Doughboys - Yoshinoya with Jensen Karp

Episode Date: May 19, 2016

Writer, gallery owner, and Get Up On This host Jensen Karp joins the 'boys to talk about his relationship with Japanese fast food chain Yoshinoya, and discuss his new memoir Kanye West Owes Me $300. Plus, a listener submitted Snack or Wack from across the Pacific.Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Many Japanese corporations have names that, to Westerners, sound like mere foreign assemblages of syllables but actually have translatable meanings. Nintendo becomes, leave luck to heaven. Mitsubishi means, three diamonds. And way back in 1899, an Osaka named Aikichi Matsuda opened a restaurant in a Tokyo fish market whose name loosely translates to House of Good Fortune. Matsuda designed its logo, a Y-shaped bullhorn ringed with grains, evoking the chain's signature dish, a beef and rice bowl.

Post World War II, the budget-friendly chain became a sensation in the land of the rising sun, with some locations open for 24 hours and hitting a million dollars in sales in the 1960s. In 1975, the first North American branch opened in Colorado, and as the chain grew in the U.S., its Japanese locations became reliant on the importation of cheap and fatty American beef. Over 1,400 worldwide locations, mostly centered in Asia, the chain is thriving internationally, but flagging in North America, having gone from locations across the West and in New

York City to now just existing in two states, Nevada and California. Perhaps hoping to reverse its domestic struggles and walk back its reputation for cheap and grimy cuisine, it recently began retrofitting some stores as an upscale, chipotle-inspired Japanese kitchen concept. So is this House of Good Fortune a House of Good Food? This week on Doughboys, you should know him. Welcome to Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants. I'm Nick Weiger, alongside my co-host, Young Santa, Mike Mitchell, the Spoon Man.

Young Santa? What the fuck? That's right. This is another instance of my new feature. I am beginning each episode by insulting Mitch, and if you have an insult for Mitch, email roastspoonman at gmail.com and I may use it on the air. Don't open this up to the fuckin' fans, they're gonna tear me apart. My favorite I will read, again, that's roastspoonman at gmail.com, Spoon Man, how are you doing?

You know what? Young Santa's a compliment. It is. It is kind of a compliment. It's like just saying I'm Tim Allen. It brings joy to everyone. Much like Santa, you like to spend a lot of time around kids. Hold on a second.

It's your thing. I'm doing alright. To everyone in Spoon Nation, here we go. Drop time. How do you like them? Are you a fan of Cape Cod Potato Chips? Yeah, Quincy was rough and fuck you, Quincy guy, and I was like, yeah, and I was a monster. I worked in the parks department in Quincy.

It was supposed to be really good. This is Sparta! Well... Mitch, what do you think is longer? That drop or an audiobook narration of J.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit? I thought it was Token. Is it? I don't know.

Maybe it is Token. It's T-O-L-K-I-E-N. Whatever, fuck him, he's dead. Fuck him, he's dead? I would guess that that's shorter, and it was titled Shipping Up to Quincy, so I had to play it. Nice name from Millicent Younger. Thanks, Millicent. I just implore Spoon Nation out there.

I know you're agents of chaos acting on your master's behalf, but sending some drops that are a little shorter, just, you know, they're fun, they're fun little audio adventures. Perfect length. Tighten them up a little bit. Perfect length. If anything longer, that sounds good. Get tighter. You know what, with that Quincy drop, it's getting a little bit closer summertime.

I watched Jaws the other day. Oh yeah, classic. All of it's getting me a little homesick for the east coast. Jaws is getting you homesick for the east coast? For sure, Bruce. Where you used to live in the waters, preying on tourists, sometimes taking them down in a single gulp. Oh boy. Bruce the shark.

Yeah, I mean he's the bad guy in the movie, of course. Yeah. But it just reminds me of Cape Cod. You know a lot about taking things down in one gulp. You shouldn't be making fun of me for that. Yeah, I watched it the other night. You know, a movie where they actually, they film the ocean. It's not a fake ocean.

You see the real ocean, a real shark, a mechanical shark in the water. It's a great movie. Jaws is great. People say that I hate a lot of stuff. I love Jaws. Jaws is good. The original blockbuster. The original blockbuster.

Yeah, you're right. It is like every time I feel like you'll see the ocean and film these days, they were shooting a tank of water in a sound stage with some green or blue screen behind it and just fill it in digitally. Even like Life of Pi was largely just that. The Jungle Book, the same thing. That wasn't a real river. Yeah, no. Everything is fake in the Jungle Book. This is another one of your classic kids movie solo trips.

I have yet to see the Jungle Book but I will go. And I'll check it out and it's been getting some great reviews. Congrats to Jon Favreau. Yeah, so I'm a little bit, I'm a little bit, I'm feeling some homesick blues. The Red Sox are playing, you know, it's that time of year, summertime. I don't get to go back to Quincy too often in the summertime. Winter, not an issue. I go back for the holidays and so on.

Yeah. And I usually try to go home around fall too. But summer, I don't get to see too much of a Quincy summer anymore. Well. Nice to be sad. You can fix that. Yeah, maybe I'll go home this summer. Take a trip back east.

Yeah, take a trip back east. Hit up some of the islands, little islands all around Massachusetts Bay. Maybe eat some, you know, seafood. It would be great. You know what? Maybe you should come with me to Massachusetts. Oh, take a summer trip with you? We should go.

I mean, I don't think there's enough fans to do like a live Dough Boys. But you've never been to Boston. Certainly not in Cape Cod. I don't think we could rent out a theater in Cape Cod and fill it up. Oh, for sure. No. But it would be fun to get you to the East Coast. You hate the Celtics and you hate me.

I don't know if you like the Patriots or Red Sox or anything like that. But it would be good to get you on the East Coast and see what you think of Boston in the Northeast. I appreciate the invite, Mitch. I would love to see it with you. Hopefully we could make that happen. I may not like any of the Boston sports teams, but I admire the New England Patriots' commitment to cheating, which I feel is part of the game.

Cheat away. Cheat away. Stay away from my mom, Cuckboy. I'm going to go back there. All right. Let's introduce our guest. He's the owner of Gallery 1988 and the host of the podcast, Get Up on This. His new book, Kanye West owes me $300, is available June 7th.

Jensen Karp. Hi, Jensen. Hi, guys. Thanks for coming in. Thanks for coming in. Oh, my God. I'm such a fan. I got to watch you do that in person.

It's such a big deal. It's honestly like seeing Michael Jordan dunk. Oh, wow. It was like really, I'm inspired by it every week. Michael Jordan dunk pizza into ranch dressing. That's exactly what I was imagining. Yeah. No, I'm a big fan.

So thanks for having me. Oh, thank you. That means a lot. You could clearly do Boston, guys. You could do it. Oh, I don't know. I don't think you could. Maybe since it's, I mean, like my Quincy friends, I guess, would come out and see.

Yeah. Crankbot and wheels. Frigerator friend or whatever. Yeah. No, all your weirdo, nickname friends. I wish there was a refrigerator friend. That sounds cool. Every time you explain your friends on the podcast, I just imagine you were in the Goonies.

Like everyone had a nickname and everyone was up to adventures and you all had different, like dances you had and shit. Mitch's clique would not allow an Asian guy. What the fuck are you talking about? Adam Wu, Wu Tang. Oh, that's right. Wu Tang. I forgot about Wu Tang.

Naming him Wu Tang too. That's very sensitive towards his nationality as we do a Yoshinoya podcast. His name was Adam Wu and I think it was a self-given nickname of Wu Tang. That's a cool nickname. I think his screen name was Wu Tang. Hey, how about that? Yeah. Was he a W-O-O?

Yeah. I think it was Zero. I think he used Zeros for the screen. Maybe I should think about Wu Tang's screen name. His AOL name? Maybe he's still using it. He deserves it to be exposed. I still use mine.

You're still an AOL? We had a competition to see if people could guess my AOL address, which is impossible. Your primary email address is still an AOL address. AOL address? 2016. They still do the job, baby. I was very lucky and I know this is a touchy subject around Nick Weiger, but I was very lucky to work a little bit on The Force Awakens.

Oh, wow. A little bit in marketing. Oh, shit. And J.J. Avers. Oh, that's right. The view of your gallery. Yeah. I'm like a little marketing stuff.

Oh, no. I'm in trouble. J.J. Avers has an AOL. Does he really? Yeah. Oh, my God. J.J. and I have something in common. Yeah.

No, I know it's a touchy subject here, but I was shocked to see that. Wow. That's crazy. Maybe he and I will get along. Maybe you could patch things up between me and The Force Awakens. You would have to hide all your podcasting for sure. Sure. We could try.

Being on the periphery of celebrity and fame as I am in the entertainment industry, I've encountered a number of celebrity email addresses, and I imagine it's the same for you guys, but it's interesting that it's usually either the celebrity's name at gmail.com. Your first guess is what their actual email address is, or it's some indecipherable, weird like conglomeration of letters and numbers, or some abstract set of words that are crammed together that you would never ever guess, but it's one or the other. A lot of at gmail though. Yeah, it really is.

Like the name you think it is is clearly there now. Yeah, exactly. Have you ever been, I don't want to bring up who's it was recently, but have you been on any accidental CC emails? I have been, yeah, not recently, but I have been on some. I know of the one recently that you're talking about. It's so crazy. Someone accidentally, instead of bcc'd CC'd an email and had about 700 names of comedy

in it, and it's almost shocking how many are just their names. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like if you have a spec script and you want to get it to someone, just take the guess. Just send it to their name at gmail. The chances are likely. Yeah. Very likely. You'll get it through and they won't read it.

They will ignore it, but it will be their email. It will say deliver. This is like all my AOL emails, especially emails from Nick about the Doughboys podcast. They remain unread and will forever be in that little graveyard. All right, so Jensen, before we get into talking about food in this week's chain, your book is coming out. Yeah. I know a little bit about your career before your current career, but talk us through the

book a little bit and tell us what to expect. Yeah, I grew up here in Los Angeles in the valley in Woodland Hills, and I was pretty much the only white dude who's super into hip hop. Like I studied hip hop in the same way like Peter Gammons talks about baseball. Like I was like every intricacy, every 12 inch, every CD that came out, I was on top of it. And I love the Peter Gammons reference. I love Peter.

Then you're going to love the book. It's all Peter Gammons references. And so I ended up in my late teenage years, I ended up signing a record deal because I was a rapper myself and I entered a radio contest here in LA called The Roll Call, which was where you battled three or four rappers a day. The champion before me had won 10 days and I went on the air and made up a name. Hot Carl off the top of my head is literally whatever came to mind. I said, yeah, and I battled for 43 days.

I was like the all time champion and I got a million dollar record deal and I look like an account like I don't think I'd be a rapper. And so as a teenager and in my early twenties, I recorded an album with Red Man and Fabulous and DJ quick and Maya and Kanye West, a very young Kanye. And so this book takes you sort of on the entire journey, which I've never told most people I'm friends with in comedy don't know about this life at all. Yeah. And so this is the first time I've ever talked about it really publicly ever.

And stories about like writing a song with Cisco and stealing porn from his house. And like my 21st birthday was thrown by Mark McGrath. Like stories that reek of 2000s and an experience like no one else could have had. And and working with Kanye at such a young age and sort of us coming up together and then losing touch completely. And it's just it's the whole story. If you like sort of like inside music industry stuff and hip-hop is just sort of the world it lives in.

But it's really about being like a fish out of water and experiencing all these crazy things and me being like a journalist at heart. So yeah, sure. I went through it with like big eyes, watching everything and observing. And that's what this big sort of ending for me is, is the book. That's so cool. That's very weird. Yeah, that's that's really amazing.

Do you do not have any contact with Kanye? Is that a zero zero? Yeah, we were really close. We went to go see movies together all the time and we would go eat together all the time. At one chain restaurant twice, we went to Mel's Drive-In more than once, which is and so we were we were friends and he would two way me, which was like the way to text back then. Oh, yeah, yeah.

He would like two way me a blockbuster video and be like, what should I rent? And I'd be like Ghost World. And then like three hours later, he'd be like, it's amazing. So like, like we had that cool relationship. We'd go to like clubs back when I was a child when I was like twenty two. I take him out to clubs and it's a story like it's just one story in a larger book. Sure. Kanye is just one chapter.

But sort of being in in with someone who's like a like going to be a genius, like and I'm not a huge Kanye fan, but I'm a fan. And so like being around someone who is going to become this megastar and being with him at such a young part, I don't I've never had that experience. So I write about it pretty in depth. That's so cool. It was and we'll save for your book. But how do you what do you think in his early years was he down to earth?

Because I'm a kind of a defender. I like I do. I do too. I feel like he was a maniac. Yeah. So he his producers at the time, I mean, his managers at the time really were focused on him as a producer only. Yeah.

So when we did a session together, when they left the room, he sort of whispered the like, I rap to, you know, like it wasn't something he could admit. So he would then rap for people because that's something he still does. But he would be in a room with like a lot of big producers start rapping and then he'd leave the room and everyone would laugh because he was not great yet. And also he was so animated. You don't see that kind of fervor like in hip hop. You're supposed to be reserved.

But he would stand up like when we go to Mel's Drive and a waitress would come up and talk to him and he go, you know, I rap. And she'd be like, cool. Maybe like, do you want to hear me rap? And she'd be like, I guess. And then he'd be like, we're not killing him. And I was like, we're at a fucking red like we're sitting at a restaurant waiting and she and then he'd finish and she'd be like, all right, do you guys

know what you want to order? Like he put us in these positions where he knew he was going to be a spectacle. Yeah. But it was too early to be a spectacle. Yeah. So but he was still doing those things. So now looking back, I see how that's early Kanye. But at the time you're just like, oh, I have a crazy friend.

That's very, that's crazy. That's a crazy experience. Yeah. Like he would go into power 106, which is the big urban station here before anything, and he played them through the wire or Jesus walks real early years before really Jesus walks came out. And I would get a text from a two way from a friend and he'd be like, your friend came in here and he stood on the table and rapped along.

I was like, I know who it is. You don't have to know no one knew who he was. So it's a it's a cool thing if you're a Kanye fan, but in real life, if you just kind of want to see a music industry story, that's sort of what my book is. That sounds amazing. Yeah, that's crazy. I wonder if any of our friends when we were younger would say, whoa, they're going to go on to be dough boy podcast guys.

Probably refrigerator Fred would probably say that. Probably fridge Fred. Yeah. I think they'd probably say, yeah, sure. Yeah, I bet you they will be food podcast man. Do any of those guys listen to the show? Do any of the like nickname do let's see. I don't think any of them do.

Maybe I know my friends from college do, but those guys know how to use computers and maybe the Quincy friends. But when you show up on like love, do they all send you emails? Yeah, they'll they'll they'll they'll watch love. I've gotten some some, uh, you know, they're boss and they're, you know, they're they're Boston. I love them and I feel like some of those guys are the the funniest guys I've ever met in my life.

Uh, but some of them were like, you know, some of them will be really nice about birthday boys or whatever. And then some of them be like, I watched your show. Not that funny or something. Some guys have done that before. I'm very invested in your childhood friends. I like them very much. I love those guys.

I mean, it's it's we, I still am very tight with with with with the majority of them, but I don't think any of them really listened to the podcast. All right. I bet you if they listen to it, they'd be like, you're fucking weird. Or you suck. I'm sure like a frail bot, maybe frail bot will listen to it. My buddy, Mike is maybe listens to it besides the best. Just let them ramble these names off.

It's so great. It's so awesome. I have a couple of a couple of long beach friends who listen to it. Brandon and Tavis words. Hello to those guys. But yeah, mostly I think most of I've lost touch with everyone from my youth. Yeah. That's just kind of who I am as a person.

I'm not like, you know, I'm just not good at keeping in touch with people. And I think I'm also kind of a weird, you know, empty shell of a man. Yeah, my two friends from home that only listen to my podcast and this podcast. Oh, how about that? Chris, I got them into it. Yeah. And I love it. Oh, and also two of your biggest high school friends are passed away.

Dylan and So, so, when you're in this world of hip hop, yes. So let's say you're spending a long day in the studio. What's the lunch order like? Is it is it unusual as opposed to what you see in the workplace? Well, yeah, every every studio has a menu book. Gotcha. And so it's on the label.

So this menu book comes around and you can order two or three entrees and be like a total asshole about it. I mean, you learn quickly that it goes against your budget. Yeah. So like when your album comes out, they take back the money for the three Kung Pao chickens you got. You know, but like, but it was great to have these menus like and I would go in at 1010 days at a time.

So for 10 days, I'd have lunch and dinner like we'd have Cheesecake Factory brought in or like, you know, different things. And it was great. I mean, it's always some shitty chain place. It's never you never get like the best Chinese food over there. But I'm sure like if you're like Kanye, you get Mr. Chow's or I just didn't I was getting Baja Fresh. That's the yeah, that when I when I worked at the Simpsons,

I've talked about this a bit on that show. I I was blown. I think that was one of like the first things in Holly when I was just blown away by of the and I said, I said it when someone is on here. So I'll say it again, just in the amount of food. Yeah. But those are guys we get and then it did start to eat in their budget and they got in trouble and they had to take it away.

But like front of the podcast, Matt Silman, he would get he would get he gets some food and it would it could get stacked to the the the cabinets of on the shelf. He was a big foodie, so he'd want to try like a bunch of stuff. And and I and I feel like that's a that's a Hollywood thing. I feel like people people want to try like if you if you're getting a free lunch, you take advantage of free lunch. I do a lot of award shows now.

And on those award shows, we always get like Table Calamari Man or Table Garlic Bread or something. I mean, we wouldn't do that in our normal. There's always, you know, like we haven't we know our budget for like it's $15 a person, we can get Calamari for the table. Like, yeah, that's a move I always do. And I think I did it when I was rapping, too. Yeah, our our buddy, Caroline Anderson, I worked with a few times.

And she was always good about like just ordering an extra little app for everyone. And just like, oh, yeah, that's a good move, because then everyone can share that, you know, just make sure you get a little extra something. But yeah, it is a weird world because I've worked some jobs where the where the lunch is free, which is insane. And all every I like, I never end up taking that for granted, because I'm always just like, this is crazy. This is such a great perk that we're getting free meals.

But then you have other ones where they they will they'll take the order for you. But then you're going to have to pay for part of it out of pocket. It just depends on all these different union rules and what the particular sector the job falls under. But it's a weird world. I'll I'll I'll try to take. But when I was at Simpsons, I would just feed the birthday boys with leftovers. Or now I feel bad.

I feel like someone's going to kick my ass. Somebody I think you do the right thing. Oh, fuck, I'm curious. Why do I even talk on this fucking podcast? I used to when I was when I would get drunk, my friends would have me freestyle back in the day. Yeah, that's like seems like a very Massachusetts thing. Yeah, for a while, and they were like, you're actually good.

You're good at it or whatever. And did any white dudes ever slip the N word out? No, you know what? I think I think no, I think we I was at least very conscious. Sure, you were. I was just hoping maybe frail bot never let one slip or something or French Fred ever because it's such like a because you hear that a lot. I get that a lot, which is like in college, I used to do that.

You know, like that comes up a lot in sort of like when I tell people my past. Yeah. And and it's funny because like frat's rap, you learn that later. Like frats get drunk and rap. Sure. And then you're like, what did you do? And then you find out it got real racist. Yeah, yeah. Oh, no, I didn't do that at all. I was very credible at one point in my life. No, I think you're 100 percent right.

And I feel like even me doing it made me feel like. Oh, you were fine. Like, like, yeah, for sure. But but even me, like, even like me, me, my attempt of doing it, like, it made it made me feel like one of those frat guys. Like, I was like, oh, no, I'm being like one of these these frat guys. Yeah, even attempting to do this. Because I mean, it was just the thing I like tip up and rap.

But and I and I wasn't very good at it at all. But yeah, you're you're right. There's there are a lot of frat guys who who will get drunk and they'll start rap creepy, creepy detail. Yeah. And and they'll and they'll probably get into some racial stuff that is not good. Yeah, that never that. Weirdly, because I I went to USC and I was around that kind of thing a lot. And like, no one really rapped around me ever.

And so when people tell me like, oh, I was the best in my frat or whatever. And then I hear them like, oh, God, yeah, yeah, this is the worst. So yeah, and I had I had studied the craft so intensely. Sure. So like, it was it was one of those things where I was like, oh, this is not my parlor trick. I like believe in this way too much. So like in college, I would I mean, that was how I I mean, at a certain point, it was how I got girls really.

It was like that was how I was trying to like fit in. So yeah, I I love hearing college rap stories because they always interest me to hear what the people were talking about. Yeah, like most college stories, like those dumb frat guys, they do bear into the racist side of things. I had no real I had no real tricks to pick up girls at all. They're not interested in seeing a man eat a sandwich very fast. But but but I to this day, I love hip hop and loved it more back then,

especially when you're when you're first when you're 18 or 19 or whatever. You're the right age. Yeah. Yeah. No, I hip hop is I still listen to it. Unfortunately, if a kid in like Flatbush releases a mixtape and he's 17, I like know it exists, which is like a more OCD thing for me. But I mean, golden age hip hop to me is there's nothing better in the world. Yeah. So yeah, do you do you, Nick, what do you listen to white noise? I'll listen to anything.

He is hip hop. Yeah, we've talked a little. I know a little bit of hip hop. I'm not super knowledgeable of it, but I know a little bit. Isn't it true that sometimes you would drive from Santa Monica to Comedy Bang Bang? This is a good hour commute with no radio on. I've heard this about. Yeah, I do. I will you doing you serial killer.

What are you doing? I agree. I do a lot of long drives with no audio, but that's my thinking time. Like I get a little time to spend a little alone time with the old the old noodle. Jesus Christ. I get some thinking done. No, I actually like I've done that before. I've had some when I used to work at Funny or Die, and I'd have to do like a topical sketch or something.

I'd be like, all right, fuck, I got to do this thing. And then like while I was driving, I just would not have any music or any audio on and I just like write it in my head in the car and then I'd get to get to work and just transcribe it. So like I it's like a productive thought time, but also to I'll also like listen to audiobooks and podcasts. Hey, I'm not a I'm not a monster, but I like some alone time. I like some silence.

I do like pulling up alongside you. Hey, Nick, rolling down your window and just silence. I'd be like, oh, God, just like pure white noise. Or even just like it turned up real loud. Just like that weird sound when it's so loud, but nothing's happening. That would be my that would be my deal. Nick Weigar is silent. He was listening to nothing, yet a blank tape in and he was blaring.

The day he killed Mitch. Blood on his shirt. Just before we get into the chain, there is a another chain restaurant related thing I wanted to address with you, which is at one point. And I'm not sure this thing you still go into, but at one point you had a Twitter rivalry with a supplantation. Yes, it's been a few years. Yeah, we've calmed it down.

But for a long time, supplantation, I did not get along on Twitter. I would I would ask them quite this is before like Twitter was like kind of all over like before CNN had ever mentioned it. Like, yeah, this was the early days of silly at the Wild West. Yeah, Wild West. And so I would write them things like, should I name my diet? Should I name my new restaurant, Holocaust Diner? Like I would ask them and they would always respond.

And so after a while, like people started retweeting it that they'd respond. And like I'd asked them, obviously, it like when Django and Jane came out, I was like, I have this movie I think you'll love. Like it was like they would write back, what movie? You know, they'd fall right into it. And so we would have this back and forth. And then they started to realize everyone was retweeting it and that people weren't laughing with them really.

And so they started asking me real questions. Why are you doing this? And so I explained that like it's such an offensive name. Like and I really it's insane. It's insane. And I believe they're they're the frat rappers of the restaurant. Yeah, they're the Boston rappers that are drunk in a college frat. And they're like, let's name it soup plantation.

And so I asked them, like we had a real dialogue and it would go. It went back and forth for a long time and they they're not even soup plantation in most places. They're sweet tomatoes. Yeah, they're only soup plantation in two states. So 48 other states basically have this restaurant under a different name. I said, then why did you pick this is your Twitter? That's like the craziest thing to do is to pick soup plantation as the name

you want to go forward with. And so she was like, do you want to speak to someone about it? And I said, yes. And so I got on the phone with someone and I talked to them about the name. Yeah, I like got real deep and so they eventually sent me a bunch of free dinners and that'll shut me the fuck up, basically. But yeah, we had we had a real moment of trying to figure out why they would do that. I guess the soup plantation brand is pretty strong in California

because that's what I always knew it as growing up. And we'd go there a fair amount. I love it. Yeah, it's it's good. I mean, that's the ironic part. It's a good value. You really fill up there. And that one in Brentwood.

Oh, yeah, the classic one is so great. Mentioned in the OJ series. It was it was. I was so thrilled. Where is the other? What's the other state where it's soup plantation in Arizona, which is not shocking. Yeah, Arizona probably named it soup plantation. But yeah, no, I I I'm fine with them now.

But they also used to tweet for a long time in the early days. They used to tweet things that were subtly sexual. So they like slide that gingerbread man in between your bread or something. I was like, what? And I'd write him back like, is this about gay sex? And after a while, they were like, do you want it to be? And I was like, is this soup plantation for real? So they'd have to prove to me.

And I think they realized quickly as as it became a more popular website that to calm that shit down. Yeah, I love what looking at like tweets from like 2008, 2009 from brands when it was just like a guy running it. Yeah, I think actually there's a pretty well known one from the the San Diego Chargers. Yeah, my wife, I hope my wife comes home soon so we can go to PFJ. Yeah, it is from verified San Diego Chargers. People retweet it all the time.

That's what I was dealing with at soup plantation. Like a guy who just was like, dude, I don't know, man. Like, I don't know what I'm like, stop this, you stupid comedian. Like they weren't happy with me, but it went on for a while. It was some guy's like third job that he had was having to manage this Twitter account. I like the guy who ever tweeted from San Diego Superchargers. That's nice. Yeah, yeah.

He wants to go to PFJ. It was sweet. He was mad at his wife, it seemed. She's taken too long at something. Oh, she was upset. Okay. Yeah, he seemed upset. Why are you going to go to PF Chang's down there when you got California burritos

in San Diego? You got a lot of better options than PF Chang's. You can mix it up. I feel like sometimes you want some Pan Asian cuisine and a nice atmosphere. I don't hate PF Chang's. I have a PF Chang's is like it's like a great mom restaurant. I feel like moms love that. I took my mom there recently.

Yeah, it's just a it's a real crowd pleaser for the older generation. There was a PF Chang's in my dad's work building in Boston and we never I never really went. I've talked about this a lot. So when it comes to to to Chinese food specifically and people online, I think we're tweeting at us just recently about how they thought this was all bullshit. Oh, yeah, correctly. No, you asshole, you've never been anywhere. You don't listen to music.

You drive in cars and out the radio silence to think I've been throughout Southern California and I've been to Catalina Island. No wonder why you don't want to go on fucking road trips because you're sitting in the car with nothing on the road. Road trips actually torture for him. It's pure pure silence. It's bliss. Yeah, you'd love jail, Nick.

Well, he's going to end up there at some point for one of his many. Never mind. I was just going to say, you know, you're into the pedophilia jokes. Oh, my God, there's a lot of different things you could go to jail for. Your podcast just got flagged. What are you doing? I don't make subtext into text every time. This is how Pete Townsend got arrested.

Weigar's doing doughboys research. The East Coast has some great Chinese food. So so I never really had to go. I never went to PFC. So lots of local local independent places. That's right. Yeah. And then in great like, you know, like great poo poo platters, as they're called, just a combination of different appetizers and things like that.

And, you know, beef and chicken chow mein, great stuff. But I never, as far as because this is fast Japanese fast food, it's it's it's a different story, I guess. Yoshi Noshi Noya, which I never knew. I don't know of this restaurant at all. I mean, what did you call Yoshi Noya? Oh, you got it that time. He definitely said Noshi Yoya, which I love.

But I wasn't going to let him get away with it. But fair. And I've never I've never really experienced Japanese fast food besides, I guess, what's the sit down restaurant that everyone loves? The where they the Hibachi? Oh, Benihana. Oh, Benihana. That's kind of the only thing that went out of business on La Cienega. Oh, yeah, Benihana.

Yeah, there's there's still some around here. But that one on La Cienega is no more. But I've never really experienced Japanese fast food ever. And I didn't I didn't even understand what this place was. And being and being and coming to LA and seeing it, it just always looks like the blandest fast food restaurant I've ever seen. It looks they're all sad, man. They're all so sad looking.

They look they look like they look like Jiffy Loops or like just like the boring white structure. They look like they look like hardies after Katrina. You know what I mean? Like they look like something happened to a hardies. That's what it looks like from the outside. Yeah, they're not there. They are like they, you know, I use the word grimy in my intro.

And there is kind of does kind of has the feel of a layer of grime over all of it from the exterior. And it's it's interesting that it actually is because my my expectation always was that it was an American chain that appropriated a Japanese name and is just trying to like we're executing an Americanized version of Japanese food. And you know, in the States, it is an Americanized version of Japanese food. But at least as an origin, that's what I was surprised by that. It has such like and such a lengthy origin that's been around.

It's it's it's been around for over a hundred years and is such a Japanese institution for something that that seems so low rent when it's in the States. But Jensen, I'm curious as to what made you choose Yoshinoya for the chain. Here's the reason. In college, I went to USC and there was a Yoshinoya down the street. And my first day there, I don't know why I did it. I don't know what the fuck I was thinking. But for the I never ate Yoshinoya before.

There was a Del Taco there. Yeah, there was a bunch of things as a college kid that would I should I should have went to the Denny's Pizza Hut. There was so much shit there near USC. That's great. And and I picked Yoshinoya on the first day. And it's the only time I ever shit my pants. Wow, ever, ever, ever in my entire life, I had never shit my pants before.

I ate Yoshinoya. Two hours later, I shit my pants. She's and I cleaned. I was in like a dorm and I had to clean my pants. It was the first day and I had so much stomach issues that whole night. The people that were on my floor would assume they are living with a maniac. Like there is a person who shit all night long, who lives on this floor. And it luckily didn't stick with me.

And I didn't get like a cool Mike Mitchell name. But like I haven't eaten your box. Yeah, I haven't either since that day. And so I figured this would be a great time to face a fear. Your first day of college. You got food poisoning from Yoshinoya. Can't freestyle your way out of that one. No, there is no rapping that a girl would like to not remember when I shit

my pants from Yoshinoya Rice Bowl. That's such of the opposite ends of this end of the spectrum of the cool first day college story versus like, oh, I got totally out of my mind, drunk and threw up my guts. But just to like, yeah, just eat some very low rent fast food and shit your pants. Yeah, it's like if Judd Apatow wrote my first death. Like just a shit pants story right off the bat. It sounds like you avoided embarrassment in this pants shitting, though.

This wasn't a public pants shitting. No, I got away with it. But I think but I do know a lot of people would later be like, yeah, you were like in and out of the bathroom because you're like trying to meet. Like, sure, you're really looking at people. Yeah, a real observing day. And so they observed that I was going to the back and also I wasn't open to talk. Yeah, sure. So much pain.

So like they were like that weirdo in that room and that's why I shit my pants. Why are you shit your pants every day? I don't have any great pants shitting stories. I have one, but this is it again, wasn't public. But this was I was I was it was during college. I was at home. The story is really gross. I was at home.

Mine was beautiful. And I and I was staying in my parents had moved. So I was staying in my parents' new house in the guest bedroom. And I like at some point in the middle of the night, I woke up and just had like just the hardest direction. Just like just like rock hard. I was like, oh, Jesus, rock hard. Now where I thought we were going, I was like just like super hard.

And like I was like awake for a second and then fell back to the sleep. And then wait, wait, wait, oh, you said erection. Yeah, you said what I was thinking in my head as a joke. You had a boner. Yeah, I had a huge hard on like I woke up and as you know, like being a man is you oftentimes morning. What is the idiom? Jesus, this sounds like it was so hard.

You'll remember it forever. Well, it was just it was just like like I was just like, oh, like just like a very half conscious. It was hard enough for me to remember that I had like really hard like morning would midnight would, I guess at the time fell back to your dick. Works, yeah, yeah, yeah, fell back asleep and then woke up in the morning and my pants were soaked. And I was like, oh, fuck, I had a wet dream.

I fucking I fucking came on my pants and I pulled my underwear down and I'd shit all over myself. What? Why? I mean, I love that you included the boner in the story, but like I understand that it comes into play when you think you just or whatever. But like the detail of you having a boner and then shortly there after shitting yourself is such an incredible one to punch. It really is the Lennox Lewis of shit story.

That's why I was so disoriented because I was like I like I woke up. I like felt myself and like kind of had that Godfather, you know, horse. Yeah, horse head moment where just like, oh, and then I sort of I was like, oh, that's what happened. It's the boner I had earlier. That's what that's what the was the source of this. But now you're another question. Yeah, you didn't smell it. No. It wasn't like a particularly smelly shit.

And also like I couldn't even I had no idea what I'd eaten that could have done that I like it wasn't sick at all. It was just like a weird spontaneous midnight shitting. This is fucking nasty. This is really gross. This is I guess this is befitting Yoshinoya beef bowl. But yeah, which is the boner and shit yourself in restaurants. Did you shower? Yeah, bitch, I took a fucking shower course.

Jesus Christ. I I I have like I have like I guess self-diagnosed irritable bowel syndrome. I have a really weak stomach, but I've never I've done pretty well with it. I've never really had much of an issue. But when I went to a commissioner in front of the podcast, Evan Susser's bachelor party, I was driving up with also front of the podcast, Jack Allison, and I was in an emergency and I had to I had to go and we were like on this

lot. We went to Lake Winnipesaki. Wait, no, not Fort Macaulay. Is that from what about Bob? I'm sorry. Were you in a film? What's that? What's the lake? God damn it. I don't know. Weird Massachusetts.

No, no, no, no, we were we were here. Have a suit. No, no, no, no, the place everybody. Oh, oh, oh, Tahoe. Yeah, Lake Tahoe, Jesus. Sorry. And we were like Bill Murray was there. And Bill Murray was there. It was what about Bob Universe?

And I had a really terrible stomach pain. We pulled over to the side of the road and I pulled down my pants and I and I ejected a shit out into the wild. And Jack Allison, like one of the weasels from Roger Rabbit, almost laughed himself to death. He was like. He was like. Just like his ghost slowly comes out of him.

Like he was so like, I really thought he might laugh himself to death. And I used to sock a sock. Because I had to use a sock. So I used the sock from my bag and I threw it down. And then on the way home, we were driving by and we saw my sock. And there was an old man in the sun staring out at the beautiful at the beautiful landscape. And they were like two.

They were like two inches away from where my shit sock was. Oh, Jesus. You guys both have incredible smelling shit, clearly. A man gets to watch a beautiful view near your shit. You don't smell it when it's all over your body. This is I am envious of both of you. Well, you know what? I didn't want to get into to shit talk, but we're here.

Yeah, I was this. This restaurant gets a quickest tattoo or fastest tattoo. I think quickest tattoo is what you say. Quickest tattoo, quickest tattoo tattoo. Yeah, yeah, which is which is our eye. When I ate it, Yoshinoya, I it was a quick turnaround time. Wow. It was it was it was it was really fast.

And I wrote it even down into my phone. I was like, that's my stomach turned fast. Yeah. But here's the thing with this place. So I like I said, I've never been there. I don't know fast food, Japanese food. I've never really experienced it. It's a it's a weird thing because it feels Japanese, Chinese. It almost feels a little Korean.

There's ginger packets at this place. I think it's a it's sort of a Pan Asian concept in the States. Right. For sure. Yeah. And and it just looks like a place that sucks. And I don't want to get into what we got to eat. But I'm going to say this. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. It's not great. Sure.

But I thought this was going to be like one of the worst. It and it's and it's hard to describe for I didn't even know it was in New York. I never even knew about this place till I came out here. But it just looks like one of the most like boring nothings you could ever imagine. Like the sign is the only thing that even looks Pan Asian or Japanese. But even at that point, it's like a weird orange. It's not like it doesn't have a real flavor to it. For sure. Yeah. I mean, but in the building, it's just like a white block.

Yeah. And it looks it. There's nothing about the place that looks appetizing. It just looks like a nothing. It looks like there's nothing good that can come out. And especially when you compare it to the presentation of like a Panda Express, which immediately makes you feel like, oh, this is going to be good, at least a little bit for what I'm looking for. Yeah.

Yoshinoya does the exact opposite of it. It's really like it is. It's it's like to a holiday. And if Panda Express is a holiday and like Yoshinoya is just like a really crappy roadside motel, it's a motel six. Yeah, it's like a motel. So it's like it's like the same sort of then I would even say Panda Express even maybe even higher than a holiday in like a Howard Johnson.

Like a Howard. Yeah. It's it's it's just like a real it's just a real dive. And the thing is you get why it does business. And that's because it's just so budget friendly. And I feel like there are a lot of, you know, working class families who eat there because it's just very, very cheap. I mean, I think you can get the beef bowl, the classic beef and rice bowl for three dollars and ninety nine cents.

And it's just insane, which we which we which we have. And we talked about this before. Yes, I appreciate that. It and I didn't really get it. And then after visiting, I got it. I kind of got more of what the idea of the place was. Yeah. And what it was. Well, I do want to go on record is saying I think I've made a Doughboy first.

Go for it. I went to both. Yeah. So you had. So we I mentioned the intro. There's the the old school, which is most of them. And now there's the the new school. Yoshinoya, the retro fitting to kind of present it a little bit more upscale. What the fuck were you doing? That's how serious I take this craft and this podcast.

I was like, I have to do both. And I'm happy I did because I do think I bring something to the table about Yoshinoya that you don't have from the places you went. 100 percent. So I'm curious, like, tell us about the the new Yoshinoya, the Yoshinoya Japanese kitchen. What's going on there? So this is here in Los Angeles.

There are basically two locations that everyone knows about. One is on La Cienega, which is down pretty much near a freeway, which is never a good sign. And then there's the other one on Santa Monica and Vine, which is not a bad neighborhood, but it's definitely not a great neighborhood. A lot of weirdo shit happens around there. So the one on La Cienega, they have have turned into a new concept, which is clearly a bite of Chipotle.

Sure. So when you see this restaurant, it is it's actually really nice looking. And I don't know if you guys have you got past it. I've driven by it. I haven't been inside it, but I drove by it and I remember when we were texting about it. Yeah, I was before we were going to do the podcast. We'd mentioned that it's just like, yeah, it's crazy. What they've got this some Japanese kitchen thing going on.

What is that? So it has a new name and has everything. So when you walk in, it is a completely different look. The sign that the kind of blandness is gone. Now it's just a very basic setup. Gotcha. And, you know, let us cook the food for you is a catchphrase. Now, let us cook. Let us. It's a very specific against the fast food grimyness that the other one on Santa Monica and Vine and the ones that most other people have.

It is a exact opposite of what they're trying to get you to do. So when you walk in, they have a bowl and entree aside. That's all you pick. Different than the grimy one, which I guess we'll get more into food once we start talking about it. But there are things that are available at the grimy version that are no longer available at this new kitchen. Gotcha. Yeah.

Is it is a great outdoor seating? Oh, that's great outdoor seating with like a like a great, you know, sort of the umbrella look. Everything looks clean and perfect price wise. What's the difference there? It's the exact same. Oh, wow. Some of the offers are offering you more so it's more money.

But it is the exact same setup as far as what's going on. Yeah, got you. That's such an interesting gambit on their part. I guess they're sort of seeing that upscale fast food is succeeding, but there's definitely a market for just really cheap fast food. Yeah. And I feel like they also could have gone in the direction of being like, OK, we're going to be a budget friendly option,

but we're just going to try and, you know, simplify and clean things up a little bit. And that's a lot of what they did. But there's also just a concept change. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah, it's totally different. And to tell you the difference in clientele in the both of them, because I going to both of them is so much different in the La Cienega, the high end, Yoshinoya, it was like, you know, a very friendly,

a lot of people sitting inside, a lot of like not upscale, but a lot of like there was a family there. There was a lot of stuff going on. And then when I went to the Santa Monica and Vine one, there was a man praying next to the cash register. And then he stood up and said, Jesus loves all you guys. You're lucky. And he was clearly drugged.

And he was like, can I have a bottle of water? Like it was like a completely different vibe, even just by what was going on inside and outside of the Yoshinoya. It was it's two different places. Feels like a conscious corporate strategy that they're sort of like we're trying to attract a different clientele. But yeah, I mean, so OK, so let's get into the food a little bit. So before we do that, yeah, yeah, I want to I kind of want to figure out

what of all the different types of Asian food. Yes. What what is your favorite? I guess I guess I want to I want to hear a list of like from top to bottom. A to Z Asian hashtag. Let us know what you think what your favorite Asian food is Asian. I don't know. I could alphabetize them. I don't know. I'm just trying to get what where you would rank Japanese, Chinese, Thai food.

Like what what is your favorite? What's your least favorite? And I want to hear from you guys, of course. Yeah, I mean, I love Japanese food. I love sushi a lot. I think that's probably my favorite. And also, too, if you'll go someplace and get like a really nice, you know, like omakase dinner, that's just like I feel like this restaurant

shunji in in West L.A. I've been to with my wife, Nali, and it's like the best meal of my life. It's just it's fantastic food. So I feel like you can just like really good Japanese food for me is unequal. I'd probably put that at the top. Underneath that, I'd slip Vietnamese food. I love I love Banh Mi. I just I love spring rolls.

I just love everything they're doing. Maybe put Thai food next. I feel like I could have Thai food all the time. And then I'd maybe round out my Mount Asian more with Chinese food in the fourth slot. Chinese Chinese comes in the I think they put them forth. How about you, I'm going to turn that around for Chinese is my one. That's what I was going to say, too. I think that there's nothing better than a great east coast egg roll.

You know what I mean, or or like a great Kung Pao chicken or a great Mongolian beef. These things to me are there are the tops. They're all they're all great tops for me. And then I would go Japanese for the sushi, like you said. And then I would put Thai is my last. And then I'd probably do we say Korean barbecue? You can throw Korean in there. I throw Korean barbecue is my third.

Interesting. Yeah, it's tough. They're all so good. And I know what you're saying. I feel like Japanese food feels kind of like the the fanciest kind of nicest, like well put together cuisine. And it speaks to me because they're salt bombs. Oh, yeah.

And I don't have the most exquisite taste buds. So like salt stuff, I kind of gravitate towards. Yeah, I'm with you too. I think Chinese would be my number one. Yeah, then I like Thai. I put maybe we'll put Thai third because I think Japanese food gets gets to yeah. And then what am I missing on to Korean or Vietnamese? I'd say Vietnamese is for Koreans.

Last though, I do. I used to dislike Korean food completely. I didn't like kimchi. And now I've turned I can I'll enjoy kimchi. All right, but I but I really like Korean barbecue kimchi. Do you remember the movie defending your life? Yes, it's like the smart people all eat that food. You're like, oh, like when they eat it or you'll again, you'll eventually like it.

It's a lot like that for kimchi. And like at first I was like, oh, this is my mom fed it to me when I was a kid. And I was like, this tastes like terrible. This is the word. And then now I'm like, I can eat it all day. Yeah, the fermented cabbage is just such a weird gross thing. And I bury it in shit. Yeah, yeah, it's crazy.

Yeah, but I've grown to like it. It's not my favorite thing. Yeah, but but yeah, at Yoshinoya, you get like a little they give out packets of ginger, which I found was very interesting because I wasn't sure. Are you supposed to pour that onto your meal or is it like a pallet cleanser? Or what? What is the deal with? Well, also, I got packets of powdered red pepper. Like you get an Italian restaurant, which is which is like a real like this is

not Asian at all. I don't see this really anywhere else. Yeah. Yeah, Yoshinoya, I don't know what's going on. But yeah, there's a whole world of Asian cuisine. I mean, I've had like some Cambodian food that's pretty good. There's Filipino food. You know, I feel like Indian food is its own thing, but you maybe throw that in there.

But yeah, there's there's like I feel like there's a whole bunch of Asian food I haven't even eaten. Like I've never had like like Himalayan food. And I'm curious about all those different those different more niche ones, aside from the big four, big five, you'll usually see. It's it's it's funny for this place that it's a it is it's supposed to be a Japanese fast food place, like we said, and it is just like, oh, you got the beef bowl and I'm like orange chicken and walnut shrimp.

And yeah, it's they're trying to be like a budget panda express. I feel like at those normal locations. Yeah. Yeah. So Jensen, let's talk about let's start with your meal that you had at the Japanese kitchen one and then we'll get into the the original Yoshinoya. So remember, this is a different concept. So I walk in and I pick a bowl. That bowl was white rice.

The option other than that is brown rice. Gotcha. OK. So I pick the white rice bowl, very Chipotle-esque. And then I decided it would help in the podcast to do two entrees because I didn't know if I was going to end up at the grimy one. It certainly would. Yeah. So I picked the original. You ate so much Yoshinoya.

Honestly, I'm so lucky I'm single because like that would have been a terrible explanation to anyone I'm dating as to why they have two bags of Yoshinoya in the in the trash. So original beef and orange chicken, in that case. And then there's that's the two entrees option. So they put that into the bowl split by a middle side. OK, that's not what you see at. No, no, no. So the middle side I went with because I think it was important to address is I went with the coleslaw.

And there's a reason because the menu has the calories. Yeah. The coleslaw had the least amount of calories. And the other options were mixed vegetables. That's a surprise. So the hell. Yeah. So it was super it was a very I was like, well, I got to try that. You're less fattening coleslaw. So now I have a bowl, if you can imagine it, rice on the bottom, two entrees split in the middle with a coleslaw.

Is it like this is like a mayo-y coleslaw? Yeah, it would look like that. Yeah, it was. It's not like, you know, it's not like if you go to like a Green Blats deli or something where it's just like lathered in mayo. But there was a. Yeah, it would feel like it would. Yeah, it looked like a normal coleslaw. That's so weird. That was less count. Like, yeah, it feels like the mixed vegetables.

It's like adding, adding mayo to that. Yeah, the mixed mixed vegetables were 60 calories and the and the coleslaw was 50. And and when I went to the grimy one, to the right of the register was a certificate. And I wish I would have taken a photo of it. But it was a certificate that I've never seen in a restaurant before. But it was a certificate that lists items that are good for you. And it's from a place like they got a letter of like, these are your healthy options from gotcha from like, it's like, I don't know.

I guess it would be from like a Schwarzenegger when he was in office. Kind of thing. Yeah, it wasn't that. But brown rice coleslaw and I couldn't see the third one because it was covered, which is so Yoshinoya of them. But for sure, coleslaw was with brown rice. So these are like California State of California certified healthy. Yeah, or some service. Yeah. But the third one was probably mixed vegetables.

But gotcha. But yeah, that was that was an option I wanted to try because of purely looking healthy. How was that coleslaw? It was actually pretty good. Wow. That's the part that I didn't have any real problems with. So this place, I mean, just touching on the coleslaw, what that was the most because I never walked into a Yoshinoya before. And then a place I still feel like I haven't pronounced correctly.

No, even even nail it. But there is clam chowder on the menu. There are there's weird stuff on this menu. Not at the curveballs, not at the kitchen. Yeah, not at the kitchen, but but in the in the regular grimy Yoshinoya's. Yeah, which this sounds mean that we're calling grimy. There's no other way to. There isn't. There isn't.

There isn't. They are grimy. It's the same way you feel in like an adult porno shot. Sure. Like, things are wrong here. And that's I know it. Something happened here. It's it's 100 percent. And it's one of those things of moving here, not knowing anything about L.A. Yeah.

And just driving around and being like, hmm, I don't want to go to Yoshinoya ever. Like, you just know that you don't want to go to it. It's like not a thing that anyone told me like Yoshinoya is nasty or like it's or it's great. You never hear anything. Yeah. You just see it and you say, I got to stay away from this place. But had you not ever seen that and seen only the kitchen, you would not feel that way. True.

Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. That's that. Well, I haven't seen the kitchen, but from what you say. Yeah, aesthetically, you would have no. I mean, they condemned a building to create this new Yoshinoya. So it is not has no feeling of the old Yoshinoya in it. It is completely its own thing. I really wonder if this is like they're going to experiment with this one

and they might walk it back or if they're just like, we're going we're going at full steam ahead. This is our this is our pilot. And then after that, we're going to retrofit all these kitchens because it's like it's it's I don't know. I mean, I guess they've been surviving for a long time, but they've also, you know, retracted quite a bit state side. And maybe their idea is that like, yeah, we'll make we'll be the Asian Chipotle. I mean, Chipotle already has their own Asian concept chop house, which they'd be competing with. But, you know, we're going to try to be the Asian Chipotle.

And we're going to see if we can kind of grab that market sector. I don't know. It's it's an interesting idea. It's a lot like shop house. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the shop house has a lot more options. This is a minimal amount of options. But but it's definitely I might have two different ratings. Oh, boy. OK.

See, now this makes me feel like we got a we might have to visit the the the new version of a Yosinoya. Did you see pictures of Nick just look very sad. Yeah. Come on. I mean, we're going to hold Yosinoya episode. We need to just a two part we maybe we'll have to visit the new version of it and give an update at least. OK, yes, I put my stomach on the line. I wanted to make sure I had both experiences and then I went to the grimy one. Yeah. And I got a rice bowl.

Same way I had almost no options. Yeah. Yeah. So I said, I'll get the I'll get the Angus beef or whatever that that that other beef was. Oh, yeah. And so I got that and and I and I saw that they had chicken wings. Yeah. And I got those to test those drumettes or whatever. Yeah, it's it's funny that beef, especially the original beef, is so much like what are the like the cheese, the the steak comes, it reminds me so much of just steak comes,

like thinly sliced beef. Yeah, super salty. Yeah. But weirdly, I didn't hate it. It's it's it's it's a it's a juice you want to talk about what I ate what I had. Go for it. I got a combination plate and it was not in a bowl. It was just it was kind of like a big container for takeout, especially the the combination plate. That's something we should address before you get into it, too.

So when you go to Yoshinoya, the grimy one, they give you a styrofoam like bowl or or or box. Yeah. At the new one, it is a Chipotle-esque box, like like a made out of recyclable recyclable materials. So it's a completely different feel. What are they doing? What is going on over there? This is why I picked it.

Yeah, it's crazy because because I mean transition period. If you if I saw Yoshinoya is going out of business, I would not ever be surprised. Like if I just saw a thing that said going out of business, I'm like, oh, they finally that place finally shut down. But now I'm like, I'm kind of fascinated by this place now. I got the combo play. It came with I got it with the beef, the original beef and orange chicken.

So we got a hand holding club there. Yep. Yeah. And I'm happy to be part of it. The beef was a very salty. It was very salty. It came with vegetables. I think I didn't I didn't get a choice for a side. It just came with mixed vegetables, which were like the blandest,

like broccoli, carrots and, you know, whatever. They're not seasoned at all. Not seasoned at all. So bland. Like if I had frozen vegetables in my fridge and microwaved them, that's what it tasted like. Yeah. The orange chicken was super sweet, like crazy sweet.

And it had a very intense orange peel taste, like almost bitter. And then I also got a side of egg rolls, which comes with sweet and sour sauce, which I thought were decent. Yeah, I was surprised. And yeah, I feel like I also got a large Pepsi, just to be clear. I feel like I thought this place was going to be shittier than it was for what I've known about it all these years. It's still it still wasn't great.

I think I think I think summing it summing it up as as the motel six to to Panda Express is whatever. Howard Johnson, Howard Johnson's or yeah, or Laquinta Inns or something. I don't know what. Laquinta Inns good. We're even even a little budge Marriott could be good. Yeah, a little budge Marriott. Exactly a double tree, a double tree.

Yeah, all of these fucking were really this is the new hotel. And like I didn't really I guess I didn't really tell you that how I felt about anything really. I just told you my order, but I will tell you that I think we should go into detail about what the original meat is. Oh, yeah, let's go. Well, it's a lot of fat. Yeah, it's very, very fatty.

It's I can't think of another place in the world that offers you fat. Yeah, really is like because even at Subway where you're getting pretty low quality cold cuts, it's they're usually lean. I feel like you're not getting like really fat. It is like a it is like like pastrami deli level of fattiness. It's just like very visual visual. Yeah, there's just there's just a like. Yeah, you're right.

You can see through some of this. Like you hold on to the steak. Yeah, that's not an exaggeration. Oh, no, for sure. Yeah, you hold it up. You can see through some of the fatty parts of the steak, which is bonkers. I mean, visually, could you think of another restaurant that allows that to happen? I can't even if you go to like Foga to Chow where you eat fat and they go,

do you want the fat? It's still they almost it doesn't look like that. Do you have it on at the at the upscale redux, the upscale rework? Is that one? No, this is the beef is different. Same beef, same beef. Wow. And that's that's because that's their signature.

Yeah. So they don't they they know you're coming there for that. I assume that fat meat because I did not like the orange chicken. Yeah, well, how did they get it wrong? That's it's the easiest. Like if I if I date someone and they go to Pan Express and they don't like get the orange chicken, I will dump them at the Pan Express. I'll be like, you're a Nazi.

You're a terrible person. Yeah. Like you have to eat it and most people don't fuck it up. It's just a fried sweet chicken. That's very easy. It's great. It's great there. This was not good.

It's not good. I made the beef. It made the beef better. That's I agree. Yeah, I took I took a bite of the beef. I was like beef. I was like, ooh, that's salty and strange. Had a little bit of the orange chicken.

I was like, no, this is no good. And it's I feel like it's hard to mess super hard, hard to mess up orange chicken. Like it's one of those one of those things that even bad orange chicken can be decent. And this was and this just didn't cut it. And it did make me enjoy the steak more. Yeah, which I did not think I was going to enjoy it all.

But so there was no and what did you think of your your your combo bowl at the new and improved? Well, that's what I had the new and improved. I had so I had the orange chicken and with a hand holding club for the nice one and then for the dirty one. I had an Angus beef, which is very tough and different. And you don't see the fat, but a very almost I don't know how to explain it. It's almost a burnt beef, which could be good, which could be good.

This was not that clearly. And then I had the drumettes, the Asian drumsticks, and those were good. Those are good. Those are very hard to mess up for the record. But that seems like a lot. I was afraid to get those. It's chicken with teriyaki sauce. Gotcha.

Gotcha. It's fine. It's fine. And so what did you think of the upscale? You know, yeah, did you enjoy the the bowl? Did you enjoy that meal? Yeah, because I took I think I feel like getting the original in my opinion, I guess it seems like a note in my opinion.

I think you'll like it. It's just crap. Yeah, I got it. It tastes fine. It's very salty. Well, it appeals for a good reason. It's probably a delicacy even in the Yoshinoas in the Asian markets. That's probably what they're known for.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Like it went in Rome, I think is still that in Yoshinoa in Asia. Sure. Like in Asia. Like I feel like that's still fine. Yeah. And so like that was the thing.

And then Angus was terrible and the orange chicken was terrible. And the orange chicken also had, I think, pineapple in it. I think so, yeah. That's a weird decision. It was I mean, it was really dark. The I was so dark. It was so dark. It was too dark.

And also with mine was served on a bed of white rice. Yeah. And it was just in like a kind of like I didn't get a bowl. It was the combo plate came in like the big takeout container like I was saying. And it was just it was it was kind of an all around bummer. And it just sitting there and then finding out that this is a fast food place that's been open for a hundred like a hundred years. I think they've just never figured out.

And I think they're they're flailing and they're trying something new, but they've never quite figured it out in America. And that's why they've had limited success and have kind of gone towards being this sort of low rent budget friendly option. But yeah, it is it is really it's a unique fast food meal. It's not something you can get anywhere else. I'm not sure why they're trying the orange chicken. I guess they must just be directly trying to poach some of some of the goodwill

from the Panda Express. They're limited time option right now is the golden walnut shrimp. Yes, which is a ripoff of Panda. Exactly. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And that's actually what I got the the honey walnut shrimp. I got that in a combo bowl with beef. So basically what Mitch is what Mitch got, but just subbing out the orange chicken for that honey walnut shrimp,

the mixed vegetables and the and the white rice. And then they throw sesame seeds and green onions over the top of it in limited amounts, which doesn't seem to add anything. Yeah, I mean, you know, that sauce is like that beef sauce is like kind of teriyaki. It's very sweet, very sticky. You know, people have different opinions about those syrupy sauces. I sometimes like them. I feel like this one is just not like it's not a great version of it, but it's fine.

It certainly makes the beef edible. That beef is certainly the most it was the best part of that meal was that that beef. That walnut shrimp wasn't terrible. I mean, it had a little bit of crunch to the shrimp. For me, like budget, like very, very low budget seafood, low cost seafood. I always find very suspect. And so I was a little hesitant to order it. I tried it out in the interest of science,

but like I was just a little put off by how cheap it was. Any interest in exploring, you know, you don't know that all of your podcasts get transcribed and sent to scientists. Just so you know, all of them do. Yeah, hopefully not Bill Nye. Tyson, I've started a beef with those two out of here. Our podcast is actually very anti anti science, I would say. Yeah, I would say we're not particularly both scientifically curious men.

Yeah. And you're you are a Christian podcast. Mitch thinks the Mitch thinks the sun orbits the earth. So the sherry shepherd of your view. Yeah, no, I I I tried it out. But like, yeah, I wasn't, you know, it wasn't great. And the rice is fine. It's fine. It's sticky. It's fine. Yeah, it's fine.

Chicky is sticky white rice, which is which is good. And Chicky. That did get real Boston Freestyle racist for a second. It's the chicky. It's a word that sounds like a racial slur, just meaningless. It's like, hey, check out that fucking chicken. What the fuck, man? Take it easy. Jesus Christ.

Yeah, it's your story was filled with a bunch of fucking dirty chicky. Oh, my God. It's terrible. Dude, you get to drive. Yeah. Oh, God. Weigar, did you immediately get a boner and shit your pants? I did not. The vegetables are really bad.

They're really, really bad. I don't understand it. It's just empty calories. It's just to fill you up and I get it. But I just had to douse them with soy sauce and red pepper to make them even edible. But yeah, they're just very, very bad. Why don't they have them doused in soy sauce?

This place is the this is truly one of the weirdest places. I think it's very true on the podcast. Yeah. And the weirdest thing of all is I think I might go back to. That's the weirdest thing about a reveal. What an M night twist. Holy shit. Honestly, I didn't think anyone could beat that.

I had a boner and shit myself surprised. But holy shit, I think you just did it. Oh, my God, I did not see that coming. I might go back to that. It's it's so I didn't hate it. It was it was it was it's so strange. Even the original beef comes with like onions or something. Like I didn't even know what was going on in there.

Oh, yeah, they're they're like onions mixed in with the beef. So it's like kind of got an oniony in a in a seasoning way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like like in my like I see that place and I like think like, oh, it's like it looks it truly looks like a dirty, gross place. Yeah, it feels like there's bugs inside there. Like that's what you for those of you people who don't know

about Yoshi, no, yeah, they never seen one before. And I was shocked to hear that there even was one in New York. I said that before, but I didn't. I thought they were a California thing. I didn't realize that they were there across the country. They're mostly in the Western states. There was one in and I think there was just one location in Times Square in New York City.

They were heading to the spreadies and it didn't work. But yeah, I I think probably the way you probably in your town, if you don't have a Yoshinoya, you probably have just like a real dirty, dingy, you know, takeout restaurant, whatever that is. It's just that's just what the interior interiors of these places are almost universally. And speaking of what a weird restaurant it is, the low light of my meal was the clam chowder soup I got.

Oh, shit, you got it. Yeah, which you really were working for science. Oh, yeah, described as creamy Boston style clam chowder made with lots of potatoes, clams, celery and non-dairy milk. Jesus Christ. Hardy exclamation point. Non-dairy milk. Non-dairy milk.

Yeah, it doesn't identify that it's like soy milk or something. Just some weird mix. Yeah. I think you're into getting boners and shit in your mouth. Yeah, I think you were trying to recreate that moment. It was so. This guy got shrimp and chowder. Jesus Christ.

First of all, it's disorienting that they have New England clam chowder at a Japanese restaurant. I have no idea why they have that. If you're going to have a soup, have some udon or something that makes sense. Have some miso soup, clam chowder. What are you doing? And it's such a bad clam chowder. It was just a putrid, putrid bowl.

I had a tiny cup about half the size of a small coffee. And I could barely, I had like a third of it and I wanted to throw up. And also, I will say this, it was the thinnest clam chowder I've ever had. It was super thin. Water. Yeah, just very watery. And then I think I identified two pieces of clam meat and those were the only things that were not broth in the soup.

So it was really, really disgusting and bad. It was clearly not the third thing on the healthy list. Yeah. And you know what it was? It's when I said, I knew, like, I shouldn't have ordered it to begin with. And I knew it was a problem when I ordered the clam chowder and the guy behind the counter was like, turned to his coworker and was like, hey, where's the clam chowder on this thing? And she had to, like, help him to go to the next page on the menu that no one ever gets

to to select the clam chowder. And it was virtual dust. Yeah. It was like when we went to Long John Silver's, it was a Long John Silver slash KFC way, way back in the early days of this podcast with Mary Holland. And we went to this combination restaurant and we said, like, oh, can we have some Long John Silver's? And the lady looked at us like, it takes a while to make.

Like, are you sure you don't want KFC? Like try to talk us out of it. And then we're like, no, we want the Long John Silver. And she's like, all right. Yeah. She was not. I mean, like, it feels like that's Yoshi Noya as a restaurant. Yeah.

It's a bad sign. Yeah. Yeah. I got a question for you because Jessica's bringing up clam chowder. How do you feel about regional foods when they make their way to other places? Like in LA, there's a booze Philly cheesesteak, which is people are like, oh, this is kind of like a, this is close to a Philly cheesesteak in Philadelphia. But I feel like they never really, even at its best, it never really delivers to kind

of the local favorites. Sure. Yeah. I mean, I appreciate the effort because I think if you can simulate a whole time favorite for expats, especially in a city like LA that has a lot of people who move here from other parts of the country, I mean, I think that makes some sense. For sure. Well, it's a good example because the only good example I can come up with is that when

a Chinese food restaurant distinctly wants to be East Coast style. So in LA, we have one called Genghis Cohen, which is on Fairfax here. That is clearly an East Coast style Asian restaurant. I always thought that was a coffee house for some reason, but it has a performance bar off to the right of it. Gotcha. And so I can't think of too many, like the Philly cheesesteak place that's a franchise here is not good.

Yeah. Yeah. It's okay. And that's kind of how I feel about every, like LA pizza has taken on, like it's done well lately in the last few years. There's some places that are like, well, CPK does well in other places in CPK, but to me, there's nothing that tastes kind of like East Coast pizza. Well, there is.

I mean, there are like some restaurants like Joe's Pizza, which is a New York City thing. They have a couple of those out here that's that's that's pretty good. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, you know, I guess that's a better question of what is LA's food? Like I feel like burgers. You think burgers? Yeah, burgers.

If in and out wanted to go to other states, burgers are great. If in and out want to go to other states, that would be our thing. Yeah. But but East Coast is the home of the hamburger. That's where that's where it was invented. I think I think the driving is that real in Connecticut. I think I think I think the hamburger was invented in Connecticut. I think there's a lot of there's maybe not a distinct California.

There's not maybe not a distinct Los Angeles dish, but I think there's a lot of like there's a lot of burger culture from the American side, but there's there's also certainly like a lot of a lot of Mexican food, a lot of good Japanese food, a lot of good Japanese food, a lot of good Thai food. Yeah. Like Mexican food is the best. It might be it. Yeah.

Yeah. Mexican food. I don't know how we even forgot about that. It is our biggest. It's amazing out here and it is it is funny. Like I feel like you were you were driving towards a dish like a Philly cheesesteak like a Chicago style. Yeah.

You know, like maybe there's nothing exactly like LA doesn't have that. But I mean, I'm not saying it's a bad food town. My mom's coming out in a couple of weeks and she's thrilled to because she she loves all the food out here. But great food town. But it's it's very much a mixture of different things that you can try that are good. And I feel like Yoshinoya is that but bad. Like it's a lot of different.

You got a lot of different foods, but none of them are really great. I get that. Yeah. It's it's a big it's a big weird mix of stuff. And I don't know what its identity is. I think it's come to the point in the podcast where we should give our evaluation of this very peculiar chain. So Jensen, we will start with you if you want to sort of give your closing argument on

Yoshinoya and ascribe your your fork rating to to one or both of these. Yeah. So I think this is going to be a Doughboy's first. Okay. I think that no one has ever given two grades. Yeah. We haven't gotten a split grade. We never got a split grade ever.

And I do think that when both of you I mean and by both of you, I mean when Mitch goes to the other one, I'll try the Japanese. Okay. So when you do go there, you will understand why I'm splitting them. Gotcha. So in my sort of defense, the fact that the only time I'd ever eaten there before I shit myself, I think that this was a surprise that I did not have a stomach ache. I definitely reacted to this better than I would a lot of other places that I could

bring up. You know, like I've had issues at a lot of places and this was I did not have it here. And so I gave that that's in my judgment. The the zombie attack Yoshinoya on San Monica and Vine to me. So the natural one that most people would know if they're in California gets two forks. It's brutal. And the only reason that I would ever want to go back is that the original beef is pretty. I think it's like, I think it's scientifically made for us to like it.

Yeah. Some weird way. There's a lot of salt or whatever it is. It's different and it tastes a little rubbery, but in a good way. So I would stick there. Now that involves the ambience of feeling like you could get mugged at any time. Right? Yeah.

So when you go to the Japanese kitchen, I'm going to include ambience and the feeling and the concept into it and say that it gets three forks because even the presentation of having the rice and then entree side entree on top in a clean way, it's a completely different vibe. So even though the food, the orange chicken was brutal and the original beef I did like, it still was a better experience because of the way it was set up. So I assume that's what they're trying to do. Yeah.

Is get one more fork. And that's funny to me because that changes it because to me, two forks is a place I don't really ever want to go. Three forks isn't bad. No. It's not bad. It's not great, but it's not bad. The Japanese kitchen is fine.

The Japanese kitchen is fine. It's exactly what I feel. The Japanese kitchen is fine. Yeah. The Yoshinoya don't go back. Yeah. The three forks baseline from a very first episode is chilies. That's just like a three forks place.

It's fine. It gets the job done. It's not going to blow your mind. So that is a pretty good endorsement of where Yoshinoya is now versus where it once was. Okay. Go ahead, Mitch. I didn't know much. I love all Asian food.

I do like all Asian food and we living in Los Angeles, I know that I always brag about East Coast Chinese food, but we have a bunch of options out here that are just amazing and there's so much good Asian food. I never wanted to step foot inside of Yoshinoya, but we made this podcast and so I had to. Had to. And I didn't even under, I thought it was a sushi place forever. I didn't know what it was. And then like as time went on, I was like, oh, it's a bowl.

The sign is a bowl. It's a bowl place where you get like a bunch of different balls. You can't even tell what you want. There's like, like, I feel like like a Carl's Jr. or like any other place like they have burgers in the on posters on the window. Yeah. Yoshinoya doesn't really like, you can't see anything. You don't know what the fuck it is.

I never knew what it was. I thought it was going to be the worst thing ever. The beef was all right. The orange chicken was not good. And then the vegetables weren't good. But the beef and the rice weren't that bad and the egg rolls weren't bad. But still overall, not a great restaurant. It's two forks for me as well.

I was going between one and a half and two. But like, so caros that we went to on here, when I went, my meal was inedible. It was so bad. This I ate the entire meal. I ate everything. I ate literally everything in my combo plate. I ate the whole thing. And there were times where I was like, hmm, like I was kind of enjoying myself.

So two forks it is. Two forks but a return. Two forks and I will return and I want to try Japanese kitchen and maybe that one will get another fork out of me. And I'd love a small update when you do do it. Yeah, we should do it. I will happily give an update. Like on, what am I thinking of, like real sports with Bryant Gumbel, they check up on

a previous story. Yeah. We'll do it. They're like, Lyle Alzato has passed away. Wait, so do we have to go with Bryant Gumbel? Yeah, yeah, that's part of it. I get what you guys are saying and you're right that the beef is reasonably tasty, though it is so fatty it's a little off-putting.

And I do like fatty meats, but just something about it slivered so thin, it just feels like you're just having little pillows of fat and it's just kind of, it's just kind of gross and I feel like it fits in the general grime of the restaurant. I went to the location on Pico Boulevard in Santa Monica, near where I live. Service was very nice. They were very friendly. Everyone inside was, you know, it's a dingy, not particularly clean interior, but everyone in there was very nice and I think there were a lot of families and college students just

trying to eat on a budget. And I appreciate and respect that. And I get that they are offering a cost-conscious, very inexpensive meal that you can fill up on. Especially us who went, we went to Morton's on our last episode. Our last episode, yeah, we, you know, we dined out at an opulent place for rich capitalists and this is at the other end of the spectrum. But I just have to say that I get that and if you like this place, I'm not trying to

shit on your favorite, you know, low-cost, budget-friendly chain, but I just felt the food is terrible. I just feel like it's really bad. And you know, when I've eaten there before, I've just never had a good experience. The ones in Long Beach, just like Yoshinoya beef bowl was just a place that just had like a, people would like turn up their noses at just like the thought of eating there. It just, it just had a bad reputation and I think it has a deserved bad reputation because I just don't think the food is very good.

I think just a lot of what they have is alternately either flavorless or overly seasoned and everything feels heavily processed, nothing feels healthy. It feels like you're on the verge of tummy trouble and you know, our wonderful guest apparently is the living manifestation of that. And I just like, I don't see a reason to go there. I'm glad they're retrofitting it. I'm glad they're trying a different direction. Maybe I'll update my score in the future, but if I'm being honest with my assessment

of this place, if you're trying to save some dimes, go to Del Taco, go to McDonald's, go to Taco Bell. You're always pushing fucking Del Taco. I threw in Taco Bell in there because I think that's a better option. These are better options. Even go to Panda Express, which is just a little bit more. Those are all better. Just go to one of these places to try and save money because I think Yoshinoya is just,

it's just really bad and maybe I'll update my score, but for now, one fork. Ufa, ufa. All right. That's Yoshinoya beefball or just Yoshinoya. You know what I mean? He's a man of the people. Cuckweiger is a... Don't call me Cuckweiger.

Cuckweiger turns his nose at the... And he hates chickies. He hates chickies. Those dumb chickies. That was Yoshinoya slash Yoshinoya Japanese Kitchen. It's time for regular segment. Hold on a second now. Also, where else are you going to get fast food Japanese?

There aren't a lot of options. You're right. There's none. There's zero. I feel... Yes, you're right. There aren't a lot of... But I would...

Starting that one at a fork alone? I don't know how Japanese it even is. There are other ones. There's like a Bansai or whatever. Do you know what I'm talking about? Oh yeah, Sansai. Sansai is quite a bit more expensive. But Sansai is a lot better.

It is the Baja Fresh. Sansai is the Baja Fresh to Taco Bell Yoshinoya. That one's a lot better. That one's confused because I love Taco Bell more than Baja Fresh. To be honest with you, I don't like Sansai or whatever. So maybe we're the same. Maybe we're hand holding there too. In any event, yes, I feel like as far as Japanese chains...

Asian chains in general, there just aren't a lot of. That's just life in the United States of America. I wish there were more. I wish they had more variety. But as far as Asian food goes, I think you're generally better served at trusting Yelp and going to a local business. And I think you can find maybe some Japanese takeout that's closer to a little bit more authentic, a little better.

If you're driving by Yoshinoya, you're going to drive right by in your musicless car. Nothing to drown out the sound of sadness from Yoshinoya. Just the sadness within your car. Alright, that was Yoshinoya. It's time for a regular segment. We've got a food stuff and we're going to determine if it's worth putting in your mouth. It's snack or whack. Now guys, we had some Honey Mustard Pringles that I had brought for this podcast.

But we got a little bit of a curveball. Our producer, Dustin, presented us with a package that arrived here at Feral Audio, sent in from a listener, and I forgot to grab this listener's name so I'm going to step out for one second so we can acknowledge this very, very kind person. But Mitch, tell us what we're going to be dining on. This is a... Oh, well, I'm definitely going to say this wrong. Nihon Bashi Cheese Bar.

It looks like cheese. It says, on the bottom, it says Cheese Tara. None of this makes sense. None of it makes sense to me. The rest of it is in Japanese. And it's in like a... Almost a... What are those?

A Mylar? It's almost in like a Mylar casing. Yeah, it's like if you went to the Science Museum and it's like space ice cream. Yes, yes, yes, yes. This looks like what the astronauts, how they eat cheese. Yeah, like a futuristic beef jerky. And it says, keep fresh on the back with an exclamation point and then writing in Japanese under it. So I don't know what that means.

This came to us from listener Leslie James. Thank you, Leslie, who is in Japan. And she sent us some emoji, little emoji notes from... Appropriate. Appropriate. Appropriate emojis. Yeah, very shit-centric episode. And she read a little note that this is cheese Torah in parentheses.

I promise this is good. Oh, cheese Torah. Yeah. What did you say? I think this says cheese Tara. Cheese Tara, cheese... I can't... Maybe I'm reading her handwriting wrong.

Oh, it is cheese Tara. Cheese Tara in parentheses. I promise this is good. Cheese with dried cod coding. I mean, oof, let's do this. That sounds terrible. I promise this is good. And then she says something that sounds terrible.

Terrible. Yeah, let's see if we can open this bad boy up. Uh-uh-uh. All right, here we go. There's a few pieces in here. So the outside almost looks like it's hikama. Yeah, it really does. And can I...

Would you mind doing a freestyle rap about that? It's the most annoying request. The hikama cheese. All right, here we go. It smells strange. Yeah, it's really weird. It looks like a little piece of dried-out string cheese. Yeah, look at it.

Swiss cheese. Yeah, I mean string cheese. It looks just like that. Oh, boy. Oh, wow. That is real salty. Really salty. That is super salty.

So the inside is mushy. The outside a little strict, a little hard. This is strange for me because it's non-refrigerated cheese. It very much... Yeah, that's off-putting. It very much tastes like cheese. Salt cheese. I mean, you can't...

Again, it's because you can't really go wrong with salty shit. It's like... Yeah. I tell you, the texture grew on me. It's a little weird because it's not... It's a little bit harder and waxier than you'd expect for most cheeses. Certainly a soft cheese, but you put it in your mouth. It's very, very edible.

If you had this on a cheese plate, I'd be like, I love that. Yeah, I like this one. Yeah. Not knowing what it is. Hmm. I'm not tasting a lot of the cod flavor. That might be the salt on the ramp on the outside, though. I guess that is what it is.

Yeah. There's a little packet in here to keep it fresh. Like one of those like... I'm trying again. Yeah. You know those packets. Yeah, I know what you mean. That's silica.

Yeah. The thing that says, do not eat. That's a message they put on for guys like you, Mitch. Yeah. And you can freak out and take your dog to the vet. You fucking asshole. I don't know. This is a tough one.

I tell you, I'm going back for my third piece. Which for me is a... It's got a little Swiss... It's got a little string cheese to it a little. Yeah. It is if string cheese was salty. It really... Yeah, that's kind of the texture.

It is kind of string... I mean, it doesn't pull apart in the same way. It's kind of almost like kind of got a new stick of gum texture. Yeah, it is a lot like a gum. The outer hard texture is throwing me a little bit. It's weird. This is weird. But if my options are snack or whack,

it's a weird one, but I think it's a snack. I could do it. I say snack. I could do it. I'm a little nervous as to people eating this without two friends. Because I cannot imagine having ten of these pieces. Sure, yeah. Which I think is probably how many was in there.

Yeah. I mean, there's... I've had three. You guys have had three. You guys have had three. There's three left. Totally, yeah. That's a substantial portion.

That's a lot of that cheese to eat. Yeah. So I'm saying in minimal amounts, if you could eat it over a certain amount of time, it seems like a snack. Maybe get four friends and each of you have one quarter portion. Oh, my God. Congratulations. Good job.

Congrats. I... Leslie, I think you're great. Thank you, Leslie. Here comes the anti-chicky raid. He's ready. I can't... I think I gotta go whack.

Wow. I just don't... I love cheese and I just... I just can't see myself buying this and wanting to eat it. Like, the texture got to me. The texture... It was a texture thing. It's really weird.

It's really strange. Appropriate for today's episode. We did a lot of weird shit. We did a lot of weird shit, but I just... I can't see myself. This got a lot of weird shit. Oh, specifically yours. But I can't...

I can't... I can't see myself. It's too salty. But it's not... It's... I hate to say whack because it's not terrible either way. It's not disgusting. It's not disgusting, but...

You just wouldn't revisit it. I probably won't revisit it. But he is revisiting Yoshi Noe. That does put it very low on the totem pole. That's true. Yoshi Noe has Yoshi in the name. I like Yoshi. Yoshi's great.

Yoshi's great. We didn't talk about that. The blue flyer in the parlance of Armin Weitzman. Oh, my God. Because the blue Yoshi can get little wings and fly. Like a pit from Kid Icarus. What does Yoshi mean? What does Yoshi mean?

I don't know what Yoshi means. Well, because when I looked it up on the Wikipedia, what the compound word was that made Yoshi Noe... I don't know if I got a breakdown for the meaning of Yoshi. Wait, it's a name also, right? Yeah, I think that's what it is. I think it's just a name. Oh, okay.

Oh, all right. I mean, it might have meaning. Does it mean dinosaur? It would be funny if you looked up. It says green dinosaur. Wait, Yoshi means... Each turtle spits it out is the full reasoning explanation of the name Yoshi.

Oh, it says right here. It says Yoshi means good luck or righteous. Yoshi was both of those things. Yeah, he was. He was. He was. He helps Mario out. Yoshi, one of the greatest inventions to the Mario series,

additions to the Mario series there was. Yeah, above the squirrel suit. Oh, that's tough. I put Yoshi above the squirrel suit. I put squirrel suit then Yoshi. I think Yoshi was never used well again after Super Mario World. Yeah, but he's cool. I think there's a lot to be said for Yoshi is really cool

and he gets his own games. Yoshi's Island is a great platformer. That one's really good. Yeah, but they kind of turned Yoshi into like... Yoshi was the coolest in Super Mario World and then after that he was like... Yeah, he got slightly Jar Jar. Yeah, he got Jar Jar.

He got Jar Jar. Yeah. What's your favorite Yoshi? Let's know. Tweet at us. My favorite Yoshi. My favorite Yoshi. Yeah.

All right. That was Snacker Whack. Just like a restaurant, we value your feedback. Let's open up the feedback. So, today's email comes to us from Ben Castle. Ben writes, I love the Panda Express Innovation Kitchen in Pasadena, which has special menu items such as scallion pancake wraps, a tea bar, and relatively upscale decor.

Sounds like the Japanese restaurant. Yeah. As a child, I was fascinated by the self-proclaimed World's Largest McDonald's over the highway in Oklahoma. Are there any specific locations of chain restaurants that you particularly enjoy? I have one. Go for it, Jensen.

There's a Taco Bell on the beach. Have you ever seen it? Whoa, wait, which beach? Let me tell you, I have to look it up. But there is a Taco Bell that is like a dream. And it's obviously one of their gimmick, but it is super cool, and I've looked at it a million times, and it's not that close.

Yeah. I've thought about going before. I think it's like two or three hours away. The greatest Taco Bell in the world is in Pacifica, California. Oh, wow, okay. So, it's a little bit of a San Francisco trip, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, let me bring it up.

But the pictures are so cool, and maybe you guys have one while it's loading. You know, just speaking of, this wasn't going to be my first time but speaking of beach locations, I have some nostalgia attached to the Jack in the Box, which is right by the beach in, right by Bolsa Chica Beach, which I'd go to a lot as a kid. But the specific location I was thinking of,

mentioned a giant McDonald's. There's a huge McDonald's in Barstow, California, which is about halfway between Las Vegas and Los Angeles. If you're making that drive, it's a common stopover. And yeah, there's one, I think it's a converted train station, but it's just a big one. I think it's a converted train station, but it's just like a really cool, huge two-story McDonald's.

And like, every time I go to Barstow, I'm like, ah, man, I got to check out that McDonald's. It's just a fun experience. I know there's that two-story, the two-floor McDonald's in New York City. I feel like... Oh, yeah, yeah. And I enjoyed going there.

But I feel like I'm never, now, I mean, like the original Pizzeria Regina and the original Dunkin' Donuts in my hometown of Quincy, Massachusetts, I like. But the original Dunkin' Donuts is just like, it just tastes like a regular Dunkin' Donuts. There's nothing kind of special about it. Oh, wow.

I don't know. I'm showing them the beach Taco Bell, and it's crazy. That is crazy. Yeah, it's like, it's a really nice wood. It's really awesome. That's really awesome. It's like a design Taco Bell,

and it's right on the beach, and you can sit on a patio and see the ocean and everything from this Taco Bell. That's the funny, because like, that's property that should be like, oh, you're getting like these like fresh fish tacos. Yeah. And instead, you're eating like a queso lupa.

Yeah, yeah. That's like where the Spielbergs live, but you can get a quesadilla direct from Taco Bell. I love that. That looks amazing. I want to visit that next time I go up there. I don't really,

I know I've seen like the Rock and Roll McDonald's is the one in Chicago, right? Like, I don't know. Or is that Ohio? There's like the one, a famous McDonald's in Chicago. I feel like I've never,

I've never, I've never been to like, as a fast food fan in a Fischinato, because we do this podcast, I guess. I've never been to like, kind of a real cool fast food place like that. I feel like that. I don't know how many exist, right?

Yeah. Probably, I mean, probably not too many. Like, Have you been to the Panda Express? No, I haven't been to the Panda Express. I'm going to go soon. I've been really planning on it.

Yeah, I've been interested to go to Shot. Yeah. It's basically burritos. They make, they make mooshu burritos. That's their, their thing.

Yeah. See, I've never, I mean like even just going in and out or something felt like that sort of experience. Sure. The first time I went there, but yeah, I've never been to a place like that.

Uh, that's too sad. I guess it's either like, it's either one that has distinct architecture or some distinct, you know, location, or it's one that you have some particular affinity for,

for nostalgia reasons. Well, Central Park Shake Shack would be one. Oh yeah, that one's pretty crazy. I've been there. It's cool looking and it's like, you know, it's got a real look to it.

Yeah. Yeah, that's a good one. I think that, and the line is gigantically long. Yeah, I also saw a lot of rats there. Yeah.

Really? Um, the, where everyone's sitting, I saw a lot of rats at night. Yeah. Yeah. I guess,

oh, you know what, there, in, uh, there's a, like a legal seafood in like the back bay. That's nice,

but I don't know. I feel like I've never, wait, what are you talking about? Are you buying illegal seafood from a, from a back bay? What did you say?

A legal seafood in the back bay. And now, that's just insane Boston blabber. That makes no sense. It sounded like I said, I get a legal seafood in blowfish. Like,

what, what is illegal? What are you not allowed to buy in Boston? Legal seafood is a big, Boston chain. Okay. Yeah.

But, but I, I, I, I just feel left out. I'm trying to, I'm, I'm,

I'm trying to get something that, that works for this, but I don't, I don't really have one. So now I, I gotta visit a few places, I guess.

If you've got a, a specific location out there that you would, the line on social media, use the hashtag, uh, uh, my favorite franchise.

Oh my God. You got a better pitch? I don't know. I feel like Bryant and Gumbel should take over this podcast. More exciting than you. Probably listens to music in his car.

Lionel Alzado has died. I was too nice to you this episode. You fucking suck. My favorite franchise. Spoonman. Um, I don't know.

Or if you've got a better franchise, uh, use hashtag, punch up my favorite franchise. Oh my God. Our Twitter followers

and our subscribers are fucking dwindling. Uh, if you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants, you can email us at doboyspodcasts at gmail.com.

Check out our Facebook page, Do Boys, follow us on Twitter at doboyswab. If you have every second, uh, rate and review us on iTunes, help us out the podcast.

Uh, Jensen Karp, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you guys. Thank you for watching our podcast. Thank you guys.

Thank you for, uh, giving us, uh, such detailed info about the Yoshinoya franchise. Yep. Um,

do you have anything you would like to plug at this time? Yeah, just again, my book, uh, Kanye West owes me $300

and other true stories from a white rapper who almost made it big, comes out June 7th, and it's just filled with ridiculous stories that are all real

from a time that I was a professional rapper who got a million-dollar donation, clan 88, that's with a C, I'm not racist,

so it's J-E-N-S-E-N, uh, J-E-N-S-E-N-C-L-A-N-88. Uh, so, uh, do you reveal in the book

why Kanye owes you $300? I mean, I, yeah, I could tell people. It, the story, the reason isn't the full story.

The full story's great and you'll read it in the book, but I, I rented him a car, uh, a service when he, uh,

was really young in the game, in Times Square. So, um, we were working really late and he said, uh, I gotta get home

because this is the last train and I was like, dude, I'm, there, I'm kinda rich right now. Like, I like,

I like hanging out with you and we're, we're finishing a song I'll pay for the car and he was like, but you gotta promise me I'll pay you back. And I was like,

well, I don't really care. And he was like, I was like, it's kinda on the budget and he was like, I gotta pay you back. You should get it back.

I think you, you need to get this money back at some point. That would be a great ending. We'll see if, we'll see if he does that. Uh, Jensen's a hilarious writer

and, uh, as a definitely check that book out. Um, that'll do for this episode of Doe Boys. Uh, till next time for the Swoon Man McMitchell,

I'm Nick Weiger. Happy eating. See ya.