Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster - Ep 107: Joe Wicks

Episode Date: June 9, 2021

It’s the last episode of the series, and who better to wrap up season 5 than lockdown hero, Joe Wicks! But is he going to mug James off on dessert?Joe Wicks’s new book ‘Joe’s Family Food’ is published on 10th June. Buy it here.Listen to Joe’s podcast ‘The Joe Wicks Podcast’ on BBC Sounds.Recorded and edited by Ben Williams for Plosive.Artwork by Paul Gilbey (photography and design) and Amy Browne (illustrations).Follow Off Menu on Twitter and Instagram: @offmenuofficial.And go to our website www.offmenupodcast.co.uk for a list of restaurants recommended on the show.Watch Ed and James's YouTube series 'Just Puddings'. Watch here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, listeners of the Off Menu podcast. It is Ed Gamble here from the Off Menu podcast. I have a very exciting announcement. I have written my first ever book. I am absolutely over the moon to announce this. I'm very, very proud of it. Of course, what else could I write a book about? But food. My book is all about food. My life in food. How greedy I am. What a greedy little boy I was. What a greedy adult I am. I think it's very funny. I'm very proud of it. The book is called Glutton, the multi-course life of a very greedy boy. And it's coming out this October, but it is available to pre-order now, wherever you pre-order books from. And if you like my signature, I've done some signed copies,

which are exclusively available from Waterstones. But go and pre-order your copy of Glutton, the multi-course life of a very greedy boy, now. Please? Hello, Ed Gamble here. Sorry to interrupt the beginning of Off Menu, but I'm allowed because it's partly my podcast. But very excited to say that I'm going on a national tour in 2022. The show is called Electric. I'm very excited to show it to you and to be in front of real people again. That's going to be the most exciting thing. So please come and see it. If you don't come and see it, I will get the Great Benito to work out so that you listen to the podcast and you haven't come to see me on tour, and he will

block you from the podcast. And he will love doing that because he is evil. Check out EdGamble.co.uk for tickets to my tour, Electric. I'm going all over the country. If I'm not going five minutes away from you, hey, travel 10 minutes. It's worth it, I promise. EdGamble.co.uk. Check out where I'm going on tour, buy some tickets, and I'll see you in 2022. Anyway, on with the show. Welcome to the Off Menu podcast, where we heat the oil of conversation and plunge our guests in until they're a nice, crispy, golden brown. Yeah, frying our guests. I like it. Yeah, yeah. Most people might say a gorilla guest, which is also a free thing. But we

fry them, apparently. Oh, man. Yeah. I'll do that another day. That's great. Thanks, James. Don't worry. A gorilla guest. That's worked so perfectly. We fry them until they're crispy. That's what we do. Yeah. We invite our guests into the dream restaurant. Let me kick myself for a little bit longer, though. I don't want to let you beat yourself up. You don't deserve it. You're a hard-working boy. You deliver at the very top of your game constantly, you know. Does that work for anything else? Do you steam? Do you steam a guest? No, I don't steam it. Don't bake it. Grill them. You grill them. But don't worry about it. You grill a guest. You shouldn't be so hard on yourself. This guy's good. Yeah.

We ask him the favourite ever starter. When we do a TV show of this, we should call it James and Ed Grill, and then dot, dot, dot, and then it's like a long-form interview with someone. Yes. James and Ed Grill, I don't know. Yeah. Prince and Ed Grill. It doesn't sound very like, it doesn't really like roll off the tongue. It sounds a bit clunky. Find Ed Grills, Prince Philip. Ed Grills. Yeah. James Bates. But then people will think you're like Bear Grills. Oh. You're his brother. That works perfectly. Bear Grills. But we're grilling Bear. So on this occasion, we're grilling Bear. Bear doesn't grill anything. See? You're back on the top of your game now. Grills Bear. Ed and James Grills Bear. That

doesn't sound clunky. Yeah, well done. You feel like you're back on form now? Oh, yeah. Top of the tree, mate. Feel good about yourself? Feel in conflict? Because this is the last episode of the series. We're going into a big interview here. Yeah. Anyway, James, who are we deep-frying this week on the Off Menu podcast? Joe Wicks. Grills, I should say Grills. Yes, it's Joe Wicks, everybody. Of course. Will you ask Joe Wicks his favourite ever starter, main course dessert, side dish, and drink? It's Joe Wicks National Lockdown Institution. Oh, yeah. It's a good one. He's secured his place in the history books, which is more than what you said for this couple of saddos. Oh, yeah. We are out of here. I was

thinking the other day, when I'm like a really old man, if I've got like grandkids or whatever, no one's going, oh, old Uncle Ed or old Grandad Ed, the comedian, they're finding that out later from like a picture in an attic. After you're dead and then they'll dust it all. Yeah. They're going, oh, he was apparently was a comedian. He was such a boring old saddo. Oh, he was a comedian actually, and they'll research it and they'll go, and then probably this will be the episode that they hear the first time they go, fries. What the hell? Grandad Ed, you idiot. He was bad. You didn't need much to be a comedian back in those days. Anyway, all at least some Joe Wicks videos here. Let's watch those. He's a proper institution. Yes. I mean, I'm very much looking

forward to hearing what Joe Wicks likes to eat. He's helped the nation be healthier and keep fit during this pandemic. But you know, what's the fuel that's stoking that fire? No fuel. Oh, it's catching. Oh, man, it's catching fuel stoking that fire. Yeah, no, but I guess that was the fuel that's what's the what fuel is he using to power his engine? So yeah, I'll tell you what though, Ed, one bit of fuel that if it's fueling the fire, we're going to have to kick him out the restaurant. We have a secret ingredient every week, an ingredient that we don't like. If the guest says it, they're out on their ass. And this week, the secret ingredient is leucosate sport. Leucosate sport. I hope this isn't on his meal, James. We're playing dirty. We are playing dirty,

actually, because there's a high chance, you know, the guy needs fueling like that. Maybe he's come to love the taste of leucosate sport. Look, hands up. I always have a leucosate sport knocking around. Because when I go for a long run, I like to be able to hydrate and keep my blood sugar levels up. And leucosate sport is the best thing for that. But I wouldn't have it with my meal. No. But will Joe Wicks, will he be the Joel Domet? Will he follow in those footsteps? Joel had a protein shake. Joe Wicks is even healthier than Joel. Is he going to go leucosate sport? We'll see. Only time will tell. Well, I hope he doesn't, because of course, Joe Wicks' new book is coming out tomorrow. And we'd love a chance to chat about it more. So that's called Joe's Family Food. And

that comes out on the 10th of June. If you're listening to this on the day it came out, that's tomorrow. Go get Joe's Family Food. It's food for the family. I don't know if you've thought of that catchphrase yet. You're welcome to it, Joe. Well, you are not on your game today. And I really hope that we peel off this interview. It's on shaky ground already. Hey, Joe, I hope you enjoy grilling people's families. Okay, that's not okay. And this is the off menu menu of Joe Wicks. Joe Wicks, welcome to the Dream Restaurant. Thank you for having me, mate. Do you know what? I've written down my menu and I'm just like, if this existed, I'd be there every night of the week. It's like my favorite food ever. Oh, amazing. Great. Oh, here he is. The waiter has arrived.

Welcome, Joe Wicks to the Dream Restaurant. We'd be expecting you for some time. Well, thanks for having me. I mean, I was always wondering, would I ever get invited onto this podcast? Because I am obviously obsessed with my food. Yeah, listen, mate, I'm going to ask you this up front. Go on. You going to mug me off on dessert later? No, mate. People think I don't like dessert. I've got a big, I've got a very sweet tooth. I love my chocolate. I love my ice cream. Trust me. My dessert is very sweet, very sticky, very sweet. Listen, I wouldn't normally ask people that up top, but you're a healthy man, and I was thinking, I'm going to be tense all episode. I'm going to be tense the whole thing

if I don't ask it straight out the gate, because I know that if you had chosen something else or passed on the dessert, I'd have flipped out, and you're a national hero, and that would not have looked good on me. So I was going to be really tense all episode if I didn't ask that out the gate. No, there's no way I'm missing dessert, mate. I've got a very sweet tooth, and I would like to be honest, I sometimes start my meal with a dessert, so flip it round and have it put into start with. Let's do it. We start with dessert today, Ed. No, oh, come on. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Come on. Look, don't get excited. We're not here to flip it round. Oh, so you're the square? Look, I'm the square. Of course I am. I just think, look, I know you're relaxed, you're happy now,

because obviously there's always the worry, Joe, that we get someone whose world is fitness on, and they're going to be like, oh, I'll have an egg, and then I'll leave. Oh, no, not me, mate. I've got my, to be honest, mine's very deep fried. It's very, very highly calorific, but I love my food. And to be honest, because I exercise so much, I can get away with it. But yeah, this, I mean, maybe you'll be surprised by some of my choices. You might think I was going to go for a salad and a sort of vegetable risotto, but mate, I've gone all in on this. Love it. And we're starting with dessert. This is a great week. Is this like a cheat day thing? Is that something that you do? Do you do a cheat day?

Not really have a cheat day as such. I'm more just like, I just live my life, and I love my food. I miss going into restaurants, but if I was going to go to a restaurant, these are the kind of things that I can't cook at home. I can't make this myself. I can't create food like this with the taste and the flavors and all the kind of ingredients. So this is really like, you know, death row meal slash wedding, Dave dinner, really, if I was to have my dream wedding then. So to be honest, a lot of this stuff was at my wedding. It's amazing that you've put those two things together, Joe, that you've gone death row meal slash wedding, that you're at your wedding going, this is what I'd have if I was about to be killed.

Or if they were on the same day, imagine that. You're there in your prison cell, but they get you married first and then like, right, walk the green mile. It happens. A lot of comics get married on death row, don't they? You see it in the movies. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of them. Very popular. This is exciting now. I'm glad that we're starting on dessert. We're going to do that first, which is first time we've ever done that on the podcast. That's exciting. Also, you said like you're a big food fan. I was going to ask if you watched like a lot of food videos on YouTube or because you've got a lot of people through the pandemic, through lockdown. Thank you for that. Who's been getting you through? Who's your Joe Wicks?

Yeah, mate. I'm obsessed with, I love all those Instagram accounts with like the, I love, you know, those like steak videos where they're like cutting up the steak and putting all the sauce and stuff on it. But the new one I'm obsessed with is a guy called men with pot. Have you seen that? No. So it's an Instagram account called men with pot and like, he'll like kayak out into the forest and like make a fire and then make like a beautiful burrito or like a homemade a taco or steak. Like it's like all done in like one of those cast iron pans, but he shoots it. So it's like really almost relaxing. It's quite therapeutic watching it. And then he'll go into like, yeah, the jungle or the woods and it's very, it's sort of out in

nature, but he makes the most incredible food. So yeah, follow it. It's called men with pot. Yeah. You're going to love that. Good Instagram. Men with pot. Yeah. Men with pot because he's got a pot, you know, like a pot. What were you originally searching for when you found that? Looking to get baked tonight. Yeah. No, I don't know. I just came across it, but my Instagram Explorer is normally like guitars because I love guitars. It's like motorbikes because I've got a few motorbikes and then it'll be food. Like that's my kind of explore page because it's a real insight into a personality. Isn't it? What is someone into when you see the explore page, you realize what you're looking at and what you're kind of hovering around on. So food's a big part of my

of my world really. Obviously I started with fitness, then I kind of lent onto the cooking and the books, but I feel like I've come sort of almost back around with a fitness, but I've always been someone who combines two. I think it's important to love your food and enjoy cooking, but also combine it with a healthy lifestyle because that way you can be active. You can stay lean and healthy and have the best of both. Yeah. I tend to watch a lot of fitness or exercise videos if I'm not doing a lot of fitness and if I'm eating really healthily, I watch a lot of food videos. So it's basically whatever I'm restricting, I spend about eight hours a day watching, which doesn't feel healthy. Yeah. I like your t-shirt. I like your original

pirate material t-shirt. That's cool. Thank you very much, Joe. Nice to get a compliment on the t-shirt. While you are in your dream restaurant, what music is playing? What would be your favorite music to have on in the restaurant? Oh, that's a good one because I'm so diverse in my music. I thank God for Spotify and the recommended radio and stuff because I find new artists all the time, which I love. I found this band in Australia called the Teske Brothers. They're amazing because Fern Cotton said it's one of her favorite bands. So I sort of listened to the Teske Brothers and they did a collaboration with this guy called Bahamas. He's a Canadian guy, really lovely, chilled music, a bit like Jack Johnson kind of vibe, but just beautiful, like

acoustic music. So yeah, I listened to that, but then I love old sort of Tamela Motown. I like Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder. I love all that. But if I was going to go to a restaurant, I don't like the ones where it's pumping loud. You go to Vegas and you're sitting in the restaurant and it's like, it feels like a nightclub and you're like, this is a bit much. But yeah, maybe some nice Motown would be nice to set the tone. Yeah, we can put some Motown on. Yeah, just put it gently in the background. I agree. You don't want to be too loud. You want to be able to have a conversation. Yeah, definitely. And you know, when it's a bit dark and a bit dingy, you're like, I need a little bit of light because you've got your phone out and you're trying to

eat your food and stuff. I like restaurants that have kind of got atmosphere, but aren't like proper dark night. Like I went to, I think it was the hackathon in Vegas and it was just so dark and so it was a bit like weird. I'd turn into being a nightclub. But yeah, I mean, I do miss eating out. That's one of the things I've booked so many restaurants. Now, obviously the rules are restricted and I'm like banging the orders in, like getting loads of tables, but for me and my friends and my mum and dad and stuff. Give us a rundown. Where have you booked? All the restaurants in Vegas. I'm going to Sushi Sambar in Covent Garden with my wife. In the shop. They do the outdoor terrace. We can eat some sushi. I'm then going to a place called Beaverbrook Hotel,

which is in Leatherhead. It's outside of London, but they've got an amazing like outdoor garden house restaurant where they grow the food and the allotment. It's quite like Farm to Table style, which is amazing. Oh, nice. And I've also booked a table at Chameleon. It's actually just opened up my friend's opening a restaurant in London in April. So I'm going to go there. It's like Turkish kind of Iranian sort of inspired food, like Meze sort of stuff. So that'll be wonderful. Sounds very good. How long were you in Vegas for before we get into the proper meal? Well, I've got a place in Santa Monica. So I spend this, I normally spend a few months of the year out there. And then if I'm there, I'll like meet my friends. We do like two or three days there.

And I've been there for my 30th and that. So I've had a couple of trips there, but I love it. It's just a place to go. I've been with my friends and we have a great time. But then I also go with my wife. We spend a weekend there. We go to pool parties and stuff like we love it still. So we enjoy the food. The restaurant scene is really good in Vegas. Actually, they've got some really nice restaurants there. I'm obsessed, Joe. And I doubt you've been there, but I think about it a lot. I've never been to Las Vegas, but the first place that I'd want to go is the heart attack grill. Have you been to the heart attack grill? I haven't been, but Rosie showed me some photos. She went there on a trip once. And yeah, you get like the heart attack

burger and it's like 20,000 calories. And apparently if you eat it, you get spanked or something. Or if you don't eat it, you get spanked by someone in there. There's people going around like all dressed up in kinky kinky outfits. But yeah, it does. Mate, to be honest, I love deep fried food. So I love chips. I love chicken, not chicken nuggets, but I like fried buttermilk chicken burgers and arancini, all that sort of stuff. I do like fried foods, but it's not Saturday all the time. It doesn't agree with me all the time. I feel a bit rough the next day. Also at the heart attack grill, there's some scales outside and you weigh yourself when you go in. And I think if you're over 400 pounds, then you get your whole meal free. Oh yeah. Oh yeah,

that's pretty shocking. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, because they're basically up promoting obesity, which is pretty hardcore over there. It's sort of the opposite of a sort of joix lifestyle, really, isn't it? Yeah. I don't know if that would work over here. If people arrive there going, oh, I've been doing joix every day. I have to pay for my meal. Extra. You've got to pay extra. Yeah. Also, I feel like if there's a burger where if you fail to finish it, then someone comes around and spanks you wearing a load of kinky gear. I think calling it the heart attack burger is kind of, you know, misselling it a little bit because that's not the main thing, is it? The fact you might have a heart attack if you eat it. It's a fact that if you don't eat it,

you're going to get whipped. Also, there's definitely loads of people in there deliberately not finishing their burger, right? Yeah. So, we're going to start your meal now with your dessert. Very exciting. Are we not even, do you not want to do water first? Are you just going straight in with dessert? I'd normally have a glass of water first. Let's keep things off the water, then we'll go dessert. Yeah, let's, Joe's meal, so. Fine. Still a sparkling water, Joe. I'm a still water kind of guy with just a little bit of fresh lemon on the side. It'll be nice. On the side? I like, you know, like you bring it over and you bring it over in a little bowl and I just stick a bit in myself. Love it. We've never had that specification on the podcast before. Normally,

I think people assume the lemon's coming in the water, but you're getting the lemon on the side. I like this detail. Yeah. Well, sometimes, like you say, can I have some lemon and they just sort of bring it, they do it after and you go, I will bring you some over and it's like just cutting to little slices in it, but. Do you want a slice or a wedge? Either or, really. Either or. Like, bit of ice, little slice of lemon, and then we're good to crack on with the dinner. Have you found in the past that people have overlemoned your water, which is why now you'd prefer on the side so you can do it yourself? Not really. Sometimes they do the old cordial trick, don't they? Stick a bit of lemon cordial, a bit of lime cordon, and then you're sort of like,

hmm. Oh, no. I don't mind that, but I would have rather a bit of fresh, fresh lime and lemon, but to be honest, I'm normally straightened for the gin and tonics. I have a little glass of water on the side, but it's mainly a gin and tonic kind of affair, isn't it, when you eat out? Well, we can do that. If you want a gin and tonic straight away, we can do that for you. Yeah, let's chuck the water out the window. We can get your gin and tonic. Well, I'd imagine you're a very well-hydrated man anyway, so we can just tuck straight into the gin, if you want. You wouldn't give a mere man a glass of water when he's just got out the water, bit under there for ages. A gin and tonic would be a nice little kicker, just to liven me up a

little bit, but that's not my main drink. I'm saving my main drink for later, yeah? That's fine. You can have the gin and tonic instead of the water. Looks like water anyway. No one will know the difference. Speaking of slices of lemon, though, you know what, I think is one of the most beautiful things, and not enough people appreciate how beautiful it looks, is a wedge of lemon that's been cut, a wedge, and then left in the fridge. I love how it then goes over time, and it just looks like a perfect, like a sculpture. The way that the skin goes, the membrane over the fruit, and it just, it adopts the kind of like sheen to it. It looks so immaculate and perfect. I don't know. Well, I've wrought in lemon.

Yeah, thank you, Joe. I mean, I know me and Joe are thinking exactly the same thing when you were describing that. You're talking about an old lemon. I don't know. I'm talking about, like, it's the same as saying, I love to leave a bit of cheese out and wait until it gets that beautiful green colour on it. I don't love to leave a bit of cheese. It's the same thing. But like, this looks beautiful, though. You know what I'm talking about? No, it doesn't look beautiful. Let's talk about a mouldy lemon. A lemon, really. I sort of get them, I use it straight away, so I wouldn't, I haven't really observed one over a few days, but I have a look. Not a few days. Not a few days, I mean. I'll do a test of my next one. I'm not leaving for a few days, but maybe

a while, you know, maybe a day. That sounds like it's going to be a very disappointing live stream for you, Joe. People tuning in, expecting another workout, and you're going, today we're going to observe a lemon over a few days. You've got a time lapse, haven't you, really? Yeah. You've got a time lapse, that one. Gin and tonic, what are your measures in there? I'm normally a two for one, double, like a double. I've got a little gin collection at the moment. I'm obsessed with, like, flavored gin, so I'm normally, to be honest, I free pour most of my drinks, but I normally have a little double shot with, like, one Mediterranean, fever tree tonic, and then I like a bit of fruit, so a few raspberries or blueberries or something,

can it? Just a little bit of a fruit salad at the end? Yeah. My kids come up to me, like, always trying to get the gin infused raspberries off me, and they're only like two. I'm like, you can't have my gin infused raspberries. All right, I have one. Let's have one, see how you react. That went badly. Okay, fine. Do you want to see my little gin bar? Yes, please. So, I moved into this house in July last year, and the previous owners had a bar built, and I mean, I would never build a bar in my house, right, but I thought I'm keeping that. So, I've got loads of gin. Oh, amazing. That's a proper bar. That's a proper bar, and I haven't been able to have any, like, family and friends over, because we've not been able to, obviously, because of the restrictions,

but I can't wait to, like, get my friends around and have a proper little party and a little gin cocktail and stuff, but yeah, it's a nice thing to have, because it's a social room, but we don't really come in here, because it's now where I listen to and record my podcast, believe it or not. Quite tricky to sit at a bar in your house by yourself. Must be quite a sort of sad bleak feeling, I'd imagine. Yeah, I do come in here and pour one. So, my little daughter, Indy, she's so funny. She basically thinks she's having a gin and tonic. She calls it a gin ton. She says, can we have a gin ton, Daddy? And I bring her in, and I pretend to pour the gin, and then I put a little bit of tonic water in her cup, and I put some ice and some berries in. So,

she really just loves the berries and the flavour of the tonic, but she's obsessed, and she said the other day, it was so funny, we did some face painting, we painted our faces, and it was really early, it was only like four o'clock, and obviously I normally have my gin in the evening, so we have like one a night sort of thing. And she went, oh, Daddy, Daddy, can we have an early gin ton? It's the way she said it, she was so excited, so we cracked up laughing, and now we call it an early gin ton, if we have it before five o'clock. I've got like pink grapefruit one and mango and rhubarb, there's so many different flavours, but gin, I never used to touch gin. I was literally like vodka and lemonade, or vodka and coke, and now, as I've grown up, I just love gin now,

I think it's wonderful. Also, she's properly acting like an adult when they discover gin, just asking for it all the time, and then eventually being like, can we have an early one, let's have an early one, let's do that, come on, come on. Yes, and she went to school, she went to nursery and said, oh, me and Daddy make a gin ton in the bar, and then they're like, I said to nursery teacher, it's only a tonic she's having, but she thinks it's, keep playing it up, keep it up, we're telling us a gin ton. That's so funny. I had to write a story when I was a kid at school, and for some reason, I chose a story where it was someone digging up treasure on an island, and they kept finding, just instead of the treasure, chests full of like empty vodka bottles, and then

empty gin bottles, and then empty whiskey bottles, and I told my mum, and she was like, what are you, what are you doing? They're going to think I'm a massive alcoholic. Like clearly everything at home was just clinking empty spirit bottles. That's standard. Pirates loved to drink, didn't they? They were always boozy, weren't they, the pirates? It was one of their, just they used to swap alcohol for like guns and stuff, didn't they? Yeah, and my mum's a boozy pirate. They're no rum bottles there. No. So, you know, already teachers rolling out that, it's a copy pirates, there's no rum bottles, it's clearly Mrs Gamble, that's a problem. So, let's get into the meal and start with the dessert. So, this is my dream dessert,

and I always go back to this song because I think about it being a kid at school, and then I think about going to a pub lot on a Sunday road, so it's a very British classic dessert, those were the name of sticky toffee pudding, believe it or not, with vanilla ice cream, and the reason I love it is because it's like warm and it's like got that massive, like sticky toffee sauce on top, and then the hot and cold combination, like it's always saying I love. So, yeah, it was a toss up between that and a chocolate fondant, but the sticky toffee pudding came through. Lovely stuff. I'd go with the sticky toffee pudding over that. I think we've had people say chocolate fondant before, but I think sticky toffee pudding always hits the spot,

I think. That sauce. It's just so, it's so, if it's done right, sometimes you get those dodgy microwave ones, you know the pubs just stuck in the microwave for 30 seconds there, they're shocking, but when you get a really, really big rectangle one with a nice softness to it, a bit sponginess as we call it. Yeah. Triple, I always ask the duck like, I say, look, I know you're going to bring it out and I'm going to be dry, it's going to be dry after two or three spoons, can you put a bit of extra toffee sauce on, and that really counts because you want it to be swimming into toffee sauce, and then you've got to steam into it. Yeah, you don't mind the dry, there's always a dry bit in the middle of cake, but you don't mind that because, you know, you're

going to have extra sauce to spoon over, and you need a difference in texture. Oh God. This meal already is going to be so bloated after this meal because like this is, it's a stodgy one, it's stodgy. Sure. Do you say you're having ice cream with it? Yeah, just a standard like vanilla ice cream, nice little, you know, a nice scoop of vanilla ice cream, I think. I've sometimes, I've tried to go rogue and have chocolate ice cream before of it because I prefer chocolate ice cream, but it doesn't go as well with the stuff, the toffee. I think vanilla and toffee is a good combo. At what age did you start pairing things properly when it came to stuff like that? Because when I was a kid, I would have just chosen my favorite ice cream with whatever dessert I was having, and it

wouldn't really go, but I just wanted my favorite stuff all the time. At what age do you think you started being like, do you know what? Actually, yeah, chocolate's my favorite, but vanilla ice cream would go better with a sticky toffee pudding. I'm a connoisseur now. When I was a kid, my diet was terrible. Like I didn't eat healthy food, you know, we were on benefits, we were living in a council flat, like it was always buy one, get one free, like frozen meals and chocolate bars and just sandwiches. I remember eating loads of sandwiches because we just didn't sit down and as a family we had proper meals, but as I got older, you know, I started to try new things, and I think it kind of, I think your palate starts to change, you grow a little bit, and

I remember I didn't eat any fish till I was 25 years old. I couldn't bear the thought of anything fishy, that smell of fish, but now I love sushi, I eat raw fish and sashimi, and so it's amazing how you can really outgrow those habits. I was a very fussy child, but now I'm pretty much eat anything. I try anything. I'm really kind of adventurous of it. Is that something that you think about with what you give your kids as well? Like are you thinking about making them adventurous at this point in their lives with the early Gentons, etc? Oh, 100%. I mean, kids don't have to eat like children's food. They don't have to eat like, you know, beige foods that aren't really tasty and bland. Like I got Indian Mali really soon,

because I've done a, I've done a special children's book for weaning. It's called Weaning 15. So I went on a journey, I learned from nutritionists around how to kind of wean your child, essentially, and I really enjoyed that because I got Indian Mali eating things like risottos and curries and stews and like putting herbs and spices, which a lot of parents don't think to do, but ultimately the first few months, they're trying new things, but within about, within about six months, you can pretty much have them eating the same as you. So now my boy and my little daughter Indy, we all eat together, you know, and we eat really nice food, but we also, you know, have nights where we're lazy and we'll get a delivery or whatever. And but, but most of the time we eat

together as a family and eat healthy food. Can you remember age 25, what the first piece of fish you had was? It was probably just like a fish and chips. Like, yeah, gateway, because my mum and dad always used to get fish and chips when I was a kid. Like it was standard, like fish and chips, but I'd always get like safflower or like sausage. I just wouldn't go near the fish. But yeah, now, you know, like I said, I'll eat like black cod. I love, you know, yellowtail and sashimi and sushi and stuff. And I just, I just wouldn't even think of it. Before we move off to fish and chips, I just want to say, and put it out there now, I'm still a battered sausage man. I'll have proper fish and chips once a year, but normally if we go to the chip shop, I'm still battered sausage

all of the way, which I think is a throwback to when I was a fat little boy and I couldn't believe you could get away with eating a sausage, which was nice already, dipping it in batter and then eating it. So I'm still, I can't move off it. I'm a battered sausage boy. Do you remember how pink it used to be, the meat? Like it wasn't your meat, was it? Oh, I think what was it made out of? Even like the safflower, like what was the safflower made? That was even worse. Like, but it was such a like, just a good taste. You just loved it when you were a kid. Yeah, still love it now. And actually, the first time I had some battered fish was nice, but the first time I had a battered sausage, it did blow my mind. Yeah. I was like, what is this?

This is flavor city. So salty. Oh, I loved it. Did you hear about that fight the other day outside the fish and chip shop? There we go. Two cod got battered. There it is. There it is. There he is. I'll tell you, Ed, I don't know if I've ever told you this. That fish and chip shop used to live on the back of my house. I thought you were going to do the two cod got battered joke again. Yeah, I thought you were going to do exactly Joe's joke, exactly the same as he did and try and get yours in the edit is what I thought you were doing. If this whole episode now is just us doing jokes about different things getting battered at the fish and chip shop. Go on. What were you actually going to say? I used to live, I used to have a fish and chip shop around the back of my house.

So every time I was in the garden, it's not the fish and chips and I loved it. That was it. You mentioned sushi samba earlier. This is what I've been trying to get onto this for a while now because I'm quite excited about it because Susie Ruffle, a fantastic comedian came on the podcast and she chose sashimi from sushi samba and she wanted it from the one that is in the shard. So we came up with a tongues twister. Susie likes sashimi from the sushi samba in the shard. Didn't even do it right then. I can't even do it right now. I want to see if you can say it, Joe wins. It's Susie likes sashimi from the sushi samba in the shard. Susie likes sashimi from the sushi samba. Hang on. Susie likes sashimi from the

sushi samba in the shard. It's hard, isn't it? Yeah, it is hard, isn't it? Really? Say it one more time. Susie likes sashimi from the sushi samba in the shard. Susie likes sashimi from the sushi samba in the shard. I love it. It's pretty good, but it's hard. Am I missing something? Yeah, there's always like Susie likes sashimi from the sushi samba in the shard. James, you're saying sashimi? Yeah, I am. I'm getting it wrong. Yeah, absolutely. Sean Connery in it. Susie likes sashimi from the sushi samba in the shard. So hard. Okay. Susie likes sashimi from the sushi samba in the shard. Shamba. It's shamba. I think he said shamba.

Also, let's just ignore the fact that there's not a sushi samba in the shard. It's inherent tower. Oh, it is. Yeah, you're right. I mean, who cares about every tower? Poppa dom's or bread? Poppa dom's or bread, Joe Wicks? Poppa dom's or bread? Naan bread. Naan bread. Yeah, oh, poppa dom. Do you mean any bread? Any bread. Any bread. Oh, any bread. Do you know what? My kryptonite, this is honestly, if there's a good bit of sour, though, in my house and there's orange marmalade, I'm like padding some bear. It's the one thing I just cannot leave. I have two slices and I

go and play Call of Duty for a couple of hours and I come back and go right back and have a couple of slices. Now, I can eat a whole loaf of bread sometimes in one day. Seriously, I love bread. Are you a shredless wonder or a shredhead when it comes to marmalade? I'm a shredhead. I'm a shredhead. I love homemade like craft, homemade marmalade. So I'm into the craftier the better and the chunkier the better. I love all the peel and all the different fruits they use. But yeah, I've got a shelf dedicated to like marmalades. I've even got into, I tried one the other day, it was someone said, you've got to try this. It's roses, lemon and lime marmalade. I said, lemon and lime marmalade, never have I ever had anything

so silly in my life. I ordered it. It's like crack. It's so good. It is so sweet and sugar. It's like lemon and lime, like neon green. It's really good. James likes to open his lemon and lime marmalade, leave it in the fridge and just watch a sheen form across the top. Yeah, maybe I'll do. So what if I do? It looks beautiful. I'm not even ashamed of it. Hey, so you've got a marmalade collection and a gin collection. Have you ever tried a gin marmalade cocktail? Because that's the thing you can do. That's a new thing now. I've got gin marmalade, like marmalade gin. It's a new thing. It's one of the flavours. So yeah, there's a few companies up there that sent me it. But it's a bit sickly. I like keeping my toast and

jam and marmalade separate to my gin and tonic drink. That's too early for a gin ton, isn't it? If you're having it with your toast and marmalade in the morning. Well, on weekends, I actually had a nice gin ton yesterday because it was nice and sunny. I had a bit of a vibe going on and I got my brother around and he's my nephew's for the first time. So we bust open a gin ton at about 11 a.m., which is quite good. Nice. Not bad. Would you sit down with Paddington and have a gin ton? Would you share a gin ton with Paddington Bear? Well, I actually watched the new updated version of Paddington the other day with Indy. And I think it's pretty good. It's pretty good. It's like an action film almost. And he's just like swinging about doing all sorts in London. It's

amazing. Pretty good film. Yeah. So I actually enjoyed it. If Paddington was a real person, which he is, and he wanted a gin ton, I'd take him to probably go down to a local pub, just around the corner from Paddington Station. Yeah. That's what he'd like it there. I don't know. If you took him back to Paddington Station, I think he'd be worried that you were trying to deport him, right? Because that's where he arrived. So I wouldn't. I'd maybe take him to like a Peruvian bar so he could have a sort of flavor of home, but know that he's still welcome in the house. I had no idea it was from Peru until I watched that film. I didn't realize he was shipped over and came over on a boat, didn't he? And I just couldn't believe it.

Yeah, actually, from Peru. I don't know. Hang on a minute. Bears don't live in Peru, do they? Well, maybe you ain't from Peru. What do you think Paddington's lying? I think it could be a ruse. Yeah, I think it could be from probably like from Alaska or something. Yeah, we'll draw down into that. Actually, maybe that's the third Paddington film. Yeah. Because you know, there's been the second Paddington film, especially there's a lot of the subtext was about, you know, UK immigration and stuff like that and people's attitudes towards immigration. Maybe the third film is going to be properly, they go all in on where you're really from. And turns out he was a liar all along. It just doesn't sort of. It's a complete right wing U-turn. Suddenly, it turns out

that, yeah, there's a new Tory writer. Also, you said, we're saying about desserts, we started with dessert and now we're talking about marmalade. Have you ever had, this is one of the most delicious things I've ever had, have you ever had marmalade on toast ice cream? Hang on, you can get ice cream. You can get marmalade on toast flavored ice cream. And it is so good. And they do it by, you know, making loads of toast, grinding it down into breadcrumbs, and then letting the ice cream kind of like, you know, churning it and all that. So it tastes like properly, like, you know, just slightly burnt toast all the way through. Where do you get that? Where do you find that? I originally found it, this is years ago, I haven't had it in so long, in the Waitrose,

in Shepherd's Bush, but actually the first time I ever had it was my friend made it herself. Sorry, I really like that you're like, it's in there, I don't know if you've heard of Waitrose, it's the one in Shepherd's Bush, as if you can't get it in any other Waitrose. It's a little boutique called Waitrose, yeah. I don't know if every single branch of Waitrose will have it. Was it a limited edition? But I've never seen that in any ice cream shop. No, I mean, it wasn't at the time of a limited edition. I've never seen that, but it sounds, that sounds really good. That sounds amazing. It's so good. But my friend made it, maybe I'll try and get the recipe off her, because it used to be her specialty. If anyone ever went round her house for dinner, she'd make the marmalade

on toast ice cream. There's loads of recipes. I've just looked it up. There's loads of recipes for it. There's even one on the Waitrose website, so that's probably the one to go for. Do it, Joe. So good. I've never made ice cream, but I'll give it a go. Me and Ed made ice cream the other day, didn't we Ed? We did. We did a cook along with James's mum. It's not only you who's been doing the live streams during the pandemic, Joe. My mum's been doing them directly to me. That's a zoom, really, but... So you made ice cream with your mum, then. What flavour ice cream did you make? You know Lisa's peanut butter cups? Oh, yeah, just a bit. So we could have made our own version of that, where you make everything from scratch. And Ed annoyed my mum a little bit, because she

sent us some very simple ingredients and we meant to get condensed milk, and Ed got evaporated milk and thought that would be fine. She was beside herself. I got told, I got properly told off the first time in ages. My own mum hasn't told me off in about 20 years, and I got absolutely coated off by Mrs. A. Caster. Yeah. I know what condensed milk is, because they stick it on all the pancakes in Thailand, but what is evaporated milk? It's like a less sweet version, and yes, it turns out that it doesn't work in the recipe that we were doing, because I made it, and then I tasted it. It just tasted like frozen cream. It wasn't sweet enough. Not nice. Yeah, absolutely frozen, solid Ed's ones. Follow the ingredient list, isn't it, next time?

Yeah. Yeah. There you go. Less than that. I don't think I'll be invited again, to be honest. No, she hates it. We'll move on to your starter now. I can see your kid in the background, absolutely jones him for a gin ton. She's banging on the window. What are you having for your starter, Judd? All right, so starter. This is two things, deep fried. She can fry them all in the same grill, really machine, or deep fat fire. So it's crispy calamari and truffle arancini, because I just love, I just love crispy calamari with a nice little garlic alioli dip. Is it alioli? How do you say that? Is it alioli? What is it? Ayoli, maybe. Alioli is much better. I much prefer alioli, so let's stick with that.

I've always called it alioli. To be honest, I don't even care what it is actually meant to be called. I've always just read it and never said it out loud, but I'd rather just say alioli. And obviously, every time you say alioli, I want to say oi, oi, oi afterwards. Crispy, yeah. Crispy calamari with alioli. Oi, oi, oi. And yeah, I've become acquainted to truffle recently. I just love the flavor. Some people find it a bit overpowering, but I think I had it at the Ivy Brasserie in Richmond. The Ivy Brasserie in Richmond, they do truffle arancini, which is amazing. So it's like deep fried rice balls, isn't it? And I've never had it before. I didn't know what it was. So when I bit into that little doughy,

crispy edge and got into the rice, I was like, this is amazing. Why haven't I ever heard of it? So that's my new favorite. If I sit on the menu, it's getting ordered. Straight away. And you dip that in like a nice, like mayo or a bit of ketchup and it's, love it. Yeah. How many arancini balls are you looking at? And what size do you want them? Yeah, I don't like them massive ones. You're getting, sometimes you get them in like Italian restaurants. They're like the size of a tennis ball with like those smart sauce on it. I just like little sort of, you know, like a little, like a football, like a tiny little, you know, one of those little chocolate football eggs you get. Remember then little chocolate eggs,

you used to like check like football, you used to peel the foil off and you get a little chocolate. What's great about that is it's, it's a really confusing size measurement because you just said you want one the size of a football, but a small football. Okay. I was going to say plum, but it's smaller than the ping pong ball. Smaller than the ping pong ball, but not as big as a golf ball. Right. Just smaller than the ping pong ball. Yeah. Yeah. Just smaller than a bit. One size down from a ping pong ball. Exactly. Yeah. Could fit inside a ping pong ball. What else is small and round that you could think of that's like, not like, not a great squash ball. It's like a not, I'm trying to think of something round. I've run out of round things. What else is round?

Yeah. Smolder than a, what's smaller than a, what's smaller than a ping pong ball? Marble. Marble, a big marble. Okay. I've got one, like a lychee. You know, like a lychee. Yeah. It's probably about the size of a lychee. There you go. About four or five of them and I'm, I'm sweet. I'm set. And you, and you got your dips lined up. You got your calamari. Is your calamari from anywhere in particular? Got the arancini coming from the ivy there. Anywhere really. Like it's all the same, isn't it really? But I don't like all the tentacles. I like the calamari rings, but I don't get, I don't like all the little, when you start to see it's actually a real octopus. You know what I mean? Well, it's not an octopus. It's a calamari, isn't it?

So you want the rings? Yeah, the rings. I just, I stay away from the head and the arms and stuff. And how big are the rings? Bigger than elastic band, smaller than a belt. Can you pop the rings comfortably over the arancini so it looks like satin? Yeah, but I like the small ones, the smallest looking ones, but those are better. Like nice, light and fluffy. Like have that with a kind of, you know, like a garlic or sriracha or chili mayo or something like a little dip. You don't want to eat them bone dry. They need, they always need something. Yeah. Do you want a wedge of lemon on the side for that as well? Because at this point we should just bring you a whole lemon and a knife. Yeah, you know, you need a little

squeeze of lemon, but that's, that comes standard with calamari, doesn't it? Yeah. Again, you know, looks quite nice if you just leave it in the fridge for a bit, you know, bring it out. Not rotten. Joe's not on board with this, mate. We're having fresh lemon. We're cutting the lemon at the table. Joe is on board with trying new things. You know, he didn't have fish until the 25th. So now- I still don't understand what you mean. Like, why does it glaze over? Like, doesn't it just sweat? Doesn't the lemon just sweat? It's just old. It goes old. Leave it in the fridge for like, nah, no, you leave it in the fridge for like an hour. Just an hour. Yeah, you want dead lemon. Dyes a painful death. Hey, come on now. I don't want a dead lemon. I just, I just think it looks,

it goes nice and shiny. It gets a glassy kind of finish to it. It looks nice. You know, I don't like it when you cut a lemon and the flesh coming out of it all shoddy. I like it just to be nice and smooth over the top of it. I'm going to actually have to go and see what you mean now and do this. What is he on about? How do you feel about these two, by the way? Oh, great. You can't mess with that, right? Are they quite common choices? No, I think we've heard Aaron Cheney before. We've definitely had, I think Kanamari, I haven't been through and counted, but I think would be one of our most popular starters on the podcast. I think quite a few people, I remember Tom Kerridge, chose Kanamari, I think, as his starter. A few other people have. Ashling B, maybe. You're in

good company. It's one of those places, like you said, that like, it's pretty much, if it's, you know, you get it good at most. Even bad Kanamari, which I've had before, I'm still glad I'm eating it. Yeah, still doable, isn't it? Still edible. Yeah. Your main course. I mean, I feel good about it. Well, I hope it doesn't, I hope it doesn't bore you and you're like, oh, is that it? But this is like, wherever I go in the world, wherever I go to any restaurant, if there's a really good burger and chips on the menu, I just, I'm drawn to it. I'm drawn to the beef and the bun and the chips and like, you know, is it going to have cheese in it? Is it going to have a bit of bacon? And, you know, all the lovely things you can just create your own burger, can't you? So,

I think, honestly, if I was going to say what is my favorite main, it is a burger and chips, but I'm not talking like a greasy takeaway. It's got to be sort of gourmet style, you know, like a I tell you, there's a good burger. I tell you, there's a good burger, flat iron steak in Soho. They do a Wagyu beef burger with a burn a sauce and it's like, almost deep fry the burger, it's like crispy on the outside and you bite into it, the burn a sauce, it all drips down your chin and it's just a really good burger. So yeah, that's kind of my dream. Is that boring? That's not boring at all. I think you're kind of right. I'm similar in that if I really had to narrow down my favorite foods, sort of the genre of food, burgers, good burgers, like, and it

doesn't matter if they're like thick gourmet ones that are a bit pink in the middle, lovely, but also really getting into those smash burgers where people really push them down onto the onto the hot plate. So they're really crispy. Get a couple of that double patty. Yeah. Yeah, like you can put like two or three in there. So delicious. What are you having in the burger, though? What are you putting in there? Well, I'm quite simple. I don't I'm not a big fan of the whole, you know, the cheese, the blue cheeses and all the stinky Bishop and stuff. I just like a standard like burger with I do I do like having a bit of bacon. So a nice bit of crispy but maple bacon, crispy bacon, and then a little barbecue sauce really, I just keep it simple. But I

do think that having a steak's great, but having the beef burger in the bread, like it makes the texture and the combination of the two for me is just hands down. So I like a brioche bun, maybe a seeded brioche. Well, here we go. Now, now, now I'm going to argue with you, Josh. Now I'm going to argue with you. Too soft. I don't like the brioche bun. I love burgers. Absolutely. Brioche bun for me, even though there's a guy with a sweet tooth, I think weirdly, I don't like the brioche bun. I like a sesame bun or like like a potato roll, stuff like that. But like can't get on board with the brioche bun. What do you think of them snazzy when they do the old charcoal black? Like you get like black bread and stuff and black buns. I'm not not too fat, not too keen. No,

does it affect the taste tonight? I think it looks horrible actually. Yeah, I think it looks, I think it looks really doesn't make me want to eat it. If something's jet black, I don't think I can't wait to put that in my body. I had my eye. This is this will make you laugh. I had a pizza the other day. It was like a build your own pizza at home and it was, it was charcoal infused sourdough and it was black, pitch black. And the next morning, what came out was exactly the same color. I've never seen anything like it. I said to Rosie, have you been to toilets today? Because the same color pizza came out of me and she's like, no, I haven't. So I don't know if I was just like dying inside that morning, but it was black. Yeah, you don't want that. I can't imagine that's how they're

advertising it either. I don't know. That's kind of appealed to me more. Oh, really? I wasn't interested at all. But I was like, Oh, be quite, quite fun to do a charcoal black ship. Why? Oh, you know, it's been a boring year, hasn't it? First of all, it'd be nice to vary it a little bit. Yeah, this is the man who got into the way lemons look in the fridge. I'd imagine anything's going to entertain you, right? Absolutely. Oh, man, I'd look at a lemon, go and have a shit. So you're not this, you're not disappointed with a burger and chips. And you're quite happy with that choice. Because I had a burger and chips van at my wedding. On my wedding day, we had like a burger and chips, like a burger van. We had like pop-ups. We had a festival

type thing with different food stands and stuff. And I just love, I just think there's nothing more satisfying than a good burger. So yeah, that is my ultimate main. Thank you very much. I think burger and chips, I've got no problem with brioche, but that's where I'm like, that is not my dream. But it's your dream, not mine. I don't mind a brioche, but I think they've been maybe overdone. They're everywhere now. Everywhere uses a brioche bun. And you just think, I don't mind, I don't mind a standard bun, a more standard bun, a potato roll, like James said. You find those in the States quite a lot, just a really soft, but still structured enough to hold up to the juice of the burger. That's what you want. You don't want it falling apart on you. Yeah. I want to be able

to squeeze the whole thing together there in my hand. I've got it all. And then you can really, ah, get down to the juicy meat. But would you like this Wagyu burger? Would that be your dream? I think whenever I'm in London, if I'm ever knocking about, like even if I'm on my own and I'm like in Soho, I'm up there for something. I'll text the guy, because I know the guy that works there, I've got the burger on today. And because it's not every day they have this special burger. And if it's on the menu, I literally go down there, I sit there, I'll just smash it on my own, like get it done. And then I get an Uber home or get the train back to mine. And I just think it's like the, I'm always for some reason drawn to that burger. I think it's probably the

Bernay sauce. It's like a really good, it's like a Hollandaise Bernay sauce, if you know what I mean. So it's really good. It's really like thick and creamy. And it kind of brings the flavour of the meat out, I think. That's what people overlook a lot. I think people appreciate now that, you know, the bun's got to be good or that the burger's got to be cooked a certain way and in different ways you can smash it, all that kind of stuff. And then people overlook the sauce, you know, people get involved in cheese and cheese and what kind of cheese you're having, what kind of bacon you're having. But that sauce can make all the difference. And I quite like that that's kind of the star in your burger there is that Bernay sauce. I absolutely love the idea of being able to text

someone who runs a restaurant and saying, do you have the burger on today? To me, Joe, that is the coolest thing any human being could ever do. I'd love to be able to do that. I can't queue jump, it's not that. I just say to myself, you've got the burger on because I basically, I met the owner of the restaurant, sorry, the manager last time I was there, because they love it. When I put a little burger on my Instagram and I tag it, they get loads of followers and everyone goes down and stuff. So obviously it's a nice thing for them to promote them. But they're only a small little chain in London. I've never been there, but there's always a queue outside there because they don't take bookings. But what I really like about them is I've seen pictures of people eating the steak

and the steak knife is in the shape of like a little meat cleaver. And that's enough to get me happy. Yeah, it's a really good steak. It's called the flat iron cut, which is like a cut that wasn't very popular, but they don't know how they cook it, but it's so well cooked. And they have like the best peppercorn and Bernay sauce. And then you have the triple duck fat cooked chips, which are like unreal as well. So yeah, it's a really good place for a good steak, especially when you can think, you think you can go and have like a 100 pound steak. But for some reason, the 15 pound steak at flat iron is still in my eyes better than any steak. And those are the chips you want with your burger? I actually want, I want truffle parmesan fries, believe it or not. You know, like when

they put a bit of the old shave in the old, they shave parmesan and then put a bit of truffle oil on there. Again, I've gone double truffle at the moment, but that'll be it. I'll stop, I'll stop at that. I won't have any more truffle after that. Have you ever gone double truffle before? You're on double truffle in the past? You can overdo it. Yeah, like it's one of those flavors. If you overdo it, you suddenly, it really turns you off. So like sometimes I'll have like truffle parmesan fries, and then you might get like a bit of teriyaki chicken with like truffle shavings on top of that. And you go, I shouldn't have gone for that second truffle. It's a bit, and it repeats, doesn't it? You truffle repeats a few, few hours later, doesn't it?

Yeah, like pesto. Imagine when you were little Joe Wicks, the little kid who didn't eat fish and was eating sandwiches all the time. And then you were told that one day you'd be going double truff. You wouldn't have believed it. Yeah. Oh, God, no, God, no, wouldn't even go near a mushroom, would I in the past? But my brother lived in Singapore and he said that every, even in Nando's, over there, they'd put truffle oil on the chips. So he said he used to love it. And then one day he said, they, because they use like, obviously, like, not even proper truffle, it's like a synthetic truffle oil, you know, yeah, maybe 1% truffle. And he said they just doused it on everything. Everywhere was truffle. It was like this super cool thing. And they said, he can't go near it now.

He can't go near the smell of it. He hates it. So there is a possibility that I could overdo the truffle one day and turn my nose up a bit. Yeah. So you got, we don't want it to be today. Yeah, we're not going to go triple truff. We'll happen to label you a truff truff. That's two. We're not going to wheel up the truff truff. No. So your side dish. Side dish, I think, is an important part of the equation. Because I don't like going to a restaurant where you just have one choice and that's it and you're stuck with it. Like, I like going to like family style restaurants. So like, you're sort of sushi, Samba, and you're no booze, and Zuma, you've got like different options, haven't you?

Like the Asian fusion cuisine sort of thing. So I really want to bring in a little bit of sushi at this point. So hopefully you've got that on the menu. But I love spicy tuna sushi and yellowtail sushi with the crispy onions on top. Oh yeah. I don't like all the little egg, you know, they put all the egg row and all the kind of little weird little eggs on top. I flicked them off. I'm not having them. But crispy onions, I'm having the crispy onions and I'm putting a bit of extra on top. So then you got proper wasabi, good bit of soy sauce, and I double dip my sushi. I do both sides. So I coat one side, saturate on the left, then I switch over and saturate. So the soy sauce goes sucks right up, and then that's it. I'm

banging it. Man, I'm really on the same page as you when it comes to sushi. Definitely. I love spicy tuna. I love the crispy onions on it. I don't like the row. I'll flick it off myself as well. Yeah, I'll flick it off into Ed's mouth. I like flick it across the restaurant. Do you flick it across the restaurant? You just like flick, see if I get it. No, normally Ed's sitting opposite me. He just opens his mouth. I'll just flick it all into there. I love it. The big of the egg, Tobiko. Tobiko Gunkin is my favorite sort of sushi. They're huge eggs and then you put them in your mouth and you push your tongue up so you can pop it on the roof of your mouth and all the lovely stuff inside starts flooding out. What is it? What is it? What is inside that little

bubble? It's just all like salty seawater stuff. It's just like fat caviar, isn't it? It's delicious. How big are these eggs? Are they in chili size? Yeah, they're smaller than a golf ball. They're sort of small chocolate football sized. Oh, good. Okay. Say them more. Are they like Cadbury Mini Eggs sort of size? Yeah, that sort of size, but you can pop them on the roof of your mouth. I absolutely love them. And the last thing as well, sushi wise, is the, you know, you did the prawn tempura within the sushi wrap up. Yes. Yeah, that's good. I tell you he does a good bit of sushi. I went to, you know, Salt Bay, Nusoret. I went to Nusoret when I was in Turkey and Nusoret Salt Bay does a meat sushi. So it's like, it's rice with a little thin layer

of like steak. So that really thin wagyu steak. And then he puts like this sort of, it's almost like a garlic butter. And then they put these thin little shards of potato on top, really thin, like crispy potato. It comes over a blow torch and blow torch is in front of you. And that is one of the most incredible tastes because you get like the rice and the hot potato crisps and you get the meat. It really is one of the best like ever mouthfuls of food I've ever had, but he only does it obviously in his restaurants, which is like few and far between. So he comes out from the kitchen. He came out just by chance. I was at this hotel in Turkey and he was there that night, came out with a glasses on and the white t-shirt. He's got his son, his pitch black and he's got

his sunglasses on. And he was, you know, nice character, but yeah, definitely a little bit odd. And he sparked up the, he sparked up the older gas torch and just blasted it in front of us and sort of cooked the meat a little bit. And then he sticks it in your mouth, then he does all that. He sticks it in your mouth for you. Hey, big time. Oh, Salt Bay. I imagine him, you know, you know, he does the salt like that. So it sort of almost goes down his arm. I imagine him with the blowtorch doing that and just like scorching, scorching all his hair. It's hard as nails, mate. It's hard. I reckon he could take that easy. He's hard as nails. Man, you saying the prawn tempura within the sushi has made me really want to go. That sticks in sushi. They do, I can't,

I don't know what the particular one's called. It's got the word devil in it, but it's prawn tempura and the actual tempura part of it is just so perfectly crispy and like got bubbles in it. Like that bubbly kind of tempura texture and then there's the, they got on the outside of the sushi is tuna and then like on top is like this sauce. I think there's even a little bit of avocado on the top. Everything about it is perfect and I could eat it forever and I really, I really want it. That's a good mouthful of food. Yeah. The textures and flavours in sushi, but bearing in mind, when, you know, my sushi experience was like M&S meal deal or like BP or like, you know, it was a supermarket sushi in a little plastic box. So when I first went to like Nobu in Malibu

or Zuma in London, I was like, Oh my God, this is what sushi should taste like. And it's a real craft, isn't it? When you watch them cutting the fish and the quality of the foods and ingredients, like it's a whole new world. That's why when I come out of lockdown and get to go to a restaurant, like the first thing I want to do is go and eat sushi because it's something that I can never make as good as the chef's can. And they spent years obviously doing it. Do you know, like earlier on, I was thinking something. I was thinking of someone that you looked like, right? You tilted your head a certain way. And I was like, I never realised Joey looks like that person. And I didn't say it because I thought he might get it all the time or whatever. And then,

because we're talking about sushi, I think this is relevant. So here we go. I think from an angle, you look a bit like David Tennant from an angle, right? Just a little bit like David Tennant. David Tennant. Is he the Doctor Who guy? Yeah. I saw David Tennant once on Room 101, try and put sushi into Room 101. And the way that his argument for it, it was really full on, like all the things he doesn't like about sushi, he doesn't trust it, he thinks it's disgustily in raw fish and stuff like that. Oh, no. And now I'm like, now in my mind, you and Tennant are like twins, but like, he's the evil twin. You know what I mean? I've never had that. I was in India once and this woman was like, you really remind me of Richard Hammond. And I was like, what,

the little fellow off of, um, talking? She's like, yeah, I was like, all right, thanks. But yeah, no, I get, people that say I look like Jon Snow and, you know, they go pole dark geezer a little bit. I've never heard anyone say like David Tennant. So, well, with your hair tied back like you got today, it's the, if your hair was, uh, as, as we're used to seeing it, I wouldn't have fought the Tennant thing. But now I'm thinking you, Tennant, Richard Hammond, have a sitcom, your brothers. I feel like since the Richard Hammond moment, any look alike for you is not insulting, right? Yeah. So like David Tennant, you'll take that, especially after you've been told you look like the hamster. Yeah. I like Richard Hammond, but I didn't, I don't think I

look like him. But yeah, fair play to him. Yeah. Yeah. Fair play to him for looking like that. We come onto your drink now. Which is of course the final course. The final course of this episode. Well, I hope you, I hope you like, uh, fruity drinks because I'm a, I really love fruity cocktails and stuff. So like, I'm not just someone who likes to sort of, someone on the rocks or just like a whiskey or something. I like saying fruity. So I like tall drinks with loads of ice. If I was on holiday, it would be a, what's that cream? What's that creamy drink? Pina colada. Pina colada. Yeah. Pina colada, little umbrella, like cherry on top. That would be my favorite, like summer holiday drink. But if I was in

London in a restaurant, I'd probably go passion fruit mojito, believe it or not. I don't know why I was so trepidatious at the start of this episode. Joe Wicks is my dream guy. Yeah. You're so worried. He's basically picked what you would pick. Pina coladas. I love Pina coladas. Joe Wicks. Yeah. On holiday, I hit them up, but it's like drinking a can of condensed milk. They're really thick, aren't they? Like you've got the coconut and the pineapple juice. I prefer them with evaporated milk. Yeah. Use evaporated milk or you could use powdered milk, but either way, it's all about that level of cream. And I just love them. But yeah, like it's like having a breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Every time I have one of them,

putty, God knows how many calories in them, but I got drunk on them for drunk history. Have you heard of that show, drunk history? When comedians get drunk and then have to retell a story from history and then people act out what the drunk version was. Me and Ed have both done that show. And when I went on it, I just thought, I'm just going to drink loads of Pina colada. That'll be funny. And they took me to a weather spoon. And you got wasted. This jug after jug of Pina colada. I didn't feel any effects of it. And then we walked to the studio and I was like, oh, this is the most drunk I've ever been in my life. But now I have to remember some history story. I don't really know very well. I had 11 double gin tons. Good lad. I had a few drinks. I had done

celebrity juice and I was so nervous. I just didn't, I felt really out of my comfort zone like just not what I do. And I, I went on then I thought I'm going to have a few drinks and I was drinking in the changing rooms, getting ready and all that in the little back room. And then I got out and I was just like, I'm gone. And I just, yeah, that, because I keep bringing you gin and tonics like top, top, got big ones topping up. And I was, yeah, I was well, well boozy, mate. But with that sort of show, you've got to be drunk. They make the the silliest things. Yeah. I think you have to be, my fiance was a runner on that show years ago. And they make all the runners test the games. And I got a call from her at lunchtime once I was like, you're

right. She's like, yeah, yeah, a bit of a bit of a rough morning. I was like, what, what's happened? She was like, yeah, they, they played a game where they maybe put our onion barges down my trousers and then they, they all threw poppadooms at me. I was in charge that day. It was it's choice between that game or another one with bread. That was it. That was my, my two options, whether we put croutons down their pants and throw my gets up. That was the other one. How do you feel that we made Joe do his dessert first, James? Because I know you love dessert. So if anything, that's your big closer normally, but now we've, we've ended on the drink. No, no, because normally sometimes we get to desert and there's not much time to really delve

into it. And it was just so nice to hear. Also, you know, look, I said, I was going to be tense otherwise. I was going to be tense. There was no need to be there. Was there no need to be, but we're ending on a lovely pudding anyway. We're ending on this sweet passion fruit mojito. That's lovely and sweet. Also, like again, these, the cocktails are like mojitos and pina coladas. You know, daiquiris are frozen daiquiris. I want to put like the berries and they sort of blend up. I like that. I just like, I don't like drinks. You know, when you get a cocktail and it comes in one of those little like gimlet glasses where it's just like a liquid and a little bit. I just, I want all the ice. I want it to be tall, loads of stuff hanging out of it,

like shards of like cucumber and passion fruit and like a whole grapefruit. I mean, I want to tell, I want to have bits I can put out of it. So for me, like daiquiris and mojitos are really, are really good for that. And they're fresh. Have you thought about this, Joe, doing a late night workout, but you've had a couple of gin tons and a couple of passion fruit mojitos and you just do like a pissed workout. I mean, I've, you know, I farted live on, you know about the fart? The fart, yeah? I actually didn't know about that. So I broke wind just before I went live on a YouTube video and that was me sober. If I've had a drink and I've had, I've steamed for a few gin and tonic and I've had a little currer and a biryani and I've

had a bolty or something like, it's all going to go down in a minute. I can't risk, I couldn't be safe to say, like me doing a squat or a burpee or crunching with that kind of, that kind of stuff going around your tummy is going to be conducive to a live workout. I think it's a gap in the market, though. And like, I think people would watch that, not doing the workout themselves. They just put their feet up and watch that, like, you know. It could be quite, it could be quite funny. Yeah. I mean, I've got a sit call. I've got a rule, really. When I'm out with my friends, like, I just don't do social media and I'm drunk. Because, you know, everyone, well, I do, I think I'm really funny and I think I'm really cool and I'll do

things. And I just know that when I've got my phone on me, like, I just deactivate and just don't get on there. Because I don't want to be like this plonker that wakes up the next morning going, oh, what an idiot. What have I done that for? So I leave it. I leave the social media stuff until I'm awake and alive the next morning. Well, I'll film it then. I'll film it on mine. Yeah, Ed will film. Well, Ed, why don't you start doing drunken workouts? I could do, actually. I take wicks on at his own game. I can do drunken workouts. I'm already clumsy enough. I already fall over and I try and do the splits and I head butt the ceiling. I'm just not that coordinated. So for me to do it drunk, I mean, it would just

be terrible. But the dance, the silly Billy would be good because I, when I, when I have the music playing and I'm, I'm in that moment, I just get lost. I think if I had a few drinks, I'd proper like go for like breakdancing and backflips and all that sort of stuff. Hang on, have any of you two ever done one of my workouts or told you in lockdown or anything? Nope. No, I've, I've seen him. I've, I've never made the actual step to that actually work out. I have been exercising, Joe, though. Don't worry. I have been doing it. I've been trying yoga for the first time in my life and doing that and then hula hooping as well. You sound like David Brent there. He's like, just started yoga.

Yeah. Also, I was going to say last year, I fought in front of an entire TV crew just to make you feel better. The crew, that's light. That's not live, is it? No, but I was very nervous. It's my first, it's my first like, it was very small part in a film. First thing I've ever done like that. I was very, I was like, oh, it's great. And the first thing we had to do, we had to crouch down and the scene started with us jumping in the air and landing on our feet in front of everybody. And, and there's three of us. And we're all there, crouched down three comics and then they show action and we jumped up and we landed and then

I did a really big loud fart straight away. And because, because they didn't shout cut, they just, we had to carry on doing the scene while I was there going, oh no. All those people heard that. There's a guy there with earphones on and a microphone. He definitely heard it. Yeah. Oh, it's a great way to just to break the ice and just to break, well, break wind and just settle into it. I thought that putty, that putty made everybody laugh. They didn't, let's be honest. Yeah. I wish I'd laughed in front of me though, because that let me know definitely the laughter

was happening elsewhere. Oh yeah. 100%. And that'll be the take they use as well. Yeah. It'll be your own, everything else will be cut from the film and it'll just be no lines and just your scared eyes and you've clearly just farted. Oh no. So we're looking forward to that. Yeah. Well, yeah, it's going to be great. I'd be fine if that's the only bit that makes it in actually. Joe, I think that's a great menu. Absolutely love that menu. I think it's great. I'm going to read it back to you, Joe. And you tell us how you feel about it. Yeah. It's a little swap than water. You want a gin tonne, an early gin tonne at that.

Fever tree tonic, a few raspberries and blueberries in there. Dessert, sticky toffee pudding with extra toffee sauce and vanilla ice cream. Problems of bread, sourdough bread with orange marmalade. Yes, please. Starter, crispy calamari and a truffle arancini with alioli. Can we get the sizes on those, please, James? Yep. Truffle arancini is so it can fit within a golf ball and crispy calamari so it can fit around the arancini. Yes. Main course, gourmet wagyu beef burger for flat iron with steak and truffle parmesan fries. You would like the maple cooked crispy bacon and barbecue sauce on a brioche bun with that burger. Side dish, spicy tuna sushi, yellowtail and prawn tempura with crispy onions, wasabi

and soy sauce. Drink, this is to finish, a passion fruit mojito. I tell you what, I do not know what I was worried about. Every single bit of that, I would gobble up and be absolutely delighted. Including, and this is rare, just the poppy-dums or bread course. Usually, I like poppy-dums, I like bread, but actually I really want some bread with marmalade now and I've got some marmalade. You're a shredhead, right? I'm a shredhead, Joseph's shredhead, Ed's a shredless wonder. What did you think? What were you imagining? Were you like, oh, this guy's going to be boring and have like quinoa and rice salad and just like boring? No, not necessarily that, but like in the past we've had, so Joel Domet, who's probably the

healthiest friend of ours, he picked a protein shake. Yeah, physically, mentally is a mess. He picked a protein shake for his drink. Really? I met Joel at soccer aid. Yeah, he's a lovely boy. You missed your opportunity to punch him. I'll get him next time. Yeah. He chose a protein shake as his favourite drink. Yes. Oh, come on. You're getting a protein from all the other stuff. Don't waste it on a protein shake. Exactly. Joel, before you thought you'd be the first person to be in this corner, absolutely not yet another person who hates it. But interestingly, last time I saw Joel and I went out for a meal with him, he had a passion fruit martini as his drink. So he's going up in the

world. Yeah. What I love about this menu is when I look at it, I know that I've married the right woman because Rosie, that's exactly like Rosie's dream menu too. That we go out together. We would share everything. We just literally go halves, right? So if we do like burger, she'll get chicken burger, I'll get beef burger, but all of those sides and then drinks and stuff, she would just be all over that like a rash. That sounds like a nightmare to me, Joe. I'll be honest. Oh, you don't like sharing at dinner? Ed doesn't like that. Deliberately pick things that my fiance doesn't like so I can eat all of it and then really hope that she's too full to eat all of hers as well so I can polish off hers. That works too, yeah. Yeah. Kind of works as a very sad life

that Ed's got, but you know, fair enough. Each their own. Thank you, Joe. Thank you very much for coming into the Dream Restaurant, Joe Wicks. It's been lovely and I hope that one day I get to meet in person and we can actually have this meal because that would be a good old dinner, wouldn't it? Let's go to Flatiron together. You text ahead. We'll all go down and get a burger each. Perfect. And then we can do a workout. Well, there we are. Thank you very much to Joe Wicks for coming in. Sorry, we fried you so bad. Thank you, Joe. I hope you didn't mind that fry in the Ed delivered there all the way through. Delicious menu. I'd be very happy with that menu. Thank you.

Yes, please. If that kind of stuff's in Joe Wicks' family food, let me tell you, I'm eating with my family again. I'd speak into them again. James, you didn't seem fully on board with my idea of doing a sort of drunk late night workout, so would you be up for doing that with me? I feel like there's a real gap in the market. Sure, Ed. As I said, I did drunk history. It can't be any different. I'll sink a few pina coladas and then let out a few guffs and do some workouts with you. Be sick everywhere during a plank. Oh, that'd be great. That really motivates you to keep the plank going because if you go down, you're going to end up in all the sick if you stay there for longer. Don't forget Joe's book, Joe's Family Food is coming out tomorrow on the 10th of June.

It's food for the family. Go and buy it, whether you've got a family or not, I guess. I guess it's just great food. Ed, am I right in thinking this is the last episode of the series? You are correct in thinking that. What a lovely time we've had on series five. We'll, of course, be back with another series, but I'd just like to thank all of the guests who we've had and all of you great listeners. I'd like to thank the great bonito. I'd like to thank no context off menu, but most of all, James, of course, I'd like to thank Bleedsdale. Bleedsdale. Thank you, little boy. What a great series this has been and Joe, what, we've already recorded a load for the next series and it is looking like a fry fest.

It's piping hot. Thank you very much for listening. We will see you again soon. Goodbye. Hello there, listeners. Can we recommend you a new podcast? It's been going for three years, but it'll be new if you listen to it now. My name's Stevie. My name's Dessa. And we host the Nobody Panic podcast, which is all about how to be a functioning adult without consistently screaming and or crying all the time. Although crying is okay. Crying is good. Listen to our episode on how to cry at work. It's all kinds of different how-tos from how to be creative to how to concentrate to how to begin a small talk. Thank you, Stevie. We bring our experience, which is sort of minor, and then we get experts in

to really give the advice. We release podcasts every Tuesday. It's on Apple Podcast, Acast, Spotify, basically wherever you get your podcasts. We're there. We're there. We're ready to impart not our advice necessarily, but the advice of others to help you get through your day and your life. Are we selling it yet? I'd like to say that we're much better in the podcast than we are on this advert. Please do come over and check what we're like on the real thing. Oh, yeah. You'll be pleasantly surprised. Hello. It's me, Amy Gladhill. You might remember me from the best ever episode of Off Menu, where I spoke to my mum and asked her about seaweed on mashed potato, and our relationship's

never been the same since. And I am joined by... Me, Ian Smith. I would probably go bread. I'm not going to spoil it in case... Get him on, James and Ed, but we're here sneaking in to your podcast experience to tell you about a new podcast that we're doing. It's called Northern News. It's about all the news stories that we've missed out from the North because, look, we're two Northerners, sure, but we've been living in London for a long time. The news stories are funny. Quite a lot of them crimes. It's all kicking off, and that's a new podcast called Northern News we'd love you to listen to. Maybe we'll get my mum on. Get Glill's mum on every episode. That's not all the news. When's it out, Ian? It's already out now, Amy! Is it? Yeah,

get listening. There's probably a backlog. You've left it so late.