Doughboys - Veggie Grill with Mary Sasson

Episode Date: April 7, 2022

Mary Sasson (Robbie, College Humor) joins the 'boys to discuss D.P. Dough and rowing before a review of Veggie Grill. Plus, another edition of Last Meal. Sources for this week's intro: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/16/opinion/factory-farming-animals.html https://www.livekindly.co/60-of-all-mammals-on-earth-are-livestock-says-new-study/ https://www.ecowatch.com/biomass-humans-animals-2571413930.html https://blogs.anderson.ucla.edu/anderson/2016/03/five-lessons-in-entrepreneurship-from-the-founder-of-veggie-grill-.html https://veggiegrill.com/story/ Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

Dig into your data. Really dig in there anytime to monitor your performance and customer order trends. Wow. Wow. Why, restaurant owners, enjoy 0% commission for the first 30 days on all orders, offer subject to change per the terms of the restaurant agreement. Wow. 0% on the first 30 days.

Coming up today, that link that you want to click on is down there in the episode description. Right down there. Check it out. There it is. Move your cursor. Go ahead and click, or if you're on your phone, use your finger and click that link. Click that link in the episode description. We will look back on this age of cruelty to animals in horror.

This arresting declaration headlines a December 2021 op-ed by New York Times columnist Ezra Klein. Quoting Klein, 80 billion land animals are slaughtered each year for food and, according to some estimates, between 51 billion and 160 billion farmed fish join them. To put those raw numbers in perspective, a 2018 study on Earth's biomass by researchers Yinon M. Barone, Rob Phillips, and Ron Milo determined that 60% of all mammals on Earth are livestock bred for meter dairy and 70% of all birds on Earth are poultry raised for meat or eggs.

The same study estimates that now just 4% of mammals are wild animals. It's easy to blame consumers, but with a society that's made tasty meat cheap and plentiful, as with most of the world's major problems, the root cause is global capitalism, which is incentivized monstrous practices with animal captivity and slaughter engineered for premium economic efficiency in lieu of humanity. But fortunately, consumers themselves have shown not just a willingness but an eagerness to choose plant-based products when made available. In fact, one vegan chain, founded in 2006 in Irvine, California, has a customer base

that's 70% non-vegetarian. And with meat substitutes improving in quality while declining in price as well as being socially normalized, a plant-forward future seems inevitable. But with fast food chains now offering their own veggie proteins, does a relatively old-school plant-based quick-service concept hold up? This week on Doughboys, we return to Veggie Grill. Welcome to Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants. I'm Nick Weiger, along with my co-host, Freddie Kroger, the Spoon Man, Mike Mitchell.

Not a bad one. Pretty good. Will and New Haven can actually get some of that in. Freddie Kroger. Freddie Kroger. Surprise it was unused. No one had a Freddie Kroger angle. It was the one that's on pick for the show.

Our smartest listener. 10 items or less, bitch. That's just, I mean, wise, you're very good at Kruger puns, but that just sounded like he was just saying that he just sounds like he worked at Kroger. There was no pun. He just had a job at Kroger. He just worked at the grocery store. Paper plastic, bitch.

And then he puts the plastic around their head, and then that's what it'd be. Do you have any coupons, bitch? So this is just a transaction. Time for you to check out, bitch. Here we go. Inspired by the decent double about horror, decent double. Okay. Love you guys.

Thanks for the years of laugh. Thanks. SpoonMan at gmail.com. Yeah. It was decent. I'm going to start off the episode. I think everybody's thinking it. Give Gollum the Oscar.

It's overdue. Gollum needs the Oscar. Give Gollum the Oscar. Give Gollum the Oscar. Look, I know that this is, we're a little past Oscar season. Yes. This episode is releasing in April. And so who knows?

Maybe they did give Gollum the Oscar, but he deserves the Oscar. He deserves it. We're all over Gollum. I mean this sincerely. I did talk to Fran Gillespie was just watching the Lord of the Rings for the first time. Wow. And she was saying, I can't believe that she said he's so good. Andy Serkis is so good in it.

He's great. And I agree. He's great, man. Amazing performance. Him and Abed Best of Jar Jar both kind of like created the stupidest thing. Give Jar Jar the Oscar of the digital character. Give Gollum the Oscar. I think it's time.

Give Gollum the Oscar. It's overdue. I think it's overdue. Give him the Oscar. Do you think he'll show up in the Amazon Prime Original, The Rings of Power? Are we going to see any Gollum in that? Wow. Well, he did fall into the lava of Mount Doom.

Uh-huh. That's true. It's also a prequel. So he doesn't, and we know that Smeagol, we know that Smeagol predated Gollum turned into Gollum. Spoiler alert. So that probably Gollum precludes Gollum's existence in the show. Let me guess.

We're going to see a young hot Gollum. We're going to see sexy young Gollum, yeah. Fucking. It's inevitable. He's got a big hanger. Because it's Amazon, they're going to have frontal nudity. That's how they get people watching. I saw a Reacher.

As he turned into Gollum, do you think, like, did Gollum's dick, like, come up into his body? You know what I'm saying? Like, as he was twisted into Gollum, did it affect his dick? I'm like the Spoon Man. So he said this in Middle Earth. He said that, yeah. That was what he saw as his naked reflection in a stream, and he thought that he looked

like the Spoon Man. Maybe I'm a little twisted like Gollum. I guess I was down in my basement for years, and like, Gollum kind of lives in a cave for a while, and it like, twists him into an inhuman thing. Man, those movies are good. They're so good. Is Fran liking them? She's loving them.

She said she loved them. And I think that Circus did deserve an Oscar. He was good. He was really great in them. Will the new show suck? You and I think, yes, maybe it will suck. But yeah, I mean, I hope for the best. You want, like, I like the, I like the property, but it's just like, ah, it seems so unnecessary.

It just seems hard. It seems like they're games of, game of thrones in it. Preemptively. Yeah. Yeah. Like, we're going in, we're trying to ruin it. We want to ruin it from the pilot. Game of Thrones took too long to ruin it.

We want it to be bad from the beginning. I do like J.A. Bojana, the guy who's doing it. He did a, I liked, I liked the Jurassic World sequel, which a lot of people didn't like. And then I, I like a monster calls. I liked a monster calls. Made me tear up. Yeah.

There could be some cool, is that, wait, is that the dad one? There's a dad one, right? It's about a mom and a son. With Liam Neeson is the monster, right? Maybe. That's a different monster movie. Hold on. Yeah, no, Liam Neeson is the monster.

Yeah. A monster calls. That's what we're thinking of the same movie. A monster calls. You know what? You better hope it's not Freddy. You left your credit card at Kroger, bitch. Um, all right.

Okay. So there's no, so I'm not being punished ironically there. You're just telling me something that happened. No. Can you pick it up? Yeah, I can. We're about to close. All right.

Cool. Okay. I'll be there. Yeah. All right, Wikes. Wasting our guest times. Wasting the listeners time. As always.

So here we go. Here's a little drop. Delivery guys would come to my room most for weekend nights and I would eat D.B. D.B. Dose is great. I loved D.B. Dose. D.B.

Dose. What's D.B. Dose? It's so good. It's great. It's a classic. It's a classic. But I don't understand.

Get some details. I don't even think you have to go into details. I think people just can't. D.B. Dose. It's like a, it's like a, it's like a food. It's food. It's food.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Sounds awesome. Wow. Wow. There you have it. Is that an Ithaca spot?

D.B. Dose? It's like a college, like I think it's like in a lot of college towns, but there is certainly one in Ithaca and it was like a sort of thing of like you could buy like two and get one free or something. And it was like, there were five bucks. And so like a lot of the time you just had, you know, D.B. Dose guys coming up to campus with like 300 D.B.

Dose in their car. You know what I mean? They were like in these little boxes. You do just feel bad for them. So in, as I said in the song and the drop, my guy came right to my door. I had easy access. My, my, my fresh, my senior year straight to my door. There was a door of the house that went right to my room, which also made it freezing in

there. But the, the, it was the guy would deliver right to my door. Wow. Given the back of the house, what was the situation there? I lived in what we called the dungeon of the house. It was a... Okay. And me and, and Eddie Kinkel and Joe Aranda, we lived in the, we lived in the basement,

the basement of the dungeon. Kinkel? In our undays. Yeah. Yeah. Kinkel, yeah. Kinkel and poof. We called them poof.

You called them poof. Okay. Yeah. What did, what's the etymology of poof? I don't know. Poof? Good question. D.B.

Doe? Are you in Middle Earth? I think you got the rings of power. I don't get any, I don't, I don't, look, I don't have, I don't have any, I don't have any power wags. I got no rings. Yeah. Um, yeah, it sounds like a certain inside the NBA host.

Barkley? Yeah. I like Barkley. Why are you, why are you roasting Barkley? I would never roast Barkley. He's the funniest man on earth and he's an NBA Hall of Famer. I know. I know.

It really puts us to shame when. Yeah. It's amazing. He can do what we do better than what we do and then he also does another thing better than almost anyone. Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah.

Yeah. Kind of makes you feel like a real piece of shit. Anyways. Yeah. But no rings. I was trying to think of like a thing to say of like rings on a mattress. I couldn't think, I couldn't put it together with the rings thing. Rings on a mattress?

I don't know. I don't know. I couldn't, that's what I'm saying. Are you thinking of a shower curtain? Yeah. Okay. So you just got, you got two different items in a house confused. All right.

Hold on. I was trying to think of that, that chair you sit on that's got water in it, a toilet. Just, let me read the damn drop for God's sake, let me introduce the guest. Yes. We're off to a shit start. This is fucking a nightmare so far. This is really bad. We're going to get the guest in here.

That's on them to pull up this episode from the depths of hell. Hi everyone. Here's a drop using the song Budapest by George Ezra. Thanks to the drop king himself for the initial idea and for the helpful feedback along the way. Wow. Wow. DK, what's going on?

It is, is DK, does DK have a masterclass on drops? That's what's happening here. He's got a side business. Yeah. He's coaching drops 60 bucks ahead. Wow. Not a bad price. I might sign up.

This drop is from Mike Mitchell in Quincy, Massachusetts. That's from Chris Finke. Wow. Hi, Chris. Thanks, Chris. We know Chris. We know. Anyways.

That's that. Yeah. It was a good drop. Great drop and a great guest, Mitch. A great, great guest. Very excited. Better guest than drop. 100%.

How's that for hype? That's not always true either. Sometimes we play a drop and we just tell the guest to leave the call. Yeah. It's like, sorry. I want to stay on, Koala. Get out of here. Can you at least be reimbursed for my meal?

Oh, fine. You ate a block of cheese in your wall. Fucking rat. Our guest today, a writer, actor, director from Comedy Central and college humor, Mary Sassen is here. Hi, Mary. Hello. Can I ask what a DP, what was it?

A dopey? What was it called again? A D.P. A D.P. Dopey. A D.P. Dopey. A D.P.

Dopey. A DP DOE. What is it? They're cow zones. Okay. Dopey Dopey. What does DP stand for? I have no idea.

Why? You can probably look at that. Oh, it's not. I thought it was D.P. D.E.P. Y. No, it's D.P. D.P.

Yeah. D.P. D.P. There was a lot of different cow zones you get. A buffer zone was my favorite, which was like their buffalo chicken cow zone. That makes sense to me. And the buffer zone was good. Zone obviously just meaning short for cow zone.

Gotcha. But Emma, is there one in the Boston area? DP DOEs are everywhere, right? I have never heard of a DP DOE. Wow. So I don't think so. But I'll look it up. I meant college towns specifically.

That's what I thought that they were always like. Every college town has an inexpensive pizza place. Sure. I'll tell you exactly what it's like. What's the cookie place we just did recently? Insomnia cookies? Yes. It's like having insomnia right by or almost on a campus.

That makes sense. Was it like only late at night or no? It just was. No, it went late. It went until like three or four. I think it went to maybe four in the morning. Wow. None in Massachusetts.

Maybe they should be there. None in Mass. Yeah. Interesting. The closest one when I put in a Boston zip code was New York. Yes. Stony Brook, New York. Looks like the closest ones to Quincy.

I think I feel like I knew that. So maybe it is just all New York. Is it just in New York? There's a bunch in New York, but there are some in our guest's home state of Pennsylvania. There you go. And it looks like also like state college Pennsylvania, so near Penn State. There's one near Kent State University in Ohio, University Akron in Ohio, Virginia Tech University. Certainly down the Rust Belt.

Yeah. It looks like it looks like it looks like Rust Belt universities, Mitch. Your theory is correct. It looks like where they're largely congregated, Bowling Green. By the way, Mitch, DP Doe, the etymology of the name, Dan, the dude, and Penny, his mom made their new restaurant, DP Doe, after their initials. So there you go. A real Mike and Karine Mitchell situation.

Jesus. Do you think nobody wanted to tell that father or that son, mother, duo that DP also means double penetration? Nobody wanted to bring that up to that. They knew. They knew. They knew exactly what it was. Sick fucks.

I gotta say, when I went back to Ithaca, I went for a 10-year reunion, now coming up on a 20-year college reunion. Yikes. Wow. I mean, it's three years away, but yikes. Ooh, that's old. Do they do college reunions? No, but I'm just saying.

But you can go whenever. I mean, I don't go to one. Yeah. They won't kick you off. Yeah, you can go hang out on campus if you want. But when I went, for maybe the 10-year, or maybe when I went with Chris and Jeff, we went and spoke at Ithaca when birthday boys were coming out. And I've told the story before.

I remember. Yes. Maybe like 40 people there. And then my professor who I had, Professor Nones, great screenwriting professor, forgot who I was. Remembered Hanford. Forgot who I was. Hanford wasn't there, by the way.

She remembered Hanford who wasn't there. Where's that gangly fellow who's on rollerblades a lot? I remember his senior year we made love. So she remembered Hanford. And then she went on to tell a story about, which I've said on the podcast before, I'm sure, where she was like, like a couple months back, we had Dave Franco and McLovin. And people were lined up around the corner and they chased them to their car. And I was like, oh, cool.

Two people who didn't go to this school. And a character name. Like she didn't remember that. I remember McLovin. Anyway, thank you, Professor Nones. Great, great professor. Great, great, great screenwriting teacher. Didn't help me much.

Did she just teach super bad? She taught super. Yeah, she teaches super bad now. Yeah. I wonder if she liked my script, seven minutes south of Boston. We've never really talked about this. We've talked about the movie I've made, but I made like a goodwill hunting. I wrote a goodwill hunting style movie.

Wow. That no one will ever see. Is the seven minutes south of Boston. That's Quincy. I assume. Yeah. Yes. Very embarrassing to talk about this.

Anyways. You brought it up. I know, I know. Whole story. Yeah. Anyways. D.P. D.P.

Doe when I went back to Ithaca was the thing that like I got it. And I was like, this holds up so well. Like I loved it. Really? I got a buffer zone. Like after like maybe after. Yeah. Cause I was in a hotel when I got it.

So I was with Jeff and Chris. And so it was one of those things. Like I got a buffer zone and was eating it after a few drinks, but it wasn't like drunk. And I was like, this is so, so good. It's, this is like delicious. So I don't know. It was also maybe like a random night or something, but.

Buffer zone, redded chicken, mozzarella, hot sauce and blue cheese. That's right. And then it comes with a side of marinara. Which a lot of people will be like, I want blue cheese to dip it in. No, no, no. You dip it in that marinara. It really works for whatever reason. It's great.

But it has blue cheese in it. Is that what? It has blue cheese in it. Yeah. Yeah. You don't need extra blue cheese. No, the marinara like weirdly works with it. It's fantastic.

We can review it someday. We can review it on the part. We should. I'm into it. We're going to run out of places. No, we're not. We've been saying that since year two. We're not going to run out of places.

I mean, it also helps when we do, you know, Taco Bell 20 or whatever. Sure. But that's the thing. These chains will always have new seasonal items. Well, we won't run out of places. Mary, I want to talk a little bit about, which we talked about when you were on our Patreon episode, the double is double. And we talked about your Pittsburgh connection.

Yeah. And Pittsburgh, I mean, certainly has its own food culture. And also I believe you were telling us it's kind of like kind of coming up in the food world right now. Definitely. I don't know what COVID did to it in terms of restaurants and stuff like that. But yeah, it is a, I'm sure I've said this in the last episode, but yeah, it's like a fun mix of a lot of different like cultures because of its history with the steel mills

and now even more so just kind of how the demographics have changed once the steel mills closed down. Right. So it has a lot of fun stuff. And it like, my understanding, I read an article on time that was like, say you're going to make $40,000 either in Brooklyn or Pittsburgh, that money goes so much further in Pittsburgh. So why not live in Pittsburgh kind of thing? Yeah, that makes sense.

So it's gotten a lot of really cool chefs. You are a Steelers fan, correct? I'm a very big Steelers fan. Yeah. Have you ever eaten, I've asked, I think I asked you this last time you were on, have you ever eaten the Rothless burger, the sandwich that was made for, it's like a big burger sandwich, right? Is it like a primantes specifically for?

I don't think, I don't even think it is primantes specifically. I think it is like a thing that like around Pittsburgh, there's like a few different Rothless burgers. I have not. And honestly, though we may have a couple seasons where we're not great, I am very relieved he's gone. That's right. It is like, it is tough to like hold your head up and say Pittsburgh fan.

And then it's like your quarterback is a dirtbag. A monster. Yeah. Yeah. It's a bummer. Well, as it turns out in the world of sports and the world of entertainment, it's a hard thing to like anybody it turns out. Yeah.

We should just know nothing about anybody who entertains us. Too much info. Too much info nowadays. I'm constantly making my family upset by they'll bring up some show or something. I'm like, oh, that actor is a bad person. And they're like, God damn it. It's the birthday boy show. Yeah.

It looks like and the Rothless burger has been perhaps renamed the number seven. This is at Peppies. This is who seems to offer it. And they had, they were the place that had the Chris Berman trying the Rothless burger. So I imagine they have the claim, they claim it. It's, it's sausage. It's a sausage and burger jugger not topped with egg and American cheese. That sounds pretty dull.

That's a lot. That's a lot. It's a lot, but I mean, that sounds like Pittsburgh. It does. It does. Sounds just very over the top. Yeah. And I wonder if it was even like a Kilbasa specifically kind of sausage.

Cause that's a very Polish thing. Right. Yeah. Steel City is, is the movie, does the movie, the deer hunter take place in Pittsburgh? Is that what? I think it takes place in Western Pennsylvania, which is like, like Pittsburgh. If you get like a little bit outside the bounds, like it's literally like cows and like corn fields. Yeah.

And then it's like nothing until Philadelphia. Pencil tucky, they call it. Yeah. We used to, and I didn't think about this as being weird, but there's so many deer in Western Pennsylvania and like Pittsburgh in general, we would get the first day of deer hunting season off. Wow. And I lived close enough to Pittsburgh where I could see the skyline from my house.

Like we were not far. That's wild. That's wild. That is wild. That's a, Quincy, we get Eminosis Patriots Day off. What's Patriots Day? Oh, Marathon Monday, right? Isn't it?

Yeah, it's Marathon Monday, quote unquote Patriots Day. Patriots Day. I mean, part of it is that on Marathon Monday, you can't get anywhere in Boston anyway. Oh, the day after the Boston Marathon. That makes sense. No, the day of the Boston Marathon. The day of the Boston Marathon. And that's why I believe, I mean, the Mark Wahlberg movie is called Patriots Day, correct?

Oh yeah. The movie where he stops the bombing. He stops the bombing. And then he gets on one of the 9-11 planes. He stops that too. Yeah. He just prevents all of history. He pushes Seth McFarland out of the plane and he begin that voice.

I got this. Pushes him back in. I got this. He does that. See in Ted. That reminds me that one of my younger brothers who's like a year and a half younger than me just like went through what we call it as like motley crew days in high school. And he missed so many days of school one year that like he had to go to like a truancy

meeting and like my older brother like took him and they were going through his absences. And they were like, why did you miss two weeks in February? And he was like, oh, that's when the Steelers won the Super Bowl. That's fucking great. You took two weeks off. He was like, yeah, we hadn't won in a long time. That's so funny. We would have to make up gyms at the end of the year.

Like especially seniors, like you just like you would skip gym class and then like they would mark you absent. And then you at the end of the year, you'd have to make them up. And I believe I maybe have told this story to you, but we, the gym teacher, Mr. Tagliere was like, if you, if you guys can all run it, first of all, I got there and we skipped gym all the time and we just did anything else. And you also couldn't leave North. So like we were, we either were leaving campus, like, which wasn't allowed or we were just

like sticking around within the school because you couldn't go out. You couldn't leave the North Quincy High School. It was like a prison. Yeah. That was like my school. Yeah. But were you outside? I would have to think that you guys could walk between buildings outside.

Right. Oh yeah. No, this is, this is something sunny. So Cal, all the schools have like a large out your outdoor area. Yeah. No, it's not like the old school schoolhouse. Once you're on campus, you couldn't leave campus is what you're saying. Once you're on campus, you can leave campus now.

Yeah. We could never do anything like that. We had no outside. It was just all indoors. So once you're inside, you're inside. But I remember Micas had less to make up than me and he skipped all the time. So I was mad, but the, he was like, Mr. Mr. Tag was like, if you can run a mile and under nine minutes, maybe it was,

maybe it was under eight minutes, like all of us. I think it was probably nine for this story to work. But he was like, he was like, I'll, they know, wipe out all the rest of the gyms. You owe. And this is after going for a couple of days. So we were running the mile and Micas and Chankton finished. And then I had a lot left. And then they got behind me and they literally pushed me around the gym.

Wow. They were like pushing me. They were like pushing. Like I was like slowing down and they were like getting behind me and like pushing me like, like a, you would, you would, like you would move a, a, a bureau. You know what I mean? They were just pushing me. And Mr. Tagliari allowed this.

He allowed it. He allowed it. I can't imagine you didn't just fall. Yeah. I mean, I was, I was close. I was, I was huffing and puffing and I went, I went back into the locker room and I nearly threw up, but I was done. We got it under, we got in under the time.

Mr. Tag, he let us go. Wow. Wow. Not a slow mile, nine minutes. I mean, that's a, that's still a decent clip. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I was pretty speedy that day. When I was in college, I was a, a rower and we had to do that. As, as, as, as I, God damn it. As was I. I feel like you almost didn't like the, what's it called? New England. You like just have to row, but that's part of it.

But we were going to do the timed mile and I don't even know how it came up with somebody was like, Oh, you don't jog the mile. You run the mile. It's not a long distance piece. You run it. And I was like, really? And they were like, yeah. And like just that advice, I like took a minute off my mile.

I just was always jogging it. Yeah. Wow. I mean, why not jog it? That's the way to do it. Yeah. No, New England, no truly like, I know that they would row on the Charles river, but truly no association with crew at all.

Like a, like not, like very much not, I, I, I, when I was younger, I sailed because we were right on the water. So like a Turner boat and stuff like that. Like being on the water wasn't anything crazy, but, but actually crew, like rowing, not, not normal. I was, I, I, that was a wake up call for me of how unhealthy I was when I started crew of just. Were you a port or a starboard? I was a starboard.

Same. Yeah. Do you remember what seat you were in? Yeah. I would, I would go between seven and five. I feel like it's, I'm hoping I'm getting the numbers right. Yeah. That's going to be right.

All this lingo. Oh wait. No, wait, no, wait. It's not seven's wrong. Bow to three. So three and five. I was the three seat. That makes more sense.

Yeah. Seven is seven is upfront. Yeah. That's like, right after the strokes, you have to really keep up the, the pace of everything. And usually. But upfront meaning facing backwards. Usually, I think a lot of times of the front of the boat as the stern, but that's the back of the boat.

Okay. The back of that is very confusing. Bow is the front of the boat, but that's also when you're sitting in the boat. Mary, I know exactly what you're talking about. You're sitting in the boat. Because you're furthest from the coxswain. Yeah. Usually unless it's like, yeah.

And an eight at least. You're sitting the opposite way. So that is like, what's the confusing about is, but bow is the front and starboard is actually on the right. So when you were sitting this way, your aura is out that way. Okay. Visual of it. It's a, it's an audio medium.

You're pointing. You're going backwards and you turn out to the left is the starboard. Yeah. Mitch was, Mitch was pointing to his left and sort of leaning forward for people listening, which is everybody. But that's really the right side because you're at the front of the boat. Yeah. Everything's kind of backwards.

Yeah. Got it. So you call in the stern, the front. You should say the bow is the front. You should say the bow is the front. Okay. I feel like you were so far away from the coxswain who's making all the decisions and the stroke, the person who's closest to the coxswain kind of is the most important person because they

set the pace with everything. Okay. Got it. So you feel pretty far away from all the, all the. Yeah. Motherfucker. Slow things down. And the coxswain's the person who's telling you what to do.

Yeah. The tiny little person in the front. The tiny little, like a, like usually, you know, like a guy or a girl who weighs like a hundred pounds or something. A hundred pounds. Yeah. Because I knew a coxswain, a lady coxswain in college. And yeah, she was quite slight.

Yeah. And I didn't make the connection, the low body weight because yeah, you want someone who can do that job, but also isn't going to add to the weight of the boat. That makes total sense. Okay. It's annoying because they're yelling at you and they're tiny. So you think that you could throw them into the sun if you wanted. Yeah.

Yeah. Because they're often they're like, they're coaxing is can get very like, like you motherfuckers kind of thing at that. And it's like, you're not doing anything. Yeah. Yeah. You're just telling us to stroke. Like, okay, let's pull it up a notch.

We're really going slow or something. It's like, you are sitting there. I guess. And I hate when I would get specific. I'd be like, come on three seat, you tiny, dick fat fuck. And I'd be like, it seems really fucking specific, ma'am. More so, I wouldn't mind as much when I was on the water, but erging, which is like the least exciting thing in the whole world.

There's no exercise. I'll never go on an ERG again. There was like, I remember like we picked up an ERG. That's the rowing machine and the wrong machine. We got, we went up and picked up a used ERG like between my freshman sophomore years, my dad and I, and I did use it. Like I would work out on it a little bit and then, and, but I, I hate ERG so much. I'll never get the wrong machine at the gym, which people do and they do it wrong all

the time. Yes. I was about to say my, my most smug thing is telling people they're erging wrong. Oh, I would love that. I'll comment on like an equinox article, like, um, just so you know, that person needs to put their arms up before they put their legs out. Like they're doing it wrong. Just a horrible torture device of, for working like that.

It was just awful. I still have nightmares. I'll never get on it. Of like, you would do like six Ks in the fall and two Ks in the spring. I still have nightmares. I'm about to do like a two K test. Oh, thank you. Yeah.

It's two K on the ERG. Yeah. Yes. You wrote 2000 meters. We would do 10 K tests sometimes. That's a lot. Yeah. I think I have a hundred.

I'll be pretty gassed. Oh yeah. Two Ks a lot. Never going to do it again. Never going to do it again. Yeah. Here's why, here's why. Cause you can remember this.

This is a fun way to remember it. Starbird has more letters. So that's right. Cause right also has more letters than left, which is yeah. Also port has the same number of letters as left four. I've heard that before. Okay. I knew those two.

I knew port and star part. No, I don't think you did. That pneumonic. Thank you, Mitch. You'd make a good, you'd make a good cox and wigs. Fucking. Keep going. We're doing good.

As the other end of the boat is in the air. Cause you're fucking tank ass. Like a cartoon. We'll take a break. We'll be back with more dope voice. You know, Mitch, you're about to take a little trip abroad. You're going to Costa Rica. That's right.

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

That's it. Hey, that sounds like a heck of a vacay. And you know what? Knowing some Spanish might be helpful down there. Nice. And if you have an upcoming summer trip abroad, my go to travel hack is Babel. Whether you're a seasoned traveler or embarking on your first adventure. Communication is key to fully experiencing a new culture.

That's where Babel comes in. Babel is the language learning app that sold more than 10 million subscriptions. Thanks to Babel's addictively fun and easy bite-sized language lessons, there's still time to learn a new language before you reach your destination. You know, Mitch, I've been taking some Babel lessons in Spanish a little bit. And it's a great benefit just in terms of having some conversational knowledge of another language. With Babel, you only need 10 minutes to complete a lesson. So you can start having real-life conversation in as little as three weeks' wigs.

Babel's expertly crafted lessons are built around real life. You learn how to have practical conversations about travel, relationships, business, and more. Other language learning apps use AI for their lesson plans, but Babel lessons were created by over 150 language experts and voiced by real native speakers, not computers. Their teaching method has been scientifically proven to be effective. With Babel, you can choose from 14 different languages, plus, Babel's speech recognition technology helps you improve your pronunciation and accent.

There are so many ways to learn with Babel. In addition to lessons, you can access podcasts, games, videos, stories, and even live classes. Plus, it comes with a 20-day money-back guarantee. Start your new language learning journey today with Babel. Hey, everyone, it's the Doughboys. You know, this spring, you need nutritious, convenient meals to energize you for warmer active days and to keep you on track to reaching your goals. Factor, America's number one ready-to-eat meal kit,

can help you fuel up fast with ready-to-eat meals delivered straight to your door. You'll save time, eat well, and tackle everything on your to-do list. Too busy to cook this spring with factors, skip the trip to the grocery store, and skip the chopping, prepping, and cleaning up. You can skip all of it, why? Skip all of it, because factors fresh, never-frozen meals are ready in just two minutes, so all you have to do is heat and enjoy, then get back outside and soak up that warmer weather. Looking for calorie-conscious options as spring wigs?

Try delicious, dietitian-approved, calorie-smart meals with around or less than 550 calories per serving. We offer delicious, flavor-packed options on the menu each week to fit a variety of lifestyles, from keto to calorie-smart, vegan and veggie, and protein plus. Prepared by chefs and approved by dietitians, each meal has all of the ingredients you need to feel satisfied all day long while meeting your goals. With 34-plus chef-prepared dietitian-approved weekly options, there's always something new to try. Plus, you can round out your meal and replenish your snack supply with an assortment of 45-plus add-ons, including breakfast items like egg bites, smoothies, and more wigs.

I had a smoothie today. You saw it in studio. Wow. Tropical fruit smoothie. It was delicious. Wow. Hey, want to cut back on takeout? Get factor instead. Not only is factor cheaper than takeout, but meals are ready faster than restaurant delivery in just two minutes. With factor, you can rest assured you're making a sustainable choice. We offset 100% of our delivery admissions to your door, source 100% renewable energy for our production sites and offices, and feature sustainably sourced seafood in our meals.

Head to FactorMeals.com slash Doe Boys 50 and use code DOE BOYS 50 to get 50% off your first box. That's code DOE BOYS 50 at FactorMeals.com slash DOE BOYS 50 to get 50% off your first box. Do it. Welcome back to Doe Boys. We are their guests, Mary Sassen, discussing this week's chain veggie grill as Mitch has shifted his camera over to focus on Wally and Irma napping in a sunbeam on his couch. We're not seeing any Mitch here. We're just seeing his arm. That's right. As he's taking photos of these cats while he's recording, they seem pretty comfy.

They're very comfy. They're very comfortable right now. They're being very sweet. So I just wanted to show you how sweet they were. Very cute. Very adorable. They're good cats. I love them. Mary, as part of your tableau, we're seeing some photos of a pooch or pooches behind you. Yes. I'm trying to think of, it might have been the last time I did the Doe Boys. It was that month. In the month of October for the first part of quarantine, every day I dressed my dog up in a different costume.

Wow. So 31 days of 31 costumes. I love it. So what you're seeing, I'll see if I can point because it's backwards. The pink frame is him as Julia Roberts from Pretty Woman. The one at the top of her going clockwise is him as Bender from... It's a drama. No, no, no, no, breakfast club.

Oh, wow. Then Belle from Beauty and the Beast. Then Tina from Bob's Burgers. And then the last one is Bernie from Weekend at Bernie's. Wow. Yeah. You're going to send us some of these pictures. We'll put them up in the post with the episode.

Yeah. I will. Yeah. And they all were just, I tried to make myself buy nothing. So it was all just stuff around the house. And he didn't, he would sit for about, I had like 30 seconds to take the pictures. And then he'd always get a treat afterwards. So he would, he knew that he'd get a treat.

But yeah. I like that. Beauty. I like that for your dog, the pandemic is also a weird time in its life. And that like, it was like in a new costume every day and like in, and your dog will be like, I remember that like weird period of my life, just like you will as well. Yeah.

It's kind of a shared, shared experience. It was like, that was his trauma. Cause I'm sure he was like, this is going on long enough. Is this the new all the time thing? I also created a little, a little family guy on my own by putting Bender in the, you think that's bad. Remember when Bender was into breakfast club? I kind of did my own little mashup.

Did my own little family guy. Kissed my, bite my shiny metal ass or whatever his catchphrase was. Yeah. So that's a principle. Molly Ringwald or whatever. Yeah. Veggie Grill. You know what?

They should do it. They should do it. Why not? Veggie Grill golden plate club member last reviewed in April of 2016, Mitch. So this was, this was early era dough boys. I guess there's only one question. Will it be platinum plate club at the end of the episode? We're going to find out.

I guess there's two questions. Will it fall out? I guess there's a third one. Will it remain just golden plate club? So there's three questions. Three questions. Three questions. But the big one is.

Found in Irvine, California in 2006. Platinum. Locations along the West coast in New England and in Illinois. And most of its customer base. Alex reports is non vegetarian. Which tracks? Because it's this is very much of the veggie concepts that we've got. We've been to Mitch.

This is one where you know, it's all plant based, but this is just straight up fast food. I mean, it's just straight up like for the most part there's some bowls, there's some salads, which we'll get into, but their bread and butter is fake burgers, fake chicken sandwiches, fries, mac and cheese, that sort of shit. Where is, is there a place where their bread and butter is bread and butter?

I mean, you could argue Olive Garden. Oh, although it's more like it's more like breadsticks and olive oil, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Cheesecake factory. That brown bread. That's pretty good.

Brown bread is pretty good. Baby Red Lobster with Cheddar Bay Biscuits. You're not really, if you're putting butter on that though, you're really living rich. Yeah, that's a lot. Oh, we're forgetting the great bread and butter emporium. That place, of course. An all bread restaurant.

I wonder if it would be any good. I mean, I guess there is like sourdough in San Francisco. There's that sourdough place. Boudin. I mean, that's a bakery though. It's a bakery. Yeah. All right.

Well, their bread and butter is bread and butter. Anyways, look, it was a good, it was a good, it was a good segue there. I agree. Segway, whatever. Weig's, I, it's very funny because this, this is like, it is the, yeah. Like very, very fast foodie. Very much like burgers and fries.

And look, a lot of the times we, we review a lot of chains and stuff. And, and, and like some, it's like McDonald's Burger King. This, this feels more like in the line of McDonald's or Burger King. It's like a lot of, sure. I mean, look, you can sit down there. Pricier. But I'm just saying like, I think of it as a place where you go and get like comfort fast food, comfort food, right?

Yeah. Maybe if, if, if, you know, if that's the McDonald's or Burger King, because it is a little bit more of a sit down place, doesn't have a drive through their fewer locations. And there's, I just met, I just met in the style of food basically is what I was trying to say. It's like, this is very much comfort food. Well, I was going to compare it to like, you know, the habit or Shake Shack.

Sure. Kind of like it's, it's, it's a little bit more upscale, a little bit more expensive. It's still doing those kind of American, you know, roadhouse grill classics, but it's, it's a little bit of a different tier in terms of price and in terms of quality. All right. Look, maybe a bad comparison, but you get what I mean.

And just that it's a burgers and fries and a bunch of bullshit, which I like. Yeah. I just, I just met in the way that I'm like, I'm not going to order up. I'm not, I will not order up veggie grill to get a salad. Like, like, like, I'm not like, I'll go to or Mendocino farms or something like that over veggie grill for, for some sort of salad or like healthy light lunch. I'm not, I'm not going to go to veggie grill.

I think it's largely a good insight and correct because even the salads and the bowls that they have to me are not healthy. Like I used to get that, that, that bond me salad that they have. And I'm not sure if they still have that on the menu that seems to come and go, but that was just like, you know, so loaded with, with just sugar and fat and carbs. It was not like a healthy salad. It was not like a light bite.

It was, you know, it was pretty, it was as kind of trashy as salads go. I feel like it's, it almost as a restaurant is a compromise between a vegetarian and someone who was like, fuck vegetarians. That you could be like, trust me, you'll be fine. Kind of thing. No, that's a great point. Yeah, 100%. I think, I think this is, this is like a work lunch permissible place

for people who eat meat. They'd be like, yeah, I can fucking get something there. Cause you can. It's me and you last year, Wags. Sure. Like you were like, I want veggie and I'd be like, fuck you. And then you'd be like, let's go here. I was like, all right, fine.

You also haven't stopped saying fuck you. That's true. And he's become a ticky. Let's get McDonald's. Fuck you. I mean, it wouldn't matter where we go. Here's what I'll say about veggie grill. They've changed their app a bunch of times over the years, but I do think their app

is not crap. The VG rewards app. It's pretty, it's pretty intuitive and it does have rewards. Although, you know, I haven't been going as frequently because we used to be close to one. We're not close to one anymore. So it's kind of fallen out of my regular rotation. That said, the points would accumulate there and you could get yourself some free stuff.

Mitch, how did you get, put your order in? I ordered online and then I went and grabbed it from the Burbank location. For whatever reason, they weren't taking pickup orders from Hollywood for whatever reason. I don't know. It's not closed, is it? I was wondering that. I used to live near there.

Like, and I wonder with the dome and everything being gone. The dome is shut down and the arc light is shut down. And I'm like, yeah, I'm wondering the same thing. I mean, horrible for all those business businesses right there, I'm sure. And supposedly the dome's coming back, Wags. Dome is supposedly coming back. Maybe this year, maybe this summer, that's the rumor is that the company that owned it is going to, like the arc light cinemas is gone, but they're going to like keep.

Isn't like a Tarantino or somebody like that by it? No, Tarantino, Tarantino bought the new Beverly and another one he bought over here on the side. Oh yeah. He bought like maybe the Vista. Yeah, the Vista. Yep. Okay.

Wait, yes. Already by Los Feliz three. No, he bought the, another company took over the Los Feliz three, too. A lot of a lot of great theaters just fucking shut down, including the UCB theater also shut down. RIP. I can't get caught. I can.

I've been looking here. I can't get intel on whether or not the veggie grill by that Cinerama dome theater, by the old arc and now closed arc light is open or not. I can't, it looks like it says it's open, but it doesn't necessarily let you order pickup online. So maybe that's what's going on. Here's the thing with UCB Franklin. Be getting shut down.

I'm like, Hey, I want to, I want to pick up a copy of Martin and Orloff today. But where? But where? And I go over there and Franklin's closed. No. You want a DVD? You want a 480p DVD? Yeah.

I ran through. Martin and Orloff. I just like burned through because I watched him at times. Hard balls. So. Wow. Yeah. My, my, my, there was a Christmas where my mom gave me like basically every DVD that

they sold at the front at UCB theater. She like, and it was like such a weird thing where I was like, how did she even find out about these movies? But she, she, she gifted me like one bundle of Christmas, like it was like five DVDs and one present. You know what I mean? And I was like, what is this? Michael, I stopped by the UCB theater for Christmas.

I got you blackballed. The Bobby Duke story. Mom, I love it. That was. When I was interning there, somebody would have asked for a DVD. I would have just been like a deer in the headlights. Like I. Ma'am, sir, I do not know how to get those.

I don't know where they keep those. I don't know where they keep them either. Yeah. Besser's trunk. I have to call it Besser. Classically never remembered my name and just have to. I love Maddie B. personally. You know, UCB seen better times.

Sure. But he also should remember your name. It's RIP. Yes. I mean, it's gone. So yes, definitely seen better times. So the I'll say I went to the Santa Monica location. That's why I placed an online in the order in the app.

And then I went and picked it up a very streamlined pickup. You know, they're they're a machine there. I mentioned the app is not crap. Mary, did you did you place an online order? I did place it on an order at which I was a little bit nervous about it first because because it's like a chain. I was okay with this. But I try to call if I can because I don't like grub hub and places like that.

And I've been too many times recently I picked a pizza and I was like, oh, when I sign my receipt, can I give you a tip? And they're like, it was through grub hub. We you can't tip us. And which always was like, I will go find money and give you money kind of thing. But because grub or because veggie grill is like a chain, I was like, I ordered online and also picked up at the Burbank location. I think if you have, I think and maybe I'm wrong here because some of these apps are like powered by Chow now or whatever. Although I think chat with Mitch is I should fucking know this at this point, whether Chow now or grub hub is the less bad. Chow now is supposed to be the less bad one.

I think that's what that's what I think because I think Chow now is Emma's agreeing Emma knows more than us. Chow now takes less of a yes grub hub postmates is maybe the most evil. It's hard to also people get really mad at me when I order food and don't go to pick it up there, you know, like the bike. Yeah, he didn't pick it up from the restaurant. I'm like, the fuck is what the fuck? I've been in a lot of talking about people get mad at me. Yeah. No, that's like a leadist or what do they were they mad at?

I think they're like the experience is different. I'm like, it's not. No, I mean, this is also a part of the world we live in now. Mitch is sitting in the restaurant without a mask to get the actual experience. If not, his fork scar is invalid. If it doesn't cancel my Patreon subscription. It's bullshit. They want me to keep posting on the reddit until Mitch gets COVID.

Guess what? It hasn't happened yet. And I'm starting to question how serious this virus was. No, bad thing is befalling me. So I question how serious it is. So I think that, yes, like Pukino Moss, for instance, Mitch, beloved local chain has their app is, I think, powered by Chow now. And I think Sweet Chick was the same thing. I could, if I remember which we were reviewed with our friend, Tammy Sager.

And so I feel like if it has a dedicated app, and Veggie Girl just seems to have a ground up like they built their own app. I tend to think that they are getting, like no one's necessarily belching them, that they're not necessarily paying this 30% fee to some company. But who fucking knows? I will say that they seem to be actively encouraging you to use the app here. Whereas, in the same way Chipotle does seem to be encouraging you to use the app, which makes me think that the company is, McDonald's is the same fucking thing. Which makes me think that these companies are like making, you know, maybe it's a pain in the ass for the workers, but it seems like the companies at least are making good revenue via these apps. I was just going to say, I bet on an app you are so, maybe so much more likely to just add an extra thing. That could be it.

You know what I mean? That makes total sense, yeah. They'll do stuff too, where it's like, I think at the end of the Veggie Girl thing, they were like, are you sure you don't want sweet potato fries? And I think it's so easy to just pick. Yeah, sure, why not? Yeah, exactly. No, that's a good point. Toss them in.

I mean, it's also, it's a tricky thing of these tech companies are horrible. They charge, they take too much up top of, off of whatever. And wise, I told the story not too long ago when I got a place I was talking about right before this episode, Sidewalk Grill, and they put a thing in saying like, please order through us. Yes. And look, sometimes you got to order delivery. And also, sometimes those apps don't work. Like I've tried to order through Sidewalk Grill, and it hasn't worked, and I've had to call and put it in order, which they like, when you call, they're like, go to our website. But it is the thing of like, the world changed in that way a few years ago, not to say that like, delivery wasn't big before that.

But in the last two years, it's been so much delivery. And, and they take advantage of those restaurants just like tech takes advantage of every aspect of our lives, basically. Yeah, it's fucking awful. I will say that I basically never get delivery unless it's like not unless there's no other option. Yeah, you're very good with that. But that's much as anything. That's not me necessarily being self-righteous. That's just like, I like any opportunity in the past couple of years to get out of the house.

I'm like, fucking great. Yeah, if I can, if I can walk. This also feels like it might be a little Natalie Mandate as well, by the way. Well, yeah, this is, honestly, I should, this is Natalie's kind of policy. So that she sort of. Get the fuck out of the house once a day for God's sakes. Yeah, I mean, yeah, she's like, just make yourself scarce. So I kind of do that.

She'll sometimes say, just order some food and don't even like, like, I'm not even hungry. Just go pick, just go leave and pick it up. She throws some bills at you. Yeah. Go get this food in Eagle Rock. It'll take you two hours to do. See you never, hopefully. Let's get into our orders.

So, so Mary, first off, are you, I don't know anything about your, your, your nutrition in general. If you're someone who eats more, you know, if you're, if you're a meat eater, if you're someone who does any sort of a dalliances and vegetarianism at all. And also, if you have any history with veggie grill. I was a vegetarian for a while in like high school and a large part of college. I was a vegan for a little bit in LA. Wow. And now I'm an everything person, but I think that I, I often am kind of like,

we all should be eating less meat probably. So yeah, there are moments where I'm kind of like, oh, maybe I should go back to vegetarian, but I do love fish. So that's my history right now. But I, and I have eaten at veggie grill before. As someone who cares about the environment quite a bit. I do wonder if I pulled a year like Weigar did, if the ice caps would refreeze. It's you who's melting them.

I might be partially responsible. You know, what are you supposed to do? Yeah. I don't think that even when I was like, I'll every once in a while get like, I'll read something and we'll be like, okay, that could be really true. But I don't believe that there are some people who believe that like we are supposed to be herbivores. And I don't believe we're supposed to be herbivores. I believe we're omnivores.

Yeah. Yeah, we're omnivores. I think you're right. I think we should, we should be eating way more fruits and veggies. But like we are supposed to, I feel like sometimes we're supposed to have some sort of meat or, or, you know, lean protein in some way, not just, I guess you could say it's tofu protein. Yeah. Yeah.

But, but I, but I think that it's like, you know, it's, it's tofu is not also like just something that grows in nature. That's like a processed food stuff. So it's like, I think in terms of what we've maybe evolved to do, it's, yeah, I'm sure, I think it's eating meats for sure. I think that's, that's definitely supposed to be part of our nutrition. I think it's a lot of hunting and gathering. And then every once in a while it was like, holy shit, we caught a deer kind of thing. Right. It's kind of what I believe.

There'll be scenarios where doctors will tell people to eat, like whoever have a vegan diet to tell them to eat meat. I'm not saying that this is right. I'm just saying like when, if you're having, if you're pregnant or with child, sometimes they tell you that there's like a lot of different scenarios. You can't get like, I believe vitamin B or one of the vitamin Bs without supplements if you're vegan. There's going to, here's the issue with this is there's just going to be a lot of angry vegans at us for good reason because I don't know, I don't know this world well enough. Why? There's not a contradiction here though. Like you can say that eating plant based is better for the environment and maybe the correct nutritional choice for you, but also that human biology probably by default demands some sort of meat.

You know, like, like that's probably like, like what we've been evolved to, to have that as part of our diet. Like that's not contradictory because if you're eating, if you're eating plant based, yeah, you can find alternate sources of protein that don't exist in nature. I'll tell you this much. I go a day without eating meat and my teeth and fingernails fall out. I think there's also a happy medium and I think this is kind of what Mary was driving towards, which is, I'm not saying that I've landed at the ideal spot because I think I could probably do better even this year. But like, you know, I didn't eat meat at all last year. I've reintroduced poultry and some poultry and fish to my diet this year. It's not an everyday thing.

It's not an every meal thing, but I'll have it on occasion. And I found like, like, like, yeah, just being able to moderate my intake and save it for, you know, I think there's a way you could do with that will reduce your own personal carbon footprint slash, you know, guilt of eating living creatures that have been tortured and killed. But also I'll say this, the larger the larger issue is systemic. It's not like individual choice. It's like all things. It's the fucking corporation just pumping carbon directly into the atmosphere. It's not whether or not you have a burger on occasion. I agree.

I've also thought of, sorry, interrupt, Mitch, that like trying to do almost like I only eat like good meat. You know what I mean? Only eat meat that is like locally sourced or different things like that. So that just even by price, I would be eating less of it, you know, and then just knowing that like that meat had a better life. Yeah. Sure. It's not good to go full Kirby, suck down any suck in every burger at McDonald's, which I do do from time to time. But honestly, this place, this place gives you some great options.

And here's what I have to say about this wax to get into the food. Uh-huh. The thing that, oh, that, and I think it's happened each time I've eaten at veggie grill. And so this is just my bad memory coming into play. But every time I eat it, I'm like, was this vegan? And then I look it up and it is indeed vegan. Yes. I think is actually kind of mind blowing how, how good it is for, for, so let me, let me get over what I got.

And I told you something wise. We teased this a while back on a, on a, on a feedback. But I was saying to you that the burger from veggie grill to me is maybe only rivaled by the impossible whopper as far as high praise. As far as, as far as fast food. And I look, and I don't know how you classify veggie grill is not available everywhere. Like we said, there's no drive through, but as far as I kind of like fast food in that world. Veggie girls. What does it call it here?

The VG, the veggie grill classic, the veggie grilled classic burger. I, I think it's a really, really great burger. That's, that's, I ordered the veggie classic burger last night. I also got myself large fries for an appetizer. I got two buffalo mini wraps. The buffalo mini wraps I've never had before wise. I had had like their buffalo chicken tenders basically. The buffalo mini wraps are good.

I fucking like them. I thought they were a tasty little app. And also I think that they do chicken pretty impressively there too. I was going to say, I think they do chicken very well. Very well. I'd like just recently we did Mary, we did the KFC beyond chicken. And we both liked it. But I'm like, this place like is regularly pushing out like fake chicken that works.

It actually really does work. Of course, there's no association with like KFC chicken. It's its own thing. So, you know, like probably easier to start at like, this is what our chicken is. And this, this is like our non chicken and so, but just really well done. Like biting into those buffalo mini mini wraps. First of all, like good flavor, a lot of good buffalo in like ranch or whatever the sauce is in there. But also I'm like, this is, this to me tastes kind of like chicken.

It's similar to chicken. It feels like I'm not, I'm not noticing too much of a difference. Like, like, like it's, it's, it's, I don't think you would be tricked, but close enough that my brain is like, good, I like it. So yeah, it's, it's buffalo chicken, lettuce, ranch dressing wrapped in flour tortillas. I liked them a true snack wise. The chicken they use there and you know, we've, we've, Gardein can be hit and miss, but they use a Gardein chicken there,

which the, which is soybeans, wheat, peas and, and grains. And yeah, I, I agree. I mean, it's, it's a, it's a good product. It's, it's, it's usually, and it's usually well fried, which goes a long way. They got a good fryer there. Um, I also got myself a bowl of mac and cheese. And this is what caused me to look up whether they were vegan, because I was not the first of all, the, the veggie grill burger,

which was the bite of the night for me. Why is that veggie grill, the veggie grill classic burger was, was my bite of the night. It was, it was really good. And that, that fake American cheese they use is, is great. Um, but the, the mac and cheese is what made me be like, is this vegan? And it's a pretty damn good mac and cheese. I heated some of it up.

I had a little, a few bites of it for lunch. Uh, impressive, really impressive. Um, I, I liked it. I took the lemon, the, there was lemon zest on it and I ordered it without lemon zest. I think the lemon zest is an odd choice. Cause I also got mac and cheese. Had lemon zest. It comes with the fault with, with breadcrumbs and lemon zest.

And I, I don't quite understand what it's doing there. I, I think then, and you know, I, I like their mac and cheese and I'll, I'll get it pretty frequently. If I go there and you, you'll be, you know, Natalie and I were having some of this. Uh, and first off, she was like, it's time for you to take another walk. So I went and did a few laps and then it came back and we talked about the mac and cheese and she was like, she was like, this doesn't really taste cheesy. And I agreed.

I think what it does is it does, it, it's creamy. Like it gets the creaminess of the mac and cheese. It gets that texture very good. But I think if you actually kind of try to like, you know, drill down the flavor, it's a little bit more ambiguously, you know, nutty as opposed to actually cheesy. Interesting. Nutty. I didn't, I didn't pick up on nutty as much, but I, but I, I mean, it did.

I, I wasn't sure whether it was cheese or not. So that's, I mean, that's a point for them, but. Yeah. No, for sure. My cheese meter might, might, might, might not be as good as yours apparently. It might be recalibrate that cheese. I gotta, I gotta recalibrate the cheese meter. I'm going to recalibrate it tonight.

Check the levels. Tonight I'll eat like every type of cheese so that I just know the taste of them. Um, Qualic just appears in your apartment. Where'd you come from? Somebody say cheese. Um, I, I wise, I, I kind of really enjoyed, especially without that lemon zest. Um, which I feel like maybe doesn't, which doesn't help.

Yeah. Um, I also got myself a seven layer bowl, which is like their burrito bowl. Uh, our play on the classic seven layer burrito, a great as a burrito, uh, at no charge layers of wild rice, lettuce, uh, ranchero beans, cheddar cheese, pico de gallo chipotle, uh, crema and mashed avocado. And I got that with, uh, Tex-Mex taco meat in a burrito. So I got like a big old burrito. I thought it was good.

I thought it was good for like a, it kind of gave me taco bell vibes. It was, it was, it was decent. It was a good no meat burrito. I, I, uh, Wait. So it's by default, it's a, it's a bowl, but you got it as a burrito. You can get it as a burrito. Yeah.

They basically put it in a, in a tortilla and I had taco bell packets on the table. I didn't use them because I thought it would be cheating, but, um, I was like, if I was putting taco bell sauce on this, it would, it could be a taco bell item. I, I, I enjoyed it, but bite of the night for sure for me was that burger. I got a dessert, but we should move on because I got a drink and a dessert, but we should move on. I'll get back to those. Yeah.

Let's stay on the savory side. Mary, what, what was your rundown? What did you get from veggie girl? Um, I got the Santa Fe chicken sandwich. Um, and my side was Greek, uh, chickpea salad. Um, and my only complaint is that like, I don't like sandwiches that are so big. It's like kind of impossible to take a bite of them because they can be, they're just so thick.

Um, which means I always have to kind of break them down into like two different pieces, um, two sections. And then you're not really getting the experience of the whole package. Um, Yeah. It's the sort of thing of like eating an apple, like a sandwich. It's like apple. I like putting your mouth around an apple or something.

That's always like, uh, you know, does that make sense? Yeah. Even that like raw burger sandwich you were talking about. It's like, you can't take a full bite of that. Yeah. Like it's just, it's like, looks exciting, but you, you can't get sausage and a burger patty and an egg and two buns. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Um, but you have to unhinge your jaw. You'd have to unhinge your jaw. You'd have to anaconda that. Um, Which Wagner and I, Wagner and I can do by the way. You guys have accomplished that now. Um, I really liked it.

When, when Usong died, actually my John hinged, I anacondaed him. It was kind of oddly touching. And you spit out his skeleton like Heathcliff with a fish. And it came out like a xylophone. I had it on the notes. Um, I think what really sold me also on that was, um, they had, I believe, like pickled, um, probably onions. They were like purple and I, I love a pickled anything.

Um, and it had avocado on it. And I couldn't tell though, if it was like how sometimes like Subway will do like avocado paste or if it was mashed avocados. Interesting. Uh, yeah. I would say, I would hope that they would do real stuff at veggie grill. But who knows. Especially in California generally is, I think it usually is.

Um, and I also appreciated with, um, they had some kind of tangy mayo like sauce. And I did like that. That's, so with the fries I got ketchup and there was also a Chipotle aioli. Yeah. I think that's why you had on that. Yeah. I was going to say the fries to me, I don't know if you got any fries. Uh, uh, the fries were maybe my more disappointing thing.

Also travel with fries is tough. Yeah. But the fries for me were a little bit kind of a let down. I don't know if they would have been better just in, you know, I have an air fryer here. I should, I should have given them a couple of minutes in there. Give them a little toss. I should have given them a little toss in the air fryer. I fucked up, but, but, uh, I thought, I think they're okay.

I don't like, uh, uh, there's tots too. There is that, is there tots? I didn't see tots, but I think they have sweet potato fries. Sweet potato fries. That's what it is. Okay. I decided not to get fries just because I, and maybe I was wrong that like, okay, I was trying to just try more different things.

And I appreciated that when a side they'll give you like a healthy side. And I almost got the lentil soup. Um, but I went with the, the chickpea salad. Um, and it was like a Greek one. It had a lot of dill in it and some Kalamata olives and red onions and maybe some cucumbers. Um, and it was, it was very good. It, um, it added nicely. Yeah.

That sounds, that sounds nice. I, I want no healthy sides. I want mac and cheese and fries, which I will say that I didn't eat much of either of them. Like the fries I had a few and I just stopped and then the mac and cheese I saved, I had some and I saved more for today. And I still haven't finished it. Um, but there are, they do have an impressive list of sides. You can get a lot of different things.

Many sides. Yeah. Which was, which was nice. And then I, um, I got a, an unsweetened iced tea and I love that as an option. Yeah. Yeah. I got, I, I do so much, I have so much, do so much iced tea these days because it's just like, it's, it's a simulacrum of like a soft drink.

Soft drink. You know. Yeah. Without sugar. There's the word. That fucking J R R token sounding bullshit simulacrum. But that chicken was, um, I, when I took a bite of the chicken, I was like, I'm impressed with this chicken.

Yeah. It's impressive chicken. It was a thick patty. Um, and it was kind of like they got, they have the texture down pretty, pretty well. Yeah. I agree. They do, they do get chicken there and they surprisingly do a good fake fish, which I haven't had a lot of that's, that's all that good, but this is, they have a Cajun fish sandwich there

that's on their limited menu, which is the brand that uses good catch, crispy fish filet. Natalie got one of those. And also as a, it comes with a, you know, lettuce tomato, a pickled celery and a Cajun devil sauce, which, you know, I'm a bit of a heat seeker and I had a bit of it. It's like, oh, this actually has some decent spice to it. Natalie eats way spicier foods than me. So she was, she didn't think it didn't phase her, but I was like, it had, it had some actual heat, which usually at fast food restaurants, you can't sense anything.

Certainly I couldn't on there. Now let me say the only thing worse than the regular devil is the Cajun devil. Oh, that Cajun devil come down to now limbs and he'll steal your beads. Gotta be careful. He's pitchfork. Why at the end of it, he puts hot habanero sauce. So when it pokes you, you also get the sting. You know, that devil, he, uh, he stole a chef Paul Prudhomme's wheelchair.

Yeah, he's a feisty one. No good. That Asian devil, good character. Yeah. A man fearful of the Cajun devil, not the Cajun devil, a man fearful, a man who's afraid of him, and not Adam Sandler's, and not Adam Sandler's Cajun man. No, no, not that. This is a guy who's afraid of the Cajun devil.

This man talks about much less. And you know what? Sandler's Cajun man didn't really talk about too much either. So it's a pretty low bar. That's true. Cajun. I got these. So the Cajun fish sandwich was like, look, the actual fake fish was, was pretty

darn good. The texture was good. To Mary's point about the sandwich size, and Natalie did something savvy here, which is that she subbed in a wheat bun because veggie grill is in love with brioche, and brioche for me is so dated as a bun. It's just like, I never loved it when, in its heyday, but now if you're still holding on to brioche, it's like, this is just, it just makes everything so bunny.

And I, I don't need that much bun. And I think that all that contributes to these sandwiches is just being a little bit oversized for the average chomp. Well, and, and the brioche bun is also what came on the Steakhouse burger, which you know, Cajun fish sandwich, all, all, all that said was, was very good. The Steakhouse burger also surprisingly good. They've started using Beyond Burgers and veggie grill now. This also had caramelized onions, lettuce and a horseradish aioli and a fake

blue cheese that I went, we were gobsmacked by. That's impressive. It was really, really good fake blue cheese. Like, like it, like a little bit of a chemically sciency after taste, but it tasted pretty, pretty close to, I tried not to say simulacrum again. It tasted pretty close to actual blue cheese and I was impressed by it. I also got the, but that was a very satisfying burger, Mitch. Like, like, like as far as just like a veggie burger goes, you know, I probably

would have rather had a more conventional burger, but just as a fun, limited thing to try. It was, it was, it was quite. When you took a bite, when you took a bite and you were gobsmacked, where you're like, it just erupted out of you. I did. That's what happened.

Uh, I also got the, is it, wait, is that God smack? Yes, but also, okay. And also is it the band God smacked? I got in some trouble with this. Cause I, like we kind of went in on corn and I don't even dislike corn. We were too hard on corn. Yeah. If you used a corn song.

Wait, that's a God smacked song. I always thought it was a corn song. Oh, that one. That's not, that's, wait, it's like down with the sickness. I don't know if, right. Oh, that is maybe down with the sickness. You're right. Or something.

Is down with the sickness a band or a song or a song? No, it's a song. Who is, is that, is that POD or something instead? Down with the sickness is disturbed. Yeah. Okay. Disturbed. We're looking for disturbed.

Oh, wait, God's, God's Mack is more like dorky, right? POD is secret Christian. I did know that. Okay. I'm not sure. I don't, I don't know. I have no idea. Anyway, at the end of the day.

Anyways, the joke was worth it. It was worth it. Yeah, I was, I was God smacked. I did go, wow. So it's, it's true either way. So what do you want, listeners? What do you want? You want the truth or you want that joke?

That perfect joke. I also got the orange chicken bowl and this is, you know, hey, I like a good fake orange chicken. I've had a few decent ones. It's a shame that Panda Express hasn't quite rolled it out nationally. They've, they've tried it in some test markets. But I'm really waiting for them to get that, that they're,

they're fake orange chicken, you know, cause they're the gold standard, but I've had a good, I've got a fake, a fake orange chicken at a few, you know, local, local restaurants. Almost got that. I saw that too. Yeah. This was quite good. Also had a garlic broccoli and brown rice and had a lot of

broccoli. So it, you know, I think this was marginally healthy. I mean, certainly that sauce was laden with sugar, but you were certainly getting a lot of dietary fiber to contradict it. Also some pickled Fresno peppers, which was nice and some almonds for a little bit of crunch, crispy cauliflower. It's interesting that they have both a fake buffalo chicken and also like a, like a cauliflower now.

I feel like that's just like kind of like people have figured out that, that, that fried cauliflower is close enough to, to fried buffalo or to buffalo chicken that they just kind of have that as a substitute. But here they have both, but I thought this was quite good and it's, it's got green onions. You can get it with an orange dip and sauce. You can get it with a buffalo.

I wish I'd gotten extra buffalo because I do feel like the one little, little jug or, or little jacuzzi they gave me wasn't quite enough to cover all of it. I would have liked a little bit more sauce there and I would have liked them, I would have liked some fake or fake blue cheese dressing on the side for dipping that. So I, I feel like I should have an extra dip in sauces, but it's a good texture to the fry.

Mac and cheese we talked about Natalie at the Moroccan lentil soup, which she liked and that brings us to dessert, which we'll talk about. If you could go into a non water filled jacuzzi, what would you choose as your liquid wigs? Great question. Um, are we saying like if this would be, so would be jacuzzi temperature.

So this would be nice. This would be hot and bubbly. Yeah. I think Buffalo sauce will, would burn your genitals. Would definitely burn your genitals. Also just might scald you in general. Like, so that could be an issue, but I, hmm, I think my answer might be like, boy, I don't want to be in hot, I was going to

say hot soda and I was like, I don't want to be in a hot soda. Hot soda. Well, cause I was thinking, I was thinking just like, oh, bubbly soda, that would be fun. But then I realized like, oh wait, it's going to be like 120 degrees or whatever hot jacuzzi's are. You want to be like the evanescence of, of soda. Yes.

Yeah. Maybe a cocoa, maybe a cocoa. I was just going to say cocoa, like hot cocoa with some big marshmallows floating around. That would be fun. Yeah. That's fun. Yeah.

That's fun. Mary, any, any, any, uh, or do you just choose not to partake? You can also do that. Uh, some, um, something that I thought of is, and again, you have to think about, if you're sitting, so you don't have to worry too much about the buoyancy of it. Cause I think a lot about like what you could swim in and a pool. Um, uh, I, moose comes to mind, like a chocolate moose, but

also that's going to be tough 120 degrees as well. Yeah. That's going to try into maybe a sludgy, when that bubbles, I bet it's going to hurt your eyes because it, it feels like the surface tension of that, uh, moose is going to bubble over. It really hurts you. I'm looking at finding the, finding the ideal hot tub temperature. This is from jacuzzi.com.

So, you know, it's, it's correct. The majority of hot tub users prefer water temperature at the range of 102 degrees, 100 degrees Fahrenheit to 102 degrees Fahrenheit, 104 degrees Fahrenheit is a standard maximum temperature. Okay. So yeah. So I was thinking 120.

I was a little bit off, a little high there. So yeah, still, still, still quite, still human body temperature though. A little bit, a little bit above like yelling human body with a fever. By the way, in the chat, MRO is disturbed. The Reddit nerds yelled at us about it in the past episode. You guys won't learn. Yeah, you won't learn. Why is there anything on that website that says like best, like the

most fun thing besides water in a jacuzzi? Let me see. Let me check their FAQ. I think a broth could also be fun too. Broth could be fun. Like a chicken broth. Yeah. Chicken broth would be good.

You know what? If you're sick, feeling sick and you get into a jacuzzi filled with chicken broth, might be all right. I feel like. Might cure you. Uh, yeah. This is jacuzzi.com says, uh, says Texas style chili, no beans, which is interesting. All right.

I respect it. I respect it. They're the authority. Let's talk dessert. Mitch, you get, you got yourself a sweet treat. I did. Why? Cause I got myself a sweet treat.

My sweet treat. What? Well, first of all, I got a lemonade. I just got the classic lemonade. It was good. I liked the lemonade. Nice lemonade. Uh, but look, also don't have to do too much, but it was a homemade lemonade.

Uh, I had to put some ice back in it when I got back to the house. Not bad. I liked it. A good lemonade for my dessert. I got myself the chocolate parfait and I really liked it. I thought that was vegan too. That's vegan. Yeah.

I think everything there is vegan. I believe I'm pretty sure. Um, and, uh, there's some left in the fridge. I should go get it right now. Actually it was good. Um, but yeah, surprisingly good. Like there were parts of it cause there's like a lot of like chocolate pudding where I'm like, Oh, I can see that this is probably made with like a water base or

whatever, but still good, still really good. I liked it. I liked it a lot. Mary, did you get yourself a dessert course? I didn't get a dessert, but I, I do want to say before I forget. And I don't know if this happened to you, Mitch. They put my drink inside of my to go bag and I thought that was very odd. Yeah.

That is strange. No, the same thing with me. I've seen that happen in New York city when I've gotten to go stuff. They put the drink in the bag. Which I never understood. And they like, they like, I think it's a new COVID thing where they like, um, they put like tape over the bag. So somehow you don't think that like a little goblin came and infected your bag.

Yes. But immediately I had to like fish my drink out cause I was like, I can't drive home with a drink and a bag. Yeah. It's chaos. I would not want a little goblin coming in and affecting. First of all, terrifying. For sure.

I don't want that. I also think of the goblin actually got delivered to you on top of all that. The goblin got in the bag, like fell in. Yeah, fell in the bag. And then no one would believe you. Cause every time you were like, look, there's a goblin. He wouldn't be there. That feels like gremlins three.

If there's not a gremlins three already, that's how the third, that's how that gremlin comes about. There will be, there'll be a gremlins three at some point. Yeah. Um, it's going to suck. I watched gremlins two, um, during the pandemic recently and I was like, man, movies used to just be like, let's have the most fun we can. Yeah.

Let's just have the most fun. That gremlins two rules, the, the, the remake of, of the new gremlins will have Gizmo come back and he's led like a depressing life since the last movie. And then he'll die. Cause that's the, that's the formula for every bring back the movie is the characters you love have, have lived terrible existences and now they die. You get to see them die. You thought that happy ending we saw was like going to be their life from now on,

but no, they just were subject to the further memory. No, no, they split up. His life has sucked since. Oh yeah. And now he's dead. We watched like Gizmo go through like the beginning of garden state. Like it's like that. Headphones on.

Yeah. Just at his like mom's funeral blending in with the wallpaper. I don't think I told this story on the podcast, but last year I met Gizmo nice dude, the nicest last year I was at a bar and the, the bartender, I was just there by myself and now he told me to get out of the house for a bit and the bartender was like, like you kind of, your vibe like just reminds me of that guy from garden state. And I was talking for a little bit trying to figure out who he meant.

And yeah, I was like, I was like, Oh, Zach Braff, like the main guy. He's like, no, not Braff. No, like his friend. And then I was like, look in the IMDB, like trying to remember. I was like, like, like Peter Sarsgaard. He's like, no, it's like, no, you don't like look like him. Uh, I went down the cast list and figured out it was Natalie Portman. No, it was, it was, uh, he was like, I was like, Oh, the guy from the hotel,

you know, like, like he's in the hotel with him. And I was like, like, like, huh? He met Method Man. He thought he were, he said, my vibe reminded him of Method Man. What are you talking about? Dear Lord. Also, very funny to choose Garden State as the Method Man. Yeah.

That's reminded the guy from, yeah, Garden State. I think if you think I'm like Method Man, that's where you know Method Man from. Yeah. Yeah. The supporting actor from Garden State. Yeah. Very strange. I ran to Gizmo at a bar and I was like, Hey, dude, can I get you like a shot

or something? He's like, come on, man. Look at the clock. Yeah. What time was it? Come on, dude, come on. And he's like, I can't get wet. So just get it.

Just get out of here, dude. He kind of like kicked me out of there. He kicked you out. You were like, well, what are you doing here? Well, he was like, he was like, he was like, one of those like, you know how like, he was behind one of those like velvet ropes. It was in the club. Oh, so you were shouting from afar.

Did I get you a shot? He was like, get this, get this clown out of here. It was Gizmo and Mack for Mack and me. There were a few people behind. Oh, they hung out. They hang out. I've heard that. Yeah, there was a, yeah.

I kind of have like a pussy posse. The E.T. E.T. is there. Yeah. Yeah, they got their own pussy posse going. Yeah. Ethan Supley is also in that group. He's the only crossover for both pussy posse.

He's the only crossover. I got the key lime cake and this was nice. This was, this was flavorful. It, it, it, you know, nice little zest to it. And, you know, again, hey, it's, it's supposed to be like a fake cheesecake and it does a pretty decent job. I don't know. I do think that the vegan desserts are, are usually pretty easy to come close

because you can just load it up with sugar and, you know, things like chocolate or not vegan Oreo cookies are vegan. So it's like, it's, it's, it's, uh, it's not the, it's not the biggest challenge there, but it's nice that they offer some good quality desserts there. If that, if you're craving a sweet treat, it's not just toss-ins. Like it's at some fast food restaurants. I also like that they offer, and I didn't get any this time. And, but, you know, if I dine in on occasion, I like that they have beer and wine.

It's, it's nice to have. If you, you know, you, you, you go to your, you want, you're going to have an indulgent meal anyway. Yeah. Maybe you want to have a little booze. So it's nice that they offer that. Anyway, let's get to our final thoughts on veggie grill. Will, to, to call back Mitch's teas, will it remain the golden play club?

Will it escalate to the platinum clay club? We're about to find out. So, Mary, here's how this will work. We'll each go around, give a closing argument, if you will, about this chain and then give it a score from zero to five forks. You are our guest. We will begin with you. Platinum plate would be five forks, just so you know, no pressure.

Um, okay. My closing thoughts on this are, I think that the, the meal that I had, it did the meal very well. Um, the chicken sandwich was, was pretty good. I thought that everything in it was like quality throughout every component. It felt like they're really trying. Um, and the chickpea salad was very fresh. And again, I appreciated that they were, uh, offering multiple, multiple sides. Um, that being said, looking at some of the other options, it wasn't a huge menu,

which I don't really mind if you do everything really well, you know, within that. I'm okay that you have like a little bit of a smaller, um, menu. Uh, but I, I will say, and maybe this is a little bit of a tangent. They had to want chicken wings on the menu as a picture. They've got to take a new picture of it because it just looked like weird amorphous sticks. It, it, they weren't chicken wings. So, um, I will give it three and a half. Wow.

Wow. Um, yeah. Three and a half forks. Well, there, there's the answer. It is out of the golden plate club. Out of the golden plate club, but still a good score. Mary. Wow.

All right. Slice, what do you think? Well, I was going to go up in my score. I was going to wait to see what you did for a score. And then I was going to have you go first, but look, I can go first. Do you want me to go first? No, no, I don't know. Now we're going to fuck you.

It's losing golden plate club status today. And look, I think what we say on this, on this podcast is does it do what it's trying to do well? And I think that it does. I think that, I think that veggie grill really does a good job of what they're trying to do. Now, could they offer more healthy stuff, more salads, more things like that? They could.

Uh, could it be more like, you know, like for me, it's like an inconvenient restaurant that we go to because the only, I mean, even the Hollywood Boulevard one or the whatever sunset, the one that was next to the arc light was a pain in the ass to kind of get to as well. Um, and is this a place that's like a drive through window? No, it's kind of in the, in the, in between world wise, like you were saying, it's kind of like the habit or whatever. It's kind of a sit down place that being said, the bite of the night was that

burger and I think that next to the impossible offer, it rivals, it rivals only that for, for fast food, uh, veggie burger, not only veggie burger, but this is a vegan burger, which the impossible offer isn't even, uh, it's vegetarian. You know, you have to make some substitutions to get a vegan. Um, those buffalo wraps were really good. My lemonade was good. The fries were a little disappointing, but you know, I gotta give them a pass. My dessert was good.

Why I'm not going full, I wouldn't have gone full platinum, but I'm going, I'm going higher than Mary. I'm going 4.5 forks. I think this is, I, I, I mean, I think one day this could be platinum play club, uh, but, but also, Hey, it's not, it's not golden play club. It's out. Yeah. You're out of here.

It's getting tossed, but I think for, for a vegan place, why is exactly what you said of this, this is the perfect restaurant for me. If you're with someone who doesn't eat, who doesn't eat meat is, or possibly is a vegan and there was a big fucking tubby idiot like me who wants fucking burgers and fries. This, this is kind of the perfect restaurant for a group of people like that and, and yeah, which, Hey, is more of what the world is like now. So 4.5 forks for me.

Uh, but Hey, I was stood from the golden play club. Yeah. I think that, I think that was Mary's point about, about, about just like, yeah, in mixed company in terms of, of dietary preferences. Like if you, yeah, it's, it can satisfy both sides. And I, I, I agree with that. And I think it's, it's correct. And I think that veggie girl is good.

It was in my regular rotation when I lived near one. I think it's perhaps. Instructive that now that I don't live near one, I don't make special trips to it really ever like, like there, there's something to that of, of it's good, but it's not necessarily go out of the way good. But is that availability or no? I mean, like you, you do go out of your way for stuff. My way for stuff.

I did four forks the first time I reviewed it and I'm 4.5, but again, I'm like you, I don't go often. If I mean, I maybe the last time I went was for the podcast. Uh, I don't remember my fork score for the first time I'd have to review the Doughboy's Wikipedia, but it was 4.5 wasn't the golden play club. So I went 4.5. I think I'm going to go down a little bit just because I, I mean, I think it's good.

I think it's solid. I do think it's a little, perhaps I like that they've, they've integrated the beyond burger, although for some of their menu, they still have their house made veggie patty, which again, I'm not quite sure why they, they're doing both, but they are evolving. I do get a little frustrated with veggie grill in terms of they rotate out items that I think are some, that should be sort of staples of their menu. I mean, that's the Taco Bell issue.

You know, it's, it's, it's just some of those, some of those salads, some of those bowls that they have on the menu, they, they'll, they'll get out of, uh, you know, they'll get, they'll take off the regular menu to make them seasonal for no particular reason. And that can be a little bit frustrating as, as someone who dines there. But I think it's really solid. I think that, that, you know, it's, it's, it's to your point, Mitch, this absolutely succeeds what it's trying to do, which is to, to give you a plant

based fast food. And I think top and down there, there, top to bottom, there's winners up and down the menu. So I'm going to split the difference between the two of you and say four forks, four forks or veggie grill, which has it on the outside looking in of the golden plate club, but it's just barely on the outside. It's like, it's like peeking. It's like got it's got its fingers over the window sill.

I went up, you went down. Now I feel a little bit bad. I hope I kicking hearing I kicked it out of the golden plate club feels. Look, you're going to get doxed, but that's just the way things work. But that's just being a woman on the internet. Yes. Sadly, the reality. I wish I will say, I wish I would have heard the rubric of does it do well at

what it's trying to do? Uh, or what it's, what it's, that's Weigar's fault. He should have said that before. That's okay. Uh, that qualification, even I'm like, you know what, we should all just be presenting ourselves that way. Are we doing well for what we can do? Kind of.

Yeah. Um, and the answer is no for me. I wouldn't be in the golden plate club, but then again, I can't really do shit. So maybe I'm doing well. I don't know. I'm going to stick with my thing just to stick with it. You know, um, I think it's a fair score, but that is a, I like that, uh, modifier, that, uh, that piece of the rubric.

I think it's the only way to actually evaluate these places because if you actually put them up against like, you know, a lot of local restaurants are just, it's, it's just a completely different quality. Yeah. Wow. Well, goodbye golden play club. No, I, I, I, I just, uh, I don't know. I forgot.

I, uh, I respect the score and that's the way that's the way I thought Mary was going to go high. That's what I was going to say. I thought you were going to go high. So I was shocked, a shocker. I will say too, and I think we should value food and things cost things, but when I was ordering online, it did feel like, um, some of the things it would like present is like, okay, this is an $11 sandwich, which is just like, okay.

That was like, now choose your side. You have to. And then it felt like, okay, well now your side is $3 more. And it's like, well, if I have to choose a side, some of the pricing I thought was a, was maybe a little bit more than I would have thought. For what this is. I think that's absolutely fair. Yeah.

I don't think it's cheap. There's, it's, it's not. And I, I mean, and we've talked about this. Why, cause that's the issue with a lot of, uh, like the impossible whoppers more than the regular whopper, right? Like it's just the way things are priced right now. So I get it. Yeah.

I get it. Well, there you go. That was our review. Eventually Mary, you want to give out like your email or address? Just so people can talk to you. Make it easier for them. Don't make them in work. We'll take a break.

We'll be back with more dough boys. Hey you, you craving fresh, delicious, easy meals, try wild grain and get their bake from frozen sourdough breads, fresh pastas and artisanal pastries delivered right to your door. That's right. Why is wild grain is the first ever bake from frozen subscription box for sourdough breads, fresh pastas and artisanal pastries. Unlike typical supermarket bread, wild grain uses a slow fermentation process.

That's easier on your belly, lower in sugar and rich in nutrients and antioxidants. Every item bakes from frozen in 25 minutes or less. You'll never run the risk of getting bored with wild grain. They're constantly adding new seasonal and limited time special items to try. Plus for every new member, wild grain, donate six meals to the greater Boston Food Bank Wags, Boston baby. So you can eat good and do good all at the same time. All you have to do is sign up at wildgrain.com slash dough boys and choose

which type of box you want to receive and how often it's easy to reschedule, skip or cancel. Plus for a limited time, you can get $30 off the first box plus free croissants in every box when you go to wildgrain.com slash dough boys to start your subscription. You heard me. Free croissants in every box and $30 off your first box when you go to wildgrain.com slash dough boys.

That's wildgrain.com slash dough boys or you can use promo code dough boys at checkout. Do it. Welcome back to dough boys. We are here with our guests, Mary Sassen and Mitch. It's time for a segment. Mary, you've been sentenced to death. Wow. That's right.

It's the future. The year 2020, 25, not that far in the future. Yeah. Pretty soon. Pretty soon. A new strain of COVID has arisen. Jesus. Called Stovid.

And it was spread by anyone who's ever handled a terrible towel at a Pittsburgh Steelers game. Wow. And the government running out of solutions has decided to round everyone up in Steel City and melt them down in the steel factories. Oh my God, grim fate. But Mary, before they do that, it's the government after all, they're going to give you a choice of one last meal on the house, good old government.

It's going to let you order anything you'd like from anywhere on earth. What is your ideal last meal? Now look, you can think of a drink, alcohol, dessert, main, sides, anything you want. Everything is on the table. The no expense will be spared and nothing is logistically impossible. Whatever you want can be accomplished. Well, a few things off the top, I'm thinking, my whole family's dead in this. We're all getting executed.

So everyone, I love that. Yes. That's the first thing I'm thinking of. I mean, yeah. I guess so. That's the side note. That's, yeah. Look, they're rounded up with you.

You're going in to be melted down first. That's kind of nice. Can I tell you a story about a last meal? And if it's too sad, you could edit it out. But this is what I think about with last meals. My friend's dad was a lawyer and did a pro bono death row case. And he lost and he was with the person he was with on like further last meal. And this person ordered a whopper and he was asking the my friend's dad was like,

how is it? And the guy said, it's cold. Oh, my God. And it made me think this is the saddest. Yeah, it's a bummer. It makes me think about how like when we think of last meals, we imagine they're going to do the best version of it. But of course, the prison system.

Yeah, sure, we'll get you a whopper, but we're not running to get it to you. And by the time you get it, yeah, you're getting your last meals a whopper. It's a cold whopper. Yeah, God, the death row inmate. I'm sorry, the death row intern has to go out and buy the whopper. That's that man made that guy rest in peace. Very that is so sad. Yeah, I'm sorry.

I just think about that story and I always feel like I'm burdening the people whoever I tell. I should probably stop telling that story. No, it's like it's almost like the ring tape where we had to tell that story. And now the listeners have heard it and they have to share it in some way. But that is a very, very sad story. Awful. Yeah, I don't think there should be no death penalty, but yeah. So I'll give you even a new clean start in case you don't want that in.

OK, my last meal. I think I'm going to start with like a very dirty martini which feels like mostly olive brine. So that's going to be like my first drink. Mm hmm. God, for a meal. I think. You're feeling good now.

You've just had this martini. Yeah, I'm a little buzzed off of this beautiful, dirty martini. I'm going to go with just like a really good plate of fish and chips. Wow. There you go. I like it. Yeah, just like when they get like the cod pieces are just like very thick cod and I might even switch to also having like just a great beer with that, which is what we are going from like a martini to that.

Hell, why not? Like a like a half a vison with that meal. I think always tastes really good. Yeah. What do you like to dip your fish and chips in? Are you a are you a tartar sauce? You a malt vinegar person? I think I probably would dip it in tartar sauce,

but I wouldn't I would probably ask them to have malt vinegar on the table to just kind of like sprinkle some over the fish kind of. Give you all the options. Yeah, every option. And then. Cocktail sauce, why not? Yeah, just put it on there. Ranch, maybe I'll dip one bite into that.

And then for a dessert. I think I'm going and this is tough because I think that. I think we rarely make we're like a great chocolate cake where I get to say like, no, this was like you have to some cakes. I feel like it's very easy to sleep through them. Yeah, I get the option somehow. I argue the option to be like, I take a small bite of the chocolate cake and I'm like, no, go back and.

Good way to prolong your death, too. Yeah, I got to prolong your your like you put off your sentence for a while as to like Shahara's odd just keeps sending rejected cakes. Yeah, I just keep rejected cakes and it has some like Shahara's odd. I said yes, but I didn't know what that meant. Yeah, and it has like a vanilla bean ice cream on the side. Like we're definitely going out of mode and I better be able to count those black specs in there again.

Oh, hell yeah. If that vanilla ice cream is like a tinge of yellow, I'm sending it back. Wow, I love it. And again, I have that like to hear a song. I've paid that power. I'm guessing as a horny character from one of Weigar's Manga's that. And I'm going to do that thing where like you eat with other people's parents and they're like, get a coffee, like I'm going to get a coffee, too.

Oh, that's good. Wow. A boozy coffee or just straight up coffee? I think just straight up at this point. But I might have also. Let's say for dessert, because again, we're being decadent. I ask for like what's a good last drink? Um, I don't even know. I asked for like a like a Cosmo or some kind of like just like one of those drinks.

It's like pretty boozy Cosmo might be too sweet, but to go out on a good last one to go out on. Yeah. Yeah. Me not maybe even look a Soko and Lime shot, honestly. It's crazy. Oh, there you go. Just a college shot.

Well, Mary, you have your meal. You and your family are kept in an outdoor pen before they send you to your death, but that evening, when you finish your meal, you see a helicopter flying over your head and it says P B on the bottom of it. It's the Pramante brothers themselves. Wow. They drop down a giant loaf of bread and your family crawls up into the copter and you as well.

Unfortunately, you've had too much to drink. So you fall off, you fall off that loaf of bread and you fall back into the pen. And that's the end of the story. You had too much to drink in your final meal, but your family is saved. Great. Honestly, if in 2025 we're still rolling out COVID's, I might. But then guess what? More good news.

Me and a bunch of anti-vaxxers. We've started a convoy and we come and we break you out ourselves. Hell yeah. The true heroes of the story, the anti-vaxxer convoy. You and all of your Quincy friends, frail bot, chankton. And then we all, then you, you get out, but we all get stovet and we die. When the stovet that got you was that Cajun devil. The devil did it.

My family has a euphemism that we say a lot of like, if that happens, I'm taking the bridge, which means I'm killing myself. So we're just always just like, if that happens, I'm taking the bridge. If another COVID is still going on in 2025, I've taken the bridge for sure. Well, here's the deal. I think it would, we might have it forever, but it won't be as bad. Yeah, I think that we, I think it will, we're not getting away from it. It's could become the flu, but yeah, yeah.

And then there'll be some other new deadly disease. Yeah. Some epidemiologists was like, your great, I read was like, your great grandchildren will still be getting vaccinated for COVID, which was very grim. I was like, oh, well, that just jokes on you, I guess they won't exist. That was last meal. Just like a restaurant value feedback. Let's open up the feedback.

And today we have an email from Jenna, Jenna writes, my boss and I spent an entire afternoon trying to decide in a vacuum, all potential circumstances put aside, which food is the saddest? Figured y'all are the authority on this type of thing. So I had to ask our list so far is plain baked potato, hard boiled egg, frozen peas, cooked, plain oatmeal, boiled cabbage in parentheses, pathetic. That's Jenna's editorializing. You don't have to answer me, but if you don't, I'll probably die.

XOXO. Wow. Jesus. Should I've had the, should I've had the, the gizmo pussy posse help break Mary out of jail? Oh, that would have been fun. I, I think the way you handled it was good. I would, the no pervanti brothers had mentions until that point in such a

Pittsburgh heavy episode, I thought that was fun. Yeah. Yeah. No, don't second guess yourself. I do like the gizmo pussy posse quite a bit. Um, yeah. Well, that was fun. Saddest food.

They came up with some really good ones. We'll do a note session after the show. That best will stop by. He'll remember your name. Not my or Mary's notes and also you, the intern Susan. I know you're new here, but. I'm on a house team, uh, saddest, saddest food. I always think of a, of a bruised banana from the gas station.

There's something about that of it, that it's just like, it's or from a seven 11 of, of because the situation when you're having that is just like, fuck, I should eat something healthy. I'll have this, this bad banana. That's going to cost me like a dollar. Uh, and I'll have that with my fucking Gatorade or whatever. Or you're hungover. That's the scenario when you're getting.

If hangover banana, Jesus. Yeah. Sounds like a Harold team name, hangover banana. Um, I, uh, your guys opening isn't working. And that's doing the pattern game correctly. It's funny to me because like there is like, to me, like, there is like a sink, like a bachelor dinner. That's probably really sad.

Like, like a, like a, a TV dinner is kind of sat as could I could classify as sad food or like a box, a whole box of mac and cheese, even though that was my go-to dinner for like a lot of high school, uh, that's like a sad dinner that all like 3000 calories of it or whatever I ate. Um, but singular sad food is like a little bit trickier to me because like, look, you say cabbage and I'm thinking boiled dinner, corn, beef and cabbage. I don't mind a little cabbage, but, but boiled cabbage on its own. Yeah.

If that's your entire, sure. Yeah. Yeah. I would add, and this is also, I think it like, I've thought about it cream of mushroom soup, it gets added to a lot of stuff. But if all you could have was like, here you go, here's cream of mushroom soup. Yes. I was thinking the same thing with chicken broth or something too.

Cause that also means like you're just sick and you're just drinking chicken broth, but people like to see, it's just tricky for me, like a salad with no dressing is sad. That's a bummer or, or just, and, and, and maybe more generally, like it's like the bad diner salad or the bad fast food salad, like the side salad from like, you know, that's, that's just a tack on on the menu can be really just like old produce and dressing or not, it can just be, just be a bummer. I think, I think Mary's onto something with the cream of mushroom soup,

because that is a thing of like, what, what if I just had a bowl of cream of mushroom soup, it's always, it's always made into some sort of sauce. So I think that would be kind of a bummer of a meal. That, that is kind of a desperation meal. I feel like a craft single. Yeah. I was going to say American cheese, I think is always, I love it. It's good, but just a slice of cheese on its own.

Yeah. It's especially pulled like, like pull out of the wrapper does feel like a little bit of a bummer. What about it? Like a salted tomato. Yeah. Although that can have its place. Not Jesus.

I don't mind a salted tomato. How about a dry rice cake? That's a bummer. That's a real bummer. That also feels like you're eating a dry rice cake, not necessarily because there's nothing else to eat, but you like learned about diets on a cartoon and that's where you are in life. Right.

Like no pleasure food. It just, it just is a very tricky thing to me because it's like, you could say like instant ramen is like a sad bachelor meal. Or you could say like, Jesus, these pathetic things on their own. You could go different, two different ways with it. So I, well, but there's, there's an angle of. Yeah, ramen is, ramen can feel kind of like a bummer, but, but A, you can plus it up, which I know isn't the, which I know isn't the exercise, but no,

like if you're talking about eating on a budget, like, like there's, you could do a lot worse for eating on a budget than, than you're, than some ramen. All right. How about instant mac and cheese, the shitty version of mac and cheese that. It's like just in a cup at a gas station. That can be a bummer when you just add hot water to it. Yeah, I'm with you. Those noodles are very like weird cause they're like designed to just.

Being a cup in a gas station. That's a good one. Yeah. A lot of gas station food. You know what? Yeah. That's, that's a good call. 7-Eleven.

Oh, like a 7-Eleven to keto or something. Yeah. Something that's been on the roller for too long, like 7-Eleven, like 7-Eleven wings bum me out. Like I think anything that's like been sitting around. Yeah. 7-Eleven. I'd like to make a case that it's going to sound, I think plain oatmeal can be a

real, um, if you're in a hotel and that is offered, that's a good breakfast. Wow. True. And it's also not going to make you feel like shit. It's not going to make you feel like shit. Take it off the list. And also I will say too, if I am someone who like, as soon as my feet leave my apartment, I can't go to the bathroom.

Like I'm constipated the entire time on a trip, but oatmeal will really help you along. There you go. That can be a good thing. Yeah. That's why I think it's a good thing. My feet leave the apartment and then I could, might not be able to stop going. You're just diarrhea city.

Yeah. Dierity city. Population, Mr. Slice. Together we're a healthy working bowel. I'm on a trip. There's something very retro. I used to have fruit cocktail as a kid and I feel like I'm going to have fruit cocktail

now that would kind of feel like a bummer, you know, or just like a can of pears and syrup can sometimes feel like kind of a bummer. That's your only thing. That's pretty sad. Yeah. Cheese whiz also came to mind. Cheese whiz can be a bummer. I, you were, what you were saying, Mary, about a hotel was making me think that like

the thing I don't want at a hotel continental breakfast is that big tray of crappy scrambled eggs. They always have those scrambled eggs that are like room temperature, that it were like cooked four hours ago, that are just sitting in a big steam tray. And they're always flavorless. You know, they're usually made from some sort of mix, not from whole eggs. And that, that to me is like such a bummer in the morning. By the way, I think I have the answer.

A cold whopper. Jesus Christ. Am I wrong? It's the saddest thing I've ever heard in my life. I mean, it made you guys, it made everybody really sad. Huge bummer, huge bummer. So yeah, Mitch wins. Let us know what you think.

Hashtag mouth of sadness. And if you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurant, you can email us at dowboyspodcast.com or leave us a voicemail at 830-goto. That's 830-4636-844. You can also get the Dowboys double or weekly bonus episode by joining the Golden North Platinum Play Club at patreon.com slash dowboys. Mary Sassan, thank you so much for being here. A delight to talk with you about all things food.

Thanks for having me. Anything you would like to plug at this time? Oh, brother. Um, you know what? If you just want to follow me on social media, just to try to dox me. I'm at Mary Sassan on all platforms. See if you can find my address. No, don't do that.

Don't throw that out. Don't throw the gauntlet on these people. No, no, no, no. Yes, yeah, no. That'll just dox us for not knowing what was disturbed. And they're done that. You know what? Bring it on.

That'll do it for this episode of Dowboys. Until next time, for Mr. Slice, Mike Mitchell, I'm Nick Weigher. Happy eating. See ya. What's up, everybody? It's the Spoon Man with some exciting news. The Dowboys are going back on tour.

We're heading to Nashville, Phoenix, Portland, Foxwoods and Connecticut, Boston. Yeah, baby, Chicago, San Fran, Seattle, Milwaukee and Detroit. Tickets are available online. And for more info, you can head over to headgum.com slash live. That's headgum.com slash live. Do it. Want to see the sources for this week's intro?

Check the episode description. That was a headgum podcast.