Fine Dining - Trying Jollibee for the First Time

Episode Date: July 16, 2025

🍑 Better Than Chili’s? We Finally Taste Jollibee 🍗 This week, we're putting Jollibee through the Chili’s Test. From sweet pies that taste like vacation to spaghetti that... didn’t, we finally try the food and decide whether this beloved Filipino chain lives up to its reputation. With special guest Jason Patrick Galit (JPG) guiding the way, we get the full experience, even if we have to be Sweaty Little Boys in the process. It’s juicy fried chicken, a peach mango hand pie that has haunted my dreams (in a good way though), and one very loud iPad kid. 🍗 Fried Chicken That’s “Better Than It Should Be” 🥭 A Hand Pie So Good It’s Worth a Detour 🍝 Spaghetti That Scared Michael, Then Surprised Him 📱 iPad Kid & The Chuck E. Cheese Content FOMO 🇵🇭 Adobo Rice = The Ultimate Chicken Chaser 🪑 Why the Waiting Area Feels Like a Dermatologist’s Office 🎮 Packing Bowls Like Filipino Babies 📊 Jollibee’s Official Score: Is It Better Than Chili’s? 💬 COMMENT BELOW: What’s your Jollibee go-to order? 📢 SUPPORT THE SHOW & JOIN THE COMMUNITY: 🎉 Patreon (Bonus episodes, full Yelp segments & more): https://www.patreon.com/finediningpodcast 💬 Discord (Food talk, memes, AND NOW PET PHOTOS): https://discord.gg/6a2YqrtWV4 🎥 Watch full episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@finediningpodcast 🔗 All links: https://www.linktree.com/finediningpodcast 🎤 JPG on IG: @SpeakerJPG | Website: https://www.intermyth.org Patreon Producers: Sue Ornelas & Joyce Van 👉 NEXT WEEK: I'm heading to Golden Corral to explore its history, legacy, and wild Yelp reviews with comedian Ben Cassil before reviewing it in Part 2.

Jollibee, a peach mango hand pie that makes McDonald's look like an amateur, but a customer waiting area that felt like a dermatologist's office. A restaurant that highlights the creativity and resiliency of the Filipino people. But a spaghetti sauce with a disappointment that is only overshadowed by a Steve Harvey Miss Universe mistake. Some of the juiciest fried chicken I've ever experienced from a fast food restaurant, but the iPad kit at the table next to us had no concept of an appropriate volume level. Given that anything better than Chili's is objectively good in the eyes of the law,

but anything worse is bad, we're going to put Jollibee through the Chili's test to determine if this beloved Filipino institution is good or not good. Will me venturing out of my comfort zone pay dividends for Jollibee, or will it prove to be too different for me to appreciate it? Let's find out together. This is the Fine Dining Podcast. Your table's ready, take a seat The flavor of the day is mediocrity Wouldn't you like to try a bite? Guarantee it'll be the perfect bite Fine-tiny

Better than you thought, worse than you hoped Fine-tiny We don't treat mediocre as a joke. Breaking every single place we've been. Compared to the perfect five out of ten. Hello and welcome back to Fine Dining, the quest to compare all restaurants to Chili's. I'm your host Michael Ornelas, and this is the show where I'm using Chili's, the perfectly in the middle 5 out of 10 dining experience, to measure what is good or not good by comparison. By the end of this episode, we will have an answer to the age old question that has sentenced

the greatest minds in human history to many a sleepless night. Is Jollibee better than a Chili's? You can answer that for yourself in the comments right now if you like, but we're going to deconstruct our experience there today into what was good and what was not good before talking about what was just there and then score Jollibee at the end of the episode. Joining me today to discuss Jollibee once again is a light in this world, a great speaker and consultant for many a nerd convention panelist, a man with a passion for tabletop games, and a Filipino-American who's more than just a little

familiar with the subject of today's episode, it's Jason Patrick Gallat, aka JPG. JG Thank you for having me on. Jason You know, I've always thought people who go by their initials are just kind of cooler than the rest of us. JG Okay, all right. So, I'm glad that you fell for this trap card. Because I've talked about this on a lot of different shows that I've gotten to be on. I go by JPG specifically because my name is very Filipino. And it like snuck me into like conventions and live events

like way back when they really weren't accepting people like me on the convention circuit. So, yeah. So, the whole idea was, well, I'm Filipino, right? So, like, I'm going to have 17 names. And so, I was like, oh, I'll just use initials because Neil Patrick Harris at the time, very popular, goes by NPH, right? So, I'm like, oh, okay, that's going to make me seem a little bit spicy.

And yeah, the second I started going by my initials, that's when I started getting accepted for talks. I need to go by MDO. That's a good one, though. Those initials are very good. Thank you. Because like the sounds that come from those specific letters, very good. One of the weird things that happens is I've made like usernames for different things in the past that's like MD or Nellis. And I remember in college,

I had an account with Full Tilt Poker. Oh. And I wanna say there was like a user chat and my username was MDork, but I capitalized the O because my initials are MDO, right? That's adorable. But people were saying it was MD Orc and people were like, oh, uh, you know, good hand doctor,

because they saw the MD. And I was just like, everyone's going to think I'm a doctor now? Doctor Orc is a cool name though. I guess it's not my vibe. It's not bad. it's someone's vibe, but I don't think it's mine. As somebody who is pretty, who is very involved in the tabletop role playing

game circuit, Dr. Orc is, that's my next character. That's my next charity stream character. Dr. Half Orc, please. Dr. Orc was my father. Oh my God. I'm a very extreme character. Dr. Half Orc, please. Dr. Orc was my father. Oh my God.

Do you ever make a joke and you're like, man, I really crushed that. Oh yeah. That's how I felt just now. Oh God, that was a very good one. Awesome. Well, we are going to discuss Jollibee in its entirety. All the good, all the not good, all the just there.

Are you ready to dive in? Let's dive in. Let's talk about all the things, only the not good, all the just there. Are you ready to dive in? Let's dive in. Let's talk about all the things, only the things that were good. This is the good, done like it should be. The stuff that's faking licking, or stinking the land in. This is the good, I knew that you could. This is the good.

I'm gonna go right off the bat. I walk in the door, and this place was much more, uh, it popped way more than I expected it to from the outside. The outside is a little bit drab. It's sun faded. It's in a place that gets no shade and therefore this place gets all the shade. If you know what I'm saying, But you go inside and it looked like, I don't know if it was recently renovated or repainted,

but just all these bright, like a tropical Baja Blast blue or like a nice orange sickle orange popping off the wall, all kind of contrasted with a, I'm gonna say gray, but I'm not gonna say gray in the ugly way, but like, you know, kind of like that nice gray that serves as a base for bright colors to pop. This was that. It was very pleasant to the eye inside. So I'm billed as a public speaker and a geek educator. And for me, I love when I see real life concepts have an introductory feel to it, so people understand conceptually what the topic is,

or the conversation is that I want to have. When I walked in, I think Jollibee's design is the perfect introduction to using colors as marketing tools. I'd mentioned this in the episode last week, but we had talked about how a lot of the reds and yellows that we use in fast food marketing is supposed to kind of... Drive your appetite. Yeah, it's supposed to inspire an appetite, right? And luckily, two of those colors are already in the Filipino flag. The other colors that are blue and white were

prominently displayed in there as well too. So not only are we using these very strong primary colors in order to sell an idea, but we're also tying this back culturally at the same time. And I'm a big old nerd about taking care of two needs of one deed. When you said, I'm a big, I'm a geek educator in response to what I had said, I thought you were about to be like, and I know the hex tone code. Oh no! Oh my god. I definitely have to look those up. This is like HC10AR, like you know what? I really want it to be called like Jollibee Red or something.

Yeah. Was the blue used the blue that's in the Filipino flag? Yes. It's that shade? Yes, it was, yeah. A very relaxing, like kind of tropical blue. I like it. But that's just, I'm a big fan of aesthetics and I noticed them when I go into any restaurant.

To me, like, you can't get worse than like a Burger King, just like browns and oranges and like, I don't know, cool colors are, those are the thing for me. So when you're just like warm and brown, I'm not as into that as a decor. It feels very like 70s basement. Ah. And that just feels a little warm. Like old Carl's Jr.

You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, the other piece that you mentioned aesthetics for, something that I loved, was that the one that we went to in Los Angeles, we had, there were, you know, small four-person tables. In the middle, there was actually one large community table. I did notice that. That's something that we don't see anymore.

And the seats they had were almost like those, like, cushion cubes, where it was like, hey, pull one up. It did feel like a living room. Yes! Not in aesthetic, but in welcomingness. Mm-hmm. And, you know, it went noticed. We clocked it.

And you score points for it, Jollibee. Yeah. Oh, gosh. Okay, so besides the Community Day level that I loved, what is the other thing? Oh, I did enjoy the service that we had received. Yeah. And there was some direct service that we had received

and there was some indirect service we received. All right, go into it. We had walked in, your wonderful partner Joyce got to join us for this lunch as well. And we had walked in and we had all noticed that all the seats were taken. While we were waiting, I watched an employee go outside to set up all the chairs for all of the outside seating.

Oh, like upon like noticing, oh, there is nowhere to sit. There's gonna be more people, yeah. So I've really, really enjoyed that. Okay. The other one, which we both clocked, and I hope you can tell this from your perspective, the 10 minute wait.

Could you talk a little bit about that? Okay. So, yeah, but like, is that in the good? Having to wait 10 minutes? No. I'll say this, is that in the good? Having to wait 10 minutes? No. I'll say this, the interaction with the cashier was very pleasant, she was very kind, very welcoming, all of that.

There was a little bit of a language barrier. She was speaking English, but she just kind of had a thicker accent and she had a mask on, so hearing her through it, I'm a little bit hard of hearing because I did drum line in high school and that's not good for your hearing, turns out. And so I was struggling to kind of understand her. Luckily you were, one, I think you're

a little bit more tuned into that accent and you know what you're listening for. You didn't have an issue with it. So I'm glad you were there. Oh, yeah. And for me, right, like, in Hispanic culture, there's the concept of like a no-sabo kid, right? It's a person who cannot speak the native home language. But they can understand it. But they can understand it. But then they're also, there's kind of like an ostracizing of that as well too. You know, with second generation Filipino people,

especially in the diaspora, right? Like so outside of the Philippines, we get that sort of grief as well too. And while I am not fluent, I have, I know enough words and I can speak enough in order to get by. And one of the things that I don't know if you'd noticed

that is when the both of us walked up to order, she had started speaking in Filipino first to me, in Tagalog first. And then I answered, but then I had to mix in some English words, and then that's when she knew to switch back to English. And I was like, oh, cool. Like, oh, like right before this podcast, I'm going to experience some trauma.

Right? And it was like, it was a little bit of an embarrassing moment. But her switching to English is like, I've given up on talking Tagalog to you? It's given up is a strong word. But yes, you're right. OK.

And it's very much that, oh, you tried, but let's just speak in English, because English is the official second language of the Philippines. And I say official in the sense where when you attend school, English is a class that you have to take all throughout. Okay, so it's not like an elective language or something.

Exactly, it is something that you have to learn when you attend school. I have noticed, I don't know if I know any Filipinos that don't speak English. Yeah and speak English very well Yes. Yeah, and so uh, so I was like, oh cool. Like with this fried chicken. I'm gonna experience some diaspora trauma great Get great So anyways you had

You know, we kind of spent our time figuring out what we're ordering, placing the order, almost like not negotiating, but like figuring logistics and her making some counter suggestions of like, oh, if this is what you're trying to accomplish, go with this, go with that. And we knew we wanted to get these hand pies. Yes, and when we ordered them, they have two flavors. They have ube and they have peach mango.

And she said, we only have the ube right now, which to me means we're out of peach mango. Now this is where there's a cultural disconnect because I think she had it in her bones to be like, I can't offer it now. I have to say we don't have it. When the truth is just, we need to remake more. It'll be 10 minutes, which to me is a very different thing

from we are out of it or we don't have it or we can't offer it right now. I am always happy to wait. I don't judge, like my food is fresher. Great. You know? I think it's also this sort of like Western culture disconnect as well, too. I think that answer that she gave us was definitely a fear that she had built as being a worker in America. Because I think there is a connotation for fast food that if it isn't fast, you're getting yelled at.

And I think there was a little bit of fear of like, I'm so sorry, it's gonna take ten minutes. And we could both, even though she was wearing a mask, we could both see the visible relief. I could feel the relief. Yeah, because, and I hate that. I hate that for quick service workers, right? That they're like conditioned to.

They're conditioned to just get yelled at. Yeah. And and for us to to be a comforting part of her day, I'm very thankful that we got to do that. But like, man, we should not be the exception. We should be the rule. I'm going to just I'm going to look down the barrel of, but like, man, we should not be the exception. We should be the rule. I'm gonna just, I'm gonna look down the barrel of the camera and just say, hey, behave. Just behave.

You know? Like, let things take a minute. It's okay. Where are you going? These people are at their job. They're here to get paid and to provide for their family. They're not here to get yelled at. And their default is getting yelled at.

And like, even if one person in a day yells at them, that's enough to ruin your day. So it's like, everyone, just behave. Be a good cog in the machine. If you get anything from this show, it's be a good person to people who serve your food. Cost you nothing. And you know, maybe you have to wait two minutes longer.

And you know what? That's okay because we have phones. And they have internet access. Yeah, we have the entirety. We have everything we could possibly need. Yeah, we have the world's amount of knowledge at our fingertips. You can chill out for three minutes.

Yeah, go do your duolingo. You know? Keep that streak alive. Yeah, whatever, right? Anyway, so I didn't mind that 10 minute, I cheekily put it in a different section because it was like 10 minutes, but like, again, I did not care.

It did not bug me in the slightest. So to see her be like, oh, the fact that she had to say we're out of this thing because because a fear that I would be upset of waiting 10 minutes. I'm like, I assumed it would be waiting 10 minutes for the food anyways. So like genuinely, it's fine. Yeah. The all the other stuff that I have in the good are specific food items. Did you have anything else outside of food that you wanna address? No.

Cool, let's dive in. I'm gonna go in the order that I ate things. I started with dessert. I was gonna say I'm a gluttonous little boy. That's not why I started with dessert. My dessert was exploding on me and I was like, oop, I gotta get this in my mouth. Okay, the packing of this dessert hot pocket

was not optimal for your handling, right? Like, this was not your fault. I wanna go on record to say that this was not your fault. It was like a goodwill hunting moment. You tried your hardest with making this work and you made it work. It was like just gushing like orange, orangey yellow goo from the inside and I could smell it and it was like, this is good.

I think I'm going to start with this. But I was just trying to organize it into taking a picture and I struggled because it was just collapsing in a real time. I think inside of that thing is lava, right? So like it was like spilling out and you were trying to take a photo for social media. It was a confusing process. I feel like if I did like an extreme close up of just like the surface level, it would have looked like the movie 2012.

Like the world is ending. Things are collapsing. Lava is exploding. It's really just a hand pie. All that said, this isn't the good. And I'm bringing hassle up and it overcame that. I thought this tasted delightful. The fruitiness of it was very fresh. I didn't think that it was too sweet, which I like decadent.

Joyce, my partner, who is Chinese, she tells me, and she is my authority on this, which I like decadent. Joyce, my partner, who is Chinese, she tells me, and she is my authority on this, so this is out of pocket, whatever, I'm wrong, but she says Asians like desserts that aren't too sweet. I would say, yeah, I would say that. I like decadent as hell, but I don't mind a good, more subtly sweet dessert

if it had other things going for it. And this did, I thought that the texture of the little crunch, you know when you get those muffins that have like the big sugar granules on top? Yeah, and you feel the crunch? You feel it, this kind of had a similar effect to that. So I'm biting into this breaded hand pie and it's got this delicious peach mango filling.

And like, I'm a sucker,, I like the McDonald's apple pie, at least the way that it used to be. I like it a lot. They've kinda changed it up in recent years, and I think it's not even close to as good. This is something that I would get again, for sure. This is something that even if I were in the area and I wasn't planning on getting Jollibee,

and I saw Jollibee, I might be like, you know what? I'm gonna go pick up one of those peach mango hand pies. It's good enough that it will draw me back to a Jollibee, I might be like, you know what? I'm gonna go pick up one of those peach mango hand pies. Like, it's good enough that it will draw me back to a Jollibee. It is probably unhealthy that I do this. But there are certain emotions that I feel when I eat certain foods. With peach mango hand pies, it tastes like fun to me. Mm. Like, it tastes like summer fun.

Is this like a synesthesia thing? Uh, not really. It's more so, like, you know, you just connect Mmm. Like it tastes like summer fun. Is this like a synesthesia thing? Not really. It's more so like, you know, you just connect certain feelings to certain foods. And I feel like, oh, like, oh, cool. Like, and now we're gonna hang out in the sunshine. That's what this makes me feel.

My feeling was adjacent, but not the same. This felt like vacation to me. Ooh, that's a good way to describe it. This tasted like a vacation. And if you can get a vacation without going on vacation, you take it, you know? No PTO required. No PTO required.

You just go to Jollibee, you get a peach mango hand pie. I went eight out of 10 on this. Oh. Yeah, so I'd call it great. Okay. If I'm using the verbiage of, usually the way I break it down, four to six is mediocre, six to seven and a half is good, seven and a half to eight and a half it great. Okay. If I'm using the verbiage of, usually the way I break it down, four to six is mediocre,

six to seven and a half is good, seven and a half to eight and a half is great. Okay, what's the word that you use after that? Excellent, and then like God-tier or whatever. Oh, okay. Yeah, like perfect. Speaking of, if we can hit that God-tier part. I didn't with anything here today. Dang it!

Okay. No, let's not get to that. I'm being very kind to Jollibee. I liked Jollibee. It was very kind to me. But I have no delusions of grandeur that this escaped being a fast food restaurant. I would say the closest we could have gotten to it was the fried chicken.

I think out of everything. Oh! I don't think that was the best thing I had. I think the peach mango ham pie was the best thing I had. Oh! That's it? I did like the fried chicken. Okay. So that is my next thing.

You want to... Do you have a score for the peach mango ham pie? I would agree with you, eight out of 10. I thought I was being a little too generous, so thank you for... Validating it? Yeah, you did validate me on this one. With the chicken, I think this is where we're gonna differ.

Okay. So, I thought it was a little on the salty side, especially when you consider like the extra spices that went into it to make it spicy and the gravy. All of that, it was kind of just salt on salt for me, but incredibly tender and the crispiness was borderline the perfect texture that you want a fried chicken leg to be. This is just legs and thighs, they only have dark meat,

and I wasn't mad about it. This is also in the good for me. Moist flavorful for fast food fried chicken. This is up there. This is up there. You're going to hate the next sentence I'm going to say because different people have different levels of respect for this. I also like a Popeyes.

Oh, I'm not gonna say one is better than the other because they kind of scratch different itches. I think I prefer a Cajun palette to the type of spices that they put on this. So like the spicy chicken at Popeyes, flavor-wise is more what I would rather go for than the Jollibee one. But I will say the chicken quality at Jollibee did feel like juicier,

crispier. The skin was better. You are going to be surprised, but I do kind of agree with you. OK. OK. I think for me, when it comes to quick service fried chicken, I think Jollibee for me is a solid seven out of 10, while I would put Popeyes at an eight. Yeah, that's about where I am. But I would also say and make the argument that,

and we talked about this in the last episode too, but Popeyes is specifically for a fried chicken as opposed to Jollibee is like, there's a palate experience. Yes. Which is a big part of what I want to go into with you Yeah Yeah, you were you were guiding me and I'll agree with the fried chicken being a seven out of ten

I thought it was a solidly good fried chicken. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's better than it should be Yeah, that's the sentence that I always that I that I always say about its's fried chicken. Like, it's good. It should not be as good as it is. But it's still not the best fried chicken I've ever had. It 100% beats out, like, say for example, like supermarket fried chicken. Which I'm all about supermarket fried chicken. But...

It never hits the texture I want. Really? Yeah. Even if it tastes good, it never hits the texture I want. I don't have it that often, so I'm sure there is some really good one out there. But what I will say is you were guiding me through the meal. You were like, you want to eat this like a real Filipino person, you do it like this. And you know what? If I could have a person of the attempted,

attempted is the wrong word, but like the background of any restaurant I go to, great. Tell me what is the most authentic way to experience it so that I can get as close as I can to evaluating it on your terms. I'm a big believer in community enhances like a culinary experience, right? And yeah, I wish that for you, right? I wish that you can go to these places

and have somebody who has gotten to steep themselves in the culture for it, right? Denzel Washington has that beautiful quote about it's not color, it's culture, right? Somebody had asked him about like, why was it important for black actors to be in this film? And he said that it's color, not culture. It didn't matter the color of their skin, but it didn't matter if they knew what a hot comb smelled

like on a Sunday morning. And so I love that sentiment where I was lucky enough to grow up in this and to get to share this with somebody else. I love that sentiment where I was lucky enough to grow up in this and to get to share this with somebody else. Yeah. It makes the food better. Yes, and I will say that it's much more exciting as the person on the outside being invited to the inside,

as opposed to just being on the outside and chancing it and being like, yeah, what's this all about? Like, passion rings through. And like, you may not think Jollibee is the actual best restaurant in the world, but the fact that you're excited about Jollibee is contagious. And it makes me wanna be like, Oh, cool. Yeah. He's, he's,

he's walking me through it. This is the way I like it. This is the way they do it, blah, blah, blah. And so to that effect, you were basically saying, look, the spaghetti. Yeah. The spaghetti is the spaghetti. We'll get into the spaghetti later, but it is served as a side, and it is meant to be like you compared it to burger and fries. You take a bite of your burger, then you have some fries.

And there is something about that, like it's that scene in Ratatouille when he has two things and then he does them together and they merge. So I was able to recognize that. And while I did evaluate these items separately and their scores reflect them standing on their own, I will admit a marked third flavor that you get

when you do it the way that you said to do it. And in all of those cases, I think that they worked well. They complemented each other well. So the spicy chicken, then on top of that, in complements with gravy. The gravy I could have taken or leaving, leaving. I know words. Yeah, the gravy is an acquired taste, right?

I think everybody is at least curious to try it once. For me, I'm a gravy boy. Like, I love it, right? But I can't have it every bite. And I'm thankful it's on the table, but I don't eat it every time. Yeah, I used it quite a bit, honestly. And it never got to a point where,

I think I was chasing something that never came. I was like, I was looking for it to be great and I was just like, it's not bad. Yeah, it's at the very least serviceable. Yeah. And at the very most like, oh, this is bordering on above average. Yeah. The last thing I want to talk about, I did not expect to like this even as close to as much as I did. I thought the adobo rice was so good.

It was like, first of all, I know rice is very steeped in many different Asian cultures and stuff. One thing that I feel like is a signature of Asian style rice is that it kind of clumps together. It's a little bit stickier and kind of, you get big bites of rice as opposed to like corralling single grains onto a fork or a spoon

or whatever, you know, whatever. And that mixed with the seasoning blend that they have, mixed with like a, there were like little chunks of meat in there. I think you said pork, right? I believe so. Yeah. And so there were these elements that just all complimented each other so well,

and then getting them to like cling and you get substantial bites of them, as opposed to like, I got a little bit, got a little bit. And then you do it as a chicken chaser. You take a bite of the chicken and you take a bite of the adobo rice Look, you were all about chicken chasing Describing adobo rice as a chaser is a wild choice and I love it per your instructions I'm just calling you you raised it you raised it right like a, oh man, like a chicken chaser is wild.

But it was. And I'm gonna tell ya, it worked in that way. The spaghetti, I tried, it had a valiant upswing as a chicken chaser, but still didn't rise to the ranks of good. The adobo rice, I am going to go eight out of ten. So I'm putting it around where I had the peach mango pie. I love that. And for something saltier, savourier to kind of hit that dessert tier, because desserts, like, they're just higher by default,

because I love me some sweets. Yeah. Really impressed me. Oh. So the adobo rice is a must. If you go to Jollibee, get the adobo rice as a side with whatever you get. There is one cultural thing that I want to talk about as well too for this, is that we had... The cashier had asked us if we wanted utensils, and we had grabbed utensils as well,

and we had specifically said we needed it for three people. And they had provided four sets of utensils. And there are two things to that, culturally. Number one, leave one for Jesus. LAUGHS As a predominantly Catholic island. Yes, you're right. I'm not right.

No, you're not right. OK, OK. It's like there's no way. That's a pretty good joke. Leave one for Manny Pacquiao. LAUGHS Leave one for Miss Universe, and you're fine, right? Okay, so with that, they put a fourth set of utensils, so we had a set of utensils to serve each other.

I was like, oh, wait, I know this like two seconds before you said it. Yes, the serving. Okay. So the other part of that though, is they only provided spoons and forks. Now, jelly beans has always been a thing in Southern California for many of us. And when I was much younger, I would take friends in order to go all the time. We'd eat after sporting events or something like that. Drive all the way up to Daly City. Oh, God!

Just eight hours to Daly City, right? So with that though, they provide a spoon and fork, which is a strange thing to provide when you are used to Western culture's knife and fork. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, to get to explain to you, oh hey, like, you know, the spoon's in your right hand, the fork is in your left. Yeah, you taught me how to pack a bowl.

Yeah. Basically. Yeah. Okay. Which by the way. Almost as wild as chicken chaser, but. Yeah. Yeah, by the way, I'm... Almost as wild as Chicken Chaser, but... Yeah.

Yeah, but it's this cultural thing where my wife, who is Russian Jewish, right? She, the very first time that she went to a Filipino restaurant with me, she was like, well, where's the knife? And I'm like, oh, you actually don't need that. This is how you're supposed to eat. And now she eats like a pro Filipino kid, right? And getting to explain those little cultural details. Because another thing that I was gonna explain to you

is that you could have just eaten all this by hand. Nobody would have, like, that's not an exaggeration, right? Because like, there's a concept in Filipino culture called the camayan, and it's, you put out banana leaves and you put all of the food at the same time, you just eat with your hands. Yeah. I don't love getting sticky, greasy hands. I don't mind me finger foods.

Like, I'm also, I'm weird, like, if I eat a burger, I usually never set it down. Mm. Because I feel like I develop the grip so that stuff isn't falling out, and I feel like the more I pick it up, put it down, pick it up, put it down, more ingredients are like kind of... Burger integrity is an important sort of thing, right?

Because like, the burger can taste as great as possible, but if it falls apart within the first two bites, like, I don't want to deal with it anymore. Right. And so all finger foods, I think, because I've eaten so many burgers and I love burgers, I think I've trained my brain to be like, when you pick something up, you don't really put it down. And I don't know if you're saying that, like, you know,

served on the banana leaf people eating with their hands, if they are kind of like, oh, let me grab this, and, or if it's more like bite sized things, you can bite actually. Okay. And there's because you said pack a bowl and that's that's not very far from what you're doing because there's a way in order to grab the rice in order to push it to you as well too. And you you actually get a lot of practice for this in Filipino families because that's how you feed babies. And so it's, it's another community cultural thing. So you're teaching babies to pack a bowl.

Yeah, we're teaching babies to pack. By the way, I've never smoked pot in my life. So like going on the internet with me, tell me, talking about Filipino babies packing bowls, and I do not feel comfortable about this. The thing we got here so organically, it just made sense that we ended up here. Yeah, that's fair, right? Anyways, long story short, I love the adobo rice. Great.

Did you have a score for it? Eight out of 10, I agree with you. I've had better adobo fried rices before, and the fact that it was that good just coming off the line is that it should not work. It shouldn't work that well. I did not expect a rice dish from a fast food place to be this, you know, usually I expect a lower tier or lower quality of rice from fast food.

Like the white rice at Panda, actually all the rice at Panda is just kind of sad. And I love rice. I love rice. I have that opinion of Panda Express Chamein as well, too. Like, you think you want it and you get two bites in your like, I didn't want this. I don't want this. All right. That is all the things that are good about Jollibee. Now let's talk about what was so good. I'm not quite sure about it. Could've done without it.

The stuff that brings down the mood. This is just not very good. There are two entrances to this particular Jollibee. Like driveways. Yeah. One was the parking lot. One was the drive-through. Yes.

That is confusing on so many different levels. To the point where I had to park in the neighborhood that was right next door. Oh, okay, yeah. And I completely blew past that, right? And so this particular Jollibee, it was very much the vibe of, oh, people walk here. I'm going to say I knew that there were two driveways because it was in the Yelp reviews and I still blew past it once

and had to loop through the neighborhood and go back and like, all right, take two. Yeah, so while that is not like a deal breaker, you notice it. It is something that does, that has an effect on the experience. Sure, yeah. Any level of like grief that you have to go through

or put up with, even if negligible, even with stupid, it's viable. So for me, the thing that gave me a little bit of grief that I wanna point out, iPad kid. Now when we were talking about this, you were taking his side. OK, so OK. Unforgivable. I as an educator, right? Like I deal with with people of all ages, right?

Now I deal with a lot of adults, but I did do a lot of early childhood development when I was in school. I the fact that this kid, OK, he was playing the iPad I did do a lot of early childhood development when I was in school. And I... The fact that this kid... Okay, he was playing the iPad at an unreasonable level. And that's my thing. And it was a Chuck E. Cheese ad, by the way. Like, I was like, does Chuck E. Cheese put on a show now?

No, they have, like, content. Yeah! They do. But I'm like, you're watching a Chuck... You're watching.G.'s content at a Jollibee, right? It's like wearing a Green Lantern hat and a Spider-Man shirt at the same time. Yeah, technically they're both superheroes, but should you be doing that? Wearing a Green Lantern hat and a Spider-Man shirt is not gonna endanger you. I'm... Okay, I deal with pop culture conventions.

It could. Okay. You've never been on the hard streets of San Diego. You know what? You know what? You're right. So, okay, that being said, though, I... I yield your honor. I will give iPad Kid a pass

because he wasn't bothering anybody. It was just the volume of the iPad. And it's on the parents, but that to me is just... I don't like secondary sources of noise. If I'm watching TV and someone comes in and they start watching TikTok videos or something, this is not at all a close to home example or anything.

This is getting deep. But conversely, if someone is sitting on the couch watching TikTok videos, I would feel rude if I turn on the TV. So it's one of those things where like, I just want whatever who I think there's dibs over noise. I think whoever is first come first serve and whoever gets there and starts doing the thing. Now, obviously, if you're in like a park or something and conversation is the thing that's noise, I don't I'm not mad about that. If I'm watching TV and you come in and you're like, hey, let's have a deep conversation.

I'm going TV and you come in and you're like, hey, let's have a deep conversation. I'm gonna pause. Yeah, like, I always understood it as an expectation of what the noise should be, right? Eating is a sense of community, right? And so when we get to sit down and have a meal, the expectation is to talk with each other, tell us about our days and all that, right? It's the at the dinner table, no phones, no TV,

all of that sort of feeling. So I do appreciate that. And if the kid had headphones, yeah, I wouldn't have minded it at all. Yeah, then we wouldn't have minded it at all. But it is distracting. It's distracting and especially, there is a part of me that's like,

I'm upset that I don't have the context. So I'm hearing an errant line from a cartoon, but I don't know the plot. I don't know if that joke is funny. I wanna know. This is the... Are you getting FOMO from the iPad kid?

I'm not doing a bit right now. Okay. Genuinely, part of me is like, look, it's impolite to make me wonder what the setup to that punchline was. Seriously. No, you're getting FOMO from what's happening on the screen. Because I got yelled at when I would play Pokemon Yellow

on my Game Boy without volume at dinner when it was like my parents and like their friends, and it's like you dragged me to this restaurant and you guys are talking about like, initial public offerings and 401Ks and like I just wanna catch myself a pine cone, you know? Maybe shiny. You are talking right now about the,

like I think this is your old man yells at clouds scenario. I think this might be it, right? This is your old man shakes fists at clouds. But it's funny, because I'm the opposite now. My dad's the one who can't get off his phone at dinner. And I'm like, hey dad, can you be present? You know, unlike my child. Oh no, what?

I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I want to also take this opportunity. Yeah. Because something that you confided in me was that you were very, very worried about the spaghetti. I was, yeah. If it were anybody else, right? And you gave me the context for it, which I do appreciate.

But if it were anybody else with any different context, I would not have taken it seriously. But you are part Italian. There is a certain expectation when it comes to pasta that you have, right? And we are breaking these expectations. I mean, to be fair, my expectation of pasta is breaking Italians' expectations

because I don't like cheese. So it's like, look, we all have our thing that we bring to us before we even sit down at a meal and we all have our expectations and all that. But yeah. But I will say, and I'm going to, I want to take some of the, I want to take some of the heat for this. Yeah. I will say that the batch that we got for the spaghetti, not my favorite.

Yeah. I thought it was the sweetest I've ever had Jollibee spaghetti, and the sweetest I've ever had Filipino spaghetti in general. Which did ruin that spaghetti experience for me a little bit. What would you score it? With the context of me having been to Jollibee multiple times... Yeah.

...and having better batches... Yeah. ...this was a two or three out of ten. Okay. I'm gonna surprise you with my thoughts on the spaghetti. Oh! It is still in the not good. Okay.

But it is not, like, garbage. Now, I did research last night. I put together, like, you know, the intro script and I was putting together the eat deets and all that. I was immersing myself in Jollibee and one of the things I came across was, you know, Benny Blanco? Yes.

Do you know the whole thing? No. So he got a lot of backlash because he posted like a TikTok or Instagram review of Jollibee. And he was just very disrespectful in his verbiage of it. Oh wait. Opens up the container of the spaghetti,

he's like, oh, it smells like vomit. And he's like, whoa, and he's like pretending to like throw up and stuff. Was this the one where he like ate it, but it was like half an hour after he picked it up or something like that? Yeah, it was like post-made it or something. Yeah, okay.

To where it's just like, you know, that's not the food. Anytime sweat has time to accrue on your dish it's not a You're still welcome to eat it and you can like it or not like it But you kind of lose the ability to have a seat at the critics table. This psych has a joke about this where We're we'll have foods in it. Like oh, yeah, that doesn't travel. Well It's not even a joke. That is so true. I talk about this chain all the time. I do really like it. Dave's hot chicken.

Okay. One of the big things that helped them grow so explosively was the pandemic and the fact that chicken travels really well. Chicken travels well. So, um, they, they just, they benefited on, on that main thing that people were ordering a lot more chicken during the pandemic because the quality stayed a little bit more.

Spaghetti, anything in like a Tupperware that has a lid, the steam comes up, accrues on there, gets water, and then it kind of, it affects the texture. So when did Benny Blanco get beat up for this? Jerry Stilwell. Jerry Stilwell. And then he did do like his version of an apology video, which I didn't watch this one, was basically him just saying like, yeah, the chicken sandwich was pretty good, which

was kind of just like an olive branch that felt kind of inauthentic. Yeah, he really was digging in on like, the chicken is whatever, gravy's fire, which I kind of think he has it reversed. I thought the gravy was just okay. Chicken was good, regardless differences of opinion, but he was very, very hard on the spaghetti. And so that attributed to my fear, plus my expectations of what I like pasta to be. And the fact that pasta spaghetti with like a meat sauce is one of my favorite foods. So now you're telling me there's this version that is a controversially viewed take. And by controversial, I mean,

I kind of just mean non-American or even non-Italian or you know, whatever, just a, an alternative take on spaghetti, but it is different to my perception. So, uh, hesitance, maybe a little bit of fear, but like fear of what? Like I just don't like it. It's not the worst consequence in the world to taste a thing that's like, oh, I just didn't like that. But I was not mortified by it.

I still didn't love it. What's crazy is when you say this is the sweetest batch you've ever had, to me I was like, sweet spaghetti, this is whatever, it's not that sweet. So, and again, I love decadent desserts. So it's like, we're just, we're very different in our expectations of sweet. I was expecting way sweeter.

And so I think because I had tapered that expectation down to what it was, it actually let it just kind of I was expecting way sweeter. And so I think because I had tapered that expectation down to what it was, it actually let it just kind of... It was okay. Something that I did appreciate out of all of this, though, is that at the end of eating the spaghetti, I felt like you were kind of down to try cut-up hot dogs in your next spaghetti.

I love hot dogs. Okay, but you were... Cut-up hot dogs didn't scare me. Yeah, but you were... Cut up hot dogs didn't scare me. Yeah, but like, it wasn't that you were... The sweetness scared me. Yeah, it wasn't that you were scared about it. I think you enjoyed it more, even more than you thought you were going to.

Like, at least the perception that I had. I will say there was only one hot dog slice in my thing. I would have... Oh, you would have murdered it. ...happily housed half a dog. Oh, yeah. If half a dog was in there, I would have... Like, the a dog. Oh, yeah, the half a dog was in there I would look at the hot dog. I had no issue with

the hot dog thing sounds Like you went for a Lower Quality meat a hot dog versus like a ground beef or but like but even then it's it's not like night and day different Yeah, yeah, but a ground beef for a ragu or a bolognese is preferred by me. But I do love a hot dog. Once again though, right, we're talking about that cultural resiliency, right? That we know how it's supposed to be made. We don't have those ingredients.

So instead of that ragu or that bolognese sauce, like we switch to banana ketchup and when we have, you know, when we don't have access to ground beef or to make meatballs or something like that, we have access to hot dogs. Yeah. Right, and to get to see that creativity is always, it makes me very proud of the creativity. Yeah, yeah and

You said banana ketchup. Mm-hmm. That made me nervous. Mm-hmm. The idea of ketchup as a tomato sauce is like You know, it's like Canadian Mexican food there and their salsa is like ketchup or British Love that you're bringing this up right now because there is that there is of like, wait a minute, you're not supposed to mix this. I have only had it this way, right? I bring this up because of, there's this recent TikTok trend of finding out what Swedish tacos are. You don't wanna know.

No, but a camera's on me, so I gotta ask. So there's like bananas and like and in it and all that there was like I don't hate that sound But I also love bananas But like as a taco But like with what else like but because I gotta look this up banana with like carnita doesn't sound terrible to me banana with like I gotta look this up. Banana with carnita doesn't sound terrible to me. Banana with carne asada does sound really weird. Yeah, I don't even think it was using traditional meats

or anything like that, too. Yeah, it's a whole thing. That's weird. But anyway. Not weird, it's different. As a Southern Californian, we judge. As somebody who just made a special trip to Tacos El Gordo in San Diego, like this past weekend, there is one way to do tacos and it's how Hispanic culture does it. I'm also a quarter Mexican, so you know, I got that on lock too.

Okay, what else was not? Oh, yeah, so my score was only a three and a half out of ten. Oh, okay. And four and a half out of ten as a chaser. You get a bite of that spicy... The chaser is higher. Yeah. Okay.

Because the chicken was higher. That third flavor you were talking about. Yes. Ah, okay. Still not amazing. But I had very low expectations and it didn't quite hit those depths. There was too little indoor seating. Yeah.

Just in general. But like you also can't hate on a place for being popular. So being stuck outside, oh, what am I mad at? That more people want Jollibee? Like that's not on them. There's also a little bit of an LA hostile architecture feel to what we were experiencing. But the most hostile thing, when you walk in and you take a left, there is a sign on the wall next to four plastic chairs with metal rods for feet

that just says, customer waiting area. And I felt like I was in a doctor's office. So If we are going to be setting this up, right? Uh-huh If you're gonna be setting up anywhere to make Filipinos feel comfortable Most of us are nurses if you're gonna make it feel like a doctor's office Come on, okay. Yeah, we're probably delivering this to an ER floor anyway We're going to lunch to it's a lunch break. You're not supposed to take work with you It's a it's a severance sort of thing where like you turn around you're still

Walking to Jollibee. I might any right now yeah yeah, it's just not a good, like, it's not a... More thought could have been put into that look. A bench with a cushion that just goes across the same amount of space. It felt very, uh... post-pandemic makeshift.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I get it there. And so, which I do have to say, right? Jollibee was an incredible source of comfort for Filipinos during the pandemic, right? A lot of us work in the healthcare industry. If you are a Filipino person, there's a very, very high chance

that one of your direct family members was working in those hospitals at the time. I can't even tell you. Like, I heard so many stories about a Jollibee giving free food to like first responders and all that as well too. And to get to fuel the people who are really helping that's a very uniquely Filipino thing that I love.

Sure. I like how you took a transition of like, it looked like COVID makeshift. And by the way, did you know during COVID? What? Seamless, seamless. If there's a way for me to teach you about something, I will always take it.

Seamless. That's really all I had in the not good. This food wise, it was just the spaghetti. Everything else I have in just there. Mm-hmm. All right Let's go into all the things that were just there We are both self professed sweaty people Yeah as It's probably shown on camera right now, but like I am in a suit and it like and I'm I'm baking this thing. Oh, no

Right. Ah, that's okay Wearing suit jackets is the best way to hide that you're baking. Right? so something for me is that we did have to sit outside. I hate sitting outside. Can I top you? I hate the sun. Just in general? Anytime a villain has a plot to black out the sun,

I'm like, yeah, man. I'm on his side. I'll take the opposite of that. Anytime villains have something to take over the moon, I'm all about it. That's real estate. We should be taking advantage of that, right? Yeah, we're not colonizing enough. Do you know how hard?

Well, wait, it's, but it's colonization if somebody else already owns it, right? This is actual free real estate, right? Like, yeah, the US has a flag on it, but they don't own the moon, right? Yeah. So I'm glad that we're on this sun-moon scenario. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, so I hate sitting outside while dining, especially if there's sunlight out. If it's like a nice night and it's like cool out, and like, you know, drinking wine on a patio or something, I'm all about it. And there's like a little fire... Yes, yeah. With this, what was just there were the umbrellas that were shielding us. Not good, not bad, just there, trying its hardest.

Yeah. Right? But I'm a sweaty dude. And my whole thing, too is that I literally brought another outfit If you look at the social media photo that we took there I'm wearing a different outfit because I knew I was gonna be a sweaty boy while eating all the spicy she hit me up He was like I have at least four wardrobe Just in case I sweat through it while we were eating spicy chicken. I love it.

Yeah, so yeah, so the Umbrellas, bless them, tried their hardest. Tried their best. Just there. Yeah. Okay, this is a thing that was just there, and like, I used to pop, and that's a wrestling term, get excited,

for these, and now I'm kind of turning on them. They have little vibrators for your order. And they're just like, I think when we live in a world where one, it's not that hard to like project, you know, you could have like an intercom outside, a little microphone, just be like, number eight, your order's up or you know, whatever, or just everything's in your phone now

and you get a text when your order's ready. I used to like those little, they're exciting. They give you a mini heart attack when they go off. A little bit, yeah. Especially if they're on a table that is very hard, non-soft, no felt, no cushion or whatever. But just like, I think about like, especially in a restaurant, and especially in a restaurant like this, where their main offering is such a greasy thing,

I think about the other hands that have touched it. Now to be fair, you are handing it back before you get the greasy food. You are giving it in exchange for the greasy food. But let's not act like people don't do a double. Someone goes up, they order food, and then they're like, Oh, you know what? I want some more. They go up and they get another. They're still eating.

And let's not act like everybody washes their hands. Yeah, I don't. Oh, OK. This took a turn. OK, I will say it did have the appropriate amount of buzzing. Mm hmm. I was just at another food place where they gave me one of those. And it was a barbecue spot, and it was a very lively barbecue spot.

They gave it to me. There was no vibration, no sound, just light. Hmm. And I don't know how long my thing was going off. But my friends... But they were closed before I got my food. I know, right? But I was like, oh, that's strange.

I've never had one where there was no tactile function and there was no sound function, but there was only a light function. Yeah, I wouldn't like that. But then you're talking about the heart attack ones, the ones that like buzz real hard. Why? Why do they have them like that? Just tweak it down a little bit. Well, it's the same people who like drive extra loud. You know, some people just wanna make something noisy

for attention. Are you talking about like the revving? Yeah. Okay, yeah, I do. Or like they modify like the tailpipe or whatever so it's louder. I don't like that. I hate it. I don't like it.

What are you trying to prove? Yeah. Get a life. Yeah, we see you. We don't think highly of you. And it's definitely like a, is this like a life-affirming thing for them or? I think it's just like they're looking at, I think they very much subscribe to the notion of there's no such thing as bad press or whatever, like oh they're looking at me.

And I think that's inherently wrong. I don't like that. It's just an incorrect viewpoint. But yeah, I don't know. They didn't get enough attention as kids, so they want it now? Maybe? I don't know. Don't know what it is. I can only hypothesize, but I'm not one of those people.

And if you're... There is a different side of this coin, like the old-school car collectors that are like, oh, you want to hear this kiddie purr? Like that kind of, like, oh, listen to the, oh, you got to feel the engine or whatever or Motorcycles when they are very loud it is it is easier to spot them when we're in traffic Yeah, so you can open a door

Who like goes off on the side so they can lane split yeah, and if they don't wave at me I'm unreasonably mad for the rest of the drive Yeah, and it's like the two, like you want them to do that. I want them because it's your left hand. Yeah. Cause your, your, your right is on the throttle. Right. Yeah.

And so like, it's their left hand, they put it up or whatever. Right. When they do that, I'm like, oh cool. Like I helped them. They saw me. Yeah. And then, and then if they don't do that, I remember it for the next three hours. You know, it might be given how much stock you're putting in

just being noticed by a motorcyclist, I think they do rev because in all our hearts we're like, you know what, they're cool. Am I a little bit of a bike bunny right now? Like, is that what you're trying to tell me? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm a little bit of a bike bunny because I'm looking for-

You have like a barbed wire tramp stamp. I'm looking for like a barbed wire tramp stamp I'm putting this out there. He wears suits to cover up his bar Stamps right Other the other tattoo is occupancy too So i'm gonna put the fries in just there, okay, they were they were a filler they were like Hey, you want you want some extra calories or something reliable, but not great fries. It's tough for me To say that fries are bad in the first place Except in and out I will defend in and out burger.

And for that value? Yes. My god. The value, thank you, yes. Yeah, the fries here, I went five out of 10. They were just there, not a star. I'm okay with that. I'd say six because they were a little bit crispier

than I thought they were gonna be. Okay, yeah. Like I did find myself continually going back to them but I just never loved it. Yeah, palette cleanser. I was like, I want more of something and I guess fries are what I'm taking. That was kind of my thought process. Um, the gravy didn't detract, but wasn't needed is kind of how I felt.

Like it didn't bring anything down, but to me it really added nothing other than maybe a little moisture, but the chicken was so juicy anyways that it didn't need it. I went five out of 10 on the gravy as well. My main thing that I wanna talk about that's in the just there, I didn't quite dislike it, but it really didn't do much for me was the Palabok Fiesta.

I will say that Palabok was just there. I do agree with you. Now, as somebody who loves Balaabook, I was, it's not that I was disappointed. Yeah. It's just in the next few days, I will be going to get Balaabook that makes me happier. I see.

Like, does that ever happen with you food-wise? Oh, of course. Yeah, like you have something and it just doesn't quite hit the spot, so now you have to go to your main place. Yeah. This is one of those times where I'm gonna have to do that. I went four and a half out of ten it tasted like Tasted like I've had liked it if not at fast food. Okay. Yeah, I do agree with that sentiment

I wrote that down in the moment. I think it's pretty profound I will do a non fast food version of this a sit-down version of this, I think could definitely hit. Oh yeah. Yeah. But as is, that was fine. Did you have anything else in the just there? No. All right.

But I did feel very strongly about the umbrellas. Awesome. So that is all of the things that we experienced, all the things about our day at Jollibee. We need to put it all together into a rating. But before you are qualified to score, you have to calibrate your scale. You've not been to the over 100 restaurants I've been to on this show. Therefore, we need to know what are your comparison points. We know five is Chili's true north is Chili's true north is Chili's.

OK, but we need to know your zero and your 10. So we're going to jump into this week's calibration station. I want to know what your zero and your 10 are, what you would call the worst restaurant dining experience you've ever had in your life, and the best that you've ever had in your life. You can start with whichever one you like, but the floor is yours. It's always hard to not add like social and cultural context to your experiences.

And the worst dining experience I've ever had in the vein of the fine dining that we're talking about here is Sizzler. I mean, it's pretty low. Yeah, you had a 3.59 here for this one. And I would rate it negative if I could. Can I bring something up that I think you'll appreciate? When I went to Sizzler, they have, you know how like you'll get a basket and then it'll be lined with paper and sometimes that paper is proprietary and it'll have stuff from the brand printed on it? Mm-hmm.

So Sizzlers had a bunch of quotes on it and they had a quote there that I don't think they recognized could be taken in a negative way. Oh. Sizzler, what did I do to deserve all this? That's... Was on their own decor in the restaurant. And I think that they meant like, sizzler's a treat.

And mine was like, that's a thing someone says when they're at rock bottom. So this is the teaching concept that I want to add to this. There's a thing called inflection when you are speaking, in public speaking. And inflection is very important to have. Whenever you are in and public speaking. And inflection is very important to have. Whenever you are in a public speaking context, they forgot to take into account inflection.

But this is also that thing where like, you know how it's so much easier to get mad at someone over text? Mm-hmm. That's what it is. Mm-hmm. That's why. So, a sizzler is by far,

I remember specifically having an experience in the middle of a sizzler, there was like a kid's buffet when I was a child. And I remember grabbing goldfish crackers because those were my favorite crackers at the time. The fact that Sizzler had the audacity to put those into a buffet is also wild. And they tasted so wrong. And I had asked, oh, what flavor are these? Because, you know, when you're a child, like, you know, your palate is a lot more limited, right?

I was hoping for the cheddar ones, and she's like, oh, it's the cheddar ones. And so I grabbed a handful, and I ate it, and it tasted so wrong. I think that's when I became sentient, right? Like, I was like... You came online at that moment. I think that's when I became sentient, right? Like, I was like... You came online at that moment.

Yeah, like, you know, like when a child like actually has cognizance at that point? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, bad goldfish made me cognizant. You were like, I've never felt indignant before, but in this moment. The best dining experience I ever had. Unfortunately, this place is not open anymore.

It was a beer bar called The Wall. And they called it The Wall because there was 55 beers on tap and you'd like tap your card and you could fill the beer and all that. And they had these wonderful foods by Chef Rainstar. And Chef Rainstar was in the Navy and traveled all around the world and had something on the menu, like a barbite's menu, that specifically came from all the places that he had stayed during his Navy tenure.

And the manager there, Brenda, and shout out to Brenda and her team at the time as well, too. Brenda and I are still very good friends to this day. She is this absolute badass, right? And she plays in a punk band, like manages a beer bar, like all this stuff. She's the coolest lady ever, right? My wife and I at the time, we were both in between jobs. She had, she had unfortunately had to quit a job at the time, and then I was laid off. And there was a four month stint where we went into the wall every day

just to use their wifi in order to apply for jobs. Brendan knew that and used her shift meal every day for four months in order to make sure we had a meal. Wow. She was still gracious enough to make sure that she was taking care of us the entire time, until we got back on our feet.

And I will never forget that. And it was this beautiful experience where we knew that we had a place that was going to give us comfort. And that comfort was food that came from a thoughtful place, drinks that came from a thoughtful place, and people that came from a thoughtful place, drinks that came from a thoughtful place, and people that came from a thoughtful place. And to this day, Brendan never pays for a meal.

She'll never pay for a meal ever again when she's around us. And yeah, we're so thankful for it on that. It's very heartwarming to hear your take on what a 10 can be, because I think a 10 is just what's your favorite, you know, what's the experience that resonates with you with all the ideals that you want out of a restaurant. And a lot of people, it's like, this is the best dish I had or the best service I had.

But the idea of my 10 is a place that literally opened itself up to feel like a home for me. I think it's really cool. So somewhere between opening up their whole restaurant to you as though it were your home and the goldfish crackers that made you aware of reality for the first time lies Jollibee. Okay. first time, lies Jollibee. Okay.

Today's experience at Jollibee. Okay. So we are going to put Jollibee through the Chili's Test. -♪ It's time to set the scale Will it pass or will it fail? Is it the worst? Is it the best? Put it through the Chili's Test. Jollibee is this place that I've been, I think, morbidly curious is the word that describes it. And the morbidly part has to do with just cultural differences, feeling literally just outside my comfort zone, as many people do when dipping their toes in a new culture.

And to be able to do that in a sense where someone welcomed me into it was very nice. I knew that when I did Jollibee, I wanted to have a guest who was familiar and perhaps a little bit passionate about it. So that is what I got to have today. And in experiencing Jollibee, I think there's such a big emphasis

that you have put throughout both part one, part two of these episodes on the cultural context. Now, my rating system is based on what I consider to be objectivity. But it does go beyond just, was the food good? You know, I have Cinnabon at a 4.19, but if we're just going off of the item of Cinnabon, it's probably like an 8. Yeah. Cinnabons are great. But like, it's not a great restaurant.

It doesn't carry a lot of like, respect. It's a stand that you walk up to and a teenager hands you your death. That is what a Cinnabon is. Or like it's an airport and it's either late or early and there are no rules. There are no rules. And like always, at least part of it falls on your shorts. You never get a Cinnabon that you get to fully consume.

So, with all of that in mind, balancing where I feel comfortable putting Jollibee, I'm kind of broadening out and going back to those ranged terms that I use for certain parts of the score. If four to six is average, I do think Jollibee escapes being an average restaurant. Ooh. I would call it good.

And a big part of what carries that is the amount of heart that, one, you kind of opened my eyes to. You just had such a sense of pride about it. And I will also admit, one of the things that I discount when doing this show is the company. Because I'm gonna always like, like I'm, I'm excited to be at this place with someone. Yeah, like I'm not a corporate sponsored guest that has been forced on your show, right? Like we know each other in real life. Yes.

Yeah. And so I'm not here to be like, well I enjoy hanging out with you, therefore Jollibee's a 10. So just looking at what Jollibee is, I still think it escapes mediocrity. It is above that, it is good. Do I think it's great? No, not really.

But I would eat there again, especially because it sounds like some things get changed up or some things are at some locations and not others. I wanted to try the hollow hollow. Is that how you say that? Yeah, hollow hollow. And they didn't have it at this location.

Maybe they do at the Panorama City one, I don't know. But I'm curious enough to find out. This is fried chicken I'd eat again. All things considered, Jollibee for me was a 6.13. Okay. It's in the good. It's not super high into that good spectrum, but it's a good place. So, Jollibee, you're good.

What say you? I take into account the idea that will I be craving this at another time in this point of the year, right? Mm-hmm. And so I took that into account when I was scoring. And I was thinking about all the other scores that you've given as well, too. And, you know, for example, like, when's the last time I craved Burger King

or Red Lobster or something like that? Practically never, right? When was the last time I craved Jollibee? Oh, it was definitely a few months ago. Now, am I craving it multiple times out of the year? No. But once or twice out of the year, I'm like, oh yeah, that actually does sound pretty good.

And I feel like that score is higher for me because of that. Sure. So, judging from the experience today, which to be honest, there are a few less points that were considered because I felt like today's batch of the spaghetti was not as strong as it usually is. Yeah. Today, I would put this at a 7.73. 7.73.

So, when you average that with my score, Jollibee goes up on the Chachki of Mediocrity at a 6.93. Ooh, we almost broke into seven. Aw. Little bee's face too. Which means definitively, Jollibee is better than Chili's. Better than Chili's. Temptingly good.

Awesome. Well, that is Jollibee's fate. I gotta go somewhere next week. So I have to draw a restaurant out of the You Must Bowl. But today it's the You Must Bucket, because I've got a little jollybee chicken bucket You didn't know that was there did you? I was there when you asked for it at the At the restaurant and she was both confused and so about it. Yeah. Yeah, she's just like yeah, I'll give you a bucket

All right. I have drawn next week. I will be going to. Golden Corral. Well, JPG, thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate having you. I think Jollibee was the perfect restaurant to have you join me for. Your enthusiasm was genuinely infectious in that I am now sick

Thank you again for having me this is so much fun Yeah, this is great If you want to look into that camera tell people where they can find you on social media or any other Commands you want to give them they'll do it sure Once again, I'm JPG. I am a pop culture educator and consultant I own the consultancy firm Intermyth where we help content creators either launch into the content creation space

or help content creators get over some hurdles that they might be experiencing as well. You can find out all the information at intermyth.org and you can find me on all social media at speakerjpg. By the time this episode releases, I will actually be speaking at San Diego Comic-Con as well too. So if you look for JPG on the official schedule

for Comic-Con, please drop in and watch one of my panels. Hell yeah. And you can follow the show on Instagram and TikTok at Find Dining Podcast or Blue Sky, which if you bug me there, I will respond. You have the power to get me to use it more. That's finddiningpodcast.bsky.social. And I have a Discord.

Please come chat with me. Now with a dog server, no cats. You can post pictures of your dogs. Or get banned if you pet What about like lizards or like parakeets? Yeah. Yeah, I want to see I want to see your lizard Well, that's another one in the books, thanks so much for joining I will see you next week Have a fine day. From the bottom down to the top We got a new ammo and everything's unlocked And that's cause cheerleaders do a letter to a T It's the blood that gonna stop mediocrity,ocrity

So now we got a brand new kind of test That's the ones we gotta know Cause we sure are running out of the egg And the test, best of what we've got to know Could we show the light out of the air? Triple Dipper got the ribs on main course Perfect little in the middle It's gone now, it's got to be the lock for what we use When we put things up on the charge

Yay, we are today So there's another mode in the books We are a day! So there's another one in the books, yeah, there's another one in the books And we will see you next week, next week baby!