Fine Dining - Perkins Review feat. Andrew Canada (Two in the Cooler Podcast) [Part Two]

Episode Date: August 28, 2024

Even the name sounds mediocre! I'm joined once again by Two in the Cooler podcast host Andrew Canada to hit up a chain that was a staple of his childhood: Perkins Restaurant & Bakery Perkins has a dingy atmosphere that acknowledges you'd rather be elsewhere What's Going on Over There with advertising the arrival of Dr. Pepper to your menu, and then only serving Mr. Pibb? (This one really upset Michael) Our server was emotionally affected by me not loving my burger Andrew eats his pancakes in a real crazy way What we ate: Orange Juice Mr. Pibb Chicken Fingers Short Stack of Pancakes Turkey Sausage Tater Tots Blueberry Pancakes Sausage Patty Avocado Crunch Burger French Fries Apple Pie Banana Cream Pie "Fine" Dining is now on video! Head on over to my YouTube to watch this episode! Music by: James McEnelly (@Ramshackle_Music) Theme Song by: Kyle Schieffer (@JazzyJellyfish) Segment Transitions Voiced by: Sandy Rose "Fine" Dining is on Patreon! Get an extra episode every month (on the last day of August, I'll be releasing the episode for the other New York restaurant I reviewed: Ess-a-Bagel with my girlfriend Joyce as she reeeeally wanted to try NYC bagels), extended Yelp from Strangers segments every other week, merch discounts, download access to our music including the 7 singles from our Olive Garden musical, and more! Patreon Producers: Joyce Van, & Sue Ornelas   Get the 5 Survival Tips for Casual Dining at www.finediningpodcast.com!   Send in your Perkins stories at [e-mail].   Follow the show on TikTok and Instagram @finediningpodcast Follow Two in the Cooler on Instagram @twointhecooler   Let me know where I should go next by leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, PodcastAddict, Overcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I read every one!   Next week on "Fine" Dining: Septemburger 2024 Kicks Off! I revisit 5 burger chains I've been to already this season as we see Steak 'n Shake take on Rally's, and Culver's matches up with Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers. And then I score Whataburger's hamburger before they go head-to-head with In-N-Out the following week. Fill out your Septemburger brackets here!

On this week's delicious episode of the Fine Dining Podcast. We know we can't stop people from getting diabetes. Like if you come in here, it's inevitable. You're gonna lose a foot, brother. Okay, which is why the booster pack so tight because you don't need the leg room. Hello and welcome back to the Fine Dining Podcast, the search for the most mediocre restaurant in America. I'm your host Michael Ornelas and I am back once again inside of my residence in hotel room in New York City. I am truly coast to coast as I look for the most mediocre restaurant and I'm doing it because people say things are good or bad.

But I wanted to find that nexus point right in the middle, the fulcrum of mediocrity where good becomes bad, bad becomes good so that we can all have a point of reference to relate to when we say something's good or bad. Is it better or worse than Cracker Barrel sitting at a 5.01 out of 10 on the Chachki of mediocrity, currently the leader for the most mediocre restaurant. This week, I am joined once again by Andrew Canada, one of the hosts of the Two in the Cooler podcast. Two brothers, two viewpoints, two in the cooler. So humbling to be here. So humbling and I feel so blessed.

And you know what? I'm so blessed at how humbling it feels to be here. You've literally been doing prayer hands the entire part one. Here's the thing, it's so humbling. It's so humbling and I just feel so blessed and that's what I want to tell you Mike. It's how humbling I am at this whole blessed experience. So dumb.

And I couldn't be more blessed at how humble. Your time is up dude. We gotta keep. And thank you for telling me that. I feel blessed that you would humble me in such a way. Let's see if you keep this energy the whole podcast. Nope! It's going downhill fast! I feel blessed that you would humble me in such a way. Let's see if you keep this energy the whole podcast. Nope. It's going downhill fast.

Andy, super fun to have you here. You flew down from Buffalo to podcast with me. I told you we were gonna be going to Perkins. And you were like, I gotta be there for that. I have to. Now a little bit of background. On you and I, we met at a podcast creators convention called Podcast Movement Evolutions.

And I literally just walked by, you were in the middle of a conversation in a bar, you mentioned WWE, and I was like, we got some wrestling fans over here, and you were like, no, we're just talking about it as a brand, and I was like, oh, well I'm a wrestling fan, and here's some facts, and then I just spouted autism at you. And you were just like, okay, I guess we're talking now.

Wipe it out of my eyes. I was basically like the Dilophosaurus And you're just like, okay, I guess we're talking now. Wipe it out of my eyes. I was basically like the Dilophosaurus from Jurassic Park just spitting it in your face. Oh man, shout out to Wayne Knight for taking it like a champ. Yeah, and we've been buds ever since. You have a super fun podcast, I keep up with it. And I'm so glad to have you on Fine Dining.

For those of you watching at home, if you've never watched this show, I go to restaurants and evaluate them based on three criteria in trying to figure out if they're the most mediocre. I evaluate them based on their atmosphere, based on their service, and based on their food.

Mmm. Okay. Yummy. I'm uncomfortable, but also hard. Big time yum yums. Oh uncomfortable, but also hard. Big time yum yums. Oh no, and I came. What?

Yep. Can't help it. You came to New York City to do a podcast with me. I appreciate it. Oh my God. Now everyone, make sure next week is the kickoff spectacular for my September girl tournament. Go ahead and download your bracket, link link3.com slash fine dining podcast. You can listen to that first episode, find out who won the first two matches,

fill out the bracket, submit it to me through email, fine dining podcast at gmail.com and be put into the running for $500 if your bracket is correct. That's USD? That is USBLT. USBLT! Oh, God. Fine dining party of two. That is USBLT. USBLT! Oh, God. Fine dining party of two.

Anyways, our table is finally ready. We'll be right back. Your table is ready, follow me. Have you tried our chicken breast? Serving pancakes and ribs, I recommend the spaghetti. We're here to satisfy, not to impress! Your table is ready! Complementary butter and bread!

These walls have growth signs! Knit-knack cowboy hat! Good luck at autographed guitar! Some grab from your city! Behold the tchotchke of mediocrity! Fine dining! It's just fine dining! Fine dining! Two letters on the sign are shining

Neon flickering, irregular timing Identify the perfect fine-she-pallet-ten Fine dining, fine dining Atmosphere So before I talk about what's inside this Perkins, I just got to talk about pulling up. Rolling up on this Perkins, I was like, did I just step into a time machine? It looks like I went back to like 2002. Very strange, very strange. Strip mall Perkins. Yeah, yeah, a strip mall Perkins. I've never seen that before. Honestly, most of the Perkins I've seen are free standing Perkins.

But this one has latched on like a barnacle, like a parasite to this strip mall, and that's why it's the only one still around. They haven't scraped it off yet. No way. It's right next to an Asian grocery store, and kind of like dingy is probably how I would describe the material of the walls outside,

just dingy with a big green Perkins sign up above. Gotta have it. That I kneel at the altar of, but no more than you. You kneel at the altar of Perkins. You love yourself a Perkins. I really do. I can't I can't resist it. I mean look we know what happened when we went in there earlier today but Perkins just has a spot in my heart because it's it's where my dad would take my brother and I when my mom you know had other obligations.

Yeah, it was with her other family and we would go to Perkins and get the Perkins kids Menu was such a I mean to say it was a staple is almost an understatement because it was stunted your growth Physically more than me, but I was I grew up on McDonald's like fryer oil, so oh McDonald's fryer oil, so I was never gonna grow above 5'9". That's the limit for everybody. There's no, nobody who eats McDonald's that much can be taller than the Hamburglar. That's the absolute height of them. You just grow out. With the hat.

With the hat. I've got grimace proportions. Oh, shout out to him. I'm going full on a nice guy. And so I go inside, you're already there. There was kind of a bit of a change of plans this morning that kind of caused me to do some extra shuttling around. So I got to you a little bit late.

We were supposed to meet at 10.30 a.m. I think I got there at like 10.45, 10.50. You refused to tell me in minutes how long you had already been there because you're a polite guy, but I have to press you. Well, because you know, you refused to tell me in minutes how long you had already been there because you're a polite guy, but I have to press you. Well, because you know when you're inside a Perkins, man, time just loses all meaning.

You're at home, brother, okay? You're putting your feet up, they don't give a shit, you can put them wherever you want. Honestly, yeah, yeah. By the time we got out of there, I was way too comfortable in that booth. I was ready to just hunker down. Do you know how long you were there

before I got there, though? Yeah, man, I was there for probably 40 minutes comfortable in that booth. I was ready to just hunker down. Do you know how long you were there before I got there though? Yeah man, I was there for probably 40 minutes. In that booth? Yeah. And loving every minute of it. You are a trooper. Dude, part of the crew, part of the ship, you know what I'm saying?

So I'll talk about it more on service, but I had opinions on the service that I decided to disregard, because I was basically like it's not really fair for me to judge a behavior of a waitress who I haven't experienced the full front to finish start to finish experience for I'll get into it in service I'll get into it stay tuned but thank you for sticking around I apologize for running behind. But yeah, so I sat down,

I immediately felt cramped in this booth. Everything's like a light wood color with green leather. Green is not the best decor. It's like an old station wagon. Yeah. If an old station wagon were a restaurant, that's kind of what it's like. Yeah.

I don't know. There's nothing about green in restaurant decor that I enjoy unless it's like plants. Yeah, and there were none in this Perkins. Nothing natural in this Perkins. Not a chance, baby. It's not allowed in. It's like a vampire, man.

It can't cross the threshold. Unless you invite it. Yeah. And they're not. And so I walked in, you're at the table to my right, probably relieved to be like, thank God he's here. You stand up, we embrace. Of course.

Like two lovers, one just returned from a war. It was kind of like that. There was like rubbing the back of hair. The other one's been secretly cheating on him. Yeah. Yeah, pregnant with a kid that's not his, but it's his best friends. Oh my God. How are they going to tell him? It's like, wait, how are you pregnant? I last saw you 10 months ago. That's tough. Yeah.

And I didn't feel comfortable. Yeah. Like there was just an unease to like the decor here that I could never get to a good baseline. I think something about the booth to table being pushed a little too tight. This felt small. It felt like a miniature booth. Yeah, they really packed the tables in there.

I mean, the way that that one table was off to our side like that, very strange. And yeah, there's a weird cramped feeling. Yeah, I don't know, it's just kind of, it's a strange discomfort. Yeah, and like not everything is even. Like they had paintings on the wall and they had three frames that were the same size

and then like a bargain frame that was like a smaller and it was just like, you like, uniformity really does go a long way to kind of easing the mind from like a visual aesthetic standpoint. You're exactly right. No, that's what it is. It's just like, you know, sometimes like a horror movie element,

like where something's just a little bit off and you don't even necessarily fully perceive it. Yeah, consciously perceive it, but you still feel the discomfort that it's like the painting just like touch off at the angle, you know, something like that. Now, what I did find hilarious about these paintings, they were of like nice Italian landscapes and villas.

Absolutely, oh, it's Villa Central inside that Perkins, which has no bearing on the theming of a Perkins. Yeah. And it almost felt like, look, we know you'd rather be somewhere else. So here's somewhere nice to look at. That's so sad. That is. But it's what? Tell me I'm wrong.

Not a chance, brother. Yeah. Maybe it's like a Staten Island thing, because there's all these Italian folks that live on there. Every restaurant legally has to have paintings of Italy in it. Two of the Yelp reviews from last week were just shitting on Staten Island. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the rest of them, I would argue, were Italian as hell.

Yeah. Not to Chris R. He doesn't. He's not a listener. He's not alive. We don't know his whereabouts. RIP, I assume. But yeah, it was a choice to just decorate it

with like, look, nothing, a lot of restaurants will do like their history. You'll see like a black and white photos of the first location. Just like a balding man with glasses standing at the grill. Yeah. They got those everywhere. Yeah, yeah.

Now, speaking of that, just what an old man makes me think of, there was a sign when I walk in to the left-hand side that was avoid diabetes from the state of New York, and it was like, here are things you can order to not get diabetes. And one of the things on there was water, here are things you can order to not get diabetes. And one of the things on there was water, water with lime.

And I'm just like, do you need to verbalize that? Do people, is it a revelation to anybody of like the average Perkins consumer? Absolutely. They need, they need it. God, that just, I mean, it's just the, it's one of those things where it's like, we know we can't stop people from getting diabetes. Like, if you come in here, you're gonna get it. If you frequent a Perkins like this, it's inevitable.

You're gonna lose a foot, brother, okay? So this is just the tiniest little thing we can do. Which is why the booths are packed so tight, because you don't need the leg room. Oh my god. Guys, I got a genius idea for business. Which is why the booths are packed so tight because you don't need the leg room. Oh my god. Guys, I got a genius idea for a business. We serve the legless.

We save tons of room. We pack in the tables there. We're making money hand over fist. My grandfather had zero legs by the end of his life. It was just from the knee down on both legs, diabetes, and then he lost one of his arms from the elbow down in World War II. Very- Son of a gun.

Very spirited man, though. Oh, of course. Yeah. Man, what a, God. Imagine losing your first limb in such a great way, and then the other two to diabetes. To diabetes. That's gotta be tough.

Yeah, and it wasn't like a big guy. I, like, yeah, I don't know. I don't know. It's a terrible disease. Yeah, and I am, I am speeding headlong towards it. There was a table that was like the pie of the month, or pie of the week, or one of those two. Cherry.

Yeah, that's always sad. You're not reinventing the wheel with cherry. Do something cool with your pie of the week. Cherry was also just on the regular menu. That's always a sad one when you see a place that does have a special of the week or of the month and it's just an average thing. You know what, but Perkins is a place

where I'm sure you've run into a lot of joints like this, there's no room for creativity. That laminated menu cannot be edited. You feel me? There's nothing. There's nothing you can do. To reprint and re-laminate? Not happening. This company has gone bankrupt twice. Our margins will not support that. They had $441 million in liabilities. You think we're re-aminating a menu? We're not even giving people real meat at this point, man. Yeah. We also mentioned.

So this place does have a pie and pastry case. Yeah. Up front. And what I thought was interesting. So they had their mammoth muffins. They had pie. They had more pie. And then they had something on bottom, but it was so sweaty, like so much condensation on that it looked pixelated. It looked like, it looked like, It's still rendering, that food's still rendering.

Look, you don't want this. The case, the case is trying to let you know. It's a mercy. Oh, that's tough. I didn't even notice that. It was just fully obscured. It's like, look, just get one of the other things. Literally, it's a Who's That Pokemon of dessert.

They just show you the silhouette of something. It's like, maybe it's a brownie? It's Key Lime. Oh, shit. Yeah. And speaking of the keys, This place did have a very Florida energy. Oh my god, yes. Because the clientele was two things.

It was the elderly, and it was like guys with tribal tattoos, jerseys, and slides with socks. Yes, dude. Yes. It was those two things, which that's just Florida. That's Florida, man. You're so right. You are absolutely right. This is where Florida lives, up north.

You know what I'm saying? Florida lives. Florida lives in St. Island Perkins. This is how Florida is expanding across the country, via Perkins. It's like a Florida sleeper cell, dude. They're percolating. That's why the king wears the crown.

Ha ha ha! You're the only person I know who genuinely seems to love my really like the bottom of my jokes the bad one oh I can't get enough you give me a standing oh brother I was just telling you how excited I was to go to Perkins give me that slop slop it on me baby was the Perkins slogan. That was her original slogan. From 81 to 89. Yeah, yeah. Give me that slop. Give me that slop. Give me dat slop.

It was D-A-T. Give me dat slop. Yeah. Apostrophe D-A-T slop. Now, you know those little table signs that you get where it's just a special, or we're trying this out for the time being? They made a point.

They had a whole table triangle topper that said we now have a doctor in the family. Funny little slogan and everything. Advertising the arrival of Dr. Pepper to the menu, the offerings of the Perkins Fountain. Which I will say, way to know your demographic. People who get excited about Dr. Pepper. Look, I was one of them. It did work on me and I was like, I'll get a Dr. Pepper. And you know what they said to me, Andrew?

I do, because I was there. They said, we have Mr. Pibb, is that okay? What the fuck? What's going on over there? What's going on over there? What's going on over there? Should I wear it? Should I dance?

What is going on over there? Andrew, what's going on over there? Explain the discrepancy of advertising that we now have Dr. Pepper and then offering Mr. Pibb and not having Dr. Pepper. What's going on over there? That, look, crazy things have happened in my episodes. This might be the actual craziest thing I've seen in my life. I mean it is insane to go so hard and have nothing to back it up. Well you know sometimes...

There was no tone of self-awareness in her voice when she was like, Oh we have Mr. Pidge. Wow you're so right. That's crazy. There wasn't even like a look. I know the sign says this. Oh my god. No acknowledgement of the elephant in the room.

I think that's what you have to have to be a lifelong Perkins waitress like I assume Tony was. Yeah. Sometimes things just go over your head. There's an off switch that you just have to willingly. Yeah, exactly. So what's going on? What, like, why?

Look, sometimes mistakes are made, people lose their medical licenses. Okay, that's the way it goes. He didn't follow his Hippocratic oath. Oh, there were some male practice suits for sure and dr. Pepper just couldn't I mean, mr Pibb still practicing in Mexico Right. It's a lot of mr. Pibb will give you a doctor Pibb Doc. Dr. Pibb. He'll give you a BBL on the cheap. You always need a drug mule Yeah, you have so much space in your rectum, you know?

It's unused real estate. It's all, God, if only we could make these drug mules all rectum. And that's what Mr. Pibb is using. That's what Mr. Pibb is experimenting with in Mexico. We need more rectum. Dr. Pepper, as they called him, lost his license, went down to Mexico. Mr. Pibb is all he is now. And this Perkins, they

don't care. Yeah, they'll take what they can get. They'll get anybody in there. I think we figured it out. I think that's what's going on. 100%. Poor guy. He had to change his name, leave his family.

Yeah. Oh, God. Abandoned his house. They repoed his BMW. He only had two payments left, and then they took it away. Yeah. That or he was just an honorary doctorate. He gave a graduation speech. Can you take honorary doctorates away?

I think so. I think they took Cosby's. Probably the right call. Oh, 100%. 100%. Scandal noted bringing up Mr. Cosby. Yeah. And comparing him to Mr. Pith.

Formally Dr. Cosby. That only happened to two people. And that is in fact what's going on over there. Overall, on the atmosphere here, it was just a bit sad for me. I can't in good conscience give this even zero thumbs. I have to go one thumb down. It's not the full money of two thumbs down. I'm not saying this is the worst place I've been,

but there was just an element of everything felt off or old that it's just, it's an unsexy place to be. Yeah, if I can agree with you there on the one thumb down, it felt to me like a really old dog. You know what I mean? We're like, he's still kind of trying, but maybe one of his legs, he's kind of dragging behind him a little bit. Bumps into walls.

Bumps into what? Yeah, he's he's going blind and stuff like that. And you know that you're going to have to put him down pretty soon, but he still sometimes will like look at you and wag his tail. A little bit. I knew that he was once young. Yeah, exactly. Show like just a little and wag his tail a little bit. Remind you that he was once young? Yeah, exactly. Show like just a little bit of life. A little bit of spark.

But you know he's going down. That's really what that Perkins felt like. You've got that Cancun trip booked. Like what are you going to do? What are you going to do? You're not going to spend money on a kennel, man, because you know it's not worth it. Oh, God. Yeah, somebody's got to put down that Perkins.

And honestly, I'll tell you what, I don't think anybody's gonna, I feel like that Perkins is gonna still be there at least five years from now. That exact one? Yeah. Yeah. It's sticking around, dude.

It was packed in there. It was? It was a bumping. This place, it was pulling decent numbers. Yeah. So, all right, yeah, that's our talk of the atmosphere. Time to move on to service. Service.

Okay, so this is the thing where like, it took her a long time to come by and say anything once Joyce and I sat down. But knowing that you had been sitting there for 40 minutes, I have no expectation that she's like peppy about our table. She got into it once we were like, once that band-aid was ripped off, we were fine. Oh yeah, I mean, you're exactly right, dude. I'll tell you what, yeah, she didn't come around

to the table very often, but when she did, she was super nice, she seemed like a very nice the table very often, but when she did, she was super nice. She seemed like a very nice person. Yeah. And that's all that matters. I interacted with three people. There was the one waitress for a lot. Our server did one thing that I really do appreciate.

She had to go to the other side of the restaurant and take care of stuff over there for a while. She dropped our check and told us, I'm gonna be over there for a little while. I didn't want you to think I forgot about you. Here's this. Yeah. I love an update.

Just give me an update. If you're gonna do, I'm not gonna say bad service, but you know, hypothetically, if you're gonna do something that someone might complain about otherwise, but you just gave me a heads up that, hey, this is gonna happen and here's why, do what you want.

That's a veteran move. That's a veteran move. Hey, I'm going to spill this ramekin of ketchup on you. Bring it on. You told me. Yeah. I knew it was coming. At least I can brace myself.

Yeah. Okay. So, uh, I really did appreciate that. She was very kind. Uh, there was another waitress who came by and like, told us, oh, you pay at the front. Yeah. Jeannie, shout out to her.

And, and, but like made a big scene about like, you know, oh, you pay at the front. Yeah, Jeannie, shout out to her. But made a big scene about, hey, she wanted me to check on the table. But then she left, and I'm like, check on your own table. And it was like, spot a billion. It's crazy she was from the 1940s. It's crazy how she showed up. She got out of an old Model T and rolled up right there.

She had to crank up the engine to leave. She's like, ah, it's stuck. Oh, my shift's done. Yeah. Punched out with a reel. Takes her hard hat off. There's a big steam whistle. Woo.

Straight up Flintstoning out of there. Oh, yeah. Dude, she was Flintstoned right out of there. Yeah. She seemed very invested that we like our food, which isn't a must with a server for me. And honestly, I like it less. I'm not knocking the rating for that, but I don't want them to be hurt if I didn't love something.

Really? But you get, don't you have to appreciate that they are... Company players? Yeah, kind of. Team players excited to be doing what they're doing a little bit, you know? I do. They're like mentally there Yeah, no like so I liked it But I didn't because I feel like I was letting her down when I didn't love my food And I like I don't know Mike that seems like more of a you problem than a Tony problem I like I like a dash of self-awareness in the server to where it's like

Yeah, we can look we both know what this is. You didn't love it, yeah, it's what you get at Perkins. Like, that's the attitude I want, where I can be honest and not feel like I'm hurting them. I felt like I was hurting her. And by the way, I wasn't even verbally harsh. I don't even know if I said anything verbally. It was just evident in the amount of food

remaining on my plate when I asked for my dish to be sent away. I, you kind of like, you lied your way through it a little bit though, like, you know, which is what you're supposed to do, I guess, in that situation. But man, you summed it up perfectly. I think everybody that worked there was very nice, no self-awareness.

Perhaps like the Perkins brand itself, which is why it's still trying to hang on on its last legs. And then there was the lady behind the register who that was just, that was a transaction from a woman who had a presence where I was like, I feel like I could piss you off if I say the wrong thing, so I'm just gonna keep this short. Like, she was perfectly nice.

I just felt like, and it just might be the New York thing. I'm not from here, but there is an energy of like, don't waste my time. Yeah, I like that. And so I was feeling that vibe, but like nothing came, nothing bad came of that interaction or anything. Um, overall in the service, I think I'm going to go one thumb up. You know, she cared and she tended to us and I really appreciate that update of, Hey, I'm going to go over there.

But again, I wasn't there for the first 40 minutes. So the number of check-ins that we got seemed on par with what I would call average, uh, and her demeanor, I think took it up. Yeah. I mean, when I, when I was sitting there waiting for you guys, uh, she was so nice to me, she was like, you want this, you want that or whatever? So I gotta give it one thumb up as well, just because she's so nice,

and I think that's the whole point. It's obviously tough being a server and everything, but if we gotta be unbiased, man, if we gotta rate this restaurant, you can't give two thumbs up. It's gotta be just the one. Oh yeah, no, I mean, I've been to like, top tier restaurants where they are always looking out. Your cup does not stay empty.

Your water cup, like you're always getting refills, and any server will help you if you look like, oh yeah, that's the two thumbs up stuff, where it's just like, it felt like a team. I feel like a solo player has to really go above and beyond to get two thumbs up for me. I need to feel like the whole equation is there. Yeah, 100%.

And honestly, I feel like she wanted to give us that, but she just couldn't. She just didn't have the ability necessarily to take that one extra step. Maybe too much was going on in the restaurant that day, they were packed for a while. They were busy. For a while.

Not by the time we got out of there. So we're both going one thumb up on service? Gotta be. All right, time to talk about the food. Every week on Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso, I invite an artist, writer, or politician to come to the table and speak from the heart in ways you probably haven't heard from them before.

In recent weeks, I sat with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Democratic strategist James Carville, director Richard Linklater, and musician and actor Maya Hawke. To hear those and more episodes of the show, listen on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Be sure to open up your free iHeart app and search Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso. What it be, trivia lovers? It's your pal Ryan Buds, host of Trivia with Buds,

a Monday through Friday pop culture podcast with episodes under 10 minutes to give your nostalgic brain a workout. With over 2,000 episodes, you're all set for fun and games on your next long flight, road trip, or weekend hangout with friends and family. Check out recent episodes on famous mullets, Dungeons and Dragons, classic cocktails, and tons more.

And for info on virtual, in-person, and hybrid trivia, bingo, and game show events, go to my website, triviawithbuzz.com. Cheers. Food. Yum, yummy. So I got there, and now knowing that you had been there Trivia with Budz.com. Cheers. Food. Yum. Yummy. So I got there and now knowing that you had been there a literal eternity before

I sat down, it makes sense that you already had an order of chicken strips on the table. And this was your Michael, I insist you got to try it or as you call me Mike. Yeah. Cause this was my, the chicken fingers. The memory. That's Perkins to me, Mike. Yeah, because this was my, the chicken fingers. The memory. That's Perkins to me. Yeah.

It's wet corn and chicken fingers. That's Perkins. And a sugar cookie at the end of the meal. Yeah, yeah. That's Perkins. So I tried this chicken tender that was basically one of the like, you could build your own starter platter,

appetizer platter, and this was one of the options on that We didn't do the platter. We just did this and it had a honey mustard sauce and you know what it was Yeah, it really was tender was it existed. It filled space. It was made out of Adams. It was there We thought we touched it is made out of chicken. It was made out of breading. I sure hope it was and the honey mustard helped, but like if this podcast was the search for the most mediocre chicken finger in America, this was it. Yeah.

This was a five out of 10 for me. It really, you know, it's God, it's almost like you are forgetting the taste of it as you're chewing it. Your taste buds are making contact and you're like, we don't need what we don't whatever. Let's just slip this past the gullet and kind of be done with it. Just consume the calories. Yeah. Yeah. Don't think about it.

We're going to use this purely for energy. Yeah. And just never think about it again. Yeah. Yeah. And then I'm going'm gonna I'm gonna I never do drinks because drinks are usually like unless it's like an original creation by the place Usually it's like a fountain drink. Mm-hmm, but I got an orange juice and It just it was the most watered down Orange juice. I like I like a rich fullness. I like pulp. Oh, yeah, like a little body. Oh I could tell you're a pulp man. I like some body to my orange juice. Tanins, I need some tanins in my orange juice.

This could not have been, whatever the opposite of pulp is, like negative space. Yeah. Like dark matter. There was dark matter in that orange juice for sure. This OJ was a one out of 10. Wow.

I'm only noting it because it was so bad. If this is like an average orange juice, I'm not even mentioning it, but this sucked. No, it's orange colored water for sure. Yeah. It's the same, dude. It was like tang. But that's the way they do it at Perkins.

Things are mostly water there. So I guess let's talk about sides. We got entirely different things. We covered the dearth of the offerings because you got breakfast and I got lunch. Sorry about that. Yeah. So you got a pancake.

Yeah, just straight up regular short stay, baby. Couple pancakes. Now, I didn't know you're a psychopath, but the way that you cut your pancakes up before you even take a bite, I took a video of this. Okay, good. And I hope that you post it because I want everybody to know the correct way to do this.

No, no, no, no, no, you do not get to say it's correct. No, no, no, no, no, no, yes I do because it is. It's the right way to do it. You spent minutes slicing and slicing and slicing. It looked like you were making a jigsaw puzzle. You probably had... Then I syrup it back together, baby. About 75 individual triangles of cut-up pancake.

Okay, so I'll, if I may. You may not. What I like to do, What I like to do when I get a short stack or any pile of pancakes, I butter each one. Oh, that's right, there was that step too. Because of why I wanted you. Before making a single cut.

Why I wanted you. I think if you, I. That one I get, that one is smart. That step I, I'm cool. And I understand, you know, I see people only butter the top one because it's obviously easy to access, you don't have to do any work. Right.

You just butter the top, that's lazy. Were you doing top and bottom of each pancake or just tops of each? No, because that's too much butter. Okay. But I want to do tops of every one. Because the whole experience, of course, is like every bite should be delicious. And if you're only, I mean, would you agree that a buttered pancake- Right, you want to evenly distribute the flavors.

Yeah, exactly. That a buttered pancake tastes better than a non-buttered pancake? Depends on how like crispy the, like, if you get like a good like crystal or you know equivalent. On average though can buttering a pancake make it taste better? Yes. 100%. So why wouldn't you do that for every pancake? Because if you don't then you're getting parts of pancake that are not as good as other parts

of pancake that you're eating. I like variety. I'm- Even if that variety is bad? Fuck, of course you do. But I don't think it's bad. Who am I talking to? I don't think it's bad.

I don't know, I mean I think just like the base- It's worse. The base bread flavor of a pancake on its own with nothing can be good. Then that base flavor plus syrup but no butter is a different way of having it. Then with butter and no syrup is a different way to have it. It's different, but it's not as good.

And then butter and syrup. So you get four variations. Don't you want a combination of flavors though? of having it, then with butter and no syrup is a different way to have it, and then butter and syrup. So you get four variations. Don't you want a combination of flavors though? Like a real combo? You're the one creating uniformity across the whole thing. But you're getting the flavors from all the individual pieces in every bite. That's the point I'm trying to make.

That's culinary science, man. Look that's the way it is. I have no problem with the buttering. I have no problem with you buttering every top of each pancake You're right. We're burying the lead here. We're burying the lead So after I butter it up like you're hiding evidence Maybe I watched a little too much Dexter not my problem. What I do is after I after I butter the pancakes I cut the whole things. I don't cut as I'm eating because that's crazy to me. I cut them all

because that's crazy to me. I cut them all, and then I drowned that shit in about three inches of syrup, because that's how you eat pancakes, baby. You did go real hard on this here. Now, let me tell you why you cut it as you go, because, no, no, no, no, no, you don't get to- No, I'm gonna lay back. I'm gonna sit back here, and I'm gonna let you go ahead.

I'm gonna sit back here, you talk about this thing. Me and the same people, we're gonna think about something else for a minute. So when a large body of something is next to another large body of something, they trap and maintain heat. What you are doing is you are making your pancakes cool faster by creating all these extra pockets

through which air can escape. But I eat them fast. That's part of the game. That doesn't... That's part of the game. Look, gamifying is a different thing than what you're saying. You're just not eating like a winner. You're not eating like a champion. I have to push through the fact that pancakes expand in your throat

and make you feel like you're choking, so I don't want to keep doing that over and over. I want to have the heat maintain itself. It's a little bit of a physical weakness, Mike. I hate to attack you like this on your own show. As I literally wear a Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest shirt that I did not participate in. But the greats play through the paint.

Jordan, flu game. Isaiah Thomas, when his foot was just a fucking potato and he still fucking scored so many points that game, I forget the exact number, but you know what I'm talking about. Shout out to the bad boys, Detroit Pistons, Rick Mahorns, Bill Lambeer, Dennis Rodman, back to back defensive player. You know how he got that title, Mike?

By bashing his body, and that's what winners do. That's what you do to take not just the cake, but the pancake. So I thought your pancakes were okay. I probably gave him like a six and a half out of 10. Yeah, you know, but. Do you like how you just ignored your entire rant? Yeah, of course.

Go straight into scoring. You'd be an absolute crazy person to respond to that any other way. Just move forward. Yeah, please, please, for the love of God, let's get past this. Yeah, I mean, I think you have to. For me, the real taste of like this diner style pancake,

I mean, I was telling you, like I wish I could make pancakes like that. I have no idea how they do it. I think you have to. For me, the real taste of this diner style pancake, I mean, I was telling you, I wish I could make pancakes like that. I have no idea how they do it. There's like, it's really more of the, not really more, but part of it is the novelty that I'm enjoying when I'm eating them. Of like.

I didn't have to make these. Yeah, kind of. Yeah. I mean, that's the whole reason I go to a restaurant. Like, oh, food that I don't have to do anything to have put in front of me usually tastes better than whatever I got cooking. Yeah. That's the way it goes. Joyce, who joined us, got blueberry pancakes, which I thought tasted notably worse than a base pancake.

Yeah. When your blueberry is bringing down the taste, that's that's a condemnation of your fruit supplier. How strange is that? They were like sour. Yeah, you could tell just by the look. Did you try it? No, I didn't, but I could tell by the look of them. I've had those pancakes before. I'm not even saying just at Perkins, but that exact pancake with the blueberry that's maybe

not exactly as fresh as you want. And it wasn't evenly distributed. The way it's cooked. There was like a... Not a chance, dude. It's almost like they... There was like a gold vein. ...hollowed out the center of like the stack of pancakes and just threw some blueberries

in there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was like a glory hole of blueberries. A glory hole of blueberries. You took the words right out of my mouth. Four out of 10. Four out of 10 on a blueberry pancake.

Blueberry pancake is a layup. Yeah. And they're getting a four out of ten four out of ten on a blueberry pancake blueberry pancake is a layup Yeah, and they're getting a four out of ten, and I'll be honest if we had gotten chocolate chip I wouldn't have been excited now. I think they would have tasted bad. You think I think it would have been rough I think it would have been the kind of like Where you know you just need water yeah, you just need water after something like yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, well cuz they don't they don't have their own natural juice or anything like that. It's not a meat. No, listen, man, it's like my mom used to say,

you can squeeze a pancake all day, baby, but you ain't gonna get any more juice out of it. You know what I'm saying? Has your mom ever actually said that? She said it once. She said it once. At a Perkins. At a Perkins.

And that's how you were born. Yeah. Yep. That's where you emerged. And then I also tasted, Joyce got a sausage patty, which was very flimsy, but it hit for me. I don't know if you had your own sausage. Yeah, I had turkey sausage links. I went seven out of 10 on this, like, lone sausage patty.

Nice. If it was a little thicker, probably could have gotten up to like an eight or eight and a half for me. That was a good look. I know I didn't try any, but that was a good looking sausage patty. Yeah, but she didn't love it. She said it was like her least favorite thing on her plate, so I don't know, different strokes.

What did you think of your turkey sausage? It was good, it honestly tasted like regular sausage, which now I'm thinking maybe they tricked me. No, no, no, there are a few brands of turkey sausage I've had that tasted like pork sausage. Yeah, it tasted a lot like pork sausage, which I kinda like the turkey sausage taste or whatever, but they were good.

They honestly reminded me of the sausages I ate as a wee lad in the Finger Lakes region. What? I would go, every summer we would go to this motel in the Finger Lakes that my grandpa stumbled across, and it had a restaurant attached to it, and their breakfast there was great, and they had these crazy,

just these huge breakfast sausage links, and they were greasy as fuck, but they tasted so good. And we basically just eat those for breakfast for the whole five days that we were there, and these tasted a lot like that. So it was a bit of a ratatouille moment for me. Ha ha ha, fireworks going off in your head.

Yeah, basically. Yeah, yeah. Did you score your pancake? Oh man, it's tough for me to score those pancakes. I can't. I wanna score with my heart. Score with what you ate today. Okay.

Score the truth, Andrew. Score the truth. That's a six. That's a six pancake. All right, and then the sausage links. Sausage links. Six as well. All right.

I mean, they were good, but they were like crazy. Yeah, high end of average. Oh, and then I also tasted, Joyce got tatertops. Tatertops. Crispy, but tasted like, the inside tasted like butter, which is not a thing you think of with a fried food like that. That is weird. It had just like this weird, like dairy

had been a part of the cooking process. It's like a weird breakfast gusher. Well, it wasn't texturally like that, but it was a tape. I went three out of 10. I didn't love these, these tater tots. Not good. Uh, I got the double bacon avocado crunch burger that was right there on the Dr. Pepper trifold.

Yeah. Uh, double bacon avocado crunch burger and a Dr. Pepper. They go together like icing on cake. Except they only had Mr. Pibb. Exactly. And this burger may as well have been called the impossible burger because it was impossible to eat. It wasn't. Ooh, impossible meat. Body shot, baby. Take that. It was so big. It was so avocado-y that like like if you try and push it down, you're just

Play-Doh factory-ing out avocado out the sides. How is it that hard to do avocado? Because I love getting avocado on a sandwich, burger, whatever. It's, why is it so hard to do avocado and just make, just put it on there? It's always slip sliding around. Yeah. And it's not the avocado's fault. It's not.

I refuse to blame the avocado. Don't And it's not the avocado's fault. It's not. I refuse to blame the avocado. Don't victim blame. No way, no way. And this was loaded with ranch. I would say smothered. I don't love ranch. I didn't realize this had ranch on it.

I'm okay with a little bit of ranch, but this was, hey, we're gonna make this thing mostly ranch. We probably should have just assumed that everything we were gonna order had ranch on it. And then it had like pickled onions or something like that. Yeah. And I just couldn't eat it. Like I literally attempted. I would take bites.

I never got a full bite of every ingredient in my mouth because this was two full, thick patties. I assume when you're doing a double burger that you're doing thinner pad. It's like a smash burger. You gotta, and that's not the approach they did. So I ate maybe, maybe a quarter of this burger. But even then, I think I probably ate closer to an eighth of this burger. And the bottom bun, flimsy, falling apart from all the chaos above it, the heft in my hand

felt like just juices going everywhere. And I'm trying, I'm trying to get an angle, I'm like kind of eating around and just getting the burger meat off the side. I find one little area and I'm like, Andy, I'm sorry, but I feel like you gotta try this just to talk about it. Yeah. But fuck this burger.

It was tough, man. I, uh, yeah, I didn't want to taste it. Um, but I felt like I, I wasn't going to leave you in the trenches. Yeah. And my God, it was really tough to get down, dude. Yeah. It was, it was, oh God, it was bad. It was really tough to get down, dude. It was, oh god, it was bad, it was really bad. And you know what, this is the problem

with a restaurant like Perkins, where they're stretching themselves too thin. And they're just throwing ingredients at the wall and making it a new menu item. Screw it, we have these things laying around, let's put them on a burger. That's exactly what it was. Look, you already have like six burgers on your menu, is that not good enough? So you advertise this on a trifold like it's something special.

You get people excited, but it's not something you do proficiently. It's not something you're doing well. Why did I fall for? And yet I should have known the red flag was in because they didn't have even Dr. Pepper. I knew that that side of the trifold wasn't going to deliver. I hated this. And you know what? The amount of attempts I had to do just to get one solid bite, dude, I would say is worthy of an award. I'm going to give it this week's, this is way too much award. You summed it up perfectly. I've never seen so much before. So much unnecessary stuff on a plate that was delivered to a human being to try and

eat for food, for survival, anything. This is not what burgers are. And honestly, after taking my one bite, I can't believe you ate that much of it. And it wasn't even that much, despite the fact that this burger was way too much. 1.5 out of 10. God, that is so accurate. It was bad. Yeah, that burger deserves to be trashed,

run through the mud. It really sucked. It was almost bad as my orange juice water. And unfortunately it came with the endorsement from Tony. She said, my friend and I split this. And, and they seemed to really enjoy it. Yeah, we loved it. And so I think that might be why she seemed hurt when she came by and there

was most of a burger remaining, but that burger had all, you said you wanted to join me in the trenches. That burger was in the trenches looking at its carcass. Oh yeah. At the end of this was just like, oh, that burger's been through the ringer. I didn't like it. Don't want it again, but it came with fries. And I thought that the fries here, honestly, pretty decent. Nice.

Kept going back to them. They're very like craveable, just crispy, slightly above average straight fries. Six out of 10. I'm okay with that. I can live with a six out of 10 fry. I'm happy with that. You didn't try any, right? No, I didn't, but they looked really average.

And then we get to talk about the delicious stuff that Perkins hangs its hat on. Of course, the bakery, which as we know from the last episode, was not a part of the original conception, but it became a cornerstone of what's kept Perkins alive through two bankruptcies. And it's definitely what people affiliate with them now,

I would say. Yeah, I mean, when I think of Perkins, after I think of wet corn, I think about the pie. So we got two types of pie. We got a banana cream pie, which you'd never tasted before, and we got a homestyle apple pie. Which I think if you're gonna judge a joint by its pie,

those are the two best ones. Yeah, go with one that's kind of a little bit more out of the box, and then one that's like the most traditional you can get, like an apple or a cherry. And banana cream pie is definitely one, that yeah, it's a little funky, but if you're a pie place, should do it well yeah this seemed like it had more of like a banana pudding there were fewer chunks of banana than I

usually like in a cream pie okay and it wasn't as whipped it was like it was literally like a pudding texture it was pudding if this was advertised as a banana pudding pie I think I may have jived with it a little better my expectations would have been sure I didn't jived with it a little better. My expectations would have been met a little bit more. Sure, I didn't realize there was a big difference like this because that was a banana pudding pie. Yes.

Make no mistake. Yeah, yeah, usually like a banana cream pie, you have bananas whipped into like an actual cream, like a whipped cream or something like that, and it's a little bit fluffier instead of like, this was gooey. Yeah, this was not that then. Yeah. I don't Yeah, this was not that then. Yeah.

I don't know what this was. But it still tasted good. I kind of liked it. You know what? It tasted kind of like vodka to me. I don't know how to explain that. I've never had vodka, so I don't. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Take my word for it. Yeah. It's weird because there's this disconnect. And usually I'm very much on the side of look if it tastes good It's good, but The expectation set by a traditional banana cream pie and not living up to that even though I would eat this Again, I'm still only going a four out of ten which doesn't gel with me saying it tasted good

But overall I would say the product wasn't it's just not what it's saying it is. That's why you gotta take the points off. I'm honestly furious now. Well I'm saying normally I wouldn't. Normally I'm like, oh pleasant surprise, it's better than I expected, but a banana cream pie I think is better than a banana pudding pie. Therefore, you took away the thing

I was looking forward to about it, four out of 10. I'm getting a little fired up over here to tell you the truth. I'm kind of angry. You have steam coming out your ears. Because they lied to you. Yeah. And I don't like that. I don't like that one bit.

Thank you for standing up for me. I need it. That being said, I'd probably give that pie a 4.5. 4.5, yeah, pretty close. But then the Homestyle Apple. Now they asked, do you want ice cream on this? I said, yes. They served the ice cream separately because there were three of us splitting two pies.

So we got like a separate cup of ice cream, scooped it, put it on top. It still had like freezer vapors coming off of it. So it's like, which I dig. This is very cold ice cream. Yeah. Put on a pie that was warmed up. That heat discrepancy was good. I had no problems with this pie.

It wasn't like a standout in the world of apple pies that I've had. It's not in the conversation of best apple pies that I've had. But this was more than serviceable. This was very good. So I'm going to say seven and a half out of 10. Wow. Yeah, that's a good score. It's a good score. That's a good score. But you know what, it was good pie.

It doesn't hit the greats. No. But it's good. But it was a good pie, and God, I was relieved. And honestly, the- They needed something. They needed something, because how good that pie was kind of made me realize how lackluster

the rest of our meal had sort of been. Yeah. Can I make an analogy for this pie? Yeah. You know when they say like a gymnast needs to stick the landing? This was like they did stick the landing, but the rest of the routine sucked. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a shitty gymnast going out, doing a bunch of moves,

botching all over the place, but stick the landing? That's what this Perkins experience was. The ribbon work was a little tangled up, you know what I'm saying? Not even a little. Yeah, it was pretty. It was a lot tangled up. It was kind of wrapped around the neck, maybe.

But I really liked the pie. I thought it had a great amount of cinnamon in it. I liked the crust. I liked the apples. Sometimes I think with an apple pie, you get some apples that taste a little... You gotta root out the the apples. You know, sometimes I think with an apple pie, you get some apples that taste a little... You gotta root out the bad apples. You gotta root out the bad apples, baby,

just like my mama said. And this one, there was no toughness to the apples, right? Yeah, it was very consistent. It wanted you to eat it. It was very consistent. And I liked that. Yeah. No, it was not like a grab bag.

It wasn't a mystery of apples. This is like, look, only our best and brightest. Yeah, these are pie apples. Pie ready. This is what they want. They signed up for this. This is what they wanted. Did you score the pie? I didn't score the pie, but I'm about to.

And I'll tell you what, this pie I'm going to give. Hold on. Drum roll. Let's hear it. Seven. Yeah. All right. I don't know if that was worth a drum roll, but I'll take it. I'm not going to stop the drum roll. I just paid a drummer for nothing. Yeah. And then overall, this food.

One thumb down. This wasn't a good meal. I hated that burger. I hated it. They're lucky I didn't go two thumbs down. That's how I feel about this meal. You asked me when I took my they're lucky I didn't go two thumbs down. It was tough. That's how I feel about this meal. You asked me when I took my bite if I was about to spit it out because my initial reaction

was to bring the napkin right to my mouth. You wiped the side of your mouth and I was like... And I wanted to. I wanted to get it out of me. I didn't want this burger to be inside of me anymore. Yeah. But I had to. It was an unwelcomed visitor.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, God, it tasted so bad. And the meat was, and the, ugh, it was just, that was a bad burger, dude. Yeah. Like, I don't even know if I'd get a different kind of burger there after trying that. You just don't trust burgers.

I just don't trust the Perkins Burgers. Yeah. So one thumb down on food for me. Yeah, I'll give the one thumb, Well, I'll give it a zero. Zero thumbs? Yes, because I think that breakfast... Is more their forte to you. Yes, I think Perkins should stick to breakfast.

I mean, Schmitties or whatever it was originally called, that was a flapjack house, baby. Schmittes, yeah. Schmittes, what the fuck? That's a crazy, like, weird, like, almost a name. It's like an AI-generated name, Schmittes. You know, breakfast is their roots. Breakfast is where you gotta stay.

Yeah. And I like their breakfast. I wanted to see what the full menu had to offer. You don't offer a full menu if you don't stand behind it. You're right. If they're standing behind this, sorry. You gotta go for the thumb down. But you went neutral.

I still gotta go neutral on it. All right. Yeah. Well, we gotta take all of these considerations, put them together into a rating, but before we do, we have to calibrate. I've done like 80 episodes of this show. I've gone to 80 different places, ish, give or take.

You haven't. You haven't been on this journey with me. You're a tourist coming to my land. And I wanna get you on the same page as me. So in order to do that, I need to know the worst restaurant you've ever been to. I need to know the best restaurant you've ever been to. We need to take a quick stop at the calibration station. Calibration station.

Comparing this meal to the best of the worst. Calibration station. Okay, Andrew hit me a zero, what's the worst restaurant experience you've ever had? My family had rented a house with my cousin and my aunt and uncle down in Orlando, and we went out to dinner one night at this place, I don't remember what it was called, but it was like a knockoff kind of Chili's,

like the name was like Chi-Cheese. Chulies. Chulies, yeah, yeah, yeah.'s. Like the name was like Chi-Cheese. Chulies. Chulies, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was something like that, like Cha-Chas. So it's like this weird like American Tex-Mex kind of thing and we get seated and this guy comes by and he's like, hey, my name's George, I'm gonna be your server. You know, can I get you started with anything to drink?

That was the last time we saw George. So we're sitting at this table for a very long time, and my uncle's getting antsy. So he takes off a piece of his napkin, he starts folding it up. Was this before or after he passed? He was, yeah, he was not a ghost. Okay, great.

He was not a ghost at this point. All right, keep going. So he was getting really antsy. And so he ripped part of his napkin. He was basically peer pressuring my brother to play flick football with him. So he gives the little football to my brother and he's like, come on.

He's putting up the goalposts like flick it, flick it. So my brother flicks it and it goes over my uncle, over the next table, over this woman's head and lands right in her fajitas Love it, and she didn't really speak English. We were kind of using hand sign language to say like we're so sorry that this happened Have you seen George? So then we're sitting there still no George nobody's come around to You realize you can get away with flicking stuff in people's food, it's a lawless.

Oh yeah, there's no rules inside Cha-Cha-Chi-Chi's. Yeah. So eventually my uncle is steaming. And we're on kind of like this elevated surface. It's a big fucking restaurant. Yeah, yeah. There's like a step down. And who crosses the main section but George? he's you know 50 feet away or something like

that and my uncle goes you know what I got to talk to this guy so George is like walking away and my uncle starts following him and he goes George George hey George yelling his name yeah and my cousin goes that's not George and my uncle grabs this guy by the shoulder turns him around That's not George. And my uncle grabs this guy by the shoulder, turns him around, he comes back to the table. He's like, that wasn't George. I think George like quit that night or something. I think he just walked out.

Yeah, he just saw y'all and he went. No way. No Canada's. Yeah, no Canada's baby. I didn't sign up for this. This is Mexican food, not not north of the border. Nailed it. up for this. This is Mexican food, not not north of the border. Nailed it. And honestly, I don't remember too much after that. I think by the time we did get food in front of us, you'd been there a couple hours. We'd been there for yeah, we'd been there for at least two hours. Yeah. And we just like, everybody was so defeated. You know, you're

hungry, but you don't even really want to eat because you're just so upset by the whole situation. It's like you kind of feel like you're in a hostage situation. You're just like, I can't leave. Yeah. What are we supposed to do here? It was tough. It was really, it was really sad. All right. Now hit me with the best. The location might surprise you, but Sarasota, Florida, there's a little restaurant there. It's called Cas Antica. It's this old house that's been converted into an Italian restaurant.

And this woman and her husband own it, and her husband's in the back doing all the cooking. She sees the main area. Everybody works there, speaks Italian. They're all super nice. It's the best meal I've ever had. Everything's obviously homemade pasta and stuff like that. So usually I'll go for the burrata and prosciutto salad kind of thing or whatever that they

have. And my God, a lot of times you get arugula and it's like, oh, there's arugula, but this is like, holy shit. Even the arugula just on its own with a little olive oil salt and pepper is Incredible and then I usually get the linguine with clams. I Can't say enough about this place. Yeah That's really I I really don't have too much more to add because I just love you like I can't say enough. I can't say more It's such a I mean I I walk, it's so beautiful.

No, but I get what you're talking about, where you can't really put your finger on, but just everything clicking. It's just a beautiful experience. Yeah. God, I love it so much. The only bad part is I'm a guy who, at the end of a really good meal, even a bigger meal, or any big meal, not even just an Italian one. I like like a little shot glass of lemon cello

that I can sip on. They recently had to take it off the menu because not enough people were like getting it, but I think they'll put it back on. I think they'll put it back on. Fingies crossed. Fingies crossed, baby. All right, you are all calibrated.

It is time to score Perkins on a scale from cha-cha-chi-chis to cos Antica Antica. Yeah on that scale. Where does Perkins fall? Ones you're zero the other ones you're ten Perkins goes somewhere in between Final rating. How are you feeling?

Pretty much close to the center. Just a little above average. Yeah. My score, 5.87. That burger was so gross. But everything else, I mean, those were the most average chicken fingers that I've ever had. Sure.

And I like that. The staff was so friendly. For all their faults, I just want to be around a nice person. Right. And I got that there. And it gets a little bit of an NB from you, a little nostalgia bump. 100%.

I had no such bump. I did not have nostalgia. I've eaten at a Perkins once on a road trip with my mom three years ago. We stopped in, it was whatever, we kept moving. It was lunchtime, no breakfast food that we got. Moved on with my life. This whole experience was upsetting.

From them advertising and then not having Dr. Pepper. To this burger that was just insane and as though they just took a finished burger, threw it into a toilet bowl full of ranch and pulled it out. The pie was okay. I like the pie, the apple pie. The banana cream pie didn't set my world on fire. The breakfast foods, stuff that is usually a layup, disappointed me. Bad orange juice, nice servers,

and a kind of dated Florida-esque atmosphere. When you take all of those things together, I just don't think they form a flattering picture for Perkins. So my score is quite a bit lower. I went 3.61 on Perkins. That's so low. It is.

I would call this a bad restaurant. I wouldn't call this a terrible restaurant. I wouldn't call this a terrible restaurant. I wouldn't call this a nightmare. I can understand why someone eats there, but I don't think it's good. I don't even think it's average. So when you take your score with my score, however, representing both sides of the spectrum of appreciation for Perkins. The final verdict on Perkins is that it is just slightly below average, and I think that's fair. 100%.

Perkins will go up, when I get back to Los Angeles, on the tchotchke of mediocrity at 4.74. Wow. Out of 10. I like that score. I like that score overall. Pretty close. I like it.

Pretty close, but not perfectly mediocre. It is in fact, less than mediocre. ["Less Than Mediocre"] Less than mediocre. Not quite as good as Cracker Barrel. Ugh. We didn't find the perfect 5.00 dining experience out of 10, so you know what that means. It means there's another episode.

We gotta go somewhere next week, but next week, uh-uh. Usually I draw from a bowl, the You Must bowl, that tells me where I must go next time. We're not doing that. We're not doing that this episode because next week kicks off September. So next week you can listen to the September kickoff special while I cover five places that I have been to over the course of this season that are entrance in the September tournament that are competing for the September championship belt. Next week you get to hear me do Culver's versus Freddy's, Frozen Custard, and Steak Burger's. Highly anticipated.

Wow. You get to hear me do Rally's versus Steak and Shake. Interesting. Interesting matchup. And then I will talk about the time that I went to Whataburger ahead of the following week's episode, In-N-Out, where we will see Whataburger following week's episode, In-N-Out, where we will see Whataburger versus California Staple, In-N-Out. The two parts of my adult

life where I've lived in Texas and California, their two big franchises are going to go head to head. So that'll be fun. And then the other two entrants that you'll hear in weeks three and four of September are Shake Shack, the number one seed, and White Castle, the number eight seed. So we're going to see how all those play out. Don't forget to get your brackets in. Go to linktree.com slash fine dining podcast for your chance at $500. Andrew, thanks so much for flying down.

Thanks for coming on the show. I had a lot of fun having you on. Talking Perkins and just- Talking P. Talking P. Just a couple of P boys talking P. Just a couple of P boys. Hands in. P boys?

Oh yeah. Yep. Hands a little wet there. They feel greasy. That's how you want it. Wet corn. Wet corn. Oh my god.

Got those wet corn hands going on. You can check out Andrew's podcast that he does with his brother. It's called Two in the Cooler. It's just fun. It's a fun time. If you like Andy's banter, you can get. It's called Two in the Cooler. It's it's just fun. It's a fun time. If you like Andy's banter, you can get more of it on two in the cooler.

Yep. Check out the YouTube. Just two in the cooler. Instagram as well. Posting clips on there. Please participate in the old who would win segment that we do every week where we take character, people or objects. Talk about which ones would win in a clash. Yeah. In a clash if they fought each other. It's always a lot of fun.

Oh, and you can follow me on Instagram and TikTok at FindDiningPodcast. Send me an email, FindDiningPodcast.gmail.com. Patreon's there, Patreon.com slash FindDiningPodcast. All that good stuff. Well, I feel like neither of us won this clash because we teamed up and we existed in perfect harmony. Oh man. Thanks for coming on. this clash because we teamed up and we existed in perfect harmony.

Thanks for coming on. We didn't find the most mediocre restaurant in America. The search does in fact continue. We'll see you next time. Have a fine day. We still need the perfect file The search continues Like and subscribe The search continues Our journey did not conclude The mother-eating search continues Rattus and I too's review

And hey, while you're at it, why don't you go ahead and make it five stars come on follow us on tick-tock the same on Instagram all the socials at fine dining podcast we have a website Find dining podcast dot com buy our t-shirts Then put them on And don't forget you can always suggest where we go next Okay, we're going to find it Where we go next? OKAY!

We're going to find it! Mediocrity! The search continues! See you next week! Cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough,