Oh, Arby's was, Seinfeld made some Arby's jokes and there was some Simpson's jokes on Arby's. And Daily Show? Yes. Daily Show also with John Stewart.

Kind of went hard after Arby's. Real hard. Yeah. And Arby's is fine. Great time there. Yeah, it's fine. Yeah, it's fine. I was pleasantly surprised with Red Lobster, I'll say that, from being, I don't know, just

very, yeah, just a wealth of riches. Right. What's the phrase? Is it a wealth of riches? I was going to say wealth of riches. That sounds like a phrase. Is that a phrase? Yeah.

I'm just going to Maine and having, I was saying the lobster pounds, you'd go in there and be like a quarter mile tank and you'd be like, yep, I'll take that one. And then they go in the pot and then they give it right to you. That's crazy. Yeah, it's wild. Yeah, and there's a tank at the Red Lobster and it is kind of a fixture of their restaurants in the lobby, but it's a comparatively meter length tank and it's not, it's a little bit of a sad tank.

Yeah, it's a sad tank. And it's open. Right. It's like open and it's right at like a perfect child's head height and so, yeah, it's a wealth of riches. It's for kids to look at. It was a sad, it was definitely a sad tank. You know, I had a fish tank when I was younger and well, we had one in the basement, there

was a big one, like not a big one, but like kind of a decent sized one, not huge. And then I had one in my room and it was a computer, it was like a computer monitor. Oh, I've seen that before. But inside, it was all the fish were swimming around inside and they died very quickly. This is a reality show about that, like these extreme tanks. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Are you gonna do it? Are you gonna do that? You want an extreme tank? As a boy, like a big, like when I was younger, I like drew up plans for like my ideal room and like one of the things, well, I can relax, one of the things I want to do is put a fish tank in my window. So when you're looking inside, outside, like... Oh, interesting.

Yeah. You know, I was a boy, I didn't realize that like... You could fry those fish. The fish would die. They'd be cooked. One. Right. Two, or they would freeze.

Right. Three, like that's like a shit ton of work. Right. Like I was like, oh yeah, just put the fish tank in the window or whatever, I thought that would be cool. And I also wanted like a bed that was like half in a closet and had like hippie beads covering it. So you'd go like a...

Like a kind of a Murphy bed, but like half out of the wall. Half out of the wall, but then also there were like would be bean, like a... I know what you mean, those beads that you put in the door. Those beads that you put in the door, yeah. So the beads were laying down, the beads would hit you in the stomach? No, no, no, the beads would like be like, it would be the entrance to the bed and then you're in the bed. Like a little cave kind of.

Secret. Which is... Secret bed. Yeah. It was probably just my idea to be like, ooh, I can really masturbate in here without anyone knowing. Right. Speaking of which...

How do you get a thicker door? My best friends growing up, Justin and my mom's friend, all these people are listening to this podcast now. They're all starting to listen to this podcast. Oh no. And it's bad news. I talk about the first time I masturbated and my dad walked in, I talk about how I came on myself.

Like now these people are listening to this podcast. Well, that was like an older episode. Yeah, no shit. That means they're going to listen to it soon, I'm saying. They're going to listen to it again. They're starting to listen to it again. They're working their way through the fucking podcast. Oh, I thought you were saying they joined up now and so you were just reminding them

of this anecdote. No, I'm not reminding them of any of this. So they're going to listen to the whole catalog. They're going to have this horrifying anecdote that you're going to tell and then they're going to listen to like 40 more hours and then they're going to get to this current episode. They're going to be reminded of when they heard that for the first time. Welcome back. Throw up all over again.

All these family friends. I can't, we have to start deleting our podcast. We got to start deleting the podcast. I'm fine with that. All right, good. We can wrap it up. Dustin, can we delete all the podcasts? He's gone, I think.

I think he left. I think he's done with the show. So we're in Red Lobster. You know what? Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back with more thoughts on Red Lobster. Welcome back to Doughboys. We're sitting here with Ross talking about Red Lobster.

So, Ross, we're in there. We've got the Sadfish tank, the Sad Lobster tank. You and I are there before bitches there and we're seated and we know that. We're there for about 30 minutes and our server, Max, they felt was very accommodating. Great guy. Great guy. He was probably, what do you guess, 20, 21? Young man.

Yeah, young guy. Maybe even a teenager. It might have been a teenager. I think he might have been Russian somewhere from Eastern. Yeah, I think English wasn't his first language, but accommodating. I was always checking in on us. He suggested the appetizer that we had. We were going to go with Shrimp Cocktail.

Yeah, I'm a big Shrimp Cocktail guy. He was very on top of stuff this guy. Do you think that, what do you think he wants to do after Red Lobster? My idea is that he wants to eventually become a diehard villain sometime. He was very much a sleeve tattoo, probably a DJ. He was very much like a very nice diehard villain. He was a nice version of a diehard villain in my mind. I think he'd be like the hacker in the crew.

I don't think he'd be the guy in charge of things. Or like the naive driver. Yeah. That knows it's wrong, but not going to say anything. Right. He wasn't being too nice to him. He was a nice guy. He was a nice guy.

But maybe he has a dark side. Who knows? We all do. But yeah, we asked for the signature Shrimp Cocktail and then he steered us toward for just a few dollars more, he upsold us, but I think helped us out in the process of upselling the Seaside Sampler, which was an appetizer platter. We got with Seafood Stuffed Mushrooms, Parrot Isle Jumbo Coconut Shrimp, which came with a pina colada sauce, and Signature Shrimp Cocktail, which I mentioned already.

So yeah, you got three different apps, one with the cold chilled shrimp, one with the deep fried coconut shrimp, and then the mushrooms, which are a little bit more complicated and exotic. Ross, what did you think of that Seafood Sampler? Overall the cocktail, shrimp was great. The coconut shrimp, surprisingly, was way sweeter. That was probably maybe the sweetest I've had. I think, what was it, it was that, I want to call it Paradise Mayonnaise, what is it

called? Pina Colada Sauce, but Paradise Mayonnaise kind of gets the point across. That works as well, yeah. It was like a pineapple mayo. Yeah, I had a big chunk of pineapple, my first bite of coconut shrimp, and that was great. And then, it was a little skeptical, probably like you, Nick, of the, and you, Mike being sick, eating that cheesy, it was almost like breadcrumbs and crab meat, and then melted cheese on top, and that was good.

Overall, overall, I think it was a good starter, and I think it was a great suggestion. Yeah. I think he knew what we were trying to do, and he was like, if you guys want to get an array of this, let's do it. I'm glad we got it, and it, Mitch, it had been there probably at the table for about 10 minutes, I think, when you ultimately arrived, so I don't think you were, you, it got down to a redact. It was still pretty warm.

It was still pretty warm. I was surprised, I thought I'd only just gotten out, actually. Yeah, and the, I'm a big shrimp cocktail guy. My favorite shrimp cocktail is at Bandera, which is one of the Hillstone restaurants, it's their steakhouse concept. Love Bandera. Fantastic shrimp cocktail there. So, so good.

They have a, they have a good shrimp cocktail here. It's very solid, absolutely delivers the red lobster. Good cocktail sauce. Shrimp is ice cold, which, you know, it's on a plate with two other hot items, and it's kind of, it's nice that they were able to keep that temperature. It's so great. I can serve it in a cup with ice in it. Cup of shaved ice, which is really great.

Yeah, shaved ice, which is key. Yeah. It could give us cubes, it would melt quick, and then you're having, you know, wet, wet shrimp. And a glass of water on your, well, under your shrimp is very strange. Yeah. I like those larger shrimps that you can dunk, you can get all the sauce on, and then just like you can take them out in one bite.

It's like, it's, it's like a, kind of almost like having sashimi. It's really nice. And then the, the mushrooms, not for me, I mean, I think it was fine, but just like hot seafood and cheese, just always to me, I tune them out, I can kind of take it, but basically any other version of it, it just makes me a little nauseated. It tastes a little putrid. You're going to stop talking about those. I'm going to fucking throw up.

Well, you just looking at it, look, you look more nauseated when you saw it. Yeah. That was, that was when I was the most scared of, but it was actually not bad. It's not bad. But I just, I was not, even the shrimp cocktail, the idea of taking that down was, was rough, but I thought the cocktail sauce was actually pretty tasty. Yeah, good sauce. And then I, I did like, it's that weird thing of I did like the coconut shrimp the most,

but was also kind of like, oh, it's too, like also weirdly a little bit under, I thought I was going to like it more. Yeah. I was overwhelmed. I just thought I was going to like it more. It was more like a, go on. I just, I loved the last week, I forget what it's called, but the fillet shrimp that was deep fried, like someone's shrimp.

It's like Paul's shrimp or something else. Walt's favorite. Walt's favorite. Yeah. Walt's favorite. And so I really enjoyed that. So I was like, oh, the coconut shrimp. I'll really enjoy it.

I actually liked the dipping sauce. I liked that peanut colada sauce, which I didn't think was going to work, but I was just like a little bit underwhelmed with it, but also probably the, the, the one I wanted to eat the more for the state I was in. Yeah. It was a good fry to it. It had a nice crisp, crispness to it, but the, for me, it was that the coconut was overpowering to, it was almost like a macaroon.

Is it macaroon or macaroon? Which one's the coconut one? Macaroon. Macaroon. It's almost like a macaroon. It's, it's when coconut gets like too chew, like when you're like, oh, I'm really chewing through this coconut. Right.

That I think that coconuts no good. I like the taste of coconut, but if you're like really chewing through those fucking little pieces of coconut, which you were, it's, it's not good. You want that balance too of coconut and shrimp. And I felt like it was more coconut than shrimp. It felt like for the kids a little bit, which, which is nice that Red Lobster has stuff for the kids, but this was one that I think if you have an adult palate, it might just be a little bit too much.

Why, why do coconut and shrimp go together? That's a good question. I don't know. This is an island thing. How there's coconuts in the trees and then there's shrimp in the seas. Yeah. Right. That's probably it.

I think you nailed it. I think you nailed it. Yeah. I think you nailed it. I'm a genius. I got someone to test this guy's brain. I got, I got a steered away from the popcorn shrimp, which I feel like is also kind of a, sorry, popcorn shrimp.

You can say popcorn shrimp. You're fine. Everyone makes fun of me. Fuck everybody. People are going to make fun of you regardless. It's my fucking birthday. It's not still your birthday. It was your birthday two days ago.

It's my birthday month. Leave it alone. It's my birthday month. Leave me alone. You had consecutive birthday events. You got hungover at the second birthday event the day after your birthday. Yeah. That was just yesterday.

I went to this party animal at both birthday events. Man. It goes and goes. I just ate pizza at the first birthday event, which I, and we saw Deepwater. Horizon. How was Deepwater Horizon? I skipped out. I was too tired.

You know, it's funny because we're, we're, we're, yeah, it's, it's, it, it, it, I feel like he's kind of been a largely miss with his movies, Berg. But Deepwater Horizon was pretty, it was a pretty, pretty decent. You refer to Mark Wahlberg as Berg? No, Peter Berg. Oh, Peter Berg. Okay. But also.

I thought you were, I thought you were just calling him Berg. No, no, no. Berg is never Berg, Berg, Wahlberg, who also I will call Berg from here on out. He's never miss. Yeah. He's always got the hits, baby. Yeah. Literally, he punches people who don't deserve it.

But it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it wasn't a great movie, but it was like, it kept my attention, it was a nice little, it was like, it was like a weird hit, like, it's this weird like docu-drama action, like, it's also like an action movie. Right. But you know, a lot of shots under the sea where these little shrimpies are, you know, these oil rigs that, these oil rigs, those shrimps are swimming around those things all day long. Who knows?

Yeah, they're soaking up that oil. Yeah. No shrimp. No, you didn't get, you didn't get to really see any, any sea creatures in the movie, which I think would have been nice. It would have been nice to see a whale or sea, no, actually you didn't, not a sea creature, but that pelican, which I thought was a little heavy-handed. Yeah.

The pelican that was covered in oil, that gets in the boat and is flapping everywhere. I don't want to give away. But that's a real thing, though. The pelicans did get covered with oil, right? Yeah, but it's like, it's, it's, it's done, it's strange. I wonder if that really did happen if a pelican got in the, in the boat. I'll look it up. I'll let you know.

Yeah. I don't think it, I don't think it did, though. Yeah. It was interesting. Not a bad movie. Uh, maybe a little sad for a movie to see on a birthday. I was going to say, after pizza and beer and giggling, I think you'd want to see something fun.

Like Sully. You want to see something fun. Master, you should have seen your movie that you're in. Oh yeah. My movie. You should have seen my movie. We should have seen Sully. Sully's a great guy.

He saved the plane. We should have done that. God bless him. So, wait, where were we? We're in the meal. We were talking to appetizers. Yeah. Ended on coconut shrimp.

Ended on coconut shrimp. Let's, let's, let's step back and talk libations for one second. Mitch, you just got a Coca-Cola. How was that fountain Coke? The fountain Coke was, oh, actually it wasn't my top fountain Coke. It was okay. It was a little syrupy. Here's the deal.

I was feeling sick. Um, and people on mine made fun of me. If I'm feeling nauseous or like my stomach is hurting, a Coca-Cola, and you guys kind of agree with me. A Coca-Cola is, is, for me is kind of a, is, is helpful. It settles my stomach a little bit. Yeah, I agree with you. Makes me feel better.

Um, but, but it brings me to the question, um, I'm gonna use a wiser term, a wiger term. Um, not wiser term, Jesus. It could be a wiser term. No, it's not a wiser term. It's wiger. It's probably wiser. Ah, Jesus. Is that your little tagline now?

It is now, yeah. I used to go with, uh, sir, do you have any nickels? Uh, and, oh, I'd have someone else ask me, do you have any nickels? And then I'd reply, no, I'm Nicholas. Oh my God. That was my big, I told, I told that on the podcast before. That was my icebreaker joke in elementary school. How has no one beaten you to death?

That's a tough icebreaker because you have to set them up. Yeah, I told them what to do. It was very awkward. I would call that an ice melter. Um, we, we, and, and, and, and some people all night are, you know, they, they, they, they make fun of me for the Coke thing and, and, so I'm thinking to use the case of the rumblies, the disgusting thing you say all the time, I want to know what your rumbly remedies are.

Hashtag rumbly remedies. Oh yeah. That's a good, that's a good one to ask. Yeah. What do you, what about you guys? What, what's your rumbly remedies? Well, I'll say that, that on the Coke front, for me, it was never Coca-Cola, but my mom was a nurse for many years and the thing that she would have me do is have some ginger ale

or some Sprite, some, a clear, a carbonated liquid and that seemed to help. Do you know what's, you know, this is also pretty good when you're sick, a Boston cooler, which is actually, I think created in Detroit, which is ginger ale with a little scoop of vanilla ice cream in there. Oh, that sounds good. Oh, that sounds great. Boston cooler. Oh man, if you never had one.

That sounds great. That sounds really good, actually. Same boat, Nick. Yeah. Ginger ale, anything clear. Now, since I've, you know, so LA, aloe vera water. Oh. Can I?

Oh, interesting. It kind of calms the stomach a little bit. Interestingly, I don't get a lot of stomach stuff, but if I do, if I wake up and I do get the remedies, not going to apologize, Mike, it is aloe vera water. Yeah, it's good. It's good stuff. I'll do a Gatorade too. A Gatorade, yeah.

Like some sort of, yeah, sports drink can be good. Gatorade does seem to help quite a bit. Yeah. That's something I found as I got, as I reached adulthood, I found myself reaching for the Gatorade a little bit more. Also, like, I was kind of going to catch all hangover thing. Yes. Oh yeah, I think we've talked about that on here before.

Gatorade, great hangover cure. Bread lobster, not as much a great hangover cure. Real quick, this is an interesting thing, Gatorade. What color? Oh. From the originals. Not like Berry Blast or anything like that, but from the originals. Oh, from the original lineup.

Yeah. Oh, shit. I'd go orange if I have to settle my stomach, red if I'm drinking for pleasure. Forever for me, Fruit Punch Gatorade was my go-to. I like fierce, I've sat on the podcast before, fierce strawberry, I really love. What would you say is the classic trio, the lemon lime, the orange and the fruit punch? Yeah. That's the original three.

I love them all. It's funny because lemon lime, I don't reach for a hungover or something, but it's such a classic, it could be really great to go back to. If I'm really thirsty or if I've played sports or I'm sweating or working out, it's lemon lime. Right. But for like, I'm jumping in my car and going, it's orange. Yeah.

And I would sometimes, if we're going beyond the holy trinity of original Gatorade flavors, I would probably throw out. You're gonna throw a frost in there? I would throw a frost. Yeah. I like the frost. For sure. The light blue frost is pretty good.

Purple frost for me. You know what sucks is the G2, the Gatorade with half sugar? Yeah. It's just so, like, there's something about like removing the sugar and putting in that artificial sweetener. Like Diet Coke, it works or Coke Zero, it works for whatever reason, but with a Gatorade it just completely falls flat. It really tastes chemically.

Tastes awful. Yeah. And you can do it at home. Yeah. Just pour out half and then put half water so you can dilute it. It still tastes pretty good, especially if you're just thirsty. For us, as a guy who works, or a sports guy, was there anything back in the day for me playing soccer or even like, whenever there was like, they got us like the lemon lime

Gatorade. Oh, what a treat. I think I liked it better than any of the sports I played. But a big thing, playing soccer, those orange slices, I don't think I've ever had a better slice, like I've never enjoyed a slice of orange more than I have like as a boy on the soccer, like coming off a soccer field and being like, here's a slice of orange and eating it and being like, this is fucking, which is also very funny, like as a kid to be like eating oranges during the game.

Right. That was just a common thing, right? That's what you do, right? Yeah. I think, yeah, I remember the orange slices, I played volleyball in high school and I played year round and I did a lot and made no sense. But after every match, we'd have like, I'd have like six cookies. There was a mom on the team.

Oh, yeah. She didn't play on the team. She was the mom of the player. But she... Oh, man. I wish the mom was on the team. That was a great team. And she would bring like at least 50 cookies and just like put them out on the ground

and we'd have... It made no sense, like it was looking back that was really... No plate, just straight on the ground. Yeah. Just like scatter them on the ground with the crawl on the ground and cut the cookies. I didn't play sports, but I was in marching band and the first time I ever had Spam Musubi, a friend's mom brought it. Toby Cho's mom brought Spam Musubi and I was like, this is a very interesting exotic dish

and I didn't realize it was like a... I thought it was like her own creation, but it's like a very traditional Hawaiian dish. Any good marching band stories? Let's see. We had... Well, one time I left our marching band camp a week early because I had to get to a second band camp. You went to band camp like American Pie?

I went to two band camp. I went to a sexless version of the American Pie band camp. No, we played a lot of the Star Wars RPG. It was a lot of fun. That's cool. It's really funny in the American Pie movies that like, oh, at the end of the first one, it's very funny that this band camp is really horny and they all fuck each other. But then like expanding to it and being like, the band camp movies where it's crazy and

everybody fucks. I'm like, this doesn't track to me anymore. You can't push the joke into two movies where, I don't know, I never went to band camp. They made so many American Pie movies, the sprawling mythos, it deserves its own podcast because there's so many. Eugene Levy is in every American Pie and then also there's like all of Stiffler's cousins just start being characters. So the three line is Eugene Levy plus like Dave Stiffler, who's a Steve Stiffler's second

cousin. And there's a movie, I was reading about one of these recently, but there's a movie, I think it's American Pie presents the Book of Love, where the premise of the movie is that the kids in the American Pie, the three leads, find a book that Eugene Levy's character wrote in the 70s about how to lose your virginity and then follow the book in terms of like how to, they follow his Book of Love in terms of how to get their rocks off. Is the book real? Yeah, it is real.

Mitch, why are you on Amazon right now? It's so, but it's like such a complicated plot to like it's so abstract to this point where we've got like Steve Stiffler's cousin named Lube has found a book that he's looking through with his, that was written by Eugene Levy's character and then it like recounts events that are parallel. Does Levy make an appearance in it? What's that? Does he make an appearance in it?

Levy's in all these movies. He's in every single one of them. Did they find this in a library? I might have seen this. I think they did find it in a library. Okay, I watched maybe 10 minutes of it. Right. Yeah.

I just, I've decided at some point I'm just going to start saying I was in one of those movies because no one would ever call me out on it. You should put it on your resume. The resume that actors and writers give people, I guess. I don't mean to, I don't mean to make fun of, there could be a lot of fucking going around. I think there is. I think there's a good amount. I just had no part of it.

Part of it is there's like a two mile radius like circle around me where wherever I'm going there's no fucking. Right. Within the two mile radius circle of me for my entire life. So I think that's, I think that's a part of it. So let's get back to the Red Lobster. So we were talking about, we talked about your Coke, we went on this tangent. You got yourself, Ross, you got yourself a Long Island iced tea.

Yeah, it was called like Top Shelf or the High Decker because they put the lemonade in and then the iced tea and then the booze. Mine was very booze. It was pretty potent. I had a taste. Nick had a little sip. It was great. I was in the mood.

I was looking at the Bahama Mama. You guys were talking about that last week. Right. But I was just in the mood for just maybe just an all-in-the-palmer with a little booze in it, you know? Yeah. The Long Islands can always be dangerous, but I mean I think that's kind of the goal of it is that it's something that can get you pretty fucked up.

I got the Malibu Hurricane, which was coconut rum, fruit juices, and a splash of Southern comfort. A real fun tropical drink, garnished with an orange wedge and a maraschino cherry. Yeah, sweet, but not too sweet. I think like if you're in the mood for a tropical cocktail, that one would really hit the spot. I mean, it really comes, it's interesting that so much of their cocktail menu is tropical because that's not what I think of when I think of that sort of New England seafood lifestyle.

It's not tropical drinks as much, but maybe you guys would know better than me. I guess Cape Cod, you can have a couple tropical drinks, but yeah, maybe not as like the South or like Island-y or something like that. Right, but it's almost got a tiki concept to the cocktail menu, which is interesting. I would say like for me, my association with it, having never been there, is like it's more of a beer and wine territory. More beer and wine, but then also like there's like vodka and orange juice and cranberry juice or something.

Have like a Cape Cod. Like a Cape Cod or like a gin and tonic, a lot of gin and tonics and stuff like that. Well maybe that's sort of, maybe those flavors just don't translate as well to America's at large. Well, and I think too, people are going to the Red Lobster, they think seafood, they think beach. Right, right. I'm just going to, you know, and I think it was smart with the Red Lobster being like,

not they're going to cave in, but they're just being like, all right, well you guys are thinking this, we'll just give them these tropical drinks because they're getting seafood and keep that. Yeah, that's always the calculation I feel like in the chain restaurant industry is like, okay, at what points do we want to deviate from authenticity for the sake of making things accessible? And I think they walk that line pretty well. So let's get into our mains.

So Ross, we'll start with you. What did you have as your main dish? I had the trio that Wood Plank Salmon, the lobster, and then the shrimps on the skewer with rice and asparagus, and I forget the name of it, but that's what I had. It was like the trio, the Wood Plank Salmon Lobster Shrimp. It was great. A lot smaller than I thought. Interesting.

A lot smaller. Salmon was a good size. I think the lobster, what I'm used to is like, it's almost like a lobster tail as big as my forearm. Right. You know? Well, you're a big dude. Yeah.

Well, so they're huge. Yeah. And so that came out and the shrimp was good, the rice was good, and the asparagus was, you know, surprisingly really good. It was just simple. They put a little lemon juice on it. I was, I thought, I think I'll give a, I'll give Ross a new thing here on Doughboys. Best Order of the Bunch.

Oh. You don't think so? No, I think that's fair. Yeah. Wait, is there a better, I guess there's probably a better term then, huh? Oh, Best Order of the Bunch, I think it's probably hard to beat that. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't have a catchy name to it.

It's literally just the Best Order of the Bunch. Yeah. But it's very clear. Yeah. Which is what's in there. Oh, there we go. Best Order of the B.O.B. Best Order of the Bunch.

Yeah, so I had, oh, thank you so much. It's an honor. And it would actually be boob, right? It actually should be boob. Boob. Boob. Boob. Boob.

All right, Boob. Best Order of the Bunch. Great. So yeah, it was good. I realized, it was really oily though. And I realized, this is why a lot of, I don't have a lot of, I worked in a few restaurants, but I think this is why they do this for like oil-based foods. They put the rice underneath it or like a starch underneath it to soak it up.

Yeah, that makes sense. Because otherwise it would just be all over your plate. Right. So they put some mashed potatoes underneath it. And maybe they caught this stuff near the Deepwater Horizon. Okay. Topical. Don't get political here, Mitch.

And it was good. The same was okay. Out of all of it, I was a little disappointed in the lobster. Was it just the size or was it also the texture of the taste? The taste was fine. It was just the amount of lobster meat. Interesting. It was...

Yeah, you didn't get a lot. No, I forget. It's not main lobster. It's not, I want to call it, it's the cow. The Lingostino Lobster? Yeah, it was the Lingostino Lobster. So it was smaller. Right.

Just, I mean, maybe I had about three bites of lobster meat, which I'm just not used to. So I was like, oh, I wish I had a little more. Yeah, that's good. I mean, I guess you are, when you're getting that combo, it's a pretty good value. Absolutely. Because I think that was under 20 bucks, right? How much was that?

It was like, yeah, it was a little over. It was a little over, but... It was like 28, but you're getting five pieces of solid shrimp and then a great piece of salmon and then that lobster tail. Yeah, but it seems like if you are really craving the lobster, maybe stay away from the sampler and just focus your order on that ordering a whole live lobster or lobster tail. I did get a soup though, so that filled me up a little bit.

Okay, so here's the thing. Here we go. You did something bananas with your soup order. You guys got real quiet after I ordered the soup. We got weirded out. We're just confused. I almost left. We didn't know how to deal with it.

You were looking at your phone, jangling your keys. Tell us what you asked our waiter to do. Okay, so before I get into that, the people that know me well know every time I go to a restaurant, I'm the soup guy. I'm always asking what's the soup today, even if I don't get it, I just want to know. And I saw the bisque, lobster bisque, and the chowder on there. I love both. And there was a restaurant I went to a long time ago in Chicago, and they were running

low on, I think it was chowder, but they had enough bisque. And I was like, well, can you just do a little mix? And the server at that time was like, yeah, actually, I kind of liked that. So if you want to give it a try, and if you don't like it, it's free. Okay, great. I'll give it a try. So it's a bisque. You pour the bisque first, and this is the important part.

You pour the bisque first, you get a nice base, and then right in the middle, you do a little dollop of chowder, and it presents to me. And the mixture of just, it's almost like a tomato, it's like tomato base with a little chowder, and it's almost like mixing. If you ever had like, at Olive Garden, I mixed my marinara and my Alfredo together. I do not do that. Okay. Anyway, I'm a mixer.

I mix. Turns out I do almost like a New York clam chowder. Almost, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Like a seafood soup and a lot of like, yeah, yeah, it's not that crazy. Yeah, it's a little malkers, but I did it anyway. So it came, so this time I read lobster, both these things were different than what I expected. The lobster bisque, you got the chowder right now.

I got the clam chowder. Yeah, so the bisque way thicker. Way thicker than I expected. Right, it looks pretty thick. Real thick. It was, it almost needed like, if you had that tomato. It looked like yams. Yeah.

It looked like yams. Lash yams. Yeah. And it was good. It was just the texture was a little off, but I'm one of those guys, I mean, from a young age I was just told to finish what's in front of you, so I just finished it and it was okay. It was okay. I've had better.

Yeah. But that's what I do. Right. Like for mixtures. And I do that with, what do I do that with? If they have like an Italian wedding soup and a chicken noodle soup, I'll ask to get those mixed together. Yeah.

I'm a soup guy though. I'll just, I don't know. Those things. Those things. By the way. I want to hear some more. We've talked about this a little bit, but hit us up with some of your franken foods again. Yeah.

I guess hashtag franken foods, but this seems almost different than just like kind of franken foods. Yeah. If you like to combine soups, hit us up with a hashtag, two soups, one cup. And if you think Ross here is a real sicko. Just hashtag. Ross is a sicko. Yeah.

Hashtag Ross is a sicko. What are you going to say? Solo soup? I was going to say solo bolo. Oh, solo bolo. I think Ross is a sicko. I think Ross is a sicko. We'll stick with that one.

I hate solo bolo. It's like a franken food for me. I'm sorry to interrupt, but mac and cheese, cut up hot dogs, and a little bit of ketchup is stirred in. Yeah. That's fine. That's a totally reasonable thing. The ketchup, maybe, even though I went to bat for ketchup last episode, I don't know

if... It has a little sweet kick to it. I would not do that, but it's like ketchup with grilled cheese. It's like a reasonable thing to do. We'd make gut bombs in college. So as mac and cheese stuffing and hot dogs, and we mix it together, you wouldn't be able to fall asleep. That's insane.

Ross, what are you eating? Christ. This explains why you're the size of a Game of Thrones giant. All right, so I got the fresh fish platter, and I got the Pacific Snapper. I got it blackened, and I got it with the baked potato and the fresh seasonal asparagus. Real good baked potato. I like a little bit more fixins. I'm someone who leans towards giving me a little bit more sour cream.

There was just a little dollop of sour cream, but it was loaded up with sour cream and cheese and butter. It was really yummy. One thing I appreciated is they seasoned the skin of the potatoes. A lot of times, places won't do that, but there's a nice good amount of salt on the exterior, and that actually helps it quite a bit. Good baked potato. Asparagus, I thought was good.

I thought it was fine. I thought it was a totally serviceable asparagus. They give you a big old half lemon, which you can squeeze over your fish, and I also squeezed over my asparagus, and that gave it a little nice citrusy kick. That fish, I thought was quite nice. You took it down pretty well. I was about to say you hoovered that thing. I really did.

I really sucked it down, but it wasn't a huge portion of fish, but it was a nice portion of fish. Then the blackened, like a little bit of heat, a little bit of Cajun heat on that, which I wasn't expecting. I thought they might be a little bit conservative with it, but it was quite good. I thought if you're going to order off of the fresh fish menu, I think it'll accomplish what you're looking for in terms of fresh seafood, because I think a lot of times people go to Red Lobster and they lean towards the shellfish, they lean towards the fried foods.

You just want a nice fresh filet. Give that fresh fish menu a shot, because it was real tasty. Did they have specials of the day? They do. They vary there. So their fresh fish menu is an insert on the first page, and they'll vary it up every day. It'll vary based on market price and availability.

So yeah, I think there's a good case to be made for the fresh fish being one of the better things, the Red Lobster menu. What about you, Mitch? Well, today, I pretty much stayed shrimp all day, which the place is called Red Lobster, but I eat all this shrimp at this place, and the shrimp is pretty good, and it's starting to make me wonder if it should be called Pink Shrimpies. Say that one more time. Pink Shrimpies.

Yeah, let me do it. Sure. They want their business to fail, right? I think that their shrimp is so good that maybe this place should be called Pink Shrimpies. And so I got myself the wood-grilled tacos, and I got myself some shrimp in there. It doesn't have to be taco Tuesday for this fiesta, three soft golden tortillas stuffed with either lobster, fresh tilapia, shrimp or chicken, then topped with slaw, jalapeno ranch, house-made pico de gallo, and cilantro.

Here's my issue with this thing. And I got a side of fries, and actually, right now, Ross is eating the last taco, which I'm very happy about. He's taking a bite right now. I'll let you know. He keep talking. I wonder how it'll be called. Here's what I'll say my complaint was.

I thought the fries were very good, especially when they were fresh and hot. Not a lot of fries as a side. I maybe should have gone with another side because they tried to fit it on the same plate, and it just wasn't a lot of fries. And it was also a thing because I was hungover. I was going to that a lot. Yeah. I got the same dish last week except with the tilapia, and they didn't give a big portion

of rice. So I think just the side that comes with those tacos isn't very... That's just how it goes. It's tiny. Okay. And the fries got... They got cold pretty quick, and as they were getting colder, the fries were getting worse, which happens, but it happened just quicker than normal here.

Also I had a lime wedge. I put the lime on every one of them. The tacos are good. Ross has given a thumbs up, but here's what I think about the tacos here. Also, Ross is the only person to not really chew into the microphone. We should take a note from Ross's book. He should be a more professional, right? He's one of the reputations.

Here's the issue. I like them okay. Just not enough shrimp. Ross, how do you feel about that? I got three pieces of shrimp in here. I need four more. Yeah. That's how I felt too.

I can do a little less slaw. The cream sauce, though, is great. The cream sauce is pretty good. It's got a little kick to it. It's got a kick to it. With a shrimp warm at all? The shrimp were warm when I got them, but yeah, they're just not enough shrimp. I think they skimp on those tacos a little bit because it's on their lunch menu.

Yeah. I was a little bit disappointed because everything I felt was like there, you know, we're in LA, you can get some of the best tacos, best shrimp tacos, any sort of Mexican food you want. You can get the best version of it here. Right. It's weird to go out on a limb and try something like this at Red Lobster because you just know that there's a better version of that somewhere nearby.

Yeah. I mean, I guess with Red Lobster, there's probably a better version of a lot of the food, but last week I was genuinely impressed and this kind of left me feeling kind of like, eh. Also today, the Cheddar Bay Biscuits weren't as good as they were last week. They weren't as warm. I think that's absolutely. They were warm. They were cooked.

It was not as good. Yeah. I could see why people lose their minds over it though because they could tell. I could tell. Yeah. They're real good. I mean, I took down two without thinking. Yeah.

They're delicious. But yeah, they weren't as good as the ones I had last week in Monrovia or you had last week at the same location. Yeah. Same location. Oh, well. I'm going to just stay with this location. For the whole month.

For the whole month. I think you should. Find an apartment up there. Airbnb up there. Yeah. What a great, I should get an Airbnb. Maybe a Red Lops or Air Bees and Bees at its own restaurant. We'll see.

Yeah. Yeah. Today, not feeling great. Had a drive an hour. Very depressing. Food not as good. I don't know. We'll see what happens here in our final ratings.

All right. But I also want to make a little amendment. We were given forks out of four forks last week. How about we do this out of knuckles? No, not knuckles. I'm sorry. Scrimpies. We could do this one out of claws.

Oh, out of lobster claws. Out of lobster claws. Yeah. Like a half claw. Out of four. Yeah. Four claws. Okay.

Well, here's the thing. That we are, you and I, we're doing our ratings out of individual tines of a fork. So that we could have an ultimate, like, so what is the component we can break it down to if we're going to say, because we're going to take the tines of our fork from last week, the tines of our fork from this week, and then from the next two weeks, and then add it up into an ultimate fork rating. Well, we can't change last week's ratings. They have to remain as forks.

But this week, there'll be lobster claws, and you can get four lobster claws, and you can give a half lobster claw. But I'm saying, like, okay, our rating is normally zero out of five forks. So you're saying zero out of five lobster claws are normal. No. So it's going to be zero out of four lobster claws. For you and I. Ross is going to be zero out of five lobster claws.

Wait, wait. So the zero out of four lobster claws, the lobster claws will translate to tines of a fork in our case? No. It's going to be complicated. We're going to have to separate them. It's going to be complicated. Okay.

Here's what I think we do. I think that Ross does lobster claws because they're big. I think we do, like, shrimp pinchers because they're small. Why can't we do lobster claws? Let's do crawdad claws. Why? Or shrimp fins? What are shrimp fins?

Do you need them to be four of them or something? You need to break them. The whole point of the exercise is that we're giving us an individual review of the larger, like we're giving a small portion of the larger review. Yeah, and we're doing out of four lobster claws. God damn. Fine. We'll do it out of four lobster claws.

Okay. And then in the end it's going to be complicated. Wait, what am I doing? You're doing five lobster claws. You're doing five lobster claws. But here's the thing. Perfect. Yes.

In a few weeks it is going to be tough when we have to try to make the forks in lobster claws work together, but we'll figure something out. Okay. Yeah. Let's do it together. I'd like to see that. All right. So, Russ, give your closing argument and then give us your rating on the scale of one to

five lobster claws. We'll start with you. Okay. So first time at Red Lobster, I've had a lot of experience in New England with a lot of the seafood there. I've only heard of this place being okay or for like, if you're a freshman or sophomore and can't drive, you go here for your homecoming dinner and then have your parents pick you up.

Or you just don't get invited. Or you just don't get invited and you go there alone after everyone's gone to the dance. So I think going in, I was a little negative about it. I had like, as soon as I walked in and actually Nick, when we were talking, I realized I just have to be blank, like a blank slate. I can't go negative. So, food, this is going overall experience, right? Yeah.

Okay. So guys, it was okay. Like I said, the lobster should have been more, the bisque was a little thick. Our server was great. Max is great. He's going to be doing great things in the future, I feel like it. He actually tipped me off that I was waiting for you, Nick, I was there a few minutes early. There were three lobsters out in like a busboy bin and water with like a little salt in it

and like a little kid cup in it. I go, what are these doing here? And he's like, oh, they're dead. I go, what? I was just kidding. We raced them in a little bit. I was like, okay, Max, I like you, man, you're a good guy. And so I guess when you race them, you can bet on one, not money, but like you can bet

on one. If yours wins, you got free app, which is cool. The aesthetic was... Which is kind of funny. We talked about this. They race on the carpet, I guess, right? They race them on the carpet and then... Very strange.

Yeah. This must be just this individual location decision. I think so. I think they've got like a hip manager. Right. Yeah. No Red Lobster corporate people, all of a sudden. Let them do that.

But they're having fun over there. Yeah. They're having free apps. They're having fun. It was dark. It was really, really dark in there. It was really moody. It was dark in there.

Yeah. Overall... Oh, here we go. Three claws. Wow. Three claws. Not bad. Not a bad score at all.

Not a bad score. All right, go ahead, Mitch. You know, last time, I enjoyed myself. It was a nice first experience. Like I said, today, kind of depressing, kind of hung over, didn't like to drive, was very late, had a case of the rumblies. The gross thing Weigert says when he has the shits or whatever it is. It's more just a general stomach malaise.

I know. And I'm also not saying I had the shits. I'm just saying that's kind of what it equates to. You were struggling before you got in the booth here, though. I was in tough shape this morning, that's for sure. So overall, you know, I'm going in there, kind of not feeling great about the whole thing. And then the food today just didn't, it just, it wasn't as good as my last meal there.

It was not nearly as crowded. There was another birthday song that happened while we were in there. So so far, two for two, as far as hearing birthdays, some people singing happy birthday, which I thought was to me because as you know, it is my birthday. It's not still your birthday. Also, can I interrupt? Did you know age wise? Did you look and see what, I think it was, I think it was a younger kid, but I wasn't

sure. Last time was a younger kid? I'm not sure last time. Okay. I don't know. It was interesting to see who was like going there. I think adults and kids celebrate for their birthday. Could have been a last birthday.

Could have been a first birthday. Who knows? Hey, who knows? And so today, the food just wasn't as good Max, were you saying it's weird that that's the last birthday? You chose like a baby's first birthday or last birthday, like it's someone's last year. I guess no one knows when their last birthday is.

I'm pretty sure this was my last birthday. Stop talking like that. Anyway, not as good this time. You know what? I was going to give it two lobster claws out of four, but Max was really great. You know what? I'm going to give it two and one quarter lobster claws out of four. Nice.

Very respectable score. You can break it down into the quarters. What can that be? Four lobster legs. So you know what? A knuckle. What? Yeah.

A knuckle. Yeah. Four knuckles. Two and a quarter knuckles. So two and one knuckle lobster claws. Okay. All right. So four knuckles equals a claw.

I don't know what's happening anymore. Four knuckles equals a claw, you fool. Four knuckles equals a claw. Is that true? I don't know. It doesn't sound right at all. It's like quarts and gowns. It sounds anatomically specious.

All right. So I'm giving it, I'm saying out of lobster knuckles. Out of four claws, and if you want to break it down into the, then you, yeah, you can have a knuckle. So like say like two, two claws and one knuckle, you know, you can't say four knuckles because that's a claw. So two claws and one knuckle is two and a quarter claws. And this is out of the larger five fork score.

It's out of four claws. Okay. Yeah. All right. I'm completely, I completely understand what's happening. Great servicer, Max, he did a good job. I would also say our host who seated us was very gracious, very friendly, very accommodating the fact that it was a party of three with only two people present.

And we had a, I thought the truth. Should we be clear that it wasn't Max Headroom who was our, it was not Max Headroom, no. No Rebo. That was people's first assumptions was that it was, it was Max Headroom, Max Serebo or Max Von Siden. Or Weinberg. The band leader from Conan O'Brien. No, the, the service was great.

It was very good. I think, and this is one that you guys didn't touch on, but I will speak on your behalf. I feel like that booth was a little too cozy. Oh yes. I felt like we were a little cramped in there. And at Ross, I know this is probably a thing you run into a lot, but I saw you kind of scrunch your legs up, sort of sit sideways, it just looked like you weren't super comfortable in there.

I think after a while you just, you just accommodate. Right. You're like, oh, we're going to have a booth. It was a little tight. And thankfully, Mitch and I weren't sharing the same side. Yeah. There would have been, there would have been an issue with that for sure. But for a party of four, that was an unreasonably snug booth, right?

Yeah. I don't think, it's not a huge complaint, but it's something to be conscious of. And if that was like a special occasion, if I was, if I was like meeting another couple there and we're going to spend, have a nice long meal in that, as a party of four, I feel like I'd be a little bit compact. A family would have been, they were tight booths. It was a little snug. Where are some of your least favorite booth places?

Hashtag John Wilkes Booth. John Wilkes Booth. Hashtag John Wilkes Booth. Also on dates, are you guys same side or opposite sides on booth? Opposite sides. Oh, you got to go opposite sides. Okay, good. Better for the convo.

Glad we're not, I'm not with psychos. Okay, good. Now that's a, maybe, maybe in the snuggly phase of a relationship, you're same side. Same side is fucking wack. That's fucking awful. I see it all the time. Don't do it. If you're out there, don't do it.

I see it all the time. It's great. Here's the thing. The service was great. Atmosphere was a little dim, but it was, it's like a very nice, like the Monrovia location, like a nice interior. It's just like, it's like, well put together, they've refurbished things. They make it feel classy.

They make it feel like the amount, for the amount of money you're spending, you're getting your money's worth in terms of atmosphere, and I appreciate that. Again, I will say that that lobster tank up front is a relic of a different time. And I just, it feels, it just feels weird. It just feels strange to observe these, these pitiless like creatures who are just living out the final moments of their life obliviously in this very weird environment. It's very strange. But I made that poignant thought to you about how maybe we were just in one big lobster

tank, man. Makes you think. Really makes you think. Wish you whispered that to me. Got me thinking right now. I'm gonna be checked out for the rest of the podcast, think about that. The clam chowder, which Ross touched on, I had just like a regular vanilla bowl of it, vanilla in terms of, I didn't mix it with another soup, like a weirdo, not in terms

of it had some vanilla flavor. But it was, it was a little watery. It was a little watery. It was hot off, it was hot off the stove. Yeah, but a little thin and that was a little, a little distressing. I will say, I think it came late because they had to make a new batch. I think mine was like the last of it because mine was thick, like the stuff that you'd find at the bottom of the pan.

But this is the thing, like I, my entree came- I think neither of you really worked, it worked out in either of your favors. Neither of us was happy with the soup. For me, like it came after my entree arrived, so I was sitting there, the whole appetizer portion, like a soupless bitch. And like it was just, it was just annoying to have to deal with a delayed soup and then for it ultimately to be unsatisfying. And also like if you're going to bring a salad to the soup after the meal, I mean, I don't

know, I don't think it was- You don't even want it anymore. Yeah, by that point, it just, you just take it off of the bill. Now you're a soup filled bitch. Right, exactly. The fish I say was great. It was one of the better things I've ever had from a red lobster, really tasty, makes me want to revisit their fresh fish menu in the future.

Good baked potato, good asparagus, cheddar biscuits have been better. You know, it would be nice if they were a little bit more consistent there. But overall, a satisfying drink with satisfying service and food and beverages. I'm going to stick with the same ranking I gave it last week, which I believe is now going to be three claws and two knuckles. Oh wow. Yeah, I'm going to go on the high end of you guys. Solid.

Three claws and two knuckles from Nick Weiger. The robot got the same score out the second time. I will say it filled us up enough where we didn't want dessert. No, we were quite full. Yeah. All right. So that's our discussion of Red Lobster week two. It's now for the time for the return of a beloved segment.

I've got a slice of pie and Mitch and Ross must divine a series of clues to guess what it is. The winner keeps the pie. The loser goes home empty stomach. This is pie in this guy. Warrant's cherry pie is supposed to be playing right now. Okay. Here we go.

I didn't do a good job of queuing it. There we go. We'll cut all that run up out. Why not American pie? Oh, Don Henley's song. Oh wait, not Don Henley. Don. What's his name?

Yeah, Don McLean. Don McLean's song. Are we ever going to have the B 52s, some sort of version of the B 52s? I meant to throw it in last week and then I just said I'd throw it in and then I forgot. And then I think I'll say I'm going to do it again this week, but then I will again forget. We've got to get in. It's a classic weird song.

It's a great song. You know what? I read an interesting fact about Rock Lobster. It was the song that inspired John Lennon to come out of retirement. Oh my God. Is that crazy? Yeah, like he heard Rock Lobster and he's like, I got to start making music again. And then he came out of retirement and then like six months later-

Made like mind games and stuff? He's like, I got to top this. Yeah, yeah. He came out in whatever his album was in 1980, his last album was the Rock Lobster inspired album and then shortly after the rewards he was shot. Yeah, I think it was Mind Games era. Yeah, that's crazy. Oh, crazy.

All right. Here's how- That explains all the seafood songs on that album. Here's how buying this guy works. And the strippies. You guys are going to take turns getting increasingly more obvious clues. You have two lifelines, the smell test when you can smell the pie and phone a friend which you can call anyone in your address book and ask for help.

And Ross, you're a guest. You get to choose whether you go first or second. Which means you're going to win. The clues get increasingly easier, so the advantage of going first is that you will have more opportunities to guess, but the advantage of going second is that you will have an easier first clue. I will go second. Okay.

Ross, you're the first person to go second. Mitch, I believe in myself. I think I might win. Because I believe in myself, Mitch. I believe in myself. All right, Mitch, here we go. Here's some fucking insane clue that will make no sense. The first one is the most obscure.

What is this pie? That's the root of this problem. And I get to guess. You get to guess. What is this pie? That's the root of this problem. Ready? Yeah.

My guess is rhubarb pie. Rhubarb pie is not correct. That was gonna be mine, Mitch. I was on the same wavelength as you, man. Okay. I thought you had a pie. Fuck. Ross, let us give thanks for this tasty pie.

Let us give thanks for this tasty pie. I'm going back and forth in my head. I'm gonna say pumpkin pie. Pumpkin pie is not correct. Wow. Keep in mind you have two lifelines, smell test and phone a friend which you can invoke at any time. Okay.

Okay. Now I'm gonna win. You fucked up, Ross. I know. I messed up. Okay. All right, Mitch, here we go. This ingredient is sometimes used to make fries but is also topped with marshmallows

as a seasonal treat. Ross, you fucked up, my man. I'm not even gonna use my smell test. I'm gonna call, I'm gonna phone a friend so I can call my friend and say I just want a pie. All right, who are you calling? I'm not gonna really call. Call me, call me.

Actually, you know what? I'm gonna call Ross. Okay. All right, Mitch is dialing Ross. Ross is getting his phone. Hey, Siri. In another room. Call Ross.

Oh, fuck that shit. There we go. Mitch is fumbling with his phone as he does when he's playing a drop at the top of the show. This is a move, this is a real power move. I think we saw one of the first million-dollar winner on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire called his dad just to tell him on the lifeline that he had won the million dollars. Well, my dad's dead.

Thanks, Wenger. I didn't say, I apologize for being on that. Hello? Hello? Hey, Ross? Hey, Ross? Mike, what's up, man? Yeah, it's Mitch here.

What's going on? What's going on? No much, man. What's going on? It's a Spoo Man. Spoo Man. I got some news. I'm just about to win a pie.

Congrats, my man. Congrats, my man. The answer is sweet potato pie. Mitch, you have won pie in this guy for the first time ever. Congratulations. You have broken your winless streak. You get to walk home with this $3.99 value pie from the Ralph's Bakery. A whole pie?

It's an entire pie. Yeah. And you know what? In the spirit of giving, I'm going to give this pie to Ross. Wow. Because I'm a good man, a good Spoo Man. What a show of sportsmanship. Hold on, I need to get this frame wider so I get this picture of this historic transaction.

I'm going to step back for the microphone. Jesus Christ. Come on, Weiger. You're two big guys with long arms, and you're reaching it as a… We're also like three parts of three feet of ground. It's hard to frame. I had to step back to get it wide enough, and you're still at the edge of the frame. Update your fucking iPhone, bitch.

I have the… That'll widen it. I would have fixed it. What are you talking about? That'll widen it. Jesus Christ. We're not going to do that segment anymore because it's not satisfying if Mitch wins. You just have to go first, Ross.

I told you, you go first, you win. I need to pace out the clues better. Potatoes are root. Yeah. Of course, fucking dumb ass clues. I think they're good clues. Also, yeah, Ross, you're a dumb ass clue. Thank you.

All right, just like a restaurant, we value your feedback. Let's open up the feedback. Today's email comes to us from… You know what? Give me one second to find out who this email is from. I'll read the email, and then I'll look up who it was from because I forgot to write the name down. My apologies.

This email comes in and says, I worked at a Culver's, a popular burger chain in the Midwest and South for five years to pay for school. I saw my fair share of tricks customers would use to get extra better food and come back in after… For instance, a lady would order fries through the drive-thru and come back in after she got her food claiming she had ordered cheese curds. She'd get to keep the fries and the cheese curds for free, which are usually extra avoiding the upcharge by saying the restaurant had messed up her order.

She did this about once a week at different times of the day, so it was a while before anyone caught on. Even so, I don't regret this woman, the grift she pulled on a bunch of 17-year-olds for about half a year. Are there any tricks you do or have done to game chain restaurant menus? Any tricks or scams or flim flams you guys have pulled at a restaurant? Um, no. I don't like doing that, actually.

Yeah, I agree. I like to be more honest. Upstanding citizens. I have, like, when there's something that's been wrong in an order, I have complained and then reaped the benefit of them being like, this is on the house or something like that. But I don't think I've ever intentionally tried to be like trying to get more food. I'm kind of a dork like that. I know some people will get like, I'm going to get a water cup and then they'll get a

soda. Yeah, I don't like that. I don't do any of that stuff. I'm the same. Yeah. I don't do it. I just don't do it. Yeah.

I know it's like whatever. These big corporations, in a lot of ways, I guess it doesn't matter, but I don't know. I don't care about it that much. Yeah. These corporations are so big, how am I going to impact? But the little things add up. You don't want to get like a regional manager in trouble because they're having some sort of inventory issue.

Yeah. All their sprites missing for some reason. Right. Yeah. I guess unless you have like an Aladdin-type story, don't try to steal Aladdin. That's a legendary save the cat moment. You mentioned save the cat before the podcast, but the idea is that you show a character's redemptive side early on, so the audience empathizes with them.

But the Aladdin, in Aladdin, it's like, oh, how are we going to empathize with a dirty thief? Yeah. And then we see like, oh, the thief is stealing food and then giving it to a hungry kid. It's like, oh, that's why we think he's good. Yeah. They do the same thing in Batman. And Batman begins.

You see him stealing things, then he hands it to a hungry kid. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I should put that in one of the movies I make. What are you saying? Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, it's Kevin Costner, where he's the only one that doesn't have a British accent. He does that too.

He gives to a needy kid food. I didn't do this, but I heard this once where if people, it was a friend of a friend, they were in a jam and they wanted coffee. They're on a long road trip. And so they call the head to this. First of all, I'm practicing this. This is horrible. Do not do this.

They call the head to a Starbucks saying that their order was messed up through a drive-through and they're going to come back and they're wondering if they can get their drink remade. The Starbucks said, okay. And so they hung up and walked in and got a free coffee. Wow. It's horrible. That's devious. It's horrible.

I can't endorse that. I don't endorse it either. And I actually was actually, yeah, just don't do that. It's horrible. I did once, I will say I did once legitimately complain to the High C Corporation because I got a batch of High C and it wasn't particularly good. I think they just like the, I think it was just a bad batch. Do you know what?

This has just happened to me with fierce strawberry Gatorades. I went back, I bought two and each of them were bad. They taste like cough syrup and also they were like closed. When I opened them, they kind of like released like they were airtight or whatever. And so I went back and bought two more. Same thing. All of them, and I'm like, this is like a bad batch. It tastes bad.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, High C was very accommodating. I'm sorry you had to deal with that, bitch, but if you do go to the trouble of calling the company. They sent me two coupons for free jugs at High C and that was pretty nice. Well, there's four strawberry, fierce strawberry Gatorades I spent money on that are no good. Call them up.

Don't let them take care of you. Yeah, they will. Especially Gatorade. They're big enough where they can be like, yeah, here's, get a six pack on us. Yeah, I probably won't do it. But still. Maybe I will. But also, I've stole candy bars when I was like a little kid, but not a lot.

But that was the only other thing that I've done. I had a roommate who had a, he was like, had a kleptomaniac style, kleptomaniac urges. And they were just like, they just can't be episodes, but they always manifested themselves in like very small ways. Like he'd just do like petty crime. And one of the things he would do is he would like steal things from food courts or from, from, you know, like if you got like a buffet style, some, you know, those cafeteria style places where they've got just like a bunch of different food options sitting out and

like just bags of chips. He just like steal places from that are like from a subway, just like steel chips from a subway. It was just like the lamest like ongoing crime thing that he would do, but he couldn't stop himself from doing it. Oh, that's insane. Yeah. I worked at a Sullivan steakhouse, which I don't know if they have out here, but it's

like in my master's where it's like a upscale. And we'd always have these customers come in, eat like about three fourths of their meal and say they didn't like it. And they wanted the refund. That's bullshit. And that happened to me. That happened like three or four of my tables once I worked there one summer and I just, it just boggled my mind.

And these people had money. Yeah. They were buying these like $200 bottles of wine and they're like, I don't like the steak. And you just see like a little bit of meat and the bone completely shitty thing to do. I was, I camp a lot and a lot of times going off like a little klepto thing, but I don't really consider stealing because I use it, but like ketchup packets and like I'll go to like Chick-fil-A's and ask for like extra ranch. That's totally different.

Yeah. That's what I'll do. That's complimentary. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. Don't do it. Don't do it.

Come on guys. Unless you really, really are in need, I guess. Yeah. Unless you're in Aladdin. And then pay it forward when you find that lamp. Right. Right. Pay it forward.

Do something good. Okay. So the question was courtesy of Adelaide Blanchard. Sorry about that Adelaide, but thanks for sending, thanks for writing in. And if you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants, you can email us at doboyspodcast.gmail.com, check out our Facebook page, Do Boyz, follow us on Twitter at doboyspod. Subscribe and rate us on iTunes.

Ross Kimball, thank you so much for coming on the show. Ross, you're the man. Thank you for having your maiden voyage to Red Lobster with us. And is there anything you would like to plug at this time? No, you can just find me at me Ross Kimball on Twitter, Instagram. Go see Masterminds. I'm in that for a little bit. And then also the new Christopher Guest movie comes out on Netflix tomorrow if you guys

were listening to this today. Oh, awesome. When it comes out. Mascots. Yeah, mascots. Yeah. And that was a lot of fun to work with him. And I saw it last week and it's really, really funny.

Awesome. That's awesome. Looking forward to it. Yeah. It was a pleasure having you. I know you're going to wrap up, but I want to quickly say this. Jordy McGrath. I don't know if I plugged.

Anthony is my daddy on Facebook. That's what he or she wanted me to plug. Okay, Jordy. Instead of their Twitter, I just felt bad not doing it. That's fine. All right. That's it for this episode of Doe Boys. Until next time, for The Spoon Man, Mike Mitchell, I'm Nick Weicker.

Happy eating. See ya. Ferrell Audio.