Doughboys - Starbucks Reserve with Jessica Chaffin

Episode Date: July 4, 2019

For our review of Starbucks Reserve, an upscale version of the ubiquitous coffee chain, we're joined by Jessica Chaffin (Abby's, Desperados) to discuss our most recent sampling of drinks and food items. Plus, a cake-pop tasting on an extended restaurant review. Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

He had become angry, bitter, and maddeningly defiant, like a petulant child who decided to take his toy and go home. So wrote Frank Hughes in a devastating 2006 ESPN takedown of failed Seattle supersonic owner Howard Schultz. Schultz had famously built the world's most successful coffee retailer when he took over and vastly expanded a Seattle company in 1988, making it a gargantuan global brand. In 2001, this Ray Kroc of Coffee, now a billionaire, acquired Seattle's beloved NBA franchise for $200 million.

What began on an optimistic note, a local success story and business whiz primed to apply his genius to the world of sports, quickly unraveled when it became clear Schultz was a megalomaniac with zero understanding of basketball, who tried to run a team like a cutthroat corporation. He ran it all right, into the ground, feuding with star players, management and coaches, alienating fans, and ultimately demanding a $200 million ransom from the city for a new arena. When lawmakers justifiably blocked, he sold the team for a hefty profit to an Oklahoma

city group that quickly maneuvered to move the team to their own city, ending men's pro basketball in Seattle, Schultz's greedy betrayal of the town that made him. But like with his coffee company, he wasn't content staying local, and in January of 2019, one of the most hated men in Seattle set his sights on becoming one of the most hated men in America, floating an independent presidential bid that nobody asked for or wanted. On the trail, Schultz proved to be a charisma void who somehow made neoliberal centrist policies sound even less appealing, earning constant heckles and live appearances online. Ignoring polls that showed he'd serve as a third party spoiler siphoning votes from

the Democratic nominee, Schultz persisted for months, following the same pattern of charging full steam ahead with an ill-informed losing strategy while dismissing all legitimate criticism. Then in May, after repeated battering for both sides, Schultz announced he was suspending his campaign for ambiguous health reasons, like a pop star explaining a canceled tour. As with his disastrous governorship of the Sonics, another naive exercise in futility ended in an ignoble retreat. Still, the coffee company he founded is unquestionably ubiquitous, and in 2014, it announced a more

upscale concept, hawking a more elaborate food and drink menu and is setting a kin to a high-end espresso bar. Today, this fancier version has flagship stores in major cities across the globe. But the first location was naturally in Seattle, where the Supersonics are now ghosts, casualties of the most destructive singular force in global capitalism, the ego of a billionaire. This week on Doughboys, Starbucks Reserve. Welcome to Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants. I'm Nick Weiger.

Alongside my co-host, man with a less varied wardrobe than a cartoon character, the Spoonman Mike Mitchell. I get a lot of mileage out of this red flannel here. You have a flannel and a graphic tee underneath, and then some sort of Boston paraphernalia as a hat on up top. Look, I wash this flannel all the time, but what's the rule? I change my undershirt. I don't wear the same stuff.

I think it's fine. It's like a jacket almost, in a way. You're saying because it's usually the same flannel. It's the same flannel a lot of the time. Yeah. I mean, I think it's fine. It's just that you're so rigid in your look, it's so predictable what you're going to be dressed like.

Yeah, I don't really care. You could work some polos in there. You could have a button up without the undershirt. I don't have to work in anything. I think it's fine. It's working for you. It's fine. That was courtesy of Vince at Vince.refrigerationoninstagram also adds, the veggie burger brigade will

reign supreme. Wow. So it sounds like we got a vegetarian on our hands, roastspoonman at gmail.com if you would like to have your insult on Mitch read on the show. Nick, you have like little kid hair today. What do you mean? Your hair is all poofy. Hold on.

I'm going to look at the mirror behind me. Hold on. That should be good. Oh, yeah. You know what it was? I was wearing this hat. I had a ball cap on and then they took it off for the cans, headphones. I put the headphones on and then I took the hat off so yeah, I've got hat hair.

Oh, the mystery is solved. We cracked that case. It's good. You look youthful. Oh, okay. Yeah. With the tousled hair? Yeah.

I feel like I'm, I feel like it's, I look disheveled. That's how I feel. I feel youthful. Have you ever felt youthful, I guess is my question with you? When I was a child, when I was a boy. I feel like this is not true. I was youthful. When I was a child, when I was a boy.

I was youthful once. No, you weren't. I was. I was merry. I rolled around in the grass. What? All that sort of stuff. Oh boy.

That's what you used to do for fun when you were a child, you'd roll around in the grass. Did you ever roll down a slope like in a public park? Yeah. That's what I sort of was thinking of. It seems like you did this once and this is what you're recalling. I'm recalling one specific instance, but I think I've done it more than once. I do. I do remember I got very itchy and then I didn't like that.

So as a child, do you remember getting itchy? That's right. Father, I'm merry. Did you say that to your dad? Your dad's like, oh, fuck this freak, this freak child I have. No, I'm, I'm a child and I'm merry father here. I got a drop, Nick. Go for it.

I'm embarrassed to play it in front of our guests. I'm sorry. You should be. Here we go. Oh, howdy how to spoon nation. I can't look at our guests. See, we can have fun with each other. We have a fan of corn the band.

I know you like corn the food. How do you know I like corn the food? You're a corn. That was like a fat guy joke. No, it wasn't. I don't mean to like a fat guy joke. It wasn't body shaming you. You're, you're a popcorn.

I know you like corn the food. Eat up. We're just saying that with a wink. I wouldn't say that with an audible wink because I've seen you eat corn. You're like an ear of corn. You're like popcorn. When have you seen me eating corn? You're fucking.

I've seen you here with a can of niblet. You're eating them with your hands. I like popcorn. Yeah. Which you don't. I don't like popcorn. No. It's so stupid.

No, not a fan. We should introduce our guest because I think that she may yell at you. I mean, it's a bad take. It's a, it's a really bad take. Who, who gave us that drop, bitch? That drop came from your old friend, shampooedler. Oh boy. And he said, I still like you guys.

Hey, how about that? And it was dough off Kings was what it was. I was well done. It was the go off Kings perhaps. So there are our buddy Jesse for our, that's right. And Rob Wissman and a Stefan hack over there. Good, good group of dudes. Hey, you know what?

Do so many of your like your close friends or internet friends. That's right. I thought about you. You're like my good friend. And then it's like, what's your friend's name? And it's like at whatever at Johnny for come or something. I have. Johnny for come is a good guy.

You'd be my best man. If I wasn't already married. No, I, I think that you care more about these digital friends than your real friends. That's not true. But I will say that I have perhaps an easier time communicating with someone via text than via face to face. You know what I mean? Like, did you ever, did you ever sometimes have like an easier time like talking with

someone when you're, when it's nonverbal? No, I mean, I guess so. I think that's specific to me. I think there, but I think there are certain personality types who are maybe more reserved and maybe are, are a little bit, but I think back in the day when I was in like high school of college and there was aim or something, I'd be like, what's up to, you know, talking to the girls and be all cool and then ASL. You led with ASL.

Didn't you? I did not lead with ASL hornball, Mitch. Let's introduce our guests and actor and comedian from Abbey's on NBC, Jessica Chaffin is here. Hi, Jessica. Hello. Thank you for sitting patiently through all that nonsense. I had, I had so many things I wanted to say.

Oh boy. Well, feel free. Well, it's over now. I mean, we can go back over the popcorn if you want to. The popcorn thing? I mean, that's. I'm right, I'm right down the middle with the popcorn. It's either, it's either good popcorn or, I mean, movie theater popcorn.

That's just been, I'm the person that goes in and says, a bag of your freshest popcorn place. Oh boy. Or I'll ask them when they've popped it. Cause I'm just not interested. If it's been sitting there for more than 10 minutes, I'm not interested. Right. And I'm only interested in real butter.

Yeah. That makes a big difference. I've got the arc, a fresh popped from arc in some, but I won't eat it during the movie. I'll only eat it during the previews. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Why is that? Why the fuck should everybody have to listen to me slapping my gums around when I'm trying

to listen to a movie? That's so considerate. I won't eat. Well, I don't want anyone eating during the movie. Oh, wow. And I know they will, but I also, it's a sensory experience going to the movies like it's purposely dark so that you can see better and hear better and they pump up the sound when the movie comes in.

I have a lot of respect for the cinema goer. Have you had a, have you been to like a Dynan theater, like the AMC Dynan or the Alamo Draft House? You mean like what used to be gold class and now is called, what's that other thing where you sit on a recliner? Is that what you mean? Yeah. It's like, it's like they actually have servers that will bring you food during the presentation.

Yeah. I'm not, I mean, I've done it, but I'm not really interested in that and it's a different thing. I guess I guess that's more of a novelty, but that is definitely not how I want to see every movie. I've made it very disruptive. Yeah. When I, when I've done that, I've just been like, I don't, I feel like this is, even

Alamo Draft House where they're like, like we're honoring cinema or whatever, they seem like they're movie freaks there. I don't need to hear your forks smashing against your plate. Exactly. It's too much. And I feel like. I saw you take down a good fucking seven glasses of wine. I don't mind.

I don't mind drinks. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. We were, we were watching Murder on the Orient Express and do something alive and you're getting fucking loaded. I probably saw that movie 300 times. Did you really?

The Johnny Depp one? Oh, no, no, no. Okay. The original. Yeah. Okay. We were not the classic. No, no.

I saw that. I saw the much, the inferior version that came out with a like Dave Maggie Smith and I don't know who else was in it, but because it was like one of the five movies that was on HBO. Oh, got it. An evil under the sun. It was this whole Agatha Christie, this time when they made a million Agatha Christie movies.

Was it like the ski schools were in heavy rotation for a time? I was more of a ski school as opposed to ski patrol. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Or what was the shit? What was the one that took place in Squaw Valley? Was that ski patrol?

No. I'll think of it. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. I like all the ski. The theme song was nothing feels quite like the top of the hill. Yeah.

That's great. It was a ski racing movie. I know. I know. With hot tubs and boobs. That's perfect. Yeah. How can you beat that?

I mean, here's my thing though. You can't beat a pair of boobs in a hot tub because you've got the buoyancy and a winter hot tub. You've got the buoyancy and then you've got the cold air, which makes the nipples go hard. And so the boobs tense up and they are out there fine. The opposite, just like the worst thing for a man is to be in cold water. The best thing for a woman's breasts.

The best thing for a woman's breasts is to be in cold water. Oh, interesting. Cool. Nick and I are like, we all can handle this conversation. Sorry, fellas. I didn't mean it for this to become an 80s movie immediately. There is something unique about that appeal, like the topless woman in the hot tub, because I think I remember as a boy in my youth that the appeal.

Oh, now this was the fun part. The appeal of that is I was like, no, I was just like, I've been in a hot tub. Like I'm in a pool. Like sometimes girls show their boobs out. That was the way I was. It felt like an attainable thing. Oh, it could happen. I could be around a woman who isn't wearing a top in some sort of aquatic environment.

It's something that could happen in a hot tub. A hot tub was a magical, like liminal place where magical things like topless women or mermaids could appear. You wouldn't be able to fucking... That hot tub would be a lot more frothy. Oh, hot tubs are filthy. There's nothing dirtier than a hot tub. Nick would make it look like a fucking latte if he was in there.

Good. Jesus Christ. I never understand that. To me, that's like a cartoon stew, like when they're like Bugs Bunny slicing in a carrot. That's what a hot tub is to me. It's just lobsters boiling in a pot and somebody should put an onion in a carrot. I tried to do that to Nick one time. Let us know when it's ready with a giant spoon.

Nick, remember that when I gave you a bunch of vegetables when you were in that hot tub when we were on the road one time? Yeah, you tried to eat me. We knew it eventually that way, the podcast in that way. Kept adding salt. I've told the story on the show to your point of I was in the big red boat and this is like the Disney cruise line when I was like a little kid. I don't know what the big red boat is.

I didn't know either. It was Disney cruise line when I was like... I assume it was a Boston thing. Eight years old or so, we left out of Boston and it goes to like, there's Disney character on the boat. Where does it go? Portland, Maine? It goes to Portland, Maine.

Does it? No, it goes down. Oh, Nova Scotia. That's the only other place it could possibly go. It goes to the Baham. It goes down to the Baham. But it leaves from Boston? Maybe it leaves from Florida.

It leaves from Florida. Yeah, you're right. You're right. But anyway, go on. I was in the hot tub and a log of shit floated to the top while I was in there and I remembered... Did you get out? I got out eventually. It was called the big red boat that was the Disney cruise precursor.

Yeah, yeah. No, thank you. Found a big brown log. They should rename it. Do you ever get sick of the characters? After a day where they become too accessible, it's one thing and you're in the park and you're like, you've spotted Chip and Dale or Goofy or whatever, and now you're like, you got to watch your line behind Goofy at the buffet or...

You know what they did? Or the ones you don't like or the only ones that ever want to talk to you. They would release them. Fucking Pluto. I liked Pluto a lot because I was a little boy. Pluto never said anything. And he takes his tongue and he licks you with his tongue. Oh, that's cute.

I take it back. Like the mascot guy? Yeah. Pluto takes his tongue and he licks you. That I didn't know. Whose dog is Pluto? Mickey's. He's Mickey's.

Okay. And so Pluto comes out and he'll lick you with his tongue. So I loved Pluto as a kid. But I mean like... Pluto, you missed a spot. So funny. I just immediately had the thought of like, if Charlie Brown and Snoopy and Pluto and Mickey had like a play date, like how awful Charlie Brown would be made to feel.

Yeah. But Charlie Brown just has a dog that won't ever do anything that he wants him to do. Like obviously Snoopy's the master and Charlie's the dog or whatever. Sure. But like if those guys had a crossover episode, Charlie Brown would be like even more depressed than he already is. And Pluto would be doing tricks and whatever Mickey asked him to do. Yeah.

He's a fucking blockhead. Poor Charlie Brown. He's a fucking blockhead. He's a fucking blockhead. He's a fucking blockhead. Sick of his shit. Charlie Brown. Do you know I played Charlie Brown and you're a good man Charlie Brown, Nick?

I was. I could see that. I was the lead. Oh, how about that? Did they give you like a head thing? I don't. I think he didn't need it. Did you either shave your head or did they give you like a piece of plastic saran wrap

to put on top? They didn't attempt that. I just wore like a yellow shirt with a black stripe on the bottom. Did you have the beard? I did. The beard was gone at this point. The beard had not fully grown in yet. I was in probably going into sixth grade, like after my fifth grade year, I think it

was around there. And it was one of my best performances probably to date. It was a good theater camp, Nick. I remember all the other kids went to basketball camp and I was like practicing Charlie Brown and then they were all like, what are you like doing here? And I was like, ah. That's when you knew you could be a star when you got the Charlie Brown, I mean, born to play Charlie Brown.

Yeah. Do you think like, was there a point in your childhood where ever like the parents would be like your adults around you would be like, like, he's going to grow into that head. You know, like, what the fuck? I thought this was going to be about like, hey, he's an acting or something like that. I got. And then it just never happened. My first of all, everyone knows all movie stars have giant heads.

It's true. All bodies. Yeah, it's true. That's true. I have both of those. To win, win, win, win, win. I when I was, I did have I ever gotten, have I ever told you this they used to call me messy Marvin when I was younger?

I have not heard this. This is new to me. I don't know if I want to talk about this stuff yet. Oh boy. I mean, just brought up messy. We better get into it. I think we need to hear. I was a little bit of context.

Why did you spill things on your shirt? I was a little blonde boy. Okay. And, and, and there was in messy Marvin was like a kid on TV. You know the kid on TV. Yeah. I'm trying to remember what he looked like. He was Ralphie from the Christmas story.

Oh, okay. And I looked exactly like Ralphie from the Christmas story when I was younger and they would call me messy Marvin. My, my God, my Godfather son. That is, that is, that is accurate. They would, it was messy Marvin and, and, and they make, they would make me do weird stuff and people enjoyed it. I don't know.

It was a weird, like a, were you reenacting? Was it more like you were a little actor and they wanted you to do commercial reenactments? Like, do you messy Marvin? Oh, slip on the floor now. Was it that kind of thing? Or was it? No, they would be like, Hey, fight this kid. Messy.

Oh, really? The adults would do this to you. No, not the, they, they would be like, Hey, messy Marvin. And then they would. Oh, I got it. They'd have me say, they'd have me say something weird. I was a weird guy. I remember this is weird.

Should I talk about this? It's like therapy. Why not? I went to the, I was, now I'm going to, I'm going to get a lot of, I'm going to get a lot of silver. It's like, no, I want to, this is not the brand. No, I want to hear. I remember that I'm going to get a lot of silver spoon man, which people call me, which

I, this is not the case, but we, I lived in Quincy, which is on the water, which is very nice. That's sure. Hold on a second. It's not parts of Quincy. Very nice. It's not Hingham. It's not Hingham.

It's not Duxbury. It's not. It's not. It's not like any of those places. It's on the water. There are parts of Quincy that are very nice. Yeah. Sure.

Yeah. Definitely. There's, there's parts of Quincy is great. Yeah. I love it. What's the one next to it sconce it? What's the one that's like the fancy part of Quincy or is that Hingham? That's, that's Hingham.

That's Quincy. Okay. I was going to say Quincy doesn't. Yeah. Yeah. So there's that side and then there's the other side. Yeah. There's, there's, and like Marina Bay is there and that's nice, but, uh, but the,

my, my dad was at a yacht club. There was, there was two yacht clubs, but it's not like fancy. Oh, I see. You say yacht club and people say silver spoon because they don't understand that if you just grow up on the water, there are places where people use boats because it's a water sports kind of place. Yeah. So a yacht club can be a shitty dock off of a jetty.

Yeah. It doesn't have to be a yacht club as you, as you think of yachting is a sport. It doesn't mean that it's like a sailing club. It's Turner boats. I might, my dad built my sister a turnabout. That's what I mean. What's a turnabout? It's like a little Boston whaler, like a little tiny sailboat.

Yeah. Okay. Like a sunfish. Uh, yeah. Sure. Yeah. Okay. But, but, but like, uh, built that for, yeah.

He, he, he, I mean, like, I don't know if he, I don't know if he built the frame or whatever, but he, he, I remember he, he painted it and everything. I don't know. Okay. Built the day. He helped build the damn thing somehow. I don't know. Sounds like your story is changing here.

Fuck you. He built every boat in Quincy. So all right, Richie Rich, let's get back to this. Let's get back to the story. And I remember going to the yacht club, but like we would, there was like sailing classes in the summer and I, and, uh, I was walking down to the dock and like the group of sailing kids were like, messy Marvin. And they all started running up, uh, like running up to come and see me.

And I didn't like it. I got scared and I went and hid in the bathroom and stood on the top of the toilet. Wow. Cause they were like, messy. He's a weird guy. He's going to say weird stuff. Oh, yeah. They're going to harass you.

This is a weird story. I realized, but it's the, and so they were like running up and this isn't like fun for you to tell. Like I can tell you, but, but, but, but I went into the bathroom, I stood on the, it wasn't a bad thing. Like they were like, did you stand on the toilet cause you had seen it in a movie? I did. Yeah.

And then, until they all went away and then they did find me later and they were like, do something fun. Like they, like they like wanted to do something funny when people want you to be the clown. Yeah. It's not fun. It's weird. You didn't feel like being on stage just then. Yeah.

Yeah. You were like, not today guys. That's one of the worst when people are like, you're a comedian. Like, I mean, you get this. Say something funny. Say something funny. They're like, no. That's a Boston.

That is such a Boston. Oh yeah. Tell us a joke. I'm like, I don't do that. I don't tell jokes. Yeah. And also I might not be funny. It's, it's the profession I've chosen.

I'm, I don't, I'm not sure I could tell you I'm funny, but like just also it's like, fuck you. Oh, oh, you're an electrician? Yeah. Like turn on my lights. That's how. Yes. Yeah.

Oh my God. Get in here. Turn on these lights and turn them off again. Fuck you. Nick, I feel like no one's ever said, say something funny to you. Oh, no, no. They know what they're getting with Weigher. I looked up the messy, I looked at the messy Marvin commercial.

A pick up the messy Marvin? I've got this commercial here. We can roll out. We can roll a little bit of this. I'll put my mic up to the speaker here and we'll maybe add some of this to our guest. But this is for us. Yeah. That's what I looked like.

Oh yeah. Yes. It's messy Marvin. And then I'll hardly tries. Oh Marvin. He always makes a mess. Except when he makes his chocolate milk. He uses good old fashioned Hershey's syrup in the No-Mess bottle.

Great tasting, thick, rich chocolate flavor that herds you. Hey, this is it's right. It ties into food. What totally? I didn't really. I forgot. He was a Hershey's guy. Yeah.

So I just realized it's because I had fucking food all over my face and shit. That makes sense. I was also messy. Well, and you looked like him. Yeah, I did. I'll find a picture for us, but uh. You were a toe headed youth. You know, yes.

Were you blonde as a child? I was. I was blonde and I turned a brunette. Yeah. Yeah. I was like a dirty blonde for a bunch of my life. Yeah. And I knew what you meant about his hair looking child like he looks like he's been running

around the playground at recess and just got a little bit of that little sweat that little boys get on their forehead and then, and then the hair goes tossly. It's very, very charming. Let me just say. It's very charming. Look. I very much believe that he was running around at recess. All right.

Fucking creepo. Looking up skirts. Chasing skirts and mirrors on your shoes, Wiger. No. Mitch is, Mitch is saying I'm a childless adult man in 2019 going to a playground where children are hanging out. That's what he's saying. That's what he's implying.

He explains the minion dogs. Jessica, you're from, you're from, and I think people have inferred this from, from what you've been saying, but you're from Newton, Massachusetts, is that correct? So growing up in Boston, did you spend your whole childhood there near the Boston area? What is your, Boston, a big, a big food city with some, some specifics to it. What do you think of in terms of like your, your childhood faves there, both in terms of, you know, just local delicacies, but then also some of the local chains that are, that are specific to the Boston area.

Well, I was actually home yesterday. Whoa. Just for two days and. Can I just say Nick knew that? So his woe was just insincere. Well, I guess he's a better actor than we thought. So watch out, Charlie Brown, because you might have some competition for the, for the revival. This is me as a child, by the way.

You look exactly like Messi, Marvin. You really do. That's a real Mario sweatshirt you got there. Nintendo power sweatshirt. That rules. Oh, I got to see that. Hold on a little closer. Yeah.

The glasses too. Yeah. Well, you were really blonde though. I was really, really blonde. When did it turn? I don't want to make it. Get a hold of my phone. Okay.

Hold on. Yeah. What else has he gotten there? This, we would have been friends as kids, both like Nintendo. I think your relationship would have been exactly the same as it is now, which is like, you would have been two kids that hung, hung out all the time together, but your mother would be like, are you sure you want to have him over today for a play date? And it would be like, there would be that read like, like it would sometimes end in

tears. There would be a lot of, yeah, I can't explain that just that same dynamic of like, we love hanging out, but also, are we enjoying this? Yeah. I don't know if we're enjoying this. There was this, this break your fucking flute or whatever the hell. What would you, what'd you play? I mean, were you an oboist?

Bassoon was the double read. Yeah. I played all the woodwinds. I doubled it all. Clarinet saxophone and bassoon. Once you get the clarinet down, you gotta be like, like, if you're a five tool player, if you're someone who can hit, do all the woodwinds, but do single read and double read, you can, you can work a bunch.

I mean, cause I did, I did pursue a career as a musician, but if I'd wanted to, I could have been a guy like playing it, playing in musicals and stuff. Can I, can I be honest with you? Yeah. I probably could. It's a lot of sitting there quiet until it's your turn. Well, that I can do. By the way, here's the guy who you think is the coolest, Jeff Dutton.

When he's like 15. He looks awesome there. No, he does not. He looks cool. No, he does. Heartbreaker. He looks kind of cool. Yeah.

He looks really cool. What the hell? What's going on here? No, you know what? You're all smiling. He looks Amish in this picture, but he looks confident. Will he? He looks confident.

Yeah, he does. People are, people are talking about it. He's got a button up. He's got the Kurt Cobain hair. Jeff Dutton. See if Dutton will let us, let us tweet that out because he looks fucking awesome. Oh, Jesus. I would have, I would have looked up to Dutton when I was a kid.

My God. When he was a grade young. You look up to young Dutton. What? What a click. What a click. This would have been. I was a little, I was a little, a little Quincy boy.

I, I, I, I was going to Puppa Geno's for my birthday. Oh yeah. Delicious. Yeah. I was a grade. We used to have pizza parties. Basically it was like you, this was all very pre-postmates and all that stuff, but you could, we could, there was, I think one day a week where you would have like your house

or your homeroom could order foods. You'd bring in money and it would be like McDonald's one week, Puppa Geno's another week, you know, whatever. But Puppa Geno's, I always had a mushroom pizza from Puppa Geno's. You know, you know, it was delicious from Puppa Geno's. The Greek dressing, it was like a ranch dressing basically, but it was delicious. I was got a salad with Greek dressing. I love D'Angelo's Greek.

D'Angelo's was a big one for me because we used to go up to New Hampshire a lot. My uncle had a house in New Hampshire and D'Angelo's was on the Turnpike. And so I would get from D'Angelo's a tuna sub with pickles from D'Angelo's. Damn. Yeah. I would do the steak and cheese. Potato chips. I love a steak and cheese.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, really? Where'd you go to high school? I went to North Quincy High School. Okay. So I went to Newton South, but, um, yeah, you know, but I'll tell you what my favorite, I mean, I'm a Dunkin Donuts person.

I was telling you this story before, which was that last night. So last night I had a flight home from Boston at 930 on JetBlue. And I still hadn't had, usually when I land, it's like the first thing I do is get a small coffee regular, which means cream and sugar. You just say regular and they know what you mean. And then I get like four munchkins and I just never, I had come in my first flight. I came in way too early. It was too early to even have a cup of coffee.

And then it was just like, I'm trying to drink less coffee, which is ironic based on what we're going to talk about today. Right. But anyway, I was like, it just never worked out for me to get my coffee. And literally it was the last, it was 930 at night. And I was like, I got to have my fucking coffee because the Dunkin Donuts, within 100 mile radius of Boston, it doesn't, it doesn't taste the same. It's like, you have to get inside the sphere of influence.

And then you, they know how to make it and they make it right and it tastes right. And you can get it in other places and it's okay, but it's not authentic. No, it's, everything's fine. But you know what I'm talking about. I do know what you're talking about. It's funny. I don't go that often out here just because it's a pain to go anywhere in LA. I hate that thing of like, just because you can have something, like why can't something

just be good where it is, right? You have to be able to have everything. Like this is such a highbrow weird one, but now there's a la durée, macaron place at the fucking Americana at brand. So it used to just be like one shop in Paris and then two shops in Paris. And then it came to New York and now it's at the Grove. You know what I mean? And you're like, no, thanks.

Other places have to expand. Like it's fine. I didn't, it was fine when it was a treat. And now it's like, I don't care. What do I need that Americana has a ton of crazy restaurants and stuff like at the din typhong and then the, yeah, ramen place that no one, like it's, I've never been to the ramen place. It's, it's what, I forget the name of it, but it's, I love the packaging at din typhong.

I love the way they package their to go stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Very innovative packaging. Like everything is in its proper place. Yes. You're talking about like, you're specifically talking about the trend of, in a larger sense, the idea of the, this geographic spread, geographical spread of, of these chains that are, that were

once like very local. Like Halal guys was just a few carts in New York city and now it's like got like 500 locations across North America. Yeah. I guess, I guess Duncan known it's in particular though is such a New England Boston thing. And maybe it's just like the time that I grew up, that it was a very local thing. Right. It's like a religion.

Do you know where it originated? The first Dunge Donuts? I used to know when I don't anymore. Quincy, Massachusetts. Did it? Oh, time to make Fred. Time to make the doughnuts. Fred was there.

I'd see Fred all the time. There was this awesome actor who was just a commercial actor who just his job was to like wake up and be tired and have to put on his slippers and then go make the doughnuts and fall asleep while he was making the doughnuts. And that was the ad campaign forever. It was just time to make the doughnuts. He was so miserable that he had to make the doughnuts. He was the greatest.

He was like a brilliant comedic actor. I just even listened to that messy Marvin commercial, like the old timey voiceover. That's fun. That's like a whole messy. It's like a story. Right. Yeah. That's so much.

Why is that gone? That guy's kind of gone away. Well, he's dead. Which guy are you talking about? I don't mean specifically that guy. Like that one voice actor. Oh, yeah. Sorry.

That's true. That construction. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Like a little earnest. Or they have to be, yeah, they have to be like quick and cheeky and like, or like sarcastically impressed by things.

Yeah. There's a Taco Bell spot right now that's that's that's been airing during the NBA playoffs where it's these, it's like these gangs, it's basically like the Warriors, the movie. And so it's like all these stylized, like 80 street gangs that have their allegiance to a different Taco Bell menu item and they're dance fighting in and it like cool. It's like cool. It's got like a cool aesthetic, a cool look or whatever. But then it pops out to an onlooker and he's like, it's just a regular guy and he's like,

are they dance fighting? Like it's just like, why do we need to have that? Why couldn't they just be dance? Why couldn't it just be like a thing that we live in? How do we have to break that? They are dance fighting. It's fucking idiot. I have to say, I am not a Taco Bell person.

I have never. Wow. I've only had it one time because I finally was like. Mitch is seething. That well, we didn't even have Taco Bell really on the East Coast. There I will. I admit that there was not a lot of there was a Taco Bell KFC that it was a maybe on the highway or something.

There was a KFC in Quincy forever and then they add a Taco Bell when I was like in high school or so Taco Bell was not a thing like on the East, at least in Boston. It was it. There's not. You wouldn't find as many Taco Bells for sure. Now there is one in there. That one that opened and when I was in high school, still and there's all those combos like Baskin Robbins is always with whom are they with paired with?

You know how these ones, they're with Dung and Dung is a lot. I don't know. So various people are paired with people KFC and Taco Bell. And so Taco Bell just wasn't a thing and Mexican food like that wasn't a thing. I say that on this podcast a lot that growing up like like there was there was Chinese food in the and we know that my favorite thing in the world, literally my favorite thing in the world, like my death row meal is a cheap Chinese egg roll from a like New England or New York Chinese restaurant and my favorite place in the world is a bar in a Chinese restaurant.

Yeah, like with those Polynesian decorations and a Mai Tai and a fucking shitty zombie drink. You're talking about like a poo poo platter like that to me is like the greatest the greatest of all time. She got you back. She says she started off by slamming Taco Bell and you were going to lose really slim. And what I was actually going to say about Taco Bell is that I'm incredibly impressed by the people at Taco Bell because I have never, I don't know any company that reinvents

themselves to the degree that Taco Bell does. We talk about all the same now there's going to be mini Dorito bites inside of it. It's all the same shit. And everybody makes that joke about Mexican food, which is like, oh, what is it? It's a burrito. What is it? It's a the wrapper is different. It's cheese and beans and meat.

What's this one? Meat and beans and cheese, you know, like, right, that whole story of like, oh, it's all the same food, but they're constantly reinventing themselves and constantly pushing the limits of creativity. I mean, I think it's incredibly impressive. Yeah, they do. We're back on board now. I don't want to eat it, but but I will sometimes I made I once had a crunch wrap.

That's what I wanted to try. I was like, that seems like the one that's for me the one because I also love Doritos as a kid. Yeah, but I was like, that seems like the one for me, the crunch wrap. And then it was disgusting, but it was, but, but I also think those flavors are flavors that you have to have them in your youth, otherwise you won't crave them. So like, I was in Boston as I was staying over the weekend and I was like, I'm dead. I had to go for a funeral and I only had a certain amount of time and I was trying to

figure out like, would I be able, it's that weird thing when you go home of like, will I be able to do my things? But also like Boston's a great town. It would be great to go eat at a nice restaurant in Boston. But of course, what I want to do is go get onion rings and Kelly's roast beef and Revere Beach. Yeah. Like that's all I want.

You know, so I'm like, well, so we'll go to the funeral. I'm so sure. I don't care about that. But you've got your own clam shack or whatever. And I was like, okay, so we're going to go to the funeral, then we're going to go to my mother's grave and then we're going to go to Kelly's roast beef. Like that was like, I had the day planned out around these onion rings, but also that nostalgia of those flavors.

And then I didn't end up getting to Kelly's, but what I did end up having was fried clams for dinner and a lobster roll, though I'm not such a lobster roll person. But I think like Kelly's roast beef, the barbecue sauce at Kelly's roast beef is like one of my favorite flavors. But I think if I didn't taste that when I was six years old and become like crack addicted to it, then like I didn't, I was too old when I tried Taco Bell. So I was like, oh, this is going to kill, this could kill me. Yeah.

You know, I wonder how I will feel about Kelly's. Have you ever had Kelly's? I've had Kelly's. Yeah. Is it a small chain or just like a one shop? No, they probably have, there's probably five or six of them now. All right. I think so.

There's at least three. Yeah. There's the one, the big one on, on where is that? Revere Beach is the original. Okay. And also my mother grew up in Revere. So it's like, that was very much that was the hamburger stand was Kelly's roast beef. Yeah.

And then there's a big one in Natick, actually. And I think there's one in the Burlington mall, maybe. I'm not sure. I think you're right. What's the big drive-thru one? Is that off? Is it? It's not.

Oh, maybe it's on route one. Maybe. Yeah. I think there is one. There is one in route one in Saugus, maybe. Yeah. It's not that far. It's not far from, if you're, it's not far from, if you're going, leaving Logan, you

go north on route one. Yes. It's very close, I feel like. But also if you stay, if you just went 1A a little further, you'd be in Revere in ten minutes and you could eat it right on the beach, like being assaulted by pigeons and it would be great. North shore. But Revere is literally like six miles from the airport.

Yeah. Man, I know we've got some Boston expat listeners who are just fucking busting in their jeans listening to all this hyper-specific Boston geography. But I also have my favorite, my favorite Dunkin Donuts is in Revere. Like, you know how you have your ones that you like to go to? My favorite one is on the way back, coming back into town. There's one that's next to hilariously a yacht club. It's, but the funny thing about this yacht club is my uncle was a tuna fisherman.

Whoa. Like, that was like his first sport, and he belonged. Still cool. It's not a yacht club. It's just a place where they leave their boats. Right. It's like a marina. Yeah.

Exactly. But it's called the whatever yacht club. We had marinas in Long Beach. And that sounds fancy, though. No, it's not. But you have a marina. Yeah. Right.

Silver spoon wager. Yeah. But there's a tiny little one that looks like a, like warming hut, like a fishing warming hut. Yeah. And that's one of my favorites. And the other one, one of my favorites is on, I think it's where 1A and 60 come together. Like there's like a circle, a traffic circle.

It's right at the top of a Revere. My dad grew up in House Neck, which is a part of Quincy. And when he was younger, he was, what's it called? House Neck. House Neck? Yeah. H-O-U-G-H-E-S. There's still Mitchell's in House Neck in, in, in Quincy right now.

There's, there's a. Oh, some of your family still lives in House Neck. Yeah. That's where, I mean, that's where it all started. Huh. On Darrow Street in House Neck. And, uh, my dad, my dad used to take out, he would, that's where it all started. That's where it all started, baby.

It must have started somewhere before that. Right? Mitchell's Mini Mart Wiger in House Neck. You have a Mini Mart? Whoa. Your family has a Mini Mart? That's what my. A packy?

My, my, my Nana and my, and my uncle Kevin, who's passed away that they, uh, I think that it was them together that ran Mitchell's Mini Mart in House Neck and House Neck is like on and like, it's like a little peninsula. It's a neck. Yeah. And like, even when I was like a kid, it felt like a very like, it felt away from the city of Quincy, which is not a big city anyways, but it felt like, it felt like going to like a little boony part of Quincy almost in a way.

You get these little inlets and, and peninsulas and things like that. It's just the way the coastline is. Yeah. Yeah. And it feels remote. My dad grew up there and he used, but this is the crazy thing to me is that he used to, when he was like a teenager, like he used to go out at night and just like take the boat out at night and go to like Squirrel Island and bullshit like that.

Like steal someone's boat? No. He had his own boat. You freak. He had like his own little boat and he would, he would go out in the boat and like go to these little islands and stuff. Is that crazy? It's pretty cool.

Like your dad was a little rich kid. He was. No. It's like the opposite of that. It truly is. It's really towny stuff is what it is. It was, how's that? So it's like, there's the rich people and then there's the people that take the rich

people to their boats and those are the people are like the local people, the townies. But cause I really also grew up part of the time in Marblehead. My family lived in Marble, my grandparents lived in Marblehead and so we would go there every weekend and then in the summer we would go there and so I was not like a Marbleheader, but I had exposure to that life and we were never like, we never owned a boat or anything, but that's part of that. It's the same in Maine. Like it's sort of, there's a towny, there's always somebody that's got to get you to your

boat. I got you. Yeah. So like someone would, someone would take Mr. Mitchell to his boat. But think about Jaws. Like think about the kids that are, the kids that are the cops. Kids in Jaws are sailboating during the summer, but they're not the rich kids on the island. This is like 1955.

That's what it is. That's when my dad was 13 years old. Wow. He was born in 1942. This is 1955. It's like you got it all wrong. You think you think Mitchell's mini wire was a fucking target? You fucking asshole.

It does sound pretty nice. Yeah. Yeah. My Nana would give out candy for free. She didn't care. Are your people Irish? Yeah. I found out that I'm 97% Irish.

What's the other 3%? Welsh. One guy got on a boat and like couldn't find his ticket to get back on it. And that was it. The other 3% is horsey sauce. Manace. The other 3% is manace. So outside of being from the Boston area, you are a working actor.

You have been for some time. I'm always curious about actors on set food routines. Do you have anything when you approach the catering truck, when you have all the craft services tables there? Yeah. Do you have a snacking and eating strategy when you're working a 12 hour day on set? Well, I think you're either in or you're out. Oh, interesting.

With craft service. Right. Like either you're in because every day it's like imagine you're at like a second grader's birthday party every day. Every day there's like, you can have Cheetos or you can have a tuna sandwich right now or we're going to have burgers in half an hour or there's going to be, oh, you don't like this? Just wait a minute.

We're going to have chicken and waffles. Right. I mean, at least I've been fortunate to work on shows that have great catering. But this last show that I worked on or that I'm working, the Abbey's which is airing now, we had incredible craft service like top, top notch and it would be the kind of thing where you would come in, let's say you came in at 11am and they would just have, there would be breakfast because breakfast had been out for the crew. The other thing to remember is like, they're not catering to the actors.

They're catering to the crew and to the background actors really. And then when they bring us lunch and stuff like that, they do try to get us things that we'll like, but for the most part they're feeding like a small army. So there's just all of these choices, but there's catering, which is that those people serve you breakfast, lunch, dinner. And then there's craft service, which is just all day there's food in case you should want for anything. And so you would just come in one day and it would be like, oh, there's a taco cart

just from like 11 to 1230. But lunch is at two. You know, or whatever. So basically, to me anyway, you're kind of either in or you're out. You can't, I mean, you could, but what is this life of like, this is not going to be a popular thing to say, but I could say it because I would put myself in this category that for fat people, everything is an occasion. So you go out to dinner and you're like, so that you're like, oh my God, they have chocolate

cake. Yeah, like what, like, and I'm in that category, right? We're going to eat at a restaurant. We should try everything they have at the restaurant. I mean, you guys today, you guys were like, we'll get to this later, but we ordered a bunch of food. Yes. And you guys were like, ready to call it at this.

And I'm like, well, what if we also tried this or tried this? Because this is what we're doing, right? This is fun. But if it's all, but that's like assuming you eat out a couple of times a week or whatever. This is all day, every day. So I think you have to either be like all in or all out, meaning like you're going to allow yourself to try everything or, or you're like, you know what, those chicken and waffles don't exist to me because otherwise I'm going to now have chicken and waffles for breakfast

again because then you have them and you're like, shit, what if I had a grilled cheese and chicken instead? I mean, it's like, you just, the weight comes on so fast. I mean, you guys know from being on sets and stuff, it's like, or in a writer's room where the greatest part of the day is ordering lunch and somebody can, I always feel like I describe this as like babysitting where when I was babysitting, it would be like, so you're alone in someone else's house and they're like, eat anything you want, watch whatever you want.

And in your own house, it's like you're eating what your mother's serving for dinner and or whatever snacks I grew up with, six kids in my family. So like whatever snacks you can get your hands on before they're gone. And then you go to somebody else's house and there's nobody else around. You can watch anything you want on TV. Like you're completely in charge of the clicker and these people who often have small children and therefore have like lots of fun, sugary snacks and ice cream and whatever. And you can fucking eat anything you want.

Yeah. You can make a Dunkin' Hines cake and eat the whole thing if you want to. Turn on Skinnamax. Doesn't that sound good? Yeah. Watch a little light porn, like a little soft porn. No, because the kid goes to bed and you're like, I got another three hours. Right.

And watch a little soft porn and eat a Dunkin' Hines cake. Why not eat some frosting out of a jar? I babysat for the kids next door, the kids who live next door to me. Yeah. I think I've said this before to you, Nick, right? That one kid was such a little asshole. He's a good kid. He's a good kid now.

He's an adult. But I... You need all his favorite snacks. Well, I did that no matter what. But I made him stand on the top of his cellar stairs and close the door and turn off the light. Oh, my God. That's a punishment.

Man. How long did he... I was like 13. I think back on it now and I'm like, that's traumatizing. How long would you leave him down there? I would just like... It was just like a second. And then he'd start crying and I was like, don't be bad anymore.

And then his little brother pulled down his pants and he was like, will you help me? And he had a big birthmark on his ass, but I thought it was all shit. Jesus Christ. Oh, my goodness. What did he need to help with? I think he needed help like being wiped or something. Oh, God. But it wouldn't wipe off because it was a birthmark?

Yeah, it turned out to be a birthmark. I wanted to get it. I was like, ugh, I don't want to deal with it. And I still don't think I dealt with it. I think he just told him to pull up his pants. Or just put him in a bathtub. Yeah. I'm just...

Put him in a hot tub on that Disney cruise. I shouldn't have said that about fat people. I'm a fat person. But it's kind of true where you're like, let's get the cake. And it's like, you don't have to get the cake every time. Right. Or you can have some of the cake. Yeah.

I've gotten leaner, but I still have like, I feel, I still am a... You're still... I'm a doughy guy. You're kind of a fat guy. I'm a fat guy. You're a dough boy. I'm a dough boy. And then I've got...

But I've also like, you get the... This guy, Ed Zittron, wrote this piece that kind of stuck with me. He's a guy who lost a bunch of weight and he's just basically kind of like talking about how like you always feel like a fat person. Like you just like, you always kind of have... More like Ed Fitron. We'll take a break, we'll be back with more Dough Boys. Welcome back to Dough Boys.

Our chain this week has our guest just recoiled from your... Recoiled in her chair startled. Welcome back to Dough Boys. Startled by my cadence. Jessica Chaffin is here. We're talking Starbucks Reserve, the fancier subset of the Starbucks brand. We just had a quick combo about... So they say.

So they say. So they say. We were just talking about how if you eat when you get a perform, it's always... It can always be just a bummer because... So like that's why I don't... I try not to have any of the special... I think a lot of that stuff is for crew people and... I know.

I'm always jealous of them though because it's like they can eat... First of all, they're usually wearing some kind of an expandable pant to begin with. They don't have to wear eight pair of Spanx. Which I don't know if you gentlemen have ever worn Manx or whatever they're called for men or a compression top. But basically what happens is it's like putting bread in a bag and then the bag just gets tighter. Oh God.

And so what is happening is like if you eat, your organs are now pushing against the sausage casing, the exterior sausage casing. Oh God. So you also can't breathe properly, to walk properly, to do your job properly. Yeah. And you just get tired if you eat too much. So a lot of times it's just a tease where you're like, yeah, I'd fucking... I'd love to make my own Sunday right now.

Sure. But I'll fall asleep 10 minutes after this. Yeah. You know what? And the only thing I was paid to do to come here today is not to eat four hot dogs and I would make your own Sunday just because I was waiting. I was paid here to say three things that will hopefully lead to another job at some point in my life.

So it's like torture. Right. You know what? I gotta say, people say that actors get old. It's the crew guys that those crew guys are enjoying the Sundays. Oh, the spoiled crew guys. You know, good crew. They always say it's for the crew, but it is nice crew.

It is nice to get. I do love like, I mean, everybody does this, but getting like a truck for the, for the crew and for the... Yeah. That's cool. That's always so fun. And at the end of the day, all bets are off. You're wild.

At the end of the day. But often like when you have an audition or I'm not you, but me, you know, like it's kind of like an exam if you have a test in college where you're like, you prep really hard and then you cram. And then once it's over, you're like, now what? And so then you can either, you either like take yourself to a nice dinner or you get a little, have some booze, have a cocktail, whatever. But you're kind of like, it's that post exam field where you're like, I deserve something

for working hard. Yeah. God, I basically, I honestly, well, just waking up. I will legit treat, sometimes treat like even a Doughboys record like that. Oh, man. That's totally legit. Yeah. We did two episodes in a row.

I'm like, I'm tired. And I'll go get myself like Delta. I'll get shitty food on top of the shitty food I ate for this shitty podcast. I was going to say, unless of course you've already eaten the 40,000 calories of the Doughboys food. That's my problem. Yeah. That's it.

It's just a, it compounds the error I've already made. Do you guys eat really healthy when you're not eating that food? Like, does your body crave? Do you find that your body craves vegetables and water and stuff like that after? I do. I do find that's the, that's the case with me. Like I generally eat fairly healthy. But just McDonald's.

My body always craves McDonald's. Yeah. Yeah. This year's been kind of a wash for me. I've put on a good chunk of weight. I'm not as, I'm a little bit chubbier than I was last year. And it's because I've gone so far off the reservation in terms of, in terms of nutrition. Like I'm usually like pretty strict and rigid about like I'm going to have a salad.

I'm going to have, you know, some lean proteins. I'm going to keep things pretty strict when I'm not eating for this podcast or a nice meal I'll go out to with my wife. But I've just been having fucking shitty food all the time. It's had fucking, they just have like garbage all the time. I just started a diet meal delivery service. Oh yeah? Yeah.

It's called Zen. Okay. Is it good? It's Eva Anderson who told me about it. Is it vegetarian? I literally just had my first meal last night. It's not vegetarian. I had a pescatarian.

It's a, no, it's a, I had a bison chili last night. Oh. It's a portion control. So it's like extra meat. It's like meaty. I mean, I don't know if it's meat. Tonight is turkey meatballs and zucchini. This sounds aggressively meaty.

What are you talking about? What's Zen about all this meat throwing bison chili in the mix? Zen, Zen doesn't mean like vegetables. I think it just means balance. Yeah. It just means balance. Yeah. And it's about portion control.

I always eat bad at dinner time. So I got a bunch of, I get, I'm getting dinners delivered. Have you ever considered dinner canceling? No. What's that? You just don't eat dinner. Whoa. That's it.

This is insane to me. You don't eat dinner and then whatever time you finish eating your day, you could have like some broth for dinner or something like that. That would be, that would be it for me today. You just started, well, we, we had quite a feast. I would be sad if that was all you had to eat today though. Yeah. Because there wasn't anything that satisfying.

No, it wasn't. See, that's the issue with dough boys is that it won't scratch that itch. Yeah. We talked about this earlier. Where you feel like you ate what you wanted to eat. Right. You feel like you ate what you wanted to eat. No, you're just eating, it's just a chore.

Yeah. Yeah. By the way, dinner canceling sounds like. Dinner canceling. Dinner had some homophobic tweets from 2009. I went to a very, I went to an Austrian stomach clinic. Whoa. And one of their things is dinner canceling.

That's so crazy. Yeah. Dinners canceled. They tell you to cancel dinner a couple nights a week. Sorry, dinner. You can't host the Emmys. It's canceled. Dinner's canceled.

Mom's on strike. I'm going to say this. I know that this is, I would be upset if I do talk about this. Agatha Christie, she had a lot of crazy ideas. We talked about her earlier in the podcast. Love Agatha Christie. What was up with her? I played, Paul F. Tompkins used to have a podcast called Dead Authors Podcast.

Oh yeah. And I played Agatha Christie on the Dead Authors Podcast. What's her deal? It was really fun. How come she had all these mysteries? She was just a good old fashioned, great brain, too smart lady who was rich enough to be an eccentric. And was good at it, could really spin a yarn.

Her and Patricia Highsmith, both very good, like, ooh, keep you on the seat of your pants. Right. The way you brought that up, Mitch, I thought you were like, oh, she wrote something problematic, which I don't know anything about her. No, no, no. It's kind of like being, you mean her prolific she was? Yes, all these mysteries. I just, I'm wondering what she's hiding.

Okay, that's what's going on here. I think it's a platonic thing. I think it's kind of like Steve being like a Stephen King person where you're like, like, what does Stephen King probably do all day? Nothing. But then he sits down and he did a lot of cocaine. But like, it's all in his brain and he wants to get it out on the page. And then the rest of the time, though, Stephen King probably has like a dungeon and a few

other things. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I read his book on writing, which talks about his writing process, and he was legitimately just like coked out of his mind for like much of the eighties. It's like dough boys. Yeah. That feels very Cujo. Yeah.

I guess, and I don't remember. Yeah, I think he was coked up writing Cujo, but I think Tommy Knocker specifically is the one he has no memory of writing. Oh, well, I take it back. I didn't know he was so fascinating. Yeah. I think that Christy is fascinating to me too. I think she's hiding somewhere.

I'd like to think there's a few dead bodies in her. Yeah. In an old steamer trunk somewhere. Christy also kind of sounds like mystery. Yes. It's like it's like Wetzels and pretzels. Yeah, that's perfect. Let's get into what we had at the Starbucks Reserve.

We went to the one over on Hillhurst Avenue. It has the receipt out in his hand. I have the receipt here because they don't have the Starbucks Reserve menu online. So this is the best chronicling of the best rundown of what we had. It's shaking either from your anxiety or too much coffee or lack of. And I will say there's a lot of crossover between the Reserve menu and the regular menu. That's true. Yes.

There are a lot of items. I was delighted that we were doing Starbucks because I feel like people always find themselves some people want to but forced to eat at a Starbucks by circumstance. So I feel like so many people have opinions about Starbucks. It's always a compromise. I was very excited that we were doing Starbucks. There's Logan. Starbucks.

It's always a compromise. It's us or Wetzels. So here's the food we have. We'll start there. And by the way, I just have a low grade tremor. That's just it. I think it's a neurological thing. No, you've had like 14 cups of coffee since I've been with you.

I have had a lot of caffeine. Yeah. And then I'll come down with that with a bottle of red wine after the podcast. I'm just caffeinated or cheap red wine. No, I got. We drink any. What are you 15 to 25? I'll go a little cheaper than that.

I'll go like in the 799. Yeah. I'll go in like the eight to 15 range somewhere in there. If I want to splurge, I'll maybe get something a little bit more expensive. If it's a varietal, I'm interested in. But yeah, I try not to spend too much. What is a varietal you're interested in? Oh boy.

Yeah. Like good cab fronk. I'll give all take. I'll spend a little bit on that. You're making this in your bathtub. So I'm drinking. I believe that's called prison wine. So the black bean wrap, the PB and J protein box, which was a whole bunch of crap.

As Jessica pointed out, intended for kids. And the turkey ruben or the savory lunch items that we ordered first. Let's start there. And then we'll talk about the breakfast. We're kind of, you know what? We got so much shit. We'll just kind of go in receipt order here. So much to get through.

Yeah. Break it down. The black bean wrap, I think. Do you want me to go through everything? Say everything we got. Okay. I'll go through the whole rundown and then we'll take it course by course. Black bean wrap, PB and J protein box, turkey ruben, bacon sandwich, bacon sous vide bites,

egg white sous vide bites, chicken chorizo sous vide bites, ham and cheese sous vide bites, Bantam everybody's, Bantam classic bagels. I don't know why they're called everybody's not everything bagels. That's what it says in their seat. Everybody's bagels? They're called everybody's bagels. And also I want to say that bacon sandwich you talked about was a bacon, double smoked bacon and cheddar with egg.

So that's what the DS stands for on here, not dual screen. Blueberry muffin, old fashioned donut, donut cake pop, birthday cake pop, cookie cake pop, house affogato. Why are you getting mad as the list goes on? It's a lot of stuff. An iced hazelnut latte. Iced, what the fuck was this? It was the cold brew malt.

What was the, what was the malt? It was just a coffee malt, right? Cold brew malt shake. And what was the last one? Iced care? The caramel thing you had. Caramel macchiato. Iced what it was.

Iced macchiato. Yeah, but they had a fancier name than that. Yeah, it was like phantom. Wasn't it like phantom? The phantom menace? It was phantom nitro or something. It was like a phantom shade or something weird. I forget what it was called.

Maybe the name is on your picture that you took. It might be. It might be. Because they have fancier names. Yes, they do. I don't want people to be confused and think that was just a hazelnut latte because I remember asking. Yeah.

And what we were told was in the fancy version, they don't just use the like Tarani syrup or whatever. They use hazelnut paste in order to flavor it. Fucking bullshit. Iced hazelnut. And if you believe that, I got a bridge I can tell you. Oh boy, what a bunch of bullshit this stuff is. Not to mention this fucking plastic cup.

What am I supposed to do? Take this to the beach? Yeah. Truly. It's crazy. Like this is like a pale you buy for a kid to take to the beach. That's how thick the plastic is. A goldfish could live in this for a week at least.

It's like a collectible cup, but it only has the Starbucks Reserve logo on it, which looks like the Rockstar logo. Totally. It looks like the Rockstar logo. It's confusing. So the one that the hazelnut thing, the iced hazelnut Bianco Latte is what it's called. Yeah. Okay.

And what about mine? Yours is the, it's the cold brew malt. Was that it? No, no, no. That's what I had. It's on the right side of the board. Top right. Top right.

The iced cinnamon cloud macchiato. No, it's the other one. The caramel. Caramel cloud macchiato. Cloud. That's what it was. Cloud involved. Named after the Final Fantasy Karenic?

Yeah, it is. It's a cloud strife macchiato. Okay. Let's see. So let's just run down. Should we go breakfast, lunch, dinner? I think that's a better way to do it. So let's start with the, let's start with your bacon sandwich and then the sous vide bites.

We need you on the show more often to help us break this down. I'm just trying to remember how we experienced it because I feel like we did move through the food in a traditional like day way. Yeah. And then we have our, we surprise, surprise. We still have our cake pops. We still have our cake pops. We do have our cake pops.

On the air. So let's, let's start with those sous vide bites. I think we were all kind of, I mean, I, to me, they, they look gross. They look disgusting. I'd never had them before. They look bad. And these are, these are one of those menu items. Jessica pointed out that is available at, at most regular Starbucks's.

But this was a, I felt these, these, they tasted better than they looked. And I'd say like two of them were winners and two of them I was kind of didn't love. Yeah. Two of them were bad. The trees in line that you can throw in the fucking trash. Really weird. Really weird. Not only did it look poor.

It looked awful. I don't know whether that's, is this a trend now? Like it's Southwestern palette. Is that a trend? Cause I'm not interested in that. It fucking sucks. Like, you know when everything was pomegranate for a while? Yes.

Is this the thing now? Everything has to have adobe chili in it. Pomegranates, that tiny fruit, get that tiny fruit out of here. Okay. Let's take it easy. Pomegranates are fine. I love, I take it easy. Pomegranates are fine.

I like, I, I'm okay with pomegranates. Natalie likes them a lot. I don't want to say anything. A pomegranate is fun to eat. It's fun. As a real pomegranate. Yes. But it's all about Natalie.

No, but a pomegranate. I'm sticking up for my wife. You piece of shit. I will say a pomegranate is the food of myth. So it is, it's a magical food. Like it is like, how did it get this way? And how do I eat it? And can I eat the, the combs out?

I mean, it's a disappointing food to eat. It's always more seed than liquid, but you do feel a little bit like a Roman God eating pomegranate. Yeah. Drinking pomegranate juice is just like, why bother? No, I agree. Too tart. Um, the, uh, with not enough flavor.

Yeah. But the bites, there was really only one winner in the bites for me. The, was that the, which one was it? I think it was the bacon. Yes. Cheese one. Yeah. Right.

The bacon one was good. And, and it tasted like the way I said it there is it tasted the most like a quiche. Yes. I think I had two things going for one. I think it had the best flavor in two. It felt like the most moist kind of newest bite. Right. Maybe I don't know.

The egg white one I thought was bad. I just, I also don't like egg whites. Give me a whole egg. I mean, nutritionally, you know, my complaint about the egg white one and also about the ham and cheese, the ham and cheese one. Yes. Cause there was a bacon one and a ham one. The bacon one was the delicious one.

Yes. The ham one. And I'm going to say this now. I said it to you at the restaurant. Why the fuck whoever, whoever decided that red peppers had to be hot and inside of things. I don't mind a cold red pepper. Delicious. If that's what you're into, but a roasted red pepper or a hot red pepper has an overpowering

flavor that lingers. It overtakes because it's one of those flavors that's like a nose and mouth flavor. Right. If you know what I mean. I mean, I know technically every taste is also a smell, but like it just takes over. What's going on? And I know they just do it to give it color because otherwise the egg white bite is just white and green.

Sure. White, green and red. It's disgusting. Yeah. I don't want anything to do with it. They slime up is my issue with the peppers. Do they ever? They slime up.

It's a, it's a Denver omelette con. I think is what they're trying to go for here, the green, the green bell pepper ham and cheese, but it doesn't really work in the bite form. Although I'd say that was, that was one of the less objectionable ones to me. I love chorizo. I'll just say this. I love chorizo and eggs and that's, that's like, you get that at a good Mexican restaurant. That's a, that's a delightful dish, but this is just a terrible.

Trees. No. For this one. This one is, this one is gross. This one tastes like trash. Um, we got the, it looked, it was not appealing. Not at all. No.

It's like mud. It looked like, it really did. It really did look like mud. Yeah. I was going to say it looks like, it looked like, it looked like Freddy. It looked like Freddy's skin and many like, like, like a, like, like a brown, brown, brown victim. Yeah.

I guess, I guess that's, I guess that is. But it wasn't anything that as an animal, if you happened upon it, like, if you were a dog sniffing around, you wouldn't be like, should I put that in my mouth? Yeah. Yeah. You would just keep moving. It was like a clay putty. That's a great, great way to put it.

There was a dog at the, there was a dog at the front of the store, which was a highlight of the. Great looking dog. A good looking dog. His owner did take a picture of us at the, at when we were getting our food and I don't know. Oh, I miss that. I don't know if it was because we were getting a bunch of food or what it was.

Maybe they knew. They knew what we were really up to. They knew you were the dough boys or they could have been it. Yeah. They thought I was Bruce Valanche or they thought I was Bruce Valanche. I was Bruce Valanche for Halloween two years in a row. Really? Not kidding.

Not even a little. That's amazing. We're a tuxedo t-shirt, frizzed out my red hair, glasses, and people were like, dude, so like you're just not interested in male company at all. Like what's the, and I was like, what do you mean? This is hilarious. And I was like, just you, you're just the wrong guy. Like the right guy is going to want to go home with Bruce Valanche.

Didn't happen. There wasn't a third year. Sexy Bruce Valanche. I just wore no pants. I, but I pasted, I pasted hair onto my thighs and worse beat out getting. So the, uh, the good idea that that's a great idea. We're the, the, the, the, the bagel bites, the everybody's, which was the one that was cut, was covered with everything seasonings and it had the veggie cream cheese inside

and then the classic one, which was just like a plain bagel with regular clean cream cheese. Yeah. Um, uh, Jessica, what did you think of those two bad boys? I think Mitch and I had equal opinions on this. Yeah. Yeah. Well, here's my thing. You right away was like, you got to give a warning if it's veggie cream cheese, which

I agree with. Absolutely. Here's my question though. Why, why not have the veggie cream cheese and the plain one and everything have plain cream cheese? First of all, don't have any veggie cream cheese in any of them. That's, that's the, this is not, it was really interesting cause I love an everything bagel like everything bagels my favorite bagel.

And so I was immediately expecting, Oh, this will be fun and everything bagel with regular cream cheese inside and it's just that portion and that sounds delicious to me. And I like a bagel bite anyway. Like I like a bagel. I used to eat a lot of bagel bite pizzas, a little like, I like a mini bagels, a fun concept of mini bagel. These are like dough bites basically with stuff inside and then some stuff on top. And so automatically it was such a turn off the veggie cream cheese and the veggie cream

cheese was like, there wasn't really enough of it and it couldn't decide if it wanted to be more cream cheese or more veggie. And again, red peppers inside the veggie cream cheese, please. If there's one takeaway from this podcast to the food service, to the food industry, enough with the red peppers, just please. But the original bite, I have to say, delivered on the promise of the taste of a bagel. If I wanted, and I was saying to you guys, I thought, I bet you that's a really good seller for them because I feel like people that are on like weight watchers or counting

points or that kind of thing. That's a great way. You're always trying to find, I have this friend, this good friend who started this business called Hungry Girl and their tagline is tips and tricks for hungry chicks. But basically everything is a swap. And actually she would be a great person for you guys to talk to because she basically spends her whole life, she has this like test kitchen where they come up with recipes so that you can eat the food that you want to eat but for like half the calories or half

the points and how can you get it to taste as much like the thing. And so these bagel bites are very much that thing of like, do they scratch the itch? It's delicious to eat a bagel, but a bagel with cream cheese is probably, I don't even know, but like 12 points or something crazy like that. I bet you each of those bites are like three or four points and you could have one or two of those for breakfast and you would feel like you had a bagel. You tasted like eating a plain bagel with cream cheese and you didn't feel like you were depriving yourself and it was enough food.

Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was, they were. I was a bigger fan than I thought I would be. The plain ones, I was for a meal, I don't want to give any spoilers here, but for a meal that was pretty much overall bad, these, these, I don't want to give me spoilers, should we even finish the plain bagels with cream cheese were closer to a highlight. Than anything.

Yes. I agree. If you can get past the delivery system, right? Because there's just something so, so sad about where you're like, does it have to be a bite? Like, can't you just serve? What about if you just sold half a bagel with cream cheese? Yeah.

And so then I don't have to, I mean, in the portion control department, it's helpful, but like, oh, yeah, yeah, does everything have to be a cute version of something or could it just be the thing? That was my, that was my main issue with it is how hard is it to just get a bagel and eat half a bagel or like you're saying, just yeah, it's, it's crazy. And I'm not even sure that that really saves you too, too much. Like, I think you're right that two of them would be like a three or something on or so or six points or something.

I bet two of them are like six. Yeah, but then like, isn't that close to what a half a bagel would be with some cream cheese on it? Half a bagel. Yeah. Yeah. But they won't sell you half a bagel. No, you can't do that.

And then once you have the bagel, you're like, what am I going to do with this bagel? Yeah. Right. Now we're at 12. Yeah. Who wants tomorrow's bagel? Yeah, but if you're in an airport terminal or something like that, you're not taking that to go.

Well, let me tell you right now, you're at Starbucks, you're getting yesterday's bagel anyways. Yeah, that's true. I would say that the, that for me, I just like, I don't think of a bagel as something that's hyper processed and this feels like a more, a much more processed version of a bagel. And so, you know, like I just, for me, that, that aspect I found an appealing, however, just conceptually, I don't like the idea, but the, the classic was, was not bad and

the, the everybody's bagel was bad. I think this was, I think this was a shark tank thing as well. Um, the, the, I would believe that your, your bacon sandwich, Mitch, you got, well, they, whoever got a Cuban, you fucked up whoever, whoever went in on this idea, they fucked up. Feels like a herkovec. Uh, my, you're saying my, my breakfast sandwich, the double smoked bacon and cheddar cheese. Yes.

Boo. Boo is right. It was pretty bad. Boo, who? Cause I was sad. It would at least be something that they would get right. I'll save it for my hand review, but look, if you're going to Dunkin Donuts and you get this, the similar thing at Dunkin Donuts, it's not going to let you down like this.

This is crazy. Dunkin Donuts and, and you know, I say this as someone who grew up in Southern California. I have no allegiance to Boston. I've never been there, but the, but Dunkin Donuts is one of the best fast food breakfasts available. It is. That's, that's, that's in someone with no, no preconceived bias. That's just my, my assessment of this chain.

I'm not, I'm not. I'll also take an egg McMuffin over, whatever that was 100% 100% I wish you, I wish you tried Dunkin Donuts and remember when it was like the donuts and bagels were fresh back in the day. They're still, they're still places where you can, if you get there early enough, but the problem now is they don't bake them on the premises. Right. They come from a central location now.

Yeah. They're like shipped in plastic. Yeah. Okay. You know what I love is the Dunkin Donuts blueberry muffin. Oh, those are. Have you ever had one? Or a corn muffin, but their blueberry muffin is amazing.

I blew. It's fluffy and then it has just the right amount of sugar on top. They're amazing. And you put some butter on there. Oh, speaking of which we had a fucking blueberry muffin. Can I get a, can I get a half a cup of oil with that blueberry muffin? It's this. Fuck you.

This is what blew my mind. Is that all these things? How do you get this wrong? How do you? How are you? Fucking these things up. The blueberry muffin wasn't good and we can get right into it. That donut sucked.

You knew right away. The donut was a little bit bad. The donut was a year to me. The donut was absolutely the donut was a, as I was saying, a pound cake shaped donut. It was not, this was supposed to be an old fashioned donut. And again, for anybody who's from the New England area or Canadians, I think understand this too, like a cider donut. So there's this, they're in the winter, there's this thing where basically it's just a plain

old fashioned donut, sometimes with a little bit of sugar, a little bit of cinnamon sugar on the rim. And it's, it comes out of the fryer and it's crispy on the outside and it's soft and fluffy on the inside. And they serve it to you with a cup of cider or a cup of hot cider. And it's just like basic donut. And that is what this was purporting to be, just a cake donut. And it, first of all, would have sunk to the bottom of a bathtub in an instant, no question.

It was so dense that there was, it was so dense, there wasn't even room for like water to fill it up and water log it. And it just tasted like bad pound cake. It was like they shaped it into pound cake. It didn't seem like it was going to spring out of a pan. And how do you get that wrong? This is a multi-billion dollar company. I'd love to know how many billions they spend on their test kitchen.

And all of these foods are really simple foods. It's that weird thing to me where like, nobody's like, let's dial back the oil on that muffin. How much are we putting in the batter? Oh, a cup of oil. Let's try a third of a cup of oil and see what happens. It's like everybody's just like, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, that's fine. But also makes me worry about the American palate. Like have people developed to a point where they're like, if this thing doesn't slide

off my tongue, I don't feel like I'm eating it. We have terrible taste in this shitty country. You know what I mean? I had a fucking pancake this weekend that had giant blueberries in it that tasted like blueberries. I almost had a heart attack. People think it was like an old fashioned fucking pancake. I couldn't get it. I was like, I was like, oh, this is a pancake.

Right. People think Avengers Endgame is like Godfather level. This country, we're fucking idiots, Nick. All right, don't go on your anti-marvel rant. It's ridiculous. Stay on topic. I used to love, my birthday is October 6th. OK.

So I would go on haunted hay rides for my birthday. Sure. And we'd have spider cider and deadly donuts, Nick. And those are those type of donuts you were talking about. They were delicious. Yeah. This doughnut is the complete opposite of this. Did you ever have a Jordan Marsh blueberry muffin?

I don't know if I had you ever heard of them. I went to Jordan Marsh all the time. In Boston? There was one in Quincy. OK. And there's honestly a sad story where there was a, you know the story, Nick, the cat that the little kitten that got away, the little kitten that froze to death, basically.

Thanks for bumming everyone out. I know. Sorry. There was a little kitten blowing around the parking lot of Jordan Marsh. And then we tried to go get it. And then we went back the next day and it had frozen to death. It was early November.

It just got like crazy cold. Oh, that's so sad. And it was a black and white cat. And that's why I have a thing for. Now you get these two jerks. That's why it. You got a soft spot for black and white cats. Yes, there's yeah.

Irma and. Wally and Irma. Yeah, Wally. So much of this podcast is just unpacking dark things from your past. Just dealing with it. But this is what food and nostalgia, right? But what I was going to say about Jordan Marsh is,

so weirdly, this Boston department store, Jordan Marsh, had these blueberry muffins. They had a bakery where they really just sold these blueberry muffins. And so you'd come in to go shopping. And it was right in the beginning in downtown crossing was sort of the like, all the trains sort of came across that area.

And there was a Faleens and a Faleens basement at Jordan Marsh. And now a lot of that stuff has gone away. I always had filings. Well, I said filings also. But if you're a real Bostonian, you say. Faleens or Faleens basement. Faleens.

Faleens basement. And I'm obviously pumping up the Boston accent a little bit for the purposes of the show. But the truth is, I never had a Boston accent. Oh, really? They just didn't have them where I came from. Though there were some kids that did. But my mother and my parents both totally had Boston accents.

I went to my orientation at Ithaca College. And they're like, say your name and say a little bit about yourself. And I started talking. She was like, hey, the orientation leader was like, hey, this isn't like a joke. You shouldn't mess around. She thought I was doing a fucking character.

And I was like, I'm not doing a fucking character. They are very strong in the dramatic arts and the performing arts at Ithaca. It was insane to me. Also, you were like, I wanted to see the gorge. I came for the gorge. I stayed for the. And then from that day forward, I.

Did you try to get rid of it? I try to get rid of it also. And I wanted to be an actor and something like it. Like I think I was very conscious of it when I was at Ithaca and I came out here. It just it went away. Yeah, no one can tell you from Boston. Nick says that when I talk to my Quincy friends,

it comes back or my mom or something. You go, yeah, the drawer. You say drawer in Boston. Is that what you say, drawer? I can't believe that you said Quincy is nice because there's going to be so many people. Not only one because nice because I've never heard anyone say Quincy is nice, but then to you say Quincy is nice

all the time. I mean, I love it as a city. I do love it, but but there are parts of Quincy that are nice is what I said. That's surprising to me. I mean, the parts right. You're going to visit go to the tape. I'll go visit Quincy.

Anyway, what I'm going to tell you is these muffins. They would basically draw people into the store and they were these giant blueberry muffins with sugar on top. And they would just be served them fresh all day. And then when they were out, they were out. And so, and then it kind of Jordan Marsh closed and there was a guy who was the baker

who made them for a hundred years or whatever. And a couple of years ago, my cousin sent me the recipe. It was like WCVB channel five did a story on the guy. Like it was like a chronicle did a story, but I don't think it was a chronicle story. And so she sent me the recipe. And so now I make them sometimes. And they're, they're delicious,

but it was such a specific Boston. And the trick, the secret I believe to his muffins was that they're half bread flour, half regular flour. And also when he takes them, the blueberries, he pours a little bit of the flour on the bowl. And he also mash them a little bit, not all the way, but a little bit. And that's how you get in a blueberry muffin

if you want it, that like purple swirl. Oh yeah. It's for mashing the blueberry. Right, just like a little blueberry rib. Do you know what I love? That wasn't the muffin we had today. That was not the muffin taste. It was awful.

It was really bad. What were you to say, sorry? I love like department stores that have like little, and there's another one in New England that I. Bloomingdale's had amazing frozen yogurt. And it was right when frozen yogurt was like happening. They had some like European frozen yogurt thing. And so I'd go to the Cheson Hill Mall

and get, it was like pink berry before pink berry where you'd get just a plain frozen yogurt with fruit on it. There was, there was another. And cookies, Mrs. Fields cookies. There was a New England department store with like a, and for like on every sign there was a cartoon guy who had like a big nose and kind of closed eyes. And it was kind of a chubby older looking man.

Sounds problematic. It was, it was not problematic. It was like a cartoon guy. It's like caricature of. I know. As a Jewish person, I'm getting very nervous. There was food in the store. And did it say something like, don't buy from June?

No. Um, this is possible in Boston boycott this store. Um, no, so say this again though about the food. It was, it was, there was like a foods. There was like a little section where they sold food in this department store. And I can't remember the name of the place. Someone in Boston, do you know where it was located?

No, cause I was like a child. This is like child. Do you remember any of the foods? No, I just remember liking it. I remember getting some popcorn and having Lord and Taylor. No, I think it was Lord and Taylor. So there was sacks, Lord and Taylor, Jordan Marsh. I think it was like a furniture type of store.

Well, that to me sounds like building 19. It might have been building 19. You know what? I think it was building 19. The thing with the cartoon face to me sounds like building 19, but it was like building 19 in three eighths or seven quarters or whatever, or it could have been Jordan's furniture where they were selling food.

I, it wasn't Jordan's. I think it was building 19. Jordan's furniture had space ice cream or astronaut ice cream. What's the little ball? Oh yeah. Dippin dots. Dippin dots ice cream of the future. Mom, which is like a motion Odyssey movie ride,

which is like a like a chair that shakes 4D. That's fun. It was fine. It sure is when you've never been anywhere. When you've never been to Epcot. It's what it's what people are just going to say. I think it was building 19. And I think the guy looked sleepy like sleepy moon.

Okay. It was building 19. And I wonder what the food was. I don't remember. I want to find out, but also people are just going to say Quincy's nice now. Give me just look at the Wikipedia for Quincy. It's a shithole.

It's a shithole. Quincy's a sh... I'm being nice because I'm from a fancy place. Quincy's a shithole. Also I'm North Shore and he's South Shore. South Shore rules. Okay. Oh, no, no, no.

Oh, wait a minute. Absolutely not. You song is talking to them. Who is it? The Greenpeace came by. They're here. You song. I'm a monthly contributor.

Thank you for your work. It's true. I am. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. I like old school. They dare come and fucking interrupt our podcast. Let's tell us about the Japanese whaling research again.

I've never eaten whale view. No, there was a restaurant in Santa Monica. I would never eat whale. Oh, there was one. They closed it. Yeah. It's a one by the airport. Called the hump at the Santa Monica airport.

What the fuck? This is real. They were selling whale. Oh, there was a whole, it was a great article. There was a whole like sting operation. Yeah. They would bring whale from Japan in a cooler. And they had it in the truck.

And it's illegal to sell whale, to eat whale in America. That's insane. They had, so the sushi chef. And blowfish too. Yeah. So they had this illegal fish. Fugazi, is that what it's called? I don't remember exactly what it is.

I don't think it's Fugazi. That's a fake diamond, right? I just remember that. Is it Fugazi a band? Fugazi is a band. It is a band. But what do you call Japanese blowfish? There's a name for it that starts with an FU.

Yeah, anyway. If you know the answer out there without googling it, Japanese blowfish answer. Funky fish. Hashtag funky fish. And I will say that the, yeah, so they had, it's illegal to sell. So they had it, they weren't even having it in the kitchen. They had it in the trunk of a guy's car, the chef's car,

like packed in ice in a cooler. And if someone ordered it like off the secret menu, they'd go out to the car and get it and bring it in. And so yeah, there was a, there were some activists who went in and ordered it a few times. And then like stole it, like took it to go, didn't steal it. They paid for it, but they, they took it to go and then they exposed the whole operation.

Wow. The restaurant shut down. Yeah. Santa Monica should be shut down itself. That airport, that airport is being shut down and being converted into a lovely public park, which is nice. Oh, that is nice. But why don't they want it to be an airport anymore?

Well, because it's really just for private planes. Private planes, yeah. But what's wrong with that? I mean, I think there's, there's a, there's a, the LAX is not too far from that. It's, you know, and it's. The hobbyists can't work out of LAX.

These people are going to have to go to Van Nuys now. Yeah. Though they might have to go to Van Nuys. I'm not too worried about. Or the Oxnard or somewhere. I'm not too worried about people who live in Santa Monica and Malibu who have, who own their private plane. Harrison Ford enjoys using the Barker hangar.

He sure does. Yeah. He crashed his private plane in a golf course, not far from there. That's right. He's crashing left and right. It's crazy. Well, there's only 300 more things that we ate.

Um, so, uh, yeah. We'll get to the rest of our shit. We ate so much food. The breakfast sandwich sucks. Breakfast sandwich was bad. Dung and donuts destroys it. Let's speed through the lunch options, which were, I thought were very bad.

The black bean wrap was awful. Terrible. I refused to try it. It was like a spinach wrap thing with black beans inside and a lot of red onion. And it was not seasoned at all. It tasted like a cold bad burrito. And they told us it was new on the menu.

I hope they take it off immediately. Just from the sight of it. It was falling apart in the container. Really unappealing. And also again to whoever's in charge of this shit, don't send someone home from lunch with a mouthful of red onion. And if, or if you're going to do that,

call it a Greek wrap. So I know what I'm getting myself into. It was, it was, it was bad. That was awful. Get off the menu. The, the protein box with the PB and J. It was a bad peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The peanut butter and jelly sandwich was bad.

It was bad. How did this happen? This was shameful. This was bad. This was like child abuse. This was like, we don't care about children. Right. Just get whatever the cheapest,

whatever the cheapest bread is, and whatever the cheapest peanut butter is. No one even tasted that sandwich before they wrapped it up and put it. And also that whole box was like for, it should have been called like the failing mom box. It was very sad. Like for like moms that were like,

I just couldn't get it together today. I'm picking up a cup of coffee and here is your lunch. That was like what that was. You don't even deserve lunchables. I just like, I'm not even making another trip to the grocery store. Why was it called? Because it was called the.

It was called the. Mercado box or something. Or like the PB and J box, but it was not called like the kids meal. I think it was called the protein box, but let me see if I have a picture of the packaging. It was awful. How do you do a bad half a PB and J?

You know what? It's my mom's birthday today. Oh, happy birthday. It's a Mitchell. It's an insult to my mom. That box was an insult to my mother. It was bad. To mothers everywhere.

Yeah. To moms everywhere. Yeah. How do you say mom? I say mom also. I say mom. Yeah. Yeah.

Does everyone you know say mom? I think so. Yeah. But not too many people say mom. Or mom. I say mom a lot too. I don't say mom, but I say mom. Mom.

I say that from the basement. Oh yeah, mom. From the basement. Michael. And I say, mom, I'm down here. And she's like, I'm in the basement. I'm in the basement. He's in the cellar?

It was just called the PB and J with fruit and veggies protein box. And it also had a string cheese in there, which was one of the best things we ate today. Chocolate covered raisins. Chocolate covered raisins were bad. It had carrots, cucumbers, and a ranch dip. It was a box of sadness.

Yeah. Chocolate covered raisins. And is there anything else? Oh, apple slices. It was just the working mother's box. Yes. It was bad. Or the divorce dad.

Right. Meal box. Give me one of those. I was supposed to do lunch today. He eats half of it on the drive over. The turkey ruben we got, which was a hot item. Well, let's get into that. $7.75.

The Black Bean Wrap was $7.45. That was $7.75. What? These were very expensive venue items. $7.75 for the ruben? Yeah. That ruben sucked. I will say that just by the fact that they heated it up for you,

because the bread was buttered on the outside, and then they warm it up in a panini press. Having something hot made it feel more like a meal with some dignity and substance to it. But it still tasted bad. And for me, the big thing was it's a ruben made with turkey. The turkey was not the right meat for this. Yeah.

Well, I disagree about a turkey ruben. Oh, boy, OK. Because one of my favorite things is called a Georgia ruben. And it comes from a place called Zingermans in Ann Arbor, Michigan. OK. Which is a delicious local deli who do a huge mail order business. And one of the things that they, one of their items that they have these ruben kits that you can order,

I always talk about this. And if ever anyone ever has like a baby or whatever, I always send them one of these ruben kits. Mitch is ordering it right now. And they give you, no, no, no. Are you looking it up? No, I'm going to tell you, keep going with your story. I'll tell you what I'm doing.

OK. Leaving? Leaving? No, I'm going to record the Celtics game. Oh. You don't have a direct TV app on your phone? I did. That's what I was doing.

This is faster. And so basically they do a thing called a Georgia ruben, which is totally delicious. This ruben, if I'm going to get the sandwich to go in the press. Yes. Whether it's the grilled cheese or the this, or they had some other fig thing. Like I'm in the mood for a hot sandwich right now.

Right. I obviously need a hug of some kind. Some things go, some things going on in my day where either I'm too cold and I can't get home to take a bath. Yes. Or somebody was not nice to me. Or I just need a hot sandwich. And that sandwich did not deliver on the like, on the hug level.

Yeah. In any way, shape or form. It was bad product. And it was whatever their turkey was, was that overseas, the mistake was it was an over seasoned. Everything doesn't have to be the star in a dish like that. What if it was just a delicious roast turkey and then you let the other sauces all come together.

Also, whoever's operating that panini press, the cheese wasn't barely melted. The bread was toasted ish. Yes. And the flavors were just not right. It was the flavors were just off. It was a bummer. It was, it was, it was bad.

Disappointing for 775. Yeah. It was, it was a very bad, it was bad. And I love a ruben. Yeah. I'm a big Ruben fan too. I love Rubens. And this, this was this.

Do you guys ever go to Langers and get the 19? Yeah, that's a that's a great sandwich. Yeah. My late, my late grandfather's favorite sandwich or a Ruben. And yeah, this was, this was disrespectful to his memory. We all, we also had the Jesus. The few drinks left with the, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's wrap up with our drink town and drink town.

And then we'll have these cake pops and then we'll get to our final score. I think the, the affogato is just like a scoop of ice cream with espresso poured over it. So it's not at all a drink. It's a dessert. So just know what you're getting into. You know, I've had, I've had, I think the drinks were maybe like,

were like the, that's, that's what Starbucks did. It does. And I think like the drinks were generally on another level from the food. They were like better. And I thought this was pretty good. You know, it was again, it was 650. It was, it was a lot of money for a scoop of ice cream

with a shot of espresso poured over it. But it tasted, it tasted pretty good. And it was nice as the, as the ice cream melted. It was very sweet though. Very, very sweet. There's some kind of a simple syrup they're adding to that. And there's also a cinnamon element. So if you're not expecting a cinnamon element,

Yes. Yeah. Beware. The, what did you guys think of that, that cloud macchiato? I thought it was one of the better drinks. Yeah. Talk about that delivery system. The delivery system is crazy.

There's, they, they, they, you, you thought that this, that they fucked up the drink because there was this little cap on the top where it's a cold ice drink, but it looks like a, like a latte, I guess, right? Like a, that has the frothy, the frothy foam head, but it's cold and you're supposed to. Well, I love the look of a layered, like that's always fun to me

when I get a, if I get an iced latte that you can see the milk and you can see the, the espresso poured into it. I like that before it gets mixed up. Yeah. And this thing was trying to maintain the integrity of that look. So it was like whatever the caramel sauce was, then the coffee, then the milk, and then foam on top of that.

And so it was trying to maintain that parfait experience, but the top of it was a sippy cup top, like for a child. And so what they were trying to, I guess the engineering behind it is that you take the sip and that you, it gets to stay in that parfait shape and that the coffee, the coffee comes up from the bottom and you get all the flavors at the same time. And actually the first couple of sips where it seemed to me pure cloud. Yeah.

There's a lot of cloud. That's where this is where the cloud element comes in. But that it did do the actual cup as ridiculous as it looked to be a grown man drinking out of a sippy cup did deliver on its system. Yeah. We're doing well. It was an innovation. What is a macchiato?

What is it? Basically that, I think. No, I think it's where the milk is not, where they're not mixed in together. It's close to a cappuccino base. Yeah, but the elements are like isolated instead of, I could be wrong. Could be wrong. That sounds right. I feel like we should know this.

We host a food podcast. And I think it's more foam and less milk or something like that. Okay. But also fuck that drink. Again, no, it's like Taco Bell again. Less bean, more cheese, crunch, crunch, crunch. The caramel, oh fuck, wait, that's what we just said. The hazelnut Bianco Latte was the other one, which I thought was,

you know, like the word you used, I think Jessica was subtle. It was subtler than you thought, like, because everything there, most of their drinks are, their dessert beverages are aggressively sweet, loaded with sugar. And this one I thought was, it just kind of like, it was pretty muted. It didn't have a lot of sweetness to it. Yeah, in a nice way. Yeah, it was pretty nice.

I like this one. If that's what you like. Sure. And also it didn't have the fakey, fakey, fakey hazelnut taste. Right. It was fine. It was fine. It was fine.

And then the last of these drinks we got was that cold brew malt, which I mentioned. Which is a key item because this is where the reserve comes into play. Right. Yeah, this was a, they have their own. Because they have ice cream at these places. They have ice cream and they have their own cold brews they make there, their own nitro.

Do you guys want to guess at how much this costs? We got us, we're going to sell us a grande, which is the medium size. How much do we spend on this bad boy? Well, now that I know how much the affogato was, I'm going to say 8.25. Mitch, do you have a guess? I don't think I can beat that guess. Eight bucks. Emma, do you want to make a guess?

Oh my God. I'm going to go with nine. It's 9.50. It's nine on the dot. Emma, damn. Emma wins the showcase. Wow. She's going home with a Nissan Sentra.

Nine dollars. How much is a milkshake at McConnell's, do we think? I mean, it's got to be in that range. I know, I know it. Nine dollars? I think it's sweet rose creamery, which is a similar upscale ice cream place. It's like nine bucks for a shake. And that's like a fancier fancy, fancy place.

That's good. Yeah. That's like, that's like for quality stuff. Nine dollars. Nine dollars is excessive. Also, it had absolutely no malt flavor whatsoever. And I love malt. No, it doesn't.

It does not. Nine bucks. Nine bucks is insane. If you were going to order it, I'd order it with extra malt just to get a malt flavor if you were looking for it. I wonder what they're using for the malting ages there. I assume they're using carnation because that's kind of the only malt in the business, I think.

Right. That was fucking whack, too. Yeah, fuck you. Fuck these. Fuck them. We got a few more items to go. Maybe spend less time running for president, more time tasting your malt shakes.

Thank you. Thank you. What else do we have to do? We have the cake pops. We got these cake pops. What else was on our list? We got some drinks to go. That's the full rundown of everything that we ate in.

We should remark that they bring things out that the presentation is nice. They give you like a little wood, little bento box looking thing. They were very nice. They were very nice. The service was good. And then you get it.

Well, there was a lot of confusion. There was a lot of confusion. But they were very friendly. You can put dog shit on a little fucking wooden plate, and it still is dog shit. I mean, that's what it sucks. But you get real glassware. You get really like, it's different than a normal Starbucks.

Mitch did not like the chairs we were sitting in outside. The chairs were uncomfortable. Because they encouraged too much reclining. Yeah, there was too much reclining. Did you say there were some? I thought they were big. Really? Yeah, there were these giant chairs,

but they were hips forward chairs. Big ass wager. I didn't feel that. I felt like they were kind of like cozy chairs. I think you were sitting on the edge of your seat. Oh, that's yeah. I mean, I often am. As are our listeners.

They were flat, uncomfortable, and too loungy. It was weird. I was going to give you the choice of first pop, not Nick. Nick does it. Oh, you were? Yeah. Go for it.

And what are the flavors according to the receipt? One was birthday cake. Fuck. This one is donut flavor covered. Yeah, donut cake, birthday cake, and cookie cake. Cookie cake. All right. I'm going to try the cookie one, I guess.

Cookie, I think that's the best choice. Nick, what are you going to go with? I'm going to go with this pink one right here. Leave me with the worst choice. Oh, man. Do you want the other one? Because I don't care. No, I don't care.

But you're going to taste mine, aren't you? I'll taste yours as well. I'll take a bite. I'll take a nibble. Shit. Is that one? You like it? I'm not going to say anything until you try it.

Okay. I'll try both of them, actually. That's kind of, I need to know. I need to know. Here you try this one. Weiger, how am I supposed to? I tried to take a bite and keep it somewhat intact, but it's tough.

There's not a lot of surface area here. But I'm excited to see the difference between that and this. This one is good. Maybe this is the best one. Interesting. It's definitely interesting. Maybe this is the best one. Let's exchange.

I'm going to send this one that way. You're going to send the donut one this way. Jessica, do you want a nibble of that donut one? And then we can pass this over to Mitch. The donut one is like a celebration, though. It has things inside. Right. There's some fun.

Feddy. Yeah. Okay. Mitch, can you turn the game off? I'm going to get mad. Fuck you. That's the fucking Celtics play. Oh, I'm recording this shitty podcast.

Okay, let's rank them, guys. What do you think? Boy, I kind of like that donut one. Yeah. Yeah, give me that. Give me that back. Send that back to Mitch. That one to me tastes like a hostess donut.

What'd you just do? Cookie or cake? Cookie is alarming. It's weird. It tastes like raw cookie dough in the way. That's not fun. Right. It tastes weird.

It's too much of a mouthful of raw cookie dough. Like you immediately feel sick from how sweet it is. That whole raw cookie dough trend, you know, that whole like you can buy raw cookie dough and eat it, but it's not really cookie dough. Like it's made of like pasteurized eggs or something like that. But that cookie dough thing was like,

that was alarming, I thought. And I didn't appreciate the shell. No. It was like a white chocolate shell. The cakey one, the seller. The donut, the donut, the donut's the winner. The donut's the winner. The donut's the winner.

Cake is second. The pink one, which was the cake was second. And only saved by its crunch, I think. The crunchy balls on the outside. Yeah. That was just kind of generic to me. It's just kind of a generic yellow cakey sort of flavor. But it's an oily cake.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. But at least it was moist. I wouldn't be, I mean, it's not the worst. I'd feel sad if that was like my treat. Like I feel like this is a bummer of a treat. This is not even like a fun, sweet treat.

But it wasn't as bad as some of the other stuff we had. So when Natalie's buying you like a treat, like a... Like I'm a dog? Like I've been a good boy. If she is bringing you a treat, what is it? When I'm bringing a treat to my fella, it's a linser cookie. Oh, linser cookie, that's fine. He loves the linser cookie.

He loves cookies, but he loves... If I see a good looking linser cookie, he likes a linser cookie. Mitch and I have remarked on the show before that we are creamsmen. We like ice cream. I meant to mention this earlier when we talked about New England, which is I'm an ice cream. I would describe myself as an ice cream nut. Wow.

Nick loves ice cream. I love ice cream. I am not on creamsmen with Nick, by the way. You're a creamsman. I'm a creamsman. Yeah. You're in the creamsmen. I'm not in the creamsmen.

You're in the creamsmen. You're in the golden circle. I don't want to be in the what? Why aren't you a creamsman in the golden circle with us? I don't know, because I don't want to be there. We wear ice cream man suits. I don't want to be there with Nick. You don't love ice cream?

No, I love ice cream. I just don't want to be at creamsmen with Nick. What are your flavors? When I was young, when I was a little boy, made chocolate chip with Jimmy's and a cone. Okay. And then... We'll skip right past Jimmy.

I still say Jimmy's too, but gulp. One of those things you just didn't know, and then you're like, oh, okay. Well, I've read the history of it, and I just realized now that... Jim Crow Law. I just realized that I wasn't supposed... I just remembered that you're not supposed to say it.

Yeah. It came off... Chocolate sprinkles. But chocolate sprinkles. But I've read the history of Jimmy's, and it's... It's not as bad as it sounds. No, there is no crossover. It actually has its own...

That it doesn't come from... I thought it came from Jim Crow Law. It doesn't. It's not a racist. I swear. I'd like to know that website. Yeah, I want to know that was Boston.com. Yeah, Mitch.Blogspot.com.

QuincyTruth.org. Boston.com is the globe, Nick. It is the globe, yeah. Okay. So you were Mint Chip and... Mint chocolate chip with chocolate sprinkles on the cone. Okay. And mocha frappe from Brigham's.

I love the mocha frappe. When I was really little, two peppermint stick was the big one. But as I've gotten older, I like chocolate a lot. I've become a chocolate ice cream guy. Just straight-up chocolate? Yeah, a lot of the times, yeah. And who's your brand of choice?

I don't really have a brand. I'd like just... If I go to any of these, like, Jennie's or anything like that, I just... You'll get whatever they've got. Darkest chocolate. Milkiest chocolate. Darkest...

I'll do a scoop of darkest chocolate and a scoop of milkiest chocolate. What about grocery store? I don't buy ice cream at the grocery store too much. That's the most shocking thing I've heard today that is not in any way the answer I thought. Am I kicked out of the cream? You know what I'll do?

If anything, I'll... You are not a creamsman, sir. If anything, I'll buy Snickers ice cream bars. Oh, those are fun. So, yeah. Snickers and Reese's peanut butter cups, two best candies. You or the little dove bars are good too, if you ever had those.

Oh, yeah. And now Magna makes the minis. You know what I'll get? I do know. I do... Sounds like you do buy ice cream at the store. If I buy a pint of ice cream, I buy Ben and Jerry's. That's what I always do.

I want to make a recommendation to you. Let me hear it. Hagen does chocolate chocolate chip. If you're looking for chocolate at the grocery store. All right. Yeah. I used to do this thing. I wondered, Nick, if you do the same, I don't do it anymore.

But I used to just like, again, going back to the babysitting philosophy of life where you're like, basically then when you become a grown-up and you start making money, you're like, oh, I'm the babysitter. Like, I'm paying the babysitter. Right. I can do babysitting anytime I want. So I'll go into the grocery store and be like,

I can actually buy anything here if I want to. Like I could buy five kinds of ice cream. Yeah. So at the top of the ice cream season, I would buy like eight kinds of ice cream, just because I'm like, I want to try all of these. I want to know what they taste like. Right.

And I would just take a bite of each one and just decide which ones I liked. But I wouldn't eat. I'm not a person that... I don't know why. I wish I was. But I'm not a person that'll just eat a whole container of ice cream.

Yeah, I can't do that anymore. I can't do any of that. Yeah. But I would just taste them all and then decide what I love. But I don't do that anymore because I can't really eat stuff like that. But I love... I do love McConnell's.

Yeah. McConnell's. McConnell's peppermint stick is probably an ice cream that if someone didn't stop me, the flavors, the mint, the everything, it's all too delicious. I would just keep going. I can say... What are yours?

I mean, I do like a traditional mint chip. But I peppermint, for some reason, the specific peppermint flavor sometimes doesn't work for me in an ice cream context. But I would be down to try it and see how it works. You put some hot fudge on there. You've never had McConnell's peppermint stick? I have never, no.

I wouldn't think to order it because I'm not a... You're fucking... You're out of the creamsman, too. You're booted. All right, I'm out of the creamsman. At this very moment, McConnell's has something called Santa Barbara Strawberry Ice Cream. I've never been a strawberry ice cream lover.

That would be like... That would be like if it was the one that they had left. Right. I mean, I'll eat it at its ice cream. Sure. If you love strawberry ice cream, honestly, the minute... Your thing that you should do tonight where you're like, now I want to have something I would enjoy instead of

15 Keg Pops that I'm going to throw up on my way home. You would go straight to McConnell's and you would get this strawberry, Santa Barbara Strawberry Ice Cream. I hesitate to even mention it on your podcast because they only do it in limited batches because of the strawberry season, because of these fresh strawberries.

It's insanely out of this world. Yeah. Maybe a rush on stores following this recommendation by me. It sounded like a fart. I have two... Also, I think peppermint stick is maybe a New England-y thing. Oh, I should also shout out vanilla. Vanilla is a flavor.

Oh, Jesus Christ. Shut up. Vanilla is great. You make me sad sometimes. That was the moment. You know where you were like... Sometimes we'll stretch to all the time. But he was just happy with that.

I love vanilla. I know he is happy with it. I like... But French vanilla? Yeah, but just a regular vanilla, too. But French vanilla is fun. Haganize is also a great vanilla. The most plain the best for him, but...

It's not plain, it's a flavor. By the way, McConnell's does one called Sweet Cream, which is like a light vanilla. Brigham's Out of the Park ice cream. What's that? Is that what you were googling? Yeah. What's Out of the Park?

Was that their attempt at a Ben and Jerry flavor? Like pretzels, chocolate chips. It's more basic. You know, did you ever have Howard Johnson's? Yes. Howard Johnson's Mint Chip, greatest chip of all time because their chip was like a Blizzard chip. Like just flex, but amazing.

Howard Johnson's Mint Chip, one of the all-time greatest. I didn't know they made ice cream. Do you know where Howard Johnson's started? They don't make it anymore. Also Quincy. Quincy Massachusetts. So proud of that. They're all clues now.

A home run mix of coffee ice cream with espresso chocolate flavored chunks and fudge swirl. It sounds great. It's good. It's better than... I think it's better than it even sounds. And then I like the Big Dig. It's not Moose Tracks though.

I love a little Moose Tracks. I also don't get the baseball theming there. What's baseball about coffee? Out of the Park, baby. It's... Yeah, they just, the name. Yeah, I guess so. The Big Dig ice cream I like too.

What was in that? The Big Dig is this is more like what you're... I've never had these themed Brigham's. Must have been after my time. Creamy vanilla ice cream, Nick. Fudge, this is other stuff you might not like. Fudge, brownie chunks, caramel sauce, and chocolate chunks. Yeah, I could do that, that makes sense.

That's great. Mixins though, there was a place called... Two places in Boston. The Mixin really started in Boston and whoever started these places should sue the shit out of those rocky mountain people, whatever the fuck they're called. What are they called? Rocky.

The Rocky Mountain Fudge Company? No, the Mixin people. Coldstone? Yeah. Oh, Coldstone. They're going down on their own anyways. Yeah, well, because they're nothing but trash. But there was a place in Boston first called Herolls.

Sorry, first called Steve's. And I actually still have a Steve's t-shirt. And that was the place where they would take those two big paddles and you'd say, I want Junior Mint's and I want this and I want that and they mix it in for you. Then Steve sold his name or something, so then he opened Herolls because he was Steve Heroll. But Emak and Bolio's was another place that would do a Mixin for you.

And there's still one on New Root Street. It's a fun gimmick. Yeah. I like it when it's done well. We must be out of time. We're way over on time. Let's get to our final reviews. No, nothing to apologize for.

To all of your listeners. Here's what happens when we... This is a ticket to the last Super Bowl where the Patriots won. Did you go? I went. Oh, we didn't even talk about my Edelman story. You had an Edelman story. Oh!

You do it off the air. I want to hear the settlement story. It was... Honestly, it was so embarrassing when I think about it now. We can cut it if we do. But in the moment... No, I don't care. But in the moment, I had no choice.

I was sitting in this restaurant. I'm a huge Patriots fan. It's been a very tough year to be a Patriots fan because politically, I am not in line with the Patriots. Bob Kraft goes to the same temple that I went to growing up. I went there part-time. I went to a couple of other temples. He goes to the same massage parlor.

And now it turns out he and I go to the same massage parlor. But Bob Kraft was like a lifelong Democrat and a big Democratic supporter and a big philanthropist. And so he was like this great kind of Boston liberal Jew. And then, of course, all this Trump nonsense. And then Brady with the MAGA hat. And it's like, why don't you just do what you do? Why are you complicating the matters

with this stupid fucking hat? I mean, it was before the election, really. But still, it was just like, why are you making this hard for me? Every step, they're making this hard for me. But still, I love them and I watch them religiously. And so this was like a month ago. And I'm at dinner with a bunch of people. And there's like going to be a big party behind us,

like a table of 20 or something. And we're just waiting to see like, oh, what's this going to be? Whatever, like a rehearsal dinner. And he comes in and I'm like, oh my god, it's truly an omen. Now, guys, I work and I live in Hollywood. I've worked with some of the biggest stars of the day. I just come out and say it.

I've met some famous people. And they're just people. Are you talking about us? They're just people. I've been on some of the biggest podcasts that are known to man. But I'm just saying like, who do you get excited about? It's hard to get excited. At some point, it's hard to get excited.

I do still, every time I see the Jaws ride at Universal Studio, we shot our show up the hill from Jaws. And every single time the Jaws ride resets, I run to watch it. Like I get, Jaws is the biggest star in Hollywood as far as I'm concerned. I agree with that. So Edelman, and also on the Rana and Beverly podcast, Rana used to talk about how she was friends with Julian Edelman because in real fake life, Julian Edelman would come to,

he goes to Yom Kippur services at the temple that we said that we went to. So there was a whole storyline about how Rana became friends with Julian Edelman. She's talking about Jaws all the time. So there he was. And also this year, he was so amazing in the Super Bowl, and he really won the game for us. And it was a tough year for him personally with the suspension and then coming back from the suspension and all that stuff.

I bet money on him winning the MVP and I won a lot of money. He deserved every inch of it. And so I just got, I just literally, my body, I just got up and walked over to him. And I was like, what am I doing? Like my body just walked. It wasn't even like, what am I going to do? I was like, I have to say something. I have to say something.

And so I went again, they had just sat down and also I didn't want to interrupt. I would never talk to someone while they were eating or, you know, like that's the worst. And I just was like, I have to say, and I walked right over and he was like just sitting down. I was like, I'm so sorry. But I just have to say, and I basically said everything that I just said, which was like, it was such a tough year to be a Patriots fan. And it was only like two weeks after the Super Bowl. And I was like literally getting choked up and about to cry.

And I was just like, it, you were incredible. And you did every this team, the team needed you so badly. And also like everything that was going on with Gronk, which I for sure was like Gronk's retiring after this, I could tell from the way he was using his body. I can tell he wasn't going to have to use it again after this season. And I just was like, and I know it was a tough year for you, but it was, you know, personally, and I just how hard you worked and how you really like all that stuff. And he, and I told him the thing.

I was just, I can't believe I talked to him for so long. And he was looking at me like, this woman is crazy. And so, which I was in this moment. And I was told him the thing about, I do this podcast and the fake character and the real thing, like, and he was just like, okay, okay. And you're friends with this fictitious character, you know, and I'm like, why am I doing this? But it was like, I just said it all.

I left it all on the dance floor. And then at the very end, but he was really sweet, really sweet. And you can tell that he, he's not entirely comfortable with the attention, which is something that I like about him because I think he's still very focused on the game. And I think there's a lot of confusion about like the game and the life off the field and all that stuff. And so there's something kind of shy about him and earnest and dorky.

And at the very end, I turned into a complete Jewish mother and I put my hand on the shoulder. And I was like, I just want to say one more thing. And he was like, sure. And he was like, and he very, it was very sweet. He was like, well, now we're friends in real life. Like, you know, and I was like, no, we're not, you know what I mean? But like, I was like, oh, and, but also there was this other element, which he would never know, which is like, I'm actually a real person with a real job.

Like I'm not just some lady and I'm not saying I am famous in any way. I'm just saying I'm like a real person that has a job. I'm not just a total crazy lady. Sure. Like I'm an actual person. And so, which I guess everybody's a person, but anyway, so I put my hand on his shoulder and I was like, I just want to say, I just have to feel like I have to say this to you. I want you to take care of your body.

And he, and he was like, and I, and I like touched his shoulder and I was like, I was like, I know this is very important to you and you're very good at this. I was like, but you have a whole life to live after this. And I really want you to take care of your body. And he was like, very earnestly was like, I'm trying to, he was like, I'm really trying to. And I was like, I know you are, and I appreciate it. I appreciate everything you do and I want you to play for as long as you want to play. But there's, you have a whole life after this and I want you to take care of your body.

And he was like, thank you. And I was like, and now I'm going to be arrested. And nobody threw me out of the restaurant, which was nice. People tell that about me with dough boys all the time. Then when I got back to the table, I was like, I was so excited. And then like 20 seconds later, this incredible wave of shame came over, came over me where I was like, oh my God, why did I feel I had to, why did I feel I had to talk to him?

Yeah. Like, right. Who would you, why would I ever feel like I had to talk to anybody? I know that feeling. It was awful. I felt like I was immediately like eight and a half years old. And I had like completely exposed myself to like some crush or something. But I was like, I don't know.

I guess I'm just a super fan. I had to get it out. But who knew it was going to be Julian Edelman. I would have thought it would have been Daniel Day-Lewis that I would have pinned in a restaurant. It was like, Julian Edelman, who knew? I think for me it'd be Shigeru Miyamoto. I think I just kind of wouldn't be able to not just keep it together.

Yeah, I kind of lose a little bit. I saw him in person once and I just, I kind of. And you dropped the ball? No, I just like. Who is this person? He's the creator of Mario and Zelda. The greatest video game designer all time. But let's get to our final thoughts on Starbucks Reserves.

So Jessica, we'll each go around. We will give a summation of our thoughts on this chain and then give it a rating from zero to five forks. And you can also talk about the last drink. Yes, you can talk about what you got to go if you like. Oh, it must be. We'll start with you, Jessica. I also just do want to say I was in line behind Tom Brady at security once at the airport.

And I didn't speak to Tom Brady, but I did. I was lucky enough. He was flying commercial because it must have been a very last minute. It was right before the Boston Marathon. My sister was running and he obviously just decided, you know what? I'm going to go watch her run and he was flying from LA. And it was that moment in security where the two lines meet

and then somebody's taking too long. So he's just standing there like waiting to go into the machine. And I'm literally right behind him. And I just was like staring at his body for four minutes. And it was he's much bigger in person than you would think. I did a funnier dive video with him behind the scenes. Funnier dive video with him. And he when I was was he friendly, you know, enough in the video.

I catch a pass from him. I've told us on the podcast, but I pretended to hump the ground. And then he and then he really thought I was funny after that. And he liked me a lot because I pretended to have sex with the ground. That's how we met. OK, zero to four forks. Yeah, to five forks. Five forks.

Though I have a feeling you're not going to need that fifth one. Or four, probably. No, we'll see. I mean, tell me comparative. What's a two fork restaurant? A two fork restaurant for me right now. Diarrhea. It gives you diarrhea.

I would just say like it's still food and you can survive. It's still food, but it's but it's unpleasant to eat. I didn't have a great time eating it. I would say like for me right now. And I don't know if this reflects my most recent rating, but I would call Burger King is around a two fork restaurant. Wow. Interesting.

OK. Yeah. Yikes. Yeah. Sounds like things have gone way downhill at Burger King. I was I was always a McDonald's, not a Burger King anyway. McDonald's is a I mean. Five forks for you.

For the breakfast anyway. That's what we were. Oh, yeah, we can never tell the real review. I guess I'm going to give it three. Three forks. I mean, I would give it two and a half, to be honest, because I didn't really enjoy any. There was nothing that I'm going back for.

And three, I think is an accurate reflection of how I feel about it. It's something that I'll eat if I can't get anything else anywhere else. And if I'm in an airport, it'll be the choice I'll make. They do have healthy options and they do have like, you can't always get like a protein plate with like a piece of cheese. I mean, if you can't wait to get that exact same thing on the plane. Then you can get that there. I did enjoy that little sous vide quiche thing.

I would eat that again. And, you know, obviously their coffee menu is extensive and they're working hard on that. I don't generally enjoy Starbucks coffee. I'm a Dunkin Donuts girl, as has been said, or a cup of diner coffee. I like real coffee. I don't need all the notes and the aromatics and everything else.

I just want it to be a great cup of coffee or a great espresso. I do like all that bullshit. And I still think that Starbucks isn't a good version of that. It's like it's like it's like it's overly roasted. Burnt is absolutely. So I guess I'm going to give it three, which is like you can find something. But there was nothing that that delighted my imagination or my taste buds. Mitch, your thoughts on Starbucks Reserve?

First of all, I want to say that I saw Veratech at the Super Bowl. And I got to talking about Patriot shit. I got to be a three hour episode. I got his attention. I nodded at him and then gave him a thumbs up. I think that's appropriate. And then he in turn gave me a thumbs up. Okay.

And then you could. Is that your thumb? Yeah, sorry. That's not a great thumbs. Yeah. I don't know how you could hitchhike. That was our Charlie Brown thumbs up. Now I know you got the part.

And then he and then he gave me a thumbs up and you could tell as he was giving me a thumbs up, he was like, who the fuck is this guy? I'm giving a thumbs up to you. You could tell like that's the job. You got a thumbs up. Whoever thumbs you up if that's the if you want to stay signing shirts. I got his attention to give him a thumbs up. Yeah, whatever.

He liked it. I'm sure I'm curious. He loved it. You could tell me off the air, but I'm curious like what your seats were and all that stuff because I chose not to go to the Super Bowl. They were not good, but I didn't want to. I love to watch on TV football. It was great.

Yeah. And I do fantasy also. Oh, me too. I was the Bakersfield bessers at one point. Mamed after Matt Besser. I'm the only female, me and my friend do it together in an all male UCB fantasy league. Besser is in, Matt Walsh is in, Ron Livingston is in. Scott Armstrong runs the league and cheats every year.

Wow. The Sklar brothers. I'm strong. What are you doing? Oh, he's just changing the rules around whatever. No, not quite. That's a that's an overstatement. But yes, we are the feminine products.

Wow. There you go. Otherwise known as tampons. I prefer strong. I prefer high fantasy myself. Go on. Oh, God. Magic, the gathering Starbucks coffee taste burnt against me jittery.

The one thing I got for the road was a shaken iced tea lemonade, which they fucked up and gave me just a straight up iced tea at one point. Here's the other thing too. When I was in there, it's like a fucking library in there. I didn't like that. Everyone's all quiet. Nick, I went in there. I spilled.

I was clean. Yeah. There was it was my first spill and probably a year or whatever. Like we were saying, I spilled the thing fell off the tray. Another unit spilled last month. This is like your second. Whatever. You're second.

Spilling. Missy Marvin's back. Now we know why you're spilling everywhere. You keep on track. He spills. I guess we know why they called you messy. Matt is the one who spills. He spills.

Man, I don't know. Your track record recently is worse than mine. I try to be nice and clear the tables and then the fucking ranch fell out of the package and spilled all over the fucking floor. And now was that your personal ranch you just had in your wallet? The Starbucks people were nice. The people who helped us out were nice. But you could tell they were kind of getting annoyed.

But there was chaos. It was chaos. It was chaos and you could tell they were kind of starting to get annoyed by us. And look, this iced tea lemonade thing is the best thing I got there. I don't like the vibe of Starbucks. I think it's a fucking snooty. Yes. Give me Dunkin Donuts.

The sandwiches are better. Everything is better about Dunkin Donuts. The coffee is better. I'm sorry. If you think if you truly think Starbucks is better than Dunkin Donuts, you're out of your fucking mind. I'm giving it two forks. Two forks.

I was giving three to be nice. No, two fuck. Oh my God. I want to be two now. I think you can. You can. You can. Yeah, you can.

I'll tell you what, though. I give the bathroom four forks. I didn't use the bathroom there. If you don't check out a bathroom at Starbucks, it was a Starbucks reserve bathroom. Sure. Okay, so I used the ladies room before you guys got there and it was four forks.

Wow. Okay, I'll go back. I'll check it out. The ladies room specifically. So let's see. I've got a I'm just looking at all the food we had and almost all of it was bad, like not like like mediocre,

but just flat out bad. Yeah, all of it was bad. And I feel like of the drinks, like the drinks specific to Starbucks reserve are more expensive than what you get at like an independent coffee house. There's a premium on top of what you would get from like some local place of some small business that you want to support that probably has a better quality product.

I was going to say, I was going to put this in the, because I think some of the drinks are passable. I don't like Starbucks coffee, but I think if you get a blonde roast, it can be okay. The coffee I got to go, I got a Guatemala one as someone who has a a little bit of Guatemalan in my family history.

I want to try the Guatemalan coffee. And this one was not great. And I will just say that it was, again, just too dark of a roast. It felt overly roasted and just a little too bitter for me. And again, this was like five or six dollars or however much it cost. I think everything's overpriced. I think the product is not,

I think the food is not that good. The food is terrible. I think the drinks are, some of them are okay. Some of them are not great. I would put this in the one and a half to two fork range, but I'm going to deduct a fork for Howard Schultz's Quixotic. Vanity presidential campaign.

For that reason, one fork for Starbucks. Wow, I should have gone even lower. I was kind of disappointed with my experience. Well, I want to go even lower too. You can. Half a fork. Half a fork. Wow.

Well, here the truth is, I would never set foot in this restaurant ever again if I didn't have to. Yes. I will only use this restaurant if it's a matter of convenience. Right. Or a matter of that I've been forced into it.

Yes. But I'm absolutely not buying into the concept. I don't care if it's nicer than another Starbucks. I don't want to spend any time there. And they have nothing there that I want to eat or drink. I fully agree with you. It's a wack ass fucking library. But it is absolutely a brand identity situation.

Yeah. So if you're a schmuck, this is an easy three for you. Right. Yeah. Like enjoy. And by the way, they were all there. All the, whenever I walk by that place, I'm like, because it's in our neighborhood or my neighborhood,

I'm like, who are these people? Like I don't understand where they bust them in from or what's going on. But none of these people, they're all people that if they started to talk to me, I would immediately feel like, how am I going to get out of this conversation? That's how you feel.

When you guys came, I was there a few minutes early. I went into the restaurant and I was like, let me check this place out. And then I was like, I need to go wait outside for these guys because the energy of this place that's why I want to be on my body. That's why I want to eat outside.

Yep. Yeah. Fuck it. You know what? But great bathroom. Four forks. Four forks of the bathroom, but it's got worse furniture than a building 19

worse food than a building 19. It sucks. Fuck Starbucks. Well, we're way over on time. Let's go straight to the feedback. Today's email comes to us from Moses Goldfarb. Moses writes, I recently had my bait and voyage to burgers,

never say die local LA burger institution previously discussed in the pod with Farley Elliott. Their style of burgers and fries reminded me a lot of McDonald's, but at a much higher quality. As I was eating, I thought this is what it must have been like to eat at McDonald's

when they first opened in 1948. My question is, if you could eat at any major fast food chain restaurant when they very first opened, which one would it be? And why? P.S. Here's my Spoon Man roast, literally Homer Simpson.

Those are a little half-assed, Moses. But good question. Good question. Jessica, anything come to mind a fast food chain? You have maybe some nostalgic connection too that you would like to taste it on its first day of operation? Well, I would have been,

I mean, it's what he said, but I would have been really interested to try McDonald's when McDonald's was McDonald's. Because even, I'm sure you guys have listened to this, but on Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History podcast, how the story about the McDonald's French fry

and about a restaurant, all of that stuff. But McDonald's fries from my childhood when they were still before and the after, there was nothing like a McDonald's French fry. So I absolutely would have liked to have tried McDonald's in the very beginning, and just to know the difference to what it evolved to. Right.

We listened to that podcast and we were also, It's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking, but then I'm also like, fuck off, Malcolm, come on. The fries are still pretty fucking good. I'm intimidated by his charisma. I will say that McDonald's is the answer. That's, and I've heard Dick's drive-in in Seattle,

which we went to, which I loved, is the closest you can get to what a McDonald's was like back in the day. Who knows? Who's telling you this? Who's the archivist? I assume that someone who's maybe had McDonald's from back in the day, this is like the closest thing they've-

So that was interesting on the Malcolm Gladwell thing because they have literally an archive, because they made the fry that was closest to the old fry. And then remember, they had all the recipes from all the years. Yeah, right. Yeah, I, what about Taco Bell, right? Taco Bell's a good one.

I've heard stole the fucking recipe from the people across the street. I would want to try the people across the street too. Where did they start from Taco Bell? It was Glen Bell or whatever. Glen Bell, I think it was in, I want to say Downey, California, but I think that's where it was. He stole the idea from the Mexican restaurant

across the street. Oh my God. Yeah. But both of them, trying Bat Place, and when they first, when he was first starting out. And the place, yeah, the place he stole it from, actually is still in operation. You can try that place.

Yeah. It's still just one location, but you can go to the place that you're talking about. Maybe Old School Burger King would be fun too. That would be interesting. My answer was going to be, I would like to try one of those, one of those pizza chains way back in the day,

like just go to like an old school pizza hut with the parlor set up, and just sort of have a dinin' pizza hut and see what that experience was like. See if the pizza was basically the same quality or if it was little. I assume maybe the ingredients were low butter, but maybe the preparation methods weren't as sophisticated.

I don't know. I'm curious as to what pizza was like back when these pizza chains were just starting to get off the ground. I would like to take you back to an old school Quincy Dunkin' Donuts, the first one. That would be fun. That would be fun.

A little welcome to Quincy after you're done with your meal. And to know how the coffee was. Yeah. Then. And then we'd have a welcoming crew for Weigar as soon as... You did make me miss. You walked off the door. You did make me miss the Pappuccino's pizza.

Oh yeah, Pappuccino's. I don't know. Are there still any left? There's them and the angels, they've closed a bunch of restaurants, but there's still a few left. Yeah, D'Angelo's became something else. Well, D'Angelo's still exist, but they...

They merged though. Them and Pappuccino's are together now. Yeah, but D'Angelo's became something else. It wasn't the same menu anymore, or it was like a new owner. I can't remember what happened. They got bought, but there is a D'Angelo's in Quincy. That's the same old...

Still good. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Oh, tuna with pickles. Yeah. It's still good. Weigar, you're going to try it before a fucking challenge?

I will 100% try all these. And I want a list of all of your local shitty Quincy Chinese restaurants, because I will come to them. He's got a tattoo on his body. One of the best ones I've ever had was in Braintree. Oh, yeah. What was it called? I can't remember.

We just pulled off the highway into Braintree, and it was fucking delicious all the way to the Cape. I get so much shit for saying that there's a difference between East Coast and West Coast Chinese food, and there is. Yeah, ours is not real Chinese food. Yeah, Chinese people would never eat our food. It's great though.

Yeah. Let us know what fast food restaurant you'd like to eat at when it first opened. Hashtag Snack to the Future. And if you have a question or comment about the world chain restaurants, you can email us at dopeboyspodcast.com. You had that fucking. You had that one on the chain.

I loaded it up while you were bloviating for 10 minutes about your Quincy memories. Hey, Nick, one last thing. The guy who created burgers never say die? Yeah. You know where he's from? Is it Quincy? Quincy.

Is that the place in Silver Lake? It does look good, that burger. I've been thinking. I've been eyeing it. It's a real crazy success story. I came from the dude's backyard, and now he's got a brick and mortar. Leave us a voicemail at 830 Godot.

That's 830-4636-844. And to get the Doughboys double our weekly bonus episode, join the Golden North Platinum Play Club at patreon.com slash Doughboys. Jessica Chaffin, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me, guys, and for spending the afternoon with me. Oh, God bless you.

We had a great time. I'll never sleep for two days after all this caffeine. Yeah, sorry I had to eat all that. I got to go run 20 miles to get that cookie dough cake pop out of my body. But otherwise, I hope that passes sooner rather than later. Nick, I actually have something to plug. Oh, boy, go for it.

Randy, the full and complete audio memoir of the amazing life and times of Randy S. It's Mike Sacks made it, and I did a little thing in it. It's on Stitcher. So go listen to it. Well, there you go. Yeah.

And hey, that'll do it for this episode of Doughboys. And until next time, for the Spoonman, Mike Mitchell, I'm Nick Weiger. Happy eating. See ya. On the next Doughboys Double, we're joined by the hilarious Mark Reni from the podcast Two Old Queens

as we taste test Quizno's Lobster and Seafood Classic sub. Plus we review Robert Redford's 1994 Best Picture Nominee Quiz Show for some reason. It's a Quizno's Quiz Show. We're actually releasing the app this time. Get the Doughboys Double every Tuesday only at patreon.com slash Doughboys. Doughboy, Doughboy, Doughboy, Doughboy, Doughboy, Doughboy.

That was a hit gum podcast.