Fine Dining - We Drove to LAX to Eat Airport Planet Hollywood feat. Steve Moulton (I Think You Should Leave)

Episode Date: May 3, 2023

It's Turbo Time! Steve Moulton (I Think You Should Leave, Young Rock, Sharknado) joins the boys in going to LAX, one of the busiest airports in the world, to dine at a pre-security Planet Hollywood Garrett orders the worst steak we've ever seen Planet Hollywood has no Hollywood decor?! The Floor Wing RETURNS!! And he's kidnapped (pineapplenapped?) Juicy Jr. Girthy paper straws are WAY TOO MUCH Steve & Garrett time out on The Headline Game A veritable Final Destination is What's Going On Over There? JUB needs you to set aside your ethics We're on Patreon! Get an extra episode every month, 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!   Get our 5 Survival Tips for Casual Dining at www.finediningpodcast.com!   Send us your Planet Hollywood stories at [e-mail].   Follow us on TikTok and Instagram @finediningpodcast   Let us know where we should go next by leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, or wherever you get your podcasts. We read every one!   Next time on Fine Dining: Romano's Macaroni Grill! If you have ever worked for Macaroni Grill and have a story to share, send it to [e-mail].

Hello, everybody, welcome back to the Fine Dining Podcast, the search for the most mediocre restaurant in America. I'm your host, Michael Ornelas. I'm your host, Garrett Zwerk. And this show is the search for the most mediocre restaurant in America, the perfect five out of 10. Yeah, we're not looking for good. We're not looking for bad.

We're doing this for you. Yeah, we're looking for okay for you, so you don't have to. We're putting our bodies through a lot, and we don't ask much in return, but if you do want to go into Apple Podcasts, hit that five star rating, leave us a review if you haven't. It would be very much appreciated.

For those of you listening to the podcast, for the very first time, we do break down a restaurant and evaluate it based on its atmosphere, its service, and its food. So it's not just about the food, it's about the entire in the door, out the door experience. This week, we went to Planet Hollywood at the Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX,

because I guess I thought that would be funny. That just sounds absurd. Like there's one Planet Hollywood left in all of California, and it's at LAX. I mean, it's already a very touristy place, so we knew that there aren't a lot, but we wanted to hit a place that is a little bit special, but we didn't hit it alone this time.

No, we didn't. We've got a guest with us, friend by the name of Steve Moulton. You might know him from Sharknado, from I Think You Should Leave, as a member of the Turbo Team. Give me a third credit, Steve. Well, I very recently played legendary

601-pound wrestler, Haystacks Calhoun, in Young Rock, season two, episode seven. Oh, yeah. Did you smell what the rock was cooking? I didn't. I was sent to Australia to film it, and he was still here in the United States, so I could not smell what he was cooking.

The scent of his cooking wasn't strong enough to overcast. I mean, we're talking 7,000 miles, so it just, it didn't waft over. He's got 6,000 miles strong cooking. That's true. That part's true. By Nining Party of Three.

Well, there definitely were some distinct smells, but we'll get into that when we go into first impressions. For now, our table is ready. Your table is ready, follow me. Have you tried our chicken breast? Serving pancakes and rips, I recommend the spaghetti. You're here to satisfy, not to impress. Your table is ready, complimentary butter and bread.

These walls have growth signs. Knit, knack, cowboy hat, good luck, cat, autographed guitar, some crap from your city. Behold the trash key of mediocrity. Fine dining. Just fine dining. Fine dining. Two ledgers on the sign are shining.

Neon flickering, irregular timing. Identify the perfect vibe. Palatine. Fine dining. Fine dining. First impressions. So we're going to cheat a little bit, because usually our first impression is from the point

that we first see the restaurant. In this case, it kind of took us a while to find it, but I want to back it up even further, because I mean, it's all kind of one big thing. The drive to LAX. Y'all arrived at my home at 10.30 a.m. Garrett, we arrived back at 4.30 p.m. This was a six hour start to finish ordeal.

Now that's LA traffic for you. I live, you know, about 45 minutes from LAX. It definitely took longer, and especially once you get in that airport loop. Ugh, no way. Ugh, God, I'm shaking. I hate LAX so much. I was shocked that we ended up getting in as quickly

as we did, because we got into the loop of LAX at noon, like literally right at noon. So it already took almost an hour and a half to get there. And I was like, okay, from this point, look at the clock. We'll see how long it takes. And we get around. The international terminal is literally at the halfway point around the loop.

And we get there and we realize, shit, I think the entrance to the parking garage is downstairs. Do we have to finish this entire traffic loop, get off, get back in, go downstairs, and then drive there? I was freaking out. But thankfully we were driving.

There were some cones. We saw a dude with a vest. We were like tending to the cone. Yes, that was his job, guard the cones. He was the guardian of the cones and he gave us a little mercy pull. Mercy pull, that's good. And you know, he gave maybe a little bit of an eye roll.

He didn't have attitude, he was very helpful, but it was definitely like a, okay, I'll let you in. I'm not supposed to. They may be out of spots, but go ahead and look. And so probably truly shaved what, half an hour? Oh, at least. Easily. Yeah. And we pull into the garage,

luckily get parking pretty quickly. Still takes a while just to like traverse the parking garage, get downstairs, find the right crosswalk to go over because we can't go across that same bridge that we were let into by this. Oh God, I wish I could make the proper Thor reference. The guy who guards the gate.

I'm done. Heimdall, you guys are nerds, you both just driving. Yeah, the Heimdall of LAX. He was too. He kind of was. Yeah. He didn't have like the majestic looking eyes, but everything else was there.

True. And we get in, we go downstairs, big baggage claim, and we're like, Oh, there was one of the nicest attendants outside by the parking lot. Shout out to Lawrence. He was like, we wanted a little video for social media of us just going into the airport

because it's such a ridiculous place to go for a restaurant. And I don't know if he was like a guy who guides people to like transportation options or something, maybe parking security. Yeah, something, something like that. I don't know. Super nice guy offered to take our video

while his coworker was like, we can get fired for that. And he was like, I'll do it. Like after that information came out. So Lawrence, I hope you still have your job. If you don't, we're sorry. If you don't, we're sorry. And so he took a little video of us walking in. We walk in by baggage claim and we just have no clue.

None. And at this point, keep in mind, we're still kind of living on the prayer that this planet Hollywood is accessible. Right. We don't know for sure. You know, I've done research online and had found that it was pre-security,

but we didn't have a plane ticket. So yeah, we were kind of at the mercy of, is this allowed? And it's funny when it says pre-security, it's literally right before security. The little gated opening for Planet Hollywood is what, 15 feet from the escalator? That's if you don't have a ticket, you're not allowed past this point.

Yeah. I was definitely clenching until I saw the Planet Hollywood sign. I was, yeah. Wow. So the Planet Hollywood sign got you to declench. You know, maybe the most supportive review they could have ever gotten.

I felt like a safe haven. I unclenched upon seeing their logo. Put that on you. It is very welcoming. Now, before that, I did notice, like right before we see it, you know, we're walking through all the ticket lines, basically, and I start just smelling

a very overwhelming Turkey Club sandwich scent. Remember that? Earl of Sandwich is right there, right next to Asian Street Eats. Oh yeah. And finally, next to that, the one tucked a little bit out of you, Planet Hollywood.

It's almost as if the same person owns all three of these establishments. Yeah. They actually do. When you call, because I did call in advance to like try and confirm, are you accessible without a ticket? It was like, thank you for calling Planet Hollywood,

Earl of Sandwich, and Asian Street Eats at LAX. So the fact that it was like this big hybrid thing made that pretty clear. The last thing I noticed before we walk through these gates, now keep in mind, it's a very open restaurant. You can see everything in the restaurant right away. It's not like you go through doors and there's a hidden trove of wonder that, you know,

you walk in and your breath is taken away. Right. No, it's just, here's the sign, and here's like a curio cabinet of last minute souvenirs. And didn't it actually say last minute souvenirs? It said last minute souvenirs, it had t-shirts, shot glasses, coffee mugs, hats, a Planet Hollywood phone charging bank.

Oh, yeah. And when I inquired, none of it is actually for sale. A grim omen of what this experience offered me, just a lot of expectation that I guess fell short. I want to know why you had any expectations of airport Planet Hollywood. Because it's Planet Hollywood and honestly, if you want to put a good foot forward for tourists,

if you want to be this tourist trap of a restaurant, Planet Hollywood's not a bad choice. If it were the Planet Hollywood that you get at literally any of the other locations. Right. But they skimped. I noticed the receipt even said Planet Express. What, really?

Yes. Is that the name of the ship in Futurama? I think so. Oh God, does that bump my rating up? No, as much as I love Futurama, I got to stay true to the experience that I had and the couple of days of marinating in my brain that both the food and the restaurant had for me.

I'm just looking at my credit card bill, Planet Express LAX. And for the record, it was not all that express. No, not at all. No, it was anything but. Yeah. Not horrendously slow, but not express. Right.

And a lot of the Yelp reviews, which you guys will hear later, mention the lack of speed. Oh yeah. The lack of urgency to the service. I don't think we experienced a lack of urgency. There was definitely a service desert. There was confusion during our meal.

I mean, not the entire thing, but there was a point where I was like, it's been a solid 10, 15 minutes since our server is trapped in. So when the server actually came, I was on my hands and knees on the ground inspecting a chicken bone. Oh yeah.

Oh, we had another floor wing, baby. We'll get into that atmosphere, but for now, I want to know a little bit more about the background of this place. Garrett, let's jump into this week's Rusty Facts Roundup. Yeah! You know how your mom hates the whip?

Oh yeah. How about we do some camera flashes for this one? The paparazzi are showing up between every single new fact. I'm into it. The first Planet Hollywood opened up in New York City in 1991 with all of the fanfare that you would expect with Arnold Schwarzenegger,

Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone as investors. Oh, as investors. I thought you were just gonna say as like, they were present for like at the ribbon cutting. Originally as the concept, there was a 17% share allocated for celebrity investors. Not a bad idea. Planet Hollywood after all.

Did you get on that after Sharknado, Steve? Definitely not. Sharknado, as much as I love it, certainly didn't pay investing money. All of these people that were at the event had investing money. Nice. Some of the people were Elton John,

Donatella Versace, Chris Farley, Chris Rock, Christian Slater, Melanie Griffith, Wesley Snipes and Nicole Smith, Cher and lots and lots of other A-listers. Wow. That's a pretty darn good guess list right there. I feel like maybe only Chili's had the same level of prestige on their opening.

If I remember correctly. I see conflicting reports of whether or not Jack Nicholson was involved in this. Oh. There are some photos of him at the event. I hate my name out of it. Anton First, Oscar-winning production designer of Tim Burton's Batman, designed the first location.

Holy smokes. And they had a lot of memorabilia, right? Yeah. OK. We'll get into that about this one. But yeah. Yeah. Bobby Zerim, one of the developers

behind the I Love New York campaign. Also, he's one of the main reasons of Arnold Schwarzenegger's success. He handled the PR. So you've got an all-star team already. Absolutely. So this was set up for success. Yes.

This was the nepotism baby of restaurants. Right. For real. You would think so. But that is not how this got started. Oh, yeah? This really all started about 20 years earlier in 1972, when 20-year-old son of a British pop

star, Robert Earl, opened up an early medieval times-like dinner theater in London. Whoa. We should do medieval times soon. We should. This same guy, Robert Earl, later went on to partner with the literal 11th Earl of Sandwich, Lord John Montague, to open up the Earl of Sandwich chain.

So like Earl of Sandwich is literally half-owned by the Earl of Sandwich. That's pretty awesome. Like there's an actual guy that is the Earl of Sandwich. Yeah, that's one of those nobility titles. Is that like an official thing? Yes, Lord John Montague, the 11th Earl of Sandwich. Is Sandwich a place in that context?

I imagine it's got to be, right? As much as like what, like Kensington Palace or whatever of those? Yeah, you can't be the Earl of a thing. It's got to be a place called Sandwich. Place property, family lineage, something like that. Although in England, it's probably just Sandwich, because you know how they like to drop the Ws

out of all their witch towns. So it might just be Sandwich, I don't know. Sandwich, yeah. But yeah, there's that old story about this guy. He was an Earl. He loved to gamble, so he requested that stuff be brought to him between two pieces of bread so he could hold his cards with one hand

and eat with the other. You're prudineous. You presented this in such a way that I believe it. Yeah, like it was on all the educational shows as a kid. Oh, that is a real thing. Yeah, like why is it called a sandwich? Well, there was the Earl of Sandwich. Yeah.

Who was this guy? Yeah, one of these guys' ancestors. You're not actually doing a bit. That's true. I mean, true-ish. I'm not sure if it was. I'm not sure if he's specifically gambled with cards, but I think he used that line.

The story I always heard was he loved to gamble, so he wanted a snack that could be eaten with just one hand so he could gamble with his clean hand. Huh. I heard what happened. Sanitary. I'm going to start multitasking at these restaurants, and I'm going to have an eating hand.

There you go. Oh, God. That's just kind of like the Indian bathroom hand. Well, we're not going there. So same guy, Robert Earl, also owns Asian Street Eats, and Buka de Beppo. Oh, OK. The mythical fourth of the group that we did not

experience at LAX. True. Yes. Robert Earl also opened up other theme eateries in the late 70s, including Talk of London, Shakespeare's Tavern, and the Cockney Club. So then he moved to the States in the early 80s in order to sell his restaurant concepts to Disney

during Epcot's development, which is interesting because Planet Hollywood is in Disney Springs in Orlando. Yes. But hey, deal fell through. Oh, it did. He moved all the way to Orlando for nothing. Oh.

He decided to stay because he's in Orlando now. This is like chain restaurant Mecca. Mecca, yeah. So he started his businesses there. Insert some corporate buyouts here and there by some other companies with some names such as Pleasureama and Mecca Leisure. Mecca like Mechanical Leisure?

Or like the Mecca of Leisure? The Mecca of Leisure. Oh, OK. It's like the most I had the same question. I was like, is this robotic? Right. Relax. Relax.

Shhh. Shhh. Shhh. Shhh. Shhh. Eventually, he ended up running the entire eastern region of Hard Rock Cafe. Checks out.

Not bad. So he absolutely kills it. He's the ultimate hero of Hard Rock Cafe. Yeah. He gets like five stars, excellent on every single one of those restaurants. Yeah. On the way, he connects with Keith Barish,

the producer of Sophie's Choice, Nine and a Half Weeks, The Running Man, The Fugitive, and more. Wow. So the two of them together. So he's linked into movies now. Yes. And now you see how Arnold Schwarzenegger got brought in.

Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Get to the restaurant. OK. So the two of them developed this concept. Then they bring in all the celebrities.

And then this brings us back to that 1991 Manhattan grand opening. Cool. Everything was just an instant success after that. Well, obviously, they're sinking millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars into this. They have celebrities. They have the best of the best doing everything.

Three more locations opened up in the next year. And two more in the next. And five more soon after that, including the Mall of America. Nice. Each one of these is a hit. So how many did it balloon up to at its most? Do you know that answer? Yes, I have that.

At its peak, there were 87 restaurants in the late 90s. Cool. For Planet Hollywood alone. Yes. Wild. I bet. All over the world. I would not have guessed even close to that, given what

their footprint is now. Yeah. Well, the downfall started not long after they opened. Really? Hard Rock Cafe proceeds to sue Robert Earl and Planet Hollywood, accusing him of theft of industry secrets. Because you know what? He was still working for Hard Rock Cafe this whole time.

Was he really? Yes. He opened up Planet Hollywood and he's still working for the competition. That seems like a sloppy move, because they are two sides of the same coin. Whenever you hear one brought up, you always hear the other one. Right. It doesn't surprise me that the same guy is involved with both. Yeah.

But they settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. Of course. As it always is. The Las Vegas location in the forum shops at Caesars opened in 1994 and quickly became the company's largest and highest grossing location. For the grand opening there, over 10,000 people, including George and Barbara Bush, were in attendance. And this was in 94.

So this was like right after his presidency. Right. Wow. The Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino opened up in 2007 and to this day does not have a Planet Hollywood restaurant in it. That's so odd. I noticed that when I was looking up locations. They actually they have something close.

It's the Hollywood Cafe that sells Planet Hollywood menu items. Right. But I looked into this more. It's highly probable that a contractual agreement covering proximity of locations with the Simon Property Group, the people that own the forum shops, is the reason for this. This happens all the time. You lease a spot from a mall.

You lease a spot in a strip mall. You lease anything. Chances are if you're a retail location, there's going to be some form of a non-compete agreement in there. Yeah. And I look at it this way. What's Planet Hollywood going to do? Just break the contract, lose their highest grossing location and gain nothing

but naming the restaurant. They already have a different name from it. That's so weird. Sadly, there are just five Planet Hollywood restaurants left in existence. And I can name them all, baby. Whoa. Tom Bradley, International Terminal at LAX. That's one.

Orlando, Florida. That's two. Las Vegas, Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino. That's three. That is not. Well, across the street, the rest of the street from there. Qatar. That's four.

That's four. Malta. That's five. Yeah. There was supposedly a New York City location that was supposed to reopen in 2022. It hasn't yet. Is it still in the works as far as you know? I found no news saying whether or not it is in the work to reopen because I just gave up on it.

They're like, we don't like California. We're East coasters. It's kind of like the LAX one. Our server told us it had just recently reopened in like October, November of 2022. After the after the pandemic, yeah, they were they were down for a while. Sounds like two and a half years. Good for them for getting back up at all, I guess. Yeah.

They also opened up a cafe for sports. The official All Star Cafe, and they hired Wayne Gretzky, Joe Montana and the Lord of endorsements himself, Shaquille O'Neal, to be investors. Jack my boy. All Star Cafe. Yeah. Are there a lot of these? It's done.

Oh, man. I was like, let's add it to the list. That place didn't have a burger called the Shack Attack. No wonder they're out of business. They also teamed up with Marvel. What? They made a superhero themed restaurant. Is it also gone?

But it only lasted a year. Oh, my gosh. Planet Hollywood went public in 1996 with the strong opening and initial success. Their highest stock price was actually the very first day. Oh, no. It got all downhill from here, baby. It reached a peak of $33 per share. Unfortunately, by 1999, the stock price had cratered to $1.

Soon after that, the company filed for bankruptcy. Is that when it closed like all those locations? Yeah. Yeah. After they filed for bankruptcy, they were delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. Dang. Of course. From A-List to D-List.

So this was only the first time they filed for bankruptcy. They filed for bankruptcy again at the end of 2001. And guess what they blamed? Uh, 9-11. Yeah. Woof. Yeah, blame terrorists for your shitty product. Garrett taking the hard line stance.

And people definitely didn't want to watch action movies after 9-11, where Planet Hollywood could have totally thrived if they had been on it longer. Speaking of 9-11 in tragedy. No. What a segue. At the grand opening of the Moscow location, one of the patrons fell to his death from the roof. That sounds like a very Russian thing to happen. Fell to or was thrown from the roof.

I read fell to. OK. It could have been was thrown. All right. But this wasn't it. There was also a terrorist bombing at their location in Cape Town, South Africa in 1998. Holy smokes. And this was among the reasons that contributed to their first bankruptcy.

Oh, weird. People just wanted to stop going there because of it, or was it like bad PR? That was I imagine people would rally around it. It was bad PR. Also, another main factor was Robert Earl wanted to expand the business at a rate of 30 to 40 percent each year. Oh, wow. Each new restaurant costs two million dollars to open.

So he's opening 10 plus a year. So every single time he's dropping two million and these restaurants aren't recouping the costs fast enough. Yeah. Investors are already seeing this. The stock price is plummeting. You all know where that goes. Right. The Planet Hollywood business future doesn't look any brighter today as the restaurant

slowly reopened after the pandemic, just like the LAX one. Yeah. Like with the New York, there is no date. I mean, is at least the Orlando one booming in any way? Because they're literally in Disney Springs. Yeah, like it's I feel like that one would presumably be the last to go. I would assume that would do as well as any restaurant, but like in Universal City or place like that. I don't know.

But I guess that does it for this week's Resty Facts Roundup. Steve, what were the first things you noticed about the atmosphere? Well, well, I really liked how we were essentially sitting in a solitary restaurant of its own. We weren't just kind of in a food court, but we also had a view of the whole terminal. I mean, I found that refreshing. Refreshing. Yeah, because like I've been another, you know, a lot of times you get to the airport. Is that an element you actually liked?

Yeah, like a lot of airport places I've eaten, there's a lot of them have never even had their own seating or some. It's like you kind of go into a cave and you're way back and you feel like you're just in a restaurant, not at the airport anymore. And that's fun, too. But I like to be able to like, hey, we're sitting down, we're being waited on. But also there's the whole terminal and it's good for people watching. So I appreciated that part. I guess if it was an airport themed restaurant, I would I would be into that more.

For me, it was more of a negative because I was understandable. All they put up was like a doggie gate around the perimeter. Maybe an inch shy of three feet tall. Yeah, just like everybody's going to watch you eat. They had a cardboard sign blocking off their emergency exit. Yeah. Now, I am a sucker for a boldly colored neon sign and they've got a great planet Hollywood sign. We got a picture in front of it.

Oh, yeah. I like that. They've got these weird lights overhead that are almost mirrored balls. Oh, right. But then they have a bulb inside. They have a bulb inside. I didn't notice a lot of illumination coming from them because most of the lighting of the place seemed to come from overhead fluorescent lighting anyway. Right. So it felt a little redundant and the lights were dim ish.

The bar area had a bunch of those mirrored balls above it. Oh, those were cool. It was a cool little touch. It was like a nice little design choice, but it had nothing to do with Hollywood. Had nothing to do with Hollywood. And more importantly, I've got an axe to grind with the fact that it didn't have any Hollywood memorabilia. Yeah, there was nothing.

This is what you sell the place on. Yep. This is like when you think a hard rock cafe, imagine going inside a hard rock cafe and there's no guitar. No autographed guitar. There's nothing. We even have an autographed guitar. We have an autographed guitar on the Chachky of Mediocrity. What's your excuse hard rock cafe hypothetically in this situation where you don't have a guitar,

even though you probably do, but you're akin to the planet Hollywood that doesn't have anything? What's your excuse? Ask the tough questions. I'm asking the questions that the people need answers to. It really fell short of the expectations I had of the place. It's an airport terminal. Sure. I get that.

Even an express location, even though it is not expressly. Express. Express. Right. That it is that it doesn't say Planet Hollywood Express on the sign or anywhere or when you Google it or any of that. It's literally just at the top of our check and on your credit card statement. So, you know, that's a far cry from how they're presenting themselves. And I was bummed at the lack of any memorabilia.

Right. Have some movie posters up for at least a Schwarzenegger or a Bruce Willis or a Stallone movie or one of each for crying out loud. Yeah. Have something that says Hollywood. Yes. I mean, Planet. Well, I mean, the short word is there. And the merch that you can't have.

Yeah, exactly. So I guess it just melds into becoming part of the atmosphere because you can't actually have a tangible thing. Right. And I was ready to. I'm always looking for stuff to add to the Chachki of Mediocrity, which if it's your first time listening to the show, the Chachki of Mediocrity is this awesome scoreboard that we have that keeps track of all of the restaurants that we have been to so far in search of the most mediocre restaurant currently

in the lead, Applebee's at a five point zero two. Oh, very freaking close. So go on our social media and you can check that out. That's right. We're on Instagram at find dining podcast. We're on tick tock at find dining podcast and you can email us whatever you want. Find dining podcast at gmail.com. We might regret that, but I don't know.

Maybe we won't decor aside. Another part of atmosphere is the people around us and Garrett. You noticed the first weird person. We didn't see him. It was in the bathroom. I went to the bathroom and there was this man just cupping his hands, filling them with water and just drinking them from his hands. Like this weird faucet.

Water from a faucet. Okay. Hand bowl. So he wasn't cupping them into a toilet. Okay. So that's a step in the right direction. Yeah. He was just cupping this.

Imagine a guy turns on the faucet. This belongs in the toilet. He's just shuddling it from here to there. It's like, hey, brother, you don't need to be doing that. Yeah. But also I was confused. I'm like, why are you just using your hands? Just like go ask for a bottle of water or like something.

I mean, people cup water in their hands all the time, but usually for like an LAX bathroom to drink. For a face splash. I mean, I'll do it. Like if I got sauce all over my beard or something, I would go into the bathroom, cut my hands and splash it on my face. There's a splash, but I'm never cupping my hands full of airport bathroom water and drinking it.

Right. There were also... The drink is the weird part. Not the cupping hands part. Yeah. It's weird for you to be like, why is he cupping his hands? And then we're drinking fountains right outside the bathroom. Were there?

Yeah. Two of them. Were they clean? Various heights. Bathrooms. Yeah. Yeah. Clear enough.

Pretty clean when I went in there. Lots of inhuman trafficking stickers on every bathroom mirror. And there were a lot of bathroom mirrors in there. That's just the only place I've ever seen them was the international terminal. So I guess that's a good place for them. In fact, that's how you learned about human trafficking. You didn't know what it was until... A hand shaped sticker on a bathroom mirror.

Yeah. Heaven help us. Then back at our table, I did notice just a couple of construction workers just kind of staring at the cash register. I thought they were watching a TV but looking at their eye lines. Like they were just full on like those reflective yellow vests and hard hats. And they were just standing staring at the register. I wanted to buy him some shots because the concept of drunk construction workers.

LAX is hilarious. Just drinking on the job. Yes. It's probably happening even right now. Yeah. It might have been what they were there for. Yeah. I don't know.

Now Garrett, you did mention that you were on the floor looking at a wing at one point. Yeah. We found... Okay. The wing is back. Remember? The floor wing. Yeah.

The Hooters floor wings. Somehow made its way to LAX. It's on a vacation. Yeah. It was just underneath Steve's seat. And it just felt like this antagonist from our past is back to taunt us. Michael and Garrett, we meet again. If only you knew I was down here on the floor with your son.

Juicy Junior tied up to my buzz saw. Try to enjoy your steak before my buzz saw enjoys Juicy Junior. Hey, what is that? A broom? Oh, come on. You couldn't have brought out a clean dustpan. This is ridiculous. What are those dirty paper straws?

You don't belong anywhere near the floor. The floor is for us. The floor is for the wings. There was a happy Easter tapestry just hanging from the wall. It seemed like the least effort you could have done for any sort of holiday decoration. It was on one little column. It looked like one of those cheap little things you get from the dollar store. Yeah.

Do they just replace that every holiday like once Easter comes and goes, which by this point it will have. It's just like Feliz Cinco de Mayo. Happy Earth Day. Happy Arbor Day. I don't know. Memorial, Fourth of July, Labor Day, Indigenous People's Day. All right.

Got it. All right. Behind the Easter tapestry, there were blank TVs that were just, it was literally like three sideways wall-mounted TV windows. Right. And all that was on them was black and the TV input info on the bottom left corner. So the screens were on. The screens were on and it was just like HDMI 1 and like,

it was like three lines of like white text on each of them. And it just felt like someone was trying to like hack into a mainframe or something. But I don't know, there's been a lot of like weird things that we've danced around where we don't know the answers and we do have a segment where we go into answering those questions. But that wasn't the most unusual thing that happened over the course of this meal that we noticed. There was a man that walked in. He wanted a seat by the wall right by the planet Hollywood sign.

He was like yelling. He was demanding that exact seat. He's like, this is America. I can sit where I want. He literally said, this is America. I can sit where I want. And the waitress was getting very defensive because he's taking an aggressive tone. I would have to.

I don't want someone to talk to me that way. He started off at aggressive. He started at a 10, man. And he's like yelling at her and she's like, sir, you know, please sit where your waiter seats you. Like, you know, that kind of thing or where, you know, the host seats you or whatever. Yeah. And then he says one thing to her.

And this is when he walked past me. I don't know what's happening at this point. Yeah, yeah. He says one thing to her and it's quiet. Everything else is yelling. Yeah, I didn't hear what he was saying. He says one thing to her and she says, certainly, I can seat you right this way. And I just got to ask what's going on over there.

Steve, we'll ask you what's going on over there. Well, the more I think about it, I think this very irate gentleman, this very irate guy, I'm not going to call him a gentleman. He was not gentle. Being at an airport, there's a high likelihood that he just had his own final destination premonition. Like he's destined for death. Right.

Yeah, he saw it coming. He knows. Yeah, like he saw the premonition that was just going to get him and a whole bunch of people killed and he managed to get away from it. But part of his premonition was that he saw himself sitting in the seat where that first employee was trying to seat him. So that's why he was insisting to sit with his back against the wall over near the planet.

So he could get like a good, keep a better view of the land. He knows death's design. He's trying to break it already. Yes. So what do they actually say to the woman? Just final destination. And she goes, oh, right this way, sir. Like perhaps she needed no more context to know like.

There were five movies. She probably knows what's up. She's probably seen one of them at least. Yeah, it's like this is a completely cultural known thing. I drive behind a truck with logs on it. I move out of the way. I can't do that. Absolutely.

Get out of that lane. Yeah. And what he didn't realize is that no matter where you sit, eating food at Planet Hollywood is going to make your heart explode. So it didn't make a difference. But luckily we left before the mass heart attack. Oh, right. I don't know.

All he did was upset the order. So we don't know if we're still in this design. Oh God. This man has ruined our own destinies. Maybe. Potentially. But as shown in the movies, death likes to move in a particular order. So.

Until they get to him, we're fine. Yeah, no. Yes, yes. Exactly, yes. Or until like once one of us goes, we know. Oh gosh. Yeah. And that was definitely what was going on over there.

I saw a gaggle of pilots in the wild. I believe that is the official term. Official term. Yeah, they fly geese fly a gaggle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There were at least a dozen of them just grouped up in this circle. I don't know what they were saying. So I walked up to them, started videotaping them.

Yeah. Why would you do that? You have no chill. That's a crazy thing to do. I thought it was really cool. This was the first time I've ever seen a gaggle of pilots. This isn't a zoo where you can just pull out your camera and start taking pictures or videos.

Isn't that what literally people watching is? Oh man, imagine if they started throwing shit at you. It's a defense mechanism. Oh no, like throwing little, they're like geese. They have tiny teeth. They throw flight wings at you. Get back. Yeah, get back.

You're just like stabbed with the pointy corners of the wings. Love it. Could you tell if they were from all the same airline or different airlines? I couldn't tell. They just all had the pilot uniforms on. And none of them looked like they were pleased with me being there. I wouldn't be.

This guy, I'm trying to talk to my coworkers and a guy just comes and starts filming me. That's just insanity. Why are you like this? I just looked like your average Asian tourist. So whatever, I'm sure they get it all the time. Fair enough. Fair enough.

Wow. Now, also on the other side of the doggie gate that was the partition separating us from the terminal, there was a weird waving guy. And like, I get it. You're at an airport. You're waving. You're probably waving at somebody.

But he had like the movement of like a sim. Oh, he seemed like a video game NPC. Just, hi. Just like that kind of thing. Well, now, from where you were sitting, there was a plant blocking the rest of the area around him. So he looked by himself to me. Yes, from where I was sitting,

I could see there were two other waivers with him waving in the exact same direction. So they also have sims to energy. Energy and the the emeralds floating above there. But I think that was blocked from your view by that plant. I did not see the emerald. So we got to give a thumb rating to this atmosphere. This was not Hollywood at all.

Right. I had an expectation that this place didn't deliver on. And I thought being in an airport, being people's impression of Los Angeles, they would have doubled down and been all about memorabilia. So the complete opposite direction, that hampers my rating quite a bit. Two thumbs down on atmosphere for me.

And also, I know you and I differ on this, Steve, but being in an airport added nothing but stress to me. I understand. See, I'm giving it only one thumb up. Oh, up. I want to give it two up, but I just can't. Because it's Planet Hollywood, there was nothing Hollywood. You have such a positive demeanor.

It's like your default is two thumbs up. Maybe that's maybe that's true. Maybe I'm being too generous. But there were a few names on the menu that were like the LA, whatever, the California crunch thing. I had a drink called the blueberry takeoff. So I guess that's an airport reference. But like nothing that really said Hollywood,

those three blank TVs, they could have been showing movie trailers. Yeah. They could have been just occasionally showing pictures of movie posters that then changed every few minutes. But you're an idea, Steve. Yeah, you have the solutions. You're the brains. I have ideas.

I don't know if I have solutions. I have ideas sometimes. All right, Garrett, I have the same complaint as everyone else. This is a planet Hollywood with no Hollywood memorabilia and nothing other than one sign that indicates that it's even a planet Hollywood to begin with. Right. And it's an LAX, like the worst place on earth.

Right. Like, oh, God, two thumbs down. Oh. Service. So we interacted with a few people on the service team. We did have a primary waiter for the whole time. That almost never happens with us. They quickly want to pawn us off on other people.

Yeah. But that doesn't mean we didn't meet a couple other characters along the way. Okay, our server, he had airport restaurant server energy. It was kind of, I just want this to be over with. I assume you're in a rush, but if he's assuming we're in a rush, I don't think he did a great job. The fact that we weren't in a rush made me not bothered by the pace of the service. Yes.

But we were pretty clearly not in a rush. If we had a destination, I would have probably torched this service. Service. It seems to be a common complaint on Yelp, too. Yeah. Ah. But he was a really nice guy. He was nice.

Absolutely. And I love it. He was nice. He engaged with us. It was just a matter of he disappeared for a little bit. He did. He did. The time he had with us was good.

I remember it fondly. I do. I like it when a server gives us inside information on the restaurant, just like, okay, well, this is when we just reopened. I asked if there was a new GM. No, same GM, complete staff turnover. I asked him if they have a tip pool. He said, no, everyone keeps their own tips.

I like it when they answer questions. But it's also a, hey, we don't pool tips. So tip me well. Like, I don't know. There's always an undertone of if they ever talk about tips, it feels like they're asking. Yeah. We're good tippers. We're good tippers.

But it's still a thing where I'm like, I don't know. I don't want to be reminded. I specifically asked him if they have a tip pool. After he was just bringing up, I work for tips. So I don't know. He was kind of the one bringing his own finances into this. And it just makes me feel a little awkward. I did bring that up in the beginning or else he wouldn't have mentioned that there is tip pool.

The big reason he went into it is because toward the end of our meal, he went into, I get off in 15 minutes. Is there anything else you want me to close you out? Like with the implication of otherwise I have to split with another person. That completely went over my head. On the other hand, he works in the international terminal. Lots of people in other countries don't even know the tips are supposed to happen. Yeah.

So maybe he was like, I better just mention it better. So that's a really good point. And with giving off Asian tourist vibes, taking pictures of a pilot, maybe that's what cued him to be like, hmm, I should say something. I should say something. And to be fair, we were surrounded by a lot of Asian tourists. Yeah. I blended in.

There was speaking of blending in. Steve, you're six foot five. Yeah. You're not a subtle man. True. To notice. And I was also wearing a bright red t-shirt. And we had a guy bring extra silverware to the table who couldn't seem to find you.

He didn't seem to know where to put my silverware. He was just like, I don't know where to put this. And he just kept looking back and forth at me and Garrett. When Steve is right there next to me. Are we like his word or something? Yeah. Are we what? Are we his wards?

Oh, maybe that's it. Yeah. Maybe he was like, do I send it to one of these two and then they let him have it? How does it work? Well, there was the table gap too. So perhaps added to his confusion. Table gap, dipping in the gap. Yeah.

I made a little song that brought me joy about how our chicken crunch honey mustard sauce was dripping into this. Into the table gap. Abyss between table. I'd say it was what? Maybe an inch and a half? Yeah. Seasoning the floor wing.

If only it had hit the floor wing. If only. Floor wing. We did have one aspect of the serving experience kind of shine through. And it gave me Olive Garden vibes, Garrett. It made me wish that someone else had been our server. Yes. There was this guy who heavily tattooed.

Heavily. Just a charisma about him. A delight in every interaction. And he had blue nail polish on and I dig the vibe of any dude that rocks nail polish. You're automatically a cool person in my book. He had such a positive energy. Yeah. And I was just like thinking, won't you be our server?

Yes. Right. Why not? I want to be your table and we weren't. But he did tend to us a few times. So if he had been our server, this would have been like easy two thumbs up or echelon server. But yeah, I got server envy from this guy. He was on the ball.

Not that the other guy wasn't really, but this guy had the charisma. No, the other guy was kind of just textbook fine. Right. Like, I don't know. Part of it was just, I don't like it when a server disappears for a long length of time. And you kind of, because you feel awkward asking another server to do a thing. Right. But tattooed nail polish guy was very willing and forthcoming with things that we may have

needed during those moments. Right. But my rating is mostly going to come on the heels of the primary server that we had. Understandable. I'm going to go just a flat no thumbs between weird, weird, claw silverware guy not being able to find you in our waiter. I don't know. Just giving us the awkward conversation about like the tip situation and all that.

I don't know. I'm just going no thumbs. It's not like a bad thing overall, but it is supported by how much we did like that one server that we wish we would have had. I'm going to give service one thumb up, mostly because of tattooed nail polish guy. You know, he agreed to take our photo under the big planet Hollywood sign. That's right. He did.

Complimented my Brody Stevens T-shirt. But yeah, other than that, the host not knowing how close to push our two tables together. Keeping the gap. Yeah. Very strange. And then our waiter not knowing where he should set my silverware when I essentially had a table all to myself and then finding the floor wing. I factor that into service.

I guess it's like why hadn't anybody taken a glance around and picked that up? We put that in the atmosphere, but absolutely that should be in service. It should be in service too, I think. I mean, at some point, it just becomes a part of the environment. I'm going to go one thumb up on this. Yeah. Our main server engaged with us. Yeah.

And cool tattoo and nail polish dude also engaged with us with more charisma, took our picture. I think everyone there was at least trying. Sure. I do agree with that. I think I would be in the one thumb up mindset if this had just been not an airport ambiance. I don't know. Something about the way I was just receiving things was just off kilter, I guess, a skew, if you will. Oh, and to add to my one thumb, even though she didn't interact with us,

the lady who did interact with the screaming guy and managed to not have a big huge scene explode in front of everybody, frankly, she factors into that one up as well. Oh, sure. Yeah. How many times are we going to say the word explode in an airport episode? Gosh, I don't know. How many times have we said it? No, no, no, no, no.

But at least once. Now the part that's on everyone's mind. You're in an airport. How's the food? Doesn't it sound great? It wasn't terrible. It wasn't good, but it wasn't terrible. I don't know for yourself.

Oh, that's right. Oh, I just remembered what you ordered. Well, all right, I want to start with water. Oh, yeah, because even though water had a thing about it. Okay. So there was this thing in my water and that's the best way to describe it. It was it. Oh, it was just a thing.

It was mildly elastic. I don't know if it really had a smell. I smelled it. I suggested, can we send this to a lab for like particle analysis? Can we know what this is on a molecular level? I'll put a picture of this on our Instagram. Yeah. But it was disgusting.

Steve, didn't you say it looked like bacon? I think Michael. I said it looked like bacon. I picked up a piece of my bacon and I was like, this seems to match it in both shade and consistency. Yeah, it looked like bacon if it were like gummy bacon. Yeah. And you did ask, does your water taste like lemon?

Because neither of our water had lemon in it. No, my water tasted like it. My water tasted like lemon. So hopefully that's the answer. And it was just like old lemon rind that was flavoring it. And there's no way that was lemon rind. I'm just being hopeful. I'm not saying I'm right.

And the amount of lemon flavor in my water, if that much came from that. To me, it looked like maybe one piece of shredded cheese that had gotten fried somehow had not fallen apart. Or fell into the dishwasher and then the dishwasher got really hot. Something like that, yeah. And then wound up on that glass.

And yet hadn't fallen apart, curled or perhaps bent. But still, no real idea what the hell that thing was. And the most horrifying part about it is how you didn't realize until your drink was half down because it was pretty far down into the cup. And I didn't stop drinking it after that either. You know, at some point, there are just things about you that we know.

And just like, well, I already had consumed that much suspicious water. Might as well just keep it going. Oh, and what you consumed it through, I want to give this week's, oh, this is way too much award. This is The Straws. Those were some girthy straws. These were some like milkshake straws,

but they were for water. Oh, they were like boba straws. Yeah. They were way too much. They were way too much. You don't need that for water unless they're admitting that there are chunks of particles that you're going to need to consume.

And that, my friends, is way too much. What do you think, a centimeter wide, centimeter of diameter on those things? Maybe. Yeah, I don't know. And then paper. So halfway through your drink, you need a new one. I was able to take a picture through the straw.

Oh, yeah. Now, we are still on the topic of drinks. Steve. Yes. You turned up a little bit. Turned up a little bit. Skip the water. Went for an iced tea with a slice of lemon.

And a specialty cocktail. The blueberry takeoff. The airport themed alcoholic beverage. Yeah. And it tasted wonderful. I'm a big fan of blueberries. So maybe I'm biased. But that first and second and third and fourth sip

of that thing were perfect. And you said it was pretty strong. Yes. I was expecting weak. I was expecting them to be like, well, this guy's about to get on a plane. Let's not get him too lit up. You know, we don't want to.

And it was the opposite. Yeah, it was the opposite. Like, he's about to get on a plane. Let's get him real lit up. I guess so. Because, yeah, that thing was nice and strong, especially, you know, after that long ride to LAX, that blueberry takeoff was mighty fine.

And now, a word from our totally not made up sponsor. Oh, hi there. It's your favorite sponsored job, and I am back with another idea for you. You a bartender who works exclusively at airports. Maybe you should consider taking money under the table from flight attendants who don't want to deal with difficult customers.

That's right. There is a market out there, but flight attendants willing to pay pretty good money for you to load up and knock out passengers that they think look like trouble. Like the guy who's smashing his obviously too big carry-on into the little measuring cube. That tells you if your carry-on's too big and refusing to take the hit.

Go extra heavy on his bloody Mary, and he's not getting anywhere. Or the lady with rotten feet who kicked her shoes off at the gate, and you know she's going to do the same when she gets on the plane. Ma'am, here's an entire complimentary picture of Sangria, courtesy of that guy. She's gone.

They're all gone. And then it smells saling. I know it's not actually saling. It's a flight, but you get the gist. The fear bar down there, and you don't have an ethical dilemma against raising the ratio of alcohol in your beverages with the direct intent of causing people to pass out.

Call me. Not on a phone. Try skywriting, and I'll find you. OK, bye. I would easily give the blueberry takeoff eight out of 10. Oh, that's a good drink. My only complaint was that some of the blueberries got trapped down below the ice, and so I couldn't eat them.

I could only pulverize them. You had a girthy straw, so maybe that's why they have the girthy straw. Well, here's the thing. The blueberries were nice and fat and huge, so the girthy straw didn't even help me get more blueberries. The first blueberry I tried to get out with a spoon fell to the floor.

That's how I discovered the wing. The floor is for the wings. We got the world famous chicken crunch, is what they call it. Now, on this menu, it's in a martini glass in the picture. I was so excited. It looked like they'd bring out just a comically large martini glass with chicken tenders in it. Not what they did.

They had a custom wire basket that is chicken shaped. So it's clear that, like, this is the intended presentation of the chicken, but it's not what they did. Like, this is the intended presentation of it, but why put it that way on the menu? Unless it's just because it's a skinny airport menu in your saving space. I asked the server.

He said they used to do that, but too many people broke them, which, well, obviously. Yeah, makes sense. I guess that makes sense. And the bright red chicken shaped basket was fun. It was a good consolation of a presentation. I appreciate it. It wasn't like, we're out of martini glasses,

so here's a Tupperware. They still put some effort into the plating. At least they didn't just, like, cup their hands and bring it to us. Yeah. Or have that other guy cup his hands. Why are these chicken tenders soaking in your hand water? Yeah.

So about the world famous chicken crunch, I thought it had a really thick skin. It was almost like a fried pork skin, almost, in terms of how thick it was. It's like chiteronis. I didn't expect it from a chicken skin. The quality of this chicken seemed like you had gone down the frozen food aisle.

Yeah. It was really Tyson-esque. It was very Tyson-esque. Mike Tyson himself prepared these chicken wings. Mike Tyson himself did not pulverize these chicken wings. Yeah. And he bit their ears up. Gross.

I thought they were OK, given how, I guess, cheap of quality the chicken seemed. I still went 7 out of 10. And it was tasty, the mustard sauce. Creole mustard. The Creole mustard sauce added quite a bit. It was a very delicious little sauce. It came with green onions and shredded carrots.

Carrots, carrot allergy. Whatever, I didn't eat them. Yeah, it was separate enough that you were able to avoid them. 7 out of 10 for me. I'm going to give those a 6 out of 10. I think these are like the ceiling of school cafeteria chicken tendies, which, again, saved by the Creole mustard.

So you did have the mustard. I was going to say, the mustard, I think, gave it a full point. I think chicken on its own, I'm going 6 for sure. The meat was kind of cheap, a little tough, flavorless. Yeah. Yeah. Chicken on its own, I would have only given it a 3 or 4. But that mustard sauce was quite delicious.

And with that chicken dipped into it, even more delicious. And I got extra carrots, because Garen didn't give me any. He passed on them. So that helped quite a bit. And you designated yourself the cleanup crew. The cleanup crew. Anything that's not eaten. I'm batting cleanup, baby.

Yeah, yeah. You said 6 out of 10? 6 out of 10, mostly due to the mustard. Now, that's all we had for appetizers. They didn't have a very extensive menu. Everything else was cheesy. Right. Oh, that's right.

They had nachos. They had a quesadilla. And then they had wings, which it's like, well, we're not going to get wings and tenders. So we just went straight into entrees. Now, I got something. Garrett got something. Steve got something.

And then me and Steve split something. Yes. Because they had a breakfast option as well. They had some weird separations to their menu. We had appetizers, burgers, and sandwiches, salads, entrees, and pastas, Asian flavors. Asian flavors, that's right. Yeah.

All day breakfast. I'll just go out and say it. This is LAX. There are shit tons of Asian tourists coming through this location all of the time. They're trying to target that demographic. Sure. Clearly.

Hey, do you want a sad version of your cuisine? Yeah. Yeah. So let's go chronologically. Breakfast. Yeah. Steve, you and I shared the Belgian waffle. Yes, indeed.

This was a good waffle. Very good waffle. And when he brought it out, I immediately wrote down, much bigger than I expected it to be. Yeah. It was like four pre, like they cut it for us into the little quadrants. Yeah.

Very good proportions of whipped cream, blueberries, strawberries, no syrup. No syrup. Not even a little poorer on the plate. Yeah. It didn't need it. Didn't need it. It really didn't.

And I also made one other note about the waffle. Yeah. The fluffiest waffle I've ever had. In a good way, I assume. In a great way. Yeah, yeah. Very enjoyable. I went 7 and 1 half out of 10.

I went 8 out of 10. This was my highest score of the meal. Understandably so. Yeah. Are you sure you don't want to change your score and waffle your rating? He's looking at me very angrily right now. We don't have to put out this episode.

I was thinking either that or like, this is the moment where death catches up to one of us. Final destination off of bad buns and your friend murders you. Michael whips the whole trash key right at my head. And then I got the barbecue bacon burger with fries, which was the barbecue bacon cheeseburger. Yeah, which our server. No, I don't want to see jokes.

I love it. I love it specifically. It's not that just he called it the BBC to us. He slipped up and called it the BBC to the table of like, people are parents age behind us. Not a slipped up thing. It's clear that's just how he refers to it to everybody. Which I thought was BBC.

With us. OK, whatever. But like the older people behind us, they're not going to get it. That was exactly that was funny over their head. Yeah, it amused me. So I thought that the bun was very good on this burger. The bacon, you know, when you get bacon, that's a little too crispy to the point that it kind of hurts your teeth a little.

Sure. I got a little bit of that, but it still had a good taste. The meat is kind of where I won't say it lost me because it wasn't bad, but it just stopped impressing me as soon as I got past the bun and the bacon. Oh, everything in the middle. Very, very mediocre. But those outer layers, very solid.

I mean, the barbecue sauce was just a run of the mill barbecue sauce. I got it with onion and lettuce, which, you know, those aren't going to really captivate the imagination. The meat had an opportunity to really shine and it didn't. I'm just going six and a half out of ten on this burger. Still, you know, in the good range, but not great. Not something I'm going to go out of my way to tell someone like, oh, you've got to have this. Right.

And then the fries, much like the chicken basket that came in, you know, a special wire thing. Yeah, they came in like a little, tiny, like steel mesh fry basket. Oh, it was kind of adorable. Was it shaped like anything with any kind of a theme? Just a basket like you could have pulled this mini basket out of the fryer almost. OK, it, I don't know. It looked it looked trendy restaurant thing to do. Yeah, it looked neat.

They were passable fries, six out of ten, heavily peppered, heavily salted by me because their baseline was whatever. Yeah, Garrett, I want to save you for last because yours was such an ordeal of a thing. Yeah. All right, Steve, what did you get? I ordered the Singapore noodles with chicken from, I believe, the Asian flavors subcategory. Yes, my notes were just a lot smaller than I expected. I saw both of your plates arrive first. I had seen that big, beautiful Belgian waffle.

And then here comes my very small dish of noodles. It was basically a gravy boat of noodles. Kind of a gravy boat of noodles. Yeah, why does the Asian food portion have to be smaller than the rest? Well, noodles are denser. Noodles are denser, that's true. Which was your immediate theory, they said. Yeah, I was like, it must maybe because it's because noodles are so dense.

Maybe that's why it's such a small dish. But now the follow up. Was it dense? Did you feel like there was more food than you expected upon a parent? Not exactly. I mean, it was in the gravy boat on a plate. I was really just hoping for that plate cover with noodles. Yeah, that's what I really wanted.

Tasted fine. Fine dining. Didn't necessarily taste better than any takeout place I've ever gotten any kind of delicious Asian dish from. So at Planet Hollywood, after the ordeal of getting there, I was hoping for a slightly bigger dish and a much bolder flavor that I've just almost never experienced before. And instead it was like, OK, I don't hate it. Here's some Yoshinoya in the gravy boat.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's not bad. Yeah, not bad. But after the ordeal of getting there, not worth the struggle, six out of ten. Yeah, that top end of mediocre. Right, like still hate it all, still tasted fine. I was never like, good at any point. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I wanted more. You wanted more. That's what a six is for. We're on an entirely different planet and I just wanted something more. We traveled space and time to arrive at Planet Hollywood and you get Asian flavors. All right, Garrett, let's talk about your meal. When you ordered immediately, a chant that I often hear watching wrestling shows just hit my mind when a wrestler either bites off more

that they can chew by, like, let's say they hit someone who's clearly bigger and more powerful than they are or in a completely different context. When they mess up a move, oftentimes nowadays, fans will start chanting at them. They will chant, you fucked up, you fucked up, you fucked up. And I fucked up. What are you thinking with this order at an airport? Planet Hollywood, so I ordered the bistro steak. You got a steak at a pre-security terminal restaurant.

Yeah, I wanted an airport steak. Your meat looked terminal. But like, I thought this would be funny. Like, let's have, oh, it was funny. It reminded me of your chicken fried steak at Denny's. It was just as great. If there has ever been an apt comparison on this podcast, that was it. Yeah, so normally I get my steak's rare or medium rare.

But this time I went wild. I want this medium because it's an airport steak. And I think that's where you went wrong. Like, I don't trust the cut of this meat to begin with. You kissed goodbye any chance of edible meat the second you asked for meat. I feel like I'm just used to ordering a certain doneness and having it arrive a half notch below that. Like, I feel like that's standard practice, not above.

And instead, this thing arrived medium well, well done. Oh, yeah. It was just shoe leather, gray. There was no sear on this. It was just brownish gray. It looked like purse meat. Purse skin? I don't know what you call it.

Purse meat. Oh, purse meat. Yeah, it looked like purse meat. You know, when you carry around bologna for later. Purse meat. Oh, God. Oh, I feel sick now. I love saying cursed things. Also, it had a really good chimichurri on it.

Yeah, that's what the sauce was. That was the only thing that saved it in my mind. And it had a salad that looked like poke almost. Oh, oh, this salad, this salad. It was the spinach, cucumber and tomato salad. And that was a very accurate description because it was literally just spinach, cucumber and tomato. Yeah.

When a thing lists all the ingredients entailed in it as the description of it or as the name of it. That's all you're getting. Yeah, I've seen fancier salads at McDonald's. This is also it came with fries. Yeah, salad and fries. Yeah, which interesting. You know, it was an interesting combination.

How to interact with each other. They were OK. There were shoestring fries. And again, these were school cafeteria French fries. Yeah, they were OK. So fries, six out of ten, spinach, cucumber and tomato salad, which that was it, three out of ten. Well, and worst of all, this steak gets a two out of ten for being

practically inedible. So I feel like the chimichurri sauce are both of those two points. Yes, that's a zero out of ten steak without that sauce. Yeah, I hated my steak at Red Lobster. I didn't try yours. Which did you hate more? The steak at Red Lobster, the taste was fine. Yeah, it was just my steak here significantly more.

I think I would have liked your Denny's chicken fried steak better than this, the gloopiest item we have ordered to date. Yeah, I'll say this about Garrett's steak. You know, I like to bat clean up. Yeah. But I didn't even bother to ask for a piece of what was left on his plate. And though there was quite a bit of steak there, I was like, maybe I should try a piece.

But I was just like, no, you're not going to ask. You texted one to opt out. You were like, unsubscribe, unsubscribe. I'll say one good thing about this meal. Yeah, the fries that were underneath the steak that were soaked in the steak juice. And I could see those are really good. I could see that adding to all right. That was a great part of the meal.

Now we did get dessert. We finished up with banana pudding. Our third banana pudding of our podcast journey so far. We got Rudy's, Rudy's barbecue in Austin, Texas. And their banana nilla wafer pudding is up there. Yeah, now the next stop we got Lucille's came in a big mason jar. So the presentation was a much bigger focus than the taste. Rudy's was just all taste.

Lucille's they over sweetened it. It seemed like it had like a condensed milk. They were all about presentation. No substance. They were trying to. Quarantine this wonderful dessert for us. Yeah, it just didn't back it up. Especially nothing behind the story, especially coming off of Rudy's.

Yeah, so now we have what I would call the middle of the pack. All right, better than Lucille's, but it's not in the Rudy's ballhouse. Ballhouse. What am I thinking of? Wheelhouse. Well, yeah, wheelhouse or ballpark. It's not in the ballhouse. You know what? From now on, that's the expression of music.

Yeah, I'm going to go with a seven and a half out of ten on this banana pudding. I had the Belgian waffle is the best thing also at a seven point five. Desserts just get a little bit of a bump for me because I like sweet. I like sweet things. The seven point five is probably the best case scenario for this banana pudding. It had logistical issues. It was in a jar on a plate. And the jar had a caramel drizzle because they just like drizzled over

the whipped cream on top and it just got all over this jar. So you're using like two fingertips from opposite directions converging to try and hold this thing in place. And then you got to use one of those hands to grab a spoon and hope that you don't push this thing off the plate. It's on. But also you don't want to push the caramel glaze, the sticky sauce all over your hands. Right. But there was one clean spot on that glass to grab.

True. Yeah. The handle. Oh, yeah. There was a handle. There was a handle. The best part about this thing is it had nilla wafer crumbs in patches throughout it. And I don't know how you get it mixed in. I don't think those are nilla wafers. They, to me, definitely tasted like nilla wafer. I got more of like a shortbread cookie flavor from it.

Like specifically Girl Scout tree foils. Hmm. It did have full on banana chunks, which I liked. The first bite I had was a very mild flavor. It got better throughout, which is what raised my rating. Initially, I had it at a six and a half out of 10. It got that extra point by getting just a little bit sweeter. The deeper I went. Yeah. So I give the banana, putting eight out of 10, mostly because you guys

let me bat clean up on it. So I really got a healthy sample. Yeah, yeah, I got a real nice big chunk of banana towards the bottom. Chief complain about the jar other than lots of caramel all over the outside of it was the opening of the jar wasn't exactly big enough to be scooping, putting dessert out of. So yeah, every time one of us reached in, it was like we almost knocked off the whole whipped cream. We almost got even more stuff spilled all around the outside. So they could go for a jar with a bigger opening.

Or also, I'm never impressed by just by something being served in a jar. So it could have been in a bowl. I would have been fine with it, but I get it. It's a kitschy thing. That's fine. Yeah. But I'm giving it an eight on flavor and that's it. The flavor saved it for me. The jar was very inconvenient.

I'm going to go six out of 10 on this. It's not too sweet, very mild. Let's nail away for flavor, more shortbread crumb cookie. It was generally unremarkable. So where are we going on thumbs overall for the food? Because that's everything, right? That is. I'm middling. There were so many things that had potential to be like a home run to be in my ballhouse.

I don't want to be anywhere near your ballhouse. You don't want to be near my ballhouse, Garrett. I go zero thumbs just due to a lot of things that weren't bad, but just could have been better. They just had potential and they didn't deliver on them. You're going zero thumbs, even with that Belgian waffle in the mix. Yeah. Wow. All right. Sounds like you had a better time, Steve. I mean, look, you had the blueberry takeoff.

I had the blueberry takeoff flying high, man. And the iced tea. And I think those really put me in a much more agreeable mood. And, you know, the Singapore noodles didn't taste bad. I just wanted more. But overall, I'm giving the food two thumbs up. Wow. Maybe I just got very, very lucky. I'm going to go as hard of a one thumb down as I can go without going to.

Wow. Oh, that's right, because you had literally a poison steak. Yes, this steak was inedible. My water was tainted with this weird brown thing. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, true. But the fries that were underneath the steak were pretty good. All right. The accidental part of the dish, the fries underneath the food.

The steak juice fries. Steak juice fries, not meant to be that way with the best part of the meal. The marinated and purse meat. Oh, no. Don't say purse meat. But hey, OK, if purse meat, juiced fries taste that good, I will have them every time. If purse meat, juice fries are wrong. I don't want to be right.

Oh, God. Oh, all right. So that's all of our thumb ratings all over the place between us for food. Yeah, we got to rate this place. But before we do, let's hear what other people had to say about it. In this week's Yelp from Strangers. We need a little yelp, a little yelp, a little yelp from strangers. A one star, two star, three star, four or five.

So get a little yelp, a little yelp, a little yelp from strangers. A little yelp, a little yelp. Give us those complaints while you literally whine and die. Yelp. OK, it is time for Yelp from Strangers, our segment where we read out our favorite one, two, three, four and five star Yelp reviews about the place that we ate. One star review.

I'll get us started with a one star review. Yeah, best first. Let's live in negativity. This is from Joe C on February 7th, 2019. This is sad for airport food. The pancakes are inedible circles of sponge rubber that stick to one another. They are actually difficult to cut through with a knife. I had no idea pancakes could be like this.

I'm here for breakfast and all of it's already cold as if it's been sitting out for two days and not even under a heat lamp. The coffee is four bucks a cup and undrinkable, pale, watery, with the slightest hint of bad coffee flavor. Refills are free and unwanted. I cannot speak for the eggs because I couldn't bring myself to try them. This place seems to exist just to spawn sadness and despair. Zero out of five stars, one out of five stars.

Because that zero is not actually an option. Josie coming in strong with the planet Hollywood hate for real. Two star review. I've got a two star that's slightly more positive. By definition, hit us here. I'll start off on a positive note here. Terry H over five years ago, two stars. This place totally sucked.

It's already more positive. Slow service, no lemons or syrup after repeated requests. Food took forever to come out. And when it did, everyone's fries were cold and soggy. No one came to collect the bill. The server, however, was still a nice person. I love that was a nice person, not nice to us, but like a character trait. We know that they are a good human being.

And then last line, I didn't even bother taking pictures. It makes airport food look really bad. Wow, that's two in a row that said this is bad for airport food. Basically, two stars. Woof. If you'd like to hear the rest of our Yelp from Strangers segment, go on over to our Patreon and we'll be posting all five of our favorite reviews there. You can find the link for that in the description of this episode

or just go to patreon.com slash find dining podcast. Final rating. We got to score the place, guys. We got to give it a number and we got to slap it up on the chachki of mediocrity. Steve, you're our guest. Why don't you go first? I had a very positive experience with Planet Hollywood. You were drunk off your ass.

I mean, I had one blueberry takeoff. It definitely got the landing gear up. Let me tell you, definitely got the landing gear up. Didn't even have to use the bathroom during the flight. No kids menu and no Hollywood memorabilia anywhere in sight. Yeah. And that originally, my numbers, my number score was going to be seven out of 10. But then after factoring a few more things,

ratcheted it down to 6.69. Oh, Steve, you rascal. That's the blueberry takeoff talking. I thought that this was the very bottom of what I would call mediocre. Now, we have a zone for that. It's called the zone of mediocrity. It is four to six. Now, I always like to leave a little room for something to potentially overtake it. But as far as what I've experienced so far,

this is the bottom of what I would call mediocre. The atmosphere is definitely what tanked this for me. When you go to a Planet Hollywood and there's no Hollywood memorabilia, they have a souvenir stand that they don't actually sell souvenirs from. The only thing there that identified this as a Planet Hollywood was a admittedly nice neon sign that said Planet Hollywood. But I don't know. I mean, they couldn't even put any images on their TVs that were on.

It just felt weak. Troubling. And then you add in all the airport hassle, the fact that this was a six hour round trip from leaving my home to getting back. And then the food didn't do a lot for me, the service mixed bag. I'm going four point zero one. Wow. The bottom of mediocrity. I got to call it that now for me. I will say this is the absolute pinnacle,

the pure top of the absolute worst. Can I guess your score? Yes, what is my score? Based on what I just said, it sounds like you're about to give it either a four or a three point nine nine. I this is the best worst possible three point nine nine. It's just one one hundredth of a point better than what I gave Cheddar's. Okay, Cheddar's.

So I just think of this one. We had to navigate one of the idea that you would rather do an airport again than go back to a Cheddar's. I think the one one hundredth of a point difference was I didn't have grease poisoning for a week after. Right, right, right. Both of them are greasy little boys. Both of them are greasy little boys.

Baby's both of them are greasy little boys. Baby's both of them are greasy little boys. Both of them are greasy little boys. We had to navigate what I consider the worst place on the West Coast just to find a wish dot com planet Hollywood that doesn't sell merch, have any industry Chachki and gives us subpar food. Yeah, this is a disaster. I mean, you had an abomination of a meal.

Steak was sad. Hey, it's airport steak. It's airport steak. Boy, did it look like it. Yeah, I don't even know how I gave it a 3.99 with that airport. The only way you could have made it worse would be by adding tarmac and cheese. Oh, I hate puns. All right.

Well, we average all three of those ratings together and Planet Hollywood at the Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX goes up on the Chachki of mediocrity at 4.90. Wow. Steve, you saved it quite a bit. Wow, you're welcome, Planet Hollywood. And that means it's actually pretty close to dead center. It is not Applebee's.

It is not the closest to mediocre that we have found. And it is not perfectly mediocre, which means we got to keep looking. We got to continue this search. And to do that, we need to play a little game called The Headline Game. The rules of the headline game are as follows. Michael will present three headlines to Garrett that include this week's restaurant. They can be made up or they can be actual headlines.

If Garrett can correctly guess if at least two out of three are real or fake, he will get to select next week's restaurant. However, if Michael stumps him, he'll select again. Are you ready to play, fellas? I'm ready. Ready as I'll ever be. All right. I have prepared three headlines.

So it's going to be a little different, you know, when we have a guest on. You two are competing against each other and me for the headline game. So if I stump you guys, neither of you can guess two out of these three headlines correctly. I will choose the next restaurant, otherwise whichever of you two scores more will get to choose next time's pick. First headline. Planet Hollywood in Orlando blasted for not being kid-friendly enough for neighboring Disney. False. I'm thinking true.

Headline number two ceiling panel collapses into Planet Hollywood resort and casino due to heavy rainfall. No mention of a city in that one, huh? I mean resort and casino. I guess that's a good point. I'm going to say false. I'm going to go true just because in my research, I see a lot of people complaining and making jokes about things falling from the ceiling. And last one. Planet Hollywood signs deal to launch NFT club in LA.

That's tough. It's almost so ridiculous that it must be true. NFT club in LA. This is the place to do it, I guess. Could you read it again? Planet Hollywood signs deal to launch NFT club in LA. It's almost... And you guys are out of time.

We have never run out of time before. You didn't even have a timer going. Our clock is arbitrary, but that just felt long. No one's going to jump into us. You missed the gravy boat. The first headline. Planet Hollywood in Orlando blasted for not being kid-friendly enough for neighboring Disney. Garrett, you said false.

Steve, you said true. Garrett, you are correct. Steve, you are wrong. Second headline. Ceiling panel collapses into Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino due to heavy rainfall. Garrett, you said true. Steve, you said false. Garrett, you are correct.

Steve, you are wrong. Garrett, where are we going next week? I want a good meal after this shit show we just had. And I want some carbs, too. Your favorite table bread of all time. Macaroni Grill. Hell yeah, brother. Macaroni Grill.

All right. Thank you guys for joining us for this week's episode of the Fine Dining Podcast. We did not find the most mediocre restaurant, but we did find a fun time with our guest, Steve Moulton. Oh yeah. Steve, is there anything you want to plug or tell people to follow you at? Follow me on Instagram, Twitter, or TikTok at Big Steve Moulton on all three. Not wrong.

You are a large... What's the guy from Harry Potter? Hagrid? You're a Hagrid of a man. It's true. I'm cool with that. I've gone as him for Halloween before. Oh, nice.

Steve Moulton on all three of those and releasing on Netflix May 30th. It's been officially announced. I think you should leave season three and I have filmed a new character for it. Oh, hell yeah. That's all I'm about to say. I might be cut out. I don't even know, but I filmed a new character. I'm hoping I'm still in there.

I've got to say, it is one of my favorite shows. I rewatch it so often. It's easy to rewatch. And every time I see the Turbo Team sketch, I like point at the TV. And I'm like, I know him. Oh, you do the Rick Dalton point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, thank you for keeping the ratings up because I love it too.

Yeah. Well, thanks for joining us, Steve. Thank you. It's been a blast. Thanks for a delicious blueberry takeoff. You're welcome. Follow us on our social media at Fine Dining Podcast on Instagram and TikTok. Subscribe to our Patreon.

You get a free episode every month that no one else gets to hear. Oh yeah, and on our Patreon, you can check out our Panda in episode. Yeah. The inspiration for Panda Express. And the local place. Still the parent company. Yeah, they're all like under one umbrella. Panda in.

Fancy Panda Express. What's not to love? So go check that out. We're going to keep looking. We will see you all next time. But in the meantime, have a fine day. And hey, while you're at it, why don't you go ahead and make it five stars? Come on.

Follow us on TikTok. The same on Instagram. All the socials. At Fine Dining Podcast. We have a website. Fine Dining Podcast.com. Buy our t-shirts. Then put them on.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye our t-shirts. Than put them on.

And don't forget, you can always suggest where we go next. Okay. The search continues, see you next week! I heard my throat a little. Have a fine day!