Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster - Ep 162: Matt Lucas

Episode Date: September 14, 2022

Do be happy, don't be sad – when you listen to this week’s episode of the Off Menu podcast with special guest, Matt Lucas. Matt Lucas hosts ‘The Great British Bake Off’ which is on Tuesdays, 8pm, Channel 4. Watch it here. Follow Matt Lucas on Twitter and Instagram @RealMattLucas 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? Welcome to the Off Menu podcast, pouring half a pint of the lager of the internet, topping it up with half a pint of the cider of friendship, adding a dash of blackcurrant of humour and sipping down the snake bite of the podcast. Did you say I'm a snake there? I'm a snake or I'm a snake? I'm the snake. I'm the snake. I thought you said apple steak, first of all. Apple steak. That's what I do, the off menu catch phase. Apple steak. Oh, apple steak. Whatever anyone makes of me and they're good. Choice on the off menu podcast. We go, oh,

apple steak. As if our guests need to feel any more alienated from us. Yeah, that's constantly throwing out references that only the listeners would get. Oh, apple steak. Also just interviewing anyone now. If anyone says something that I know you're just going to enjoy the sound of, or a word that I know that you'll think's funny, just look at you straight away. Yeah. Or what me and Benito started doing. If you use a word, James, that we've never heard you use before, like an interesting word, we look at each other like, oh. Oh, we're well done. Yeah. That is what chip to all podcasters actually keep everyone's expectations of you so low that your co-host and producer will go, oh, well done. Whenever

you use a word, they know that you do. Yeah, because it's always a word that we know. Yeah, you guys know it. You'll be like, well, well done. And they used it in the podcast. Also, you'll notice that every time either me or James asks a good question, the other one will always compliment them on the question. Yeah, good question. Well done. I would like, you know, listeners now, if you make a particularly nice meal or you go out for dinner and, you know, the plate comes along and it looks delicious. Film yourself next to the food going, oh, apple steak. Apple steak. Tweet it to At Off Menu official. Please do. We'd absolutely love that. But enough of this. This is the Off Menu podcast. Ed and I, we own a dream

restaurant. We invite a guest in every single week. We ask them their favorite ever start a main course dessert, side dish and drink, not in that order. And this week, our guest who is Matt Lucas. Matt Lucas. Matt Lucas. Are we, are we edging into potentially Nash Trudge? Well, yeah, he doesn't need an introduction. That's for sure. We're going to give him one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, George Dawes on Shooting Stars. Oh my goodness. That seems like ages ago. Bake Off now, of course. Incredible stuff. You know, very exciting. A new series of Bake Off starting soon, of course. Yeah. My, of course, I competed against Matt in Bake Off. You did. Because someone, are they remaining nameless? I believe, no,

I believe, I believe in the, within the canon of Bake Off. I don't, I don't know who it was. He dropped out, but in the intro, they said it was Barack Obama. So let's just stick with that. Wow. That would have been a big head if you'd been up against Barack. Well, I was happy to be up against Matt, actually, because I love Matt. I think he's great and it was good to go head to head with that guy. Yeah. Are you feeling okay? Him coming in now? Is it an old enemy? Well, I feel, neither of us won is the thing. So I don't feel aggrieved with that. Stupid example one. I thought I came second. But then when we had Paul Hollywood in the dream restaurant, he did seem to suggest that Matt did very well as well. So I think

I might have come third. I beat stupid, I beat stupid Annie Mack. Should have asked Paul Hollywood if I came second or not. I didn't get to ask him that. I think we know you did. Yes, we do know we did. But listen, hey, he's on the podcast. We're excited about that. Sure. But as always, if someone does choose a secret ingredient, ingredient that we don't like most of the time, then we will kick them out the dream restaurant. Now, this week, we've not gone for one we don't like. No. But we have gone for one that is relevant to Matt. Yes. And maybe this is even quite cruel, because maybe it will result in him getting kicked out. But we couldn't resist choosing the secret ingredient this week.

Apple steak. What? Apple steak. Baked potato. Baked potato. Thank you, baked potato. Also, though, I think if he says apple steak, we should kick him out as well. Yeah. Okay. Fine. Fair enough. But just because, you know, just because it's the first, this is the first appearance of apple steak on the podcast. So we could get rid of him. But like, you know, he does the song Thank You, Baked Potato. It's a classic song. Everyone loves it. So I think it would be, you know, just quite fitting. Very fitting. Well, when we had Mike Skinner in, I believe we did, was it Plenty of Fried Tomatoes? I think. Yeah, we did Plenty of Fried Tomatoes and Mike Skinner. I mean, Baked Potato is a popular dish. If you ask Tom Davis, it's the best of the potatoes.

Yeah, but that guy. Yeah, yeah. He was wrong. He was wrong. But then again, he was also right about other things. That's true. I want to thank Tom Davis for shouting out Hitchens Barn. Yeah. Because I went there for a meal on his recommendation, and it was absolutely delicious. So a little bit of a shout out there. You had the souffle of the day? I had the souffle of the day. It was mind blowing. Actually, Joe, every course was mind blowing. I had a rhubarb trifle for dessert, which absolutely blew my socks off. Yeah. Had some delicious lamb for main course with these amazing potatoes. It was such a good meal. So, yeah, I would second that. We don't have to do a little dinner round-ups, do we? No, no. But just because we mentioned,

Tom, it just reminded me that one of the absolute perks of this podcast, and there are many, that we get little food wrecks from the guests. And I don't know about you yet. When I'm sitting in a restaurant that's been shouted out on the podcast by a guest, I get extra excited. I don't know how the listeners feel. If they ever do that, they go to somewhere where it's been recommended on the pod. But I'm always there, and it feels extra special that I'm at somewhere that got recommended on the pod. I tell you what, Shaq for you the other day popped in, of course I do. Always going in. Love it to bits. Still great. Went in there the other day. We sat on a table. There were two other tables

either side of us. One table got up to leave, came over and went, love the podcast. That's the reason why we're here. We had such a good meal. They loved. And then we went to leave, and the table that was on the other side of us went, love the podcast. That's the reason we came here. Oh, man. We've got to get shares in that place. We've got to get shares in that place. Got to get shares there. I mean, you know, I love going there still. And every time I go there, there's somebody who says that. Yeah. And I'm like, hold on a second. I'm looking around. The fuck is this? So let's see if Matt Lucas recommends some restaurants, then we can go and get excited about it. Please. Before we get into the episode, I want to say that I am back

on tour September to November, back doing my show Electric all over the country, 35 more dates, including a massive date, the Hammersmith Apollo on the 22nd of October, edgamble.co.uk for tickets, going loads of places, Manchester Opera House, Dublin Vickers Street, Belfast Ulster Hall, Glasgow Pavilion, to name but a few, edgamble.co.uk for tickets. Also, my brand new book has just come out, James A. Cass's Guide to Quit and Social Media, Being the Best Jew You Can Be and Curing Yourself of Loneliness, Volume 1. It's available now, wherever you get your books. I'm very proud of it. It's the silliest book I've ever written. Ring-a-ding-ding. Ring-a-ding-ding. But for now, here's the off-menu menu of Matt Lucas.

Welcome, Matt, to the Dream Restaurant. My pleasure. Welcome, Matt Lucas, to the Dream Restaurant. I've been expecting you for some time. It's exciting to have you in the Dream Restaurant to pick your dream meal. Thank you. Is it really exciting? I'm excited. If it's just me and you're excited, your levels of excitement, they're quite low levels of excitement. I'm quite gettable. Well, we've had way more gettable people. Are you excited to be in the Dream Restaurant? I am excited to be here because obviously, I've met you before. Ed and I enjoy your work,

and your comic stylings, comedic stylings. But I'm a big fan of James as well, and I don't think I've ever met you. We've never met? No. So, it's nice to know that I was coming here to see you, and I was going to meet you, and I was going to be in the vicinity of the Great Benito. So, those three things together. Very exciting. All three of those are exciting. By the way, I don't think I've ever said that I enjoy your comedic stylings. I don't know what you know that I do. Thank you very much. I also enjoy your comedic stylings. Thank you. I enjoy your comedic stylings.

Well, I just enjoy comedic stylings. Yeah. They're good. I like stylings, but I love comedic stylings. Comedic stylings. My favourite sorts of stylings. Got a least favourite styling? Hair styling, because I don't have hair. So, do you actively hate other people styling their hair because you don't have any? I hate other people. You're going to fit in really well here.

Can I open my can of drinks? I just quite like to have some. Yeah. Definitely open the can of drinks. Here we go. Oh, yeah. Wow. That was a real problem. I'll tell you what, they can use that on Radio 4 or something. Yeah. Because that was proper stuff. That was ASMR. That problem sounded like a can opening. So, you hate other people?

I'm not wild about them. Hates are strong words. With your dreams. I don't like other people. Yeah. With your dream meal, are you eating that alone? Yes. Yes. Well, actually, I hadn't thought about whether I would eat it with anybody. Yeah, I'll probably have it on my own. Yeah, why not? It's nicer, isn't it?

I think that's probably 50-50 with our guests, really. I think a lot of people like to just eat alone. I'm the same as well. I quite like, if I'm having a massive meal, if I'm really going to town, I don't want anyone else to eat alone. I like to eat alone. I like to go to the theatre alone. I like to have sex alone. The big three. The golden triad.

I think we can tell, for my guests, when they say they want to eat alone, or they really want to eat with people, and we can tell how well they did during lockdown. That's my theory. I was all right, although I put on so much weight, I thought I'd no longer be able to fit on the TV screen. So then I lost some weight, but I basically made roast potatoes every night. And I made them, I started making them in different shapes. Because you don't, I mean, roast potatoes are just,

you don't really get sort of busy with different shapes of roast potatoes. It's not a thing. So I started doing that, and I started, I got an apple corer, and then I started coring the roast potatoes just to see. So you have like cylindrical roast potatoes. Yeah, cylindrical roast potatoes. So this is what I do, right? So I'd use the apple corer, right, so that I'd get roast potatoes that were like the shape of,

were like a pipe shape, like a tube. But then I'd also roast what was left, which was a potato with a giant hole in it. Yeah, like a donut. Yeah, like a donut. Yeah, like an oblong donut. So a deep donut. Would you then put anything in the hole in the middle?

You could, I guess, put some other ingredients in the middle. I should have done. And had I carried on on this journey, I'm sure I would have even put other potatoes inside those potatoes. Pipes of mash in there. That's where I was going. But once I realised I was sort of making roast potatoes in different shapes, I realised I had a problem.

Yeah. And that's when January 2021, when I stopped with the roast potatoes and all those things. But yeah, it was good times. Greasy, I took in a lot of grease. Yeah, yeah, a lot of grease. Well, especially if you're like coring the potato, what you're doing is you're actually increasing the surface area for the grease to attack.

That's right, well, that was the whole, that was the aim. On the inside and the outside. I thought these arteries are a bit large. They need clogging. We always start with still sparkling water. Still water for me, thanks. I don't know what it is about sparkling water. It just has a not a very nice taste.

It's, I don't know what it does, but the bubbles change the taste. Am I alone in that? No, you're definitely not alone in that. I think some people seem to be able to taste it and some people, it's a bit like the coriander thing or the cucumber thing. Asparagus. What's the cucumber thing? Some people don't like the taste of it.

Some people can taste some sort of chemical in there or something. I'm not wild about it. It's more about the, I don't like the sort of alarming, incongruous change of texture that happens when you're eating cucumber and you get to the middle of the cucumber. I don't like that. It's unsettling. Yeah. Well, the apple corer could come in very handy with the cucumber then.

Yes, but I only have so much time and I'm busy hollowing out roast potatoes. What else do you think you'd like to use the apple corer on? Not an apple. Well, actually I'm allergic to apples. I'm allergic to raw apples. So who got you an apple corer then? I ordered one myself. Specifically for the potato experiment.

Well, you should have included that detail because that's way more trashy. Yeah, because I don't, well, because there is no, I don't think there's such a thing as a potato corer. No, sorry. Yeah, yeah. So I'm anaphylactic with raw apples. Wow. Yeah, but I've realised that I'm all right with cooked apples.

So I have a lot of McDonald's apple pies. Yeah. I mean, I think they're quite nice. You like them. You got George Egg to pimp one up for you. Yes, I did. Yeah. I did.

On Snack Hacker. On the Snack Hacker, George Egg's Snack Hacker, which if the listeners haven't watched that, should watch it. It's on YouTube, I think. Yeah. And you wanted him to pimp up a McDonald's apple pie. Yeah, and I did say to him, you don't really need to pimp them up because they're very nice already,

but he did. Yeah. Yeah, difficult for the format if he just presented you with an apple pie. I don't know. They're pretty good. They're pretty nice. I've not had one for years, but I do remember them being very, very nice,

apart from the obvious issue that everyone talks about with the McDonald's apple pie, which is if you bite into them too early, your mouths are right off. Yeah. I think what they're doing is relying on the fact that you're buying savoury first. And so that apple pie is going to sit there for six minutes before you get into it. Would you do that? Or would you go specifically to McDonald's for the apple pie and tuck straight in? Yeah, more likely just for the apple pie.

I mean, I don't have it very often now, but in my youth, I'd have it as often as once or twice a year. I don't think anyone's actually ordering a full, you know, multiple course meal at McDonald's. You're not getting a main course and a dessert. I'll get a burger and then for dessert, I'll have the apple pie. I think most people are just going in for one thing, aren't they? No, why don't we know what you're going in for?

What's your... Tell Matthew McDonald's order. What's your junk of choice? Wow. It's not even junk. This is the problem. Well, Matt, I mean, there's context required here. Because I've only ever really been in McDonald's in the last few years, when it's really, really late at night.

And I don't want to feel guilty. And I end up getting the grilled chicken wrap and a bag of carrots. Is that the healthiest thing you can get there? Yeah, yeah, I think so. That's what it was. And a lot of people who listen to this podcast absolutely disgusted with me. I forgot your body was a temple. Thank you. Take your shoes off.

I mean, to be honest, the things that... My actual favourite things at McDonald's are the nuggets. The chicken nuggets. Yeah, they're good. And the milk chips. The chicken nuggets. The chicken nuggets. These are things.

So I don't... I haven't been in McDonald's for a while, but I've had occasionally had them on Uber Eats. But then they obviously arrive just a bit dry and cold. Like the nuggets are crying, you know, because they know that they're not at their peak. So I think probably, as grand as those delivery services are, you probably have to go into a McDonald's, don't you? You have to have it fresh.

That's probably what I need to do. I haven't done that in a while. It'd be nice to put a McDonald's chicken nugget in a cord roast potato. Right, nice. That's got you, isn't it? Well, listeners, obviously can't see, but I've just come. Yeah, they heard it. They heard it.

Just like with the can. Yeah. In fact, Benito, if you could get the sound effect from the can earlier and just put it there in that bit so people can hear what... People can hear that's the same sound. Same sound both times. Pop it up, it's all bread. Pop it up, it's all bread, Matt Lucas.

Pop it up, it's all bread. Oh. Puppadums. Yeah. Yeah, Puppadums. I like a Puppadum. I like the little drop of grease as well. That's sort of dancing around the surface of the Puppadum.

It does dance, doesn't it? Yeah. I don't think we've ever talked about the little drop of grease before. Let's talk about it. I love the little drop of grease. I've got a question. What does a Puppadum look like before it's been deep fried? Is it one of those things that's like the size of a 2P coin

that then it massively expands? That's genuinely how I imagine it. You know, like in Back to the Future 2 where they're in the future and they get a tiny little pizza delivered and they put it in a rehydrating oven and it makes it massive. That's how I imagine a Puppadum being cooked. But it can't be, can it?

I've worked in kitchens and I've fried Puppadums. This is not from Fresh, though. Have you fried Puppadums? Is it? I've fried Puppadums. Yeah. I've put them in the deep frat fryer. Yeah.

Yeah. I wonder what that smells. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I've fried mini Puppadums as well. So mini Puppadums do start off, obviously, how you're talking and they end up like it as well. So, back to the Puppadums expand. And are they flat?

And then, because they've obviously got... Yeah, they're flat discs. There's like a fairly opaque in a way and then you chuck them in the fryer and then they puff up water. But they probably don't go in for that long, do they? Not that long. No, you want to be careful.

I've already told the story on podcasts, I think, about when the delivery man came in when I was frying Puppadums and sang a Puppadum soldier at me to the tune of Buffalo Soldier. But that was a good day. It's lovely to be reminded of that. Yeah.

Fair enough. Were you working in an Indian restaurant then? No, I was working in a little village pub. I can't remember why Puppadums on the menu. Probably Curry, though. It was a curry, yeah. Puppadum. Yeah, Puppadum.

Puppadum, when you're awake. That's good, this way. Let's start it. Let's open a Puppadum. Yeah, let's open a Puppadum. So, yeah, they're basically the same size, which is boring. I like Puppadums.

I really do like them. But I also think some of their appeal is just based on the pleasure you get from saying the word Puppadum. Yeah. That's part of it, isn't it? Yeah. You did a character that has a similar sign in name.

Pompidou. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's something about the P. Do you think Pompidou would ever have a Puppadum? Oh, yes. Yeah.

It's quite, it's the plosive P, isn't it? Yeah. P-p-dum. Yeah. Yeah. You really went for it there. Gosh, thank you. This is why, this is sometimes I wish

this podcast was filmed because you really went for it. Your lips, you didn't say what your lips said, but it was mad. They really vibrated in the air. It's like motion. I was the new Dizzy Gillespie in that moment, wasn't I? My cheeks just puffed. So yeah, I like, yeah, I don't mind a Puppadum.

Yeah. Okay. We'll bring those out. You're still watered. Thank you. I've got to be careful. Don't like, want to ruin my appetite by just grazing on Puppadum. But that's the good thing about a Puppadum is that you can

snap off a little bit and you can have a couple, a couple of shards and then you'll be fine. Whereas with bread, if that's brought over to me, I'm eating the whole loaf. Well, there is one bread that I love, which is the Jewish bread holler. Because I'm Jewish and that is a really rich, doughy, soft. When you get a really great fresh holler,

that's something else. Great, thick slices. Where do you get a good holler from in London? From a Jew. Top tip for the listeners. Top tip. Any Jewish place? Yeah, you get them in kosher bakeries and things like that.

Generally. Mark Spencers used to do holler. Really? In that shop in the one near... And what's the name of a station? Marlborough. Near Marlborough. Wow, that was amazing.

And Marlborough, near Marlborough station, so actually not far. And I don't do it in there anymore. It was great. They did really good soft holler. Do you pine for lost food? Yeah. Yeah. Big time.

We have a lot of guests pining on this pod. Sometimes they choose lost food as part of their menu. Just so they can fantasize that they would get it. And then... Yeah, well, like my desserts are lost food. Right. Things go away. Things get taken off the shelves or taken off menus.

And you think, was I the only person enjoying that? Is that why it's gone? Well, there's a thing that just came out not that long ago that's already disappeared, which were gravy pots where you... They're like from Bisto. Yeah. And you get like four of them. And I haven't found them.

They were available for like a day. And you just put them in the microwave. For 30 seconds or a minute. And then you've just got the gravy there. Right. You don't have to, you know, have the whole issue of adding the powder to the boiling water and getting the quantity wrong and all the lumps and bumps. It was just gravy.

So it's like a yogurt pot of gravy, basically. Yeah. That's nice. Would you be using it as gravy or would you add something? I'd use it as yogurt. Yeah. Just get this food and go for it. Yeah.

Like the lid. Lovely stuff. Well, no, they were quite good because if you were in the pandemic, if you were ordering a, I don't know, a McDonald's or something, and you wanted something to dip your chips in the pot, to kind of revive the fries, they would be quite good. Or you wanted something to put on your cord potatoes. Yes.

Or cylindrical potatoes. A cord potato, like upright, so that the plate, you know, makes it a bowl. Yeah. Fill it with gravy. Yeah. And then dip the other potatoes into that. That's good. This cord potato thing, is he making cylindrical potatoes?

Yeah. Tom Carridge's restaurant, The Hand and Flowers, it's a two Michelin star restaurant. Yeah. Their chips are cylindrical. Are they? So if anything, you're a Michelin star chef. Yeah.

I'm a double Michelin star chef. You're a double Michelin star chef, exactly. I always forget that about myself. Let's get on to your meal proper, your dream starter. Mutzables soup. I love a Mutzables soup, or Knadelach, as we call them. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yes.

Brian Wilson liked them a lot and was stopped. He's Dr. Landy, or Landy. Eugene Landy. Stopped him from having them. Really? Why? Because they were a sodium bomb. Are they?

That's what Landy said in the film I saw, when he was being played by Paul Giamatti. Oh, so you saw this in a film. I was trying to remember when we had Brian Wilson on the podcast. And he said Mutzables soup, but Dr. Landy won't let me have it. I saw Brian Wilson in concert a couple of times, and he's sort of, it's quite weird. He doesn't really have a relationship with his own songs.

This is a song called, and he's sort of reading it, God only knows. And he's sort of like reading it and straining his eyes to see what it is. And I'm like, well, not only is it classic, were you wrote it? Yes, it's yours. Mutzables soup, lovely.

Lovely. And I make it myself now. So I'd actually like rather obnoxiously and conceitedly to have my own Mutzables soup. Oh, absolutely. Well, it's chicken soup. It's like a consomme, is it? Very clear.

Yes, it's chicken soup. I mean, I can take you through the whole process. Please, please. Very dull. Oh, no. Our listeners will love it, because people can then go away and make it themselves. All right.

Okay. So this is what I recommend, right? Okay. What you need is, so I've got a giant pot, because I was making this every week, and it's a kerfuffle, right? And it's probably 36 hours before, from when you start making it to when you can eat,

really start eating it. And I was doing it every week, and then getting four portions out of it. And so, am I allowed to cough? Yeah. Okay, one sec. And then... Imagine if we said no.

Wow. And I was talking to my voice, which is a bit like this, as I've been holding in all the phlegm. You know, the power that we had on this pot. It's intense and very sexual. I bought a big 32-litre pot from Amazon. I really recommend Amazon, by the way.

Oh, yeah? It's very good. It's a website. And, yes, www. And is the dot, do you write out dot? You write out the word dot? The word dot. Yes.

Short for dot cotton. I used to do that terrible. I used to say the EastEnders website is www.eastenders.com. Yeah, that's funny. It'll never not be funny. Sorry, I mean, it'll never be funny. So, I buy this big pot from Amazon,

and then I go to Panzer's Delicatessen in St. John's Wood, because there you can buy not just chicken, you can buy kosher chicken, right? But also boiler chicken. So, what you're actually buying is quite an old chicken, which is quite lean, doesn't have a lot of meat on it, because it's really all about the bones.

And the giblets and all that kind of stuff. So, what I do is I've got this big pot, and then what some people do is they put the water in, and they bring the water to a boil with the chicken in the pot, and then they skim the surface, because all that foam, that coagulant, if you have a boiled chicken in water,

it foams up like a matey bubble bath, but a kind of rancid matey bubble bath, right? Rancid matey, yeah. And some people skim that foam off, but what I don't do that, what I do is I decant the chicken into another pot, because I don't want any of that. So, the first 20 to 30 minutes of the boil,

actually, you just see all the grease on top and everything, and the foam and everything, I'm just like, don't want that. Get rid of that, yeah. And that, I think, is when Vietnamese people make pho, I always say pho, but it's... It's pho, yeah. Pho, or Japanese people make ramen.

I don't think they skim off the top. They decant into another pot, right? Which is why the broth is kind of clear and lighter that way. So, what's going on is, in the main pot, while the chicken is having its first 20 to 30 minutes being brought to the boil to get rid of the foam and the first bit of fat, in the small pot, in the big pot goes everything peeled carrots,

celery, onion, spring onion, leek, sometimes, swede, parsnip, yeah, those things, right? But I bought these things, again, off amazon.com, called soup socks, which are small nets, right? That you wear while you're cooking. That you wear... They're small nets, and you put all your vegetables into a net, and then you tie up the top.

So, it's like a sort of stocking with all the veg in it, right? And what that means is that the veg doesn't sort of soften so much and sort of distributes around the soup. It keeps it all together. And also means that at the very end of the soup, you can take out just one big sort of sock of veg rather than you're trying to sort of slowly scoop out bit by bit by bit. What you're doing with the sock of veg after you take it out?

Right, so we're not there yet. Slap some of it? So, I do, well, I'll tell you. Once the chicken has coagulated, that's added to the main soup. So, we've got a giant pot with a whole chicken in, sometimes two chickens, right? And loads and loads and loads and loads and loads of vegetables in a sock. Then I add some salt, and I add some pepper,

add a tiny bit of brown sugar, and I add some Maggie seasoning. You know, Maggie seasoning? It's sort of a bit like soy sauce. If you don't have any Maggie seasoning, put a bit of soy sauce in. And then I do add a bit of a cheat, some Osem chicken powder, which is like a sort of powdered stock. And I add a bit of that for flavour. And then I kind of let it all simmer.

I bring it to the boil and I let it simmer for several hours. Oh, nice. Several hours. And then at the end of that, I take it off the stove and I let it cool down overnight. And then the next day, and it's quite good actually, if you make this in winter or when it's a cold day, because the next day you come and hopefully,

the top of the soup has sort of hardened a little bit, the fat has risen to the top and hardened, and then you skim all that off, takes a little while, and that's your soup. But what I don't do is use all those kind of mushy veg. What I'll do is I'll boil new vegetables, put it in the soup, when I'm having the soup. And that is the most boring five minutes of your life.

No, it's really not though, because I was there with you while you were making it. This is the bread and butter of this podcast. Yeah, and I freeze it, so then I put it into portions and I freeze it and I might get 25 portions of that and I'll do that in October and that's my soup for the winter. And it's good for about six months. And then after that, it's not as good.

You can still eat it, but it's just not as good. So, and then I'll make muzzables, which are the great lovely sort of carb of the soup. And I'll also add noodles, and then I will add carrot when I'm eating it and some chicken breast I'll add as well. This is great. It's good.

It's good. I was, the other day, I was thinking I need to learn some new recipes. I was looking through some cookbooks that we got in the flat and anything that was that kind of thing of like, do this, leave it overnight, do this for hours. And I was like, nope, I just go on to the next one. But then, yeah.

Yeah, that's the cookbook I like. And then I hear about what people do in it. I'm like, no, I bet that was good. Well, the thing is, the flip side of it is, if you can get a little, if you've got room somewhere for a chest freezer where you can store 25 portions that you've made in this giant pot or 30 portions even, then you just know, if you've made a good batch,

then you know you've just, that's you sorted for those winter nights. Yeah, muzzables before we move on. So, I mean, I feel like we should move on, but I feel like a lot of people who've been listening is going, what's the, what are muzzables? I feel like I have moved on. Muzzables are, okay.

So in the Jewish faith, and it is a faith because we don't know for sure if there is a God. Yeah. It can only be described as belief, kind of feeling. Yes. We don't know for sure. Yeah.

But faith is the best way. Faith is the best way. Jewish feeling, never. Jewish vibe. In the Jewish vibe. Yeah. It's a work of like, you know, religious people doing sermons and they go, I've got a feeling.

Yeah. I've got a feeling, you know, guys. I've got a vague sense. Yeah. I've got a feeling. I've got an inkling. Are you a part of the Jewish inkling? Yeah.

So there's an eight-day period called Pesach, the Passover, where because the Jews fled from slavery and they didn't have time for their bread to rise. So they ate unleavened bread. So during this eight-day period, you're not supposed to eat anything that has risen. So things like pasta, bread, rice, things that expand, things that grow.

So mutton balls are made from unleavened bread. So unleavened bread is obviously bread that didn't rise. It looks basically like Jacob's cream crackers. But what the mutton ball is, is if you imagine taking one of those crackers and turning it into the tiniest granules, and then adding some egg, basically, and some chicken fat and shaping them into little balls,

and then those balls set, and then you put those balls into a broth or soup and just boil them for a little while. And they are delicious. They're little sort of dumplings. They are delicious. Now, I make them. I kind of cheat.

I buy the premixed balls. That all you need to do is just add egg to them and then shake them into balls. And they are delicious. And most people like them really soft and tender. I like them hard like bullets. I just love them. I want to ruin the teeth.

I love them. But I also cheat and have noodles as well, which you're not supposed to have, obviously, during the Passover. But I lost my inkling quite a long time ago. So you can find noodles away. So, yeah, it's kind of conceited, but I'm bringing my own starter to the restaurant.

Do you think I'll be charged sort of soup corkage? Yeah, you might be. I'm not sure. Do we charge soup, Hitch? Do we charge soup? Normally we do. But then if it adds to the experience for you, we will. Yeah. We want you to, yeah.

Yeah, I tell you what we'll add to the experience is a really noisy fucking table next to me. Yeah, yeah. We can put some noisy people on there. Just noisy men in suits going... Like that. So causing everyone else to have to raise their volume in the restaurant.

Even though you're by yourself. I have once asked people to just, just, just, just turn the volume down in the restaurant. And they did. So much respect for that. They were so loud. And I hate loud people in restaurants, unless I'm the loud person,

in which case everyone can fucking deal with it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's not my problem. Yeah, you just have a good time in your friends. Yeah, get over it. Also, it's a story for them then, isn't it? They went to, it wasn't, they went to a restaurant,

there was a loud man, they went to a restaurant and Matt Lucas was being loud. Yeah. They went to a restaurant and Matt Lucas told him to turn the volume down a bit. Just, just, just, just take the edge of it, thanks. Let's get on to your dream main course. All right.

My dream main course is a specific chicken chow mein that I used to have when I was at university in Bristol. So I was at university and I used to do stand-up comedy as well. And so I had a little bit of money. Now, I wasn't like rich, but I had a little bit of money. And so, you know, instead of shopping in Summerfield, I would go to M&S for it and buy Angel Hair Pasta and things like that.

Now, near where I was staying in my halls of residence, there was a Chinese restaurant. It was quite a nice Chinese restaurant, very small. And they used to do a lunchtime offer, three courses, £4.95. Bear in mind, this is like 1993, 1994. And there was a very sort of stern faced man who I think was the only person in the restaurant in terms of, I think he took your order and he went and made your food,

I'm pretty sure. Yeah. And I don't know whether he had a kind of car parking space at the back, which was just in, which was situated a mound of MSG. I don't know what it was, but the chicken chow mein that he made was extraordinary. And I've never tasted anything as good since.

The downside was that I was almost always the only person in the restaurant. And I don't know if you've ever been to a restaurant for lunch, where you're like the only person there, but you generally feel apologetic that you're sort of causing them to have to work for very scant reward, right? Whereas you just think, like, if you weren't there, they'd actually be able to sit and read the TV times,

which is a better read than people realise. You don't need to watch TV to enjoy the TV time. So I'm putting that out there. Listings are fabulous reading. And that's rubbish, what I've just said. So ignore me. But I used to sit there and he used to place the food down and then he used to just sort of stand and sort of watch me eat

in a really sort of aggressive, irritated, just infuri that I had was taking up his time. For £4.95, right? For £4.95, three courses. The three courses were one spring roll, by the way, about four prawn crackers, this amazing chicken chow mein, and then a scoop of vanilla ice cream in one of those small sort of silver upturned cups, you know.

And you don't normally get that as a grown-up in a restaurant. Do you have one scoop of vanilla ice cream in one of those? I mean, when I was a kid, and I've talked about this before, but when I was a kid, I'd go to like the Wimpy with my mum, and one of those scoops of ice cream would come in one of those little cups. And my mum would do this thing, because actually, he wouldn't know it to look at me now, but I didn't eat much when I was a kid.

And my mum used to really have to sort of manufacture excitement when the food came. So when the ice cream came, she'd go, Matthew, look at that! What do you say? Matthew, look! Matthew! Did you say thank you to the man? Did you say thank you to the man?

Has he said thank you to you? Did you say thank you to the man? Two spoons, please. And then she'd sit and proceed to eat my dessert. And I'd go, like that. I was going to try and prompt you for that early, because I've heard you talk about that before. You've heard me do that before.

I love it so much. Matthew! Because I think that whenever I'm brought a dessert now, and sometimes I say it out loud, but I don't go everywhere, and I think Matthew. What do you say, Matthew? Did you say thank you to the man? So it was one of those scoops of ice cream,

but he'd just sit there and watch you and sort of wish death upon you while you ate. But the chicken chow mein was glorious. And when you were eating the chicken chow mein, were you showing how much you loved it, and was the man just watching you in ecstasy? Well, it was a weird thing, because normally if you're on your own in a restaurant,

you'd probably take in a newspaper to read, wouldn't you? Or some pornography at the very least. But you'd bring something in, wouldn't you? To just look at it. These days, you'd probably look at your phone, but you'd bring something in. But because he was sort of looking at me, I never ever felt that I could do that.

So I'd just sort of sit there. Would you reference it? Would you sort of look over and nod? Yes, I'd look over and I'd always say, it's delicious. And he'd just look at me like I was an even bigger asshole. And it was just a very strange experience. But the chow mein, to this day,

I've never tasted anything quite so delicious. And it must have been good if you kept going back, even though you knew this man would be sort of leering over you for the whole experience. Yeah, it wasn't the sexual thing. It wasn't sort of leering like... He didn't... He kept his trousers on. I think I meant looming rather than leering, actually.

Yeah, looming. He was looming. He was a loomer. He was a loomer. He was a loomer. Yeah, he was a late loomer. And... But he made up for it. Yeah, it was just a lot of staring.

Yeah. A lot of fury. Yeah. With the plate, you whipped away as soon as he'd finished it. Oh, yeah. Last bite, gone. Andy Kaufman was a bellboy, a busboy, rather, in restaurants, even when he was famous.

You know, the American comedian? Yes. He was such a sort of strange, quirky man. And his thing was to take people's food away before they'd finished it. And that was his... What he got his kicks from, which is very funny. That was very funny, yeah.

Yeah. When you had the man looking at you, would you have your mum's voice in your head of what do you say to them? Do you say thank you to the man? I just felt very threatened. But, yeah, it was a strange... It was a strange affair.

I don't think there are restaurants there anymore, but I think the man probably still is. He's still there, yeah. He's still there. The car park now, but he's stood in the middle. Just angry at customers for daring to patronize his establishment. It feels like the sort of thing you'd find out after you left university.

There was a Chinese restaurant there about 20 years ago. Yeah, exactly. Or it's just something like you go there one week and you go, oh, where's the Chinese restaurant gone? And somebody says there's never been a Chinese restaurant here. It's like the Shining. Yeah. You're just in there and he's...

Yeah, he worked there 100 years ago. It was good. I mean, the other restaurant I've been to, where the food was like slightly unexpectedly good, was the Walsy restaurant. So before it was the Walsy, it's been lots of different things. I think it was a car showroom.

I think it was a bank. But for about 18 months, it was a Chinese restaurant. And they used to do these pan-fried mushrooms there. And they were so extraordinary that I used to take all my dates there. And I used to think, well, if I don't get laid, at least I've got the pan-fried mushrooms.

And I never got laid, but I did get the pan-fried mushrooms. You always got the pan-fried mushrooms. They were delicious. And then to the date, did you just walk away going, jokes on you, I've got my pan-fried mushrooms? Exactly.

Well, yeah, it was... You shouldn't have told your dates that while you were eating the mushrooms. Yeah, that was probably why I left. It goes to them, jokes on you? Yeah. That's probably why I left a single man every meal. Yeah.

In fact, I think it's quite impressive if anyone goes on a first date and gets the phrase jokes on you. In there, anywhere and walks away with anything. Yeah, right, it's right. I'm slightly uneasy that I've used the phrase, get laid. Yeah.

It's a little bit sort of... It's a bit American-pied, it's a bit stiff, though, isn't it? It is, yeah. What I should have said is, get fucked. Get a bloody good fucking. Yeah.

I should have said that. But you said, get laid. That's my main course. Talk about lost dishes, actually, before we do move on. Like, that's one thing. The Shaq Fuyu mushrooms that they had when they first opened,

whatever sauce was on them was incredible. I really missed them not being on the menu. I've said it many times to the owners when I've been in. Yeah. I got one of those, because at one point they said to me, oh, we're changing the menu soon.

Anything from the past you want bought bugs? Like, yeah, those mushrooms, they went, yeah, no, we're not doing that. Okay. The Toban mushrooms, what they call the Toban mushrooms. Oh, my God. The best French fries I've ever eaten in my life

were from this restaurant called La Masseria in the theatre district in Manhattan. And I liked them so much, I wrote about them in my book, which shows how much time I've got on my hands. And I went there, two weeks ago, and they've stopped doing them. And they just said, oh, yeah,

people complained about them. I said, no one complained about them. I just thought you just can't be asked to do them anymore. They were soggy chips, hot soggy chips. And they were incredible. My people might complain. No. You just let them sound disgusting.

Were they deliberately soggy? Deliberately soggy chips, hot soggy chips. They were the best French fries I've ever tasted. They were a bit like, actually, five guys do hot soggy chips, and they're amazing. I find five guys fries quite crisp. But when they're in the bottom,

I guess the bottom of the bucket, if you're buying a bucket, they do, like, yeah. You say just the bottom lot, please. Hot, fresh soggy chips are better than crispy chips, I think. Do you think? Yeah. I think if you write about them in a book, then they should have to stay on the menu,

despite how many complaints are there. Yeah. Yeah. Did they know about the book? No, because who am I? But I'm not famoushler, dear. Have they made your dream side? Did your dream side dish your soggy chips?

No, no. So my dream side dish is Yorkshire pudding. Oh, yeah. Here we go. You've had a real pod splitter here, Matt. I don't like Yorkshire puddings. I love them. Well, screw you.

And also, let's face it, the rest of humanity loves them. And Ed is alone on this. I think, you know, whenever I see the New Year's honours list, just before Christmas, I always look, and I'm always surprised that Yorkshire pudding hasn't made its way on there. I respect it so much more than years on this list if they've started putting food on there.

Yeah. Yorkshire pudding, obviously. Yeah, obviously Yorkshire pudding. Yeah. And Dame Chicken Manuket. Maybe we'll go for a talky yesterday about... Oh, put that in, didn't it? Girlfriend.

Here he goes. All right, mate. Someone doesn't need the pan fried mushrooms. Yeah. Sometimes they do. Sometimes, yeah. Can I recommend Self-Love, actually? It's fabulous.

So go on, you and your girlfriend. There was a boy at my school, and there was one about 15, and he was the sort of handsome boy that lots of people fancied. And I remember, like, joking. He was my friend, and I kind of jokingly went... We were joking about something. I went, huh, you wanker. And he just went, I don't need to wank, Matt,

because I've got a girlfriend. And he said it so seriously. Absolutely. You love it. Oh, you must have lost your mind laughing at that. That made my day, isn't it? No, because I wasn't yet, like, laughing at things. You know, life's very serious when you're about 15, isn't it?

Things like that, especially. Really seriously. So to me, it was just like I was put in my place, is actually what was happening there. So sorry, you and your girlfriend. Yeah, yeah. Well, my girlfriend remembered to the other day that one of her favorite moments of television,

and we couldn't find it on YouTube, because that's a shame, but it was when that Edwin Charles host of The One Show was interviewing Dame Judy Dench, but kept on calling her Jane Doody. And he did it about four times. Oh, that's so funny. I don't, I've never seen that. That's the thing, we couldn't find it on YouTube,

but it's like, Jane Doody. I genuinely like The One Show. I actually did a piece for them as like one of their reporters. Yeah. Not long ago. I like, I like it. It's nice. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it is. Have you all been on it? I've done The One Show a couple of times. You must have done it, James. I've not done it. What? I've got my first... Sweet Jesus, what madness is this?

I'm going to be on it for the first time. That's why we were talking about it, actually. So I've got my first One Show appearance coming up. Have you? What are you going to be publicizing? Your girlfriend. And now we're going to be speaking to James A. Casting, who's got a girlfriend.

Hello, I don't need to wag. Thank you, James. Also, it's just watching like someone like Alex Jones who will chat to you like in normal relaxed chat and then they'll be like you're on in one second and should be like excuse me and then just like speak live to the nation. Yeah, they're really good at it.

They're really good at it. I wonder which presenter you'll get? Will you get Ronan Keating? Will you get Harry from McFly? Who are you going to get? It is exciting. You might get Jermaine Junus. Oh, yeah.

He's nice. That'd be nice. I've met Ronan Keating before on 10 Cats. Yeah, yeah. I haven't been very vibed very well. He likes barbecuing. Okay, great. He's a very nice man, actually.

Yeah. Yeah, I feel good. So if you didn't vibe, that's on you. Because I've met him and he's lovely. He's lovely. So don't place your deficiencies on other people. I wasn't blaming Keating for it. I sensed.

Would you say Yorkshire put into like your favourite food ever? No, no. There is side dish. But they're up. Yes. Let's use both of those in the chat. No, yes. I think they're pretty...

Yeah, I mean, they form part of... It's a tough one, this, because I absolutely love roast potatoes as well, as we've discussed. So it's a tough one. But I've picked Yorkshire puddings, despite Ed Gamble's hatred of them. What don't you like about them?

Because I can't even compute that shit. I think they're taking up real estate on a plate that is better used. What? Better used by what? More meat, prick. More... You're speaking for the nation. More veg, you know.

I feel like... More veg, what you'd rather have... Have you roast carrot? Yes, roast carrot is nice. You'd rather have roast pasta than a... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bit more density, bit more, you know. I always knew there was something wrong with it.

Also, what is your... Well, I didn't like anything batter based. I don't like pancakes really, either. You know... No one asked you about pancakes, man. Yeah, but Yorkshire puddings are just old pancakes, basically. What about like batter when it's on, like, cod? Yeah, like a bit of that.

That's more a suggestion of batter, like a light batter. You're like a tempura. Like a tempura. Right, well, maybe we need to just have incredibly light, almost hollow Yorkshire puddings. Yeah, with thin, like, tempura, a big tempura-shaped... Yorkshire pudding with nothing inside. Yeah, I'd like that.

You idiot. You suggested it. I know. I just led you down that loop. Guests are allowed to be rude. Hosts have to be polite. That's how it works. That's true.

So, oh, well... Well, look, the one thing I'll give you is some career advice, but aside from that, I will give you that Yorkshire puddings are a variable. So, you can go and you can have a delicious, kind of solid Yorkshire pudding, which has a crispy top and a kind of almost bread-like body and drenched in gravy.

I mean, you wouldn't have it on its own. But you can also just have very disappointing Yorkshires that have been burnt to a crisp, that are just all crisp and no body. So, maybe you haven't had the right Yorkshire pudding yet. It's a bit like gay sex. We discussed that, didn't we? So, you just haven't had the right Yorkshire yet.

And you like them? I love them. Absolutely. They're delicious. I never understand it. But when Ed talks about the real estate stuff, I never connect with it. I'm glad when guests bring up Yorkshire puddings or roast inns on the podcast.

And he's got to say the real estate stuff again and get destroyed. I mean, I could have a roast every time. I could have Yorkshire pudding every day. In fact, if you lose the word could from that sentence, you have an accurate depiction of my culinary habits. I love Yorkshire pudding. But the one thing I think we're sort of missing a trick

with Yorkshire pudding is they're not very seasoned. And I'm surprised nobody's come along and gone, oh, chilly Yorkshire puddings yet. I mean, I'm glad that they haven't because I wouldn't enjoy those. But I'm surprised that the Yorkshire pudding hasn't been seasoned with the meat, you know, of the roast that you're having or something,

you know, maybe if the Yorkshire pudding was seasoned with carrot. I think you've actually hit upon another reason why I don't like it. They're quite bland. Help me, will you? Refreshingly bland. Reassuringly bland.

They're bland. I think the chilly, almost the chilly, I think maybe like some Szechuan peppercorns in there or something or spice them up a bit of paprika in the batter. That might make it a more retractable prospect. Or sweeten them. You know, imagine a Yorkshire pudding

with a little bit of icing sugar and maybe some cinnamon. That's a pound cake, mate. Yeah, I'd be excited about that. I would love to go to a place and they do like, you know, desert Yorkshire puddings. Of course you would. And it's a sweet Yorkshire pudding

and inside it's obviously they put ice cream in there. Marshmallows, chocolate sauce. Oh, man. I mean, I'm probably going to make that at home. Yeah. I'm going to probably come to your house. Yeah, yeah. You're welcome.

Thank you very much. Of course, you're moving. You and me and you know who. Your girlfriend, which you can't see the quotes that I'm using with my fingers. Do you want to ladle some of the chow mein into your Yorkshire pudding? No.

You don't want to do it. This is weird. But this is like, what did you say that for? You guys are getting on so well. This show is weird. You people are strange. The opportunity is there. No, I suppose you could.

I mean, you've got a kind of a double carb thing going on there because you've got noodles in Yorkshire pudding. But I probably, I'd give it a go. The only thing I think is that Yorkshire puddings do need a gravy. And I don't know how glorious chow mein in gravy would be. Actually, it'd probably be quite nice. We can give you a little pot of gravy

from the one of the lost pots. Yeah, for the Yorkshire pudding. But what I'm saying is once you then put the chow mein into there. But yeah, maybe. Maybe. Yeah, maybe. I think if you start putting your chow mein into a Yorkshire pudding,

you turn around and the man from the restaurant would be three steps closer to you. Yes. And you wouldn't have noticed and creep up. With a knife. Yeah, I'll give that a go. I'll give that a go. Won't be the first thing I do in life.

But I'll give it a go. Yeah, there'll be other things to do. I like those two foods. I do understand that they don't go together. But it's not my problem. It's not your problem. No. Dream meal.

Dream drink. Now you've been glugging on a can there. And before the podcast, you announced it was your favorite drink. And it's a new drink. That's the other thing. I've only come across it in the last couple of months. Yeah.

It's the Pepsi Max Lime. I'm very partial to a Coke Zero. But I always put lime into it. Because otherwise it's too sweet for me. And you don't need to do it with a Pepsi Max Lime. It's already got the synthetic lime flavor. So that's all I need. Have you tried the Diet Coke Lime?

No. And would you refuse to? No, I wouldn't refuse to try it. But it's not something I'd pursue. Yeah. It wouldn't be my first choice. And I haven't tried it yet. And maybe I ought.

The thing is, since Coke Zero came out, I've gone off Diet Coke. You guys with me on this? Not necessarily. I find if I'm a bit parched or it's a hot day, Diet Coke's my go-to. I find it more refreshing, more hydrating. What? The Coke Zero?

The Coke Zero. A Coke Zero, I like the stronger flavors. But I wouldn't drink it on a hot day. I'd go for Diet Coke over Coke Zero. So in the Bake Off tent, I'm the Coke Zero boy. And Noel is the Diet Coke boy. Ah, there we go. It's weird.

And that's how... You can sense that. Yeah. When you watch it. You literally send a runner to get Coke Zero for me and Diet Coke for him. It's clearly the same drink in a different can. And you literally have to do that.

So we've discussed Diet Coke on the podcast a lot. One of my favorites to talk about. I like it whenever it comes up. Last time we talked about it, but we did our rankings. And I was a Diet Pepsi boy. That was my number one. Diet Pepsi.

And now, I think, since we had that chat, Diet Pepsi is now at the bottom of my league table. What? And Coke Zero is at the top. So fickle. So I would go Diet Pepsi, Diet Coke, Pepsi Max, Coke Zero. Right. That's where I am.

I did a thing. Right. So I was in Les Miserables. And there was my friend in the cast who played Marius, a guy called Rob Houchen. Really, really funny guy. And we shared a love of sort of Diet Colas, whether it was Pepsi Max or Diet Pepsi

or Coke Zero or Diet Coke or whatever. And so one night we tried a cocktail. We just thought, what happens? So we made a cocktail of Pepsi Max, Diet Pepsi, Coke Zero and Diet Coke. Tasted horrible. Really? Just didn't.

Yeah. All the flavors fought each other. Wow. You know, it just didn't work. So that's one in the eye for people who say they are the same drink, right? Yeah. If you can't mix them all together.

No, you can't. You can't. It just didn't work. The other thing I drink far too much of is Caffeine Free Coke Zero and Caffeine Free Diet Coke. I get after about two in the afternoon, I get caffeine worries. The gold cans.

The gold cans or the Caffeine Free Coke Zero. They now do Caffeine Free Pepsi Max, Caffeine Free Diet Pepsi. I have too much time on my hands. Yeah. But it's exciting that you've chosen the Pepsi Max line. Yeah, it's great. We spoke of our love of Pepsi Max cherry before.

I've tried it, not for me. Really? I do like a cherry Coke. Yeah. Very occasional. I do it once a year and once a year, maybe a Dr Pepper. Uh-huh. They now do Coke Zero cherry.

Oh, yeah. How's that? Which is very nice, but I'm still... How's that working out for you? It's working out pretty well. When I'm on the road, it's always my little road treat. It's one of those. But the Pepsi Max cherry is still my favourite

if we're ranking the cherries. Yeah. It's fine. I've got a friend who's very into Pepsi Max Raspberry. Yeah, I mean... I love Raspberry, but I haven't yet been able to sort of embrace that. Yeah. I'm saying same.

So, you know, in parts of Eastern Europe, they instead of putting lemon or lime in their cola, they often put a slice of orange. It's very nice. I'm on board with that. Recommend. So what edges it with the Pepsi Max lime is that you would have done that anyway.

Exactly. You would put the lime in there anyway. That's made it easier and you prefer Pepsi Max to Diet Coke? Well, Pepsi Max to Diet Coke, but Coke Zero to Pepsi Max. So actually what I really want is Coke Zero lime to come out. I'm very excited because I'm... I've talked to Bonito about this. We go to Disney World for the first time.

Right. There's a place in Disney World where they serve all the coax from all over the world, all the different types of... But it's all different in different countries. And they serve all of that. And I'm hoping that when you think about stuff like, oh, I hope that they do a Coke Zero lime, maybe they do do that somewhere in the world.

And that'll be in that little restaurant. And that'll be it. Well, there are these machines. So if I have a very small house now, but if I ever decide to buy a big house, well, I'd really like to build a house. And I'd like to have a Mr. Whippy machine put in the kitchen. Right, because I'm not an idiot.

And I would like to get one of those Coca-Cola freestyle machines that you see in America to have one in my house. There's some in the UK as well. Are there? There's one, unless they've moved it. I've never seen them here. There was one in the Burger King on Leicester Square. Really?

Yeah. With all the even things like high C in it, or the American drinks, the American series. They've got crazy stuff in there. Yeah. Well, that's what I'd really like one of those in my house. So are we going for a Pepsi Max Lime, or do you want your dream drink to be a Coke Zero with lime in it?

I'm going to go for Pepsi Max Lime. That's it now. Although I was just in America on my first pandemic holiday, and I kept seeing adverts on TV for Nitro Pepsi, which is a new draft Pepsi that's smooth and creamy. I couldn't find it anywhere. And my friend was going to bring me back one in the suitcase, but you can't put cans of pop in your suitcase

because of the pressurization of the cabin, or depressurization, or something. I don't know. I like a Nitro thing. They did Nitro Cold Brew in Starbucks for a bit, and it was creamy. It's almost like a sparkler tap lead button for a John Smith. And I've had beer in Nitro Taps as well.

It's really, really good. I think Butterbeer is like that. Butterbeer, I think, is like that. Yeah, you can get them at the theme parks and stuff. Yeah, I'm waiting for that Pepsi to come here. That'd be great. That kind of leads us on quite nicely to Dream Dessert. You said at the start of the podcast,

this is a lost dessert. Yeah, so I was going to say just whipped cream. Not lost. That was my original answer. Interesting why. I mean, that's a lost choice now because you're going to choose something else. But can I just say I would have absolutely loved it

if you'd picked just whipped cream as a dessert. Well, it was just, it's just great. Like what, there's nothing about whipped cream makes you go, oh, they should have. I tell you what, this lags. It's not. It's just fantastic. And I don't think I've ever, ever had too much of it.

I don't think I've ever had any dessert, had whipped cream on, that I ever didn't finish the whipped cream. Right. Or that I ever thought, oh, they've given me too much whipped cream. You just never, it's just not a thing. Whipped cream is amazing. And we should have it more often. Do you go straight out the counter?

No, no, no, no, whipped cream. I'm not talking about that anchor. I mean, listen. Oh, in my mind, it was squirty cream. No, no, no, no, no. I'm sorry. I've made a real mistake, though. Please leave the room.

I like that. Yeah. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about actual whipped cream. Actual whipped cream. They've done it proper. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

It's great. It's good stuff. And I don't, I'm confused why it's so sweet. Did they add sugar to it? I mean, they must have. Yeah, I guess so. I guess there's like, yeah. I guess there's sugar in there.

Icing sugar, I guess. I don't know, but it's just, it's glorious. Yeah. So I was originally, might listen, my original answers were just Yorkshire pudding for Maine and whipped cream for dessert. That's what I was going to do. But I just thought it might be quite a short show.

So the dessert I'm choosing is Walls Romantica, which was around in the early 90s. And it's an ice cream cake in a kind of butterscotch flavor with a biscuity base. And I think I feel like kind of some vanilla ice cream, some butterscotch ice cream, it was delicious. Now it came and it went, and it was glorious. But I will say this, there's something that's come out

that has the same flavor, which is the new, is it butterscotch viennetta? Right. Right. So they finally realized that there's a gap in the market. For that flavor, ice cream. So that viennetta gives you an inkling, an inference. Not an inkling.

We've, yeah. We've already established the inkling, his faith, yeah. It gives you a sense of what the romantica was like. It was a, go online now, and in fact, turn off this podcast. And go online now. And do you remember that show, Why Don't You? Um, yeah. Why don't you tell us your TV set, do something else instead?

Yeah. Why don't you? Why don't you switch off your television set and go and do something less boring instead? All right. Yeah. Gladly, you turn it off. Hated that show. But that was from an era where you hate watched everything

because there was nothing else to do. Yeah. So there were three channels. So you just watched things that you hated. This is before your time was. Yeah, yeah. Watched things that I hate. I hate it.

Still watch it, obviously. No choice. Not going out to play. That'd be ridiculous. Yeah. Walls romantica. It was great. Lost ice cream.

Marks and Spencer's in the mid-80s. Massively ahead of the curve. They used to do a pot of ice cream, like a kind of Hargindas pot. And it was, I still taste it now. Pieces of fudge had pecans in. It had a kind of caramel running through it. And it was before the ice cream revolution of the 90s,

when Hargindas came along and Ben and Jerry's and they started putting all these giant chunks of things in their ice cream. And it was amazing. It was probably the best ice cream I've ever tasted. That sounds great. That, Walls romantica. It was a good dessert.

You know what it sounds like? A Golden Gay Time. A bigger one. No, a Golden Gay Time's just on a stick, isn't it? Yeah, but it's biscuit. And butterscotch ice cream. Well, I've never had a Golden Gay Time. In Australia.

Ah, I see. It's an Australian thing. And I think they've discussed on the podcast before. I can't remember things we talked about. I've had them before. They're very nice. So to me, they haven't had a Walls romantica. It sounds like that, but is it not?

It's not really like that. No, no, no. Imagine a big cake made of ice cream, like a biscuit base with this chocolate. Oh, have you found it? I'm being shown a photo of it. I think I've had Walls romantica before. So you've got a big cake in there as well.

It's the sort of thing my grandparents bought when we went over for lunch, I think, yeah. It was terrific. Yeah, that looks good. It's terrific. And again, if you're eating on your own, you don't have to share it. It's great.

That's the same for everything, though, right? Yeah. And what would I have at the end of the meal? You haven't asked me, like, would I have an after eight? Maybe. Do you want an after eight? Yeah, kind of. One single after eight?

No, I love the box. Do you know what I'll do, though? I'll put the empty wrappers back in the box just to annoy everyone else. Yeah, yeah. Oh, to annoy yourself next time you open the box. Why has that not been talked about in the podcast before?

That is one of the absolute, I mean, one of the greatest tricks ever, but people aren't doing it as a trick. If you look under, in the dictionary, you look for the definition of malice. Yeah. You find putting back empty after eight wrappers. Into the, oh man, there's nothing worse.

That is some shithousery there. Yeah, when it tips the balance, when there's more wrappers than actual after eights as well. Why are people putting, I mean, you don't do that with other food, do you? You don't sort of put Ferrero Rocher wrappers back in the box, do you? Well, it's difficult because that trick wouldn't work

because then you're looking back in there and it's just like flat foil or whatever, or scrunched up foil. Yeah, but these people are the after eights. They're not even doing that as a trick. That's what I mean, you're like, lazy. Lazy. But there's something satisfying,

maybe one of these people, there's something satisfying about either leaving the packet in there. Sometimes you go in for an after eight, you pull it out and it just comes out as an after eight with the wrapper still in there, right? But there's something satisfying about sliding the packet back in.

It's like when you're looking through records. So you're the one who's doing it, basically. Yeah, yeah, it's me. I go around all the after eights and I do. I'm the only one doing it. This is the guy complaining about things taking up real estate, and then he's putting after eight packets in there

and just filling up the whole box with duds. Do you know that after eights have started diversifying and they sort of did orange after eights recently, but they're still tasted of mint. It was mint and orange, and those flavours don't go together. But do they taste like mint? That's like, you know when you brush your teeth

and then you go and just have a bit of orange juice. What were you thinking? Yeah, biggest mistake ever. That's a really, that's not a party in your mouth. That's just a really shit party in your mouth. That's the first mistake I remember making in my memory. I feel like that's my earliest mistake. I remember going, I just did something wrong.

What, brushing your teeth and then having orange juice? Having orange juice, I go, oh no. And then once as well, I obviously mixed orange juice. I've spoken about this on the podcast already, but I mixed orange juice and milked together, drank it. It tasted so bad, I hid under the table. One of the worst mistakes I've ever made was when I was young,

is my mum had those Hermesetus sugar substitutes. Right. I think tiny little pills. Yeah, yeah. And eating one of those. I'm going to read your menu back to you now. Okay. See how you feel about it.

Okay. Still water, poppadons, starter, mossy ball soup, homemade, main course, chicken chow mein from the Bristol restaurant.

Do you know what the restaurant's called? No. Side dish, Yorkshire pudding. Really unapologetic, no. What are you looking at? No, what the fuck are you asking me that for? Side dish, Yorkshire pudding with a gravy pot, drink, Pepsi max lime,

and dessert, the walls romantica. With some, let's put some whipped cream. Let's put some whipped cream on the cream. And after eight, if there's any left. Well, I've left one. Thank you. And after eight, definitely. Yeah, also, we do need to schedule

some time to visit the toilet after that, don't we? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll clear it for you. That's normally implied. We're not going to stop you going to the toilet. That's fine. You can use the dream restaurant toilet before you go. Okay.

Cool. Well, thank you very much for having me. Thank you very much for coming to the dream restaurant. Thank you. I should have left this podcast really hungry, but I actually am not now. No, weirdly. After listening to that mess that I've created.

What an opportunity I had to have really exquisite for really beautiful, sophisticated chicken chow mein that costs, I mean, three pounds, I guess. If that. If that, yeah. Yorkshire puddings with cream with walls romantica. So unloved, they don't even make it anymore. I'm a doofus.

Thank you though. You've made a terrible mistake having me on this show. Serves you right. Too late now. Here we go. Well, there we are. The off-menu menu of Matt Lucas, James. Wow.

I mean, that was one of the ones where, like, I thought as we're going along, this all sounds quite nice and tasty, but even Matt admitted at the end when we heard the menu back, kind of gross. Kind of gross menu. Well, it's when you have everything to pick from in the whole world and universe and time. Yes.

I mean, he picked Yorkshire puddings and he picked walls romantica. Yeah. But you know, he went for what he wanted, and that's what he wanted when he thought about the off-menu concept. So you can't blame a guy for that. Yeah, yeah.

We're not going to hold that against him. Thank you very much for coming in, Matt. And of course, as we said before, Matt is one of the hosts of Bake Off, the Great British Bake Off. And of course, the new series of Bake Off has started. It's on now, James. On right now, I'm sure you've already

got your favourite bakers already. Follow them along, see how they do. He, of course, did not say baked potato as well. I would have felt mean. Yeah, it would have felt mean. And also, that guy's not eating baked potatoes. He's creating new shapes of roast potato. He's operating on a different plane.

If he had baked potato, but cored it, I don't know how I would have... Maybe I would have been like you can stay in. That's not a traditional baked potato. Well, I don't know. I don't know. It would have been a discussion. It would have been a big discussion.

In front of our guests as to whether to remove them from the podcast or not. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But you know, I mean, I like the sound of the cored roast potatoes. Yes. Yes, they do sound quite nice, actually. I'm not going to try them.

No, I'm never going to try them. No, no, no. No, sounds horrible. Awful, awful stuff. But thank you very much for coming in, Matt. I, of course, am back on tour. I mentioned that at the beginning. EdGamble.co.uk for tickets.

Very excited. I can't wait to see the show, Ed. I've... As you know, I'm coming to one of the nights. Which one will it be? Hey, listeners. Why not just buy as many tickets as you can, go and see Ed as many times as possible?

And maybe you'll see me in the foyer and I'll tell you to piss off. Will it be Shrewsbury? We don't know. We don't know if it'll be Shrewsbury. Will it be Aberystwyth? Will it be Aberystwyth? We don't know.

But come and see me wherever James may be. EdGamble.co.uk for tickets, please. Purlies. But hey, guys, listen. Stay safe out there. Be nice to each other. And remember, act off menu official on Twitter.

And that's where you can tweet Benito and ask him about all the different restaurants that we mentioned on the podcast and where to find them. Bye-bye. Bye. 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 new 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 new 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 Northern 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.