Doughboys - The Capital Grille with Negin Farsad

Episode Date: November 18, 2021

Negin Farsad (Fake The Nation) joins the 'boys to discuss Insomnia Cookies and Palm Springs before a review of The Capital Grille. Plus, a knockoff brand edition of Slop Quiz.  Sources for this week's intro: https://vintagemenuart.com/products/the-green-frog-waycross-georgia-1955 https://www.thebalancesmb.com/bill-darden-biography-1350946#:~:text=William%20B.%20Darden%20was%20born%20in%201919%2C%20which,a%20way%20to%20get%20by%20in%20that%20era. https://www.companieshistory.com/darden-restaurants/ https://www.foodabletv.com/blog/2014/9/29/the-capital-grille-a-fine-dining-chain-success https://www.thecapitalgrille.com/about-usWant more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What's up, everybody? It's your boy, The Spoon Man, and I want to talk to you about today's sponsor, UberEats. At UberEats, we've helped more than 400,000 restaurants across the U.S. reach new, hungry customers and deliver growth quickly through new orders. Uber's global platform can help you grow, reach new people, get valuable sales data, and unlock ways to expand with flexible delivery options. Put your business on UberEats. Get access to the UberEats platform, including valuable sales data to grow your business.

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Coming up today, that link that you want to click on is down there in the episode description. Right down there. Check it out. There it is. Move your cursor. Go ahead and click, or if you're on your phone, use your finger and click that link. Click that link in the episode description. What's up, everybody?

It's your boy, Mr. Slice, and I got some exciting news. The Doughboys are going back on tour in 2022. That's right. Ticket info at headgum.com slash live. That's headgum.com slash live. See you there, baby. Enjoy life. Eat out more often.

This phrase was emblazoned on the menu for the Green Frog Restaurant, a luncheonette founded in Waycross, Georgia in 1938 by a 19-year-old entrepreneur named Bill Darden. Offering service with a hop and selling a cryptically named Swamp Boy breakfast, the Green Frog was a local hit and notably featured an integrated dining room, particularly bold for the era in the American South. While the frog didn't grow beyond a single location, its success enabled Darden to first invest in chain restaurants by opening a network of regional Howard Johnson's and ultimately to launch his own, a landlocked seafood house opened in 1968 called the Red Lobster Inn.

The brand name was simplified, Facebook-style, and Red Lobster became such a sensation that it was purchased by Process Food Megalith General Mills within the decade, with Bill Darden still managing the brand. The Darden-stewarded restaurant subsidiary opened the Olive Garden in 1982, doing for Italian fare what Red Lobster did for seafood, and both brands grew nationally and internationally up through Darden's death in 1994. But Darden restaurants outlived the man himself, spawning other brands such as Longhorn Steakhouse, Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen, and Yard House.

And in recent years, Darden has outgrown its more casual roots and graduated into the high-roller white tablecloth fine dining sector, acquiring and replicating an upscale Austin seafood restaurant called Eddie V's, as well as a Steakhouse first opened in 1990 in Providence, Rhode Island. Intended as a revitalization project for the city's depressed downtown, the chop shop was a hit with well-heeled Rhode Islanders, featuring dry-aged steaks and the obligatory extensive wine list. After Darden's acquisition, the concept went national, attempting to meet compete with sector stalwarts like Morton's and Ruth's Cris.

And while it doesn't yet have the market or mind share of those historic brands, with 28 Eddie V's prime seafood outlets in 62 locations of the Providence-founded Steakhouse, it's fair to call Darden's dalliance with fine dining a success. And as a business lunch for high-powered finance types and a special occasion dinner for the rest of us, though it couldn't be more different than the green frog, Darden's company's fine dining Steakhouse compels you to enjoy life. Eat out more often. This week on Doughboys, the Capitol Grill.

Welcome to Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants. I'm Nick Weigar, along with my co-host, the crew-anon shaman, the Spoon Man, Mike Mitchell. Crew-anon sh... So like I... Because I rode crew? Because you rode crew, famously. Wow. That's pretty good.

Yeah. I thought they'd go chew-anon, but I like the crew-anon. It's a little bit of a twist. It was not expecting. That was from James and Oakland, first time, long time, appreciate the show, roastspoonman.gmail.com. Crew-anon. Crew-anon. You know what, you got to have a certain mindset to do to row crew-wigs.

Where we row one, we row all. That's kind of how it goes. You got to be tough, mentally tough. Got it. That's why I did it. Like the Winklevoss twins. They were good friends of mine. Wait, they were?

Yeah. Wow, okay. The biographical detail. Do you think this is one of those things where it's like, I'm sure boxing fans are furious that the most famous boxer is Jake Paul, and I have to think that people who are really into rowing, because that's an Olympic sport, right? There's international competitions. They're fucking regattas.

Oh, why? Fuck, they're called. Yeah. I'm glad you brought this up. We're furious. You got to be mad that the Winklevosses are the most famous rowers. We're furious about this. They're elite athletes who are competing at the highest levels in rowing.

Except I think they were pretty good. I think the Winklevosses were actually pretty good rowers. I'm going to give it a go right now. They were like, you know, they rode at Harvard, and they, do they have a row for the Olympics or anything? Geez. I just binged Winklevoss twins rowing, and it says they are both the Michael Jordan of rowing.

Oh, well. There you go. It just shows you. I mean, I rode and I don't think I've watched anyone row since. I don't. Yeah. Doesn't televised well. Yeah.

I don't think I care. I mean, I guess it is an Olympic sport, so that's fun to watch them row away. I just, you know, I didn't care. I didn't care for it. Yeah. It's beautiful why it's to be on the water to see that, that classy water early in the morning. Yeah, I've been canoeing on Boy Scout trips, but I've never actually done like that big,

those big long boats. Geez. What? Canoeing on Boy Scout trips. Yeah. It was, we canoe the Colorado River. I mean, it sucked. I hated it.

5 a.m. wake-ups wise, I didn't get much sleep last night. My mom is here. That's right. Now, how many weeks have you been in LA now since you left Quincy? I've been in LA two weeks and my mom is here. Okay. You've been in LA for two weeks. Yeah.

You were in Quincy for a year and a half. Come back to LA for two weeks and your mom is visiting. Yeah. And so I slept on the couch last night, so I'm truly exhausted. Mitch, I also got some bad sleep and, you know what, I was, I had like a, I was like up till 5 a.m. I couldn't sleep last night. I was completely like, I was up till 5 a.m. and I got like, you know, three to four hours

of sleep. I'm on fumes right now. Yeah. Great. It's going to be a good episode from us. Anyways, howdy ho to Spoon Nation, oh boy. And here, Wiges, my friend, is a little drop. We're here, and boy, we're here in some yard work or something on your mic.

Grandma, you should swim more often. Yeah, you're looking hot. Fucking nasty freak. Well, sure. That was that. Yeah. That was that. Hi, boys.

It's funny, Wiges, because before this started, there was some yard work going on. I asked Emma if she could hear it. She couldn't. She couldn't hear a thing. Yeah. I don't think she was paying attention to me. Where are you, Emma? She's, she's engineering another podcast right now.

Hi, Amity. I can hear Gabriel in the background. Wait, that podcast is better. Let's just listen to that. Stop telling our guests other podcasts are better. You're going to leave us. Hi, boys. First time dropper, short, dumb, and absolutely come free.

Well, now it's not. Jesus Christ. You're doing good, and I like it. Stephen. So this is what, he writes Stephen, so dash, S-T-E-P-H-E-N. And then parentheses. Next way, he puts Stephen, S-T-E-V-E-N. I think he's like, because in the era of Steph Curry, he wants to be like, it's like,

that's pronounced Stephen. Got it. Yes. Got it. But spelled Stephen. Because it used to be that like, like Stephen King. I couldn't tell if he was just going to make up his mind. You know what I mean?

If he was like. Oh, that could be it. Oh, no, Stephen King, it was the Stephen King era, and then it was the Steph Curry era. We know that. That was the Steph Curry era. And so, like, people see the spelling and they're like, oh, Stephen, it's like, no, it's Stephen. Hmm.

You think that happens to Stephen King? Well, that's a different guy. Oh, Stephen King is a different guy. Stephen King's a different guy. He's got a, you know, he writes horror novels and he's also got a great three point shot. So. Imagine if you fucking hit a three point or right in Pennywise's face. Oh, man.

He'd flip his lid. He'd flip his lid. Crawl right back into the sewers. Never. Five on five. Me and my boys versus five Langoliers. We take them down. They're trying to eat the shot clock.

That's not fair, Langoliers. You know, that's fucked up. Play the game on our rolls. Then I'd fucking dribble one of the Langoliers. They were kind of ball like, weren't they? I think so. I don't know. I only saw the TV movie.

Yeah. Belki was in it. I remember that much. Yeah. Um, Bronson Pinchot. Bronson Pinchot also plays Conan in the South Park movie. Who does he play in the South Park movie? Conan, doesn't he?

Oh, does he really? That's that's Bronson Pinchot. No, that never mind. I'm thinking of the actor who play. I'm playing a Brent Spiner. That's Brent Spiner who plays data in Star Trek. Oh, all right. Yeah.

Well, you really fucked up. Anyways, uh, Stevens. Stevens Twitter name is at Zimzam at XIM underscore XAM. Wow. I figure that Zimzam. But who knows? Spoonman drops at gmail.com. That's the address.

Yeah, I guess so. Anyways. Cinnamon. Let's intro our, why is that? Yeah, it was just, it was a couch night for me. Well, we'll get into it. Mm hmm. We'll, uh, we'll, we'll talk about our sleeping habits because we were

talking about this beforehand with our guest, uh, the topic of insomnia came up though in a different context. Our guest today hosts the podcast, Fake the Nation, which is now right here on Head Gum, Nagin Farsad. Hi, Nagin. Hi guys. How's it going? Good.

How are you doing? Thank you for being here. Yeah. I mean, yes, we're both, we're both having a bad day. No, I hear you're just, you're sleepy. I'm going to carry, carry this entire podcast on my own shoulders. I see. It's all I see now.

That was, that was, yeah, that was the case no matter what. So yeah. Uh, Nagin, before we started, we were talking about insomnia cookies. You have a, you have some takes on insomnia, which we had a great time with, uh, we enjoyed our visit there. We, we, we gave it a pretty glowing review, but, but what's your take? Yeah, I remember that. I was, I actually, I felt so badly that, um, that, you know, I, I had given,

basically what happened is it came into my neighbor. I live in New York city. I live in the East village and it came into my neighborhood and I was like, not in my backyard, sirs, you know what I mean? I was just weirdly not welcoming, um, to this one cookie shop. Uh, I felt, and I've never even tried it. And then I, I saw your episode, I, I listened to it and I felt bad. Like, why didn't I even ever give them a real chance?

You know, uh, so I, I'm going to correct that. And I just want to credit this show for bringing justice to insomnia cookies. Um, from me, uh, from my needless, uh, bigotry against insomnia cookies. Right. It was great. We've done some good. Surprise, surprisingly great. It's always great.

Cause now we've moved on to like, whatever. Yeah. Like, wait, you know, the restaurants we're eating at now, I was like, we're eating at the wheat shop or some fucking bullshit. Sure. It's like, it's a place that has different wheat bowls. Yeah. We're going to try some wheat bowls.

And it's not, it's got seven locations all in the greater Tulsa area. Well, and, and I'll tell you one thing about the insomnia cookie. I think one of my main issues with them is I feel like the logo, it indicates that you should not take their cookies seriously. There's something about the signage to me that you're just like, oh, you're, you don't think I should take this cookie seriously. So I won't. And I think that that's part of it.

Yeah. That's, I like that. That's a good, that's, that's, that's a funny point. If McDonald's had like a little cartoon hamburger, I don't know. Yeah, cartoon hamburger. Yeah. Yeah. It's a little playful.

So it's like a, it's like a three quarters, half moon. That's, that's, but the moon is a cookie that's had a bite taken out of it. And then some of the crumbs have become the stars in the sky. So evoking both nighttime and eating cookies. But yeah, it's very, it's, it's, it's very sort of playful and, and whimsical. Right. And it's, and it's, and it's not like cookie forward, you know what I mean? It's not like serious about the cookie.

The logo isn't serious, the cookie. The logo is more serious about the time of day that you can eat it. Yes. I like that. That's funny because you don't usually see when I'm thinking of it, you don't usually see like a, the, I mean, Burger King, I guess famously, but it's not a burger you're seeing, you know, you're not really seeing a burger in the Burger King sign.

It's kind of shaped like a burger. The old school original logo. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. But you, but you don't usually see like a, like, you know, little cartoon version of the, of the God bless you Emma. You don't, you don't usually see a little cartoon version of the, of the food.

When I was probably going to edit out that sneeze, I was guessing, and then you said, God bless you. And now we're locked into a space. No, definitely. I didn't realize I was, I was unmuted. This is what I love about the show is just these organic moments when snot hits the mic, you know? No, Mitch isn't the only one who sneezes.

That was kind of what I was aiming at, Emma, is that if people make fun of me for sneezing, looks like Emma's the sneezer, right? I had some fucking makeup, some drops about Emma being a sneezy and it's me now. Yeah. Fucking all this fucking stupid bullshit you have wise with your, it latched on for me being a sneeze man for months, a sneeze guy. You were sneezing on Mike.

He had some allergies going on or something. Had to be, I did it. Nothing was, it did not have to be addressed. Okay. Anyways, I was rambling on about cartoon logos, but you don't usually see like the food too often in the logo. You know what I mean? You don't, you don't see it too often.

And I think you shouldn't. Why is this, why is this skeptical of this? He's just trying to. No, I'm just, I'm doing a mental Rolodex. And I'm like, yeah, I think you're right. Cause like this, the Starbucks logo is like a mermaid, you know, Taco Bell is obviously the bell. I'm just thinking of the big iconic ones in and out burger is like, you know,

like an arrow. Um, so yeah, you're right. I think, I think it's a, I think that's a fair point. For those who don't know when Wiger's doing a mental Rolodex, his, his eyes go back in his head and you just see the whites of his eyes. It's very creepy actually. Very impressive. It's like I'm working.

But also you should please see an ophthalmologist. I'm a little concerned. Uh, noted. Um, it's a, I will, I, I, yeah. You're finding ophthalmologists who tell you not to kiss you. Isn't that, isn't that what happened? Yeah. I had an incident with an optometrist years ago, giving me an exam who, um,

asked me for a kiss or, or, and I did not reciprocate. That's very awkward. Very awkward. I can't tell you like, I mean, obviously you've let me down a lot in the past, but I'm saying that is like maybe, that's maybe my number one is that you didn't kiss. I wish I had wished that you two had kissed more than anything. Were you, were you dating Natalie at this point? Oh yeah.

Yeah. All right. I also, I'm just, I'm, I'm, I'm pretty surprised that an optometrist was like sexy in that way. It's just not a profession that I give a lot of sexiness points to. No, I'm, I'm with you. I mean, it's like, you know, you've got like the, there's like the sexy librarian trope, you know, like, like, like, oh, they're going to let their hair down or whatever, but you don't really think of optometrist in the same way.

Um, you know what's funny to me about all this? The optometrist needs her, her eyes checked. Wow, Mitch. Low blow. Oh, you grew up in, in Palm Springs, California, which is kind of a resort town. Like that's like a place like, like Natalie and I went to Palm Springs, uh, for a getaway this, uh, during, during, you know, the, this, this past summer. Um, the rat pack used to hang out there famously.

I, what was it like actually growing up? Do the optop, do the optometrist come with you guys? Uh, yeah, she tagged a little hug. Are you guys a thrupple now with excellent vision? We're done. Yeah. Hmm. Um, I, I grew up in Palm Springs, California.

And it's funny because people like you who visit Palm Springs and there are very many of you, um, are always asking me like, where should I go? You know, tell me, give me the, the scoop on what, what are your recommendations? And like, I was essentially a townie, you know what I mean? In this resort town. And so my recommendations are really like, definitely think you should check out like the Denny's on highway 111 did a lot of work there. Um, there, you should definitely go to these places called the circles, which

were a bunch of cul-de-sacs that didn't have houses built on them. Uh, they're just empty cul-de-sacs that we used to hang out at. Where kids could hang out. Yeah, that's great. There's just a bunch of really great places for teenagers, uh, to hang out at that I highly recommend if you're going to Palm Springs. It must, it must be a close knit group of teens that live there because it, yeah, it has, it has, it has the reputation of being, uh, where old folks go.

The Palm Springs is, is, is that a lot of old, old folks will go there, but it does have a lot. There's a lot of cool, like if you look into it, there's like a lot of cool California eateries and stuff there, right? Nick, like old school places that, uh, that have existed forever. Yeah, it's, it's a pretty decent food town. And, you know, uh, but it's, it's a, it's definitely catered towards. Hey, you know, people are here for their weekend brunch or whatever.

You know, I'm, I'm sure there's spots that the locals, Natalie found this Pupusaria that we went to that was fantastic. There was a little, uh, away from the main drag. Um, so I'm sure there's spots like that, that like locals frequent that are a little less known to the tourist side. Right. It felt like burp. I felt like the places that I've heard there that I want to go to sound like

kind of burbanky, like Chili John's weird places that I want to, that I want to try. But, um, but also YG's, we can't forget the Taco Bell hotel was once there as well. That's right. Taco Bell hotel in Palm Springs. I believe. Yes. I think that's where it was set up when it was, when it, when it happened. Wow.

Okay. We have a food podcast. We've been to Taco Bell eight times and we didn't, was it during COVID? Is that why? Why, why didn't we go there? I don't understand why we didn't do it. I think it was just far. Like it's just far enough where it's like, ah, that's not a day trip.

Like that's our excuse. That's our excuse. It's far. It's not even, it's like, it's, it's not that far. It's a couple of hours, a few hours. It's a substantial drive. I'm happy we didn't go because I feel like it would be like the hotel California for us.

We, we check out, but we never leave. And they, and they ended it, right? Like they don't, it's not a thing anymore. Okay. Just like one of their, just like one of their, just like one of their new items. They've, uh, they've done away with it. It's discontinued. Yeah.

Classic Taco Bell. Well, I want to say in, in Palm Springs's defense, um, that they have, there's a lot of like, I think one of the things that people can experience there, you know, besides an occasional Taco Bell hotel is, um, just like really lovely hotels that also have like great dining. Uh, so there's a bunch of, you know, we, you know, like little hotels that have like the 1950s glamour vibe or the 2021, yeah, totally. Or the like 2021, you know, LA hipster vibe.

But, uh, there's, there's just eight, there's hotels each with like a little theme and, uh, and they're quite delightful to hang out at. So, you know, just, just to do my duty as a, as a daughter of Palm Springs, uh, to promote the place. No, it's a, it can be a very fun trip. I, uh, I've, I've, uh, I've, I've been there quite a few times. And then nearby, I've gone, I went to Coachella once, um, which, which I, which I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't love, but, but there's like, there's

concerts out there and people will go there for like, uh, bachelor and bachelor at parties. There's a lot of, yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of stuff like that. Destination weddings, just for whatever reason, people associate Palm Springs with marriage related, like wedding related activities. And I'm not sure why. Yeah. Yeah.

I wonder if it's, yeah, I wonder if that's the, if it's like, you can, you just kind of have that association because of Vegas and you're just sort of like, oh, yeah, the desert, that's a place where you go to get married. I don't know. There's nothing like eternal love than the heat of a, of a desert. Dirt in Kattay Lane deserts. Punishing arid climate. Vultures.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My in-laws, they're lovely people, they're lovely people. Uh, we went, we're in Palm Springs. We went to this bar called Paul bar. And cause we just like found, we were like, what's a bar around here that's a little, you know, again, not, not like just going to be a clogged with

bachelorette parties. And we, we found this really well reviewed place and we're like, oh, let's go to this place, Paul bar. And we, we went there and this guy greets us and says, hi, I'm Paul. Welcome to Paul bar. And he's like, yeah, I own this bar. My name is Paul and I named it Paul bar. And you know what?

It was a great bar. Nice little speakeasy staffed fully by hunks. Wow. A lot of fun. Nice. And did you have like what signature cocktails? Um, yeah, they were all Paul themed. There's a Paul bearer.

I was going to say that's, it seems very much like a Paul bearer move. Yes. His name is Paul bearer. Right. It's, it's true. P, P, A, U, L. Right. Paul bear, uh, Paul worker, which is a riff on pole worker.

So like an election themed cocktail. It's red, white and blue. So Paul Bunyan. It's Paul Revere, of course. Paul Bunyan coming in for the Beastie Boys song. Yes. That's fun. Um, or the Winkle, the, what are the, you said there are hunks there or the

Winklevoss twins there? They were both working there. Yeah. Wow. What's Sharon one tuxedo? I didn't know what regatta and all that stuff was growing up in Palm Springs. Rowe, is that what they did? Regatta.

What's the difference between regatta and rowing? Are they the same thing? I think a regatta is maybe sailing, but I just, to me, I just, I just, yeah, I did. What are the, what do you call a rowing thing? Well, I, I called it a regatta earlier. So because I, I don't, I don't know either, but like it, what is the row? What do you call a rowing race, Mitch? I would call it a race.

That's what I just called it a straight up race. That's what I would do. Yeah. Rowing race. I mean, head of the Charles, you know, that's one like, uh, oh wait, hold on, there is a name for them. And now I'm forgetting. It just popped into my head.

Hmm. I forget. I forget. These are all things that I, I did not, I did not have access to as a child in the desert. We didn't, we weren't, we weren't really dealing with rowing and regattas. It's probably one of those things that, that like when people hear you're from California, they're like, Oh, surf's up, bro.

And he's just like, no, California's got mountains and deserts. And yeah, landlocked. Yeah. I was just thinking that army hammer played the Winklevoss twins. And thank God there was only one of, only one army hammer. Oh boy. Was that a salient, um, like abiding political take? And it's just because he's, they would say having two Hannibal lectors.

If there was another army hammer, it would be scary. Oh, right. Yes. He ate, didn't he eat somebody? I would look, we don't have to get into it. I don't, I don't know if he actually, I think he fantasized. I think he had some cannibalism fantasies and some, just some weird texts and allegations that came out that weren't particularly pleasant.

Well, you came out, you came out in strong support of him for the cannibal stuff, right? Why is, I was like, look, if he wants to eat a person, that's fine. It's not kink shame that. Every time I, I feel like I hear a story about cannibalism, it's out of Germany. Have you noticed that? I mean, with the exception of army hammer, but, uh, I, I feel like lots of cannibalism stories are out of Germany, just, uh, the, the, the Florida of Europe or whatever.

Yeah. Fucked up croutes. Constantly he's just doing the cartoon thing of seeing someone and they're turning into a hot dog or a hamburger or whatever. Hey, speaking of big hunks of meat, let's talk steak. Now, you know, Palm Springs, I think has some, and, and, and again, this is, this is again, more of a touristy thing, but I know that that's a place because it's like this old school, again, rat packy era, you know, resort town that it has some,

a bunch of steak houses. I haven't actually been to any, but I know that it has that reputation, but are you someone who, who likes yourself a, a, a big hunk of beef? Yeah. You know, and it's weird because I also have like increasingly felt guilty about my hunks of beef consumption. Um, as we, as we've taped this, there's a climate summit happening. Um, but, uh, you know, but at the end of the day, I don't actually eat that much.

I do, I like sort of reserve it for special occasions, like when I'm going to go to a steakhouse, like, so it's a pretty infrequent thing for me. And for me, yeah, for me to have like a big hunk of beef, I also feel like it's one of those things that you cannot successfully cook at home. Like, unless you're very skilled or something, I just, I've never, I've never had an at home steak that I'm like, that's fantastic, you know? Yeah. It's a, I will say, so, so first thing is that I, I'm, as I've said in this

podcast before, I'm not eating meat in the year of our Lord 2021. No meat, chili, so, so, but I did, I have, I do have some experience cooking some steaks at home. And I will say there's a little bit of a learning curve, but you can, you can definitely figure it out. I think that the key is you just need like a super hot cast iron skillet cause that'll give you that steakhouse char on it. And then you just, you know, you practice with some, some, some cheaper

cuts till you get the technique down. And then you can, when, when you're feeling confident, you can go get yourself a, you know, a nicer, a nicer piece of beef and feel like you're not going to ruin it. But yeah, the reverse sear method seems to work pretty well for it, for an at home approximation of a, of a, of a steakhouse steak. That said, I think it's, I think it's actually, as far as limiting your consumption, keeping it to be like, this is a special meal that I'm going to go to a place to get out cause like, I, yeah, I would run into a thing of just like, wait, why am I

having, I'm having, I'm having this, I'm having beef too frequently. That was honestly part of my, my decision to, to, to just scale back entirely. It's just like, yeah, it's, it's the same sort of thing of like, I just know how many gallons of water went into this one pound of meat I'm going to consume, all the ecological devastation that was wreaked because of this, this burger or this, you know, ribeye I'm about to eat. And it, it, it became harder and harder to justify. Yeah, it's so, uh, it feels really, I mean, I think I'm a little bit lucky in

that I get a little bit of a stomach ache when I eat a beef. So it's also one of those things where I have like to be prepared for an evening of mild stomach pains. Um, and so like it, it has forced me to like just generally not be huge consumer of beef. Um, but I, I, you know, when I've read them, it's become so much more popular to like report on beef consumption as being a big problem and all that stuff. And now that I'm reading more and more about that, just because apparently

everything's on fire and we're all going to die. I, uh, I, I've been more and more, felt more and more guilty about beef. So I'm, I've been very impressed by your vegetarian or wait, is it a full vegetarian year or is a no, no beef year? Yeah. No, no, no meat, no fish. I'm, I'm eating eggs. I'm eating cheese.

So yeah, I've, I've, I've still got that on the table. Um, I think going full vegan would have been too tough for me, but the, but this has been pretty manageable. Yeah, it's, I was reading actually, I was reading this morning as of this record that the Netherlands is now at, has reached a threshold where a majority of adults don't consume meat every day, which like doesn't sound like, like, like, yeah, not eating meat every day. But like, it's just like, you think of that happening in America.

It's just like, yeah, the idea of, of a majority of our population, like not having meat every day where such a meat forward, you know, our diets are just so dominated by just like, like a surplus of meat consumption. Yeah. That's nuts. Yeah. Look, it's a, it's a problem and I still eat meat. So I, I, I, obviously the environment is my main concern and I still eat it.

It's, it's, it's tough in a, in a world where, where, you know, you were raised on beef. I, I, I try not to eat meat too often. I mean, a red meat specifically, but, uh, I, I, it gives me stomach problems too. I was saying that when, when, cause I went with my mom, why it's this week. And, uh, after having a big steak, I'm like, I need to, I need to like drink like a bunch of water, just too much, too much red meat sitting on my stomach.

Just can, it can affect me for like a couple of days. Um, so that is an issue as I get older too. I was trying to think of what would happen, uh, if I, you know, having gone 11 plus months without having any meat at all, if I just like went full, I just had a fucking 22 ounce bone in ribeye. Like what, like, like what that would do to my intestinal, you know, track, maybe, maybe just turned to stone. Well, he has more personality.

There'd be the Lakers, great statues outside of stable center. And then just, you know, like a few feet away inside Capitol grill, a stone liker, the plaque that says, Hey, buddy. Um, well, if I'd have to, if I had to expire into a stone statue, I would say a Capitol grill isn't a terrible place to do it. Wow. How about that? Did you like that?

Thank you. I loved it. And maybe I loved it too. And where our reviews are heading, we'll find out right after this break. Wow. You know, Mitch, you're about to take a little trip abroad. You're going to Costa Rica. That's right.

Why? So I'm going to Costa Rica with the family. It's going to be a lot of fun. Gonna maybe see a monkey. Oh, that's fun. Gonna maybe see a bird. Just that, just a one monkey, one bird. That's it.

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We are here with Nagin Farsad discussing this week's chain, the capital grill spelled with superfluous trailing E. Oh, there it is. G-R-I-L-L-E. Text to my crew, friend. Oh, Erma's rolling around on the floor. It's kind of cute. And my crew friend has said it's a regatta, it's a regatta. It's a regatta.

Yeah, we fucked up. So we were, we were, no, we were right. And then we thought we were wrong and then we ended up, we ended up being right. Well, Nagin, Nagin said, we went through. What, what, what? The roller coaster ride, no one had fun on. It's like a you get on the track. What, it was like taking the SATs all over again.

How fun that was. That's one of Blacker's high school highlights, actually. So taking the SATs. Had a great time. So fun. Hey, you know what? Standardized tests measure your ability to take standardized tests. And, hey, I was always fine at that.

Capital girl spelled with an E, which I've never seen that spelling of grill before. I don't know if it's if it's valid like the British spelling. Is that how you've never seen that? You've never seen that? You've never seen that spelling before? I've seen the G R I L L E. It's like the same same phenomenon.

You've never seen it before. Well, you know, I don't know. I don't feel like I run into it. Yeah, this is funny. Maybe this is more of a dumb East Coast thing. Yeah, I'm looking here. It looks like there is a there is somewhere. I just I just looked for I just binged grill nearby

and there with an extra E and there is a restaurant, a Napa Valley Grill, not far from L.A. So that it does seem like it's it's a spelling that's in some use. I just I hadn't encountered it. You know, on the East Coast of the country, there's, you know, Oi, we just we just moved here and we're open up this this grill. You know, it's that sort of thing. Right. Yes, an expat from the UK decides to open their grill restaurant.

They're bringing the British spelling with them. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, it's weird because the British are they known for their steaks? I don't think so. Oh, yeah, they're known for like a meat pie where they're just throwing a bunch of unrelated vegetables and a couple of pieces of meat into a pie formation. I was never as unhealthy as I was living in London for six months.

Wow, lived in London for six months. I mean, it was only after I lived in Paris for like two years. But yeah. Wow. Thank you. That's the appropriate reaction. I'm so worldly. I just want to make sure listeners know that I have a passport. So just please make note of that. No, but I, I, you know, it's it's weird because I lived in Paris

and I did all these weird jobs. I waited tables and I taught English and whatever. And I just on a casual level had access to some of the best food on the planet. Obviously, that's just what it is to be a French person. It's like their shitty cuisine is very good. And then I go to London because my work visa in France like ran out. I had to go and I managed to score another work visa in the UK. And I ended up getting a job there.

I actually probably a place you guys have already done. Most people say, oh, you know, I went and I lived in London for a while. And oh, it was so quaint. I was a bartender at this most lovely pub across the street from a garden, right? Like that's kind of like what you anticipate hearing from someone with their expat experience. I was, however, a waitress at a Pizza Hut in London.

Wow. Wow. That's right. So it was a pizza in London, a Pizza Hut in London, a sit down Pizza Hut across from Victoria Station. And and it's where I learned, you know, at a tender age, and I don't even know if I was emotionally prepared to know this, that the British, they like to order prawns on their pizza, like fucking psychopaths. Wow. And it was there was there was a little bit of a trauma

associated with that particular order. But yeah, so I that was my, you know, cute international London experience was just at a straight up American chain. Wow, that rules. Yeah, that's wild. Does it rule? I mean, we're impressed. Only on this podcast would anyone be impressed by that. I found my people. I found my people.

Oi, I ordered the stuff cross pizza. It's stuff with cheese, not prawns. What gives, mate? Can you imagine how disgusting that would be? Oh, my God. So you mentioned you were also waiting tables in Paris. I'm just curious because, you know, the the big divide, and I'm someone who's never crossed an ocean, but I know from reading this that that the big divide in, you know,

the U.S. and most of the rest of the world is tip culture. And as a server, like, like, what did the I don't know, what was that like, just not like not having to be, you know, working as a as a server at various establishments, but not but not also not earning tips. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So when I so weirdly, like when I was in France, I think part of the reason they hired me specifically was that I spoke French, but with like, you know,

with a slight American accent. Got it. And I think they just thought that would be kind of fun for their customers or something. And so as a result, like they they aggressively do not tip, right? So that that's definitely what happens. But they do a living wage. So yes, I the weird thing about waiting tables in France was that, like, I otherwise lived quite comfortably. Like for my it's not, you know, for the stuff I wanted to get done as a,

you know, 23 year old, which was just, you know, getting wasted and going to the club in that sense. I made plenty of money waiting tables and it was awesome. So that's, I think, a big difference between most of Europe and the United States is that they want you to be if you're working for 80 hours a week, like it's actually 35 hours and you can live on it. So that was awesome. But the funny thing is because everybody knew that I knew that I was American

and it was a very heavily lunchtime business dude crowd at this particular restaurant off the Champs Elysees. And these dudes would come in and they were just like French dudes with suits on. And, you know, I, you know, I was there with my little American accent and they thought it was so cute and charming. They would say to me stuff like, oh, like, they tip in America, you know, and so then they would leave me extra money. Wow.

And the other waiters would get pissed because it was only happening because I was American. And so, and there was no such thing as pulling tips because there's no tip. So I would just pocket this random extra money that people would leave me. And I'd be like, I'm sorry, I don't know what to do. They're just they think it's funny and cute to leave the American some extra money. I don't know what to say. And I wasn't very popular at that place.

And I the other. But here's the crazy thing. This is the thing I do want to share with everybody because next time you go to France, maybe you'll have a little bit of compassion for whoever is your, you know, service staff. I so you are not in most places, but specifically in this place, I was not allowed to write down my orders.

And everything is a prefix menu. I mean, it's very rare that anyone did anything like a la carte. So they would have like three options for three courses. And I would have to memorize all of them. And like I said, it was a businessman crowd. And so there would be these large table of be like five dudes, eight dudes, right? And they each have a specific order that could be a combination of three on courses.

And then the dessert was three different scoops of an ice cream of like 12 different flavors. And I had to just memorize. Right. Wow. And it was a full nightmare. And I don't know how anyone did this job. It requires a moonwalking with Einstein level, like style of memorization. Memorization that I did not have.

And I would just be putting in orders like I would just be like, I think they said caramel, I think that goes with chocolate. And how about vanilla as a third? Like it was I was just throwing in random orders. And and luckily, like most people like didn't say anything. I but I knew that I got orders wrong all the time. And at a certain point, it just was so frustrating. I I ended up quitting.

That's so stressful. Yeah, it was very stressful. It was very stressful. Yes, I can't remember what I ordered. I'll be like, wait, is this what I asked for? I think so. I was I was essentially gaslighting large groups of business people because I just acted like, yeah, this is what you.

Hey, here are the things you definitely ordered. You know what I mean? And my confidence made them question themselves, you know. Right. Good technique. I would I would crack my zero confidence. They'd know they'd see right through me. I would never know in front. You're when you're like, I'd be crying when I told them the first word.

When you're an American, like, you know, speaking poor levels of French, you just throw in a and they're just so impressed by you. It's easy. I I was in I was in Paris, France for about five hours for a CISO show. What? RIP CISO. RIP CISO.

Streaming the streaming platform. Your reaction of what is correct. It was a CISO was a NBC short lived first attempt of of a streaming. Yeah. Quibi before Quibi. It was Quibi before Quibi. I mean, like everyone knew when it happened. We only want to talk about dead streaming platforms on the show.

Check out my Go 90 series if anyone gets a chance. You know what? No, I don't give Quibi an RIP. I give Quibi a ROH Rotten Hill. Oh, wait, damn it. Ring of honor. R I H. R I H. Got it. I said R O H because of Ring of Honor.

Why is this what got in my head? RIP. RIP to that as well. But Quibi was trying to like pay people. Like, I mean, all of them try to pay people less. So I guess RIP does. Disney Plus tries to pay people less. That's just every that's literally every company every every streamer.

I guess R I H. Rotten Hill to all of them. But I was there. I we were we shot something in London. And then we were going to we were going to go to France just for like the day to shoot at the Eiffel Tower. So I we took the train there and I was there for like like four or five hours.

I had to I had to leave early. I was my flight back from London. But what I want to try is that there's the butter and brie sandwich, which I've never had before. But the idea of that just that there's a sandwich that's butter and cheese. And that's it sounds like a real delight. I've never had it here. I mean, I've never seen it offered here, you know, like in a but it's just

like on a nice French baguette. It seems like it will be I don't even sure if it's good. But that's like on my list of things to have. But I mean, the thing is, everything's good. It is it is good. It's fantastic. A casual sandwich there. You know, also because I think one thing that we don't do as Americans

is we don't put butter on our sandwiches. Mm hmm. True. And that is something that the French have innovated and excelled at. Yeah, why the hell not? Butter up the sandwiches. Butter up these sandwiches. What are we doing as a country?

What are we doing? I feel like this is maybe where we you may be working for France because I feel like if we if you butter up the sandwiches, if you if you butter up American sandwiches, we it might take us down. It will be the final that could take us down. Yeah, they put a layer of butter on before my layer of mayo. A buttered up Big Mac. Yeah, it's just it's just I don't I think it's it's it's probably fresh

ingredients over there with the with the butter sandwiches. And here, I think that's a big part of it. Yeah, I think I think it's just the right the quality of product because if you got some just just some grocery store butter and brie and and you know, a baguette from their bakery, you know, section, it's just like that's not going to be the same experience even close to it. You know, no, I want that sandwich bad though. I the first time I ever put butter on bread and then dipped it into a soup

with tomato soup, I was like, oh, this is this is so much better. Yeah, I've been I've just been dick. I've just been dipping butter into I've just been not just butter. I've been dipping bread into soup. No butter, just a stick of butter. I wasn't dipping it. I wasn't dipping a stick of butter into the soup. That never happened.

OK, but when I finally dipped bread with butter on it into soup, it's why is I thought it was to steal from you. Ungepatchka. Ungepatch. I thought it was too much. But then when I finally tried it, it's it's fantastic. I just feel like that same which is this really on my have you have you have you had a butter and brie on a baguette ever? I have had a butter and brie on a baguette.

I've also I mean, the their main like kind of every day. Don't think about it sandwich is the jambon. Beurre for jambon, fromage and beurre. So it's just like a ham and cheese with butter. That's the like, you know, and I think the cheese is maybe Gruyere or something. Hmm. Damn. I remember I remember watching there was a Paula Deen episode where Paula Deen, back when she before she got cancelled,

where she went to France with her sons, her large adult sons. And they were and she was like talking about. Like, are they tall? Yeah, they're big. They're big. They're big boys. Got you. So she goes there with her with her with her big her big sons. And and she's like taught. She was making croque madams and croque monsour.

And just remember her delivery of like the difference between a croque madame and a croque monsour is the madame has an egg on it because it looks like a braist. Just remember the way she said is like, whoa. Too horny. Should have canceled her as then. Her son was like into it. Like, yeah.

Gross. So the so Capitol Grill was was founded in Providence, Rhode Island in 1990. It was acquired by Darden Restaurants in 2007. Darden, as you know, Mitch owns Olive Garden, Longhorn Steakhouse and formerly owned Red Lobster, 63 locations. And hey, we're coming up on Thanksgiving. This is an unfun fact about the Capitol Grill. They were cited in 2013 for making employees

work on Thanksgiving without holiday pay. Oh, that's that's that's in the minus column. Fantastic. Yeah. Faced a couple of lawsuits. But but I will say, great. As far as I'm prepared to praise this place. Why, thanks for that fucking update. Well, no, I was I was going to I wanted to give that a little bit of context.

But I will say, as far as my experience, I went to the downtown L.A. location and I went with the Deli Boys as David Phillips. And and there are three of these these chain steakhouses in like the same two block radius in downtown L.A. right by L.A. Live in Staples Center. There's there's a Capitol Grill. There's the Palm and there's Fleming's. But overall, and we'll get into it in more detail.

My dad's favorite steakhouse, my mom told me, because we drove by Fleming's on the way home. How? My dad, that was my dad's favorite back in the day. And I don't know if I've ever had it. We've we haven't done Fleming's on the podcast. Actually, I don't think I've been to Fleming's either. Fleming's is the F and P.F. Chang's.

It's the same company. Oh, yeah. Did not know that. Bad name for a steakhouse. Fleming's is it is a little. Yeah, it's a little weird. But but overall, I did have a lovely time. And I did think it was a pretty as these

chain steakhouse experiences go. I thought I thought it was it was pretty darn good. I don't know. Spoon Man, it sounds like you went to the same location. I did. Yeah, I want I want. Yeah, you know, I went down right by the Staple Center there. I went with my mom. It was the the the day she came in the day.

Why is the day you and I were together in the in the morning? I went and picked my mom up. That's right. We saw Ryan Johnson. You and I together saw Ryan Johnson. I won't say where, but we saw Ryan Johnson at a function. I was afraid that he I was afraid he was going to come over and kick my ass. Yes.

And then he just came over and was like, like, uncarplot, great to see you. He did not confuse me for uncarplot. He did grab. We were at the we were at like the we were we were at an event where there was food. Yes. And he did grab my sandwich and I yelled out, that's mine. So I can understand why he was confused. Yes, I was funny.

Why is I told you I was like, I was and then you didn't know what he looked like you revealed to me. No, I know I like his work, but I could I could not pick the man out of a lineup. I was afraid he was going to kick my ass. He didn't kick my ass and good luck, buddy. You're a huge guy. Yeah, you're a giant man. Yeah, I know I would kill him.

Anyways, that sounds like a threat. My mom, so I picked my mom up. We we and then later that night we went to we had seven 30 reservations. There was a Clippers game at six. And so we had said we got seven 30 reservations at Capitol Grill. We got there. We were dodged the rush. Yeah, baby. Come on. It's not my first rodeo.

So we we we we got we were we were seated at at a place that the the server is called Eagle Island, the the wait staff. We were there's a big eagle. Did you see this table? It's right by the kitchen. Like it's right by the kitchen window. You can see the into the into the kitchen. So we were seated by the by the kitchen window as well.

But we did not hear the term Eagle Island. Did you see the Eagle statue in between the two the two tables? Were you at one of those tables? Yeah. No, I saw I saw I saw you were on you were on Eagle. Are you you saw what? I saw a big like floral thing. I don't think I don't know if I saw this. It was like an Eagle statue.

Oh, I wasn't looking for you were on Eagle Island. You were sitting out on Eagle Island. Wow, how about that? Was it what it was it in? Was it it was a stuffed eagle? No, it was just like a big Eagle statue. Oh, it must have it must have come in. Had it probably had eaten steak in a while, came in ate a steak

and then just turned to stone like wise. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's where you do it. You do it at Capitol Grill if you're going to do it. Don't sit on the lap of the wiger statue. That's what I want you. Jesus Christ. Because there was a lot of taxidermied

like deer heads and stuff in my Capitol. Oh, all right. We we had a big there was a big mural of Stan Lee at ours. That was the weirdest feature. Yes, a huge, a huge Stan Lee wall like a portrait, like a like a six foot tall portrait of Stan Lee flanked by art from the Marvel franchises. I was like, I don't know what this is about.

He maybe came in there a lot when you, you know, at some points, maybe his family that controlled them took him in there. Who knows what it was. But we sat down, we sat down with one of the staff sat us and she said, I'll be taking care of you this evening. And then she was gone and another another guy came up Javier and he said, Hey, I'm Javier.

I'm going to take care of you this evening. Your server was Javier. Yes. We had Javier. Javier is great. Javier is the man. He was great. Javier took over for our table.

Wow. And we loved, we loved Javier. He was, he was, he was terrific. He was fantastic. Why should I get, should I start getting into what I ordered? I want to hear. I want to add. I want to add drinks.

All right. We want, you want to hear some setups? Let's take it item by item. But, but again, which, which location did you go to? Oh yes. I went to the Rockefeller Plaza location here in New York city and when, and I walked in, I had, I just, I don't mean to brag about this,

but I had a Sunday reservation for 515 PM. I went with my friend because I just figured, let's do the, let it be lunch and dinner, you know? And, which was a great call because it was very, all very filling and the location was, you know, it felt like an oasis of calm. It just was like, you're on the busy streets of New York, people are out, the Christmas stuff is already up

in Midtown Manhattan. It's gorgeous and people are excited and walking around. And then you walk into this, you know, mahogany and laden joint that has pictures of old white men that I didn't know who they were, but I, but I enjoyed that they were looking over on us, making sure they were in a good time, yeah, indeed. And then also the taxidermy deer heads

where the, was the other kind of aesthetic item. But, and then they just had this kind of gentle like Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald and just sort of like inoffensive American classic sort of pumped over the speakers at a really reasonable volume. And it just felt like going to the spa. Like I just, I really loved it.

That aspect of it, I really loved it. I love it. Yeah, I really liked the atmosphere. And from this standpoint of like comparing it to like a Morton's or the Palm, which are maybe the two that I'm most familiar with, Ruth Chris as well, I think it's like, it probably nails that sort of chainy version

of like an old school authentic steakhouse, the most effectively. Like I was like, oh, this does feel like a place that like, this could be a standalone, like, hey, this place has been here since the 20s. And it kind of has that vibe in an artificial sense. Agreed, agreed. Yeah, I felt the same exact way.

I felt very much like, I was like, oh, if you told me this is an old school steakhouse, like the red booths, it felt like there should be, you know, caricatures of actors above the booths or something. It did have that vibe to it, which I enjoyed. I mean, it did have a nice vibe to it. I'm shocked that this is part of the Darden group.

Like I'm shocked that they took it over because it does, look, we know going into this, that this is a place that one, this is a special occasion spot, you know, it's expensive. 100% is dad's birthday. So, you know, if you're gonna drop $300 or $400, so this is like, just with two people. If you're having fun and going all out,

like no matter what, yeah, if you're having drinks, like it's just, you're inferred here. It's expensive. But I'm just saying that you feel that, you know what I mean? You feel, it's a nice setting. You get why it is expensive. But I'm just, that's shocking to me that it's like, this is the same people as fucking Olive Garden.

That's the same group. That's bizarre. I really think they're attempting a, like it's definitely a completely different price category. And the presentation is a lot more like fine dining. I definitely think they're trying to be like, we're gonna go up a couple of notches in terms of, you know, service and atmosphere and food quality,

but still have this under our umbrella. It feels like a different sort of sector. They're trying to tackle here. And when I took a gander at their locations page, you know, before finding my New York locations, I just noticed they did, they have a lot of like Scottsdale, Boca Raton. It also seems to be sort of geared at like an old timey

and just straight up like retired population or something. Sure, yeah. But just with some of these look, it seems very like heavily represented in retirement communities. Yeah, there's, and even the LA locations, it's like there's one in downtown, there's one in like Beverly Hills,

which is like this obviously like richer, older, you know, big money area. So I mean, yeah, they're targeting, they know their demographic. Well, let's get into our meals. I will say that, you know, there are no vegetarian entrees on the main menu, which is a little bit of a challenge.

We mentioned Javier and Javier did tell me that they are able to sub out tofu for their sushi grade seared sesame tuna, which was a good option. But this is like kind of like a, just a general note I have for these places. And I feel like this is just a commonality with them, which is just like, give us a pasta primavera or something,

just something on the main menu that's like, hey, this is one vegetarian option that could be prepared vegan. It's a crowd pleaser. It's very straight ahead. But if you're going here and you're vegetarian, you're trying to game plan in advance, you at least know you can eat this thing.

And it's a little bit of a, it was just a little bit of a bummer that I didn't have that going in. And I had to like get something off menu in order for, you know, by diet to be able to be followed at this place. Because, you know, also like, this is oftentimes Mitch,

you're talking about this being a special occasions place. Yeah, that they'll oftentimes be a big group. And maybe there's a vegetarian or two in your party of eight, you know? It's like, it would be nice if that was accommodated up front instead of everything being so meat and fish forward. But that's really my one negative on the evening. Cause I think once we settled in, you know,

we felt like VIPs and we had a great time. Wow. Yes, yes. Two VIPs eating at a steakhouse, going to a Lakers game. This is just the Lakers life, obviously. Yeah. Capital grill, giant steaks. Go watch our shitty team just fucking fall apart. Yeah.

Did they, they won, didn't they? They actually won, yeah. They actually, well, they almost blew it. Hmm. So you're mad? No, I mean, it was just like, it's one of those things where it's like, it always has to be so hard.

It was actually a terrific game. We get to see them against the Charlotte Hornets. And despite a possession where they gave Lamello ball five consecutive free throws and one possession. Never seen that before. Despite that happening, they still were able to pull it out in OT. But, but we're not here to talk hoops, Mitch.

We're here to talk steak. And yet I just want to make sure your audience knows I understood totally all of those basketball languages that you just used. I understood it and I followed. So make sure everyone just want to note that. I zoned out. We're not a good map.

I saw Freddie for a second. Wiger's on his shoot again. Yeah. So the, so I, you know, I'm, we decided, I've been trying to do kind of a no, not November, but for booze. I'm trying to just like, I, we drank so heavily Mitch in, in when we were in New York.

We're actually in New York recently. We did a live show there. And we, we, we just, you and I both fucking got just fucking hammered and just ate like shit. Yeah. It was bad. Have I pulled an accidental no, not November? Anyways, moving on.

Maybe I'll keep it going. I felt so bad. And it's just like, I got to do something. So I'm trying, I'm doing, I'm not having alcohol right now. This is a great environment. I feel like to get a martini or to get a bottle of wine. They have a wine list on their iPad. They're very, you know, like, we'd like,

hey, try our cocktails or whatever. But, but a DP and I, David Phillips, both didn't have alcohol. I got a San Pellegrino, which they had a little mini ice bucket for the bottle, which was a nice touch to keep that chilled. So you still spend like $11 on a drink piece of shit. Yes. Yeah. And then I got the, the, the field green salad,

which is just a butter leaf lettuce, heirloom tomatoes and Parmesan vinaigrette. Very straightforward, but a nice full plate of salad. I got the field green salad as well. Oh my God, you guys. This is so sweet. It comes, it comes with it. Oh, here's something that, that was surprising to me.

There's, there's radishes and, and some carrots, yellow carrots and, and orange, orange carrots. I don't know if you have to specify that they're yellow carrots, but they were yellow carrots. And it doesn't say that within, within the description of the field green salad. It was a nice fresh salad. It was very like, you could tell it was like, oh, this is nice,

nice produce. Yeah. I would say my one complaint to my, my mom, so there's a Parmesan vinaigrette on it. It's very light. It's a, it's like a, it's like a, it's refreshing and light, but like, if you dig into the salad, you can taste a little more obviously. And I liked the taste of it.

It just, it tastes, it tasted like it was lightly dressed or, you know, or, or the dressing is just kind of a lighter. Yeah. But it was very good. It was a very good salad. I think that's, that's by design, but you might want to ask for some extra dressing on the side if you're someone new. I'm not, I'm not going to do that.

I'm not going to ask for the extra. I'm not. Well, it's a tip for someone else. It's like, if someone goes. Can I have more cheese dressing? I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to be the fucking apple. I'm not going to be the fucking apple.

What else did everyone do app wise? Yeah. DP got a Caesar salad. Seemed solid. My mom and I, we split a couple of apps, Wikes. Oh wow. So we, we, the app that everyone says, the app that they're known for and, and Javier, he also, he told us that he,

that it's the best app on the menu. Javier was great. I can't, I can't say enough about Javier. He was, he was, he was fantastic. And also he, he told us straight up, he was like, oh yeah, the, the Calamari is the, is like, you know, it's the best app on the menu. And, and so that's, I'm trying,

now the menu is not fucking loading, of course. Here we go. The Calamari comes with, yeah, I'm at it, sorry. The Calamari comes with, it's pan-fried Calamari with hot cherry peppers. Yes. It says our signature appetizer, crisp and golden

with a fiery flavor. Look, I love cherry peppers. So if you cut them up and put them in any app, I'm going to like it, but that Calamari was cooked really well. It was nice and crispy and the batter was great. It was really fantastic. Then my mom and I weren't sure what we were going to do

for a second app. We were going two apps wise. We were thinking the tuna tartare with avocado, mango and sriracha, or we were thinking maybe the, the cherry wood double cut smoked bacon with tomato jam. And Javier said to us, we said, we're thinking of these two.

And he said, I love that smoked bacon app. That's my like personal favorite. That's what I got. Did you? Wow, look at this. Look at this overlay. This is fantastic. And you know what?

I was very happy Javier said that because I, it was, it was great. What did you think of it? Did you enjoy it? Oh, I loved it. Yeah. And then I think you can often disregard a tomato jam or some sort of side stuff.

But in this case, I highly recommend not disregarding it, take it seriously and incorporate, incorporate, you know? Wow. Yeah. It's, it was, the tomato jam was great. So it's double cut smoked bacon with tomato jam and pickled shallots and the shallots were,

and those were good too. I, and the thing I liked about the app is that from one end to one other, like the one end of it was, was more well cooked than the other end. So it was kind of like, you got your fatty less cooked bake, not as, not as, you know,

not as cooked as much on one side. And then kind of your crispier, smoky end of the bacon too. It was, it was really good. Wags, what is, what is the brand of bacon there? It's the, I can't say it. I can't say the word. Nueskies, Nueskies, N-U-E-S-K-E.

It's a famous bacon brand, right? But anyways, it was, it was, it was fantastic. It was. Yeah, it was very good. It was very good. Wow. It was very, very good. And Javier had, he steered us right, Wags.

He, he, he really knocked it out of the park. My mom and I also, we got, we did get drinks, by the way. Let's talk cocktails. Yeah. What'd you get? Well, for our, we each got two, we each got two cocktails,

but first I got the mule. I got that mule, which was really fantastic. And my mom got like this berry sidecar. Look, I'll say this. I don't want to say the app is crap because like this is a high end steak restaurant. So like. Yes.

There was a lot of takeout. Did you notice that? They were like. Was there? They were, for ours, there was a lot of bags being bagged up. I mean, like, I know some of that was to go, but you can order pickup.

And it looks like that, it looks like full bags that were going out. No, I don't doubt. While we were sitting by the kitchen. I don't doubt that there's like, you know, it's cause especially this is a, this location is in a business district. I don't doubt that there's like, you know,

people are working late and getting lunch from this place on the company dime, or that just like the, you know, people who live in those a million dollar condos in that area are just ordering this to go. Like I don't doubt that they do a lot of takeout. You're saying that the app and for, in terms of actually ordering to go items from the Capitol Grill is a little bit clunky.

Yes. Yeah. I mean, just, just even as far as the menu. So anyways, my mom got the Blackberry Bourbon Sidecar, which is Woodford Reserve, Contro, and Blackberry's Fresh Lemon Juice and Thyme. Is that how you say it? Thyme? Thyme.

Thyme. Hard T. Yeah. Thyme. Thyme. Thyme. Thyme. Thyme.

Tickin' away the moments that make up a dull day. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. It's a music cue in the Eternals, Mitch. Really? You saw the Eternals. Before it's Thyme in the Eternals, yeah. Look at my mom is home for, I don't know why, but she's here.

And she just said, oh, nice to have my comment, which is fair. Wait, you don't know why your mom is there, isn't she staying with you? Yeah, but she was out and about. Ma, what did you think of the Blackberry Sidecar? Now Irma's going nuts. She just said it was delicious.

That was... You couldn't taste the bourbon in it too much. You couldn't taste the bourbon in it too much, which you like to taste the bourbon. And I had that, like I said that, I'll have to give you the official name of it. Is your mom's wrist okay? I just gave her a little wave.

Yeah, yeah, she heard her wrist. Her wrist is okay though. Okay, good deal. Right, Ma, your wrist is okay? It made me look like a bad son. Yeah, she said yes. It's getting better. I had the Belvedere Single Estate Mule,

which is Belvedere Lake Bartzek Single Estate Vodka, Lime Juice in Gosling's Ginger Beer, and I thought it was a really well done mule. It was fantastic. I really liked it. That was our first round. My friend got a... I don't drink generally,

and I wish I could say it's because I'm such a God-fearing Muslim, but it actually has nothing to do with that. I'm just terrified of any slight hangover. I can't handle it. But my friend got just a classic martini, and she seemed to be very delighted with it. She did say it could have been dirtier,

so I think they didn't incorporate as much olive juice, whatever that is, as she would have liked. Yeah, that's my mom and sister love the dirtier the martini the better. They want that olive juice. There's a signature drink here, a martini, at the Stoly Doly Wags.

I didn't have it, but I heard that it tastes very much just like pineapple juice. It's like infused with... It's vodka infused with pineapple, and it's supposedly good, but... I'm less into that. I like the... You're going for a martini.

I like the stiffer drink. They've got all these things that are under the martini umbrella these days that are all like have various degrees of sweetness or fruity character to them, and I'm just like, I never loved that. Give me a regular martini. And yeah, I'm with you on a little bit of...

Make it a little dirty. Why not? Agularity it up. Oh, God. I'm just not even gonna revisit that. I'm not gonna even try it again. Sucked. Edit it out.

Add a sneeze instead. No, we keep it in. We like being embarrassed. We kind of, we enjoy it. We get off on the podcast being terrible. People love that. People listen for it. Nagin, did you get any apps besides the bacon?

Well, I sort of focused my energy on side dishes, if we're honest. Sure, yes. So that's kind of where I shined. Well, let's talk sides, because I got the, and I'm going to, I was told, Natalie told me how to pronounce this correctly, and then I should have written it down phonetically.

But Nagin, as someone who speaks some French you made, you may know, oh, gratin, potatoes. Yeah, oh, gratin. Oh, gratin, okay, potatoes. And I got that one, and this was a recommendation as well. And this is like, it's like, it's like a, you know, it's like kind of like a lasagna.

It's like a big brick that has like, you know, a crusty layer up top. And I thought this was delightful. Like it was super cheesy. I thought the potatoes were well cooked. They had a great texture to it. I liked the crunch up top. It was an ample portion, with a party of two.

I mean, I don't know if you need more than one side, honestly, because it was pretty substantial. Although I guess this is a starchy-er side. So if you maybe went for an asparagus or a cream spinach or something like that. But I was told those were the standouts, the old gratin, potatoes, and the cream spinach. Yeah, I didn't, couldn't order the gratin

because they were out, they were out of it. And it was very, very disappointing. I guess supply chain has come for all the gratin. Supply chain, it's the supply chain. Are you telling me that there's a big, like a, like a big- A boat, it's stuck at the Suez Canal. Brought on? With a bunch of cheesy potatoes on it.

That's right. There's just one boat that's just stuck there. But our server is named Michael McCoy. Shout out to Michael. He was, he was like a Javier in that he was just excellent and made sure that we had a fantastic time. And it was so, he was so lovely.

And he was very apologetic. He was so apologetic, in fact, about not having the gratin that he brought us like a little tasters of the lobster bisque to make up for it, which was delicious, so good. Wow, those, those soups looked good. We didn't, I didn't order any soups, but the, the soups did because there was also that French onion soup

that just looked cheesy and fantastic. So good, yeah, that looked really good. But we, but we also ordered the lobster mac and cheese, which we were told as a signature, the cream to spinach because I feel like you're sort of constitutionally obligated to order cream spinach when you go to a steakhouse. And the soy glazed Brussels sprouts with bacon. Yeah, I saw those.

What did you think? I mean, the soy glazed Brussels sprouts were really good. They had a smokiness to them, a little spice, you know, a little kick, a couple of pieces of bacon, you know, generous chunks of bacon throughout. It was just a really a fantastic way to eat an otherwise maligned vegetable. Yeah, you know what, this isn't fair to, to Brussels sprouts,

but I, Nick, I feel like in Los Angeles, it was, and I'm sure in New York too, I got Brussels sprouted out. They went Brussels sprout crazy for so long that when I see it as a side dish now, I like always shy away from it now, which isn't fair because I'm sure that there's a lot of places that do a great job with them.

And I do like, when I have a great Brussels sprout, I really enjoy myself, but for that reason, I kind of, I want two potato side dishes. That was, those are my- Two potato side dishes. That's the Irish boy in me. We went two potato side dishes. And we almost went with the Agrahton.

My mom was a, or Agrahton, how do you say it? Yeah, Agrahton. Agrahton. I still say it horribly, time, Agrahton. I said both wrong, I think again. Anyways, we went with a Parmesan truffle fries, freshly grated cheese and white truffle oil. And my mom said, mom, you're, she's right over here,

that they were maybe the best fries you have ever had. Wow. Come on. Yes. Okay, okay. That's wild. She's had, you've had, she's had a lot of fries. Ma, Nick doesn't believe you. It's a big statement.

She has, she's had, she says she's had a long life and those are the best fries is what she just said. Come on. That's unbelievable. Don't ever call, I said, Nick, don't you dare ever call her a liar. My God, wire. I'm lying anyway, she didn't address you at all.

I also didn't call her a liar. Nick is saying, come on. He seems like he doesn't believe you. No, I'm, yeah. Okay, I wasn't, I was, I was scared. I didn't mean, I didn't mean that way. I mean, like that's, that's like, that's wild. That's, that's, that's really like to say those

are the best fries you ever had is really something. I'm going to back her up. I don't know if they're the best fries, but they were very, very, very, very good fries. And you're right, Ma, there was not a lot of oil. They weren't oily at all. They were super crispy, just a great taste to them. We got Javier brought us a little side of ketchup as well

to dip in those. And then the other side I got was the Sam's mashed potatoes, which was red, red bliss potatoes, sweet cream, butter and salt. And on the menu it says as lovely as it sounds. And you know what, they were lovely. They were really, they were really fantastic. They were very creamy, delicious.

And they went, they paired well with my main dish, which we'll get into in a second here. I also should mention that the lobster mac and cheese, which again, one of their signature dishes was delicious. I want to say about lobster and mac and cheese as a combination in general. It is something that I've long never understood. Agree.

Like I think, like it was good. It was very good, but I'm just like, why would you pair lobsters a special thing unto itself? It doesn't need to be paired. You know what I mean? This is the exact conversation my mom and I were having right before. My about lobster mac and cheese,

and why is that a pairing and why is that a thing people try to push? Because I love mac and cheese, I love lobster just as a funny combo to me of like one, I'm not tasting the lobster the way I'd want to. You know? Yeah. And also like, I feel like the texture of the lobster

sometimes can change in that mac and cheese to where it can be a little bit more like rubbery than you want it to be. I was almost like washing off the lobsters so that I can have them undaunted. Yeah. Yeah. Which then I was like, well,

this isn't the point of this dish. I just feel like it feels like such a decadent, you know, lobster and mac and cheese. It's just, it has both, it's decadent and then also it's like, it's an every man, you know, they toss it in mac and cheese. So. Right.

That's my suspicion of the origin of it, right? Yeah. It's like, well, we can't just sell mac and cheese, this comfort food at a high end place. We got to plus it up with some premium protein and they're like, hey, what's more indulgent than lobster? Yeah, I don't know. But you said Mitch the Fat Cat and Quincy Mast

is a good lobster mac. They do, and they have the best lobster mac and cheese truly that I've ever eaten. And I, like they have good chunks of lobster in there. I just, for me, when I go to the Fat Cat, I like to get the hot dog and mac and cheese or the steak and mac and cheese because they do a few different mac and cheese.

And I prefer that to lobster. But. If I'm gonna do that, give me the old girl Tom potatoes and a lobster tail, like, you know, keep them separated. Yep. It's a separate but equal. Yeah, that's it.

That's Nick, that's kind of Nick's whole thing. Oh boy. Let's talk mains. So I ended up getting the tofu, which was the, it was a seared sesame tofu. And it had like a, you know, like a citrusy sort of sauce ringing the plate over this ginger rice that was quite nice. It was like a really well-prepared rice.

You know, I was looking at this and it was a pretty appealing looking plate for a big slab of tofu. Oftentimes that could be something that's not, you know, really appetizing eye-wise. But it, like, it's like, oh, this looks pretty good. And I was eating it as like, you know, it's decently flavored.

It's doing the best it can with just a big old hunk of, you know, semi-firm tofu. And I thought it was a pretty substantial next thing too. Big old semi-firm. You guys should label this, I guess, like an X-rated sensitive materials podcast so that people know at the beginning.

You know, TV, M-A-L-A or whatever, whatever. Right. Yeah, this is an NC7T podcast. I think this was fine. I will say that, like, you know, I appreciate that the option exists. And I do think the rice was good quality and I liked the sauce and it was a nice-looking plate.

I just think that, like, as far as tofu, I feel like shines better in the context of give me hunks in a stew or something, you know, or in a soup or with some noodles. When you just have a big old piece of tofu trying to do the heavy lifting on its own, you know, it didn't quite come together for me. The sesame crust on it was nice and gave a little texture,

but it was not my... Yeah, go on. I can't really just say that it sounds horrific. It sounds like a true nightmare of a dish to me personally. It sounds like a waste of a capital grill outing. It is what it sounds like, yeah. Definitely that price point. And I think if you're like, you know,

kind of flexible as a vegetarian, this is a place where I'd be like, you know what, have the sea bass or the chicken or whatever their other protein option is if you're not gonna eat the steak. But yeah, this was not the most exciting thing. Mitch, what did you do for your main? Did you go steak?

So we got another round of cocktails. I got the Black Tie Margarita, Casamigos, Reposado, Tequila, I'm saying that wrong, Contro, Fresh Lemon, and Lime Juice, Black Sea Salt Rim. And I thought that was a really great margarita. My mom got the double oak, Oaked in Rye Manhattan, right Ma?

Woodford Reserve, double oak, small batch bourbon. Woodford Reserve Rye, Carpano, Antique of Vermeuth, and Amarina Cherry, I don't know if I'm saying any of that right, but you liked that one as well. That was more bourbon-y tasting. And I enjoyed my margarita. And then those came right when our,

what are you laughing at, Wigs? That you're in LA now. You've been in Quincy Mass for so long. You're back in LA finally. And still, your mom is within earshot as you're recording. Like an off-mic sidekick. There's a reason that my mom is out here. We're not gonna get into it on the pause.

I know she's helping you out with something, but just the timing, you understand from my perspective, the timing of you finally coming back to LA and then within a full night, your mom is out here. Yeah, I get it. During a record. I get it.

Well, look, she was a part of the experience. We got to check in with mom. And so, hey, we started the podcast, Offs talking about Maine's, about Maine with Stephen King dunking on it. That's right. Pennywise. And now we're back to Maine's again.

Really beautiful structure. Beautiful structure. Life is a herald. My mom got a dry-aged New York strip opoise with crevasse cream, 14 ounces. So it's a tender New York strip with black peppercorn for a spicy flavor. Now, why?

This is one of my dad's big dinners that he would make for us, like a fancy dinner that he would make from time to time with steak opoise. So he would coat the steak up in pepper and then he liked the whole thing on fire in the pan and it was fun and it was delicious. And that was, my mom got the crevasse cream on the side. And there wasn't a lot of taste to the crevasse cream.

I'm losing my mind here. We had the same server. And our dining companion got the same dish with the same substitution, the crevasse cream on the side. David Phillips gave me the exact same thing your mom did. That is wild. What did DP think of it? Because my mom and I really,

I thought it was really fantastic. I love steak opoise. I think, I don't know if it's a thing that divides people because it's a very peppery. If you're not a big fan of pepper, it would be divisive. But I don't know. I love-

Yes. I believe his assessment was that he would have liked a simpler preparation. Like he liked the sauce and, you know, but also he was kind of in a place where- See, we didn't love the sauce. We thought the sauce was kind of weak, but go on. He liked the sauce and he liked the,

he's like a good amount of peppercorns. But, you know, and I believe his assessment was that, yeah, just like a simpler sort of, like just a straight up strip, he would have probably preferred. Or honestly, I think that he was thinking of maybe getting a different cut of meat, but he got this one just because it was the smallest cut

and he wasn't as hungry. Got it. Well, I was torn between two steaks myself. There's the bone-in, cone-acrusted, dry-aged New York strip with shallot butter and that was, it's like a coffee rub on the New York strip. And then the other one was a porcini-rubbed, bone-in ribeye with 15-year-aged balsamic.

And that's their signature steak. And it's prepared with delicate porcini mushroom crust. Now I'm not a huge mushroom guy, Wags, you know this. And so I said to Javier, I said, I'm stuck between these two. And he said, hands down, that porcini-rubbed bone-in ribeye is our best steak. It's so good.

He said, you don't really taste the mushrooms, even though there's a mushroom rub. Sounds perverted. But he said, you don't really taste the mushrooms. And he said, that's the way to go. And now, look, Javier didn't upsell us with the apps because the bacon was actually less than the tuna tartare that we were looking at.

And this, so this is one of the more expensive steaks on the menu. It's like the Primo steak here. And Wags, I went with Javier because of course I'm gonna go with Javier. And I'll say this, it was one of the best steaks I've ever had. Wow.

Yeah. It was so good. We ordered it too. We ordered it too. Wow. Yeah, we ordered that in the slice filet mignon with chipolini onions, wild mushrooms and fig essence. But yeah, the porcini rubbed a bone in ribeye with a 15 year age balsamic was so good. And it's true, you couldn't really taste the mushroom,

but it added a certain je ne sais quoi to the whole experience. 100%. Because the steak, it's just like, it's like a, it's very, I think from the, that porcini, it's like the presentation, it's like, it's very black, you know? And then the balsamic is like very a dark, dark sauce. So the whole thing had a very, like, I don't know,

elite look to it. No, you're right. 100%. And then you cut into that steak and then it's a, I got mine medium rare, but it's just a beautiful red cut. Right. The contrast is so interesting, totally. Oh yeah. I also, I loved that balsamic glaze. I thought it was really good. And they age all their, they age all their steaks there.

I forget how long Javier told us the whole thing, but they age them for, how long is it? Like, like 10 days or something, right? Dry aged. Anyways, it was, it was, it was fantastic. And for a place that is technically a chain, I was blown away that the steak was, was so, so, so good. And so tender and just parts of it would really melt in your mouth.

It just was, it was fantastic. And I scooped some of those Sam's mashed potatoes onto the plate and got some of the balsamic in there and the beef and the juice and ugh, it was, it was great. Why is it was, I'm sad because It was really good. Your tofu dish would have been replaced by that, I'm sure. If you, if you, and look, I know that it's,

I know it's a problem. I know that, that beef consumption is too high in the country, but if you're, if it's dad's birthday and you're going out for, or mom's birthday, you're going out to, and you're going out to Capitol Grill. That's your mom or dad are going to leave happy with that steak. It's so, it's so good. And I, I have to say also in the,

this with the sliced filet mignon, I'm a filet mignon gal, you know, from the, from the beginning, I've been a filet mignon gal, okay. They call me Nagin filet mignon farsad in high school. And so, so it would, I almost like bored myself with my own order, but the, the, the filet mignon as well was so utterly delicious. You didn't even need to like really cut it.

It just sort of fell into your mouth and then just melted. It was, it was, it was really delicious. So I also, I highly recommend a completely different experience from the porcini rubbed rib eye, but, you know, a solid filet mignon. I used to, I was, filet mignon was my first, like that was like how I got into steaks when, like a, when I was younger, you know, like a,

whenever we'd have steak night, I'd want a filet mignon. That's kind of how I moved into, you know, even, even, appreciating and liking steaks. But I've, I've moved away from them in, in, in recent years. And I love like a New York strip or, or rib eye. I really love the rib eye. I'm a rib eye fan now, but I, but you know, like every kind of beef, I like all of them.

You know, I, it's a problem. I like every kind of beef you can give me. So I was, I was happy. I was, I was, I was very, very satisfied with, with, with my meal. Let's, let's, let's talk before we, before we get to fork scores, I don't know if anyone did a dessert course, but we did a dessert.

I got a decaf coffee. We actually both got decaf coffees. And we got the coconut cream pie, another Javier recommendation I recommended to, we recommended that in the cheesecake. And we were like, you know what? I don't think, I don't see a coconut cream pie on steakhouse menus all that often.

So we went with that direction and it came with a house caramel sauce and a little bit of rum. Mitch, I got to witness history. This was David Phillips first time ever having coconut cream pie. Wow. I've witnessed, I've witnessed two milestones. He did like it.

I thought this was a really good coconut cream pie. It was, you know, it had a smoother texture, a less fluffy texture than a lot of coconut cream pies. And it was like a full mini pie. You know, so it was a lot of extra crust service area. However, that was to its benefit because the crust was so, so buttery. It was like a, it was like a butter cookie crust.

It was, it was delectable. Yeah, I thought this was great and indulgent. What were the, what were the two milestones? So that was one milestone. The other one happened to the same function, Mitch. I got to see Dave Ferguson's son have a juice box for the first time. What?

First ever juice box. He was at Capitol Grill? Did he freak out? No, he was at the, that function we went to. He did not, I mean, he had, he had a great, he loved it. That was at the, that function we were at. The aforementioned function with the aforementioned Ryan Johnson.

Wow, did Ryan Johnson give him his first juice box? You guys are so vague about this function that I think you know everyone just thinks you were at a QAnon rally. You know, like to be this vague about a function, we all know what it means. We're trying to win, we're trying to win, well, Ryan Johnson over, we need, we need more famous people

within the Q community, the Q community. It was actually a Doughboys intervention. People were trying to get us to stop the show. Yeah. Hey, the show sucks. Please, you're doing a lot of work. Why is, I also had dessert. And so, so Javier, we didn't ask him for recommendations on dessert, but it sounds like maybe we should have

because that sounds like coconut cream pie sounds good. Mom, you're not a big coconut fan though, are you? Oh, she likes coconut. She doesn't like coconut cream. So we said, we said to Javier, we said, we'll get the chocolate cake, which is there's a flourless chocolate espresso cake that's what we got with cocoa powder and fresh raspberries.

But Javier said, which chocolate cake? And I said, well Javier, what do you mean by that? Which chocolate cake? Cause I don't see one here on the menu. He said, there's an off menu chocolate cake that Javier pointed us to. And it's a chocolate lava cake. And why?

Cause you know how I feel about chocolate lava cakes. I love them. It's like a chocolate lava type cake with a, it had cherries and what else did it have on there, mom? There was kind of like a caramel, light caramel sauce on there or something. And it was delicious. Off menu.

It was off menu and it was just a great, great, great warm cake. I will say this, there was no real molten center there. So like, so I don't know if the cook was a little too long on it, maybe it was a little too overcooked, but it would, but my mom says it's not a lava cake. That's what she's claiming. So, but it was still,

but it was still, it was still very, very, very, very good. But he described it as, look, he described it. Yeah, I want to clarify. She's saying it doesn't fit her standards of a lava cake, but it was described by the server as a lava cake. Yeah. And, but she was saying that it wasn't supposed to be. My mom was saying that it was delicious and it wasn't supposed to be a lava cake.

Javier described it kind of as a lava cake. I think that that's maybe where the confusion happened. Look, he was fantastic. And I love it. He said kind of as a lava cake? What happened? Yes, he's like kind of like a lot. He was trying to describe it to us.

Okay, so he was being, yeah, he was being descriptive. It wasn't, he wasn't saying that this is canonically a lava cake. He was just saying like, this might remind you of a lava cake. Yes, sure. But it was, it was just a nice warm cake. And it came with a,

also came with a vanilla ice cream wigs. And we were just, we loved it. It was, it was, it was fantastic. Do I wish there was a little molten in there? Personally, yes. And I don't know if they're supposed to be or not. Cause I don't know. My mom says no, but I, but I'm not sure.

Can I just say, I like, I'm a little disappointed that I was not offered an off menu. Michael McCoy, who was otherwise excellent, did not offer me an off menu chocolate cake. Like some garbage civilian, I ended up just ordering the regular flourless chocolate cake on the menu, you know, just like a member of the, you know,

of the boring proletariat. That is what I had. A Sto Boys get treated like kings. And at any restaurant we go to. And I, and I want to say that I was being steered towards the, the cheesecake. And I, in retrospect, do feel like a cheesecake would have been more appropriate for the steak house,

like set up, you know, it just would have gone better with the taxidermy deer heads, you know, like a classic cheesecake, I think. I feel like, that was one of the mistakes of my meal. I feel like is that we, we ordered the flourless chocolate cake. Yeah. So, so you didn't, so you didn't enjoy it?

It's not that I didn't enjoy it. It just wasn't like, you know, memorable in the way that the steaks were memorable, you know. Yeah, I was, I was so happy to have like that warm, I love a warm chocolate cake. I love a, I love a lava cake. I love that. I would have loved to have been treated

with the same dignity that you were, you know, I would have loved that personally. You know what? I'll tell you the big difference. Javier is above and beyond. He's, Javier is on top of everything. Clearly, clearly. Just, just one of the best,

one of the, one of the best servers we've ever had, why is on the, on the pod? Just such a great, a great, a great guy, great job. So. Agreed. I think it's also possible it just could be like a, a New York LA thing that there's just like, somewhere in the middle of the country,

there's a, there's a train just filled with chocolate lava that hasn't made its way across the coast yet. Right, it's just stuck. Right. Yeah. It's stuck in supply chain. Supply chain. It's coming for off menu orders.

Do you remember in volcano, when the guy, when the guy jumped, like he, he just, the guy saves the people on the train and he goes into the lava and he kind of like melts into the lava. Great scene. Feet first into the lava. I would do that with the, the chocolate lava.

Willingly. Come out more powerful. For a second. I thought you were referring to the movie Joe versus the volcano, one of Tom Hanks classics. Oh yeah. And I was thinking that you, I was picturing you swimming in chocolate lava

with luggage the way that Tom Hanks does in that movie. That, I would also do that as well. I, and also a big sun kissed movie. Sun kissed is a, a sun kissed soda has a big role in that movie. If you, if you remember. That's right. I, yeah, I don't know.

I don't know if it was actually sun kissed or was it a different orange soda? Either way it was. Oh, you're questioning me now, huh? No, I'm just, I'm not sure. All right, well I am, and it's sun kissed. There's an orange soda in the movie. Yeah.

Just didn't know if it was like a rights thing where they just had a generic orange soda, cause you know. Well, why don't you look, why don't you bing it? Okay, I'm gonna bing it. Anyways, I, I would, yeah, there's a long list of volcano movies as Dante's Peak, volcano, Joe, Joe versus the volcano,

Weigar's Bigging here. All great. Every one of them. A long list and, and, and you met, you mentioned two whole movies on that very long list. A story history. It's such a long list. Hey, how about the, the Lord of the Rings trilogy?

All right, those count, those count. Going to the fiery, Mount, yeah. Mount Doom. Mount Doom and Mordor. And just like basketball, I know exactly what you're talking about here. Let it be known for the record. Volcano and Dante's Peak had like a similar thing

to like the, the Armageddon type movies too, right? Like they, like they both came out very close to each other, I feel like. That's right. Those movies, what are the other movies? Like Armageddon and. There's an Ant and a Bug Life. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Deep Impact and Armageddon.

Deep Impact, that's it. Very common. You know, we were talking Tom Hanks earlier and he says this on a recent Simmons podcast, but he's talking about how, how big was like the fourth of the kid adult body swap sort of movies that came out in a row. Oh yeah.

It was like, there was like vice versa. There was like, you know, there was like three, there was like three different ones and then big comes out and big is the one that everyone remembers. Why is your, I was wrong, okay? It's not Sunkist. Mmm.

It's drink, it's drink, jump orange soda, jump orange soda. Yeah, that's a generic brand. Yeah, yeah, they made it up. By the way, I want to say that I met Tom Hanks, not to brag. Did you really? Wow. Well, it's, it's actually a weird way to have met him because I do that show way, wait, don't tell me on occasion.

And, and I, it was like one of the very early panther pandemic shows. So it was like April, 2020. And he famously, as you know, started the pandemic. And, and he, so he was on the show talking about his experience or whatever, but he most guests of that show, like in most shows, they come off and they come, they, they, they come on

and off like, and we're doing zoom shows. Sure. So he didn't need to log in until his time, but he logged in during the tech setup and then just stayed. It, that show tapes for like nearly three hours. And he straight up hung out with us. Wow.

So I, I did my jokes to an audience of one Tom Hanks, the entire time. Wow. It was the most insane experience. Cause I'd be like, is Tom Hanks laughing at my one joke that I just did on zoom? And so, and I, and I said to him that, Joe versus the volcano is like one of my favorite

childhood movies. It's like, you know, one of those movies. I remember it so clearly. It's like one of the first movies that I can really clearly remember. And, and then he was just like, well, Nagy, and they're not all winners. So it's not a huge fan of Joe versus the volcano.

And I was like, you're wrong, sir. That's a fantastic movie. I remember loving it. I wrote a, for birthday boys, the sketch show that I did with the, with the birthday boys crew. I wrote a, a sketch called little where Tom Hanks goes to the machine

and he, and he wishes to be little. And then we were going to have Colin Hanks play like a younger Tom Hanks being like, oh my God. I'm like, and, and it's that sort of thing of, I was banking like a, like a sort of thing of like, I'm whatever it's a bad sketch, but also a sketch that's banking on like a gigantic star and his son to say yes to, to an IFC sketch show.

So neither say it never got made, the little sketch, which then became a movie. Little became a movie after, like the, the, the, and you got a nice payday for that, right? Oh, that's right. That's right. Yeah, did you get royalties for that? I had the idea first.

That was why I got out of the red carpet from here. Well, we should get to our final thoughts on the Capitol girl. So again, here's how this will work. We'll each go around and give a closing argument, if you will, on this particular chain and end that little paragraph by giving it a score from zero to five forks.

You are a guest, we will begin with you when you're ready. Yes. So I, so it's funny because I talked to a friend today. It's, I don't, again, I have, I have some friends. It's not a big deal, but they exist. And I was saying that I was going to come on the show and we were going to talk about Capitol grill. And she said, oh, Capitol grill, they, they have,

they don't have good wage practices. And they're cited by one fair wages, not having fair wages. And I was like, disappoint. I was so upset because I, because my, I'm, I had such a delightful time. And this was, it was also, I just, I highly recommend going to a steakhouse with a friend or a mom and, and really just luxuriating in it

because it's so, just the entire experience and the atmosphere, everything was really lovely. The food was excellent. I had like a great like beef oriented stomach ache afterwards that was totally worth it. I just, I loved all of it. And the only reason I'm going to give them four and a half forks is because of that one thing

that my friend told me about, you know, the wage practices. So it would have been a five, it would have been a five fork experience. If I didn't get, I almost wish I hadn't had talked to my friend, you know what? She's no longer my friend. That's it. This is over with me and her, but, but no, I,

so, so four and a half forks for the food and then minus a half. Because if that thing about labor practices is right, hopefully they'll clean it up. Wow. Very good. Wow. Four forks, two tines. Mr. Slice, what do you think?

Well, Wags, I can't believe this place is owned by the Darden group because I, you know, I had a fantastic time. Javier was great. This is sad to hear. I tipped well. Like I always try to do at these restaurants, but that we go to, but I didn't know.

You know what? I didn't know about this whole wage situation. So this is now a bummer to me. I'm just finding this out right now. I'm so sorry. I read a little bit about it, but I mentioned the Thanksgiving thing, but yeah, they had a lawsuit from some servers

of a few years back too. So, you know, maybe that was, maybe they're starting to get their ducks in a row, but with all these corporations are so fucking monstrous that it stinks. Well, look, what I was going to come in and say, I was going to come in and say this is that the price point is very high.

Like, look, will people be mad that we even went here? Possibly, but you know what? We got to cover them all. We eat at Yoshi Noya so that we can also eat a Capitol Grill. We cover all the races. We cover the worst, the dregs of all chain restaurants. And we cover the high-class ones too. And this is one of the high-class ones.

This is a birthday spot, a celebration spot. This is an expensive night out. There was like a family of like 10 people nearby and I was like, damn, that is going to be a couple thousand dollars. It seemed like it was maybe someone famous. I couldn't tell what was going on, but my mom and I walked by the table later to try to see what was up.

That was our deal. And we didn't notice anything. And they were mad that I walked by. Anyways, they weren't really mad. I loved it. I mean, like, I'm shocked this is part of the Darden Group. I have one of the best steaks I've ever had for real at a chain restaurant.

It was just a really fantastic steak. The sides were great. The service was great. I loved the atmosphere. Like, I was going to go five forks and I didn't know about all this other stuff. So like, this is hard for me now. Do I not go full five wise?

Do I take it down to four and a half? Like a... I think you should trust your gut because I also say this is also baked into capitalism. It's just like all the exploitative labor practices are the case of all these restaurants and also up and down the supply chain. That's why they're John Deere workers striking.

That's why they're Kellogg workers striking. It's just, it fucking sucks. We have a problematic podcast who I, you know, I never would have thought that, but it is. I mean, we should go in. Also, we do not honor the Doughboys media picket lines. So those of us that are striking workers, we're looking for gags.

Just you song outside. I gotta go, my experience was five forks. So I was, look, it's already out of the platinum plate club because of this wager practice deal. So that's broken now and that's fucked up. Pay your workers and give a living wage. We've said it before, we'll say it a thousand times over, but the experience there for a high-end restaurant

that you go on a special occasion, mom or dad's birthday, you know, some anniversary, something like that, it was fantastic. And you know what? It wouldn't have been five forks without half a year. I'll say that. It wouldn't have, it would not have been a five fork experience without half a year.

So, so fucking pay your employees. There you go. That's what, that's all ended. Well said, Mitch, and I agree that the service was great. The atmosphere and the service is why you go to a steakhouse because this would not have been the same meal if you'd gotten it to go. And I will say, even though that my entree itself

was kind of underwhelming, just the overall experience was so great, you know? And the, and I would say the service extends beyond- Can't blame the restaurant for that. They're probably- I know, because of my dietary restrictions. No one orders that. I had to run to Trader Joe's and buy a block of tofu.

The fucking supply chain is perfect for the blocks of tofu. The trains are running for the tofu train. The tofu trains are pulling into the station. No issue there. So I will say the service extends beyond our excellent server. We also, everyone who was coming by, making sure our water was refilled, the hostesses were super,

kind of gave me the VIP treatment from walking in. It just felt like there was just like really a high level of service. And sometimes at these, even at these chain restaurants that have a higher price point, the service isn't quite at that threshold because they're not adequately staffed or what have you. So I definitely give it points for that standpoint.

Our, my buddy, the Deli boys, David Phillips, who was my dining companion, I asked him for his assessment. And this is what he said. Tough call, 4.1. The point one made for the added E at the end of grill. I will retry. Wow. And when I get one of their signature steaks.

So he likes the E? He likes the extra E, yeah. I will return and when I get one of their signature steaks because he got this, the steak au poivre and I think he wanted to try one of the, I think he was actually eyeing that rib eye that both of you raved about. I could see my rating changing.

And he and I had the same assessment that it was just like, this is probably, this is better than all of these places except for maybe Ruth's Chris. And honestly, atmospherically, I would take this over Ruth's Chris. I just like the, I just like the way the restaurant feels more so than that.

So yeah, boy. I go back to insomnia. It's like, it's so much of this is, it's so much of, I feel like how we perceive something is just a benefit of expectations. And like, you know, like you see this new chain coming in from outside and you're just kind of like, oh, show me what you got.

But you go to this steakhouse and you're kind of like this chain steakhouse and your expectations are not high. You're thinking like, this could just be like Sizzler. You know what I mean? And then when it exceeds that, it's just like, wow, this place is actually pretty damn good. I think this is not quite Hillstone,

but it definitely gave me a similar vibe to a Hillstone. And... Oh man, I maybe think it's better than Hillstone, but that's, I love Hillstone too. How dare you? I know that you love Hillstone and I like it as well. But I think this is really, really, really good. But for a chain, for a chain of this size,

I think this is a four and a half fork eatery. So for that reason, I am going to say, welcome to the Golden Plate Club, the Capitol Grill. Wow. Get your fucking, get your fucking wages in line. Sort it out. Make sure it would fit. Get it sorted out.

Get that all sorted out. Also, why is I just looked at that table? I was questioning if it was someone famous or not. I just looked it up. Stephen King was at that table, that's your house. We'll take a break. We'll be back with more Doe Boys. Hey you.

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Do it. Mitch, when someone is just exceptionally good at what they do, it could be a waiter, a chef, a doctor, a podcaster. A podcaster? You know you're in good hands. It's like seeing a waiter balance five trays of sizzling fajitas on one arm,

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And hey, that was our review of this week's Chain Capital Grill. It's time for a segment. I've got a food-related exam. And Mitch and our guests must compete for superiority. It's another edition of Slop Quiz, and this week's Slop Quiz category is Knock It Off. So these are compiled by our associate producer.

I'm gonna get my ass kicked. I can't even say time correctly. I think you have a shot at this one, because this is about knowing, this is about brand knowledge. I think you got a chance. These are compiled by our associate producer, the drop king, Robert Persinger,

who again is striking and we do not honor it. I will read the name of a knock-off, and you answer with the name brand that this knock-off is copying. So for example, if I said fruit rings, you would answer with fruit loops. So I'll say the rip-off, you say the real thing. This is good.

Okay, so buzz in with your name. Buzz in with our names? Okay. Yeah, buzz in with your name. All right, first up. Panburger Partner. Nagin. Hamburger Helper. You are correct.

Panburger Partner is a hamburger helper knock-off. Next up, cheddar cheese guppies. What? I know, what? Cheddar cheese guppies. Mitch. Cheetos? Not Cheetos.

Oh, Goldfish. You are correct. Oh my God. Pepperidge Farm, Goldfish Crackers, the rip-off is cheddar cheese guppies. Oh, I'm getting my ass kicked. It's Dillard. Butter, it's not. Mitch, I can't believe it's not butter.

Is that your answer? It's just a statement. Yes. You are correct, you're on the board. It's two to one. Next one, number four, thick mints. Two to one, Mitch. Thin mints. You are correct.

I thought I buzzed in first. Thin mints, thick mints, the rip-off of thin mints. I hear it again. Yeah. Wow. All right, it's three to one. It's gonna slow down. This is messed up. All right, here we go. All right, number five, square-shaped rice.

Mitch, rice curds should be treats. No, you are incorrect. Oh, that's what I was gonna say. Oh, I don't know what they are now. Yes. Rice, oh my God. The round ones, what are they called? Rice? I know them. Crisps?

No, they're called crisps. No. Oh, no, I messed up. I don't remember. They were looking for rice checks. Oh, I got cereal. Oh, no, I wouldn't got square-shaped rice. I don't even know what that is, so for the record. Do you know Chex Mix?

Oh, Chex Mix. Yeah, before Chex Mix, there was the cereal. In fact, the cereal might still exist. I think that just the Chex Mix got bigger than the cereal. I can't believe that I said I know it. Hee-hee-hee, and I didn't know it. What did you think it was? I just thought it was rice cakes.

What are the round ones? Like the Quaker rice cakes. Oh, yeah, like rice cakes? Yeah. Are they called rice cakes? Yeah, maybe. I guess that's not a brand name, right? No, it's not a brand name.

That was like a health food in the 90s. Yeah. And they're fucking awful. Tastes like shit. Yeah, they're terrible. Yeah, they're disgusting. They're kinda nice when they have a ton of sugar and cinnamon on them.

Yeah, you like rice cakes, I hear. Nice crunch. Oh, she doesn't. My mom doesn't either. All right, go ahead. Next one. Do you even know your mom, dude? You don't know if your mom likes rice cakes

or not to even know your mom. Number six, Energade. Mitch. We're at Nakeen. I heard Mitch. Gatorade? Correct, Energade, like Powerade. It's a knockoff of Gatorade.

All right. A few more here. All right. I just wanna say that's a terrible name, knockoff name. Awful name. Yeah. Awful. What's the score?

Do you even remember what the score is? Nakeen three, Mitch two. Also, Energade, because it's a portmanteau of aid and energy, but it makes you think that you should say Energade. Like it's confusing. Or it's missing an R and it should be Renegade. It should be Renegade.

It should be Renegade. It's a llamas. And also, it seems like it could be like a Red Bull-y type drink instead of Gatorade, but whatever. Moving. Terrible name. Awful name.

Terrible name. But is it as bad as this next one? Number seven, Cream betweens. Mitch. Go for it, Mitch. Oreos. You are correct. Oreos, which themselves are a knockoff of Hydrox.

Hydrox predates Oreos, as we've said in the podcast. It is not enough, three a piece. Okay. I got my little, I got a little Oreo right here, myself. There he is. Mitch just picked up his mom. Oh boy.

Aw. He's a guy coming in a little. I didn't have to pick up my mom. Yeah, look at him. Look at Wally. Very cute. It's a big face on that cat. Yeah, he's a good guy.

All right, Wally's hanging out the rest of it. All right, Wally can buzz in too, but with these last two. Number nine, Scandinavian swimmers. Wait a minute. We've talked about these before. Scandinavian swimmers. We've talked about these on How Have I Forgotten.

We've made so many jokes about Scandinavian swimmers. Vanilla wafers? It's not Nilla wafers. Wally buzzed in. What? Yeah, Wally buzzed in. Sorry. Tuna fish?

Wally. Wally, you idiot. What is that, a dumb cat? Scandinavian swimmers. God, this makes me so mad. Is it Swedish fish? It is Swedish fish. Oh my God.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much. But I can't award either of you a point for this one because... What? Did you take multiple guesses? Yeah, that's a rule. Oh, I didn't know that.

I didn't know that. I feel like I should get like half a point. Okay, go ahead. All right, I'll give you a half point. Thank you. But this last one will decide it. Wow. Three and a half, Mitch has three.

Nut master. Mitch. No. Yes. Nick Weiger. Oh. It's not me. Not my nickname.

Nicky, nutter butters. It's not nutter butters. Wow. Isn't that nutter butters? It's Nutella. Wow. That is a terrible name for Nutella. Absolutely awful name.

And not my new nickname, so. Wally. Yes, Wally. Tuna fish? Wally. Oh my God, he's so dumb. Don't let Wally talk anymore. It's embarrassing himself.

Whatever you say, nut master. We'll call that one a draw. Well, so we'll call that one a draw. That was this week's Slop Quiz. The win goes to the guests. All right, Nagin gets the win. I did have half a point more, so I feel like just mathematically I won,

but I don't meant to be a weird stickler here. As always with Slop Quiz, no one won. We all lost. Why do we know any of this? Why do we know any of it? Just like a restaurant of all your feedback, let's open up the feedback. And today we have an email from Adam in Portland.

Adam writes, I just got back from the COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow. Oh, who did? At one event. I took a private plane. At one event I was served Haggis stuffed chicken, not bad. What are your picks for the best and worst things stuffed into other things dishes?

So we're talking things stuffed into other things. But what did he get in the bag? When we were talking lobster mac and cheese earlier, he got Haggis stuffed chicken, which I have never even heard of. I can't even conceive of the taste. Yeah, I can't put my mind around that one. That's a...

Well, can I be like a super token ethnic girl and name a Thanksgiving dish that my mom frequently does. So there's this rice dish in Iran that is, it's like currants, red currants, and some dates and some almonds or whatever and rice. And then they do it up with some saffron and some other spices.

It's a really great rice dish. And she put that stuffed a turkey with that for Thanksgiving one year. And I thought that it, I was very skeptical at first and just because of the xenophobe that I am, but I tasted it and I was very convinced my mom did a great little accidental invention of this red currant rice,

Persian red currant rice stuffed turkey. Sounds delightful. It does sound delightful, yeah. Yeah. You know, the question was both best and worst. We were talking lobster mac and cheese earlier, but as far as worst goes, I feel like I've never loved... I mean, lobster mac and cheese isn't worse.

That's not what I'm talking about. I'm using that as a jumping off point to what I was gonna say, which is that I've never had success with mac and cheese between bread in any context. If it's like the mac and cheese burger or the mac and cheese dog, or like you see somebody,

they'll try like a mac and cheese version of a grilled cheese. To me, it's always Ungepochka. Yeah, I don't need it. Get that mac and cheese out of there. Mac and cheese is best on its own. So that's not really stuffed though, right? I mean, like, look, I never had a turducken, but that seems Ungepochka to me,

knowing like I don't need a turkey, chicken, and duck. Yeah, I don't need them all. Although I'd like to try one. I've never had one. I would like to try it. I kind of disagree with why isn't that. Like a carb on carb, I can like, you know, like a piece of bread

with some noodles wrapped, like, you know, stuffed in there sometimes. I can enjoy that. Like a potato chip in a sandwich can be fun. Yeah, it can be fun. Yeah, yeah. But I was specifically talking mac and cheese. Yes, I will throw some chips in a Sammy.

I like, is it a Scotch egg? Is that the egg that, you know what I'm talking about? Oh, yes, yeah. It's like in, wait, it's in meat or is it in it? Isn't it fried? Oh, no. Yeah, what is it? I think, I believe it is, I believe it is,

I believe it is fried. Hold on, I gotta, but I, yeah, it's, it's, oh, it's meat, it's breaded, it's meat that's then breaded and then there's an egg inside of it. So a Scotch egg is a boiled egg wrapped in sausage meat, coated in breadcrumbs and baked or deep fried. And I've loved, every time I've had one of those, I loved them.

I love deviled eggs, you know, those are kinda stuffed with stuff. Oh sure. Deviled eggs are great. I'm just trying to think of things that are stuffed. Oreos are stuffed and double stuffed. You get like a stuffed mushroom that can be fun. How about like, how about a Costco chicken bake?

That's a fun stuff, dude. I'm not a huge stuffed mushroom guy. There we go for me. There's your worst. But also I don't think that those are bad. I'm trying to think of like things that are like, and I'm sure what it is is like, you know, something that's been stuffed with some seafood

or something like that, you know, and I'm just like, oh, it just doesn't seem to work for me. But there's, I don't think that has ever been anything where I'm like, ooh, that is putrid or something, you know, like I've never, I've never touched my pearls or something like that. I wanna say the world of stuffing is a thing into another thing has, I feel like has almost always worked

for me, like it's made the dish just more fun. And there's like a surprise in the middle, you know, I think I've generally, I enjoy the concept and I can't even think of one that I've really like heavily disliked. Yeah, I think, you know, back in the day, my grandma RIP would make like a stuffed pork chop and that would be great sometimes.

You know, back when I was eating meat, you know, like I'll do a, like a, why am I having trouble thinking of the name of the dish, oh, like a chili reino. You was thinking of a sea of chili, but a chili reino is like a stuffed dish that's always delightful, always good. To me, it's that, like so often it's just like something that's stuffed with cheese.

Like in my mind, I'm like, sure. Oh, it's like, you know, a burger that has cheese in it and I've, you know, a juicy Lucy, which I've had before, which is fantastic. Or a hot dog that has like cheese inside of it. And I love that, you know, like, put cheese in anything and I like it. In the like, in the Mediterranean context,

you're always looking at like an eggplant that's otherwise a little bland. Sorry. The sneezing episode. Another sneeze. Talk about podcast structure. We're just bringing it back at the very end. And interestingly enough, I'm sneeze free wigs,

this whole. You know what? Stuffed crust, a little, a little overrated stuffed crust when they put the cheese into the end of it. Like I'm like. That's a great point. Stuffed crust never, never, never as good as it looks. I feel like there's a big one I'm missing

that I won't, that I don't like. And we'll get tweeted at and get yelled at for it, but there's a big one. Mitch forgot, Mitch forgot the stuffed peppers. You should have said stuffed peppers. I'm unsubscribing. See, I love, there's, you can get like, like there's a thing in like the Italian delis

on the East coast where you get like the stuffed, I think it's usually a cherry pepper stuffed with, stuffed with like cheese and prosciutto. You know what I'm talking about, Emma? Like there's like, oh man, they're so good. Like the stuffed peppers, they're the, but they're cold, you know what I'm saying? Why is there like.

Yes, I know what you're talking about. Yeah. Oh, they're so good. But anyways, yeah, people will be mad, but there's a big one that we're missing that I can't think of, but for the most part. Like a cordon blue. Yes, see, I like that too.

It never, you know what? I think I got it. The thing that I never, that we'll never usually do, but it wise you're gonna disagree here is, what is the ham and cheese sandwich? It's a French sandwich. A croque, croque, croque Montseur. Croque Montsour, yeah.

Croque Montseur, the croque madame has the egg on it, like a Brailst. I was never a big fan of that, but also like that's not bad, you know? I can't think of anything that's really bad. Croque messieurs are so delicious. I really love them. This is why it's just, I'm searching,

and I can't think of anything in the stuffed world that's good. It's got like a bechamel sauce on it. A croque messieurs, it's so delicious. Yeah. You know the bad stuff, Wags? The stuff itself, that monstrous white... Stay away. Yeah, stay away from the stuff.

From that alien substance that becomes, everyone becomes addicted to eating, and then ultimately, it hollows people out and turns them into husks, who are controlled by some alien microbe. And this probably falls into the same category as the NBA chat and the Lord of the Rings chat from earlier. This is even more obscure.

Our listeners are even like, what the fuck are they talking about? Anyways, that's it, Wags, we're stuffed out. Yes, I do want to shout out one more that I thought of because you're talking about cheese, which is that if you're ever, and we're talking steak houses, you go to, you get yourself a martini,

if a place does a blue cheese stuffed all of it, it's delightful. My mom wanted one of those at the Capitol Grill. There was one of those on the menu, so. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of fun. Let us know your picks for stuffed foods, hashtag the stuff.

And if you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants, you can email us at doughboyspodcast.com or leave us a voicemail, 830-go-do, that's 830-4636-844. And to get the Doughboys double or weekly bonus episode, you can join the Golden or Platinum Play Club at patreon.com slash Doughboys.

The Gene Farsad, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for taking the time to go to Capitol Grill and for sharing your experience. Please come back, tell us about Fake the Nation, anything else you would like to plug. Yeah, no, I had such a wonderful time. Thank you so much for having me. What a great restaurant experience

I got to have because of this. And listeners, if you like just three people chatting, you will love Fake the Nation. It's a culture and news podcast. We grapple with three subjects from the news every week. And it's me and a cast of rotating cast of comedians, people like Margaret Cho, Samantha Bee, we've even had people like Neil deGrasse Tyson,

Larry Wilmore and Wags here has even been on the show. That's right. And so tune in to Fake the Nation. It's also a headgump pod and I think you'll really enjoy it. Great show and if you check out my episode, you can hear me say things like, that sucks. Lend my insights, that's fucked up. The Neil deGrasse Tyson of dipshits.

I go by Nutmaster, thank you very much. Hey, that'll do it for this episode of Doe Boys. Until next time, for Mr. Slice, Mike Mitchell, I'm Nick Weigher. Happy eating. See you, Nutmaster. On the next Doe Boys Double, they did the mash, the mash off. Eva Anderson and Mike Hanford return as we each tackle a Thanksgiving dish for this year's theme, pie, the mash off for pie goes to the runner.

Only at patreon.com slash Doe Boys. Want to see the sources for this week's intro? Check the episode description. That was a headgump podcast.