Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster - Ep 188: Alex Jones

Episode Date: April 19, 2023

One way or another, Alex Jones is going to order her dream meal.All episodes Alex’s new series ‘Reunion Hotel’ are now on every Thursday on BBC Two at 8pm and available on BBC iPlayer thereafter.Follow Alex on Twitter @MissAlexJones and Instagram @alexjonesthomsonRecorded 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, Boiling the Water of Conversation. Pouring in the pasta of humour, waiting 10 minutes. Then taking out the pasta of humour and chucking it at the wall to see if it's cooked. Put a bit of salt in the water, maybe? Bit of salt in the water. Not olive oil. I've heard that's a myth. Oh, yeah, yeah. Don't believe the myth. Don't believe the myth. Don't believe the hype. That said, gamble there. My name is James A. Caster. We own a dream restaurant, and we invite in

the guests every single week and ask them their starter main course dessert, side dish, and drink, dream style, not in that order. And this week... Dream style? Well, I realised that normally I'd say we ask them their favourite, and I missed out the word favourite, so I thought I would make sure people know. We're not just asking them about anything. Their starter main course... It is their dream. It's dream style. Yeah. And this week, I guest is Alex Jones. Alex Jones, a wonderful broadcaster, TV presenter, host of The One Show, James. The One Show. If you are listening from abroad and don't know what The One Show is, it is... It's a British institution.

The... I mean, it's the first show that's ever... Was ever on TV. Is that correct? Yeah. It's the only show on TV. It's the only show on TV. We've both had the privilege of being on it and being interviewed about... You know, often it's people, you know, promote... They're plugging their wares, but it's a plethora. A plethora, and then like little sort of filmed inserts. Yeah. Yeah. It's a magazine show. It's a daily magazine show. It's like picking up a magazine, but you know, not reading it. Yeah, but a magazine show is a term. So that's why I'm using it. You don't need to describe why

it's a term. A magazine show is a term for a television show. You don't need to then say it's like picking up a magazine, but not reading it. It's confusing because there are magazines that are about TV. You know, there's magazines that you put in guns as well, but everyone knows from the context what I'm talking about. I didn't know that. What? Now I'm going to... I'm just going to think about that now. Stop thinking about it. Okay. Also, listen, we love Alex Jones, and we love the magazine show that is The One Show. But if Alex Jones has a secret ingredient,

an ingredient which we deem to be unacceptable, we will have to kick her out of the Dream list. Those are the rules. Yeah. And this week, the secret ingredient is one tons. One tons. One show tons. One tons. Just going to say, I've had a few people come up to me recently and say, we've really run out of steam with this secret ingredient thing. Yeah. I think that's made it better. Yes. I think that it was probably an unnecessary format point for us to put in there originally. Yeah. I think it really paid off when we eventually did kick someone out the Dream

restaurant. Yes. I think it will pay off again whenever someone does it again. If Alex Jones picks one ton. One ton. Yeah. So if that happens, people will love it when it happens every time. But until then, it is now really hard to think of the secret ingredient. Yeah. And I enjoy it more how bad it is. Well... And it's one tons because she presents The One Show.

Yeah. And it sounds like one. Let me tell you, the lady who runs the barber shop that we go to does not agree. Yes. Yes. She had such a guy at me about lighter fluid. Oh, she might have bought that up to me actually. Yeah. I was in there just last week.

Emma does not like the lighter fluid secret ingredient. Well, she thought that because they're not going to pick it. Yeah. So of course they're not going to pick it. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, imagine if they do, it's even more exciting then. Yeah. And also sometimes it relates to the person's work, right? So it's Richard E Grant.

He drank lighter fluid in the film. He drank lighter fluid in the film. He drank lighter fluid in the film. Maybe he did get into it as a result. You know, you don't know. But still great haircuts in there. So you'll take a bit of being harangued. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm wearing a cap today, but I don't know that.

Let that reflect. No. No. No. No. James has had his hair cut like a monk. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. I asked for the monk cut every time I go in. Give me the monk, please. But hopefully Alex will not be saying one tons. Hopefully not.

But you know, a bit of fun if she does get to kick someone out again. Yes. So this is the off menu menu of Alex Jones. Welcome, Alex, to the Dream Restaurant. I am so pleased to be here. And also, yeah, mine's blown. Welcome, Alex Jones, to the Dream Restaurant. But we're expecting you for some time. Here we are.

Well, I can't believe I'm here because I love this restaurant. In fact, it's the first restaurant I've been to, I think, since the pandemic, to be honest. That's exciting. This is great. We don't need outdoor seating or anything. We're back in normal restaurant setup. Yeah, it's good.

No QR code in the Dream Restaurant. I mean, I hate talking about the pandemic, but you know, sort of social life stopped. And then I forgot to go to a restaurant after that. You didn't do Eat Out to Help Out. Do you remember that? No. Eat Out to Help Out.

What was that now? Wish you soon. Back then, it wasn't Prime Minister then. This was early days. It was like a deep cut. He was the... Oh, I remember when you had the money off. Yeah.

Yeah, we did that. He was the Minister for Wagga Mamas back then. Yeah, he was like, you all need to... Come on, guys. You all need to get out there and get in the restaurants again. But like, you know, at the time, we were a bit unsure as to whether it was too early or not. Yeah.

It was. It was, it turned out. Yeah, too early to tell people to all go to the restaurants. But now I'm really pleased to be here. That's interesting. I listen a lot to this podcast. I'm a big fan of this restaurant. Thank you.

Well, we're a big fan of you. I didn't think I'd be on the guest list, to be honest. Come on, Fitz. Come on. What are you? What are you, Hi to Kate? You're a... I wish.

You're on our TV screens probably more than, more than anyone else, right? Right? Probably. Probably, probably. I mean, it is a five-day week jobby, isn't it? Yeah, I am. But I just, you know, you've got all these people

who really know stuff about food. And I was like, I like food, but God, I don't know. Yeah, but come on. I thought, you know, I thought you had to be a proper foodie to be on this. When you're hosting the one show and you've got everyone on there, plugging their wares,

you always sat there going, they are definitely qualified for... Surely, you're looking at some of your guests going. Well, I mean, between us, 80% of the time, I'm like... It is incredible though, because when I came on the one show, you can have a chat with you, a completely normal chat, and then you'll sort of go, all right.

And then literally just turn to the camera and then be live to millions of people. Yeah. It's that, it's that quick. It's like anything, isn't it? You get used to it, I suppose. I wouldn't get used to that, I don't think. But it's, you know, it's such a...

It feels like we're just in somebody's... Well, in our lounge, so it doesn't feel like it's a stressful situation. I did feel like I was just in our lounge with Alex Jones, Ronan Keating and Martin Freeman on the screen. Yes. When I was on it, Jermaine, yourself,

Ainsley, Harriet and Grace Dent. There you go. That's a good sofa. During the first week, was it stressful though? When you were just getting used to it, was it like, this is insane that I've got to just... Because also, it's either in the blink of an eye, I couldn't believe how quickly it was like,

oh, and now the show is... So you just have to blast through it. You've got so many points to hit. Yeah. One story to the next. I'm going to give you an insight into the first show I ever did. Yeah. Okay, picture the scene.

2010. Pretty nervous because there was this big build up to it and our guest was Dun, Dun, Dun, Whoopi Goldberg. Oh my goodness. Holy moly. So, you know, start big. Yeah. And that was fine.

And she was in Sister Act and I'd seen Sister Act so we could chat away. And she was absolutely lovely. Everything you want Whoopi Goldberg to be. Even nicer than she is in Ghost. Right? Wow. And she's lovely in Ghost.

Yeah. But we had a film and we call them films. Sometimes people look at me like we've got two heads because they're like, that's not a film, that's not a movie. I'm like, no, you know, but it's a VT, right? Yeah. And we had a VT on Beavers.

This is day one. And so I repeatedly had to say the word Beavers, which Whoopi Goldberg thought was absolutely hysterical and could not control herself. And I was like, oh my God, be professional. I was thinking about all the sad things. I was pinching my wrist really hard, thinking of dead cat. Okay, really sad things.

Maybe I'll die of cancer, maybe all of this. And I go through the gamut of sad things to stop myself laughing because this is my first show. I can't mess it up because Whoopi Goldberg finds the word Beavers funny. Anyway, we got through it. As you said, it's super quick. Yeah.

And we did get to the end, unscathed, 12 years later, I'm still there. So it was on. Wow, has Whoopi been back on? Yeah. And we always talk about that. Yeah, of course. Yeah.

She still remembers that. She always, she came in and she went, how's your beaver? I was like, fine, how's yours? Really? That's nice having in-joke with Whoopi Goldberg again. I know. Cool, eh? Because you do have to keep that sort of level of control

because it is so quick. Like you can't be like pissing yourself laughing with the cat because you've got to get on to the next thing. But, you know, you, I mean, like any live situation, I mean, you can't, you just can't help laughing sometimes. And I'm one of those that laugh at the wrong time, a lot of the time, you know? Yeah.

Fingerels. You know, sad, sad settings. You know, but sometimes just something will tickle you and it happens a lot on the sofa. Especially with the, I mean, the one show is famous for its quick changes of tone as well. Yeah. I'm thinking of the Mel Brooks clip,

which I think is the funniest thing that's ever happened. We loved Mel Brooks. So funny. This is nuts. This show is nuts. I know. Mel Brooks didn't, you know, he didn't hold back. He said as it is.

And we loved him for it. We were like, yeah, Mel, you're 100% spot on. But you're there going, all right, guys, you have to calm down now because we do have to go to this quite sad, this quite sad film. I think it's changed a bit. It was quite, we call it a gear change.

Oh my God. I feel like Alan Partridge just saying the words. We call it a gear change. And it's when, you know, you change topics. And we had a lot of them back in the early days. Those corners have been smoothed somewhat. We've talked before on the podcast about our favorite one-show moments.

I can't remember who we were chatting to, but it came up. Did it? We mentioned the Mel Brooks thing. We mentioned Adrian Charles calling Judy Dench, Jane Doody. Oh, I always say Jane Judy Dench because if you set, right, so everybody now, right,

let's try it. Dame Judy Dench. Dame Judy Dench. Okay, but now, no, but imagine, you're under a lot of pressure. You're nervous. You read an article. Go.

Dame Judy Dench. Jane Judy Dench. See? Dame Judy Dench. Yeah. Jane Judy Dench. But James Judy Dench knows this is the case and doesn't expect any better these days.

Yeah. So it's fine. He did apologize for you. So sorry that I called you Jane Doody earlier. I know. I've called, honestly, I called Brian Ferry. Do you know Brian Ferry? Yeah.

Yeah. So I said, please welcome, Brian Ferry. Brian Ferry. It's just you can't, you know, you can't control what comes out when you're live sometimes. And I think that's, you know,

that's why I love the show because it's so warm. Nobody really minds. It's like, oh, fine. Yeah. Just get on with it, onto the next thing. What about when, and we don't have to put this in the pot if you don't want to,

but I might never get the opportunity to ask you about it, when Matt Baker absolutely went for David Cameron and said, how do you sleep? Well, see, okay. So nobody's really asked me about that before. And I think, genuinely think, knowing Matt really well,

that he didn't mean it to be a question about, you know, I don't think he meant it, how do you sleep? Because, you know, you've got all this terrible stuff going on in your mind. I think he meant,

because you're so busy, just how do you sleep? You're running a country. How do you sleep? Do you reckon? And I think Matt ran with it because it was a bit cooler, the other version.

And I just, I think he ran with it, but who knows what was in his brain at that time? Who knows? But they got t-shirts printed at work with that question on the back. Oh, great. Absolutely loved it.

How do you sleep at night? And then what about when the Cookie Monster wore a poppy? Well, I didn't even know how they were going to pin it on to be fair without hurting him. Because, you know, I mean, that's not an outfit he's wearing.

That's his body. That's his body. They were actually stabbing the Cookie Monster through his blue fur. Yeah. Poor guy. Poor guy. All sorts of questions.

But that's how much he loves. Yeah, he respects. That's how much he loves the one show. He was like, I'm going to take this stab through my body to put a poppy on, not to upset Britain. What happens is Cookie.

Do you like cookies? We're getting on to food. Did you come into the cinnamon bun today? If you don't mind me sharing that with everyone? That's absolutely fine. And I did offer you some, but I've mauled it, so it doesn't look very appealing now.

Cookies, I think, oh, this is controversial. I think cookies are overrated. Interesting. That is a big swing, actually. Uh, why? Before. Sometimes they taste too doughy.

So you say that you don't like the soft ones when people make them really soft? Not really. But well, a chewy one. Well, if you're going to go down that route of having a biscuit, I think there are better options. That's what I'd say.

Top three biscuits. Okay, controversially, I'd go for a good dunk digestive. Yeah. Because it's solid. Is that number one? I think it is number one. Wow.

Okay, but I also like rich tea, which is the opposite and flaky. I don't like custard creams. We'd probably get onto custard later. Everybody loves them. I hate them. But the other biscuit I like would probably be... I like a hobnob.

Again, for the robustness. This is mad at Alex. Yeah. These are... I mean, but actually, I'm very glad we asked top three, because that is very revealing. Digestive, rich tea, hobnob.

Yeah. Some people are going to be absolutely profit at the mouth. Why? That's a very plain list, I'd say. Well, okay, we like short breading. Just as plain. I mean, it just got plain now.

Are you joking? No, but again, you've got to think of the dunk. Yeah, yeah. I mean, okay, if you're eating a biscuit on its own, but who does that? Where's the joy?

Well, I'm rarely dunking, I would say. Yeah, yeah. This is like... Sorry? I'm rarely dunking, you are. How? I can't remember the last time I dunked. But the whole point of a biscuit

is as an accompaniment to a cup of tea. No way. Absolutely. No, I mean, we're living in a Peter K routine here. But no, I think so. And that's nice though. I think it's very wholesome. I think you'll find,

if you went to like a biscuit factory and there are many in the northeast, well, I don't know why I said the northeast. There are many all over Britain. Just in the northeast. But I think they will tell you that with a cup of tea, a biscuit comes into its own.

So if it's not a dunker, what is it? If I go to a biscuit factory and ask them that. Because the biscuit factory is doing that the above the tea factory. Yeah, it feels like they're biased, doesn't it? No, but I think they're in cahoots. Yeah, yeah. They're definitely in cahoots.

Yeah. In cahoots. They're fine in each other. Well, that's very interesting. I think that's good. I mean, that's good to know. Robustness is at the top of your list for qualities you like in a biscuit.

You want them to be dunkable. I don't like. I like a biscuit and a tea and eating them together, but I don't want the biscuit in the tea because that leads to a whole horrible situation where you then have to throw the tea. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you haven't had anything.

You've only had half a biscuit and half the tea. All I can think about is that, I haven't thought about this Peter K routine for years. What Peter K routine? Are you talking about? I think it's a classic from his classic show that he did a million times. Oh, he's got a biscuit routine.

About dunking biscuits. Yeah. He says rich tea, they just break off. And he says when the biscuit breaks, and it goes in slow motion. And he does the whole act of Mo, biscuit for the new me brew. Yeah, that is a classic.

But if you're doing a rich tea, you've got to be in there quick. You've got to act quickly. Would you ever stack rich tea, three rich tea, dunked at the same time? You're the one talking about robustness. Yeah, this is important to you. One at a time.

One at a time. One dunk and then in, right? You're not dunking. One dunk in, but with a digestive, you can take a breath. With a hobnob, you can take a breath. With a rich tea, you've got to go quick. Okay, here's a question then about dunking.

We really should get onto your menu, but I do have to drill into this. I can handle the digestive dunking thing. Yep, take a breath. One dunk for the rich tea. Hobnob, I would say if you take a breath there, it's going to start flaking. It is flaking.

It's got, it's the... Maybe a chocolate chip falls in. The psoriasis of the biscuit world, I would say a hobnob. Oh, that's put me off. It's going to flake. Wow, now I don't like hobnubs anymore. The psoriasis of the biscuit world.

Yeah, I'd say, yeah, it's not, it's not holding it. James can tell you what has the most psoriasis in any of the cuisines. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not sure I want to know, because you've just put me off biscuits for the start. Quasso.

Of course it's the quasso. It's the normal quasso. Quasso. We should get onto your menu properly. Yeah, come on. Never once. We're just going to talk about biscuits for ages, which is... We will check whether you could dunk any of your choices though.

Everything we'll be doing the dunk test on. We'll be doing a dunk test. Okay, I think some of them would get messy, but go on. We'll see. Still sparkling water. Oh, well, you see, I'd go still, controversially, because if I'm in a restaurant, I don't want water at all. At all.

If I'm out, I want a proper drink, and water's just there to be polite. And with fizzy water, I used to think periwater, and there are other brands available that do fizzy, but I used to think they were the absolute devil when I was growing up. It's just such a funny taste. Yeah.

If you really taste it, because what you're expecting is lemonade, and it's not. Oh, so you were tricked early on by fizzy water. I mean, these days, I like it. And when I was pregnant, and you can't drink, and you're pregnant for a long time because of our three children, I drank a lot of sparkly water, which apparently is bad for your teeth. Yep.

The enamel. But, you know, it gives you a... I don't know, it gives you a sense of celebration if you're in a restaurant and you can't have anything more exciting. It's fine to drink fizzy water when you're pregnant though, right? You don't... No, it's fine. You don't have fizzy kids.

No, you don't have fizzy kids. Well, maybe we did actually, thinking about it. Maybe that's what's happened. Think about the kids. How fizzy are they? The kids. Oh, the middle one is flipping egg off the charts, Fizz. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. He's like a bottle of champagne that's been in the fridge upside down, and then you open it. That's what he's like. Okay. You don't know, do you? You don't know how fizzy the kid's going to be until it's...

You don't. You don't. But I think it's a thing. You know, fizzy water, I think it's like olives. Nobody likes fizzy water or olives as a child. Yes. Apart from my children who do like olives, and that's because they've grown up in London.

I loved olives as a child. Where did you grow up? London. Interesting. Yeah. See? There you go. Yeah, Buckingham Palace.

Buckingham Palace. Bossed a little boy. Yeah. I think most people don't like olives or oysters or fizzy water when they're little. It's something, as an adult, you think, I've grown up, now I have to like those items. Yeah, you got... I mean, you know, you don't know how long you're going to be around for,

but you're going to get pretty bored if you're just like the same stuff forever. So I'm very glad. I think if you're a little kid and you like olives, I think bad luck. So you don't get to discover them when you're older, that's fine. And where is there to go? Yeah, where is there to go? What are they going to do? Start getting into munch bunch when they're 30?

Well, I did do it the other way around. Oh, yeah. So I used to never... I hated the kids' menu and like chicken nuggets and stuff, and would prefer to have like olives and poached salmon. And the pickers' basket. And then when I got older, when I got older, I started to appreciate chicken nuggets and oven chips and stuff.

So where are you now? But a big old mix. I'll eat all of it now. Okay. Chicken nuggets with olives on the side. Chicken nuggets, sparkling water, few olives sprinkled on top. Reminds me of chicken nuggets and olives maybe.

That'd be fun. Quite nice. My kids would love that. Yeah, yeah. Ideal. But yeah, I don't know. I think, you know, water's there to quench your thirst. If I'm out, I don't want water.

So we have let people on the podcast before do a bit of a hack on this stage. And if you don't want water, and you want to choose something else to have when you're getting in. I mean, we both hacked it when we did our menus. Gin and tonic. You'd like a gin and tonic. You can make the joke that it is a water. It's more or less the same.

Yeah. Yeah. Got tonic water in there. Yeah. And I mean, you only really need water in a restaurant if you're choking. Because otherwise, you're there to have a nice time. Yeah. And everybody says, yeah, we'll just have some still.

Nobody means that. Nobody wants the water. Yeah. If you're choking, gin and tonic could help anyway, wouldn't it? Absolutely. You can use that instead. Yeah. It's a good way of getting more gin and tonic off of them.

Completely. Do you have a specific gin that you like or a specific tonic? Well, I like to try a lot of different ones. But I tell you, there is a lovely one. I think it's made in Swansea. And I'm not just saying that because I'm born there. It's called Cignet Gin. That's very nice.

Very botanical. Nice. Cignet, of course, is swan-related. Exactly. Do you see? Just letting you know. Mm-hmm. That would do.

It's a baby swan, isn't it? Is it? Baby swan. That's mad. Why? Why? They mean booze after a little baby. Yeah, but they don't expect baby swans to drink it.

I don't know. It's just a very nice name. I think you're putting ideas in people's heads. I'd hate to. I mean, swans are annoying enough anyway, right? Imagine a pissed swan. That would be very lairy. Well.

Like, how do you feel about swans coming from Swansea? Oh, I like the look of them at a distance. But close up, I think they could take your arm off. But you're not allowed to touch them, are you? Because the Queen owns all the swans. Not anymore. Dead. She passed them on.

Oh, yeah. Does the King now own them? I think, yeah. What's happened? I don't know if he owns them. What's happened to the swans? He must do now, right? He must own the swans now.

Do you think she has to put it in the will? Yeah. I leave all the swans to Charles. Yeah. I think he does now own all the swans. Maybe automatically he becomes the swan owner. Yeah. The swan dad.

I mean, obviously you've got a lot to take on board when you suddenly become the King. But I hope he's taken a moment. To think of the swans. To go, I own all the swans now. Yeah. Yeah. That's got to feel.

Maybe the coronation, I think he'll probably take that in because there'd be a lot of standing around. He'll probably be like, okay, you know. You can finally touch a swan. Yeah. I'm the swan daddy. All these years, if he wants to touch a swan, he's got to phone his mum and ask permission.

And now he can just walk up to the guys. Now he can stroke them. Yeah, he can just do it. But do the swans know that the torch has been passed? Because they might still try and death him. Yeah, they will have told them. Main swan, head swan, would have spoken to the other swans and said, Charles is now in charge.

That's a good voice. So that means like, I mean, how do the people of Swans you feel about the Royal Family owning the swans? I haven't asked them directly, but I assume fine. You know, I mean, King Charles, conservationist. Yeah. He's in love with animals, so it can only be a good thing. Former Prince of Wales, of course.

Exactly. So do you feel like you've got your boy in now? He's on board. Yeah. Your guy's on the phone. Yeah. Secretly. Got the Welshy in charge.

Yeah, the Welshy. So lovely gin and tongue. Lovely gin and tonic. As soon as you get in, so maybe we're waiting for you at the door with a gin and tonic on a tray, so you can just grab it as soon as you get in. Yeah. Obviously. I don't like ice in any other drink apart from a gin and tonic. How come for a gin and tonic you like it then?

Because I think otherwise it's a bit too tonic-y. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It takes the edge off the ice. Imagine a gin and tonic without any ice. Yeah, I've had like warms. A gin and tonic before. Wow, that would be at parties when there's like nothing left. I mean, obviously first world problems.

I was going to say that's absolutely horrific. It's not absolutely horrific, but it's not ideal. Oh, look, first world problem is very much covers all of our episodes of the podcast. Yeah. So we find. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's trigger warning, first world problems. Yeah, we're doing the podcast about what food people like.

We talk about what foods we don't enjoy and don't want to eat, thank you. Yeah. And a slice of orange if you've got one. Wow, I was about to ask Lemon or Lime. I didn't even think about that. Oh, no. Lemon or Lime, okay, at a push. But blood orange, a slice of delicious and tons of ice.

Actually, that was the last gin and tonic I had. And my friend Joe's house, he makes the best gin and tonics in the world. I'll give you his number after this. Lovely. And he made me, yeah, it had a slice of orange in it and some pepper in it as well. He put some black pepper in there. Very good. And first question, you don't need water.

Sure. Don't need it. Single or double? Oh, single. Let's not go mad. Okay. Because make room for the wine. Ah, right.

Okay, good. Little insight into what we can expect. Pop Loms or Bread? Pop Loms or Bread, Alex Jones? Pop Loms or Bread? I can't even believe it's a question. I mean, pop-a-dums, right? Fine.

They've got their place with all the dips, order loads of them, love it. But bread, bread, if you ask me, start a main dessert, I could go bread for all three. Wow, great. Because I think there's nothing nicer in the world than fresh bread with salty butter. What's not to love? I could live in that forever and ever and ever. And I don't like fancy bread. You can keep your ciabatta.

You can keep your focaccia. The focaccia can fuck. And all of it, I just love fresh bread, you know, plain. When you're talking plain, are we talking just like a life of hovis? No, I don't want sliced. Fresh out the oven. Fresh out the oven. What are you talking about?

Hovis. Hey, I'm just trying to drill down. How boring. While it said fresh bread. That's for sandwiches. Oh, sorry. That's for sandwiches. It's hovis fresh.

Fresh out the package. No, fresh out of the oven. Fresh out the freezer. Yeah, hot. I mean, can you stop? No. Can anybody stop eating bread when it's like that? No.

No. They can't. Bread, cheese, red wine, done every course. Yeah, putting butter straight on some bread out of the oven, just watching it absorb this instantly. Or, you know, if you're little and you're in France on holiday and your job is to go and get the baguette and it's hot. One of my favorite things on the podcast is when people try and pitch things as universal experiences. You know, when everyone's young and it's their job to go and get the baguette in France, when they're young.

I mean, even like when you're little and you're on France on holiday, even that is like. You're narrowing down for it. I know you're going to be listeners going, no, I don't know what that's like. And then, and it's your job to get the baguette. I like it's your job today to get the baguette. It feels like a lot of people used to do that. But, you know, okay, okay, we'll picture the scene then. I mean, you're in, let's go, I don't know, not Normandy because it's not very sunny there.

Let's go lower, Loire. Hang on, so where are we going? Hold on, is that a place? France, France, France. Oh, you said let's go lower, Loire. Loire is a region in France. Is it a funny French accent? That was genuine.

Okay, anywhere. That is the first time on the podcast. I've been genuinely confused. Right, let's go to Flipping Paris. Right, everybody knows Paris. Loire, I like Loire. Loire, Loire. Okay, and we've gone to Pâtisserie.

Oh, that's cakes though. What's bread, Ed, you know. Boulangerie. Boulangerie. Let's all go to the Boulangerie. Why, Ed, you know. Why do I even get considered for that? Sorry.

Yeah, you know, I don't know. Did you? No. No, fine. So I picked the right one. So we're all off to the Boulangerie, right? And we're going to get the baguette. And we're going to take the baguette on a picnic.

And it's fresh out to the oven. And the smell is so delicious. And the first thing you do, you, that looked rude. You move the packet down the baguette. Yeah. And you chomp off the top. Absolutely right. Because it's absolutely delicious.

See, I was going to ask you, when you said, it's your job to go and get the baguette. I was going to ask you if you do that, because Ed has spoke on the podcast before about when his partner, now wife, Yes. Used to live in Paris. And sometimes it would be Ed's job to get the baguette.

It would be my job to get the baguette. And would you anch the top off? Yeah, even though she lived in a little flat on a courtyard, and the Boulangerie was, you just had to go down some stairs, out, turn left, I gosh. And then into the Boulangerie. And it's one minute's walk away. Baguette, even on that short walk, gone.

Hundred percent. There is no way you can go to the Boulangerie, get a baguette and not anch the top off. Yeah. Delicious. I'm very glad that you've said it independent. Because I think we've been asked, we've had a few people say about warm baguettes,

and I always ask them that question, because Ed says he couldn't resist doing it. I always ask them if they could resist it. I'm glad it's just come up organically. Didn't even need to ask the question. That's how irresistible it is. It's irresistible. People talk about things like pretzels, shut up.

I mean, right, I've never bought a pretzel, because they don't appeal to me. They are dark brown and slightly salty, which is okay when you have that bite, where it's got the salt on it. Delicious momentarily, but that is not bread. It's not a cracker. It's not a biscuit.

It's not bread. What is it? A waste of time. Yeah, waste of time. I do agree with you. However, in a shopping centre, there's a lot of big shopping centres of this brand in London, Westfield,

and you can get sweet pretzels. Now, they, off the charts, off the charts, delicious. Sweets always better. Aunty Ann's pretzels. But pretzels, I've heard people talk about pretzels on this podcast. I can't get on with that at all. No.

It's not a thing. I don't know if anyone's ever chose pretzel proper, have they? Maybe. And I don't mean the crisp ones, because we don't want people to get confused here. Not the crisps, not the little ones you get in a bag. The big ones you buy at the bakery counter.

I've definitely bought a pretzel before, and just incidentally, I can't be bothered with that. I did one once at Hermann's, the German. What were you even doing in there? It was his job to go and get the pretzels. I thought you were a foodie. What were you doing in Hermann, the German? The sausages were good to go there.

Let's go there for quite a bit, because Brett Goldstein, he's won awards. Yeah. He used to love going in there and getting a box of just like cut up sausage with all the sauerkraut and stuff. So I copied him and would do that. And that was, I loved doing that after a gig, it'd be a quick bite to get after a gig.

Yeah. If I was gigging in Soho, Leicester Square, wherever, go down to Hermann's, the German, all cut up crispy onions on there too. Delicious. Very delicious. And once I was like, I want to get something else, I'll get that pretzel.

And that was a, yeah, it was like a job. Let me tell you about pretzels. They've got those yellow stickers on them at the end of the day, every day, because nobody wants them. Yeah, yeah. They're trying to flog them. The only time I've ever enjoyed a pretzel, and bear with me, it was at Disneyland.

Yeah, okay. And it was a pretzel, but it was filled with fake cheese and jalapeño. And it was delicious, because it was so salty. With the fake cheese and what? Jalapeño. Jalapeño. You say it differently to anybody I've ever heard

say in that word. You've obviously never heard a Spanish man say it, because that is the correct pronunciation. You are not Spanish. No, but I say croissant, and I say jalapeño. Jalapeño? Yeah. It's not jalapeño, is it?

Is it? Go on, James, you say it. I guess I say... Jalapeño, I'd say. Jalapeño. Jalapeño. I mean, I wouldn't go jalapeño. Yeah, I'd say jalapeño.

But I'd go jalapeño. I'm perfectly... Hello, what? Jalapeño. I'm perfectly willing to admit that I'm wrong. Wow. But as far as I know, on the end, there is the little squiggly accent, which is near.

How do you say piñata? Piñata. Oh. Oh. Well, because of your kind of explanation, I'm going to believe you. Yeah. And because you are who you are,

I think you're probably right. But I just haven't heard anybody say it like that. Well, I might be wrong. I frequently get messages saying I've absolutely messed up a pronunciation. Welcome to my world. My whole life is to copy in what Ed does until someone else tells me it's wrong. So would you go into a takeaway place or a restaurant and say that?

Would you say I want some jalapeño on my pizza? Jalapeño. Jalapeño, sorry, jalapeño. I've got a slight problem with... Sometimes when we're out with friends, and there are a few friends who I won't name, but they go deep with an accent when we're ordering off a menu that say is Spanish.

And I just feel so super awkward. Yeah. Because I'm like, okay, we don't need to like go, you know, we don't need to go to hard on this. Matt Bologeri. Matt Bologeri. I've never been to her. I've never been really in that situation with Matt.

I don't imagine he would be. But some people have got real confidence, haven't they? And they go into a Spanish restaurant and they basically become Antonio Banderas. I mean, is he even Spanish? Yes. I think he is. I think he is. Puss in Boots is...

More or less. Puss in Boots. And they go all that. Anyway. I don't do that. We don't. I find that embarrassing. But I mean, I feel very exposed after saying jalapeño to be honest.

Jalapeño. Sorry, I didn't mean to. That's how I'm going to start saying it though. I loved it. I didn't mean to make you feel awkward. Your dream starter. Okay, you are going to look at me now as if, oh, I mean, couldn't she bring something better than that?

But I've gone through this in my head over and over and over. And I have to stay true to prawn cocktail. Hey, it's a big hitter. It's a big hitter on the pod. A lot of people chose prawn cocktail. I'd say you are, if I may say this, the youngest person to choose prawn cocktail. Gosh. Normally it's people who grew up in a certain decade.

And I would say you are the youngest person to choose a prawn cocktail. Prawn cocktail is cool now, right? That's cool now. It is. And I was a late comer to prawn cocktail. Again, it was in the sparkly water, olive category where prawns and me were not friends. Because if you bite into a prawn, don't ever do that. What?

Don't ever bite into a prawn. I can't even say. Don't ever bite into a prawn. No. Don't ever bite into a prawn. Are you swallowing them whole? How are you going to eat this starter? What?

100%. How big are the prawns? King size. King size prawns. No, no. You'll go put them down like a pelican. 100%. It's the same thing as, there's a rule, isn't there?

Unspoken, but nobody ever bites into scampi. What? What? Never bite into scampi and look. I don't think. Oh, right. And look. Don't look at it.

If you can order scampi and chips, and let me tell you, I've done that millions of times because I love scampi. But in a pub situation, you're there, it's summer. Scampi, peas and chips in a basket back in the 80s. But never bite into the scampi because you never know what you're going to see. And that's going to ruin your meal. What might you say?

Yeah. Well, the inside of scampi is not great. Have you ever bitten into a scampi and looked? I mean, I don't think I have, to be honest. I've definitely bitten. I definitely don't gulp these things down whole. I'm trying to think if I have bitten into the scampi and then looked at the other half.

I mean, I think I have. And in my head, it's quite succulent and juicy. Like a deep fried scampi. Okay. Well, you just try that again and then come back to me. Okay. Yeah. So the rule is scampi, always swallow whole. And I think swallow whole. You're not even biting it when it's in your mouth.

Dip it into your tartar or into your tartar, not the thing that's on your teeth as in tartar sauce, and or your ketchup, whatever. And down it goes. And with prawns, it's the same thing. With a king-size prawns, you would swallow that whole. Well, take the bits off you don't want and it goes. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, you're not even bite. Why don't you bite it in your mouth? Yeah, no, no, no, you can. But why don't you? I can. I do. I do. I do. I don't know. Well, because, you know, for the last five minutes,

everyone's been imagining you just swallowing that whole. No, no, that'd be that'd be silly. Then I'd be choking. So the gin and tonic would have to be replaced by water. Immediately. Oh, so you're biting them in your mouth. You're chewing them up and then you're swallowing them. You're not just like, yeah.

I mean, I think prawn cocktail is under-celebrated. It's having a moment now, isn't it? It's having a cooler moment. But it's, I mean, it's delicious. Crispy iceberg lettuce, proper, proper 70s. Triangle bread, toast. Nice. Paprika on top.

Getting a bit more bread in there. Paprika. It's the only thing I make all year. Is it? I make that at home. It's our starter on Christmas Day. Lovely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Along with mackerel patty,

which is a bit weird to have both, but anyway. They're both quite, I think they, yeah, especially, yeah, in the UK, they're like Christmas starters. I might move on when my palette develops. I might move on to oysters, but I'm not there yet. I mean, yeah, if you're not even looking at Scampi when you bite it. Good luck looking at an oyster before you even put it in. I have had one, one, and oh God, takes me back now.

Got stuck, I did. Got stuck. Halfway. Halfway down your throat or down your body? Yeah, it's, oh my God, and all I could think. I mean, I'm not even going to go there. But I really, because you know, we were filming, right? And we were in France again.

And there was a man, like a fisherman, and he was, but he was also like a TV chef in France. And he was making this beautiful kind of vinaigrette thing to go on top of it. And it looks so lovely. Like all these lovely shallots, I thought that looks, how bad can it be with that on top of it? Yeah, yeah.

God, it was awful. This was fresh. Massive ones, they, I think they called, I don't know, but they giant oysters. And they just caught them in front of you. Fresh, fresh, just caught them. Here we go, shuck them. This stuff on top, you know, and there was like Tabasco,

and then I thought, well, you're not even going to taste it. Oh my goodness me. The texture, whoa. Did you chew that? Did you bite that? No, I did not. Straight down. Yeah, tears in my eyes, all of it, because I couldn't swallow.

And did that come across in the footage? Very much so. Yeah, yeah. Did the fisherman mind? Did he seem offended? I was trying to hide it from him. I did a bad job. Yeah, you can't hide anything from a fisherman.

But I'm hoping in time, I would like to, you know, it's that thing you would like to like them. All my friends like them, my husband loves them. And I'm like, oh, the work of the devil right there. Absolutely delicious. Yeah. And having one that's just been caught and prepared for you by the fisherman who caught it, wow.

That's a privilege. I think it's the texture though, isn't it? What can we do about the texture? Nothing. I guess you could, I mean, sometimes they fry them. They might bread them and fry them. There's a lot of work though, isn't there, when you could just have a scampi.

Yeah, I suppose so. Yeah, but yeah, I suppose it's the same with the deep-fried, obviously you're not biting that and having a look inside, are you? Absolutely not. Can't ask the fisherman to do that on the boat. Can you deep-fry that for me, please? He probably hasn't got that knocking around the old fishing boat.

Would you like to be blindfolded for this meal? Because it seems like you don't want to look at a lot of your food. Yeah. Oh no, I don't mind the prompt cocktail. I mean, it's covered in... I don't even say it. Marry Rose Sauce. Well, Ed knows how to pronounce things.

Go on. I would say Mary Rose, yeah. Okay. I say Mary Rose. Yeah, you say Mary Rose, you absolutely can't pronounce. Yeah, I said it on ear. That sounds like a pub. You got grilled for it, you got torn to ribbons.

It's not a pub. Yeah, yeah. Mary Rose. Yeah, that's a Mary Rose sauce. So is it just Mary Rose or Mary Rose? I would say Mary Rose, but again, I can't stress enough. I'm really not the authority on foreign languages.

But I'm in this room. But I think none of us really know these things, so we just say it very quickly and hope for the best. Yeah. In America, with prawn cocktail, they have cocktail sauce. Have you had that before, which is like... It's the same, isn't it?

No, it's like a tomato-y based sauce with horseradish in it. Well, hang on a minute. What do you think Mary Rose sauce is then? Like a more mayo based sauce, right? No. It's a tomato sauce, isn't it? Hang on a minute, not in our house. Not in your house?

No, it's... Hang on. It's ketchup and mayonnaise. Yeah, that's what I mean. What are you talking about there? Tomatoes. The American one is more... No, but it's like more of a sort of...

It's almost like a pasta sauce type. Oh, no. It's all tomato. There's no mayo and there's horseradish in it. And it's a real disappointment when you order a prawn cocktail in America. Yeah. Because you want that mayo-y dip.

Of course you do. Yeah. Have they not been over here and seen that we do it better? Obviously not. You know what these Americans are like? Yeah, you know what these Americans are like. They come over, they see what we do.

They don't take us seriously. They just try and remake it to their own versions on the office. I thought everybody had the same prawn cocktail all over the world. No. So that's another eye-opener. Thanks, Ed.

Thanks, Ed. Are your dream a main course? OK. Right, hold on tight. And don't judge instantly, OK? You said this about the prawn cocktail. And we were on board with the prawn cocktail. The prawn cocktail is universal.

This is not. OK. OK. Ready? Yes. Deep breath. Corned beef pie. Hey, look, that sounds great.

That, I want to eat it immediately. OK. So I wouldn't want to eat corned beef out of a tin. OK. That would make me feel a bit sick. Again, don't look at it. But corned beef mixed with onions, mixed with potato that then become mashed potato,

with a little bit of secret ingredient, ketchup, salt and pepper, mush it together, in pastry, in the oven. Oh, my God. It's a dream. I think you just reminded me of something my mum used to make that I'd completely forgotten about. Exactly.

And now I'm really excited. Right. It's a dream. I do think it's a dream. My mum used to make this for us, still does on occasions. Yeah. Not often enough, Mum, if you listen to this.

But she does make it and it is like nothing else because at the time you can have it respectively with vegetables and gravy, like a bit like a Sunday roast kind of thing, you know, day after with ketchup or beans. I mean, I've taken this podcast now right down to the gutter, haven't I? This is great. But it's honestly, let's forget about fancy food a minute.

This is comfort food, personified. Oh, it sounds amazing. I love corned beef anyway, from the tin, whatever. No, you don't, Dad. Do you? Do you serve corned beef sandwiches when I was at school? How do you say corned beef? Go in the beef.

Butth. Butth. Butth. Butth to look on. I have corned beef sandwiches and I really look forward to them. They were my favourite sandwiches. We'd have them in school, corned beef sandwiches. I did not look forward to them because Dad has to put ketchup on them as well.

And I didn't like them. I mean, but I can see why people would like them, but it's just the whole tin thing. I don't like anything in a tin apart from tuna. Interesting. And beans. And why? And tomatoes.

Oh, no, I do like things in a tin, actually. I don't like anything in a tin. But meat in a tin. So spam. No. What's the other one? That's like a ham and it's got that jelly around it. That is, that's a big deal.

I know what you mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like luncheon meat or something. Luncheon meat is the thing, yeah. Yeah, you don't like those. Whoa, he eats it. And any meat in a tin is too reminiscent of dog food, I think, when you tip it out.

Yeah. But I don't mind it. But let's push past that. Corned beef, get it out of the tin. Quickly mix it with other things in a bowl. And my mum was with me last night and I was like, ma'am, can you just make a corned beef pie? Because I'll take it tomorrow.

She's like, well, I'd love to, but I've got your washing to do. What? I mean, you don't have to do my washing. I'm perfectly capable. So there's a lot of work that needs to do in this house. I mean, anyway, let's not go into that. So when your mum visits, she proper like goes into mum mode. Oh, yeah.

And does everything in the house. Yeah, I'm incapable, apparently, of anything. You see, on one hand, you're saying, oh, mum thinks I'm incapable, she's doing my washing. But on the other hand, you are saying that you asked her to make a corned beef pie last night. Yeah, only cause. This is her recipe.

Yeah. You see. So you don't think you could make it? Have you tried? I haven't tried, no. I mean, I had to push, I'm sure. But you know, it's just hers has got the je ne sais quoi. I love how I put that with a corned beef pie.

Oh, French episode. That is the first time anyone has ever used a phrase je ne sais quoi in relation to a corned beef pie. OK. Oh, yeah. Oh, no, I believe that. Yeah. The only thing, I mean, I know, I think I've got that wrong. I was about to say, this reminds me of home alone

when someone says it, but I don't think she does say, I think she tells Kevin, she goes, you're what the French call less incompetent. She doesn't say je ne sais quoi. Je ne sais quoi. There's not a corned beef pie involved either. If only there was. I bet that would be quite handy.

If you were defending, isn't that a question for you, Alex? If you were defending your house against Burglars and you had a corned beef pie, would you use it in a trap? Well, it's that dense. You could throw it out there. I'm going to probably take them out. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it's a big, it's a big unit. Yeah. Yeah. You know, when you're having a slice, you know about it. You know, you don't want prawn cocktail really to proceed corned beef pie. Oh, right.

Because you're going to be up to your eyeballs. In what? Just food. In corned beef pie. In corned beef pie. And I'm not sure there's any room for any prawns. What shape is this corned beef pie? Well, it's up to you.

You can, you know, you can go with what you feel. But square, we usually make. My square. So you can have big rectangles. I'm going to text my mum. OK, go. And ask if we had corned beef pie when we were younger, because... So we used to have a thing called corned beef hash.

Do you remember that? Yeah, it was just chopped potatoes, onions, corned beef. I mean, I don't know. People must delete it somewhere in the world, but I think it's fallen out of fashion. Yeah, but it's another one of those things where you might see it on a menu somewhere. Yeah.

And it's like a bit of a trendy thing to put on. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, we could bring corned beef hash back right now, probably. I feel like that's more like, again, in America, I see corned beef hash on a menu. But then neither of those things are what we know them as here. Yeah, corned beef is not the same.

Yeah, hash isn't the same. Hang on, what corned beef have they got there, though? Well, it's just not that sort of compacted corned beef that we have here. It would be like a bit of beef that has been, the way it's been brined is in more like a corny way. It's like shredded, like it comes out like... Good explanation actually.

Well, it's something to do with the process of the way it's been brined as opposed to whatever the fuck corned beef is here, which... And what's hash, then, over there? Well, like, over there, actually maybe hash is quite the same. I'm just thinking of hash browns, really, of how hash browns are here. And then hash browns there are like stringy potatoes

that have been fried with onions and stuff, but it's not all one block like we've got. But it's quite odd, isn't it? Because things like corned beef hash, casserole, you know, pies, these are things that you'd have growing up and, of course, wholesome food. And those are the things that you'd drag, wouldn't they? Oh, no, it's that much.

We're having corned beef hash. Oh, no. And I'm going to be dragged away from neighbors to eat this. Yeah. But that's the regularity thing, I think, as well. It's like every Wednesday, what we're having, corned beef hash. And then you move away and you realize you can have

whatever you like on any night of the week. But then Wednesday rolls around and you're like, I miss that corned beef hash. Yeah. I know. Like Monday was lasagna and salad day for years. Great. About 20 years.

Monday was. Yeah. And, you know, that's not a bad Monday, is it? Garfield loves lasagna but doesn't like Mondays. Yeah. So that'd be crazy for Garfield. Garfield doesn't know what's going on. Well, that would be Garfield.

We'll come back to that. That would surely be the way to help Garfield like Monday. Perfect for Garfield. Because he'd look forward to it. Give him a lasagna on a Monday. Turn him around anyway. What do you mean Garfield doesn't know what's going on? Oh, Garfields.

Honestly, he used to annoy the shit on me. I don't know why everybody loved Garfield. I was like, what's the big deal? God, so annoying. What? Why did he annoy you? I don't know. If he was quite negative, wasn't he?

Yeah. Very negative. And yeah, negative. Everything's a problem. God, shut up, Garfields. Everything's a problem. It's not nice to OD the dog. And that's quite nice.

You know, I just think you could do with better energy. Yeah, yeah. What would you do if you had to interview Garfield on the one show? Oh, yeah. Oh, he wouldn't even get past the flipping security door. No, we'd pin a puppy straight into him. Take that Garfield. Not even remember it Sunday.

Yeah. Well, I think that sounds delicious. And hopefully my mum will text me and tell me. Because if that is something we used to have when we were kids, I really want it again, because I know exactly what you're talking about. I made it for, well, you can make. So do you know what rissoles are? Oh, that look of confusion.

So no, no, no. I just don't want to get it wrong. Yeah. Like meat. Are they like meatball type things? No. So rissoles. Fucking fuck you, Ed.

Rissoles are basically corned beef pie, inner, in a sort of battered, no, not battered, bread crumbed and fried ball. Delicious. So in fish and chip shops in South Wales, rissole and chips is a thing, which is weird because it's double potato, but nobody cares. So it's corned beef, onion, mashed potato,

inner ball of breadcrumbs, fried with chips, sometimes gravy on it, sometimes curry sauce. Yum. And it's that curry sauce that you can only get in fish and chip shops. You know the ones? Sounds so good. Slightly vinegary. Anyway, so I made these rissoles for Dame Mary Berry.

Wow. There's a name who's name you can pronounce. So yeah, I can do that. You're not saying Berry, Mary? No. Berry, Mary. Love Dame Mary, Berry. But she, so I could, so I went on a show with her.

It was one Christmas ages ago and she said, okay, you have to cook a dish for this Christmas party that we're going to have at the end. I was like, what? I can't cook and now I'm cooking for Dame Mary Berry. And I said, all right then, I'll make rissoles. Why? Why?

Anyway. And I said, and she said, what are you going to make, dear? I said, I'm going to make rissoles, Mary. She said, what are they, dear? And I said, well, they vary sort of, you know, it's a Welsh tradition and they make them in South Wales and mum moves to make them. And she said, well, they sound delicious. I mean, Mary's all over kind of World War II food

unless falls into that category. Corned beef straight in there. And I made them and honestly, oh, it looked like cat food. Oh God, I could not get the consistency right. It was just really runny corned beef and potato, but I couldn't get it so that, you know, I could make it into a ball. And I made it. Honestly, it's never looked so bad.

Fern Cotter was on the same show. She does something really super duper. I don't know, like butternut squash, risotto in a butternut squash. Hates Fern Cotter. Yeah. No, I love Fern Cotter. Really hates Fern Cotter. She is such a good cook.

Yeah. And she'd made a lovely dip and she said, Al, what's your dip? And I went, ketchup. Like I even made a dip. I just poured ketchup into a bowl. Anyway, Mary Berry loved it. Great. Of course she did.

Absolutely loved it. She's a good one. She's loved it. Yeah, she was on bake off when I got on it. Corned beef loaf. There you go. My mum sent me the page of the recipe book. Wow.

That was quick. That was a quick response. Oh, she has very little going on. Oh my goodness. Your poor mum. Go on. 12 ounce can of corned beef, six ounce cheddar cheese grated,

nine large slices of thinly sliced white bread, two level tablespoons of French mustard, six ounces of butter, two ounces of freshly made white breadcrumbs, one large egg, size two in brackets, one medium onion peeled and finely chopped, two level tablespoons of pickle. Well, I don't even know what...

Don't even know what... Do you want me to teach you the method? No. It sounds like she's making a corned beef sandwich. But also, what does it look like? Have you got a picture of how it should look like in the end? I can't picture. No, this recipe book is so old

that it just looks like parchment paper. It's like old, you know, tea-stained parchment paper. There you go. Well, what do you want? And there's no... I don't think photos existed when this... I mean, the next recipe in it is ginger beer. How to make your own ginger beer.

It's not the famous fire cookbook. Yes. It's probably eaten polite into it in the ship. And I've said to her, wow, I'd love it again. And then she's gone, what? Why? And I asked if obviously you discovered corned beef. Yeah.

I'm just going to say yes, because I don't have time to... Yeah, yeah, I'll tell her later on. And she listens to the pod anyway. Yeah, you are. Well, she'll know all about it. Yeah, yeah. She'll absolutely love that bit

where you said she doesn't have anything going on. Yeah, I'll get a text. Yeah. I'll get a text. To write your own. About that. Straight away. Yeah.

As soon as it's released. Yeah. Very little going on. Yeah, as soon as I'll say it, she'll text me. Bugger all else to do. This corned beef pie sounds absolutely amazing. Honestly. I mean, it is a bit World War II, is it?

You know, it's a bit retro, but taste it. It also, that and the riscells, really sounds like the sort of thing you'd eat before you go out drinking. Oh yeah, or after. So in Cardiff, and you'll have listeners, I know in Cardiff,

and they'll know about Chippy Lane. Chippy Lane, it's not really called Chippy Lane, but it is Chippy Lane, because all the sort of late night takeaway places are on it, and the floor is so slippery from chips. Yeah. So when you'd go down there in a heel, or...

Whales, man. You are taking your life into your own hands. Chippy Lane in a heel, 3 a.m., disaster. But, oh, the rewards. If you make it into the shop, the rewards are like no other. Rissal, chips, curry sauce, tons of vinegar. Oh, my mouth is watering. How slippy is it?

Could you start at one end of Chippy Lane and slide all the way like Martin McFly down to the other end? Well, let's just imagine it. Okay, your chips have fallen on the floor. Right. A few people have walked over them, so they kind of warn into the concrete. Very slippery.

Yeah. Very slippery. The floor is lava. People say bananas. It's not. It's chips. Chips should be in cartoons for people slipping on them. Yeah.

Not bananas. There you go. If you're touring in Cardiff, Chippy Lane, that's where you need to go. I can walk down Banana Lane in heels, no problem. Yeah, yeah, I can't run down Banana Lane. I'm fine. Let's do your side dish.

Okay. Dream side. Okay. Is it chips from Chippy Lane or are we looking at something else here? It could be chips from Chippy Lane. It would always be a potato in some form. And I mean, that's pretty standard

when it comes to side dishes, isn't it? Yeah. But none of this broccoli with chilli. Nice and all that, but not that exciting. I would go again. Again, I don't know if I'm saying it right. Potatoes. Oh, grata.

Oh, yeah. Oh, dauphinoise. Nice. If you're going to eat that with a corned beef pie, don't get me wrong. Cardic arrest is imminent, but you will be carted off to the hospital. That's a heavy meal.

That's a heavy meal. I'm on board with it though. But this is in our dream situation, so we can go there. But I think dauphinoise potatoes are absolutely delicious. I've been there for a second there. They're the best potatoes. Why do you get confused?

Why are you confused? When you said cardiac arrest, could you have just been talking about Cardiff? Yes. I thought you'd said cardiac arrest, about someone getting arrested in Cardiff. It confused me for a second. Yeah.

Cardiac. Yeah, yeah. But you can't arrest anyone in Cardiff because they slip away from the police. Oh, that's true. Isn't it too slippy? Don't mind how cheap you're saying it. It's a lot of coppers.

Slide down there. Yeah. These are Ed's favourite potatoes. Dauphinoise best potatoes, yeah. Let me just check this with you, Ed. Again, I'm coming to you. No offence, just. Yep.

Dauphinoise, are they the same as au gratin? No. Oh. I don't think so. Since when? Oh. Wow, here we go. Maybe they are.

Okay, maybe they are the same. I might be getting mixed up with another shout-out for this word, potatoes boulanger. Wow. That is not a thing. It is. It's not. You just mixed up boulangerie and potatoes.

That's not a thing. What, bread potatoes? No, I guess it's like bacon's potatoes. Oh, is that a chip butty? Oh, hang on a minute. Uh-oh. That would have been my side dish. You'd rather have a chip butty now.

As a side dish. What about, well, this is your side, isn't it? We're on your side now. What about if you did dauphinoise potatoes in a chip butty style? No. You wouldn't want that. Well, it'd be runny.

What do you think? Like, I think that would appeal. I think I would like it if it was like. I think I would like it if it was forced on me, of course. Yeah. I think au gratin has cheese in it and dauphinoise does. It doesn't traditionally. Ooh, interesting.

I think dauphinoise. That's always been thinking about it. Well, dauphinoise is cream, isn't it? Yeah. It's cream. Cream garlic. And basically layers of roundy shaped potatoes. And au gratin has cheese.

Are we right? Okay. Well, we'll call that a score drawer, I think. Normally, I try and repeat what Benito says. He doesn't have to put himself on the podcast, but that was too long. I can't memorise it. He's going to have to pitch shift his voice down or something.

I can't say it, Benito. I can't. You described it so well the first time. You don't have to crime watch your voice. Crime watch? Yeah. I'm sorry, man. Dauphinoise.

Let's stick with dauphinoise because dauphinoise has got cream. Yeah. And if we go in full-on, dream meal, let's go rich. Oh, yeah. It's the best. Do you want to chuck a chip butty in there as well? Yeah. Dauphinoise butty?

Well, in fact, if we go back to bread, we just put some chips in there and then that's the bread. Yeah, that's fair enough. Chip butty. Perfect, yeah. That's your new bread course, chip butty. Oh, my God. This meal is turning out to be an absolute belter.

Yeah, yes. It's quite nice, isn't it? Yeah. Is there anywhere you've had dauphinoise before? It's like the best you've ever had. Gosh. I tell you what I did have some nice dauphinoise is there's a restaurant in London and, oh, this sounds really knobby now.

Well, remember, you have already told a story about when you used to get the baguettes, when you were a little kid. So I think you're okay. I think that's relatable. This one's less so. There's a button on every table where you press it and they bring champagne. Boba brocade. Boba brocade.

Boba brocade. This has come up before. I had some delicious dauphinoise potatoes there. And how much also? Because people have mentioned Boba brocade before. I'm going there on Sunday. It's going on Sunday. Hang on.

So I know what I'm going to order. It's not a Sunday type of place. It's my mother-in-law's birthday. We're taking it for her birthday because she wants to try the champagne button. Alex has issues with things. I really thought Alex was on my side there. I could never predict what you're going to have an issue with or what it is. And the fact that it's not a Sunday type of place.

I love it. Is it? It's mainly with me. So it's always be something I say. How about you? No, no, no. No, I love that. I just thought, wow, he's exotic.

Yeah. That's generous. Yes, I'm going on Sunday. Who goes, hang on a minute. Yeah, come on. Who goes into central London to a clearly night time restaurant on a Sunday? I don't think there's such a thing as a night time restaurant. I think there is.

Stringfellows. Is that where you're going afterwards? I would call that a restaurant, necessarily. We're taking my mother-in-law to Stringfellows for her birthday. Oh, God. I mean, Bob, Bob, Rick had a boot of lovely surprise. Very nice and nice treats. I just wouldn't have ever considered a Sunday there.

Well, it's open. Well, I guess they've considered it. Optimistically. I mean, Sundays, I just think of roasts, you know, in like a pub. They do a lovely beef wellington there though. I'm sure they do. Oh, beef wellington. I haven't thought about a beef wellington in years.

Not too dissimilar to a corned beef pie. Not a million miles away. Not as good. Beef wellington is a bit one-dimensional. Really? Oh, controversial. You've only got a wrong gastrobarmy in Amsterdam. Have the beef wellington there.

That was my dream main course when I did this. So the day from when I was at Bob Bob Rickard is nice, you say. Beautiful. So that's the one we're going to put on your dream menu. And that's the one I'll be getting on Sunday. And you raise a toast to Alex when you're there. Well, think of me. Yeah.

Order a bottle. I'll say happy birthday and to Alex Jones. And she'll be like, who? She loves the Dauphin Marcia. She doesn't think it's right for a Sunday. She hates Garfield. Yeah. Yeah.

So I think that's all. A bit trivia. Yeah, yeah, that's all. That's not controversial. No, somebody bought me a Garfield calendar. Was a joke. So misguided. So misguided.

How old were you when they did that? Oh, quite young. And then, speaking of calendars, do you know the other one that somebody bought me? Chip and egg? No. Worse. I've just watched the series, so it's in my head.

Yeah. Um, beavis, beavis, beavis and buttered? I mean, what? Was it the same person who bought you those calendars? No. I was lost for words. Oh, I was not expecting it to be beavis and buttered. How old were you when you got bought the beavis and buttered calendar?

I don't know, 14? Like, I couldn't be anywhere further from beavis and buttered. But somehow, somebody had gone into flipping W. H. Smith or Woolworth or whatever at the time and thought, oh, she's going to love it. I know. Can you remember any of that? I mean, they're pretty colourful characters, beavis and buttered.

Can you remember any of the months and what they were doing on them? I just remember a lot of yellow and turquoise kind of colour and angry faces. And no, bin. With the Garfield calendar, did they take the opportunity to do a little joke where all the Mondays are like scrubbed out or something? Did they? Yeah, there was that. There was a cross on all the Mondays.

Great. But it's not that funny. There was this like, do you know what I mean? Yeah, it's the same joke 52 times. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Did that go in the bin as well? Yeah.

Yeah, straight in the bin. Garfield thinks the buttered hate them. Yeah. What would have been the calendar you would have liked to receive? Well, you know, I don't know. One of them with, you know, little kittens or, you know, kittens in a basket or, I don't know, there was a thing called Forever Friends and I had a wall plumber, Forever Friends, wall plumber.

I used to love that. Or, you know, I don't know. I mean, new kids on the block. New kids on the block. Yeah. Well, that is funny. You want kittens or Forever Friends? Oh, new kids on the block.

Garfield's a cat and Beaver's in front of Forever Friends. Yeah, come on. Nice try. What more do you want? Nice try. There's a little cough over there. And then, and then we were talking on the show the other day about Bill and Ted. Oh, that's another pair I can't bear.

I can't bear. It's just not me. And I'm sure they're very nice people. Bill and Ted. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Bill and Ted are nice people. They say like nice people.

Yeah, they do. They just want them all. I mean, I even called my child Ted, but I don't know. They want everyone to be excellent to each other. But I don't want a Bill and Ted calendar. You wouldn't want it. No. I mean, that's a shame.

How have we got to calendars from Beef Wellington? I don't know. I've bought up Garfield against it. It's funny that you don't like Garfield. And then we've discovered you also don't like Beaverson but head of Bill and Ted. It's worth it. It's very specific, you know. I feel bad now.

They probably all very well, I mean. You don't like two men who hang around together a lot on their best friends and love rock music? I don't know. Well, actually, when you put it like that, it's like my husband and his best friend Trevor. Hey, Trevor. Who the kids got?

Uncle Treasure. That's not his name. What's your husband's name? Charlie. So Charlie and Trevor is a bit like Beaverson but head of Bill and Ted. Yeah, although, yeah, they are. Actually, they really are. Maybe that's why I'm so annoyed with Beaverson but.

What would you do if you got a Charlie and Trevor calendar? Oh my goodness, Ben, Ben, Ben. He was our best man. I love him dearly. Yeah. I love him to death. He's lovely but together. Right, your dream drink.

This is a hard one. So if I'm hungry and I'm in a restaurant and I think these people are going to be late or they're very slow at service here, I'll have a Bloody Mary because that is a meal in a glass. It's the fun version of a Slim Fast, isn't it? Shake, I always think. There's more to it.

You know, it's quite meaty for a drink. Fills you up. So I like that. I don't like the lemon in a Bloody Mary. I completely agree with you. What is that about? What's it doing in there? It doesn't go.

Completely agree with you. I don't want it in there. I would accept a squeeze of lemon in there actually. I would accept that but it's not essential. You wouldn't squeeze lemon in your tomato soup, would you? No, you really wouldn't. No, but this is a Bloody Mary. Yeah, but it's the same flavour profiles.

Exactly. I don't know. I do like the accoutrement. Wow, that's a word for a Bloody Mary. I'm just trying to join in with the French stuff. Do you like those Bloody Marys where they like put bacon in it and stuff? No.

No. What do you want in there? Because like... Pepper. Pepper. Spicy, celery is fine. Although, I don't know whether we should go down this road. I think we should.

Okay. I love this road. Celery I used to like. Celery with a bit of salt. I had Covid, celery now tastes like beef. So I can't cope with it anymore. Okay now. I bet there are a lot of people listening to this who are jealous.

Yeah, I'm jealous. So many people hate celery because they say it has nothing as watery. If it tasted like beef, they'd be like, great, I can have like a... No, it's not like it. No, no. It's like the pepper army.

Because you want what you're eating to taste like what it looks like. I mean, celery now is... Well, it's lost its appeal, I can't even tell you. But in a Bloody Mary, if it's spicy enough, it'll take the beef element away. Sure. Right, okay.

Also, a bit of beef in your Bloody Mary, wouldn't go amiss completely? I suppose, but I'm also not going to go to the bar and then explain this whole thing that celery now tastes like beef. They look at me like I'm mad. And so I just let them put it in. Have you googled it to see if this is a thing?

Because sometimes, people had COVID afterwards, like, I know it's like, for example, I got a stye in my eye. I was like, I never get styes. And then I got one again. I thought, what's going on? And then I googled it. It was like, a lot of people who had COVID

and then suddenly they start getting styes afterwards. And so there's a whole bunch of things that people are finding post-having COVID that is actually quite common. So maybe if you Google... Celery tastes like beef. Celery problems. I'd say you need to put celery, beef and COVID

through the free keywords. We should do it and see what happens. Would you prefer styes in the eye or celery to taste like beef if you were given the option of... Oh, easy. Celery to taste like beef all day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But also red wine tastes funny.

And I love red wine. That's a shame. That would bum me out. But I'm pushing through. Yeah, you've got to. What does it taste like, red wine? Like I've got it from the garage. Like really cheap or full. And it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter how expensive it is. They all taste the same. That's gutting. That is sad. But I'm pushing through. Yeah, well done. Yeah. If you add enough Tabasco, it covers the taste, right?

Yeah, exactly. So you're having Tabasco in the Bloody Mary. So I'm having Tabasco in the Bloody Mary. Celery. Not lemon. No lemon. What's the sauce? Yeah, all of it.

What's the salt? Which one is it? Just all of that. Lea parents. All of it. Olives. Yeah, all right. On a cocktail stick.

I've enjoyed olives in the Bloody Mary. Because I... Well, I only order a Bloody Mary if I'm hungry. So all the extra bits, even if the celery does taste like beef, is welcome. Surely you're not hungry at this dream meal, though, are you? No, but this is before. So this is an aperitif slash little snack.

So you're chugging the G&T straight onto the Bloody Mary, then onto the breakfast. I make myself feel a bit sick when I'm thinking about everything that's in my tummy after this dream meal. But Bloody Mary aside, if I'm not hungry, super hungry, straight in wine. Wine all day. Even though...

Not all day. That would be irresponsible. Yeah. You could hold it together on the one show if you've been drinking wine all day. I do like... There's a wine called Bread and Butter. Have you tasted this?

It's been brought to our attention. Yes, it has. Michelle Keegan. Yeah, yes. Michelle Keegan chose bread for every course unknowingly and figured it out as she was going along that she just keeps choosing bread. And then she said this wine,

and then really she said that she needed locking up. Bread and butter is a chardonnay. It's a chardonnay. I think it's Californian. Bread and butter is delicious. Yeah. Would you like to share a bottle with Michelle Keegan? I would.

As long as we had another one. Because I don't think there's anything worse than opening a bottle of wine that you really enjoy and know in that you haven't got one in reserve. You want to decide when to stop, not the wine, I always think. I think a lot of people have probably... Yeah, listen to this podcast.

I've just stood up and saluted you. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? I think you really spoke to people's hearts there. You need one on reserve. Always one on reserve. And always something fizzy in the fridge, because you never know when there's something

to celebrate, I think. What if your kids, they're fizzy? They're fizzy. They are fizzy with a bit of added fizz. Put them in the fridge, might chill them out. Yeah, might help. I think you and Michelle Keegan are going to get on. I think so.

I've interviewed Michelle a few times. She's lovely. Yeah. So I'll get the bread and butter in next time. She comes on the one show. Oh, yeah. Perfect. She'll be ecstatic.

If you do that. You won't do that. You won't do that. It went down. I seem to remember when she brought it up on the podcast, a lot of people were messaging me saying, I've not had this before and I tried it and it's fantastic. Oh, it's really nice.

A friend of mine bought it for me as a little gift. She brought it over on my birthday. And I thought, what is this? It's special. Great. Well, it's always good when someone gets a second shout out. Chardonnay gets a bad rap as well. So.

You know, it does. And years ago, I would have gone, ah, gosh, I'm not drinking that. But, oh, I'm converted. It used to be Savignon Blanc, New Zealand, all the way. But now, I'll take either. Bread and butter chardonnay. Yeah.

Very good. Delicious. We arrive at the dessert, the dream dessert. I'm feeling good about this. OK. Well, so James worries if people don't have sweet toots. But what James might not have picked up on earlier is when we were talking about bread,

you said you could happily eat bread, cheese, and drink red wine with every meal. But you also said. With every course. You don't like savoury pretzels, but you like sweet pretzels. Yeah. So this is tricky.

Could go either way. Can you predict? I think it's going to be something, I think it's going to be something like an apple crumble with custard. Oh, no, I hate custard. We've also established the custard thing, James. What, did we? Yeah.

Oh, my gosh. Wobbly custard that's been set in a custard slice. I might have been texting my mum during this. You don't like them? It's like, what's the difference between that and blemange? Nobody. Do you know Milton Jones, the comedian Milton Jones? I do.

Not personally, but I know. Not related to him? No. That'll be a real turn up for the books. Maybe, who knows? Milton and I, well, I was supporting him on tour in 2011. Yeah. The aim of the tour, besides doing the gigs,

was to find the perfect custard slice, because he loves them. And I've got a sweet tooth. I agree with you, Alex. I hate that texture and consistency. The best one we found. Well, maybe this will convert you. Was in Wales. Was it?

Yeah. Do you know what I do like about a custard slice? The first service station, as you get into Wales. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, OK, interesting. But then we went back to get it,

and it was like the service station vanished and wasn't there anymore. It's like a ghost town. So I think something happened, something supernatural. That's quite... That is rare. Were you going back the other way? Oh, yeah.

Was it on the different side of the road? Custard slice, though. I tell you what I do really like about them. So I hate the middle bit. But I love the top bit, but especially the bottom bit, where it's a bit soggy. So if I could have just those two sandwiched together without the rubbish in the middle, delicious.

Fair enough. But a custard slice, wrong. Wrong. There's not an apple crumble, though. Not something like that. I'm thinking, like, homely... I've come round to custard, but it's taken me a while. Yeah.

But I'm not... It's all right. I know, OK, I'm going to go eat and mess. Oh, OK. Great. Yeah, yeah. And my sister said to me the other day about a year ago, I ordered Eat and Mess and she went,

oh, look at you going all English. It's just a pudding. Yeah, because it's called Eat and Mess. Yeah, I know that. That's why people get angry about that sort of stuff, right? Yeah. But I think... I don't know, I just love cream.

Yeah. I just... Yeah. Yeah. So eclairs. Yeah. I'm in. Anything with a large amount of...

Hate eclairs. Why? I think I have an issue with a large amount of cream that's not sort of very sweet. So like eclairs sometimes, you're just like, they're full of air. There's so much air. It's like...

Where are you buying them? Well, I'm not buying them. Mm-hmm. You know, I mean, Jay Vayner came on the podcast. Oh, gosh. Jay Vayner chose... Yeah, yeah.

Well, I mean, but yeah, but he has got very high expectations when it comes to food. Sure. But then he chose eclairs as his dessert. Did he? Interesting. And Ed did this.

For a little stop. Yeah. And then Jay Vayner was like, you've got to go to a maitre choux, was it? Yes. And you've got to have them there. Yes. There's so much French in this podcast this week.

And you said it was nice. Yeah, it was. But I think I'm just thinking of like your supermarket eclairs. Sure. So what's the difference? Yeah. Are profiteroles just children of eclairs?

Yeah. Yeah, they're sort of round little cousins, I guess. Yeah, because... Is that true? Is it the same? Yeah. I think so, I think so, yeah. I mean, a profiterole stack, nothing nicer.

Oh, great. When I worked in a kitchen, one of the kitchens I worked in, they started doing profiteroles. And you'd just be sneaking off to the fridge, the walking fridge constantly. And just whacking one in. And then like I'm going back in.

And with you. It was so good, especially like when they've been refrigerated for ages. And they're a little bit firm as well. Was there a big stack in there and you had to work out where you're going to take it from like Jenga? Yeah, well, it's a big pyramid. Yeah.

It's just one room. Massive pyramid of... You just said, oh, no. Yeah. James took one from the bottom layer again. We know you did it, man. Oh, delicious. Delicious.

Shoe pastry and cream with a bit of, you know, chocolate that's hard on the top, from being in the fridge. Yum. I think the reason I like the matress shoe ones is I think they were not like airy cream in the middle. What is matress shoe? It's a place in Soho.

Oh. It's gone now. It was a place in Soho, it's gone now. I think it's been replaced by that pasta donata place. Maybe, yeah. The place that does the Portuguese custard tart. Oh, I can't get on board with them either. Well, I like them if I don't look at them.

Here we go again. Oh, yeah. It's a bit similar to a custard slice, I guess, isn't it? Yeah, it is. Yeah, it's Portuguese custard slice. Yeah, there's a nice flavour, but I don't like what it stands for, which is squidgy custard, mainly.

But I think those are clothes, the matress shoe clothes, had more of like a creme pat in there. So it was a bit more custardy, actually. Yeah, a bit sweeter, then. Yeah, a bit sweeter, a little bit more solid. And I like that. But it's creme, I can't be dealing with that. Whereas it needs to mess,

because it's beaten so much and whipped, it's thick and you've got the... It's got it all. It's got crunch. It's got berries to be a bit healthy. But it's got masses of creme. Sweet, yummy. Have you had a, I think they're called maritose bun?

It's an Italian bun. Maritose, maritose, I don't like it. I don't know how to say things. Don't try and throw this on me. We're Stanley Tucci when we need him. Yeah, he's been on the pod. I know, I listened. Yeah.

Well, this bun, holy shit. You would love it, Jones. So what's it called? Maritose. Maritose, I reckon. Okay. M-A-R-I-T-O, double Z, I think. I don't...

But doesn't a double Z make a tot sound? Yeah. Maritotsi, I would say. Because of pizza. I ordered this about five times. Do you say pizza or pizza? Oh, I say pizza. Good.

Because that would be ridiculous otherwise. Yeah, yeah. Is that the line? This bun, and actually, the reason I got it was because of Tucci. The Tucci. Because I saw his TV show, Ghost of Rome. Taste of Italy. And this guy surprises him with it.

He's about to go and eat. God knows how many meals in a day. He's in a cafe speaking to someone. And the guy comes out and goes, here's this bun. And the Tucci's live it. The Tucci's like, oh, Jesus Christ. I can't eat this now. I'm just going to ruin the day.

This is like my head's worth of cream. Are you joking? And the guy's like, really laughing. He did, he did. Tucci's trying to do it. And then the guy comes out and has to go it in for not finishing it. And Tucci's like, are you shitting me?

Do you know how much I've got to eat today? I've not seen this episode. It sounds great. They keep it in the edit. It's like, I'm not eating this. But I saw it. I was like, that looks incredible. Because it's like 80% cream.

And then this bun that's like, you know, just just, they've cut a bun, slammed it with cream. I'd love it. There's some orange peel in the actual bun itself. And I found a place that did it next to the Trevi fountain. And that's what it's called in Rome. This place, I don't even know what it's called. So it can't even be righted down.

I went there. I was there, we were there for eight days. We went to this place five times. They did the best gelato I've ever had in my life. Those buns were insane. Best cannolis I've ever had. We went and we had everything. And like, it was so good.

New Year's Eve, we had a really bad meal. We were really disappointed. And then we just went to that place and we got four different things and sat and ate all these sweets at like, you know, half past midnight. You don't remember what it was called? No, because it was like a long name.

And it was, I might have screen grabbed it. It's probably Greg's. It was a Greg's. That was it. I said Greg's. It was the Italian Greg's. I think it was a Greg's. But this is the thing you see, the Italians.

I mean, Italian food is, I think, another level. Always safe. Always safe. Always safe. Always safe. You know what I would say is, obviously, everything's subjective. I think I'm just not mega into Italian food.

How can that be? I know it's weird and I happen to hold my hands up and go, you know, I'm probably missing out and I'm wrong. So what? You don't like, you don't like, like a spaghetti bolognese? I do. I like pasta. I like pizza.

Do you like lasagna? Yeah, yeah. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Pesto?

Huh? Pesto? Yeah, yeah. Look, hey, hey. I like these things, but I don't love them. Oh, that's a treat so broccoli pasta. I don't love them. Okay.

That's not Italian. And then we went to Italy and I was like, here we go. Now I'm going to finally get it and why these are some people's favorite stuff. And I liked all of it, but I just had to accept, do you know what? I think it's just not my favorite of all the cuisines. However, their desserts.

Blume, I'm like, look at that bun. Look at that bun. Oh, my goodness. You like that? The bun is almost just there as a handle for the cream, right? Yeah, it's just cream. Now that looks like my perfect dessert. How sweet is the cream?

Sweet, man. It's like got ice and sugar in the cream. I'm on board. Now I am eating it. Wow. Yeah, that's graphic. Look, even your eyes are closed. Yeah, it's pretty graphic actually.

That is graphic. That's what he's saying. I'll take a bit to him. I love it. That's what I was eating. I think the thing is, it's more forgiving Italian food, you see, because you know, a bit of cheese on it was not to like. But I mean, that, I wouldn't have said just particularly Italian.

That is just in the Eaton mess camp. It's very delicious looking. Yeah. Cream, yummy. I feel like we should have talked about Eaton mess more really. I think I've derailed it with this maritose talk. No, but we all know what Eaton mess is. I mean, you're either in or you're out.

People don't like sometimes the crunch of the meringue, you know. Those people need to get a life. Well, some people absolutely hate Eaton mess. I can't get on board with that. No. Too sweet for some people. Sometimes I can find it a good eating mess, phenomenal. But it's not something that I think is always good no matter what.

I think you're right there. I think there are variations on the theme and it has to be a very good one to be very enjoyable. Some of the rubbish ones, I mean, it's not worth the calories. But if you're going to have a dessert, this is what, see, these people who say, well, I haven't got a sweet tooth. Well, don't order a dessert then.

Yes, thank you. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Either you're in or you're out. If you're in for a dessert, you want it sweet. That's the point. Yes. Yeah.

Isn't it? Yeah, it is. Would you have a dessert wine? Yeah, yeah. I'd have a dessert wine, yeah. You look unsure, both of you. I don't know. I definitely would.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. We had that thing when those guys invited us to that wine tasting thing that we talked about on the pod before and that dessert wine they gave us was like liquid marmalade and I loved it. Yeah, see, I don't know. I mean, I'll have a glass. If somebody gives me a glass, I'll drink it.

But by that point in the meal, I'm kind of like, okay, now we're nearly done with the food. I'm just going to plow on with a bread and butter. Do you know what I mean? I don't know whether a dessert wine sometimes stops the flow. Yeah, that one's the only thing. For ages, I'd say I'd never come for a dessert wine, but then those men who knew a lot about wine did change my opinion of quite a few things.

Yeah, I mean, there's absolutely no worry. You've been worried about sounding wanky, talking about Bob Bob Rickard and stuff. Don't worry about that because James just brought up the time he had Chateau E. Kemp at Berry Brothers and Rudd. Yes. Which is literally the poshest story of all time. Yes. Okay.

Ed knows the names of them. Yes. Because that is like the... Yes, ridiculous. Most ridiculous dessert wine. Yes, and that's super expensive, isn't it? Yes, bonkers. But why were you tasting it?

They liked the podcast and they contacted us and went, do you want to come and do this? They're the winemakers, aren't they? Yes. Yeah. We had lunch in their director's dining room. You know, we're not going to pretend that there aren't some perks to doing this pod. But sometimes you get invited...

My gosh. You get invited to the higher echelons of society. Well, somebody may just send you in a corned beef pie. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. I'd be very happy with that, though. I'd be very happy with that. Wow.

I'm going to read your menu back to you now, see how you feel about it. Okay. Water. You would like... G and T with cignet, slice of orange, blood orange in there.

Correct. And ice. Yes, lots. Pop on some bread. You would like a chip butty. Are we still going to do it with fresh bread and salty butter? Yes. Starter, a prawn cocktail.

Don't look at the prawns. Main course, corned beef pie cooked by your mum. Side dish, dough from wise potatoes from Bob Bob Ricard. Drink. Bloody Mary, no lemon, and bread and butter chardonnay. So the Bloody Mary is after the gin and tonic, near the beginning of the meal. Yes.

Dessert, and eat a mess, high quality, sweet as you like. Correct. Loads of cream. That sounds nice. It sounds delicious, but I do feel like my tummy is like a washing machine now. That is a lot of information there. Kicking off with the chip but. Have I overdone it?

Am I going to hospital? This is the dream restaurant. So if you are going to hospital, this is your dream hospital, which is a different podcast that we do. Yeah. That's something else to probably be doing. Everyone does dream stuff now.

Dream stuff. Hey, not slugging them off. Dream hospitals coming up. I'm sure someone's doing a dream, someone's developing a dream hospital podcast. Good luck to them. Wow. I feel greedy.

Mr. Greedy. Oh, Mr. Greedy. The Mr. Man. Are you talking to yourself? That's the reference there. When you read that back. You like Mr. Greedy? Do you like Mr. Greedy?

I'm not sure of... Yeah, yeah, of course. I'm not sure if you can guess my nerves. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We read a book most nights called Mr. Man's Baking Competition. And Mr. Greedy is the judge. And, of course, he eats all the entries before they've judged them.

Yeah. And I'm like, ah, of course he did. Well, it's their fault for assigning the role of judge to Mr. Greedy. But who assigned the role? Unbelievable. Who assigned the role? Mr. Clever. Is he?

Was he that clever? Well, that's ridiculous. No. You're dumbass. Exactly. But that's the point of the story. It was the other judge. Mr. Clever's not always clever, is he?

Mr. Corrupt is the other judge. Thank you very much for coming to the Dream Restaurant. Oh, I have loved it. I'm super full. Thank you, Alex. There we go. Great menu, James. Delicious menu, I thought.

Some absolute classics in there. But, you know, the corned beef pie for me is the highlight. Yeah, I'm excited to try something like that. And we learned a lot about Alex Jones. We did. She hates Garfield. She hates Beaver's and Butthead. She hates Bill and Ted.

She hates Bill and Ted. And afterwards, no. No, during, she told us she hates Mr. Greedy. He's in the gang too. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he hates Mr. Greedy. What a group to not like. I mean, I guess Garfield's a bit greedy.

He eats like entire stacks of lasagna. Just like, you know, puts them in his mouth, puts them away. Beaver's and Butthead aren't greedy, though. I don't think they are. And Bill and Ted, I don't think they're associated with any particular food, but then they've got in common, you know, they're kind of like 90s airhead duos, aren't they? She doesn't like young male pals from the 90s.

The MTV generation, I don't think, sit very well with her. Great. That was great. I love that episode, James. Didn't say one tons. Didn't say one tons. Didn't say one tons. So remains in the restaurant gets to have the meal. Yeah, I mean, no complaints here.

No complaints. And I think I might be getting that corned beef pie soon. Now I'm nudging my mum about it. Yeah, keep nudging your mum. My mum actually did text me back again. Yeah. Because she said, like, why do you want this? She said, have you recently discovered corned beef?

I said yes. She said, goodness, where did you have it? Not at a restaurant, surely. I said it's just been brought up on the off-menu podcast. And she said, of course. Bet the posh boy has never had it. What? And then she put a little smiley face because she'd been cheeky.

Tell her I used to have corned beef sandwiches. Ed used to have corned beef sandwiches. And I bet she will reply before we've even done this outro. Yeah, corned beef and pickle, I used to have in my sandwiches at school. Corned beef and pickle, I'll add un-pickle. But I used to eat them at morning break and then sneak in for school lunch. The posh boy.

She's never called you the posh boy before. No. I've never called you that. Bit mean. It was because she knows I'm here with you now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'll tell you. She's having a laugh.

She's being cheeky. Like you were cheeky when you hazed about the ice cream. I'm going to keep hazing her. Thank you very much to Alex for coming in. Watch the one show, I guess, is the plug. Immediately the plug. Yeah, there we go. With a smiley face.

Yes. Yeah. Hasn't backed down on it. I hasn't retracted it. She's really, in fact, it's a bigger smiley face now. Yeah. And then she's put not as posh as I thought.

Wow, there you go. With two exhalation blocks. There you go. Love it. I'm on tour in Australia and New Zealand. If you're listening to this when I am on tour in Australia and New Zealand. This is the first time on tour in these places.

First time I've been in Australia full stop. Aussies, you were in for a treat. Melbourne for two weeks, then going all over the place. But I'm going to do a separate advert that Benito's going to put in. So you will have heard that already. Oh, nice. Oh.

Do you say Cobbers in the advert? I've not done the advert yet. Make sure you say Cobbers. Yeah. There are some adverts we do on the Off Menu podcast just for the Australian audience. And we always say Cobbers in them. Yeah.

So you won't know. If you're not in Australia, you won't know this. Yeah. You will never heard those adverts. But if you aren't Australia, you will hear those. And maybe one of you once messaged Benito, DM'd him on social media to ask why we said Cobbers so much in one of the adverts.

I do. We know that's an Australian phrase. Yeah. So will I say Cobbers in the advert? Maybe. Maybe. Listen out for that. If you want to sell those tickets, I think you should.

Hmm. Not sure. Thank you very much for listening to the Off Menu podcast. We will see you again next week. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Hello, it's me, Amy Glentill. 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 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 Glentill'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.