Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster - Ep 41: Joe Lycett (Christmas Special)

Episode Date: December 11, 2019

It's a Christmas miracle! Joe Lycett joins us in the dream restaurant for a surprise festive special. If these three formed a boyband they'd be called Glazing Squad.Recorded and edited by Ben Williams for Plosive Productions.Artwork by Paul Gilbey (photography and design) and Amy Browne (illustrations).Follow Joe Lycett on Twitter @joelycettFollow 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.Ed Gamble is on tour, including a date at the Shepherd's Bush Empire. See his website for full details.James Acaster is on tour. See his website for full details.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? Oh, I've just realized the podcast is still in the oven. Oh, it's perfect. Welcome to the Off Menu podcast. Oh, well done for saving the podcast there, Ed. Phew. I thought I'd burnt it, James, but it turns out I'd done it really well again. Ed Gamble and James A. Caster here. That's the gang. This is the podcast where we chat to a Spesh guest about their dream

meal, which features James, their favorite ever starter main course dessert, side dish and drink. Not in that order. Yummer, yummer, yummer. And our special guest today is the wonderful Joe Lysit. You all know Joe Lysit from all the stuff he's done. Wonderful comedian. A national treasure. A national treasure. A fantastic broadcaster. Just an absolute pleasure to have here. And I'm very excited to hear his choices. I've heard him spoil. We've got food and drink on many TV shows. He seems to be really into it, into his top picks.

He knows his stuff. So we are looking forward to speaking to him. But, James, if he says a secret ingredient that we have predetermined that we don't like, then unfortunately we'll be asking National Treasure Joe Lysit to leave the restaurant. Is it a Christmasy secret ingredient, Ed? Sort of, yes. Because, James, this is a Christmas special. Merry Christmas, everybody. Tidings of comfort and joy. It's a nearly Christmas. This is an extra episode. You thought the series was over.

We said the series was over well. We're chucking you a secret special Christmas episode. Yes, because you thought the series was over, but we rose up the dead just like Jesus did at Christmas. Yes. Happy Christmas. Happy Jesus. Happy Jesus. Alive again. Zombie Jesus. So, this is a Christmas episode. The secret ingredient is... Red Currants.

Red Currants, those little evil sour boys that appear on things raw and they shouldn't be there. They don't add to flavour. If anything, they strip your mouth with acid. They might look nice in the corners of a Christmas card. They might do, yeah. They don't feel nice on what they're on. You don't eat a Christmas card. So, Merry Christmas. Hopefully there's no red currants. We'll be asking Joe a specific Christmas-based question as well.

Don't you worry. It will feel very festive. And I'm sure Bonito will put some fun Christmas sound effects in this episode. Do I hear sleigh bells? I think that's Joe Lyset arriving on his sleigh. Joe? Welcome, Joe Lyset, to the Dream Restaurant. Thank you. There is.

Welcome, Joe Lyset. We've been expecting you since day one. Were you? From day one? How many days have you done there? 12 days of Christmas. That's not an answer to that question. Huh? That's not an answer to that question.

I was trying to instantly make it festive. I believe this is episode 41. 41, this is episode 41. Drummers driving. It's a beautiful number, that. And since day one, you've been expecting me. Yeah. Since day one. But I'm late. I'm really late.

Well, no, no, no. I was expecting you today. Oh, okay. But I've just been expecting you for that amount of time. I was always expecting you. Yeah, but you knew I'd come on this specific date. James is a genie. So when he says day one, he means the beginning of time. Yes.

I mean, the very, very beginning of time. I forgot that you're a genie. If you want to ask what that was like. Any questions about what the beginning of time was like? Yes. What was it like? Good question. Yes. It was mainly very gassy. So wasn't much.

Are you sure about that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just gas. So no solids or liquids? No solids or liquids. For how long? I've been in solids and liquids. Do people know that? Did you?

Did you? A little bit of trivia. Thanks for that. They're my two favourites. Yes. They are useful. Here's a little bit of trivia as well. I invented liquids by accident when I was trying to invent solids. Really? On your way to solids?

Yeah, couldn't get it right. Real hard to firm it all up. And I was like, well, that'll be a thing as well. I'll put that to the side and bring it in later. Actually, it turns out liquids are everyone's favourite. Are they? Yeah, yeah. People love liquids.

Well, this is one of the new questions on the new format. Solids or liquids? What's your favourite? Probably liquids. Yeah, I think I'm more of a solids guy. Name one solid, and I'll tell you a liquid that's better than it. Cheese. Milk.

Well, cheese could arguably be a liquid, couldn't it? If it's... Well, only if it's a horrible cheese whiz. No, if it's like a really nice temperature where it oozes. I would say that's... But I think that's an oozy solid. Okay. Yeah.

Not a liquid. Oozy solid is Ed's last name. Yeah. Ed did the bit. He chose cheese because he knows it's my least favourite of all the solids anyway. I'm trying to think of solids that are really, like, going to blow your mind. That are great solids. That are really good solids.

Chocolate. Chocolate milk. No, chocolate's the best chocolate. Yeah, chocolate milk is shit. Yes, I regretted it as soon as I said it. Yeah. Chocolate is great. God, I didn't think it was that good an example, but I've already...

It's great. It's good. There's no liquid version of chocolate that is better than chocolate. Even that hot chocolate that is just liquid chocolate. I used to confession when I used to be a child back in the day, back in the good old days of Joe Lysett. I used to go come home from school and watch Deal or No Deal with a bowl of chocolate that I'd melted in the microwave and a cup of tea.

Because what I really liked is I ate the chocolate with a spoon and then the texture in the mouth was very like, you know, that sort of like... So then the Earl Grey tea, which I would have afterwards, was really refreshing. That would wash the rest of it down. Of course, it was an Earl Grey. Yeah, it was an Earl Grey. It sounds very much like, you know, that's someone who prefers his liquids to his sides there. Incidentally, melting down the chocolate.

Yeah. Yeah. If, you know, if some chocolate's so good, why was little Joe Lysett? Melting it up and then washing it down with another liquid on top of it. Well, it was little Joe Lysett. Haven't done it as an adult. I've matured into understanding. What do you do now?

The solids are, you know, there's nuance to the solids. A block of chocolate and some frozen Earl Grey? You suck at a big block of frozen Earl Grey afterwards. How much chocolate would you melt down and put in a bowl? Too much. So one of those of dairy milk, how would you describe that in a size? Not a... Not a little, yeah.

Not a standard bar. Like a mid-size. But not a massive one. But not the massive one. Not a mid-size. Yeah, not a novelty one. A... Three.

Look at the size. No, A5. I don't look about A5. Yeah, well, you're A5. Just a postcard. A postcard with dairy milk in a bowl. And you have to be very careful with it, because if you melt chocolate in a microwave,

it can very quickly burn. So you have to be... You have to nurture it. You have to sort of stay with it. People like, you know, burnt caramel. But, you know, like, desserts are not burnt chocolate though. Yeah, again, that's a solid that I now appreciate as an older person. Yeah.

But my tastes were so much more base back in the day. So I was just a liquid fan. How much sugar were you adding to the melted chocolate? You sprinkled some more sugar in there? Zero. Now, that is a classic James A. Custer question. He can't hear someone say something like, I melted some chocolate without thinking,

well, surely you added sugar to it as well? Yeah, that's what I used to do with hot chocolate as a kid. I'd come home from school before my parents got back. I put, like, as many spoons of hot chocolate powder in the chocolate. Couple of spoons of sugar. Yum. Put it all together. One day, my dad came back before I'd finished

drinking the hot chocolate. And I would always have this, like, really dark, granulated, like, sludge at the bottom that I'd lug down and be the happiest I've ever been. Yeah. And my dad came in words and caught me before I drank that and got the mug off me. He looked at me and he went,

he said to me, you might as well melted down a chocolate bar, James. But little did he know. But when your dad says things like that, he means, why don't you melt down a chocolate bar? He knows. James, you should have done this. I'm disappointed in you. We're putting love in family.

If you want to melt down chocolate bars, just ask me. If only we'd been friends back then, I could have taught you. You would have been such good friends, I think, as kids. We would, yeah. I would have definitely bullied you a bit. Absolutely. And I can't pretend I wouldn't have liked anything. I would get back from school and eat some brie and watch Rookie Lake.

Oh, nice. Really? Yeah. Brie. I love brie. James gets really annoyed that I like cheese. And also imagines me as a very precocious posh child. Yeah.

Yes. I about used to watch in Rookie Lake and be like, oh, look at those poor contestants. They weren't contestants. No, they weren't contestants. That's why posh people view everyone else. Yeah. Yeah, right.

Contestants in the game of life. Yeah. And all those. Yeah, yeah. Do you like food, Joe? Are you a food head? I love food. A big fan of a nice dinner and a nice glass of something.

A nice glass of chocolate. One of those great pleasures. A nice glass of chocolate. And a block of Earl Grey. Nice. Have you always liked food? Have you always been into it? Or was there a point in your life where you suddenly thought,

I'm going to really get into food? No, I've always liked it. But I've definitely sort of, I've got more adventurous with, I love spending loads of money on like a posh restaurant. Yeah. Like really, I don't, you know, I'm single. I don't have any dependence and I earn loads of fucking money. So I've started spending it in really nice restaurants.

And it's what else is there to do? What was the last really nice restaurant that you went to? Kudu in Peckham. Kudu. It's about K-U-D-U. What kind of cuisine? Modern European by a South African chef. Lovely.

And it actually wasn't that expensive. And I went with the great writer and friend, Rick Sumata, who is a writer for The Guardian and also wrote a brilliant book. And we do Joe and Rick's Peckham Picks, where we try out different Peckham based restaurants. Because I stay there and I'm in London and he lives in Peckham. And we really liked Kudu. What do we have?

We had this incredible fish and I can't remember what it was now. It was really tenderly done. Very nice bread that came almost like a Yorkshire pudding. Nice. It might start in like an iron dish that it had been cooked in. And then a butter that had little... What are the tiny little shrimps called? Oh.

That sort of big teeny tiny ones. Yeah, I know the ones you mean. And then not cray. Crabs. Crabs, no. They might be called shrimp. Just shrimps, right? Mini shrimp.

Yeah, mini shrimp with some sort of... Some sort of, I think it was almonds and then butter. Oh, wow. And it was just, oh. And you just dip it in and that was so good. Sounds good, yes. And a beetroot thing, a delicious dessert. Ah!

Bless you. Come on. Would you like a tissue? I've got something in my back pocket. It's the oddest sneeze I've ever seen in my life. I've got fresh boots. But bowels, Sam. Is that how you say it?

Bum, bowels. I'm all... You all right? Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's horrible. It says top pocket tissues and then underneath sniffles on the go. Sniffles. The worst thing you've ever heard.

Sniffles is not a good word. Sniffles on the go. No, thank you. Hey, have you got any of those sniffles on the go? The peck and pick sounds like a great thing. What's the top peck and pick? Yeah, so what's your top peck and pick? We've done two.

And how do you pick them? I think we've done three, actually. But Rick argued against that last week when we were in Kudu. There was one. Trouble in paradise? Well, it starts with an L and it's sort of Frenchy. And that was... We liked it a lot.

We got very drunk. Leon. Could have been Leon. It's like everyone's getting mad about it in Peckham. But we thought it was a little bit rich, a little bit fatty. Really nice. It felt indulgent, but we both came away feeling quite heavy. Right, yeah, yeah.

That's not... Because, yeah, ideally, how do you want to come away from a meal feeling? What's your... Drunk. Drunk? And not too, like, slow. Not too full. Yeah, not too slow.

LaVan. It's LaVan. Yeah. LaVan. Our producer, the great Benito, knows everything that's going on in Peckham. Yeah. He's really got his finger on the pulse, on the peck and pulse. Um, not as much as Joe and Rick's Peckham pics.

No, no, no, obviously. Joe and Rick's. There was another one that we went to, because there's so many good restaurants. The Begging Bowl is very nice. And actually, the Peckham Bazaar is so good. I think Peckham Bazaar might be one of the best restaurants in the world. I've never heard of this place. I didn't know there was so much going on in Peckham.

There's a lot going on in Peckham. What's the Peckham Bazaar like? What food? Peckham Bazaar is more sort of platey, little platey things. Little platey things. And I haven't been for over a year, so I can't exactly remember, but I just remember leaving. I feel like it's very homely and really well cooked, like good stuff.

I had a meal like that the other day in Liverpool at a place called Octopus, which is spelled with a K. Loads of little dishes. All of them blew my mind. The popcorn mussels. Wow. A particular highlight. Delish.

Popcorn mussels. Yeah. And also, I really enjoyed the treacle cured salmon. So shout out to... This was before a show, wasn't it? Yeah, I did all of them. I ate it before a show. You eat before a show like no one I've ever met before.

Yes. But I can't eat that. I don't know about you, Joe. I can't eat that much before a show. I need to keep it light before a show. I can't feel full. I can't feel sick while I'm performing. James will eat a four course meal and then go and do a gig.

Well, what you've got to understand, Joe, is lately my shows have felt like an execution. And so, therefore, I might as well just have enjoyed my final meal before I go to put my head on the fucking block again. As in, like, you've not been enjoying them? Ah, man. Like, so many nights I get just people turned up shouting out bunch of absolute pig shits.

Yeah, but you bear in mind you're walking on stage with all food around your mouth and farting and burping. It's disrespectful. I've actually started burping on stage. So often, though, I find like our friends of mine will come to see you do a stand-up show and they'll be like, he was absolutely amazing, really brilliant.

And then I'll text you with that information and you'll say it was a piece of shit. It's the worst night ever. Yep. And that's just not how it's being perceived whatsoever. I remember your parents coming to see me in Birmingham and me texting you afterwards telling you to apologize to your parents for how bad it was.

I said they would have hated it. It went so badly. And then you replied, just saying, wrong. It really made me laugh. Yes, again. Not taking it. Not letting me get away of anything. Wrong.

Just completely even it in your voice as well. Yeah. Wrong. No, I respect that. You go and check out restaurants all over the country now, James. Yeah, that is the best thing. Like, I really enjoy touring and finding, like, really good places to eat.

I think the best place to eat in the country at the minute that I find is, I think Newcastle's got so many amazing places there. Really? And Chucho's in Newcastle has the best tacos that I've had in Britain. It's this family-run place. And they did a haggis taco. And it's the best thing I've had on the whole tour. It was so good.

Wow. We start you off with some water, Joe. Would you like still or sparkling? Still, please. Is that straight in there that was no messing around? Well, it's a new rule. I have now done two years hosting a show called The Great British Sewing Bee.

And on the first day of the first recording, well, it's the day before the first recording, it's kind of like prep day, we went for a lunch and it was me, Patrick and Esme, the judges, and then a couple of the producers. And I drank a lot of fizzy water at the start of the meal, then had half a burrata, and then spent the rest of the meal unable to eat

because I felt really like I was going to vomit. And I drank so much fizzy water. I've since realized that actually it's a new response to anxiety that sometimes I can't seem to eat for some reason, which is really annoying. I was obviously very anxious about the start of the recording. But in my head, it was fit the fizzy water. So now you're unable to break that link?

I'm unable to break the link. So it's straight to still. Otherwise, I feel like I'm back at that meal. I just think I was convinced my first day on that show, I was going to project our vomit onto everyone else's burrata. I do really like the combination of loads of fizzy water and then a burrata does sound like a terrible idea. Yeah.

Like just you've got a stomach full of fizzy dairy. Yeah, yeah, it wasn't a good idea. Massive shout out to burratas though. Oh, huge shout out to burratas. They are changing the game. Buffalo mozzarella is weeping in the corner. Burrata is up there with one. I mean, I'm not even about having burrata as my starter for the...

It would have been a great choice. I mean, yeah, you're right. Mozzarella is cowering now. Oh. Mozzarella is shit, isn't it? For such a long time, it was just running the show, resting on its laurels. Oh, I'm just wondering, I've just realized

that burrata is the liquid form essentially, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. But it's halfway between, right? Creamy. Oh, it looks like the first... Dipping bread into a burrata. Particularly if they've done like a bit of oil around it or maybe a bit of pesto or something.

Cutting into it. You pretend like you're doing an operation. Yeah, sure. Yeah. You feel like you're Dr. Pimple Popper? Yeah, yeah, always. I was the people that had your nose. You know, you can buy now a block of like rubber

that has pimples in it and you can... You alongside it comes this little pipette of like pretend... Now, zip stuff. And you fill it up and then you pop it. You fill it and you pop it. Now, obviously, there's part of me that is disgusted by that, but I'm disgusted at myself for wanting that. I really want it.

I really want it. I go down massive YouTube polls of Dr. Pimple Popper. Oh, no. I'm not a spot fly remover as well. No, you were... No, I'm not a watchbox. I mean, thank you. By the way, I know we're going to get tweets about this

and I'm sorry that you feel sick and you listened to a food podcast and me and Joe are about to talk about popping pimples, but bad luck. Yeah, spot flies. At least you guys listening at home are going to hear the edited version. I've got to sit here and listen to this live

no matter what they talk about. It's disgusted. Don't deny yourself, James. Go on, do you know that or what? Do you not like... About the pimple popper stuff. My friend got into pimple popping so much that she now watches people having their legs amputated.

And she probably watches people have their fucking legs sawn off in operations because that's how much she's into that stuff now. I don't think there's anything between those two. There was a lot of steps in between. Yeah, not for the person having their legs taken off. Yeah, yeah. But like, that's where she's at now.

So I'm not going down that. I don't want to find out that I like the pimples popped and then I'm watching horrendous stuff in years to come. Do you like popping your own pimples? Not really. Right. No, no. I just...

You've got very good skin, so I imagine you don't have to worry about that often. I've got to pop the odd pimple and I don't enjoy it. No. You don't have cleanse, but... I admit that when you get it good, it is satisfying. When you get a good one, it is very satisfying. But then I still don't like the fact

that now I've got this red stingy mark on my face. I've got to walk around with it. So the whole experience is pretty negative. You think people are like, oh my god, James has really let himself go. Yeah, look at him. I mean, he's still a teenager, isn't he? He looks so crisp on Mott the Week and look at him now.

Exactly. That's true. That's what everyone's saying. Mott the Week gives people an unfair image of commemoration. Do you remember when you were on Have I Got News For You? And I texted you saying how hot you looked, because your skin looked so good and your cheekbones were unbelievable. And then James said, no, I looked ugly and you were...

I said, wrong! Yeah, yeah. Wrong! You looked particularly fit that night. I was very kind of you. James always looks fit when he's delivering some hardcore satire. Yeah, yeah. To Sightlands.

Yeah. Next to a judgey Paul Mercer. To the bemusement of some national treasures. So it's not Barata is not going to be your starter. No, it's not. Barata by a judge! Right! Yes!

Yes! Of course Lysic would be the one who would have loaded in the cannon. Almost like you knew I was going to... Wait, you obviously knew that I was going to shout at you, but it's like you knew I was going to do it then. Yeah. I tried to dumb it. I could feel it.

I jumped for the listener. Yeah. Right, because you... Not in my defence, in like... Yeah, in my defence, you clearly got to the end of a thought. Yes. So I was prepped then I was like, I don't know what's coming now. But that's why I tried to dummy you by talking about starters.

Yes. And then I thought... Oh, maybe we've missed. No. But then you were ready. So ready to go. Very impressive, Joe. That was great.

Also, I've always sometimes felt bad about making the person jump, but I just jumped then and I loved it. Yeah. It's good, isn't it? Yes. They say that cold water swimming is very good for you because it gets you used to like being uncomfortable and being shocked. And that's actually really good for your mental health.

So actually a bit of shock is good for you. That's why I love horror films. See, that's nice. So cold water swimming, another point to liquids, I think. Yeah. Well, I'm like, it's really cold water swimming. Sure. I don't know how you swim.

It's not swimming though, is it? It's not swimming. It's walking. So try to block your eyes. And it is bread. And it is bread. It is bread. It is bread.

It's very much bread. It would be awful if the answer was actually poppy-dums. I'm not a fan of poppy-dums. Oh, no. Oh, no. No. No point whispering it into a mic, Joe. I'm not a fan of poppy-dums.

You can still hear it. Yes. Yeah, what is it? I just, I don't like the consistency of them. I don't like that they kind of break all over the place and you've got little bits here and there that like you then can't dip. And I find it all just a bit, the admin of it is too much. Okay, yeah.

You don't like the shards? I don't like the shards. There's a restaurant in Birmingham called Pernels, which is Glen Pernels restaurant. And he came up with, because he thought that bread would often weigh people down for a meal. And as I've said previously, that's one of the worst things that you can have at the end of a meal is to come out feeling sober and heavy.

And he's devised this bread that is incredibly light and a butter that goes with it so that you have like basically a loaf that sort of size and you eat the whole thing and you don't feel full, but it's delicious. And I think he's bloody done it. Glen has done it. He's made a beautiful loaf of bread. Is it like white bread? It's a white bread.

And it's not got much of a crust to it, if I remember rightly. And it's, it melts when you put it in your mouth. It doesn't like, it's not a chewer. It's like a just let it dissolve. But the kind of softest, warmest, loveliest bread you've ever had in life. It's preparing the mouth for the meal ahead. Exactly, yeah.

So we've been talking about solids and liquids a lot. Has this man created something slapping in the middle of both of them? Perhaps, yeah. It's the sort of barata of bread. Awesome. You're really pushing for liquids here, man. I'm just trying to, once I've picked a team, I want to really back it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. For people, no. Trying to, trying to say that that bread is liquid, part liquid. Joe picked a liquid for his water at the start? Joe did pick a liquid for his water. The liquids, yeah. Out of the two liquids, I mean liquid, didn't I? Yeah, yeah.

That was good. And arguably more liquid because fizzy water's got gas in it, hasn't it? So I went with the most liquid of the options. You did, that's true. So once again, wins out. What type of butter comes with this bread? Because I would argue that would make it heavier though, wouldn't it? I think it was like a whipped butter.

A whipped, but I do like a whipped butter. I like a whipped thing. Yeah. Anything whipped. I've just been for breakfast, I had some whipped feta. Oh, lovely. How do you whip a feta? I guess you just really got to go for it.

Because it would be arduous, I imagine. Yeah, really, you really got to go for it. Do they mix it with anything to whip it? I wonder whether they mix it with a bit of like a cream or something. Just a... I would. Yeah, I would. If I was them.

If I was them. Cream, yeah. Otherwise, it's just going to be, you're just reconstituting the feta, aren't you? You are. Yeah. Why would you do that, you prick? Just have a slice of feta. I have a slice of feta.

Was that on an avocado smash, perhaps? Oh, yes. Classic. With an egg. London life. With an egg. Just living my London life. May I just say it, you just got read like an absolute book.

I don't mind being read like a book when avocado is the first chapter. Was there a poached egg on top? Yup. There you go. Bacon on the side. Sourdough. No rye. Silly me, silly me.

Peck em rye. Peck em rye, baby. So what was I eating? Peck em. It was delicious. So we've got Glen Pernel's cloud bread, may I? Cloud bread. That's probably not far from how he describes it.

Yeah. With whipped butter. With whipped butter. With a bit of salt in the whip. Oh, lovely bit of salt in the whip. Watch me whip. Watch me salt this butter. That's a classic chin.

Whip my butter back and forth. Now, I think these are references to songs I've not heard. You know, whip my hair back and forth. I don't think I do. Willow Smith. Of course I don't. I whip my hair back and forth. I whip my hair back and forth.

Oh yeah, I've heard people say that before. I feel like you've played that in a black knight that I've been to with you as a DJ. I haven't played that, but I've heard I whip my hair back and forth. But I don't think I've heard the actual song. Do you DJ much these days? Not loads. Every now and again. You're an excellent DJ.

It's a waste of good talent. Yes, I should start doing it. Because actually, I was going to say I enjoy it. But I do. I enjoy DJing when it's a comedians event, like with you with that. Yeah. When I've done it when it's not comedians events, people get angry. People come and complain that you're not playing out.

The consistent thing here is that you don't like the public really, do you? Oh, yeah. Make no mistake. I hate the public. This is my favourite thing that I do professionally, because it's me, Ed, a friend that we've invited on, and albeit Benito. And Benito's the public. Yeah, Benito's sort of halfway between the public.

Benito's the barata of people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a better version of the public. He's silent throughout. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But judging us very much, so. Oh, he has to sit there now, so he's in my blind spot. Because for a while, he was sitting where I could see him.

And every time I saw him in the story, he thought it was boring. Or you think you can read Ed like a book? Yeah. I read this guy like a bloody encyclopedia. I just see his face go, I made it in this out, this is boring. Or it's when you do like a bad joke and you see him write down to cut it. Yeah. That's awful.

If you see him writing anything down, it's bad news. No, I've seen him write down quite a lot of what I've talked about. He'll also write down the names of restaurants. Yes. To put on the website. To put on the website so people don't ask him directly. Because otherwise, members of the public because of absolute fucking morons. We'll tweet the podcast going,

can you please tell me all the places that you've mentioned? And then Benito's like, there's a page on the website. I will say this very clearly now. Anyone that wants to tweet me asking what restaurants I've referenced, I will happily answer. Yes, that's good. Good on you. Good man.

I immediately retract that. Just store that fucking headache that will be. Your starter. Well, this is the thing. There's so many restaurants that I love. There's so many starters, mains, desserts, everything that I love. So it's almost impossible to pick. The bread was clear.

It was clear to me what to go with because it's the best bread I've had. But the rest, I've sort of just going to, when you ask me the question, I'm just, what I land on out of about 10 different options is the one. Other than starter as well, actually. Because that's pretty clear in my mind. Well, it could have been burrata, but it's not going to be burrata. We've already had a shout out for burrata.

Yeah, we've given that an honorable mention. Honorable mention. So what is your starter? It is a restaurant in Birmingham called Zindia. Z-I-N-D-I-Y-A Benito. Don't forget you can tweet Joe to ask him about that again. Z-I-N-D-I-Y-A, I can't speak English. If you want to tweet Joe and ask him how to spell it,

but just one letter at a time. You have to ask for each letter individually. It's fucking on my Twitter to me at night. I will be off Twitter from the 11th of December until the end of my life. They do. It's such a good restaurants in dear. It's really, it's Indian street food-y stuff. But there's so many Indian street food places that have opened,

and a lot of them are dog shit. Whereas this is really the bees Indian street food. It was like a bee went to India. Yeah, a bee went to India. And a bee's got the pick of whatever it wants. That's true. It can just fly around places, have a little nibble here and there. Can't it?

Yeah, because it's almost like, ah, getting off my food, the bee can always fake, you know, ah, I thought it was a flower. Yeah. Yeah, I got confused. You know, it's always you would believe it. I'd never not believe a bee. Yeah, I'd always be like, ah, it's not fair enough bee. Sorry, I thought it was a flower.

So, in Zindia, unless you want to continue with the bee riff. I think the bee riff felt like it was dying quicker than a bee would after it uses its sting. No, no, no, no. Ah, so I was pollinating it, I was just pollinating it, gov. Gov? Yeah, I'm glad we went back to the bee riff. Yeah, yeah, that's what it would say. I just, ah, sorry, gov.

I just thought it was a little flower, I was just doing some pollination. Is it a cockney bee? Sounds like it, doesn't it? Yeah. In India. Yeah, yeah, in India. Going to find itself and some food while I'm smelling things. You must understand, in the bee world, the empire still reigns in India.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they're commonizing. Yeah. Oh, that's ants. Oh, yeah. Oh, shit. I thought it done a really good job there. It's still pretty good, man.

Still kind of works, isn't it? Yeah. It's still good if you don't know, if you don't know facts, works. Very much high approach, all of my performances. Yeah. Also, that myth that I just did is very much the reason why Benito sits where he does now. Zindia. Z-I-N-D-I-Y-A.

They do a samosa cha, which is a really nice, crispy samosa. Yes. And then a kind of chickpea sauce over the top, then some sort of green thing, which is kind of creamy and takes a bit of the spice out. I'm salivating thinking about it. And then some pomegranate seeds and then some, like, crispy, almost sort of Bombay mix kind of stuff on top of that. So it's like layers of really good stuff.

Now, Joe, can you guess out of all those ingredients? Shit. What's the one that I would... Oh, no, I thought I'd said them. You haven't said the secret ingredient, have you not? One of them, though, has been a secret ingredient. In the past, can you guess which one it is? Pomegranate.

Yeah, yeah. Pomegranate or pomegranate seeds? It's the pomegranate seeds, yeah. Right. Do you like them? I'm not a fan, actually. I mean, I don't mind them in that because they get hidden by the other stuff, but they get in the old teeth, don't they?

They do. They're weirdly crunchy. They're like little baby's teeth. I think they're weird. They're really weird. I'd always say they're like little baby's teeth. It's all I can think about. I went to a restaurant recently where they had

pomegranate seeds on a lot of things, but they worded it pomegranate jewels, and I did not like that. I was like, don't try and mug me off. You may as well eat a jewel. You may as well eat a jewel. They're that hard. Yeah, you may as well just pop a diamond in your mouth. Yeah, crunch on that.

But that's the most it sounds amazing. Yeah, that sounds absolutely delicious. What's in the samosa itself? Just classic, like a lot of lovely sort of sauteed potato, I imagine is the way they've done it. And it's totally vegan because I'm trying to be vegan in the week, and then do whatever the fuck I want on the weekend. Just like eat a pig live.

And I often order it alongside it. These soy ticker bites, which they've got like a chicken ticker and a lamb chop and whatever on the menu, but they've also done this vegan one, which is soy. And they apparently they marinate it in soy yogurt. So it's actually much juicier and softer than chicken. Oh, wow. Better than chicken.

That sounds amazing. Yes, please. That's what that's what I want to hear more of is things moving in that direction food wise. So they're actually going, okay, we're going to do vegan alternatives, but we're going to make them better than the original. Yeah, that's where we want to head. I've been to the restaurant with non-vegans

and ordered the chicken ticker and the soy ticker and the soy ticker always gets double ordered. Well, chicken dries out so quickly. It dries out. It dries out. Oh, speaking of which, I've been at Benito. I don't know if you've found this lately. We've been a shout out on the podcast before

to corn sausages, corn cocktail sausages. Corn cocktail sausages are my favorite cocktail sausages. Benito introduced me to them. They're delicious. I think they're better than normal cocktail sausages. Right. Recently, very recently, they have changed the packaging so that they come in a different container.

And I have found, I don't know about you, Benito, the standard has gone down and they've got drier. They're bigger, but not as nice. They're bigger, but not as nice. This is a appeal. So they said, well, now I want the public on my side. Yep, to the corn. Start messaging corn and tell them to get it back on track

because they have one of the best dishes in the world. And now it is. Is it a dish? Are we calling it a dish? Yeah, are we calling it the best in the world? Yeah, me and Benito would eat a punnet each easy. A punnet? And hang on, corn isn't vegan though, is it?

Oh, no. It's not because it's egg in it, hasn't it? Can I, they're not cocktail sausages, but I think they're the best vegan sausages by a country mile. Sainsbury's shroom-alume sausages. Oh, very nice to say. Caramelized onion and pepper, I think the ones I've had, but they also do like a chorizo version.

And I don't know how they've done it, but when I had my first sausage sandwich with them, I thought I was eating pork. They were so juicy and the texture was so perfect. Unbelievable. I think caramelized onion is the key to those veggie sausages. It's so delicious. I love a linda over a corn there.

A linda McCartney. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, yes. I'm not familiar enough with all the brands, and so we said I love a linda. I thought you meant a lindor, like a chocolate thing. Oh, I see, yeah, yeah. A lindor sausage, that would be good, wouldn't it? I was like, dude, you don't need to win me either.

Absolutely, I prefer a lindor. Shout out for Tofurky sausages as well. Oh, I've not had a taste like that. The Italian Tofurky sausage, very dense, not really meat. They don't taste like a meat replacement. They taste like their own thing, but they're absolutely delicious. They really are.

And shout out to pork. Pork's nice, isn't it? Yeah. The original? Sure. Even if it's a lot of people, but your time has come into an end. I really wanted to know at one point

how many horses there are in the world. I think it's something like 40 million or something. Wow. Why did you want to know this, Joe? Well, I just got really interested in how many animals there are. Because I saw a statistic, which is something like, there's three chickens.

There's more than that. Or something for every person. Oh, okay. The three chick. Just three chickens. Yeah. And no one ever realised, was it? Because you just don't have a...

They're all very good at impressions. They're different things. There's actually no such thing as a turkey. It's all those three. It's often two of the chickens at once. So there's three chickens. I was talking to my friend about this, and he asked possibly the most annoying question

I've ever asked, because we then were thinking how many other creatures are there. I wonder how many ants there are. And he said, how many ants aren't there? Interesting. That's a really annoying question. Yeah.

Was that Harry? Did Harry say that? It wasn't Harry, actually. I always get it's Harry. Because there is a... I do think there is an answer to that question. How many ants answer that? How many ants could there possibly be?

Like, how much of the universe could be inhabited by ants? Well, infinity, surely. Infinity ants. No, because the universe isn't infinite inside. But it's constantly expanding. Yeah, but right at this moment. Because there's only so many planets that could probably...

It's not infinite. It's like there is probably a number of... I don't miss the joke. I'm thinking about how many ants there aren't. Are you counting ants as being alive? Yeah. You wouldn't let them stretch to space and die in space? Yeah.

Yeah, no. They have to be alive, so they have to be on a planet. On a planet they could survive. So that's the amount of potential ants there are. Then you have to subtract the amount of ants there actually are. And then you know how many ants aren't there. Ants there, yeah.

It's annoying. It's really annoying, because there will be an answer. That's one thing. If you could tweet me with how many ants aren't there, I would really like to know the answer. Oh, I think you'll get that wish. Yeah. Me and James ate ants once.

We did. Oh, yeah, I've tried ants. They're like lenony, aren't they? They're very citrusy, yeah. There's a fabulous restaurant, again in Birmingham, called The Wilderness. And for a long time they had a cheese tart, and they had ants climbing up onto the tart.

Wow. And it got into obviously all the press. Birmingham Mail went wild for them. And then... Were they pro or anti? I mean, that wasn't a joke. It's nice. It's very good though.

Very nice. They see nice. Ed, I didn't mind it. Come on. Not bad. Not bad. I think they were pro. Yeah.

Rather than anti. So they were anti. Yeah, so they were actually anti. It is funny. Yeah, yeah. I can see you're making a decision on the spot. It's Birmingham again, which is great, by the way, because we get a lot of messages saying

that we're too London centric. Yes. And now we've got... I send them all and here I am. We've got two episodes now with good shout-outs for Birmingham. You and Jess Phillips. Jess Phillips done it. Jess has done it.

Jess has done it. Jess has done it. Jess has done it. Jess has done it. Jess has done it. Jess has done it. Jess has done it. Jess has done it.

Jess has done it. Jess has done it. Jess Phillips. You interviewed Jess Phillips, didn't you? I saw you before it happened. You're hanging out with her son. Yes. Yeah, he's wild.

Love, Dan. He's a wild boy. Got a photo with him. Came his wallpaper on his phone. He loves you. He loves you. Well, he's a member of the public, sort of. I think he loves David Walliams more, but...

That's fair enough. Yeah. David Walliams is probably nicer to the... Two peas in a pod. Two peas in a pod. Me and Walliams? Yeah. Absolutely.

I get in a pod of Walliams and swim the channel with him. Two of us together. Like a big worm, sort of, across the tennis. God, I would do so much to see that happen. Yeah, I think I'm going to go with... And it's a dish that's not actually on the menu anymore. But... Oh, great.

I... It's so indulgent and it's so rich and ridiculous. And it goes against what I'd said earlier about not wanting to feel heavy. But it's a restaurant called Original Patti Man, OPM, which is a burger restaurant. Immediately, James loves the name. Yeah. I don't even have to look at him to tell you that he loves the name

of Original Patti Man. Original Patti Man. And I've got to say, I'm on board as well. Yeah. OPM, one of Birmingham's finest. And they recorded the song Heaven is a Halfpipe, of course. Yes. Yeah, they did.

Yeah. Do you think heaven can skate? At least in heaven, I can skate. Oh, still, one of the things that makes me laugh the most is people saying they're going to heaven. Oh, anyway, can't be honest. The general public will not be going there, will they? No, no, general public will be going there. But, you know, it's for the Christmas special.

So, it might as well just laugh at the idea of heaven. I really love it. Especially the idea of skateboarding in heaven. I'm very excited to hear what the Original Patti Man have to offer. I'm really excited. So, they are like the favorite burger restaurant in Birmingham. Do really like dirty, juicy burgers. They do a wings night on a Wednesday.

A really great, like, vibe. They do like a table beer. So, they're bringing like a bottle, what looks like a wine bottle, but it's beer. Oh, nice. Absolutely, heaven. They did a burger, beef burger with cheese. In a Krispy Kreme Original Glazedone. Oh, my God.

Holy fuck. I can't be doing, can't be doing with that, Joe. Well, I can and did and loved it. Really? You actually liked it. It's already just, it's heard those words and slipped into a diabetic coma. Yeah. Look at it, poor guy.

Also, Ed, apologies. You know me, I'd eat it if I wanted it and I'd just inject insulin, right? But, yes. But that's mad to me. It is mad. And I'd like to make an apology, by the way, for talking about me and William swimming in the Thames earlier. Oh, right.

Yeah. I think that. James, James thinks that I contracted type 1 diabetes when I fell in the Thames when I was 13. Yes. Yeah. Just that's a running, that's a running thing on the podcast. Okay. Well, it's a swimming, it's a swimming thing, more or less.

I don't understand. It's just how I'd got diabetes as he fell in the Thames. And I'm not sure that's how it works. No, it's not true. It was what happened and I feel bad about saying that me and William was swimming in the Thames. It's not true. Now, every time, you know, occasionally I'll write an article with, you know,

it's a slightly serious angle or do something for a diabetic charity and all I get a response is to the tweet saying, is that because you fell in the Thames? Well, if me and William's do swim in the Thames, that's what we'll be basing money for. What? Diabetes awareness. Right, yeah. But you'll get type 1 diabetes if you go in the Thames.

Yes. Well, that's basing money for myself. And he didn't even swim in the Thames. He swam in the channel. He did the Thames as well. Did he? Yeah, yeah. I think he loves to swim.

Yeah, because he did the Thames and he got really, really ill. Because he got all the ticks and liters on him and he was really sick. He said he was like shitting as he was swimming apparently. Yeah, actually. I didn't get type 1 diabetes from David Williams as shit, James. It sounds like he might have. When did you get it? How long have you had it?

13, I was diagnosed. Yeah, the dates don't match up. The dates don't match up and also the facts don't. Well, maybe that's what Williams would get in the sick off of then, when he went in the Thames. Oh, what, the diabetes that you'd left in the Thames when you fell out? So I left some there, didn't I? You left a little trace of it.

Yeah, yeah. Enough to make that. It's not enough to give David Williams type 1 diabetes. It was enough to make him shit himself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just enough to make David Williams crap his pants. Or trunks, actually. Right.

I think he's more prepared than that. Yeah. He doesn't just walk past the Thames. He's like, I will get my pants. Yeah, he didn't do it fully clothed. Yeah. But yeah. It's a mad thing to do that, isn't it?

Mad. Wasn't it to raise money? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You'd hoped to raise money. They were big sale. Yeah. Right. Come on.

You've got to sell this thing to me, because. I mean, you can imagine. You can totally imagine. And it's not the sound of this crispy cream burger. Do you like burgers? Yeah, I love burgers. OK. Do you like donuts?

I'm sort of not. I mean, I'm going to cause so much trouble. You've sent me photos of donuts that you've ordered to your house. When? Crosstown or something. You've ordered them to your house? No, I don't order them to my house. Never ordered them to my house.

I've had a Crosstown before. You've ordered donuts to your house and sent me a photo of them before. I swear to God. I don't like donuts as much as a lot of people like donuts. People are like, people go wild for donuts. They're like, donuts are the best thing ever. It would never be my go-to.

Really? Yeah. But what we're having here, Joe, so there's a running joke on the podcast that, you know, I don't like it when people choose a cheese board for dessert. Because it's not, I get really angry about it. This is the flip. It's a funny joke.

You've flipped this. It's a great joke. It's a great joke, isn't it? It is. What's the punch line? Just my anger. James, well, if you listen to the Jess Phillips episode, James screamed an elected MP's face.

So, yes. She'll like that. She really enjoyed it. To be fair, she really enjoyed getting her eyes out of me. But this is the first time someone's flipped it, and I'm seeing it from the other side now. Because you've essentially worked in a dessert into your main course and Ed is not having any of it.

Well, I just think it's pushing things too far. I think it's the ultimate ends to this Instagram food generation. It's just, you know, I just think it's all a style of a substance, Joe. I think it's Mad vs. Morgan, is that you? I think it's Mad vs. Food. I think it's... You were expecting Piers to be... I wasn't.

I'm out for Christmas, were you? No. What a Christmas treat. I think it's disgusting. I think it's absolutely disgusting. No, you're absolutely wrong. Tell him, Joe. Wrong.

Wrong. No. The crispy cream doughnut is, I think, engineering feet. Yes. It's a beautiful... The texture of the... What do you call it? Doughnut.

The dough. The dough. Yeah, let's go for that. The flavour of the nut. I don't know how they've done it, but it's like the glimpernel bread. It's floaty and airy, and then that beautiful glaze. So they've taken that, and to be fair,

it's an impractical and impossible thing to eat, because the actual doughnut itself crumbles to nothing. Is it one doughnut cut in half? Yeah. And it's got two doughnuts. It's a one on a glaze one, yeah. I hate that glaze. So there's that kind of hole in the top.

It looks horrible. It looks horrible? Yeah. What do you think it looks like? You know. I love it. Yeah. But, you know...

There's a reason it's called doughnut. A lot of people love the glaze. Yeah, it's very good. The reason it's called doughnut, you get that. Very good. Very nice. I'm not anti that joke. No.

Sorry, I got a fork. A fork, just if you said anti, it counts. No, I'm not saying that. A lot of people like that glaze, Ed. And a lot of people like... Yeah, they do. I know. It's just not my sort of thing.

Do you like sweet things with savoury things? Depends. Give me some examples. Doughnut burger? No. Hammond pineapple pizza? No. When you put chocolate in a chilli?

Yeah, don't mind that, but it's very... It's honey. It's really sweet, is it? Honey in a chilli? No, not bothered about that. I never had honey in a chilli, actually. Honey glazed sausages? Yeah, okay, but I prefer an unglazed sausage.

Would you? Yes. He's holding up on the scrutiny here. Well, maybe we just agree to disagree on this. I think we agree to disagree, sure. Yeah, I don't want to force a Krispy Kreme burger doughnut. Whatever it's called down here. Gussit.

But... That's a gussit? No, that's a gullet. I think I'm thinking of gullet. Shove it up your arse. You should not be forcing a Krispy Kreme doughnut burger up any what the person wants. Yeah, particularly someone with type 1 diabetes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. How did he get it in every way? He died as he lived. Having a Krispy Kreme doughnut shoved up his arse. I just think it's this whole, like, I think it's like a man versus food thing. And I think it's the same with like, I don't like freak shakes or anything either. I don't know what a freak shake is. Freak shakes are absolutely crazy, to be fair.

It's like a milkshake, but with like a cake in it and a doughnut in it. Yeah. Yeah, that's like a chocolate bar in there. And it's all spilling over the sides. No. It's for the photo, it's for the ground. It's for the ground. It's not for the mouth.

And I appreciate what you're saying about the doughnut burger being for the ground. However, Joe is saying it tastes amazing. I'm happy to believe that. I guess sometimes there's the exception that proves the rule. Sure. I mean, they don't do it anymore. So there must be a reason maybe there wasn't enough demand. It sounds illegal.

Yeah. But it's a while. Stop doing it. Yeah. And all of their other burgers are excellent as well. So I would choose. Well, they're the original patty man. No, they are the original patty man.

They are the original patty man. They're going to be amazing. So, yeah. But you would choose that burger. It's just cheese. I think it was just cheese. And then, yeah. I suppose you don't need anything else in it really.

I think it might have been like a relish of some sort. But like it was, it was mush basically by the time you ate it. It wasn't. What was it called, the burger? I can't remember. Crispy cream burger. Crispy cream burger probably, yeah. And how was the burger cooked?

You can choose. And I just get meat. Straight to the same part. Medium meat. Fair. Yeah. You want to get all the details for the savory part of the dish. And the crispy cream doughnut was uncooked.

Yeah. Would they? Baked. Baked, of course. I don't think they put it on the grill or anything. Have you seen the crispy cream doughnuts go through the conveyor where they get glazed? Yeah.

It's very satisfying to watch. The curtain. Yeah. The curtain of glaze. And they just pass through it. I mean, you see all the waste as well. It's not wasted. It goes back into it.

Yeah, then it goes back in. Oh, I don't know. It looks like waste. Shout out to Bon Appetit, the best YouTube channel. And there's a series where a lady called Claire tries to make gourmet versions of like fast food and she made crispy creams. That sounds like a great series.

It's great. I'd enjoy that. It's really good. Have you heard of Kay's Good Cooking? No. That's the best YouTube channel. Hit me. Kay is a woman, I think she's in Derby

or she's got like a kind of East Midlands accent. And she cooks stuff for her son. And I don't want to be unkind. I've met Kay and she's really... She can't cook. Okay. Really? She can't cook.

And the channel's called Kay's Good Cooking. Love that. It is extraordinary. She did a thing. The last thing she did was she did pasta but in a different way. She did spaghetti bolognese where she cooked the... She didn't cook the meat, actually.

She made a meat mix. Like sort of chopped onions and a bit of beef mince. And then she literally just got some strands of dried spaghetti and just squeezed the beef around the spaghetti and then put that into a pan. And then covered it in tomato sauce. Smash that in the oven. And then it comes out and she serves it up

and her son eats it on camera. And literally crunches through pasta that hasn't cooked properly. And he goes, bit crunchy. She goes, try it out a bit. And he goes, it's a bit softer in there. Yeah, it's all right. That's it.

Okay, it's good cooking. Oh, it's my favorite. I've never even seen it. Now at this point, because it's the Christmas special, we will ask you, as a little bonus found, what your ideal Christmas dinner is. Or it can be the best Christmas dinner you've ever had. I love a roast.

Yep. I really like a roast. My friend David does the best roast potatoes. So I'd have the roast potatoes that he does. And the way he does them, he does the old boiling them a little bit to give them a little fluff. And then he puts them into the pan

with really hot oil turns them and then smashes them. And I'm really high heat in the oven for about 15 minutes. So they really crisp up and then he turns it down so they slow roast. Nice. Oh, so good.

So I'd have the potatoes done like that. Then turkey, I would just replace with any other meat because fuck turkey. Yep. Then sprouts, I'm not a huge fan of. I'm more into your kind of rasty glazed. So would you have like a glazed carrot, for example, with like honey glazed carrots?

No, I think I just, I like roast carrots a lot, but I wouldn't necessarily glaze them. I think you get enough sweetness from a carrot if you roast it. Well, my carrots that I grew in my garden this year were so sweet and delicious that they didn't need anything. There you go.

So I prefer a lice at garden carrot. Let's not skip over that. I didn't know you were growing carrots in your garden. Yes, I did two types. I did like purple ones. They weren't all purple. I don't know why some of them were, some of them weren't.

They were massive. And then I did these ones called rondo carrots, which were round and kind of almost like radishes. The rondo ones weren't that flavoursome, but they were quite fun. So you could just, I did those with honey, but the big purple ones were outrageous. And that's so soft.

The texture was, I really, and they were so easy to do, just smash the seeds in, just forget about them and just water them a bit. So delicious, really. I find that very impressive. Anyone who grows anything, I find that very impressive. I did radishes, beetroot, died of death. Cauliflower, I've really struggled to make work

because I'd really like a cauliflower. I love a cauliflower. I like a cauliflower too. I love like a whole roasted one. In recent years, to be fair. Yes, back in the day, I used to hate cauliflower because it used to make me think of an old person's home. And now, it makes me think of...

Is that because they cook it in old people's homes? Or does a cauliflower remind you of an old lady's hair? Oh, that's a good question. No, I just remember going to an old people's home, the funny farm where my nan and granddad lived. They called it the funny farm. And it always smelled of cauliflower. Yeah, because they're boiling cauliflower and pureeing it,

I guess, easy to eat, easy to eat veg. Yeah, into a jus. Into a jus. Liquids, another point for liquids. Another point for liquids. Shout out to Berber and Q, where me and James went once to do a whole roast cauliflower. Yes, that was good.

With pomegranate, actually, I think, and like a tahini sauce. Yes, tahini, they're so delicious. I've tried it a few times. I've never nailed it in the way that some restaurants do a whole cauliflower and it's so heavenly. And the bang-bang cauliflower in Wagamomeras. Yes, really good. Best dish at Wagamomeras, I'd say.

So he can get some. I thought it was other with the roast cauliflower. Quite sweet. I would argue quite sweet. The bang-bang? Yeah, it's got a sweetness to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's got a sweetness to it. Look, I never said I don't like anything sweet.

I just don't want to donut rum a burger. Well, more for you. I'm interested in your friend's potatoes, because there's always an argument over who does the best roast potatoes. I think everyone has got their person that they back. And as I was saying, before we start recording, I was making roast potatoes last night because I cut my finger and that's one wearing a dinosaur plaster.

Yes, it's really cute. I rarely made roast potatoes, but I made some for me and my fiancee last night. And they were nice. I used goose fat. Oh, yes. Instead of oil. And they were nice.

They weren't necessarily, I think they were, they were very crispy, but your friend's method sounds better. But we were eating the roast potatoes and I said, oh, these are nice, but they're not as nice as my mum's. And then there was a silence and then my fiance went, oh, yeah. And I went, what's that supposed to mean? And she was like, well, my mum's are the best.

And then we had a genuine moment of tension where we had an argument over whose mum's roast potatoes were best. And then we nearly came to blows over it. Wedding's off. Wedding's off, unfortunately. It's such a shame when a roast potato isn't good, isn't it? Yeah, yes. Look, mine were good.

There's so much potential. Mine were good. So much. I think just so much oil, like loads of oil. And rabe seed rather than olive oil. Do you think? It's got a higher burning point. Yeah.

And also in parts less taste. So you just get in the pure potato flavour. Yeah. Really out of my depth on this conversation. Loads of salt as well. Yeah, you don't know. I mean, salt's the key ingredient to everything. Salt is good, isn't it?

Uh, not anti it. Christmas special. Done. Now let's move on to the more pressing matters. Oh, Christmas special. Oh, cranberry sauce. Of course, the special done is who would do his potatoes? Any meat.

Not pressing spells. Pigs in blankets. Pigs in blankets. Yes. Oh, they're cute, aren't they? Pigs in blankets, definitely. I wonder if the shroomalim sausages with fake turkey bacon or whatever. Not what do they call it?

Faken. Faken. Yeah. Would make a good. Picking a blanket. Might try that. I reckon it would. I made, there's a Christmas recipe for a stuffed squash,

which is stuffed with lentils and cranberries and pistachios. And that was really nice as an alternative to a Christmas dinner. So top tip there. If you did have to pick a meat now, if you are having to cook Christmas dinner tomorrow, what meat are you going with? Turkey. Because I would like, want to please all the other people that.

Yeah, if you were cooking Christmas dinner just for yourself, what meat you have in? Probably chicken. Yeah. Yeah, probably chicken. Oh yeah? I like a roast. I mean, that's a bit of a response.

Well, we've only got three of them. Put the chicken through the glaze. Oh yeah. Joe, what? That's what I'd like to watch as an ASMR video or something. Just different things. Absolutely obsessed. Benito's quite rightly shaking his head.

Different things going through the glaze curtain. Yeah. James is fucking obsessed with ASMR, but now you. David Walliam's going through the glaze. Imagine, Walliam just dressed in his like swimming gear, just did his trunk, goggles and swimming hat face down with his arms in front like he's doing the butterfly. Just going through the glaze curtain.

Yeah. I imagine that. Yes, please. That'd probably keep him warm while he was swimming in the channel. Yeah, then he could swim in the channel with a couple of glays. Yeah, it would sort of make him more slippery. Sort of live and slippery. Yeah, it would all just like, yeah, like water for ducks back.

Yeah. Well, we'll have to get Walliams, we'll have to get Walliams on. Put it through the glaze curtain. Put it through the glaze curtain. We can make that video happen. I think we've got hookups now. We can get Walliams put through the glaze curtain. Yeah.

That YouTube channel would do really well, because I watch a lot of channels like that. Have you seen, there's one with like a, what do they call it? Like it's not a pulverizer. Oh, will it blend? No, but that sounds amazing. That's like an old school one where it's the blend tech blender.

Yeah. And they just put loads of stuff in there and it was a dude who went, will it blend? And he put like a whole like iPhone in there and see if it would blend the iPhone. I love stuff like that. I can't think of anything that I wouldn't want to see go through that glaze curtain. I can't. I'm trying to think of stuff where it wouldn't be satisfying.

I think absolutely everything I can think of going through that glaze curtain would be great. Walliams would slip through there. Lovely, wouldn't it? Well, yeah. It would be so good. There wouldn't be, there wouldn't be a portion of Walliams that wasn't covered with glaze. Yeah. A liquid would be.

I think you'd have to flip them over and send them around another time. Do you think? I think, yeah. No, you'd flip them over and send them together. Yeah, yeah. To get the other bit. Yeah. Yeah.

Which bit are you putting in first? So which, which bit has got the actual finished glaze? I thought I'd put, it's got to be this. I'll put him tummy down first. Yeah. And then I'd flip them over. Yeah. I'd get the best of it.

Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. Would he be wearing goggles so at the end he pops the goggles off and he had two perfect circles. Absolutely. It's good. Absolutely. I'd have him like Han Solo in Star Wars trapped in the glaze.

I love you. I know. And then all the glaze all over it. Yeah. That's a direct quote. Yeah. Lovely. Trunks on.

Improvised. Have some Ford improvise that. Trunks on. Huh? Trunks on. Yeah. Yeah. Trunks on.

Yeah. Absolutely Trunks on. Yes. Come on. It's a family show. Yeah. Yeah. You'd have to put Trunks on so we can all watch it happen.

Yeah. Make it happen. Yeah. Yeah, let's make it happen. This is a direct, I mean, I'm really changing my views on the public. I feel like you're the sort of guy that can make this happen, Joe. Yeah, sure. I feel like that's the sort of thing you could do on like a BBC One Saturday night show.

Yeah. You could get away with it. Yeah. Putting things through a glaze curtain. Yeah. I mean, I've never met one. The glaze. That's the game.

The glaze. The glaze. The glaze. There's just different things. Saturdays at six on BBC One. They've been so good. Yeah. But what's, what is the, what is the format there?

Just. Well, that's it. I think it's like supermarket sweep. So there's a whole like, you know, room of stuff all on shelves. And you go around just grabbing all the stuff. And then you just put it all through the glaze curtain. And the one that's the most satisfying wins. Yeah.

And the audience, the audiences vote. Three things to go through the glaze. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All the things that you raided and that you looted, you choose three things. Yeah. And then the audience say which one's the best one. And then at the end, the whole audience gets put through the gate. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They get put through it and their names flash up on the screen each time they go through. And where they're from. What's the cat rays? Send it to the glaze? Yeah. Yeah, send it to, yeah. Through the curtain it goes. Does it glaze?

Does it glaze? It's a nice object. But does it glaze? Yeah. And the answer is always yes. Yeah. Yes. It does.

Oh, I would love it. Shall we pitch this to BBC One? Do you think that's the one? Yeah. BBC One. That feels like the right home for it. Yeah. Okay.

Anywhere would be an idiot to turn this down. Yeah. The glaze. The glaze. I'm right for doing it. I'll cancel all other things to make sure it happens. Thank you. As long as Walliams is the first thing through the curtain.

Walliams is every episode. Yeah. Every episode Walliams gets glazed. Walliams always comes out on the top and like he's the host. And then his feet get taken out from under him and he goes shooting through the glaze curtain and then you come on. Great.

That's how it works. Also, I guess just because of how swimmers are, I'm imagining that Walliams has completely waxed his body. Like he's shaved his pits. Yeah. His legs and everything. And maybe even just completely bicked his head and got rid of his eyebrows and he's completely hairless

and he's going through the glaze. Yeah. He looks like- How do you remove all of his teeth? He looks like he's just come out of the matrix. Yeah. Yeah, he's just come out of the matrix. Yeah.

And he goes through the glaze. Yeah. The glaze curtain. But it is my favourite episode. Side dish for your main meal now, Joe. Well, you've got to have some fries, haven't you? You've got to have some fries with a burger. Okay.

Yeah, sure. I won't get them from Original Patty Man. Salzlatz. I'd forgotten that was called that. Salzlatz. I went to Antwerp recently and I went to a place that claims to have the best fries in the world. It's a place called Fritz Atelier, I think is how you pronounce it.

And I had the fries there and I don't think I've had better fries anywhere else and I've had a lot of fries in my life. Very rarely when a place claims to have the best version of something- Yeah. Does it actually come away? I was like, yeah, yeah, whatever lads. And they were so good. At first I thought they'd maybe made a mash

and then they'd put the mash into kind of fry shapes and then fried it. But then I realized that it was skin on. So I don't know how they've done it, but it was outrageous the fries there. So it was really soft in the center and fluffy and crispy on the outside. You can choose what comes with it. So you can put like a kind of goulashy thing on top or they've got some sort of Japanese-y vibe as well. Sounded like goulash on top.

Yeah, that's what I had and they're so good. Is that what you want on your side dish as well? Do you want to splash some goulash on there? Why not? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. They were so outrageously good. You can't beat a good fry.

Can you really? No, no. Especially like it is nice when there's a dish that you've had so many times and then you can still find the best one you've ever had. Because that's a very, there's loads of dishes where, you know, like burrata, I love it. But I'd say I've probably only had it from like five different places in my life. But I have it at home now, burrata.

Where'd you get it? I struggled to find a good burrata on the high street. Well, if I ever find myself in burrata on normally buy one, you've got to go somewhere like maybe like a Whole Foods or something. Okay. Although, to be fair, I bought from a supermarket before a little smoked burrata, which comes in like a little bucket. A little bucket?

Well, it's like a little, it's like a little pot, but with a little handle. I wonder if we can get a little bucket in as a catchphrase on the glaze. Oh, yeah. And what, what would be the final thing? That's one of the things that we send in. What's your final, a little bucket? It's a little bucket. And the bucket would overflow with the glaze.

Now, but do you want the bucket to be facing up or down? Tummy down or tummy up? Tummy down, tummy up. And then like, burn in mind. You will fill the bucket with glaze. Yeah. If it is, tummy up. Maybe if you, if you lose, you have to try and glaze Walliams only using a little bucket.

Yes. You don't get to use the glaze cut. You have to use a little bucket. Buy hand with a bucket like he's a beached whale. Just, just, just, just throwing the glaze on him. Trying to keep him alive. How little is the little bucket? It's the one that the barata comes in.

Yeah, it's the barata one. It's no way you'll glaze the full Walliams. No, that's going to take the full hour. Yeah. The twist is that Walliams needs glaze to survive. It's on the floor, wiping around like a beached whale. And you're just trying to cover him in the glaze. Before the end of the show.

Yeah. So you've got the fries. Got the fries. Covered in goulash. Yeah. Well, and mayonnaise. I love, I love mayonnaise. And they make their own mayo at this street to tell you,

which was very nice as well. But I have found the vegan mayonnaise. It's nicer than normal mayonnaise. Huge shout out to the Follow Your Heart Sriracha mayonnaise, which is vegan. Absolutely delicious. Where's that from? I've bought it in the supermarket.

What is a sriracha? It's a hot sauce. Yeah. Like a chili sauce. I always see, okay. Lovely hot sauce. Yeah. So it's just like a really spicy.

Beautiful mayo. Beautiful mayo. And it's as good as any dairy-based mayo. I'd say. Delicious. Another step in the right direction. Yes. Everyone's favorite in it, a drink?

Yeah. Liquid. Unless you're going to throw us a curveball here. I would like my... You've already stuck a pudding into your main. Yeah, I have, yeah. No, I'm not going to throw a curveball. I'm going to throw a glass of crisp,

Gavi de Gavi, into the mix. Either that or a pickpour. So this is wine? Wine, yes. A white wine. Gavi. Gavi is a place in Tuscany, which I went to a couple of years ago

to help a friend choose the wines for his wedding. And we went round to the load of vineyards and there wasn't one bad glass of wine in that place. I couldn't find a bad one. Wow. Very minerally, I don't know what they're doing, but I piss through Gavi. I'm a real glugger.

I'm a lover. Yeah, I am too. I often, like, I'll look down and, you know, when you sit down, you're chairing a bottle of wine. Yeah. And I'll be at the bottom of my glass and everyone else is still. Yeah.

Like, we'll just sit while we have a conversation. It's like, well, I can have a chat and smash a glass. Yeah, yeah. What's the point? What is the point? I really, once I get going, I don't stop. And I have my kitchen done this year and I've got a wine fridge and it's full of Gavi and Pickpool

and needs constant replenishment because I'm. I'm all out on this one. I like wine, but I can't drink it fast. I find it is too much. It's too much. Well, a little pussy boy. A little pussy boy. Yes, well, I guess I am.

Yes. Can't glug your Gavi. I can't glug my Gavi very well. Can't glug your Gavi, mate. I find it too rich wine to, like, really glug it. Rich? Yeah. Wine's quite rich, isn't it?

It's quite. Are you thinking of, like, a very deep red be rich? It's a bit rich. Yeah, but even a white wine's too. I can glug a key empty or something. I'll smash it down, mate. Yeah. Well, you do.

Glug it. But I don't think I could do that with wine. I think I have to be slow. I've got a real thirst done. Yeah. I don't think it quenches fast. We've been drinking a lot of natural wine, though, James. And we have a little hug of that because that's very light.

It's often lighter. It's less alcoholic. Like a lovely old Rabina. Do you know about biodynamic wine? No. Oh. The way to make biodynamic wine is mad. It involves moon cycles.

You also have to bury an ox's skull beneath the way you grow the grapes. What? There's all sorts of really weird stuff that come to it. It's shaking his head. You don't have to. Well, in order for it to be certified by a dynamic, you do. Really? Yeah.

You have to bury an ox's skull. Yeah, literally. Also, now. It is mad. Whenever I hear anything now, I just think, when you say about burying an ox's skull, I think, what a waste of something you could put through the glaze curd. Like, with so much more satisfaction, you feel like glaze an ox's skull and have to bury it in the garden.

Every little bit of it would be covered in glaze. Oh, it'd be so great. Oh, I didn't mention you'd have to pre-glaze it. OK. Sorry. I'm on board of it. Otherwise, it's not. So that's for dessert wine.

Yeah, yeah. That's great. You have to glaze the earth. Yeah, yeah. All of the soil. Yeah. And it produces a very specific sort of beautiful red wine that is quite, is, well, it's natural as well.

But it's, and there's normally quite a lot of sediment. But it drinks like ribena. And there's a wine grower called Gérôme Gérée that does these amazing biodynamic wines. Wow. So good. Where did you get his ox's skulls from? I don't know. It's a good question.

Hmm. But I think it must be something to do with the minerals in the skull or something. OK. I imagine a lot of its nonsense, but then a few of the things that they do actually produce. Sure. And they say that the smell of a biodynamic wine, and often a natural wine, is of the farm, which basically means it smells a bit of shit. Like it smells pooey.

And that's because it's earthy and it hasn't had self-fights and all of that. I love it. I'm getting a bit obsessed with all of that sort of. I love it. All of that sort of wine. Does it smell like poo? Shout out to Nali Vines, my favorite wine shop. Where's that?

Walthamstow. I really recommend, it's my favorite restaurant in the world, and they have a brilliant wine selling thing. What do you call it? They've got a merchant? A merchant? Forty Maltby Street. It's in Bermond Sea.

I've heard of Forty Maltby Street. It's a really lovely restaurant, a really incredible food. And basically, if I wasn't doing the choices from here, I'd just go with whatever they had on the menu, because that's my favorite. It could have been a very quick podcast. Sorry if this has been too long, because I could have made this. Normally people just say one restaurant and then leave again. Yeah, I'll just go to this place, see?

Yeah. We reached the course of King's, the dessert course. Now, I'm kind of hesitant about this, because I think because you've put a dessert in your main, it makes it less likely we're going to get a dessert here, like a proper sweet dessert. Good point. And you're absolutely right. Oh, fuck me.

Oh, and I'm... Is this a Bermond thing? You mean Philip's getting together? No. Philip said a cheese course. No, it won't be a cheese course. Okay, good. At least it's not a cheese course.

And I'm toying between three things. There's genuine struggle going on here, isn't there? James has just opened the mango smoothie that he's threateningly been holding for the whole record. Yeah. It's not a smoothie, it's a kefir, actually. It is, but now... Well, it's a kefir smoothie, I think you'll find.

Well, it's quite sweet, because... I'll take it back. Because Joe just threatened that this won't be sweet. I've put some sweetness in my mouth, so that I can at least have scope to that. I thought you would get angrily glazed yourself. It will be a bit sweet. I've decided.

It's a bowl of special K with Oakley barista milk. What the... Yes! God's name. Special K, Oakley barista milk. Bowl of cereal. No sugar. What?

What the fuck is the matter with you? How can you have a Krispy Kreme burger, and then your dessert is just a bowl of cereal? Yeah. I fucking love cereal, James. I'm like nothing against cereal whatsoever, but the fact that it's your dream dessert is a bowl of special... Oh, so...

No sugar. Oh, so... No sugar. No sugar. No sugar. No sugar. Oh, so... Even if it was just a cereal round, special K, I'd

be kicking off. That's your favourite cereal. It's a bowl of special K. Well, the other... Is it even the berries special K? No. It's just plain special K. The other two choices were Weetabix or Branflex.

You got the best one. Good God! Good God almighty. I was really... I was really humming and humming, because currently I'm doing Branflex and my cereal of choice just because I'm trying to be a bit healthier. Yeah, sure.

But I've actually fallen deeply in love with Branflex. So Branflex was my... So you wouldn't want that as you deserve, would you? No, no, no, no. Get rid of the things that you're deeply in love with and choose the special K. Well, no, special K feels like a treat. Right, well, that's...

What? Because it's a treat and it pairs very well with a gavi. It does pair well with a gavi. How is that a treat? It's so nice. I love cereal. You've just had a burger donut. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, and now a little treat. Some special K for myself. Indulgence. It's rehydrating, because it's all of the lovely milk. And that's a key part of it as well. It's the Oatly Barista edition milk, which is posh. That's a posh milk.

It's hard to find. It's kind of delicious. Fine. Fine, you've got some posh milk on your appalling cereal choice. Why is special K appalling? Look, I've gone through special K faces before, but not because I like it, just because I'm trying to be a good boy. I should clarify, by special K, I do mean Ketterman.

Apologies, yes, absolutely fine. But the milk is now an odd choice, but like, fair enough. What, does that go better with an almond milk? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's really strange. I love, I honestly think that people are deliberately trolling James now, and I'm here for it. I love it. No, it's not.

I'm being honest. Benito started, he started emailing people before they come on going, for a laugh, don't use the pudding. No. And if you can even tease early on. If it, I mean, the fact that you've come on here, such that you used to eat melted bowls of chocolate, then put a burger inside a donut,

so absolutely, you just had me go in the hallway like, here we go, we're heading to Sugar Town, and then you're like, yeah, and a bowl of crappy cereal. Unless you suddenly twist us, and you put that whole bowl through the glaze curtain. Yeah, that's the only thing that can save this. Belly up, please. Belly up, so it all fills, and all the milk,

all that posh milk just oozes out and gets replaced with glaze. And then you can eat that. Each individual's crisp of cake is covered in glaze. All covered in glaze. You've come a long way from the little Joe Lyser who used to eat bowls of melted chocolate to a little Joe Lyser eating special cake and a bowl.

Yeah, I have, it's been quite the journey. Yeah, sure, it's a nice narrative arc to the show. Yeah. But what a sad ending. I love it. No, it's like, I don't like it. What were you expecting, what were you hoping from me? A sweet dessert.

Oh yes, an actual pudding. Weirdly, weirdly, Joe, I wasn't expecting a boring breakfast from you for your dessert. Well, it's exactly what I would want after everything. You would want a bowl of special cake with some posh milk on it. I always want a bowl of cereal after I've had my mains. That's like, do you eat cereal before bed? Yeah, yeah, fair enough, I'll do that.

Breakfast at night, classic Birmingham, very rarely have. Breakfast at night. Yeah, everything at night. Yeah, again, with Jess Phillips on it, she had breakfast for dinner. Yeah. And now you've done this. You put breakfast in a different place as well,

this is what Birmingham's like when we're learning. Do you have, because we never have discussed cereal on the podcast before, do you have a special bowl that is your favourite cereal bowl that's like massive? Yeah, well, yeah, sort of. I used to when I was living with mum and dad, but now I've got this weird mix of bowls where none of them are quite right and I either don't have enough or I have far too much, because I can't measure it.

Sometimes I get through about three quarters of the bowl of bran flakes and think, I've had too many bran flakes. That's a bad feeling when you've overdone it. Yeah. And you know, toilet time is going to be tricky. Toilet time is going to be quite the fireworks display when you've had too many bran flakes. Producing your own glazed curtain out your butt.

Didn't need to say out your butt there, but... Didn't need to say out your butt. Slightly superb. Why did you produce that glazed curtain out my butt? Right, let's hear the order, please, James, with that wonderful pudding edition. Oh, no. Water.

Still water. Bread from Pernels in Birmingham. Yeah. Cloud bread. Cloud bread. Starter. Samosa chart from Zindia. Z-I-M-D-I-Y-A.

Birmingham with a soy teacup on the side. Main. Burger with cheese and a crispy cream from the original Patty Men in Birmingham. Christmas did it. Not Turkey. David's roast potatoes. Pigs and blankets. As in cranberry sauce.

And also turkey. And then chicken. Yeah, and then turkey or chicken. Chicken through the glaze. We went for a lot of... Yeah, it was all... I think we established that was all getting going for the glazed curtain. Yeah.

Side dish. Fruits, atelier, fries from Antwerp with goulash and mayo. Drink. Gavi Gavi. White wine. Very cold? From Gavi Gavi. Very cold.

Gavi de Gavi. Gavi de Gavi. Sorry. I think that just means Gavi from Gavi. Gavi from Gavi. That's nice. And does... I still can't...

Even reading it, I can't believe it. It's like a book that I've read and I already know the twist. And I read it again and go, somehow still catches me off guard. Yeah. Special K with Oakley Barista milk. I think that was a really nice fresh way to end the meal. No, you don't think that.

I do. There's no way you think that. It's a really, really refreshing, cold Barista milk. Yeah, refreshing, lovely. Absolutely not. Just lifts the meal. Because if you don't want a rich dessert, after you find one of those nice...

I think I would have accepted just the bowl of milk more than with the special... A bowl of milk? Like a cat. Yeah, like a little cat. A little bucket of milk? Yes. I would rather fill a cereal bowl with some Oakley Barista milk,

put it on the floor and let you lap it up like a little cat. Then give you a bowl of Special K at the end of that meal. Is it upsetting to you that of all of the things that you just said, the one that made me now want to go and eat is the Special K. Like, that's exactly what I want to eat. Yes, that's far more upsetting. It's very upsetting that that has been the thing that you want now.

I'll take that over the rest of right now. Out of all that. I would... It's a bowl of Special K. Personally, I would go for the Samosa or the fries immediately now. I think I'd eat the cereal, you know. Right. Well, you two deserve one another.

You both go and eat the Special K cereal, the Oakley Barista milk. Benito, what do you want out of all that? The cereal? Well... Yeah. Well, look at... Do you know what? I can't believe all three of you are going for the Special K out of all of that.

And also, I'd probably have the Special K in a public place around the general public. Just so I can... That's the only bit I'm fine with. All right. I'm fine with you. If you want to go and eat that in front of people, fair enough. And see what kind of attitude...

See what looks you get. Oh, so I would let the Special K sit in the milk for a little while as well. I'll just say it gets a bit soggy. Get all the flavour of the milk in there. Yeah, lovely. All that flavour. Flavour town, a bowl of Special K. Delicious.

Really good. And when you fortified with vitamins and iron. What? That's not a pudding? When you mush down all the milk squirts out of the flakes. No way. I don't want my desserts to be fortified with vitamins and iron. I want my desserts to be fortified with sugar and good times.

And that's why you'll never be a big strong boy. Yeah. I'll be a happy boy. Weak little prick. This cut, that could not be the last thing said on the episode, Benito. Thank you very much for listening. No, it can't be weak little prick. Thank you.

Joe Lysot there. Such a roller coaster. A lot of sugary treats for me along the way, but what a absolute disaster at the end. I love it, mate. I tell you what, you've really taken an absolute beating this series, haven't you? Series two, it's like everyone's just like ganged up against me. I can't believe it.

I can't believe. I love it. Someone pointed out to me that I let Sophie do her get away with having a whiskey for dessert. And I'm actually quite annoyed that I let her get away with that. No, it's all, but that's all proportion, isn't it? Because you let her get away with having a whiskey, because we've had people like Daisy Cooper. Yeah.

Who have had a pizza hut salad. Okay, moving on. So if that's what we're working with, a bowl of special K is better than a pizza hut salad, right? Sure, it's better than a pizza hut salad, but still, I can't believe it. I thought I knew Joe Lysot. Starting off with a bowl of melted chocolate and making me think,

here we go, Flavortown. Yeah. Just, I can't believe you're still being reeled in by people. Yeah. You're still being tricked. He absolutely reeled me in. I feel like hook, line and sinker. But at least he didn't say Redco and say.

Yeah. We would have kicked him out. Thank the Lord. And I think some special Ks you get with berries, and there might be Redcurrants in there. Oh, I would have loved that, actually. Imagine it. If he had said special K with berries,

I would have, oh, what kind of berries are in there? Redcurrants? Fuck off. And then chuck him out right at the end. Bad luck, mate. Well, Merry Christmas to you all out there. That was a special Christmas episode. Me and James are people in the world.

That's our plug. Sure. We're going around doing stuff all the time. James got a book, which I highly recommend. It's called Perfect Sound Whatever. It's available to buy. The Perfect Christmas Gift. Oh, that's so kind of it.

Also, Ed Gamble has a special called Blood Sugar, which is on Amazon. It's on Amazon, yeah. You can't really get that as a Christmas gift. You should. It's not a physical thing. Buy someone a subscription. Buy someone a subscription to Prime Video,

and then you can watch Ed Gamble Blood Sugar as well as an array of other content. Yeah. Also, The Great Bonito runs our Twitter account off menu official, and you can tweet him and say Merry Christmas to him, because he's done a real great job this year. He has.

Merry Christmas to Bonito. I'm sure he'd like a Merry Christmas. He would. He's done a lovely job. Maybe a picture of you doing a thumbs up, smiling, saying Merry Christmas, Bonito. Also, what we would really like to see this time is you probably don't have access to a glaze curtain

yourself, but if you can do a makeshift one yourself, and just try and film yourself going through your homemade glaze curtains, we would love to see those videos for Christmas. Or just to mock up, maybe build a small, working glaze curtain and put a sort of scale model of David Walliams.

Yes. Like a little model of David. I mean, feeding through it on a conveyor belt. Yes. Thank you very much, and Merry Christmas to you all. Merry Christmas. Hello, it's me, Amy Glendale.

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 in case... Get him on, James and Ed. But we're here, sneaking in to your podcast experience to tell you about a new podcast that we're doing. It's called Northern News. It's about all the news stories that we've missed out from the North, because, look, we're two Northerners.

Sure. But we've been living in London for a long time. The new stories are funny. Quite a lot of them crimes. It's all kicking off, and that's a new podcast called Northern News we'd love you to listen to. Maybe we'll get my mum on.

Get Glendale'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.