Doughboys - Tournament of Chompions: Carl's Jr./Hardee's v. Fuddruckers

Episode Date: March 3, 2016

In the opening match of #MunchMadness 2016: The Tournament of Chompions: Burger Brawl, the 'boys welcome actress and comedian Jessica McKenna from Fox's Party Over Here. Together they settle which Golden Plate Club member offers the better burger: Carl's Jr./Hardee's or Fuddruckers. Plus, a boozy soda edition of Drank or Stank.Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The hamburger. The defining American food, even in how its name is borrowed from another culture. With no fewer than a half dozen different people who claim to have invented the ground beef patty sandwich we all know and love, its origin may be mysterious, but this month, our interest lies not in divining who created it, but in declaring who has perfected it. Today, two combatants will put their best foot forward in a hot beef battle. Our number four seed is the brainchild of drive-in barbecue founder Carl Karcher and is now in its 75th year with over 3,000 locations after its merger with the franchise founded

by Wilbur Hardy. Our five seed weighs in at a comparatively scant, 36 years of operation in 188 locations nationwide, yet makes the hubristic claim that it offers the world's greatest hamburger. Two chains enter, one chain leaves as we compare how their meat stacks stack up. This week on Doughboys, the first matchup of the mild card round of Bunch Madness 2016, the Tournament of Chompians, Burger Brawl, Carl's Jr. Hardys, Fudruckers. Welcome to Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants. I'm Nick Weiger, alongside my co-host, as always, the Spoonman Mike Mitchell.

How you doing, Mitch? Good. Great new song by Mike Cassidy. Oh, Cassidy's the best. Our composer, he composed the Doughboys theme song. He composed a special Munch Madness Tournament of Chompians, Burger Brawl edition of the theme song. You just heard it right there after my little monologue.

So Mitch, and assume you have something of your own to play, right? Yeah, I just want to say how-to-how to Spoon Nation in a little... So the classic ABC Monday Night Football theme, is it? Mashed up with your unending array of drops. That's true. And I get to give a shout out to AtVanTheBrand for making that for me. Then RoboShow, our friend. Our friend of the podcast.

Why'd you give him-why'd you use his Twitter handle for attending you to some random guy? Well, I pretend not to know him. Friend of the podcast and half the writing team of the Sonic movie, Van RoboShow? I always thought it was RoboShow. I guess we should know this, considering we like, hang out with him. I think it's RoboShow. Okay. RoboShow.

I don't know. He's Cajun, so I don't know if that's- Yeah, it's like C-H-A-U-X. This is the most interesting topic to begin the podcast with, by the way. Some random guy our listeners don't know, deciding how to pronounce his last name. And also employee of the 10, he just used his old drop and put it onto the Monday Night Football. All right.

So, it was pretty good. Yeah, that was pretty good. Couldn't hear the first half of it. I want to introduce, I guess, in just one second, but first, so the Tournament of Chompions, this is a new thing. Mm-hmm. Very long, bad title. It's a-

I think it's fun. I think it's whimsical. I think it's sort of gives us the stakes. Look, the NCAA Tournament, it's the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, aka March Madness. It's got the Elite Eight, it's got the Final Four, it's got the Sweet 16. All these different elements fall into it. The excessive verbiage is part of the spectacle. So I think it's totally fine.

It's like how you'll say, you know, WWE Summer Slam or WCW Monday Nitro. No, hold on a second. That does not compare at all. All right. You know what I'm talking about. It's like saying WWE Summer Slam. Shut up. The slam of the summer.

Time to hit the mats. Like that would be the full title. Yeah, okay. All right. It was a bad example. It did not support my case. You're a head writer. You're supposed to cut jokes out.

Like I don't write on the fly. You have time to craft a piece. All right. Okay. It's not just, you don't just dictate into a fucking speaking spell thing and it finishes your script. You have to take some time to write and craft something. I'm just talking now.

Also, I said, you're a head writer. You should cut jokes out. And then I realized that that whole title, there is no joke. This is a bad, bad word. Yeah. It's a mess. This whole tournament will be a mess. It's a bad idea.

It's a bad thing and it's going to be fun. I'm excited about it because we're getting down to what's the best burger. Of all the places we reviewed, we're going to find out what's the best burger of the bunch. And that's exciting, right? Yeah. And it's very exciting. I hope our listeners are excited.

We're certainly excited. It's been a fun journey so far, which we'll get into when we start talking about this. But just to hit on the rules real quick, because I'm sure some of the people out there will be wondering, what exactly are your criteria here? How are you making this decision? So just to make a few things clear, one, and this speaks to what Mitch said a second ago, eligible entrants must have previously been reviewed on the podcast. So if you're out there and they're like, well, where's what a burger?

Where's Shake Shack? Where's Fat Burger in your bracket? Where's Insert Regional Burger Chain here? Where's McDonald's even? These are fair questions, but that's not the purposes of this tournament. It would be unfair to a chain to say that this is your first, this is your initiation into the Doughboys universe. We're going to have you be part of a tournament.

They all deserve a proper episode, a proper evaluation first, a proper fork rating. If you want those other places, you're going to have to wait till next year's choppy-enship when our defunct podcast doesn't do it. So yeah, it will only be previously reviewed chains that have a fork rating. We're going to be reviewing them based on three categories. Go ahead, Mitch. One, creativity and taste. Are those the three we settled on?

At some point, you threw in juiciness as one of the criteria. Like that was one of the pillars of burger evaluation. So there was a split down the middle. You said presentation, creativity, taste. Yeah. I did say juiciness at one point. I stand by that, but I think that juiciness can fall under the taste category. I think you also had condiments as one of yours.

Ivan Susser had bun, condiments, burger, which I kind of like too, but I mean like don't we need presentation thrown in there? I don't know if we need creativity, honestly. Yeah, I'm fine with nixing creativity. Yeah, presentation and creativity are kind of the same thing. Yeah. So presentation, bun slash condiments, juiciness, slash taste, and that's taste and burger pretty much the same thing.

Okay, all right. I'm going to refresh my memory when we get to evaluation because I'm going to forget all this. That's right. And we're not doing it out of forks. It's not out of five forks. These three categories are going to be broken down and out of a possible 10 basketballs. So zero to 10 basketballs as opposed to our standard one to five fork evaluation which

we use for a chain. That's right. Because we're just evaluating burgers. We're laser focused on burgers. And that brings me to the rest of... But also I do want to make one thing clear. Just because a burger scores higher in basketballs doesn't make it the winner. We just decide what the winner is when we say what we think the winner is.

Okay, so we're giving a basketball rating but we're still... But that's ultimately arbitrary. Yeah, just in case we make a mistake. Okay, all right. Okay, cool. That's fine. All right. So the rest of the rules real quick.

Platinum Plate Club and Golden Plate Club chains, there are five of them that fall into the burger sector. They're automatically entered. We have a sixth seed which we'll discuss on a future episode. Seeding is based on previous fork rating. This is a burger brawl. As we mentioned, burgers only. Sides stay on the sidelines.

Drink, you're in the stink. We don't care. We don't care about sides and drinks. We only care about... Sidelines and stink. The two perfect sports references. I didn't look. I came up with the sides one.

I didn't think of a drink one. I realized I probably needed one. How about drink you're in the cooler or what the thing that they pour on the thermos, whatever the hell it is? I'm gonna pour a hot thermos on a coach. No! They keep the Gatorade jug. Drinks you're in the Gatorade jug.

You can tell us what you get. Also on the side. Drinks you're on the sidelines. Drinks are on the sidelines. Okay. Sides are on the sidelines. Drinks are on the sidelines. And also I just want to be clear.

We're deciding which chain has the best burgers, not picking the best individual burger. So the award is going to the chain, not going to... We're deciding based on a chain's burger selection, not based on an individual burger that we're saying is the ultimate burger. Alright, everyone confused? Yeah. I'm sure you've committed all that to memory. But at this point, and the burger bracket for the Tournament of Champions, Munch Madness

is on Twitter, on Facebook, if you want to check that out. We should just tell them what it is. Tell them what it is. You want me to just say it right now? Yeah. Okay, alright. Except you know what. So our one seed is in and out burger.

It gets a buy. Our two seed is Wendy's. It also gets a buy. Our three seed, Steak and Shake. Four seed, Carl's Jr. Hardee's. Five seed, Fud Ruckers. That's the matchup we've got today. And then for the sixth seed, we'll reveal that coming soon.

But at this point, I'd like to reveal our guest. For the stars of Party Over Here, a new sketch show which premieres Saturday, March 12th at 11pm on Fox. We're thrilled to have Jessica McKenna. Hi, Jess. Oh my gosh. I thought for a second you tricked me and I was just going to watch you two do some sort of waiting for a good dough explanation of the roles of the Tournament of Champions

and I wasn't actually going to get to be on that voice. That would be cruel and not the sort of thing we would do to someone. We apologize for such a long preamble. Oh no, it was a joy to watch. It got derailed. I'm going to blame Mitch entirely. But we're very, very happy to have you here. Oh man, I'm so excited.

And we're sorry for having you on the inaugural Tournament of Champions burger fuck, whatever the fuck it is. It's a dream. It's a dream. If I could go back in time and I could have been the first guest during Rocktober, I, you know. Oh God. This is the beginning of a new legendary month.

This is the beginning of a new Rocktoberfest. I'll hate it just as much probably by the time we're done. We did. We did Rocktoberfest. If you're new to the podcast, this was our review of Rocktheme chain restaurants, which we did back in October of last year. And Mitch, I think you grew to hate that about halfway through. This one, you were texting me about how much you hated this today, so we're 11 minutes

into episode one and you're already like fully against this. Well, I had two burgers for dinner tonight and I'm about as close to a human being can be to popping. My seams are, I can't keep this up and it's a month of burgers. So it's going to be, it's not going to be easy, I feel like. So we booked this episode, Jess, when did I reach out to you? Thursday of last week? Friday of last week?

Yeah. So you had a full weekend, but you saved both burgers for a single meal tonight as close as possible to the podcast. Did you know I stand by that because I'm putting these burgers up against each other. Sure. Why not just get it done in one, I don't want to stretch these burgers out over the course of a couple days. Let me feel unhealthy in the one chunk, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah, I got you. So you do the one unhealthy chunk, then you're good to go. I do legitimately get the strategy of you cram your unhealthy eating into one like binge day or one binge meal, like I get that, I understand that. So Jess, I got a question for you. What do, what do burgers mean to you, is it burger, is it a big one, is it a big meal to you, cheeseburgers, hamburgers, what does the burger mean to you, because this month it's all about burgers, it's all about burgers.

Great question, Mitch. Really good question. Yeah, I love burgers, but I think my favorite food maybe in the world is french fries. Wow. Because they are such a pair, I love a burger, I love seeking out good burgers, trying new burgers, going to burger places, love just a backyard burger. But for me, they are the like handsome date of the real star of the show, so. I get you.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm a huge french fry fan too, I do love cheeseburgers and you just mentioning a backyard grilled burger, that is one of the best burgers you can have. Oh yeah, for sure. And that won't be represented at all, but whatever, this show is bad. Can you review the future chain of dads? Wiger's dad won't talk to him. I'm a huge burger fan, I feel like pizza takes the number one spot for me though, I'm a huge

pizza guy. Yeah. And is that your number one, I feel like you're, I mean you are the burger boy. Well you gave me the nickname burger boy. I'm not the self designated burger boy, you started calling me the burger boy. I don't know, I think people can listen to our back catalog, but I'm pretty sure Wiger gave himself a nickname burger boy right off the bat. I think he said, I'd like to be captain of the burger brigade, and you gave him a helpful

pitch of why not just be burger boy, a little more accessible. I think Jess is right, I think that was the reason you got into this podcast is that you wanted to have the nickname burger boy. It does suit me. I think, I don't know where burgers, burgers might be my number one, I love a good burger, and I feel like the protein style burger has made it like the easiest unhealthy food to consume in a slightly healthier fashion. Sure.

Like I feel like if I have like a burger salad or a lettuce wrapped burger, that's like, that's like 80%, and not quite 80%, that's like 60 to 75% of the burger experience. I'm getting like a good approximation of it, and there's no equivalent for like pizza or pasta. Yeah. You try to accomplish that healthy version of pizza or pasta, it's just like a fucking huge disappointment. Oh man, I did like a paleo experiment once for like a month and a half, and I was craving

pizza so bad, and my husband and I spent maybe three hours trying to make like a pizza out of like yucka crust and cashew cheat, and it was horrible. Oh no. It's horrible. Yeah, you can't approximate. A burger with like out the bun is pretty close. It's pretty good. It's pretty close.

You call them burger salads all the time, which sounds like a fat guy joke or something. No one says, can I get a burger salad? Yeah, that would have been like Roseanne, that would have been like, honey, you want a salad? We'll take a burger salad. It would have been like a solid three-camera sitcom joke in 1992. It's good to know that you've never seen the show, Roseanne. She doesn't cook at all.

Have you had the burger salad from Stout? Yes, I have. I think that's the best burger salad. Yeah, Stout, there's a lot of this. Hold on, now hold on, now hold on, just a second. Burger salads are a thing. I just thought it was a weird thing that he said all the time. I don't know if burgers, but like sometimes, you know, they're wrapped in the less and

other places put it on a bed. On a bed of less, okay. I think you might say burger salad to differentiate if it's on a bed versus wrapped. Stout, a small Los Angeles chain, does a great burger salad. It's on a nice, well-dressed bed of arugula. That does sound great. It's real yummy and, you know, they'll put the sauces and the toppings right on there and that's pretty good.

I also like the counters version of it, which they'll just give it to you on a bed of lettuce and you have your choice of mixed greens, some baby spinach, some romaine, whatever you like. Choice of lettuce, that's nice. Why don't they, instead of being like, you can get this on a bed of lettuce, it'd be fun for a place to be like, this is the burger salad, like how there's a buffalo chicken salad. Oh, I gotcha.

We put, it's diced up cheeseburger and onions and you know what I mean, something like that. My mom makes a great hot dog salad. Really? Oh yeah, it's delicious with like a mustard vinaigrette, relish and pickles and, you know, tomatoes and then, you know, grilled chunks of hot dog. That sounds, that sounds, you describe that so much more from, in what my mind. My head was like, sounds like a trick to get a child to eat salad, pretty much. I think it's a Rachael Ray recipe and, yeah, entered our family's rotation later in life.

Not a kid, not a kid, you know. Wow, God bless you, Rachael Ray, that sounds delicious. It's really good. Yeah. There you go, you can have a burger and hot dog salad now. Yeah, it sounds fantastic. I like, I really, no, it really does sound good. Geez, what a joy.

Did I sound, what, did I sound patronizing there? I'd really think, I'd actually genuinely sound good. No, you just sounded like a man who's never enjoyed anything. I wouldn't say patronizing. Wow, that sounds really fantastic. That's true, yeah, that's true, I don't, I don't know what it's like to experience joy. So, Jess, you're from, you're from Yorba Linda, which is in Orange County, California. That's right, birthplace of Nixon.

Another, oh wow, okay, that's a fun fact, Toi, that's great. You have his library. You didn't, I thought you knew that about old Nixon. You know what, I always associated him with Whittier for some reason. He went to Whittier College. That's what it is, okay, but he's from Yorba Linda. Born there, yeah. Okay, all right.

We have his library, we had his funeral. Wow, you weren't there. Well, I was like, I wasn't at the funeral, I was in the city. I was like six though, so I didn't really register that there were like dignitaries from all over. When they told you, former President Nixon died, you cried for days. What was, what's the Yorba Linda consensus on Nixon? Certainly disgraced as he existed, the presidency, but redeemed a little bit later in life and a son of, from, what do they consider him in his hometown?

I think that they like him. Yeah. He, I don't know if it is anymore, at one point it's the only privately funded library, so it can sort of be as biased as it wants and sort of rightfully so, because it's not taking tax, you know, like if it was taking taxpayer dollars and then it was like, also watergate never happened. That's particularly terrible, but this is privately funded just by people who love Nixon, so they don't want to talk about it, like they don't have to.

I think there literally is a tiny plaque somewhere that's like, then watergate happened, and then he retired on the beach and they had a great time, but they do make a huge deal about him being like the best form, like the big form policy president. Yeah. They host a geography bee for eighth graders, so these little like ladies in red blazers come to your middle school and have you learn like 300 points on the world map to emphasize that he was great about his global politics, and then if you do well enough on the bee, you get to go to a luncheon at the library, but I think Yorvelina all in all pretty much likes him

to a point where people get married there, which I think is weird, because even if you liked him, you're really close to his bones. Like even if I was like, oh, I'm gonna be married to like, you know, Lincoln's library, I'd be like, I'm just a little too close to his bones. Is every president buried on the grounds of their library? I'm sure not. I think that can't be true, but he is. Oh, gotcha. Yeah.

I say, let me at the sweet bones. Yorvelina has a great, I love the name of it. It's just like a great sounding town name. Yeah, it's nice. It's like the slogan is land of gracious living. Oh, how about that? And our neighboring town that we share a school district or like essentially one town is called Placentia. Yeah, a lot like Placenta. Very much, that's pronounced.

Yeah, yeah, I think the joke is, no, I only spent nine months in Placenta. I've spent 20 years in Placentia. That's cute. Cute joke. That's a lot of fun. Their slogan is a pleasant place. So Yorvelina is like, you know, tries to be a little fancier, which is the downside of Yorvelina.

It can be a little big first britches. So you guys should hate Placentia for good reasons, I feel like. But all the schools I went to are implicit, you know what I mean? Oh, right. Oh, shit. You know, it's like, you know, suburbs to me are just like, they're all the same. I don't, I don't understand suburbs that aren't like just an endless sprawl. It's kind of my experience of like, I went to, our house was in Lakewood, which incidentally, the town motto is tomorrow's city today.

Oh. Yeah, pretty good. Pretty good. Yeah, future, I think it was like. You guys all have little town slogans. I'm sure you have one. Quincy is the city of presidents. I know that much, but I don't know if it has like an actual slogan

that I knew walking around. That sounds like the slogan. Yeah, maybe that's what it is, city of presidents. I actually have a pretty idea that the, what the slogan might be. I'm guessing whites only. Jesus Christ. But at Lakewood. Yeah.

There's one white guy that will beat the shit out of him, Quincy, and his name is Nick Weigel. Any time I want to fucking come by. Fucking stomp on you. The Quincy hello, as we call it. But anyway, Lakewood, you know, grew up in my house was in Lakewood, but all the, the schools I went to, well, my middle school and high school were in Long Beach. So it's the same sort of thing.

It's just sort of like, these are all, they're all right next to each other. Yeah. Flying in and out of Bellflower and Downey in Artesia. Yeah, it's all just the same thing. Yeah, totally. Our park was Tri City Park. And so it was just like, yeah, Brea, Yorba Linda, Fullerton, you're all the same. You're all just buddies.

All the same. All the same. Did you have, what were your, your chains of choice as a young kid in Yorba Linda? I think fast food wise, we were probably McDonald's Taco Bell. Sure. With occasional at Carl's Jr. And then I wasn't really, I don't think I had in and out to like middle school. Maybe there wasn't one like super, super, I don't really know.

But it was like a later edition. And then restaurant wise, we were, we were a big recent episode, Mimi Cafe, Mimi's Cafe. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. That was a big one. Big, big time. Also Marie Calendars, because my parents, my parents met there. No, no way.

Yeah. And like my mom worked as a manager of Marie Calendars for years. So we were big Marie Calendars fans. That would have been a great one for you to do instead of this terrible time. Um, I love Marie Calendars. And as a kid, I had multiple birthdays at Marie Calendars. Cause my favorite, uh, like my favorite food in the world when I was, before I was 10 years old was Marie Calendars lasagna.

Okay. I was obsessed with doing just the soup and salad bar. That's a lot of fun too. Cause you could all load up those chilled plates that are like in the shape of a ship. Oh, it's great. And you would just like load it up. And then, uh, I loved that it came with cornbread that I would always save. And they had this great whipped honey butter and I would have it for breakfast the next day.

Damn. Yeah. The honey butters are all tasty. So good. So good. Yeah. Was there a Nixon's themed, uh, restaurant in Yorba Linda? Uh, no, no.

I mean, maybe the like pro Nixon thing is also like later, I don't know. I'm also my, you know, like, I think everyone in the world is just like time makes us more forgiving of Nixon as we see people who are as bad or worse. I'll say this about him that, you know, like one of the things with him in Kennedy was like, Oh, like we saw them both on TV and Kennedy was cool. And I'm a Massachusetts boy. So I have to back Kennedy, of course. And Nixon was kind of an uncomfortable old crank and I'm like, I kind of like that in a politician.

I want, what's wrong with having an old crank of a man or woman who's, uh, like, uh, I think politicians trying to be cool is the dorkiest, shittiest thing that, yeah, it's scary. It's, it's, it's awful. Um, also, you know, famously when they polled people who listened to that debate on the radio, they thought Nixon won. And then people who watched it on TV thought Kennedy won. Because if you were just listening to the answers, they were like, Oh yeah, this guy knows what he's talking about.

But if you watched it, he was sweating. Yeah. I've really, I sit on my couch and sweat. But he was still, uh, not good, but I don't want to sound like I'm a huge nebologist. Uh, I'm a bit, I am. I, I, I, I, okay. All right.

Which is pro Nixon. Um, yeah, he certainly, I mean, people point to things like the environmental protection agency, which he, I think, stewarded and he was a big, it's something of an environmentalist. There's certainly the opening up relations with China. They're redemptive elements of Nixon's presidency. He's not the worst guy ever. No, he has one of the better president movies. Oh, Oliver Stone's Nixon.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. No, Dick. Oh yeah, Dick. That was like the kind of the silly caper movie, right? Yeah, I think so. Isn't that Claire Danes? The fuck's in Dick?

Michelle Williams? Uh, are they in Dunst? Chris and Dunst, I think, yeah. Chris and Dunst, Michelle Williams. That sounds right. And then Nixon himself, I think. Yeah, they took up his bones. They had to shoot it in Yorba Linda.

So they could be near the bones. Jess, there's one thing I wanted to ask you about. We discussed, uh, you and I discussed previously, but, uh, you have had, Haggis in Scotland, is that correct? I have, yeah. All right, so that's the food I've always been curious about, but have never dared to actually taste. Talk us through what Haggis is, authentic Haggis is all about.

So, um, uh, I had it in Edinburgh at like this place that, I mean, I was still like in a very touristy area, like this, um, the Royal Mile, but it was sort of the place on the Royal Mile that people were like, okay, that, that will be like the most legit. Cause you can have it at varying levels of like, you know, bad or good or high end.

But, uh, we had it, so they cook it in a sheep's stomach. And it's like leftover bits of meat. And then also like, oh, and I think maybe like barley, it's like grains are also stuffed in there with it. And then a bunch of seasoning and stuff. Then they cook it in the stomach. And then I'm sure you can have it where you get it served still in the stomach.

Stomach maybe I would assume, but I had it outside. Like then they like re scooped it back out. So it's almost like cooking a sausage in casing and then like scooping the meat out of the casing before you served it. Gotcha. And then they serve it with neeps and tatis, which I just looked this up last night

cause I was forgetting if it was turnips or parsnips and it's turnips. It's like mashed up turnips and mashed up potatoes. So I had this bowl that was like divided by thirds of neeps, tatis and haggis. And then it came with like a Guinness whiskey gravy on the side. And it was great. And it ended up tasting like meaty oatmeal

or like almost like similar like a stuffing. If you ever, ever had stuffing that has more sausage bits in it. Okay. Yeah. It's like similar to that in texture, but air more on meat than the bread and not full chunks of bread, but like oats and Barley's.

And then just made like a delightful mush pile with a gravy. I'm very, I was very surprised when you told me about this initially to hear that it was good because I feel like haggis is one of those foods. And maybe I only know it via, you know, Austin Powers references and, you know, Willie from the Simpsons. But I always hear haggis in the context of this like this

disgusting sounding, inedible food. And then to hear it's actually good. Yeah. I mean, I think cooking something in a stomach sounds disgusting. So I think that would be hard to stomach. Yeah. For some people.

Because there were also like places in town that you could serve it like on a breakfast sandwich. So I think there is a way where sometimes they just like slice that stomach. Oh, gotcha. You can have almost like a haggis patty that then they sear. So then it ends up being like a sausage patty. Yeah.

And even still, I think that's probably still good. I mean, it's really just a fatter sausage. Yeah. You know, because like that's originally intestine, that's just like the same stuff. I've never tried it, but I've done, I've had like Irish breakfast before with like blood sausage and stuff.

And I think that's grosser. Yeah. I mean, that is pretty gross. Yeah. It's blood. You know, you're kind of eating blood, cooked blood. But when I went to Ireland and I didn't try, we had toasties a lot and then I didn't try anything like kind of too crazy in Ireland.

Well, I don't think, you know, they're not known for their cuisine. Is Scotland kind of the same way? Totally. It's not good. Like there's the great little, you know, you can have like good pub fair and then those like pockets of like, you know, immigrant cultures, like good Indian food or something like that. Or there's this great chicken place called Nando's that wish we could get it over here.

It's great. It's like a, it's, it's like kind of a chain. Yeah. It's like a UK, a UK chain. Oh, cool. Well, is this like rotisserie bird or? I think it might be Peruvian. Okay.

It comes with peery, peery sauce. I think it's like, oh man, I wish I remembered, but it's, I don't know. I don't know if it's rotisserie. It's, it's chicken. It's like great chicken. You've said so many words in the last five minutes that sound so fake. They sound like they're out of the Super Mario Brothers 2 booklet.

Yeah. Yuri, yuri sauce and the, what are the, what were the parsnip things called again? Neeps and tatties. Neeps and tatties. I've never heard of any of these before. Yeah. It's some doki-doki panic bread, I believe. Some, uh, some shy guy soup.

Yeah, that's, that's right. Yeah. But yeah, I think like all in all the food over there is not like speaking of bur, we had terrible burgers there. Just horrible burgers. I always, what a disappointment, huh? That is to get, when you get a sub, when you want a burger and you get a sub par burger, that's just like, fuck this.

Everything's like boiled, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Made from people who like live in rain constantly. You know, this all feels like waterlogged and like their spice cabinet only has like four things. With the occasional thing that like bumps up and you're like, oh, this is great. Like there was a hand pie place called Pie Maker. That, that was incredible.

Just getting like the little hand pies that are like filled with like, you know, a shepherd's pie mixture or like a beef and Guinness sauce or something like that. I feel like, I feel like they do so much more pub eating over there than, than, than we do. It's kind of like you, like a, like it's just common to serve food in a pub and here I'll be like, ooh, I don't want to eat food at it. You know what I mean? Like you gotta find, yeah, you got, you actually have to find like an Irish pub or an English pub in America for to have that kind of good pub food.

Because a lot of the food you'll get at like sports bars is like adequate to sub par, you know? You're talking about eating at a, eating at a bar. Is that what you're doing? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I feel like a lot of, like a lot of bars you'll go to and they have food and it's kind of like an afterthought. I feel like if you, but if you go to like an Irish pub in a concept in America,

that'll oftentimes have pretty decent food. Yeah, I feel like if a lot of bars I go to, I will never want the food there. Like E Rustic, which is a bar in Los Angeles, like, oh, it's known for its wings, but I'm not going to have anything else really at E Rustic. I don't know. And maybe that's just the way it is over there. Or maybe I'm completely making it up. No, I think you're right.

Any of our, any of our five overseas listeners, if you want to hit me up and let us know. But now we're taking it. We're, you know, we have gastropubs now. So we are. That's true. That's true. That's true. But see, that's not a place to go.

No, it's not just a drinking place. Yeah, I was going to get drunk at a gastropub, right? A gastropub, I think, has put the gastro in front of pub. You know? Yeah, sure. They are leading with food. They're just a restaurant that has like a pub feel or is like taking some of those pub classics. It's hard to get a place that does the right mix, like the good food.

And I'm going to stick around and drink there for the rest of the night. One of my favorite restaurants in the world is in, is the pub in Evanston, where I went to school, called the Celtic Knot. That is just so good. It was ran by Irish people. And it was like the food was so good, but also it was like a blast to hang out. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it feels like a lot of gastropubs, though, like close at 10 p.m.

And they're just like, well, you can't get drunk there. Hey, before we move on, I have one more Super Mario 2 food joke. Oh, God. Yeah, Jess, you kept referencing fried burdo? Oh, my God. All right. That's why you had to get up before we moved on. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Fried burdo? Look at that, that was important. Was that supposed to be like a fried chicken sort of thing? Yeah, yeah. But with burdo, the mini boss who spits eggs. All right. It would have worked so much better if we called fried chicken fried bird. That's true.

There's, well, there's no dish that has bird in it, right? No, you're right. Yeah. Wait, no, there is. There's some, isn't there a bird dish? And there's something that you call bird, bird's nest or something? Oh, yeah. Whatever, who gives a shit?

I should just let you have your goddamn fucking burdo reference. All right, let's talk about this week's burger brawl. So we've got the four seed Carl's Jr. Hardee's, which comes in with an 18 fork rating as a member of the Gold Plate Club, versus the five seed Fudruckers, also has an 18 fork rating, also as a member of the Golden Plate Club. The winner is going to face off against the one seed in and out burger in the semifinals. Let's talk about these two chains.

Jess, do you have any thoughts going in on Carl's Jr. and Fudruckers? Yeah, I do. I feel like, well, I'm a big fan of the show, huge fan. So I'm going to just reference Doughboy's lore. But I, you know, I feel like for me, Fudruckers, you really battled the nostalgia question, and I have no connection to Fudruckers. Interesting. This don't, going for this was my second time only.

And I have a lot more nostalgia connection to Carl's Jr. Wow. Because similarly to the way Nick has mentioned it, I would go there with like, when it had the salad bar, and like go there after mock trial, meets? No, we just call them trials. After mock trial trials in high school, when we got back to the school from the courthouse, we would all go to Carl's Jr. So. What a uniquely teenage experience.

Yep. Going from mock trial to Carl's Jr. Yeah. There's no adult equivalent. No, no. And we, you know, we'd all be like 16 year olds in suits, and the teachers would go with us. We were like, we're hanging out with a teacher at like 945 on a school night, and we're getting fries, and we're making suicides, and we're just having the best time.

That's great. So. It's always great to see your teacher outside of that classroom, letting their hair down a little bit. Man, it's fun, you know. It's just fun. Ah, well, I change your mind at all if I tell you that the flood rockers I went to tonight had a family guy pinball machine.

Which one did you go to? I feel like we must have gone to the same one. I went to the Burbank. Yeah, I went there yesterday, yeah. Okay. And actually, I had a very like sweet, there was a girl's basketball having a team party, so it was a great app. You can see the nostalgia. Yeah, I can see how other people, but I was like a team party at a burger place.

That must be hard to coordinate the food ordering. Oh, yeah. Go to a pizza place, guys. You can get a bunch of pizza. I know. Yeah, what are you going to do? Order nine different burgers? These girls, that's crazy.

Well, you know what? I think that's a place where the counter ordering enables it a little bit. So then, so it's not like it's not on coach's dime. It's like every parent is paying for it. Oh, that's nice, I guess, but I feel like it's always fun when the coach is like, pizzas are on me, guys. Yeah, sure. Yeah, you know what?

I remember when I played basketball and it was literally the worst thing. I was the worst at it than I was worse than anything else in the world. I swear to God, I was terrible at it. I'm bad at a lot of stuff. But I played basketball and I remember I was on this guy, Mr. Foley's team, and he owns a bar in Boston called JJ Foley's. And he was like, you know what? If you guys win this one game, we had one one game, and he's like,

if you win this one game, we're going to take it a Chuck E. Cheese and we lost the game. We couldn't even win the game. And I was the worst player on that team. And then he was like, I'll just still take you guys to Chuck E. Cheese. That's nice. It was a nice moment. Goodness, I'm glad that's the way it ended. But yeah, of course.

Yeah, he wasn't going to not take us. Oh my gosh. But I got on that team. I was traded to that team for no one. They had trades and little kids scores? What is this league? I was on this guy, Mr. Deschlers team, and then they traded me to Mr. Foley's team for nothing. That's crazy.

They just gave me to another team because I was so, so bad. I remember you grew up as an actor or actor type person, right? Like that was like when you were younger. Yeah, I did plays and stuff from when I was like eight on, yeah. Yeah, I was the same. And I went to a theater camp and I just remember all the other kids were at basketball camp and feeling like the biggest loser on earth. Sure.

Going out like with like makeup and like a wig on and all the other kids were like in basketball shorts and t-shirts. That was a loser as you are as you know from this podcast. Here's the biggest loser thing I did that was summer camp related. I once left a music camp a week early so I could go to a second music camp. That is very dorky. That's great. Yeah.

I went to a very dorky music camp that was just like a day camp all the piano students at the piano studio I went to had to go to. But then one summer a cool guy came and offered us an elective drums like on a set not just like we're going to learn you know paradiddles on a snare drum. It was like he brought in a drum set and he played one headlight by the wall flowers and taught us how to drum along to it and all the kids were like obsessed with this drum man. And to the point where some of the boys in my like rotation started dressing like him, like all these nine year olds coming to summer day camp in all black and like trying to slick

their hair back so they can go and press the drum man. But I was like similarly obsessed and stayed up all night because he was like hey the basic thing is eighth notes on the hi hat one and three on the on the bass and two and four on the snare. And I made like a makeshift you know out of like books and things in my room and just like sat there with like chopsticks until I could get the muscle memory down. I was like I got to impress the drum man. All you music kids I was told this is also true. I was told by my fifth grade music teacher to quit saxophone.

Mr. Gugliani he told me to quit saxophone. And I have a very like vivid memory of bringing my saxophone downstairs and my grandparents were over and being like listen everyone I can play the Simpsons theme and like blowing into the saxophone not playing it being like just doing that into the saxophone. And all my grandparents watching it I look back on that I'm like man they had like less than 10 years left in their lives and they were like watching this like shitty kid play a Simpsons fucking solo and I just wasted some precious time of theirs I feel terrible about it. They also knew that like oh this is where our bloodline ends.

No even at a young age they told me I would they told me that I would be having a lot of sex. I'm a big I'm a big fan of both of these chains. Carl's Jr. and Fudd Rutgers. I gave Fudd Rutgers five forks Carl's Jr. four forks. They're both I feel like stellar stellar options in the burger sector. I have a lot of connection to Fudd Rutgers. I went there a lot as a kid I always felt like that was the chain. I mentioned this before in the podcast but if I reach a point

financially where I can have my own chain restaurant I feel like a Fudd Rutgers is the franchise I would be interested in starting because I just think feel like it's a good time especially we got one that sells that serves beer and wine. It kind of captures that sort of pizza parlor flavor of just pizza parlor yeah flavor flavor's the word I'm looking for in terms of that flavor meaning atmosphere it kind of has that pizza parlor feeling of you know you're kind of gathered around you have a picture of brew and you have some burgers and you can hang out with your friends and family and I love I love I love picturing you as an owner of a struggling Fudd Rutgers everybody having a good time that's great.

I'd be working the floor with my famous charisma. No I'd be I feel like I'd be I would be good at like organizing the spreadsheet that kept it going like that would be that would be the thing I could use my brain I could use my brain to service the franchise in that manner. It would be tough to run a Fudd Rutgers for you when children would have to stay 50 feet away from the restaurant. An adults only Fudd Rutgers. Carl's Jr. I feel like it's and you know we're conflating as Carl's Jr. Hardee's because if you look it's even though we haven't I've never actually personally eaten at a Hardee's but these

days the menus have basically been merged they are they are one in the same chain. Hardee's east of the Mississippi and Carl's Jr. west of the Mississippi is functionally equivalent of a Burger King on the east coast versus a Burger King on the west coast they have the same sort of menu so we're conflating the two but all right that's fine Carl's Jr. I feel like is a really good quality fast food burger option like I feel like that always kind of delivers for me and I feel like if I want something that's just like a little bit better you know I don't want to get ahead of things maybe not quite up to the the level of precision of a Wendy's but still a very very tasty burger I will oftentimes find myself going to that Carl's

Jr. it's a little bit of a messier place a little sloppier it's uh it's it's the booger it's the of the revenge of the nerds it's the booger you cannot pick a grosser word to associate with food fine it's the ox how's that from revenge of the nerds I'm going revenge of the nerds oh I thought you were referencing ox from the fighting hell fish from the simpsons Jesus Christ it's the uh no it's not really stiffler hmm I'd say no I'd say it's the ox it's the ox from revenge of the it's it's it's kind of a sloppy oh it's the uh what's what's uh what's Belushi's character in uh in animal house the bluto bluto it's the bluto of uh I feel like a burger chains I go I think it's the uh I'm gonna say it's the Mike Mitchell of burger you sick a big sloppy mess you can't help

but love all right well I guess you had it basically no but you're they had they had the slogan at one point that was like if if it doesn't get all over the place it doesn't belong in your face exactly hey wow you guys said that on cue that's that's that's that's good marketing that's what they want they're like years from now people will still know it in the same rhythm we spoke it to them it is it but it that like right that's the it's the yeah I was thinking about it because like uh I was thinking about like the place that it holds because I was what you're saying like thoughts going into this and it when I was like okay well it's not about the restaurant when I was thinking of just the burger itself I was kind of thinking though though it's fun

like I was like I don't really know what it does because like to me if to me go below it just in terms of burger quality I'm getting like a stupid little McDonald's burger that like reminds me of something and it's like almost just like a snack pack of a burger it's just like you know oh I 100 agree with that or if I'm going above it I'm gonna go Wendy's in and out Burger King can get out of here as far as I'm concerned so then it's just like I do feel like it's in a no man's land where it's good but I'm not I don't know if it's necessary it's very much a drunk resting drunkish it's a drunk food it's it's it's a good drunk burger I feel like the thing I think it's necessary for though is experimentation yes that's like what it holds on to I feel like it's going to score a lot

of basketballs in the creativity department you got rid of it yeah there's no creativity anymore oh wait no no no no no no no no no no no the creativity sticking around it's it's uh you said it's like the same as presentation it's so presentation slash creativity okay that's one category all right well that's interesting because why are we sweet I don't know should we talk about I don't want to get ahead of myself no let's talk about her you want to talk about your most recent order before before we get right into it yeah I know we talked about but what what what what to you then is the most important thing about a burger like it is it is it the the juiciness levels is the cheese is the condiments is the bun you know what I mean I was thinking I was I was thinking

like what do they bring what are they offering so that's both creativity slash presentations you know like are they a place like in and out that's like I just do this burger or are they like Carl's we like we got like nine crazy burgers or fud ruckers which is kind of doing like a mix where they have designed burgers and then they just have a or you can get just like a plain thing that you put your own toppings on which is an interesting place to hold I think but my thought I kept telling myself is like if I just send an alien a burger and be like this is what a burger is don't kill us look aren't we good don't destroy us look what we made we made this great thing what would I send wow I love that that's I think that's a great way to do it yeah that's that's profound we should make

we should make that a new category which one would you send to the alien maybe that's just how we how we how we round it all out which one would you send to the alien okay and is that also out of basketballs yeah okay okay which ones would you send to the mon the monstars they know hold on now we're trying to win over the monstars the zoon stars rivals from space jam that's correct which burger are you gonna send to the monstars so are we make some shrink back down to their cute versions exactly so are we factoring in the taste spuds of Patrick Ewing and Sean Bradley whose powers they've stolen you got it should we consider Charles Barkley as well yeah mugsy boges and Larry Johnson oh man charlotte hornets factored very prominently in that movie yeah yeah

yeah there's a weird lineup they were you know what the thing was they got mugsy boges at point guard fine then they've got at set they've got uh Charles Barkley and Larry Johnson both at power forward I guess you could say Larry Johnson could maybe be a small forward I don't know and then you've got both Patrick Ewing and Sean Bradley at center it's like their roster is just all out of whack it's a strange roster but yeah it's I mean come on it's it's still kind of a dream team you got going on I guess I mean I don't know how you I just don't know how those guys space the floor because like where's your where's your outside shooting I mean Larry Johnson developed a three and mugsy boges is I don't know actually don't know how he was as a perimeter shooter

but I don't know hey good job you put more thought into space jam than anyone ever has you fucking dork you know maybe it's like the guy the bad guy who recruited their powers didn't understand having a variety of strengths interests he just went he went all-star he just like much like when I'm like picking my car on Mario car I'll put it in terms you guys understand and I just press a as fast as possible I'm not thinking about well I want this much drift versus this much I'm just like give me the best Nick and I haven't stopped nodding since she I bought a starter's jacket the Charlotte Hornets puffy coat starter jacket because I liked the B yeah and you were you were still a very much a Celtics fan as a kid as you are now

yeah when I was a child yeah when I was when I was like a little kid it was different for me like my dad would I saw Larry Burt at the garden and stuff sure and yes they were my team but I didn't care really as a kid like I was like oh I got to go to a game and eat a hot dog you know what I mean and I know I say hot dog weird everyone points it out I got I got to go to a game and eat a hot dog yeah and uh what do you say what do you say popcorn too popcorn and that to me was that was fun yeah going to a game I saw Larry Burt went to the garden a bunch of times and but I it wasn't like I was watching the games a bunch I feel like that has there were definitely kids who did watch the games all the time but uh now I feel like every

young kid is watching every Boston sports team yeah well you're I think your legions as a kid are different of like you just like because I remember I was a very much a Lakers fan showtime Lakers in the 80s when I was growing up um and uh but still uh I had a I had like an Orlando magic hat when they became an expansion team because I thought that it was just like a cool name and a cool logo yeah yeah I feel like I got into sports more so watching it in high school and then in college was the peak of it and then I still obviously love it but but as a kid it was more about that the hornet looked cool on the back of the jacket yeah my my family like neighborhood kids got into what we got into playing roller hockey and I was like in first grade when the mind ducks

came in like everyone I knew got season tickets so obviously I was a ducks fan but I got a roller hockey set you know like a stick in a ball or whatever and they it came with NHL stickers and I put them on in an order that I thought these are my favorite teams so it was like ducks were first obviously and I was like the kings are close to us so they'll be next and then I was like well sharks are the coolest and then I'm yeah sharks are my third favorite too this cool shark he's eating the stick which is pretty tough for them if they're mascots always chomping their sticks into but yeah uh it wasn't weren't the they were they were up by you at that point the ducks right before they moved yeah I feel like every kid because they moved they're in Anaheim now where

were they they're still in oh they were always in Anaheim okay all right that's very close to Yorba and it's part of that oh yeah I can hear the disneyland fireworks from my mom's house oh no my oh my god that's cool yeah that's great you can't see him though no that sucks uh my brother's old house in San Diego we could see the seaworld fireworks that's pretty cool that's cool yeah you don't care about any of the whales and the captivity no way man I'm pro seaworld 100% just take that stand um let's talk about our last experiences at Carl's Jr and Fuddruckers uh so Jess when did you go and what did you have for me to restaurant um okay so I went to Fuddruckers yesterday and um I decided that because they offer you know like I was saying that you have that

sprawl of of toppings you can put on I got just like a basic one-third patty with cheddar and then I put on what I would put on in like a backyard barbecue so I put on onions and pickles and mustard and ketchup and mayo and just had like a plain you know they're not telling me how to eat that burger sure yeah and then I was like I want to see what one of their fancies is like so I also ordered the inferno burger which was uh had pepper jack and um pepper jack cheese and then grilled onions and spicy jalapenos and I was like there's something else going on here so I went over and asked I was like is there something else going on here and they go oh we dip the jalapenos in our buffalo sauce whoa it's not listed in the ingredients yeah but I was like there's something else going

on that's so strange I mean it was good it gave it like a good I love buffalo sauce that's like maybe my favorite heat yeah taste so I was like into it and it paired well with the jalapenos and I don't know I like ate half of each of them I couldn't really decide which one I'd like rather finish they were both good it was fun to have the options that I thought the meat was really good also I was like it's cool that this is a place where you could do temperature of your meat you know yes that was a big like for talking juiciness I got both of mine I said first medium which is my go-to and they're like that's still pretty bloody and I was like oh you scared me I'm gonna go medium well but they're still super juicy the bun was great um and then I went to

Carl's Jr. today and I I never order a regular like burger there but I thought I'm gonna try to compare these as close as I can so I got just a famous star which I honestly think I've never ordered and and then I got my favorite which is the western bacon cheeseburger great choice love that western bacon and the famous star no thank you I don't ever need to have that again but uh western bacon cheeseburger one of the best burgers in fast food condiment wise because it's been a while since I've had the famous star does that have mayo and ketchup on it was it essentially what I made my major on federal it was like basically identical gotcha um and so that was really easy to put those side by side and be like well this famous stars as a burger is

not that great yeah yeah I I did the pretty much the bacon western burger but at fud rockers fud rockers which is there what is they call their barbecue burger um and that comes with a cheddar cheese grilled onions bacon barbecue sauce and I added some pickles and white raw onions from the condiment section I was doubled up your onions I I was kind of like I didn't put them in I kind of would put them on when I wanted wanted that taste yeah and I got mine medium and I will say he's right it is a little bloody with medium I think you were made I was kind of surprised by it I like I feel like this is it's gonna give fud rockers kind of a a a head start in the burger race here because choosing your own temperatures is big it's a huge yeah that's a that's a big difference

well liability reasons at a fast food restaurants they're not going to do that but I mean that's an advantage like a sit down chain has yeah yeah but not all sit down chains like a chilies can't do temperature you know like that's true yeah so yeah yeah I I went into this as a as a big carols junior supporter uh and I had fud rockers growing up I didn't have carols till much later but then I was like you know what I bet you fud rockers is gonna is gonna take this away from me I bet you fud rockers is gonna be an upset to me personally and knock out carols junior but that wasn't necessarily the case um I thought that that barbecue burger I got the third pound patty it was pretty good the grilled onions were a little strange uh and it's definitely I would say

that the presentation slash creativity of carols junior I give that about eight basketballs you're getting into your ratings right now I just well we're not we're not saying which one I'm just I'm just telling you I'm so confused because I thought this was part of like where we would give our fork ratings we give our basketball ratings you're saying we just throw them in at any point yeah and then you choose the winner okay so you choose which burger you'd send to the monster all right okay all right I think I got it and so I would give that about eight basketballs and then I mean you can say yours for the end too don't worry about it it's fine the podcast won't end uh and then I would say as far as fud rockers the creativity

was a little bit low for me then and the presentation it was round of six and it's funny because carols is not known for their presentation but it looked fine you know the the burger looked nice the bun was nice I I uh with at carls I went with a guacamole bacon burger and I didn't get the thick burger I just got the regular patty um because I I I you know I was gonna give that the a thinner patty because I was like we'll see how it stacks up against against the the fud ruckers king burger or whatever just did you go thick burger regular patty regular patty gotcha and uh the guacamole bacon burger is a great burger it's it's I I intentionally didn't get the barbecue bacon burger the western bacon burger uh but uh it's that that one is definitely

a sloppy one there's there's guac falling out of the sides of it but uh it's a tasty burger they they they do a good job with with with with that burger and it's it's not like with fud ruckers where you're biting in and you're getting like a big juicy taste of meat but the burger is still well done it has a smoky taste to it carls junior patties have a nice smoky grill taste that whether it's chemical or natural it tastes good so uh how about you what did you get um my uh I I was a similar mind to Jess inadvertently in that I I went to carls junior first and picked out one burger and then on my trip to fud ruckers I saw that there was a similar burger that I figured would be a good point of comparison so the burger I got at carls junior

is one they're currently running a promotion on it's uh the third pound steakhouse thick burger and I'm gonna read their their menu description verbatim here crispy onion strings blue cheese a one steak sauce and a third 100 percent uh third pound 100 black angus beef patty all served on a fresh baked bun I say the first thing about that is and this is a criticism I have for all the thick burgers the entire thick burger line is that patty is just a little too it's in the name but it's that patty is too thick it's just a little too thick and it starts to get like a it has kind of like a crumbly meatball texture to it it's not as satisfying it's a little bit and it's a little too dry yeah it dries out quite a bit I've never even tried the half pound

I have and it's it's it's a disappointment I would not go above third pound if I'm going to get that carls junior thick burger yeah it's that weird thing of like do you know when you get like steak jerky or something yeah where where it's like this doesn't feel real like there's something that feels wrong about this sure the the thick burgers have a similar thing to it where it's like there's there's just something there's something going there's something that isn't right about it and I love their single patties and usually I would just double up the patties if like a like a big carl yeah you get two of those patties and that's perfect that's all Carl is there their big mac rip off but I think probably it might be superior to a big mac it's at least comfortable I

would say it's definitely yeah comparable to the to the big mac so yeah and the uh they also you know I will get the double western bacon cheeseburger a lot of times and I find that better I think you're right same thing double patty double regular patty more satisfying than that their third pound or half pound thick burger patty um and then uh for my for comparison purposes at fud rockers I got the third pound bourbon burger which is already again read the menu description verbatim our season 100 all-american beef is glazed in a sweet bourbon sauce then topped with crispy bacon bourbon caramelized onion and crumbled blue cheese served on a scratch made bun baked fresh daily um so again they're both uh they're both pushing their fresh baked buns uh

this one certainly more of a sweet bourbon sauce as opposed to the a1 steak sauce but they both have the onion and blue cheese components as well along with that sort of dark molasses based sauce I really really enjoyed my fud rockers burger um and you know this is the thing this is if I was going to have a criticism of fud rockers their prefab burgers it's sometimes unclear what degree of customization you should pursue in addition to it and I went ahead and did a little bit of customization because I got this and I was like this looks like this is going to be a little dry so I went over to their customization bar I threw a little little yellow mustard on that added some green leaf lettuce some onions and pickles and mustard all or some yeah I already

said mustard green leaf lettuce onions and pickles I saw these components to add a little bit of moisture to it but I don't know if I was doing it the right way or not here's what I would say yeah you should gotta take one bite without yeah but that's the thing I get in my head of like well once I take a bite I'm like then I'm what I'm a spreading mustard on like a half-bitten bun it's just I don't know your burgers in two bites it's gonna be it's gonna be like a 1516 bun you gotta have it like I feel like not to be like snooty father's office but you should have it as the chef intends I got you and then be like because I really felt that those prefab ones you were not to touch unless you were like it has barbecue I'm just gonna put more barbecue on

I really didn't feel the pull to those condiments I agree with you even though I did cheat a little bit like I said I don't think it's cheating but I I agree with you I think that you gotta go with what it is to give it to give it a fair kind of rating okay that's also by the way you an autistic man who gets held up about the monsters get caught in your own head that's impossible I can't believe this okay here would be my argument is that one of the I know that one of the customized one of the prefab burgers on the fud ruckers menu is like the triple cheeseburger and it doesn't appear to come with anything except for three slices of cheese and you're saying you're supposed to take that bad boy on a fresh baked bun and just eat it dry I don't think so I feel like some of these invites

was saying yeah I feel like if they have toppings and sauce yeah you give it at least one cursory bite to just assess okay yeah because I do feel like you that's mixing some flavor profile a little dangerous there Nick it was a little bit and I think fast and loose I think the mustard conflicted with the bourbon sauce a little bit the tartness of the mustard and the the sweetness of the bourbon kind of gotten conflict however yeah you turned your burger into a monster that thing's fucking nasty bourbon and mustard mixed together however still very tasty and I will say because I am not this is the thing I am a blue cheese skeptic when it comes to burgers my favorite salad dressing but my least favorite burger cheese like I feel like get that off of my burger I'd give me some

cheddar give me some some Tillamook give me some provolone give me some Swiss give me some jack give me anything other than other than blue cheese because I feel like it just it just disrupts what I've got going on that burger but um of the blue cheese options I liked it on the bourbon burger a little bit more and I gotta say I got mine medium I like mine a little pink in the middle very very tasty just a great great beef patty there great fresh baked bun those two components if I'm weighing the meat and the bun is that are those categories meat and bun I got the categories right here by the way we maybe maybe we should maybe we should just rank it at the end who cares if I already said one there's three categories all right fine there's okay so this

is how it's broken down yeah it's a it is a presentation slash creativity okay bun and condiments okay burger and taste great those are great categories those are great categories burger and taste burger and taste burger and taste burger burger taste like the meat burger like yeah the juiciness of the burger and then the taste as in like of the overall burger that's the one category yeah why not all right and then finally would you send it to the monster I would just say comparing beef and bun between the two fud ruckers far and away better better bun better meat cooked the cooking temperature is just one element it was just a better set more satisfying patty overall and that to me is like just a huge

factor because that's what a burger is all about um if you're giving me a grilled you know a fresh cooked bun that's also grilled you know the little sear on the grill or whatever yeah then I'm loving it when I was there honestly at fud ruckers the bun didn't really blow me away maybe this is so uh this was just this one time experience but I gotta go by that today you know what I mean and and sometimes I Carl's Jr. has fresh baked buns but they gave me the sesame bun that's the thing you know what I think I'm sorry I'm gonna cut you off but but I think you're hitting on something which is that their their normal components at at at Carl's Jr. are better yep and when they try to up it to their fresh baked bun to their thick burger patty it's

like they're trying to up you in class and up you in price point but it's like a less satisfying I agree with that 100% and and I I liked the sesame bun you know what I mean like yeah I like that it's a nice mushy white bread yeah it's it's a different flavor experience I got the fresh baked bun for my famous star on accident I she was kind of mumbling I didn't understand what she said I basically thought she said do you want that on a bun and I was like yeah so when I got it I was like oh and it wasn't yeah it was not wasn't as good it's not as good it's a little it's a little too much uh kind of like how the burger is dry the bun is a little bit too dry yeah it is a definitely same problem and just in the freshness at fud ruckers I had just like a like the manager

who was real hands-on like real like you saw him all about you know just really checking on people asking people what's going on you know real a real nick wyger manager he like came to us in line and he was like I don't need to know what you're ordering but do you know what size patty you're gonna be having tonight that way I can get it going I was like wow that's right you're gonna pull it from right here I could see the patties and they're gonna make it for me right now definitely definitely monsters definitely bobbing back and forth here's what okay I think it's time to get into our our overall evaluations we'll do your dumb basketball shit but hold on a second we created this together you piece of shit I'm putting it all on you damn it um uh no we'll do the we'll

do the three categories we'll break it down by basketballs but in as far as what we're going to send to the aliens here's the thing once two people say if two people say the same chain then we know what our decision is right so should we save that all till the end should we kind of be like we say we give our argument and then we'll be like okay which one will you give to the aliens and then we'll all kind of go at once is that the way to do it sure I like that okay all right great so uh thanks Jess you've helped us kind of figure out this mess that we've created for ourselves this would have been more organized but friend of the podcast and lead commissioner evan susser went on a trip to asia with his wife and so he's unavailable so it's just it's fallen

to us and we just haven't gotten our shit together the human basketball himself all right okay all right um uh so uh Jess uh we'll start with you give your closing argument uh in as far as each chain and I guess uh if you need a refresher from Mitch feel free to to ask for it but give a give your ratings on those three categories on a scale of zero to ten basketballs okay great um I'm gonna go category by category instead of restaurant by restaurant that's a good approach um okay so we'll start with creativity slash presentation that's right I can help you out too if you if you get stuck on these great thank you thank you thank you um I'm gonna give gosh I'm gonna give fud ruckers uh 7.5 basketballs and I'm gonna give uh Carl's Jr eight basketballs for what I see

as Carl's Jr's greatest asset which is that they continue to push themselves in the realm of burger um and I feel like that bar that I'm I love that my favorite burger there is not a traditional burger and I think that that it's not it's not the lettuce tomato whatever it's the it's their western bacon you know I think that's their biggest strength is they those ones that they've really nailed they've really nailed um so uh and then condiment and bun I gotta go I gotta go nine for fud ruckers and I gotta go six for Carl's because I think I think having both a selection of sort of fancier condiments that they assemble for you and sort of say hey does this sound good I'm gonna put these together for you or hey does this sound good we gotta spread you put on what you want uh and they

had subtle differences that I appreciated you could get leaf lettuce or shredded lettuce that's very nice you could get sweet pickles or sour pickles you could get raw onions and rings or raw onions dice I just thought that's a nice level of condiment availability and those and that bun I think is better than than than Carl's jr and then uh burger in taste that's right wow great memory uh I gotta say I gotta say fud ruckers eight Carl's jr seven so I mean they I mean they are they are well matched in my mind um and a lot of basketball spinning around but I think that meat was just so much juicier yeah so much juicier at fud ruckers and I love a Carl's jr burger but I'm not loving it for the juiciness of meat I'm loving it for the the symphony of flavors that they create but not

that meat not that meat I get it I get that um I feel like I feel like it's gonna be a close one because I because I feel like I went in I like I could tell you I'm a Carl's jr fanboy um but also I was like this this could be an upset I think that fud ruckers could take down Carl's which I don't know if that's an upset because who cares and what the hell it would be an upset of fud ruckers is the five seeds so it would be a mild upset okay um presentation slash creativity I'm gonna have to give it to Carl's jr as well um uh I didn't get to say this but also my burger just wasn't presented that well it comes kind of with the bun open and you see everything and then you can add condiments if you want to add fud ruckers yeah it almost comes as an incomplete

piece as as like you were saying where you can go to the condiment bar and kind of complete your burger but um the the the uh the Carl's jr burger as you said is they not only have just some of the the the western bacon burger the guacamole burger uh the jalapeno burger some really great interesting uh well developed staple burgers that I don't think fud ruckers compares with when I have my barbecue burger it doesn't compare to the western bacon cheese burger and uh and so so it it easily takes uh Carl's jr easily takes the presentation creativity eight to six um now condiments and bun I'm torn on this because my bun was not great tonight and I actually think that I like Carl's jr's condiments and their selection more than I like

what's at fud ruckers I know that you get like a layout of onions and pickles and lettuce but at Carl's you can tell them I can tell them if I want white onions on my big Carl and to add pickles they they may not have like kind of like leaf lettuce or whatever or or any or fancy or lettuce but you can get pretty much whatever you want and you can change your burger up if you just ask and they also have like guacamole and a few other things that that fud ruckers doesn't have the buns on the other hand I love Carl's jr buns when they're the not the baked buns but I think there's no denying that if I had gotten a good version of the fud ruckers bun tonight it would have won out but it didn't tonight so I they're tied seven basketballs to seven

basketballs okay and then finally the taste and burger this one is tough fud ruckers fud ruckers is a juicier tastier burger I know that I want to have a category called juiciness level and I should have been able to have that fud ruckers is gonna win out on the overall burger taste wow so I I love that single pat and especially if you double it up I love that I still think it tastes good it's still close but just the quality of the burger fud ruckers is gonna win eight to seven wow eight to seven basketballs and you're you're at Carl's jr aficionado I love your family the best part of my burger experience tonight at fud ruckers was the burger patty itself Mitch I really admire your objectivity in this exercise it's hard for me it's yeah

it's tough it's tough when you're you know when you have your thing that you have an affection for um and my thing that I have an affection for if I'm being open is fud ruckers I really like Carl's jr but fud ruckers I have a close connection to if we're talking about presentation slash creativity this one to me is a clear victory for Carl's jr hardys I'm giving it nine basketballs out of 10 wow nine basketball wow and I'm going to give six I'm going to give seven basketballs since presentation is an element if it was just creativity I would give I would give it go a little lower on fud ruckers presentation slash creativity seven for fud ruckers nine for Carl's jr I agree with what Jess is saying that Carl's jr is a continuing innovator in the burger

sector in the fast food world they're kind of the Taco Bell of burgers they they keep coming out with new and different burgers some of them work some of them don't but they're always trying um I guess if you're going if you want to wrap up their sexist ad campaign as part of presentation then that takes a little lower you know I'm gonna say I'm gonna go down to eight what the fuck I'm gonna go down I'm gonna go down to eight because I'm saying that's part of presentation part of the presentation of Carl's jr that's fucking bullshit I don't think so I don't think so either no because it's a burger brawl like otherwise we could take an obvious oh okay okay you're right you're right okay that's right you're right because they also use commercials for chicken sandwiches which are not

even part of this okay you're right you know hey but uh nice attempt of being a hero you piece of fucking asshole I just want everyone to know that I am a good ally oh my god um oh my fucking god all right so that's not an element you're right that's not an element of presentation they are sloppy but they are very creative nine basketballs to seven basketballs uh next category condiments slash bun boy I feel like this is a dead heat I'm gonna say eight basketballs a piece wow um great the thing is it's just like the customizability of fud ruckers is nice they have lots of good individual burger concepts and that that condiment bar is a lot of fun however I think customizability can be a double-edged sword and you can reach a point where I've certainly piled too much stuff on my burger

because I don't have the restraint of a trained chef and you just have that's good to know about yourself yeah I know but you accept your I accept my that limitation uh myself as an individual and I you know I think you can just go nuts at that bar pile on too much stuff you got a sloppy mess of a burger that's as sloppy as any carls jr burger um uh the condiments and bun the fresh baked bun at carls jr get it out of here give me that sesame bun which is pretty acceptable better than acceptable it's pretty good uh that ties that knots them up and then if we're gonna talk burger burger slash waste burger slash taste so the overall taste of it plus the individual character of the the burger patty I actually I actually feel bad about giving fud ruckers a

higher rating already I'm already second guessing for it for burger slash days if I'm talking in chain terms eight basketballs for carls jr hardy's 10 basketballs for fud ruckers wow wow that is a really tasty burger it's got the best I'd say it's got the best meat of any chain restaurant burger wow it's just really juicy and delicious well seasoned cooked to temperature very satisfying patty part of the burger and really that's what it's all about that beef patty they also have I didn't try them because it didn't seem fair but like a buffalo an elk and a kobe beef patty you wanted to go fancy which I think is cool you go a little wild there um yeah I mean like my hesitancy with those more exotic patties is I don't know is that has that elk patty been sitting in

the freezer for a while I imagine it's a rarely ordered item and it's not coming in fresh right I think maybe your kobe would be the safest because yeah like that one probably people probably up sell to that all the time but that fresh ground beef is that they have their so can't be beat so all right so I think this is how I'm talking this out in real time so let me know if you have a better idea but I think this is what we're going to do to decide which burger we would send to the aliens which one we want stars we would hold up as an example of humanities reason for existence to justify uh to say in the face of a possible annihilation yeah and an indian possible independence day type yeah if they don't like this burger they're gonna shoot they're gonna

exactly what happened you tap you tap jeff goblum on the shoulder and you say you don't need to get inside and plan a virus just feed them give them one of these two burgers which one are you sending we'll fly it in I'm a little disappointed this didn't turn into uh what you're gonna give general hucks to prevent him from deploying star killer base but I'll I'll go along I'll go along with the gold blue bed of war uh so what are we going to give so I think this is how you had to bring up general hucks so I think this so um we'll do this for us in the room and then uh we will announce the winner so uh wait let's see yeah I think this I think if we hold up one finger for carl's junior hearties and two fingers for fud rockers and we all do at the same time we aren't going to be like trying to

change our answer based on what other people say not that I don't trust everyone but I think that's the best way to get a sort of a fair honest assessment of which one we would send to the aliens so one is carl's junior hearties two is fud rockers okay cool ready okay here we go you want to count us off mitch all right three two one wait really oh my god wow i love fud rockers it's really good just held up two fingers for fud rockers mitch held up one finger for carl's junior hearties I also held up one finger for carl's junior hearties and here's why I think if I was going to send one item to the aliens I would send the carl's junior western bacon cheeseburger and there is nothing equivalent on fud rockers menu that I hold in that high

esteem as much as I love that chain as as much as I love their burger offerings if we're talking about sending one burger to the aliens to stave off inevitable destruction that carl's junior hearties western bacon cheeseburger is my choice I was so shocked that I was like crap I've done the numbers wrong no you because because guys the basketballs have it for fud rockers you know that's why I made that announcement that we would get that wrong that's you know I mean that's true but for me I think it's just so much about the patty itself I couldn't I couldn't separate that the ultimately the best patty is at fud rockers but yeah I stand hey the west breaker cheeser is my favorite thing on that menu so I support your decision why you're kind of stabbed you in the back you made it seem

like you was going to do fud rockers the entire time that's not a betrayal I think even your basketball scorings are fud rockers it's close mine are close mine are close I gave tape the only thing that fud rockers wanted was taste burger which is one of the biggest ones I'm it's interesting because what is the weight of any given category there we don't want I think tied and I think your margins were about the same I think I think it might have been actually 100% even yeah you might have been a tied man yeah that's interesting look the whole system is fucked but we made a decision and we can live with it I fuck you fud rockers no no no when I say fuck you to fud rockers fud rockers is a beloved chain but I think that Carl's jr. hardy's is moving on to the next round

to face off against a titan to give him out burger to give it an equivalent is like it's kind of like if like a team like one of the the lower sea teams is about to knock off duke but in the end duke just fucking turned it on and fucking beat them to a pulp you know what I mean like right at the end not bad no it's not like that at all right at the end duke duke like duke got a two-point shot and then they were they just fucking yeah it's like that it's not like the pulp version yeah it didn't beat him in a pulp well they went out with their confidence is what I'm saying Carl's jr. still has his confidence I'm changing my vote to fud rockers fuck you all right uh Carl's jr. hardy's moving on uh it's time for a regular segment we've got a

beverage and we're going to determine if it's worth pouring down your throat it's drink or stink now while I go fetch the beverage that mitch has gotten us from the studio fridge you guys can vamp a little bit I'll be right back okay I got a question for you okay great you just worked with nick weiger I did yeah and how terrible was that experience because I have worked with him for a while now and I think it sucks no that's great we had a great time yeah did you guys get to work a lot so your the show is called party over here that's right and when is it premiere March 12th okay that's super soon super soon yeah that's exciting yeah I mean uh Nick did a great job along with other writers mm-hmm he was a great captain he was a great captain yeah great team

captain I don't know we do give him the nickname captain of the burger brigade but oh thank you thank you sir oh boy yeah I know this is gonna be a fun one uh oh are they not twist-offs I don't know if these are twist-offs or not oh they are okay so uh mitch you vloggers is a pussy yeah as I put my headphones back on mitch uh this is a this is something you picked out tell us all what we're going to be drinking here um this is Henry's hard soda made with cane sugar and it's it's a the orange hard orange flavor it's an alcoholic drink uh I usually when I'm in charge I like to get those try to get nick drunk oh it drives home to Santa Monica and I haven't eaten dinner yet so this is gonna be we'll see what happens uh this doesn't seem super alcoholic 4.2 alcohol per volume

I think I can handle a few sips of this so this is the hard orange flavor made with cane sugar I like that were there other flavors mitch there there was a ginger ale flavor available there but I I thought this would be a little bit more fun I feel like yeah an orange soda a hard orange soda is a little bit different I love a good orange soda so to wrap up the nick and you uh working did you ever get to see him order his lunch at work no no sadly that's probably the most writing he did by the way when we were shooting uh downtown we would like often go in a big group to the grand central market but I don't know if I was honestly I was just like uh nick's getting a salad he's being healthy I did get a lot of healthy lunch options that's what I I try to

I gained a lot of weight on that show I I really did because I was just stress eating and stress drinking so much but um for lunches I kept it pretty healthy I generally would have a nice salad and I was like doing the opposite I was like because it's Grand Central America has so many fun choices and then also we would always like we would get in at odd times and like we would get there before crafty so then three me and the other two girls Alison Nicole would like postmates like biscuit you know we would get like we just really took advantage of being in downtown having a lot of good food things I think that's really great because to be for people that don't know being in downtown Los Angeles is actually kind of rare you don't usually go down there yeah so I

mean right I feel like a lot of people unless you live down there or I like go in try a restaurant and leave like I I very rarely like explore more than my one point of interest I'm going to yeah I feel like I feel like if you're if you're getting to work down there that's kind of fun you can explore if you're not exhausted after working also like well yeah working in that environment you just make such excuses for your eating because you're like gotta fuel it you know sure got to I got a question for you are you someone who eats before performance or no I do yeah I do I was like eating like a bowl of chili before a mod show and one of the writers was like how are you no don't be eating chili and I was like it's fine I I can do it now but I used to

never like to do it about the day I like I wouldn't eat I'd rather just go in and empty empty stomach oh no I get like I think more panicky if I feel hunger like if I was in the middle of something and got like hunger pains I'd get like what's gonna be hours yeah oh god yeah and that would make me feel terrible I feel like if I'm the opposite where my stomach starts to hurt at all I'll be drenched in sweat within seconds sure and they'll have to change out my shirt or something like that I used to get like a severe performance anxiety before shows and not be able to eat like it get very nauseated I feel like if I have any food I feel like I was gonna throw up and then I kind of reached a point where I realized like none of any of this matters

and sort of the stakes kind of went away for me so I was just like fuck it whatever oh boy all right well let's let's have a sip I guess all right so let's have this Henry's hard soda cheers cheers getting some gentle glugging on the mic I don't know if you're picking that up if you're listening um definitely harder than I thought it was gonna taste yeah it's not super sweet I think also even though I knew it was in the case I was thinking it's gonna be like a cream sickle so it's gonna be orange cream but it's definitely just orange and it has more of a natural orange taste than I was expecting it's almost like a european phanta a hunt yes that's a that is a great call hmm this is weird much weirder than I thought it was gonna be yeah I think this is

like for me what this reminds me of I don't know if this was ever a thing you guys had at like your elementary school but we would have just like a big jug like a big gatorade jug of orange drink yeah and it was just like a a kind of it was the only place we would have this but it would always be kind of watered down in fact there's a simpson's joke about watering down the the orange drink the principal skinner is ordering uh groundskeeper woolly to water down the orange drink and he kind of has a we can't water it down no more sort of oh yeah yeah I don't remember which episode that's from um but we but this is kind of what it tastes like to me it tastes like a kind of like less carbonated watered down orange soda yeah yeah it's not as carbonated as you would

think either it's it's it this reminds me the first time I ever tasted a mike's hard lemonade it's a very similar experience uh when I was like oh it's it's kind of got like a bitter taste to it or it tastes like something like fermented or something a little bit like a a little bit like if anyone out there drinks kombucha or something like that as like a kombucha vibe to it it's but kind of for that it makes it almost like more it's lighter than I thought like I thought it was gonna be more like sickly sweet yeah it's very drinkable it is very drinkable I feel like this goes down super smooth it's one of those things that the more sips I take of it the more I'm like hmm this could be nice on a hot summer day or something or like if you were doing a fun brunch

it's almost like having like a screwdriver or a mimosa vibe mm-hmm but here's the thing would you want that would you want you would want to go with a mimosa instead I feel like right totally but maybe I'm in a scenario where I'm tailgating early or something or it's just easier to pack or imagine a world where I tailgate but I don't know I'm kind yeah I don't know it's I feel like this would feel some need yeah for whatever convenience or novelty or this definitely feels an underage drinking need I feel like if I was a kid I can drive with this I feel like yeah not that I will but here's my question what's the price point for this because the way Henry's hard soda made with cane sugar it's kind of got this

it feels like it's going for kind of like a high brow sort of marketing is this a little bit more expensive than like a mic's hard the six the six pack was about ten dollars okay but still that's a little bit more than you'd be spending on ten eleven bucks yeah I'm like natty ice or something actually that's I'd say that's more like you know the rest of the world doesn't usually just drink natty ice but if we're talking about this as something for college kids or for underage kids to be drinking that's fair I feel like the that this is a little bit more expensive as a thing to consider I don't know I feel like I'm wondering who is this for you know yeah and I'm just like I feel like if you've got this the disposable income for a product like this

you're you're like an IPA dad you know and and I feel like if you if you've got a little less money in your pocket why would you opt for this over a mic's hard or a you know a bacardi silver if that's still on the market well I think I mean have you had the have you had any of the hard root beers that are in in vogue at the moment I have not have not had an alcoholic root beer because I think that not your father's root beer is really tasty it's really tasty and it's it's they do a good job with it but it tastes a lot like root beer it's a difference this this doesn't make me think of orange soda yeah yeah it doesn't totally yeah but yeah that that not your father's root beer is so good and like imagining having that as like a boozy float I mean you could have this

as a this would be a fun boozy float maybe put some more sweetness into it I like that's a good idea cream sickle that's a vanilla ice cream in this maybe you're in business yeah I feel when I think of this I feel like if you're in you're on the you're you're you're you're decking your Belinda and it's a nice summer day and you said and you're having you're cooking up a burger and you say why don't you toss me one of those cool Henry's hard sodas that that sort of thing or or you're like golfing or something I mean I'm not a golfer but you're on the golf course and you have like oh it's a hot day I'm gonna have this is a nice kind of refreshing drink it does feel definitively day drinking to me yes yeah I'm not a big day drinker but it feels like a summer

day drink sort of deal yeah what do you think yeah you're less a day drinker more of a milkshake drinker I'm less of a drinker more of a milkshake drinker it's a less of a day drinker less of a day drinker more of a milkshake drinker well you know what yeah you're right that is accurate that's nice um here's what I'd say no it's not it's terrible continuing with my perhaps with my counterintuitive grading versus my verbal assessment hmm I don't see any reason why I would I would want this over a beer for me personally however it is tasty and it's a good execution of the orange hard soda concept I could see there being some people who like this for that reason I'm giving this a very very mild drink drink you were saying drink yeah drink yeah I mean I think I think I

go drink for sure I mean we have all continued sipping on it yeah you know it's like for a novelty beverage I think it's it's it's pretty good I think trying in that cream sickle would be fun it's a great idea I think that's a great I think that's a really great idea um Nick you didn't think of the other plus sides with this is that you can uh trick young kids into drinking um for me I'm going drink too I would enjoy one of these on a hot summer day if someone had one hey I'll switch it up I don't want to drink beer all the time I'm gonna have a uh a Henry's hard soda yeah it'll be fun fun it's not bad all right uh that was drinker stank just like a restaurant was right I drank certified drank yeah give it a shot Henry's hard soda and again this is not

branded entertainment the dough boys can't be bought no that's I would I would I would accept a buy out if you give me a good price point you can buy me out of dough boys anyone who doesn't like listening to me which there's probably plenty of you no no everyone loves Mitch who could dislike you no no no I'm serious if you offer me enough money I will stop doing this podcast well not a lot either like a hundred dollars might do it well currently you and I make zero dollars off of this podcast so yeah I guess any any positive about would be I'd say so far on this podcast we've probably spent what together four five hundred bucks I would say if we're talking about meals and all these stupid snacks we've done this is our 40th episode so you know what what's

what's the average cost of a meal I probably spent I probably spent a hundred dollars on Evan Susser alone so if you average ten dollars a piece an episode over 40 episodes and yeah that's four hundred dollars a piece that we've each spent you guys you're deducting it though right you know this is all yeah yeah yeah yeah we're real good with money yeah just guys log those receipts and also if you factor in future hospital costs we're in a big hole save money with all those years off of your life two more years you don't have to pay rent you know what when I die place my bones right next to Richard Nixon up in Yorba Linda people get married right next to doughboys fans just like a restaurant

we buy your feedback let's open up the feedback today's email comes to us from holly wade holly writes hello from the New Zealand chapter of spoon nation hmm well with regard to the rodeo burger with onion rings and french fries in a burrito what about putting french fries in a burger there's a local chain in nz that does a fish and chips burger it's exactly as it sounds battered fish and chips with salad in a bun they also periodically offer a burger with doritos in it that's really good thanks for the email holly um what do you guys think fries in a burger one of the best burgers I've ever had in my life I had in New Zealand shout out to Ferg burger in Queenstown New Zealand Ferg burger yeah run by Dave Ferguson by chance yeah he's had a whole other life

fish and chip burger sounds good to me although then with bread that's a lot of bread are we talking yeah that's I am I was unclear whether it's just fish and chips on a burger if there's actually a beef patty in there too which seems excessive oh gosh that sounds horrible yeah Jess I was gonna ask because you made it clear at the beginning of this french fries may be your favorite food are you gonna want to mix them up in that burger are you gonna want to keep them separate definitely keep them separate yeah yeah they need their own they need their own space and time and I yeah I don't want I don't I don't want to do that but I've done the like potato chips on a sandwich sure so I think like there is avert but straight up french fries on a burger no thank you

that little bit of crunch from potato chips is is a little different from fries and actually Carl's junior hardy's did have a I think was the all-american burger had that had chips on it that was the chips was actually surprisingly good element of it here's what I'd say she mentioned Doritos I think putting like a cool ranch or a Dorito on like a guacamole type burger could be really good you know like that I could get on board with a punch with like with the mush with the mush maybe that would be a fun extra layer and evens it out a little bit yeah and I love like those Doritos Locos so I would have Doritos in more food I love I love the Doritos Locos tacos so good one of the great fast food inventions um I like to keep them separate too I think

I love I've made it known that my love for the California burrito which is french fries within the burrito and that sometimes you can get those and they can be way too dry and that's my issue with putting french fries on a burger is that I can maybe dry it out a little bit too much and and and it's tough that equation with the burrito the california burrito is it's it's not easy to get that right balance and sure the sour cream kind of moistens things up I guess you could say even though it's disgusting um I think that every time I've had fries in a sandwich there's a chain out here called uh fat sales yes and there's a lot of us thinking of two there and they have like they put mozzarella sticks in sandwiches and like sometimes the mozzarella sticks are really

good the fries just never really add a great taste to the burger and I like to have my side of fries if I'm having a burger I didn't do it today because it was all about burgers but if I'm if I'm getting a burger I need I need a side of fries and I'm not usually going to mush it into the burger I I want those two separate tastes personally I wonder I think maybe the way I could maybe get on board with it is like I would maybe have a chili cheese fried burger oh that's interesting or some other sort of like poutine type burger yeah you know wiener schnitzel for a time offered a chili cheese fried burrito okay which was just chili cheese fries wrapped in a tortilla all right I don't know if I need that yeah vehicle but I think because I was thinking I also don't think I want

potatoes mashed up with meat and I was like but there is one way that I really like it which is a chili cheese fry so you are a chili you don't just like your fries stag you like them with some chili and some cheese on them yeah yeah yeah chili cheese fries great poutine great you know fancy poutine I love that idea I think a chili cheese fry burger is that to me is sounds fun you're listening carls jr it's an it's like a that's a good concept they had chili cheese fries for a while and I used to love them I was so sad when they went away also I'll answer for you no 100% carls jr is not listening unfortunately but is hardies hardies might be I feel like that that the with with with the sloppy chili mess some of those a little a layer of fries would like like

you were saying with the Doritos and like a guacamole burger or something that would be that would be helpful I really like the sound of that yeah that's a good idea and you know just to follow up on what you were saying a little bit bitch I've had a lot of a number of those fat sal sandwiches you know it's a local micro chain in the LA area actually we run by partially by Jerry Ferrara of our entourage turtle from entourage is a is a I think he owns one third of fat cells he does yeah now the the members of entourage are his entourage for that restaurant they follow him around but I feel like the fries on this the sandwiches it's always kind of like it's fine but it's it's kind of I'd rather just have fries on the side and I feel the same sort of way about

the fries and the burger that concept it's just like whatever there's no need for it but I like this chili cheese fries idea I think you hit on something when you go to when you go to fat cells where you're getting are you getting the Lloyd or the Ari what's your favorite they're not eight they're not menu items named after entourage cast members they should be that's already messed up yeah uh yeah I'm saying I'm saying no overall but I like Jess Jess's revolutionary chili cheese fry burger idea thank you I also like Holly's reference that you mentioned uh Jesse the burger with Doritos on it I'd give that a shot if I was in New Zealand and that was a local eat I'd give that a shot there could be something there for sure yeah um you'll

probably never go to New Zealand right no I I've never been wait let's see I've been to the Cayman Islands once I mentioned that on the podcast before but that's my only trip outside the continental United States I kind of feel like no reason to travel what yeah oh my gosh sound off please use the hashtag get burger boy out yeah wait how is that not a hashtag already wait a minute I don't like this turn this is taken just in the world well there's no time to travel around when you have to think about the monster's abilities and where they belong in the lineup one day we'll get you out of the country one day oh yeah you got to um I got one more Super Mario Brothers to menu item oh Jesus Christ

uh yeah Jess what would you have a wart stew oh my god what was the main boss of Super Mario Brothers to who I get that but do you think anyone on else there's so few losers who are gonna get that if you if you just got that reference tweet at us hashtag spoon man hates you if you have a question or comment if you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants you can email us at doboyspod guess at gmail.com follow us on twitter at doboys pod engage in our fun hashtags check out our facebook page which is just do boys Jessica McKenna thank you so much for being so generous with your time dream come true thank you for getting us through this bizarre ass tournament we've only got four more four more matches to go I think we're gonna

get through it I think it's gonna be a successful at least as successful as rock doberfest in the end oh great um uh Jessica do you have anything you would like to plug um yeah watch uh watch the show that me and nick made in a like we made it in the garage with um party over here premieres uh march 12th at 11 on fox I suppose 10 central is that a thing I don't know how the central and mountain time zones are gonna work out but I assume so well you guys you're gonna DVR it and watch it on computers and such so um just look at party over here in your time guess follow me on twitter jess armakena and you know what I'll say this just great funny super great performer will make up for any of nicks downfalls as a writer it's gonna be a great show

we're all we're all excited about it so congratulations it's awesome just as hilarious on the show she makes everything funnier she's an absolute delight please check out the show um and that'll do it for this episode of doe boys uh till next time for the smooth bad bike mitchell and nick weigher happy eating see ya